Issue #14, Volume #1
The Country Is at a Breaking Point… Economically, Socially, and Morally
Three Things You Need To Know Now:
1. September’s “blowout” jobs report was based on incomplete data. Last month’s payroll survey showed that just 62% of businesses polled responded on time, the lowest response rate in 14 years. This is down from 68% last September, and 77% in the average September since 2010. In other words, last month’s report was based on incomplete data… and given that most reports over the past two years have been revised downward as more data is received, it’s likely that this September’s numbers will be revised much lower in the months ahead as well. This is yet another sign that the real economy – outside of areas being propped up by record government spending – is struggling.
2. China, Costco patrons, and Daily Journal subscribers all agree on gold. Global central banks began stockpiling gold at record levels in the wake of the pandemic-era expansion in global money supply. 2022 and 2023 marked the top two years of central bank gold buying on record, led by China. Central banks are on pace for another new record high in 2024. Now, individual Americans are snapping up the precious metal at Costco Wholesale (COST), which began selling gold bullion bars and coins in late 2023 – around $200 million worth per month, Wells Fargo analysts estimate, and stores are having a tough time keeping gold on the shelves. What’s more… on Monday we asked you in a poll whether gold, Bitcoin, or QQQ (Nasdaq’s biggest stocks) will perform the best over the next decade… and 52% of you said gold (37% opted for Bitcoin… and 11%, the Nasdaq 100).
(Buying physical gold is great insurance. Next week we’ll be talking more about a different way to invest in the surging price of gold… stay tuned.)
3. Boeing headed for junk. In January 2023, we told investors to avoid America’s greatest (and most strategically important) mega-cap stock, Boeing (BA), because it would soon “collapse.” A year later, a door blew off a brand-new Boeing 737 in mid-flight, and the Federal Aviation Administration grounded a big chunk of the aircraft manufacturer’s fleet. Since January 2023, the shares have dropped 29% (the S&P 500 is up 42% since then), and things have only gotten worse, as Boeing’s legal troubles have escalated, and some of the company’s workers went on strike. Rating agency Moody’s threatened to downgrade Boeing’s credit to junk… and yesterday, S&P Global Ratings put the company’s debt on negative credit watch, pointing to the ongoing strike as a key factor. Boeing withdrew its offer to boost the pay of striking machinists by 30%, contending that the union’s demands are undercutting the company’s (already dismal) competitiveness.
Boeing’s striking workers may be looking to the extraordinary success – for the workers, at least – of the brief strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association, which ended last week when employers agreed to a 62% (!) wage hike over the next six years, to an average of $63 per hour (!!)… and that’s before overtime. (Can’t fault them for taking advantage of a White House that was desperate to head off a potentially crippling strike that would have cost the U.S. economy as much as $4.5 billion per day.) With these kinds of pay hikes setting the bar, one thing is clear: Inflation isn’t going away anytime soon.
And one more thing… Signs of a top…
The price-to-sales ratio of the S&P 500 is within shouting distance of all-time highs. Don’t say we didn’t warn you…
America Can’t Keep Doing This and Still Survive
America is in big trouble, no matter who wins this election. Why? Consider these numbers. Direct transfer payments made by the U.S. government equal $3.8 trillion. That’s 48% of all federal spending. These payments go to 67 million Americans. However, only about 70 million Americans pay any meaningful amount of income tax and those taxes only raise $2.3 trillion. But that’s not even the real problem…
America is $35 trillion in debt already. These debts are already so large, there’s no legitimate market-based way to finance the astronomical growth in transfer payments that lies ahead. I’m not talking about a crisis in 2040. I’m talking about a crisis by 2026. And still, that’s also not the biggest problem…
The biggest problem is that as dependency grows and the baby boomers age, there are fewer workers to support the system. Today there are 134 million full-time workers in the U.S. That sounds like a lot, but it’s only about 40% of Americans. And it includes the 25 million people who work for the government.
When you look at these numbers more closely, you see a looming disaster – a civil war in the making. Do the math. There’s the fully dependent (67 million Americans). There’s the people who don’t work, but could (24 million). There’s the people who work for the government (25 million). All of these people (116 million in total) depend on taxing the 134 million Americans who are fully employed. But… wait… there’s a huge catch…
Our tax system is so highly progressive that most people, even most full-time workers, don’t pay any (or barely any) federal income taxes. In fact, 1% of taxpayers account for nearly half of all income taxes. And 10% pay 76% of all income taxes. When you study the numbers, you’ll discover that only 70 million Americans pay any federal income tax at all. And, really, it’s only about 20 million Americans who pay for the vast majority (90%) of all income taxes.
