Anyway, I refuse to put on the tinfoil hat and read those blogs. All this hooplah about Libra is just wild speculation […]
I don't think Libra or anything else is going to torpedo bitcoin or cause the government to seize all our precious metals--the latter has only happened once in the history of the US as far as I know, and since the government has no problem printing all the money they want, they have no need for gold or silver anymore.
Remember I wrote recently about how my mother explained that she doesn’t want to learn the truth of Climate Change fraud and that I am too serious. She prefers the propaganda because it makes her feel good. Remember FACT IS that females are not interested in serious planning and serious research (they always have another Freudian agenda even when they’re going through the motions of research and planning).
This is why Western democracy can’t function without adherence to Christian scriptures. Remember woman is only rib of a man, and man must be leader of the household. Thus for example, women must not be allowed to vote. And irresponsible non-Christian men must not be allowed to vote, because they’re too preoccupied with their hedonism to study issues up for vote in sufficient detail (read the Wall Observer thread on bitcointalk to see how hedonistic most Westerners are these days).
We Westerners are too busy bickering with each other over politics to actually see over the tree tops of the forest at how we’re being enslaved.
I'd rather have much less government.
That’s what democracy under true Christianity would be. Remember what the U.S.A. used to be. Isolationist. Not throwing our big dick military all over the globe to serve the globalists.
True Christians mind their own business.
(Do not conflate this with most so called “Christian” churches which stick their noses all over the place where it should, such as anti-abortion politics, etc)
The God of Islam never disciplines. He only rewards with 72 virgins in “heaven” for massacring infidels. Muslims chant “God is great” everytime they make a mistake, because their God can fix anything. No concept of self-responsibility. They abandon each other on the battle field. Islam is a religion that appeals to very, very stupid men. So you want stupid, selfish, undisciplined men voting?
It’s not whether we will better off with a dictatorship. It’s just what we will get for not being cooperative Christians with self-discipline, restraint and control over our urges.
Christianity is the only religion that tells man to aspire to be selfless. Animist religions such as the Asian religions equate man with an insect and thus man has no special, noble relevance.
ONLY Christianity is compatible with democracy. And if your society is composed of non-Christians or fake Christians who really do not adhere to the selfless and rebellious principles of Jesus, then your democracy will become totalitarian.
Christians have to separate themselves from the majority and form their own communities and their own cryptocurrency.
And restricting by race is not smart because Africa for example may be one of the most fertile grounds to find future devout Christians. Restrict by adherence/striving to the goal of the selflessness of Jesus. Restrict by willingness to learn these principles.
Jesus was color blind.
Armstrong has thus explained why China will rise because they don’t have democracy and our democracy has turned away from Christian cooperation towards Satanic hate:
It has become obvious that the mainstream press is FAKE NEWS. They are indeed out to get Trump and are using their position to desperately try to support the bureaucracy. The Washington Post has run a story stating Trump is wrong about the strength of the US economy. They claim his own advisors are warning that a recession is coming but he keeps saying the economy is strong. They’re accusing him of being a liar, which is no surprise.
What is really fascinating is that until Trump came to power, the press always talked up the economy because the belief has been if you tell the people there will be a recession, the people will contract their spending and create one. Larry Summers has explained that they cannot predict recessions, and if they could it would be a self-fulfillment of their forecast for if you tell the people there will be a recession, you will create one.
Back in 2009, the Washington Post always talked optimistically about the economy and how Obama would save the day. Now we have the Post talking up a recession in the USA into the 2020 election when NEVER IN HISTORY has any major newspaper preached the economy will crumble just to influence a presidential election. This is really amazing and a complete turning around for the media demonstrating they no longer report the news, they are trying to create it. Even the photos they showed of Epstein with Trump and his ex-wife were always used rather than those of Epstein with Bill or Hillary.
Every time there is a crash, the president ALWAYS comes out and says the economy is fundamentally sound. Hoover did that in 1929 and they have done that every time ever since — both parties. The theory is if the president ever came out and said we are doomed, the people would panic even more. It is just NEVER done until now when the press calls for a recession to defeat a president.
China understands the difference between the German mercantilist model of manufacturing and sells to everyone else and the United States which became the largest economy in the world because it allowed its domestic consumer economy to develop. China will become the largest economy in the world and take the crown from the United States because America lacks the political stability to foster long-term economic growth like China.
