Tag Archives: centinel2012

Sep 25 2018

The Millennial Crisis


Armstrong Economics Blog/Real Estate

Re-Posted Sep 25, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

There is a serious economic crisis brewing that few seem to be paying attention. According to a new survey from Zillow Group Inc. (ZG – Get Report), approximately 22.5% of millennials ages 24 through 36 are living at home with their moms or both parents, up nine percentage points since 2005  which was 13.5% and the most in any year in the last decade. Between the student loans which cannot be discharged thanks to the Clintons (to get the support of bankers) even after they find that degrees are worthless when 60% of graduates cannot find employment with such a degree and the fact that taxes have escalated to nearly doubling over the last 20 years that is predominantly state and local, the affordability of buying a home has been fading fast. Despite the fact that millennials are eager to enter the real estate market, they’re bearing the brunt of the challenge directly caused by the combination of taxes and nondischargeable student loans.

Sixty-three percent of millennials under 29 cannot afford the cost of homeownership, according to a CoreLogic and RTi Research study. The expense, in fact, is their No. 1 reason for remaining a renter. In their research, they concluded that one-third of millennial renters reported feeling they cannot afford a down payment to buy a home. This is a sad response that is not being taken into consideration by governments. Where home prices have not risen sharply, taxes have. First-time homebuyers face ever-growing challenges to find and buy affordable entry-level homes as the economics of inefficient governments at the state and local levels have refused to reform and raise taxes to meet pension costs they promised themselves. California and Illinois are just two major examples at the top of the list. It is this net affordability factor that has begun to encumber sales of real estate softening prices and turning many millennials into renters rather than home buyers. Then add the rise creep up in interest rates and we have an economic cocktail of taxes that is beginning to kill the real estate market in a slow death drip by drip.

Taxes and the rise in interest rates will further erode affordability and is beginning to slow existing-home sales in some markets already. As this trend continues, home prices and mortgage rates over the next year will likely dampen sales and home price growth. There was another study conducted by Freddie Mac which also found that affordability challenges are contributing to a downtrend in young adult homeownership

Sep 25 2018

IMF Warns Britain not Brussels About Hard Exit – Another Political Forecast


Armstrong Economics Blog/BRITAIN

Re-Posted Sep 25, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I have tracked the IMF forecasts alongside yours and it clearly appears that they are mimicking you very closely. However, something strange has taken place, for now, their latest warning it seems to be politically motivated. Lagarde warns that the U.K. economy will contract with a hard Brexit. Is this coming from you or is it political?

All the best

PB

 

ANSWER: Christine Lagard’s forecast or warning is political in nature. Stating that the UK economy would rapidly start to contract in the event of a disruptive exit from the EU next spring with a no-deal Brexit is really just absurd. This is political in nature and this statement itself reveals the political nonsense. Britain is the BIGGEST export market for German cars in Europe. A no deal would by NO MEANS only impact Britain. You would see Germany turn down hard as well.

A BREXIT would allow the UK to cut its own trade deal with the USA and everyone else outside of Europe. As it stands now, whatever Britain wants is subject to vote in Europe and the French have a tendency to veto whatever Britain wants anyhow. All the evidence point to exactly the opposite of Lagarde’s warning. Whatever loss in trade with Europe that takes place will be more than offset with trade around the world. Britain has been in declining economic growth ever since it joined the EU. This entire issue of a hard BREXIT is taking place because Theresa May does not want to leave the EU personally and has sabotaged the entire effort placing the politics of Britain at risk as a whole by dividing the Conservatives, to begin with. Brussels is more interested in PUNISHING Britain as an example to prevent others from leaving because the Euro is their only power and if that goes, there go all the pensions for those in Brussels. This is NOT about what is good for even the German car manufacturers. This is now about protecting EU political jobs, not the people or the economy.

Sep 24 2018

Global Temperatures Changes, Man Made or Not?


August, 2018 Report

We have been schooled over the past 40 years that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is rising to levels never seen before on this planet and as a result the world’s average temperature is rising to levels that will, if nothing else, destroy large areas of the planet. The latest UN predictions indicate a major Catastrophe will happen by 2040 unless we do something drastic right now. This destruction will be from two factors; one, ocean levels raising and flooding all worlds coastal areas forcing the world population to higher ground; and two, even if those moves are accomplished the increased temperatures will bring massive storms that will ravage the areas not flooded. The only solution to prevent this from happening is, stop using carbon based fuels; petroleum, natural gas, and coal which, all, generate large amount of water and carbon dioxide and replacing them with wind or solar energy.

