Republicans Fail to Reject NATO Expansion


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Jul 21, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

We spend too much on the military, but we should give all our money to Ukraine. Make it make sense! Sweden and Finland made their grand debut in NATO this week. The Democrats helped push that into law in a vote that passed 394-18. Only 18 dissenters, all Republicans, saw the flaw involved with expanding NATO. That means most Republicans supported this act as well, utterly ignorant of the implications.

Former President Trump notoriously tried to leave NATO, citing that the US paid well above the 2% target and other nations relied on America’s military power but not the other way around. The left constantly complains when we spend money to protect our own country.

Thomas Massie (Ky.) reminded the public that other NATO members have failed to meet their obligation of spending 2% of GDP on NATO. In fact, more than two-thirds of NATO countries fail to meet this requirement, while the US pays much more. “America can’t afford to subsidize socialist Europe’s defense, nor should we,” Massie tweeted. Matt Gaetz bluntly stated that America simply cannot afford this unnecessary purchase right now. “Gas is a bazillion dollars… Inflation is over 9 percent… The House is currently voting on how we think other countries should react to our newfound commitment to NATO expansion in Scandinavia,” Gaetz tweeted.

The Biden Administration has completely abandoned all domestic policy in favor of international objectives that in no way benefit America. What happens if Sweden or Finland goes to war? Well, 394 US lawmakers do not seem to care if we are pulled into another war and may be actively instigating one. It is alarming that only 18 people in power understand the implications of expanding NATO.

Russia to Cut off Germany from Gas Thanks to Zelensky


Armstrong Economics Blog/Energy Re-Posted Jul 18, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

It is very interesting how Volodymyr Zelensky is doing whatever he can, not merely to destroy all of Europe, but to push the world into World War III because of his and Ukraine’s inherent hatred of Russians. He has told Justin Trudeau that Ukrainians would never accept Canada’s decision to return a gas turbine intended for a Russian pipeline because it would encourage more sanctions violations. Meanwhile, Gazprom has come out and stated that it could no longer guarantee its “good functioning” pipeline to Germany due to crucial turbines that are being held up in Canada because of sanctions.

Gazprom has declared extraordinary circumstances to void itself from all contractual obligations to Germany, whereby the gas flow to Europe will stop flowing indefinitely. Reuters reported a letter dated July 14, 2022. Zelensky thinks cutting gas supplies to Germany will force NATO to invade Russia. Kyiv will be the first to go before Zelensky can make it to his private jet to run off to enjoy the hundreds of millions he is stashing offshore.

Perhaps Germany should now invade Ukraine. It seems to be the only way to save Europe.

Our computer has been targeting here late July and August and high volatility and August as a Panic Cycle in some markets. But just about everything is going nuts into 2023. A quarterly closing above $6.25 in natural gas, which it has NOT been able to achieve this far, will confirm this is going to get much worse. Therefore, a September closing ABOVE $6.25 will be a serious warning for 2023. We had a rare Double Directional Change this quarter, so it looks like we have the most brain-dead crop of world leaders ever in human history and Zelensky, who I warned was the man who would create World War III.

Even NYC lost over 5,000 small businesses thanks to COVID. There isn’t a single decision these people are capable of making. It has reached the point that people who I know personally, who would be qualified to lead, are simply not interested due to the WOKE culture. We are simply headed into a politically created nightmare.

We see sharply higher volatility in August and the SIGNIFICANT risk of war coming in the first quarter of 2023. This is NOT something that is my personal opinion. The only thing that can actually target periods well in advance is an unbiased computer. It was Socrates that targeted 2008 as a Panic Cycle published back in 1999, which can be verified on the Wayback Machine. That was not only the Great Crash that set in motion negative interest rates theories, but it was the historical high in the euro.

