Donald Trump and Elon Musk Have Something in Common


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 24, 2022 | Sundance 

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have something in common….

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”

~Machiavelli

For Elon Musk it is the organization of Twitter with 7,500 employees dedicated to ensuring he would never succeed in his takeover effort.  From the board of directors to the data engineers who build the controlling algorithms, to the third-party service providers who manage the data demand, there are likely only a handful of people within the entire corporation who would welcome the type of change Elon Musk represents.

As a result of the scale of opposition, any organizational takeover would ultimately deliver a company filled with sleeper cells and activist agents who consider it their personal and ideological mission to destroy the social media platform rather than accept change.  The purchase effort was doomed from the outset, considering Musk represented something akin to Rand Paul being nominated to lead the World Bank or Federal Reserve.  Some stuff just isn’t possible.

We The People attempted the Musk route when we sent President Donald Trump into Washington DC.  However, instead of one institution with 7,500 people, it was dozens of institutions housing hundreds of thousands of entrenched ideologues.  Most MAGA voters did not realize it at the time because grade school civics was never updated with our post-9/11 political outcome.

Imagine what the 7,500 Twitter folks would do as employees within an institution they abhorred overnight.  What scale of effort would be exhausted to kill baby Elon Hitler for the greater social good?  You don’t have to go too far in your imagination, because that’s exactly how Washington DC reacted to Trump’s arrival.

From day one to day one-thousand-four-hundred-sixty-one, no opposition was too much opposition by anyone, in every institution and every branch – including both wings of the UniParty congress, upper and lower chambers.

The threat that Trump represented needed to be managed, attacked and ultimately removed.  There were/are trillions at stake, and keep in mind, DC is the epicenter of the global financial universe.  As a result, the financial foot-soldiers of almost every western nation were aligned to assist the DC system in removing the threat.

Sometimes I laugh at the hindsight of people who say Donald Trump had terrible judgement in his appointments.  I snicker because these are the same people who said General James “Mad Dog” Mattis was the greatest military leader since George Washington.  How did that role as defense secretary work out?

No wait, Trump could have done a better job against the 147,000 people in the United States Dept of State, extending like metastatic cancer around the globe from their primary origination point in foggy bottom DC.

Oh, I’m sure the Ron DeSantis advocates have a plan for that, just as assuredly as they can jump to the typeset to instruct Musk how to modify the personnel outlooks of the social media network.  Something that involves the multi-billion global media corporations folding up shop to shift their ideological compass headings, right?

Maybe free cookies will help the kids who work 3 hours a week, smile as they adjust to a 40-hour expectation.

I’m told that Donald Trump also planned badly to take over the 90,000 employees and $8.7 billion payroll at the U.S. Dept of Justice.  Trump should have listened to the advice of the esteemed and well-regarded senior Senator from deep red Alabama, Mr. Jeff Sessions, who was also praised effusively by the same conservative crowd who praised the Mad Dog.  If only Trump had installed a great stalwart for conservative principles like Sessions.  Alas, we lost the opp… wait, huh, no.. wait,.. I mean, what?

Former UN official Ric Grenell was awesome as the “acting” Director of National Intelligence.  If only President Trump had nominated Grenell from the outset, instead of that insufferable DC insider from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Dan Coats, things would have been so much better.

With an ODNI confirmation from the same senate intelligence group that was trying to block Trump from ever reaching Washington DC, things would have been awesome.  Hey, why is that “Acting” word always in front of Grenell anyway?  Oh, wait, the “Republican” committee members wouldn’t what?

Alas, if Trump had only done a better job of hiring the 2,400 people who work for the White House, he would have avoided all of those horrible stealth terror cells who were in place to facilitate his removal.  Surely it wouldn’t have taken him that long to go through the candidate pool and interview everyone willing to live within a 100-mile radius of the epicenter of morality and truthfulness known as Washington DC.

And boy did President Trump ever screw up with his 400+ staff National Security Council, who report to the National Security Advisor and come from every executive agency, including intelligence, to deliver wholesome and practical advice to the oval office holder they hated.

