Tag Archives: stock market crash

The Crash of 2015: The End of the Beginning

By | |
9 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Coming soon to an economy near you: a two-train wreck.

Coming soon to an economy near you: a two-train wreck.

The setup continues of the double train wreck that will decimate the U.S. economy this year; the switches have been thrown to prevent either train from leaving the track, and the engines are accelerating. It doesn’t take much perspective, now, to see both trains, closing fast.

[Note: The Crash of 2015 is not expected to be the collapse of the global industrial economy, which will take a little longer.  Just another lurch downward of the shattered Titanic, further unsettling those passengers who do not believe in icebergs.] Continue reading →

The Crash of 2015: Day 29 [UPDATE Day 30]

By | | ,
7 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

You have this perfectly good structure, and then you kick out a few of the supporting pillars, and the next thin you know the SEC is on the phone.

Maybe we could still live in the top floor? If we could just slow it down a little?

A couple of things to keep firmly in mind as we watch the Crash of 2015 unfold, pretty much on the schedule I’ve been writing about here for six months. First, the drop in oil prices is not the cause of this disaster, merely an accelerant. The fracking industry is succumbing to its inherent high expense, toxicity, rapid depletion rates and over-reliance on junk financing. Similarly, the stock market crash we expect to follow the fracking collapse would have come anyway because of its inherent instability, and indeed may yet occur before the chain reaction in the fracking fields has run its course. And finally, what is happening to fracking is also happening to the legacy oil business, only slower. Continue reading →

Living the Dream. No, Really, You’re Dreaming. Wake Up.

By | |
4 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

If American consumers would just consume more, the American economy would be all right. Whether you think they are, or are not, doing their part depends on who you read. Amd whether you’re awake or dreaming. (Wikipedia Photo)

If American consumers would just consume more, the American economy would be all right. Whether you think they are, or are not, doing their part depends on who you read. Amd whether you’re awake or dreaming. (Wikipedia Photo)

Fortune Magazine, the journal of the Masters of the Universe, posted the following headline at 11:33 yesterday morning: “U.S. shoppers finally shed funk: Retailers post strong holiday season gains.” At the same time the experts at NASDAQ.com. writing for the same audience of one-percenters, headlined: “Retail Sales Drop .9% as Consumers Pull Back.” Wait, what? Did we Americans shed our funk, as Fortune insisted (“retail sales for November and December rose 4%…the industry’s best showing in three years.”) or pull back, as NASDAQ saw it (“Sales at retailers and restaurants decreased a seasonally adjusted 0.9% in December from a month earlier…the largest monthly decline since January 2014.”)

So to summarize: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Continue reading →