Tucker Carlson Outlines How Joe Biden is Implementing the Green New Deal Energy Program and Killing the U.S. Economy, and Standard of Living, in The Process


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

During an extensive opening monologue on Tuesday evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson walked through the origin of the modern American push for a transformation in the U.S. energy system; as outlined in the Green New Deal advocacy of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and how Joe Biden is implementing the agenda by executive fiat.

The Green New Deal is domestically to the U.S. as the Build Back Better agenda is to the rest of the western nations who follow the instructions from the World Economic Forum. Collectively the economies of western government are starting to collapse as the underlying energy policies (climate change) are being implemented.

Carlson walks through several examples of countries who have tried and failed to switch from oil, gas and coal to the “green renewable” energy programs. Everything from farming to home heating is now under attack by the governmental energy policies of western nations.  Civil society is starting to collapse in according to the schedule of the nations who have tried to transition.  Perhaps the worst part about it, is that western politicians -like Joe Biden- do not care how much damage is done, they are doing it anyway. WATCH:

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Something has to change, and soon.  As a nation we are going to self-destruct if we do not stop this mad effort to use windmills and solar energy as alternative power sources to oil, coal and natural gas.  Already there are signs that states like Texas are bordering on an energy crisis because there is not enough wind to power their windmills.

From the complete restructuring of farming under the guise of climate change (the intentional shift to eating bugs and lab-grown meat), to the complete collapse of stable energy as a result of chasing climate change goals, we are fast approaching the point of no easy return.

We are not going to like the civil unrest and national instability that comes along with public desperation.

Eva Vlaardingerbroek Summarizes all the Merging Food, Energy and Farming Issues with Stark Advice to Americans


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 12, 2022 | Sundance 

Eva Vlaardingerbroek is a GB News correspondent and conservative voice from Holland.  In this interview segment with NTDNews Ms. Vlaardingerbroek outlines what is happening in the Netherlands with the Dutch farm protests and how it connects to the larger Agenda 2030 goals.

In the last 20 seconds of the segment, Vlaardingerbroek has some solid advice for Americans.  WATCH (2 mins):

To really get a strong reference point for how the global ruling elites at the World Economic Forum think about farming and climate change, which includes the brain trust at the World Health Organization, I would urge you to read THIS ARTICLE from the Irish Farmers Journal.

When I first read this article about Irish farming -mostly referencing government policy- what stood out to me more than anything was the open hubris and arrogance in the mindset of the people cited.

They openly say the goal of the fundamental change in the global food system is to control what people eat, allocate specific amounts of calories according to the goals of the climate change officials, and completely take over the way farming is done.

The article is written from a sympathetic standpoint of how government needs to help farmers transition away from their agricultural world as they lose their farm operations. The openly communist outlook is really quite remarkable.

“Significant food system change is needed to address food security and climate challenges, but it risks decimating farm incomes. Policy analyst Anne Finnegan examines a new OECD FAO report.” ~ READ HERE

U.S. Homebuyer Contract Cancellations Surge to 15 Percent in June, Highest Ever Recorded Sans Pandemic


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 12, 2022 | Sundance

A slowdown in the housing market is being identified as the primary cause of a significant increase in cancelled homebuyer contracts in the month of June.  Bloomberg Report Here and Redfin Report Here.  It would appear the inflated housing bubble has popped.

According to the data 60,000 home sales were cancelled while under contract in June, that represents 14.9% of all contracts cancelled by the buyer before the transaction closed.  If you take out the forced cancellations due to the pandemic, a 15% cancellation rate equals the highest monthly cancellation rate ever recorded.

The economy is contracting, economic activity and consumer purchases have stopped, and the contraction is now fast and sudden.

(Redfin) – Nationwide, roughly 60,000 home-purchase agreements fell through in June, equal to 14.9% of homes that went under contract that month. That’s the highest percentage on record with the exception of March and April 2020, when the housing market all but ground to a halt due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. It compares with 12.7% a month earlier and 11.2% a year earlier.

This is according to a Redfin analysis of MLS data going back through 2017. Please note that homes that fell out of contract during a given month didn’t necessarily go under contract the same month. For example, a home that fell out of contract in June could have gone under contract in May.

“The slowdown in housing-market competition is giving homebuyers room to negotiate, which is one reason more of them are backing out of deals,” said Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr. “Buyers are increasingly keeping rather than waiving inspection and appraisal contingencies. That gives them the flexibility to call the deal off if issues arise during the homebuying process.”

Marr continued: “Rising mortgage rates are also forcing some buyers to cancel home purchases. If rates were at 5% when you made an offer, but reached 5.8% by the time the deal was set to close, you may no longer be able to afford that home or you may no longer qualify for a loan.” (read more)

Now, keep in mind that contract cancellations can also be attributed to a hot housing market, where purchasing hysteria and bidding wars end up being factors in the contracts.  Some anxious buyers make out-of-town offers without even seeing the house, then use contract exits -contingencies- to cancel the purchase if the home is ultimately not up to their standard.

