Biden and Powell: Two Old Men in a Hurry

Neither of them is out of the woods yet. But they’re praying for a bit of luck. [The Rude Awakening] February 08, 2023 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Biden and Powell: Two Old Men in a Hurry - Biden’s State of the Union speech was as divisive and partisan as expected. - Powell’s remarks affirmed things he’s already said. - Biden and Powell are two old men running out of time. [Download My New Survival Guide Today!]( I’ve created a BRAND-NEW “2023 Crisis Survival Guide” that I’m making available to all of my Strategic Intelligence readers today. This short 54-page document has everything you need to know to protect yourself and your family in times of crisis. Things like what foods to stock up on now, staying safe during periods of rioting and looting and more. Inside I break down all of the coming threats you face and how to prepare. [>> To see how to download your copy, click here now](. [Click Here To Learn More]( [Sean Ring] SEAN RING Happy Hump Day from a suddenly freezing Piedmont! I’ll keep today’s Rude short, as much of the “news” isn’t news at all. It’s really two men praying they get to the finish line before they get found out. “Beware an old man in a hurry,” goes the old political saying. It means that when an aged man with a messiah complex hears the ticking clock, he’ll move heaven and earth to get the job done. He’ll brook no denial nor argument. Why? Because he thinks he’s the only person who can get the job done. And that describes Biden and Powell to a tee, though Powell is a decade younger. But they’ll need a lot of luck to get their jobs done. Which reminds me… New Jersey, Autumn 1988 When I was a freshman in high school, my home team of Hasbrouck Heights traveled to St. Mary’s of Rutherford to play one rainy Saturday afternoon. I don’t know why, back then, towns had this penchant for building their football fields next to rivers. I hated St. Mary’s and Bergen Tech for doing that. Because every time we played them away, I would come home covered in goose shit. You see, the geese floating in the river would take a break - and a dump - on the nice flat football field. As the pristine quarterback, my goal was to get home from every game stainless. On this day, it wasn’t meant to be. I’ll skip the details and get to the end of the game. It was 4th and a mile from our own 40-yard line with a few seconds left on the clock, and we were down by 1. My coach called a “Pro Y,” which sent the receivers long. I could barely grip the football, as my hands weren’t all that big, and the ball was covered in muddy water. I sighed and called the play in the huddle. Honestly, I thought, “There’s no way…” I called the signals and dropped back to pass. As I was about to get sacked, I shotput the muddy football over the linebackers. Then, I got “high-lowed.” That’s when two defensive players get the quarterback. One knocked my legs out from under me. The other hit me across my shoulders, sending me headfirst into a puddle of mud and goose shit. I remember it getting into my mouthpiece. Yuck! I can taste that goose shit as I write this. I rolled over, out of the puddle, and just waited for my coach to chew me out. Reluctantly, I looked up. My coach was nowhere to be seen. Confused, I searched for my teammates. They were in the end zone. My shot put found its way into Frankie Milano’s arms, and he ran 50 yards for the game-winning touchdown. I raised my arms in victory as if I meant to do that. The thing was when I threw the pass, my eyes were closed. I tell you this because I’m convinced Joe Biden and Jay Powell are hoping for the kind of luck I experienced 34 years and 100 pounds ago… Biden and His SOTU I won’t recount all the details of Biden’s nonsensical address last night. Suffice it to say, Biden creates in his head his own reality that he’s hoping becomes our actual reality. And he’s got two years (or less, if the Dems have him whacked over the classified documents) to get that done. Biden thinks he’s the “jobs president” because of the last two years. In 2021, employers added a record 6.74 million workers to nonfarm payrolls. In 2022, the economy added another 4.50 million workers. But 22 million workers were let go in the early days of the 2020 government-mandated private sector shutdown. So, I’m not sure why he’s taking a victory lap. Wages were up 5.2% in 2022. But since inflation averaged 7.1% over the same period, real wages are down. (Real = nominal minus inflation) And income inequality has risen. [SJN] Credit: [Bloomberg]( The Rich (90th percentile above) got richer, while the bottom 10% got much poorer. With numbers like these, Biden has a job to do in the next two years. As for this Fed Chair, well… [[CHART] Could Inflation Hit 20%+ In 2023?]( Take a close look at this scary chart pictured here… What you see is the money supply in America… And as you can see, the number of dollars in circulation has exploded in the last few years. In fact, more than 80% of all dollars to ever exist have been printed since just 2020 alone! Which is why some say inflation could soon explode even higher than it is now, to 20% or more. And if you’re at or near retirement age you must take action now to protect yourself… otherwise you risk losing everything. [Simply click here now to see how to survive America’s deadly inflation crisis](. [Click Here To Learn More]( Powell and His Remarks Again, there are no surprises here… except the market’s reaction to Powell’s remarks. Since the beginning of the hiking cycle in March 2022, Chairman Pow has told us precisely what he will do. And he’s signaling more of the same. From [The Wall Street Journal]( A government report Friday that showed hiring accelerated in January was “certainly strong—stronger than anyone I know expected,” Mr. Powell said Tuesday during a moderated discussion before the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. “It kind of shows you why we think this will be a process that takes a