We are all plagued by the abuse of these red-light cameras that just rack up money for companies and governments. The former chief executive of Chicago’s first red-light camera vendor was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and over $2 million in restitution for paying bribes to a city official to help procure the contracts. These corrupt cameras changed the duration of a yellow light to increase tickets, and now vendors are paying politicians bribes to get their cameras in over someone else is finally being exposed.

Red-light cameras are UNCONSTITUTIONAL for you have a right to confrontation, which they ignore. Various class-actions lawsuits have forced these cameras to be shut down in many states. Quite frankly, I would put every last one of these companies out of business. They are disgusting enterprises that prey upon the average person by sending their insurance bills higher and extracting disposable income for their own corrupt enterprises. The inventor of these scams should be thrown in prison along with every CEO of every last company involved in this corruption where they should share a cell with the politicians who betrayed the people’s trust.

COMMENT: Marty; I have attended every conference since 2011. You have really opened my eyes and you have to be blind not see that you have called every trend from the decline in gold, rally in the Dow, collapse of Europe, the rise in the dollar, and the uptick in war/civil unrest not to mention your political forecasting. You should be hailed from every podium and the reason you are not is obvious. The conclusions you force upon the rest to see is against their own self-interest. All roads lead only to the dollar as you have said.

Thanks for a spectacular conference. You have done far more than just made me money. You opened my eyes, saved my future, and saved my marriage. I feel truly enlightened and see the world as never before.

Thank you so very much

CE

REPLY: It is gratifying that you can see the world in a connected manner. We do not stand a chance of taking a step forward to a new economic reality until the majority sees the world for what it really is. The majority believes the conspiracy that government and big banks have the power to manipulate the world economy to force gold down to create the illusion that gold is not a safe-haven to hide your wealth. In even saying that means they can control everything as well. There are those who actually think they purposefully send the economy down to buy things cheaper. The entire would is connected. They can no more do that then prevent the climate change moving into a new mini ice age.

By attributing everything to powerful conspiracies, they are endorsing Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes who advocated that government could manipulate society. If you cannot see that we are on the brink of a collapse because of central planning, exactly as a communist state, then you will continue to look for conspiracies rather than understanding that the system, which is crumbling before our eyes, cannot be manipulated. This is why BREXIT, Trump, and now Hollande in France are stepping out and Italy rejected the EU referendum. The cycle has changed and all of this is beyond government or banks to control the outcome. They are not intentionally doing this, for they cannot even understand human behavior no less manipulate it.

The dollar is on the rise after the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election but the computer projected this long before Trump said he would run. Trump won be keeping one foot out of the party, the press, and the pollsters. Trump took it to the people the elite just assumed were sheep to be manipulated. Trump showed that the silent majority are starting to demand they be heard.

Investors are betting on an economic boom in the U.S. and rising U.S. interest rates that will attract even more capital to the dollar. This also weighs very heavily on emerging market currencies and commodities prices expressed in dollars. As the dollar rises, those commodities will decline unless there is a real shortage in supply that dips below demand. It is all coming together and you better understand the trend or you will not survive.

Indeed, all roads lead to the dollar. The biased socialist press who try to manipulate the sheep, will call this the Trump Rally and say it is to make him richer and his friends. They will do whatever it takes to destroy the country and promote Marxist socialism.

Asia was encouraged by the wests acceptance of the Italian vote and especially the Euro’s strength. Bouncing off of the key 105 levels has created a triple bottom which, if breaks, propels the market lower. we were already aware of the Nikkei’s performance through the futures contract and so cash opening created the days highs slowly descending into the close. However, it still produced a +0.5% return on the day as the Yen drifted back towards the 114 handle. One of the major topics discussed through Asian trading was the rumored weakness in the Yuan fixing. Rumours circulated that the fixing had been nearly 9% weaker at 7.49 but proved to be false and was set at 6.8575 by the PBOC. The offshore continues to trade marginally weaker at 6.8800 as we approach the US open. The Shanghai index drifted into marginally unchanged at the close while the Hang Seng reflected major European strength.

