Asia: Today marked the second and final day in this round of U.S. – China trade negotiations in Beijing. According to RT News, “The US just ‘invaded’ an island in the East China Sea & no one noticed.” This island belongs to the Japanese, Okinawa archipelago, and was taken over and used as a military […]

QUESTION: Re Solution to a new monetary system:: In the “Solution” presented it was suggested that the existing US bonds be required to invest in companies in the USA. Does the govt just print the money for the bond values to give to the companies? If the companies receive the bonds, how are they liquidated otherwise? KB […]

  QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I love the fact you always stand in the middle. Do you believe that 95% of Bitcoin Trading is fake? Thank you KL ANSWER: I did not conduct that study. It does sound a bit high. However, manipulation has been a historical problem in the commodity world. As I stated before, […]

Asia: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer began a new round of discussions in Beijing today, and reports are that the two sides have made early progress in the current round of negotiations – including perhaps forced technology transfers. The recent issue regarding the Chinese company Huawei seems to be […]

Asia: China Beige Book, the only large-scale independent data provider on the Chinese economy, released a report this Wednesday indicating a first-quarter recovery. After polling 3300 Chinese businesses, the firm found that private borrowing outweighed that of state-owned enterprises. However, the cost of borrowing has risen substantially. Bank loan rates currently average 6.9%, while the […]

There was a 14th-century Franciscan friar by the name of William of Ockham who is credited with having formalized the principle that “simpler solutions are likely to be more correct than complex ones.” Hence, we seem to always try to reduce everything to a single cause and effect. Some have rephrased this as “keep it simple, stupid,” […]

Asia: Still more bumps in the road, were the words used by the former treasury secretary Jack Lew regarding the US-China trade deal. Still, if no agreement is reached soon, the US has warned it will up the tariffs from 10% to 20% on the 200 Billion dollars’ worth of trade.  A hit to US […]

Asia: Little in the way of news from Asia. China promises wider financial access for foreign investors as US-China trade war talks enter a crucial stage. In an announcement to the UN in Geneva, Japan’s ambassador said his country has not developed fully autonomous weapons systems and has no plans to do so. Most of […]

QUESTION: Do you think that Bitcoin will replace gold as some people claim it is some new reserve asset? Thank you for being the voice of reason in the middle of all these people preaching their own position. GD ANSWER: That is really a bizarre question. I do not see how that is possible. As […]

Asia: The China-France bilateral agreement reached all-time highs. French exports such as luxury goods, agricultural, and pharmaceutical products experienced a huge growth over the past few years. Elsewhere, more reports were released today regarding China’s religious persecution of Muslims and Christians. Japanese inflation slowed in February as can be seen in falling gasoline prices. The […]