Join Us at the 2023 World Economic Conference in Orlando, Florida!

? Dates: November 17, 18, and 19 ? Location: Orlando, Florida, USA (or tune in from home with our virtual ticket options)

Are you ready to unlock the future of economics and finance? Prepare for an unforgettable World Economic Conference experience in sunny Orlando, Florida! This premier event is your gateway to insights, networking, and valuable resources that will supercharge your understanding of the global economy.

?️ What’s Included for In-Person Attendees:

1. Event Admission: Enjoy reserved seating assigned based on the order of ticket sales, ensuring you have a prime view of every presentation.
2. Presentation Slides: Gain access to the presentation slides from all speakers, allowing you to delve deeper into the topics discussed.
3. Video Recording: Can’t make it to a session? No worries! You’ll receive access to video recordings of all conference presentations, so you can catch up at your convenience.
4. WEC Event App: Connect with the conference on a whole new level. Access presentation slides, bonus reports, recordings, and more via the official WEC Event App.
5. Bonus Conference Materials: Get a package of bonus conference-related materials, including exclusive bonus reports and videos (as provided by Martin Armstrong).
6. Morning Information Sessions: Don’t miss out on important morning information sessions, screened on-site in the meeting room on Saturday and Sunday.
7. Networking Opportunities: Exclusive access to the Event App Networking Feature allows you to connect with fellow attendees, both in-person and virtual, fostering valuable professional relationships.
8. Culinary Delights: Savor delicious breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday, prepared to keep you energized throughout the day.
9. Cocktail Reception: Kick off the conference in style at our Friday evening cocktail reception. Meet and mingle with fellow attendees while enjoying refreshing drinks.
10. Swag Bag: As a token of our appreciation, each in-person attendee will receive a swag bag filled with goodies, including an Armstrong Economics notebook, pen, and an event collector’s mug!

Unable to travel? We also have two different ticket options for those wishing to attend virtually! 

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a global gathering of economic and financial minds. Secure your spot at the World Economic Conference in Orlando, Florida, and gain the knowledge, connections, and resources you need to thrive in the world of finance and economics.

Space is limited, so act now and reserve your seat! Visit our Events page to register and join us in sunny Orlando this November.

Now available at all major retailers!

The eBook will be available shortly.

The second edition of “The Plot to Seize Russia – The Untold History” is now available for purchase in paperback and hardcover on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The ebook will be available shortly.

Book description:

“Take care of Russia,” Boris Yeltsin said as he departed his presidency in August 1999. These words were directed at current Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Yeltsin specifically picked Putin as his predecessor to prevent the takeover of Russia.

So, who was Yeltsin warning against? Newly declassified documents from the Clinton Administration prove that there was a plot to rig the Russian election of 2000. These never-before-seen documents confirm numerous attempts to implement pro-Western policies using the Russian oligarchy headed by Boris Berezovsky.

On the other side were the communists who desired a return to the glory days of the Soviet Union. As one of the largest international hedge fund managers, author Martin Armstrong found himself in the middle of perhaps the greatest espionage, or attempt at a regime change for Russia, in modern history.

The Plot to Seize Russia pulls back the curtain to expose the most extraordinary attempt to seize power in modern history, but with the pen rather than armies. These declassified documents reveal a plot that has altered our thinking about the relations between the United States and Russia. The thirst for power comes seething through every line of these papers that alter our perception of reality, change the course of history, and now threaten us with World War III.

A new report from Realtor.com found that nearly one-third of employed young adults in the United States are now living with their parents. These are people with jobs. They are working, earning income, and still cannot afford to establish independent households. The politicians and economists who constantly celebrate employment statistics fail to understand that a job is meaningless if it no longer provides a path to basic economic independence.

For decades, homeownership was the foundation of the middle class. A young person could graduate, find employment, purchase a starter home, build equity, raise a family, and gradually accumulate wealth. That cycle created economic stability and social cohesion. Today that entire model is breaking down. Home prices have vastly outpaced wages. Insurance costs are rising. Property taxes continue climbing. Mortgage rates remain elevated compared to the era of artificially suppressed interest rates. The result is that millions of young adults are trapped in economic limbo despite doing everything society told them to do.

