Posted originally on May 20, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the United States’ credit rating from a top-tier rating of AAA to AA1 due to rising government debt. Fitch Ratings lowered the US debt in August 2023 for the same reason in August 2023, and while Moody’s did not officially act at the time the agency warned that the US was at risk of a downgrade.
The United States has enjoyed AAA status since 1917—this downgrade is a dire warning. At the current trajectory, the $36 trillion+ deficit is expected to advance from 5.4% of GDP in 2024 to around 9% by 2035. Moody’s believes the United States still offers “exceptional credit strengths,” but debt and payment ratios are now “considerably higher than those of similarly rated sovereign entities.” The agency also cited political instability as a concern, as Republicans and Democrats have been unable to align on methods to meaningfully reduce the deficit.
Treasuries rose following Friday’s downgrade, with the 30-year rising above 5% and the 10-year reaching 4.54%. Investors see a larger risk in government debt and are demanding increased compensation for holding it.
America no longer has the “gold standard” symbolic rating that for years signaled to investors that the US was the safest place to park reserves. This could be a hit to overall confidence, yet there is no better alternative than the US. Increased borrowing costs will only cause the deficit to rise. The government pays an astronomical fee to simply service its debt, with projections from the Congressional Budget Office for 2025 slated to be $952 billion. The US has already paid out $579 billion in the first seven months of FY2025 simply for the burden of holding such an asinine amount of debt. Debt servicing costs are expected to surpass the $1 trillion mark by 2026, with total interest payments over the next decade rising to $13.8 trillion.
I proposed a solution years ago, but no one will listen.
Posted originally on May 20, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Saudi Arabia and Qatar announced that they have paid off Syria’s outstanding debt of $15.5 million to the World Bank’s International Development Association. “We are pleased that the clearance of Syria’s arrears will allow the World Bank Group to reengage with the country and address the development needs of the Syrian people,” the World Bank said in a statement. This will enable Syria to take on new loans, and secure Qatar’s and Saudi Arabia’s influence in the rebuild.
Syria is still in dire condition after its 14-year conflict. The World Bank said, “The first project in our reengagement with Syria is centered on access to electricity.” The World Bank’s International Development Association can provide Syria with zero—or low-interest loans going forward.
Investments are pouring into Syria from across the Gulf. Trump lifting sanctions signaled that Syria is open for business. Dubai signed a $800 million memorandum to rebuild the port of Tartus, marking the largest foreign investment in Syria to date.
Although tons of investments and calls for an epic rebuild are coming from around the world, we must remember that Syria is a war-torn, third-world nation that is barely surviving. Syria is desperate for stable basic infrastructure. The national grid is extremely unreliable and has been unable to generate enough electricity to meet demand. Estimates states only 1,500 MW was produced in the beginning of the year, amounting to around 2 hours of electricity per day for the population who has access to the grid. Around 2.5 to 3 million Syrians do not have any access to electricity. Those who do have access regularly experience multi-day blackouts. There is mass corruption and regions favored by the regime notably have more access to electricity compared to others.
Worse, half of Syria’s water and sanitation systems are inoperable, leading to severe water shortages. The United Nations warned that Syria was the most drought-prone nation in the Mediterranean on its Global Conflict Risk Index. It is estimated that 98% of Syrians had access to basic drinking water in 2011, before the war. That figure has plummeted to 50% at best. The Euphrates River, Syria’s main freshwater source, has seen its flow drop by more than half since 2021 due to drought and restrictions implemented by Turkey.
Since the pipelines flowing throughout the nation were damage by warfare, many regions relied on trucked water, with an estimated 6.9 million people only having access to their primary water source for two to seven days per month. Contaminated water caused tens of thousands of cholera outbreaks, and the nation has little to no access to health care.
Over 65% of the population, or 16 million people, cannot access health care. All of the skilled workers and doctors left the country long ago, education has been minimal, and hospitals are severely understaffed. Estimates believe only 37% of primary health care centers are operational, with 57% of hospitals operating to some capacity. The nation entirely relies on foreign humanitarian aid.
The people of Syria are living in atrocious conditions. Over half the nation is food insecure, half cannot access water, and the majority barely have access to electricity. An estimated 90% of the public lives well below the poverty line. GDP plummeted by two-thirds since 2011, and the Syrian pound also fell by two-thirds in 2023 alone. The SYP was about 47 to the dollar before the war, and now, the exchange rate is around 11,000 to 13,000 per USD. Many regions use the Turkish lira is given the opportunity but one in four Syrians cannot find work, and those who do manage to find public sector employment are living on under $70 USD (1.2 million SYP) per months when the cost of living for a family of five is around 14.5 million SYP.
So while we may hear of these lucrative opportunities to rebuild Syria, the nation is still in complete disarray. Investments from nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia are desperately needed, but it will take time for the nation to recover from such a devastating low.
Posted originally on May 20, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
The Biden family announced that Joe Biden is fighting an aggressive form of prostate cancer. The medical community is questioning if this diagnosis was well-known long before the announcement. Yet, a clip from July 2022 is circulating in which Joe Biden directly says that he has cancer.
On July 20, 2022, Biden was speaking in Massachusetts about the dangers of fossil fuels, stating that his mother would need to use the windshield wipers to remove the oil slick from the car. “That’s why I – and so damn many other people I grew up with – have cancer,” the former president clearly stated.
