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%.

Sunday Talks, HPSCI Chair Mike Turner Discusses Latest in Biden Classified Document Issue


Posted originally on the CTH on January 22, 2023 | Sundance 

The likely Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Mike Turner (R-OH), appears on CBS Face the Nation with DC stenographer for the regime, Margaret Brennan.

You know the left wing of the DC political operation is riddled with angst, when Margaret Brennan goes tilt, stomps her heels and throws the proverbial coffee pot across the table.  The only thing missing was Margaret pounding the table and yelling ‘curse you villain.‘  The unbiased pretenses are chucked right out the window here.  The interview is a little funny.  WATCH: 

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to Ohio Congressman Mike Turner, he is expected to head up the House Intelligence Committee. Good morning to you.

REP. MIKE TURNER: Good morning Margaret, thank you for having me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So we have this development in regard to the further materials that were found at President Biden’s Delaware home. What is your reaction? And what does it signify to you that no one realized that this classified material was missing, some of it dating back to his Senate years?

REP. TURNER: This is really incredible. And as you know, congratulations to you, we would not know anything about this if it hadn’t been that CBS had broken this story. The White House nor the Department of Justice had shared any of the information with the public. And this really is one matter, we wouldn’t have this issue if it hadn’t been for Biden’s Attorney General did- making the decision to raid former President Trump’s house looking for- for classified documents that were being held there. What’s amazing about all this is it takes us to the question of why were these documents here? Well, now that we learned that some of these go back to his Senate time, you know, clearly he’s- he’s become a serial classified document hoarder. Why did he have these? Who did he show them to? I mean, the only reason you can think of as to why anyone would take classified documents out of a classified space at home is to- is to show them to somebody. Who did he show them to? This is going to be crucial, I think, to the special counsel’s investigation, is why did the president have these documents? Who did he show them to him? And is it connected to the Biden family businesses?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you know, the differences of course, too. I want to talk about the Biden situation. But just to clarify, when you reference President Trump, there were 300 classified documents, there was a warrant, there was refusal to comply in terms of handing things over and the White House and the president’s lawyer are pointing out that in the case of Biden, he granted permission, and this was consensual for the DOJ to come in and search. Does the fact that the Justice Department conducted the search signify anything more to you and do you have any insight into the sensitivity of the documents?

REP. TURNER: Sure, absolutely. I think this looks more like a cover up than an investigation.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you have any facts to back up your- your allegations that he was hoarding things in terms of intention to take classified material versus it’s been characterized that it was somehow accidental? Do you have any insight into what these materials were?

REP. TURNER: Well, they didn’t fly to his home without him. They went on a train with him from the- his Senate offices and then in boxes that he was in charge of. The chain of custody here is going to be important, because we know that these were in Joe Biden’s hands and Joe Biden’s control, then ended up behind his Corvette in his garage and in his office, that he did not control and also throughout his house, so the special counsel is gonna have to deal with the issue of what was the chain of custody? Who had these? Why did he take them to begin with? When did he get them? When was he handed these documents? And what did he do with them? And this is a real critical question to all this, why did he have these documents to begin with? And that is why the special counsel’s work is going to be really important, because I can think of no reason why the president should have taken home, as a senator or as vice president, any classified documents that clearly have no protection. They’re available and open to anybody.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have also before this development asked for a briefing from the Director of National Intelligence. You set a deadline of Thursday, do you have any further reason to believe they will meet that deadline, that you will get any insight into these materials?

REP. TURNER: Well we’ll have to see, but what’s critical here–

MARGARET BRENNAN: They haven’t responded?

REP. TURNER: –And this is very important, this is what’s very important to all of this, Margaret, and that is the FBI and the national archivists were working completely independent of the intelligence community, or the Department of Defense. They claim this was all an issue of national security, but they did not speak to anyone who’s involved in national security.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So no response yet from the intelligence community?

REP. TURNER: I have not received a response, no.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. I also want to ask you what leadership looks like with Republicans in charge. You are also on House Oversight.

REP. TURNER: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Of the 26 Republican members on the committee, 19 of them denied the results of the 2020 election. Your colleagues now include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Scott Perry. They all played critical roles in – in the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Do you have any concerns about working with these lawmakers? I mean, you’re very much a centrist.

REP. TURNER: Well, you know, even on the Democrat side, there’s been a number of people who objected to President Bush’s reelection and voted against certifying his election.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I am asking about you, your party, and your colleagues.

