QUESTION: Do you think there is any validity that this was a leak from their biolab in China?
HDF
COMMENT: I saw the claims that they spliced AIDS into the Coronavirus claiming this was somehow proof of a lab experiment. You correctly stated that was false. But these conspirators do not know anything about these diseases. The HIV-1 virus actually results in a decrease in influenza virus replication. I appreciate your restraint in all this craziness.
PF
ANSWER: This does not appear to be a biological weapon. It is unlikely that it was a leak of that nature. Both SARS and MERS appeared with no remote connection to biological labs. However, there are labs that are looking at viruses for potential cures for all viruses. They are not engaged in biological weapon production. If this was a mistake and was some sort of leak, it is not likely a biological weapon. The only possibility is that it was a leak from a gene investigation lab. However, I really do not see the point of insisting this originated in a bio-lab. It is already mutating, which shows that even if it came from a lab, it is naturally evolving anyhow.
China’s crackdown is because of the criticism they had when SARS was discovered and they did not take measures to quarantine it. Those claiming this is proof it is far more dangerous is just not the case.
So I fail to see the argument that this is somehow engineered unless they are using that to claim it will not subside because it was manufactured. We will see if this peaks out in the April/May or July time period. That is the normal cyclical duration for any virus that can spread without physical contact as was the case with AIDS.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic comparison to other infectious diseases presents a different class of viruses. Normally, influenza and coronaviruses are self-limiting, as has been the case with the outbreaks of Ebola in Africa, Nipah in Malaysia, H5N1 influenza in Hong Kong, variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob (vCJD) diseases in the UK, and Legionnaire’s disease in the USA. However, it should be noted that four of these five examples are zoonoses, meaning that they have crossed from animals to humans. The fifth, Legionnaire’s disease, was helped by our creation of large artificial lungs, cooling units, and jacuzzis, which all provided an ideal environment for the propagation of a microbe that likes warm, humid, aerated conditions. HIV has a long, infectious, but unnoticed period of incubation which is not self-limiting. HIV also started as a zoonosis from primates yet it means of transmission was through sexual activity and needle-injecting drug use. It was also passed from a mother to a child at birth.
The US Surgeon General declared soon after the eradication of smallpox in 1977 that infectious diseases had been conquered, just as economists had believed that Keynesian Economics eradicated recessions and depressions. However, the cyclical nature of viruses has proven that they evolve and bounce back cyclically. We now see multi-drug resistant bacteria, the resurgence of tuberculosis, and the recurrence of typhus in places of war, such as Bosnia.
Back in 1546, De Contagione (treatise on syphilis) was written more than 300 years before the germ theory of disease emerged. In that work, Girolamo Fracastoro wrote: “There will come yet other new and unusual ailments in the course of time. And this disease will pass away, but later it will be born again and be seen by our descendants.”
To me, this entire conspiracy about a biological weapon leak presents the very same danger as Keynesian Economics and climate change. It has served as a distraction from our understanding that there is a cyclical nature to viruses and we are not paying attention to the fact that this is also a natural process of the existence of viruses to thin the herd. We need not create one, nature will do that without our help as is the case with economics and climate change. Cycles are the nature to everything. Yet, we never seem to learn from the past. The SARS & MERS were 8.6 years apart.
I have provided the percent of the population being affected has not even reached 1/10th of one percent. When we look at this Coronavirus scare, it does not even compare to all the deaths taking place every single day from a host of other diseases nobody bothers to ever mention. This really makes me wonder just who is orchestrating this panic and is the purpose really to expand government powers?
The World Health Organization (WHO) made the announcement on Wednesday, March 11, 2020, that the Coronavirus is a “pandemic” which is actually not as bad as an Epidemic which is a term that describes any problem that has grown out of control. An epidemic is therefore defined as “an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population.” Consequently, an epidemic requires a high proportion of society to be infected and is an event in which a disease is actively spreading. That is clearly not the case with the coronavirus. since the proportion of society infected has not even reached 1/10th of one percent of the population.
