It’s getting harder for the mainstream media and their asset-gathering sponsors to hide the reality of the post-Trump rally economic ‘improvement’ from investors’ eyes.
During a Bloomberg TV interview this morning, New York Fed President Bill Dudley admitted there’s “no rush to hike” as the “economy is clearly not overheating,” warning of the potential for Q1 weakness as “sentiment [improvements] are not showing up in the hard data yet.”
Indeed Mr. Dudley… and the ‘hard’ data has NEVER caught up to spiking sentiment…
For 12 months in a row, Americans’ spending has grown faster than their incomes.
Income growth YoY is the highest since May 2015 as spending growth slowed… with real disposable personal income seeing its first YoY increase since July.
February personal spending disappointed modestly, rising just 0.1% MoM while incomes grew at 0.4% MoM, as the savings rate rose to its highest since October 2016
When commenting on the statement issued by Mike Flynn’s lawyer Robert Kellner on Thursday night after the blockbuster WSJ report that Flynn was willing to testify “in exchange for immunity”, an allegation that was not explicitly confirmed in the lawyer letter, we said “judging by Kelner’s language, Flynn’s offer is not so much to “turn” on Trump, as to set the record straight, while putting an end to the ongoing “media witch hunt.”
Fast forward to Friday morning, when President Trump appeared to agree with this interpretation and defended his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s offer to be interviewed by the House and Senate intelligence committees.
“Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!” Trump tweeted.
What is most notable from Trump’s tweet is that by not attacking Flynn, it would suggest anything the former Nat Sec advisor has to reveal would likely not be destructive to Trump, who at least initially appears to be on Flynn’s side.
Following the WSJ story, Flynn’s lawyer said Thursday that the retired lieutenant general is willing to talk to the intelligence panels as part of their probes into Russian election meddling and Trump and his aides’ alleged ties to Moscow. The full statement is reposted below:
General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit.
Out of respect for the Committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place. But it is important to acknowledge the circumstances in which those discussions are occurring.
General Flynn is a highly decorated 33-year veteran of the U.S. Army. He devoted most of his life to serving his country, spending many years away from his family fighting this nation’s battles around the world. He was awarded four Bronze Stars for actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terror. He received the Legion of Merit twice, and the Defense Superior Service Medal four times. He is a recipient of the Defense Department’s Distinguished Service Award and the Intelligence Community Gold Seal Medallion for Distinguished Service, as well as numerous other decorations.
Notwithstanding his life of national service, the media are awash with unfounded allegations, outrageous claims of treason, and vicious innuendo directed against him. He is now the target of unsubstantiated public demands by Members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated. No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.
Dr. Stephen Cohen appeared on Tucker Carlson Fox broadcast to discuss the ‘vast Russian planetary conspiracy’ plot against America:
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Riddle me this: The Mexican government openly admits to spending millions of dollars to influence U.S. elections; a Mexican billionaire owns the most influential U.S. media outlet (NYT); the Mexican government spends tens of millions to lobby congress; and the Mexican government has dedicated $50 million to pay for U.S. legal services to keep illegal aliens from being returned to Mexico; yet somehow it’s the Russian government that is a concern. Odd no?
In Ireland, a reader has sent this gem in. The Communications Minister Denis Naughten is so proud of himself for changing the definition of a ‘television set’ to include your laptop in order to extend the TV license fee to be applied to computers, laptops, and large tablets. He believes he will generate an extra €5m a year. As our reader put it: “from that ‘shining light’ of the EU, Ireland is prepared to stoop in hunting even more cash from its people. … Is there no end to this lunacy? Internet next I’m sure!”
In Sweden, as of April 1st, a new tax will be applied to ALL electronics. Are you ready for this? The reason is of course not to raise money, but to protect people from electronics; including everything from the fridge to tvs and laptops. On April 1, Sweden will impose a new so-called “chemical tax” on electronics and appliances. The purpose of the new tax is said to reduce the amount of hazardous flame retardants in our homes.
