Posted originally on Jan 31, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Farmers throughout the world have been protesting the increasing regulations on agriculture. The media is barely covering the story, and when they do mention it, they say that the farmers are protesting due to Russia blocking supplies from Ukraine. This is simply untrue. The farmers are protesting against over-regulation, taxes, and the climate change agenda that is making it increasingly difficult for them to make a successful living.
Hundreds of tractorsdescended on Paris earlier in the week where they were met by 15,000 police officers. Numerous blockages were reported, and the farmers have described the situation as a “siege on the city.” “Our goal isn’t to bother or to ruin French people’s lives,” Arnaud Rousseau, president of the influential FNSEA agricultural union, said on RTL radio. “Our goal is to put pressure on the government to rapidly find solutions out of the crisis.”
Farmers from nearby Belgium are now joining the French protest. The European Union plans to meet in Brussels this Thursday to discuss providing Ukraine with additional financial aid, and the protestors have made it clear that this demonstration demands their concerns be heard.
In terms of Ukraine, the EU has permitted an influx of agricultural imports since the beginning of the war and removed all quotas and tariffs. Domestic production cannot compete with the surge of agricultural goods coming from Ukraine. Ukraine has cornered the entire wheat production industry as domestic producers simply cannot sell their products at the same rate due to regulations imposed by the EU.
A few European nations have implemented temporary restrictions on Ukrainian agriculture, but the entire problem is that they are under the control of the European Union. Those in Brussels are making decisions for the collective of Europe despite policies that favor some members over others. The farmers have made it clear that the protests will not end until their demands are met, and farmers throughout ALL of Europe are joining forces to protest the people attempting to destroy their livelihoods.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 29, 2024 | Sundance
While Turkey is a NATO ally, Recep Erdogan strategically refused to participate in the process to ostracize Russia. True to Erdogan’s strategic political interests of being an influence broker, Turkey is the only NATO country that does not participate in the sanctions regime against Russia. Next month Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Turkey for diplomatic discussions.
Turkey represents the literal gateway for most Western travel into and out of Russia. However, first things first. Despite the position of Turkey, notice how Hungary receives all the EU admonitions for not supporting the Ukraine side of the conflict, while NATO/EU never criticize Turkey who never even joined the EU/Western sanctions regime. Inside that hypocritical contrast there is a revealing story.
Turkey established themselves as the neutral entity for future brokering negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Turkey has multiple geopolitical ties to Russia, including the purchase of Russian military equipment. Apparently, despite the severity of the original sanction demand, Western interests -specifically the U.S. government- had no issue with Turkey proactively taking their ‘neutral’ position. Always remember this.
Given all of the domestic headlines in the USA, there is a very good reason for Americans to keep paying attention to all things that happen in the orbit of Russia right now. Many people ponder the issue of a dollar-based central bank digital currency; however, only a few people have paid attention to the self-fulfilling prophecy of the CBDC that was created by the Russian sanctions regime.
Those who ask about the possibility/probability of a dollar-based CBDC, and the possibility of the timeframe therein, should always be referenced back to the Western financial sanctions against Russia. It was that triggering point that put the USA and Western alliance on the irreversible path to the U.S CBDC, and the process is no longer a matter of “if” because the determining issue is no longer (primarily) in U.S. control.
The de-dollarization of half the trade globe, the general cleaving of finance that followed the Russian sanctions (see the efforts of BRICS+), has essentially created a system where major economic nations are trading between themselves in non-dollar-based exchanges. India trades with Russia in Rupes to Rubles. China trades with Russia on old fashioned ledgers of value (due to proximity somewhat of a quasi-bartering system); Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Africa and a host of non-Western nations are all in various stages of direct trade in national currency outside the dollar zone.
At the core of the issue behind the question of a U.S. or dollar-based Central Bank Digital Currency, you will find this global financial cleaving. Intra-Western trade (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the EU) is still done in dollars, and trade done into the Western system is still done in dollars. Ex. if China wants to trade into the USA, they must complete transactions in dollars. However, trade from grey zone to grey zone nation is no longer contingent upon dollars.
