That was the week that was

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( That Was the Week That Was By Bill Bonner Monday, November 15, 2021 [Bill Bonner] BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – Our Doom Index gauge is now at 8… which is “Crash Alert” territory. On Friday, we all dutifully assembled for the ceremony… We pulled the old, tattered, black-and-blue crash flag out of storage, ran it up the pole, and saluted solemnly. Now, we’ll see what happens… Crash Alert (Again) Here are the details on the latest Doom Index reading from our research department: We created the Doom Index to sound the alarm ahead of the next crisis. It tracks 12 key indicators to detect when there’s stress in the economy and markets are overheating. [For more information on how we calculate the Doom Index reading each quarter, have a look at our [Introducing the Doom Index]( report.] The chart below shows our Doom Index levels by quarter. The red bars indicate a reading of 8 or higher. That’s when we raise our “crash alert” flag and tell investors it’s time to prepare for a market crash. Crash Alert We raised our “crash alert” flag at the end of Q2 2019, when the Doom Index hit 8. We stayed in the “Danger Zone” for the next four quarters. Economic conditions improved slightly in the second half of 2020, as evidenced by our Doom Index reading dropping to 7 for Q3 2020 and Q4 2020… before shooting back up to 8 – crash alert territory – in Q1 2021… and then dropping back to 7 in Q2 2021. Our recent Doom Index reading – based on the Q3 2021 data – is 8… [image] So we’re raising our tattered “crash alert” flag once more… You’ve been warned, Dear Reader… [For a full breakdown of the indicators we track for the Doom Index and their Q3 2021 readings, [click here]( Recommended Link [Meet S.C.G.: The iPhone Killer]( [image]( According to Microsoft engineer Alex Kipman, “Smartphones are yesterday's news. The phone is already dead. People just haven't realized.” And it’s all thanks to the device inside this black box… A new technology that’s projected to grow 4,572%…. Enough to turn just $5,000 into almost a quarter-million dollars. [Click here to see it in action.]( -- Good News And before plunging ahead into this week’s kookiness, let’s look back at what a marvelous time we had last week. When it comes to fraud and fantasy, we can’t remember a stretch of seven days so densely packed. First, stocks hit another new all-time high… with the Dow trading above 36,400 and the Wilshire 5000 over 48,900… And a new record for the stocks-to-GDP ratio, too – over 200%. Elon Musk ran a [Twitter poll]( and determined to sell $7 billion of his own stock… which caused the company’s value to go down by as much as $235 billion… It was as if the entire annual GDP of Portugal had been erased. Meanwhile, a potential Tesla competitor, Rivian (RIVN), went public. The company has hardly any sales. And it has no profits – in the very-competitive market for pickups, it probably never will. Still, that didn’t stop the gamblers. They acted as if the profits were already in the bag… and drove the share price up to about $130… giving the company a projected market value above $110 billion. That’s billion, with a b… which is a lot of money for a company that lost $2 billion from the beginning of 2020 through June 2021… and that produced fewer than 350 vehicles in September-October. (GM’s market cap is $92 billion… with more than 1.7 million vehicles sold so far in 2021.) [Featured: Introducing: The 3-Stock Retirement Blueprint]( Crypto Record Monday was a very busy day in FantasyLand, with the total value of the crypto market punching through the $3 trillion ceiling. But unlike Rivian, which might someday make a profit and pay a dividend, crypto is a whole new asset class. It is no industry. There is no product. No sales. No profits. No company picnics or swag. Like chips in a casino, cryptos provide a service, however. You can gamble with them… cash them in… spend them… share them with your friends. And who knows… They might become even more valuable. Bad News Not all the news was celebratory, however. Last week also brought us two big break-ups – GE and J&J. These are real companies, in the real world, selling real products to real buyers. We don’t know much about Johnson & Johnson… but we recall when GE was riding high. Its CEO then was Jack Welch, feted as perhaps the greatest businessman in America. Welch took the company from $74 billion in sales in 1980 to $224 billion in sales by the end of the century, and was named “Manager of the Century” in 1999. Even then, we were suspicious. We’ve run a business, too. And in the late 1990s, when we learned that GE was buying new businesses at the rate of, on average, one a week, we knew it would not be long before the company started sliding down the slippery slope. It takes a lifetime to master even a single business. No matter how smart GE’s team was… there was no way it could make that work. And in the event, it didn’t. The many acquisitions increased GE’s debt and distracted its management. Sales fell. By last year, it was back (inflation adjusted) below where it had been 40 years before. And on Tuesday, GE announced that it was de-conglomerating itself into three different businesses. Sic transit gloria edisonia. Recommended Link [[URGENT] Wait and You Could Be Too Late]( [image]( 2,175%... 