The Revolution of the Deplorables

By: Barry_M_Ferguson

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” - Dr. Martin Luther King

Amen.

Unfortunately, we live in an age of profound ignorance and stupidity. Students of color attending UCal-Berkeley decided they needed a ‘safe place’ on campus so they have prevented students not of their same color from passing into their selected zone. They shouted, ‘Go around!’. Isn’t that the same message Rosa Parks heard on buses until she decided to raise her own rebel flag and take a seat. It seems that those who claim to abhor racism are the racists. Bigots come in every color.

As Einstein said, human stupidity is likely to be infinite.

Everyone should watch the comic genius of Dave Chapelle and his skit of Clayton Bigsby, White Supremest. He captures the insane stupidity of bigotry.

Now Donald Trump has captured the White House. This is the revolution of the deplorables, as Ms. Clinton framed Trump supporters. Clinton supporters seem surprised but they have their own ignorance and bigotry to blame. When one depends on ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall - who is the fairest of all’ as the only source of information on one’s looks, one should not be surprised that the information dispensed by the mirror is fatally compromised. The US media has been so enamored with everything Obama and Clinton that they never bothered to even wonder why the other side, the deplorables, felt differently - much less attempt to ask a question. Instead, they followed the Obama doctrine. They talked down to the deplorables. They denigrated them. They framed them in any number of derogatory terms. Hate-filled. Racists. Rednecks. Even white, blue-collar workers (as if now, being white or working every day is something shameful).

Meanwhile, the press promoted diversity to the point that they became Clayton Bigsby and everything is about skin color and not content of character. The so-called ‘progressives’ promoted sexual orientation to the point that in our local schools, teachers have been told not to refer to children as ‘boys’ or ‘girls’. It’s offensive. Then they had to have a special sexual preference designation of ‘LGBT’. Then they added a ‘Q’. Now I understand there is an ‘I’, an ‘M’, and an ‘A’ added to the list. Where does the ‘I’m so special’ mentality end?

A Trump White House has been a long time in the making. George Bush surrendered the country to the banksters in 2007 with the great aid of democrats from California like Nancy Pelosi. The banksters robbed the nation blind while elected politicians waved the white flag. The Bush regime lied to the american public about everything, started unjust and illegal wars, crushed liberty with the NSA spy agency, and captured the world’s biggest heroin farm in Afghanistan so the CIA could run secret wars all over the globe with drug money. For the first time, the US began assassinating people all over the world using drone warfare with no due process of law or justice. Bush’s twin, Obama, took over and continued the same regime policies of constant war against the world, destruction of civil liberties, and a profane redistribution of wealth gravitating to the top one percent.

It seems to me that Criminal Stumpf, the CEO of the criminal enterprise Wells Fargo Bank, was emblematic of the anger voiced by the deplorables. While encouraging his workers to commit multiple felonies (opening fraudulent bank accounts for the purposes of stealing money from the bank’s depositors), this criminal truly didn’t think he, nor his bank, had done anything wrong. Defrauding the public has been the law of the land for a long time. Witness that Mr. Stumpf walked away with some $120 million for his good service.

But that’s not the beginning. We have to go back to March 18, 1988. On that day, President Reagan signed Executive Order 12631 thus creating the ‘Working Group on Financial Markets’. This was the beginning of the PPT (Plunge Protection Team). This was government authoritarianism disguised as, in the words of the order’s author, Reagan, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’. The same man said these were the most terrifying words in the english language. Yet, this, and the central bank, remain at the root of most problems. Let’s explore.   

First, we must recognize that this action was the result of a 22% single-day plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This was the ‘fear’ that the elite use to get their way. Scare the public enough and they will give in to anything. Lose their money in stocks? What if the government could help my manipulating prices higher?

