Category Economic Subjects

Feb 1 2022

Sketchy Economic Data About to Surface, White House Proactively Seeds MSM Narrative


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 31, 2022 | Sundance | 198 Comments

For those who have been following closely, the economic data releases over the past several months have been almost impossible to reconcile from a Main Street perspective.  Additionally, the scale of inflation is skewing everything that stems from dollar valuation.

CTH is certain the fourth quarter GDP statistic (+6.9%) is useless and was an outcome of several flawed metrics: (1) the import data was misrepresented and not accurately deducted (supply chain issue); (2) the value of building inventories was over calculated as an outcome of inflation; and (3) the value of all economic activity was subsequently skewed because the economic outputs (goods and services) were recorded at higher prices.

It has been our estimation that Main Street economic activity was substantially less than the data discussed by financial pundits.

Our review also sees the employment situation on Main Street as considerably less optimistic than claimed.  Bolstering that point, in a very weird and structured preview from the White House, spokesperson Jen Psaki made an odd statement today.  WATCH (14:35 prompted):

Psaki is prepositioning a narrative that employment data in January will be lower than expectations, perhaps considerably lower, as a result of “workers calling out sick” from COVID, ie. the omicron variant, during the time when employment polling was conducted.  That is a very unusual proactive narrative.

Those talking points would not get into the briefing material if there wasn’t a person highly concerned in the economic circle to put them there.  Quite frankly, this is a talking point the White House spokesperson would never have in their briefing book if there wasn’t an advanced notification of their need for it.

Someone knows something.

Given the nature of how heavily manipulated the government institutions are, there’s a strong likelihood the Bureau of Labor and Statistics have been surprised by their employment polling results.  That internal tremor, a concern amid the political tribe, is then conveyed to someone, who then relays the warning to the White House economic team…. and that’s how Psaki gets the briefing material.

In the background of this unusually proactive economic and employment notation, the Atlanta FED recently released their forward-looking estimation [DATA HERE] of the first quarter GDP.  Keeping in mind the official 4th quarter result was +6.9%, the Atlanta Fed is saying the first quarter of 2022 looks like 0.1%.

[DATA SOURCE – Graphic Source]

The economy of the United States doesn’t go, heck, cannot go, from 7% to ZERO in one quarter without some massive dynamic, like closing down the economy…..

Unless….

Unless, the 6.9% was manufactured horsepucky from the outset.

The economy doesn’t go from 6.9% growth in December to ZERO growth a few days later without something substantive happening in the background.  My guess is the inventory buildup, cited by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in December, was the result of a massive drop in demand that took place in the three previous months.

The inventory and inflation driven inventory evaluation that helped inflate the metric of the Gross Domestic Product, was not the result of the supply chain coming back to normal.  I will bet a donut the inventory buildup was specifically because demand collapsed.

My view of that situation is supported by the historic drop in productivity that was noted in the last half of 2021.  The federal spending, and the federal subsidies for businesses and corporations to retain employees, ran past the period where payrolls would have naturally contracted due to the drop in demand.

If I am correct, the employment situation was artificially influenced, because interventionist COVID spending/bailouts allowed payrolls to be covered, and employees to remain on the payroll register, during a time when they should have been dropped if natural sales/profits were responsible for filling the payroll accounts of companies.  This would explain the macro drop in productivity while macro employment was retained.

The natural outcome of that viewpoint is….  When the federal deposits into the private sector payroll accounts dry up, employers eventually drop employees.

That rather dramatic scenario is enough to trigger the BLS to freak out when they did the payroll polling.

Just a hunch…  We’ll find out on Friday.

Feb 1 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Accuses Protesting Truck Drivers of Stealing Food from Homeless People While Flying Racist Flags


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 31, 2022 | Sundance | 699 Comments

In a remarkable effort to Alinksy the voices of those who oppose the Canadian government COVID restrictions and mandates, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claims the truck drivers in Ottawa are stealing food from the homeless while flying racist flags.

This entire tweet thread statement by the Canadian Prime Minister is just bizarre in the extreme.

(LINK SOURCE)

The need for control is a reaction to fear.  However, this type of lashing out, an effort to create a completely alternate reality of actual conditions on the ground in Ottawa, is indicative of a profoundly unstable person.  These are the extreme messages one would see from a person carrying pathological traits of borderline personality disorder.