(CROSSTALK)

REP. TURNER: There’s a long history of both sides, having raised issues, including, you recall, the- Al Gore taking President Bush’s election all the way to the Supreme Court.

(CROSSTALK)

MARGARET BRENNAN: You are not an election denier by CBS standards just to be clear.

REP. TURNER: I am not, and I work with both sides of the aisle, and there are election deniers on both sides of the aisle.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You are comfortable with all those individuals I just rattled off and the fact that the majority of the Republicans on this committee denied the election results. Is that what you are saying?

REP TURNER: What I’m comfortable with is -the electorate are very smart. And these people have been sent to Congress to represent their districts and to be part of the congressional debate-

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REP TURNER: -to lead us to what’s going to be bipartisan, bicameral resolutions. We have a split government right now, Republicans control the House, the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, you have a Democrat president. We’re going to have a lot of debate and discussions. And I think this is going to be a very fruitful period for- for Congress and for our country, because it’s going to have to be bipartisan, bicameral, and I believe that the president in opening negotiations with Republicans is beginning to start that process.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What is actually possible in this bipartisan, bicameral situation? What can you actually get legislation through on?

(CROSSTALK)

REP. TURNER: Depending on what the pending- what the president’s willing to do, I think it’s unlimited. Right? We have really tough issues right now. We have out of control inflation. We have an open border and record people crossing our border.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What about gun control?

REP. TURNER: We have -we have the issue of Russia, and certainly in Ukraine, and certainly China, I think we’re going to have a number of issues that we’re going to have to deal with.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Congressman Turner, we have to leave it there today.

REP. TURNER: Thank you, Margaret.

[End Transcript]

Kissinger Sells Out on Ukraine?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Geopolitical Re-Posted Jan 20, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Martin, what do you have to say about Kissinger now?
I am sure many want to know.

AP

ANSWER: Well I had hoped that Henry could have made it to the WEC this year. I think it would have been a very interesting discussion between the two of us. I am well aware of Henry’s background even with Schwab. He delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, and he flipped in his position saying: “Before this war, I was opposed to membership of Ukraine in NATO because I feared that it would start exactly the process that we have seen now. The idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful.”

I have long admired Kissinger’s geopolitical analysis. He was instrumental in moving Richard Nixon to open with China which was really a policy to divide and separate Russia from China. While he said that dialogue must be kept open between Russia and other countries even as the war rages on in Ukraine, for if you do not talk, there cannot be any possible resolution.

I fully disagree with Kissinger saying that Ukraine should recapture territory that has been annexed by Russia while simultaneously holding negotiations to end the war. Some of Ukraine’s neighbors really support Russia and would not be so upset if Ukraine was completely destroyed for many view that as karma for their alliance with Nazi Germany. The Western press does not wish to report on how in that region, Ukraine is not trusted nor respected. Some have even expressed the view that Kyiv should be nuked for that is the only way to restore world peace – exterminate the Nazis and their ethnic cleansing once and for all.

While Kissinger said that a diplomatic process could help Russia “re-evaluate its historic position, which was an amalgam of an attraction to the culture of Europe and a fear of domination by Europe.” He did not elaborate on that “fear of domination by Europe” statement, but the fact is that Russia has NEVER sought to invade Europe, but Europe has tried to conquer Russia many times with the two most prominent being Napoleon and Hitler. After the statements that the whole Minsk Agreement was just to fool Putin to buy time for this latest attempt to conquer Russia with NATO planning for the long-haul to invade Moscow after Ukraine is finished depleting Russia’s conventional ability to defend itself.

Kissinger also made the statement that “[e]ach side needs to consider for itself how the threat to human survival of the destructiveness of weapons, coupled with making them almost conscious in their application, can be dealt with.” This is a proxy war and Zelensky has no respect for his own people. This is all about a land grab and the Donbas has been historically occupied by Russians as has Crimea. Simply because Khruschev drew the border for Ukraine purely for administrative purposes does not suddenly give Ukraine the right to claim those regions when Ukraine was NEVER a country before the USSR.

Kissinger had advocated for a ceasefire that would see Ukraine accept some of the annexed territories as Russian land for those people are Russian and they should not be compelled to surrender their language and their religion. I cannot explain Henry’s flipping this position for it seems to be only one of two possible explanations (1) old age being 99, or (2) he was told to support Ukraine for this is the objective to destroy Russia by the deep state. The same deep state that took down JFK, Nixon, and Trump for all being anti-war.

