Special Guest: Mr. Michael Pento is the President of Pento Portfolio
Strategies and serves as Senior Market Analyst for Baltimore-based research
firm Agora Financial. Pento Portfolio Strategies provides strategic advice
and research for institutional clients. Agora Financial publishes award-winning
newsletters, critically acclaimed feature documentaries and international best-selling
books.
Mr. Pento is a well-established specialist in the Austrian School of economics
and a regular guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, FOX Business News and other national
media outlets. His market analysis can also be read in most major financial
publications, including the Wall Street Journal. He also acts as a Financial
Columnist for Forbes, Contributor to thestreet.com and
is a blogger at the Huffington Post. Prior to starting Pento Portfolio Strategies
and joining Agora Financial, Mr. Pento served as a senior economist and vice
president of the managed products division of another financial firm. There,
he also led an external sales division that marketed their managed products
to outside broker-dealers and registered investment advisors. Additionally,
Mr. Pento has worked for an investment advisory firm where he helped create
ETFs and UITs that were sold throughout Wall Street. Earlier in his career
Mr. Pento spent two years on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He has
carried series 7, 63, 65, 55 and Life and Health Insurance Licenses. Mr. Pento
graduated from Rowan University in 1991.
PODCAST - 19 Minutes
Michael Pento speaks out strongly by saying: "We cannot allow the whims of
a small group of unelected people to depreciate the value of currencies without
any accountability whatsoever. Who gave Mr Bernanke and Ms Yellen the authority
to do all these QEs? Who voted them into power? Why do we believe deflation
is a bane on the American populous? Why do we want real incomes to fall and
prices to go up? We cannot allow these people to to destroy the American middle
class and American consumer!"
Financial Repression
"Any attempt by government to make sure debt service payments remain serviceable."
That is the key. "Whether it is to force people into the bond market, whether
it is to keep interest rates artificially low - whatever they need to do
to make sure they don't have to use the tax base to pay their debt and deficits.
They utilize artificial methods to make sure they can make debt service payments."
Japan is Michael Pento's Favorite Example
"In Japan they have been able to take the entire JGB market and monopolize
the whole entire thing! There is nothing that occurs there unless the government
is a buyer. There are days on end where there is no trading because their
10 year note is .005%."
"Japan is an insolvent nation that has taken its interest rates down to
levels where there is no private market for their debt - it is a ticking
time bomb ..... The danger here is the Yen can unravel here and become
intractable."
"If interest rates go up just 1% the nation is completely insolvent. The
Yen could unravel very quickly and cause the economy of Japan to collapse,
which would be massively disruptive to all economies and markets across the
globe."
Free market System Has Been Completely Vanquished
"No one knows what the prices are of anything any longer! Capitalism has
been annulled, cancelled and abrogated by government and central banks (which
are one and same thing)".
Where We Are Headed
- A complete breakdown in central bank credibility lies ahead,
- A complete collapse of the financial system will occur when interest raters
normalize. The Fed won't initiate this normalization but rather the free
market will,
- A resulting global economic collapse will wipe out tax bases and therefore
debts and deficits will skyrocket.
- Because of this threat, more QE, more financial repression and further
market intrusions lie ahead.