COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, I just want to congratulate you on creating Socrates. I am a real estate aficionado and Socrates has beaten the Case-Shiller Index which peaked in June of 2022 and even the Redfin Index which peaked in May 2022. Socrates peaked at a high in December 2021 ahead of everyone. Your model has shown a 34% drop into October where everyone is saying a 20% drop by the end of next year is likely. I just wanted to write because you and Socrates have beaten everyone in the real estate forecasting business and you do not even make that a big deal. Socrates is amazing.
I just wanted to share that because you do not even bother pounding your chest about real estate.
Thank you so much
LR
REPLY: Socrates is forecasting so many aspects of the world economy I do not have the time to pound my chest and if I did, I would probably end up in the hospital for it gets so many things right. It covers a fair sampling of real estate around the world and I do know we have many major real estate companies tuning in. Thank you for your comment. I have not had the time to look at either of those two indices as of yet.
Imagine if you could have bought a loaf of bread in 1932 for 7 cents. That 7 cents would be $3.09 today would be a gain of 4,414%. Of course, you could not even freeze it that long. That is also the problem with many who sell investments. Gold was $20.67 in 1932 so that has been a gain of 8990%. On the other hand, the Dow Jones Industrials bottomed in 1932 at 40.56. That has been a gain of 83,992%.
In 1955, the Dreyfus Fund was established by a New York stockbroker named Jack J. Dreyfus, Jr. (1913–2009) It was Dreyfus who acquired the open-end Nesbett Fund, which had $2.3 million in assets. This ambitious stockbroker renamed the fund bestowing his own family name upon it which would become a household word in the decades ahead. By year end, the assets grew to $5.6 million as 1955 drew to a close. The best decision Dreyfus made was to buy 400 shares of an unlisted stock. That “sleeper” stock was Polaroid which he bought for $31 7/8. Dreyfus would watch this single purchase rise to $6,372 per share – not counting splits – in the years ahead. This outstanding performance almost single-handedly led to the mutual fund boom in the 1960s.
Sometimes a new technology paves the way for something that changes the game.
QUESTION: I want to thank you for Socrates. It picked the turn in the real estate in January amazingly. Do you see the high-end and regional divergences continuing?
WH
ANSWER: Yes. The Directional Change for 2021 was spot on. Our index began declining in January 2022 anticipating the first rate hike on March 17, 2022, by a quarter point. We would expect lower prices into 2023 and this should be the typical 2-year reaction low. It appears that post-2023, we would begin to see the shift where private assets will start to trade at a premium to the public assets of the government. The spread between government and private will decline as was the case during the Great Depression as countries began to default on their debt.
I really do have to wonder if my dog is smarter than most Americans who seem to have just lost their minds. My dog makes connections, anticipates what I will do, and studies my habits to predict and respond. I never knew a dog was really smart. She has learned numerous words and I have had to even spell certain words for she will respond if she hears the word. Dogs are indeed far more intelligent than I ever expected. Various studies show a dog is typically as intelligent as a two-year-old human. I can point in the sky at an airplane and she looks up. Not even a chimpanzee does that, or apparently most Americans. If you point to evidence they will not look.
The majority of Americans just listen to the propaganda, never questions anything, and assume the government is always telling them the truth because they care. Janet Yellen tried to get Congress to pass a formal act that banks and everyone had to report on Americans for every $600 transaction. Congress refused and her story was they were after the evil super-rich. The problem, the rich really are not selling stuff on eBay, using cash apps for side deals. That is the realm of the young and lower income.
So after the Biden Administration lost that battle, they simply told the IRS to do it on their own. Any transaction online over $600 is not subject to audit and you will find out the real reason they hired 87,000 armed IRS agents. You certainly do not need 87,000 IRS Agents to hunt down the 735 billionaires in the United States. They outright lie to your face, and many cheer.
