Category History Repeats itself Time after Time

Jan 26 2023

Hoards Are Vital to our Understanding of History


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ancient Economies Re-Posted Jan 26, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Why do you buy hoards? It is interesting. Just curious.

JY

ANSWER: The coinage is the ONLY way to truly confirm the history. Much of the most important periods like the 3rd century AD, the fall of the Republic, or the Revolution during the Debt Crisis of the 1st century BC known as the Social War, can only be properly understood through the coinage lacking really detailed accounts of financially what was taking place. By recreating the monetary system using coinage, I was able to answer the question – How did Rome Fall? Gradually? Or Catastrophically? By assembling all the coinage, and testing it out, I could establish what nobody else could due using documents or archaeological digs. Rome collapsed in just 8.6 years.

That was then observed in testing and using the same methods around the world. The collapse of the English coinage that inspired Gresham’s Law, bad money drives out good, also took just 8 years.

The Great Monetary Crisis of 1092 saw the gold content collapse also in just 8 years. The same pattern has unfolded time and time again. History repeats NOT because of wars or abstract theories. It repeats simply because human nature never changes – on technology.

The computer was about to forecast the fall of Communism in 1989.95 and it spread and took down the Berlin wall a few months after Tiananmen Square. People attributed that to modern communication. That was nonsense, The Roman Republic fell in 509 BC, and in the same few months in Athens, they too overthrew their tyrants, and Democracy was born.

The question is NOT how fast the information spreads. It could have traveled from Rome to Athens in a few days. The real question is how long does it take to filter through society to create political change?

Therefore, assembling the number of coins by examining hoards and the number of different dies multiplied by 15,000 will give us a good idea of the money supply at that time as illustrated above. Granted, this research project cost tens of millions of dollars to produce. Nonetheless, it has yielded a wealth of information that enabled us to see specifically what took place economically. Human nature has not changed. When Rome burned, Nero did visit the victims. Tiberius issued coins for the aid of Asia when a major earthquake devasted the region we call Turkey today.

I am finishing a book on the famous Battle of Actium where Mark Antony lost to Octavian giving birth to Imperial Rome. The number of dies and the amount of coins issued by Antony demonstrates that the entire wealth of Egypt was at his disposal and it was really an Egyptian proxy war against Rome. The number of silver denarii struck had to be at least 25 million. The sheer massive amount of the increase in the money supply thanks to Egypt was huge. Antony’s coins remained in circulation for decades, although very work. They were the most common coin found in hoards at Pompeii in 79AD about 100 years later. Hoards enable us to see the cost of that war and how it changed Egypt and Rome.

Where Rome began with bronze as its monetary unit and one pound was known as a Roman As, we can see that the price of the Punic Wars as what was one pound of bronze consistently declined. Here we found it was six waves of 51.6 years which are in themselves six waves of 8.6 years,  that produced the major wave of 309.6 years. So if we look from the beginning of the Roman As being 341 grams in 280 BC, by the time we get to Nero in 54AD, the Roman As was about only 10 grams.

Even looking at the reforms of Diocletian in 295AD, his introduction of the follis declines remarkably also following the six waves of 8.6 years. I have looked at the monetary systems of Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. they have conformed to the Economic Confidence Model confirming that this is a cycle that clearly incorporates everything from war to climate change.

Even though Emperor Titus’ (79-81AD) reign was marked by a relative absence of military and political conflicts after his father, Vespasian (69-79AD) had defeated Judaea was defeated, there were several disasters during his brief leadership. On October 24 in 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted and almost destroyed the cities and resort communities around Naples. The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried under stones and lava in 79AD shortly after Titus (79-81AD) came to power. Titus made all efforts to help the victims of the volcano and donated large amounts of money from the imperial treasury. The emperor visited Pompeii right after the tragedy happened.

