Tag Archives: China

Sep 19 2022

Putin: Xi is On My Side


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Sep 19, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

China is no stranger to Western alienation and hostilities. Putin is looking to strengthen his alliance with China by affirming that Russia will adhere to China’s domestic policies as long as China repays the favor.  “We intend to firmly adhere to the principle of ‘One China’,” Putin stated as Taiwan has become a hot topic. Putin went on to say that he “condemns provocations by the United States and their satellites in the Taiwan Strait.” China was bordering on neutrality until recently coming under fire for its One China policy. China can now see itself in Russia.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met this Thursday in Uzbekistan for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine. Both want to end NATO expansion and agreed to a “no-limits” partnership. Xi warned Biden at the beginning of the year that sanctions on Russia could cripple the global economy. The US warned China to stay out of its affairs but then provoked China by sending leaders like Pelosi to Taiwan. The New World Order first targeted Donald Trump in an effort to remove him from power. Putin is second on their list, followed by Xi.

China knows that the US is in a decline and is strategically placing its finances and policies accordingly. When I met with the central bank of China, they were not bureaucrats – they were traders. When I was asked by people in the US Treasury upon my return what it was like, I responded that they only hired people with experience. They sent everyone to work on trading desks around the world, and then they returned to China to run the central bank. The West hires academics who believe reading a few books is sufficient experience. Similarly, politicians no longer understand diplomatic relations and are willing to sacrifice the economy to uphold petty perpetual disagreements while demonizing opponents.

Sep 18 2022

Defeating The Great Reset


The Charlie Kirk Show Published originally on Rumble on September 16, 2022

Klaus Schwab maybe more evil than bill Gates

Sep 18 2022

Defeating The Great Reset Day 2 – Second Session


The Charlie Kirk Show Published originally on September 17, 2022 

Klaus Schwab maybe more evil than bill Gates

Sep 18 2022

President Trump Save America Rally, Youngstown Ohio – 7pm ET Livestream


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 17, 2022 | Sundance

Tonight, President Donald J. Trump, is headed to Youngstown, Ohio, for a 2022 midterm Save America Rally to benefit Ohio candidates including JD Vance.  Several speakers are anticipated including Ohio Representative Jim Jordan.  President Trump is scheduled to deliver his remarks at 7:00pm ET.  Livestream Links Below:

RSBN Direct Rumble Link – Trump Campaign Direct Rumble Link – Alternate Direct Rumble Link

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Sep 18 2022

President Trump Shares Article About a Trump v DeSantis Matchup


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 17, 2022 | Sundance

The ‘cut to the chase‘ aspect of whether Ron DeSantis is planning to run for the GOP nomination in 2024 is made clear when you realize just how much money the Florida governor has amassed.  A standing total exceeding $200 million.

That $200 million is not only a staggering amount far beyond the need for his virtually certain governor’s victory, but also the largest amount of campaign money ever assembled by a governor in the history of politics {citation}. Meg Whitman, California ($176 million), and Jay Pritzker, Illinois ($176 million), were both multi-millionaires and funded the majority of their war chest.  Almost all (96%) of DeSantis’ money is coming from multinational corporations, hedge funds, Wall Street firms and billionaires {citation}.

For those who are unfamiliar with the strategies of political funding, there is a timing that also highlights the intent.  A conspicuously aligned timing that coincides with the Trump raid on Mar-a-Lago.  Campaign finance reports are required and filled out quarterly.  DeSantis had a massive war chest assembled through August 5th.

That finance revelation was immediately before the August 8th raid, before the week in the bunker, and before DeSantis reemerged August 14th with a new national branding team and communication change.

DeSantis took in even more billionaire donor checks with the national kick-off.

Everybody familiar with politics knows what that level of preparation and strategy means.  DeSantis wasn’t amassing money of that scale, and simultaneously launching a new national branding campaign, for a state reelection bid.  He was/is preparing for a 2024 presidential run.  The only question was whether DeSantis had direct knowledge of the August 8th raid on Trump in advance, or whether he was just told not to ask questions and follow the advice of his new GOPe team.  The latter is more likely.

