Statement by President Donald J. Trump on North Korea
The world has received North Korea's latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior. Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table.
Do you feel better now? If so stop reading.
But what will Trump actually do? He is damned if he does and if he does not. China wins either way. Trump's increasingly isolationist "US ALONE" has estranged UN support. His announced trade war with China (which will likely end in real war), in combination with his global alienation of allies has made for the best environment for a test by our erstwhile enemies.
"Government intervention only helps in the direction of the trend" is a phrase we say frequently here. The trend is down for the US. with a weakening USD for both immediate and macro (petrodollar death) reasons. There is little we can do except use our military strength while we still have it. If we do not now, we may be fighting a civil disruption in the future.
Countries like Venezuela wish they could start a war to distract its citizens from domestic issues. The US can, and we think will escalate whether it wants to or not. A thousand little wars are not enough apparently And that will accelerate our trend downward.
Trump is not the reason for our fall from grace, but he is currently a catalyst for speeding it up. He will force things to a head or by his behavior enable others to do the same. And frankly, we are grateful for his pulling the curtain back on our idiotic leaders both domestic and internationally. In the mean time, hedge all risk with one asset. The chameleon known as Gold. It is money, political barometer, currency, portable, a commodity and more.
Keep it Simple
What Gold lacks in its ability to perfectly hedge any specific risk, it more than makes up for in its broad coverage of the sum of all varieties of fears. it is a hedge against the folly of man. There is no ETF for that yet.
Gold is the catchall of true macro risk known and unknown. And it is $550 under its all time high of 6 years ago. Do you feel better off than you did in 2011? Then stop reading now.
Gold is right now the best barometer of everything wrong with the world. And it is just beginning to be perceived as the catch-all it is. Where else can you hedge inflation, deflation, political uncertainty, stock exposure, real rate risk, and idiocracies than in Gold? Nothing captures all the varieties of risk tied to the follies of man like Gold does.
Whereas Gold used to be an imperfect hedge for anything, it is now a perfect hedge for everything that can and is going wrong. Tailor made products for every conceivable risk have been touted for decades to great success by slick marketers who cannot brand physical Gold. Yet they end up being overly complex and cancel each other out frequently. And we are seeing that now.
The buying power of everything man made is dropping slowly but inexorably. The credibility of mankind's judgment is on trial now.
While sheeple wait for the gaggle of new ETFs that perfectly hedge everything from NK Nukes, ISIS, Iran, Trump, and Pension Crisis fears; smart people are just doing what they have been; holding a piece of their net worth in Specie, whatever risk it is they fear.
What Gold lacks in its ability to perfectly hedge any one issue it more than makes up for in its broad coverage of the sum of all varieties of fears.
Gold 5 Day Chart- No inflation, interest rates rising, yet here we are.
chart updates HERE
Witness the mess we are now in..
This is What You Get
Trump is not an exception. He is the culmination of decades of a dumbed down LCD government playing to the base instincts of its people. Reap it. He is the result, and if he survives he will be here for 4 more years. The alternatives are slick liars. Trump represents (poorly) our resentment to that. There will be a reset and it will likely be by the voters who continue to vote for Alt- Pols in lieu of the same processed shit we've been fed for years. Trump represents terrifying change, but at least its change.
This is clearly to us a trap meant to provoke the worst demons inside Donald Trump's mind. To him, we fear this is a gift to mine more chaos from the situation and distract the US citizenry from his other never ending dramas. We are reminded that a fight is usually lost when the first punch is thrown in global politics.
Is North Korea, and by proxy China, baiting Trump into rash action? And to be fair, provoked or not, the threat is real now whether partly our President's fault or not. Are we to abandon our Japanese allies who are feeling an increasing existential threat from the Chinese controlled PRNK peninsula?
Congratulations Mr. Trump, whatever the outcome, your need to be center of attention has won you the day in spades now. What will you do to save face while standing your ground against this test of resolve?
If cooler heads prevail, it will be Trump tooting his own horn on rescuing us from a trap he flung us into. North Korea is a threat, but one that was more interested in defensive arms until its "fearless" (idiotic narcisist) leader encountered someone with an even larger more fragile ego than himself. Either way, Trump's own narcissistic behavior demands ever increasing attention.. and he got it.
Here is Bill Blain opining on just that a week ago
"North Korea Is Waving A Red Flag In The Bull’s Face. What Will Donald Do?"
Written by Bill Blain of Mint Partners
Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge – August 23rd 2017
“Out on the road today, I saw a deadhead stick on a Cadillac.. A little voice inside my head said, “Don’t look back. You can never look back.””
Interesting start to the last week of summer: a nasty dose of considered North Korean provocation, disbelief at what Hurricane Harvey is doing to Texas, handbags betwixt UK and EU on “negotiating seriously” over Brexit, and all these before we even get a whiff of this week’s EU data and US payrolls on Friday. I won’t even bother about Jackson Hole last week – yawn – we’ll talk about Central banks come September.
The market reaction to the latest North Korean missile flight tells us everything we need to know: Risk Off. Equities wobble, gold up, bond yields down and gold higher. Markets understand the reality: the Trump Jump is now well and truly over – Treasury yields are right back down there, the dollar is down 10%, stock markets have gone short, yet the US populace. But if there was a snap election tomorrow….. Don’t even think about it..
Deliberately firing a missile on a trajectory over Northern Japan sends clear messages from the Kim Jong Un regime: 1) we are able to do it, and 2) but, we didn’t fire it in the direction of US Guam. Although the ballistics would have been well understood (ie it wasn’t going to hit Japan), it ratcheted up the fear by triggering alerts. It demands a US response – which will keep markets on tenterhooks. Firing the rocket from a site near downtown Pyongyang’s airport also sends the US a clear challenge about limits on what a “measured” response might mean.
So much for the Northerners wanting to negotiate – as the Americans were telling us just last week. You’d almost think the N Koreans were trying to wind up Trump?
Exactly.
They are waving a red flag in the Bull’s face to force a reaction. The S Koreans have already sent a couple of bombers to aggressively practice bomb drops – calm and measured. What will Donald do? After last week’s “Fire and Fury” rant, the N Koreans are expecting him to fulminate, look stupid, make some further angry comments – in short more bluster. They will continue to goad him into doing something “angry”… at which point America gets the blame, and China can step in as peacemaker.
Exactly how this plays out is going to keep markets guessing. Add it to the general head-shaking re US market prospects.
Be long Gold held in a place you can get your hands on it if need be.
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