Martin Armstrong Discussion

[Risk Mgmt]

Of all the asset types - is it fair to say BTC is the youngest and thus very little history to look at - which means that only way to predict its future movement is by finding something close to it in the near past etc,

- Which Country's residents is purchasing BTC the most - can this be known?
- BTC being unregulated (aside from the exchanges) govt may view this as underground flows - studying it for now and when it wants takes it over
- need more and more acceptance of BTC by wide array of retailers
- outrages can cause havoc

Would Mr. Musk accept BTC payment ?  Can an employee be paid by BTC - avoid taxes?

Big Bro is  curiously watching.

[jbreher]

Can an employee be paid by BTC - avoid taxes?

If I understand your question, then in the USA, you cannot legally avoid paying taxes by getting paid in Bitcoin. Under the federal tax code, if one is paid in USD, the taxpayer is required to report the fair market value of what he/she received as income.

Note: IANAL

[OROBTC]

...

tabnloz

Thank you for mentioning Armstrong's latest piece on Bitcoin.  I think that Armstrong might be wrong here, as we have seen the .govs of the world (so far anyway) unable to catch the WannaCry hackers.  Meaning that BTC may catch on a little faster than he wrote.

That BTC can cross boundaries so easily is a HUGE matter.

[OROBTC]

...

Armstrong wrote a very interesting piece today with a couple of major points I have not read elsewhere (and I do plenty of reading on the world financial system):

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/banking-crisis/the-coming-central-bank-crisis/

Gold/Bearing/BTC Guy Short Synopsis: the FED will not rollover almost $800 billion in long-term debt, the other Central Banks have even less flexibility.  Problems ahead.

I urge those interested to read his piece, even if only for perspective (that means you too, r0ach).

He does not even address the FED raising interest rates...

[CoinCube]

...

tabnloz

Thank you for mentioning Armstrong's latest piece on Bitcoin.  I think that Armstrong might be wrong here, as we have seen the .govs of the world (so far anyway) unable to catch the WannaCry hackers.  Meaning that BTC may catch on a little faster than he wrote.

That BTC can cross boundaries so easily is a HUGE matter.

At least Armstrong acknowledges the value of the tech.
Most older folks I have spoken with seem unable to grasp the paradigm.

Classic example is Peter Schiff who insists bitcoin is a bubble hence he implies it is worthless.
https://news.bitcoin.com/peter-schiff-bitcoin-digital-fools-gold/

Of course bitcoin is a bubble. The relevant question is what kind of bubble is it. Specifically is it or can it become the sustainable bubble that we call money.

I took advantage of the dip this weekend buy some BTC. I am now at 95% of my goal holdings.

In for a penny in for a pound.

[vlight]

...

tabnloz

Thank you for mentioning Armstrong's latest piece on Bitcoin.  I think that Armstrong might be wrong here, as we have seen the .govs of the world (so far anyway) unable to catch the WannaCry hackers.  Meaning that BTC may catch on a little faster than he wrote.

That BTC can cross boundaries so easily is a HUGE matter.

At least Armstrong acknowledges the value of the tech.
Most older folks I have spoken with seem unable to grasp the paradigm.

Classic example is Peter Schiff who insists bitcoin is a bubble hence he implies it is worthless.
https://news.bitcoin.com/peter-schiff-bitcoin-digital-fools-gold/

Of course bitcoin is a bubble. The relevant question is what kind of bubble is it. Specifically is it or can it become the sustainable bubble that we call money.

I took advantage of the dip this weekend buy some BTC. I am now at 95% of my goal holdings.

In for a penny in for a pound.

The same guy that was against Bitcoin is now into Bitgold. Priceless 

[OROBTC]

...

tabnloz

Thank you for mentioning Armstrong's latest piece on Bitcoin.  I think that Armstrong might be wrong here, as we have seen the .govs of the world (so far anyway) unable to catch the WannaCry hackers.  Meaning that BTC may catch on a little faster than he wrote.

That BTC can cross boundaries so easily is a HUGE matter.

