Refugees Take over Paris Metro


Europe is being torn apart from the inside. In Paris, the metro station has been turning into a slum and war zone. Schools which had gyms in Germany have been turned into dorms for migrants. Kids have lost sports as a result of what is going on. This has turned everything just completely nuts. I have been told that many people see more on this site than they do in their local media on this subject. It is becoming increasingly disturbing as governments try to suppress the truth endangering their own citizens.

Negative Interest Rates Destroying the World Economy


Negative-Rates

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I think I am starting to see the light you have been shining. Negative interest rates really are “completely insane”. I also now see that months after you wrote about central banks were trapped, others are now just starting to entertain the idea. Is this distinct difference in your views that eventually become adopted with time because you were a hedge fund manager?

Just curious;

Bob

Summers-Larry-CareerANSWER: I believe the answer is rather simple. How can anyone pretend to be analysts if they have never traded? It would be like a man writing a book explaining how it feels to give birth. You cannot analyze what you have never done. It is just impossible. Those who cannot teach and those who can just do. Negative interest rates are fueling deflation. People have less income to spend so how is this beneficial? The Fed always needed 2% inflation. The father of negative interest rates is Larry Summers. He teaches or has been in government. He is not a trader and is clueless about how markets function. I warned that this idea of negative interest rates was very dangerous.

Yes, I have warned that the central banks are trapped. Their QE policies have totally failed. There were numerous “analysts” without experience calling for hyperinflation, collapse of the dollar, yelling the Fed is increasing the money supply so buy gold. The inflation never appeared and gold declined. Their reasoning was so far off the mark exactly as people like Larry Summers. These people become trapped in their own logic it becomes irrational gibberish. They only see one side of the coin and ignore the rest.

Central banks have lost all ability to manage the economy even in theory thanks to this failed reasoning. They have bought-in the bonds and are unable to ever resell them again. If they reverse their policy of QE and negative interest rates, government debt explodes with insufficient buyers. If the central banks refuse to reverse this crazy policy of QE and negative interest rates they will see a massive capital flight from government to the private sector once the MAJORITY realize the central banks are incapable of any control.

alarm_clockTime ClockThe central banks have played a very dangerous game and lost. It appears we are facing the collapse of Social Security which began August 14th, 1935 (1935.619) because they stuffed with government debt and robbed the money for other things. Anyone else would go to prison for what politicians have done and prosecutors would never defend the people because they want to become famous politicians. We will probably see the end of this Social Security program by 2021.772 (October 9th, 2021), or about 89 weeks into the next business cycle. These people are completely incompetent to manage the economy and we are delusional to think people with no experience as a trader can run things. If you have never traded, you have no busy trying to “manipulate” society with you half-baked theories. So yes. The central banks are trapped. They have lost ALL power. It becomes just a matter of time as the clock ticks and everyone wakes up and say: OMG!

Roman-Army

We have government addicted to borrowing and if rates rise, then everything will explode in their face. Western Civilization is finished as we know it just as Communism collapsed because we too subscribe to the theory of Marx that government is capable of managing the economy. Just listen to the candidates running for President. They are all preaching Marx. Vote for me and I will force the economy to do this. IMPOSSIBLE! We have debt which is unsustainable the further you move away from the United States which is the core economy such as emerging markets. Unfunded pensions destroyed the Roman Empire. We are collapsing in the very same manner and for the very same reason. We are finishing a very very very important report on the whole pension crisis issue worldwide.

Saudi Threat to Sell U.S. Assets is No Big Deal


Adel_Al_jubeer

Saudi Arabia has threatened the Obama administration and congressional leaders that it will sell billions of dollars in U.S. financial assets if Congress passes a bill to make the Saudi government legally responsible for any role in the 9/11 attacks. That bill would allow claims to freeze their assets in the USA by a judge pending the litigation. Obama has tried to stop Congress from passing the legislation, but this is a bipartisan Senate bill. Obviously, Saudi Arabia is worried that there are viable claims that are not frivolous. The typical dollar haters are championing this as a death knell, but Saudi Arabia’s assets of $750 billion are not exclusively government bonds. Saudi Arabia does not even make the top 10 list of holders of U.S. Treasury notes. Most of their “investments” are other assets which would be crazy for them to try to sell for the price would crash.

