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.

This is an important report discussing the real implications of Gold and why it is NOT a hedge against inflation or against transitory geopolitical events. This goes into the real driving forces behind gold and it also includes silver. This is the PARADOX how gold has declined with rising oil and geopolitics that all comes back to what do you believe. This includes projections into 2032.

PRIVATE BLOG – The Crash

Private blog posts are exclusively available to Socrates subscribers. To sign-up for Socrates or to learn more, please visit Ask-Socrates.com.

https://ask-socrates.com/

The September Duma Elections – Will Putin Face Pressure to Escalate or Moderate?

One of the greatest mistakes analysts make is assuming that international events are driven solely by the decisions of a single leader. They personalize history, reducing complex geopolitical developments to one individual. Netanyahu did that assassinating the Ayatollah assuming instant victory. The world is far more complicated. Political leaders are often reacting to internal pressures that are invisible to outside observers.

The upcoming State Duma elections deserve attention not because they are likely to determine who governs Russia immediately, but because they may reveal how much political room President Vladimir Putin has to maneuver as the war and the broader confrontation with the West continue.

The Western Miscalculation

Since 2022, much of the Western narrative has assumed that economic sanctions would rapidly undermine Putin’s domestic support and eventually force either a change in policy or a change in leadership. This is the standard Neocon playbook which has NEVER worked even once. But they simply feel better punishing someone they hate. That Neocon forecast has repeatedly underestimated Russia’s ability to adapt economically while overestimating the willingness of the Russian political establishment to fragment during an external confrontation. Their sanctions against Iran were first imposed in 1979, triggered by the Iran hostage crisis . This initial action has been followed by several significant expansions over the decades, creating a layered and complex sanctions regime  that has not been successful. The U.S. sanctions on Cuba were imposed in a series of steps, beginning in 1960 and culminating in a comprehensive embargo in February 1962. They are still in place 66 years later proving sanctions make Neocons feel good and powerful but fail to topple governments or achieve goals.

History teaches that sanctions do not produce the political outcome intended by those imposing them. More often they strengthen nationalist sentiment by allowing governments to portray outside pressure as an attack on the nation rather than on the ruling administration. This often strengthens the government they seek to overthrow.

Elections in every country, even where the outcome is largely expected, serve as an important measure of elite cohesion and public confidence. This is often why those in power seek to rig elections to retain power.

There are signs that Ukraine’s deep strikes inside Russia are creating pressure and dilemmas for the Kremlin. However, there is no direct evidence that this has led to explicit calls from Russian hawks for tactical nuclear weapons just yet. Replace Putin, and this can become nuclear faster than anyone realizes. Nuking Kiev would probably save the world not unlike the US did to Japan. It would be a demonstration to the EU that they better think twice about trying to destroy Russia.

Retaliation vs. Restraint

There is evidence based on my sources that Ukraine’s attacks are provoking a strong military response. The Kremlin has directly stated that it will continue to increase military pressure on Ukraine in response to these strikes. However, the Kremlin has also changed the official classification from a special operation that was intended to protect the Donbas from the Ukrainians, to now they have recognized that they are at war with Ukraine. That means nukes are not out of the question especially when we have a Panic Cycle in 2027 for Russia and again in 2032.

A Kremlin spokesman has also indicated that the more Ukraine strikes Russian infrastructure, the larger the “security zone” and “buffer zone” Russia will need to establish, suggesting a strategy of territorial expansion to push Ukrainian forces further from Russian borders.  Zelensky is a Neo-Nazi and a war criminal. He knows that he is deliberately trying to provoke Russia into a major war where he can call in NATO and his goal is the destruction of Russia and the Russian people. Ukraine has stated that their goal is to destroy Moscow. The hardliners are justified in raising nuclear weapons to wipe Kiev off the face of the earth. This is a fight to the death, do not assume there is some peaceful solution.

Putin’s Reluctance to Use Nuclear Weapons

Putin has been tremendously restrained and has resisted calls to use nuclear weapons. Dmitry Suslov, a Russian international relations scholar, in a recent interview stated that there is no scenario for Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine. He argued that Russia’s nuclear doctrine is focused on deterring NATO, not Ukraine. In his view, a nuclear strike would only be a consideration in the event of a direct war between Russia and NATO. Not everyone agrees.

