The nation was distracted by the 24/7 news coverage about the submarine that went missing while cruising around to see the Titanic. It seems that there is always a big news story put forth on days when undesirable information is released. We know the entire conflict in Ukraine was planned many years ago (see: “The Plot to Seize Russia”). We know that Biden is in bed with Ukraine – bought and paid for. Now, the Pentagon is admitting that “due to accounting errors” they LOST $6.2 BILLION!
Did the money go to contractors? Politicians? Ukraine? The government refuses to say. Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh explained that they originally thought $3 billion went missing, but the figure they are admitting to the public is closer to $6.2 billion. “We have confirmed that for FY23, the final calculation is $3.6 billion, and for FY22 it is $2.6 billion, for a combined total of $6.2 billion,” Singh said. “These valuation errors in no way limit or restricted the size of any of our PDAs or impacted the provision of support to Ukraine,” she added, as if taxpayers think that we aren’t doing enough for a foreign nation when America is a desperate state.
Everyone should be outraged. That is a HUGE sum of money that this indebted nation cannot afford to misplace. This entire situation reeks of corruption. If this happened under Trump, there would be a never-ending investigation from every angle. If you or I paid a penny less on our taxes, they would hunt us down with the full force of the law. That money was taken from hardworking Americans who pay their taxes. No taxation without representation is a faraway dream. WE DESERVE ANSWERS.
Posted originally on the CTH on May 27, 2023 | Sundance
According to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a deal “in principle” has been reached between himself and Joe Biden. McCarthy held a brief press conference to announced the deal; however, no details are forthcoming. WATCH:
WASHINGTON DC – … [B]oth Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy still have to sell their respective parties on the agreement, navigating fraught votes in both chambers. McCarthy immediately hosted a call with members after the deal was announced, calling it a “big win” and claiming Democrats didn’t get “one thing” that they wanted out of the negotiations on a member-wide conference call, according to three people on the call.
While conservative Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) vocally criticized the agreement — saying he was “extremely disappointed” that the deal didn’t include “any meaningful cuts” — other Freedom Caucus members praised the deal, including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Though both said they wanted to see the text, Jordan praised McCarthy for a deal where the government is “spending less” than it did before and getting Democrats to move on work requirements.
“Seems like a pretty darn good deal to me,” Jordan said, according to one of the people on the call.
And the speaker forcefully defended the agreement after Good’s criticism, saying it could pass the Senate and that he never claimed the legislation the House passed last month would be the “end all bill.”
McCarthy concluded the call around 10:30 p.m., telling his conference that he needed to speak to the White House again and make sure the text reflected their agreement on principle. “Let’s stick together,” he said while concluding the call. Biden and McCarthy will talk again Sunday, the speaker had told reporters earlier.
In addition to lifting the $31.4 trillion borrowing cap through the 2024 presidential election, the deal in principle would keep non-defense spending roughly flat for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, according to a person familiar with the negotiations, falling far short of the $130 billion in cuts at fiscal 2022 levels that Republicans had originally demanded.
Non-defense spending would increase by 1 percent in 2025, followed by years of non-enforceable funding targets, according to the person familiar. Republicans had initially pushed for a decade of strict funding limits. Defense spending would be set at the level proposed in Biden’s budget for the coming fiscal year, representing a modest 3.5 percent increase over current funding levels — less than what many Republican defense hawks would’ve liked to see for the Pentagon in order to keep pace with inflation. (read more)
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Who is being irrational? The markets or the analysts?
KE
ANSWER: That’s simple. It is the analysts. The markets are ALWAYS correct. When you have bank failures unfolding, people will withdraw money out of caution. It is the very same reason there are ancient hoards of coins. You find coins in times of economic stress and uncertainty. This is a purely RATIONAL human response to uncertainty. It consistent for thousands of years. For any analyst to claim the markets are acting “irrationally” only proves they should look for another profession.
Sir Thomas Gresham began his career in 1543 working at Mercers’ Company at the age of 24 years old. He left England for Antwerp/Amsterdam which was the financial center of the day much like Wall Street. That was where he became a merchant businessman which was where banking existed in those days. He became an agent for King Henry VIII in the Antwerp/Amsterdam market. He became a trader and in so doing, he began to observe how capital moved.
