Posted Originally on Aug 26, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
The United States has become the first nation to prohibit its central bank from creating a central bank digital currency, but Congress quietly placed an expiration date on that protection. The prohibition covers both retail and intermediated CBDCs, yet it expires at the end of 2030. That means the door to a programmable government currency will reopen in 2031, precisely as the Economic Confidence Model reaches its major 2030 turning point.
President Trump prohibited federal agencies from pursuing a CBDC through executive order, and Congress has now reinforced that position legislatively. Nevertheless, executive orders can be reversed by the next president, and the statutory ban was deliberately written to disappear. Governments do not normally surrender power permanently. They postpone unpopular policies until the political and economic conditions make them easier to impose.
The timing is remarkable because the Economic Confidence Model has long pointed to 2030 as a profound turning point in the confidence of government. These dates are not predictions that one isolated event must occur on a specific day. They identify concentrations of political, economic, and monetary stress when capital shifts and confidence changes direction. The fact that Congress chose the end of 2030 for the expiration of the CBDC ban places this monetary question directly within that critical window.
A CBDC is not merely another electronic payment system. Most money already moves digitally through banks, credit cards, and payment applications. The difference is that a central bank digital currency can create a direct financial relationship between the citizen and the state. Depending on its design, government could gain the ability to trace transactions, impose expiration dates on money, restrict purchases, enforce negative interest rates, collect taxes automatically, or prevent funds from being transferred beyond approved limits. Physical cash provides privacy and allows people to transact when banks, governments, or computer systems fail. A programmable CBDC transforms money into a permit controlled by the issuer.
The War Cycle began accelerating in August 2026, with the next major geopolitical pressure building into 2027–2029 and a significant risk of conflict involving China appearing in 2029. This then converges with the Economic Confidence Model’s 2030.05 turning point, approximately January 18, 2030, as the Sovereign Debt Crisis intensifies. Congress allowed the CBDC prohibition to expire on December 31, 2030, meaning a new administration could reopen the door to programmable central-bank money beginning January 1, 2031. War increases borrowing, borrowing accelerates the debt crisis, and collapsing confidence encourages governments to impose surveillance, capital controls, and emergency financial restrictions. By the time this protection expires, the world and government as we know them may be radically altered, creating precisely the kind of crisis politicians will use to resurrect a CBDC in the name of national security and monetary stability.
Posted Originally on Aug 26, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
India is preparing to launch its first tokenized corporate bond in September, and this experiment exposes where the digital monetary system is ultimately heading. The bonds will be issued by REC, a state-owned power financier, in an offering worth less than 5 billion rupees, or approximately $57 million. The amount is small because this is a pilot program, but the structure is far more important than the size. India’s central bank digital currency will be used to purchase the bonds, which means the government is no longer merely testing digital money for ordinary payments. It is connecting CBDCs directly to the creation, ownership, and settlement of debt.
Reuters reports that investors will require two compatible digital accounts: a wholesale CBDC wallet supplied through a bank and a new electronic securities wallet known as DEMAT 2.0. The bonds will not trade through the conventional electronic book-provider system, and subsequent transactions can occur only between participants who possess both approved wallets. The initial investors will be selected, the bonds will have a three-month lock-in period, and a secondary market is expected to be developed by December. This creates a closed financial network in which the currency, security, investor, transaction, and settlement process are all identifiable and controlled within the same digital infrastructure.
The sales pitch will be efficiency, naturally. Tokenized securities can settle almost instantly. The same infrastructure that can settle a bond instantly can restrict who is permitted to buy it, determine where it may be traded, impose holding periods, monitor every transfer, and prevent capital from leaving the approved system. Once currency and securities exist inside compatible government-supervised wallets, compliance no longer depends on investigating a transaction afterward. The rules can be enforced before the transaction is even allowed to occur.
India is beginning with a corporate bond issued by a state-owned institution, but nobody constructs an entirely new financial architecture for a single $57 million experiment. If the pilot succeeds, the system can be expanded to corporate debt, municipal obligations, government securities, and eventually the savings of the broader population. Governments confronting a Sovereign Debt Crisis will need buyers for ever-increasing quantities of bonds. A CBDC provides the infrastructure to create captive demand by directing banks, pension funds, corporations, or individuals into approved debt instruments while making alternative uses of capital more difficult.
