Posted originally on the CTH on October 20, 2023 | Sundance
The people behind Joe Biden have put together a single $106 billion request of financial support intended to force Congress to fund the priorities of the Obama/Biden U.S. foreign policy.
The supplemental appropriations request [SEE HERE] also includes funds to support the continued flow of illegal aliens at the southern border.
WASHINGTON – […] All told, the request includes $61.4 billion for Ukraine, including $44.4 billion to provide Department of Defense equipment for the country, to replenish weapons stocks and to continue providing other military support. The administration is also asking for $14.3 billion for Israel and $9.15 billion for the State Department to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Gaza.
[…] In addition to the funds for the two wars, the White House is also asking Congress for $13.6 billion to address migration at the southern border. That includes $6.4 billion for border operations, such as holding facilities, $3.1 billion for additional border agents, $1.4 billion for migrant shelters and services and $1.2 billion to counter fentanyl. (read more)
Posted originally on the CTH on September 26, 2023 | Sundance
Don’t pretend. The media are pitching this with full pretense. Instead, look at the data carefully. Tens of thousands of UAW members are on strike for better pay and benefits. The installed occupant of the oval office makes a “historic” visit to the picket line. About two dozen workers are there. Think about it.
Look at the optics. Do you think for one second that Team Obama would let their principal appear in such a smattering of support? Not a chance. This “crowd” might as well have had circles around their place to stand. Joe Biden spent about an hour in Michigan before tripping back onto the plane and heading to meet Gavin Newsom in California.
Michigan – […] The move also appeared to be a clear counter to former President Donald Trump, who plans to visit Michigan on Wednesday instead of participating in the second Republican primary debate — the latest sign that both candidates have moved beyond the primary phase of the election and are focused on November 2024.
But for Biden, too, Tuesday’s trip suggested that he can’t take labor support for granted. Union leadership has already rallied behind the president’s reelection bid, but that hasn’t necessarily translated into support from rank-and-file members who have slowly been drifting away from the Democratic Party and who make up an important part of the electorate in must-win states for Biden. The UAW has held off on endorsing Biden, although it has made clear they will not support Trump.
After Biden’s remarks, Fain grabbed the bull horn and the president stepped back into the crowd. Biden put his arm around one striker as Fain thanked him for joining the picket line. The crowd cheered.
“Thank you for coming to stand up with us in our generation’s defining moment. And we know the president will do right by the working class,” Fain said. “And when we do right by the working class, you can leave the rest to us because we’re going to take care of this business.”
Reporters later asked the president if he supported a 40 percent wage increase for the auto workers. The union members surrounding him shouted “yes,” and after waiting a moment, Biden, too, said yes. (read more)
Karine Jean-Pierre must take a deep breath when Peter Doocy enters the room, hence why she rarely calls on him for a question. Doocy has become emboldened with his inquiries and is one of the only journalists willing to ask the tough questions. Doocy’s latest doozy: “It seems like the hurricane response so far is robust. Did you guys realize that the initial Hawaiian wildfire was not that good or is it just easier for people to get help from the White House when [Biden] is not on vacation?”
Biden’s propaganda specialist replied by saying the current administration replied in record time. “So, the premise of your question & the way you posed [it], I disagree…If you talk to…the governor…the folks on the ground, they would say…[he] reacted in record time,” KJP stated. Biden’s first response to the Maui fires was, “No comment.” The island was burning down and Biden sat idly on a beach Delaware for ten days without a care in the world. He offered the people of Maui $700, a mere fraction of what he gave to the people of Ukraine that same week, and did not rush to visit the island. The people did not want him to visit anyway.
The people of Maui booed Biden when he arrived and set up signs after he left to show how displeased they were. Biden made jokes about the ground being hot and then said he could empathize with the people who lost everything, as he once almost lost his corvette in a fire.
Joe Biden has spent 40% of his time in office on vacation. He has taken 360 vacation days since taking over the White House amid one of the worst multitudes of crises in US history. This proves that someone else is in control. No one in any occupation could take off 40% of the time and do their job effectively.
Fewer than one in four Americans (24%) want President Joe Biden to run again, according to a poll published on August 17th by the Associated Press. Even 55% of Democrats do not think he should run. As far as his approval rating is concerned, he remains one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. Meanwhile, he has allowed the Republican presidential front-runner to be charged criminally, who is now under indictment for 91 felonies in four criminal cases. RFK, the Spectator, proclaimed that “everything about him screams amusing sideshow rather than [a] serious contender.” They reduce him to “the country’s most prominent antivaxxer — a fringe role almost by definition.”