This trend is not isolated to the United States. We see the same pattern throughout Canada, Britain, Australia, and much of Europe. In some countries, the average home now costs seven, eight, or even ten times average household income. Historically, such ratios were considered unsustainable. Today, they are treated as normal. Young people are delaying marriage, delaying children, and delaying household formation because the economic foundation required to support those milestones has become increasingly unattainable.

What many fail to understand is that housing has become one of the most important confidence indicators in society. When people believe they can improve their lives through work and effort, social stability follows. When an entire generation concludes that homeownership is permanently out of reach, confidence begins to erode. That erosion eventually manifests itself politically, economically, and socially. Rising populism, declining trust in institutions, and growing generational resentment are all symptoms of the same underlying problem.

This is one reason why our recent Real Estate Report was so important. Real estate is not simply about housing prices. It is a reflection of confidence, capital flows, demographics, taxation, government policy, and economic opportunity. Many governments have treated housing as a financial asset to be inflated rather than a foundation for society. The consequences are now becoming impossible to ignore. Young adults are remaining with their parents longer than previous generations not because they want to, but because the economics increasingly leave them no choice.

Our long-term models continue to suggest that real estate will experience increasing regional divergence into the years ahead. An entire generation is losing confidence in the traditional path to economic security. That may prove to be one of the most significant social and economic developments of this decade. Yet another reason why it is paramount to hold this one-day conference next month on Understanding the World Economy to explain the new realities no one else is willing to discuss.

The Japanese government is now openly admitting what I have been warning about for years. Rising interest rates are beginning to dramatically increase the government’s debt-servicing costs. For decades, Japan survived by suppressing interest rates to nearly zero while endlessly rolling over debt. That strategy only works so long as rates remain artificially low. Once rates begin to rise, the mathematics become impossible to hide.

Japan’s government debt exceeds 230% of GDP, the highest ratio in the developed world. Politicians, academics, and central bankers have spent years arguing that Japan was different because most of the debt was held domestically. I repeatedly rejected that argument. Debt is debt and whether the creditor lives in Tokyo, London, or New York does not change the obligation. The real issue has always been confidence. Once investors demand higher yields to compensate for risk, interest expense explodes and governments enter the classic sovereign debt spiral.

The Bank of Japan has now raised rates to 1%, the highest level since 1995. That may sound insignificant compared to rates elsewhere, but Japan built its entire fiscal structure around the assumption that rates would remain near zero forever. The government became addicted to cheap money. Every welfare program, subsidy, and stimulus package rested on the ability to borrow endlessly at virtually no cost. That era is ending.

What many fail to understand is that sovereign debt crises never begin because governments run out of money overnight. They begin when interest costs consume an ever-larger share of tax revenue. Governments then borrow more simply to pay interest on previous borrowing. Japan crossed that line years ago. The entire system has been held together by the Bank of Japan purchasing enormous quantities of government debt. Once the central bank attempts to normalize policy, the market immediately begins questioning the sustainability of the entire structure.

This is why I have long argued that Japan would likely be the first major developed nation to face the sovereign debt crisis head on. The population is aging, the tax base is shrinking, and social obligations continue to rise. There is no realistic path to paying down the debt. Governments always believe they can borrow forever until suddenly they cannot. History has demonstrated this repeatedly, from ancient Rome to modern Europe.

The significance extends far beyond Japan. Every major government has followed the same path. The United States, Europe, Britain, and Canada all expanded debt under the assumption that central banks could permanently suppress rates. Japan simply arrived at the end of the road first because it accumulated debt faster than everyone else.

Our models continue to show that the period into 2032 remains the critical phase for sovereign debt. The crisis was never about private debt. Governments became the largest borrowers in history. The next monetary restructuring will emerge not because of banks or corporations, but because governments have accumulated obligations that can never realistically be honored in full. Japan is merely the first warning shot. The sovereign debt crisis has begun, and once confidence starts to crack, governments everywhere will discover that there is no such thing as endless borrowing.

