PS
I mean Mod. - - - all those millions and millions of doomsayers who are dead by now were not right - - - not one day. Plain fact.

PS
I'm not arguing against prepping - if done modestly - and wisely. I know villlagers deep down in rural Germany with big diesel tanks and diesel vehicles and a well behind the house and quit a bit of self-produced electric energy - and a few dozen chickens and stuf - potatoes - and a few acres of forest... - - they will suvrvive a severe crisis that others migh tnot. But not least because they know and trust one another in the village. God may help us all so that we do not have to live through it- but my prediction would be: Those who play in teh trombone-choir in the church at sundays in small vilages have the best chancews (if they have a well behind the house and stuff - - - - ).
Its nice that you mention The Joker.

PS: "The list of dead doomsayers must include by now hundreds if not thousands that you have seen/read/read about with your own eyes. But the US is still going strong."

We preppers say, better 5 years early (going on 15) than 1 day late.

I know, what's the line "the market can remain insane longer than you can remain solvent", or something like that. I'm pretty Conservative. What can't go on, won't. So, I disagree. BTW, yes, I did get your Steve Miller band lyric right away!

PS

The Alarmist - thx frommy side too!

1 question:
What is the difference between a pyramid-scheme and the lending /expanding on borrowed money or client's money, Black Rock does?
My guess: That it is - more soophisticated and is build on grosso modo, hehe, acknowledged - mathematical - techniques?

PS
Mod. as long as the US dominate the Western world, it will not go bankrupt.

The list of dead doomsayers must include by now hundreds if not thousands that you have seen/read/read about with your own eyes. But the US is still going strong.

PS: Thanks for that summary, on BLK, Alarmist, and, for the record, not PS's asterisks.

No doubt the "calling" or whatever you call it, of all the leverage could cause a financial shitshow that could get all the rest of the problems seeing the light of day too, and the $$ just collapses. My reply to Dieter would just be that this US National Debt thing is not something that can be fixed with some slow ramping down, with (as you, Alarmist wrote), the small guys taking the losses as always. That's even if they had the courage and integrity, haha, to try to extricate themselves. Instead, I suppose it would be just another biggest bailout EVAH!

There's nobody left to bail out the US Gov't, though ... and were there, who is stupid enough to want to?

PS

Yes, Mr Mod, I should be clearer... at the end of 2023 BLK had 123b of its own Assets and 82b of its own liabilities, leaving shareholder equity of roughly 41b to cover things going wrong with the circa 10 trillion of AUM, much of which is backed by underlying assets, but they make a f***-ton of money lending those out, and they hedge a f***-ton of their exposure using various derivatives. In a stressed market, the losses on these last two categories would be grabbed by the senior creditors (that ain’t the Mom & Pop investors with mere security interests), with other security interest holders (Mom & Pop) being ranked parri passu with the other creditors on whatever is left.

My other reference is to the fact that BLK bought a f***-ton of Real Estate the last few years, using ultra cheap money from the Fed (thanks, Congress for your generous donation to Larry Fink and his gang), and much of that RE is now under water and only partly marked to market. The impending RE crisis, particularly CRE, is one reason everyone on the Street keeps talking up the need for rate cuts.

How much of that shareholder equity is real? Who knows?

Their revenues have been flat the last three years, and their C&B has consumed roughly 40% of those revenues, which is on par with investment banks that actually unlock value through underwriting offerings for value-producing businesses. In that respect, BLK is a parasite with too much influence over the industry and the politics of too many countries.

PS: Old Soldier, I hadn't even read about that tax hike coming. Even if it's personal income tax, the middle class gets screwed the most there too, no matter what they'll tell you. The very well off have people to help them figure out the loopholes made for them. The poor get don't pay anything. Millions of illegal aliens get the Earned Income Tax Credit, after giving out fake or stolen SSNs for child dependents, real or imagined. (A friend of mine worked for H&R Block during tax season a few times, and told me about tll this.)

Nice cartoon, Fred, and apropos here too, which I guess was the point! I'll put that into a post.

PS: I'm surely no fan of Black Rock, Mr. Kief, but I read $10 Trillion is what they have "under management". Mr. Alarmist does know more about this sort of thing, but I think, no matter, what, it's not $10 Trillion of pure debt with nothing to back it up.

The BRICS probably ought to go with the Yuan, but even that one... the Chinese planned economy has a lot of productivity behind it, but it's nothing that a bad Totalitarian government can't screw up, one day, or maybe soon...

I used to read Zerohedge a lot. Even back 12 years ago they discussed the deals made by various governments and businesses around the world to get out of the US Dollar. IIRC Khadoffi there in Libya wanted to deal in gold. Oh, the US Feral Gov't HATES HATES HATES that sort of thing. Hence, along came the Hildabeast ...

PS At one point I liked to draw cartoons. Here's one from almost 15 years ago.

https://sunbot.homedns.org/~fred/cartoons/cliff.gif

PS
BRICS is indeed a system change, AI corrupt. US world-dominance with 800 or so military /CIA.../ bases is what keeps all these foreigners .i.n. the system - as - protectd... - cash cows.

Just this week I've read about a huge sift in the attitude of the uS-military personal: More than half - up to 80% of them do .n.ot. recommend joining the US Army - this is not the old army, they say...

This is the difference: For the Democrats and their meet-'n'greet hand Joe Biden*** everything is fine - for the masses out there, things change - for many of them dramatically.
Young US-citizens rank at No. 62 in world stats about happiness (60+ US citizens rank still very high) - but the earthquake are those around thirty. And these are heads 'n'-hearts deep into therapies, that - don't do much but rather keep them even more fragile (abigail Shrier has a new book out on this subject - and she spoke to UnHerd TV about it - interesting and informative! -
- And keep also the stats in mind that Steve Stewart-Williams put together: Young women in the West (inluding South-Korea) - are more left-leaning than man. And - with the exception of Australia, more left-leaning than the majority - everywhere, what complicates things.

***Jeff Sachs to Judge Napolitano: "I don't know what Joe Biden is, but he is No president."

PS We're in a tight spot indeed. And governments are still spending wildly. Biden's latest 5.5 $Trillion tax hike, which he says will be on businesses, actually comes down hard on the middle class and poor folks, in reality. Businesses and corporations don't pay taxes, those tax increases are passed on to their consumers as higher prices. Meanwhile, Democrats are driving this freight train wide open towards the economic cliff. Sure hope you've got some land and survival skills 'cause this is not going to end well at all.

PS

Black Rock is a hugely over-leveraged house of cards built on less than $40 billion of equity. Another rate rise or two might actually bring it down.

Private-equity-Powell is waging war against the Davos crowd and their toadies at the ECB and the BoE, but taking Larry Fink down or notch or two is something more than a few US bankers would love to see.

PS

A good part of the stupidity is foreigners willing to subsidize our inflationary fiat currency. If the BRICs manage to get their shit together and agree on a common currency, we are in for a world of hurt.

PS Tuesday always comes.

PS
Yeah well - that's how you lay-people look at these things; in reality the debt ist not even a fraction of the Black Rock posessions and - - - - don't get me started about all the other txes! - So - - - don't worry, don't worry, don't you worry babe, 'cause I'm right here right here right here right here at ho -o -ome!***

***Quote from The Joker - Steve Miller Band - - -