than china and has moved near the top of the list of nations with large gold reserves chris martenson explains why we do it all but first let's hit the headlines in his first testimony to congress federal reserve chair jay powell says his personal outlook for the u.s. economy has improved since december though powell said he would not want to prejudge the question of further interest rate increases most of the servers read his bullish comments as a signal that there will be perhaps three as many as four federal funds rate increases this year up from three discussed at the fed's the f o emcees meeting at the end of twenty seventeen powell was on worried about recent turmoil and stock markets saying any risks to the broader economy were quote at most modest he did however note that cyber security is a major threat to economic stability more on that in the coming days. the supreme court has rejected the trumpet ministrations request for an immediate hearing on

whether the president can end the obama era program that spares an estimated seven hundred thousand immigrants from the threat of deportation the trip administration argues that the creation of the program deferred action for childhood arrivals otherwise notice doc up was an unconstitutional use of presidential of forty two previous rulings imposed injunctions on the trumps administration actions to end dhaka and the justice department asked the supreme court for a rare action to bypass the appeals process the supreme court wanted nothing to do with it and rejected the administration's request this puts the dhaka dreamers in a place where they will not face deportation as previously thought on march fifth. u.s. ship or united parcel service or u.p.s. is suing european union regulators for one point seven billion euros over two point one billion dollars over the. denial of

a merger with dutch delivery company in two thousand and thirteen u.p.s. abandon its seven billion dollar bid for t.n.t. express in the face of strong objections from the european commission and after three revisions aimed at addressing the commission's concerns rival federal express acquired t.n.t. in two thousand and sixteen for four point four billion euros now you p.s.s. taking the commission to court in the e.u. in the wake of some rare court defeats for the regulator the european courts generally only look for a legal errors and commission actions while u.s. regulators are only a few of their merger denials have been overturned. general electric has announced it will overhaul its board by reducing the number of directors to twelve down from eighteen a year ago the changes that g.e. are happening as c.e.o. and chairman john flannery is planner planning majoring restructuring as we've reported before that could include breaking off some major divisions flannery has pledged to remove at least twenty billion dollars in assets from the company's

balance sheet. a statement released from the weinstein group says that the bankruptcy is imminent following the collapse of talks with an investor group about selling the company harvey weinstein the co-founder and former fierce force in hollywood who last year fell from grace due to sexual misconduct spurred the demise of the once powerful company that he and his brother bob built the company's statement said quote while we recognize that this is an extremely unfortunate outcome for our employees our creditors and any victims the board has no choice the two brothers started their rise to the excess with the former company dream works which was later sold to disney with the best picture winner of one nine hundred ninety eight shakespeare in love. and here to discuss money systems is david merchant all of it all off investments

and the offer of the all of the blog david welcome back to boom bust you were here even before i was we we had several years ago so i'm glad you're back here so yesterday we had on a guest that we've had several times and he's really a thought provoking fellow named jeffrey tucker and he posited in an opinion editorial that crypto currencies could mean the end of monies that could change a currency is overall and i told him that you know three years ago i would have thought that was like nut bar factor eleven stuff but now even though i think it's far fetched. i want to give it a voice i want to talk about it so what do you explain first for our viewers what are currencies what are you how to central banking systems work into that and then give me your take on crypto currencies changing it all if you had currencies are called currencies because they're made on the say so of someone and usually it's the government with a central bank and the currency gets created as

a result of two things one though they were have cash in coin and then they will also have as a result of the banking system they will take in deposits and then the banks will use that to make loans and in the process credit is created and money is created so that is the traditional way that this is done now crypto currencies are an interesting thing. the question for crypto currencies in my opinion is how broadly can they be used right now they don't have a very broad usage outside of speculators and outside of sometimes illicit sources but i'll tell you the one thing that is that is not being taken into account yet on that is fraud and when fraud comes up and when legal cases come up that's when crypto currencies are beginning to find oh wait the government does begin to horn in bit by bit because now say there's a divorce i read this today in an article somewhere on the web that somebody is now being forced to give up some of their bitcoins how is that going to happen well it

can't be kept perfectly secret when the legal system comes into existence so i think crypto currencies are going to run into that wall and that's the history of currencies generally even even when you talk about things like a gold standard governments come in to regulate finest and wait and so and then governments come in to debase the currency to buy mixing lead in or tungsten or whatever so. it's impossible to keep the government out of currencies reminds me there is another case divorce case actually in the news in illinois and in the the proceedings. the wife the spouse is seeking bank records from the husband so currencies have a lot different meaning than they used to when the courts are doing that but explain for our viewers the difference between you know a sovereign system and the way that things operate just in general with how banks and all your money right is in a sovereign system the cash in coin your pocket has the same principle is the same

