Category U. S. Open boarders

Jul 31 2022

January 6th – a Fair Investigation


Armstrong Economics Blog/Civil Unrest Re-Posted Jul 31, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Jul 31 2022

Keep in Mind, The Same Media and Financial Voices Denying the Current Recession, are The Same Media and Financial Voices Who Proclaimed Trump’s Tariffs Would Destroy Economy


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 30, 2022 | Sundance

It was the Fourth Quarter of 2019…..

Right before the pandemic would hit a few months later…. Despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, all of them saying Trump’s 2017 steel and aluminum tariffs on China, Canada and the EU would create massive inflation, it just wasn’t happening!

Overall year-over-year inflation was hovering around 1.7 percent [Table-A BLS]; yup, that was our inflation rate.  The rate in the latter half of 2019 was firmed up with less month-over-month fluctuation, and the rate basically remained consistent.   [See Below]  The U.S. economy was on a smooth glide path, strong, stable and Main Street was growing with MAGAnomics at work.

A couple of important points.  First, unleashing the energy sector to drive down overall costs to consumers and industry outputs was a key part of President Trump’s America-First MAGAnomic initiative.  Lower energy prices help the worker economy, middle class and average American more than any other sector.

Which brings us to the second important point.  Notice how food prices had very low year-over-year inflation, 0.5 percent.  That is a combination of two key issues: low energy costs, and the fracturing of Big Ag hold on the farm production and the export dynamic:

(BLS) […] The index for food at home declined for the third month in a row, falling 0.2 percent. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs decreased 0.7 percent in August as the index for eggs fell 2.6 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables, which rose in July, fell 0.5 percent in August; the index for fresh fruits declined 1.4 percent, but the index for fresh vegetables rose 0.4 percent. The index for cereals and bakery products fell 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.3 percent in July. (link)

For the previous twenty years food prices had been increasingly controlled by Big Ag, and not by normal supply and demand.   The commodity market became a ‘controlled market’. U.S. food outputs (farm production) was controlled and exported to keep the U.S. consumer paying optimal prices.

President Trump’s trade reset was disrupting this process.  As farm products were less exported the cost of the food in our supermarket became reconnected to a ‘more normal’ supply and demand cycle.  Food prices dropped and our pantry costs were lowered.

The Commerce Dept. then announced that retail sales climbed by 0.4 percent in August 2019, twice as high as the 0.2 percent analysts had predicted. The result highlighted retail sales strength of more than 4 percent year-over-year.   These excellent results came on the heels of blowout data in July, when households boosted purchases of cars and clothing.

The better-than-expected number stemmed largely from a 1.8 percent jump in spending vehicles. Online sales, meanwhile, also continued to climb, rising 1.6 percent. That’s similar to July, 2019, when Amazon held its two-day, blowout Prime Day sale. (link)

Despite the efforts to remove and impeach President Trump, it did not look like middle-class America was overly concerned about the noise coming from the pundits.   Likely that’s because blue-collar wages were higher, Main Street inflation was lower, and overall consumer confidence was strong.  Yes, MAGAnomics was working.

Additionally, remember all those MSM hours and newspaper column inches where the professional financial pundits were claiming Trump’s tariffs were going to cause massive increases in prices of consumer goods?

Well, exactly the opposite happened [BLS report] Import prices were continuing to drop:

[Table 1 – BLS report link]

This was a really interesting dynamic that no-one in the professional punditry would dare explain.

Donald Trump’s tariffs were targeted to specific sectors of imported products.  [Steel, Aluminum, and a host of smaller sectors etc.]  However, when the EU and China respond by devaluing their currency, that approach hit all products imported, not just the tariff goods.

Because the EU and China were driving up the value of the dollar, everything we were importing became cheaper.   Not just imports from Europe and China, but actually imports from everywhere.   All imports were entering the U.S. at substantially lower prices.

This meant when we imported products, we were also importing deflation.

This price result is exactly the opposite of what the economic experts and Wall Street pundits predicted back in 2017 and 2018 when they were pushing the rapid price increase narrative.