A single silver denarius was discovered in 1974 among the 180 silver coins buried in Pompeii. When it was cataloged, it overturned history. Titus’ father died on June 24th, 79 AD. Therefore, any coin of Titus as emperor would have to have the very first recording of his power “IMP VIIII” or 8th Imperator, which was a title that meant ‘leader of the army’ to the Romans. The coin discovered in Pompeii had the legend “IMP XV,” which was granted to Titus for the war in Britannia. Titus sent Gnaeus Julius Agricola who pushed further into Caledonia and managed to establish several forts there as recorded by Tacitus (Agricola 22). Therefore, Titus received the title of Imperator for the fifteenth time for this event, according to Cassius Dio (Roman History LXVI.20). This took place we know in September 79 AD about 3 months after becoming emperor following his father’s death. Obviously, if any coin was discovered in the ruins of Pompeii with “IMP XV” in its legend, then this provides absolute proof that the date for Vesuvius of August 24th, 79 AD cannot be correct.

Archeologists in Pompeii have discovered a remarkable inscription written in charcoal which has survived the catastrophe confirming that the eruption of Mt Vesuvius indeed took place in October 79AD as confirmed by the coin discovered and ignored by historians.  The charcoal writing, discovered on the wall of a villa during a new phase of excavations, adds weight to a theory that the volcano destroyed the town in October 79AD rather than August of that year in line with Cassio Dio and the denarius of Titus. The date of August 24th, 79 AD, came from a letter addressed by Pliny the Younger to the Roman historian Tacitus, originally written some 25 years after the event.

Titus devoted much of his silver coinage of Atonement to the gods for the disaster of Pompeii. There were four main Atonement issues commemorating the services of prayer and propitiation through which the emperor attempted to address the public alarm over the disaster. People often attributed such events to the gods being angry. The coinage showed emblems seeking the approval of Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, and the deceased former Emperors to watch over the Roman people.

News actually spread rapidly around the Roman Empire. There were formal boards where notices would be posted in which important news and major events would be informed to the people much like such a board in a big company with notices to the employees. These boards were called the Acta Diurna and they were designed to inform the Roman people thereby avoiding fake news. We could call them ancient billboards in modern terms and even government officials would walk up and pin a written notice and the crowds would rush to see what is news. Thus, everyone knew of Pompeii in a matter of days. It did not take long for information to circulate.

Because the coin dies back then were hand carved, we are able to identify the number of dies in use during a given year because each is unique. Just look at these portraits on the famous Tribute Penny of Tiberius (14-37AD). It all depended upon the artistic ability of the engraver.

The coin itself has taken its name because Jesus, referring to a denarius, which the English translated to “penny” because that was their silver coin, asked: “Whose is this image and superscription?” When answered that the likeness was Caesar, He replied; ”Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:20-21). Thus, the coin has been called the tribute penny meaning that was how you paid your taxes.

Hoards have enabled me to (1) see what was in circulation at that point in time for the hoard can be dated to around the most recent coin in the hoard. (2) I also have a number of ancient Roman dies like this one of Tiberius. Studies creating modern dies to test how many coins could be struck from such a die before it cracked provides a picture of about 15,000 coins.

By completing die studies quantifying how many were in use, it then becomes possible to estimate the money supply. Here we can see that during the Social War of 90-87BC, there is a drastic increase in the quantity of coinage issued obviously to pay for soldiers. However, conducting metal testing on the coinage of this period, we find that Rome also debased the coinage slightly adding up to 10% copper to the silver. Therefore, studying hoards allows one to actually ascertain the extreme of monetary affairs.

The Social War of the First Century BC was a failed Revolution against the corrupt Republic. The rebellion was waged by ancient Rome’s Italian allies (socii) who were denied equal rights with the Romans, despite the fact that they also fought alongside Romans in battle. They were seeking to separate and thus they fought for independence. Here are the coins of the rebels. They are very rare. You can see the theme celebrating the female head of Italia.

The allies in central and southern Italy had fought side by side with Rome in several wars and had grown restive under Roman autocratic rule, wanting instead Roman citizenship and the privileges it conferred. In 91 BC, the Roman tribune Marcus Livius Drusus proposed granting them Roman citizenship. The arrogance of the Senators erupted into a heated opposition. They went as far as to even Drusus for daring to propose such a decree. That resulted in the revolution.