Very few people are talking about these new financial trade alternatives. Yet ultimately, this cleaving is likely what will result in a dollar-based U.S CBDC. Remember, the need for alternative trade currencies was triggered in time by the immediacy of the sanctions against Russia. I do not believe the Western financial alliance thought the Russian allies could assemble the alternative so quickly.
If the DoS and CIA truly believed the sanctions would cripple Russia, it’s then likely our institutions vastly underestimated the prior diplomatic talks that preceded those sanctions. As a big picture consequence, no geopolitical issue is as connected to your kitchen table as anything that connects with Russia. So, pay close attention to how Russia is engaged by the rest of the non-Western world (grey zone), and you will get a good idea about the speed and timing of a pending U.S. CBDC.
As soon as the grey zone trade is predicted to take place in non-dollar terms, the U.S CBDC will be fast-tracked. The only way for President Donald Trump to stop the CBDC process would be to immediately end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and subsequently remove the sanctions. [And that might not even work.] As long as there are financial trade blocks based on dollars and who we like, there will be an easy justification for the financial cleaving to continue.
RUSSIA – Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkey next month in a rare foreign trip to a NATO nation, according to a Kremlin announcement on Monday.
Yuri Ushakov, a top adviser to Putin on foreign policy matters, told the Interfax news outlet that “a visit is being prepared.” As to the purpose of the visit, Ushakov added: “I can say that Ukrainian issues will probably be one of the main subjects of negotiations.”
Though a key NATO nation, Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, serve as a rare diplomatic bridge between the Kremlin and its Western rivals. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ankara has supported Ukraine with military supplies while refusing to join Western sanctions on Moscow.
Turkey has positioned itself as a mediator between the two nations, hosting two rounds of peace talks in Antalya and Istanbul in 2022. Turkey was also key to the Black Sea Grain Initiative that temporarily facilitated the export of agricultural products from southern Ukrainian ports amid Russia’s naval blockade.
Following a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the beginning of this month, Erdoğan said Ankara remains ready to help “establish lasting peace, stability and prosperity in our region.”
“We have previously acted as a host country for direct talks between the parties to the conflict,” the president said. “We are, as before, ready to do our best in this matter and act as a mediator….Ukraine in order to take joint steps with Russia certainly needs to soften its position.”
Putin last visited a NATO nation in 2020 when he traveled to Germany to meet with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel. His Western travel options have been limited by his war on Ukraine and the arrest warrant issued for him in 2023 by the International Criminal Court over alleged related crimes. (read more)
I really do not like Turkish President Recep Erdogan. His political policy is full of dangerous self-interest (Muslim Brotherhood) and thirst for power (recreation of the Ottoman empire). However, on the issue of ending this Russia-Ukraine conflict, I will admit Erdogan has positioned himself very well.
If Trump wins in November, Erdogan will play a major role in the end of hostilities.
You might even say Erdogan holds the key to eliminating the self-fulfilling prophecy of a US CBDC that Obama/Biden created.
Posted originally on Jan 29, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The United Kingdom is in an uproar after it was suggested that they may face a military draft. There is no draft at the time of this writing, but based on the models, you should prepare for one shortly.
Britain relies on voluntary professional fighters but cannot meet recruitment goals. No one wants to fight in foreign wars on behalf of the globalists. The British Army is experiencing a serious recruitment and retention crisis, with the number of fully trained soldiers set to fall to 72,500, the lowest level since the period after the end of the war of Spanish succession in 1714. Then, similar to America, tens of thousands are not fit for combat.
The National Audit Office (NAO) estimates that the budget for new weapons and equipment will reach $387.29 billion for 2023-2033, $21.42 billion over budget. This is the largest deficit since its first report in 2012 and has resulted in a “marked deterioration,” according to the Ministry of Defense. Yet, of course they have enough money to fund foreign militias to protect their borders. Military spending is expected to reach 2.25% of GDP this year but the NAO warns that it will likely rise.
