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.

There is something deeply disturbing taking place in Europe. The generation that remembers war only through documentaries is increasingly willing to tell the generation that would actually have to fight one that military service should become compulsory. France provides perhaps the clearest example. An IFOP survey found that 64% of French respondents supported compulsory military service for people between 18 and 25. But look beneath that number and everything changes. Among the 18-to-24-year-olds who would actually be affected, support was only 40%. Among those aged 50 to 64, it soared to 80%. Among people 65 and older, 71% supported it. It is always easier to demand sacrifice when somebody else’s body will be making it.

France abolished compulsory military service decades ago, but military service is creeping back into the political conversation as Europe prepares for the possibility of a prolonged confrontation with Russia. Macron has now launched a voluntary national service program beginning with 3,000 young people, with plans to expand it to 10,000 annually and potentially 50,000 by 2035. They receive military training and €800 per month, and the government insists the present program is voluntary and that these recruits are not intended to be deployed abroad.

France’s armed forces chief, General Fabien Mandon, caused an uproar when he said the country needed the strength to “accept losing its children” if it was going to deter Russia. How could any mother or father sacrifice their child to an endless war? What will these neocons do to brainwash the public into believing this sacrifice must take place?

For years, European leaders told younger generations that nationalism was antiquated, borders mattered less, Europe had moved beyond war, and economic integration would make the conflicts of the twentieth century impossible. Now those same institutions are rediscovering patriotism because they need soldiers. Suddenly the nation matters again when governments need an 18-year-old to defend it.

At the same time, what exactly has this generation inherited from their lovely government? Housing has become increasingly unaffordable. Government debt continues climbing. Taxes consume enormous portions of income. Pension systems are strained by aging populations, and younger workers are expected to finance benefits for generations far larger than their own. Now the same political establishment wants them to shoulder Europe’s military burden as well. Governments spent decades borrowing against the future, and the young were already going to inherit that debt. Apparently, that was not enough.

This is precisely where Europe’s demographic crisis collides with its military ambitions. France, Germany, Italy, and much of Europe are aging. Governments need young people working, paying taxes, producing goods, starting businesses, having children, supporting pension systems, and maintaining the productive economy. Now they also want a larger pool of soldiers and reservists. You cannot keep demanding more from a shrinking generation without eventually discovering that there are not enough young people to satisfy every promise politicians made before they were born.

The numbers reveal the contradiction better than any politician ever could. Only 40% of those aged 18 to 24 in the IFOP survey supported compulsory service for their age group, while support reached 80% among those aged 50 to 64. The people most enthusiastic about compelling the young to serve are therefore not the people who would be fleeing a drone strike far away from home.

There is something profoundly wrong when the older generations sit comfortably at home discussing the necessity of sacrifice while debating whether the young should once again be prepared for the trenches. If France itself were attacked, young French men and women would have to decide what defending their country means to them, and polling suggests many would indeed be prepared to serve. But demanding compulsory service for somebody else’s generation is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is what you are willing to give yourself. Sending somebody else’s son or daughter to pay the price for your geopolitical decisions is something entirely different.

Spain’s housing crisis has finally exploded into the streets. Tens of thousands marched through Madrid after an 87-year-old disabled woman, Maricarmen Abascal, was removed from the apartment where she had lived for more than 70 years. Police battled protesters trying to stop the eviction, and Maricarmen was ultimately carried from the building on a stretcher and taken away by ambulance. Protesters have now erected tents in Puerta del Sol, turning one woman’s eviction into a national symbol of a housing system that is breaking down.

The Bank of Spain estimated that the country was already short roughly 550,000 homes last year. Spain has experienced enormous pressure from tourism, short-term rentals, population growth, immigration, and years of inadequate housing construction. Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, the Balearic Islands, and other desirable areas have seen housing costs move far beyond what ordinary wages can support. This is what happens when demand expands much faster than supply. Politicians can pass all the laws they want, but they cannot repeal economics.

Maricarmen became the face of this crisis because her case is so brutal. She had lived in the apartment for 71 years. After the building changed hands, she was offered the opportunity to purchase the apartment for €247,000, an impossible amount for a pensioner. Her rent had been €500 per month and was subsequently raised to €1,650 while her pension was reportedly only €1,350. The landlord ultimately prevailed in court over the validity of the old tenancy arrangement, and after several attempts to prevent the eviction, she was physically removed.

Now everyone is furious, and naturally the politicians are scrambling to prove that they can fix the problem they failed to prevent. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has promised another housing decree with stronger tenant protections and restrictions on evictions. His coalition partners are going even further. Sumar has demanded that the government expropriate Maricarmen’s former apartment so she can return to it, although another government minister has questioned whether such a move clearly fits within Spain’s constitution. Protesters are demanding rent freezes, restrictions on investment funds, stronger eviction protections, and still more government intervention in the housing market.

You cannot solve a shortage by making housing less attractive to build, finance, rent, or own. Housing is unaffordable, therefore punish the landlord. Rents are rising, therefore control the rent. Investment funds purchase buildings, therefore prohibit them from buying property. A tenant is evicted, therefore expropriate the apartment. Every solution attacks the symptom while politicians refuse to understand why people can no longer afford housing.

