“Martin Armstrong (born 1950) is a former chairman of Princeton Economics International Ltd, who wrote financial newsletters from prison while serving time for contempt of court and alleged fraud involving Japanese investors.

He was not formally tried on the fraud charges during his first seven years of incarceration, served in a maximum security Manhattan prison where he was severely beaten by an inmate and required intensive care treatment. He served a later sentence at Fort Dix, where he continued to write his newsletter despite periods spent in the ‘hole’. Armstrong was originally jailed for contempt of court in January 2000 and held for seven years before being brought to trial when a judge who had annually renewed the contempt ruling was removed from the case. The period of imprisonment for contempt, without trial, was one of the longest in US history. Armstrong was finally released into house arrest in March 2011 for a period to run to September of that year. In 2007, he had pleaded guilty, in a plea bargain, to a single charge of criminal conspiracy relating to a period when he was managing $3 billion in assets and working from an office overlooking the royal palace in Tokyo. The conspiracy charge brought a further sentence of five years with no remission for time served.

Armstrong repeatedly challenged his guilty plea and claimed that the CIA tried to recruit him when his computer-based projections correctly predicted the collapse of Soviet communism to the day. He was held under a contempt of court order after stating that he could not surrender $14.9 million in gold bars and rare coins, plus a bust of Julius Caesar, because he no longer had them in his possession.

The former money manager built his reputation, detailed in a long profile in New Yorker magazine, on a cyclical theory based on 8.6-year periods derived from the number of days in pi multipled by 1,000 (3141).^[1]“

Wikipedia

Be Prepared to read

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A New Piece of the Human Puzzle

Sat May 7, 2011 10:13pm EST 2

A new fossil has turned up….

Full article

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Goldman Issues a Boat Load of Forecast Change Info

Sat May 7, 2011 9:59pm EST Comments Off on Goldman Issues a Boat Load of Forecast Change Info

From Zero Hedge

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Greece Considers Issuing Their Own Currency and Saying Goodbye To The Euro Zone

Sat May 7, 2011 9:53pm EST Comments Off on Greece Considers Issuing Their Own Currency and Saying Goodbye To The Euro Zone

“The debt crisis in Greece has taken on a dramatic new twist. Sources with information about the government’s actions have informed SPIEGEL ONLINE that Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone. The common currency area’s finance ministers and representatives of the European Commission are holding a secret crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night.

Greece’s economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou’s government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency…..”

Full article

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Osama Bin Laden Video Tapes Released to the Public

Sat May 7, 2011 6:48pm EST Comments Off on Osama Bin Laden Video Tapes Released to the Public

Full article and video

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Fannie Mae seeks $8.5 billion additional aid

Sat May 7, 2011 5:01pm EST 1

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fannie Mae asked the government Friday for an additional $8.5 billion in aid after declining home prices caused more defaults on loans guaranteed by the mortgage giant.

The company said it lost $8.7 billion in the first three months of the year. Those losses led Fannie to request more than three times the federal aid it sought in the previous quarter. The total cost of rescuing the government-controlled mortgage buyer is nearing $100 billion — the most expensive bailout of a single company.

Combined with the bailout of sibling company Freddie Mac, the government expects their rescue to cost taxpayers about $259 billion. That money will cover the mortgage giants’ losses on soured loans made in the midst of the housing bubble.

Home prices declined on average 1.8 percent across the country during the January-March quarter, Fannie Mae said. That led to more foreclosures and to homeowners abandoning houses that were worth less than they owed on their mortgages.

“We expect our credit-related losses to remain elevated in 2011 as we continue to be negatively impacted by the prolonged decline in home prices,” President and CEO Michael Williams said in a statement.

The losses incurred in the first three months of the year are related to loans that were extended before 2009, Fannie Mae said. The company expects to make money on home loans that it acquired since January 2010.

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Automatic budget cuts considered

Sat May 7, 2011 4:59pm EST Comments Off on Automatic budget cuts considered

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress and President Barack Obama are proposing ways to automatically trigger budget savings if they can’t rein in deficits the old-fashioned way, by enacting laws to cut spending or raise taxes. Similar efforts in the past have a spotty record.

