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.

The political class watches the price of crude oil and gasoline because that is what appears in the headlines, but the real warning is diesel. The average retail price of diesel in the United States has reached approximately $5.45 per gallon, while the diesel crack spread—the premium of diesel futures over crude oil—has exceeded $100 per barrel for the first time. That spread has reached record highs repeatedly, revealing that this is no longer simply an oil problem. It is a refining and distribution crisis that will flow through the entire economy just as voters prepare for the November midterm elections.

Diesel is the lifeblood of the modern economy. Trucks deliver food to supermarkets, farmers operate tractors and combines, construction companies run heavy equipment, and railroads, ships, mines, factories, and emergency generators all depend upon distillate fuels. Gasoline affects the cost of driving to work, but diesel affects the price of almost everything waiting for you when you arrive. Every product must be grown, manufactured, mined, transported, or delivered. When diesel rises, the increase is embedded in every stage of the supply chain until it eventually reaches the consumer.

Crude oil can remain below previous records while diesel reaches crisis levels because crude is useless until a refinery transforms it into products the economy can consume. The United States has crude oil, but it cannot instantly create new refining capacity. Refineries require years of planning, billions in capital, environmental permits, specialized equipment, and a political environment in which investors believe they will be allowed to earn a return. Governments spent years discouraging investment in fossil-fuel infrastructure while promising that the energy transition would make such capacity obsolete. Now they are shocked that the system has no spare capacity when war disrupts global supplies.

The shortage is not coming from a single event. The war with Iran and insecurity around the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted Middle Eastern refining and shipping. Ukrainian drone attacks have damaged Russian refineries and forced Moscow to restrict fuel exports while importing products to address its domestic shortages. China has reduced exports, and American refineries are already operating near capacity. U.S. distillate inventories have fallen to their lowest seasonal level in decades while exports have increased to meet desperate foreign demand. This is a global competition for a shrinking pool of refined fuel, and no political speech can manufacture a barrel of diesel.

Farmers will be among the first to feel the damage. Agriculture consumes fuel directly through machinery and indirectly through fertilizer, irrigation, processing, refrigeration, and transportation. A farmer cannot simply stop operating a tractor because diesel has become expensive. Those costs must either be absorbed through lower margins or transferred into higher food prices. Many farmers are already confronting high interest rates, tariffs, drought conditions, and rising equipment costs. Diesel above $5 adds another expense at precisely the wrong time, and rural voters understand energy inflation far better than the economists sitting in Washington.

Truckers face the same problems. Large carriers may recover part of the increase through fuel surcharges, but smaller operators do not possess the same negotiating power. They must pay for fuel immediately while waiting weeks to receive payment for a shipment. Higher diesel prices therefore create a working-capital crisis in addition to an operating-cost crisis. Some independent truckers will leave the industry, reducing available capacity and pushing freight rates still higher. The politicians will then blame corporate greed for increasing prices without admitting that their foreign policy and energy policy created the conditions producing those increases.

This is how the Middle East war enters the 2026 elections. The government may claim that inflation is under control, but that claim becomes meaningless when diesel is approaching its previous record and the price of everything transported by diesel continues to rise. The voter does not care whether the increase is called headline inflation, supply-driven inflation, or a geopolitical risk premium. The voter knows only that wages purchase less than they did before.

Politicians always search for a way to suspend the laws of economics until after an election. Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls in 1971 in an attempt to conceal inflation before the 1972 election. The controls distorted production and delayed rather than eliminated the price increases. Jimmy Carter confronted the political consequences of energy shortages and inflation at the end of the 1970s. Governments repeatedly blame oil companies, speculators, foreign producers, and consumers because admitting the truth would require them to accept responsibility for monetary expansion, regulation, underinvestment, sanctions, and war.

The diesel crisis is especially dangerous because it is converging with a sovereign-debt crisis. Higher transportation and food costs will keep inflation elevated, limiting the ability of the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates. Higher rates increase the cost of servicing federal debt, which produces larger deficits and still more borrowing. The government will spend more to offset the very inflation its policies helped create, and that additional spending will intensify the long-term fiscal problem. This is not merely an energy cycle. It is the collision of war, inflation, and debt. Crude oil receives the attention because it is easier to understand. Diesel reveals what is actually happening beneath the surface. The record crack spread is warning that the world does not have sufficient refining flexibility to absorb simultaneous disruptions in the Middle East, Russia, and Asia.