Instead of a nuclear response, the Russian strategy has been focused on conventional retaliation. Suslov explicitly states that the proper reaction to the strikes is to “strengthen Russian air defense” and “intensify strikes on Ukraine,” which aligns with the military actions described in other reports. This may sound nice, but Zelensky is trying to destroy Russia.

Some Russian hawks, their version of Lindsey Graham, are advocating for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response to Ukraine’s deep strikes. Others are arguing that such an option is a last-resort deterrence against the West, not as a tool to counter Ukrainian drone and missile attacks. This is what Zelensky counts on. To a large extent, this is naive. Ukraine is a proxy war and NATO is firmly behind them.

This is a war with the EU and NATO. Zelensky is hoping to push Russia to the point that it has no other choice but to use nuclear weapons and he has even previously called for NATO to nuke Moscow first. While Zelensky claims he did not, I do not find that claim credible.

Zelensky has made statements regarding nuclear weapons and Ukraine’s security that have sparked strong reactions and been interpreted by Russia as a form of “nuclear blackmail” .

Call for “Preventive Measures”: In October 2022, Zelensky gave an interview that was widely translated as a call for “pre-emptive strikes” on Russia. He later clarified that he was actually calling for “preventive measures” such as international sanctions, not military attacks, and stated that his initial remarks had been misunderstood and mistranslated.

Nuclear Weapons as “Security Guarantee”: In multiple interviews in early 2026, Zelensky suggested that without NATO membership, Ukraine would need a different kind of security guarantee. He was quoted as saying that Ukraine is in a “club of countries that can be attacked at will” because it does not have nuclear weapons, implying that acquiring them could be a path to security. He is attacking deep into Russia who has more nukes than anyone and it has not detered Zelensky.

Zelensky has also explicitly sought to destroy all of the energy production of Russia despite the fact that this would undermine most of Asia from India to China. Zelensky does not care about the Ukrainian people. All he had to do was honor the Minsk Agreement and there would not have been a war. The Donbas region are ethnically Russians who have a right to autonomy from Ukraine, which engages in ethnic cleansing of Russians. The EU and NATO negotiated in bad faith and have always sought this war with Russia. It will have to resort to nuclear weapons for there is no negotiation with Ukraine on this issue of the Donbas. Zelensky has outlawed their language and religion. Even the Pope has come out against Zelensky. The EU is now supporting ethnic cleansing and refuse to discuss what the Ukrainians did killing Russians on Odessa, which began the entire separatist movement.

Zelensky Ukraine to Pursue Nuclear Weapons

 (in case they erase this from the web)

The day before Russia came to the aid of the Donbas in this civil war that Kiev started on the alleged orders of Victoria Nuland, to ensure Putin would cross the border, he declared that Ukraine would rearm with nuclear weapons. That was the final straw; Putin even noted that in his address to Russia. It was not any different than the JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course, the Western press reports only that Putin invaded unprovoked.

The Washington Post found out that Zelensky knew when Russia would cross the border and did not warn his people. Like Hamas, he wanted civilians to be killed so he could blame Russia. When asked why he did not warn his people, he said it would have cost him $7 billion dollars. That is a war criminal.

Germany’s political class has finally discovered the source of the nation’s economic collapse, and naturally, it is everyone except the politicians who created it. Germany is considering weakening its revered Sonntagsruhe, or “Sunday rest,” as officials search desperately for some way to revive an economy they have suffocated with high taxes, unaffordable energy, endless regulation, and ideological nonsense. Their brilliant solution is to keep stores and businesses operating seven days a week, tighten sick-leave rules, push people to work longer, and gradually raise the retirement age. They destroyed the German economic model and now expect the German people to surrender their Sundays to repair it.

Let us be clear about what is actually being proposed because this is not yet a literal order requiring every German to work seven consecutive days. The government is moving toward a seven-day commercial economy by expanding Sunday opening, creating incentives for holiday work, weakening traditional restrictions on Sunday labor, and shifting working-time rules from a daily limit toward a more flexible weekly calculation. Once Sunday becomes merely another commercial day, the pressure will spread from retailers to suppliers, warehouses, delivery companies, security firms, cleaners, transportation workers, and families expected to arrange their lives around rotating schedules. That is how governments destroy social custom.

