Tag Archives: centinel2012

Jun 19 2018

Crash & Burn & the Sixth Wave


Armstrong Economics Blog/ECM

Re-Posted Jun 19, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Martin, as all members do, I really do thank you and appreciate you for your knowledge and insight. I am a business owner – Real Water and do approximately $10 million in annual sales right now. As a concerned citizen, I have also run for political office and was elected to the Nevada State Assembly in 2015. With Republican control, our legislature pushed through the largest tax increase in our State’s history in the name of more money for education (I led the opposition against the tax, but failed in preventing it). Of course, our latest school ratings came out and we are still ranked at the bottom – 50th. More government is NOT the solution!

I completely understand we are headed for a financial crash and burn. You have frequently stated that the only reason you are doing what you are doing is for your posterity. Other than personal preparation, extra food, don’t be in bonds, etc., what do you believe is the most beneficial thing we can do to help our country come out of the crash and burn with more freedom and limited government (like our Founders so emphatically intended) as opposed to the other potential of totalitarianism that you frequently warn us about? What is the most effective way to rally the troops so to say to help push our civilization in the proper direction?

To an elevated lifestyle,

 

ANSWER: The Government always thinks that throwing more money at something make it better. I have NEVER seen where that has EVER corrected any such trend. The problem lies in the total mismanagement. Governments are simply incapable of operating even a bubblegum machine. They completely fail to understand the economy, human nature, or society as a whole. The only way to actually correct such a problem is to privatize. That installs actual management and employees must actually perform. Government unions demand benefits and they negotiate with themselves. This is why the entire socialist agenda is collapsing.

I had a friend who was a postmaster. He had to tell an employee he would be checking on them a day before to ensure they were doing their job. The union made them provide notice so the employee would not actually be caught doing anything. This is how government unions have destroyed themselves and society. This is what we are headed into a crash and burn because governments do not respect the people and assume we are an endless supply of revenue.

All government agencies should be privatized and then the services they provide would actually work. Going to the New Jersey Division of Motor Vehicles was a case study in how not to run a government. The people were nasty, you would wait in line and they would be having a conversation with the next employee about what they would do after work and actually make you wait even 5 minutes while they did this right in front of your face. The attitude was WTF do you want now. Just absolutely nasty and hostile. No supervision and nobody even forces them to actually work. Always a horrible experience – not just one time. Ask a question and you NEVER got a straight or correct answer.

It is a structural management problem. There is no accountability and you can look at any government agency and you will see the same pattern. Increase the budget and there is NEVER any actually change. They cannot improve because there is a lack of management ability.

What does the Crash & Burn look like? It all depends upon how long we have to wait to achieve it. If we get the start of a Crash & Burn in 2021, then there is real hope of a soft-landing. If we are looking at stalling and refusing to change as taxes continue to rise, we will see that last wave of totalitarianism and then what comes AFTER 2032 is a very hard landing. That type of decline historically results in civil war and/or revolution.

All I can offer is what has happened before historically. My personal opinion would be just a guess and that is not what clients want to hear. So the sooner the better and the longer this is stalled the worse it gets.

This hostile attack against Trump is symbolic of the bureaucracy fighting to keep its power. They think if they can get Trump out of office, they will return it back to normal with a career politician. They are seriously wrong for the people voted for Trump because they are fed up with the system as is. This was not a personal popularity contest that Trump won. It is the rising tension of the people. There is no going back. This can only lead to a confrontation between the left and right. Choose where you want to live based upon the political orientation of that area. The area I live in was conservative which voted overwhelmingly for Trump. That is a bit safer than a left area for they ultimate come after you because they see you are the problem, why things are not going their way.

Jun 19 2018

Climate & Hunt for Taxes


Armstrong Economics Blog/Climate

Re-Posted Jun 19, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

The leaked UN climate report is very alarming. They are using linear analysis as always and disregard any nonlinear cyclical data. They are urging that a major crisis will take place by 2040 and that countries must clamp down on emissions virtually IMMEDIATELY.  They are arguing to increased taxation and Europe will eagerly follow because they are going broke anyhow. So get ready. We already have declining economic growth. These people will send the world economy into a deep recession and this will only lead to even more tensions.

Jun 19 2018

Euro Members to INCREASE debt before the ECB stops buying!


Armstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized

Re-Posted Jun 19, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

 

Reliable sources are reporting that the European member states are going to rush out debt to try to lock in the low-interest rates before they start to rise and the ECB is still buying very aggressively. We are likely to see new issues of debt to increase before the ECB stops buying

Jun 18 2018

Is Draghi Really Ending QE?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Central Banks

Re-Posted Jun 18, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Mario Draghi said the euro-area economy is strong enough to overcome increased risk,  and therefore this justifies the European Central Bank’s decision to end bond purchases bringing to an end a decade-long failed experiment. The truth behind this statement is starkly different than being portrayed in the press. Draghi also pledged to keep interest rates unchanged at current record lows until his personal term is finished next year. There is the contradiction for if the ECB stops buying debt, who will do so at artificially low rates of interest?

Draghi knows full well that he has utterly destroyed the bond markets in Europe. The ECB has also made it clear that they will REINVEST when the bonds previously purchased mature. The Federal Reserves has taken the opposite position and will NOT reinvest allowing their balance sheet to shrink.

If the economy is that strong, then why not end the QE right now? The fallacy here is that this has nothing to do with the economy. The ECB has simply had the member states on life-support. Interest rates will soar in Europe on long-term debt or there will be no buyers. Pension funds cannot buy 10-year bonds at even 3% when they need 8% to cover liabilities.

The statement by Draghi is creating a total paradox. You cannot keep short-term interest rates where they are and charge negative rates for deposits and simultaneously end QE and expect to sell bonds to the public at insanely low levels.

The press interprets this as the ECB with ending QE because they are “betting that the euro-area economy is robust enough to ride out an apparent slowdown amid risks including U.S. trade tariffs and nervousness that Italy’s populist government will spark another financial crisis” reported Bloomberg. What is seriously omitted here is that the member states will be UNABLE to sell long-term debt at these low levels to the private sector and the free market will send rates higher. This means that the states will have to then raise taxes to stay within the EU criteria and that will further suppress the European economy.

We are simply at the end of the road of this complete insanity. So buckle up. Get ready for the ride of a lifetime and make sure you keep your hands and feet safely inside the vehicle. Is the ECB risking a total collapse in public confidence when they discover you cannot keep rates artificially low and end QE simultaneously

Jun 18 2018

Malaysia Looking to file Lawsuit Against Goldman Sachs?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Southeast Asia

Re-Posted Jun 18, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

May was an important turning point in Southeast Asia. The corruption that has engulfed the previous Malaysian government centered around a sovereign wealth fund involving Goldman Sachs has rocked the entire Malaysian peninsula. The national debt, which was believed to have been $170 billion, appears to be more like $250 billion of 80% if the national GDP.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was sworn in on May 10th. When his aides first entered the government offices, they were confronted with a shocking sight. There were garbage bags filled with shredded documents intermixed with left-over food half eaten thrown everywhere. It was clear, the previous government sought to destroy all the evidence of their corruption.

The new finance minister discovered computers that even the highest-ranking bureaucrats could not access. Computers were set up to prevent access by anyone other than one or two people. Evidence of massive corruption was what turned the election on May 9th, 2018.

Goldman Sachs’ role, I wrote back in 2015, has been highly criticized in the Malaysian media and political circles after it emerged that 1MDB sovereign wealth fund paid hundreds of millions of dollars to the bank for helping it raise $6.5 billion in three bond deals in 2012 and 2013. Goldman Sachs earned around $590 million in fees plus commissions and expenses from underwriting the bonds, according to Reuters. The reported fees are highly excessive, nearing 10% when such fees are typically only 1% in bond underwriting.

There is now talk about filing suit against Goldman Sachs for its role in this scandal. The likelihood of filing a lawsuit against them in New York City being successful is probably zero. They will have to deal with the most corrupt court perhaps in the world that is notorious for protecting its local banks – Southern District of New York and the Second Circuit. My recommendation is to petition the Supreme Court to bring the suit in Washington DC that they will NEVER receiver a fair trial in New York City and they should get on the phone to Donald Trump to start applying political pressure

Jun 17 2018

California Dreaming & Separatist Movement


Armstrong Economics Blog/Civil Unrest

Re-Posted Jun 17, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

On the November election in California, enough signatures were gathered just over 400,000 to put a question on the ballot – should California be split into three states? The discontent in California is certainly regional. The proposal for three states would break California up into North, South, and just California.

Tim Draper has been the primary bankroller behind the division idea. He managed to collect at least 402,000 signatures to divide California into three parts. Northern California will be composed of the region from Oregon down to San Francisco. Southern California would include Fresno, Bakersfield, and San Diego. Then there will be California between these two regions which will be with its capital at Los Angeles. Effectively, three capital cities would emerge, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Anyone who has been to California knows that indeed there are three distinct cultures.

Silicon Valley is a region in the southern San Francisco Bay Area referring to the Santa Clara Valley, which serves as the global center for high technology, venture capital, innovation, and social media. This will be part of Northern California leaving behind the craziness of the Los Angeles politics that has far too often swamped the philosophies of Northern California.