In my opinion the spike in cancellations is a blend of the two aspects which indicate the apex of home purchasing is behind us.  The bubble popped.

Home values are now declining as more available inventory starts to fill up the real estate market.  Again, everything is local and regional depending on a myriad of issues; however, if we are looking at it from a macro level, the booming housing market is now over.

City and county tax rates will now benefit from the overinflated real estate sales data.  Real estate tax bills (a backward-looking metric) will go up as the curve on home valuation actually starts to drop and drop quickly.

If you did not purchase a home this year, you have not lost money.  If you did purchase a home this year, the dropping market will erase tangible wealth.

Redfin also has the top metro-markets for cancellations:

(Source, with Expanded List)

CBS says the best way to survive the Biden economy is not to buy stuff, and young adults should stay living with mom and dad. WATCH:

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Neil Oliver Analyzes the Global Uprisings that are Rejecting the Build Back Better Agenda


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 12, 2022 | Sundance

Appearing on GBNews with Dan Wootton, UK commentator Neil Oliver discusses and connects the Sri Lanka protests, the uprising in the Netherlands, and the aligned protests in Poland, Italy, Germany and much of the European continent.

As Oliver notes the pretorian guards for western politicians, aka the ‘western media’, are doing everything they can to ignore the global scale of the popular uprisings that are directly connected to the globalist agenda of the World Economic Forum and their Build Back Better orders to the western politicians.  The media ignore the issue until it reaches a point like Sri Lanka where it can no longer be ignored.  WATCH:

The Canadian trucker protests were targeted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an effort to quickly stop the spread of any opposition to the globalist agenda. However, in the Netherlands the Dutch farmers have several distinct advantages in their ability to impact the life of ordinary Dutch people, as they refuse to become victims to the new global feudalism.

Like Sri Lanka, the Netherlands is a case study in raw people power, where the government is represented by a select few people.  The only thing keeping the Dutch from storming the politicians’ palaces and government buildings is a preference for polite society.  If that preference changes, and it might as people get more desperate, well, katy-bar the door.

Sri Lanka (top)

The Netherlands (bottom)

Both uprisings are connected to the exact same dynamic.

Rivian Electric Vehicle Manufacturer Planning Layoffs


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 12, 2022 

Two things about this report showing Rivian is planning layoffs for its workforce.

First, the larger ‘layoff‘ issue is going to be more prevalent as the economy contracts and consumer demand declines.  There is almost no expanded investment going into any Main Street business that sells non-essential goods.

The economic contraction, the drop in consumer demand that indicates a recession, is very real and now very easy to spot.

Second, Rivian is backed by the financing of Ford and Amazon and operates in California, Michigan and Illinois (three deep blue states).  Rivian is also the supplier for Amazon electric delivery vehicles having previously announced (in 2019) a deal to purchase 100,000 vehicles from Rivian.  Additionally, Rivian has lost 69% of its market value this year.

LA TIMES – Rivian Automotive Inc. is planning hundreds of layoffs to trim its workforce in areas where the electric-vehicle maker has grown too quickly, according to people familiar with the matter. […] The Irvine company, which has more than 14,000 employees, could target an overall reduction of around 5%, the people said. The layoffs are still in the planning stage, and nothing has been decided.

[…] The manufacturer is poised to join companies across corporate America pruning their operations amid growing worries about an economic downturn. Tesla is cutting 10% of its salaried workforce, while protecting manufacturing jobs, after Chief Executive Elon Musk said he sees a recession as inevitable. (read more)

Sri Lanka’s Economy Completely Collapsed


Armstrong Economics Blog/Tyranny Re-Posted Jul 12, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Protestors swarmed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s palace in Sri Lanka, forcing him to flee and step down. The entire government in Sri Lanka will be restructured. When the people are hungry, no amount of rules and restrictions will prevent them from protesting. Sri Lanka ran out of food and ran out of fuel to cook whatever happened to be available.

The country’s foreign reserves were depleted. The government began to cut the power grids daily for increasingly longer periods. There was not enough fuel to power generatorsInflation soared to 45.3% in May, with food costs rising 58%. The United Nations estimated that 22% of the entire population had become food insecure and 86% of families  “are resorting to at least one coping mechanism, including eating less, eating less nutritious food and even skipping meals altogether.”

“Gota Go Gama” (Gama meaning village) or GGG protests arose throughout the nation. Labor migration rose 286% this year, according to the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment. The government owes $51 billion in debt and cannot make any payments on loans. Their currency collapsed 80% and was basically worthless. Tourism halted after the pandemic, adding to the crisis. The people had hit rock bottom and knew exactly who to blame. President Rajapaksa and his brother, former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, are extremely corrupt. They allowed the problem to become a crisis; living lavishly as their people starved.