WWIII is not Worth Supporting Ukraine in a Land Grab


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Jul 16, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

The West is determined to invade Russia and they believe that they can destroy it despite the fact that they are no longer a communist nation or a threat. That does not seem to matter for they want war because Russia and China will not surrender their sovereignty to the United Nations under this Great Reset all for Climate Change & the WEF.

Indeed, many practical Western military strategists are starting to agree that Henry Kissinger’s advice must be taken and that peace negotiations should begin – NOW. There is a growing number of military strategists that realize that Russia and Belarus along with China and North Korea will all join to defeat the West and NATO which they see as the greatest threat now to humanity.

The West needs war because it can no longer maintain this Marxist socialism system borrowing endlessly with no intention to repay anything  back. This is coming to an end. Our computer has warned 40 years ago that the target for the collapse of socialism was due in 2023. Communism fell in 1989 and now it is our turn in 2023. Marx’s theories will be remembered throughout history. I find it interesting that it is forbidden even in the Ten Commandments warning that this idea of rob from one class to hand to another has never worked. We must now pay the price for this theory. When it was first imposed, over 200 million people died resisting communism in Russia and China. It is ironic that now we are the Marxism trying to impose our will upon Russia and China. What goes around, comes around.

Russia has been unable to use its air power because NATO is providing Ukraine with all the tactical information needed so they only need to turn on their radar minutes before launching and as such Russia cannot destroy those systems which have been supplanted by NATO. Either Russia takes out the AWACs providing that information which then is an act against NATO. The West thinks it is very clever in this arrangement but they really have entered the war and it is just a matter of time that this escalates out of control.

The danger here is that the West is pushing Russia into a very dangerous position. Russia can terminate the entire supply of arms to Ukraine by destroying dams that also form key bridges over the Dnepr. However, they can score a complete defeat of Ukraine by launching several dozen tactical nuclear weapons. What will NATO do then? These clever tactics of NATO being in the war but pretending they are not is a very risky game.

It is not likely that the West will ever take the advice of Kissinger and apply pressure to Kyiv to come to the table and face this unpleasant reality that they must relinquish their claim to territory occupied by Russians who they absolutely hate.

THE COLLAPSE IS HERE & THE FARMERS ARE FIGHTING BACK


The Dive With Jackson Hinkle  Published originally on Rumble on July 15, 2022

UN Human Rights Report Shows Ukraine Military Used Nursing Home Residents as Human Shields


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 10, 2022 | Sundance 

A quietly released study from the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner [See Here pdf] looking into allegations of war crimes conducted during the Ukraine -vs- Russia conflict, specifically looked into allegations of Russian military targeting a nursing home facility in the eastern region of Luhansk.

What the UN investigation revealed was that Ukraine military soldiers had intentionally used the nursing home as an active base to launch military strikes against Russian forces. The Associated Press was forced to reveal, “Ukraine’s armed forces bear a large, and perhaps equal, share of the blame for what happened in Stara Krasnyanka, which is about 580 kilometers (360 miles) southeast of Kyiv. A few days before the attack, Ukrainian soldiers took up positions inside the nursing home, effectively making the building a target.”

The issue of the Ukraine military, intentionally and with purposeful forethought, using civilian locations to embed their military units, highlights the inherent dangers associated with western propaganda during the conflict.  In fact, the effort to create civilian casualties seems more purposeful as a strategy to gain western media support and create stories that can be used to advance sympathy toward Ukraine, even if it means putting their own civilians in harm’s way.

(Via AP) […]  The report by the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights doesn’t conclude the Ukrainian soldiers or the Russian troops committed a war crime. But it said the battle at the Stara Krasnyanka nursing home is emblematic of the human rights office’s concerns over the potential use of “human shields” to prevent military operations in certain areas.

The aftermath of the attack on the Stara Krasnyanka home also provides a window into how both Russia and Ukraine move quickly to set the narrative for how events are unfolding on the ground — even when those events may still be shrouded by the fog of war.

For Ukraine, maintaining the upper hand in the fight for hearts and minds helps to ensure the continued flow of billions of dollars in Western military and humanitarian aid.

