QUESTION: On Friday, the UK FTSE and DAX closed at new all-time highs, so clearly money is flowing into these indices yet euros and Pounds seem to be flying out the door as they prepare for lower lows and thus this seem confusing.  Added to the confusion is that Europe is where the sovereign debt crisis SDC) is likely to begin, so why is capital flowing into these markets?  I suppose better to hold UK or German equities vs. their sovereign debt and thus will those equity markets continue to rally during the SDC?

SR

ANSWER: A number of questions have been coming in about the European markets. Keep in mind that we are in the throes of geopolitical and political upheavals, not to mention the entry of Trump and his old-school nonsense about lowering the dollar to sell more stuff overseas and imposing tariffs. Those ideas I have dealt with constantly over the course of the past few decades. It is confusing without question. The press does not understand currency, not even those in government. Absolutely everything has an international value, and this has led to the overwhelming majority getting things wrong. Many ask why mainstream media will not interview me on such important topics as this. The reason is simply – it is too confusing for them as well.

I have told the story at conferences about my Ferarri Trade and how I bought a 308 Ferrari when I lived in London in 1985 when the British pound fell to $1.03. The Italians were getting $60,000 for the car in the States back then. It was still priced in pounds when the pound used to be $2.40. I bought the car for about $35,000 when converted. The Italians could no longer sell these Ferarris for such a price in London. Hence, they doubled the price in British pounds based on $1.03.

Over the course of the next couple of years, the pound rallied and went to $1.90 again by 1988. I drove the car for 2 years, sold it used for £40,000, and virtually doubled my money. Then, people were buying Ferraris as an investment, thinking it was the car that appreciated when, in fact, it was just a currency play. If you did not look at the currency, you missed the whole point.

In fact, I was buying German cars throughout the 1970s as the dollar was declining. A Porsche was $8,600 in 1970, and by 1980, it was $27,700. I would drive the cars for 2 years and then trade them in and get my money back, so cars never cost me a dime throughout the 1970s. I understood it was all just currency – not the cars themselves. My father took the family to Europe for the summer of 1964, which taught me about currency as we traveled from Sweden to Italy and all around. We had to change currency every time we crossed a border. I learned that CURRENCY was actually a mental language. I would listen to the price in Italian lira and convert that back to dollars in my mind to asses if the value was a fair price.

I was really the only true foreign exchange analyst. I was dealing in billions in the early 1980s. Clients would even put me on a speak in the middle of an OPEC meeting. I was being called in around the world all on currency crises. That’s how I became friends with Margaret Thatcher. I was being touted as the highest-paid analyst in the world, all for currency. When I was opening an office in Geneva in 1985, I was going to use some European names to blend in. I went to lunch with the head of one of the top main banks in Switzerland, who was a client and asked his opinion of what European name to use. He asked me to name one European FOREX analyst. I was embarrassed for I could not. He then explained why everyone was using my firm. He said there were no European analysts because they each would tout their own currency because it was a political issue. He explained everyone was using my firm because I did not care if the dollar went down or up. I said it was just a trade.

By 1985, I was summoned to the US. They were arguing to force the dollar down by 40% to reduce the trade deficit as that theory today is espoused by Trump. That was the Plaza Accord, and I wrote to President Reagan and warned that they would cause a crash within two years, and that became the 1987 Crash. The Presidential Commission then called me in for that one. They just do not teach this stuff in school and that seems to be the problem.

In 1997, Robert Rubin, former head of Goldman Sachs, was also trying to talk the dollar down for trade. Again, he did not really understand currency and its impact on markets. The Asian currency Crisis unfolded weeks later. He may have been at Goldman, but that was more related to debt. To one person, a stock rally can look like a bull market, and to another, a bear market. When you get into currency swings of 10%-40%, it alters the perception of value because they still do not teach this stuff in school. We are clinging to old theories like Keynesian economics from the period of fixed exchange rates. Politicians are making the wrong decisions and investors are confused because these concepts are never taught.

As the greenback rallies, then the European share prices will appear cheap, just as Ferarri did in 1985 when the pound fell to $1.03. You will have domestic movement away from public assets as we have seen corporate rates move below that of government rates in France. Here is the FTSE in pounds and then in dollars. While you see new highs in pounds, the FTSE has not made new highs in dollars and has backed off, showing that the rally in the FTSE is not keeping pace with the decline in the pound.

This is why, in Socrates, you can plot any instrument in a host of various currencies. The definition of a bull market is something that rallies in terms of all the key currencies. When it is rising only in terms of the local currency, it is simply a domestic shift and not international.

