Seymour Hersch won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. He is one of a dying breed of independent journalists. He has revealed that the United States destroyed Nord Stream Pipeline and this was all part of the Climate Change War where the Neocons are now supporting Nazis to exterminate Russia once and for all while they ask China to please wait quietly in line patiently for their turn to be destroyed. His in-depth article includes:
“Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions.”
Of course, the Goldbugs always misinterpret a rally in gold. The buying coming from China is in preparation for war – not bullish gold for the sake of gold. I have warned that if war was coming, then you will see China start to sell off US Treasuries. You certainly do not fund your adversary’s war against yourself.
China was buying aggressively during January, but they have backed off slightly. January was simply the standard 3-month reaction. The strong gold buying from China corresponded to China’s accelerated selling of U.S. Treasuries.
China is not buying gold because they think it will rally. It is perfectly fine if the price declines and just consolidates. They know war is coming and they can no longer maintain their reserves in dollars, euros, or yen no less than anyone else in the West – it all must go! Gold offers a non-political affiliation – neutrality. This is not buying gold as if it were an investment. We have completely different motives going on. Our own model warns that by 2032, there will be no United States acting as the reserve currency. The Biden Administration has done everything perfectly to destroy the world economy and the sad part about it, these morons do not even understand what they have done.
Tony, a reader, sent in a question. Message: “Mr. Armstrong what do you make of attorney general Merrick Garland’s recent approval to seize all of Russia’s assets that had been frozen in the United States to be given to the Ukraine?” Garland is violating every principle of international law. Denying Due Process of Law which comes from the Bible. When Cain killed Abel, God summoned him and gave him an opportunity to be heard, despite the fact he knew what he did. That is Due Process of Law – the right to be heard. What Garland is doing is outright unconstitutional and it is Treason to the foundation of every principle upon which this nation was founded.
The right to be heard resides in both the Sixth Amendment as well as the Fourteenth Amendment. A right to hearing entails that an individual maintains and be afforded the legal right to be heard in the venue of a court of law with adequate due process attached. Garland has shown he is violating the Civil Rights Act and is unworthy of holding any office whatsoever. If he were not in charge of the Department of Justice, he would be criminally prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 241.
18 U.S.C. § 241
Section 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his or her having exercised such a right.
You cannot take anyone’s assets without Due Process of Law – PERIOD!
The confiscation of Russian assets is a clear violation of international law. They are including money confiscated from individuals as well. The destruction of NordStream was an act of economic warfare. These are acts that demonstrate what I have been saying – this is a war to DESTROY Russia. That is why Zelensky has instructed no peace negotiations. This has been planned for the fake Minsk Agreement. The West wanted to conquer Russia and they are prepared to see every Ukrainian die to weaken Russia so they will then send in Poland with tanks to conquer Moscow.
We are the aggressor. This is a Climate Change War and the end goal is a New World Order with one government. The current monetary system is collapsing. I believe Schwab’s Great Reset is our 2032. He knows our model. He realizes it is all collapsing. He is out to push it in his direction when the tree of liberty falls.
The current administration of the United States is out of control. It is destroying everything that we have worked for generations since World War II and it now even supports the nazis we once fought against.
The human costs that these disgusting politicians lie to our faces, look down upon us as the scum beneath their feet and then pretend they actually care.
Posted originally on the conservative Tree house on February 8, 2023 | Sundance
Sundance is that quietly salty cuss who prefers to swing the sharp machete alone amid the deep weeds; clearing the path simply for the sake of creating clarity and larger understanding about the topography of the stuff the professional political class would prefer to keep hidden in the weeds. At times, he settles himself atop the bluff, opens his lunchbox and thermos to eat a simple sandwich, shirt sleeves will suffice as a napkin, while looking at the flow coming into the clearing…
Amid this era of insufferable pretending, our dear and rebellious non-pretending CTH friend, the Great Lou Dobbs, is a voice to cherish – he gets it. There is a wisdom that comes with age and experience battling against the Machiavellian schemes of the professional political class; it also can make you quick-tempered, and that’s ok. Hell, it’s to be expected.
In this brief video segment {Direct Rumble Link}, Lou Dobbs cuts to the chase when analyzing the Republican party rebuttal to the Joe Biden state of the union speech. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee-Sanders delivered the remarks, they were poignant deliberate and accurate; however, they were also party managed, and party approved.