Spain needs more construction, more investment, faster permitting, available land, infrastructure, and an economic environment where developers can actually make a return for taking the enormous financial risk of constructing housing. If the political response to a shortage is to threaten landlords with rent controls, expropriation, restrictions on ownership, and increasingly difficult eviction procedures, capital does not magically volunteer to build millions of additional apartments. It goes somewhere else.

This is the same mistake governments make every time they interfere with markets. They see the price and assume the price is the problem. The price is the message. Rising rents are screaming that there is insufficient housing relative to demand. Suppressing the price does not manufacture another apartment any more than imposing a price ceiling on bread creates more wheat.

Spain’s population has been growing while housing construction has failed to keep pace. Immigration is not the sole cause of Spain’s housing crisis, nor are tourists, Airbnb, investment funds, or landlords. But every person requires somewhere to live. You cannot continuously increase housing demand while failing to increase supply and then act astonished when prices rise.

This is why the demonstrations in Madrid are so important. Housing is becoming a political fault line throughout Europe because younger generations increasingly believe the economic system has locked them out of ownership. Their parents purchased homes on ordinary salaries, often with only one working parent. Today young people can work full-time, pay enormous taxes, and still struggle to rent a small apartment without roommates. They are postponing marriage, children, and family formation because housing has become unaffordable. That has enormous consequences for Europe’s already disastrous demographics.

Watching an 87-year-old disabled woman being carried from the home she occupied for seven decades while protesters clash with police is precisely the sort of image that destroys confidence in the political system. But emotion does not change the underlying economics. Spain can confiscate Maricarmen’s apartment tomorrow and it will still be short hundreds of thousands of homes.

We are watching this same mentality spread across Europe. Britain is expanding powers allowing councils to take control of qualifying homes left empty for only six months. Spain’s governing coalition is openly debating expropriating a privately owned apartment. Rent controls and restrictions on landlords are spreading while governments simultaneously complain that there is not enough housing. These policies will not remain isolated because every socialist government eventually discovers the same convenient solution to scarcity: when government cannot provide enough, it begins telling private citizens what they may do with what they own.

Spain’s housing crisis is not going away because somebody passes another decree in Madrid. The Bank of Spain’s estimated shortage is measured in hundreds of thousands of homes. That cannot be solved with slogans, rent controls, or confiscating apartments one at a time. You either increase supply or continue fighting over the supply that already exists.

Madrid is showing us what happens when politicians choose the latter. Tens of thousands of people are already in the streets, tents are appearing in Puerta del Sol, and an 87-year-old woman has become the symbol of a generation that no longer believes housing is within reach. Governments should be very careful. Once people conclude that working harder will never allow them to own a piece of their own country, the housing crisis stops being about real estate. It becomes a crisis of confidence in the entire political and economic system.

Britain has decided that leaving your own property empty for six months may now be sufficient reason for the government to begin taking control of it. Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has announced that councils in England will be given expanded powers under Empty Dwelling Management Orders, reducing the qualifying period from TWO YEARS to just SIX MONTHS. The government will also remove requirements that councils demonstrate matters such as anti-social behavior or community support before seeking an order. They call this bringing empty homes “back into use.” I call it another erosion of the basic principle that private property belongs to the person who paid for it.

Let us be precise because the government is not technically confiscating ownership of the house. Under an EDMO, the title remains with the owner, and there are exemptions, including where the property is normally someone’s primary residence and that person is temporarily absent. But the state can take over management of a qualifying privately owned property and put it back into occupation. Ownership without the right to decide who occupies your property and when is becoming a rather interesting definition of ownership.

There are more than 300,000 long-term empty homes in England while more than 100,000 households are living in temporary accommodation. That is the political justification. There is a housing shortage; therefore, privately owned homes sitting unused should be brought back into circulation. Supporters argue that abandoned and derelict properties damage neighborhoods and that the government should intervene when owners let homes decay for years. There is a distinction between an abandoned ruin that attracts rats and crime for neighbors and someone simply deciding not to occupy a property they own. But that is precisely why reducing the threshold to six months should make people uncomfortable.

The government admits it does not even maintain a national count of EDMOs issued by councils, but tribunal records show only 10 applications or receipts in 2019/20, five in 2020/21, three in 2021/22, and ZERO in both 2022/23 and 2023/24. That is precisely why this change matters. The government is not responding to some enormous existing wave of properties already being taken over under EDMOs; it is deliberately making a rarely used state power easier to exercise. England had roughly 542,000 chargeable empty dwellings in October 2025, and the new rules reduce the eligibility threshold from two years to only six months while stripping away some of the evidentiary hurdles councils previously faced. Nobody can honestly tell you today how many additional homes councils will take under management once those barriers disappear. That is the experiment they are about to conduct with other people’s property.

