Special counsel John Durham revealed in his report that all American intelligence agencies knew the Trump-Russian collusion story was a lie. You can read the full 300-page report here. Hillary Clinton needed a way to take the heat off of her email scandal and was the mastermind behind this plot. The CIA and FBI knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Steele Dossier was a lie designed by Clinton to take down Trump. The FBI then leaked deliberate misinformation to the press to condemn Trump on behalf of Hillary and the Democrats.
Christopher Steele was bribed $1 million to write his fictional Steele Dossier. Igor Danchenko was known to be Russian intelligence. Intelligence agencies paid Danchecnko a quarter of a million USD to reveal classified information to back Steele’s claims. He could not provide any evidence since it did not exist, but he was paid anyway. Former intelligence chair Shiff said he saw first-hand evidence of Russian collusion — a complete lie.
Will anyone be held accountable for these extreme crimes? All Americans should be completely outraged that we were lied to by our intelligence agencies and media outlets in an attempt to alter our election. This is a direct attack on our freedom and electoral process. Hillary knows she is above the law and can commit crimes in the open without penalty or even criticism. Obama, Biden, the FBI, the CIA, and numerous politicians knew that everything regarding “Russian collusion” was a complete lie. Trump was correct — this has been one of the biggest witch hunts in American history.
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; I think it might be helpful to explain to people that the government can subpoena any third party with regard to cryptocurrencies and they will turn over whatever they have that will incriminate a person. As a lawyer, I have to defend a client who thought Bitcoin was exempt from central banks and totally safe. He even seemed to think if there was a nuclear war that Bitcoin would still exist in South America. Some people are just so gullible it is sad and now he faces several years in prison for tax evasion. Perhaps it would help to explain how a third party will turn over whatever they have on you and that includes Google etc.
Many people listen to you because you are not a conspiracy junkie.
All the best
WH
ANSWER: You have a good point. DO NOT even allow Microsoft One Drive to have anything. The government will subpoena any third party and they will give up everything. I do not understand why people are such diehard Bitcoin lovers. ANYTHING that will be on the power grid the government will control if you believe it or not.
Bitcoin is a TRADING vehicle no different from cattle. It is NOT a store of wealth, as it fluctuates like everything else. This is a quarterly chart of Bitcoin. It rises and falls no different than any other instrument. It is not a “store” of value maintaining some constant value to park your money.
ALL cryptocurrency is on the target list for the Biden Administration. We are entering the final stages of the Decline & Fall of Western Civilization. You can see as we progress, they will become more and more aggressive because they can feel their power slipping away. ONLY tangible assets make the transition to the new value on the other side of 2032. NOTHING digital will make that transition.
Both the United States and Europe will split. That means the rules will be different everywhere, and there will be places without power. No power = no value for any digital currency. Let’s get realistic here.
Posted originally on the CTH on May 1, 2023 | Sundance
Everything about the process of cutting down energy exploitation, then driving supply side inflation, then raising interest rates to shrink demand (stem inflation) created by a desire to lower economic activity to the scale of diminished energy production, is a game of pretending.
The collateral damage from the rate hikes has been the banking destabilization, which shows the priority of the government officials and central banks to support the climate change agenda. Into the game of pretending comes the second unavoidable consequence with inflation continuing as a result of the energy policy.
They simply cannot cut energy demand enough to meet the diminished scale of production. There is no alternative ‘green’ energy system in place to make up the difference. That is the reality. Now, the fed is scheduled to raise rates again, then begin to debate the collateral damage as they continue the pretending game.
(Via Wall Street Journal) – […] Another quarter-percentage point increase would lift the benchmark federal-funds rate to a 16-year high. The Fed began raising rates from near zero in March 2022.
Fed officials increased rates by a quarter point on March 22 to a range between 4.75% and 5%. That increase occurred with officials just beginning to grapple with the potential fallout of two midsize bank failures in March.
The sale of First Republic Bank to JPMorgan Chase & Co. by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced early Monday is the latest reminder of how banking stress is clouding the economic outlook.
