The marginal players will get wacked the first and the worst.

Airlines have always been canaries in the economic coal mine and airlines have had a great run since the bottom of the 2009 collapse.  But now I think their run is over.  Not only is competition beginning to increase, but fuel prices are probably near a major bottom as well.  As if that weren't enough I am starting to see government begin to side against them and government is nothing more than an echo of the will of the people.  Not because its supposed to be like that but simply because government agencies know that when the people wake up and become vocal in their unhappiness then its time to stop pissing on them and time instead to position themselves as friends of the people against all adversaries.

Everyone knows that airline profits are up because of not only falling oil prices but also the debt induced economic stimulus of Bernanke.  During this time, cocky airlines pressed their advantage by adding seats, removing legroom, charging extra for bags and generally abusing the passengers whenever the passengers got in the way of immediate profit.  But I am now seeing the early warning signs that say the game is about to reverse.  My models indicate oil will begin moving up into 2018.  And I reported on the expansion of Frontier airlines stepping out with super cheap rates to popular destinations.  But now we also see a federal judge telling the FAA to "revisit" (i.e. do something about) small airline seats.

Well that's it folks.  That's the straw that will break the airline's backs.  Once government begins asking its corporate capos that are lower on the pyramid to "take one for the gipper" it is like the top mob boss telling his subordinates that profits are down at the top so they will have to up their tribute unless they want to have problems from above.  That is exactly what this is.  First it comes in the form of a small request or a suggestion but either the minion opens up his wallet and lets the money flow out or there is a big stinky public battle where the capo says he is already giving too much and the "Don" says there is no such thing as too much when it comes to The Family.

There is no way into the future that I see being good for the airlines.  There is simply bad and worse.

Dems bring a socialist knife to a constitutional gun fight

Washington D.C. is a liberal, socialist open wound on the United States of America.  As such it has been a test bed for a wide range of socialist programs before trying to spring their idea of progress upon the rest of us.  One of the biggest battles fought on the D.C. grounds has been over the 2nd amendment.  The D.C. con men tried to steal from the few conservatives who live there their right to bear a weapon on their person outside the home by passing a law stating that someone has to have a good reason for wanting a concealed carry permit. I guess the simple fact that D.C. is a dangerous place isn't obvious enough.  The law allowed law enforcement to arbitrarily determine who was and who was not protected by the 2nd ammendment.

Of course, that crap was going to come under fire with the resurgence of the new conservative wave and so it was taken to federal appeals court where the con men lost a majority decision.  The courts essentially ruled that the D.C. "for cause" rule was unconstitutional.  The article states, "D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith wrote the majority opinion for the court and was joined in his opinion by Judge Stephen F. Williams. In his opinion Griffith explains that throughout Western legal history the right to “keep and bear arms,” afforded law abiding citizens the right to own firearms for the protection of their home (the keep part) and to carry those firearms out into public to serve as protection outside the home (the bear part). Griffith stressed that carrying a gun in public is indeed a “core” aspect of what the 2nd Amendment stands for and therefore Washington, D.C.’s “for cause” regulation was unconstitutional because the citizens don’t need to provide the city with a “cause” in order to carry.".

Well it doesn't get much clearer than that.  The D.C. for cause rule is now legally considered an unenforceable  infringement on the constitutional rights of Americans.  That means that ALL of these same "for cause" rules that current exist across the nation are also unconstitutional.

Obama is gone for less than a year and already his gay initiatives are crumbling

The Justice dept recently said that a workplace discrimination law does not include coverage of gayness.  In fact, discrimination is discrimination no matter who is on the receiving end.  So I think it is wrong of laws to call out this class of people or that one for special protections.  All it does is enable abuse.  After all, hetros are  people too even though the last 40+ years of creeping / creepy liberal gayness has infected pretty much everything. It's hard to find a movie or even TV shows where there is not some gay character trying to make it seem normal.  Unfortunately, it's not normal.  People can do whatever they want to, even to include self delusion about the normalcy of homo-ness.  But the rest of us (i.e. the vast majority of us) don't want it shoved in our faces and taught to our kids.  We just don't.  We have other values and no apologies are offered for this because none are necessary.  It just is what it is.


