Everyone knows the U.S. stock market is tanking.
You may not know why this is happening. It is because of the underlying weakness of the U.S. dollar which is the direct result of the 2008-2009 handout for bankers and the ten-year policy of "quantitative easing" (easy, cheap money doled out at low interest rates, aka mass "printing" of money). Well, those chickens are finally coming home to roost, and they're going to poop on a lot of heads on their way.
It's pretty much the same thing that happened in 2008 on a much bigger scale. Back then, banks lent out too much money to people for "adjustable-rate" mortgages. When the rates adjusted upward, a higher-than-expected number of homeowners defaulted (not all, mind you, not even a high percentage, just more than usual) which caused a cascade of failures in derivative instruments that had been written against those loans. All of this culminated in what would have been the failure of some of America's largest and most vaunted financial institutions. Instead of letting the market do its thing and weed out the idiots and crooks, Uncle Sam kicked the can down the road and bailed them out, and the Fed cranked up the printing presses so here we are.
Here's what you may not know:
That money was lent largely to companies who used it to buy back their own stock and prop up the stock market. Every publicly listed company has taken out staggering amounts of debt over the past ten years. Apple has loads of cash, right? So why are they borrowing hundreds of billions? How does it even make sense for a single company to ever borrow that much money? Don't believe me, though; look for yourself. Google "[your favorite company] debt." If you want to get really fancy, figure out that company's debt-to-revenue ratio, then compare those numbers with the same numbers ten years ago.
Obviously, with interest rates going up just a hair, most companies will continue to be able to pay their debt, but the added cost will be a burden to all of them. There will also be defaults, and you can expect these to cascade as did the 7.9 percent of mortgages that went into default in 2008.
By the time the final curtain falls, we will be right back where we were then, facing the prospect of very large financial institutions becoming insolvent, along with many of our job-creating, wealth-creating companies. Just look what happened to GE very recently. That was just a warm-up. The orchestra is just tuning up. This production hasn't even begun. You think your 401K looks bad now? Ha! Give it a year.
If you're holding dollar-denominated assets, this should scare the living piss out of you.
Fortunately, Bitcoin is still cheap thanks to financial shenanigans by the CBOE. Please, please please get some! Even if you can only afford $100 worth, get a little. Protect yourself. When you can't get money out of your ATM, Bitcoin will still be fully functional.