The Federal Reserve raised the benchmark by 25 bps, as expected. The Fed fully understands that the manipulation of the CPI is a necessary aspect both for containing government benefits and understating inflation also results in high tax revenues. The market loves hope, and as a result, they focused on the warning that we’ll be in restrictive territory for just a bit longer. Most still believe that there will be a slowdown in inflation just ahead.
The Fed’s cautionary commentary saying that the “disinflation process” has started triggered shares to jump ending up 1%. This shows how insane the analysis had become that they cheer a recession and think that lower interest rates are bullish for the stock market. Obviously, they just listen to the talking heads on TV and have never bothered to look at reality. When interest rates decline, so has the stock market. Interest rates rose for the entire Trump Rally, and they crashed during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. For the life of me, I just shake my head when the talking heads cheer lower rates and spread doom and gloom with higher rates.
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks about Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum sending a creepy warning to Elon Musk about his running of Twitter; the arrest of Andrew Tate for human trafficking in Romania and his Twitter war with Greta Thunberg; and Bill Gates revealing his plan for how ESG scores will be used to control corporations all over the world in the name of fighting climate change and ending the use of fossil fuels. Dave also does a special “ask me anything” question-and-answer session on a wide-ranging host of topics, answering questions from the Rubin Report Locals community.
Our Independent Inflation model has calculated that the combined rate for everything from food to transportation came in at 32% for 2022. That is a far cry from the official number. This is simply calculated by Socrates from an unbiased perspective. Thank you, COVID & the Russian Sanctions. What a new wonderful world the Biden Administration has created.
Gamazda Piano Published originally on Rumble on December 4, 2022
The Sound of Silence is what we will have at the end of World War III as we will all be gone if we can’t find a way to stop the Great Reset and the Build Back Better insanity of Klaus Schwab
There is an onslaught of misinformation about the Federal Reserve from everything that it can go bankrupt, and the Treasury will become a second central bank, and of course, the Fed is really the cause of inflation and its balance sheet. The proposal by Janey Yellen to buy in long-term debt and swap it with short-term is not “creating” money for the Treasury has no such power. It was a proposal for a debt swap to shorten the yield curve. The first proposition that the Fed can go bankrupt only suggests that people do not comprehend that the Fed is different entirely from the European Central Bank.
The Fed has the authority to create elastic money for it followed the very idea of J.P. Morgan and how he saved the economy during the Panic of 1907. The Fed can create money when there is a shortage due to economic contractions, and it can then reduce its balance sheet reducing the money supply. When the Fed was created, it was established with branches around the country because the Panic of 1907 exposed that there were regional capital flow problems. The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake drained the cash from the East where all the insurance companies were.
As we can see from this clip of rates in 1927, each branch was independent. There was an excess case in Kansas City so they lowered the interest rates there in hopes that capital would migrate to the other districts to earn more interest. All of that was eliminated by Franklin D. Roosevelt who wanted (1) to stack the Supreme Court to approve his Marxist agenda, which failed, and then he usurped all the power of the Federal Reserve and created the Washington headquarters and the President then was to appoint the head of the Federal Reserve and to illegally lobby him to ensure that his presidential agenda was to be the policy at the Federal Reserve. There was no more independence of the branches.
When Biden was running in 2020, he actually proposed requiring the Federal Reserve to regularly report on what they are doing to close economic gaps that exist along racial lines in the United States. Biden has viewed the Fed as a social tool and he has been making efforts to manipulate the Federal Reserve which will be extremely dangerous if they are carried out. Now, the Biden Administration is talking about closing branches of the Federal Reserve and replacing those board members with his hand-picked political cronies. In January 2022, he was pushing for black economists to be appointed to the Federal Reserve Board. My concern is that academics have ZERO experience and do not really understand the global economy trapped by domestic Keynesian Economics.
