The amount of fraud taking place on the internet is in the billions. They will hack your email and then have money wired to Hong Kong. That is a popular destination. One guy lost $450,000 in three days. Then there are the fake nurses who claim to be working for the United Nations seeking love on dating sites. They are naturally on their way home, targeting lonely old men. At the last minute, they get robbed or lose their wallet and ask for hundreds to a couple of thousands to be wired, of course, to Africa. The money probably goes into the vault where some guy in Nigeria has hundreds of millions of dollars, and nobody to leave it to unless you give him your bank details.

The more common frauds on dating sites are girls looking to shake down lonely old men with promises of love. They are ready to hop on a plane at a moment’s notice provided you send them the money to buy the ticket. Others have a broken phone and need you to buy a new iPhone so they can tell you how much they love you. There are also guys conning windows with a whole host of excuses to clean out their bank accounts.

We are all aware of credit card fraud. I had it done to me once in an airport about 20 years ago. A legit company wanted me to read my credit card number over the phone and the guy in the next booth was writing it down. Obviously, I will never read my card over the phone again. The other time, I have no idea how someone was using my card to download music from iTunes. When I called the credit card company, they first tried say I had to call iTunes to have them change my account. I had to get angry and explain I did not have an account at iTunes. They finally reversed three months of charges.

Things have changed and they will change even more. We have to realize that we are moving to digital currencies and the unusual hype that has been spun around this coronavirus is very suspicious. A virus can live on paper for some time. China is disinfecting its paper currency. I would not be surprised that the West are hyping this virus to insane levels to use it as an excuse to eliminate paper currency that will aid tax collections.

If you have a family member, tell them to require approval for any wire from their account. Bank of America has a secure pass where they send an authorization to your phone with a number you must type in to send any wire. If your bank does not have something similar, it may be time to switch. As for those with lonely relatives trying out the internet, tell them to NEVER send money to anyone you have never met face to face. Those two precautions are vital in this new world of online fraud. Use some common sense. If some girl is a nurse working for the UN and everything is stolen, the UN will help her — not you.

I have stated before that Marxism/socialism has led to more deaths than all the other justifications for war or killing combined. The Communist movements of Russia, China, and the Revolutions of 1848 combined are far greater than World War I and II and just about every other modern war all counted as one event. There were over 61 million who died because of socialism in the Soviet Union which government claimed was utopia. Then there were 78 million who were killed in China. When we add all the leftist wars against the so-called rich, about 200 million people died. And people are worried about the coronavirus? You better pay more attention to the political war waged behind the headlines.

This is what Bernie Sander honestly believes in. He is preaching like Khrushchev himself on the same doctrine of hating the rich. Bernie is oblivious to the bloodshed those ideas have caused. Bernie is naive to preach what he does and thinks this can be accomplished without bloodshed. I DO NOTthink Bernie is an evil person who advocates death. In Nevada, he promised a crowd in Las Vegas of about 2,000 people that he vowed to take on “the corporate elite” and the “whole damn 1%.”

After all, he doesn’t even realize that he is in that 1%. The 99% is defined as an average annual median income of $65,000 or less. Hello! All politicians are in that 1%. Pelosi herself gets a salary of $223,500. So will Bernie champion reducing all politician’s salaries to $65,000 or less? The starting salary for a congressman in Washington is $174,000. Somehow, I do not think Bernie realizes he is the 1%. Maybe all our readers should forward this post to Bernie.

Besides the fact that Bernie is giving heartburn to foreign investors, Bernie is actually helping to turn the US economy down. It has been the foreign investors who have been the buyers of the Dow seeking shelter from the rest of the left-leaning world. The US share market can crash as foreigners sell. They may not be forced to flee to the dollar because they see Trump as the only sane leader in a world of political leaders pandering to the communistic/socialistic left agendas. Nevertheless, foreign investors are starting to get concerned about politics.

While this is the real reason we are starting to get calls from overseas institutions who have become deeply concerned about the chaos in politics globally, there remains a serious risk that capital will move into hibernation until the 2020 elections are over. Of course, the Trump-haters are clueless for they are foaming at the mouth and want a second impeachment trial.  They are so blinded by their personal hatred that I do not see the nation ever coming back together as it once was.