By November, voters may not know what a crack spread is. They will certainly understand what it has done to their wallets. This is how the Iran war enters the 2026 midterm elections. Trump campaigned against the Neocon endless war machine, yet brought the nation into direct conflict in the Middle East.

Our Midterm Election Report warned that the decisive mechanism would be the collapse in confidence triggered by external conflict. Historically, midterms become a referendum on the president: since World War II, the president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of 20 midterm elections and Senate seats in 15 of 20. Republicans are entering that historical cycle with an extremely narrow 217–214 House majority.

The computer forecast is not calling for a Democratic landslide. The most likely outcome remains that Democrats take the House while Republicans retain the Senate, although four political models show a solid Republican victory and one places that probability above 70%. That divergence reveals how unstable the political environment has become. Republicans may survive if energy prices retreat and the war moves toward a credible settlement. If diesel remains near record levels into the autumn, the Iran war will become a domestic economic referendum and the narrow House majority will be the first casualty.

The party in power will try to make November about personalities, immigration, ideology, or whatever scandal dominates the media. Elections, however, are ultimately determined by confidence. People will tolerate political incompetence while their standard of living improves. They become far less forgiving when prices rise and the government insists that everything is fine. By November, most voters will understand what the war has done to their wallets.

David Morens, the longtime senior adviser who worked inside Anthony Fauci’s Office of the Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit offenses and defraud the United States. Morens admitted participating in a scheme to evade the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Records Act regarding communications about coronavirus research grants.

According to the Justice Department, Morens and his associates anticipated that the public would request their records, so they agreed in writing to conduct government business through his private Gmail account. They used it to exchange nonpublic NIH information, influence funding decisions, edit letters to NIH leadership, and “back-channel” information to a senior NIAID official. This is not speculation or some social-media theory. It is a guilty plea in federal court by a man who served inside Fauci’s office from 2006 through 2022.

These were the same institutions that demanded access to everyone’s vaccination status, travel history, medical information, and personal contacts while their own officials deliberately concealed government communications. Morens also admitted participating in a conspiracy involving illegal gratuities. The Justice Department says he received wine for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans” and identified an official act he could perform to “deserve” the gift—writing a scientific commentary advocating that COVID-19 had a natural origin. There were also offers involving meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington. While ordinary people were prevented from visiting dying relatives and restaurant owners were driven into bankruptcy, insiders were discussing wine and expensive dinners. Is this what they meant when they ordered everyone to “trust the science”?

The entire pandemic response followed this pattern of demanding absolute obedience while avoiding accountability. The six-foot distancing rule transformed schools, businesses, churches, restaurants, and courtrooms. Yet when Congress asked Fauci about the evidence supporting that precise distance, he admitted that it “sort of just appeared” and that he was “not aware of studies” supporting it. Physical separation may reduce exposure under certain conditions, but that does not make six feet a scientifically proven dividing line between safety and danger. Government took a crude precaution, removed every qualification, and converted it into an inflexible command that helped keep children out of school and businesses closed.

Masks were handled in precisely the same manner. A properly fitted medical respirator used in a controlled environment was treated as equivalent to a loose cloth covering repeatedly worn by a child. Masks became a political uniform. Fauci initially discouraged widespread masking before reversing himself and helping turn it into a moral obligation. When Congress later asked whether he remembered reviewing studies supporting the masking of children, he could only respond that he “might have” but could not specifically recall. Children were forced to cover their faces for hours every day, but the official defending the policy could not identify the evidence he personally reviewed before supporting it.

Lockdowns became the most destructive expression of this bureaucratic arrogance. Governments closed businesses, interrupted medical treatment, suspended education, isolated the elderly, and restricted movement without conducting any credible assessment of the total long-term consequences. Officials claimed every decline in infections as proof that lockdowns worked and blamed every increase on the public’s failure to comply. Meanwhile, public employees continued receiving salaries, large corporations expanded their market share, technology companies gained extraordinary power over public debate, and pharmaceutical companies secured enormous government contracts. Small businesses, children, private workers, and future taxpayers were left to absorb the damage. The political class did not share the sacrifice it imposed upon everyone else.

