Posted Originally on Aug 20, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
QUESTION: What do you think about Trump now sanctioning the International Criminal Court? Is this not just to protect Netanyahu?
Derrek
ANSWER: I have written before that I had dinner with the ICC probably 10 to 12 years ago. They were outraged at my case, but they expressly stated that their jurisdiction is ONLY over member countries. The United States, Russia, Israel, and China are not members.
Sanctions imposed on the ICC are warranted. Under their own charter, the ICC has no power to arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction. I was told that personally at a dinner meeting. Not only are their actions to arrest Netanyahu a violation of international law, but this applies also to Putin. This is no different from Mandami claiming he would arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York City.
Like NATO or any entity, they will always see to expand their power. The US campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to national sovereignty is appropriate. You cannot have countries arrest someone like Netanyahu or Putin on the words of the ICC that has no such power and would unleash international war.
The ICC has shown that is is political and not a court of law. They know they have no jurisdiction over Russia or Israel. This is like California fining you for speeding in New York City. Even Mandami had to back down because the Feds would storm NYC if he dared to try to arrest Netanyahu when it would certainly be a racist agenda. I may not have respect for Netanyahu, but that does not me I would disregard international law. You cannot do that and pretend you are a free democratic society under the rule of law.
Posted Originally on Aug 19, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
You really cannot make this stuff up. Britain does not permit people domiciled in the UK to enter into polygamous marriages, yet buried inside the government’s welfare tables is an allowance for an “additional spouse” in certain polygamous marriages legally contracted overseas. For 2026–27, that additional amount under the relevant Pension Credit rules rose from £119.50 to £125.25 per week. That works out to £6,513 annually for each qualifying additional spouse living in the household.
This is precisely the sort of contradiction that destroys confidence in government. Parliament tells British citizens that one legal standard applies inside Britain, but when government encounters a marriage legally created under the laws of another country, certain parts of the welfare system can recognize additional spouses for benefit calculations. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that polygamous marriages considered valid under UK private international law can, in limited circumstances, involve means-tested benefits covering more than one spouse.
Now, before everyone runs around claiming Britain is spending billions supporting harems, that is simply not true. The Department for Work and Pensions says the latest Housing Benefit data recorded fewer than ten households identified as polygamous marriages formed abroad. Universal Credit does not recognize a polygamous household as one multi-spouse benefit unit either; generally the earliest married couple forms the couple claim while additional adults must claim separately according to their circumstances. Fine. Then why maintain a category for an additional spouse in a polygamous marriage at all?
That is the political issue the bureaucrats never understand. The outrage is not primarily about whether there are eight households, eighty households, or eight thousand households receiving this particular allowance. It is the principle that government has created one set of cultural expectations for the domestic population while accommodating another legal arrangement when imported from abroad.
Britain has spent decades telling people that mass immigration would require integration into British society. Yet integration cannot mean that British society continuously modifies itself to accommodate every institution brought into the country. At some point a nation must decide whether immigrants integrate into the country or the country integrates around the immigrants.
This becomes particularly absurd when Britain is simultaneously debating enormous reductions in welfare spending. Reform UK has proposed cutting the welfare bill by £50 billion annually. Politicians are arguing over disability benefits, long-term unemployment, housing assistance and who should qualify for taxpayer support. Working people are being told that the existing system is financially unsustainable, yet government regulations still contain explicit calculations for additional spouses in qualifying overseas polygamous marriages.
The actual expenditure may be microscopic, but politically the symbolism could hardly be worse. This is how governments lose people. They insist that ordinary taxpayers accept increasingly complicated rules while refusing to recognize how those rules look outside Whitehall. A British worker does not sit down after a ten-hour shift and read the Department for Work and Pensions’ technical explanation of legacy Pension Credit arrangements. He sees that polygamy cannot legally be contracted in Britain and then discovers an official government benefit table containing the words “additional amount for additional spouse” under “polygamous marriage.”
The government will argue that eliminating the provision would not necessarily save money because those additional adults might simply qualify independently. But then this becomes a much larger debate about immigration and welfare eligibility. If someone enters Britain as part of a family structure that British residents themselves cannot legally create, why should British taxpayers be obligated to reproduce through welfare policy the financial consequences of that arrangement?
There is also an enormous difference between recognizing an overseas marriage for limited legal purposes and endorsing polygamy as British social policy. The British welfare state was constructed in a completely different demographic era. It was never designed around unlimited migration from societies with radically different family structures, nor was it intended to adjudicate every cultural practice found around the world.
This is precisely why Reform’s welfare debate is gaining traction. The issue is no longer simply how much money government spends. It is whom the welfare state exists to serve and what obligations should accompany the right to receive from it. A welfare system without boundaries eventually becomes an entitlement to the productive output of everyone who still works and pays taxes.
If Britain does not permit its own citizens to create a polygamous marriage under British law, government should at least be prepared to explain why its welfare tables still calculate payments for additional spouses in qualifying marriages contracted somewhere else.
The amount of money involved today may be trivial, but the principle is certainly not. That is what Westminster never seems to understand until the voters finally revolt.
Posted Orignally on Aug 19, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
South Korea has responded to Trump’s decision to reduce joint military exercises by talking about becoming more militarily independent. President Lee Jae Myung wants South Korea to regain wartime operational control of its forces and accelerate its military capabilities. The establishment immediately presents this as though Trump has somehow endangered America by pushing an ally toward self-reliance.