The interesting aspect was that he was called in as a sort of crisis manager as I have been during financial upheavals. In 1551, Sir William Dansell, who was King’s Merchant there in the markets, ended up putting the English Government into a financial crisis thanks to his mismanagement. The English turned to Gresham for advice since he became quite astute at trading. They adopted his proposals. It was then that Gresham proposed a very ingenious tact. He advocated a FOREX intervention to push the pound higher on the Antwerp change. His intervention proved so successful that in just a few years King Edward VI had discharged almost all of his debts. By pushing the pound higher, he was able to repay the previous debts by devaluing them.
Therefore, the English Crown sought Gresham’s advice in all their finances until Mary came to the throne in 1553. Gresham was instantly pushed aside for Alderman William Dauntsey, who lacked trading experience and quickly sent the Crown into financial stress. Gresham was called back to deal with the mess once again.
Under Queen Elizabeth’s reign (1558–1603), he continued as a financial agent of the Crown and also became the Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Governor of the Netherlands. This was the period of civil unrest in Antwerp which compelled him to return to England in 1567. This is also when the English had the founding of the Royal Exchange to compete with the Netherlands. It was Gresham who made the proposal to build, at his own expense, a bourse or exchange. This demonstrated that Gresham was a trader and understood how capital flowed. Apart from some small sums to various charities, Gresham bequeathed the bulk of his property (consisting of estates in London and around England giving an income of more than 2,300 pounds a year) to his widow and her heirs, with the stipulation that after her death his own house in Bishopsgate Street and the rents from the Royal Exchange should be vested in the Corporation of London and the Mercers Company, for the purpose of instituting a college in which seven professors should read lectures, one each day of the week, in astronomy, geometry, physic, law, divinity, rhetoric and music.[1] Thus, Gresham College, the first institution of higher learning in London, came to be established in 1597.
Gresham’s Law (stated simply as: “Bad money drives out good“). He concluded this from his observations that foreign exchange back then was based on the metal content and weight of the coinage. Therefore, as debasement took place, people would hoard the old coinage of higher quality and spend the debased. Thus, the bad money drove out the good and actually shrunk the money supply in circulation.
He urged Queen Elizabeth to restore the debased currency of England. In so doing, you got to repay old debts with debased currency. Governments to this day practice that same trick. Repaying a 30-year bond today the bondholder cannot buy what the money was once worth 30 years ago. The interest does not really compensate for the loss of purchasing power over long periods of time.
The Federal Reserve is highly considering this option, and Powell has mentioned it numerous times in his speeches. This is part of the move toward a cashless society as the government continually hunts down its citizens for taxes. The Founding Fathers fought to prevent direct taxation. Yet, the failing current government is drowning in debt, so they are after every possible penny they can find. A CBDC would effectively provide the government with a glimpse of all your purchases. They could easily de-bank an individual or institution without a middleman or prevent someone from making specific purchases.
Ron DeSantis (R-FL) also put forward legislation to prevent Floridians from a CBDC. The governor accused the Biden Administration of trying to inject “woke ideology into the financial sector” and said that the current administration is promoting “a central control state.” “Our money says In God We Trust. The central bank digital currency changes that to In Government We Trust. That’s wrong and I am grateful for the Governor’s continued pushback of an out-of-control DC bureaucracy,” said Foundation for Government Accountability CEO Tarren Bragdon.
Governments across the globe are searching for the Philosopher’s Stone. By changing the banking system to instantaneous transfer, they can eliminate physical money and track everything we do in real-time. They want us to surrender all liberty and terminate our civil liberties. This is precisely how empires collapse.
QUESTION: Marty there are a lot of people who seem to be trying to create a panic. Some are claiming the stock market will plunge by 50%. Others are saying nothing will survive other than gold. It seems like none of these people have any sense of what is really unfolding. They were saying the same thing for different reasons before the banking crisis. Can you offer any historical perspective?
Thank you. You seem to be the only real source these days.
