Political Economy & Finance
Global Capitalism, in the Age of No Capital
This piece began out of musings on how the current world economic system, could be overturned (or if we were starting from a clean slate) beginning with a new system. to develop a system, that serves everyone.
Some people have been speaking of the end of Capitalism, as though what we have now is Capitalism.
(Like HERE in the UK Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun.
But, I just think many people don’t really understand what Capitalism is…
The word, “Capitalism”, derives from the word “Capital”. This word is just a posher, more accountant friendly version of the word for “savings”. And to have savings, you have to have a monetary system, that means that the money in everyday use (currency) retains its value over very long periods of time, and is garnered from the excess production by workers, or businesses who save that money.
This money can then be pooled, typically by Banks in individual savings accounts, to allow larger projects to be funded, and corporations to borrow this, to grow their business, or to finance those larger projects.
Of course, there can be savings made by corporations too, who produce in excess of current demand, and this “Retained Earnings” to use accountant speak, is then available for investment in new products or services, which adds value to the business, and enriches the lives of the many.
But, going back over 45 years to the 1970s, when I was a teenager, and just starting out in life, there were two forms of accounts. The type of account where money was deposited for immediate use (a current account) and money that was “saved for a rainy day” and was typically deposited into a “Savings Account”. In some instances, these were 90 day accounts. These accounts paid a higher rate of interest, than normal savings accounts, which were called “time deposits”, because these funds were deposited for a period of time – in this case 90 days.
That meant that the depositor, had to give 90 days’ notice, to get access to their savings, or forfeit interest earned.
However, back on 15th August, 1971, the last link between real money (Gold and Silver) was severed, when Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the U.S., closed the “Gold Window” temporarily, which meant that foreign nations could no longer demand Gold in exchange for dollars at the Bretton Woods rate of $35.00 for 1 oz of Gold.
That day ushered in Corporataucracy, though we didn’t realise it at the time. In a world where a Bank can just press a few keys on a computer, or have its Central Bank (owned by these ultra-large corporate banks) create funds out of thin air by “Computer Keystrokes”, or the “Printing Press”, the large corporations and governments, can borrow increasingly larger sums of currency, without others having to make those savings out of current production or consumption. This disconnect, means that current consumption, does not have to be forgone to pay for some new project, which reduces the need for savings – but also reduces interest rates, as capital is no longer needed, but it also tends over time to lead to increasing concentration of the means of production, into the hands of those with access to this line of credit, and the desire for huge capital sums.
The rise of these mega-corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, Walmart, and here in the UK, BAe, TESCO, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Morrisons, have all risen, by building large concentrated infrastructure, which is capital intensive. Most of these corporations can borrow large sums cheaply, because their revenue streams, are constant, and thus they quickly create surpluses in their respective bank accounts.
For these large corporations, that money going into their current accounts, which is vulnerable to loss – IF – their Bank has financial difficulties so needs to be used or given back to shareholders, but is vulnerable, until such time.. So for many companies, this almost forces them to invest in newer premises, and growth in newer overseas markets, to use that currency, or risk financial loss as it sits there earning next to zero interest.
The alternative would be to return that surplus to the investors, which would raise share-prices, and distribute income, but in a world where money is too cheap because it is limited only by the bank’s willingness to hit the right keys on their computers, corporations who have large and dominant shareholdings by the families that created them, have little need for raising risk capital from shareholders, and thus the risk is transferred from the company, (and its shareholders) to the lending institution, while the share price rises, increase the power and wealth of these family shareholders. VW/Audi, Porsche, TESCO, Morrisons, and Sainsbury, are all businesses, where the original family owners are still large shareholders of the business. This is particularly true where the huge sums borrowed jeopardize the stability of the Bank doing the lending and a Black Swan event places a strain on the Banking system.
This risk, is later transferred to the State as Banks use their own freely created Capital, to acquire other smaller banks, consolidating markets, and then when they become systemic, they transfer that risk to the tax-payers as they become “Too Big to Fail”, “Too Big to Jail”.
I believe, that a number of events in the economic, political and financial spheres, may be about to undermine this.
Banking – Politics – Economics – Changes Making the World a Different Place…
The rise of Islam, as I mentioned HERE: , threatens the wider economy, as religious doctrines amongst its followers, limit the number and range of economic activities which in themselves, could destabilise the western world’s economies to the point of failure.
However, this post is about the other events.
Bullion and Bitcoin.
The last eight years, has seen the rise of Crypto-currencies, like Bitcoin, and a concern among many about the extra $3.5Trillion, put into the monetary system, by the Federal Reserve, driving the rise in demand for precious metals Gold and Silver.
Bitcoin, and other crypto-currencies, could be about to usurp the power of the Bankers (See: My Post on this topic HERE , which if it occurs, means that because the Banks can’t just lend more and more money (currency) into existence, they have to earn the trust of depositors, and use their limited funds wisely. But inevitably, these inventive Bankers will use their political influence to ensure that they get the outcome they need. Probably outlawing crypto-currency trading, and using it for certain purposes.