Where I live, it’s quite common for homeowners to occupy their land for only part of the year. Six months is not some extraordinary period of abandonment. Estates become trapped in probate, families inherit properties and need time to decide what to do with them, renovations are delayed, owners become sick, sales collapse, couples separate, families maintain second properties, markets turn down, and owners wait rather than sell into a bad market. Countless reasons can keep a house unoccupied that have absolutely nothing to do with some evil speculator deliberately depriving society of housing.

Britain has a housing crisis, but politicians never want to address why housing became so expensive and scarce in the first place. Planning restrictions constrain supply. Construction costs have soared. Taxes and regulation discourage development. Government spending and monetary policy helped inflate asset prices. Mass immigration has added demand for housing, particularly in areas already suffering shortages. Temporary accommodation now costs taxpayers billions of pounds annually. Rather than admit that decades of policy created the shortage, government inevitably looks around for another pool of private assets it can manage.

The government says these reforms are intended to help families in need and people facing homelessness, and existing housing programs also provide accommodation for groups including Afghan resettlement families. Broader housing pressure does not erase the property rights question. A government confronted with insufficient housing has two choices: fix the policies restricting supply or acquire increasing control over the housing that already exists. Bureaucracy invariably finds the second option easier.

Watch this principle because Britain will not be the last country to consider it. Governments throughout Europe face housing shortages, aging populations, enormous migration pressures, fiscal constraints, and young people who increasingly cannot afford homes. The political temptation will be irresistible: identify privately owned assets that appear “underutilized” and declare that society has a greater need for them than the owner does.

That is the socialist mentality in its purest form. Your property remains yours only for as long as government approves of how you are using it as government sees fit. The debate should not be reduced to defending abandoned buildings that have been rotting for decades. Nobody wants derelict properties destroying neighborhoods. The issue is where the line is drawn and how quickly it moves. Britain has just moved that line from two years to six months while simultaneously making intervention easier.

Once government establishes the principle that private property may be commandeered because bureaucrats believe somebody else can make better use of it, the argument is no longer about an empty house. It is about who ultimately decides what happens to private property: the person who owns it or the state that has decided it knows better.

QUESTION: I was told that you had said the three wise men in the Nativity were Iranian and that they were the source of this final battle of Armageddon. Is that true?

WP

ANSWER: Yes, as far as the Nativity. The core concept of a final cosmic battle often known as Armageddon, also has ancient roots. Many historians trace this worldview back to the Persian prophet Zoroaster (around 1500 BC), who spoke of a cosmic struggle between good and evil ending in a perfect new world. This idea deeply influenced Jewish thought during times of great oppression, such as the Babylonian exile and the persecution by Greek rulers. The Book of Daniel (written around 167 BC) is a key text from this period, promising that God would soon overthrow the evil kingdoms oppressing the Jews. Early Christianity emerged from this same apocalyptic Jewish context, with followers believing Jesus’s return was imminent.

Zoroastrianism is significantly older than Christianity, and the “Three Wise Men” were most likely Zoroastrian priests. Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest revealed religions. Its prophet, Zarathushtra (Zoroaster), is traditionally placed in the late 7th to early 6th centuries BC, though some scholars argue its origins stretch back even further into the 2nd millennium BC. This means it was already a well-established faith centuries before the birth of Jesus. It was the dominant religion of ancient Persia (modern-day Iran) until the 7th century AD.

The Gospel of Matthew calls them “Magi from the East” (Matthew 2:1). The Greek word magoi specifically referred to the priestly caste of ancient Persia, who were renowned for their knowledge of astrology and sacred texts. Most scholars agree these Magi were Zoroastrian priest-astrologers.

Several details support this, including their expertise in reading the stars, a core practice of Zoroastrian priests. The “East” points to Persia or Babylon, regions where Zoroastrianism was influential. The gold, frankincense, and myrrh they brought were traditional Persian royal gifts.

The familiar image of “three kings” comes from later Christian tradition, not the Bible itself. The number three comes from the three gifts, and the idea that they were kings was likely inspired by Old Testament prophecies. Totally shocking to most, is a train station in Tehran is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Christianity that was opened recently in October 2025.

Many people do fear that a war with Iran could escalate into Armageddon, but the nature of that fear depends entirely on who you ask. A notable segment of the American population, especially among evangelical Christians, interprets a war with Iran as a step toward the biblical end times. For many others, the fear is not about biblical prophecy but about the real-world consequences of a wider war and the impact on energy, the cornerstone of modern civilization.

A June 2025 poll found that a slight majority of Americans (51%) feared the tensions between the U.S. and Iran could lead to a World War III. The fear of an “Armageddon” with Iran is real, but it is driven by two very different worldviews: one that sees it as a catastrophic failure of diplomacy, and another that sees it as the fulfillment of divine will.

We have zealot Jews and Christians who want to conspire to destroy the Dome of the Rock so they can rebuild the next Temple, ushering in Armageddon. According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end-of-the-world scenario, interpreted as either a literal or a symbolic location. In Islamic theology, Armageddon is also mentioned in Hadith as the Greatest Armageddon or Al-Malhama Al-Kubra (the great battle).

