Category New Monetary Theory

Aug 14 2022

Deep Space Thoughts, with Kamala Harris


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 13, 2022 | Sundance

There are two administration officials, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, who are in a consistent state of competition with each other, about who can assemble 50 words into a 500-word speech.  The competition has been a back-and-forth contest for several years; however, Kamala’s latest entry might be hard for Pete to beat.  WATCH:

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Now it might seem unfair to take just one-minute of a soundbite as representative of her latest entry in the Hall of Shameful Linguistics, but the longer version doesn’t change the cross-eyed, what the heck did she just say, dynamic.  See below.

When you look at the next segment, the alarming part is…. she’s reading it from a teleprompter.  Meaning, someone actually assembled these words in typeset for a speech, and Kamala is reading it.  LOOK:

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To be fair, public speaking is not easy; however, public speaking is usually speaking.  I have no idea what these word assemblies would be called.

Aug 14 2022

Big Picture, Review all DC Activity from June 3rd with New Eyes


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 13, 2022 | Sundance

As many people start to recognize, perhaps some for the first time, the scale of corrupt DC activity, specifically as it surfaces in the unprecedented August 8 raid of President Trump’s home, it is important to emphasize a point.

As noted by President Trump and numerous lawyers in/around his office, the U.S. Dept of Justice and FBI visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3, 2022, to review presidential documents kept in storage boxes there.  After that visit the next contact with DOJ and FBI officials was the raid on August 8th.

With this timeline in mind, and knowing how the DC administrative deep state operates, all current evaluations must consider these dates carefully.   Many people have puzzled over why the DOJ and FBI waited. Good question.  However, the better question is…

…What was DC doing between June 3 and August 8?

The original exploration of Mar-a-Lago took place before the first J6 hearing ever happened.  The first J6 hearing took place June 9, a week after the DOJ and FBI initially went to Mar-a-Lago.  Do not be naive.  Intellectual honesty would accept the results of that June 3rd review were part of the larger Trump targeting dynamic.

Do not rush yourself.  Take the time to re-review all of the activity inside those dates.  Do not think only about the Joe Biden administration or the democrats who have already exposed their intent.  Remember, anti-Trump targeting is NOT a partisan issue.  The republican powerbrokers in the DC system have facilitating motives just like Democrats. This is a UniParty aspect.

For the sake of transparency, as an identified J6 target CTH had encounters with the J6 investigators during this timeframe.  However, that is ancillary -and obscure- to the larger point, but it does give us a ‘sense’ of what the priorities of the DC system were -and their expressed sense of urgency- at the time.

The Trump targeting is not a democrat -vs- republican issue.  The two political clubs hold an almost identical vested interest, albeit admittedly one side needs to publicly pretend they are not assisting.

We must always remain aware; this is national political power at its highest and most corrupt level.  There are trillions at stake for the interests of both clubs.  Donald Trump represents a unique threat to all DC stakeholders.

All future posts on this issue are likely to be password protected.   However, in the interim the primary point today is to contemplate what you see unfolding against the backdrop that each political club Washington DC is operating in their own interest, and in their unified interest.  Some coordination is almost certain.

That said, the power interests on the republican side of the equation had full knowledge of what the intents and motives were of the DOJ/FBI following that June 3rd visit to Mar-a-Lago.  Republican political interests operated within that window, June 3rd to August 8th, to establish the current political landscape.

On the Democrat side of the club, they began the J6 committee offensive a week later, June 9th….

…. But what did the Republican side of the club do, to capitalize in advance on what they knew was coming?

This is the context for looking around at current events on the GOPe side of the equation.  You avoid battered conservative syndrome when you look back upon the path you have followed without knowing who paved it and why.  What did the republican club do, and plan to roll out, between June 3rd and this week?

The republicans knew what was coming.

We have been through too much together, we have documented far too much together, to pretend these DC operations are organic or partisan.

