Civil Unrest Engulfing the World


Paraguay 4-1-2017

Everywhere we turn, politicians are abusing their power relentlessly because the global economy is moving against their best plans. In Paraguay, the nation’s constitution prohibited the re-election of a president since 1992 after a brutal dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year hold on power, which made him South America’s most enduring dictator during the cold war. He eventually died in exile in Brazil after he fell from power in 1989.

Paraguay’s politicians voted after the Senate secretly voted for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election opening the door to dictatorship once again. Protesters stormed the government building last week and set it on fire.

Black-Jack-1

We are looking at the total chaos of politics engulfing the entire world. Yet, this is not doom and gloom. This is an opportunity to reconstruct a world the correct way for once. We see this storm of political-change in the USA with the continued protest against Trump, which will eventually turn very violent. There simply has to be that flash point to invoke change historically. In Europe, if Le Pen loses in France, Brussels will NEVER change direction, believing they are correct and will continue down the path that cannot work. We can expect Europe to come to a head in 2018. The future is dictated by the corruption and collapse of government. Trump and BREXIT were merely the effect of symptoms of the decay in government. We are past the point of no return. There is no going back. The storm of political-change is upon us. The cards have been dealt. It’s time to turn them over one at a time. No one will be able to fix or stop this trend. Since World War II, politicians have ruled only for their self-interest. They have made promises that will never be kept and far too many people have believed in them. The system is just not sustainable. Revision is coming. It’s up to us to understand what this even is and do what we can to push the coming change in the right direction. Your friend will listen, but only when they see the collapse smack them square in the face.

The Euro – Up or Down?


IBEUUS-Q 4-3-2017

The overwhelming view within Europe is that the dollar is about to make a big move to the downside. We warned that the dollar would decline basically to retest the uptrend line. Failing to get through that technical level and bouncing off it, is technically a very bearish signal for the Euro – not the dollar. That technical resistance for this second quarter stands now at 10870 where we reached intraday 10906 last month. Last week provided an outside reversal to the downside. Now a weekly closing below 10493 will warn that the dollar can rise very sharply.

The greatest problem in the traditional analytical world when it comes to currencies is the bulk of these analysts cannot wrap their head around that a currency is not a share price. They talk as if it is a share price and the decline in the dollar would be bearish because Trump is a crazy man and his meeting with China will be a disaster. If the dollar declined, that is what Trump wants because a lower dollar will make selling US products overseas easier.

When analyzing a currency, it is OPPOSITE of a a share price. Up is really down and down is really up. What is stunning, is how all these analysts keep taking about the dollar crash as if that would be bearish. Emerging markets dollar debt is about half that of the USA national debt. A lower dollar they will be jumping for joy – less to pay back.

Euro-US$If you want to create the worst possible outcome and really disrupt the world economy, you need the dollar to soar to new highs – NOT decline. Because the currencies had to be restarted in Europe following World War II, politicians touted the rise in their currency as proof they were doing a good job. The rise in the Euro from 80 cents to $1.60 was seen as bullish for Europe because it was defeating the dollar. In reality, the US economy expanded, European products became too expensive, and many European companies began to open up plants in the USA. What that move was doing was undermining Southern Europe and it was helping the USA – not Europe.

Wiping BrowEurope will be wiping its brow if Le Pen is defeated in France on May 7th. In reality, what will happen is the opposite. Brussels will wipe its brow and think it dodged the bullet and this nasty age of “populism” will come to an end. They will not change course, proclaim they were right all along, and then push forward to the federalization of Europe until their political bubble bursts in the near future.

The dollar is by no means finished. The ONLY way to undermine the world economy is to see a STRONG DOLLAR, not a weak one.

The May target is still be BIG target for this year. That may indeed be influenced by the French elections on May 7th. We are holding the Hong Kong WEC this year after the May elections.

Greece & Turkey – Is War in the Future?


