American Economic Collapse

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jehovahsloyalchild
  • Start date Start date
Dave Bannister said:
Money backed by nothing is just paper and ink. In the US, we've had the advantage of having the world reserve currency. We've been fortunate in that regard. There's no way that we will ever pay back the national debt which is over 38 trillion dollars. Our GDP is just over 31 trillion dollars. The money system has been setup to fail. The question is, when do "they" pull the plug? It could be that they transition to the cbdc. In my opinion, that's when we're finished. At that point, we will be expected to comply to buy and sell or else.
Click to expand...

What we carry around in our pockets "paper and ink" Fiat, is not money. I've not carried much of it around in my pocket since 2000. My transactions are mostly electronic, online or Eftpos.
 
BARNABY THE DOG. said:
Unsurprisingly it can’t be opened over here. Can’t think why.
Click to expand...
Here is what he said

What Yanis Varoufakis Heard in Basel and Why It Matters to All of Us​

Most people still think the global financial system is being managed. That central banks are steering carefully. That inflation, interest rates, and debt are all part of a difficult but ultimately controllable cycle.
That story does not survive what Yanis Varoufakis
says he witnessed in Basel.

Varoufakis is not an outsider guessing from the margins. He is a former finance minister who sat across the table from the European Central Bank and the IMF during Greece’s debt crisis. He knows how these institutions talk when cameras are off and talking points are dropped. So when he says he walked into a room at the Bank for International Settlements and felt panic, not confidence, it is worth paying attention.

According to Varoufakis, what was scheduled as an informal economic consultation turned out to be an emergency meeting. Roughly thirty senior officials from the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and other major central banks were there. The official agenda said monetary policy normalization. The actual conversation was about how close the system is to breaking.

What startled him most was not a single alarming data point, but the tone. These were not people discussing how to fine tune policy. They were people trying to buy time.

One of the first things acknowledged in the room was that demand for US Treasuries is deteriorating far more than the public is being told. Foreign central banks are exiting, but they are doing it quietly and indirectly. They are not selling openly because that would trigger the very crash they are trying to avoid. Instead, they are using intermediaries, offshore vehicles, and disguised currency swaps to mask the scale of the retreat.

This is why official reserve data still looks manageable. It does not reflect reality. It reflects what can safely be disclosed without causing panic.

At the same time, the plumbing of the financial system is starting to fail. The repo market, which underpins day to day liquidity and trust between institutions, is no longer behaving normally. Banks are demanding higher rates to lend against Treasuries, something that would have been unthinkable not long ago. That is the market quietly admitting that US sovereign debt is no longer risk free.

The Federal Reserve is intervening constantly to keep this from spiraling, but even inside the room there was an admission that this cannot continue indefinitely. You can stabilize markets for a while. You cannot suspend reality forever.

Perhaps the most unsettling part of the discussion was how openly capital controls were addressed. Officials from the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank confirmed that emergency protocols are already drafted. These include restrictions on moving money, limits on currency conversion, and coordination on dollar euro swap lines. These are not tools used in healthy systems. They are tools used when authorities expect fear to spread faster than policy can respond.
Then there is the issue almost no one talks about publicly, pensions.

Central bankers in the room acknowledged that pension funds are sitting on enormous exposure to Treasuries. If rates rise another two hundred basis points, they estimate losses in the range of three to five trillion dollars. This is not ideological speculation. It is actuarial math. And there is no clean solution.
They cannot allow rates to rise without detonating retirement systems. They cannot print their way out without accelerating inflation and currency devaluation. They are trapped between two unacceptable outcomes.

What may be most revealing is what they are no longer trying to do.

According to Varoufakis, the conversation assumed that dollar dominance is ending. Not debated. Assumed. The question in the room was not how to preserve it, but whether the transition to a multipolar currency system could be managed without total collapse. Even there, confidence was thin.
Europe, in particular, was described as dangerously exposed. Deindustrialization, energy dependence, and political fragmentation leave it poorly positioned for a disorderly reset. Officials spoke less like defenders of a system and more like administrators of decline.

When Varoufakis asked what might trigger a sudden break rather than a slow unwind, the answer was sobering. It could be almost anything. A failed Treasury auction. A BRICS trade currency announcement. A geopolitical crisis that leads to asset freezes. Or simply cumulative pressure reaching a tipping point. The system is now so fragile that no one can confidently predict which spark matters most.

In private, one central banker compared their role to doctors treating a terminal patient. They can manage symptoms. They can extend time. They cannot cure the disease.

The disease, as Varoufakis heard it described, is a global economic order built on assumptions that no longer hold. Permanent growth fueled by debt. Risk free sovereign bonds. Political obedience enforced through financial plumbing. Once those assumptions crack, interest rate policy is no longer enough.
The estimated timeline discussed in Basel was not decades. It was twelve to eighteen months. Possibly less if certain thresholds are crossed. Rising Treasury yields. Volatile repo rates. Sustained moves in gold. These are tripwires being watched closely.