Pete
ANSWER: The Bank Holiday took place the first week of March 1933. It began with governors closing down the banks in their states. Once one began, like COVID rules, they quickly jumped on the bandwagon. As reported by March 4th, 1933, some 41 states had already declared a banking holiday. Back then, the president took office in March – not January. Thus, Roosevelt was sworn in on March 4th, 1933. As the new president, FDR delivered what is arguably his best-known speech.
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”
The following day, Roosevelt declared a national banking holiday on March 5th, 1933. Then Congress responded by passing the Emergency Banking Actof 1933 on March 9th, 1933. This action was combined with the Federal Reserve’s commitment to supply unlimited amounts of currency to reopened banks. Back then, they effectively created a de facto 100% deposit insurance and this was before the FDIC was created.
However, what the history books have omitted because it revealed the real reason for the major banking crisis, was the confiscation of gold precisely as Germany did in December 1922 seizing 10% of all assets which unleashed hyperinflation in 1923.
In Herbert Hoover’s memoirs (1951), he documents the fact that Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) played a very dirty game of politics. There were rumors that FDR would confiscate gold in 1932 BEFORE the election. These rumors spread and people ran to banks to withdraw their funds. The night before the election in 1932, FDR denied that he would do such a thing. After FDR won the election, the real bank panic began. FDR would not take office until March 1933.
The run on banks began as the Great Depression started. In 1929 alone, 659 banks closed their doors due to mismanagement and speculation. Ironically, to save money on paper, it was also in 1929 when the currency was reduced in size to save money. This time, they want to move to digital and save 100% on printing money. Here in 2023, the failures are due to the WOKE agenda which has deprived the banks of risk management rather than speculation.
However, as the 1931 Sovereign Debt Crisis hit, the number of bank failures skyrocketed. Goldman Sacks and others were selling foreign bonds to Americans in small denominations., As Europe began to default, US banks holding foreign debt and individuals in need of cash led to a banking panic for external reasons. Here is a chart showing the listing of bonds on the NYSE. We can easily see the collapse in the bond market thanks to the 1931 Sovereign Debt Crisis.
By 1932, an additional 5,102 banks went out of business. Families lost their life savings overnight. Thirty-eight states had adopted restrictions on withdrawals in an effort to forestall the panic. By March 4th, 41 states had declared a bank holiday shutting down banks. Bank failures increased in 1933, and Franklin Roosevelt deemed remedying these failing financial institutions his first priority after being inaugurated.
However, it was actually the election of FDR that started the banking crisis post-1931. Hoover pleaded with FDR to please come out and address the gold confiscation rumors. People had been hoarding their gold coins fearing the rumored confiscation. Despite Hoover’s plea for FDR to come out and deny the rumors after the election, he remained silent. Given FDR’s manipulation of Japan and the attack on Pearl Harbor which he appeared to instigate with sanctions confiscating Japanese assets in the USA, denying the sale of any energy to Japan, and then threatening to use the fleet to block them from buying fuel from anywhere else, They Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. There were Senate investigations afterward about FDR’s role because the US had already broken the Japanese code and knew in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He did that to force the US into World War II.
It was in his character to remain silent and create the worst banking crisis in history before he was sworn in as president. FDR was a radical socialist and many viewed that he admired Lenin. If it were not for Mr. Jones exposing the truth behind Stalin, even the corrupt New York Times journalist promoting Stalinism was meeting with FDR. The run on the banks became massive when FDR won the election on November 8th, 1932. FDR allowed the banking system to implode with people rushing to withdraw the money in gold coins.
At 1:00 a.m. on Monday, March 6th, 1933, President Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2039 ordering the suspension of all banking transactions, effective immediately. Roosevelt had taken the oath of office only thirty-six hours earlier.
The terms of the presidential proclamation specified:
[N]o such banking institution or branch shall pay out, export, earmark, or permit the withdrawal or transfer in any manner or by any device whatsoever, of any gold or silver coin or bullion or currency or take any other action which might facilitate the hoarding thereof; nor shall any such banking institution or branch pay out deposits, make loans or discounts, deal in foreign exchange, transfer credits from the United States to any place abroad, or transact any other banking business whatsoever.
