Armstrong Economics Blog
Re-Posted Jun 16, 2016 by Martin Armstrong
A lot of people have asked what my platform would be if I ran for president. Aside from eliminating the income tax and imposing term limits upon Congress (one time and you are out), I would champion the Accountability Act.
The Inspector General’s report clearly shows Hillary should be charged under 18 U.S. Code § 2071, which states that the concealment, removal, or mutilation of government documents carries a three-year term of imprisonment and/or fine. Section B also states anyone found guilty “shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.” This wording is very clear, but the executive claims “discretion” to charge whomever they desire. If it were Trump they would charge him, but Hillary gets a free walk.
I would create the Accountability Act where anyone who misleads or lies to government in any way forfeits all pensions and must leave all government jobs, even as a dog catcher.
I would spin off the Office of Inspector General from the executive branch and restore them as a Roman Tribune, which would mean they could prosecute anyone in government without president approval since that would include him.
Tag Archives: 14th amendment
*(WHERE IS OBAMA AND THE FBI?)* – Why are terrorist red flags being missed?
A few years ago the Obama administration redacted all the Islamic or Muslim references to Jihad and stopped all training on the subject so it is now almost impossible to actually find anyone prior to their actually doing anything.
Baltimore Six Update – The Case Against Caesar Goodson Begins Collapsing…
When the citizens realize the law is what the government makes it up to be and the cases have no merit then there is no rule of law and that the prosecutors are fabricating evidences and cases for political purposes then the society where this happens is finished and must be replaced.
Lessons From The Obama Administration – The Politics Determine The Political Outcomes…
This is a very good analysis Sundance, and I agree 100% with what you are saying; I come at this transformation being imposed on us from a different direction but the end result is identical. We are in for some very hard times much like that before the Civil War with brother against brother and family against family. The UniParty will stop at nothing to prevent Trump from getting to the White House and I mean that ANYTHING will be allowed including assassinations.
Candidate Donald Trump Interview With Sean Hannity…
Trump gets it — our present government is trying to make changes in our country that the present citizens do not want! Trump will stop the change and Obama and Hillary cannot allow that and therein lies the difference. The citizens against the want a be rulers and Trump is the tip of the spear f.or us.
1800 was Almost the Second American Revolution
Armstrong Economics Blog
RE-Posted Jun 15, 2016 by Martin Armstrong
Political rivalry in the United States has been taking place since 1800 when the clash between the Federalists and the Jeffersonians pushed the political body of the nation to the point where it teetered on the brink of a second American Revolution. This clash of the Titans was sparked when the Federalists were about to lose power. John Adams tried to prolong Federalist control in direct defiance of the people by stacking the courts with Federalist judges to demonstrate that law was not law; it was driven by bias from the start. The new Constitution was not specific and far too ambiguous in many areas including that of the judiciary.
John Marshall (1755 – 1835) was previously a leader of the Federalist Party in Virginia and served in the United States House of Representatives from 1799 to 1800. He became the Secretary of State under President John Adams from 1800 to 1801, and in a political crisis he became the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1801–1835). Marshall was thrown into the office of Chief Justice in the aftermath of the presidential election of 1800. The Federalists were soundly defeated and their dream of a federal government dominating over the states was coming to an end. They were about to lose both the executive and legislative branches to Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans. In a last desperate moment, President Adams and the lame duck Congress passed what came to be known as the Midnight Judges Act. This draconian attempt to install sweeping changes to the federal judiciary to always rule in favor of the Federalists was now at issue. This included a reduction in the number of Justices from six to five to prevent Jefferson from appointing a Justice when the next vacancy in the court arose.
The incumbent Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth was in poor health, and Adams tried to stack the court by offering the seat to ex-Chief Justice John Jay who declined on the grounds that the court lacked “energy, weight, and dignity.” Jay’s letter arrived on January 20, 1801, and there was little time left.