This is how capital controls will emerge in the modern era. There will be no official standing at the airport asking whether you are carrying gold or cash. The restrictions will be embedded inside the currency itself. A transaction can be rejected because the recipient lacks the proper wallet, the security is outside the approved platform, the funds crossed a prohibited jurisdiction, or the investor exceeded a government-imposed limit. Politicians will claim that this prevents fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, and financial instability, but every authoritarian financial restriction has always been introduced under the pretense of protecting the public.
The debt crisis is accelerating because governments have borrowed without any intention of repaying the principal. They perpetually roll over existing obligations while issuing new debt to cover interest, welfare promises, military expenditures, and the expanding cost of government itself. When private demand for sovereign debt weakens, interest rates rise and the fiscal situation deteriorates even faster. Rather than reduce spending, government invariably searches for methods to control capital and force the domestic economy to finance the state.
India is not yet forcing citizens to purchase government debt with digital rupees, and this pilot should not be misrepresented as though that has already occurred. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that the technical bridge between CBDCs and tokenized securities is being constructed now. Once that bridge exists, extending it from voluntary investment to regulatory compulsion requires only a political decision. The technology does not care whether participation is voluntary or mandatory.
India’s experiment should therefore be viewed as far more than a technological modernization of the bond market. It is a model for merging money and debt into one controlled digital ecosystem. The public will be promised speed and convenience, while government acquires the ability to see, approve, restrict, and eventually direct the movement of capital. CBDCs were never necessary simply to buy coffee more quickly. Their real value to government emerges when the state can connect programmable money to the debt it desperately needs someone to purchase.
Posted Originally on Aug 26, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
QUESTION: What is going on? You were on Russian TV again today, and now there’s a question about a U.S. military transport aircraft that, according to tracking data, secretly landed in Moscow. You’ve appeared on Russian TV twice within days. I saw the film Brink of War. I also remember attending a major conference you did for Bain & Co here in Sydney, where the press ran a full-page article on you claiming you were an advisor to Reagan. You predicted communism would fall by 1990, and in that film, Reagan says he was meeting to bring Russia down. For once, come clean: were you advising Reagan?
PL
ANSWER: I remember that article well. If you have a copy, I would genuinely like one. I actually called that journalist afterward, because he accused me of advising Reagan and attributed trickle-down economics to me. I told him he should have interviewed me first—it was Art Laffer who sold the trickle-down theory to President Reagan, not me. I also recall attending a cocktail party where someone called me a liar because I denied working in the White House. My response was simple: if I had been working there, I certainly couldn’t have denied it. That journalist, in my view, was a real socialist.
As for whether Reagan acted on our forecast that communism would collapse by 1989.95—the ECM turning point—I honestly have no idea. Yes, after the Plaza Accord of 1985, I was in contact with the White House. But beyond that, I cannot say what the President did or did not do with our analysis.
I have published the Revolution Cycle on everything from the USA and EU to Iran. This has been consistent. The target was always 1989. I cannot say if Regan took that report to heart. I did not speak to him about it.
Regarding the U.S. military plane landing in Moscow and my appearances on Russian TV last week and this week—the two are not connected. I go on Russian TV because few others have the courage to do so, and someone needs to show them that not all Americans think like Lindsey Olin Graham. The only path to avoiding war is through dialogue. The Neocons always advise never talking to the enemy—which ensures there will never be peace.
Posted Originally on Aug 25, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I am new to your services and I attended the Tampa Conference. You have opened my eyes to see the world as a whole. A famous analyst just said and it is becoming a glaring issue that they are only domestically focused as you said blind to everything outside the United States. ________ said:
“We want long-term interest rates to go lower, but that’s only gonna happen if we can get inflation under control by reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s a tall order,” _______ said. “The Treasury Department’s attempts to get this under control I think have only made investors more nervous.”
