Posted originally on May 24, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
In an interview on May 11, 2014, I explained on USAWatchdog that confidence always outweighs reality. “It’s basically what you believe. There have been all sorts of studies on fundamentals that say if interest rates go up, stocks go down. It is simply not true. The stock market has never peaked with interest rates twice in history. If you think you are going to make 25% in the market, you’ll pay 10% interest; but if you really think the market is only going to go up 10%, you won’t pay 10%. So, it’s always the difference between what you believe and reality.”
The people have lost all confidence in government. There were rumors of a “soft landing” from the Fed, but the situation can no longer be controlled by the central bank. Washington maintains that everything is stable as banks continue to fail and inflation rages on. There can be no price stability when war is at play. Government spending has reached a new high, as have taxes which are not counted in any major data report. I explained in 2014 that great empires all come crashing down after piling on massive debt. People believe hyperinflation would cause such a scenario, but debt is the major player. Once the government accumulates enormous debt, it targets its citizens aggressively. That is what we are seeing today.
So where should you put your money? I said in 2014: “One of the number one questions I get all the time is where do I put my money? If the banks can just take whatever they want now, there will be bail-ins rather than bail-outs. People are afraid. What do you do with the cash? So, people are buying things like real estate and stocks, just trying to get money out of the banking system.” Smart money has been trying to escape the banks for years. There was no incentive until very recently to park money in the banks due to artificially low rates. The hunt for taxation is causing people to flee from the banks. The downturn in government trust has caused everyone to run from government debt for fear that it will not be repaid.
I also explained that the Fed would only bail out deposits and had been asking institutions to change their models. “Everybody knows I advise some of the big institutions around, and I can tell you that they have told me directly that the Fed went to them and told them they will not be bailed out for proprietary trading. It will be only on deposits. That’s it,” I stated. “The Fed has been going around telling them, ‘hey, you better change your models.’ They don’t think it will be a flight to quality as it was before. You buy the long-term (Treasuries), and that saves you. They don’t think that’s going to happen. It’s quite interesting. . . . It looks like the long-term (Treasury bonds) is going to end up starting to rise.”
Sound familiar with the current situation? People have moved from the public sector into the private sector. We are well into a private wave, and the public will not go back to the public sector for many years to come. By that time, the government will have transformed into a new model that is far different from what we have today. My warning from 10 years ago was derived from the computer models, who never relies on mere opinion and are unable to factor in bias.
When I say that the computer is honing in on a new target or date, often, we must simply look at what unfolds on that target to understand the full forecast. We are waiting for the CONFIRMATION. The computer will give us that signal and we just have to go with the flow. It may be worse than trying to give a 5-year-old cough medicine. Yes, it tastes horrible, but it is necessary for the cure. The majority will not be able to make that transition thanks to their preconceived ideas and preconditioning. Many pilots who flew prop planes could never fly a jet because they could not make that transition to faster travel requiring quicker reaction times. This is the type of transition we face. We just have to abandon all prejudice and go with the markets. May 7 marked a major shift in the geopolitical landscape that ensures major conflicts with both Russia and China are on the horizon. I trust the trends in motion to forecast the future. As they say, the trend is your friend.
Posted originally on May 20, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
It is crucial to understand correlations as EVERYTHING fluctuates! There is absolutely nothing that remains constant. You MUST understand that correlations are NOT one for one, and often show changes in advance of turns. It is a lot to keep track of but this is why I try to post a global view to help you see the world around you. It is a necessary way of thinking to survive the future of our own follies.
When I was trading going into the high in interest rates at the Fed in 1981, each time the Fed raised rates the markets reacted less and less. When the final rate hike came, the markets moved UP, not down, showing that the trend was over. Interest rates DO NOT peak and bottom with the markets. There are advances and lags.