Sonntagsruhe is not some meaningless inconvenience left over from another century. The protection of Sunday as a day of rest and spiritual reflection is incorporated into Germany’s Basic Law through Article 140 and Article 139 of the Weimar Constitution. It created one common day when families could gather, churches could function, clubs and communities could meet, and people could participate in society without arranging their lives around an employer’s schedule. Even those who are not religious benefit from a shared day of rest because a society is more than a collection of workers, taxpayers, and consumers whose only purpose is to keep money circulating.

Destroying that common day will not restore productivity. It will merely spread the same amount of consumption across seven days instead of six while increasing labor, energy, transportation, and operating costs. A German family does not magically receive more disposable income because a department store opens on Sunday. If households are being crushed by taxes, housing costs, food inflation, and energy bills, opening the doors for another 12 hours does not create purchasing power. It simply forces retailers to compete over the same depleted pool of money while paying to keep the lights on for another day.

Germany’s economy has barely moved since 2019. The IMF calculated that German output grew by only 0.1% over five years while the United States expanded by 12% and the euro area by roughly 4%. German industry has contracted every year since 2022, and the Federation of German Industries warned that 2026 may bring stagnation at best, with manufacturing potentially shrinking for a fifth consecutive year. Industrial capacity utilization is sitting only slightly above 78%, yet the politicians apparently believe the problem is that Germans are resting on Sunday.

Factories are not leaving because the local bakery closes one day each week. Industry is leaving because Germany deliberately destroyed its access to dependable and competitively priced energy. Berlin shut down the last nuclear reactors, abandoned the Russian energy relationship without securing an affordable replacement, imposed the costly Green agenda on producers, and then acted astonished when chemicals, steel, glass, machinery, and automobile production became uncompetitive. You cannot operate an industrial economy on speeches about climate virtue while importing more expensive energy and pretending the cost does not flow through every product made in the country.

The government is simultaneously preparing €10 billion in tax relief while increasing the top income-tax rate from 45% to 47%. This is the standard European shell game. They take from one pocket, return a fraction to another, and announce a historic reform while the bureaucracy continues consuming the economy. A two-parent family with two children and €60,000 in taxable income may eventually receive about €600 a year in relief, which comes to roughly €11.50 per week. That will not compensate for soaring energy costs, lost purchasing power, or the growing burden of financing pensions, welfare, government debt, mass migration, and military expansion.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development expects Germany to grow by only 0.7% in 2026 on a working-day-adjusted basis and 1.1% in 2027. Much of even that weak expansion is expected to come from debt-financed government spending rather than a genuine revival of the productive private economy. Berlin has created a €500 billion infrastructure and climate fund while planning to increase defense spending from 2.1% of GDP in 2024 to 3.5% by 2029. The political class will borrow hundreds of billions for its chosen projects and military ambitions, yet it tells workers that they must sacrifice Sunday because they are not producing enough to sustain the state.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz previously admitted that Germany’s welfare state “can no longer be financed with what we produce in the economy.” That admission is correct, but the response is completely backward. The productive economy should not exist merely to satisfy the endless demands of government. The government must be reduced to what the productive economy can reasonably support. Instead, politicians preserve the bureaucracy, protect their political programs, expand military expenditures, and then demand more hours from the people who already finance the entire circus.

The attacks on sick leave reveal the same contempt. Germany does have an absenteeism problem, but politicians have seized upon it as a convenient excuse to blame workers for national stagnation. The government wants employers to demand a medical certificate on the first day of illness and to abolish the ability to obtain short-term sick notes by telephone. Yet telephone sick notes reportedly account for less than 1% of all certified leave. This is political theater designed to create the impression that lazy workers destroyed the economy when the people writing these policies refuse to accept responsibility for anything.

A society cannot tax work relentlessly, increase the cost of living, erode the value of wages, make housing unaffordable, demand that parents both work, raise the retirement age, and then confiscate the one day when families can reliably be together. The result will not be a stronger work ethic. It will be burnout, lower birth rates, more illness, less community participation, and deeper resentment toward a government that treats human beings as units of taxable production.