They seem oblivious to all the people who have been injured by the Pfizer vaccines and those who died. My own lawyer took the shot to show he could travel, got the blood clots, and now his doctor warns he should not fly. My neighbor had COVID-19 and was forced to get the vaccination to go on a cruise. The next day, the ambulance rushed her to the hospital, where she almost died at the age of only 27. Another man who works for me and his entire family gets seriously ill from any vaccine. These pro-vaccine people are ruthless, untrustworthy, and brainwashed. They should all be deported to California. We are NOT all clones. I hate to tell them there is NO constitutional authority to force medical treatment on any citizen.
The word circulating is that the Democrats are not very happy about the Big Guy. They are searching for a replacement, but the Neocons need another stooge. It cannot be someone anti-war. That is why they must defeat Trump, which will not be easy – they have made him an international martyr. I believe that the Neocons will assassinate Trump before his hand every hit the book to be sworn in. They will blame China to justify that we should wage war on China.
The Democrats are totally out of control. These charges against Trump are solely to interfere in the 2024 election. They are absolutely desperate to impose their tyranny and overthrow the people’s rights. This is only going to lead to the collapse of the United States. They have gone to the Supreme Court asking them to ORDER the lower court to allow TV cameras in and broadcast Trump’s trial like a soap opera to convince people not to vote for Trump. This proves this whole thing is to interfere in the 2024 election, which is frightening since our computer forecast that the 2024 election will never be accepted, which was 5 years ago.
As a student of Constitutional Law, I have read Blackstone, Coke, and Monesque. What they are doing to Trump is such a violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause because the courts have been so PRO-GOVERNMENT against the common people that the prohibition against being put in Double Jeopardy demonstrates the true tyranny that the American Legal System has devolved to. By creating numerous agencies, each passes a law prohibiting the same crime. The Supreme Court has refused to honor the spirit of the Founding Fathers, and the worst example is 91 felony counts against Trump for the same pretend crime.
Let’s say that three agencies outlaw killing your spouse. Each agency could then charge you with murder. Two out of three juries find you innocent. The third is pressured by the judge and rules in favor of the government. They will not be Double Jeopardy since they allow the definition of an offense to be a statute rather than the actual crime it is supposed to outlaw. Never in history have so many agencies and states been allowed to create a plethora of statutes prohibiting the same conduct that has allowed them to charge Trump with 91 counts for the same conduct. This is as if someone shot the same person and killed them, but they charge them for each bullet he fired as a separate murder, but there is only one person.
Many have written in and said I would have made a great Constitutional lawyer. If I had chosen such a path, they would have charged me with 91 counts of contempt and imprisoned me for life without a trial. I do not tolerate fools or tyrants. The concept of Double Jeopardy has a long history, but the American courts have seriously abused its development. Its meaning has been distorted to hand the government limitless power.
The English view of Double Jeopardy, under the influence of Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) and William Blackstone (1723-1780), meant that a defendant at trial could plead former conviction or former acquittal as a special plea in bar to defeat the prosecution. ( Crist v. Bretz, 437 U.S. 28, 32–36 (1978), and id. at 40 (Powell, J., dissenting); United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 340 (1975))
In this country, the common-law rule was, in some cases, limited to this rule. However, in other cases, it was extended to bar a new trial even though the former trial had not concluded in either an acquittal or a conviction. The constitutional prohibition against Double Jeopardy was intended to protect an individual from being subjected to the hazards of trial and possible conviction more than once for an alleged offense. Blackstone in his Commentaries, greatly influenced the Founding Fathers when they adopted the Constitution. Blackstone wrote:
“. . . the plea of auterfois acquit, or a former acquittal, is grounded on this universal maxim of the common law of England that no man is to be brought into jeopardy of his life more than once for the same offence.” id/Blackstone’s Commentaries 335.
If we look at the Supreme Court ruling BEFORE with this plethora of statutes and agencies, we find the same view was taken in Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, at 85 U. S. 169 (1873):
“The common law not only prohibited a second punishment for the same offence, but it went further and forbid a second trial for the same offence, whether the accused had suffered punishment or not, and whether in the former trial he had been acquitted or convicted.”
“The prohibition is not against being twice punished, but against being twice put in jeopardy; and the accused, whether convicted or acquitted, is equally put in jeopardy at the first trial.”
Before the court turned pro-government in the 20th century, it was being put in jeopardy twice, not that you could create ten statutes for the same crime. The underlying idea, one that is deeply ingrained in at least the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, is that the State, with all its resources and power, should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for the same conduct, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense, ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity.
