Afghanistan & the Incompetence of the West

 

Posted Aug 19, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

Now that the Afghan government has fallen, I believe I am free to talk about what I do know. I met with the government on neutral ground in Thailand. I was invited to give lectures there but just never found the time to make that trip. As I have said before, most governments have heard of Socrates. After all, it has been putting out economic and geopolitical forecasts since 1977. From my discussions with them in Thailand, what I can say is that the Taliban are largely self-funded, yet have been warmly protected by Pakistan which is the ONLY nuclear nation in that region. Pakistan has supported the Taliban, not for religious agreement, but because of their enemy, the Afghans, be friends with Pakistan’s enemy India. In that sense, there is a deep-seated religious conflict that goes back to the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

The peak in our model on the region took place in 2019 when any hope of some sort of peace treaty with the Taliban collapsed. Military operations between Afghan and US government forces and the Taliban then intensified in 2019 resulting in more than 8,000 civilian casualties. That was precisely on target being 72 years from 1947 which was the real period of the rise in militant Islam. A standard 2-year reaction was in play which has brought us to this point in 2021. But this is the start of a 13-year cycle of rising tensions which will also peak in 2032.

Pakistan is aligned with China and the idea has been that China will invest in Afghanistan and that may help to satisfy the Taliban. But that is perhaps wishful thinking. Religiously, they are more akin to Iran. Nevertheless, the Taliban has been a movement of religious students (talib) from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan. They were actually educated in traditional Islamic schools in Pakistan. Keep in mind that Pakistan can be very authoritarian. Pakistan is blocking cell phones to compel people to be vaccinated.

The Taliban control the largest opium production in the world and have been the #1 exporter. This has been their primary source of funding. Back in 2000, they were against drugs. But they needed the support of the farmers and flipped their ethical view that they were exporting opium to the enemy so that made it ethical.

Some believe that they were also bribing some public officials to look the other way. For most of the last 20 years, the Taliban have been in the drug trade. However, that has not been their own source of funds. They also get money from mining, real estate, and unnamed regional benefactors who lead back to Iran. Nevertheless, the Taliban is a well-funded organization, and they are primarily a self-sustaining group that can be sustained domestically. They have imposed their own tax regime known as ‘ushr,’ which is a 10% tax on income and 2.5% wealth tax.

Believe it or not, the Taliban have stolen weapons that were given to the army and police forces by the United States. Some believe they bribed people for that access. They have stormed the government offices and arrested officials and killed many. They have stormed the prisons, releasing everyone, and seized all the American weapons provided to the government. However, sources were also saying that the Taliban were also getting weapons “donated” to them from Iran with its proxy war against the United States. Additionally, there were claims that weapons were also being smuggled in from Russia via Tajikistan.

Biden’s performance and the inability of the Biden Administration to manage a bubblegum machine is what our models have been warning. The West has used COVID to try to change the economy, but this Great Reset actually destroying jobs and small businesses (middle class) while favoring the big elite companies, which is why Big Tech supports the Great Reset. The problem with this stupid move has been that this is precisely what you DO NOT do. The US Civil War was won by the north because it was the industrial backbone. The south was getting funding from adversaries, but they were predominantly just agrarian. The victor belongs to the stronger economy.

Rome fell during the 3rd century BECAUSE its economy was weakened. Once the emperor Valerian I (253-260 AD) was captured by the Persians in 260 AD, this signaled to all the Barbarian tribes in the north that Rome was vulnerable. They began an assault that even forced Rome to build a defensive wall around the city when Aurelian (270-275 AD) came to power in 270 AD. Within just 10 years of Valerian’s capture, Rome itself was vulnerable to the invasion of Germanic tribes.

Anyone who has been to Rome will see the spectacular Aurelian Wall that still stands to this day. It is a reminder of what happens when an empire becomes weak from within. That is when it is time to invade. You would think that this should be a lesson taught to world leaders. Oh, I forgot. There are no classes on how to be a world leader. There are no professional requirements to run a country. That is our real problem.

The capture of Valerian in 260 AD also led to the separatist movement where Britain, Gaul (France), and Spain broke from the Roman Empire and began the Gallic Empire with their own Emperor Postumus. Here is a silver coin of Postumus and we can see the propaganda. The reverse clearly read that he is the restorer of Gaul. He would not have issued such a coin and the Western part of Europe would not have split from Rome unless they saw that Rome was incapable of defending them or managing anything.