For an entire week, Americans would not have access to banks or banking services. They could not withdraw or transfer their money, nor could they make deposits. The entire economy ran simply on cash in your pocket.
While the first phase of the banking crisis unfolded after 1929 due to speculation losses (hence Glass–Steagall Act), then the second phase was the 1931 Sovereign Debt Crisis, it was the third phase with the election of FDR that led to thousands of banks failing as there was a mad rush to withdraw your gold coin. But a new round of problems that began in early 1933 placed a severe strain on New York banks, many of which held balances for banks in other parts of the country. About 4,000 banks failed during this period alone bringing the total to over 9,000.
Much to everyone’s relief, when the institutions that could reopen for business on March 13th, 1933 saw depositors standing in line to return their stashed cash to neighborhood banks. Within two weeks, Americans had redeposited more than half of the currency that they had withdrawn post-FDR’s election on November 8th, 1932. This would prove to be a sneaky trick of FDR to get people to redeposit all the gold coins they had withdrawn – as we are about to explore.
The stock market was also ordered closed when FDR came to power. With the cleverness of a real con artist operating a Ponzi Scheme to gain the confidence of the people, FDR needed the gold coin to be deposited for Phase 4 of the banking crisis. On March 15th, 1933, (The Ides of March), the stock market was allowed to reopen. On the first day of trading, the New York Stock Exchange recorded the largest one-day percentage price increase ever.
The week before the closure, the Dow Jones Industrials fell to 49.68. The week following the closure, the Dow rallied to 64.56 – a percentage gain of virtually 30% over the banking holiday. The shorts who were better on the collapse of the market once it reopened were devastated. It was a major short-covering rally.
With the benefit of hindsight, the nationwide Bank Holiday and the Emergency Banking Act of March 1933, ended the bank runs that had plagued the Great Depression, but it also set the stage for the confiscation of gold. What you have to understand is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) actions in 1933 were not directed simply at gold. He was embarking on what he called the New Deal, which was a Marxist Agenda that was very popular at the time. His New Deal would end austerity, whereby they were maintaining a balanced budget in the belief that they needed to inspire confidence in the currency.
It was this balanced budget philosophy that also inspired John Maynard Keynes who argued that in times of economic distress when the demand has collapsed, that is when the state needs to run a deficit and increase the money supply. There was a simultaneous international flight of capital from Europe to the United States in the face of European sovereign debt defaults. That capital flight lasted for nearly two years until FDR won the election in 1932. There was much concern that Roosevelt would do what Germany did in 1922 in confiscating assets. That was the rumor about the possible confiscation of gold.
Milton Friedman criticized the Fed because the capital flows poured into the US but they refused to monetize it. We can see that as Europe defaulted on its debts in 1931, the capital rushed head-first into the dollar. Then we see that the dollar peaked in November 1932 with the election of FDR fearing that would weaken the dollar and exploit the economy. All this gold came to the USA pushing the dollar higher, but the Fed refused to monetize it, was Milton’s criticism. The backing of gold behind the dollar doubled in supply between 1929 and 1931.
So, you must separate gold and the devaluation of the dollar to comprehend what the issue was all about. FDR could have simply abandoned the gold standard, as did Britain, and not confiscated gold. However, that would have also been sufficient to end austerity. But the bankers would have profited and sold the gold overseas at higher prices. Roosevelt in his confiscation of gold was intended to deprive the private sector of profiting from his devaluation of the dollar which was rising the price of gold from $20 to $35. You must keep in mind that he even degraded Pierre du Pont (1870-1954) and called him the “Merchant of Death” because he produced arms for World War I and made a profit off of that war demand. Many saw Roosevelt as a traitor to his own class.
The confiscation of the gold was for two reasons. First, FDR was changing the monetary system from one where there was no distinction domestically from internationally to a two-tier system. Gold would freely circulate without restriction only internationally. Therefore, the confiscation of gold was altering the monetary system moving to a two-tier monetary system with gold only used in international transactions.
