Tag Archives: Propaganda

Feb 19 2023

The Tunnel – The Real Story of Berlin


Armstrong Economics Blog/Socialist Re-Posted Feb 19, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Feb 19 2023

He Did It Again – General Secretary Admits NATO Has Been at War Against Russia in Ukraine Since 2014


Posted originally on the CTH on February 18, 2023 | Sundance 

I must admit that sometimes I scratch my puzzler, when I watch geopolitical influence agents say the quiet part out loud, and yet no one seems to pay any attention.

In case you missed it – a few days ago (2/14/23), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stepped in front of the cameras for an impromptu presser following a meeting of the NATO Defence Ministers at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

General Stoltenberg openly tells western media that NATO has been in a war against Russia since 2014. That’s when the combined effort of western political leadership, led by the U.S. State Department and NATO forces, overthrew the former Ukraine government and established the country as the center for strategic military operations against Russia. This isn’t the first time Stoltenberg has made this admission.

Against this backdrop, the February 2022 military incursion by Russia into eastern Ukraine (Donbas region), can be viewed as a counter-offensive against the NATO advancement; yet, almost no one in western media seems to hold these NATO admissions as a reference point in their outlines of the conflict.  WATCH (06:07) Prompted:

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Feb 18 2023

Interview: NATO military defeat to destabilize the dollar?


Click here to wWatch Martin Armstrong’s latest interview, “NATO military defeat to destabilize the dollar?” with Mike Adams.

Feb 18 2023

The Corruption of the International Court of Justice


Armstrong Economics Blog/Rule of Law Re-Posted Feb 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

https://player.vimeo.com/video/793785656?h=08ef0d3c53&dnt=1&app_id=122963
Feb 18 2023

It Never Ends – Joe Biden Extends 2011 National Security Emergency over Libya Through 2023


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on February 17, 2023 | Sundance

In 2010 and 2011 the Hillary Clinton State Department, working with NATO allies (particularly France), triggered a crisis in Libya during the Obama administration’s intentional effort to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power.  This was a key element to the Arab Spring (Islamist Spring or Color Revolution) that flowed from the Cairo, Egypt, speech of President Obama a year prior.

Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samanta Power (R2P) were the architects of the destabilization plan.  After the country was destabilized and thrown into severe violent crisis by the U.S. support for radical Islamists in eastern Libya (Benghazi region), President Obama then signed (Feb, 2011) a national emergency declaration in regard to the destabilized Libya his administration created.

Five years later, in April 2016, President Obama expanded the Libya emergency declaration to extend the 2011 declaration and envelop a larger portion of North Africa, under the auspices of expanded threats from AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).  This extension allowed the state dept to frame actions in neighboring Egypt, and block any effort to counteract Obama’s mid-east policy which was established to support the Muslim Brotherhood.   In April 2016 it was presumed Hillary Clinton would win the election and continue the policy.

Today, a full twelve years after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton destabilized Libya throwing it into a tribal civil war, Joe Biden signs an executive order continuing the extension of the U.S. National Emergency with regard to Libya {White House Link}.

[…] “The situation in Libya continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and measures are needed to protect against the diversion of assets or other abuses by members of Qadhafi’s family, their associates, and other persons hindering Libyan national reconciliation.

For this reason, the national emergency declared on February 25, 2011, and expanded on April 19, 2016, must continue in effect beyond February 25, 2023.  Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13566.

This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress. (read full)

Feb 17 2023

Nuclear Arms no Longer Key to Peace


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Feb 17, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Russia has fitted its fleet with tactical nuclear weapons both in the North Sea and in the Atlantic. The United States and NATO have convinced themselves that they can destroy Russia and China and neither will report to nuclear weapons.  Nobody ever questions: What if we are wrong?

Once upon a time, it was PRESUMED that having nuclear weapons promoted peace. We needed the nuclear arms race to promote deterrence and thus peace. That theory is now completely dead. Everyone has nuclear weapons and now they think nobody will use them and we can now conquer foreign lands even if they have nukes. So why did we invade Iraq?

After having serious discussions about the “what-if” scenario that Russia nukes a major city in Ukraine justifying itself as did the United States with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I found that there was no playbook for such an event and there remains nothing but disagreement as to how the U.S. would even respond. Macron has come out and stated that France would NOT launch nuclear weapons if Russia nuked Ukraine. Macron is not an insane neocon. If there was any retaliation, the cloud of nuclear fallout would be drifting over NATO countries in Western Europe. That would wipe out crop production and unleash further food shortages. We would see instead of a volcanic winter event, it would be a nuclear winter event.

