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.

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.

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Spain has demonstrated precisely why government is so often the source of the crisis rather than the solution. The Sánchez government issued a sweeping royal decree to legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants, bypassed Parliament, and then acted astonished when people outside Spain interpreted the message exactly as any rational person would: enter the country illegally today and the politicians may legalize you tomorrow.

The decree did not explicitly state that every migrant arriving by boat would automatically receive legal status. It applied to undocumented migrants who could prove that they had lived in Spain for at least five months before January 1, 2026, but leave it to government to hide the fine print. Then Spain’s Supreme Court restricted the immediate expulsion of migrants arriving by sea. Smugglers and social-media accounts distorted that ruling into a promise that anyone who entered Spanish territory through the water could not be sent back, and Madrid failed miserably to contain or correct the message before people began moving. The outcome was entirely predictable.

Approximately 60,000 migrants reportedly entered Ceuta in roughly 24 hours. Ceuta normally has around 85,000 residents, so the government allowed a sudden influx equal to about 70% of the city’s entire population, temporarily pushing the number of people in this small Spanish enclave toward 145,000 almost overnight. This was not a normal migration flow. It was the sudden transformation of an entire city caused by politicians who played with human incentives and never prepared for the consequences.

People swam around the Tarajal breakwater, breached barriers, and poured across sections of the border where Moroccan enforcement had weakened. At least 57 people reportedly died from drowning or in stampedes, although the early numbers varied, and those deaths belong on the conscience of every politician who sent the signal that reaching Spain would provide a new life.

Ceuta’s facilities were already collapsing before this mass influx. The city was caring for 472 unaccompanied minors by July 28 after receiving more than 250 in only two weeks, and officials admitted that the child-protection system was operating at 1,600% of its intended capacity.

Residents reported theft, break-ins, assaults, public defecation, and migrants bathing in fountains. Some businesses closed, local people barricaded streets, and frightened residents remained inside their homes because the government had abandoned its first responsibility, which is to protect the people it supposedly represents. Only a fool would believe that social order will survive when 60,000 desperate people arrive without the basic necessities of life.

Pedro Sánchez suddenly denounced the crossing as an attack on Spain’s territorial integrity. The same government that issued a mass regularization decree and promoted itself as Europe’s humanitarian alternative suddenly discovered that a nation must have a border.

Madrid deployed the military, sent additional police and Guardia Civil officers, closed crossing points, erected barriers, and began returning migrants at an astonishing rate. Estimates indicate that more than 48,000 returned rapidly, with later figures approaching 70,000, while only 3,000 to 5,000 reportedly remained in Ceuta by August 3.

Spain reversed its course because its policy finally landed on the doorstep of Spanish citizens. Compassion ended the moment the numbers became politically visible, the shops closed, the streets filled, and voters began demanding to know who was in charge. This exposes the absolute hypocrisy of modern government. Politicians condemn strict border enforcement as inhumane when someone else proposes it, but they deploy soldiers and accelerate removals the moment their own careers are threatened. Spain reportedly expelled or induced the return of tens of thousands of migrants within days. Therefore, the government clearly possessed the ability to defend the border and return illegal entrants; it merely refused to exercise that authority until the crisis became impossible to hide.

The government then complained that the migrants had misunderstood the rules. This is like placing a sign reading “FREE MONEY” outside a bank and then blaming the crowd for failing to read the conditions printed in microscopic letters beneath it.

Spain had already regularized migrants in the past, and the opposition warned that another broad decree would encourage further irregular entry. Sánchez ignored those concerns because European politicians have convinced themselves that repeating the word “humanitarian” exempts them from reality. Morocco also bears responsibility for allowing border enforcement to weaken. Rabat denied deliberately organizing the influx and blamed misinformation and trafficking networks, but European governments have made themselves dependent on North African states to contain migration before it reaches Europe.

That dependency has turned migrants into a geopolitical weapon. Morocco, Turkey, Belarus, Libya, and other transit states understand that they can pressure Europe simply by relaxing enforcement and allowing desperate people to move toward the border. Europe surrendered control of its perimeter and then became shocked when foreign governments discovered the leverage. No country possessing a functioning sense of sovereignty would outsource its border to a neighbor and assume that arrangement would never be manipulated.

The European Union is useless in a genuine crisis because Brussels specializes in bureaucracy rather than reality. It will convene committees, demand solidarity, design another quota, and distribute funds after the local population has already absorbed the damage. The EU wants every nation to surrender border control while Brussels refuses to accept responsibility for the consequences. It demands uniform humanitarian language but leaves local governments and citizens to confront the crowds, shortages, crime, and anger.

