Posted originally on the CTH on February 13, 2024 | Sundance
Republican senators Boozman, Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cramer, Crapo, Hoeven, Ernst, Grassley, Kennedy, McConnell, Moran, Murkowski, Romney, Rounds, Sullivan, Thune, Tillis, Wicker, Young, and Cornyn all voted to send $95 billion to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to protect their borders while leaving our borders unprotected.
Most people just don’t realize the nature of the opposition we face. ¹The elected representatives simply don’t care what our opinion is, they will do whatever serves their interests and too hell with the voters.
WASHINGTON DC – The Senate approved $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan aid by a 70-29 vote early on Tuesday morning, sending the bill to an uncertain fate in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson is giving the legislation a frosty reception.
Despite a last-ditch effort from conservative opponents of the bill, Johnson‘s cold water and former President Donald Trump’s attempts to kill the legislation, Republican support for the deal actually grew overnight, with 22 GOP senators voting in favor of the package — a kind of rejection of those in the party, like Trump, who argued any aid should be structured as a loan. (read more)
¹Now, imagine if we had some simultaneous triggering mechanism that could abruptly initiate a total work stoppage, a general labor strike, in the states or hometowns of the aforementioned senators. Perhaps that would get their attention.
At least there are a few states where both senators held the interests of their voters in mind. Florida, Missouri, Vermont, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Nebraska all voted against the Ukraine spending bill.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 11, 2024 | Sundance
I made the notation during the Tucker Carlson interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin knows everything below in this article about Russian Sanctions and the formation around a dollar-based U.S. CBDC. Unfortunately, Tucker Carlson does not know the specifics of how it is being constructed.
I went to the EU, because deep inside all of my research on Russia, things did not make sense. I was very prepared and organized to expect everything sketchy, and what I found surprised me. Putting boots on the ground, I now have a completely clear and different view.
Let me start by saying everything we have read about the Western sanctions against Russia is false. What sanctions might exist do not have any impact, and Eastern Europe has no intention to anger Putin. When Brussels threatens to kick Hungary out of the EU/NATO, I can almost hear Viktor Orban saying, “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Hungary doesn’t even use or rely on the €uro for domestic financial transactions; they still retain their own national currency, the Hungarian forint or HUF.
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.
Crypto users are likely familiar with stories like Binance and the US regulatory control therein. Factually, outside the USA Binance is being used to purchase and trade crypto without issue, but inside the USA it is regulated. That brings me to the MEXC crypto exchange, a Mexican version, again available globally but not allowed in the USA. The same applies to Metamask, used all over Europe but not permitted in the USA. Start to ask yourself, why all these crypto exchanges are available to the rest of the world but not the USA, and you start to suspect the Russian sanctions, just like the Patriot Act, are something else entirely.
Then there’s app wallets. You might be familiar with Apple Pay as a process to handle transactions from your iPhone. Apple Pay is linked to your bank account. Well, the “wallet feature” exists on other apps also, like Telegram; however, you can find the wallet feature, but if you try to use it from a USA cell phone… “This feature is not allowed in your region.” Why are digital wallets available for the rest of the world but blocked by the U.S. government?
This brings me to several crypto conversations in the EU at various cafes with people who have a deep understanding. The commonly accepted bottom line, the Western sanctions, organized by the Biden administration and US Treasury, were not intended to put financial walls around Russia; they were designed to put control walls around the USA. Russia was the useful justification.
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.
Now, does the exploding debt and seeming govt ambivalence take on a new perspective? It should, because that unspoken motive explains everything. This is not accidental folks.
Again, the western sanctions against Russia are not having an impact against Russia; they are having a quiet impact in the USA that no one is permitted to talk about.
♦LOGISTICS – Despite popular opinion to the contrary, it is entirely possible to travel all over Europe without being tracked. If you pick an entry point into the EU (Schengen Area), once inside, you can travel without any national checkpoints or passport checks. It is also entirely possible to fly all over the EU without ever giving a passport number when you book the flight. The trick is to know which airline. You are a name on a passenger manifest, nothing more.
Bottom line, travel around the EU is less controlled, tracked and monitored, than travel inside the USA. Yes, let me emphasize; freedom of travel is greater in the EU than it is in the USA. This was completely unexpected.