That statement will be a political bombshell no doubt. The demise of the United States is easily seen by the polarization of American politics. The Democrats come in and want to raise taxes and hunt the rich sending jobs and capital overseas. The Republicans come in and want to lower taxes and bring jobs and capital back home. The problem is very clear. Tax rates should NOT be a political yoyo. Corporations must have a budget. They cannot plan long-term because it all depends upon the next election every time. Unless the Supreme Court outlaws Marxism, there is no hope for the United States to survive long-term. Our political system will self-destruct the economy. There is just no consistency which is vital to economic growth.
China, in contrast, has a long-term plan. Its politicians are a career employee, but they need not stand for election. That actually allows for actual long-term planning where the United States cannot compete because of the polarization in American politics dominated by free-market Adam Smith v Marxist Socialism. This political war keeps getting worse and it is tearing the economy apart.
Those who have been expecting a quiet solution to the China v USA Trade War were shocked by the statements on Friday. China’s trade war escalation increased tariffs on imports imposing $75 billion worth of duties on U.S. goods, beginning Sept. 1 and December 15. China’s foreign ministry said that it would resume tariffs on U.S. imports of automobiles and auto parts and place an additional 5% or 10% tariff on agricultural and food products like soybeans, coffee, whiskey, and seafood.
To put this all in perspective, $75 billion in tariffs to an American economy in excess of $20 trillion, amounts to .003%. You would think all the wild swings and talk of trade would be a major factor in the US economy. However, it is not and China would very much like to see Trump lose the election so they can get back to negotiating trade deals by offering special treatments to the career politicians who look to get something out of everything for themselves.
Robert, note Europe is leading the USA. Europe will collapse in the abyss first. And Europe will rise out of the abyss before USA will. Armstrong’s computer has predicted this outcome. See Armstrong blogs cited below.
So this means migrate from Europe to USA now. And then migrate back to Europe from USA later.
Or move to Asia if you can tolerate being sandwiched like sardines or you can find a way to own a large enough plot of land to have some peace and don’t mind dealing with the crush of humanity every time you venture out.
Let me expound a bit and again unfortunately the context of this discussion is in the other email thread, “Democracy fails without Christianity”. I had excerpted some of Armstrong’s recent blogs which contained information relevant to what I will expound now.
No leaders are making China great? My gosh China has some from abject poverty where the job of millions was to haul things on their backs as if they were farm animals, to robust middle class. No it’s not the level we attained in the West, but it is a heck of a lot better than what they had a few decades ago.
I do not admire their top-down, oligarchs system. Yet in reality the West is also a top-down, oligarchy, the only distinction is ours is obscured in political-capture and theirs is overt. But the fact is whilst we in the West destroy each other with our derision and lack of Christian values (as political-capture in a non-Christian context plays out to its bitter end), the leaders in China make plans and stick to them. China has abandoned Marxism. It is still totalitarianism, but now entirely capitalistic and materialistic. Of course eventually they will fall into the problems with a top-down run system and discouraging individualism, but compared to our loss of cooperation, stability and sanity in the West, Asia even while limping along with all its faults (fiefdoms, selfishness, warlords, etc) will be grow their economy whilst our Western economies collapse.
The West will rise again (in some hundreds of years), when we get back to our Christian roots. And after we’re finished shooting and destroying each other in a battle to determine which ideology of ours will win. We have to crash and burn first. Whereas, Asia is building and growing. Asia has the youthful demographics (on the whole aggregate) and outside of S.Korea and Japan, has no significant socialism/welfare burden (i.e. no significant entitlement burden). The pensions and entitlements are what will collapse the West, same as it did to Western Rome.
We in the West (on the aggregate including Europe) can’t even reproduce enough anymore. We lost Christianity. Lost our females. Etc.. It’s way overcooked. Stick a fork in it. And prepare for the long decline.QUESTION: In terms of societal collapse, I have been looking at 2032 as the date of armegeddon , or the next major asteroid impact when life as I know it will completely cease (needless to say, kind of a downer), but in a recent blog post you mentioned the collapse of the West might stretch out for another 600 years (OMG, thank you!). Which is it?
ANSWER: I do not believe that 2032 is the end of civilization. Even if we assume this Sixth Wave will be of equal importance as the one that picked the end of Rome in 175 AD. Roman society declined for the next 300 years, and then the Dark Age emerged for another 600 years. So from the actual peak in Roman society, the low was about 900 years later.
