The European Bank Scandal Nobody Talks About


Last October, the European Union’s (EU) top court ruled in favor of Polish consumers who took out mortgages in Swiss Francs, allowing them to ask Polish courts to convert the loans into the local zloty currency in a blow for lenders. Back in October 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union, based in Luxembourg, gave a judgment in favor of Polish victims of unfair mortgage agreements crafted by the banks. The bankers created mortgage loans in Swiss francs to be reimbursed in Polish zloty claiming that the currency was very stable and it was, therefore, a good deal. When the Swiss franc peg broke on January 15, 2015, mortgages throughout Europe were sent into turmoil for the bankers had been selling their mortgages linked to the Swiss franc.

The banks involved in crafting mortgages linked to the Swiss franc were Santander, BCP, BNP Paribas, and Commerzbank, as well as Poland’s biggest lenders PKO BP and Getin Noble Bank. Crafting such complex structures for the consumer is not something that will hold up very well in Europe moving forward.

Fed Cuts Rate on Schedule!


The Federal Reserve is in full panic mode. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates Tuesday in a rare emergency meeting, responding aggressively to the growing threat the coronavirus poses to the economy and markets. The Fed lowered its key federal fund rates by half a percentage point to a range of 1% to 1.25%, the central bank said in a statement.

We warned over the weekend that Socrates had pinpointed this week and then the week of March 23 for actions by the Fed. The Fed is between a rock and a hard place. It had to act in response to the collapse in economic data for the 1st quarter, but at the same time, rates are rising in the real world due to perceived credit risks. This means that the Repo Crisis will get worse and the Fed will have to become the permanent market-maker to maintain short-term rates at these levels.

The steep cut of 50 bp was an emergency half-percentage point rate cut on Tuesday in an effort to protect U.S. economic growth from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. However, the production lines are already declining. The Fed is looking at how the press has whipped this up into a global panic. But as we can see, volatility will rise further at the end of the month and we should expect this to manifest in a serious escalation of the Repo Crisis as early as May/June

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell Statement and Press Conference Following 50 Point Fed Drop…


Earlier this morning the Federal Reserve (Fed) announced a .50 drop in their lending rate in response to the potential for economic impacts from the coronavirus.  Following the rate cut Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a statement and held a press conference.  [Video Below]

Why Goldbugs Get Crushed


QUESTION: This is what infuriates those that like gold. All of the shorting. Why? No other sector looks like this. So how is it that gold miners are restricted but no other sector sees shorting to the extent that restrictions are in place??? Gold is $1600 and these stocks traded double this price in 2008 with gold at $800. You ask why “goldbugs” are so angry, this is your answer.

S

ANSWER: For decades, I have watched “The Club” rally the metals and then crash them because the goldbugs treat it as a religion rather than a market. Every rally is touted as, here we go, the world will crash and only gold will survive. The Club uses that sentiment against them all the time for they know it is easy money. When they step back and look at the metals as markets, then they will win. Many other markets have made long-term profits but they are always demonized by the goldbugs. Why? I believe that some of the people promoting gold are the very ones involved in selling it to them. Everything has a cycle. It goes up and goes down. These chants from the goldbugs are not realistic and they cost countless people their life savings as they get sucked in by people who act like used car salesmen.

Short sale restriction is a rule that came out in 2010 and it’s also referred to as the alternate uptick rule, which means that you can only short a stock on an uptick. You will note that there is no such thing as a long buy restriction where you can’t buy a stock as it’s going up.

Inevitably, the goldbugs blame shorts. That is NEVER the case in any crash. The real cause is that you have exhausted the buying. When you run out of buyers, that is when markets become vulnerable. The smart do not short, they sell to take profits. That starts the decline and the hated short-player is blamed but never found.

The short selling rule came in only because of shorting Lehman Brothers. When the shorts turned on Goldman Sachs, they pulled the strings. But those were shorts looking at reality, not speculative. There has NEVER been a discovered mythical short position that causes the entire market to collapse.

I have stated countless times that gold will rally ONLY when the general public perceives there is a crisis with the government. Forget deficits, quantitative easing, and fiat currency. They will never convince the average person to take gold seriously. When you begin to look at the market without emotions and trade them up and down, then you will see the light.