These dire projections are based on the belief that CO2 is the “primary” driver of global temperature changes; i.e. more CO2 in the atmosphere is very bad. This view is severally distorted and more likely entirely false.  One can argue the reasons for these lies but it really doesn’t matter whether they are innocent or malicious in their construct; either way promoting something that is tearing up the worlds civilizations by misallocation of resources is very misguided.

Basic facts:

  • The planets global temperature is directly related to the energy arriving here from our sun
  • That energy manifests itself in a form which we call temperature
  • Temperature is a measure of the amount of heat (energy) that an object holds
  • The planets temperature is directly related to the amount of water in the atmosphere
  • Without water in the atmosphere the earth would be 330 Celsius colder and frozen solid
  • Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a requirement for life to exist on this planet
  • More Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is better as planets grow faster, less Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is bad
  • Carbon Dioxide (CO2) only indirectly affects temperature probably less than 5% that of water
  • Climate is a measure of the average of all the factors that produce a stable environment
  • Weather is a measure of local factors that may make large changes in daily or seasonal conditions
  • The planets temperature in geological times ranged from170 Celsius +/- 60 Celsius
  • 12,000 or so years ago the last ice age ended for no reason we can determine

The first thing that needs to be done when developing a theory is to identify and define the issue or problem. The issue was that after WW II there was a large buildup of industry required to rebuild the devastated planet and that rapid uncontrolled growth created real environmental problems. Much good resulted from the original environmental emphasis such as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, however, others in the 90’s saw a way to gain power and wealth by exaggerating aspects of the movement. During the 80’s and the 90’s global temperatures were going up so these people saw a way to increase the size and scope of government to their advantage with a carbon tax.  They picked increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere as the strawman argument and funneled large amounts of research money into universities to study how bad the increases were.

Unfortunately, federal grant money is “directed” money so it was given to find out how bad the issue was, not to find out if it was even bad or even real. Therein was the problem as this is a very complex math and physics study in a subject that had not been previously studied in detail such that 30 years later the key variables and relationship are still not known with specify. The mistake that was made in the attempt to quantify the apparent increase in global temperatures was that increased CO2 in the planet’s atmosphere was that CO2 was the ONLY REASON the global temperatures were increasing.  Unfortunately this assumption was not true as there had been several warm and cold periods in history going back thousands of years. The previous little ice age in the seventeenth century was one of these and the warming we now have, about 10 Celsius, is partly from the northern hemisphere still coming out from that cold period.

Next we’ll review some important information on temperatures and how it’s measured. We need to understand the details before we can draw conclusions. The problem, intentional or not, goes back to physics and how we show information. It’s critical that when we talk to nonscientists that information is properly displayed. And nowhere is this more important than when we are discussing global temperature in relationship to anthropogenic climate change.

When we talk about climate (long term changes; centuries) or weather (short term changes; decades) local temperatures are going be in Celsius (C) in the EU and science, or degrees Fahrenheit (F) in America. The base temperature for the earth that NASA established is 14.00 C or 57.20 F; but these are both relative measures and do not tell us how much heat (thermal energy) is there. To know that we must use Kelvin (K) or Rankin (R) and that would be 287.150 K and 516.870 R all four of those numbers 14.00 C, 287.150 K 57.20 F, and 516.870 R are exactly the same temperature, just using a different base. But if the current temperature went from 14.00 C, to 14.860 C that is a 6.14% increase in C, an increase of 2.71% in F and an increase of .30% in K and R; so which one is real? The answer is .30% because Kelvin and Rankin are the only ones that measure the total increase in energy! Table One shows these relationships that we just discussed.

The next step is to plot Carbon Diode (CO2) from NOAA-ESRL and the estimated global temperature as published by NASS-GISS each month.  As can be seen in Table One It doesn’t really matter whether we would use Kelvin and Rankin since the increase in thermal energy is exactly the same either way; but we’ll use Kelvin as that is the accepted norm in the scientific community for determining the amount thermal energy in any object especially when looking at changes in temperature or measuring the thermal energy in any object.  There are other less known temperature scales that have specific purposes but they don’t really apply here in this subject.

The important thing is how much has the temperature actually gone up since we started to measure CO2 in the atmosphere? To show this graphically Chart 8 was constructed by plotting CO2 as a percent increase from when it was first measured in 1958, the Black plot, the scale is on the left and it shows CO2 going up about 30.0% from 1958 to May of 2018. That is a very large change as anyone would have to agree.  Now how about temperature, well when we look at the percentage change in temperature from 1958, using Kelvin, we find that the changes in global temperature are almost un-measurable. The scale on the right side had to be expanded 5 times (the range is 20 % on the left and 4% on the right) to be able to see the plot in the same chart in any detail. The red plot, starting in 1958, shows that the thermal energy in the earth’s atmosphere increased by .30%; while CO2 has increased by 30.0% which is 100 times that of the increase in temperature. So is there really a meaningful link between them that would give as a major problem?

