Category The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Feb 22 2023

Chairman Xi Plans Moscow Visit, Putin Suspends START Treaty, Maersk Exits Russia, Biden Talks Moldova, Planets Aligning for War


Posted originally on the CTH on February 21, 2023 | Sundance 

First things first, history may not always repeat, but it always rhymes.  Secondly, history tells us that only two things have ever pulled what we now call “western nations” out of a collective economic depression; (1) war, and (2) housing starts.

If you accept the WEF climate control agenda of a ‘managed transition‘, where economies are reduced in size to match lowered energy production, as generally speaking akin to a western economic depression.… then, you begin to ask the logical question.  How do the managers avoid the consequences?

If global (non BRICS) economic contraction is akin to a western economic depression, I would argue the consequences are identical.  Then, when major economies are in a state of shrinking and the citizens are feeling the horrible effects, something large is needed to change the economic equation.

With central banks raising interest rates to achieve the policy supporting contraction, the option for ‘housing starts’ to change the dynamic is removed.  That leaves, ‘war’.

President Putin and Chairman Xi are not stupid men.  They are big picture strategists.

♦DATA POINT – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move to suspend his country’s involvement in the last remaining arms control treaty with the U.S. came as a disturbing surprise to multiple former officials who negotiated the pact and nonproliferation experts committed to ending the expansion of nuclear forces. (read more)

Can you blame him?  The Western Alliance has already blamed Putin for the global food crisis they created by the World Economic Forum energy policy shift.  The Western Alliance accepts no responsibility for advancing hostility -through NATO expansion- on to Russia’s doorstep.  The Western Alliance has attempted to sanction Russia out of the global economy.  With the same Western Alliance now positioning for war, why would Putin adhere to their limitations?

♦DATA POINT – Chinese leader Xi Jinping is preparing to visit Moscow for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming months, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the plan. (read more)

Can you blame them?  Pay no attention to the Reuters narrative woven inside the article about China wanting to negotiate peace.  To accept that narrative is to believe there is no dragon behind the panda mask.  We are too far into the geopolitical awakening to say the dragon doesn’t exist and simultaneously hold its own interests (belt & road, and/or Taiwan) within the context. Ignoring the dragon behind the mask is really quite silly.  BRICS exists as an economic alliance of like-minded nations for exactly this geopolitical dynamic.

♦DATA POINT – Shipping and logistics group A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) has agreed to sell its two logistics sites in Russia to IG Finance Development Limited, it said on Monday, nearly marking the end of its business activities in the country. […] After that, Maersk will not have any business in Russia. (read more)

The major multinationals always position themselves to avoid the consequences of war.  Additionally, Moller-Maersk is already going to feel a major financial impact from the shrinking of the Western economies they generally service with their cargo transportation.  Smaller economies = less cargo = less ships = less revenue.  Moller-Maersk has to pick a side; they are aligned with the Western Alliance.  Hence their exit from Russia.  China/India will eventually fill the void. Again, BRICS.

These are data points just in the last 12 hours.  In addition to these data points from today, the saber rattling from the DC foreign policy and war machine financial system is on display in the Biden policy as transmitted from Warsaw. Again, just today.

Like us, I’m pretty sure from watching his statements and eventual policies over the past several years, President Donald Trump views foreign policy through the prism of economics.   If “economic security is national security,” then what is it when economic insecurity is an intentional design policy?

All of the economic data points have aligned toward direct military conflict between the Western Alliance and Russia that expands beyond the proxy war in Ukraine.

If the path is continued, this process eventually ends up with World War III.  Which, not coincidentally, boils down to the Western Economic Alliance -vs- BRICS, with a few remaining neutral and the middle east as the unknown variable.

Sound familiar?

Look below, you might find a familiar visual reference:

Yep, history rhymes.

Any questions? 

Feb 22 2023

The Hunger Games Begin – Soaring Energy Costs Lead to Rationing of Vegetables in U.K.


Posted originally on the CTH on February 21, 2023 | Sundance 

Follow the bouncing ball of consequence….

(Via Daily Mail) Vegetable rationing could last for ‘weeks’, it was warned today, after Morrisons joined Asda to became the second major supermarket to limit sales of certain items. 

Perishables like tomatoes, potatoes, cucumber and broccoli have been restricted to just two or three per customer in a host of stores up and down the country.

The crisis has developed in recent weeks due to soaring energy costs which have forced British farmers to switch off greenhouses as they desperately try to make ends meet – leaving a dearth of home-grown produce. (read more)

While it is prudent to remind everyone how fortunate we are to have Florida, California and Mexico for North American vegetable supplies, ie. no dramatic supply shortages, the energy price pressure being applied by Biden policy will lead to even higher consumer prices for all row crops.

18 months ago (Oct 2021), CTH first strongly recommended restarting victory gardens at home. The same recommendation only strengthens.

Feb 19 2023

Gate’s Plan to End World Hunger


Armstrong Economics Blog/Humor Re-Posted Feb 19, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Feb 17 2023

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.

