Monthly Archives: January 2017

Jan 4 2017

Intensely Interesting – Julian Assange Interview (Video) With Sean Hannity


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sat down with Fox News Sean Hannity for a very interesting, compelling and wide-ranging interview.  Hannity traveled to London to interview Assange. If you did not watch it as broadcast here’s the video.  Strongly recommended:

Jan 4 2017

How to Reason about Islam


To reason about Islam, do not use the Koran and Allah, because the Koran is structured to be hard to understand. Instead, use the Sunna of Mohammed. The Koran says 91 times that Mohammed is the perfect Muslim and he is very easy to understand. We find Mohammed in his traditions, the Hadith, and his biography, the Sira.

When we use Mohammed to explain Islam, we do what the Koran commands. Every hadith that I use is called Sahih (authentic), since I use Bukhari and Abu Muslim.

Sometimes you meet a Muslim who rejects all of the Sunna, so how do you use Mohammed? Simple, the Koran by itself cannot be understood by any person, without knowing the life of Mohammed. No Mohammed equals no understanding of the Koran.

The Koran is the perfect, exact words of Allah. However, the perfect Koran cannot be understood without knowing Mohammed. However, the life of Mohammed and his traditions were written by people who never met him, but wrote down what they heard from others. In a court of law, this is called hearsay. Hearsay is not admissible in our courts. So the perfect book cannot be understood without evidence that cannot be used in our courts. Odd, isn’t it?

Jan 4 2017

The 401K – The Pension Crisis Coming Your Way 2017


Armstrong Economics Blog/Pension Crisis

Re-Posted Jan 4, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

401K

COMMENT: Martin,

A few weeks ago (12/13/2016) my wife received a notice from her company about changes to her 401K and I thought I was in a Kafka film. The notice basically identified “the investment elections you can make and the actions that will occur if you do not make you elections by the deadlines described.” The deadline is January 13th 2017, so thirty days over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

For 20 years my wife has been putting the maximum 401K contribution and receiving the company match, so the amount is sizable, and the decision to change investments is not one that I take lightly. So what are my choices? Collective Investment Trust (CIT) a banking product, a Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) a defined benefit insurance product, or a self-directed brokerage account.

The CIT is supposed to mirror the Fidelity Contra fund and get lower fees. So what is the savings to move from a “Share Class to a Trust Class”? It is 0.18% (0.61% – 0.43%), peanuts. So what is the return of the new Fidelity Contrafund Commingled Pool?, it is almost 2.0%. Now this compares to an average return on the current Fidelity Contra fund over the past 20 years of about 8.5%. So for 0.18% lower fees we will get 6.5% less in return, well that is crap.

The QDIA “invests in a combination of underlying stock, bond, and money market mutual funds, using a target retirement age of 65.” That’s it, no information, so look it up. Oh, it is mainly invested in government treasuries. Economics 101, interest rates are rising so bond prices should be falling. I do not want to go anywhere near government treasuries, that is nuclear waste.

I am thinking what the heck is going on, this is insane and I have thirty days over the holidays to open the brokerage account and make the transfer. So, rant & rave, it gets done the money is in the brokerage and safe and I calm down.

I have always thought the government would try to steal our 401k’s to bail out public pensions, it is obvious that politicians would try this. Screw the people who save and give it to the people that vote for us. But this sneaky slimy backward way of forcing you in to either “crap” or “nuclear waste” is down right evil. How many people are going to make a no decision and find out that a bad decision was made for them and their savings will be a fraction of what they put in? EVIL.

Everyone in my family thinks I am nuts at this point, having fussed and cussed so much about this. Just messing around, I type into google “the 401K crisis of 2017” and up pops your article “Department of labor Regulating Your 401K April 16th 2017″. OMG, I am not crazy. I make my wife read the article. Your article should be front page news. Oh, Martin Armstrong has a documentary out too. We watch, wow.

So is this pension crisis going to trigger a major correction to financial markets in 2017, or am I just nuts like everyone else thinks?

Sincerely,
PS.

We r From Government to help

REPLY: Yes – here they come. It’s April 16, 2017. I recommend the self-directed brokerage account. This will be critical. They will not reform and they cannot keep this game moving. What they are doing will destroy those who have valid 401K plans to benefit government workers who are foolish enough to believe government in the first place.

Jan 4 2017

Sturgeon Incompetent to Lead Scotland?


Armstrong Economics Blog/BRITAIN

Re-Posted Jan 4, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

nicola-sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon, the  First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), has said she is determined for Scotland to respect the decision to remain in the EU in 2017. Unionist party leaders urged her to abandon threats of a second independence referendum. Sturgeon is clearly uninformed and will lead Scotland to total economic disaster. She stupidly believes that the EU is somehow fantastic.

British GDP Growth since 1949

 

The top export market for Scotland is not Europe, but the USA. Sturgeon, like many other career politicians, is clueless when it comes to economics. She is just incompetent in this respect and will lead Scotland to an economic abyss all because she want to separate from England. That single issue, she fails to understand, does not mean you stay in the EU.

Jan 4 2017

India is the Guinea Pig for Electronic Money


Armstrong Economics Blog/Banking Crisis

Re-Posted Jan 4, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

reserve-bank-india-rbi

QUESTION: Dear Marty,

What could be the true intentions of Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi in India cancelling the currency overnight. I have been suspecting some foul in his demonetisation move but cannot correctly understand why he did it? Counterfeit currency, Black money, prevent terrorism all his publicised motives have been shown false. If this move is any kind of scandal and he has tarnished India image in long run or short run. Almost 90% analysts in India are saying it is a good move in the long run ( 2-3 years) and pain in short term. Is this correct?

Is Modi setting up a bounce back 2-3 years down the lane in time for his election? Or is the some other sinster motivated power center behind the official move to demonetise? With your vast experience dealing with governments and contacts behind the curtain, could you kindly throw some light on future of India?

Appreciate your work a lot.

Your blog is a must read.

Kind Regards

Aj

ANSWER: At the G20 meetings, there were discussions behind the curtain about eliminating currency. This cannot begin in the USA because the dollar is the world currency even physically. We are looking at 2017 being the year for the start of electronic money in some countries. They are adapting a new banking system by September 2017 to provide instant transfers. The fraud is already moving away into that area and less on the credit card issue. If they can tap into the electronic instant transfers, they will hit a gold mine.

Modi is pushing India against the wall to move into this new world of electronic money, which they hope to have running by 2018. Everything will change. The big question is whether Trump will go along with this agenda that Obama began and raise taxes even more.

Modi is not doing this in isolation. He is trying to get India up to par with the other countries moving electronic. There are ongoing discussions and India is being watched very closely. If this works in India, they will adopt this forced measure by 2018 in many countries. Europe will probably be nex