Germany already faces a severe demographic crisis, and dismantling Sunday rest will make that problem worse. Young people are delaying families because housing, childcare, and basic living costs have become prohibitive. Women account for a large majority of part-time workers, often because they are caring for children or elderly relatives. Rather than repair the care system or reduce the tax penalty imposed on working families, politicians condemn “lifestyle part-time work” and demand that people spend more of their lives laboring for a system that offers them less security every year.

Culture matters because it is the glue that holds a nation together when government fails. Sonntagsruhe created a predictable rhythm of life that survived wars, political upheaval, reunification, and enormous economic change. Once that shared rhythm is destroyed, it will not easily return. Small family businesses will be pressured to open merely because multinational chains can absorb the additional staffing costs. Employees will lose weekends with their children. Churches, clubs, sports organizations, and local communities will compete with rotating work schedules. Germany will gain another shopping day while losing another piece of itself.

Politicians always demand sacrifice from everyone beneath them. They never propose closing ministries, abolishing useless agencies, ending failed climate programs, reducing their own salaries, dismantling Brussels’ bureaucracy, or admitting that sanctions and geopolitical adventures carried an enormous domestic cost. They tell the factory worker to labor longer, the sick employee to prove he is not lying, the pensioner to retire later, and the family to surrender Sunday, while the people responsible for the disaster remain comfortably protected by the state.

Germany cannot work its way out of political stupidity by operating seven days a week. Until Berlin restores affordable energy, cuts taxes, slashes regulation, permits capital formation, and stops subordinating the national economy to every ideological order issued by Brussels, additional working hours will merely produce additional misery. The politicians burned down the engine of Europe and are now blaming the passengers because they refuse to push the wreckage on Sunday. That is not economic reform. It is the organized transfer of suffering from those who made the decisions to those who were forced to live with them.

Moderna is back at the public trough with another experimental mRNA vaccine, this time targeting the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola. CBC reports that Health Canada has authorized a Phase 1 trial of mRNA-1469 at three Canadian sites involving about 80 adults. Canada has never recorded a single Ebola case, and its government admits the risk to the general population is low, yet healthy Canadians will supply the human data for a product intended primarily for a third-world African nation.

As of August 1, there were 3,748 confirmed cases and 1,657 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There is no approved vaccine specifically targeting Bundibugyo Ebola, but Moderna is not financing this humanitarian venture alone. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations has pledged up to $50 million for preclinical research, Phase 1 testing, and manufacturing doses before the early trial is even complete.

This is public risk and private reward dressed up as charity. If the product fails, outside funding absorbs much of the loss. If it succeeds, Moderna gains another proprietary vaccine and governments or international organizations will purchase the doses. Moderna promises to make at least 500,000 doses available to poorer countries at “access pricing,” but it has not told the public what that price will be, or who will ultimately pay the bill.

COVID was perhaps the most profitable virus in pharmaceutical history. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech were once projected to generate between $93.2 billion and $124 billion in combined vaccine sales during 2022. Taxpayers helped finance development, governments guaranteed purchases, mandates manufactured customers, and Big Tech silenced those who questioned the arrangement. The corporations kept the profits while politicians treated the population like an obedient herd.

Moderna now needs another blockbuster because the COVID goldmine could not last forever. The company reported a $782 million second-quarter loss, and its norovirus vaccine recently failed to satisfy the statistical standard for early success in an interim analysis. Its cytomegalovirus vaccine was terminated after missing the primary efficacy endpoint, while the FDA refused to review its mRNA flu-vaccine application because it lacked what the agency considered an adequate and well-controlled study using the proper comparator.

Moderna continues searching for new pathogens that can be converted into permanent revenue streams. It has pursued mRNA products for seasonal flu, bird flu, RSV, norovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, and now Ebola. Some candidates may prove effective and others will fail, but every new emergency offers another opportunity to obtain public money, expand the platform, and create a government-backed market.

If Moderna wants the public to believe this is about saving lives rather than replacing lost COVID revenue, then it should publish every trial result, surrender the liability shield, and permit open scientific criticism. Until then, the same sheep who learned nothing from COVID will line up behind another corporate-government campaign and call their obedience “science,” while Moderna counts the money.