People will NEVER wake up it seems. I have known politicians who actually believe that EVERYTHING belongs to the state, they decide on how much you are allowed to keep. They must have sipped history class for virtually EVERY Revolution in history was inspired by taxes. Even the famous line from Shakespeare “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” actually refers to the king’s prosecutors for private people had not right to a lawyer. It was all about a revolution and the “lawyers” were confiscating people’s houses for their inability to pay taxes.
The American Revolution was also sparked by taxation. Remember the French Revolution and the slogan they attributed to the King’s wife – let them eat cake was also all about taxes and oppression
Today, we learned more about the FBI’s influence operation during the 2020 election election. Yesterday, as part of a civil rights suit against the Biden Administration, Missouri Attorney General (and Senator-elect) Eric Schmitt released the deposition transcript of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
And just now, he just posted the transcript of FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan. Read it here.
The importance of SSA Chan shouldn’t be understated. He was at the front-lines of the FBI’s efforts to curb speech on social media during the 2020 election. It was Chan who has been reported to have had “weekly meetings with major social media companies to warn against Russian disinformation attempts ahead of the 2020 election.”
Chan’s testimony provides insight into these efforts. Here are the highlights.
Chan and the 2016 DNC “Hack”
For starters, just so you get an idea of who you’re dealing with, Chan is a firm believer in the still-unproven theory that Russia hacked the DNC/DCCC and then leaked those materials “over the course of the 2016 election.” It gets better: Chan was the supervisor of a squad that helped investigate the 2016 DNC hack.
One can’t help but ask whether Chan, a “supervisor”, could have obtained the DNC server. Or if he even though to request it. As observed by our friend Stephen McIntyre, Chan was in contact with DNC/Hillary campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann about that hack.
In fact, Chan believes Russia could have influenced the 2016 presidential election:
The 2020 Election – Security Meetings between the US Government and Social Media Companies.
Leading up to the 2020 election, Chan was present during meetings between social media and tech companies, such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, and Reddit, and the U.S. Government, which was represented by CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI.
The FBI and other agencies would provide the social media/tech companies with “strategic information” regarding foreign – and specifically Russian – “influence campaigns.” One example of this information sharing had to do with the Russian company “Internet Research Agency” (a troll farm that was indicted by Mueller before those charges were ultimately dismissed by Barr), which had moved their operations to Ghana and Nigeria. Chan and the FBI believe the Internet Research Agency “is trying to make inroads in western Africa.” A warning to the West: your memes are from Russians in Western Africa.
Chan testified that once the social media companies get this information they take down the accounts. The FBI doesn’t “control” what the companies do; they just provide “information” so the social media companies can take whatever steps they deem appropriate. One of those appropriate steps – one of those ways to “protect their platforms” – is to take down those accounts. In fact, Chan concluded in his thesis that the US government essentially assisted with “account takedowns.” It was a joint effort.
In other words, the social media companies don’t need directions from the US government to remove content because there’s an understanding between the parties. This would include content that the US government deemed to be foreign (Russian) “social media influence campaigns” that focus on current events or “amplify existing content.” This is all for the Russian government’s purpose to “sow discord”:
Chan also explained how the FBI would share the “disinformation” or “misinformation” with social media companies. It would take place around the time of quarterly meetings, if not more frequently through secure e-mails if the FBI field offices thought necessary. For example, the FBI might notify Facebook that a certain IP address is associated with the Internet Research Agency. The accounts flagged by the FBI are always removed by the social media companies, in large part because of pressure from Congressional Committees. As explained by Chan:
Around this same time, there were visits from Congressional staffers to pressure social media companies. Senior-level staffers have even visited Facebook, Google, and Twitter as part of these influence – or censorship – campaigns.
Chan continued:
Information about the 2020 Election and the suppression of American content.
During the 2020 election, the FBI’s San Francisco field office had an election “command post,” which flagged “disinformation” regarding “the time, place or manner of elections in various states.” The flagged content would be referred to the applicable social media platform where it was posted. It didn’t matter whether the content was from Americans or from a foreign actor. Chan explained that the FBI was conducting these actions upon instructions from the DOJ, which had informed them “that this type of information was criminal in nature.”