It is very frustrating to always try to sort out misconceptions created by analysts and the talking heads on TV. Just do a simple correction by comparing two charts. The DOW bottomed in March 1980. Gold peaked on January 21, 1980. The Fed kept pushing rates higher into May 1981. The Dow rallied with the last year of rising interest rates.
I stated many years ago that real estate would RISE with the first uptick because people would ANTICIPATE rates rising so they better rush to lock it in now. The people with interest rates under 3% lucked out, but some simply understood the trend. They do not throw in the towel on the first uptick. They disregard the nonsense spouted out by the talking heads on TV that create false images of why markets are moving as they do.
I noted to pay attention to rates in Europe. Germany was able to sell short-term debt at NEGATIVE yields. Why? Because Europeans are moving money in preparation for the collapse in the debts of Southern Europe. Some think if the Euro cracks they will end up with Deutsche Marks or Swiss. This is the same driving force sending money to high end real estate and the Dow. It is the MOVEMENT of capital that causes these trends and each confirms the other. It cannot be one thing in isolation.
Corrections DO NOT work one-for-one. Here, we see the call money rates from the NYSE. It would be nice if it were as stupid as the talking heads make it sound. We have tested every possible relationship. We have employed more computing power and capital to figure out what makes the world tick than anyone ever. That is why the NY banks & government want us to shut up. Just look at this chart. The stock market DOES NOT even peak with the same empirical level of interest rates with each crisis. It would be nice to say if rates hit 8% the market will peak. Sorry – that will NEVER happen. It is the spread between expectations of profit and the empirical level of interest rates.
It is not that I manipulate the world economy. We just spent a great deal of money to deconstruct it. Guess what – the world is not flat. There is a whole new way of economics and looking at how the world actually functions. Eureka! Try observing instead of dictating how the world should operate to support some hair-brain theory. Those who want me to shut up because what we discovered does not fit with their theory or belief that the government can control the economy by regulation are no different than those who killed Bruno or imprisoned Galileo for life.
Knowledge advances by observation. Stagnation emerges when people try to suppress advances because they want to remain in control. The Goldbug press refuses to quote me just like the NY establishment press that supports the bankers. They both have self-interests to support and hate anyone who says they are wrong. There is no difference from the Pravada of the old Communist Party that never acknowledged opposition.
Posted originally on May 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Various cultures and religions have been concerned about the end of time looming throughout history. Aethelred II (978-1016 AD) was so convinced the world was about to end in 1000 AD that he removed his portrait from the coinage and placed the Christian symbol of the lamb on it. The world did not end, and he restored his portrait the year after. Why is there this need to constantly scream the end is near, which seems to plague Western society?
Turn the economy down, and you will find major upheavals in religion. To whatever extent our model may align with religion or even astrology, rest assured that neither are inputs into Socrates to make forecasts. So, I have found these prophecies of various religions interesting.
In our Western culture, we think everything is linear. I always found it interesting how Revelations 20, clearly lays out a cycle.
[7] And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
[8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
The Bible describes a cycle. Some have interpreted this cycle as 6,000 years up, 1,000 down, and then it repeats. These are interesting times no doubt. Are they Biblical in proportion? No one knows the answer to that. But many always preach doom and gloom right down to Y2K and the Mayan calendar ending. They cling to the latest topic and go. It was the year 1,000 AD when the Last Judgment was to take place, according to popular conjecture. It did not. But it did start the pilgrimage movement from Europe to the Holy Land, and that led to the creation of the Knights Templar to protect the pilgrims. It ushered in a rebirth of trade that created merchant banking and then sovereign debt. This also sparked the Crusades. So, even wrong interpretations can have profound impacts.
One indeed begins to wonder what will happen to the human race. Technology keeps on advancing with greater and greater power, either for good or for destruction, as the government desires to eliminate all rights, privileges, and immunities. But this is part of a constantly repeating cycle.