The United States has struck a preliminary agreement with Kenya involving the massive Mrima Hill rare earth and niobium deposit, estimated to be worth roughly $62.4 billion. The press is portraying this as a victory for Washington over Beijing, but that interpretation misses the larger picture. What we are witnessing is the next phase of the global resource war. As sovereign debt crises continue to unfold and governments become increasingly desperate to secure strategic assets, critical minerals are rapidly becoming the new oil.

Kenya has reportedly insisted that these minerals be processed domestically rather than exported as raw materials. President William Ruto openly stated that Kenya and the United States agreed that the minerals would be processed inside Kenya. This is a major shift. African nations are increasingly demanding that value creation remain within their borders instead of allowing foreign powers to capture all the profits.

What is particularly interesting is that this agreement comes as China remains deeply entrenched throughout Kenya and East Africa. Earlier this year, Kenya finalized a major trade agreement with China, granting duty-free access for most Kenyan exports. China continues to finance infrastructure projects, railways, highways, and industrial investments throughout the region. The media wants to frame this as America defeating China, but Kenya appears to be doing what every sovereign nation should do, playing both sides in pursuit of its own interests.

The reality is that neither Washington nor Beijing is acting out of charity. Rare earths, niobium, lithium, graphite, copper, and nickel are essential for military systems, semiconductors, batteries, electric vehicles, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing. The entire green energy agenda depends upon these materials. Every major power understands that whoever controls the supply chains controls the future. That is why competition for Africa’s mineral wealth is intensifying.

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Canada’s inflation rate accelerated to 3.2% in May, coming in above expectations and once again exposing the fantasy that inflation was somehow defeated. Policymakers spent the past year congratulating themselves for bringing inflation down, yet the cost of living continues to rise while the economy itself is sliding toward recession. This is precisely the type of stagflationary environment that governments hate because there is no easy solution. Raise rates, and you deepen the economic slowdown. Cut rates and you fuel inflation once again.

What makes Canada particularly vulnerable is that inflation is rising while economic growth remains weak. Canada has already slipped into a technical recession, household debt remains among the highest in the developed world, and housing affordability has become a national crisis. Citizens are struggling with food, energy, insurance, housing, and taxes, yet government spending continues to expand. The political class always assumes it can spend endlessly without consequence. Eventually, the bill arrives.

I have warned that Canada faces a much larger structural problem than inflation alone. The country has become excessively dependent on government spending, real estate, and debt expansion. Investment has been declining while capital continues flowing south into the United States. When governments begin relying on debt growth to maintain living standards, they enter the same dangerous cycle that has destroyed countless nations throughout history. Debt can create the illusion of prosperity, but it cannot create real wealth.

Government debt at the federal and provincial levels has exploded over the past decade while entitlement obligations continue growing. The assumption has always been that interest rates would remain low forever. That assumption is now being challenged throughout the world. As rates rise, governments are forced to devote larger portions of tax revenue simply to servicing debt rather than providing services.

This is why our long-term models continue to point toward 2032 as a major sovereign debt turning point. Governments everywhere borrowed as though there would never be a reckoning. Canada is especially vulnerable because its economy remains heavily tied to commodities, housing, and government spending while productivity growth has lagged. The inflation report is not the story. Inflation is merely a symptom. The underlying disease is a debt-based economic model that requires constant expansion to survive.

Looking ahead, the period from 2026 into 2028 aligns with our broader forecasts for rising volatility, recessionary pressures, and increasing civil unrest across many Western nations. Canada is not immune.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius declared that “not all deployed soldiers will be volunteers” as Germany continues expanding its military presence in Lithuania. For years, the public was told that military service would remain voluntary. Pistorius is openly stating that a military conscription is coming. Some may believe this is solely about soldiers volunteering to be stationed in Lithuania, but in truth he is saying that Germany will do everything to honor its agreements to foreign governments and foreign wars.