The East, has for the last one and a half decades, been accumulating Gold in Central Bank Vaults, while the West, has been ridding itself of this substance, that Keynes according to legend discussed as a “barbarous relic”.
However, Gold as the final arbiter of the value of money (See This: or This – ) can stem the flow of funds to large corporations, who would have to rely on available funds from savers, and increased economic activity, would have to produce those surpluses, which means the increasingly automated world, will need more savers, driving up real wages, to buy the products and services of automation, their prices would need to be more competitive too growing sales, and as Henry Ford recognised, salaries would need to rise encouraging savings to accrue.
And for those past the first flush of youth, or perhaps in retirement, the savings rates paid would go up, and that would help those having to live on retirement incomes.
But, it might also mean, that for the first time in a long time, America, would not be able to rampage around the world, laying down the law, and interfering in all those countries, that require expensive military hardware, that the U.S. can just buy with the funny money, that is hot off the computer or printing presses.
Mike Maloney’s take on things is that the printing presses will drive the world to take up the SDR sooner rather than later. The SDR, for those who don’t know it, is the “Special Drawing Right”. It was first created by the IMF during the 1970s, as a certificate for a basket of the major currencies. And the Yuan, has just been added to that basket, but the Chinese are pushing to add Gold to it too, and that will drive demand for Gold.
You can see Mike Maloney with David Morgan, precious metals dealer, and financial guru, discussing matters here:
And for when this happens, Silver will ride on Gold’s coat-tails, But the rush for silver will probably overtake the price rise in gold, by a factor of 5 to 1… And this explains WHY…
Beware The Ides of March…
Students of Literature, will recognise the title from the warning given to Julius Ceasar, as epitomised in the Shakespearean play of that name.
It was a warning to the general, to beware, by a soothsayer (who remains nameless). A warning that apparently he ignored. Of course, as the conspirators – the Senators, stabbed at Ceasar, and Marcus Brutus a former long-time friend plunged his knife into the man, Shakespeare’s Ceasar uttered those now immortal words – “Et tu Bruté” (And you Brutus?)
Of course, in the modern era, the last major play, that resembles this drama, is the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22nd 1963, as he was brutally slaughtered by a conspiratorial cabal operating in the upper echelons of the power political scene in America.
Who all these conspirators are, has remained largely unspoken… But some people, are doing what should have been done 50+ years ago, by the Dallas Police, before the CIA and the FBI took over the post assassination conspiratorial machinations, to cover up their involvement, and to plant the idea in the public’s mind, that “it was a lone gunman” a Russian Sympathiser, who spent three years in Russia, but who was in receipt of $200 per month from the FBI as an informer, and who received special training by the CIA to learn Russian, before he allegedly dropped out by going to Russia and staying there for three years…
Those invoved in the Conspiracy carefully massaged the images and the Warren Commission headed up by the very man, that Kennedy had fired just a few months earlier as Head of the CIA to ensure the story remained “on message”.
Of course George Herbert Walker Bush, when asked where he was at the time of the shooting, had vague recollections of where he was, despite someone of that name making a call to J. Edgar Hoover’s office – Head of the FBI just hours after the shooting proving he was in a hotel in Dallas. And his recollections apparently varied on subsequent questioning of the same incident, The same George H. W. Bush who went on to be Carter’s head of CIA, and then Vice President, during the 8 years that Ronald Reagan was President, and almost made it to the presidency when President Reagan was shot, by a lone nutter… But the President in true Cowboy hero fashion, survived.
JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy who also later ran for political office also met a sudden death when yet another lone nutter (CIA – MK-Ultra participant?) allegedly shot him at close quarters as he emerged from the hotel kitchen into the glare of waiting reporters, TV cameras and waiting dignatories – and CIA operatives?
Here is the best documentary I’ve seen on this and other subjects…
JFK Jr., had his 3rd birthday just three days after his father’s death, and after growing up and becoming by, all accounts, an honourable man, handsome, suave, considerate and latterly a pilot and publisher of a magazine called “George” – Was this a clue to the mystery surrounding his father’s demise?
And of course, John F Kennedy Junior ALSO met an untimely demise, when his plane came down late in the evening, as his plane disappeared off his flight path and plunged into the Atlantic, just 1 minute after he called in to the Martha’s Vineyard Airport, to say he was at 2,500 feet and ready to descend to the airport… But he never made it, falling out of the sky almost vertically just 60 seconds later… Meanwhile, George Bush Junior, for the three days, was nowhere to be found… Hmmmm… “Curiouser, and Curiouser”…cried Alice…
You can get a better description of events here…
So what does this have to do with the Ides of March?
