Tag Archives: Money laundering

Feb 17 2020

3rd Edition Manipulating the World Economic Goes to Print This Week


Armstrong Economics Blog/Products and Services

Re-Posted Feb 17, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

We have received many inquiries about the 3rd edition. We have added some text and an index. It is going to print this week. With respect to those asking if we can reserve a copy or those asking if they can buy a quantity at a discount to redistribute, we do not get involved in selling the books. It really is a big project having to handle shipping even internationally.

Amazon picks up the books directly from the printer. So they do not even come to us in the process. With respect to selling quantities, we would have to make an inquiry of the printer if they can even make independent shipments and if so what would be the minimum quantity.

All we know is that there were people who bought multiple copies from Amazon. A number of people purchased multiples to send to third parties based upon emails we received were usually friends or politicians. There was a group that sought to purchase one for every member of Congress but there were not enough left to accomplish that goal.

We will make inquires of the printer to see if they could make individual shipments. I would suspect it would be probably a minimum lot of 20 books. We will let everyone know.

With respect to autographed copies, I will always be glad to do that at conferences only

Feb 15 2020

Trump’s Clean Sweep!


SWAMP DRAINING IN PROGRESS

Rachel Maddow’s Russia Russia Russia! conspiracy claptrap is now behind her. Instead of owning up to her humiliation, she’s instead moved on to a fresh outrage. That is, Trump’s critical tweet about Roger Stone’s sentencing recommendation.

Maddow dramatically labeled the situation a ‘crisis.’ Eric Swalwell said Trump was injecting a ‘virus of corruption’ into the DOJ and suggested another impeachment process. Various Democrat ‘analysts’ (many are former Obama officials) on MSNBC and other fake news media continue to call Trump a ‘threat to our Democracy.’ Marxists see Democracy as being the road to socialism.

The Democrats are now breathlessly saying Trump is retaliating against witnesses. The Democrats attack Trump for the very things they have done. Obama and his fellow Democrats helped corrupt the DOJ, the IRS, and the security agencies and used them to harass and spy on their enemies. The Democrats made justice a partisan issue.

The problem is there are too many Obama holdovers who continue to pull levers of power. They were installed to help Hillary further Obama’s destruction of America, but now these insiders, leakers, and bureaucrats are determined to use their power to destroy President Trump.

The Russia collusion witch-hunt was a gigantic lie, but the Democrats learned nothing from their failure and humiliation. They continue to create fresh hysterics in order to discredit the president. Roger Stone’s case should be thrown out since he had nothing to do with the Russia conspiracy theory—now thoroughly disproven. Instead, Obama’s functionaries still in government want him to do serious time based on concocted and ridiculous ‘process crimes.’

We are glad Trump is sweeping out the Obama holdovers. They belong in the gutter.

—Ben Garriso

Feb 13 2020

Socrates & the Third Edition


Armstrong Economics Blog/Products and Services

Re-Posted Feb 13, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Martin, Thank you for not only the brilliance you share but as a retired firefighter I have to say that your courage in the face of powerful, life threatening government / criminal agents and agencies impresses me as much or more. I was wondering if we can pre order copies of your latest book (3rd edition) from you directly? Thanks again for sharing your amazing gifts.
Sincerely
W

REPLY: Thank you. They can push you so far that death is not something which you fear. Once they push you that far, they lose all their power. They cannot threaten you anymore. I have no doubt that there are dark forces in New York City who will seek their revenge. I paid my respect to the cell where Socrates died. I have no doubt that they will contrive some way to try to silence me or our computer system, ironically similar to how corrupt forces conspired against Socrates himself. When that day comes, a letter will be released naming the individuals who I still am doing battle with to this very day. They have not relented but conspired in every possible way to try to deter people from even subscribing to our computer system. There have been others who have aided them because they are simply greedy and hope to get something out of it for themselves. Those are people whose ethics are up for sale to the highest bidder.

Unfortunately, we do not handle the sales of the books. That is all done through Amazon. It is a huge job to send out books, collect sales taxes for various regions, and simply deal with the ever changing legal landscape. It is a nightmare on a global level. We will get the third edition up soon.

 

Feb 13 2020

Why Justice Can Never Exist for Long Under Centralized Governments


Armstrong Economics Blog/Rule of Law

Re-Posted Feb 13, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I really appreciate you are a student of law. I believe you should also write a book on the evolution of law for your understanding from the role of King Solomon on to our modern system deserves recognition. You seem to trace the fall of the rule of law and government is linked to the concentration of power into a centralized state. You have attributed the collapse of communism to that inability of a central power to adapt to the demanding conditions of the economic evolution of society. Would you care to comment on this development of centralized power and its critical role in the collapse of western society by 2032?

