Chris Martenson's Blog

Practically every day I post my observations about what is happening in the markets and larger world for enrolled members in the "Martenson Insider" area and then we discuss it.

Here is yesterday's post (11/5/09).

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After digging around and sifting through the things both said and not said, I have come to the conclusion that what we are seeing are the likely effects of a rescue operation.

By this I mean a large injection of stabilizing cash to one or more parties, possibly related to the recent large bankruptcies.  Two of my friends, who have been actively trading for more than 20 years between them, threw in the towel this week, as their patterns and methods are no longer working.

Their conclusion is the same as mine; this market is not trading like it used to.  It is trading chaotically, counterintuitively, and as if there's some sort of distorting influence involved.

First, we might just wonder if this isn't the impact of a rogue firm with entirely too much power moving the market for its own benefit.  read more »

Once again, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (waggishly referred to as the Open Mouth Committee during the Greenspan era, for its tendency to try and talk up a good response in the markets) has delivered a widely anticipated "non-event" from its most recent meeting.

That is, interest rates were left untouched at a level indistinguishable from zero.

As expected.

Once again I will try and provide translation services for the overly obtuse and meandering language preferred by the FOMC staff writers.  read more »

A new Martenson Report is ready for enrolled members.

Link:  Market Shift - Something Is Coming

A snippet:

As you know, I spend a great deal of time combing the available market information for clues about what is happening in the economy and where it may be leading us. This past week (October 24 - October 31, 2009) showed some amazing developments indicating that a major turning point is once again upon us.

This assessment is based on several key events, including the bankruptcy of Capmark Financial, which kicked off the week, the return of volatility to the stock market (reminiscent of past tops), and the bizarre strength in the price of gold on Friday, even as the Dow peeled off nearly 250 points.

Click the above link to read this report.  Please note that the full report is available only to enrolled members.  To enroll, please click here.

[Note:  Comments are disabled here; see the Martenson Report content box on the main page for comments.]  read more »

To commemorate our one-year anniversary, I'm pleased to announce that I am posting a free, condensed, 45-minute version of the Crash Course for your viewing enjoyment.  

The presentation it contains is part of a public talk delivered in Boulder, Colorado, this past summer filmed by Dave Gardner (who is working on a documentary called GrowthBusters, check it out - he deserves and would appreciate support for his project).

If it has been a while since you watched the Crash Course, please take the time to experience this new format.

You can watch all six parts here on this page.  read more »

A new Martenson Report is ready for enrolled members.

Link:  Personal Preparation - Where to Begin

I am continuing with my thoughts and advice on preparation for a very different future.  This time we focus on personal preparation.  In this report I discuss many of the changes and actions that we have personally undertaken in my household.

A snippet:

In a recent report entitled It's Time to Prepare, I walked through the financial preparations that one might take to add greater resilience to one's holdings and where they are located. 

But there is more to preparation that just financial savvy. I have been asked repeatedly to provide some guidance on personal preparation. In this report, I will begin the process of sharing my thoughts and experiences about this subject.  read more »

One year ago today, the final installment of the Crash Course was loaded to the site.

Happy birthday, Crash Course!

It was a terrible concept and a worse business decision.  Three and a half hours of intellectually dense material, lacking a happy ending, that I decided to give away for free.  On paper, it should have been a disaster.  But in reality, it has been enormously successful, having been featured in the Washington Post, on PBS, in the Huffington Post, and on Financial Sense Newshour with Jim Puplava, just to name a few..

So now that a year has passed, and this incredible and vibrant community has coalesced around the Crash Course, let's review where we've been and what we've accomplished.  read more »

I recently attended and presented at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference in Denver.

The entire summary of everything I heard boils down to this:  We are already past peak oil.

I'll wait for a minute while that sinks in.

(…)

While the implications are enormous, seemingly incalculable and therefore ungraspable, I truly believe that understanding the impact this will have on our economy will illuminate the future for those who take the time to internalize the details.

One of my central contributions centers on the idea that it is our monetary system itself that is out of step with reality.  Everything else we see around us economically is merely a symptom, while the cause of our current and future ills is the dependence of our monetary system on perpetual exponential growth.  A profound and important set of conclusions immediately result from the acceptance of this argument.

While I spend a lot of time sifting through current data and trying to explain it, this is the primary scaffolding upon which I hang everything else and which drives my long-term views.

If I am right, this has enormous implications for our future prosperity and the trajectory of our current investments and other stores of wealth, especially those denominated in a defective currency.  And I am not just talking about the dollar here, but all debt-backed fiat currencies.

While at the ASPO conference, I had a strong urge to re-post the article below, as it concisely lays out my central thesis and it occurred to me that perhaps we should periodically revisit and discuss this topic.

If you really internalize this argument, which is admittedly difficult, because it means suspending an enormous range of internal beliefs and external confirmations, then you might find yourself unable to slip on your old spectacles and view the world of economics and money quite the same way again.

In the parlance of the movie The Matrix, this point of view represents a red pill; once taken, it's extraordinarily difficult to see things the old way.

My hope is that we can have a vigorous discussion here.  I am constantly looking for evidence to either bolster or refute this hypothesis.  Where is this wrong?  What could mitigate this argument, besides some miracle energy breakthrough?  Is there another way to view this?   Is it somehow possible for our money system to be tweaked into compliance with reality?

As always, higher style points are offered for comments that are fact-based and logical over arguments that are grounded in beliefs and opinions.  read more »

A new Martenson Report is ready for enrolled members.

Link:  No Exit - The Coming Wealth Trap

This week’s report was supposed to be an extension of last week’s, but I need to take a little detour here.  I received quite a few responses to The Sound of One Hand Clapping, and it occurred to me that there is a very important bit of thinking that needs to accompany that article.

In this report, I will tell you exactly why I am convinced that the next round of destabilizing price adjustments – adjustments that will completely reshape the value of your income and assets – will not follow any prior historical model.  Fortunately, with a bit of analysis, I think we can predict what sorts of changes will happen well in advance and get ourselves properly positioned.

Click the above link to read this report.  Please note that the full report is available only to enrolled members.  To enroll, please click here.

 read more »

This is a piece that I wrote in response to a request for a guest post over at ZeroHedge. It ran there yesterday garnering some nice attention and a diverse range of comments beneath.

Based on some of those comments, this article represents nothing more than my attempt to find an explanation that matches the data.

My central thesis to this crisis, developed a few years before it even hit, is that the economic troubles are the symptoms, while the money system itself is the cause.

My views on this are expressed in the opening of an article that I initially penned in 2006 but updated in 2008:  read more »

A new Martenson Report is ready for enrolled members.

Link:  It's Time To Prepare

As my long-time readers know, I consider my main occupations to be information scout, dot-connector, and analyst.  But as a side job, I also provide a decisive alternative to the mainstream economic propaganda machine, which is thoroughly dedicated to maintaining the status quo, regardless of cost.

Everyone needs to prepare themselves for another round of economic instability, as the nation and world comes to grip with the fact that we are not going to enjoy a V-bottom recovery and that we are not going back to "normal"  -whatever that might be - any time soon.

We are about to enter another leg of the downturn, and this one will be even bumpier and more uncertain than the last.

It's time to prepare.

Click the above link to read this report.  Please note that the full report is available only to enrolled members.  To enroll, please click on the Enroll Today button at the top of the page.