As far as Treasury notes, the Saudi holdings would be soaked up in minutes. Sorry, no big deal. I have warned that the whole Syria mess has involved a pipeline to deliver gas to Europe. They did threaten Putin that terrorism would hit Russia for the Olympics if they did not yield to Saudi Arabia. Then there are those pointing to the connection of terrorism in Brussels linked to Brussels’ largest mosque that is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, a Salafist regime, which has tried to separate itself from the terror attacks. However, some say they are not revealing everything. There are more and more people pointing at Saudi Arabia so they are obviously trying to stop any lawsuits that might embarrass them even more. If people could file suits, either they just hand them default judgments or they defend, and to defend they have to provide a discovery of many things they do not wish to reveal.

2015-2016

Welcome to the other side of 2015.75 – the decline and fall of governments. This is a worldwide trend for their attempt to manipulate society is coming to an end. OPEC has been unable to control the price of oil. Governments have been unable to manage the economy. This is all coming to a shocking end. They will kick and scream all the way, but will not change the course of destiny.

Bundesbank Bank’s Thiele Against Electronic Money


Thiele Carl-Ludwig

The Bundesbank (German Central Bank) has come out opposed to eliminating cash. During the pre-Euro years, the Bundesbank was providing us with inside info on the Euro preparations because they were outright against it. Those who always hate central banks do not realize that they are not always what it seems. The Bundesbank is now clearly positioning itself against the drive to eliminate cash. Carl-Ludwig Thiele said this past week at an event in Berlin that the attempt to abolish and criminalize cash is out of line with freedom. He said that citizens should continue to decide how and in what form they want to use their money.

Thiele’s main arguments were:

  • Every citizen has the right, with his money to proceed as he wants. If action is taken at this point in the right to freedom of the citizen, it must be well-grounded. And so the question arises: How does a cash limit restrict crime in other countries? Thiele said he was not aware of any support where a cash limit, such as Italy or France, prevents crime. Crime should be correspondingly lower than in countries with no upper limit on cash, but that is simply not the case
  • The arguments that are made against cash and cash payments, are unconvincing, Thiele said. He went on to argue that cash protects the privacy of the population. That benefit is not a reason to twist into a benefit for criminal ignoring the majority of honest citizens. The right to informational self-determination and respect for private life is a valuable asset which should not be watered down or abandoned. “Cash is coined liberty” – this modified Dostoevsky quote has not lost any of its validity.

Modern Liberalism and the Death of Civilization


Prof. Paul Eidelberg

The Nihilism (involving moral relativism) that contaminated higher education in America begins with the early 20th century flood of European philosophy in American academia.  Most influential was Germany’s (or Hegel’s) historical relativism, which contradicts the biblical narrative, as did England’s (or Hume’s) atheistic empiricism. Both dominate higher education to this day, even in the “Jewish” state of Israel.

As Leo Strauss has shown, the father of modern liberalism is none other than Spinoza. Spinoza is also the father of biblical criticism. This made Spinoza the darling of Germany, of the nineteenth-century German school of Bible Critics.

Spinoza must therefore have encouraged the European-educated John Stuart Mill, whose mid-nineteenth essay On Liberty made him the world’s leading exponent of unfettered freedom of speech, hence of the free speech Liberalism that continues to predominate the mentality of American law schools and judicial institutions.

Paradoxically, however, free speech Liberalism is now eviscerating academic freedom in the United States. American colleges and universities have succumbed to the virtual totalitarianism underlying the prohibition of what is called “hate speech,” speech that offends the sentiments, above all the religious beliefs of Muslims, The ban on “hate speech” means the end of the liberal dogma of unfettered freedom of speech. The ban on “hate speech” may readily be construed as indistinguishable from speech involving, however remotely the character of other human beings.

What irony! The unrestrained permissiveness of Liberalism regarded obscenity as a protected form of speech by the American Supreme Court. This ruling at least denied the existence of truth and of evil, hence of that which denies the existence of a rational God, as well as the distinction between the human and the subhuman.