Germany suspended conscription in 2011 and spent years portraying itself as a modern, peaceful nation. Now politicians are openly discussing mandatory military service, compulsory registration, mandatory medical examinations, and the possibility of forcing young men into military service if volunteer numbers fall short. Pistorius has already stated that if the military lacks sufficient volunteers, recruitment could become mandatory.

“We to achieve that everybody who is coming here do this on his on his own decision. But still it might happen […] that some will not go because they wished to go. But this is not unusual in the German Bundeswehr. So we see about what’s going to happen in the next months,” he said. “Once we have fully exploited all available means, we will start looking into alternative options,” the German minister said.

The real question nobody wants to ask is simple: who exactly are they preparing to fight? European leaders continue talking about Russia as though Moscow is preparing to invade Berlin tomorrow. Instead of fixing domestic problems, they are now spending hundreds of billions on military expansion. Germany’s military budget has surged dramatically, with plans to build what officials openly describe as Europe’s strongest conventional military force.

Governments never begin with full-scale conscription. They do not want to panic the public, and in this situation, the nation is not yet at war. Germany already enacted a system requiring young men to provide information to the military and is preparing mandatory examinations beginning in 2027. The infrastructure is being built before the public fully understands where the road leads. The government is openly declaring that Germans will face warfare.

Young Europeans who cannot afford homes, who face rising taxes and shrinking economic opportunities, are now being told they may have a duty to serve. Politicians who helped create many of the geopolitical disasters of the last decade are increasingly willing to place the burden on the next generation.

Our models have been warning that 2026 marks a Panic Cycle year tied to rising geopolitical tensions and military escalation. The trend extending into 2027 becomes increasingly dangerous. Once governments begin preparing populations for compulsory service, they are implicitly acknowledging that they no longer expect peace. The era of purely voluntary military service is ending.

Keir Starmer’s resignation comes as absolutely no surprise. The shocking part is not that he quit, but that it took this long. The British people delivered one of the largest electoral victories in modern history to Labour in 2024, only to discover that changing the party did nothing to change the direction of government. The economy remained stagnant, the cost of living crisis continued, migration remained out of control, taxes rose, public services deteriorated, and confidence collapsed. Even members of his own party eventually concluded that Starmer could no longer survive politically.

What we are witnessing is not merely the failure of one politician. This is the collapse of confidence in the entire political establishment. Britain has now burned through six prime ministers in less than a decade. That level of turnover is not normal. It is a symptom of a government that no longer knows how to govern and a population that no longer believes anything politicians say. The old system is fracturing before our eyes.

The Labour Party spent years attacking the Conservatives, promising competence, stability, and growth. Once in power, they quickly discovered that slogans do not create prosperity. Britain remains buried under excessive regulation, soaring debt, rising taxes, and an economy that has struggled for years. Politicians continue pretending they can tax, borrow, and regulate their way to prosperity. History shows that every government eventually learns the same lesson. You cannot spend your way out of structural decline.

The most significant political development is not Starmer’s resignation. It is the continued rise of Nigel Farage. The establishment spent years treating Farage as a fringe figure while millions of voters quietly agreed with him. Reform UK has been leading national polls and delivered major gains in local elections because people are desperate for an alternative. They no longer trust either Labour or the Conservatives. Farage understood something that Westminster refused to acknowledge: ordinary people feel abandoned by the political class.

The establishment can dismiss Nigel Farage all it wants, but the numbers tell a very different story. Reform UK has spent much of the past year leading national opinion polls, something that would have been considered impossible only a few years ago. An Ipsos poll conducted in May placed Reform UK at 27%, seven points ahead of Labour at 20%. Even in April, Reform was leading both Labour and the Conservatives. For the first time in modern British political history, a party outside the Labour-Conservative duopoly has consistently held a national polling lead. That is not a protest vote. That is a political realignment.

The local election results confirmed what the polls had been showing for months. Labour lost more than a thousand council seats while Reform UK surged across England and established itself as the primary challenger to both traditional parties. Starmer’s resignation did not occur in a vacuum. It followed months of collapsing support, disastrous local election results, and growing fears within Labour that Farage was successfully capturing working-class voters who once formed the backbone of the party.

