The Archegos Capital was founded by the former Tiger Management equity analyst, Bill Hwang. Archegos Capital, the “home office” hedge fund owned by Bill Hwang, lost an unbelievable $110 billion in just five days. The strategy was the classic leverage using SWAPS. They never purchased shares of stocks in companies like ViacomCBS. Archegos Capital was entering into equity swaps with numerous different banks and investment banks in a similar manner to what would be called money laundering where we borrow from one bank to pay off another.
By engaging SWAPS, Archegos Capital never actually owned shares of the underlying stock. What they did was effectively leveraged themselves by as much as 500%, which would prove to be their undoing. The problem with such hedge funds is that they really take a personal view of the performance of the market going forward. This is ALWAYS the undoing of these hedge funds going back to Long-Term Capital Management which took a fundamental view that they would make a guaranteed fortune on the high interest of Russian debt and that bribes were being paid in the IMF that they thought would keep the loans going to Russia without end.
I cannot stress enough that ANY fund which is dominated by fundamental expectations that override quantitative models, should be AVOIDED like the plague. We are into a whole new world of finance which is moving in a counter-reaction to the Great Reset. There is NO QUESTION that the March 2020 crash was not only UNIQUE in history, it was clearly an assault that attempted to create another 2007-2009 economic contraction which would have made facilitated the Great Reset by the intentional destruction of the economy. They have had to rely upon the virus scare to accomplished what they had hoped would have be a far easier road.
QUESTION: Hello Martin, can you explain to me how a currency would sustain value for international trade if a country, like Canada (where I live), did what you suggested and stopped issuing debt and just printed money to level that was 5% – 10% of national GDP? would it depend on the attractiveness of what a country exports eg: Canada exports oil, lumber, crops like wheat/soy/canola, minerals – both precious and functional? What would happen to a country that didn’t have exports as a significant portion of it’s GDP? I am curious about how currencies would react to your restructuring plan that eliminated the need for a country to issue debt. Thanks for all your insights and theories. Very helpful.
Trapped in Canada with an egoistic misguided Prime Minister who doesn’t appear to like Canada (he keeps telling us how awful we are) or Canadians, he prefers spending time with global elites and is following their plan even though it damages Canada pretty significantly. MB
ANSWER: Right now, every country spends more than it takes in. The deficits are funded by selling debt, which then competes against the private sector. The interest rates rise and fall on sovereign debt based upon the confidence from one week to the next. If they stopped borrowing, then the capital investment would turn to the private sector, creating more economic growth. If income taxes were eliminated, the economy would grow based upon innovation which is what it should be driven by.
The confidence in the currency would simply depend upon the strength of the economy, as was the case for Athens and Rome in ancient times. Their coinage was imitated because they were the dominant economies of their time. The value of a currency is the strength of its economy. It has NEVER been about its backing, which is purely a theory that arrived with paper money. Rome had no national debt. The value of the currency was more than its metal content. Here we have a gold aureus of Septimus Severus (193-211 AD) and the imitation in gold made in India. The imitation weighed more than the original. Imitations were made in the same quality of metal, so it proves that it was not a counterfeit but that a coin from the core economy possessed a greater value than the raw metal.
Just compare Russia, which has tremendous resources, against China, Japan, and Germany that had really no gold reserves. Russia did not expand its economy while the others boomed because of its people. The value of a currency is the TOTAL productive capacity of its economy — the work ethic of its people. Russia has not been able to rise substantially because it never fully embraced the idea of capitalism. They moved from communism to an oligarchy.
COMMENT: Hi Mr. Armstrong…..this is a surprising (to me) summary, on John Law. Every piece I ever read about him, cast him as a complete scoundrel, yet you obviously write with admiration. Just another example of history depending on someone’s perspective. You never cease to surprise. And that’s good.
HS
REPLY: John Law was actually a brilliant man. His legacy is not so different from John Maynard Keynes. He advocated deficit spending ONLY in times of recession, but governments have spent relentlessly with deficits that never end. We call this “Keynesian economics” when in fact he never advocated such a system. Likewise, John Law never advocated what the French government did in creating the Mississippi Bubble.
It is true that John Law fled to Amsterdam, but this is when he studied real banking operations and saw that money was actually virtual. Because coins were counterfeited or their edges shaved, bank money was more valuable than coins. Once the coins were deposited, each had to be inspected. So the bank became a sort of guarantor of the validity of the coins. Here is an ancient coin from Lydia with numerous banking marks applied, verifying that the coin had been inspected by them before for the same reasons.