This is once again part of the separatist movement that is rising everywhere around the world. It is all part of the same cycle of Civil Unrest.

Jun 16 2018

Netflix Signs Barack and Michelle Obama


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics

Re-Posted Jun 16, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

 

I mentioned before that Netflix had originally wanted to air The Forecaster movie, and then all of a sudden they refused because of politics. Well, now Barack Obama and his wife Michelle just signed a contract with Netflix. Netflix has signed a contract with the Obamas for the production of films, documentaries, and a series. Obviously, it seems that Netflix is also becoming politically “connected” like CNN. Netflix is planning TV productions with the Obamas who have created the Obamas film company, known as “Higher Ground Productions,” that is expected to begin in 2019. It looks like we will be in store for political propaganda delivered by Netflix just in time for the 2020 elections

Jun 16 2018

Raging Bullsh**t


Published on Jun 15, 2018

Robert DeNiro had just one thing to say at the Tony’s…. And it wasn’t very nice. How much more Hollywood hypocrisy can we handle?! Want even more Right Angle each week? Become a member at BillWhittle.com! https://www.billwhittle.com/subscribe Right Angle is brought to you by the paying members of BillWhittle.com and by donations from viewers like you! Show your support by making a donation at: https://www.billwhittle.com/donate
Jun 15 2018

Do We Really Borrow From Only Ourselves? Does the Debt/GDP Ratio Means Anything?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Economics

Re-Posted Jun 15, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, the famous economist Paul Krugman says that debt is ok when we owe it to ourselves. He calls it “deficit scolding” as he wrote in the New York Times. Would you like to comment on this statement?

GH

ANSWER: Paul Krugman seems to lack any historical understanding of how nations rise and fall. Anyone who claims debt is OK and can be infinite because “we” owe it to ourselves is clueless. He wrote in the article you referred to that “we have a more or less stable ratio of debt to GDP, and no hint of a financing problem.” The debt to GDP ratio is interesting but totally irrelevant. China’s debt to GDP stands at 250%, the USA at 103%, and Greece buckled at 186%. Obviously, this ratio is rather meaningless as a forecasting tool. I have published this chart on call money rates previously. In my studies, I quickly discovered that you cannot reduce the cause of any effect to a single issue. We can see that the peak in call money rates took place during 1899 and it was the lowest in 1929 when the Great Depression hit. You can’t even claim that if interest rates hit some magical level the stock market would crash. The world is far more complicated than just this one-dimensional approach to everything.

Capital flows were fleeing the USA in 1899 so interest rates went higher with a shortage of money. In 1929, the capital was in the USA for it rushed here because of World War I. The inflow of capital created an excess so the peak in call money rates was lower than 1899 when capital was fleeing. We even have the world of President Grover Cleveland from the Panic of 1893 commenting on the net capital outflow because of the “unsound” financial policy of the Silver Democrats.

The greatest mistake in the analysis is always trying to reduce any effect to a single cause. The world is a complex mechanism. It is indeed like a rainforest. There are countless species and each is interconnected. Exterminate one and you will find that it was the food source for another which dies. That species, in turn, was the food source for yet another and so on. The world economy is equally complex. This is why I say we are ALL CONNECTED. Create a war in one region, we may not be involved with troops, but the capital flows shift.

Everything is interconnected. There is no single cause and effect. Looking at GDP debt ratios is pointless. This is also why fundamental analysis is notoriously wrong. The majority tries to reason the future based upon this one-dimensional analysis and they NEVER got it right. I have posted this video clip of Larry Summers before. He is asked why can’t you guys ever get it right just once. His excuse is blunt. The economy is extraordinarily complex like the weather. He argues nobody can forecast the direction.

For anyone to say that debt can be infinite when we owe it just to ourselves is a fool. At times, 70% of the national debt has been accumulating interest payments. A national debt is the single greatest way we transfer wealth among citizens as well as nations. I kept yelling on Capitol Hill that Quantitative Easing would fail, it would not “stimulate” the economy for a very simple reason. The assumption that the Fed would buy 30-year bonds and then the banks would lend into real estate with lower interest rates was crazy. The debt is NOT owned by exclusively Americans. China was smart and it sold the 30-year bonds and swapped to 5-year or less paper. The money was transferred out of the country. To pretend this is a debt we “owe” ourselves is just fantasy.

Even domestically, if I am the lender and you are the borrower, then you are paying me because you borrowed the money. Your wealth is transferred to me because you could not wait to buy something for cash. Sorry, I believe Adam Smith was someone who tried to observe HOW things actually work instead of trying to support a predetermined conclusion.