Toxic Currencies – Good for the Yuan


Armstrong Economics Blog/China Re-Posted Mar 14, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The Chinese yuan has out-traded the US dollar by volume for one of the first times in recent Russian history. The dollar was king in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, but that is no longer the case after Moscow branded the dollar a “toxic currency” along with the euro. Toxic currencies accounted for 87% of exports from Russia at the beginning of 2022, but this figure fell to 48% by the start of the new year. The Bank of Russia has reported that the proportion of USD/ruble pair in exchange fell to only 36% in February. The central bank is calling this a “broad structural transformation of the Russian economy.”

As “unfriendly countries” and their “toxic currencies” band together, those on the outskirts are winning. China has become the new go-to country for new trade partnerships as it bypasses Western-imposed sanctions. Toxic currencies represented 46% of imports in December 2022 but were at 65% in January 2022 before the war. In contrast, the yuan’s share rose from 4% to 23% during that time.

Those who were previously shunned from the big table are now pulling up a chair to discuss economic prospects with China. This will make it much easier to phase out toxic currencies because more people are willing to accept the yuan. The confidence in the yuan is growing. Everything occurring may seem odd, but it is precisely on target. As I mentioned in my report “China on the Rise,” China will dethrone the United States to become the world’s leading economic powerhouse by 2032. It’s just time.

Mike Pence Blames President Trump for Events at Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, “his reckless words endangered my family … history will hold Donald Trump accountable”


Posted originally on the CTH on March 12, 2023 | Sundance

Speaking at the Gridiron Dinner in Washington DC yesterday, former Vice President Mike Pence directly blamed President Trump for the events in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, saying:

“President Trump was wrong; I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”  ~ Mike Pence

Be of good cheer.  Despite the main takeaway being pushed by mainstream media, these remarks strike me as good news.

These remarks indicate to me that the professional Republican control officers are growing increasingly desperate as President Trump continues to command the new Republican Party.  If Ron DeSantis was making ground, the professional Republican class would not be as desperate as these remarks convey.  All of their collective GOPe effort isn’t working…. they are starting to reach for the kitchen sink.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday harshly criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, widening the rift between the two men as they prepare to battle over the Republican nomination in next year’s election.

“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said during remarks at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner attended by politicians and journalists. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Pence’s remarks were the sharpest condemnation yet from the once-loyal lieutenant who has often shied away from confronting his former boss. Trump has already declared his candidacy. Pence has not, but he’s been laying the groundwork to run.

[…] With his remarks, Pence solidified his place in a broader debate within the Republican Party over how to view the attack. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, for example, recently provided Tucker Carlson with an archive of security camera footage from Jan. 6, which the Fox News host has used to downplay the day’s events and promote conspiracy theories.

“Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace,” Pence said in his Gridiron Dinner remarks. “And it mocks decency to portray it any other way.” (read more)

War Footing or Ukraine? – Biden Waives Section 303 of DPA Related to Weapons, Ammunition, Explosives and Components


Posted Originally on the CTH on February 27, 2023 | Sundance 

The Defense Production Act (DPA 1950 amended, pdf) essentially is a legislative hurdle that stops the executive from stepping into the private sector and restricting trade, commerce or manufacturing, unless the President says a critical shortage of “xxxx” is present and national security is at stake. It prevents citizens from the threat of govt nationalization of resource “xxxx”.

In the event the President makes a national security determination, he/she is required to inform congress, invoke the waiver authority, and identify which sectors he/she is now outlining as a national security… such that government purchase orders take precedent in the supply of “xxxx”.  Yesterday, President Biden invoked this authority.

Given the pandemic shortages are over, and given the sectors outlined, it looks like munitions, raw material, explosives, electronics and certain component issues related to the Defense Dept are outlined.

Key section: “Therefore, I waive the requirements of section 303(a)(1)-(a)(6) of the Act”

…”specifically for defense organic industrial base supply chains critical to the Department of Defense and critical supply chains for electronics, kinetic capabilities, castings and forgings, minerals and materials, and power and energy storage.” (link)

It’s a use of the DPA definitively targeting defense materials.  Which raises the question(s):

Is this to secure weapons for shipment to Ukraine?..  OR, Is this to secure a buildup of weapons for a larger purpose?   Meaning, is this preparing for an expanded war effort?

There is a lack of media curiosity.  However, perhaps drawing attention to it will stimulate someone to ask the Pentagon?

In the interim, ammunition might become a little harder to find.

The Republican Big Club Are All In to Have Culture War and Anti-Woke Efforts Dominate 2024 GOP Primary


Posted originally on the CTH on February 16, 2023 | Sundance

Prior to the 2012 election and the rise of the Sandra Fluke free birth control narrative, we used to call them social issues; however, the usefulness of cultural wars has morphed into the larger war of wokeism.