The American taxpayer should never have been expected to finance the defense of wealthy countries indefinitely. South Korea is not some impoverished developing nation incapable of defending itself. It is one of the world’s largest economies, possesses a sophisticated industrial and technological base, and has built a formidable military. If Seoul believes it should have greater control over its own national defense, then by all means it should.
Trump has complained for years that America’s allies expect Washington to carry a disproportionate share of their defense burden. South Korea is no exception. The United States maintains approximately 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula, and the two countries have repeatedly fought over how much Seoul should contribute toward the cost. They reached another burden-sharing agreement extending through 2030, but Trump’s fundamental complaint has never changed: why should American taxpayers be expected to defend prosperous foreign nations forever? The same argument applies to NATO, and this is ultimately why NATO will face an existential crisis.
The Europeans have constructed their postwar governments around the assumption that America would provide the ultimate military guarantee. That allowed European politicians to spend enormous sums on welfare states and domestic political projects while neglecting their own military capabilities. Whenever anyone questioned the arrangement, Washington’s foreign-policy establishment insisted that America somehow needed NATO more than Europe needed America.
If NATO disappeared tomorrow, is Canada going to invade the United States? Is Belgium going to attack Washington? Is Poland going to send troops across the Atlantic? The United States possesses its own nuclear deterrent, enormous conventional forces, two vast oceans, tremendous natural resources, and one of the world’s largest economies. Europe requires American military power to balance Russia far more than America requires European military power to defend North America.
South Korea faces the same basic reality in Asia. North Korea threatens Seoul directly. It does not threaten Washington in remotely the same geographical sense. South Korea therefore has a far greater immediate interest in maintaining deterrence on the Korean Peninsula than the American taxpayer does.
This does not mean alliances are worthless. Alliances can serve strategic purposes, improve intelligence cooperation, deter conflict, and prevent adversaries from dominating important regions. But an alliance must benefit both sides. It cannot become a permanent arrangement where one nation provides the ultimate military guarantee while everyone else treats that guarantee as an entitlement.
South Korea refused Trump’s request to support America’s actions against Iran. Trump then publicly complained about that refusal while ordering the Pentagon to reduce joint exercises with Seoul. Trump also argued that the exercises cost “Hundreds of Millions of Dollars” and questioned why America should continue conducting them when Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” toward the United States during his presidency.
South Korea is perfectly entitled to say Iran is not its war. But America is equally entitled to ask why North Korea must therefore remain America’s financial responsibility. You cannot have sovereignty only when it is convenient.
If Seoul wants an independent foreign policy toward Iran, Ukraine, China, and every other geopolitical dispute, then that is precisely what a sovereign country should have. South Korea has been similarly cautious regarding Ukraine. It has condemned Russia, supported sanctions, provided humanitarian and economic assistance, yet resisted becoming directly involved in the war even as North Korea moved closer to Moscow.
President Lee wants wartime operational control transferred back to South Korea, and Seoul is discussing stronger indigenous military capabilities. That should not frighten Americans. American taxpayers should welcome wealthy allies becoming capable of defending themselves.
The foreign-policy establishment has constructed this bizarre doctrine whereby any reduction in American military responsibility is portrayed as American decline. They measure American power by how many countries depend upon Washington. That is not strength. That is liability.
Posted Originally on Aug 19, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
QUESTION: Marty, will you please issue a new bond report? Everything you laid out in the 2020 Bond Report you handed out at the 2020 WEC has been amazing. You wrote:
“The strongest target in the Yearly array is 2023 for a turning point ahead, at least on a closing basis. It does appear we have a choppy period starting 2021 until 2023 with each target producing the opposite direction for that 3-year period.”
Your 2023 target has been the law, with a Panic Cycle in 2028, and in Moody’s AAA Corporate, you had a Panic Cycle in 2026. Nobody can do long-term like Socrates and actually be correct. I show that chart on the Dax from 1999, projecting the Panic Cycle for 2008 to everyone on the board. I know you are swamped. But now is when we need you. You even projected that the government would bypass the banks and sell debt directly.
RB
REPLY: I will try. I am only one person. That’s what Socrates is for. The problem with being the largest international advisory firm, is that someone is always awake. To do an authoritative report on this subject means I must address it is the major currencies as well. When you plot the bonds in yen, they are not making new recent lows. This is far more complicated for as war rages globally, rates will rise but capital will flee to the USA as it has been doing of late from the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
The selloff in global bonds is driving up borrowing costs across the board. There is no end in sight before 2028. Bond yields are at 19-year highs, and investors. People are blaming Trump quagmire with the continuing U.S.-Iran conflict. Of course, they assume this will stoke inflation worries. Others are pointing to the flood of tech-company bonds seeking cash. Then there is fear about the lack of clarity from a new Federal Reserve chairman.
All of this sounds logical, but the overlooked 800 pound gorilla is that with Ukraine pledging Moscow will fall, the Neocons swearing Russia will invade Europe in a matter of weeks, why would anyone in their right mind buy government debt? With war, there is the risk of an outright default as we saw after World War I and II.
I understand this is a critical issue. I refer you to Socrates for now. I will get to it as soon as possible.
