Category Wall Street

Mar 20 2022

Ukraine the Key to WWIII


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Mar 20, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I remember you had a Ukrainian girlfriend who attended the WEC in Berlin back in 2015. Obviously, you have ties to Ukraine and have an inside view of their feelings and culture. Is this why you have little respect for Zelensky when the world calls him a hero?

HS

ANSWER: Thanks for the picture. I have known a number of Ukrainians on both sides from Kyiv and Donestk. Nevertheless, back in 2013, I warned that our model had highlighted Ukraine as the region to focus on for war. So yes, when our computer had targeted Ukraine, I naturally sought to understand its history and culture. Even learning the spoken language gives you tremendous insight into the thinking process.

My father was a colonel under General Patton from North Africa into Berlin. He told me how Patton read Romel’s book on tactical warfare and beat him. It is NEVER what you think, it is always what your opponent thinks. This nonsense that Ukraine can defeat Putin is propaganda and it seems to cheer every death of a Ukrainian to justify hating Putin and all Russians even more. This is not just reckless, but highly dangerous for the world. It ensures that you will lose. Read Putin’s biography, “Vladimir Putin. Life History” where he states: “I just understood that if you want to win, then you have to fight to the finish in every fight, as if it was the last and decisive battle…you need to assume that there is no retreat.”

Zelensky is a fool who is too caught up in his own celebrity to make rational decisions for his own people. This has become a media blitz for him and you can see he is enjoying it. This is not the quality you want in a leader. But we seem to be plagued with the worst crop of world leaders in human history.

There was much hope when he was elected that the inherent corruption would come to an end. The leadership was either the puppet of Russia or the United States and both sides had an interest in playing. The people did not share this entrenched idea that the Donbas had to remain Ukrainian. There was a deep resentment toward Russia from the days of Stalin who starved Ukraine to pretend Communism was succeeding. I suggest you watch the film, Mr. Jones.

Most Ukrainian were raised and knew how to speak Russian as well as Ukrainian. When Yanukovich became President, he was corrupt and his sons were running protection rackets. But he was Russian ethnically and could only speak Ukrainian with an accent. He pushed the language law to make the official language both Russian and Ukrainian. Zelensky push the opposite view and passed the Ukrainian ONLY law which was a slap in the face to Donbas.

Zelensky is a puppet. He has done NOTHING to avoid war. All he has done is poke the bear intentionally. He knew well that the Belgrade Agreement required Ukraine was to remain neutral. It gave up its nuclear weapons when it was the 3rd most powerful nuclear power for it had more nukes than even China. The deal was that it would neither join NATO and for the first time, it would become an independent nation free of Russia. By pushing to join NATO Zelensky KNEW that it was breaking the Belgrade agreement of 1991 and he was refusing to allow the Donbas to vote to seek its own independence since that region was Russian. So Zelensky was playing empire claiming to hold that territory which was created by Kruchev in the first place along with Crimea which was always Russian territory.

Clearly, Zelensky has not done what he was elected for and he has constantly been trying to create World War III demanding NATO action. He is more concerned about his image than his people. Some feel that if enough Ukrainian blood is spilled, then perhaps NATO will respond and all of this for what purpose? To keep the Donbas when he has even outlawed Russian as an official language? He is either a puppet taking orders or a complete egotistical fool enjoying the world stage and not thinking about the end game. There is no defeating Putin. Putin does not believe in retreat. If he retreats it is only leading to a trap. There must be negotiation and the surrender of Donbas and Crimea and the Belgrade Agreement must be maintained – UKRAINIAN NEUTRALITY.

Many in Ukraine feel that he is taking orders from some master. Is it the World Economic Forum, the EU, NATO, or the CIA? There are plenty of rumors flying around. In the end, the truth will surface. Until then, all we are left with are our opinions. We must be careful that we are not driven to conclusions that are being fed to us by the media to achieve a particular goal determine those who pull the strings behind the curtail. What I can say is this demonizing Putin is highly dangerous and it is a physiological war tactic that is necessary to get the people hating the opposition so they will rush in to kill them without remorse.