Just as Lou Dobbs has accurately and presciently called the Wall Street play-by-play for decades, amid the multinational schemes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce & Business Roundtable, Mr Dobbs accurately notes the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) as the originating approvers for the prepared rebuttal. WATCH:
The Great Lou Dobbs is 100% correct.
The approved GOPe script, a construct of multinational financial influence and background motive, was/is intended to write President Donald Trump out of the Republican political framework. Governor Huckabee-Sanders went along with the plan. She, along with all of the non-pretenders, knows this, as all of them do. It is a sad acceptance to realize just how metastasized the political cancer has become, and how few can hold firm against the power of the corrupt political apparatus.
As I said last night, Huckabee-Sanders points about the damage from the Biden administration were accurate and well delivered.
That said, her acquiescence to the machinery of the professional republican system is both disheartening and pathetic.
Oh sure, she will backtrack sometime soon, filled with artificial pearl-clutching prose and promises of mistaken intent…. that’s the way it rolls. But once you see the strings attached to the marionettes you can never unsee them. Authenticity, trust and integrity are lost in sunlight moments when decisions are made.
CTH noted several weeks ago that based on the background moves in advance of Ron DeSantis’s reelection efforts, it became increasingly clear the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) was going to play a bigger role in 2024 in full alignment with the GOP establishment.
In some ways the leveraging of the RGA is the difference between the Big Club’s 2016 (Jeb!) effort, and the 2024 (Ron!) effort. It was obvious in 2022 with the amount of money the RGA poured into the FL governor’s coffers, a reelection race with a consistent double point lead, the RGA was not doing it for the 2022 reelection – they were building the DeSantis war chest for 2024.
The DeSantis management and branding group are in alignment with, and in close coordination with, the RGA.
At CTH we accept things as they are, not as we would wish them to be.
The Big Club is fooling many, but not here, not now and not today – or ever.
Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never return to that moment in the performance when you did not see them.
There are far more of us than them, and once people realize the scale of the duplicity and professional Republican corruption, the backlash against this Big Club branding and management team -together with their “influencers” and willing conscripts- is going to leave a lot of “conservative pundits” very isolated, alone and irrelevant.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 6, 2023 | Sundance
… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation. The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept.
The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link). However, when you overlay the expanded Dept of State mission that Obama delivered, transferring GEC intent to domestic operations, suddenly the background of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop makes sense. [Musk Tweet Link]
Readers here are so far ahead of the curve on this story, it’s kind of cool, funny, and yet frustrating at the same time. Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop is all a wild conspiracy theory born from the oddly wired brain of some dude in the corner of the internet; until suddenly it’s not.
Factually, it has been staring at everyone since the operation began in 2011, yet no one was willing to believe it. Apparently, Elon Musk is starting to realize what is inside the communication platform he purchased.
For several years, CTH has been outlining the relationship between DHS and social media. Currently, the headlines are filled with stories about Twitter and revelations of censorship and government influence coming from the purchase of the platform by Elon Musk. However, as I said from the outset of this new moment, I promise you things are not what they seem.
As noted earlier, and it is worth repeating, let me put some context to the dynamic that will hopefully clarify what is going on, and perhaps the context will help explain what you are seeing and what you are not seeing as this unfolds. There are going to be a lot of citations to fill in the details, and understanding the modern Fourth Branch of Government is critical. The bigger picture also explains why SSCI Chairman Mark Warner said “people will die” if the seized Trump Mar-a-Lago documents become public.
♦ Elevator Speech: Twitter is to the U.S. government as TikTok is to China. The overarching dynamic is the need to control public perceptions and opinions. DHS has been in ever increasing control of Twitter since the public-private partnership was formed in 2011/2012. Jack Dorsey lost control and became owner emeritus; arguably, Elon Musk had no idea (you’ll see proof toward the end).
To explain the background activity of Twitter in a way that readers could understand, I used the metaphor of Twitter as Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.
…”The metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business. Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.
It didn’t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn’t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there. Few people thought about such things. Curiously, it didn’t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack’s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.
Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter. Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers. Some were denied. A debate began.”…
Here’s what happened….