At least Armstrong acknowledges the value of the tech.
Most older folks I have spoken with seem unable to grasp the paradigm.

Classic example is Peter Schiff who insists bitcoin is a bubble hence he implies it is worthless.
https://news.bitcoin.com/peter-schiff-bitcoin-digital-fools-gold/

Of course bitcoin is a bubble. The relevant question is what kind of bubble is it. Specifically is it or can it become the sustainable bubble that we call money.

I took advantage of the dip this weekend buy some BTC. I am now at 95% of my goal holdings.

In for a penny in for a pound.

CC, congratulations on getting 95% the way there.  I believe they used to call 95% an "A" in school, who knows nowadays...   

I am not sure what my longer-term strategy will be re increasing BTC holdings.  I have just let some BTC trickle in from my Signature Campaign, but have not bought for a while.

iamnotback encouraged us to look at Alts, something not feasible for me now (learning curve looks steep, and I am now on a trip and moving, yes both, ugh).  For the moment it is much harder for me to get any, but that's OK.

[CoinCube]

CC, congratulations on getting 95% the way there.  I believe they used to call 95% an "A" in school, who knows nowadays...  

I am not sure what my longer-term strategy will be re increasing BTC holdings.  I have just let some BTC trickle in from my Signature Campaign, but have not bought for a while.

iamnotback encouraged us to look at Alts, something not feasible for me now (learning curve looks steep, and I am now on a trip and moving, yes both, ugh).  For the moment it is much harder for me to get any, but that's OK.

Thanks I was supposed to be done buying in December but every month my regular purchases have returned less and less Bitcoin. Maybe its a good thing I have not yet hit my goal. It reduces the temptation to sell too early.

With an asset as volatile and potentially heartburn inducing as Bitcoin it is better to have a long term plan.
That plan might be to sell some at fixed price, hold forever, increased accumulation, or something more complex. Not having a preset plan increases the risk of making poor decisions in the face of mood and market swings.

For the most part I feel alts in general are grossly overvalued. BTC market cap is now less then 50% according to:
https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/
This makes no sense to me based on adoption fundamentals or potential.

I do not have a position in any alts but I did run across an article on RSK which is a bitcoin sidechain the other day and the concept is interesting.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/the-next-big-thing-rsk-smart-contract-sidechain-launches-developer-release-integrated-in-jaxx-wallet-1478720778/

I am interested in the thoughts of others on this.

[jbreher]

I do not have a position in any alts but I did run across an article on RSK which is a bitcoin sidechain the other day and the concept is interesting.

I am interested in the thoughts of others on this.

I know very little about RSK. It looks interesting. However, my understanding is that, without new script primitives, the only way they can maintain the peg between Bitcoin and the RSK token is via a central clearing house. This would seem to me to be a huge central point of failure. I'd be happy to be reasoned out of my impression.

[CoinCube]

This was an interesting interpretation of what bitcoin is

Isn't the whole point of blockchain technology that ledger, payment method and clearing method are one and the same?

No, it isn't. Bitcoin is not just money. Bitcoin is the first digital world created by humans. Like the analog world we live in you can't change the past but by action or inaction now you can change the future.

By using the blockchain to pay things you just "move" things in this digital world and use this movement to account for payment settlement. It is just like moving physical gold from one place to another. Sooner or later moving gold or whatever becomes too expensive to be used as a payment method and we must move onto transferring the ownership not the "thing" itself. It'll be much cheaper.

Defining the so called tx fee is very difficult, because it is actually the energy we need to move things in this digital world. We must define what is speed and what is mass in this digital world to calculate the proper energy needed for every "transaction".

[sloanf]

Marty flip flopping again. dow 30k in 2015 and doubling to 42k. Now after a sell off day it's correction into 2018 and "possible" sling shot
This does not look like a major correction at all to me but what do i know. 2015 and 2016 dow had 10% drops, that's not major to me. That's possible now too. Maybe marty is smoke screening too readers like some hedge managers did  

because this 40K bs doesn't sell anymore. Even complete morons like @iamnotback gave up sending him money for that crap because they went broke multiple times following MA's advice. So now because his upcoming conference is empty he is more desperate than usual to fill it. That's why he flip flopped again and come up with new crap to sell - doom and gloom.