My question is with Trump’s tariff war and his war against Iran and we have Bessent imposing sanctions on Iran while trying to support the bond market, your track record record and computer puts everyone to shame. I am not an international hedge fund manager as you were. But I can see that they are trying to defend a view on tariffs, sanctions, and bonds that are a losing ticket. Why doesn’t Bessent call you in?
EK
ANSWER: Besides the Neocons who try to keep me away from Trump and I believe are now intercepting my letters to him, then there is the old rumor that those who lost big on the Russia collapse and the failed regime change blackmailing Yeltsin and expecting the IMF would never allow Russia to collapse, are the ones who blamed me and told the CFTC we had to be shut down. I wrote to Bessent, but got no response. They say beware a woman scorned for she knows no limit to fury, that appears to apply to sore losers in high-stake finance. They never believe in my forecasting. They always claimed I had too much influence which was greater than all the influence that they could bribe for their guaranteed trades. When the forecast that Russia would collapse made the front page of the London Financial Times, that was the icing on the cake. It wasn’t that my computer was correct, it was I had too much influence and had to be taken down so they could manipulate markets without interference.
In August 1998, during Russia’s financial crisis (ruble devaluation and debt default), George Soros’s Quantum Fund / Soros Fund Management group lost approximately $2 billion in Russian markets. Contemporary reports (including The New York Times) attribute this to the fund under chief investment strategist Stanley Druckenmiller. The positions were described as mostly equities, with some exposure to Russian GKOs (short-term ruble Treasury bills) and dollar bonds. Druckenmiller publicly acknowledged the losses at the time. Bessent’s role at Soros
Bessent joined Soros Fund Management in 1991 and worked there through roughly 2000 (first stint), including as head of the London office. He is well-documented as a key member of the team on the famous 1992 Black Wednesday trade that shorted the British pound and generated roughly $1 billion in profits for Soros. I was advising the British government then and warned them what the “club” was doing. So I believed in free markets, they believed in manipulating markets. Bessent later returned as Chief Investment Officer (2011–2015) and is credited with profitable trades such as shorting the Japanese yen.
The danger here is that after stepping in and doubling the purchases, the risk is that new lows will shatter the confidence in Bessent and the ability of the government to manipulate the bond market. As I have said before, in February 1987, there was the Louvre Accord where they said that the dollar had fallen enough. When it continued to make new lows, that was it. Confidence in the central banks collapsed and that led to the 1987 Crash. That is the risk we now have. Rates will rise thanks to geopolitical chaos and there will be no way to prevent long-term rates from rising. Germany is already blaming the US for their own warmongering that sends rates higher.
Bessent’s latest sanctions on Iran and going after any bank that has contact with Iran will fail. It just makes him look authoritative. Sanctions have NEVER worked even once the same as Marxist Communism/Socialism, which tries to eliminate the business cycle and create utopia void of any recession or depression. The US put sanctions on Cuba in 1960, they are still there. The sanctions on Russia did not end the Ukraine War against Russia.
Our computer has been projecting rising long-term rates since 2020. With the rising trend in geopolitical insanity with this need for war, there is no possible way that rates would decline long-term. This is far more that the Strait of Hormuz. The Madman Zelensky has attacked Russian energy to the point that they now must import refined products. Zelensky and Netanyahu belong in prison. Neither cares about the world and they only look at their own personal hatreds and to hell with the world.
Posted Originally on Aug 25, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
The government claims unemployment stands at 4.1%, yet a new analysis cited by CBS News found that 24.9% of American workers were functionally unemployed in July. Functional unemployment includes those who cannot find employment, people forced into part-time work because full-time jobs are unavailable, and workers earning less than $26,000 annually before taxes. Washington can call these people employed, but try paying rent, food, insurance, utilities, transportation, and medical expenses on barely $2,000 per month before the government takes its share.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is not measuring whether people are prospering or even surviving. If you worked as little as one hour during the survey period, you can be classified as “employed.” If you have searched for months, become discouraged, and finally stop looking, the government simply removes you from the labor force. You did not find a job and your circumstances did not improve, but you cease to exist statistically. Politicians then point to the lower unemployment rate and claim their policies are working.