France and Italy moved to protect themselves because they understood that Spain’s failure would not remain confined to Ceuta if migrants reached the mainland and traveled through the Schengen zone. Open internal borders cannot survive when external borders are treated as optional.

Migration cannot be managed through moral slogans. A government must decide how many people it can accept, where they will live, how they will support themselves, what happens when facilities are full, and how those without valid claims will be removed. Without enforcement, asylum becomes immigration by incantation. Anyone who reaches the territory says the required words, the bureaucracy begins a process that may last years, and the government loses the political will to remove anyone once that person has established a life.

The people of Ceuta did not vote to increase their population by 70% in a day. They were not consulted, and the officials who created the policy were nowhere near the streets when residents began barricading their neighborhoods. The migrants were also used as pawns. They were encouraged by rumors, smugglers, court rulings, and Spain’s own political signals to risk drowning, only to be pushed back after Madrid realized that it could never accommodate them.

That is not compassion. It is government playing with human lives to maintain a political image and then using force when reality destroys the performance. The politicians responsible will never admit fault because government has perfected the art of blaming the consequences of policy on everyone except those who wrote it. They will blame Morocco, social media, smugglers, the courts, the opposition, and even the migrants themselves before acknowledging that their broad decree helped create an expectation of eventual legalization.

Government cannot repeal human nature by decree. Desperate people move toward perceived opportunity, frightened communities defend themselves when the state fails, criminals exploit confusion, and politicians reverse policy when their survival is threatened. This crisis was not caused by compassion. It was caused by cowardly politicians who wanted credit for being compassionate without accepting the limits, costs, and responsibilities that accompany their promises.

@tiredofthishit2026

♬ original sound – Tiredofthishit2026

Anthony Fauci’s diary, in his own words, provides ample reason to conclude that this man became intoxicated by attention, obsessed with his public image, and disturbingly comfortable turning a national catastrophe into an Anthony Fauci celebrity show. While you were locked away in your home, glued to the television for answers, waiting by the phone for news of loved ones isolated from society, Fauci was basking in his status as an international celebrity.

On March 10, 2020, Fauci wrote, “For better or worse, I am becoming an international celebrity.” Twelve days later, while Americans were losing jobs and watching their businesses collapse, he recorded that the “press is going wild with me.” He then marveled that doughnuts were being named after him, T-shirts carried his face, songs were being dedicated to him, and celebrities such as Trevor Noah and Steph Curry wanted his time.

By May, the self-admiration had become impossible to miss. Fauci wrote that his fame was “explosive and really unimaginable,” adding that he was “the most famous and talked about person in the country.” Who writes that about himself during a mass-casualty emergency? He carefully documented his television profiles, invitations, celebrity encounters, praise from journalists, and even an invitation to appear on Dancing with the Stars. The country was terrified, children were locked out of schools, elderly people were dying alone, and Fauci was keeping a scrapbook of his own stardom.

His entry about Julia Roberts is particularly revealing. He recalled her exclaiming, “Oh my God. It’s Dr. Fauci,” calling him her personal hero, and expressing her delight at speaking with him. He did not merely record the policy discussion; he preserved every drop of praise. The diary repeatedly reads less like the working notes of a dispassionate scientist and more like the journal of a man thrilled that Hollywood had finally discovered him.

The media devoured the Fauci spectacle because he provided exactly what it wanted: a government official willing to sanctify its preferred narrative while treating dissenters as ignorant or dangerous. He appeared across television networks, newspapers, international publications, and glossy magazines, including a special InStyle digital cover photographed poolside in sunglasses while the country remained under pandemic restrictions. Time placed him among its 100 most influential people, Saturday Night Live had Brad Pitt portray him, documentary filmmakers celebrated him, and journalists treated access to him as though they were interviewing a movie star. The press did not scrutinize Fauci as a powerful federal bureaucrat whose decisions affected hundreds of millions of lives; it built a personality cult around him and then attacked anyone who refused to kneel before “America’s doctor.”

The diary contains even more evidence of how completely Fauci came to view himself as the central figure on Earth. On March 22, 2020, he marveled that there were “many print profiles and features on me” and that the “press is going wild with me.” Days later, he catalogued the doughnuts, T-shirts, songs, celebrity calls, and television appearances created in his honor, while in April he wrote that the press remained “hot and heavy about me” and saved a link to an Atlantic story titled “Why America Is Thirsty for Anthony Fauci.”

