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Could be so massively bankrupt, says Bill Bonner.
"We have a mountain of debt... nearly $100 trillion of it... every penny of which is counted as an “asset” on the creditors’ balance sheets. Probably only about half of it is ‘money good.’ The rest may go ‘poof’ in the credit cycle’s downturn.
The safest part of this pile is US Treasury bonds. And yet, in gold terms, we’ve seen that they lost 30% of their value in the last four years... and 75% since 1999.
And we have a GDP that is largely fraudulent... with as much as half of it directed, controlled or be-muddled by government, rendering it unfit...
It’s not just Treasury bonds that pretend to have value they don’t actually have. All across the fixed-return world, there are unrecognized losses and make-believe wealth.
Here’s the FDIC warning:
'Unrealized losses on available-for-sale and held-to-maturity securities increased by $39 billion to $517 billion in the first quarter. Higher unrealized losses on residential mortgage-backed securities, resulting from higher mortgage rates in the first quarter, drove the overall increase. This is the ninth straight quarter of unusually high unrealized losses since the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates in first quarter 2022. '
Banks were required to hold US Treasury bonds as ‘reserves.’ That, they were told, would make them more antifragile. But it did just the opposite. Treasury bonds proved to be a terrible form of ‘reserve.’ They went down, in nominal terms, by about 20% since 2020. In gold terms, they lost half again as much.
The banks also had plenty of private debt that went bad. They lent heavily to real estate developers and speculators, for example. But now, commercial real estate is not worth what it was a few years ago.
In addition to the loan losses, there are the losses on the collateral itself. Green Street reports that the ‘all-property commercial index’ is down more than 20% since 2021."
Tomorrow is the President’s State of the Union Address. I have no preview of what he will say. It may be rewritten an hour before presentation because the state of our affairs is changing by the hour.
My question every year at this time: will the speech reflect the same reality that God sees when He considers our state of affairs, the condition of our collective “heart,” and the relative unresponsiveness of our souls?
I have a lot of long-term hope for our nation because I’ve seen the historical evidence of nations rebuilding the ruins of their early foundations, and rediscovering righteousness, peace, and prosperity. I’ve seen the records of their rebuilding Christian civilization on top of ruins.
I’m watching a number of small communities in the US rebuild countercultural families, their churches, their marriages, and their radical independence from the government. These communities are rediscovering the meaning of hope and the favor of God.
But, overall, what is the state of ...
Is there any way back to Christendom?
Maybe. Conquered Spain tried it and finally succeeded after 7 continual centuries of hand-to-hand combat with the dominant, militant Islamic culture.
Remarks Robert Spencer, "The worst aspect of the cultural and civilizational suicide of Britain is that it didn't happen through conquest. When the Normans were victorious in 1066, at least the natives put up a fight. They were defeated, but they had nothing to be ashamed of. Now, the leftist political elites, in pursuit of short-term electoral gain and long-term socialist internationalism, have surrendered the nation without a shot being fired. Tony Blair and David Cameron and Theresa May and Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer and their friends, allies and henchmen will be remembered as perpetrating the greatest betrayal in human history outside of the actions of Judas Iscariot."
