QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; The goldbugs are saying that China, Russia, India are “rogue” rising economic powers that are rogue nations. They cite David Stockman who preaches the U.S. economy is in deep trouble thanks to its “massive indebtedness” and they seem to ignore what you have pointed out that the USA is in the best shape. They also cite that there is a “massive global infrastructure” that will connect Asian nations with countries rich in natural resources and they are selling off U.S. debt. They keep calling this a petrodollar that replaced a gold-backed dollar which means the dollar is vulnerable to collapse. Is any of this stuff ever valid?
LMM
ANSWER: This is just sophistry. Any reduction in US debt holdings is negligible and the “massive indebtedness” of the USA is a joke compared to the outstanding world debt As the interest rates continue to rise, the debt servicing costs are simply going to explode. As a whole, Europe is over 100% of debt to GDP with respect to just Public Debt on average compared to the USA at about 73%. Global government public debt has exceeded $60 trillion. As far as David Stockman is concerned, he has been preaching the same thing since the 1980s.
The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road, also known as the One Belt and One Road Initiative, (OBOR), is a development strategy proposed by Chinese Government that focuses on connectivity and cooperation between Eurasian countries. This is clearly going to build China to become the new Financial Capital of the World. However, that does not come into play until AFTER 2032.
I have explained that there is no PETRODOLLAR. This is completely bogus. I really do not understand how they can keep saying this factually incorrect information to get people to hand them their life-savings. The oil and gas drilling sector make up between 4.6% and 6.5% of the global economy. That is it. How can you call this a “PETRODOLLAR” by any rational means?