Fed officials are likely to keep an eye on how investors react to that deal ahead of Wednesday’s decision, just as they did before their rate increase six weeks ago when Swiss authorities merged investment banks UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG. (read more)
There is no other way to look at the combined policy without seeing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in the future. All of these combined policies are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Posted originally on the CTH on May 1, 2023 | Sundance
The topline story from the announcement by JPMorgan Chase [SEE HERE] there are no banking rules/laws in the Biden Fed/Treasury system.
The Dodd-Frank laws are still on the books, but the FDIC decision to insure all deposits, regardless of size, now means those laws, rules and regulations are not required to be followed. Additionally, as a result of JPMorgan gaining another $100+/- billion in deposit assets, the law(s) surrounding the 10% U.S. deposit maximum, within too big to fail banks, no longer exists. Noted in the announcement, “JPMorgan Chase is assuming all deposits – insured and uninsured.”
JPMorgan is also assuming assets consisting of $173 billion in loans and approximately $30 billion in securities. The FDIC is going to assume risk (with a risk sharing agreement) for current First Republic Bank mortgage and commercial loans acquired by JPMorgan, guaranteeing JPMorgan a 5-year fed fixed rate on $50 billion in mortgage bonds.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) rule requiring the holding of 1.5% of deposits for all depositors up to $250k in all institutions is now essentially moot. If the FDIC is guaranteeing all deposits, there’s no way for the insurance corporation to capture or hold $1.5% of all banking deposits. The law is in conflict with the outcome action of the Fed/Treasury and ultimately the FDIC, ergo the law is nulled by the ignoring of it.
Mohamed El-Erian gives his take below, but seemingly missed the part of the announcement where JPMorgan states, “no systemic risk exception was required” in the deal. This means the FDIC is completely free-range with the agreement, they are not even trying to justify why they would make a too big to fail bank even bigger. WATCH:
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The only reason the FDIC violated its own rules and banking regulations, was because the FDIC didn’t, likely -almost certainly- couldn’t, take the financial hit from a full takeover of First Republic Bank against the backdrop of the prior terms for Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).
When the FDIC made the (SVB) decision to guarantee all deposits regardless of size, they put themselves in a position of an insurance declaration they could never fulfill. The FDIC cannot structurally guarantee all of the First Republic Bank (FRB) deposits; they need a structure to avoid the government regulators absorbing the bank. This reality is also why the FDIC violated their own laws, rules and regulations in allowing JPM to exceed the legal U.S. deposits maximum.
In essence, what the FDIC is saying is they cannot maintain the premise of their charter without the big banks helping them. The biggest banks now control all of the leverage, with JPMorgan Chase and Jamie Dimon now controlling more financial power than the government that is supposed to regulate them.
FUBAR… All of it. Everything Biden touches turns to shit.
This is going to be a major hot mess now for Main Street investment and borrowing needs. The economy is going to feel the ramifications of this in less financing available to maintain domestic investment.
Last point. Look at the big picture, there’s no intervention protocol the legislative branch can trigger as a security against the reckless decisions of the FDIC (Fed and Treasury), without creating even bigger issues that could collapse the banking system. If the legislative branch forced the FDIC to follow the laws currently on the books, the domino of banks starts to collapse.
All we hear is the same claims that the dollar is dead and it will be totally worthless any day now. Over the last few weeks, all we hear from the majority now is that the dollar is finished. Virtually every page you turn or site you visit claims the death of the dollar. They are calling this the de-dollarization of the world economy and that the future of the US dollar as well as the American empire itself is now collapsing. The general claim is that the group of economically-aligned nations known collectively as BRICS is a major threat to the greenback. That was the same story we heard about the Euro back in 1997.
As their scenario goes, the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa] have moved to form an anti-dollar colation and Saudi Arabia is considering jumping on board. They insist that once that happens, the “petrodollar” will die and cease to be a reserve currency.
