Thank you for all the emails on this discovery of an ancient Roman coin in Galilee. Yes, it is a relatively rare coin. However, it did not exist at the time of Christ. Note the legend states “DIVVS AUGUSTUS,” meaning in Augustus’ honor after his death. This coin was minted by the Roman Emperor Trajan (98 – 117 AD). Given the wear, it had been in circulation for some time. It was minted from 107 AD on, which was well after the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70 AD. This coin would not bring $5 million as some sources have reported. The most expensive Augustus aureus of Trajan’s restitution series just sold in January for $107,000.

The Augustus piece we have in our collection is pictured below. It has a crocodile on the reverse and is reminiscent of Augustus’ issue announcing he defeated Cleopatra. This just goes to show that when you write about something you do not know about, and listen to people who do not know either, then you end up with a coin worth $5,000,000 that was there when Christ was walking around Galilee. My offer is $35,000.

In the year 107 AD, Emperor Trajan attempted to revitalize the money supply by ordering that all the old coinage be “melted down all the worn-out coinage,” according to the historian Casssius Dio. In essence, the treasury was greatly depleted due to his prolonged campaign to conquer Dacia (modern day Yugoslavia region). Trajan actually demonetized all silver and gold coinage that had been issued prior to the reign of Nero and his monetary reform of 64 AD, which was the first step in the debasement. Therefore, Trajan was recalling all old “worn” coinage and reissuing it with at a lower standard of his period.

At the time of Trajan, the finances of the empire were in crisis. The fineness of the silver denarius when he came to power in 98 AD was 93.5%. In 100 AD, Trajan lowered the fineness to 92.75%. As the cost of the Dacian war escalated, he again reduced the fineness in 103 AD to 91.5%. This would decline further, reaching 90% in 112 AD.

Consequently, Trajan demonetized the old coinage that was of a heavier silver standard, which meant they were no longer a valid payment for taxes. This forced people to return them in exchange for new denarii. The old were then melted and this increased the money supply by about 10%.

Hillary’s emails revealed that Google was involved in trying to overthrow Assad. Hillary was communicating with Google and asking them to assist in the region. WikiLeaks has published a searchable archive of Clinton’s emails. It now turns out that Hillary Clinton’s team and one of the company’s executives conspired to create a detailed plan for Google to get involved in the region. Traditionally, no party has won the White House three times in a row since FDR. A betting man would play the odds and say she will not receive the crown at her coronation.

Nonetheless, it has also come out that billionaire Eric Schmidt who is the executive chairman of Google’s parent-company Alphabet, has become a major technology supporter for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. More than just Schmidt backing Hillary, the Republicans are also working to ensure Hillary wins to keep their cushy positions. The Republicans are covertly staging constant protests against Trump to try to create violence to prevent people from voting for him. They have far too much to lose if Trump gets in the White House.

“Conservatism” died after Reagan. The Republicans caved in on every possible issue and the national debt stood at $1 trillion when Reagan was in office. With Republicans holding the White House for 12 years since Reagan left office, they can blame Clinton and Obama all they want, but they have done absolutely NOTHING to further “conservative” issues for the economy. So it is not that Donald Trump is the “spoiler” for the Republicans; he is their savior for they still get to expand government, mismanage our finances, and blame Democrats while doing absolutely nothing for the country – except banning anyone who supported Libertarian ideas and Ron Paul from sitting on any finance committee. That alone proved that “conservatism” died when Reagan left office.

It has been back to usual ever since Reagan left office. Now, Google seems to be playing the same game as Goldman Sachs. Looks like they too want to own a piece of the White House. Their assistance in Syria is raising a lot of red flags. Do we have another oligarchy rising?

QUESTION: Martin,
I am a capitalist and what we have today is the least efficient form of capitalism. Actually it is quite a destructive and dangerous form of capitalism when the concentration of power reaches this level. I think that in all these years that I thought we were talking about different things, maybe we were not. You call big government what I call plutocrats controlling government. You were blaming governments, I was blaming plutocrats that we let become soo big and powerful that can buy any government…
Yet maybe we are not that far off.

… In any case… one question that I would love to ask you… how do you think we are going to fix the problem with the power structure? What I call the power structure is not the legitimate power structure, but the mix of oligarchs and corrupt government working as one cancerogenous entity. I do not see any reasonable way to fix it…?

