Category Schwab – Devils Handmaiden

Jan 19 2023

New Zealand Schwab’s Prize Student Resigns


Armstrong EconomicsBlog/Australia & Oceania Re-Posted Jan 19, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Last month, Jacinda Ardern confidently said bring it on. Schwab’s prize student progressive was confident about reelection. Even last January’s poll rating saw her drop to a new historic low of 35%. It appeared in December she was living in denial. But her polls were dragging down the party and there was no way she would win in an election. Her COVID-19 draconian politics most assumed were at the direction of Klaus Schwab who thought lockdowns were fantastic with this video, the population has a different perspective. Her sudden realization that being Schwab’s prize student for a young leader was not a guarantee to stardom.

When we look at the computer timing arrays for the New Zealand dollar, we see January as the major target in 2023 followed by August. January was also a Directional Change. But look at the Weekly. Jacinda Ardern has announced she is resigning and stepping down as of February 7th. This was also a Directional Change for this very week. The weekly turning point is her last week. Notice there is a Panic Cycle the week of February 27th.

The interesting aspect when we turn to the Share Market, once again we see January as the major turning point for the year with a Directional Change. However, May is a Panic Cycle that aligns with what we see in Russia and Ukraine.  The West is pushing Russia into a corner. This is not some border skirmish, this is an attempt to actually invade Russia and destroy it once and for all. They say a third time is always a charm – Napoleon, Hitler, and now NATO. This makes for very interesting markets post-2024. Here May is showing up around the world.

Jan 19 2023

Twitter Downsizing Data Center in Atlanta GA (Near GA Tech), and Shutting Down Data Center in Sacramento


Posted originally on the CTH on January 18, 2023 | Sundance

Curious news about Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop, aka ‘The Twitter’, surfaces as the social media company announces that to save money, they will shut down the Sacramento data center and substantially downsize the Atlanta data center.

Oddly enough, the Atlanta data center is in the same regional complex as Georgia Tech University, which is the same university under U.S. government contract (think Rodney Joffe and the Trump-Russia Alfa Bank hoax) for cybersecurity research efforts.

[NOTE: Shortly after Twitter expanded its data center in Atlanta, on Nov 29, 2016, Georgia Tech received a $17.3 million contract from the U.S. Dept of Defense for “cybersecurity” research.  Three days later, Georgia Tech announced new collaboration with China’s Tianjin U, which hosts the APT hacker groups and is a partner of China Telecom and Huawei. Funny that, and you already know my suspicions, so I digress.]

(Data Center Dynamics) – Twitter is shutting down its data center in Sacramento, and will downsize its facility in Atlanta, Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer reports. The decision was previously rumored in November.

The company operates three main facilities in the US, with its remaining site in Portland, Oregon, expected to take the increased load. It is not clear if Twitter has done an analysis of the migration and whether the remaining servers can handle the load – when the Sacramento data center collapsed in September it caused a system outage. The move is expected to happen as soon as early January.

Twitter also has cloud contracts with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, but new owner Elon Musk is believed to be trying to renegotiate the contracts and cut expenses.

At the same time, he said that he plans to release new services that will require more storage and compute, including long-form high resolution video.

Former Twitter employee Sasha Solomon, who was fired after tweeting “sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” about Musk’s acquisition, responded to the data center closure report with: “Omfg like good luck when a failover needs to happen. So excited to see what 1-ish data center can do with all of Twitter’s traffic.” (read more)

This downsizing and reorganization of the background data-processing is happening at the same time the Daily Mail is discussing the financial viability of Twitter [SEE HERE].

Now, I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole again, but if Elon Musk was notified the US Govt was no longer going to subsidize the extreme data processing costs (coffee making), due to a lessening of the ‘national security partnership‘ per se’, then wouldn’t it make sense to start shutting down and downsizing costly data centers.

Just sayin’.

#Jack’sMagicCoffeeShop

Jan 19 2023

December Retail Sales Drop -1.1%, November Sales Data Revised Lower to -1.0%


Posted originally on the CTH on January 18, 2023 | Sundance 

There is something predictable about Main Street economics, eventually what you see around you overwhelms the great pretending.  CTH has been outlining the state of the consumer economy in great detail for quite a while, and though it is difficult to note when the outcomes will surface, eventually they do surface. [Reminder Here]

CONTEXT. CTH outlined the moment when the purchasing power of the U.S. middle class actually began contracting.  It was March and April of 2021 when that Rubicon was crossed.  We saw it in the second and third quarter data from 2021, but few were willing to admit.

What changed in those two months back in ’21 was a dramatic drop in the “unit sales” of stuff within the consumer economy.  The drop in unit sales was hidden because it happened simultaneously with the first wave of massive spike in prices.  Prices rose so fast the sales data was giving an artificial impression of sales growth, but in the background the actual unit sales dropped.   Those analysts correcting and adjusting historic data to ‘inflation adjusted terms’ are now noticing.

