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.

Student loan defaults have surged to 9.2 million borrowers, representing roughly one in every five people with student debt. What is astonishing is the speed of the deterioration. There were approximately 6 million borrowers in default last August. That figure jumped to 7.7 million by December. By April it had reached 9.2 million. Another 3 million borrowers are reportedly at least 90 days delinquent and appear headed in the same direction.

The government suspended reality for years through payment pauses, forbearance programs, and emergency measures that temporarily masked the problem. Now collections have resumed. Wage garnishment is returning and borrowers are once again being confronted with debts that never disappeared. Politicians celebrated the pause as though the crisis had been solved. All they really did was postpone the reckoning.

What nobody wants to admit is that the student loan system became fundamentally broken the moment the federal government guaranteed virtually unlimited lending. Once colleges realized that students could borrow almost any amount with government backing, tuition exploded. Universities had no incentive to control costs. They built lavish facilities, expanded administrations, hired armies of bureaucrats, and continuously raised tuition. Students were told that any debt was acceptable because a degree would guarantee future prosperity. The numbers tell a different story.

Tuition costs have risen by hundreds of percentage points over the past several decades, vastly outpacing inflation and wage growth. Yet many graduates entered labor markets where earnings never remotely matched the debt burden they accumulated. Entire generations were encouraged to believe that college was the only path to success. Many emerged with degrees carrying little market value but very real financial obligations.

Borrowers are returning to repayment obligations while facing some of the highest living costs in decades. Housing costs remain elevated. Insurance premiums continue rising. Food prices have increased substantially. Many young Americans are already delaying homeownership, marriage, and family formation. Now millions face renewed collection efforts and potential wage garnishment on top of those challenges. The economic pressure is becoming overwhelming.

The roots of this disaster go back decades to the Clinton Administration. In 1998, Congress made federally guaranteed student loans virtually impossible to discharge in bankruptcy, and in 2005 that protection was extended to most private student loans as well except under the nearly impossible “undue hardship” standard. At the same time, Washington dismantled the old restraints that once separated commercial banking from investment banking by repealing Glass-Steagall through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed by Bill Clinton in 1999. Wall Street suddenly had access to an endless stream of federally protected student debt that could be packaged, securitized, and sold to investors while taxpayers ultimately carried much of the risk. This was no longer simply about helping students attend college. Education had become another financial product. Banks could lend aggressively because the debt was uniquely protected, universities could raise tuition knowing the money would always be available, and students were left holding obligations they could rarely escape even through bankruptcy. Washington socialized the risk while privatizing the profits, creating precisely the type of moral hazard that has repeatedly produced financial crises throughout history.

From a broader perspective, this is another symptom of the debt-based model that has infected virtually every aspect of society. Governments encouraged borrowing to finance education, homes, consumption, and economic growth. Debt became the solution to every problem. Eventually the bills come due. Student loans are particularly dangerous because they directly impact younger generations who are supposed to form households, buy homes, start businesses, and drive future economic growth. Instead, many are trapped servicing debts accumulated years earlier.

This is why I continue to stress that confidence is the real issue. The student loan crisis is not merely about missed payments. It reflects a growing realization that many of the promises made to younger generations were never realistic. They were told education guaranteed prosperity. They were told debt was an investment. They were told the economy would provide opportunities sufficient to justify the cost. Millions are now discovering otherwise. That loss of confidence has consequences far beyond student loans. It affects housing, family formation, consumer spending, and ultimately the broader economy itself.

Governments never seize freedom all at once. They chip away at it piece by piece, each new program marketed as a way to save taxpayers money or improve efficiency. The latest example comes from Cape Coral, Florida, where city officials are considering equipping sanitation trucks with AI-powered cameras to scan neighborhoods for potential code violations as they make their normal garbage collection routes. Officials insist the technology is simply another tool that could reduce costs and help the city’s 31 code enforcement officers identify violations more efficiently. That is always how surveillance begins, with promises of convenience rather than control.

The city manager argued that artificial intelligence could perform the same work as additional code officers while saving taxpayer dollars. Residents, however, immediately raised the questions governments rarely answer. Who controls the data? How long is it stored? Who has access to it? Could it later be used for purposes never originally disclosed? Those are legitimate concerns because history demonstrates that once governments collect information, they rarely surrender the ability to collect even more. Every database eventually finds a new purpose.

