Stock Market Black Monday Crash, The BIG ONE? It Doesn’t Matter

Market Oracle ^ | 8-24-2015 | Raul_I_Meijer

[blam]

Raul_I_Meijer
August 24, 2015

After losing 11% last week, Shanghai this morning was down almost -9% at one point, after lunch went back up to -6.5%, and ended its day at -8.49%. A Black Monday for sure, but is this the BIG ONE? It really doesn’t matter one bit. Unless perhaps you persist in calling your self an investor, in which case we pity you, but not for losing your shirt. Because God knows we’ve said enough times now that there are no functioning markets anymore, and therefore no-one who can rightfully lay claim to the title ‘investor’.

Plenty amongst you will be talking about economic cycles, and opportunities, and debate how to ‘play’ the crash, but all this is useless if and when a market doesn’t function. And just about all markets in the richer part of the world stopped functioning when central banks started buying assets. That’s when you stopped being investors. And when market strategies stopped making sense.

Central banks will come up with more, much more, ‘stimulus’, but what China teaches us today is that we’re woefully close to the moment when central banks will lose the faith and trust of everyone. After injecting tens of billions of dollars in markets, which thereby ceased to function, the global economy is in a bigger mess then it was prior to QE. The whole thing is one big bubble now, and we know what invariably happens to those.

More QE is not an answer. And there is no other answer left either. Those tens of trillions will need to vanish from the global economy before any market can be returned to a functioning one, and by that time of course asset prices will be fraction of what they are now.

(snip)

[glorgau]

> Will you tell us when it hits bottom?

Tomorrow morning at 11:35:33 EST. Go all in - bet the farm - borrow against your family grave plot... ;-)

[ctdonath2]

That’s a concise version of #20.
Effective way for the government to give a lot of newly-printed fiat money to some very rich people.

[ctdonath2]

Agreed, major tax reform is necessary.

Beware seductive solutions that involve the federal government monitoring every single purchase. Don't think that information won't get mined for all kinds of abuse. (Ex.: You buy a soda with your credit card. The FairTax percentage is added. The product, a recognized health hazard, is assessed a surtax. Your verified name, being on your CC, is cross-checked with the Obamacare records. Tagged as borderline diabetic, you're assessed additional tax to pre-cover predictable health expenses.) Remember, Income Tax as we know it used to be a 6-line form.

Best tax reform: federal government issues each state a bill for its fair share of federal revenue. Two guys working 4 days a year, issue solved. Let the states decide how to raise tax money, and throw their weight at federal spending.

But I digress from the thread.

Why have taxes at all, if the feds can just print money and route it to cronies via stock market interventions?

[factoryrat]

Your fair tax/flat tax idea falls flat WHEN the powers that be call for a greece/EU type “buy in”, and simply confiscate your wealth and hand it over to the same entities that wrecked the market in the first place.

Beans, bullets, and the national bank of seeley are safe bets. If you don't have your wealth in your possession, then you'll probably lose it, or have it confiscated at gunpoint by the government.

Never underestimate the ability of a corrupt government. History will prove that out, time and time again.

[RayChuang88]

While I mostly agree with you, I've actually communicated via email with a number of those stock market "bear" prognosticators and they ALL agree with me that major tax reform is needed, especially with that problem of (by some economic estimates) US$15 TRILLION in liquid assets held by Americans sitting in non-US banks--a level of liquid if brought back to the USA to put in American-based banks and the US equities markets would turn around our economy faster than an F-22A Raptor doing a sharp turn. :-)

[factoryrat]

There's a HUGE difference between taxation and confiscation. Holding money offshore may not be enough. The feds have the ability to twist the arms of foreign governments to get what they want (see Switzerland as an example).

Once the socialists, marxists, and oligarchs of the world unite (a scenario being playing out now), any wealth not in their hands is at risk of being confiscated at the point of a gun.

Like I said, this very same scenario has played itself out many times in history. This time is no different.

[RayChuang88]

Once the socialists, marxists, and oligarchs of the world unite (a scenario being playing out now), any wealth not in their hands is at risk of being confiscated at the point of a gun.

What, they're going to raid every Caribbean island nation? Many of those island nations have large sums of liquid assets sitting in offshore financial centers and given their banking secrecy laws that are tighter than even Swiss law, it'll be kind of hard to grab that money.

[factoryrat]

And those Caribbean nations can stop the US feds how exactly?

The swiss buckled to the IRS and the fedgov, the Caribbean countries will fold like a cheap suit under fed pressure.

The only safe accounts are those of fed bureaucrats and their business cronies. Everyone Else's money is fair game.

Don't forget, when the fascists take over the US, anything goes, and nobody is safe.

[cherry]

for years here on FR, we've had a brigade of rich elitist apologists....that the rich "deserved" it because they were the "producers"....the "risk takers" and all the rest of us had better just shut up and accept that we are just inferior....

so that bull is finally being exposed: the rich elite are rich elites because they have RIGGED THE SYSTEM to protect them at all costs...

and we wonder why our little mutual funds in our little retirement accounts get whacked all the time, why we can't get more than 1%on our savings, and why our taxes keep getting jacked up higher each year....

[sergeantdave]

“any wealth not in their hands is at risk of being confiscated at the point of a gun.”

Right. The fat affirmative action jellyfish squatting at their federal desks will set down their jumbo bottles of pop, shoulder a rifle and waddle out to die on a hilltop for the glory of Obuma.