That said, the best laid plans of mice and men were disrupted by the MAGA response to the Trump raid.  As noted in the article shared by President Trump today, the professional republican donor class had -not accidentally- done a great job using their piranhas to nibble away at Trump’s support prior to the August 8th raid.  However, the raid rallied the base of MAGA back to defend Donald Trump.

By the time DeSantis came out of his pre-planned bunker phase (Aug 8th through Aug 14th) the support for Donald Trump had surged again.  The professionally republican handlers launched the national DeSantis campaign into indefatigable pro-Trump headwinds.  DeSantis Inc stuck to the plan, but the benefit they anticipated was not there.

Unfortunately for DeSantis there’s no good way to retreat from the 2024 strategy his handlers and donors have mapped out.  They have pushed him ‘all-in.’ I don’t think it’s possible for DeSantis Inc to back-down after accepting all that GOPe money, unless there is a way for them to return or redirect it.

The article President Trump shared today is a good contextual article describing the accuracy of the Trump -v- DeSantis landscape as it existed on August 29th, the date it was written.

One of the citations in the article points to John Thomas who was prepared with a pro-DeSantis PAC if the republican plan against Trump had succeeded.

As noted, the plan didn’t succeed, and with the outcome of the fulcrum event, the Mar-a-Lago raid, not having the desired effect, Thomas has now abandoned the idea of using the PAC to advance DeSantis.

(Business Insider) – […] But at least one GOP operative — John Thomas, founder and president of the political advertising and strategy group Thomas Partners Strategies — thinks it’s better for DeSantis to wait than to try to challenge Trump in 2024. 

“I wouldn’t advise him to go head to head with Trump,” Thomas told Insider. “It’s not gonna go well for DeSantis.” 

Until recently, Thomas was independently readying a political action committee to support DeSantis running for president.

But now he predicts DeSantis would be unsuccessful if he tried to challenge Trump. If DeSantis were to run, he said, he wouldn’t have to just compete with Trump’s name recognition and donor network. DeSantis would also risk seeing what would happen if Trump’s followers suddenly viewed him as anti-Trump.

Right now, DeSantis is seen as not just pro-Trump but as being Trump 2.0, Thomas said. To run against Trump, he said, DeSantis would have to convince Trump’s core electorate to break away from him.

“Right now he can have his cake and eat it too,” he said. “He can be Trumpy and supportive. But he would have to argue that he’s better, or Trump is bad. And that is a fault line that is probably a bridge too far for the Republican electorate in 2024.” (read more)

Sep 17 2022

RT Interview on Russia-Ukraine War


Armstrong Economics Blog/Armstrong in the Media Re-Posted Sep 17, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

RT reached out to Martin Armstrong for an economist’s view on the Ukrainian conflict. Click here for a quick interview that explains why Zelensky has no incentive to seek peace.

Sep 17 2022

Putin & October


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Sep 17, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Despite all the propaganda that was put out by John McCain, Putin was selected by Yeltsin because he was being blackmailed on the one side by the oligarchs in July 1999 and the communists on the other who introduced a motion in the Duma to impeach him for corruption that was related to the Bank of New York scandal.

Putin NEVER sought to resurrect the old USSR. In fact, he was the ONLY Russian leader to even criticize Lenin as just a bolshevik who destroyed a great empire of the Tsars. Lost in the pages of history, Russia at the time in 1917 had the largest gold reserves of any nation. Those gold reserves vanished and to this day have not been found. It was believed that they were hidden to prevent the Communists from seizing them.

Putin was there to restore Russia after the oligarchs plundered it and the Harvard boys who advised Russia on how to make the transition from Communism to Capitalism utterly never understood the most basic element of such a transition – the people. Putin’s most important achievement of his 20 years in power was restoring normalcy and stability to Russia. He went after the oligarchs and told them they could keep their money, but to stop interfering in politics.

