We Get Our Dysons Out To Vacuum Up More Donations For Martin House!

[Warbonnet]

Our Class 92s are back by popular demand! 

And what better way to bring them back to modellers than to introduce an Accurascale Exclusive to raise further funds for an excellent cause?

As you may know, our Class 66s are on the high seas, including 66190 in DB red which is our charity fundraiser for Martin House Children's Hospice. 

Well, since the folks at DB Cargo were so sporting in naming 66091 "accurascale" for our charity work, we decided to see if we can raise even more money for their chosen charity!

So, time to unveil 92029 in DB Red, which worked a fundraising railtour for the charity

Loco History

Named for Dante Alighieri, the famed Italian writer of the Divine Comedy, which tells the fictional story of the author’s journey through hell, the palindromic No. 92029 "Dante" was released from Brush at Loughborough in March 1995 for testing but would not be officially allocated to Crewe IEMD until six months later.

Like most of its EWS-owned colleagues it was rarely used to its full capabilities and its first decade of action was regularly interrupted by periods of store. In October 2008, by which time it had gained the large EWS sticker, it was sidelined for longer than usual and it didn’t return to an active pool until July 2013, several years after the DB Schenker takeover.

In 2013-4 it was also seconded to Direct Rail Services for several stints on the operator’s key intermodal services, while April 2015 saw it stored for its second long time out. In 2016 it had a brush with export as DB lined it up for a transfer to Eastern Europe, although this was subsequently cancelled. Three years later, re-activation work commenced but due to other priorities at its home depot this was not completed until June 2023, and was the first DB ‘92’ to receive similar interference isolation equipment as fitted to the GBRf examples to allow it to return to the WCML under its own power.

Following the completion of several test runs it ran to Toton for a repaint, being released in standard DB Cargo ‘Traffic red’. Shortly after on August 27, and still in immaculate condition, it worked the Carlisle-Warrington leg of the Branch Line Society’s ‘Garsdale Growler’ railtour, the second day of a two-day event raising funds for the Martin House Children’s Hospice, complete with headboard.0

 It eventually moved to Dollands Moor in the October to take up freight duties on the high speed route to London, although it is still regularly seen south of Crewe on light engine moves, and has even made the odd foray to Carlisle and back to iron out any ‘bugs’.

The Model

92029 signals the return of the Class 92 to our range after a short absence, which has seen regular demands for its return. Of course, we haven't rested on our laurels after the first run either ,and have added some further enhancements to the model since run 1, including detail behind the bodyside grilles, bogie detail tweaks, and more!

The main Class 92 range will be revealed later this week, but our model of 92029 will join our Accurascale Exclusives line up as we look to raise more money for worthy causes. Whilst we think our Class 66 will be more popular and should hit our target of £10,000, we're not so sure our Class 92 will hit such heady heights, but we'd love to be proved wrong.

Commenting on behalf of Martin House, Ross Taylor stated - "We were delighted to team up with Accurascale for the limited edition fundraising model of 66190, as it promises to raise so much for Martin House. We are now buzzing that they've come back to us and want to work with us and DB Cargo again to raise even more money with the Class 92. This money goes a long way towards making a difference in the lives of so many children and their families who are in the midst of some unimaginable situations." 

Fran Burke, Accurascale Director of Marketing, Public Relations and Sales added - "We are delighted once again to be working with DB Cargo and Martin House to raise even more money for this essential cause. The work the staff at Martin House do is both inspirational and awe inspiring, looking after children who have unimaginable hardships to deal with and making what little time they have left more comfortable. We need to bring as much money as we can to this special charity, and I know our customers will work with us to help Martin House once again." 

So, it's over to you! What figure will our Class 92 hit for charity? £5k? £10k? More? Get behind it today and let's see what it brings in when it is delivered in Q4 2026!

Priced at £229.95 DC/DCC Silent Fitted and £299.95 DCC sound fitted. Our DC/DCC Silent Fitted will have a programmed ESU Lokpilot decoder fitted as standard to operate the raising and lowering pantographs as well as the other lighting functions offered on our Class 92 from the factory. It will also operate seamlessly on DC for traditional power users! Each model will come with the etched Martin House headboard as worn by 92029 on the railtour too, and sound fitted models will feature a new generation sound file. 