The New Hampshire Constitution pt. I, art. 16 was adopted in 1784 and preceded the US Constitution, and it included a bill of rights that included the new nation’s first Double Jeopardy clause, stating: “No subject shall be liable to be tried, after an acquittal, for the same crime or offence (sic).” The Supreme Court of New Hampshire construes the Double Jeopardy prohibition of the state’s constitution to bar successive trials regardless of the identity of the initial prosecuting authority. State v. Hogg, 385 A.2d 844, 847 (N.H. 1978). The New
The text of the Constitution is also silent on many fundamental questions of constitutional law, including questions that its drafters and those ratifying the document could not have foreseen or chose not to address. Nonetheless, the philosophy behind the Fifth Amendment has long been settled, as stated in US v Ball back in 1896. Thus, it is one of the elemental principles of our criminal law that the Government cannot secure a new trial by means of an appeal even though an acquittal may appear to be erroneous. This has been the standard held in US v. Ball, supra; Peters v. Hobby, 349 U. S. 331, 349 U. S. 344-345 (1955). Cf. Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S. 100 (1904); United States v. Sanges, 144 U. S. 310 (1892).
We are looking at constructive amendment of the Constitution that there is ABSOLUTELY no possible way that the Founding Fathers would have allowed the same conduct to violate a multitude of statutes that would allow the government 91 chances to convict Trump for the same conduct. Not even the tyranny of King George III ever dared to get around the Double Jeopardy Clause in this manner. It is an embarrassment to the United States to the world.
Article VI, Clause 2:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Supremacy Clause in the Constitution (Article VU, Claus 2) prohibits no state from writing any law that overrules the federal law. Hence, no state may charge Trump for the very same conduct that he stands charged in a federal court. The Framers of the Constitution were silent on this idea of Dual Sovereignty in criminal law, and no court can rule in that favor without the 50 states having a go at the same conduct. Naturally, the Supreme Court would never entertain that argument because it would actually benefit the people – not our tyrannical government abuses. When 2032 comes, and we get to rewrite the constitution, there should NEVER be allowed multiple prosecutions for the same conduct regardless of how many sovereigns they want to pretend to exist.
The elevation of Double Jeopardy to fundamental status by its inclusion in several state bills of rights following the Revolution demonstrated its restraint against this type of abuse by the government. The Bill of Rights, which had been adopted at the New York Convention and transmitted to Congress with its ratification of the Federal Constitution, included a declaration that.
“no Person ought to be put twice in Jeopardy of Life or Limb for one and the same Offence, nor, unless in case of impeachment, be punished more than once for the same Offence.”
James Madison’s version of the guarantee, which was introduced in the House of Representatives, and it read:
No person shall be subject, except in cases of impeachment, to more than one punishment or trial for the same offense.
What we do know from the “intent” is that some Members opposed this proposal because it could be construed to prohibit a second trial after a successful appeal by a defendant. They viewed that as problematic. First, they argued that such a rule could constitute a hazard to the public by freeing the guilty. Second, they reasoned that prohibiting re-trials after successful appeals might make appellate courts less likely to reverse improper convictions (id/1 Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789)). Ultimately, the language, barring a second trial, was dropped in response to these concerns. However, in Crist v. Bretz, 437 U.S. 28, 40 (1978) (dissenting), Justice Lewis Powell attributed this failure to broaden the Double Jeopardy Clause to incorporate the common law rule against the dismissal of the jury before the verdict, which remains a question the majority passed over as being of academic interest only.Id. at 34 n.10. This was what I mean that the Supreme Court has allowed the abuse of the Double Jeopardy Clause to the detriment of the nation, which we are now witnessing with Trump.
Unfortunately, we no longer believe in liberty in the United States. The same conduct may violate the laws of two different sovereigns, multiple agencies, and countless statutes that criminalize the very same thing by rephrasing it in myriad ways. This has allowed a defendant to be charged innumerable times until the government wins. The Trump cases will be the epitaph of the United States and the Rule of Law. It is over. We must wait for the body of liberty to be cold before she is buried.
After the Death of Nero and the Civil War that engulfed the Roman Empire, here we have the coin issued by one of the contenders, Vitellius, with the coin declaring the Restitution of Liberty.
I have said that the reason they indicted Trump’s valet as a co-defendant in the Mar-a-Lago, was to pull the standard “extortion” where he is to perjure himself for the government or face 120 years in prison. This is how they win Conspiracy Cases. Federal Judge Jed. S. Rakoff wrote a book on the extortion process – WHY THE INNOCENT PLEAD GUILTY AND THE GUILTY GO FREE.
They cannot win a conspiracy case without extorting someone to testify against their target. That was the problem they had in my case, there were no co-defendants. Both Trump’s case and the state of allegations against the Biden family from whistleblowers illustrate how the Rule of Law in the United States no longer exists. This is the final straw behind the collapse of the United States. The allegations against Assistant U.S. Attorney for Delaware Lesley Wolf claims that she warned Hunter Biden’s attorneys about potential scrutiny on a storage unit the first son used. For the prosecutor to call and warn Hunter’s lawyers where the IRS wanted to look for the smoking gun is just unimaginable. This has become a shit show and whatever integrity the United States once had in support of life, liberty, and happiness being the beacon of freedom to the world no longer exists.
