DOW INDUSTRIALS SURGE, UP 600 POINTS IN TWO DAYS.

THE BEAR MARKET IS OVER? (NAH!)

The stock markets worldwide have rallied over the last couple of days. The Nikkei was up thousand points were 7%. Chinese markets were up 3% and European markets are up  3 percent. Is the worst over? NAH! Japan announced its economy in the fourth quarter was down 1.4%. IF China was honest about its economy, it would probably show the same decline. It is now common knowledge that the banks in Europe and emerging nations are in trouble. Some analysts are reasoning that this troubling situation is now discounted in current prices. Deutsches Bank is up 12% today. Are there troubles over? NAH! The Russian markets are up 2.4% today and the emerging markets index is up 1.7% today. Are there troubles over? NAH! American banks have announced that they have more than enough capital to offset any problems with unsecured debt in the oil and material service industry. J.P. Morgan is up 8% today. Are there troubles over? NAH! Banks have built up their assets on the backs of the middle class. In cooperation  with the Federal Reserve, interest rates are at virtually at zero, penalizing savers and retirees and weakening the middle class  as banks make huge profits from consumer who pay high rates on credit cards and small businesses on loans. Because banks can borrow at almost nothing, whatever they charge above zero is pure profit. Auto and mortgage rates are 3% or 4%, industrial  loans are between eight and 12% ( down 11% this year)and credit cards are anywhere from 15% to 29%.This is  high-way robbery and this is weakening middle-class consumers, small businesses and retirees, with the result, as I have said many times,’All boats will sink!’, Also, As I have said several times this year, I didn’t expect my downside objectives to be met all in one or two months. In my opinion, the downside is yet to be played out and this rally will probably end up to be no more than a dead cat bounce!

I don’t tell the market what to do. The market tells me what it is doing. On Thursday the Dow Jones industrial average broke its August 25 low of 15,666 by closing at 15,660. This was the last major index or average to not break below August lows. All major indexes and averages have now broken below the August 25 lows and are officially in a BEAR Market.

FOUR NEW BOOKS and ONE CLASSIC TO READ

• The Age of Stagnation by Satvajit Das. This book explains the failures of central banks to stop an economic and financial catastrophe. His solution is austerity, which seems unlikely to happen
• The Only Game in Town by El-Erain. He believes that central banks cannot avoid a financial catastrophe with monetary policy alone and needs fiscal policy to aid the economy. With Republican Congress, this does not seem possible.
• Dark Money and the rise of the radical right, by Jane Mayer. This book explains how economic growth is unsustainable if eighty people own 50% of the world’s wealth and 1% of people own more than the 90% of wealth in the US. (dah!)
• The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab. This book shows what a wonderful world of technological wonders awaiting us once we get through this economic and financial catastrophe. Here the only problem is, once Artificial Intelligence has access to unlimited knowledge in the cloud and is able to reproduce itself, silicon intelligence will not need us. However, that’s a problem for another day.
• Don’t’ forget the classic THIS TIME ITS DIFFERENT by Carmen Reinhart: It tells the story of eight centuries of Financial Folly. Each time after a catastrophe, such as the Great Depression or 2008, economists agree that it could never happen again. Who could be so stupid as to let six banks control 70% of the US assets (to big to fail) and allow all the economic growth to go to the 1%, while eighty people own 50% of the worlds wealth? NAH!

 

2/12/16 THREE MAIN REASONS FOR THE DECLINE

My forecasts for 2016 call for the Dow Jones Industrial average to be as low as 14,688 to 12,000, the NASDAQ to be as low as 4,506 to 3,000 and the S&P 500 to be as low as 1,560 to 1,400 because of three factors.!)

1)As If oil prices continue lower, as the charts show ($17-19), countries like Russia (markets down 80%, Venezuela (ALMOST BANKRUPT), Nigeria (oil 90% of government revenue) Brazil (politically corrupt), Iraq ISSIS), Mexico , etc. and even Saudi Arabia could have problems with their sovereign debt. States like North Dakoda, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas depend on higher oil prices to support their State budget. In addition, approximately 10% of the S&P 500 are made up of companies that depend upon higher energy prices and natural resource prices. These corporations have issued hundreds of billion dollars of debt, which may default, if oil prices and commodity prices stay at these levels. The banks hold these bonds and more speculative derivatives than ever.  I believe the Canary in the mine are bank stocks, particularly  Deutsches Bank (DB),now, $15.57 (down 4%), down from a high of 52.  Deutsches Bank has approximately $7 billion of sub-prime automobile loans, many on Volkswagen. Bad debt, in my opinion, will lead to a banking crisis larger than we had 2008. That is because in 2008, the government was willing to bail out the banks with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. This time, Congress is in no mood or politically structured to save the banks and the Fed is out of bullets and hold trillions of dollars of high-yield bonds that they purchased during quantitative easing. They can’t stop deflation. That’s why European banks and now the Bank of Japan banks offer interest rates below -0. Once again, Greece, Italy and Spain are all in trouble! Watch out below!

2)  For the last twenty years all the income growth has gone to the top 1% in the US and in the World only eighty people own 50% of the wealth (they won’t stop until they get the other 50%). I conclude, that on a worldwide basis, a consumer oriented and market oriented economy is unsustainable under these circumstances. Those that have an ideology of a libertarian and are saying they are pro-business, free markets, less taxes and less regulation, I believe are naturally motivated by greed and are causing  unstabilizing forces between capital and labor.Richard Fink, chief strategist for the Koch’s family, was quoted in a recent article in the New Yorker Magazine saying, “We want to decrease regulations so we can make more profits. We want to cut government spending so we pay lower taxes.” In my opinion, corporations are not individuals. If they are, they are sociopaths! I conclude, that the balance between capital and labor has been tilted in such a way, that it is unstabilizing US and world economies and that all boats could sink.

3) What has gone on in Flint Michiganis both scary and typical of what is going on in our country. The Republican governor cut taxes by billions of dollars for the high income 1% and corporations, and then cut the budget for the poor and public. To save $15 million, they changed the water system to allow dangerous lead into the homes of Flint Michigan residents. What he did was criminal and in my opinion should be put in jail. He has endangered the health of hundreds of thousands children, for which there is no remedy. Flint Michigan residents are primarily poor and are mostly African-American. Why are they being ignored and marginalized? They don’t write the checks for the governor. Since Citizens United, that declared corporations are people (If they are people, they are sociopaths), most changes in government are dictated by donors and election contributions. Everyone agrees that we need to spend on US infrastructure .However, A recent Princeton study has shown that public opinion has no effect on the outcome of an issue in Congress, whether there is 0% approval or 100% approval, the line of accomplishment is flat-lined. ‘Donor power,’ has taken over the rights of ‘We the people’.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
Mr Birkelbach does not offer investment advice, but merely his own personal opinion. This report has been prepared from original sources and data we believe reliable but make no representations as to the accuracy or completeness. Mr.Birkelbach , his affiliates and subsidiaries and/or their officers and employees may from time to time acquire, hold or sell a position in securities. Past performance is no guarantee of future success. Upon request, we will supply additional information. CarlBis@aol.com