Category End of Fossil Fuel

Apr 12 2022

Here We Go, White House Warns of Extraordinarily Elevated Inflation Data to Be Released Tomorrow


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 11, 2022 | Sundance

She did it again. Just like in February, when Psaki (seemingly out of the blue) gave a weird proactive statement about bad economic data that was going to be released the following day {LINK}. Earlier this afternoon White House spokesperson Jen Psaki gives another proactive justification for even worse inflation data that is about to be released from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics tomorrow.

In this brief soundbite, Psaki says the March inflation data that is going to be released tomorrow is going to show “Putin’s price hikes” on U.S. consumers.  However, even within the framework of her false justification, she attempts to blame Putin for gas price increases in January, when the Russian military operations did not start until February 24th.  The inflation news is going to be really bad tomorrow. How bad?  WATCH:

None of this will come as a surprise to CTH readers.  We noted in the February inflation data (released in March), that things were going to be much worse in the April release.  The reason was simple, the massive gas price increases were not yet matriculated in the February data, and the massive food inflation was not yet captured by the USDA component. All of that preceded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  None of it has anything to do with Vladimir Putin.

The inflation data that will be released tomorrow is the first visible data assembly of the second inflation wave now upon us.  Remember, inflation data lags behind the reality of the price increases. What the BLS will show tomorrow is the price results from the last half of Feb through the half of the month of March.  It will likely show the largest single month inflation increase in modern history.

How bad is the data going to be?

FLASHBACK TO February:  “In my estimation, the massive price increases the bureau quantified through January were the end of the first wave of massive inflation that CTH warned about last October.

“Do what you can do now to start preparing your weekly budget in ways you may not have thought about before.   Shop sales, use coupons, look for discounts and products that can be reformulated into multiple meals or multiple uses.   Shelf-stable food products that can be muti-purposed with proteins is a good start. Consider purchasing the raw materials for cleaning products and reformulate them yourself to avoid these massive increases in petroleum costs.” [October Warning]

The recent announcement of price increases we have discussed, from food producers specifically (Kraft-Heinz, Proctor and Gamble, etc.), in combination with massive fertilizer and farming costs for future yield, is the second wave that has yet to be fully quantified.  The second wave of retail inflation, only just beginning to arrive now in the February results, will extend throughout the spring.

Next month, March data reported in April, the second wave of inflation data should carry the first big jumps in gas and diesel prices.  For ordinary people, this next round of food inflation will be focused predominantly in the ‘Fresh Foods‘ categories.  Fresh produce, vegetables and fruits have short life cycles, and rapid increases in transportation costs hit that segment fast and hard.

On the positive side, our victory gardens are going up in value, very quickly.   A few backyard growing boxes can generate an easy $200 to $500/month in fresh produce as the price of ordinary row crops at the store starts to double and triple.  Mature citrus trees are worth their weight in gold right now.

The BLS data was collected at about the time of the red arrow in this graphic below (Feb 10 to 15).  You can see where the gas price goes from the point at which the inflation data was collected.  That 30% spike is what will roll-up into next month’s inflation data. (Written from the March data)

Apr 11 2022

California Republicans Aim to Make Theft Illegal


Armstrong Economics Blog/Crime Re-Posted Apr 11, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

In 2014, California basically decriminalized theft by permitting shoplifters to take what they please, as long as it was under $950. Prop 47, the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, emboldened criminals to do as they please with no repercussions as they cannot be prosecuted for a felony charge. California does not aggregate robberies, so a criminal could target a store multiple times per week with limited repercussions as long as each robbery yielded under $950.

Republican lawmakers have introduced AB 1599 which would repeal most of Prop 47 and “make crime illegal again.” Republican Assembly member Kevin Kiley, an author of AB 1599, said, “[Prop 47] has essentially legalized theft and open drug use in California, culminating in these unbelievable smash-and-grab robberies.”

Smash and grab robberies have become an organized crime by low-level criminals. “You have people that will go into department stores and they’ll actually have a calculator on them,” Kiley said. “They’ll add up the value of what they’re stealing because they know as long as it’s under $950, they might as well wave at the security camera on the way out. They know there’s going to be no consequence for that.”

