Martin Armstrong Socrates Scam: May 2020

Please let me remind you that Martin Armstrong is by court order barred permanently from association with any financial adviser, so any direct claims that his clients benefit financially from his products and services would be illegal. See:

OPINION OF THE COMMISSION

The Shill Trick

Therefore, Martin Armstrong uses a trick that allows him to make that claim nevertheless. He uses anonymous shills who make the claim on his behalf for perfect deniability.

The setup is easier to understand from the perspective of the roles of these shills.

The first role is the the click bait promoter role. This role merely exists to prevent the actor from running afoul the rules of engagement of various media discussion platforms. Such rules often prohibit unpaid product advertising but allow the posting of links to click bait leading to the products, or simply praising Armstrong as a person. I found Martin Armstrong himself acting in this role on most platforms.
The 2nd role is the more aggressive product promoting role. This role is more dangerous, because in the case of Armstrong, it has an illegal intent, in conflict with many discussion platform rules. Again, I have seen Armstrong acting in this role, but only in settings where the loss of his social media account due to role violation was low risk such as a replacement account could be established easily. This role can only be performed by Armstrong himself or his closest confidant, his strategic adviser. That is because it involves defending Armstrong against attacks regarding his illegal activities.

There are of course some short term eager Armstrong fanatics and sycophants who have just consumed his latest click bait and who parrot one of these roles.

With these distinctions in mind, the process of identifying the actor behind the social media account making statements regarding Armstrong and his services is fairly straight forward.

An excellent example where simple additional discriminators such as style analysis and timing analysis lead to the direct identification of different actors is:

Exposed: Armstrong Economics in The Free Republic Forum

That case above is is perhaps the biggest catch involving Martin Armstrong himself and his Number Two, a member of his Inner Circle.

Here on this page I am focusing on more cases of the aggressive role 1.

I have proven beyond any doubt in The Fan Email Confidence Trick that Martin Armstrong in his public blog is manufacturing fake client emails that are praising his services (role 1). This is corroborated by dozens of third party accounts. He effectively executes the function of the Shill, thousands of times without the need to pay anyone. This is possible because of the anonymity of the authors of these fake emails. Martin Armstrong's risk is zero because he owns his blog platform which is his echo chamber.

Please let me demonstrate with multiple examples how he took this concept one step further and exposed himself twice as follows.

The battle over Control of an Internet Forum

Again, he acts as a shill, praising the qualities of his own services, posing as a client, or as someone who claims to have good knowledge of the Socrates system, without identifying himself. I know that his risk was low because as demonstrated below, he used multiple accounts on that platform without restrictions.

In the following scenario, he uses and even tries tries to take control of a foreign public internet forum that is available to him free of charge. To cut a long story short, I have identified at least 300 of his shill messages he sent using multiple accounts in that single bitcoin forum, Martin Armstrong Discussion.

I start with his most recent account / ID / user handle Gumbi

Gumbi exposed himself as Martin Armstrong when he threatened to sue me, the anonymous poster in that same forum AnonymousCoder for defamation. See Gumbi IS Martin Armstrong and following posts for the time line of events.

Martin Armstrong as Gumbi in a private message to me using that forum's messaging facility:

Gumbi IS Martin Armstrong

I will sue you for defamation if you keep this up

Martin Armstrong sent 166 messages alone using this single ID. I also know that additionally, he used at least the IDs over45, Strike Eagle 26 and m96. The combined message count of these sock puppet identities is over 300.

over45 is a character with an evolving personality who introduces himself to the forum as a follower who wants to learn about forecast arrays, then claims that Socrates saved him tons of money due to among other trades the trading of the pharma stock (Biogen BIIB) crash which he claims Socrates predicted for him, while at the same time claiming that he is not trading actively:

Not going to happen because if you read my posts you'd know that I don't have access to the reversal system and am not an active trader.

He then ends up threatening to sue the anonymous poster AnonymousCoder very much in line with Gumbi.

Put your money where your mouth is then. You know that you would lose the case and would have to pay. So once again you hide behind your anonymous identity posting falsehoods and misrepresentations and impugning the reputation of Armstrong. Your skimming and understanding of legal doctrine is flawed. Your encouraging of people to commit copyright infringement should get you kicked off this board immediately and banned. Every basher post and action is documented for prosperity through internet archives. Instead of deflecting and continued BS - make your case in a legal setting. That should not be a problem since you are 100% sure of yourself. There are ways to find out who you really are - don't think there isn't. If the world economy wasn't crashing as we speak I would spend more time on this - but there are things to do to prepare. Thanks to Armstrong I am in am much better position than most since the crash began. Same can't be said for most others. Socrates is worth every friggin penny and then-some.