Pre-order yours today, direct only from our website, with part of the proceeds going to a charity that provides family-led hospice care free of charge for children and young people with life-limiting illnesses.

Pre-Order Your 92029 Exclusive Charity Model Here!

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[Patrick Davey]

Fair play folks.

[DJ Dangerous]

Great to see the Class 92 back, and great to see A/S supporting a worth cause again.

Just to clarify, the DC model is £60 GBP more than a DC Class 60, because of the pantograph and associated decoder, and the DCC Sound model is £30 more than a DCC sound Class 60 because of the pantograph?

I do understand that the DC model doubles up as DCC Non-Sound as the pantograph requires a decoder to operate either way.

Edited September 17 by DJ Dangerous
Typo!

[BosKonay]

3 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Great to see the Class 92 back, and great to see A/S supporting a worth cause again.

Just to clarify, the DC model is £60 GBP more than a DC Class 60, because of the pantograph and associated decoder, and the DCC Sound model is £30 more than a DCC sound Class 60 because of the pantograph?

I do understand that the DC model doubles up as DCC Non-Sound as the pantograph requires a decoder to operate either way.

The base model includes all the technology, stay alive, large speaker and sugar cube speaker and two independently motorised pantographs and full lighting suite and an ESU lokpilot for a snip at just £229.95

Considering the LokPilot is £39.95 and the accurathrash is £12.95 you’re actually getting the model for a price less than it should be (and the same as a much more comparable class 89 without a chip and with only one panto)

[DJ Dangerous]

4 hours ago, BosKonay said:

The base model includes all the technology, stay alive, large speaker and sugar cube speaker and two independently motorised pantographs and full lighting suite and an ESU lokpilot for a snip at just £229.95

Considering the LokPilot is £39.95 and the accurathrash is £12.95 you’re actually getting the model for a price less than it should be (and the same as a much more comparable class 89 without a chip and with only one panto)

So the big jump in price on both variants over a Class 60 is only because of the pantograph, really.

And on top of that, the DC model is technically a DCC Non-Sound model rather than DC, but is configured to permit DC running. That’s pretty innovative.

Is this the end of pure DC models from A/S? Will the only options be DCC Non-Sound and DCC Sound, going forward?

[Ironroad]

Good question for those of us that stick with DC, of which I suspect there are quite a few.

[DJ Dangerous]

54 minutes ago, Ironroad said:

Good question for those of us that stick with DC, of which I suspect there are quite a few.

I class DC modellers combined with those who wish to go their own DCC route as “DC buyers”, so probably a sizeable group.

[BosKonay]

For complex models like the 92 with pantographs and that needs to body off to access a decoder then yes, we won’t be selling any future models without a decoder on. board. Having shipped a very large volume of locos now our own data tells us that ‘actual’ DC models is around the 10% mark and of that percentage you have to include models that will remain on a shelf or in a box. 

For the prototypes we are doing it makes less sense to have to design bespoke DC blanking chips with a dozen manual switches and all the ensuing support work from trying to support third party decoders etc. 

For easy to access decoder sockets and less complex locos we don’t plan on changing any time soon but it’s something we review constantly. 

[DJ Dangerous]

4 hours ago, BosKonay said:

For complex models like the 92 with pantographs and that needs to body off to access a decoder then yes, we won’t be selling any future models without a decoder on. board. Having shipped a very large volume of locos now our own data tells us that ‘actual’ DC models is around the 10% mark and of that percentage you have to include models that will remain on a shelf or in a box. 

For the prototypes we are doing it makes less sense to have to design bespoke DC blanking chips with a dozen manual switches and all the ensuing support work from trying to support third party decoders etc. 

For easy to access decoder sockets and less complex locos we don’t plan on changing any time soon but it’s something we review constantly. 

Wow, that’s some split, 10/90 DC/DCC. That also explains why the DC models tend to sell out before the DCC models in most cases.

Makes sense that the likes of the Class 89 and the revised Class 92 are not sold as pure DC, specially with that split.

Glad that there will still be some DC models for the moment, too. Maybe I’ll go full DCC one day, but not for the foreseeable future.