Best regards

DD

ANSWER: I think what you have to understand is that our structure of government being a republic rather than a democracy invites oligarchy. There has never been a single republic that has ever proven to work. The admixture of money and power always becomes lethal. This is why I blame government, not the oligarchs. They could not buy politicians if they were not (1) career lifetime politicians, and (2) all-powerful law creators. Taxes and regulations become the incentive for the oligarchs to buy government. If we eliminate taxes and career politicians, we will solve most of the problem. We then must eliminate socialism, which at its core is predicated upon the foundation of Marxism that advocates government possessing power by insisting it could alter society by regulation. This serves as a fundamental pillar for taxation. It has also transformed government into the adversary of the people stemming from PUNISHMENT rather than from the concept of cooperation and respect for the people.

Philadelphia is trying to introduce a 3 cent tax per ounce of soda. The excuse is that sugar is bad for you, and they have only the best interests in mind for society. They expect to get almost $100 million annually from this tax. Why outlaw something that will make them money? So if it’s bad for you, go ahead, but pay them for that privilege. Philadelphia is dead broke and has a 22.5% tax on parking and 8.5% tax on hotels. They have chased everyone out. They want income tax for money earned in the city even if you just hold a conference there. This latest soda tax means a 2-liter bottle of soda that typically costs $1.50 would amount to $2.04 with taxes, which is more than the cost of the actual bottle. The cost of a 12-pack of soda would nearly double to more than $8. This is the same thing with all this global warming. Governments use this as the excuse to tax you for your own good. The money does nothing but line the pockets of politicians. In the case of Philadelphia, citizens will shop in the suburbs to avoid the tax. To appease the oligarchs, the Feds created carbon credits that can then be sold to others who do pollute. It’s all about the money.

We simply have to admit that regulation does not work when used in such a manner that has covert revenue agendas. Other types of regulation such as outlawing prostitution are pointless when all they do is create a tax-free underground industry that leads to exploitation and kidnapping. Making drugs illegal funds crime just as prohibition funded the Mafia. Passing a law against murder does not prevent murder. There are things that are simply inherent within human nature that you cannot make a law and rationally expect it to stop.

There have been crazy people throughout history. Putting in background checks to sell guns is a deterrent, but it will not stop a crazy person from being crazy. If they wanted to kill someone, a knife will suffice. Outlawing gay marriage will not stop the same sex from living together. The whole problem was simply that we imposed all sorts of regulations to marriage such as preventing someone from inheriting property if not married or having permission to be at the bedside of a dying person unless they are family. At the border for taxes, they do not care if you are married. If you travel with someone else, the $10,000 limit applies to the both of you, because if you have $15,000 and give half to the other person they look at you as a couple regardless of sex or marriage status. This all becomes a convoluted regulation that is hell-bent on collecting money, which then disturbs the religious viewpoint of others. Yet, if we detach the regulations to marriage then it really does not matter. It always comes down to money and power.

So what we have to understand is that eliminating career politicians will eliminate much of the corruption. Eliminate the power to regulate pretended circumstances and you eliminate the need to buy government in some shape or manner. It has long been said that God created the Ten Commandments, and man has created 1 billion laws trying to say the same thing. Murder is murder, regardless if it is a policeman killing a citizen by shooting them in the back as they are running. The Roman Emperor Julian II (360-363 AD) may have been one of the most honorable men in history. He declared that no one was above the law, including himself. Any law enacted had to apply to everyone including the emperor. They killed him rather quickly and the assassin was never caught.

Edward Snowden has come out and said that the FBI case against Apple is “bullshit”. Snowden said they were indeed attempting to use terrorism as the justification to force Apple to rewrite their software to allow the government to hack into any phone. Now it turns out that after piles of government affidavits saying they cannot hack the phone were FALSE and anyone else would go to prison for five years for each false affidavit.

A third party has stepped forward and proven he can hack an iPhone without Apple’s assistance. John McAfee, who created the first anti-virus software, called the FBI’s case also bullshit and declared “I can do it [hack the phone]. It’s a piece of friggin’ cake.” Only Bill Gates supported the government and that raises serious questions about his expertise.

The government is NEVER honest nor trustworthy. The vast majority of people just believe the nonsense they say when it is always about eliminating our human rights and allow them to rule without any restraint whatsoever.

Apple Court Doc

The Dutch are destroying the last vestiges of our liberty under the pretense of protecting it. They are putting a right-wing Dutch politician named Geert Wilders on trial for what they call inciting hatred and discrimination against the Dutch Moroccan minority. This is a legal contest that will destroy civilization itself and unravel everything we once held fundamental to freedom. Wilders argued that calling Morrocans “scum” is protected by his right to freedom of speech. The government prosecutors are looking, as always, to advance their careers no matter what the cost to society is.“Freedom of expression is not absolute, it is paired with obligations and responsibilities, the responsibility not to set groups of people against each other,” declared lead prosecutor Wouter Bos.