By May, Fauci declared that it was not hyperbole to call himself “the most famous and talked about person in the country” and “one of the most recognizable” people in the world. Even at the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2022, he recorded being “completely swamped” by people yelling his name and applauding, adding that he was amazed his recognition had reached “such a height.” This was not a passing observation about unwanted publicity; it was a meticulous, almost compulsive inventory of his own importance, written by a man who seemed unable to encounter a compliment, celebrity, magazine profile, or cheering crowd without preserving it for posterity.

Fauci later insisted that he was “certainly not getting a big head,” which is precisely the sort of sentence people write after devoting page after page to how famous, admired, recognizable, and important they have become. This does not prove a clinical personality disorder, but it displays the traits ordinary people associate with extreme narcissism: grandiosity, hunger for admiration, hypersensitivity to criticism, contempt for opponents, and relentless attention to personal status.

The sickest part of this story is that Fauci’s celebrity required the pandemic to continue dominating public life. Every new restriction, frightening prediction, television interview, and conflict with Trump kept him at the center of the national drama. He became more than a bureaucrat; the media transformed him into an untouchable secular saint, and his diary strongly suggests that he loved every minute of it. Americans were ordered to sacrifice their livelihoods, freedom, education, and family relationships while the man presented as “the science” sat behind closed doors recording just how famous the suffering had made him.

QUESTION: Marty, I wanted to tell you that your Tampa conference was amazing. You really blew the doors off conventional economics. I was especially fascinated by your explanation that making too much money at a young age caused you to lose your fear of money, which ultimately allowed you to manage trillion-dollar portfolios while others were always afraid of losing.

I know your seed money came from silver coins, but you also mentioned your loss in Fidelity Trend. Looking back, did you make more money from silver or from the rare coin market?

Brian

P.S. I can’t wait for the video. I really hope you do another conference.

ANSWER: My mother couldn’t believe that someone would pay me $50 for a quarter. She finally went with me to a coin dealer because she wanted to see if it was true. The dealer paid me $50 for a 1932-D Washington quarter right in front of her. She was absolutely stunned. Until then, she couldn’t understand how I was making money buying and selling coins.

I made a great deal of money from the silver market, particularly when the U.S. Treasury stopped selling silver at $1.29 an ounce in 1967. But, overall, I made even more in the rare coin market.

One of my best purchases was a hoard of uncirculated Athenian Owl tetradrachms from an estate in Princeton, New Jersey. They had a beautiful blue patina and were among the finest examples I had ever seen. I eventually sold the entire hoard to Stack’s Coin Galleries in New York City. If I remember correctly, they brought about $1,000 per coin at the time. I didn’t keep a single one. Today, those same coins would likely sell for $15,000 or more each. I keep looking for one to come up for auction to buy for memory sake.

I had three full bags of those Canadian large bead pointed five coins. People actually flew in from around the country just to buy rolls from me. My mother simply could not believe that people would board an airplane to purchase a roll of pennies for $700 and more. For perspective, a standard $50 face-value bag contains 5,000 pennies.

I was also buying Silver Certificates and redeeming them with the U.S. Treasury for silver bullion beginning in 1965. At the time, the Treasury required a minimum redemption of $10,000 face value, which meant most individuals could not redeem them directly. As a result, many people sold their Silver Certificates at a discount to dealers like me who could meet the minimum requirement. The government deliberately established that threshold to slow the heavy demand for silver as the redemption program was coming to an end.

What the 1966 Crash taught me was that its was an EVERYTHING BUBBLE. Stocks crashed, rare coins crashed, real estate crashed. That was my lesson in understanding the interconnectivity of everything. Then in 1968, the Bretton Woods gave way and suddenly there was a free market in gold trading in London starting in 1968.

Then the 1970 Crash saw gold fall BELOW the $35 fix of Bretton Woods. That was earth shattering. Inflation, Vietnam, protests, and gold fell below $35? That was supposed to be impossible.

Those events taught me about false moves and how the majority MUST be wrong for that is the real engine behind market and economic movement.

That taught me more than anything in school ever did.

If the goal is truly to Make America Healthy Again, then the latest decision from the Environmental Protection Agency raises serious questions. According to the article you sent, the EPA has approved two new fluorinated pesticides, diflufenican and epyrifenacil, for use on some of America’s most important crops, including corn, soybeans, and wheat. Neither chemical has previously been approved for use in American agriculture.

Environmental groups argue these compounds qualify as PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” under internationally recognized scientific definitions because they can persist in the environment and eventually degrade into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), an extremely persistent fluorinated compound found in groundwater around the world. The EPA disputes that characterization, maintaining the products do not meet its regulatory definition of PFAS and that they can be used safely according to their labels.

