Putin Alive Appears in St Petersburg
Putin has appeared in St Petersburg today commenting that “Life would be boring without rumors.” Our sources seem to have been on target that there was merely a power play going on after the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, but Putin had not actually been deposed. Our sources were pretty spot on but reflected the problem that Putin is popular in Russia making an outright sweeping coup impossible. This has been the struggle.
There was no real possibility of an over-throw that would bring someone to kiss the ass of Obama. So the discontent within the Kremlin was just a reaction and would never gather the support of the people to reverse course entirely. There is always going to be discontent in any government for there will perpetually be left and right views just as there are in Washington. The struggle within the Kremlin could not replace Putin for the people would not support such an event. Any replacement may be more aggressive just as we see in Washington people posturing against ISIS. Both camps assume being tough is what the people want.
Putin & The Coup?
The rumor behind the curtain centers on a possible coup against Putin following the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, whose killing appears to have been the harbinger of political turbulence inside the Kremlin. There has been a long list of Putin critics who have met violent deaths over the years. Ramzan Kadyrov may have also slipped and confirmed that there are tensions behind the Kremlin’s walls. In a posting, Kadyrov states he renews his pledge of loyalty to the president and adds: “I am devoted to him as a person. And this regardless of whether he is in his position or not!”
All the rumors of his death, he has a love child in Switzerland, the Flu, and whatever, do not appear to be likely. The Ruble peaked on March 6th with Putin’s disappearance. Our monthly models have been targeting March.
Strangely enough, our computer has been targeting this week. So perhaps we will see at the end of the week what the real story might be.
EPA will soon License a Barbecues and Impose Fines for Cooking
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong,
The insanity continues apace. This is moving towards being beyond belief:
Regards,
Niall.
ps – just bought some tickets for the London showing of ‘The Forecaster’ on March 28th. Looking forward to it very much…
REPLY: As long as you are not a NY Banker, you should like the film. Most in Europe and Russia have been stunned and call it a political thriller.
As far as the EPA, this will be some means to tax and fine people. It is totally off the wall. When a volcano erupts they will often throw more pollution in the air than a decade of driving cars. I really do not understand this insanity. Even evidence from the California Redwoods has demonstrates there are huge fires and a cyclical trend to weather that includes dry and warm periods contrast to cold and wet. Using the redwoods, they have reconstructed a 3000 year picture of the environment with all its cyclical spectacular swings. In fact, man has not polluted as much as he has reduced the wildfires. Consequently, forest environmentalists have actually introduced fire burns in the California Redwoods as they have in Australia for man has stopped the nature cycles of natural destruction.
So this EPA move is just another example of academics barking loudly to get money to construct stupid studies. This will be used to now charge huge premiums for a grill and no doubt to fine you just like they now go after kids shoveling snow without a license.
The Coming Wave of Creative Destruction
QUESTION: You have said that we are in the middle of a shift in the economy similar to the Great Depression where agriculture crashed from 40% to 3% and this time it is government and technology. It seems that your warning of also moving to an electronic currency fits with your new age of skilled labor. So is this indeed part of your shift from the West to Asia?
ANSWER: Yes. It was that shift from agriculture that was forced upon society by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. This correlation of also weather with the Sovereign Debt Crisis in Europe, and the capital concentration in the USA that accounted for the 1929 bubble, all blended together to cause a paradigm shift or a new event of Creative Destruction. But look closely at the chart. Government grew from 22% to 33% for what followed was a Public Wave of expanding government.
It is true that we face another wave of Creative Destruction. We will see more than 50% of basic jobs replaced by technology. This is contributed to high unemployment among the youth in Europe over 60%. The internet has changed book sales, publishing, newspapers, and many other store models. Advances in AI programming will alter analysis and ultimately funds management eliminating the entire source of error – human nature and opinions. Look at a parking garage. A machine gives you a ticket and you pay at a machine when you leave. Nobody is there. The internet has opened the world just as the railroad in the 19th century enabled mail order. The push for higher minimum wages only further the advancement of replacing labor with machines and Obama’s healthcare laws have further created the incentive not to hire people. This combines to create a paradigm shift of Creative Destruction.
We are monitoring weather closely for nature will no doubt also have a hand in this paradigm shift as it did before. We are at the turning point in this 300 year cycle in the energy output of the sun. At the very least, we could see a very sharp downturn in temperature, which could impact food as well. Then you have the insanity of government trying to use Global Warming as a scheme to justify more taxes.
So we face at least two of the three forces with weather being the third. We are moving to electronic money for government sees this as the solution for its rising budget deficits. Obama raised taxes about $2.5 trillion and wants another $2.5 trillion increase. We are dealing with Marxists on the hunt. The government has links directly into the internet and can track anyone they desire.
The more aggressive government becomes, the steeper our economic fall. Schools have failed children and most now realize they just need a piece of paper that cost $40,000+ and is worthless since 65% end up working in a field they never studied anyhow.
All we need now is a series of volcanic eruptions around the globe to produce anotherYear Without a Summerand watch everything really pop.
Sophistry & Confusion over the Fed
QUESTION: Mr, Armstrong; There are those who argue that the Fed caused the booms in the developing countries by lowering interest rates that resulted in them borrowing in dollars making the world now short the dollar and thus have enslaved the world to the dollar. Therefore, they claim that whoever controls the central bank of the reserve currency thereby controls the world. Do you think this was intentional?
Thanks. It seems you are the only one without the soap-box.
Hank
ANSWER: Are you really serious? This is the argument from rational people? That is like blaming Switzerland for creating a peg to ensure their exports would not decline so all the German, British, and Greek mortgages in Swiss francs is their fault and intentional. This is pure sophistry at its best delusional. The Fed lowered short-term rates to deal with the US economy not to influence other countries. The fact that other nations issued debt in dollars to save interest is somehow the design or fault of the Fed is brain-dead if not unimaginable. They have no proof of such nonsense. This is clearly conclusionary gibberish to support an unsupported conspiracy theory.
Numerous bond issues were in British pounds that defaulted in 1931 as well as dollars. China issued bonds in foreign currencies to sell them. Here is a 1937 Liberty Bond denominated in $1,000 issued by China back then. This too was somehow inspired by the Fed? Issuing bonds in foreign currencies is standard by third-world nations. The bankers sell this idea to save money and always blow these nations up. Even some of the earliest US currency was issued in British pounds. Here is a note denominated in shillings.
This is the typical sophistry behind conspiracy theories that people make-up to hear themselves pontificate and they assume planned designs rather than accepting that just maybe everything is run by people who have no idea what they are doing.
Blaming the Fed for third-world countries issuing dollar denominated debt is like blaming you for making a right turn and three cars back someone slams into the rear of the car in front of him for he slowed down because you were making the turn.
This is the whole point of a independent reserve currency. When I say that the dollar is the reserve currency and that subjects the world to American domestic policy objectives, that is what I am talking about. The US loses the ability to manage its domestic economy if it has to worry about third-world countries issuing debt in their currency. That means DOMESTIC policies OBJECTIVES can be held hostage toINTERNATIONAL policy OBJECTIVES. That is why we need a reserve currency other than that of any single nation. Blaming the Fed for overseas problems is simply stupid and illustrates that such ideas are totally clueless since they are ignorant of grasping just how the world truly functions.