When an entity/person has too much debt, an (insufficient) increase in disposable income is immediately used to try to become "current." This never works because there is stress in so many areas that drags down the borrower.

What DC is doing is giving the economic vehicle gas and stomping on the brakes at the same time. This is becoming obvious now to everyone, even though it has been going on for decades. Money creation (necessary to fund payment on existing growing debt due to compounding, etc.) is driving prices higher, but is not really allowed to reach a large number of consumers thereby creating lower demand from the "many" which temporarily tempers price advances. Frankenstein economics 101. Starving the consumer to hold down prices.

I'm suspecting the crude oil will tell us long before gold what the true "state of the union" is. That market is the biggest determinant of inflation as so much product creation depends on it.

The rise of nationalism and tariffs (and other barriers to trade) will end up in a depression, as always. So, every time DJT talks about restricting trade with others, all it does is add another nail to the coffin.

Bottom line: The nationalism will bring a depression which will destroy not only the consumers (importers) but also the producers.(exporters). And then, it will all be done again unless the current vector can be extended with an interval interruption force (cheap energy or the like).. The way to read it will be to use the rise of the USA as your template and then use the timing you find there to project China's future ups and downs. It's possible you could use China's history to project the USA future directions, since it is older, also. Circles within circles. I have some Chinese 10,000 yuan currency notes from the 40s that are worthless as currency in the world today. USA currency will not default any time soon because it is not gold-backed. US told the rest that they were welcome to use their dollars to get gold....just not from the USA. Everybody says Nixon was wrong to close the gold window but it looks like a sound decision, in hindsight.

also, can't stress this enough: Boomers need to get the 2 pneumonia shots (you get them a year apart, not both together). It's not the flu that kills you, it's the resulting pneumonia.