Chart 8 and all the rest of what is shown here in this paper are based on the following two data series. First NASA-GISS estimates of a global temperature shown as an anomaly (converted to degrees Celsius) as shown in their table Land Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) and shown in Chart 1 as the red plot labeled NASA the scale for the temperatures is on the left. The NASA LOTI temperatures are shown as a 12 month moving average because of the very large monthly variations. Second NOAA-ESRL CO2 values in Parts per Million (PPM) which are shown in Chart 1 as a black plot labeled NOAA the scale for CO2 is shown on the right no change is required to the NOAA data set it is ready to use as is.

NASA published data is shown as an anomaly, but what is a temperature anomaly?  An anomaly is a deviation from some base value normally an average that is fixed. There were two problems with the system that NASA picked which were number one there is no “actual” global temperature and two since climate is a variable and always has been so there cannot be a real base to measure from. NASA known for its science and engineering expertise back in the day thought it could get around these issues and created a system to do so. First they developed a computer model which took the readings from all over the planet and made adjustments to them in software which they called homogenization and came up with the estimated global temperature. Second they picked the period 1950 to 1980 (30 years) and averaged the values found in that period and came up with 14.00 degrees Celsius and make that their base.  Lastly they took the calculated monthly temperature and subtracted the base from it which gave them the anomaly and multiplied the result by 100.

The problem is that both are arbitrary. Why pick 1950 to 1980 as the base period? Is there something special about that time frame? And as to a global temperature there is no such thing for many reasons like the earth faces the sun so one side is cool and onside it warm. Higher latitudes are cooler than the equator and higher elevations are cooler than lower. And finally there are many areas where there are no measurements taken. Therefore there is no one temperature only an artificial artifact solely dependent on the soundness of the software used to create that one temperature!

Chart 1 below is 100% accurate and based only on NASA and NOAA data as published.

Now that we have a base to work with we are going to add to Chart 1 three things. The first is a trend line of the growth in CO2 since that is according to the government through NASA and NOAA the entire basis for climate change. That plot is superimposed over the black plot of the actual NOAA CO2 values as the cyan line labeled as the CO2 model and one can see there is a very good fit to the actual NOAA values so there should be no dispute about its validity, and it’s historically accurate.  This plot allows us to make projections to future global temperatures according to the projected level of CO2The second added item is James E. Hansen’s 1988 Scenario B data, which is the very core of the IPCC Global Climate models (GCM’s) and which was based on a CO2 sensitivity value of 3.0O Celsius per doubling of CO2. This plot is shown here in lavender and is from a presentation that Hansen showed congress in 1988 to help support the UN in setting up the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This plot is labeled as Hansen Scenario B which Hansen stated was the most likely to happen based on his 1979 climate theories’.  The third item is the current plot of the most likely temperature of the planet based on the growth of CO2 published by the IPCC. This plot is shown in Red and is labeled as IPCC AR5 A2 as that is the table where the data was found. This plot is a GCM computer projection of the planets temperature based on the complex relationships developed by the IPCC primarily though NASA and NOAA.

It can be seen in Chart 2 that the lavender plot and the Hansen plot are very close from 1965 to around 2000. However there isn’t a good correlation between the growth in CO2 and the increase in the planets temperature, as shown in Chart 8. The CO2 is going up in a log function and the temperature was going up until 2000 then it plateaued from 2000 until 2014 where there was a mysterious spike up of .5 degrees Celsius just in time for COP21 in Paris. Then after CP21 was over the unexplained change in temperature started to come back down. The climate doesn’t make changes like what the NSA/NOAA data shows that would be weather if it even was real.

Chart 7 looks at the period from 2010 to 2020 so we can see where a change in CO2 of only a few ppm has caused a major change in the global temperature way beyond anything previously shown in any published NASA data. There are three ovals on Chart 7 one at the top of Chart 7 which is a black oval around the CO2 levels from 2010 to 2018 and it’s very obvious that there has been very little change, maybe 3 ppm a year Then at the bottom of Chart 7 is dark red oval around the NASA global temperature levels from 2013 to 2018 and its very obvious that there has been a sudden large change, almost .50 degrees Celsius in 3 years. There has never been such a large increase in temperature from such a small increase in CO2. By contrast the previous comparable period of the last part of 2010 through 2013 Blue oval shows about the same increase per year for CO2 but global temperature decreased.

