Debt is Only Money that Pays Interest | Armstrong Economics

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I listened to your interview with Greg Hunter on USA Watchdog. For the first time, I really understand that debt is money that pays interest. That is the real money supply which is leveraged. It is the interest that keeps expanding the debt and forcing taxes higher and higher until it can’t expand anymore. Is this the end game? I only hope when this house of cards comes tumbling down, you will be there to help. Please keep up your PL ANSWER: We will see interest expenditures exceed military next year in the USA. Only then will people perhaps begin to pay attention to what I have been saying. Can you imagine that the debt of all nations is about to explode with the slightest uptick in interest rates? We will be going over this issue at the WEC. Just look at Italy when rates soared from 0.3% to 2.5% in a single day. When I say interest rates can rise DRAMATICALLY, this is no joke. The Quantitative Easing in Europe and Japan have destroyed their bond markets. The central banks buy everything. The Bank of Japan bragged how they bought 97% of the new debt. Hello! That means there is no market! People always ask me why I do what I do meeting with political governments around the world and I do not charge them a dime! The answer is simple. If I took money from them, then I would be beholding to them. Strangely enough, they call me because they know I will tell the truth. The research we put out is NOT for sale to the highest bidder to be manipulated to support some agenda like they do in everything else right down to Global Warming. Yes, there are governmental agencies that pay for Socrates. That is different from meeting with me personally. I am called (1) because there is no conflict of interest and (2) our computer is tracking the entire world and its forecast cannot be manipulated. So do you want to call someone who you pay to fashion studies to support whatever political agenda you have today? Or do you really want to know when the shit will hit the fan? Paper money used to pay interest during the civil war. Nothing has really changed. Debt is now just money that pays interest. We have returned full circle.
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/economics/debt-is-only-money-that-pays-interest/

Hilarity in NIRP Zone: Italian 2-Year Yield Still Near 0%, as New Government Proposes Haircut for Creditors and Alternate Currency, Markets on “Knife Edge” | Wolf Street

Hilarity in NIRP Zone: Italian 2-Year Yield Still Near 0%, as New Government Proposes Haircut for Creditors and Alternate Currency, Markets on “Knife Edge” | Wolf Street
— Read on wolfstreet.com/2018/05/21/hilarity-in-nirp-zone-italian-2-year-yield-still-near-0-as-new-government-proposes-haircut-for-creditors-and-alternate-currency-markets-on-knife-edge/

Madness

Can Cryptocurrencies Survive? | Armstrong Economics

QUESTION: Do you think Bitcoin can survive? Or has it been a passing fad? MT ANSWER: Bitcoin rose because 70% of the miners were in China. It was NOT simply because energy was cheap. Bitcoin became the LEADING means of money laundering and movement of cash out of China, circumventing their rule of law and currency controls. So do not think for one minute that Bitcoin rose because it was really a wonderful idea? BitCoin was a means to get money out of China when you could not wire money out under currency controls. In Australia, they have adopted the slogan that “CASH IS FOR CRIMINALS.” They will do the same to cryptocurrencies. All they need to do is declare a law that it is illegal for a business to accept cryptocurrency under the excuse that it is money laundering. You just killed the entire industry. The government has the army, tanks, and the guns and soon robot soldiers. Until the army is willing to turn against the hand that feeds them, which is why they are developing robot soldiers, you cannot stand with cryptocurrency and claim some magical right to suppress government and central banks. You need the power grid! Video streaming today is because of the online porn industry (I won’t post a picture of that). They needed to sell their product and they invented video streaming under the mother of all evolution – Necessity. Video streaming has since expanded to everything. Blockchain can be used in many other contexts just a video streaming was not restricted to just porn. The technology can be used for documents and other things besides just cryptocurrencies. I have been skeptical about the claims that cryptocurrencies will replace all money and central banks and end banking creating money out of thin air. That would be recreating the Dark Age. For that to take place there can be no lending. The mortgage market would collapse and the value of the property would fall to less than 10% of its worth becomes the maximum someone has cash as was the case during the Great Depression. This hatred of central banks is stupid. The money they create is less than 10% of the money supply. The bulk is created through lending and fractional banking. These people blame the banks for creating money and never talk about the fact that the real danger is government debt and as they try to service that debt, they keep raising taxes. They are approaching a 40% consumption rate of the total GDP. The bigger the government gets, the lower your standard of living. That is the issue – not cryptocurrencies will magically save the day.
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/cryptocurrency/can-cryptocurrencies-survive/

Interesting summation

Emerging Market Debt Defaults on the Horizon? | Armstrong Economics

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You said that the emerging markets are a huge problem that will lead to a Sovereign Debt Default. Can you elaborate on that statement? Thank you for your insight VU ANSWER: The emerging markets are in far worse shape today than they were even back in 2008. They have issued heaps of dollar-denominated debt to sell particularly to US pension funds seeking higher yield. Some of the buyers have been state-run pension funds. The outstanding Emerging Market debt has exploded by 50%. The majority of the increase in emerging market indebtedness has been in local currency, which was more than $48.5 trillion as of the end of 2016 from around $43 trillion in 2015 and is pressing $50 trillion for 2017. We passed $200 trillion in global sovereign debt back in 2016. All of these dollar bears that yell about the USA at $20 trillion, ignore where the world stands at and the fact the USA is still the only economy holding everything up. Both the Emerging Market and EU countries have used the cheap interest rates to just pile on more debt – not reform. This is why central banks have lost all capability of manipulating interest rates to direct the economy. All of those theories are entirely dependent upon DEMAND management. They may, in theory, be able to manage the “demand” of the consumer, but they have zero influence over government spending. They lower rates to stimulate private demand and simply underwrite government debt. The world comes unglued ONLY with a dollar rally – not a decline. A drop in the dollar would be cheered by governments who would then issue even more debt. A dollar rally will cause the Sovereign Debt Crisis – not a dollar decline. Emerging Market defaults are once again on the timeline. They are economically in far worse shape today than they were in 2008. As interest rates rise, they will blow their budget out and they do NOT have the economies to support the debt repayments (excluding China).
— Read on www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/sovereign-debt-crisis/emerging-market-debt-defaults-on-the-horizon/

It will be like Venezuela 🇻🇪 for many