Erdogan Flags

They say there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. Perhaps. But there is something far worse for society – a wounded politician. When power begins to slip through their grasp, they ALWAYS turn to seek an external enemy. This is exactly what the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is doing. There are many within Turkey who fear he is trying to be a dictator. He has sought to gain total power and that has many people deeply concerned.

Erdoğan is at risk of being overthrown and he knows it. The worse the economy becomes, the greater the probability he will be driven from power. Consequently, the fear factor is rising with tensions mounting in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Seas. Erdoğan knows the historical animosity between Greece and Turkey. He is deliberately attempting to reignite those deep resentments by raising the prospect of a referendum on accession talks with the EU. The Greek defense minister came out and said that Greece was ready for any provocation.

Clearly, the relations between Turkey and European capitals have worsened before the April 16th vote on expanding the powers of the president. Erdoğan is attempting to create an external threat to Turkey in order to ensure he gains total new powers. Erdoğan is using the recent ban on visiting Turkish officials to rally a “yes” vote for more power. He has now even raised the spectre of a public vote on EU membership at the weekend.

Erdoğan is clearly a tyrant and he is seeking authoritarian rule that is incompatible with any pretended democracy or republic. Why does he see such power? Obviously, he fears being overthrown. The greatest danger is that as his support continues to decline within Turkey, his need to start a war and the animosity with Greece, goes back a very long time.

Maduro Scrambles To Defuse “Explosive” Situation As Supreme Court Reverses Ruling


Tyler Durden's picture

While investors had largely given Venezuela’s economic catastrophe the benefit of the doubt for the past two years as crude collapsed and the country’s CDS soared to record highs only to normalize subsequently, yesterday bond investors got very nervous for the first time in a while, as the Venezuela 9.25% of 2027 bonds crashed on fears a presidential coup may be imminent after Wednesday’s decision by the pro-Maduro supreme court to assume the functions of congress, in effect making Venezuela a Maduro dictatorship. The opposition promptly slammed the decision as a “coup” against an elected body and demanded army intervention, and the tipping point came when even a formerly pro-Maduro Attorney General, Luisa Ortega, slammed the “unconstitutional” usurpation of power.

One day later, the bond selloff, coupled with a dire surge in domestic anger and protests, as well as international condemnation, appears to have been sufficient to spook Maduro that this may be one of his last (bad) decisions because on Saturday morning, Venezuela’s Supreme Court reversed its decision to strip congress of its legislative powers.

“This controversy is over … the constitution has won,” Maduro said in a televised speech just after midnight to a specially convened state security committee that ordered the top court to reconsider its rulings. The Supreme Court duly erased the two controversial judgments during the morning, the information minister said.

In an amusing twist, Maduro tried to cast the U-turn as his own personal achievement, one of a wise statesman resolving a power conflict, everyone and certainly his opponents said it was a hypocritical row-back by an unpopular government that overplayed its hand.

“You can’t pretend to just normalize the nation after carrying out a ‘coup,'” said Julio Borges, leader of the National Assembly legislature, quoted by Reuters. He publicly tore up the court rulings this week and refused to attend the security committee, which includes the heads of major institutions.

While the Supreme Court flip-flop may take the edge off protests, Maduro’s opponents at home and abroad will seek to maintain the pressure. They are furious that authorities thwarted a push for a referendum to recall Maduro last year and also postponed local elections scheduled for 2016. Now they are calling for next year’s presidential election to be brought forward and the delayed local polls to be held, confident the ruling Socialist Party would lose.

“It’s time to mobilize!” student David Pernia, 29, said in western San Cristobal city, adding Venezuelans were fed up with autocratic rule and economic hardship. “Women don’t have food for their children, people don’t have medicines.”


Venezuelan Bolivarian National guards officers are confronted by university students

during a protest outside of the Supreme Court in Caracas, on March 31, 2017

As mentioned yesterday, today the National Assembly plans an open-air meeting in Caracas, while South America’s UNASUR bloc was to meet in Argentina with most of its members unhappy at Venezuela. The hemispheric Organization of American States (OAS) had a special session slated for Monday in Washington.

