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.

Syria has received its first shipments of wheat and cement at Berth No. 4 in the port of Tartous, a facility previously controlled by Russian forces. On the surface, this appears to be a minor logistical development involving a few cargo vessels. In reality, it symbolizes a major change in the balance of power following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government. A military pier that once supported Russia’s projection of power across the Mediterranean and Africa is being absorbed into Syria’s civilian economy. The first cargoes reportedly arrived through Turkish ports. Military influence is retreating while trade and capital are moving in to replace it.

Russia and Syria reached an agreement after 18 months of negotiations over the future of Tartous and the Hmeimim air base. Syria will regain control of the civilian facilities, while the remaining military installations are expected to become joint training centers. Moscow therefore retains a reduced presence, but it no longer possesses the same unrestricted position it enjoyed under Assad. This is not a complete Russian withdrawal. It is the conversion of direct military control into a negotiated relationship with a government that is seeking investment from Turkey, the Gulf states, Europe, and the United States.

Tartous was never valuable merely because Russian ships could dock there. Its true strategic importance came from geography. It gave Russia a Mediterranean repair and replenishment point, supported military operations in Syria, and served as a staging route into Africa. Great powers have always fought to control ports because ports connect military force with economic power. Athens built its empire through maritime tribute, Venice became wealthy through Mediterranean trade, and Britain’s global influence rested upon ports and commercial routes long before economists began measuring power through GDP. Control the port and you influence the movement of food, energy, armies, and capital.

Syria is now attempting to reverse that relationship by turning a military asset into a commercial one. DP World signed a 30-year concession to develop and operate Tartous and committed $800 million to modernize its infrastructure. The French shipping group CMA CGM reached a separate 30-year agreement involving approximately $260 million of investment in Latakia. Together, these projects could reconnect Syria with Southern Europe, Turkey, the Gulf, North Africa, and the wider Mediterranean economy after more than a decade of war and sanctions.

This is precisely how reconstruction begins. Politicians hold conferences, make speeches, and announce billions in theoretical aid, but an economy cannot recover without moving physical goods. Syria needs wheat, cement, machinery, fuel, construction materials, electrical equipment, and industrial components. It must also create the ability to export goods if it intends to obtain foreign currency without surviving indefinitely upon foreign assistance. A functional port does more for economic recovery than another international declaration because it lowers the cost of every imported input required to rebuild the country.

The arrival of wheat and cement is particularly symbolic. Wheat represents survival while cement represents reconstruction. Syria requires both before it can pretend to attract large-scale industry or tourism. The World Bank estimated the country’s reconstruction cost at approximately $216 billion. Saudi Arabia has announced billions in potential investment, while Turkish companies see opportunities across construction, logistics, manufacturing, telecommunications, and consumer goods. None of that capital will arrive on a meaningful scale unless investors believe contracts can be enforced, money can move through the banking system, and goods can enter and leave the country safely.

The removal of most American and European economic sanctions opened the door, but sanctions relief does not automatically create confidence. Syria still faces damaged infrastructure, fragmented political authority, armed groups, sectarian divisions, unresolved property claims, and a banking system isolated for years from international finance. Foreign investors will not commit capital merely because Washington changes a regulation. They will demand security, predictable taxation, enforceable contracts, and the ability to repatriate profits. Governments always assume that removing a legal barrier will cause money to rush in immediately, but capital remembers losses long after politicians have forgotten them.

Turkey is in the strongest position to benefit because it shares a border, possesses an established industrial base, and already has companies familiar with Syrian markets. Turkish firms can supply cement, steel, food, machinery, household goods, and construction services more efficiently than distant competitors. The initial shipments through Turkish ports demonstrate how rapidly geography reasserts itself once political barriers weaken. Ankara does not need to occupy Syria to dominate parts of its reconstruction. Trade can accomplish what military force cannot by creating relationships that become increasingly expensive to break.

The Gulf states are approaching Syria through capital rather than troops. Saudi Arabia and the UAE can finance real estate, infrastructure, telecommunications, energy, and logistics. DP World’s investment in Tartous is therefore not simply a commercial transaction. It places an Emirati company at the center of Syria’s maritime recovery and gives Gulf capital influence over one of the eastern Mediterranean’s strategic gateways. Russia used the port to project military power. The UAE is using the same location to project commercial power.

