Tag Archives: Population control

Jan 21 2018

RULE #1 – Never Marry the Trade


Armstrong Economics Blog/Training Tools

Re-Posted Jan 21, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; The goldbugs hate you for calling the top and a bear market. To my surprise, I searched Money Week here in London and it came up with an article in 2008 confirming you also called the temporary high in 2008 before the slingshot up into 2011 and were off 4 days on a forecast made 10 years before. They wrote:

“I was asked to follow up on last week’s piece on the subject of the Martin Armstrong March 22nd turn date. It’s too early to say for sure, but it does look like we are enjoying the early stages of a bear market rally with the financials having bottomed on March 17-18, since when we’ve seen about a 10% move up. If this pans out, he was four days out. Given he made the prediction in 1999 or before, I think we can forgive him that. But I’ll keep you updated.”

Just wanted to say, they love you when you agree with them and hate them when you do not. Seems to be fair-weather friends.

REPLY: Well when you let your bias and prejudice dictate your expectations, you are bound to lose. But keep in mind, those that tout gold as pretending analysts are either selling gold or are trying to sell shares in some gold mine. That is a conflict of interest that blinds them intentionally or unwittingly. I do not care if any market goes up or down. The object is to trade it regardless of the direction. I am an old trader. The RULE #1 is never marry the trade. You have to be willing to buy as well as sell.

 

I am writing the gold report now. It will be out soon.

Jan 21 2018

Dollar Manipulation by China & Japan?


Armstrong Economics Blog/USD $

Re-Posted Jan 21, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

The two largest foreign holders of the US debt, China and Japan, reduced their holdings of US government bonds in November compared to October. While many are trying to say see, they are dumping US bonds, China reduced its holdings by 1% or $ 12.6 billion to $ 1,176.6 trillion and Japan reduced its positions by $10 billion to $ 1,084 trillion. I seriously doubt that the foreign US bondholders slightly reducing their holdings in November by 0.1% to $ 6,343 trillion qualifies as “dumping” dollar debt. What is taking place is politically attempting to help lower the dollar to ease trade friction with Trump.

The advice I use to provide to Japan to help reduce the trade friction was to buy gold in New York and sell it in London. The trade numbers could care less about the product actually being exported. It will reduce the trade deficit and make it appear that the US exports are rising. It is just an accounting ploy. Likewise, the booming exports of China were being manipulated by Chinese companies borrowing dollars in Hong Kong and then bringing that money into China and collecting 3 times that cost in interest. Headlines are always made on the numbers without understanding the accounting.

To ease trade friction, China and Japan will try to help push the dollar down to appease Trump. This time, their exports to the USA will decline in real terms between 2018 and 2020 as the world does move more into a recessionary phase marked by tighter consumer spending.

Jan 20 2018

Did Rights Decline as Governments Grew in Size?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics

Re-Posted Jan 20, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Palace of the Doge Venice

QUESTION: In your study of history, would you agree with this quote? “In all of history, no government became more honest, less corrupt, or respected its citizen’s rights more as it grew in size.

 ANSWER: I would have to agree. The only exception to that of Genoa, but it was based upon a revolving head of state (Doge) for a period of one year. Therefore, the lack of career politicians created a model state. In the case of Venice, the Doge was appointed for life. Upon his death, all his assets were frozen and then an investigation began to review all his dealings. No heir received anything until the slate was clean. As long as a government grows in size, it does so only at the expense of the people.
Jan 19 2018

The Humanitarian Hoax of Common Core: Killing America With Kindness – hoax 19


by Linda Goudsmit
January 14, 2018

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Obama, the humanitarian huckster-in-chief, weakened the United States for eight years presenting his crippling Common Core advocacy as altruistic when in fact it was designed for destruction. His legacy, the Leftist Democrat Party with its “Resistance” movement, is the party of the Humanitarian Hoax attempting to destroy the capitalist infrastructure of American democracy and replace it with socialism.

Common Core is a deliberate information war targeting American children. It is a deceitful campaign to undermine established American Judeo-Christian cultural norms celebrating patriotism, the meritocracy, and American sovereignty. The Leftist/Islamist axis is promoting collectivism in preparation for one-world government. This is how it works.

