Wednesday, 15 September 2021 — Gold Coast, Australia

By Vern Gowdie Editor, The Rum Rebellion

[8 min read]

In a moment of ego-fuelled insanity, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared a policy that is certain to deliver polar opposite outcomes.

On one hand, a select group of non-Salvadorians are destined to enjoy immense wealth.

While on the other, Bukele’s fellow countrymen and women are to be condemned to a future of even greater poverty.

How is this possible?

Due to the oldest con in the political playbook.

Tell the little guy how much better off he’ll be when the law is passed.

It’s the classic magic trick…look over here, while the real deception (by the insiders) is being created elsewhere.

From the July 2021 issue of The Gowdie Letter…

‘With expat Salvadorians remitting up to US$6 billion back home to family and friends (to spend in the economy), no longer would the poor and downtrodden be ripped off by intermediaries charging usury rates.

‘Bitcoin is going to cut out the middleman. Chalk up a win for the people against the fiat establishment.’

Yep. No more transaction fees on remittances. More money in the hands of the end user.

This one-dimensional view is a distraction to the real game…which we’ll get to shortly.

But first, which is the lesser of these two evils?

Paying a few percent in transaction fees OR having US dollars converted into a highly manipulated Ponzi scheme that could collapse at any time?

It reminds me of the agricultural, film, and forestry tax minimisation schemes promoted in the early 2000s.

Instead of paying the taxman his percentage and keeping the rest, people lost the lot. As it turned out, the taxman wasn’t the bad guy after all. The scheme promoters were far worse.

There is nothing new in this world. Same old con, same storyline, just a different product.

If you think the claim of ‘highly manipulated’ is an exaggeration, please take the time to read this excellent 52-page research paper from the US Journal of Finance titled ‘Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?’.

Tether is a fraud. And it’s a fraud that plays a central role in a sting the El Salvadorian people can ill afford.

To quote from the July 2021 issue of The Gowdie Letter…

‘El Salvador’s economic dashboard

‘If you’re going to take your nation where none have ever gone before, my guess is, you should do it from a position of economic strength.

‘Even then, most prudent people would consider it a “crazy brave” call.

‘To do so from a position of economic weakness…well, that qualifies as “crazy stupid”.

‘Into which category does El Salvador fit into?

‘GDP is around US$26 billion…the recent contraction is due to COVID-19 restrictions.

‘What about El Salvador’s budget?

‘Like almost all Governments, El Salvador spends more than it what it collects in tax revenues.

‘The latest budget deficit (like that of the US, Australia, et al) blew out due to government support for the COVID-affected economy.

‘In US dollar terms, the latest budget deficit is US$2.4 billion (GDP of US$26 billion times 9.2%).

‘How is this shortfall funded?

‘Certainly not by printing US dollars and having the central bank buy bonds. That’s a luxury only sovereign nations with their own currency can afford (or not afford).

‘El Salvador needs to raise funds from the market.

‘A third-world country — run by despots, dictators, and the delusional — can find the bond market an expensive place to rattle the tin.

‘Depending upon the duration of the bond, the interest rates on past El Salvador debt issues range from 5.87–9.5%.

‘When your public sector debt load is 90% of GDP — US$23.4 billion — interest costs of this magnitude consume more than US$1-plus billion of the government’s budget.

‘How do you solve this problem? Borrow more money. But where from?

‘You go ask your friendly IMF banker to arrange a loan facility with very favourable terms…oh, something like no to minimal interest for three years would be good.

‘As reported by Reuters on 4 March 2021:

“El Salvador is talking to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about securing some $1.3 billion in financing and sees a ‘golden opportunity’ to revitalize its economy after the ruling party’s big win in legislative elections, a top government official said.”

‘Politicians just can’t help themselves. Every time they open their mouth it’s either to tell a blatant lie or half-truth.

‘We’re told the additional debt is a “golden opportunity” to revitalise its economy.

‘When, in reality, El Salvador is looking to borrow more money to help pay the interest on the debt it already has.

‘This is the story so far…El Salvador is an indebted third-world country in need of access to cheap funding to avoid default on its existing bond issues.

‘Hardly a picture of economic strength.

‘El Salvador’s Balance of Trade data shows it imports more (goods and services) than it exports.

‘This is where the “dollarisation” of El Salvador’s economy — being able to make payment in the world’s reserve currency — has been of benefit.

‘Imagine how volatile the payment process would have been with a weak currency like the colón?

‘So, how does El Salvador fund its balance of trade deficit?

‘From its (almost US$3 billion) foreign reserves.