Posted Originally on Aug 19, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
Europe apparently believes it can sanction the entire world into submission. Eight countries outside the European Union have now agreed to align themselves with Brussels’ latest sanctions against Belarus: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, and Ukraine. The measures further restrict trade and technology that Brussels claims could contribute to Belarusian military and industrial capabilities. This is being presented as another great demonstration of European unity. What they never discuss is what happens when Europe progressively eliminates its own ability to conduct business with everyone it politically dislikes.
The Europeans have completely lost sight of what made Europe prosperous. It was commerce. Europe traded with everyone. Germany bought energy from Russia and sold machinery to China. Britain became a global financial center because capital from around the world flowed through London. European manufacturers sold automobiles, chemicals, machinery, and luxury goods from Moscow to Beijing and throughout the Middle East. Commerce created interdependence, and interdependence provided at least some restraint against conflict.
Now Brussels has decided that foreign policy consists of creating another sanctions list every few months. Belarus is merely the latest extension of a policy that has become institutionalized. The EU says its sanctions against Minsk are justified by domestic repression, support for Russia in Ukraine and what Brussels describes as hybrid attacks against the European Union. The sanctions now extend across finance, technology, trade, transport, military-related goods and industrial capacity. The latest measures deliberately expand restrictions on products that could strengthen Belarusian industry, not merely weapons themselves.
Once sanctions expand from targeting individuals responsible for a specific policy into deliberately weakening another country’s industrial capacity, you have moved from diplomacy into economic warfare. Politicians then act shocked when the targeted country responds by building deeper economic and military relationships with nations outside the West.
Russia was supposed to collapse under sanctions. Instead, Europe severed its own access to cheap Russian energy, Russia redirected trade toward Asia, China gained enormous leverage as a buyer, India increased its role in global energy markets, and European industry was left paying higher input costs. Now Brussels is preparing yet another massive sanctions package against Russia. Kaja Kallas says the next measures will be the most far-reaching since the war began, potentially adding around 1,600 Russian individuals and entities to a sanctions system that already covers thousands.
How many sanctions packages does it take before someone in Brussels admits that sanctions are not a substitute for diplomacy?
The EU already adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia in July, targeting another 218 individuals and entities, including 94 Russian banks as well as the Moscow Stock Exchange, crypto operators, oil infrastructure and additional components of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet. More than 100 Russian banks have now been sanctioned, with dozens disconnected from SWIFT. Yet Russia still exists and the war continues.
This obsession is becoming economically self-destructive because the West increasingly treats neutrality as unacceptable. It is no longer sufficient for Europe to sanction another country itself. Brussels wants candidate countries, neighboring states, corporations, banks, shipping companies and governments throughout the world to enforce European foreign policy as well. The European Council has openly called on other countries to align themselves with EU sanctions, particularly candidate countries.
Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina all have European integration ambitions. Brussels is exporting its foreign policy before some of these nations have even entered the Union.
Europe is steadily dividing the world into countries it approves of and countries with which commerce becomes politically suspect. Russia is sanctioned. Belarus is sanctioned. Iran is sanctioned. Various Chinese companies have been targeted under Russia-related restrictions. Trade with other countries is increasingly scrutinized for sanctions circumvention. Brussels has transformed international commerce into a political loyalty test.
China understands what Brussels does not. Trade creates influence. Infrastructure creates influence. Investment creates influence. That is why China has spent decades building commercial relationships throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The Europeans arrive with regulations, lectures and sanctions while China arrives asking what you want to buy and what you want to sell.
Sanctions weaponize the financial system. Every time Western governments freeze assets, block banks or prohibit transactions, another government somewhere in the world asks whether its own reserves and commercial relationships could eventually be subjected to the same treatment. You do not need China to replace the dollar or euro tomorrow for this process to matter. You merely need governments and corporations gradually building alternatives because they no longer regard Western financial infrastructure as politically neutral.
The same thing happened with Russian energy. Europe believed it could dictate where Russian commodities could be sold because Brussels still thinks Europe controls world commerce as it did during the colonial era. Those days are gone. Asia represents an enormous share of global economic growth. China and India are major commodity consumers. The Middle East has become an increasingly important financial center. Nations throughout the Global South are no longer prepared to structure their entire foreign policy around what Brussels or Washington demands.
Germany is already discovering what happens when geopolitics replaces economics. Its industrial model depended on inexpensive energy and enormous foreign markets. Russian energy was sacrificed to sanctions while China has increasingly become a competitor rather than simply a customer. Brussels then piles Net Zero regulations, taxes and bureaucracy on top and wonders why factories close or investment moves elsewhere.
The eight countries joining the Belarus sanctions may appear insignificant in isolation. They are not. They represent the expansion of a geopolitical system in which Brussels increasingly expects countries surrounding the EU to adopt its enemies as their own.
The more the West weaponizes trade, banking, currencies, technology and energy, the greater the incentive becomes for everyone outside the West to build systems that Washington and Brussels cannot control. Europe is therefore helping create the very multipolar world its political establishment fears while simultaneously weakening its own industrial competitiveness in the process.
Posted Ordinally on Aug 18, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
10has ordered the Pentagon to reduce America’s joint military exercises with South Korea, but this is not simply about saving money or suddenly deciding that North Korea poses no threat.
Trump said that North Korea has been “unthreatening and respectful” toward the United States and argued that the exercises with South Korea are unnecessary and provocative given his relationship with Kim Jong Un. He instructed the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, which began August 17 and were scheduled to involve approximately 18,000 South Korean troops. Trump has opposed these exercises before and suspended major drills after his 2018 summit with Kim, so his objection to them is certainly not new. What is different this time is that he publicly connected his anger toward South Korea to Iran.
