February 27, 2020
Today, President Donald J. Trump will discuss his Administration’s success in empowering members of the African-American community.
WH Livestream Link – NBC Livestream Link – Alternate Livestream
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Tag Archives: The Forecaster
All My Money on Trump Reelection Now, No Matter Who Democrats Pick
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Where to Go in the 12 Years Remaining for a Global Political Crisis
Armstrong Economics Blog/The Hunt for Taxes
Re-Posted Feb 27, 2020 by Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Hi Martin
I’ve been following your blog for some years now, its the first thing i check why I wake up daily. I feel I get a better perspective of the world around me reading your blogs rather than browsing news sites. There are so many questions on which I would love to hear your opnion. I’m an IT consultant here in the UK and fed up of politicians going after hard working folks. Its always the middle class that gets squeezed between low and high income earners. My question is which country in your opinion is the best amongst the lot where you would move. UK, I feel, will get bad under Boris and taxes have already started to go up. Europe is clearly down and US would also follow suit once Trump is gone. If you had to pick one country in Asia, Europe and Americas and finally in any part of the world, which one would it be? I’m originally from India so would be easier for me to move there. Is it Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland? or there is no place to hide 🙂
Thanks in advance.
R
ANSWER: All governments in the West are going to be raising taxes dramatically. They will NEVER reform and step back. That means they would have to change the very power structure of government. We are looking at the expansion of separatist movements and probably armed conflicts post-2020 into 2032. You will see separatist movements even in the United States. So you have to look at the region and be very specific.
It is very hard to pinpoint a place at this stage in the game. The USA will be better than the other Anglo-Saxon countries, but that may last only until 2024 at best. Southeast Asia will be OK, but keep in mind it has already seen protests against foreigners in places like Singapore.
Bottom line — this is not going well and we are looking at a global political crisis developing over the next 12 years.
The NO BID Evaporation of Wealth
Armstrong Economics Blog/Understanding Cycles
Re-Posted Feb 27, 2020 by Martin Armstrong
COMMENT #1: Marty,
Good morning. I knew you were going to get blamed for having too much “influence”. And then after emailing you about it, I see the comment in the Fake News blog this morning, just too funny!
Can’t these people just try to learn why they were wrong? I always try to learn from my experiences and I’m nobody. I’ve learned more after college through trading experiences and attending your conferences than I ever did in college. They just fed me a bunch of BS that I had to repeat for a good grade, which is why I almost dropped out. I probably had two good professors total in Economics and Finance, they both had real-world experience, go figure!
There will always be haters.
Best,
EM
COMMENT #2: Great article today
One question I can’t answer is when capital flees(whether it’s from virus or Bernie). It’s not flowing back towards Europe or Asia. So is It (mostly)all flowing into US Bond market? Which we know is the worst spot to be as investors flee the public sector.
Two instead of Bernie being the reason for the very large drop in the Dow (and I think he’s a large problem for equity markets). Could It be the Coronavirus will substantially reduce economies all over the world and therefore equity valuations and earnings as well = equity sell-off and into cash?
Regards,
DJCL
ANSWER: For now, the US debt market is the best in the world and really the only viable one. The comments about capital fleeing just illustrate the fake news. If capital was fleeing the USA, then you would expect to see the currencies move with such a capital flow. That has not been the case. They just make up excuses for they must always apply some reason to every market move.
When I was called into the 1987 Brady Commission, they too began with the proposition that some mythical person sold the market and they were going to hang them. I explained that every investigation began with that same directive and nobody has ever been found. I asked if they even understood how markets functioned. They said simplistically that you borrow stock from one person and sell it to another. I asked, “Then how does a short ever outnumber the longs?” I had to explain that a crash takes place when people try to sell and there is NO BID. They never understood that. If the majority have already bough and they try to sell, there are no buyers so you get the NO BID and prices fall until you reach a level where there are some bids or shorts are willing to buy back. Value evaporates, it does not flee dollar for dollar.
These people will look at Buffet or Bill Gates and have no idea that their “wealth” is based upon share value — not cash. Bernie stands up and says he will go after the 1% and fails to understand that if he confiscated all their wealth, assuming it was cash, he would not even balance the budget for one year. It would make no difference. But people like Bernie love to point the finger at the rich rather than government because they cannot admit this is the worst management debacle in recorded history.
Value is simply a price quote. If a rare coin is sold for $100,000 at an auction, that does not mean that there were two people willing to pay $100,000 – only one. If another coin comes up for sale it does not guarantee it will bring $100,000. It may bring less if there is just a few months that has gone by or it may bring $200,000 several years later depending on the state of the economy. Value is something that rises and falls depending upon the state of the economy and the demand for cash. It is always a contest between public and private asset
Giddy Up – “Stronger”…
Federal Appeals Court Rules Trump Administration Can Withhold Funds From Sanctuary Cities…
February 26, 2020
A big victory for the Trump administration as a federal appeals court rules today the Department of Justice (DOJ) can withhold funding from sanctuary cities and states refusing to cooperate with administration’s immigration enforcement.
A group of seven states including New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington, Massachusetts and Virginia, along with New York City, sued the DOJ in 2017 after then-AG Jeff Sessions announced the DOJ would start withholding funding from local governments that refused to share information about undocumented immigrants or provide jail access to federal authorities investigating inmates’ immigration status.
Today a three-judge panel on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned a prior district court ruling saying the DOJ lacked the authority to impose immigration-related conditions on funding. [Ruling Here]
The Trump administration can now withhold funds from any city and state that declares themselves a ‘sanctuary‘ from immigration enforcement.
