QUESTION: Sir,

My daughter works at a brick and mortar pet smart store as a 33 hour per week employee. She told my wife that PetSmart bought the online pet food store chewy.com ie their online competition. What’s also interesting is that they are focusing on non-online activities such as training and semi non-online activists like pet adoptions. That’s in line with your retail store’s comment.

I just checked the hospital bankruptcies. I can’t find a complete source to check for yearly closings. It seems though that 2019 was a banner year with the periphery having a good showing.

In the physician arena, the radiology services are being outsourced on the internet with Indian based sources. In this editorial, it seems that primary care physicians are also being outsourced.

Keep up the good work

DK

ANSWER: The trend in retail is moving toward online. Shopping malls across America are slowly dying. Many are spending money and adding restaurants to attract people in hopes they will buy something in person v online. I have explained many times that the economy has always evolved, as Schumpeter put it, in waves of Creative Destruction.

For those in the retail trade, you must consider providing services not attainable online. You must look at your competition. Move into areas where you need not compete with the online world of impersonal service. The cycle will eventually flip back but you are probably looking at post-2032. For now, immediately look to refocus the distinction between online and local touch and feel businesses or services. You can buy the dog food online, but the puppy can’t be put in a box and sent via FedEx.

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I can see your warning about Big Bang and the bonds markets would crash after 2015.75 going into the bottom of your business cycle on January 18, 2020. However, it seems that the negative interest rates have created your bond crash not in price but in participation. There is no viable bond market outside the United States with small exceptions of Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Is there any way to come back from this destruction? Do you see the bond markets ever reviving or is this destruction permanent?

HC

ANSWER: If there was a free market, then you would have witnessed the bonds crash price and interest rates rise as people perceived risk. The introduction of negative interest rates which began in late 2014 going into 2015.75 and Quantitative Easing, shifted the risk from the free market to the central banks. This is what I mean that they are now TRAPPED! If interest rates rise, their portfolios crash in value (price). Such an outcome would raise the question of will the private sector return to the government bond markets when they see there is a rising risk factor? Our model shows that this will not be the case. In other words, the Sovereign Debt Crisis has taken place and to prevent the PRICE crash, the central banks became the buyer to hold interest rates down and bond prices up.

Some would think that the forecast was wrong simply because the prices have not crashed. We have had the Bank of Japan saying they will buy government bonds on an unlimited basis. This is NOT a free market. It has “crashed” from the perspective of participation.

It is like the creation of the Euro. Yes, it effectively eliminated the volatility in the currency markets between the Eurozone members. However, it really only transferred the volatility from the currency market to the spreads between the bond markets of member states. Obviously, Greece and Germany both use the Euro. The volatility which would have been reflected in the currency simply moved to the bond markets.

Now we have a serious crisis that has shifted from the bond markets exclusively to the central banks. This is now part of the crisis unfolding in the REPO Market. There does not appear to be any recovery on the horizon. Politicians are undermining the confidence in government, to begin with, and that will influence bond buyers.

We have received many inquiries about the 3rd edition. We have added some text and an index. It is going to print this week. With respect to those asking if we can reserve a copy or those asking if they can buy a quantity at a discount to redistribute, we do not get involved in selling the books. It really is a big project having to handle shipping even internationally.

Amazon picks up the books directly from the printer. So they do not even come to us in the process. With respect to selling quantities, we would have to make an inquiry of the printer if they can even make independent shipments and if so what would be the minimum quantity.

All we know is that there were people who bought multiple copies from Amazon. A number of people purchased multiples to send to third parties based upon emails we received were usually friends or politicians. There was a group that sought to purchase one for every member of Congress but there were not enough left to accomplish that goal.

We will make inquires of the printer to see if they could make individual shipments. I would suspect it would be probably a minimum lot of 20 books. We will let everyone know.

With respect to autographed copies, I will always be glad to do that at conferences only

Anyone who has been traveling these past few years will notice the changes in tourism. Back in the ’90s, the number one tourist group was clearly Japanese. As their economy imploded thanks to government mismanagement, the next group was the Russians. When I was in Venice a year ago, there are a couple of performances that alter back and forth in St Mark’s square at night. They were still playing Russian songs when the only tourists there were Americans and Chinese. When I asked them why they were still playing Russian songs, he responded he would play New York, New York. I replied you don’t go to Venice to eat McDonalds.

The Chinese tourists outnumber Americans at least 2 to 1. There were no Japanese and I never saw any Russians there either. The #1 tourists around the world are always from the hottest economy. So with the coronavirus, Chinese tourism has come to a complete halt. This will have a negative impact on the economies dependent upon tourism.