Is US Economy Turning Down?
The first quarter numbers showed a contraction with first reading of gross domestic product (GDP) coming in at an annualized rate of just 0.1%. This steep decline has been due to weather. Our own office was closed way too often as we were forced to work from home. Once the snow cleared. hotels are full most of the time and trying to get dinner reservations these days at decent restaurants requires more than a week notice. That goes for NYC as well.
Nevertheless, the growth is low yet the US economy is not hurting yet. We are not in a real boom, we have assets shifting on a grand scale. The IRS is now considering taxing frequent flyer miles and any bonus points you get from hotels. Then there is the Obamacare Cadillac Tax coming that will tax all benefits from an employer.
I have pointed out that unemployment before the entire 1929 event stood at 5%. We are nearly 12%. Therefore, when this turns down, we will see much higher unemployment than anyone can imagine and this is likely in real terms exceed the 25% high of the Great Depression.
So the First Quarter number are expected. But keep in mind growth less than 2.5% is not worth writing about long-term anyway.
One World Currency- From their Crack in the Wall
QUESTION: Marty, I want to thank you for saving me from the nonsense of the goldbugs. They go on and on about one-world governments and manipulations and that is their excuse for being wrong. They cannot understand even what is a reserve currency or that it is merely the economic language as you say. They are really dangerous people who keep saying you are some idiot because money has to be backed and enforced beyond all rational thought. They only see their point of view and their crypto-currency that will dominate the world, yet the point is the free markets are the enforcer. I am correct?
Thanks;
HD
ANSWER: Yes. They are totally delusional and specialize in sophistry. Nevertheless, these type of people have never had a single day of experience in anything they rant about, yet nobody is right but them. A reserve currency is just that. There is ZERO enforcement upon individual nations that is why the euro is failing. They federalized Europe rather than letting nations retain their sovereignty. The free market does the heavy work and that includes busting their communist attempts at fixing the value of money yet lettering your assets and wages rise. How can anything rise if money is a fixed constant? If assets and wages rise, then money cannot be fixed in a constant value. Dah! They are really delusional.
Politicians postwar ran on the fact their currencies were rising against the dollar in Europe and that proved they were doing a good job. They cheered the euro was worth more than the dollar but failed to notice the rising taxes and unemployment. These myopic people judge the world solely from their tiny crack in the wall. No American politician will run based upon the dollar strength or weakness against foreign currencies. Absurd!
The free market will sell a currency and then it will impact the politicians if their fiscal spending gets out of hand. That is what a free market does. They are fixated with this idea money has to be a constant or it is fiat. They fail to comprehend what that means economically. In the USA the dollar is not measured against anything else and commodities are priced in dollars so Americans have no risk. Price international commodities in the reserve currency and everything changes. You cannot FORCEdiscipline upon a nation – that is the people’s job driven by free markets. These people are dangerous communists but do not realize what they are even saying.
I really am sick of these people who claim to know everything and have never left their bedroom. There is NO single conspiracy because each agency fights for its own survival at the expense of another. The SEC and CFTC have their own lobbyists in Washington. I warned back in 1985 that both agencies had to be merged or they would force capital offshore. That happened – the hedge fund industry. In 1985 the biggest fund was $100 million. I myself retired from US fund management because if you obey the SEC you went to jail with the CFTC. Then they said you could only use futures to hedge up to 17%. I turned down $60 billion to manage in equities onshore because if my computer said crash, I could not hedge. This is all because of too many agencies – not because there is a single all knowing mind in control.
Why do you have so many funds that specialize in narrow products? OVER-REGULATION. You could not hire a fund manager to decide your asset allocation because of too many regulators rather than one. Where is this single controlling dark force when you need them? In the minds of the crypto-currency conspiracy buffs I suppose. Yes they are highly dangerous because they mislead people steering them into losses based upon theories from their tiny crack perspective in the wall..
I worked on trying to save Social Security and transform it into a national wealth fund with real money and managers. They wanted to replace managers when politics changed. There was NEVER any single one-mind agreement.
These people have never stepped out of their bedroom yet they know everything. Just amazing. I have tried to reason with someone to make a decision long ago – there isn’t anyone. They are all out for themselves. That was why they tried to create Homeland Security to require all the various agencies to work together.