Diflufenican has already become controversial in Europe. Denmark banned its use in part because of concerns that it contributes to TFA contamination of groundwater, while German monitoring has detected TFA in a large percentage of tested wells. Epyrifenacil has reportedly never received approval for agricultural use within the European Union. Whether those regulatory decisions ultimately prove right or wrong, they demonstrate that this is hardly an uncontested scientific issue. Governments around the world are reaching different conclusions about the same chemicals, yet American consumers are expected to assume there is nothing to debate.

What makes this particularly troubling is the contradiction with the broader Make America Healthy Again movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made eliminating artificial food dyes, improving nutrition, investigating chronic disease, reforming food ingredients, and reducing Americans’ exposure to harmful chemicals central themes of his public campaign. Those are worthwhile objectives. Yet cleaning up processed foods while simultaneously allowing the introduction of new fluorinated pesticides that have never before been used on American food crops sends a mixed message. If the objective is to reduce unnecessary chemical exposure wherever possible, then many Americans will reasonably ask why entirely new fluorinated agricultural chemicals are being introduced at the same time. That contradiction is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

The broader issue is one I have discussed for years in my Agricultural Report. Food has become another battlefield. Farmers are buried under climate regulations, fertilizer restrictions, water controls, and endless bureaucratic oversight, while consumers are increasingly separated from understanding how their food is actually produced. Governments continue expanding their influence over agriculture under the banners of safety, climate, or public health. Regardless of political party, that trend never seems to reverse.

Food security has always been national security. Once confidence in the safety of the food supply begins to erode, rebuilding that trust becomes extraordinarily difficult. The debate over diflufenican and epyrifenacil is therefore much larger than two new pesticides. It reflects a growing public concern that regulators continue introducing new chemicals into the food chain while asking citizens to simply trust that everything has been thoroughly evaluated. History has taught us that blind trust in government regulators is rarely rewarded.

Private land may be seized to construct transmission lines required by the rapidly expanding AI data-center industry. If a property owner refuses to sell an easement voluntarily, a utility may resort to eminent domain, provided the project is declared a “public use” and the owner receives what the government calls “just compensation.” Let us call this what it is: legalized theft.

The government does not ask whether the land has been in your family for generations, whether you built your home with your own hands, or whether the money offered would ever replace what is being destroyed. A bureaucrat determines the supposed market value, a judge blesses the taking, and armed government agents will eventually remove you if you continue to resist. They hide behind legal phrases because “confiscation for corporate benefit” would expose the practice for what it has become.

The United States already has more than 3,000 data centers, with another 1,500 under development. These facilities consumed more than 4% of total US electricity in 2024, and demand is rising rapidly as companies construct gigawatt-scale AI campuses. New transmission lines must cross somebody’s property, and when the owner says no, the state may simply decide that no does not matter.

Seventy percent of Americans reportedly oppose having a data center built near their community. These facilities can consume enormous quantities of electricity and water while creating noise, traffic, pollution, and higher infrastructure costs. Health risks are not fully understood although reports of increased cancer risks are prevalent in communities near these facilities. Yet the same governments that claim to represent the public are preparing to override that opposition because the technology companies have more influence than the families whose land stands in their way.

This is already happening. CBS News reported that Georgia Power acquired more than 300 parcels for a transmission project intended largely to serve data centers. The utility said that between 70% and 80% of the new line’s capacity would support data-center demand. Families were informed that if they refused the proposed sale, Georgia Power could pursue condemnation.

Ansley Brown’s family sold the home her grandparents had built after receiving an eminent-domain notice. She called the process “theft,” and she was absolutely correct. Georgia Power would not even identify the data-center companies benefiting from the project, citing customer confidentiality. The landowner must surrender everything, but the corporate beneficiary is permitted to remain hidden. That tells you exactly who the government serves.

The Fifth Amendment states that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. The government has twisted those words beyond recognition. A transmission line that principally benefits unnamed private technology corporations is now presented as a public necessity merely because the electricity passes through the broader grid. Under that reasoning, nearly any private commercial project can be disguised as public infrastructure.

The Supreme Court opened the floodgates with Kelo v. City of New London in 2005. The Court ruled 5–4 that private property could be taken and transferred to another private party as part of an economic-development plan. The politicians promised jobs, tax revenue, and revitalization. The proposed Pfizer-related development never materialized as promised, and much of the condemned neighborhood remained vacant for years. Families lost their homes so politicians could gamble with property that was never theirs.

I have written about the abuse of eminent domain repeatedly because it destroys the very foundation of a free society. In South Dakota, around 80 farmers faced eminent-domain lawsuits connected to the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline. Surveyors entered private property while the government protected the corporation rather than the owners. The project was sold under the ESG banner, just as these latest confiscations will be sold under the banners of AI, grid reliability, national competitiveness, and technological progress.

