Tag Archives: Glass-Steagall Act

Aug 19 2017

Rogoff Tell Central Banks More Negative Interest Rates Will Be Needed


Armstrong Economics Blog/Interest Rates

Re-Posted Aug 19, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Kenneth Rogoff,  the Professor of Economics at Harvard University, is stuck in a time warp where he cannot think out of the box even once. He is telling the central banks that the next recession they will have to resort to negative interest rates and they should prepare now. Despite the fact that negative rates have failed to work in Europe or Japan, seems to be nothing to really consider. So what after almost 10 years of failed policies at the European Central Bank, it will eventually work maybe in 12 or 13 years. It just requires patience.

This is the problem with academics. They don’t get the calls for help. These policies have created a Pension Crisis on the horizon and wiped out so many states. Keynes himself argued that there were times to lower taxes to stimulate. That is just never considered even once.

Aug 17 2017

The Plague of One-Dimensional Analysis


Armstrong Economics Blog/Basic Concepts

Re-Posted Aug 17, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Blood-Moon-NASA

The Blood Moon is a term that has been sometimes used to refer to four total lunar eclipses that happen in the space of two years. This is a phenomenon astronomers call a lunar tetrad. The eclipses in a tetrad occur six months apart with at least six Full Moons between them. Just saw one last night that was close and is preparing to the total lunar eclipse that will take place on August 21st, 2017. This event lined up with the Economic Confidence Model which was very interesting (2015.75).

However, all the reports of impending doom due to the Blood Moon prophecy that the world would end back in 2015 were clearly exaggerated, especially since 8 tetrads since 1 AD have coincided with Jewish holidays without the world going coming to an end.

Now the 21st, we have a total eclipse over the United States. The world will not come to an end. Yet this type of analysis is always the same – one-dimensional. They always seek to tie some effect to a single cause. This is in all fields even medicine as well as economics. This is just a human tragedy why too many people try to be analysts and just make a mess of the whole thing

Aug 16 2017

Governments to Control Large Cash Transactions


Armstrong Economics Blog/The Hunt for Taxes

Re-Re-Posted Aug 16, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

 

I have been pointing out the crisis we face moving forward. The gist of this is the total fiscal mismanagement of government for which we, the people, are always blamed. This hunt for taxes has led down the path of arguments for eliminating currency. While people think Bitcoin is an answer, they do not understand government’s hunt for taxes no less the lack of a true rule of law. The government need only pass a law that anyone who fails to report what they have in Bitcoin is criminal and they get to confiscate all your assets.

Switzerland has its “wealth tax” which they argue is nothing just 0.02%. However, it requires you to report all assets worldwide. They then know precisely what you have and it is merely one vote away at anytime to raise the tax or impose criminal penalties for failure to report everything. Yet, once Switzerland has that info, under G20 they must share it with all other governments.

We have stood by and watched India cancel all high denomination notes. Try walking around with €500 notes in Europe and they look at you funny or won’t accept them. ATM machines have been reduced in Europe to taking a maximum of €200 in cash at best. This is all th hunt for taxes because government cannot function ethically no less morally.

Now the German Federal Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, is proposing to control all large cash transactions claiming this will prevent black money transactions and money laundering. Of course, they see these two issues not as typical crime like drugs, but tax avoidance.

Schäuble is coming up with an alternative for the resistance to eliminating cash is rising globally. He knows he cannot abolish cash. If you cannot eliminate cash, then Schäuble said there should be an upper limit placed on cash transactions, from which cash transactions must be registered and reported to the tax authorities. This is also happening in Europe where you cannot pay for a hotel bill greater than €1000 in France. Schäuble said cash transactions must be registered declaring who are the parties to the transaction on each side to prevent the black money transactions, money laundering and terrorist financing.

It has become painfully obvious that the real winner in the Terrorism War was Osama bin Laden. What this single man did was change the entire world into a hunt for taxes destroying our liberty and right to privacy. He destroyed our liberty like no other invader in history. Osama bin Laden has certainly made the list of the top 10 most influential people in history, but has not surpassed Karl Marx.

Schäuble previously said he was against eliminating cash and imposing ceiling on cash payments as were the French and Italy. Schäuble is joining the ever increase microscope to hunt down citizens for taxes always using Bin Laden as the excuse. Even the IMF recently published a handbook on how the reduction of cash could be implemented as silently as possible.  Australia is stalking children going to private schools and has declared “cash is for criminals!”

This trend is only going to end in revolution. Historically, all revolutions are about money.

Aug 16 2017

Wall Street Banks Stunned At Trump’s Proposed Reform


Armstrong Economics Blog/Banking Crisis

Re-Posted Aug 16, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

 

Trump’s economic consultant adviser, Gary Cohn, has declared a return to the separation system in the US banking system in effect restoring Glass-Steagall Act which dates from the 1930s and was adopted as a result of the Great Depression yet abolished in 1999 by the Clintons. Trump had already spoken during the election campaign for a new version of the Glass-Steagall Act. So Cohn is simply repeating this position. Yet we have to look deeper here. Why is a former Goldman Sachs guy now against the Glass-Steagall Act?

In the banking sector, restoring the Glass-Steagall Act will reduce competition for Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup would all be cut-off from investment banking services. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would be benefactors. Expect now that Congress will drag its feet to protect the banks making sure this will not take place in the short-term. Much of the argument focuses on reducing the size of banks and separating the powers between investment and commercial banking will prevent the too-big to fail problems.