Thank you for your very enlightening research.

DH

ANSWER: The evolution of the rule of law is fascinating. The biblical account of King Solomon presiding over two women in dispute over a child goes over the heads of most people. Solomon’s duty as king was the center of that account. The king’s role was to stand as impartial ruler between disputes. If you killed someone in ancient Greece, the family was to be the prosecutor — not the state. The only crimes that warranted a state trial were those against the gods or directly against the state as the victim. Hence, Socrates offended the state by corrupting the youth and stating his position that there was really just one god.

Many have disagreed with Benjamin Jowett (1817 – 1893), who was a professor at the University of Oxford who translated the complete works of Plato into English. They argue that Jowett was a prominent theologian and he translated the Greek words θεός (theós), meaning “a god” or “a deity,” and δαίμων (daímōn), meaning “divine being,” as “God” with a capital G whenever possible. The criticism of Jowett’s translation making Plato and Socrates into Proto-Christians is itself based upon prejudice.

The Greek gods were NEVER represented as pagan gods insofar as they were the creators of humankind or the universe. To the Greeks, in the beginning, there was only chaos. Then out of the void appeared Erebus, the unknowable place where death dwells, and Night. All else was empty, silent, endless, darkness. Then somehow Love was born and brought a start of order. From Love came Light and Day. Once there was Light and Day, Gaea, the earth appeared. Clearly, the criticism that Jowett interpreted the Greek in view of Christianity is not correct.

Socrates did not believe in the Greek gods as creators of anything because he believed in “the Good” nature of humans. Some argue that you can believe in “the Good” while still believing in the gods. This centers on the misinterpretation of the very role of the Greek gods. They were viewed more as super-beings which we could call saints insofar as each had a specific role. Poseidon was god of the sea, earthquakes, storms, and horses and is considered one of the worst tempered, moody, and greedy Olympian gods. He was known to be vengeful when insulted.

Socrates was accused at his trial of teaching people not to worship the gods of the state. That was considered a crime against the gods, which made it a state offense. In the Apology of Socrates, Plato relays that Socrates said in the opening remarks of his speech to the jury that his accusers “… have scarcely spoken a word of truth at all.” The rest of the Apology and all Plato’s other dialogues seem to support this statement. They were against Socrates for the Oracle of Delphi had said he was the smartest man in all of Greece and made many appear to be fools. By the end of Socrates’s speech in the Apology, Plato makes it very clear that Socrates is, in fact, a very pious man who honors the gods of the state, holds the god Apollo in high esteem, and who trusts the word of the Delphic Oracle. The charges were clearly made up to be against the gods for there were no other means to go against Socrates.

We only arrive at the corruption of the law with Magna Carts in England. The king was fining people as a revenue source and here we find the demand for a trial by jury rather than by the king. In order to keep the revenue stream flowing, this is where we see the development of the violation of “disturbing the peace” of the king. Suddenly, two people get into an argument and fight. The king interjects himself as a victim for these two people disturbed his peace. From there on, the rule of law becomes perverted as a means of raising revenue for the king. If you kill someone, it is no longer the family who is the victim, it becomes the king. The penalty becomes death and that conveniently means all your assets are forfeited to the king and your family is thrown out onto the streets.

JudgeJeffreys

One of the most notorious English judges of all time was Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys of Wem, (1645–1689), who was the man that inspired the English Bill of Rights in 1689 and the insertion of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause that became the Eighth Amendment in the United States. He is best known for the “Bloody Assizes.” Jeffreys created judicial murder routinely and took pleasure in doing so. He issued harsh sentences to nearly all defendants and in a protest against taxation and abuse of government, he ordered about 300 to be executed, and between 800 and 900 he ordered to be transported to the West Indies as convict laborers. On September 18-19th, 1685, Jeffreys alone sentenced 144 people to death earning him the notorious nickname “the hanging judge.”

Charles Hibbert in his work, the Roots of Evil, quotes from one of the court transcripts, on Christmas Day no less, when Jeffreys ordered:

“Hangman, I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady. Scourge her soundly, man; scourge her till her blood runs down! It is Christmas, a cold time for madam to strip. See that you warm her shoulders thoroughly.”

