13 Epic Things That Just Happened In This Crazy Economy
With Co-Author Justin Taggart MBA
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This is a piece co-authored by me and Justin Taggart, one of our coaches in the TAFF Insiders Mastermind, and we wanted to educate you about 13 things going on in crypto and the economy right now–because things are changing at warp speed.
In the Insiders Mastermind, we talk in realtime about what’s going on in the economy and what good strategies are, now, in this season of uncertainty. I, personally, have spent 2 years now totally up-ending my own investments, to move into “playing defense” instead of offense! (Risk-off assets rather than risk-on assets, in the radically changing world.)
Before we get started with 13 items you probably missed in the media, you can join Justin and me and the other coaches–and even get a free month in our Insiders Mastermind–start by watching 9 video modules and make Weds night 8 pm ET your regular “date” to learn with us, Live!
This is NOT a time to be a “loner” in this economy, as we are all experiencing a massive shift!
But here are some Cliff’s Notes on what we think the 13 most important points are from the last few weeks:
1. CPI information: Biden cherry-picked July’s sideways movement in inflation, to say that inflation didn’t go up, and somehow he wants to take credit for that. Biden will say whatever he needs to for approval and votes. But the charts do not lie like the numbers do. All commodity price charts are way down, as is the gas at the pump.
But you even have people like Jamie Dimon (CEO of JP Morgan Chase) who admits that inflation is likely to increase–and make vague predictions like “there’s a hurricane ahead.”
(That’s so unusual because generally all government economists and CEO’s of the biggest banks want to tell you the more positive version of events. They NEED your confidence in the economy, to maximize their earnings. JPM has been involved in many frauds–they advocate for their own bottom line, not the retail investor. They tell the market to sell, for instance, so they can buy.
But the point is, it’s unheard-of for the CEO of one of the biggest banks in the world to speak so “bearishly” about the U.S. market conditions ahead.)
Aside: we also believe it’s entirely possible that in some industries, due to too much supply and not enough demand, many products will go on sale, even if inflation hasn’t maxed yet. For instance, high-end collector watches are on a massive sale right now, and I think prices on used cars in the next 6-12 months will go way down, due to high repossessions.
Take a look at every RV retailer you drive past; in 2020, their lots were nearly empty, and people like me who bought a 5th wheel that year, paid a premium and had few choices; now they have a massive overstock, as most consumers don’t have the financial ability to buy a gas-guzzling home-on-wheels.
(I have a friend who just bought a $2M home in Texas, but is sleeping on blow-up mattresses, because he thinks furniture stores experiencing the “bullwhip effect” of too little supply during lockdowns; then too much supply briefly; then too little supply; are going to be back to having over-ordered, right as demand decreases.)
We don’t focus on recession and depression news, because the numbers are so highly manipulated and cherry-picked that they present to the public. For instance, the federal government has changed the equation for what “unemployment” is. So they can keep reporting sunshiny news, when we can all look around us and see we aren’t in a strong labor market.
2. Ethereum miners were caught cheating on fees, by changing the time stamp of the mine’s block. The miner in question was defensive, and said the miners are violating no rules; it’s just a loophole given to miners. Anyway, there will be no miners, if the Ethereum merge proceeds on or around Sept 19th. We are very bullish on ETH with the upcoming merge expected.
3. Trump was raided by the FBI on Aug. 8. They even apparently opened his safe. I’m buying a Doberman puppy for my husband’s birthday this week. Not that a Doberman would stop the FBI. But I’m beginning to consider how far our failing government is willing to go, to suppress its enemies or anyone representing a threat, in a midterm election year.
What’s on my mind is how corrupt our FBI and CIA are. The WEF, in fact, wants to enact a worldwide treaty that would in effect make enforced censorship part of the new global moral code.
And I’m considering how crime increases as economies experience severe stress. And my husband has always wanted a Doberman. I’m having signs made for the gates in my fence in semi-rural Florida (Florida has a lot of crime, as everyone in America knows–so those who can, fence/gate their property). The signs I’m having made say: DOBERMAN. GUNS. CAMERAS.
4. Jim Rickards and Robert Kiyosaki are screaming about Executive Order 14067 Biden quietly signed in April, that bans CASH in the USA starting this December. I’ll write more extensively on this, later, and we can hope that the “red tide” changes that after the US legislature shifts radically next January. And we can hope that the courts will shut this executive order down. But Kiyosaki calls it “the most treasonous act in U.S. history.”
Biden wants you to think he’s “protecting” you from germy cash, by banning it. All steps towards CBDC, or central-bank digital currency, which is our worst nightmare, if digital slavery doesn’t sound like a future you want.