Government is the enemy of the people. Historically, it has always been. They seek only one thing—power over others. They will do anything to retain that power. They cannot sleep at night worrying that someone has something they want or is doing something they do not approve of. This is part of a long cyclical process where government is always the great evil empire, for it ultimately always seeks to dominate the people regardless of what form it has taken.
If we take this 1000 years to be literal, this is by no means the end of the world. Yes, it may be a Great Reset, but our computer shows they will NOT win, and we are headed into the rising tide of civil unrest around the globe, which is revolutions and the prospects of international war.
Then there is the passage from Peter about a day being like 1,000 years. All I can say is the computer is non-biased and non-religious, and it simply looks at all the patterns throughout history. People will act the same way no matter what century they live in because human nature has never changed since Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy. We have advanced technologically but not emotionally.
Peter 3:8–9 reads:
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Even when we look at the Old Testament, we find cycles abound. Following the Ten Plagues to hit Egypt, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out across the Red Sea. However, After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. Moses did not make it to the promised land, so they wondered for about half the duration of an ECM wave. The fact that the prophets understood a year as 360 days is well established and can be seen in the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation as seen in the use of “time, times and half a time” (i.e. 1+2+0.5=3.5), “1,260 days” and “42 months.”
There is an agreement among Christianity and Islam that the end days will be similar. In Jewish eschatology, they are concerned with events that will happen at the end of the day. This includes the ingathering of the exiled diaspora, the coming of a Jewish Messiah, the afterlife, and the revival of the dead Tzadikim. Interestingly, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, which I visited in the early ’80s, east of Jerusalem, and within sight of both the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque, there lie about 150,000 Jewish graves dating from ancient times through today. Many of the bodies are buried with their feet toward the city, because ancient prophets declared that the resurrection would begin there, and the faithful would rise and follow the Messiah into the Holy City.
So, there is agreement among the main religions that the end of days or time awaits us. I do not know if this is the second coming. All I can do is provide the non-biased, non-religious forecasts of what is unfolding for the signs in the data. I do not dismiss that we will end up in World War III, but I also see that we should expect rising civil unrest and revolutions that will overthrow these pretend elected officials.
The computer agrees there is a great confrontation being thrust upon us as this Great Reset. Our computer shows that this is NOT the end of the world, but indeed a Great Reset where nations will fall but this is more like the final battle against communism. I am not a religious scholar and I am only trying to look at this and rationalize it with our computer forecasts which I do trust.
Posted originally on May 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
COMMENT: It is baffling why you are not on the front page of the WSJ, Barons, London FT, NY Times, and every financial newspaper claiming to be interested in markets. In the ’80s, when the Dow was 1,000, you forecast it would reach 6,000 by 1996. On the day of the 1987 low, you said the market would make new highs by 1989. You forecast the Nikkei high at 40,000 for 1980. Even after the 2007-2009 crash, you said the low would hold, and we would see new highs. In at least 2013, you said the Dow would test 40,000. You have correctly forecasted every crash and every high, yet the pretend main financial press will never report the truth.
You have shown the world that forecasting from a quantitative view rather than opinion is possible. My hat is off to you. You get standing ovations at conferences. You are a world teacher.
See you in London.
LS
REPLY: Thank you. I think the bias stems from what I experienced in school. The physics professor said nothing is random, and in economics class, they said it is random, like a drunk walking in the park staggering back and forth. So, we can follow Marx and Keynes and manipulate society to produce the perfect world.
Even in 2013, the first projection was 40,000. In 2018, I again warned that 40,000 was not the extreme target but the medium range. You have to comprehend that everything is connected. You cannot have the Dow going to 40,000 and nothing else happens. The question now is that with the Neocons pushing for World War III before the economy and Europe also in desperate straight needing war, we have a clash of trends converging where there is nearly $11 trillion in US debt maturing this year, which I warned about on Feb 18, 2024.
