December 8, 2024 | Korea Political Crisis

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I first want to thank you for your forecast on South Korea, which you delivered here in Asia. I understand this is the computer. Others would call you a seer. I wonder if you have time to update that forecast since we are as divided here in South Korea as you write about the United States.

Thank you for your courage and consideration.

YM

ANSWER: The Economic Confidence Model for South Korea shows that we are headed toward the next turning point on March 3rd, 2025. South Korea may still head into a major turning point in 2029. We are ABOVE the Yearly Bullish Reversals I gave back at the Thailand conference, and this will be the first time we will be in a position to elect it for the year-end. We can see that this currency has broken out above the downtrend line for the last three years.

For those who do not understand the Korean constitution, most parliamentary systems and even the US Constitution allow the head of state to disband Parliament/Congress and recall them. In Korea, the constitution omitted that authority. Thus, the deeply divided political system was in gridlock, and Yoon declared martial law around 10:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday in an unannounced late-night TV address. He accused the country’s main opposition party of sympathizing with North Korea and of “anti-state” activities.

He also cited a motion by the opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, to impeach top prosecutors and reject a government budget proposal. Yoon chose martial law, which lacked any other legal way to break the deadlock. He probably assumed that he had more support than he actually did. Yoon’s move to impose martial law earlier this week for the first time since 1980 was rejected by angry opposition lawmakers, who are planning an impeachment vote against Yoon on Saturday.

1923Array

When we look at the Monthly Array from 2023, we can see that the major turning point would be April 2024, which the computer was projecting from November 2023. The April 10th, 2024 election when all 300 members of the National Assembly were elected, 254 from first-past-the-post constituencies and 46 from proportional party lists. The two largest parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and the conservative People Power Party, once again set up satellite parties to take advantage of the electoral system.

The election served as a “mid-term evaluation” for President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration, nearing its third year. The question became could the ruling party surpass the constraints of the ruling coalition, which did not secure a majority in the previous general election? The election saw opposition parties, primarily the Democratic Party, retain their majority in the National Assembly. We can see the numerous Directional Changes thereafter ensured a divided political state.

1924 Array

This brought us to December, with a Directional Change followed by January. Then, we have a Panic Cycle in March. This gets even more complicated for as one reader points out, according to data from the Defense Manpower Data Center, South Korea has the third highest number of active U.S. troops deployed of any country outside of the contiguous U.S., at over 23,000 personnel compared to Japan (52,852) and Germany (34,894). In total, as of June 2024, the US DOD has 165,830 active personnel overseas.

When we look at North Korea, this current 8.6-year wave turned up in January 2023. We must be mindful that the next key target for confrontation will be March 25th, 2024.  The turning points within this 8.6-year wave are as follows:

2023.08, 2025.23, 2026.305, 2027.38, 2028.455, 2029.53, 2030.159, 2030.525, 2031.68

We will include Korea in the 2024 Year-End Report. This is included in those who attended to the WEC or the Virtual Plus Stream with the reports.

Martin Armstrong December 8th, 2024

Posted In: Armstrong Economics

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