Tag Archives: BREXIT

Sep 17 2017

Merkel Encountering Rising Violent Protests


Armstrong Economics Blog/Germany

RE-Posted Sep 17, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Violent protest are starting to rise in Germany against Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. Keep in mind that Merkel has never won 51% of the popular vote. She rules Europe solely by a coalition. DWN reports that she was confronted with shouts of  “Hau ab!”, whistles and “hatred”. They are appearing with poster reading “Merkel hatsten Deutschland”.  It is unusual for German to engage in such civil unrest.

When Martin Schulz  became the leader of the SPD, it rallied sharply to 31%, which was just one point behind the CDU/CSU at 32% back in March 2017. As people I know in the EU Parliament told me, wait until the Germans get to know Schultz. That threshold seems to have arrived.

CDU/CSU now polls at a staggering 16-point lead with 37% of the popular vote, compared to just 21% for the SNP. Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are trailing well behind the main parties at 11%, down from 15% back in January 2017.  However, the AfD is polling well above the five per cent margin required to win seats in Parliament. The party rose to prominence two years ago at the height of the European migrant crisis and the wave of populism that came partly as a result of the influx of refugees into Germany. Therefore, we are looking at the first time since WWII that a far right party even get one seat in Parliament.

The DAX is clearly targeting the week going into the election but the Euro appears to be ignoring the German election.

Chancellor Angela Merkel rules Europe by a grand coalition government in the German Bundestag relying on the FDP. While the CDU will win the majority of seats, it will still not be enough to rule alone. Note that the FDP has taken a sharp drop and the AfD has risen sharply. Therefore, Merkel’s grand coalition is not yet a shoe-in. There will have to be some backroom manipulation to keep the status quo.

Germany has a notoriously very complex voting system for electing its Bundestag, or lower house. The system seeks to combine the benefits of both direct and proportional representation while guarding against the electoral mistakes of German history, which saw political fragmentation during the Weimar Republic between WWI and WWII. While the turnout for the last two election fell sharply to just 70%, this election is far more heated and should see a sharp increase – which is not good for Merkel’s Grand Coalition.

A person casts their vote for two candidates, The German ballot is divided into two columns. The first column is black and the second column in blue, each representing a direct vote for a candidate and then for a political party. Worst still, Germans while on the surface you may be casing a vote with two choices – one for a district representative and one for a party, there is more to it than just that.
The first vote or “Erststimme” for the district representative, follows a first-past-the-post system like elections in the United States. The voter selects his or her favorite candidate to represent their district in the parliament. Every candidate who wins one of Germany’s 299 constituencies – which are divided up per 250,000 inhabitants – is guaranteed a seat.

To fill the other half of the 598 seats in Germany’s Bundestag, voters then cast their ballots in the second vote or “Zweitstimme.” This vote goes to a political party instead of a single candidate. It also determines the percentage each political party gets in the Bundestag.

Now comes the complexity. The ballot also allows voters to split their vote among parties!. So you can split your vote casting one for their local CDU candidate in the first vote, but casting their ballot for the Liberal Democrat FDP in the second vote. This is how Merkel maintains the Grand Coalition.

Therefore, we clearly have the risk of the AfD wining seats for the first time. So while Merkel will most likely still be Chancellor, the mix is going to cause some backroom deals.

Sep 17 2017

Farage at AfD in Germany


Armstrong Economics Blog/European Union

Re-Posted Sep 17, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Nigel Farage Speech at AfD w/Q&A – 8th September 2017

Sep 16 2017

More Strange Gold Reasoning


Armstrong Economics Blog/Gold

Re-Posted Sep 16, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION #1: Marty,

___ ________ makes the argument that if “the government” raised the price of gold to $5000/oz it would start and inflation that would wipe away the debt.

 

Don’t they have to ensure convertibility as well? He kind of skips over that. And isn’t that pegging the dollar to gold, and no peg holds? At that price the dollar would become incredibly cheap, and world demand for it would soar to arbitrage trade into goods, I would think.