In/around 2011 and 2012 the U.S. Government, Obama administration and the U.S. State Dept., came into Jack’s Coffee Shop and asked him for help.
The govt officials needed to deliver massive amounts of coffee to their allies in Egypt, Libya and the middle east to support the Arab Spring party. Jack told the officials he was willing to help but didn’t have the capacity to deliver on that scale. The officials told Jack not to worry, they would handle that aspect – he just needed to agree to the partnership and let them utilize his business. Jack agreed.
[Note, the timing here is not accidental. The operational agreement happened at the same time DHS was fine tuning the domestic surveillance systems to monitor social media platforms and target political opposition. See The Fourth Branch.]
Over the next several weeks, months and eventually years, Jack watched as hundreds of new employees flooded into the business to facilitate the rapid expansion. Along with a myriad of new faces, new equipment was delivered, and soon Jack found himself looking at heavy industrial equipment erecting large buildings in the back lots of the property. Coffee urns were replaced with massive industrial coffee delivery systems that far exceeded anything Jack ever imagined.
Business was booming, but slowly Jack realized he had lost control. Jack was riding a dragon.
As the years progressed, thousands of new employees moved into the offices of the new buildings and massive pipelines were producing incredible scales of coffee. Jack noted offices of the United Nations Human Rights Commission were now creating unique blends of coffee for international distribution, and the European Commission had an entire suite of specially trained coffee production engineers creating alternate combinations and flavors.
By 2018, Jack had essentially become an “owner emeritus”; his name was on the shingle, but the day-to-day operation of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop had turned into an industrial park complex.
Jack saw his personal wealth attached to the success of the business, but operationally, his only responsibility was traveling to symposiums and venues where he would stand on stage and wax philosophically about the future of a coffee delivery organization he no longer controlled. Day-to-day operations were now controlled by experts in the scale of massive industrial coffee. Those experts came from the Dept of Homeland Security.
[The Intercept] – […] Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.
“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.
In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” (read more)
To streamline the operational efficiencies as the industrial coffee system grew, direct portals between the Washington DC government offices and Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop were created. Officials no longer needed to travel to the location of Jack’s Coffee Shop in order to operate the valves, mixers, grinders and systems to generate the scale of blends being produced.
Experts could now use direct portals to the facility to operate the coffee production systems remotely, with a limited number of specially trained (FBI) coffee engineers doing the laborious tasks and maintenance at the facility.
The badges were intimidating to Jack who went to sleep every night under the realization he no longer had any clue about how the coffee shop communication business was operating.
[…] The extent to which the DHS initiatives affect Americans’ daily social feeds is unclear. During the 2020 election, the government flagged numerous posts as suspicious, many of which were then taken down, documents cited in the Missouri attorney general’s lawsuit disclosed. And a 2021 report by the Election Integrity Partnership at Stanford University found that of nearly 4,800 flagged items, technology platforms took action on 35 percent — either removing, labeling, or soft-blocking speech, meaning the users were only able to view content after bypassing a warning screen. The research was done “in consultation with CISA,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Prior to the 2020 election, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI, CISA, and other government representatives. According to NBC News, the meetings were part of an initiative, still ongoing, between the private sector and government to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election. (keep reading)
After several years of increasing distance from the Coffee Shop operation he initially started, eventually Jack decided it was silly to own an industrial coffee delivery system that he didn’t control. So, Jack decided to sell his shingle to someone else.
Enter, Elon Musk.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a man intimately familiar with large industrial systems and government, had been watching the disgruntled visitors to Jack’s Coffee Shop who were no longer permitted to enter. Musk saw an inequity between the amount of coffee that was available, and the scarcity of the coffee amid a community blacklisted by the operational executives and managers of the shop.
With expressions of both interest and fellowship, Mr. Elon Musk told Mr. Jack Dorsey he would take ownership of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and remove any discriminatory guards that were now controlling permitted entry. Jack had no aversion to Elon and eventually a deal was brokered.
After the transfer of sale was complete, Mr. Musk fired many of the guards and then set about checking the payroll to identify which group of shop employees were actually involved in the generation of coffee, and which employees were involved in promotion of the industrial coffee delivery system that were no longer needed.