[DJ Dangerous]

On 18/9/2025 at 8:21 PM, BosKonay said:

For complex models like the 92 with pantographs and that needs to body off to access a decoder then yes, we won’t be selling any future models without a decoder on. board. Having shipped a very large volume of locos now our own data tells us that ‘actual’ DC models is around the 10% mark and of that percentage you have to include models that will remain on a shelf or in a box. 

For the prototypes we are doing it makes less sense to have to design bespoke DC blanking chips with a dozen manual switches and all the ensuing support work from trying to support third party decoders etc. 

For easy to access decoder sockets and less complex locos we don’t plan on changing any time soon but it’s something we review constantly. 

Wow, I see you guys taking a serious kicking over the pricing and your attitude on RMWeb.

Mind you, one of those posters in particular seems to take issue with almost every A/S launch!

I thought the RMW base in general would have been happier, given the 10:90 DC:DCC split.

Wonder where that other chap got the 40:60 split figure from.

Would I be correct in understanding from the RMW thread that a DC user has two options?

A. Take the loco and plonk it on your track and go, runs out of the box.

B. Buy an A/S blanking plate for €6 to replace the DCC Non-Sound decoder, swap the two inside the loco, and sell the decoder on eBay for €46, while plonking the de-decodered loco on the track.

On DC, the pantograph is manually operated either way, irrespective of whether the loco has a decoder or a blanking plate?

So in effect, by selling ones decoder after buying the blanking plate, they are reducing their outlay quite a bit?

[DJ Dangerous]

On re-reading the RMW thread, I wonder if selling the locos with blanking plates instead of decoders, and reducing the price by €40, would make DC users happier, following the more established opt-in model for DCC, rather than making it opt-out?

I know that A/S do take RMW feedback on board, for example the unpainted sockets on the Class 50, and this decision does seem to be generating a bit of froth.

Edited September 21 by DJ Dangerous
Sockets!

[BosKonay]

I wouldn’t call it a kicking when it’s a handful of Dc posters (the 10%) and look again at the class 89 for where prices are regardless. 

With no decoder the 92 would be £214.95 at least either way certainly not a £40 difference. 

 

 

 

[DJ Dangerous]

21 minutes ago, BosKonay said:

I wouldn’t call it a kicking when it’s a handful of Dc posters (the 10%) and look again at the class 89 for where prices are regardless. 

With no decoder the 92 would be £214.95 at least either way certainly not a £40 difference. 

The Class 89 (£230 DC / £330 DCC) was a limited release, so not an accurate comparison to a general release.

The first run of the Class 92 (£190 / £280) is a better comparison.

The £190 / £280 pricing I’ve quoted is the second revised pricing, to cover the extra tech included.

First pricing revision was £180 / £270.

Launch pricing was £160 / £250.

So £230 / £300 is literally a £40 / £20 increase over the re-revised pricing, and is £60 / £30 more than a non-pantograph Class 60.

If the Non-Sound decoder adds to the price, and the pantograph adds to the price, it would appear that each adds £30, using your 2025 Class 60 pricing?

You’re getting a serious kicking in terms of the, errrmmm, passion, of the, as you call them, the 10%.

[BosKonay]

Uk consumer price inflation since that original 92 price is running at a little north of 37%. My point is that the ‘base cost’ of the 92 should be around £250 these days before you add a decoder at all. 

Another manufacturer just launched a scottish steam engine that’s 250 quid and it doesn’t even have a tender. 

Well happily take all the kicking once we can continue keeping pricing well below where it should be and selling out as a result to the 90%   

[DJ Dangerous]

1 hour ago, BosKonay said:

Uk consumer price inflation since that original 92 price is running at a little north of 37%. My point is that the ‘base cost’ of the 92 should be around £250 these days before you add a decoder at all. 

Another manufacturer just launched a scottish steam engine that’s 250 quid and it doesn’t even have a tender. 

Well happily take all the kicking once we can continue keeping pricing well below where it should be and selling out as a result to the 90%   

I hadn’t realised how high inflation was. I knew that 2023 spiked way up to 9% due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine the year before, and post-Covid demand for consumer goods surging.