significant period of time.” The process of lowering inflation to the Fed’s goal of 2% “is likely to take quite a bit of time. It’s not going to be, we don’t think, smooth,” Mr. Powell said. “It’s probably going to be bumpy.” The expectation that inflation “will go away quickly and painlessly…is not the base case,” he added. “The base case for me is that…we’ll have to do more rate increases, and then we’ll have to look around and see whether we’ve done enough.” From that, I take a couple of things that aren’t new. First is that the Fed isn’t done hiking. I expect another 50 bp hike at the March 21-22 FOMC meeting. Second, rates will stay elevated longer than the market admits. But that’s something we’ve expected for a while. Third, while the market is happy-go-lucky bullish now, we need to be prepared to turn around on a dime. I worry that the full force of the rate hikes hasn’t kicked in yet. [SJN] Credit: Bank of England The Bank of England thinks an official rate hike takes 9-12 months to affect total demand. And then, it takes another 9-12 months for that total demand move to affect inflation. That means the March rate hikes have only started to filter through the economy. And the rest of the hikes haven’t even started yet. Remember, companies heavily in debt will need to refinance at a higher rate soon. That may not be a pretty sight. Wrap Up Two old men are in a hurry. Two old men are relying on some luck, though they’ll never admit that. Beware the two old men by planning accordingly. Before I go: I will write about bailouts and bail-ins in tomorrow's Morning Reckoning and what you can do to avoid them. It should be in your inbox around 9 am ET. If what I’ve written today makes you worried about your cash, you ought to read it. Have a wonderful day ahead. All the best, [Sean Ring] Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening In Case You Missed It… The Cost of Risk and Earthquakes [Sean Ring] SEAN RING Good morning on this bright and sunny Tuesday from Asti. One of the advantages of living in Asti, one I hadn’t considered before, is that this city doesn’t shake. I grew up in New Jersey and spent ten years in London, six in Singapore, three-and-a-half in Hong Kong, and three-and-a-half in Cebu. [SJN] Credit: [Nat Geo]( Of all those places, only Singapore and Cebu are in an active earthquake zone. (Technically, Hong Kong is just west of the Ring of Fire.) I remember a little rumble we had in Cebu, which [I wrote about last August](. In Singapore, the lightning strikes were far scarier. ([Singapore had the highest lightning density worldwide in 2021]( accounting for 163.08 lightning events per km2.) But that’s what you get when you build skyscrapers where a rainforest should stand. Earthquakes in the Collective Memory Horrific natural disasters, in general, and earthquakes, in particular, get seared into our collective memory. Whether it’s word-of-mouth or through reading or pictures, those stories get passed down from generation to generation. It’s as if our forefathers gained immortality by using various methods to warn us about our potential mortality. Voltaire authored a Poem on the Lisbon Disaster in 1755 after the Great Lisbon Earthquake that destroyed the city. Then, in Candide, he continued to pillory those “all is fine” philosophers like Leibnitz because Voltaire thought they were idiots. In Candide, Dr. Pangloss represents all those optimistic philosophers Voltaire despised. Read this passage, where Voltaire exposes Pangloss as the Anabaptist gets thrown overboard: The kindly Anabaptist picked himself up and tried to rescue him, but in the effort to do so, he was thrown into the sea and drowned in full view of the man he had saved, who let him perish without even giving him a look. Candide came up at this moment and saw his poor benefactor appear for the last time and then disappear forever. He wanted to throw himself off into the sea after him, but Pangloss stopped him, pointing out that the Tagus approach to Lisbon had been created on purpose for this Anabaptist to be drowned in it . . . Jack London was far less flowery with his wording when [he described the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906]( The earthquake shook down in San Francisco hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of walls and chimneys. But the conflagration that followed burned up hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of property. There is no estimating within hundreds of millions of the actual damage wrought. Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories and a fringe of dwelling houses on its outskirts. Its industrial section is wiped out. Its business section is wiped out. Its social and residential section is wiped out. The factories and warehouses, the great stores and newspaper buildings, the hotels and the palaces of the nabobs, are all gone. Remains only the fringe of dwelling houses on the outskirts of what was once San Francisco. Our great earthquake and tsunami combo was in Japan in 2011. But I was only there for the aftershock. [Urgent Notice From Paradigm CIO Zach Scheidt!]