It was Paul Volcker who Chaired the Fed into the high in the interest rates back in 1981 who concluded in his Rediscovery of the Business Cycle that “it was not until the events of 1974 and 1975, when a recession sprung on an unsuspecting world with an intensity unmatched in the post-World War II period, that the lessons of the ‘New Economics’ were seriously challenged.” However, former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke has suggested that the Fed’s failure to contain inflation during the 1970s traced back to the political forces that shaped the Fed chairs in charge that he expressed in his book “21st Century Monetary Policy.” He wrote that the inflation of the ’70s puzzled economists relying on the 1958-ventage Phillips Curve, which would have predicted high inflation only in combination with extremely low unemployment rates. Bernanke admitted that the Phillips curve had “broken down” during the 1970s.
The critical problem with the entire way we view inflation rests on the QTM (Quantity Theory of Money) and the assumption that a mere increase in supply must produce inflation. There is absolutely nothing in the economic data that supports these old theories that were based upon (1) fixed exchange rates, and (2) the supply & demand theory dates back to the days of coinage. It was John Law who came up with the supply/demand theory that everyone else plagiarized, including Adam Smith. John Law’s writings influenced many, although they would never admit it. He was clearly the FIRST to use the term DEMAND and he was certainly the FIRST to join it with the word SUPPLY, for only a trader could have seen this connection in the price movements of anything.
The greatest fallacy of Keynesian Economics, Supply v Demand, and the Phillips Curve is that they have ALL failed because the US dollar is the reserve currency of the world and by default, the Federal Reserve has become the central bank of the world. With Biden desperate to get his hands around the neck of the Federal Reserve and force it to yield to his political agenda, threatens more than merely the US economy – but the entire world. Bernanke acknowledges in his book:
“Martin, my boys are dying in Vietnam, and you won’t print the money I need,” President Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly told then-Fed Chair William McChesney Martin Jr. at his Texas ranch after the central bank announced a half-point increase to its key discount rate over inflation fears, Bernanke writes. White House tapes, meanwhile, reveal President Richard Nixon frequently appealing to Fed Chair Arthur Burns’ Republican-party ties to clear the runway for more easy-money policies, with one call going as far as urging the Fed chair not to make any policy decisions that could “hurt us” in the November 1972 election.
I warned the Fed back then that buying in 30-year bonds during the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis, would NOT stimulate the domestic economy for one simple reason and this is why both the goldbugs and central bankers have been wrong. The domestic money supply DID NOT increase to stimulate when China was saying thank you very much and swapping their 30-year holdings for 10-year or less. The assumption that any central bank can control the domestic economy is absurd. The holdings of debt are global. Therefore, buying in 30-year bonds to reduce the supply in hopes of reducing the mortgage rates failed because the money did not stay in the USA. That is why the Fed then began to buy the mortgaged-backed securities because that was a more direct impact domestically.
As the money supply increased and the national debt rose consistently, gold declined from 1980 into 1999 for 19 years. All the theories of inflation driving gold higher were simply wrong just as the central bankers relied on the very same theories.
It was World War I and II that drove the gold to flee to the United States so by 1950, there was no choice but to make the dollar the reserve currency. Yet more significant was the realization that the factor which produced that result was ENTIRELY external to the domestic economy. Therefore, all the economic theories were bogus because they were all focused on domestic policy thanks to Karl Marx whose central theory was the government possessed the power to eliminate the business cycle by confiscating all private assets. That altered human nature and created economic stagnation. Nevertheless, Keynes and everyone else have sought to accomplish the very same authority that Marx maintained existed.
This focus on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has reversed the GNP (Gross National Product), which was more global in its scope. If we attributed world trade to the flag the company flies rather than where it sets up a plant, then you would see that the United States has a trade surplus and not a trade deficit. This is also a backdrop to the reserve status of the dollar. Perhaps the greatest of all the wild proposals is that somehow Bitcoin will rise from the ashes and become the new Reserve Currency of the world. So all governments will issue debt in Bitcoin? Politicians will never be able to run for office and Socialism must collapse.
Rather than betting on the power grid to survive if governments collapse, I think we will see the pre-1965 silver coins return for a medium of exchange and gold for larger transactions. I have said plenty of times, GOLD will NOT rise as a hedge against inflation, it is a hedge against the collapse in confidence of the government.