I would be deeply concerned that the target on Trump’s back for assassination is growing bigger with each passing month from externally and internally within Washington. The intelligence community would love to see him taken out any way they possibly can. When Kennedy would not go to war in Vietnam, they found a solution. Their patience is running thin once again and they are already spinning stories that Putin will aid Trump to get reelected. That is total nonsense. If I were Putin, I would be praying for Bernie to win for he will defeat the United States faster than anyone and bring Nikita Khrushchev’s prophecy to fulfillment.

I have warned that I do NOT see Trump as any sort of a threat. My concern is what comes AFTERTrump? I do not see the United States remaining very united for very long.

QUESTION: Hi Marty

I hear what you are saying about the next gen and Gold vs BTC. To me it begs the question as to how the Next Gen’s look at crypto’s. Is there an argument that they like BTC etc because it is anonymous [mostly] and not part of the ‘system’. If that is the case, what will they think when Govs adopt sovereign crypto’s and outlaw BTC. Will they then look to gold and history?
Tx for all the wisdom,
Best HP

ANSWER: I think we have to draw a line in the sand at 2032-2037. Going into the end of this cycle, we will most likely still have the younger generations listening to people like Bernie who claim the problem is not government, but the rich. That argument has always led to bloodshed. I believe your question whether people will return to gold is more likely post-2032. We are looking at a fundamental change and the end of socialism, which is really just a means to expand government power. It is not only on the left. You have some on the right who want to use the law to enforce their religious beliefs upon others.

For cryptocurrencies and digital currencies to survive, they need a power grid. We are also facing turmoil as separatist movements expand everywhere. I do not believe that the government will allow private crypotocurrencies. They will outlaw them just as they did with gold in 1934

(2018 Interview)

COMMENT: Marty, I had to laugh that someone said you were wrong and the bond market in Europe did not crash. I asked, is there still a bond market when the ECB buys it all? All I got was a dumb look! Are these people really that stupid?

Keep up the good work.

EK

ANSWER: I know. Some people think there has been no bond market crash outside the USA simply because prices have not crashed since the central banks buy all the bonds. I have friends who work in banks. Many are retiring for the bond market no longer exists in Europe. If that is not a crash, then nothing is. They can manipulate the price all they want. But if nobody buys it then there is no free market.

QUESTION: My reading of the gold was that for the slingshot up to dramatic new highs it needed the fakeout bear trap just below the 1000 mark. Since it took out your 1,362.50 number and the yearly bullish reversal at the end of 2019, does that mean the slingshot is now dead?  Do you think the shift to millennials and how they rush into Bernie’s arms means that gold is losing its luster for the next generation?

PL

ANSWER: I am preparing the new gold report. Basically, that slingshot is obviously dead as you say. This raises serious concerns about the future for gold. Yes, there is an important shift that takes place with these major generational evolutions. The gold standard died in 1971. Most people born after that do not see gold as money. Those who were born in the 1980s onward saw money as paper. Now we have those born post-1995 and they see no problem with cryptocurrencies and google wallets. Things are changing no doubt. You cannot judge the world with your personal beliefs. You may be just a couple of generations behind.

Socrates has been buying gold on the rally for the numbers are the numbers. That is the near-term view. What you are talking about is the viability of going forward into 2032. Without the slingshot, gold has lost a lot of its luster and that maybe indeed because of the generational shift. Smoking is being replaced by vapes and marijuana is being legalized. Things are changing as are the tax authorities. A legitimate company was trying to pay $181,000 in cash for several trucks in Cleveland and the government confiscated the cash and refuses to return it. They confiscated that money on a domestic flight – not international!!!!! The man was an employee sent by his employer. The TSA gave him $10,000 of the $191,000 and stole the balance.

You try to get on a plane with a roll of $20 gold coins they would probably confiscate it today because they presume all wealth is illegal so they get to take it. The very idea of gold as a replacement for the dollar is coming under attack. We will run the models on gold for without the slingshot, then the upside also comes down.

We will be issuing the 2020 Gold Report soon to sort out the real perspective long-term and well as short-term.