Mar 20 2022

Lara Logan Gives a Brutally Honest Assessment of Ukraine and U.S. Politics


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 20, 2022 | Sundance

Lara Logan is not the type of journalist who will pull punches when she shares insight and information.  Logan cuts to the chase and avoids pretending the issues are something other than what reality exists.

In this short interview segment, Lara Logan outlines her brutally honest perspective on why Ukraine is ultimately so important to people in power within the DC system. {Direct Rumble Link Here}  WATCH:

Mar 20 2022

Tenuous Winter Wheat Crops Could Become Problematic


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 20, 2022 | Sundance

Wheat is an essential grain harvest in the overall food chain.  Winter wheat is planted in October and harvested the following June and July, however, the U.S. crop this year is in a tenuous position because of severe drought in the plains.  Kansas represents about a quarter of the U.S. harvest and is currently suffering through an extended dry season.

Last week, “Kansas Governor Laura Kelly declared a drought emergency, warnings and watches for every county in Kansas on Thursday due to dry conditions causing high fire danger.” (link)

We need to keep an eye on this, and it would be wise to make proactive preparations now for the possibility of a severe shortage.  This potential is what has driven the price of wheat futures, and when combined with the issues in Europe’s largest wheat producer, Russia, there’s a very real possibility of a global shortage of wheat.

The early March warnings are beginning to become more important.  “The world has grown hugely dependent on Ukraine and Russia for their wheat, a crop used in everything from bread to couscous and noodles. The nations account for a quarter of global trade. They are also cheap suppliers, which makes their exports favorites for importers in the Middle East and North Africa, including in Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat buyer.” (link)

Back to the U.S.A:

March 14 (Reuters) – A worsening drought in the southern U.S. Plains is threatening the region’s winter wheat crop just as the Ukraine crisis dents global supplies.

Some farmers in southwestern Kansas, the top U.S. wheat producing state, have not received much measurable rain or snow since October. Winter wheat is planted in autumn, lays dormant in winter and begins sending up green shoots in spring. Proper soil moisture is critical at this stage for the crop to thrive.

More than half of Kansas was classified as under severe drought or worse as of March 8, the driest conditions since 2018, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Severe drought is also covering three-quarters of Oklahoma and more than two-thirds of Texas, both of which also are large wheat producers.

Water woes follow a freak December windstorm that swept away some topsoil in parts of the U.S. wheat belt, damaging some cropland.

U.S. hard red winter wheat represents nearly half of the country’s overall wheat production and is milled mainly for bread flour. A reduced crop could further stoke food inflation that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said was the highest-ever in February. The FAO’s Food Price Index averaged 140.7 points last month, a 20.7% increase from a year earlier and surpassing the 2011 record.

U.S. wheat futures soared to the highest levels in 14 years early last week as the Russia-Ukraine conflict pushed two of the world’s largest wheat exporters out of the market, leaving importing countries scrambling for replacement sources.

Meanwhile, the winter wheat crop in China, the world’s largest producer of the grain, is expected to be among the worst ever after heavy rainfall delayed planting. (read more)

We need to watch this one closely, and it would not be a bad idea to purchase some of your own bread making supplies a little earlier for storage.

Wheat, corn and soybeans are the foundation of the U.S. food supply. They are primarily used as ingredients in processed foods, oils, and are fed to the cattle, hogs, and poultry that supply meat and eggs for the American diet.  When those grain harvests go up in price, the downstream increase in price is far reaching.

Mar 20 2022

Russia Appears To Be Using Hypersonic Missiles in Ukraine


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 19, 2022 | Sundance

Russia is reportedly now using hypersonic missiles to reach underground weapons storage bunkers Western Ukraine {BBC Report}.

Additionally, as a result of a missile attack on the location of the Ukrainian 79th Airborne Assault Brigade in Nikolaev (aka Mykolaiv), at least 40 Ukrainian soldiers were killed.

Western media, including Fox News, continue claiming that innocent civilian populations are being intentionally targeted by the Russian military.  However, there is scant evidence to support the claim of civilians being intentionally targeted.  That narrative appears to be part of the unfortunate western media propaganda campaign to keep support for Ukraine in the headlines.  The currently confirmed facilities targeted by Russia all appear to be military targets.