Russia has not disappeared from the equation. Syria reportedly obtained approximately 85% of its imported wheat during the 2025–2026 season from Russia and Russian-controlled Crimea. Damascus cannot replace that relationship overnight, particularly when food security is involved. Moscow will therefore attempt to preserve influence through grain, energy, military training, debt, and technical cooperation even as its direct control declines. This is a transition from patronage under Assad to competition under the new government.

The mistake would be to interpret the agreement as a victory for one side and a total defeat for another. Syria is attempting to balance Russia, Turkey, the Gulf states, Europe, and the United States because accepting complete dependence upon any single power would merely replace one master with another. Smaller states survive by forcing larger powers to compete for access. The port becomes valuable not only because of the goods passing through it, but because several rival powers now have an interest in Syria remaining stable enough for commerce.

There is an important lesson here for the rest of the Middle East. Military occupation consumes capital while commerce attracts it. Russia spent enormous resources preserving Assad’s government and securing its bases, yet years of military investment could not guarantee permanent control. DP World entered with an $800 million commercial agreement and immediately acquired influence tied to Syria’s need for reconstruction. A military base remains valuable only as long as force can preserve it. A productive trade route creates its own constituency among workers, merchants, consumers, and governments.

The future of Syria will not be determined merely by who controls Damascus. It will be determined by whether capital returns, whether refugees believe they can rebuild their lives, and whether the country becomes a bridge for regional commerce instead of a battlefield for foreign armies. Tartous offers Syria an opportunity to replace military dependency with economic interdependence, but that will require the government to protect investment rather than simply divide it among political factions.

The first ships carried wheat and cement. What follows will reveal whether Syria is genuinely rebuilding an economy or merely auctioning strategic assets to a new collection of foreign patrons. Russia once measured its influence at Tartous by the warships tied to the pier. Syria will now measure its recovery by the cargo passing through it. That is the difference between controlling territory and creating wealth.

The United States has become the first nation to prohibit its central bank from creating a central bank digital currency, but Congress quietly placed an expiration date on that protection. The prohibition covers both retail and intermediated CBDCs, yet it expires at the end of 2030. That means the door to a programmable government currency will reopen in 2031, precisely as the Economic Confidence Model reaches its major 2030 turning point.

President Trump prohibited federal agencies from pursuing a CBDC through executive order, and Congress has now reinforced that position legislatively. Nevertheless, executive orders can be reversed by the next president, and the statutory ban was deliberately written to disappear. Governments do not normally surrender power permanently. They postpone unpopular policies until the political and economic conditions make them easier to impose.

The timing is remarkable because the Economic Confidence Model has long pointed to 2030 as a profound turning point in the confidence of government. These dates are not predictions that one isolated event must occur on a specific day. They identify concentrations of political, economic, and monetary stress when capital shifts and confidence changes direction. The fact that Congress chose the end of 2030 for the expiration of the CBDC ban places this monetary question directly within that critical window.

A CBDC is not merely another electronic payment system. Most money already moves digitally through banks, credit cards, and payment applications. The difference is that a central bank digital currency can create a direct financial relationship between the citizen and the state. Depending on its design, government could gain the ability to trace transactions, impose expiration dates on money, restrict purchases, enforce negative interest rates, collect taxes automatically, or prevent funds from being transferred beyond approved limits. Physical cash provides privacy and allows people to transact when banks, governments, or computer systems fail. A programmable CBDC transforms money into a permit controlled by the issuer.

The War Cycle began accelerating in August 2026, with the next major geopolitical pressure building into 2027–2029 and a significant risk of conflict involving China appearing in 2029. This then converges with the Economic Confidence Model’s 2030.05 turning point, approximately January 18, 2030, as the Sovereign Debt Crisis intensifies. Congress allowed the CBDC prohibition to expire on December 31, 2030, meaning a new administration could reopen the door to programmable central-bank money beginning January 1, 2031. War increases borrowing, borrowing accelerates the debt crisis, and collapsing confidence encourages governments to impose surveillance, capital controls, and emergency financial restrictions. By the time this protection expires, the world and government as we know them may be radically altered, creating precisely the kind of crisis politicians will use to resurrect a CBDC in the name of national security and monetary stability.

