Tag Archives: Government Corruption
The Rising Risk of Nuclear War in 2023
Armstrong Economics Blog/Russia Re-Posted Oct 7, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: What do you think about Russia’s setbacks?
OL
ANSWER: All of this is a gamble with the hope that Russia will simply crumble to dust and the West will conquer Russia once and for all. Right now, sources in Russia say that the criticism is attacking the military leadership that they have been just too arrogant and underestimated Ukraine, and the fact that this is really a proxy war. My fear is that there are still a lot of hardliners there who look back upon the days of the USSR fondly.
China would be a fool as would North Korea if they stood by and allowed Russia to crumble to its knees. They cannot be that stupid not realizing that they will be next. The Computer projects 2023 as the year of political hell. January is a key period as will be April 2023. I would not start counting the laurels for Ukraine just yet. This is not over and the worst is yet to come. The threat of nuclear war rises in 2023.
With the Western Press cheering the fall of Russia, they are only contributing to the prospect of a major escalation and the use of nukes. The US has been buying medicine for radiation poisoning. They know what they are doing and could care less how many civilians are wiped out. Their view – the population needs to be reduced anyhow.
The Japan Outlook
Armstrong Economics Blog/Japan Re-Posted Oct 7, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Marty, I greatly appreciate all you do to try to prevent this war cycle. You have said many times Socrates beats you. With missiles flying over Japan here, what do you see ahead?
AS
ANSWER: Nice to hear from you. It does not look very good. A year-end closing below 6805 will warn of a major crash in the Japanese yen next year. I cannot stop the cycle. The best I can possibly do is perhaps reduce the amplitude. Even that is speculative. It just seems that we have insane leaders who care more about defeating Russia for this climate change nonsense. What they are doing to farmers in the Netherlands is insane. They know that the current monetary system is collapsing. They are using the war in hopes of creating an excuse and a diversion from their own sovereign debt defaults – hence you will own nothing and be happy.
All the market look to be cascading into 2023. This is not my opinion. I wish I did not even have to talk about this nonsense. The ray of hope is we get to restart the world economy post-2032. That is when we will hit the control-alt-delete. All I can do is try desperately to get society just for once to look at history and see what systems worked and what failed.
Interview: Sleepwalking To The Gates of Hell with Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics Blog/Armstrong in the Media Re-Posted Oct 7, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
Listen above or click here to listen to my latest interview with Outer Limits.
Commentary from Ryan McCormick:
With or without our consent, humanity is being dragged into a horrific third world war. Martin speaks with Ryan McCormick from The Outer Limits of Inner Truth (https://www.outerlimitsradio.com/armstrong2022/) and gives a sobering assessment and forecast of how, why, and what to expect when hell on earth manifests. Martin also discusses: · The likelihood that Americans will be subjected to, and willingly accept a Chinese-style social credit rating system. · What the past eight civilizations that have collapsed (with the exception of Egypt post-1250 BC) all have in common. · If the push for green energy will fully succeed in the US or only prevail in a limited number of states. · When China becomes the epicenter of economic activity by 2032, will it drastically increase it's sphere of influence and political ideologies the same way the US did in post World War II. · What form of government in history was most favorable to individual rights and what nations and states will have the most freedom in the future.
Poland Goes Nuclear as NATO Breaks Past Promises
Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Oct 6, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
The war in Ukraine escalated as a direct result of NATO’s interference. Russia felt backed into a corner, on the defensive, and felt it had no choice but to invade Ukraine in response to heightened tensions with NATO. Even the pope came out and said that NATO was antagonizing Russia by “barking at the Gates of Russia.”
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) originally wanted Russia to join after the Soviet Union was dissolved. Although Russia did not join, relations with NATO were strong. In 1997, NATO reported that they planned to build “lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area on the principles of democracy and cooperative security” with Russia. NATO also claimed that it would not deploy nuclear measures against Russia.
"The member States of NATO reiterate that they have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members, nor any need to change any aspect of NATO's nuclear posture or nuclear policy - and do not foresee any future need to do so. This subsumes the fact that NATO has decided that it has no intention, no plan, and no reason to establish nuclear weapon storage sites on the territory of those members, whether through the construction of new nuclear storage facilities or the adaptation of old nuclear storage facilities. Nuclear storage sites are understood to be facilities specifically designed for the stationing of nuclear weapons, and include all types of hardened above or below ground facilities (storage bunkers or vaults) designed for storing nuclear weapons."
