Charles Hugh Smith – Correspondent Bart D. recently speculated that the U.S. stock market was now “too big to fail,” that is, that it was too integral to the global financial system and economy to be allowed to fail, i.e. decline 40+% as in previous bubble bursts.
The U.S. stock market is integral to the global financial system in two ways.Now that investment banks, pension funds, insurers and multitudes of 401K retirement plans are dependent on current equity valuations, a crash would impair virtually the entire spectrum of finance from hedge funds to banks to insurers to pension plans.
A decimation of these sectors would impact the U.S. economy and thus the global economy very negatively.
By turning the health of the economy into a reflection of the stock market, the Status Quo has made the stock market into the one bellwether that matters. In effect, the stock market is now integral to the economy as a measure of sentiment and evidence that all is well with the economy as a whole.
The stock market is now the signal everyone follows: if stocks are rising, we’re told that means the economy is healthy. Conversely, if stocks decline sharply, the implication is the economy is weak.
In other words, it’s not just valuations that make stocks integral to the economy and Status Quo–the market’s signaling is now the key to sentiment.In economist Michael Spence’s work, the information available to participants is asymmetric: roughly speaking, those on the “inside” have better information than those on the “outside.”
The stock market addresses this asymmetry by signaling what’s really going on via price: if the market sells off, that tells even those with little other information that all is not well in the economy. Continue reading
Makia Freeman – The recent spate of amateurish false flag shootings which are now being rolled out at an increasingly rapid pace, give one cause to wonder: why? Why are the elite orchestrating such feeble and poorly executed false flag shootings? With all their money, power, control of the media, control of law enforcement and control of politicians, why can’t they make these false flag shootings look more real? Aren’t they worried that with such amateurish false flag shootings they are running the risk of being caught? Of being exposed? Of doing such an atrocious job that it defies common belief, and thus acts as a catalyst to wake people up?
Dr. Michelle Kmiec – Emotions spontaneously arise each day despite our efforts to control them. They often surface without warning, whether we want them to or not. Fortunately, many of these emotions translate as pleasurable ones – feelings of joy, contentment and love. However, like it or not, there are times when less than desirable emotions come forth – anger, frustration or possibly fear. But experiencing these unpleasant emotions is not necessarily a bad thing.