US Stocks and Bitcoin Over-Heated? - What's Next for Trump's Wunderkind? - Western Governments Failing Everywhere - BOOM Saw it All 12 Months Ago
US STOCKS AND BITCOIN OVER-HEATED?
TRUMP’S WUNDERKIND MUST NOW DELIVER FOR THE PEOPLE
INDIAN STOCKS — WARNING SIGN OF WEAKNESS?
CHINA STOCKS AND ECONOMIC INDICATOR STILL STRONG
WESTERN GOVERNMENTS FAILING EVERYWHERE – THE PEOPLE HAVE LOST FAITH
BOOM SAW IT ALL COMING 12 MONTHS AGO
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM?
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US STOCKS AND BITCOIN OVER-HEATED?
BOOM tries to avoid predictions, preferring to carefully examine the present and the past rather than hypothesising about what may happen in the future. However, while carefully and accurately observing the present moment and the recent past, it is wise to pay close attention to any extraordinary events which may indicate a situation of change and increased alarm.
Those circumstances currently prevail in the US stock markets and in the Crypto markets.
BOOM is becoming increasingly concerned that we are witnessing what may be the beginning of a Sell Off. The technical signals are admittedly recent, short term in nature and, at this stage, can only be used to expect short term consequences. However, BOOM’s analysis shows that the Post Trump election exuberance in US Stock prices and in Bitcoin/Crypto may be coming to an end. Honeymoons don’t last forever.
BITCOIN Price $US over the last month (Source: Coinmarketcap)
BOOM emphasises that the long term uptrend in US Stocks and in Bitcoin/Crypto is still intact. However, there are short term technical signals of weakness over the last week or two that are certainly raising BOOM’s suspicions. Readers should watch very closely for any sign of increased negative sentiment and then for subsequent changes in long term trend if they appear.
S & P 500 US Stock Index over the last 6 Months. Note that the surge in prices since the election victory in early November has unravelled already.
After such a significant victory from the Trump team, exuberance was to be expected. However, reality bites and it may bite hard. Trump and his team of Wunderkind must now deliver and if that doesn’t happen, then sentiment can be expected to turn against them.
For those who don’t know, Wunderkind is a German term for people who achieve great success when relatively young.
Trump has made a lot of statements during the election campaign which imply that he can fix the enormous Geopolitical and Economic problems of the US. However, BOOM is not so sure. In fact, BOOM is rather pessimistic now that Trump’s appointments have been revealed. Billionaires, TV Stars, Operation Warp-Speed promoters and Technocrats are in abundance amongst Trump’s picks. None of those people have a track record of caring for the benefit of the American People at large. They have (mostly) been driven by ambition and the search for Fame and Fortune. There is great risk that these Wunderkind will fail when it comes to working For the People and not for themselves.
And, remember, they are all UNELECTED, appointed, selected, which is the major criticism made about the unelected officers of the United Nations, the WEF, the WHO, the EU Commission, the IMF, the World Bank and all Central Banks. Many of them represent major corporations. So the charges of “Fascism”, “Techno-Fascism” or “Crony Capitalism” can be easily made if the wheels start to fall off.
The future for the US is undeniably hopeful with a new President and Republican Party dominance. But it is also full of uncertainty. As BOOM has explained previously, US Federal Government expenditure is completely out of control which is a destabilising influence on the economy and will have to be reigned in. The war in Ukraine is unlikely to be easily solved and the Biden/Erdogan inspired collapse of the Syrian State will probably increase the risk of more US troop deployment to the Middle East. A quagmire awaits them there if that were to happen. Trump should pull his troops out immediately and let the dust settle. But he probably won’t do that.
INDIA STOCKS WARNING SIGN?
In the BOOM Editorial dated 24th August, just 6 months ago, titled ASIA RESUMES BULL MARKET – INDIA THE STANDOUT, BOOM was especially impressed with the strength of the Indian stock market. However, since late September, the BSE Sensex Stock Index and the Nifty 50 Index have both weakened technically and look headed for a decline. Again, BOOM must emphasise that this weakness has still not threatened the long term uptrend. However, alarm bells are certainly ringing in the strongest stock market in Asia. Only a fool ignores alarm bells in such a situation.
