Shaun Newman Podcast - #526 - Martin Armstrong

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

He is CEO of Armstrong Economics and is the developer of the economic confidence model based on business cycles which is best known for calling the crash of 1987. WWIII, shortages, and light at the end of the tunnel.  Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast

This is Graham Wardle. Mark Friesian. This is Marty up north. This is Alex Kraner. I'm Rupa Subramania. This is Tom Longo, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Friday.

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and best known for calling the crash of 1987. I'm talking about Martin Armstrong. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Martin Armstrong. So, sir, thanks for hopping back on again. Well, thank you for inviting me.

For the audience, if you want to go back and hear Martin's first interview on the podcast, you've got to go back to July 7th. That was episode 461. We've moved quite a long ways from there, and it seems like the world, as you said, melting down. Every time I think we've hit a new level of insanity, we just jump another level. I'm curious, you know, I think at the end of our last chat, we were talking World War III, and what your model was forecasting, predicting, that type of thing. Well, what do you think these days, Martin, with everything going on in Israel and Palestine and Hamas and just on and on and on it goes?

Well, I think there's something that people need to really look at, and that is Turkey. And surprisingly, how few people are really paying attention to Turkey at all. But their leader has come out numerous times and talking about resurrecting the old Ottoman Empire. Turkey was the capital of that. They had Egypt, Syria, they were all part of it. So they, you know, the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I. And it's like anything else. They feel like that, you know, that, you know, they want to reestablish it.

So you have Eridon coming out because I had a few people saying, gee, you know, he's accusing Israel of war crimes but not Hamas. And he explained, you have to look at what his motives are. Okay. He is deliberately doing that to try and get the Arab world to rally behind him. Now, they have the largest army in the Middle East. Turkey's army is even bigger than Italy. And most people don't pay attention to this. But, I mean, like with Putin, they kept saying,

oh, he wants to resurrect the old Soviet Union. I mean, they've had 25 years to do that, and he never made a step to do it. I mean, that was just more propaganda. But here you have Eridon basically saying that is what he wants to do. And so this whole Hamas thing, you have to look at it, take a step back,

and look at what's really going on. First of all, it was mainly an issue to drag Israel into invading Gaza. A normal terrorist attack is like, you know, maybe 10 guys and a camel, all right? It's not a thousand people. And I think the American neocomberian, were like eager to get involved and there was no way that Israel didn't know. I mean, you can't have a thousand people congregating on the other side of that fence and nobody knew about it. I mean, that's just kind of absurd. But Marty, when you talk the fence, why couldn't they get a thousand

people across it? Well, look, they have the most sophisticated border, I think, in the world. And the excuse that, oh, I ran blocked the communications, et cetera. You know, none of the civil communications in that area were blocked. So I think that was just another excuse. And plus, you know, Israel didn't really even respond for hours. So, you know, on the one side, I think that they wanted this to take place. And on the other side from the Hamas side, first of all, they're not all Palestinians. I mean, you have a whole bunch of people in that Hamas army.

All right. They're not just Palestinians. So that's why they don't care. I mean, it's, I don't know. These people are always willing to sacrifice everybody else for their own. good. I mean, you can Google on Project Northwoods, where the CIA proposed to Kennedy killing Americans and blame it on Cuba to justify an invasion. I mean, that's been declassified as even on Wikipedia now. This is the way they are. They love false flags and things of this nature.

You know, they just are willing to use other people all the time to further their own agendas. I mean, you look at Ukraine. Over 500,000 Ukrainians are dead. For what? You know, to get the area of the Dombas, which is the Minsk agreement said that they were supposed to get a right to vote. And they've been Russians there for hundreds of years. So what is this? Just the territorial grab?

And the same thing in Israel. I mean, when will the Israelis wake up and realize that they are just being used as pawns the same as the Ukrainians? I mean, there's just no way their government didn't know anything about this. You know, I've heard you talk an awful lot about 2032, 2030. There's probably some other years in there that I'm missing out on Martin. but, you know, like, the amount of fear that's being pumped into media right now about all-out war and everything else, do you have a feel for when things are, I don't even know, like, I keep saying, like, are going to get worse, but I mean, they're pretty upside down right now.