Biden’s autopen granted Anthony Fauci a “full and unconditional pardon” for any federal offenses he may have committed or participated in from January 1, 2014, through January 19, 2025, provided they arose from his service as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or Response Team, or chief medical adviser. That was not a pardon identifying a particular conviction, indictment, or even a specified offense. Biden attempted to place an eleven-year federal shield around virtually everything Fauci did in those official positions, extending years before COVID-19 appeared and covering the entire pandemic response.

The selection of January 1, 2014, naturally raises serious questions because that year overlaps with the beginning of the EcoHealth Alliance grant period involving bat-coronavirus research. His agency funded EcoHealth Alliance, and part of that funding was provided through a subaward supporting coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Representative Nancy Mace has stated that EcoHealth received approximately $3.1 million and that about $750,000 was directed to the Wuhan laboratory, although the precise nature of that research and whether it constituted prohibited gain-of-function work remain fiercely disputed. Fauci has consistently denied misleading Congress or approving the dangerous research alleged by his critics.

What is outrageous is that Biden began the pardon clock in 2014 without explaining why that particular date was necessary. A president may possess broad constitutional pardon authority, but the public is still entitled to ask why an official required protection reaching back eleven years when Biden simultaneously insisted that Fauci had committed no crime.

The political class insists that Fauci’s pardon should end the matter, but that is not what the Constitution says. The president may pardon “Offences against the United States,” which means federal crimes. A president cannot pardon violations of Florida, Texas, Missouri, New York, or any other state’s laws because the states did not surrender their separate criminal sovereignty to the White House. Biden could extinguish federal criminal exposure for covered conduct through January 19, 2025, but he could not repeal a state criminal statute, terminate a legitimate state investigation, erase civil liability, prevent professional disciplinary proceedings, or immunize anything allegedly done after the pardon was signed.

@national_review

Sen. Moreno to Dr. Fauci: “The words of a megalomaniac who was more interested in having met a Kardashian than the suffering of the American people.”

♬ original sound – National Review – National Review

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has now announced an investigation intended to determine whether Fauci’s conduct caused physical or monetary harm to Floridians and whether any such conduct violated Florida law. Florida must identify an actual state statute, demonstrate jurisdiction, produce admissible evidence, overcome any statute-of-limitations problem, and establish every element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Political anger is not evidence, and a state prosecutor cannot simply rename an exclusively federal offense to evade a presidential pardon.

States can investigate alleged fraud or material misrepresentations directed toward state agencies, misuse of state funds, violations of state recordkeeping requirements, deceptive practices affecting state residents, or conspiracies containing acts committed within their borders. They may also pursue appropriate civil remedies or licensing sanctions under state law.

Any contempt allegation arising from Fauci’s refusal to testify in July 2026 would concern conduct occurring after Biden’s pardon. Whether such a case could succeed would depend upon whether the questions were properly authorized, whether Fauci had a reasonable fear of prosecution, and whether Congress first supplied sufficient immunity. The Constitution protects unpopular witnesses as well as popular ones, and the Fifth Amendment cannot be converted into an admission of guilt merely because politicians dislike the witness. There is a reason for Fauci’s refusal to answer 111 questions about the actions he took to fuel history’s largest social experiment that was the pandemic response.

Former Fauci adviser David Morens has already been federally indicted on charges involving conspiracy and the alleged destruction, alteration, concealment, or removal of government records. Prosecutors accuse Morens of using private email in an effort to evade public-records requirements, while Morens is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Fauci was not charged or directly named as a defendant in that indictment and has denied knowing about any effort to conceal records. The case nevertheless demonstrates why documentary evidence, emails, grant records, and sworn testimony matter far more than partisan speeches from either side.

Biden’s pardon represents government protecting government before the public could learn whether any prosecutable federal offense existed. It does not establish Fauci’s guilt, but it deprived the public of the ordinary process through which allegations are investigated, charges are specified, evidence is tested, and a defendant receives a verdict. The same establishment that imposed extraordinary restrictions upon millions of people now declares that examining the conduct of its own officials constitutes harassment. Citizens were expected to surrender businesses, employment, education, movement, and personal autonomy in the name of public necessity, yet government officials demand immunity and silence when questions are directed toward them.

