The Goths – Ancient Rome’s Migrant Crisis

Posted Jan 26, 2024 By Martin Armstrong

The globalists refuse to declare the migrant crisis an “invasion,” but we have history’s guidance to show us what happens when an unsustainable number of people enter a nation. The Goths, a non-military group considered migrants, are a perfect example. These men, women, and children sought refuge within the Roman Empire. This was not an invading army but rather a fleeing population seeking safety from the Huns. The Goths, long-time foes of the Romans, appealed to be admitted to Roman territory due to the threat they faced and needed to seek asylum. This event led to significant consequences and marked a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire.

The great Gothic migration involved hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. While, to some degree, the growing unrest in the East pushed them southward, there is also little doubt that the border defenses of the Roman Empire had also been seriously weakened by the political instability and economic pressures that were building within Rome itself. Of course, the rumor of great plunder and riches available in Roman territory acted like a magnet much in the same way as the rumors of streets paved in gold in America prompted great European migrations during the 19th and early 20th centuries or the outdated stereotype of the American Dream.

By 238 AD, the Gothic position was so threatening to the Roman Empire that Emperor Maximinus was forced to pay them vast amounts of tribute, similar to how countries currently pay all expenses for migrants. While his aim may have been to buy time, this demonstrated weakness on the part of the Romans, who were still in the middle of internal political struggles for power. Internal imperial rivalries ultimately defeated Maximinis. Within less than four years thereafter, the Goths began a series of raids along the Danube.

A decade later and Philip I attempted to quell the influx of migrants, but died while battling his successor, Trajan Decius. Rome was simply decaying gradually from internal struggles, which weakened the economy and constantly pitted one legion against another in a struggle for power. We see internal struggles today throughout the West as politics continue to divide the people. The Romans did not consider the Goths to be a force that would threaten the entire Empire, but rather more as a barbarian force looking for plunder rather than power.

Trajanus Decius declared the Goths an enemy and attempted to force them out of the empire, only for the masses to return a year later. The Goths were prepared this time and formed several strategic alliances with enemies, such as the Dacian Carpi. This led to a full-scale invasion, and the Roman Empire suddenly found itself besieged as war raged on in Moesia, Dacia, and even in Thrace, while the main body of the Gothic invasion was preparing a descent into the region of the Black Sea.

After many battles, the Goths emerged as the new masters of the entire Danube territory, all the way to the Black Sea. Trebonianus Gallus emerged as the new Emperor who could do nothing to reverse the Empire’s humiliating defeat. The Goths now turned to Illyricum and Thrace, burning and plundering their way across the region. By 253 AD, the Goths set sail along the Black Sea, headed straight for Asia Minor, which was wide open and waiting to be plundered.

The Roman Empire was declining until Emperor Aurelian came to power and began restorative efforts, including anti-immigration policies. He not merely launched defensive measures, he moved on the offensive against the Goths and demolished them through a series of battles. The Goths were driven out of the Balkans and into Dacia. Aurelian also greatly restored the Black Sea defenses, which helped those regions rebuild their economies as well. However, Aurelian failed to pursue the barbarians into the Roman province of Dacia, pulling back and establishing the new border once again along the natural border as originally defined by Augustus – the Danube.

Aurelian’s decision to redraw the borders left Dacia in the hands of the Carpi and the Goths. Once the Goths were contained, they began to divide into two distinct groups – Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms. These groups would evolve into powerful states that would ultimately bring down the Roman Empire in the West.

Those in favor of the Gothic migration stated that the newcomers would increase tax revenue and benefit the Roman economy. It was a humanitarian crisis and Rome’s responsibility to solve. Instead, the unsustainable influx of Gothic refugees contributed to the eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire. The event marked a turning point in Roman history and was part of a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. History always repeats.

Half of Women Childless by 30 – Fewer People to Tax

 

Posted Feb 7, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

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The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) completed a survey that shows over 50% of women are childless by the time they reach their 30^th birthday. This marks the first time that over half of women in this age group did not report having children since record-keeping began in 1920.