 

History WARNS that this drive to change the economy has weakened the economies of the West and has left Europe especially defenseless. NATO has become a joke. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has succeeded Ursula von der Leyen, who was elected as the new head of the European Commission. So Ursula von der Leyen, who was also a board member of the World Economic Forum, was in charge of the defense of Germany and now she is the head of the EU. She has no qualifications for either position. The West is all about diversity and symbolize — not qualification.

Believe it or not, this was the first time that Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, now the German Minister of Defence since July 2019,  held a position in the federal government. She has no military background any more than Leyen did. Even in the Biden Administration, Lloyd James Austin III, who is an American retired United States Army four-star general, was appointed as the 28th United States secretary of defense. Not even Biden put a non-military person in that position. In Europe, it is more important to have diversity rather than experience.

I finished a report on the three primary hot spots that are most likely to see the rise of what can erupt and develop into World War III. The obvious strategy is for China and Russia to combine and launch a concerted effort to take their objectives. It would be a lightning strike with China taking Taiwan, and Russia could expand its power in Europe

The CDC & Vaccine Companies in Bed with Facebook?

Posted Aug 8, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

Zuckerberg is a very dangerous adolescent who has clearly not grown up. Personally, I would never own a single share of Facebook when its management is just so questionable. US Congressman Thomas Massie has come out stating in a series of tweets to say that Facebook’s independent fact-checkers are removing what they call “vaccine misinformation.” These people are funded by Johnson & Johnson, manufacturers of one of the vaccines. Massie said:

“Who pays the paycheques of the fact checkers? The vaccine fact-checkers at factcheck.org, who claim to be independent, are funded by an organisation that holds over $1.8 Billion of stocks in a vaccine company, and is run by a former director of the CDC”

Fact-checkers responded claiming that “As you know, we disclose our funding sources here: www.factcheck.org“

They cleverly used legal jargon to deny the allegation but admitted that they are indeed funded by Johnson & Johnson’s parent organization. They said: “The views expressed by factcheck.org do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.“

The fact is that Factcheck.org is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, whose current CEO is Richard Besser, who just so happens to be the former head of the CDC. The foundation holds almost $2 billion in shares for Johnson & Johnson, one of the very pharmaceutical companies manufacturing COVID vaccines.

This is outright consumer fraud that anyone else would be thrown in prison for doing. Zuckerberg is beyond walking on water, he can float in the air above it. I believe the Deep State worked against Trump at every stage of the election to ensure he would not just lose the election, but he would never exercise power. Therefore, he should not have had to go after BigTech and even the un-American propaganda machine — CNN — which has done more to undermine the United States than anyone, as its broadcasts are watched around the world.

Now the Epoch Times reports that Facebook is covertly working with the CDC. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, the CDC was forced to release documents that shocked many and prove that Facebook’s claims to censor people pretending they are not the government is a lie. They have lost ALL IMMUNITY and can now be outright sued for violating everyone’s civil rights.

Has Zuckerberg proven that he is not really qualified to run a company of this size? The rise in the share value had nothing to do with his management skills. But the pending decline has everything to do with his unqualified decision-making. He may think he is a demigod and all-powerful, but sometimes the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Facebook may not exist after 2035.

The TWO primary countries they want to totally suppress are Australia and Brazil

 

Resistance is Not Futile – Does Our Entire Way of Life Depends on It?

Posted Aug 6, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

I find it amazing how stupid people can be. Those claiming if everyone just got vaccinated, we would all go back to normal. I know there were Jews in Germany who left early looking at the trend that was emerging and made it to the United States. They told me people were ridiculing them when they left saying it would all blow over and go back to normal. These types of people do not look at what is going on in any depth. They take whatever is said at face value and do not look at motives or connect the dots.

In Australia, the number of people is rising up.  The police in Australia are still violating human rights and supporting the decline and fall of Australia as it descends into tyranny. The protest has erupted again in Melbourne and until the police stop enforcing orders that are inconsistent with international law, there is no hope for Australia. It continues to slide toward an economic apocalypse. They are 110% on board with the Great Reset and those behind the curtain view that if they can end mining and resources in Australia, they will save the planet and bring about the Great Reset.

