Markets, led today by a narrow handful of tech juggernauts, continue their nervous melt-up despite openly embarrassing indicators of both over- and malinvestment, as yet another game-changing technological wave of AI dystopia seduces the retail plankton into a textbook setup for an historical meltdown.

In the interim, a small minority of early IPO participants and C-suite insiders with advantageous access to easy capital from the big, credit-extending banks will make fortunes.

Unfortunately, small businesses across the rest of the ignored landscape of the American nightmare just posted a 64% Year-over-Year increase in bankruptcy filings.

From Capitalism to Neo-Feudalism

Such trends, numbers and "forces" are screaming indicators of what I have long described as an America whose superficial claims of "capitalism" are little more than terms of art masking the darker reality of the neo-feudalism now staining the façade of the so-called American dream.

As my son and I enjoyed yesterday's football game (against Iowa) live from the University of Michigan's impressive "Big House" stadium, that same university's infamous consumer sentiment indicator just posted its worst numbers in its five-decade+ history.

Such data effectively confirms that a recession is not only off our bow, but it's under our keel.

But hey, why worry? We can rename Lake Ontario to "Lake America", and all will be well again, right?

And let's not forget that the NASDA? 100 has given us five-year returns North of 100%, right?

Even Pam Bondi can remind us to focus on the DOW to keep our faith in American Exceptionalism forever flamed, right?

Hmmm...

The Hidden Crimes

But what few (so very, very few) have realized is that when measured in real money, namely gold, those so-called impressive returns reveal a loss of >20% rather than a gain of 100%.

In other words, if many still think a mythical stock market bubble is going to save us, it's only because they still think measuring wealth in that melting ice cube, otherwise known as the nominal U.S. dollar, is an actual measure of anything.

For bonds, the story is far darker. Over the last 12 years, USTs, when measured in gold rather than dollars, have punished "safe investors" with a net loss of 90%. How's that for wealth preservation?

That's not a typo. It's a crime.

Based on decades of monetizing trillions in budget deficits with trillions in magical money mouse-clicked at the Eccles Building, the so-called "experts" have been killing the purchasing power of your currency (and hence wealth) in an incremental death by a thousand cuts.