I have warned repeatedly that society is drifting toward a surveillance state where governments monitor virtually every aspect of daily life. License plate readers were introduced to catch criminals. Smart utility meters were sold as a way to improve energy efficiency. CCTV cameras appeared for public safety. Smartphones track our movements, financial transactions leave permanent digital records, and now artificial intelligence is being proposed to examine residential neighborhoods automatically. Every individual system may appear harmless in isolation. Combined together, they create a government that knows where you travel, what you purchase, where you live, and now potentially the condition of your property every single week.

This is the same progression we have watched unfold across the world. Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to helping businesses improve productivity. Governments increasingly see it as a force multiplier that allows fewer employees to monitor far more citizens. Bureaucracies always seek greater efficiency, but efficiency without limits inevitably comes at the expense of liberty. Once an AI system is installed on every sanitation truck, what prevents the next software update from identifying unregistered vehicles, unauthorized construction, political signs, or anything else officials decide they want to monitor? Every man, woman, and child will be tracked in real-time, as governments eagerly watch for a misstep.

The greatest danger is not the camera itself. It is the normalization of constant observation. Children growing up under these systems will eventually believe it is perfectly ordinary for government cameras to document neighborhoods every day. Future generations may never question whether privacy was once considered a fundamental right rather than an obstacle to administrative efficiency. Governments rarely surrender powers voluntarily. Every emergency, every budget crisis, and every technological advancement becomes another justification for expanding their reach.

This proposal may save Cape Coral some money in the short term. That is not the question citizens should be asking. The real question is what kind of society we are building. Throughout history, governments have consistently expanded surveillance first and established meaningful safeguards later, if ever. Technology itself is neither good nor evil. The danger lies in believing that governments, once given new powers to observe their citizens, will somehow choose not to use them. History says otherwise.

Dick Cheney repeatedly emphasized an association between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda. For instance, he framed the success in Iraq as a blow to the “geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9-11.” He deliberately pushed the fake news of Weapons of Mass Destruction  (WMD) soon after taking the position of Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001. He made that famous speech to start the war on August 26, 2002 at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) National Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Well Russia, China, Israel, France, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have nukes. Why not invade them as well?

He cited unsubstantiated evidence to support this Neocon agenda. Cheney referenced an alleged meeting in Prague between lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer, calling it “pretty well confirmed.” This claim was later discredited by the CIA and the 9/11 Commission, which found no evidence of collaboration between Saddam and al-Qaeda on attacks against the USA.

It was Cheny who used 9/11 to create a misleading impression for the justification of invading Iraq. Netanyahu was part of that agenda testifying before Congress that Iraq had a nuclear program with weapons of mass destruction. When asked about a poll showing nearly 70% of Americans believed Saddam was personally involved in 9/11, Cheney said, “It’s not surprising that people make that connection.” Cheney ruthlessly employed his rhetoric, combined with administration claims about al-Qaeda ties, to imply a connection to justify the war. This was the very agenda I was told about to secure the safety for Israel.

Worse still, in February 2001, early in George W. Bush’s presidency, Secretary Colin Powell said in Cairo that Iraq had not developed “any significant capacity” in WMD and was unable to threaten its neighbors. This shows the administration’s public position evolved significantly after the 9/11 attacks. Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, developed a history of intense friction and disagreement between the two over the Iraq War. Cheney deliberately exploited Powell as someone whose credibility he used to sell a case to the UN to justify Cheney’s war to conquer the Middle East, and who later expressed deep regret over his role in that presentation.

Public statements made by Dick Cheney prior to the 2003 Iraq War indicate he asserted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration later was forced to acknowledge those assessments were incorrect.

They are lying about the Ukraine War. They keep claiming Ukraine is winning and about to destroy Russia. Ukrainian official have eben come out and claimed that Moscow will fall. If Russia is on the edge and is about to collapse, they willo push the button. Every military source I have ever spoke to said that they would push the button if the USA was about to fall. They can be as corrupt as ever and look to line the pockets of their entire family, but have lost sight of what they are cheering for.