I support the people in the Donbas against the tyranny of Zelensky and Kyiv for I have not flipped my position which is consistent worldwide for all people. In 2014, I advocated splitting Ukraine according to the ethnic language of the people. Governments have no absolute right to power. Kissinger has forgotten his history. Any government exists only with the support and consent of the people. Zelensky ran and won promising peace and the end of corruption. He has done neither.

Our computer pinpointed Ukraine would be the place where World War III would begin. On December 3rd, 2013 we published: Ukraine Maybe The Most Important Country To Watch! Our computer is unbiased and it looks at the geopolitical consequences of war and where they begin and end.

As Thomas Paine (1737-1809) explained, government becomes drunk with power and presumes that they are the sovereign when that power resides only with the people. The U.S. Supreme Court stated in LEGAL TENDER CASES, 110 U.S. 421 (1884) (also referred to as Julliard v Greenman),

“There is no such thing as a power of inherent sovereignty in the government of the United States. It is a government of delegated powers, supreme within its prescribed sphere, but powerless outside of it. In this country, sovereignty resides in the people, and congress can exercise no power which they have not, by their constitution, entrusted to it; all else is withheld.”

The Supreme Court held that the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land and binds every forum whether it derives its authority from a state or from the United States Cook v Moffat, 46 US 295 (1847). “It may be regarded as settled that the Constitution of the United States is the only source of power authorizing action by any branch of the Federal government.” Dorr v US, 195 US 138, 140 (1904).

This is why I do not support Zelensky or his ruthless proxy war with Russia on behalf of the USA and NATO. The fake Minsk Agreement confirmed that from day one, the West has been planning to wage war with Russia – the third wave to conquer and destroy Russia directed by the Deep State. They are using the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder and could care less how many die to achieve their end goal – the total destruction of Russia.

What is also MISUNDERSTOOD is Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence which expressed the same idea as Thomas Paine. By stating that “all men are created equal” had nothing to do with slavery as some tried to re-interpret. He stated that these are “unalienable rights” that are NOT granted by any government. Governments are created to secure those rights, not to suppress them as so many have done and Zelensky is doing right now to the people of the Donbas which the Minsk Agreement was to be their Declaration of Independence that the west has bluntly pissed all over it. When a government becomes destructive to those rights, as the West and Zelensky have done, then “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” in the words of Jefferson.

I am sorry, up to now I have always respected you, Henry. I would not have invited you to our WEC had you flipped your position perhaps you were not sick and were told by the deep state not to attend our WEC. There is no purpose to NATO other than to confront Russia. Let’s get that straight. NATO is no different than ancient Athens demanding tribute from everyone to protect them against another invasion by the Persians which also never came. Russia under Khrushchev was very different. It was pushing Marxism and believed that communists would rule the world. Yeltsin choose Putin because he was NOT a Communist, nor was he an oligarch. Those days are long gone and the Russian people themselves would not support a return to communism. They are free to even go to church and pursue a career they decide on rather than the state.

The West has refused to accept Russia as a member of the world economy. It has been the West that has tried to keep the cold war going. NATO, of course, refused to ever accept Russia was no longer communist and kept the paranoia going that they wanted to conquer and dominate Europe which was a goal that died with communism. Neither Russia nor China wants to occupy the United States or Europe. The days of empire-building also died long ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has no incentive to believe anything coming from Ukraine, NATO, or the United States after what they saw with the deliberate fake Minsk Agreement to only buy time for war. The Donbas should be allowed to vote and let that vote be monitored. They are Russians ethnically and they have an inherent unalienable human right to establish their own government, to worship their own religion freely, and to speak their own language. Zelensky is a fake actor playing a role dictated by NATO and the USA. He is putting his own people on the geopolitical altar for sacrifice to seize a region that has always been Russian denying them any Democracy option when he claims he is defending Democracy. When the last Ukrainian standing falls, Zelensky will be given a free ride to the Bahamas to live the rest of his life on a warm tropical beach with the billions he has stolen.

No government has a right to Deny Any Region to Separate

That Applies in the United States for our day will also come

Sorry Henry – You Lost My Respect I hope it was Old Age

Madoff – Hiding the Real Fraud


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy Re-Posted Jan 17, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: I know you saved Mercedes making back their $1 billion lost all because they listened to the fake news about how the pound and the dollar would crumble in the face of the euro. I read the 2011 Barron’s article on your forecast. It was OK to publish that when they thought you would be wrong. Where is the follow-up when you proved to be the only one who was correct? The same can be said of the New York Times and especially Bloomberg. It is obvious that they will not report on the success of your forecasts because they are leading society at the direction of the Deep State.

