Kerry Lutz's--Financial Survival Network

Crypto currencies have been dead in the water this year. They hit their peak on 12-15-17 and have been extremely volatile ever since. Steven Menking believes that it's going to take a specific event that brings them out of their doldrums. What will it be? It's not really important, it's just a black swan away. 

We've been watching the precious metals recession for 7 years now. Will it ever come back? No one knows for sure, but the recent activity is encouraging. Last week when the market got slammed, gold made a nice move. We've need to start seeing higher highs and higher lows to be certain, but all things considered, this may be the start. 

AS bad as you think the corrupt government may be, according to Michael Moore it's far worse than you could ever imagine. He's been on the inside and he's suffered two FBI raids on his house, even having his family held at gunpoint. His upcoming book: Paine How We Dismantled the FBI in our Pajamas, is absolute must reading. It will blow the lid off the Deep State like no other book before it. Be sure to check out his site TruePundit.com. 

Lindsay France writes a column and produces a podcast both entitled The Business of Politics. Her site is geared to independent and unaligned voters. She is seeking to help restore the spirit of debate and the free exchange of ideas, something which is completely absent in today's political climate. We discuss the Kavanaugh Confirmation Abomination and many other important topics. 

Opening up the market is the solution. Medicare for all is a prescription for national bankruptcy. The key is to allow people to make choices in accordance with their needs. Medical Savings Accounts, means testing for Medicare, tort reform and unleashing the entrepreneurial forces in the economy to find solutions will go a long way towards fixing these problems. It will be interesting to see what happens after the mid-term elections. Don't be surprised if the results turn out much differently than the so-called pundits are predicting. 

If ever a year required close attention to tax planning,
tax year 2018 is it. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 delivered the most extensive tax changes in the last 30 years. As a result, filing your 2018 taxes may be even more complex and time-consuming.
 
Angela compiled a summary of some of the more important elements of the new law and how they impact individuals and businesses. 
 
FOR INDIVIDUALS

In tax year 2018, most taxpayers will benefit from lower tax rates and expanded income brackets. Congress passed some new deductions but took away others. They also didn't make the changes to individual taxes permanent - most will expire after 2025.
 
FOR BUSINESSES
Congress did decide to make the latest business tax changes permanent, and they are historic in scope. Corporate income taxes are down dramatically. Owners of S corporations and other business entities will see a potentially large tax reduction on their pass-through income

Estate Taxes
The estate tax, aka the "Death Tax" is a tax levied on significantly large estates that are passed down to heirs.
 
Old- Estates up to $5.49 million in value were exempt from the tax.
The top tax rate was 40 percent
 
New- Doubles the exemption for the estate tax. Now, estates up to $11.2 million are exempt from the tax.
 
Miscellaneous Tax Deductions
Taxpayers can take the miscellaneous tax deduction if the items total more than 2 percent of their adjusted gross income. The amount that's deductible is the amount that exceeds the 2 percent threshold. These are some of the major changes coming to the miscellaneous tax deduction.
 
Tax preparation: Taxpayers can today claim an itemized deduction of the amount of money they pay for tax-related expenses, like the person who prepares their taxes or any software purchased or fees paid to fee to file forms electronically.
 
Tax preparation: Taxpayers may not claim tax-preparation expenses as an itemized deduction through 2025
Work-related expenses: Under current law, workers can deduct unreimbursed business expense as an itemized deduction, like the cost of a home office, job-search costs, professional license fees and more.
 
Work-related expenses: The bill suspends work-related expenses as an itemized deduction through 2025.
Investment fees: Taxpayers can currently deduct fees paid to advisors and brokers to manage their money.
Investment fees: Under the new rules, the investment fee deduction is suspended until 2025.
 
 
State and Local Tax (SALT) Deduction
Old- Taxpayers may include state and local property, income and sales taxes as itemized deductions
 
New- Taxpayers are limited to claiming an itemized deduction of $10,000 in combined state and local income, sales and property taxes, starting in 2018 and running through 2025. Taxpayers cannot get around these limits by prepaying 2018 state and local income taxes while it is still 2017. 
 
 
Moving Expenses
Old- Current law allows taxpayers to deduct moving expenses as long as the move is of a certain distance from the taxpayer's previous home and the job in the new location is full-time.
 
New- The new tax bill suspends the moving expense deduction through 2025. Until then, taxpayers are not permitted to deduct moving expenses.
Moving-related deductions and exclusions remain in place for members of the military.
 
 
Personal Casualty or Theft
Old- Under current tax law individuals can deduct uninsured losses above $100 when property is lost to a fire, shipwreck, flood, storm, earthquake or other natural disaster. The deduction is allowed as long as the total loss amounts to greater than 10 percent of the taxpayer's adjusted gross income.
 
New- The new tax bill only allows taxpayers to claim the deduction if the loss occurred during a federally declared disaster, through 2025.

Lot's so if you really want to know go over to Angela's site.

Former congressman John LeBoutillier and I discussed the aftermath of the contentious Kavanaugh confirmation battle. Has it ginned up the republican base ahead of the November elections? Or has it engaged the democrats?  What are the polls really telling us? Remember October is National Lie to Your Pollster Month? John believes that you can still tell a lot from polls, those that are accurately crafted and administered. Obviously, he's not talking about today's public polls. We'll know in a month. 