If peace in the euro area was of top importance, this situation would have de-escalated back in February. Now, bordering countries are increasing their nuclear capabilities. Poland has announced that they are willing to host nuclear weapons provided by the US. The head of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, “fully supports” the proposition. However, Poland is freeing itself of any responsibility. Duda said that the weapons of mass destruction “would not be a nuclear weapon under the control of Poland. Participation in nuclear sharing does not imply having your own nuclear weapon.”
France, the United Kingdom, and America are the only three NATO members with their own nuclear weapons. Yet, they store nuclear weapons in strategic places such as Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Belgium. These countries will be able to strengthen their national security while alleviating the full burden of being in control of nuclear weapons.
Transpacific Shipping Drops 75% During Peak Season as Joe Biden Energy Inflation Bites and Consumer Spending Collapses
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 5, 2022 | Sundance
The economic data coming in the past week is in alignment with prior forecasts. Bottom line, energy driven inflation has collapsed consumer spending, inventories climbing, vendors are cancelling orders, and this is peak season for transpacific shipping- which has now recorded the most rapid drop in history.
A single transpacific container shipment cost $19,000 in 2021, then $14,500 in 2022 as the intentional slowdown began. Now it’s only $3,900 as entire fleets of cargo shipments are cancelled due to lack of demand by U.S. purchasers.
Folks, get ready…. because it’s not going to get better. Prior farm costs, an outcome of energy price increases, are now reaching the supply chain. Food costs will continue increasing throughout the holiday season.
(Wall Street Journal) […] Trans-Pacific shipping rates have plummeted roughly 75% from year-ago levels. The transportation industry is grappling with weaker demand as big retailers cancel orders with vendors and step up efforts to cut inventories. FedEx Corp. recently said it would cancel flights and park cargo planes because of a sharp drop in shipping volumes. On Thursday, Nike Inc. said it was sitting on 65% more inventory in North America than a year earlier and would resort to markdowns.
[…] One response to the melting demand has been to reduce sailing trips. In September, container capacity offered by ship operators in the Pacific was down 13%, dropping the equivalent of 21 ships that can each move 8,000 containers in a single voyage, from a year earlier, according to shipping-data providers Xeneta and Sea-Intelligence.
For the two weeks starting Oct. 3, a total of about 40 scheduled sailings to the U.S. West Coast from Asia and 21 sailings to the East Coast from Asia have been scrapped, according to the data companies as well as customer advisories viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Typically at this time of year, an average of two to four sailings a week are blanked, the industry’s term for canceled sailings.
[…] “In the first week of October, one-third of previously announced capacity will be blanked and for the second week, it will be around half,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta. “The downturn pace in recent weeks has been very fast and it looks like carriers misread the low volumes of a nonexistent peak season.”
The period between late summer and early fall typically is the busiest time of year for the largest carriers, as retailers and other importers build inventories ahead of the holiday shopping season. (more)
All of this has to do with the intentional destruction of the oil, coal and gas industry. Western national economic collapse is a feature of the Build Back Better agenda. The economy will continue to be lowered until it small enough to be replaced by “climate friendly” energy resources, windmills and solar farms.
The more consumers demand to keep their standard of living, the harder the central banks will squeeze to inflict the pain. The western leaders and their banking benefactors do not want us owning things that require energy resources. The economic pain will continue (in western nations) until citizens acquiesce to eating bugs and sustainable algae cakes, while taking mass transportation instead of personal vehicles.
Nunes: Hard left groups working with Biden DOJ to suppress conservatives online
Devin Nunes Published originally on Rumble on October 4, 2022
Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes discusses top medical groups’ efforts to censor their political opponents on social media and more on ‘Rob Schmitt Tonight,’ October 4, 2022.
The Dark Side of Ukraine
Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Oct 5, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: You said Bucha was not a massacre by Russians but staged by the neo-Nazis. What proof do you have?
DF
ANSWER: I am glad you believe the one-sided propaganda. I know Ukraine well and its culture. I have reliable sources there. I do not reveal them for I must respect their protection. There is substantial evidence that this is typical Ukrainian propaganda. Even the US Pentagon refused to attribute this to Russia and I know NATO has videos proving this was staged. Even the Mayor posted a video on Telegram on March 31st announcing that the Russians left Bucha. He was joyful that his town had been liberated. He does not mention any corpses on the roads and terrible destruction. It was two days later when photos and videos of people lying along the road appeared and claims of hundreds of dead Ukrainians. The Neo-Nazis have been staging war crimes from the start.