Serious educational reform enacted by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 was designed to provide high standards and measurable goals to improve individual outcomes in education. Federal funding was correlated to test performance. Rather than improving education the net effect of NCLB was education reformatted to teach to the tests. Education critic Alfie Kohn argued that the “NCLB law is ‘unredeemable’ and should be scrapped – its main effect has been to sentence poor children to an endless regimen of test-preparation drills.” There were loud calls for reform.

Enter Common Core State Standards (CCSS) launched under Obama in 2009 deceptively marketed by a propaganda campaign emphasizing the positive benefits of national standards and uniformity in curriculum guidelines with measurable effectiveness for American public education K-12. Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are mistakenly understood to be a derivative of the No Child Left Behind Act – they aren’t.

Obama’s 2009 Race To The Top program was introduced as a competitive grant program that awarded points to states for satisfying performance-based evaluations of teachers and principals based on measures of educator effectiveness. Sound familiar? It should because measurable effectiveness = student test scores. Even though Race to the Top did not mandate adoption of Common Core, to receive federal stimulus money states had to “commit” to adopting Common Core standards. Forty-two states now operate public and private education under the Common Core program.

So, what makes Common Core a humanitarian hoax? Let’s review.

Common Core Standards Mission Statement:

“The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy. . . These Standards do not dictate curriculum or teach methods.”

Sounds great. The problem is the deceptive language referring to the “real world” the “global economy” and the misleading statement that the Standards do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. This is how it works.

Common Core State Standards are not a derivative of America’s No Child Left Behind. Common Core State Standards are a derivative of the United Nation’s Global Education First initiative (GEFI). The 3 Priorities of GEFI are:

Priority 1: Put Every Child in School

Priority 2: Improve the Quality of Learning

Priority 3: Foster Global Citizenship

It is Priority #3 that is most problematic and the basis for the humanitarian hoax of Common Core.

Obama’s Common Core is not teaching American children about the world and how to be effective and competitive in a global marketplace. Obama’s deceitful Common Core initiative is propagandizing American children toward collectivism, globalism, and one-world government with its anti-American, anti-Judeo-Christian, pro-Islamic bias. American public/private education no longer advocates American patriotism, the meritocracy, American exceptionalism, or American sovereignty. America is no longer in control of American education. This is how it happened.

Obama’s infamous Cairo speech launched an eight-year initiative to Connect All Schools that was fraudulently presented as a program to help different people who believe different things be able to communicate and understand one another.

Bethany Blankley’s stunning 4/2015 article exposes Obama’s Common Core as “originating from the One World Education concept, a global goal orchestrated by the Connect All Schools program to globalize instruction. Its origin is funded by the Qatar Foundation International (QFI). The director of QFI’s Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics is Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna.”

World Net Daily WND reported that in 2011 Qatar Foundation International “partnered with the Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to facilitate matchmaking between classrooms in the U.S. and international schools through. . . the ‘Connect All Schools’ project.” QFI proudly states on its website that the initiative was founded in response to Mr. Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech with the Muslim Brotherhood prominently seated in the front row.

The conspiracy of the Leftist/Islamist axis to re-educate American children away from America-first patriotism toward global governance and Islam is well underway and well funded.

Qatari Foundation International unapologetically states its mission of advancing global citizenship through educational curricula on its Q&A page:

Why is your global presence limited to a select few countries?

While QFI’s mission is dedicated to connecting cultures and advancing global citizenship through education, our current focus is K-12 public and charter schools in the United States, Canada, and Brazil. To find out if a school near you is a QFI partner, see our map to find other resources that may help your child learn Arabic, visit Al Masdar.

Most parents have no idea what their children are learning in school unless their child asks for help with homework or relates an experience at school. Parents in any of the 42 states that have adopted Common Core State Standards need to start reading their children’s textbooks immediately. It is up to parents to decide if they support American sovereignty and fair trade in the global marketplace or if they support global citizenship and a globalized curriculum promoting one-world government. It is a matter of informed consent.

