They do not have the right to chase people or camp-out at their house until they vote the way you like.

Violence from the Left is Starting – It will be Their Way or No Way

Posted Jul 18, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

There are groups of Democratic Socialists that are stalking Trump’s staff and Republicans. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service in the Red Hen Restaurantwhich is really no different than discriminating against someone because of their race. If it were over race, that action would be criminally prosecuted. Other angry protesters are chasing Republicans demanding only their vision should be applied in society. They pursued Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) through a restaurant parking lot yelling at him with a mixture of immigration rhetoric and personal insults according to the MSN. They even threaten to camp out at his home.

This is by no means legal. What they are engaging in is harassment. If someone you knew was doing this to you, a judge would issue a restraining order and if they violated it, they would spend some time in jail. Just because someone is a politician or works in government does not give someone permission to act in this manner that would land them in jail in any other context. This is NOT projected by the First Amendment. They have the right to vote or start a blog. They do not have the right to chase people or camp-out at their house until they vote the way you like. That is not how a Democracy or Republic is supposed to function.

The Judaea Move for Independence 66-70AD

osted Jul 15, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Was the first Jewish revolt about taxes? I think you said it was previously.

HJB

ANSWER: Correct. While there were tensions over religion, what really began the crisis was taxation. Later, the death of Nero and religion came into play about 2 years after it began. It is true that the rebellion of Judaea began in the year 66 AD, originating in ethnic and religious tensions but Rome had generally allowed every region to keep their own gods. In the case of Judaea, they were not fond of using coins with images of various gods. The crisis truly erupted due to anti-taxation protest that resulted in attacks upon Roman citizens.

The Roman governor, at that time, was Gessius Florus. As the rebellion over taxes began, he responded by plundering the Jewish Temple seizing wealth to compensate for the decline in taxation. The following day he arrested numerous senior Jewish figures who were not directly connected to any violence. Meanwhile, on September 22nd, 66AD, Emperor Nero created the Legio Legio I Italica. He also appointed Titus Flavius Vespasian legate of the army of Judea and in command of three legions — V Macedonica, X Fretensis and XV Apollinaris. These actions resulted in justifying a large-scale rebellion which began in October 66AD. The rebels were able to annihilate the Roman garrison (a cohort of Legio III Cyrenaica) in Jerusalem resulting in King Herod Agrippa II and all Roman officials fleeing from Jerusalem for their lives. Meanwhile, Sicarii captured the fortress of Masada overlooking the Dead Sea.

With the fall of Jerusalem, Cestius Gallus, legate of Syria, marched into Judea and lead a Roman army of 30,000 men to put down the Jewish rebellion. At its core was Legio XII Fulminata, plus 2,000 picked men from the other three Syrian legions, six more cohorts of infantry, four alae of cavalry, and over 14,000 auxiliaries. The auxiliaries were furnished by Rome’s eastern allies, which included Herod Agrippa II and two other client kings, Antiochus IV of Commagene and Sohaemus of Emesa, who lead their forces (largely archers and cavalry) in person.

Gallus lead his main force down the coast from Caesarea via Antipatris to Lydda, detaching other units, by land and sea, to neutralize the rebel strongholds at Joppa, Narbata and the Tower of Aphek. With Galilee and the entire Judean coast in his hands, Gallus turned inland and marched on Jerusalem but broke-off the siege in November 66AD. As he withdrew his forces to retire to winter quarters, the Jewish rebels ambushed and defeated him. Some 5,300 Roman troops are killed in the battle. The Jewish rebels now captured his pack animals and his artillery which they used during the next siege by Titus four years later. This was a major victory for the Jewish rebels and it became a major disgrace of the Roman military. The Jewish rebels captured even the eagle standard of Legio XII Fulminata. Gallus abandoned his own troops in disarray and fled for his own life to Syria.

During 66AD, the Jews thus took control of Jerusalem and began to issue their own coins. The Judean Free Government was formed in Jerusalem including former High Priest Ananus ben Ananus, Joseph ben Gurion and Joshua ben Gamla elected as leaders. Yosef ben Matityahu was appointed the rebel commander in Galilee and Eleazar ben Hanania as the commander in Edom. Later, in Jerusalem, an attempt by Menahem ben Yehuda, leader of the Sicarii, to take control of the city failed. He was executed and the remaining Sicarii were ejected from the city. Simon bar Giora, a peasant leader, was also expelled by the new government.