The one-percenters have always been interested in protecting themselves so they sought to stack the deck, so to speak. The group is composed of the Treasury Secretary, the head of the SEC, the head of the CFTC, and of course, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank. Note, there are no economists nor business leaders in this group. Just government bureaucrats. The goal is not to help the economy. The goal is to further manipulate stock prices higher so the one-percent gets richer with less risk. Also note that this group comprises the most necessary people in position to manipulate prices higher.

Below are excerpts from the executive order.

Executive Order 12631 -- Working Group on Financial Markets

‘Sec. 2. Purposes and Functions. (a) Recognizing the goals of enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of our Nation's financial markets and maintaining investor confidence, the Working Group shall identify and consider:’

Americans are a little dense so allow me to point out the important phrase here. College students may need to deploy their forefinger to the page. That would be the finger next to the thumb. Yes, the one used to send all those meaningful texts and Facebook posts. It’s not their fault. Their education system was compromised decades ago so that knowledge was replaced by indoctrination. Look at college campuses today. Listen to the ignorance espoused by students. Sadly, citizens have been blinded by false allegiance and patriotism to a government that only seeks to enslave.

Given that government always tries to obfuscate its real intent, we have to read carefully.

Did readers catch that phrase about ‘maintaining investor confidence’? What does that mean? What does that entail? We all know the truth. The investment institutions are set up to make the rich richer. The rich engage in insider trading (see hedge funds), front running (see high frequency trading), and disinformation (see the media or CNBC). Truth is a four letter word. I cannot believe that any investor with a functioning brain cell does not think the game is rigged. But the little people have to be corralled. Investor confidence goes up and down with stock prices. Therefore, the way to maintain investor confidence is to constantly inflate stock prices by any means necessary.

How do they do it?

‘(c) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of funds therefor, the Department of the Treasury shall provide the Working Group with such administrative and support services as may be necessary for the performance of its functions.’

The US Department of the Treasury will provide funding? Isn’t that the department of the government that pays the country’s bills with our tax money? If money was not needed to buy stocks, why then would the Treasury even be included? Why does the group have four members? Two are from trading operations, one is the money of the tax payer, and the fourth is the nefarious central bank. Of course they run the PPT!

The result has been an enormous distortion of asset prices throughout the world. Other central bankers, the SNB and the BOJ are openly buying stocks. Yet when the possibility of buying stocks was posed to current fed head Ms. Yellen, she daftly played the american stupidity card by saying that it was currently illegal for the fed to buy ‘corporate assets’. That satisfied the media. Of course the fed is a grand and wondrous institution looking after our welfare. Please! The media is simply a regime lap-dog. Keep questioning. Keep thinking.

First, ETFs are not directly corporate assets. By Ms. Yellen’s answer, that leaves ETFs as an asset they could buy. And they do. Directly or indirectly.

Second, the issuance of stock options, to my understanding, is not a taxable event. As we know, any asset in the US is taxed. Thus, stock options are technically not a corporate asset. So, it seems to me that the fed could buy options all day long. Many stock observers have noticed the sudden, extreme, reversals of nearly every stock selloff that resolves with a ‘V’ shaped turn back to the upside. Options and ETFs would be a likely tool to accomplish this.

These distortions, economic or social, have fed the anti-establishment movement. Curiously, or maybe not so curiously, the revolutionists now are the older people and not the younger generation. In the British vote to leave the EU, older voters were the demographic most in favor of independence. Younger people preferred the european social welfare state.

In the US, I would suspect the same. Very simply, the people with the money have voted not to redistribute their money to dopey college students who want Santa Claus to pay for their college debts. Instead of begging for handouts, these college students should seriously think about suing the institutions that flim-flammed them on their education because they have obviously learned nothing.

For instance, the younger folks are all for an increase in minimum wages and a continuation of the status quo. Yet none of these youngsters has any understanding of economic reality. And, it is so simple. Why have so many businesses relocated to a country outside of the US? One can go to the border of Mexico and see american businesses operating within eye-shot of the border. Why? Because wages are cheaper in Mexico. Why has China become a manufacturing powerhouse? Because wages are cheaper there. Business is about competition. At the end of the day, even Marxist socialist college students buy things every day on websites that import stuff in to the US because they get it cheaper that way because it is made by people who earn much less than americans. Artificially raising wages by government mandate does not make the economy stronger.