But when it comes to war, you know, it feels like everybody's getting drawn into it. But is there a date or a year that you're looking at that you go, this is something to be watched? Well, our computer basically forecast that this is when it should start in 2023. Then next year, with all the elections that are going around, not just in the United States, but 2024 is also an election in Russia, Europe. I mean, it's like, you know, the heads of state all are up for grabs next year. the 24 election I can tell you I mean I mean just look at what they're doing to Trump I mean it's absurd and and this is creating a contagion that way all of a sudden you had Argentina's said oh that's a good idea let's just criminally prosecute my opponent Brazil is doing the same thing going after you know this is this. is not the way democracy is supposed to function. And the problem with it is that our computer

has been forecasting that the 2024 election, I don't care who wins, nobody's going to believe it. And so that's going to result more in civil unrest and everything else. So I don't care who wins. It's not going to be accepted. So then you have civil disruptions, and that's what our computer is showing for 2025. But you then also have international war as well. Now, I should point out that the Israeli war in the Middle East is far more serious than Ukraine, mainly because you have the Jewish communities everywhere spread around the world. in Russia, Europe, the United States.

And, you know, so they're basically going to be getting their various governments to support whatever and protesting, et cetera. So that's much more serious than Ukraine. And so our computer is just basically shown we're heading into World War III. probably the worst of it is going to start between 25 going into 27. After that, then we're going to probably start

moving towards I think what our computer's been showing is the collapse of Republican forms of government. I mean, we went through this with monarchy. It happens roughly

almost every 300 years. And because no matter what government you put in place, they just always end up, you know, corrupt. That's it. I mean, you can read Plato when he was talking, you know, writing about Socrates debating Thrasimachus. And Thrasimachus was right. He said it doesn't matter what the government is if it's a monarchy, authoritarian dictatorship or democracy.

Justice is the same in all three of them and all four of them. It's always their own self-interest. When you say the worst of it between, well, there's two things I want to ask here, but I'll go with the first. The worst of it, you say 2025 to 2027. When you say the worst of it, what do you mean by that statement? That it's basically all over. I mean, look at what's going on. I mean, in Asia, you've got the problem with Taiwan.

You have North Korea getting nukes and basically building up its army again for the South and shooting missiles off over Japan. I mean, no matter where you go, you know, we're getting destabilization. So that's why, I mean, it's the worst of it is that it's not just simply like World War I, somebody assassinations the Archduke. And because everybody has treaties, you know, Europe goes into into war. This you're looking at on a global scale. So it's not just one place. You know, it's it's on a major level on a, every,

where you look. So are you saying that there will be wars fought not just in, let's say Israel, but could be on the front of Russia, could be somewhere in the States. It could be anywhere. Yeah. And look, the whole problem

with the Israeli one is that you look at Europe. I mean, so many Arabs migrated into Europe. You know, I talk to you know, clients there and they're legitimately scared because all of a sudden then they start

rising up against the Jewish communities there. So it's like a contagion that spreads. You know, you look at our southern border. It's just, it's been confirmed that terrorists have come in through there. Biden's just let the doors open. I mean, it's completely nuts. And, you know, we're not dealing with the barbarians at the gate. They're in the gate already. All right. So, you know, we can be looking at terrorist attacks here. So the Israeli situation is more of a a holy war, jihad, that sort of thing. Whereas like the Russian thing, it's more of a, we just hate Russians. So, you know, and the same thing with the Chinese.

But when you get into a religious war, now that's a contagion that's everywhere. So then you have the Muslim world rising up. I mean, it's just, you know, it's not a good situation. Yeah, we're, we're, you know, when you put it that way, you know, I keep saying we're at peak insanity. But we, it seems what you're saying is there's a few more levels, Sean, that we can get to before before we absolutely hit a boiling point or whatever we're calling it. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, it, it is insanity in the sense that, but it's just getting started. I mean, in all honesty, I had a phone call yesterday from a congressman that I was just really more or less reading him the Riot Act. I mean, the standard things that he said, oh, well, Putin wants to take Europe.

I said he's had 30 years to do that. You people are not paying attention to the real situation, and that is Turkey. Turkey wants to turn, you know, the Middle East to reestablish the Ottoman Empire. So he's lighting a fire underneath the whole Israeli issue. And you're going to see that, you know, expand dramatically. This is more than just Iran. And even then, I mean, we took out Saddam Hussein, who was the arch enemy of Iran. Honestly, I couldn't even understand that one.

