Politicians just do not get it. They have convinced themselves that they can tax whatever they desire and people have no choice but to pay. Missing in their analysis are two influences (1) people just stop earning income for it reaches a point it is not worth working anymore, and (2) you simply pick-up and leave. Modi and his assault on the Indian economy has created a massive exodus of the upper class. India is also witnessing a massive migration of its rich headed mostly to the USA. They are number two on this net migration outward whereas China is the number one place the rich have been leaving. The latest statistics show that some 7,000 high net worth individuals left India which was a 16% increase over 2016 figures. France also saw net migrations outward when they went crazy raising taxes.

The same part of this trend has been a serious violation of human rights. If everyone is supposed to be equal, then why is it if you earn more than the average it is perfectly fine to hunt you down and discriminate against you because of your intelligence. If it is wrong to discriminate against someone who is mentally incapable of a normal life, then it should be equally wrong to prosecute people who are above average

COMMENT #1:

COMMENT #2: Marty; You did this post so nonchalant I doubt you realize that it when you forecast such off the chart events, you are really demonstrating to the world that you are a force to be reckoned with. No wonder the government wanted your computer. It is absolutely amazing! Trump, Brexit, Russia collapse, Ukraine, coldest winter in ages, right down to the 13-year peak in flu you called for this year. All these things prove so much more than just forecasting gold or the Dow.

Thank you for the education. You are changing the way many of us think.

LR

REPLY: True, I just rushed that together given all the emails asking about who would win. The 41 v 33 victory for the Eagles was precisely on point. They were on a 37-year cycle like the Triple Crown and the Patriots hit Pi. Both those cycles effectively predicted who would be in the Superbowl. The analysis of the quarterbacks helped with Brady peaking on his 17.2-year cycle (2 * 8.6). Look at the correlations and trends, it all just came together that the Eagles would win and I knew that was a long-shot given all the betting out there. No, I did not bet. I was busy working on something else.

There is so much more to analysis than people care to look at and I suppose you are correct, forecasting these sorts of things makes people look at cycles even more as an answer

Well, today was a stellar day no less. We have load-balancer and multiple servers running, 6 to be exact, yet the volume into Socrates today was really over the top. We will clearly have to double the size once again since the site was jammed today. We are also splitting the system into servers in different locations around the world to try to handle traffic like it was today because this is just the beginning.

We apologize and hope your delays were not too bad. We will expand the systems once again and this was well beyond anything we ever imagined

QUESTION: Your comment about the pension Ponzi scheme. I agree that it is something that needs to brought to the forefront. One of the reasons I left Illinois. But I can’t understand why you mention Oprah Winfrey and her qualifications when the current person in the office has none either, and he’s a caucasian

ANSWER: Trump is also not qualified to understand the financial markets as needed. Yes, he was a businessman and that is light-years ahead of an economist or lawyer. However, his business experience is limited to really real estate. He is a babe in the woods when it comes to capital flows, currencies, and global trends. Color, Creed, sex – none of that is a qualification for public office. PERIOD!

Nevertheless, you do not respect the fact that Trump has, in fact, changed the entire world. Your perspective is far too parochial. Trump’s Tax Reform has forced so many other countries to reverse course not the least of which is Germany. China has announced that foreign companies will pay ZERO tax on certain projects in China and even France has suddenly moved to lower taxes to be competitive with Trump. His Tweets aside, Trump has the correct agenda on taxes and he HAS forced the world to reverse course. No president has ever done that. The Democrats are plain stupid. They say Trump’s taxes will benefit the rich and not the poor. No Democrat is poor, they all roll in the money they get from the rich. To them, it is better to get ZERO and US corps leave the money overseas. Isn’t better to get something than nothing? The Democrats just cannot bring themselves to rethink the Marxist agenda of class warfare.

Trump is an improvement over ANY career politicians. But we need more for Trump will turn to Goldman Sachs and therein lies the danger.

And no I do not advise Trump!!!!!!

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I use to listen to the Goldbug analysts but they never change. Now the pitch is you have to protect your wealth from stock and bond market crash. They say that with the current equity bull market among the longest on record and the beginning of a bond bear market, once again they say you have to buy only gold. Being the skeptic that they have made me, is there any historical basis for what they are pitching now that both stocks and bonds will crash together? This seems to be just impossible. Can you shed some light?

PD

ANSWER: Your gut feeling is correct. No there is no such historical precedent for the stock and bond market to collapse and only gold rises. I honestly cannot explain where they come up with this stuff. The bond markets will decline as interest rates rise. The sole exception was the Sovereign Debt Crisis in 1931-1932. This is when the stock market did decline with the bond market. However, this was driven by a complete collapse in confidence in government bonds. The Fed raised rates in 1931 to try to support the dollar but as you can see, the bonds and stocks fell.

The dollar soared in 1931 and most of Europe defaulted as well as South America and Asia. This produced a mad rush into the dollar which distorted the Dow slightly at first. Then the rumors turned against the dollar and people began to expect that the dollar would be devalued.