I thought that it had fallen back since.

Does this mean that the base cost for you guys contracting from China has also gone up by 35% or 40%?

I saw that £250 steam engine…

No thanks!

Well, the boot is on the other foot now and the snarcy Webbers are kicking the DC modellers, as the match progresses.

I guess the simplest solution for DC modellers is to avoid pantograph locos, and stick to the £170 diesels.

[BosKonay]

Yes we’ve seen direct costs in china and germany (esu) rise by at least that in the period. A raft of wage increases and state mandated changes have driven labour costs in the factories quite a bit more than even Western inflation. 

[DJ Dangerous]

16 hours ago, BosKonay said:

Yes we’ve seen direct costs in china and germany (esu) rise by at least that in the period. A raft of wage increases and state mandated changes have driven labour costs in the factories quite a bit more than even Western inflation. 

Wow!

All in all, that doesn’t paint a very bright outlook for the hobby.

Maybe the golden years are over and it will become slightly more exclusive as prices climb.

Or maybe we’ll have to accept less detail and specification levels as buyers, to keep things affordable.

[BosKonay]

4 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Wow!

All in all, that doesn’t paint a very bright outlook for the hobby.

Maybe the golden years are over and it will become slightly more exclusive as prices climb.

Or maybe we’ll have to accept less detail and specification levels as buyers, to keep things affordable.

In the same period I’ve seen our energy bills triple and food shops probably the same. It’s all relative. Not the end of the world just inflation. 

[DJ Dangerous]

1 hour ago, BosKonay said:

In the same period I’ve seen our energy bills triple and food shops probably the same. It’s all relative. Not the end of the world just inflation. 

That’s kind of what I mean, though.

Wages C. €1200 per month and haven’t changed in years, yet electricity bills are one and a half to two times more expensive, food shopping has gone up, petrol has gone up, there’s much more of a squeeze on the finances as it is.

Same wages plus higher cost of living means less money for passion projects, even if loco prices don’t go up, but if on top of that, you guys are suffering big increases in your costs, the future is dark.

[GSR 800]

1 minute ago, DJ Dangerous said:

That’s kind of what I mean, though.

Wages C. €1200 per month and haven’t changed in years, yet electricity bills are one and a half to two times more expensive, food shopping has gone up, petrol has gone up, there’s much more of a squeeze on the finances as it is.

Same wages plus higher cost of living means less money for passion projects, even if loco prices don’t go up, but if on top of that, you guys are suffering big increases in your costs, the future is dark.

If anyone in Ireland is working a qualified full-time job for 300 euros a week, they are getting exploited through the wazoo.

 

[DJ Dangerous]

4 minutes ago, GSR 800 said:

If anyone in Ireland is working a qualified full-time job for 300 euros a week, they are getting exploited through the wazoo.

 

Canary Islands…

[Sean]

1 minute ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Canary Islands…

stop bragging and ill post you some sausages.

[GSR 800]

2 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Canary Islands…

The average wage in the Canaries is not a good marker for what the target market can afford.

[DJ Dangerous]

1 minute ago, Sean said:

stop bragging and ill post you some sausages.

 

2 minutes ago, GSR 800 said:

The average wage in the Canaries is not a good marker for what the target market can afford.

Doesn’t matter what the wages are, nor where. If the wages don’t increase at a commensurate rate, there’s less expendable income. 

[GSR 800]

10 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

 

Doesn’t matter what the wages are, nor where. If the wages don’t increase at a commensurate rate, there’s less expendable income. 

I agree on the impact of inflation against stagnating wages, something can also be said about cost of living differences in various countries (ie 1200 would go further in the Canaries than Ireland). 

My point is more if you've 1200 euro base monthly wage, railway modelling is going to be very expensive indeed even prior to recent years rapid inflation, as a large new loco 175-200 would take a proprotionally larger amount of your wage against someone who earns more (though again there's the question of how far that money would go elsewhere with comparative cost of living).

For myself I see the choice in RTR as increasingly being buy fewer high end, highly detailed locos with all the bells and whistles, sound etc, for a higher price or go with simpler, cheaper models.

