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OK, so here's my personal take on what I've planned for going forward.
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I anticipate that early next week, the stock market will decline to under the 10,000 level and that, in turn, may spur already nervous (and un-prepared!) people to panic and begin bank runs. That phrase has been popping up a fair amount lately with stories about how "Wachovia faced 'silent' bank run; FDIC forced sale" this week, an opinion piece in Forbes this week from Nouriel Roubini says expect: "Next: The Mother of All Bank Runs?"
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Against the background of a $350-billion Fed move this week and a $700-billion banker bailout by the CONgress, for a total of $1-trillion dollars spent - or about 7% of U.S.A. GDP in a single week, the NY Times News Service carried in today's Idaho Statesman understat3es thing by saying "Crisis could be at Global Tipping Point", which is exactly what the predictive linguistics have been screaming at us for more than a year now - hence my advice to friends and readers to 'flee paper assets' and get properly defensive in posture, spreading risk between banks, precious metals, physical goods, and a TreasuryDirect account, in order to maximize personal lifestyle retention potential through this period.
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I anticipate that on Monday or Tuesday something will act as the 'kindling effect" and will lead to a massive stock market decline. I've been putting a list of potential 'sparks' together that could set off the conflagration so here's my 'short list' to which you can add your own:
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Fannie and Freddie assets issues come to the fore again on Monday and if there's a collapse there, things could steam-roller with the financial snowball already underway. Virtually no one in the US media is reporting what happened this week in Greece, which was forced to issue government guarantees to banks after "panic withdrawals" on Wednesday - a euphemism for 'bank runs' broke out.
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Public workers in the State of California may be facing insolvency because short-term lending has dried up . In warning that a $7-billion injection from the government may be needed, governor Schwarzenegger says "California and other states may be unable to obtain the necessary level of financing to maintain government operations and may be forced to turn to the federal treasury for short-term financing."
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My personal pick is that what will happen on Monday will be that the derivatives market will drive a stock market collapse. Let me explain why: First, you need to understand how the general "settlement day" issues will work, and the Financial Times has a good summary of the issues here.
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A note from a very well informed source at the UN Geneva sent me a terse note today that simply says "There will be fewer banks standing in Euroland on Monday morning." That will compound/confound things if right.
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What no one is reporting (so why don't we?) is that even investment houses that think they have a clean derivatives book could find that they sudden have huge cash calls on Monday which could trigger panic selling of stocks and other assets. The reason is this: When certain kinds of instruments fail, the current owner is presented with a settlement demand. But, if that first/current owner is not able to meet the settlement demand, then there is the potential fore recourse back to a previous owner. And then, if that owner doesn't have money, another layer of the onion may be peeled back, such that I honestly expect that the unintended consequences will be a cascading collapse next week. What's worse? The Bailout Bill passed on Friday will not be able to stop it because the mechanisms for Treasury and the Fed to bail is not spelled out. My term for it is "Crashcading Collapse" - when people who thought they were good have to suddenly have a fire sale of assets to raise cash.
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Once a meltdown of the stock market gets underway, I expect that the contagion would likely spread into the general public with panic withdrawals from US banks beginning, and that in turn, could trigger banking restrictions. This is the worst-case scenario. (Next to a terrorist attack, of course).
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Next, in order to maintain public order during those kinds of events, I expect the Bush Administration argue the need to 'enforce public order' and thus, some of the rumors of pending 'martial law' that have come from both the Internet and some Congresspersons, could come to pass. It will be argued on the one hand that the events really do fit into a conspiratorial mold on the one hand, but a logical sequence and response by government on the other.
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Then, on about October 15th, we get some other kind of 'military' aspect to the events about to unfold, and if I recall right, another such thing around October 25-27 - someplace in there.
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Then we get a break of a few weeks, although just as people think "Ha! Things are getting back to normal..." then wham, along with come more or less a lock-down of financial systems in November (around the 27th/Thanksgiving period if memory serves right.
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And then, just as we get through that, we anticipate (again, remember this is all based on some pretty far-out linguistic concepts here) the 'double earthquakes of December which may (or may not) be impacting on the US mainland. There's some drift in the data in the more recent processing.
So, come the end of January of next year, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the markets down around 7,400 on the Dow and then for Robin Landry's hoped-for "B" wave to begin, although it would likely peak in mid 2009 as the "Summer of Hell" breaks out thanks to continuing/record foreclosures on homes and continuously rising unemployment, which will be used by government for a further expansion of its powers over citizens, instead of what the Framers had in mind - government that was responsive to (and smaller than) the general population. That ship sailed long ago, eh?
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I don't know about you, but when the stock market collapses 157-points into the close, as it did on Friday after a trillion dollars was promised this week, I do get a little anxious about events to come next week, especially when we've been talking about that date for months and months based on the work of our learned colleagues with the linguistic time machine.
All we can do now is watch with a kind of emotional detachment, having taken what seem like reasonable steps in order to be insulated to some extent from what could turn into panic.
Cliff and Igor are always pointing out the value of eating pie. I, on the other hand, not being as relaxed about ;'living the news twice' probably over-prepare and over-react in advance of events. For me, a double-shot of rum or vodka on the rocks works better. Admittedly pie's better for you.
Nevertheless, this morning's report is a summary of my expectations based on how I read the data leaking through from the future. Just as the "A" wave down in the markets was the opening of the Great Depression, and he "B" wave (bounce) lasted until the onset of the secondary depression in 1937, which all set the stage for a Kondratiev long wave trough war in the form of World War II, I expect think there's a chance that the events out around 2011-2014 could very easily be seen as that Big Ending that's in religious texts.
Either that, or as we go through the galactic ecliptic out there somewhere, various realities start to leak into our from other dimensions. Along the way, UFO's and disappearances should rise because if there are really other beings who are "not-from-here" we're now in a period of intensely interesting activity here on Ant Farm Earth.
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Drop by Monday morning for our usual dose of cynicism and humor as we continue to read the linguistic tea leaves and do our dead-level best to play Nostradamus Lite walking a thin line between Chicken Little ("The sky is falling!") and the Boy Scout creed "Be Prepared!" here in what I've concluded is no longer the America of my upbringing (admitted a half century ago).
"Welcome to chaos in the Checkbook Republic, we'll be touching down in January-February 2009. Have your seat belts securely fastened...."
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