[…] David Crane, a former Defense Department official and a veteran of numerous international war crime investigations, said the Ukrainian forces may have violated the laws of armed conflict by not evacuating the nursing home’s residents and staff.

“The bottom-line rule is that civilians cannot intentionally be targeted. Period. For whatever reason,” Crane said. “The Ukrainians placed those people in a situation which was a killing zone. And you can’t do that.” (read more)

Keep in mind, the United States is funding Ukraine to fight this war.  Without U.S. funding, including the shipments of weapons, the training of military units and the embedding of U.S. special forces to assist the Ukraine military, Ukraine and Russian governments would have likely entered into peace negotiations.

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If They Lose, You Will Eat Bugs – Dutch Farmer Spokesperson Explains How EU Climate Change Goals Will Reduce Farm Production


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 10, 2022 | Sundance

Despite the U.S. media not giving any time, attention or discussion to the rise of farmer protests in Europe, everyone should pay attention because the same climate change goals being enforced in the European Union are coming to North America.

The global food manipulators within the World Economic Forum have established the farming policy that aligns with their climate change goals. As noted in this Sky News discussion this is the Great Reset. It’s not just Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte pushing the agenda, in 2020 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave an identical outline, with an identical timeline, for the exact same process [SEE HERE]. The collective WEF political leaders are all singing from the same hymnal.

In this discussion and interview segment, the spokesperson for Netherlands, Agricultural and Horticultural Organization Wytse Sonnema, outlines why there is such a broad sense of “frustration, anger, even despair” amongst farmers amid proposals for nitrogen reduction target plans.  This will be coming to North America soon. WATCH:

In very simple terms, the politicians cannot reduce the farming process for industrial food production without reducing the farming yield.  It is just commonsense.

You do not need to be a farmer to understand that nitrogen/phosphorus-based industrial fertilizer has been the reason why farm yields have generated massive amounts of food on a global basis.  The United States, U.K. and places like the Netherlands have massively increased their ability to generate food for export, in large part due to the success of improved fertilizer and crop saving modern pesticides.

Larger discussion continues below….

It is a simple matter of math that if North American and European farmers are forced by climate policy to reduce their food production, there will be a shortage of food.

There will be a significant gap between the food needed and the new climate driven limits on commercial food production.

This intentional curtailing of food production, that creates the purposeful shortage of food, is where Bill Gates, the WEF and the synthetic meat and bugs for food advocates enter the picture.  It appears the plan is to replace the missing global calories by changing the food supply.  Changing what and how people eat.

Lab grown (synthetic) meat, nut/soy milk to replace dairy and bugs being used as replacements for protein sources are three approaches advocated by the climate change advocates that you are likely familiar with.  However, as we saw in the pandemic response to food consumption, there is going to be a massive problem as the WEF attempts to shift food delivery within their Great Reset.

Think of the United States like a massive global farm and in this context the parallels between the U.S. and the Netherlands are quite remarkable.

Specifically, because of advancements in farming over the past two decades the United States food production has increased massively.  The same is true for North America as a whole with Mexico and Canada included.  Industrial farming advancements have made it possible to export billions of tons of food every year from our farms in North America to the rest of the world.

The Dutch farmers are like the U.S. farmers in their high productivity.  In fact, the Netherlands is the second biggest agriculture and food exporter in the world.  Even with a small population of 17 million people, the Netherlands has consistently been among the top contenders in the food export market {LINK}.  The reason is simple, they are good at it.

Dutch farmers, like American farmers, are excellent at producing food.  The Netherlands is one of the largest countries in the world when it comes to the export of agricultural goods such as meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, and fruit.  Unfortunately, this is why the climate change activists in the World Economic Forum have targeted them.

The Dutch farmers do not have as good a political shield as the U.S. farmer have via lobbyists.  The reason the Dutch farmers have more vulnerability on a political front is because there are far more independent farmers who operate without the influence of large multinational agricultural corporations.