When I dug deeper, the coinage with the debasement also reveals that there was a financial crisis. In all honesty, it was the Debt Crisis that ended the Roman Republic. There was a Sovereign Debt Crisis during the Roman Republic period that resulted in a dictatorship and a debt default. The Roman Debt Crisis of the 1st century BC has left behind a vivid account of what took place. The volume of gold and silver in Italy had increased dramatically during the late 2nd century BC following the Punic Wars. We have the first real gold coins issued by the Roman Republic at that time.

However, this concentration of wealth, which was akin to the United States after World War I and II, was absorbed by commercial expansion and investment in Gaul and Asia. A period of excessive concentration of money and large profits came to an end with the rise of the Social War of 91-88BC which was a war waged between the Roman Republic and several of the other cities in Italy (no taxation without representation), which prior to the war had been Roman allies for centuries. The war was begun by the Picentes because the Romans did not want to afford them Roman citizenship, thus leaving the Italian groups with fewer rights. The war resulted in a Roman victory and genocide against the Samnites. However, Rome granted Roman citizenship to almost all of its Italian allies, including the Samnites, to avoid another war. Therefore, we find that the debt crisis was correlated with a separatist movement – which we are beginning to see worldwide starting in Europe, but will eventually become a contagion in the United States as the conflict between left and right erupts after the November elections.

The Social War led to the complete state bankruptcy of the Roman State. We can see the dramatic rise in the money supply created during this time of war. This turmoil was then followed by the dictatorship of Sulla who then imposed an attempt to control the debt crisis capping interest rates at 12%. The previous legal rate was capped at 8.5%, but obviously, the market had exceeded that limit and Sulla had to confront that reality in 88BC. The debt crisis continued and then in 86 BC, the government was compelled into default. This is when the Valerian Law came into play. The State debts were defaulted on and thus reduced to 25%.

Jan 18 2023

Who is America’s Enemy? Russia or the other Political Party?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Jan 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

In writing the Greatest Bull Market in History, published in 1986, I had to do all the original research. I read all the newspapers daily year after year to come to the realization that attitudes shift back and forth. It became very obvious that before FDR and the introduction of Marxism to the United States, the focus was on markets. With Roosevelt, he weaponized the Federal Reserve and just about everything else to further his agenda. Roosevelt demonized Pierre du Pont for he made a lot of money providing the weapons for World War I. Roosevelt called him the Merchant of Death, but then suddenly needed him again for World War II.

The nation is dividing significantly. This is why the United States cannot stand divided. The latest poll demonstrates that the forecast made by our computer is unsurpassed. The question presented was who is our enemy?

For Democrats, the top three results named Russia (31 percent) as our “greatest enemy,” followed by Republicans (26 percent) and China (16 percent).

For Republicans, the top three are China (35 percent), Russia (33 percent), and Democrats (12 percent).

We now are starting to see that we have an enemy within – the opposite political party. This is absolutely essential for it confirms the forecasts of our computer that have been common since our 2011 WEC.

Jan 6 2023

The Real Cost of War


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Jan 6, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Good Morning Mr. Armstrong, a long-time reader and client of Socrates and your conferences. I just read your entry for Belarus drafting 18 to 60-year-olds. I had a feeling that eventually, that would take place here in the states. I can tell you without a doubt, I will never comply. My family has served in WWII and Vietnam. We have given enough. I absolutely despise our government. I am wondering if this is part of the continued collapse of the government. With such low recruitment levels and the political fallout from the past few years, they must realize people will not be forced to serve. Especially those with the means to defend themselves. Is this a main component of civil unrest here with separatist movements? Just curious if you can elaborate on what you think will happen when they institute a draft here.
All the Best.