India is preparing to launch its first tokenized corporate bond in September, and this experiment exposes where the digital monetary system is ultimately heading. The bonds will be issued by REC, a state-owned power financier, in an offering worth less than 5 billion rupees, or approximately $57 million. The amount is small because this is a pilot program, but the structure is far more important than the size. India’s central bank digital currency will be used to purchase the bonds, which means the government is no longer merely testing digital money for ordinary payments. It is connecting CBDCs directly to the creation, ownership, and settlement of debt.

Reuters reports that investors will require two compatible digital accounts: a wholesale CBDC wallet supplied through a bank and a new electronic securities wallet known as DEMAT 2.0. The bonds will not trade through the conventional electronic book-provider system, and subsequent transactions can occur only between participants who possess both approved wallets. The initial investors will be selected, the bonds will have a three-month lock-in period, and a secondary market is expected to be developed by December. This creates a closed financial network in which the currency, security, investor, transaction, and settlement process are all identifiable and controlled within the same digital infrastructure.

The sales pitch will be efficiency, naturally. Tokenized securities can settle almost instantly. The same infrastructure that can settle a bond instantly can restrict who is permitted to buy it, determine where it may be traded, impose holding periods, monitor every transfer, and prevent capital from leaving the approved system. Once currency and securities exist inside compatible government-supervised wallets, compliance no longer depends on investigating a transaction afterward. The rules can be enforced before the transaction is even allowed to occur.

India is beginning with a corporate bond issued by a state-owned institution, but nobody constructs an entirely new financial architecture for a single $57 million experiment. If the pilot succeeds, the system can be expanded to corporate debt, municipal obligations, government securities, and eventually the savings of the broader population. Governments confronting a Sovereign Debt Crisis will need buyers for ever-increasing quantities of bonds. A CBDC provides the infrastructure to create captive demand by directing banks, pension funds, corporations, or individuals into approved debt instruments while making alternative uses of capital more difficult.

This is how capital controls will emerge in the modern era. There will be no official standing at the airport asking whether you are carrying gold or cash. The restrictions will be embedded inside the currency itself. A transaction can be rejected because the recipient lacks the proper wallet, the security is outside the approved platform, the funds crossed a prohibited jurisdiction, or the investor exceeded a government-imposed limit. Politicians will claim that this prevents fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, and financial instability, but every authoritarian financial restriction has always been introduced under the pretense of protecting the public.

The debt crisis is accelerating because governments have borrowed without any intention of repaying the principal. They perpetually roll over existing obligations while issuing new debt to cover interest, welfare promises, military expenditures, and the expanding cost of government itself. When private demand for sovereign debt weakens, interest rates rise and the fiscal situation deteriorates even faster. Rather than reduce spending, government invariably searches for methods to control capital and force the domestic economy to finance the state.

India is not yet forcing citizens to purchase government debt with digital rupees, and this pilot should not be misrepresented as though that has already occurred. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that the technical bridge between CBDCs and tokenized securities is being constructed now. Once that bridge exists, extending it from voluntary investment to regulatory compulsion requires only a political decision. The technology does not care whether participation is voluntary or mandatory.

India’s experiment should therefore be viewed as far more than a technological modernization of the bond market. It is a model for merging money and debt into one controlled digital ecosystem. The public will be promised speed and convenience, while government acquires the ability to see, approve, restrict, and eventually direct the movement of capital. CBDCs were never necessary simply to buy coffee more quickly. Their real value to government emerges when the state can connect programmable money to the debt it desperately needs someone to purchase.

QUESTION: What is going on? You were on Russian TV again today, and now there’s a question about a U.S. military transport aircraft that, according to tracking data, secretly landed in Moscow. You’ve appeared on Russian TV twice within days. I saw the film Brink of War. I also remember attending a major conference you did for Bain & Co here in Sydney, where the press ran a full-page article on you claiming you were an advisor to Reagan. You predicted communism would fall by 1990, and in that film, Reagan says he was meeting to bring Russia down. For once, come clean: were you advising Reagan?

