Showing posts with label Pensions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pensions. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

They will continue to raise the age and reduce the benefits especially healthcare.


Italian Pension Crisis – a Blueprint for the Rest of Us


Back in 2011, the government Mario Montis instituted a pension reform deciding the Fonero right. Italy has to impose this reform to reduce its debt to comply with the Maschrict Treaty. The Social Affairs Minister Elsa Fonero, increased in the retirement age completely abolishing early retirement and eliminated indexing pensions to inflation above a threshold income level. These overall stricter pension conditions have been leading sources of the political discontent with government in Italy that led to the political outcome this year. 
Now the newly elected government ran on a platform promising pension reform which is the general expectation in Italy. The five-star movement and the Lega Nord had both advocated for an increase in pensions and a reduction in the age of entry. Of course, to re-institute that will cost almost 100 billion euros from the outset. The continued cost will probably wipe out Italy entirely. There has been a strong undercurrent of communism there for decades. They will rise up again and demand to go after the rich and this will ensure the economic collapse. There is little hope without reforming the monetary system. The economic pressure will also lead many to move to separate from the EU when that clashes with their domestic social agenda.
We will see the same tactics applied worldwide. Pensions will no longer be indexed to inflation as one means of escaping political liability. They will continue to raise the age and reduce the benefits especially healthcare.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Norway – The Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the World- exception to the pension crisis.




QUESTION: Martin,
There are several news stories this past week reporting that Norway’s pension fund has reached $1 trillion dollars, or $190,000 per citizen. Are there some countries like Norway that will survive the coming pension crisis?

Thank You,

Alex
ANSWER: Not many. They are far and few between because Europe, Asia, and North America (USA/Canada) as a whole have only made promises rather than funding. Norway is the largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world.  Norway has gotten where it is because they do NOT follow the brain-dead crowd of government debt is safe. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has been one of the earliest to shift investment from public sector bonds to equities. They have risen to the largest fund in the world for recognizing the shift from public to private sector investments. Norway is the exception to the pension crisis.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Quantity of Money theory is simply not correct. Govt always seeks to turn people against one another in order to retain power – DIVIDE & CONQUER.

Is There a Way Out of This Financial Mess?


We need to open the door to the future but that is only possible by understanding the past. Paul Volcker back in 1979 in his Rediscovery of the Business Cycle said:
“Not much more than a decade ago, in what now seems a more innocent age, the ‘New Economics’ had become orthodoxy. Its basic tenet, repeated in similar words in speech after speech, in article after article, was described by one of its leaders as ‘the conviction that business cycles were not inevitable, that government policy could and should keep the economy close to a path of steady real growth at a constant target rate of unemployment. … But it was not until the events of 1974 and 1975, when a recession sprung on an unsuspecting world with an intensity unmatched in the post-World War II period, that the lessons of the ‘New Economics’ were seriously challenged.”
It gives me no pleasure to point out all our problems. My objective is straight forward. If we understand what is unfolding and why, then we can apply the correct solutions rather than turn toward more government authoritarian control – which will be the preferred solution. Make no mistake about this, we are in a battle for our freedom. This era of “New Economics” was set in motion by Karl Marx who advocated that government could control the economy and thus create Utopia. While Russia embraced the Communism of Marx, the West adopted his position trying to be just a little bit pregnant. We rejected everything that Adam Smith discovered and the Invisible Hand, rushing into Socialism for it empowered government rather than the private sector and Laissezfaire. Government always pointed to the rich to justify raising taxes to help people, but like fake charities, the bulk of the money goes directly to government.