This brings us to the United Nations Agenda 21 initiated in 1992 and described in a lengthy report titled United Nations Sustainable Development. The entire document can be summarized in one sentence:

The United Nations Agenda 21 is a plan for a New World Order that internationalizes the entire world into a global society under its own UN global governance for our own good of course. Its lofty Preamble reads like the lyrics of John Lennon’s song “Imagine.” In the old days power grabbers for world domination were not so soft spoken. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini did not sing lullabies of peace – but this is the 21st century and requires a different approach. We have “Imagine” and the updated 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Culture War is an insidious information war being waged on America through the political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism embodied in the informational materials supplied by the pro-globalism enemies of national sovereignty at the UN. Stealth jihad is quietly being fought in classrooms with the educational propaganda of the World Core Curriculum – not with bullets or airplanes.

In 1989 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awarded its prize for peace education to the father of global education and creator of the World Core Curriculum (WCC) Robert Muller. He accepted his award saying, “I dream that UNESCO will study and recommend by the year 2000 a world core curriculum for adoption by all nations.”

Why is a world core curriculum desirable? Most people understand the mission of the United Nations to be promotion of mutual respect and understanding between sovereign nations with differing cultures. Were we mistaken or mislead? Was the goal of the UN always universal citizenship? Muller says, “In the final analysis… the main function of education is to make children happy, fulfilled, and universal human beings.” Universal human beings?? Really?

In November, 2010 Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed UNESCO praising universal education without ever mentioning educational content. Educating the world’s children is a laudable goal. Putting every child in school and improving the quality of learning is an altruistic undertaking. The problem is that most people naively assume universal education advances literacy and do not realize it is a propaganda tool designed to advance global governance. It is a humanitarian hoax.

In a world of technology where hard copy books are increasingly being replaced with software and lessons taught on computers it is incredibly simple to alter, censor, and manipulate original texts. Having the world’s children literate and able to read about the world to better understand other cultures and live together in peace is not the same thing as having the children of the world literate to be propagandized by manipulated curriculum content.

There are 193 member states in the United Nations and only 86 are full-fledged democracies. The G77 has 134 members (69% of member states) and functions to advance the economic well-being of the Third World. It should surprise no one that UN educational objectives are in conflict with traditional American educational objectives.

Curriculum content for American educational materials must be developed by Americans for Americans with an unapologetic America-first foundation. Parents endorsing the Common Core State Standards are unwittingly endorsing the pro-Muslim anti-American globalized educational products designed by British publishing giant Pearson Education. Pearson Education supplies educational materials to Connect All Schools.

When the UK froze Muammar Gaddafi’s assets in 2011 The Sovereign Fund of Libya had a 3.27% stake in Pearson. Libya was the second largest shareholder in Pearson Education. CAIR, designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates, was also an investor. The anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-Muslim Pearson educational products must not be allowed to propagandize American students.

Words matter. It is essential that Americans understand what one-world government global citizenship means in the Arab world. To Qatar and the Islamic world it means the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate that rules the world under religious Islamic sharia law. It is equally important for Americans to understand what one-world government means to the secular globalist elite.

Secular one-world government was described in chilling detail 65 years ago by English aristocrat Lord Bertrand Russell in his alarming book, The Impact of Science on Society. Neither the secular nor the religious version of one-world government is the fulfillment of John Lennon’s iconic song “Imagine.” Both are regressive returns to feudal infrastructures consisting of the few ruling masters, the mass of ruled slaves, and an army of soldiers to enforce the pyramid. Both see the United Nations as the instrument for imposition and management of their own version of global governance.

If American parents do not become actively involved in discovering what their children are learning in school they will be unable to oppose the radical education initiative currently transforming the children of the world into “green” or “global citizens” prepared for the New World Order. The humanitarian hoax of Common Core will successfully propagandize American children to reject American citizenship and become citizens of a world dictated and governed by the United Nations. Ignorance is not bliss and willful blindness is not a position of strength – it is submission.

Jan 19 2018

Politically Correct Trading – A Whole New Challenge


Armstrong Economics Blog/Training Tools

Re-Posted Jan 19, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Martin.. I have been trading /investing for over 20 plus years.