Actually, most people do not realize but during the Obama administration, they conducted a war game simulating Russian use of nuclear weapons in the Baltics. Even back then, there were fundamental disagreements about how to respond. The US policy is to conquer and destroy Russia. They know this. It has been the US demanding no peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Under this proxy-war reality, Russian military doctrine published since 2000 has envisioned the first use of nuclear weapons in response to a conventional threat in a regional war. This is precisely what the US and NATO are carrying out right now. Even Russia’s smallest nuclear warheads are many times the explosive power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Russia nuking Ukraine has been talked about behind closed doors for months. Those in the military arm have been warning the Biden administration for several months that Russia could be pushed into a corner where they will do the unthinkable. The Biden Administration “prefers” to think they can accomplish their end goal without nuclear weapons. Those behind Putin would push the button in the blink of an eye. They see that as a serious option and believe it would end the war as did Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is no clear-cut scenario. Many say it would depend if they used a small nuke to wipe out Ukrainian troops rather than nuking a major city. The only thing that the Biden Administration seems to agree on is just to increase the sanctions. That will only further divide the world economy and increase the chances of world war III. Other are saying that unless a NATO country was hit by Russia, then the U.S. would not have any obligation to respond.

This leaves the door open that perhaps the ONLY way to stall World War III is to take nuclear action against Ukraine in some measured manner. With subs armed with supersonic nuclear missiles just offshore of the USA, they could take out Washington DC before Biden could even make it to a safe room. Perhaps nuking Ukraine becomes the only way to wake up the population of Europe demanding to end this warmongering. All they had to do was honor the Minsk Agreement and Putin would have no choice but to withdraw.

Feb 17 2023

NATO Preparing for World War III


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Feb 17, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Perhaps NATO is starting to wake up. They now realize that they may have to wage war on two fronts simultaneously. NATO is considering what they call a defensive move which is an “Article 5 conflict” but also an “out-of-area” battle. This is showing that NATO is no longer what it was supposed to have been – the defense of Europe against a Soviet invasion that never took place. The “out-of-area” is none other than China invading Taiwan. NATO is simply usurping power that it was never authorized to carry out. This, Article 5 event is an attack on a NATO member, whereas the “out-of-area” is a non-NATO member.

Clearly, we are witnessing how once power is taken, it is always abused. NATO has always billed itself as a “defensive alliance” but it has embarked on an offensive posture with Ukraine and now even Taiwan. Don’t forget, NATO joined the hostilities in Yugoslavia during the 1990s and again with Libya in 2011. Many have viewed that NATO has been usurped by the American Neocons to further their agenda of manipulating US foreign policy. That is becoming self-evident by even considering war with China and Russia.

All our sources confirm that the US has demanded that Brussels increase its defense expenditures. Everyone is expected to chip in 2% of GDP – ASAP. The US is now also expecting that it will have to fight on two fronts against both China and Russia. The Neocons are demanding higher Pentagon budgets now. They simply want war and we have no right to vote on any of this confirming once again, we do not live in a democracy, but in a dictatorship masquerading as a republic.

You NEVER go to war without weight the gains against the losses. What is taking place is the very same bankers that tried to take over Russia I wrote about in the 2000 Plot to Seize Russia, are back after 23 years and they are pleading to wage war and are licking their lips once again at seizing all the natural resources of Russia from gold and diamonds, to energy and uranium.

Feb 17 2023

What is Really the Foundation of Money?


Armstrong Economics Blog/America’s Economic History Re-Posted Feb 17, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Martin,
After several years of reading your blog, I have concluded that Socrates’ prognostications appear to be spot on. I also share your assertion that a study of history supplies an insight into future events due to the constancy of “human nature.” Where we appear to part ways is in the definition of “money.”

In the early 20th century J. P. Morgan said: “Gold is money; everything else [used as currency] is credit.” Hence, paper money, (and digital entries in an electronic ledger) when issued by a monopolist i.e. government, inevitably descends to its intrinsic value: zero.

AN

ANSWER: Human society has recorded our monetary history and you should not confuse irresponsible government with what is really money. I have a great deal of Respect for J.P. Morgan. If you asked the question of what is money in a Babylonian, it would be a silver shekel. Even the Bible spoke of weighing the silver and how Judas sold out Christ for a handful of silver coins. To a Greek from Anatolya (Turkey), he would have said it is a stater. To an Athenian, he would say a drachma. A Roman would have replied a denarius. But when Rome was first forming, money had been cattle which became thereafter bronze. Indeed, if you had asked before all of them, a Minoan, would have it was bronze. Money has been many things including sea shells, and cattle.