Francis Marximus at Zero Hedge

Read the full details of his massive engagement there at: The Martin Armstrong Scam on Zero Hedge

Here is a more recent prominent example. Martin Armstrong or his adviser poses on Zero Hedge as a satisfied user with fake name "Franzis Marximus". Please note when following the links to Zero Hedge, you need to scroll down to the comments section and wait a little. There might be access restrictions as well depending on how far back in time this conversation is. Franzis Marximus starts the conversation as follows in the comments section of his Zero Hedge marketing page:

"Francis Marximus" at Zero Hedge Oct 3 2022

I got armstrong subscription and been reading him for all of 15 years. He said many years ago that all Pensions will fail going into the great crash and burn. Not just Europe. All his long term subscribers and readers will back up what I am saying.

I counter this this as "ThoughtSplitter" at Zero Hedge Oct 3 2022

You are a shill. Nothing could be further from the truth.

See:

Socrates Subscriber Testimonials

and for you:

Martin Armstrong The Hyper Shill

He responds:

"Francis Marximus" at Zero Hedge Oct 3 2022

Been reading Armstrong for many years. You are a friend of the bankers. They hate him.

If the subscribers hate him so bad, how come he has 150,000 subscribers to his Socrates?

I have made quite a bit of money off of his Socrates pro.

I can't help if a lot of simpletons don't understand trading.

I respond as "ThoughtSplitter" at Zero Hedge Oct 3 2022

Hello Martin Armstrong. You ARE Martin Armstrong because nobody should know that number 150,000 except you, even while it is a lie (because if it was true then you would not be broke). You can't have it both ways - posing as a user and at the same time being the operator of that business and not be broke.

Did I fail to say you are schizophrenic? You have been running a sock puppet show for the last 40 years. Every man and his dog knows it.

Another user Nosey_Parker responds:

Nosey_Parker at Zero Hedge Oct 3 2022

Wow, MA just got ass rapped on ZH

User Nosey_Parker concludes later:

Nosey_Parker at Zero Hedge Oct 3 2022

This comments section is the best one for a while. Evidence points to the actual Martin Armstrong coming on here to hawk his wares and shout down the debunkers is brilliant.

The question remains......

If these guys are so good at predicting the markets why do they need to go on shows like USAWatchdog.com to sell their 'secrets' for $50 a month?

Greg Mannarino seems like a nice guy but then begs for $5

Jim Willie is another, supposedly this super successful trade but always in need of a handout.

If I was some kind of nostradamus, I'd make a million or two then buy a nice house by the sea and carry on making a few hundred thousand a year 'working' a few hours a week, not lowering myself to go on Greg Hunter to hawk a crappy self published book or to beg for $10

From the example above you can see that one can identify Martin Armstrong without any doubt, catch him, get him to expose himself, with only TWO messages AND get confirmation from a third party. Because he is a schizophrenic liar.

The Zero Hedge administration deleted the above comments made by user Francis Marximus, comments that were the last ones made from this account. You can see in the profile Francis Marximus on Zero Hedge that there are no new messages after Sept 2022. Apparently the account was disabled promptly.

However, Martin Armstrong, true to his stubborn and intransigent style, created a new account with the same features (low risk). See the new user Francis Marxximus which appeared with the same profile picture icon on Nov 11, 2022 (please note the double x in his new name). It still has the same shill role.

But this is only the peak of the iceberg. Let me explore another discussion group at reddit.com: Unofficial Armstrong Economics Fan Forum. It did not take me long to prove that it is under exclusive control of Martin Armstrong.

Any new topics critical of his narrative were deleted. He was recently forced to tolerate some controlled opposition when the number of critical messages exceeded some threshold.

Please refer to this post that was deleted by the "moderators" - the author was simply trying to prove that he was a real Socrates user not a troll. And that Socrates user did that with the effort of creating a new identity AFTER he had been banned from the forum using his original identity.

The Routine Control of "viewer" comments on YouTube Videos:

The Sock Puppet Show

Here I demonstrate how Martin Armstrong controls the narrative in the comments section of interview and presentation videos published in his own and affiliated YouTube channels. It is a generic method that is also applied to other media such as comments on pages of affiliated web sites.