Within this process, Elon Musk begins to discover the complex nature of what, at least at the surface, appeared to be an uncomplicated coffee shop. Why is there a 500-room glass walled office building on the backside of the coffee shop? What is going on in that GEC building that has anything to do with selling domestic coffee?
The sunlight revelations began surfacing a few months ago when someone of reasonably intelligent curiosity finally asked Elon Musk the right question about this direct portal from DHS into the coffee shop. How Mr. Musk replied might surprise you.
You see, the Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop metaphor is evidenced in the Musk response.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has no idea that a DHS portal into the coffee shop existed and what it would be for. WATCH:
To put it in brutally honest terms, the State Dept initially created the partnership between the U.S. government and Twitter (Arab Spring). However, when the operations needed to become domestically centered (post Trump election), another agency stepped in…. The United States Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.
You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is. Decide for yourself, but with public statements it genuinely looks like Musk didn’t know.
Regardless of foreknowledge, I feel confident the conflicting and odd datapoints only reconcile in one direction. The State Dept started it, but now DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.
Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of a quasi govt controlled enterprise.
If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.
Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating any consequential public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding Mr. Musk selected information about their prior Twitter operations. DHS is still the ghost in the machine.
TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.
The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.
Mr. Elon Musk and his team are combing through millions of lines of algorithmic code, trying to find that “fundamental part” that will deliver their own ‘ah-ha’ moment. Until then, we keep watching and smiling…
[…] “Intelligence agencies backed new startups designed to monitor the vast flow of information across social networks to better understand emerging narratives and risks.” [HERE]
Posted originally on the CTH on February 6, 2023 | Sundance
John Boyd Jr., President of the National Black Farmers Association appears on Newsmax TV to discuss the ongoing issue of higher farm input costs. Energy costs, fertilizer costs, fuel costs as well as all packing and distribution costs that are associated with petroleum manufacturing, are continuing to drive farm costs throughout the supply chain.
After a review of the current farm output status, there is a very strong possibility we will see the fourth wave of food inflation hit this spring, in combination with several manufacturing and production facilities. Again, the lack of consumer spending on durable goods has moderated the price in hard goods (supplies up, demand down); however, the highly consumable products like food, fuel and energy continue to experience upward price pressure as a direct result of Biden energy policy. WATCH:
If consumers could eat missiles and weapons, the U.S. government would be offsetting the costs. Unfortunately, for actual farming products, there is no government attention, policy or support. Apparently, food is still not considered a national security issue.
COMMENT: Marty, I know you no longer want to work in Washington. Honestly, your experience is greatly needed. Everything you said that this braindead administration is pushing China and Russia together when Nixon had divided them is coming true. The WSJ has even reported that China is aiding Russia in Ukraine. With all due respect, what you have been saying is not rocket science. There is no common sense in the Biden Administration and every damn person who voted for him should be rounded up for treason.
Thank you for the straight facts.
GD
ANSWER: I understand what you are saying. There is nothing I can do in Washington. Biden has destroyed the world economy. Globalization is dead. Our sanctions have divided the world in two and Russia is immune to our sanctions.
These people in the Biden Administration have their agenda and it is to destroy the United States, our values, culture, and traditions, and remake it into a land of their vision. The Biden Administration has DELIBERATELY waged war against Russia to change our energy system and the goal has been to destroy Russia because 50% of its GDP is fossil fuels.
Even the BBC now reports that this war has accelerated the shift to clean energy, quoting a report now from British Petroleum. Even the Economist, the magazine that is incapable of walking a straight line because it slants to the left so much, is cheering Biden so you know we are screwed. They wrote:
“This is America in 2033, if the Biden administration has its way. In the past two years Congress has passed three bills, on infrastructure, semiconductor chips and greenery, that will make $2trn available to reshape the economy. “
This is why I say that Republican forms of government are the WORST possible. They are no different from a dictatorship other than we pretend to have a right to vote, but there is no representation. None of these issues were EVER submitted to the people for a vote. Biden is changing EVERYTHING about America to the point we no longer can even define what a woman is anymore according to this Administration.
Quite frankly, I can scream all I want, but there is no changing the direction of the country at the polls. Our system of government is precisely what the revolution was all about – no taxation without representation. We have no right to vote to reignite this cold war about to turn red hot because these people also think there are just too many of us running around and they have the RIGHT to create war and hopefully eliminate 50% of the population.
