Martin Armstrong on Europe

Copyright Martin A. Armstrong all rights reserved August 5th, 2011
If you want to save Europe Consolidate the debt now! it may be your last bloody chance
This is maybe the last chance to save Europe. I have stressed numerous times that if you are going to create a single currency, there has to be a single national debt! Alexander Hamilton did precisely that relieving the debt burden of the individual states consolidating that debt into a NATIONAL DEBT on the premise that all the colonies contributed to the national defense. Virginia, the most fiscal responsible of the lot, got in turn the agreement to move the capital to its border. That is why the capital is where it is today.
I will explain this ONE LAST TIME, when you adopted the Euro, the national debts of the member states were converted to Euros. This actually INCREASED the net debt burden of the weaker states. If the United States stupidly converted to a gold standard, the debt would then be convertible into gold and it would be the greatest way to destroy the United States overnight. Every foreign holder of US debt would suddenly be given the greatest value gift in history. They would have to be brain dead NOT to cash in their bonds and take the gold home. The US would be without any gold just as it was in 1896.
By converting the outstanding debts into the more valuable euro, you increased the debt burden of Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland. Where their currencies naturally depreciated devaluing their debts as is the case in the USA, suddenly they created debt that APPRECIATED in value for the bondholders. HELLO! Is anybody home?
It is the DEBT that is tearing apart the global economy. You cannot do bailouts and bridge loans and any other hair brain scheme intent upon keeping the shell game in motion. There is NO nation capable of repaying their debts! It is time to revise the monetary system of the world.
Do not wait until the last moment. Forget your damn political careers just for once and think about society! People just might vote for a politician who for once stands up like statesmen use to do. People are tired of politics as usual. This can be fixed in 30days or less! I will not publish the solution in advance for fear of market anticipation. It’s just time to do the right thing before there is nothing left. If you think this is going to be business as usual waiting for the disaster and then lock up everyone you can blame, the public may rise up against you. When they lose their future that is when revolution unfolds. You are playing with fire.

3 comments:

Warren James said...

(Just my opinion), Freegold is an elegant solution to this debt stuff. But because it ends the exorbitant privilege, it will be resisted as long as there are other options. Armstrong and FOFOA are in agreement that a gold standard will never be implemented (because it would mean a drain on America's gold, as stated above). But if gold were to be revalued (through whatever means) then this would defend not just the debt in the USA but also Europe. Something like that anyway, I feel non-qualified to comment in this space.

But Mr Armstrong, just in case you're reading I'm curious as to what you think of FOFOA's work, in particular where that fits into your Economic Confidence Model (I know he is a fan of your work :).

RJ said...

Surely the only problem is a imbalance between Govt debt and private debt

The world needs more Govt debt. A lot more as

Government $deficit = non government $surplus (net financial assets)

As the population ages Govt must run bigger deficits as it is the only way to generate the non Govt net financial assets.

At present higher govt deficits are needed to rebalance the commercial banks balance sheets

Customer credit can come from two sources

1 Govt deficits or

2 Non Govt sector borrowing

So a countries commercial banks balance sheets will be as follows

Assets

aa Govt bonds or central bank credit
bb Non Govt borrowing

Liabilites

cc Customer deposits for consumption
dd Customer deposits for monetary saving and investments

Assets must equal liabilities

If aa is low then bb must be higher. This however puts a huge stress on the non Govt sector

And results in both cc and dd being too low. Low CC results in unemployment

Ferdinand said...

Nothing against Martin, but if global investors put that much faith in S&P we're screwed anyway, best to get on with it.