Merkel’s invitation to Muslims to come to Europe without limitation has destroyed the very fabric of Europe. Now, Austria’s Freedom Party, an anti-Europe and anti-immigration far-right political party, won more than a third of the vote in the presidential election on Sunday. This should be no surprise. Norbert Hofer will now face an independent in next month’s run-off. We are witnessing the collapse of Austria’s two-party system since neither will make the cut for the first time. The national election is turning very anti-immigration with a campaign that focuses on the impact of the crisis that was created after approximately 100,000 asylum seekers poured into the country beginning last summer.

Norbert Hofer ran on an anti-immigration and anti-Europe platform and won 36.4% of the vote to become head of state. He will face Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Green Party figurehead, who won 20.4% according to official preliminary results. While the opposite attempts to paint these rising people as racists even in Britain, the reality of this nonsense is that the security of Europe can no longer be assured. This simple act is tearing politics apart at the seams. People are calling this racism when in fact it has nothing to do with race. The immigrants are both black and white. There is no possible way to claim this is a racist issue.

We are facing a pension crisis, thanks to negative interest rates that have destroyed pension funds. Pension funds are a tempting pot of money that government cannot keep its hands out of. The federal government of Canada, for example, is looking to reduce the cost of government by shifting Canada’s mounting infrastructure costs to the private sector. They want to sell or lease stakes in major public assets such as highways, rail lines, and ports. In Canada, they hid a line in last month’s federal budget that revealed that the Liberals are considering making public assets available to non-government investors, such as public pension funds. They will sell the national infrastructure to pension funds, robbing them of the cash they have to fund themselves. This latest trick is being called “asset recycling,” which is simply a system designed to raise money for governments. This idea is surfacing in Europe as well as the United States, especially among cash-strapped states.

This is the other side of 2015.75; the peak in government (socialism). Everything from this point forward is a confirmation that these people are in crisis mode. They are rapidly destroying Western culture because they are simply crazy and the people who blindly vote for them are out of their minds. They are destroying the very fabric of society for they cannot see what they are doing nor where this all leads. Once they wipe out the security of the future, the government will crumble to dust to be swept away by history. We deserve what we blindly vote for.

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I have read your thesis on global warming and that this is only part of a natural cycle. I admit that you have persuaded me whereas the claims are false especially that New York City should have been under water by now according Al Gore. You mentioned that there was global warming which enabled the Vikings to reach America because the ice melted. My question is rather blunt. If we are headed now into a global cooling period, what is the historical evidence that society also declines?

Thank you in advance

PD

ANSWER: I have reported that the peat fires in Borneo and Sumatra have exceeded all the emissions from the entire U.S. economy. This whole movement is to raise taxes based on the bogus theory of global warming. We are not powerful enough to alter the course of cyclical movement of the planet. Bouts of global cooling (ice ages) as well as warming periods predate the combustion engine and mankind. It is rather questionable analysis to claim we have altered the climate. We are capable of polluting things, true. But altering the climate is something beyond our power.

Volcanoes are a major issue in climate change. Yes, studies reveal that the Hawaiian Kilauea volcano eruption discharged between 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere each day, which has been going on for more than 20 years. However, gas studies worldwide by volcanologists have calculated that global volcanic CO₂ production on land and under the sea release a total of 200 million tonnes of CO₂ annually, but this is really in the absence of any real catastrophic eruptions.  Volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide (SO₂). When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, it produced 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide on that one day, and about 2 million metric tons for the entire event, which is far more than automobiles.

Moreover, volcanic production of CO2 is not really the issue in climate change. Instead of global warming from CO2, the plume of ash in the sky actually blocks the sun and reverses the climate from warm to cold like sitting under an umbrella at the beach. I have discussed Mount Tambora, which erupted in 1815 and threw into the air so much ash that it snowed during the summer of 1816 in New York City. It became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. I have shown the correlation of that eruption to wheat prices.

Maunder Minimum that sent the Earth into a cold period 300 years ago from the perspective of the cyclical energy output from the Sun. I have also gone into the evolution of science, which has been set in motion by the very discovery of a frozen woolly rhinoceros that altered science in many fields. I have explained how the temperature at the time of the American Revolution was at its lowest point in the cycle.