How can one be in the markets and survive if the “biggest  Safest  Banks”  in Canada are failing even today to not only fill a trade or give you a reliable quote but even to even give you an accurate account balance!

ANSWER: This is a growing problem being caused by (1) excessive regulation and (2) the juniorization of staff. Institutions have been firing people with experience to reduce cost replacing them with entry people. This is becoming widespread throughout Europe and sets the stage for a very dangerous situation. Covertly, there is an assumption that those with experience should be removed and juniors put in place and they will not fear the crash as experienced traders and that will help eliminate short positions against the government.

On top of these issues, we then have the problem of aggressive governments trying to defend themselves forcing even institutional trading to be politically correct. If the market goes down, the regulators will begin hauling in traders for interrogation. This is an exceptionally high risk in Europe.

Politically Correct Trading

Individual non-Americans can open accounts in the USA. Americans are turned away overseas. So for the individual, you do have to be concerned especially about dealing in Europe. The more any government interferes with the free markets, the greater the risk that your funds will be frozen and you will not be able to trade. It just may come down to having once again to trade “politically correct” to avoid being targeted.

I am currently working on coding my synthetic correlation model I use to use in the Middle East back in the 1980s. The problem then was rather different. We were advising one Islamic Bank where the board made the decision to open in Turkey. However, the currency was in a perpetual decline. This is the chart from the materials handed out for the 1985 World Economic Conference. The problem back then was the lack of any market to hedge the Turkish Lira. We had to create a synthetic model correlation cyclically to tackle the hedging project we were given. That was one of the most interesting projects of my career – hedging something that did not trade.

We are bringing this model back into play because there are rising concerns among our European clients that if they hedge against the decline of the Euro and government bonds in the EU when the collapse unfolds, they will be targeted for undermining the government. The way to avoid this and be “politically correct” traders, is to once again create synthetics correlated with time.

With the hostility in Europe eliminating the ability to short government bonds in a pathetic attempt to prevent the collapse of the EU bond market, it is paramount that we resurrect our synthetic models in order to be “politically correct” in trading what will no doubt turn into a witch-hunt once again.

I wrote in the Greatest Bull Market in History in the 1930 chapter, that the witch-hunts began subtly. One of the first targets was a young trader named John Pope.

One such early victim was a young broker named John W. Pope who was only 32 at the time. He reportedly had been a soft-spoken chap, quite independent, and a student of values. He firmly believed that stocks always sought their values up or down. In 1930, John was accused of forcing Fox Films down, as it was alleged that if he had not been short the stock would not have plummeted as far down. The New York Stock Exchange summoned the young fellow before their board of governors. They interrogated him in a way that Time magazine called a “harrowing trial by statistics.”[1] John W. Pope pulled out his charts and his studies of Fox Films and demonstrated that the stock had been seriously overvalued in comparison to historical measurements. The board found no malicious reports of rumors started by Pope, and his documentation as to why Fox Films had been overvalued won the day. He was completely exonerated, but this would be a dangerous trend that eventually led to the witch hunts of the 1930s.

[1] “Business: Trial by Statistics” Time (New York, NY) Dec. 22, 1930.

The founder of that company, William Fox, was summoned to the US Senate. They failed to show he was short against his own company. Never satisfied that government could ever be wrong, they then prosecuted Fox for tax evasion on a single transaction out of thousands. I explained in the Greatest Bull Market in History:

The bear-hunt continued … Gray [Prosecutor] summoned William Fox, once the proud owner of Fox Films. William Fox, upon his arrival in Washington, became ill. Fox’s doctor claimed he had an attack and stated that he believed Fox had diabetes.  But Gray, depraved, perverse and suspicious a person as he was, held true to his character. Gray simply wouldn’t believe him. Gray hired a physician to check Mr. Fox’s condition with orders to report directly to Mr. Gray. When that doctor also reported that William Fox was seriously ill, Gray still refused to believe it and then hired a third doctor ordering him to check the condition of this Mr. Fox. All three doctors agreed that Fox was very ill.