Feb 16 2023

War & Capital Flows


Armstrong Economics Blog/Capital Flow Re-Posted Feb 16, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Marty, I attended your coming out WEC in Philadelphia in 2011. Just about everyone I spoke with said the same thing. They all showed up to make sure it was really you and not some government stooge pretending to be you.

I must say, when you put up the war cycle, I thought it was interesting and everyone respected your work so we listened. At the time it was perhaps a curiosity and would be something we would watch on TV instead of the Oscars. Here we are. In the middle of this mess. I can now see how they used that tactic to demonize Trump to get Biden elected if he was really elected.

Now every person who voted for Biden has voted for World War III. They bought the hatred of Trump to remove him when he was like JFK and would never have agreed to war as you said when you went to dinner at Mara Largo. The recent tapes show that Nixon confronted the CIA for killing JFK. The very people who did the Watergate break-in were operatives for the CIA to make sure Nixon would be removed.

Our leaders really want war. I would never have thought your war model would predict that we would be the aggressor. Our government lies about everything. Why? Do they hate humanity that much?

GP

REPLY: I appreciate what you are saying. The Deep State has always had its agenda and it was always just about them. Never in my wildest dreams looking at these forecasts a decade ago did I ever contemplate that we would be the aggressor. The Neocons just want to annihilate every Russian. That is all they think about. That is why John McCain handed Hillary’s fake dossier to James Comey at the FBI. They were two Neocons and always wanted war with Russia. It was Hillary that conditioned the Democrats to think that Russia was the enemy and they rigged the election for Trump.

You see both Democrats and Republicans cheering war now. There is no stopping the warmongering. All we can do is prepare, and understand how the capital will shift as the arrays will give us the timing. This will enable us to position ourselves to make it to the other side of 2032. Fortunately, Socrates was constructed using the raw data to provide a picture of global capital flows.

That was why I was called in by the Brady Commission back in 1987 for as you can see, the G5 was taking the dollar down for trade by 40% and then foreign investors sell US assets for they will lose on the FX exchange. Those morons every understood capital flows or currency.

When again they were trying to talk the dollar down in 1997 for trade purposes, I warned them they would unleash another crash making the same mistake as before. They at least listened and backed off.

Feb 13 2023

The Coming War


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Feb 13, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT:

Hi Marty,

As it appears the US is marching toward war, what is notable this time, unlike what happened in the run-up to US participation in WW2, was the sense of isolationism in this country. Roosevelt was clearly walking a fine line, knowing there was no stomach for US involvement in Europe. US involvement in WW1 also started out similarly with many in the US, in particular those of Irish descent who opposed helping the British in their battle in Europe. Wilson, another Democrat, also walked the straight and narrow, professing neutrality which history shows was a lie. Later, his 14 points, the forerunner to an imposed peace on Germany, would backfire. The League of Nations would die off.

But today, unlike the prior two world wars, both democrats and republicans appear to embrace an escalation in conflict. And with an old, decrepit mannequin in the WH, it looks like there’s nothing stopping this push toward war. Republicans especially are a total disgrace. They stabbed Trump in the back repeatedly or let him twist in the wind for 4 years and for the first two when they were the majority party…did little to show their one chance to lead. Trump did more for peace than any president since Kennedy. Trump at least tried to engage Xie, met with the North Korean leader and focused more on building up the US domestic economy. He tore up US participation in these climate pacts. He focused on building the wall to stem the flow of illegals crossing the border. Her met with the Mexican president and forced his counterpart to accept an arrangement that kept illegals inside Mexico pending and petitions later to the US government for entry based on their applications.  And for all this, he was the target for a fraud based on collusion to get elected with Russian help. Which turned out to be baseless. Later, he was implicated in the Jan 6 insurrection…courtesy of both parties. Which itself was a total fabrication.

Both Dems and R’s are now marching lockstep toward war. It’s no wonder public opinion toward the government is sinking to all-time lows. In both parties. Both of which will be swept away in the years ahead for betraying this country on so many levels.

MS

REPLY: Hillary, started this whole mess by launching the fake dossier and blaming Putin for interring in the election. She managed to convince 70% of Democrats that Russia was the enemy. RussiaGate, despite being discredited, set in motion this hatred for Russia. Still, 65% of Americans support Ukraine when in fact what they are doing is relying on a border drawn by Kruschev for administrative purposes and demanding that the Donbas is their territory when NEVER for even a single day have Ukrainian people ever been the majority in that region. This is a land grab and nothing more that is engulfing the entire world all because our idiot politicians want to destroy the world economy so they can blame it on war and default on all the debt.

I get hate mail and death threats from Ukrainian Nazis pretty regularly now. This only shows that we are historically on the wrong side. In WWII, we fought against the Nazo movement. This time, we support ethnic cleansing.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JfSU-VGixjM%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Americans fled here to escape the political chaos and warmongering in Europe. So when WWI and WWII took place, the American people saw no reason to go support a political movement that they had fled. Indeed, FDR’ solemn campaign promise was no boys would be sent to fight in a foreign war. That is why he did everything possible to get Japan to attack Pearl Harbor for that was the ONLY way to overcome the anti-war position of Americans. They have done the same to get Russia to act to protect the Donbas from the Ukrainians who began the civil war.

