{"id":89612,"date":"2025-11-15T01:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=89612"},"modified":"2025-11-19T08:17:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T16:17:47","slug":"black-coffee-15-nov-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id89612-black-coffee-15-nov-2025.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: More Monkey Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe<\/em> …<\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

Well… another busy week is behind us. So with that in mind, let’s get this party started!<\/p>\n

Just because you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2013 George Carlin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? In 2016 an Italian artist created three fully functional 18 karat gold toilets<\/a>. No, really. One was stolen shortly after being installed in Blenheim Palace. The good news is that for people looking to buy a toilet made of gold, one of the remaining two will soon be auctioned in New York City at Sotheby\u2019s. The toilet weighs 220.5 pounds \u2013 that is, 2411 troy ounces pure gold and the estimated starting bid is $10 million. And we thought the housing market was out of control. The good news is, the powers that be are working on \u201cfixing” that problem…<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Meanwhile, the level of stress within American households is rising as evidenced by a 29% decrease<\/a> in consumer sentiment from the previous year \u2013 that is the lowest consumer sentiment reading in nearly three years. Uh oh.<\/p>\n

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h\/t: @roots_n_reason<\/p><\/div>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Speaking of stress, according to macro analyst Jesse Colombo, “stress is building<\/a> beneath the surface of the US financial system as evidenced by overnight (cash) demand by banks spiking to $29.4 billion on October 31st. A similar development took place in September 2019 and ultimately played a key role in the Fed\u2019s launch of the major quantitative easing (QE) programs just months later, introduced under the cover of COVID-19 stimulus.\u201d Then again, we all know how that<\/strong><\/em> worked out. Oh… and speaking of banking movies we’ve seen before…<\/p>\n

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h\/t: Jesse Columbo substack<\/p><\/div>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Indeed, as macro analyst Daniel Oliver noted this week, \u201cevery time the Fed tries to hop off the exponential growth curve of money, there is a financial crisis. We\u2019ve just crossed the line<\/a> again, and already the Fed\u2019s repo lines are ramping up \u2013 it had to deploy $80 billion into the banking system last Friday.” Perhaps that’s why the current administration is floating their latest trial balloon…<\/p>\n

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h\/t: Myrmikan Research<\/p><\/div>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Needless to say, even without QE, the US money supply (M2) continues to climb<\/a> \u2013 and the pace is only to going to increase once the Fed restarts its QE, which they are now hinting will commence within the next couple of months. We can only imagine how much worse our financial and monetary systems would be without the sage guidance of the ivory tower academics who are managing them.<\/p>\n

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h\/t: Jesse Columbo substack<\/p><\/div>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, macro analyst Doug Casey observed this week that, “Most of the money that\u2019s been made for the last couple of generations has been in the financial markets, not by creating real industry and real wealth the way Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller did. This is because the major US export since 1980 hasn’t been computers, or Boeings, or soybeans \u2013 it\u2019s been US dollars<\/a> (USD). The trade deficit is now close to $1 trillion per year \u2013 and those USDs outside of America (are) US liabilities.\u201d And it\u2019s only a matter of time before those liabilities result in painful cramps for the US financial system. Oh\u2026 and speaking of cramps…<\/p>\n