In contrast, the term pandemic relates to geographic spread and is used to describe a disease that affects a whole country or the entire world. This has nothing to do with the proportion of the population that is infected.
The WHO has a financial incentive in declaring this a pandemic. It issued Pandemic Bonds paying 7% interest which now the WHO does not have to repay.
An assembly of government reports and public records now indicates a political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012. After an initial attempt to exploit IRS records, the legal tool used to access the NSA database was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations & gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of four to six years.
The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, became the primary process only after a previous DOJ effort ran into trouble. The established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26, 2017, helps explain the details.
I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an “institutional lack of candor” in responses to the FISA court. Very specifically, the court outlined how the Obama administration was continually lying to the court about both their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons’ private information. These violations continued for multiple years throughout Obama’s terms.
Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.
For the sake of brevity and common understanding CTH will highlight the most pertinent segments showing just how systemic and troublesome the unlawful electronic surveillance was.
Early in 2016 NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was alerted of a significant uptick in FISA-702(17) “About” queries using the FBI/NSA database that holds all metadata records on every form of electronic communication.
The NSA compliance officer alerted Admiral Mike Rogers who then initiated a full compliance audit on/around March 9th, 2016, for the period of November 1st, 2015, through May 1st, 2016.
While the audit was ongoing, due to the severity of the results that were identified, Admiral Mike Rogers stopped anyone from using the 702(17) “about query” option, and went to the extraordinary step of blocking all FBI contractor access to the database on April 18, 2016(keep these dates in mind).
Here are some significant segments:
The key takeaway from these first paragraphs is how the search query results were exported from the NSA database to users who were not authorized to see the material. The FBI contractors were conducting searches and then removing, or ‘exporting’, the results. Later on, the FBI said all of the exported material was deleted.
Searching the highly classified NSA database is essentially a function of filling out search boxes to identify the user-initiated search parameter and get a return on the search result.
FISA-702(16) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (“702”); and the “16” is a check box to initiate a search based on “To and From“. Example, if you put in a date and a phone number and check “16” as the search parameter the user will get the returns on everything “To and From” that identified phone number for the specific date. Calls, texts, contacts etc. Including results for the inbound and outbound contacts.
FISA-702(17) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (702); and the “17” is a check box to initiate a search based on everything “About” the search qualifier. Example, if you put a date and a phone number and check “17” as the search parameter the user will get the returns of everything about that phone. Calls, texts, contacts, geolocation (or gps results), account information, user, service provider etc. As a result, 702(17) can actually be used to locate where the phone (and user) was located on a specific date or sequentially over a specific period of time which is simply a matter of changing the date parameters.
And that’s just from a phone number.
Search an ip address “about” and read all data into that server; put in an email address and gain everything about that account. Or use the electronic address of a GPS enabled vehicle (about) and you can withdraw more electronic data and monitor in real time. Search a credit card number and get everything about the account including what was purchased, where, when, etc. Search a bank account number, get everything about transactions and electronic records etc. Just about anything and everything can be electronically searched; everything has an electronic ‘identifier’.
The search parameter is only limited by the originating field filled out. Names, places, numbers, addresses, etc. By using the “About” parameter there may be thousands or millions of returns. Imagine if you put “@realdonaldtrump” into the search parameter? You could extract all following accounts who interacted on Twitter, or Facebook etc. You are only limited by your imagination and the scale of the electronic connectivity.
As you can see below, on March 9th, 2016, internal auditors noted the FBI was sharing “raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information”.
In plain English the raw search returns were being shared with unknown entities without any attempt to “minimize” or redact the results. The person(s) attached to the results were named and obvious. There was no effort to hide their identity or protect their 4th amendment rights of privacy:
But what’s the scale here? This is where the story really lies.
Read this next excerpt carefully.