Consequently, FDR confiscated gold to move to a two-tier system and to deprive Americans of any profit from his devaluation. What FDR then did was confiscate gold from all institutions ordering them to turn over whatever they had. Ironically, this move was intended to target bankers rather than the public. FDR did not have people knocking on every door demanding all their gold. That is why there are plenty of US gold coins that have survived. If individuals possessed them rather than an institution, then they kept what they owned
Therefore, Roosevelt was able to seize whatever gold existed in banks. He declared all contracts void that had gold provisions for payment. It was in Perry v. United States – 294 U.S. 330 (1935) that the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress, by virtue of its power to deal with gold coin as a medium of exchange, was authorized to prohibit its export and limit its use in foreign exchange. Hence, the restraint thus imposed upon holders of gold coins was incidental to their ownership of it, and gave them no cause of action. id/P. 294 U. S. 356.
The Supreme Court held that it could not say that the exercise of this power by Congress was arbitrary or capricious. id/P. 294 U. S. 356. They held that even if the Government’s repudiation of the gold clause in the government bonds was unconstitutional, it did not entitle the plaintiff to recover more than the loss he has actually suffered, and of which he may rightfully complain. id/P. 294 U. S. 354. Therefore, the Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933, held:
“insofar as it undertakes to nullify such gold clauses in obligations of the United States and provides that such obligations shall be discharged by payment, dollar for dollar, in any coin or currency which at the time of payment is legal tender for public and private debts, is unconstitutional.” id/P. 294 U. S. 349.
Yet, swapping gold for dollars created no loss that was cognizable even though the taking of gold was unconstitutional. Clearly, the Supreme Court did not consider the loss in terms of foreign exchange. The Court reasoned:
“Plaintiff has not attempted to show that, in relation to buying power, he has sustained any loss; on the contrary, in view of the adjustment of the internal economy to the single measure of value as established by the legislation of the Congress, and the universal availability and use throughout the country of the legal tender currency in meeting all engagements, the payment to the plaintiff of the amount which he demands would appear to constitute not a recoupment of loss in any proper sense, but an unjustified enrichment.”
In my understanding of the law, those who argued before the Court made purely a domestic argument. A dollar was still a dollar in domestic terms so there was no cognizable loss and the Court did not reach the constitutional question. Had they argued that their loss was with respect to some debt owed in British pounds, they there was a loss. Purely domestically, the only loss would have been to inflation and the Court would never rule against the government on such an issue.
All of that said, there does not appear to be any historical precedent for the stock market to collapse by 50%, all tangible assets to turn to dust, and only gold will survive given a banking crisis where Biden and Yellen sit on each other’s hands and do nothing. Trust me. Every major Democratic donor will be screaming. And as for those claiming the Fed will reverse its position, say inflation is suddenly no longer a problem, and monetize everything in sight, this is even too big for the Fed. have to create QE and absorb all the debt, there to things have changed. If the Fed does that, it will also lose all credibility. It squarely understands that inflation comes from handing Ukraine a black check to the most corrupt government in the world. The Fed raised rates yesterday for it cannot back down. It is choreographing the best it can but the bankers do not listen.
If they simply stand behind all the deposits, then there will be no panic. That is what they did in 1933 and the market rallied in confidence thereafter.
For the life of me, I have stated the obvious that the Biden Administration has been pushing China and Russia together not to mention North Korea, Iran, and perhaps even Turkey. I cannot believe that I am so brilliant that none of these people in the White House understood the historical event that just took place. That leaves me with the only possible conclusion that they KNEW what they were doing, and that this was DELIBERATE with the intention of creating World War III.
They made it clear that Russia is willing to negotiate but the USA wants war – not peace. All they need to do is honor the Minsk Agreement which they refuse to do. In addition, they expressed concern about the West effectively creating NATO in Asia and the AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and their plans to build nuclear submarines that would violate the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Russian and China came to an agreement concerning a comprehensive partnership in the energy sector. They also expressed concern for the American Neocons who have been pushing military-biological activities and demand full disclosure. They are furthermore pushing for the US to accelerate the elimination of its stockpile of chemical weapons, which the Neocons seem to be dragging their feet intentionally under the Biden Administration.