Do we get the knee-jerk reaction when people realize we have a DEBT CRISIS about to smack us in the face BEFORE the election? Or do we need war to get the foreigners to buy the debt that China will not? How long will it take people to figure out you need to hide in private assets – not public? That will dictate the length of a knee-jerk correction. This is why it takes a computer to make such projections – not personal opinions.
History dictates that they will only look at what I have done after Scotty has beamed me up – rarely ever before without a major crisis. That is just the way the prejudices and biases exist in human society. You will never extinguish them. Good and bad, that’s what makes us all human. Still, from time to time, there have been some who reported the forecasts.
Posted originally on May 16, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The Dow surpassed 40,000 during midday trading for the very first time this Thursday. In a January 2020 interview with Andrew McCreath from BNN Bloomberg I explained that the Dow was heading up. The video was posted with the headline “DOW 40,000” and everyone dismissed my forecast as if it were my own personal opinion. I made similar statements in other interviews, such as my interview with Financial Sense five years ago in August 2019. I reiterated this forecast in a 2021 interview and continued to stick by the computer without relying on personal opinion.
I was asked how I knew then that we’d be where we were at now. My answer is the same — I just follow the models.
The Dow was 29240 on the day of the interview with BNN Bloomberg, and while many feared a correction was coming, I explained any dip was likely short-term in nature and that it would need to drop below 19000 to be truly considered a bear market – BUT that fell on deaf ears. Even with the notable COVID dip that soon followed this interview, the market bounced right back to new highs thereafter and the models stayed on track over the long term. We experienced one of the most HATED bull markets in history. Despite all of the turmoil over the years, The Dow consistently went up for over a decade but all the talking heads insisted it would go down.
So what’s next, as indicated by Socrates? The computer sees the Dow rising to 65,000 by 2032 when we are likely to see a change in not just the markets but governments worldwide. Governments throughout the world are still in trouble and the money remaining on the grid is fleeing into the US.
Watch the Dow for it will show you where the international money is flowing. The big players are not interested in small tech or companies that could go under. The S&P 500 is domestic-oriented, and fund managers and institutions tend to focus on this index. The NASDAQ typically reflects retail, often tech-heavy, and usually does not peak at the same time. Each index offers a completely different perspective. The Dow Jones Industrials is the big money. You will notice that this index leads the way. It is the first out of a key low because it is typically the foreign capital based on currency. You will also notice the Dow tends to top out first because the big money tends to pull out first also due to currency.
Capital is flowing like never before, and the smart money is on the move. Socratesusers have access to our capital flow heat map that shows where money is moving in real time. The USD remains the last safe haven, and money is pouring into the US.
Posted originally on May 3, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Home prices in the US are near all-time highs. As I repeatedly stated, we can no longer look at real estate on the national level. Demand and value are contained to certain states and areas of certain states that the public has deemed most desirable, largely due to political factors such as taxes. Yet, at the moment, buyers are swiping up real estate where available. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller posted a 6.4% gain in February after January’s 6% spike, marking the fastest uptick in home prices since November 2022.
The 20-city composite jumped 7.3% on an annual basis, rising from January’s posting of 6.6%. The 10-city composite saw an 8% annual rise, up from 7.4% in January. February was the third consecutive month of rising home prices in all cities, with Washington D.C., New York, San Diego, and Los Angeles experiencing all-time highs in price.
San Diego saw an 11.4% annual rise in home prices, the largest jump in the 20-city composite. Detroit and Chicago posted 8.9% annual gains. Yes, we will eventually see the red states surpass the blue. Smart money is moving into assets like real estate. The downside of real estate is that they impose a property tax on it annually, but investors enjoy that passive income.
There is a notion of “now or never” among first-time buyers as it simply no longer makes sense financially to rent. A person’s ability to qualify for that first downpayment has diminished with rising rental costs. Rental costs increased 3.15% from February 2023 to February 2024, further rising to 3.6% annually in March of this year. This is close to the pre-pandemic growth rate of around 4.1%, but rental pricing is up 36.6% from the pre-pandemic era. While difficult to judge on a national basis, the average rental now costs $1,983 per month, but it is much higher in places like New York City ($3,206 average) or San Francisco ($3,024) hence why we are seeing people sweeping up real estate there.