General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff (CGS) has announced that a “whole-of-nation undertaking”may be required if they wage war against Russia. His remarks come one week after Defence Secretary Grant Shapps declared the UK to be in a “pre-war world.” He believes that the army must grow from 74,000 to 120,000 in the next three years, but again, no one wants to fight on behalf of the neocons and their budget is too miniscule to attract the youth.
So they are taking it a step further and requesting a “citizen army.”
"Our friends in eastern and northern Europe, who feel the proximity of the Russian threat more acutely, are already acting prudently, laying the foundations for national mobilisation. As the chairman of the NATO military committee warned just last week, and as the Swedish government has done...taking preparatory steps to enable placing our societies on a war footing when needed are now not merely desirable but essential."
Later adding:
“We will not be immune and as the pre-war generation we must similarly prepare - and that is a whole-of-nation undertaking. Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars; citizen armies win them."
The only reason nations prepare all citizens is in the event of an invasion. He declared that Ukraine is merely buying the West time before Russia attempts to conquer lands in a fashion not seen since Adolph Hitler. Russia is now attacking “our system and way of life politically, psychologically, and symbolically,” according to Sir Patrick. The truth of the matter is that the neocons have launched an all-out psychologically assassination of the West where they want us to believe that Russia is moments away from invading.
Those who read“The Plot to Seize Russia” understand that the next world war has been carefully orchestrated. The book reveals never-before-seen documents that confirm numerous attempts to implement pro-Western policies using the Russian oligarchy headed by Boris Berezovsky. Those on the other side longed for a return to the Soviet Union. Putin was in neither camp and has been fighting off extremists in his own country since he took over in 1999. The situation will become dire if and when a new Russian president is installed.
It is clear which nations are eager for war. Admiral Rob Bauer of NATO predicts a long war, stating that civilians must be ready for the next world war within the next two decades. According to my models, it will not take 20 years for World War III to unfold.
The UK government is toying with its citizens by providing hypothetical situations. “There is no suggestion of [a draft]. The Government has no intention to follow through with that. The British military has a proud tradition of being a voluntary force. There are no plans to change that,” Rishi Sunak announced, followed by saying the fear mongering is not helpful at this time. He stands alone as NATO, the military, and the unelected globalists have planted the seed in everyone’s mind that war and a potential invasion may occur.
Who would be called to fight? To join the British Military, one must pass fitness, medical, and security checks. The maximum age to enlist as a soldier is 35 years and 6 months, and for Reserve soldiers, the maximum age is 49.
The eligibility for conscription has varied, but typically it has involved the compulsory enrollment of single men within certain age ranges, and during World War II, men between 18 and 41 were asked to fight. Women will not be exempt. Unmarried women between 20 and 30 were liable to serve under the National Service Act passed in Parliament in December 1941 during World War II. The last conscription ended in 1963 amid the Cold War, and the military has operated on a solely voluntary basis ever since.
Our own nations are leading us into global conflict to create a one-world government ultimately. They have attempted to paint Russia as the villain but there is no patriotic call of duty to fight a meaningless, completely avoidable war. How many people must die before they lose?
Posted originally on the CTH on January 26, 2024 | Sundance
In this brief video below {Direct Rumble Link Here} Former Blackrock portfolio manager, Ed Dowd, explains why every last remnant of human freedom depends on mass resistance to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). “Once the central bank digital currency is linked to all your credit cards and bank accounts, then social controls can be implemented. If you’re a dissenter like me, talking about truth, they shut you down.” WATCH:
I know at first blush a lot of this CBDC discussion seems esoteric, difficult to understand, and there are a lot of other issues happening simultaneously in the background. However, if you contemplate the biggest threat on this overarching power arc of western government, you arrive to understand how serious this seemingly opaque issue really is.
