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The usual domestic analysis has its usual blinders on like a horse pulling a carriage in Central Park. Typically, this analysis blames everything on the Fed and remains clueless about international capital flows or trends. They argue that the S&P 500 doubled in value from November 2008 to October 2014, coinciding with the Federal Reserve Bank’s “quantitative easing” asset purchasing program. All they can do is blame QE as if it worked. They claim the Fed poured billions of dollars into the bond market monthly and that produced a bull market simply because the Fed’s balance sheet went from $2.1 trillion to $4.5 trillion. Strange. The ECB has tried this and has had to publicly admit it has failed three times and counting.

Then we have others yelling that corporate buy-backs are the cause and they have been the only real buyer. Both of these types of analysis are the same; as if we made the absolutely true statement that everyone who has ever eaten a carrot has died at some point so there is a 100% correlation that, obviously, carrots are lethal. They fail to test any other influences so it must be just the carrots since that is all you have considered.

Both theories completely ignore international events and trends. They assume ALL of the quantitative easing stayed in the USA when in fact countries like China sold in their long-term holdings and reduced their average maturity to less than five years. Pension funds ran into high-yield emerging market debt, taking the money outside as that market rose to $9 trillion since 2007 and they issued that debt in dollars so they could sell it domestic USA pension funds ignorant of currency risk. Then there has been the flight of capital from Europe and China into the USA. That has been ever so evident in high-end real estate markets. Both of these slices of events are reflective of our problem with analysis – it is just too primitive. We have yet to wake up and look out the window – OMG, there are other countries beyond our border! The statistics show that 64% of Americans have never left the country. This seems to also plague those who pretend to be analysts.

Fabric of Space Time

QUESTION:

My personal insurance costs under Blue Cross doubled. Absolutely everyone I have spoken to has had the same result. Here, a woman tells Clinton that the Democrats are out of touch. Her family of four had their healthcare costs “skyrocket” from $480 a month to $1,080 a month. This is causing a dramatic economic decline and is part of the downturn in the economy as the average working family has lost a tremendous amount of disposable income to health care that is sucking everyone dry. There is no possible way for Hillary to lower deductibles and costs at the same time. She is just bullshitting this person on CNN. When Social Security goes broken in 2017 and they will raise the age and taxes. Any career politician is just hopeless, regardless of which party they belong to. Neither side is capable of running any responsible business, no less a country.

COMMENT:  Hi Marty,

Well, if the establishment in collusion with the MSM continues to pull dirty tricks and deny Trump the nomination or ultimately the election, we are in for very serious trouble in this country. Their other weapon is assassination.
The “great unwashed” is totally fed up with the corruption. It is going to be one hell of a year…and with the building political intensity that you can already “feel” 2017 indeed seems to be as you call it “the political year from hell.”

We are living in very interesting times.

k

REPLY: Yes, I agree. The computer has been forecasting this target for about 30 years. It is amazing to watch how this unfolds according to its forecast. No individual could have done such a job. I think this demonstrates that the future is predetermined to the extent that humanity never changes. It is merely a question of time and how long it takes trends to unfold, but they always do.

It is becoming very scary to see how the establishment is now moving to defeat whatever the public stands for if in the USA being Trump or in Europe elections to exit the EU. They respond the same way against we, the “great unwashed.” In their view, we are too stupid to understand what is good for us – or is it THEM?

It looks like a vote for Trump is becoming the only protest vote against the corruption that is destroying our future. They are really playing a high-stakes winner takes all game.

QUESTION: Martin … the reasoning behind goldbugs … advising people to buy gold to thwart the cashless society that govts will soon impose on us all.  Do you think gold and silver will become the underground currency of the alternative economy as people try to get around the official cashless economy or not?

thanks

Regards

P

ANSWER:They probably will to some extent, but it will be very limited. Gold and silver have lost their mobility. You can no longer hop on a plane with a briefcase full of metal. The more likely outcome is that gold and silver will simply be a hedge against government. It is unlikely that everyone will simply be using them at the local Starbucks.

Government will make transactions in gold or silver illegal and equivalent to money laundering. These people are not about to let anything circumvent their dreams. Nevertheless, their plans are by no means sustainable. The more likely outcome will be that they collapse and we move to some new political system. However, keep in mind that this could take until 2032 for a complete reboot.

In France, a train that passes through Switzerland and Liechtenstein is routinely stopped. The French financial police enter and search bags and luggage for valuables. You cannot travel with valuables worth more than $10,000. They will confiscate whatever they can. In Italy, if you look like you have a lot of gold chains on they will pull you over and weigh them.

The likelihood that you will be able to travel with gold is about zero. The likelihood that you will be able to go to the local grocery store and buy food with silver or gold coins is also zero. The more probable outcome is that this will provide a hedge against government to make the transition to the next monetary system. These people are fighting for dominance over society. Do you really think it will be that easy that everyone will be using gold and silver coins? They will not go down without a fight and the first blood draw will be on our side — not theirs.

