Tag Archives: GREXIT

Sep 12 2018

Hoard of Roman Gold Found from the Last Days of Rome


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ancient History

Re-Posted Sep 12, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

There were more than 100 gold Roman coins discovered in a buried hoard in the Cressoni theatre in Como, north of Milan. What I have examined from the photographs supplied to me, is that this is a hoard from the virtual fall of Rome. The coins I identified were from the Puppet Emperor of Ricimer, a Germanic general who ruled Rome through puppet emperors going into the end of the Western Empire. His power emerged in 461AD until his death in 472AD. The official fall of Rome took place in 466AD. After Ricimer’s death, the Germanic King of Italy, Odoacer deposed the last Western Emperor Romulus Augustus in 476AD, which is considered to mark the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

The photographs of the coins I reviewed clearly show the puppet Emperor Libius Severus III (461-465AD) was rather common in the hoard. This established that the hoard is from this period forward meaning it was a stash place for someone during the fall of Rome. Obviously, the person did not live to come back to retrieve his coins. These coins are worth probably $1 million+ depending upon the emperors in this entire batch which might be discovered. It could possibly rise to at least the $2 million valuations.

Sep 12 2018

Canada’s Conservative Split Forming a New Party


Armstrong Economics Blog/Canada

Re-Posted Sep 12, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Maxime Bernier PC MP is a Canadian businessman, lawyer, and politician, who is currently serving as Member of Parliament for the Quebec riding of Beauce, having been elected four times with a majority of the vote. He has pointed out that it is always the ordinary taxpayers who ultimately have to pay for all these benefits promised by the government. He has argued that the Conservative Party is not doing enough and that it’s just not worth it. He has characterized that people are voting for Trudeau with “rational ignorance” that will lead the nation into disaster. The Globe and Mail reported that 17% of Canadians said they were open to voting for a new conservative party led by Maxime Bernier. Politics is fragmenting everywhere and some see Bernier as Canada’s semi-version of Trump, although he has been a longstanding politician

Sep 11 2018

Who was the Richest Man in Ancient History


Armstrong Economics Blog/America’s Economic History

Re-Posted Sep 11, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You are a history buff. Who was the richest person in ancient times? Has there ever been a trillionaire?

PD

ANSWER: The Roman Emperor August. He is believed to have been worth in current dollar terms nearly $5 trillion. The only other person to have reached the trillion dollars net worth status was King Solomon of Judaea. After Octavian/Augustus defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra, he then possessed the entire wealth of Egypt. In this respect, the wealth really did belong to him. Some have attributed the entire wealth of nations conquered and argued that Genghis Khan was worth probably 100 trillion dollars. However, the Roman system was rather different. Even taxation for a governor of a province would be owed by the governor to the state so whatever he would collect fell to him personally.

Marcus Licinius Crassus was perhaps one of the richest private men in Roman history. He amassed an enormous fortune through real estate speculation buying confiscated property seized by Marius from the supporters of Sulla. Crassus’s wealth is estimated by Pliny at approximately 200 million sestertii. Plutarch says the wealth of Crassus increased from less than 300 talents at first to 7,100 talents. An Attic (Greek, Athens) talent was the equivalent of 60 minae or 6,000 drachmae. A silver Drachm was generally 15mm in diameter with a weight of 4.20 grams. In Roman terms, this was about 26 kilograms (57 lb). If we take Plutarch’s measurement of wealth, that would be 42.6 million denarii.

A Roman soldier earned 225 denarii a year. Today, the average soldier in the US army earns $48,538 per year. That would approximately be $9.189 billion. If we take Jeff Bezos who is reported to be worth $164 billion based upon his stock in Amazon, that works out to the annual salary of 3.4 million soldiers compared to Crassus’ worth being 189,333 soldiers. However, the real difference is that Crassus’ wealth is cash whereas Bezos’ wealth is the current value of a stock. If he tried to sell it for cash, the value would be significantly less.

Crassus’ son, Publius Licinius Crassus (c 86BC – 53 BC), served under Julius Caesar. He did issue coins during the Republic as a “moneyer” who was a person authorized to issue the coins during the Roman Republic. The Senate actually controlled the quantity of money to be produced. There would be a “State of the Union” type of address to the Senate where they would be given the account of money on hand and what they expected the annual expenses would be. The Senate would then authorize the number of coins to be issued that fiscal year. The Quaestors handed the raw bullion and they would turn that over to the official who was the “moneyer” for that year. The moneyers would decide on the design to be issued which often celebrated his ancestors. The coinage would be struck and then handed back to the Quaestors for the expenditure of the government. The office of a moneyer continued into the Imperial period.

Sep 10 2018

Pattern Repeats – Political Imprisonment followed by Leadership


Armstrong Economics Blog/Greece

Re-Posted Sep 10, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

I really do not think people realize that they are just extras in a political film which is an endless struggle for freedom. There is a book written by Oriana Fallaci which began as an interview of Allesandro Panagoulis. Oriana was a journalist who was interviewing fourteen contemporary political leaders, which included Henry Kissinger, Meir, Arafat, Indira Gandhi, and the Shah of Iran. She sought to understand their personal attitudes and propensities that brought them to such status. She called this an Interview with History.