Well, as President Trump has already made known to the world, some of the things he wants to do is to “Drain the swamp”, and began the process, though CIA leaks have been made to discredit him, but even the MSM have had to eat some of their words. However, many things seem to be happening that suggests he won’t see out his full-term – one way or another…
Already people are setting Trump up for a fall… Here’s how Zero-Hedge put it
…
Roberto Gualtieri, chairman of the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, also criticized Trump. “Some first concrete confirmations of a new more unilateral policy stance by the new U.S. administration, including on sensitive financial markets regulatory issues, raise concerns and require both thorough reflection and action from the EU side,” he told the committee.Meanwhile, Draghi deflected accusations lobbed at him over the weekend by German finmin Schauble, who said not Germany, but the ECB and Mario Draghi, are responsible for the undervaluation of the euro:
…
And SGTReport who holds views similar to my own, regarding the economy, believes much the same with regard to Trump’s likely outcome, as those behind the scenes are attempting to undermine, discredit, or if they can’t impeach him, probably develop a plan to slay him, when they produced this video…
And of course #Pizzagate is just another FAKE News story…
Err.. Maybe.
And of course, it was Trump and those Russian hackers who stole the election… Except it wasn’t…
BUT, at least Trump is fighting back, and so are the Americans…
Those evil Bankers, Oil-men, Military Corporate CEOs and multi-million share-holders, and those working for them in the secretive security organisations – all 16 of them, are now going to have their teeth pulled as the fight-back begins…As Ron Paul, that arch-enemy of the Federal Reserve has already had his £0.02 worth..
So, if you’re in the markets, now might be prudent to lower your risk somewhat… Events have a habit of coming out of the blue, and given recent rises to bubble territory… and Cliff High’s, Jim Rickards’ and Bill Bonner’s and JIm Willie’s and Peter Schiff’s, David Morgan’s and Dr. Paul Craig Robert’s warnings a pull-back is long overdue.
UPDATE
This is an important adjunct to the above piece, as events come into focus:
The 15th March (Ides) is the day that Netherlands goes to the polls to elect a new leader. One in which the populist Geert Wilders is steadily making progress in the polls and is looking increasingly likely to win. BUT as Turkey and the Dutch go head to head over the latest political intrigue, will this mean Wilders gets more of the sympathetic vote, against the population concerned about the (as they see it) invasion of Islamists guaranteeing him the vote?
The second concerning thing is the reaching of the $20 Trillion debt ceiling in the U.S. on that date, while also the Federal Reserve on that day too will decide whether to raise interest rates for just the 3rd time in 10 years.
And, in the UK, after the House of Commons rejected the amendment voted for by the House of Lords, this frees the PM’s hands to announce the formal Brexit process.
And finally, Clif High – researcher, has been announcing over the last two months that March onwards is likely to be tumultuous, and after all that, I found this…(below)
Anyone who has been reading this blog for any length of time, will know my feelings on Precious metals, and this just threw petrol on the bonfire.
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Why Bitcoin could go to $1,000,000+
Time to get your Bitcoin, Gold and Silver?
Ever since I first heard of Bitcoin, my moods have oscillated with emotional highs and lows between optimism, and pessimism. I got involved about thirty months ago, mostly out of mere curiosity. However, I first learned of Bitcoin, about 7 years ago, and perhaps because back then, there was a lot of hype, I was highly suspicious of it. I asked myself… What was this new technology? What are its implications? What are its strengths or weaknesses? Will it succeed?
Like you I had so many questions. But I didn’t know enough to commit to it.
However, I had some experience of cryptographics when, as a former software developer, early in my studies, I wrote cryptography software using a simple alphabetic replacement system. For those not familiar with this, it was the simplest form, which involves letter substitution.
Let’s take the Alphabet.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
GHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdef
As you can see from the above, you can shift each letter a number of times. In the above example from A to G, from B to H, etc. etc., to encrypt or decrypt the text.
As long as you know the shift count, you can simply unscramble the text. This however would be laughed at by any modern cryptographer, worth their salt. We know which letters in the English language are used most frequently, so having a few guesses at the piece of text would quickly, reveal the key (the number of letters shifted – 6 in the above example)
During the second world war, the Germans of course used two characters to denote a character in their encrypted messages, with random coded substitution, and it wasn’t until the British managed to get hold of an Enigma machine from a captured U-boat, to send to Bletchley Park where they worked on the decryption that they were finally able to decrypt the messages, and listen in on German U-boat communications, so helping bring the war to a speedier close. And cryptography is at the heart of global communication, and Bitcoins and other Alt-Coins. It is also at the heart of Apple’s attempts to restrict U.S. authorities from gaining information from devices, that are encrypted, by fighting a court decision forcing it to build software for the authorities to allow access – Apple of course designed its software because of increasing concern at the intrusive political and authoritarian institutions of all Governments, some of whom appear to have carte-blanche access to whatever communication traverses the globe – at least according to Edward Snowden.
Lately however, I have been doing further research into Crypto-Currencies, and both the theory and the practice.