It was this first-hand observation that led John Law to see that money was actually virtual, whereby people preferred bank money to actual coins. John then returned to Scotland, where he published in 1705 his Money and Trade Considered, with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money. Law would later publish a second edition in 1720. He attempted to use his writing to convince the Scottish Parliament to adopt his ideas about money, but they declined, giving rise to the adage that a genius is never acknowledged in his native land (i.e. Columbus, Einstein to just mention two). Law had captured a glimpse of the virtual money supply as he was fascinated with the development of “bank money” that was displacing bullion in circulation.
Therefore, John Law has been hated by hard money people because they fail to understand that coins became second-best to actual paper money, for it relieved the problem of having to test every coin in a large transaction. Where Scotland refused to listen to John Law, France took him up on his observations. In 1716, John Law was invited by France to give it a shot. King Louis XIV (1643-1715) had squandered France’s resources on numerous wars and the construction of the Palace at Versailles. The idea of borrowing to fund wars and expansion had ruined the governments of men. Louis XIV had also adopted the theory that it was a divine right of kings to act as a dictator. This idea has persisted behind the curtain for centuries and dominates even American politics where you cannot sue the government without its permission.
For 54 years, Louis XIV worked daily for 8 hours, where he concerned himself with the very smallest of all details of state. He controlled everything from troop movements, infrastructure construction, court etiquette, and even theological disputes. He subordinated the nobles who had often instigated civil wars. Over the previous 40 years, there had been about 11 such civil wars.
The cost of this construction of his Palace at Versailles was far beyond the imagination. He effectively ran the country from Versailles and distanced himself from the people and Paris. Yet for all his extravagance, through the assistance of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), he was responsible more than anyone else for forging France into a more modern country.
John Law has been blamed for the Mississippi Bubble when, in fact, France was on the brink of its third bankruptcy when it contacted him. The government entered a partial default by consolidating its debt and changing its terms. Its new issue of billets d’etat was still required for more funding. The shortage of gold and silver coinage was plunging the economy into a depression. Law’s first proposal for a national bank issuing bank money was rejected. The second proposal to create a private bank was accepted and thus Banque Generale was established in May 1716.
The bank began to lend on its own shares, and the government intervened to support the price of its share by decree. Like the US government ordering the Federal Reserve to provide a floor to US bonds during World War II, likewise, the French government tried to maintain the value of the shares at 9,000 liver. Law begged the government to reduce the floor to 5,000, but they refused. They ended up blaming Law and arresting him no so unlike how the Democrats charged owners of S&Ls which failed when it was Congress who was changing the laws and creating a one-way market where everyone tried to sell.
The Democrats are out to end saving and passing on something for your children. I am sure those who voted for Biden simply because they hated Trump will find out what the real agenda is fairly soon. It might simply be a good time to die right now because the Democrats tear up everything that made America the land of opportunity.
The one thing that I would have to agree with Karl Marx on was his version of the “rich” in England was all about preventing the lower classes from ever obtaining wealth. You would take a house and basically pay full value, but it was for a 100-year lease, the way the Brits did in Hong Kong. The 100 years pass, and the property reverts to the historical owners. It was known as a “long lease.” The term “freehold” meant that it was a property you and your family could actually own.
The Democrats are back to the same philosophy of the old aristocratic families of England. Instead of the aristocratic families retaining the title, the Democrats want whatever wealth you have earned and saved to make your family well established to revert to the state. People fled Europe and came to America so they could actually own the property outright. The Financial Panic of 1792 inspired Ben Franklin to say, “In this world nothing can be certain, except death and taxes.”
Many people have criticized my solution that the government should be prohibited from borrowing and it should simply create money to cover its expenses each year capped at 5% of GDP — all federal taxes should be abolished. State and local taxes would still exist since they cannot create money. But they too should be prohibited from borrowing.
My critics will argue this will be inflationary. My point is that would be a dramatic improvement over the current system and eliminating federal debt means that the capital will be redirected into the private sector, creating far more economic growth. Politicians are incapable of managing the economy and should be prohibited from attempting anything. At times, up to 70% of the national debt is accumulated interest expenditures because they borrow year after year with NO intention of paying anything back.
Biden will not destroy the economy because he is spending recklessly, and then argues we must raise taxes to pay for this spending. Yet, the government will never pay for everything because they need to reduce the debt.