As I have written before, when the Japanese government lost the confidence of the people, they lost the ability to produce any money for 600 years. The people used the coins of China and bags of rice – no Japanese coins were ever acceptable for 600 years which was the same time interval it took to reestablish gold in Europe following the fall of the Roman Empire.
We accept the named legislation “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) is a legislative misnomer intended to obfuscate the true construct of the bill. The IRA was factually the ‘green new deal’ program packaged under the guise of an ‘inflation reduction’ premise. However, in order to discuss the outcome of the content we have to play the game of pretending around the purpose of the legislation.
Within the IRA there was a $7,500 tax credit for American made Electric Vehicles. The intent of the legislation was to provide incentives for U.S. consumers to purchase ‘sustainable’ and environmentally friendly electric cars, trucks, SUV’s etc made in America.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scored the bill with this legislative intent in mind. However, the Treasury Department is now taking apart the granular details of the legislation in order to qualify foreign made vehicles for the $7,500 credit. The rules interpretation from the Treasury Dept essentially negates the CBO score, and the outcome is going to be much more expensive than initially stated.
Because the $7,500 comes in the form of a tax credit, the IRS (Treasury) is the institution making the determinations for qualification. Treasury is changing the qualifications to permit basically any EV to qualify, by parsing a difference between a leased vehicle and a purchased vehicle. Additionally, Treasury is changing the battery sourcing aspect by qualifying essentially any trade agreement as a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), saying the term Free Trade Agreement was undefined in the legislation.
As an outcome & simply cutting to the chase, EV batteries from just about anywhere, inside EV vehicles from basically anywhere, that are purchased as leases from just about any auto manufacturer, will qualify for the $7,500 credit. It’s all a shell game, with the Biden administration determining where the pea is located.
Dec 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday that electric vehicles leased by consumers starting Jan. 1 can qualify for up to $7,500 in commercial clean vehicle tax credits, a decision that makes those assembled outside North America eligible.
The announcement is a win for South Korea and some automakers that earlier this month sought approval to use the commercial electric vehicle tax credit to boost consumer EV access. Automakers said the credit could be used to reduce leasing prices.
The $430 billion U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in August ended $7,500 consumer tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles assembled outside North America, angering South Korea, the European Union, Japan and others. The new Treasury guidance does not change the definition of what constitutes North American assembly to make more vehicles eligible for EV purchases.
Treasury said it was using “longstanding tax principles” to determine consumer leasing could qualify for the EV tax credit.
The IRA also imposes significant battery minerals and component sourcing restrictions, sets income and price caps for qualifying vehicles and seeks to phase out Chinese battery minerals or components. The commercial credit does not, however, have the sourcing restrictions of the consumer credit.
Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat who chairs the chamber’s energy panel, urged Treasury to pause implementation of both commercial and new consumer EV tax credits and said they had bent “to the desires of the companies looking for loopholes” and would seek new legislation that “prevents this dangerous interpretation from Treasury from moving forward.” (read more)
From the Wall Street Journal, “One of the documents released Thursday pointed out that because the legislation doesn’t define what a free-trade agreement is, the Treasury Department might consider other types of trade agreements to expand the eligibility. The department didn’t provide examples of such agreements, but trade lawyers have suggested that the 2019 bilateral trade agreement with Japan and the World Trade Organization’s government procurement agreement could be candidates.” (link)
I am reminded of the words from Democrat Congressman Alcee Hastings during the construction of the ObamaCare legislation. WATCH (10 secs):
Please help as I invest in mostly ETFs from Australia. I was getting USD exposure but now looks to be ending by Jan 1st, 2023.
I was Informed 2 days ago.
Could you do a post about this and any potential workarounds as I’d take a guess a lot of International clients would have a similar issue.
The US Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has issued a new provision under Section 1446(f) of the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) that primarily impacts non-US Persons who invest in US PTP Securities. With effect from 1 January 2023, non-US Persons will incur a 10% withholding tax on gross proceeds from sales or trading of US PTP Securities.