J

REPLY: My family has fought in every war since the American Revolution. My cousin still has the musket on his wall from the American Revolution. I lost half of my high school friends to Vietnam and my father and his three brothers were all in World War II and my grandfathers on both sides of the family were in World War I. There is no question that in a time of war, the first shot fired is both silent and never against an enemy. It is always against any truthful reporting of events.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contain records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. The government propaganda site, Wikipedia also directed by the Deep State, has low-balled the casualties claiming in total, all US and allied military deaths reached 282,000. We claim that is a victory for the VC lost 444,000 to possibly 666,000. The civilians who died have been low-balled with estimates of 405,000 up to 627,000. Just turn to Britannica and you get:

“In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters.”

President Lydon Johnson knew there was no reason to enter Vietnam. He knew we could not get out easily. Still, he committed the country to war because the Neocons wanted it.

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This is a famous photograph from Vietnam that is probably the most memorable of all time. You see South Vietnamese forces following terrified children. At the center is 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phùc, as she and other children are running from an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places on June 8, 1972. The plane accidentally dropped napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. As always, just the collateral damage of war. The terrified girl had ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing. This photo was taken by Nick Ut of The Associated Press that captured the horror of Vietnam worldwide. It was 1972 when President Nixon said enough and promised to bring the troops home.

This 9-year-old make girl running from napalm, Phan Thi Kim Phúc, had profoundly changed her forever. Such people are tormented for a lifetime. They wake up at night dreaming over and over about the horror of those events for the rest of their lives. Kim Phúc was bitter and full of hatred she said. Later, she picked up the Bible and converted to Christianity. Today, she lives in Toronto with her family and helps other children victims of war around the world. It is those who survive who are profoundly tortured for the remainder of their lives. That is the real cost of war that nobody cares about.

The official estimate of civilian deaths in World War II stands at a total of 70–85 million. The actual military deaths were 21,000,000 to 25,500,000. There is ALWAYS an equal amount of civilian deaths in times of war. Those in power never want to talk about that.

Jan 4 2023

War Against Conservatives


Blog/Press

Posted Jan 10, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

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People are leaving Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and were moving to Parlar. Google and Apple removed the Parlar APP and then Amazon kicked then off of AWS. This is a complete purge going on of all conservatives. We are in the midst of nothing short of a real live Russian version of a revolution. Cheer up – you get to see what it was like to live history in a major confrontation between left and right. But make no mistake about it, the super-rich remains in power just behind the curtain. They own the press and social media while they use the virus to prevent people from gathering or organizing. It is their way or no way. Their motto: Resistance is Futile!

The SciFi Verison of Communism

Jan 3 2023

Are the Immigrants Part of the Decline & Fall?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Migraction Re-Posted Jan 3, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The invasion of migrants, both in Europe and the United States, is evolving into a major crime wave not seen in decades. In Germany, Berlin looked like a war zone. There were 3,943 incidents, but when recuse workers arrived, they were deliberately attacked. Some 15 firefighters and 18 police officers were injured. The Bild newspaper has reported that these incidents were “particularly bad attacks in the hotspot neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Neukölln with a high proportion of migrants.” They were setting up barricades, setting them on fire, and when the firefighters arrived, they were attacked by some 200 men. There were even attacking an ambulance, hurling objects inside the vehicle’s open rear doors.

I have been getting emails from people shocked here in the United States from towns that never had any homeless are suddenly inundated. This mass migration into Europe and the United States is reminiscent of the barbarian invasions into Rome. Rome officially fell in 476AD with the last emperor named Romulus Augustus (475-476AD).

The barbarians effectively took over and even issued coins pretending to be Roman. They imitated the Roman Coinage. There had even been laws passed insisting you only marry a Latin. Even to this very day, in Italy, they do not consider those in Sicily Italians in some parts. I had gone into a bakery in Rome and asked for a cannoli. The owner wanted to pull a knife on me yelling that’s not “Italian, it’s Sigii” meaning from Sicily.

These migrations are all part of the decline and fall. Just like in Rome, once that process began, there was no turning back. They bring a different culture that undermined the traditions that held society together creating a civilization that will no longer be. The migration of the 19th century from Europe to America did not take place because of welfare programs. People came to America for the land of opportunity to work and to buy property. They did not come looking for free money and then wage war and violence to out of frustration demanding every more free money.