Around 57% of women born in 1970 began a family by the age of 30, and 76% of women born in 1950 reportedly had as well. At the dawn of the World War II Baby Boomer years, women born in 1949 typically had children by the age of 22. Those born in the 1920s usually had children by the age of 26, which was later than the generation before and after them due to the war. The most common age to enter motherhood is now 31. Women have been having fewer children on average as well since outdated unrepealed taxes, such as the income tax, have made it nearly impossible for one income to support a household.

All first-world countries are in a real crisis for they have insufficient children to maintain their population size. Numerous countries are introducing immigrants into their populations to compensate for the lack of people to tax. At this rate, all social programs will collapse as they were never designed properly from the outset. They are based on a Ponzi scheme where they rely on taxing a growing younger population to service the benefits of the older generation. This also points to a deeper shift in family values and overall life. Countries such as Russia and Hungary have implemented financial incentives for women to give birth, but the cost of childcare and raising a human are out of reach for many in the Millennial generation.

Will Canada Ditch Trudeau to Save the Nation from WEF?

 

Posted Sep 7, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

Maxime Bernier is a Canadian businessman, lawyer, and politician who served as a cabinet minister of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and as Member of Parliament for Beauce from 2006 to 2019. He is the founder and current leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC). His platform is still within the current establishment of how to run a government. The PPC would eliminate the deficit by the end of a first mandate, by phasing out all pandemic spending programs, cutting corporate welfare, cutting $5 billion in foreign development aid, defunding the CBC to save $1 billion, and cutting equalization payments as well as funding for programs that fall within the responsibilities of provinces or cities.

On taxation, he proposes to cut personal income taxes, corporate taxes. and the personal capital gains tax.

He wants to eliminate all multiculturalism funding and promote the integration of immigrants into Canadian society since there are already there. He would lower the total number of immigrants and refugees Canada accepts each year and accept a larger proportion of economic immigrants. The PPC would limit the number of immigrants accepted under the family reunification program. He also wants to fund police for background checks on immigrants. He also wants would-be immigrants to answer questions about “Canadian values and societal norms” in a face-to-face interview. OMG! The thought of actually screening an immigrant in person? This makes Trudeau’s buddies crazy. George Soros’s head spins counterclockwise and Klaus Schwabs spin clockwise. This would defeat their idea of the United Nation ruling the world and the elimination of borders.

The PPC wants to listen to scientists not 16-year-old girls for advice. The PPC believes there are “uncertainties over the scientific basis of global warming” and there is no reason for government interventions. After all, the UN would not allow any scientific opposition to speak at its conferences because climate change is the tool by which they are arguing that we need a one-world government to fight human activities on a global scale to save the planet. No single government can do this job, Everyone must surrender to the UN.

 

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The PPC would withdraw from the Paris agreement and abandon “unrealistic” greenhouse gas emissions-reduction targets. Because of this, you can bet the international Deep State will be actively trying to defeat the PPC as they worked diligently to remove Trump. They gave us Biden. In a recent conversation with someone that runs a breakfast spot, the people would be complaining about everything Trump ever said or did. Now they are dead silent about Biden. The PPC would actually save Canada for a Trudeau victory will raise the stakes for Alberta to separate or die.

The PPC wants to go after BigTech which has been in cahoots with Trudeau who has sought to use regulation to curtail free expression on the internet. They also want to restore normalcy by repealing legislation adding gender identity to prohibited grounds of discrimination, and repeal a non-binding motion condemning Islamophobia. He wants to refine the vague definition of hate speech in the Criminal Code to explicitly advocating the use of force against identifiable groups or individuals based on protected criteria.

Then the PPC wants to approach COVID-19 rationally and scientifically, protecting the most vulnerable while rejecting “coercion and discrimination.” Historically, you quarantine the sick. When you restrict the entire population that is called tyranny. NEVER before in history has any such pandemic been politically used for political objectives that have nothing to do with the disease. Vaccines will ONLY eradicate a disease when it is like smallpox that was confined to humans. We cannot cure influenza or any coronavirus because it also exists in animals and will always mutate. One year we will have the bid flu and the next the swine flu. The ONLY way to cure COVID is to expel politics from health.

Canada is being controlled by the international foreign agenda. If the people really want to save their country, they better overthrow Trudeau.