The TWO primary countries they want to totally suppress are Australia and Brazil.

The Threat of an Ice Age is Real

 

Posted Aug 6, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

Most people have NEVER heard of the Beaufort Gyre, a massive wind-driven current in the Arctic Ocean that actually has far more influence over sea ice than anything we can throw into the atmosphere. The Beaufort Gyre has been regulating climate and sea ice formation for millennia. Recently, however, something has changed; it is not something that would create global warming but threatens a new Ice Age.

There is a normal cycle that appears to be about 5.4 years where it reverses direction and spins counter-clockwise, expelling ice and freshwater into the eastern Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic. The 5.4-year cycle is interesting for it is two pi cycle intervals of 8.6. The immediate cycle has suddenly expanded to two 8.6-year intervals, bringing it to 17.2 years as we head into 2022.

What you must understand is that this Beaufort Gyre now holds as much freshwater as all of the Great Lakes combined. Why is that important? Saltwater freezes at a lower temperature than the 32 degrees F at which freshwater freezes. The difference between the air temperature and the freezing point of saltwater is bigger than the difference between the air temperature and the freezing point of fresh water. This makes the ice with salt on it melt faster, which is why we salt the roads in an ice storm.

Now, think of the Beaufort Gyre as a carousel of ice and freshwater. Because it is now spinning both faster and in its usual clockwise direction, it has been collecting more and more freshwater from the three main sources:

1. Melting sea ice
2. Runoff from the Arctic Ocean from Russian and North American rivers
3. Lower saltwater coming in from the Bering Sea

Indeed, Yale has warned that this current could “Cool the Climate in Europe,” which is precisely what we are witnessing. Cyclically, the Beaufort Gyre will reverse direction, and when it does the clear and present danger will be the natural expulsion of a massive amount of icy fresh water into the North Atlantic. Remember now, freshwater freezes faster than saltwater.

This is not a theory. We have previous records of reversals in this cycle of the Beaufort Gyre from the 1960s and 1970s, where there was a surge of fresh Arctic water released into the North Atlantic that resulted in the water freezing. There has been a lot of work done on this subject, which, of course, is ignored by the climate change agenda that only seeks to blame human activity. Nevertheless, AAAS, of which I am a member, states plainly:

“Arctic sea ice affects climate on seasonal to decadal time scales, and models suggest that sea ice is essential for longer anomalies such as the Little Ice Age.” 

Socrates has been given just about every possible database I could find over the past 50 years. Because of the extended 17.2-year cycle in the Beaufort Gyre, the risk that a larger than normal expulsion of freshwater into the Atlantic can disrupt the Gulf Stream, which is the sole reason why Europe has been moderate in climate. But that has NOT always been the case. We know that the Barbarian invasions into Rome during the 3rd century were primarily driven by a colder climate in the north. The invasion of the Sea Peoples ended the Bronze Age and those from the north migrated into the South storming Mesopotamia and Northern Africa.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL

It is just not created by humans.

Perhaps we are now at the tipping point and they cannot keep saying that the extremely cold winter is also caused by CO2 and global warming. The collapse of the gulf stream has nothing to do with CO2. This may result in a major confrontation that these people have been seriously wrong and what they are doing to the economy in trying to shut down fossil fuels at this point in time could result in tens of millions of deaths if the gulf stream collapses.

Australian Tyranny Growing?

 

Posted Jul 30, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

Some readers in Australia are reporting that the government is now trying to block access to our site. You can usually circumvent that with a VPN. I find it very interesting that we are NOT blocked in China or Russia, but in Australia? This is only an indication of the Decline and Fall of the West.

The forecasts of our computer are NOT my personal opinion. Many have written in saying our forecast that the USA will break up and no longer exist post-2032 nor will the EU, which may have seemed unthinkable at our WECs until now. Unfortunately, this is how history is made. Humanity keeps making the same mistakes over and over again and the corruption in government is like cancer that eats away at society to the point it will always turn authoritarian as its respect and power begins to slip away. The more the people turn from government, the worse they respond, and then, in the end, that is what revolution is all about. History repeats because we never learn and thus it is a process of self-referral.

They can block free thought, imprison people that speak out against this tyranny, or have them assassinated. It will not stop the decline and fall they have set in motion. These drastic usurpations of power that are pure EVIL, will not save the day. They will divide and separate the nation and in the end, they will lose all power.