The last quarter-century has seen plenty of missed deficit and spending targets and inventive evasions of budget curbs. This is because the same legislators who put in place those budget constraints can pass laws to ignore them.

That history has convinced analysts that automatic triggers work best when lawmakers already have approved spending cuts, taxes increases or both. They’re least effective when used as an incentive to force legislators into such agreements in the first place.

“Process alone is never going to bring about fiscal responsibility,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that wants to erase federal deficits. “If the political actors are not willing or ready to make hard choices, they won’t.”

This year’s expected record deficit of $1.5 trillion and a cumulative national debt topping $14 trillion have snowballed into a major political issue that probably will color presidential and congressional elections in 2012.

As a result, Washington is awash with proposals from Obama, lawmakers and anti-deficit groups such as the Bipartisan Policy Center to automatically trigger budget savings if ceilings on spending, the national debt or other benchmarks are pierced.

A quarter-century ago, lawmakers were looking for similar mechanisms.

When Reagan-era deficits reached the unprecedented $200 billion-a-year range, Congress in 1985 enacted the Gramm-Rudman law, sponsored by Sens. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, Warren Rudman, R-N.H., and Ernest Hollings, D-S.C.

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Earnings Preview For Next Week

Sat May 7, 2011 12:52pm EST Comments Off on Earnings Preview For Next Week

“Earnings season is slowing down as we have over 80% of the S&P 500 companies having reported earnings for the first quarter of 2011. We do still have key companies reporting earnings and we wanted to highlight these with detailed previews. You will notice at the end that many solar companies are reporting earnings as well.”

Full article

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Jim Rogers: ” I own all my commodities. We are in a flexible bull market “

Sat May 7, 2011 12:47pm EST Comments Off on Jim Rogers: ” I own all my commodities. We are in a flexible bull market “

“Jim Rogers didn’t buy or sell anything during last week’s commodity sell-off.

He says he isn’t good at market timing. What he does believe is that we’re in the middle of a commodity bull market where everything will go up for years.

Rogers tells the Economic Times:”

Full article

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The Week Ahead

Sat May 7, 2011 12:39pm EST Comments Off on The Week Ahead

“For better or worse, the U.S. economy is back on the top of the stock market’s watch list, with the European sovereign debt crisis a close second.

A surprisingly strong jobs report Fridaycame at the end of a week of spotty economic news and worries about global growth. A dramatic selloff in commodities took its toll on equities, but stocks moved higher again when the government report showed that 244,000 jobs were added in April.

Crude oil was down nearly 15 percent, gasoline futures fell 9 percent, gold slid 4 percent, and silver, which led the decline, was down 27 percent…..”

Full article

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U.S. Losing Valuable Foot Hold Over Technology From China’s Espionage

Sat May 7, 2011 12:36pm EST Comments Off on U.S. Losing Valuable Foot Hold Over Technology From China’s Espionage

Something should be done about this no?

“EDITOR’S NOTE — China, ever more powerful, has become a major instigator of espionage in the United States. First of a two-part series on Beijing’s efforts, many successful, to steal American secrets and technology.

___

He had been a seemingly all-American, clean-cut guy: No criminal record. Engaged to be married. A job teaching English overseas. In letters to the judge, loved ones described the 29-year-old Midwesterner as honest and caring — a good citizen. His fiancee called him “Mr. Patriot.”

Such descriptions make the one that culminated in the courtroom all the more baffling: Glenn Shriver was also a spy recruit for China. He took $70,000 from individuals he knew to be Chinese intelligence officers to try to land a job with a U.S. government agency — first the State Department and later the CIA.”

Full article

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Taliban Admits Bin Laden is Dead

Sat May 7, 2011 1:04am EST 3

Obama just got 4 more years.

Bin Laden “embraced martyrdom as per the Will of the Almighty Allah during an abrupt abrupt attack by the American invading soldiers,” according to a statement released by the Taliban.

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Flash: WATG Halted

Fri May 6, 2011 6:03pm EST Comments Off on Flash: WATG Halted

Another Chinese burrito scam?

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Flash: Lenny Dykstra Indicted on 13-counts of Bankruptcy Fraud

Fri May 6, 2011 5:41pm EST 7

Mess with the banks; lose your freedom.

