China’s National People’s Congress has passed a new law to create a digital yuan. Back on December 5, 2013, the People’s Bank ofChina (PBOC) took its first step in regulating Bitcoin by prohibiting financial institutions from handling Bitcoin transactions. They were using Bitcoin to get money out of China in a modern money laundering scheme. Cryptocurrency exchanges or trading platforms were banned by regulation back in September 2017. They closed 173 platforms by July 2018. As I have warned, governments will NEVER allow Bitcoin to replace a national currency. They have used it for study, but it only takes a pen to kill Bitcoin.
Therefore, cryptocurrencies will not be allowed to compete in China against the government. This will be the same worldwide. Countries will move toward digital currency to enforce laws and taxation.
QUESTION: Marty, you said at the conference the efforts to overthrow the dollar as the reserve currency have failed and it will take the Monetary Crisis Cycle to accomplish that. Now that Lagarde is in the ECB, will she aid that overthrow to be replaced by the IMF’s SDR?
It was a fantastic conference this year.
FG
ANSWER: The US has abused the role of the dollar in world commerce by imposing sanctions on places like Iran. These sanctions are supported by enforcement using the dollar. The US has weaponized the dollar in this respect. About 90% of international debt is denominated in dollars. Foreign countries issue their debt in dollars to eliminate FOREX risk in order to sell it globally. Both Putin and Xi want to find an alternative to the dollar. It has been the role of the dollar that drives Putin to dethrone the dollar.
There is NO ALTERNATIVE to the dollar — PERIOD!!!!! The stupid Negative Interest Rates on the euro undermined the euro as a possible reserve currency. It has been dumped internationally, which nobody wants to talk about. In discussions with major central banks and key international banks, nobody wants the euro. Negative Interest Rateshave killed the euro as a viable currency for exchange purposes. The EU President Juncker has said that it is “absurd” that Europe has to pay for its energy imports in dollars. He has failed to understand that it is their own fault, for the structurally defective euro lacks a central national debt and forces everyone to look at each member state independently in the same manner that applies to state debt in the USA. That lack of a national debt where capital can park has been the fatal flaw behind the euro. Then add the stupidity of Negative Interest Rates and you get a currency that dressed up for Halloween, but is by no means a real reserve currency.
China has given up on trying to fight the dollar. They realize that all the yelling and screaming is pointless. The yuan accounts for only 4% of international transactions. The key for China is to use the yuan in loans to build its road of trade globally. Their greatest hope will be for the Monetary Crisis Cycle to undermine the dollar in the year ahead. That combined with the neo-cons trying to weaponize the dollar will be the ultimate means to dethrone the dollar
COMMENT: I just finished “Manipulating the World Economy.” What a wonderful book and actually a gift to those of us who attended the October conference. I hope you will soon publish this book for all the public to read.
JL
REPLY: It is going off to the printers within the next week. We hope to have it ready for Christmas. I really did try to make it the most comprehensive book on the subject matter. I was asked to write it because there was nothing out there to combat the Modern Monetary Theory, and those such a Thomas Piketty who advocate seizing the wealth of anyone who has more than he does.
COMMENT: I find it interesting how the rest of the world is declining and Socrates forecast that the US economy would be only slightly weak going into January 2020. It is interesting how it picks up the major differences. They are blind to the trend. You bring together the world. Thank you for that and there will always be idiots who cannot comprehend the trend and think Warren Buffet is a great investor when he was just a buy and hold no different than Trump. They both made money simply because of the inflationary asset trend since 1985.
Great forecast
KL
REPLY: The US economy was not poised for a major recession that everyone was forecasting because of the China trade dispute. It is softer, yes, but it is really holding up the entire world economy. The third quarter GDP was still up 0.8% whereas the prior quarter was up 1.1%. So yes, it was a slight decline. But we do not show a major economic decline in the USA.
As long as stocks have been in a bull market since 1985, then buy and hold works. But they lose in downtrends. Everyone forgets that. The year 2008 was the worse year Buffett had in 44 years. Most people cannot hold through such declines. This is why institutions have used us for decades. They cannot buy and sell like short-term investors. They need to know when to flip a major portfolio. Truly smart value investors hedge. That eliminates the risk of having to declare bankruptcy during the declines.
QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong.
Does Socrates have an explanation of what is happening to the Norwegian Kroner? All the financial newspapers and banks here in Norway are scratching their heads and don’t have an explanation of why it’s devaluating against the Euro and Dollar. The central bank of Norway has an interest rate of 1.50%, while Euro has an interest rate of -0.5%.
BT
ANSWER: Norway’s currency has been declining recently over concerns with regard to the US-China trade dispute given the fact that it is highly exposed to the US-China trade situation. Additionally, the sharp decline in crude oil prices has also impacted the currency given the oil and gas industry accounts for more than 1/20th of Norway’s gross domestic product and about 2/3rds of its exports. Therefore, Norway’s economy has been highly correlated with oil prices.