Europe resumed yesterdays strength as the currency continued its run, at least it did in early trading. All core indices closed better the IBEX performing the best (+2.4%) with the DAX and CAC around 1% firmer. The UK’s FTSE managed just 0.5% after news of stricter regulation from the FCA impacted heavily on the likes of IG Group (falling 38% in todays trading. Italian PM agreed to delay his resignation helped the MIB FTSE to close over 4% higher today. On the whole a slower market than yesterday with many waiting for Mario Draghi’s address in Belgium Thursday when he delivers the ECB press conference. The street expects a six month extension of the bond buying program. However, that said prices are starting to question this given todays weakening of Bund through Treasuries.

“A comfortable day” was the remark by one of the US dealers today as core indices maintained their recent performance. Economics data was within expectation with a marginal beat on the Factory Orders numbers (2.7% m/m). However, in the final hour of trading we managed to firm the market into the close to return solid and steady progress with the Telecoms leading the way. DOW and Russell close at market highs. S+P missed by a smidgeon.

The one thing that was highlighted in todays Bond Markets was that the German Bund weakened as Treasuries remained unchanged – tightening that 10yr spread. We closed this evening with US 10’s at 2.39% (-1bp) with the Bund closing 0.38% (+4bp); closing the spread at +201bp). Italy closed 1.94% (-4bp), Greece 6.61% (+20bp), Turkey 10.88% (-21bp), Portugal 3.59% (-7bp) and UK Gilts unchanged at 1.405%.

QUESTION: Marty, at the cocktail party you said you did not see the far-right in Austria winning for it was not the same. Then you got pulled off. Just wondering what was different in Austria?

Thank you for the conference. Don’t know where you get the energy from.

RP

ANSWER: Cyclically, Austria was not ready for the extreme far-right. They, nonetheless, threw out the socialists. Norbert Hofer is extreme far-right. He often carries a Glock pistol. Austria was where the Great Depression banking crisis really began. Hofer hoped to capitalize on the anti-establishment wave credited with delivering BREXIT and Donald Trump. Alexander Van der Bellen won for the nominally independent Green Party.  Van der Bellen finished second out of six in the first round of elections before winning the second round against Hofer who was the Freedom Party candidate.

The current president if Heinz Fischer, who was of the Socialist Democratic Party. So the election was still against the Socialists. Hofer was too far-right at this point in time. So the change from socialists is still underway. We do not need to go extreme far-right in the political wave of change.

QUESTION: Hi Martin
Since you have a detailed grasp of world history. Can you provide any insight to any parallels with Trump’s election to any period in the past.
PS- Thanks for the great insights on gold and the DOW.

ANSWER: There are countless parallels, far too many to list. Many are partial and others are very similar. There are many parallels to Ronald Reagan insofar as Trump gathered the fiscal conservatives who voted for Reagan and were marginalized by everyone else ever since. Reagan was also an outsider and the rumors were he was a “hawk” and would start World War III. The Washington crowd hated Reagan and feared he would disrupt their corruption. Even if you look to the Venetian Empire, when the Dodge died, his estate was seized and investigated for any corruption he engaged in before his heirs would receive anything. Nobody is seizing Hillary’s estate, but the pervasive corruption she engaged in has had many such parallels throughout history.

Even in Roman History there are parallels from Julian II and Diocletian. Both faced massive political instability and corruption. The assassinated Julian II but allowed Diocletian to become the first Roman Emperor to retire.

Soros & his Link to the Clintons

QUESTION: Hello Mr. Armstrong, I was told by a friend that you forecast BREXIT and Trump and was the only one in the world to do so. I’ve been fascinated reading your site, particularly your discussion of Trump’s likelihood of winning when the polls and people gave him little chance. Can you possibly explain just how do you do this when nobody else can?

PG

ANSWER: This is an interesting question. I personally did not forecast these two events from an OPINION perspective and the withdraw of Hollande in France really confirms the end of the socialists also in line with our projections as well as the Italy referendum. The forecasts were done entirely by the computer, which is not biased nor can it get involved in an emotional call. Therefore, it is purely honest and creates forecasts that interlink with the economy. We hear nothing but promises of change, election after election, but the people are simply outraged that nothing ever changes for the better. Just follow the economy and you will forecast the end result.