♦GROUND REPORT – You might ask how I know the Russian sanctions are ineffective – here’s an example. After doing advanced research, I went to three separate banks as a random and innocuous customer. I put my reason in the kiosk at each bank, got my ticket number and sat down to listen to the conversations. When my ticket number came up on the digital board, I just ignored it and sat for hours listening to conversations. No one ever noticed or questioned me – not once.
At every one of the banks, the majority of the customers, at the “new account” desk, were foreign nationals asking about setting up business accounts to trade with Russia. In every bank the conversations were friendly and helpful, with the bank staff telling the customers exactly how to set up their account to accomplish the transactions. No one was saying no; instead they were explaining how to do it in very helpful detail.
Within Russia, there are now 3rd party brokers with international accounts, an entirely new industry, which creates a layer of transactional capability for the outside company to sell goods into Russia. A Samsung TV travels from South Korea to the destination in the RU with the financial transaction between manufacturer and retailer now passing through the new ‘broker’ intermediary. Essentially, that process is what was happening in the banks for small to medium sized companies.
♦ Back to the crypto and digital wallet angle. In addition to financial/transactional brokers for durable goods into Russia, there is now an entire industry of selling telephone id’s with EU phone numbers to process the transactions that are blocked by the USA sanction regime.
Meaning, a person could buy a phone and register a phone number from within the EU, and then go back to the USA and access all the blocked/restricted financial processes [Binance (non-US), Metamask, MexC, Telegram digital wallet etc]. This would permit them to do untracked financial transactions into and out of Russia from the USA without the USG knowing about them (sanction workaround).
[DISCLAIMER: in the interest of my own legal risk, I did not do this; I’m just explaining.]
I am not smarter than the U.S. intelligence community, so what does this mean?
This means the U.S. government knows exactly why the Russian economy is thriving, the Ruble is stronger against the dollar, and there is nothing -not one thing- visible or different on the ground in Russia that an ordinary Russian citizen would notice. In fact, the Russian economy is doing fine, better than before the Ukraine conflict initiated, albeit with new financial industries created by the sanctions.
If the US government knows this, then why the sanctions?
Asked and answered. 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.
In essence, the Ukraine war response justified a system that creates a digital dollar.
I will have more, but for now just think about this aspect.
Posted originally on Feb 9, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
After Janet Yellen dared to say the IRS needed to track $600 transactions on eBay and CashApps to get the rich, now it is going after those people who are taking money out of the banks and buying real estate for cash. These disgusting Americans have to be hunted down like the English did to foxes and strung up like the good old days. What’s next? They will behead people and stick their heads on the spike around the White House as a warning whatever you earn 100% belongs to her Treasury, and she alone decides what you are allowed to keep.
Yellen is not taking the Biden administration on the hunt for people investing in real estate when she needs that money to hand to Zelensky for this endless war to conquer and destroy Russia. Yellen has stated that she wants to make residential real estate transactions more transparent, targeting people who are buying property in all-cash purchases. She insists this is part of an ongoing effort to combat money laundering and the movement of dirty money through the American financial system. The problem is that her definition of money laundering is now just putting cash in a safety deposit box where the government cannot see it. Money laundering, which is 20 years in prison, was once upon a time a law to go after drug dealers. She has changed the definition to hiding money from the government and avoiding taxes.
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is preparing a regulation that the Uni-Party will pass that would require real estate professionals to report information to the agency about non-financed sales of residential real estate to legal entities, trusts, and shell companies.
All-cash purchases of residential real estate are considered at high risk for money laundering. The rule would not require the reporting of sales to individuals as stated by FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki:
“Illicit actors are exploiting the U.S. residential real estate market to launder and hide the proceeds of serious crimes with anonymity, while law-abiding Americans bear the cost of inflated housing prices”
The nonsense Yellen is claiming this time is that this new regulation is an
“important step toward not only curbing abuse of the U.S. residential real estate sector but safeguarding our economic and national security.”
I have reported that there is a MASS MIGRATION from the Blue States to the Red States. We can see this in the stats from Zillow’s Consumer Housing Trends Report for 2023. Over 40% of real estate sales are taking place in the South, with New England being the lowest in sales and having the highest regulation and taxation.