I first started to deep dive research into these CBDC datapoints when the Russian sanctions were triggered. You see, nothing about them really makes sense from the way they were structured; additionally, the intensity of the drive to make the sanctions the tip of the western spear was just too pointed, something about it didn’t make sense. That’s what took me to dig deep into the impact and realize nothing said about these financial sanctions makes sense when compared against their actual irrelevance {Go Deep}.
When the White House first started openly saying the Biden administration was reviewing how to implement CBDC’s, yes THAT Announcement ACTUALLY HAPPENED, September 2022, then things from a research perspective really started to get serious. “While the U.S. has not yet decided whether it will pursue a CBDC, the U.S. has been closely examining the implications of, and options for, issuing a CBDC.” Whenever the U.S. govt says they’re “undecided,” pay close attention.
First things first with the Western financial sanctions- specifically the SWIFT exchange. It is true you cannot use VISA, Mastercard or any mainstream Western financial tools to conduct business in Russia; however, the number of workarounds for this issue are numerous. One of those tools is the use of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin; and within that reality, you find something very ominous about the USA motive against crypto.
“I’ve always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc.,” Dimon said in response to a question from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “The only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers … money laundering, tax avoidance because it is somewhat anonymous, not fully, and because you can move money instantaneously. “If I was the government, I would close it down.” (read more)
Dimon was/is positioning JPMorgan to be a facilitating beneficiary of the financial control system evident within any CBDC process.
Here’s how it really looks from the outside looking at the USA. The same way the Patriot Act was not designed to stop terrorism but rather to create a domestic surveillance system. So too were the “Russian Sanctions” not designed to sanction Russia, but rather to create the financial control system that will lead to a USA digital currency.
The Western sanctions created a financial wall around the USA, not to keep Russia out, but to keep us in. The Western sanction regime, the financial mechanisms they created and authorized, creates the control gate that leads to a U.S. digital currency.
Now, does the exploding debt and seeming govt ambivalence, the stuff Ed Dowd is talking about, take on a new perspective? It should, because that unspoken motive explains everything. It all just makes sense when reviewed through this prism of motive and intent. Again, the western sanctions against Russia are not having an impact against Russia; they are having a quiet impact in the USA and western dollar-based economic system that no one is permitted to talk about.
Bottom line, the non-pretending reasoning. The US Treasury has set the financial system on an almost unreversible path to a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency. As direct consequence crypto currency alternatives are a threat to the establishment of that western objective. This reality also pulls in the explanation around why the USA is so all-in for the banker-driven World War Reddit, the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
How did the Obama administration go from all efforts to be on good relations with Russia 2009 through 2015, then suddenly pivot to the exact opposite with the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy, the Russian election interference nonsense, the expulsion of Russian diplomats in Dec/Jan 2017 and suddenly Vladimir Putin as the archvillain for the world? Apparently, few have ever really asked how that happened.
Here’s the big picture, as seen through the prism of the EU and the non-pretenders in Eastern Europe.
The Marxists in the Obama admin needed a boogeyman in order to pull off their domestic heist and secure the “fundamental change.” The CIA and State Dept were deployed to utilize Ukraine in 2014 to create the boogeyman, Russia. Ukraine would be the stick to poke Russia. The USA needed a proxy; they created one and made the participants rich.
Provoked, Russia fell into the trap and took control of Crimea as they perceived the NATO expansion and likely control of the Black Sea as a threat. The Crimea move gave the CIA and State Dept the exact response they intended.
The Russia boogeyman was created.
But why? Why would the effort of the U.S. Government be to provoke and create this crisis?
In the biggest of big pictures, the domestic fundamental change needed it. We needed a reason to put walls around the U.S – not to keep Russia out, but to keep Americans locked in. Conflict with Russia became the Obama version of Bush’s conflict with Iraq. Putin now cast to play the role of Bin Laden.
The Patriot Act was never intended to stop foreign terrorists from attacking the USA. The Patriot Act was intended to create the DHS surveillance system for domestic control. It succeeded. The Russian sanctions were never intended to sanction Russia (and they don’t). The Western sanctions against Russia were intended to build walls around the U.S. financial system.