Jan 1 2023

Bob Frantz LIVE: 2022: The worst year of our lives?


AMERICA First with Sebastian Gorka Published originally on Rumble on December 30, 2022 

Cleveland’s Bob Frantz fills in for Sebastian, reflects on the disastrous year that was 2022, talks to guest Peter Kirsanow, and more.

Jan 1 2023

2022, Perhaps the Apex Year for an Era of Pretending


Posted originally on the CTH December 31, 2022 | sundance 

If 2022 was not the apex year for the era of great pretending, then we remain sitting in a handbasket – destination, full speed ahead.

When asked for the topic of a ‘big picture‘ podcast this 2022-year ending, the obvious answer from me was We Need to Quit Pretending.

For the past two years I can only encapsulate the entire social, political and socioeconomic dynamic that surrounds us by saying we are living in an era of great pretending.  Why?  Because nothing else adequately explains it.

A recession is no longer two negative quarters of economic growth.  Elections are no longer defined by votes cast, but by ballots counted.  Meanwhile, women are claimed to have penises and people will argue -strenuously and with commitment- that men can give birth to babies.

Simultaneously, vaccines are no longer about medicines to avoid viruses, and Americans have some moral obligation to fund the administrative salaries, pensions and expense accounts for a nation of European politicians, in a country that few taxpayers could find on a map.

We must pretend the occupant of the oval office is not a dementia patient, at the same time we must pretend the Dept of Homeland Security and FBI is not telling online speech platforms that identifying the dementia patient, as a dementia patient, means you are a domestic violent extremist.  The absurdity of the pretenses are off-the-charts.

However, on the upside, we now see even blissfully ignorant people starting to realize something is wrong when their electricity and heating bills quadruple, while the same system of governmental caretakers are telling us to embrace a new earth friendly normal of $12 dollar eggs.  We been knew, but more are now knowing – thank God.

History provides reference points, and prolonged pretending never ends up in a good place.  So, there is room for optimism on a couple of points.

First, there is more support than ever for the ‘burn it all down‘ approach.  Whereby we keep the basic U.S. Constitution in place and shred every other institution created that has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

This includes both the DNC and RNC wings of the UniParty apparatus.  I mean, really, at the core of it, what do we have to lose?  Why not just get rid of the dysfunctional systems that abuse us.

Second, in a weird way, we are in a rare space where we can feel the history around us.  Normally we would have to look in retrospect at the events as they unfolded to recognize the inflection point historians would use – not now.  We can look around us right now and have full confidence the most influential voice in the next two decades will be the man, woman or entity that starts openly and publicly calling out this ridiculous pretending.

How messed up does society have to be, and how low to the ground does the actual bar have to rest, in order to realize the most important and influential person in our lifetime will simply be the one who stops pretending?  Ultimately, this is the source of my optimism for the future.

When it becomes so easy to deconstruct the madness simply by pointing out the reality, eventually anyone can do it.  In an era of great pretending, when you speak factual and pain truth, people thirsting will come for the sanity.  Yes, there’s only so much hypocritical nuttery that can possibly fit into the social fabric of a nation, and we’re full.

I see that dynamic starting to play out now.  Mainstream media are openly mocked everywhere for being the Baghdad Bob’s they are.  The MSM credibility and influence essentially destroyed by the Potemkin villages and Eco-chambers they built around themselves.

The congressional J6 committee is yet another example of a proclaimed thermonuclear ICBM missile that ended up delivering a contrasting reality. The fading whistle & pop akin to a dysfunctional bottle rocket.

There’s no help on this pretending issue coming from the political side of the American spectrum; sneeze that thought into a tissue and flush it.

The big movement that will end this era will come from ordinary people laughing, mocking and belittling the pretenders.

I do genuinely believe this phase is well underway, albeit we are in the beginning phases of the great mocking.