Keep up the good work. We need someone independent in this time of darkening clouds.

JWN

REPLY: Let me explain something. All the hype about Bernie Madoff is also FAKE NEWS. On December 10th, 2008, Madoff’s sons Mark and Andrew covered themselves most likely at their father’s direction, and told authorities that their father had confessed to them that the asset management unit of his firm was a massive Ponzi scheme. They even supposedly told them it was “one big lie”. The next day, agents from the FBI arrested Madoff and charged him with one count of securities fraud. There was no possible way the FBI would arrest someone like that without an independent investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission had previously conducted numerous investigations into his business practices. Vere did ANY audit uncover such a massive fraud. It was then on March 12th, 2009, when Bernie Madoff simply pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme. He was not even indicted. He pled simply to what is known as an “information” so nothing was even presented to a grand jury. That is UNPRECEDENTED!

The banks all claimed that they had “no idea.” Before he died, Madoff did an interview where the headline was that the Banks had to have known. There is ABSOLUTELY no way that the banks were NOT involved or had no idea.  That is legally impossible. As a client of a bank of that size especially, the bank must fill its files with KNOWN YOUR CLIENT rules.

In my case, we had companies set up for each note in Turks & Caicos. The bank actually sent someone down there to audit the legal structure behind every account. There is simply no way a bank can even claim it had no idea. That was a serious RED FLAG that the Madoff case was not what it appeared.

Everyone just skipped over the fact that the SEC conducted multiple audits and found nothing. That included looking at bank accounts and positions on hand. That did NOT add up to a PONZI scheme where you are taking money from one person to pay another which is the actual structure of Social Security. The current generation’s contributions are tasked to pay the previous generation.

Add to that, HSBC, which has been itself indicted for money laundering more than once, stood out as the largest “victim” of Madoff’s scheme – $1.5 billion. HSBC pays countless fines for every scandal they seem to be in the middle of.

In my case, the Bank said they had no idea where the money was after they stole it. How does $1 billion leave a bank without a withdrawal of some sort? Had it not been for my clients standing with me and doing what I told them to do and then sued HSBC, they would have gotten nothing, the government would have claimed I lost it all and the ban was not responsible. The government then put a gag order on me to stop me from helping my clients against the bank! If the bank was not trying to take my client’s money to cover their losses in Russia, then why put a gag order on me if the bank did not do anything wrong?

Then to hide my profits, the receiver handed the notes we issued to HSBC for them to redeem for $606 million pocketing $400 million profit stolen from my company. A former employee bumped into a former HSBC official and he asked what the hell went on. The bankers bluntly told him, the deal offered by the government was too good to pass up. When I asked a NY lawyer why no banker ever is charged or goes to jail, he laughed and said: “You don’t shit where you eat!”

Remember the 1995 collapse of the British Barings Bank because of a “rogue” trader? Nicholas William Leeson was an English former derivatives trader whose claimed fraudulent, “unauthorized and speculative trades” resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom’s oldest merchant bank. Leeson was convicted of financial crime in Singapore court and served over four years in Changi Prison. At the time, I owned a Brokerage House I was asked to bail out by the Japanese government. At our Hong Kong office, Barings wanted to open an account to trade with Leeson in charge.

I knew the corruption of the banks and if the trade went wrong, they would claim he was not authorized. That was the standard operational procedure. Knowing the inside of the industry out, I insisted on a letter from the Board of Directions expressly laying out the credit line for Leeson they requested from my company. I got the letter. So when Leeson supposedly went belly up, guess what. I was quietly paid when everyone else it was said Leeson was a rogue trader.

The New York Post journalist Isabel Vincent who wrote Gilded Lilly, the wife of Edmond Safra, had called me and asked that since I had said that Republic National Bank, Edmond Safra’s, had been illegally trading in my accounts, did I think they were laundering money for the Russian mafia “as they were doing in Madoff’s?” I said I did not know. All I could tell was there were countless errors constantly being put into my accounts and then backed out. At first, I assumed they were “parking trades” in my accounts to use my cash for their margin. Of course, if the “error” was backed out to a different account, they indeed, they were engaging in money laundering.