This is then followed by the forecast that the economy will suffer and that any bounce in exports will be short-lived simply because the dollar will be dead for the long term. Of course, this has been the favorite forecast that they keep putting out since Bretton Woods collapsed. They were wrong back then for the dollar rose between 1972 and 1976 against the British pound, with the collapse of Bretton Woods. To try to explain why the dollar did not collapse, that is when they claimed that the dollar was backed now by oil rather than gold. That was just an excuse as always to cover up their wrong forecast.
They sold that story to Newsweek and now the dollar rally was because of oil which replace gold. Suddenly the dollar became de facto backed by oil. They needed an explanation to explain why all the old theories were wrong. They sold this theory and it made the front cover of Newsweek. Everyone said YES! That must be the reason. OPEC priced oil in dollars! Naturally, everything was priced in dollars because, under the fixed exchange rate of Bretton Woods, everything from wheat and corn to copper and gold was all priced in dollars.
Now they are saying the American empire is threatened by the potential commercial real estate collapse and the BRICS anti-dollar venture. So they are forecasting a great depression-style crash is possible in the not-too-distant future. They spin this to forecast the end of the America Empire. The London FT, always anti-American/Pro WEF, reports that the dollar as a reserve currency has declined from 73% in 2001 to around 55% by 2021. Yet the FT did state an obvious fact:
“But if you are a reserve-rich central bank elsewhere that isn’t going to be a lot of comfort. Moreover, would you really feel more comfortable in, say, the renminbi? Even if it was fully convertible and liquid, would you honestly feel more sure that Beijing will behave lawfully than DC? The dollar still looks like the proverbial least dirty shirt in the closet.”
COVID actually has played a major role in shifting the world economy. In 2020, the US economy was 24.75% of the world’s GDP. By the start of 2022, it had fallen marginally to 24.15%. What these dollar-forecasting jockeys do not understand, is that if they were correct and the dollar collapsed, then the very BRICS would collapse even further. Economically speaking, when the United States gets a head cold, the rest of the world catches ammonia. You can’t have it both ways. The strength of the dollar is not gold or oil, it is the American consumer.
The risk to the entire world is runaway inflation thanks to Biden pouring untold amounts of money into the black hole known as Ukraine. The Neocons, who control Biden, are planning to launch a war against Russia and China before 2024. This will only continue to accelerate inflation. That reduces the spending power of the American consumer and in the process, the US economic growth declines in real terms and with it, the rest of the world plunges into recession.
While Macron has figured it out that the Neocons are in charge of US foreign policy and he is telling Europe to stop being the puppet of the USA, that all sounds nice but Europe is marching into war with Russia. NATO is firmly in control of the American Neocons and they need war or face losing power. With Trump in the lead, they must stop him at all costs for he is anti-war, would haul the Neocons out by the necks, and defund NATO, as well as stop the climate change agenda.
The US dollar in the global economy has been supported by the size and strength of the US consumer-based economy. Its stability and openness to trade and capital flows without restrictions and it has never been canceled, are the major foundation of the dollar in addition to strong property rights and the rule of law. That is why Russians and Chinese buy US property for they are secure in their ownership of US property which cannot always be guaranteed outside the US.
Consequently, the depth and liquidity of US financial markets remain unmatched. For institutions parking billions, the United States represents a large supply of extremely safe dollar-denominated assets. Are they really going to switch to China or buy debt from Brazil? Not a single institutional client will take that bait.
China has been divesting of dollar reserves because it KNOWS that the American Neocons want war. You do not fund your adversary who intends to wage war against you. China cannot shift reserve assets to Europe or Japan. They have been buying gold because it is geopolitically neutral territory. They are NOT buying gold as an investor thinking it will rally. That is irrelevant. If gold drops 25%, that does not translate into them becoming a seller.
The dollar in international reserves stood at 60+% at the start of 2022 against the US share of GDP at 24.25%. This comparison belittles the argument that the dollar is finished. Eventually, the US will lose the wars it is starting and the dollar will be replaced perhaps as soon as 2028. The IMF is already licking its lips and rubbing its hands together eager to get control of the reserve currency. But they too will collapse. We have a Directional Change next year and a Panic Cycle in 2025. So buckle up.!