Classic Lenny:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=floHSil9P58 616 500]

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Week in Review: Biggest Large Cap Winners and Losers

Fri May 6, 2011 5:01pm EST Comments Off on Week in Review: Biggest Large Cap Winners and Losers

market cap over 5 bill

No. Ticker 1-week Return Market Cap
1 HLF 16.90 6,110,000,000
2 DISH 16.69 12,980,000,000
3 MGM 14.14 7,000,000,000
4 KEP 13.68 16,000,000,000
5 GMCR 13.31 10,430,000,000
6 UAL 12.40 8,520,000,000
7 SIRI 12.06 8,340,000,000
8 M 9.12 11,170,000,000
9 DAL 8.09 9,370,000,000
10 ERTS 7.78 7,250,000,000
11 OI 7.25 5,120,000,000
12 BAP 6.25 7,860,000,000
13 ROST 6.11 9,240,000,000
14 VMED 5.85 9,990,000,000
15 LCAPA 5.63 6,890,000,000
16 CCL 5.62 32,420,000,000
17 GILD 5.61 32,150,000,000
18 HNP 5.50 6,450,000,000
19 FE 5.43 12,570,000,000
20 YHOO 5.42 24,130,000,000
21 MHS 5.41 24,790,000,000
22 CUK 5.40 33,620,000,000
23 CBS 5.35 17,950,000,000
24 LINTA 4.98 10,510,000,000
25 CCK 4.47 6,070,000,000

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1 CSC -14.65 6,740,000,000
2 EGO -14.44 8,830,000,000
3 XEC -13.82 8,360,000,000
4 HP -13.02 6,220,000,000
5 PXD -12.88 10,330,000,000
6 LYG -12.53 59,230,000,000
7 GG -12.38 38,900,000,000
8 ANR -11.95 6,800,000,000
9 SLW -11.92 12,420,000,000
10 CXO -11.71 9,680,000,000
11 MUR -11.41 13,220,000,000
12 JOYG -11.36 9,410,000,000
13 STO -11.29 83,010,000,000
14 GGB -11.22 15,840,000,000
15 HMY -10.73 5,880,000,000
16 GFI -10.71 11,460,000,000
17 CLR -10.70 10,270,000,000
18 NBR -10.54 7,910,000,000
19 NOV -10.51 28,930,000,000
20 AU -10.40 18,460,000,000
21 BHI -10.34 30,290,000,000
22 CCH -10.30 9,470,000,000
23 WLL -10.24 7,320,000,000
24 AEM -9.97 11,450,000,000
25 MEE -9.96 6,400,000,000

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Week in Review: Biggest ETF Winners and Losers

Fri May 6, 2011 4:57pm EST Comments Off on Week in Review: Biggest ETF Winners and Losers

No. Ticker 1-week Return
1 ZSL 68.84
2 SCO 31.33
3 DTO 27.42
4 ERY 23.49
5 DUST 21.11
6 DUG 15.38
7 TVIX 15.03
8 SZO 13.60
9 CVOL 12.00
10 TZA 11.98
11 EDZ 11.43
12 SRTY 11.22
13 DPK 11.07
14 LHB 10.60
15 SMK 10.17
16 EPV 9.46
17 DZZ 9.43
18 GLL 9.39
19 SMN 9.36
20 BZQ 9.09
21 VIIX 8.55
22 SKK 8.31
23 TWM 7.97
24 DRV 7.87
25 VXX 7.51

——————————

No. Ticker 1-week Return
1 AGQ -47.78
2 PSLV -27.11
3 DBS -26.82
4 UCO -26.09
5 SLV -25.77
6 ERX -20.46
7 DYY -19.44
8 NUGT -18.65
9 GLTR -15.34
10 UCD -15.24
11 OIL -14.54
12 USO -14.00
13 DIG -13.93
14 OLEM -13.93
15 DBO -13.91
16 OLO -13.84
17 LBJ -13.54
18 USL -13.45
19 BNO -13.27
20 RJN -13.17
21 SIL -13.13
22 DBE -12.71
23 JJP -11.65
24 GSP -11.58
25 JJE -11.57