The operators were searching “U.S Persons”. The review of November 1, 2015, to May 1, 2016, showed “eighty-five percent of those queries” were unlawful or “non compliant”.
85% !! “representing [redacted number]”.
We can tell from the space of the redaction the number of searches were between 1,000 and 9,999 [five digits]. If we take the middle number of 5,000 – that means 4,250 unlawful searches out of 5,000.
The [five digit] amount (more than 1,000, less than 10,000), and 85% error rate, was captured in a six month period, November 2015 to April 2016.
Also notice this very important quote:
…”many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges.”…
This tells us the system users were searching the same phone number, email address, electronic “identifier”, or people, repeatedly over different dates.
Specific people were being tracked/monitored.
Additionally, notice the last quote: “while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of” these non lawful searches “since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 coincided with an unusually high error rate”.
That means the 85% rate of unlawful FISA-702(16)(17) database abuse has likely been happening since 2012.
2012 is an important date in this database abuse because a network of specific interests is assembled that also shows up in 2016/2017:
Who was 2012 FBI Director? Robert Mueller. The same Mueller selected by the FBI group to become special prosecutor in 2017.
Who was Robert Mueller’ chief-of-staff? Aaron Zebley. The same Aaron Zelbley, who became one of the lead lawyers on the Mueller special counsel.
Who was 2012 2012 CIA Director? John Brennan.
Who was the 2012 ODNI? James Clapper.
Remember, the NSA is inside the Pentagon (Defense Dept) command structure. Who was Defense Secretary? Ash Carter.
Now it becomes important to remember in 2016:
Who wanted NSA Director Mike Rogers fired? Brennan, Clapper and Carter.
And finally, who wrote and signed-off-on the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment and then lied about the use of the Steele Dossier? John Brennan, James Clapper
Tens of thousands of searches over four years (since 2012), and 85% of them are illegal. The results were extracted for?…. (I believe this is all political opposition use; and I’ll explain why momentarily.)
OK, that’s the stunning scale; but who was involved?
Private contractors with access to “raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI’s requests“:
And as noted, the contractor access was finally halted on April 18th, 2016.
[Coincidentally (or not), the wife of Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, goes to the White House the next day on April 19th, 2016.]
None of this is conspiracy theory.
All of this is laid out inside this 99-page opinion from FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87: “deliberate decisionmaking“:
This specific footnote, if declassified, would be key. Note the phrase: “([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”, this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; that outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data.
Note also: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“, that is important.
Important summary of this aspect: •The FISA court identified and quantified tens-of-thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system dating back to around 2012. •The NSA database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities. •The same people had multiple searches performed against their private information from November of 2015 to May of 2016, the exact time of the Republican presidential primary.
The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation; and we are not the only one to think that’s what this system is being used for.
Back in 2017 when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was working to reauthorize the FISA legislation, Nunes wrote a letter to ODNI Dan Coats about this specific issue:
SIDEBAR: To solve the issue, well, actually attempt to ensure it never happened again, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers eventually took away the “About” query option permanently in 2017. NSA Director Rogers said the abuse was so inherent there was no way to stop it except to remove the process completely. [SEE HERE] Additionally, the NSA database operates as a function of the Pentagon, so the Trump administration went one step further. On his last day as NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers -together with ODNI Dan Coats- put U.S. cyber-command, the database steward, fully into the U.S. military as a full combatant command. [SEE HERE] Unfortunately it didn’t work as shown by the 2018 FISC opinion rendered by FISC Judge James Boasberg [SEE HERE]
There is little doubt the FISA-702(16)(17) database system was used by Obama-era officials, from 2012 through April 2016, as a way to spy on their political opposition.
Quite simply there is no other intellectually honest explanation for the scale and volume of database abuse that was taking place; and keep in mind these searches were all ruled to be unlawful. Searches for repeated persons over a period time that were not authorized.
When we reconcile what was taking place and who was involved, then the actions of the exact same principle participants take on a jaw-dropping amount of clarity.