That time frame is probably correct for North America but it does not mean society comes to an end. The financial capital of the world will shift to China, which will be the dominant economy for the subsequent 309.6-year period. Then it will migrate to Russia and then to Europe. It will probably take 900 years before it reappears in North America.
We do not really encounter the outright politically dominant women until the late 2nd century and they are from the East. It is not just one woman, but a number of them that began to manipulate politics and take more of an open role.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/the-decline-fall-of-the-united-states-on-schedule/https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/224-collapsing-wave-structure-point-to-breakup-of-usa/(above link to a chart showing the USA will decline from the date Snowden revealed the NSA corruption until 2085)https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/history/americas-economic-history/how-the-usa-is-in-its-death-throws/(above links to a chart of political change compared with that of the UK)As for the break-up of the USA, the computer has been warning for decades now that the 2016 election will see a sharp rise in third-party activity. The Republican Party may split again. We see the internal civil war with the Tea Party people. This is the core of the break-up for what lies behind that is culture and religion. Once the economy turns down, this will accelerate.
By 2032, the other side of this 51.6 year wave looks to be a starkly different world. The USA will split and China will become the Financial Capital of the World.
In Europe, you have an income tax that is higher than the USA by at least 20%, and then on top of that, you have a 20% VAT consumption tax. Additionally, there are mountains of municipal taxes and all sorts of regulations and fees.
The USA has the biggest consumer economy because the consumer is left with nearly one-third more of their income as disposable to spend compared to Europeans
ANSWER: Healthcare is destroying Western Civilization for the costs are far too high. Because they have been subsidized by the government, they have not been subjected to the normal business cycle. They just always have their hand out in uptrends and down. The government in Finland resigned on Friday after they failed to come up with reform to cut costs in healthcare. Between that trend and government pensions, these two forces are putting pressure to keep raising taxes and lowering the standard of living for everyone else. This is what I mean that we are in the stages of a collapse in socialism. There should be no government pensions where people have not contributed anything toward their future. Healthcare MUST be cut off and forced to be competitive. Obamacare was all about cheating the youth and forcing them to pay for healthcare they did not need to reduce costs for those who did need it. This is the hallmark of socialism – how to live off of other people’s money.
I sincerely fear that Trump will be the very last democratically elected president. They will from here on out alter the actual voting counts to support their desired outcome. This is game over! Turn out the lights! As they said of Rome: they will still laughing when the lights went out.
Will Russia’s economy eventually exceed that of Germany? The answer is yes, just as China will surpass the United States. The West is collapsing. World GDP has been in a bear market since the late 1970s. The economy is moving into a recession as we spiral toward 2020. We will then enter STAGFLATION — rising prices with declining economic growth — between 2020 into 2024 with another hard decline thereafter into 2028.
It does appear that the economic decline will be much more severe with respect to Germany than Russia. Therefore, part of the gains in Russia will be not so much from growth as it will be from Germany declining more significantly because of its export economic model.
QUESTION: During the WEC in Rome you’ve mentioned that center of finance moving to Asia after 2032. I’m wondering if work ethics from a country with no religion can be sustainable for so many years? My assumption is if the religion helped to shape the Europe’s success (and not any other part of the world at that time) and later on the USA (with religious work ethics), can it be preserved in China or will it fade away as people over there don’t want to work (they only do that in order to survive) ?
ANSWER: The work ethic is not really derived from religion but from the freedom under capitalism. Both in Russia and China, people retained their religious beliefs but in secret. Chine practiced the Tall Poppie Syndrom where they did not care what you thought provided you did not stick your head up above others. Russia under Stalin was one of paranoia. He directed children to report on their parents. This is why China has boomed for it left humanity intact. The Chinese are highly motivated to work more so than in the West. It is part of their culture.
Nevertheless, at some point, China will peak and then decline. The cycle will then return to Europe and then off to the Americas. As society expands, the birth rate declines and people want to enjoy the good life.
The tax rate in the ancient Roman Empire was about 5% with some paying as little as 2%.
The PERFECT monetary system is one in which there is no debt. Rome lasted for 1,000 years BECAUSE it had no debt
QUESTION: You mentioned that Rome had no national debt and no central bank. Exactly how did it function for 1,000 years?
