What has been missing for 12 years straight is a reality check to rein in the excesses. Central banks have sponsored a bubble of delusion that has grown ever more manic since 2008. That bubble has sponsored mass corruption and mass denial on a biblical scale. It has created ephemeral paper gains massively leveraged to ignorance and arrogance, while it ridiculed any semblance of caution.
There has been zero accountability since the DotCom era prosecutions of Worldcom, Enron, and Global Crossing. During the Global Financial Crisis, regulators jailed Bernie Madoff for his miniature Ponzi scheme while they were bailing out Wall Street for imploding the global economy.
Fast forward more than a decade of moral hazard and now, insanity has been normalized. To question this Bonfire of the Sanities is strictly anti-social. The sheeple at large are fully euthanized by ludicrous amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus. Which is why arrogance always snaps back immediately once the monetary dopium starts flowing. Back in February, there was a fleeting moment of fear as markets reached their nadir, but as soon as the momentum reversed, the fear dissipated and back came the buffoonish arrogance with a vengeance.
Which is also why there is always the same fall back on inequality. The GOP can't possibly solve inequality, because exploiting inequality is the very basis of their capitalist "system". The system that has been on emergency monetary life support continuously since 2008. Fortunately for today's bailout junkies, they have a base of useful idiots who keep voting for their own demise, in order to protect the sacred system - which is now 100% con job at their expense.
The worst part of all of this of course is the river of toxic bullshit that flows incessantly from Faux News and its various NewsMax copycats, out to the demented hillbillies who propagate it in every spam email and every family get together.
The solution to all of this denial and buffoonery is fear and lots of it. The central bank veil of invincibility is finally about to be pierced once and for all. The bubble of delusion is about to collapse like a cheap tent. And when it does, the revelation of fraud and criminality will bring rage and fear. And ultimately, humility where now there is only Roman Circus equivalent hubris. When the Kool-Aid drinkers realize they've been conned by their own trusted con men, they will finally begin to question "the system".
At that point, they will demand accountability and incarceration. The ad-sponsored bullshit will be silenced, along with the purveyors of non-stop lying.
And then will come the middle class bailout. Following the 2008 analog - likely sometime in the Spring timeframe. When that happens, the dollar's days as a "store of value" will be numbered. Today's sheeple will become convinced that cash is king, right at the point it becomes lethal.
But, there's a lot of (asset) deflation between now and then, as over a decade of criminal rots gets exposed.
"While few could have foreseen the pandemic’s toll on the economy, the depth of investors’ pain from corporate distress was all too predictable. Desperate to generate higher returns during a decade of rock-bottom interest rates, money managers bargained away legal protections, accepted ever-widening loopholes, and turned a blind eye to questionable earnings projections. Corporations, for their part, took full advantage and gorged on astronomical amounts of debt that many now cannot repay or refinance"
Corporate Debt, % of GDP