The revolutionary wave has only just begun. I warned that it would first come for emerging countries. However, do not think this incident will be isolated to one nation. Unrest is rising as living standards decline.

Political Corruption in The Netherlands and How the Dutch Farmer Protest Connects to the Burning of The Picnic Grocery Distribution Center


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 12, 2022 | Sundance

You might have heard about an online grocery distribution center called Picnic in the Netherlands burning to the ground {LINK}.  The backstory of how the Picnic operation connects to the Dutch government is fascinating, and with context it looks like Picnic was targeted as part of the Dutch farmer protest.

In the Netherlands the government official who organized the regulations to take farmland from farmers and reduce their livestock is a politician named Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink {wiki link}.  Mrs van der Wal-Zeggelink is the current Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Policy in the Dutch cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Minister Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink and Prime Minister Mark Rutte are climate activists, so it makes sense that the “Minister of Nitrogen Policy” would be the person who would attempt to reduce nitrogen by targeting the farmers.  It is Mrs. van der Wal-Zeggelink who created the regulations that the farmers are protesting.

Now, stay with me… Christianne van der Wall-Zeggelink is married to Piet van der Wal, an heir to the wealth of the family who owns a supermarket chain called Boni. {citation} So, when Dutch farmers sell product to Boni they are directly funding the wealth of the government minister who seeks to destroy their livelihoods.

Additionally, when Dutch shoppers spend their money at the Boni supermarket they are funding the family of the government minister who is seeking to destroy the farmers who provide the food to the supermarkets.  Do the Dutch farmer blockades of the supermarkets and distribution centers make more sense now?

Here is where it gets interesting….  The supermarket chain Boni is one of a small group of four big investors in the online supermarket chain Picnic. {citation}  The van der Wal family was part of a group of investors in 2015 and 2019 who generated €450 million for the Picnic grocery operation.

Additionally, as part of the financial relationship, the Picnic distribution center buys their groceries at wholesale prices from Boni: “Picnic directly buys from an existing supermarket chain (Boni), which saves them the operational costs on that side” {2015, citation}.

Buying from Boni Supermarket or ordering online from Picnic home grocery delivery is essentially the same thing.  Boni is a retail supermarket chain, and Picnic is a free home delivery service that sources their grocery distribution center inventory from Boni.

Additionally, Bill and Melinda Gates are big investors into Picnic {citation}: “As reported by the respected Dutch financial magazine Quote in September last year, [Picnic] raised €600 million (approximately $604 million) in an investment round, with the lion’s share coming from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.” {link}

Summary so far: Nitrogen Policy Minister Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink is married to the ultra-wealthy family who own the Supermarket chain Boni.  Together with other ‘climate change’ investors including Bill and Melinda Gates, Boni funds online supermarket Picnic.  Sales from Picnic or Boni directly increase the wealth of the Dutch Nitrogen Policy Minister.  Picnic also sells the engineered food that Bill Gates promotes.

The current owner and CEO of Picnic is a man named Michiel Muller.  Mr. Muller is a Dutch entrepreneur, climate change activist and self-described visionary, who intends to “change the entire food system, eliminate waste” and be in line with sustainable energy goals and the climate change agenda [Video citation @14:21].

Additionally, a great deal of the money from the investment rounds is going toward building a robotic warehouse and automated Picnic distribution center which aligns with the free online grocery ordering system. {another citation}

With all of these associations, business interests and financial aspects in mind, Dutch Nitrogen Minister Christianne van der Wall-Zeggelink has a direct financial conflict-of-interest in the advancement of sustainable supermarket and online grocery operations.  Specifically, those operators who are the beneficiaries of not only her nitrogen elimination regulation, but also the direct investment from her family.

It is also not surprising that Dutch farmers would seek to block the retail supermarkets and distribution centers of the companies that are directly connected to the business interests of Dutch politicians.

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The Disease Cycle


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease Re-Posted Jul 11, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty, You have forecasted that your disease model turned up here in 2022. COVID was exploited, but it was no worse than the flu. Then there is monkeypox. But the latest is the much more lethal Marburg virus in Africa. Is this going to be the real one?

DC

ANSWER: The model did not target a specific virus. There are serious outbreaks throughout history but they are not always the same virus or bacteria. The history of this particular virus only goes back to 1967. This particular virus has a base cycle of 5-year intervals. The major outbreak was 2004-2005 which lasted into 2008. Ideally, our model projected that would reappear in 2013 and it showed up in 2012 a little ahead of schedule.