They also stressed that the United States is pushing Ukraine into this proxy war that they viewed as leading “to an uncontrollable phase.” Moreover, they have also pointed out that the United States and the UK are bypassing the UN Security Council and acting in a rogue manner. The Biden Administration has already divided the world economy. Now, China and Russia are moving to a joint security policy on food and energy which will include defense.
NATO is by no means a defensive organization. They violated the agreements of 1991 and moved Eastward to the border of Russia. In return, China and Russia have called on NATO to strictly observe the defensive nature of their organization and respect the foreign sovereignty of nations, which they have not. Aside from the fact that they invited Russia to join in 1991 which led to the Gorbachev coup, the need for Russia to be the evil empire has been vital. Without an enemy, NATO serves no purpose.
They have also expressed concern that the United States has clearly intensified its activities in the field of missile weapons and has called out the US insisting that it is undermining international security. The Biden threats have been rejected and imposing sanctions on China will only further destroy the world economy.
Without question, this alliance between Russia and China has been created by the American Neocons who assumed that they could intimidate China into remaining distant from Russia so they could wage war and destroy Russia once and for all. This has undone everything that President Nixon did to separate the two MNixon went to China on February 21, 1972, and this is 51.6 years from that target – just UNBELIEVABLE. This also confirms that we are staring into the eyes of history in the making.
Consequently, the China-Russian alliance is historically a true game changer. The Neocons have upset the entire world and NEVER do they ever consider what if their judgment was wrong. The world we have known it is changing and the Neocons have succeeded in undermining not just our future in the United States, but that of the entire world.
Just as World War I and World War II marked the collapse of the British imperial empire, the stupidity of the Biden Administration has sealed the fate of the world and the United States. The world is now firmly divided and the future will never be the same. Welcome to the 2023 Financial Crisis.
The banking crisis continues and it is impacting funds that have been buying bonds. Allianz, a subsidiary of Pimco, is writing off countless millions with Credit Suisse bonds. The banking crisis has been the result of artificially low-interest rates for far too long and banks were used to free money and buy long-term bonds all because they were making their money on the spread. Now that rates are rising, their risk management was effectively nonexistent, and thus the losses and widespread.
The Allianz subsidiary Pimco is one of the largest asset managers in the world. They have to now write off a loss in Credit Suisse bonds and it’s ain’t over yet as we head into April 10th.
QUESTION: The sales pitch seems to be that there is this $2 quadrillion in global debt that overhangs everything. Paper assets, therefore, will all implode! They seem to be saying that everything has risen due to this debt bubble and it was all created with Zero interest rates. Now that they are going up, the debt bubble will burst and everything will decline. The story seems to be that this decades-long Boom Bust cycle was created over and over by the Federal Reserve.
This seems to be like you have said, they try to reduce everything to a single cause and effect.
What really happens?
PCJ
ANSWER: These people seem to keep preaching the same story but have no historical understanding whatsoever of how the monetary system has ever worked. Their focus on the Federal Reserve shows that they are not looking at the world economy and they do not even comprehend how bad things really are outside the United States. They do not comprehend what is an interest rate. It is the compensation to a lender for his anticipation of inflation plus a profit. If I think the dollar will decline by 50%, why would I lend you dollars for a year if when you pay me back it buys half of what it did when I lent it to you?
Debt can be a performing asset. I advised many of the Takeover Boys during the 1980s. We would borrow in one currency to buy the asset in another using the computer to distinguish the long-term trends. I would not recommend that to someone just operating on a gut feeling.
We were also advising on real values, which Hollywood distorted and based the movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas and his famous speech on greed. What they did not really understand was that after a Public Wave that peaked in 1981, stocks were suppressed and the full-faith in government created the broadly supported bond market. Hence – bonds were conservative and stocks were risky. There were two aspects that were behind the entire Takeover Boom.
First, I was showing these charts and how in terms of book value, the Dow Jones bottomed in 1977. It was obvious that if you could buy a company, sell its assets, and double or triple your money, then the market was obviously not overpriced. We had forecast that the Dow was undervalued and that it would rise from the 1982 low of 769.98 and test the 2500 level in two years in 1985. Indeed, it reached 2695.47 by September 1987. We also projected that by the next decade, the Dow would test 6,000 on its next rally.