I’m sure Musk has a better plan to manage the Silicon Valley coders who design the algorithms at the Twitter.  I mean, Musk and Ron DeSantis being all smarter than Trump would have a plan for stuff, right?

Speaking of “intelligence”, what was candidate Donald Trump thinking when he selected former Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his vice-presidential running mate?  I mean everyone in the republican sphere of conservative politics hated Mike Pence in 2015 and 2016, knowing his conservative bona fides were a mask just waiting to drop and create havoc for the America-First agenda.   I mean it’s not like everyone didn’t know Mr. Pence surrounded himself with liars, fabricators and political club staff who hated the Tea Party base.   We all knew that in 2015 and 2016, right?

If only Donald Trump had hired the right kind of people within his administration, then the multinational global corporate media would not have needed to treat him like he was the walking personification of the antichrist.  A few people here, and a few different people there, and everything would have gone swimmingly.

Many people know -to a demonstrable certainty- that Ron DeSantis has, right now, a list of about 200,000 people ready to move themselves directly into Washington DC and finally change the system for the better.  I am certain this list exists because all the right crowd in conservative media tell me they are sure of it.

These betters are the people who would know such things because they knew Senator Ted Cruz was the reformist lightbringer in 2015.   The word is that DeSantis uniquely carries the power to replace every corrupt republican member of the House and Senate simply by raising his chin a certain way when the sunlight glistens upon him.

It was the Fourth Quarter of 2019…..

….despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, saying Trump tariffs on China would create massive inflation…. It wasn’t happening!

Overall year-over-year inflation was hovering around 1.7 percent [Table-A BLS]; that was our inflation rate.  The rate in late 2019 was firmed up with less month-over-month fluctuation, and the rate remained consistent.   [See Below]

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 price 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:

[Table 1 – BLS report link]

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.

[Page #4 – BLS Report, pdf] – BLS press release

…There is only one Great MAGA King.

Sunday Talks, Treasury Secretary Yellen Declares Lower Economic Activity and Higher Energy Prices are Good During Our Transition to Windmills


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 24, 2022 | Sundance

Until people understand what is happening, we cannot correct things or even respond to them accurately.  Many people don’t want to accept what is happening.  Even more still believe in the Schoolhouse Rock civics they were taught in grade school and cannot accept how these ideologues operate.  As long as denial remains a survival mechanism, correction is difficult.

All of the people on the monetary policy side of the economic equation are working earnestly to manage the global economy into a decline thereby slowing the need for energy production. The bankers are supporting the Build Back Better policy makers by putting the western economies into an intended contraction.  Slowing the western economies helps to lower energy use and moderate/offset the extreme increases in cost (coal, oil, gas, electricity, fuel etc) the policies are creating.

Lower economic activity means less income, job security and wealth for the working class. Simultaneously, increased energy costs mean more expenses for the same workers who are losing income and wealth.  This is the ‘managing’ part of their collectively “managed transition.”  They are monitoring and managing the pitchforks.

In this Meet the Press segment with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, you will note she says “lower economic activity during this transition” is good.  She also happily says businesses are taking “appropriate” action to lower their activity, because that is exactly what the central planners want.  They want businesses to do less, create less, sell less, even employ less, because ultimately, they want businesses to help advance the cause of climate change by consuming less energy resources.  WATCH:

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 demand side.

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.

People travel less; businesses operate shorter work schedules; manufacturing stops; overall fewer goods are produced because less consumer spending is taking place.  From the perspective of the groups who want to see overall energy consumption drop, a recession is a good thing.

A recession also brings along a natural drop in energy prices as less overall energy is used inside an economy that is slowing, stalled or contracting.

Oil prices drop as less oil is needed for the manufacturing of goods.  Energy use in transportation also drops and generally gasoline prices drop because less transportation fuel is needed, because fewer goods are being transported.  When the economy goes into a recession, energy use and prices always drop.

Put these factors together and you start to see how the transition to a new western energy policy, the Build Back Better agenda, benefits from a recession.

This is the essential understanding needed to reconcile why central banks would intentionally create an economic contraction.  The bankers are supporting the governmental objective of transitioning the western economy into a new energy system away from oil, coal and natural gas.  The banks are supporting the policy makers.