Martin Armstrong is a total and absolute bullshitter. His forecasts always go like "asset X will go up or down, or stays flat" and yet somehow it turns out completely wrong anyway. No wonder he struggles to find more morons to sell his bs to even after lowering his exorbitant prices. Poor con Marty, delusional, greedy and broke.

[OROBTC]

Marty flip flopping again. dow 30k in 2015 and doubling to 42k. Now after a sell off day it's correction into 2018 and "possible" sling shot
This does not look like a major correction at all to me but what do i know. 2015 and 2016 dow had 10% drops, that's not major to me. That's possible now too. Maybe marty is smoke screening too readers like some hedge managers did  

because this 40K bs doesn't sell anymore. Even complete morons like @iamnotback gave up sending him money for that crap because they went broke multiple times following MA's advice. So now because his upcoming conference is empty he is more desperate than usual to fill it. That's why he flip flopped again and come up with new crap to sell - doom and gloom.

Martin Armstrong is a total and absolute bullshitter. His forecasts always go like "asset X will go up or down, or stays flat" and yet somehow it turns out completely wrong anyway. No wonder he struggles to find more morons to sell his bs to even after lowering his exorbitant prices. Poor con Marty, delusional, greedy and broke.

Armstrong's main value for me is his ideas.  Perspective, especially historical perspective.  I have not done anything like systematic research on his predictions, only observing that his short-term predictions are NOT good (that I have learned), and they are vague as well.  And I do my own research (having bought BTC early for example, smile,,,).

But, no one else has offered up interesting ideas as well as ideas re investment vs. aggressive governments as Armstrong (other than the usual Doom Porn merchants elsewhere).

And I doubt that many pay money for his research.  I would not pay.  His free material, and his "Prison Papers" are interesting enough, but I have heard no one say that his paid subscription material is worth the money.

[sidhujag]

You would only read his long term forcasts if that.. hes dumb for making short and med term forecasts.. hes prob invested himself and tries to shill his positions so he can profit which is unlikely based on his trackrecord.

[sidhujag]

You would only read his long term forcasts if that.. hes dumb for making short and med term forecasts.. hes prob invested himself and tries to shill his positions so he can profit which is unlikely based on his trackrecord.

Meh, eur/usd, dow or xau are massive markets. One does not simply shill them , and he is going opposite direction with the mass media usually. I think he is positioned himself as he shows it  most of time.

Being long on equites especially us equites have paid off, so he's been right there i would say. If i remember correctly he adviced somebody to stay in cash last summer in his blog, after that market have gone up quite a bit...

going to be interesting to see how this eur/usd plays out. If it hits ~114, levels and begins the downslide which i think it might very well do, it's a good call.

His short term predictions are horrible ive been playing opposite of him and nearly 100 percent correct. The ones he feels so strong about i place higher risk in my bet. He usually goes with mass media and I go opposite.. i have been saying dow 32k before i even learned of MA. Did he change it to 40k now? Maybe so he can cash out at 32k and tell everyone i told you so quotinf original predictions.. standard trick.

Eur is going to toilet im a few years.. its a bear tech and fund. Bitcoin will replace the idea of what eur is supposed to represent. Eur worked until it didnt.. greece was the hint that its broken and to get out at 1.4x

[OROBTC]

You would only read his long term forcasts if that.. hes dumb for making short and med term forecasts.. hes prob invested himself and tries to shill his positions so he can profit which is unlikely based on his trackrecord.

Meh, eur/usd, dow or xau are massive markets. One does not simply shill them , and he is going opposite direction with the mass media usually. I think he is positioned himself as he shows it  most of time.