Megiddo is a fascinating site of twenty cities constructed directly on top of one another. It has been inhabited continuously from 3000 to 300 BC and lies at a strategic junction of north-south and east-west roads. Whoever had control of Megiddo had control of one of the major trade routes of antiquity. There were no coins produced by Egypt until the Ptolemy and the conquest by Alexander the Great. Likewise, there was no coinage of Judah. This is a reproduction of a Jasper Seal of Shema discovered at Megiddo in 1903.

Many battles have been fought at Megiddo. One great Battle of Megiddo occurred in 609 BC when Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt joined his allies, involving the Neo-Assyrians and the Neo-Babylonians. This required passing through territory controlled by the Kingdom of Judah. The Judaean king, Josiah, refused to let the Egyptians pass. The Judaean forces battled the Egyptians at Megiddo, resulting in Josiah’s death, and his kingdom then became a vassal state under Egypt. The battle is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, the Greek 1 Esdras, and the writings of Jewish historian Josephus. There is always a chance of losing whenever there is war. This is how the arrogant always fall.

There remains considerable debate about whether this is literally or symbolically a Great Battle to be fought on the plane of Armageddon, overlooked by Megiddo, which made sense in those days since it was a major link between the East and West, or are we looking at that as just symbolic of the world ar large.

Isarel vs Iran

In 2024, in his Knesset speech, Netanyahu said: “I’ve been warning about Iran for 30 years.”  It was reported on March 3rd, during a visit to a site struck by an Iranian missile, Netanyahu stated: “We read in this week’s Torah portion, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember—and we act.”

In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God gives King Saul a specific, direct order to carry out this command. The prophet Samuel relays the message:

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. ‘”

The Amalekites were a people group in the Hebrew Bible, presented as the archetypal and perpetual enemy of the Israelites. Their story is less about a distinct archaeological culture and more about a theological symbol of opposition to God’s purposes. According to biblical genealogies, the Amalekites descend from Amalek, kinging them to the Edomites and places them within the extended family of Abraham, making their hostility toward Israel a form of “brotherly” betrayal.

They are described as a semi-nomadic people inhabiting the Negev and Sinai regions, known for guerrilla-style raids. The Amalekites are defined almost entirely by their hostility to Israel. Over time, Jewish tradition transformed Amalek from a specific nation into a symbol of evil itself. There is no direct archaeological or extra-biblical evidence confirming the Amalekites actually existed as a distinct historical people. Scholars suggest the biblical portrayal is likely “blanket” designation for various hostile desert groups or a literary device to embody the theological concept of opposition to God.

In contemporary political and religious rhetoric, some Israeli leaders, most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have explicitly compared the Iranian regime to the biblical Amalekites. However, Muhammad and Islam came roughly 2,500 years after Judaism. By no account, can the Iranians be the fabeled Islam, which did not emerge until the 7th century AD, long after the codification of the Hebrew Bible and the development of rabbinic Judaism.

PRIVATE BLOG – House Prices – Public to Private Flows

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There was a time when you paid more for a German automobile because “Made in Germany” actually meant something. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Porsche, and Volkswagen built an international reputation around engineering, quality, and precision. People willingly paid the premium because Germany was supposed to build the machine better than everyone else. That reputation became one of the foundations of Germany’s entire export economy.

Now Volkswagen Group is recalling 2.86 million Volkswagen and Audi vehicles because a screw in the steering system can corrode and potentially fail, causing a loss of steering. The recall covers Volkswagen Tiguan, Touran, Golf, Golf Variant, and Caddy models produced over an eleven-year period, along with Audi Q3s built between 2017 and 2024. Germany’s KBA says there have been no known injuries or property damage, and Volkswagen says the replacement takes about an hour. Fine. Recalls happen to every manufacturer. But this could hardly come at a worse time because the larger German automobile industry is already fighting for its life.

“Made in Germany” simply does not carry the economic weight it once did. German manufacturers are asking consumers to continue paying a premium while Chinese manufacturers have rapidly closed the gap in quality and, in areas such as batteries, software, electronics, charging, and manufacturing efficiency, have become formidable competitors. Brand loyalty only survives as long as consumers believe they are receiving something superior for the additional money.

The Germans are admitting the problem themselves. Mercedes-Benz said this week that manufacturing automobiles in Germany is NOT internationally competitive, particularly because of labor costs. Mercedes production chief Michael Schiebe warned employees that unless costs come down, the company could eventually close one German assembly plant and one powertrain plant. Volkswagen has already embarked on the largest restructuring in its 89-year history as it battles overcapacity and Chinese competition. It lost its position as China’s best-selling automobile brand to BYD in 2024 and fell behind Geely the following year. Volkswagen is now cutting tens of thousands of jobs and reducing production capacity.

Then there is Porsche, once the crown jewel of Volkswagen. Volkswagen has taken a €6 billion write-down on its Porsche stake after another €2.7 billion impairment the previous year. Porsche has been battered in China and made costly mistakes during the transition to electric vehicles. Its profitability has fallen so dramatically that Volkswagen’s budget Skoda operation has overtaken it on margins. What is the fundamental change? China unexpectedly learned how to manufacture.