What fired my enthusiasm for this research was listening to an interview, between a sceptic, and an enthusiast.
As a result, I began looking at a number of Web-sites, and following up on this conversation. To see what’s happening in the Bitcoin and crypto-currency space. After much thought, and research, I realised that there are at least 7 Network Effects which might lead to wider acceptance:
1. Speculation –
People buying to make a fast buck. This drove early adoption, taking the price to almost $1200 at one point.
2. Merchants –
Companies accepting it for goods, simply because people hold them, and they are convertible into fiat-currency or money at known rates. In the world there are over 100,000 merchants already accepting the coins, including major providers such as Microsoft, and Target in the U.S..
3. Consumers –
These are using it because merchants are accepting it, and they are now doing so in ways that allow consumers to gain discounts of upto 35%, even on web-sites such as Amazon.
4. Miners –
There are a number of crypto-currency miners, with computing power approaching 1 Exahash, which is about the equivalent of 10,000 of the top 5 supercomputers in the world
5. Developers –
These will use the above processing power to build out the infrastructure, to produce software that is more secure than all the others and to build functionality in the hope of receiving Bitcoins or Fiat.
6. Financialisation –
The Banks and CFTC have already discussed using the Bitcoin Network and blockchain technology for transfer of financial instruments denoted in Bitcoin. And one of Max Keiser’s former regulars, decided to invest heavily in building out the technology for this process almost eliminating Brokers and brokerage fees.
7. World Reserve Currency –
IF, or rather, WHEN the US. Dollar crashes, then people will hold their reserves in an alternative or alternatives. Gold and Silver are obvious candidates, but also increasingly Bitcoin crypto-currency, is a candidate rather than some other Fiat currency, because of the current currency wars, which could turn into trade wars, and then hot wars..
This is still to happen but, the instability in the Middle-East and around Africa, is a sign of things to come.
If the price of Bitcoin, begins to rise towards, four, five, then six figures, more and more people will hold their reserves in Bitcoin, and other fiat currencies will recede in value – including other currencies such as: British Pounds, Euros, Japanese Yen et-al..
This will accelerate the acceptance and expand the wider use of crypto-currencies in general, and Bitcoin in particular. The rise of Bitcoin, and the fall of the U.S. Dollar therefore, will be as much an opinion of the dollar, as it is of Bitcoin
So, as more and more of these people and organisations, developers, merchants, financial organisations, miners and finally those who hold their nation’s reserves increase their use of Bitcoin, then the value will explode exponentially, and the price speculated in the header will be a distinct possibility.
But, the alternatives to Bitcoin – Alt-coins – and of course Gold and Silver may take up some of that slack. Gold appears to be in increasing demand, at least amongst 4 particular countries. India, China, Russia, and Turkey alone out of the world’s 200+ nations, currently (according to Mike Maloney quoting a Zerohedge article on 3/3/2016) are already consuming the entire planetary output of gold – and then some. The excess demand is currently being met by Western Central Banks reserves.
Canada which has suffered in recent months as the oil price has tanked, perhaps made pledges to its people, that were based – at least in part – on an expected almost permanent high oil price, so the fall to circa $30/bbl, and subsequent rise to around $54/bbl is causing problems for those states with Tar-sand production, which is a high production cost energy item, and thus costs may already be exceeding revenue from such operations. Those modest Canadian Gold reserves were apparently sold off in one month or less. The reserves stood at a mere 1.7 tonnes according to February 2016 reports, but by Feb 29th, the remainder was just 77 ounces, which is a pitiful amount. This is down from 1,000 tonnes that the Canadian Central Bank reported in 1965, but since the end of the Bretton Woods agreement (15/8/1971) these have been replaced by U.S. Dollars in the main. It took Canada, 20 years from 1965 to reduce those reserves by 50%, and the last 30years to rid themselves of the rest of this Keynesian Barbarous relic. Which begs the question… What will the Canadian Government use for currency/money, when the dollar collapse occurs?
But what might trigger this Tsunami? Anyone who is not a Keynesian, has to study – observe – what happens in the real world. Economics is one of those dry dusty subjects given to study by essentially – Nerds – I count myself amongst them. The original economists: Adam Smith, John Gresham, Ricardo, and the other early economists, studied markets and what happened in them. They then formulated ideas based on those observations.
But since the dawn of the Federal Reserve, and the end of WWI, economists have been looking for ways to manipulate the economy to serve politicians, who as the old saying goes – “Don’t want it to happen on my watch.” IT, being a recession or a depression.
But what causes depressions? Think about it for a second. A new idea comes along. Lots of people begin to provide that service or product. Lots of small businesses are built. Over time, these small businesses get swallowed up by competition, over decades ultimately half a dozen huge corporations provide that product or service, freeing up people to do other things – (unemployment) and concentrating the industry into a few corporate hands.