All of the action taken by CIA Director Brennan, FBI Director Comey, ODNI Clapper and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter make sense. Including their effort to get NSA Director Mike Rogers fired.
Everything after March 9th, 2016, had a dual purpose: (1) done to cover up the weaponization of the FISA database. [Explained Here] Spygate, Russia-Gate, the Steele Dossier, and even the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (drawn from the dossier and signed by the above) were needed to create a cover-story and protect themselves from discovery of this four year weaponization, political surveillance and unlawful spying. Even the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel makes sense; he was FBI Director when this began. (2) They needed to keep surveillance ongoing.
The beginning decision to use FISA(702) as a domestic surveillance and political spy mechanism appears to have started in/around 2012. Perhaps sometime shortly before the 2012 presidential election and before John Brennan left the White House and moved to CIA. However, there was an earlier version of data assembly that preceded this effort.
Political spying 1.0 was actually the weaponization of the IRS. This is where the term “Secret Research Project” originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:
The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)
Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when there’s a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012.
The IRS scandal was never really about the IRS, it was always about the DOJ asking the IRS for the database of information. That is why it was transparently a conflict when the same DOJ was tasked with investigating the DOJ/IRS scandal. Additionally, Obama sent his chief-of-staff Jack Lew to become Treasury Secretary; effectively placing an ally to oversee/cover-up any issues. As Treasury Secretary Lew did just that.
Lesson Learned – It would appear the Obama administration learned a lesson from attempting political opposition research through the IRS database. The timeline reflects a few months after realizing the “Secret Research Project” was now worthless (June 2012), they focused more deliberately on a smaller network within the intelligence apparatus; and through “contractors” they began weaponizing the FBI/NSA database. If our hunch is correct, that is what will be visible in footnote #69:
How this all comes together in 2019/2020
Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 to just research Donald Trump. As shown in the evidence provided by the FISC, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The Obama administration already knew everything about the Trump campaign, and were monitoring everything by exploiting the FISA database.
However, after the NSA alerts in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.
That’s why the FBI small group, which later transitioned into the Mueller team, were so strongly committed to and defending the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content.
The Steele Dossier, an outcome of the Fusion contract, contains two purposes: (1) the cover-story and justification for the pre-existing surveillance operation (protect Obama); and (2) facilitate the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign (assist Clinton). That became more important after the election when the same players needed to get a special counsel. An insurance policy would be needed.
The Steele Dossier becomes the investigative virus the FBI wanted inside the system. To get the virus into official status, they used the FISA application as the delivery method and injected it into U.S. person Carter Page; a former Trump campaign advisor. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the FISA warrant and the Dossier in the system {Go Deep}.
Fusion GPS was not only hired to research Trump, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing surveillance and spy operations.
Fusion-GPS gave them the justification they needed for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier. Ultimately that’s why the Steele Dossier is so important; without it, the DOJ and FBI would be naked with their FISA-702 abuse as outlined by John Ratcliffe.
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“Mistakes were made”, is the ridiculous excuse. The FBI knew all along the Steele Dossier was garbage, but they were dependent on using it… Their willful blindness was by design; they needed the dossier to get to the Mueller phase:
The DNC and CNN collaborate to provide Joe Biden with his preferred comfort format for the next debate on March 15th between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. The Club knows Biden does best in debate formats when sitting down at a desk; just like the 2012 debate between Biden and Paul Ryan.
CNN is hosting the debate, and CNN is the most friendly control operation for the needs of the Club. So what happens… CNN and The Club agree to a small venue town hall format where Joe Biden will be sitting down at a desk to debate Bernie Sanders.
It is all predictable in the extreme:
(Politico) Bernie Sanders wants to stand up at the next debate — and his campaign is accusing Joe Biden of wanting to sit down.