Seoul has one of the most heavily militarized borders on Earth sitting directly in front of it, yet Washington apparently expects South Korea to become involved in another Middle Eastern war simply because America decided to become involved. When Seoul refused, Trump publicly complained about that refusal while ordering military exercises with South Korea reduced. Call it diplomacy if you want, but the message to every American ally is obvious: if you refuse to participate in Washington’s wars, do not assume Washington will treat your own security concerns the same way.
South Korea has been extremely careful regarding Iran from the beginning. Washington explored transferring Patriot missile systems connected to U.S. forces in South Korea to support the Iran war, creating obvious concerns in Seoul because those systems exist in Korea for a reason. South Korea later considered participating in efforts to protect navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, but Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back made clear that Seoul was examining steps short of direct military participation. Reuters reported in May that Ahn had not discussed a South Korean military contribution with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. South Korea was willing to protect its economic interests and shipping, but it did not want to be dragged directly into America’s war.
The Iran war has already cost South Korea economically. Seoul’s parliament approved a 26.2 trillion won supplemental budget, about $17.7 billion, specifically to cushion its economy from the consequences of the conflict. South Korea is already paying for a war it did not start without volunteering its military to fight it.
South Korea has supported Ukraine politically, economically and through humanitarian assistance, but it has traditionally resisted directly supplying lethal weapons because it understood the consequences of inserting itself into the war. That position has become increasingly difficult as North Korea strengthen ties with Russia. Zelensky now claims that as many as 50,000 North Korean troops could be deployed in Russia and has been openly pressuring Seoul to provide Ukraine with additional air-defense capabilities and cooperate on drone technology.
North Korea is not some theoretical enemy thousands of miles away. It is sitting immediately across the border with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Pyongyang fired another ballistic missile only days before the latest American-South Korean exercises, its 11th suspected missile test of the year. North Korea then denounced the exercises and warned that it would strengthen its nuclear deterrent.
This is what makes Trump’s decision so extraordinary. He is simultaneously telling the world that North Korea has been respectful toward America while expressing anger that South Korea will not help America fight Iran. The national interests of the United States and South Korea are not identical. A competent foreign policy recognizes that allies cooperate where their interests overlap rather than demanding obedience everywhere on Earth.
Trump is correct that the endless military exercises deserve scrutiny. He is also correct that constantly conducting war games while claiming to seek negotiations with North Korea sends contradictory signals. If there is an opportunity to negotiate with Kim Jong Un and reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula, then by all means negotiate. Trump accomplished more by sitting across a table from Kim than generations of politicians accomplished by screaming threats at North Korea.
Yet America cannot demand that every ally join every American war. This is the same insanity that transformed NATO from a defensive alliance into a geopolitical machine operating far beyond its original purpose.
There is another problem Washington refuses to confront. The attack on Iran has almost certainly reinforced North Korea’s determination never to surrender its nuclear arsenal. So Washington bombs Iran, potentially reinforces North Korea’s conviction that nuclear weapons guarantee regime survival, becomes angry when South Korea refuses to participate in the Iran conflict, and then reduces exercises intended to deter the nuclear-armed North Korea sitting on South Korea’s border.
Support Washington’s war and Washington supports you. Refuse and perhaps the relationship changes. That does not strengthen alliances. It encourages every country to develop an independent military policy because eventually they will conclude that American protection comes with conditions unrelated to their own defense.
Posted Originally on Aug 18, 2026 by Martin Armstrong
I have written about this trend for years and was attacked whenever I pointed out that the Democratic Party was gradually abandoning its traditional economic foundation and moving openly toward socialism. They no longer have to hide it. The voters themselves are now saying it.
A new CBS News/YouGov poll found that 58% of Democrats have a positive view of socialism while only 32% have a positive view of capitalism. Among college-educated Democrats, support for socialism rises to an astonishing 71%. This is no longer Bernie Sanders standing on the fringe screaming about millionaires and billionaires. Socialism has become more popular than capitalism within the Democratic Party itself.
This did not suddenly happen in 2026. Gallup found all the way back in 2010 that 53% of Democrats viewed socialism positively. By 2018, that figure stood at 57%, while positive attitudes toward capitalism among Democrats had fallen to 47%. Gallup specifically noted at that time that Democrats had become more positive about socialism than capitalism. By 2021, 65% of Democrats viewed socialism favorably compared with 52% for capitalism.
Then came another major deterioration. Gallup reported in 2025 that only 42% of Democrats still viewed capitalism positively while 66% viewed socialism favorably. The latest CBS poll is asking the questions somewhat differently and should not be treated as a directly comparable time series, but the direction is unmistakable. The Democratic base has spent well over a decade becoming increasingly comfortable with the word SOCIALISM while its confidence in capitalism has collapsed.
The politicians did not create this out of thin air. Washington destroyed confidence in capitalism because what we have today is increasingly not free-market capitalism at all. Government picks winners and losers. The banks are bailed out. Corporations receive subsidies. Congress writes tax codes nobody can understand. The Federal Reserve manipulates interest rates. Young people cannot afford homes. College students graduate buried in debt. Healthcare costs have exploded. Then politicians tell a 25-year-old who cannot afford an apartment that this is “capitalism.”
