The seriousness that is emerging in the hedge fund community is their tendency to become VULTURE FUNDS who look to lend money to sovereigns at excessively high rates of return that become no different than the carpetbaggers who sought to exploit the South following the Civil War. As an investor, you should stay away from hedge funds who think they can exploit various governments rather than invest. If they do not know how to invest to expand the economy, then they have no business handling anybody’s money to ruin the reputation of the industry. They will turn investors into the hated carpetbaggers and they risk turning society into the arms of authoritarian government justified in defaulting on such funds.

The hedge fund industry really began in 1985. The biggest hedge fund back then was $100 million. Unfortunately, too many hedge funds have lost their way and are becoming VULTURE FUNDS that risk the entire industry. We have to realize that 1985 was the start of the movement to create hedge funds for that was the year when everyone (myself included) returned all money to U.S. citizens and moved offshore. A normal pi cycle brings us to 2017, a year that is starting to look very bad. Hedge funds who have become VULTURE FUNDS will be defaulted upon by their clever antics of lending to governments. They falsely believe they have courts to back them up as they did in Argentina. What they fail to see is that they are playing with fire while running with scissors.

Puerto Rico is yet another example of hedge funds out of control. The cash-starved island managed to persuade some of the country’s biggest hedge funds to lend them more than $3 billion to keep the government afloat. They assumed they would get a great deal since they would be earning, in effect, a 20% return. Relying on the island’s Constitution, Puerto Rico was required to pay back its debt BEFORE almost any other bills, whether it was for employee salaries or retirees’ health care benefits. They assumed the law would be on their side and they could crush the island to extract a 20% annual return.

This sort of deal would have been criminal before 1980 when usury was capped below 10%; that was removed so Volcker could raise interest rates to stop an inflation he did not understand. Within just months of making this deal with the devil in the form of hedge funds, Puerto Rico ran out of money. The deal they cut with the hedge funds began to fall apart and has now set the stage for what is becoming an extraordinary political and financial fight over Puerto Rico’s future.

The question arising is whether Puerto Rico should be granted bankruptcy protection in a battle with VULTURE FUNDS who have done far more damage to further the image of the hated rich by supporting a return toward Marxism. Some of the people involved are the very people who lend money to Hillary and Bush, assuming they are buying the politicians as security for their exploits. The hedge funds have banned together and hired lobbyists to try to create laws to screw Puerto Rico for their gain. This is the very method they used against Argentina and Greece to exploit high-yielding returns in billions from the hardships they impose upon the people of those countries.

I highly advise anyone investing in these type of hedge funds to exit. This model will fail for the sovereign debt crisis will expand rapidly over the next two years and these funds will lose a fortune. They probably would love to see Donald Trump assassinated for his election would spell disaster for this business model when they cannot buy him.

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, have you ever heard of a short lived Wörgl Experiment in Austria? It was shut down by the Austrian Central Bank they say because it was successful. Have you looked into this experiment they claim defied deflation and inflation?

ANSWER: Yes. This was by no means an isolated instance. True, it was touted as the “Miracle of Wörgl” during the Great Depression. The very similar “experiment” took place in the United States with over 200 cities also issuing their own currency. You have to understand the dynamics of the period. This was the very age of AUSTERITY where the assumption was the collapse was a lack of confidence in government so they increased tax collection and cut spending unleashing both deflation and a dwindling money supply. This led many cities to create their own money due to the lack of money in circulation also impacted by hoarding.

The Wörgl Experiment began on July 31, 1932, the very month that the Dow Jones bottomed. The experiment involved issuing of “Certified Compensation Bills”, which was a form of local currency known as Scrip generally, or Freigeld. The monetary theories of the economist Silvio Gesell were applied by the town’s then-mayor, Michael Unterguggenberger. What differed with Gesell’s idea was that the currency would expire. Believe it or not, there are some government’s looking into currency which expires. Europe since World War II issued currency which expired roughly every 10 years. This forced people to bring out the old currency to be swapped and thus prevent hoarding.

The central part of Gesell’s idea was how to stop HOARDING of money. This is why FDR also confiscated gold. He too saw the problem of people hoarding money and not spending it. This is part of every economic decline. If there is no CONFIDENCE in the future, people save more. This is simply human.

Nevertheless, the Wörgl Experiment resulted in a growth in employment largely because you had to use the money. This allowed the local government projects could all be completed, which many called a miracle for it appeared to defy the depression in the rest of the country. Inflation and deflation are also reputed to have been non-existent for the duration of the experiment. But this was simply the result of money expiring so there was no purpose in hoarding “money” shifting it back to “asset” appreciation as in a hyperinflation.

Despite the appearance of success, the Wörgl Experiment was terminated by the Austrian National Bank on the September 1, 1933.

Something very interesting is unfolding. Included in the new year-end spending bill was a waiver of the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA), which had been implemented during the late 1980s when the Japanese were buying everything. They claimed to have focused on buying U.S. farmland, but it also applied to buying trophy U.S. property like Rockefeller Center in New York City.

This position has been reversed in the new year-end spending package. While some attribute this to a grand conspiracy, giving far more credit to those in Congress and in the White House than they deserve, our sources simply tell the plain story of lobbying to allow foreign buyers, who are supporting the real estate market in key areas, to purchase properties. Especially after London basically kicked every foreigner out of town by telling them their money was not welcomed, and with lightning speed they instantly turned to New York City.

High properties, even in Florida, are being sold to the Chinese largely in cash deals whereas Canadians are buying the greatest number of properties. The lobbying has been from the real estate and banking industry who see a market they want to service. Slipped into the $1.1 trillion spending measure, which was passed to avoid a government shutdown, were tax breaks for Americans that simultaneously treats foreign pension funds the same as Americans. There has been lobbying from foreign pension funds because they see no hope in Europe and have been pleading for permission to enter the U.S. market in a big way. For the first time this provision waives the tax imposed on foreign investors under FIRPTA.

This is perfectly in line with our cyclical models because the DOLLAR has become the world reserve currency for real and by default. The dollar bears, who keep claiming it will crash, are looking only domestically. They have no peripheral vision and thus remain blind to the trend globally. They may sell stocks, assuming lower oil means more deflation. What if they are wrong?