Prolonged economic recession in Europe since 2007 as we approach a 13-year decline in 2020

Gold Becoming Part of Money Laundering Laws

Posted Sep 17, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

The hunt for money is moving into high gear in Germany. Prior to 2017, it was possible to buy gold anonymously in quantities up to €15,000. In 2017, this limit was reduced to €10,000. Now, Merkel has drastically reduced this limit to just €2,000 beginning in 2020. Any transaction greater than that amount requires the buyer to prove their identity and give their data to the gold trader.

While Merkel has allowed the refugees to pour into Germany, denying there are terrorists hidden among them, she has justified this reduction in anonymous gold purchases by arguing against money laundering to stop terrorism. This means that terrorist would be buying gold inside Germany, which on the other hand she denies letting them in to start with.

Merkel is not satisfied with imposing just a price limitation. She also wants to introduce the 50-gram rule, which would apply regardless of price. For physical gold buyers, this means they will not be able to buy a 50-gram ingot (1.60754 troy ounces) without the gold trader taking personal data and saving it for five years. This certainly applies if you tried to buy just two one ounces coins.

Merkel has formally justified this change in the laws on gold as a step in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. The government studies show that out of 77,252 cases registered in 2018 that suspected terrorism financing, only 175 cases involved precious metals.

Terrorism has been a real windfall for governments since 9/11. They have increased their powers globally and probably send thank you cards to the terrorists for handing them the excuse to create total financial surveillance that they use in the hunt for taxes.

The Merkel government has been making a concerted effort to introduce a total surveillance state and track the finances of its citizens. There is chaos in Europe with negative and punitive interest rates, high bank charges, and a declining euro. All of this is mixed with a prolonged economic recession in Europe since 2007 as we approach a 13-year decline in 2020. More and more Europeans are looking for ways to safely and anonymously invest their savings, which have been under direct assault by the government. This has been leading to the hoarding of US dollars and now the change in legislation on gold is only going to increase the switch to dollars

Currency swings can make a bad investment look good

Understanding Canadian Real Estate

Posted Sep 17, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty; I am trying to understand your comments that the Canadian real estate has peaked in real terms. Does this mean it will still rise as the currency declines as a hedge against the government in your shift from public to private confidence?

HG

ANSWER: Canada will benefit from the capital inflows to North America which will not be as intense as those into the USA because of your government’s punitive actions against foreign investors and its sheer stupidity in understand international trends.

What I mean in “real terms” relates to the Canadian investor in terms of purchasing power. Here is an illustration of our Canadian Real Estate Index in both Canadian dollars and in Chinese yuan. You can see that from the Chinese perspective, Canadian real estate is still rising as a hedge against their currency. This means that the crazy laws being imposed against foreign investors and Justin Trudeau’s latest campaign promise to impose a 1% national 1% tax on foreigners owning property in Canada which he says will be applied to speculation and vacancy on applicable residential properties owned by “non-resident, non-Canadians.” Once he imposes the tax, you can bet it will rise rapidly from 1% because there is a complete misunderstanding of what is driving the real estate markets.

Here is the Canadian Real Estate Index in terms of Euro. Again, we are witnessing breakouts that are stronger in foreign currency than in Canadian. As we head into the Monetary Crisis Cycle, capital flight from Asia and Europe will continue and this will distort the profits they think they are making in real estate not understanding that they are playing the currencies.

Nevertheless, the is all part of the shift from Public to Private assets. While the “real terms” perspective of “value” may not be making new highs in purchasing power, this is still part of the shift from public assets. Some people will buy equities, others will go into real estate, and still others gold or other precious metals. The end game is to divest yourself of public assets and stay away from “fixed rate” investments where you are the creditor. Borrowers should be fixing their loans.

I worked with auto manufacturers in Japan and Germany. Their biggest problem was misunderstanding currency. A  911S Porsche in 1970 sold for $8,675 (31,579DM). In 1980, the same year the German automaker pulled its Turbo edition 911 in the United States, a new fifth-generation 911 cost $27,700 (46,507DM). The appreciation in dollars was 219% compared to an increase in Deuschemarks of only 47%. This created the image that German cars were better than American because they held their value. It was currency – not quality.

The majority of people just look at the price and do not understand that the currency swings can make a bad investment look good. You must always look at this from an international perspective.

The Right to Vote Extends to Dead People?