Australia attained independence nation status on January 1, 1901, after the British Parliament approved a law that allowed the six Australian colonies to administer the Commonwealth of Australia exclusively. Like the United States, Australia will also break apart. This is what happens when governments think they can retain power by dividing the people to prevent a unified revolution.

Post-2032, we have to eliminate representative government. It should be a direct democracy where an issue to be voted on must stand alone and they should be a supreme court to determine that any law is constitutionally legal BEFORE it is ever enacted. There should NEVER be any direct form of taxation whatsoever.

Governments to Control What You Are Allowed to Buy

 

Posted Jul 26, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/06/21/bank-england-tells-ministers-intervene-digital-currency-programming/

People are unaware that this drive of central banks to replace paper money with cryptocurrency is far more than people will ever comprehend as an end goal. Aside from the fact that governments could then impose a negative interest rate effectively confiscating money from your account in ADDITION to taxation, they are moving to do what many in the religious right see as the trophy of the anti-christ where you will not be able to buy or sell without his permission. Indeed, the government can restrict what you will even be allowed to buy. They will control every aspect of your life beyond what the most demonized vision of the future might hold. These ideas will create resistance which will also be rooted in religion. Will you accept the number of the beast, or resist their commands? This is not something anyone would have dared to think that a representative form of government would have dared to even talk about.

Is a Revolution Coming?

 

Posted Jul 25, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

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We have an amazing number of readers in France, and I want to thank everyone for all the emails documenting what is going on. Anyone who takes videos of protests in the future I have no problem sharing them for the world to see.

The details of what moves people to revolution are important. During the summer of 1789, Paris was in a crisis. The people had been suffering from food shortages and the high taxes used to pay King Louis XVI’s vast debts because of his fiscal mismanagement the treasury was empty at the end of 1788.  The French found themselves in the middle of unprecedented political turmoil which erupted with the opening of the Estates General, France’s Parliament, for the first time in more than one hundred years. Many Parisians were also angered by the dismissal of the popular minister Jacques Necker on July 11th. Like Pelosi surrounding the capitol with troops, from the beginning of June 1789, Louis XVI had also positioned troops around Paris also claiming risk of extremists.

The militarization of Paris provoked a march to the Hôtel des Invalides, where the people also looted approximately 3,000 firearms and five canons. Instead of clothes and trinkets, they looted weapons. However, the weapons required gunpowder, which was stored in the Bastille. They then headed to the Bastille prison and tried to negotiate with its governor. That being unsuccessful, they burst into an outer courtyard and a battle erupted. By the time it was over, the people of Paris had freed the prisoners held in the Bastille because they were simply there, and they had taken the governor hostage along with three of his officers. But the hostages were soon be killed and then beheaded. Their heads were paraded through the streets on pikes. Since the storming of the Bastille was to simply get gunpowder, the people were effectively unarmed and nearly one hundred died but only eight prison guards were killed.

All of this happened on July 14, 1789 (1789.53) which has been known in France as “Bastille Day” ever since. Once Louis XVI heard that the Bastille had fallen, he asked the duke de La Rochefoucauld: “So, is there a rebellion?” To which the duke retorted: “No, Sire, a revolution!”

Storming the Bastille became t6he beginning of the French Revolution when it was not intended as such. Yet, it has become an iconic moment in history. This was the spark that ignited the revolution forcing the King to begin concessions. That was the sign of weakness which then inspired the people’s movement to overthrow him which led to beheading both him and his wife in the hope of burying monarchy forever following the inspiration of the American Revolution nearly precisely 13 years before.

In 1880, the French made the Storming of the Bastille their national holiday. Unfortunately, France entered a century of revolutions (1789-1871) and numerous new republics after Napoleon.

Nevertheless, the two main issues that led to the revolution were (1) high taxes, and (2) food shortages which inspired the claim that Marie Antonette said: “Let them eat cake” which was the crust in the pan after baking bread.

Our models on France target 2021.73 which will be September 23/24. In 1895 on this day, that is when the French labor union CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail) was formed. In 1920 on this same day, that is when Alexander Millerand was elected president of France. Then on this day in 1941, General de Gaulle forms government in exile in London.

There is a real risk that we will have a real version of The Hunger Games.