Functional unemployment has now risen for four consecutive months while workforce participation has moved lower. Employers reportedly eliminated 23,000 jobs in July, consumer prices rose 3.4% year over year, and wages increased only 3.2%. Therefore, the average worker lost purchasing power even after receiving a nominal raise. This is why people become angry when politicians lecture them about a strong economy. The statistics say they are employed, inflation is under control, and everything is wonderful, yet the paycheck no longer covers the monthly bills.
This is how the political establishment disguises economic decline. Inflation statistics do not reflect the actual cost of maintaining a household, GDP rises when government borrows and spends money it does not have, and unemployment declines when people surrender and stop searching for work. Every major statistic has been constructed to make government appear competent while the standard of living steadily deteriorates. They measure whether money changed hands, not whether society became wealthier.
Americans have been forced to replace income with debt. They have depleted savings, increased credit-card balances, postponed major purchases, and begun cutting necessities because discretionary spending was already eliminated. Consumer spending may represent roughly two-thirds of the economy, but consumers cannot continue spending indefinitely when prices rise faster than wages and employment becomes increasingly unstable. Credit can postpone the reckoning, but it cannot replace real economic growth.
Functional unemployment explains why Washington can proclaim prosperity while millions of Americans feel trapped in a personal recession. The economy has produced millions of positions that satisfy the government’s definition of employment but cannot provide an independent life. The political class counts the number of people receiving paychecks while refusing to ask what those paychecks can actually buy. That is poverty disguised by statistics.
Posted originally onAug 25, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
A bank does not actually have everyone’s money sitting in a vault waiting to be returned. The entire system functions because everyone assumes they will not demand their money at the same time. Once that confidence begins to crack, the numbers on a balance sheet become secondary because people want CASH.
That is what we must now watch in Russia. Russians have been pulling billions out of the banking system, with demand for physical cash accelerating dramatically this summer. According to Russian Central Bank data cited in the press, nearly $3.4 billion was withdrawn during just the first two weeks of August after approximately $7.3 billion in July and more than $4.5 billion in June. The Central Bank itself reported that cash in circulation increased by roughly 700 billion rubles during July, compared with about 500 billion in June.
This does not mean the Russian banking system is collapsing tomorrow. Nevertheless, something much more important is taking place beneath the surface. Russians are becoming nervous about leaving their money inside the financial system. Rumors have circulated that the government could eventually freeze or commandeer private deposits to help finance the war, and once people begin questioning whether they will retain unrestricted access to their own savings, government assurances become increasingly meaningless. Fear of possible seizure has become one factor driving the movement into cash, alongside drone attacks, economic uncertainty, and disruptions to electronic payments.
This is always the danger with capital controls. Russia has already demonstrated that it will restrict access to money when the state believes national interests require it. Foreign-currency withdrawals remain restricted, and accounts belonging to various foreigners from so-called “unfriendly” nations have faced controls since the war began. Putin recently relaxed some restrictions affecting foreign depositors.
People forget that money is ultimately a question of confidence in government. You can raise interest rates to 20%, offer attractive deposits, and tell everyone that the banking system is perfectly safe, but none of that matters if people begin fearing that the state itself may change the rules. The greatest threat to a banking system is not necessarily bad loans. It is the realization among depositors that their money exists inside a political system whose rules can change overnight.
Russia is also confronting a growing liquidity problem inside its banking sector. The structural liquidity deficit reportedly exceeded 2.7 trillion rubles by August 13, the highest level since the crisis surrounding the invasion in March 2022. The Russian Central Bank argues that this particular measure should not be confused with the availability of deposits or credit and says the deficit remains manageable. That distinction is valid, but the fact that liquidity conditions are attracting attention at precisely the same moment people are increasing their demand for cash should not simply be dismissed.
The war is becoming increasingly expensive, and this is where the economic pressure begins to matter politically. Defense spending has absorbed enormous resources while high interest rates have squeezed the civilian economy. Russian businesses have also reportedly made hundreds of billions of rubles in so-called voluntary contributions to the federal budget. Whenever governments use the word “voluntary” when asking businesses for money during a war, everyone understands what that really means.