As Reuters adds, even before this week’s events, OAS head Luis Almagro had been pushing for Venezuela’s suspension, but he is unlikely to garner the two-thirds support needed in the 34-nation block despite hardening sentiment toward Maduro round the region.

That said, Venezuela can still count on support from fellow leftist allies and other small nations grateful for subsidized oil dating from the 1999-2013 rule of late leader Hugo Chavez. Maduro accuses the United States of orchestrating a campaign to oust him and said he had been subject this week to a “political, media and diplomatic lynching.”


A woman wears a banner over her mouth with a message that reads in Spanish:
“Venezuela lives in a dictatorship” during a protest, in Caracas

Serious criticism even came from within government, with Venezuela’s attorney general Luisa Ortega rebuking the court in an extremely rare show of dissent from a senior official. “It constitutes a rupture of the constitutional order,” he said in a speech on state television on Friday.

The Supreme Court’s decision helped to further galvanize resistance to Maduro, Pockets of protesters had blocked roads, chanted slogans and waved banners saying “No To Dictatorship” around Venezuela on Friday, leading to some clashes with security forces. Given past failures of opposition street protests, however, it is unlikely there will be mass support for a new wave. Rather, the opposition will be hoping ramped-up foreign pressure or a nudge from the powerful military may force Maduro into calling an early election.

* * *

Meanwhile, the nation continues to disintegrate, with Reuters reporting that Venezuela’s murder rate rose to an average 60 per day last year, up from about 45 per day in 2015, the attorney general’s office said on Friday, as the country’s worst economic and political crisis in history continues to claim victims Official data put the murder rate at 70.1 per 100,000 inhabitants last year, one of the highest in the world and up from 58 in 2015.

Violent crime is one of the most pervasive anxieties for Venezuelans, especially in poor slums dominated by gangs and rife with guns. Numerous state security plans and disarmament drives in recent years have failed to curb violence given easy access to weapons, police participation in crime, and high levels of impunity in the nation of 30 million people.

A brutal economic recession that has millions skipping meals has pushed more Venezuelans towards crime, according to officials, rights groups and neighborhood organizations. Recently, Venezuela – the country’s with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, ran out of gasolin

T-Rex Attends NATO Brussels Meeting of Foreign Ministers…


Source: T-Rex Attends NATO Brussels Meeting of Foreign Ministers…

Face of the AfD in Germany Looks to Resign


Petry Frauke AfD

Frauke Petry, the face of the AfD in Germany, is apparently thinking about resigning from politics. She has stated publicly: “Neither the politics nor the AfD are alternative for me.” The 41-year-old politician spoke of an “enormous expenditure of force” and the “farewell to a regular life” being in politics.

The polls at the end of February showed that Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) were holding 31% just behind Mr Schulz’s Social Democrats (SPD) with his ‘Deutschland Trend’ theme that came in at 32%. The AfD is polling only about 11%.

The real crisis for Germany is the fact that either Merkel or Schultz offer any change. As such, we really cannot expect to see any reversal of fortune for the EU. We have to simply let this play out. It appears the crisis comes to a head in 2018.

We have to keep in mind that the worst scenario for Europe is no change. The loss of the challenge in the Netherlands breathed relief in Brussels. They think they will hold the ship together and this “populist” movement will die-out. The problem is this trend is emerging simply because of economics. The AfD has only a 15% chance of winning. That would only be possible by a major issue surfacing this summer regarding the Islamic Invasion. The no change means no reform and that means the fuse is still burning

Gold Jumps As Fed’s Dudley Sees The Light On ‘Hard’ Economic Data, Warns Of Q1 Weakness


Tyler Durden's picture

It’s getting harder for the mainstream media and their asset-gathering sponsors to hide the reality of the post-Trump rally economic ‘improvement’ from investors’ eyes.