There was a time when the most minor of allegations would derail a republican judicial nominee. Those days appear to be behind us. It's suddenly dawned on the party of stupid that if they don't fight for all wrongly accused appointees and nominees that they will all be wrongfully accused and challenged. The ultimate fight will take place at the ballot box in November. Remember October is #NationalLietoYourPollsterMonth!

The government only knows one way, 1) if in a crisis, print money. 2) If the crisis continues, print more and more. If that doesn't work go back to step one. We all know that the US Dollar and fiat currencies are doomed. But no doubt they'll create a new fiat currency to replace the old one. It's just the way they roll. The Dollar is dead, long live the Dollar!

Michael Stumo joined us to discuss the winning Trumpian way on trade. So far Mexico jumped on the Trump Train, as have Canada, the EU, Korea, Japan and others. No one believed that Trump could impose or negotiate a NAFTA replacement and yet he’s done it. Next comes the biggie, China. Will they back down or capitulate? Get ready to notch another Trump victory. 

Eric Hadik joined us today. He's still confident that gold and gold stocks will begin a longer term up trend in the 4Q. The US dollar will be stay strong for the foreseeable future and oil is going to shortly peak. the stock market while still hitting new highs is getting closer to a top. We'll know soon enough. Stay tuned. 

ETF's (exchange traded funds) are all the rage on Wall Street. They've seemingly eliminated the need to be a stock picker. Just choose a sector, buy the EFT, set it and forget it. But there's a problem. The number of publicly traded US stocks is down nearly 50 percent. Therefore, the breadth of the market and the stocks actually going up has been shrinking. We've seen many companies get bought out or merged out of existence. Since Sarbanes Oxley's passage during the Bush admin, the number of new issues has dramatically declined. When things do start heading south, ETF's will be the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire.  

October is National Lie to Your Pollster Month! It's time to put an end to polling madness. Before there was fake news, there was polling. Virtually all polling results released to the public is agenda driven astroturfing. We the public should lie to our pollster no matter what the issue or the questions being asked. It doesn't matter if you're right or left or libertarian. The goal is to make polling so inaccurate and fallacious that the media gives up on this not so subtle form of propaganda and manipulation. Remember, so-called poll results are not news, they are the opposite of news. They are created to push a point of view that is usually the opposite of reality. Polling is a pseudo-science who's time has come and gone. Let's drive it from the American political landscape!

We were once promised hope and change and then waited around to see nothing happen but the situation continued deteriorate. Now all the dominoes are beginning to fall into place. The Kavanaugh hearings tend to tell it all. Bix believes that when Kavanaugh is confirmed it will result in treason trials for many in the media and in the Congress. The criminal lower court judges will be excised once he's in. There's thousands within government, industry and the media. We can only hope! Bix's is very welcome back on the show after a too long hiatus. 

Mark Campbell, President and CEO of our sponsor Aton Resources Inc. (TSX.V: AAN) made the jump from petroleum to gold mining. He wound up in Egypt pursuing the legendary lost mines of the ancients. One day they were sitting around looking at satellite imagery and discovered some trails heading up a mountain. They went up to the top and found an ancient mine that hadn't been touched by humans in over 1600 years. While it didn't have snake pits and booby traps, it became the site of an extremely promising Rodruin project that could see huge returns. The original hand carved mine was very productive. Now with the addition of modern drilling techniques and mining technology, it could be a major world class find. We'll be following Mark and keep you posted. 

Dee Carter author of It's Now or Never: How to Enjoy Your Life and Not Let Your Investments Own You!, believes that the current oil price surge is short term and will remedy itself shortly. In the US WTI production keeps climbing but our capacity to ship and refine hasn't gone up. But there's new pipelines on the way, so fear not. I Europe the Iran sanctions are heating up and thats driving Brent Crude higher. Again it's likely that the situation will be remedied in the near future, one way or the other. After that it's smooth sailing ahead. So get ready. 

When the government claims it's there to help you out or the middle class, grab your wallet and hold on for dear life. As John so eloquently states, it's going to be a rough ride. While GDP looks like happy days are here again, the fact is that there's more to an economy than purported GDP growth numbers. There's a little thing called debt that's been increasing geometrically. But don't worry because as everyone knows, the deficit doesn't matter, or does it? I guess we'll all find out one day when it really does matter. 

Major US stock markets were up again with DJIA up 0.7%, S&P 0.4, NASDAQ down 0.8% and Russell 2000 off 2.5% both off last month's record levels. Emerging markets were down again 0.6%. TSX down 1.2% and TSX-V down 2.2% due to week gold prices. Bitcoin the always volatile digital currency was off 7% last month. Gold was down another 0.7% and Silver was up 1.1% but broke $14 during the month. Pt up 3.7% and Pd was up 9.7% to near record highs. Copper was up another 3.5%. Energy gained big for the month, with WTI up 5.2% and Brent up 6.8%. Natgas broke $3 with a 3.0% gain. Uranium continues its rebound with a 4.0% gain and is up 28% for the past six months. Currencies saw the Greenback rise .1% and the Euro up .1% for the month. Rate on the 10 year T Bond blew past 3% to a 3.05% yield. Till next month!