If USD collapses

[Craig3215]

Craig 3215 is a friend of Martin Armstrong, and may be able
give us some updates on his ongoing thoughts.

Hi Arco,

Yes, he is. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, he likes gold a lot. He also didn't like the fact that the dow made new lows in november after the october low. He said he wouldn't be suprised to see the dow go to 3500-4000. Next time i go see him or talk to him i'll do a post and have some more detail.

-Craig

[arco]

Hi Arco,

Yes, he is. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, he likes gold a lot. He also didn't like the fact that the dow made new lows in november after the october low. He said he wouldn't be suprised to see the dow go to 3500-4000. Next time i go see him or talk to him i'll do a post and have some more detail.

-Craig

Thanks very much Craig - look forward to hearing from you

rgds -arco

[Dr_Who]

Who is Martin Armstrong?

[Xerof]

No....Hu is Premier of China......

[arco]

Who is Martin Armstrong?

Martin Armstrong

[Aussie]

Will it be this weekend that Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are nationalized? Ken Lewis has officially denied this so it must be true since nothing is ever official until it is officially denied. Seriously, it looks like this is the road we are travelling, the only way to keep the banks open is to nationalize the truly brain dead. But this will also have ramifications and unintended consequences.

First and foremost, the Treasury will now expose it's balance sheet to whatever losses and liabilities any bank has if they nationalize them. The biggest problem is that no rocket scientist alive can figure out what all the liabilities are. I don't believe that any of the banks even know what their true exposure and position is, how can the government know what they are stepping into. This is no ham sandwich affair, the derivative positions we are talking about run into the $ trillions. If Uncle Sam decides to step in front of this deflationary freight train, the word bankruptcy comes to mind.

Lending, or lack of has been a major concern for over a year now, does the government believe they can make better lending decisions? Maybe they can but past history shows that government ownership [ie. Amtrak] usually doesn't work as planned. Russia has already proven that central planning is not the answer. We are moving toward socialism on a grand scale.

Then what is next? The insurance companies, autos, airlines, housing? Where does it stop? Or does it? The bottom line is that the economic monster that was created is far bigger and in a deflationary hole that is so deep that if the government steps in to lend a hand, everything ends up getting sucked into the black hole. I think we are to far down the road now for anything resembling a "save". I have said many times that the current firestorm would result in a complete change of the system with a new banking system and currency, I still see no way around this. Sad.

I believe that if the US takes the step to nationalize the banks, private capital will begin to flee any questionable positions for fear of being nationalized. How will this work? The shareholders obviously get wiped out but are the bondholders left with anything? I don't know. I do think that once this "nationalization door" is opened, out of control will be an understatement. At this point no one knows what anything is truly worth, no one knows whether they are invested in a Ponzi scheme or not. If you have land or property you have no idea whether or not it will be taxed out from under you. The only thing that is a certainty is an ounce of Gold. It cannot go bankrupt, if in hand it is not a scheme, ownership [so far] is not a taxable event, and it spends. More and more are coming to this same conclusion, enjoy the ride. Have a pleasant weekend,

regards, Bill Holter

[peat]

there certainly was a sell off of USD at the end of Fridays trading. Was well rejected from the 78% retracement (1.1850) of the Nov high against CHFby coming off over 300 pips.
gartley target would suggest 1.11

[patsy]

not long to wait 2009.3 = March 19th

tho he says on page 30
that this one is not a major turning point so wont happen to the very day

but hes not talking about the fall of the USD necessarily

As coincidental as it may seem, March 19th is the official commencement of the American reporting season, which, of course, will show dreadful figures.

[Aussie]

Cost of insuring U.S. 5 yr. Treasury bond is now 1%

If an institution buys a 5-yr Treasury and then wants to turn around buy credit default protection on its purchase, it now must pay 1%. The yield on a 5 yr. T-bond is 1.92%. It now costs more than 50% of your rate of return on a T-bond to insure that you get your money back. This is an absolute disaster for our Government. The cost of credit default insurance is a real world, market assessment of the risk of default of the U.S. Govt, as opposed to the fantasy/fraudulent ratings issued by Moodys and S&P. As per this article, the default risk of the U.S. Govt is now considered to be higher than that of Japan, Germany and France. I would also argue that, given the risks being priced into our credit markets, including the Govt bond market, that the level of the Dow/S&P 500 is still way too high:

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/0...tion-risk.html

[Aussie]

To all; by all rights the equity market is oversold, it was due yesterday's bounce and during normal times we should rally hard to 7,800 then the 8,800-9,000 level on the Dow. We are not in normal times and "waterfall" events generally come from oversold levels. The reverse is true for the metals, they are overbought and should relax and pullback somewhat here. I suspect this is not what is happening, it looks to me like $1,000 will be hurdled shortly in Gold and a "6" handle is what the Dow is looking at shortly. I think if this happens, psychology will be crushed worldwide.

No one has any answers and all the past "answers" turned out to be nothing more than "close your eyes and swing at the ball". I think we are very close to the past "business as usual" [fraud] no longer being tolerated. There has been little if any public uproar or shock to the Madoff and Stanford frauds, nor the bank and mortgage frauds, and the $700 billion TARP generated only short term anger. I sense that this will change shortly and go hand in hand with the current equity downleg deepening. This is obviously just one man's opinion but I sense more "squirming" now than in the past.

Again, this is just my gut feeling but I think there will be some type of event that just won't get by the public. There is no telling what it will be or from what sector it will come from, but I sense that it is out there. A terrorist event, political or financial scandal, bank or insurance run, a sovereign auction failure, war, it could be anything, IT WILL BE SOMETHING and unfortunately the entire world is all in the same boat. Every scandal so far has had the reaction of ho-hum to say the least. No scandal has yet to be really investigated [I wonder why?] nor has the money been followed. Mark to market, real audits, follow the money, none of this can be done because immediate panic would follow.

I don't usually blather "gut feelings" but something has been eating at me for over a week or so and it has to do with the complacency, lack of fear, and lack of outrage that we're witnessing. I sense a big wave coming.

Regards, Bill H.