Our current crisis, therefore, originates with government not the private sector or the hated rich (defined as anyone who earns more that the person listening). Of course we need government which provides a stable rule of law and provides a benevolent administration truly FOR THE PEOPLE & BY THE PEOPLE rather than authoritarian, which assumes we are stupid and only they know best.
This is a battle to the death of Marxism, which in all its various flavors, empowers government that always seeks to turn people against one another in order to retain power – DIVIDE & CONQUER. Because government is really a tornado that just keeps growing consuming an ever larger portion of GDP that surrounds it, we are faced with sharply reduced economic growth which is now colliding with the new age of technology further reducing employment because of taxes.
Constantly arguing class warfare and pretending that government can raise the minimum wage as if this will somehow benefit society rather than eliminate their taxes, only furthers the dangers we face ahead. The rising taxation upon labor creates the incentive to replace workers with robots. Even the government is trying to replace soldiers with robots. This is a trend that is on all sides. Russia has its robot soldiers, and the USA has been following suit. Using drones carrying machine guns is a dangerous development for they can be turned against the people in civil unrest. Those who think that would never happen need only look at Barcelona where the Madrid government just sent in 16,500 soldier to invade Catalonia  and stop any Independence Referendum or the Bonus Army of 1932 that the USA sent troops in killing civilians.
Unfortunately, we are in a battle for our freedom and that of our posterity. Governments are broke. Everything is moving against them from every possible angle. They borrow with no intention of paying anything off and are blind to the trend they have been caught up in. How can we make them see that this is not going to work nor will it end nicely?
We need to stop the borrowing, we need to drastically reduce the size of government and various departments should be PRIVATIZED because government is incapable of managing anything for its own self-interest always stands in the way. At least then any pensions offered would actually be there for private companies cannot default and then refuse to prosecute themselves as does government. There are simply no checks and balance when prosecutions are a political decision and judges are political appointments.
When paper money first began after the Revolution during the Civil War, it paid interest to entice the people to accept it. Then we adopted the idea put forth in this New Economics was that government could “stimulate” by borrowing and that would be less inflationary than printing. This became the Quantity of Money Theory, which has been proven to be complete wrong.
While Draghi has expanded the money supply for almost 10 years, deflation has prevailed proving once and for all that the Quantity of Money theory is simply not correct.  This entire idea of borrowing would be less inflationary is just insane. There was once upon a time when you could not borrow against government debt and that was the entire foundation of borrowing was less inflationary. Since then, we have reached at times 70% of the entire national debt was composed of accumulative interest expenditures. So the money never went to build roads, schools, or help the poor as politicians pretend. Now government debt can be posted as collateral for anything so now debt has become money that just pays interest. So we are only fooling ourselves. Taxes have risen as deficits expand because government thinks inflation is the evil danger as Merkel has championed in Germany. All that governments have been doing is to systemically reduce the standard of living and job creation. Nobody will even look at what is unfolding before our eyes and ask – What is going on?
Until we are ready to review this theory of “New Economics” and the Quantity of Money Theory and deal with it, our future is doomed. If we cannot start a dialog, there is no hope. The press is bought and paid for and is no longer truly free to protect our rights. The media is not there in our corner anymore. They are part of the entire problem.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Rise in government on average to about 40% of GDP means it is suppressing the economic growth.

Britain to Raise Retirement Age to 68 to Try to Save Pensions




The Work and pensions secretary David Gauke have revealed that parliament proposes to raise the pension age to 68. The pension crisis that is brewing throughout Western culture reflects the insanity of lowering interest rates to try to “stimulate” the economy. This policy has set the stage for the next great crisis brewing, which will expose the postwar Socialism is just a total failure.
The rise in government on average to about 40% of GDP means that this is consuming the wealth of every nation and suppressing the economic growth. This is forcing people to work longer to survive and hence they do not retire quickly into the sunset holding on to jobs that then in turn cause higher unemployment in the next two generations. There is not much we can do about this because politicians will never act to prevent a crisis, they perfect to act only when a crisis emerges. Consequently, the Pension Crisis is simply unavoidable.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

You cannot reverse a recession/depression by lowering interest rates

Navigating the Business Cycle = Prosperity


The key to the future is understanding (1) the past and (2) how everything functions. Sure there is a risk of a Dark Age after 2032. Hopefully, we can learn from the past to push things in the right direction at least for once. For whatever reason, the people who like to run government are the least qualified. They seem to be people who just like to order others around.
Since they have typically never had a job in the real world, they remain clueless about how to really deal with society no less the economy. This last crisis is the classic example. We have people in power who do not understand the past no less how things really function. As a result, someone comes up with this idea of lower interest rates to stimulate demand and NEVER even once do they review history and asked – Hey; did this every work before?

I find it truly amazing that I can even write about how lowering interest rates failed to stimulate the economy for almost 10 years in Europe, and yet people want to argue that somehow I am wrong. They never review the past and offer only opinion often taught in school as if that makes it absolute doctrine. Interest rates NATURALLY drop in a recession/depression because demand declines as people lose confidence in the future.
You cannot reverse a recession/depression by lowering interest rates. Until people BELIEVE they can make a profit in the future, they will never borrow as long as the horizon appears dark as dismal.
This solution from the 2007-2009 crisis of lowering interest rates has undermined the Pension funds. This has set the stage for the collapse in government as pensions being to fail first in the state/province level of government and municipalities.
I’m sorry. This is not Nobel Prize winning theories here. All you have to do is just open your eyes, shut your ears to propaganda, and look at the history. Just ask what happens and let the charts show you without political bias.
Throughout history, the solution to every crisis sets the stage for the next crisis. This is what happens when we have unqualified people running the joint.
The key to making money to secure your future is to shed all bias and just let the markets dictate the outcome.