Whenever possible, we should do all we can to fuel both mocking and shame when discussing the great pretenders.  There’s only so much ridicule they can take before they must change course.  Ridiculing is another way to throw sand in the machinery.  Again, I think we are beginning to see that pendulum shift taking place right now.

Evidence for my optimism can be found in the most obscure places, including this paragraph from a recent NPR article:

…[…] “Only 15% of people eligible for the Covid booster shot that targets the omicron variant have gotten it — a rate that is even lower than the perennially disappointing rates for flu vaccine uptake. Vaccine fatigue seems to have spread to other shots, too — including those to prevent measles and polio — according to a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.”

Think about it.  “Eligible for the Covid booster” means that 85% of those who took the COVID-19 “vaccine” are not taking the booster.  Eighty-five percent of the people who took the shot have stopped pretending the covid shot had anything to do with public health.   That’s 85 out of 100 people who took the shot, not taking the booster. That’s a lot of simultaneous pretense quitting.

Yes, 2022 was another year in this great pretending era, but along with it comes a new enlightenment for a whole bunch of people.  From where we sit at the end of this year, it looks like the pretending has apexed.

Eyes are wide open; people are starting to be intellectually honest and more curious.

Yes comrade rebels, slowly, albeit painfully slowly, there is hope emerging.

Dec 28 2022

Understanding the Neocons


Armstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized Re-Posted Dec 28, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: I saw you on TV here in Russia. I think you are more respected in Russia than in the United States. You are the only person ever to say that war is created by politicians and not the people. Do you see any hope of avoiding war?

VR

ANSWER: Unfortunately, no! The only real question is how bad does it get?

As I said at our World Economic Conference, nobody has tried to defeat this model more than me. I have come to see that you really cannot change the long-term because nobody will act for the future. They only react to immediate news and propaganda. Congressman Adam Kinzinger said that NATO could take out Russia in only three days. Kinzinger is the new John McCain. He always advocates war and is clueless. His statement that NATO could take out Russia in 3 days is the most absurd statement I have ever heard.

Kinzinger acts as if NATO could completely destroy Russia in 3 days and they never get a shot off? It is beyond me why these people always preach war and have ZERO regards for the consequences. These people should be barred from ever holding office even for a dog catcher. They live in a delusional world. They also hate China. So they are supposed to wait until NATO destroys Russia in 3 days and then we turn to destroy them in 5 days? Then we also ask North Korea and Iran to please wait their turn for destruction.

The US, Europe, Russia, China, and even Iran all have their Neocons. We should gather them all up, throw then in Madison Square Garden, sell tickets and bet on who is the last one standing. Anyone else who wants to be a Neocon should just be put in the line for the next match.

Dec 26 2022

There is No Defense to Hypersonic Missiles & Russia’s Plans to Expand


Armstrong Economics Blog/Economics Re-Posted Dec 26, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Russia announced yesterday that it will increase its military strength from 1 million to 1.5 million. The Western Press keeps putting out the propaganda that that this is all because Russia has lost momentum and many soldiers in Ukraine. I reported before that sources from Ukraine, not Russia, put the death toll at over 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers. That was also in the draft speech of the head of the EU, but it was removed to keep up the image that Ukraine is winning.

What is not being said here is that Poland has been instructed by the US to increase its military from 100,000 to 250,000 making it the largest force in NATO. It is only a 14-hour drive from Warsaw to Moscow. This in addition to NATO’s plans to incorporate Finland and Sweden, has also played a role in this decision.

The Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared that the country needs a force of 1.5 million “to guarantee the fulfillment of tasks to ensure Russia’s security.” China has about 2 million and the USA has about 1.4 million. North Korea has 1,280,000 active with another 600,000 in reserve. Belarus has an army of only 62,000 with 344,750 in reserve.

Currently in Russia, the regular draft, calls up 120,000 to 140,000 men twice a year for a one-year tour of compulsory service. What is becoming very obvious is that the West wants war. There is no desire for peace whatsoever. This has changed the game. The Western Press keeps just putting out propaganda about Ukraine winning, while it is ignoring the mobilization of NATO which is clearly anticipating war. This is not going to be just about Ukraine as we head into 2023. You have to be blind not to see that the West is clearly preparing for war. This is what Russia is now responding to. With Poland raising its army to 250,000, that presents a serious threat to Russia for the exceeds the active personnel in Belarus.