Warning graphic image below of Mykolaiv aftermath:

Mar 20 2022

Bloomberg Has Inflation Advice for Proles Making Less Than $300k a Year – Shut Up, Eat Lentils, Ride the Bus and Kill Your Pets


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 19, 2022 | Sundance

You might wonder what the ruling class thinks of how inflation is hitting middle America.   For insight into their perspective, Bloomberg News just published some suggestions for all the unwashed masses – as defined as those who don’t earn $300,000 per year.

The advice includes, shut up about the price of food, and eat lentils instead of meat. Quit bitching about gasoline prices, and just ride the bus, and the coup de grâce, “If you’re one of the many Americans who became a new pet owner during the pandemic, you might want to rethink those costly pet medical needs.”

Yeah, they said that.  Us pesky proles and our pets are just mucking up the planet for the rest of them.

[ Tweet Source Link – Article Link ]

The ‘inflation sucks, but that’s your issue, not ours’ article is authored by Teresa Ghilarducci.  According to her self-described bio, she “is the Schwartz Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research. She’s the co-author of “Rescuing Retirement” and a member of the board of directors of the Economic Policy Institute.”

So, the think-tank economists who shape policy have a solution for all the complaining scrubs earning less than $300,000/yr who are now dealing with the inflation that leftist policy has created.  The elitist arrogance, in the “no one said this would be fun” approach, is quite remarkable.  However, it does show the snob-set no longer feel the need to filter their elitism.

The class gap has always existed, and whenever leftist policies are in place, that gap gets wider every second.

It would appear that somewhere in the recesses of Ms. Ghilarducci’s frontal cortex, she has snuffed out the glowing ember of the common sense particle given by her parents.  In the brain of the Bloomberg author, the synapse for the common sense particle was pinched between the ‘Smarter than thou tumor‘ and the expanding grey brain matter of moral relativity needed to sit and type this bulls**t.

Within her diatribe, you can see the author is lacking a guilt hypothalamus, which removes any feeling of being uncomfortable in her elitist pontifications. She types away, without a clue, as the party groupthink metastasizes in her brain.

The working class really, I mean REALLY, needs to stop servicing the group who hold this mentality.  I’ve said this before and I’ll repeat it again. Don’t do their shopping, don’t make them coffee, don’t pick up their trash, don’t clean their pools, cook their meals, accept their laundry or dry cleaning, or facilitate any process in their lives.

Don’t serve them, don’t wait on them, don’t deliver to them; instead, make them do everything themselves, and you know what will happen – they’ll collapse.

Mar 20 2022

You Were Born With a Brain Allowing You To Process Information


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 19, 2022 | Sundance 

CTH has encountered criticism for our position on information.  Perhaps it is important to step back and explain exactly why we should not be playing by rules established to control us while engaged in the battle of ideas.  First, my position:

…”There is no such thing as “disinformation” or “misinformation”.  There is only information you accept and information you do not accept.  You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.”… 

There are only two elements within the public discussion of information, truth and not truth.

In an era filled with “fact-checkers” and institutional guardians at the gates of Big Tech, let me explain exactly why it is important not to accept the speech rules of the guards.

When you accept the terms “disinformation”, “misinformation” or the newest lingo, “malinformation,” you are beginning to categorize truth and lies in various shades.  You are merging black and white, right and wrong, into various shades of grey.

When your mind works in the grey zone, you are, by direct and factual consequence, saying there is a problem.  You are correct; however, this is where people may make a mistake. That problem is supposed to be there.

It is not a solution to the problem to try and remove the grey simply because it takes too much work to separate the white pixels from the black ones.  You were born with a gift, the greatest gift a loving God could provide.  You were born with a brain and set of natural instincts that are tools to do this pixel separation, use them.

If you define the grey work as a problem you cannot solve on your own, you open the door for others to solve that problem for you.  You begin to abdicate the work, and that’s when trouble can enter.  The sliding scale of Pinocchios is one of the most familiar yet goofy outcomes.

Put more clearly, when you accept the terminology “disinformation”, you accept a problem.  The problem is then the tool by which authorities will step in to make judgements.  Speech, in its most consequential form, is then qualified by others to whom you have sub-contracted your thinking.