The younger generations were never taught what socialism actually produced throughout history. They were taught that socialism means free healthcare, free education, affordable housing and making billionaires pay more taxes. Democrats increasingly associate socialism with government services and equality rather than government ownership of production.
That distinction is important because when Americans say they support “socialism,” many are not demanding that Washington nationalize every factory tomorrow morning. They are responding to an economic system they believe no longer gives them a reasonable opportunity to advance. The politicians exploit that frustration by promising that government can provide whatever the private economy supposedly failed to deliver.
Housing is unaffordable partly because governments restrict supply, regulate construction, inflate asset prices and manipulate credit. Higher education became outrageously expensive after government guarantees helped disconnect tuition from market discipline. Healthcare is buried beneath government mandates, subsidies, licensing restrictions and an incomprehensible combination of public and private bureaucracy. Then the political solution is always MORE GOVERNMENT.
This is how republics move toward socialism. It does not begin with tanks rolling through Washington and somebody announcing the abolition of private property. It begins with each generation surrendering another piece of economic freedom because government promises security in return.
Look at what is happening politically. The Democratic Socialists of America has grown from roughly 5,000 members around 2011 to nearly 130,000 today. Socialist and socialist-aligned candidates are no longer curiosities confined to a handful of university districts. They are winning Democratic primaries and forcing establishment Democrats to respond. The centrist Democratic organization Third Way has become so alarmed that it is launching a $15 million effort to counter the socialist wing of its own party.
You do not spend $15 million fighting something that does not exist. The socialist movement understands the economic frustration of younger Americans far better than the establishment does. They look at people paying enormous rents, delaying marriage, unable to purchase homes, carrying student debt and watching food, insurance and electricity consume larger portions of their income. Then they say capitalism failed you and government will fix it.
Yet the broader American public has not crossed that bridge. The new poll still finds capitalism viewed positively by 46% of Americans compared with 35% for socialism. That is an important distinction. This is presently a transformation taking place primarily inside the Democratic coalition, not evidence that the United States as a whole has become socialist.
What should concern everyone is where this goes during the next economic downturn. Political systems become vulnerable when living standards decline. People do not embrace radical political change when everything is working. They turn toward it when the existing establishment has lost credibility and neither side offers a believable path back to prosperity.
The Democrats used to deny they were becoming socialist. Then they called it democratic socialism. Now a clear majority of Democratic voters openly tell pollsters they view socialism favorably while barely one-third say the same about capitalism. At some point, you have to believe what people are telling you.
The greater tragedy is that Washington created the conditions that made the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism seem bleak and unattainable. Socialism is not rising because it suddenly discovered some brilliant new economic theory. It is rising because government destroyed confidence in what came before it.
Posted Originally on Aug 18, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
I have known Nigel Farage for years, and whatever one thinks of Nigel politically, he understands something that the establishment in Westminster refuses to admit: Britain cannot continue spending money it does not have while taxing the productive economy to death. Reform UK has now put forward plans to reduce Britain’s welfare bill by £50 billion annually, and the reaction from the political establishment was entirely predictable. They immediately screamed about cruelty rather than addressing the arithmetic. Britain’s welfare bill was already £334 billion in 2025-26, more than half of which was the state pension, and Reform is arguing that the remaining system has expanded far beyond what the productive economy can sustainably finance.
Robert Jenrick has described the current system as “suicidal empathy” and a “strange perversion of compassion.” Those are strong words, but the point is being deliberately distorted. Nobody is arguing that someone who is genuinely disabled and incapable of working should be thrown into the street. A civilized society should absolutely provide assistance to people who genuinely cannot provide for themselves. The problem is that government expanded the definition of welfare from a safety net into a permanent economic structure, and politicians became terrified to distinguish between people who cannot work and people who simply do not work.
Reform intends to replace the existing disability-benefit structure with a narrower system focused primarily on severe and enduring conditions. The party claims approximately £20 billion could eventually be removed from disability-related spending, while another £21 billion could be saved by preventing almost all foreign nationals from accessing welfare. That second proposal would include many EU citizens with settled status and would likely require Britain to renegotiate elements of its post-Brexit arrangements with Brussels. Reform is therefore not proposing another cosmetic adjustment. It is challenging the entire philosophy behind Britain’s modern welfare state.
The foreign-national issue will naturally generate the greatest outrage, but the economic question is perfectly legitimate. Immigration was always sold to the British people as an economic benefit. Politicians said migrants would work, contribute taxes, fill labor shortages, and increase GDP. Fine. Then why should someone be able to arrive in Britain and become a permanent liability of British taxpayers? Immigration should increase the productive capacity of the nation accepting the immigrant. When government must subsidize housing, income, children and other living expenses indefinitely, the economic calculation changes regardless of how uncomfortable politicians find that discussion.
Farage has been moving Reform increasingly toward precisely this distinction between work and dependency. He has called Reform the “true party of the workers” and proposed eliminating income tax on overtime above a standard 40-hour week for people earning less than £75,000. There is at least a coherent economic philosophy behind putting those policies together: stop punishing the person who works additional hours while reducing the incentives and opportunities to live permanently from the state. Westminster has spent decades doing virtually the opposite, taxing productive activity more heavily every time it requires additional revenue while expanding the number of people dependent upon government.