An explanation is needed here as the NASA temperature plot in Chart 7 seems to show the jump in temperature in 2016 not 2015; this is a result of the very large jump in temperature shown by NASA. Since we are using a 12 month moving average and the increase occurred in only a few months it actually shifted the curve into 2016. The raw data for December 2012 was at a low of 14.44 degrees Celsius but by February 2016 the temperature was at a record high of 15.35 degrees Celsius a .91 degree Celsius increase, Red arrow. With the global temperature over 15.0 Celsius at COP21 in December 2015 at the Paris COP21 conference the climate accord was approved and the manipulation was a success. After COP21 the Fake Warming was no longer needed so we are now seeing a downward trend developing. The current temperature for June 2018 is 14.88 degrees Celsius.

In summary, the IPCC models were designed before a true picture of the world’s climate was understood. During the 1980’s and 1990’s CO2 levels were going up and the world temperature was also going up so there appeared to be correlation and causation. The mistake that was made was looking at only a ~20 year period when the real variations in climate  move in much longer cycles of centuries which can be observed in the NASA data but they were ignored for some reason.  By ignoring those actual geological trends and focusing only on CO2 the Global Climate Models will be unable to correctly plot global temperatures until they are fixed. Also the temperature data from 1850 to 1880 was dropped for some reason as it showed a lower temperature than would be expected. The lower temperatures’ in that period would have shown a shorter cycle they didn’t want shown.

A decade ago when I started looking at “climate” change the first thing I did was look at geological temperature changes since it is well known that the climate is not a constant; I learned that 53 years ago in my undergrad geology and climatology courses in 1964. The next paragraph explains currently observed patterns in climate related to this subject and is historical accurate.

Ignoring the last Ice Age which ended some 11,000 years ago when a good portion of the Northern hemisphere was under miles of ice the following observations give a starting point to any serious study on the subject of climate. First, there is a clear movement up and down in global temperatures with a 1,000 some year cycle going back at least 3,000 to 4,000 years; probably because of the apsidal precession of the earth’s orbit of about 20,000 years for a complete cycle. About every 10,000 years the seasons are reversed making the winter colder and the summer warmer in the northern hemisphere. 10,000 years from now the seasons will be reversed again. Secondly, there are also 60 to 70 year cycles in the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans that are well documented. These are known as the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillations (AMO) in the Atlantic and as La Nina and El Nino in the Pacific. Thirdly, we also know that there are greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that can affect global temperatures. Lastly the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) estimated that carbon dioxide had a doubling rate of 3.0O Celsius plus or minus 1.5O Celsius in 1979 when there were only two studies available and one for sure and maybe both were not peer reviewed.

The result of looking objectively at the three possible sources of global temperature changes was a series of equations based on these observations that when added together produced a sinusoidal curve that seemed to follow NASA published temperatures very closely when first developed in 2007, and modified a few years later when it was found the short and long cycles were related to multiples of Pi.  Since this curve was based on observed temperature patterns it was called a Pattern Climate Model (PCM) which has been described in previous papers and posts on my blog and since it is generated by “equations” many assume it is some form of least squares curve fitting, which it is not. It does seem to be related to ocean currents where the bulk of the planet’s surface heat is stored and cloud formation.

Chart 5 shows the PCM a composite of two cycles and CO2. There is a long trend, 1036.7 years with an up and down of 1.65O Celsius (.00396O C per year) we in the up portion of that trend. Then  there is a 69.1 year cycle that moves the trend line up and then down a total of 0.29O Celsius and we are now in the downward portion of that trend (-.01491O C per year), which will continue until around ~2035. Lastly, there is CO2 currently adding about .0079O Celsius per year so together they all basically wash out at -.0039O C per year, which matches the current holding pattern we were experiencing until 2014. After about 2035 the short cycle will have bottomed and turn up and all three will be on the upswing again duplicating what was observed in the 1980’s.  Note: the values shown here are only representative from what is in the model.

When using a 12 month running average for global temperatures up until 2014 the PCM model was within +/- .01 degrees of what NASA was publishing in their LOTI table since the early 1960’s as shown in Chart 5. Further the back projection of the PCM plot matched historical records and global temperatures going back past the time of Christ. It should also be considered that geologically CO2 levels have reached levels many times that of the current 400 ppm without destroying the planet so the current hysteria over the current very small numbers can only be explained by political science not real science.

