Martin Armstrong- Debt is destroying everything

Indeed, it is the debt that is now destroying all liberty. There will not be HYPERINFLATION for the bankers are in full control of Congress and the Fed. They are forcing austerity and higher taxes. The excuse is put forth that government will collapse if they cannot pay their debts. The fact that nearly 70% of the total national debt is past interest payments, we are in the last throes of this very dangerous debt implosion. The problem we face, it is EVERY country in Europe including Germany and across the globe to Japan. This is simply the way things are. The bankers are advising against HYPERINFLATION because they do not want funny money. So we have to be concerned about STAGFLATION, rising costs with collapsing economic growth. We are living so far beyond our income that we are living completely unconnected to any productive capacity. The debt can no longer be paid off. It is beyond several generations. Charles Dickens wrote in Little Dorrit that “[Credit is a system whereby] a person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay.” Back in the good old days when the national debt was just $1 trillion instead of $15, President Ronald Reagan made it clear: “We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.” History has proven he was right!

The carpet baggers are coming for us

Martin Armstrong: We are on the verge of a systemic global meltdown and if you do not understand what we face, you will lose your shirt, pants, wife, kids, and the farm. This whole nonsense of HYPERINFLATION PRESUMES government will just continue to print forever. They do not even address the reality that the bondholders are the very people who are demanding to raise taxes and impose austerity to ensure what they are paid back and not with devalued funny money. They warn government that their future borrowing capacity is at stake and unless they do as the bankers say, the world will end for they will no longer be able to borrow continuously. This is the inherent check against HYPERINFLATION that is ignored by all this hype. The average person is being squeeze both in taxes and in interest rates. The banks have positioned themselves as the necessary evil and eliminating Glass-Steagall was critical to their agenda. They can now dominate the financial world pushing more and more debt controlling government and keeping spreads between cost of funds and lending rates at record highs.

On Indian Finance Minister- PC Chidambaram- screw savers to help yourself !

PC's comments are useless. He knows MoF does not control RBI. RBI will not let interest rates fall with such high inflation otherwise from stagflation we will get closer to hyperinflation (?). The wealth disparities will go through the roof. Reckless overambitious fat cats borrowers will benefit. Conservative savers will ofcourse get screwed. It is very regrettable that PC can not come up with any new ideas other than the same old rut. It looks like the whole lesson of US has not filtered down to these chaps !!! Their debt is already downgraded. What will you do when every one is hugely indebted and ET THERE IS NO GROWTH ? The govt borrowing costs will go thru the roof (as no one will lend beyond a limit) and the govt will default (because of high interest payments). Why can't he focus on rapid liquidation of defaulted cos instead?

Judiciary - for whose protection ?

The Indian judiciary will never takes action in time till some 70 year old man goes on a hunger strike and lacs of people come on the roads. As soon as things cool down they too will cool their heels. The Bhopal Gas tradegy victims after 30 years of a court fight got a princely sum ……of few dollars, awarded by the courts ! Any guesses as to how much the bast%$d lawyers got PER HOUR fighting this case? The Italians who shot Indian fishermen were asked to pay peanuts by the court to release their ship. Readers are nuts if they expect justice. Its your own job to take care of yourself. Madoff too was let to operate for SEVERAL years. Man Financial CEO is still moving freely after stealing hundreds of millions off customer dollars. This is like HDFC Securities punting money, loosing and taking customer’s money (as an example only)! Peregrine did the same. Rajat Gupta and Anil Kumar too were cheating on the system. Several are still in the open. So this is a WORLDWIDE problem. The Indian judiciary is only for lawyers to make money. They will NEVER give justice. What is the use of justice after 15-30 years of waiting? The defendant might die by then.