Perhaps, due to the ideological nature of the echo chamber around him, this may be the first time Trudeau has witnessed a gathering of people who do not agree with his worldview.  Obviously, he doesn’t know how to handle what is in front of him.

Something is very unstable, creepy to a level of visible discomfort, in the way Prime Minister Trudeau is attempting to message to his national audience.   Put another way, this guy is losing his s**t, in public.  This level of public breakdown should be the number one story on the world stage.

Feb 1 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Refuses to Meet with Protesting Truckers in Ottawa, Denounces Protest Group as Abusive, Angry and Irresponsible Mob Harassing Canadians


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 31, 2022 | Sundance | 575 Comments

In a rather remarkable doubling-down against his own people, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to the microphones today to denounce the protest group that threatens the institutions of his government. [Video Below] Trudeau said the group does not represent truckers or responsible Canadians.

Introducing his position against the truckers and the Convoy for Freedom, who have demanded the government remove COVID-19 mandates and forced vaccinations, the Canadian prime minister portrayed the movement as an irresponsible minority of angry protestors who have defiled monuments in the capital.

Trudeau said he would not meet with the group, because they do not represent “true Canadians,” and are not worthy of recognition.  Trudeau contrasted his prior support for the Black Lives Matter protestors and cast the Freedom Convoy as filled with “hateful rhetoric.”  He further stated they were attempting to “incite violence” and said the movement did not deserve support.  WATCH:

The smug and condescending tone in the delivery of his official position toward the protest was quite remarkable. The prime minister also warned politicians not to support this group and demanded that all supporters of the convoy reflect on their association, as the protest group is viewed by the government as hateful and without concern for the greater good of Canadian society.

Trudeau said he had no interest in going “anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful rhetoric and violence towards their fellow citizens.”

“So to those responsible for this behavior — it needs to stop,” Trudeau said. “Canadians at home are watching in disgust and disbelief at this behavior, wondering how this could have happened in our nation’s capital.”

Trudeau said that while Canadians have the right to protest, no one has a right “to abuse, intimidate and harass … fellow citizens.” He promised to press ahead with pandemic measures despite “intimidation” from some members of the convoy.

Jan 31 2022

Schwab – The Madman of Davos Changing the World


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted Jan 31, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

There is a very serious problem in the social sciences where some academics think they can control the economy following the path first blazed by Karl Marx. Previously, the accepted normal was Laissez-faire, meaning that the economy was far too complex for governments to interfere. This emerged from Adam Smith and his “Wealth of Nations.”

The academics needed to raise their stature and to present themselves as problem solvers at first in a crisis, but then they crossed the line into believing that they could restructure the world economy. That was set in motion by Karl Marx.

Before Keynes died, he admitted that his theories were wrong. He had spent his life arguing against Smith and that economists could manage the world to bring an end to recession and depressions. This new theory in economics promised that the government could create perpetual prosperity.

Then came the 1974 Crash and the emergence of stagflation, which was supposed to be impossible. Volcker delivered his “Rediscovery of the Business Cycle” and how it had defeated Keynesian Economics – the “New Economics,” and Schwab never listened.

The previous Fed Chairman Arthur Burns, who was there when Bretton Woods collapsed, also noted that the business cycle had always won. Academics were wrong, and they could not create a land of utopia.

Schwab has continued the Marxist belief that academics are capable of redesigning the world economy. Schwab believes, like Marx, that he has the mental capacity to see the world and reshape it. He has convinced world leaders to listen to his nonsense, which has proven wrong every time it has been attempted.

Schwab has convinced world leaders that this time it will work, and they will gain more power. Do any one of these people, incompetent to rule the world, know anything about how the economy works? Communism and socialism have always failed because we are human, and we are not worker bees to be directed from some central hive.

Nixon’s famous 1959 Kitchen debate made it clear that under Marxism, no innovation ever took place that increased the standard of living for the people. All innovation was directed at creating more power for the state and its nuclear weapons. Only when people are free to discover, think and explore does the standard of living ever increase.

Today, Big Tech is aligned with the dark forces out to change the world and eliminate our freedom to everything. They cancel our speech to prevent any narrative that dares to challenge what these people believe because they have been promised to rise to the top of society as long as they help destroy the very country where freedom allowed them to climb the ladder to the top. Has money just corrupted their thinking? Or have they just been lured by Schwab’s dream of being the new elite in the changing new world?

