by pentoport | Aug 11, 2020 | Commentary
August 11, 2020 Bankrupt Balance sheets The US National debt has now soared to 130% of GDP; that $26.6 trillion equates to around 1,000% of Federal revenue. Our government will add $4 trillion to that dung pile this year alone, which is an incredible 20% of GDP. The...
by pentoport | Jul 20, 2020 | Commentary
July 20, 2020 The monthly U.S. budget deficit for June 2020 was a heart-stopping record $864 billion. For reference, last year’s deficit for all of fiscal 2019 was just under $1 trillion. In other words, the June deficit was almost as much as the entire amount...
by pentoport | Jul 13, 2020 | Commentary
July 13, 2020 We can all be very confident that there will be no change to monetary policy for a very, very long time. But there is a fiscal cliff coming—and indeed has already begun. It is clear that Mr. Powell is all-in on his unlimited QE and ZIRP. And, that he is...
by pentoport | Jun 29, 2020 | Commentary
June 29, 2020 We start this week’s commentary with some rather depressing news from Reuters: The ratio of downgrades to upgrades in the credit ratings of leveraged loans has spiked to a record level, five times above that hit during the last global financial...
by pentoport | Jun 22, 2020 | Commentary
June 22, 2020 The Fed mistakenly believes it can control the rate of inflation with relative ease. While it believes it is far easier to fight a rising rate of inflation than deflation, it is still completely convinced the puppet strings of extant price levels rest...
by pentoport | Jun 8, 2020 | Commentary
June 8, 2020 The sad truth is that few people really know very much about gold, especially when it comes to investing in the metal. They don’t understand what makes it so valuable and unique, and they know even less what moves its price. Since I don’t want to spend an...