Comment: I use Coinbase to hold some crypto. They sent me an email saying that my account that I had for years would be limited to withdrawals only if I do not give them updated government ID and download the latest version of the application. I use this on my PC and do not have the application. I worry they’ll take what is left of my failing cryptos. Luckily I only put “play money” into these holdings but I imagine others will experience losses and frozen accounts in the near future. The deadline they gave me was October – not sure if that is for all. I messaged out to Coinbase for help updating my account but cannot fully verify it after many tries.
Reply: Government hates cryptocurrency. They have always been concerned about their ability to squeeze out every last penny in taxes from crypto. I am not surprised that Coinbase is emailing users for additional documentation days after the Inflation Reduction Act was passed. With nearly 88,000 new IRS agents, there will certainly be teams of hundreds or thousands of accountants who will analyze all crypto holdings.
The initial idea behind the creation of crypto has been lost. I warned in March on our private blog on Socrates that cryptocurrencies may be suspended altogether one day. Biden could sign an Executive Order to regulate cryptos because countries like Russia can use it to circumvent sanctions. Not only is Biden authorizing the regulation of digital currencies, but he is also instructing to move forward with a central bank cryptocurrency. Once that is done, all other cryptocurrencies will be seized and folded into the government’s crypto. There will be no competition.
Similar to Pete Buttigieg’s braindead suggestion to simply buy an electric vehicle to combat energy inflation, the White House is now offering another solution for Americans crippled by inflation – stop being poor. While they did not say these words verbatim, their ideas behind taming inflation among low and middle-earning Americans are completely out of the realm of reality. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm patted the Democrats on the back for passing the Inflation Reduction Act.
“If you are low income, you can get your home entirely weatherized through the expansion from the bipartisan infrastructure laws, a significant expansion — you don’t have to pay for anything,” Granholm said, toting government rebates. Solar panels can run anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 for an initial setup. Is this something people with little disposable income can afford? How about the growing number of renters who do not have this option even if it were “free.”
Granholm offered more belittling advice for the middle class. “If you are moderate income, today you can get 30% off the price of solar panels. Those solar panels can be financed, so you don’t have to have the big outlay at the front … it’s a significant incentive.” Oh wow, a 30% discount and only a six to 12-month wait for the tax credit! Forget about basic shelter costs and food, go ahead and finance expensive solar panels as your family starves on the streets.
This administration is completely out of touch with the needs of the American people. They have done absolutely nothing to lower energy inflation and are now gas lighting the people to believe WE can do more to combat prices not seen in 40 years.
“Massive civil unrest in the US starting in 2023, Word War 3 on the horizon, inflation to only get progressively worse, and the elites going all out to push their Great Reset on humanity. Legendary economic forecaster and astute scholar of history and human nature Martin Armstrong speaks with Ryan McCormick from The Outer Limits of Inner Truth (https://www.outerlimitsradio.com/martinarmstrong) to discuss his predictions and insight on the topics above.
Armstrong reveals what to expect and what people can do in the volatile years ahead. Also, if we can weather the storm till 2032, things should clear up, and humanity should be knee-deep in a peaceful enlightenment period by 2040.”
Shakespeare’s famous line was: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” To put that in its proper context, only the king had an attorney, so they were prosecutors. When we look at the real difference between Republicans and Democrats who enter politics, it becomes an indictment against the legal profession. Lawyers are adversarial by nature and are thus trained to try to win at all costs. Likewise, law enforcement officers are trained to look for illegal activity. They are trained to observe. One friend I knew who was a policeman said that everyone was guilty of something.
One legal professor even wrote a book on that subject – “Three Felonies a Day.” That is the entire problem. There are so many laws that everyone commits something that would justify their arrest every day. For example, adultery is technically illegal in 21 states. Cheating on your spouse in Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, among others, have felony charges against it. Adultery, or having an intimate relationship with someone other than your spouse, is a Class 3 offense in Arizona, and a sentence of up to 30 days in prison is possible. To be charged with a felony then deprives you of owning a gun or ammunition. So, adultery and just possessing a gun or ammunition will land you in prison for five years. I saw a Vietnam Vet get five years because he had an empty shell from Vietnam on a chain around his neck, and he was sentenced to five years in prison as the prosecutor claimed he could fill the drilled holes, pour in gunpowder, and that was good enough for five years in prison.