All of that said, the ice core samples have revealed that there were two major volcanic eruptions in 536 and 540 AD that sent Europe into an ice age and wiped out the Roman civilization. Flavius Odoacer (433–493) was a soldier who in 476 became the first king of Italy (476–493) after deposing Romulus Augustus, the last official Roman emperor in the West.

Odoacer was overthrown by Theodoric the Great (454-526), the Ostrogoth. Odoacer was followed by Athalaric (526-534) and a few others, then finally Baduila (541-552). So while Rome officially ends in the West with Romulus Augustus in 476 AD, the Ostrogoths fade out after 552 due to the climate changes. In the East, the change in climate appears to be linked to the Plague of Justinian (541–542), which was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, especially its capital Constantinople, the Sassanid Empire, and port cities around the entire Mediterranean Sea. I have written about the political turmoil there in Byzantium, which preceded the plague during the Nika Revolt of 532 AD. I have also written about how empires die. It does seem that civil unrest rises when temperatures decline, which also increases the risk of revolution.

When Thera erupted around 1645-1650 BC, it created a climate change and marked the end of the Minoan civilization. They were conquered by the Mycenae who also captured Troy. As the weather turned cold, Greece went into a Dark Age. The Greeks migrated and other places called them the “sea people” since they did not know where they came from as they invaded Northern Africa. Homer wrote about the period before the Dark Age, known as the Heroic Period. Scholars thought this was fiction about Troy and Mycenae until Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) set out and discovered what Homer wrote about was history.

The historical evidence is rather extensive. It does appear that as we enter into a global cooling period, governments will fall, disease will increase, and the risk of Western Civilization declining sharply becomes historically possible.

Silver Update Private Blog

The 2020 World Expo will be hosted by Dubai. This old video shows Putin speaking in English and pitching for Russia to be considered as a host for the World Expo.

Obama reignited the Cold War instead of giving Russia the respect it was demanding. It is all about respect and recognition, which is what we often call national pride. When things go wrong economically, it is national pride that leads to war.

Ukraine should have simply been divided along ethnic lines by language, and the East should have joined Russia since they saw themselves as Russian. Instead of spending all this money on war, there should have been an orderly buy-out of those who wanted to move sides. That would have ended the crisis. The current view of borders was drawn by old politics and is rather absurd. In the end, the borders will be redrawn once again.

Obama went to London at the request of David Cameron and the EU Parliament. Obama joined the scare tactics in an attempt to frighten the British into giving up their sovereignty to Brussels. He used the TTIP trade deal, which the French want to block, and said the agreement is why the Brits should stay in the EU. The TTIP was supposed to be done back in 2014. There is little chance of an agreement coming before 2019 (if at all). Obama told the British to get to the “back of the queue” on trade agreement negotiations if they leave the EU.

There is no way Obama would do this without the request of Cameron who is betraying the sovereignty of his own country. The reality is that Obama is lying to the British people because the trade agreement with Europe has been a huge problem, especially with France. The truth is that Britain would be able to have a faster trade deal with the USA than the EU. This is a scare tactic because Europe itself is on the ropes. Britain leaving would hurt Europe, not Britain, and would save Britain as they could then protect their own borders. Even the USA now has a problem with visas for Europeans given the security risk they introduced after admitting economic migrants who claimed to be refugees.

This demonstrates how the BREXIT vote is a serious issue for Europe as a whole. Make no mistake about it, the USA would NEVER surrender its sovereignty to the United Nations or turn Congress into a second-rate gathering with little power. The majority of laws in Europe come from Brussels, not local government, which is similar to how the majority of laws in the States are Federal. What Obama just told the British people demonstrates that this is precisely opposite of what Margaret Thatcher stood against — the political surrender of the British to Brussels. What Hitler could not do with bombs, Cameron handed to Europe without a thought.

Why has Obama told the British to effectively get rid of the Royal Family? Should there be no residual sovereignty remaining in Britain but ceremonial? Upon election, the Prime Minister goes to the queen to ask permission to head Parliament. It is the queen who opens Parliament. The queen’s speech sets out the government’s agenda for the coming session. Handing power to Brussels nullifies the role of the queen. Why has Cameron not asked the queen?

Without Britain, there is no European Union left standing. Europe is absolutely doomed for Draghi will not reverse his policies that are starting to lead to chaos within the EU, and Germany realizes that Draghi’s policies are destroying pensions and the elderly.

