Everyone is Following You Everywhere
The NSA tracking is just the tip of the iceberg. People are starting to notice that is you click on some site, thereafter advertisements will appear when you are on-line of that company (we do not advertise). Police can track your cell-phone and have been using that technology to arrest people. There is also location-based-marketing, where people are being tracked everywhere without your knowledge.
If you check your email on one device say a laptop, then at work on a desktop, then using your smart phone, the powers that be now know where you live, work, and how many devices you even use. We have lost all privacy. Can’t image a smart-house that starts to play advertising because you are about to do something that a manufacture wants to pitch you for business over a speaking system in your home.
Individual Computer Forecasting for Small Business Itself
QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong,
Congratulations and for all the wonderful work your doing. Al the best.
I have been following your posts since 2010 and i must admit your take on the world especially the politics of it gives the common man a perspective he never would have from both the mainstream press as well as the CT’s.
What i am really excited about is your concept of the AI and how it can be applied along with the GMW. Below is an excerpt of what you have on the PEI website -
“The key to understanding the global economy and the proper asset allocation remains international capital flows. Comprehending of how capital rushes around the world is essential to our financial survival. It is this interaction on a global scale of capital moving around rapidly that produces the real booms and busts”.
My question is this:
Can this model be applied to business segments and industries? I work in international trade and what i would love to understand is if your model could be used to predict booms or busts in certain sectors, not with respect to price alone but in relation to consumer preferences, demand and so on.
What i am trying to get at is can your model be used by conglomerates and even small to mid size companies (if they can afford it) to predict the best times to enter and exit a business, to invest in new markets or exit them.
Your views would be greatly appreciated. Please do reply.
When will you be coming to India?.
Many Thanks.
ANSWER: Yes. The model can be applied on a fractal basis and that means right down to individual company performance, sales, production, etc. You can even take your date of birth and plot 8.6 year cycle intervals from that date and see if you yourself are correlating to the frequency through your own ups and downs economically – (sorry it is not astrology so it will not tell you who your perfect match might be. The only prediction possible on that sore is when you get married, from then on, you will never again get a window seat when flying together).
We will be setting up systems whereby companies can input their personal data and the computer will then provide the forecasts and turning points in the future. We use to do this for the biggest companies. We will now bring this down to scale for small business.
I will probably visit India before year-end.
American Tanks Returning to Europe
American tanks were removed from Europe with a lot of press last year. They are now returning, but of course just for training purposes on military NATO camps in Germany.The British Defense department is also now searching for a military practice camps in the German Alps. Why ? Previously, tanks and NATO troops were practicing there for the war on Afghanistan and Iraq. So, who is the target for war? It appears that there is a rising consensus that Russia will retake Ukraine after the Olympics.
Enslaving the Next Generation
QUESTION: Hi Mr. Armstrong:
I have 2 questions.
I’m 31, and like most graduates of graduate schools, I have student loans.
I’m 31, and like most graduates of graduate schools, I have student loans.
1) What will happen to our generation who seem to be getting more and more stuck in student loan debt, which is backed by the federal government? Will the government forgive it? Or will we just be a generation in bondage, as American higher education is the most expensive it has ever been in history?
2) Furthermore – did the Roman Empire do anything similar to the younger generation to enslave them in debt?
Thank you for all your writings and insights.
Cheers,
PC
ANSWER: Education is important. However, beyond the basics, historically, education took the form of an apprenticeship. This was the best means of education for it is learning reality. I never hired someone with a MBA because I only had to retrain them anyway. Big corporate firms like paper, because it is always cover-your-ass in such entities. They can claim the person had this or that so any mistake is not theirs. Yet this is on the decline as well and is the primary reason behind the fact that 60% of graduates cannot find a job in the field they studied.
Schools in ancient times were more philosophical rather than skill. This goes back to schools in Athens. However, with the fall of Constantinople, the scholars fled to Rome and then began to set up schools because the philosophy didn’t exist. Even math, was considered the work of the devil and the captains of ships were Jewish. The same was true in banking.
This whole idea that formal education could provide everything is just absurd. Historically it was always limited to the basics and philosophy – that would include science. It was NEVER a place to learn a skill. For that, you applied to be an apprentice.
In Switzerland, about 15% of student go to college/university. The bulk go into apprenticeships. We have in the States hybrids called “trade schools” that are far better than formal education for they are hands-on learning at a minimum.
As far as debt – this has NEVER been done to a generation to my knowledge. It is part of the New Deal – Marxist-Socialistic agenda that sounded good, but in the end, it is proving to be a total disaster. Government is incapable of centralized management or planning. That was the flaw of Communism. Education should have been free – but this is the problem with Marxist-Socialism – it is trying to be like communism, but just-a-little-bit-pregnant.