The main reason they have welcomed the immigrants is that their birth rate has declined, and their social programs are collapsing

 

Having Children is the Most Destructive Thing the Planet?

Posted May 12, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

These people are truly insane. If they believe that humans are the most destructive thing on this planet, then they should lead the way to mass suicide. It makes one think that perhaps in protest, we need to go have as many children as possible, for the birth rates have been declining. I have been in discussions in Europe, and the main reason they have welcomed the immigrants is that their birth rate has declined, and their social programs are collapsing. By allowing the immigrants into Europe, the true objective was to increase the workforce in hopes of sustaining the Socialist system and retirement plans that are crumbling.

Gates has won the day. He is having all of these environmentalists taking grants from his foundation to put out studies to support his position of reducing the population.

Why Do Democrats Defend Illegal Aliens Against Americans?

Posted Mar 24, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty; Why is Pelosi demanding same-day registration to vote? Is this so they don’t have time to check who they really are?

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ANSWER: Yes. Pelosi and the Democrats want to protect illegal aliens and the objective is to allow them to vote. This is an old political dream. I have told how I had the mandate from Hong Kong to try to negotiate with the Australian government that they could buy land and move their sovereignty. I met with the former Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating. No matter what I offered, I could not strike a deal. I then asked if we could agree on them taking part of the land in the upper left-hand corner of Australian to move in bulk. He rejected that idea as well. I finally asked if this was a racist issue. He, at last, explained that they were fleeing communism so they would vote conservative and upset the balance of power in Australia. Keating was a Labour government.

This is what the Democrats are up to. You have states like New York and California protecting illegal aliens who do not vote or pay taxes. So why are they so determined to issue these people IDs and to try to sneak them in for voting? The Democrats know they are losing. Their solution is to support illegal aliens who will then vote for them against Americans who actually work and pay taxes. This has become a completely deranged political agenda – just win at all costs.

Flat Tax

Internal Migration – The Cycle or City States

Posted Jan 28, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

There is an interesting book entitled The Chinese Exodus. This work explores the sociological and theological discussion going on concerning China’s internal migration since the marketization reform in 1978. While the book documents the social and political processes impacting the experiences of internal migrants from the countryside to the city within China, the attempt is to reconstruct the political, economic, social and spiritual dimensions of this urban underclass in China who made up the economic backbone of the Asian superpower.

History repeats BECAUSE human nature never changes. Humans will ALWAYS act in the same manner to the same set of circumstances no matter what culture or century. Yet what is more interesting to me is the pattern. As taxes are low and the economy booms in the city, the youth are attracted to the city and leave their parents in the farms or suburbs and head off to make their fortune in the world. Rome became the largest city in history reaching a population in excess of 1 million by its peak in 180AD. It had crossed that 1 million mark in 133AD during the reign of Hadrian (117-138AD). With the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180AD, the decline and fall began. Gradually the population declined until it fell to just 15,000 during the middle ages. The city of London, England reached the 1 million mark in 1810 during the reign of George III (1760-1820) and New York City finally reached that level in 1875.

Our understanding of the economy is incredibly important, yet it is completely ignored by those in power. Nothing is possible without a properly functioning economy for the very existence of civilization depends entirely upon the function of the economy. People come together from the suburbs to form great societies in a trend of urbanization only when it is to the advantage. Historically, when the government loses sight of their purpose and sees itself as the embodiment of sovereignty instead of the people, then it begins to abuse the people with regulation and taxation. Once that takes place, the trend of coming together is reversed.

Edward Gibbon wrote in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire about the son of Marcus Aurelius and how he set in motion the collapse of Rome. He wrote of Commodus (177-192AD):

“distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse”

(Book 1, Chapter 4).

When the people begin to flee the cities because of corruption and taxation, the Romans had a word for it “suburbium” meaning the people began fleeing from the cities to what we call today suburbia. The population of Rome itself just collapsed. This is how empires die. The cost of government always rises to oppress the private sector since the public sector becomes addicted to revenue. The people either leave or revolt in their struggle to cope with the persistent unpredictable demands of the government that historically NEVER lives within its means.