It just seemed to be for more money. I mean, he wasn't involved in 9-11. And there were no weapons of mass destruction. And it just seemed to be grabbing oil, you know, for Hal Burton, et cetera. And when Hal Burton was going to be investigated, oh, they suddenly resigned their American citizenship and moved to Dubai. I mean, that just seemed to be for oil and greed. but you took out Saddam Hussein, who was the arch enemy of Iran. So you actually increased Iran's power in the Middle East by taking him out.

And even the same thing with Gaddafi. I mean, yes, both of them were dictators. However, they were against the religious fanatics. And, I mean, you can Google Tony Blair's apology for the Iraq. war. And he said we thought we were, you know, helping the people and we took out Saddam Hussein and it actually got worse. He even admits it. Then it got sectarian. You had ISIS, beheading people and all this other kind of stuff. And that's where we're at now. You have in the Middle East, you have another problem besides Israel. And that is you have, you have a, you have a, you have a, you have a other problem

besides Israel. And that is, you have a civil war, basically, that's always waged back and forth in Islam. Kind of like Christianity, Catholics versus the Protestants. There, it's Sunni versus, you know, Shiite. The Shiite believes that the church should run the state, so the Ayatollah is there. And you go to Saudi Arabia, and it's Sunni, and they have a king. All right. So, I mean, Iran would love to absolutely destroy Saudi Arabia.

Some people are confused why Saudi Arabia is kind of like supporting Israel a little bit and wanted a peace deal. And then just today you had Egypt refusing to accept Palestinian refugees across the border. Why? Because both of them know what the real problem is. is. And if, you know, Eridon out of Turkey would love nothing more than to conquer the entire area. Allow, you know, Iran to use its army first, just as we were doing with Ukraine. Go ahead, we can rush it as much as you can. Then NATO will walk in. This is, you know, there's strategies. When you talk about North America, and whether it's civil unrest starting around 2025 or the worst of it, 2025 to 27, whether you're talking terrorist attacks, et cetera, et cetera, you know, when you look back through history, Martin,

I think it was you who pointed out to me around the first one, just these different false flags that pull us all in. They grab the emotion of the people and the way we go and then we're, you know, bloodlust or just willing to, you know, sacrifice everything. everything to go get them. Do you foresee, well, not that you foresee it, but do you think that is possible? You know, you talked about the open border on the south and how they're just letting people in. Like the videos coming out from there are wild. Is it possible that, you know, with the false flags and everything else, there's something that can galvanize the American population so that they don't worry about 2024 election.

They're more worried about war on the other side of the planet or what have you. Yes, I mean, they were looking to create some sort of World War III event before the 2024 election. And mainly because the way these people in Washington, and I know them, all right, face-to-face, been in meetings, etc. The way these people think is right out of the playbook. Oh, no president's ever lost during war. So if we create a war, Biden will win, even if he goes, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And he even forgets his name. This is the way these people look at politics. We're just a bunch of ants in a farm and they just want to shake us up a little bit. But Hitler did the same thing. The Germans know the fire of the Bundestag.

That was a false flag. He blamed the communist because they were against basically Russia, et cetera. And, you know, history has shown that, you know, that was all just something that Hitler did to get power. They do this all the time. Like I said, you can go on on. even in Wikipedia, you know, Project Northwoods. The CIA actually proposed to Kennedy to kill Americans, stage of, you know, that and blame it on Cuba.

That's a, I mean, in one sense, it's a wild thought. And another, you know, like, it isn't that wild of a thought. You start doing your digging and you're reading and you find out there's been a ton of things go on in pretty much any country around the world where your eyebrows raise. and the Americans or even the Canadians are no, well, none of us have been, the people have been really, I don't know, abused, I guess. You know, when it comes to the listeners here, you know, I was talking to my brothers before I got on here. And one of them, you know, what we were talking about is there's a ton of farmers that listen to the podcast. And I've heard you talk about, you know, food shortages, you know, that they're trying to do all these different things.

Well, when you get into supply chain disruption with war and everything else, one of the things we were talking about is what does Marty see when it comes to farming? And specifically, I don't know if you can pinpoint in Canada here, but you know whether it's grain farming or cattle, is there anything that sticks out to you? Because I know there's a ton of farmers that are listening, probably bouncing around out in the field or out on the farm somewhere and very holding on every word of yours.

