One Last Turn of the Screw, then REAL Pain

The bullish gap on the chart holds ominous implications for the global economy, since it removes almost all doubt that interest rates on U.S. Treasury Bonds are headed significantly higher. The rally looks nearly certain to reach 4.81%, the target of the pattern shown.  The red line through which the gap occurred last Thursday is a ‘Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance,’ and it is where we look to get a firm handle on trend strength. When it is penetrated as easily and decisively as it was last week, this almost invariably results in a continuation of the trend to the target, in this case a 48.14 level that corresponds to a 4.81% rate. A tradeable corollary is that a swoon to the green line would be merely corrective, and that bond bears, far from being scared out of their positions, could double down on their bets with confidence.  The equivalent rate for the Ten-Year Note would be 4.68%.

Historical Downturn

You should jot those numbers down, since they will allow you to tune out the din of pundits and economists arguing about how high rates are likely to go. With the economies of China and Europe already sinking into recession, and the U.S. about to do so when the inevitable bear market in stocks gets rolling, another turn of the interest-rate screw threatens a downturn that will be one for the history books.  It will feature above all a strengthening dollar that will not only catch economist and policymakers by surprise, but also crush everyone who owes dollars. A ruinous debt deflation is coming, and it will make us nostalgic for the pesky consumer inflation that has ruled our economic lives since the wildly reckless credit-stimulus of the Covid years.

  • RICHARD CHARLES September 29, 2023, 2:26 pm

    Prescient 4.68 % TNX call Rick
    4.688 % on Wed 27 Sep 2023
    Not that often we have a major Auto strike and Budget fail at the same time

  • RICHARD CHARLES September 25, 2023, 10:46 am

    Hi Rick and Company
    Re a strengthening dollar that will not only catch economist and policymakers by surprise, but also crush everyone who owes dollars
    That would be most of US, some $33.1 Trillion US National Debt, $103 Trillion US Total Debt, $632 Trillion Currency and Credit Derivatives, $194.1 Trillion US Unfunded Liabilities. Heck, even the $20.7 Trillion M2 US Money Supply is a Federal Reserve Note IOU.
    https://www.usdebtclock.org/
    A trillion here, a trillion there, Pretty soon we’re talking real money,
    to allegedly paraphrase Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen from 1959 to 1969.
    What he did say in 1965 was confirmed as this:
    One time in the House of Representatives [a colleague] told me a story about a proposition that a teacher put to a boy. He said, ‘Johnny, a cat fell in a well 100 feet deep. Suppose that cat climbed up 1 foot and then fell back 2 feet. How long would it take the cat to get out of the well?’
    Johnny worked assiduously with his slate and slate pencil for quite a while, and then when the teacher came down and said, ‘How are you getting along?’
    Johnny said, ‘Teacher, if you give me another slate and a couple of slate pencils, I am pretty sure that in the next 30 minutes I can land that cat in hell.’
    If some people get any cheer out of a $328 billion debt ceiling, I do not find much to cheer about concerning it.” [Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].

    So we ask ourselves, if official US Debt Dollar IOUs approach a quadrillion, and our current economy is $27 Trillion, will the current debt be repaid in 36.4 years and will we all live happily ever after, or will DC denizen public servants continue to spend faster more than we earn like that cat in Hades?

    For a clue, we refer to Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
    Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness.
    Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”

    What to do ?

    One clue is the annual M2 US Dollars to annual silver production ratio is $1562 an ounce.
    With SLVP at $9 this AM we bought some to hedge US IOUs.

    https://tinyurl.com/423yprj2

    &&&

    Thanks for the deflation arithmetic, Richard. Of course, “everyone who owes dollars” means, literally…everyone. Even if you do not owe them personally, you are still in debt up to your earballs because of a bankrupt social welfare system that owes them for you. Lovely ‘telemedicine’ is actually deflation just starting to interact with our medical care system. Anyone born before 1958 continues to benefit from the epic delusion that the Social Security system is solvent. This is crazy thinking, but we old farts receive a generous COLA nonetheless. Small wonder that millennials, with their horrible “music,” seem so angry. RA

    • RICHARD CHARLES September 27, 2023, 4:13 pm

      Costco now selling gold one ounce bars.
      No premium with 2 % rebate.