Regards Dean
ANSWER: This is once again the Biden Administration hunting every possible dime it can find while handing endless billion to Zelensky who may be on track to become the richest corrupt politician in the entire world. This is the notice going out to all foreigners investing in the once land of the free and home of the brave which has been downgraded to the land of the absolute fools without the hill. One bank has sent this to their clients trading in US ETFs.
Dear Customer,
Withholding Tax of 10% – Publicly Traded Partnership Interest (PTPs)
With effect from 1 January 2023, a 10% withholding will be imposed on sales and certain distributions associated with PTPs or exchange traded funds (ETFs).
PTPs trade like stocks on major U.S. and global exchanges and are often indistinguishable from equities, ETFs and other commonly traded instruments. It is critical that you understand these tax implications when you hold such PTPs and you should seek the appropriate professional advice if you are unsure of the contents of this email.
Background:
The Internal Revenue Code Section 1446(f) issued by the US Internal Revenue Service imposes rules relating to withholding of tax on transfers of Publicly Traded Partnership Interest (PTPs) and will take effect on 1 January 2023. The new rules consist of the following:
· All PTPs, including non-U.S. PTPs, are subject to the new requirements if they have gains that are effectively connected with a trade or business within the United States.
· 10% withholding will be applied to sales and certain distributions associated with PTPs. (Please note that where there is any existing withholding tax being applied today, for example to other distributions, those will continue to be applied with no change/ no reduction)
Please visit _____ official website > Notices for more details.
If you have any further questions, please email us or call our Customer Service line.
Section 1446 (see link) is part of a segment of the Code that governs withholding on nonresident aliens and foreign corporations.
Section 1446 itself deals with withholding on foreign partners who have income that is effectively connected with the US through a partnership. Section 1446(f) adds a withholding requirement that applies to the disposition of partnership interests, but it does not apply if the selling partner provides an appropriate affidavit:
“No person shall be required to deduct and withhold any amount under paragraph (1) with respect to any disposition if the transferor furnishes to the transferee an affidavit by the transferor stating, under penalty of perjury, the transferor’s United States taxpayer identification number and that the transferor is not a foreign person.”
I.R.C. § 1446(f)(2)(A).
I doubt that section 1446 applies here, as my understanding is that ETFs are taxed as registered investment companies, not as partnerships. But I am not an accountant or a tax lawyer. My reading on this text suggests that this turns on the definition of an ETF which is clearly not a partnership.
Those who are being harassed by various banks should contact their legal departments and demand their interpretation as to why suddenly an ETF is a partnership. I would love to see what explanation they have provided to apply this tax. If there is some other code they are overlapping or how they are coming up with this or are they acting out of sheer overcaution? If they will not provide an explanation, I suggest you close the account ASAP or wire out all funds until you find another firm.
Glenn Greenwald Published originally on Rumble on November 26, 2022
We are working hard to prepare our new live, nightly prime-time program — SYSTEM UPDATE — which will debut shortly on Rumble. Once launched, it will air every night for one hour, Monday through Friday, at 7 pm ET and will be freely available to everyone. Once the show is concluded, we will move to Locals for an interactive after-show — for our Locals subscribers only — where we will take questions, address ideas, and hear audience feedback.
For now we are perfecting the show in anticipation of our launch by streaming our live test-run shows on Locals. Last night (Friday night), we focused our monologue on the media’s truly panic-driven and demented meltdown over the possibility that there will be one social media platform on the internet — Twitter — that they cannot censor and control. The monologue examines the underlying motives and drives that cause corporate media employees to panic in the face of free speech, as well as the insidious and potent plan that is being constructed — right out in the open — to destroy any social media platform that refuses to submit to censor orders, the way they did to Parler.
We believe there is no more urgent issue than the full-scale, multi-pronged attack on free speech on the internet. The censorship regime they are constructing will enable them to propagandize the population without challenge and fully control the flow of information. That is why we are devoting our work and producing our show exclusively on Rumble, a company that we truly believe is committed to preserving free speech and defying censorship pressures not only as a brand but as a cause. Stay tuned for the premiere of our new live SYSTEM UPDATE program here on Rumble. We hope you enjoy this glimpse of the show we are in the final stages of perfecting.
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