On top of all of this, Putin has wisely instructed that they should be studying how the weapons the US has been handing Ukraine and to regard these as valuable lessons to be learned during the fighting to modernize the armed forces. Thus, Ukraine has been an experiment to study the weapons systems of one’s opponent on both sides.

Putin also made it clear that Russia will start to deploy more hypersonic weapons, noting that the first warship equipped with state-of-the-art Zircon hypersonic missiles will be commissioned by the navy next month. There is no question that defense against Russia’s hypersonic weapons is not something that may be possible. Russia has been using some hypersonic missiles in Ukraine. It is believed among our sources that this may have been more to intimidate NATO and the United States. Obviously, the conventional wisdom has been that there is just no effective defense against hypersonic weapons. Hence, their use has been to intimidate the USA and NATO, but this does not seem to have succeeded.

The USA is exploring how to defend itself against hypersonic missiles. One theory is the exploration of “boundary layer phenomenology,” which is the idea that disrupting the airflow surrounding a hypersonic projectile may throw it off course. Disrupting the airflow may send it off course, but it will still hit something. The other hope is to deploy lower-flying networked satellites in an effort to establish a continuous targeting track of an approaching hypersonic weapon.

The reason there is no defense is that a hypersonic projectile will travel much too fast to track them because it will move from one radar aperture to another, making it virtually impossible to establish a consistent targeting track or lock.

Meanwhile, our brilliant world leaders are playing with everyone’s life all because they prefer war rather than reform whereby they might lose power.

Dec 23 2022

Why does Academia Always Resist Change?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Education Re-Posted Dec 23, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: I find it interesting that the Roman coin the academics said was fake has now been shown that it had been in circulation. Is this what you talk about how academics are always trying to reject anything that upset their established view of science or history?

SC

ANSWER: Absolutely. It does not matter the field. It is always the same. The Book Historia Augusta they swore was a fake and attributed it even to a monk a few years before.  Then there was Homer. They declare that was all fiction until Schleman set sail and discovered Troy, Mycena, Thebes and all the cities they said were fiction. Why this is the standard I cannot explain. They rejected Keynes until the politicians turned to the idea. They reject the existence of a Business Cycle to this very day. You have to beat them over the head with something to prove your point.

Sponsianus was aA second usurper from the Danube region, which today they claim is Ukraine.  Sponsianus appears to have come to power briefly in Dacia defending the area from an invasion of Germanic tribes of the Alamanni in 244AD during the early reign of Philip I (244-249AD) based upon coin finds bearing the name Sponsianus who was otherwise unknown to history. Like Historia Augusta, the academics immediately called the coin a fake. Anything that seems to upset the academic narrative they immediately reject regardless of the field.

In 1713, two gold aurei bearing the name of Sponsianus were unearthed in Transylvania, Romania together with coins of Gordian III and Philip I known as the Arab. This was followed by the suggestion that Sponsianus was a usurper during the reign of Philip I after he murdered Gordian III. Instantly, most academics declared them as forgeries. Simply because they found no written record mentioning this usurper, they conclude the coin must be fake.

However, this was the precise period when the Goths began to invade. We know that the Carpi began to invade Dacia no later than 246AD and within one year they were joined by the Goths to invade Moesia, which included the find site which was in Transylvania, Romania. We know of one other usurper at this time in the same region Pacatian (248AD), but in the end, he was murdered by his own troops.  There was yet one other usurper – Silbannacus who is known only from a single coin that now resides in the British Museum. Silbannacus most likely led a very short-lived rebellion during this same period on the Rhine perhaps about the same time period as Pacatian in the Moesia (Romania).