Well, look, we have the most sophisticated AI computer system that's been around since the 1970s. Everybody else is just trying to catch up. You know, we call it Socrates. It has been absolutely phenomenal. In geopolitical forecast, it's laid these things out. I mean, you can search our website, even back in 2011. You know, we had a conference in Philadelphia, I stood up and said, okay, fine. It says war is going to start in 2014.

2011 on our blog, you know, you can search. I basically said it's going to start in Ukraine. I mean, the computer has been phenomenal in picking all. that stuff. And the grain and food, we're still looking at higher prices into 2024. And you have these insane ideas with the climate change. And these people are, the problem with most of that type of analysis. It's like, oh, gee, it went up one degree this year. So it's going to do that. And in the next 50 years, we're all going to die. All right. That's more or less like saying, oh, gee, the Dow Jones went up 10,000 points this year. So it's going to do that for the next 50 years.

I mean, nothing goes in a linear manner. These people don't even want to look at history. I mean, we've gone through ice ages, warming periods back and forth. You can also Google now. They've discovered that Antarctica had no ice. And there's fossil trees there and dinosaurs and things of this. And they're like, oh, it wasn't always icy. No. You know, and so there's so much that I don't know, these people think that just because it was that way yesterday, that's what tomorrow's going to be? I don't know.

But climate has always changed. We've gone through ice ages and back and forth. I mean, you know, how did the ice age end if there wasn't moms driving their SUVs around taking kids to school, you know? So, I mean, the biggest problem with food side is that we are heading back more into a global cooling period. And you can also Google the scientists are very concerned about two super volcanoes that are suddenly they thought were dormant or coming active. Where are those at, Marty? Both on the opposite sides of the world. And you can go back and read Google around the year 536. Apparently, two major volcanoes went up, and the historians back then said you didn't even see the sun. When a volcano goes up, it throws up so much ash, it blocks the sun.

So you get what is called a volcanic winter. There's also a book you can look at 1816, the year without a summer. It's when I think it was Crackatole or was the tambour that erupted. It threw so much ash in the atmosphere from Indonesia that it was snowing in New York City in July. So we are an insignificant factor when it comes. to major global changes in climate. And if you just get, I mean, if two of these super volcanoes actually went up, we got a real problem because then you go into a volcanic winter and then people will find

severe shortages of food. But that's also when disease comes. Like the Black Death came, came after something like that because what happens is people get malnutrition and more susceptible disease. So plagues always tend to follow the climate, particularly volcanoes. And you can look, that year of without a summer, that's what defeated Napoleon. He invaded Russia and then found it so cold. He lost, you know, the vast majority of his army. You can also Google and find it, I think it was John Adams in one of his letters. He wrote back to his wife saying that it's so cold. The ground is frozen two feet deep and we can't plan anything.

So climate has always been a major factor. It's been a major factor in migrations as well. Go back to ancient times. There was the volcanoes that erupted of Thera, which is now Santorini. And there were climate changes. They've now found that, you know, the documentation, why did Attila Hun invade Europe? It was a major drought in Mongolia. And so they started moving.

So climate has had these major effects throughout, you know, thousands of years. You know, so I think it's a little bit more than a soccer mom driving a driver in her SUV around. Switching everything over to solar and wind power. Yeah. Well, yeah, what are you going to do? I'd like to see, you know, Air Force One, you know, fly around the world on solar power. Well, when you talk about civil unrest, what shortages do you think people are going to see?

You know, I've heard, I can't remember which podcast I heard you on, honestly, I can't remember how recently it was, but I heard you talking about storing canned goods and rice and different things, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I hadn't heard Marty talk like that before. At least maybe I'd miss that in different interviews. But what shortages, you know, do you think, you know, it's this like, I've asked this question so many times to so many different people, right?

And it's like how, how difficult the question to answer? But at the same time, I'm, you know, from your perspective, I'm curious. Well, it's not actually hard to answer. Yes, on the one hand, you have the climate zealots, which are trying to shut down farming and things of this nature. So that creates shortages. However, when you go into war, there is rationing and shortages. You can probably go on eBay and buy some of the old ration books from World War I and World War II. So you have two factors that create that type of the shortage that we're looking at going forward here, between the climate and war.

