Posted on 04/17/2017 8:06:15 PM PDT by Wolfie
Prognostication: Here It Comes
I claim no special power here, nor any inside information. This is simply arithmetic coupled with logic. I'll give you a "decision tree" sort of format with the critical points outlined.
Note that if you're going to mitigate any of what I see coming around the bend you need to do it right damn now, not wait. By the time you get to those critical points it's too late. For many people it's already too late, but if you're not in that batch then you need to make your lifestyle changes today.
I am operating on the premise that the rank corruption that I outlined in the Ticker here will not be addressed. It will not be addressed for the same reason the 17th Amendment will be cited as the reason the American political experiment failed when the book on America is finally closed, as that Amendment permanently removed the ability of the States to call a hard-stop on any expansion of Federal Power they did not consent to. That was designed in to our government by the founders and it was removed intentionally by the 17th Amendment. That balance of power can never be restored absent a Revolution because to do so The Senate would have to literally vote themselves out of a job at a supermajority level which they will never do and there is no means to compel them to do so.
For the same reason the 30-year trend in Medicare and Medicaid spending will not be stopped. It may be tinkered with around the edges but it won't be stopped because to stop it without literally throwing people into the street and letting them die you have to break the medical monopolies and in doing so you will inevitably (1) destroy the graft machine that drives a huge part of DC and at least half of the jobs inside the Beltway, along with the asset values they support, (2) create an immediate and deep (15% of GDP, but temporary) recession on purpose which neither Congress or Trump will ever voluntarily initiate as it would cause a guaranteed 70% stock market crash along with the immediate detonation of about 1/3rd of all in-debt corporations in the United States and (3) expose the outrageous theft of trillions of dollars from taxpayers over the last several decades to fund the medical scam machine at all levels.
The latter is perhaps the most-serious of all since were the people to experience still having health care at 10% of what they were spending before without health insurance and also without the $12,000+ a year they were spending on that worthless "insurance" there is a very real risk that they might lynch the entire set of 535 + 9 + 1 inside the Beltway and all of their associates as the only form of justice for the theft of their funds over the last 30 years that they are able to exact.
Congress knows all of the above. Trump knows too. So does the Supreme Court; after all, Roberts not only rewrote Obamacare (which he had no authority to do) twice but did so into a blatantly unconstitutional format which, incidentally, Congress knew they couldn't do and thus evaded in the first instance (an unapportioned direct tax, which is directly unconstitutional.)
The only reason they would ever take this issue on is if it was their only alternative -- if the risk of not doing so was higher. Since it's literally impossible to get as few as a hundred people to show up in DC and raise hell for a single day on bank bailouts, say much less the medical scams, there is exactly zero risk to Congress, Trump and the rest of the Government from sticking up the middle finger to the American public on the issue of true Health Reform -- as they have been doing for the last 30+ years.
Therefore, on the math, we have roughly 5 years before the US Federal Government will attempt to spend $2 trillion a year between Medicare and Medicaid annually, $600 billion more on a yearly basis than it spends now. It may try to forcibly shift some of the Medicaid spending to the States (as the AHCA did) but the bottom line will continue to expand at its ~9% annualized rate.
That cannot be financed.
It is mathematically impossible to do so, and thus it will not happen.
If the government tries to "print" it (via Fed machinations) doing so will further depress productivity which will go negative from its already-suppressed levels (as a result of the last ten years of deficit spending) and at that point GDP collapses and so do asset prices and tax revenue.
So they won't do that either because unlike in 2007 when the total between those two programs was $830 billion they can't get away with it at nearly three times the price.
What they'll probably do instead, therefore, is unilaterally and sadistically cut people off.
If you're one of them you will either suffer, die or (probably) both and they'll target those who are both fat and sick figuring, quite properly, that you'll be physically unable to do anything about it.
The low-hanging fruit, where a full 25% of the spending happens today, is on Type II diabetes.
If you're Type II diabetic you're ****ed, in short. You better fix that if you can, right now.
If you're overweight and especially if you're obese you had better fix that too, right now, because that has a very high probability of leading to Type II diabetes.
It is my prediction that this is where they'll target first.
Fortunately, if you do it before you get abruptly cut off you probably can either massively mitigate the care you require as a result of that condition or regain sufficient blood sugar control to not be diabetic at all, and you do so at zero cost. Right here, right now.
But most of Americans won't.
Within a couple of years of the cutoff 10 million Americans will die as a result of their refusal to act today.
In a couple more that count will be 30 million.
And all of them will die horribly.
Along with them will go the housing markets and credit related to it as population shrinks for the first time in American history and massive oversupply rears its head.
Right behind that will be the rest of asset prices.
This will be the "dip" that won't come back.
The worst part of it is that this doesn't end the problem, it only delays the worst of it by another 3 or 4 years. Market recognition of that, when it occurs, will finish the economy and asset prices off.
And maybe our form of government.
You're welcome -- now are you going to do what you can to stop being one of the dead?
That is the only remaining question because we've already answered whether or not you'll do whatever is necessary to stop the corruption in DC generally and in the medical field specifically -- and that answer is no.
