Forget The Fed, Opec Just Sealed The Global Economy’s Terrifying Fate

It’s midday Friday, and my lovely wife and I are flying to Minneapolis for Miles Franklin’s annual Holiday Party.  It’s been another tumultuous year of Cartel-induced stress, but Miles Franklin remains “long and strong” – having built a rock-solid reputation for industry-leading client service, competitive prices, and unsurpassed informational content.  I look forward to seeing my colleagues, and complementing them on a job well done!

Of course, the world continues to move forward – or economically speaking, backward – at an unprecedented pace.  And thus, it’s next year I have my eyes on; when, in my view, the odds of the “Big One” being averted – globally – are somewhere between “slim” and “none.”

To that end, this week’s “Big Three” news items didn’t disappoint, in creating terrifying uncertainty and volatility about the future – starting with yesterday’s ECB meeting, when Draghi only reduced the ECB’s deposit rate from -0.2% to -0.3%; and only extended QE “at least” six months, or “at least” €360 billion.  And by “at least,” I mean the ECB’s policy statement essentially screamed “QE to Infinity.”

In the aftermath, the Euro surged against the dollar – as traders expected still more QE; whilst interest rates had their biggest one-day surge in years; stocks plunged globally – with European stocks down 3%-4%, and even the “Dow Jones Propaganda Average” 1.5%.  Simultaneously, commodity prices modestly rebounded – with gold’s gain, naturally, capped by the Cartel at exactly 1.0%.

To that end, I can only imagine the mainstream European newspapers’ take on this historically hyperinflationary event – like “Euro surges 3%, and Euro-priced gold plunges 2.5%, as the ECB only reduces interest rates to negative 0.3%, and only increases QE by €360 billion.”  Then again, with U.S. “experts” falling over themselves predicting sub-$1,000 gold, simply because Cartel-painted charts tell them so, how could anyone expect mere “journalists” to have a clue?

Fast forward to today, when the November NFP report was all but guaranteed to be a “slight beat”; as clearly, the Fed’s “December rate hike or bust” scheme knows no manipulative bounds – market or economic data-wise.  Frankly, between this highly anticipated NFP report, amidst the cross currents of yesterday’s ECB decision and today’s OPEC policy statement, it was nearly impossible to figure out what would be considered “good” or “bad.”  Then again, in a world where CNBC flashes “Breaking News” of the Department of Defense deciding to, for the first time ever, open all combat-related jobs to women as if it’s “good news,” who knows what to think anymore?

To that end, said DOD announcement is clearly preliminary to the endless wars the government anticipates – which we can only pray do not occur.  To that end, I wonder if the women we send to fight hand-to-hand with ISIS, the Russians, and the Iraqis, will get paid as much as the men.  I certainly hope so, and god bless every soldier – recruited or commandeered – that gets entangled in the “1%’s” vicious, sociopathic games.

As for the November NFP report, right on queue it was a “slight beat” – coming in at 211,000 fabricated jobs, versus “expectations” of 190,000.  Never mind the damning “internals” – which I’ll get to in a moment; or the unfathomable ability of “island of lies” employment data to contradict all other data points; which, cumulatively, unequivocally, suggest the “worst global economy of our lifetimes.”  Like, for instance, in the past 24 hours alone…

• Hong Kong home sales plunge 42%, to a new all-time low
• Global debt defaults surge to six-year high
• U.S. freight truck orders plunge 59% year-over-year
• U.S. auto loan sizes, durations hit all-time highs
• Healthcare spending rises to a record 17.5% of U.S. GDP
• U.S. factory orders amidst longest period of year-over-year declines since 2009
• ISM Non-Manufacturing Index plunges to 15-month low
• Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index declines to 13-month low

Frankly, it’s barely worth my time – and yours – to discuss the BLS’ comical “employment” fabrications.  Thus, I’ll just note one (government-published) statistic about the NFP report, which says it all.  I.e., of the supposed 211,000 “jobs” created in November, a whopping 319,000 were, in the BLS’ own words, “part-time jobs due to economic circumstances.”  In other words, low-paying jobs ranging from 5-20 hours per week, because high-paying, full-time, benefits-paying jobs don’t exist.  Or equally likely, don’t “pay” as well as printing press-funded entitlements – like welfare, food stamps, and “disability.”  Heck, the way the BLS now counts “jobs,” if you lose a 40-hour per week engineering job, and replace it with three 5-hour per week fast food jobs, the economy “net gained”  two jobs!