Additionally, and not coincidentally – because the metrics are connected, you will note this line from the Wall Street Journal review of the producer price index. “The producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions in the economy, rose 6.2% in December from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, the slowest annual pace since March 2021.”  In essence, the current rate of wholesale price increase on materials is now returning to the rate of price increase that happened in the period when prices spiked.  Again, this is predictable.

Inflation is the measure of the ‘rate’ of price increase over time.  March and April of 2021 were the beginning of the first inflationary spike.

Driven almost entirely by the supply side shock from Biden energy policy, in the subsequent 20 months the rate of price increase skyrocketed, peaked August 2022, and now the rate of increase starts returning.  This does not mean price declines; this means the rate of growth in the price increase is lessening.

This is a cyclical outcome.

After 20 months of dropping unit sales, a result of massive price increases; and as the rate of inflation now starts to moderate created by the cyclical nature of it; what we now see is the inability of the price increases to continue hiding the drop in unit sales.   [Background pdf Data] Total retail sales data is now exposed and that’s why we will see this increasing story about negative sales data as the inflation cycle plateaus.

(Via Wall Street Journal) – Retail spending fell in December at the sharpest pace of 2022, marking a dismal end to the holiday shopping season as rising interest rates, still-high inflation and concerns about a slowing economy pinched American consumers.

Purchases at stores, restaurants and online, declined a seasonally adjusted 1.1% in December from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Sales were also revised lower in November and have fallen three of the past four months.

The decline in retail spending late last year adds to signs that the U.S. economy is slowing. Hiring and wage growth eased in December, U.S. commerce with the rest of the world declined significantly in November, and existing-home sales have fallen for 10 straight months. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that industrial production slumped in December, led by weakness in the manufacturing industry.

S&P Global downgraded its estimate for fourth-quarter economic growth by a half percentage point to a 2.3% annual rate after Wednesday’s data releases. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal this month expect higher interest rates to tip the U.S. economy into a recession in the coming year.

“The lag impact of elevated inflation weighs heavily on U.S. households, it’s very clear that the median American consumer is still reeling from the loss of wages in inflation-adjusted terms,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US LLP. “We’re moving towards what I would expect to be a mild recession in 2023,” he added. (read more)

When the Baghdad Bob economic pretenders say, “mild recession,” anticipate something more akin to a mild nuclear meltdown, something with breadlines and soup kitchens.

Now, you must keep in mind that almost every financial media outlet used the same Retail Federation talking point about anticipating an 8% increase in holiday sales last year.  [Reminder] Apparently, collective pretenses must be maintained.  Meanwhile, news crews and camera crews were having a desperate time finding any holiday shopping to use as background footage for the claims that sales were strong.  Here we are in January and the pretending has hit reality.

Negative retail sales in November and December when prices are roughly +10% over the prior year, means the unit sales collapse was far more dramatic…. Far more.

Trying to survive policy driven price increases in housing costs, energy costs, electricity costs, home heating, food and fuel costs has forced consumers to reevaluate purchasing decisions.  Consumer demand for non-essential items has collapsed, and Americans are dig deep into their savings just to sustain unavoidable expenses.  Eventually, pretending this is not happening is going to run into the wall of reality.

On one hand the leaders of large multinationals must pretend everything is splendid; after all, the only acceptable position they can articulate is to support interest rates being raised because demand is just too darned high….  pretending.  But on the other hand – those same suppliers and multinationals are furiously trying to calculate how to avoid being stuck with billions worth of unsold inventory and idle industrial equipment.

Jan 19 2023

Steven Crowder Goes to the Mattresses Against Big Con


Posted originally on the CTH on January 18, 2023 | Sundance 

Steven Crowder is a smart and witty voice, generally a happy warrior who has been in the battle against the cultural and political progressive movement for over a decade.  He’s been in the fight for quite a while and deserves a great deal of praise for bringing a generation of younger people into the fold.  I respect his long-established time in the trenches of the cultural war, and we are helping him deliver his message.

Crowder’s audience, the “Mug Club”, is likely a mix of Gen-Z and Gen-X rebels throwing sand into the machinery. He does a great job producing content that deconstructs the insanity of the political left in a way that works and expands his audience.  Crowder has almost 6 million YouTube subscribers and while I don’t follow him closely, the message he delivered yesterday is very pertinent.

The problem he outlines is an inside baseball dynamic taking place in the background of the conservative media.  It essentially boils down to a financial issue CTH raised a long time ago when the first signals of this troubling trend started.  Most of the “well known” conservative media outlets have been purchased and co-opted by a financial system that ultimately controls their content.  If you have the time, WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eTcq4UCTZ-Y%3Ffeature%3Doembed

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What Crowder is discussing is the reason why Michelle Malkin dropped out of the fight.  The “BigCon” Crowder notes is essentially like the Fox News of alternative media. They offer incentives to monetize the content provider (broadcaster, website, pod caster etc.) then lock the content providers into extremely controlling contracts that control the outcomes.