We are faced with tax revolts throughout Western Culture. Governments are all broke. Of course, they will never consider reform. The answer is always just grab more and more money from the people. This is why they are moving to eliminate cash to prevent people from evading taxes. This is not going to end nicely. The American Revolution was “No taxation without representation” and the French Revolution was also over excessive taxes – Let them eat cake. This is why we must crash and burn. You simply cannot reason with those in government to recognize that they are the problem. Thus, history constantly repeats and taxation is the driving force behind revolution historically in all cultures.
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You said China will become the financial capital of the world after 2032. That means the US must decline. At the same time, you have been consistent in forecasting a bull market in the U.S. share market when everyone else keeps calling for a crash. Are the two connected in some way?
Thank you
HS
ANSWER: Yes, these two events are interlocked. All markets function very distinctly. They move like a pendulum. The famous one in the United Nations building with the classic physics experiment, Foucault’s pendulum, is propelled by the rotation of the earth itself. While it had long been known that the Earth rotates, the introduction of the Foucault pendulum back in 1851 was the first visual proof of the rotation of the Earth in an extraordinary easy-to-see experiment. The pendulum remains in a constant oscillation relative to the universe. As the earth rotates, we can see that it does so around the constant path of the pendulum swing.
This applies to market behavior as well. There is a constant oscillation to everything we call our Benchmarks. They remain constant within the universe and everything else rotates around them. The energy that maintains the cycle is the constant oscillation between two extremes. The further it swings in one direction, the greater the energy moves in the opposite direction.
This is the very essence of how everything moves. This is the creation of energy to keep things going from the instant of creation also known as big bang. Personally, I do not believe in just a simple big bang. I believe after big bang; the expansion will stop and then reverse and move back toward the point of origin. Then it will explode outward once again. I do not believe it was a one-time event since energy can neither be created nor destroyed – only transformed between states.
Now apply this to markets. The real energy within a market is always to trap the majority, for then they lose money and it forces them to cover their position. If 90% of the people are long, then any news can set off the collapse. If you scare the majority, there will be no bid when you try to sell, which results in a flash crash. Likewise, this current rally in the Dow from 2009 has been the most bearish in history. The majority of analysts still keep calling for an inevitable crash. Retail participation still remains near historic lows. You cannot get a crash of major consequence as long as the bulk of the people are not invested in the market. Here you see how the market ALWAYS makes a false move just before it makes the real move in the direction of the underlying trend. At each correction, the emotions run high and people ALWAYS expect whatever trend is in motion will remain in motion. Hence, shorts build up and then they are compelled to cover and that gets the rally moving.
Markets are fractal. So whatever you see on only level of time, must exist on all levels of time or else it is not real. The Dow made a Yearly FALSE MOVE on a number of occasions. For example, the high of 1916 dropped from 8500 to 6590 and established the low in 1917. It then swung to the upside, reached new highs at 11960 in 1919, and then on the panic back down.
The Dow made its intraday high in 1889, which was followed by a one year panic into 1890. It then swung back to the highest yearly closing in 1892 with the famous Panic of 1893 immediately thereafter.
A similar pattern unfolded with a high in 1872, a panic penetrating the previous year’s low in 1873, and then a dramatic swing to new high the next year in 1874.
These are just a few examples.
The goldbugs simply hate me even saying that gold can still move below $1,000. They approach everything only in a linear concept – it must only move up and never down. This is how they lose money consistently. The extreme ones are married to this idea that gold will rise in an apocalyptic fashion when everything else turns to dust. There is always a FALSE move before the true direction. A move for gold below $1,000 will create the energy needed to send it soaring past the $2300 level which is the 1980 high adjusted for inflation. This is what our Reversal System is all about. It is to define that point of no return where we can differentiate between a false move and a real breakout.