The court-appointed forensic accountant even wrote to the court about the unprecedented errors in the accounts. The government refused to provide account information to allow them to audit what was going on. The court-appointed counsel, David Cooper, I believe was doing everything he could to help the government cover everything up. The forensic accountant then sent letters to the Judge, and he took no action.

You now have the FTX scandal. You will see that there will NEVER be a trial that would expose all the money laundering where the Democrats had Zelensky, which supposedly needed money to defend his country and fee starving Ukrainians, hand the money to FTX who then happened to be the #2 donor to the Democrats for the midterms. Guess what! Sam Bankman-Fried was charged in the most corrupt court in the nation – the Southern District of New York. The Court of Appeals admitted on page 97 of US v Ziccehtello, that judges are altering transcripts and changing the very words spoken in court.  That is 20 years in prison if you or I alter court documents. They do it all the time. When I confronted Judge Richard Owen about this practice, so many people showed up in court to see what would happen. The lawyers said you can’t accuse a federal judge of committing a crime. I said you all say they do it. They responded. Yes, but you cannot accuse them of doing it. The judge got scared and admitted it in public but claim it wasn’t material.

All the press was there AP, New York Times, Bloomberg, NT Post, you name it. NOT a single member of the press reported what took place that day. OMG! Exposing the federal courts corruption? Impossible!

If a case is a high profile, you will NEVER see the truth in the media.

Ukraine Weighs BAKHMUT Retreat Due To RUSSIAN Offensive


The Dive With Jackson Hinkle Streamed on: Jan 15, 11:07 pm EST

Posner on NATO v Russia


Armstrong Economics Blog/Russia Re-Posted Jan 16, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Interview: Martin Armstrong on 32% Inflation


Armstrong Economics Blog/Armstrong in the Media Re-Posted Jan 14, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Russian Black Fleet Heads to Sea


Armstrong Economics Blog/Russia Re-Posted Jan 12, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Russian Navy ships and submarines have suddenly left their base at Novorossiysk, in the Black Sea, en-masse. This is highly unusual and many fear that this is a change in tactics. The Western Press keeps trying to paint Russia as losing the war so, quite frankly, they can get more people to volunteer to join the military if they think they are on the winning side.  There is no question that the US and Russia are waging the most intense confrontation since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Our model on that confrontation aligned with our major war model showing that 2014 was the end of that period and the beginning of this new period as we head into World War III.

The hardliners are not happy in Russia and President Vladimir Putin is being pushed into a corner. Either he gets more aggressive, or they could be a coup. The hardliners are using nuclear threats and other escalations in what they know is now really a proxy war of the USA and NATO against Russia using Ukraine as the pawn they are willing to sacrifice.

Washington is wielding its own array of pressures to paint Putin as a loser. The good news is that, so far, both strategies have been fairly carefully calibrated. The bad news is that America and Russia are still on a collision course because the end goal is actually to conquer Russia.

Sweden has now instituted a draft. Poland is building its army of up to 250,000 men. All of this is based on the expectation that Ukraine can reduce the Russian army and that will make it a cakewalk to invade and drive tanks from Poland right into Moscow.

Sweden will boost military spending by around 40% over the next five years from 2016 and double the numbers conscripted into the armed forces as it looks to beef up its defence amid growing tensions with Russia post-2014. Meanwhile, France, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania scrapped conscription as they concluded that large-scale defence was no longer necessary before 2014, but now they have all reversed policies.

The Joe Biden administration pledged to defend “every inch” of Nato territory. That has complicated matters for Putin to interfere with Ukraine’s supply lines through Romania and Poland. The Western Press keeps pitching the same propaganda that Putin is spiralling toward defeat in Ukraine and may not survive that outcome politically. Yet I know that the hardliners are there and if Putin does not become more aggressive, they may indeed replace him by May and then holy hell will break loose.

Putin is warning Washington as well as Kyiv that attacks on those territories are tantamount to attacks on Russia itself. The Biden administration has opted not to listen to anything from Putin and only seeks war instructing Zelensky to sacrifice his own people and to reject any peace talks whatsoever. If the US hands Zelensky long-range missiles, he will use them to attack mainland Russia and that will begin World War III.

EVERY President throughout my entire life has always sought peace. The Biden Administration and NATO only talk about pushing war. NEVER have I ever witnessed such irresponsible leadership for this is really about Climate Change.