After a private call Friday with CNN, which is moderating the March 15 debate with the Democratic National Committee, Sanders’ team balked at a new proposed format for debate, saying it gives his opponent Biden too much of a break in their first one-on-one face-off. Biden’s camp denied that it was pressing for a sit-down debate.
The format for the next debate in Arizona — their first since Biden’s blowout Super Tuesday victories — would have the candidates seated for the first time this election cycle and take multiple questions from the audience. In the prior 10 debates, the candidates stood at lecterns and nearly all questions were asked by the professional moderators.
[…] The new format would be a town hall-style production featuring audience questions but in a more intimate setting with the candidates in chairs behind desks.
[…] “Joe Biden does not want to go head-to-head with Bernie Sanders, stand there for two hours, and go back and forth with Bernie Sanders,” Weaver said. “He wants it broken up with audience questions because he knows in that environment, he won’t fare very well.” (read more)
The “audience members” who ask questions will all be plants by the Club and CNN; and the Biden campaign will be provided all of the topics and questions well in advance to assist their rehearsal efforts just like they did for Hillary in 2016. Wash-Rinse-Repeat.
Mayor “Pete the cheat” outed himself from the Democratic race for president.
Why would he do this only a couple days from Super Tuesday? Most likely because the Deep State wants Biden to win. They definitely don’t want Bernie, who is not part of their Big Club.
Mayor Pete is part of the Club. He’s doing a job for them. Pete already did his best to cheat Bernie out of the Iowa caucus. Now he’ll try to do Bernie more damage by dropping out.
CNN has called Buttigieg ‘historic’ for being the first ‘outed’ gay candidate for president. Look for Pete to land a job in the Biden administration. Or become a commentator on CNN. He may even receive a beach house. One thing is for certain, Buttigieg is not going away.
Coronavirus news caused the Dow to crash by around 1,000 points on Monday. As this cartoon is published it may be way up again if the Plunge Protection Team jumps in to support it.
Fear of the virus forced stocks into correction mode, which was actually way overdue. The stock market has been in a bubble and mostly out of touch with economic reality. It has become a place for easy money to go, since there isn’t much return elsewhere.
The virus also shows how much the globe has become reliant on the cheap labor and lax standards in China. The shutdowns due to the virus have wreaked havoc on production. It’s a sure sign that we depend too much on a nation that’s ruled by a backward clique of communist tyrants.
Oil prices continue to crater along with industrial metals such as copper, due to the shutdowns and quarantines. Oil in particular was already in a bear market due to oversupply.
Meanwhile I’m sure the Democrats would be delighted by a stock market and economic crash. The Fidel Castro-loving Bernie Sanders would love it. Comrade President of the USA? It makes me sick just thinking about it.
From the attached report on climate change for January 2020Data we have the two charts showing how much the global temperature has actually gone up since we started to measure CO2 in the atmosphere? To show this graphically Chart 8 was constructed by plotting CO2 as a percent increase from when it was first measured in 1958, the Black plot, the scale is on the left and it shows CO2 going up a bit over 30.0% from 1958 to January of 2020. That is a very large change as anyone would have to agree. Now how about temperature, well when we look at the percentage change in temperature from 1958, using Kelvin (which does measure the change in heat), we find that the changes in global temperature (heat) are almost un-measurable. The scale on the right side had to be expanded 10 times (the range is 40 % on the left and 4% on the right) to be able to see the plot in the same chart in any detail. The red plot, starting in 1958, shows that the thermal energy in the earth’s atmosphere increased by .30%; while CO2 has increased by 30.0% which is 100 times that of the increase in temperature. So is there really a meaningful link between them that would give as a major problem? The numbers tell us no there isn’t.