A major outbreak should come in the 2027-2028 time period. But keep in mind that this has not turned into a pandemic and has been confined to Africa. It is spread through bodily fluids so which usually involves sex or touching an open sore. So I would not be concerned that this will spread to your neighborhood without human intervention. The most devastating disease cycle will be from 2027 into 2050.

UN Human Rights Report Shows Ukraine Military Used Nursing Home Residents as Human Shields


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 10, 2022 | Sundance 

A quietly released study from the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner [See Here pdf] looking into allegations of war crimes conducted during the Ukraine -vs- Russia conflict, specifically looked into allegations of Russian military targeting a nursing home facility in the eastern region of Luhansk.

What the UN investigation revealed was that Ukraine military soldiers had intentionally used the nursing home as an active base to launch military strikes against Russian forces. The Associated Press was forced to reveal, “Ukraine’s armed forces bear a large, and perhaps equal, share of the blame for what happened in Stara Krasnyanka, which is about 580 kilometers (360 miles) southeast of Kyiv. A few days before the attack, Ukrainian soldiers took up positions inside the nursing home, effectively making the building a target.”

The issue of the Ukraine military, intentionally and with purposeful forethought, using civilian locations to embed their military units, highlights the inherent dangers associated with western propaganda during the conflict.  In fact, the effort to create civilian casualties seems more purposeful as a strategy to gain western media support and create stories that can be used to advance sympathy toward Ukraine, even if it means putting their own civilians in harm’s way.

(Via AP) […]  The report by the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights doesn’t conclude the Ukrainian soldiers or the Russian troops committed a war crime. But it said the battle at the Stara Krasnyanka nursing home is emblematic of the human rights office’s concerns over the potential use of “human shields” to prevent military operations in certain areas.

The aftermath of the attack on the Stara Krasnyanka home also provides a window into how both Russia and Ukraine move quickly to set the narrative for how events are unfolding on the ground — even when those events may still be shrouded by the fog of war.

For Ukraine, maintaining the upper hand in the fight for hearts and minds helps to ensure the continued flow of billions of dollars in Western military and humanitarian aid.

[…] David Crane, a former Defense Department official and a veteran of numerous international war crime investigations, said the Ukrainian forces may have violated the laws of armed conflict by not evacuating the nursing home’s residents and staff.

“The bottom-line rule is that civilians cannot intentionally be targeted. Period. For whatever reason,” Crane said. “The Ukrainians placed those people in a situation which was a killing zone. And you can’t do that.” (read more)

Keep in mind, the United States is funding Ukraine to fight this war.  Without U.S. funding, including the shipments of weapons, the training of military units and the embedding of U.S. special forces to assist the Ukraine military, Ukraine and Russian governments would have likely entered into peace negotiations.

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Used Car Repossession Rates Double for Both Sub-Prime and Prime Borrowers, Indicates Trouble on Main Street


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 10, 2022 | Sundance

Barrons has an interesting article on an increase in bank auto repossession rates connected to defaults [see here].  Essentially, used car prices have surged significantly and the timeline seems to indicate the temporary covid-19 stimulus spending had a lot to do with the increase in demand.

According to data assembled by CoPilot, used cars are currently priced approximately 10,000 higher than they would be without any pandemic related influence, supply side or demand side.  Banks and financial institutions loaned money into the climbing market price.  However, the artificially inflated car prices now create a bubble where the liability on the books is significantly higher than the repossessed asset is worth.

A higher rate of auto loans are now defaulting for both sub-prime and prime borrowers (double for both), indicating the former buyers are under financial pressure and can no longer make their car payments.  The loan to value ratio was as high as 140% when the banks made the loans, a more traditional or normal ratio is 80%.

The banks have a vested financial interest in limiting the number of repossessed vehicles they allow into the used car auction market in order to keep the book value of the cars as high as possible.  Those banks and financial institutions have recently rented more storage space for the vehicles being repossessed.

Barrons – […] Lucky Lopez is a car dealer who has been in the business for about 20 years. In recent meetings with bankers, where he bids on repossessed vehicles before they go to auction, he has noticed some common characteristics of the defaulted loans. Most of the loans on recently repossessed cars originated during 2020 and 2021, whereas origination dates are normally scattered because people fall on hard times at different times; loan-to-value ratios, or the amount financed relative to the value of the vehicle, are around 140%, versus a more normal 80%; and many of the loans were extended to buyers who had temporary pops in income during the pandemic. Those monthly incomes fell—sometimes by half—as pandemic stimulus programs stopped, and now they look even worse on an inflation-adjusted basis and as the prices of basics in particular are climbing. (read more)

Somehow, I would hazzard a guess, if we are to follow recent precedent, that taxpayers are going to end up backstopping the financial institutions when the bubble in this asset class pops.  However, that said… the scale of these loan defaults could also foretell a significant slipping in the housing market.

…”There will not be a recession”…