Before I get into the details, Martin Armstrong is so confident about his method that he openly brags about it here at the Crime Scene as Gumbi:

I have hundreds of people working for me creating YouTube accounts and other social media accounts posting positive reviews and feedback. I STILL GET fresh victims daily 😋

The analysis of his technique was done by reading all of more than 8,000 comments on more than 300 YouTube videos. It was supported by computer software that allows to aggregate, sort and group comments to identify authors and their comments with their respective timing.

In a nutshell, I found (confirmed by his own admission) that Martin Armstrong has used hundreds of YouTube shill accounts to post extremely favorable fake user comments with the aim of creating the illusion that his knowledge is superior, and that his products and services are of high quality and in high demand. Starting with his earliest videos on YouTube, it becomes highly obvious that he created his sock puppet show on them, a show that is to a high percentage, often 100%, made up of his own comments. Example in a 2012 interview Martin Armstrong as @lynd scott:

a Martin Armstrong interview with no comments ! ? that's crazy. Martin Armstrong is one of the greatest minds out there, thanks for the interview !

He and his associates such as Greg Hunter on his own channel (which has since been removed by YouTube) have also deleted critical comments aggressively and permanently banned critical users from posting any comments. I have not fully quantified with statistics the use of this technique because it appears that at the time of this writing, Armstrong's business is already collapsing due to my various other revelations. But you are welcome to inspect interesting types of messages and specific shill accounts here with The Martin Armstrong Scam Messenger.

I identified three characteristic types of YouTube shill accounts: The temporary (pooled) account, the active third party shill account and the permanent Martin Armstrong shill account.

A temporary account is used to create typically only one message within the entire scope and duration of all 350 videos considered. This can most effectively be achieved by buying comments for a nominal fee of 60 cents per message from a 3rd party provider. These providers also sell view counts so it is no surprise that the number of views seen on Armstrong videos (as on any other videos) cannot be trusted.

Such comments have a standalone, rather isolated nature in a way that they are sometimes not even tailored to the content of the video. More importantly, one cannot engage their users in a conversation - they do not respond. Examples:

(1 out of 1 from a temporary account):
@L. Jamin: Great great, go on with such videos, you have a mission! And you are one of the few trustworthy . (This comment was deleted when Martin Armstrong removed ALL comments from that video because of too many of my own critical responses)

Following is a comment somewhere in between (1 out of 8 from a permanent account, most likely from a member of his inner circle because the first message appears in 2014 while the last one is in 2018):
@Les Samuelson: thanks Greg Hunter; Martin Armstrong is the best at the macro picture. His website is spectacular. Your show is the best -- look forward to it every week. (This video has been removed because Greg Hunter's account has been terminated by YouTube)

Permanent accounts are most likely held by Martin Armstrong or one of his close affiliates. They engage in discussions if responded to. Following are messages from permanent accounts:

This is the classic type of message that would expose a scammer even to the inexperienced observer: (1 out of 4):
@Travis Bruce: By following Socrates I have made profit on every single trade for the last half a dozen years. Before Armstrong, while listening to people's opinions I lost money on the majority of trades I executed. There are two sides to every trade, a seller and a buyer, and I'm happy to be on the right side every time. Thank you Socrates and Martin for discovering the hidden order in all things and sharing it with the world for such a minimal price.

@User Name is definitely one of Martin Armstrong's own permanent accounts. I have had conversations with him through this account.

(2 out of 113 messages):
@User Name: "Martin Armstrong is a tip-top expert. Thank you very much for this interview! "

@User Name: "Thank you for this interview with Martin Armstrong. That guy is a superstar. :-D))"

@Cole G is most likely a paid shill.

(1 out of 7 messages):
@Cole G: "Do you agree with Martin Armstrong?" About as much as I agree with Einstein.

@E R I love you, MARTY!!! You’re the most righteous and courageous man alive. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without you... God bless you and keep you safe always ... I wonder what this person does with him ...

Here Martin Armstrong again exposes himself by digitally signing a fake account shill message with his real name:

Martin Armstrong as @Aaron Peters in Markets, Silver – Ross Clark. World Economy - Martin Armstrong. Authoritarians - Bob Hoye. AMY, ABN

Sincerely, Your imaginary nemesis. Living rent free inside your head, Marty

This demonstrates again that he is schizophrenic.