Nevertheless, in Korona, the price of oil is rising given the decline in the currency (click on the image). The analysis never looks at everything from an international perspective. Your currency is retesting the 2000 high in the dollar.
CTH has some new readers, so against the backdrop of the UniParty in Washington DC jumping into action to criticize President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria; and against the backdrop of President Trump authorizing an operation last night that killed ISIS leader Baghdadi, perhaps a little factual and historic refresher is in order….
The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:
[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.
This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)
When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.
This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.
The key Secretary Kerry moments are at 02:00, and again at approximately 18:30 forward.
The discussion from 18:30 through to 29:00 are exceptionally revealing and should be listened to by anyone who has wondered what was going on in Syria. Kerry even makes mention of the “Responsibility to Protect, or R2P” principle:
.
@18:30 Secretary John Kerry [transcript]:
[…] “Well, the problem is the Russians do not care about law, and we do. And, we don’t have a basis -our lawyers tell us- unless we have a U.N. Security Council resolution, which the Russians can veto and Chinese, OR unless we are under attack from the folks there, or unless we are invited in. Russia was invited in by the legitimate regime, well, it’s illegitimate in our mind, by the regime. And so, they were invited in and we’re not invited in.”
“We’re flying in airspace there, where they can turn on the air defense and we have a very different scene. The only reason they’re letting us fly is because we’re going after ISIS. If we were going after Assad, those air defenses, we’d have to take out all those air defenses, uh, and we don’t have a legal justification, frankly, for doing that unless we stretch it way beyond the law on a humanitarian basis, which some people argue we should – by the way.”
“Uh, but so far American legal theory has not gone into these so called “right to protect”, uh, and we don’t even have what we had in Kosovo where we had an, you know, an existing resolution and so forth. Uh, even though we went alone.”
“And so it’s complicated, it’s not easy. And we’ve been fighting. How many wars have we been fighting? We’ve been fighting in Afghanistan, we’ve been fighting in Iraq, we’ve fighting -you know- in the region for fourteen years. And a lot of Americans don’t believe that we should be fighting and sending young Americans over to die in another country. That’s the problem.”
“The congress won’t vote to do it. And you can be mad at us, but what we’re trying to do is help Syrians fight for their own country; and we’ve been spending a lot of money, a lot of effort to try and help do this. So, there’s an opposition there; the opposition is doing very well. Russia came in, and that’s a problem I know, because, uh, y’ know, uh, we don’t behave like Russians, it’s just a different standard.”
“So we are trying to see if we can test whether Russia, you see, is serious about a political solution. And if they are not serious, then we will help the opposition more. But I don’t think that’s particularly good for Syrians in the end because it will mean more fighting.”
Secretary Kerry is then questioned by an obvious sympathizer toward the extremist elements (calls pro-assad Sunni faction “Sunni Jews”) about why the U.S. fights the extremist Sunni (ISIS), but not the extremist Shia (Hezbollah). Kerry’s response:
“Well, they’re [Hezbollah] a terrorist organization, we’ve designated them a terrorist organization. The reason for [airstrikes against the Sunni Extremists] is because they have basically declared war on us; and are plotting against us, and Hezbollah is not plotting against us; Hezbollah is exclusively focused on Israel, they’re not attacking now, and on Syria where they are attacking in support of the, uh, in support of Assad.”
“So it a, uh, it’s…”
[Interrupted]
Question: “But how to make the majority of the Syrian people accept this approach, that because Hezbollah or the Iraqi or Iranian groups are not attacking the U.S. now when they are attacking against the terrorism in Syria?”
Kerry: “Well, they, they are targeted by the opposition who we are arming and training.”
What the recording reveals is substantive:
♦ First, only regime change, the removal of Bashir Assad, in Syria was the 2013, 2014, and 2015 goal for President Obama. This is admitted and outlined by Secretary John Kerry.
♦ Secondly, in order to accomplish this primary goal, the White House was willing to watch the rise of ISIS (’13, ’14, ’15) by placing their bet that ISIS’s success would force Syrian President Bashir Assad to acquiesce toward Obama’s terms and step down.
♦ Thirdly, in order to facilitate the objective, Obama and Kerry intentionally gave arms to ISIS and even, arguably, attacked a Syrian government military convoy to stop a strategic attack upon the Islamic extremists killing 80 Syrian soldiers.
Pause for a moment and consider those three points carefully. Because the audio, along with accompanying research now surfacing, not only exposes these three points as truth – but also provides the specific evidence toward them.
The problem in the Obama/Kerry’s secret strategy became clear when ISIS grew in sufficient strength to give the White House optimism for the scheme – however, instead of capitulation Assad then turned to Russia for help.
When Russia came to aid Bashir Assad the Syrian Government began being able to defeat ISIS and the Islamic Extremist elements within Syria. For the hidden plan of Obama/Kerry (and also McCain, Graham, et al), Russia defeating ISIS, al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, upended their objective.
Against the backdrop of this recording we can reconcile so many historic issues. We already know of a Second Presidential Finding Memo authorizing additional CIA covert action in 2012, this time in Syria. However, unlike the 2011 Libyan operation we do not know the operational name of the second action in 2012 Syria.
