The full scorecard
Every sign the Weimar Clock scores, with its source and what would advance it. The plain-language summary is on the main page.
Scored Sep 3 2026 · Stage 3 of 6 · The smart money leaves first
Each sign reads: confirmed ●, starting ◐, absent ○, or not yet measured ·. Absent signs are shown as plainly as confirmed ones.
The Stage 4 and Stage 5 boards are early-warning boards: if the idea is honest they should read mostly absent today.
A. Is the loss of value continuing?
the background trend the whole clock rests on
| # | Gauge | Reading (Sep 3 2026) | Source | What would advance the clock | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| · | A1 | Stocks measured in goldS&P/Gold ratio trend | Ratio 1.71, off the 1.86 spring bounce; secular downtrend intact (2.45 five years ago). Gold $4,476/oz, +17% y/y, has recovered most of the Q1 correction | Public market data (S&P 500, gold) | Sustained ratio downtrend = debasement intact |
| · | A2 | Years of inflation above the targetCPI streak vs target | Now in the 6th year above target. Headline re-accelerated to 4.17% (May) then eased to 3.30% (Jul); core 2.47% and falling | BLS CPI releases | 6th consecutive year = Stage 2 permanence confirmed |
| · | A3 | Interest rates set against inflationReal policy rate through easing cycles | No easing occurred. Target held at 3.50–3.75% and futures now price 56% odds of a HIKE; real policy rate positive against headline CPI. The put has not been exercised | CME FedWatch, BLS CPI | Easing with CPI >3% = put exercised at the unit's expense |
| · | A4 | Dollars in existenceUS net liquidity / M2 | M2 $23.22T, +5.8% y/y, still expanding; debt-to-M2 1.68, flat for six quarters | FRED (M2, net liquidity) | Reliquification during next drawdown = Test 1 |
| · | A5 | The ten largest companies, combined valueTen largest companies, combined market value | ≈$24T, up from $21.6T in June; the $25T alert milestone is within reach | Public market-cap data | $25T / $35T / $50T / $100T alert milestones |
B. Signs the insiders are leaving first (Stage 3)
the current stage
| # | Gauge | Reading (Sep 3 2026) | Source | What would advance the clock | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ● | B1 | Central banks buying goldCB gold buying (price-insensitive bid) | Q2 net buying 289t, a record for any second quarter (+62% y/y), at $4,500 gold. Honest other half: H1 345t was the weakest first half since 2022, and Q1 was revised 244t → 57t. A record 45% of surveyed central banks intend to add | World Gold Council quarterlies | Acceleration post-gold-correction = flight durable, not momentum |
| ● | B2 | Governments and companies buying bitcoinSovereign/corporate BTC | Public companies hold >1.2M BTC, about 6% of supply; ~650k is held by 13 governments, mostly from seizures. The US strategic reserve exists on paper with no open-market buying activated | Public filings, IPO documents | First G7 official adoption = B-layer complete |
| ○ | B3 | Foreign governments' share of U.S. debtForeign official share of Treasury holdings | Baseline established: foreign and international holders are 24.1% of total public debt (Q4 2025), up off the 22.6% low of 2023 and far below the 30.5% peak of 2019. Absolute holdings are at a record $9.27T. No sustained decline is underway | Treasury TIC data | Sustained decline while issuance grows = clock accelerating |
| ◐ | B4 | Luxury prices, and who still pays themLuxury-first spread (premiumization) | Pricing power holds at the very top while the broad impulse has stalled: LVMH H1 organic +2%, its fashion and leather division +1% in Q2; Hermès decelerating and downgraded. Aspirational buyers have withdrawn. The falsifier is not met — no organic decline — but it is closer than in June | Earnings calls, BLS PPI | Luxury pricing power FAILING = framework falsifier watch |
| ● | B5 | The richest tenth's share of all spendingTop-10% spending share | Top decile now 49–50% of all consumer spending, a record; the bottom 80% is about 37% | FT / Moody's series | Trend up = K-structure deepening |
| ● | B6 | How the economy looks against how people feel"Two-economy" perception gap | Gap persistent and widening: a record top-decile spending share against subdued sentiment and an August payroll revision of −79,000 | UMich sentiment vs GDP, unemployment | Gap WIDENING = distributional signature intensifying |
E. What people are doing and saying
the social signs Weimar showed at every stage: price controls, blame, fights over the statistics, gambling, shrinking quality
| # | Gauge | Weimar anchor | Reading (Sep 3 2026) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ● | E1 | Price controlsPrice-control reflex | Rent restriction "first and cheapest device" | Enacted, no longer proposed: the New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted 7–1 on Jun 25 2026 to freeze rents on roughly a million stabilized apartments for leases from Oct 1. Los Angeles capped increases at 4%. The cheapest device is now policy in the largest US city |
| ◐ | E2 | Enforcement as theaterPerformative enforcement | Anti-gluttony bill, Wucherpolizei raids | A federal bill to ban surveillance pricing (Feb 2026); New York finalized gross-disparity thresholds for gouging in Jan 2026; federal antitrust enforcers pushing state attorneys general onto fuel pricing |
| ● | E3 | Fights over the statisticsStatistics fights | Cost-of-living index "cooked" by 1925 | The October 2025 inflation print was never collected and cannot be recovered — a 43-day shutdown, not manipulation, but the index now has a hole in it. Treasury invoked its inflation-linked-bond fallback for the first time in history. Add an August 2026 payroll revision of −79,000 and a commissioner fired over a print in 2025 |
| ◐ | E4 | Who gets blamedScapegoat rotation | Tourists → peasants → industrialists → Jews | Billionaires/immigrants/landlords/algorithms rotating; antisemitism resurgent |