In the United States farming is Big Corporate Agriculture.  Those massive ‘for profit’ multinational corporations have massive lobbying power in congress.  If Biden wants to drop U.S. food production, for now he is going to run up against the interests of Big Ag, who make money from exports and control of U.S. farm harvests.  In the Netherlands, the farmers are more independent, that makes them more vulnerable to the political influences.

It’s a weird dynamic, but U.S. farmers are both exploited by, and somewhat protected by, the Big Ag mafia.  The Dutch farmers have remained stubbornly independent in their operations with less multinational influence.  Unfortunately, right now that makes them less represented in the politics of the European Union.

The Dutch farmers are fighting back against the climate change politicians in the only way they can, a grassroots uprising.  This is the battle right now in the EU, and the Dutch are being joined by their brothers and sisters in Germany, Poland and Italy. {Source}

This is not just a battle within the Netherlands and the EU to save farmers, this is a battle over the future of food in the world.

The western politicians, those who assemble under the banner of the World Economic Forum, want a world where ‘climate change’ policy drives the dictates of all human activity.  Essentially, a government policy position that allows politicians to control the behavior of humans under the guise of climate mitigation.  Ultimately it is the control part of this dynamic that is more important than the climate aspect.

The stakes in this Dutch farming protest are much bigger than just Dutch farmers.

If the farmers lose this war, we are all one step closer to eating bugs and fake meat.

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Can you see how all of these ideological policies converge?

Neil Oliver, The Governing Class Discovers that People Owning Nothing Does Not Make Them Happy


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

In his weekly monologue Neil Oliver gives his perspective on the changing of the guard at #10 Downing Street.  Meet the potential new boss, same as the old boss etc.   While drawing attention to the detached and aloof viewpoints of the self-installed ‘ruling class’, Oliver riffs one of the best lines from this week:

“Two years ago, I gave scant thought to acronyms like WHO, UN, WEF.  Now I watch them with the same attention I give to dogs that look like they might bite.”…

Damned if that isn’t the truth.  WATCH:

[Transcript] – The running of this country has precious little to do with we, the people – that much becomes more obvious every day. Ever more blatantly the powers that be are treating us like the sitting tenants in a property they want to knock down so they can sell the plot for profit to their pals and assorted foreign carpet baggers.

We the people, with our individual opinions and ambitions and dreams are just in the way of their anti-human fantasy of a so-called progressive future. They got fed up waiting for us to die of old age in our armchairs, in front of three bar electric fires we can’t afford to switch on, and have set about demolishing the old place while we’re still living in it.

Love him or loathe him – and I’ve been no fan of him or of any of the leaders we find ourselves saddled with in the West – PM Boris Johnson was brought down last week not by the millions who had voted for him, as might have been appropriate given any meaningful understanding of the concept of democracy – but by a hellish coupling of media and the self-worshipping political class that appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner. Together they wanted Johnson gone, and so he was gone.

The party atmosphere after his resignation – the glee and the gloating by those journalists that had conspired and shared in the taking of his scalp was plain to see. I really don’t think it’s supposed to be that way.

In the aftermath of Johnson’s defenestration there was a suggestion from former Tory PM John Major that the process of anointing the next leader of the Conservatives should bypass party members altogether – presumably in case troublesome proles with their taste for Brexit and borders, even for Britain itself, picked the wrong person again. Far better, thought the likes of Major, if Tory MPs just exercised their superior intellects and morals and did the choosing for them.

Hoary old Tory and arch-remainer Michael Heseltine’s cage was evidently rattled by all the noise and in predictable style he was instantly crowing that the passing of Johnson should mean the end of Brexit.

Once more the proof that those regarding themselves as our intellectual superiors still regard a decision made by an undeniable majority of British people only as evidence of the stupidity of the great unwashed.