Expect to see gay people pulling back into themselves, living their lives a bit quieter and without so much in your face fanfare.  Watch and see.  90% of the gay pride parades will stop within 5 years.  I've been monitoring this for a couple years now and pretty much everything I predicted has come true or is looking more and more if it will come true.  The conservative wave is real and conservatives are in fact going to go stupidly overboard before they are done pressing their newly restored dominance.  I'm not so happy about that part.  I say live and let live.  But if I have to chose between gayness taking over everything resulting in a lot of shark jumping behavior and the same thing happening by the conservatives, I'll take the conservatives.  Hopefully there will be enough real conservative support growing in government that we will finally stop racking up more and more liberal debt. 

Bye bye fake political correctness

Trump is out today stomping all over the tranny awareness and careness movement by saying that transgender is not welcome in the us military.  His point is simply that transgender is such a small percentage of the population that it is insane to have such a big debate over what is in fact a noisy, distracting exercise in political correctness.

While I don't have anything against trannies, I don't have anything for them either.  They are in fact too small and insignificant to have such a loud public debate over.   It's like arguing whether the circus clown should use this type of crazy hair or some other type.  Enough already.  Trannies, go live your lives in peace and happiness if that is what you want to do.  Just stop trying to convince the rest of us that it is normal and right because it is in fact neither.  It is a sad and perplexing ailment which is the source of a lot of personal pain for you.  But it is a personal problem so stop trying to make it a societal one or the backlash is going to get very ugly from here on out.  Remember, I tried to warn you.  Stand down before the new conservative wave washes you away.

Ladies pro golf heads react to increasingly conservative audience.

Contrary to popular belief, pro sport is not about the players; it's about the fans.  Sports pros that have been lauded as royalty by society tend to forget that.  In fact its not even about the fans but rather their money.  What fans like and don't like is only important to the degree that it affects how they spend.   Pro sports are an emotional discretionary spend.  Do I need a shirt with the logo of a sports team emblazoned on it?  Just ask the poor masses in Venezuela if they give a shit whose logo adorns their shabby rags.

Because of this discretionary nature of sports revenue, pro sports tend to be more in touch with what their supporters think than other industries.  Thus we should be seeing any new societal trends show up in reactions by the organizers of these sports.

And so check out the new recent new dress code mandate for ladies pro golf:

"The LPGA’s new dress code no longer allows:
‌• Plunging necklines
‌• Skirts, skorts or shorts that do not sufficiently cover a player’s “bottom area”
‌• Racerbacks without a mock or regular collar
‌• Joggers
‌• Leggings, unless they are worn under a skort or shorts"

Why was this done? Why now?  Why subject themselves to complaints and push back from primadonna players who want to show the world what they got under the covers?  The answer is simple:money.  The organizers who do the dirty work of checking the pulse of viewers have determined that there is some kind of shift in the audience such that more conservative women's dress is going to maximize profits.  It just don't get no simpler than that.  The conservatives are coming and its going to change everything and not all of it will be for the better.

Greece's return to the bond market is "a success"?

In this crazy fucked up world it is clear that debt is considered good and saving/thrift is something difficult to fathom and negative in virtue; a paradox. 

Greece has been locked out of the bond market for a few years now but they are trying to float 3bn Euros at 4.625% and hailing this as a success of some kind.  REAL success would be if Greece would say, "we default on everything external to the country and w don't need more loans in order to keep our people happy and not rioting internally.  Furthermore, we vow to never go into debt again as a nation and we will make government smaller in order to fulfill that promise".  Now THAT would be success.  Of course, you will only read something like that in The Onion.  It will never happen in real life.

Of course, any money loaned to Greece will eventually be defaulted upon so I guess a con man would call it a success if he can find any suckers to step up and loan money at any rate of interest.  But 4.6% is  better than I can get with a credit card and I have never defaulted or been late a payment in my life.  You might say, but yeah, credit cards are unsecured loans.  But then again, folks, so are government bonds.  IF they default on you then you have no recourse but to invade them and take back what is owed at the barrel of a gun.