‘You can see how the larger trade deficits of recent months have reduced the country’s reserves.

‘OK, so what’s all this got to do with bitcoin being introduced as legal tender?

‘Well, this is now where it gets interesting, and we start joining a few dots.’

Here’s how the recently passed Bitcoin [BTC] law works…

‘On 22 June 2021, the WSJ revealed the key platform of Nayib Bukele’s grand crypto plan (emphasis added):

“With his [President Bukele’s] blessing, El Salvador’s Congress wasted little time passing the Bitcoin Law. On June 8, with little debate, deputies approved the law by a wide margin in the middle of the night. El Salvador is the first country to pass such a law.

“The law’s most glaring flaw is Article 7. It mandates that ‘every economic agent must accept bitcoin as payment when offered by whoever acquires a good or service.’ This article renders the Bitcoin Law a ‘forced tender,’ not a ‘legal tender,’ law.”

‘What does this mean?

‘Forced tender means exactly that.

‘Under the law, firms will be forced to accept bitcoin when offered as payment for goods and services.’

If a consumer/customer/patron/client wants to pay for goods and/or services in bitcoin, the business is forced to accept it.

But what if the price of bitcoin plunges overnight and the $100 of bitcoin the business accepted yesterday is only worth $50 today?

No worries.

El Presidente has that covered.

‘Congress legislated into existence a “smoothing” fund.

‘As reported by Reuters (emphasis added):

“The use of bitcoin will be optional for individuals and would not bring risks to users, Bukele said, with the government guaranteeing convertibility to dollars at the time of transaction through a US$150 million trust created at the country's development bank BANDESAL.”

‘OK. So there’s US$150 million held in trust to guarantee against any price volatility.’

For a country up to its eyeballs in debt, where did the US$150 million come from?

‘You know that US$3 billion in foreign reserves (set aside to square up the balance of trade ledger)? That’s where it’s from.

‘The reserves are there to pay for a purpose…to finance what the country needs but doesn’t have.

‘Can you see how this could get real tricky, real quick if the price of bitcoin gets a tad volatile?

‘Let’s say 20% of GDP — US$5.2 billion — is transacted in bitcoin. This equates to US$100 million per week in transactions.

‘A few volatile weeks could make a serious dent in the trust’s funds.

‘Then what?

‘Top it up with another withdrawal from the foreign reserves?

‘Using the country’s reserves to backstop this experiment is a high-stakes game.’

And this is where we get to, what I (and others) think is the real end game.

The master manipulators of cryptos are called ‘whales’.

As reported by Bloomberg in November 2020…

‘A few large holders commonly referred to as whales continue to own most Bitcoin. About 2% of the anonymous ownership accounts that can be tracked on the cryptocurrency’s blockchain control 95% of the digital asset, according to researcher Flipside Crypto.’

When you own a truckload of what is ultimately going to be rendered worthless, you need to find a patsy (with sufficient liquid assets) to buy it.

Trying to ‘fence’ it in the market to get real cash, is tough.

Dump too much of it and you might spook the ‘rats and mice’ faithful.

Ah…but if you can convince a nation (one preferably led by an egotistical, millennial dictator) to virtually hand you the keys to its US$3 billion vault, then you have pulled off the swindle of the century.

Now, you have to give credit where credit is due. These crypto con artists are good…very, very good.

What’s been sold as a ‘a win for the little guy against those big, nasty rip-off merchants in the financial sector’, is the BS the faithful swallowed ‘hook, line, and sinker’.

To quote from the July 2021 issue…

‘Here’s my guess on what happens

‘When its foreign reserves are being drained to support the “smoothing” reserve, El Salvador will repeal the Bitcoin Law.

‘With insufficient funds to pay for the shortfall in goods and services its economy imports, our laser-eyed El Presidente goes cap in hand to those foreign powers he told to butt out of his country for a loan…one with generous repayment terms.

‘Budget restraint will be exercised. The economy will contract.

‘The poor and downtrodden (the ones this grand scam — sorry, scheme — was supposed to help) will be even poorer and more downtrodden.

‘When El Salvador’s dalliance with bitcoin is revealed as a giant con, this fanciful idea of bitcoin being an alternative currency or method of payment might finally be exposed for the fraud that it is.’

The ending of this story has been well written in the history books. The little guy gets screwed, and the smarties make a squillion.

El Salvador’s bitcoin folly will have in its own dedicated chapter in the yet-to-be-written ‘Crypto…The Con of the Century’.

