QUESTION: Marty, do you agree with other analysts who claim debt defaults create revolutions? From reading your work for decades now, I think you would say it was taxes. Am I correct?
Hopefully, see you at the next WEC again
KL
ANSWER: You are correct. Rome never had a national debt nor a central bank. State debt is really a post-Dark Age phenomenon and there have been plenty of sovereign defaults and the vast majority never involved revolution. The Spanish sovereign defaults took place, turning the country into a serial defaulter beginning in 1557 followed by 1570, 1575, 1596, 1607, and 1647 ending in a 3rd world status. Greece defaulted on its external sovereign debt obligations at least five previous times in the modern era (1826, 1843, 1860, 1894 and 1932). Even Magna Carta cut off the king’s ability to use the courts to raise money, which was before taxing the average person.
Anyone who claims that a sovereign default will unleash a revolution has not actually done the research. It is probably more of a sales pitch to get business with scare tactics. Both the American and French Revolutions were over taxes – not sovereign defaults.
We are headed into a revolutionary period, but it is being caused by this global hunt for taxation which is undermining the entire world economy. The sovereign default comes because of the collapse in commerce which is set in motion by raising taxes.
Yes, we are trying to pick a date for the next WEC. I am trying to be optimistic that our international clients can fly in. Of course, it all depends if Biden does not try to put a blockade around Florida because we have become the best state in America by preserving our freedom and it is at least far enough south to avoid the dip in the Jet Stream.