So, my solution would have kept your family and their future. Under the Democrats, they are wiping out the future of your family. We are returning to the days where private wealth is not something they will tolerate.
Remember one thing — 99% of all revolutions are created because of taxes! NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!
COMMENT: Well it looks like the coronavirus is going to cause a major problem because everyone will be deducting their home offices.
HL
ANSWER: You better check with your accountant. It is my understanding that if you are a W2 employee, you cannot take a home office deduction. Currently, you need to have self-employment income to benefit from home office deduction. This is going to cause real problems now that so many people are forced to work remotely. I seriously doubt the Democrats will allow a deduction for working remotely.
Your post today on inflation(when people see it coming) reminds me how things have changed from the 1970s. Then, the inflation we saw came from oil rising(Opec raising prices), unions demanding wage increases, and currencies untethered to the abandoned Bretton Woods agreement. Governments then seemed clueless how to stem this rise, with interest rates rising relentlessly, pressuring bonds and eroding earnings of still largely manufacturing-based economies. Globalization was not an issue as half the world still lived under communism.
Today, it seems central banks have “learned” how to rig interest rates by flooding markets addicted to debt. What is different today is governments now, instead of fearing inflation, actually want it. In fact, desire it to bring about the Great Reset. They appear to want to drive oil prices higher to such levels that this makes Green Energy cheaper and helps to accelerate the conversion over to electric cars. All at the expense of the consumer. On top of this, taxing old tech, principally oil and gas, only helps to fuel shortages, since companies have cut back on oil exploration. When you force people to stay home, the demand for energy shifts from driving to people staying home, more demand for computers, more energy required to supply the grid, more companies delivering products to the home. What has been accomplished? People fleeing high tax states to ones that remain open, those with no state income taxes, those in the south. The burden shifts to northern states, the advantage gained by southern states.
Today, governments are deliberately fueling these shortages…encouraging them, to expedite the transition away from globalization to one centrally controlled. No longer do they need access to debt markets, they can supply guaranteed income without fear of inflation or failed bond auctions. This is truly diabolical. And with Big Tech doing their bidding, people too stupid to grasp what is happening, it appears today’s inflation is by design, intended to destroy a private business, which can’t compete with large companies, jobs destroyed, inflation today used as a weapon against private enterprise. This is pure evil, which stands out against the market-based inflation of the 1970s.
MS
REPLY: You are correct that it was a period of unions demanding more, but it was more than just that aspect. There were two other major developments. First, there were rising prices with lower economic growth. This became known as STAGFLATION. This took place because COSTS were rising from an external price shock that rippled through the economy, which was created at the same time as an economic recession. That never took place before because previous recessions were entirely confined domestically, so prices declined with lower demand.
It was more than simply the collapse of Bretton Woods. It was the in-your-face collapse of Keynesian economics. Still, it was Paul Volcker who followed Keynesianism and raised interest rates into 1981 simply because he had no other theory available. I had a conversation with Volcker at the IMF Dinner in Washington. I did not bash him over his head with his mistake, he was so tall it would have been hard to do so, but we did have a frank discussion of the changes in the global economy.
Today, the central banks are still trapped by the same Keynesian economic theories. Now, they have painted themselves into a corner with artificially low interest rates that they cannot escape without a drastic alteration to the debt markets as a whole. Volcker could at least correct his mistake by lowering interest rates. Today, the central banks cannot raise rates without blowing up their own portfolios. It is a very different type of crisis they face today than what it was during the 1970s.
COMMENT: Dear Mr Armstrong, I wanted to write in to affirm your observation of regular people buying now rather than waiting (The Bull v Bear in the US Markets). I had to buy a new dryer earlier in the year. It took 6 weeks to get the one I had ordered. I wanted to buy a new computer recently. Lenovo showed delivery in 12 weeks for the one I wanted! Another company I looked at was taking pre-orders for delivery beginning the end of May. I paid a little extra and went with a small manufacturer that could deliver within 10 business days. I bought an extra freezer so we can stock up. I actually tried to buy a freezer last year and couldn’t get one at all, so I snapped one up as soon as they were available back in January. My wife just asked me if I wanted to get a new grill for Father’s Day. I said, ‘Let’s buy that right now and put it aside. Who knows what will happen by Father’s Day.’