There is no indication of what they are saying is even feasible. What will happen is the stocks will get hit at first with rising rates, but then they will turn and rally with rising rates as they did between 1927 to 1929.

Sorry, I can find no historical foundation to support such a forecast.

Well, Superbowl 52 is here and it promises to be the coldest one ever – no doubt caused by Global Warming. Since they began in 1967, we are setting a new record. My daughter told many people at the conference how I had just flown back from Europe and she was in the hospital just giving birth. I went to visit and on the TV was the talk of the Triple Crown that day. It was 37 years since anyone had won and I quickly did the math and said he would win. I left and drove home. On my way home my daughter called me and said OMG, you were right. He won the Triple Crown.

I just did the conference in Vancouver and Mike Campbel reminded me of the forecast that we had witnessed the peak in sports. He commented on how the attendance has taken a nosedive ever since. I had included sports in the model because it was a reflection of good and bad times. I had explained the sports cycle even during Ancient Rome. I warned that our model had shown that football had peaked back in 2016 even with the Economic Confidence Model turn back in 2015.75.

Now comes Superbowl 52 and many have asked what does Socrates have to say on this one. Here is the problem. The Triple Crown was a piece of cake because it is the event I was forecasting, not the horse. The event had not been won in 37 years. With the Superbowl, someone wins every year so no point in trying to forecast based on the event, other than this may be the highest ticket prices adjusted for inflation and they will decline from here. That said, this outcome requires looking at the actual teams (horse) rather than the event. I would have to then input the history of every team to solve this question. Sorry, no time for that one.

So what can be ascertained from what little history that exists for this event? The Eagles have not been there for 13 years and they lost against the same team. That is very interesting. Since they have only been to the Superbowl twice and lost both times, there really is not enough data to make a reliable forecast. That leaves us with looking to New England who has been there many times. The only real thing that can be forecast with confidence was that they were indeed cyclically due to return this year.

Now, is there anything we can extract from this very little data? The first time the Patriots appeared in the Superbowl was 1986 and they lost. Curiously, that is the Pi Cycle for 2018, which also reinforced the fact that they should have returned to the Superbowl this year.  The only time they ever won back-to-back Superbowls was 2004 and 2005, and indeed it was 2005 when the beat the Eagles. Interestingly, they won 2017 so we do have a repeat of a potential back-to-back win again against the same team no less.

Another very interesting factor is that the first time the Eagles made it to the Superbowl was 1981. That means, 2018 is also 37 years for them. Combined with the Pi Cycle from the Patriot’s first time appearing in a Superbowl, strongly infers that this is a truly important cyclical convergence.

Therefore, the only thing we can conclude from this analysis lacking a real solid database in to draw risk inferences. There is clearly a RISK that the Patriots will LOSE and the Eagles could actually win.

The street is favoring the Patriots by 4.5 points and some put at 29 to 16.

Obviously, just looking at the risk analysis, it seems to go against the accepted wisdom. Tom Brady, New England’s quarterback, entered the NFL in 2000 and he is one of only two players to win five Super Bowls (the other being defensive player Charles Haley) and the only player to win them all playing for one team. The Eagles even lost their main quarterback – Carson Wentz. The starting quarterback will be Nicholas Edward Foles who entered the NFL in 2012. The Eagle’s backup Quarterback is Nathan Sudfeld who entered the NFL only in 2016. From a cyclical perspective, Tom Brady may have peaked with his win last year which was 17 years (2 * 8.6) from the start of his career. Foles is on an up-cycle, but it is not ready for a peak just yet so he has a shot. Sudfeld is new to the game and has a wildcard cycle in his pocket for being in the game just 2 years.

Since this is not like trying to forecast an event like the Triple Crown since someone always wins, trying to put together some of the glimpses here lacking a decent database on the teams and the individuals, this definitely shows that the Eagles, at last, have their first real shot. The fact that they lost their main quarterback may also underscore the fact that New England may not play as hard as they would assuming this is a done deal.

Note this is also Superbowl 52 (51.6 years). We may indeed be looking at a continued decline from here on out and that does not speak well for the global economy.

In the future, we will look at building a database on individual teams, but that is just as a curiosity only after everything else is completed.

I have been asked my “opinion” with respect to the existence of a Collective unconscious in terms of the Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961), who disagreed with Freud and believed his personal development was influenced by factors he felt were unrelated to sexuality. Nevertheless, Jung’s work has led to many considering it to be a form of collective unconsciousness that exists whereby we are all connected somehow and respond in a herd manner.

I really have no opinion on Jung’s work. Nevertheless, there is clearly a sort of collective unconsciousness that comes into play creating panics. I tend to see it more as a herd of zebra. They are all clustered together and one on the fringe of the herd sees a lion approaching. He starts to run and the others all panic and run as well without knowing why nor did they see the lion. They run because everyone else is running. This is the same thing that dominates a panic in markets. At the end of the day, everyone sells because everyone else is selling. There is usually no solid reason that can be asserted as a fundamental