Silbannacus appears to have defended the region against the Alamanni during the first half of 244 AD was coins declare a victory as well as a usurpation of power with the support of the Senate. It is possible that Sponsianus may have been Severus Hostilianus of the Byzantine sources which may have confused him with Hostiliaisn (251AD), the young son of Trajan Decius (249-251AD).

Consequently, Sponsianus may be the same person noted by his Zonaras who refers to Severos Stilianos. It may have been the usurpation of Marcus Silbannacus and his support by the Senate that forced Philip to make concessions to the Persians. No emperor Sponsianus is mentioned in the Historia Augusta.

What we do know is that Philip I had murdered Gordian III in his attempt to seize the throne. However, he was not equipped to manage the entire empire. As the invasions began from the Northern Germanic tribes, this is clearly why we see these usurpations, not from a quest to seize the throne as much as the political turmoil facing these invasions.

Trajan Decius (249-251AD) was hailed emperor by the troops on the Danube and and he marched against Philip I and defeated him and his son at Verona. However, Trajan Decius was then the first emperor to be killed in battle against the Goths. It was because of these invasions that Trajan Decius took this as the Christians refusing to honor the gods of Rome angered the gods and as such he ordered the first widespread persecution of the Christians in 250AD because of these invasions.

History of the Region

The Alamanni several Germanic tribes including the Ubii, the Sicambri, the Teneteri, the Usipetes, the Catti, and the Cherusces. They were the inhabitants of the upper and lower Rhine, and those beyond that great river, such as the Westphaliaus, the Hessians, and the Saxons, as far as the Elbe and the Weser. They did not imitate the Roman coinage but issued their own Celtic gold staters early on.

It was Drusus, during the time of Augustus (27BC-14AD) who constructed forts and established garrisons throughout this region, in order to hold the Germanic tribes in check; at the same time that he opened a road for his troops through the Hyrcanian forest. The victories of Drusus (brother of Tiberius (14-37AD) over the Alamanni were well known. However, those exploits were not followed by the expansion of the empire and the subjugation of the Germanic tribes of that region. Thus, that area was never reduced to the form of a province.

Following this period, the Alamanni inhabiting that part of Germany, which is situated between the Danube, and the Upper Rhine, were finally subdued at first by Caracalla (198-217AD), and later by Aurelian (270-275AD) Later on, the father of Constantine I the Great (307-337AD), Constantius Chlorus (393-305), while still a caesar under the Tetrarchy, overthrew them with a great slaughter. They continued, nevertheless, from time to time, to wage war against subsequent emperors, from Constantine the Great to Gratian (367-383AD). They were finally brought to subjection 496 AD when they met with a major defeat by the Franks under King Clodovicus.

The primary reason for the Academic rejection of these coins stemmed from that reverse of the coin depicts an image borrowed from coins minted by C. Augurinus dating back to 187 BC. The inclusion of the Republican era reverse has led to suggest that Sponsianus was the leader of his senatorial resistance against Philip I. In opposition to this, some academics have suggested that it is unlikely that his senatorial recognition would have used along with a Republican reverse from the coins celebrating the family of the Minucii by C.Augurinus.

because there existed emperors appointed by the Senate of Pupienus (238AD) and Balbinus (238AD) Therefore, it has been argued that if Sponsianus was supported by the Senate he would have used a more current theme for his coinage. While the series is interesting, they certainly are not conclusive. It cannot be ruled out that Sponsianus perhaps claimed his right to the throne arguing he had descended from that ancient senatorial family. After all, Constantine the Great did that with Claudius II (268-270AD) in an attempt to so some legitimacy.

It is most likely that there were invasions in that area on the Danube frontier whereas he may have been held Emperor to defend the local region from the invaders. We have seen this before even for example Postumus (260-268AD) who claim the throne of the Gallic Empire to protect the people from invaders from the North. He issues coinage showing he was there to protect them from the barbarians which Rome could not. This region of the Danube was under attack at the time around 244 AD by the Alamanni the Germanic tribes. There have been additional ports of coins discovered in Romania that also date to this period of 244 AD suggesting that there was political instability and war in the region during that time.