That denial can readily undermine the distinction between the polite speech appropriate in the company of woman and the obscene speech typical among vile men. This involves a degradation of language. The foulness of language violates the language of Holy Writ, which utterly avoids obscenity and employs only euphemisms to avoid any degradation of the human body, the creation of God.

This lofty attitude toward speech or language was overruled by Israel’s ultra-Liberal Supreme Court president, Judge Aharon Barak, who nullified a law permitting the Film Censorship Board to ban pornographic movies by ruling that nothing can actually be declared pornography, “as one man’s pornography is another man’s art” (Station Film Company v. Film Censorship Board, 1997).

As a free speech Liberal, Barak seems to have been very much influenced by the academic doctrine of moral-cum-cultural relativism. Moral-cum-cultural relativism was, and effectively still is, the ruling dogma of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The most famous and influential intellectual founder of this university was the German-educated Martin Buber. Buber, who renounced Judaism to the extent of marrying a Gentile, propagated the anti-Jewish Hegelian doctrine of Historical Relativism (or moral pluralism). Buber’s book, Two Kinds of Faith, happens to provide a philosophical basis of the “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Buber wrote Two Kinds of Faith to justify by his marriage to a Gentile, a convenient academic justification for a Jew-turned cultural relativist!

 

Epilogue

The free speech Liberalism underlying American as well as Israeli law has sanctified public obscenity and even pornography, which are rooted in atheism. The denial of God, evident in contemporary Liberal education, engenders the denial of all moral distinctions. An important set of moral distinctions is related to men and women. The ascendency of free speech Liberalism, of unfettered freedom of speech, diminishes the differences in the language used in speaking to and about men and women.

This unrestrained Liberalism encourages not only homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage. By its denial of truth it generates nihilism which in turn undermines any normative understanding of Islamic terrorism, as is evident in President Barak Obama’s attitude toward that savagery.

Same sex marriage, like Islamic terrorism, is a rejection of Western Civilization. Women (hence children) will be the first victims of this Liberalism, beginning, as mentioned, with our attitude toward Language. Since language distinguishes the human from the subhuman, its degradation in obscenity cannot but degrade human life. This is also the consequence of Islamic terrorism which, consistent with Islamic theology, substitutes the primacy of force over the primacy of reason.

Summing up: free speech Liberalism – with its denial of truth – is actually a negation of rational speech, hence of God’s gift to man. Unfettered freedom of speech, the tendency of modern Liberalism, and implicit in the above-mentioned decision of Judge Aharon Barak, signals the death of rational speech, hence of civilization.

With Barak-type Liberals laying down the law concerning what was traditionally known as distinctively human, and therefore hence of what is decent and indecent, the word “terrorism” will become as meaningless as the term “marriage.” Small wonder that neither Israelis nor Americans know where they are going, although there are signs that their ultimate destination is the grave.◙

Influence – Does it Matter?


Crash & BurnQUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; A lot of people claim to have contacts in high places, but they seem to delude themselves and others. I have been in Washington and saw you at lunch meetings with chiefs or staff of several politicians in ————- one of the most exclusive spots as only for members of Congress. I have been in Brussels and seen you there running around to meetings. Friends in Beijing say the same that you are not blocked and held in very high regard. You have more “influence” than you admit. Do you think you can help prevent the coming crisis?

Facing Sun -1

ANSWER: Yes, I do not deny that I know a lot of people in many governments. It is true I suppose that you could say I have some “influence” but that is among the minority. There are people in government who see this mess coming. However, they are powerless to prevent the collapse. I do not possess enough “influence” as you put it to prevent anything. The majority will grind the system into collapse. Nobody can stop that. All I hope to accomplish is when that moment comes, perhaps I can shine a light on the path to freedom rather than suppression. We will see. I get to leave this earth. My life is over from a rational perspective. I am glad I am not 18 today. If I can leave something behind to my posterity, then it is worth the effort. But neither I nor anyone else possesses enough “influence” to prevent the crash and burn. The best I can do is to hope that they can stand there with their arms wide open facing the sun and see the alternative being freedom.