One example with student debt that has proven devastating comes from Britain. The government needed cash so they sold all student loans for 25%. The government got cash and totally screwed the students. Now private companies are out trying to collect 100% of what is owed. The government never gave the students the ability to pay off their loans at 25% of their face value. Students are being hunted down even when they live in foreign lands. Wherever they are, they are being hunted down by debtor collectors.
The entire system of education is a disaster. It is bloated with nonsense and has proven to be a failure with not just 60% unable to find jobs in what they paid for, but the debts they have amassed are burdensome and is reducing their standard of living going forward. It has proven to be another Utopian idea gone seriously wrong.
This is an issue that will be part of the debt crisis overall.
Conversation between Glen Downs & Martin Armstrong
Ukraine – Doomed After the Olympics
According to a former adviser to Vladimir Putin, the economist Andrei Illarionov, the Kremlin will take one of three possible scenarios with respect to the Ukraine problem. The most dramatic will be the establishment of full control over the whole Ukraine. Within the first half of February, Illarionov states that Russia will begin the total pressure on Ukraine, the purpose of which, will be to assert full control of Moscow over the country.
According to Illarionov, within the next week, Russia will begin to assert a lot of pressure on Kiev. Moscow has resumed a reduced trade war with Ukraine and there has been an information war against Ukraine put out by the government. In particular, there is a delay at the border of Ukrainian goods moving into Russia for 10-15 days. This is expected to increase domestic economic pressure in Ukraine.
The mainstream news in Russia portrays the Ukrainian protesters as criminals and what they are attempting to do amounts to a coup. Some even claim this will lead to a resurgence of Nazis and neo-Nazis power on the border. Purpose of this revolution in Ukraine is to accomplish, says Illarionov literally, is “genocide and the destruction of the Russian population.”
Others in Russia talk about the “reunification” of Russian lands, not that Ukraine is even a separate country. They place this in the news and the context is justified the same as German unification. The Eastern part of Ukraine was historically once Russia. This is the same justification Iraq made on invading Kuwait. The Western portion of Ukraine was never part of Russia so this reasoning would not apply. Indeed, even in the West they speak Ukrainian whereby in the East they speak Russian. We could see Russia justify taking the East as a “reunification” but I would not expect anything before the Olympic games are over.
At the same time, according to the ex-adviser to Putin, Russia has increased its presence in Ukraine, in particular, in the Crimea and the Luhansk region, where the predominant Russian population live. They entered that region to protect the Russian population in eastern Ukraine. Additional Russians were sent into Sevastopol to protect it from the raging swells against Russians. All this gives the impression of a major well-prepared campaign that has just begun and will go on increasing in February. It is not much different from American troops being sent to a foreign land to protect Americans.
Illarionov believes that the active phase will begin immediately after the opening of the Olympics in Sochi, February 7-8th. It is unlikely that Russia would take any such action prior to the Olympics. What happens after the games, is purely political motivation. However, the Russian government will paint the Ukrainian protesters as criminals no different than Hoover called the Bonus Army criminals to justify military action against them in Washington back in 1932.
According to Illarionov, Russia’s options are
- (1) establishing a baseline scenario control over the entire Ukraine. This would be the most appropriate option;
- (2) pro-Kremlin politicians and political scientists see this as the federalization or confederation Ukraine in the context of reunification as a state subservient to Moscow. and
- (3) llarionov suggests that if the first two options fail, then control over the Crimea, Luhansk , and possibly part of Sumy region will need to be established under this idea of “reunification” with Moscow over part of the country in the East joining the Russian population with their mother country.
Illarionov believes that the outcome is really predetermined and that whatever attempts are made to pretend to appoint a opposition Prime Minister of Ukraine, the decision is simply a stall tactic.
It is very clear that many Russian politicians call directly for a popular idea to recreate the age-old dream of reunification of Ukraine and Russia. It is very clear that many have never considered Ukraine as an independent state and call it “nedogosudarstvom”. From their point of view, Ukraine will no longer be so weak in relation to Russia, and Russia will not be as strong in relation to Ukraine, as it is today.
The Western powers represented by the EU and the US have nothing to stand on to protect Ukraine and can only offer lip-service at best. So once again, it appears that Ukraine is doomed and the best one can hope for there, is that Russia will allow the West to leave. The countdown goes forward and the political and economic crisis is indicative of what we see with the first shot across the bow in the rising trend of the Cycle of War.