2012:WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.
Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence “finding,” broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad. (link)
Further consider how this Kerry audio tape, and the now transparent Obama policy toward Syria, absolutely confirms our earlier research as contained within the Benghazi Brief surrounding Syria. [Previous post]
President Obama, Secretary Clinton (2011, 2012) and later Secretary Kerry, together with John McCain, and the CIA tentacled team within the Republican party (2013, 2014, 2015) were willing to support extremist (under all factional names) in order to overthrow Bashir Assad…
…THIS WAS THE Obama/Kerry POLICY.
This was their 2016 admitted policy, only because they were caught.
Nothing else mattered.
President Trump took office in January 2017, and began a process to kill and remove, with extreme prejudice, the ISIS forces that President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Secretary Kerry armed. He began with the end in mind, and delivered the following quote:…
During the last Mortgaged Backed Security scandal which undermined the entire world economy, they created mortgage modifications which enabled millions of delinquent homeowners to avoid having their home foreclosed. Since 2007, it has been estimated that some 8.7 million permanent mortgage modifications were created. There are still over $800 billion of these bubble-era loans outstanding. How were they allowed to survive? For at least the past five years, between 75% and 95% of all mortgage modifications have taken the past interest due that was in default, included it in a capitalization of interest arrears, which means the resolution was never for the benefit of the homebuyer.
By adding the past-due interest, they have been paying interest on the interest. This failure to address the issue by some partial debt forgiveness with respect to prior interest means that the mortgage crisis has been simply postponed. If a new financial crisis hits, the old one will simply be sent off into foreclosure and real estate values can still plummet even more in the low-end of the market.
Barrons did a good review of the problem. They came to the conclusion that re-defaults will be more likely as home values fail to get back to par and these people will just walk away. Indeed, the resolution should have been the forgiveness of past-due interest. Then the value of the homes would have been less impacted. But the bankers refused to accept the loss and as a result, real estate has been unable to recover on the low end of the market which is why the economy has not been robust as it should be boosted more by capital inflows than true economic recovery.
When we look at our broad real estate index, it has been making new highs in 2019. However, when we plot this in Euro, we can see why there have been foreign capital inflows. But the foreign capital has been buying the high-end, not the class where the mortgage bubble of 2007 impacted. From a foreign perspective, the high investment end of the markets has been above the 2007 high for the past 4 years. This is why the new highs have tended to be concentrated in the major centers like New York City and Miami – not local main streets.
Barrons reported that if we look at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) which holds the second-largest residential mortgage portfolio in the nation, we see in its second quarter of 2019 report, that almost $10 billion of modified loans (known as troubled debt restructuring)remained outstanding. Of this restructured debt, 43% were listed as having re-defaulted. Bank of America (BAC) has stated that 41% of its modified loans had re-defaulted.
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You had said you retired from market-making in the precious metals when in the early ’80s people were claiming to sell Krugerrands for spot with delayed delivery. I think they went bust and went to jail if I recall you said back in 1985. Is this the same thing happening in online brokerage with this no commission scheme? How are they making money?
SY
ANSWER: No, it’s not the same. If I remember correctly, it was a firm delaying the delivery of the gold coins by 90 days. They were playing the bear market, assuming gold prices would always be lower based on the fact that the Fed raised interest rates to 14% in 1981. Back then, I was making more money on the float in my account than I was on the gold. The cost on the Krugerrands was spot +4%, so they were making +15% using the money in overnight markets, plus delaying delivery, and they would not buy the coins until the price declined from where they sold them to you. That was pure speculation and I decided I would retire rather than play that game. If I had to speculate to pay salaries it made no sense. They went bust in 1985 and ended up in jail, if I recall, when gold rallied out of the 1985 low and they could not cover all the promises they had made on the coins.
Here we have a similar issue with making money indirectly. Stockbrokers get kickbacks or rebates from the market-makers for steering the business and they make money on the spread between bid and ask. So the retail brokers are still making money that way. But then they also get to use your funds to earn interest. In place of commissions, they make money from charging traders who buy stocks on margin.
Therefore, you have:
Interest they earn on your money
Rebates from market-makers
Interest they charge on margin
This is more legitimate than the gold brokers who were speculating with other people’s money back in the ’80s
QUESTION: Martin, I appreciate all the information that you provide and just got done reading about money shortage and hoarding. Would it be good for US citizens to hoard also? Is there any difference in hoarding dollars or gold and silver coins? Thanks for your comments.
DM
ANSWER: In order for gold and silver to be a medium of exchange, it requires the general population to accept that. The older generations know what a silver quarter or a $20 gold coin might be. However, the younger generation does not. Paper dollars will still be best to hoard for every day use until about 2022. At that time, we will have to reassess the climate of the monetary system. There are those videos where people were offered a 10 oz bar of silver of a chocolate bar. They took the chocolate.
Gold and silver should be in coin form. Bars will not be easily used among the average person.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 