We do NOT see a major Crash on the horizon in shares, commodities, gold, silver, etc.

The greatest risk of a crash will be in government debt.

QUESTION: I made a bet that a friend was wrong that Roosevelt also confiscated silver. I never heard of that, only gold. He said I should write to you and you will decide who wins.

Thanks

FD

ANSWER: Sorry, you lose. He must have been at one of my conferences when we discussed that if he told you to ask me. Most people have never heard that Roosevelt also confiscated silver – not just gold. On August 9^th, 1934, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented the seizure of all silver situated in the continental United States with Executive Order 6814 – requiring the Delivery of All Silver to the United States for Coinage. This was the same abuse of executive power as Executive Order 6102, which FDR signed on April 5^th, 1933, “forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States” with some differences.

A key difference here with the silver Executive Order 6814 excluded the seizure of all silver coins, whether foreign or domestic. At the same time, Executive Order 6102 only exempted certain types of collectible or numismatic coins from seizure because Teddy Roosevelt had been an ancient coin collector and even J.P. Morgan. Franklin was a stamp collector.

In a famous letter to U.S. Secretary of the Treasury L.M. Shaw, dated December 27, 1904, Teddy Roosevelt stated, “I think the state of our coinage is artistically of atrocious hideousness. Would it be possible, without asking permission of Congress, to employ a man like [Augustus] Saint-Gaudens to give us a coinage which would have some beauty?”  He saw the ancient coins as magnificent works of art unprecedented in numismatic history. Teddy saw the ancients as inspiration.

He had the $20 1907 gold struck in high relief with Roman numerals for the day. But modern machines could not handle this type of work. Only 11,250 were struck before being replaced with the flat-relief design with regular Arabic numbers.

There was a shortage of silver because people were also hoarding silver after confiscating the gold. There were no silver dollars minted after 1928. Only when Roosevelt confiscated the silver in 1934 did we see 1934 silver dollars being struck again.

UK’s Keir Starmer is eager to sign a 100-year partnership with Ukraine to strengthen security in the Baltic, Azov, and Black Seas and increase economic and cultural ties. The pact will ensure that the UK is obligated to support Ukraine regardless of who comes to power after Starmer. A Russian drone strike targeting Kyiv amid Starmer’s meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky strengthened their resolve.

“For me, that drone attack is just really a reminder of what Ukraine is facing every day and a reminder that this war is brought about by Russian aggression,” Starmer told reporters at a press conference in the Mariinsky Palace. “Putin’s ambition to wrench Ukraine away from its closest partners has been a monumental strategic failure,” he added, saying that their partnership has been brought to “the next level.”

Starmer committed £40 million to TIGER (Triggering Investment Growth and Economic Resilience), an economic recovery fund intended to help small and medium businesses in Ukraine. This comes on the heels of London providing £12.8 billion in aid, with £7.8 billion directed toward military assistance.

The UK will also boost its Grain Verification Scheme to track stolen or destroyed grain from occupied territories. The program was created based on the former Soviet government’s seizure of grain from Ukraine in 1932-33, which led to widespread famine and the deaths of nearly 4 million people. The Soviets starved their own people during that period as Communism failed, which is why Yeltsin handed over Russia to Putin to prevent the old oligarchs from reverting back to failed policies.

Ukraine believes this partnership will help it fast-track its way into the NATO alliance. In recent days, nations like Poland have been recklessly calling for Ukraine to urgently join bloc, which would IMMEDIATELY begin the next world war. Everyone is keen to aid Ukraine in its war efforts but no one is willing to speak with Putin directly or discuss what actions must be taken to bring about peace.

It is of no coincidence that NATO nations are calling to raise funding and strengthen ties with Ukraine as Donald Trump comes to power. The UK and Germany are Ukraine’s top supporters behind the US. There is no plan for the war effort to wane or for peace to be presented as an option. It is interesting how, during the last world war, the UK under Churchill was the one to help push the US to join the effort. Alliances have been cemented, and Russia is keenly aware that they are soon to be at war with not only Ukraine but nearly the entirety of the West.

NATO’s new Secretary-General Mark Rutte believes that members must reduce spending on social programs to redirect funds into the war effort. Rutte is prepared to spend as if NATO were already at war. Social security programs and pensions must come secondary to the neocon agenda.

“On average, European countries easily spend up to a quarter of their national income on pensions, health and social security systems, and we need only a small fraction of that money to make defense much stronger,” Rutte told MEPs. NATO knows that incoming President Donald Trump will no longer subsidy other member states. Trump is calling on all NATO members to up their spending to 5%, but Rutte believes the best they can muster “will be impressively more than the 2 percent” initial target.

