The reddit Armstrong Economics Fan Forum

The Unofficial Armstrong Economics Fan Forum is a 100% commercial Socrates support forum run by a member of Martin Armstrong's inner circle, LateralusYellow. In fact, LateralusYellow follows Martin Armstrong's script so closely that it appears as if LateralusYellow is the master himself. Posing as an enthusiast user who is still learning Socrates. See also:

Martin Armstrong The Hyper Shill

Before going into the details of his roles and actions in the group, let me make a guess who this shill is. Because he is in charge since the creation of the group on Feb 25, 2014, he must be a member of Martin Armstrong's inner circle. And because he has used exactly the same charting software that Erwin Pletsch used, my first guess is that LateralusYellow is someone who operates under Erwin Pletsch. See also Erwin Pletsch in Martin Armstrong Inner Circle Details.

Erwin Pletsch is the head of the offshore business that is used to run and sell the Socrates subscription service: Princeton FZ LLC. See also Princeton FZ LLC in Martin Armstrong Inner Circle Details. If you wondered what this guy is doing all day long, keep reading. You can listen to him in a video here:

VIX Forecast - Saturday November 14th

To remove any doubts that this forum is about trading with Socrates, I am quoting him from one of his earlier posts

 Well that was impressive...

I am not having enough success to make me confident enough to publicly post my trades in real time, but I'm hoping to get good enough to do that in the future on this sub.

So far, after all these years, he has not succeeded in posting successful Socrates trades in real time. Nevertheless, he gives plenty of advice to his audience on how to do it.

Meanwhile, since January 2023, it appears that LateralusYellow deleted all his posts and replies except two pinned ones. I think this is a serious matter. Apparently there are some problems with his faith in Socrates and Armstrong and / or his remuneration as a shill)

The shill LateralusYellow has two roles in that group:

1) He is the moderator of that group. Since my participation, he has tightened the rules. An Automoderator is configured to delete comments and ban users where the comments include hyperlinks to this site and the bitcointalk forum with the topic Martin Armstrong Discussion. It also prevents fresh users with short membership from posting topics.

2) He is the main contributor, a professional. He employs an assistant who produces financial charts with Socrates content for him that he posts at least once every few weeks. For the anecdotal proof of this, see:

Improved chart sharing for collaboration Feature Request

(He deleted that post, so here is the archived version: Deleted post on web.archive.org)

 Quote (emphasis added)

I have an assistant that does all my charts for me. Right now I struggle to find time for them to log in to the account. We utilize a lot of drawings on our charts, and have them organized into folders on the object tree. Some of the lower time level drawings can be visually cluttering when looking at the big picture, so I toggle them on and off as needed. So at the very least it would be helpful if sharing charts allowed those viewing it to temporarily change the time level, as well as have limited access to the object tree for purposes of temporarily showing and hide objects. It is already possible to temporarily change the X and Y scaling from the shared view, so I don't understand why other temporary visual changes can't be made. Right now I have to make a copy of all the charts every day, which is just annoying and tedious. But what would be far more useful are genuine collaboration capabilities similar to google docs where multiple people can view and edit something at the same time. Even if that meant I had to pay for multiple accounts, it would be worth it for me.

With that clutter (drawings) that he wants to hide he is apparently referring to lower time frame Reversal details that he does not want to see on higher time frames.

In a reddit response that he later deleted, LateralusYellow claimed on Fri April 15 2022 that he trades for a living: Where to invest if I expect the US dollar to lose value against foreign currencies. Apparently this was an attempt to attract new Socrates users. In another reddit post he wrote that he is Canadian. Interestingly, an attendant of Martin Armstrong's World Economic Conferences has reported that one Canadian there claimed that he exclusively used Socrates for his trading and it earned him a very good living. A shill obviously. The same guy?

One more anecdotal piece of evidence. In Nasdaq Composite tests 3rd Major Monthly Bearish.he is making good on his promise  to post real-time trades (again he deleted that response):

Quote (emphasis added)

I should also mention that many markets have been targeting the week of June 20th for a low, so I wouldn't be surprised if 10822 was broken. So by going long today ...
.