Vespasian was given the task by Nero of crushing the rebellion in Judaea province. His son Titus was appointed as second-in-command. Vespasian invaded Galilee in the fall of 67AD. He avoided a direct attack on the reinforced city of Jerusalem. Instead, Vespasian launched a directed campaign to crush rebel strongholds and punish the population. Within several months Vespasian and Titus took over the major Jewish strongholds of Galilee and finally overran Jodapatha, which was under the command of Yosef ben Matitiyahu, as well as subdued Tarichaea, which brought an end to the war in Galilee.

With the death of Nero in 68AD, Rome moved into a Civil War. Vespasian became the rival general to ain over Otho and Vitellius. Now the Judea situation was a matter of critical importance. Vespasian became emperor in 69AD and the defeat of the Jewish Revolt was critical for if they succeeded, then other provinces would rally against Rome as well.

The first Jewish coins boasted the slogan: “For the Freedom of Zion.” The Jewish War for Independence last 4 years covering the period of 66-70AD until the conquest of Jerusalem. Recently, a bronze coin was discovered in Israel from the fourth year of the failed rebellion against Rome which reflected the change in attitudes. The coins of Year 4 saw a change in the slogan to “For the Redemption of Zion.” The Temple was sacked in 70AD and the clean-up skirmishes followed which took several years. The historian Josephus tells us of the last stand at Masada which took place around 73-74 AD.

Year 1 (66/67 CE) Jewish shekels and half shekels are scarce, year 2 (67/68 CE) shekels and half shekels and year 3 (68/69 CE) shekels and half shekels are relatively common, year 4 (69/70 CE) shekels and half shekels and year 5 (70 CE) shekels are extremely rare.

Virtually EVERY revolution throughout history appears to emerge from a tax rebellion. It will often expand into ethnic or religious slogans, but at the core, it is always taxation. The American revolution was the class – No Taxation Without Representation. Yet the greed of politicians inevitably leads to their own destruction for they cannot resist spending other people’s money

Who Really is the Deep State?

Posted Jul 11, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION:  What is your understanding of the term “Deep State”? Do you think there’s a deep state as it is referred to in the media today? I have come to understand a deep state as meaning the permanent global institutions that are on their directed agenda irrespective of its citizens or their political leaders agendas. The analogy I’ve arrived at is the *deep state* is the global operating system and the political class is merely the *apps*. Deep State could include military, banking, Big Pharma, Central Banks, intelligent agencies – institutions that could care less who the presidents are just as long as they do not interrupt the interests of these operating institutions.

Thanks in advance for your views.

Cheers,

TGM

ANSWER: The deep state is the bureaucracy. It is not a global organization. Comey was protecting Hillary and the FBI was against Trump, which are both examples of the deep state. I have said before, up until 1999, I was actually asked to meet with people who wanted to run for president. They were told I was there to brief them on the real world economy but I was to also assess their mental capacity to handle the complexity. Then I was asked to go meet with George Bush Jr. and was told, “This is different, he is really stupid!” I was totally shocked. Everything up to that point in time was all about whether I thought they could handle a crisis. When I asked why they’d make someone stupid president, I was told he had the “name” and it suddenly shifted to just winning.

The deep state rose from 1999 onward. The bureaucracy could now be in charge with a president who is clueless. Obama followed Bush and he missed more than 50% of his daily security briefings. The bureaucracy gained substantial power under Bush and Obama. This is why they are so intent upon getting rid of Trump. They want their power back.

California Experiments with Universal Basic Income

Posted Jul 11, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Stockton California, which was previously one of the bankrupt cities, will now become the first in the country to participate in a test of Universal Basic Income. Stockton will give 100 residents $500 a month for 18 months,  with no strings attached. This idea is really braindead. You cannot pay people not to work which is really what they are doing. The whole idea has been pushed by the likes of Silicon Valley leaders, including Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Mark Zuckerberg. They clearly lack any historical understanding of welfare and how it has destroyed families and actually lowered the standard of living. They think it will possibly reduce poverty and provide a safeguard against the job disruption as the economy moves to replace workers with robots and automation.

This is by no means the first time innovation in technology has displaced workers. You do not pay people to simply do nothing. You encourage them to be retrained into fields that will provide employment. The Great Depression was all about the destruction of agricultural jobs as tractors replaced farm workers and electricity replace many manual jobs in manufacture. That is why unemployment rose to 25%. It was not the decline in business activity, it was the shift in the economic makeup of the economy thanks to innovation. Jobs in technology, as well as manual labor, are two areas still valid as is soldiering for now.