Because all the export dependent economies were reacting with such urgency to retain their access to the U.S. market, aggregate import prices were actually lower than they were when the Trump tariffs began:

[…]  Prices for imports from China edged down 0.1 percent in August following decreases of 0.2 percent in both July and June. Import prices from China have not advanced on a monthly basis since ticking up 0.1 percent in May 2018. The price index for imports from China fell 1.6 percent for the year ended in August.

[…]  Import prices from the European Union fell 0.2 percent in August and 0.3 percent over the past 12 months.

[Page #4 – BLS Report, pdf] – BLS press release

Jul 31 2022

One Day After Arresting Political Opposition Voice, an Assassination Attempt on Guatemalan President Giammattei


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 30, 2022 | Sundance 

At first blush I’m inclined to see Jose Ruben Zamora as the Latin version of Jamal Khashoggi; which is to say, he glows CIA.

Yesterday in Guatemala, the government arrested a “journalist” and “businessman” named Jose Ruben Zamora who was the publisher of a national newspaper and strong opposition voice against the conservative government of President Alejandro Giammattei [WSJ link].  Today, Guatemalan President Giammattei is reported to have survived an assassination attempt, leaving people injured as a result of gunfire [details sketchy].

(Via WSJ) – […] Guatemalan police arrested José Rubén Zamora, a businessman and renowned journalist who heads the elPeriódico newspaper, at his house in a tree-lined residential neighborhood in the capital after a judge issued an arrest warrant against him, the country’s attorney general’s office said.

“This is a political persecution,” Mr. Zamora told reporters, flanked by policemen, in front of his house. A group of people gathered at the site, shouting: “You are not alone! You are not alone!”

The head of the anticorruption unit at the attorney general’s office in charge of the investigation, Rafael Curruchiche, said the arrest had nothing to do with Mr. Zamora’s work as a journalist but with his business activities.

[…] Associations of journalists, human-rights advocacy groups and some legal experts denounced Mr. Zamora’s arrest as an assault on freedom of speech and open intimidation in reprisal for the newspaper’s coverage. (read more)

I’m sorry to say this, but in this new political era – when associations of multinational media organizations and NGO type human rights groups suddenly start protesting the arrest of a journalist suspected of criminal activity, I no longer grant the benefit of doubt.

In this new era, we have passed through the looking glass.  NATO now represents the manipulative globalist bad guys in collusion with corporations; Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is a corrupt grifter and transparent tool of the U.S. State Dept and CIA; WaPo’s Jamal Khashoggi held all the optics and behaviors of a western intelligence agent; and the U.S. media have become narrative engineers who willingly feed on a constant stream of false information by intelligence assets intent on shaping American opinion.

As a result, when all the betters who tell me that J6 was a bigger threat to democracy than 9/11; the same people who call Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro a dictator; the same people who claimed Chairman Kim Jong-Un was a mad man; are also telling me to suspect Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei of being a strong-armed dictator arresting the poor and virtuous journalist Jose Zamora, who uses his hair to knit sweaters for homeless kittens, my suspicious cat crawls atop the tree of cynicism and gives me the side-eye.

Then we overlay how much various central American nations are influenced by the United States government, and, well, we find ourselves being predisposed toward the opposite of what the narrative engineers claim.

Public skepticism is the result of what Senator Grassley recently called “institutionally corrupt” U.S. government behavior.

Jul 31 2022

Double Vaxxed, Double Boosted, Loaded with Paxlovid, Joe Biden Gets COVID Again


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 30, 2022 

Well, isn’t that convenient.   Sorry folks, I can’t come out and take questions, I’ve got the Rona again.

[SOURCE]

Only the second thing that has been positive during his tenure.

[Source Link pdf]

Jul 30 2022

MAKE 1984 FICTION AGAIN!