  Roots of Evil. 1963 Ed p29

The British legal system was so corrupt that the slightest offense, even stealing an apple, resulted in the arrest and being sold into indentured servitude, all to profit the government. As Hibbert reported the sentence imposed read:

“Because you have committed this offence, the sentence of the court is that you shall no longer be burdened with the support of your wife and family. You shall be immediately removed from a very bad climate and a country overburdened with people to one of the finest regions of the earth where demand for human labour is every hour increasing and where it is highly probable you may ultimately regain your character and improve your future.” (Roots of Evil, p145)

Ever since the rule of law has been so perverted that it has devolved into simply legal and political persecution. Whenever you allow the political state to move into a centralized power, that is when justice merely becomes the will of the government, regardless of the form of government. Socrates believed in “the Good” of the people and he paid with his life for that mistake. Plato recorded a debate between Socrates and Thrasymachus. It was Thrasymachus who argued correctly that it did not matter the form of government. Once you allow a government to become centralized and thus powerful, justice ceases to exist.

Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire wrote of the Roman Emperor Commodus and the collapse in the rule of law:

“Each distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse”

(Book 1, Chapter 4).

Hence the saying: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely!”

The rule of law has collapsed in Western society. They say God created the 10 Commandments, which we have translated into a billion laws. The greater the regulation, the greater the injustice. The very purpose of civilization ceases to exist because it merely becomes a contest between two philosophies with the left always seeking to suppress the right who simply wants to be free. This is ultimately why all governments are buried in a common grave dug by history.

Categories: Rule of Law
Feb 12 2020

Jussie Smollett Indicted by Chicago Special Prosecutor Over Faked Hate Crime….


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on February 11, 2020 by 

Breaking reporting out of Chicago indicates a special prosecutor in Chicago has indicted hate hoax actor Jussie Smollett.

The construct of the hate crime itself appeared to be connected to a DC scheme to advance the presidential ambitions of Kamala Harris who launched her bid for office simultaneously with the racially driven hoax.

CHICAGO – Former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was indicted Tuesday in Chicago by special prosecutor Dan Webb, stemming from the alleged racist and anti-gay attack on him that occurred in January of 2019, a source confirms to FOX 32 News.

He is due in court February 24.

Smollett told Chicago police last year that two men physically attacked him and yelled racial and homophobic slurs. But prosecutors insist Smollett faked the racist, anti-gay attack on himself in the hopes that the attention would advance his acting ca

Feb 11 2020

Chinese Tourism Has Come to a Halt


Armstrong Economics Blog/China

Re-Posted Feb 11, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

Anyone who has been traveling these past few years will notice the changes in tourism. Back in the ’90s, the number one tourist group was clearly Japanese. As their economy imploded thanks to government mismanagement, the next group was the Russians. When I was in Venice a year ago, there are a couple of performances that alter back and forth in St Mark’s square at night. They were still playing Russian songs when the only tourists there were Americans and Chinese. When I asked them why they were still playing Russian songs, he responded he would play New York, New York. I replied you don’t go to Venice to eat McDonalds.

The Chinese tourists outnumber Americans at least 2 to 1. There were no Japanese and I never saw any Russians there either. The #1 tourists around the world are always from the hottest economy. So with the coronavirus, Chinese tourism has come to a complete halt. This will have a negative impact on the economies dependent upon tourism.

 

Feb 11 2020

Do Lower Interest Rates Really Produce Bull Markets in Stocks?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Economics

Re-Posted Feb 11, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Hi Marty,

Yes, the political situation in our country is out of control and you are right, there is no turning back.

But this truly pales in comparison to what is happening in the financial markets today. It looks to me like the Fed has aided and abetted this ridiculous surge in stock prices. The phase we are in started back in early 2016 when we were plumbing new lows. The blinked. Then as they tried to raise rates in 2018, the marked puked and once again, they blinked. Less than a year later we have the REPO Crisis which you have discussed many times. At your WEC in Orlando, you stated one of the problems today is “the paradox of solution”, which I found brilliant…every solution to a crisis produces an even worse result later. Then you mentioned this: That politicians in office today have even less experience, that those in the know are leaving letting those in charge impose solutions that don’t work.

Marty, all of this is adding up to those in charge of debt and rates, the Fed, now being incapable of dealing with reality. To me, it’s worse than politics. The markets seem to be telegraphing an inflation ahead and a collapse in debt markets at some point. But you have always used the 1920’s as a sort of analogue to our times, claiming at some point the Fed will be forced to raise rates, realizing too late they have goosed markets and are now losing control. I just don’t see it. Nothing in the current makeup of the Fed indicates they understand the issues. Not them, not anyone in government will let weak companies fail, banks even less. There is no will in this country anymore. No one can take the pain. The Fed seems like they want to bail out everyone.

Your thoughts?
M

ANSWER: I understand that the traditional view states that cheap money means people will borrow to buy stocks. That entire theory is very naive. However, when we actually look at the data, that market myth evaporates in sunlight. We have been making lower highs in broker loans, which shows what I have been saying all along — this is the MOST Hated Bull Market in History! We are nowhere close to the highs of 2007.