Everything that has happened since June 3, 2022, needs to be look at with new eyes.

I do mean everything, including the actions, scheduled activity, and responses from the professional political class to these recent events.  The actions of all political candidates need to be re-reviewed, while looking at the timeline with new eyes.

Aug 8 2022

American Household Debt Surpasses $16 Trillion


Armstrong Economics Blog/USA Current Events Re-Posted Aug 8, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

American household has reached a new high, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Total household debt has surpassed $16 trillion for the first time in American history. Americans have taken on $2 trillion in additional debt since the pandemic. Aggregate household debt balances rose by $312 billion in Q2 2022 alone, marking a 2% increase from Q1.

Mortgages were the largest contributing factor to the post-pandemic uptick after rising by $207 billion to $11.39 trillion. Americans have been relying more on credit to make purchases amid inflation, and credit card balances have spiked by $46 billion last quarter. Non-housing balances saw the largest uptick since 2016 after increasing by $103 billion. Auto loans saw a $33 billion rise as the cost of autos remained at a high.

Delinquency on debt “increased modestly” in all categories. Around 95,000 people faced bankruptcy in Q2 2022, which is still near historic lows. Of the $758 billion in new mortgage debt accumulated in the last quarter, 65% is held by people with credit scores over 760. Outstanding student loan debt reached $1.59 trillion last quarter, 5% of which was delinquent.

People may be able to pay off their debt now, but as inflation and interest rates rise, that will become increasingly difficult. While mortgage debt is no cause for concern, the over-reliance on credit purchases will not help Americans lower debt. Inflation must come down for the people to maintain their quality of life.

Aug 7 2022

A Curious Case of Transferred Battery Technology


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 6, 2022 | sundance

Every once in a while, you come across an article that seems like one thing but is actually another thing entirely.  The NPR story of how “The U.S. made a breakthrough battery discovery — then gave the technology to China“, is one such article.

Several people sent this to us for opinion and review; however, the background of the article reveals something quite different. Then again, perhaps that’s exactly why NPR wrote it.

[READ THE STORY HERE]

It is important to read the story as presented by NPR, because it is oddly written as if someone is trying to use the outlet to get out ahead of something else.

The issue surrounds a new product technology called a vanadium redox flow battery.  Essentially the U.S. government funded scientists to develop an advanced battery that could store energy without degrading.  After success, the technology was then sent to China for manufacturing.  China then invested heavily in the product and used the technology to mass manufacture the battery for the global market. The United States is now behind in the product development and manufacture.

As the story is told in NPR, “the Chinese company didn’t steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer.”  Except that’s not what happened at all.  There is some major ‘ass-covering’ in that false narrative.

The lead scientist working on the vanadium redox flow battery project was a man named Gary Yang.  Mr. Yang was born in China and emigrated to the U.S. becoming a U.S. citizen.  Yang worked with U.S. scientists to develop the technology and was funded by a multi-million research grant from the Dept of Energy.

After their initial success, according to NPR, “in 2012, Yang applied to the Department of Energy for a license to manufacture and sell the batteries.”  The Dept of Energy license was granted, and Yang launched UniEnergy Technologies as the parent company to develop the commercial application of the product.

It’s 2012 and Gary Yang was now looking for investors and manufacturing in the commercial sector to produce the battery.

Here’s where it gets interesting…. According to Yang, “he couldn’t persuade any U.S. investors to come aboard. “I talked to almost all major investment banks; none of them (wanted to) invest in batteries,” Yang said in an interview, adding that the banks wanted a return on their investments faster than the batteries would turn a profit.” This is Yang’s justification for what he did next.

After he couldn’t find U.S. investors (which I will say up front seems like an excuse), Yang then took the technology to China to have them manufacture the product.

The Chinese embraced the technology, created entire manufacturing eco-systems around it and now corner the market on the technology behind vanadium batteries.  However, giving the technology to China for manufacturing and development is a violation of the license Chang was given.