ANSWER: In addition to not having a national debt or a central bank, Rome had no police force or agency charged with enforcing the law. There were specific crimes against the state that would be prosecuted such as arson and treason. But the prosecution of a murder would be carried out by the family. The responsibility for enforcing the law thereby fell on the kin, tribe, gens and patron of the offended individual.
As far as finances, the government simply minted coins to pay its expenses.
It was the King of England after Magna Carta who began to prosecute people for what was private crimes all so he could make money. By the time of the American Revolution, there were 240 felonies all of which carried the death penalty. So the king got to confiscate all your property and throw your family out on the street all based on what had historically been a private dispute.
It was not until Magna Carta when the nobles rose up against King John who was fining people for all sorts of things. They demanded a right to trial by jury and this seriously reduced the king’s revenue. He changed the law at that time and suddenly cast himself as a victim in any private dispute. Two people fought and the king now claimed it disturbed his peace. Suddenly, what used to be private now became state crimes. I previously wrote about the history of civil asset forfeiture, which was deodand in ancient times whereby the object that caused someone’s death was sold and the proceeds were used for the victim’s funeral. The king replaces God with himself and today we have people’s assets being confiscated under the theory that the object offends God who has been replaced by the state.
QUESTION: Wanted to ask you if you are noticing the same thing as me regarding the ‘quality’ of goods and services these days and if this is history repeating itself again, such as the fall of the Roman empire?
To explain, I am noticing that the quality of the goods and services I buy whether durables or consumables is terrible and only getting worse. Nothing is built to last (such as tools, electronics, even vehicles), and the quality of consumables such as food and services is b-grade at best and it is hard to find alternatives.
I live in Australia and just about everything is made overseas, such as China. I bought a simple axe from a hardware store and it lasted 3 weeks. Had it replaced and it lasted 3 more weeks. Went back to see if I could find one made in Australia and could not find any.
…
Rents are expensive but landlords treat you like your scum, not to mention insurance companies.
Car registration is expensive and yet the quality of our roads is terrible.
ANSWER: Both the quality of goods and services declined during the 2nd century (post-180 AD), and society began to decline overall even morally. An interesting view is that of an outsider looking in. The author of this interesting quote is the famous 10th-century Arab geographer and historian Abu al-Hasan al-Mas’udi (c. 896–956AD) of Baghdad. He reflected upon what unfolded in Europe, expressing the grim reality in the early Middle Ages through a foreigner’s eyes. In outlining the peoples of the world for his contemporaries, an Arab geographer of the day described Europeans as having “large bodies, gross natures, harsh manners, and dull intellects . . . those who live farthest north are particularly stupid, gross and brutish.” He described the fall of Rome, and in describing western civilization, he effectively used similar concepts that the classical historians like Herodotus and Tacitus had once used to describe the barbarian world outside of European civilization.
The sequence of events leading up to such drastic changes begins with high taxes and hunting the rich as we are witnessing today. Maximinus I declared all private wealth belonged to the States which was just one more step to the left from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and AOC. Once you do that, the result is the hoarding of wealth and that ends up contracting investment creating an economic death spiral. Education declines and regulation rises as the government seeks more power. The overall trend creates a precipitous drop in quality of life, and all the very reasons for the rise of civilization are then reversed and the trend moves from concentration to separation. This is the overall general scheme as to the reasons why Rome fell.
Keep in mind that the Dark Ages were about 600 years. So we need not worry about this complete collapse in our lifetime. Nevertheless, we are experiencing the early stages of the decline and fall of Western Civilization. The government pensions will create the same trend of fragmentation and turning government employees against the people. We will see the split of the European Union and the same in Canada as well as Australia. The United States will also split as some regions will reject the socialist regions and their attempts to subjugate their beliefs to their own.
If Rome’s sheer size made it difficult to govern because centralized government always fails. This contributed to the ineffective and inconsistent leadership which only served to magnify the problem as we are witnessing today as politics also has become highly polarized.
The Praetorian Guard became the same as we have today with the Deep State, illustrated in the FBI, CIA, and NSA all conspiring to overthrow Trump. This political chaos also extended to the Roman Senate as it has currently in modern times. The Senate became a cesspool of corruption that failed to temper the excesses of the emperors due to its own widespread corruption and incompetence (i.e. gridlock). As the situation worsened, civic pride waned and many Roman citizens lost trust in their leadership.