Unfortunately, I have to wait for Scotty to beam me up before I can escape this insanity.
“Eve of Destruction” was a protest song written by P. F. Sloan. Barry McGuire recorded the track in July 1965 about the Vietnam War. History repeats – always – because human nature never changes.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 5, 2023 | Sundance
According to the latest ABC/WaPo polling [Full pdf Here], 41% of Americans say they are worse off financially under Joe Biden. That is the highest negative response to the question in the 37-year history of ABC polling.
Yet we are supposed to believe voters suffering under the worst financial outlooks in 40-years rewarded Joe Biden just two months ago with support for his Democrat Party and candidates? Something is just not adding up.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 5, 2023 | Sundance
This is one of those interviews where you don’t have to take my word for what is being said, Gary Cohn and Margaret Brennan are gleeful about the January jobs report and the overall return of the U.S. economy to a service driven system with low wages. Seriously, this is them celebrating out loud.
In order to calm the Wall Street apoplexy about his election victory, President Trump selected Gary Cohn to be an economic advisor early in the administration. However, it was also no surprise that President Trump did not follow Cohn’s advice, and quickly dispatched him after Cohn protested. In this interview the worldview of Cohn is typically globalist, multinational and Wall St centric.
Talking about the January jobs report, Cohn literally gets everything wrong from the position of Main Street USA. Cohn also celebrates what he calls the “renormalization of the new economy.” Continuing with his thought process Cohn states, “A lot of the jobs that we saw were jobs in the service industry, the service, the industries coming back very strong because we’re starting to see the economy go back to what we historically think of the economy,” he said. This is exactly how Wall Street, and the multinationals look at the U.S. economy.
The next part that both Cohn and Margaret Brennan celebrate is even more sunlight. “The interesting thing about last month’s unemployment numbers is we brought people back to work, but we did not have to entice them with pay,” Cohn stated. “So, the monthly, the month over month number in wage gains was 30 basis points. The prior month was 40 basis points. So, we’re seeing we’re getting people back into the labor force for a lower wage than we were prior to this,” he said. With higher prices (inflation) crushing the middle-class and service workers, the multinationals Cohn represents are celebrating that they don’t have to pay workers higher wages. WATCH:
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: So 517,000 new jobs, but a lot of companies, particularly in tech, are announcing layoffs. So exactly where’s the economy headed?
GARY COHN: So, it’s interesting. We did see the 500,000 plus new jobs, which was quite surprising, I think, to many of us. But I think what we’re actually seeing here is a renormalization of the new economy. A lot of the jobs that we saw were jobs in the service industry, the service, the industries coming back very strong because we’re starting to see the economy go back to what we historically think of the economy. For the first time, we’ve seen occupancy rates in offices in major cities over 50%. When you see occupancy rates go up, you need the service sector to work. Think about people going back into the office. They need parking attendants. They need people to work in the buildings. They need security. They need people to clean the buildings. People stop for coffee when they go into the buildings. They go out to lunch. They go to bars. For the- for that to happen, you need the service sectors to come back to work. So the 120,000 service sector employees that came back to work, that 100% correlates with people going back to what is the new normal. It may not be five days a week in the office, but it’s enough days in the week in the office where you need the service sector to come back to work. The interesting thing about last month’s unemployment numbers is we brought people back to work, but we did not have to entice them with pay. So the monthly, the month over month number in wage gains was 30 basis points. The prior month was 40 basis points. So we’re seeing we’re getting people back into the labor force for a lower wage than we were prior to this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And that’s a little bit hopeful for you on the inflation front.
GARY COHN: Yeah, and I think this is natural. I think what we’ve seen is, after all the stimulus that was put in the system over the last three months, people are running out of the stimulus money. We saw that in the fourth quarter of last year. We saw consumer spending slow down. We saw debit balances on credit cards go up. We started to see delinquencies go up. And you know what happened? People actually did the right thing and they went back to work. They’re engaged and they reenter the workforce. And I think we saw a lot of that in the January numbers.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So these more positive signs have led Bank of America, for example, to say recession still in the cards, but not until after March. I wonder what your thoughts are on that. And as CEOs warned about borrowing costs going up as a result of the Fed hiking. They are tightening belts. So how far off is this recession?
