More Signs Of Economic Weakness

Look at the data coming out: (we had) the biggest drop in retail sales in one month since 2009 when we were in the Great Recession. 

Look at the numbers we got out on delinquencies in auto loans: they are at an all-time record high, on people who are 90 days or more behind in their car payments.

I just read today that restaurant sales are falling now for four out of the last five months at the fastest pace in more than 25 years. That means that restaurant sales now are weaker than they were in the 2001 recession or in the 2008 recession.

The Real National Emergency

Of course the real national emergency is not the lack of a wall, the failure to build a wall but building up the national debt to $22 trillion! We eclipse that dubious milestone earlier in the week and again when you talk about the national debt at $22 trillion we're talking about the tip of a huge iceberg. 

This is just a funded portion of the debt and it doesn't include liabilities like what the government owes for social security, guaranteed bank deposits or student loans. That's not there, those are contingent liabilities and they're just as real but they're not even part of the national debt.

So, when you look at all the liabilities that the US government is on the hook for, you're talking about well over a $100 trillion or $200 trillion. Twenty trillion is maybe five or ten percent of the debt but that debt that is the real national emergency.

Portfolio Allocation: "I Have A Lot Of Money In Gold Stocks"

I have a lot of money in gold stocks, more the senior producers. But I also have a lot of global stocks that pay good dividends. 

I could be 40 percent gold stocks and the rest are non-gold stocks, some of those are energy stocks too. But overall they're just good businesses I like around the world in currencies I like. I get a lot of dividends coming.