Regards,

Vern Gowdie,
Editor, The Rum Rebellion

By Bill Bonner Editor, The Rum Rebellion

Last week was a delight…at least from a cynical perspective.

On Thursday, the US president went on TV to announce that henceforth, people who work for businesses with more than 100 employees would be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

CNN was on the story:

‘“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said, his tone hardening toward Americans who still refuse to receive a vaccine despite ample evidence of their safety and full approval of one — the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine — from the US Food and Drug Administration.

‘He said vaccinated America was growing “frustrated” with the 80 million people who have not received shots and are fueling the spread of the virus. And he acknowledged the new steps would not provide a quick fix.’

The feds have long claimed the right to tell Americans what they must NOT put into their bodies. Certain drugs have been illegal for many years. And the feds are so adamant…so sure that this is a good thing…they’ve put millions of people in the hoosegow for breaking the prohibition.

Currently, there are some 450,000 people locked up for non-violent drug offenses.

But this is the first time the president has taken it upon himself to tell people what they must put into their bodies…whether they want to or not.

Will the federales start breaking down doors, throwing unvaccinated people to the floor, and putting them in prison to enforce the drug mandate? Or will they just take away their jobs?

Elite lifesavers

Last week, we were exploring the idea of ‘freedom’. We wondered what good it is.

After all, if the elites who control the government know what drugs we should take…and what drugs we shouldn’t take…

…what prices we should pay (they should increase 2% per year, not more, not less)…

…what kind of car we should drive (electric)…

…if they know good from evil, true from false, left from right…

…why do we need the freedom to decide for ourselves?

As Joe Biden pointed out on Thursday, freedom just gets in the way. He says it prevents the elite from saving our lives.

Inflation is still here

Let’s come back to that subject tomorrow. Instead, we turn to the news for more light-hearted nonsense.

And what’s this? What happened to that ‘transitory’ inflation? It must have missed its bus; it’s still with us. Here’s Breitbart’s Economics and Finance Editor, John Carney:

‘Prices charged by U.S. businesses jumped higher than expected in August, data from the Department of Labor said Friday. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index rose 0.7 percent compared with July. Compared with a year ago, the index is up 8.3 percent, the fastest pace of price increases in data going back to 2010.’

Note that these are producer prices. Typically, these increases show up in consumer prices in the months ahead.

Note, too, that they are running four times higher than the level the Federal Reserve has blessed as meet, right, and so to do.

Which suggests that there will be more ‘tapering’ talk…until the stock market sinks…and the tapering talk tapers off.

Tokenise everything

Meanwhile, the US$120 billion per month in non-tapering money-printing is producing its inevitable chaos and confusion. For example, afoot is a movement to ‘tokenise’ almost everything.

We’ve read several articles about the trend. As best we can make out, when things are ‘tokenised’, the tokens can then be bought and sold on the internet, without going through brokers or retailers. At least, that is the line of talk from the token entrepreneurs.

Let’s say you own a car wash in Mahwah, New Jersey. It’s much too small to ‘take it public’. But you’d like to cash out.

So you somehow ‘put in on the blockchain’. Not the suds and sprays, but the enterprise. As a token.

And now, you can ‘fractionalise’ the token into lots of pieces, maybe millions of them. And all the people who’ve been waiting years to own a piece of a fractionalised, tokenised car wash in Mahwah can now get in on it.

Token wealth

We have no idea how that works. But to people with more imagination, or at least a better sense of humour, tokenised wealth is like catnip.

In case you missed it, last week, the world discovered the most valuable work of art — ever. Yes, it was a picture of a dog. To be more precise, it was a tokenised picture of the Shiba Inu dog on the dogecoin.

The token sold for US$4 million three months ago. But this past week…are you ready for this?…the owner fractionalised it into 17 billion pieces and sold 20% at auction.

If the thing were worth US$4 million, and you were selling 20%, you wouldn’t even need a calculator to see that the sale should have brought in US$800,000.

Instead, the price rose to 11,000 ether coins…worth about US$225 million.

Or maybe it was 17,000 ether and 11 billion fractionalised bits of a dog. Or maybe it was a cat. Or a lark. We don’t know. Our head is spinning.

The whole thing is so screwy. The tokenised Shiba Inu picture might just as well be worth nothing as a million dollars. You can’t put it on your wall. You can’t hold it in your hand. It doesn’t earn any money, wag its tail, or fetch sticks.

And the story, while reported as truth by the major media, might just as well be a total fantasy.

It makes more sense as a fantasy. But then, so does most of the news.

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For The Rum Rebellion