For decades, Western companies treated China as a source of cheap labor. They moved manufacturing there, transferred technology, constructed supply chains, trained workers, and taught Chinese companies how Western industry operated. Politicians assured everyone this was globalization and that Europe would simply move toward higher-value industries.

Well, China moved up the value chain too. The European Central Bank now openly admits that China’s industrial rise is pushing European companies out of global markets, particularly in machinery and transportation equipment. Germany is the most exposed of the major European economies because its export profile most closely resembles China’s. The Chinese are no longer merely producing inexpensive toys, textiles, and household goods. They are competing directly in the industries Germany once believed belonged to it.

Automobiles are the perfect example. Chinese brands accounted for about 9% of EU automobile sales during the first half of 2026, according to industry data cited by Reuters, and AlixPartners estimates they could reach 16% of the broader European market by 2030. Meanwhile, foreign manufacturers’ share of China’s own automobile market has collapsed from 64% in 2020 to roughly 32% this year. China first displaced the foreign manufacturers at home. Now it is coming after them abroad.

This is how economic power shifts. It does not happen because somebody holds a press conference announcing that Germany is no longer competitive. Consumers simply stop buying the product.

The European response, naturally, has been tariffs and protectionism. Rather than asking why Chinese manufacturers can increasingly offer competitive vehicles at lower prices, Brussels wants to construct walls around the European market. But tariffs do not make German factories more efficient. They do not lower Germany’s energy or labor costs. They do not produce better batteries, faster software development, or cheaper automobiles. They merely force European consumers to pay more while giving domestic manufacturers additional time before reality arrives.

Germany inflicted much of this upon itself. It abandoned cheap Russian energy without constructing a competitive replacement, pursued an expensive energy transition, buried industry beneath regulation, and simultaneously demanded that its automobile manufacturers spend enormous sums transforming their product lines. Reuters estimates that the post-2022 energy shock added roughly €1,000 to the cost of manufacturing a vehicle in Germany. You cannot continuously raise the cost of production and then act surprised when someone else produces the same product for less.

This is the part politicians never understand. Consumers are not charities. Someone shopping for a vehicle does not care about preserving the German industrial model. They look at price, quality, technology, reliability, range, features, and financing. If a Chinese manufacturer can provide more technology for €10,000 less, telling that customer about Germany’s glorious manufacturing tradition will not close the sale.

Germany once earned its premium through engineering. The danger now is believing the badge itself entitles manufacturers to that premium forever. The Volkswagen recall is therefore symbolic of a much larger problem. Again, there are no reported injuries and every major manufacturer issues recalls. But Germany can no longer afford repeated blows to the perception that its products justify their higher prices while Chinese competitors are advancing at breathtaking speed. Reputation takes generations to build and remarkably little time to lose once consumers discover alternatives.

Germany’s automobile industry was not simply another business. It was a pillar of the country’s postwar economic model, supporting manufacturers, suppliers, engineers, skilled workers, exporters, and entire communities. If that industry continues losing competitiveness, the damage will spread far beyond Volkswagen dealerships. China did not destroy German manufacturing. Germany helped destroy its own competitive advantage while China spent decades building one.

The words “Made in Germany” once allowed a manufacturer to charge more because the customer assumed German engineering meant something exceptional. That reputation still has value, but it is no longer enough by itself. The Chinese are forcing the Germans to compete again on price, technology, efficiency, and quality rather than living off a reputation built by previous generations. If Germany cannot do that, no tariff from Brussels and no amount of nostalgia will save its automobile industry.

For years, Washington proclaimed that sanctions would shut down Iranian oil exports. They never did. Iran adapted because markets ALWAYS adapt. Tehran assembled a shadow fleet, tankers switched off transponders, cargoes changed identities, oil moved ship to ship, and payments bypassed Western banking channels while China continued buying the crude. Even during Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign in 2019 and 2020, Iranian oil continued passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Washington could sanction the paperwork, banks, insurance companies, and ships, but somebody still wanted the oil. The blockade has changed everything because you cannot hide geography.

Reuters reports that Iran went roughly seven weeks without meaningful crude exports passing through Hormuz. Iranian crude and condensate loadings collapsed from roughly 2 MILLION barrels per day in March to 740,000 in July and merely 220,000 to 255,000 barrels per day in August. This is the fundamental difference between sanctions and a blockade. Sanctions tell someone they cannot conduct a transaction, so markets find another currency, bank, company, flag, or jurisdiction. A blockade says the tanker cannot leave. You can rename the vessel twelve times and create twenty shell corporations, but eventually that ship still has to sail through the water.

Iran’s shadow fleet solved the sanctions problem because sanctions are fundamentally bureaucratic. It cannot solve Hormuz because geography is physical. Vortexa identified 27 sanctioned tankers sitting off Sri Lanka in ballast because they could not return to Iran to reload. Meanwhile, Iranian crude has been accumulating on the other side. Iran has the oil. China wants the oil. Yet the transaction cannot be completed because the physical connection between buyer and seller has been severed.