In New Jersey, officials moved to seize the Henry family’s profitable 21-acre farm, which had remained in the family since 1850, to satisfy an affordable-housing mandate. The family rejected a multimillion-dollar offer, so Cranbury Township voted to take the land anyway. Four generations of that family were buried in the town, but government officials decided that their housing quota carried more weight than 175 years of ownership.

This abuse crosses party lines. Republicans support eminent domain when they want pipelines, border infrastructure, or corporate development. Democrats support it for affordable housing, environmental schemes, and urban redevelopment. Both sides believe private property remains yours only until the state discovers a politically favored use for it.

Jamie Dimon openly wrote in 2023 that governments, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations might need to invoke eminent domain to accelerate investments in grids, solar facilities, wind projects, and pipelines. That statement exposed the direction of policy. The political and corporate classes view private property as an inconvenience standing between them and whatever agenda they have declared urgent.

Now AI has become the latest excuse. This is not an argument against technological development. Private companies have every right to build data centers, but they should purchase the required land in a voluntary transaction. If an owner refuses to sell, the company should change the route, improve its offer, develop alternative power supplies, or build elsewhere. The word “no” is supposed to mean something in a free market.

There is no genuine property ownership when the government can determine the buyer, the price, and the date you must leave. What Americans possess under this system is conditional occupancy. You pay property taxes forever, comply with thousands of regulations, and may still be expelled when a corporation with political connections wants the land beneath your feet.

The AI companies will keep the profits. The utilities will recover their investments through rates. Politicians will hold ceremonies and boast about jobs and innovation. The displaced landowners will be handed a check calculated by strangers and told that the seizure was performed for the public good.

That is not capitalism. It is corporatism enforced by the state, and eminent domain is the weapon that makes the robbery legal.

QUESTION: Marty, last March you said the dollar would peak against the yuan and then decline into August–September 2026. You also said the computer suggested this move would coincide with rising tensions in the Middle East, specifically involving Iran. Since then, we’ve seen Operation Midnight Hammer on June 22, 2025. In your debt report, you also explained that China has major strategic and economic interests in the region, including its railroad projects with Iran and its broader ties to Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Given those interests, do you see China becoming directly involved in the conflict with Iran, or will it seek to protect its interests through other means?

FJ

ANSWER: Yes, but I do not see China sending troops. Beijing views Iran primarily through the lens of great-power competition. From China’s perspective, a prolonged conflict involving Iran ties down American military, financial, and political resources, leaving the United States less able to focus on what Beijing regards as the primary long-term objective—Taiwan. The drain on military assets has called into question if the US has the missile capacity to even defend Israel while Zelensky is demanding Patriot Missiles.

I have said from the outset that Trump was persuaded by the Neocons, who used Netanyahu to sell the Iran war. Iran has waged its proxy war against Israel for 45 years. Netanyahu has been making essentially the same argument since at least 1996—that Iran is only weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon and must be destroyed. Decades later, the narrative remains remarkably unchanged. In my view, this conflict has never been solely about Israel’s security or Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu has consistently sought the destruction of the Islamic Republic itself.

Even if Iran had a nuclear weapon they would not use it anymore than Pakistan uses its nukes. Iran sees a nuke as a deterent against Israel which has nukes. But let’s get real. Russia has more nukes than the USA. That does not stop Ukraine even boasting that Moscow will fall. Granted, Iran sees this as taking down Iraq because they did not have nukes. Has Saddam had nukes, the Neocons would not have invaded which was again for Israel.

To understand this conflict objectively, we must first understand its history and we must look at this through each party’s eyes.

Hezbollah officially declared its existence in 1985. What many people overlook is that before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran was the second country in the Middle East to recognize Israel as a sovereign state under the Pahlavi monarchy. That relationship ended with the Revolution. The new Islamic Republic severed diplomatic ties with Israel and adopted a revolutionary anti-imperialist ideology that portrayed Israel as an illegitimate state and a symbol of Western domination. From that point forward, ideology became the principal driver of the conflict.

Iran’s leadership has consistently described Israel as an illegitimate “cancerous tumor” and an American colonial outpost in the Middle East. Support for the Palestinian cause became one of the central pillars of the Islamic Republic’s ideology and a major source of its legitimacy throughout much of the Muslim world.