Now, because everything is fractal, and we have been able to identify the existence of constant Benchmarks in everything, it becomes possible to observe the rotation of capital around the world which is behind the rise and fall of every civilization since the dawn of the human race. In 1990, China was just 5% of world GDP. Now in 2015 it has risen to 15%. The United States is the world’s largest national economy in nominal terms representing 24.5% of nominal global GDP.
We first must send the share markets up dramatically. This will be the FALSE MOVE that makes everyone see that the USA is the only game in town. That will be the extreme point, reaching the maximum swing and then its own weight will cause it to move back in the opposite direction. Just as the British Empire rapidly collapsed following World War I handing that title of Financial Capital of the World to the USA, we will see the same take place as that title moves to China. One of the critical factors that will kill the US economy will be taxes and overregulation – both the socialist’s dreams come true. What broke the back of China and Russia in 1989, was this same failure of Marxist philosophies that call for total central planning by government. It is merely the West’s turn to now collapse because of the same philosophy of Karl Marx.
Only a fool believes in the fairy-tales of happily ever after. There is a cycle to everything. The Pension Crisis Report went into detail. Men mature slower than women, so historically the man was always much older than his wife. Hollywood sold lust as love at first sight and as the age difference collapsed, divorce reached cyclical highs. As they say, a girl becomes a woman at 23 but a boy does not become a man until 40. Women married boys but expected them to be men. Today, much of the youth reject marriage and having children. The demographics and changing life styles are undermining the entire idea of pension systems. This is a crash that will also propel the shift. Interestingly enough, in the former communist regions, people never trusted government so they expected nothing in return by tyranny. In the West, society still believes in government and the dream that they will be there. When government falls, Western society will not be as self-sufficient as they were in China. Socialism replaced the family structure in the West so children did not save to take care of their parents – that was government’s job. We face a lot of real social problems moving into 2032. That’s what our WEC conferences are all about.
The French Elections are in complete chaos. We are witnessing the collapse of the Fifth Republic of France. Our computer correctly forecasted that the Socialist Party would lose. It also forecasted that Le Pen’s party would beat the Socialists and most likely even the conservatives, which is led by Francois Fillon. Yet, the scandal around him paying his wife nearly what the President of the United States is paid to be an assistant has taken its toll. She is now formerly under investigation. However, a new party was just formed after August 2016 En Marche! (meaning forward or on the march) by the newcomer Emmanuel Macron, but he is really offering nothing to help France – only to keep Brussels on life-support.
We are witnessing an all-out war in France. The banks have been told not to lend any money to Le Pen to save Brussels. Just about every other party is starting to throw their support behind Macron. The former Socialist, PM Valls, now supports Macron because the socialists are dead in the water. Macron was a bureaucrat in the socialist government. He certainly offers nothing but doom for France or the euro going forward for if he is elected. Brussels will keep on going as it has until the whole thing goes belly up which looks to be in 2018.
Of course, the media is following the same scheme as they did in Britain and the USA – supporting Macron to keep the status quo. The polls are now claiming that Macron will trample Le Pen on May 7th if it comes down to the two. So how to model the French elections presents a huge problem. The only party that is now surviving is Le Pen’s. The latest polls by PrésiTrack OpinionWay / ORPI for Les Echos and Radio Classique, show Le Pen still in the lead with 25% of the first round of voting in April. Her lead has dropped by two points, and she is now just one percentage point ahead of Macron, who is set to come in second place with 24%. Francois Fillon is now trailing behind at 19%, with Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon currently on 11%. The poll taken by a separate poll by Odoxa revealed that 75% of the French voters want Mr. Fillon to pull out of the presidential race following the “Penelopegate” scandal of his wife. Here too, we see the strongest position is against corruption. This is surfacing in Russia, but it was also what put Trump in the White House. Fillon has been accused of paying his wife Penelope and two of his children around €900,000 for jobs that they did not actually do. While he denies all allegations that they didn’t work, the President of the United States is paid $400,000 (€370,000).
