After months of political deadlock, the House of Commons voted by 413-202 last week to ask the EU to delay Britain’s exit. Prime Minister May has simply refused to listen to advice and keeps hoping that Parliament will surrender to her. Normally, after such a defeat, Prime Ministers would resign. But May withstood a no-confidence vote last year and cannot be challenged until December 2019. If the EU tries to force Britain to surrender, then there remains the risk of a hard-exit come March 29th, 2019.

The EU is fighting for its survival. To see Britain crumble would bring them great joy and they could use this against Italy or anyone one else who dares to think about leaving. Indeed, in recent days there has been a chorus of warnings coming from the key EU figures. They are kicking Britain when it is politically impotent and they are demanding that any British request for an extension of the two-year negotiating period must come with a “credible” plan for next steps. This appears to be deliberately trying to force Britain to capitulate and remains in the EU as a second rate member at best.

The European Council president, Donald Tusk, has said the EU wants a “reasoned” request for an extension, while Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator, said there must be a “clear opinion” from the House of Commons on what it really will accept. The vote in itself won’t prevent Britain from a hard exit. Actually, under the law, Britain will leave the EU on March 29th, with or without a deal. What the Eu is now gambling on is that Britain will be unable to come up with any plan that they would accept so they hope the stark choice between a hard-exit and an outright cancelation of Brexit altogether will mean the EU wins with the latter.

Deutsche Bank and Commerce Bank have announced that they will begin merger talks after the government has finally approved that they can lay off workers. For those unfamiliar with the real world behind the curtain, you must realize the extent of socialism in Europe. A major telecom company in Germany called me and asked me to attend an emergency board meeting. They would not even tell me in advance what was so urgent. I flew in that morning from London and to my surprise, the board voted to make me the adviser to the company pension fund and never even asked me for a proposal of a fee structure. Then the majority of members resigned.

I asked what was this all about? The German government had approved that they could lay off 25% of its workforce. At the last minute, the government changed its mind and told the company it was not fair for them to pick and choose. Instead, the company had to make a flat offer with a pay-out of about €150,000 to volunteer to surrender your job. The end results were devastating. Every worker who knew they could get a job with no problem took the €150,000 and left. The company lost its best workers and was then left with the very people they wanted to get rid of. The board directors resigned for they did not want their career associated with what they expected to be a disaster over the years ahead.

This is how government works behind the curtain. There is absolutely ZERO common sense. We will undoubtedly witness a lot of crazy conditions behind the curtain because the approvals are never logical

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, it is becoming very obvious that we are headed into a recession here in Europe. I have never felt how ominous things seem as they do right now. Will you be covering Scandinavia at the WEC in Rome?

ANSWER: Yes. We will be focusing on the political & economic crisis that is unfolding. Besides the government of Finland just collapsing out of thin air, we have the insanity of BREXIT, the EU trying to punish Britain in hopes of making an example of them to prevent anyone else from leaving, while we have the ECB unable to do anything whatsoever and the European people have become Draghi’s collateral damage. With leading economies starting to slow and key indicators in the risk zone, we are headed into a hard landing for the bottom of the Economic Confidence Model come 2020.

We are in a global recession that has been underway with economic growth rates running just a fraction of what they use to be decades ago. This global recession that others are just beginning to see on the horizon has been in motion. Our focus at this WEC will be how you can position yourself. So while others just see a recession emerging, as always, they will be unable to comprehend the real shifts within the global economy as a whole. We simply must approach this from an international perspective for China is also slowing but thank God they have rejected Quantitative Easing which I have warned is a complete failure.

Even the US economy has been gradually slowing since the 1950s. As taxes rise and the share of the economy government consumes keeps growing, they are starving the real economy and suppressing its economic growth rate. We are headed into a very hard landing. It has been the rise in taxes and regulation that is also behind the trend to automate replacing workers as much as possible.