Nightmare on Main Street

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( Nightmare on Main Street By Bill Bonner Monday, June 8, 2020 – Week 13 of the Quarantine [Bill Bonner] SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – It was like waking up from a bad dream. As if the last 90 days had never happened… …No COVID-19… no lockdown… no 20 million job losses… no market crash… no $3 trillion in new money-printing… no $4 trillion budget deficit… …and no president retreating to an underground bunker… and then fortifying the White House like the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad… Whew! For a while there, we thought the Indians had us surrounded here at the Little Bighorn. But on Friday, we opened our eyes… and thank God, the nightmare had come to an end… Recommended Link [Urgent briefing goes live 10 am on Wednesday]( [image]( Exclusive Opportunity If you like the idea of seeing 816% in just 24 trading hours, this update may prove more valuable to you than any other idea this year. This research proves this is so powerful, believe it or not, you may never need to buy another newsletter ever again. This is a time-critical opportunity. It will last for 24 trading hours only. And it won’t be suitable for everyone. So please [click here to automatically register your email immediately]( to make sure you don’t miss this urgent briefing. [We strongly suggest you watch this at 10 am ET on Wednesday]( -- Two Systems There, in the headlines… everything was back to normal. The Dow, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, bonds… all just as we left them in February. Birds were singing in the trees, restaurants were full of diners, the sun was shining… even the price of oil was back up to $40. And in the seven hours of trading time from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., ET, on Friday, June 5, 2020, an investor with $100,000 in Dow stocks made $3,150, or $450 per hour. [Strange Activity Detected In Secretive Layer Of Stock Market.]( But wait. In that same time, a waitress in Tennessee (whom we will introduce later) would have made $91… if her restaurant had not been shut down by order of the feds. One country. Two systems. One of those systems is open for business, and – thanks to “whatever it takes” in new money from the Federal Reserve – is “recovering” nicely, thank you very much. But the other? The people who have to work for a living. The people who don’t own stocks. How are they doing? Recommended Link [A new type of Civil War is erupting in America]( [image]( It’s not between the political parties. And it’s not between the states and Federal government. But this battle will DEFINITELY affect you and your money over the next few years. You have to choose which side you’ll be on – and you have to decide now. [Porter Stansberry explains here]( -- Biggest Miss Ever According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2.5 million working stiffs got their jobs back in May. Economists had estimated 7 million job LOSSES for May. Instead, the BLS says there were 2.5 million job GAINS. Bloomberg explains: Economists have biggest miss ever in U.S. Jobs-Report Shocker Really? Do you smell something fishy, Dear Reader? Could the private sector economists who keep their eye on these things have been off by more than 9 million jobs? Or was there something wrong with the BLS numbers? Most of the recovered jobs were in the hospitality and leisure sectors, they tell us. But most hospitality and leisure businesses were still shut down in May. How was this possible? That was Friday… On Saturday, The Washington Post reported: A ‘misclassification error’ made the May unemployment rate look better than it is What? The BLS has 2,500 employees. Didn’t even one of these statisticians notice that the numbers were fouled? Apparently not. And then, it gradually came out that the BLS is not looking at real numbers of actual people with actual jobs. Instead, it relies on “models” – much like the models used to project the number of people who should die from COVID-19… or the way the Earth should heat up from CO2 discharges. [This top financial expert just returned from a private meeting with members of the Senate Financial Services Committee…]( It’s not counting tombstones, in other words; it’s just guessing how many people don’t feel well. Recommended Link [A Sneak Peek Inside Apple’s 5G iPhone?]( [image]( 5G will really kick off on September 22. That’s when Apple is expected to release their first 5G iPhone. Details are scarce. But this [video]( gives you a sneak peek at what’s inside. And there’s one piece that’s critical to these phones. Silicon Valley’s top angel investor, Jeff Brown, thinks one company behind this piece could be… [The No. 1 tech stock of 2020]( -- Real World What do we really know about unemployment in the USA? Again, here’s The Washington Post: Economists said the big takeaway is that it’s hard to collect real-time data during a pandemic and that while the unemployment rate remains high – likely more than 16 percent – it has declined a little from April. So what’s really going on in the workaday world? Colleague Tom Dyson is driving with his family from southern Florida to Alaska. This has him passing through the Heartland… “flyover” country… where people live in the economic system, not in the financial system. Last week, for example, Tom stayed with a woman named Sherry, who rents out her lawn to passing campers. Tom reports: This woman – Sherry – lost her waitressing job in the lockdowns. She was trying to make a little side money by hosting campers on her property for $14 