Posted Sep 16, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: I assume you have seen the news how Florida has 53,000 dead people voting. Do you have a solution to the voter fraud?

JS

ANSWER: It is very simple. Voting should be done online, and voters should use their Social Security number which is required for just about everything these days. You cannot get on a plane without proving who you are. Why does the same not apply to voting?

If we voted online more people would vote, and you could easily check if the person is still alive or not. For the poor who have no computer, they could go to the local center or library and login there. They still have a Social Security number.

Aliens who live in the USA with green cards have a Social Security number. My view is if you are here legally and paying taxes, then you are subject to US laws and should be entitled to vote. If you are an alien and rob a store, you still enjoy the Constitutional rights. Those rights should apply to voting since it would be taxation without representation.

That eliminates dead people and illegal aliens.

Romans controlled the mines and simply minted coins to fund the government and its programs.

Can Government Prevent a Major Debt Crisis?

Posted Sep 12, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Hi Martin
I recently stumped upon a documentary on Netflix about you and your model.
I then went on and watched some YouTube videos.
To me it makes totally sense that taxation does not work, but how can we change it. Do we need to become politicians?
We have a very high tax in Denmark. Base level around 39 percent and top level around 60. So it’s eminent to change this in Denmark.
We have a quite new political party here called Liberal alliance. They promote a flat tax of 40 percent, and I think that makes sense…. But, they had such bad election and are so tiny now, they have no influence.
Everyone say we need taxes to have welfare. So how do we go from 60 to 0 percent in tax without sacrifice our welfare. And how do we convince people that it Wan work….. It will be some very tough months or years once the tax is not flowing to the hospitals etc?
I hope you can elaborate on these things.
DB

ANSWER: In building the model, I assembled data on everything I could find and then put it all together to see how and what made the world tick. I investigated tax rates to see how civilizations operated. I investigated what types of governments worked best and what always collapsed into oligarchies, then tyrannical entities, before collapsing into dust.

I read many contemporary historians directly rather than the modern interpretation of events, which have NEVER been unbiased. I discovered that inevitably people interpreted the past with a modern context. I found one of the funniest to be when they named the city of Philadelphia after the Greek meaning “brotherly love.” The founders were devoted Christians, and in their view, they loved their brother as they loved themselves. However, the real meaning in Greek meant incest — the brother was fooling around with his sister. Understanding the meaning in which words were used is critical to understanding history. You can NEVER read it in terms of a modern context.

The Romans generally had a 7% tax. They also had welfare. The difference was that they had NO central bank and NO national debt. They controlled the mines and simply minted coins to fund the government and its programs. The Romans controlled the mine Rup Tinto in Spain, which they won from Carthage in the Punic War. The amount of silver they mined from that location funded the government for decades.

The debasement began in 64 AD under Nero when Rome experienced the great fire and Nero had to rebuild the city. As the new silver was declining, we find the debasement. It was not an issue of vote for me and I will give you this or that. The debasement begins because the government funded itself with new money and the sources were running dry.

The problem we face is that it would have been far less inflationary to print the money than borrow it. We have a debt crisis that cannot be paid and the accumulative interest expenditures rose to reach at times even 70% of the national debt. Now that they have discovered NEGATIVE interest rates, they think they discovered a new way to tax people indirectly. They think we are too stupid to realize this is even a tax.

But fear not. We are heading into a Monetary Crisis of untold proportions. If the governments do not listen, they will create the biggest civil unrest in all of history. This is the collapse of socialism, for they have promised everything, funded nothing, and cannot keep raising taxes without causing the economy to collapse. This will undermine their entire tax system.

There are ways to deal with this crisis if we have the courage to first admit that we have a crisis. That is step one.

Japan Still Declining into 2021

Posted Sep 11, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: When I saw your blog saying 2019 will be really crazy and chaotic year for Japan (Feb 2019), I was curious how bad it could be. It is always amazing to see how you and your Socrates turning point manifest in the real world. I was astonished when Japan restricted exports of critical materials used in South Korea’s high-tech semiconductor industry right after G20 Osaka Summit. A trade war is generally initiated by a deficit country. This decision was not only opposite but might lead to devastate their own industry and disrupt the world IT markets. It seems to be a political stance for the upcoming Japan Upper House election but connects further deep into friction between Korea and Japan history. Insane year for Japan indeed, thank you for your great work and efforts providing new perspectives to the world.