China’s Coming Gold Fix April 19th, 2016


China Gold Fix.jpg - R

Next week, China will begin its competition with London & New York and attempt to create the equivalent of the London gold fix but in Chinese yuan on April 19th. Of course the gold bugs are misrepresenting this as some dollar killer. Top Chinese banks, alongside Standard Chartered and ANZ, will be among 18 members to join a new yuan-denominated gold benchmark that signals China’s biggest step towards making the yuan convertible. By creating a yuan based gold fix, this is a back-door to floating the yuan itself. It will allow for arbitrage in currency so you can go long or short gold in dollars and the opposite in yuan and you have then created a yuan contract.

For years, these people spinning stories such as how “paper gold” was evil, failed completely to comprehend how the market even functions. OPEC nations who could not earn interest religiously, bought gold and then sold it forward. They were not interested in gold, it was the means to earn interest without calling it interest. This is what gave gold the liquidity that other commodities did not. It was an interest play for decades. Creating a yuan based gold fix is once again not about gold but about a test for floating the yuan. Sophisticated players will use this for the currency and China will monitor the trading as a test case for floating the currency. This is the small step forward. China has to float its currency or it will NEVER make it to the big leagues. Capital has to freely be able to move in and out without applying for permission to enter and leave.

So now these people spinning this story show their ignorance. They say no dollars allowed, as if this is some war that will destroy the dollar. China dollar reserves are over $3 trillion. Why would they try to make those reserves worthless? If they wanted to hurt the dollar, then convert the $3 trillion into something else. But what? Rubles? Gold is not easily transportable for international settlements among nations and are such is such a tiny fraction of world capital flows (less than 1%), that converting it gold would isolate their economy. These claims only reveal their lack of comprehension of how the economy even functions.

Those who are screaming gold will now go to $64,000 an ounce for this is making the yuan a gold backed currency, only demonstrate how ignorant they are when it comes to international finance. It was during the 19th century when the Silver Democrats tried to fix the silver at 16:1 relative to gold seriously over pricing it relative to where it traded in Europe. That resulted in silver being attracted to the USA and gold fleeing the country. This is why the USA entered a 26 year depression and ended up virtually bankrupt when J.P. Morgan had to arrange for a gold loan in 1896 to save the country. Here is the English magazine Puck showing America drowning in silver by their stupid attempt to overvalue silver relative to gold because the miners paid off the Democrats just as the bankers do today.

If China even dared to attempt to make gold some absurd price well above the world price, they would be bankrupted in a matter of weeks. Everyone would sell their gold to China and return with dollars. You could then just wait for the collapse and buy back the gold at the world price. Any attempt by any government to FIX THE PRICE or gold far above the world price is precisely converting gold to FIAT defined as dictating the price disconnected from reality of the free market.

So anyone claiming gold will rise to some absurd number, just ask them will they buy it from you at 10% or 5% of that number now and ask them how much do they want? I could easily deliver any quantity at 10% or 5% of such a price of $30,000, $50,000, $64,000, or $100,000. I will be glad to sell them an option at those prices. As the TV show use to be say: Let’s Make a Deal. The question really is; Do they honestly believe this BS? Or are they paid by people to try to sell dreams like swamp land in Florida?

Europeans – Get Out While you Can?


Draghai Euro Crisis

QUESTION: Hey Martin.
I’ve been a reader of your for years now. Thank you for everything you are doing. I live in Europe in Finland and I can feel this continent collapsing. Do I understand you correctly. You suggest that we Europeans open a bank account somewhere else, hold our savings in dollars and when gold bottoms we buy gold with our dollars. Is that correct?
Please answer Martin because I’m afraid to hold my savings in Euros in my bank.

 

ANSWER: Yes. So far, the USA is actually a tax haven for non-Americans. You can open a bank account in the USA which Americans cannot do the same overseas. You would want to do that before it is too late. If Britain does vote to exit, it will set off a contagion that will cripple the EU.

