What Makes me Tick? Good Question!
QUESTION: Martin,
I’d like to ask you a somewhat personal question if you don’t mind (and I’m sure many readers would be interested too). The vast majority of people that seek your advice, based on your work, I’m sure are looking to make or save money; that’s all their interested in with you. I too have that interest, but I have always been interested by fascinating people, of which I categorize you. Many of the most interesting people who’ve ever lived have never made much money, or in some cases don’t seem that interested in it, yet they’ve made great contributions to humanity, i.e. Tesla, Einstein, etc.
My question to you is this, “What makes you tick, or drives you?” No doubt you’ve made substantial sums of money in your life, he’ll you’ve enjoyed exotic cars (Ferrari), flown like royalty (Concorde), but you don’t seem to be of the ilk that so many in the finance arena are; caught up in all of the traditional trappings (yatchs, 10th home, penthouses, etc.), as if one’s trying to over compensate for a small penis or something? – like a Blankfein or Dimon. What expensive hobbies you do have are collecting rare, ancient artifacts; hardly sexy stuff to most people.
After the injustice of what you’ve had done to you and stripped from you life, which you can never get back, and knowing that you could just as easily have joined “the club” when they tapped you to become “one of them”, what is it that’s made you choose another path, and truly drives you?
Thank you for what I deem as being a true American Patriot!
- Tim
ANSWER: A friend of mine has been married for over 35 years. When asked how did he do it, he respond easy. He makes all the big decisions and his wife the rest. When asked which big decisions he has made, he replies, non have come up yet. So I do not know what makes me tick yet. I guess when I answer that question completely it is time to die.
Perhaps I was just instilled with a sense of right and wrong by my mother and her determination to stand up for what is right and to never yield. I can say, yes I made way too much money for a kid at 13. But in retrospect, that made me not impressed with money from an early age. Oddly enough, I could step into a crisis and was never scared. Others would be so afraid of how much money they had to make a decision on they could not do it. So I could be called on on trillion dollar portfolios and made the same calm decision as if it were $100.
Yes I use to fly the Concord. It was great on saving time. I bought the ticket when it cost me LESS than a first class ticket in the States. As for the Ferrari, it was the collapse in the pound that then caused those cars to be raised in price. They were not trophy cars as they are today. People now buy them for investment and to show-off. The Ferrari I had was a 328 and it was the best handling car ever. It was like a jet cockpit. I had to put my hand on the road to climb out. After that, sports cars got bigger so they could sell them to fat rich guys. I use to race cars when I was young. I drove a 535i BMW 2011 that was manual. I just had to trad that in for a 2015 and they no longer make manuals. I also said the day I had to drive an automatic was the time to die.
Having the richest clients in the world also showed me that money did not buy happiness. So while other spend their hundreds or millions of houses and yachts, I spent it on models and computers. I was curious. I wanted to know what made the world tick.
What I do, is not for money but the challenge. I do not need money and the more you get the more you are a target for government anyway. I am old school when you traded on your word. You called the floor and said buy. If you lost money and did not honor the trade, you were finished. When taped lines came in, it actually lowered ethical standards – they did not increase them. Now it did not matter who you dealt with because the line was taped.
I never saw myself as anything but a trader. It was Milton Friedman who came to listen to me speak in Chicago who inspired me saying I was doing what he had only dreamed about. Strangely, I was always traveling to Europe from a teenager. Jumped on a plane using student passes for $50 every chance I go. I ended up knowing a lot of people everywhere. That trained me to be international and to listen to everyone’s opinion. It did not matter if I agreed or not. My father had taught me people will act according to what they believe – not you.
I feel the ECM was something I discovered – not theorized. Hence, it was an important discovery that can change the world if it is understood how it functions. So I do what I do to leave it behind. Accomplish that, then I suppose I did what I was supposed to do in life. So I have expected to be attacked, slandered, hated, and mocked by all those who are driven only by money. Those who only try to further their own self-interest by manipulating society for personal gain be they analysts, politicians, or government employees, I have no time for and regard as the worst of human society. Their inflexibility shall be their doom.
I have been called the accidental analyst because I never aspired to such a position. I have simply gone with the flow. I do not fear death and I fully agree with Socrates and his speech when sentenced to death. Once you lose that fear, nobody can harm you. Life merely becomes and endurance test to see how much you can handle. I suppose the words of Socrates, for whom I name our computer, were etched in my soul.
Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about this thing which has happened, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then awhile, for we may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges – for you I may truly call judges – I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about anything; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech; but now in nothing I either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.
Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: – either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall have a wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.