That training given to lawyers when it comes to politics may be a huge conflict of interest that actually is anti-American. That adversarial training may work in litigation but does not work when representing the people in politics. Being trained to win at any cost creates has been what is at the root of the polarization and hatred that is now boiling up in our country. It tends to move against common sense and actually eliminates any legitimate debate, for it has devolved into — our way or no way!
In 2012, at the Republican National convention, Clint Eastwood made public his opinion of lawyers as he spoke to an empty chair that represented Barack Obama. “See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to be president, anyway.” Lawyers actually are much more common in politics. Clinton was the 45th president and the 26th lawyer to hold the position of president. Indeed, 60% of the U.S. Senate is lawyers, while 37.2% of the House of Representatives are lawyers. Together, that means that lawyers control 43% of the total votes in the country.
DEMOCRATS
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an attorney, as was the fiery William Jennings Bryan (Thou Shalt Not Crucify Mankind on a Cross of Gold), who advocated inflation. Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Barack Obama was a lawyer. Michelle Obama was a lawyer. Hillary Clinton was a lawyer. Bill Clinton was a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is a lawyer. Former Senator Harry Reid was a lawyer. Indeed, even every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 was a lawyer. Granted, Joe Biden, before he was senile, graduated at the bottom of his class. Al Gore graduated from Harvard, but he did not graduate Vanderbilt Law School.
REPUBLICANS
The Republican Party is different. President Trump is a businessman. President Bush 1 and 2 were businessmen. Vice President Cheney was a businessman. President Eisenhower was a 5-star General. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. Ex-House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastics manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, ran against actor Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party puts forth more non-lawyers than Democrats.
Apparently, Mitt Romney, who was very anti-Trump, had a joint degree from Harvard’s Law and Business Schools. It was the lawyers in the Republican Party who were against Trump, like Rubio. It was Rubio who was drafting legislation to impose sanctions on China if they aided Russia. I sent a letter warning that was a braindead response, but I did not get a response. Perhaps the idea fell apart. But Rubio is a lawyer, and the typical response is to write a law. That is our entire problem.
Once a law is put on the books, it remains there forever. Sarasota, Florida was the home of the Ringling Brothers Circus. The town passed a law that you cannot leave an elephant at a parking meter without paying the parking meter fee. In Pennsylvania, when driving on a country road at night, you must stop every mile and set off flares or other warning signals and then allow 10 minutes for livestock to clear the road. There are still places where if you are driving down the road and your car frightens a horse, you must pull off the road. If the horse is still frightened, you must dissemble it. In Alabama, it is illegal to drive your car while blindfolded. I suppose that must have been a huge problem. When you are in West Virginia, if you ran over a squirrel, it’s legal to eat your road kill or anyone else’s. Lawyers in government can’t resist writing laws.
The Democratic Party is made up of mostly lawyers who attack those who create wealth, big and small. Perhaps this is the entire problem. The nation has been polarized because that is the very training of a lawyer to be adversarial. Are the Democratic lawyers looking at those who create wealth to be exploited by the slip-and-fall claims? Those who create wealth by starting a small business that provides 70% of employment are looked upon as evil, greedy sorts of people as the enemies of America. And, in the eyes of the Democratic Party, have we evolved into seeing the procession of official enemies grow with wealth that must be attacked? The Democrats do not rail against illegal aliens, and those who want a free ride burden the middle class.
Unfortunately, this is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers because of the very adversarial training and the view that everyone is really guilty. Lawyers do solve problems by successfully representing their clients, which, in this case, should be the American people as a whole, but they seem to see it as only those who vote for them. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side. Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.
The problem with lawyers in government is that they inherently begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties. This is why we are plagued by their use of the legal system in our lives which has become all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties to our very government, and they must then be punished. Somehow we have to change this perspective, for it is polarizing society and converting our equal justice for all into an adversarial legal batter with everything from abortion to taxes.