PL

ANSWER: I remember that article well. If you have a copy, I would genuinely like one. I actually called that journalist afterward, because he accused me of advising Reagan and attributed trickle-down economics to me. I told him he should have interviewed me first—it was Art Laffer who sold the trickle-down theory to President Reagan, not me. I also recall attending a cocktail party where someone called me a liar because I denied working in the White House. My response was simple: if I had been working there, I certainly couldn’t have denied it. That journalist, in my view, was a real socialist.

As for whether Reagan acted on our forecast that communism would collapse by 1989.95—the ECM turning point—I honestly have no idea. Yes, after the Plaza Accord of 1985, I was in contact with the White House. But beyond that, I cannot say what the President did or did not do with our analysis.

I have published the Revolution Cycle on everything from the USA and EU to Iran. This has been consistent. The target was always 1989. I cannot say if Regan took that report to heart. I did not speak to him about it.

Regarding the U.S. military plane landing in Moscow and my appearances on Russian TV last week and this week—the two are not connected. I go on Russian TV because few others have the courage to do so, and someone needs to show them that not all Americans think like Lindsey Olin Graham. The only path to avoiding war is through dialogue. The Neocons always advise never talking to the enemy—which ensures there will never be peace.

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I am new to your services and I attended the Tampa Conference. You have opened my eyes to see the world as a whole. A famous analyst just said and it is becoming a glaring issue that they are only domestically focused as you said blind to everything outside the United States. ________ said:

“We want long-term interest rates to go lower, but that’s only gonna happen if we can get inflation under control by reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s a tall order,” _______ said. “The Treasury Department’s attempts to get this under control I think have only made investors more nervous.”

My question is with Trump’s tariff war and his war against Iran and we have Bessent imposing sanctions on Iran while trying to support the bond market, your track record record and computer puts everyone to shame. I am not an international hedge fund manager as you were. But I can see that they are trying to defend a view on tariffs, sanctions, and bonds that are a losing ticket. Why doesn’t Bessent call you in?

EK

ANSWER: Besides the Neocons who try to keep me away from Trump and I believe are now intercepting my letters to him, then there is the old rumor that those who lost big on the Russia collapse and the failed regime change blackmailing Yeltsin and expecting the IMF would never allow Russia to collapse, are the ones who blamed me and told the CFTC we had to be shut down. I wrote to Bessent, but got no response. They say beware a woman scorned for she knows no limit to fury, that appears to apply to sore losers in high-stake finance. They never believe in my forecasting. They always claimed I had too much influence which was greater than all the influence that they could bribe for their guaranteed trades. When the forecast that Russia would collapse made the front page of the London Financial Times, that was the icing on the cake. It wasn’t that my computer was correct, it was I had too much influence and had to be taken down so they could manipulate markets without interference.

In August 1998, during Russia’s financial crisis (ruble devaluation and debt default), George Soros’s Quantum Fund / Soros Fund Management group lost approximately $2 billion in Russian markets. Contemporary reports (including The New York Times) attribute this to the fund under chief investment strategist Stanley Druckenmiller. The positions were described as mostly equities, with some exposure to Russian GKOs (short-term ruble Treasury bills) and dollar bonds. Druckenmiller publicly acknowledged the losses at the time.
Bessent’s role at Soros

Bessent joined Soros Fund Management in 1991 and worked there through roughly 2000 (first stint), including as head of the London office. He is well-documented as a key member of the team on the famous 1992 Black Wednesday trade that shorted the British pound and generated roughly $1 billion in profits for Soros. I was advising the British government then and warned them what the “club” was doing. So I believed in free markets, they believed in manipulating markets. Bessent later returned as Chief Investment Officer (2011–2015) and is credited with profitable trades such as shorting the Japanese yen.

The danger here is that after stepping in and doubling the purchases, the risk is that new lows will shatter the confidence in Bessent and the ability of the government to manipulate the bond market. As I have said before, in February 1987, there was the Louvre Accord where they said that the dollar had fallen enough. When it continued to make new lows, that was it. Confidence in the central banks collapsed and that led to the 1987 Crash. That is the risk we now have. Rates will rise thanks to geopolitical chaos and there will be no way to prevent long-term rates from rising. Germany is already blaming the US for their own warmongering that sends rates higher.