Most people do not know, but from the very outset of the Biden Administration, targeting real estate was on the agenda as soon as Biden took office. By 2021, the White House had established plans to launch real estate recordkeeping requirements so they could hunt the rich for sport. The excuse was that they wanted to increase transparency in real estate transactions, “diminishing the ability of corrupt actors to launder ill-gotten proceeds through real estate purchases.” Wealth in real estate was unacceptable, for it was not in a bank that would secretly report any suspicious transactions without notice to you.
The Biden Administration hates the rich, for they cannot help being Marxists and only tolerate capitalism begrudgingly. The Biden Administration maintains that real estate is a commonly used vehicle for money laundering due to opaque reporting rules on purchases. The degree to which criminal activity affects housing affordability is his excuse for rising house prices – not his spending or plans for central bank digital currencies where the government can freeze all your assets on a whim as Trudeau did to anyone even donating to the Trucker protest.
Of course, it takes leftist academics to argue that this criminal activity of not paying taxes, which they define as money laundering, impacted home values in Canada. These academics, who can’t stand anyone who has more than they do, asserted that money laundering investment in real estate pushed up housing prices by 3.7% to 7.5%. Canada was especially impacted by foreign capital flowing in from China. In 2022, the federal government passed the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Actto ban foreign investors from buying residential property in Canada and to ensure the housing market remains available to Canadians. They just extended that for another two years, trying to prevent capital inflows. The foreign capital is turning more toward equities than real estate thanks to these leftist academics. They do not even consider that housing has risen because of Trudeau’s reckless spending. The foreign buyers were looking at the high-end of the market – not the average mom-and-pop house.
Yellen’s proposal is absurd. I bought a second home and paid cash to park the money out of a bank. I had to pay by bank wire, not even a certified check because you can stop payment on it or claim it was stolen after settlement. Everything is recorded, and you have to have lawyers on both sides. This does not occur with handing over a pile of cash; nobody knows who you are. I will add that when I bought a house 20 years ago, I had them add my children’s names. It was no big deal. You can’t do that anymore, for they have to report that as a gift and pay taxes on the house’s value. In all honesty, what Yellen is saying is nonsense. I am going through it myself. The money must be wired from a bank, and your bank needs the details of what you are buying. So, the likelihood of this being some money laundering scheme is remote.
As of January 1, 2024, many companies must report information to FinCEN about the individuals who ultimately own or control them. FinCEN began accepting reports on January 1, 2024. I have even to inform them if I move. They want to know everything I own, where I live, and if I move, I need to inform them. In East Germany, you could not move without the government’s permission. It certainly seems we are heading in that direction.
This is an attack on small businesses. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in January 2024 that over 100,000 small businesses had registered for their new database. The National Small Business Association filed a lawsuit in November 2022 to stop the U.S. database from being created, arguing that it is unduly burdensome on small firms and infringes on states’ rights to regulate businesses. Of course, no federal judge will rule against Yellen regardless of who appointed them. This is a uni-party club. Perhaps now you understand why they MUST stop Trump at all costs. He is not part of the uni-party.
Posted originally on Feb 2, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Click here to watch the latest interview on 2 Vikings Podcast on Spotify.
A message from Frank Nilsen:
How does Martin believe central bank digital currencies will affect the future of finance, borrowing, and the overall economy? With rising government discontent and predicted collapses in confidence, what indicators should we watch to gauge the stability of government systems? What are the historical precedents for capital migration during times of war or conflict, and how are we seeing this take place today?
Martin A Armstrong is back on the 2 Vikings podcast again. He is a former financial advisor and hedge fund manager who gained prominence for his economic forecasting abilities. He started his career in the early 1970s and quickly became known for his unique approach to analyzing financial markets. One of Armstrong’s notable contributions to the field of economics is the development of the Economic Confidence Model (ECM). The ECM is a cyclical model that aims to predict economic and political events based on a series of mathematical calculations. According to Armstrong, these cycles repeat over time and can be used to forecast market trends with remarkable accuracy. Armstrong’s forecasting abilities gained widespread attention in the late 1980s when he accurately predicted the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987. His model also successfully predicted various other major events, including the Japanese asset bubble collapse in the early 1990s and the Russian financial crisis in 1998.
