COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, I have to commend you. You are the only true analyst who has genuine sources. You have maintained that Putin has wanted peace, not to take all of Ukraine. A close friend of mine in the German government admitted that you have some of the best sources because you speak to all sides. He said that Trump got Putin to agree to NATO-like guarantees for Ukraine without joining NATO. They said precisely the opposite, and he confirmed that it has been the narrative from NATO. He said you are correct. My friend said you are highly respected and you have routinely refused to take any formal position in any government since the days of Ronald Reagan.
Thank you for being so genuine.
Alex
REPLY: Let me explain something. Academics in economics try to use formulas and are myopic in their perspective. They rely entirely on linear analysis and NEVER understand the implications of how we are all connected. For climate change, they used COVID to lock down the world, and every government was calling it a “lockdown,” which is exclusively an American prison term. That demonstrated that the entire COVID scam had a central point where everyone was quoting the exact phrase, no matter what country.
Then the Neocons wanted sanctions imposed on Russia under the same theory they always deploy, thinking that if they cut off the revenue of Russia, the country will collapse. NEVER do they realize that since we are all connected, they would undermine the German economy and ensure that Europe itself may collapse before Russia ever will. They even blew up NordStream and tried to blame that on Putin, which he could have just turned off the valve.
Bloomberg questioned Larry Summers, who wrote in the Washington Post on December 6th, 2015, admitting that economists cannot forecast the next recession.
“While the risk of recession may seem remote given recent growth, it bears emphasizing that since World War II, no postwar recession has been predicted a year in advance by the Fed, the White House or the consensus forecast.”
Roger Babson was not the only analyst to predict the 1929 stock market crash correctly regarding timing. He was the most famous and vocal of them all, while others were predicting a crash starting in 1926 to 1927 and lacked the timing. Famously warned of an “economic hurricane” in September 1929, stating “sooner or later, a crash is coming” at a business conference.
Roger Babson delivered his famous warning about an impending stock market crash on September 5, 1929, at the Annual National Business Conference in Babson Park, Massachusetts. The all-time high was September 3rd, 1929.
Roger Babson’s 1943 Revised Edition of “Looking Ahead: Fifty Years’ Work” (Harper & Brothers, New York) updated his earlier 1939 predictions to account for World War II. His key forecasts even predicted that the war would end by 1946 when it was still 1943. He also forecast a massive post-war economic boom fueled by pent-up demand, technological advancements from the war, and reconstruction. As a trader, he understood the boom bust cycle that economists try to eliminate. He warned there would be a boom that would lead to over-speculation and a significant bust (“panic” or depression) between 1950-1955, driven by excessive debt and inflation. He said that would then be followed by another period of strong growth.
From the Long-Term perspective, he argued that despite predicting cyclical downturns, he remained fundamentally optimistic about the long-term future (1943-1993). Babson laid out what he saw as unprecedented technological progress and efficiency across industries (manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, and communication). He also forecast a dramatic increase in productivity and standards of living.
By far, the most famous forecaster was the Economist Irving Fisher, who forecast with linear analysis that the market had reached an entirely new plateau as if it would NEVER go back down. This is why the economic forecasts have always been wrong because they have ZERO trading experience and do not understand society or market behavior.
Babson was a trader, like me. There is something about trading that is hard to explain. Nobody taught me how to trade, I somehow had a natural inherent instinct for trading. I could look at a chart and know where it would go next. Because I understood that instinctive trait, I could see the reasoning behind people like Babson and Jesse Livermore’s trading decisions.
Most people know I used to race cars in my younger days. Because I got divorced and kept my kids, my mother insisted it was not a good profession to pursue. So I quit to raise my kids. When I went to watch the new F1 Movie, I could see the crash coming and was white-knuckling the chair. If something is in your blood, you can’t get it out. I have a friend who offered to let me drive their F1 just for fun. Those days are gone. Friends laughed at me because I have a bunch of sports cars. I reply, I’m not married. If I were married, there would have to be 12.
The point is, trading is instinctive like racing. You have to pay attention to every car around you. If someone just slightly leans to the left an inch or two, that reveals what he is thinking. I see the same connection in trading where you MUST pay attention to all markets and economies around. You cannot forecast silver, never looking at any other market.
The ONLY academic I ever met who impressed me was Milton Friedman (1912-2006). I was speaking at a trading conference in Chicago. I can’t recall if it was Market Technicians or COPUTRAC. Milton came to listen to me. When I was finished, he walked up and said it was the best speech he had ever heard and that I was doing what he had just dreamed about. I was a trader – not an economist. Because of that meeting, Milton transformed me into a Reluctant Economist. Milton envisioned a floating exchange rate system in 1953. He saw how a floating exchange rate would impose restraints on the government. He was 30 years ahead of his time—no other academic thought out of the box like Milton.
When I was shocked when Milton explained that what I was doing was important in economics, Milton pointed out that Keynes did not have a degree in economics. Neither did Adam Smith, David Ricardo, nor every other famous name of the 19th century, since it was just a sideline as part of moral philosophy. Keynes was a mathematician. I believe that was where the economy took a drastic turn. It became all about math formulas detached from understanding cycles or how things worked. Milton was not looking at a raw math formula. He needed to understand what was behind the numbers. It was John Law (1671-1729), who was a trader on the floor of the Amsterdam bourse and laid out the fundamental law of supply and demand by sheer observation.
The John Law’s Paradox of Value, which I maintained, was later plagiarized and popularized by Adam Smith as the diamond-water paradox. It took a trade to observe this. The paradox became: Why do essential goods like water have low market value, while non-essential luxuries like diamonds command high prices?