1900$X-M 1931 Sovereign Debt

PlazaAccordGold should NOT be your only investment. You should consider US equities – blue chips. The dollar will rise and with it this will break the monetary system. It is unlikely that would unfold before 2018. Nevertheless, this could come in 2020. We get major monetary reform ONLY when the dollar rises. A declining dollar will will see US corporate profits rise. Only a rising dollar will break the system. US banks are far safer than European. Those preaching the dollar will be destroyed so buy gold now do not even understand finance nor do they comprehend history. It was the rise in the dollar in 1933 because of the Sovereign Debt Crisis in 1931 that sent the dollar to record highs resulting in its devaluation and confiscation of gold. In 1985, the dollar rose to all time highs sending the British pound to $1.03, which then resulted in the creation of the G5 (now G20) at the plaza accord. It is the high dollar which export deflation, with result in defaults of emerging market debt, and break the remaining pegs to the dollar by various countries. No such chaos will take place if the dollar declines.

Failing to understand the dollar and its role within this decline of the Western economies will cost you a fortune. Our forecast has always been a retest of support in the dollar for 2016 and then off and running. The dollar is still well within its long-term uptrend channel. Gold will rise but it is not yet ready for prime time. Be patient. The 2016 Gold Report will cover the timing when to buy. These people who constant cheer every rally as the launch of gold and the demise of the dollar live in a dream world. Nothing takes place in isolation. Everything is connected.

The World Economy is Closing In Thanks to Merkel


Mother-Merkel

Merkel-Welcome

Sometimes the brain-dead decision of one person can set off a contagion that sweeps the world. Merkel’s open invitation to the Muslim, pretend refugees has been tearing Europe apart. The majority are not even from Syria. European states will raise their borders and require a passport because so many of these Muslim “refugees” are unaccounted for, especially after the Brussels attack.

Ted Cruz had to respond to the rising support for Trump over this immigration issue, as it is also becoming the main focus in Britain. Cruz said Trump cannot block Muslims, so he proposed the politically correct version: all Europeans must get a visa to enter the USA. Now Europe is responding as nations always do and the European Union (EU) is currently considering requiring U.S. citizens and Canadians to apply for visas before visiting the country of their choice, even if it’s for a short vacation. Currently, visitors to the U.S. from Poland, Croatia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Romania all need a visa. Romanians and Bulgarians also need visas for Canada. The European Commission claims it is trying to achieve a full visa waiver for all member states, but in reality, this is a standard response to Cruz’s statement that he would introduce legislation to impose a visa requirement on all Europeans. The fear is that the Muslims who are interested in terrorism can get into the USA easily via Europe because of what Merkel has done. So we face the problem of closing borders within the EU because the refugees will spread, and that, unfortunately, becomes only logical. It does not appear to be reversible.

How Politicians Justify Denying the People the Right to Vote


Harms Rebecca

In the wake of the Dutch vote against allowing Ukraine into the EU, SPIEGEL is reporting the arrogance of EU ministers who criticize even allowing the people to vote. This is why I say they regard the people as simply the Great Unwashed who are simply beneath their level of intelligence to bother listening to. The leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, Rebecca Harms, explained why she and most in the EU Parliament are opposed any form of direct democracy allowing the people to vote. She says this would only come at the expense of Europe and will “jeopardize” the EU, which is their federalization dream. Her remarks make it very clear why Britain should exit or surrender their sovereignty.

Harms goes on to say that only 18% of the Dutch population turned out so they should be basically just ignored. The point is enough turned out in a non-binding referendum because they were passionate about the issue. Effectively, this is how government becomes disconnected from the people which historically leads to revolution. This also reflects their stubbornness to even remotely consider that just perhaps their idea of a federalized Europe does not work. Their policy of allowing in millions of Muslims is also at the heart of the Dutch referendum. That of course is not considered.

These comments are the justification for staying the course. There is nothing to prevent the crash and burn for that is the only time such people can be reversed by throwing them out of office. Politicians will NEVER even consider that their course of action is wrong. They will follow that course on any subject to the absolute end no matter what. Those is government operate the same way. Politicians, judges, and prosecutors, all maintain the position that they are NEVER wrong. Nobody will admit a mistake for the fear that would justify losing power. Hence, the crash and burn becomes the only possible outcome.