In addition to his economic forecasting work, Armstrong also founded Armstrong Economics, a research firm that provided economic analysis and consulting services to clients worldwide. The company’s clients included governments, central banks, and major corporations. While he gained recognition for accurately predicting major market events, he also faced legal troubles and was convicted of contempt of court. Armstrong spent several years fighting the charges against him and was ultimately convicted of contempt of court for refusing to hand over computer files related to his forecasting models. He was sentenced to prison in 2000 and remained incarcerated until 2011. You can see his story in the documentary “The Forecaster.” During his time in prison, Armstrong continued to write about economics and finance. He gained a following of supporters who believed in his forecasting abilities and viewed him as a victim of government persecution. Armstrong’s writings, which were published on his website, often delved into topics such as market manipulation, government corruption, and the flaws of the financial system. Since his release from prison, Armstrong has continued to publish his economic insights and analysis on his website. He has also been involved in various legal battles related to his case and has become an advocate for reforming the justice system. Armstrong continues to share his economic insights through his website but remains a controversial figure in the field of economics.
We talk about: 00:00 Allegations of election interference and financial corruption. 09:14 Discoveries made by accident, not intentional pursuit. 15:39 Refusing to sell, setting off chain of events. 17:32 Russia’s large natural resource reserves are tempting. 28:15 Congress to vote, circumventing, dangerous power grab, inflation. 31:15 Became largest institutional advisors in the world. 35:03 Historical revolts sparked democracy, not communication speed. 42:48 Urgent need for CBDCs to control debt. 48:12 Decrees make no sense, unsustainable federal spending. 51:20 Shocking dinner conversation at Mar a Largo. 58:18 Rising discontent may lead to stock market pullback. 01:04:21 High priest determined leap year, leading to corruption. 01:10:42 Gold brokers indicative of upcoming restrictions, collapse. 01:17:11 Migration increases traffic, taxes and bribery issues. 01:18:58 Model predicts war but people want peace. 01:24:09 AfD leader supports Brexit model for Germany. 01:32:28 Colombians pay for heart transplant to escape. 01:34:09 Government funds for medical procedures exploited. Enjoy!
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.
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 Jan 12, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The gig economy has exploded in recent years as people seek additional income to keep up with the rising living costs. The government has been attempting to exploit these workers for additional taxes for years. A new law implemented by the Biden Administration will force some businesses to classify gig workers as employees, raising costs for everyone involved.
It costs companies about 30% more to hire someone as an employee rather than an independent contractor. There are state laws regarding independent contract or gig work, but this is the largest piece of legislation to be passed on the federal level.
The legislation is presented in a way that will protect workers from the big bad companies. In truth, the law will raise taxes on these workers who took on these low-skilled positions for extra income. This will prevent some from, say, working for both Lyft and Uber. Trade group Chamber of Progress believes that reclassification will result in $31 billion in lost revenue.
Companies will simply limit their workforce by necessity. When Governor Gavin Newsom approved raising California’s minimum wage to $20 under Bill 1228, countless people found themselves without a job. Pizza Hut fired over 2,000 delivery drivers right before the change was implemented. California Pizza Hut and PacPizza franchises eliminated delivery driver positions entirely.
So, the kid delivering pizzas a few nights a week during college will miss out on that opportunity because the government wants to tax him as an employee. “Gig” is simply a temporary contract intended to produce supplemental income. These positions were never meant to be full-time career paths. The government should explore why so many people are seeking multiple jobs instead of preventing people from seeking out additional sources of revenue.
Posted originally on Jan 10, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
One piece of analysis commonly misconstrued is the Federal Reserve’s role in the nation’s economic health. Even those who have the ability to piece together other variables that often go unnoticed commonly point their finger at the Federal Reserve. No one is factoring in the largest driver of inflation – WAR – nor are they factoring in the three main pillars of government debauchery (war, taxation, government spending) that the Fed cannot control.
They never look at the history of central banks and how Congress has been manipulating the law to alter the Fed’s purpose. If there was a single interest rate and one policy set in Washington, why do we even have branches of the Fed if they no longer act independently? When the Fed was created, the branches managed internal domestic capital flows. Each branch was independent, and they would lower or raise the interest rate in their jurisdiction depending on the flow of money. Too much cash? They lowered the rate. Not enough cash? They raised it. This was all before Keynesian Economics when the interest rate became the tool to manipulate our demand.