The Barbarian attacks on Rome partially stemmed from a mass migration caused by the Huns’ invasion of Europe in the late fourth century. As the Huns moved West, the barbarians were compelled to invade. Once they saw that Rome was vulnerable following the capture of Valerian, the invasions began in mass. This led to the Roman Empire dividing into three regions. Postumus (260-268 AD) led the rebellion creating the Gaulic Empire (Britain-France-Spain) and in the East Zenobia carved out her Empire based in Syria.
We are simply following the very same pattern in the same order. History repeats simply because human nature never changes. We would always like to think we are smarter and different. That has never proven to be anything more than a preferred delusion.
QUESTION: Hello Martin Armstrong,
Australia seems to have one foot in the West and one in the East. With the fall of the Western economies and then the rise of Asian economies, how does that affect the Australian economy? Does the real estate bubble collapse the Aussie economies and then the rise of China creates the opportunity to rebuild the economy after 2032?
ANSWER: The computer is projecting that Australia will first have to collapse with Western culture because it has become exceptionally left-wing. This is the collapse of socialism in general. We are collapsing just as communism did. It will be one Pi Cycle (31.4 years) from 1989, which brings us into this target of 2020/2021. We should expect serious political change on the horizon that will result in civil unrest.
Longer-term, however, with one foot in Asia, Australia will turn from the USA and Europe. As I have said, China is MUCH WISER than what we see in the West. While Europe is fighting over old economic models and clinging to theories that no longer work, China is investigating HOW the USA displaced Europe. It did so with LOW TAXES and regulation that built the American consumer market that the entire world has been dependent upon.
Germany’s economic model is still the old Mercantilist theory that national wealth is obtained by selling more stuff than you buy from others. The USA model has been internal rather than the Mercantilist external model. This is what China has realized and it is turning inward. Western society has not figured this out yet. Just look at BREXIT. The entire argument against it in Britain is that they will not be able to sell to Europe. That is really stupid and absurd.
Therefore, when the socialist model collapses in Australia, there will be a natural risk of a separatist movement. Western Australia will certainly find that, economically, they are more aligned with Asia than the East coast.
The problem the SNP faces is they have mixed up independence, socialism, and remaining in the EU rather than the UK. In this regard, they have truly lost their way and do not comprehend either trade or the fact that socialism is collapsing right in front of their face.
(MY COMMENT ON THE ABOVE IS OF COURSE BECAUSE THEY REJECTED CHRISTIANITY SO THEY ARE VERY VERY CONFUSED)QUESTION: on Sept 12th 2013 you wrote about the ‘Return of the crusades’. Now, 6 years later, with the massive migrant crisis still ongoing, a lot of people consider leaving Western Europe bc Sharia law is looming everywhere. Mohammed takes the first place for baby names in many countries, sharia law spreads, kindergartens don’t serve pork anymore, Easter festivities in school get canceled bc of Ramadan, rapists and even murderers don’t go to jail bc neither the executive nor the judicative has capacities anymore to even open a trial and so on. At the moment, it looks as if Western Europe will become a caliphate within the next decade or two. With Migrants still flooding the continent and the birth jihad, it seems Europeans/Christians will vanish in the foreseeable future. I would like to know what Socrates has to say about this… will there be a counterstrike? Or a religious war? Right-wing parties rise everywhere, so the Europeans ARE fed up. But is there even enough TIME to turn things around…?
What do the cycles say?
ANSWER: Unfortunately, the cycle of religious tension is also due in 2021/2022. The first recorded persecution of Christians took place under Emperor Nero who blamed them for setting the great fire in Rome. The base cycle on a major shift in religion turned up in 1990, which was 224 cycles of 8.6 from 64 AD. Add pi, 31.4 years, and we arrive at 2021/2022. Nevertheless, there was also rising tension with Islam itself. This I laid out in the 2015 Cycle of War report. When the economy turns down, that is when tensions rise. There was the religious war in Christianity known as the Byzantine Iconoclasm, which existed between about 726 and 787 AD. The peak before the war came 72 cycles of 8.6 from the Nero persecution of 64 AD. Then 96 cycles later we come to Martin Luther in 1517 when he posted 95 theses on the church door in the university town of Wittenberg. Cyclically right on time, in 1534 King Henry VIII declared himself to be supreme head of the Church of England. This resulted in a schism with the Papacy and began the events known as the English Reformation.
It appears we are building toward 2021/2022 when things are going to begin to get heated on a religious basis.