Here is the 5 Year chart for the Nifty 50 Index as at 23rd August, 2023.
And here it is now – readers can see that the long term uptrend is not yet under any discernible threat. However, since early October, the pattern has changed, especially last week with the Nifty 50 Index falling by almost 5 %.
CHINA STOCKS STRONG – CHINA ECONOMIC INDICATOR STRONG
In contrast, Chinese stocks are looking stronger in the short term analysis and BOOM’s secret economic indicator for China continues to show strength.
Shanghai Stock Market over 3 years
WESTERN GOVERNMENTS FAILING EVERYWHERE – THE PEOPLE HAVE LOST FAITH
BOOM has been scathing about the poor leadership in the Western, advanced economies for a very long time. Over the last year or so, we have seen the disastrous New Zealand government of Jacinda Ardern collapse. We have seen the clueless UK government of Rishi Sunak defeated and we have seen the shambolic US government of Joe Biden’s Democrats defeated.
For those readers who don’t understand the word “shambolic”, it means chaotic, disorganized, or mismanaged.
We have seen the Irish government defeated. And we are now seeing the German government in full crisis, along with the French government. The new UK government led by Keir Starmer has already lost the support of the People. Last, but not least, the Canadian government of Justin Trudeau is now in turmoil with his Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Christia Freeland, resigning unexpectedly just hours before she was to present the Fall Economic Statement. Trudeau has been subjected to a public humiliation since then, recorded live for all the world to see. A Vote of No Confidence will come soon and then Trudeau’s government could fall.
The People of the West have clearly lost faith in their governments, their political class, their justice systems, their mainstream media, their so-called “experts” and perhaps all government institutions. The last 4 years of the Covid Panic Demic has destroyed trust right across the board. The People are restless.
BOOM SAW IT ALL COMING 12 MONTHS AGO
BOOM summarised all of this exactly one year ago on the 10th December 2023. Here is the BOOM editorial from that date (almost in full). Readers can judge for themselves if BOOM was prescient at the time.
CONQUERED FROM WITHIN -- DRIFTING TOWARDS THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
LOSS OF TRUST IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, THE POLITICIANS, THE CHURCHES AND THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
LOSS OF TRUST IN THE MEDIA
LOSS OF TRUST IN THE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE
THE END OF ROMANIA’S DICTATOR
THE GRUESOME END OF MUSSOLINI
THE UNITED KINGDOM – TYRANNY REVEALED?
THE DEATH OF MERIT – THE RISE OF INTOLERANCE
TESTIMONY FROM A READER
"Boom’s finance and economics views are based on experience and wisdom, both of which are sadly lacking in today’s narrow-analysis focused commentary."
CONQUERED FROM WITHIN -- DRIFTING TOWARDS THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
BOOM touched on the subject of poor leadership in the Western democracies last week and has often referred to the subject in numerous editorials.
Specifically in regard to the USA, this quote from Dr Toby Rogers has been occupying BOOM’s mind lately. He said this when comparing his nation to the end of the USSR. BOOM is forced to agree.
“The similarities between the late 1980s USSR and present day USA are uncanny — the endless lies, the corruption, the hollowing out of institutions, the censorship, and the decrepit leadership that is despised by the public.”
Dr Rogers has a PhD in political economy from the University of Sydney in Australia and a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He grew up in southern California. His bachelor's degree in political science is from Swarthmore College in Philadelphia. He seems eminently qualified to comment on the decline of his nation, the USA.
LOSS OF TRUST IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, THE POLITICIANS, THE CHURCHES AND THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
In last week’s editorial, BOOM discussed the dramatic breakdown in the Canadian public’s trust in the major institutions of Canada. This was revealed by the recent poll commissioned by the Bank of Canada (the central bank) and referenced in a report titled “Digital Canadian Dollar Public Consultation Report”, dated November 2023. The survey received a high level of engagement from individuals across Canada, gathering a total of 89,423 responses.
