Category European Union (EU)

Sep 2 2022

Germans Stockpiling Firewood


Armstrong economics Blog/Energy Re-Posted Sep 2, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

We are quickly reverting back to the Dark Ages. Cooking and keeping warm with fossil fuels may become a luxury as the energy crisis spreads across the West. Reports are growing from Germany that people are stockpiling firewood before the winter season. Google search results for “brennholz” (firewood) peaked this August in Germany as their government announced they would continue supporting Ukraine indefinitely.

Half of German homes are heated by natural gas, while a quarter uses oil. Less than 6% reported using firewood, but that is set to change as even firewood is now in a shortage. Germany’s Federal Firewood Association announced earlier in the summer that wood was becoming scarce. People are now importing firewood from Poland, but people there are also buying up firewood as no one can afford these rising prices. Governments are offering no solutions, and people have reason to fear the future.

Versorgungssicherheit is a word describing the fear of a shortage. Due to this fear, many companies are rationing the number of firewood bundles people are allowed to buy. The Federal Network Agency expects gas prices to TRIPLE by early 2023. The energy crisis spreading across the West will result in growing civil unrest and could trigger a major geopolitical event across Europe as people will be faced with hardships this winter not seen in a lifetime.

Sep 1 2022

UK Energy Bills Expected to Rise 80% in October


Armstrong Economics Blog/BRITAIN Re-Posted Sep 1, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

The entire West will face higher energy prices due to climate initiatives and Russian sanctions. The British energy regulator Ofgem released a troubling report citing that the average household will pay $4,200 on energy over the next year, compared to the current $2,330 annual average.

The UK raised its energy price cap in April by 54% and is expected to raise it once more this October by 80%. “This will be devastating for many families,” Jonathan Brearley, chief executive of Ofgem, told the BBC. “The difficult news I have to give today is that prices look like they are continuing to rise.” This is a drastic understatement.

An Ipsos poll found that one in 10 people already find it “very difficult” to afford energy costs over the past three months, and two in 10 found it “fairly difficult.” Over a third have installed a smart meter, and two in five have tried price comparison websites to no avail. People are already unable to afford energy costs, and 29% admitted to dipping into savings to do so, while another 15% said they missed payments entirely.

The term “fuel poverty” is now commonplace and is used for households that spend over 10% of their net income on energy bills. The University of York forecast that two-thirds of households in the UK will face fuel poverty by the beginning of next year. Families with children are the most vulnerable. This is a direct result of lawmakers pushing the climate change agenda with ZERO alternative solutions in addition to blindly supporting Ukraine at the expense of their own people.

Aug 30 2022

Greenpeace to Ditch Greta


Armstrong Economics Blog/Climate Re-Posted Aug 30, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Reports are circulating that Greenpeace may soon ditch their poster child for climate change, Greta Thunberg. The Swedish activist was pushed to fame as a child and became notorious for passionate speeches that she was likely forced to read and believe. Klaus Schwab even featured the young girl in his film, “The Forum,” to promote Agenda 2030.

Greta is now 19 years old and no longer the perfect child-like puppet with braids and innocence. I warned that her parents manipulated this girl for their own benefit. She suffers from autism and depression, and her parents publicly stated that parading her around the globe was “medicine” for her ailments.

As an adult, she is diverting from the script. Last year, she said that democracy should be prioritized over climate change in a move that angered her handlers. She accidentally shared an image of “suggested posts” that her handlers asked her to share across social media platforms. Greta even came under fire by the Indian government after being spotted with pop star Rihanna who began promoting the Indian farmer’s protest.

There are now talks that the climate change crowd plans to discard the teen. Other activists have begun publicly criticizing her, which would have never happened when she was surrounded by the likes of Al Gore and Jennifer Morgan. “Since the beginning, we have said that we want to be hierarchy-free – and yet many saw Greta as the leader,” Swiss Jann Kessler stated. Others have whined that she was not the first to protest the weather cycle.

To the adults who abused this innocent girl – how dare you!