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, thank you very much for that global overview of the energy market on your private blog. You’ve connected the dots in a way no one else seems to, just as you mentioned at your Tampa conference. I also appreciated your distinction between Eastern and Western Canada, could you elaborate on that a bit further?

And thank you again. My children’s eyes were truly opened by your insights.

FG

ANSWER: A refinery isn’t a one-size-fits-all machine. It is a complex industrial facility designed to process a specific type of crude oil efficiently. Hence, many refineries in Eastern Canada are configured to run on the lighter, sweeter crude oil typically imported from places like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, rather than the heavier oil from Alberta’s oil sands or Texas. Therefore, refineries are designed for different grades of crude oil.

This introduces another dimension to the energy crisis. Also become of regulations in some provinces, pipelines have been blocked. Pipelines primarily move oil from Alberta to the U.S. and to British Columbia. There is no direct pipeline connection from Alberta to the Atlantic coast. Without this pipeline access, Eastern refineries rely on tankers for their crude supply. It has been simply more economical for them to import light crude from the Middle East that construct pipelines. Thus, Irving Oil’s large refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, imports virtually all of its crude by tanker.

This energy crisis has another dimension whereas you simply cannot substitute crude oil that is heavy when the refinery can only handle light crude.

PRIVATE BLOG – Crude into 2028: Crisis or Hype?

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The H-1B visa program was sold to the American people as a narrow pathway for importing rare talent that supposedly could not be found in the United States. We were told these were the “best and brightest,” possessing exceptional skills needed to keep America competitive. That sales pitch has collapsed under the weight of fraud, corporate abuse, and government negligence.

Indian investigators seized nearly 100,000 counterfeit degree certificates and forged academic records linked to at least 28 universities. One institution allegedly issued more than 36,000 fraudulent degrees. Authorities are investigating whether some credentials were used to obtain jobs in medicine, nursing, engineering, and technology, including employment supported by H-1B visa applications.

The fraudulent packages allegedly included counterfeit university seals, fabricated transcripts, and forged certificates. Some degrees reportedly sold for as little as $1,400. The United States created a visa system that places enormous weight on educational credentials while often relying on foreign institutions and overwhelmed bureaucrats to authenticate those documents. Criminal organizations naturally recognized the weakness and industrialized the fraud.

Former U.S. Foreign Service officer Mahvash Siddiqui, an Indian-American who worked at the American consulate in Chennai between 2005 and 2007, described an extensive network of fraudulent documents and visa consultants. She estimated that 80% to 90% of the applicants she encountered across certain nonimmigrant visa categories were using the pipeline to enter the United States, obtain employment, and remain.

It is Siddiqui’s assessment based on the cases she personally encountered roughly two decades ago. It is not a current USCIS finding that 90% of all H-1B petitions are fraudulent. There is more than enough documented abuse to condemn the program without converting an eyewitness estimate into an official nationwide fraud rate.

The government’s own older compliance work was already disturbing. A 2008 USCIS assessment found fraud or technical violations in approximately 21% of the H-1B cases it examined. Among petitions involving workers with bachelor’s degrees, the violation rate was 31%. Computer-related occupations, which represented 42% of the sample, had a violation rate of 27%. That was not 90%, but one questionable case in five should have triggered an immediate overhaul.

The Department of Labor reportedly processed 6.9 million H-1B-related labor filings between 2015 and 2025. Around 70% involved workers from India and approximately 12% involved workers from China. A labor condition application is not the same as an approved visa, since one filing can cover multiple positions and not every certified position results in employment. Nevertheless, the volume reveals the scale of the pipeline corporations have constructed.

Indian nationals have accounted for more than 70% of approved H-1B beneficiaries consistently since 2019, up from around half during the early 2000s. There is nothing inherently wrong with hiring a qualified Indian engineer, physician, or scientist. The issue is whether employers are recruiting genuinely scarce specialists or using a government-created visa category to obtain workers who possess less bargaining power than Americans.

The statutory H-1B cap is 65,000 new visas annually, with another 20,000 positions reserved for applicants holding advanced American degrees. Universities and certain nonprofit research organizations are exempt from the cap. Renewals, extensions, and changes of employer also cause total annual approvals to greatly exceed the 85,000 headline limit. More than 400,000 petitions were reportedly approved in 2025 when continuing employment and other non-cap cases were included.