There are numerous foreign soldiers who volunteered for Ukraine and then have returned shocked at the extent of the war crimes carried out by Ukrainians. You have no idea of the seething hatred of all Russian-speaking people in the Donbas or in Russia. A significant number of Ukrainians have no problem killing and torturing Russians. If you did your research, the extent of the cruelty of the Ukrainian Nazis even shocked the German Nazis. They would cut out a baby of a pregnant woman and so in a live cat. They killed countless people from Poland and the Russians as well as Jews.
They do not teach what the Ukrainian Nazis did in Ukraine because it was too horrible. One report stated:
“Some Ukrainian educators believe the Holocaust is not an appropriate topic for
teaching because in a Holocaust course a professor would need to let Ukrainian
students know that some Jews were betrayed to the Nazis by Ukrainian neighbors. In
addition, the OUN and UPA took part in the annihilation of Jews in western Ukraine,
and this knowledge can shock young Ukrainians. ” id/pg 205
At Babi Yar, during the Ukrainian Holocaust of WWII, the Ukrainian Nazis murdered 33,000 Jews in the ravine over just two days. July 11th is the day of remembrance where the Ukrainian Nazis slaughtered 100,000 Polish and to this day, Ukraine has refused to issue a formal apology. The documentation is extensive. The sheer hatred of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis is unprecedented in history. They make the German Nazis look like boy scouts.
The Polish Association of Memory of Victims of Crimes of Ukrainian Nationalists documented 135 methods of torture and murder practiced by Ukrainian Nazis. Poland officially called the Ukrainian actions genocide. The Ukrainians have been protected by the CIA for decades ONLY because they hated Russians. They continue to protect the Ukrainian Nazis only because they are waging war against Russia.
The Ukrainians were unprecedented in their war crimes during WWII and the sheer outright cruelty one would expect only exists in some B-Rated horror movies. This included:
- Running children through with stakes
- Cutting a person’s throat and pulling their tongue out through the hole
- Sawing a person’s torso in half with a carpenter’s saw
- Cutting open the belly of a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy, removing the fetus, and replacing it with a live cat, before sewing up her abdomen.
- Cutting open a pregnant women’s abdomen and pouring in broken glass
- Nailing a small child to a door.
I have videos that are too horrible to show of Ukrainians torturing Russian soldiers today, nailing them to a cross, and then setting them on fire. There are numerous foreign soldiers returning who are totally disgusted by what they have witnessed in Ukraine. One reported that they simply shot all the Russian soldiers they captured. Nobody will tell the truth because as long as they hate Russia, then Russia’s enemy is the West’s friend. The Ukrainian Neo-Nazis have been the most ruthless people I have ever encountered in history. Add to that, Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe even declared by the IMF. In fact, they may be the most corrupt in the world.
Russia’s Non-Energy Exports
Armstrong Economics Blog/World Trade Re-Posted Oct 5, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
Everyone knows by now that Russia is a top exporter of energy. In 2021, 43% of total exports were mineral fuels, and Europe was the primary buyer. Let us take a look at Russia’s other tools of trade:
- Mineral fuels including oil: US $211.5 billion (43% of total exports)
- Gems, precious metals: $31.6 billion (6.4%)
- Iron, steel: $28.9 billion (5.9%)
- Fertilizers: $12.5 billion (2.5%)
- Wood: $11.7 billion (2.4%)
- Machinery including computers: $10.7 billion (2.2%)
- Cereals: $9.1 billion (1.9%)
- Aluminum: $8.8 billion (1.8%)
- Ores, slag, ash: $7.4 billion (1.5%)
- Plastics, plastic articles: $6.2 billion (1.3%)
This list accounted for 68.8% of all global shipments last year. Iron and steel exports rose 80.4% from 2020 to 2021, and fertilizer saw a 78.5% gain. Granted, the pandemic prevented much trade in 2020. Fuel is still in high demand and Asian and Middle Eastern countries have not ceased purchases. We have been braced for the fertilizer shortage that will disrupt food production internationally. Fertilizer is absolutely essential for agriculture, despite the climate zealots’ propositions to reduce its usage.