Every American will require pre-screening, so in other words, you will need a quasi-visa to even get on the plane. There will be no more free travel.
The application will be then checked across multiple databases right down to your credit history. If the application is not flagged to be looked over manually, they claim a decision will be reached by the system “within minutes,” the site says. If an application is denied, the applicant will receive a reason as to why but you can bet it will omit all political implications and focus on anything, such as arrest records, and will deny you a visa. The shocking number of Americans who are arrested is one-third of those BEFORE they reach the age of 25.
We are approaching the real Big Brother era. By 2020, China also plans to give all its 1.4 billion citizens a personal score based on how they behave. Some with low scores are already being punished if they want to travel. Nearly 11 million Chinese are not allowed to fly and 4 million are barred from trains. We are rapidly approaching the use of technology that will prevent you from traveling or doing anything if you are somehow not acceptable to governments.
Our children and grandchildren will NEVER know what freedom really was all about.
Welcome to the new age of technology. We will have to prove who we are to even move. In communism, you could not move to a different house without the permission of the government.
QUESTION: Western Civilization will collapse by 2032.
I didn’t expect such a strong comment from you.
Specifically, what does this mean?
On the level of ancient Rome? Followed by the dark ages or just mediocrity and the rise of the East?
ANSWER: There is a serious risk that after 2032, this will be very much like the fall of Rome […] At the lower threshold of risk lies that reality whereby at the very minimum we are looking at the collapse of centralized governments as took place in 1989 with communism. That will result in greater separatist movements and the breakup of national states as we know it today. The USA could break into four main regions. Britain would find it too splits and Scotland, as well as Wales and Ireland, revert back to their origins.
With the collapse of Rome, the monetary system collapsed and people hoarded their wealth. This resulted in coinage vanishing from circulation. Eventually, gold vanished from the money supply for nearly 600 years. It did not reappear until 1232 with the first coin being issued in Brindisi. This was issued in order to conduct trade with Byzantine and Arabs.
So what the computer is showing is the rise in civil unrest and the risk of war. Just look at what took place at the State of the Union – there is no UNION. This nonsense the Democrats have engaged in has fired the first shot that will be heard around the world. They opposite absolutely everything that Trump says or does. When the political tide switches, the Republicans will do the same to them. It is over. There is no common ground or going back. We are witnessing the destruction of all democratic systems. This is how republics die – polarized opposition.
This is part of what the computer is forecasting – the collapse of governments as we have known. NEVER before has anyone dared to say that the president was not “their” president. We always accept the winner even when it was someone we voted against. That acceptance no longer exists. Furthermore, we are looking at the collapse of socialism the same as communism. Both were derived from Karl Marx. They are both unsustainable economically. The pension system is collapsing with many municipal governments having near or more people on retirement than working. Just look at Illinois as an example. The state, provincial, and municipal levels of government cannot create money. All they can do is raise taxes to force people to pay state employees that were promised endless money for life.
In the West, girls are simply not having enough children. This is undermining the entire social structure. The welfare system is dependent upon the population increasing, or at the bare minimum remaining unchanged. Europe has secretly allowed refugees in to try to make up for the decline in population that will undermine their highly socialistic economic system. The contrast with the West stands in China and Korea. In the case of China, here too there is a shrinkage in population. However, unlike the West, China is neither adopting Quantitative Easing or allowing an influx of refugees in.
In the case of Korea, they are hoping for a reunification with the North. This, they hope, will compensate for the shrinkage in their population. Historically, the more economically advanced a society becomes, the fewer children the women have. Even in ancient Rome, the first Emperor Augustus passed family laws and would fine men who would not marry and have children.
Once again, history reveals the trends are consistent throughout the centuries.
QUESTION: Marty, Colorado is changing its law that the electoral college will be assigned according to the popular vote to try to stop Trump. Would you care to comment on this?
ANSWER: In Colorado during the 2016 Presidential Election, 48.2% voted for Hillary and 43.3% for Trump. The danger of this bill means that the people of Colorado might not vote. Regardless of who they vote for, the state will vote for whoever won the popular vote. So if Trump won the national popular vote but the state voted for a Democrat, then the state would have to vote for Trump. This is a very strange proposal. It is trying to eliminate the possibility of a winner who is not the popular vote winner.