Morens’ guilty plea exposes the real problem. Bureaucracies eventually cease protecting the public and begin protecting themselves. Records are concealed to preserve institutional reputations, dissent is suppressed to maintain official narratives, and failed policies are defended because admitting error would threaten the authority of those who imposed them. Confidence in government is not destroyed by people asking difficult questions. It is destroyed when the public discovers that those questions were justified and that government officials deliberately prevented the answers from emerging.

They told the public that questioning authority was misinformation. They censored critics, destroyed reputations, and presented political judgments as unquestionable science. Now a senior official from Fauci’s inner circle has admitted to participating in an actual conspiracy to conceal government records. The conspiracy is no longer a theory.

The United Arab Emirates has suspended all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran until further notice after accusing Tehran of launching two ballistic missiles toward Emirati waters. Iran has denied responsibility, but that hardly matters once governments enter the cycle of retaliation. UAE-Iran trade has exceeded $28 billion annually, and Dubai has served for decades as Iran’s commercial doorway to the outside world. This is therefore not some symbolic diplomatic protest.

The UAE has severed one of Iran’s most important supply lines while simultaneously placing its own position as the neutral trading center of the Middle East at risk. Politicians never understand trade because they see only goods crossing a border. They do not see the networks of credit, shipping, insurance, currency conversion, warehousing, and personal relationships that can take generations to build and only days to destroy.

The UAE has been Iran’s largest source of non-oil imports, supplying nearly $22 billion in goods during the Iranian year ending in March 2025. Much of this was not produced in the Emirates but entered through its re-export system. Dubai became successful because it served as a bridge between East and West, facilitating trade for countries that could not trade directly due to sanctions. Iranian merchants used Dubai to obtain machinery, electronics, industrial components, and consumer goods, and to access international finance.

The new ban is therefore a financial blockade disguised as a trade regulation. Iran will now be forced to redirect transactions through China, Turkey, Iraq, Oman, Central Asia, cryptocurrencies, barter arrangements, and still more complicated front companies. Trade does not disappear simply because a politician signs an order. It moves underground, becomes more expensive, and rewards those willing to assume the greatest legal and political risk.

This is the same mistake governments have made throughout history. Athens attempted to use the Megarian Decree to cut Megara off from the markets of the Athenian Empire before the Peloponnesian War. Rather than forcing submission, economic warfare intensified the divisions that produced military conflict. Napoleon’s Continental System was intended to destroy Britain by excluding British commerce from Europe, but smuggling expanded, prices rose, allies resisted, and the policy ultimately weakened Napoleon’s own empire. The United States attempted to pressure Japan through restrictions on oil and strategic materials before Pearl Harbor. Politicians routinely imagine that economic sanctions are a peaceful alternative to war when they are historically one of the final steps toward war. Once a government attempts to strangle another nation economically, the targeted nation must either capitulate or escalate. There is rarely a third outcome.

The UAE is responding to a genuine security threat after attacks on shipping, infrastructure, and vessels connected to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. No government can tolerate missiles being fired toward its territory or repeated attacks on its commercial fleet. Nevertheless, cutting all commercial and financial ties will not eliminate the threat. Merchants do not profit from war. Bureaucrats and military establishments do. By destroying the commercial bridge, the UAE is weakening the very private-sector relationships that could have pressured both sides toward restraint. This is why the first duty of government should be to avoid war, but governments always listen to the military and intelligence agencies that see every problem as an opportunity for confrontation.

The ban will also damage Dubai. The UAE has spent decades presenting itself as a politically neutral financial and commercial center where capital from every region can find safety. That reputation is now being sacrificed to the expanding Middle Eastern war. Iranian-linked money will begin searching for alternatives, but it will not be alone. Russian, Chinese, Indian, and other foreign investors will examine the decision and ask whether their own assets and transactions could someday become bargaining chips in another geopolitical conflict. Capital is never patriotic. It flees uncertainty and seeks the jurisdiction most likely to protect property regardless of politics.