Gray still scoffed at the situation and proceeded with his case against Fox without his being present to raise his defense. Gray charged Fox had “wrecked” his former companies through stock market activity. He revealed countless details of his stock transactions right down to how much his daughter had owned. But all the evidence which Gray had compiled did not show Fox as a bear-raider but as a dead and battered bull. Gray was still not satisfied. Gray uncovered what he called a fraud. Gray accused Fox on one transaction out of several thousands of willful fraud again while Fox was still confined to his bed. Fox had dealt in the name of his company as well as in his personal name from time to time. Gray charged that on one transaction Fox had deducted a loss incurred in the market which he claimed the company had originally paid for.

The Committee naturally flaunted this in the face of the press and then announced that they were turning Mr. Fox over to the IRS. Mr. Gray took much pleasure in announcing publicly that “the recovery of evaded income tax will offset the expense (of the proceedings) 100 times,” as they voted to continue the investigation despite having failed to turn up the illustrious bear who had supposedly destroyed the market and perpetrated the Depression upon the entire world.

Jan 19 2018

Cryptocurrency & the Race for Money


Armstrong Economics Blog/Cryptocurrency

Posted Jan 19, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: You have talked about bitcoin and are rightly skeptical as we all should be, yet creative destruction rolls on. What insights do you have to share about the Dapps and Ethereum? In reading your blog for several years now you have truly opened many peoples minds. Thank you for your insight!

KS

ANSWER: If you want to trade Bitcoin, use the futures. The futures market will bring stability to the price and open the door for hedging what is otherwise at times an illiquid market. Understand one thing. This is all part of the shift from Public to Private. Cryptocurrencies are marketed as some magic money that will be free of the fiat world of government. That is total nonsense for governments will by no means allow that to happen. Nevertheless,  this is part of the same anti-government movement that brought Trump to the White House, BREXIT, Catalonia uprising, Ukraine revolution and so on. This is the rise in the stock market and the shift of capital from government bonds to equities. This will all end in a monetary crisis event perhaps as soon as 2021.

Keep in mind that Coinbase had to give up everyone’s name to the IRS and they sent out notices warning people they better claim their profits because the IRS will be looking to audit anyone trying to hide their gains from taxes. The technology of Bitcoin is inferior to other currencies. I believe in the end, we are moving toward electronic money but the governments will control it. This idea that somehow it is safer because it is outside the central banks is really nonsense. So is gold, commodities, real estate, and shares. There is a huge void with respect to counterparty risk in the cryptocurrency world and the fees to use this stuff are outrageous. I do not see this as a viable situation moving forward in time. It also requires a power grid. Take that out and you have nothing. The good old tangible things will always survive. If society collapsed, electronic money in all forms may not survive. Also remember that today only about 4% of all transactions take place in paper money. We already live in an electronic monetary system.

Jan 19 2018

The Hunt for Taxes Brings Down Governments Every Time


Armstrong Economics Blog/The Hunt for Taxes

Re-Posted Jan 19, 2018 by Martin Armstrong


COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; I live in Germany. I wanted to send my father €200 for Christmas. I had to prove where the money came from. It does seem as if there is a major gap between those trading the euro for big banks and the people. I left Romania for freedom. Everything that I fled from has seemed to follow me to the West. Those who cheer the rise of the euro seem oblivious to the reality on the street. We have no real government in place here since nobody won a majority. The clash between freedom and oppression is playing out in silence. I fear this will just explode all of a sudden as it did behind the Iron Curtain.

PB

REPLY: You are not alone. I have several Russian, Hungarian, and Ukrainian friends who all express the same concerns. The fact that you fled to freedom and then see the very aspects of government that made you flee in the first place have taken hold in the West is all part of the cycle. This is simply how Empires, Nations, and Citystates collapse. They are always the same – a constant search for more power to retain their control. Then it all snaps. That comes typically when a government can no longer feed its own workforce to keep the people in check.

Revolt of the Heraclii 608-610 AD of Carthage

Emperor Phocas (602-610) persecuted the Aristocrats (rich) seeking taxation causing capital to go into hiding and the VELOCITY of money to decline. His reign did more than any other to begin the process of a significant decline of the Byzantine Empire. His tyrannical treatment of wealth led to a rebellion that began in North Africa by the exarch of Carthage, Heraclius in 608AD, who had been a leading and respected general under the previous emperor Maurice Tiberius (582–602).