Rachel Michelin, president and CEO of California Retailers Association (CRA), noted that San Francisco and Oakland alone have lost $3.6 billion annually to organized retail crime. The National Retail Federation places estimates losses from organized crime at around 0.07% of total sales and believes the CRA is overestimating. Regardless, this is a preventable loss. Governor Gavin Newsom would need to approve of the measure, but has been consistent on his light on crime stance. Newsom has ignored pleas to crackdown on shoplifting, and simply told struggling store owners to use other existing laws to prosecute thieves. Independent store owners would be wise to leave California as the laws in place only protect criminals who have abused Prop 47.

https://rumble.com/embed/vnp63v/?pub=4#?secret=sLQCOyYCnh

Apr 11 2022

Climate Change the Tool of Control


Armstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized Re-Posted Apr 10, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Dear Martin,
After reading many of your blog posts, there appears to be one question you might not have answered. Do the elitists who are trying to control the world truly believe climate change cycles are not natural, but instead are caused by humans? It would seem that any climate theory that doesn’t explain the coming and going of ice ages which our history books told us happened, is an incomplete theory.

H

ANSWER: I think anyone with 10% of a brain can’t believe this climate change is caused by CO2. The climate has always changed and they use data that starts only in 1850 to argue this is all fossil fuels. CO2 is also generated by burning wood and the pollution from diesel and wood is the type that you feel. I lived in London during the 1980s and the buses were all diesel. You had to hold your breath when walking by.

The first clean air act was passed in 535AD by Emperor Justinian I who proclaimed the importance of clean air as a birthright. “By the law of nature these things are common to mankind—the air, running water, the sea.”

See: https://twitter.com/GooseMumma/status/1512323263011119105

People are easily manipulated and those with a fully functioning brain are horrified by the stupidity of people who were told to hate Trump who now refuses to admit that Biden is a disaster because they would be compelled to acknowledge their own malleability to those who still wear masks even driving alone and rushed out to get every vaccine and booster possible. Now they are all about freedom, democracy, and anti-Russia so just kill them all because that is again what they are told.

I do not think that world leaders are that stupid. They are using this climate change for their own agenda. Even Obama and Bull Gates both bought houses on the beach and Obama has now bought a private island in the Caribbean. Hm. So much for their belief in rising sea levels and civilization.

This is all about control – we, the great unwashed. There is absolutely no way the world will end because of CO2 in 7 years. That is absolute nonsense to create fear and obedience. The climate has always changed – it is NEVER the same. Civilization expands during warming periods and it collapses during cold periods. France has had the coldest April since 1947. Yet Macron vows to “get France out of oil, gas, and coal” while Paris is freezing and needs heat. I woke up this morning to 50 degrees here in Florida. Obviously, we have way too many climate change zealots coming to Florida holding Séances for global cooling to save the planet.

Maybe Gates is correct – we just need to thin the herd of all stupidity before we can get our human rights back.

Apr 11 2022

Pakistan – Conspiracy or Revolution?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy Re-Posted Apr 10, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

The drama playing out in Pakistan is interesting, to say the least. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has been ousted from power after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership. However, what makes this interesting is that he has previously said he would not recognize an opposition government. Khan has accused that there has been a US-led conspiracy to overthrow him because of his refusal to stand with Washington on issues against Russia and China.

Khan has repeatedly said that Pakistan’s opposition parties are working with foreign powers. He has not been alone in this allegation for members of his party (PTI) also left the building just ahead of the vote, insisting that this has been an international conspiracy. Of course, then the US has said there is “no truth” in these allegations. But certainly, they would never admit to anything anyhow.

The economic crisis in Pakistan is without question grounds for a revolution without a foreign conspiracy.  Khan’s government has been dismissing the no-confidence move against him that began on March 8th, 2022 – which came amid the country’s mounting economic crisis – as a “foreign conspiracy”.  To put this in context, in an unprecedented move on April 3, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan dissolved the General Assembly. Then on April 7, the Supreme Court ruled against Khan and restored the Parliament for a no-confidence vote. Then on April 10th, they moved to oust Kahn from power.

Soaring inflation, devaluation of the currency as the dollar has risen from 152 to 188 since April, massive external debt, and corruption have been the real motivation behind the political chaos. What Kahn has called a foreign conspiracy is not entirely without merit, but it has not been directed at him alone.