USA versus China

Recently MIT gave innovation awards in India. Guess who owned the innovations? American companies with Indian employees ! So the innovations will always be owned by Americans where ever there are. Look at the quality of American companies IPOs versus Chinese companies IPOs. There is a marked difference in the quality. The Chinese Communist Party members, as the world is beginning to realize, are the biggest crooks and cronies on the planet, looting their own country on a magnitude never seen in human history! To complicate matters, they have no law (much like the Russians). Its just another mafia country. Your business can be stolen at gun point in both the countries. To make matters worse, the Chinese speak like they have genuine ill-will towards Americans and they are totally immersed in arrogance. As the tide turns, may God forgive them for their arrogance. Their stupidity on increasing military spending for false nationalistic notions and spreading nuke techology foolishly to rogue countries will haunt no one else but themselves. Does Pakistan not haunt America? Did Iraq not haunt America? And whose allies were they? History will repeat for the Chinese. As long as America is a capitalist country (regardless of democracy), it stands a good chance to stay on top. But alas....what is the good of all the power and wealth when the richest country has citizens who are gun slinging psychos shooting in movie theaters and public schools ? When New Orleans was in trouble, American citizens proved that they do not need Chinese/ religious bigots as enemies. They suffice among themselves as THE most dangerous pyschos. When Thailand had a flood in the same year (I think), their citizens proved what true wealth really is. They helped each other. In America, they loot and rape minors when people are in distress! America needs to do some introspection. Otherwise Bhutan beats both US and China in true wealth. Atleast your 6 year old daughter can go to watch her Batman movies and come back home alive.

On democracy

In a recent interview, Hans-Hermann Hoppe — the author of the forthcoming The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society and the Politics of Decline — explained: “... it is democracy that is causally responsible for the fatal conditions afflicting us now. The number of productive people is constantly decreasing, and the number of people parasitically consuming the income and wealth of this dwindling number of productive people is increasing steadily. This can’t work in the long run.” Democracy is just a wealth-distribution (and ultimately wealth- destruction) scheme that pits the taxpayers vs. the tax eaters. In the case of Europe, Germany and the Netherlands produce and save, while Greece, Spain, Portugal and the rest consume. Eventually, a bankruptcy will bring to light the truth about democracy, which, Hoppe explains: “...is nothing more than an especially insidious form of communism, and that the politicians who have wrought this immoral and economic madness and who have thereby enriched themselves personally (never, of course, being liable for the damages they have caused!), are nothing more than a despicable bunch of communist crooks.” Democracy, simply, in Hoppe’s view, decivilizes society. Civilized people save and plan so as to take care of themselves and their families in the present and future. Fiscal conservatism and prudence is valued in a nondemocratic society, as are sound ethics. Democracy undoes the tendency for people to act cooperatively and responsibly. Politicians constantly look to appease voters with more benefits to care for them from cradle to grave, so as to win the next election. At the same time, the bureaucracy that hands out the benefits grows larger and larger and is unaccountable to anyone — especially voters. As the old saying goes, “No matter who wins, the government is always elected.” In order to distribute these benefits, the government must violate property rights. Government produces nothing; it must take from one group in order to give to another. Hoppe makes the case that individuals are powerless to protect themselves from government theft and view taxation as they would natural disasters. This alters the behavior of producers, who will tend to be less future-oriented, given that government is constantly stealing from them. This continuous theft, overtly through taxation and subversively by way of inflation, raises the producers’ time preferences, and they divert resources from producing future goods to present consumption. Over time, democracy leads to a lower level of capital being accumulated. With less capital, society is not only poorer, but less civilized. In Democracy: The God That Failed, Hoppe explains: “if government property-rights violations take their course and grow extensive enough, the natural tendency of humanity to build an expanding stock of capital and durable consumer goods and to become increasingly more farsighted and provide for evermore distant goals may not only come to a standstill, but may be reversed by a tendency toward decivilization: Formerly provident providers will be turned into drunks or daydreamers, adults into children, civilized men into barbarians and producers into criminals.” So what has kept this destructive force — democracy — alive for so long? Ironically, capitalism. Hoppe responds: “That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation. And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic ‘miracles’ would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism.” So many people mistakenly tie democracy and capitalism together, when in fact democracy keeps capitalism from making all producers prosperous. Laissez-faire is not a matter of electing the right person; it means simply “leave it alone,” something politicians cannot seem to do.

Deflation in progress...the healing

Livemint: Prices of Raw Goods Plunge on Slowdown Slump renews debate over longevity of the commodity super-cycle; glut of raw materials around the world The sudden economic downdraught has caused one of the biggest and broadest declines in commodities prices since the financial crisis, surprising producers and creating a glut of raw materials around the world. From crude oil to copper to cotton, prices were down an average of 9% since late February, based on the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index. Crude oil prices, well above $100 a barrel just two months ago, now fetch $84.96 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Cotton prices have tumbled 22% so far this year. The benchmark steel price in the US for hot-rolled coil is down 13% in two months, according to commodity price reporting firm Platts. The declines mark a sharp turnaround from just a few months ago, when economists were optimistic about the prospects for a US economic recovery, China still seemed to be humming, and commodity supplies were generally tight.