Then we have this Special Prosecutor using a pro-government grand jury in Washington to indict Trump when the case would have to be brought in Florida under the venue requirement of the Sixth Amendment, which is a constructive amendment of the Constitution. The King would indict you in London, then transport you back to London for a trial because the American colonists would have delivered a fair verdict. This is why the Sixth Amendment clearly states:
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
This is precisely where this Special Prosecutor is going. Indicting Trump in Washington where the grand jury will be more likely than not government employees and Democrats, but the venue clause requires Trump to be charged where the crime took place and that is Florida. Smith is doing the EXACT same thing that the King of England did for which we had a Revolution.
They did not prosecute Richard Nixon and they did not prosecute Bill Clinton when they also had him on perjury charges. Hillary’s private servers with classified documents were set up so her emails would not be accessible under the Freedom of Information Act had they gone through the State Department, which was obstruction of justice. Nobody was ever charged because it would have resulted in civil unrest since the country would be divided. This time, they just do not care. It seems as though they KNOW this will cause civil unrest and they want that to unfold so they can justify even more crazy actions of locking us down again.
30 years ago, Washington was always corrupt. The difference was they at least tried to hide it. Today, they no longer care what you think because they will rig the election and you are no longer needed. The corruption is just open and they are laughing at us all the time as we are a gaggle of fools.
The one thing many people are noticing is that tensions are rising. People are frustrated. Some are stabbing people in shopping malls all of a sudden and others get killed over a parking spot. The COVID lockdown has unhinged many and society is becoming more hostile year by year. This is also a precursor to the rising civil unrest we see coming.
These are forecasts made years in advance. We had a serious Directional Change in 2022 and we were expecting a rise in 2023 with this all exploding by 2025. These people really think that they can do whatever they want because we will shut up and do as we are told. This is going to erupt and this 2024 election will be rigged and the entire world will know that because they no longer care to even hide their agenda.
Posted originally on the CTH on August 10, 2023 | Sundance
Several people have made queries about the current state of our national economic condition against the backdrop of disconnected data points that seemingly conflict. Here’s my review.
July and August are key months to gauge the prior six months of U.S consumer positioning.
Why?
Because all advance purchase orders for the U.S. holiday season are made in May, June and July for inventory builds and delivery schedules for September. The decisions made by purchasing officers in late spring and early summer, reflect their predictive analysis for the holiday season.
Inventories are evaluated, critical financial discussions are held, and orders are placed for September arrival and distribution. This predictive activity is what we see in the July and August data that flows from the global, multinational and shipping corporations who facilitate the transfer of the goods. Check what is happening in distribution, and you can see what eventually creates the boxcar effect in the supply chain that ultimately leads to shuttered manufacturing.
Those who are involved in the business of shipping goods are signaling the flares around the state of the consumer economy and what will happen. At the same time, the wording is almost hilarious in this era of great pretending. Instead of saying ordinary words like “poor sales results for durable goods,” the parseltongue calls sales, “destocking.” Example: “CEO Vincent Clerc said he saw no sign that the destocking which has curbed global trade activity would end this year.”
Global shipping company Maersk is warning that shipping volume is low because warehouse inventories are high. The goods are unsold.
(Reuters) – […] CEO Vincent Clerc said he saw no sign that the destocking which has curbed global trade activity would end this year.
“We had expected customers to draw down inventories around the middle of the year, but so far we see no signs of that happening. It may happen at the beginning of next year,” Clerc said at a media briefing. “Consequently, the uptick in volumes we had expected in the second half of the year has not occurred,” he said. (read more)
The lack of shipping leads to a review of inventory status for the warehouses who would receive the goods.
Bulging Warehouses – […] A review of corporate statements and briefings shows more than 30 U.S. and European companies, including Hugo Boss, Heineken and A.P. Moller-Maersk, 3M Co and Stanley Black & Decker complained that destocking hurt their second-quarter performance.
Retailers particularly have struggled with stocks of clothing and footwear as consumers splurge on holidays rather than goods as they did during pandemic lockdowns.
The downbeat outlook comes amid low expectations for second-quarter results as China’s post-pandemic recovery slows. Refinitiv I/B/E/S data shows U.S. and European companies are expected to report their worst quarterly results in years.
Companies which stockpiled last year are finding it harder to shed inventories when higher borrowing costs and inflation crimp consumer demand, corporate executives and analysts said.
In the euro zone, stocks of finished products hit records in August last year and destocking only started in May, based on latest euro-zone manufacturing data.
In the U.S., an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by CFRA Research showed business inventories soared by 20% in mid-2022, the biggest jump on record based on data that goes back to 1993. Retailers led the trend – raising inventories by a quarter from a year earlier.