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 created the Panic of 1907, which caused capital to rush from East to West. This created a shortage of cash in New York and led to bank failures. Hence, the Federal Reserve was created with branches to manipulate the internal capital flows – not the Quantity of Money Theory or the demand of the people.
Roosevelt usurped all the independence of the Fed and created a Washington monopoly to push his socialist agenda into place. We are hearing the same pitch of equality once again from Biden. The government is supposed to be separate from the Federal Reserve, but the president appoints the chair. The formerly independent central bank that was owned by the bankers to prevent the misuse of taxpayer funds is now under control by the banks only in theory; the reins of power are political.
The Federal Reserve failed to produce inflation while engaging in QE between 2008 and 2019. Most analysts ignore that entirely. If the Fed issued $1 trillion and buys in US Treasuries, I hate to tell you, but it would have ZERO impact. Why? Because debt today is simply cash that pays interest. Once upon a time, you could not borrow against government debt. Thus, it was deemed non-inflationary as long as it could not be used as money. Today, you post bills as collateral to trade futures. The old theories no longer exist in this new, strange world we live in. Hence, all the QE was merely swapping the debt for cash.
Also, consider where the Fed purchases its debt and who purchases US debt. China, for example, is no longer buying US debt due to US-China government relations that the Fed has absolutely no control over. Then, say China sold its debt for cash. The dollar would go offshore, and the domestic money supply would NOT increase. There is a lot more to this game than the simplistic analysis that leads to brainwashing the financial community and investors.
Jerome Powell has no power over fiscal spending or the deficit. Central banks everywhere are trapped. The central banks in Europe are in FAR worse shape right now. When Powell stood before Congress and subtly criticized the Biden Administration by calling their constant spending “unsustainable,” he was attempting to explain that the central bank could not overpower the government here. The central bank can create elastic money, and it will return to doing so. Private capital is fleeing government debt on a global level.
In the end, the globalist agenda is to default on all national debts, and they will no longer need to bail out the bankers. Welcome to the Decline & Fall of Western Civilization.
Posted originally on Jan 6, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The late Mark Pittman was a journalist for Bloomberg when, once upon a time, there were still a few actual investigative reporters. Mark did a piece on my operation in Japan. He knew what we were doing, that the accounts were mine, not clients, and that I was buying distressed portfolios. Not one client ever signed a complaint, and there was NO DEFAULT. When they charged me. I met Mark at the Hyatt in NYC across from the Train Station. He knew it was a setup and said: “Marty, we are not going to allow them to do this to you.”
The law says that if you commit fraud, you MUST help the victims get their money back. Further proof of how New York City is a cesspool of corruption: when they realized I was helping my clients go after the bankers, they put a gag order on me to stop me from helping my clients against HSBC/Republic. They have been doing the same to Trump. The Special Prosecutor went as far as to demand a gag order on Trump so that he could not even criticize Biden while campaigning. You cannot make up this stuff. If you wrote a fiction novel with these maneuvers, they would say it is too far-fetched.
I think it is absolutely critical as Trump is put on trial in New York City. I was granted bail in New Jersey. Not a single NY journalist ever reported the Truth no less the courts. I was interviewed by a journalist who asked about the bank illegally trading in my accounts. She asked if they were using my accounts to “launder money for the Russian Mafia as they were doing in Madof?” The banks claimed in Madoff’s case not to have known. That is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE, for you have to know your client rules. They verified every account and the corporate documents behind each one. Madoff pled guilty to an information quickly. He was not indicted and could have defended for a few years. The only reason he did so was clearly to protect his family. Just as in my case, the bank claimed it had no idea where the money was. It is impossible to get $1 billion out of a bank, and nobody knows where it went. There is NO SUCH thing as a fair trial in New York City. Trump is doomed there, and this is all about interfering in the 2024 election.
Mark understood the bankers very well. Bloomberg removed Mark from covering my case and replaced him with David Glovin, who could never praise the government more. It was Mark at Bloomberg who battled in court for years to get the details of those bailouts released to the public. Mark was probably the most professional journalist I ever met. I was told after my case began that Bloomberg purged all the reports Mark had previously written about our firm from their terminals and certainly Japan. It was as if Bloomberg was in on the whole scam.
Mark’s wife, Laura, wrote to me about Mark’s death. It was a sad day, for there was NEVER anyone at Bloomberg I ever met who had the integrity of Mark Pittman.
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 