In the big picture, keeping the base GOPe voter distracted from the economic expansion of multinational globalism, the corporate ‘masters of the universe’ (ie. the Big Club), need to keep pushing anti-wokeism as a political strategy.  The cultural issues are useful tools to keep control of an alignment of voters.  It has always been thus, and even more important now that people are starting to realize the expansion of the rust belt.

The rust belt, the diminishment of the U.S. economic manufacturing base, was an outcome of corporate control over politics.  Corporations and banks seek profit, those profits are inflated by a U.S. service driven economic model.  Skilled jobs require higher wages.

If the skilled jobs can be outsourced to lower cost labor nations, the subsequent lowered labor costs drive bigger margins.  Again, it has always been thus.

At the core of the U.S. political issue, you discover that both wings of the DC UniParty agree with this basic economic model.  Republicans and Democrats now use the catchphrase ‘service driven economy‘ with bipartisan frequency.  Many voters no longer have any reference to an economic system that is anything except a ‘service driven economy’, yet nothing about that system provides long-term value for U.S. voters or workers.

Within this very specific dynamic, you find the root of the support for Donald J. Trump.  A larger, formerly considered silent majority who comprise the baseline middle class workforce, find common understanding with President Trump because he sees the flaws in the economic model.

Not coincidentally, it is only Donald Trump who has ever discussed these economic issues. Factually, no national politician in the modern era prior to Donald Trump ever dared broach the subject of economic globalism, and the negative consequences therein, because they would find themselves in the target field of the corporations who fund the political system.  A general platform more akin to a code of omerta covered the entire subject of republican economic policy.

As the pandemic years have shown, economic security is deeply tied to national security.  As an outcome, economic policy ultimately drives foreign policy.  When combined, the economic and foreign policy outlooks form the structural alignment of the UniParty platform.

Following the downstream effect of multinational corporate influence, modern Democrats support expansionist and interventionist foreign policy.  Meanwhile, modern Republicans, previously called “neocons” have always supported expansionist and interventionist foreign policy.  Leadership of both parties now align in a singular foreign policy outlook; thus, we see support for the Ukraine spending and intervention by both Democrats and Republicans.

However, outside the DC bubble of multinational corporate influence, the support for the interventionist foreign policy doesn’t exist in the same scale and scope.  Voters inside both the Democrat and Republican base do not support the intervention at the same level as the political leadership of both parties.  There is a structural breakdown between the priorities of voters and the priorities of the elected officials.  None of this is new discussion, we all accept this basic reality.

With political leadership of both parties supporting the same economic outlook, and both parties supporting the same foreign policy outlook, we find the source of opposition against U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Economic policy and foreign policy form the uniting bond that drives both parties to oppose Trump’s America First ideological outlook.

As long as Donald J Trump singularly represents the only counterforce against this UniParty globalist construct, he will continue to be targeted by the system of financial controllers who fund the political system.  For the sake of brevity this alignment of multinational corporate and financial economic interests is called “the big club.”

As part of the strategic political effort, the Republican wing of the Big Club needs to carve up the supporters of Donald Trump into smaller, easier to target, pieces.  This is where the value of the culture war, what is now considered as ‘wokeism’, plays into the strategy of those who seek to control political outcomes and remove the threat that Trump represents to their financial interests.

In many ways, this is why we are seeing prominent Republican officeholders pushing the culture war as a tool for their own political advancement.  The same Big Club members who are directly fighting against the America-First economic agenda, are the same Big Club members who are funding the Republican politicians to push the culture war.

The corporations, billionaires and multinationals who are funding the Republican candidates do not have any vested interest in the culture war. For them the social issues are a tool, technique or insurance policy to guarantee security of the interest that does matter, their financial status.

There are trillions at stake, literally trillions.  Additionally, decades of their prior investment interests are contingent upon the ‘service driven economy’ being maintained.

Dollars drive the U.S. global trade and financial exchanges.  The multinationals, both corporations and banks, have pre-deployed investments all around the globe.  However, many of those investments are entirely contingent upon the retention of the U.S. economic system they pre-established before the investment was made.  President Donald J. Trump represents the threat to that entire financial system.

Once you understand this, then a great deal of the more nuanced and granular U.S. political moves, almost all of which are funded by the corporations and billionaires who are attached to the global investment process, begin to make sense.

Every non-Trump candidate, funded to create the opposition to America First, is part of this process to use anti-wokeism as a strategy.

With this level of money at stake, do not be surprised when you look at how much is being spent to construct the system that guarantees the continuation of globalism. The money spent in funding the Republican candidates to advance the distracting cultural war pales in comparison to the amount of money at risk in the 2024 election outcome.

That’s the baseline for this:

…“GOP leaders and candidates should take from this poll one important lesson: voters expect them to fight wokeness,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling said. “Support for policies protecting families from gender ideology is off the charts, with the majority of the base showing a strong preference for tackling these issues. Meanwhile, approval of Republican establishment priorities was much more muted, with most of those surveyed even agreeing that GOP elected officials have given up too much ground in the culture war.”  

