Category WEF Digital EU

Jun 23 2023

Dutch Study on Banning Investors from Buying Real Estate


Armstrong Economics Blog/Real Estate Re-Posted Jun 22, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Dutch researchers at the University of Amsterdam and Erasmus released a study entitled “Buy-to-Live vs. Buy-to-Let: The Impact of Real Estate Investors on Housing Costs and Neighborhoods.” The study examined a legal Dutch ban on buy-to-let or rental investments. Researchers studied home prices, sales, and the demographics of residents in areas with this law. “Our results suggest rental investors influence local housing conditions primarily through changing the residential composition of neighborhoods rather than direct house price effects,” the study stated.

The winners here were first-time homebuyers in the middle class. Yet, home sales and prices remained stagnant. Again, we must remember this is an INVENTORY crisis. Mortgage rates in the Netherlands declined from 2008 to 2021, falling to a record low of 1.65%. Rates spiked over the past two years and are now around the 5% range. So like America, those who bought at low rates are less likely to sell now. There are also programs in the Netherlands that enable borrowers to borrow 100% of the property’s value.

“The ban has successfully increased middle-income households’ access to homeownership, at the expense of buy-to-let investors. However, the policy also drove up rents in affected neighborhoods, thereby damaging housing affordability for individuals reliant on private rental housing, undermining some of the intentions of the law,” the study found. It is really as simple as supply and demand – fewer rental properties will push up the prices of rentals on the market. However, less competition enables people to enter the housing market and own their homes, gaining equity, tax breaks, and security.

We see who funded the study. They want to normalize permanent renting as we go toward Agenda 2030 and 15-minute cities. The study mentions gentrification numerous times. Another university-based study also condemned private homeownership in support of the institutions. The University of Oxford produced “Keeping Up with the Blackstones: Institutional Investors and Gentrification,” which is an alarmingly racist study. This particular study found that institutional investors caused rentals and housing prices to rise, but they said that was a benefit because it increased “neighborhood diversity.” Let us be reminded that the majority of the population anywhere is not a minority by definition. The study is skewed completely.

“The reason for increased diversity is that some minorities benefit from the relaxation of borrowing constraints as a result of higher house prices and take out mortgages for home improvement, increasing the attractiveness of their homes; other minorities move in because more rental properties become available as institutional ownership crowds out predominantly white individual home ownership,” researchers at Oxford stated, noting that crowding out predominantly white individuals, and therefore the majority of the population, was a positive result.

Institutions frequently cite diversity as part of their mission statements. Freddie Mac did it when talking about ADUs, and BlackRock consistently talks about providing housing for minorities in the name of diversity. Read between the lines – they simply want to profit on rentals and block the majority from homeownership. This has nothing to do with gentrification or race, which is always something cited as a virtuous plight when in fact it is in itself racist to think someone could not afford a home based on their race. They try to divide us in any way they can. These mega institutions and the studies they fund want to shrink the middle class and divide us into the haves and have-nots.

Jun 6 2023

England to Roll Out Guaranteed Basic Income Pilot


Armstrong Economics Blog/BRITAIN Re-Posted Jun 6, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

England will provide thirty individuals £1,600 per month to study Guaranteed Basic Income, also known as Universal Basic Income (UBI). The pilot program will monitor these individuals for two years to see how they put the money to use. As I noted in the blog post about the Cloward-Piven study, there must be no conditions for true Guaranteed Basic Income to work. That means that those chosen will effectively receive a “free” government handout at the expense of the working taxpayers.

The working taxpayers in lower earning brackets will likely look at those receiving free handouts and wonder how they too can get in on the scheme. “This is a substantial amount. Universal basic income usually covers people’s basic needs but we want to see what effect this unconditional lump sum has on people’s mental and physical health, whether they choose to work or not,” Will Stronge, the director of Autonomy thinktank, told the Guardian. “Our society is going to require some form of basic income in the coming years, given the tumult of climate change, tech disruption and industrial transition that lies ahead. This is why building the evidence base and public engagement now is so important, so the ground is well prepared for national implementation.”

They are already setting the precedent for a need for a welfare state. They’re purposely using a small sample size of 30 so that they do not need to show the drain the welfare system causes on the system. Those behind the social experiment claim UBI could eliminate poverty and create a perfect utopia. There is not ONE example in history where socialism has worked. Global governments have exacerbated inflation and the cost of living, and now they want you to rely on them for your needs solely. Socialism is never free. They will need to raise taxes and take from others to redistribute wealth, providing no incentive to work or for innovation to take place. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s money.”