The date in this next paragraph is key:
[…] The U.S. inventory-to-sales ratio was 1.4 in May, up from 1.33 a year ago, which means retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers have more inventory than they can sell at a higher rate than a year ago. (link)
When purchase order decisions for the holiday season of 2023 were being made, the inventory levels were higher than 2022. This is KPI (Key Performance Indicator) data, because the holiday of 2022 was a total mess.
Holiday sales last year were exceptionally weak as wage earners were struggling to pay for higher prices in essential goods and services, fuel, oil, heating, energy, gasoline, food and shelter. The lack of consumer purchasing for non-essential goods and/or luxury items resulted in poor sales last year, and the inventory levels are actually higher this year than last year when this year’s purchasing decisions were being made. That reality drops purchase orders. The dropped purchase orders lead to Maersk saying they are shipping less goods.
Now, let’s get USA domestic…. because it’s all connected. For that let’s turn to the U.S. Postal Service:
USPS DATA – First-Class Mail revenue increased $221 million, or 4.0 percent, on a volume decline of 678 million pieces, or 5.9 percent, compared to the same quarter last year. Shipping and Packages revenue remained relatively flat while volume declined 41 million pieces, or 2.4 percent, compared to the same quarter last year.
Marketing Mail revenue decreased $333 million, or 8.8 percent, on a volume decline of 2.6 billion pieces, or 16.0 percent, compared to the same quarter last year. The Marketing Mail decreases were driven by the continued decline in advertising spending due to economic pressures experienced throughout most of the fiscal year, a higher inflationary environment affecting print media production costs. (link)
So, let’s put it all together….
Consumers did not buy stuff. As a result, spring inventories were high. Purchasing managers forecast weak sales. Summer purchase orders were very low. Shipping companies reflect declines in shipping because the purchase orders were low. Advertising and marketing budgets were cut to meet the decrease in consumer spending. Consumers are not forecast to spend this holiday season.
The economic pie is getting smaller.
Keep in mind, this is all intentional. This is all part of the outcome from “managing the transition” to a new energy economy.
As you are well aware the various western nation central banks including the U.S. Federal Reserve, are raising interest rates into a global economic contraction, a drop in demand. Raising interest rates into a contracting economy is counterintuitive, it runs against the expressed interest of government to grow economic conditions. However, there is a purposeful design to the contradiction. [A TLDR Version Here]
The central bankers are trying to support western government policy. Unfortunately, the government policy they are under obligation to support is the fundamental energy shift, or what the World Economic Forum (Davos Group) has called the “Build Back Better” climate change agenda.
Monetary policy can only impact one side of the inflation challenge. The western bankers (EU central bank, U.S. federal reserve bank, and various banking groups) are raising interest rates in order to “tame inflation” by “taming demand.” However, as you know the global economic demand has been declining for several quarters. Raising interest rates into an already contracting economy only does one thing, it speeds up the rate of economic contraction.
Economic contraction is the lowering of economic activity. Raise interest rates -in a general sense- and businesses invest less, borrowers borrow less, consumers purchase less, employers expand less, and the economy overall slows down. When the economy turns negative, meaning less products and services are produced, we enter a recession. Some businesses and employers do not survive a recession and subsequently unemployment rises.
During recessionary periods people buy less stuff, people have less income stability, and economic activity drops. When the banks raise interest rates into an economy that is already stalled or contracting, unemployment and general pain on Main Street increases. Workers are laid-off, incomes shrink, consumer spending drops and that leads to less employment. Recessions are bad for middle-class and working-class people.
However, that said, there is one benefit from a recession…. Energy use drops.
Posted originally on the CTH on August 8, 2023 | Sundance
According to most western media to say there is a vast global network of pedophiles and perverts who traffic children is akin to believing in some Q-minded conspiracy. Apparently, with headlines that appeared on AOL News today, the conspiracy is not a theory.
“Members used software to anonymously share files, chat on message boards and access websites within the network,” it said. Some were also accused of having produced their own child abuse material to share with members of the network, the agency said.
(Via AOL/NBC) – Almost 100 people in the United States and Australia have so far been arrested over child sexual abuse allegations after the fatal shooting of two FBI agents led to the unraveling of a suspected international pedophile ring, officials announced Tuesday.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said that 19 men had been arrested on charges of sharing child abuse material online, while at least 13 children were rescued from further harm as a result of a joint operation with the FBI, dubbed “Operation Bakis.”
The development brought the total number of people arrested as part of the joint probe up to 98, with at least 79 arrests so far carried out by the FBI, according to the Australian agency.
The joint investigation began after the two FBI agents investigating the alleged pedophile ring were fatally shot in 2021 while executing a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, for a man suspected of being in possession of child abuse material, the agency noted in a news release.
Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were fatally shot and three other agents were wounded, while the gunman, David Lee Huber, 55, was also killed, NBC News previously reported.