Awaken With JP Published originally on Rumble on July 28, 2022

Jul 30 2022

The Biggest Problem


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 29, 2022 | Sundance

People often wonder why few solutions are presented for the significant challenges we face.  Perhaps it is worth reminding everyone what the biggest challenge really is, and it has nothing to do with Joe Biden or our political system abusers.

The biggest problem we face as a nation is our unwillingness to admit our current condition is the result of purposeful action.

Cue example # [you_fill_in_the_ blank], a visual demonstration:

The central banks did not “fail to spot” the source of inflation.  The monetary policy makers did not make mistakes. The hands that guide the economic system did not screw it up, make mistakes or fail to recognize the consequences of the policy they put into place.

When they meet together at Davos for collective discussions around opportunities presented by the pandemic, the guidebook known as Build Back Better did not just organically materialize.  Nor did all the western governing central bankers all make a mistake when they followed the agreed consensus.  They knew from the outset the climate change agenda would be a radical transformation of the global energy system, and as a result, the global economy.

The central banks did not collectively “fail to spot” the inflation they were creating by lowering energy production, disincentivizing energy investment, limiting energy development, shifting policy away from new production, and generally breaking the traditional energy system finances.  They knew precisely what they were doing, and they did it -and continue to do it- with forethought and purpose.

This is where people mistakenly view ‘prior justifications‘ as ‘mistakes.’  When they said inflation was transitory, they were not lying about what they created. They were, however, obfuscating the length of the term “transitory.”   Inflation is transitory, from where and when it started in 2021, all the way to where and when windmills, solar panels and clean energy will take over on (fill_in_date_).  That is the “transition.”

These bankers, bureaucrats and political leaders are not stupid, and factually their intelligence has absolutely nothing to do with the situation.

These governing officials are ideologues, the worst kind of abuser you could ever encounter because they believe they are doing everything for your own good.  Their collective truth is all that matters.

You the citizens within the nations they govern, are not smart enough to know what is best for you.

You, the people who take their magnanimous policies for granted, are not thoughtful enough to understand how to save the planet.

You, the person using resources without caring about the planet, are not bright enough to see how your long-term interests are made better by their short-term actions.

These psychological outlooks are inherent traits of ideologues and abusers.

Once you realize your opinion in their plan means nothing, then you can understand why actions contrast against your opinion of that action are difficult to reconcile.

The actions of the ideologues seem hypocritical only because you are projecting a motive toward them, they do not carry.  You think they are making mistakes; they are not.  You think they made the wrong assumptions in their policies, they did not.  You think they are screwing up the economy, they are not; at least not according to the plan they have.

They met, discussed, planned, organized and collectively came to the decision that they would all act in synergy.  Each individual taking the actions within his/her sphere of influence that would assist the larger agenda.  Each government leader steering his/her internal policy in a direction that befits the larger collective need, regardless of domestic opinion.  None of this was done by mistake.

The western central bankers all show up to the same conferences, symposiums and discussions; and they all follow the exact same approach.  Yet somehow, we reconcile their collective and intentional outcomes as if they are making mistakes that they will soon correct.  Then we sit puzzling over our puzzlers wondering why the correction is not happening.

The biggest problem we face is our inability to accept what is done, and instead we project justifications that are nonexistent.  We are suffering from battered citizen syndrome.

We reconcile our economic collapse by saying they are getting the policies wrong.  No.

Just stop.

They are executing the policies exactly as they were planned from the outset. Your financial abuse is a feature, not a flaw, of your abusers’ behavior.  The policies are working exactly as intended.

The Central Banks did not “fail to spot” anything. They knew what was causing inflation (energy policy) and they needed to ignore it (still do). They pretend higher costs are now some weird demand-side construct, despite no one buying much, in order to support the global Build Back Better climate change policy objective that will save future generations of mankind.  The operational timeline is decades, not weeks or months.

The word “transitory” was used purposefully, in order to hide and obfuscate their prior knowledge. The bankers knew when they said it, that a transition was exactly what the BBB program called for, which was to delay any monetary rate increase as long as possible allowing energy policy inflation to structurally embed.