 

Anyway, how does his proposal compare to the 1934 and 1971 devaluations.

 

Cheers,

EM

ANSWER:  This proposal is insane and it would not work anyhow. In 1934, it was the link of gold to the dollar that CAUSE deflation. When Roosevelt devalued the dollar, then inflation took place. If you suddenly fixed gold at $5,000, so what? He would be doing the opposite by creating deflation and then the national debt would become payable in gold.

The 1971 closing of the gold window by Nixon cut the link to gold ending Bretton Woods and then inflation unfolded. This is why Europe is in trouble for they keep trying to create a strong Euro which means assets decline and that produces deflation.

I just do not get the reasoning of these people. They clearly have no real world experience. They want to forecast markets without ever leaving their bedroom.

QUESTION #2: I have been bullish on gold until recently. It seems that to cheer gold we have to cheer the end of the world. If that is our fate for us all, then gold won’t matter. As you said, a $1,000 in gold in 1980 is worth $1350 today less storage fees. A $1,000 in the Dow back then is $22,000 plus all the dividends. Do you really think gold will ever go up? With North Korea fading out, what reason do we even have for gold? Deflation dominates the world and taxes keep going higher and higher so there is less disposable income. It does seem gold is on its deathbed. Any comment?

ANSWER: All of that is true. We have to wait for the next cycle. Tax reform is absolutely critical to the future. The next cycle things will chang

Sep 16 2017

The Confusion in Gold


Armstrong Economics Blog/Gold

Re-Posted Sep 16, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION #1: [_____] says that the dollar will collapse because with the debt ceiling gone – no more buyers of Treasuries in the markets and only the Fed Reserve buying – inflation goes to the wazoo. All over USA. care to comment?

ANSWER: Total nonsense. The USA debt of $20 trillion is a tiny fraction of global debt at $160 trillion. This entire theory does not hold up. Just where is all the money going to run? Gold? Institutions do not buy gold and cannot function with gold, which is not legal tender for even paying your taxes. The only thing that matters is the general public confidence. When the average person on the street no longer trusts government, that is the tipping point.

There is a whole series of people given a choice between a bar of chocolate and a bar of silver. They take the chocolate. Kids line up in Starbucks and pay with their phone – not even cash. Not until you shake the confidence of these people will you see the explosion in markets. That is what took place in the late 1970s. I was there. OPEC created the image of wholesale inflation. People were hoarding toilet paper.

QUESTION #2: What will Fed Balance Sheet Shrinkage do to Gold?

ANSWER: The opposite of what people think. Shrinking the Balance Sheet will be anti-inflationary to the standard reasoning and thus gold should collapse with deflation. However, the Fed has turned away from QE because pension funds are at serious risk. They have run off to emerging markets and bought very long-term paper desperately trying to get their yields up. As the stock market rises because there is no alternative, the Fed politically will be forced to raise rates. They will end up creating inflation with rising rates that will blow interest expenditure through the roof.

QUESTION #3: Since we bounced off the reversal again, obviously this still does not negate a break of $1k and then the slingshot up. But it just seems as if gold is on its deathbed. If nuclear war could not get it to exceed last year’s high, is there anything left in this bag of fundamentals we have been hearing about forever?

ANSWER: I understand. This is what the Reversal System is good at. We stopped within a dime of that number. What will be will be. We are running out of fundamentals to keep buying gold. It’s like the fake news about the storm in Florida that a 15 foot wall of water would destroy the coast. It never came and many people are really angry at the media. How many times can they do this before people no longer listen. Gold is a confidence game – plain and simple. This number is just incredibly important far more than most people dare to consider. I will be doing the gold report soon. It is very critical at this point.

GCNYNF-GMW 9-16-2017

COMMENT: Marty, thank you so much for the past several years of WEC. You have taught me to keep my head in times like this. I bought the gold on the GMW and then sold it against the reversal with a stop just above as you did with the yen in 1998. I had two friends who were buying at the high expecting gold to breakout when I was selling. It was two against one. The majority must be wrong.

