QUESTION: Marty; Did you see Larry Summer’s comments on Trump. Is this guy completely insane? He says Trump is proposing things off the planet. Wasn’t it Summers who came up with the negative interest rates and supported repealing Glass Steagal?

ANSWER: Larry Summers is a classic example of how a PHD means absolutely nothing compared to real life experience. He had the audacity to say, “The vast majority of the companies who have large overseas cash also have substantial amounts of domestic cash.” Obviously, Summers has never advised a real company. If Trump makes it a 10% tax, any company who does not bring their cash home would be a short. EBay had two companies it wanted to buy domestically. It backed out of the deal because it would have to bring in cash from overseas and pay too much tax to make it worthwhile. That’s how much Larry Summers knows about the world.

Summers went further, “The reality is that cash that is brought home will be used to pay dividends, to buy back shares, to engage in mergers and acquisitions, to rearrange the financial chessboard, not to invest in large amounts of new capital. It is a chimera to suppose that there will be large increases in capital investment as a consequence of that repatriation.”

First of all, paying dividends and buying back shares will put money DIRECTLY into the hands of investors who will redistribute the funds. Summers tries to “stimulate” by handing banks billions with no strings attached in hopes that they will lend the money to people who want to borrow. Then he wants to impose negative interest rates to punish people for not spending or investing.

Larry Summers has publicly admitted he is incapable of forecasting the economy, so where does he get off saying this nonsense? Quite frankly, those who are watching their pension funds go bankrupt should sue this guy for his non-conventional idea of negative interest rates to “stimulate” the economy. He gave us the 2007-2009 crisis by repealing Glass-Steagall and supporting the bankers, and he set the pension crisis in motion with negative interest rates. Thank God Hillary lost because this clown would be in charge of screwing up the economy even more.

QUESTION: Hi Martin!

I have been enjoying readings in your rich (in knowledge) website and writings in my vacations here in Southern South America. Between one coffee and another I printing articles and writings in order to “connect de dots” as you use to say. That is being a pleasure.

My question is on your article from 9th November in 2013. That’s outstanding, by the way, I really liked that. It makes me happy once you make connections throughout history of human civilization. I do appreciate that.

The name of the article is “Deflation – The Great Equalizer – Now Greece? Was There a Different TESTED Response in History? YES!”

Was astonishing to me the initiatives form the Emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) and the fact that it worked as you said!

Therefore, I am wondering on the following points:

a) Where can I find (book references) more about these initiatives to fix the economy made from Emperor Tiberius? Which book you would recommend on Roman Empire focusing in this economics view?

b) Where can I find some source with regard “call money rate” of the countries around the world or at least from some of them?

Thank you very much for your attention and hard work!!

All the best!

Warm regards,

RS

ANSWER: There is no single source from which I can draw everything. “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbons is probably the best single source, but this does not focus upon the economics. I put together the Panic of 33 AD from various sources using Tacitus as well as the coins themselves. You will find some of the the digital versions on this site under “books.” I prefer contemporary historians to modern ones who interject their interpretations. I also recommend “Historia Augusta.” You can also see how I have brought together all the key sources from ancient times by recording the economic crisis of the first Roman Civil War.

Plutarch (c. 46–120), recorded the personal lives of important Greeks and Romans
Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 –c. 120), early Roman Empire
Suetonius (75–160), Roman emperors up to Flavian dynasty
Appian (c. 95–c. 165), Roman history
Arrian (c. 92–175), Greek history
Lucius Ampelius (3rd century AD?), Roman history
Dio Cassius (c. 160–after 229), Roman history
Herodian (c. 170–c. 240), Roman history