The White House immediately issued a statement to say that Biden had a cancerous skin lesion removed years ago. The media downplayed his admission as a “gaffe,” as for four long years the public was told to believe that statements made by the president may not be accurate. We were told to accept that the President of the United States had a difficult time with public speaking, and the White House would confirm or deny the words that came out of his mouth.
White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor declared that Joe Biden was “fit for duty” during his last exam in February 2024, when the world was questioning his mental health. Dr. O’Connor claimed Joe Biden was a “healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.” Arthritis and sleep apnea were his only cited medical issues. Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) is a simple test that has been around since the 1980s that monitors a protein produced in cancerous prostate cells. Estimates state that the survival rate is around 98% when detected early, and one would imagine that the President of the United States had access to the best medical doctors in the nation. Yet, they failed to perform this simple test, as indicated by public health records.
Now, the Biden family had close personal ties to Dr. O’Connor. Joe’s sister-in-law, Sara Biden, described Dr. O’Connor as a “friend.” “Colonel O’Connor was actually a friend and he — we would frequently ask for his recommendations if any of us had a medical issue,” Sara Biden said in 2019 during a deposition from a malpractice case filed by her stepdaughter against a specialist referred to her by O’Connor. Dr. O’Connor invited Hunter, Jim, and a dozen other Bidens to his military retirement party in July 2017.
In mid-2017, Joe’s brother Jim attempted to secure Veterans Affairs contracts with the hospital chain, Americore. He utilized the help of Dr. O’Connor who arranged a meeting between Jim and the hospital’s president. “You and your team clearly share our vision,” O’Connor wrote to the hospital president following the business meeting. Dr. O’Connor had been a personal friend and mentor for the Biden family for years before officially taking on the White House physician role in 2021.
Ironically, Biden fired former White House physician Dr. Sean Conley to install Dr. Kevin O’Connor. It is not unusual for a president to hire a personal physician. However, Dr. Conley faced intense media scrutiny for allegedly sugar-coating then-President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis. Dr. Conley later admitted he “was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude,” but in the end, Donald Trump was fine. Rear Admiral Dr. Ronny Jackson faced similar criticism for giving President Trump an optimistic medical review. As ABC News reported when Dr. O’Connor was appointed, “A source close to the president said Biden would never ask O’Connor to lie for him, and O’Connor would never offer. The two wouldn’t want to disappoint each other,” the source added.
Urologist Dr. David Shusterman stated that it is extremely unlikely for someone to develop aggressive prostate cancer when receiving annual checkups suddenly. “Most likely had it for a long time […] Aggressive prostate cancer grows over a long period of time. Five to ten years [in] the most aggressive form,” Dr. Shusterman said. “He is a former president, had intensive state of the art care […] It’s unusual to hear that someone has prostate cancer when they’re annually being followed up. The fact that we find it at a Gleason 9 is unheard of.”
Dr. Chris George, medical director of the cancer program for the Northwestern Health Network, told Reuters that it is safe to assume that the president was receiving annual PSA checks. “What concerns me … is the fact that the cancer has been reported to have already spread beyond the prostate to the bones. And when the cancer has spread to the bones, that makes it stage 4, that means that the cancer is not curable,” George said. “There’s no treatment available that can cure the cancer. There’s definitely treatment available that can control the cancer.”
Dr. Shusterman said that even among the medically neglected population, it would be almost unheard of for someone to have such a sudden and severe diagnosis. He believes that even the most aggressive form of this cancer could take nine to 10 years to develop. The truth of the matter is that the Democrats likely knew Biden was physically and cognitively unable to serve. The man in charge of assessing Biden’s health was a personal family friend with ties spanning back to 2009. Are we to believe that the former President of the United States was a victim of medical malpractice?
Posted originally on CTH on May 19, 2025 | Sundance
The DOJ has announced a criminal assault charge against New Jersey Democrat Representative LaMonica McIver, who was involved in a physical confrontation with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials outside a federal immigration facility in New Jersey earlier this month.
Washington DC – […] New Jersey interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced the charge against McIver on X, escalating a confrontation between the political branches, while also agreeing to drop the pending trespass charge against Mayor Ras Baraka.
“I have persistently made efforts to address these issues without bringing criminal charges and have given Representative McIver every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined,” Habba said in a statement. (link)
Posted originally on CTH on May 19, 2025 | Sundance
The Supreme Court has stayed a lower court injunction against the Trump administration {Ruling Here}.
In the 1-page decision, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to immediately end immigration protections called “Temporary Protection Status” that allowed roughly 350,000 illegal alien Venezuelans to remain in the USA. Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson would have allowed the block to stay in place.
BACKGROUND– […] In February, seven Venezuelan migrants and the National TPS Alliance sued the Trump administration to block the termination of protected status for Venezuelans. A federal judge in Northern California paused Trump’s action, ruling that the cancellation of protected status violated procedural rules and was probably sparked by racial animus. (read more)
Posted originally on CTH on May 19, 2025 | Sundance
President Trump participated in an event to honor Law Enforcement today at the White House. At the conclusion of the ceremony President Trump took questions from the media [15:00 of video below]. The majority of the questions were about President Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the remarks about Joe Biden’s diagnosis are very interesting. WATCH:
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