4,181%... 7,677%... 13,335%... and 30,900%... These are the explosive returns of cryptocurrencies in 2021 alone. If you missed out, you still have time left… If you act now. According to Teeka Tiwari, the man voted the #1 Most Trusted Crypto Expert… We are quickly approaching what could be the most important — and profitable — event in crypto history. Teeka calls it the “Final Countdown.” And it could be [your LAST CHANCE to capture the biggest potential crypto profits.]( [Watch Teeka’s Urgent Video Now.]( -- Really BIG News But the week’s [really big news]( was the inflation rate. The Federal Reserve had said inflation was [transitory](. But now… there it is… getting worse, month after month. And so, the Fed admitted that inflation might be with us for a while, but still insisted that the “factors” behind it are transitory: Inflation is elevated, largely reflecting factors that are expected to be transitory. As for the rest of the White House, and The Washington Post… they decided to try to [divert attention]( from the real cause (too much government spending… too much money-printing) onto “supply chain disruptions,” “price gouging,” and market “manipulations.” The White House, and several economists, even suggested that more infrastructure spending would boost output and thereby lower inflation rates. [Featured: A message from Jeff Brown on the hottest investment in 2021]( Remarkable Pledge And finally, there was the United Nations COP26 Climate Change Conference in Scotland… wherein executives, politicians, apparatchiks, busy bodies, and “green” lobbyists and hustlers – 503 of whom were linked to the oil industry – came together. Yes, Dear Reader, the greenwash flowed like the Niagara. Old, withered businesses sent out glossy new leaves. Politicians turned the color of unripe bananas. And greasy roughnecks looked as though they had just gotten off the ferry after a rough ride! Everyone was the planet’s best friend… and all pledged to do their utmost to save it from the dreaded CO2. And yes, they made the most remarkable pledge since Adolf Hitler promised to keep the Reich going for 1,000 years. They said they were going to change the world’s weather. Not “a wee bit,” as they might say in Glasgow, where COP26 was held. But precisely… to the fraction of a degree. The U.N. said it was looking for an upper limit on average temperature increase of 2.2 degrees Celsius. The International Energy Agency said it thought warming could be limited to 1.8 degrees. And they agreed to keep the upper limit of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels “alive.” Recommended Link [Time Sensitive Message About Investing]( [image]( 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]( -- New Week And so now… with our Crash Alert flag proudly flying above the headquarters… and so much folderol behind us… …we put our head down… venture into the new week… and prepare to laugh. Stay tuned. Regards, [signature] Bill --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=That was the week that was). --------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURED READS [America’s “Great Resignation” Gains Momentum]( total number of people leaving their jobs rose by 164,000 in September to a record-high 4.4 million. Some workers are leaving their jobs to pursue work-from-home options during the pandemic, as others look for better pay… [Green Investing Is a Trend in Motion]( ESG trend (environmental, social, and governance) has hundreds of billions of dollars making way for electric vehicle infrastructure… clean energy… and so much more. Find out what “green warrants” Casey Research is tracking and recommending… MAILBAG Dear readers have mixed opinions about Greta Thunberg and climate change from[Bill’s earlier essay this week]( As against St. Greta, we have St. Bill who doesn’t “claim to know,” but, of course, insinuates throughout his whole piece that he does. Or at least compared to Greta, the Joan of Arc of climate change. Because Greta took a yacht across the Atlantic, she must obviously be wrong about climate change/warming! Could that be a red herring? And