5. The US Treasury has sanctioned (or punished/shut down) Tornado cash, and the developer of this open-source software arrested. They are the only privacy coin which can “break the chain.” The exchanges froze the Tornado cash funds involved.
This move appears to be sending the message that it is dangerous for a developer to create new technology.
The Treasury claims that Tornado cash laundered half a billion dollars for the North Koreans. The feds were auditing it, and when they saw a North Korean transaction come across the ledger, they pounced.
A man can’t create technology without the risk of his invention being used illegally. And now the inventor can be arrested for the choices of another? That’s like arresting the CEO of Browning Firearms because someone killed someone with the gun he made. Yet another way the U.S. oversteps boundaries.
This is killing technology and advancement for the individual, against the banking cartel, and the intent appears to be to chase developers out of the arena.
All wallets that interacted with Tornado Cash, are also sanctioned and exchanges are banning and confiscating those accounts. I’ve said for a long time that privacy coins pose a huge risk from governments who want to control our every move.
Which coin is next? Where does this end? Privacy coins are only tools, and when we make tools illegal, rather than making certain immoral actions illegal, we stand in the way of progress. We’ll be watching this carefully.
Somebody has also been sending a small amount of ETH related to Tornado Cash to many public ETH addresses, essentially creating a “poison pill” for the wallet holder and all the places that wallet has been.
Justin Sun, a well known developer, was blocked by his exchanges as a result of being sent some of the tainted coin. Where do we go from here? This is coming for DeFi too.
6. Coinbase and Blackrock have announced that they are partnering to offer crypto to BlackRock customers. Justin and I can see this being bad or good (more on that next), but it makes us less likely to want to trade on that platform.
BlackRock owns something like 20% of the entire world’s assets, and no one is sure who the principal investors are (they are very protected by layers of corporations), though it’s likely the old, most-moneyed long-time bankster families.
You could argue that when they’re involved, BTC and crypto will soar, because it will encourage mass adoption and gives crypto more street cred. You could also argue, since ½ of 1% of BlackRock’s value could buy up all the BTC on Earth, that they’re just trying to suck up this powerful asset, to control and maybe even destroy it.
(If it were for all for sale. We’re holding ours! Even if the bad guys win and eventually BTC gets outright banned by American regulators, in a WEF-controlled world, it will likely head to new heights if BlackRock assists crypto in “going mainstream.” We’re confident the world is not going to abandon the blockchain; its utilities and potentials are endless, and the utility for the poor and middle-class of the world is absolutely breathtaking.)
7. A bipartisan Senate bill will be voted on which will make Bitcoin and Ethereum subject to the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). This is bullish for those two coins.
We’d rather see ETH and BTC being subject to the CFTC, rather than the SEC.
Most of the rest of cryptos are unregulated securities; and they’ll eventually be in the line of fire.
Our guess is that stable coins will be bank-regulated. Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary is using his prowess to spend fulltime in WDC working with regulators and legislators to help influence that regulatory environment to stay protective of John Q Public’s access to and free use of crypto and stable coins and tokens.
He and our coaches agree that regulation is necessary for stable coins. As much as we hate government involvement in our affairs, stable coins also need to be–well, stable. In fact, it’s necessary for all of the coins and tokens, really, to have the “lanes painted” to keep criminal activity penalized–but our problem right now is some good people (like Justin Sun who created an open-source software) getting caught in the net, plus a lot of “grey area.”
8. Meta (Facebook) has finally decided on and announced a partnership with FLOW blockchain. This is bullish news for FLOW, ETH, and MATIC (Justin’s favorite projects). All of which will be compatible and allow ease of NFT (non-fungible tokens’) movement and transfer. This also involves Instagram using NFT’s.
9. Unemployment is at a 50 yr low. Can someone, anyone, explain that? With headlines everywhere announcing huge layoffs, even at Facebook and Google, Amazon and Target and Walmart?
All the numbers are cherry-picked and presented to us as support for the narrative they want us to believe. They conveniently leave out the fact that there have never been so many people sitting the sidelines in the labor market altogether.
(Robyn’s guess: senior-level people in every industry leaving to avoid vax mandates, and lots of people living on savings or inheritances or trading the stock market or crypto market.)
And Justin’s background in manufacturing and supply chains cause him to conclude COVID was clearly used as cover, to get rid of workers who can be replaced with AI, machines, and robots.
10. The new Inflation Reduction Act is the pre-midterm-elections Left’s last aggressive drive, toward one-world government, to further squeeze the middle class into poverty.
It does nothing to ease inflation; it gives nearly $800B to the IRS to hire 86,000 new armed “enforcement agents.” Robyn wonders if this is how they’ll use all the illegals who have flooded across our borders and need something to do, now that the envelope of cash they were given is running out.
