Coming Soon: Climate Change v Animal Activists


Armstrong Economics Blog/Agriculture Re-Posted Jul 19, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Two groups that usually overlap are about to come into direct confrontation due to the net-zero carbon culture. Both climate and animal rights activists have been known to make their voices heard through protests that are not always peaceful. Farmers are being unfairly targeted by climate change activists for having cattle that produce emissions, and governments are ramping up legislation to limit farming.

Farmers in Norway have been protesting for months as the government plans to eliminate around 30% of agriculture to reduce carbon emissions. Now, Northern Ireland is considering eliminating over one million cattle and sheep to meet emission targets by 2050. The Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) estimates that 500,000 cattle and 700,000 sheep will need to die. In a separate analysis, five million chickens will need to be slaughtered before 2035.

While animal activists to the extreme would like to end farming and create a meatless world, they are not going to be happy when they realize those piloting the climate change agenda plan to kill these animals rather than allowing them to live out their days on taxpayer-funded farms.

Activism aside, we are in the midst of a food crisis. Those in first-world nations have seen the cost of food rise drastically throughout the past year. Perhaps some of your groceries of choice are no longer available or are often out of stock. However, people are starving to death in less developed parts of the world at a rapid rate and there is not enough food or funding to save everyone. In fact, the World Bank estimated that world hunger reached a high in 2021 when 193 million became food insecure, a number that rose by 40 million from 2020. Our model indicates that this cycle will continue to grow.

In the meantime, those championing saving the world with various causes will come into direct confrontation with one another. The left will increasingly divide into left v Socialists and dampen plans for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

THE COLLAPSE IS HERE & THE FARMERS ARE FIGHTING BACK


The Dive With Jackson Hinkle  Published originally on Rumble on July 15, 2022

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

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)

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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Sunday Talks, Stunningly Disconnected Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo: “We Have Inflation Now Because of a Lack of Supply”


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

Unfortunately, (a) she’s not talking about energy or oil production/supply; and (b) she believes it.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a comprehensively incompetent and unqualified person selected to run the commerce department, blames, without hesitation, a “fundamental lack of supply” for the cause of U.S. inflation [04:38].  She’s not pretending, Raimondo genuinely believes this.

I have struggled with the question of whether it’s incompetence or intentional ideology that drives some of these cabinet members to say stupid stuff.  In the case of Commerce Secretary Raimondo, it is clearly incompetence.  In order to believe that a lack of supply is driving inflation; which is not coincidentally the same demand-cause opinion held by the federal reserve; a person has to ignore the dozens of key economic indicators that show consumer demand has contracted, inventories are climbing, and orders to manufacturers have dropped.

Even Samsung, one of the largest producers of electronics sold in the United States, has told all their suppliers to stop sending the component goods used to manufacture their products because orders for finished goods have plummeted.  Hell, consider this…. THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT, yes, that’s right, the Department that Raimondo is in charge of, has collected the data showing RETAIL SALES have DROPPED.  Yet here she is blaming a lack of supply for inflation.  WATCH:

It is not a lack of supply driving supply side and producer inflation. It is the massive increase in material, processing and transportation costs associated with Biden’s energy policy that are impacting supply-side inflation.   Demand has contracted, inventories are climbing, manager orders have plummeted, and consumers are squeezed.  Yet this knucklehead thinks recession is unlikely.

Gina Raimondo was also on Meet The Press, with another knucklehead, Chuck Todd.

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Protest Crowd Storms Presidential Palace in Sri Lanka as Fuel and Food Shortages Create Desperation, Prime Minister Resigns, President Tries to Hang on


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 9, 2022 | Sundance

It was not long ago when we noted the absence of food will change things.   While Dutch farmers are fighting the government and trying to keep producing food, in Sri Lanka the shortages of food and fuel have reached a boiling point.  Angry citizens have taken control of the presidential palace, set fire to the Prime Minister’s house, and overwhelmed government offices.