The social media companies sometimes disagreed. In fact, half the time the social media companies wouldn’t remove the content. Chan estimated a 50% success rate.
The Purported 2020 Russian “hack and leak” operation.
There’s a lot to cover here, and hopefully I provided enough background to get to the juicier stuff. Or at least the content that applies, in some ways, to the more concerning suppression of information during the 2020 election and after, such as the Hunter Biden laptop and COVID-19 information.
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Here’s Chan discussing FBI warnings about a “2016-style DNC hack-and-dump operation” and gave instructions to “stay vigilant” about similar operations that may take place “before the [2020] election”:
Chan didn’t warn the companies based on actionable intelligence. Instead, the FBI gave this warning multiple times out of “an abundance of caution” and based on what allegedly transpired in 2016 with the DNC/DCCC hack.
At around that time, Chan wasn’t aware that the FBI had in its possession the Hunter Biden laptop. He only became aware when this information was published by news outlets. Hunter Biden, according to Chan, was never mentioned in the FBI meetings with the social media companies. Facebook, however, asked about the Hunter Biden information. The FBI’s response? “No comment.” Chan explains
Chan was presented with a declaration from Yoel Roth, the then-Twitter Head of Trust and Safety, in which Roth stated he was informed by people in the intelligence community to “expect” attacks on individuals linked to political campaigns. Chan’s recollection differed, stating that there was only the potential for such attacks.
Roth also stated in his sworn declaration there were rumors “that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.” Chan couldn’t recall Hunter Biden ever being mentioned in those meetings.
Q: How would you interpret what he said when he says he learned that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden? What do you think he’s referring to?
A: Yeah, in my estimation, we never discussed Hunter Biden specifically with Twitter.
Chan also claimed ignorance to Roth’s contention that Twitter’s belief the Hunter Biden materials could have been hacked was based on “the information security community’s initial reactions.” Chan wasn’t sure if this included the FBI, or if Twitter reached out to the FBI about the Hunter Biden information.
But – if the material were “hacked” – the social media companies were put on notice that they needed policies to address that situation. A harmless question? More of a hint to get social media companies to agree to remove the content. Especially because the FBI had plans to ask the social media companies themselves to remove hacked content.
I hope it’s clear what happened. There’s not a smoking gun – there’s no direct e-mail from Chan or from the FBI to Twitter of Facebook, from what we’ve seen, to remove the Hunter Biden story. That’s by design: there didn’t need to be. The instructions from the US government about “hack and leak” operations were quite clear, and the agency did nothing to dissuade social media companies from “believing” the Hunter Biden materials where hacked. The beauty of this plan, if you can call it that, was that the FBI and Twitter (and Facebook) all gave themselves cover by pointing the finger to the other.
In a close election, that’s what we call tipping the scales.
In related news… Twitter General Counsel James Baker has been “exited.” The story is still developing, but part of the reason appears to be because he was “vetting” the Twitter Files which show FBI/Twitter communications and which inform the decision to ban the Hunter Biden story. More to come as that story develops…
Mac Timred21 hr agoThere is a red hot smoking gun right here, that the DOJ advised that disinformation would be criminal in nature. That right there is the smoking gun. THIS IS NOT LISA MONACO, THIS IS (IN THEORY) BILL BARR’S DOJ. Exactly who at the DOJ communicated this, and pursuant to orders from what chain of command?
COMMENT FROM HUNGARY: Dear Marty, You were correct again. Price controls do not work in the long run. The Hungarian government introduced a price cap on gasoline and diesel a few months ago, but a few hours ago this evening they had to let it go(they “tried everything in their power to help but the damn bureaucrats in Brussels who voted for the sanctions”.etc etc.).
The holiday season, panic buying, no gas another nail into the trust in our government’s coffin. Marty these people really have no clue what the hell they’re doing. We have several food products that also have price controls: Wheat, sugar, eggs, etc. And interestingly supermarkets simply stop selling them or they sell brown sugar (no price control) instead of white sugar (price controlled, the maximum amount you can purchase in one go is 3kg i believe). When will they learn (not admit) or at least stop blaming others for their own brain-dead decisions?