Yang even admits he knew it was not allowed. “Yang’s original license requires him to sell a certain number of batteries in the U.S., and it says those batteries must be “substantially manufactured” here. In an interview, Yang acknowledged that he did not do that.” Now we start to look a little more skeptically at the claims by Gary Yang, because a whole bunch of stuff just doesn’t add up.

As noted by NPR, five years after getting the license from the Dept of Energy, “in 2017, Yang formalized the relationship and granted Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. an official sublicense, allowing the company to make the batteries in China.”

After China had fully developed the technology, they obviously no longer needed Gary Yang to go global with the product.  As a result of what can only be considered as ‘getting cut out’, Yang -still holding the original DoE license- then turned to Europe.

Gary Yang not only sublicensed Chinese manufacturing, supposedly without DoE notification, in 2021 he sold the license to the Netherlands.

“In 2021, Yang transferred the battery license to a European company based in the Netherlands. The company, Vanadis Power, told NPR it initially planned to continue making the batteries in China and then would set up a factory in Germany, eventually hoping to manufacture in the U.S., said Roelof Platenkamp, the company’s founding partner.

Vanadis Power needed to manufacture batteries in Europe because the European Union has strict rules about where companies manufacture products, Platenkamp said.  “I have to be a European company, certainly a non-Chinese company, in Europe,” Platenkamp said in an interview with NPR.”

Before moving on, let me recap because things are going to start making sense about why this story has some major ramifications.  Also, don’t overlook the timing of events and keep in the back of your mind what you know about Hunter Biden (remember, ‘energy sector’ with no experience) and Biden’s deals with China being made in/around this same timeframe.

♦ 2006 – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory original grant. “It took six years and more than 15 million taxpayer dollars for the scientists to uncover what they believed was the perfect vanadium battery recipe.“

♦ 2012 – The lead scientist, Gary Yang, asks the Dept of Energy for a license.  He then creates UniEnergy Tech.

♦ 2013/2014 – Unable to find investors in the U.S., Gary Yang enters a manufacturing and development agreement with China.

♦ 2017 – Gary Yang officially grants a sublicense to Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd in China.

♦ 2021 – Gary Yang then sells his license to Vanadis Power in the Netherlands.

Tell me again how this NPR sentence makes sense: “the Chinese company didn’t steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer.”

Do you see anywhere in this reformatted outline where the U.S. Dept of Energy gave the technology to anyone, except Gary Yang?

The only entity responsible for transferring the technology to China was Gary Yang.

Now, with all that in mind, check out the date on the picture that NPR uses in their article:

2015

Keep the guy on the left, Imre Gyuk, in mind as we move forward.  Note the date of “2015” with Imre Gyuk and Gary Yang. They are standing together.

Remember in the NPR article, the baseline for why Yang took the technology to China was that he couldn’t find investors to manufacture in the United States.

The vanadium battery license in question would have come from Imre Gyuk’s office.  Now, in addition to being the Director of Energy Storage Research in the Office of Electricity, of the Dept of Energy, Gyuk also held another role:  “As part of the program he also supervises the $185M ARRA stimulus funding for Grid Scale Energy Storage
Demonstrations” {Citation}

The ARRA funds referenced were the Obama-era stimulus funds; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds; the shovel ready jobs funds.  Yet, Gary Yang cannot find investors?

Citation from 2014: “It’s not a given that lithium-ion batteries are the best batteries for electric cars, or for electrical grid storage. Other types of batteries today show promise, most of which you’ve never heard of: vanadium redox flow, zinc-based, sodium-aqueous and liquid-metal. Businesses looking to invest in batteries are deciding between these technologies and more. Market players will weigh the different technologies’ cost of manufacture, durability, usefulness.” {Citation} But Gary Yang couldn’t find U.S. investors? 