Bessent’s latest sanctions on Iran and going after any bank that has contact with Iran will fail. It just makes him look authoritative. Sanctions have NEVER worked even once the same as Marxist Communism/Socialism, which tries to eliminate the business cycle and create utopia void of any recession or depression. The US put sanctions on Cuba in 1960, they are still there. The sanctions on Russia did not end the Ukraine War against Russia.

Our computer has been projecting rising long-term rates since 2020. With the rising trend in geopolitical insanity with this need for war, there is no possible way that rates would decline long-term. This is far more that the Strait of Hormuz. The Madman Zelensky has attacked Russian energy to the point that they now must import refined products. Zelensky and Netanyahu belong in prison. Neither cares about the world and they only look at their own personal hatreds and to hell with the world.

We wrote in the 2020 Report:

“When we correlate the US 30-year bonds we see volatility rising in 2022 and building into 2030. Here the strongest turning point is 2023 and a Directional Change came here in 2021. Clearly, this does not look good for the future of the debt markets.” id/page 27

The opening line in 2020 WEC Bond Bubble Report had forecast that 2020 would be the low and from there on into 2032 we will be looking at a bond crisis – not a stock crisis.I find it humorous how people are claiming the stock market will crash the biggest in 150 years but remain clueless of the real crisis – debt.  The report began:

“he markets have always one major objective in mind – prove that the majority is wrong be it at the top or bottom of major turning points. Now that we are drawing near the conclusion of this Economic Confidence Model 8.6-year Wave #938, we are facing the mother of all debt crises from a 5,000-year low that will probably go down in the financial history books as to why governments should be prohibited from borrowing at any time in the future”

ID/page 8

Tariffs are a Marxist philosophy to protect jobs. This flies in the face of David Ricardo’s Comparative Advantage. You can grow lettuce in the desert probably at a cost of $10 when you can buy it from someone else for 50 cents. Tariffs are a tax, plain and simple. They result in making the consumer subsidize higher labor costs. This is why unions are just socialist organizations. They began about working conditions. After that, they became extortion operatations for excessive pay.

The shift of shipping from New York City to New Jersey and other ports wasn’t a single event, but a decades-long process driven by new technology and labor unions that thought they could make any demand. While the change began in the late 1950s and accelerated in the 1960s, the labor unions simply became abusive.

Major strikes, like the 1951 dock strike, prompted shippers to consider other ports like Boston and Philadelphia to avoid disruptions.

The introduction of container shipping favored large, open, modern facilities. The Port Authority invested heavily in Port Newark and the new Elizabeth, N.J., terminal, which opened in 1962.

Shippers like United States Lines moved operations to New Jersey for practical reasons, leading to tension with the ILA union over job losses in Manhattan.

A pivotal event was in 1968 when United States Lines decided to berth its new flagship container ship, the American Lancer, in Elizabeth, NJ, rather than at its Manhattan piers. This was due to the modern facilities required. The move sparked a union strike in protest.

The unions chased ships out of NYC, labor costs and issues became a major factor turning into a war between employees vs management. Frequent wildcat strikes and complex work rules demand by unions in the 1950s made NYC a less reliable and more expensive port for shippers.

Tariffs operate the same way. Making America Great Again does not mean bringing back overpriced labor. Also ignored in this equation are TAXES! The City of Detroit may have been the place where auto manufacturing began, but the stupidity of the Democrats and this presumption that they can always just rob the rich and business, resulted in chasing out every auto-manufacturer and the city then went into bankruptcy by 1937.

Putting tariffs on products does NOT make America great, it reduces the standard if living for Americans. It is not just the labor costs. I have worked on restructuring multinational companies in my career. I know why they move. Most is regulation and taxes. They do not move simply to pay someone $2 less and hour. The cost of moving is far greater than such a savings. This is not just about labor costs, it is also about taxes and regulation at the city, state, and national level.

A bank does not actually have everyone’s money sitting in a vault waiting to be returned. The entire system functions because everyone assumes they will not demand their money at the same time. Once that confidence begins to crack, the numbers on a balance sheet become secondary because people want CASH.