Colorado will become the 12th state to join the national popular vote interstate compact. Those 12 states and the District of Columbia, which has also passed a popular-vote bill, account for 181 electoral votes, just under 90 shy of the 270 votes a presidential candidate needs to win the White House. The compact will not go into effect until the coalition includes states that add up to 270 electoral votes or more. Once it does go into effect, states that are part of the coalition would award their electoral votes en masse to the candidate who wins the national popular vote even if their state voted for the opponent. That can really eliminate the meaning of voting for one state can engage in fraud as took place in California forcing all the other states to vote for a candidate they rejected.
These states are trying to prevent a Trump victory at all costs. The purpose of the Electoral College was to ensure that one state does not dominate all others. It will also expose the entire nation to voter fraud as was out of control in California which is why Bernie went to the White House to complain to Obama that Hillary stole California from him.
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; I want to thank you. My parents died and left me their home in Naples, Florida. I was going to sell it but after reading you and the fact that even you moved to Florida, I decided to keep it. We have been renting it out and it is always fully booked. The realtor said we can probably get 20% more next year the market is that good. He said it was the weather. I think it is also taxes.
REPLY: The rental market is very good here. I must say, traffic has been about double from the last snowbird season. I personally do not like that, but it is a result of the extreme cold up north. The joke down here is you can probably rent out space under your bed. The weather has clearly boosted the rental market. However, we also have a strong migration from people fleeing New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts who mostly head for the East Coast of Florida. The west coast, where I am, tends to attract more people from the midwest, but I have probably met more people from New Jersey here than I ever did in New Jersey. I was doing some interviews for potential staff and I actually met a girl born in Florida. The interesting thing here is that just about everyone you meet is from someplace else.
COMMENT: You have to help us out here. California tried to tax text messages. The feds stopped that.
Now, LA county wants to tax Uber and lyft. They’re already taxing us, I think, for mosquito control. The mosquito control only hands out info too. It does no real work.
This is crazy. Everywhere in California, they’re trying to shake us out of every cent. Is there anything we can do to stop this?
REPLY: Sorry. This is how governments commit suicide. Instead of dealing with the problem and looking at this from the long-term view, all they care about is what is in front of their nose. The attitude is to just raise some tax to meet the next expenditure. They do not look at this and where it ends up. Historically, if Rome had taxed people at 50%, it would have never lasted 1,000 years.
There is no hope in sight.
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.
Even in our cars, there are features they do not tell you about. I have a Porsche. I pulled into my driveway and shut off the car but the stick was not completely in the park position. When I came out the next day, the battery was dead. My neighbor found the same thing happens when he travels. He has to keep his car plugged in because even when these newer cars are turned off, they are not completely off. It is still running programs and reporting back to a central computer. This is like Windows, which constantly wants to update so it can extract all your searching. Why does a car need to always be in touch with the manufacturer to the point that you cannot go on a trip and come back a couple of weeks later without discovering your battery is dead? Do we have to pop the hood and disconnect the battery before we take a trip?
Technology has advanced, but it is now being abused.
I have stated many times that while working around the world with major corporations, I have yet to meet anyone who is actually doing something in which they had a degree. Most CFOs seem to have engineering degrees. You cannot get a degree to be a hedge fund manager, President of the United States, a member of Congress, a state governor, mayor, race car driver, or CEO of a major company. There is not even a degree requirement to be a member of Congress. The real conspiracy is telling people they have no future life without a degree. This is the real scam: making money by burying the young in a lifetime of debt after paying for degrees that do not produce jobs.
The problem Hong Kong will face is as the financial crisis in Europe erupts, this will push the Greenback higher. If Hong Kong keeps desperately trying to hold the peg, they will import DEFLATION and turn their economy down very hard all because of international events. The models we showed at the Singapore Conference targeted 2019 for an important turning point.
There is a real crisis in the fertility rate which has fallen to such a low level that all the socialism going forward will simply collapse. What used to be the Baby Boom is now being called the “Baby Bust,” which means that in all first-world countries there is a real crisis for they have insufficient children to maintain their population size.
One of the secret tools government pulls is to deny the people the right to vote on key issues they want that are often cloaked in backroom deals. Seattle is a great example of how the local government pulls every trick in the book to hide the truth about what they are really up to. The Seattle Mayor has been caught outright hiding the details of a proposal to allow homeless people to take over public parking lots.
