Gold – Dollar -Trade Deficits All Mixed Up

Posted Oct 6, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Marty; I get these emails about gold and have to wonder how people can keep preaching the same thing for decades and never be correct once. Not they say in a very simplistic manner that  Politicians argued that endless trade deficits were immaterial because U.S. exceptionalism allowed America to do what it wanted. If foreign leaders refused to accept dollars for commerce as Saddam and Gaddafi did, the U.S. used its military might and CIA for regime changes. Even the strongest adversaries like China and Russia cannot compete against U.S. weapons of mass destruction, so they are increasingly engaging in currency wars of their own to protect their national sovereignty. Is the dollar in trouble as a result?

They seem to advocate the collapse of the USA is necessary so they can make money on gold. Like you said on Global Warming, they want to reduce the population so a good thing would be to stop having children without thinking the birth rate is down so pension are collapsing.

What you have shown is none of this nonsense is necessary for gold to rise and that trade is a tiny fraction of capital flows. Are these people just mindless? The dollar is the lynch pin holding everything together. Here in Europe we have a lot more problems than the USA. BitCoin crashed because the Chinese were fleeing to dollars trying to get their money out of China.

REPLY: This is the classic problem in analysis. You fit the fact to your predetermined conclusion. They keep praying for the collapse of the dollar to make gold go up. The problem is then, if everything collapses, what good is gold if you cannot spend it because nothing has survived?

Very strange theory. BTW, Saddam and Gaddafi did not reject dollars. I even managed money for Muammar Gaddafi TWICE. He had no problem pouring millions of dollars into accounts to trade. I also knew Milton Friedman who advised that a floating exchange rate would provide a check and balance on the system where fixed exchange rates . The trade deficit is offset by the capital account reflecting investment. In fact, if a foreign entity BUYS American debt, that inflow goes into the capital account – not trade account. However, the interest payments go out in the Current Account commonly called the Trade Account. There do not even understand the accounting.

The more foreign investors come into America and the repatriate their profits, the “trade deficit” will appear to get worse and it has NOTHING to do with trade.