Whenever government becomes desperate for revenue. They begin with taxes. Then come special assessments, forced loans, restrictions on capital, controls over foreign exchange, and eventually increasingly creative definitions of what property actually belongs to the individual. Governments rarely wake up one morning and announce that private wealth no longer exists. They change the rules one piece at a time because the fiscal demands of the state continually expand.
This is why the rumors concerning Russian deposits are potentially more damaging than the actual withdrawals themselves. There does not have to be an official plan to confiscate deposits for the rumor to affect behavior. If enough people believe there is even a possibility that their savings could become trapped, converting a portion into cash becomes perfectly rational. Then your neighbor sees you withdrawing money and begins wondering what you know that he does not.
The Russians have been through this before. They remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, the destruction of savings through inflation, the 1998 financial crisis, repeated currency devaluations, and the banking panic surrounding the invasion in 2022. Western analysts often look at Russia through spreadsheets and completely ignore that historical memory. Russians understand from experience that governments and currencies can change far faster than politicians promise.
There is also a geopolitical consequence that the Europeans should think very carefully about. Europe froze hundreds of billions in Russian sovereign assets and openly debated using those assets to finance Ukraine. Whatever moral justification Brussels offers, every government in the world watched what happened. Russia responded with its own restrictions and seizures involving Western assets. The result is that both sides have demonstrated that property rights can become conditional when geopolitical conflict becomes severe.
Capital will always seek safety, and safety does not simply mean the highest interest rate. It means confidence that you can retrieve your money when you want it. This is precisely why capital controls always backfire over the long term. The moment government tells people they cannot move their money, it teaches everyone else to move theirs before the same restriction reaches them.
We should therefore watch Russia carefully through September. This is not merely about whether a few hundred billion rubles leave bank accounts. Russia is heading toward its September elections while the economic burden of the war is becoming increasingly visible domestically. The real question is whether these withdrawals stabilize once the immediate demand for cash subsides or whether Russians continue pulling money from the banking system because confidence itself has changed.
The special election in South Carolina to fill the seat of Senator Lindsey Graham is today. The polls close at 7:00pm ET in South Carolina and for President Trump there is a significant stake.
The opposition media are hoping that Ralph Norman defeats President Trump endorsed candidate Darline Graham so they
can write articles about how Trump has lost his political strength and now suffers election embarrassment. President Trump not only endorsed Darline Graham, but he also held a rally for her last Friday and instructed his SuperPAC to fund her campaign heavily
No one is sure how this special election is going to turn out. What I find interesting is the lack of publicly displayed and discussed polling over the past week. That doesn’t mean polls were not conducted, it only means conducted polls were never made public. This one will be super interesting to watch unfold this evening.
Should Darline Graham win she retains the entire staff of her deceased brother, Lindsey Graham, who have been guiding her as an interim appointed senator. The South Caroline old guard GOP also has a stake in this race as the professionally Republican political class are not very supportive of President Trump and the MAGA coalition.
Consider this an open discussion thread for anything that relates to the special election and South Carolina politics. There is also primary voting in Georgia and Oklahoma. We will pin this thread to the top of the page until the final results are complete.
Posted originally on the CTH on August 25, 2026 | Sundance |
Hopefully CTH readers have followed this story close enough to be able to predict where it ends. The White House has released an official and scathing press release outlining the lengthy and long-term issues with Canada and trade disputes.
WHITE HOUSE – Canada has been ripping off the United States for decades — and President Donald J. Trump is done letting them get away with it. Last week, the U.S. offered Canada the most preferential market access of any country on Earth, with deep cuts on steel, aluminum, autos, lumber, and more. Instead of partnership, Canada chose unreasonable demands, walk-backs, and flat-out rejection.
The record of Canadian abuse is clear and deliberate:
FACT: Canada is joined only by the People’s Republic of China in choosing retaliation over negotiation. Their continued discriminatory treatment of U.S. commerce has burdened American workers, farmers, and businesses.
FACT: Canada alone imposed discriminatory 25% tariffs and company-specific quotas on U.S. motor vehicles — measures applied to no other country. As a result, U.S. vehicle exports to Canada crashed 22% over the last year.
FACT: Canada banned American wine, beer, and spirits in nearly every province and territory — while other countries have faced no such restrictions. As a result, U.S. alcohol exports to Canada collapsed 81% in a single year.