Once the bankers, ideologues, globalist WEF guides and bureaucrats, got the fully supported climate change energy program (BBB) to take hold globally as an economic control mechanism (no new production), then -and only then- did they modify their policy to support the second phase.

Phase-2 is to reduce global economic activity to match the 2021 deficit in energy production. That phase began in March 2022:

We are in phase 2 now.  The U.S. Federal Reserve and the various central banks now raising interest rates to lower all western economic activity.

The goal in phase-2 is to lower energy demand to offset the massive increases in price, due to *nonproduction* of the energy in phase-1.

Put simply, bring energy use down by raising rates and lowering the economic activity.

This “managing the transition” is being done purposefully and collectively. This is exactly what the Build Back Better agenda called for. They did not get anything wrong. They did not make mistakes. Our current economic state, and/or the pain you feel, is the exact outcome of the plan they followed.

Now, I fully understand why the Wall Street financial pundits and global news corporations do not outline this reality.  After all, this type of elitist behavior is exactly what revolutions are born from. However, it is very frustrating that smart people on the pragmatic and practical side cannot see or accept the political roadmap for what it is.

This is being done on purpose. They are not making mistakes.

I don’t care what you want to call it: Build Back Better, Green New Deal, The Great Reset, whatever.  I simply don’t care about the labels. But the truth of a coordinated approach to manage the western economies into useful decline must be admitted *BEFORE* we can expect to change things.

As long as our codependency facilitates our abuse…. As long as denial of intent is a comforting mechanism, allowing us to avoid confronting the abuse we are suffering…. No corrective action is possible.

It starts by changing our thinking.

Brazil, Mexico, and more recently Japan, have started pushing back against the climate change ideologues.  We must do the same.

Act, or be acted upon.

Jul 30 2022

Shrinking the Economy is a Feature, Not a Flaw – Massive Layoffs and Unemployment Likely Hits in September


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 29, 2022 | Sundance 

The distance between Wall Street and Main Street has never been as brutally obvious as it is today.  It is simply stunning to watch the cheerleading and casual nature of the economic and financial pundits as they speak esoterically about how policies intended to reduce the U.S. economy are so wonderful.

Seriously, the disconnect in life impact has never been as stark.  At least in previous times of economic contraction there was a smidgen of appreciation for the pain that unemployment and rising costs bring to the blue collar and middle-income working class.  In this new era, the financial stress and visible outcomes of destroyed families are simply shrugged aside as if these are abstract consequences.

In this segment former Federal Reserve vice-chair Randal Quarles, notes with a casual flippance how the economic policies of the Biden administration are simply doing what needs to be done in order to intentionally reduce the U.S. economy.  Sure, massive unemployment, in direct correlation to the scale of the inflation that precedes it, is almost certain, but hey…. the economy must be collapsed if the Build Back Better, Green New Deal, agenda is to be fully implemented. WATCH:

Maybe this flippancy seems starker because those who consider themselves outside the collateral damage impact zone were not visible in prior generations.  Perhaps it is because modern technology and the information era allows us to see conversations that were previously only described in print newspapers and journals.  Whatever it is, the shameless disconnect between the unaffected rulers and the proles who have to live with the consequences are far more visible today than before.

Smiling while describing a future where working men are emasculated by their inability to support their families. Smiling and shrugging while explaining a landscape where moms are worried about how to feed their children, as the checkbook in the household creates a type of stress these ‘betters’ have likely never experienced, is almost psychotic in its detachment.

Desperation is not a good situation for any society.

Worse yet, laughing in the face of desperation leads to the type of outcomes that eventually hits the ‘betters.’

[ SOURCE ]

Jul 30 2022

Interview: The World According to Martin Armstrong


Armstrong economics Blog/Armstrong in the Media Re-Posted Jul 30, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Click here to listen to Martin Armstrong’s latest interview. 