inside the bank as it is in your pocket. the banks can't lend against deposits any longer in the sovereign system whereas they can in the ordinary systems that exist in the world now and as a result. the banks cannot do what's called maturity transformation where when they take in your deposits they then make loans against it there are long that is what basically expands the economy in a wide number of ways but it also leads to the boom bust cycle because if all of a sudden the the the assets turn bad whether their mortgages or whatever type of loans that are made there are immediate there can be an immediate demand for cash and a run on the bank this can't happen is a sovereign money system basically all of the deposits are walled off into their own little separate subsidiary that's not part of the bankruptcy estate at the bank and so as a result now the bank instead of making money off of your deposits now will have to

charge you because they now that they're doing a transactional service for you but they're making no money off it ok now i mean a lot of this is a theoretical not be in it in that it would ever happen it right or have it out there conversation but i'm glad we're we're having and i appreciate the boom bust reference because i would never program if we didn't have boom bust cycles indeed but explain to me and our viewers about what's going on over in the e.u. in switzerland they have the bold ged is it bold geld is it that they're trying to do both ends of the german name for they're trying to do a sovereign system. right right explain that and is that have any possibility of passing or is that sort of a pipe dream it's a pipe dream in my opinion because they tried to actually back the the swiss franc with with gold there was a proposal about three years ago to put a twenty percent gold back in and it failed fairly miserably this is even more out

there in the sense that you'd be changing the entire plumbing of the of the financial system there now if you're going to make a radical monetary proposal for reform the time to do it is immediately after a crisis when everybody is sympathetic to it but when things are good then they're not going to do that now there are several reasons why i mean this this is never been tried and as a result if i were a swiss citizen i'd be saying i've got things good already why am i going to take change and there are some downsides you know you're going to have to pay for your checking account transactional accounts you're going to have to bear with inflation . the central bank will no longer know exactly i mean that they would develop it over time but they wouldn't know right out of the box how do we handle monetary policy and the swiss central bank would be given a lot of powers that they don't exact that they don't have now it would become a much more central bank oriented system which means it will be a more politically oriented system also finally if the government begins to rely on

some of the senora that comes out of the system for its funding they would have a difficult time constraining inflation because if the government is relying on the profits of the central bank then it becomes a problem ok so all of that is sort of theoretical not going to happen you say in switzerland get it but interesting to note maybe this is a place where we come back and you know a year eighteen months and we look at this conversation that we explained it here to our viewers i have a question for you before we go given that what you say about the time to make changes after a crisis i was pretty involved as you might imagine in franken writing those rules sixty five of them might buy outright but now we've got this effort to pull. back on regulation do you think that's going to be successful in general. i think some of it's going to be successful i hope the ones particularly for banking are not successful because i thought that was the best of dodd frank this is stomach risk stuff yeah yeah because there were a lot of things that put in that made the banks have to hold more capital that meant that the banks had to match their assets and liabilities better and constrain

the way that they do their lending now that of course cuts bank profits and that's why the banks pushed back for years the banks had returns on equity that were double that of the rest of the finance sector and why because they were able to lever up far more than they should have been david thank you so much david of polish securities and you have a great blog to write thank you thank you for being with us sure appreciate it. we take a quick pause for the promotional cause but hang right here because when we return ashley banks tells us just how a new law will change the vehicles that are driven in germany plus we speak with chris martenson about why russia has become a new leader in holding physical gold and here are the numbers at the closing bell all three major u.s. stock markets as well as oil and gold in negative territory today but all those red arrows back in a minute. with

gold make this manufacture come sentenced to public wells. when the ruling class is some protect themselves. with the flames larry go round the sun be the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick. the more you need to prove. to everybody i'm stephen both the task hollywood guy the suspect every proud american first of all i'm just george bush and our visa to say this is my buddy max

famous financial guru just a little bit different on the abraham lincoln telling us they're going to win those up with all the drama happening in our country i'm shooting the road to have fun every day americans. and hopefully start to bridge the gap this is the great american. at the moment we've had a period of fake the flame. engineer by all the central banks of the day don't have the control that they think that they have and that once you start to see this being picked up in markets like the gold market and others you know you've got to start to see it feed on itself in a big way. years

ago pregnant women to come together as a sleeping pill does the switch on the images are to. the scientific what terrible but not on. the. across europe. legal battles demanding at least some compensation in two ways first will the physical damage itself as well as the concert mind that the people who perpetrated this crime has never been able to justice and there has been a couple of. the netherlands who the netherlands is seeking to change its image as a tax haven for foreign multinational companies wishing to avoid home country taxes as a euro zone's fifth largest economy in the netherlands is home to roughly nine hundred