The greatest risk remains the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly every attempt to isolate Iran economically increases Tehran’s incentive to use geography as a weapon. The strait remains one of the most important energy corridors in the world, and any sustained interruption will push shipping costs, insurance premiums, oil, refined products, and ultimately consumer prices higher throughout the global economy. Europe is already economically fragile, governments are drowning in sovereign debt, and the cost of war is rising everywhere. Yet the politicians continue to impose sanctions and embargoes as if there will be no consequences beyond Iran. They never look beyond the immediate announcement. They cannot comprehend that interrupting a $28 billion trade relationship will produce secondary effects across currencies, banking, shipping, supply chains, and energy markets.

This ban will certainly damage Iran, but it will not force the Iranian government to disappear. Sanctions normally punish the population while strengthening the state because scarcity gives government even greater control over who receives access to foreign currency, imported goods, and political favors. Iran will adapt, smuggling will increase, and new intermediaries will collect enormous premiums for replacing Dubai’s role. The real consequence will be the further division of the world economy into competing political blocs. Trade once restrained governments because both sides had something to lose. Now politicians are systematically destroying those connections and then wondering why the risk of war continues to rise.

The UAE may believe this trade ban will compel Iran to retreat. History warns that economic warfare does not end the cycle of escalation. It accelerates it. When trade stops, capital flees, diplomacy collapses, and the military becomes the only institution left speaking between nations. That is how regional conflicts become world wars.

QUESTION: What do you think about Trump now sanctioning the International Criminal Court? Is this not just to protect Netanyahu?

Derrek

ANSWER: I have written before that I had dinner with the ICC probably 10 to 12 years ago. They were outraged at my case, but they expressly stated that their jurisdiction is ONLY over member countries. The United States, Russia, Israel, and China are not members.

Sanctions imposed on the ICC are warranted. Under their own charter, the ICC has no power to arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction. I was told that personally at a dinner meeting.  Not only are their actions to arrest Netanyahu a violation of international law, but this applies also to Putin. This is no different from Mandami claiming he would arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York City.

Like NATO or any entity, they will always see to expand their power. The US campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to national sovereignty is appropriate. You cannot have countries arrest someone like Netanyahu or Putin on the words of the ICC that has no such power and would unleash international war.

The ICC has shown that is is political and not a court of law. They know they have no jurisdiction over Russia or Israel. This is like California fining you for speeding in New York City. Even Mandami had to back down because the Feds would storm NYC if he dared to try to arrest Netanyahu when it would certainly be a racist agenda. I may not have respect for Netanyahu, but that does not me I would disregard international law. You cannot do that and pretend you are a free democratic society under the rule of law.

PRIVATE BLOG – Japan & Pending Sovereign Debt Crisis

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You really cannot make this stuff up. Britain does not permit people domiciled in the UK to enter into polygamous marriages, yet buried inside the government’s welfare tables is an allowance for an “additional spouse” in certain polygamous marriages legally contracted overseas. For 2026–27, that additional amount under the relevant Pension Credit rules rose from £119.50 to £125.25 per week. That works out to £6,513 annually for each qualifying additional spouse living in the household.

This is precisely the sort of contradiction that destroys confidence in government. Parliament tells British citizens that one legal standard applies inside Britain, but when government encounters a marriage legally created under the laws of another country, certain parts of the welfare system can recognize additional spouses for benefit calculations. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that polygamous marriages considered valid under UK private international law can, in limited circumstances, involve means-tested benefits covering more than one spouse.

Now, before everyone runs around claiming Britain is spending billions supporting harems, that is simply not true. The Department for Work and Pensions says the latest Housing Benefit data recorded fewer than ten households identified as polygamous marriages formed abroad. Universal Credit does not recognize a polygamous household as one multi-spouse benefit unit either; generally the earliest married couple forms the couple claim while additional adults must claim separately according to their circumstances. Fine. Then why maintain a category for an additional spouse in a polygamous marriage at all?

That is the political issue the bureaucrats never understand. The outrage is not primarily about whether there are eight households, eighty households, or eight thousand households receiving this particular allowance. It is the principle that government has created one set of cultural expectations for the domestic population while accommodating another legal arrangement when imported from abroad.

Britain has spent decades telling people that mass immigration would require integration into British society. Yet integration cannot mean that British society continuously modifies itself to accommodate every institution brought into the country. At some point a nation must decide whether immigrants integrate into the country or the country integrates around the immigrants.