Instead of increasing taxes to try this redistribution of income, EXEMPT people from even local property taxes if their income is below a certain level. If you want to encourage retaining, then that would be productive. But to just pay people to not improve themselves is a very destructive process. Already, more than 25% of children are being raised by a single parent. Post-Depression, the rise of socialism has resulted in a rise in divorce and single parenting.

Economic Confidence Model – When One Nation Peaks Another Bottoms

Posted Jul 10, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Martin,

I know that the basic ECM cycle’s 4.3 year decline subdivides into a 1.075 year decline, 1.075 year rise, and 2.15 year decline. However, if I remember correctly, the 2.15 year decline also includes the Pi cycle turn 3.14 years from the top.

If I remember correctly for this ECM cycle, the 2.15 year decline began 2017.9, should turn up about July 12, top with the Pi cycle 2018.89, and finally bottom 2020.05.

I have always wondered, (1) what is the basis of determining this turn up into the Pi cycle, and (2) is this turn up ever significant, or simply a setup for the major event, the November 22 (2018.89) Pi cycle?

Of course, please feel free to correct any of errors in my interpretation of your ECM.

Thanks,
-DB

ANSWER: Keep in mind that this is the global business cycle and not based an individual country. Therefore, we have peaks in one country and bottoms in another on the same turning point. For example, the 1994.25 turning point was the peak in the economies of Southeast Asia. Even when things do not line up precisely to the day with the ECM, the trend changes regardless. The turning point was March 1994 and here we turned in February. The correction at the end of 1998 was the Long-Term Capital Management collapse that was instigated by the loss in emerging markets, namely Russian bonds. I warned them that emerging markets peaked in 1994 and the capital flows shifted. They would not listen, invested in Russia because they assumed they bought the IMF, and when it all blew up they blamed me.

I have published this list of panics that I had discovered while doing research in the Firestone Library at Princeton University. Note that the first one listed was 1683, which was the Turkish invasion to conquer Veinna (the capital of the Holy Roman Empire at that time). It ended Austria as a financial center. Note 1720, which was the South Sea Bubble in Britain and the Mississippi Bubble in France. The list that led me to the discovery of the Economic Confidence Model was international. Therefore, the business cycle I discovered was INTERNATIONAL, and by that very nature it means that when one nation peaks, another bottoms.

Republics have been one of the worst forms of government ever devised. They have always devolved into oligarchies

McCain Advised IRS to Audit so many that it becomes “Financially Ruinous”

Posted Jun 29, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

I have never been a fan of John McCain and see him as a hypocrite, which is my personal opinion. Now Judicial Watch has gotten hold of IRS documents that show McCain’s staff also advised the IRS to engage in audits of people he did not like and “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.”Direct Taxation has been used as a political tool since it was created. This is another reason why I believe that income taxes MUST be eliminated. The Founding Fathers were correct. Any taxation MUST be indirect and NEVER DIRECT because the latter requires personal accountability to the state. These people are beyond despicable. They are by NO MEANS true representative of the people. This is precisely why Republics have been one of the worst forms of government ever devised. There is NO EXCEPTION for they have always devolved into oligarchies. We cannot have an honest government with career politicians – ABSOLUTELY impossible

How Do We Get Honest Government? Is It Possible? - The Spirit of Laws

Posted Jun 25, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: You seem to be somewhere between left and right-believing in government restraint and showing that it pursues its own self-interest which leads to corruption and in the end the fall of the state. Is that a fair statement of your philosophy?

KP

ANSWER:  I am against the Marxist views and I am against the extreme right and believe that more in liaise-fair because the government is incapable of manipulating the economy (the people) and when it does, it inevitably turns on the interest of some special group. I certainly do not believe in separating children from their parents and I do not agree that someone who came here as a child and grew up here, married, and had children with a bonafide American should be deported. Family and God should come BEFORE the state. The French legal system recognizes the old Roman tradition that nobody in one household can be compelled to testify against you. In the British/American common law system, the only such privilege extends to a spouse and not even your children. So I firmly disagree with that principle and view that family should ALWAYS come before the rights of a king, state, or minister. So what does that make my personal philosophy? Left or Right or somewhere in the middle? I am not even sure.

