Discover, the credit card company, sets the benchmark, with a âcontagionâ risk number of 0. JPMorganâs contagion index number is a freakishly large 426. The top 5 banks...
â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â April 3, 2023 |  [View Online]( |  [Sign Up]( A Wall Street State of Mind âThe credit default swap was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was a machine that turned lead into gold.â â Michael Lewis, The Big Short Dear , âMuch of the current banking chicanery couldnât take place without fiat currency in circulation in lieu of real money,â writes reader Bill M, echoing a point from our Demise of the Dollar playbook.  âHaving currency with intrinsic value in circulationâ or having the legal right to convert paper dollars into whatever notion of value is backing the monetary systemâ this forces discipline on the banking system, so that the value of the money remains about the same until the backing is removed.â Billâs email hit our inbox at an opportune time. We spent this past weekend going down the rabbit hole of the Treasury Departmentâs âbanking systemic risk monitor.â Sounds like a boatload of fun, eh? Party at the Wiggin household! POWERED BY WEALTH365 CONTINUED... The Treasuryâs Office of Financial Research (OFR) publishes, among a myriad of other data, the largest banks required to carry additional capital to counter outsized risks on their books. The OFRâs âcontagion indexâ calculates a bankâs âconnectivityâ with other banks, their net worth and âoutside leverageâ in order to determine how bad things would get if said bank were to get whacked by, say, rapidly rising interest rates. Note: The contagion index is limited to US banks, so doesnât include a whopper like Credit Suisse getting bought out for pennies on the dollar by UBS. Discover, the credit card company, sets the benchmark, with a contagion risk number of 0. JPMorganâs contagion index number is a freakishly large 426. The top 5 banks on the OFRâs raginâ contagion radar: JP Morgan Chase: 426   Citigroup: 288 Bank of New York Mellon: 207 State Street: 198 Bank of America: 135 Regulators require each of these banks to keep 3.5% of their capital on hand for any crisis situation. Two notable banks stick out to me, however, aside from the big five. Charles Schwab, whom we noted last week has been downgraded and is losing depositors at a panic rate, only has a contagion index number of 1. Silicon Valley Bank, which quickly became the poster child for the Banking Crisis of 2023, has a contagion index number of 22. Makes you wonder whatâs going on behind closed doors at the big bank houses, eh? POWERED BY PORTER & COMPANY RESEARCH CONTINUED... âThe super-rich owners of corporate America,â our correspondent Bill M, continues his wax philosophic, â...They want fiat currency to be printed in excessive amounts to increase business activity in general and government squandering in particular. Their fiat profit distributions are then invested in hard assets like precious metals, real estate, collectables and what not.â Mr. M continues: Remember the big banks are part of corporate America and are owned by the same super-rich families, also known as âthe establishment.â The big banks are selling gold and silver contracts short to depress their prices so that the major owners of corporate America and the central banks (same owners) may accumulate precious metal at prices well below what they should currently be. â[The wealth management industry does not exist to make you wealthy]( Porter Stansberry noted in this weekâs Wiggin Session, âit exists to make them wealthy.â âEven 25 years ago,â Porter says, reminiscing on how we got started in our chosen metier, âI saw that the people who were the clients of major investment banks like Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch were oftentimes very poorly served.â Porter: I'm not trying to disparage everybody. There were certainly very many good people at that firm [Merill Lynch], like there were very many good people at Morgan Stanley. Iâve known many of them over the years. But there was always an inherent conflict. Those banks made their money primarily by serving the people who were selling securities. And the customers, our subscribers, my friends who were successful in business or in medicine who would entrust these people with their savings, they truly didnât understand that. Porter provides a good look behind the scenes at what motivates those of us in the financial newsletter business. âOur customers did not understand that the companies that they were withâ the people they saw advertising at the golf tournaments, the brands they saw on top of tall buildingsâ they thought the purpose of those firms was to serve investors. And of course, as you know, itâs not.â The purpose of those firms is to serve corporations who are listing securities. Wall Street as âa state of mindâ meant to me that we have an obligation to our readers. We don't have a legal fiduciary duty, but I've always believed that we had a moral and ethical fiduciary duty to do what we could to even the playing field for those people. Those folks are going to spend $100 or $1,000, or sometimes more, $5,000 with us. And they're doing so because they trust us more than they trust those firms. And we have to do a good enough job to be worthy of that trust and to help them succeed. If you havenât already, The Wiggin Session with Porter is worth a listen. You can do so on the [www.wigginsessions.com]( website, [right here](. We also provide the transcript, if youâd prefer to read. So it goes, Addison WigginÂ
The Wiggin Sessions P.S. Reader Bill M also attached a letter he wrote to then President Donald Trump in 2017 reminding the president of his responsibility to the U.S. Constitution. Congress is given the right to âcoinâ money and regulate its value, he writes. Thatâs a right they have effectively ceded to the Federal Reserve, a private institution. âAs we know from monetary history,â Bill writes to Trump, âmonetary collapse is a natural consequence of unbacked fiat currency, and starvation is a natural consequence of monetary collapse. You talk about fake news and many of your supporters talk about fake campaign promises but no one is discussing our fake money. Next to sex, money makes the world go around and our dollar is intrinsically worthless.â Bill didnât say if Mr. Trump ever wrote back. POWERED BY WEALTH365 The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. By submitting your email address, you consent to The Wiggn Sessions delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions, feel free to [click here.]( Please read our [Privacy Statement.]( For any further comments or concerns please email us at feedback@wigginsessions.com. If you are having trouble receiving your The Wiggin Sessions subscription, you can ensure its arrival in your mailbox by [whitelisting The Wiggin Sessions.]( © 2023 The Wiggin Sessions 808 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21202. 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 expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security they personally recommend to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after online 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. Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( Consillience, LLC, Saint Paul Street, 808, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, United States