Ostracizing the world’s global trade currency, the dollar, from the global trade system was/is a necessary step in controlling domestic currency. If there is a threat, the government needs to respond. That’s how the crisis is created and not wasted.
Yes, what I am saying is there was a longer and deeper play afoot, a ‘trillions at stake’ game by those who control money and power, using foreign threat as the justification for something that just would not be possible without it. That’s why Trump was never allowed to breathe for a moment, whenever Russia or Vladimir Putin was mentioned. The control forces needed Trump to be adversarial to Russia, regardless of whether the threat was real. After all, it was supposed to be a willfully blind Hillary Clinton in place during this phase.
Conflict with Russia created the opportunity for the USA to create a sanctions regime that doesn’t truly sanction Russia, instead it controls the world of USA finance. At the end of that control mechanism is a digital dollar, a Central Bank Digital Currency…. and by extension full control over U.S. citizen activity. The Marxist holy grail.
That moment is closer than most can fathom, and that is exactly why the counterforce of a cryptocurrency, a rebellious mechanism for free people to exchange payment for goods and services, must be stopped by the same USG that is triggering the CBDC. Crypto is a threat. Jamie Dimon, along with all the major banks and financial institutions, is one key beneficiary that CBDC (a transactional player for fees therein) so long as JPMorgan stays on task.
Republicans, really financial beneficiaries of the largesse, oppose crypto currency.
The narrative…. Only criminals, that means those who would be defined as domestic terrorists like pesky remnants of our nation who demand freedom and liberty, would support cryptocurrency. Criminals, tax cheats, bad people support crypto. Don’t be a bad person comrade citizen. Insert vote, pull lever, get pellet, go back to sleep. You will own nothing and be happy comrade.
Yes, that’s the bigger picture.
Can it be stopped? I laugh, look in the mirror, think about the reality of how many people think this is an absurd conspiracy theory, and respond with…. How many people even know about the thing you are asking to oppose?
How many people would believe the Western sanctions against Russia were really the USG building a cage to keep us in. How about we start there. That’s my answer.
During remarks in New Hampshire, President Trump announced he would never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency. WATCH:
Of course, it should be noted….. As if the entire global system didn’t already oppose Donald Trump, this position against CBDC’s just puts an exclamation point on how the multinational financial systems will hate/oppose him even more.
This 2024 election is critical for a variety of reasons. However, high atop that list is this issue of how a dollar based CBDC is a threat to every liberty we cherish.
Posted originally on Jan 26, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
They say the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. And taxes on dying if you’re in the US. That’s right, the luxury of death comes with a price in the land of the free, thanks to the death tax. Now, Republicans are working to introduce legislation that would allow Americans and their families to rest in peace, free of charge.
The estate tax, or death tax, was first executed in the United States in 1916 as a means to generate revenue for the federal government. Supporters said it would address concerns about wealth concentration. The tax has been rewritten and revised over the years and numerous states have imposed their own death tax on top of the federal one. This is not the same as the inheritance tax that directly taxes beneficiaries.
US Representative Randy Feenstra, a proponent of eliminating this absurd tax, believes this bill is hurting farmers in particular. I have heard similar sentiments from my own clients. People fled England to America to avoid government confiscation of property through taxation. Britain has a 100-year land lease program whereby you pay the actual fair value of the property you bought outright. At the end of that 100 years, the next tenant must pay the full fair value once again. This is how the “rich” made their money keeping it in the family and never selling land. It is also why Britain was forced to hand Hong Kong back to China after 100 years.
People fled to America so they could actually pass property down to their children like the rich landholding families in Britain. This was the origin of the term “freehold” meaning you could actually own the land. America was the land of opportunity because it was all freehold and people could for the first time rise from the poor rank to that of the rich by hard work, saving, and being able to create wealth for the family unit. This was the American Dream.
Failing to repeal this tax will change American agriculture. As Rep. Feenstra notes:
This is one of the reasons why the wealthy in China are buying US farmland. The manner in which governments globally treat farmers is shameful. The government is not our next of kin; we do not save our entire lives to provide a better life for government.