USCIS reported that 58% of approved H-1B beneficiaries in fiscal 2025 possessed a master’s degree as their highest qualification. The median compensation for approved beneficiaries was $120,000 in fiscal 2024. Defenders present these figures as proof that the system primarily admits elite workers.

Those aggregate numbers conceal how the program operates. An employee does not need to be a world-class innovator to qualify. The position generally needs to be classified as a “specialty occupation” requiring at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. That definition includes thousands of ordinary corporate positions that Americans already perform.

The relevant question is not whether $120,000 sounds like a respectable salary. The question is whether an American with the same education, experience, and location would command more, and whether the foreign worker’s immigration status gives the employer leverage to suppress wages.

The Department of Labor admitted in March 2026 that existing prevailing-wage levels had “for too long” been set dramatically below the market rates received by many American workers, particularly recent graduates seeking entry-level STEM employment. The department proposed revising its wage methodology because the system had been distorted by employers using foreign labor to replace American workers at lower cost.

That is an extraordinary admission. The federal agency responsible for protecting wages acknowledged that the government’s own benchmarks enabled corporations to undercut Americans.

Employers are legally required to pay an H-1B worker the higher of the applicable prevailing wage or the actual wage paid to similarly qualified employees. Yet employers may select among several wage sources, rely on occupational classifications that do not accurately reflect the job, and assign positions to lower experience levels. A rule written to prevent wage suppression became a compliance exercise managed by lawyers and human-resources departments.

The program also ties the employee’s legal status to the sponsoring employer. This creates an imbalance that does not exist with an American worker. The visa holder may technically change employers, but the process carries legal, financial, and immigration risks. That worker is less likely to demand a raise, organize coworkers, report abusive conditions, or walk away from an unreasonable manager. Corporations are not merely importing labor. They are importing dependence.

The young American graduate cannot compete with that arrangement. He emerges from college carrying debt and is told that entry-level experience is required for an entry-level job. The company simultaneously claims it cannot locate qualified Americans and petitions the government for a worker whose ability to remain in the country depends upon keeping the sponsoring employer satisfied.

Representative Riley Moore cited an analysis of 2022 Census data finding that more than 11 million working-age Americans with STEM degrees were not employed in STEM occupations. Not all of those individuals are available, appropriately trained, or willing to relocate, but 11 million is incompatible with the blanket claim that America has exhausted its domestic supply of technical talent.

Corporations do not want to acknowledge a labor shortage of their own making. They want experienced workers at entry-level prices. They refuse to train American graduates, eliminate jobs during mass layoffs, and then insist that foreign recruitment is necessary because no suitable applicants exist.

This is especially offensive when a company dismisses thousands of American employees while simultaneously pursuing additional H-1B workers. If an employer is conducting mass layoffs in the same occupational categories, it should not be permitted to claim an immediate shortage of domestic labor without undergoing a serious investigation.

H-1B defenders always point to the genuine scientist, surgeon, or engineer performing advanced work. Those people exist, and America should welcome exceptional talent. But exceptional talent does not require a lottery dominated by outsourcing firms, ordinary corporate positions, questionable wage classifications, and document mills selling counterfeit degrees.

A legitimate high-skill program would prioritize compensation, experience, patents, advanced research, independently verified qualifications, and demonstrable scarcity. It would not select applicants randomly after allowing employers to define their own need. A wage-ranked system would immediately expose whether companies truly require rare talent or merely want cheaper labor.

Every academic credential submitted from abroad should be verified directly with the issuing institution and cross-checked against accredited databases. Employers using fraudulent applications should lose access to the program, face substantial financial penalties, and be required to compensate displaced workers. Visa brokers and staffing companies caught submitting forged records should face criminal prosecution rather than another administrative settlement.

Congress should prohibit companies conducting large domestic layoffs from obtaining new H-1B workers for comparable positions during a defined cooling-off period. Employers should also be required to disclose the number of Americans displaced, the wage offered to the foreign worker, the prevailing-wage source used, and the precise reason no American could perform the job.

The visa should be portable enough that the worker is not effectively bound to one corporation. That would prevent employers from using immigration dependency as a weapon while forcing them to compete honestly on wages and conditions.