Completing the ugly math, if 319,000 part-time jobs were created – but just 211,000 total jobs – a whopping 530,000 full-time jobs were lost!  In fact, this month’s gargantuan “part-time job explosion” was the largest monthly amount in more than three years – suggesting America’s labor market is deteriorating far more rapidly than ever.  Adding insult to injury, at Whirlybird Janet’s Atlas Shrugged speech before Congress yesterday, she claimed America – amidst four-decade lows in labor participation and real wages; and a veritable explosion in the waiters/bartenders:manufacturing jobs ratio, is “approaching maximum employment!”

But who cares?  As per this damning chart, depicting what I have discussed for years, all NFP jobs reports are bullish for (PPT-supported) stocks – just as anything the Fed says is bearish for (Cartel-suppressed) Precious Metals.  Except for today, that is – as gold and silver sharply bounced despite the so-called “bearish” news of “surging U.S. employment” – even if gold’s increase was exactly 2.0%, following yesterday’s gain of  exactly 1.0%.  Heck, this week’s COMEX COT report, released late this afternoon, depicted gold “commercials” like JP Morgan coming within a hair’s breadth of actually turning long, as of Tuesday, for the first time in 14 years!

To that end, only you can decide how credible such COMEX-produced data is; but irrespective, what they are publishing is that gold’s most virulent enemies, for the first time since gold bottomed in 2001, are on the verge of going long.  And what do you know?  It’s at the very time dollar-priced gold sentiment is at a multi-decade low; amidst the most bullish PM fundamentals in generations; with more than half the world’s gold mines hemorrhaging money.

Irrespective, the Fed’s insane, historically fallacious obsession with “saving face” via a piddling, economically meaningless quarter-point rate hike is clearly set in stone – no matter how devastating its potential impact.  Which I assure you, it will be; despite “TPTB’s” comically shallow belief that today’s blatantly manipulated 370-point Dow gain “paints a picture” otherwise.  And trust me, it will be devastating – as quantitatively, even a move as minuscule as a quarter-point rate hike will cause massive liquidity reductions.  To wit, as described here, such a move will reduce printing press-fabricated, market-goosing money market liquidity by as much as $800 billion!

To that end, Mario Draghi desperately backpedaled today – stunned that the market interpreted yesterday’s decision as “not dovish enough” to crush the Euro/dollar exchange rate further – by highlighting how the ECB’s decision to re-invest the proceeds of maturing bonds will add as much liquidity as a quarter-point Fed rate hike would remove.  Which, given the Euro’s maintenance of yesterday’s massive gains, was clearly not enough to assuage investors’ concerns that the Euro is not being destroyed enough.  Consequently, Draghi will likely intensify his near-term commitment to debauching the Euro, to at least below dollar parity, with even more draconian NIRP and QE measures.

Of course, none of the past two days’ blatant monetary, economic data, and market manipulations compare in real world importance to what OPEC announced today – validating, in spades, what I have predicted for months.  That is, that the odds of an OPEC production cut – at today’s bi-annual meeting – were no better than pigs flying.

And man was I dead on, in discussing how OPEC has produced above its official quotas for decades - and will continue to do so until the day of its inevitable disbanding; perhaps, far sooner than most can imagine.  To wit, not only did OPEC – led by its financially collapsing “leader,” Saudi Arabia – decidedly NOT reduce its quotas, but increased them by 5%, from 30.0 million barrels to 31.5 million barrels per day – to account for the current level of quote-busting production.  Which, of course, suggests actual production will be still higher – particularly as Iran and Iraq are champing at the bit to increase production, to “pay the bills” in their own, rapidly collapsing economies.

Upon this announcement, WTI crude prices plunged anew; ending the day slightly below the newly formed, pathetically inept “oil PPT’s” two-month-long “line in the sand” at $40/bbl – en route, in my view, to far lower levels.  Potentially, as low as the $25/bbl target the “powers that be’s” chief economic propagandist, Goldman Sachs, forecasts.  Which would decidedly NOT be the “transitory” phenomenon Janet Yellen has maintained it to be for the past year; and unquestionably WOULD catalyze the “unspeakable horrors”- political, economic, and otherwise – I predicted 14 months ago.  Like, for instance, Europe’s continent-destroying Arab “migrancy crisis”; and the rapidly escalating “war on terror.”  Which, I might add, may expand exponentially next week; following the highly likely victory of the “anti-Islam” National Front party in this weekend’s French regional elections.

Again, today’s historically bearish OPEC announcement is a perfect example of the real world carnage caused by decades of unfettered money printing, market manipulation, and “financial engineering” – which can only cause today’s unprecedented global economic implosion to accelerate.  Heck, even the massively rigged Precious Metals markets recognized this; and despite the action of today’s blatantly supported equity markets, will have dire financial consequences for the “unmitigated disaster” 2016 will be.  To which we can only say, as vehemently as possible, PROTECT YOURSELF, and DO IT NOW!Similar Posts:

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