The central banks cannot openly admit what they are doing to support the politicians and policy makers.  In this weird new era, the banks are being instructed to support the policy makers without actually admitting they have changed their monetary mission.  The central bankers will continue to say their job is to manage and/or balance employment and inflation.  However, what they will not admit is their unspoken agenda to support the political decisions.

Instead, almost all the central banks are saying their interest rate hikes are intended to cool inflation by lowering demand.  However, it is not demand that is driving inflation; it is the policy making behind the energy transition that is driving higher costs on everything.

The supply-side of the inflation dynamic is being overwhelmed by massive increases in energy costs which are the results of intentional western policy.  Extreme increases in consumer prices are the outcome of these energy price increases.  The overwhelming majority of consumer price inflation is being caused by energy policy, not demand.

The various central banks and monetary policymakers know this.  In fact, they are lying about their motives.  They have to lie, because if they were to tell the truth there would be an uprising, and the sucess of the energy agenda would be put at risk.

In order to support the energy objectives of the various governments’, the central banks are trying -and succeeding- to lower economic activity.

Less economic activity means lower energy needs.  This is what they call “managing the transition” to the new economy based on “sustainable energy.”

The banks and policy makers are ultimately managing the economic decline in order to Build Back Better in the future.  This is why the originating charter of the central banks is being ignored, and the banks are raising interest rates into an already contracting economy.

None of this is being done accidentally.  All of this is being done with forethought and implicit intention.

Unfortunately, for the average person this means the banks and policy makers have entered a phase where it is in their interests to shrink the global economy.  They are trying to control the collapse of the various economies by working together.  This means less jobs, less work, a lower standard of living, and a period of extreme financial pressure for the average person.

Eventually, we will reach a point where the government(s) will need to step in and fill the gap from the declined economic activity.  Bailouts and subsidies will be needed as they were in the COVID lockdown test run.  Unemployed workers and the people being impacted by a prolonged economic recession will need subsidies in order to survive.

The government policy makers are planning to do just that, spend more.  They practiced during the COVID economic lockdowns, now they will execute a similar policy path as they manage the energy transition.

We have only just entered the beginning phase of this Build Back Better agenda.  No one, including the banks and policy makers, have any idea how long this is going to take. We could be in this period of severe economic contraction for several years, perhaps decades, until their grand design of a new energy future is complete.  This has been the discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF), as the instructions were passed out.

The entire time the western government architects are doing this, they must keep the demand for traditional energy products like coal, oil and gas at the lowest demand possible.  That is why the central banks and politicians must keep economic activity at the lowest -yet survivable- rate possible.

Prepare your informed long-term affairs accordingly.

Neil Oliver, The Build Back Better Agenda is Anti Human, We Need to Start Calling Them Out


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 24, 2022 | Sundance 

July 24, 2022 | Sundance | 205 Comments

Neil Oliver uses his weekly monologue to challenge the originating precept of the Great Reset, Build Back Better or New World Order, agenda. Get beyond the talking points and every policy from within the World Economic Forum instructions boils down to the quackery behind anti-humanism.

“The so-called Green Agenda is predicated on the rape of the earth for rare minerals, lithium and cobalt and more,” he points out. “Also, metals like copper, silver and gold. The extraction of those commodities means wholesale destruction of environments,” he adds. “Before a single turbine is raised or solar panel set in place, the sites are cleared and sterilized of all life. The turbines held up by massive plunks of concrete and while in action they kill millions of birds. When they come to the end of their working lives there’s nothing to be done with the colossal blades but to bury them in vast landfill sites.”  As Oliver notes all of this is being done under the hypocrisy of calling it “green”. WATCH:

.

That Escalated Quickly, New York Times Ponders if we are Ready Yet to Start Eating People


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 23, 2022 | sundance 

Considering that I have yet to absorb, or accept, the increasingly likely possibility of society normalizing people eating bugs, the looking over-the-horizon folks at the New York Times just, well, stopped me in my tracks.  I did not have eating people on my Biden consequences bingo card.

Tweet Link – Actual Story Link

I know Biden/Obama’s beloved Davos crowd (World Economic Forum) love to hold meetings about how their social engineering will create a “new normal” for everyone but themselves; however, I mean, c’mon, even for the furthest left this has to be a bridge too far, no?

