QUESTION: Marty, I’ve been reviewing all the reports you’ve distributed at the WECs. I wish Trump had attended—I recall he was in the next room one year. Not only have your war cycles been astonishing, but you also forecast this collapse in confidence in governments that would send long-term rates up. I remember back in 2022, you said 5.5% on the 30-year would be the breakout. I’ve reread your 2022 Liquidity Crisis report. Anyone who dares to question your forecasting is simply a troll for the Neocons.
Will you have any surprises at this year’s WEC? We have so much on the table—war, interest rates, sovereign defaults, stock markets, gold, not to mention the election craziness.
You moved to Florida back in 2016 and said your models were showing a long-term decline for the NY area, even predicting that Wall Street would leave. All of those things sounded nuts back then—and here we are today.
JB
ANSWER: Well, we have everything from Sovereign Debt Crisis that has reached $400 trillion while everyone looks only at the USA at $40 trillion, the real threat of nuclear war, interest rates that the central banks have no control over and the morons who keep talking about inflation that a central bank raising rates will not make oil prices decline in the middle of a Cost-Push-Inflation. I warned that politics would become dramatic and showed the computer warned that the Democratic Party could split. Now even James Carville says it should split.
Besides the 72 Year Revolution Cycle of Russia starting in 1917 that coincided with the ECM 1989.95, and even the real estate crash of 2007 to the day when the floor traders were calling it Armstrong’s Revenge, The computer was correct on the Trump election and forecast the rise in civil unrest from 2020, the commodity boom, the rise in authoritarianism from 2020 into 2032, many overlook the 2011 forecast for the rise in Marxism in the West some call Progressivism.
The evidence strongly indicates that progressivism experienced a significant resurgence in 2011, driven by a wave of grassroots activism in response to economic inequality and conservative policy pushes. This was the prelude to our forecast that the Democratic Party would eventually split. Indeed, several key movements and events took place in 2011.
The Occupy Wall Street Movement was a big one. I remember walking out of the office in Philadelphia back then and the protesters screaming at me calling me a “corporate liberal” where they were just throwing words around that had no meaning. Beginning in September 2011, this movement brought the national conversation around economic inequality—popularized by the slogan “We are the 99%”—to the forefront of American politics. It energized the progressive left and drew attention from labor unions and even some Democratic lawmakers.
The Wisconsin Capitol Protests also took place in 2011 earlier in the year. That was also massive protests that erupted in Wisconsin against Governor Scott Walker’s bill to curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees. The state, a historical birthplace of the progressive movement, saw tens of thousands of protesters, reinvigorating labor and progressive activism.
By November 2011, progressives celebrated several key electoral wins. Voters in Ohio decisively repealed an anti-union law, and in Mississippi, they rejected a “personhood” amendment that would have severely restricted abortion rights. These were seen as direct rebukes to conservative agendas.
The movements of 2011 received support from established progressive figures and institutions. The Congressional Progressive Caucus voiced solidarity with the Occupy protesters, and labor unions actively partnered with the movement. Publications like The Nation also highlighted the year’s activism as a significant moment for progressivism.
The rise of this progressive movement in 2011 was right on target. I have said many times that the last three wave of a 51.6-year cycle are always the most chaotic. We will have to review where to live for sure. We see the Great Migration in the USA from Blue States that have lost their mind like NYC and the flight to the red states like Tea=xas and Florida.
Texas has built a new stock exchange that is actively competing for business from New York. The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), based in Dallas, officially launched full trading on July 31, 2026, and it’s already making moves to challenge the long-standing dominance of the NYSE and Nasdaq. Philadelphia holds the title of the first stock exchange in the United States, with its origins tracing back to 1746 and its formal establishment in 1790. The New York Stock Exchange traces its founding to the Buttonwood Agreement in 1792, with its formal organization as a board occurring in 1817. The new TXSE will eventually dwarf NYC and they inevitably will seek to tax stock transactions etc.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has actively considered and supported new taxes related to financial transactions. While his focus has been on high-value real estate rather than a general tax on all financial trades, he has supported proposals that function as transaction taxes on luxury property purchases. However, there was imposed during the rise of the progressive era that culminated in the Income Tax in 1913, taxes on financial transactions. New York State Stock Transfer Tax was created in 1905. New York State, in conjunction with New York City, enacted a tax on the transfer of stocks in 1905. This tax was initially a half-penny on stock trades, and it was collected until 1981, when it was eliminated. It has been a subject of ongoing political debate, with recent proposals to reinstate it.
Then there was the Federal Stock Transfer Excise Tax imposed in 1914 to pay for World War I. At the federal level, a stock transfer excise tax (sometimes called a documentary stamp tax) was imposed on the issuance and subsequent transfers of securities. This federal tax was in effect from 1914 to 1966.
We will have a full plate this year between war on 4 fronts, sovereign debts, bond crisis, rising interest rates that are NOT driven by inflation, three political elections, the Everything Bubble, and then political infighting, impeachments, and obstruction of everything.