Even the press in Japan was shocked. We were also projected that Crude would fall below $10 in 1998. Indeed, that forecast was covered by Mark Pitman at Bloomberg News. It bottomed at $10.65 in 1998. In gold would forecast that it would drop to test $250 by 1999 completing a 19-year cycle low. Then gold would rally to test 1,000. Gold reached the $1,000 level by 2008. The Japanese press thought those forecasts were wild, to say the least.
The SECOND aspect of our advice to the takeover boys of the ’80s was something the press NEVER understood. We would advise borrowing in one currency for an asset in another. We were able to turn debt into a performing asset. We would make 20-40% profit on the currency alone. Often, the press would just look at the debt and not understand what we were even doing.
Most of this reasoning stems from Sir Tomas Gresham’s observations when he represented England at the Amsterdam exchange during the reign of Henry VI’s reign and debasement. As Henry debased the silver coinage as was taking place in Spain, the more they debased the coinage, the higher the inflation took place. His observation that bad money drives out the good has been grossly misunderstood. When I was growing up, they took the silver out of the coinage in 1965. People were culling out the silver showing that the debased new coinage of 1965 drove out of circulation the old silver coinage. The same thing has taken place with the copper pennings.
Because people hoard old coinage, the money supply shrinks. That then forces the government to issue far more debased coinage to compensate for the coinage that has been withdrawn from hoarding. Consequently, inflation unfolds for all tangible assets to rise in value as expressed in the newly debased coinage.
What these people always try to sell is the same old scenario that they cannot point to a single instance in history where everything collapses to dust but only gold survives. Such periods will typically result in revolution. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, that was also all bout a debt crisis.
You must also understand that interest rates will be at their LOWEST internationally in the core economy of the Financial Capital of the World – which is the USA right now. The further you move from the center, the higher the interest rate will be. Hence, I have warned that the United States will be the LAST to fall – never the first. This is not based upon my opinion, this is simply historical fact.
The Bottom Line is very simple. There is just no such period as people describe where everything turns to dust and only gold survives. Even if that were true, they what good would the gold do if everything else is worth ZERO? Gold would have also ZERO value since nothing would have value.
The real issue is that as government defaults unfold, tangible assets will rise in value for the amount of money in debt always dwarfs that in even the stock market. We are in a Sovereign Debt Crisis and that is very different from a private debt crisis.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on February 19, 2023 | Sundance
This video interview segment was sent to me today along with a “wow, you were right” message. Apparently, the interview took place a few weeks ago (it’s new to me), but the admissions within it are quite remarkable.
The CNBC discussion surrounds inflation and the federal reserve raising interest rates. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari is talking about the jobs report, inflation and the intention of the federal reserve to continue raising interest rates until they achieve 2% inflation, regardless of consequence. Kashkari doesn’t hedge on the latter issue of consequence; he affirms with absolute guarantee the fed will keep raising rates until the economy shrinks enough such that 2% inflation is achieved. However, watch what happens when Joe Kernan takes that outlook and overlays “supply side” energy policy. WATCH (10:22 prompted):
The issue is quite simple, really. When additional oil, coal and natural gas development is blocked as an outcome of policy, energy prices jump massively. We are seeing 2022/2023 price increases in electricity, home heating, fuel, gasoline, natural gas and other total energy price outcomes in the 60%+ range.
As a direct outcome of energy policy, all of the downstream products and services have massive upward supply side price pressure. When the input prices are driving upward of 60%, the downstream prices increase accordingly. Farming costs, fertilizer, feeding, transportation costs, food at retail and wholesale, and just about every petroleum-based product, which is almost everything, increases in price accordingly.
If supply side energy price increases are pushing +60%, and the Fed will only accept a 2% inflation output result, the only method of achieving the desired result is to shrink energy demand. This is the goal of the current Fed monetary policy. In this interview Kashkari admits the dynamic for the first time in public.
Prior to this interview, the Fed was being too-cute-by-half as they talked about targeting the ‘demand side’ through increased rates. The demand they were targeting is the energy demand, but people (mostly in the financial and business world) were not willing to accept that Federal Reserve monetary policy would intentionally try to shrink the economy.