What is unfolding in Britain resembles the collapse of establishment parties across Europe. Voters are abandoning the old political order because they no longer believe it represents them. Immigration, the cost of living, energy prices, taxation, and declining public services have created a crisis of confidence that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have been able to address. Farage’s popularity is growing because he is benefiting from that anger. Whether the establishment likes it or not, Reform UK is no longer a fringe movement. It is increasingly viewed as a potential governing party.

The British establishment will now attempt to replace Starmer with another carefully selected manager and pretend everything has changed. We have seen this movie before. The names change, the speeches change, but the policies remain remarkably similar. Andy Burnham may become prime minister by September, but replacing the captain does not repair a ship that is already taking on water.

What I find remarkable is how closely Britain now resembles the broader crisis of confidence unfolding across the Western world. Voters are rejecting establishment parties from Germany to France, from Canada to Britain. This is exactly what our models have been warning about. The 2026 Panic Cycle was never simply about markets. It is about confidence in institutions. Governments everywhere are discovering that people have reached their limit.

Farage’s appeal is not that everyone agrees with him. His appeal is that millions of people believe he is at least willing to say openly what others refuse to discuss. Immigration, national sovereignty, the cost of government, energy policy, and the destruction of the middle class have become impossible to ignore. Whether Farage ultimately succeeds or not, the political trend is unmistakable. The British public is searching for an alternative to the establishment that has dominated politics for decades.

For years, governments assured the public that license plate readers were simply tools to catch stolen vehicles, fugitives, and dangerous criminals. That was always the sales pitch. Now the mask is coming off. According to reports, a new surveillance platform called SignalTrace is being marketed to law enforcement and government agencies that goes far beyond reading license plates. The system can collect identifiers from smartphones, smartwatches, Bluetooth devices, vehicle infotainment systems, Wi-Fi hotspots, tire pressure sensors, RFID devices, AirTags, and even pet microchips. They are no longer interested in tracking your car. They are interested in tracking you.

The frightening part is how openly this is being discussed. The stated goal of the technology is to “bridge the gap between vehicle and occupant.” In other words, the authorities no longer want to know where a vehicle traveled. They want to know who was inside, where they went, who they met, and how often they traveled together. The system creates a unique electronic fingerprint based on the collection of devices surrounding a person. Your phone, your watch, your headphones, your car, and even your dog’s microchip become pieces of a digital identity that can be followed everywhere you go.

This is exactly how governments always expand surveillance. They begin with a limited purpose that sounds reasonable. Then the technology advances and suddenly the scope becomes limitless. License plate readers were sold as crime-fighting tools. Then they became databases of vehicle movements. Now they are evolving into systems that can reconstruct an individual’s entire pattern of life. Privacy advocates have warned that these systems can reveal where people work, where they worship, where they seek medical treatment, and who they associate with. Once that information exists in a searchable database, every government agency will want access.

What is unfolding is part of a much broader trend. Governments around the world are building digital identification systems, expanding financial surveillance, monitoring communications, and centralizing personal data. At the same time, law enforcement agencies are seeking nationwide access to license plate reader networks that provide near real-time tracking capabilities across the United States. The infrastructure is being assembled piece by piece. Most people only see each individual step. They fail to recognize the larger picture until the system is fully operational.

The argument will always be security. It is the oldest justification in history. Every expansion of government power is presented as necessary for public safety. Yet once these surveillance systems are built, they are rarely scaled back. Instead, new uses are constantly discovered. Today the target is criminals. Tomorrow it may be political opponents, protesters, journalists, or anyone deemed suspicious by those in power. History has repeatedly shown that governments never surrender tools that enhance control over the population.

The greatest threat is not the technology itself. Technology is neutral. The danger lies in believing that governments, corporations, and bureaucracies can be trusted indefinitely with unlimited access to information about every citizen’s movements, associations, and daily life. When your phone, your vehicle, your wearable devices, and even your pet become tracking beacons feeding a centralized surveillance network, we are no longer talking about crime prevention. We are talking about the creation of a digital leash attached to every individual. Once that infrastructure exists, the temptation to abuse it becomes inevitable.