Remember one thing, even with the debasement and collapse of the Roman Denarius between 260AD and 268AD, it still took 224 years for Rome to completely collapse. When war breaks out, capital flight will still be to the dollar. It will not be to public assets, but private. The United States is still supporting the entire world economy. The BRICS need the US consumer to keep their economies functioning. All this talk of the dollar being finished is really nonsense. That day will come, but when the US consumer no longer buys.
Remember 1997? The Euro was going to dethrone the dollar. They claimed the new EU will be a bigger economy than the US. The problem was, they lacked a consumer economy, and low taxes, and they routinely canceled their currency to force people to pay taxes. It is always the same story over and over again.
COMMENT #1: Hi Martin, corn also turned nicely on the ECM:
JB
COMMENT #2: Hello Marty, I just want to point out that the Japanese yen broke really hard on the 10th. Not sure if this will prove to be a precursor of what is to come.
Thanks from Tokyo, your old home ground.
AS
COMMENT #3: Well the ECM also marked the reversal in trend in the 30-year bond. It peaked at 134 and fell to 130 by the end of the week. That was just remarkable.
Colin
COMMENT #4: Martin; is this chart real that people are sending around claiming it was Benner’s work?
Mat
ANSWER: As far as this chart of Brenner’s Cycle being real, the answer is no Someone has made it up and signed his name. They have at least extended his cycle correctly. The last time someone tried that they skewed the cycle to make it look like it forecast the Depression 1932 low.
When the WSJ published it, it showed 1932 instead of 1931. Brenner did not extend this out in this manner. What is important to understand is that Brenner was a farmer and farmers understand the cycles in nature. Economists and governments pretend they can smooth out the cycle and eliminate the booms and busts.
The business cycle always wins as both former chairmen of the Federal Reserve conceded – Arthur Burns and Paul Volcker.
Back during the 19th century when Brenner was observing the business cycle, it was still based on commodities. Kondratieff took the same data. I believe the reason WHY the Economic Confidence Model has been so accurate is that it was based on a list of Panics – not one sector of the economy. Therefore, the ECM incorporates weather as Brenner and Kondratieff did by using the commodity sector. Yet just that the ECM was derived from financial panics, it was not based on any one specific type so it strangely seems to have incorporated the whole gambit.
Furthermore, all previous cyclical analysis was based on just a single market like stocks. They have failed because they could not account for the external influence of a contagion. The fact that this list began with the Turks’ siege of Vienna, means that the list was also influenced by war and from an international perspective.
This is a fascinating subject that I will explore in far more detail in my coming book.
COMMENT: Well, the goldbugs are wrong again. This claim that the stock market must crash and only gold will rise is as you say sophistry. It looks like gold and the Dow are rallying together. I can see how they are just promoting a cult-like agenda.
Thanks for being objective
MH
REPLY: We became the biggest institutional adviser because there was never an agenda. Everything goes up, and everything comes down. There is an old saying among actual traders – NEVER marry the trade. I buy gold personally. I just bought a hoard of $20 gold pieces all uncirculated and all dated 1924. I do not regard it as a trade, just a stash for the long-term. It will go up and go down. Do not pretend that something only goes in one direction.
Here is a chart from Socrates on the Quarterly Level of the Dow/Gold Ratio. Anyone who only forecasts a single direction is NOT an analyst – they are a promoter like a used car salesman. No matter what we look at, there is a time to buy and a time to sell. EVERY market functions that was.
Here is an advertisement from April 9th, 1930 pitching Bank Stocks. Brokers were telling people to buy all the way down, average in, but it took 26 years for the Dow to reach the 1929 high again. Anyone selling any product will ALWAYS tell you to BUY. That is their business. It is up to you to come to terms with how ALL markets really move. Hence, there is always a TIME TO BUY just as there is a TIME TO SELL.
Posted originally on the CTH on April 5, 2023 Sundance
For his opening monologue and first interview tonight, Fox News host Tucker Carlson outlined the ramification of non-western nations now trading in alternative currencies to the U.S. dollar. {Direct Rumble Link Here] As the dollar diminishes in value, and as an outcome of Biden using U.S. treasury bonds as part of the sanction regime against Russia, various non-western nations now perceive holding dollars as exposing themselves to risk.
