Category Oligarchy

Apr 23 2022

Disney Loses Special Privileges


Armstrong Economics Blog/North America Re-Posted Apr 22, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Disney lost its battle in the Florida House after legislation was passed to remove its special district permissions. The Reedy Creek Improvement District was etched out in 1967, which permitted Disney to operate independently from government. Disney has gone toe-to-toe on numerous political issues with Florida in recent years, but its opposition to the Parental Right in Education (liberally termed “don’t say gay”) was the final straw.

The legislation will go into effect on June 1, 2023. Disney will now be required to pay all its taxes to Orange and Osceola counties rather than splitting it between the two and the Reedy Creek Improvement District. A second bill has been opened that repeals Disney’s big-tech law privileges by making it vulnerable to lawsuits if it censors information.

It appears that Disney executives discredited the threats made by DeSantis and thought their 55-year untouchable reign would continue. There have been calls in recent days to replace CEO Rob Chapek. Disney shares have fallen 30% in the past year, despite the S&P rising. The company’s attempt at inclusivity has alienated a portion of its clientele, and it would be wise for them to back away.

Apr 7 2022

There Is Something Very Troublesome About the Western Govt, Post-COVID, Rules-Based Order


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 7, 2022 | Sundance 

While the western media quickly jumped from the COVID crisis to the Ukraine crisis, in the background of current events there is a lot of activity amid western government that does not look very democratic.

The word ‘autocracy‘, with all its variants, has been used a lot frequently by western government politicians as they attack the ideology of Russia, China and essentially every national leader who does not join their “rules-based order” club.  There is so much linguistic repetition from the same western leadership, it’s impossible not to see this autocracy narrative as some form of talking point that stemmed from some G7 or NATO collaboration meeting.

It does not seem coincidental the new catch phrases of “autocracy” vs “rules-based order” surfaced at the tail end of the COVID crisis, when Build Back Better shifted from a talking point into an actual set of western legislative constructs  perhaps intended to codify the emergency powers those same officials deployed.

What kind of democracy, or rules-based order mindset, was the European Commission carrying when they decried the overwhelming national election in Hungary?  Surely if the EU wanted to celebrate democracy, they would cheer for the high voter turnout that reelected Prime Minister Viktor Orban, yet they did exactly the opposite.  Apparently, some democracies are more valued than others.

At the same time the EU is clutching pearls over the results in Hungary, another western ally, Canada, is codifying the government’s emergency act power to seize property without due process.  As we are directed to be distracted by everything Zelenskyy, it might be worth noting that Ontario Bill 100 is about to permanently change the rules of permitted political protest. You can read about Bill 100 here and watch the economic debate here.

Essentially, Bill 100 gives the Canadian government the power to seize your home, finances, bank accounts and assets if you take part in any form of protest that would create economic harm to any loosely defined entity.  Protest at the border, lose your house; at least that’s the threat they are about to make into a law.

It seems rather incredulous to me that securing a corporate financial interest would override the concerning possibility of forever losing liberty and freedom for the individual citizen. However, in this new post-COVID ‘rules-based order’, that’s the official justification from the Canadian government.  Slippery slope and all that accepted, this Ontario Bill 100 is a few slides beyond the slippery.

Similar actions are taking place in New Zealand and Australia, where codifying the emergency powers of public health officials post-COVID rules, is at the forefront of their legislative and constitutional reform efforts.

Creating new era ‘rules-based democracy’ stuff is filling up the business end of western government attention in Europe, North American and the land down under.

But it’s not just Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia doing this.  In the United States we have a combination of new restrictions on liberty and freedom around emergency health issues in combination with J6 “threat to democracy” outcomes being created.  The J6 committee is looking at Trump supporters the way the EU commission is looking at Hungarian citizens.

Add it all up, and this new version of western democracy doesn’t look like it is based on the same principles the older version, the non-rules-based version, was using.

These new “rules of democracy” are also being overlaid by new rules for discussing democracy as found in the guidelines from the tech overlords.