Biden’s pledge to end fossil fuels set in motion the rise in energy prices on a global scale. Then he imposed the most draconian sanctions against Russia and has destroyed the world economy showing that now even the SWIFT system has lost all integrity. In fact, Putin has come out and warned that the BRIC countries must now establish their own alternative to SWIFT only further demonstrating what Biden has done is destroyed the world economy.

The soaring energy prices are indeed creating political havoc around the globe and this political uprising in Pakistan is indeed a foreign conspiracy better known as the Great Reset trying to force the entire world GREEN without any alternative in place. The foreign conspiracy is NOT some CIA plot to oust Khan. It is a disastrous scheme for climate change that these people have no idea what they are unleashing upon the entire world. These poorer countries cannot survive with energy prices soaring and incomes that were simply a hand-to-mouth economy. This is WHAT our computer has been showing that we are headed into outright global war and an economic catastrophe that these elitists who think that they can force the world all GREEN in a matter of a few years. This is unleashing worldwide civil unrest on a scale that is unprecedented in human history.

Apr 11 2022

Sunday Talks, Fauci Warns of Potential Return of Indoor Mask Mandate


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 10, 2022

Appearing on ABC’s This Week to give his opinion on the current status of COVID-19, White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci warns the CDC may soon revert back to an indoor mask mandate.  This is additionally troublesome, because many people now define themselves by COVID-19.

There are many people who can only identify with other like-minded people fearful of COVID.  WATCH:

There are a significant portion of the American public who worship at the altar of COVID theatrics.  For them getting booster shots, following the CDC orders and participating in the mask theatrics is a profoundly religious experience that defines who they are in the modern world of pandemic fear.

Observing the behaviors of mask promoters, is almost like watching a livestream of unstable political expression.  It truly is one of the most bizarre new realities. Many of the Branch Covidians become mentally and emotionally unstable when they experience contact with a non-mask-wearing person.

Even after all of the ‘scientific evidence’ that shows masks provide no substantive benefit or lowering of infection risk, there are a great many people who cannot fathom not wearing one for the remainder of their lives.  The psychological training from two years of massively promoted COVID fear and the drumbeat of worry, has left a large portion of the American people in a permanent state of profound instability.

It is unnerving to realize how many people can be influenced to believe in something that lacks any logic or reason.  I’m not sure how long, if ever, this tear in the social fabric will last or take to repair.  Many of these COVID consequences have divided people permanently.  The full interview is below.

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Apr 11 2022

Latest CBS Poll Reflects No Hope for Anyone, Including Joe Biden and Democrats


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 10, 2022 | sundance

CBS has released their latest YouGov Poll [DATA HERE], again showing the top priorities of the American people are not even on the radar of the American government.  The DC beltway disconnect is stark.

Interestingly, the recent survey of Pennsylvania voters done by Reuters, turned up this almost identical priority list, only Rusia/Ukraine did not even appear in the top five.  The economy, inflation, gas prices, crime and immigration are the top five issues across the board, in almost every poll.

Russia/Ukraine is a non-existent issue. Yet, that is the actionable priority -with questionable importance for U.S. security interests- for a totally out of touch government and media to focus on.  Sending $14 billion to help Ukraine’s border fight, while our borders are crushed with illegal aliens, is a sharp stick in the eye for every American.

Unfortunately, our opinion doesn’t matter, and frustratingly, the people using Biden as a tool to achieve their goals do not have any concern whatsoever about political fallout.  Biden is a disposable tool for a program of rapid single-term advancement of the democrat-communist agenda.

Under ordinary circumstances, this level of disapproval would automatically create panic and start a change in policy.  However, under their current program, a kamikaze mission to create maximum ‘fundamental change’, the people creating the policy outcomes simply don’t care.  Biden is a disposable tool to be thrown on the trash heap of history.

Joe Biden is clueless and entirely irrelevant to the objective.  He sits around eating pudding and muttering to himself until called upon to head to the stage set, and literally read what has been written for him.  Biden has no clue, other than, (a) he is in complete agreement with the goals, and (b) it takes a lot of pancakes to fill a canoe.  I swear, the puppet masters keep putting little girls in his orbit during public appearances just to laugh about it.

These people are sick.

(CBS) Higher prices are leading people to say they’re making cutbacks, especially on more discretionary items like entertainment and travel. (That may, of course, have a wider impact on the economy later.) About half are cutting back on food and groceries, and this is especially the case among those with lower incomes. (read more)

Ya think?