I've an interest in American N scale, where one can buy a Kato Big Boy with DCC sound for 500 pounds, and at the same time buy a 'basic' DC Kato or Athearn diesel for anywhere between 80-120 pound. Tariffs have obviously had an impact more recently, but that's a specific policy choice.

 

 

[DJ Dangerous]

1 hour ago, GSR 800 said:

I agree on the impact of inflation against stagnating wages, something can also be said about cost of living differences in various countries (ie 1200 would go further in the Canaries than Ireland). 

My point is more if you've 1200 euro base monthly wage, railway modelling is going to be very expensive indeed even prior to recent years rapid inflation, as a large new loco 175-200 would take a proprotionally larger amount of your wage against someone who earns more (though again there's the question of how far that money would go elsewhere with comparative cost of living).

For myself I see the choice in RTR as increasingly being buy fewer high end, highly detailed locos with all the bells and whistles, sound etc, for a higher price or go with simpler, cheaper models.

I've an interest in American N scale, where one can buy a Kato Big Boy with DCC sound for 500 pounds, and at the same time buy a 'basic' DC Kato or Athearn diesel for anywhere between 80-120 pound. Tariffs have obviously had an impact more recently, but that's a specific policy choice.

On a per-unit basis, yes, it’s already more expensive, so importing from a better economy is fraught with risk.

The same way that many people ftom richer economies can live here for months, using the spoils from abroad, it is growing popular nowadays for the Canarios to do the same, in places like Indonesia. Sorry, random trivia.

However, looking at it from a percentage perceptive, and rounding figures to over-simplify, if somebody is earning €4k per month and has €1k disposable income, and price increases of 30% to 40% (€3k monthly costs x 1,3, let’s say) knock that down to near zero, something like model railways is likely to take a hit.

Not saying that it’s all doom and gloom, just that maybe the pressure I’ve been feeling the past year or two will start hitting others in better-off economies.

Which may manifest itself as “buy fewer high end, highly detailed locos with all the bells and whistles, sound etc, for a higher price or go with simpler, cheaper models” or “maybe we’ll have to accept less detail and specification levels as buyers, to keep things affordable”.

To throw a spanner in the works, and knock my own opinion, if many buyers are retired or semi-retired, they may be less succeptible to some of the effects of inflation, and/or they may slow down their purchasing for other reasons, such as their own life expectancy.

[Der Rechtsanwalt]

On the issue of inflation, the fiat currency system is collapsing. That means the €Euro £GBP, $USD,  ¥JPY, CHF are all dying. This system was created and maintained by the Central Bank system. That system is collapsing rapidly.

When we came off the gold standard in 1971, the central banks substituted the gold standard with debt to create an artificial value for the currencies they were printing. The pillar banks ran out of people to lend money to in or around 1996 so they created the subprime market. In other words, they started lending money to people who couldn't afford to pay it back. We were fed a load of nonsense by governments that our economies started to boom because of sound policies and foreign direct investment. In fact, the banks were allowed to throw the lending criteria out the window and flooded every western economy with credit. The subprime market collapsed in 2008. The system was placed on life support with bank bailouts in the hope the fractional lending system would struggle on until a new form of fiat currency system could be established. This is why we saw seemingly lunatic solutions of lending more money to businesses and people who were unable to service their existing loans. The interest earned on loans is the banks' income stream and it was hoped that borrowers would use the new loans to service the old ones. This would keep the banks from collapsing. This worked but didn't solve the bigger problem of having to print more money and finding people to borrow it. 

This left governments as the only players on the pitch who could borrow money (through issuing treasuries) to create the artificial value to back up the money printing. As the money printing destroyed the purchasing power of the currencies, the banks were forced to print more money and put that into circulation. In short, you need more money in circulation to buy the same stuff. This accelerated the erosion of the system. Governments were faced with a new problem, they couldn't just borrow the money and leave it sitting in a government account gathering electronic dust, they had to push it into circulation quickly. That's the real reason why we have a bike shed that cost €336,000, a guard hut that cost €1 million and a children's hospital that is costing €2 billion with no end in sight. 

