debt

Qatar to help Turkey by $15 Billion Loan | Armstrong Economics

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

There has been a lot of lobbying behind the curtain going on asking Qatar to change its position and help Turkey for the IMF would not be able to come to the rescue. Sources are saying that Qatar will help Turkey to the tune of $15 billion for now. Those lobbying have included the United States. This will help ease things a little with Turkey.
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/turkey/qatar-to-help-turkey-by-15-billion-loan/

The Turks will be debt slaves

US Border Seizes $500,000 Inheritance Mailed from Canada to USA | Armstrong Economics

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

An Ottawa man, David Saikaley, acting as executor of a will obtained a bank draft for $500,000 and mailed it to family members in the United States to settle an estate. Bank checks are regarded as “cash” and the money was seized by customs. Almost a year later, the money is still stuck at the border. This is highlighting the Hunt for Money which has simply gone totally insane. Governments now assume ALL money is illegal gains and they will confiscate 100% forcing the burden to you to PROVE it is yours and was obtained legally. If you are ever going to send money to someone overseas, you can mail a check from your account, but NEVER get a bank check/draft. If you are in the USA and try to wire money to an individual overseas, you will quickly discover the limit is not $10,000, but $3,000. NEVER send anything of value internationally using FedEx. They will be extremely difficult to deal with, to say the least in trying to get things through customs. Even when the valuable item is not subject to tax, they want you to still fill out all sorts of forms to receive it plus give them your Tax ID number so the government will know you just received something worth whatever. As if that is not bad enough internationally, now they want a PHOTO ID just to mail something domestically. What comes next? A DNA sample because the PHOTO ID is a possible fake? Where does all this insanity end? The only way to end this confiscation of money from innocent people is to ELIMINATE income taxes and customs duties. The various governments are becoming so desperate for cash, we are losing ALL our liberty just for the privilege of being born. Whatever happened to the rights that were articulated by Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/taxes/us-border-seizes-500000-inheritance-mailed-from-canada-to-usa/

Government debt has intended consequences

Merkel Extracted €2.9 billion in Interest from Greece | Armstrong Economics

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Angela Merkel promised the German people that she would not just hand Greeks money as she does with the refugee, no, she would make them pay dearly for allowing Goldman Sachs to structure deals to get them in the Eurozone. Indeed, she has kept her word. In response to a parliamentary question from the Green Party, the German government had to release figures which revealed that Merkel has acted more like a loan shark making €2.9 billion in interest payments on Greek bonds since 2010 despite the ECB moving rates negative. Merkel bought Greek government bonds as part of an EU deal to prop up the struggling Greek economy since 2010. The bonds were bought by the Bundesbank and then transferred to the federal treasury. This certainly gives new meaning to the pictures of Greek citizens paying dearly for the shenanigans of politicians. The Protestant Reformation is where we draw the line with the birth of Capitalism. The reason we draw the line there is because previously, the Catholic Church had forbidden what Merkel has just done – exploit someone when they are down and out. It was called the Sin of Usury. You were supposed to “help” a fellow in his time of need. The Catholics would have been excommunicated if they engaged in banking. The Protestant Reformation was funded by wealthy Catholic merchants who wanted to compete with the Jews and enter the banking field. The Protestant Reformation thus did not adopt the Sin of Usury so Christians became bankers and could borrow as well as lend. That is where the economy began to be leveraged and this Capitalism was born.
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/greece/merkel-extracted-e2-9-billion-in-interest-from-greece/

Germany is now turned into a bank extorting interest from its clients

Do We Really Borrow From Only Ourselves? Does the Debt/GDP Ratio Means Anything? | Armstrong Economics

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, the famous economist Paul Krugman says that debt is ok when we owe it to ourselves. He calls it “deficit scolding” as he wrote in the New York Times. Would you like to comment on this statement? GH ANSWER: Paul Krugman seems to lack any historical understanding of how nations rise and fall. Anyone who claims debt is OK and can be infinite because “we” owe it to ourselves is clueless. He wrote in the article you referred to that “we have a more or less stable ratio of debt to GDP, and no hint of a financing problem.” The debt to GDP ratio is interesting but totally irrelevant. China’s debt to GDP stands at 250%, the USA at 103%, and Greece buckled at 186%. Obviously, this ratio is rather meaningless as a forecasting tool. I have published this chart on call money rates previously. In my studies, I quickly discovered that you cannot reduce the cause of any effect to a single issue. We can see that the peak in call money rates took place during 1899 and it was the lowest in 1929 when the Great Depression hit. You can’t even claim that if interest rates hit some magical level the stock market would crash. The world is far more complicated than just this one-dimensional approach to everything. Capital flows were fleeing the USA in 1899 so interest rates went higher with a shortage of money. In 1929, the capital was in the USA for it rushed here because of World War I. The inflow of capital created an excess so the peak in call money rates was lower than 1899 when capital was fleeing. We even have the world of President Grover Cleveland from the Panic of 1893 commenting on the net capital outflow because of the “unsound” financial policy of the Silver Democrats. The greatest mistake in the analysis is always trying to reduce any effect to a single cause. The world is a complex mechanism. It is indeed like a rainforest. There are countless species and each is interconnected. Exterminate one and you will find that it was the food source for another which dies. That species, in turn, was the food source for yet another and so on. The world economy is equally complex. This is why I say we are ALL CONNECTED. Create a war in one region, we may not be involved with troops, but the capital flows shift. Everything is interconnected. There is no single cause and effect. Looking at GDP debt ratios is pointless. This is also why fundamental analysis is notoriously wrong. The majority tries to reason the future based upon this one-dimensional analysis and they NEVER got it right. I have posted this video clip of Larry Summers before. He is asked why can’t you guys ever get it right just once. His excuse is blunt. The economy is extraordinarily complex like the weather. He argues nobody can forecast the direction. For anyone to say that debt can be infinite when we owe it just to ourselves is a fool. At times, 70% of the national debt has been accumulating interest payments. A national debt is the single greatest way we transfer wealth among citizens as well as nations. I kept yelling on Capitol Hill that Quantitative Easing would fail, it would not “stimulate” the economy for a very simple reason. The assumption that the Fed would buy 30-year bonds and then the banks would lend into real estate with lower interest rates was crazy. The debt is NOT owned by exclusively Americans. China was smart and it sold the 30-year bonds and swapped to 5-year or less paper. The money was transferred out of the country. To pretend this is a debt we “owe” ourselves is just fantasy. Even domestically, if I am the lender and you are the borrower, then you are paying me because you borrowed the money. Your wealth is transferred to me because you could not wait to buy something for cash. Sorry, I believe Adam Smith was someone who tried to observe HOW things actually work instead of trying to support a predetermined conclusion.
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/economics/do-we-really-borrow-from-just-ourselves-does-debt-gdp-ratio-means-anything/