This becomes particularly absurd when Britain is simultaneously debating enormous reductions in welfare spending. Reform UK has proposed cutting the welfare bill by £50 billion annually. Politicians are arguing over disability benefits, long-term unemployment, housing assistance and who should qualify for taxpayer support. Working people are being told that the existing system is financially unsustainable, yet government regulations still contain explicit calculations for additional spouses in qualifying overseas polygamous marriages.

The actual expenditure may be microscopic, but politically the symbolism could hardly be worse. This is how governments lose people. They insist that ordinary taxpayers accept increasingly complicated rules while refusing to recognize how those rules look outside Whitehall. A British worker does not sit down after a ten-hour shift and read the Department for Work and Pensions’ technical explanation of legacy Pension Credit arrangements. He sees that polygamy cannot legally be contracted in Britain and then discovers an official government benefit table containing the words “additional amount for additional spouse” under “polygamous marriage.”

The government will argue that eliminating the provision would not necessarily save money because those additional adults might simply qualify independently. But then this becomes a much larger debate about immigration and welfare eligibility. If someone enters Britain as part of a family structure that British residents themselves cannot legally create, why should British taxpayers be obligated to reproduce through welfare policy the financial consequences of that arrangement?

There is also an enormous difference between recognizing an overseas marriage for limited legal purposes and endorsing polygamy as British social policy. The British welfare state was constructed in a completely different demographic era. It was never designed around unlimited migration from societies with radically different family structures, nor was it intended to adjudicate every cultural practice found around the world.

This is precisely why Reform’s welfare debate is gaining traction. The issue is no longer simply how much money government spends. It is whom the welfare state exists to serve and what obligations should accompany the right to receive from it. A welfare system without boundaries eventually becomes an entitlement to the productive output of everyone who still works and pays taxes.

If Britain does not permit its own citizens to create a polygamous marriage under British law, government should at least be prepared to explain why its welfare tables still calculate payments for additional spouses in qualifying marriages contracted somewhere else.

The amount of money involved today may be trivial, but the principle is certainly not. That is what Westminster never seems to understand until the voters finally revolt.

South Korea has responded to Trump’s decision to reduce joint military exercises by talking about becoming more militarily independent. President Lee Jae Myung wants South Korea to regain wartime operational control of its forces and accelerate its military capabilities. The establishment immediately presents this as though Trump has somehow endangered America by pushing an ally toward self-reliance.

The American taxpayer should never have been expected to finance the defense of wealthy countries indefinitely. South Korea is not some impoverished developing nation incapable of defending itself. It is one of the world’s largest economies, possesses a sophisticated industrial and technological base, and has built a formidable military. If Seoul believes it should have greater control over its own national defense, then by all means it should.

Trump has complained for years that America’s allies expect Washington to carry a disproportionate share of their defense burden. South Korea is no exception. The United States maintains approximately 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula, and the two countries have repeatedly fought over how much Seoul should contribute toward the cost. They reached another burden-sharing agreement extending through 2030, but Trump’s fundamental complaint has never changed: why should American taxpayers be expected to defend prosperous foreign nations forever? The same argument applies to NATO, and this is ultimately why NATO will face an existential crisis.

The Europeans have constructed their postwar governments around the assumption that America would provide the ultimate military guarantee. That allowed European politicians to spend enormous sums on welfare states and domestic political projects while neglecting their own military capabilities. Whenever anyone questioned the arrangement, Washington’s foreign-policy establishment insisted that America somehow needed NATO more than Europe needed America.

If NATO disappeared tomorrow, is Canada going to invade the United States? Is Belgium going to attack Washington? Is Poland going to send troops across the Atlantic? The United States possesses its own nuclear deterrent, enormous conventional forces, two vast oceans, tremendous natural resources, and one of the world’s largest economies. Europe requires American military power to balance Russia far more than America requires European military power to defend North America.

South Korea faces the same basic reality in Asia. North Korea threatens Seoul directly. It does not threaten Washington in remotely the same geographical sense. South Korea therefore has a far greater immediate interest in maintaining deterrence on the Korean Peninsula than the American taxpayer does.