Citation from 2014: “The forever battery.” A Silicon Valley startup run by old-school technologists has invented an energy storage device that could take an entire neighborhood off the grid. This magic box is called a Vanadium redox flow battery. {Citation} But Gary Yang couldn’t find U.S. investors.

Citation from 2016: “Cost-effective, reliable, and longer-lived energy storage is necessary to truly modernize the grid,” said Dr. Imre Gyuk, energy storage program manager for DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, of UET’s system. “As third-generation vanadium flow batteries gain market share, it is essential to increase our understanding of storage value and optimization to accelerate adoption of integrated storage and renewable energy solutions among utilities.” {Citation} But Gary Yang couldn’t find U.S. investors.  {Here’s another Citation}

Citation from 2018: “On January 23, 2018, the Chinese Academy of Sciences hosted a meeting on energy storage with distinguished guests Dr. Imre Gyuk, director of energy storage research at the United States Department of Energy, and Dr. Gary Yang, CEO of UniEnergy Technologies.  Dr. Gyuk and Dr. Yang were met by China Energy Storage Alliance Chairman and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Engineering Thermophysics Deputy Director Chen Haisheng, China Energy Storage Alliance Deputy Chairman and Beijing Puneng General Manager Huang Mianyan, and CNESA Standing Council Representative and general manager of State Grid Electric Vehicle Service Company Wang Mingcai.” (image below)

[SOURCE]

This meeting is important because Imre Gyuk and Gary Yang are together, in China in 2018.  The year after the Dept of Energy license given to Gary Yang was unlawfully sublicensed to the Chinese.

NPR is correct in that U.S. taxpayers funded six years of research and development for vanadium redox flow batteries (2006-2012), and once the product was successful the technology was transferred to China (2014-2017) as part of the commercial manufacture.  However, it was Gary Yang who gave it to them, and by all appearances he did so unlawfully.

There is going to be much more to this story…. Much more.  We have only just begun to dig.

[Support CTH Here]

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Aug 7 2022

Report, Joe Biden Likely to Extend National COVID Emergency Declaration – To Facilitate Mail-in Ballots and Harvesting?


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 6, 2022 | sundance

Politico is reporting on the likelihood that Joe Biden is preparing to extend the national COVID-19 state of emergency through the 2022 midterm elections.

The debate, as outlined in just about every media narrative surrounding renewals of a national COVID emergency, is obtusely presented as if the primary political concern is public health.

Again, everyone must pretend not to know the true motive of the “emergency” is extending unilateral executive power and all of the control mechanisms therein. One mechanism would include the use of ‘Mail-in election ballots‘, which has absolutely nothing to do with public health.

The article appears to be somewhat testing the proverbial public winds.

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is expected to extend the Covid-19 public health emergency once again, ensuring that federal measures expanding access to health coverage, vaccines and treatments remain in place beyond the midterm elections, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.

The planned renewal follows extensive deliberations among Biden officials over the future of the emergency declaration, including some who questioned whether it was time to let the designation lapse.

Under the proposed extension, the Department of Health and Human Services would continue the declaration beyond the November elections and potentially into early 2023 — pushing the U.S. into its fourth calendar year under a Covid public health emergency.

[…] Some health officials also feared that formally ending the public health emergency would dampen any remaining sense of urgency in Congress to allocate additional money toward the Covid response. The administration’s request for billions more dollars to bolster its stockpiles of vaccines, tests and treatments has stalled for months in the Senate, even as officials warn the funding shortage risks hampering their ability to continue the pandemic fight. (read more)

Aug 7 2022

Steve Bannon CPAC Speech, Confronting Marxism and Deconstructing the Administrative State


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 6, 2022 | sundance

Steve Bannon gives a keynote address to the audience at the CPAC convention in Dallas, Texas.  During the beginning of his remarks, Bannon and the audience salute Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake for her ferocity standing fearlessly in front of the firestorm and winning the primary contest.