Such a statement can only be made by someone who has unlimited free access to the Socrates system because the discovery and identification of every single "target" requires an (otherwise paid for)  Socrates Premium market subscription ONE FOR EACH MARKET. Such targets are only suggested in the Forecast Arrays. Nevertheless, his trading efforts were not rewarded because the markets declined once again, exposing his Socrates contraption as a maximum effort-maximum loss scheme. Surpassing even the WonderLab’s Rube Goldberg machine in inefficiency.

It is certain that he is being paid by Armstrong Economics. I have multiple other experiences that confirm this. I usually probe suspects by using new accounts set up for that purpose, and to drain the resources of such shills and discredit and expose them. I am hesitating to quote my exchanges here in support of my claim directly in this case because LateralusYellow has the authority to delete my messages which would make such exercises futile. Perhaps I will do this later.

LateralusYellow makes strong efforts to deny any affiliation with Armstrong Economics which culminated in the change of the title image approximately two years ago when he added "UNAFFILIATED/UNOFFICIAL" to it.

This denial is essential for the successful operation of the Socrates scam. Because for legal reasons, Martin Armstrong is not allowed to give any investment advice, but LateralusYellow is obviously doing so anonymously, posing as a trader and Socrates enthusiast who is just learning Socrates and sharing his experiences.

So it is basically another commercial Armstrong Economics blog where some shills, fans and controlled opposition are allowed to comment and to post as well. To support my claim further, here is a list of dozens of non-conforming posts that he deleted (in addition to deleted comments on existing posts):

This list would easily make this group a prime contender for the title of the most censored and scrubbed reddit group.

Charts as Smokescreens

LateralusYellow uses another tactic that is generally considered valuable in the community of financial charlatans: Charts as smokescreens. Charts are easily produced with charting software especially if they are the same over and over. The more complicated the better. Even more so if they are based on templates as he explained. He uses this as an effective tool to drown out inconvenient responses and questions. As an example, see this discussion which starts in a critical tone:

Cryptocurrency day of reckoning

Alternative_Call4966 answers:

Can't answer but all I can say is he[Martin Armstrong]'s  been consistently wrong on crypto so inverse whatever he says probably on this market

No-Ebb-5034 answers:

He’s wrong on everything dude. Real estate, crypto, you name it. And then that psycho will say he called it after the fact.

LateralusYellow answers:

His calls on Bitcoin were wrong but his argument for why it won't last in the long run are valid. Since you have a history of just being a dismissive asshole you're no longer welcome here.

 BANNED!

 Finally LateralusYellow posts a DOW chart and starts lecturing about mandatory Covid-19 vaccination.

Any decent moderator would delete that response as off-topic spam.

Lateralus has Sock Puppets, too

What would a post or response by the moderator be without an organic discussion? No problem. In a moment, or perhaps delayed a bit as to be not too obvious, sock puppet kiam83 comes to the rescue. Just check out his history with his delighting posts like "Well said ..." and more elaborate Socrates teachings. This guy is a professional shill, no doubt. This sock puppet is just an example. LateralusYellow has many of them. I found that more than 90% of the traffic in that group is generated by such shills.How? I contact all of them via private messages, using many of my different accounts. My conversation usually starts with some criticism and some links to this site. As a response I get fake claims by the shill such as he made 500% profit during the last 12 months trading with Socrates, and a suggestion that I should attend a paid Socrates seminar to get similar results. The latest example is the reddit post by user 1azzaaa1 "Trading view". A super-duper shill. Not too obvious, just having a technical question to save the group from dying. His question is responded to by other shills of course. Very organic!

Reincarnation as Lateralus Smith on Facebook

After my exposure of the group here and on bitcointalk,  LateralusYellow re-appears with name Lateralus Smith as a new active member of that private group The Facebook Martin Armstrong and Socrates Traders Group
 
Please note that there appears to be a direct connection because he joined the Facebook group on 16 April 2022, just two days after my exposure. The reddit group is essentially retired / dead now. Let's see what happens after he discovers my exposure of the Facebook group.

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