Q: With all that sovereign debt how do you see the future of Japan will be?

HJ Kim

ANSWER: Our forecast was covering economics, which then causes political responses. As I previously reported, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda publicly stated that it may maintain ultra-low rates for a further period of well over a year. However, he also warned against the idea of propping up the economy through unlimited money or printing to finance government spending.

The Bank of Japan is trapped. Its holdings of the national debt have reached nearly 50%. The BOJ modified its forward guidance or pledge on how it will guide future monetary policy. It stated that current very low interest rates will continue at least until the spring of 2020. Without the BOJ buying government debt, there is ZERO hope that interest rates will rise dramatically and a financial crisis will be in the making. The BOJ will keep rates low for an extended period of time for they have no choice. There is no way out of this nightmare and the real inflationary cycle comes when the majority wake up and realize that the emperor has no clothes, and that means the central bankers worldwide.

There remains a capital flight from Japan and the more they keep these policies up, our model does not show that their economy will recover. We are looking at the absolute low perhaps forming as early and the middle of 2020 but more likely into mid-2021. This will prompt the Monetary Crisis to spark political chang

USA had TARP, In Europe, the design of the euro was to deny creating a national European debt, therefore there could be no bailout

EU Parliament - How they Protect the Bankers

Posted Sep 10, 2019 by Martin Armstr

A number of people have asked me to comment on Bloom’s speech on the floor of the European Parliament. He is incorrect in attributing the insolvency of the European banks to fractional banking. They have blown themselves up because of derivative exposure, not actual lending.

The US banks survived and have prospered BECAUSE of TARP. The US government bought the toxic financial waste they created so the bankers got away with it again. In Europe, the design of the euro was to deny creating a national European debt, therefore there could be no bailout because that would mean the money would flow from one country to the another to bail out their banks. Hence, European banks still have the tonic financial waste on their books from 2007.

The central banks are ARTIFICIALLY manipulating interest rates down to try to save the banks, but this Quantitative Easing has not only failed, it has set the stage for the next financial disaster — the collapse of government pensions and private pension funds. These funds are regulated and it is mandated that they have government debt for that is “risk free,” so they claim.

The bankers sell the government debt so the politicians cannot let the bankers fail for they also fund their elections. This entire mess is not going to be held off much longer.

Russia trade which took down Long-Term Capital Management

The Club & Why the Majority Must be Always Wrong

Posted Sep 6, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I did my own research on the 1998 Russian collapse. All the big names lost billions. Even the New York Times reported that George Soros lost $2 billion. You were the only one who made money so it made sense that you were named hedge fund manager of the year in 1998. My question is this. Since all the big names were involved in the Russia trade which took down Long-Term Capital Management, is this why you call them the “club” for they all do seem to be involved in the same trade?

DU

ANSWER: Correct. This is also why they try to prevent people from listening to me. They are convinced that the reason they lost was that I was too influential and had too many institutions listening to me. That absurdity is what they ran to the government with, so I was then accused of “manipulating” the world economy. They all lost after I warned them and refused to join in their takeover of Russia I believe I was given the nod by the Clintons. They told me they had the IMF in their back pocket and they would continue to fund Russia. I warned them that the IMF got their funding from governments and they were not going to back it.

The Russian financial crisis hit Russia on the 17th of August 1998. Our World Economic Conference was held in London that June. Our forecast was then published by the London Financial Times on the front page of the second section.

They did not give up. After they got the Federal Reserve to bail them out, they then focused on setting up Yeltsin and got him to divert $7 billion in IMF loans. Even CNN reported the money was stolen from the IMF.

CNN Theft of IMF Money – Sep. 1, 1999

Edmond Safra’s Republic National Bank ran to the Department of Justice and then reported that a $7 billion money laundering scheme just went through Bank of New York. They attempted to blackmail Yeltsin to step down and appoint their guy; Yeltsin then turned to Putin. It was the US bankers, with the support of the Clintons, who first tried to interfere into Russian elections. This is why Putin was not friendly to Clinton and said Mueller could come to question anyone in Russia he liked, provided Russia could question Americans including Bill Browder who was Safra’s partner in Hermitage Capital.

While “The Forecaster” was shown even on TV throughout Europe, Canada, and Asia, the question is WHY was it banned in the United States? If it was just a conspiracy theory, they could care less. When something strikes closer to home, they ban it.