Lastly, Chart 9 shows what a plot of the PCM model, in yellow, would look like from the year 1400 to the year 2900. This plot matches reasonably well with recorded history and fits the current NASA-GISS table LOTI data, in red, very closely, despite homogenization.  I do understand that this PCM model is not based on physics but it is also not some statistical curve fitting. It’s based on two observed reoccurring patterns in the climate and a factor for CO2. These patterns can be modeled and when they are, you get a plot that works better than any of the IPCC’s GCM’s. If the real conditions that create these patterns do not change and CO2 continues to increase to 800 ppm or even 1000 ppm then this model will work well into the foreseeable future.  150 years from now global temperatures will peak at around 15.750 to 16.000 C and then they will be on the downside of the long cycle for the next ~500 years.

The overall effect of CO2 reaching levels of 1000 ppm or even higher will be about 1.50 C which is about the same as that of the long cycle.  The Green plot on Chart 9 shows the observed pattern with no change in CO2 from the pre-industrial era of ~280 ppm. CO2 cannot affect global temperatures more than 1.500 C +/- no matter what the ppm level of CO2 is. The reason being that the CO2 sensitivity value is not 3.00 per doubling of CO2 but less than 1.00 C per doubling of CO2 as shown in more current scientific work and it’s a logistics curve not a log curve.

The purpose of this post is to make people aware of the errors inherent in the IPCC models so that they can be corrected. 

The Obama administration’s “need” for a binding UN climate treaty with mandated CO2 reductions in Europe and America was achieved as predicted at the COP12 conference in Paris in December 2015. To support this endeavor NASA was forced to show ever increasing global temperatures that will make less and less sense based on observations and satellite data which will all be dismissed or ignored.  Within a few years the manipulation will be obvious even to those without knowledge in the subject, but by then it will be to late the damage to the reputation of science will have been done. Fortunately President Trump pulled us out of the bad agreement.

In closing keep this in mind. The current panic generated by the government using political science is that the current global temperature of around 15.0O Celsius is an increase of 7.14% from the 1960’s when the global temperature was 14.0O Celsius; and that does seem like a lot. However those views would be in error as the actual increase in thermal energy, as measured by temperature, would be only .35% because we must use Kelvin not Celsius when working with heat energy. When we use kelvin the temperature goes from 287.15O K to 288.15O K which is only .35% not 7.14% about 1/20 of what is implied by the IPCC. What the IPCC shows is not technically wrong as much as it is extremely misleading to anyone without a science background.

 

Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. He is considered one of the most influential philosophers for science of the 20th century, and he also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy. The following quotes of his apply to this subject.

If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories.

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

… (S)cience is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected.

 

Sep 23 2018

September Breaks all Records for Snow Fall Because Obviously Canadians Don’t Pay Enough in Global Warming Taxes to Make a Difference


Armstrong Economics Blog/Climate

Re-Posted Sep 23, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT #1: Mr. Armstrong; I met you here in Edmonton years ago. I think you are the only analyst to have ever bothered to come up this far. I still read you as to many here. I just wanted to tell you that the snow is early and in Alberta, it looks like we will have crop failures because of it. I suppose it’s time to start moving south. Just have to convince the wife. The kids are out the door.

HK

COMMENT #2: Marty; you have a lot of readers here in Alberta. It has begun to snow here already and it has broken all records. I suppose Justin Trudeau will say it because the global warming tax is not high enough. That’s my bet for the excuse how taxes do not change anything.

All the best

JR

REPLY: Well you have a point. When the medieval doctors would bleed you to get the disease out and you died, the excuse was always they were too late to bleed you, never that they took too much blood. Obviously, this is all your fault. You are just not paying enough in global warming taxes and you insist on heating your home and driving to work. How dare you! So, what do you expect? You are responsible for changing millions of years of weather if not billions. The answer is obvious. You should stop working, live by candlelight, and kill a bunch of animals to stay warm – lol.

Yes, it was snowing late into June and now you are breaking historical records for snow in September. I am not a fan of the cold. I will pay for Global Warming thank you. Trudeau wants to just tax you to pay for his pension for the money does not go to anything really for the environment

Sep 21 2018

Directional Changes & the Worst in 40-Years


Armstrong Economics Blog/Foreign Exchange

Re-Posted Sep 21, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty; Your directional changes are amazing. They signal a change but it can be a turn as well as a sudden blast to the upside. You also mention that this is the worst you have ever seen personally in 40 years on the private blog. Could you elaborate?