Unfortunately, lawyers have a place in the private world, but in politics, it is turning our nation into an adversarial mud-wresting match to the death. They fight to the death over appointing people to the Supreme Court which in itself demonstrates that there is no RULE OF LAW; it is always just an opinion. When I was in the gold business, State Senator Walter Foran asked me to write the law for the State of New Jersey to make gold not taxable under the sales tax. I wrote the law stating gold was not taxable unless “converted to use” and the sales tax Nazis stormed my business, seized my records, and then demanded sales tax on over 3,000 transactions. I went to court and lost. They would not allow me to testify because it was “irrelevant.” I may have misinterpreted what the Senate asked me to write. Their interpretation was that “converted to use” was “investment use,” and the judge ruled in the State’s favor. Senator Foran demanded to testify on my behalf, but they would not allow him to testify as a senator. My request to subpoena the Senate was denied as unreasonable. The prosecutor, after the case said, “Sorry, nothing personal. This is how we make law.” I retired and did not want to be then harassed every year.
Our society is drowning in laws that judicial decisions have distorted our freedom and the legal system has been carried on the back of those it oppresses. It has invaded every part of our once private lives with lockdowns and mandatory vaccines that have benefited those who bribe our so-called representatives. The place for laws and lawyers remains in the private sector – not the government. Once in power, they see every solution warrants a new power and law.
This Democratic Administration, the same one that just raided Trump’s estate to prevent any documents from coming out about RussiaGate and their behind-the-curtain machinations, has now filed a lawsuit against Arizona, claiming that a new state law that requires voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship in order to cast a ballot in presidential elections is unconstitutional. We cannot simply cross the border and go vote in Canada. Yet, according to this Biden Administration, anyone can come and vote in the United States, and you do not have to prove who you are. This is what I mean where law disregards all common sense. We live now in total chaos.
We are witnessing the total destruction of not just common sense, but of the society we once called America. We cannot repair our society, for that change cannot be brought by lawyers who now control our very future. Einstein warned, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ”
Our modern world is falling into the same trap that destroyed the Byzantine Empire. They created so many laws that they often said that they employed more tax collectors than there were people left to pay taxes. Even in computer science, in a distributed network, you solve a problem by reaching a consensus despite the presence of nodes that disagree. Today, the danger of democracy has always been the fear that the majority will oppress the minority. That has become the objective today in politics, and I fear it has become the norm because we have too many lawyers who see the world in an adversarial confrontation.
The United States has only 5% of the world’s population but 66% of the world’s lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years. It has been an unreachable quest to limit punitive damages. People spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the establishment. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies pay bribes to ensure their immunity. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democratic Party because they are the party with an overwhelming number of lawyers who will never vote against their own self-interest. No different from Goldman Sachs installing people in every department they can deal with finance. It is a warning g sign that 99% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party. The ABA Journal also confirms that trial lawyers donate to the Democrats – not Republicans.
Without term limits, we are simply doomed. We cannot bar attorneys from running for office. We just have to understand that the legal system is trained to be adversarial, and this is why the nation is on the brink of civil war. Courts were there to keep society “civil” where disputes were to be resolved civilly. The courts are no longer impartial, and judges have way too much power just to seal records and refuse to allow the people to see the truth.
Lawyers are a necessary part of society. My father was a lawyer. But we cannot allow this training in adversarial confrontation to consume the entire society. Even the conflict with Russia reflects this win at all cost doctrine and refusal to negotiate or compromise. The bottom line with lawyers in government is that they also know how to craft laws and then circumvent them. As I have said before, I was invited by Edmon Safra to the IMF dinner in DC where he rented the entire National Gallery. It was illegal to buy a politician dinner, so you could have lobster, filets, whatever. As long as we stood, it was not considered a dinner but Hor D’erves.
This is the problem. When the Democrats seek to plunder the rich, it becomes their way of life. They no longer know how to run for office withing promising to tax the evil rich. They create for themselves a legal system that authorizes their progressiveness denying equal justice for all and a moral code that glorifies discrimination based on wealth which is somehow justified.