A Spanish during the 15th century would have said it was a one-ounce silver reale. The German would have said no – it’s the silver thaler. The British would disagree and said it was the pound sterling (.925 silver). The Americans, not wanting to be subservient to England, adopted the dollar, which was a version of the German thaler. In Asia, it was the cash, then the yen.

Saint Patrick in the 5th Century AD upon his arrival in Ireland, found that MONEY was expressed in human slave girls. He wrote in his Confession, “I think that I have given away to them no less than the price of fifteen humans.” This passage shows something very important. First, MONEY is not defined as the Medium of Exchange exclusively. It also serves the purpose of a Unit of Account. In fact, this becomes the true function of MONEY even more so than what it is. MONEY is a language of value.

Many of the major bankers, kings, and heads of companies were ancient coin collectors including President Teddy Roosevelt. JP Morgan understood banking and credit – but not money. This was a Syracuse Dekadrachm of Dionysios I (405-367BC) was one of the coins from his collection that was eventually sold by the coin firm Stacks of New York in September 1983.  You can download that catalog. People like Josiah K. Lilly Jr. and Paul A. Straub donated their collections to the Smithsonian.

Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919) loved the high relief of ancient Greek coins. When Teddy Roosevelt became president on September 14, 1901 – March 4, 1909, he commissioned the artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848 –1907)  to redesign the $20 gold coin and made it high relief as the ancient coins had been struck. The machines could not handle the high relief for the dies would break and they lacked the power of an individual stamping out coins. Thus, the new $20 gold coins had to be reduced in their relief. Nevertheless, we have ancient coins to thank for the limitation on the confiscation of gold in 1934. It was that very reason that his cousin FDR exempted ancient gold coins from confiscation when FDR was himself a stamp collector instead.

I would say the problem here is the definition of money and what predates coinage was the development of a weight standard to enable trade. That invention of weighing technology appears to emerge around 3100 to 3000 BC. This was the most significant turning point in monetary history for it marked the beginning of economic history itself.

It was private merchants during the Bronze Age that created the weight systems. Trade took place through informal networks, but it was clearly Mesopotamian merchants who established a standardized system of weights that later spread across the Western region and into Europe. This innovation enabled international trade across the continent. By the second millennium BC, merchants could potentially trade anywhere in Western Eurasia simply by knowing the conversion factors of a multitude of local weight units. What was emerging was the formation of weight systems that was the foundation for the booming commercial interaction of the Bronze Age world.

From the very beginning, MONEY has been a commodity – nothing more. It simply began a barter. I will give you these carrots for potatoes.  When the Lydian King Kroisos (561-546BC) created the first bimetal monetary system, a gold stater was about 10.71 grams and the silver-gold ratio was 13.33:1 because gold was common in the Turkey. The inflation caused by war led to a gold weight reduction to 8.71 grams.  Fiscal mismanagement existed from the very beginning. This would have been no different than FDR revaluing gold in 1934 from $20.67 to $35 per ounce.

There were competing standards from the very beginning. The Lydian/ Milesian standard began with an electrum stater at 14.2 grams. The stater as minted under the Euboic Standard was 17.2 grams of electrum. There was the Phokaic Standard placing the electrum stater at 16.1 grams. Obviously, foreign exchange dealers became necessary for international trade among the city states.

I can find no evidence of a single standard that dominates the nations at this time. By 530BC, the invention of coins spreads to Greece and now the first city state begins to strike a silver stater at 12.6 grams – the Isle of Aigina. In Greece, silver was common and gold was rare.

In Athens they established the Attic Standard based on a silver didrachm (2 drachms) of 8.6 grams, but as inflation emerged, the standard coin became the tetradrachms (4 drachms) at 17.2 grams. So you can see there may have been gold and silver used as MONEY, but by no means was there a unified standard agreement as to weight. In Corinth, they set their stater at 8.5 grams and divided it into three drachms. Standardization comes only with conquest as was the case with Napoleon. Athens dominated many city states and in 449BC issued its famous enigmatic “Coinage Decree” promulgated by Perikles that restricted other city states from striking coins making their coins a single currency. Perhaps it was just a power play. On the other hand, it was most likely just the profit earned over the raw metal cost known as seigniorage. In other words, the coins once minted purchased more in goods than the raw metal.

China did not use gold. They had a silver standard. The West had to create silver trade dollars set to their weight standard, which was heavier than the standard United States silver dollar. There have been different monetary systems throughout world history. They have not all been based on precious metals. What it always boils down to is the capacity of the people to produce. There are plenty of places with natural resources and the countries are barely even 3rd world. China, German, and Japan rose from the ashes without gold. Their people produced and they rose to the top of the list of economies despite others having gold.