It is How you Interpret Laws that Counts
I have warned that government can take any law and create absolute tyranny. It is all how you interpret and enforce a law and between far too many new police, they simply prosecute people insanely. It became a joke inside. There was a Vietnam Vet who had an empty shell case he wore around his neck. They charged him with possession of ammunition. He went to trial and lost on the theory he could repaid the hole and refill the shell. Then there were people there for shooting a Moose on federal property.
Here is the latest insanity. A 72 year old retired teacher was an antique gun collector. He had a vintage musket that was not loaded and you would never fire. He had it in his car when pulled over for a traffic stop. He is now fighting for his life as the State is demanding 10 years in prison for “carrying” a concealed deadly weapon.
If you create a law, you fit people to it no matter what. If you think law-enforcement is reasonable anymore, you have not yet encountered it yourself. When Magna Carta was forced upon King John, the common saying was there had been left no man in England who had not be fined once or twice every year. The good old days are back.
How FATCA is Destroying the World Economy & Americans
The horror stories from Americans around the world are just unbelievable. The IRS and FATCA are hunting people everywhere. This is part of the Decline & Fall of the United States. Whenever a government turns against its own people for taxes to sustain its life, the end is never far behind. This is part of the shift from the West to the East as the Financial Capitol of World migrates as it has done for millennium.
It is just time to shift once again. FATCA is part of the destruction of the world economy. The other side of 2032 should see China displace the USA on all levels economically. This what you get when you have lawyers as politicians. They know how to write laws and enforce them. They do not comprehend the impact. They are destroying the world economy at the most rapid speed I have ever seen. Liquidity has remain down 50% from 2007 levels. Stopping Americans from investing globally will only make the markets extremely vulnerable during this decline. This is part of the reason Europe is imploding. This hunt for taxes is destroying everything. People just hoard and stop investing.
Here is an experience from just one couple over the border between USA and Canada.
COMMENT FROM CANADA
Hello, Mr. Armstrong. I hope that you’re having a wonderful day!
In today’s paper, I read that Boris Johnson – the mayor of London, England – believes that he can avoid the US tax people by merely dropping his US passport. Nothing could be further from the truth.
My wife and I have already dealt with the issue of FACTA etc. After many months of hard work and a seemingly endless stream of documents, we are finally up-to-date and on the good side of the American tax people with regards to American taxes.
I am a Canadian citizen. Born and raised in the USA, my wife is a dual American/Canadian citizen who has been living and working in Canada for the better part of 44 years. She has consistently filed both US and Canadian taxes over that time frame (lucky for us!!).
What we discovered may surprise you and could be of interest to your readers:
- 1. One can only give up one’s American passport after one has paid all back-taxes, all late fees, all fines, all interest owing, and the fee for the privilege of giving up one’s passport. The sum of these figures can easily amount to many hundreds of thousands of dollars for a typical middle class couple.
- 2. The US does not recognize foreign tax schemes such as RRSPs (Registered Retirement Savings Plans)or TFSA (tax-free savings accounts); these are fully taxable, as income, in its eyes.
- 3. The US does not recognize joint holdings. Any asset held jointly by my wife and me was deemed to be held 100% by my wife. In the eyes of US tax people, I owned 0%.
- 4. Ditto on any accounts of mine on which she had only signing authority or power of attorney.
- 5. If, at any time during a given year, my wife’s fully- or jointly-owned bank accounts held $10,000 or more (not $10,000 in each account, but $10,000 in total!), she had to supply all banking information for the year in question. That rule was applied even if her/my bank accounts showed an amount in excess of $10,000 even for a few minutes.
In the end, we spent multiple thousands of dollars on accountant’s fees, and the American taxpayer spent multiple thousands of dollars to investigate us. The end result? Not one cent in tax was owing.
What a complete waste of time, money, and resources! Not to mention the complete and utter lack of fairness and respect shown towards both expatriates and their non-American spouses!!!
Thank you for all that you do, Mr. Armstrong! Wishing you the very best, but still riled in Canada,
M.W.G.
Canada & Bitcoin
QUESTION: Hi Marty
Is The Forecaster playing anywhere near Vancouver, BC?
Have your thoughts on bitcoin changed at all? We are opening up in Brazil shortly.
Regards,
Richard
ANSWER: I believe the film has already been signed up by distributors throughout Canada. I am not sure when and where. I really am not in that loop. I will show up for the premiere in Berlin I believe in the theaters. I am told that will be a huge gathering. When, I am not quite sure yet. This Spring. It is my hope that this goes to the average person on the street and explains to them the problem rather than the hype. The occupy Wall Street movement was interesting, but not focused. As I said, they were camped out in front of my office in the City. When I walked out, someone yelled at me that I was a “Corporate Liberal”. I just laughed because I had no idea what they even meant and I doubt they even grasped what they were saying. What is that? Someone who runs a company and gives the money away?
