In the earliest days of the Republic Rome’s taxes were quite modest, and were not direct, but were a property tax or a wealth tax on all forms of property, including land, houses, slaves, animals, money and personal effects. The basic rate was just 1% and sometimes it would occasionally rise to 3%. This was to fund the pay for the army during war. The tax would often be rebated to the people out of the spoils of war. It was levied directly upon individuals, which required the government to conduct a censuses. We have the Biblical account in Luke 2.1-5 where it reads that Caesar Augustus (27BC-14AD) decreed that the Roman Empire should be taxed and that everyone had to return to his own city to pay taxes. So Joseph and Mary returned to Bethlehem and there Jesus was born. In Egypt, we know that there was a 14 year cycle to the census from the time of Augustus. The inhabitants of Egypt were required to submit a declaration to local authorities containing the names, ages, and other identifying information of all co-inhabitants. Indeed, many declarations have survived on papyrus. There are a consistent run of documents showing every census between 33/34AD and 257/258AD, with evidence that this cycle extends back to 19/20AD at the very least.

Direct taxation was impossible in the Roman Empire so there was no income tax. Property taxes were more efficient and could be administered by census. Income taxes were not possible simply because there was not such mechanism at that point in time. Local communities would decide for themselves how to divide up the tax burden among their citizens.  There were the hated Tax Farmers who would pay the tax to the state for a region and then they had the right to collect taxes. States today have taken past-due taxes and sold them to modern Tax Farmers to collect. Britain did that selling the student loans for pennies and the Tax Farmers collect and chase students. The Romans would sell the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder and how they collected the tax was not really the concern of the state. They also had the responsibility of converting provincial taxes, which were often collected in-kind taking property be it grain or animals, and then they would convert those assets into coin to pay the state. The Tax Farmers had to provide sufficient revenues to repay their advance to the state plus enough to cover the opportunity cost of the funds, the transactions cost of converting collections into cash, and the remainder was their profit. In fact, tax farming was quite profitable and
was a major investment vehicle for wealthy citizens of Rome.

Augustus ended tax farming that had dominated the Republican days due to complaints from the provinces of exploitation. The provinces were becoming deeply indebted. Cicero tells us that Brutus saw no problem exploiting others for profit. Brutus was a Tax Farmer and bid for the governorship of Cyprus. It was during this time period that Brutus enriched himself by also skimming taxes and then lent money to Ariobarzanes I (96-63BC) of Cappadocia (modern day Turkey) at 40%, well above the legal lending rate, which was confirmed by Cicero’s documents on Brutus.

The Augustinian tax system was far less progressive than the Republic. The shift moved to a flat tax type of assessment which was based on wealth and population. Tax Farmers had limited times to collect taxes, so they tended to extort the rich for that was easier than converting pigs and chickens from the poor. The Augustinian tax systemgreatly reduced the “progressivity” that is indicative in an income tax today. The Augustus flat tax was thus indexed so to speak to growth in taxable capacity where communities were only liable for a fixed payment. Thus any increase in income accrued entirely to the people as a whole and did not have to be shared with Rome. Individuals knew in advance the exact amount of
their tax bill and that any income over and above that amount was entirely theirs. This tax system promoted economic growth rather than the explotive system of the Republic. Indeed, the civil war supported Julius Caesar because of the burden of taxes and the exploitation of Tax Farmers.

The flat tax of Augustus created the biggest economic boom in Roman history. Augustus once said “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” Indeed, Augustus commissioned several large marble structures, some of which took 40 years to complete. There was evidence that massive marble blocks were constantly being moved through the city, causing congestion in the streets.  Marble-paved public spaces began to appear where marble was previously reserved for sacred temples and houses of the elite. The flat tax system really did create the economic boom as people turned to peace and business – Pax Romano.

The benefit of the Roman Empire was also free trade and freedom of religion until the late 3rd century AD.

QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong, Is silver currently showing more strength than gold, and therefore likely to move beyond gold in this phase? I’m not a technician but it looks that way to me.

Thank you for all you share.

M

ANSWER: Yes. This is one of the critical factors that must turn to signal a real bull run is coming. We did elect a Weekly Bullish in silver on Friday but not gold. However, we did get a Minor Monthly Bullish at the close of 2016 both in gold and silver. For a real bull market, we need the silver/gold ratio to break 60:1. It is currently in the 69:1 range. Here is a chart with 200 years of data for this ratio. A bull market requires BOTH metals to rally. Gold may have more trouble since it is being tracked by all governments. You cannot mail it outside the country nor jump on a plane with 10 ounces. Silver may become more viable if the world actually moves to electronic currency. So this ratio should start to come in after 2017.

All the hype about demand and who is buying or not, is just irrelevant. The key factor for every MAJOR rally is bringing in the general public. The people who follow metals religiously really do not count for much. They simple make rallies and declines in the short-term. It is when you convince the general public to rush in and buy because they are suddenly concerned about the government, the banks, or even the currency collapsing.

I have stated many times, that QE would not be inflationary because they were buying in bonds that were not necessarily in domestic hands. China sold their long-term and shifted maturities to 5 years or less. Then the banks complained they had no place to park money so the Fed created excessive reserves that reached almost $2.8 trillion. So the money they presumable pumped into the economy never made it. The banks still parked it at the Fed instead of bonds. Creating excess reserves defeated the entire idea of stimulus. I cannot contemplate how anyone capable of rational thought would assume this would be inflationary. The Fed bought the bonds, the bank then handed the cash back to the Fed and then the Fed paid them interest. If anyone can explain why you would thing you injected money into the system when it never left the Fed?