Reform is also proposing that able-bodied people who remain on benefits for extended periods perform 20 hours of community service each week or risk losing their payments. More than 330,000 Universal Credit recipients are reportedly classified as capable of working despite having remained unemployed for more than a year. Jenrick has suggested they could clean high streets, assist charities or work in libraries. The establishment portrays this as punishment, but why is expecting some contribution in exchange for taxpayer support considered immoral while forcing another person to surrender part of the income he earned is considered compassionate?
This is the fundamental problem with the modern welfare state. Government gradually separated benefits from obligations. The taxpayer retained an obligation to finance the system while the recipient acquired an expanding legal and political entitlement to receive from it. Every attempt to restore conditions is therefore portrayed as an attack on the poor, which makes meaningful reform politically dangerous until the fiscal situation becomes so severe that reform can no longer be avoided.
Britain is approaching that point because welfare does not exist in isolation. The government must simultaneously finance the NHS, pensions, defense, debt interest, local government, migrant accommodation, Net Zero programs and an enormous public bureaucracy while the private economy struggles beneath some of the highest tax burdens in generations. Welfare spending is projected to continue climbing, and Jenrick has warned that the bill could reach £407 billion by 2030. Britain cannot continue adding obligations to the balance sheet while assuming taxpayers and bond markets will finance them forever.
This is why the debate over Reform’s precise £50 billion estimate, while legitimate, misses the larger point. Their calculations should absolutely be challenged because eliminating one benefit can simply transfer costs elsewhere. Cutting disability payments may increase demands on councils or the NHS. Restricting benefits for EU nationals could trigger reciprocal consequences for British citizens living in Europe. Government accounting is never as simple as politicians pretend, and anyone promising that every pound of projected savings will appear exactly as forecast is selling a political projection rather than a certainty.
Nevertheless, attacking Reform’s calculations does not make Britain’s fiscal problem disappear. That is where Westminster has lost all credibility. The establishment responds to anyone proposing reductions by demanding an exact accounting of every future pound while rarely applying the same standard when government creates another spending program. Nobody knows precisely what Britain’s welfare system will cost five or ten years from now because caseloads, demographics, migration, inflation and economic growth will all change, but we certainly know the direction in which the burden has been moving.
I have discussed this with Nigel over the years in the broader context of what is happening to Europe. The political establishment confuses government spending with economic growth because GDP records government expenditure as economic activity regardless of whether that expenditure actually increases productive capacity. You can hire another bureaucrat, create another subsidy, and borrow another billion pounds, and GDP may rise on paper, but that does not mean the nation became wealthier. Someone eventually has to produce the goods and services that support the entire structure.
Britain once accumulated enormous wealth because it encouraged commerce, industry, innovation and international trade. Today politicians behave as though that wealth simply exists and their only responsibility is deciding how to distribute it. That is the same mistake governments have made repeatedly throughout time. They consume the productive base inherited from previous generations and then blame capitalism when there is no longer enough revenue to finance the promises they made.
This is why Farage and Reform are gaining political traction even when their individual proposals provoke outrage. They are speaking to people who increasingly believe they work not to improve their own standard of living but to maintain a government machine that demands more every year. The person who gets up at 6 a.m., pays income tax, National Insurance, council tax, VAT, energy levies and every other hidden charge eventually begins asking why government regards his income as an inexhaustible public resource.
That frustration will become far more politically important as Britain’s fiscal position deteriorates. Welfare reform is not fundamentally about whether Britain should help vulnerable people; of course it should. The question is whether government can distinguish compassion from dependency and whether politicians possess enough courage to admit that no entitlement can grow faster than the economy supporting it forever. Reform may not ultimately achieve £50 billion in savings, and parts of this proposal will undoubtedly need modification, but at least Farage is willing to put the solvency of the system on the table while Westminster’s traditional parties continue pretending that another tax increase will somehow solve a structural problem decades in the making.
There comes a point when government can no longer promise everything to everyone. Britain is getting very close to discovering that point, and the politicians attacking Farage today may eventually find themselves implementing the very reforms they now condemn because markets have a way of imposing discipline when politicians refuse to do so themselves.
Posted Originally on Aug 18, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
The Collapse of the Rule of Law Confirms the Fall of a Nation This time by 2032
Historically, the collapse of the rule of law is often seen not just as an indicator, but as a primary mechanism through which a government falls or transforms into something else. Many thinkers have argued that when the law ceases to be the supreme authority, society is on a direct path to disintegration or tyranny.
The Theoretical Foundation: The Collapse of Law as the End of Government The political philosopher John Locke provided one of the most direct statements on this. In his Two Treatises of Government, he argued that when the supreme executive power “neglects and abandons that charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be put in execution; this is demonstratively to reduce all to anarchy, and so effectively to dissolve the government.” For Locke, a government without effective laws is a contradiction, and its failure to execute the law leaves the people as “a confused multitude without order.”
This idea was foundational to the American Founders. John Adams feared that killing a tyrant without establishing a “government of laws, and not of men” would merely mean the people “will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.”
Historical Perspectives on the Rule of Law and Government Survival Modern thinkers and statesmen have echoed and expanded on these ideas, showing how the collapse of the rule of law is a key step in a state’s decline.
Montesquieu (1748) argued that a republic’s survival depends on “virtue” (civic spirit and commitment to the common good). When laws cease to be executed due to corruption, the state “is already lost.”