Adams turned to Secretary of State John Marshall who accepted the nomination immediately. At first, the Senate was delayed in hopes that Adams would make a different choice. Nonetheless, the Senate had no choice and confirmed Marshall on January 27, 1801. He was sworn in on January 31, 1801, and officially took office on February 4, 1801. The strange rush meant that Marshall continued to serve as Secretary of State until Adams’ term expired on March 4, 1801, thereby overlapping Marshall’s two positions of Chief Justice and Secretary of State.
Marshall became the longest presiding Chief Justice during the administrations of six presidents: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. Marshall remained an advocate of Federalism, and, in this capacity, he was the nemesis of the Jeffersonian school of government throughout its tenure. On July 4, 1826, at the age of 90, John Adams lay on his deathbed while the country celebrated Independence Day. His last words were, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” But Jefferson had died five hours earlier at Monticello at the age of 82. This, nonetheless, illustrated the battle between Federalist and Jeffersonians who believed in state rights and freedom.
Marshall was faced with the fact that the Constitution’s framers left the Supreme Court’s existence and scope of power very ambiguous. For the first three presidential election cycles, there were few matters of any practical concern with regard to law. The midst of this political crisis of 1800 threatened a political revolution, not necessarily among the people, but among the elites. This confrontation led to Marshall’s landmark decision known as the case of Marbury v Madison.
Adams attempted to stuff the courts with Federalist judges. A handful of commissions for Justice of the Peace remained undelivered when incoming Democratic-Republican President Thomas Jefferson came to office. Jefferson ordered his secretary of state, James Madison, not to deliver any of these appointments since they were clearly political. One disgruntled office seeker, William Marbury, sued to have his commission honored. Marshall denied Marbury his commission because the Act of Congress underlying the suit unconstitutionally sought to expand the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction beyond what it was intended. The case established that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Marshall further wrote, “If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.” Strangely, Marshall had to rule against the powers of the Court itself.
This epic battle of Marbury v Madison illustrates that law has never really been law. The fight to install judges who will rule in favor of one side or the other proves there are serious problems with law. Obviously, politicians should never appoint judges. Secondly, the fate of any person should never lie in the ambiguous words of statutes. Any law, when enacted, should be passed to a Constitutional Court to interpret what that law means, which becomes binding BEFORE it is applied to anyone. Until we are ready to reform the Judiciary, there will never be any rule of law. Moreover, judges should never have life tenure. Judges should have one term and then they’re out. They must be subject to the same laws they declare.
Unprecedented – President Obama Lashes Out in Seething Tirade Against Donald Trump (video)…
Obama is acting like the cornered rat that he is; Trump knows that he has him on the defense and almost up on the ropes so when Obama realizes that Hillary can not win Obama will get desperate in the coming months and there is no telling what he will do.
Donald Trump and Common Sense…
It makes perfect sense that why Obama and Hillary would never do that!
Donald Trump Speech on Violent Extremism, Saint Anselm College, NH – 2:30pm Live Stream
Good speech until Obama trump put passion in what he says and what he says makes perfect sense as it is also common sense. We really have no choice for as Trump says for if we do not chance our policies there will no long be an America — home of the free because of the brave!
Employment and Unemployment 2006 verse 2016
Last Friday June 3, 2016 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published their “Employment Situation — May 2016” report which contained a number of surprises; the biggest one was that we had a 4.7% unemployment rate. This number and other “surprises” are surprises only because the government has no clue what is really going on in the economy; which is a major paradigm shift in the workforce based on all the new Federal requirements such as Obama Care which makes it more and more expensive for a company to have employees, therefore they either automate or ship work, jobs, out of the country. The following Table One is a summary of some of key items shown in Table A-1 in that report, the numbers are in thousands.
Table One, Thousands
Class March 2016 May 2016 Change Change %
Civilian population 252,768 253,174 +406 +.16%
Labor Force 159,286 158,466 -820 -.51%
Employed 151,320 151,030 -290 -.19%
4.7% Unemployed 7,966 7,436 -530 -6.65%
Not in work force 93,482 94,708 +1,226 +1.31%
The biggest thing that stands out in this report is that from March 2016 to May 2016 a total of only three months there are 290,000 fewer people working in May than March but simultaneously the unemployment rate went from 5.0% to 4.7%. That happened only because 1,226,000 people dropped out of the workforce, in two months, really? So it would seem that the easiest way for the government to lower unemployment is to take people out of the work force then to make it easier or less costly to have more employees.