Thanks!

See you in Orlando.

ANSWER: The number of long positions verse net shorts in gold reached about 5:1 and you saw what happened – it simply bounced off of the reversal and did not exceed last year’s high. I am always amazed at how people get so bullish and say I am wrong and then within 2 days they lose their shirt. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. Some people judge the next 10 years by a few days of price movement. That is how the market separates traders from fools

Sep 15 2017

Trying to Save the Euro from Total Disaster


Armstrong Economics Blog/Euro €

Re-Posted Sep 15, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

 

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has now come out in a very desperate move telling that those members of the EU who are non-euro countries should introduce the euro ASAP. “The euro is destined to be the single currency of the EU as a whole,” Juncker declared. Juncker then proposed a “euro preparation instrument” to provide technical and financial assistance to make this transition.

The Euro is in serious trouble because of the total mismanagement of the ECB. Low to negative interest rates have totally failed to stimulate the economy after almost 10 years. Now that rates must rise to try to avoid a massive pension collapse in Europe, the ECB could suffer a major default and will need to be bailed-out itself by the government since it owns 40% of euro-zone debt.

Juncker ‘s message is desperately trying to spread the pain. Insisting that all states now adopt the Euro will not save it. The structural design is faulty and Germany stands in the way of a debt consolidation. Increasing the number of states in the Euro will not help and this cannot even be accomplished in time to save the Euro assuming it did work.

Meanwhile, Austria sees the pending debt crisis and is rushing to offer the first euro member issue of a 100 year bond that will yield about 2.10%. They are looking to raise €3.5 billion euros of the debt maturing in 2117. The buyers of this one are totally insane. Yet, virtual-zero interest rates in Europe have forced many institutional investors running funds that need to cover pension or insurance liabilities into riskier, or longer-dated debt to increase their yields. This will only further increase the pending crisis on the horizon as they suffer massive losses as rates rise.

Sep 15 2017

Germany & France Want to Tax Gross Sales on the Internet


Armstrong Economics Blog/France

Re-Posted Sep 15, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

 

The hunt for taxes in France and Germany is in full swing. Merkel and Macrone are looking for endless new sources of tax revenues. They are moving directly into the position of destroying their economies because their thirst for more and more taxes never ends. No matter how much they collect, they never have enough. The latest scheme is now to tax gross turnover of internet companies such as Google and Amazon – not profits. The French want a 5% tax on everything in Europe. They already get a 20% VAT which is a complex consumption tax to keep countless government employees in a job with every layer of business taxesd having to file claims constantly.

The French tried to tax Google advertising. They lost that case because the revenue was being generated in Ireland, not France. Nevertheless, the French are telling everyone this is the windfall they desperately need and it will produce more taxes than anything else. Effectively, a turnover tax of 5% on gross revenues on top of a 20% VAT, will only come out of the pocket of European consumers. There is NEVER any discussion about reducing government size. It is always bigger and bigger as if there is no end in sight to potential tax revenues.

Sep 14 2017

German Hyperinflation & What They Do Not Teach in School


Armstrong Economics Blog/Germany

Re-Posted Sep 14, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Dear Marty

Following your blog is a good way to counter the propaganda in our society.

Today you stated:

‘This was the fate of the hyperinflation in Germany. It was NOT the Quantity of Money theory, it was the fact that there was a 1918 Communist Revolution in Germany where they had even asked the Communist Russians to take over Germany. It was the collapse in CONFIDENCE that led to the hyperinflation.’

Living in the UK, with German friends, I do not know any person who is aware of this and they would not believe that Germany nearly became communist if I told them. This is not taught at school anywhere.

Can you point me to some literature or other sources where we can find out more about what happened with the communists in Germany and elsewhere in Europe? I know they are making a resurgence at present (Think the EU!)