Thank you for being here. There are a lot of us who are really grateful for what you are contributing. You show know that.

GR

ANSWER: Thank you. We are all in this together. This is not merely trying to pick the next trade. This is about surviving what is really unfolding.

To be a hedge fund manager, you have to look at the entire world compared to a domestic investment manager who operates exclusively in the domestic market and is oblivious to events externally. I get called in all the time into various crisis events around the world. They just need someone who can see the whole rather than has a myopic perspective. There seem to be few of us in such a position. Friends who have worked on desks at the banks internationally have just retired. It is not easy to do this sort of thing. I just have a 40-year track record and in the middle of a crisis, they really do not want someone who may have created the greatest quantitative model in history all in theory but has never actually been in the trenches. You are asking others to stake their entire career on your theory and you are wrong, they lose their job. So it gets hectic to say the least during times like this.

The Directional Change came today and yes it was a blast off. We opened in the Dow ABOVE the previous high which is an extremely bullish technical signal. A Directional Change can be a turn, but it can also be a launch pad. The Panic Cycle can also be a big move in one direction, but they are often outside reversals meaning that they can exceed the previous high and then penetrate the previous low.

Now, as to the comment I wrote today which has sparked a lot of emails. I wrote on the Private Blog ” Anyone who pretends they can forecast this based upon a personal ‘I think’ will be just luck or a fool. I have been an international hedge fund manager and analyst my whole life and this is the worst I have EVER seen in 40 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

There is complete political chaos everywhere you turn. This is not simply supporting or bashing Trump. We are fooling here with the very foundation of CONFIDENCE in the governmental system. Now throw into this cauldron the chaos politically in Europe. Stir in the insanity in Britain, the trade dispute with China, the Russian stupid sanctions, and what we get is complete chaos. Normally, capital flows have been logical. They fled to the USA for World War I and II. They fled the USA during the Civil War. Capital attempts to move away from uncertainty. What I mean as to this is the worst I have personally seen in 40 years is that we have uncertainty absolutely everywhere globally. There is no safe place for capital to hide. This is why we have seen a new record high in the Dow.

 

 

Add to this, the chaos our computer is showing in interest rates starting from October onward. On the 10-year yield, we have elected all four Monthly Bullish Reversals and that confirms a long-term change in trend which is really obvious at this point. A Quarterly closing above 3.16% and we are off to the races. We are looking at everything starting to get crazy in sovereign debt issues globally beginning in October. With the Dow Jones Industrials now making a new high for the year, the Fed will be looking more comfortable about raising rates to help the pension fund crisis that is brewing. So pay attention to interest rates in October!!!!!!!!

This is what the Reversal System was designed for. To be objective in the midst of total chaos and uncertainty. November is shaping up as a Panic Cycle in the Euro, not in the share market. In the Pound, we have a Directional Change and a Panic Cycle in October. The political risks around the world are just everywhere. This is also why we scheduled the WEC in November and just after the US elections. Personally, this is a real challenge. I cannot be everywhere around the world at the same time. The best we can do is watch the arrays and the Reversals. Just let the numbers speak for themselves. I warned that we had a Double Bullish Reversal in the Dow at 25800. Once that was elected, it has been off and running to new highs.

Sep 20 2018

Boulders of Gold Discovered in Kalgoorlie


Armstrong Economics Blog/Gold

Re-Posted Sep 20, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

The Australian Gold Rush began in following gold discoveries at Coolgardie in 1892 and Kalgoorlie in 1893 located 370 miles (595 km) east-northeast of Perth. Once again, miners discovered two huge boulders with an extremely high gold content. Kalgoorlie is one of Australia’s most famous gold rush events because it was largely credited drawing people from around the world to search for the precious metals. Western Australia’s population grew from a meager 49,782 in 1891 to a booming 184,124 by 1901. In just those 10 years, the region became known as the Goldfields-Esperance region, often called the Golden Mile. It has typically been called in mining the most naturally rich square mile in all the earth.

Now we have boulders worth millions of dollars. The biggest one weighing 95kg and contains over 2,400 ounces of gold. The company has now begun to dig for gold they believe is worth at least $11 million. This is a rare find given this area was the center of attraction for gold miners.

The gold content of these rocks is very high. Some hope that they will lead to an even bigger discovery in the months ahead.