When you willingly sub-contract information filters to others, you have lost connection with the raw information.   CTH was founded upon the belief that truth has no agenda, nor does it care about you, your feelings, or your opinion of it.  It just sits there, empirically existing as evidence of information in its most pure form.

The search for truth, in all things, is the mission objective of this assembly.   Often, we don’t like the truth; often, the truth is bitter, cold, challenging and even painful to accept.  However, the truth doesn’t care.  Information in its most raw form is ambivalent to your opinion.  If you struggle to accept these things, that’s when you need grey.  The New York Times is not called the “grey lady” accidentally.

Personally, I am an absorber of information – perhaps on a scale that is unusual.  But I do not discount information from any form until I can put context to it and see if the information makes sense given all the variables present.  When something doesn’t feel right, it’s almost always because it isn’t right.

Often, I find myself struggling in the grey and complex.  It is not unusual to spend days researching, digging, clarifying a situation, only to discover the path to finding the truth is in another direction entirely.   Erasing everything and starting over is frustrating, but it is genuinely the only approach that works; and often finding truth is supposed to be difficult, that’s why it is rewarding.

In the digital information age, we are bombarded with information.  It is easy to be overwhelmed and need to find something or someone who has better skills at separating the black grains from the white ones.  All opinions in this quest should be considered; thus, it is important to allow the free flow of information.

I am not necessarily a speech absolutist.  There is some language that needs to be constrained if we are to participate in a respectful society, with grandma’s rules and knowing the audience.  The CTH has guidelines for comments for this exact reason.  However, those constraints need to be based on a set of inherent values.   When it comes to information it is important to draw a distinction from speech.

There needs to be an open venue for all information. Unfortunately, when we begin to apply labels or categorization to information, there’s an opportunity for information to be manipulated – even weaponized.  Saul Alinsky spent decades pondering the best techniques to weaponize information and speech.  Alinsky’s intentions in the endeavor to change society by changing how language and information was used were not good. He devoted his completed rulebook book to Lucifer.

Be careful about anyone saying we need to label or categorize information in order to control or remove speech from the discussion.

You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a God-given brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.

Mar 18 2022

Harris makes Biden ’20 times worse’: Gingrich


Posted originally on Rumble by Sean Hannity  Published March 18, 2022 

Mar 18 2022

Saudi Arabia Considers Accepting Yuan for Oil


Armstrong Economics Blog/Energy Re-Posted Mar 18, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Russia is not the only country turning to the yuan. Beijing is in talks with Saudi Arabia to begin purchasing oil with their own currency opposed to the USD. Saudi Arabia has long had a volatile relationship with the US, and seeing the harsh sanctions imposed on Russia is only making the yuan more appealing.

Around 80% of global oil sales are exchanged in dollars, with Saudi Arabia using the USD exclusively for oil sales since the 1970s per agreement with the US government. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was unable to have diplomatic relationships with President Biden after the publicized 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “We were going to make them the pariah that they are,” Biden stated in 2019. Add to this America’s nuclear negotiations with Iran and dismissal of Saudi Arabia’s request for support with military operations in Yemen.

The illusion of the dollar being an impenetrable safe haven has shattered due to Biden’s policies. Countries now know that their dollar reserves could be confiscated or frozen at any time and deemed utterly useless. The Saudis have been toying with the idea of accepting the yuan for oil payments for the past six years, but recent events just may be the final straw.

Mar 18 2022

Tucker Carlson Revisits the Media People Who Manipulated the Hunter Biden Laptop Story


Posted originally on the conservatoire tree house on March 17, 2022 | Sundance

On his evening broadcast Fox news host Tucker Carlson took a historic look at how the media manipulated the Hunter Biden laptop story in order to protect Joe Biden as a candidate.  These same media personalities claim they are credible, and viciously attack anyone who points out their lies.   The example of the BIden laptop should forever dispatch any credibility they claim to hold.  WATCH: 

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Not included in the Carlson review, but one of the most transparently biased segments on the Biden laptop issue, was the interview between CNN disinformation specialist Christiane Amanpour and Liz Harrington.  Given the recent revelations about the authenticity of the Biden laptop, watch this video of Amanpour trying to protect the regime.

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The Follow-up (below) is when it gets heated.

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