ELIZABETH WARREN blasts Trump saying ‘Wall Street bankers and lobbyists … may be toasting each other with Champagne’ after he ordered the Department of Labor to review the rule that was to go into effect come April. Warren is really clueless. She fails to comprehend that sometimes government regulation is very bad. Indeed, I have argued for years that the SEC and CFTC should be merged into a single agency for that is the source of all bad advice.

The average individual has to have the expertise of a hedge fund manager to sort out all the offering from funds. Hedge funds are offshore because they cannot exist domestically complying with conflicting regulations from the SEC and CFTC. Domestically, you have specialized funds NOT because that is best for individuals, but because of too much conflicting regulation.

If Warren cares so much about people, privatize social security. Stop robbing the lower classes claiming they government is investing for them when all they do is stuff it with their own bonds. The rich get richer because of investments. Yet Warren will not look at excess government regulation that prevents citizens from investing for their future.

The question of when will central banks fail is a popular one that comes in. Suffice it to say, the turmoil will hit Europe first. While so many people blame the Fed for all sorts of things, you must realize that Roosevelt usurped the Fed during the Great Depression and imposed a single interest rate administered from Washington. It was during April 1942, when the Department of the Treasury requested the Federal Reserve formally to commit to maintaining a low interest-rate peg of 3/8% on short-term Treasury bills. The Fed also implicitly capped the rate on long-term Treasury bonds at 2.5%. This became the known as the “peg” with the express goal to stabilize the securities market and allow the federal government to engage in cheaper debt financing of World War II, which the United States had entered in December 1941. Today, we have extraordinary low rates of interest that have funded government, but has wiped out the real bond markets insofar as being a viable market long-term. The World War II accord to maintain low rates was followed by a collapse in bonds after 1951 once the accord ended. We will see the same outcome moving forward.

At the time, in order for the Fed to maintain the peg, it was ordered to give up control of the size of its portfolio as well as the money stock. That is also what has happened today with Quantitative Easing among all central banks. Frankly, the Fed back then maintained the low interest rate by buying large amounts of government securities, which also increased the money supply domestically at the time. Because the Fed was committed to a specific rate by the peg, it was compelled to keep buying securities even if the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) disagreed.

After the war, politicians were afraid of a new depression would emerge as they always fight the last war. They ordered the Fed to maintain the peg even after 1945. The United States entered the Korean War in June 1950. The problem was inflation not deflation. The FOMC of the Fed argued strongly that the continuation of the peg would lead to excessive inflation. A real confrontation with the politicians was brewing all year and they opposed by the Treasury who naturally wanted to keep borrowing at cheap rates.

Everything exploded by February 1951. In inflation had soared reaching 21%. As the Korean War intensified, the Fed faced the possibility of having to monetize a substantial issuance of new government debt coming out to fund that war. This only intensified inflation. Nevertheless, Harry S. Truman became president in 1945 and it was his administration that continued to urge the Fed to maintain the peg.

The financial crisis erupted into a major conflict when Truman invited the entire FOMC to a meeting at the White House. Truman then issued a statement saying that the FOMC had “pledged its support to President Truman to maintain the stability of Government securities as long as the emergency lasts.” In reality, the FOMC had made no such pledge. Conflicting stories began to appear about the dispute in the press. The Fed then made an unprecedented move – they release the minutes of the FOMC’s meeting with the president.

The conflict erupted in full view. The Fed revolted against the politicians. Shortly thereafter, the Fed informed the Treasury that as of February 19th, 1951, it would no longer “maintain the existing situation.” The Treasury was caught in a crisis for it needed to refund existing debt and issue new debt, a situation governments are still in today. They never pay off debt, they simple roll forever.

The government had no choice but to negotiate a compromise under which the Fed would continue to support the price of five-year notes for a short time, but after that the bond market would be on its own. It was on March 4, 1951, when the Treasury and the Fed issued a statement saying they had “reached full accord with respect to debt management and monetary policies to be pursued in furthering their common purpose and to assure the successful financing of the government’s requirements and, at the same time, to minimize monetization of the public debt.”

It was this accord that created a free market in government securities. The likelihood that government debt becomes extinct will appear by 2023. We can see that the bond market began to crash as interest rates were at last free to move. This is the most likely outcome of the voluntary Quantitative Easing that is really a critical issue. This time, the central banks have gone and done this themselves and they are trapped. They cannot sell the debt they have bought and therefore, we are looking at a crisis when that debt has to roll. The European Central Bank holds more than 40% of the government debt for the whole of Europe. Once that matures, who will buy the new debt the next time around? We are looking at a deflationary impact by default.

The European Commission is demanding that Apple pay Ireland €13bn in back taxes. They are attempting to retroactively change a tax agreement made with Apple years ago that the EU now says is cheaper than any other member so that’s not fair as it would attract business to Ireland. The EU is clearly trying to impose a federalized government by removing the independence of member states. Ireland is now vowing to fight the EU. This is all leading to the demise of the EU and demonstrates that the “EU project” has long since embarked upon a political state, not a simple trade union.

The EU leadership is attempting to minimize the importance and the explosive result of BREXIT. While the leaders merely yell “You will still regret it”,  the disintegration of the EU has already begun and they are clueless as to what is really at stake. While many just focus of trade, the entanglement is far more complex than just trade. The banking system, clearing, and the implementation of bank-bail-in provisions place at risk the entire European banking system.  

We will be issuing an Institutional Level report covering this extremely crazy and complex crisis that is about to unfold going into 2018. It is sufficient to say, whatever you may have thought could go wrong, it probably just the tip of the iceberg. This may be so catastrophic that the dollar may end up giving everyone more than just a nose bleed.