United States

Submitted by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

This definitive sign of a currency collapse is easy to see…

When paper money literally becomes trash.

Maybe you’ve seen images depicting hyperinflation in Germany after World War I. The German government had printed so much money that it became worthless. Technically, German merchants still accepted the currency, but it was impractical to use. It would have required wheelbarrows full of paper money just to buy a loaf of bread.

Seemingly angered at the temerity of Apple's Tim Cook's defense of individual's privacy and security, Congress has escalated the 'crypto-wars' that are dividing Washington and Silcon Valley. In its most directly totalitarian move yet, WSJ reports that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R., N.C.) is working on a proposal that would create criminal penalties for companies that don’t comply with court orders to decipher encrypted communications.

Just as we first warned in September 2013, so it seems the view of "helicopter money" being imminent is now becoming more mainstream as the powers that be slowly propagandize the benefits.

If dropping interest rates to zero was Unorthodox Policy #1 and QE was Unorthodox Policy #2 then it seems very possible Helicopter Money will be Unorthodox Policy #3. Whether this new level of expansionism, with all the hopes and theoretic power it is supposed to hold, can generate growth of the red-hot rather than lukewarm kind remains to be seen.

 

Yesterday, one of the best-known providers of energy market intelligence thanks to its massive private and patented network of land, sea, and satellite monitors, Genscape, held a webinar titled the "Current state of the global oil market" in which it covered all the core aspects that investors in the oil space find concerning, among which the following:

Expanded Version: The US Economy Has Not Recovered And Will Not Recover

Paul Craig Roberts

The US economy died when middle class jobs were offshored and when the financial system was deregulated.

Jobs offshoring benefitted Wall Street, corporate executives, and shareholders, because lower labor and compliance costs resulted in higher profits. These profits flowed through to shareholders in the form of capital gains and to executives in the form of “performance bonuses.” Wall Street benefitted from the bull market generated by higher profits.