Ultimately, what the audience ends up seeing is an approved finished product that is acceptable to BigCon and Big Tech.  In essence they are in bed together to stop bold and alternative conversation and filtrate the message to shades of soft pastels.

Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA (TPUSA), Posobiec, Tim Poole, Conservative Review, CRTV (Glenn Beck, Blaze), Mark Levin, Dave Rubin, Salem Media [Townhall, Hot Air, Twitchy, Red State, PJ Media], The Daily Wire with Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, the list of names and outlets who participate in this overall system is very long.   Upstream you will find the same financial underwriters, and all of them have a commonality.

Crowder is at an inflection point and obviously he is unwilling to capitulate to the guiding hands in control that no one is allowed to discuss.

Good for him.  I hope he can leverage his influence to break the control mechanism, give startups an alternative, and continue the rebellion.

Jan 18 2023

Who is America’s Enemy? Russia or the other Political Party?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Jan 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

In writing the Greatest Bull Market in History, published in 1986, I had to do all the original research. I read all the newspapers daily year after year to come to the realization that attitudes shift back and forth. It became very obvious that before FDR and the introduction of Marxism to the United States, the focus was on markets. With Roosevelt, he weaponized the Federal Reserve and just about everything else to further his agenda. Roosevelt demonized Pierre du Pont for he made a lot of money providing the weapons for World War I. Roosevelt called him the Merchant of Death, but then suddenly needed him again for World War II.

The nation is dividing significantly. This is why the United States cannot stand divided. The latest poll demonstrates that the forecast made by our computer is unsurpassed. The question presented was who is our enemy?

For Democrats, the top three results named Russia (31 percent) as our “greatest enemy,” followed by Republicans (26 percent) and China (16 percent).

For Republicans, the top three are China (35 percent), Russia (33 percent), and Democrats (12 percent).

We now are starting to see that we have an enemy within – the opposite political party. This is absolutely essential for it confirms the forecasts of our computer that have been common since our 2011 WEC.

Jan 18 2023

The Davos Sex Trade


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy Re-Posted Jan 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Besides the Swiss government sending in 5,000 troops to guard Schwab, the other professional trade that besieges Davos are the prostitutes. In fact, they strongly advise that women should NOT attend Davos UNESCORTED because they will be taken to be a member of the guild. The 2016 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention, held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 25 to 28, 2016. To my shock, besides the usual army of prostitutes that attend political conventions, a member of our staff who is gay at the time said all the gay boys were also making big bucks for the Democrats at these conventions also like the other side of the street.

When I was in NYC, one of the lawyers on a Terrorist case said that they all use the high-class prostitute who also has the skill set to be a paralegal. The court pays for these “paralegals” with tax payer’s money and they then engage in the game of legal espionage sleeping with the enemy for inside information.

As I have said before, if a woman wears a black-leather mini-shirt and stiletto heels, you better be well informed that is the typical uniform for a professional member of the guild. This is the real world even in DC. Perhaps you can check history, but in 1983 there was the Congressional Page Sex Scandal was a political scandal involving members of the United States House of Representatives having homosexual relations with their pages.

Jan 18 2023

Prostitutes Attending WEF Summit in Davos Create Business Opportunity for EU Sex Workers


Posted originally on the CTH on January 17, 2023 | sundance

January 17, 2023 | sundance | 84 Comments

As noted by Steve Bannon during a summary of events at the World Economic Forum, the Daily Mail is reporting {SEE HERE} how the attending prostitutes are creating a business opportunity for European sex workers. Among the other topics up for discussion at this year’s summit are the Ukraine war, global inflation rates, climate change and inequality. {Direct Rumble Link}

Noor Bin Ladin Live From Davos: Climate Change Is The Globalists’ Trojan Horse To Introduce Social Credit Scores

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[L-R] Alain “SpankMe” Berset, president of Switzerland, Olena “MoMoney” Zelenska, First Lady of Ukraine, Ursula “FemDom” von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and World Economic Forum founder Klaus “WigglyBits” Schwab.

On a more serious note, the World Economic Forum describes itself as a collection of corporations, “shaping” government “policies.”

Fascism was traditionally defined as an authoritarian government working hand-in-glove with corporations to achieve objectives. A centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, using severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

That system of government didn’t work in the long-term, because the underlying principles of free people reject government authoritarianism. Fascist governments were destroyed, and the corporate beneficiaries were nulled and scorned for participating. Then, along came a new approach to achieve the same objective.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) was created to use the same fundamental associations of government and corporations. Only this time, it was the multinational corporations who organized to tell the government(s) what to do. The WEF was organized for multinational corporations to assemble and tell the various governments how to cooperate with them, in order to be rewarded by them. Corporatism was/is the outcome. The government is now doing what the multinationals tell them to do, and in return the multinationals install the compliant politicians.