Internet Frauds From Hacking Emails to Dating Site Frauds


The amount of fraud taking place on the internet is in the billions. They will hack your email and then have money wired to Hong Kong. That is a popular destination. One guy lost $450,000 in three days. Then there are the fake nurses who claim to be working for the United Nations seeking love on dating sites. They are naturally on their way home, targeting lonely old men. At the last minute, they get robbed or lose their wallet and ask for hundreds to a couple of thousands to be wired, of course, to Africa. The money probably goes into the vault where some guy in Nigeria has hundreds of millions of dollars, and nobody to leave it to unless you give him your bank details.

The more common frauds on dating sites are girls looking to shake down lonely old men with promises of love. They are ready to hop on a plane at a moment’s notice provided you send them the money to buy the ticket. Others have a broken phone and need you to buy a new iPhone so they can tell you how much they love you. There are also guys conning windows with a whole host of excuses to clean out their bank accounts.

We are all aware of credit card fraud. I had it done to me once in an airport about 20 years ago. A legit company wanted me to read my credit card number over the phone and the guy in the next booth was writing it down. Obviously, I will never read my card over the phone again. The other time, I have no idea how someone was using my card to download music from iTunes. When I called the credit card company, they first tried say I had to call iTunes to have them change my account. I had to get angry and explain I did not have an account at iTunes. They finally reversed three months of charges.

Things have changed and they will change even more. We have to realize that we are moving to digital currencies and the unusual hype that has been spun around this coronavirus is very suspicious. A virus can live on paper for some time. China is disinfecting its paper currency. I would not be surprised that the West are hyping this virus to insane levels to use it as an excuse to eliminate paper currency that will aid tax collections.

If you have a family member, tell them to require approval for any wire from their account. Bank of America has a secure pass where they send an authorization to your phone with a number you must type in to send any wire. If your bank does not have something similar, it may be time to switch. As for those with lonely relatives trying out the internet, tell them to NEVER send money to anyone you have never met face to face. Those two precautions are vital in this new world of online fraud. Use some common sense. If some girl is a nurse working for the UN and everything is stolen, the UN will help her — not you.

International Capital Starting to Fear Bernie Sanders


I have stated before that Marxism/socialism has led to more deaths than all the other justifications for war or killing combined. The Communist movements of Russia, China, and the Revolutions of 1848 combined are far greater than World War I and II and just about every other modern war all counted as one event. There were over 61 million who died because of socialism in the Soviet Union which government claimed was utopia. Then there were 78 million who were killed in China. When we add all the leftist wars against the so-called rich, about 200 million people died. And people are worried about the coronavirus? You better pay more attention to the political war waged behind the headlines.

This is what Bernie Sander honestly believes in. He is preaching like Khrushchev himself on the same doctrine of hating the rich. Bernie is oblivious to the bloodshed those ideas have caused. Bernie is naive to preach what he does and thinks this can be accomplished without bloodshed. I DO NOTthink Bernie is an evil person who advocates death. In Nevada, he promised a crowd in Las Vegas of about 2,000 people that he vowed to take on “the corporate elite” and the “whole damn 1%.”

After all, he doesn’t even realize that he is in that 1%. The 99% is defined as an average annual median income of $65,000 or less. Hello! All politicians are in that 1%. Pelosi herself gets a salary of $223,500. So will Bernie champion reducing all politician’s salaries to $65,000 or less? The starting salary for a congressman in Washington is $174,000. Somehow, I do not think Bernie realizes he is the 1%. Maybe all our readers should forward this post to Bernie.

Besides the fact that Bernie is giving heartburn to foreign investors, Bernie is actually helping to turn the US economy down. It has been the foreign investors who have been the buyers of the Dow seeking shelter from the rest of the left-leaning world. The US share market can crash as foreigners sell. They may not be forced to flee to the dollar because they see Trump as the only sane leader in a world of political leaders pandering to the communistic/socialistic left agendas. Nevertheless, foreign investors are starting to get concerned about politics.

While this is the real reason we are starting to get calls from overseas institutions who have become deeply concerned about the chaos in politics globally, there remains a serious risk that capital will move into hibernation until the 2020 elections are over. Of course, the Trump-haters are clueless for they are foaming at the mouth and want a second impeachment trial.  They are so blinded by their personal hatred that I do not see the nation ever coming back together as it once was.

I would be deeply concerned that the target on Trump’s back for assassination is growing bigger with each passing month from externally and internally within Washington. The intelligence community would love to see him taken out any way they possibly can. When Kennedy would not go to war in Vietnam, they found a solution. Their patience is running thin once again and they are already spinning stories that Putin will aid Trump to get reelected. That is total nonsense. If I were Putin, I would be praying for Bernie to win for he will defeat the United States faster than anyone and bring Nikita Khrushchev’s prophecy to fulfillment.