Sep 20 2018

The Treasure Fleet that Sunk & Set in Motion the Decline of Spain


Armstrong Economics Blog/Europe’s Economic History

Re-Posted Sep 20, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

There is little doubt that Spain was once the Financial Capital of the West. Their discovery of America produced mountains of gold and silver to the point that they really impacted the European economy creating significant waves of inflation. However, there was the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) which was why the famous Spanish Fleet that sank on July 31st, 1715 took place. This was a massive treasure fleet that remained in the New World until the war was over because the risk of being attacked by the British was too high. The British sought to prevent the Spanish from funding themselves for the war by preventing ships carrying gold to make it to Spain. The fleet was 11 ships and they are said to have been carrying not just gold and silver, but the dowry for the Queen called the Queen’s Jewels.

When the Spanish Colonial authorities heard of the great disaster, they responded from Havana and St. Augustine. Over 1,000 men died and the survivors were few on the beach. The authorities tried to direct their efforts at salvaging the galleons. By September 1715, some survivors were still at the camp on the beach. The Spanish authorities had turned the beach into a base of salvage operations. The Spaniards claimed that they were able to recover large portions of the treasure. This may have been a tactic of the Spanish exaggerating the amount of the recovery to deter others. Nevertheless, there were pirates were responding to the wreck perhaps even as fast as the Spanish. One English privateer named Jennings was a very successful pirate in early 1716. Given the vast number of coins that have still been recovered, obviously, the Spanish never recovered any significant portion.

The War of the Spanish Succession was a European conflict of the early 18th century that was triggered by the death of the childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700. His closest heirs were members of the Austrian Habsburg and French Bourbon families. With the riches of the New World at stake, who would rule Spain was a major economic prize. This also was a critical issue in changing the European balance of power. Charles II had actually left the undivided Spanish monarchy to Louis XIV’s grandson Philip of France who was proclaimed King of Spain on November 16th, 1700. Disputes erupted over the separation of the Spanish and French crowns. In reality, in an effort to regulate the impending succession there were three principal claimants, England, the Dutch Republic, and France. During October 1698, they signed the First Treaty of Partition. They all agreed that on the death of Charles II, Prince Joseph Ferdinand, son of the elector of Bavaria, should inherit Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, and the Spanish colonies. They also allocated Spain’s Italian dependencies would be partitioned between Austria which would get the Duchy of Milan and France Naples and Sicily.

Then in February 1699, Joseph Ferdinand died. Now a second treaty was drafted and signed on June 11th, 1699, by England and France and in March 1700 by the Dutch Republic and Spain. Leopold, however, refused to sign the treaty and demanded that Charles receive all the Spanish territories intact. Therefore, we see the contest between the Bourbons of France and Spain against the Grand Alliance. Bavaria joined France in September 1702 while Savoy and Portugal joined the Grand Alliance with Austria, whose candidate was Archduke Charles, the younger son of Habsburg Emperor Leopold. This led to war breaking out in 1701.

By 1710, fighting was really at a stalemate. France was unable to conquer Italy and the Low Countries. Philip V was the secure ruler in Spain. When Archduke Charles unexpectedly succeeded as Emperor Charles VI in 1711, Britain effectively withdrew. This then forced the Allies to make peace which produced the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, followed in 1714 with Rastatt and Baden. With the British withdrawing and peace was restored, then Philip V could be confirmed as King of Spain and, in exchange, he renounced the French throne. The European territories were divided between Austria, Britain, and Savoy. Britain emerged as the key European maritime and commercial power overshadowing the Spanish and the Dutch.

Spain had borrowed heavily for this War of Succession because it could not risk bringing in its treasure fleets. Spain had become a serial defaulter beginning in 1557 followed by 1570, 1575, 1596, 1607, and 1647 ending in a 3rd world status. The loss of the treasure fleet of 11 ships in 1715 was a crushing blow to Spain. The lost of the 1715 Treasure fleet reduced Philip V to the status of a beleaguered monarch. Philip V had badly needed all the gold and silver to pay loans. The New World wealth that had made Spain a world power in the 16th and 17th Century had now become a fraction of what it once was. Spain’s role in world affairs declined in proportion with the loss of the 1715 Treasure Fleet.

Nobody has yet found the gold, silver, and jewels that were designated as part of the dowry for his new 22-year-old wife. He had married Elisabeth Farnese of Parma by proxy in 1714 and was still trying to make a good impression on the reluctant lady. Her dowry was to be the greatest of any queen in Europe. More than 1200 pieces of rare jewelry were said to have gone down with the fleet. She was demanding that her dowry be the greatest in Europe. She requested a heart made of 130 pearls, 14-carat pearl earrings, a pure coral rosary with large sized beads and an emerald ring weighing 74 carats. The Queen’s dowry was reported to have been stored in the personal cabin of the Fleet’s senior officer. She gives a new meaning to the term “gold digger” and no doubt was a woman worthy of the title – high maintenance. Of course, they were never marriages for love or even physical attraction.