FDR repeated that solemn promise in Boston which was predominantly Irish. They refused to defend Britain openly recalling what the English did to the Irish. That was why FDR needed Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. Today, they needed Russia to launch its special operation which was absolutely legal under the United Nations Rules for he was protecting the Donbas, not seeking to conquer Ukraine.

All of those memories of past wars are long gone. Today, we cheer on war because we think it will be like watching Iraq on CNN after nightly dinner. As they say:

Feb 13 2023

War & Disease – What Comes Next After COVID


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease Re-Posted Feb 13, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: I found it really interesting how you have used the coinage to ascertain the costs of wars and to confirm the history. You have shown coins that show even the opening of the Colosseum. Are there any that record the plagues in history?

Thank you for a free and interesting site.

PV

REPLY: Ancient coins have been used throughout the centuries. Here is a Roman Sestertius of the Roman Port of Ostia. Saint Peter’s Square is the entrance to St Peter’s. Bernini actually copies the idea of the two colonnades from Nero’s coin. Some did not understand the history and claimed that Bernini was symbolizing the embracing maternal arms of the Catholic Church. It was the Port of Ostia which was the entrance to Rome for all the ships around the world. Thus, Bernini used the Port of Ostia to symbolize that this was the entrance for all Christians from around the world.

There was a great plague that infected Rome which was brought from Asia exactly as was the case by invading armies who brought the Black Plague during the 14th century. Emperor Trajan Decius (249-251AD) and his oldest son Herennius Etruscus (251AD) were killed in battle against the invading Goths. His youngest son, Hostilian (251AD) died of the plague.

This coin was issued by Trebonianus Gallus (251-253AD) appealing to Apollo Salutaris who was believed to have been the god of healing. This was the Plague of Cyprian that infected the Roman Empire from about 249 to 262 AD. It takes its name from St. Cyprian, who was the bishop of Carthage. He was a historian who witnessed and described the plague. It is not known precisely what it was. But from the description, it may have been smallpox, measles, and perhaps a viral hemorrhagic fever along the lines of the Ebola virus. What we do know is that this plague weakened Rome during the 3rd century causing a widespread decline in the workforce. That resulted in food shortages for a lack of manpower to produce food for the Roman army itself. This contributed greatly to the collapse of the 3rd century.

The Antonine Plague of 165 to 180AD, was the first known pandemic impacting the Roman Empire. It was most likely contracted by soldiers who were returning from campaigns in the Near East and spread throughout the empire. Historians generally believe the plague was smallpox or possibly measles. In 169 AD, the plague most likely took the life of Roman Emperor Lucius Verus. It appeared, according to ancient sources, during the Roman siege of the Mesopotamian city of Seleucia in the winter of 165–166. According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio at the time, the disease broke out again nine years later in 189 AD. That time he said it caused up to 2,000 deaths per day in the city of Rome. The total death count at the time ranged between 5 and 10 million. About 25T of those who contracted the plague died. This amounted to about 10% of the population.

A third major plague struck during the 6th century. Research has been conducted on skeletons that have survived. It has been confirmed that DNA from Yersinia pestis—the same bacterium responsible for the Black Death—was the cause of the Justinianic plague. This plague also became a pandemic that spread throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond.

What is significant about this plague is that it took place during a Volcanic Winter. There were the great volcanic eruptions that created the extreme weather events of 535–536AD during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527-565AD). A mysterious cloud appeared over the Mediterranean basin according to the historian Procopius of Caesarea (Procopius Caesarensis; c. 500-560 AD) who wrote: “The sun gave forth its light without brightness, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.” This was a volcanic cloud that blocked the sun. But it was not a volcano in that region. The cloud’s appearance created climate cooling for more than a decade. Crops failed, and there was widespread famine. This also sets in motion a pandemic known as the Plague of Justinian (541-542), which swept through the Eastern Roman Empire killing 5,000 to 10,000 people per day in Constantinople.

War has been the catalyst for disease. Why? The movement of populations from one region to another has historically spread disease. Even when the Europeans visited America, they brought diseases that killed many Indians. Likewise, Europeans who had sex with Indian women brought back to Europe Syphilis which did not previously exist in Europe.  The Black Plague of the 14th century was brought about by the invading Tartars in Crimea. They began catapulting dead bodies into the Italian fort which then panicked and took the disease back to Europe.

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. Once again, it coincided with World War I.

What we must be on guard against as our World Leaders are pushing to war once again, this one will engage the entire world. The likelihood of another major pandemic will be huge. What will it be this time? Normally, we should expect it to be the Black Plague. However, with the genetic manipulation and gain of function these people have been toying with, we cannot rule out that this time will be along the lines of COVID where the vaccines failed to prevent anyone from contracting COVID and actually made most more vulnerable in the future.

Feb 9 2023

#TwitterFiles Accountability: Former Twitter Execs Face Congress. Plus, Rogan’s “Anti-Semitism” | SYSTEM UPDATE #37


Glenn Greenwald Posted originally on: Feb 8, 7:00 pm EST