So, you know, you have to understand this is, I would say, the first time in history that I've seen this convergence and probably at least 600 years. And convergence, what do you mean? That you have both at the same time. You have a climate change problem and you also have war. Do you think, is there going to be any place on the planet, you know, Marty's going to pack up all of his things and he's going to move there because they're not going to have to worry about war there. They might not have to worry about war, but you're looking at major civil unrest and it's, you know, and a lot of the places in South America. You know, going after Bolsonaro for criminal charges, you're likely to create a civil war the same thing as it.

in the United States. You know, I mean, in Canada there, you've had basically a, where U.S. is north versus south, and Canada, it's east versus west. You have Trudeau, who is basically on a leash from the World Economic Forum. And his insanity of taking, you know, actions against just about everything that's practical, is driving, you know, I think you're going to probably see a separatist movement there as well from the West versus the East. And in the United States, you get that.

It's going to be more or less the North versus the South. even in Germany, I've gone there many times. I mean, I was in Bavaria one time, and they said, oh, tomorrow is a holiday. I said, which holiday is this? Oh, we won the war. I said, which were we talking about? Oh, the war against Prussia.

All right. So in Germany, the North Prussian area was Protestant. Bavaria was Catholic. So it was kind of the same thing as in Ireland. And just the last election in Bavaria, the AFD won. And, of course, the, you know, the German news, which is pretty much very left wing, they call them, oh, they're far right-wing extremists, you know. They're against all the migrants coming in. So they're a right-wing extremists, you know, I guess.

I don't know. you're basically pointing out Marty that nothing new is under the sun right like the cycle of this although it has been a bit of a long one when you go back to how long it's been since all these things are converging at the same time

basically what you're pointing out is like all these different countries are just starting to fall apart all about the same time and it's just happened before and before that and before that I think what causes it is economics when everybody's fat and happy, there is no war. You go along, you know, every day, you know, and that's it.

It's when you start aggravating it and people start losing their livelihoods. It costs more to live, you know, tomorrow than it does today. You take this climate change nonsense. and you go to third world countries, you know, they completely depend upon fossil fuels just to be able to put food on the table for their family. And then you're saying, oh, you can't have that? Well, they don't have the windmills and they don't have the nuclear power plants or anything of that nature.

So you start taking it away from them, and that's civil war. That's when it comes. Yeah, well, you look at Canada right now with the carbon tax, the double carbon tax, the price of living, the mortgage rates, everything just like, you know, everything just keeps going up and up and up and up. And instead of our government doing things to help people out, they, you know, Trudeau and his lackeys continue to like double and triple down on everything. And you can just feel everybody becoming aggravated. You know, when you talk fat and happy and on the flip side, everybody. lose you know you the last like since 2020 it's it's been it's just been on and on and on it goes here in canada right from freezing a bank accounts to the i mean it to locking people out of like different

things from you know and and certainly covid was uh was i mean we weren't the only ones affected by that but certainly when you talk about the whiff and and uh pulling the puppet strings on trudeau it's been an interesting ride up here in the north um look i know i know Trudeau. He is a, I mean, not Trudeau, I mean, Klaus Schwab. Trudeau is just, I don't know, he's just an idiot, just listening to everything that whatever he's told. Schwab is a control freak. I can tell you the way he runs the WEF over there. Anybody even makes one mistake. mistake is immediately called on the carpet. And you're lucky if you don't lose your job right then and there. He is a perfectionist. And that is why his agenda is to absolutely control the world.

The same way he's running the WEF. And he's got Switzerland, his bow to him. He has absolute immunity, gavi that's there, immunity. All these, you know, everything for the vaccines, Switzerland, complete 100% immunity for everything. And Schwab, I'll put it this way. It's, we had our World Economic Conference in 2019 in Rome. Nigel Farage came down and

he kind of opened it and he says, of course I'm here. He said, Marty's computer was the only one the forecast that Brexit would win. And secondly, he said, of course I'm here because

his, you know, WEC's World Economic Conferences, he says he is the alternative to Davos. So that was a very interesting endorsement from Nigel. But I started our conferences in 1985. Schwab thought that was a good idea and started his first conference in 1987. He's been, between him and me, it's been back and forth for I can't tell you how long.

Marcus Vedder did the movie on Me, The Forecaster. He hired a production company and they brought in Marcus to do a movie on him called The Forum. It's just been back and forth, I mean, all the time. Our collapse of Republican forms of government where we get to maybe redesign everything is 2032. He calls it the Great Reset. What he's trying to do is push it in his direction, which is, totalitarianism. What do you think, Marty, have you been paying attention at all to Jordan Peterson in that group

and their Ark, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship? They've been meeting in London. I think it started this week. I don't really like to criticize. The problem with them is largely they have no actual practical experience. I mean, you can come up with theories, very nice. Oh, let's go back to a gold standard. Has it ever worked once?