I believe the question this really presents is something nobody is asking. Is it true that my computer was the ONLY one to correctly forecast both Brexit and Trump? These forecasts were indeed unique. Was everyone else wrong or were they trying to desperately manipulate society because they knew that Brexit and Trump might win?

Obviously, Hillary really believed she won. They even had her autograph an edition of Newsweek Magazine. Were they that wrong or did they think so convincingly that they had succeeded in their manipulation?

I am not sure. Perhaps we were the only ones to forecast these events simply because we are using economic data and not opinion polls. Yet, with 99% of the newspapers endorsing Hillary and Google allegedly skewing the search results to support Hillary, maybe they just believed too much in their own power.

The patrons of Bonnefooi, a cafe in the center of Brussels, last week received an inspector of the City to visit. Who asked them to pay the “tax dance.” Yes you read correctly. Brussels has a “dancing tax” written in the 50´s and as the government needs money, they have “revitalized” this tax since 2014. For every customer who dances in a bar the owner has to pay €0.40 per night.  They sent incognito civil servants to uphold this law.

There is an endless supply of old laws still on the books that have not been enforced, yet could be to raise money. In Florida, you are not allowed to have construction workers around on weekends. In some states, old laws required you to pull your car off the road if it frightened a horse. If the horse was still terrified, you were required to dissemble your car until the horse was calm.

They tried outlawing condoms back in the 1950s. That went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1965 under Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), where the Supreme Court ruled that a state’s ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. The case concerned a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of birth control. Since the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare as a tax, anything goes. They can put a special tax on condoms and get away with that one and rake in billions.

Welcome to the world of collapsing socialism. This is where government get to rip us all off to survive.

The European Payments Council (EPC), a subdivision of the European Central Bank, is taking one giant step forward in their quest to eliminate all cash to increase taxes. They have gone ahead and set up the technical bases last week to enable the immediate payments system throughout Europe. One of the stumbling blocks has been the fact you cannot transfer money same day for banks like to play with your money and holding it for a few days. If the payment comes from overseas, the bank will not “clear” the funds usually for six weeks.

Unless money can become instant, it is really impossible to eliminate cash. The SEPA Credit Transfer Scheme will move to allow instant transfers. The goal is to eliminate ATM machines and force people to pay using their mobile phone beginning in November 2017. Of course, there is nobody thinking about tourism. How will an American pay for something on a vacation in Europe? One suggestion behind the curtain I was recently briefed on was they could pay in advance and have an app that then pays for things in Europe.

The hunt for taxes is getting pretty bad. The entire reason for the introduction of passports was by the Roman Emperor Diocletian following the collapse during the 3rd Century. Diocletian introduced wage and price controls, and doubled the number of bureaucrats at the government’s command; Lactantius was to claim that there were now more men using tax money than there were paying it. A form of introducing a passport not to travel to foreign lands since civilization was the Roman Empire, but to be able to travel within the Empire because you could not leave your home town until you paid your taxes.

King Henry V of England (1387–1422) is credited with having invented what considered the first true international passport. The king saw this as helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands and not the subject of the king where they traveled. The reason for this 1414 Act of Parliament was legal. You were the property of your King. If you committed a crime in France, the French king could not punish you. He had to send you back to your king in chains noting the crime you committed and asked that you be punished by your king. This legal foundation of “jurisdiction” was not overthrown until the American Revolution, which gave birth to territorial jurisdiction. Since it was a revolt against monarchy, it was seen as implausible that if an Englishman committed a crime in America, that they would still recognize the authority of the king and send him in chains to Britain to be punished. This new idea of territorial jurisdiction is directly outlined in the 6th Amendment:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

We are witnessing what a Private Wave is all about. The Italian Referendum came in on point with the NO vote at  59.4% against 40.6%. Our model is now four for four with BREXIT, Trump, Hollande in France exiting the election, and now Italy. We will see the same defeat for Merkel.

What politicians do not grasp is that they have destroyed the world economy with taxes and regulation. Enough is enough. In Europe, the single currency has totally failed because it required a single debt. The refusal to consolidate the debts has been the death of the Euro.

This is all playing out into a major dollar rally for like a game of musical chairs, it’s the last place to park money.