From Israel’s perspective, however, Iran’s repeated calls for Israel’s destruction and its support for organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas constitute an existential threat. Netanyahu’s campaign to persuade the United States to confront Iran has therefore always extended beyond the issue of nuclear weapons. The broader objective has been the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

At the same time, we must also understand why Iran refers to the United States as the “Great Satan.” That did not arise in a vacuum.

The 1953 CIA-backed coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and restored the Shah remains the defining event in modern U.S.-Iranian relations. While it is not the only source of hostility, it is the foundational grievance upon which decades of mistrust were built.

From the Iranian perspective, the United States intervened after Mosaddegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry, threatening Western economic interests. Washington and London supported the return of the Shah, who increasingly ruled as an authoritarian monarch. The original conflict in 1953 was fundamentally about control over oil and geopolitical influence.

When the Islamic Revolution erupted in 1979, the memory of that coup became one of the principal justifications for the seizure of the U.S. Embassy and the hostage crisis. The revolutionary leadership also faced significant domestic opposition, much of it secular rather than religious. By portraying the United States as the external enemy, the new regime could brand internal opponents as agents of a foreign power rather than simply political adversaries. History repeatedly shows that governments under pressure often strengthen internal unity by emphasizing an external threat.

The same political tactic appears in many conflicts. Rather than addressing criticism directly, opponents are portrayed as supporting the enemy, allowing governments to shift the debate away from the substance of the criticism itself.

Whether one agrees with Iran’s interpretation or not, understanding the origins of the hostility is essential. The deep antagonism between Washington and Tehran did not begin with the nuclear issue. It is rooted in the events of 1953, reinforced by the 1979 Revolution, and has been sustained by decades of mutual confrontation ever since.

The 1979 revolution set the two nations on a collision course, and the issues over nuclear weapons and proxy warfare have only deepened the divide but are not truly the core issue. This is ultimately a duel to the death. It has been shaping Middle Eastern geopolitics for over 45 years and it appears to be headed into serious confrontation in 2027.

China has been supporting Iran diplomatically and economically, but there is little indication that Beijing intends to become a direct military participant in the conflict. It is important to note that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Beijing for high-level discussions during the crisis. The visit underscored the strategic and economic importance that both countries attach to their relationship. Following those meetings, China reaffirmed its support for Iran’s sovereignty while calling for negotiations and de-escalation rather than a further expansion of the war.

I have said before that regime change cannot be achieved simply by bombing a country into submission. In fact, such a strategy often produces the opposite effect. I know Iranians who were strongly opposed to the Islamic Republic, yet the American bombing campaign has caused them to rally behind their country rather than support foreign intervention. The treatment of the Iranian team and its supporters during the World Cup was viewed by many Iranians—including those living in the United States who are otherwise thoroughly Westernized—not merely as criticism of their government, but as an insult to the Iranian people themselves.

That reaction should not surprise anyone. If a foreign power attacked the United States, Republicans and Democrats would almost certainly put aside their political differences and unite in defense of the nation. National identity frequently overrides domestic political divisions when a country comes under external attack.

China has several compelling reasons to maintain close relations with Iran. Energy security is foremost among them. China has long been one of the largest purchasers of Iranian oil, often buying at discounted prices despite Western sanctions. Beyond energy, Iran occupies a strategic position within China’s Belt and Road Initiative, serving as a critical land bridge linking China to Central Asia, the Middle East, and ultimately Europe. Preserving that corridor gives Beijing a strong economic and geopolitical incentive to maintain stable relations with Tehran.

Pelosi Flies to Taiwan

Adding to this, China increasingly views the United States as its principal strategic rival, a perception reinforced by actions it regards as overt attempts at containment. From Beijing’s perspective, policies pursued by successive U.S. administrations, along with highly visible actions such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, signaled growing American support for challenging China’s claims over the island.

In the case of Iran, China sees the relationship as part of a broader effort to balance American influence rather than simply choosing sides in a regional conflict. Beijing has consistently opposed U.S.-led military interventions and the extensive use of economic sanctions, advocating instead for a multipolar international order.

In my view, American foreign policy since the George W. Bush administration has been heavily influenced by the Neoconservative approach, which has favored sanctions as a precursor to military pressure. China has pursued a very different strategy. Rather than relying on sanctions or military intervention, it has steadily expanded its influence through investment, infrastructure, trade, and long-term economic partnerships.

China today has substantial investments not only in Iran, but also in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states. While the United States has often projected influence through military alliances and sanctions, Beijing has quietly expanded its presence throughout the Middle East through economic integration. That difference in strategy explains why China seeks regional stability: its investments span both sides of the region’s geopolitical divides.