Thanks for all you do

SP

Wilheim II (1914) 20 mark

ANSWER: Curious. I know that in Germany they do not really teach the details of the rise of Hitler. But he was the ultimate reaction to the events of the 1920s. There is a good book on the subject, but it is in German – Die Deutsche Revolution 1918/19. I have explained this revolution for this is why Germany overthrew Emperor Wilhelm II who was compelled to abdicate. There are photographs of the civil war that took place at that time.

This was the Weimar Republic, which was the revolution and the end of Prussian emperors. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the adoption in August 1919. But what also seems to be omitted from many accounts taught in school, is the simple fact that the German government interfered in the Russian Revolution and was instrumental in creating the Russian Revolution.

The German Imperial Government feared that Russia would enter the war. The rising communist movement was anti-war. Germany saw a chance for victory by supporting the anti-war sentiment of the Bolsheviks. Germany permitted Vladimir Lenin to travel in a sealed train wagon from his place of exile in Switzerland through Germany, Sweden and Finland to Petrograd. Since the start of the February Revolution in Russia, Lenin was trying to figure out a way to get back into Russia. Germany aided that assuming he was anti-war and would keep Russia out of World War I. Within months of arriving, Lenin led the October Revolution in Russia and the Bolsheviks seized power and indeed Russia withdrew from the world war. According to Leon Trotsky, the October Revolution would not have succeeded without Lenin.

With the success of the October Revolution in Russia and the Dream of a new Marxist Utopia, the Germans entered into a civil war and invited Lenin to please take Germany. Clearly, the scheme of the Imperial German government had backfired. It not only was instrumental in creating the Soviet Union by turning over Russia’s socialist transformation decisively into the hands of the Bolsheviks, its plan led to the overthrow of its own hold on power. This is all recorded in contemporary newspapers (see New York Times Nov 11, 1918).

Hyperinflation thus unfolded in Germany because those with money saw what Lenin had done in Russia and sent whatever wealth they had to other places, particularly the United States.  The Weimar Republic then just printed money to pay reparation payments and the entire system collapsed.

Sep 14 2017

Canada’s Hunt for Taxes – Trudeau’s Destruction of the Canadian Economy


Armstrong Economics Blog/The Hunt for Taxes

Re-Posted Sep 14, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is doing his best to send Canada into the Dark Age. He is clearly a Marxist and has targeted small business which creates 70% of all employment. He said “I want to be clear,” at the Liberal party’s recent caucus gathering in Kelowna. “People who make $50,000 a year should not pay higher taxes than people who make $250,000 a year.”

These people who always seek to run governments have ZERO real world experience and totally fail to understand the economy no less how society functions. They believe that they can just decree some law and everything will function to the desires.

Trudeau has been defending the his outrageous tax increase on small business that will impose double taxation as owners will no longer be able to pay themselves dividends, neither will they be able to sprinkle income among family members, or holding certain investments — such as real estate — through a corporation.

The Hunt for Taxes in Canada is in full swing. This is only part of the economic decline we see coming into play starting in 2018.

Sep 14 2017

The Bank that was Small Enough to Jail


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption

Re-Posted Sep 14, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty; there is another documentary on the Abacus Bank and how they were singled out and charged for the 2007-2009 crash. While they said this was a tiny banks for immigrants that was too  Small Enough to Jail, I found this offensive that they said it was the first bank to be indicted since 1991. Not even Matt Taibbi ever would report on your case and your film was blocked in the USA because it opened the door to political intervention into Russia by the banksters. I believe HSBC and Republic Bank were charged criminally in your case so there was another bank charged after 1991 but nobody will report it. Am I correct? Has Steve Jame or Matt Taibbi  ever contacted you?

ANSWER: As far as I am aware, neither Matt Taibbi  nor Steve Jame ever contacted me. You have to look at what and how the government prosecuted the bank in my case. The bank did not plead guilty, it was the holding company that owned the bank – Republic New York Corporation. Then they steered the case to the only Federal Judge who was blind – Richard Casey (who died shortly thereafter). The judge just listened and could not read the truck load of papers to even know the full story. Republic plead guilty promising to make everyone whole and the government allowed them to buy our notes, pocket the profit differential of almost $400 million that was ours which explains the alleged $1 billion turns into $650 million.