The battle between the left and the right far too often fails to ever look at some middle ground. That is most likely about 40% of the population. When we look at the popular vote during presidential elections, the highest anyone ever received was Johnson and that was 60.8%. In reality, there is a middle ground that constitutes at least 15% of the population for they are the people who determine who is really president. You have the extreme left and the extreme right and no matter what evidence you put forth they will never change their mind so why bother.

Government is no different from any private organization or individual. It will ALWAYS pursue its own self-interest. The examples of corruption are just so pervasive and this is due to the simple fact that there are no checks and balances. It was Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, baron de La Brede et de (1689-1755) who came up with the tripartite form of government separating the power of legislative, executive and judicial. Our problem today is that there is no separation of power who the government appoints the judges and thus they are not independent. Ben Franklin’s proposal was to adopt the Scottish system and private lawyers should nominal judges not politicians. We did not follow that system and as such we are i9ncapable of achieving honest government6 for judges will always rule in the government’s favor.

Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws was profound and demonstrates that he indeed acquainted himself with all the various schools of thought before him, yet he did not identify himself with any particular school. I too have indeed sought to follow this model myself. Of the many subjects covered, it was his coverage of three main topics that were the most influential in recasting the Age of Political Enlightenment leading to the climax of monarchy and the dawn of republicanism.

The most important of these subjects was his classification of governments that abandoned the traditional divisions of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Montesquieu added to this primary division the republic that he conceived as being based upon virtue. Monarchy he saw as based upon honor, and despotism that he believed was based upon fear. Montesquieu saw this critical role of government-centered in how the policy was conducted. However, it was his brilliant concept that the only way to defeat tyranny was the Separation of Powers.

Here, Montesquieu divided government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Montesquieu wrote that “there is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.” Id./at 181. Showing how this idea influenced the foundation of the United States, we find this very passage quoted in the Federalist No: 78, p523 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).

Montesquieu in his Grand Tour around Europe observed governments of all forms and saw how they had manipulated the laws to benefit themselves. The objective of his brilliant idea of the “Separation of Powers” was to prevent “the same monarch or senate” from “enact[ing] tyrannical laws” and from “execut[ing] them in a tyrannical manner.”

The judges of the times were merely agents of the state. They lacked independent concepts and for the times, Montesquieu believed that making judges independent would eliminate tyranny. But that tyranny still engulfed the judiciary for the executive selected the judges, and the legislature ‘anointed them. Once the legislative branch became career politicians and they were selected by parties, they defeated all the safeguards that Montesquieu envisioned. Thus, the system very much devolved precisely because of Machiavelli’s observation that history repeats because of the fact that the passions of man never change. Thus, modern incarnations of so-called democracies have devolved into the same tyrannical states that pursue the self-interests of government at the expense of the governed. Thus, precisely what Montesquieu saw and tried to prevent, has merely found the cracks in the sidewalks and the weeds of tyranny have once again sprouted to bath in the warm rays of the son Both Thomas Jefferson and Montesquieu saw the danger in judges.

Montesquieu’s Separation of Powers was perhaps the most influential chapter of his entire work located in book xi, chapter 6. This was penned in 1734 and was one of his first observations. His third doctrine was the idea that climate contributes to political influence. Montesquieu took care to point out that climate was but one of many factors that contributed to secondary causes that combined into what he called a general spirit within society. This climate factor combined with religion and law. Throughout history, the weather had been a primary influence behind migrations. As national states would rise and borders became enforced, the natural flows of migrations have been curtailed greatly and forced underground.

Montesquieu has brought understanding to the new Age of Political Enlightenment and others such a David Hume, said that his work would have the admiration of all ages. He was a man of honor. He was always modest and saw in his work a sense of comradeship insofar as he had collected the knowledge of the times and brought it together by simply seeing into the past and present and envisioning a collective understanding. He was even asked to write brief accounts on democracy and despotism for an encyclopedia, but he declined to state he had already had his say on those subjects.

Yet Montesquieu must be understood from his place and time in the evolution of the political economy. Everyone is influenced by their experience. The idea of becoming “worldly” by taking the Grand Tour, exposed the mind to different points of view. Yet, to comprehend how he arrived at his ideas, we must also place him in the context of the times.