This is not an attack on Indians or any other nationality. Foreign workers did not write the legislation, establish the wage levels, or order American corporations to eliminate domestic jobs. The responsibility belongs to politicians who created the loopholes, agencies that failed to verify applications, universities that produced questionable credentials, brokers who monetized fraud, and corporations that learned how to manipulate the system.

Legal immigration becomes indefensible when legality is treated as nothing more than a stamped form. If the supporting degree is fraudulent, the labor shortage is fabricated, or the prevailing wage is deliberately understated, the process is not legitimate simply because a bureaucracy approved it.

America does not need to close itself to exceptional talent. It needs to stop confusing exceptional talent with cheap, controllable labor. The H-1B program was supposed to fill genuine gaps in the American workforce. It has instead become a mechanism that too often allows corporations to avoid investing in Americans while the government provides the replacement worker and calls it innovation.

New Jersey has become one of the first states to draw a line against what may be one of the most disturbing developments in modern retail. Governor Mikie Sherrill signed the Fair Price Protection Act, banning grocery stores from using a shopper’s personal information to determine how much that individual should pay for the exact same product. The law also places a one-year freeze on installing new electronic shelf labels while the state studies whether the technology can facilitate individualized pricing. Retailers that violate the law can face lawsuits, refunds, permit suspensions, and fines reaching $20,000 for repeat violations.

Government is acknowledging that the technology exists to charge two people standing side by side different prices for the same loaf of bread simply because an algorithm has determined one of them is willing or forced to pay more. That is data exploitation masquerading as innovation.

The legislation targets what has become known as “surveillance pricing.” Companies collect information from loyalty programs, online searches, purchase histories, location data, and in some cases even biometric or genetic information, allowing artificial intelligence to estimate the highest price each consumer is likely to tolerate. The objective is no longer to determine what a product is worth. It is to determine what you are worth.

This is precisely why I have warned that data has become the most valuable commodity in the world. Everyone is obsessed with artificial intelligence replacing workers. That was never the real issue. The real prize has always been the collection of information. Once corporations and governments know where you go, what you buy, what you search for, who you associate with, and how much money you make, pricing becomes individualized. Insurance becomes individualized. Credit becomes individualized. Taxes eventually become individualized. We are constructing an economy where every citizen receives a different reality based on an algorithm.

Notice how quickly digital shelf labels entered this discussion. Retailers insist they merely make price updates more efficient. That may be true today. But efficiency is not why legislators paused their expansion. They recognize that once every price tag becomes a networked computer, nothing prevents prices from changing every minute or second based upon demand, inventory, weather, neighborhood demographics, or even the profile of the person standing in front of the shelf. The infrastructure comes first. The software always follows.

What New Jersey has effectively admitted is something many dismissed as a conspiracy only a few years ago: technology has advanced to the point where companies can quietly charge different customers different prices without anyone realizing it. If lawmakers believed this capability did not exist, there would have been no reason to prohibit it.

This debate extends far beyond grocery stores. We already see artificial intelligence determining insurance premiums, mortgage approvals, hiring decisions, credit scores, and even apartment rents. Every new data point collected about your life becomes another variable that can be monetized. The distinction between marketing and surveillance has largely disappeared.

The larger concern is that once consumers become accustomed to individualized pricing, the same philosophy inevitably migrates elsewhere. Governments are racing toward digital identities, central bank digital currencies, biometric verification, and AI-driven public services.

People keep asking where all of this ends. It ends when prices are no longer determined by supply and demand but by who you are. The computer already knows where you shop, what you earn, what medications you take, how often you travel, and increasingly what you believe. Add digital currencies, biometric identification, and artificial intelligence together, and you no longer have a free market. You have a surveillance economy where every citizen lives under a different set of rules determined by an algorithm. That is a future no free society should ever accept.

COMMENT: You are just anti Israel.

G

REPLY: No, anti-Netanyahu. He has been preaching the same shit for more than 30 years. The polls in Israel show 61% do not support Netanyahu. As I have said, he went to school in Philadelphia and hung out with the Kristols. It was Irving Kristol who started the whole Neocon movement. His son, Bill Kristol, even spoke at one of our WECs back in the ’90s. I have had in-depth conversations concerning this movement and its real objectives. My view was not shaped by prejudice or conspiracy theory. It was shaped by direct conversations.