I honestly hope that whatever the hell comes after 2032 will be better than this nonsense. Thanks for all you do Marty. Keep up the fight, and get some well-needed rest during the holidays. I reckon you’re getting more phone calls than usual… All the best, RH
ANSWER: You know the most astonishing fact is that this was not even my personal opinion. All one need do is consult history. NEVER has any attempt to freeze prices to prevent inflation EVER worked even once.
The Roman emperor Diocletian (284-305AD) tried to impose wage and price controls in an effort to prevent inflation that was soaring because of a collapse in confidence in the Roman government. The Edit on Maximum Prices was imposed during 201AD. It was an utter failure.
Even if we go back to the 4th century B.C., the Roman government bought corn (grain) and, in times of shortage, it re-sold it at a low fixed price to try to prevent inflation from shortages – as we have today. In 58BC, the Roman Senate went even further and granted every citizen free wheat. The politicians were trying to bribe the people as they are doing once again today. What happened was that the farmers began moving back to the city of Rome because they could live and eat without working – it was free. By the time Julius Caesar (100-44BC) crossed the Rubicon, one in three Romans was receiving government wheat. He was forced to create a census and found there were more people claiming welfare than there were possible people.
Those in government ALWAYS assume that since they possess a pen, they can write whatever law they desire and they will comply or be thrown in prison until they die. I was named FOREX Person of the Year in 2015 because we forecast the Euro/Swiss peg would break. I even met with the Swiss Central Bank and warned that the peg would break. I was told they would be able to hold it. I replied I think the odds are on my side since NOBODY in history has ever been able to do this. There was the British pound peh into the ERM the broking making Soros all his money. In 1997, there was the Asian Currency Crisis where all the pegs broke. then there was even Bretton Woods which was a fixed exchange rate that broke in 1971 and in 1973 I was called in for the first bank failure due to foreign exchange.
I have done my best trying to warn governments that they CANNOT fix currencies and even when they were forming the G5 with the Plaza Accord in 1985, I was called in and warned that lowering the dollar by 40% would lead to a major currency crisis and a crash by 1987. Never have they ever listened.
Perhaps, the ONLY time anyone in Europe or the United States than anyone in government ever listen was perhaps in 1997. They were starting the jawboning of the Yen for trade purposes once again. I wrote to Robert Rubin and he has Timothy Geithner respond who later became the Secretary of the Treasury. China has listened, but other than in 1997, I cannot say any central bank or government has EVER heeded my warnings that history is on my side – pegs NEVER work.
The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has warned in its latest quarterly report that there is $80 trillion dollar in off-balance sheet dollar debt in the form of FX swaps. This has involved pension funds and other ‘non-bank’ financial firms.
What they do not explain is that each “debt” has a counterparty that has an “asset” and in theory, that works out to net zero. But there is counter-party risk that is not discussed. This doesn’t address the liquidity issue either. Still, it is not entirely a black hole as they seem to lead some to proclaim. What is also left unexplained or addressed is the question of if they are netting across all transactions. Many of the players in this market have offsetting positions. It is one thing to scream OMG the size of the stock market is too big, and another to yell fire in a crowded theater.
This $80 trill is effectively the derivatives market. It is what it is. Marking everything to market all the time isn’t a great answer either for there can be imbalances for a day or two in the middle of chaos. What is clear is that the BIS is raising concerns, in which it also said this year’s market upheaval took place without any major issues.
On the other hand, the BIS has been pushing central banks to raise rates to fight inflation which will only accelerate the crisis since it is shortage based. This is no different from the ’70s when there was an external price shock from OPEC,. Raising interest rates did nothing to prevent inflation, instead, it resulted in a strong dollar, the collapse of the pound to $1.03 in 1985, and the US national debt more than doubled on interest expenditures.
