Watching this conversation is well worth an hour of your time: Mike Maloney & Harry Dent – The Great Deflation (YouTube video.) JWR’s Comments: Dent and Maloney concur with my prediction that we will see a deflation followed by mass inflation. Their discussion of personal strategies to prepare to live through a deflationary reset begin at the 21 minute mark. Heed their advice: Avoid debt! In the unfolding deflationary depression, cash will be king and any debt will be painful. Then, as the inevitable mass inflation follows, cash will become trash, and silver and gold will be the new royalty. (We will still be in the depths of a depression, but it will have transitioned into a painful inflationary depression, following massive bailouts of the banks.) Depending on how American lawmakers react (or over-react) it may be 20+ years to a full economic recovery.
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Reader R.B.S. spotted this over at Zero Hedge: “We’re In Trouble”: Alan Greenspan Delivers Stark Warning Comment from RBS: “[Greenspan] has no axe to grind and no products to sell. He pretty well says it the way it is… And based on his lifetime experiences he should have a pretty good Bravo Sierra filter to prove it.”
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Items from Professor Preponomics:
US News
Economist for the Nanny State (Mises)
Facing Record Oversupply, US Oil Looks for a Home in Europe(Reuters)
International News
Economist: For the ECB, It’s No Longer About Oil (Bloomberg) …and an additional article from The Telegraph tracking developments in the EU on the question of expanding the union to include unified fiscal governance in addition to monetary policy: EU Superstate Would Have No Democratic Legitimacy, Warns EU Architect
UK Hit by “Triple Whammy” as Brexit Looms Over Economy (The Telegraph)
Emerging Market Debt: The Well Runs Dry (The Economist)
AEP:
Brazil’s Ruling Party Aims to Tap Foreign Reserves as Policy Fight Escalates (The Telegraph)
Brazil Recession: I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This (CNN Money
Personal Economics and Household Finance
10 Skills to Survive a World Without Oil (Just Plain Living) Whether the wells run dry, the companies simply stop producing or the price becomes unaffordable, it’s instructive to imagine a world without oil and the skills necessary to live in an environment so different from the one in which we live now that it might seem truly alien. This article includes several good ideas for the diversified low-tech skill building that will be necessary in a world without oil or with more restricted access to oil. The same ideas apply well to other scenarios a well.
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