So what we see here is evidence of monetary delusion on the part of the desperate lenders who need yield in order to make their pension promises.  If anyone loaned money to Greece it should be at 20% or higher in order to even come close to compensating for the very high risk of default.

Behind all of it you can rest assured that some large global banking scam like JP Morgan or Goldy Sachs was used to "advise" its pension fund clients to buy the debt while at the same time charging Greece a hefty fee for bringing sheep to the economic slaughterhouse.

German auto makers exposed as an illegal monopolistic conspiracy.

Well, you know I said it many times and now it's all happening.  In the end days of the global debt Ponzi we would see the return of investigative reporting.  Killing journalists to silence them will no longer work.  And what will they investigate and uncover?  Of course, conspiracies within the military industrial complex.

Before I go on with this story, do you see how the EU makes a big show of approving or disapproving of mergers?  If you pay them the right money, you get your merger.  Otherwise, you are an evil monopolist and they will stop you for "the good of their constituencies".  We have seen antitrust action so many times by the EU against companies like Microsoft, etc. that we know that in the public eye the government is supposed to care about antitrust activities, including collusion and conspiring to avoid antitrust regulations.

With this in mind, Mish reports that five of the big German auto companies admit to illegal cartel.  What has effectively happened here is that Audi, BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen and Porsche have merged and are now acting as a single R+D entity even to the point of having numerous scheduled technical working groups to which they are invited and nobody else.  Mish quotes Eurointelligence which says, "Coming on top of the diesel emissions scandal, the reputation of the German car industry has been reduced to that of a criminal organization."

Well, well.  We have a conspiracy within big business that is essentially a criminal enterprise. Of course, I am not surprised and in fact I would have been surprised if this (and many, many other things that are much worse in terms of moral violations) had not been the case.  Why?  Do you really need to ask why after so many times of me writing it here??  It's because the foundation of our society and our economy -that which makes the world go round- in other words, our "money", is FAKE.  All of it.  Globally.  It's all fake paper and computer entries.  The corruption of the money supply corrupted everything: our governments, our businesses, our morals.  Everything.  Mammon Money is the root of all evil because only debt based money has the ability to multiply wealth far beyond one's actual labor. 

Only Mammon money allows for a CEO of a major corporation to make 500x of his top technical producers.  Only Mammon Money can turn the whole world upside so that white is black, good is bad, profligate debt based spending is good whereas thrift and saving are "a paradox".  Career criminal Hillary is good, Ron Paul is a stupid dodering old man, queerness and atheism or satanism are normal and to be applauded and hetro G_d worshiping folks are crazy.

Don't you see??  It's all upside down.  Governments and police are the masters and the people are the slaves.  It is all interrelated and it was this interrelationship that allowed me to predict so many years ago what is unfolding around us right now.  This is just the beginning.  As the money dries up it will heat up here in the US with tons of infighting and at some point actual punches will be thrown on the US congressional floor thus proving that Americans are exceptional, really, at nothing.  We are just people like everyone else but we have had a better agent for some time now.  We have had the slickest dicks in the room running this shit show.  But now even that is falling apart.  The Trump administration has a revolving door on people working there.

This is all going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Has Chinese debt jumped the shark?

The latest version of John Mauldin's "Thoughts From The Frontline" contains a very enlightening section on the coming end game for the Chinese debt Ponzi:

Yellow highlights are mine.

Black Swan #3: Chinese Debt Meltdown

China is by all appearances unstoppable. GDP growth has slowed down to 6.9%, according to official numbers. The numbers are likely inflated, but the boom is still underway. Reasonable estimates from knowledgeable observers still have China growing at 4–5%, which, given China’s size, is rather remarkable. The problem lies in the debt fueling the growth.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported some shocking numbers in his July 17 Telegraph column. A report from the People’s Bank of China showed off-balance-sheet lending far higher than previously thought and accelerating quickly. (Interestingly, the Chinese have made all of this quite public. And President Xi has taken control of publicizing it.)