The next chart is Chart 8a which is the same as Chart 8 except for the scales which are the same for both CO2 and Temperature. As you see the increase in energy, heat, is not visually observably in this chart hence the need for the previous chart 8 to show the minuscule increase in thermal energy shown by NASA in relationship to the change in CO2. Based to these trends, determined by excel not me, in 2028 CO2 will be 428 ppm and temperatures will be 15.0o Celsius and in 2038 CO2 will be 458 ppm and temperatures will be 15.6O Celsius. This is what the data shows no matter what the reasons are, so I have no idea how the IPCC gets to predict that the world will end in ten or even twenty years.
The full 40 page report explains how these charts were developed and why using NASA and NOAA data that are used without change to prove that The New Green Deal is not required and any attempt to complete that plan will be a worldwide disaster.
Click on the link below for the full report that you can download.
Artist Jon McNaughton presents his latest artwork centered around the current state of U.S. politics and President Donald J Trump. [Visit Website Here]
Kash Patel previously worked as Devin Nunes’ senior staffer on the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI). It was Patel who was the lead author of the Nunes memo exposing corrupt conduct of the FBI and DOJ officials during Crossfire Hurricane.
Patel joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate last February and was promoted to the senior counterterrorism role at the NSC mid-summer 2019. According to recent reporting Patel is now joining Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell as a Senior Advisor and Catherine Herridge is reporting the objective is to ‘clean house‘.
QUESTION: How can interest rates can rise when central banks are the only market maker, & pension funds FORCED to buy gov.debt by their statutes?
but why is the REPO crisis starting in the US where rates are WAY higher than in japan & Europe?
you would expect this crisis to start somewhere in European debt markets/ instruments…why isn’t all the capital that is fleeing to the US not financing REPOs?
thank you
CB
ANSWER: This is laid out in the Repo Crisis Report (an update goes out this week). Central Banks do not control long-term rates. They set the short-term rate such as Fed Funds and Discount Rate. That is what Quantitative Easing was all about. The central banks began to BUY the long-term debt in hopes of “influencing” the long-term rates by reducing the supply of government long-term debt and in theory then the free market would have been willing to buy private long-term debt such as mortgages. That failed because banks had no confidence in the real estate market and were loaded to the gills with real estate debt which people were defaulting on.
The Repo Crisis has begun in the states BECAUSE this is the only viable free market to speak of. Both Japan and Europe have destroyed the bond markets. The Repo Crisis is the manifestation of our forecast that we would enter a liquidity crisis by September 2019. We listed that as one of the major points to take homes from the May World Economic Conference in Rome.
The Repo Crisis is a liquidity crisis because of the collapse in confidence. Banks are unwilling to lend to each other because they are deeply concerned about a crisis in the international banking sector. The Fed was lowering short-term rates into August 2019 because the yield curve inverted on the 10yr-2yr during the 3rd quarter of 2019. Then the Repo Crisis hit on September 17th. That forced the Fed to stop its intended policy to lower rates for the Free Market dictated otherwise.
The image that central banks are in control is an illusion. They too are subject to the Free Market. They are not in control of interest rates as they like to make everyone believe. If that were true, then there would have been no Repo Crisis to start with.
Earlier today President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump welcomed the President of the Republic of Ecuador and Mrs. Rocio Gonzales De Moreno to the White House.
Ecuador is a key country for stability in central America. A key topic of discussion between the two leaders will be Venezuela. Ecuador is suffering firsthand the effects of Nicolas Maduro and his dictatorship in Venezuela with waves of economic migrants from Venezuela arriving through Colombia to Ecuador. The refugee crisis represents a fiscal strain and also a security threat. There are 400,000 Venezuela refugees in Ecuador.
Counter-narcotics and a trade agreement are also a priority for this meeting. The United States and Ecuador are very close to a free trade agreement. USTR Robert Lighthizer has held a successful round-one negotiation for trade and investment with the Ecuadorian Commerce Ministry; and a second round is likely very soon.
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Ecuador and the United States are working toward an energy and infrastructure framework agreement under America Crece. Brazil is likely to join in March and they will join Panama, Chile, Argentina, Jamaica, Colombia, El Salvador, and hopefully Ecuador.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 