I am sure that this next thought is never, ever, never, broached on a modern college campus. The federal reserve bank openly talks about stimulating inflation to a 2% clip. Why? Because this is their way of helping banks steal money. Inflation is a silent thief. If we can buy a loaf of bread today for a dollar, the fed wants to make us pay $1.02 for that loaf of bread at the end of the year. Then $1.04 the next year and so on. Do the math. Even if the government were to mandate a doubling of the minimum wage, the gain in wages would be eroded in less than a generation, due to the constant 2% inflation rate. Raising minimum wages while instigating inflation at the same time is like paddling a canoe with one paddle going forward and another in reverse. The canoe does not move.

Before I leave this point, let me repeat myself from a previous post. In 1968, the minimum wage in the US was $1.60 per hour. Due to the afore mentioned inflation, that $1.60 is equivalent to $10.70 or so in 2016 dollars. The BEA says that 40% of hourly workers make less than $10.70 per hour. Read this next sentence carefully. In 1968, no hourly worker made less than minimum wage while in 2016 40% of hourly workers make less than the 1968 equivalent minimum wage. Students need to understand this lest they ignorantly support a Bernie Sanders type in the next election. This issue is a hoax perpetrated by, well, the ignorant and the elite. And, in the end, the government only wants to raise minimum wages so they can collect more taxes.

So maybe voters, or at least half of them, are seeking the truth. Maybe they are seeking fairness. Maybe they are seeking sanity. Instead of rioting, destroying property, and spreading love and acceptance in the wake of a Trump victory, these young folks should explain to me and everyone else why their idea of socialism or facism or whatever is a better way to govern. Maybe they should show us an example where total government control leads to better living standards.

I’ll start the conversation with Cuba. Healtcare and education are both free in Cuba. Sounds like a Clinton-Sanders utopia, right? Even the elites agree. For example, we can quote the UN’s World Health Organization who says that Cuba’s health care system should be a model for the world. It is free to all citizens. Of course, the average Cuban makes $60 dollars a month. It ain’t free!!!

What about free education? Yep, it is free in Cuba. Young socialists should move there! But wait. Cuba has had second thoughts. President Raul Castro said this in 2012: “What we need to root out definitively is the irresponsible attitude of consuming, with nobody — or very few people — worrying about how much it costs the country to guarantee that and, above all, if it can really do so.” Come on college students. READ SOMETHING AND STOP LISTENING TO YOUR IDIOT PROFESSORS!! Okay, we’ll all wait while you get your forefinger handy.

Finally witness two pieces of information gleaned from the November issue of National Geographic magazine. One, an article on Cuba revealed that the writer’s cab driver was educated as a civil engineer. He drove a cab because it paid better than the state run engineer job. Two, an article on the revitalization of Sri Lanka revealed that the country was in the midst of an economic turnaround after a ‘failed attempt at socialism’.

Maybe if people actually read a little bit (non-US media), they will come to understand why the deplorables revolted.

Barry M. Ferguson, RFC
President, BMF Investments, Inc.
Primary Tel: 704.563.2960
Other Tel: 866.264.4980
Industry: Investment Advisory
barry@bmfinvest.com
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Barry M. Ferguson, RFC is President and founder of BMF Investments, Inc. - a fee-based Investment Advisor in Charlotte, NC. He manages several different portfolios that are designed to be market driven and actively managed. Barry shares his unique perspective through his irreverent and very popular newsletter, Barry’s Bulls, authored the book, Navigating the Mind Fields of Investing Money, lectures on investing, and contributes investment articles to various professional publications. He is a member of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants, the International Speakers Network, and was presented with the prestigious Cato Award for Distinguished Journalism in the Field of Financial Services in 2009.

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