| ◐ | E5 | Appetite for a strong handRadicalization / authority appetite | "Amenable to authority... loud, bold voice"; middle class going Nazi | Two in three Americans say democracy is in danger of failing; 84% call political violence at least somewhat of a problem; confidence that votes will be counted accurately has fallen from 77% to 60% |
| ● | E6 | The young treating it as an adventureAdventure cohort | Youth remembering inflation "as an adventure" | 18-to-21-year-olds traded $5.4B on a single prediction market this year; same-day-expiry options are now 25–50% of all US options volume. Volatility as the only ladder |
| ● | E7 | Shrinking quality, shrinking packagesQuality collapse (cheapjack) | Three bad boots vs one good pair | 89% report noticing shrinkflation, 59% regularly; 56% have abandoned a brand over it. Debasement reaching goods whose nominal price never moves |
C. Signs the public has begun to run (Stage 4)
early warning: if the idea is honest, these read mostly absent today
| # | Gauge | Reading (Sep 3 2026) | Source | What would advance the clock | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ○ | C1 | How fast dollars change handsM2 velocity | Baseline established: 1.415 (Q2 2026), up six straight quarters from 1.390. Still BELOW the 2015–2019 range of 1.434–1.525, and the quarterly increments are shrinking. A rebound off the 1.126 crash of 2020, not a flight into goods | FRED M2V | ≥4 quarters sustained uptrend |
| ◐ | C2 | Dollar substitutes and goods-backed tokensStablecoin float + tokenized real assets | Stablecoins ≈$302B, off the ≈$320B May peak (Germany's emergency-money stage). Goods-denominated instruments — tokenized gold and commodities — are ≈$6–8B against the $100B trigger | Public filings, issuer disclosures | Goods-denominated >$100B = Stage 4 trigger component |
| ○ | C3 | Cash held out of fearHousehold cash-holding behavior | Money-market funds at a record ≈$7.9T, retail above $3.0T — held for a near-4% yield, not from aversion. Still optimization, not flight | ICI money-market fund flows | Cash held DESPITE yield falling = aversion, not optimization |
| ○ | C4 | How often prices are resetRepricing cadence (menu psychology) | Annual repricing still the norm for rent, insurance and wages. Watch item: algorithmic and shelf-label pricing on groceries drew federal legislation in Feb 2026 | Consumer contract renewal terms | Monthly/dynamic repricing spreading to staples |
| ◐ | C5 | Cost-of-living raises as a demandWage-indexation demands | Cost-of-living clauses have become a strike issue rather than a talking point: ~23,000 steelworkers to the brink over a contract carrying no adjustment through 2031, plus public-sector strike authorizations demanding adjustments that match inflation | Union settlements, COLA coverage | COLA clauses as strike-issue norm = spiral institutionalizing |
D. Signs the money is being refused (Stage 5)
early warning: whether the government can still find willing buyers for its debt
| # | Gauge | Reading (Sep 3 2026) | Source | What would advance the clock | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ○ | D1 | Demand at government debt auctionsAuction tails / bid-to-cover on 10y-30y | Baseline established: the Aug 13 30-year auction cleared at 5.216%, the highest auction yield since 2001, with bid-to-cover 2.39 against a recent average near 2.43 and dealers taking 11.5% against about 10.6%. Demand held, at a price. Nothing near the 2bp tail threshold | Treasury auction results | Repeated tails >2bp on 30y; any failed auction |
| ◐ | D2 | The extra return lenders demand for the long termTerm premium | Baseline established: the 10-year term premium is +0.88, the top of its multi-year range, against a 2023 average of +0.20 and +0.75 as recently as June. The rise is real and sustained — but it has not yet been tested through an easing cycle, which is what the signal actually asks | ACM term premium (FRED) | Sustained rise THROUGH Fed easing = bid demanding compensation |
| ◐ | D3 | The Treasury buying back its own bondsTreasury buybacks / issuance gymnastics | Escalated Aug 19: long-end buyback operations at least doubled, from $2B to at least $4B per operation across the 10–30 year sectors, effective Sep 9. Framed as liquidity support. Bill-heavy issuance tilt continues | Treasury QRA statements | Buybacks growing as % of issuance = managed market |
| ○ | D4 | Officials discussing forced buying of government debtRate caps or forced buying, in official discourse | Checked and still absent from official channels. A Feb 2026 Fed staff note discusses the 1942–51 yield-cap episode analytically, and bank rule changes go the opposite way, easing rather than mandating Treasury holdings. The talk is all outside the building | Fed speeches, working papers | Any Fed official floats it = immediate re-score |
| · | D5 | Long-term bonds when rates are cutLong-bond response to easing | UNTESTED — no easing cycle arrived to test it. Policy went the other way, so the instrument stayed unarmed | Market data at next pivot | Bonds + dollar selling off together INTO easing = "rescue stops working" |
F. Tests & falsifiers
run during any −20% drawdown
- Policy response 60–90d — reliquification = cyclical (expected: passes every time until the boundary; see honest-column note below).
- New ATH ≤18mo — >24mo = Japan path, framework BROKEN.
- S&P/Gold + gold/BTC behavior through the drawdown — THE live test; falling ratio = debasement intact; everything-down-vs-cash 3+mo = deflationary break.
- Japan-1989 falsifier standing. AI-deflation falsifier: services CPI breaking down while caps rise. Luxury falsifier: LVMH/RL organic declines + premiumization reversing.
Honest-column note on Test 1: Weimar says the rescue ALWAYS comes — Test 1 will pass by construction every cycle. Its real information is in HOW the rescue trades (D5). A passed Test 1 with failing D5 is the regime boundary, not a confirmation.