The world now has so much debt that, for the first time ever, it is impossible to add more, says Max Keiser.
On the latest edition of his Keiser Report TV show on Sep. 22, the RT host warned that central banks were responsible for global debt reaching a new “inflection point.”
Keiser on debt: “We’re at saturation point”
Together with co-host Stacy Herbert, Keiser referred to comments from Singapore’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which last week warned that copying economic recovery methods after World War Two would not work in 2020.
Central banks worldwide have intervened in markets, buying equities and other assets in a highly controversial move designed to limit the economic impact of Covid-19 and its lockdowns.
“First, it’s quite obvious that you can’t keep increasing your debts,” MAS chairman Tharman Shanmugaratnam said.
“But I don’t believe that the new higher levels of debt that many countries are now moving towards are going to be sustainable without imposing significant costs on growth as well as equity within their societies.”
The United States’ national debt alone has ballooned to $26.7 trillion this year, up $4 trillion since June 2019.
“There is no capacity for the Earth’s economy to carry any more debt; we’re at the saturation point,” Keiser summarized.
Regarding the consequences for increasingly indebted countries, he said that ordinary consumers would simply foot the bill from now on:
“Now, every dollar that these central banks print will go directly into consumer price index inflation — and you’ll see it at the cash register immediately, and that’s going to incredible social unrest[.]”
In the 1940s, states which had built up debts from combat were able to inflate them away. This time, Herbert said, there were so many insignificant gig economy jobs that wages would not follow price rises, leading to the kind of gap between the elite and the rest of society that Keiser has termed “neo-feudalism.”
Federal Reserve balance sheet 10-year chart. Source: Federal Reserve
MicroStrategy and Bitcoin low-time-preference business
Keiser has long championed Bitcoin (BTC) as an escape route from the knock-on effects of fiat inflation.
With its fixed, unalterable emission and decentralized network, Bitcoin represents the antithesis of centrally-controlled money.
BTC/USD has shown to rise in step with central banks’ inflating balance sheets, but remains susceptible to U.S. dollar performance, Cointelegraph reported.
“Bitcoin, like Gold, is inversely correlated to the USD — *not* the stock market,” Keiser pointed out on Sep 22. “Don’t be fooled by randomness.”
Beyond its technical prowess, Bitcoin also promotes so-called low-time-preference living — saving money, safe in the knowledge that its value will not be inflated away over time.
As Saifedean Ammous explains in his popular book, “The Bitcoin Standard,” this ultimately allows for better and quicker advancement of society in time than simply spending money as quickly as possible on as much as possible.
Keiser and Herbert noted that MicroStrategy’s decision to put over $400 million of cash reserves into Bitcoin was proof of the low-time-preference mindset encroaching on big business.