Apr 11 2022

As Expected, Le Pen and Macron Head to a Runoff in French Election – Polling Shows Them Even After Primary


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 10, 2022 | sundance

As expected, in the France election no candidate achieved 50% of the vote.  That sets up a runoff election fifteen days from now to determine who will be the next president.  Reuters Article Here – Guardian/MSM Article Here

In the primary race the final results are not yet announced; however, current President Emmanuel Macron has approximately 28% of the vote, and challenger Marine Le Pen has around 24% of the vote.  No other candidate was close enough to change the top two outcome.

In the head-to-head matchup, the race is essentially tied, well within the margin of polling error (as above).  Interestingly, Le Pen has flipped the 18-to-34-year age bracket and now holds majority support in the younger voting bloc.  Perhaps, due to young French citizens feeling the outcomes of the professional political left thirsting for unilateral power during COVID.

There was around a 65% voter turnout according to most early analysts.  The general election is essentially a coin toss based on the current polling.  The final vote to determine the winner will take place April 24th.  It will be a very closely watched event by leaders around the world.  A Le Pen victory would be seismic in the world of politics, akin to Trump’s victory in 2016, and that outcome is a strong possibility.

The professional political left are apoplectic.

(BBC Opinion) –  Estimations from round one show how tactical voting rewrote the electoral map.

Voters gathered into three broad camps: Macron, the far-right and the far-left. In the last days of campaigning, many people who were considering other candidates finally decided that they would rather back a frontrunner.

There was thus a big transfer of votes from Éric Zemmour – the hard-right nationalist pundit – to the camp of Marine Le Pen. Some right-wingers in the conservative Republicans party may have done the same.

On the left, voters decided that neither the Socialist Anne Hidalgo nor the Green Yannick Jadot could ever make it into round two. So they shifted massively to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, simply to keep a leftist in the race. This despite many Socialists and Greens actively disliking the man.

And in the centre, many who would normally have chosen the Republicans’ Valérie Pécresse will have plumped instead for the incumbent. Why? Because they were genuinely afraid that Le Pen and/or Mélenchon were coming up too strong from behind.

The result means two things.

One is the utter devastation facing France’s two traditional parties of government since 1958 – the conservative right, and the socialist left. This was a process started by Macron five years ago, but now comprehensively complete.

Both parties’ candidates – and certainly the Socialists’ Anne Hidalgo – may have failed to reach the 5% threshold, which allows them to claim back election costs. The price tag will be millions of euros, but worse is the ignominy. We can expect serious internal ructions.

Macron has so engineered it that the divide in French politics is now definitively the one that he sought: between his own “realistic centrism” and “openness to the world” and the “extremism” of his opponents. The “nationalist extremism” of Le Pen and the “utopian extremism” of Mélenchon. (read more)

Nationalism -vs- Globalism

During his pandemic response, Macron went totally overboard.  He was the first one to announce (July 2021) that a vaccine passport would be needed in order to shop, drink, eat at restaurants, travel or worship.  Many other western, fascist totalitarian dictators, the new democracy leaders, followed soon thereafter.  Macron’s ideological fiats may come back to haunt him. We can hope.  The French people were not happy with this unilateral decision, and it showed people how quickly some leaders will become dictators.

President Macron took that dictatorship even one step further in January of this year, and this is likely the biggest problem for him right now.  In January he announced that any unvaccinated person was “irresponsible” and therefore “no longer a citizen.”

Macron told Le Parisien that he had decided to act against the non-vaccinated, by “limiting as much as possible their access to social life activity”.  “The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And so we will continue to do so, to the bitter end. That’s the strategy,” the head of state said. “When my freedom comes to threaten that of other people, I become irresponsible. An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen.” 

“I am not going to put them in prison, I am not going to forcibly vaccinate them,” Macron went on. “Therefore you have to say to them: from January 15 you can no longer go to a restaurant, you can no longer go for a drink, you can no longer go for a coffee, you can no longer go to the theatre, you can no longer go to the cinema,” the president said.  (read more)

That extremist approach is the opening Marine Le Pen now has in front of her – to expose Emmanuel Macron as the installed, WEF approved, multicultural economic globalist everyone knows him to be.