Aug 29 2022

Ukrainians Forbidden From Accepting Russian Aid


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Aug 29, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Ukrainians are not permitted to accept any humanitarian relief from Russian agencies. Civilians in a war zone could face life imprisonment for accepting relief, including food. Ministry of Internal Affairs Alyona Matveeva said each case would be analyzed separately.

“For example, if a person called to support the military of the Russian Federation or provided some information, took humanitarian aid (from the Russians – ed.) and distributed it – this is one punishment, if it is about some more serious actions of a person, for example, when a person’s collaborative activity had such an impact that someone died because of it – the term in this case can be more serious, even up to life imprisonment,” the spokeswoman said.

There are currently 815 ongoing criminal investigations for breaching national security, treason, and collaborationism. This is simply what is occurring in Ukraine, but anyone in a country that has joined the proxy war found aiding Russia could come under fire. I reported on the signs around Estonia’s border, asking people to report anyone suspected of collaborating with the enemy. We have not learned from history. This is another example of the government turning neighbors against one another. The Soviet Union once employed the same tactics, as did many other regimes. These measures simply cause distrust and paranoia to spread as the government expects the people to spy on their own family and friends. Your neighbor is now a potential enemy, and your own actions may be considered suspicious.

Aug 24 2022

The Country with the Highest Mortality Rate in Europe


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy Re-Posted Aug 24, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

The average death rate in June across the European Union was 6.2%. Portugal experienced a 23.9% uptick in deaths this June compared to the same period throughout 2016 and 2019. Between 2016 and 2019, Portugal was averaging 276 deaths per day. By June of last year, this figure spiked to 341 people per day with 10,217 perishing in that four-week period.

Portugal is the second most vaccinated country in Europe, behind Malta. The aging population over 85 has the highest rate of mortality, naturally, but there have been fewer deaths among people aged 65 to 84. There have been 5,781 COVID-related deaths in the nation this year, but excluding COVID deaths, total mortality still rose by 5%. Infant deaths have sadly increased over the past year as well from 107 to 142.

The Ministry of Health is conducting a study to determine the cause. The agency said they were paying special attention to deaths “that coincide with the greatest intensity of COVID-19 and heat.” Yet, the mortality rate was on the rise between February and April before the heatwaves swept across Europe. Additionally, deaths not attributed directly to COVID are on the rise, so neither heat nor COVID could explain the uptick. Could the high vaccination rate be to blame? The government will likely never reveal the truth, but one variable that certainly has changed is the high vaccination rate.

Aug 23 2022

zelensky freaking out, putin wins big


The Dive With Jackson Hinkle Published originally on Rumble on August 22, 2022 

Aug 19 2022

Oliver’s Twist, Policymakers Legislating Against the People – It’s Not About Going Green, It’s About Going Without


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 18, 2022 | Sundance

Last Saturday’s weekly monologue by Neil Oliver was a tremendous hit, helping to awaken millions of people from multiple nations about the true intent of this new governing system as promoted by policymakers on behalf of corporate interests [SEE HERE].

Earlier today (UK time) GBNews host Mark Steyn had Mr Oliver appear in studio to expand the conversation.  What results from Steyn and Oliver is a brilliant segment outlining the nature of this new governing system.  A system structured on the standard that disconnected policymakers are legislating to the needs of corporations.

When you remove the old “representative democracy” scales from your outlook and replace the lens with an understanding that representation now means representing the needs of multinational interests, almost all of the contradictions reconcile.

From that perspective, the Build Back Better or Green New Deal (climate change) agenda is not about replacing the system of energy production with a green system that duplicates the output. The intent of the new program is to produce less energy and then modify the uses of the now limited resource.  In one of the examples given, 30 million gasoline powered cars are not expected to be replaced by electric vehicles, a personal transportation system of far fewer vehicles is the goal.  WATCH (prompted):

.

Aug 4 2022

BMW Warns Investors of Lower Production Forecast, Incoming Factory Orders Declining


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 3, 2022 | sundance 

Whenever we are discussing the intentionally managed decline of the western countries, it is important to remember the closely connected relationship between multinational corporations and the political leaders of those nations.  Specifically, their public-private connections as they run through the World Economic Forum assembly.