Later in his unscripted remarks, around the 09:00 mark, Bannon begins discussing the Fourth Branch of Government.  WATCH:

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Aug 6 2022

A Solution to The conservative communication problem


Originally posted on Bill Whittle in early July 2022

Bill Whittle’s idea has a lot of merit and we need to promote this as much as possible!

Watch the animation here: https://youtu.be/PnLo3Quw2mA Our Members make our world go round. Join us as a Citizen Producer by clicking here: https://BillWhittle.com/register/

Aug 6 2022

A Cycle Has Changed Inside Russia


Armstrong Economics Blog/Opinion Re-Posted Aug 6, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

To my total shock, I know a family that fled Poland to flee from Russia and went to Canada. They then fled Canada because of all the insanity of Trudeau and refused to return. Since their visa for America is expiring, they said to me that they may now go to Russia. I was completely stunned. They said Western culture is pushing them to return from pronouns to canceling anyone who has ever said anything, even 25 years ago, and the total craziness in politics. What they once fled from is still far better than what is taking place here.

Every person I know here in America who fled from Russia when the USSR collapsed says the same thing. What they fled from is now here. Putin has come out and warned that wokeness is what destroyed Russia. His popularity in Russia is double that of Biden because he has turned Russia back to traditional values. Using the wrong pronoun is now offensive. I remember going to the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and seeing Don Rickels live in the ’70s. There was not a single race or ethnic group he did not make a joke about. There was a time when we once could laugh at ourselves. Those days are gone.

There is a cycle to everything. The culture shift in Russia is actually hopeful that we too will shed these restrictions of wokeness, and I will not be offended if you say, “Hey, you!” Civilization is when everyone comes together for mutual benefit. Wokeness is all about division. When you ask an American what are you, they will typically respond half-German and half-Irish or whatever their mix. That illustrates that America was the melting pot where everyone merged into one, whereas you do not see that in Europe except on rare occasions. This is what is being torn apart by wokeness, and we will see oppression and civil unrest that could lead even to civil war because of it.

When I was growing up there was just straight, gay, and bi-sexual. Today, I am told there are 70 distinctions. I have absolutely no idea anymore but it no longer makes one look upon everyone as equal. You suddenly have to stay to yourself and be afraid to address someone for being accused of racism or sexism or whatever new term they manufacture. We once were all Americans. I hired Robert Howe who was probably the first black analyst because he was qualified. Today, you get inquires from the state demanding to know how many minorities and women you have on your staff. We have every race and gender on our staff, as well as religion. Perhaps I am old fashion, but I never hire people because of quotas.

It’s not a question of patriotism, and it is not wrong for that family to suddenly say they are moving back to Russia all because of the political propaganda. The traditional values that once kept American culture as the beacon of light in a dark world have been overthrown. The public forum, where the people once discussed differences and enacted their laws as well as elected their representatives, has been enclosed by fences at times to protect it from the people, and the chamber that shined for the world as an example of freedom has been reduced to one of hatred and has been exploited by foreign agendas seeing a Great Reset. The public and private institutions that were founded for eternity lie naked and broken by partisan politics indistinguishable from the ruins of ancient Greece. Those stupendous relics of the past are all that has survived the injuries of time and the folly of men.

Today is a sad statement of our times. Our leaders not only preach war, but they also seek to divide our nation by turning brother against brother until our civilization exists no more. The Democrats have exploited every distinction to separate and divide us while seeking 5 years imprisonment for those who only entered the capitol and took a selfie all to paint their opposition with hatred.

The possession of wealth today only stimulates the hatred of others and any traditional rigid virtue of centuries now offends and warrants censure. The irregularities of voting are swept aside and those who seek to investigate are targeted as conspiracy theorists. Anyone who objects is always insured the aversion of those in power who search for any excuse to imprison them until death for their part.