GARY COHN: Well, we’ve got a couple of phenomena going on. Interest rates have been going up, so borrowing costs have been going up for companies. On the flip side, the dollar has been weakening. So the multinational corporations in the United States who repatriate earnings from offshore, those repatriated earnings have become more valuable. I think the people that have been really worried about a recession in the first and second quarter of this year, I think after what we’ve seen this week with both Chairman Powell’s announcements and the data in unemployment, I think that recession is off the table for Q and one in Q2 of this year. You know, we’re going to get another employment report before the next Fed meeting and we’ll see where the economy’s going. But it does feel like we’re in relatively good shape here. The question is going to be how does the Federal Reserve handle what’s going on in the economy? Are we going to continue to have to increase wages to draw people back in the labor force, or are people coming back in the labor force because they need to? And we’re not going to have wage inflation if that happens. The Federal Reserve is actually in a very good place.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about something the Fed chair said this week. He said Congress has to lift this debt ceiling. I’m throwing one of the things that could screw up your- your rosy prediction at you. He said no one should assume that the Fed can protect the economy from the consequences of failing to act in a timely manner. He’s warning he’s not making plans for a default. You’re on your own if it happens.
GARY COHN: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Should there be a plan for the Fed to step in? I mean, I know legally it’s in question here, but I talk to people on Capitol Hill who say Wall Street is not taking this seriously enough. The politics are really bad around the debt ceiling.
GARY COHN: The politics are very bad. You know, the one thing is every American, every American is holding the US government to raise the debt ceiling. The full faith and credit of the US dollar and the US dollar being the reserve currency is imperative to our economic well-being as a country. We ultimately have to get the debt ceiling raised. That said, what’s going on here is not something out of the ordinary. If you look at debt ceiling raises over the last 40 or 50 years, no matter which party is in the minority, about 50% of the time, debt ceiling raises come with some amendments attached- attached to them from the other party. So this is quite an. Normal, the process that we’re going through.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You don’t sound overly concerned.
GARY COHN: Like I’m always concerned when we’re dealing with debt ceiling, but I have a feeling that we will get there in the end when we have no other choice. You had this- you had the speaker here last week and he felt confident that we would get there when we had no other choice. The speaker met with the president of the United States this week. The two of them came out of the meeting relatively confident. I feel they both understand there is no choice. In the end of the day, we have to raise the debt ceiling. The question is, can the Republicans get something in the legislation, attach the debt ceiling legislation that they want that they feel like is a win and the Democrats are willing to give it to? Historically, that is what’s happened numerous times.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah. And the risk there is real. I want to ask you as well about China. Mark Warner was here with us last week and he said technology competition with China is the biggest issue of our time. He’s worried about things that- like your company does IBM, in terms of quantum computing. Is enough being done to keep America competitive on that front?
GARY COHN: Well, we’re starting you know, if you look at where we’ve been this year, you know, we passed the CHIPS Act in the United States, which, you know, is- is- is something that’s not a normal motion for us in the United States for the federal government to pick and choose–
MARGARET BRENNAN: To subsidize.
GARY COHN: –an industry, and and to subsidize. It really is not a normal action- is an action that, you know, historically I probably not would have been have supportive. I was extremely supportive of the CHIPS Act, we at IBM was extremely supportive of the CHIPS Act. If we learned nothing else from the pandemic, we learned that there are certain goods that are necessity goods for this country to have, and we are overly reliant on places like China. And if we don’t find ways to change the manufacturing system in the supply chain and move it back to the United States where we can take care of ourselves, we have made a catastrophic miscalculation. Chips are one of those areas where we cannot depend on the rest of the world and run our manufacturing business and continue to grow our economy. Pharmaceuticals is another area where we really have to move that industry and that manufacturing back to the United States. So I think we really have to evaluate what are the most crucial and sensitive businesses or industries that we cannot live within the United States. And we’re going to have to make real investments in those here in this country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’ll keep talking about it with legislators. Have to figure out how to pass some of those laws. We’re going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we’ll be talking with four members of the freshman class and the 118th Congress.
Only in America where we have Democratic politicians preaching about the greed of the rich at a $10,000.00 a plate campaign fund-raising event held at John Kerry’s home. Yes it was $10,000 to get in.
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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 