Is the Biden era of transformational social change really going to go combine: defining “essential workers”, forced medical procedures, radical climate change, the eating of bugs and insects, post-birth abortion and chopping the genitals off children without parent consent, together with the social acceptability of cannibalism; all of it, into one term in office?

The Real Story of Jan. 6 | Documentary [Trailer]


Joshua Philipp originally Published on Rumble on July 20, 2022 

After more than 18 months of heated rhetoric, political commentary, and nonstop media coverage, do we really know what took place in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021? Was it a coup, a riot, an insurrection, or a protest?

To provide new clarity on the events of that day, EpochTV and The Epoch Times have produced a documentary, “The Real Story of January 6,” which will premiere on Friday, July 22. The film is narrated by Joshua Philipp, host of “Crossroads” on EpochTV and a senior investigative reporter at The Epoch Times.

Jasper Fakkert, editor-in-chief of The Epoch Times, said: “There has been a narrative perpetuated about January 6 that omits many of the facts about what happened that day.

“With in-depth interviews and exclusive video footage, we take an objective look at the issues, the people, and the impacts of the events.”

The film takes a close look at the shooting of 35-year-old Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt and the deaths of three other supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. It analyzes the police response to the massive crowds and use of force around the U.S. Capitol.

It examines the human impacts of Jan. 6, including the suicide of one defendant and the long pretrial imprisonment of dozens of others. It also investigates claims that some of the attacks on the Capitol and police were carried out by unindicted suspicious actors.

“The Real Story of January 6” will premiere in a live stream on EpochTV and will also be available on demand for purchase on Locals.com.

Pushing the Envelope for Civil Unrest


Armstrong Economics Blog/Civil Unrest Re-Posted Jul 23, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty,

It appears the January 6th committee has prevented Stephen K. Bannon from showing his evidence and the right to defend himself including his protection of the executive privilege from the President.

It is suggested he will be found guilty as soon as today and his case then rests on the slim ‘chance’ of the Supreme Court taking the case.

Would you kindly unpack this entire debacle when this committee is not even a court of law in a courtroom, please?

It is shaping up for President Trump to be charged, right on time for the midterms.

Thank you In advance for any clarity you can provide on the latest abuse of power by the legal system and the Justice Department.

RH

ANSWER: The Democrats and Liz Cheney are intent upon criminally charging Trump with insurrection. They need to prevent Trump from running in 2024. This is not about jail time.  This will make the headlines for the mid-term, and this is their Hail Mary play to paint all Republicans as evil and should be thrown out of office. Of course, they are instigating revolution, for our computer points to civil war in the US. I believe this is part of the reason our computer is targeting 2023 as a Political & Geopolitical Year from Hell. Of course, the Democrats who foam at the mouth and live for the day that they can completely eradicate all opposition are blind to history and the consequences of their own actions.

The Insurrection Clause was part of the 14th Amendment passed after the Civil War to prevent anyone from the South from holding office again. This is what they are relying on, and it is really absurd. Trump felt the election was rigged, but that did not lead to a civil war – YET! There are two outcomes here, and both lead to civil war. The ONLY way Trump could be indicted for this would be under the questionable theory of a “conspiracy to commit an insurrection,” which the Constitution does not support as a bar. So they are looking for headlines — not reality. The Justice Department will do whatever the Democrats demand. It is no longer a viable institution. When the rule of law collapses, the ONLY resolution is civil war. The history of Rome shows that endlessly.

This is being done for the midterms — NOT for 2024. They know this would allow Trump ample time to appeal, and the Supreme Court would take that one.  Thus, the Democrats know this is an abuse of power, but they do not care. They have so divided the country there is just no return to normal — EVER!  I really wish this was not the case. But it is getting time to turn out the lights on this Republic experiment. Oh, how the fools we have in Washington refuse ever to consult history. Indeed, it is often said that when Franklin was asked what kind of government they created, he wittingly said:  “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Whether that is true or not is really irrelevant. Republics never last because they are the easiest to corrupt, for the “representatives” can be bought like NASCAR drivers, but they do not wear a patch to show who bought them. I have been in the halls of Capitol Hill, and when I was with the government under Maggie Thatcher, all you saw were lobbyists everywhere. I remember seeing US people in London supporting Tony Blair, trying to spread their Marxist agenda just as Russia once claimed they would bury us with their Marxist agenda.