This does not mean alliances are worthless. Alliances can serve strategic purposes, improve intelligence cooperation, deter conflict, and prevent adversaries from dominating important regions. But an alliance must benefit both sides. It cannot become a permanent arrangement where one nation provides the ultimate military guarantee while everyone else treats that guarantee as an entitlement.

South Korea refused Trump’s request to support America’s actions against Iran. Trump then publicly complained about that refusal while ordering the Pentagon to reduce joint exercises with Seoul. Trump also argued that the exercises cost “Hundreds of Millions of Dollars” and questioned why America should continue conducting them when Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” toward the United States during his presidency.

South Korea is perfectly entitled to say Iran is not its war. But America is equally entitled to ask why North Korea must therefore remain America’s financial responsibility. You cannot have sovereignty only when it is convenient.

If Seoul wants an independent foreign policy toward Iran, Ukraine, China, and every other geopolitical dispute, then that is precisely what a sovereign country should have. South Korea has been similarly cautious regarding Ukraine. It has condemned Russia, supported sanctions, provided humanitarian and economic assistance, yet resisted becoming directly involved in the war even as North Korea moved closer to Moscow.

President Lee wants wartime operational control transferred back to South Korea, and Seoul is discussing stronger indigenous military capabilities. That should not frighten Americans. American taxpayers should welcome wealthy allies becoming capable of defending themselves.

The foreign-policy establishment has constructed this bizarre doctrine whereby any reduction in American military responsibility is portrayed as American decline. They measure American power by how many countries depend upon Washington. That is not strength. That is liability.

QUESTION: Marty, will you please issue a new bond report? Everything you laid out in the 2020 Bond Report you handed out at the 2020 WEC  has been amazing. You wrote:

“The strongest target in the Yearly array is 2023 for a turning point ahead, at least
on a closing basis. It does appear we have a choppy period starting 2021 until
2023 with each target producing the opposite direction for that 3-year period.”

Your 2023 target has been the low, with a Panic Cycle in 2028, and in Moody’s AAA Corporate, you had a Panic Cycle in 2026. Nobody can do long-term like Socrates and actually be correct. I show that chart on the Dax from 1999, projecting the Panic Cycle for 2008 to everyone on the board. I know you are swamped. But now is when we need you. You even projected that the government would bypass the banks and sell debt directly.

RB

REPLY: I will try. I am only one person. That’s what Socrates is for. The problem with being the largest international advisory firm, is that someone is always awake. To do an authoritative report on this subject means I must address it is the major currencies as well. When you plot the bonds in yen, they are not making new recent lows. This is far more complicated for as war rages globally, rates will rise but capital will flee to the USA as it has been doing of late from the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.

The selloff in global bonds is driving up borrowing costs across the board. There is no end in sight before 2028. Bond yields are at 19-year highs, and investors are blaming Trump’s quagmire with the continuing U.S.-Iran conflict. Of course, they assume this will stoke inflation worries. Others are pointing to the flood of tech-company bonds seeking cash. Then there is fear about the lack of clarity from a new Federal Reserve chairman.

All of this sounds logical, but the overlooked 800 pound gorilla is Ukraine pledging Moscow will fall, and the Neocons swearing Russia will invade Europe in a matter of weeks, why would anyone in their right mind buy government debt? With war, there is the risk of an outright default as we saw after World War I and II.

I understand this is a critical issue. I refer you to Socrates for now. I will get to it as soon as possible.

Europe apparently believes it can sanction the entire world into submission. Eight countries outside the European Union have now agreed to align themselves with Brussels’ latest sanctions against Belarus: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, and Ukraine. The measures further restrict trade and technology that Brussels claims could contribute to Belarusian military and industrial capabilities. This is being presented as another great demonstration of European unity. What they never discuss is what happens when Europe progressively eliminates its own ability to conduct business with everyone it politically dislikes.

The Europeans have completely lost sight of what made Europe prosperous. It was commerce. Europe traded with everyone. Germany bought energy from Russia and sold machinery to China. Britain became a global financial center because capital from around the world flowed through London. European manufacturers sold automobiles, chemicals, machinery, and luxury goods from Moscow to Beijing and throughout the Middle East. Commerce created interdependence, and interdependence provided at least some restraint against conflict.