The states must proceed carefully because a prosecution built upon political vengeance would be as dangerous as a politically motivated pardon. They must follow the evidence, respect constitutional rights, and identify genuine state offenses rather than manufacture charges to satisfy public anger. If no state-law violation can be established, they must say so openly. If evidence proves that state residents or institutions were deliberately deceived in violation of state law, however, Biden’s signature cannot prevent prosecution because the presidency is not a monarchy and its pardon power does not extend into every state courthouse in America.

The people were locked down, censored, threatened with unemployment, separated from dying relatives, and treated like criminals for asking questions, yet the bureaucrats who imposed this nightmare now hide behind pardons, lawyers, and constitutional protections they showed no respect for when ordinary citizens needed them. Congress must follow every dollar connected to Wuhan, subpoena every government record, expose every private communication, and determine precisely what officials knew when they stood before the public and demanded blind obedience.

These people turned “trust the science” into a political loyalty oath, a mass psy-op, and now that the questions have reached their own doorstep, they suddenly rediscovered due process and the right to remain silent. Silence is not an answer, and no bureaucrat who helped destroy lives, businesses, and basic liberties should be permitted to disappear behind Washington’s wall of protection without a complete public accounting.

QUESTION: Marty, would you do an update on the Dow? As you’ve often said, when the Dow leads the NASDAQ, it is typically a sign that institutional and foreign capital is moving into the market. Socrates called the July low, and the Directional Change during the week of July 27 turned the market back up.

You have also explained on your podcasts that when geopolitical tensions intensify, foreign capital tends to seek the relative safety of the United States. With three major elections approaching and geopolitics returning to the forefront in August, does this still support the traditional pattern of an August high followed by weakness or even a September crash?

You were also correct in calling both the July turning point and gold’s decline despite heightened geopolitical tensions. What is Socrates saying now about where the Dow and the broader markets are headed from here? Are we approaching time to buy gold?

AD

ANSWER: These are important questions. August has been our key target geopolitically. Some markets will decline and other will rally because of that. I have decided to release two Institutional Reports on these matters at a reduced rate for the general public. I understand that the gold-bugs are at a loss and those calling for the crash of the century have been wrong for more than a year. All of this has been the byproduct of domestically confined analysis. They never look beyond the shores. As you can see, we are at a 17-year high in the Dow leading the NASDAQ. This has been the trend that oddly the vast majority never see because they are just domestic analysts.

We also just got the video from the Conference and will post the books for sale that were handed out at the conference. These are busy times.

CNBC reported on the latest Institute for Supply Management survey, and the comments from manufacturers should frighten anyone who thinks inflation has been defeated. One electrical-equipment producer said pricing volatility and delivery delays are “arguably worse than the pandemic era,” with both moving relentlessly higher. A primary-metals manufacturer was even more blunt: “It makes me yearn for the coronavirus pandemic chaos, which was more manageable than whatever this is that we are in.” This is what lies beneath the government’s sanitized inflation statistics: factories are expanding, but the cost and difficulty of obtaining the materials needed to produce anything have become worse than during the supply-chain nightmare of COVID.

The headline Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index surged to 55.6% in July from 53.3% in June, far above the consensus estimate of 54%. Any reading above 50% signals manufacturing expansion, and the July figure was the strongest since May 2022. Manufacturing has now expanded for seven consecutive months following ten months of contraction, while the ISM says the July result is consistent with annualized real GDP growth of approximately 2.8%.

New orders increased for the seventh consecutive month, rising to 56.7% from 56%. Production exploded to 58.5% from 52.2%, reaching its highest level since November 2021. Backlogged orders increased to 55% from 50.5%, while employment finally moved into expansion territory at 52.8%, up from 49.7%. That was the first manufacturing-employment expansion in 33 months.

Fifteen manufacturing industries reported growth, led by computer and electronic products, machinery, petroleum and coal products, and other sectors tied to AI infrastructure, defense, transportation, and capital investment. Customers’ inventories remain too low, new orders are rising, and factories are rebuilding backlogs. There is genuine demand here, particularly from the construction of data centers, the AI spending boom, defense production, and the reshoring of certain supply chains.