Yet, independent analysis has shown that this proposal will harm small and medium businesses. “Most small businesses are organized as pass-through entities — LLCs and S Corps,” James Lucier, managing director of Washington-based policy research firm Capital Alpha, told The Post. “Proponents of increased auditing specifically say they want to target pass-through entities, which inherently means targeting small business and small business owners.” Lucier explained that smaller companies would be unable to fight back. Only large corporations have specialized lawyers to review everything and adhere to the plethora of laws.
The big companies are already using Biden’s failed plans to make a profit. The Inflation Reduction Act primarily pays for climate change controls, and they slipped in a $7,500 tax credit for those who can afford an electric vehicle (EV). So what did the companies do? Ford and GM simply raised the prices on their EV to match or exceed the tax credit.
Let’s not forget the 15% corporate tax minimum. Costs are always passed onto the consumer. Not a single Republican voted for this bill. Democrats are the enemy of the middle class — the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Trudeau is pushing forth the Great Reset at any cost. Canada will impose a federal “Digital Identity Program” to help the World Economic Forum develop a global ID system. Since the COVID passports failed, they are outright demanding that everyone carry proof of their digital identity.
“Now more than ever, we have work to do to make it easier for Canadians to interact with the Government of Canada, and we are committed to better serving Canadians in a digital age. This will require modern, integrated systems and an unwavering focus on the needs and experience of citizens. We have made progress, but we must continue to improve.
During the pandemic, the government quickly deployed new and innovative programs to support Canadians, but we have also seen examples where we can do more to deliver secure, reliable, and easy to use digital services.
Building on the vision outlined in Canada’s Digital Government Strategy, I am pleased to introduce the Government of Canada’s Digital Ambition (GC's Digital Ambition) which has been developed with this service imperative in mind… The GC's Digital Ambition will provide a solid foundation for the ever-evolving digital transformation of government. It will serve as an important tool to support the focus shared across ministers and departments to identify and implement better ways to ensure Canadians receive high quality, accessible, and efficient government services.”
We saw the power that digital IDs provided to governments. China was able to freeze bank accounts and prevent the freedom of movement by simply changing a QR code. As we saw in numerous countries with the COVID passport, people were unable to access public buildings and facilities. They were unable to leave their countries or provinces. Governments can effectively banish people from participating in society with digital IDs. This is simply one step away from actually microchipping the people as if we were owned by the government.
The Canadian government will be able to track every citizen’s movement. They will surely implement digital IDs into every facet of government, so the people will be required to carry their digital ID as if it were Nazi Germany. Freedom and privacy have been lost to tyranny.
The Inflation Reduction Act will waste $430 billion and will do absolutely nothing to curb inflation. Around $300 billion will be spent on climate change initiatives. Clearly, that is not going to curb inflation, and paying farmers incentives for reducing emissions still does not change the fact that the current methods are the only way to produce food on a mass scale, no less during a global shortage.
One piece of legislation passed with this bill will embolden the International Revenue Services (IRS) with 87,000 additional workers. We live in a nation where the government takes a cut of our earnings and assets and then asks us to pay them more. How much more? Depends! If you miscalculate anything, you’ll wind up with fees or jail time.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) explained that the IRS is not adding tens of thousands of agents to target the big bad 1%. “I guarantee you citizens in every one of our states, if you ask them, ‘What do they want?’ they don’t want 87,000 new IRS agents. And they’re not being created to audit billionaires or giant corporations. They’re being created to audit you,” Cruz stated. The government is desperately hunting for any money they can find at our expense.
All Democratic Senators voted in favor of this bill under the guise that it would target the rich. “This will give us the chance to raise the revenue from wealthy tax cheats who are getting out of paying what they owe,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore). RS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig lied and said households earning under $400,000 would not be targeted. Yet, the Treasury Department expects the IRS to take away $400 billion in additional taxes over the next decade. In the same breath, the bill will multiply the agency’s budget by nearly six times at the cost of $80 billion.
The House Ways and Means Committee estimates that there will be an additional 1.2 million audits each year, and around 700,000 of those audits will investigate those earning under $75,000. “Democrats want to make the IRS larger than the Pentagon, the State Department, the FBI, and the Border Patrol combined,” Cruz wrote. “That’s a terrible idea. We should abolish the IRS!”