That is what we must now watch in Russia. Russians have been pulling billions out of the banking system, with demand for physical cash accelerating dramatically this summer. According to Russian Central Bank data cited in the press, nearly $3.4 billion was withdrawn during just the first two weeks of August after approximately $7.3 billion in July and more than $4.5 billion in June. The Central Bank itself reported that cash in circulation increased by roughly 700 billion rubles during July, compared with about 500 billion in June.

This does not mean the Russian banking system is collapsing tomorrow. Nevertheless, something much more important is taking place beneath the surface. Russians are becoming nervous about leaving their money inside the financial system. Rumors have circulated that the government could eventually freeze or commandeer private deposits to help finance the war, and once people begin questioning whether they will retain unrestricted access to their own savings, government assurances become increasingly meaningless. Fear of possible seizure has become one factor driving the movement into cash, alongside drone attacks, economic uncertainty, and disruptions to electronic payments.

This is always the danger with capital controls. Russia has already demonstrated that it will restrict access to money when the state believes national interests require it. Foreign-currency withdrawals remain restricted, and accounts belonging to various foreigners from so-called “unfriendly” nations have faced controls since the war began. Putin recently relaxed some restrictions affecting foreign depositors.

People forget that money is ultimately a question of confidence in government. You can raise interest rates to 20%, offer attractive deposits, and tell everyone that the banking system is perfectly safe, but none of that matters if people begin fearing that the state itself may change the rules. The greatest threat to a banking system is not necessarily bad loans. It is the realization among depositors that their money exists inside a political system whose rules can change overnight.

Russia is also confronting a growing liquidity problem inside its banking sector. The structural liquidity deficit reportedly exceeded 2.7 trillion rubles by August 13, the highest level since the crisis surrounding the invasion in March 2022. The Russian Central Bank argues that this particular measure should not be confused with the availability of deposits or credit and says the deficit remains manageable. That distinction is valid, but the fact that liquidity conditions are attracting attention at precisely the same moment people are increasing their demand for cash should not simply be dismissed.

The war is becoming increasingly expensive, and this is where the economic pressure begins to matter politically. Defense spending has absorbed enormous resources while high interest rates have squeezed the civilian economy. Russian businesses have also reportedly made hundreds of billions of rubles in so-called voluntary contributions to the federal budget. Whenever governments use the word “voluntary” when asking businesses for money during a war, everyone understands what that really means.

Whenever government becomes desperate for revenue. They begin with taxes. Then come special assessments, forced loans, restrictions on capital, controls over foreign exchange, and eventually increasingly creative definitions of what property actually belongs to the individual. Governments rarely wake up one morning and announce that private wealth no longer exists. They change the rules one piece at a time because the fiscal demands of the state continually expand.

This is why the rumors concerning Russian deposits are potentially more damaging than the actual withdrawals themselves. There does not have to be an official plan to confiscate deposits for the rumor to affect behavior. If enough people believe there is even a possibility that their savings could become trapped, converting a portion into cash becomes perfectly rational. Then your neighbor sees you withdrawing money and begins wondering what you know that he does not.

The Russians have been through this before. They remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, the destruction of savings through inflation, the 1998 financial crisis, repeated currency devaluations, and the banking panic surrounding the invasion in 2022. Western analysts often look at Russia through spreadsheets and completely ignore that historical memory. Russians understand from experience that governments and currencies can change far faster than politicians promise.

There is also a geopolitical consequence that the Europeans should think very carefully about. Europe froze hundreds of billions in Russian sovereign assets and openly debated using those assets to finance Ukraine. Whatever moral justification Brussels offers, every government in the world watched what happened. Russia responded with its own restrictions and seizures involving Western assets. The result is that both sides have demonstrated that property rights can become conditional when geopolitical conflict becomes severe.

Capital will always seek safety, and safety does not simply mean the highest interest rate. It means confidence that you can retrieve your money when you want it. This is precisely why capital controls always backfire over the long term. The moment government tells people they cannot move their money, it teaches everyone else to move theirs before the same restriction reaches them.