GMW 2-22-2020-C

Just to let everyone know, since more than 50% of our clients are outside the USA, we have a very international reach with sources around the globe. Get prepared for volatility next week. Despite the Democrat’s personal hatred of Trump, the international view is that Trump is the ONLY sane leader in the world right now. The world is leaning so far to the left everywhere, capital is deeply concerned about where to hide. The #1 question we are getting from overseas:

What if Bernie beats Trump?

Capital can flee and seek shelter offshore. Labor cannot hoard itself nor move offshore. The average person is stuck for they cannot protect their labor so the working guy suffers the arrows that come from politicians who never understand that capital will just abandon their crazy agendas leaving only the wage earner to pay the bills which ends in revolution.

Bloomberg is the authoritarian dictator whose staff has just been “yes sir” and that was self-evident in his debate skills. He could not respond to negative attacks because he was not use to that. Bloomberg is really is no match for Trump no less Bernie. Despite all his money, he did not even make a respectable showing. He cannot buy the White House. Hillary tried that and spent 10x what Trump did and still failed.

The Democratic elites are beside themselves. They are not going to take this lightly. In United States politics, a brokered convention (sometimes referred to as an open convention and closely related to a contested convention) can occur during a presidential election when a political party fails to choose a nominee on the first round of delegate voting at the party’s nominating convention.

This time, the unpledged delegates, better known as superdelegates, will make up about 16% of Democratic Party delegates in 2020. These are the real party insiders who are not committed to voting based on the outcome of the state’s primary or caucus which flies in the face of the very purpose of primary voting. As Stalin said about elections, it is not the votes that matter, but who counts them.

The 2016 election was stolen from Bernie when many superdelegates announced early support for Hillary Clinton. The Democrats have claimed that they made a significant change for 2020. Superdelegates will no longer vote on the first ballot at the convention unless there is no doubt about the outcome. To win on the first ballot, the frontrunner must secure the majority of pledged delegates leading up to the Democratic Convention.  There are 3,979 total pledged delegates, so they are supposed to use the total required being 1,991. There is a loophole. If they can prevent Bernie from a majority on the first ballot, Hillary takes 16% again and they will then flip to her camp. That assumes they abide by this latest rule and do not change them again.

We are looking at the split of the Democrats for the elites are not about to accept Bernie and they will lose the financial support of both the corporates and the 1%. The rumblings are to draft Hillary. That will most likely be the straw that breaks the back of the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, brace yourself for while markets next week. We may begin to see European and Asian liquidation of equities in fear of the 2020 election ahead.

Japan’s economic performance plummeted at the end of 2019, and a recession seems inevitable. The downturn in the land of the rising sun is a bad omen for the global economy. Nevertheless, the entire coronavirus scare has resulted in a sharp collapse in many areas globally that depend on tourism. We are seeing sharp declines in South East Asia, Hong Kong, and even in Dubai. We should expect that the first quarter numbers for many areas around the world will show recessionary trends. This is only further pushing the dollar higher as capital continues to flee from Asia, in particular, as well as Europe and heads into the dollar.

QUESTION: Hi Marty
I work as a Professor of Surgery and read your blog every day. I’ve worked all over the world and remain intrigued by the changes your model is now predicting. Here in Ireland, we’ve seen a massive move towards the left with the recent general election results. Capital is fleeing in advance of a new left-wing government. Do you see this throughout Europe or will Britain remain immune from this change?
Many thanks
J

ANSWER: Yes. This shift to the left is really coming to a head and has been a primary mover for a capital flight to the dollar. The general view has been that Trump will win and this has given support to the US dollar, which is why the US economy has been the only thing to hold up right now.

The British economy will also hang in there and the best thing they could have done was to exit the EU. Europe will shift more to the left and Greenpeace has become a threat to the European economy just as Goldman Sachs was back in 2007.

We are involved in a period where the economic instabilities of past socialistic policies and unfunded pensions will push the left to be much more aggressive because they are losing ground. This is really the same pattern that emerged before the collapse in communism both in China and Russia. It was not some brilliant strategy from the USA, it was plain and simple economics that took down communism. We face the same thing here with socialism. They will get very aggressive in a desperate attempt to keep their dream alive.