Protests erupted after Obama told the Brits to get at the “back of the queque” for a trade agreement. As Obama visited Britain, thousands were protesting against TTIP in Hannover, Germany. It may be a very good thing if Britain goes to the “back of the queque.” Obama is full of shit for there are far more links between Britain and the USA on trade than there are with Europe as a whole.

Abenomics (アベノミクス Abenomikusu) in Japan are the economic policies advocated by Shinzō Abe since the December 2012 general election, which elected Abe to his second term as Prime Minister of Japan. Abenomics is based upon “three arrows” of fiscal stimulus, monetary easing, and structural reforms. This has been a complete failure as the economy continues to implode. The Bank of Japan hinted possible proposals to take rates even further negative and the likelihood of banks passing these levels on to the general public.

The dollar rallied against the yen right on target for 43 months (8.6 / 2) and has declined for about 8.6 months from the high in June of 2015. It appears to be on target, and the latest suggestion of further negative rates being passed on by the banks will most likely cause a flight from the yen. This has also contributed to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising and holding last year’s low distinct from the S&P 500 and NASDAQ.

We are still waiting for the link from the Hotel for the room block which includes the special pricing that will be available for attendees. We will perhaps switch the first two days so the Institutional session comes first so those attending the weekend who would like to attend the Technical Analysis Training Course will have 3 days together.
This year, we will include a proprietary tablet for all attendees which you can take home with you. We will include workshops and this year will be FORECASTING only. The introductory session will be provided separately for all attendees to review in advance of the conference.

Airfare to Orlando is generally far cheaper than most cities because it is a tourist destination since everyone wants to see Mickey. We wanted to get this out ASAP for those who might want to bring their families.

We should have the links up this coming week as soon as we get them from the hotel.

COMMENT: Hi Marty! I just wanted to say thanks for everything you've been teaching us. 
I've been following you for over a year and reading your blog daily. 
While I don't have the financial ability to buy your reports or participate 
in the markets I do have the knowledge. 

Thanks again and Carpe Diem!!
Jason

REPLY: This is not all about markets. There is a huge social impact. 
The markets show us the door to the future trend, but the trend is the driving force behind society. 
It is the economics that will dictate the future of society. 
So will we be free or dominated? That is the question. 
So the more we can do to help as many people understand the changes, 
the better we are prepared to put on the good fight.

A little overdue but today we heard from the Bank of Japan and possible proposals to take rates even further negative and the likelihood banks passing these levels on to end retail. The Nikkei obviously liked it rallying 1.2% on the day whilst the Yen weakened over 2%. Both the Shanghai and HSI had mixed responses as most continue to talk Japan. The Nikkei’s rally was a great effort considering Mitsubishi Motor stock fell over 13% again today (after a 20% decline Thursday) after they admitted cheating on fuel economy test results.

Auto’s were the focus in Europe too with falls from both Daimler and Volkswagen. Dealer were hoping fresh data releases would help them out but unfortunately the better than expected data proved insufficient and actually added to the stocks declines. With the exception of IBEX (+0.4%), rumoured to be supported by the additional capital injection via the ECB accepting more corporates paper, all core indices were down DAX -0.6%, CAC -0.3% and FTSE -1.1%.

The US saw futures trading lower even before cash opened. We saw the lows hit around mid-morning then managed an impressive rally especially given a core stock (Microsoft -7.17% on missed earnings). Data failed to offer support after the U.S. Manu PMI fell to 50.8 from 51.5 seen in March. However, ahead of the weekend the DOW did offer some encouraging signs closing up on the day and above the key psychological 18k level.

Gold had a very poor day today dropping over $20 to close $1233 (-1.6%), having seen an earlier low of $1227. Silver also saw a large turnaround dropping from the days high of $17.34 to a low seen of $1690. DXY again moving better closing 95.95 (+0.55%).

In the Bond market US curve steepened 1bp with 2/10 trading +107bp. US 10’s closed 1.89% with the German 10yr Bund closing 0.23% closing the spread at +166bp. Italy 10yr closed 1.47% (+1bp), Greece 8.21% (-26bp), Turkey 8.97% (-1bp), Portugal 3.26% (+8bp) and Gilt 10yr closed 1.60% (+1bp).