01/10/2017 - Martin Armstrong On Monetary Devaluations & Cancellations – India Is Repeating History
Martin Armstrong: “Since ancient times, many times those in power have cancelled their money supply to make a profit or collect taxes by force .. Three literary passages from antiquity identify the reminting of coinage in ancient Greece that had nothing to do with recycling of worn coinage. The government did what India did, but instead of moving to electronic money, they devalued outstanding coins and recalled them for restriking regardless of their condition, specifically as a means of raising revenue for the state .. Dionysios, we are told ([Arist.] Oec. 1349b27–33), and Leukon (Polyaenus, Strat.6.9.1), recalled in the existing coinage and restruck (or countermarked) it with a new type (character), thereby doubling its original value. This was an effort to cover the expenses of the state by increasing the money supply. Dionysios recalled the coinage and imposed the penalty of death for noncompliance. Leukon followed Hippias and simply demonetized all existing coinage .. Various Japanese emperors engaged in similar tactics but did not recall the existing coinage. Each new emperor just devalued all outstanding coinage to 10% of its value and issued their own coinage for profit. This practice led the population to use Chinese coins and rice. Eventually, nobody would accept a Japanese coin because of this practice. Thus, the end result was that Japan lost the ability to issue coins at all for 600 years after 958 AD. This is why, as we move forward, it will be best to hold assets out of banks and out of currency .. The safest asset may simply be blue chip stocks for they would never make it illegal to own corporations unless you had a full-fledged leftist revolution that seized all private assets as in a communist revolution. That risk would naturally alter everything once again.”