We have a very serious crisis in democracy brewing. The establishment is deliberately sending protesters to Trump rallies to create the image that the bulk of the people are against Trump. Worse is the prospect that, even if Trump wins the Republican primaries, they will not allow him to be the Republican candidate. This is turning out to be a war with those in power against any reform of the people.

In Portugal, we saw the party elite would not allow reformers to take office after they won the election because the people voted to exit the EU. Now in Germany, the former CDU Minister President Oettinger has publicly called on his party to  overthrow the green election winner, Kretschmann. We are witnessing the refusal of career politicians to accept that the people want real change; not fake change as described by Obama’s slogan “Change We Can Believe In.” Every election promises change, but when the people vote for real change those in power move to a dictatorship. What is the point of voting if we cannot make a difference? That is when those in power push the people to the point of issuing a Declaration of Independence.

Günther Oettinger

Many emails have come in asking how in the world our computer predicted 2016 would be sheer political chaos years in advance. Our political models correlate to the economy as does war. This is not about being clairvoyant. This is about the simple facts. People demand change when their standard of living continually declines. Likewise, no war unfolds as long as everyone is fat and happy. The popular political cry was, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Ronald Reagan is probably the most respected Republican president since Abraham Lincoln. Reagan’s wife was his closest adviser. If they could not win Nancy’s approval, they would never get to Ron. It is perhaps timely that she has passed for she will not have to watch what the Republican elite have become. They effectively stand for everything that Reagan rejected just as David Cameron is the opposite of Maggie Thatcher. When I wrote to Reagan warning in 1985 that the formation of what became the G5 would lead to a crash by 1987, he order the Chief Economic Adviser Mr. Sprinkle to respond to me directly. Today, the Republican elite hired protesters in order to create the impression that a vote for Trump will bring violence, and it seems there is no floor to how low they will go to keep any non-politician from going to Washington.If I were Trump, I would immediately file suit against a protester and demand access to their bank accounts and follow the money trail from there and expose the culprits trying to create trouble. The Good Old Boys in DC like things the way they are. All we hear are promises to vote for someone for change and everyone cheers. But you cannot bullshit the people much longer.

The Democratic Party has always been a coalition of groups from women, minorities, and socialists but they all agree on one thing – where’s theirs? The Republicans are never a single coalition but a very diverse group. There are those who wish to force their religious beliefs on everyone else and then there are Libertarians who demand fiscal conservatism. Then there are the special interest groups who fund both sides so they are always in the game.

There is no time for personal opinion. We all have one, but we can only judge the future without biased self-interest. This is not about what I want to see happen; not what I personally would support. This has nothing to do with those things. This is about the facts and the trend.

The establishment is fighting with every possible dirty trick in the book. Rubio has flipped and is pulling his support for Trump if the candidate. This is outright war. The Republican elite are not about to accept the people’s decision. Screw the people. They will not support Trump and are hoping for a split for they want Hillary to win so all their friends, bankers, and families with government jobs can sleep easy at night and not have to worry that Trump may fire them all. So we may see a third party unfold by November. This is now on the wish list of the Republican elite. They will accept Hillary before any outsider who just might reform Washington. The media is now on board to stop Trump. This is an all-out political war and the loser is the people.

Quieter equity markets across the globe today with gains decreasing as we move from east to west. Core Asian markets saw returns today of around +1.5% each but the week is to be dominated by central bank activity. Today sees the start of the BOJ’s two-day meeting, but no change in rate is expected by the street. China was happy to keep the yuan around Friday’s level of 6.4913. Few miners are starting to see rating hits due to recent price activity, especially in Australia.

In Europe, we saw the best returns in the DAX (+1.6%) partly on a better than forecasted Industrial Output (Expected +1.7 while actual release was +2.1) but more supported by Draghi’s commitment last week (see Fridays 12th of March “Market Talk”). It will be interesting to see the amount of corporate borrowings to facilitate stock buy-backs! Other core European market (CAC, FTSE and IBEX) all saw gains of around +0.5%. Tomorrow we see Employment data released (0.3% Q/Q and 1.1% Y/Y).

US had an extremely quiet day but with the FED’s two-day meeting commencing Tuesday it really should not be a surprise. Also tomorrow, we have Retail Sales and Producer Prices when good or bad numbers will certainly shake equity, bond and FX markets. A hike is not priced-in but it will be interesting to see if they can narrow the gap between the dots and market expectation.

Oil lost 3% after Iran said they would not be looking to limit supply. WTI traded drifted lower all day with last price seen trading at $37.30 (-3.15%). Gold has also been under pressure all day losing around 2% with last price seen at $1235 (-1.9%). There has been talk that money is making a bold move and moving back into Emerging Markets debt and equity.

US Bond market continues to see a flatter curve with 2’s trading 0.96% while 10’s recouped some of Fridays losses (closing this evening at 1.96%. In Europe, core markets were little changed with 10yr Bund closing 0.28%. Italy 10yr closed 1.30% (-2bp), Greece 8.41% (-16bp), Turkey 9.88% (-3bp) and UK Gilt 10yr at 1.55% (-2bp).