The unwritten history that has been omitted from all books on the subject is that in 1991 when the USSR collapsed, NATO solicited Gorbachev to join NATO. That was one of the reasons there was a coup against him for the hardliners saw this would be a surrender of Russia to the USA. That is when Yeltsin stood on the tank and became President. Yeltsin was himself corrupt and he actually facilitated the rise of the oligarchs.

When Yeltsin turned to Putin out of desperation, the people cheered for Putin was neither an oligarch nor a communist. Despite the propaganda from the West, Putin truly enjoyed a 70%+ approval rating for the people neither wanted to lose all freedom to the communists and the oligarchs exploited the people to gain wealth.

Putin has refused to institute a draft to shore up Russian forces. However, despite all the propaganda that pours out of Ukraine, removing Putin will turn Russia very hard right and they are already criticizing Putin for being too soft.

There has been the strategy that inflation is rising and if Putin is smart, he will turn off the gas to Europe for the winter and show them how insane this is to (1) fuel a proxy war against Russia, and (2) push this Great Reset and the Green Agenda.

Basically, the hope remains that the West loses interest in supporting Ukraine as the costs rise. That’s been Russia’s hope and Ukraine’s dread before, but it seems more unlikely than ever at the moment before winter comes.

The most serious threat to Putin is losing the support of the elites. At the moment, Putin is the balance in the middle between hawks who want to see him crush Ukraine, and doves who want a peace settlement. As it stands now, the hawks would win for the West does not seek any peace and Zelensky says Kissenger is living in 1938 and refuses to yield one inch of territory to Russia. The Ukrainian Neo-Nazis instantly attacked the Donbas in 2014 and even put out a slogan that Crimea will be Ukrainian or Crimea will be depopulated. The hatred there is not going to ever vanish. The only reasonable solution is to allow the Donbas to vote, but since they are mostly ethnic Russians, Kyiv will never accept their vote.

It appears that the volatility will rise after this coming week. The Ukrainians may be forcing Putin’s hand to placate the Hawks since the Doves have been rejected by the West. NATO was Behind the Surprise Offensive In Kharkiv. Yet this victory for Ukraine was more of a staged PR event. The region was being held by local police units, not the Russian army which is in the South. Russia has achieved a 10:1 kill ratio against the Ukrainians in the region of the Donbas which is key. The Ukrainian forces that attacked Kharkiv were in effect a NATO army with the full support of Western intelligence and tactics. Because Kharkiv was held by police-type forces rather than the Russian army, it was clearly done for a PR event to raise morale and to get the West to send more money under the theory that Putin is on the run.

Sep 17 2022

Panicked Germany Seizes Russian Energy Company Rosneft, Uses National Trusteeship to Control Oil Refinery – The Current Economic Outlook of Europe, Full State Control of Critical Energy Production


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 16, 2022 | sundance

Welcome to the new “democratic norms” in the industrialized west as Germany seizes the private assets of Russian owned energy company Rosneft; because oil refining is critical to fuel prices and German has just realized their vulnerability.

Within this new Build Back Better system, driven by the policies of western nations, it appears things are changing quickly.  Democracy or capitalism in Germany is now quickly dispatched, as socialism -state control- becomes the priority.

Heck, I’m old enough to remember when everyone decried China’s authoritarian economic model for doing the exact same thing as Germany (a few months ago).  But, well, we must pretend not to notice these things comrades….

(Reuters) – BERLIN, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Germany took control of a major Russian-owned oil refinery on Friday, risking retaliation from Moscow as Berlin strives to shore up energy supplies and meet its European Union commitment to eliminate Russian oil imports by the end of the year.

The economy ministry said it was putting a unit of Russian oil firm Rosneft (ROSN.MM) under the trusteeship of the industry regulator and taking over the business’ Schwedt refinery, which supplies 90% of Berlin’s fuel.

“This is a far-reaching energy policy decision to protect our country,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a news conference to present the government’s plans to put the Schwedt refinery under the control of the Federal Network Agency regulator. (read more)

Who knew economic security was national security?