such shell companies the effort to combat the continued filings is the net in the netherlands a loop oil used even by rock bands like the rolling stones and u two there will be added a royalty tax beginning in two thousand and twenty one the tax will be imposed upon shell businesses that pay royalties in another country with a lower tax rate or in a jurisdiction that the e.u. has deemed non-cooperative on tax but netherland ireland and luxembourg are all seen as the lowest of the low tax jurisdictions. sales of new single family homes fell in january by seven point eight percent according to figures released by the commerce department on monday that sharp drop follows a nearly identical drop in december four of the past six months of drops in the sales category there was a regional bias to the drop with the northeast and south seeing the largest declines the west and midwest by contrast saw gains leaving some analysts to blame

the unexpected decrease on harsh winter weather market watchers will be especially keen to watch whether the northeast continues to trend bearish as a trump tax cuts may discourage home purchases in high cost areas. and comcast the u.s. cable giant that owns n.b.c. telemundo and universal pictures is looking to add another company to that list this week comcast offered to buy sky for more than thirty billion dollars sky which features news and television content is currently own did part by rupert murdoch's news corp the parent company of fux the move pits comcast against murdoch's and fox the move would be huge given that sky's business broadcast several premier league games premier soccer league games but ball they say throughout the u.k. will definitely be keeping an eye on this one of the next few weeks. a new forecast

by one of the largest car suppliers estimates that electric vehicle sales worldwide will increase at a greater rate than expected by twenty twenty five to ten percent of all vehicles and manufacturers that doubles the previous expected estimate of only five percent of vehicles electric vehicles currently account for only about one percent of all vehicles manufactured electric car sales have ramped up recently in the euro zone following some actions related to banning diesel cars and trucks and in that in that regard germany's top administrative court has ruled in favor of allowing major cities to ban older diesel vehicles in an effort to cut pollution every year thousands of people in germany die from pollution and for years environmentalist have been fighting to find ways to stop this from happening this ruling is making many happy however it could mean financial consequences for others many others here's our correspondent ashley banks with more right barr now every year experts

estimate between six thousand and thirteen thousand people die in germany from excessive amounts of nitrogen oxides in the air which cause a range of health conditions from stroke to must sometimes resulting in death most of the nitrogen oxides present in the atmosphere are coming from transportation mostly diesel motor seventy german cities exceed the amount of nitrogen oxide allowed in the air this recent ruling is all in an effort to improve deathly air quality levels within germany city is to prevent more deaths from occurring by banning the most heavily polluting diesel cars this move could have consequences for neighboring countries and pose problems for germans all of our mental activists are pleased with the court's decision some companies could possibly see a financial downturn this is asian effects twelve million vehicles and europe's largest car market at all. is taking a heavy blow possibly force carmakers to pay for costly modifications shortly after

the ruling shares and german car manufacturers suffered other moderate decline and this ruling is also placing millions of germans in a bind they now have to figure out how they can travel to work and school and how they should handle owning vehicles that will plunge in value if this ban is put into place as important to note the court ruled it would be up to city and municipal authorities to apply the bans but at vies them to impose the bans of gradually ags them thing certain vehicles such as ambulances trash vehicles and police cars and environmental minister barbara hendrick said quote the court has not issued any driving bans but created clarity about the law driving bans can be avoided and my goal is and will remain that they do not come into force the president of the association of the german automobile industry criticized the course decision insisting the quote ambitious air quality standards in german

cities are also achievable without driving bantz at this time it's not known how many vehicles would be affected by the ban if one were imposed but barton germany is a government that has stated four inches car owners nothing would change immediately entrust the bands were not and navigable. actually there's so many diesel vehicles in the european union much more so of course in the u.s. so it's definitely something we need to be watching thank you for that excellent report r.t. correspondent ashley banks. russia has become the fifth biggest sovereign holder of gold in an effort to diversify its foreign currency holdings here discusses chris martenson the c.e.o. and co-founder of peak prosperity dot com chris thanks for being with us the u.s.