When this happens, the unemployed inventive ones with access to capital invent new products or services, to replace, or make better what went before. Perhaps even to the point where what went before, gets replaced almost completely – such as cars replacing trains, which replaced horses and canals. But for the additional products, you need additional consumers, not hundreds of millions, retiring, or on the verge of retirement, looking to save, rather than spend.
Since the end of WWII, the computer has gone through several metamorphoses – from Mainframe, to mini-computer, to PC, to Laptop, to smartphone and tablet computer. They each in their turn improved on previous designs, made them smaller, more productive, cheaper and widely available due to cost reductions.
But for industry to grow (so they can grow the share price) they need new products, new markets, or lower costs, and it is this last item, that means doing either more with the same, or the same with less that is causing the problem… As that means fewer workers. We are at one of those inflexion points. Apple, and Samsung, Sony and just a few others in China and the Far-East, now dominate the smartphone and tablet industry. HP, IBM and other American behemoths have shrunk or got out of the computer business altogether. Britain’s Computer industry has gone from a handful to one, producing designs for chips in smartphones, and tablets (but also increasingly servers for server farms).
The capital sitting in corporate bank accounts should be going into research, but research can take years to produce anything, and corporate execs need to deliver share price rises today, tomorrow, next week, next month, and at the end of the financial year. Not maybe, in three years time if the research proves fruitful. Much easier to buy up a new corporation that has already proved up the technology, and can be tacked on to existing business.
And so to force companies and large holders of capital to invest, we have the prospect and reality of NIRP – Negative Interest Rates Policy – already in place in 3 countries in Europe: Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark. The ECB and Japan too is trying them, but none of them appear to be working to the extent they would like. In Switzerland, the Tax collecting service even told its taxpayers not to pay up-front, so that the money held on deposit at the banks wouldn’t be “charged”. This is monetary madness. Anyone with 6, 7 or 8 figures in a bank account should be worried. And those living from week to week, or month to month, will need to grow their income rapidly as the dollar declines.
JP Morgan (according to Satyajit Das, finance expert and author of “A Banquet of Consequences”) has speculated – sorry modelled – that -3% (negative 3%) might be necessary for the dollar. But with Bank notes, people can just take that cash out of the bank and keep it under the mattress so to speak. So Central Banks want to get rid of banknotes, and that is why they are starting with large denomination notes – the €500 note, the $100 bill et-al.
India has edged towards this by eliminating the 1,000 and 500 rupee notes, which in a country that still largely uses cash for transactions, and hundreds of millions still don’t have a bank account. This has led to mass demonstrations and mass hysteria. It may lead to social unrest as people rebel against this edict.
The Bankers use euphemisms, and downright lies to attempt to achieve this, but the moment that the U.S. does that, all those dollar bills overseas will return to U.S. shores, and the trickle of deals away from the dollar – the 30 countries that now have bilateral trade deals with China, Russia, India, and the middle-east, for oil, and commodities outside of the dollar, will become a flood – fleeing from the dollar. To what?
We can but speculate, but to my mind, Bitcoin will be one of them, and of course Gold and Silver. Of course, we may yet see governments attempt to outlaw the ownership of Bitcoin, Gold or Silver, just as was tried once before in 1933. THAT moment may arrive far sooner than many think.
Bitcoin – are there any drawbacks? What are the Risks? What if…?
The total number of Bitcoins is limited to 21,000,000, so I hear, which sounds a lot, until you realise how many transactions there are in the world, and how much economic value people have added to the planet over the centuries. Money therefore is used to value those objects – Buildings, Corporations, and the time value of Labour, to all the products and services we take for granted in our modern world. So a modern money must be the measure we use to assign our value to these. IF therefore, Central Banks can just conjure up currency out of their printing presses, or computers, they are esentially stealing value to be created out of human labour. Whether that is a corporation that took 50 years to build, or it is someone’s work, the value of the currency itself therefore, should also reflect its time value to produce. THAT is why both Gold and Silver served our purposes so well over the millennia.
Think of the worldwide number of large corporations, sky-scrapers, huge mines, roads, motorways, bridges and tunnels built since the dawn of the Industrial age, together with their cost in materials, time, energy, and lives lost. That value runs into the hundreds or even thousands of trillions of U.S. dollars.
$200,000,000,000,000 – is reputedly, the total currency debt of the world – divided by 21,000,000 Bitcoins is 9,523,809.5238095 per Bitcoin, and that is in dollars alone.
This assumes that all other currencies go to zero, and we only use Bitcoin for our financial transactions.
Which means theoretically, it could go higher, when you add in Pounds, Yen, Euros, Rubles, Yuan, Dinar, Riyahls etc. etc.
Of course this is perhaps unrealistic, but not outside the bounds of possibility.
We also need to consider what are the pitfalls.