This tax rebellion that began in Carthage, spread throughout the provinces. The funds were thereby raised to put together a considerable effort under Heraclius and his son. This major effort gathered a massive fleet that sailed toward the capital Constantinople. When they reached Constantinople, the gates were opened and Phocas was handed over. He was promptly executed being abandoned, and his statue he had constructed in the Hippodrome was now publicly burned. The young Heraclius was crowned by the Patriarch and began a new dynasty as Heraclius (610-641AD). His father did NOT assume the role of co-emperor showing his motives were to simply save his nation.

What most people do not know about history is the fall of government typically comes from tax rebellions. Michael IV the Paplagonian (1034-1041AD) raised taxes excessively setting in motion the collapse in VELOCITY of money once again as people hoarded their wealth creating the essential element to the destruction of an economy as you see in Europe today. Once capital begins to hoard and hide from the government tax collectors, the beginning of the end appears. In the case of Byzantium, this was set in motion by a tax hike and aggressive tax collection. The Slav population of the Balkans rebelled against the taxation. Michael IV himself was present to put down the tax rebellion oppressing the people and pillaging what they had.

The heavy taxation had also contributed to the demise of the small landowner. Thus, the higher the tax rates, the less production took place. The Empire had begun a vicious downward economic spiral that was not understood. Isaac I, Comnenus (1057-1059) embarked on a mission to strengthen the Byzantine Empire. His fatal mistake was one of finances. The treasury was depleted. The gold coinage had been debased, and the high taxation did nothing but send the economy into a downward spiral. Unable to tax the people, they began to run out of precious metal. Isaac I now did what so many other rulers had done before him; i.e. Napoleon, Henry VIII, and all Communists. He confiscated Church property with no other option. The Patriarch protested, and Isaac had him arrested and put on trial on trumped up charges of heresy. The Patriarch died before judgment or trial, yet the people were so outraged, Isaac I was forced to abdicate and go to a monastery.

What people do not credit is the Muslim conquest of Byzantium with the fact that they had the support of most Jews and many Christians. Why? The Muslim government eliminated the abusive taxation of the Byzantine Empire that was plagued with tax rebellions all the time. The Jewish revolt against Heraclius was part of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628. This was the final attempt by Jews to gain autonomy in the Land of Israel prior to modern times.

Jan 18 2018

Did the Migration into Europe Bring New Diseases?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease

Re-Posted Jan 18, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

BlackDeath-10

The most devastating plagues in history have been created by migration. There were warnings in the form of rumors that told of a great plague in China and India which killed most of the populations there. The plague made its way to Europe when the Kipchak forces were besieging the Genoese trading post in the Crimea. The Kipchaks began to catapult plague-infested corpses over the walls and into the trading post. The disease spread quickly and the Genoese abandoned the outpost. They sailed back to Europe stopping in Sicily in 1347 taking the Black Death with them. Today, the invaders settled in Crimea and are known as the Crimean Tatars.

When Columbus built his first town on the nearby island of Hispaniola, where the native population numbered at least 60,000, by 1548, the native population fell victim to diseases brought by the Spanish. Only about  500 natives survived. They lacked any immunity to European pathogens carried by the Spanish. The natives died from plagues of smallpox, influenza, and other viruses.

The first written records of an outbreak of syphilis in Europe date back to 1494/1495 in Naples, Italy, during a French invasion. It was first called the “French disease”, and it was not until 1530 that the disease acquired its name. The origin of syphilis remains unknown and the subject of debate. Many attributed it to a disease brought back to Europe by the Spanish from the New World. Naples was at that time loyal to Spain so there were clearly contacts there. The French invaded Naples and may have simply been blamed for the disease that was brought to Naples by the Spanish. Nevertheless, syphilis infected even kings, such as the English King Henry VIII who most likely passed on his syphilis to all his children which killed his heir, King Edward VI, who almost certainly died young from inherited syphilis. Still, the disease did not wipe out the majority of the European population as was the case in the New World.