America has a Federal Reserve, that can literally create money, buy up government debt in massive amounts, and manipulate interest rates to zero, as they have done for 8 years during Obama’s reign.
They will open the spigots to keep government running.
The question is how long the rest of the world accepts the world’s reserve currency being debased at an increasing rate.
Can’t touch entitlements. Entitlements are going to kill us all.
What’s the author’s track record; what percentage of his predictions have come true?
Karl’s a really really smart guy.
And if you listened to him ten years ago, you missed the stock market tripling, almost quadrupling.
Every day I gaggle with a bunch of guys who missed out on lost about .75 millions as a result of our “attention” to Dennigerism.
Take it for what you will.
He needs to be blaming Obama, Nancy Pelosi, et al - THEY created the disaster of Obamacare - all other things notwithstanding.
And set in motion this beast - and he’s correct about the traitor John Roberts.
FDR: confiscated gold and swindled millions
LBJ: took the silver out of the dime, quarter ,etc.
Nixon (Note how only Democrats are affectionately called by their initials.) shut the gold window.
Anyone who knows what money is has known since 1933/1965/1971 (i.e., with increasing certitude) that hyperinflation is inevitable. Fortunately for the swindlers, virtually no one can think his way out of a wet paper bag.
So if the sky is going to fall in roughly 5 years we sell our houses in 4 years and use the proceeds to short the market, then cash out, gather massive quantities of weapons and ammo, steal a yacht and become pirates on the high seas.
The end will be more of a whimper than a bang. Most of Europe is much farther along this path than we are.
The fact is, health care is both easier and harder than it used to be. A young person can walk into an ER for the sniffles. An older person may very well get no more than a shrug for a condition that is treatable, and in a couple of European countries a trip to the doctor could end in their execution.
Liberals are hell-bent on politicizing medicine, because just like in everything else they believe they are qualified to play God.
The clueless, the watch das blinkn lighters, the texters...
The absolute morons that have no clue to copy pictures, images, whatevers off a device by plugging its USB into a REAL computer...and think they have to “forward it” to some cloud feces, instead of just copying it directly...and those absolute morons that us Icrap that requires Icrap to copy files from their device...
I say KMA and good luck MoFo’s.
I respect Karl, but do not consider him anywhere near a guru on overall economic theory. If I remember right, he doesn’t consider gold/silver a store of value.
Consider that we haven’t gotten to the last chapter of the stock market yet, so while you might be excited right now, you could be very unhappy with how it all ends, when little green pieces of paper, digital ticker tape screens, or ATMs, lose all value.
Our problem is that we do not take a long view of history, and we tend to see only our little slice of time, then make assumptions that it will never happen again, without long-term perspective, and a knowledge of history.
Like “Alfie, it’s only for the moment we love”, so we then miss “what’s it all about, Alfie”.
This mind set is what is wrong with our present culture, in my humble opinion, and it is why we have racked up debt that our children and grandchildren have no hope of paying. We live for the moment, la dolce vita, like grasshoppers.
Economic and social collapse is our bleak future, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it. Trump can’t do it, even though I wish he could. The debt problem we face is a wall we cannot climb, even if we dramatically increase productivity.
I am so sad that my children cannot see how quickly all they take for granted will crumble into a distant memory.
A very thought provoking piece.
Utter nonsense.....
http://www.healthcostinstitute.org/files/HCCI%20Diabetes%20Issue%20Brief%205-7-15.pdf
Diabetics paid 3.5 times more out of pocket than non-diabetics in 2013, largely for branded products. (see figure 2) The two largest groups of diabetics are those under 18 and pre-Medicare adult males (55-65).
Cost in 2012 was about $250billion “in direct costs and lost productivity”, with youth under 18 accounting for the largest increase.
(Things to consider: By the time diabetes type 2 is diagnosed, the individual may have lost somewhere around half of their insulin producing capability. Certain ethnic groups are more prone to diabetes than other ethnic groups. Some type 2 diabetics are thin. For pre/post Medicare, genetics and the male and female ageing process are major factors.)
Ok, so the only ‘bad type 2’s shame on you’ we can realistically target are those under 18. So, let’s go over to SNAP - $73 Billion in 2012, or $4 a day. About half of SNAP households have children. The CBO projects about the same expenditure in 2022, adjusted for inflation, about 23% less than in 2011. (not including school lunch programs)
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/04-19-SNAP.pdf
Seems to me if you are going to reduce the medical costs without hitting up the Feds, you’ll need to increase state taxes to double the protein food budget for indigent kids. And teach the parents how to shop for and cook a healthier version of an ethnic recipe. EBT cards already record everything a recipient buys; why not datamine to target those who appear to need help planning a balanced weekly menu. We send people to driving school, why not cooking basics? Might have a better success rate. (Of course, this doesn’t address the larger group of kids on their parent’s insurance who don’t answer to the state).
Thanks for the links.
Call me old-fashioned, but I suspect that there are indeed a number of ways in which to compel senators to vote as suggested. A few vivid examples may have to be made before they relent, of course. Eggs/omelet (all hypothetical, o'course).
The question is how long the rest of the world accepts the world’s reserve currency being debased at an increasing rate.
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Correct. It is all about the world having faith in the American economic system and the health of it’s economy.
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