An elegant flimflam

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( An Elegant Flimflam By Bill Bonner Thursday, May 20, 2021 [Bill Bonner] YOUGHAL, IRELAND – The super-rich must be the loneliest, most miserable people on the planet. They are in a class by themselves… separated from the masses by nearly $32 trillion. That’s the difference between what the top 1% of Americans own and the wealth of the bottom 50%. And the 1% knows something the rest of humanity doesn’t: Even a billion dollars won’t make you happy. Easy Come, Easy Go But getting big money fast is still a thrill. Think of all the young people who were suddenly enriched after Satoshi Nakamoto invented bitcoin in 2009. Crypto hustlers and speculators saw their “wealth” increase from nothing to $2.5 trillion. Of course, it can be breathtaking on the other side, too. At one point this week, crypto investors were on their way to losing $1 trillion. Easy come. Easy go. Recommended Link [Massive Moneymaking Opportunity Coming?]( [image]( Master trader Jeff Clark has an urgent opportunity. If you’re willing to try something new, he believes you could make bigger percentage gains in the coming months… than you have in the past several years. [Get the details here – including the name of the #1 stock you need to be ready to trade]( -- Stimmy Scam Here at the Diary, what interests us is not how much or how little money a person has, but how it comes and goes. Whether a man earns $5 or $5 million hardly matters. If he earned it from an honest, win-win deal, he should be proud of it. A bricklayer… or auto salesman… or even a lawyer… can hold his head up. He earns his money. But what about the man who just got a stimmy check that he neither earned, deserved, nor needed? Somewhere deep down, he must know the whole thing is a scam. That is the problem with most rich people, too. They’ve gained trillions in filthy lucre. And now, they pretend that they earned it. But a few know the truth – it was stimmy money! [Featured: New Investment “Craze” Hits All 50 States]( Stimmy Wealth Over the last 12 months, almost all the world’s economies were partly shut down… GDP growth turned negative… Sales were off (in leisure and hospitality industries, they practically disappeared)… Profits fell… And millions of people were prevented from working. Yet, [as we reported yesterday]( in this same Plague Year, billionaires gained some $8 trillion in a 12-month period (up until April of this year). How was that possible? Did they add $8 trillion worth of products and services? Did they invent whole new industries? Did they find ways to increase the happiness of their fellow humans by $8 trillion? No, of course not. What really happened? It was stimmy in the morning, stimmy in the evening, and stimmy at suppertime… Central banks increased the money supply, worldwide, by $9 trillion. And the super-rich copped 88 cents of each dollar. Recommended Link [How Will Great Reset 2021 Affect You?]( [image]( You’ve likely heard about a “Great Reset” being planned the world over… How elites want to usher in big changes… New “green deals”… “fair” pay for all… and how this could even lead to [bank balances being wiped out]( And Jeff Brown has just released a new video to connect all the dots… [Click here to view this important video now.]( -- Public Scam Let’s just look at the last 20 years. When the 21st century began, the top 1% of Americans owned about $12.5 trillion in assets. The bottom 50% owned about $3.5 trillion. Today, the top 1% has assets worth nearly $39.5 trillion – more than three times as much as in 2000. And the bottom half has about $7.5 trillion – just over double what it had 20 years ago. Meanwhile, U.S. GDP – a very rough approximation of the goods and services being traded – doubled in those two decades. It went from about $10 trillion in 2000 to $22 trillion today. So, the top 1% saw its wealth increase by more than twice as much as GDP… and by nearly seven times as much as the lower 50% of the population. That new wealth can be seen in the market averages. The Dow, for example, ended 1999 at a bubble high of 11,497. Now, it is about three times higher… while the aforementioned output of real wealth – GDP – only doubled. And we can see where this new “wealth” – both in the Dow and in the pockets of the top 1% – came from. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet (the monetary foundation of the dollar system) stood at only $600 billion at the end of the 1990s. Now, it is over $7.8 trillion. In an honest economy, wealth is earned before it is spent. In a dishonest economy, wealth is never earned at all. It comes from scamming the public. [Featured: Biden, Elites Set to Roll Out Elites’ “Great Reset” of America]( Elegant Flimflam And here, we back up to look at the basics so we can understand it all better. The real goal of government is to protect the people who control it – their property, their status, and their power. An elite always controls the government… and naturally tries to use it to gain more power and money for itself. In this regard, the stimmy program is the most elegant flimflam ever devised. No new taxes to annoy the voters. No heavy borrowing to drive up interest rates. Instead, the feds “print” the money and transfer it to the most privileged parts of the society – Wall Street, Washington, the rich, big business, the well-educated, the education/health/military complex, the cronies, and the well-connected get trillions... ...all while claiming to be helping the little guy by “saving jobs,” “stimulating” the economy, and “making sure it has the liquidity it needs.” And surprise, surprise! Most of the money ends up with… are you ready for this?… the elite themselves! Recommended Link [[URGENT] MAJOR BUY ALERT]( [ad_img]( Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. That’s 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all… It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last “investment of the decade,” is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. [See Teeka’s top pick…]( Another Problem And now, wouldn’t you know it, they have another problem to solve – inequality. Thanks to all the stimmy, the top 1% now owns 31% of the nation’s wealth. The top 10% have 70%. Something must be done, say the elite, to level it out. And wouldn’t you know it again… they’ll address the problem as they do all the problems they create – by bringing in their big bulldozer… and pushing more money and power… over to themselves! More to come… Regards, [signature] Bill --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=An Elegant flimflam). --------------------------------------------------------------- MAILBAG Dear readers give their thoughts on Wednesday’s Diary, “[Jeff Bezos: Policy Failure](... and one explains the value of Austrian economics... You forgot to include the key comment about money – it doesn’t buy happiness, but at least it allows you to choose your own kind of misery. – Stephen M. There once was a joke going around that if all economists were laid end-to-end, they could not reach a conclusion. I amended that idea in my presentations to make a point… that if all economists were laid end-to-end, it would be a right, good thing! After I graduated college and joined the real world of corporate business, I began my own self study to find out if there were any economists that made logical sense. I discovered the Austrians and their subjective theory of value, and the impossibility of measuring and quantifying gazillions of voluntary human tractions. Thus, they stuck to known economic truths and so have I. On the farm, we often say to get the hay down where the calves can eat it. I have not bothered to read anything other Austrian thinkers ever since. The rest is simply political claptrap. – John H. Love your column. Hate to get all religious but I put my trust in who has proven to be trustworthy – it ain’t Bezos and it ain’t money. Keep pouring on your refreshing doses of reality in a world that increasingly looks more like some ghastly video game! – David T. Does money “allow you to choose your own misery,” as Stephen believes? Write us at [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=An Elegant flimflam). IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… [Time Sensitive Message About Investing]( Forget options! Because there’s a NEW way to trade. - It can pay far more than stocks… - Trades can cost as little as 1¢… - These special trades can multiply as much as 529 times… - Warren Buffett made $12 billion with the idea behind this technique… - These trades can shoot up lightning fast – sometimes in weeks or even days… One of these odd trades even shot up 183% in one day! Our readers saw the chance at gains as high as an extraordinary 5,100% with one 19¢ trade. Again – this is NOT options trading. [Here’s the full scoop on this weird way to trade.]( [image]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Get Instant Access Click to read these free reports and automatically sign up for daily research. 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