What should people do with this information. Interestingly, even the officials in the room admitted there is no perfect safe haven. Gold might help, but nothing is guaranteed. Financial instruments themselves may matter less than real world resilience. Skills. Community. Tangible assets. Those were the words Varoufakis heard from people who see the data before anyone else.

The most disturbing part of all of this is not that the system is under stress. Systems always are. It is that the people tasked with protecting it are relying on delay, concealment, and hope.

Hope that no major auction fails. Hope no geopolitical shock forces asset freezes. Hope the public does not notice pension balances shrinking too fast.
This is not a warning about some distant future crisis. It is a description of a crisis already underway, carefully managed behind closed doors to avoid public recognition.

When capital controls appear suddenly. When pensions are restructured overnight. When markets freeze without warning. It will be framed as unexpected. That is simply NOT TRUE.

They saw it coming. They prepared for it. They simply chose not to tell you.
 
Watchman said:
Here is what he said

What Yanis Varoufakis Heard in Basel and Why It Matters to All of Us​

Most people still think the global financial system is being managed. That central banks are steering carefully. That inflation, interest rates, and debt are all part of a difficult but ultimately controllable cycle.
That story does not survive what Yanis Varoufakis
says he witnessed in Basel.

Varoufakis is not an outsider guessing from the margins. He is a former finance minister who sat across the table from the European Central Bank and the IMF during Greece’s debt crisis. He knows how these institutions talk when cameras are off and talking points are dropped. So when he says he walked into a room at the Bank for International Settlements and felt panic, not confidence, it is worth paying attention.

According to Varoufakis, what was scheduled as an informal economic consultation turned out to be an emergency meeting. Roughly thirty senior officials from the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and other major central banks were there. The official agenda said monetary policy normalization. The actual conversation was about how close the system is to breaking.

What startled him most was not a single alarming data point, but the tone. These were not people discussing how to fine tune policy. They were people trying to buy time.

One of the first things acknowledged in the room was that demand for US Treasuries is deteriorating far more than the public is being told. Foreign central banks are exiting, but they are doing it quietly and indirectly. They are not selling openly because that would trigger the very crash they are trying to avoid. Instead, they are using intermediaries, offshore vehicles, and disguised currency swaps to mask the scale of the retreat.

This is why official reserve data still looks manageable. It does not reflect reality. It reflects what can safely be disclosed without causing panic.

At the same time, the plumbing of the financial system is starting to fail. The repo market, which underpins day to day liquidity and trust between institutions, is no longer behaving normally. Banks are demanding higher rates to lend against Treasuries, something that would have been unthinkable not long ago. That is the market quietly admitting that US sovereign debt is no longer risk free.

The Federal Reserve is intervening constantly to keep this from spiraling, but even inside the room there was an admission that this cannot continue indefinitely. You can stabilize markets for a while. You cannot suspend reality forever.

Perhaps the most unsettling part of the discussion was how openly capital controls were addressed. Officials from the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank confirmed that emergency protocols are already drafted. These include restrictions on moving money, limits on currency conversion, and coordination on dollar euro swap lines. These are not tools used in healthy systems. They are tools used when authorities expect fear to spread faster than policy can respond.
Then there is the issue almost no one talks about publicly, pensions.

Central bankers in the room acknowledged that pension funds are sitting on enormous exposure to Treasuries. If rates rise another two hundred basis points, they estimate losses in the range of three to five trillion dollars. This is not ideological speculation. It is actuarial math. And there is no clean solution.
They cannot allow rates to rise without detonating retirement systems. They cannot print their way out without accelerating inflation and currency devaluation. They are trapped between two unacceptable outcomes.

What may be most revealing is what they are no longer trying to do.

According to Varoufakis, the conversation assumed that dollar dominance is ending. Not debated. Assumed. The question in the room was not how to preserve it, but whether the transition to a multipolar currency system could be managed without total collapse. Even there, confidence was thin.
Europe, in particular, was described as dangerously exposed. Deindustrialization, energy dependence, and political fragmentation leave it poorly positioned for a disorderly reset. Officials spoke less like defenders of a system and more like administrators of decline.

When Varoufakis asked what might trigger a sudden break rather than a slow unwind, the answer was sobering. It could be almost anything. A failed Treasury auction. A BRICS trade currency announcement. A geopolitical crisis that leads to asset freezes. Or simply cumulative pressure reaching a tipping point. The system is now so fragile that no one can confidently predict which spark matters most.

In private, one central banker compared their role to doctors treating a terminal patient. They can manage symptoms. They can extend time. They cannot cure the disease.

The disease, as Varoufakis heard it described, is a global economic order built on assumptions that no longer hold. Permanent growth fueled by debt. Risk free sovereign bonds. Political obedience enforced through financial plumbing. Once those assumptions crack, interest rate policy is no longer enough.
The estimated timeline discussed in Basel was not decades. It was twelve to eighteen months. Possibly less if certain thresholds are crossed. Rising Treasury yields. Volatile repo rates. Sustained moves in gold. These are tripwires being watched closely.

What should people do with this information. Interestingly, even the officials in the room admitted there is no perfect safe haven. Gold might help, but nothing is guaranteed. Financial instruments themselves may matter less than real world resilience. Skills. Community. Tangible assets. Those were the words Varoufakis heard from people who see the data before anyone else.