China had been Iran’s escape valve. When Europe stopped purchasing Iranian crude and Western financial institutions refused to process transactions, Chinese refiners simply bought discounted Iranian barrels. Iran received foreign currency, China received cheap energy, and Washington discovered that it could make the trade inconvenient without eliminating it. Now even that system is breaking down. Iranian crude stored afloat fell from around 135 million barrels to 107 million barrels during August as accessible inventories were drained while oil accumulated behind the blockade.

This is far more serious than another round of sanctions. Sanctions are economic warfare through banking regulations. A blockade is economic warfare enforced by military power. Iran depends upon oil revenue for foreign currency, and that lifeline is being severed while its domestic economy is already collapsing. GDP contracted 10.1% in the first quarter, while the oil and gas sector plunged more than 26%. Remove the dollars and yuan coming into the country while production is falling and Tehran faces declining reserves, additional pressure on the rial, and still more inflation.

Iran is attempting to redirect commerce over LAND, but the economics are absurd. Before the war, more than 80% of Iran’s roughly 180 million tonnes of annual two-way trade moved by sea from its southern coast. The Financial Times reports that trade is increasingly being pushed toward Turkey and neighboring countries, with Iranian imports through the Gürbulak crossing reportedly surging 250%. But you cannot replace a supertanker with trucks. Thousands of trucks mean bottlenecks, customs delays, fuel expenses, labor costs, and a fraction of the capacity available through maritime trade.

The blockade could also damage Iran long after the immediate crisis passes. Oil cannot be pumped indefinitely when storage tanks and tankers are full. Production eventually has to be reduced, and shutting aging fields creates additional costs and technical problems when production is restarted. Iran therefore risks losing not merely today’s oil sale but future productive capacity.

Washington has discovered the limitation of sanctions: they require other people to cooperate. China did not care that Washington wanted Iranian oil removed from the market. Traders made fortunes circumventing restrictions, and every new sanction produced another method of avoiding the previous one. A blockade does not require the buyer to cooperate, which is precisely why it works. But that is also what makes it infinitely more dangerous.

China loses access to discounted crude, Iranian production declines, global supply tightens, tankers are rerouted, insurance premiums rise, and commerce is forced onto inefficient routes. The blockade may be economically effective, but effectiveness and strategic wisdom are not necessarily the same thing. Once warships physically determine who may participate in international commerce, we have moved beyond conventional sanctions and into the militarization of trade itself.

Iran survived sanctions because markets found another path around Washington. The blockade is working because that path has now been physically blocked. That is a far more powerful weapon, but it also represents another escalation from financial warfare toward actual war. Markets can circumvent politicians, banks, regulations, and sanctions. They cannot circumvent geography.

Students across Germany protest against MANDATORY MILITARY SERVICE — 2.5K registered in Hamburg

They intend to strike until conscription issue taken off the agenda

*Germany MAY reintroduce mandatory military service if there's shortage of recruits pic.twitter.com/A0VrgJDySo

— RTBreaking (@RT_Breaking_) September 25, 2026

Something is happening in Germany that the politicians pushing Europe toward militarization should pay very close attention to. More than 45,000 students walked out of their classrooms across over 100 cities to protest the country’s new military-service system and the possibility that compulsory service will follow. These are the young people Berlin expects to put in uniform, and they are making something perfectly clear: you can increase the military budget with the stroke of a pen, but finding people willing to fight is an entirely different matter.

Germany suspended compulsory military service in 2011. Now the government is rebuilding the machinery needed to bring it back. All 18-year-old men are required to answer a questionnaire concerning their willingness and fitness to serve, medical examinations are being introduced, and if voluntary recruitment fails to produce enough soldiers, the Bundestag can move toward compulsory service. Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants Germany to possess what he has called the strongest conventional army in Europe, expanding the Bundeswehr from roughly 183,000 active personnel to 260,000 by 2035 with another 200,000 reservists.

But there is one rather important problem. The government needs the young. Politicians sitting safely in Berlin and Brussels can talk endlessly about preparedness, deterrence, defense spending, and security architecture. They can promise NATO another percentage point of GDP and borrow another hundred billion euros for weapons. None of those politicians will be the 18-year-old ordered to put on a uniform. That burden falls upon a generation that grew up being told Europe had moved beyond the wars that destroyed the continent twice in the last century.

Students have already organized repeated nationwide demonstrations against conscription. The youth are increasingly considering conscientious objection, and the new military-service system itself acknowledges the recruitment problem because Germany would not need questionnaires, mandatory examinations, and a mechanism for restoring compulsory service if enough young Germans were voluntarily rushing to join the Bundeswehr.

„Russland ist kein Feind!“

Tausende Schüler und Studenten in ganz Deutschland demonstrierten gegen die Einführung der Wehrpflicht.