( [Click here to learn more]( Hi, Zach Scheidt here… I’m the Chief Income Officer at Paradigm Press. With inflation raging (and showing no signs of coming to an end any time soon), almost everyone in America is feeling the pain in a big way. Which is why, several months ago, I set out on a big mission… my goal was to create a [complete, step-by-step plan to surviving and beating inflation]( one that anyone could take advantage of. Today, after hundreds of hours of research, I’m revealing all of my findings. [Simply click here now to see how to survive America’s deadly inflation crisis](. [Click Here To Learn More]( Tokyo, 2011 About a month after the horrific Fukushima earthquake, my company sent me to Tokyo to teach some recent graduates from Barclays bank. I was slightly nervous about going, as we still weren’t sure about any radiation leaks from the power plant. But I jumped on the plane and headed up to Japan, nonetheless. After I landed, I checked into the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi. All was well. I taught the next day without incident and headed back to the Grand Hyatt to change and get some dinner. I walked into my hotel room. I heard squeaking, as if some mice were eating cheese in the corner of my room. Then, as if my subconscious were warning me, the little hair I had on the back of my neck stood up. Mice weren’t squeaking. The building was squeaking… and swaying from side to side. It wasn’t violent—just a gentle sway, like a hula girl dancing on a beach at dusk. Being a Joisy numbskull, I ran for the elevator, which is the worst thing you can do. But as the Japanese have all sorts of earthquake controls, the danger had already passed, so I could descend the floors. I went to the concierge. “Was that a…?” “Yup.” “Thought so…” And I went straight out the door to the Hobgoblin Pub down the road and drank until I was calm. A year later, Pam and I were in Japan on holiday, and we met a grammar school friend of mine and her husband. Mio had moved back to Japan before high school, but we chanced upon each other on Facebook. “I’ve been through many earthquakes, but that was the scariest by far,” she said of Fukushima. The amazing thing to me was that not a single skyscraper fell over. Turkish Fright and Syrian Seriousness Besides the Ring of Fire, which takes in both Tokyo and San Francisco, Turkey (now Türkiye) and Iran suffer earthquakes fairly often. This earthquake and aftershock combo that just hit Turkey and Syria has inflicted horrendous damage. As of writing this morning, the death toll has just passed 5,000. Five thousand seven hundred seventy-five buildings have collapsed. I’m not going to post any pictures directly, but if you [go to Twitter and search under #Turkey]( you’ll be staring at the videos, jaw on the floor. And there are heartbreaking pictures of children getting rescued, so be warned. I thought, “Why don’t the Turks hire Japanese engineers to build their stuff?” It’s not an entirely fair question. The seismic conditions, climate, soil conditions, and building practices in Turkey may differ from those in Japan, so Japanese methods may not be appropriate. But still. I’ve visited Turkey many times, and I love the place. I’ve never been to Syria, but I’m sure Damascus is amazing. I don’t want to see buildings fall and people killed because of lax building standards. Risk Mitigation If you’re from New Jersey and buying earthquake insurance, I’d say you’re over-insured. That is, you’ll never get a payout that exceeds your premiums. That’s because the earthquakes you get in New Jersey are tiny tremors. They’re not the city-destroying whoppers you get in San Francisco. With that said, if your city is in an active earthquake zone, all buildings built within city limits ought to be constructed to a higher standard. This includes stricter regulations on building materials, construction techniques, and foundation engineering principles. You can’t depend on all property owners to be Apple. Sure, Apple is flush with cash. But what’s more important is their attitude toward risk. Since Apple is based in Cupertino, California, protecting its new headquarters from earthquakes was essential. And from Sir Jony Ive’s standpoint, an ounce of prevention was worth the pound of cure. From [The New York Times]( One of the designers of the building was Jony Ive, the man who was responsible for the look and feel of Apple products such as the iPhone and iPad. A native of Britain, Mr. Ive said he found the threat of earthquakes “utterly alarming” when he moved to California in the 1990s and was surprised by the Californian nonchalance toward them. Mr. Ive said he and Mr. Jobs never considered using a conventional foundation for the building. “We would have seen it as utterly bizarre not to protect our investment,” he said. I won’t go into detail about the foundation. But, incredibly, Apple’s new headquarters isn’t nailed to the ground. Read the rest of that Times piece to find out more. Wrap Up Earthquakes happen. They’re a fact of life. But like many natural disasters, we can reduce their consequences with some forethought and investment. Hopefully, not many more people will die to get that message through. Until tomorrow. All the best, [Sean Ring] Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2023 Paradigm Press, LLC. 808 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21202. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your Rude Awakening e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Rude Awakening, feel free to [click here.]( Please note: the mailbox associated with this email address is not monitored, so do not reply to this message. We welcome comments or suggestions at feedback@rudeawakening.info. This address is for feedback only. For questions about your account or to speak with customer service, [contact us here]( or call (844)-731-0984. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized financial advice. We allow the editors of our publications to recommend securities that they own themselves. However, our policy prohibits editors from exiting a personal trade while the recommendation to subscribers is open. In no circumstance may an editor sell a security before subscribers have a fair opportunity to exit. The length of time an editor must wait after subscribers have been advised to exit a play depends on the type of publication. All other employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication or 72 hours after the mailing of a printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended in this letter should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company. Rude Awakening is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. Please read our [Privacy Statement.]( If you are having trouble receiving your Rude Awakening subscription, you can ensure its arrival in your mailbox by [whitelisting Rude Awakening.](