Quote: “In the category dealing with “Complete Trust”, only 4 % of Canadians have complete trust in their financial institutions, 5 % in the central Bank of Canada, 3 % in the Government and only 1 % in major Technology companies.”
But the shock is contained in the category “Completely Distrust”. Here, 74 % of the respondents completely distrust the Government of Canada, 58 % completely distrust the Bank of Canada, 46 % distrust their financial institutions and 61 % completely distrust the major Technology companies.”
These numbers are staggering. There is no other way to describe them. They display fulsomely a dramatic loss of trust in the federal government, the central bank, the financial institutions and the technology companies of Canada.
The Bank of Canada poll did not ask the public about loss of trust in the major churches. However, cognisant of the fact that the major churches universally supported the official Covid narratives and totalitarian policies of many governments worldwide during the last 3 years, BOOM would expect that a similar loss of trust would have been displayed if that question had been asked.
THE FOURTH ESTATE – LOSS OF TRUST IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA
But what about the so-called “Fourth Estate”, the mainstream media? The term Fourth Estate or fourth power refers to the press and news media both in explicit capacity of advocacy and implicit ability to frame political issues. The derivation of the term arises from the traditional European concept of the three estates of the realm: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners.
A recent Gallup Poll in the United States dealt with this matter. Gallup reported, on 19th October, that a record number of Americans – 39 % -- now have “no confidence at all” in their mainstream media. Another 29% of U.S. adults have “not very much” trust.
Think about that – almost 70 % of Americans have either no trust at all or not very much trust in their mainstream media.
And Gallup reported that where trust still remained, that trust was at record low levels.
Quote: “The 32% of Americans who say they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way ties Gallup’s lowest historical reading, previously recorded in 2016.”
Gallup produced this graph which they encourage you to download. It shows the steady erosion of trust since 1973.
GALLUP POLL
Here is more from Gallup’s 19th October report – Quote:
“Americans’ confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, fairly and accurately is at its lowest point since 2016 .... This low confidence reading for the fourth estate comes at a time when trust in each of the three branches of the federal government is also low.
In addition, Gallup in June found confidence readings in both TV news and newspapers that were near their historical lows and last December found a record-low-tying rating of the honesty and ethics of journalists.”
This reference is to another Gallup Poll released earlier on October 13th. In that report, Gallup said that trust in most institutions is at or near record lows.
Quote: “Gallup’s annual update on trust in government institutions and actors finds Americans have the most faith in local government (67%) and the least faith in the legislative branch of the federal government, or Congress (32%)…... less than half are confident in the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, elected officials and candidates for office, and in the federal government’s ability to handle both domestic and international problems.”
This graphic is from a website called VisualCapitalist. The data source used is Gallup.
TRUST THE MEDIA?
These are staggering revelations. Loss of the public’s trust in their institutions has become the norm in both Canada and the United States. And that loss of trust is growing over time.
How can these (relatively) civil societies maintain their civility if this loss of trust continues into the future? Can they rescue themselves?
LOSS OF TRUST IN THE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE
Sadly, the same progress in lack of trust seems to apply to the US Justice system. Trust in the American Justice system is sliding fast from an average of 66 % to below 50 %.
More from the Gallup Polls – Quote: “Trust in the judicial branch, usually one of the most trusted branches (averaging 66%), is furthest from its historical average, with its current 49% confidence rating 17 points below its typical rating since 1972.”
If less than 50 % of US citizens trust the courts and only 32 % have trust in the government and only 32 % in the mass media, then civil society is on a trajectory towards collapse and disorder.
In Canada, everything is worse. They may already be approaching a collapse of the social bonds that hold a society together. The Heads of Government have the most to lose in such a situation. History is replete with examples.
On 5th November, BOOM’s weekly editorial outlined what happened in The Netherlands in 1672 when the once very successful Prime Minister, Jacob de Witt and his brother were murdered in the street by an angry mob. The recorded history contains stories of their bodies being torn apart to allow the mob to fry some body parts before eating them.
THE UNITED KINGDOM – TYRANNY REVEALED?