Posted originally on Jan 26, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The globalists refuse to declare the migrant crisis an “invasion,” but we have history’s guidance to show us what happens when an unsustainable number of people enter a nation. The Goths, a non-military group considered migrants, are a perfect example. These men, women, and children sought refuge within the Roman Empire. This was not an invading army but rather a fleeing population seeking safety from the Huns. The Goths, long-time foes of the Romans, appealed to be admitted to Roman territory due to the threat they faced and needed to seek asylum. This event led to significant consequences and marked a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire.
The great Gothic migration involved hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. While, to some degree, the growing unrest in the East pushed them southward, there is also little doubt that the border defenses of the Roman Empire had also been seriously weakened by the political instability and economic pressures that were building within Rome itself. Of course, the rumor of great plunder and riches available in Roman territory acted like a magnet much in the same way as the rumors of streets paved in gold in America prompted great European migrations during the 19th and early 20th centuries or the outdated stereotype of the American Dream.
By 238 AD, the Gothic position was so threatening to the Roman Empire that Emperor Maximinus was forced to pay them vast amounts of tribute, similar to how countries currently pay all expenses for migrants. While his aim may have been to buy time, this demonstrated weakness on the part of the Romans, who were still in the middle of internal political struggles for power. Internal imperial rivalries ultimately defeated Maximinis. Within less than four years thereafter, the Goths began a series of raids along the Danube.
A decade later and Philip I attempted to quell the influx of migrants, but died while battling his successor, Trajan Decius. Rome was simply decaying gradually from internal struggles, which weakened the economy and constantly pitted one legion against another in a struggle for power. We see internal struggles today throughout the West as politics continue to divide the people. The Romans did not consider the Goths to be a force that would threaten the entire Empire, but rather more as a barbarian force looking for plunder rather than power.
Trajanus Decius declared the Goths an enemy and attempted to force them out of the empire, only for the masses to return a year later. The Goths were prepared this time and formed several strategic alliances with enemies, such as the Dacian Carpi. This led to a full-scale invasion, and the Roman Empire suddenly found itself besieged as war raged on in Moesia, Dacia, and even in Thrace, while the main body of the Gothic invasion was preparing a descent into the region of the Black Sea.
After many battles, the Goths emerged as the new masters of the entire Danube territory, all the way to the Black Sea. Trebonianus Gallus emerged as the new Emperor who could do nothing to reverse the Empire’s humiliating defeat. The Goths now turned to Illyricum and Thrace, burning and plundering their way across the region. By 253 AD, the Goths set sail along the Black Sea, headed straight for Asia Minor, which was wide open and waiting to be plundered.
The Roman Empire was declining until Emperor Aurelian came to power and began restorative efforts, including anti-immigration policies. He not merely launched defensive measures, he moved on the offensive against the Goths and demolished them through a series of battles. The Goths were driven out of the Balkans and into Dacia. Aurelian also greatly restored the Black Sea defenses, which helped those regions rebuild their economies as well. However, Aurelian failed to pursue the barbarians into the Roman province of Dacia, pulling back and establishing the new border once again along the natural border as originally defined by Augustus – the Danube.
Aurelian’s decision to redraw the borders left Dacia in the hands of the Carpi and the Goths. Once the Goths were contained, they began to divide into two distinct groups – Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms. These groups would evolve into powerful states that would ultimately bring down the Roman Empire in the West.
Those in favor of the Gothic migration stated that the newcomers would increase tax revenue and benefit the Roman economy. It was a humanitarian crisis and Rome’s responsibility to solve. Instead, the unsustainable influx of Gothic refugees contributed to the eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire. The event marked a turning point in Roman history and was part of a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. History always repeats.
COMMENT #1: Mr. Armstrong, I just wanted to thank you. I am a converted gold bug. Your comment about how gold was $875 in 1980 and the Dow was 1,000 compared to today cannot be ignored. I can see now that it is more of a religion than reality, like climate change absent the science. I was at Starbucks, and Generation X before me just paid with his phone. They have no idea what money is and have no idea of precious metals.