Apr 11 2022

Cleveland Fed Chair Outlines Reasons Monetary Policy Cannot Lower Inflation When Energy Policy Is in Control


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 10, 2022 | sundance 

Loretta Mester, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, appears on CBS Face the Nation to discuss inflation, the economy and monetary policy.  Ms Mester is in a tough place, because she cannot admit the influence of federal monetary policy is far outmatched in the era where Joe Biden energy policy is limiting oil and gas development and creating massive inflation.

Mester does admit the supply chain crisis will extend well into 2023, but blows hopeful unicorn wishes by projecting that price inflation will temper by the end of this year.  From the perspective that 20 to 50% price increases on critical goods (housing, food, fuel, energy) are unsustainable in repeated cycles, she is correct; the rate of inflation will lower. However, that’s only because the baseline prices will have increased so high the rate of increase measure falls.  WATCH:

A $4 item that gains a $2 increase holds a 50% rate of inflation.  The next year that $6 item again has a $2 increase, but the rate of inflation drops to 33%.  The price increase is the same, but the rate of inflation drops.  That’s what is going to happen in the second half of this year.  FUBAR

The White House is doing this on purpose in order to chase their ideological dreams of sustainable energy and climate change.  Energy prices underline the entire economy, because oil and gas prices touch everything.  Insofar as they continue the war against coal, oil and gasoline, there’s nothing monetary policy can do to combat inflation.  The Fed must however, pretend not to know things.

Apr 10 2022

Zelenskyy Gives British Prime Minister Boris Johnson a Guided Tour of The Great Western Battle to Save Kyiv


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 9, 2022 | Sundance

To get a better context for the catastrophic and dangerous war zone that is Ukraine, yesterday European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Commission Vice President Josep Borrell Fontelles visited President Zelenskyy in Kyiv {link}.  The primary purpose of the meeting was to affirm the intent of the EU to accept Zelenskyy into the Union.

Earlier today, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also went into the war zone, toured the extreme chaos and battleground, and met with Zelenskyy (video below).

(Via MSM) – The UK is to send 120 armored vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems to Ukraine, Downing Street announced Saturday, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid an in-person visit to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Johnson and Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer made separate visits to Zelensky on Saturday, the latest in a string of leaders to travel to the country during the ongoing Russian invasion.

Johnson posted on Twitter that his visit to Kyiv was “a show of our unwavering support for the people of Ukraine” and announced a new package of financial and military aid.

“Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv, achieving the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century,” the UK PM said in a statement.

He praised Zelensky’s “resolute leadership” and the “invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people,” adding that the UK “stands unwaveringly with them in this ongoing fight … we are in it for the long run.”  Later in his nightly address posted on social media, Zelensky thanked the UK and Johnson. (read more)

As seen in video promoted by the NATO alliance, Johnson and Zelenskyy ignored the threat of bombs, missiles and artillery that could be raining down upon them, and bravely walked without flak jackets, vests or even helmets despite the chaos.

Unfortunately, the cinematography produced by the western NATO alliance failed to capture the smell of burning diesel fuel from the aftermath of hundreds of tanks and weeks of street-to-street urban warfare.  However, it does appear that Johnson was prepared for hand-to-hand combat if any angry shopkeeper stepped out of line.   Courage is, as they say, contagious.  Footage below:

Apr 10 2022

Pentagon Cannot Confirm Bucha Atrocity


Armstrong Economics on Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Apr 10, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: So you think Russia did not do that in Bucha?

SJ

ANSWER: It is to the advantage of Zelensky who is appearing before every parliament he can ask for money. The US Pentagon has come out and even said that they CAN NOT independently verify what took place in Bucha. There is no way to verify anything in Bucha and there are videos that show people laying in the street pretending to be dead with no blood and then there are videos showing they get up when the camera passes.

If you want your family or someone else to rush over there and kill Russians to avenge Ukraine, you should go there and fight yourself. Don’t send others there to die for propaganda. Don’t worry. Congress just authorize handing all the weapons on the Christmas list of Zelensky so we will get your war that you so are eager to engulf the entire world. If you really think Ukraine can defeat Russia, please, volunteer for the vanguard.

I know, Ukraine and you better count your fingers when shaking hands. The government there is texting me asking for money. There is ABSOLUTELY zero confirmation that ANY money being sent to Ukraine gets to the people and not the pockets of one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Only a fool will send money to Ukraine based on all of these solicitations. The ONLY people to send money to are the International Red Cross or Crescent.

There has been NOT a single war that ever began that was based on truth. Every war was sold with propaganda.