Our Last Good Summer

Ever since I began to wake up to how bad things really were, in 2011, I’ve been trying to figure out WHEN everything really falls apart. And, every year, I’ve been wondering if that year would be our last good one.

In fact, just a couple months ago, Bix Weir and Harvey Organ went out on a limb and said that everything would fall apart by the end of 2014 – a little over a month and a half from now. They still could be right, but Bix is already starting to edge back from this prediction.

Were Bix and Harvey wrong to sound the alarm over what could happen over the coming months?

No. I don’t think so.

Why?
Being Ready Early Is Good

Because something REALLY awful is coming, and if you jump too early, that’s okay. ‘Early Jumpers’ will find themselves to have been ahead of the game. And, with all that’s coming, being ahead of the game is a really, really good idea.

Now, there are some of you who want someone to give a date so that you can have as much fun as you can before an awful future hits. You might be wanting to maximize your income. You might want to get as much profit out of your investments. You might want to get in one last family vacation.

If so, you are a fool.

And, unfortunately, that’s most of us.
Better 5 Years Early Than 5 Minutes Late

When dealing with an unimaginable future, it’s better to be…

…five years early than five minutes late.

Seriously, folks. Never play chicken with God. He rules the road, and He WILL run over you.

So, get your poop in a group and prepare for really bad times.
Martin Armstrong

Having said that, it is still instructive to make our best guess about WHEN it will happen. And, if you backed me into a corner and demanded WHEN it all falls apart, I would say…

Martin Armstrong!

Okay, that’s not a date. That’s a person, and a somewhat annoying person, at that – since he has this knack for being always right about certain things. And, one of the things that he seems to be right about is cycles in economic confidence.

Years ago, he discovered that every economy in the world follows an 8.6 year cycle, from peak-to-peak or trough-to-trough. When an economy hits a top and starts down, that economy won’t hit another top until 8.6 years later.

He also noticed that these cycles weren’t numbered in years or months, but days:

3,141 days
The ECM

He developed a model to describe that observation and to help predict future turns in the economy. That model is called:

The Economic Confidence Model, or ECM.

Martin has been uncannily accurate with his ECM, which is why I am paying attention to it.

When it comes to when an economy turns direction, I listen to what Martin says. And, I’m willing to extend my favorable view of his abilities to his analysis of other cycles.

But, when he gets into other areas unrelated to cycles… not so much.

I find his analysis of the cycles of war and internal conflict to be compelling, but he is dismissive about the idea of precious metals manipulation, which I find to be strange. However, I’m not interested in his views on Gold or Silver. I just want to know when the economic system collapses.
The End Begins In 2015

Martin’s answer is:

October 1st, 2015

The longer answer will include an interim bottom by October 28th, 2016, with a small recovery that will end on November 25th 2017. And, a final bottom will arrive by January 19th, 2020.

Here’s a picture:


ECM – 2011 to 2020

And, you can see an earlier part of the graph here:


ECM 1985-2011

I originally saw the above graph here:

http://www.nowandfutures.com/buscycle.htm

That was an article that he wrote on September 26, 1999, and the above graph uncannily predicted – ahead of time – the rise and fall of our economies. It’s more than a little shocking to see such accuracy.

In fact, I don’t want to believe that we are so predictable, but apparently we are.

Lord willing, I’ll be able to discuss the ramifications of Martin Armstrong’s Economic Confidence model over the next few days.

But, for now, just consider the Summer of 2015 to be the last good summer that any of us may ever have.

I truly hope that you’ll be ready for this
(That’s a link. There’s not much time left.)

A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished. – Proverbs 22:3

Credit to Omega Shock

Russia, China drop US dollar for mutual trade

TOP COP: MILITARIZED VEHICLES NEEDED TO DEAL WITH “ANTI-GOVERNMENT” GROUPS

In an article for popular law enforcement website PoliceOne.com, Officer Steve Rabinovich writes that the controversial use of militarized vehicles in domestic law enforcement situations is necessary to deal with the threat posed by “anti-government groups.”

Rabinovich boasts an impressive list of credentials, with his assignments including Emergency Response Team, Crisis Intervention, ERU, Mounted and dignitary details. Rabinovich also teaches other police and emergency medical responders at his state’s technical college system.

Acknowledging that law enforcement bodies have received “criticisms from their communities” for utilizing the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program to acquire militarized vehicles previously used to hunt insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rabinovich cites domestic terrorism and “a steady increase in deadly and violent assaults on cops” as good reasons for police departments acquiring MRAPs and other military gear.


Rabinovich also points to “violent anti-government groups and individuals” who are“targeting cops as scapegoats” as another factor that justifies the use of militarized vehicles.

At no point does Rabinovich cite any actual studies showing violence against cops is on the increase, nor does he provide an example of any “anti-government group” that has launched a violent attack on police officers.

“The American law enforcement officer is expected to be able to work problems ranging from a traffic stop, noise complaint, or a domestic, to a terrorist act, mass murderer, or natural disaster. While your local town may or may not respond to terrorists planting explosives during a mass gathering event, a barricaded gunman or hostage situation is quite plausible scenario, and tools such as an MRAP will prove indispensable when that time comes,” writes Rabinovich.

