COMMENT: I was just reading your post, Universal Basic Income, and I feel the need to respond. I have always worked, always found whatever work I could. I have worked on market stalls and also on installation of Active Directory in a government institution. I managed to graduate with honours from uni. I am now retirement age. I brought my children up single handed and have never had any wealth but I have to point out that people who are living in poverty don’t automatically become criminal. There’s so much talk about playing the system, but we have to ask why so many people need support. It’s because industry has disappeared and we have developed a class system where the difference between haves and have nots has widened. I live in UK and it’s an industrial wasteland, we had jobs to go around not all that long ago but now there are none for the majority, except in self-policing call centres. It isn’t due to population increase alone, there is nothing for us. Closing the pits was a mistake. There’s no significant increase of carbon and when it becomes Cold which it will in a few years, we’ll be scratching for surface coal to cook and be warm, trees will be decimated. We import things that we used to make, steel, textiles etc, and we gave away our ship building and our fishing waters. Governments are using surveillance to protect themselves from our scrutiny of them, and putting the blame on the people for everything they have done wrong. I know this is simplistic but this is my perspective.

K

REPLY: I place most of the blame on Socialism. The unions became greedy and abused their power. New York City was once the major port. They chased all the shipping out to other ports who were more competitive. Today, no ships go to New York City. Then add the greed of politicians. Before World War II, yes the woman stayed home and raised the kids and managed the house. I knew European men who married Eastern European girls when the wall came down and they retained those old values and did not understand they were expected to go out and work. Taxes kept increasing so today, women lost the right to stay home and raise the kids. It now takes TWO incomes to do what one used to do prewar. In Europe, you pay unbelievable taxes not just on income, then 20% VAT on average. Taxes lower the standard of living for you will NEVER get your money’s worth in service in return.

As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If you create a network with social services, there will ALWAYS be people who game the system. Prisons have plenty of doctors for Medicare fraud in the USA submitting bills for people that did not exist.

Julius Caesar also confronted the abuse of welfare rolls in ancient Rome. He conducted a census and found that out of 320,000 pretend people getting free bread, only 150,000 were real.

“Caesar changed the old method of registering voters: he made
the City landlords help him to complete the list, street by street,
and reduced from 320,000 to 150,00 the number of
householders who might draw free grain. To do away with the
nuisance of having to summon everyone for enrolment
periodically, he made the praetors keep their register up to date
by replacing the names of the dead men with those of others
not yet listed.”

(Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar 41,3)
(Penguin Classics ed., translation by Robert Graves)

Therefore, people have been gaming the system for thousands of years. It is just part of human nature.

QUESTION:

The Fed meeting this week has triggered a turn in the dollar as US rates dipped on the 10-year to their lowest since Trump took office. As a result, the greenback is the weakest among the majors for the week thus far as we should expect for a decline near-term. Although there has been an impressive rally in EUR/USD, that currency has significant overhead resistance. The euro has not gained nearly as much as its major counterparts such as the Swiss and the C$.

While everyone will focus on interest rates, at the end of the summer we will see a refocus back on the structural problems in the Euro. Trump will be jumping for joy with a lower dollar for that will help in trade issues. The lower interest rates will also help to reduce interest expenditures on the national debt. So once again, we are looking at the calm before the storm.

Draghi has come out and said that is inflation will not pick up, he will do even more Quantitative Easing. I has warned that the central banks, particularly the ECB, are trapped. They simply cannot return to any normal economic model without blowing up the entire Eurozone. This is becoming extremely serious. The only option for governments will be to adopt the Modern Monetary Theory for it has become impossible for central banks to use interest rates to stimulate the economy when governments themselves are the biggest borrowers.

I have put this all out in a book which is off at the printers and I hope will be available soon on Amazon. I have dealt with all the controversial issues and why the economic theories all still taught in universities today are no longer practical or relevant. This is why there is a turn to the Modern Monetary Theory for they have nothing else on the table to consider. Here it is. I have tried to deal with all the issues people have been writing in about in an authoritative manner. I have done this because it is extremely important and I have been told that funding for another documentary to cover this topic has not been granted.

We will let everyone know as soon as it goes up for sale.

I have finished an important book which is just going off to press now for printing. This is an important work on how the central banks are trapped and how the manipulations of the World Economy are collapsing in upon themselves. The major central banks are now shifting policy from protecting the people and the economy to protecting the government. Not all are following this policy. Those that are burden with socialist programs are imploding. The more than 10 years of Quantitative Easing has destroyed bond markets and managed to get government addicted to low-interest rates that the private sector has been turning its back on. There have even been German bond auctions with no bid from investors.

This addresses the Modern Monetary Theory, its origin, and where it would leave us at the end of the day. We are at a crossroads in economic theory because ALL of the old theories has completely collapsed. Everything from Keynesian back to Marxism has crumbled to dust. Hopefully, this work will encourage real research and open the eyes in a subject that puts at risk our entire way of life.

Those attending the WEC in Orlando will be entitled to a hardbound autographed edition.

QUESTION: Central banks around the world are currently purchasing equities. If they continue to purchase equities, will we ever have a significant market downturn again? What happens when central banks acquire enough shares to control corporations?
PE

ANSWER: Yes. The central banks have been buying equities to try to diversify their balance sheets as they also see what is coming down the road. Still, they are not the major buyers to influence the market in that manner. Corporate buybacks have been a much stronger factor in the marketplace.

The reason why we will not have a major crash is simply because this time it is different — the crash is in the debt markets.

In Vancouver, if you have a property that someone else would love to tear down to build a high rise, the government has created a scheme to make you pay taxes as if you were a high-rise. Small businesses pay some amount of tax on the airspace above their businesses, which they have not developed. Yes, the B.C. government taxes property assessed on their “highest and best use” value. Essentially, a single-story building for a small mom-pop business is taxed as if they had sold out to a land developer and now own a multi-story commercial building.

QUESTION: Chicago real estate- is there any future before 2032 or do we hope for a Detroit situation as the only possibility for prices to rise?
Thank you!
Bob

ANSWER: Real estate will rise marginally but only when we see the shift from public to private. However, that will not be a rally in real terms. The crisis for Chicago is that there is no realization that the current system has failed. Instead, they continually try to impose new taxes and enforcement to sustain a system that cannot be maintained. Once we reach a point where the government realizes that this is a failed system, then and only then can we hope for change. The American Dream of homeownership is being destroyed in Illinois. There is just no chance for change until it results in major civil unrest.