As Bitcoin is more widely adopted, over time there will be inevitable losses – people storing their coins on a smart-phone or flash-drive and losing it, or not backing it up, or finding out that electronic storage and strong magnets are not a good mix, or someone dying with their coins held in a smartphone, that no-one else knows about, which gets wiped and re-sold on, or given to a partner, relative or someone, who has no real interest in such electronic coins. There will be other ways that currency could be lost, so shrinking the pool of available coins, which might also lead people to not adopting them, out of fear of loss. There are those who speculate the earth could receive an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) which could lead to a major fault in the global telecomms infrastructure, killing digital coins – but with the Banks and Governments so keen to rid the world of ALL paper currencies, there is little choice except for those stand-bys of the last 5 millennia – Gold, Silver and Bronze.
Could Bitcoin go higher? Will it?
Could Bitcoin really go higher than the $1,000,000 speculated on? These are unknowns. The theoretical maximum of 21 million coins assumes that all the coins are mined, but which according to Trace Mayer, Bitcoin Expert, would take upto 140 years, as the mining rate halves every 4 years. The first such halving was in 2013 – Did this cause a price spike? (Basic law of Supply and Demand?) We don’t know for sure, but possibly; the next such halving is next year in 2017. It is possible that this time, people will front run it this time, to try to maximise their positions ahead of the reduction causing another price spike.
As I have said several times, there are about 80 different crypto-currencies. I hold over 10, and receive daily interest into my crypto-currency accounts – as can you (See below). I also have an app on my smartphone, in which I have deposited some of these coins to spend, with a QR Scan Code to make using them easier, just like I might with ApplePay(®) or the PayPal App and it is possible that I will be able to do this with all the others shortly.
There are already ways to exchange these different crypto-currencies, on exchange sites (listed below)
So, now do you think it is time to maybe check out this new currency system?
Where do I get Bitcoin, or these crypto-currencies?
Bitcoin, is available in so many places now it is almost impossible to recommend one or two sites over others, but the one site I do recommend, mostly because they set-up a number of crypto-currency [Alt-coin] accounts, simultaneously, for the price of an e-mail address, and you receive FREE daily deposits into them – albeit very small sums to begin with, but with loyalty bonuses, increasing with time and other ways to improve deposits. For those keen to promote or evangelise the site, additional bonuses are given in increasing amounts for more referrals.
You can earn upto 10 crypto-currencies, including Bitcoin, and Litecoin FREE at… Qoinpro.com, for the price of an e-mail address. Backing both horses in a two horse race may seem like wasting money or effort, but it depends on your view of risk…and the potential rewards. And in investing circles, NOT losing money is the first rule to financial security.
You can buy Gold and Silver with your crypto-currencies at: https://www.vaultoro.com or with Fiat at https://www.bitgold.com or https://www.libertysilver.ee. At Liberty Silver, because it is based in Estonia, which does not charge V.A.T. on silver coins, as long as you purchase and arrange collection from their site (done via a courier) you can still legally buy your coins VAT free.
And you can trade between different crypto-currencies here at: https://shapeshift.io or at https://btc-e.com or even learn how to trade from your fiat to BTC here http://www.coindesk.com/information/how-can-i-buy-bitcoins/
Just Another Fake News Story?
Whilst browsing the internet, I come across many things, that deserve a wider audience, but am unable to offer any further evidence of these sometimes outlandish claims. Not so today.
This piece linked to below, really revolves around a much talked about subject, and one I have myself been involved in writing about, so this piece would appear to add further credence to the mystery.
http://themillenniumreport.com/2016/10/treason-who-did-911-and-why-did-they-do-it/
Who was responsible for 9/11? WHY did they carry out the attacks of the World Trade Center (WTC)? And if two planes brought down buildings one and two, how did building 7, a block or two away, across a wide expanse, collapse vertically, and yet was still upright when a BBC news anchor with a live link behind her, showing the building – that could be seen by all those sufficiently awake to notice, – was still visible, while we were being told that the building had already gone down?
The piece linked to above reads like an episode of: “The Bourne Trilogy” with a cast of characters taken from: Politics, Corporate Energy, Mafia and Banking Interests across the western world. I wrote too in the book “The Coming Battle – 2013” that events were spiralling out of control.
General Wesley Clark in a video interview explained that he was told in advance of plans to intervene in seven middle-eastern countries, all based on the lie of 9/11… The latest in a long line of black-ops “False-Flag” events, that were used to sway American -and in this case – worldwide opinion to permit those with their own agenda to influence events. And he also discussed what happened next and he recalled how the decision was taken back in 1991 –
It used to be that the propagandists with people inside the military and secret service industries, could modify the News agenda to get the outcomes that they wanted, and due to secrecy laws, their misdeeds would go unpunished for thirty years or more until after the secret documents could be widely accessed. BUT, the Internet has changed all that. The Mainstream News Organisations (MSM) exist to make money for their shareholders and senior management teams – and the corporations that advertise and market their wares on them, are generally large multi-nationals – the very corporations that the MSM is supposed to be keeping a beady eye on, in its role as defender of the public and the customer, are the very same ones using politics to pursue their own agenda.