Being long on equites especially us equites have paid off, so he's been right there i would say. If i remember correctly he adviced somebody to stay in cash last summer in his blog, after that market have gone up quite a bit...

going to be interesting to see how this eur/usd plays out. If it hits ~114, levels and begins the downslide which i think it might very well do, it's a good call.

His short term predictions are horrible ive been playing opposite of him and nearly 100 percent correct. The ones he feels so strong about i place higher risk in my bet. He usually goes with mass media and I go opposite.. i have been saying dow 32k before i even learned of MA. Did he change it to 40k now? Maybe so he can cash out at 32k and tell everyone i told you so quotinf original predictions.. standard trick.

Eur is going to toilet im a few years.. its a bear tech and fund. Bitcoin will replace the idea of what eur is supposed to represent. Eur worked until it didnt.. greece was the hint that its broken and to get out at 1.4x

Doing the opposite of what the MSM states is usually smart (though it can hurt for a while).

Agree with you re the Euro, it is a flawed currency in a world region that is not likely to agree on what to do when things start going bad (Greece is just the beginning).

I have no idea what will happen re the Dow.  A case can be made that the Dow may go way down before long (srsroccoreport.com has a new piece on this subject -- highly recommeded!).

[OROBTC]

...

Armstrong pitches two pieces on gold today:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-the-false-move/

He writes here that gold could go down before it then goes up..........

and

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-euro-dollar/

Gold is and will be stronger in Euros than vs. the US$.  Armstrong is big believer in King Dollar.

*   *   *

OROBTC comment:

As I often wrote in response to iamnotback, NO ONE can predict the future (consistently anyway).  Gold and BTC are good hedges, insurance and diversification vs. the dollar and the stock & bond markets.

[vapourminer]

heard this from a little birdie:

Armstrong is now starting to understand some of my thesis about the future of Bitcoin:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/rule-of-law/bitcoin-criminals-authorities/

But he does not seem to understand that Bitcoin was designed to push the masses off chain into regulated scenarios (e.g. Lightning Networks on
Litecoin) by rapidly rising transaction fees (see links below for the math), because the technologically the blockchain can not be regulated by any non-global government (Armstrong is still apparently ignorant of the most important technological facts about blockchains):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1887077.msg18859434#msg18859434
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1887077.msg18878987#msg18878987
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1887077.msg18888361#msg18888361
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1887077.msg18903670#msg18903670

The regulation of Bitcoin comes when the world government takes form and the few elite on the hills in Jerusalem want to enslave the $billionaires. Bitcoin is very much part of the 666 plan and outcome coming, but it comes in stages.

P.S. note I did post that above into an older post which I edited so as to hide the edit from the mods:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1913408.msg19041785#msg19041785


Also LTC down to below 0.011 now then that is last chance to buy eventually rising back to 0.03 (possibly 0.05 but with huge volatility up and down) probably by July. If you guys had been on Crypto.cat you would have had my numerous correct predictions such as I predicted exactly the bottom at 0.0120 and the rise to 0.015. It is impossible to send these messages timely here. On crypto.cat those there got the real-time information from me. But daytrading is very risky any way.


USA headed into Civil War. Armstrong knows it. And James A. Donald is also predicting it:

http://blog.jim.com/politics/the-permanent-trump-crisis/

[CoinCube]

heard this from a little birdie:

USA headed into Civil War. Armstrong knows it. And James A. Donald is also predicting it:

http://blog.jim.com/politics/the-permanent-trump-crisis/

Nah there won't be a civil war in the US. The will be small scale social unrest. The left is starting to die in the USA it's internal inconsistencies becoming apparent to a larger and larger segment of the population.

Nick Gausling over at the Libertarian Christian institute has a nice article on this.


The Dying And Desperate Left
http://libertarianchristians.com/2017/02/07/dying-desperate-left/

The American Left – which never had a sterling record to begin with – is rapidly deteriorating. In one sense it may seem surprising how expediently the Left has turned to violent, repressive censorship and destruction as a reaction against the populist wave of 2016. However, given the history of Progressive thought, it makes perfect sense. The Left is not really changing tactics; it is actually doing what the Left has always designed to do....