Interestingly, we see a number of important building materials on this list, such as iron, steel, and wood. These materials are crucial for building, and with the global housing shortage, they are needed more than ever. Russia is also one of the top exporters of gold and is a commodity-rich nation. Expect Russia to sell these items to nations that are not imposing sanctions only for those nations with sanctions to repurchase them at a premium.
Highest generating trade products for Russia (2021):
- Mineral fuels including oil: US$209.2 billion (Up by 49.2% since 2020)
- Gems, precious metals: $30.4 billion (Up by 3%)
- Iron, steel: $23 billion (Up by 87%)
- Fertilizers: $12.3 billion (Up by 79.1%)
- Wood: $10.9 billion (Up by 44.3%)
- Cereals: $8.9 billion (Down by -1.6%)
- Aluminum: $7.3 billion (Up by 66.7%)
- Ores, slag, ash: $5 billion (Up by 111.3%)
- Copper: $4.2 billion (Up by 4.1%)
- Fish: $3.7 billion (Up by 26.1%)
Here is where Russia falls short, noting their top ten trade deficit products (2021):
- Machinery including computers: -US$43.6 billion (Up by 25.1% since 2020)
- Electrical machinery, equipment: -$30.7 billion (Up by 18.6%)
- Vehicles: -$23 billion (Up by 46.7%)
- Pharmaceuticals: -$11.3 billion (Up by 15.2%)
- Optical, technical, medical apparatus: -$7 billion (Up by 5.2%)
- Plastics, plastic articles: -$6.4 billion (Up by 15.5%)
- Fruits, nuts: -$5.3 billion (Up by 4.1%)
- Ships, boats: -$3.8 billion (Up by 170.9%)
- Knit or crochet clothing, accessories: -$3.7 billion (Up by 32.4%)
- Clothing, accessories (not knit or crochet): -$3.6 billion (Up by 1.1%)
If you look at this list, there is a clear opportunity for Russia’s trading partners. While the West is providing Ukraine with machinery, equipment, and military vehicles, other nations are condemned for doing so. Vehicles are down globally, with the semiconductor shortage as one of the culprits. Fruits, nuts, clothing, and knitting accessories can all be easily obtained from Russia’s Eastern trading partners. Pharmaceuticals could present a problem, however, Russia can turn to India for this need. India became one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical exporters in 2021, and they seem more than willing to use their neutral position in this war to benefit economically.
Russia’s exports seem to hold more importance on a grand scale than the products they must import. Sanctions always fail. The winner will be those who remain neutral
North Korea Joins the Party
Armstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized Re-Posted Oct 4, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
It is amazing to me that we seem to have complete idiots driving these events and they think that they can just intimidate whoever. All my sources state clearly that China and North Korea will join Russia against this climate change and authoritarian vision of a one-world government. Biden is incompetent and he just said he intends to run for a second term in 2024. Zelensky, who says whatever the Biden Administration writes on his teleprompter, that he will now only negotiate with Russia after they overthrow Putin. The theory that overthrowing dictators in the Middle East and the people will cheer us and celebrate with some ticker-tape parade has been the delusion of warmongers. They are once again doing the same thing in Russia, This time, the hardlines are not going to be as timid as Putin. My sources have NEVER been wrong!
North Korea has fired an unidentified ballistic missile over Japan demonstrating it could destroy Japan without repercussions. An escalation not seen in years prompted Tokyo to evacuate some residents as sirens blare for an airraid in the northern prefectures of Hokkaido and Aomori on Tuesday morning. Our models are showing January is a serious target in so many markets. This US attack on the Nord Stream is trying to completely undermine the economy of Russia to defeat it once and for all and the Zelensky change in demand for the overthrow of Russia is all counting on the US destroying its economy to force the people to do their work for them.
Many people have written in from around the world asking why none of this ever took place under Trump. The difference was that Trump was a businessman and he understood that only a vibrant economy will produce world peace as was the case under Rome. Onve all the provinces enjoyed free trade and the people prospered by being part of the Roman Empire which was a common marketplace, that produced the Pax Romana. The idiots we now have in power think that world peace is only accomplished by force of arms. This is a policy that is doomed and in the process, in every war, the civilian death toll is typically 10 times that of the soldiers on the battle field. Just one nuke hitting Philadelphia takes out New York City and Washington, DC.
Centinel2012 