In displays of audacity and temerity that are beyond the reach of adjectives, those that plotted Johnson’s demise are falling over one another to take his place. It’s like looking through a microscope at something revolting happening in a petri dish. Former chancellor Rishi Sunak had his slick and glossy show reel ready for broadcast before his former boss had delivered his resignation speech. I wonder when he performed for that instead of doing more damage to the economy. I don’t feel like having any of their names in my mouth, I really don’t.

So I will just say that for me the thought of any that stood for lockdowns, for damaging children’s physical and mental wellbeing, that oversaw the crashing of the economy, watched uncounted lives physically and mentally destroyed, advocated mask wearing on the street and cheer led the unholy pressure to take experimental injections or lose jobs and or reputations as a consequence … that called for digital vaccine passports or anything like them … that won’t shout from the highest hill that the green agenda and Net Zero are a disaster and must be scrapped immediately … the thought of any that demanded it all, or stayed silent while it all played out, should now occupy No. 10 and contemplate more of the same in the months ahead makes me sick to my stomach.

For me the change of PM is nothing more than a change of drivers on a train. The train we’re on is going where it’s scheduled and timetabled to go, on rails already laid, and in the face of its forward momentum we the people, it would seem, count for nothing.

From behind one podium after another, western leaders and their lackeys talk more and more openly about a liberal world order – even a rules-based liberal world order. The more I hear and see about a world ordered by self-described liberals and their rules, the less I like it. I certainly don’t recall ever being invited to vote for it. Two years ago I gave scant thought to acronyms like WHO, UN, WEF. Now I watch them with the same attention I give to dogs that look like they might bite.

At some point in the past – and I missed that point too, whenever it was, I will freely admit – the governing class decided they were done with serving us and that they own us and rule us instead. That cancerous thought has metastasized in recent years, so that it’s not just governments and their bureaucrats and preferred scientists who presume to lord it over us, to tell us what to do, what to think.

That same deranged thought is there throughout the greediest capitalist corporations now as well. The technocrats took free speech by the throat long ago, so as to preserve and push their own self-described progressive ideologies. Now that same superiority complex is everywhere else as well.

Halifax bank got on their high horse about pronouns and loftily declared that customers who didn’t like seeing staff wearing such on their badges should take their business elsewhere. And so, customers duly did, right enough, taking their hard-earned cash with them.

Since when did money-grubbing corporations decide it was appropriate to start telling customers what to think about sex and gender?

Ice Cream vendors Ben and Jerrys got on their soap box to criticize the British government’s plan to offshore asylum seekers to Rwanda – when surely their time would be better spent learning more about obesity and diabetes and their likeliest causes.

So here we are – we the British people are held in low regard not just by politicians and their ilk, not just by the awkward savants of the search engines and social media platforms, but even by High Street banks and ice cream vendors.

It feels like there is a club somewhere, or a positive feedback loop, in which everyone involved, and it’s definitely not us – politicians of all stripes, faceless bureaucrats, journalists, bankers and corporations – feels entitled to make all the decisions about every aspect of our lives and then to tell us how it’s going to be. We the people are to be downtrodden, demoralized and deceived.

In the wider world, it is farmers who are the latest citizens pushed beyond breaking point. In a replay of the Truckers’ protest in Canada that so captivated many of us, gave us hope however brief that an end to the deliberately destructive madness might be in sight, there are tractor protests in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Italy, in Poland.

When those who grow and raise the food we eat are angry and scared enough to down tools and take to the streets to fight for their very existence, when those who drive the trucks that bring us everything we depend upon for our daily lives have done likewise … perhaps it’s finally time to pay attention to the unfolding catastrophe.

Among the Dutch farmers the anger was pushed above boiling point by government diktats regarding emissions of nitrogen and ammonia into the environment. Plans to reduce those emissions by as much as 70 percent will, farmers say, put many of them out of business altogether. They say it’s not about saving nature, but about leftist government plans to change land use in the Netherlands, forcing farmers to sell their land and to cut the national cattle herd by as much as 50 per cent.