I just want to say thank you. I now understand they are a hedge when confidence collapses and we are moving closer to that period day by day.
Thank you for the education
Kerry
QUESTION #1: Hello; If a house cost $4,000 in 1930, then it cost 200 x 1930 $20 gold pieces to buy the house. A $20 dollar gold piece @ 33.4 grams of gold today would be $471,000. So not much change except the standard house in 1930 could have used some updates. Wonder if property corellates to gold? Just for fun; Rob
ANSWER #1: You have to be careful, for this is usually a selective analysis put out as a sales pitch. A loaf of Wonder Bread was 10 cents in 1930, and it’s about $5 today. That is the standard long-term inflation. This key is that everything rises and falls.
Yes, it’s good to be diversified. Just be careful with the gold bugs. They often tell you to sell everything, for only gold will rise. That is just not true, and I have seen so many people lose a fortune on that advice.
QUESTION #2: Mr. Armstrong, could you explain how futures markets affect the spot price/the market price? We hear of futures markets manipulating, affecting the market price, but how is i ask? I heard that because of the futures markets we then get a different perception of the market price. Meaning that if the futures are trading lower, than the market price will get lower or if the futures are trading higher than the market price will trade higher. Is this true?? Regards, Pietro
ANSWER #2: It is a fool’s argument to try to explain why gold peaked at $875 in 1980, with the Dow Jones Industrials at 1,000. Today, gold is $2,000, and the Dow is 33,000. So, to explain why gold has not risen, it must be manipulated.
Futures provide liquidity to any commodity or market. Liquidity expands the market, and thus, more people get involved. If you closed the futures market, then the only way to trade gold would be in physical bullion. The number of investors would collapse. Moreover, producers need the futures market to sell forward to lock in a profit to produce. If a farmer plants a crop expecting to get the market price when planting and something happens when it goes to harvest, he can lose his shirt and be out of business. Future contracts are selling your crop when you plant it, and you are effectively selling the risk to someone else. Here is a futures contract from Babylon during the 19th century BC. This is the way markets have been able to function for thousands of years.
My mother always told me there is a time and place for everything. Eliminating the futures market would rapidly make gold untradable. Miners will not function if they always have to roll the dice, hoping gold will rise and not decline when they finish refining a lot. This is the same for farmers and even in funds management.
I was offered $60 billion to manage as a stock fund in the USA. Because there is a conflict between the SEC and the CFTC, the rule was I could not HEDGE more than 17% at the time, or that would change the definition to a futures fund from an equity fund. I declined because if I saw a crash coming, I would have to sell the stocks, for I would not be allowed to sell futures to cover the risk. That is why I, along with others, started the hedge fund industry back in the 1980s: when S&P500 futures began to trade, these two agencies were fighting over jurisdiction. It was IMPOSSIBLE to comply with the law under the SEC, for you would go to jail with the CFTC. Hence, it was the OVERREGULATION that created the hedge fund industry by force.
Futures are vital because they provide the liquidity to expand markets. Because gold is an international commodity, it CANNOT be manipulated to turn a bull market into a bear market. Even the manipulation claims against the bankers are standard in trading markets. They would know where all the stops are, and they would gun for them. There is always room for swings within any market, but you cannot take a bull market and make a bear market at will.
And just for the record, I have bought gold over the years. I bought a hoard of $20 gold pieces from a central bank. I have bought gold bars from the SS Central America that went down and caused the Panic of 1857. Gold and silver have their place in a diversified portfolio. NO PORTFOLIO should ever be 100% on one thing!
Posted originally on the CTH on January 25, 2024 | Sundance
Justin from Canada is oh not too happy with Tucker Carlson for traveling to Calgary (rebellious audience 4,000) and then stadium show for 8,000 rebels in Edmonton. Apparently, Justin does not like it when Tucker comes to Canada. WATCH:
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 