J
REPLY: I remember the 70s well. Because of OPEC, not just gasoline was rising, but suddenly everything made of plastic was rising. For those who do not know, plastics are made starting with raw materials, such as natural gas, oil, or plants, which are refined into ethane and propane. Ethane and propane are treated with high heat, in a process known as cracking. This is how they’re converted into monomers such as ethylene and propylene. The monomers ethylene and propylene are combined with a catalyst to create a polymer “fluff,” which looks like powdered laundry detergent. Then the polymer is fed into an extruder, where it is melted and fed into a pipe, and the plastic forms a long tube as it cools. So when oil rose in price, so did everything made of plastic. That was much of the inflationary boom between 1976 and 1980.
Everything was rising in price which led to the realization that it was cheap to buy today because it would only cost more tomorrow. I ordered a new refrigerator in December. It finally arrived in March. We are entering a period of shortages so prices will be moving higher as supply is constrained and demand will rise. The other side-effect of lockdowns and the destruction of offices with people working more remotely, everyone is out remodeling or expanding their homes. The construction industry is booming. Just look at the price of lumber.
Welcome to the inflation cycle our computer has been projecting would be built upon shortages
While the general overview of this market by most technicians has been bearish simply based upon how high the market has risen, we are also in an interesting position where the fiction of vaccines is providing some underlying support. Based upon RELIABLE sources, this entire Build Back Better motto and a scheme were developed BEFORE COVID took place. This virus has been one of convenience and I know people were warned to sell stocks and bonds because a virus was coming and that was Jan/Feb 2020. That leaves only two possibilities.
(1) This is really the Fauci virus since this was the precise research he was doing and was told to shut down so he sent it to Wuhan
(2) They knew a natural virus would appear seasonally and they would exploit it as extremely dangerous
While Europe is still trying to push the Great Reset and destroy as much of the economy as possible that is reliant upon fossil fuels, there is no question that this virus has been greatly exploited and exaggerated for political purposes. In the United States, because the power has resided with state governors, it has been more difficult to accomplish the economic contract that we see in Europe especially in Britain where Boris Johnson is in bed with Bill Gates.
Consequently, the US will not see the economic devastation that we are witnessing in Europe because Trump was in charge and made no effort to lockdown the entire country. Additionally, politics is so corrupt they rely on corporate donations and they have been getting a lot of resistance. On the private blog, I warned that the Biden Administration, according to reliable sources, was looking at putting a tax per mile that you drive in addition to the gasoline tax. That would create an army of new government employees and a nightmare of enforcement.
That all said, the real impact of all of this nonsense has been to seriously disrupt the supply chain in everything from food to electrical appliances. These shortages have already led to rising prices and consumers are starting to realize that it may be cheaper to buy today because whatever it is will be more expensive tomorrow. That is the REAL stimulus to inflation – not the increase in money supply which has been exponential since the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis with no inflationary impact. As long as the consumer does not trust the future, then they hoard their cash. Inflation emerges ONLY when they see that it is no longer beneficial to hoard their cash. That is the psychology we are now entering.
While our near-term target in the Dow Jones Industrials remains in the 36,000-37,000 range, we are still in a position to test the 40,000 number on a broader-term. What you must keep in mind are the capital flows. Because we had Trump, that one year of refusing to join this Build-Back-Better agenda was critical in keeping the US economy much stronger compared to Europe, yet neck & neck with China, which will put in a stronger growth pattern number in 2021. The Dow has been making new record highs which the NASDAQ peaked in February on target with our timing models. This disparity is reflecting the international capital flows for foreign money always go for the blue-chips.
To see the future, we must look at the entire world. Analyzing a single market based upon what comment the Fed will make tomorrow is for amateurs. We live in a global economy and it is time we open our eyes to the real world that surrounds us.
It has always been critical to look at everything from a global perspective. Gold declined for 19 years from 1980 into 1999 and the domestic analysis was always wrong. They looked at gold only in dollars. Yet when we looked at gold in a basket of currencies, what looked like a bull market in dollars was really a bear market in world currencies. This is why Socrates looks at everything in all currencies – not just domestic.
Those that keep calling to the collapse of the dollar because of debt have not bothered to look outside the United States. The US sovereign debt is about $28 trillion out of nearly $59 trillion globally. However, add in state and local government with private debt, as we are approaching $300 trillion. This is why US federal debt is still the golden parachute in the world and the fact that US long-term rates are not being manipulated as they are in Europe only offers a greater incentive for capital inflows. We are witnessing US rates rising and this will further attract international capital in the face of the US economy doing far better than Europe.