a night. We were her first customers. “I applied for unemployment benefits,” Sherry said. “It took me three weeks just to get onto the site. It was a dead link for all that time. Then one day, I finally got in and it rejected me. I didn’t qualify because I hadn’t worked enough last year. You needed to have worked for at least six months last year to qualify… or something like that. And I hadn’t. “But I’ve got job applications all over the place now. The problem is that all these restaurants are run by 20- or 30-year-olds. They don’t want to hire anyone who is older. And I don’t have a lot of experience. I mean, I’ve been cooking for 40 years, but not in restaurants.” At her last waitressing job, Sherry drove 40 minutes a day to make $13 an hour. A seven-hour shift would have given her $91. Gross. “This area is tough… I was very grateful to have that job.” (Tom’s readers were so moved by his report that many offered to send Sherry money to help her out.) Bad Dream Meanwhile, as if in another galaxy, life in the Wall Street system may be better than ever. At least, that is the implication of the stock market capitalization/GDP ratio. The ratio is a rough comparison of the Wall Street system (stock values) to the Main Street system (GDP). And using the Wilshire 5000 – which is made up of companies headquartered in the U.S. and actively traded on an American stock exchange – to measure stock prices, the ratio was 1.4 at the very tippy-top in January 2000. Now, it’s 1.5 – a new record high, meaning that the two systems have never been further apart. If you look only at Wall Street, you’d think all that has happened over the last three months was just a bad dream. But in the real, Main Street economy? The nightmare continues. Tomorrow… more about life on the ranch… Regards, [signature] Bill --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to feedback@rogueeconomics.com. --------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURED READS [Second Round of Stimulus in Question After May Jobs Report](. After the BLS released its May jobs report on Friday, politicians jumped at the prospect of economic recovery, cherry-picking positivity. If the numbers are as promising as they suggest… there would be no need for further stimulus action… MAILBAG One dear reader disagrees with [Friday’s]( in which Bill explained the differences between the top 10% of the economy and the bottom 90%... There is no excuse in America to be uneducated or poor, unless one drops out of school or refuses to learn. There are plenty of opportunities in life to start a minimum-wage job and advance if one is willing to give it their best and improve their skills and education. Many people are irresponsible, having children out of wedlock as teenagers, which almost guarantees them a life of poverty. Many people do not have an earning problem, they have a spending problem. No one forced students to take on debt. Many people work their way through college with no debt upon graduation. One can buy used cars instead of a new car, or stop buying a new car every year and being upside down every time they trade. People buy more homes than what they need and are not patient in living within their means; hence, they have huge mortgages. My wife and I grew up in dirt-poor families. Our parents taught us to work hard, make sacrifices (ie. delay gratification), spend our money wisely, get educated, and be the hardest worker at any job. We both learned additional skills while working full time jobs. Instead of wasting our time watching TV, we used the time to have second jobs and/or study to be the best we could be in our chosen careers. We found ways to supplement our incomes besides selling our time for work. We tried other career fields, were willing to be relocated to enhance our earnings, etc. We even failed at starting businesses. We learned from success and failures. We did not feel we were victims when we struggled in life, we just worked harder. We are now part of the 10% and blessed by God. Most people are where they are in life because of many, many poor choices in life. – Joe E. Another reader says Bill shouldn’t refer to the mainstream media in his essays… while another thinks Bill’s analyses are spot on... Bill, I like your writing style. I like what you say. But you refer to/quote The Washington Post and CNN in the article. If you spend more than 10 seconds on those sources, you spent 9 seconds too much. Can’t trust them! Too anti-Trump! – Stanley W. Keep bringing it, Bill! The fact that there are people getting “triggered” by your letters shows that you are on the mark! I love your letter. You make it easy to understand a point of view, even if it is not one I agree with sometimes (I usually do, though). – Pablo C. Are the bottom 90% of Americans struggling financially because of their own poor choices rather than a corrupt system, as Joe believes? Write us at feedback@rogueeconomics.com. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… [Controversial Investor Goes “All In” And Saves His Family…]( He took his money out of the traditional banking system… and placed it–nearly his entire net worth–into a [single investment.]( Friends and readers called him “foolish.” But everything he’s predicted has come true… And his investment is already up $200,000. What did he see that the rest of us didn’t? And what is he saying to do today? [Click here for the full story.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Get Instant Access Click to read these free reports and automatically sign up for daily research. 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