Now, let’s start talking about USA food exports, shall we?

Also, I’ll take “Things That Won’t End Well” for $1000, Alex.

Sep 15 2022

Ukraine Carrying out Assassinations in Moscow


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Sep 15, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

There are reports on the Russian General SVR Telegram channel, which tends to be an anti-Putin station, that is claiming there was an inside-job attempt to assassinate Putin with an attack on his motorcade. He was not harmed. They are claiming that the first car of the convoy was blocked by an ambulance, but the second car made a slight detour and did not stop. A loud bang was supposedly heard from Putin’s car, but it continued and arrived safely at the president’s residence.

They further claimed that the body of a man was then found driving the ambulance. They have reported that the head of the president’s bodyguards and several other people have been suspended and are in custody. Nobody has been named and there is no other news service that has reported this claim.

When we look at our models, the real higher volatility and the turning point in Russia appear to be in October, which is also a Panic cycle in the ruble. What we do see is that the Ukrainians carried out assassination hits in Russia. They have been trying to target Putin to kill him without success so far. They tried to kill Aleksandr Dugin with a car bomb, but they killed his daughter Darya Dugina. This is the car bombing of a pro-Putin supporter in Moscow. The sheer hatred between Ukrainian and Russians is legendary and as such the likelihood of this ever reaching peace is unlikely.

My sources continue to suggest that removing Putin will escalate things, not stop them. The hardliners will seize power and that will not be good going into 2023. Claiming they have Putin on the run is not going to win the day in Ukraine. It runs the risk of really escalating things for the hardliners in Moscow are criticizing Putin for being too soft on Ukraine. He for the first time started to attack their power grid. The hardliners will push for a serious attack against Ukraine rather than just securing the Donbas.

Sep 15 2022

Debt Diplomacy – Is China the East IMF?


Armstrong Economics Blog/China Re-Posted Sep 15, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

The International Monetary Fund is not the only option for countries in desperate need of funding. The Financial Times recently reported that China has been sending out tens of billions in secretive “emergency loans” to countries facing financial hardship.

China and others have been known to invest in emerging or struggling economies, but China seems to be upping its aid and has provided more funds than even the World Bank. AidData revealed that Pakistan, Argentina, and Sri Lanka alone had received $32.83 billion since 2017. Former Vice President Mike Pence accused China of using “’debt diplomacy’ to expand its influence. [China] is offering hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure loans to governments from Asia to Africa to Europe and even Latin America. Yet the terms of those loans are opaque at best, and the benefits invariably flow overwhelmingly to Beijing.” Pence claimed that China would prey upon poor nations and take ownership of key infrastructure upon default. Another example of the pot calling the kettle black, so to speak.

Pence used the example of Sri Lanka who was pushed into default, opening room for China to construct a military base in the port of Hambantota. The Atlantic published an article in 2021 to say that Pence’s claims of China ushering in their military to Sri Lanka was a lie, as if China wouldn’t jump on such an opportunity. Last month, in August 2022, China dispatched military ships to Hambantota with the intention of using the port for dual commercial and military use. Remember that Sri Lanka recently overthrew its president and has been in utter disarray — their economy completely collapsed.

“Sri Lanka needs financial assistance, and it would not want to displease China by revoking the permission,” Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, told VOA. At this time, they are not building a military base, but it is possible as Chinese companies took out a 99-year lease on the area in 2017. Sri Lanka was seeking a loan from the IMF, but they were unwilling to take on such risky debt. Business is business. Sri Lanka was desperate, and China was willing to come to their aid, but governments only act in their self-interest and would not take on risks if they did not see a way to monetize that risk.

So yes, China is willing to take on the risks that the IMF will not. Unlike the IMF, China does not need to disclose its investments. China is investing less in US and Western debt and has turned its attention to indebted nations. This may be one of the reasons that our computer predicts China will become the next financial capital of the world by 2037.25.