What makes this very difficult to now have the computer forecast the election after it was correct that the current socialist government would collapse, is the fact that the entire political party system has disintegrated. We have people from the socialists now support Macron and the same thing is happening from the conservatives abandoning Fillon who desperately hopes to win to prevent prosecution for corruption. If we throw all other parties together and extrapolate the pretense that Macron’s brand new party is the sum of all others, then he may win. But this is a very big IF, because there is no past history that we can rely upon. What does appear on the horizon for France is that the Fifth Republic will fall in the years ahead.
We are currently in the Fifth Republic of France, which was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. Our models are warning that this may completely capitulate followed the end of this currency Economic Confidence Wave 2020 going into 2021.
Adding fuel to an already highly combustible situation in Southeast Asia,Reutersreported Tuesday that China has “largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea,” and that the Asian superpower “can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time.”
Citing satellite imagery analyzed by the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of Washington, D.C.’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, the news agency writes that “work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities.”
Sticking to the mainstream narrative that China is an aggressor in claiming sovereign rights to the majority of the South China Sea, Pentagon spokesman Commander Gary Ross says the new images confirm what the U.S. military already knows.
“China’s continued construction in the South China Sea is part of a growing body of evidence that they continue to take unilateral actions which are increasing tensions in the region and are counterproductive to the peaceful resolution of disputes,” he toldReuters.
China, as it has repeatedly, downplayed this notion and stuck to the position that it’s simply erecting defensive infrastructure within its own borders, as would any nation.
“As for China deploying or not deploying necessary territorial defensive facilities on its own territory, this is a matter that is within the scope of Chinese sovereignty,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a press briefing Tuesday.
Despite comments such as these — and the very real fact that China hasn’t actually invaded anyone — the corporate media jumped on the news of the new images.
Forbes, for instance, ran a piece that essentially listed all the reasons why China is a really bad actor in the region, and CNNtalked to analysts who explained how the military buildup on the artificial islands will be gradual as China continues to exert its authoritarian influence over neighboring countries.
That’s the narrative. Believe as you will.
But the reality of the situation in the South China Sea – all geopolitical analysis aside – is that there’s about to be a hell of a lot of military hardware in those waters.
As Anti-Media has been reporting, U.S. forces are already in the region, taking part in joint drills with ally South Korea that will last until the end of April. Then, at the beginning of May, Japan — another U.S. ally — will sail its navy’s most powerful warship through the South China Sea on a three-month tour.
That means that just as the joint drills with South Korea end — which, incidentally, units from Delta Force, the Navy SEALS and Army Rangers are taking part in — Japan will shove off a warship aimed at waters claimed by China.
If that timing seems a little curious, also consider that the U.S. just deployed its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system in South Korea, which both China and Russia cared none too much for.
With China showing no signs of backing away from its stance in the South China Sea — both ideologically and physically — and with the corporate media willing and eager to push the “evil China” narrative that the U.S. military appears hell-bent on capitalizing on, it appears the long-dreaded collision course with China may, indeed, be not far off on the horizon.
In the latest development surrounding last week’s announcement by Devin Nunes, according to which President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies, the NYT reports that the pair of White House officials who played a role in providing Nunes with the intelligence reports behind his claim, have been identified.
The NYT has outed the Nunes sources, who it claims are Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.
As reported previously, Nunes had refused to identify his sources, saying he needed to protect them so others would feel safe coming to the committee with sensitive information. He first disclosed the existence of the intelligence reports on March 22, and in his public comments he has described his sources as whistle-blowers trying to expose wrongdoing at great risk to themselves.
Amusingly, the NYT adds that “the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the intelligence, and to avoid angering Mr. Cohen-Watnick and Mr. Ellis.”
In other words, the US has devolved to the point where one set of anonymous sources is doxxing another set of anonymous sources in the pursuit of a political agenda.