Re-Posted Mar 16, 2021 from Martin Armstrong Blog/WEF
The entire world of economics has been abandoned without actually admitting it has failed. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is throwing in the towel without actually admitting its policies have totally failed. The IMF was the bastion of Keynesianism, supporting economic Neoliberalism. Of course, the head of the IMF is on the board of the World Economic Forum and is fully onboard with Schwab’s Great Reset. Previously, if you asked if the IMF was a Neoliberal-Keynesian it would have been like asking if the Pope if he was a Catholic.
The complete reversal of the IMF has been at the direction of the World Economic Forum who endorses really a one-world government and economic dictatorship. The old Neoliberalism ideology of free markets, free trade, and small government, are gone. This is part of Schwab’s attempt to control the Fourth Industrial Revolution, yet when we have the ONLY fully functional AI system in the world that writes over 1,000 reports on the state of the financial world, they wanted to shut it down because it also forecasts that they will fail. The current and previous head of the IMF has been a board member of Schwab’s WEF. There is no more independence. The IMF is fully occupied by Schwab.
The IMF has been pushing Schwab’s digital agenda for several years once Christine Legard got a hold of the IMF. What makes this reversal in economic policy so shocking is that the IMF even put out a piece entitled: “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” They are now questioning the entire world of free trade and are advocating more of a fascist state with control by a central authority.
There seems to be a HUGE gap in what people think about cryptocurrency. The European Central Bank (ECB) is working on a scheme to launch “digital euro central bank money” as soon as possible. Many economists praise the project as an “innovation,” as an important and indispensable step in an increasingly digitized world. But economists typically always advocate socialism without ever actually contemplating what is its final destination. The socialist press which has engulfed most of the mainstream is also obvious to what is the final destination.
The ECB has made its intentions known, as has the Federal Reserve, that in declaring a digital currency, both have stated it will be a currency accessible for everyone, robust, secure, efficient, and compliant with the new agenda. What is overlooked is this is to be a central bank currency and they have been quietly suggesting that they will even take direct depositions from non-banks. Nobody seems to really understand what that means. As usual, they simply glass over the statements. In truth, it is circumventing the banking system for they are also not about to bail out the banks in this new world because they are also contemplating the end of government debt. If the government does not borrow, then who needs the bakers?
Mainstream media also refuses to address privacy concerns. To be very clear, the path to digital currency is also one to total surveillance by a state regime that will accelerate considerably in this world where they can pick your face out of a crowd of a thousand.
Anyone who thinks a digital euro is somehow better because it is not fiat money, well it is simply fiat money on steroids. The ECB will not surrender its monopoly of euro production. However, what is being talked about behind the curtain is that a digital euro can either be “account-based” meaning you will keep it in an account held with the ECB directly, or it can be “token-based” where banks receive a “token” that can be transferred from smartphone to smartphone via an app.
The ECB says the digital euro is a “compliment” to cash and bank balances. Clearly, that is like saying the lockdown will be just three weeks when they never had any such intention. Obviously, those who pay in cash find it convenient and want to ensure their anonymity. That will become a thing of the past which is their intention. The objective is to force everyone into paying electronically, i.e., transfer balances through PayPal, Apple Pay, or debit or credit cards.
Back in May/June 1992, we put out a report on the long-term implications of what our computer was projecting. The year 1998 marked the Russian default which sparked the Long-Term Capital Management Crisis and the first time the Federal Reserve had to bail out a hedge fund. Heading into the end of this cycle in 2032, we would see the extinction of 30-year bonds and the demise of the floating exchange rate system. This time what comes after 2032 will be indeed a new world order for what appears on the horizon is the collapse of our present system which is being accelerated by Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum. These forecasts, along with 2016 being the first time a non-politicians would win, sounded far-fetched back then. But this is simply how economies and societies unfold. It was not some premanitio9n. It was just history repeating itself.
“Since 1985 we have been warning that the Nineties would be a period of turmoil marked by greater volatility and a major crisis in world debt. We have also stated time and again that our computer models were forecasting the extinction of 30-year bonds along with the collapse of the floating exchange rate system. While these forecasts may appear bleak, this does not necessarily signify the end of civilization. A similar crisis involving these issues along with war were also the hallmark of the final years during the 18th century. The new world order that emerged thereafter brought forth an era in democracy and capitalism not only in Europe, but also in the birth of the United States.
While many will laugh at these forecasts or attempt to simply dismiss them as too far-fetched to be considered seriously, they merely display their own weakness of a closed mind.”
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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
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