The Australian agency said the coordinated probe was formally launched in 2022 after the FBI provided the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation with intelligence about Australian individuals suspected of being part of a “peer-to-peer network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web.” (read more)
Posted originally on the CTH on August 2, 2023 | Sundance
Collapse is never a sudden occurrence; it is an outcome of gradual erosion over time. A weakening that takes place almost invisible to those who pass through the construct, until eventually, at an uneventful time in the mechanics of history, the process gives way.
Fitch has joined with the prior position of Standard & Poors to downgrade the USA credit rating. The weight of debt, in combination with reverberations from the continued hammering deep inside the political fundamental change operation, has triggered another flare.
In the bigger picture, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy driven by the latest focus on unsustainable economic policy, aka The Green New Deal. The efforts of the fiscal, monetary and economic policy are all aligned to shrink the U.S. economy, thereby creating the era of “sustainable energy” a possibility. Unfortunately, this is akin to a household intentionally shrinking their income while at the same time taking on credit card debt. The process itself is not sustainable.
(Reuters) – Rating agency Fitch on Tuesday downgraded the U.S. government’s top credit rating, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors, coming despite the resolution of the debt ceiling crisis two months ago.
Traders’ immediate response was to embark on a safe-haven push out of stocks and into government bonds and the dollar.
Fitch downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA, citing fiscal deterioration over the next three years and repeated down-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills.
[…] “In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025,” the rating agency said in a statement.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen disagreed with Fitch’s downgrade, in a statement that called it “arbitrary and based on outdated data.”
[…] In a previous debt ceiling crisis in 2011, Standard & Poor’s cut the top “AAA” rating by one notch a few days after a debt ceiling deal, citing political polarization and insufficient steps to right the nation’s fiscal outlook. Its rating is still “AA-plus” – its second highest.
After that downgrade, U.S. stocks tumbled and the impact of the rating cut was felt across global stock markets, which were in the throes of the euro zone financial meltdown.
In May, Fitch had placed its “AAA” rating of U.S. sovereign debt on watch for a possible downgrade, citing downside risks, including political brinkmanship and a growing debt burden. (read More)
What do Barack Obama and Joe Biden have in common? They were both in office, executing an identical economic, fiscal and monetary policy, when the USA credit was downgraded.
“Platitudes”, that’s the best word to describe what the DeSantis campaign previously claimed would be a substantive economic policy outline from the Florida governor. As the policy was unveiled in New Hampshire yesterday, I watched it all {Direct Rumble Link Here} to see what it would cover and how DeSantis would deliver it. Summary, major fail.
First, I must admit to coming to any economic policy outline as presented with a laser focus. You tell me you have an economic policy, and you have my full attention. Why? Because the economic policy of a federal candidate will ultimately determine monetary policy, fiscal policy and foreign policy. It is the only national policy we cannot affect from a local level, yet we are necessarily impacted by it and cannot avoid it.
MAGA starts with MAGAnomics. So, to say I get into the weeds on this, would be a soft understatement.
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, what Ron DeSantis outlined yesterday was a series of 10-point meaningless platitudes. If the UniParty policy teams of Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris got together over a weekend with Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, they would create a think-tank-driven UniParty economic policy outline very similar to what Ron DeSantis presented yesterday.
Platitudes, soundbites and structurally incoherent gibberish – presented with a word assembly that amounts to nothing.
“We will declare our economic independence from the failed elites that have orchestrated American decline, from the reckless federal spending that has inflated prices and plunged this nation to the brink of bankruptcy.” ~ Ron DeSantis 7/31/23
Declare away doofus, you can declare all you want but it takes an actual set of targeted actions to move from declaration to outcome. Those same “failed elites that have orchestrated American decline” are the same people financing your run for office.
I’m sure somewhere in a Pete Buttigieg kind of way, that soundbite might have seemed like a good sentence; but in reality, it’s gibberish and parseltongue.
You can see the 10-point outline above. Generally speaking, when the ten points are outlined the speech and accompanying policy therein would describe exactly what action takes place in each of the points…. Nope, not for DeSantis it doesn’t. Instead, what DeSantis does in his policy framework is take each of the ten points and then describe what they mean.
DeSantis describes what is referenced by each of his ten points, he does not outline the specific action that takes place within them. That’s how you can tell when a think-tank puts meaningless platitudes into a format for a candidate to speak. In this instance the think tank is the stunningly typical Club for Growth, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the multinationals who are funding the DeSantis campaign operation.
DeSantis will end our abusive relationship with the CCP, reverse our ever-increasing trade deficits, ban imports of goods made from stolen intellectual property, strengthen protections to stop child and forced labor, and end China’s preferential trade status.
DeSantis will demand that American companies act in accordance with American interests — which means preventing companies from sharing critical technologies with China and banning the sale of strategic assets like farmland to CCP members and their affiliates.