Cohen-Watnick is a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who was originally brought to the White House by Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser. The officials said that earlier this month, shortly after Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter about being wiretapped on the orders of President Barack Obama, Mr. Cohen-Watnick began reviewing highly classified reports detailing the intercepted communications of foreign officials.
Some further background on Cohen-Watnick from forward.com:
President Donald Trump reportedly overruled a decision by National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster in order to keep a Jewish National Security Council aide in his current position. Trump overruled the decision on Sunday after Cohen-Watnick, 30, appealed to White House advisers Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, Politico reported
McMaster had told Ezra Cohen-Watnick, senior director for intelligence programs at the NSC, that he would be moved to a different position at the NSC after CIA officials had pushed for his ouster, according to Politico.
A Washington consultant told Politico that Cohen-Watnick and Flynn “saw eye to eye about the failings of the CIA human intelligence operations,” and that the “CIA saw him as a threat, so they tried to unseat him and replace him with an agency loyalist.
Additionally, the NYT adds, that the intel reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle in advance of his inauguration.
Cohen-Watnick has allegedly been reviewing the reports from his fourth-floor office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the National Security Counsel is based.
Perhaps more importantly, the NYT sources say the description of the intelligence is in line with Mr. Nunes’s own characterization of the material, which he has said was not related to the Russia investigations when he first disclosed its existence in a hastily arranged news conference on March 22.
It was not immediately clear if now that the identity of the Nunes sources has been revealed, whether Nunes will make the contents of the confidential documents public.
Ed Murray, the Mayor of the city of Seattle, has just launched yet another federal lawsuit against the Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal grants to so-called “sanctuary cities,” citing the 10th Amendment that deals with states’ rights. Murray also took to his bully pulpit to blast the Trump administration’s “war on cities” while simultaneously declaring that Seattle isn’t “breaking any laws” by simply choosing to ignore certain federal mandates. Per NBC News:
“Apparently the Trump administration, their war on facts, has now become a war on cities,” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said. He said the goal of the suit is to have a judge declare the order unconstitutional.
“Let me be clear about the facts: We are not breaking any laws and we are prioritizing safety,” Murray said.
Of course, the comments from Murray followed Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ surprise appearance at Sean Spicer’s daily White House press briefing earlier this week to announce that his DOJ would be taking steps to not only require that so-called “sanctuary cities” enforce federal immigration laws but would also be seeking to claw back past DOJ awards granted to those cities if they refuse to certify compliance.
“Today, I’m urging states and local jurisdictions to comply with these federal laws. Moreover, the Department of Justice will require that jurisdictions seeking or applying for DOJ grants to certify compliance with 1373 as a condition for receiving those awards.”
“This policy is entirely consistent with the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs guidance that was issued just last summer under the previous administration.”
“This guidance requires jurisdictions to comply and certify compliance with Section 1373 in order to be eligible for OJP grants. It also made clear that failure to remedy violations could result in withholding grants, termination of grants and disbarment or ineligibility for future grants.”
“The DOJ will also take all lawful steps to claw back any fines awarded to a jurisdiction that willfully violates Section 1373.”
Meanwhile, Seattle’s AG also decided to chime in:
Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said the effects of the executive order have already been felt, with victims in domestic violence cases choosing not to pursue prosecution due to immigration status. He said local governments do not enforce federal immigration laws. Holmes noted that terms like “sanctuary cities” are nebulous and ill defined.
“Instead of the press conferences from Washington, instead of the Tweets from the White House, we want to have a sober statement of the law that can be reassuring to the communities that this is still the rule of law, and it’s still a nation of laws,” he said.
Of course, the snowflake bastion of San Francisco has already filed suit against the Trump administration’s executive order, also citing the 10th Amendment. “This strikes at the heart of established principles of federalism and violates the United States Constitution,” attorneys for the city and county of San Francisco wrote in its complaint. A federal judge set a hearing for the city’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block the executive order for April 14.
Seems like the Trump administration, and few billion dollars in federal taxpayer subsidies, have struck a nerve.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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