Google just recently announced, in the era post-COVID, they will no longer tolerate content that “makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.”

So, if you are to speak against the new “rules of democracy”, or the legislation that is going through the “democratic process” in the EU, NZ, AU, Canada or the United States, you can be targeted by the online Google wrong-think police.  Isn’t that convenient considering the effort to codify the totalitarian tendencies of the new “western democracies.”

If you speak against the newer version of the ‘rules-based order‘, the leaders of western democracies will enjoy protection from the internet police.  A rebellious sort, as defined by a person who still thinks independently, might say that sounds almost autocratic or something.

There was always a concern that any political leader who granted themselves extreme powers, under the pretense of the pandemic threat, would never want to relinquish that scale of control over their citizens.  Indeed, it can be argued we are seeing those concerns come to fruition with supportive action from ruling elites in the various parliamentary and congressional offices.

A wise fellow of steward-minded disposition stated today that if U.S. government officials were genuinely concerned about the welfare of Americans, they would immediately be holding legislative sessions to ramp up energy production, cut through regulatory hurdles, lower gasoline prices, seal our borders and prepare our national food stocks for a concerning global food shortage.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if a legislative body was truly representative of the citizens, they would be using a few billion taxpayer dollars to purchase or offset fertilizer costs, help farmers with diesel fuel prices and work earnestly to insure full harvests this year.

Alas, the only nation worthy of such financial consideration is a tenuously manipulated -by them- country called Ukraine.

These new western democracy rules certainly appear to be rules of priority for the few, and not rules that would be a priority for the many.   Perhaps that’s the whole point.  Maybe that’s the bigger picture.

As it appears by action and consequence, this new western, post-COVID, ‘rules-based order’ is focused exclusively on providing benefit for the self-described elites.

I wonder what will happen if the many just don’t comply?…

… Or have the autocrats thought about that with the open border rules coming May 23rd?

Mar 24 2022

The Laptop from Hell


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Mar 23, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Ihor Kolomoisky is the Oligarch who funded Zelensky and put him in a position to be president. However, this is the very same Kolomoisky who had a “controlling interest” in Burisma Holdings, that employed Hunter Biden as a board member for a widely reported salary of $50,000 per month. Russian media, quoted in State Department emails, referred to Burisma as “part of Kolomoisky’s financial empire.”

It was the same Kolomoisky who publicly said in 2019 that he REFUSED to cooperate with efforts by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to get his help in investigating Hunter Biden and Burisma. House Democrats’ impeachment report on Trump also cited the incident in late 2019 as grounds for impeachment.

Emails from 2015, published last year by the New York Post, show a Kolomoisky protege communicated with Hunter Biden about a meeting between the protege and Joe Biden, then vice president under President Barack Obama. Then court filings from 2019 by a private investigatory firm alleged that legally obtained bank records of Hunter Biden show payments to him from the Kolomoisky-owned PrivatBank.

The REAL character of Zelensky is revealed in his actions. As soon as he became President. Volodymyr Zelensky decided to fire Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and several leading reformers. Ukraine paid a heavy price for the move in capital outflows and soaring borrowing costs. There was talk of Zelensky finally breaking with leading oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, but that never took place.

Kolomoisky’s supporters initially prevented a second reading of the banking bill through “legislative spam”, the proposal of thousands of frivolous amendments. Zelensky used COVID to distract people concerning reforms. There was no major effort to make the IMF-backed reforms. The IMF dropped its effort of the long-term Extended Funding Facility for Ukraine to encourage reform to a new policy of a smaller, short-term Stand-By Arrangement, which is confined to budgetary support. Zelensky could have just fired Honcharuk. But instead, he gradually picked off nearly all the ministers who had reputations as reformers. Everything he promised was never carried out. Instead of solving the Donebass dispute, he promoted joining NATO and deliberately antagonized Putin.