Fascism, the cooperation between government and corporations, is still the underlying premise; the World Economic Forum simply flipped the internal dynamic putting the corporations in charge of handing out the instructions.

What results is a slightly modified definition of fascism:

…A massive multinational corporate conglomerate; telling a centralized autocratic government leader what to do; and using severe economic and social regimentation as a control mechanism; combined with forcible suppression of opposition by both the corporations and government.

Doesn’t that define our current reality.

The instructions from the multinational corporations to government would be called the “Great Reset“, or as previously transposed by the government officials receiving the instructions in the era following the COVID-19 pandemic, “Build Back Better”.

Jan 18 2023

John Kerry Pontificates About the Extraordinary Ability of a “Select Group of Humans” at the World Economic Forum, Who Will Save The Planet for the Eaters and Serfs


Posted originally on the CTH on January 17, 2023 | sundance

During a sidebar conversation with those rare elites who wax philosophically about their magnanimous ability to protect the vulgarian eaters, former Secretary of State and current Climate Czar John Kerry, praises the audience for their unique traits and gifted high-mindedness that will protect all humanity.

While the lizard tongue darts, the grand pontifications are espoused.  The audience oohs and ahhs, at the nature of their entitled superiority. They are so good, so magnanimous, so altruistic in their disposition, according to Kerry they are literally “extraterrestrial,” which is to say out of this world.  WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QsEGfhaX4PQ%3Ffeature%3Doembed

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Go ahead and tell me how CTH was wrong 12 years ago….  Their worldview:

Jan 18 2023

In the Before Times….


Posted originally on the CTH on January 17, 2023 | sundance

Be rebellious and have fun doing it.

Live your best life.

Jan 18 2023

Manipulated Economic News on Inflation – Prepare for Bad Corporate Earnings Reports as a Result of Poor Holiday Sales


Posted originally on the CTH on January 17, 2023 | sundance 

There has always been a general shaping and interpretation surrounding economic news, specifically as it relates to the impact of pricing on consumers and corporations. However, against the backdrop of supply side inflation, the financial gaslighting from the Wall Street Journal stands out at the top.

Without pretending, and looking directly at the Main Street reality, CTH has outlined inflation as a matter of monetary and energy policy.  From that standpoint the timing and scale of price increases (inflation measured over time) was predictable.  Our current status is an inflationary plateau, where prices remain high but stabilize for likely two quarters.

What the Wall Street Journal outlines as a “shopper rebellion against high prices” is complete hogwash.  Notice in the construct of the narrative, the demand side (consumers) is identified as the cause of diminished revenue & profits for corporations.  They continue pretending that inflation was not driven by energy costs.

(WSJ) – […] Many companies raised their prices substantially last year to offset higher fuel costs and higher prices for ingredients, parts and labor. As fuel prices have dropped and pandemic supply-chain snarls have eased, some of those costs have come down.

That is a good sign for the economy. It suggests that some inflation in the past year resulted from extreme supply-demand imbalances brought on by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and which are now fading.

Notice the transparent lack of mentioning ‘energy policy’ as the inflation driver.

[…] The study, by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, found that higher markups—the gap between what a firm charges and what it costs to produce an item—were a major driver of inflation in 2021.

They concluded that companies in some cases were raising prices in 2021 in anticipation of future cost pressures, rather than because of market power or outsize demand. Andrew Glover, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City who was involved in the study, doesn’t expect prices to fall this year, he said, but he anticipates that the pace of increase will continue to slow.

Inflation is the rate of increase over time. We have experienced two years of massive price increases. Yes, the rate of those increases will moderate, this is the plateau, but the price will never drop. The current prices are a direct result of fixed energy policy.

[…] Unit sales of food and beverages fell 3% last year, but on a dollar basis they rose 10%. That showed consumers were willing to pay higher prices for groceries but bought fewer items.

[…] “People need to eat,” said Krishnakumar Davey, a president at IRI. Shoppers are nonetheless buying less when possible and, in many cases, buying less expensive versions of necessities such as toilet paper and laundry detergent.  (read more)

Meanwhile the Fed is worried that wages will be forced to increase.  Here is the real worry for the Wall Street Journal, “If consumers believe high prices will persist, they could seek bigger raises, and businesses, seeing higher labor costs, could continue raising prices.”  Yes, workers, forward inflation is your fault.

Government policy drives up prices, but workers needing wage increases to pay for those higher prices… well, that is not acceptable to the government, comrade proles.