Apr 18 2023

Welcome to the New Totalitarian One World Government


Armstrong Economics Blog/Regulation Re- Posted Apr 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty, You are the only worthwhile analyst. You were alerting us a year ago that the IMF was creating its own digital currency. We have all these people claiming this will kill the dollar just as they proclaimed the euro when that was created. It is also well known that you were called in about revising the world monetary system numerous times. I heard that you were called in on this one and refused to assist them. You warned back in May of 2021 that the IMF was creating a new reserve digital currency.

Is this all part of the rise of the United Nations, World Bank, and IMF all becoming this one world government? I that why you declined to get involved?

LW

ANSWER: I am not at liberty to speak to issues where I am solicited. Suffice it to say, I took no part in creating this currency. This is part of what I have been warning about digital currency. They can restrict its use and anyone who thinks that somehow Bitcoin will be some independent white knight rushing in to save the day, they have drank too much of the cool aid.

Look, try depositing $10,000 in cash. Watch what happens. I have a friend who owns a bar in a college town. He takes in a lot of cash because the customers often do not have credit cards. Some banks did not even want to accept an account from him. Others required inspection and monitoring because cash CAN BE a way to launder money. Europe has been restricting cash to transactions capped at €1,000.

There is serious talk of restricting purchases for cash or CRYPTOCURRENCY and the way they enforce it is precisely restrictions on businesses and noncompliance means you are out of business when no bank will accept your account. That eliminates business in credit cards as well. This is why I say, they will create a black market through their sheer authoritarianism. Human rights will no longer be respected. This is point 8 of Schwab’s Agenda.

Back in 1980, the press was all over my firm. NPR came in with cameras rolling and could not believe we had just paid a woman $6,000 for a heavy silver serving plate. We had lines all day long at all my locations in addition to the fact I was making markets for all the stores nationwide. Whatever they bought that day they sold immediately;y to us and shipments were coming in from everywhere. I had a team just handling that and we would bundle it all up and send it out in Armored trucks to be refined at Engelhard which was 30 minutes away.

Because of all the publicity, the IRS came in and declared me to be a bank under the theory that Nixon only closed the gold window and gold was never demonetized. Sure, it was a novel theory that just because I was one of the 3 largest gold dealers in the country, that made me a bank without applying for a banking license. They claimed I had to report every transaction of $10,000 or more buying for selling. They sent in their stormtroopers and began going through every transaction. They then went out and audited over 3,000 clients. I decided to retire. That was it. I was not about to become a rat on everyone that walked in the door.

The point is this. They can declare everyone mining cryptocurrency to be a bank. Already, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA) requires any transaction of $10,000 or more to be independently reported to the IRS. The government can declare you to be anything. You can fight them in court and you will lose and it will take years. In the meantime, you will have to comply. They can do ANYTHING they want. It is then your burden to argue that what they are doing is illegal. Good luck. We are no more living in a free country than Russia or China. The government can do anything it desires. It will always be your burden to say they are acting unconstitutionally.

You will NOT be able to travel internationally with even gold coins. You may not even be able to hop on a plane domestically with gold or cash. Over the past several years, a common question for U.S. taxpayers across the globe is whether or not a foreign-based virtual currency such as Bitcoin that is held overseas is reportable for FBAR (Foreign Bank and Financial Account Reporting) or FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) purposes. The Treasury was already pushing since 2021 for any transaction of $10,000 or more in cryptocurrency must be reported to the IRS.

Whether you are a visitor to the United States or a U.S. citizen arriving in the United States, you must complete one or more entry forms.

At the end of the day, they want their pound of flesh and they want absolutely everything to be restricted and monitored. Welcome to the new law of totalitarianism.

Categories: Regulation

Mar 27 2023

Are Markets Irrational or Analysts?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Forecasts Re-Posted Mar 27, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

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.

Mar 9 2023

The Debt Crisis – What Really Falls to Dust?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Sovereign Debt Crisis Re-Posted Mar 9, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

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.

We have interest rates back to 3000 BC and have studied the impact of such convulsions in economic history. As for the Debt Crisis that forced Caesar to cross the Rubicon, I suggest you read Anatomy of a Debt Crisis that appears, only Julius Caesar ever understood. 

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.

Feb 6 2023

Ukraine will Used the Weapons to Attack Moscow – They Lied


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Feb 5, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

To get the weapons for massive destruction, Zelensky lied and promised that the weapons would not be used to target Moscow. Kiev’s forces will not hold back when it comes to hitting locations inside Russia, according to Fyodor Venislavsky, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s National Security, Defense, and Intelligence Committee. Speaking to Germany’s Bild tabloid on Saturday, he also described Moscow as a “legitimate military target.” The West is arming Ukraine for long-range missile attacks on Moscow. Putin and the hardliner will now have NO CHOICE and will be fully justified in nuking Ukraine to end the war the same way the United States nuked Japan.