No. They don't understand the very fundamental problem here. And this is what governments do not get. And you can't walk in there and say, oh, well, you know, you should just do it this way. It's not practical. All right. I get called in mainly because I understand what they're doing and how to make it work to some degree. When the British pound was being attacked by Soros, you know, the British government had to call me in because I used to advise Margaret Thatcher and I told her, don't take the pound into the euro.

And Major did. So I said, look, you overvalued the pound and you have to devalue. And they said, we can't because Major made a promise during the election, he wouldn't devalue the pound. So I went back and I said, all right, fine. Here, I wrote a little paragraph down and I said, have them say this. We're going to allow the pound to seek its own level. Oh, brilliant. It's the same thing.

All right. But it's basically saying, I didn't do it. The market did it. This is how you really have to deal with government. You can't just walk in there and say, oh, this is the way it really should work. And it's not going to, you're not going to sell it. You know, you have to have something more to this. and understand how the stuff really functions.

Like most of the people don't understand central banks. They blame the central banks for just about everything. And that's just not the way it works. The central bank can raise or lower the short-term rates. It has no impact on the long-term rates. That's why they got involved in quantitative easing. Because the long-term rates are set by the market. All right. So they were in there buying long-term bonds trying to reduce the demand to bring down the long-term interest rates. That's what QE was all about. So you have to understand, you know, I was actually, you know, quite impressed that Powell out of the Federal Reserve came out just, I think it was last week, and said that Biden's spending is unsustainable.

I mean, usually a central bank doesn't criticize the government, but this is getting out of control. The central banks cannot control interest rates anymore. They're gone. They're basically just along for the ride. You have the neocons who've been bashing China over Taiwan, but China was the largest holder of U.S. debt. So they've been selling billions and billions every month. We go into war with China. They better not hold one dollar worth of American debt because the U.S. would just default on them.

They know that. All right. So then the neocons, like the group you're talking about, they don't understand anything. So then what do you do? you go to China and you say, gee, would you buy, please, another $100 billion worth of bond so we can buy some missiles to shoot at you? I have to deal with a lot of different governments. And when I see some of this stuff, I am just shocked.

I mean, I can't believe the stupidity. The lack of experience, I mean, I actually had, They keep trying to get me back into Washington as advisory. I said, I don't, sorry, not going to do it. All right. So they have my local congressman call me, and I finally said, look, why are you guys bothering me? And he actually said, we don't have anybody with your experience from the Cold War error. I said, that was just 1991.

What have you done? Chase everybody out of Washington? I mean, this is what the problem is. There is no expertise there. So is there any light at the end of this tunnel? Like, you know, when you talk about 20, all these different years, Marty, you're painting a rather bleak picture. And I know.

The light at the end of the tunnel is we get to redesign government. This is the what, look, it doesn't matter. We revolted against monarchy. or our politicians are like aristocrats. They're there for life. What's the difference? They're always going to rule in their favor against us. Always.

We are the enemy. So put in a carbon tax. Oh, that wasn't enough? Let's double it. Okay, that's not. We'll triple it. I mean, this is the way. It's funny because it's true.

It's like over the next seven years, we're just going to tax you into oblivion. And then we're going to add a second tax on the carbon tax. And we should toss another tax on the grocery stores. And we're just going to tax and tax and tax. You're like, oh, my God, you can't be this stupid. They are. They don't realize that virtually every revolution throughout history has been over taxation. Remembering the American Revolution, no taxation without representation?

That's what I mean. the form of government that we have, this republic, is the most corrupt form of government ever. It's far worse than monarchy. You can't bribe the monarch, right? You can bribe all this because they pretend to represent us. They even lie to us and say, oh, this is democracy. This is not democracy. Do they come to us and ask, gee, should we go to war against Russia? No. Should we raise your taxes? No. They don't ask us about anything.

I mean, that was the Vietnam argument. You were 18 years old. You could be drafted, sent to die. You weren't allowed to vote, and you weren't even old enough to have a drink. But that's democracy. Do you think there will be a draft again? You know, one of my fears when you talk about war and everything else, I go, I got young kids, and certainly I'm not that old of a man,

So I assume I fall in that kind of weird grouping. But, you know, Vietnam wasn't that long ago. Do you foresee anything like that? Oh, yeah. I mean, they're coming back with, there are even bills that I have seen on the desk that they intend to put in in the United States that also drafts women. And as far as the draft age, If you look at it, I think even China is now up to 65.