The bottom line has always been that the wealth of a nation is nothing more than they total productivity of its people.

Feb 17 2023

The Republican Big Club Are All In to Have Culture War and Anti-Woke Efforts Dominate 2024 GOP Primary


Posted originally on the CTH on February 16, 2023 | Sundance

Prior to the 2012 election and the rise of the Sandra Fluke free birth control narrative, we used to call them social issues; however, the usefulness of cultural wars has morphed into the larger war of wokeism.

In the big picture, keeping the base GOPe voter distracted from the economic expansion of multinational globalism, the corporate ‘masters of the universe’ (ie. the Big Club), need to keep pushing anti-wokeism as a political strategy.  The cultural issues are useful tools to keep control of an alignment of voters.  It has always been thus, and even more important now that people are starting to realize the expansion of the rust belt.

The rust belt, the diminishment of the U.S. economic manufacturing base, was an outcome of corporate control over politics.  Corporations and banks seek profit, those profits are inflated by a U.S. service driven economic model.  Skilled jobs require higher wages.

If the skilled jobs can be outsourced to lower cost labor nations, the subsequent lowered labor costs drive bigger margins.  Again, it has always been thus.

At the core of the U.S. political issue, you discover that both wings of the DC UniParty agree with this basic economic model.  Republicans and Democrats now use the catchphrase ‘service driven economy‘ with bipartisan frequency.  Many voters no longer have any reference to an economic system that is anything except a ‘service driven economy’, yet nothing about that system provides long-term value for U.S. voters or workers.

Within this very specific dynamic, you find the root of the support for Donald J. Trump.  A larger, formerly considered silent majority who comprise the baseline middle class workforce, find common understanding with President Trump because he sees the flaws in the economic model.

Not coincidentally, it is only Donald Trump who has ever discussed these economic issues. Factually, no national politician in the modern era prior to Donald Trump ever dared broach the subject of economic globalism, and the negative consequences therein, because they would find themselves in the target field of the corporations who fund the political system.  A general platform more akin to a code of omerta covered the entire subject of republican economic policy.

As the pandemic years have shown, economic security is deeply tied to national security.  As an outcome, economic policy ultimately drives foreign policy.  When combined, the economic and foreign policy outlooks form the structural alignment of the UniParty platform.

Following the downstream effect of multinational corporate influence, modern Democrats support expansionist and interventionist foreign policy.  Meanwhile, modern Republicans, previously called “neocons” have always supported expansionist and interventionist foreign policy.  Leadership of both parties now align in a singular foreign policy outlook; thus, we see support for the Ukraine spending and intervention by both Democrats and Republicans.

However, outside the DC bubble of multinational corporate influence, the support for the interventionist foreign policy doesn’t exist in the same scale and scope.  Voters inside both the Democrat and Republican base do not support the intervention at the same level as the political leadership of both parties.  There is a structural breakdown between the priorities of voters and the priorities of the elected officials.  None of this is new discussion, we all accept this basic reality.

With political leadership of both parties supporting the same economic outlook, and both parties supporting the same foreign policy outlook, we find the source of opposition against U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Economic policy and foreign policy form the uniting bond that drives both parties to oppose Trump’s America First ideological outlook.

As long as Donald J Trump singularly represents the only counterforce against this UniParty globalist construct, he will continue to be targeted by the system of financial controllers who fund the political system.  For the sake of brevity this alignment of multinational corporate and financial economic interests is called “the big club.”

As part of the strategic political effort, the Republican wing of the Big Club needs to carve up the supporters of Donald Trump into smaller, easier to target, pieces.  This is where the value of the culture war, what is now considered as ‘wokeism’, plays into the strategy of those who seek to control political outcomes and remove the threat that Trump represents to their financial interests.

In many ways, this is why we are seeing prominent Republican officeholders pushing the culture war as a tool for their own political advancement.  The same Big Club members who are directly fighting against the America-First economic agenda, are the same Big Club members who are funding the Republican politicians to push the culture war.

The corporations, billionaires and multinationals who are funding the Republican candidates do not have any vested interest in the culture war. For them the social issues are a tool, technique or insurance policy to guarantee security of the interest that does matter, their financial status.

There are trillions at stake, literally trillions.  Additionally, decades of their prior investment interests are contingent upon the ‘service driven economy’ being maintained.