Now Brussels has decided that foreign policy consists of creating another sanctions list every few months. Belarus is merely the latest extension of a policy that has become institutionalized. The EU says its sanctions against Minsk are justified by domestic repression, support for Russia in Ukraine and what Brussels describes as hybrid attacks against the European Union. The sanctions now extend across finance, technology, trade, transport, military-related goods and industrial capacity. The latest measures deliberately expand restrictions on products that could strengthen Belarusian industry, not merely weapons themselves.

Once sanctions expand from targeting individuals responsible for a specific policy into deliberately weakening another country’s industrial capacity, you have moved from diplomacy into economic warfare. Politicians then act shocked when the targeted country responds by building deeper economic and military relationships with nations outside the West.

Russia was supposed to collapse under sanctions. Instead, Europe severed its own access to cheap Russian energy, Russia redirected trade toward Asia, China gained enormous leverage as a buyer, India increased its role in global energy markets, and European industry was left paying higher input costs. Now Brussels is preparing yet another massive sanctions package against Russia. Kaja Kallas says the next measures will be the most far-reaching since the war began, potentially adding around 1,600 Russian individuals and entities to a sanctions system that already covers thousands.

How many sanctions packages does it take before someone in Brussels admits that sanctions are not a substitute for diplomacy?

The EU already adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia in July, targeting another 218 individuals and entities, including 94 Russian banks as well as the Moscow Stock Exchange, crypto operators, oil infrastructure and additional components of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet. More than 100 Russian banks have now been sanctioned, with dozens disconnected from SWIFT. Yet Russia still exists and the war continues.

This obsession is becoming economically self-destructive because the West increasingly treats neutrality as unacceptable. It is no longer sufficient for Europe to sanction another country itself. Brussels wants candidate countries, neighboring states, corporations, banks, shipping companies and governments throughout the world to enforce European foreign policy as well. The European Council has openly called on other countries to align themselves with EU sanctions, particularly candidate countries.

Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina all have European integration ambitions. Brussels is exporting its foreign policy before some of these nations have even entered the Union.

Europe is steadily dividing the world into countries it approves of and countries with which commerce becomes politically suspect. Russia is sanctioned. Belarus is sanctioned. Iran is sanctioned. Various Chinese companies have been targeted under Russia-related restrictions. Trade with other countries is increasingly scrutinized for sanctions circumvention. Brussels has transformed international commerce into a political loyalty test.

China understands what Brussels does not. Trade creates influence. Infrastructure creates influence. Investment creates influence. That is why China has spent decades building commercial relationships throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The Europeans arrive with regulations, lectures and sanctions while China arrives asking what you want to buy and what you want to sell.

Sanctions weaponize the financial system. Every time Western governments freeze assets, block banks or prohibit transactions, another government somewhere in the world asks whether its own reserves and commercial relationships could eventually be subjected to the same treatment. You do not need China to replace the dollar or euro tomorrow for this process to matter. You merely need governments and corporations gradually building alternatives because they no longer regard Western financial infrastructure as politically neutral.

The same thing happened with Russian energy. Europe believed it could dictate where Russian commodities could be sold because Brussels still thinks Europe controls world commerce as it did during the colonial era. Those days are gone. Asia represents an enormous share of global economic growth. China and India are major commodity consumers. The Middle East has become an increasingly important financial center. Nations throughout the Global South are no longer prepared to structure their entire foreign policy around what Brussels or Washington demands.

Germany is already discovering what happens when geopolitics replaces economics. Its industrial model depended on inexpensive energy and enormous foreign markets. Russian energy was sacrificed to sanctions while China has increasingly become a competitor rather than simply a customer. Brussels then piles Net Zero regulations, taxes and bureaucracy on top and wonders why factories close or investment moves elsewhere.

The eight countries joining the Belarus sanctions may appear insignificant in isolation. They are not. They represent the expansion of a geopolitical system in which Brussels increasingly expects countries surrounding the EU to adopt its enemies as their own.

The more the West weaponizes trade, banking, currencies, technology and energy, the greater the incentive becomes for everyone outside the West to build systems that Washington and Brussels cannot control. Europe is therefore helping create the very multipolar world its political establishment fears while simultaneously weakening its own industrial competitiveness in the process.