In the course of her investigations, she wrote A Man about Allesandro Panagoulis who stood up against the dictatorship and oppression of the Greek people. He was imprisoned and tortured for years. Most were stunned that he even survived this treatment. Like Nelson Mandella, the same pattern of imprisonment was followed by the fall of the government and a rebirth back to democracy. Panagoulis took an active role in the fight against the Regime of the Colonels (1967–1974) in Greece. He became famous for his attempt to assassinate dictator Georgios Papadopoulos on August 13th, 1968, and the subsequent endless torture. However, following the collapse of the dictatorship government, democracy was reborn. This is when Panagoulis was elected to the Greek parliament as a member of the Center Union.

Panagoulis discovered that the very people who had tortured him were then pretending to be democrats. Allesandro systematically began to investigate the corruption in the police and the political government. Just two days before all the files of the junta’s military police (the “E.A.T.-E.S.A. file”) he announced would be released, he was assassinated.  One of the methods to assassinate a leader so he is not made into a hero is to create what appears to always be an accident. On the 1st of May 1976, a car accident was staged on Vouliagmenis Avenue in Athens. A car drove extremely fast and directed its path to impact Panagoulis. Without a choice and counting on a human reflex, Panagoulis’ car and forced to divert and crash in which he was said to have been killed almost instantaneously. The files never materialized to support the collaboration of corruption of the police in league with Greek officers who worked with Nazi Germany in World War II. These men who killed Greeks served in the Security Battalions who fought for the Germans in 1943-1944. These very people were those who were the leaders of the Colonels’ Regime of 1967-1974 and were torturing Panagoulis. There are no such coincidences in these types of affairs.

Sep 10 2018

Swedish Elections Shift to the Right


Armstrong Economics Blog/Scandinavia

Re-Posted Sep 9, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

The Swedish election has shifted to the right thanks to the Refugee Crisis. The Social Democrats came in with the worst result in decades and the right-wing populists have risen to their best results since their inception. Although the Social Democrats escaped a complete disaster in the parliamentary elections, they have lost a lot to the right-wing populists. The party of Prime Minister Stefan Löfven appears to remain in place. Meanwhile, the currency still appears lower as we move forward in time.

Categories: Scandinavia
Sep 9 2018

Influence & Ranks


Armstrong Economics Blog/Economics

Re-Posted Sep 9, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Marty; Did you know that your site is listed in the top 20 economic sites in the world? You are in the top 20 with Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, London FT, and even  Brookings Ben Bernanke’s Blog. The rest of the list includes the Economic Policy Institute, Economics & Statistics Administration, and The Berkeley Blog Business & Economics. You may be a lot more influential than you portray.

JS

REPLY: Perhaps. But keep in mind that your enemies always read you because they need to know what you are saying now to feed their hatred. Aside from that, every intelligence service reads our work. They understand there is a cycle to everything and ever since the London FT reported I warned Russia would collapse just before the 1998 Long-Term Capital Management collapse on Russian bonds, they all pay close attention.

Sep 8 2018

Trump Threatens to Cancel NAFTA If Congress Interferes


Armstrong Economics Blog/World Trade

Re-Posted Sep 8, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Do you agree with Trump that if he canceled NAFTA, the United States would be better off?

SN

ANSWER: Ironically – YES from a jobs perspective, not the consumer. What you have to understand is that these trade deals are all nonsense. They are NOT Free Trade in the least. They are compromises so politicians can pretend they have accomplished something.

Take the deal with Europe. France’s position was that nothing can be called “Champagne” unless it comes from that region in France. Every trade negotiation is a compromise that maintains protectionism. In that regard, if Trump actually canceled NAFTA, his boast that the US would be better off is meant that all products would then be subjected to tariffs and all of the American industry would be protected.

Now, that said, this view is that of the worker – not the consumer. All of these trade negotiations are one-sided. They are always focused only on jobs and not producing the best price for the consumer which in turn raises our standard of living. I have never encountered even one politician who has EVER defended the consumer in trade deals. This violates the principle of Comparative Advantage put forth by David Ricardo. It’s true that Saudi Arabia could grow lettuce but the cost of irrigation in the desert would make the cost 10 times more than simply buying it from Europe or North America. It would cost the consumer far more to simply grow that product in the desert than importing so it is best to buy it elsewhere and focus on your productive capacity in which you have some comparative advantage over others.

Sep 6 2018

France’s Dream of Europe without NATO


Armstrong Economic Blog/War

Re-Posted Sep 6, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; The French have never been real supporters of America and NATO. They have always wanted to be seen as a world power since Charles DeGaul. What is your view on Macron’s answer to Trump’s demand that they pay their fair share of NATO to turn to Russia?

