Tag Archives: LIBOR rates

Sep 13 2018

Is it Time to Turn the Lights Out on Turkey and just Take Your Losses and Run?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Turkey

Re-Posted Sep 13, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Just when you thought President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was really off the reservation, he suddenly appears off the planet. Erdogan has appointed HIMSELF as chairman of Turkey’s Sovereign Wealth Fund and got rid of the entire management staff. It looks like Erdogan now thinks he can force the free market to do as he commands if he is also the trader for the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Of course, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, Erdogan’s son-in-law, will also sit on the board, according to a decree published in the Official Gazette. Anyone who actually thinks that Turkey can recover is out of their mind. The fund was formed to try and capitalize on state assets and put a lid on market turmoil in the wake of a failed coup attempt. This is a guaranteed nightmare in the making. We are witnessing a stubborn politician who has become a dictator and believes there is nothing beyond his power. It is just approaching the time to turn out the lights on Turkey as any viable place for investment. Turkey is now approaching the highest Country Risk for investment on the board

Sep 13 2018

Who is the Fool? Trump or Woodward?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Economics

Re-Posted Sep 13, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

According to CNBC, Bob Woodward reported that Trump told Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs/director of the National Economic Council to just print more money to reduce the national debt. Woodward reports this discussion:

Trump: “Just run the presses—print money.”

Cohn: “You don’t get to do it that way. We have huge deficits and they matter. The government doesn’t keep a balance sheet like that.”

Here is a chart of the US CPI not seasonally adjusted. It has begun its sharp advance since the Floating Rate System was adopted in 1971 with the fall of Bretton Woods. In spite of borrowing, inflation over time has actually advanced more aggressively than if we had just printed instead of borrowed.  Cohn has said the book “does not accurately portray” his experience of the White House. This claimed quote demonstrates that someone is seriously out of touch with economics.  Actually, Trump is correct. Now we have Quartz joining the media calling Trump an idiot confirming they too are clueless about debt and printing. In fact, if you did just print the money and retired the debt, it would be DEFLATIONARY and not INFLATIONARY from the budget perspective because these people are clueless themselves about how the national debt works.

 

Before 1971, the debt could not be used as collateral for loans such as Savings Bonds. If you needed the money, you were forced to cash them in.  Under this system, it was logically less inflationary to borrow than to print. However, post-1971, you buy T-Bills and post them as collateral to trade futures. The distinction between borrowing and printing has been turned upside down. A national debt is now worse than printing because itis money that now pays interest forever. Then there is no intention of ever paying off the national debt.

 

 

The truth is had we printed since 1971 instead of borrowing, there would be far less of an economic crisis compared to what we face today. If we simply printed to pay off the national debt, Social Security would suddenly become a Wealth Fund that actually made money instead of a Slush Fund for politicians. Now, Social Security can only invest 100% in US government debt and then the Fed lowers the interest rate to “stimulate” the economy and Social Security goes broke forcing higher taxes. Up to 70% of the national debt at times has been purely accumulated interest which never benefited anyone.  It competes with the private sector in what we call the “flight to quality” and it forms the bank reserves. What is never discussed is the fact that US debt is also the reserve currency of nations – not paper dollars. That means that the interest we pay is exported and it stimulates foreign economies – not domestic.

So who is crazy here? Trump or Woodward? To keep borrowing year after year is insane. To monetize the debt will be DEFLATIONARY from the perspective of government expenditure. In 2019, interest expenditures even at this low level of interest rates will EXCEED military expenditure.

Woodward is by no means qualified to criticize Trump on such an issue he clearly does not even understand. Trump should really address the nation and explain this problem very simply. I will be glad to supply the charts.

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 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 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 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
Sep 4 2018

Cryptocurrency Scam?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Cryptocurrency

Re-Posted Sep 4, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

There are way too many cryptocurrencies out there and even if we accept the theory that ONE will survive and become mainstream, what happens to the rest? This is the great unanswered question. You certainly cannot replace the dollar and central banks with thousands of currencies. We tried that once when Andrew Jackson revoked the Bank of the United States charter. We ended up with EVERY bank issuing their own paper money and we ended up creating the Great Depression of the 1840s that led to violence in the streets, defaults of State debts who tried to bail out failed banks, and eventually, a civil war that was not entirely over slavery. (You can buy catalogs of Broken Bank Notes that are published per state because there are way too many to be just one book).

There certainly is no possible viable economic system where there are thousands of cryptocurrencies. For the theory to even be viable aside from technology and every person being able to use computers or smartphones, In other words, the mere existence of a product does not necessarily mean that the product is working. After all, is a there has to be just one at least per nation. A single currency for the entire world will never work because not everyone has a current account and trade surplus. Someone must have a deficit. A single currency would result in exaggerated inflation and deflation globally in different regions. This is the problem with the dollar. If the Fed raises interest rates, it impacts the world because other nations are issuing debt in dollars. This is what results in losing DOMESTIC policy objective to INTERNATIONAL policy realities.

A recent study found that only 36 out of the top 100 cryptocurrencies has any working product. Most are just promises. Some people have gotten so caught up in this whole mess that they have lost a fortune. One borrowed $127,000 to invest in cryptocurrencies and lost 85%. Understanding that cryptocurrencies are no different from anything else. They are trading vehicles when you at least stick to the majors. Socrates picked the high in Bitcoin perfectly. How? Why? Very simple in fact. No matter what instrument you look at, the chart is not actually that instrument. It is a chart of HUMAN emotion relating TO THAT instrument.  The chart of silver from 1980 is similar to that of BitCoin. Back then, they were touting silver would go to $100. They swore it would do that any day for the next 19 years. We have people in Bitcoin swearing it is going to $100,000. That is such a joke for any currency to be worth that much would guarantee it cannot be used in commerce since most transactions are small.

 

No matter what bull market we look at, we find the same patterns. People get all emotional and rush in and buy the highs. The curious element is that they continue to believe the decline is only temporary. This seems to be standard human bias when people get caught up in the fever and lose all sight of history or reality.

This is why PROFESSIONAL traders have one PRIMARY RULE! ———–  Never marry the trade!

Sep 3 2018

Trump Tries to Deal with the Pension Crisis


Armstrong Economics Blog/Pension Crisis

Re-Posted Sep 3, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

 

Most small businesses do not offer retirement plans because the excessive regulation which drives the costs significantly higher. Trump’s new Executive Order is primarily designed to reduce those costs by streamlining the excessive regulation. The order further makes it clear: “Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Treasury shall consider proposing amendments to regulations or other guidance, consistent with applicable law and the policy…”

The biggest problem with retirement plans has been the pretense that they should be “conservative” and that has meant they buy government debt. As the Fed lowered rates to “stimulate” the economy, they have remained well below 8% for more than a decade which has sharply reduced the ability to plan for retirement using bonds. Unless people begin to select more private investment into equities, they stand to lose a fortune and find themselves unable to retire. The sharp decline in the birth rate has also created a dangerous situation. For centuries, you had children to ensure you would be taken care of in your old age. Socialism has destroyed the family unit and taxation with student loans has drastically reduced the earning ability of children to save no less take care of their parents. The entire historical family structure has been undermined and the pension crisis poses a huge social threat in the years ahead