254 THE BiG DROP
It might be a little early, but keep your eye on it. There will
come a time soon to invest a little bit there. As always, my sug-
gestion would be don’t go all in, have it be a slice and do other
things with your portfolio.23) Is it possible for the US government to raise inter-
est rates? Wouldn’t the cost of interest payments bankrupt
the United States?
If you had normalized interest rates, meaning for this stage
of recovery 3%–5%, yes, that would blow a hole in the bud-
get the size of the one that sank the Titanic. That’s not what
we’re talking today, however. Today, we’re talking about 25
basis point increases.
Maybe the Fed funds goes to 50 basis points or 75 basis
points. Maybe they try to get ten-year notes to 2.50%. I don’t
think any of that’s going to happen by the way, but the ques-
tion is, if it did happen, would it bankrupt the United States?
At higher, normalized levels, it could. But what the Fed’s
thinking about right now wouldn’t — at least in the short run.
I don’t think they’re going to do even those small rate increas-
es because I think the economy’s too weak.24) Who are the power elites that really call the shots
in this country?
When I say “power elites” I’m not referring to the boogie-
man or other conspiracy theories. I’m not talking about the
Illuminati or anything like that, either. These are real people.
We know who they are.
They are Treasury secretaries, CEOs of major banks, fi-
nance ministers, some other deputies, central bankers, Janet
Yellen, Mario Draghi, etc. But also some academics and PhD
professors, like Larry Summers, Marty Feldstein and some cor-
porate CEOs of the largest corporations. It’s not a huge group.
They all know each other and hang out — whether in Davos
or on the sidelines of a G20 summit or at an IMF annual meet-