During a Bloomberg TV interview this morning, New York Fed President Bill Dudley admitted there’s “no rush to hike” as the “economy is clearly not overheating,” warning of the potential for Q1 weakness as “sentiment [improvements] are not showing up in the hard data yet.”

Indeed Mr. Dudley… and the ‘hard’ data has NEVER caught up to spiking sentiment…

Given his hawkishness yesterday and dovishness today, markets are reacting…

Animal Spirits? Americans’ Spending Disappoints As Savings Rate Jumps To 4-Month Highs


Tyler Durden's picture

For 12 months in a row, Americans’ spending has grown faster than their incomes.

Income growth YoY is the highest since May 2015 as spending growth slowed… with real disposable personal income seeing its first YoY increase since July.

February personal spending disappointed modestly, rising just 0.1% MoM while incomes grew at 0.4% MoM, as the savings rate rose to its highest since October 2016

 

Not exactly the animal spirits everyone is expec

Governments Going Insane with New Ways to Tax People


Ireland TV Tax on Computers

In Ireland, a reader has sent this gem in. The Communications Minister Denis Naughten is so proud of himself for changing the definition of a ‘television set’ to include your laptop in order to extend the TV license fee to be applied to computers, laptops, and large tablets. He believes he will generate an extra €5m a year. As our reader put it: “from that ‘shining light’ of the EU, Ireland is prepared to stoop in hunting even more cash from its people. … Is there no end to this lunacy? Internet next I’m sure!”

In Sweden, as of April 1st, a new tax will be applied to ALL electronics. Are you ready for this? The reason is of course not to raise money, but to protect people from electronics; including everything from the fridge to tvs and laptops. On April 1, Sweden will impose a new so-called “chemical tax” on electronics and appliances. The purpose of the new tax is said to reduce the amount of hazardous flame retardants in our homes.

We are faced with tax revolts throughout Western Culture. Governments are all broke. Of course, they will never consider reform. The answer is always just grab more and more money from the people. This is why they are moving to eliminate cash to prevent people from evading taxes. This is not going to end nicely. The American Revolution was “No taxation without representation” and the French Revolution was also over excessive taxes – Let them eat cake. This is why we must crash and burn. You simply cannot reason with those in government to recognize that they are the problem. Thus, history constantly repeats and taxation is the driving force behind revolution historically in all cultures.

Benchmarks to False Moves – The Constant Cycle of Change


 

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You said China will become the financial capital of the world after 2032. That means the US must decline. At the same time, you have been consistent in forecasting a bull market in the U.S. share market when everyone else keeps calling for a crash. Are the two connected in some way?

Thank you

HS

ANSWER: Yes, these two events are interlocked. All markets function very distinctly. They move like a pendulum. The famous one in the United Nations building with the classic physics experiment, Foucault’s pendulum, is propelled by the rotation of the earth itself. While it had long been known that the Earth rotates, the introduction of the Foucault pendulum back in 1851 was the first visual proof of the rotation of the Earth in an extraordinary easy-to-see experiment. The pendulum remains in a constant oscillation relative to the universe. As the earth rotates, we can see that it does so around the constant path of the pendulum swing.

Bulls-BearsThis applies to market behavior as well. There is a constant oscillation to everything we call our Benchmarks. They remain constant within the universe and everything else rotates around them. The energy that maintains the cycle is the constant oscillation between two extremes. The further it swings in one direction, the greater the energy moves in the opposite direction.

This is the very essence of how everything moves. This is the creation of energy to keep things going from the instant of creation also known as big bang. Personally, I do not believe in just a simple big bang. I believe after big bang; the expansion will stop and then reverse and move back toward the point of origin. Then it will explode outward once again. I do not believe it was a one-time event since energy can neither be created nor destroyed – only transformed between states.