John Law first articulated this in his 1705 work Money and Trade Considered, noting:
“Water is of great use, yet of little value; because the quantity of water is much greater than the demand for it. Diamonds are of little use, yet of great value; because the demand for diamonds is much greater than the quantity of them.”
William Paley (1743–1805) was a Cambridge philosopher/theologian (like Malthus and Keynes himself), so Keynes dubbed him the “first of the Cambridge economists” to trace a local intellectual lineage. Others had considered Malthus the first Cambridge economist. Keynes seemed to prefer Paley, who was a moral philosopher and theologian, best known for Natural Theology (1802). His Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785) included economic ideas that impressed Keynes:
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He argued that spending on luxuries could employ the poor, aligning with Keynesian “wasteful spending” as preferable to hoarding.
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However, Paley was not a systematic economist. His work was ethical, not analytical like Smith’s.
It was Milton who transformed me from just a trader into a Reluctant Economist. I believe all because my father took the family to Europe in 1964 for the whole summer, which introduced me to currency. You had to convert your currency every time you crossed a border, but it taught me that MONEY is a mental yardstick of value. They would give you a quote in the local currency, and I had to convert that in my head to dollars to determine if the value was fair (before pocket calculators and smartphones).
All because I had a client who was a collector, Walter Zengerle, who knew I understood currency. The Bretton Woods fixed rate system collapsed in 1971, and FX futures started trading in 1972. They did not teach currency in school. This was all new. Walter came to me and asked if I would come to New York and look at a problem. He figured out it had to do with currency. Franklin National Bank started Mastercard. It was the first bank to fail because of the floating exchange rate system involving the Italian Lira. After that, every problem with currency turned into getting the guy who did Franklin National Bank.
As President Nixon called in Milton Friedman because he was the ONLY one to have contemplated a floating exchange rate system in 1953, nearly 30 years before. What I was observing in how markets traded, and just as in racing, the slightest nudge would indicate what that driver was thinking about, and how you had to watch every driver around you simultaneously, that was what I saw in trading as well. I was forged in the fire of the free markets. There was no place for math formulas or theories. You had to comprehend that you were in an F1 race in the financial system, and there was no room for mistakes or theories.
Thus, I was being called in during the 1985 formation of the G5, and just as Milton anticipated, the floating exchange rate system was indeed applying pressure in politics. I was very proud and honored to have been called in by President Reagan. The night of the 1987 Crash, my staff stayed for hours to prepare a special report to get on the president’s desk, so he had a real idea of what would come to pass. They were shocked when I said the low was in place and new highs would be made by 1989. I’m sure they thought I was being too optimistic to get a job. I stated, No charge. That seemed to confuse them even more.
As an old fellow analyst said, most thought I was completely nuts. I had spoken to a famous retail adviser that day and said Look, do not come out and predict a depression – PLEASE! He said, Come on, Marty. You’ve got to be kidding. He took the Great Depression route.
Many people thought that the forecast was not possible. But the very day of the low was precisely the turning point on the ECM to the very day (1987.8 = 292 days – 273 days until the end of September, leaving 19 days). My sources have always been the best because my clients are top-notch. We have the biggest and the smartest clients in the world who are not looking for some pretend guru – just the facts. No matter what country, we all share the same mindset. We all know that we are all connected and see the world as a whole, not pitting one party against another.
I have explained that I knew that the Neocons tried to prevent President Reagan from meeting with Gorbachev. They could not call him a communist, so they just said you can never trust a Russian. In their world, all they want is death and destruction. They cheer that as glory – they win.
I try very hard to beat my own computer. I have never succeeded so far. I am pushing to remove Zelensky. That MUST be the first step toward peace. I fear that NATO and the EU, with the UK, will make for a false flag operation. Economically, they are screwed, and to take any proposal from me to solve this crisis results in them losing their dream of absolute power. They designed the EU to ensure there was no democratic process in which unelected officials cannot be voted out of office.
The anti-democratic and Marxist agenda of the EU is collapsing just as Communism collapsed all by itself. This is why they need war, and I fear that the best we can do is postpone it until 2026. Zelensky can be removed, but not Ursula, who has NEVER been elected to anything. Zelensky is wiring out money every month, and that is why he tried to shut down the anti-corruption unit to cover his war crimes. He knows his days are numbered, and he cannot live in Ukraine; he will be assassinated after he no longer has US and UK bodyguards.
My father taught me well. He handed me Aristotle to read when I was probably 12 or 13. He said if he was good enough to teach Alexander the Great, he was good enough for me. The most valuable lesson my father taught, as he fought with General Patton from North Africa to Berlin, is NEVER judge your enemy by what you think. He will ALWAYS respond according to what he thinks. If you do not understand your enemy, you cannot defeat him.
It is crucial to speak to all sides. If you do not, you will never survive. Marcus Vetter, who shot the Forecaster movie of me, met some of the terrorists while filming the Heart of Jenin movie. He told me the same thing. These people will send some gullible kid to blow themselves up, but would never do that themselves.
Geopolitics = a Poker Game
Would you dare play a hand of poker and never even attempt to see how your opponent plays? If that is your strategy, you will lose. This is what the Neocons preach – never speak to the enemy. Their reasoning is straightforward. They are the aggressor, and they never want peace. But, like the terrorists Marcus encountered, they send other people’s children to die and would never themselves go into battle. I see no difference between them and some terrorist leader – both cowards.