“Police work isn’t becoming increasingly dangerous, even with the supposed corresponding uptick in “domestic and international terrorism,” points out the MassPrivateI blog. “Rabinovich must know this assertion won’t hold up because he adds the ridiculous claim that attacks on cops are ignored by much of the media or never reported at all. The exact opposite is the truth. In addition, the number of officers killed or wounded by civilians is a stat tracked by nearly every law enforcement agency. Civilians killed or wounded by police officers are stats tracked by amateurs, despite the fact that the DoJ has ordered these numbers to be reported annually — an order that has been mostly ignored for the last thirteen years.”

As we have exhaustively documented, many see the growing militarization of domestic police departments as a clear signal that law enforcement increasingly views the American people as a threat, with Indiana Police Sergeant Dan Downing admitting earlier this year that the increasing militarization of domestic police departments is partly to deal with returning veterans who are now seen as a homegrown terror threat.

During the height of the Ferguson unrest earlier this summer, MSNBC host Ed Schultz opined that such militarized equipment and vehicles was needed to deal with “anti-government” groups, while former Marine Paul Szoldra offered a different view, warning that scenes in Ferguson illustrated the “terrifying” result of the militarization of police, with the American people now being treated like insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Former Marine Corps Colonel Peter Martino, who was stationed in Fallujah and trained Iraqi soldiers,warned last year that the Department of Homeland Security is working with law enforcement to build a “domestic army,” because the federal government is afraid of its own citizens.

Martino was speaking at a council meeting concerning a decision to purchase a BearCat armored vehicle. The purchase of the vehicle was mired in controversy after the city’s Police Chief wrote in an application filing to the DHS that the vehicle was needed to deal with the “threat” posed by libertarians, sovereign citizen adherents, and Occupy activists in the region.

Credit to Infowars

Close military encounters between Russia and the west ‘at cold war levels’

Close military encounters between Russia and the west have jumped to cold war levels, with 40 dangerous or sensitive incidents recorded in the past eight months alone, according to a report published on Monday.

The report, Dangerous Brinkmanship by the European Leadership Network, logs a series of “highly disturbing” incidents since the Ukrainian crisis began earlier this year, including an alarming near-collision between a Russian reconnaissance plane and a passenger plane taking off from Denmark in March with 132 passengers on board.

What made the incident especially dangerous was that the Russian plane did not have on its transponders, the usual method of signalling its presence to other aircraft.

The report by the London-based thinktank comes after a warning from former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that the world is “on the brink of a new cold war”.

The encounters have taken place mainly around the Baltic Sea but also in the Black Sea and along the US and Canadian borders.

“We believe the nearly 40 incidents logged are a very serious development, not necessarily because they indicate a desire on the part of Russia to start a war but because they show a dangerous game of brinkmanship is being played, with the potential for unintended escalation in what is now the most serious security crisis in Europe since the cold war,” say the report’s authors Thomas Frear, Lukasz Kulesa and Ian Kearns.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Russian and Nato forces have routinely tested one another’s air defences, with both sending planes close to international borders to see how fast the other responds. But this year has seen not only a surge in such encounters but limits being pushed to new, more risky levels.

The US, Britain and other Nato allies accuse Russia of ramping up military action, but Moscow places the blame on the US and its European allies, accusing them of provoking the crisis in the Ukraine and through the imposition of sanctions on Russia. Gorbachev, normally a critic of Vladimir Putin, took the unusual step of siding with the Russian leader and called for new mechanisms for lowering tensions.

Some anti-war activists in the US and the west argue that Nato is hyping up encounters and risking all-out war.

The report authors urge the Russian leadership to “urgently re-evaluate the costs and risks of continuing its more assertive military posture”. They also call on all sides to exercise military and political restraint and improve military-to-military communication and transparency.

Nato logged up to late October more than 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft, three times more than last year.

These and other incidents add up to a highly disturbing picture of violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, and other dangerous actions happening on a regular basis over a very wide geographical area, the report says.

Among high-risk incidents it lists are: the abduction by Russia of an Estonian intelligence agent in September: a mock Russian bombing raid on a heavily populated Danish island; simulated cruise missile attacks by Russian bombers on the US and Canada; Canadian warships locking radar on approaching Russian aircraft in the Black Sea; and a US plane making unauthorised entry into Swedish airspace after being chased by Russian planes.

Estonian defence minister Sven Mikser said last week that while he did not see outright military conflict with Russia as likely, Russia had returned to cold war ways by stepping up incursions.

According to Lithuania’s defence ministry, Nato fighter jets around the Baltic states had been scrambled 86 times by mid-October, nearly twice as many as the whole of last year. Estonia has reported six breaches of its airspace by Russian aircraft this year, up from two in all of 2013. Latvia says it has sighted more than 40 Russian military vessels near its waters.

British general Sir John McColl, former deputy supreme allied commander in Europe, said the potential for miscalculation or escalation could be a matter not of if but when. While the recent increases in incidents were central high-level decisions, the physical execution of policy was delegated down.