DeSantis will incentivize the repatriation of U.S. capital from China through strategic tax abatements and aligning market incentives with strategic goals to help secure our supply chains and invest in America.
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“DeSantis will end our abusive relationship with China.” How? Doesn’t say.
“DeSantis will demand”…. How? Doesn’t say.
“DeSantis will incentivize”…. How? Doesn’t say.
See the problem?
The era of hopeful optimism that a Republican candidate will actually take an action to fulfill the policy “demand” is over. The rustbelt sits there, staring at any Republican politician who would dare say the Republican Party has protected Main Street from the vulture capitalism of Wall Street.
This DeSantis economic policy is an assembly of meaningless platitudes with no substantive action presented as policy to back up the intention. Worse still, not only is there no action outlined, but there’s also no action that could be outlined that is not against the interests of the very people who put the outline together.
The people constructing this language (for DeSantis to read) have no intent, thought or purpose of actually doing anything to act upon any of the economic issues. Within all of the remaining nine points it’s the same. It’s all meaningless gibberish.
Compare the DeSantis policy to the Trump policy. Here’s Trump’s “AGENDA 47”China plan:
♦ENDING RELIANCE ON CHINA: President Trump’s America First trade policy will completely eliminate U.S. dependence on China–the primary beneficiary of Democrats’ globalist agenda.
In addition to universal baseline tariffs on most foreign goods, President Trump’s plan will reclaim our economic independence from China. President Trump will revoke China’s Most Favored Nation trade status and adopt a 4-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods—everything from electronics to steel to pharmaceuticals. This will include strong protections to ensure China cannot circumvent restrictions by passing goods through conduit countries.
President Trump will establish new rules to stop U.S. companies from investing in China and stop China from buying up America, allowing only those investments that serve American interests.
President Trump will ban federal contracts for any company that outsources to China. (link)
See the difference? The DeSantis campaign assembles talking points, while the Trump China plan is direct, specific and actionable.
The DeSantis economic plan is well described by this segment by Steve Bannon {Direct Rumble Link}:
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Fortunately, we do not have to guess which candidate has the right path. We have President Trump’s actual economic policy results to look at and see how the expansion of the economy was creating the type of growth that would sustain Social Security and Medicare. This was/is MAGAnomics at work.
…. Make America Great Again!
We know it works, because we have the results to cite.
It was the Fourth Quarter of 2019…..
Right before the pandemic would hit a few months later…. Despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, all of them saying Trump’s 2017 steel and aluminum tariffs on China, Canada and the EU would create massive inflation, it just wasn’t happening!
Overall year-over-year inflation was hovering around 1.7 percent [Table-A BLS]; yup, that was our inflation rate. The rate in the latter half of 2019 was firmed up with less month-over-month fluctuation, and the rate basically remained consistent. [See Below] The U.S. economy was on a smooth glide path, strong, stable and Main Street was growing with MAGAnomics at work.
A couple of important points. First, unleashing the energy sector to drive down overall costs to consumers and industry outputs was a key part of President Trump’s America-First MAGAnomic initiative. Lower energy prices help the worker economy, middle class and average American more than any other sector.
Which brings us to the second important point. Notice how food prices had very low year-over-year inflation, 0.5 percent. That is a combination of two key issues: low energy costs, and the fracturing of Big Ag hold on the farm production and the export dynamic:
(BLS) […] The index for food at home declined for the third month in a row, falling 0.2 percent. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs decreased 0.7 percent in August as the index for eggs fell 2.6 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables, which rose in July, fell 0.5 percent in August; the index for fresh fruits declined 1.4 percent, but the index for fresh vegetables rose 0.4 percent. The index for cereals and bakery products fell 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.3 percent in July. (link)
For the previous twenty years food prices had been increasingly controlled by Big Ag, and not by normal supply and demand. The commodity market became a ‘controlled market’. U.S. food outputs (farm production) was controlled and exported to keep the U.S. consumer paying optimal prices.
President Trump’s trade reset was disrupting this process. As farm products were less exported the cost of the food in our supermarket became reconnected to a ‘more normal’ supply and demand cycle. Food prices dropped and our pantry costs were lowered.
The Commerce Dept. then announced that retail sales climbed by 0.4 percent in August 2019, twice as high as the 0.2 percent analysts had predicted. The result highlighted retail sales strength of more than 4 percent year-over-year. These excellent results came on the heels of blowout data in July, when households boosted purchases of cars and clothing.
The better-than-expected number stemmed largely from a 1.8 percent jump in spending vehicles. Online sales, meanwhile, also continued to climb, rising 1.6 percent. That’s similar to July 2019, when Amazon held its two-day, blowout Prime Day sale. (link)
Despite the efforts to remove and impeach President Trump, it did not look like middle-class America was overly concerned about the noise coming from the pundits. Likely that’s because blue-collar wages were higher, Main Street inflation was lower, and overall consumer confidence was strong. Yes, MAGAnomics was working.
