- "War! h'uh What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'! It ain't nothin' but a heartbreaker! Friend only to the undertaker...
They say we must fight to keep our freedom. But Lord, knows there's got to be a better way...
War! What is it good for? Stand up and shout it. Nothin'!
- War by Edwin Starr
Society is still a work in progress. With the Age of Enlightenment our so-called civilized society began settling vigorous deputes by dueling. In early American history Burr shot Hamilton. Today, the Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu slapped Iran in the face which was the historical approach for a dispute to reach the point of one's life. Israel is already in conflict with Palestine. To do a bombing mission in another nation (Syria) to show a vigorous dispute with Iran by destroying their embassy which by protocol is a nuetral site, is blantantly war-mongering. We stated in previous pieces that peace cannot come with this man in charge. He is no different than Kim in North Korea who pushes buttons because he believes that China will back him up like in the Korean War. Netanyahu bullies, pressures and commits war crimes because he believes the US will back him. We should cut him off with all aid. This will tell the good people of Israel to vote him out of office. War! What's it good for? Absolutly nothin'!
Banking
Historically, banking was needed to finance wars. Today, branch banking is a service for citizens and an aid to the economy. Central banking is the realm for war machines and their undertakings. Fiat makes it easy to which is another reason for the gold standard. Gold means that you have the money in hand. Fiat means that you can print as much as you need. With that said, the banking that we are looking at is our branch system. The results were good, but the market has underlining issues. High interest rates by the central bank has resulted in unseen losses by all banks. The banks are putting money in reserve for a possible rainy day. They will not sell these losses because then, they will have to put that in their financial statement. Banks are also losing depositors who are closing accounts to seek other financial instruments with higher yields. We start with the earnings of the big boy.
JP Morgan Chase (JPM): earnings was good, but the market wanted more. Stock fell 6%. Wells Fargo (WFC): great results, but the bank still has internal problems and big loss of depositors. Citigroup (C): beat, but complained about the loss of depositors. Bank of America (BAC): beat, but stock fell due to more money being placed in reserve. State Street (STT): positive, continues uptrend. XLF: (banking etf) Shows an uptrend from last November. It pulled back with the market, but at highs.
In similar vein smaller, but still a large banks like Truist Bank announced the closing of 72 branch outlets. They will save $750 million to which they will probably need to cover some future losses like in commercial real estate. They are not alone. Barclays is preparing pink slips to use the money for similar reasons. We, at Evolution believe branch banking should be regulated like utilities. They are necessary, but the evil in man like greed needs to be controlled. We cannot afford more problems of too big to fail. Peace.