Suspicion has merely become the equivalent of proof and any trial is mere pretense to condemnation. They seek the execution of Donald Trump and paint 50% of the people are worthless scum unworthy of a seat in their hallow hall of dictatorial wokeness power. Once they have tasted supreme power, they have become incapable of pity or remorse no less respect for human rights of liberty, and justice for all. Those words have become just propaganda as their meaning has crumbled to dust on the foundation that was once the bedrock of the American dream. Our highest standard of living has been pushed aside as racist or some other terminology crafted with an endless redefinition of the English language.

As I have been stating at conferences, Schwab will fail in his quest to seize control of the world with his unoriginal theories. The very cornerstone of civilization of bringing people together because it is mutually beneficial to all has been broken. The temple of freedom and dignity has fallen. These power-hungry people are separating and dividing us as they turn even families against one another. They vary from the above but can see no differently than Karl Marx who thought he could redesign society. The rise and fall of political states, Schwab believes, can be prevented if the people surrender everything that makes life worthwhile. Schwab and his co-conspiractor at the World Economic Forum seek to turn our corporations into fascist limbs of the state all preaching Schwab’s stakeholder economics and suppressing human rights for at the heart of all of this, there is no divine right because there is nothing divine about them. The future is only theirs to shape – no one else’s.

The world so many rebuilt post-WWII is collapsing — deliberately. It must always appear darkest before a storm and the new light of day that will arrive. We cannot save the institutions of today. We must plan for what comes after this house-cleaning we must go through. Academics such as Klaus Schwab have always presented the greatest threat to societies. Just as Putin said Lenin was just a Bolshevik and not a statesman, someone in the future will remember Klaus Schwab with the same dismissive comments. Posterity will remember his name as it remembers Marx, Hitler, and Stalin. Napoleon sought to conquer Europe, but he had no designs to change human nature.

Aug 6 2022

McDonalds Dumps Trial of Plant Meat Because Customers Would Not Purchase – Next up, Bug Meat


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 5, 2022 | Sundance

McDonalds has announced they are dropping their program testing plant-based meats because people didn’t like it.

As noted by the Washington Times, “other trials at Panda Express and Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut) have also ended without a subsequent product launch. Beyond Meat products at Dunkin’, Hardee’s, and A&W have been discontinued after launching.”

Apparently, American consumers do not want to eat fake meat; at least not fake meat made from plants.

Next up….  Bug meat.

…”The menus will feature items such as cricket tacos or a Thai larb salad and recipes that use an innovative cricket meat-alternative which packs about 30 per cent protein – and requires around 1800x less Greenhouse gas to produce than beef.”  (LINK)

Aug 6 2022

Good News, Gasoline Prices Drop – Bad News, Demand for Gasoline Plummets to Pandemic Era Levels


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 5, 2022 | Sundance 

The good news is that gasoline prices have dropped in the past several weeks to an average of $4.13/gal.  However, the bad news is that most of the drop in price is related to gasoline demand dropping to the same level as July 2020 during the pandemic lockdown phase.

Obviously, $4.13/gal is still a very high price for gasoline, and that is leading to fewer people purchasing gasoline.

(Via Fox) – […] New data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that gas demand dropped from 9.25 million barrels per day to 8.54 million per day last week. That’s 1.24 million barrels per day lower than last year and “in line with demand at the end of July 2020,” when there were widespread virus-related restrictions and fewer people were hitting the road, according to AAA. 

The latest demand figures bolster a recent AAA survey that revealed 64% of drivers had changed their driving habits or lifestyle since March to offset the high prices at the pump. (read more)

If you think about the position of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC or OPEC+), it makes sense for them to recognize the intentions of the western leaders to shrink the western industrial economies and respond accordingly.

OPEC knows North American and European leaders are intentionally reducing economic activity in an effort to lower the economy to match the lower level of energy production. This is the “managing the transition phase” of the Build Back Better agenda, the intentional shrinking of the economy through energy and monetary policy.

Knowing that, it makes sense that OPEC would not produce additional oil into a globally shrinking economic system.  Producing more oil would be against their own economic interests.