Meanwhile in Illinois, one politician wants all politicians to wear body cameras so people will see the backroom negotiations that are filling the swamp. While this proposal sounds like a good idea, there is nothing to stop them from meeting on personal time to take the under-the-table bribes. Even in Florida, a town on the shore suddenly found politicians voting for a major hotel when the people never wanted it. The political chaos and hints of corruption have filled the air that politicians were just paid off to vote against the people in Madeira Beach.
Trying to prove corruption and bribes is difficult. Government knows how to protect itself very well. This merely begs the question, how much longer will the people put up with this treatment?
What is interesting is that three waves of 51.6-years brought us to 1979 and the Reagan Revolution in politics with the slogan – let’s make America Great Again. Reagan was reversing the socialism of high taxes and high regulation. Of course, the next wave brings us to 2030. From the 1854 political split, we arrive at 2009. Besides picking the low in the economy and stock market crash from 2007, this turning point marked what many called the Second Republican Revolution.
They worry that the sweeping proposals and hardball tactics of liberal firebrands could alienate centrist voters in the 2020 election, even as they hold out hope that Democratic primary voters, focused on defeating President Trump, will check the party’s move to the left.
The moderates’ concerns came to a head this week when one of the newest Democratic stars appeared to threaten colleagues who would not toe the liberal line, raising the specter of a fracture in the party between moderates and purists, similar to a long-standing divide in the Republican Party.
Any way we slice and dice these numbers, they are all pointing to the same outcome — a rise in third-party activity. That also applies to the Democratic Party. There are serious fissures emerging behind the curtain that I doubt CNN would report. This movement that is beginning to fracture the Democrats is actually being instigated by AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)) There are threats being made behind the scenes that some of her colleagues could find themselves “on a list” of primary election targets if they do not support her and especially following anyone who voted for a Republican amendment that required undocumented immigrants who try to buy guns to be reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
One group that is making such threats are known as the Justice Democrats, who are a liberal group that backed AOC primary campaign. They are attempting to dictate to the entire Democratic Party that it is their way or they will fund people to replace them. This is what Boehner was doing to Republicans who would back the Tea Party Conservatives. The power has gone to the head of AOC and she clearly thinks all the attention she is getting means she should be in charge. She was born October 13th, 1989 so she will be 35 just a few weeks from the Presidential election in 2024 for which they are preparing.
By turning Democrats against Democrats, the risk of a split is very high. These latest tactics are creating a Nixonian type of hit-list. She is really behind this demand of unification for her Green New Deal. Imposing this sort of political test is not only anti-Democratic insofar as individual candidates cannot stand for something different, but this sort of dictatorship will lead to a Democratic version of the Conservative Tea Party rebellion that transformed the GOP and kicked Boehner to the curb.
ANSWER: AOC actually has a greater following than Schumer or Pelosi, and they seem to be letting her run wild. My discussions in Washington were enlightening. There are many people in the Democratic Party who actually think their people want more taxes and agree with her New Green Deal. Their corporate sponsors will run in the other direction. The real damage is being created because this only adds to the polarization we see in 2020. Long-term, there is ZERO hope of ever getting back to a normal government. We have entered the realm of hate politics.
ANSWER: It will not end well. Government employees have the defined-benefit (DB) while we get the defined-contribution (DC) plans. Most state and local government employees, actually 87% of those working full time, participate in a defined benefit (DB) pension plan. They contribute NOTHING but are guaranteed a pension on top of what they earned, plus free healthcare for life. The vast majority of those in government have NEVER had to save anything. They are there now demanding that our futures be stripped. We are to be taxed until we die, and upon death, they want what is left.
This situation cannot end nicely. It is the same way that Rome collapsed. When the government could no longer afford to pay the army, it began sacking Roman cities that opposed their general. They turned inward and cannibalized their own cities, weakening the entire empire, thereby allowing the barbarians to come through the gates. We have followed the very same mistakes as Rome. This is just how empires always end. We are no different.
How can someone working for the government negotiate their own pension? This entire system is flawed and we are paying the price of civil unrest.
We have a very interesting crisis building in addition to the political chaos we see coming in 2020. By the time we reach 2021, we will have over $2 trillion in investment grade corporate debt maturing. This is going to present some very interesting problems. Up to now, we have advised our corporate clients to borrow at these rates and lock it in for 30 to 100 years. The bulk of corporations, who we do not advise, funded themselves short-term. With about $2 trillion maturing by 2021, they will end up pushing interest rates higher from there onward.
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