Interesting view. But isn't the growth of debt essential to the expansion of the economy and to the expansion of the money supply? After all, mass shrinking of debt will lower the money supply as lending withers.

Nice article, and well thought out. But it seems like a pretty invincible system as long as the central bank can find demand for bonds. As long as there is massive demand for bonds, the system will likely survive unless it is overthrown in some way.

I do not consider Russia to be a friend. However, clearly, we paid for the opposition in the Ukraine, and indirectly the coup there. So, we use the Ukraine as a pawn in order to try to control Russia. It is really a crude and odious tactic on America's part. Our obsession with the Ukraine is merely to facilitate regime change in Russia. It is hard to fault Russia for acting in its national interest to stop American interference, and it gave the US a taste of its own medicine, by hacking emails and influencing our elections.

It is all a dirty game, and I don't think it can end well.

People are hiding money left and right. Those wealthy people are making it more difficult for retirement to happen for many. But that is not the fault of the government per se. It is the fault of those who have gained control of government and have written their laws and fashioned their schemes. But I agree with you that an idle retirement is not healthy either.

A little inflation has to be better than a deflation that turns interest rates severely negative. If anything, the Fed may be a little tight. And its history of pruning wages is not pretty.

Interesting article, but the economy of Japan, the mainstreet economy, seems healthier than it has been.

Interesting that someone is actually trying to measure bond demand. Certainly, if we are close to any recession, 10 year treasury bonds will do fine. People cannot afford to be short of them, and as collateral, it would seem that they have to buy, they are compelled to buy them, in order to keep the price high and yields low. Is there anything that this Citibank fellow could contribute on that analysis?

While we can't be sure of the severity of the downturn, certainly, the demographic argument is a strong one. And #Trump wants fewer people to come to America. My hope is that #Bannon doesn't help this thing get out of hand. I have no doubt he would like to see the mother of all crashes. After all, he owns a media outlet. He can't make money when things are going good. JMO, of course.

There is one difference. China could pop a housing bubble and the economy continue to function. They don't mark to market because they are not trapped into Basel Accords. US sovereignty, the good kind of sovereignty, took a hit when we signed off on Basel 2, marked to market assets, and the Great Recession was on.

I look at it this way, the bond salesman in chief is the central banker. He has managed to create massive demand for bonds since he took over in the '80's. Structured finance and now collateral for derivatives is a motivation for hoarding. I think Greenspan knew exactly what he was doing, but just didn't want to tell anyone, preferring to explain it away by the concept of "conundrum".