When Crude Oil Collapses Below $40 What Happens - Part III

This, the final section of this multi-part research article, will continue our exploration of the consequences that may result from our ADL predictive modeling system’s suggestion that Oil may continue to fall to levels below $40 over the next few months.

In Part I and Part II, we’ve highlighted what we believe to be very compelling evidence that any continue oil price decline from current levels may be setting up the global markets for a massively volatile price reversion – similar to what happened in 1929.

Prior to the stock market collapse in 1929 and the start of the Great Depression, commodity prices collapsed in 1921 and again in 1930. This commodity price collapse was the result of over-supply and a dramatic change in investor mentality. The shift away from tangible items and real successful investing/manufacturing and towards speculation in the housing markets and stock market.

Today, we want to focus on some of the core elements of our current global economic structure to attempt to present any more compelling evidence of a commodity collapse event that may happen after the past 7+ years of a massive credit market expansion event. Allow us to briefly cover the events of the past 20 years.

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1999: the DOT COM bubble burst after a mild recession in 1993-94 and a stock market rally from 1996 to 1999

September 11, 2001: Terrorist Attack on US soil. Shocked the world and global stock markets. Sent the world’s economy into severe contraction. US Fed lowered interest rates from 6.25% to 1.0% from 2001 to 2003.

2004-06: US Fed begins raising rates from 1.0% and gradually increased rates to 5.25% in August 2006: +525%. Pushing the US credit market, and housing market, over the edge and starting the 2008 Credit Crisis.

2007-2008: US Fed lowered interest rates to near ZERO over a very short 16-month span of time as the US Credit Crisis event unfolded.

2009-15: US Fed continued to keep interest rates near zero throughout this time-frame and continued to pump capital in the global capital markets with multiple QE and debt buying events. Other global central banks followed the US lead providing additional capital throughout the global markets. This massive expansion of credit/debt over a 7+ year span of time allowed foreign nations to “binge” on cheap US and Euro credit/debt while an Emerging Market and Foreign Market recovery were taking place.

2016-2019: US Fed raised interest rates from 0.08% to 2.42% over this span of time. Pushing US Fed rates up by the highest percentage levels EVER: +3025%

This continued global cycle of “boom and bust” has wreaked havoc on global consumers and business enterprises. Over the past 20+ years, various cycles of economic appreciation and depreciation have left some people considerably better suited to deal with these cycles while others have been completely destroyed by these events. Now, it appears we are entering another period of “early warning” as global manufacturing activity, growth and economic output appears to be waning. Are we entering another period like the 1929 to 1940 period of the US where a global economic contraction resulted in a deeper economic recession/depression and took 15+ years to recover from?

The US Fed has recently started acquiring assets again – at a far greater rate than at any time since 2012. It is very likely that the US Fed is “front-running” a crisis event that is already starting to unravel again – possibly aligned with institutional banking entities and global credit/debt risks.

(Source: https://wolfstreet.com)

Chinese factory orders have continued to fall recently and the news is starting to trickle out of China that the US trade tariffs have done far greater damage than currently expected. This suggests that manufacturing, exports, and GDP for China have entered a massive decline. What happens next is that commodity prices collapse because of the lack of demand from manufacturers and consumers. (Source: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/) Chinese new loan origination rates have fallen to a 22 month “new low” – which suggests corporate and consumer borrowers are simply not willing to take on any new debt/credit at the moment. This happens when a population decides they want to “disconnect” from any economic risks and shift towards a “protectionist” process. (Source: https://finance.yahoo.com)

Recent news suggests that Chinese demand for European consumer and luxury goods has also contracted dramatically. Germany will release GDP estimates on November 14th. It is our opinion that the Chinese have already shifted into a more protectionist consumer stance and that would mean that demand for non-essential items (call them high-risk purchases) are very low at this time. If this is the case, the lack of true demand origination out of China/Asia could push much of Europe into a recession. (Source: https://www.yahoo.com/)

The last thing China would want right now is to blow the potential for any type of US/China trade deal – even if it means giving up more than they may have considered many months ago. More tariffs or any type of tit-for-tat retaliatory trade war would not be in the best interest of either party at this stage of the game. Who flinches first? The US, or China, or the rest of the world?