Nonetheless, the BIS has been quieter on the inflation front this time around. Just maybe, they are starting to realize that the old theories no longer work. The September UK government bond market turmoil was created by raising interest rates and the losses on holding long-term debt in the face of rising interest rates have been just the tip of the iceberg.
The FX swap markets have become huge. Our clients are well into the trillions these days whereas twenty years ago we had less than 5 clients at the $1 trillion threshold.
Nonetheless, the complexity of the cross-positions is the real risk. One side can blow out because of the chaos these braindead politicians are creating with this war against Russia.
COMMENT: Marty; you should not be so hard on yourself. Nobody has tried harder than you to alter the outcome. Socrates is just unbeatable. I shared your hope that gold would have just cracked $1000 and that would have been a sling-sot up. But it stopped at $1045 and the reversals were elected and that was the end of that. As a long-term trader, I understood what you meant. I remember 1985 when gold just broke $300 and the leading gold analyst ___________ threw in the towel. You called that low and that’s when I started following your work. You weren’t just an analyst, you were a trader.
So ease up. You have done your best. As you said at the WEC, nobody has tried to defeat your own model as much as you, but you have always lost.
I for one hope you do Dubai in the Spring. It would be nice to see everyone in person again.
PD
REPLY: Oh, yes. I remember that trade. It takes a trader to understand why I said if gold could crack $1,000, it would then be propelled straight up into a slingshot. Perhaps one of the most important trading tools is that the market is like a pendulum. The further it swings in one direction, the fast it will be propelled in the opposite. That is why when bubble markets peak, the vast majority of the decline takes place in two to three key time units thereafter. The failure of gold to have cracked that $1,000 psychological level is also when it has languished thereafter.
Here is the Array from October 1984. It called all the moves correctly and the major low was February with the Panic Cycle the very next month. The next temp high was on the next Directional Change in August 1985.
I have to admit, probably the one forecast of Socrates that really impressed me personally was the Array we published in 1999, which you can find on the Wayback Machine. It had targeted a Panic Cycle in 2008 – 10 years in ADVANCE! It was projecting the collapse globally of the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis. Obviously, my personal comments are not forecasts. I cannot beat Socrates and nobody else can possibly beat it.
Trading observations are not forecasts. Even look at BitCoin Monthly. You see the standard 2-month decline, temp low, then the pendulum moves back in the opposite direction, but the power is diminished. The power is too strong on the decline side. These are just observations from being a trader. They are NOT the computer. So, yes, my comments are not forecasts but observations. The computer does the forecasting not me. Not even I can defeat Socrates.
COMMENT: Thank you for all you do. Your input has guided me well. I suspect my Bank is in deep trouble. _____ bank in ____ CA. They specialize in small business. First red flag was freezing my account for no reason. I then bounced a check because my account was frozen. They could not give me a reason for freezing my account. Then they offered me, according to them, a great investment deal, that was the second red flag. Then I was contacted by a relationship manger. This was the third red flag.
Will be closing all my accounts with ______ next week.
MC
REPLY: There are clearly problems emerging since interest rates have risen and many banks were not in a position to take the losses on long-term investments.
Always keep some cash. A word to the wise should be sufficient
COMMENT: You Know…years ago, all these different monthly reports did not affect the markets day to day so much.
Now…Today..these reports send huge panic cycles in the markets every time they are announced. Doesn’t that tell you something about the future?? Doesn’t that tell you something about the US economy? The end keeps getting closer.
N
REPLY: This is clearly the uncertainty. Everything seems to be upside down. Nobody understands the future or what might even happen. Will there be war? Will inflation actually stop? Are we headed into a major recession? How can the markets rally facing a major recession? So many questions and most have just opinions.
Even my interpretations of the computer arrays are sometimes wrong. Things are unfolding on such a global scale that concerns are rising everywhere. You have North Korea shooting missiles off over Japan, NATO members think Ukraine should join NATO, and Iran is threatening nuclear war in the Middle East. All of this while Schwab tells the world we will own nothing and be happy. To many, it has become just flip a coin and see if you should buy or sell.
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 