We should therefore watch Russia carefully through September. This is not merely about whether a few hundred billion rubles leave bank accounts. Russia is heading toward its September elections while the economic burden of the war is becoming increasingly visible domestically. The real question is whether these withdrawals stabilize once the immediate demand for cash subsides or whether Russians continue pulling money from the banking system because confidence itself has changed.

The government claims unemployment stands at 4.1%, yet a new analysis cited by CBS News found that 24.9% of American workers were functionally unemployed in July. Functional unemployment includes those who cannot find employment, people forced into part-time work because full-time jobs are unavailable, and workers earning less than $26,000 annually before taxes. Washington can call these people employed, but try paying rent, food, insurance, utilities, transportation, and medical expenses on barely $2,000 per month before the government takes its share.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is not measuring whether people are prospering or even surviving. If you worked as little as one hour during the survey period, you can be classified as “employed.” If you have searched for months, become discouraged, and finally stop looking, the government simply removes you from the labor force. You did not find a job and your circumstances did not improve, but you cease to exist statistically. Politicians then point to the lower unemployment rate and claim their policies are working.

Functional unemployment has now risen for four consecutive months while workforce participation has moved lower. Employers reportedly eliminated 23,000 jobs in July, consumer prices rose 3.4% year over year, and wages increased only 3.2%. Therefore, the average worker lost purchasing power even after receiving a nominal raise. This is why people become angry when politicians lecture them about a strong economy. The statistics say they are employed, inflation is under control, and everything is wonderful, yet the paycheck no longer covers the monthly bills.

This is how the political establishment disguises economic decline. Inflation statistics do not reflect the actual cost of maintaining a household, GDP rises when government borrows and spends money it does not have, and unemployment declines when people surrender and stop searching for work. Every major statistic has been constructed to make government appear competent while the standard of living steadily deteriorates. They measure whether money changed hands, not whether society became wealthier.

Americans have been forced to replace income with debt. They have depleted savings, increased credit-card balances, postponed major purchases, and begun cutting necessities because discretionary spending was already eliminated. Consumer spending may represent roughly two-thirds of the economy, but consumers cannot continue spending indefinitely when prices rise faster than wages and employment becomes increasingly unstable. Credit can postpone the reckoning, but it cannot replace real economic growth.

Functional unemployment explains why Washington can proclaim prosperity while millions of Americans feel trapped in a personal recession. The economy has produced millions of positions that satisfy the government’s definition of employment but cannot provide an independent life. The political class counts the number of people receiving paychecks while refusing to ask what those paychecks can actually buy. That is poverty disguised by statistics.

COMMENT #1: Masterpiece! Many thanks Marty! Crystal clear!
RK

COMMENT #2: Marty, you must have spent your entire Sunday putting that together—and it shows. You’ve once again demonstrated exactly why your firm has offices worldwide and the largest institutional following in the business.

As for those so-called experts who brag about “calling” the 2007 crash? Please. All they did was predict a collapse would happen someday, then patted themselves on the back when it finally did. It’s almost comical.

I was on the floor in 2007. I remember when your model called the exact day—and everyone was calling it “Armstrong’s Revenge.” The reason they ignore you now? Because you make the rest of them look amateurish.

Thank you so much. That was beyond amazing.

MI

REPLY: Thank you. The real funny thing they will put in the movies, was they had me on contempt claiming $1 billion is missing from a bank when it is impossible to get that kind of money out of a bank without a wire and then you would know where it went. Not a single member of the press ever noticed that absurdity. I told Alan Cohen, the receiver and his lawyer Tanc Shiavonni,  to their face the bank stole the money. Cohen said, we believe the bank. It became clear they were trying to shut down our forecasting because the banks and hedge funds were trying to bribe their way to guaranteed trades. They invited me to the dinner they put on for the IMF to show me that they had the IMF in their back-pocket. They rented the entire Nationsl Gallery in Washington and everyone was there. I told them Russia would default and I did not care who their bribed.

To do that movie on me The Forecaster, they need insurance against possible false statements. Lloyds of London insured the film, but they had to review all the documents to prove that the whole thing was a sham. Clients came forward and offered to rent our company to keep the forecasting going. They refused and wanted the source code. Larry Edelson made that clear. That was even in writing .