The Justice Department would indict Trump, but nobody would actually violate the law by threatening the Supreme Court over abortion, which is not a Constitutional Right under due process and more than euthanasia, or demanding you have a human right to some medical treatment and the government must pay for it. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution is NEGATIVE, not POSITIVE, and its decision in Harris v McRae illustrated how wrong Roe v Wade was decided. That was a very clever mental manipulation when Justice Ginsberg said Roe was really about reducing population, so you tell the women it is a right to abort, and they protest for that fictional right when they have been manipulated by the Gates Foundation & Rockefeller Foundation that have always supported killing off minorities. They have already brainwashed so many women who think this is a right when in fact they are mindless drones doing the bid of Gates and the Rockefellers.

This is all part of the process of destroying the United States. We cannot live as one nation divided with such hatred. We are becoming Ukraine with a mindless civil war based entirely upon sheer seething hatred of Russian-speaking Ukrainians. There is no going back for Ukraine, and there will be no return to normal for the United States. We will most likely divide along the same lines as North v South. The hatred of state’s rights v federalism will return.

The LEFT is Violating the Foundation of Law


Armstrong Economics Blog/Human Rights Re-Posted Jul 23, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

There have been some bad decisions by the Supreme Court, such as Dread Scott and allowing the Japanese imprisonment during WWII. But never in the history of the nation has what is unfolding over abortion ever taken place, which is in itself, a confirmation that our computer is forecasting that the United States will separate. It has become impossible to live together. The left just hates the right, and it is always the LEFT, as in the Communist Revolutions, that end up waging war and justify the slaughter of anyone who they disagree with.

The ONLY way to secure the future is to divide the United States between LEFT and RIGHT. There are many who personally have no desire to be an economic slave for policies I do not agree with on an economic and RELIGIOUS basis. Even the progressive tax policies of the left violate the Ten Commandments, which is an affront to the religious beliefs of many.

Equal Rights is precisely that. They somehow are eliminated if it comes to material wealth. An A student should be reduced to a C student because it is not fair that an F student should fail. They should be given a C, so everyone is equal regardless of talent. That worked well for communism.

Ironically, the entire issue of legalizing gay marriage was because of the tax code. Any couple who lives together and contributes to a relationship should be treated the same as a married couple because it is economic equality, be they gay or just a common-law type marriage. It is always the hunt for taxes that creates inequality.

Tucker Carlson Interviews Steve Bannon After His DC Court Political Conviction for Contempt of Congress (Video)


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 22, 2022 | Sundance

Steve Bannon appears for an interview with Tucker Carlson to discuss his contempt of congress conviction hours earlier.  After the guilty verdict Bannon reaffirms: “I support Trump and the Constitution and I’m not backing off one inch. If I go to jail so be it.”  {Direct Rumble Link}

.

China Banking Crisis & the Unsuspecting World


Armstrong Economics Blog/Interest Rates Re-Posted Jul 22, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

While authorities have accused a private financial group of misleading members of the public with promises of high-return wealth management products, what is not being said publicly is the fact that the rise in the dollar is a significant factor undermining emerging markets in which China participated. The Chinese government warned the provinces and private companies NOT to borrow dollars. Despite the fact that the Chinese government is portrayed as COMMUNIST still in the West, there would be no banking crisis if they were.

Many operations borrowed in dollars made the same fatal mistake I have witnessed since the 1980s. They sell these loans in a foreign currency with the expectation of saving money on interest. But the FX can be 20% to 40% within a 2-year period and there is NEVER any foreign exchange consideration. In addition to this FX crisis, the inexperience of people who think it is easy to be a money manager has discovered the reality of being inexperienced. This is why you find the standard clause in the West – past performance is no guarantee of future success.