This change happened by manipulating the values in Table One where we see that the Civilian population went up by 406,000 and the labor force shrunk by 820,000 the sum of the two is where the 1,226,000 comes from. 406,000 people should have entered the workforce and to keep unemployment at 4.7% the work force would need to be 159,692,000 the employed would then be 152,187,000 and the number unemployment would be 7,505,000. The bottom line is that for the 4.7% to be real there should have been 867,000 more people working then we actually have employed now.
A more telling look at this above information shown in Table One would be to compare May 2016 to an older report from August 2006 which was less than 10 years ago and the last time before the great recession that the unemployment rate was also 4.7% so it would be a very reasonable comparison to make. This look back is shown in the following Table Two where these figures are also taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics “The Employment Situation: August 2008” also taken from Table A-1, the report name was a bit different back then but it is the same report.
Table Two, Thousands
A comparison from 10 years ago when the Unemployment rate was also 4.7%
Class Aug 2006 May 2016 Change Change %
Civilian population 229,167 253,174 +24,007 +10.48%
Labor Force 151,698 158,466 +6,768 +4.46%
Employed 144,159 151,030 +6,871 +4.77%
4.7% Unemployed 7,119 7,436 +317 +4.45%
Not in work force 77,469 94,708 +17,239 +22.25%
What we see is that the civilian populations increased by 10.48% while the labor force and employed and unemployed increased by only 4.56% (average of the three) resulting in the “Not in the labor force” jumping by a whopping 22.25% and therein lies the issue that we face now; too many people not working which places a heavy burden on those that are. Couple this with the shift in jobs from manufacturing to service which brings lower wages (separate analysis need to support) and you get the political situation that has given us Trump and Bernie.
Trump is right with Make America Great Again and the Democrat counterpart Bernie is just more free stuff which continues us down the present path at a faster rate. The other Democrat Hillary is only about more money and power for herself and her circle of friends, she is the only one not telling the truth about who she is. To be fair the RNC’s initial pick of Jeb Bush, eliminated by Trump, would not have been much different than Hillary, both want the same policies. The Republican voters picked Trump as he tells us that we can go back to the period where we were strong meaning we had good jobs and decent incomes. The next table will show us what the US would have looked like had Trump been elected in 2008.
Table Three will be constructed by taking the May 2016 and adjusting the values to be consistent with the 10.48% increase in the population shown in the first line of Table Two. We use the August 2006 value as it is also 4.7% unemployment but in addition the previous months are similar to that found previous to May 2016. That will show us where we should be verses where we are, in other words what Trump is telling us is that America should have been what is shown in Table Three and we are not there because of Obama Hillary and the progressive left.
Table Three, Thousands
A comparison from 10 years ago when the Unemployment rate was also 4.7%
Class May 2006a May 2016b Change Change %
Civilian population 253,174 253,174 0 0.00%
Labor Force 158,466 175,073 +16,607 10.48%
Employed 151,030 166,858 +15,828 10.48%
4.7% Unemployed 7,436 8,215 +779 10.48%
Not in work force 94,708 104,633 +9,925 10.48%
Right now there should be 166,858,000 people employed and drawing a paycheck, instead we only have 151,030,000 working; therefore we are short 8,957,000 jobs. And that is why the Trump movement is there, he didn’t create the movement the movement created him. Further if we had 8,957,000 more people working the GDP of the country would be $19.3 T instead of $17.4 T assuming the same job mix as existed in 2006. This number is easily calculated by dividing the $17.4 T GDP by the 151 M workers which gives us $115,232 of GDP per worker; and then we multiple that by the 166,858,000 workers that we should have and we get a GDP of $19.3 T.
So we are missing 8,957,000 jobs and almost $2.0 T of GDP so just think what a difference that would have made if we had actually elected a good president. McCain might have been a bit better than Obama but not by much so there really was no good choice in 2008.
Centinel2012 