As ever, “He who pays the piper, calls the tune.”
So, as corruption apparently swirls around the world, I hear of imminent plans to rid the world of physical coins and notes – particularly in America, where many of the U.S.’s states, and institutions are seemingly hell-bent on destroying the last vestige of freedom – the freedom to spend as you like – by outlawing payment in anything other than digital means.
So will Gold and Silver be once more used to “Barter” with?
Will the closure of your bank, be the event that makes you take action?
Will the ATM closing, or your Bank closing one weekend and not re-opening again on Monday make you take action?
Will the disappearance of your pension fund make you take action?
The time has come.
The Last Chance Saloon…
Then… and NOW…(upto 2014)
The big decline in the precious metals prices from 2011 to today, punctuated by a sharp reversal beginning in early 2016, appears to already be undergoing a final exhaustive bout of selling. The big decline remains to be the most important development for gold and silver investors. Why? Because this decline’s end is likely to present the ultimate buying opportunity for precious metals and for PM mining stocks over the next decade.
Before elaborating on this all-important issue, let’s briefly discuss the current events. The USD Index has rallied as it moved higher recently, due in large part to Fed jabbering about rate hikes, and the final 0.25% rise recently, after Gold reached its March 2016 interim high, with further talk of 3 more rate hikes in 2017, this dampened enthusiasm in the paper markets ensuring those with derivatives on their side could short the metals and thus drive down the price to interim lows, but the New Year will probably reverse that, as the festive season ends.
I’ve previously said that it was possible that we would see something like that in the short term. That’s exactly what happened – metals and miners moved a little lower especially in recent weeks. BUT, just before Xmas is when people are buying gifts for friends and family, not thinking about their portfolios, so markets quite often, soften at this time of year. So, for the brave, a VERY good time to buy metals and/or stocks (as I did today) in those companies with good assets, strong management and good fundamentals, with a longer term strategy for improvement in what should be a rising market for PMs – especially as the Trump win, will probably mean rising inflation for that nation in the medium term – if he keeps his promises.
Those companies who report in British Pounds, will also have a major boost to their bottom line, as profits reported in pounds sterling will reflect the recent decline in the pound’s value versus the dollar, in which many commodities are priced on international markets.
I’ve discussed the final bottom target for gold in previous posts, at circa 50% of the most recent high ($1925 – in 2011) – Here we discuss WHEN gold is likely to bottom.
Today’s price of $1129.85 is not quite at the lowest point – that was $1065 in the middle of 2015, but this pull back from the $1320 area of a few months ago, serves to mark what could be the nadir of a cup and handle formation on the Gold Chart, though it might more likely resemble a shallow bowl, as this decline extends for another year of the secular bear, in a longer term Bull market.
What may seem odd, on a quite different chart – is the one I’ve posted several times since the start of this blog, featuring the comparison of the last two decades with the late 1960s to 1981.
Why? Because, in a globalized economy with interconnected financial markets, no asset can move totally independently from other ones – and this is especially the case with gold and the Dollar. In most cases when the USD plunges a lot, gold is likely to rally a lot and when the USD soars, gold is likely to decline substantially. That’s likely to change in the final stage of the precious metals bull market, but it doesn’t seem we are quite at that point yet.
Therefore, the million-dollar question can be asked differently: when is the USD Index likely to form a very important top in the near term?
In my opinion, it’s most likely to happen in late January or early February 2017, with the second half of January being the most probable target. Trump’s Presidency begins at the peak of a long bull market in DOW stocks, due to Fed Funds Rates being as low as they are, with ESF (Exchange Stabilization fund) intervention and interest rate rises, which will begin to affect costs of doing business, in America, which will add to those corporation’s costs, yet do little to stimulate consumer spending which features so large in the overall picture in the U.S..
Let’s start with the discovery. What was the key thing that happened in the USD Index in the past few years? It rallied sharply and broke the all-important 100 level, or rather – it tried to – break above it, but failed and declined substantially. There were other attempts and they failed as well and were followed by an even bigger decline.
Since history rhymes, the big question is: “When did we see something similar?” Almost 20 years ago – in 1997. That’s the only time in the past 20+ years, when the weekly RSI was well over 80 (besides late 2014 and early 2015). This fact alone is something that should get your curiosity, but the big number of other similarities and how precise the key one is, should get your attention.
After the USD Index initially moved above 100 in August 1997, it declined sharply and it took several months before the next rally begun. The rally started after the USD moved to the 50-week moving average. That’s exactly what we saw in the more recent past – in 2015. What happened next in 1998? The USD tried moving above 100 a few more times, but finally declined substantially and this time the decline took the USD to a new low. Again, the same thing happened in 2015 and 2016. The shape of the rallies and declines was not identical, but it’s nothing to call home about – after all, very different events accompanied both time frames.