DJ2731-W False Move

Now apply this to markets. The real energy within a market is always to trap the majority, for then they lose money and it forces them to cover their position. If 90% of the people are long, then any news can set off the collapse. If you scare the majority, there will be no bid when you try to sell, which results in a flash crash. Likewise, this current rally in the Dow from 2009 has been the most bearish in history. The majority of analysts still keep calling for an inevitable crash. Retail participation still remains near historic lows. You cannot get a crash of major consequence as long as the bulk of the people are not invested in the market. Here you see how the market ALWAYS makes a false move just before it makes the real move in the direction of the underlying trend. At each correction, the emotions run high and people ALWAYS expect whatever trend is in motion will remain in motion. Hence, shorts build up and then they are compelled to cover and that gets the rally moving.

DJIND-1790-1923

Markets are fractal. So whatever you see on only level of time, must exist on all levels of time or else it is not real. The Dow made a Yearly FALSE MOVE on a number of occasions. For example, the high of 1916 dropped from 8500 to 6590 and established the low in 1917. It then swung to the upside, reached new highs at 11960 in 1919, and then on the panic back down.

The Dow made its intraday high in 1889, which was followed by a one year panic into 1890. It then swung back to the highest yearly closing in 1892 with the famous Panic of 1893 immediately thereafter.

A similar pattern unfolded with a high in 1872, a panic penetrating the previous year’s low in 1873, and then a dramatic swing to new high the next year in 1874.

These are just a few examples.

Gold False Moves

The goldbugs simply hate me even saying that gold can still move below $1,000. They approach everything only in a linear concept – it must only move up and never down. This is how they lose money consistently. The extreme ones are married to this idea that gold will rise in an apocalyptic fashion when everything else turns to dust. There is always a FALSE move before the true direction. A move for gold below $1,000 will create the energy needed to send it soaring past the $2300 level which is the 1980 high adjusted for inflation. This is what our Reversal System is all about. It is to define that point of no return where we can differentiate between a false move and a real breakout.

WorldEconomy

Now, because everything is fractal, and we have been able to identify the existence of constant Benchmarks in everything, it becomes possible to observe the rotation of capital around the world which is behind the rise and fall of every civilization since the dawn of the human race. In 1990, China was just 5% of world GDP. Now in 2015 it has risen to 15%. The United States is the world’s largest national economy in nominal terms representing 24.5% of nominal global GDP.

marx-4We first must send the share markets up dramatically. This will be the FALSE MOVE that makes everyone see that the USA is the only game in town. That will be the extreme point, reaching the maximum swing and then its own weight will cause it to move back in the opposite direction. Just as the British Empire rapidly collapsed following World War I handing that title of Financial Capital of the World to the USA, we will see the same take place as that title moves to China. One of the critical factors that will kill the US economy will be taxes and overregulation – both the socialist’s dreams come true. What broke the back of China and Russia in 1989, was this same failure of Marxist philosophies that call for total central planning by government. It is merely the West’s turn to now collapse because of the same philosophy of Karl Marx.

Only a fool believes in the fairy-tales of happily ever after. There is a cycle to everything. The Pension Crisis Report went into detail. Men mature slower than women, so historically the man was always much older than his wife. Hollywood sold lust as love at first sight and as the age difference collapsed, divorce reached cyclical highs. As they say, a girl becomes a woman at 23 but a boy does not become a man until 40. Women married boys but expected them to be men. Today, much of the youth reject marriage and having children. The demographics and changing life styles are undermining the entire idea of pension systems. This is a crash that will also propel the shift. Interestingly enough, in the former communist regions, people never trusted government so they expected nothing in return by tyranny. In the West, society still believes in government and the dream that they will be there. When government falls, Western society will not be as self-sufficient as they were in China. Socialism replaced the family structure in the West so children did not save to take care of their parents – that was government’s job. We face a lot of real social problems moving into 2032. That’s what our WEC conferences are all about.