The starting gun for the accelerated collapse happened in September 2019 when the repo markets on Wall Street tanked. The interbank lending rate which was normally 2% jumped to 9% overnight. The Federal Reserve stepped in and promised to print as much money as needed. Another temporary stop gap averted a major system crash. Within six months we were into COVID followed by Ukraine. The war in Ukraine forced the Russians to put their ruble on a gold standard which became a reality in 2024. The Russians were badly burnt by the 2008 crash. They paid off their debts using oil and gas revenues and started accumulating gold. The Chinese followed suit. Today it is estimated that the Russians have about 12,000 metric tonnes of gold and the Chinese have between 17,000 and 24,000 tonnes. The BRICS nations (formed in 2009) started moving their economies towards a precious metals and natural resources standard to safeguard their national interests. Many countries including middle eastern countries started threatening to join BRICS. Germany repatriated all of it's gold from Fort Knox in 2020 (held there for safe keeping during the cold war) and for the first time in it's history the German Bundesbank didn't top up it's foreign exchange reserves with US dollars.

It costs the US government about $8 trillion dollars a year to run the country. They only take in about $5 trillion in taxes leaving a deficit of $3 trillion a year. They borrow the balance by issuing US treasuries. Normally the Chinese buy the bulk of these, but they quietly started to get out of dollar denominated assets as far back as 2008, buying less and less treasuries every year.  

The current evidence that we are nearing the end of the collapse can be seen as follows:

1. Normally when an economy enters recession, prices drop. While the EU economies don't meet the central bank's definition of recession, you will note that Germany contracted in 2023 and 2024. Ireland experienced a -4.8% contraction in 2024. Estonia -3% while Finland -1.3% during the same period. The ECB jacked up interest rates but prices continued to climb and have done so since. Moreover, these price rises were in basic things like food, clothing and fuel, not just next year's Mercedes or Christmas in Aruba. 

2. The 30 year long treasury bonds issued by governments are favoured by pensions funds. They normally generate a low yield with the principal paid back at the end of the thirty year term. Since June 2022 the German 30 year bond has gone up from 1.4% yield to 3.348% today. It's not just the German long bond, but British Gilts, the US Treasury 30 year and the French equivalent. The yields are sky rocketing everywhere. What this means is that the market is factoring in risk of being paid back in fiat currency. The German 30 year bond hit a 14 year high in late August. It has been higher but that was in the early 1990's when the German reunification costs were starting to hurt the German economy. This is going to have a knock on effect on the stock market. Why? If you can buy a bond giving you a high return which is backed up by the taxpayer, why would you speculate on the stock market which is much more risky?

3. The S&P 500 was at 3,298.4 on 25th September 2020. Today it's 6,693.75. Some economists predict that if it reaches 7,000 it will go off the end of a cliff. The reason being is that as the long bond yield continues to go up, people will start dumping stocks. Many of these companies that the S&P500 tracks borrowed heavily when interest rates were low and the underlying economy today is very weak meaning their performance is probably overstated by a country mile. If the stock market collapses it will start a cascade in other sectors.

4. The Fed are expected to announce an interest rate cut this month when we have a nasty level of inflation in the US economy in addition to everywhere else. This will cause the US dollar (the world's reserve currency) to tank in value causing further inflation.

The above conditions are very similar if not identical to the Weimar Republic in 1921 and we all know what happened to the Reichsmark in 1922-1923. 

In the context of making 00 gauge locomotives cheaper, I don't see the prices coming down as the fiat currencies continue to decline in purchasing power. Accurascale have done extraordinary well in delivering cutting edge and technically brilliant models at very reasonable prices to date in the face of the above worsening economic conditions. In addition, they have cut the legs from under the competition. One solution to bring prices down though might be to explore the possibility of paying the Chinese factories in gold. 

The price of gold per troy ounce in September 2020 was €1,908. It's €3,172.10 today. The gold hasn't changed but the purchasing power of the currency has. 

 

 

 

[Horsetan]

15 minutes ago, Der Rechtsanwalt said:

....The above conditions are very similar if not identical to the Weimar Republic in 1921 and we all know what happened to the Reichsmark in 1922-1923. ...

 

There's also the more recent Zimbabwean and Argentinian approaches to printing more money....