People ask me why didn’t I just hand over the source code.  These people lie. If you think they would release me just turning over the source code, then they will simply kill you and call it a suicide. Philadelphia mobster Louis Turra died supposedly by suicide at the MCC.  If you have a high profile case that would expose the government, they are the ones that end in suicide like Epstein. Do you think he would get a trial calling Bill Clinton to the stand? This is why all you hear about is justice for the girls, not that they were paid in a blackmail scheme. The number of people who supposedly commit suicide in NYC are never honestly investigated.

If I gave them the source code they would have suicided me without question. This was a stand-off. There was no way. I couldn’t give in and survive. Besides that, I was not about to hand them the source code and they then share that with the bankers.

In my case, I got into the Supreme Court and they ordered the government to explain. They tried to kill me, but I survived, and then released me from contempt and told the Supreme Court I was no longer in contempt so the case was moot.

Many assume that near-death experiences completely alter a person’s views regardless of how devout they may have been. I can say after the attempt on my life that I survived, to their dismay, when I awoke from a coma days later; it did change me, but not in the way people assume. In my case, it took the fear of death from me rather than making me more afraid of death. But it also strengthened me as I knew my purpose was to stand up and fight.

There has been a recent review of the research into near-death experiences. The most common result seems to be a loss of fear of death, a reinvigorated sense of purpose, and increased compassion for others. Where I had restricted our services mainly to institutional pre-1999, it did make me realize that to create world change for the better; I had to share what I had learned and try to demonstrate to the world that there is a better way if we live with the cycle instead of trying to manipulate it for political gain.

During the 2007 Crash, I was in contact with the House Financial Services Committee. I believe the banks/hedge funds had me thrown in the hole to cut off my communications with Congress because I was the only one they could turn to since I had the same level of experience and knew the game. Congress sent a letter demanding who and why I was thrown in the hole and they freaked out and took me out in the blink of an eye.

The movie people filed a FOIA to get records of all the banks and hedge funds that went to them to have us shut down. They replied that they didn’t have any records on me anymore.

My Battle Against the Market Manipulators Has never ended

I wrote when Epstein was thrown in the hole, the only question was would he commit suicide before or after a plea. Jeffrey Epstein was in league with Robert Maxwell. The two men were deeply connected. Robert Maxwell, a British media tycoon, was the father of Ghislaine Maxwell, who became Epstein’s close associate and is accused of recruiting girls for him.

Why would your girlfriend solicit girls to have sex with your boyfriend? Believe that one and aliens constructed the Pyramids. The connection goes beyond family ties. Robert Maxwell, was working in Israeli intelligence, and recruited Epstein himself. The whole girl thing was to blackmail “clients” for they were all people who had some political advantage. Epstein was connected to powerful figures solely for a honey trap.

Maxwell was part of the manipulation club. According to Epstein, he was killed for blackmailing Israel to cover his losses. Maxwell funded the coup against Gorbachev led by Valdimir Kryuchlov. The deal was that all the Jews in the old USSR would be free to migrate to Israel. There was no way they could let Epstein go to trial. This is why they cannot peruse any client because then the entire sham would be exposed and what they did in this blackmail scheme.

The coup failed, Yeltsin stood on the tank and the army stood down. Then the Neocons tried to blackmail Yeltsin. They wanted me to put in $10 billion promising I would get back $100 billion after they installed Berezovsky as the new president and all commodities would then trade through the NY dealing desks. I refused, Yeltsin turned to Putin and his last words were. “Protect mother Russia.” Yeltsin was besieged by the Neocons blackmailing and over the Bank of New York wire, and the Communists were filing impeachment motions to seize control of Russia.

This why the Neocons hate Putin so much because he stopped their takeover of Russia. The company they wanted me to fund was Hermitage Capital Management. That is the company formed by Edmond Safra and Bill Browder. That is the company that Putin seized. This is why Putin wanted to question Bill Browder and why Bill Browder runs around and claims Putin in the richest man in the world and all the other propaganda aside from being anti-Trump because he won’t invade Russia.

We are all connected. You have to see the world as a whole. Trying to forecast anything in isolation is a recipe for disaster.