All the promises of reforms wooed the European Union, but there was no substance. There were rising concerns that Zelensky was actually selling out to the very people who had run the country under Yanukovich and many saw this as a confirmation that Zelensky was in hock to Kolomoisky. Zelensky never distanced himself from Kolomoisky. In fact, during the election, Igor Valeriyovych told Igor Oleksiyovych that working for Poroshenko was in vain. Kolomoisky allegedly said to Igor Hryniv: “My boy and my girl will be there in the second round anyway”, referring to Yuliya Tymoshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky. Nevertheless, the Kyiv Post reported the allegations that Kolomoisky was behind the release of a tape of Honcharuk mocking Zelensky’s economic knowledge.

Kolomoisky pushed hard for compensation for the nationalization of PrivatBank – which he co-owned until 2016 when the government took control of it due to the $5.6 billion hole in its balance sheet. But the real economic payback appeared to occur elsewhere, as the government showered debt and delivery favors on the Kolomoisky-controlled Ukrnafta and Centrenergo. The government opened corruption cases but seemed to concentrate on Kolomoisky’s enemies from the National Bank of Ukraine and the interlinked leadership of the Investment Capital of Ukraine, often dubbed “[Petro] Poroshenko’s bank”, after the former president.

Here we have Hunter Biden taking money from Kolomoisky who just so happens to be the backer of Zelensky. Biden then hands Zelensky $13.6 billion in aid to fight off the evil Putin. I seriously doubt that money will go to aid Ukrainians.

The corruption in Ukraine is so bad, it may even rank as the #1 black hole in the entire world. When will the West wake up?

Mar 24 2022

Government ALWAYS Act in their Own Self-Interest


Armstrong Economics Blog/Banking Crisis Re-Posted Mar 23, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Hello Martin,

Hope your doing well, you spoke about keeping some money, outside of banks, do you see sterling paper money being cancelled by the bank of england, as they have already cancelled old £5/£10/£20/£50 and £1 coins, you have to bring them to the bank an exchange for new plastic type paper currency,my question is if you have some set aside do you think they would cancel outright or would they make you declare, if things get sticky, or would you be safer keeping in bank, for there is some insurance scheme up to £75 0r £85k, one named account, not that would effect me in the amounts, can you advise should I maybe bring some US dollars into piggy bank, much obliged, for your help will go towards helping my parents/family extended family circle, I just buried my mother a week ago, so my dad’s a bit all over the place, he has a few £1000’s, has difficulty putting money in banks/post office and questions and restrictions getting money out, they shut the last bank down in November, he lives in a town of 10,000 pop, has to travel to the city, not up to that now, any insight would be gratefully appreciated.he lives in the north of Ireland.
EP

ANSWER: Britain does cancel its currency. That allows the government to take that direction. The difference with the US dollar is that it has never been canceled and it would take an Act of Congress. Trudeau is Canada interestingly passed an Act to give him the authority to cancel paper ,oney. He did cancel the old notes as well.

While the US replaced the $100 bill, the old one is still valid. Since 70% of the US paper dollars reside outside the USA for they are the hedge against various governments, the Democrats would love to cancel the currencies following the same Marxist agenda that cash is EVIL.

In this atmosphere where Biden just reads the teleprompter and there are serious concerns in DC about his mental ability going forward, this means we really do NOT know who is running the show. All I can say is that demands, policies, and tactics are the hallmark of Neocons.  They have achieved their dream of controlling the White House. They have never allowed a day to go by without plotting how to conquer the world.

Unfortunately, The British pound is called “sterling” meaning it was once one power of sterling silver. Even in 1953, Britain had abandoned silver in its coinage. They struck coins in Cupro-Nickel. So it is hard to do the same as an American can do, hoard the old pre-1965 silver coins. When Roosevelt confiscated gold during 1934, that meant whatever you had on deposit in a bank was taken. He did not go door to door searching for gold coins. So keep that in mind that the banks will do whatever they are ordered to do. They are not on your side. They must be loyal to the state to retain their license.