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The Pension Crisis Looking to Take Everybody’s Pensions
Armstrong Economics Blog/Australia & Oceania
Re-Posted Feb 26, 2020 by Martin Armstrong
COMMENT: This government [Queensland, Australia] pension scheme has been shaky for a while. Originally it was for government employees only, then spouses were eligible to join, later they include all family members and more recently television ads have promoted the scheme for anyone. Clearly this Ponzi scheme is looking unstable. I am glad I set up my own Self Managed Superannuation Fund and closed my account as soon as I retired. It appears the information was reported from the Australian Financial Review.
Kindest regards,
MF
REPLY: This is precisely what California has been pitching for in Washington. It is a Ponzi scheme and with negative interest rates and central banks trapped, they are blowing up pension funds around the globe. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE should you allow your pension fund to be managed by any government-related entity. They cannot pay government employees so they have sought to suck in everybody else to cover up their losses
Internet Frauds From Hacking Emails to Dating Site Frauds
Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption
Posted Feb 25, 2020 by Martin Armstrong
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.
International Capital Starting to Fear Bernie Sanders
Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics
Re-Posted Feb 25, 2020 by Martin Armstrong
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.
Short Term Stupid – Bill Barr Wants Clean FISA Reauthorization Because He Will Not Abuse It…
February 25, 2020
This is likely the most insufferably short-sighted political position in decades. Faced with years of evidence showing worsening abuses by government officials using the FISA court, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr says a clean reauthorization bill is the best option because his DOJ and FBI will not abuse it.
Note the import of AG Barr’s position. He is not saying the system *cannot* be abused; and he is not saying that reform isn’t needed to prevent systemic abuse; only that he can give assurances under his tenure FISA data collection and exploitation will *not* be abused. What happens when an administration changes?…. ::::crickets chirping::::
In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act. As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020:
WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr told Senate Republicans on Tuesday that the Trump administration could support a clean extension of contentious surveillance laws set to expire next month. And Barr said he could make changes on his own to satisfy President Donald Trump and his allies who have railed against the use of the law to monitor his 2016 campaign, according to senators at a party briefing.
But Barr also clashed with GOP critics of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has three key provisions set to lapse on March 15.
[…] Republicans emerged from the lunch meeting mostly supportive of a clean extension of the law to avoid a gap; doing so is a top priority of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“The attorney general just wanted to underscore again the importance of these provisions that were enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attack. They’re still relevant to our effort to go after terrorists today like they were after 9/11,” McConnell told reporters.
But Barr also sparred with skeptics, primarily libertarian-leaning Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Barr told Lee his criticisms of surveillance law are dangerous, while Paul said Americans shouldn’t be subject to secret FISA courts, one of the people said.
[…] Senate Republicans prefer kicking a broad FISA debate to as late as 2022, when other pieces of the law expire. In the interim, Barr would make administrative changes to address complaints from conservatives that surveillance authorities were abused during Trump’s campaign — something the president continues to seethe over.
“You’ve got three provisions to deal with. I think it’d be smart to keep them in place. It would give us some time to work on FISA writ large, we’ve got three years,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is preparing hearings on FISA.
[…] “A lot will happen between now and March 15. We may do a placeholder and take it past March 15. We’ve got to get this right,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “Anybody who reads the Horowitz report on misfire hurricane will understand what I’m talking about.” (read more)
Prior to the December 9, 2019, inspector general report on FISA abuse, FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA bulk database collection program being exploited for unauthorized reasons. For the past several years no corrective action taken by the intelligence community has improved the abuses outlined by the FISA court.
The sketchy programs, and abuse therein, has public attention yet congressional representatives are not responding to the findings.
Worse still, there is a confluence of current events pointing toward a likelihood congress and the intelligence apparatus writ large want to reauthorize the FISA surveillance and collection authorities without further sunlight and without public input.
Keep in mind the deadline for the DOJ to respond to the FISA court about the abusive intelligence practices identified in the Horowitz report was February 5th, more than two weeks ago. The responses from the DOJ and FBI have not been made public.
FISA Court Order – FISA Court Notice of Extension.
It appears the DOJ is trying to get the FISA reauthorization passed before the FISC declassifies the corrective action outlined from the prior court order. This response would also include information about the “sequestering” of evidence gathered as a result of the now admitted fraudulent and misrepresented information within the FISA applications.
The FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], again all parts of the Patriot Act, must not be reauthorized without a full public vetting of the abuses that have taken place for the past several years.
At a minimum the pending DOJ/FBI response to the FISA court needs to be made public prior to any reauthorization by congress. And to better understand the scale of the issue, the consequences when the system is abused, the upstream sequester material needs to be made public.
Let the American public see what investigative evidence was unlawfully gathered, and let us see who and what was exposed by the fraudulently obtained FISA warrants. At a minimum congress and the American people need to understand the scale of what can happen when the system is wrong – BEFORE that exact same system is reauthorized.
Additionally with all of the information now known to exist, should congress proceed with a reauthorization without any sunlight on the abuse, the White House should counter and demand the intelligence community declassify both the Collyer report from 2017 and the Boasberg report from 2019.
Declassification of existing records would reveal the November 2015 through April 2016 FISA-702 search query abuse as outlined in the April 2017 court opinion written by FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer. Who exactly are these private sector FBI contractors behind the 85% fraudulent search queries? This was a weaponized surveillance and domestic political spying operation. [The trail was laid down in specific detail by Judge Collyer – SEE HERE]
The U.S. constitution’s fourth amendment is being violated by the continued abuse of bulk metadata collection, particularly when private contractors and government officials illegally access the system. The 2016 FISA review (party declassified in 2017) and the 2018 FISA review (party declassified in 2019) both show ongoing and systematic wrongdoing despite all prior corrective action and promises.
This needs to be stopped.
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Centinel2012 