Last year, Biden saying he’d double the number of audits that the overworked, understaffed, totally incompetent IRS would do, was laughable. He posted to hire 2,000 accountants, and what he got was 200 applicants (many of them probably unqualified).
Robyn doesn’t think accountants with master’s degrees are going to be armed with guns and handcuffs. “Enforcement agents,” that’s not laughable–these won’t be bean counters, if our federal government succeeds at this–these will be like the repo guy, but on steroids, backed by our extremist overreaching federal government.
In fact, I (Robyn) have a hard time understanding how the accountants at the IRS who can’t even answer phone calls or open their mail, the last 2.5 years (ask any tax accountant–I ask every one I meet!) can “back” the “enforcement agents” with the proof and the math, to sanction and put digital trackers (modern slavery/incarceration) on 100k’s or even millions of Americans.
Americans found in violation of any of the two phone books’ now, worth of “tax code.” My own tax accountant admits she cannot possibly keep up and truly know the tax code.
In short, this Inflation Act is a 10-year plan, and I don’t know that the “red tide” of the midterm elections will allow it. We have to hope that Americans have had enough, and our lawmakers, judges, and the people will keep this from becoming a reality.
The SEC is currently investigating every fiat exchange it can. (A fiat exchange is a US dollar on-ramp and off-ramp, where you exchange, for instance, your dollars for a crypto.)
If you are in altcoins, you need to be very careful. There is a chance we could see all the other coins but BTC and ETH fall in value, massively, as a result of these dynamics. In fact, BTC and ETH are up 20% in the last couple of weeks, but the alt coins, for the first time, have not followed.
My guess is that a split between Ethereum and Bitcoin is the current best bet, for the average retail investor. If you want to dabble in the risky “circus coins” of the Altcoin world, you can set up private consultations with Justin inside the Insiders Mastermind, and he can show you how to go about getting involved.
11. Gucci has announced it will accept Ape Coin (which is a crypto for the yacht-club set). This is just more evidence of a growing mass-adoption of blockchain/cryptocurrencies. Tiffany & Co. is also currently getting involved, by creating NFT’s. The good news in all of this is that with the free market system still legal and rampant in the USA, the power structure of the world has more and more contenders to battle, trying to free themselves of the failing dollar and central banking system.
12. This is more rumor than news, but it’s rumored Ethereum will “hard-fork” before the merge happens, which could throw a wrench into it all. What does this mean for Ethereum?
If you’re wanting to invest in ETH before September, when the merge or hard-fork or both cause ETH to skyrocket in value, set up a private consultation with Justin, in our Insiders Mastermind, and he can advise you.
Robyn and Justin also did a Live on this subject last week, Aug. 10, which you should listen to, if you’re like us and think ETH may be the most exciting thing you can invest in at this moment in time, before the merge. The merge is rumored to be around Sept. 19th.
13. The CME (the largest regulated futures and options group) has added reference rates for Solana, Cardano, Cosmos, Stellar Lumens, Polygon MATIC, Litecoin, Chainlink, Bitcoin Cash, Polka Dot, Uniswap, and Algorand.
Conclusions: on average, markets bottom 3 to 9 months, before the economy corrects. So, keep that in mind–it’s hard to get your brain around, but the economy and markets are actually not correlated! They are two different animals.
Justin focused a lot in grad school on statistical analysis. People say, “Garbage in, garbage out”–and people like to focus on the garbage. But data matters, and if you have good data, you have in front of you not just a recession, but also the financial opportunity of a lifetime.
Those who spend all their time doing the “important and urgent” and the “unimportant and urgent” things of life – won’t learn what they need to, about current events in this rapidly shifting economic climate.
Whereas a small minority will see that those who LEARN NOW, will recognize trends in markets and economies, early – right now! – to create generational wealth in the next two years.
Robyn Openshaw is co-author of this post. My co-author today, Justin Taggart, may be new to you, but here are some things Justin and I have in common besides being students of investing and crypto enthusiasts:
We’re both former LDS (Mormon), we are both parents of four children, and we both hold advanced degrees from the University of Utah–Justin’s being an MBA. Don’t be alone, in your journey to find ways to store value, as the dollar is failing. We’ve never needed community, more! And we are offering a free month in the Mastermind currently.
Justin says: “I highly encourage you to study crypto and DeFi, while the prices are so great right now, and set to take off. Join the TakeActionForFreedom (TAFF) Insiders Mastermind, go through the 9 video trainings to get off and running, join us for Weds Night Lives, and schedule a consultation with me if you need help!” And, please assume that some of the links I may share, compensate my small business.