This legal position is unbelievable. Acting out some physical harm is one thing. To call someone a name is a basic human interaction that starts from the school yard all the way up. The prosecutors want to be famous. Well, they will go down in history as the team that pulled the foundation stone out and the whole thing collapsed. This is the core of communism. Children under communism were raised to believe that the STATE was their parent, and if their biological parent said anything against the STATE they should be reported. Without freedom of expression, nothing else can exist. There cannot be any truth for to say what you think becomes a crime. It is time that governments have simply gone way too far. They should just take everything we have, hand out a daily sack of beans, rags for clothes, and get it over with. I suppose they could imprison Trump for life with thought crimes.

This is happening all over Europe. The “refugee” crisis is completely out of control. The attempt by Brussels to pretend this is not happening is just insane.

QUESTION: 

It seems successful trading/investing/forecasting systems work only when used by a few. When these same systems get adopted by more and more users their effectiveness diminishes to a point where they no longer work. Do you agree with this, and if yes do you think as your forecasts become more well known and applied they too would lose their effectiveness?

A

ANSWER: No. Systems fail because of a lack of historical data testing. For example, Black-Scholes failed and created the Long-Term Capital Management crisis in 1998 because the data used for developing the model was only back to 1971.

Models that only function within the “noise” level will work for a period and then totally fail. If you do not test something on the Great Depression, how can you expect that model to even survive such an event? It is IMPOSSIBLE to change the long-term trend. Everything is connected. To really make gold suppressed, you have to do that to all commodities. Create deflation when the central banks are trying desperately to create inflation without success, and it goes on and on.

These excuses are clearly by people who look to justify their “theory” behind some trend. The markets move collectively. There are no single trends for the market will arbitrage it into its proper place within the general scheme. So models that become less efficient were improperly designed from the outset. We are all behind the collective movement and that includes the average person who does not even trade or invest. The rest focus on unemployment, GDP, trade, etc. and respond to what? To the trend of the whole.

So garbage in = garbage out

Armstrong 1985 with IBM XT

COMMENT: Fantastic examples in the final version (free-markets-are-natures-design). You need to keep connecting the dots until the person finally sees something, even if it isn’t the whole. Then again, can anyone see the whole? I find it fascinating that the computer gives you dates (dots), but you have to wait until you see how they connect… Demands humility.

REPLY: The markets definitely keep you humble. They are an endless teacher. The majority buy the high and sell the low simply because they react emotionally. It is like that heard of zebra I talk about. One zebra on the edge sees a lion and begins to run. The whole herd starts to run but never saw the lion. They run because every other zebra is running and thus really have no idea if he actually saw a lion or just thought he did. We are no different. Here’s one example:

“You are wrong. You will be embarrassed because gold will be over $2,000 in a matter of weeks. You cannot keep it down any more.”

Such emails do not even warrant the time to respond. They reflect a total lack of intelligence to separate from the herd and objectively look at what they are even saying. This is why the majority fuels the markets with human emotions that create the herd reaction. They just have to be wrong and that creates the cycle. The only thing I can do is hopefully show enough people the reality, not to simply make money, but to save society when the time comes for it is coming. You can see it everywhere from central banks desperately taking rates negative, to Trump rising the polls merely because the majority are becoming fed-up with the corruption in politics that is robbing them of their future.

The computer is an objective teacher. It has taught me much more than any human could have ever done.

This has been a long time coming. Porting over the old code to run on the internet has been like having to translate French to Japanese and then to English. Most of the original code was written in assembler because it had to be super fast. Speed and memory used to be critical back in the day, but modern programming does not really even teach assembler (machine language) anymore. High-level languages are written in C# or Basic and the compiler then translates that into machine code.

Translating this code back to modern-day language has produced some subtle differences. We have been working these for the past three months in an attempt to resolve these minor differences. Additionally, adding all sorts of stocks and ETFs has proven that there are substantial differences between their trading patterns and major markets. This has been a learning curve, for Socrates has been cataloging many new patterns that do not appear in major markets. For example, it is not uncommon for a thinly traded, low-priced stock to jump 20% up or down. That would be unheard of in something like the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Then there is the problem with data feeds. Just this past week, there was a bad print for the close in gold at 1229 when it should have been 1263. It was within the trading range of the day. It seems to have been a bad print for the same data, since checking two sources showed the same abnormal pattern whereas our third source was correct. Reconciling this one market is not that nuts. However, trying to triple check three sources for absolutely everything in the world, well that is really a challenge.

Nevertheless, we are moving to launch the Trader version before June. This week, we will be moving some of the work we have completed to the system for the Investor and preview sites. This has been a work in progress. The translation of code has been a mind-twisting game, to say the least. The voice still presents a problem over the internet that we are also working on.

So there will be some changes to the verbiage you will notice this week.