So, the question, again, becomes...“will a commodity collapse lead the global stock market into a prolonged period of price decline and/or a global recession over the next 10+ years?”

If so, can we expect commodities to collapse as they did after the 1929 stock market peak?

You may remember this chart from the earlier sections of this multi-part article. It highlights what happened leading up to the 1929 stock market crash and how early warning signs of manufacturing and agriculture weakness continued to plague the markets while speculation in housing and the stock market pushed certain asset values much higher near the end of the “Roaring 20s”.

Are we setting up for the same type of event right now where global trade, manufacturing, and agriculture are weakening after the 2008 Credit Crisis and we are meandering towards a repetition of the events that led to the “Great Depression”? Will commodities prices collapse to 2002 or 2003 levels for most items? Will Oil collapse to levels below $30 ppb over the next 6 to 12+ months? And what will happen to Gold and Silver throughout this time?

Can we navigate through these troubling events without risking some type of new collapse event or reversion event? Are the central banks prepared for this? Are traders/investors prepared for this? Just how close are we to the start of this type of event?

The answers lie in what we do now and how the commodities react over the next 12+ months. The one major difference between now and 1929 is that the world is far more inter-connected economically and there are more people throughout the world that have moved into the “economic class”. Thus, it is our opinion that any event that is likely to happen will be followed by a moderately strong recovery event – no matter how severe the outcome. The world is in a different place right now compared to 1929. Overall, only time will tell if our research and ADL predictive modeling system is accurate with respect to future oil prices.

We believe it is critical for all traders to understand what lies ahead and the risks involved in “playing dumb” about the current market environment. We recently authored an article titled “Welcome to the Zombie-land for investors” and highly suggest you read it. Our researchers will share this one component that should help to ease some of the stress you may be feeling right now – the most capable, secure, mature and best funded (reserves) economies on the planet will likely lead any recovery process should an event as this happen. Therefore, look for strengths in the most mature and capable economies on the planet if some new crisis event begins.

Even if a trade deal between the US and China were to happen today and eliminate all trade tariffs, would this change anything or would this simply pour fuel onto the “capital shift” fire that is already taking place with speculation reaching frothy levels?

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The Technical Traders

How the Chinese Will Establish a New Financial Order

By Porter Stansberry

For many years now, it’s been clear that China would soon be pull­ing the strings in the U.S. financial system. In 2015, the American people owe the Chinese government nearly $1.5 trillion.

I know big numbers don’t mean much to most people, but keep in mind… this tab is now hundreds of billions of dollars more than what the U.S. government collects in ALL income taxes (both cor­porate and individual) each year. It’s basically a sum we can never, ever hope to repay – at least, not by normal means.
Of course, the Chinese aren’t stupid. They realize we are both trapped.

We are stuck with an enormous debt we can never realistically repay… And the Chinese are trapped with an outstanding loan they can neither get rid of, nor hope to collect. So the Chinese govern­ment is now taking a secret and somewhat radical approach.

China has recently put into place a covert plan to get back as much of its money as possible – by extracting colossal sums from both the United States government and ordinary citizens, like you and me.

The Chinese “State Administration of Foreign Exchange” (SAFE) is now engaged in a full fledged currency war with the United States. The ultimate goal – as the Chinese have publicly stated – is to cre­ate a new dominant world currency, dislodge the U.S. dollar from its current reserve role, and recover as much of the $1.5 trillion the U.S. government has borrowed as possible.

Lucky for us, we know what’s going to happen. And we even have a pretty good idea of how it will all unfold. How do we know so much? Well, this isn’t the first time the U.S. has tried to stiff its foreign creditors.