You may want to look at British sovereigns, which are just under a quarter ounce of gold. Just keep it to the common dates, circulated is fine. You are not looking to be a rare coin collector. At least when Germany was going through its hyperinflation, people were able to hoard foreign currencies as well as tangible assets that included land, art, rare coins and stamps, and even old cars. Anything that is not relying on government and is not in some official storage that the government can seize. For they will also act ALWAYS in their own self interest.

Mar 24 2022

Trudeau Cuts Backroom Deal to Stay in Power Until at Least 2025


Armstrong Economics Blog/Canada Re-Posted Mar 23, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

One long-term Canadian client just wrote to me saying:

“Never thought that its was possible that Alberta would actually split from Canada but with this new coalition in place to 2025, it is now possible. Guaranty of Green mandate, free pharma, basic income and tax the banks … why no get the banks to reduce fees to help retail … really have to consider leaving now.”

The Liberal government and the NDP have reached an informal deal that will allow Trudeau to remain in power at least until 2025. The deal involves a pledge to act on dental care, pharmacare and other key issues advocated by New Democrats. This is what is wrong with a Parliamentary system that those in power can create deals to retain power that the people are never given the chance to vote on. Not that the American way is without fault. A Republic is up there in a race to the top of the list for the worst form of government ever. You vote for a Congressman, they get to Washington, and they are told how to vote on party lines. They NEVER actually represent the people who voted for them.

This picture is flying around because Both Singh and Trudeau are anointed by Klaus Schwab as Young Global Leaders. Perhaps Alberta and rural BC can join with center America, and East Canada can merge with California and we just redesign North America into the MARXIST utopia against the Land of the Freed & the Home of the Brave.

It is actually quite hard to see Canada remaining intact through this centralized focus of sacrificing domestic policy objectives for international ones set by Agenda 2030 coming from the World Economic Forum. The Biden Administration killed the Keystone Pipeline. The developer of the Keystone XL pipeline announced it was pulling the plug in June of 2021 on the controversial project after the Biden administration revoked its permit in January 2021 while Trudeau cheered. That was a very big deal for Alberta.

Cutting off pipelines was the first thing out the door for Biden. Make no mistake about it, Ukraine is being used for cannon fodder to ensure that the pipelines from Russia to Europe are also cut off. This is an agenda that is being carried out by Climate Change Zealots. Trudeau is clearly following Agenda 2030 and if anyone can divide Canada, it will be Trudeau.

Mar 24 2022

European MP Calls Justin Trudeau a Dictator During Public Speech in Front of the Canadian Prime Minister


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 23, 2022 

This is just epic and well deserved.  EU Parliament Member Mislav Kolakusic delivered a humiliating speech directly to Justin Trudeau as the Canadian Prime Minister visited the EU members. [h/t to CounterSignal for transcript] This is quite likely the first time Trudeau has ever been publicly called out in such a grand fashion.

MP Mislav Kolakusic lived in Croatia under soviet rule.  Kolakusic saw the recent behavior of Trudeau as familiar to him from former soviet dictators. He took the opportunity of Trudeau appearing in the European Parliament to eviscerate him publicly. {Direct Rumble Link} WATCH:

[Transcript] – “Freedom, the right to choose, the right to life, the right to health, the right to work for many of us are fundamental human rights for which millions of citizens of Europe and the world have laid down their lives,” Kolakusic began.

“…. Canada, once a symbol of the modern world, has become a symbol of civil rights violations under your quasi-liberal boot in recent months. We watched how you trample women with horses, how you block the bank accounts of single parents so that they can’t even pay their children’s education and medicine, that they can’t pay utilities, mortgages for their homes.”

“To you,” he continues, speaking to Trudeau, “these may be liberal methods; for many citizens of the world, it is a dictatorship of the worst kind. Rest assured that the citizens of the world, united, can stop any regime that wants to destroy the freedom of citizens, either by bombs or harmful pharmaceutical products.”