Free Press = Freedom to Comply with Government or Jail Time
QUESTION:
Martin,
Concerning World Trade Center Building 7 and the missing Trillion dollars, my questions are:
1) Why has the media never discussed this,
2) What happened to the Trillion dollars,
3) Who was the President when the money went missing?
1) Why has the media never discussed this,
2) What happened to the Trillion dollars,
3) Who was the President when the money went missing?
Thanks for keeping us informed as to what is really happening around the world.
CD
ANSWER: Mainstream Media is controlled by government. There is free press only up to a point. Beyond that, the phone rings. When my case began, Mark Pittman who wrote about Princeton and our oil calls and Japan knew we were not managing money but were in the bailout business buying portfolios which is why we issued notes and there were no managed accounts. He knew the allegations were false and said don’t worry Marty, we are not going to let them do this to you. Bloomberg News removed Mark from covering my case and he was no longer allowed to write about me. Then Bloomberg replaced Mark with David Glovin who did whatever his boss told him. Glovin would NEVER print anything I had to say that made the banks or the government look bad. Glovin only printed government allegations and never my defense. Great journalism. There is no point in paying for your child’s education to become a journalist when all they have to do in life is print what they are told. Who needs journalists any more?
Gretchen Morgenson wrote about my case questioning how someone could be held in contempt indefinitely to turnover assets for losses the bank had to pay and there were no victims remaining. It appears I believe that someone in the government called the New York Times after putting this story on the front page. Thereafter, the NY Times refused to print a single letter to the editor in my defense and Gretchen was not allowed to write about me again. The prosecutors stood up in court and patted each other on the back and said Gretchen didn’t understand what she was writing about. Yet the contempt ended and guess what – I owed nothing. Who was right?
Mainstream media gets those calls from government expressed as a “favor” and you comply or not. Steven Bumbaca, a vice president and the controller of the NY Post was sent to prison. He explained to me when you get these phone calls, you comply or they imprison you personally on whatever they can. He told me face to face, once the press was thrown out of court in my case illegally on April 24th, 2000, they knew something was seriously wrong. You cannot constitutionally have closed court sessions when there were pending allegations against the receiver Alan Cohen and Judge Richard Owen.
This is just the way it is. Mainstream media cannot print in the United States anything that the government people do not want. Why do you think Snowden had to go to London. The US press would have called the NSA and held him until they got there.
As far as the missing $2.3 Trillion dollars, who knows. Anyone that does will never be free to talk. And as for who was the President when the money went missing? That does not matter for presidents have become puppets anyhow and this is most likely over the course of some time, not a single heist.
There is no such thing as free press Judith Miller (born 1948) was an American journalist, formerly of the New York Times Washington bureau, who uncovered the lies about the Weapons of Mass Destruction. They threw her in prison on contempt for refusing to reveal her sources. This is why Snowden had no chance in the United States. Nobody in the media can protect their sources. Liberty and freedom of the press ended in the 21st century.
Europe will go to Negative Interest Rates
Rates have been moving lower for it is now widely known behind the curtain that the ECBWILL take rates NEGATIVE in their dire efforts to stimulate this dead corps. Central Bankers cannot comprehend that between FACTA preventing world trade, rising taxes, and NSA really creating reverse protectionism, there is not much on the horizon that looks like anything remotely possible as for a recovering in the world economy that they can influence with interest rates. Once the USA turns negative, we should see pensions go belly-up and float to the surface.
There are too many chiefs and no Indians. People who keep insisting upon there is a secret order in control cannot get this through their head that each component acts independently. FACTA and taxes are Congress, NSA is the bureaucracy, while central banks are incapable of sterilizing what everyone else does. There is no coordination here. The bankers only have interest rates play with. They theory now is to tax you for saving money. Just absolutely astonishing. Dah!
Microsoft Opens the Door All The Way
Windows 8.1 is allowing remote access into your computer. Honestly, those who need that can buy software for that function. This is like Obamacare where everyone needs maternity leave with no consideration of age. Remember – what opening you create for remote access others will hack. I just reset my password for EBay. Never shopped at Target. Those are just private hacks you hear about. Never will you hear about the NSA.
Then there is Google’s self-driving car. Now the NSA can hack into you computer easily and program your car to drive you to the nearest police station for arrest. Just amazing.