Additionally, remember all those MSM hours and newspaper column inches where the professional financial pundits were claiming Trump’s tariffs were going to cause massive increases in prices of consumer goods?
Well, exactly the opposite happened [BLS report] Import prices were continuing to drop:
This was a really interesting dynamic that no-one in the professional punditry would dare explain.
Donald Trump’s tariffs were targeted to specific sectors of imported products. [Steel, Aluminum, and a host of smaller sectors etc.] However, when the EU and China respond by devaluing their currency, that approach hit all products imported, not just the tariff goods.
Because the EU and China were driving up the value of the dollar, everything we were importing became cheaper. Not just imports from Europe and China, but actually imports from everywhere. All imports were entering the U.S. at substantially lower prices.
This meant when we imported products, we were also importing deflation.
This price result is exactly the opposite of what the economic experts and Wall Street pundits predicted back in 2017 and 2018 when they were pushing the rapid price increase narrative.
Because all the export dependent economies were reacting with such urgency to retain their access to the U.S. market, aggregate import prices were actually lower than they were when the Trump tariffs began:
[…] Prices for imports from China edged down 0.1 percent in August following decreases of 0.2 percent in both July and June. Import prices from China have not advanced on a monthly basis since ticking up 0.1 percent in May 2018. The price index for imports from China fell 1.6 percent for the year ended in August.
[…] Import prices from the European Union fell 0.2 percent in August and 0.3 percent over the past 12 months.
So yes, we know President Trump can save Social Security and Medicare by expanding the economy with his America First economic policy. We do not need to guess if it is possible or listen to pundits theorize about his approach being some random ‘catch phrase’ disconnected from reality. Yes folks, we have the receipts.
This was MAGAnomics at work, and this is entirely what created the middle-class MAGA coalition. No other Republican candidate has this economic policy in their outlook because all other candidates are purchased by the Wall Street multinationals.
America First MAGAnomics is unique to President Trump because he is the only one independent enough to implement them.
That’s just the reality of the situation. They hate him for it…
Author’s note as said in 2016: “If I absolutely did not believe this economic model was doable, I would never expand the concept and place advocacy upon it. I am an absolute believer that we can, as a nation, reignite a solid manufacturing base and generate an expanding middle class.” Yes, I bet on Trump, and he was right.
QUESTION: You said that when Rome fell it took 700 years before gold coins reappeared. Are we facing something like that again?
PO
ANSWER: Yes, when Rome fell, gold continued in the East under the Byzantine and Islamic Empires. However, in Europe, the last Western emperor was Romulus Augustus (475-476AD) who was a puppet anyhow. He was a young son, whereas today, we have senile leaders who are puppets and incapable of independent rational thought. The first gold coin to reappear in Western Europe was that of Frederick II of Sicily (1231-1250AD). The Augustale was a gold denomination of about 5 and a half grams which Frederick II introduced to Sicily in 1231AD, and it was primarily issued for international trade.
Actually, Fibonacci (1170-1240 AD) published in 1202 his “Liber Abaci” (Book of Abacus). He introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals into Western culture. Suddenly, this allowed the calculation of numbers that were not taught in schools and was unknown in Christian circles. Only a very small group of intellectuals had access to translations of the Arab mathematician al-Khwarizmi (780-850 AD). The techniques that Fibonacci introduced were groundbreaking to re-establish a culture that lost its identity with the fall of Rome. Fibonacci illustrated practical problems on how to calculate profit margin, money changing, barter, conversion of weights and measures, partnerships, and, last but not least, interest. He also introduced some geometry and algebra.
However, Fibonacci’s work was so earth-shattering it became the topic of discussion and caught the attention of King Frederick II of Sicily. I believe it was Fibonacci’s introduction to mathematics that also inspired Frederick II to even reintroduce gold coinage in order to trade with the outside world. At the time, that included the Arabs as well as the Byzantines. The gold dinar was the Islamic medieval gold coin first issued in 696–697AD by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan with a weight of 4.25 grams. Frederick II made his coin about 1 gram heavier in order to project economic power.
The introduction of CBDC is highly dangerous in war; even a nuclear blast also sends out an EM pulse that will destroy electronics. If I were Russia or China, I would NOT move to any sort of digital currency and then use an EMP against the United States. The entire economy would collapse. People would not even be able to buy anything. We have idiots in power who are so greedy, looking at the power this will place in their hands, they are ignoring the risks. This could mark the collapse of Western society, sending us back to the days of Barter.
The Post-2032 era would most likely be fragmented rather than national states as we know them today. There will most likely emerge regional currencies, as we have witnessed throughout history many times. Even during the Great Depression, over 200 US cities resorted to issuing their own money.
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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