Edmund Burke (1777) warned that “among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist,” implying a breakdown of moral and legal order leads to collapse.
History and political theory generally do NOT treat the collapse of the rule of law as a mere warning sign, but as a form of government dissolution in its own right. Whether by an executive failing to execute laws, widespread corruption undermining justice, or a slow-motion legal dismantling of constitutional checks, the destruction of the rule of law consistently precedes the fall of free government—or its mutation into a tyrannical form.
As they see their grip on society starting to fade away, they will become far more tyrannical out of desperation. As I advised the Ukrainians back in 2014, a revolution can be bloodless as long as the army refuses to defend the corrupt politicians. We saw that even in Russia when Yeltsin stood on the tank and told the Army not to kill its own people. They stood down and the coup failed.
This is the problem that they assume if you can forecast the business cycle, then it happens only because you forecast it. The establishment hate my guts and can’t wait for me to exit this earth. The CFTC has even tried to subpoena a list of all my clients worldwide telling the judge that I manipulated the world economy and they could prove if it I turned over a list of all my clients. My lawyer turned into a joke and said we confess, he manipulates the entire world including your salary. Where is the law that he cannot? The judge laughed, and dismissed the CFTC.
Others control the media and threaten them not to interview me. The New Yorker 10 page interview of me took place ONLY because they threatened to expose what they were doing saying that they could interview a terrorist, but not Armstrong. Why?
Mark Pitman had written for Bloomberg on what we were doing in Japan bailout out companies and buying their portfolios. We use to publish on Bloomberg. All of a sudden, Bloomberg told Mark he was not allowed to write about me and they erased all our published reports on their system and previous articles that showed what the government alleged was completely false.
Bloomberg never once even reported how could a bank claim it did not know where $1 billion in deposits went? It is IMPOSSIBLE to get a $1 billion out of a bank without a wire in which case they would have known where it went. Only because I told my clients to sue the bank were they forced to plead guilty and return the money. Meanwhile, the government handed HSBC my $400 million profit. They put a gag order on me to STOP me from helping my clients against the bank. This the most corrupt Department of Justice being the Southern District of New York whose conviction rate is virtually 98-99% beating even Adolf Hitler’s rigged court with only a 90% conviction rate of Jews with 46% sentenced to death. This id Epstein was charged in New York City, Frank Quatrone of First Boston, to Maduro from Venezuela among just about every high profile case where they deny fair trials. When Epstein was charged in NYC, I posted the only question was would he be killed before of after a plea deal. Suicides are much more common in NYC.
The Supreme Court’s most anti-Constitutional decision ever rendered implemented a nationwide policy declaring prosecutors must have absolute immunity for acts committed in their prosecutorial role. This decision has unleashed the most abusive legal system ever on the face of this Earth. The most notorious court in history had been that of Hitler which had a 90% conviction rate. The Supreme Court has stripped every possible human right we have fought for since the dawn of civilization with that decision.
The conviction rate now exceeds that of the Nazis. Court-appointed lawyers are paid to lose not win. They are as evil as prosecutors if not worse for they lie to your face pretending they are there to aid you. I never met one who was EVER honest! Lawyers tell you to just plea because you cannot win! Federal Judge Jed Rakof’s review of a book – Why Innocent People Plead Guilty.
Judge Rakof wrote in the New York Review of Books, “Over the past few decades, ordinary US citizens have increasingly been denied effective access to their courts.” Nobody pays attention and at least one-third of the people in prison are innocent charged with conspiracy so the government does not have to prove you actually did something, you just intended it somehow. Nobody reforms the judicial system so police just kill people without consequence.
Why they hate me is to Protect the System
My case was all about protect the manipulations in New York, The SEC/CFTC will pretend to issue a huge fine of even $200 million when the entity made $1 billion and nobody goes to jail. Why? It’s just their 20% cut. I have been told for years, the bankers started this and told the CFTC that I had to be shut down for I was manipulating the world economy. They all lost a fortune on Russia. Soros lost $2 billion. The movie people tried the Freedom of Information Act to find out who made those complaints. They claimed they no longer has any document on me at all, clearly to cover up their illegal activity.
This is what all governments will do to protect the status quo. Even during the American Revolution, they sent a army to arrest Thomas Jefferson for simply writing the Declaration of Independence. They even issued token showing the hanging of Thomas Paine for writing his Common Sence, which he began:
As far as trying to capture Thomas Jefferson and hang him, it was the British commander in America, General Charles Cornwallis, who dispatched a cavalry force of 250 men led by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Their mission was to capture Governor Thomas Jefferson, who was at his home, Monticello, and other members of the Virginia General Assembly meeting in nearby Charlottesville.
On the evening of June 3, 1781, John “Jack” Jouett, often called the “Paul Revere of the South,” was at the Cuckoo Tavern in Louisa County, Virginia, when he spotted Tarleton and his British troops nearby. He realized their destination and the danger to the Jefferson and perhaps others. He rode 40 miles through the night on backroads to get ahead of the British troops. He arrived at Monticello in the early hours of June 4 to warn Jefferson. The warning gave Jefferson enough time to escape just before the British arrived at his home later that day.
Posted Originally on Aug 17, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
Washington State farmer Joel Gross says government officials turned the regulatory machinery against him after he publicly criticized what he viewed as an unconstitutional assault on his private property. Gross operates nearly 5,000 acres outside Wilson Creek, including about 400 acres of irrigated alfalfa and wheat and another 4,400 acres of rangeland supporting Black Angus cattle. He wanted to build a home on his own property, and instead discovered just how little the concept of private property means once unelected bureaucrats decide they have authority over your land.