JE

ANSWER: The French President Emmanuel Macron has urged European states to work with Russia and construct new security architecture, in a bid to strengthen defense capabilities within the European Union and thus rely less on America. This is a question of power. NATO exists because of a view that Russia would invade Europe to end capitalism. Those days are gone. Nonetheless, the idea of empire still haunts us to this day. That is the idea in reality behind the European Union to take Europe and recreate the old Roman Empire of one federalized government. Putin may harbor that same view of reestablishing the Russian Empire. However, it is no longer to spread communism. It may take another 50 to 100 years before we end this idea of empire. Macron is still displaying the view that Europe should stand together against America. It has been the Frech who have blocked free trade and trade negotiations because they are the origin of communism where the idea was born and this is reflected in the poor economic performance of France as a whole

Sep 5 2018

Don’t Cry for Me Argentina – It’s a Global Debt Crisis


Armstrong Economics Blog/Emerging Markets

Re-Posted Sep 5, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Our government here in Argentina has told us we should expect more poverty and there is no hope for the future. Socrates has been amazing on its forecasts on our currency. There are enough of us down here who would sincerely ask would you consider advising Argentina to straighten out our economy and nation? You have forecast this emerging market crisis long before anyone else and your solution video on YouTube is very thought-provoking. If we can demand the government meets with you, would you do it?

KRD

ANSWER: The song maybe Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, but it applies to the entire world for what happens in Argentina is merely the beginning of the global debt crisis. We can see from the chart that the dollar has been soaring. However, the Array picked August as the Panic Cycle and that has been spot on. Unfortunately, it does not look like this is going to calm down. We may be headed into a real Emerging Market crisis by October.

The reason why we are able to forecast such events well in advance is rather common sense. As I have said before, every solution to a crisis sets the stage for the next crisis. The Emerging Market debt crisis is unfolding because central banks in the USA and Europe lowered interest rates to “stimulate” the economy and they have no idea about how an economy truly functions. This is all based upon Keynesianism which is in turn based upon an isolated theory of the economy. They never consider that you lower interest rates and there are pensions who simply need higher rates to break-even. Then emerging markets issued debt in dollars with higher yields for the pension funds bought it assuming there was no currency risk. Now we have Portuguese and Spanish banks who would not lend to their domestic economies for there were way too many nonperforming loans so they ran and bought Turkish debt.

What began in Argentina and Turkey has snowballed into broader collapse complete confidence in Emerging Market debt and the pension funds stopped buying and simply are now trying to get out as fast as they can. This now has officials in Indonesia, India, South Africa, and Brazil scrambling to protect their economies. The debt party is over! The ECB has created a global nightmare for so many European institutions ran into emerging markets because the ECB maintained NEGATIVE rates. Draghi has created a global debt crisis and now he himself is trapped. This is why Italy now wants to change the structure of the ECB so they can buy member debt directly rather than in the secondary market which they have destroyed. Draghi cannot stop Quantitative Easing for the 28 member states will be unable to sell their new-issue debt at rates that are similar to the current levels. Rates will soar in Europe if Draghi actually stopped buying and then we will see a global debt crisis you cannot imagine.

Left unchecked, more nations are going to be swept up in this debt crisis as their bond values collapse. This is threatening the entire world’s economic growth and confidence. As institutions begin to wise up for once, we will see the confidence in public debt collapse. This will become a game of musical chairs and the one left standing with government debt will lose everything!

The Turkish lira, which has been relentlessly setting new all-time lows and this is creating the contagion. Rumors are that Erdogan is such a tyrant, he will sooner turn to Russia and default on all Turkish debt just to retain personal power. Institutional Traders are the first to worry about countries with large current account deficits and a large stock of dollar-denominated debt in a world with rising interest rates and a stronger dollar. But their management often lags and do not listen to their trading desks because they tend to be more politically correct. The phones were actually ringing at the top and it was the ECB telling the banks to stop buying dollars because they were making the dollar rally. You can play those games only for so long before the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

I would be glad to fly to Argentina to help if the pain reaches their eyeballs so they will do as directed to save the country. Half-ass maybe’s are a waste of time. It is only worth it when they realize they have no choice

Sep 4 2018

Foreigners Selling UK Debt as Hard BEXIT appears


Armstrong Economics Blog/Pound

Re-Posted Sep 4, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Foreign investors have been withdrawing on a large scale from British government bonds since July when the Conservatives seems to be splitting. Bank of England data released revealed a net outflow of £17.153 billion from foreigners in July, the largest since records began in 1982, Reuters reports. Even in June, there was still net capital investment from foreigners of 1.362 billion pounds. The decline in foreigners’ holdings is due to sales as well as to non-reinvested, expiring, bonds.  According to International Monetary Fund data, the UK has the largest current account deficit of the major industrial nations and is heavily dependent on foreign capital inflows. Theresa May’s refusal to stand firm and defend the people’s vote has seriously undermined the confidence in Britain.

We can see on our Capital Flow Map where we trace the net movement of capital that Britain has turned RED. We have been monitoring the significant net capital flight from Britain thanks to Theresa May. This is also one primary reason it appears that the British pound is still is a distinctive bear market trend with respect to the broader term.

 

While we did not elect any Monthly or Weekly Bearish Reversals, the pound is still is a broader bearish position at this time.

Categories: Pound