Dollars drive the U.S. global trade and financial exchanges.  The multinationals, both corporations and banks, have pre-deployed investments all around the globe.  However, many of those investments are entirely contingent upon the retention of the U.S. economic system they pre-established before the investment was made.  President Donald J. Trump represents the threat to that entire financial system.

Once you understand this, then a great deal of the more nuanced and granular U.S. political moves, almost all of which are funded by the corporations and billionaires who are attached to the global investment process, begin to make sense.

Every non-Trump candidate, funded to create the opposition to America First, is part of this process to use anti-wokeism as a strategy.

With this level of money at stake, do not be surprised when you look at how much is being spent to construct the system that guarantees the continuation of globalism. The money spent in funding the Republican candidates to advance the distracting cultural war pales in comparison to the amount of money at risk in the 2024 election outcome.

That’s the baseline for this:

…“GOP leaders and candidates should take from this poll one important lesson: voters expect them to fight wokeness,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling said. “Support for policies protecting families from gender ideology is off the charts, with the majority of the base showing a strong preference for tackling these issues. Meanwhile, approval of Republican establishment priorities was much more muted, with most of those surveyed even agreeing that GOP elected officials have given up too much ground in the culture war.”  

…“Any candidate who expects to win a Republican primary next year for any office needs to lead on cultural issues in order to win over voters,” Schilling said. “Perhaps the two most prominent leaders on these issues so far have been Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, so it should be no surprise they are far and away the favorites in the presidential field. It’s time for the rest of the party to pay heed and set their priorities accordingly.” (more)

On the very significant upside… Relax, President Trump understands this.

Candidate Donald Trump also understands the real priorities of the Big Club extend beyond this useful cultural war, deep into the world of economics and foreign policy.

As each of the corporate funded Republican candidates hits the cultural war (wokeism) effort as part of the distracting political strategy, watch President Trump generally agree with the ‘social issues’, but then counter the distraction with arguments specifically targeting economic and foreign policy.

The entire field of Republican candidates will hold the same economic and foreign policy outlook (Ukraine example), with only Donald Trump representing an alternative.

Feb 16 2023

What if Russia Nukes Kyiv?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Feb 16, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong,
In the event that Russia does employ nuclear weaponry in/over Ukraine, does Socrates offer any insight as to what effect that might have on Ukrainian food/energy/commodities -production in general (…. let alone their capabilities, or likely lack thereof, to transport, said items from fields/mines/etc. to harbors/rail-lines/etc.); and what type of effect will (potentially, severely) reduced outputs like that (from the “bread basket of Europe”) have on shortages, inflationary cost-pressures, disease-cycles, population migration, and so forth and so on? Having traveled through Ukraine in my youth (around the time of your Israel sojourn; and yes, I had a whole lot more hair than too still), I remember marveling at arable topsoil some 8 to 10 feet deep; what (long-term?) effect would nuclear fallout have on such valuable planting-media, one wonders?

All my very best to you, Mr. Armstrong, believe me; I admire your bravery a great deal. You, Sir, are a Prince & a true gift to humanity!
Sincerely, …. tlk

ANSWER: Everything to the East of the river was the Russian Empire from the days of the Tzar. Ukraine was NEVER a country – period! That is why they joined Hitler who promised to carve out territory so they could be a nation. I get hate mail from Ukraine calling me a Putin lover. They will not respond when I ask do you really think you can destroy Russia and survive? Is it worth losing the country you finally won in 1991 all for the Donbas where the majority of people are Russian? They will not respond to any such questions. They are blinded by the hatred of Russians and cannot see that they are risking it all. They had a country. That was their dream. They are throwing that all away with nothing to gain even if they won – they will never survive the conflict. It just makes no sense.

100 Kiloton

That said, Russia could nuke Kyiv. It would all depend upon the size of the bomb. This would be the destruction of Kyiv with 100 kilotons. The argument inside Russia is that Putin has been too “soft” and he should have gone all in for the kill. The military believes they have been held back and could have won had they not had their hands tied.

This would be 100 metric tons. So you can see, they can nuke Kyiv and “win” the war without destroying all of Ukraine. This is what some are pushing for because they see this as a war against NATO and not just a war now to defend the Donbas. Ukraine has been the fool on the hill. They have listened to the West, and gone head-to-head against Russia which has more nukes than the United States, which cannot defend itself against a hypersonic nuclear missile.

Everyone has gone just mad. There is NOTHING to gain from this and the Ukrainian people will only wake up when it is too late. Zelensky is the Adolf Hitler who has brought death and destruction to their dream of a nation-state. Russia could take out Kyiv without harming Crimea or the Donbas.