Beijing wants to preserve its strategic relationship with Tehran, but it also wants stable relations with the Arab Gulf states, which collectively are even more important economic partners. If we examine China’s position dispassionately, it is difficult to conclude that Beijing seeks military confrontation. Rather, China’s policy is best described as a balancing act—one that stands in sharp contrast to the more interventionist approach often associated with recent U.S. foreign policy.

That does not mean military cooperation between China and Iran is absent. Reports indicate that Iran is expected to receive Chinese-made portable air-defense systems under a commercial agreement. While Beijing has denied direct government involvement, China is unlikely to remain indifferent if it believes the objective has shifted from containing Iran to destroying the Iranian state. From Beijing’s perspective, Netanyahu’s government is pursuing a policy aimed at the complete elimination of the Islamic Republic, making Israel—not Iran—the principal escalatory actor in the conflict.

China will almost certainly continue providing diplomatic support for Iran in international forums while maintaining its extensive economic and energy relationships with Tehran. At the same time, Beijing has consistently encouraged negotiations and de-escalation because it has every incentive to avoid committing Chinese forces to the conflict. This strategy allows China to protect its interests in Iran and throughout the Gulf while minimizing the risk of a direct military confrontation with the United States.

The unfortunate reality is that victory is defined very differently by each side.

For Iran, victory may simply mean survival. If the government remains in power, Tehran can claim it withstood the combined pressure brought against it by the Great Satan and God has protected them.

For the Neoconservative faction, supported by Netanyahu, victory requires something far more ambitious. But how is that measured? Is reopening the Strait of Hormuz a victory when it was open before the war began? Is it the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, even if they can eventually be rebuilt? Or is the objective regime change?

The problem is that there is no clear or lasting victory available because this conflict is fundamentally ideological rather than merely territorial or military. Attempting to topple the Iranian government also carries the serious risk of drawing both China and Russia more directly into the confrontation.

In my view, this is precisely why the conflict risks becoming another open-ended war with no clearly defined end state. The computer continues to indicate a significant risk of escalation into early 2027. At the same time, President Trump will almost certainly need a tangible outcome that can be presented as a victory. Politically, simply walking away without an identifiable achievement would be extremely difficult. That dynamic alone increases the risk that the conflict will continue rather than conclude quickly.

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I understand you are deeply involved in analyzing the unfolding debt crisis in Japan, and the mainstream media rarely seems to grasp the situation the way you do. I would greatly appreciate any comments or insights you can share on what is happening here in Japan and where you believe this crisis is headed.

Aikra

REPLY: I hope you are doing well. I apologize I could not handle all the corporate calls from Japan. I will send a quick Institution assessment shortly. The Japanese yen has come down to major long-term technical support challenging the 1987 Crash Levels.

Yes, I think even the Fed does not quite grasp the extent of the real problem. The media is claiming that the Fed is intervening to prevent Japan from selling US bonds. That just shows their ignorance.

The U.S. has recently taken action to support Japan, but the press claims this is out of self-interest rather than pure altruism. In late July 2026, the U.S. Treasury took the rare step of intervening in the currency market to help boost the value of the Japanese yen, marking a significant shift in policy. But WHY?

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s intervention occurred in a very public way. During a live-streamed cabinet meeting, he was photographed holding a note that read, “To do: Buy JPY (yen), 5-10 billion.” Granted, the U.S. Treasury instructed the New York Federal Reserve to sell euros and buy yen, directly participating in the intervention. This was a joint effort with Japanese and South Korean authorities, who were also selling dollars to support their own currencies.

This is where the so-called analysts the press routinely quotes reveal just how little they understand.

They argue that the U.S. intervention was not primarily about helping Japan, but about protecting America’s own financial stability. According to their theory, Washington feared that a collapsing yen would force Japan to liquidate its massive holdings of U.S. Treasury securities to defend its currency.

That narrative falls apart once you understand who actually owns those Treasuries.

Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt, with more than $1 trillion in Treasury securities. However, I have repeatedly pointed out that the majority of those holdings are not owned by the Japanese government. They are held by Japanese corporations and private institutions that use U.S. Treasuries as a hedge against the fiscal recklessness of their own government. Yet these analysts ignore that crucial distinction because they approach every event with the same conclusion—they are permanently bearish on the dollar.

Rather than recognizing that Japan is confronting the highest debt-to-GDP ratio of any major economy, they portray every U.S. action as a desperate attempt to prop up the dollar. I stated clearly in the Japanese Institutional Report earlier this year:

“The sovereign debt crisis has begun, and once confidence starts to crack, governments everywhere will discover that there is no such thing as endless borrowing.”