The loss of the 1715 fleet immediately resulted in the debasement of silver coins which began in 1716. The Spanish mints flooded Spain with debased silver based on the real sencillo of 3·067 g, containing 2·556 g silver. These silver coins were called plata provincial. The silver minted in America was now officially called plata nacional, but was also called plata vieja (old silver) or plata gruesa (heavy silver), and occasionally plata doble (double silver).

 

Sep 19 2018

Pentagon Warned President Bush Global Warming Was Bigger Threat Than Terrorism


Armstrong Economics Blog/Climate

Re-Posted Sep 19, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

 

A secret report by the US defense chiefs warned President Bush that Global Warming was such a great threat that it would destroy the United States and major European cities. They told the President that cities would sink beneath rising seas and Britain would be plunged into a “Siberian” climate by 2020. They warned that mega-droughts, famine, and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document warned that the planet would fall into anarchy and the nuclear threat would rise as countries then sought to defend themselves in the face of declining food, water, and energy supplies. Of course, the entire theory was that the ice caps melt and this the seas have to rise. NEVER did anyone ever do any historical investigation and they reduced everything to a single cause and effect. Evaporation or how ice ages were even created was NEVER a consideration.

I remember as a child going to Washington with my father when he would report at the Pentagon for some reason I never knew. I do remember walking down the halls with my father when I was less than 10 years old. I do remember people running around all serious with stacks of papers. After this report was leaked and published back in 2004 by the Guardian, it makes you wonder about how these people conduct long-range forecasts. I do not think London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Sydney will sink below the waves. It is just another example of how one-dimensional analysis is our doom. We are now only two-years from 2020 when Britain was supposed to be the new Siberia. Get going! Your behind schedule!

The Washington Post tells everyone Climate Change is real because of Hurricane Florence – a Category 1 event. You really have to wonder why these newspapers put out such propaganda and make no effort to do any research. The list of North Carolina hurricanes where Florence hit prior to 1900 yields a list of 139 tropical cyclones/hurricanes. In fact, North Carolina was hit by 7 storms during 1893 ALONE!!!!! During 1893, BEFORE the combustion engine, that remains the record for the most hurricanes to hit North Carolina in a single season. On August 27th, 1893, a major hurricane which came to be known as the Sea Islands Hurricane that hit Georgia turned up through North Caroline killing they believe around 2,000 people. There was the category 3 Charleston Hurricane of 1893 and it came ashore near McClellanville, SC with maximum sustained winds near 120 mph.

It really does not take much of an effort to report the truth just for once. The worst hurricane season on record still remains 1893 before Global Warming. The 1893 Atlantic hurricane season had 12 tropical storms of which 10 became hurricanes. Then of the 10 hurricanes, FIVE became major hurricanes. Two of those storms kill over 2,000 people each. The 1893 season remains the most deadly storm season in American history. The second season on the list was the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season, where there were 4 Atlantic hurricanes that were active on the same day. The hurricane season is at its peak in August to October. Records before 1851 are really spotty. We do know that the Spanish Treasure Fleet of 11 ships were sunk in a hurricane during 1715, which is believed to be a category 4+.

Running this data through our system revealed a 4.3-year cycle of intensity. In other words, where there were 4 or more major hurricanes in that season. Then the pattern which emerges shows that there are typically back to back years of intensity.This was the case for 1893-1894, 1915-1916, 1932-1933, 1995-1996, 2004-2005, 2010-2011, and 2016-2017. It does strangely forecast that worst back-to-back hurricane season will be 2031-2032. That lines up with the peak in the Economic Confidence Model. Hm?

In fact, one of the major theories that may explain the disappearance of Roanoke Colony points to a major hurricane that completely destroyed the village. There is no evidence to prove the theory. In 1587, Raleigh dispatched a new group of 115 colonists to establish a colony on the Chesapeake Bay. Some argued that they were massacred by the Indians, but no bodies were ever found. It may be that a major storm approached and they took shelter with the Indians. Nobody has ever solved this mystery

Sep 18 2018

Australia Drought Sends Kangaroos invading Cities


Armstrong Economics Blog/Australia & Oceania

RE-Posted Sep 18, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Kangaroos are invading the Capital of Australia as the drought has created a food shortage. The “roos” have been invading the cities and they like to feed precisely during Rush Hour. Here is one that decided to visit the sports match when the game was in motion.

It is quite a big threat down there thanks to a severe drought.