In the earliest days of the Republic, Rome’s taxes were quite modest, and were not direct, but were a property tax or a wealth tax on all forms of property, including land, houses, slaves, animals, money and personal effects. The basic rate was just 1% and sometimes it would occasionally rise to 3%. This was to fund the pay for the army during the war. The tax would often be rebated to the people out of the spoils of war. It was levied directly upon individuals, which required the government to conduct a census.

The flat tax of Augustus (27BC-14AD) created the biggest economic boom in Roman history. Augustus once said, “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” Indeed, Augustuscommissioned several large marble structures, some of which took 40 years to complete. There was evidence that massive marble blocks were constantly being moved through the city, causing congestion in the streets.  Marble-paved public spaces began to appear where marble was previously reserved for sacred temples and houses of the elite. The flat tax system really did create the economic boom as people turned to peace and business – Pax Romano.

Rome became prosperous because it began with the conquest model whereby it consumed the wealth of the nations it conquered. Once Rome had expanded and there was no longer anything worthwhile to bring home wealth, then the cost of maintaining its borders and security became unsustainable. The pension system it had created which we still use in government to this day where 20 years of service gets you a pension, acted like cancer which devoured the Empire from within. As this weakened its defenses, then the barbarians were able to invade.

Consequently, the fiscal mismanagement of Rome and its economic model of conquest failed. This led the government to turn inward against its own people that resulted in not merely the collapse of the Rule of Law, but that opened the door ‘for wider demands for taxation and the confiscation of property under the pretense of some offense. The over taxation of the people caused the suburbanization of Roman culture as they fled the cities. As the government tried to stretch its grasp of taxation, they were, in fact, planting to the seed of its own destruction. Taxation is not a divine right of government. It is to be limited to the voluntary contribution from the people to share the benefits of communal living. Once taxation is seen as a divine right of government this will lead to the diminished rights of the people and then the rise of economic tyranny.

Historically, this has been the difference between movable and immovable assets, such as real estate. Collectibles, stocks, and precious metals are in the moveable category. Of course, this is what governments are now attempting to seize. If we look at the fall of Rome, the first asset class to decline was real estate, as you cannot take it with you when you leave town. Thus, the population of Rome collapsed from 1 million to 15,000 by the Middle Ages. People had no choice and just walked away, unable to pay the taxes demanded.

Taxes are the great destroyer. You are an economic slave if you simply cannot retire without having to pay taxes. Taxes reduce economic growth and lower productivity for they are no different, economically speaking, from some gangster demanding “protection” money to operate a business. Rome prospered as long as it had a minimal flat tax. The Democrats preach they want to tax the rich, but what they actually do is create higher tax rates with all sorts of deductions they sell to lobbyists for big campaign donations. A flat tax is far more economically more of an incentive and it will be closer to the indirect taxation that the Founding Fathers incorporated into the Constitution until the Marxists alter everything.

The cycle is very clear. First, we have the attraction of the city with low taxes and regulation where people come together to create economic booms. Governments will then become greedy with taxes and over-regulation. This will then lead to the downside of the Bell Curve and result in the death of the empire, nation, or city-state. It is always the same pattern no matter what century or culture.

European Refugee Crisis will Engulf Europe by 2032

Posted Aug 18, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Migrants sit in a boat during a rescue operation by the Italian navy off the coast of Sicily on Nov. 28. Italy is looking to revamp the way it handles the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive annually.

The European Refugee Crisis is really completely out of control. The bulk of these people are by no means refugees. You see no women and children here in the boat – only young men. Now Spain is the new target and will overtake Greece as the second-biggest gateway for economic invader entering Europe by sea. The sudden surge in migration to Spain comes following a crackdown on human smuggling along the Libya-Italy sea route, which has been the main entry route to Europe. Africans are migrating to Europe because there is little to do at home.  Egypt will grow to 100 million people while Nigeria to soon reach 400 million. Europe will be swallowed up whole as it was when the Roman Empire was subjugated by the Barbarians who crossed the Rhine River.

When the Barbarians took over Europe, they at first issued coinage in the Roman tradition. But this began to rapidly diminish. Nevertheless, history is repeating. Europe is being swallowed up once again. By the time we see the other side of 2032, Europe will be a shadow of its former glory just as the main language of California will be Spanish not English. Things are definitely changing.