When I realized the government was protecting the bank, I did an interview with the Japanese press and told all our Japanese clients that they had better file suit against the bank or they would never see a dime. They listened. Then the government ran to court to put a gag order on me to PREVENT me from helping my clients. You just can’t make up this degree of corruption. Nobody in the press ever reported that one.

The author of Too Big to Fail, Andrew Ross Sorkin, was a journalist for the New York Times. He came to see me about Judge Owen changing the transcripts and told me he was doing the same to Frank Quatrone. The New York Times did not let him report that judges in New York were changing transcripts which is in itself a crime. (see US v Ziccetello).

True, the movie was rated a 10 in Europe, blocked in the USA, and has even been shown in Japan and Canada.  It was being shown on international flights to the USA – but not in US theaters. It will appear on German TV in October. Yet, every American newspaper, TV station, and even NetFlix, who first accepted the film and suddenly pulled it, has done everything in their power to suppress the truth from the American people to protect the banks and how Putin even came to power. You just cannot make up this stuff.

Welcome to the land of the free and home of the brave where propaganda is free to prevail over the truth when it goes against New York bankers. The banks pay huge fines and nobody goes to jail BECAUSE the government wants the billions of dollars in fines. It’s either you jail bankers, with no huge fines since the individuals don’t have that kind of money, or you go for the corporate shell and the big bucks. Abacus Bank was small enough to jail BECAUSE they did not have the big bucks to pay off the government and they were Chinese.

Sep 13 2017

The Coming One World Currency


Armstrong Economics Blog/Foreign Exchange

Re-Posted Sep 13, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Dear Marty,

I sure would appreciate any thoughts you have on rumors making the rounds that the International Monetary Fund has tipped its hand, in part via its June 2017 “Fintech and Financial Services: Initial Considerations” IMF Discussion Note, and intends to replace the US Dollar as the global reserve currency as early as January 2018 (probably later) with its decades-old Special Drawing Rights by converting the “foreign-exchange reserve assets” into a global currency using Distributed Ledger (Blockchain) technology.

It is only a matter of time until US hegemony built upon its reserve currency status (as well as other factors) goes the way of T. Rex. And, I have long believed that, while DLT (Distributed Ledger technology) is not going away, that it will be the IMF/Central Banks/Sovereigns who will end up creating their own horse in this reserve currency race that will win based upon “global” legislation and regulation … but 2018 is right around the corner.

GH

ANSWER: No. This is really rubbish. I can’t believe how many people are writing in asking about this subject matter. Nevertheless, a new one-world currency is coming. It will be different from what anyone imagines. But so many people hate the dollar because they see this as keeping gold down. You better understand what is really taking place before you start making a wish.

What makes the dollar the reserve currency is the national debt. It is the only game in town to park big money. All of these conspiracy theories that hate the dollar so much fail to understand that the USA is not trying to keep the dollar as the reserve currency. It was the Plaza Accord that encouraged Europe to join together to create the Euro to compete with the dollar. The USA has also tried to convince Japan to relax its regulation to freely allow the yen to participate in the world economy. Yes, the yen floats. However, nobody could issue a bond in yen without the approval of the government even in London between two private parties.

The SDR cannot replace the dollar by January 2018. What a joke. Yes the IMF is making a pitch to be placed in charge of a new one-world currency. I had argued originally for the SDR back in 1980s when the IMF was a legitimate agency. Time and money has corrupted the IMF and it is now just a political ploy.

Here is the letter I received from the White House back in 1985 rejecting the idea of the SDR. This, they argued, would mean the surrender of sovereign power as has been demanded in Europe. Today, I would not recommend the SDR. We see the tension created by trying to force the Euro upon all of Europe. This is NOT a one size fits all.

I am preparing a special report on this which will include the whole future of block-chain. It will be ready before the WEC in November. A new one-world currency is coming. There is no doubt about that. The market forces will make that reality. That is the dollar rally – not decline.