That means, what we’ve really got is an election where 116 million people who derive material benefits from government spending have the opportunity to vote against the 70 million who have to pay for it. And really, this is a contest between about 20 million taxpayers and everyone else. So, guess what’s going to keep happening?
And then there’s this. As of this year, there are now 52 million immigrants in the country. That’s 15% of the population. That’s the most ever. We’ve just seen the largest two-year wave of immigration, of all time, into America. You’ll never guess who they are going to vote for.
My wife is an immigrant. I understand that immigration is incredibly important to America’s economy. Each new wave of immigration has brought the country enormous benefits. But previous waves were driven by ambitious people seeking a better life and working hard to achieve it. This latest wave was paid to come here by a group of elitists seeking to maintain control of our government by tipping the balance of power in swing states. This is legalized voter fraud. And it is going to spark an unprecedented wave of violence against these newcomers.
In 1950, 89% of Americans were descendants of Europeans with a common religion (Christianity), a common heritage, and common culture. We were also incredibly intelligent, hard-working, and law-abiding. America only required 6 million government workers (4% of the population) to keep our society safe, because we were a high-trust society, where a large set of unwritten rules and non-governmental institutions set guard rails against anti-social behavior and violence.
Today, only 61% of Americans share a common heritage. And, for the first time ever, the number of white, native-born Americans declined from the 2010 census to the 2020 census. Does that matter? Well, I challenge you to spend one afternoon in Baltimore’s inner city. Or Detroit’s. Or Philly’s. Or L.A.’s. Or Houston’s. Or just about anywhere else.
You’ll discover the extreme opposite of a high-trust society and an entire culture of debasement, ignorance, and violence. Today, America requires 25 million government workers, or 7.6% of the population, to keep the peace. And it seems most Americans under the age of 30 can’t even tell the difference between a man and a woman.
For those of you who think democracy can work in these kinds of multicultural hell holes, I invite you to visit Iraq. Or South Africa. Or the Balkans. (Baltimore is more dangerous than all of those places!) Or virtually anywhere else it has been tried. Nation-state democracies work when there’s a common culture, a common language, a common history, where the rights of minorities are respected, and where being a citizen is well understood to involve responsibilities, in addition to rights.
What comes next for America will be a long period of suffering. And more violence between those who benefit from the regime and those who suffer from it. They won’t stop shooting your candidate. They won’t stop censoring your speech. And, sooner or later, they will steal your property and throw you into a hole.
By the way, the next major sign you’ll see that our society is imploding is the scapegoating of Jews. Meanwhile, we’ve already seen the rise of pornography and gambling. We’ve already seen a huge increase in violence, the debasement of the currency, and the degradation of the media: telling the truth has become a “conspiracy” and lying has become “doing what must be done.”
We’ve seen the corruption of the justice system, where criminals have been set free, while property owners are made out to be criminals. As our society collapses, as prices soar, as our institutions fail (look at colleges), and as violence erupts all around us, someone will have to be blamed and that’s always the Jews. It will be again.
My advice? Watch this video and take it seriously. Yes, we’d like folks to subscribe to The Big Secret on Wall Street… even if you’re already a paid-up subscriber (or a Partner Pass member), you’ll get a lot out of our presentation. And if you agree with what we’re saying, please feel free to send the link to your friends and share it on your social media. While we can’t stop America’s destruction, we can at least make people aware of what’s happening and show them how to protect themselves.
(We must be doing something right, because our customer-service team has been overwhelmed by the response to our video. Our team is working through a backlog of calls and email… we’re sorry if we haven’t gotten back to you – and I promise that we will soon. In the meantime… Lance James, our Director of Customer Care, and his team, can be reached at [email protected] or at 888-610-8895 or internationally at 443-815-4447.)
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Good investing,
Porter Stansberry
Stevenson, MD
P.S. Studying stocks is my thing. I’ve done it for close to 30 years. And I’ve had countless conversations (OK… arguments) about markets and investing with some of the biggest names in finance.
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