Dutch farmers are among the most productive in the world – exporting 100 billion dollars worth of dairy and crops every year. Their banners say No farmers, no food.

The world is in a time of food insecurity and still governments would apparently prefer to contemplate a future in which people will suffer in every conceivable way. And in the future presently shaping up, people will most definitely suffer. Those governments are plainly not in the business of fixing anything, rather making matters worse.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau – he that forcibly shut down the truckers’ protest in his own county and seized their bank accounts – has his country on a similar path to that of the Dutch. In a time of global food insecurity – blamed in part on war in Ukraine – ideologically driven administrations are stamping their metaphorical boots down upon their farmers’ backs.

In Holland, shots have been fired – allegedly by police, at one tractor. This is how basic things are becoming, how near the bone. Here in the west, in the 21st century, we are being prepared not just for a future without cars, but a future of less energy… less warmth… and even less food.

I knew there was something badly wrong with all that’s going on when I realized my response to what was happening, to all that we were being told, was physical. All of this actually makes me feel ill, to my bones.

I have never in my life before listened to government policy – and to the policies of governments all around the world – and felt endangered. But I do now. If you feel that too – a deep physiological response to the last two years, and a growing sense of something malevolent – then you are not alone. Sometimes it feels like society itself has been poisoned – and that all that society is being offered is yet more poisonous nonsense.

We should notice that it is from among us, the ordinary people, that the farmers and the truckers come – so that it is we who really have the power that matters in the end.

In Sri Lanka, they’re quite a bit further down the line than us – although hardly out of sight. Thousands of people, driven beyond endurance by economic collapse and the worst food and fuel shortages in living memory, found they had nothing left to lose. I read this morning about protestors there storming and occupying their president’s official residence in the city of Colombo.

Desperate people and desperate measures. It’s interesting to note that, contrary to what Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum might think … it turns out that when some people find they actually do own nothing anymore – they’re really not very happy at all. (LINK)

Schwab’s Puppet Falls?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Humor Re-Posted Jul 8, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Resigns


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 7, 2022 | Sundance

Facing a blistering amount of criticism for several false statements, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today he was resigning.

Prime Minister Johnson took to the podium outside Ten Downing Street with a massive number of cameras and media microphones awaiting his predictable announcement.

The Daily Mail has all the details – SEE HERE.

I would not be surprised to see the British leftists try to use this opportunity and overthrow the Brexit movement, fighting -once again- to get back into the European Union.

Dutch Protest: No Farmers, No Food


Armstrong Economics Blog/Agriculture Re-Posted Jul 7, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

The Dutch farmers are pushing back against a new law that plans to reduce nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions by 50% by 2030. These gases are produced by livestock, and some estimate that 30% of livestock farms will close under the new plan. “The honest message … is that not all farmers can continue their business,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte coldly said.

We have an ongoing food supply shortage globally, and this is something that will affect everyone. These farmers are protesting for all of us. Other industries that are known to produce emissions have more relaxed rules under the new restrictions such as aviation, transportation, and construction. Why unfairly target farmers? It is a deliberate attempt to exacerbate the food supply shortage to push forward the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) agenda for the Great Reset. Again, the WEF is transparent about its plans but no one wants to see what is staring them in the face.

The farmers are not afraid to fight back. Last week, around 40,000 people gathered to protest the absurd ruling. Protestors have blocked food distribution centers and used tractors to block access to supermarket distribution centers. They are simply providing the government of a preview of life with a drastically reduced food supply.

There are currently 54,000 agricultural businesses in the Netherlands. Agriculture exports from the nation reached $99 million USD in 2019. This law benefits absolutely no one and simply caters to the globalist agenda. People cannot protest or fight back when they are hungry. I have warned countless times that people should begin stockpiling food now while there is still time. Although this is not an apocalyptic scenario, prices will spike and availability will diminish.