…“Any candidate who expects to win a Republican primary next year for any office needs to lead on cultural issues in order to win over voters,” Schilling said. “Perhaps the two most prominent leaders on these issues so far have been Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, so it should be no surprise they are far and away the favorites in the presidential field. It’s time for the rest of the party to pay heed and set their priorities accordingly.” (more)

On the very significant upside… Relax, President Trump understands this.

Candidate Donald Trump also understands the real priorities of the Big Club extend beyond this useful cultural war, deep into the world of economics and foreign policy.

As each of the corporate funded Republican candidates hits the cultural war (wokeism) effort as part of the distracting political strategy, watch President Trump generally agree with the ‘social issues’, but then counter the distraction with arguments specifically targeting economic and foreign policy.

The entire field of Republican candidates will hold the same economic and foreign policy outlook (Ukraine example), with only Donald Trump representing an alternative.

The Great Lou Dobbs Nails It


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.

:::SPIT:::

Gallup Poll – Gov’t is Our Greatest Problem


Armstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized Re-Posted Feb 1, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Gallup has just confirmed what our computer has been forecasting especially since 2011. The majority of Americans now say that a lack of leadership from President Biden and Congress is the country’s biggest problem and that means the entire world. Perhaps aliens should have a right to vote for the decisions of the Biden Administration are destroying lives around the world.

The Gallup Poll shows that it is the collapse of confidence in a government that is now viewed as the greatest threat even more so than inflation, ​the immigration crisis, and the state of the economy. Despite Americans suffering economically with higher taxes and inflation reducing the standard of living, they have cited that “the government/poor leadership” is now in the No. 1 spot taking that place from inflation over the past year. Gallup has reported that 21% of Americans name our incompetent government as the “most important problem facing this country today​” compared to the 15% who said so last year, a Gallup Poll found.

​Inflation and the economy ​came in last year as the top two issues — tied at 16% each — followed by the government (15%), immigration (8%), and unifying the country (6%). ​However, over the past year, Americans’ concerns with the economy fell 6% to 10%, with ​inflation falling one point to 15%, and immigration rose 3 points to 11%.

Just wait until they realize that the Biden Administration is so incompetent, it has allowed the Neocons to wage World War III on two fronts – China and Russia. These people will destroy Western Civilization and that is what 2032 is all about.

The Real Cost of War


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Jan 6, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Good Morning Mr. Armstrong, a long-time reader and client of Socrates and your conferences. I just read your entry for Belarus drafting 18 to 60-year-olds. I had a feeling that eventually, that would take place here in the states. I can tell you without a doubt, I will never comply. My family has served in WWII and Vietnam. We have given enough. I absolutely despise our government. I am wondering if this is part of the continued collapse of the government. With such low recruitment levels and the political fallout from the past few years, they must realize people will not be forced to serve. Especially those with the means to defend themselves. Is this a main component of civil unrest here with separatist movements? Just curious if you can elaborate on what you think will happen when they institute a draft here.
All the Best.

J

REPLY: My family has fought in every war since the American Revolution. My cousin still has the musket on his wall from the American Revolution. I lost half of my high school friends to Vietnam and my father and his three brothers were all in World War II and my grandfathers on both sides of the family were in World War I. There is no question that in a time of war, the first shot fired is both silent and never against an enemy. It is always against any truthful reporting of events.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contain records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. The government propaganda site, Wikipedia also directed by the Deep State, has low-balled the casualties claiming in total, all US and allied military deaths reached 282,000. We claim that is a victory for the VC lost 444,000 to possibly 666,000. The civilians who died have been low-balled with estimates of 405,000 up to 627,000. Just turn to Britannica and you get:

“In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters.”

President Lydon Johnson knew there was no reason to enter Vietnam. He knew we could not get out easily. Still, he committed the country to war because the Neocons wanted it.

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This is a famous photograph from Vietnam that is probably the most memorable of all time. You see South Vietnamese forces following terrified children. At the center is 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phùc, as she and other children are running from an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places on June 8, 1972. The plane accidentally dropped napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. As always, just the collateral damage of war. The terrified girl had ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing. This photo was taken by Nick Ut of The Associated Press that captured the horror of Vietnam worldwide. It was 1972 when President Nixon said enough and promised to bring the troops home.

This 9-year-old make girl running from napalm, Phan Thi Kim Phúc, had profoundly changed her forever. Such people are tormented for a lifetime. They wake up at night dreaming over and over about the horror of those events for the rest of their lives. Kim Phúc was bitter and full of hatred she said. Later, she picked up the Bible and converted to Christianity. Today, she lives in Toronto with her family and helps other children victims of war around the world. It is those who survive who are profoundly tortured for the remainder of their lives. That is the real cost of war that nobody cares about.

The official estimate of civilian deaths in World War II stands at a total of 70–85 million. The actual military deaths were 21,000,000 to 25,500,000. There is ALWAYS an equal amount of civilian deaths in times of war. Those in power never want to talk about that.