Christine Lagarde Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund spoke at the IMF Arab Fiscal Forum: Fiscal Policy and Growth in Abu Dhabi on February 22, 2016. Her message was clear – forget downsizing government or reforming anything, just raise taxes.  She opened the conference saying: “This event is taking place at a pivotal moment not only […]

After a slightly nervous start to the Asian trading day all core equity markets made solid gains of between 1 and 2%. A slight comfort was assumed in China after PBOC Governor Zhou claimed the renimbi is balanced but then made ground on the news that the head of the regulatory body was changing. The […]

QUESTION: Dear Martin Armstrong, I appreciate very much your economic analysis and read your blog nearly daily although I disagree with some of your political statements. In your last blog about Schengen you mention that “Everything is connected and nothing takes place in some isolated vacuum”.  Obvious. According to me, and many others re-known economists […]

QUESTION:  Dear Martin , I had been following the the various gold bug theories since 2009 but became disillusioned after 2011 until I came across your site . What you say makes sense and something I trust , however there is still one issue I am struggling to understand . When gold spiked during the […]

Most of the wealth earned by the 1% is from INVESTMENT, not wages. So why are the 99% oppressed? Largely taxes. For example, Social Security is a simple tax. That money is not invested in your future. The government robs from Social Security and stuffs it with government debt, which they then move toward negative interest […]

A very welcome quiet Friday after another volatile week for Asian markets but at least this one has been positive for the Nikkei. Closing down today (-1.3%) as dealers continue to question the BOJ’s drastic monetary policy (despite rumors of agree officials attempting to silence the media) but the Nikkei has closed up almost 7% […]

Christine Lagarde won another term at the IMF and is holding her grip as an unelected member of the Troika in Europe. There was just no competition and they need to keep her there because she has done a great job threatening countries to shut down all tax havens. Her reward — another four years as […]

The insanity of NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES, instigated by Larry Summers, is based upon the stupid idea that lowering interest rates will stimulate borrowing and thus spending. The idea is that penalizing people by moving negative will FORCE them to spend their money and revitalize the economy. But what happens if they invest the money in […]

Shanghai was following the heard (+1.5%) until the last few hours of trading when the index fell to close small down (-0.2%). Both the Nikkei and Hang Seng built on yesterday’s gains, despite (Japanese) economic data failing to live up to expectations (exports fell 12.9% against a market consensus of -11.3%). Worth noting also is […]

This time is was Shanghai that bucked the trend after ending the day up +1.1% whilst the Nikkei and Hang Seng closed 1% lower. All core indices moved in a 3%+ range, which is only to be expected these days. Late in the US trading day, we are seeing Asian futures following the strong pattern of […]