By Kerry Lutz:

“We’re seeing oil price shocks, commodity booms and busts, and various factors that are threatening to de-throne the US dollar. Why is this happening, and what does this mean for the global economy? I have Martin Armstrong on the show to discuss this, and he explains the various changes that have occurred—such as sanctions in Russia and countries opting to not borrow in dollars—that put the dollar at risk. Not only is the dollar in danger in these conditions—this shift in currency use greatly affects the world economy. Tune in for more information.”

Jul 29 2022

First Major German City Turns Off Hot Water and Public Building Electricity to Save Gas


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 28, 2022 | Sundance 

Hanover, a city in the northwest of Germany, has become the first major metropolitan area to try and reduce the use of natural gas by removing hot water from public buildings.  The move comes as natural gas supplies from Russia are reduced to 20% of capacity.  Germany is attempting to fill up storage facilities of natural gas in order to survive the winter.

Germany, together with several European countries, are telling their citizens to expect large increases in their electricity bills as energy costs continue to skyrocket.

Germany does not have any LNG terminals to receive shipments of natural gas into ports, they are dependent on pipelines from Russia.  They are urgently trying to reduce the current amount of natural gas being consumed.

(Via Daily Mail) – […] Other desperate gas-saving measures include switching off public fountains and blacking out night-time lights on major buildings such as the town hall and museums. The city’s mayor, Belit Onay, spoke of an ‘imminent gas shortage’ that meant they had to reduce the city’s energy consumption by 15 per cent.

[…] There will also be a ban on portable air conditioners, heaters and radiators among the general populace as the average German begins to pay a price for standing up to the Russian dictator.

[…] Germany, like most of Europe, has been enjoying a hot summer which should soften the blow of the cold showers, but public officials are introducing the measures now in fear of what awaits them when the season turns.

Gazprom, the Russian state energy giant, has been giving European leaders sleepless nights by disrupting the flow of gas via its Nord Stream 1 pipe line.

They cut the flow to 40 per cent in June, citing maintenance issues, and this week they reduced the gas supply through the pipe to just 20 per cent.

These reductions, which EU energy chief Kadri Simson dismissed as ‘politically motivated’, have seen energy bills soar, governments struggle to fill gas storage facilities and energy-intensive heavy industries wondering if they can keep the factories running.

Russia denies that it is deliberately throttling supply to cause pain and instability in Europe, but few doubt that it is a deliberate ploy to punish what it calls ‘unfriendly countries.’

In response, European Union countries agreed to a controversial, bloc-wide 15 per cent reduction in gas usage on Tuesday that is hoped will reduce the pressure on European countries most vulnerable to Russian energy blackmail. (read more)

Jul 29 2022

Pretending Continues, However El Erian Admits U.S. Economy Weakening Faster Than Expected


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 28, 2022 | Sundance 

The great pretending continues in order to protect the Federal Reserve from sunlight upon them.  Central banks (U.S. Fed Reserve included) are raising interest rates into a recession, which is specifically against their legislative mandate. Therefore, in order to protect the bankers, the pundits and politicians must deny a recession exists.

Pundit Steve Liesman spins the data, says we need to wait longer, and circles the wagons to protect the policy makers, specifically the White House.  Mohamed El-Erian tries to split the baby (02:00 video); while not admitting directly that the economy is in a recession, he states the “economy is weakening much faster than expected.”  WATCH:

At a certain point all of this pretending and denial is going to come crashing down.  The “economic transition” to a new “green future” they are all pretending not to see as the root cause of the economic collapse, has unavoidable consequences.

The dam is breaking around them and they are running out of fingers and toes to stop the inevitable collapse.  Meanwhile the Davos crowd has purchased all the scuba gear and awaits the final outcome.

By claiming there is not a recession, the Federal Reserve can continue taking action that lowers economic activity.  The lowering of economic activity drops the use of energy inside the economy.  They are managing the economic transition inside the Build Back Better or Green New Deal agenda.  They are managing a purposeful decline in economic activity in order to support the energy transition.

The only way the Federal Reserve and central banks can raise interest rates into a recession, is if they deny a recession exists.

That is why they are denying a recession exists.