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Pension structure - They assumed that population would always increase

Germany Pensions System Crisis


The German publication DWN has come out and warned that the German Pensions system is collapsing. They wrote:
The core problem of the German economy and society is miserable demography. A positive development, namely the increasing longevity of the population, is an extremely negative groundbreaking, namely a small number of children. This is reflected in one of the lowest birth rates in the world – and this has been the case for decades. The record-breaking birth rate is by no means rooted in a biological, but in deeper social causes and inadequate policies at different stages. One consequence is a pension system that is not sustainably financed , because the ratio of contributors and receivers will drastically deteriorate. 
The very design of pensions has been universal. They assumed that population would always increase and thus pensions would be funded by taxing the current generation to pay for the previous. The declining birthrate and the increase in longevity has blown out the pensions systems on a global scale. In the case of Germany, this is a primary reason behind accepting refugees with hopes of making up the decline in the birth rate. The problem has been the lack of a desire to assimilate when we are looking at 70% of refugees are males and are really just economic migrants lacking skills and language.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Central banks are trapped. End of Social Security program 2021.772 (October 9th, 2021) ?

Negative Interest Rates Destroying the World Economy


QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I think I am starting to see the light you have been shining. Negative interest rates really are completely insane. I also now see that months after you wrote about central banks were trapped, others are not just starting to entertain the idea. Is this distinct difference in your views that eventually become adopted with time because you were a hedge fund manager?
Just curious;
Bob
Summers-Larry-Career

ANSWER: I believe the answer is rather simple. How can anyone pretend to be analysts if they have never traded? It would be like a man writing a book explaining how it feels to give birth. You cannot analyze what you have never done. It is just impossible. Those who cannot teach and those who can just do. Negative interest rates are fueling deflation. People have less income to spend so how is this beneficial? The Fed always needed 2% inflation. The father of negative interest rates is Larry Summers. He teaches or has been in government. He is not a trader and is clueless about how markets functions. I warned that this idea of negative interest rates was very dangerous.

Yes, I have warned that the central banks are trapped. Their QE policies have totally failed. They have lost all ability to manage the economy even in theory. They have bought the bonds and are unable to ever sell them. If they reverse their policy, government debt explodes, if the refuse to reverse this policy of negative interest rates they will see a massive capital flight from government to the private sector once the MAJORITY realize they are incapable of any control. They played a very dangerous game and have lost. It appears we are facing the collapse of Social Security which began August 14th, 1935 (1935.619). We will probably see the end of this program 2021.772 (October 9th, 2021), or about 89 weeks into the next business cycle.


Roman-Army

We have government addicted to borrowing and if rates rise, then will go bust. We have debt which is unsustainable the further you move away from the United States which is the core economy. Unfunded pensions destroyed the Roman Empire. We are collapsing in the very same manner and for the very same reason.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Calpers- You just can’t make up this stuff. Selling stocks and buying what amounts to a 5000 year low in rates (high in bond prices)!




CalPERS – Buying the High in Bonds? Oh Boy.


calpers.530x298
CalPERS, California Pension Plan for government workers, is adopting policies that demonstrate that they are incapable of managing money. They cannot handle the “volatility” in stocks so they are moving into bonds, and whatever shortfall they produce should be made up with higher taxes. If you are in California, my condolences. This is a strategy that will cause more government pension funds across the country to follow their lead. You just can’t make up this stuff. Selling stocks and buying what amounts to a 5000 year low in rates (high in bond prices). And you wonder how steep the cliff might be on the other side of the ECM? No, we do not advise CalPERS. I imagine government entities will not use our service until they have no choice.

Friday, July 17, 2015

CalPERS Posts Gain of Just 2.4%


calpers.530x298
CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System) posted a profit of just 2.4% for its fiscal year (which ended on June 30) that was well below its 7.5% investment target. This is illustrating the crisis emerging in pensions. Even the pensions that were funded are now underfunded because they counted for so long on 8% bond yields. Interest rates were lowered to help banks and this set the stage for the next real crisis post-2015.75. You cannot manipulate interest rates to help banks without screwing someone else.
Now the pension crisis looming on the horizon is becoming a major concern for the future. The pension funds are either not funded or seriously underfunded. Either way, when it comes to government workers we will see tax increases that will destroy the economy, transforming many cities into the next Detroit. What really crushed Detroit was when the pension payment exceeded 50% of total revenue. Pensions will continue to rise, crowding out current expenses.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Civil Forefeiture Laws are Funding Pensions

 



NYC-8
I have explained that the fall of Rome was accelerated by a trend where generals would move to usurp the throne and troops would support these ventures. Why would the military turn against their own people? The reason was simple. It was all about their profits and pensions. During the 3rd century, numerous generals were declared “emperor” by the troops. Any city that opposed them was sacked. Maximinus I laid siege to Aquileia. The troops got rich sacking Roman cities.
We have the same problem emerging today. As state and city coffers are empty, they are using the laws to raise money. In New Jersey they have placed cameras at red lights. One gives out some 30,000 tickets per month. One friend got a ticket there because they stopped for the light about 6″ past the white line on the street.
They are also using the Civil Asset Forfeiture laws to confiscate valuables in NYC. The money is going to fund pensions. This is the downside of what we face. This is turning man against his brother until society no longer functions. All because politicians promise the moon, yet fund nothing