People are financially hurting right now, and the Biden Administration’s plan is to punish small businesses and the middle class. Even far-left Bernie Sanders said that the Inflation Reduction Act would do little to bring down inflation, although he applauded the new corporate tax hike. The government is now acting like the mafia and shaking down citizens for every penny they can find.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 9, 2022 | Sundance
The previous first quarter productivity drop of 7.4% was the largest quarterly drop in 74 years. Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the second quarter productivity dropped another 4.6% [Data Here].
For July, companies are paying 5.7% higher wages and getting a 4.6% drop in output, resulting in a total unit labor cost increase of 10.8%. That increase in final output cost will either result in higher prices or lower profits.
With weak consumer purchasing (low demand) already creating an inventory surplus, hence lower outputs, lower profit leads to cutbacks. The largest company expenses are generally labor and energy costs. The more variable and controllable of those two expenses is labor. You know what comes next.
(WSJ) – […] Rising productivity is the key to improving living standards; it allows companies to raise wages without raising prices and fueling inflation. Instead, businesses appear to be paying workers more to produce less. The higher unit labor costs suggest companies will either endure lower profits or pass on higher costs to consumers.
“The trend in productivity growth has worsened compared to prior to the pandemic, and the surge in unit labor costs makes the Fed’s challenge of getting inflation back down to its 2% target all the more challenging,” Wells Fargo economist Sarah House said in a research note.
The central bank has increased rates four times this year from near zero in March in an effort to raise borrowing costs, slow economic growth and bring inflation down.
The consecutive negative productivity readings are a reversal from earlier in the pandemic, when the economy was expanding rapidly and businesses appeared to be adopting new technology to cope with worker shortages and limits to face-to-face contact. (read more)
Meanwhile, “U.S. manufacturing output in June was down by 0.4% compared with March though it was still up by 3.6% compared with the same month a year earlier, estimates prepared by the Federal Reserve Board found. Three-month output growth was the weakest since early 2021, and confirms slackening momentum evident in other data on output, orders and jobs.” (Reuters)
This month’s inflation report (reflecting changes in July) will show a large decline in overall inflation. This will provide the White House with a false narrative of confidence that inflation has peaked. However, food inflation (farm prices not yet realized) will combine with wage inflation (as noted above) sometime around October, and then we enter another round of rising prices.
The prices for durable goods have likely peaked. If you are in the market for an expense item (appliance, furniture, etc) look for significant incentives to trigger in Sept/October; right around the same time when the layoffs start. So, sit tight for a few more weeks.
However, the prices for highly consumable products will present a false plateau (Aug/Sept) until they go bananas again just before the Thanksgiving holiday season.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 6, 2022 | sundance
Politico is reporting on the likelihood that Joe Biden is preparing to extend the national COVID-19 state of emergency through the 2022 midterm elections.
The debate, as outlined in just about every media narrative surrounding renewals of a national COVID emergency, is obtusely presented as if the primary political concern is public health.
Again, everyone must pretend not to know the true motive of the “emergency” is extending unilateral executive power and all of the control mechanisms therein. One mechanism would include the use of ‘Mail-in election ballots‘, which has absolutely nothing to do with public health.
The article appears to be somewhat testing the proverbial public winds.
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is expected to extend the Covid-19 public health emergency once again, ensuring that federal measures expanding access to health coverage, vaccines and treatments remain in place beyond the midterm elections, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.
The planned renewal follows extensive deliberations among Biden officials over the future of the emergency declaration, including some who questioned whether it was time to let the designation lapse.
Under the proposed extension, the Department of Health and Human Services would continue the declaration beyond the November elections and potentially into early 2023 — pushing the U.S. into its fourth calendar year under a Covid public health emergency.
[…] Some health officials also feared that formally ending the public health emergency would dampen any remaining sense of urgency in Congress to allocate additional money toward the Covid response. The administration’s request for billions more dollars to bolster its stockpiles of vaccines, tests and treatments has stalled for months in the Senate, even as officials warn the funding shortage risks hampering their ability to continue the pandemic fight. (read more)
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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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