Jan 31 2022

CONFIDENCE v Fiat


Armstrong Economics Blog/America’s Economic History Re-Posted Jan 31, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT:  Dear Mr. Armstrong
You have to ask yourself the question..how have most fiat currencies ended?
The answer is simply, how you HAVE to prepare yourself for the endgame, irrelevant of WHEN it may occur, the time to prepare is always yesterday, but if yesterday is too late, today shall be also a good time.
Centre of field preparation for the end of a fiat currency, should be our only aim. The rest is all left of field play.
Playing the Endgame may be the only way to survive what is dead ahead.
Unfortunately, it has to occur, political/ social pressure shall ensure this. The Elite gave been well aware of this endgame since the inception of The Keynesian Model and have been acutely aware for at least a decade.
Kind regards GH

REPLY: I have been in countless meetings
They did not know how this would end. They always assumed they had the power to endure
Only now is the handwriting on the wall
It has nothing to do with fiat currency.
Rome fell as well.
It is fiscal mismanagement regard of what you call money at that time. But the real factor was the collapse in CONFIDENCE after Valerian I was captured by the Persians, turned into a royal slave4, and then stuffed as a trophy when he died. We have Biden and he is no more the leader of the free world, but the laughing stock of world leaders. As the CONFIDENCE in the Biden Administration collapses as he has already surrendered to Ukraine to Putin.

So it has NEVER been what is money. For even when the money is precious metals, the Silver Democrats overvalued silver which led to gold fleeing the country and JP Morgan had to bail out the country in 1896 with a gold loan thanks to the Democrats taking bribes from the silver miners to overvalue silver. The US was drowning in silver.

Remember William Jennings Bryan’s famous speech against the gold standard?

Bryan-CrossOfGold

Of course, it was the silver to the gold ratio that became the presidential election topic in 1896 and virtually bankrupted the country because the government by decree overvalued silver at 16:1 It was the fiscal mismanagement and the currency was precious metals.

Jan 31 2022

Premier Jason Kenney of Alberta Canada Complains Truckers Are Locking Down Government


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 30, 2022 | Sundance | 293 Comments

A cross-border trucker unity rally in Alberta Canada, a show of support for their brothers in Ottawa, has triggered the ire of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

Apparently, when government officials lock down their citizens, the complaining voices of the people are irrelevant.  However, when the tables are turned and the people lock down the government highway in protest, the state officials don’t like it.  Go figure.

CANADA – […] The protest along Highway 4 south of Lethbridge began Saturday in support of a national anti-mandate convoy that arrived in Ottawa earlier in the day.

The movement was sparked by a federal mandate that came into effect this month requiring unvaccinated Canadian truckers re-entering Canada from the United States to get tested for COVID-19 and to quarantine.

Vehicles remained parked on the important southern Alberta trade route, blocking traffic to and from the border and the Village of Coutts on Sunday. Mounties said they were continuing negotiations with the protesters to re-establish highway access. (read more)

Cry harder !

Jan 31 2022

ABC Poll Shows How Out of Touch White House Is From, Well, Everyone


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 30, 2022 | Sundance | 250 Comments

The installed regime of Joe Biden is a joke to the world, and the only people continuing their efforts to prop up the Potemkin village are the irrelevant U.S. media.

Despite their earnest efforts, even the George Stephanopolouses of the world cannot avoid the responses from Americans.  The latest ABC/IPSOS poll [Raw Data Here], which is again a highly skewed effort, shows just how out of touch the policies of the regime are to the domestic audience.

When asked about Biden’s handling of immigration, 64% disapprove and 34% approve.  The open border policy doesn’t have support, even amid the constituencies the regime claims to control.

When asked about Biden’s handling of the economy, 56% disapprove, 40% approve.  Massive inflation created by chasing the unicorn of climate change is hitting everyone hard.  Gas prices, home heating costs, energy costs overall and skyrocketing food inflation prices are a reality that no amount of spin from the stenographers can hide.

When asked about inflation specifically, 69% disapprove and only 29% approve.  Policies have consequences.  As noted by ABC, “Troublingly for the White House, only 1% of Americans view the state of the nation’s economy as “excellent,” and only 23% say it’s “good.” Three out of four Americans said the state of the economy was “not so good / poor.”