The corruption in the Western media is astonishing. This is not being reported in the USA or Europe. It is being reported in the Middle East and in Russia. The international fake news organization, Trusted News Initiative (TNI), a consortium to control all the mainstream Western Media, is promoting World War III and we are to be told Russia is evil and we must go to war to destroy every individual Russian on the planet. There is no longer any independent journalism left. I had learned in grade school history class that the media created the Spanish American War. Pulitzer later felt guilty and donated his assets to Columbia University to hand out awards for journalists when Pulitzer was the father of yellow journalism and sheer corruption.

This is ABSOLUTELY what our world leaders want to take place. In their view, Gates has convinced them that there are just too damn many of us and they cannot pay for all the pensions. It’s time to thin the herd. They need war to reduce the population and eliminate the debt crisis.

For all of those who support Zelensky and hate all Russians or at least buy the bullshit propaganda about Putin, take a last look at your children and grandchildren You are condemning them to a future that may not even exist. Your stubbornness and refusal to look at the truth have emboldened our World leaders to steer us directly into world war III. I have had Ukrainian employees on both sides from Kiev (Its original Russian spelling) and Donetsk. I have had experience with Ukraine and they are DESPISED by all their neighbors for they are the remnant of Hitler’s Nazis. The wheel of fortune has completed its revolution. We are now supporting the Ukrainian Nazis Ethnic cleansing operation of the Donbas.

Now, former President of France Hollande has come out and confirmed that they negotiated in bad faith to create the Minsk Agreement ONLY to buy time for Ukraine to build its army to start World War III. Hollande has come out and also confirmed there is no interest in peace, this is to destroy Russia – plain and simple. This will end ONLY when Russia fails. There absolutely no reason for China or Russia to negotiate with Europe or the United States when they NEVER keep their word. Treaties mean absolutely nothing anymore and that necessitates World War III for there is no other solution.

I warned before, Zelensky was put in place to start World War III. I publish that Zelensky was intent on creating World War III in February 2022.

Feb 3 2023

Is Digital Currency Safe?


Armstrong economics Blog/Cryptocurrency Re-Posted Feb 3, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

It turns out that North Korea-backed hackers stole a record $1.7bn of cryptocurrency in 2022, according to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. It also appears that they had a hand in the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX where the auditors have reported that around $415m of cryptocurrency has been stolen by hackers.  This is becoming a very interesting story with several facets from funding North Korea to laundering money for Zelensky to pay off the Democrats for the Midterm elections.

There is no way they will let this case go to trial. They will have to cut a deal or they are going to need to have some pumped-up loser kill him when on bail, or Judge Lewis Kaplan will have to revoke his bail and put him in MCC where they can kill him easily and blame another inmate and the guards fell asleep once again and, of course, the camera didn’t work.

At the end of the day, North Korea has been making a lot of money hacking into cryptocurrencies. Your crypto is going to a good cause – World War III to achieve Bill Gate’s dream – population reduction since the vaccines did not kill enough people off – yet.

Feb 3 2023

What is Really Behind the Rise in Interest Rates?


Amstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized Re-Posted Feb 3, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The European Central Bank has just announced its monetary policy statement that the “will stay the course in raising interest rates significantly at a steady pace and in keeping them at levels that are sufficiently restrictive to ensure a timely return of inflation to its 2% medium-term target.”

Besides inflation, the other problem that governments are having is that there is a lack of a bid on the long end. That is why Yellen proposed swamping in long-term for the short-term. Furthermore, it is becoming obvious that Western governments are pushing for war with Russia and China. Institutions have been frantically calling us about restructuring their portfolios because war is coming, they see the debt expanding and rates rising further so why buy the long-term only to lose money?

Then we have Klaus Schwab and George Soros who are pushing for world war perhaps because they are so old and do not expect to be here anyway – so why not take a bunch of us with them?  Like an Egyptian Pharoah who has all his servants killed upon his death to travel with him to the next world to serve him.

So we have inflation, war, and the ultimate end game of defaulting on the debt as they did after World War II and creating a new Bretton Woods with cryptocurrency so they can track everything we do. Welcome to the wonderland of Klaus Schwab where you own nothing, and will be a mindless ant in a clever Lenistic world of perfect order and absolute control.

Feb 2 2023

Oh SH*T, HERE WE GO… Pfizer BETTER BUCKLE UP


Redacted News Posted originally on Rumble on: Feb 1, 4:00 pm EST

The truth always come out!