QUESTION: Mr Armstrong,
I have been following your blog since I saw The Forecaster four years ago. Last fall, I was fortunate enough to attend the WEC in Orlando. I did my best to keep up with the information presented, but it was a lot, fast. Nonetheless, I am a more informed person for attending. I have come to really respect and appreciate your perspective and practical approach. As such, I have two things that I wanted to share (one comment, one question).
First, I am in the military, stationed in Maryland. However, I still retain my Nebraska residency. I am working from home, teleworking during the COVID-19 event, which has given me time to read, reflect and consider the magnitude of the fallout stemming from actions taken to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. As a result, I forwarded your Letter to President Trump to Senator Sasse, Senator Fischer, and to my Congressman Jeff Fortenberry. I don’t know what is afoot in all of this, but something smells extremely fishy. I was supposed to get married next Saturday in the Philippines, but this whole debacle changed that. Yet, I digress. I just wanted you to know that I agree with what you proposed and took action.
Second, I am part of the team responsible for writing a 10-year strategic plan for the Air National Guard. I keep trying to wrap my brain around the cycle trends creating the environment in which we will be living in 2030. Do you have any recommendations you could pass along regarding how to craft a strategic vision for the next 10 years so that we can be postured to best serve our local communities and our National Defense as we navigate through the tremendous changes that lie ahead?
Thank you so much for your heart to serve others and for the tremendous information, you make available to those of us trying to make sense of the world.
Sincerely,
D
ANSWER: I would never have imagined even if I was a fiction novelist that something like this absurd could undermine the world economy without (1) ever firing a shot and (2) less than 20,000 people have died from a flu-like virus. If I had written such a novel using this plot, I doubt anyone would have published it. It just sounds too stupid. Rest assured. I am running every model. It will take Socrates to call this one. Anything else is just human opinion, which at this stage in the game, is highly dangerous for I have been in this game for about 50 years and I have never witnessed a crash with no fundamental logic at all.
The 1987 Crash, at least the rumors were that the president was assassinated or Russia just invaded Europe and communications were down. But those were panic events that lasted a day. This is different. This is being orchestrated as if it were a plot to destroy the economy and most heads of state are not in the loop.
This is very strange. There is no evidence that this is even a major threat. It is a pandemic but nowhere near a far more serious epidemic (proportion of population v only geographic) It has subsided in China and we have staff there on the ground. We have staff strategically placed around the world so we have our own boots on the ground to rely on for eye-witness accounts – not media. It’s going crazy in Berlin where we also have staff. The panic level is absurd. They have people thinking if they contract it, they die.
There is a grab for power here which is disproportionate to the evidence. We are cascading toward a virtual dictatorship in Europe particularly. Even austerity has been abandoned which would have been impossible without this type of panic. That may be one covert objective.
This is better than any plot for a James Bond movie because nobody would have believed that you could scare the hell out of the world so easily.
