Economic Alarm Bells RINGING! (Uncut) 02-16-2025

Consumer Confidence CRASHES: Economic Alarm Bells RINGING!

Now the current system is based on consumers continuing to consume and we’ve talked a lot about what’s going on with them, but here there was so much hopium, thanks to Tiger Stacker, there’s so much hopium in the system and that hopium seems to be leaving. So we just got consumer sentiment which dropped to a seven month low on price worries, which is really talking about inflation. So consumer sentiment is falling as inflation views jump.

That means that they are devaluing the currency and it is still apparent. You know how the Federal Reserve says that it’s sticky? Yeah, well it’s baked into the system, that’s why it’s so sticky. But when you have consumer sentiment dropping on prices rising on inflation expectations, uh-oh, we’re in trouble because the consumer must continue to consume in this consumer-driven economy.

So my question is, is hopium disappearing? Oops, because even in the jobs report, employers added 143,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate dropped. But what we’re also seeing that that was less than what was anticipated and of course they’re going to revise these numbers in a few months and it’s not going to matter anyway. So truthfully they can say anything that they want just to move the markets.

But I think this is so interesting because 67 percent of U.S. executives said they were more stressed heading into 2025 than they were a year earlier with all of that hopium. And keep in mind that last year going into 2024, we were still dealing with very high seeming inflation. At the same time, 47 percent of the company officials said that their biggest concern was economic uncertainty.

And I mean we have that in droves. We’ve got tariffs and then we don’t have tariffs. We have this and then we don’t have that.

Markets like certainty and we are now in an era where really there is no certainty at all and frankly business leaders have a problem with that. Steep tariffs and policy uncertainty could push businesses to increasingly adopt wait and see behaviors and pull back on hiring, which would cause deflation. There’s only one way to fight deflation and that’s with inflation.

Are you ready? Are you ready for it? Because Americans looking for work haven’t had it this hard in almost three, count is really interesting. You can go back and see that’s back in 2021. So things are definitely shifting and what do you suppose happens to wages with all of this competition? Let’s take a look and see.

Over the month percent change in real average hourly earnings for all employees according to the BLS. Even though wages went up because of that inflation, they still went down according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So if corporations start stop hiring as much as they’re hiring now, the competition out there is less.

You can’t ask for money. So even though there’s been raises in here, it has not kept pace with inflation. What do you think is going to happen with a slowdown in wages and an uptick in inflation? Those at the bottom are going to be more and middle class to more and more squeezed.

So how are they filling that gap between income and costs? U.S. consumer borrowing surges by 40.8 billion, which is the most on record. How long can they continue to do this? I don’t know, but you can certainly see that it’s a record of household borrowing at the same time change in revolving credit outstanding. Right? So we’ve got a spike in non-revolving credit outstanding as well as revolving credit.

That’s credit cards. That’s what we’re talking about here. And the borrowing is spiking.

The share of borrowers who are only making the minimum payments was the biggest on record. So that those minimum payments don’t cover part of the principal. What are you doing? Same thing as U.S. government compounding interest because that interest goes into the principal.

The average rate on credit card accounts with assessed interest was 22.8% as of November, close to the highest in fed data going back to 1995. This is a problem that also means more delinquencies, but look at this. This is the revolving credit owned and securitized, which means owned and turned into a product and sold back to you.

Huh? You got to look at this 1971. Once the federal reserve took over the regulation and speed of the inflation, all they knew was growing more and more and more debt. And you can see how it’s pretty much straight up and kind of really not so choppy.

And then 2008, it dipped. Can you see that cup formation? Because debt has broken out and is broken out in a very pervasive way. And I show you this cup formation because I’m telling you right now, this works for everything.

And in the, in the future, it’s going to benefit us, but it’s always important to understand how to read the technical language of the markets, because you cannot count on those talking heads telling you the truth. That’s not really their job. And can you see how much more quickly since 2020 that debt has escalated? 3.5% of card balances are passed due by 30 or more days and 1.8% of accounts are delinquent.