Rutte said it’s crucial to “bring NATO and the EU closer together” as it can no longer rely on the US for unlimited funding. The neocon retirement home refused to meet their obligatory 2% target until recent years on the heels of Trump initially threatening to pull out of the alliance followed by the Russia-Ukraine war. It’s highly unlikely that the organization would be calling for emergency funding if we were looking at a Kamala presidency. Most nations STILL cannot or will not meet their 2% target. These nations never had the pressure of finding funding since the US was always willing to write the check.

“We are not at war, but we are not at peace either,” Rutte commented. No peace is the precise agenda. There could be peace as no allied nation has been threatened. The threats are coming from within the alliance as a fear-mongering tactic. “We are safe now, but not in four or five years,” he said, adding later that if spending doesn’t go up Europeans should “get out your Russian language courses or go to New Zealand.”

The Dutch are familiar with Rutte’s rhetoric. Naturally, no plan was presented, but the people should be aware that politicians are prepared to punish civilians, including those who paid into poorly managed social systems throughout their long, tax-paying lives.

Nearsightedness or myopia occurs when objects look blurred at a distance. The British Journal of Ophthalmology recently published a report that found a significant increase in myopia among children and teens since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.

“Emerging evidence suggests a potential association between the pandemic and accelerated vision deterioration among young adults,” states the report. The researchers carried out 276 studies across 50 countries with a total of 5,410,945 participants. Instances of nearsightedness in children and teens has tripled in the past three decades, which one could assume is the result of an increase in screen time as children stare at tablets, phones, and computers for hours on end.

Yet, there was a significant increase in cases of myopia after the pandemic. “Myopia has increased dramatically during the period of COVID,” said Lisa Christian, associate director of clinical practice at the University of Waterloo School of Optometry. “When we’re indoors, we’re focused on near work most of the time, we’re looking at one spot. When we’re outside, we’re looking far away, so we’re relaxing our eyes.”

The University of Waterloo confirmed these findings in a 2018 study that found that one hour of outdoor time could reduce a child’s chances of developing myopia by 14%. “Time spent outdoors was the only child activity to have a significant impact on myopia,” the study stated. Studies in Germany and Australia found similar results.

Developing eye problems at a young age poses a great health risk in the long-term. “As your prescription gets bigger and bigger, you are at risk in your lifetime of other health issues related to the eye,” a pediatrician and ophthalmologist from Calgary stated. Those with a prescription of -6.00 or higher are at an increased risk of developing retinal tears, glaucoma, and cataracts. To the extreme, these issues can lead to vision loss.

The British Journal of Ophthalmology stated that nearsightedness will affect over half of children worldwide by 2050. This is an important study to pin as an additional repercussion of COVID lockdowns. Children were prevented from going outside or living anything that resembled a normal life. Those repercussions did not end with the lockdowns. And yet, no one has been held accountable for the crimes against humanity that changed the world.

QUESTION: You have opened my eyes to the fact that volcanoes. I believe your computer was forecasting a rise in volcanic activity starting in 2025. Do you have any data that can suggest the risk from the supervolcano at Yellowstone?

Pat

ANSWER: The Yellowstone supervolcano in Wyoming is one of Earth’s most potent volcanic systems. Known for its catastrophic eruptions in the distant past, it remains a natural wonder for tourists and keeps scientists on their toes. Recent studies have revealed subtle but intriguing activity deep beneath its surface, prompting questions about the volcano’s future behavior.

The data is too vague to make an accurate forecast. We know there were pretty sizeable rhyolitic lava flows in the caldera between 180,000 and 70,000 years ago. That does not help with a cyclical model. We can see evidence that a very steep caldera wall, 500 m tall, formed when the eruption of Lava Creek was estimated to be about 640,000 years ago. The thick West Yellowstone rhyolite lava flow was part of the 110,000 years ago, and the Nez Perce Creek flow erupted 160,000 years ago.

The historical data for Yellowstone is not sufficient to create a forecast. We must correlate this with regions where we have more data.

There are a number of Supervolcanoes around the world, and perhaps the most recent one to erupt was in Italy. The BBC and the Discovery Channel story on Yellowstone 2005 popularized the term Supervolcano. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a supervolcano is any volcanic center that has explosively erupted at least 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles) of fresh volcanic material in a sudden, violent manner – in a so-called supereruption – often producing a huge depression crater named a caldera. Italy’s Campi Flegrei volcano has been showing signs for the first time in nearly 400 years that it is still alive and well and capable of making many people experience a very bad day.