All of this begs the question – has history repeated? Do authoritarian, fascist tyrants in disguise now run the UK, the USA, Germany, France, Scandinavia, the European Union? Switzerland? Has tyranny conquered the so-called Western democracies? Is this leading to economic stagnation, loss of institutional trust and inevitable social decline? The fall of the advanced economies? The end of civil society and “democracy” (whatever that is)?
By way of example, in the UK, we have the population becoming poorer and poorer while the elites live in luxury. Economic stagnation has now persisted for more than two decades. Here is a chart of economic growth in the UK over the last 25 years. Ignore the huge recession in 2020 precipitated by the tyrannical, autocratic Covid panic and fear campaign and the rebound in 2021. The rest looks awful. Economic stagnation writ large. During that period, the population of the UK has grown by 10 million from around 58 million to 68 million. The second chart shows the total GDP over the last 50 years. It illustrates, again, the dramatic lack of economic expansion over the last 20 years, despite 10 million more people.
UK GDP GROWTH OVER 25 YEARS
UK GDP OVER 50 YEARS
And it’s all getting worse, not better. A recent study, by the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, showed that UK living standards are 3% below their peak in 2020, and are continuing to fall. The poverty is rapidly becoming manifest.
“The UK has now seen 15 years of relative decline, with productivity growth at half the rate seen across other advanced economies,” according to the research, titled “Economy 2030 Inquiry”.
If you think of the British Prime Ministers over that period, you are left uninspired. The list reads – Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss (for only 50 days, unelected), Rishi Sunak (unelected). Would you hire Boris Johnson to run your small family business or to manage the affairs of your local town council?
Last week, BOOM referred to another list from a previous editorial, equally uninspiring.
Think of Biden, Macron, Rutte, Von Der Leyen, Stoltenberg, Draghi, Trump, Clinton, Ardern, Trudeau. For them all, politics seems to be more about self promotion than just about anything else. They are all self obsessed, absorbed with their "global" agendas and essentially blind to the concerns of the common people under their gaze while caught up in a world of celebrity.
This whole discussion begs many questions – Have these people been carefully chosen, selected, groomed and promoted? Have the nations of the Western advanced economy democracies been corrupted from within as part of a grand plan? If so, who is running that plan?
To answer the many questions, BOOM turns to the definition of Fascism that has traditionally been regarded as “right wing”. Wikipedia defines it in this manner.
“Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.”
However, the Western advanced economy democracies seem to have become dominated by a peculiar form of fascism which differs in only a few aspects to this definition.
Perhaps it could be described as --
A Fascism of the far-left, authoritarian, globalist, a political ideology and movement, characterised by dictatorial leaders, centralised autocracies, militarism, the forcible suppression of opposition, censorship, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
THE DEATH OF MERIT – THE RISE OF INTOLERANCE
Professor James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University in Australia. He recently wrote an article on The Death of Merit published in Spectator Australia and in the Daily Sceptic.
“Last week the Vice-Chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology – be clear readers, not my University of Queensland – announced that QUT was going to remove all references to ‘merit’ from its hiring policy. The new approach would factor in gender, ethnicity and departmental balance. This is what societal decline looks like. That is politics all the way down (and as an aside, balance will not include any spots for conservatives I can assure you).”
He opened the article with this paragraph.
Quote: “Tolerance and merit. These abstract concepts have been two of the great legacies of Western culture. They drive freedom, competition and wealth. But both are under incredible threat from those who prefer to see the world in terms of identity politics – this is the basic notion that the most important thing about any individual is the group to which he or she belongs. It’s not one’s ability to work hard or her moral character or his resilience or even one’s unique beauty or brains that matter. Nope. It’s the sort of reproductive organs you bring to the table. Or your skin pigmentation. Or the religion you practise. Or that your kind arrived somewhere first. That’s the core of identity politics and it has infected politics, the universities, the corporate world, the churches, the entirety of the Human Resources sector. Heck, the whole of the myriad DEI bureaucracies are based on identity politics.”
DEI stands for “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion”
In economics (and finance), things work until they don’t. Do your own research. Make your own conclusions. BOOM does not offer investment advice.
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