When overall energy price increases are driving upward of 60%, it is going to take a major amount of economic contraction to drop energy demand to meet the diminished energy supply. CTH has been warning about this ultimate objective for over two years. It’s a simple economic situation.
+60% price on the supply side, with a goal of +2% on the downstream demand side, equals a major amount of activity needing to be removed. Essentially energy use needs to drop by half.
You can put everyone in an electric car and still not even come close to dropping energy demand 50%. You cannot “energy efficient” your way to a 50% drop in demand; there just isn’t enough waste in the system, especially when people are already paying close attention to energy use because it costs so much.
This “transition to the new green economy” is a whole of society shift.
This “transition to the new green economy”, is a multi-generational shift.
The transition includes putting people in smaller houses, stopping their travel, stopping their purchasing of new goods, taking down entire industries and limiting human activity on a massive scale.
Something akin to the COVID-19 lockdown period would be needed, only this level of diminished economic activity would be permanent.
It makes you wonder if the COVID-19 lockdown was the test to see how much energy use would drop if everyone was stopped in place. And yes, during the COVID lockdowns, human activity did stop, economic activity did stop, and energy use did drop by the nearly amount we are talking about.
When you accept what Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari is openly admitting in that interview segment, particularly as he is asked about the massive supply side costs and how that overlays, then you realize how prescient the image is below.
This image is the exact future you see flowing from the “radical transformation,” or what is also called “managing the transition“…
At the end of the transition, you have two social societies. One social system is a massive assembly of human activity all in close proximity. The alternative social system consists of those who do not wish to be jammed into Build Back Better cities yet forced to sustain themselves because the energy production and delivery resources in the larger geography have been stopped.
Now you know why I asked the question, “where would you live” over a decade ago.
QUESTION: Dear Martin Could you please describe more in detail what you are expecting when talking about the breakdown of the monetary system? Will there be differencies between countries like Germany and Switzerland for example? Especially regarding pension systems. I asume, there might be big differences by countries. Many thanks and best regards, RZ
ANSWER: The collapse of the monetary system is the result of a comedy of errors. It boils down to the problem that governments since World War II have adopted Keynesian Economics whereby they took Keynes’ suggestion that they should run a deficit during a recession/depression to compensate for the fall in demand because people are hoarding their cash in times of uncertainty. The problem was that they merged that with Marxism and began to run deficits annually and then took the Quantity Theory of Money that claimed an increase in the money supply would be inflationary. So, they borrowed rather than printed falsely believing that they could spend whatever they wanted without it being inflationary.
However, because debt suddenly became collateral post-1971 when it had been illegal to use government bonds as collateral for borrowing, then the debt was transformed into money that now paid interest as it had begun during the American Civil War.
Thanks to the stupidity of locking down the economy for COVID, the escalation in national debts has been insane. This has added stress to the monetary system for you see, the entire government structure depends on being able to sell its debt. As the demand for their debt is declining when they look at this deliberate push for war and handing Ukraine unlimited amounts of money, the inability to sell the debt has increased their search for taxes – hence hiring 87,000 IRS agents armed!
The system is collapsing. They cannot continue to fund all the social programs under this system where the Primary Dealers are not large enough to continually buy government debt. That impacts everything from Pension to Life Insurance. Absolutely everything from investments to interest rates and taxation is all interconnected so we are looking at the end game of 2032. I believe Schwab has taken our forecast for the collapse of the monetary system and we will have a great reset with our opportunity to redesign government he is trying to take that event and push it to totalitarianism ending even our right to vote on anything. Of there will be a Great Rest, but not the way Schwab hopes it to unfold.
The only option is central banks must monetize the debt which defeats the entire purpose of borrowing that was supposed to be less inflationary, and then they must raise taxes dramatically to attempt to remain in power until they compel the people to rise up in revolution as is always the case. Almost every revolution in history has begun with taxation.
Remember the Biblical story where they show a denarius to Jesus complaining about Roman taxes? That is why this coin of Tiberius is known as the Tribute Penny – “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” It always comes down to the abuse of power using taxation.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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