The only thing about international trade is that someone cannot have a trade surplus without another experiencing a trade deficit. We all cannot have trade surpluses simultaneously and we have to begin understanding this reality. The net capital movements around the world are showing clear signs that things will be intensifying and the net capital […]

Trying to understand forecasting will be critical as we move forward. The HUGE turning point appears to be 2018 and that is most likely when things will start to come unglued. How do I even make such a statement? This is not a claim that I make based upon some gut feeling. I arrive at […]

The entire problem with trade and jobs has been its focus on only the job and not the consumer. David Ricardo developed his principle that nations should pursue their own competitive advantages. In other words, just because I might want to be a brain surgeon does not mean that (1) I might be very good at […]

QUESTION: Hi Marty, How does the model’s call for deflation (earlier blog posts) fit in with the likely major cycle low in interest rates (per your recent posts)? Can there be general price deflation and yet interest rates increase significantly? ANSWER: Yes. Rates can soar to outrageous levels during the collapse of a system, which reflects […]

To make it clear, India is not going door to door to confiscate gold any more than FDR did. The reason so many $20 gold coins have survived is because there was no door to door confiscation. Banks and corporations who had records of gold were forced to turn their gold over and then FDR […]

Yesterdays strong US close encouraged a positive performance for Asia with even Asian dealers questioning whether the DOW is close 2016 over the psychological 20k level. This positive momentum certainly helped sentiment in todays market with the Shanghai index closing up 1.15%. Currency is having a large impact on equity markets as the US Dollar […]

The Scandinavian countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway are regarded as a pioneer in the the effort to eliminate money and move totally electronic. Denmark closed its final Mint outsourced the operation to Finland. This means that there is no coinage in the three states struck anymore. In this war on cash, about 20% of all transactions were […]

Today, we saw the first decline for the Nikkei in eleven trading session despite better than expected Trade data (Estimated Y227.4 but actual release Y152.5bn). The Japan Index closed down just 9pts at 19,391 but breaks the winning streak with the currency trading back below the 117 level. BOJ starts its two day meeting today […]

The key conversation was always going to be surrounding the Federal Reserve rate decision today despite any data releases. In Japan we saw the release of the Tankan (sentiment survey) which, at 10, repeated the same level as previous release as the Nikkei closed almost unchanged on the day. The Hang Seng was a similar […]

The Fed raised the interest rate a quarter-point increase in the discount, or primary credit, rate, from 1 percent to 1.25 percent, and moved its target range from a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent to 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent. The overnight funds rate currently sits at 0.41 percent. The Fed was citing the […]