I have warned that I do NOT see Trump as any sort of a threat. My concern is what comes AFTERTrump? I do not see the United States remaining very united for very long.

 

Gold & the Future


QUESTION: Hi Marty

I hear what you are saying about the next gen and Gold vs BTC. To me it begs the question as to how the Next Gen’s look at crypto’s. Is there an argument that they like BTC etc because it is anonymous [mostly] and not part of the ‘system’. If that is the case, what will they think when Govs adopt sovereign crypto’s and outlaw BTC. Will they then look to gold and history?
Tx for all the wisdom,
Best HP

ANSWER: I think we have to draw a line in the sand at 2032-2037. Going into the end of this cycle, we will most likely still have the younger generations listening to people like Bernie who claim the problem is not government, but the rich. That argument has always led to bloodshed. I believe your question whether people will return to gold is more likely post-2032. We are looking at a fundamental change and the end of socialism, which is really just a means to expand government power. It is not only on the left. You have some on the right who want to use the law to enforce their religious beliefs upon others.

For cryptocurrencies and digital currencies to survive, they need a power grid. We are also facing turmoil as separatist movements expand everywhere. I do not believe that the government will allow private crypotocurrencies. They will outlaw them just as they did with gold in 1934

The Bond Market Crash post 2015.75


(2018 Interview)

COMMENT: Marty, I had to laugh that someone said you were wrong and the bond market in Europe did not crash. I asked, is there still a bond market when the ECB buys it all? All I got was a dumb look! Are these people really that stupid?

Keep up the good work.

EK

ANSWER: I know. Some people think there has been no bond market crash outside the USA simply because prices have not crashed since the central banks buy all the bonds. I have friends who work in banks. Many are retiring for the bond market no longer exists in Europe. If that is not a crash, then nothing is. They can manipulate the price all they want. But if nobody buys it then there is no free market.

 

Gold & the Slingshot


QUESTION: My reading of the gold was that for the slingshot up to dramatic new highs it needed the fakeout bear trap just below the 1000 mark. Since it took out your 1,362.50 number and the yearly bullish reversal at the end of 2019, does that mean the slingshot is now dead?  Do you think the shift to millennials and how they rush into Bernie’s arms means that gold is losing its luster for the next generation?

PL

ANSWER: I am preparing the new gold report. Basically, that slingshot is obviously dead as you say. This raises serious concerns about the future for gold. Yes, there is an important shift that takes place with these major generational evolutions. The gold standard died in 1971. Most people born after that do not see gold as money. Those who were born in the 1980s onward saw money as paper. Now we have those born post-1995 and they see no problem with cryptocurrencies and google wallets. Things are changing no doubt. You cannot judge the world with your personal beliefs. You may be just a couple of generations behind.

Socrates has been buying gold on the rally for the numbers are the numbers. That is the near-term view. What you are talking about is the viability of going forward into 2032. Without the slingshot, gold has lost a lot of its luster and that maybe indeed because of the generational shift. Smoking is being replaced by vapes and marijuana is being legalized. Things are changing as are the tax authorities. A legitimate company was trying to pay $181,000 in cash for several trucks in Cleveland and the government confiscated the cash and refuses to return it. They confiscated that money on a domestic flight – not international!!!!! The man was an employee sent by his employer. The TSA gave him $10,000 of the $191,000 and stole the balance.

You try to get on a plane with a roll of $20 gold coins they would probably confiscate it today because they presume all wealth is illegal so they get to take it. The very idea of gold as a replacement for the dollar is coming under attack. We will run the models on gold for without the slingshot, then the upside also comes down.

We will be issuing the 2020 Gold Report soon to sort out the real perspective long-term and well as short-term.

GMW 2-22-2020-C

Lebanon to Default in March?


 

We are likely to see Lebanon default on its payments in March after it has been downgraded deeper into junk bond territory by two of the three biggest credit rating companies on Friday. S&P Global Ratings cut the country’s long-term foreign currency rating to CC, which followed Moody’s Investors Service cut to Ca earlier in that day. That puts Lebanon among the likes of Argentina, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, other nations teetering near default.

The yield on Lebanon’s Eurobonds that mature next month has skyrocketed to more than 1,000%. We are looking at a default which is virtually certain. We will see rising social unrest in Lebanon and the economy will contract further. This will only intensify the expanding global liquidity crisis as smart capital begin to take a honest look at the entire emerging market area. This is contributing to the Repo Crisis for many banks are becoming concerned about who is holding whose debt.