When asked about Biden’s handling of crime, 64% disapprove and 34% approve.  Yes, radical efforts to defund the police and undermining law enforcement have consequences.

When asked about Biden’s effort to use Ukraine for a war against Russia, 56% disapprove and 41% approve.  Sending troops into Ukraine has 29% support.  However, don’t expect that result to slow down the Fourth Branch of Government from having their war.

When asked if Joe Biden should maintain his race-based policy and nominate a black woman to the supreme court, only 23% of the respondents say that’s a good idea.  The overwhelming majority, 76% of the country, say the best candidate should be chosen regardless of their race or gender.  Apparently, the American people are not blind to the damage from hardline leftist ideology.

(Via ABC) […] “The ABC News/Ipsos poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, comes days after the most senior member of the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, announced his retirement at the end of the current term. Breyer’s announcement provides Biden the opportunity to change the demographic makeup of the conservative-leaning bench.” (link)  

Jan 29 2022

Angry Man Travels to Pennsylvania to Yell at the Keystone State Assembly Again


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 28, 2022 | sundance | 79 Comments

The installed White House occupant was transported by airplane to Pennsylvania today so he could yell at the snow for being cold.

According to national media reports, he successfully completed his mission, was given a pudding cup and subsequently returned to the basement.  WATCH:

Angry man wasn’t yelling the entire time, there was a moment when he did that creepy whisper voice thing again.

Jan 29 2022

Not a Joke, U.S. Govt Takes the Official Position There Is No Food Inflation


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 28, 2022 | sundance | 243 Comments

The same people who told us to appreciate saving $0.16 on our July 4th BBQs last summer are now taking the official position there is no massive food inflation.  [DATA HERE]

Those skyrocketing prices you think you see at the grocery store are not real.  Those announcements of forecasted price increases by the food producers, well, those are not real either.  So sayeth the United States Dept of Agriculture (USDA).

In their update to the USDA pricing forecast and analysis dated January 25, 2022, the USDA claims: “2021 retail food price inflation continued at same pace as 2020 but varied among food categories.”  Oh, but it gets even more stupid:

“USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) researchers project that prices for food-at-home, or food purchased typically from grocery stores or other food stores, will increase between 1.5 and 2.5 percent in 2022, lower than the 3.5-percent increase that occurred in both 2020 and 2021. Forecasts for all food categories for 2022 are available in ERS’s monthly Food Price Outlook data product, updated January 25, 2022.” (link)

If there was ever an argument that every single institution in the U.S. government was corrupt, manipulative and ideologically bent, this claim by the USDA would be a case study in the supportive evidence.

Apparently, if you are to follow the outlook of the USDA – and reconcile their institutional hypocrisy, Joe Biden increased the rate of food stamp assistance by 25 percent for some unknown reason.  Because according to the Dept of Agriculture, “Retail food prices increased by a mere 3.5 percent in 2021, equal to the rate in 2020.”

3.5% ?

You just cannot make this up.

Beef has doubled in price.  Bacon has gone up by 30% in the last quarter.  Milk has gone up by 40% in the past two months. Fish, eggs and poultry are between 30 to 60% higher than a year ago.  Fresh fruits and vegetables still rising in price.  Food producers have announced price increases in products from 8% to 60% in the next few months.  Beverages and sports drinks are rising 20% beginning in March.  Kraft Foods announced processed meat (lunchmeat) price increases up to 30% in a few weeks.  However, according to the USDA, these are not the droids you are looking for.

We are living in a parallel universe, a true state of propaganda pushed by the institutions of government.

Count all the people with COVID as having died from COVID to maintain the fear.  Hide the ships further offshore, and the port backlog disappears.  Don’t count the imported goods, and our domestic economic activity is great.  Ignore the prices at the grocery store, and there is no food inflation…

It would be funny if the reality of our situation was not so serious.

Jan 29 2022

As Expected, Chicken Wing Shortage Just in Time for Superbowl


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 28, 2022 | sundance | 199 Comments

Hopefully last year’s warning gave all enough time: …”By the time we get to Superbowl Sunday, the price of ¹chicken wings is going to bring sticker shock to those who have not prepared.” (link)

For those doing the math, that’s a 51.4% price increase in a year.

(Prior article)

[NOTE: ¹More chicken wings are purchased in the days leading up to the Superbowl than any other time of year.]