Here we see two sock puppets talking to each other:

1: @lnsk: Martin Armstrong is my hero. When one researches his world, it will be hard to not say that he has selflessly worked towards the betterment for the whole of humanity. I am anxiously awaiting my chance to view The Forecaster. I will not be surprised if it is limited here in America. As a person who chose the lifestyle of supporting a family over supporting a career can be exposed to the importance of what Martin has developed, it frustrates me that his brilliant work is being suppressed and that many are denied...especially since even I could find it! Thank you Mises for this exposure contribution...even though Martin is not an Austrian Economist.

2: @Cole G: Truly a man for the history books. Not only did he figure all of this out, but he's also developed an Artificial Intelligence to carry on his work. Talk about leaving a legacy on the world.

Not enough? Here is a conversation between three of them speaking that same trademark Martin Armstrong lingo:

1: @lnsk: Hero to humanity..if they listen. I met Martin, very personable and humble.

2: @TrendTraderTrender: I have met him too, just an amazing guy

3: @D James: A bounty to the universe. Who knows someday i can meet him personally just like what you did. Amen!

Still not enough? Here is a Smoking Gun, the Trojan Horse.

In a nutshell, here is how it works: He hosts a popular foreign YouTube video on his blog site. Then he launches a coordinated shill campaign in the comments section of that foreign video, using it to advertise his services (Socrates) on that foreign video for trading - which is illegal because it has in its fine print a disclaimer that it is not suitable for trading. Here is the video hosted on his blog site. And here are the shills:

1: Martin Armstrong as @Bobby Gill (quoting himself as Martin Armstrong): Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics brought me here... "Katarina Jovanović has done a very good job at research. What she explains here is the very essence of the difference between Socialism & Capitalism. The former cannot tolerate class and must always eliminate all oppressors. She even goes into the correct analysis that Hitler eliminated the Jews based upon the ideas of Karl Marx. While it is true that Marx was a distant cousin of the Rothschilds, he was not supported by them and remain very hateful of such capitalists. All one needs to do is actually read his Communist Manifesto to gain understand of that Marx’s ideas even fuelled Hitler and World War II. Katarina lived the horrors of Socialism." - Martin Armstrong

2: Martin Armstrong again as @Brad Studio: Lui Bunting is really Ray Dalio who is mad at Martin for exposing his “cash is trash” theory which he lost 20-30% of his portfolio

3: @Bobby Gill again selling Socrates / Private Blog: ‘Brad Studio’ not sure why ‘Lui Bunting’ is even crying for - martin offers most of his info for free & low cost on the private blog. Maybe it’s Gates or Fauci or Ferguson who’s crappy coded model isn’t even as good as excel, never mind Socrates 😆

Here again, Socrates is advertised illegally in the video Martin Armstrong: The Gold Standard is Garbage:

1: Martin Armstrong as @black shadow: Hearing Martin Armstrong is like getting a Christmas gift a day early.

2: Martin Armstrong as @originAL Nomad: We have a FB group for traders who follow Socrates - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ecmtraders

3: Martin Armstrong as @black shadow: @originAL Nomad Very cool.

The use of fake "Viewer" comments on YouTube Videos:

Asking the host for new Interviews

We can see exactly how Martin Armstrong uses one of his well known fake YouTube accounts to approach the YouTube channel owner (host) who interviewed him to ask for a new interview. By trying to create the illusion that one of his cult members wants the channel owner to post a new interview with him. So he not only thinks that his cult members are fools - he also thinks that his interview hosts are fools and cannot remember his shill account names.

@User Name: Absolutely brilliant interview. Martin Armstrong had many viewpoints you can't get from anyone else. No wonder, he's regarded as the worlds foremost forecaster! 😀 Dacapo! Please get this man back for a new interview! Quickly!

Martin Armstrong as @Marc Andersson: Time to bring on Mr. Armstrong again perhaps? Would love to listen to his views of the Evergrande collapse.

Now please let me complete that @Marc Andersson case. Just as an example. I could do this hundreds of times because as this fraud has admitted, he has hundreds of accounts. So what else has this special purpose sock puppet @Marc Andersson to say? NOTHING EXCEPT the following, shown as links with the text:

Bring him back again!!!

Martin Armstrong is a legend. Show some respect.

Love Armstrong! You have to have him on every week!

Yeah Martin Armstrong is so great. Keep him coming back!!

Armstrong is a living legend and a true prophet when it comes to financial markets. The guys on Real Vision should really listen to him, but they are to posh to invite him for an interview!