They're raising the ages dramatically. Because, you know, volunteer army is not going to do it. Simple as that. So you go through the pain to get to the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes. But before we get to the light at the end of the tunnel, there is going to be some pain here. If you understand what's coming, it doesn't hurt so much. You sure about that, Marty?

Yeah, I mean, look, if you don't know what's going to happen, you know, everything is a shock. And if you understand how these things happen, I think it's much easier to cope with. Because also, the light at the end of the tunnel is we get to redesign it. And this time, let's go towards a democracy. If we have Internet and everything, why can't we say yes? Should we go to war against Russia? Yes or no? All right.

It's absurd. I mean, if you can buy on Amazon securely, why can't we vote securely? Why do we need dominion machines and all this other kind of nonsense? I mean, it's, the technology's there, all right? It's just that, honestly, you know, Mark Twain had said if voting really mattered, they wouldn't let us do it. You have a conference coming up. I want to make sure that we get that in here. So people, if they're, you know, because a lot of people, Marty, when you come on,

and certainly I was telling the story the last time, like the first time you came on, you know, about stumbling into you in the middle of 2020 and being like, who is this guy? and just some of the things you're talking about and everything else. For the listener right now, you have a conference coming up, you have your website, where can people find you, and if they're so inclined, conference, everything else. Please share a little bit about where they can find you. Well, the main site is Armstrong Economics.com. It's maintained as a public service, so we don't sell any advertising, so you don't have to keep clicking.

You get rid of the ads just to see what you're reading, and you don't have to sign in. It's completely open forum for the entire world, and that's basically why we try to keep it that way. We have a our paid service is getting into the computer. The computer writes forecasts on over 1,200 different instruments around the world today. Stocks, bonds, economic statistics, and it's covering the entire world. So we have forecasting out that's going out for, all the Middle East countries. I mean, you name it, it's there.

I mean, Romania. I mean, many places were the only people even forecasting that country. Well, here in little old Lloyd Minster, I ran into a friend of mine. Actually, our sons are playing on the same hockey team. And he heard I had you on, and he goes, that guy and his stuff, I used it. And when I saw you coming on, or that he came on your show,

I couldn't believe it. So you've got a loyal follower base here in Lloyd Minster, too. It's funny, Marty, that, I don't know, you think the world's so big, and then you start talking to people and they know exactly who you are. And there's a lot of high praise for you and Socrates. Well, we have, you know, a track record of, I guess, nearly 50 years now. And completely around the world. I mean, we do have clients everywhere.

We have staff even in China, Middle East. So, you know, we have people stationed all around the world. I mean, that's, I'll say this. When I was first starting, we were going to open an office in Geneva in 1985. And one of our clients was one of the big Swiss banks. And I had a list of European names to, you know, I said, you know, we're going to open an office here, which one you think we should use. And he said to me, he said, name one European analyst. And I was embarrassed. I couldn't.

And I said, I'm sure there are. I just don't know of any. And he laughed. He says, there are none. He says, you don't realize what everybody uses you for. I said, no. And then he explained to me after World War II. two. The problem was that the currencies were starting from zero. So if the currency was up 10% against

the dollar, the politician would use that in the political, you know, election, say, see, I did a good job, Deutsche Mark's up against the dollar. So consequently, there was no analysis who would ever say the Deutsche Mark would go down. It was a political statement over there. Whereas in the United States, no politician could say, vote for me because the dollar's up against the Mexican peso. Everybody would have laughed and so what are you talking about? So that's why it was independence, which did not exist outside the United States. So that's how we became everywhere because we were the only ones who were independent. Well, I appreciate you hopping on.

And if you'll, I'm going to cut us off a little bit short. We got a few minutes left before the hour's up. But we've been doing this thing on this side where we've been pushing the last 10 minutes to substack. So if you'll hold on for a second, I got two questions for you before I let you out of here, Marty. Okay. For the listener, we're going to hop over to substack. So if you want to come find us there, look in the show notes. And you'll hear the final two questions I got from Marty before I let him out of here.

I do appreciate him giving us an hour of his time. So we'll catch you folks on Substack for the last 10 minutes here.