With Bitcoin my only concern is that government has the guns, tanks, and the pen. All I can do is warn about how the government let the tax-straddles go for years when people started using futures to push profits from one year to the next. Then they came in and fined the brokers for selling them and hit everyone retroactively with interest and penalties going back to the beginning.
So all I can do is look at is how these people play with us. The idea that Bitcoin can circumvent government currencies and taxes I just do not buy. I suspect these people are licking their chops to rush in. That is my only concern. You cannot withdraw $3,000 in cash without them freaking out. They will an underground economy exist? I seriously doubt it.
Universe without Singularities
There is another group who have attempted to argue against the theory of Big Bang and what I explained would be the Big Crunch. The entire problem in the theory is that no one seems to be able to explain what happens before the instant of Big Bang. General relativity implies there should have been a Big Bang. Others have attempted to create new models to really avoid the problem of explaining the singularity that existed prior to Big Bang. (see: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning).
All I can say is based upon my work in other aspects, it is the same structure on a fractal basis. Markets move in the same manner. We must move to extreme over-bought and extreme points of over-sold. This is the ENERGY that propels the market movement. Government tries to peg currencies to stop the movement and others rant and rave against declines as evil manipulation by some dark lord of Wall Street. At the top and bottom, the majority MUSTbe wrong for they are the fuel to reverse the direction. At the top, everyone is long and sees only higher multiples. At the bottom, nobody want the stuff and the low is made usually by a short-cover rally.
Consequently, I see no need to try to create models or avoid singularities when they exist only for an instant. All of these problems stem from the assumption that somehow there is a dense mass that just spontaneously explodes. They cannot describe that explosion process, so there is the debate. Quite frankly, if the answer does not lie in a perpetual state of dense matter that somehow just spontaneously explodes, then to me there is no reason to assume that this Big Bang and Big Crunch have not taken place perpetually. The Big Crunch implosion sets the stage for the opposite reaction – Big Bang.
Hey – this is not my field. All I can offer is an opinion based upon the evidence I have seen how everything else functions. I assume everything is fractal and there is no need to theorize a perpetual state of dense energy and mass that somehow just existed. If that were the case, then yes, I would have a problem with assuming some mysterious process that creates a spontaneous explosion. However, this is a process that has been perpetual. ENERGY can neither be created nor destroyed. It has always existed. Some call this the definition of God. Who knows. From what I can observe in the functioning of markets is the fractal nature that complies with the same laws of physics. How is it possible for me to have discovered the Economic Confidence Model was first published in 1979 from that simply list of international panics I came across in the Library?
1683 1711 1720 1731 1745 1763 1772 1783 1792 1814 1818 1825 1857 1866 1869 1871 1872 1873 1884 1890 1893 1895 1896 1899 1901 1903 1907
This covered a time period of 224 years and the number of panics within that period being 26 after 1683, produced a frequency of 8.6 years. After years of study applying it throughout history, Armstrong believed this frequency dominated the global economy since Roman times. I discovered it in ancient times as well as modern. I tracked waves throughout history and numbered themfor research.
What I discovered was everything functioned in a fractal manner. This is why the model is designed with each level of time scaling up. I discovered this on tick charts intraday to charting trends over thousands of years.
The accuracy of working things out to the very day shocked me. This is why I say this was my DISCOVERY and not my THEORY. I would NEVER have theorized that such accuracy existed. The frequency of 8.6 years works out to 3141 days (Pi x 1000). The wave structure of 8.6 years is divided into two 4.3 year waves that are again divided in half being 2.15 years, and then down to 1.075 years.
I began to see the swing back and forth between whereCONFIDENCE resided that then accounted for the rise and fall of nations. No matter what we look at there is a structure of two opposites – male and female. This is the building block upon which the entire universe is constructed. It is ONE law that applies to everything.
There was a major Australian public company that had lost over $100 million on managing the A$. The board of directorsORDERED the CFO to meet with me. Naturally, someone coming in from the outside when you have been dead wrong sets up a hostile confrontation instantly. The gentlemen countered with whatever I said as that could have been luck or coincidence that our models were correct.
I was getting nowhere. One giant waste of time. So I asked him, what was his background for nobody ends up doing what they have a degree in from school outside of doctors and lawyers who practice instead of running for politics. He hesitated and finally said in a low voice – nuclear physics. Most CFOs I found tended to be engineers. A said great. Lets now look at this through the Laws of Thermal Dynamics. Instantly, his face showed the shock. He said, OMG, there has to exist a cycle. I said you got it.
So to me Big Bang and Big Crunch are correct. If there is some singularity, it exist as the two forces of implosion and explosion meet for a instant if not a millisecond. That is my OPINION based upon my observations of everything else. The universe always was and always will be. The essence of pure energy.