The most disturbing part of all of this is not that the system is under stress. Systems always are. It is that the people tasked with protecting it are relying on delay, concealment, and hope.

Hope that no major auction fails. Hope no geopolitical shock forces asset freezes. Hope the public does not notice pension balances shrinking too fast.
This is not a warning about some distant future crisis. It is a description of a crisis already underway, carefully managed behind closed doors to avoid public recognition.

When capital controls appear suddenly. When pensions are restructured overnight. When markets freeze without warning. It will be framed as unexpected. That is simply NOT TRUE.

They saw it coming. They prepared for it. They simply chose not to tell you.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Very helpful of you.
 
Watchman said:
They saw it coming. They prepared for it. They simply chose not to tell you.
Click to expand...
Varoufakis has been calling out the IMF and ECB since his country was sold down the river. I listened to that account of his time in Basel and was very surprised that the banking establishment would have talked with such honesty in his presence! Of course if they mentioned this doom loop publicly it would trigger a run on the banks. Money of people who trusted the system and paid into pension funds for all their working life. Glad our 401k is in the heavens cannot get a better gilt edge assurity than that.
 
Last edited:
MickHewitt said:
Varoufakis has been calling out the IMF and ECB since his country was sold down the river. I listened to that account of his time in Basel and was very surprised that the banking establishment would have talked with such honesty in his presence! Of course if they mentioned this doom loop publicly it would trigger a run on the banks. Money of people who trusted the system and paid into pension funds for all their working life. Glad our 401k is in the heavens cannot get a better gilt edge assurity than that.
Click to expand...
Repo market is the repurchasing agreement. It failed in 2008 and in 2019. It's where the banks lend each other money over night using treasury bonds. When this back and forth of vital cash fails it causes a melt down. Back in October the Fed paid the biggest amount of liquidity into the Repo mkt. And now they are saying there is no longer any limit to the cash they can inject into this market. Banks don't have enough reserves to lend to one another that's why the fed is needed. If you want to know more check this guy out.
I have followed must be over a score of these Market analysts and the phrase that keeps cropping up is 'We're screwed!'
 
Last edited:
MickHewitt said:
Varoufakis has been calling out the IMF and ECB since his country was sold down the river. I listened to that account of his time in Basel and was very surprised that the banking establishment would have talked with such honesty in his presence! Of course if they mentioned this doom loop publicly it would trigger a run on the banks. Money of people who trusted the system and paid into pension funds for all their working life. Glad our 401k is in the heavens cannot get a better gilt edge assurity than that.
Click to expand...
Well Mick, if it’s anything like Germany post WW1 we will be taking our pension out in wheelbarrows and burning it to keep warm or at most buy a McFats sandwiched between two limp lettuce leafs instead of one of those soft glutinous doughy bookends called a mcbun. You never know, we might get lucky and be able to order a McCat before long, with crunchy claws and suspicious looking “fries”. 🤣
 
BARNABY THE DOG. said:
Well Mick, if it’s anything like Germany post WW1 we will be taking our pension out in wheelbarrows and burning it to keep warm or at most buy a McFats sandwiched between two limp lettuce leafs instead of one of those soft glutinous doughy bookends called a mcbun. You never know, we might get lucky and be able to order a McCat before long, with crunchy claws and suspicious looking “fries”. 🤣
Click to expand...
Have you all watched this:
?

A little worse.
 
MickHewitt said:
I promise to get round to watching it brother thanks it must be worthy.
Click to expand...
Cool. It stuck with me, that's for sure. I think I'll watch it again today given what I've learned here and at eWatchman.com. Kind of nervous though. Will look forward to reading your experience with it.
 
GlennH said:
Cool. It stuck with me, that's for sure. I think I'll watch it again today given what I've learned here and at eWatchman.com. Kind of nervous though. Will look forward to reading your experience with it.
Click to expand...
They took much footage from the 84 Miners strike. Well acted in a realistic style. The ransacking of shops and super markets is exactly what will happen. I honestly feel London will nuke itself to get out of it's unpayable debt. I enjoyed watching it with my Sunday dinner. It was based on a banned nuclear war film in 65 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev29ydrrwzo
 
MickHewitt said:
They took much footage from the 84 Miners strike. Well acted in a realistic style. The ransacking of shops and super markets is exactly what will happen. I honestly feel London will nuke itself to get out of it's unpayable debt. I enjoyed watching it with my Sunday dinner. It was based on a banned nuclear war film in 65 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev29ydrrwzo
Click to expand...
Just finished watching again. I am taking solace in the fact that Jehovah's day will not be late.

Thanks for the article link and background. Brings it closer to home for you, I suppose. I remember the premier of The Day After in 1983 here and, well, 40 years ago, I didn't give it a second thought - more like sci-fi. And yet, look how it's played out.

You have a good sense for things, @MickHewitt. Maybe destruction can be confined to the City of London. This debt cancellation means cancelling the creditors. Maybe?
 
I couldn’t get the link to this post to work but here is a screenshot.


IMG_2752.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top