The huge increase last year probably reflects efforts to jump-start growth following the 2015 downturn. Banks poured fuel on the fire, because letting it go out would have been even worse. But they can’t stoke that blaze indefinitely.

President Xi Jinping has been trying to dial back credit growth in the state-owned banks for some time; but in the shadow banks that Xi doesn’t control, credit is growing at an astoundingly high rate, far offsetting any minor cutbacks that Xi has made.

Here are a few more juicy quotes from Ambrose:

President Xi Jinping called for a hard-headed campaign to curb systemic risk and to flush out “zombie companies”, warning over the weekend that financial stability was a matter of urgent national security.

It is the first time that a Chinese leader has chaired the National Finance Work Conference – held every five years to thrash out long-term plans – and is a sign of rising concern as debt reaches 280pc of GDP.

In a move that will send shivers up the spines of local party officials, he said they will be held accountable for the rest of their lives for debts that go wrong. Any failure to identify and tackle risks will be deemed “malfeasance”.

Ambrose then quotes Patrick Chovanec of Silvercrest Asset Management:

“The banks have been selling products saying it isn’t our risk. Investors have been buying them saying it’s not our risk either. They all think the government will save everything. So what the markets are pricing is what they think is political risk, not economic risk,” he said.

A market in which “they all think the government will save everything” is generally not one you want to own – but China has been an exception. It won’t remain one forever. The collapse, when it comes, could be earthshaking."
_________________________ end Mauldin __________________

Well there you have it, the only condition that ever had a chance of killing the debt Ponzi: PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY.  That's right.  As long as actors can hide behind the granite exterior walls of an institution where crimes are handled simply by paying penalties  (bribes), corruption and greed are built into the business model.  And it is not just because all the players are evil bastards.  If you think about it, if the very system is corrupt then how you survive by being a nice guy.

The movie, "Hunger Games" was trying to teach us this lesson.  The system demanded tributes be put into the death match known as Hunger Games.  Failure to provide a tribute meant that many more deaths would occur at the hands of the overseers.  So regions would unhappily oblige and give up some of their young people to an almost certain death.

Once selected as a "tribute" for the games you have two choices: kill or be killed.  The nice and/or weak people died early.  The bad and or strong people tended to win.  This is where all global economic institutions are.  If they don't leverage up then someone else will and those chicks that grow the fastest kick their siblings out of the nest for the long fall and the hard landing.  

Is it really all that difficult to predict what will happen soon in the picture below??


This is what Chuck Prince was talking about with his "we're still dancing" comment while head of Citigroup precrash.  In a dishonest debt based money supply you either leverage up or you die at the hands of those who will.  At the same time, those who leverage up too far will eventually collapse and give it all back up.  It is a difficult game of surviving not only the upswings in credit creation but also the deflationary crashes that inevitably follow.

China's shadow bank debt has clearly gone through the roof and there would be no stopping it except for the new warning from the leadership that those who end up defaulting in the future will be held personally liable.  So at this point, those people can only expect to be treated very harshly in a public manner when the collapse comes.  At best they can spend the rest of their lives in jail.  At worst I could see China forming firing squads in order to appease the rank and file citizen who loses everything in the coming collapse, perhaps including the ability to eat on a daily basis.

Given this, it explains why there is such an exodus from China by their elite (accompanied by their money of course).  You will know that the end is very near when big names there begin to head to jail.  This of course has been happening to some degree since 2014.  You will know that the end is upon us when they are instead sent to firing squads.  That is when the Chinese hunger games will stop and when they do, look out below for more than just China.  Lack of unprofitable investments in order to feed American consumption means that prices in the US will go up dramatically.  Low cost consumption of quality made Chinese goods by Americans is only funded by debt.  First it is debt in China in order to produce things that cannot be sold at fair value and second it is debt in the USA to receive these goods without sending anything back of value - the dollars go back instead of trade goods.