An intentionally managed decline of western economic activity should have a direct impact on the private corporations within those economies.  If the politicians are collectively going to stop energy development, raise energy prices (inflation), then use monetary policy to shrink the economy down to the level of energy available, we would normally think corporations were going to make less money.

That preceding paragraph is not controversial.  It simply explains exactly what is happening; that is the situation.  However, for some weird reason the system that evaluates corporate wealth is not responding negatively to the reality of the situation.

Traditionally, we would think destroying the economy would be against the interests of the multinational corporations who benefit from economic expansion.  However, in the era of subsidized and controlled economic management, I’m not so sure the corporations are stakeholders in economic growth.  Something is profoundly disconnected, or else the corporations would be raising hell with the politicians.

BERLIN, Aug 3 (Reuters) – BMW (BMWG.DE) lowered its output forecast and warned of a highly volatile second half on Wednesday, pinpointing supplies of energy in Europe and chips worldwide as the two crucial factors to the carmaker hitting full-year earnings targets.

New incoming orders were beginning to fall but order books remained filled for the next few months, chief executive Oliver Zipse said. (read more)

All of the basic indicators point in one direction.

Energy prices are squeezing consumers and paychecks. Energy driven inflation is high.  Rising housing costs, food costs, gasoline costs and energy costs have hit the consumer hard.  Credit card balances have jumped.  Consumer sales on non-essential items have dropped.  Factory activity around the world (Asia and Eurozone) is slowing or has stopped.  Durable goods inventories have climbed everywhere, without customers to purchase them.  All of these facets are happening exactly as we would expect.

However, the value of the companies negatively impacted by everything above, is not dropping at the same rate of the financial impact each company is incurring.  It’s as if the entire financial system is pretending that things are not as bad as they are.  This announcement from BMW is a good example of that.

Consider another example.  According to the employment data, and even accepting the data is skewed, somewhere around 3.9 million jobs restarted or were created in the first six months of this year.  Yet, despite that job growth the GDP declined -1.6% in the first quarter and -0.9% in the second.

How does an economy add almost 4 million jobs while simultaneously shrinking?

Either people are (1) less productive, or (2) working less hours, or (3) holding multiple jobs…. or a combination of the three.

Trying to filter through the economic noise to see beyond the horizon is becoming more difficult.

So, let’s bring this conversation down to Main Street.  What do you see around you?  What’s going on economically in your community?

Do you see lots of people in stores and shopping malls?

Do you see a lot of new purchases being made?

How are your family, friends and the people in your community being affected by this economy?

Jul 30 2022

MAKE 1984 FICTION AGAIN!


Awaken With JP Published originally on Rumble on July 28, 2022

Jul 29 2022

Zelensky: From War-Torn Leader to High Fashion Model


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted Jul 29, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

(Photo by Annie Leibovitz)

The latest models for the cover of Vogue are none other than Mr. and Mrs. Zelensky. The editors at Vogue actually permitted the president to wear his favorite green military-issued t-shirt that he parades around in daily like some cartoon character.

“The Art of War” never mentioned posing for a high-end fashion magazine as a strategy. Times have changed. This is a strategic marketing move since he is begging Western politicians for billions of dollars. Volodymyr and Olena appear as young and trendy political celebrities who we should root for by turning a blind eye when our elected officials send them our money. There is no need to hold a vote or to question where the money is spent! They are the good guys!

It seems only his previous supporters are buying this new pitch as the internet is fuming with calls of the Zelenskys being tone deaf, at best. Multi-millionaire Zelensky appears to be the everyday man when in reality he is extremely corrupt and wants the entire world to suffer alongside him. The average taxpayer funding his war efforts cannot afford a single item from Vogue, but the West is enamored with celebrity culture. Let us not forget that he appeared via video at the Grammys this year, surrounded by the rich and famous stars. The next generation of voters, who will be paying Zelensky’s debt, are influenced by these celebrities and magazines. Zelensky is using Western celebrity-obsessed culture to spin himself as the good guy, completely ignoring his unwillingness to hold peace talks or admit that he provoked this war.