because there has been warming and cooling over thousands/millions of years, when there was no CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, etc., does it follow that the present has no need to worry – or to try to do anything – about something (fossil fuels) that wasn’t there before and the Earth still survived? No one ever did anything in the past and here we are, thriving because of fossil-fueled progress protecting us from “nature’s hissy fits” and being told that, given a long enough perspective, things are no worse than usual where “usual” is a few million years. And maybe “global warming is a good thing.” (Hello? Still waiting for the reasoning on that one.) Getting back to Greta, look what happened to Joan of Arc: She got caught in a dust-up between the French and English and ended up being burned. So, Greta’s “religious fervor,” that like Joan of Arc, which gives meaning to her life, must be equally misguided and irrelevant to the world climate situation. CO2 worse in the past? Evidence please. – John K. Meanwhile, others share their opinions on [climate change]( and one dear reader suggests Bill run for public office… I think we are affecting Mother Nature. It stands to reason since the world’s population has tripled since I was born 73 years ago. The previous tripling took 158 years. Logically, 7.8 billion people have to affect their environment. The plan to correct the problem is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. One dear reader awhile back suggested that we give the planet back to the indigenous peoples. Saint Greta and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seem to agree with that solution. My question is: Who decides which 10% of the current population gets to continue living? We can’t feed 7.8 billion people without using fossil fuels… – Steve B. Climate change, like most of our problems, are often best understood in the rear view mirror. Meanwhile while we are waiting, sell the hell out of it if you are for it, not much different from our recent idiotic wars, we can always regret it later. Thanks for keeping us all looking at these things, whatever our persuasion. – Michael C. Our planet’s situation: Why don’t all of you naysayers go check out real data done by scientists on global warming? Some people don’t want to know or care to know. They might learn something that would be helpful to our environment and have to change some of their ways of doing things… Sad and destructive. Many scientists have given warnings over the years, but people prefer to do nothing. Don’t blame Greta for at least trying. She’s probably smarter and a lot more concerned than any of you (an understatement). Good luck on the next 100 years for you and your family. Maybe living on Mars (or on the moon) isn’t a bad idea after all, at the rate our climate problems are going. – Rosemary L. The elite capitalists love this climate change thing, real or not, because it provides new markets for them to exploit. Some environmentalists are on board with them. The automakers, solar panel manufacturers, windmills… they all think they’re good, green citizens now. Rather than use open space for agriculture and conservation, we plant solar panels on it. Worse yet, we clear the land of carbon-eating trees and plants to build “solar farms.” The once-proud farms that fed our country (and lost money in the process) can now install solar panels, produce electricity, and sell it to the grid. Don’t try to fool the people. Explain the environmental impact involved in manufacturing and implementing these green technologies so people know the true “green effect.” But that doesn’t happen in this country; you get half-truths and the elite version becomes the winner. – Michael M. Bonner has been shedding light on the subjects of economics and politics for more years than most of us would like to remember. Age hasn’t diminished his insite. Could we nominate him for president? Or maybe not… He seems to be of sound mind and that is no longer a requirement for being president. – Boyd K. Does climate change provide new markets for the elite to exploit, as Michael M. says? Does Bill’s Doom Index update make you rethink your financial goals? Write us at [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=That was the week that was). IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… [Retirement funds need a boost?]( “Hi, my name is Jeff Clark, What if I told you there was a way to boost your retirement portfolio fast? And with less risk. Imagine putting $1,000 into the market and getting $2,000 out – not just once, but over and over again. Sometimes in as little as 48 hours. That’s what’s possible when you follow my approach. 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