FACT: Canada has extracted a persistent average annual goods trade deficit of roughly $50 billion from the U.S. over the last decade — while refusing reciprocal access.
FACT: Canada targeted American aerospace manufacturer Gulfstream for years. They effectively prohibited the sale of its G500, G600, G700, and G800 models while shielding its own competitor — until President Trump intervened.
FACT: Without the United States, Canada could not survive. Canada sends roughly three-quarters of all its goods exports to America — and the U.S. market is where Canada gets the overwhelming majority of its money and economic oxygen.
FACT: Canada’s failed trade policies are driving its own manufacturers south. A recent survey found 42% of Canadian manufacturers have already moved or are planning to move production to the U.S.
FACT: Canada is doubling down on tariffs targeting American workers. Canada just announced an additional $27.6 billion in tariffs on American businesses — including a 50% tariff on American steel and aluminum, a 25% tariff on American fish, and a 25% tariff on American tools.
FACT: The U.S. economy is approximately 13 times larger than the Canadian economy and home to over eight times as many people. The United States has the clear leverage.
President Trump said it best: “Canada is easily the most difficult and unreasonable. They feel entitled, but they are not a State and will be entitled no longer!” Canadian leadership chose retaliation over partnership — and America is no longer willing to carry them.
“Dolly Rebecca Parton (January 19, 1946 – August 25, 2026) Global icon and humanitarian, Dolly Parton, known to the world as a beloved singer, songwriter, philanthropist, actress, playwright, and author died peacefully today in Nashville, Tennessee. She was 80 years old.
Dolly is preceded in death by her beloved husband of 59 years Carl Thomas Dean (1942 – 2025), her mother Avie Lee Caroline Owens (1923 – 2003), and father, Robert Lee Parton, Sr. (1921 – 2000).”
rhinestone life that shone bright enough for the world to see, Dolly will forever stand as an inspiration not only through her timeless music and prolific songwriting, but also her wit, warmth, and kindness that made us all feel like family. Dolly Parton’s legacy is one of love, compassion, and resilience. With a seven-decade career, she inspired multiple generations of artists and fans with her music and an unwavering commitment to making the world a better place. Her songs will continue to resonate with people of all ages, and her philanthropic work will have a lasting impact.
At Dolly’s request, a small, private service will be held for immediate family. Dolly’s fans and friends from around the world are encouraged to pay tribute to Dolly on social media by tagging @DollyParton or by leaving a message at http://www.dollyparton.com.
Posted originally on the CTH on August 25, 2026 | Sundance
There are many people in Canada demanding to see the rough draft proposals of the U.S-Canada trade agreement so they can judge for themselves the issues that Carney claimed were irreconcilable. For those people this interview today by Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc will only embolden those requests.
Trade Emissary LeBlanc outlined the major fracture points that drove Prime Minister Mark to reject the deal. I’ll put the full interview below which everyone should watch because what LeBlanc outlined is rather funny. Carney was obviously looking for a reason to walk away, because the fracture points were ridiculously small.
Essentially, it boils down to four issues. !1) Removal of tariffs on Canadian assembled Semi-Trucks. (2) U.S. streaming services writing code for “search engines” in the French language. (3) Canada demanding 5% of gross revenues from U.S. tech platforms, and the last one is silly because it already exists: (4) the U.S. having a right to reject a trade deal made by Canada with a non-market economy, ie. CHINA.
Taking the issues one by one we start with ♦U.S. tariffs on Canadian Semi Trucks. Canada wanted tariffs on Big Rigs removed. The U.S. said no.
The reason is simple. Big Rigs assembled/built in Canada are falling apart in the USA. Why? Because they are full of cheap Chinese component goods and parts that wear out quickly. The U.S. wants two things on this issue. Either: (1) Make them in the USA, or (2) stop using cheap Chinese component parts. The parts that Canada are using are not even available in the USA because we tariff and reject them, so why should we accept them when Canada installs them? Either quit using Chinese parts (hence, the trade alignment against Chinese imports), or accept a tariff equal to the rate we would apply if the product was coming directly from China.
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
Centinel2012 