Alternative Visions – 1500% for them; 0.5% for Us: Bitcoins vs. Wages -12.08.17

Dr. Rasmus goes in depth on the bitcoin mania and the bubble now at more than $15,000 a coin—a 1500% increase in speculative profits in 2017…and rising. What are the determinants and drivers of the Bitcoin mania, the ‘digital tulips’ bubble of today? Rasmus discusses the fundamental causes as blockchain technology and central bankers’ decades of massive liquidity injection into …

Trends This Week – Celente’s farewell show: false heroes, China’s rise and the JFK files – 10.25.17

Global forecaster Gerald Celente, in his last show,  takes prn.live listeners on a globalnomic tour of critical emerging trends: The business of America is war, the business of China is business; there’s no stopping the rise of digital currencies across the globe; the cast of the Presidential Reality Show grows bigger; and a unique insight into the state of the …

BESS LEVIN – FORECLOSING ON A 90-YEAR-OLD WOMAN OVER 27 CENTS AND OTHER HEARTWARMING TALES FROM STEVEN MNUCHIN’S DAYS AT ONEWEST

Since it was announced Tuesday evening that Donald Trump will nominate Steven Mnuchin for Treasury secretary, a lot of time has been spent focusing on the 17 years Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs and whether it should disqualify him for the job. And while some might argue that having Goldman Sachs on your résumé helps qualify a person for this …

BEN WHITE – Bankers celebrate dawn of Trump era

NEW YORK — Christmas has arrived early for Wall Street in the early days of the Donald Trump era. A populist candidate who railed against shady financial interests on the campaign trail is now putting together an administration that looks like an investment banker’s dream. Former Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin has been seen at Trump Tower amid rumors that …

Maya Gold – Top Ten CEOs’ Pay Is an Annual Raise for Half a Million Workers

America, chief executive pay is now 300 times more than the average worker. That’s a high enough ratio that presidential candidates are taking note on both sides of the aisle. Senator Bernie Sanders listed the statistic in a statementsupporting mandated CEO disclosure of salaries, and CEO Trump himself declared that the numbers were “disgraceful.”   However, even on a topic …

Peter Lee – Making Sense of China’s Stock Market Meltdown

I suppose much of the journo commentariat was born since 2008 and therefore has no memory of TARP, Too Big To Fail, or Jamie Dimon rolling around naked inside a gigantic vat of taxpayer money, so there has been a considerable amount of handwring about how the CCP defiled the purity of the stock market by flinging a trillion or so …

The New York Stock Exchange goes down: inside the dystopian aftermath – Molly Crabapple

I wake up from my whiskey stupor to the scent of burning motherboards, and I know that something is wrong. Out the window in New York’s Financial District, two men in torn bespoke suits roast a body over an oil drum. It looks like Thomas Friedman’s, but I can’t be sure. “Brother can you spare a bitcoin?” one screams. In …

Plutocrats torched the economy: Our new Gilded Age & the hollowing out of America’s middle class – ELIAS ISQUITH

You may recall how in 2013 — and then again in 2015 — President Obama tried to give his economic vision a snazzy name, something to compete with “trickle-down economics” in terms of memorability and pith. What he came up with, and has stuck with since, is “middle-out economics,” or sometimes “middle-class economics,” which is supposed to communicate his and …

Retiring Cisco CEO delivers dire prediction: 40% of companies will be dead in 10 years JULIE BORT

Cisco’s giant customer conference, Cisco Live, began Monday in San Diego and was the last time outgoing CEO John Chambers would impart his vision in a keynote speech. And was it ever a speech, filled with fire-and-brimstone predictions. The upshot: Chambers, Cisco’s CEO of 20 years, says more than one-third of businesses today will not survive the next 10 years. The only …

Bond market sell-off signals mounting financial crisis – Nick Beams

The instability of the global financial system and the potential for another crash have been underscored by a major sell-off of government bonds this week. Yesterday saw European markets display levels of volatility not seen since the euro zone debt crisis turmoil of three years ago. In the course of the day, the yield on the German 10-year government bond, …