The dollar bears now claim that U.S. intervention is merely a “financial containment” strategy designed to prevent a crisis in Japan from spilling over into the American financial system. Their argument is that if Japan were forced to dump its Treasury holdings to support the yen, U.S. bond prices would collapse, long-term interest rates would surge, and the Federal Reserve would lose control of the market. They weave this into a broader narrative of global war and a looming crisis of confidence in the dollar.

The problem is that this analysis begins with an assumption instead of the facts.

These same commentators have spent decades predicting the imminent collapse of the dollar. When the dollar failed to implode after President Nixon suspended gold convertibility on August 15, 1971, they invented the “petrodollar” theory, claiming the dollar survived only because oil was priced in dollars. Their forecasts have consistently been driven more by ideology than by data.

The wealth of any nation ultimately rests on the productivity of its people. By that measure, the United States remains substantially more productive than Europe. Capital follows opportunity, not political slogans.

Consequently, the dollar bears insist that the United States is supporting Japan only to prevent a Japanese financial crisis from damaging the American economy. In reality, they demonstrate little understanding of how international capital actually moves. If they had access to the Japanese data, they would immediately see that Japanese corporations and private investors—not the government—hold the larger share of U.S. Treasury securities precisely because they seek protection from the fiscal policies of Tokyo.

Our data shows that total Japanese holdings of U.S. Treasuries are approximately $1.14 to $1.24 trillion. Overall foreign ownership of U.S. federal debt is about $9.2 trillion. Of that amount, roughly 58.1% ($5.4 trillion) is held by foreign private investors—including corporations, pension funds, investment funds, and individuals—while only about 41.9% ($3.9 trillion) is held by foreign governments, central banks, and sovereign wealth funds.

Those facts completely undermine the simplistic narrative that Japan’s Treasury holdings are primarily an instrument of government policy. A substantial portion represents private capital seeking safety, and that distinction is fundamental to understanding both Japan’s debt crisis and the global demand for U.S. government securities.

While the Japanese government, primarily through the Bank of Japan, holds a substantial portfolio of U.S. Treasury securities as part of its foreign exchange reserves, the majority of Japan’s roughly $1.2 trillion in Treasury holdings is not owned by the government. Instead, it is held by Japanese banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and other corporate investors.

These private institutions purchase U.S. Treasuries not only because they offer significantly higher yields than Japanese government bonds, but also as a hedge against the fiscal policies of their own government—a strategy that has proven remarkably successful over the years.

What these analysts completely omit in their explanation of why Secretary Bessent would intervene is the longstanding trade dynamic. A sharply weaker yen gives Japan a significant competitive advantage by making its exports cheaper, widening the U.S. trade deficit, and allowing Japanese manufacturers to undercut American producers.

There is nothing new about this issue. I have dealt with more than $3 trillion under advisory contract from Japan over my career, and I have been dealing with the implications of yen-dollar policy and its impact on international trade for decades.

When Rubin, of Goldman Sachs, was Treasury Secretary, then too I would have expected a better understanding of the world economy. He was trying to talk the dollar down once again for trade. I wrote to him in 1997 warning that scenario led to the 1987 Crash thanks to the G5 trying to push the dollar down by 40%. They responded.  The 1997 Asian Currency Crisis which began immediately thereafter in July 1997 a few weeks later.

This is a chart of the capital flows that set off the 1987 Crash. Japan dumped Treasuries and Equities because the fear was the dollar would fall another 40% after the Louver Accord on February 22, 1987. A lower yen will benefit Japanese corporates and Bessent is worried once again about trade.

A number of people have also asked whether I advise Secretary Bessent. The answer is no, nor would there be any point in my attempting to do so.

To my knowledge, Bessent was on the opposite side of the Russian trade during the 1998 crisis, when many market participants blamed me for their losses. I believe there is a longstanding personal grudge stemming from that period, which is why I see no purpose in writing to him.

George Soros’ Quantum Fund reportedly lost approximately $2 billion on its Russian investments. Much of that loss was tied to its investment in the Russian telecommunications company Svyazinvest, which Soros later described as “the worst investment of my professional career.” The fund’s assets reportedly declined from roughly $22 billion in 1998 to about $13 billion in 1999.

After the Financial Times published my forecast in June 1998 warning that Russia was on the verge of collapse, many people associated those losses blamed my analysis. I was later told that some individuals urged the CFTC to shut down my company in retaliation. Whether that effort was directly connected, I cannot independently verify, the CFTC refused to provide any records on me under a FOIA request. But that is what I was told at the time.

This is why some states NEED war for a distraction from the fact that the entire socialistic system is starting to show its cracks. I have warned that Japan could be even the first to decline.