The worse case of disease creating a plague was that actually which infected the New World. That migration of Europeans to the New World resulted in wiping out 80% of the population and it remains the worse case in history beating the Black Death which took out about 50% of Europeans. It took only five years to kill as many as 15 million people in the New World. This was about 80% of the population by the epidemic of 1545 the locals named cocoliztli.

 

The politicians, who seem to have absolutely no common sense, have invited countless refugees without ever considering the dangers of importing new diseases. There have been cases of a new strain of Tuberculosis which is resistant to all drugs. This has been reported by the University of Zurich.

Tuberculosis wiped out many in the world. The common name for it was “consumption” which first appeared in the 14th century and was applied to describe any potentially fatal wasting disease that caused a slow death. The word meant a condition that “consumed” the body. Only with centuries of research did the disease first become known as “tuberculosis” by 1860. It then took until 1882 when a German physician Robert Koch identified the rod-shaped bacterium that caused the illness we see pictured above in the University of Zurich photo.

The mass migration of refugees into Europe poses far more risk than economic or rapes of women. Like most migrations, you always end up carrying diseases that populations are not accustomed to. Introducing this type of risk demonstrates that politicians are clueless and are not qualified to govern society because they make a decision for their personal career with total ignorance of the consequences.

Jan 18 2018

The Cycle of Disease – It’s Just our Time


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease

Re-Posted Jan 18, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Sir,

     It’s interesting, since your post on Madagascar and the pneumonic plague, I have Surveilled a site dealing with medical news once a week. What’s really interesting is the resurgence of older well-known entities such as cholera
      Zambia has been hard hit with over 2000 cases of cholera with close to 50 deaths. The university is closed as well as other institutions. It has migrated from the urban areas to the suburban areas. The armed forces have been called out to help. Tanzania has shut its borders with Zambia due to this. Kenya has had 4 kid cases of hospitalization.
Influenza strains are hitting geographic regions. The H3n2 is has hit Australia very hard and is currently hitting the UK. The US is also being infected. India has the H1N1 variant hitting them hard.

ProMED-mail post

The avian flu has led to the culling of birds in the Middle East particularly Egypt and Iran. Saudia Arabia just had 6 new cases. Russia and Swiss poultry also have cases.
China has Influenza B hitting them hard but cannot confirm type nor number of cases and comparison numbers.

When it rains…. it pours.

Keep up the good work

DK

REPLY: The influenza virus changes its genetic makeup every year and complies with guess what – cyclical analysis! This constantly changing virus presents a cyclical challenge to medical science, and consequently, this makes it impossible to create a single vaccine to prevent the disease for life. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitor each new strain of influenza virus as it appears. The gather data and then try to predict which may be the predominant virus in the following year’s flu season.  Scientists then use this data to develop a vaccine each year against the specific virus they predict will predominate. Sometimes they are correct, and sometimes they are off the mark.

The virus known as influenza is a master at evolving to elude the human immune response by mutating so quickly that it soon becomes unrecognizable. We are actually at war with this virus which is mutating to survive and beat us at our own game. There are actually several active flu strains in the world that run around. Each year, we try to evaluate which strains of flu virus are predominant in the United States and change the vaccine recipe as necessary according to this cycle in nature. The accuracy of the recipe determines how effective that year’s vaccine will be.

Make no mistake about it, this is nature’s way of thinning the herd. We can give it our best shot at trying to combat disease, but it responds to our actions and mutates. This is simply a war with nature determined to win.

Jan 17 2018

China Credit Rating Agency Downgrade USA


Armstrong Economics Blog/Sovereign Debt Crisis

Re-Posted Jan 17, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

The Chinese rating agency Dagong downgraded the US creditworthiness over the tax reform. What is really a total joke is why anyone bothers to rank any government debt whatsoever when in fact there is not a single government in the world who ever intends to pay off their debt. So why does anybody rate government debt? It is not like the USA would default. Deficits mean absolutely nothing. Obama’s first four years produced deficits that were nearly $5 trillion. Trump’s Tax Reform the Democrats claim will add $1 trillion. So why was $5 trillion OK but $1 trillion is not?

The entire rating game is a joke. Nobody will ever pay off their debts so why rate something that is impossible anyway?