holds more gold than any other nation followed by a few others but what do you think behind russia's effort to amass more gold well it's clear as you just mentioned they're looking to diversify they've been looking to get away from the dollar particularly in dollar trading and to diversify their holdings they've been doing all kinds of bilateral pair trade in domestic currencies with china and it really seems to me that this is part of a longer move by russia to make sure they can move away from the dollar when you talk about they've been doing these trades can you give us a sense of the size of these trades i mean is that is that you know they surpassed china i guess not as number five but but how large are these trades. well it i think they're still fairly small in the overall scheme of things at this point but what matters is they have the systems in place you know first you have to figure out how you're going to replace the swift system for interbank settlements internationally you know then you've got to figure out how you're going to begin

trading in across these different currency pairs they've been doing that and russia and china now have a very very large energy trading and back and forth trade agreement that's going on right now new pipelines have gone in china is the number one importer of petroleum at this point time that will remain true for a long time russia is either the number one or number two exporter of oil so that's really part of this and then i guess the rest of this week we have to look at the fact that china has now initiated is planning to initiate soon training of oil in one based futures with the ability to then convert those one into gold on the shanghai gold exchange so i think that's how the pieces are beginning to step into place here and this isn't new for russia i mean they did buy i think it was twenty twenty metric tons perhaps in january but they've been doing it for nearly a couple years how do the sanctions on russia figure into them buying gold if it does if they do it all. it's not clear that the sanctions have done much of

anything to anything that russia is trying to do including ramping up its oil production or conducting trade remember you know probably the biggest news in this regard was just this last october in two thousand and seventeen we saw riyadh sent a royal delegation to moscow first time in history and about eighty billion dollars of trade deals got inked in that particular moment as well so what we're really seeing is i think is you know the petro dollar got a stablished in one thousand nine hundred seventy four and it's been in play ever since and now we're seeing some very large international moves geopolitically to begin to reorient that particular power dynamics abart i think this is actually really big news the gold is just it's just the purchase by russia that's just a little bit of smoke in the story that's telling us what the larger sweep of this game is but i don't think you can understand the gold story without understanding the dollar and the petro dollar story and the realignments that are happening it's very interesting chris thank you for that and i do want to shift just to gold

separate from russia just briefly gold is trading around thirteen thirty seven thirteen forty today and we waited a long time for it to go get above thirty hundred dollars an ounce but what's your take on where gold may be going this year particularly in light of some of the volatility we've seen in the equities markets. well i think gold is still fundamentally a story of it being the anti dollar in this story meaning the dollar goes up gold goes down the dollar's been going down a lot that explains most of the move what we've been waiting for in this volatility is to see it gold is going to begin signaling something else a lot of people think of gold as an inflation hedge i don't i think of it more as a system stability had so if we start to see gold really move up i think that will tell us that there's additional financial volatility coming along and maybe even systemic issues as we saw in two thousand and eight gold has not signaled that yet though so as a system the bill of the mechanism are a product that as you say chris i assume then you what you would recommend to

investors that they have gold in their portfolio and how much would you suggest that they they put there if you would well yeah absolutely everybody should have gold in their portfolio ten percent is a nice starting point maybe as high as twenty percent of ending on your personal feelings around that and you know historical looks at the data clearly show that gold has a really nice stabilizing effect it hasn't paid all that well in the last six or seven years but it has a long term part in any portfolio and we haven't seen that start yet so you know we're still not seeing large institutions pension funds and down and things like that with anything more than a fraction of a percent maybe half a percent sometimes sometimes not so i think we're going to start to see more of an exposure to gold and that pick up as particularly if volatility returns like we think it will hi chris martenson c.e.o. and co-founder of peak prosperity dot com thank you for your time and your

expertise as always we appreciate it. my pleasure bart. and before we go it would be sexist and incorrect to say that sipping whiskey is more of a male thing because many women like it or even love it well now it johnny walker the whisky company one of the world's most popular scotch brands is making their offering specifically to women this is their first ever female version of the iconic logo similar to the male counterpart jane walker as opposed to johnnie walker has the top at hatton is wearing writing gear the company says they are specifically introducing the whisky in time for women's history month jane walker will appear on limited edition bottles and the brands black label blend in march plus for each bottle sold the company will donate a dollar to organizations championing women's causes so here's to them here's to women's history here's two women without them we wouldn't be

a species chairs. that's it for now thanks for watching be sure to catch boom bust on you tube at you tube dot com r.t. see you next time. from north korea to syria's president donald trump's foreign policy is literally all over the map north korea says it is open to direct talks with washington only to be met with preconditions in syria peace is within view but this is not what the trumpet ministration wants. please. fill in the hot very materially a bottle of saudi in china six oir. an

estimated eighty four cents under each refugee camps are now living in greece. you know still more to go. to your home in there you go food bring. many saw their bodies just to make ends meet. for them on the second i know all the sins in their. life things. dealing drugs to make a living. off the. game of been. looted. losing. even you don't. see the teacher so i. did a course. to artemis more through only ten spaces to. make. love

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headlines on the international russian efforts to introduce a humanitarian corridor or in syria. criticized by the u.s. state department making accusations similar to those in the liberation all of. the germans. for the very first time the existence of so cold. in the country. the belgian government faces a backlash of plans to make it easier for the police to conduct raids on the housing migrants on the program we speak to one woman whose home was raided after she took.