 

The market has risen NOT because of cheap rates but on a capital flight from just about everywhere into the US dollar. The Fed has been baffled because they initially were looking at that market myth. But they see there is no validity to that theory. They are focused on the problem that negative interest rates in Europe and Japan have created. The slightest uptick will be devastating to those economies, not to mention the losses on the outstanding long-term bonds which negative yields.

It is by no means creating future inflation. What it is creating is a future collapse in confidence with respect to the governments actually being in charge of the economy. This is why I wrote that book, “Manipulating the World Economy.” This is all coming to an end. We are looking at, not inflation, but a massive shift in investment strategy from public to private. The Fed cannot raise interest rates to prevent a rally without undermining the sovereign debt globally. The game has changed. The politicians will brow-beat the Fed because the Democrats are really Marxists and will scream at the Fed because their low rates are benefiting the rich. They are beyond brain-dead. The politicians are incapable of understanding the problem and they have become so confrontational that we can guarantee there will be no understanding reached because they are absorbed by this class warfare

Feb 11 2020

“Economics” – What Does the Term Imply?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Economics

Re-Posted Feb 11, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong, I am following your blog while living in the Netherlands and first of all I would like to express my deep admiration for the work you have been doing for so many years. And yet…..I have my doubts. Your company name involves the term “economics”. And when I read your blogs you seem to favor “economics” and “economic growth” above anything else. I know this is a worldly view. But could it be – with all the changes that are taking place – that let’s say twenty years from now we have reorganized ourselves and that we value other things in life? Is there any data that supports this view?

J

ANSWER: The actual term “economics,” I believe, was plagiarized by Adam Smith’s teacher Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), who translated a book by the Greek Philosopher Xenophon (c. 430–354 BC) who wrote Oikonomikos around 400 BC. This work was basically how to manage your estate for dummies. Hutcheson called his Book III “The Principles of Oeconomics and Politics” giving birth to the word “economics.” The word’s Greek “Oikonomikos” stems from the compounded form of “oikos”(ancient Greek: οἶκος, plural: οἶκοι, English prefix: Eco) which was the equivalent of a household, house, or family, combined with “nomikos” which means the law or to regulate/manage. Therefore, Oikonomikos meant to regulate/manage the household or villa estate in those days. Francis Hutcheson, the teacher of Adam Smith, copied Oikonomikos virtually chapter by chapter which included how to manage your wife.

It was also Xenophon who proposed the first public corporation for a bank that would be formed by shares subscribed to by all the Athenian people. Commerce was seen as more important than even agriculture. Xenophon proposed a public bank that would lend at interest to expand the economy. He proposed that the profits would be used to pay for public works. During the reign of Augustus (27 BC-14 AD) in Rome, there was such a public loan bank, but not subscribed to by individual members of society. This public bank provided loans to the poor without interest and it was funded by the confiscation of property from those alleged to be criminals, which included political dissents as well. Collateral was required at twice the amount being borrowed. These types of public banks aided the purchases of land.

Even the committee in Congress known as the Ways & Means in the House of Representatives is the tax-writing committee. Members of the Ways and Means Committee are not allowed to serve on any other House Committee unless granted a waiver. The House Ways & Means Committee has jurisdiction over all taxation, tariffs, and other revenue-raising measures, as well as a number of other programs including Social Security, unemployment benefits, Medicare, the enforcement of child support laws, temporary assistance for needy families, and foster care and adoption programs. This is the committee that is named after the chapter of Xenophon’ work.

Therefore, against this backdrop, the term “economics” does not imply any specific type of system. You have everything from Smith, Ricardo, Marx to Keynes all lumped together under this same category. The economy will always change and evolve over time. So I am using it in this context. Xenophon’s world was all about how to manage an agrarian estate. So things will change with time, technology, and population.

The principle “economic growth” implies also population growth. The economy must grow to accommodate population growth. That is why communism fell because they arrested economic growth by divorcing it from population growth and then it must collapse. It is not something that is exclusive to “materialism” but reflects civilization and people coming together. Under feudalism, Rome collapsed into simple feudal states, and although they minted some coins, they are rarely discovered more than 30 miles from their origin. That is strong evidence that the economy collapsed and there was no interaction between these small states. Thus, you had low economic output or growth.

Even in Star Trek, money was eliminated and people simply used electronic credits – cryptocurrency. That is perfectly reasonable for the long-term future. The economy simply reflects the exchange of money (whatever form it shall take) for labor of the average person. The “rich” get richer from INVESTMENT which creates the economic growth vital to expand and accommodate the expansion of the population. It does not advocate any particular system. It applied under Communism to republics and everything in between.