by Andy Hoffman, Miles Franklin:

Wasn’t it yesterday that I showed charts of “Dow Jones Propaganda Average” trading of the past week – during which, the PPT’s signature “dead ringer” algorithm held it up every day? And the day before, when I showed how the exact same algorithm has been used in China since its early 2015 stock market crash? Well, lo and behold, let’s take a look at this morning’s Chinese stock trading – whilst Chinese commodity prices plunged to new six-month lows; right next to yesterday’s U.S. close. See if you can tell the difference (Hint: China has a “lunch break,” when stock markets are closed).

This, as Precious Metals continue to be subjected to “sixth sigma” price suppression algorithms at a half-dozen “key attack times” each day. Plus any time deemed “necessary” to prolong history’s largest; most destructive; and for the first time global, fiat Ponzi Scheme – which must inevitably implode in the “first world,” as it already has in much of the second and third. To that end, the historic financial bubbles created are so enormous, the ultimate crash will be thermonuclear in scope – certainly in real terms; and potentially, in nominal terms as well.

The five largest NASDAQ stocks – Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon (“coincidentally,” the Bank of Switzerland’s five largest holdings) – have a market capitalization of nearly $3 trillion! This compared to $7 trillion for all the gold ever mined – most of which, will never be sold; $700 billion for all the silver ever mined – most of which, has been consumed by industrial purposes; and $30 billion for little ‘ol Bitcoin. Gee, I wonder how this unprecedentedly large chasm between over- and under-valuation will ultimately resolve. Let alone, the ugly pink elephant in the room, of the lowest (PPT-orchestrated) volatility (i.e, fear) indicators in three decades.

Everywhere one looks, economic prospects are weakening – with zero chance of improving, given the historic overcapacity caused by four-plus decades of Central bank fueled capital misallocation, with “a little help” from Wall Street, whose “financial engineering” breakthroughs since the 1999 Glass-Steagall repeal have in fact, in Warren Buffet’s words, acted as “weapons of mass financial destruction” on the global political, economic, and monetary realms. Per this fine article, the world’s largest revenue-producing, and government-sustaining industry, crude oil production, will be hopelessly glutted for years to come; which apparently, even OPEC itself realizes, per this damning article. Heck, even Trump’s own Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, admitted yesterday that 3% GDP growth this year is but a pipe dream. And what’s this? The capital of one of the nation’s most Wall-Street-suckled states – Hartford, Connecticut – is about to declare bankruptcy?

Which brings me to today’s principal topic – U.S. interest rates, as symbolized by the benchmark ten-year Treasury yield. Which, as long-time readers know well, I called the top on twice in early 2013 – when the Fed’s now four-year propaganda scheme regarding “tightening” monetary policy commenced. Not uncoincidentally, at exactly the time of the April 2013 “alternative currency destruction” Cartel raids, that pushed gold and silver below their respective 200 week moving averages for the first time in ten years. First, in January 2013, at 3.0%; and subsequently in May 2013, at 2.6%.

Similarly, I “called” the current “top” in early January this year, in my “2.5%, Nuff’ Said” article. The reason being, the exact same reason I said 3.0% was the top in January 2013, and 2.6% four months later. I.e., the U.S. (and global) economy simply cannot handle rates any higher – given how debt service costs multiply exponentially with rising interest rates; particularly in an historically, hopelessly indebted society that must borrow more, at increasingly rapid rates, to remain “solvent.” Gee, that sounds like the definition of a Ponzi Scheme, huh?

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