Most Americans probably don’t remember this, but our last big currency war took place in the 1960s. Back then, French President Charles de Gaulle denounced the U.S. government’s policy of print­ing overvalued U.S. dollars to pay for its trade deficits… which allowed U.S. companies to buy European assets with dollars that were artificially held up in value by a gold peg that was nothing more than an accounting fiction.

So de Gaulle took action...…

In 1965, he took $150 million of his country’s dollar reserves and redeemed the paper currency for U.S. gold from Ft. Knox. De Gaulle even offered to send the French Navy to escort the gold back to France.

Today, this gold is worth about $12 billion.

Keep in mind… this occurred during a time when foreign govern­ments could legally redeem their paper dollars for gold, but U.S. citizens could not. And France was not the only nation to do this, Spain soon re­deemed $60 million of U.S. dollar reserves for gold, and many other nations followed suit. By March 1968, gold was flowing out of the United States at an alarming rate.

By 1950, U.S. depositories held more gold than had ever been assembled in one place in world history (roughly 702 million ounces). But to manipulate our currency, the U.S. government was willing to give away more than half of the country’s gold. It’s estimated that during the 1950s and early 1970s, we essentially gave away about two thirds of our nation’s gold reserves, around 400 million ounces, all because the U.S. government was trying to defend the U.S. dollar at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce of gold.

In short, we gave away 400 million ounces of gold and got $14 billion in exchange. Today, that same gold would be worth $620 billion, a 4,330% difference. Incredibly stupid, wouldn’t you agree? This blunder cost the U.S. much of its gold hoard. When the history books are finally written, this chapter will go down as one of our nation’s most incompetent political blunders. Of course, as is typical with politicians, they managed to make a bad situation even worse.

The root cause of the weakness in the U.S. dollar was easy to understand. Americans were consuming far more than they were producing. You could see this by looking at our government’s annual deficits, which were larger than ever and growing… thanks to the gigantic new welfare programs and the Vietnam “police ac­tion.” You could also see this by looking at our trade deficit, which continued to get bigger and bigger, forecasting a dramatic drop (eventually) in the value of the U.S. dollar.

Of course, economic realities are never foremost on the minds of politicians – especially not Richard Nixon’s. On August 15, 1971, he went on live television before the most popular show in Ameri­ca (Bonanza) and announced a new plan. The U.S. gold window would close effective immediately – and no nation or individual anywhere in the world would be allowed to exchange U.S. dollars for gold. The president announced a 10% surtax on ALL imports!

Such tariffs never accomplish much in terms of actually altering the balance of trade, as our trading partners simply put matching charges on our exports. So what actually happens is just less trade overall, which slows the whole global economy, making the impact of inflation worse. Of course, Nixon pitched these moves as patriotic, saying: “I am determined that the American dollar must never again be a hos­tage in the hands of international speculators.”

The “sheeple” cheered, as they always do whenever something is done to “stop the speculators.” But the joke was on them. Within two years, America was in its worst recession since WWII… with an oil crisis, skyrocketing unemployment, a 30% drop in the stock market, and soaring inflation. Instead of becoming richer, millions of Americans got a lot poorer, practically overnight.

And that brings us to today…..
Roughly 40 years later, the United States is in the middle of anoth­er currency war. But this time, our main adversary is not Europe. It’s China. And this time, the situation is far more serious. Our nation and our economy are already in an extremely fragile state. In the 1960s, the American economy was growing rapidly, with decades of expansion still to come. That’s not the case today.

This new currency war with China will wreak absolute havoc on the lives of millions of ordinary Americans, much sooner than most people think. It’s critical over the next few years for you to understand exactly what the Chinese are doing, why they are doing it, and the near certain outcome.
Regards,
Porter Stansberry

(This is an adaptation of an article that was originally published in Porter's Investment Advisory.)
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The article was originally published at internationalman.com.

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