“Junior commanders with highly capable equipment under their control will be interpreting broad direction using their initiative as circumstances develop in front of them. The potential for error and escalation is clear, and extremely dangerous; more a matter of when rather than if,” McColl said.

Former British defence secretary Des Browne shared the concern, singling out the near collision between the passenger plane and the warplane as well as the abduction of the Estonian, which he described as “a Russian incursion into Nato territory which had it got out of hand, could have had incalculable consequences”.

Kearns, who has been engaged with senior British foreign and defence policy makers for two decades, said: “We badly also need to negotiate a new crisis management arrangement with Russia to avoid a major unintentional escalation. The Chinese and Japanese have negotiated just such an arrangement in the East China Sea in the last few days. That is what we now need in Europe.’

China and Japan reached agreement on Friday on just such mechanisms in the East China Sea after similar tension. The two have been in dispute over tiny unpopulated islands controlled by Japan but claimed by Beijing and known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan.

Credit to the Guardian

It Begins, Russia Detaches From The Dollar/Euro Currency

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has outlined a nine-step plan to “eliminate” Israel.

The Supreme Leader of Iran’s official Twitter account has posted a set of answers to what are described as the “key questions”, saying that Israel is guilty of a host of “crimes”.

The first question asked is: “Why should the Zionist regime be eliminated?” To this, the response is given: “During its 66 years of life so far, the fake Zionist regime has tried to realise its goals by means of infanticide, homicide, violence and iron fist while boasts [sic] about it blatantly”.

However the statement adds that “the elimination of Israel does not mean the massacre of the Jewish people in this region”.

The statement proposes a referendum in which “all the original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians and Jews” could vote, but from which “Jewish immigrants” would be excluded.

It says the theoretical resultant government would then decide upon whether the latter group could remain in the country.

But it goes on to say that if such a referendum cannot be achieved then “powerful confrontation and resolute and armed resistance” is the only solution, as compromise is not possible.

The comments come just days after it was reported that Barack Obama wrote to Khamenei to point out Iran and the United States’ shared interest in fighting Isis militants.

Credit to The Independent

"If You Like Your Internet"... Obama Calls For Regulation To Keep "Internet Open"

"An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life," begins the President as he explains why the FCC should regulate the internet for Americans' own good:

• *OBAMA CALLS FOR REGULATING INTERNET LIKE PHONE COMPANIES
• *OBAMA ASKS FOR 'STRONGEST POSSIBLE RULES' FOR OPEN INTERNET

"The Internet has been one of the greatest gifts our economy — and our society — has ever known," and that's why Obama feels the need to regulate it to "protect an open, accessible, and free Internet."

Full Statement:

An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life. By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known.

“Net neutrality” has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today, I am asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.

When I was a candidate for this office, I made clear my commitment to a free and open Internet, and my commitment remains as strong as ever. Four years ago, the FCC tried to implement rules that would protect net neutrality with little to no impact on the telecommunications companies that make important investments in our economy. After the rules were challenged, the court reviewing the rules agreed with the FCC that net neutrality was essential for preserving an environment that encourages new investment in the network, new online services and content, and everything else that makes up the Internet as we now know it. Unfortunately, the court ultimately struck down the rules — not because it disagreed with the need to protect net neutrality, but because it believed the FCC had taken the wrong legal approach.

The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:

• No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.
• No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.
• Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.
• No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet’s openness.

The rules also have to reflect the way people use the Internet today, which increasingly means on a mobile device. I believe the FCC should make these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband as well, while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.

To be current, these rules must also build on the lessons of the past. For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business. That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call, or a packet of data.

So the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone — not just one or two companies.

Investment in wired and wireless networks has supported jobs and made America the center of a vibrant ecosystem of digital devices, apps, and platforms that fuel growth and expand opportunity. Importantly, network investment remained strong under the previous net neutrality regime, before it was struck down by the court; in fact, the court agreed that protecting net neutrality helps foster more investment and innovation. If the FCC appropriately forbears from the Title II regulations that are not needed to implement the principles above — principles that most ISPs have followed for years — it will help ensure new rules are consistent with incentives for further investment in the infrastructure of the Internet.

The Internet has been one of the greatest gifts our economy — and our society — has ever known. The FCC was chartered to promote competition, innovation, and investment in our networks. In service of that mission, there is no higher calling than protecting an open, accessible, and free Internet. I thank the Commissioners for having served this cause with distinction and integrity, and I respectfully ask them to adopt the policies I have outlined here, to preserve this technology’s promise for today, and future generations to come.

*  *  *

As we concluded previously,

This is truly the American way of censorship. Figure
out how those with the deepest pockets can smother the free speech of
those with little or no voice on the one medium in which information
flow is still treated equally. The nightmare scenario here would be that
status quo companies use their funds to price out everyone else. It
would kill innovation on the web before it starts. It’s just another
example of the status quo attempting to build a moat around itself that
we have already seen in so many other areas of the economy.

The internet
really is the last bastion of freedom and dynamism in the U.S. economy
and this proposal could put that at serious risk. Oh, and to make
matters worse, the current FCC is filled to the brim with revolving door
industry lobbyists.

Credit to Zero Hedge