Up to this moment, the above analogy can be viewed as interesting, but perhaps not particularly important. What changes everything is an additional analogy – the size (in terms of both the price and extent) and shape of the 1975 – 1977 Gold price decline. The entire price trend, from 1968-1975, you would be able to guess by looking at the chart above, is eerily similar, to the period from 2000 to 2016, just merely extended over a few more years in these latest charts. Of course, the moves are not 100% identical, but are so close that we can view them as such.
In light of such significant similarity, we simply can’t ignore the likelihood that what followed the previous USD bottoms are going to follow these as well – especially as, so far this similarity is playing out near-perfectly.
Plotting the 1998 – 1999 rally on the current situation provides us with approximately 104 as the USD next target, but let’s focus on something different. How is the USD Index moving after the bottom?
Back in late 1998, the USD Index moved sharply higher, above the trend line and topped close to 97. Then it declined below 94, but the key thing is that it declined below the target line by approximately as much as it had previously rallied above it (in other words, the trend line continued to rally through the middle of the short-term decline). The bottom was formed more or less at the rising support line based on the previous important bottoms.
What happened earlier this year? Pretty much the same thing – the USD Index moved sharply above the rising trend line (the exact copy of the line from 1998 – 1999), then it declined below it by approximately as much as it had rallied above it previously, and bottomed. The bottom was formed more or less at the rising support line based on the previous important bottoms. The similarities are indeed extraordinary and the implications are very important. As far as the shape of the upcoming rally (the way the USD gets to its target) is concerned, we don’t have to see identical performance, just as the way in which the USD tried to move above 100 in 1998 wasn’t very similar to the way it tried to move above the same level in late 2015 and early 2016.
Still, the rally is very likely to end in a similar way to what we saw back in 1999 in terms of length and the size of the rally. So, when and how high is the USD Index likely to move? At the first sight we see that the target is at approximately the 104 level.
As far as time and the WHEN question is concerned, we saw the bottom in the dollar on May 3, 2016.
In technical analysis terms too there’s a big indicator. It’s the target based on the big reverse head-and-shoulders formation that started to form in late 2015 and was completed just a few days ago.
The size of the “head” in the head-and-shoulders and reverse-head-and-shoulders patterns is the size of the rally that’s likely to follow. We already saw the breakout (at about 96) so we can use this technique. We mark the size of the “head” and the target based on it. As discussed, this technique points to 104 as the next major target.
Given the likelihood that we’ll see a big rally in the USD Index in the coming weeks, there is a very good possibility that we’ll see gold at new lows. It seems that we still have time to prepare for the ultimate buying opportunity in gold, silver and mining stocks, but this time is rapidly running out. New Year’s Eve may be your last best chance.
So, will gold continue to plunge if the USD continues to rally, like it did in 1999 – 2001? Not necessarily. If could very well be the case that prolonged strength in the USD Index will not really be due to the inherent strength of the USD (or the U.S. economy), but due to weakness in the Euro (if the latter continues to exist, that is) and in other major currencies. George Soros, has reported that Brexit may cause the break-up of the Euro-area, and I have a sneaking suspicion, on this (as on many other things) he maybe right.
If this is the case, gold is likely to rally due to the demand from these other country’s Central Banks and investors fleeing the Euro. Consequently, the discussed analogy has important implications for the next few years.
The USD Index could continue to rally, but not necessarily due to the demand for dollars, but the lack of demand for other currencies. Especially if the EU implodes, then all bets are off.
One other thing that happened in recent weeks, was the events in India, where the Premier Modhi, used vague worries about the Black Market and Terrorism to attack both the currency markets, and the Gold markets simultaneously,… The abolishment of the 1,000 and 500 Rupee notes, and the slap down of the Gold markets were a sign that those behind the financial systems are terrified, that we the people will not give the government their taxes to pay down the debt, and these banksters might actually need to work for a living instead… (he said cynically)
Summing up, while the short-term indications for the precious metals sector remain range bound, the medium-term trend remains bullish and it seems that the final bottom will be formed in the first months of 2017, with the second half of January 2017 being the most probable time frame.
Meanwhile, it seems that any potential profits on my long positions will stagnate further before this trade is over and the up-trend resumes.
Here’s how we got here…
And, here, we hear how it will play out from one of the world’s best investors…
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After posting this, I came across this item in King World News web-site, that draws a similar comparison, to the one, I spotted some several years ago…
http://kingworldnews.com/worried-action-gold-silver-just-read/
In it we see the image below…Note: The image uses a logarithmic scale on the left, not Gold price… And suggests the 8-fold price rise we saw last time, from trough to peak, will be less than the next mania phase… We might conclude that it might be 10 x the low price of last year, taking the Gold price to circa $10,000… Remember where you heard it first…
And Alex Jones is in sparkling form, as usual…
W.