However, the same expansion is colliding with a supply system that is already strained. Supplier deliveries deteriorated again, with that index rising to 58.9% from 57.4%. In the ISM survey, a number above 50% means deliveries are slowing, and the present delays are not merely the healthy result of stronger orders. Manufacturers cited shortages, transportation disruption, extended lead times, metals chaos, computer-chip demand, energy costs, tariffs, and geopolitical uncertainty throughout the Middle East.

The Prices Index remained at a punishing 71.1%. That was down from 73% in June and below the 84.6% recorded in April, but a reading above 70% still means broad and aggressive price increases. Celebrating a decline from an extreme level is like celebrating because the house is now burning through only one floor instead of two. The rate of deterioration may have moderated, but input prices are still rising throughout the manufacturing chain.

The Federal Reserve has now been placed in the impossible position that government repeatedly creates for central banks. Manufacturing is growing at its fastest pace in more than four years, production is surging, orders are expanding, factory employment has finally turned positive, and price pressures remain severe. This is not the environment that justifies cutting interest rates merely because Wall Street and Washington demand cheaper money.

The Fed held the federal funds rate at 3.50% to 3.75% on July 29, but three members dissented and wanted a quarter-point increase. That was an unusually divided vote, and it demonstrates that internal pressure is building. The Fed’s statement admitted that inflation remained elevated above its 2% objective while economic activity continued expanding at a “solid pace.” The ISM report has now reinforced both sides of that statement.

The preferred PCE inflation gauge stood at 3.7% in June, down from 4.1% in May but still nearly twice the Fed’s target. Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, remained at 3.3%. Inflation did not disappear because one monthly headline index declined by 0.1% after energy prices pulled back. The underlying annual rate remains entrenched well above target, and manufacturers are warning that the next wave of costs is already moving through the production pipeline.

The political class will blame the Fed regardless of what happens. If the Fed raises rates to fight inflation, politicians will accuse it of damaging housing, employment, and government finances. If it cuts rates while manufacturing prices are surging, the same politicians will blame it when consumer prices accelerate again..

Interest rates do not rise solely because of inflation. Rates also rise when the demand for capital increases, the economy expands, government competes with the private sector for financing, and investors demand a greater return for lending money. The United States is attempting to finance AI data centers, semiconductor plants, defense production, infrastructure, energy development, and enormous federal deficits simultaneously. That creates competition for labor, materials, electricity, machinery, and credit.

The Fed cannot manufacture transformers, reopen shipping lanes, increase refinery capacity, produce computer chips, or resolve a shortage of skilled labor. Raising interest rates will not make a cargo vessel travel faster or produce additional copper. It can only suppress demand elsewhere in the economy until weaker businesses and indebted consumers are forced to retreat. That is the dirty truth of monetary policy that academics rarely admit: the Fed often “fights inflation” by inflicting enough financial pain to reduce somebody else’s ability to purchase goods, hire workers, or obtain credit.

Nor can the Fed safely cut rates simply because the supply problem is outside its control. Cheaper money would feed additional demand into an economy where orders are already rising and suppliers cannot keep pace. It would reward leverage, encourage more speculative investment, support further government borrowing, and potentially push even more money into commodities, equities, real estate, and AI infrastructure. A supply-constrained economy does not need another artificial demand stimulus.

The July ISM report is positive for American manufacturing, but it is poisonous for the fantasy that the Fed can deliver immediate rate cuts without consequences. Production at 58.5%, new orders at 56.7%, employment at 52.8%, and prices at 71.1% describe an economy that is expanding while simultaneously suffering severe cost pressures.

Washington will try to sell this as proof that every policy is working. The administration will point to the strongest manufacturing reading since 2022, while the opposition will point to inflation and pretend it was produced by one man or one party. Neither side will admit that decades of debt, monetary manipulation, geopolitical intervention, outsourcing, underinvestment in infrastructure, and dependence on fragile international supply chains created this mess.

Manufacturers are telling us in plain English that the present chaos is less manageable than the pandemic. Their testimony matters more than another speech from a politician or economist who has never purchased a ton of steel, shipped a container, operated a factory, or met a payroll. The United States may be entering a powerful manufacturing expansion, but it is doing so with insufficient capacity, unstable supply lines, high borrowing needs, and government spending that refuses to retreat.