Shelter is 34% of CPI. The April 10 release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that shelter costs have risen for the past 40 months. In March, shelter costs were the largest contributing factor for core inflation. Rising home prices will not benefit the economy or lead to any positive indicators that inflation is waning.
Switzerland-based Nord Stream AG filed a lawsuit against the insurers for refusing to compensate the company. Nord Stream estimated the cost incurred by the attack to be between €1.2 billion and €1.35 billion and is seeking to recoup over €400 million in damages. The insurers, Lloyd’s Insurance Company and Arch Insurance Company responded that since the Nord Stream explosions were “more likely than not to have been inflicted by… a government,” they have no responsibility to pay for damages to the pipelines.
British insurers took the position that they have no obligation to honor their coverage of the Nord Stream pipelines because they were blown up in September 2022, because they were destroyed as an unprecedented act of sabotage, most likely carried out by a national government. They have contradicted reports of the Washington Post and others claiming that a private Ukrainian team was responsible for the massive act of industrial sabotage.
In their legal brief, you can download above, filed by Lloyd’s and Arch Insurance Companies, they state that the “defendants will rely on, inter alia, the fact that the explosion Damage could only have (or, at least, was more likely than not to have) been inflicted by or under the order of a government.”
Consequently, they argue, “the Explosion Damage was “directly or indirectly occasioned by, happening through, or in consequence of”the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and therefore falls under an exclusion relating to military conflicts. This is important because regardless of your insurance, going into war means they will never pay any claims. Personally, I have NEVER had any insurance company EVER pay what I was covered for. When I die, I am sure they will claim that he is a clone and he is hiding somewhere.
A tree once fell on my brand-new car in a storm. It was then sent to Bordentown Autobody to be repaired. They burned down with my car in it. Allstate Insurance screwed me because I paid cash for the car, and as soon as they knew no bank was involved, they claimed there were two deductibles and subtracted about 25%, knowing that would be my legal fees to make it UNREALISTIC to sue them. Insurance is ALWAYS a scam.
Can Socrates predict the lottery? We ran tests on that probably 30 years ago, and the results were interesting. No matter what it is, there is always a cycle. You cannot predict the lottery number as a whole, for the possible variables are tremendous.
In the past few years, we have seen continual advertisements for record-breaking jackpots, but this is not some mere game that you can strategically win. You must realize you are betting against the government, and the house never loses.
Desperate for funds, the government has seemingly been promising larger jackpot prizes. Now, they claim that 65% of their earnings will go to the person with the winning ticket. The federal government takes a mandatory cut of all jackpot winnings and pushes all winners into the top tax bracket. State governments also demand a cut of jackpot winnings. There is a fee for public beneficiaries, retailer commissions, and administration costs as well.
You have a 1 in 292.2 million chance of winning the Powerball lottery and a 1 in 302.6 million chance of hitting the Mega Millions lottery. However, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning (1 in 15,000), attacked by a shark (1 in 3.75 million), or die from a bee sting (1 in 55,764), to name a few.
In addition to collecting taxes on winnings, the government receives tons of funding from ticket purchases. New York, the most popular state for lotto, earned over $10.545 billion from lottery revenue in FY23, allocating $3.7 to the Lottery Aid Education fund. This is a stark jump from FY21 when the state earned $8.5 billion on lottery revenue.
The likelihood that you, as an individual, will win is extremely rare. The likelihood that the government will win is absolutely guaranteed, and they earn more for extended contests and larger jackpots.
What we did discover was partial success on individual numbers—123456. For example, partial success is running an individual cycle on each digit. Trying to run a cycle on the number as a whole was pointless.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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