Gross wanted to build a 6,000-square-foot home on his own farm, but Washington’s shrub-steppe conservation rules require landowners to offset protected habitat disturbed by construction. Gross says that for every acre affected by his house, driveway, and required solar infrastructure, he may have to permanently preserve at least two additional acres where future development would be restricted. Otherwise, he could be forced to pay mitigation fees. He owns the land, pays taxes on it, yet must sacrifice additional acreage or pay the government for permission to build on his own property.
Gross called the arrangement “extortion,” and his anger is understandable when you look at the economics. AgWeb cites research from the Building Industry Association of Washington estimating that state and local regulations account for approximately $203,976, or 29.5%, of the $690,701 median new-home sales price in the Washington counties it sampled. The comparable nationwide regulatory burden was estimated at 23.8%. Gross says merely obtaining the required habitat inspection from an accredited biologist could cost another $2,000 to $10,000 before construction even begins. Then politicians hold hearings about why nobody can afford housing anymore while their own regulations have added six figures to the cost of putting a roof over someone’s head.
Gross finally did what Americans are supposedly permitted to do under the First Amendment. He complained. On June 25, 2026, he posted his criticism of Washington’s regulations on Facebook under the title “CONFISCATED,” attacking what he viewed as government encroachment on private property. Two days later, Grant County Development Services Director Jim Anderson-Cook responded with a roughly 1,500-word Facebook post disputing Gross’ claims. Anderson-Cook said county employees had received death threats following Gross’ public criticism, while Gross maintains that his complaints were directed primarily toward state-level regulations and he never incited violence.
What happened next is precisely why his allegation deserves scrutiny. Months before the Facebook dispute, county representatives had visited Gross’ property because he wanted to crush rock from his own farm into gravel to maintain his farm roads, cattle pads and erosion controls. Officials had given him the green light in February and indicated that he would not need a commercial mining permit so long as the material remained for on-farm use. Gross says he invested $400,000 in rock-crushing equipment so he could maintain his own property. The gravel was not being hauled off and sold commercially. It remained on his farm.
After Gross publicly attacked the regulations in June, he says the county suddenly treated that same activity as an “industrial surface mine.” That classification could require a conditional-use permit, a Mining Resource Overlay, and review under Washington’s State Environmental Policy Act, potentially creating a multiyear process costing as much as $200,000. Gross contends agricultural grading for his purposes is exempt under Washington law and says no farmer in Grant County history has been required to obtain an industrial mining permit merely to crush rock for use on his own farm.
Agriculture becomes less about producing food and more about satisfying an expanding army of administrators who have never risked their life savings on a crop, worried about rainfall, paid for fertilizer, repaired machinery at midnight, or wondered whether commodity prices will cover the year’s expenses. Regulators are coming after this man for daring to utilize his own land.
Farmers are already being crushed economically. Costs remain elevated, fertilizer has again become a major concern in 2026, financing costs remain painful, equipment has become extraordinarily expensive, and farm debt continues mounting. Farmer’s Keeper survey of 4,000 farmers found 20% were cutting corn acreage as fertilizer prices and supply problems forced them to reconsider planting decisions. The government should be asking how to keep these people producing food rather than inventing another permit, environmental review or mitigation scheme that requires them to hire consultants simply to use their own property.
Private property means absolutely nothing if government can dictate its use without assuming the financial burden of ownership. This has been one of the most destructive changes throughout the West. Politicians discovered they do not always need eminent domain to control land. They can leave your name on the deed while regulating what you may build, where you may build it, how much land must remain untouched, what environmental studies you must purchase and how much you must pay for the privilege of receiving permission. Gross still receives the property-tax bill, naturally, because government never seems confused about who owns the land when the taxes become due.
People vote for legislators, but they do not vote for the thousands of administrators who interpret rules, issue permits, conduct inspections and decide whether ordinary activity falls inside another regulatory classification. Those decisions can destroy a business without a politician ever casting a vote. A bureaucrat does not need to confiscate $200,000 from a farmer if he can create a regulatory process that forces the farmer to spend $200,000 defending the right to continue operating.
Gross declared rural Washingtonians are being “regulated to exhaustion,” and that description extends far beyond Washington. The people producing food are being squeezed by debt, energy, fertilizer, equipment, insurance, environmental mandates, taxes and increasingly complex land-use restrictions while government continues demanding more. Then everyone acts surprised when farms consolidate, small operators disappear and food production becomes concentrated among fewer enormous corporations capable of employing entire departments of attorneys and compliance specialists.
Recent parasitic food pandemonium have led the public to question: where are the smaller farms? How does Taylor Farms have a near monopoly on lettuce? Where is our food grown? Many are not waking up to the fact that agriculture has been regulated into oblivion and smaller operations simply cannot compete.
There is something fundamentally wrong when a farmer must hire experts and potentially spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to convince government that crushing rock from his own property for roads on that same property does not transform him into an industrial mining company. There is something even more disturbing if regulatory treatment changes after that farmer publicly criticizes the people administering those rules. America was built upon private property and the right to challenge government authority. If exercising one right causes bureaucrats to threaten the other, then the problem is much larger than Joel Gross’ farm.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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