(Full article at link above)

[OROBTC]

heard this from a little birdie:

USA headed into Civil War. Armstrong knows it. And James A. Donald is also predicting it:

http://blog.jim.com/politics/the-permanent-trump-crisis/

Nah there won't be a civil war in the US. The will be small scale social unrest. The left is starting to die in the USA it's internal inconsistencies becoming apparent to a larger and larger segment of the population.

Nick Gausling over at the Libertarian Christian institute has a nice article on this.


The Dying And Desperate Left
http://libertarianchristians.com/2017/02/07/dying-desperate-left/

The American Left – which never had a sterling record to begin with – is rapidly deteriorating. In one sense it may seem surprising how expediently the Left has turned to violent, repressive censorship and destruction as a reaction against the populist wave of 2016. However, given the history of Progressive thought, it makes perfect sense. The Left is not really changing tactics; it is actually doing what the Left has always designed to do....

(Full article at link above)

Ahh, I don't know CC.  The Left goes up and down here in America.  Our country DID, after all, elect and re-elect Obama.  The Left will rise again, but I hope they do not in 2018 and 2020.

My *guess* is that we do avoid a full-blown civil war.  But real problems, and real rioting and other bad stuff is likely to happen when the .gov runs out of money and/or a real repression starts.

"The Empire will strike back."

[CoinCube]

Ahh, I don't know CC.  The Left goes up and down here in America.  Our country DID, after all, elect and re-elect Obama.  The Left will rise again, but I hope they do not in 2018 and 2020.

My *guess* is that we do avoid a full-blown civil war.  But real problems, and real rioting and other bad stuff is likely to happen when the .gov runs out of money and/or a real repression starts.

"The Empire will strike back."

Obama gets a bad rap. Obama kept both Hilary Clinton and John McCain out of office.

He also started the process of dismantling the machinery of the Democratic Party. If it were not for Obama we would almost certainly have had another far worse Clinton presidency.

HuffPo Editor: With The Democrats In Ruins, You Have To Ask Whether Obama Was Good For The Party
https://m.townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/12/30/huffpo-editor-with-the-democrats-in-ruins-you-have-to-ask-whether-obama-was-good-for-the-party-n2265325

Even The Huffington Post cannot let the down-ballot gutting of the Democrats go unnoticed. Senior politics editor Sam Stein was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday, where he said that while Obama was re-elected twice proving himself to be an excellent candidate—his party has suffered catastrophic losses during his presidency. In all, the Democrats have lost 1,030 seats at the state and federal level, a wipeout of at least a generation of Democratic talent. Stein added that with such a political butcher’s bill, you have to ask whether this man was good for Democrats (via The Hill):

Leah wrote how Charles Krauthammer called the Democratic losses under Obama “incalculable.”


The state and local elections is where the new talent is found. Democrats are nowhere near that pool (right now). If Democrats are serious about walking out of the wilderness, then re-connect with white working class voters that number in the tens of millions. These people voted Trump, but they can shift back. Yet, the Democrats are now a coastal and urban-based party, where snobby elites will not take too kindly about reaching out to white voters. These areas are bastions for black lives matter, transgender bathroom rights, notions that all police officers are racists, trigger warnings, and safe spaces. These people are not interested in anyone who isn’t from where they live, who are not college educated, and who don’t speak with learned diction. Right now, Democrats don’t seem to be keen on changing their tune; they’ve just picked San Francisco and New York-based liberals (Pelosi and Schumer) to helm the ship in Congress. Democrats can fix this, but I have a feeling they won't anytime soon. We shouldn't be complaining about that.

Governments won't run out of money regardless of the party in power they will just tax more and then start having central banks start buying up all government debt to allow for increased spending to pay for prior promised benefits. Thus we can look forward to increasing stagflation which will persist until we grow smart enough to largely abandon government redistribution via fiat money printing. How much each country will suffer until they learn will vary. Some will need to go down the path of Venezuela. Others including I believe the USA will return to sanity long before that.