[skinner75]

1 hour ago, Der Rechtsanwalt said:

It costs the US government about $8 trillion dollars a year to run the country. They only take in about $5 trillion in taxes leaving a deficit of $3 trillion a year. They borrow the balance by issuing US treasuries. Normally the Chinese buy the bulk of these, but they quietly started to get out of dollar denominated assets as far back as 2008, buying less and less treasuries every year.  

The current evidence that we are nearing the end of the collapse can be seen as follows:

1. Normally when an economy enters recession, prices drop. While the EU economies don't meet the central bank's definition of recession, you will note that Germany contracted in 2023 and 2024. Ireland experienced a -4.8% contraction in 2024. Estonia -3% while Finland -1.3% during the same period. The ECB jacked up interest rates but prices continued to climb and have done so since. Moreover, these price rises were in basic things like food, clothing and fuel, not just next year's Mercedes or Christmas in Aruba. 

2. The 30 year long treasury bonds issued by governments are favoured by pensions funds. They normally generate a low yield with the principal paid back at the end of the thirty year term. Since June 2022 the German 30 year bond has gone up from 1.4% yield to 3.348% today. It's not just the German long bond, but British Gilts, the US Treasury 30 year and the French equivalent. The yields are sky rocketing everywhere. What this means is that the market is factoring in risk of being paid back in fiat currency. The German 30 year bond hit a 14 year high in late August. It has been higher but that was in the early 1990's when the German reunification costs were starting to hurt the German economy. This is going to have a knock on effect on the stock market. Why? If you can buy a bond giving you a high return which is backed up by the taxpayer, why would you speculate on the stock market which is much more risky?

3. The S&P 500 was at 3,298.4 on 25th September 2020. Today it's 6,693.75. Some economists predict that if it reaches 7,000 it will go off the end of a cliff. The reason being is that as the long bond yield continues to go up, people will start dumping stocks. Many of these companies that the S&P500 tracks borrowed heavily when interest rates were low and the underlying economy today is very weak meaning their performance is probably overstated by a country mile. If the stock market collapses it will start a cascade in other sectors.

4. The Fed are expected to announce an interest rate cut this month when we have a nasty level of inflation in the US economy in addition to everywhere else. This will cause the US dollar (the world's reserve currency) to tank in value causing further inflation.

The above conditions are very similar if not identical to the Weimar Republic in 1921 and we all know what happened to the Reichsmark in 1922-1923. 

 

With the orange clown in charge in the USA, that debt will skyrocket, plus US bonds have to offer a greater return, as they aren't considered as a good safe bet with said orange lunatic at the helm.

[jhb171achill]

13 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

With the orange clown in charge in the USA, that debt will skyrocket, plus US bonds have to offer a greater return, as they aren't considered as a good safe bet with said orange lunatic at the helm.

And he will blame Bill Clinton..............

Most interesting article, Mr. Rechtsanwalt; very thought-provoking. We are indeed living in dangerous times, with so much pointing to the 1930s. I often feel lucky I'll probably be dribbling tepid soup down my cardigan in a nursing home by the time it fully hits us all.

[Horsetan]

2 hours ago, skinner75 said:

With the orange clown in charge in the USA, that debt will skyrocket, plus US bonds have to offer a greater return, as they aren't considered as a good safe bet with said orange lunatic at the helm.

It's a bit like Russian Roulette, but with only one chamber empty.

[skinner75]

1 minute ago, Horsetan said:

It's a bit like Russian Roulette, but with only one chamber empty.

That gobshite would use a Glock19 to play Russian Roulette, he is that stupid

[Horsetan]

1 minute ago, skinner75 said:

That gobshite would use a Glock19 to play Russian Roulette, he is that stupid

As long as he's putting it against his own head, what's not to like?

[DJ Dangerous]

6 hours ago, Der Rechtsanwalt said:

On the issue of inflation, the fiat currency system is collapsing. That means the €Euro £GBP, $USD,  ¥JPY, CHF are all dying. This system was created and maintained by the Central Bank system. That system is collapsing rapidly.

Surely, fiat currencies, like crypto, are inherently unstable as they are supported by nothing tangible?

Glad to see Spain high enough up the gold reserve list. We’ll be grand. As for you guys up in Ireland…..