There were three French philosophers on the political economy who were influenced by the events of the French King Louis XIV. These were Sebastien Le Prestre, Marechal de Vauban. (1633-1707), Pierre Le Pesant, signeur de Boisguilbert (1646-1714), and Charles-Irenee Castel, abbe de Saint-Pierre (1658-1743). From these three men, we have the beginnings of thinking about the fiscal management of the state. Vauban had advocated the abolishment of taxes and replacing them with a tithe. “while Vauban’s calculations were greatly exaggerated, he was effectively arguing for indirect taxation. His plan was put in place in 1718 in some regions but proved to be unworkable at this point in time resulting in its abandonment in 1722-1723.

Boisguilbert rejected the ideas of Vauban, yet agreed that there should be a single tax. He viewed the current scheme of collecting taxes as too corrupt. Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) took the position that the Physiocrats who ultimately influenced Adam Smith to counter with his Wealth of Nations in 1776, was the precursor to this entire line of thought. Boisguilbert also insisted upon the fact that since the aristocrats to a large extent were a privileged class that did not contribute to the tail le tax in France and thus he disagreed that there could be a single tax to replace all at the rates Vauban believed. Boisguilbert concluded it was better to have one single high tax than numerous small taxes. He argued it had to be equitably distributed, and fixed from the outset since the greatest resistance was too arbitrary justice and taxation. He argued for a land tax as used in England that was one-fifth of revenues, and in Holland it was one-third. He assumed that this tax could be collected with the least amount of coercion. There was serious resistance to taxation from the 14th Century onward. There was the Great Tax Revolt in England during 1381, the Cade rebellion of 1450 from which we have Shakespeare’s most famous line, “The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers” reflected the fact that the “lawyers” were the King’s who were prosecuting the tax evasions. Then there was the Cornwall revolt of 1497 running through to the agrarian revolts between 1628 and 1632. Tax rebellions were of three general types, pure taxation, revolts under the guise of religious Reformation that was really the confiscation of the monasteries in 1536, and the anti-seigneurial revolts that rejected the French “droit du seigneur” (right of the lord) to sleep the first night with the bride of anyone of his vassals. Often the bride could be redeemed by paying a fee to the feudal lord. These revolts occurred in 1549, 1607, and 1628-1632.

The Charles-Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre perhaps had the most criticism for the taxation policy of Louis XIV. His work was perhaps the most castigated of the three, but his concept of fiscal reform (taille tarifee) proposed in 1717 described 17 sources of wealth that he envisioned people will voluntarily reveal their wealth. This scheme of direct taxation has today dominated tax collecting, yet it was soundly rejected by the very founders of the United States.

This was the context in which we must understand Montesquieu for he was an important figure in the thought that stood between Saint-Pierre and the Physiocrats. The Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) had cost France most of its foreign trade. Thus, the ideas of the Physiocrats that it was ONLY agriculture that provided the dynamic process of income generation clearly provide a contrast to the political ideas of Montesquieu. Even Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in America believed that it was agriculture that was the pillar of the economy and real wealth.

Another person who I would say has influenced me was Thrasymachus who saw Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand insofar as it did not matter what form of government society adopted, it would always pursue its own self-interest.  Consequently, justice is only the defined by the self-interest of the government and not some great magnanimous moral code of right and wrong.

Can government corruption be ended? I believe so, but we MUST impose some restraints. Can we achieve the perfect government? Probably not because there will always be a cycle of corruption. The best we can hope for is to limit the highs and lows of the cycle. Here is a list that is just the beginning of what is required for good government.

• (1) Separate judges from the state and clearly establish human rights.
• (2) We must end career politicians for every Republican form of government ends in corruption and surrenders to an oligarchy without exception over 6,000 years of recorded history.
• (3) There should be qualifications for politicians.
• (4) We need some form of government or we end up with anarchy but at the same time, we cannot surrender all rights, privileges, and immunities to the state.
• (5) The Majority must be restrained from suppressing the minority be it religion, race, or gender
• (6) Only the People should take up positions in the legislative and they should be limited to one-year terms. If they must return to the private sector then they will never enact legislation that they themselves would not want to live under.
• (7) No tax may subject a person to paying greater than 10% of their total income annually with state and local governments.
• (8) Federal Government must be prohibited from borrowing and its funding should be serviced by the creation of new money.
• (9) Any prosecution for a crime MUST be based upon the complaint of a private citizen and not government unless the crime is against government directly.
• (10) No one may be imprisoned or have their liberty constrained except for crimes of violence against another.