Auslöser für die Unzufriedenheit sind die neuen Regeln für den Wehrdienst: Männer im wehrpflichtigen Alter müssen Fragebögen über ihren… pic.twitter.com/zihAb1WQmy

— RUSSNiUS ?? (@vladi2726) September 25, 2026

This is where the entire European rearmament program runs directly into demographics and public opinion. Governments can manufacture weapons. They cannot manufacture an unlimited supply of 18-year-olds. Germany is an aging society already struggling with labor shortages and an enormous demographic burden. The same young worker Berlin needs to support the pension system, pay taxes, staff German industry, and keep the economy functioning is now also expected to become the manpower reserve for Europe’s military buildup.

Older voters can support greater military preparedness without ever facing conscription themselves. Politicians can announce that Russia represents a generational security threat while surrounded by security details and government cars. The teens receiving a military questionnaire see the issue somewhat differently because suddenly the war commitment has their names and addresses attached to it.

Europe is moving toward rearmament while many of the people who would actually have to serve are increasingly asking why they should be compelled to participate. That does not settle the security debate; supporters of the government’s policy argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated why Germany needs a much larger military and that deterrence requires credible manpower as well as weapons. But governments cannot simply assume that younger generations will automatically accept compulsory service because political leaders declare it necessary.

The young Germans marching through the streets understand that distinction perfectly well. Their government wants hundreds of thousands more soldiers while the voluntary system is already struggling to produce them. It does not take a sophisticated computer model to understand where that pressure leads if recruitment targets continue to be missed.

Europe’s politicians can approve all the defense budgets they want, but they cannot legislate enthusiasm for war. They cannot lecture an entire generation into surrendering years of its life, and they certainly cannot assume that young people will quietly accept being drafted because bureaucrats have decided Europe needs a larger army. The students filling Germany’s streets are delivering a message that Berlin would be foolish to ignore: before governments start planning their next armies and their next wars, perhaps they should ask the generation expected to fight them whether they intend to go.

QUESTION: I believe you once said that 2032 would be the half-cycle of 4300 years from the Persian conquest of the city of Ur, which prompted Abraham to migrate to Canaan, and that 8600 years ago was the time of Noah and the great flood. Do I remember that correctly?

Ellis

ANSWER: As far as the cycles are concerned, around 6500BC corresponds to th full cycle of 8600 years back from 2032. The story of the Great Flood exists in many cultures in the West as well as in Asia. The Hindu tradition features the story of Manu, who is warned by a fish (often an avatar of Vishnu) to build a boat and survive a great deluge, similar to other flood narratives. I would suspect that it was not simply rain for 40 days and nights.

For such a major event some have argued perhaps there was a meteor that his the earth. They do know that it has been hypothesized that an impact event created the Burckle Crater in the Indian Ocean. However, its proposed date is disputed with some claiming it was round 2800BC. It would logically assumed that a meteor impacting in the ocean would cause a massive tidal wave that could be a sudden flood type scenario.

A specific archaeological claim from the 1920s, by Sir Leonard Woolley who excavated a thick layer of river silt at the ancient city of Ur in Mesopotamia, which he dated to around 6500 years ago (roughly 4500 BC), and famously declared it evidence of Noah’s flood . What we do know is that the Egyptian inscription on the Merneptah Stele (c. 1207 BC) contains the earliest known reference to “Israel.” It mentions Israel as a people already living in Canaan, which some argue supports an earlier Exodus. This Egyptian victory monument provides the crucial textual anchor. Pharaoh Merneptah boasts: “Israel is laid waste, its seed is no more.” This single line tells us there was a group called “Israel” that already existed in Canaan. That takes us back about 3200 years.

Mesopotamia is called the “Cradle of Civilization” because it is one of the earliest places on Earth where humans transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to settled, complex urban societies. Located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (in modern-day Iraq, Syria, and Turkey), it saw the emergence of many “firsts” that laid the foundation for later civilizations. It gave rise to some of the world’s earliest known cities, including Uruk, Ur, and Eridu. By around 4000–3500 BC, Uruk had grown into a massive urban center with thousands of inhabitants, monumental architecture, and specialized labor—features that define a civilization. It is the City of Ur from which Abraham migrated and became the father of the Jews and Arabs.

The Persian Gulf did not form in a single earthquake, but through a slow geological process driven by plate tectonics and sea-level changes. From a cyclical perspective, the last glacial maximum occurred around 18,000 years ago. Global sea level is believed to have been about 130 meters lower than it is today. Over the next 12,000 years, most of the ice melted off Canada and Scandinavia, causing sea level to rise and flooding the rims of all the dry lands. Some attributed this to the legendary Noah’s Flood. However, this may have been loosely connected, but that is far from certain.

Geologists agree that the Persian Gulf was formed by the collision of the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates, a process that has been ongoing for millions of years. For roughly 40 million years, the Arabian Plate has slowly rotated and moved northward, colliding with the Eurasian Plate. This collision crumpled the edge of the Eurasian Plate, creating the Zagros Mountains in Iran.

As the Arabian Plate pushed into the Eurasian Plate, the crust in the region was depressed and warped, creating a shallow, flooded basin. This basin is the Persian Gulf. The Gulf is essentially a tectonic depression, not a rift valley formed by a single earthquake.