Carlson is joined by Luke Gromen who accurately notes the dollar as a global trade currency may continue, but foreign nations holding U.S. treasury bonds as an asset will likely start contracting. The result of U.S. treasury bonds returning after maturity with no repurchase, would be an inability of the U.S. to borrow against their sale. This could, perhaps likely will, severely diminish the amount of money the U.S. congress can spend. WATCH:
None of this should come as a surprise to those who have paid attention. Factually, in March of last year, one month after the Russian sanctions were announced, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Deputy Managing Director said the sanctions against Russia are likely to undermine the US dollar’s global dominance as a trade currency. Everyone could see this coming.
(Inside Paper) – March 2022 – […] “The dollar would remain the major global currency even in that landscape, but fragmentation at a smaller level is certainly quite possible,” Gopinath said in an interview with the Financial Times. She went on to say that some countries have already begun to renegotiate the currency in which they are paid for trade.
According to Gopinath, the drastic restrictions imposed by Western countries in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine may result in the formation of small currency blocs based on trade between individual groups of countries. Furthermore, the use of currencies other than the dollar or the euro in global trade would result in a further diversification of central banks’ reserve assets. (read more)
The efforts of NATO and the western alliance to crush the Russian currency have failed. The Russian ruble currency has jumped back from the sanctions and is now even stronger than before the sanctions were put into place.
With China and India supporting ongoing trade with Russia, and with Saudi Arabia responding coldly to the U.S. working on a deal with Iran for nuclear weapons, the geopolitical strategy of NATO, G7 and the proverbial western alliance increasingly looks like it will backfire.
Yellow Team -vs- Gray Team: Remember, China just brokered a deal to lessen hostilities between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The fulcrum of that agreement was economics.
Meanwhile in North America, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador has said he was not willing to join the energy suicide pact pushed by Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau…. A policy break in the trilateral relationship which suddenly, and not coincidentally, aligns with the timing to make Mexico a pariah to the U.S. vis-a-vis a renewed media push on the drug cartel narrative.
BIG PICTURE NOT BEING DISCUSSED – The western politicians followed the climate change instructions of the WEF multinational corporations and banks (Build Back Better) and post-pandemic immediately started reducing energy development. The central bankers then began raising interest rates to shrink the economies of the same western nations to the scale of the now diminished energy production.
The raising of interest rates is now hitting the national and multinational banks impacted by government policy that was following WEF orders. Now the western politicians are stepping in with the government controlled central banks to backstop the national banks and multinationals. Can you see the dynamic?
Team yellow is suffering the consequences of their own ideological policy as enacted. Team grey is not going to help team yellow get out of a crisis team yellow created, which was intended to hurt team grey.
Posted originally on the CTH on April 3, 2023 | Sundance
According to inside media sources, Saudi Arabia was under the impression the Biden administration was going to begin refilling the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve two months ago. However, the Biden administration made no efforts to do that. As a consequence, Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ which includes Russia, decided to cut production in line with diminished global energy needs as a result of a slower global economy. {Background Here}
Tucker Carlson outlines the ramifications of increased oil costs on the American electorate {Direct Rumble Link} while his guest Brian Brenberg from Fox Business News, accurately points out that Joe Biden wants to keep energy prices high to support his climate change policy initiatives. WATCH:
Posted originally on the CTH on April 2, 2023 | Sundance
Jim Jordan appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss his perspective on the indictment of President Donald Trump by a politically motivated Manhattan District Attorney, and the potential for the House Judiciary Committee to question DA Alvin Bragg. WATCH:
The only way these radical leftists are going to slow down is if Republican State AG’s and local DA’s start prosecuting Democrats for similar issues. Match them one-for-one on every attempted case. Bring the system to its knees and show the political opposition that there’s no benefit to this political targeting.
Now is not the time for words, letters and half-measures. We are on a war footing now. The GOP state and local officials need to act like it!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 