Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (November 1, 2016)
Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (November 1, 2016) The Dow Jones 30 Industrials Index reached a new nominal high value on August 15, 2016 and this record is still in place – the index remains about 800 points below the record as of November 1, 2016. There is a need to rise above the chatter and the nonsense of the body politic in much of the world and assess where we now are and where we are going in the near future. Much (but not all) of the formerly industrialized world is in decline – this is evident in the per capita GDP rankings which I discussed in last month’s update. The USA is on the cusp of becoming a de facto Third World country. The overwhelming majority of Americans are recipients or so-called “beneficiaries” of a massive socialist welfare state. They are being supported or held up by a tiny minority of Americans who still support the US economy financially, by artificially low interest rates, by artificially high bond prices, by artificially high corporate stock prices, and by an artificially highly valued US Dollar which is still the number one global reserve currency since 1944. None of this will endure much longer. Most of the inland US states already resemble a Third World country – income levels, demographic implosion and real property values (or the lack thereof) reflect this fact. Canada is considerably more affluent and better off than the USA on a per capita basis. Much of Latin America is something of a global backwater – it does not partake in the economic boom currently enveloping much of Asia and Africa. Mainland China has become and will continue to become the ancient global superpower which she used to be. Much of Asia, Africa, the former USSR, Europe…