Fearing for his life, “Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he would resign after just two months in office after protesters stormed and occupied the president’s residence and office amid public anger over the country’s deepening sovereign-debt crisis.” (WSJ link)

The U.S. State Department and the ambassador to Sri Lanka, Julie Chung, are asking for protestors to remain peaceful as if their hunger is ‘transitory’.  However, videos from the country highlight the futility of platitudes amid tens of thousands of angry citizens who are desperate.  It is a hot mess that’s likely to surface in other nations quickly.

(Via WSJ) – Braving tear gas and water cannons in the capital, Colombo, protesters—many waving the national flag and wearing helmets—also entered the president’s office on Saturday, in one of the largest antigovernment demonstrations in the country this year.

Television news footage showed large crowds overrunning security barricades before breaching the official residence of President Rajapaksa. Some were later seen taking a dip in the compound’s swimming pool. Videos purportedly filmed by protesters and shared widely on social media showed scores of men rifling through drawers, sitting in chairs and lounging on a four-poster bed inside a bedroom of the residence. One man was shown doing bicep curls in a gym. (more)

The crisis had been building for weeks as the protesting crowds had continued to get larger.

As noted by the Wall Street Journal report, “responding to calls by protest organizers to congregate in Colombo for mass demonstrations this weekend, Sri Lankans from far and wide improvised around acute fuel shortages by piling into semitrailer trucks, trains and overcrowded buses to reach the capital. Some walked miles to join the demonstrations.”

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This next video shows how large the crowd was just before they stormed the buildings.

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There is no way to stop a crowd of this size.  I’m not sure how many people are in/around that compound, but it looks like hundreds of thousands.

COVID Came from a Lab Said Lancet Chairman


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease Re-Posted Jul 9, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

June Jobs Report Shows Gains of 372,000, April and May Reports Revised Downward by 74,000


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 8, 2022 | sundance 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released the June jobs report [Data Here] showing 372,000 job gains on the establishment survey of businesses.  However, the April and May reports were revised downward by 74,000 jobs, and there is an odd disconnect between the survey of businesses and the survey of households.

The survey of businesses (BLS establishment report) shows job gains of 372k for the month of June, but the survey of households (BLS household report) shows that fewer people are working.  The labor-force participation rate slipped to 62.2% from a previous high of 62.4%, fewer people are working.

This odd disconnect has many people wondering what is going on?

Wage growth comes in at 5.1% on an annual basis, which is far below the current BLS calculated rate of inflation at 8.6%. Meaning wage growth is not keeping up with inflation despite workers entering the labor force at a higher entry level wage.

Economists overall are flummoxed as job gains would indicate a strong economy. However, the actual economic activity, the creation of goods and services, is not growing.  Quite the opposite appears.  Orders for factory goods have dropped, inventories of currently available goods are climbing, and sales figures across a broad spectrum of companies are negative.  The economy as measured by the creation of goods and services is stalled, but the economy as a measure of employment is firm.

Table B-1 of the BLS report shows where the jobs gains are being recorded.  Employment in professional and business services added 74,000 jobs in June, employment in leisure and hospitality added 67,000. Transportation and warehousing added 36,000 jobs, and manufacturing increased by 29,000. Simultaneously, retail ‘general merchandise’ stores lost 7,000 jobs, and residential building construction lost 4,500 jobs.

It would appear that as spending priorities are definitely taking place; the jobs growth is in the current maintenance of lifestyle and not the ‘moving up’ in lifestyle.  This would align with the general sentiment of the labor force that most people are just trying to get through the massive inflation impact and sustain their current rate of household expenses.

The decline in the labor force in June “is hard to explain,” said chief economist Aneta Markowska of Jefferies LLC, in light of the strong demand for labor. (link)

It’s really not that hard to figure out what is happening.  Well, I should say, not that hard to figure out, unless your job is to pretend not to know things.