Both figures are more than double the post pandemic lows recorded in 2021. So if the incomes are staying where they are or going down, but the cost of living is going up and you’re funding it with credit cards and you can’t make those payments, but Hey, consumer continues to consume as long as they can get credit. They can keep consuming, right? It’s whether or not they pay it.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. And maybe it’s time to get to the safety of physical gold and physical silver. That’s outside of the system rather than owning these garbage securities.

Who’s left holding the bag? Not wall street. It’s you. If you’re the one that’s buying it and you say, well, I’m not buying that.

If you have fiat money assets and they’re in like an ETF or a mutual fund or a pension plan or an IRA or 401k, it, you probably do own some of this and you don’t even realize it. But I wanted to bring up Russia because there are so many things that are happening globally and Russians hunt to shield savings and that pushes gold purchases to a record. And by the way, on a global basis, even though I don’t think I have it in here, gold is spot gold.

I’m going to say spot gold because this is not the physical metal, but the spot gold market has made new highs in every single currency and a rising gold price is an indication of distress and a failing currency. Critical that you understand that. But here is the consumer demand for gold, which is at a record and has become the most popular way to protect your savings.

Duh. That’s the most important function of gold is to hold your purchasing power intact, therefore protecting your savings. This is risk-free because it is the only financial asset that runs no counterparty risk.

The metal has become a popular way to protect savings. And aren’t we seeing this all over the world, including here in the U.S.? If you don’t have your strategy in place, you better get it in place. And I suggest that you do that sooner than later, because with what I see going on, there is a whole lot of volatility in our future as well as uncertainty.

And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a friend or a foe, kind of everybody’s being treated the same way. Something to think about. And you know, I love to do this and I do this all the time because I want to show you the truth.

Here’s the U.S., the spot U.S. dollar to the Russian ruble over five years, that’s up 51.38%. What about spot silver? Same thing. It’s up 171%. And can you see that cup? It has not yet broken out of the cup.

Dollar’s not even near that. Imagine before too long, we will see a breakout in spot silver. And I’m saying that because I think we’re going to see the same thing here.

And in spot gold, that’s up 175.58%. And guess what? That broke out. Gold is the primary currency metal. Silver is the secondary currency metal.

There’s gold and then there’s gold. There’s silver and then there’s silver. What you do needs to have your goals in place first so that whatever choices you make, you’re actually supporting what you’re trying to do.

Personally, you guys know I don’t hold bullion, but you’re going to hear people say, oh, well, bullion, oh, well, close to spot. No, no, no. When you understand the possibility of, of confiscation, the real fact that confiscation is happening all the time.

And I’m doing a series on that. So you can see, and you can see what the truth is. I’m going to tell you, they have been constantly confiscating your wealth from you since the day you were born.

Do you really think they’re going to stop at the end? Because guess what? Gold’s been confiscated in this country three times. The last time was 1933. And we got that a hundred year anniversary coming up.

Do I think it’s going happen again? Well, what I think is that desperate governments make desperate choices and do desperate things. So I think that is a real possibility since gold is the only financial asset that runs no counterparty risk and everything else is all counterparty risk. So I want to be in the category of those one percenters that either write the laws or can influence those that write the laws.

And when I know that the one ounce of gold, one ounce of gold is worth over $40,000, because I’m clear on fundamental value on all assets and all instruments. Why do I care if I’m paying a little bit of premium that it doesn’t matter? What if I’m right? What if I’m wrong? I’d rather it not matter. Hopium honestly does not serve you well.

Things change with hopium. We have to come together, create local communities to create security in food, water, energy, security itself, barter ability, wealth preservation, community and shelter. But we also have to do a global sound money because that’s the only shot we have if we convert our fiat money, our government debt-based money that’s going away into sound money, physical gold and physical silver.

If enough of us do that, we got a shot at having a say in the new system. And I 100% know that together we can make a positive difference for a lot of people. So until next we meet, please be safe out there.

Bye-bye.