Sea-level rise after the last Ice Age drove the basin’s final flooding. About 11,000 to 14,000 years ago, melting ice sheets caused global sea levels to rise significantly. This allowed water from the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman to flow over the low-lying land and fill the basin, creating the modern Persian Gulf.

While the Persian Gulf’s formation is a geological fact, the idea that it is linked to Noah’s Flood comes from a scientific hypothesis that some researchers have proposed, not a proven connection. Some researchers have argued that the source of ancient flood stories. An ancient Babylonian map depicts Babylonia as being surrounded and submerged by the waters of the Persian Gulf, which some scholars have connected to the flood stories. Additionally, a geological study found evidence of a massive storm or flood in the Persian Gulf around 6,800 years ago, and some suggest it might correspond to the story of Noah, though this remains a hypothesis.

Other scholars argue that the biblical Flood was a regional event in Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), not a global flood. The Persian Gulf basin, which once connected the Tigris and Euphrates rivers before sea levels rose, is one proposed location for the “Eden” described in Genesis. There are even surviving depictions of the Great Flood with bodies and fish.

In ancient Mesopotamian stories, the city of Dilmun was the blessed, pure land where the flood survivor was taken to live forever. In the Sumerian flood story, the hero (known as Ziusudra) is granted eternal life by the gods and settled in a distant, sacred place. The text explicitly names this location as it is the Garden of Eden.

This story of Noah even appears on a Roman coin struck by Septimius Severus (193-211AD) long before Christianity became really a growing religion in Rome. The story is illustrated and even the name Noah appears on the Roman coin. This tends to verify that the story was well known outside of the Bible. The location there is called Noah’s National Park.

Here is a later Roman Emperor, Philip I (244-249AD), with another coin issued om Phrygia from the area where the story of Noah’s arc landed. The story has also been recorded in that region of Turkey on ancient Roman Coins. This has long raised independent evidence for the “story” of Noah external from the Bible, which the academics seem to go out of their way to discredit as history. The depiction of Noah on Roman coins struck in Phrygia come from the very area where Noah’s Ark was supposed to have rested. This demonstrates that this story comes from the very place where Noah’s Ark came to rest.

Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot at Gordium, which was the ancient capital of Phrygia, located in what is now central Turkey. The prophecy held that whoever loosened the knot would rule Asia, which Alexander went on to do. Historically, this was an important area.

The Persian Gulf is about  35 miles wide (56 km) at its narrowest, in the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf is very shallow, with a maximum depth of 90 meters (295 feet) and an average depth of 50 meters (164 feet). The Persian Gulf was fertile dry land before the flood, which obviously contains very old cultures which may be older than anything known on dry land today. We do know that the Gulf has receded from where it once stood in ancient times following the flooding.

Garden of Eden

The legend of Dilmun (Telmun) is fascinating. It comes from Sumerian writings. This was an ancient Semitic-speaking city that is mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. Based on the records that have survived, Dilmun was located in the Persian Gulf. It was on a trade route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization. Dilmun was a major trading center which controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. Dilmun was mentioned by the Mesopotamians as a trade partner and the major source of copper.

Ancient ruins at Bahrain Fort. A UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Middle East

There are two official letters from Dilmun dated about 1370 BC that were recovered from Nippur, during the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. There was some administrative relationship between Dilmun and Babylon at that time. There is also an early inscription that mentions Dilmun and speaks of the tribute that they brought to Ur-Nanshe, the first king of the first dynasty of Lagash, which was an ancient city located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Lagash (modern Al-Hiba) was one of the oldest cities of the Ancient Near East. The surviving inscriptions say:

“The ships of Dilmun from foreign lands, brought him (Ur-Nanshe) wood as a tribute.”

Kassite dynasty conquered and controlled Babylon between 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC. After their collapse, the only mention of Dilmun comes from Assyrian inscriptions dated around 1150 BC which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be king of Dilmun as well.

Dilmun was a civilization that was quite an old civilization, yet because it appears to have been submerged in the Persian Gulf, it is much less famous than the four cradles of the civilization of the Old World, i.e. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley Civilization, and the Yellow River Civilization.

In literature, Dilmun occupies an important place in the mythology of Mesopotamia since it is in the second half of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Additionally, Dilmun is also mentioned in the myth of Enki and Ninhursag / Ninhursaja. In this story, Dilmun is presented as a sort of earthly paradise – the Garden of Eden where survivors of the Great Flood started over.

Archaeology has confirmed that Dilmun was a real, thriving civilization centered on modern-day Bahrain and parts of the eastern Arabian coast. It was a prosperous Bronze Age trading hub, famous for its sweet-water springs, date palms, and its role as a commercial entrepôt between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

The Mesopotamians idealized Dilmun in their mythology as a pure, holy land—a virtual Garden of Eden where sickness and death did not exist. This literary image was likely inspired by the real island’s abundant fresh water and lush vegetation, which would have seemed miraculous to travelers from arid Mesopotamia.