Mar 22 2022

Neocon Plot to Overthrow Putin & Xi


Armstrong Economics Blog/Reports and DVDs Re-Posted Mar 21, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

This war has really nothing to do with Ukraine for this country has been used as cannon fodder to overthrow Putin – the second target in this New World Order. The first was the removal of Trump and the last will be the removal of Xi Jinping. This is a major effort to cause regime change in Russia. The sanction has been so outrageous that they are indeed an act of outright war. The strategy to remove all three has been in play and you can tell the very same tactics are used. They DEMONIZE the leader in order to defeat him and to cause people to hate him.

In the case of Putin, they have been doing that in the United States when Hillary, a Neocon herself, manufactured the entire Russia Conspiracy that Putin interfered in the 2016 election.  It was Hillary who allowed the bankers to intervene in the Russian 2000 election which backfired and Yeltsin turned to Putin once he discovered the plot.

Lindsey Graham is also a Neocon who has outright called for Russians to assassinate Putin. All we are getting now is propaganda pushing the agenda of regime change in Russia. The story being put out by Ukrainian Intelligence is that a group of Russian elites are allegedly now conspiring to overthrow Putin and “restore economic ties” with the West. They are posting this on Facebook post from the Chief Directorate of Intelligence for the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. This is clearly propaganda for if there was truly a plot, they would not be warning Putin. Instead, they are creating an imaginary plot in hope for forming one and to create discord in the politics of Russia. It is a ploy as old as history.

Facebook has changed its guidelines to allow for the posting of violence against Russia and calling for the death of Putin. Zuckerberg is also one of these Young Global Leaders of the WEF. As many are praying, his stock should keep going down for the plots that have been hatched in Facebook.

The Ukrainians are even naming Alexander Bortnikov, the Russian Director of the Federal Security Service and a member of Putin’s inner circle, as a successor to the president. They are seeking the conquest of Russia but forcing the people to rise up and overthrow their government because of the sanctions. Biden even threatened China according to the White House stating that serious “implications and consequences” will follow if Beijing decides to give material aid to Russia to support its war in Ukraine. The White House claimed that Biden laid out for Mr. Xi the punishments the United States will inflict upon China and it too would pay a similarly heavy price if it supported Putin.

“He made clear what the implications and consequences would be if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Friday afternoon. She declined to say how Mr. Xi responded or give details on the costs the United States has threatened to impose on Beijing, as reported in the New York Times.

China released the transcript of the phone call between Biden and Xi on Chinese state media. Xi expressed opposition to the broad sanctions the United States, European and Asian nations have imposed on Russia, warning they could trigger crises in the global economy. In this score, he is absolutely right. These very same tactics will be turned on China after they are finished with regime change in Russia. Xi referenced a Chinese saying, “Let he who tied the bell on the tiger take it off,” which is an idiom that the responsibility for solving a problem should fall on the person who created it. The transcript does not indicate that Xi would play a role in ending the war.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “turning point for the world,” arguing that a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces would herald “a new age of intimidation.”

We are looking at the beginning of World War III. In order to pull off this Great Reset, they needed to remove Trump, Putin, and Xi in hopes of then subordinating both China and Russia to the New World Order with the United Nations in control.

We live in very interesting and dangerous times. The Climate Change people have pushed that the world has only 7 years left and the Neocons have usurped this agenda to make their dreams come true. We will be issuing two important reports. The first is now ready – The ECM March 14th, 2022. (Attendees of the last World Economic Conference will receive this report for FREE. It is available for download in the 2021 WEC Documents Portal. Please check your emails and spam for our notification). Otherwise, this report is priced at $95 given its wide range and the seriousness of what we face.

Mar 22 2022

Kamala Has Deep Thoughts on Education


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 21, 2022 

The female version of Barack Obama, Ms. Kamala Harris, talked about the digital divide and education in rural communities during a visit to St. Landry Parish in Louisiana today.  WATCH (30 seconds):

.

Good thing she’s leading NATO.