Japan is once again the largest holder of US debt. This is NOT because they have been buying more, it is because China is selling off debt gradually because the dollar is high and the risk of war with the United States is rising by the day. Biden has already destroyed the world economy. It is now impossible to repair even if you vote for all Republicans 100%. The destruction of SWIFT has divided the world and has terminated Globalism. China is liquidating US debt gradually and rightly so. Beware of 2023 ahead. The people writing the scripts for Biden are ONLY concerned with climate change and have ZERO experience in geopolitics.

Henry Kissinger has been a critic of Biden on his war effort against Russia and China, or should I say the real president who is writing the scripts. EVERY President since Nixon has invited Henry to the White House EXCEPT Biden. Henry is the best geopolitical analyst I know of. I myself was called by my local Congressman asking me to fly to a meeting. I declined. But I asked why was I being called? I was told there is a serious lack of experience in Washington. I was stunned, to say the least. I have no desire to step into what has become a hateful confrontation in Washington that resembles a high school food fight in the cafeteria.

If you do not have eyes in the back of your head, you better learn how to use a rear-view mirror. The purpose of this blog is to help you to see that we are all connected. The old saying about Chaos Theory was that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Thailand can alter the weather cycle in Europe. The slightest alteration can produce a starkly different outcome. This is why I am often a critic with a different view when it comes to governments. Those at the helm are often LINEAR thinkers who see only one cause and effect that produces the future.

It is people like Klaus Schwab who think they are so intelligent that they can actually alter and shape the future. His entire premise of the 4th Industrial Revolution is that he can direct it and control it when creativity cannot be controlled or put on some schedule. A good trader learns from his mistakes. If he never made a mistake, then he will end up in a real crisis for he will assume he is always right and then lose it all.

Life is a learning process. We advance only as we learn and the mother of all invention is our mistakes. Learn well from them, if you wish to survive and stop blaming other people. That is the #1 problem with the goldbugs. They do not seek to understand, but just blame the bankers for why gold has not reached $10,000. They cannot advance because they look at the market objectively. That is a critical factor we learn in this journey we call life.

EU Commission Asks all Member Nations to Reduce Natural Gas Use by 15 Percent to Help Germany and Energy Dependent States


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 21, 2022 | Sundance

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a woman of notoriously bureaucratic disposition, has proposed that all member nations to reduce their use of natural gas by 15% in order to subsidize and protect the larger member nations -specifically Germany- who are more dependent on Russian energy.

Spain, Portugal and Greece are balking at the idea of voluntary cuts in order to spread the energy resources to the larger economies.

Things amid the EU could get spicy again, with the league of nations in Brussels taking control of economic wealth distribution.

BRUSSELS, July 20 (Reuters) – The European Union set out emergency plans on Wednesday for countries to cut their gas use by 15% until March, warning them that without deep cuts now they could struggle for fuel during winter if Russia cuts off supply.

Europe is racing to fill its gas storage ahead of winter and build a buffer in case Moscow further restricts supplies in retaliation for European support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

[…] The regulation needs approval from a reinforced majority of EU countries. Country diplomats are set to discuss it on Friday, with the aim of approving it at an emergency meeting of their energy ministers on July 26.

“Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon. And therefore, in any event, whether it’s a partial, major cut-off of Russian gas or a total cut-off of Russian gas, Europe needs to be ready,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. (read more)

Obviously not everyone is happy….

BARCELONA, Spain — The European Union’s plan to reduce the bloc’s natural gas use by 15% to prepare for a potential cutoff by Russia this winter received sharp skepticism Thursday from the governments of Spain and Portugal, which are usually big supporters of the bloc.

The governments in Madrid and Lisbon said they would not support the initiative announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday. The proposal would start with voluntary reductions, but the EU’s head office also wants the power to make 15% savings mandatory in the event of an EU-wide energy emergency.

Spain and Portugal said making reductions obligatory was a non-starter. They noted that there are scant energy connections linking them to the rest of Europe and that they use very little Russian gas compared to fellow EU members such as Germany and Italy.

“We will defend European values, but we won’t accept a sacrifice regarding an issue that we have not even been allowed to give our opinion on,” Spanish Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera said. (read more)

You will reduce energy use, or you will eat the bugs….