Posted originally on Jan 31, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
The Trump Administration rescinded the freeze on federal programs, vowing to eliminate woke agencies in the coming weeks. The Democrats have become outraged over the president’s numerous, swift measures to undo the damage caused under Biden. The left believes in democracy when it suits them. The Dems lost control of both chambers of Congress and have been backed into a corner that they are prepared to fight their way out of.
House Democrats held a virtual meeting this week due to the “emergency” caused by Trump’s federal freeze. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has urged his party to take their fight to the streets, according to those who were on the call. “I don’t want to speak for the leader,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said afterward, “but it was a broad call for action — and a vigorous one.”
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) tacked on to the call for violence. “House Democrats are now fully engaged. The bell has rung. I think we see this for the constitutional test that it is, and we’re going to be aggressively pushing back,” he stated. “Leader Jeffries described it as a legal fight, a legislative fight and a street fight. And I couldn’t put it better.”
They understand that they will be met with challenges in both the House and Senate as Republicans have the majority. The people voted red because they want to revert to conservative policies. The Democrats only care about maintaining power. Huffman said that they plan to “use whatever bully pulpits we have to awaken the American people to what’s going on here.”
“Awakening the American people” has been done through carefully orchestrated propaganda pushed forth by legacy media. They have achieved it through orchestrated civil unrest, as we have seen the likes of billionaire George Soros and his zealot son Alex push forward. The Open Society Foundations have publicly promoted civil unrest and paid people to “take the fight to the streets,” as the Democrats are not encouraging. They attempted to become the rulers of information, labeling anything against the agenda as dangerous misinformation that needed to be silenced. The lies, Russian collusion, Steel Dossier, Agenda 2025 – the majority never bought into these lies. Trump experienced countless assassination attempts after the left’s incessant villainizationof Trump. They vowed to tone down the violent rhetoric, but that was prior to losing the election.
Any Republican would have been immediately taken down if they attempted to incite violence or called for political action by any means possible. Taking the fight to the streets sounds like an insurrection of sorts, and at the very least, a complete abandonment of the US democratic process that these legislatures have sworn to uphold. The propaganda and rioting failed but these types never learn. The American people voted the Democrats out of power, but they will not accept defeat or the wishes of the public.
Posted originally on Jan 31, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, thank you because you are the lone voice calling to us in Europe, where free speech is dying quickly. Others are afraid to say what you point out, even if they see it themselves. Some try to dismiss you but never address what you say, only who you are.
Many of us in Europe greatly respect your courage and independence. You will be remembered by history when this all comes to an end.
RVH
REPLY: Thank you. I learned back in 1985 when I went to lunch with one of the heads of a major bank in Geneva. He explained to me back then why everyone was using my firm. He said you do not care if the dollar goes up or down. He explained there were no European FX analysts because it was a political issue in Europe since politicians used the rise in the currency to validate their performance. Saying the currency would decline became a political statement.
Today, if an analyst at a major bank said the euro would crash, the ECB would be on the phone instructing that institution to fire them. That was explained to me back in 1985. It has only progressed since then, and now it is becoming criminal to simply oppose the government under the label of far-right or hate speech. An AfD victory will help to push the euro over the edge and threaten the WOKE agenda of the EU leadership.
Estonia’s economy was booming, but after several years of GDP growth at or close to 10%, the expansion rate collapsed and caused a negative contraction. The 2007-2010 economic recession was not such a soft landing. The sharp slowdown in the Estonian economy that began in 2007 is now undeniable. They jailed an economist for saying it would turn down. If I went to London today, Starmer would probably throw me in prison for something I said 10 years ago.
This is merely a reflection that the economy is turning down, and the Sovereign Debt Crisis is starting to come to a head. Trump at least understands debt. He may be called many names, but the issue will come to light, and he at least comprehends a debt crisis, whereas our politicians assume this is how they run the government, and someone will always buy their debt. When they can’t sell the new debt to pay off the old, everything will come crashing down. This is starting to come to a head this year, going into 2026. They will impose capital controls in Europe. They are trying speech controls first.
Olaf Scholz assumed office in December 2021. Just look at the German bond market. It went into a panic decline in 2022. Europe is going to have a debt crisis really beginning to surface next year. But more and more people are going to take notice this year.
The polls still show that the Union (CDU/CSU) is leading with an average of 30%, while the second strongest is the AfD, running about 21%. The next election will be on February 23rd, 2025.
We can see that we do have a Panic Cycle the week leading into the election that weekend. Then, there is choppiness for the following 3 weeks with a string of Directional Changes.
Alice Weidel of the AFD delivered a speech that hit home in Germany, exposing Scholz and his left-green authoritarian seizure of Germany. She explained that while migrants were attacking our people, Scholz had tried to silence the opposition and had even attempted to ban the AfD. She said: “Someone who thinks so authoritarian should not be the Chancellor of Germany.”
We show a Directional Change and a Panic Cycle due in February that lines up with the German election. An AfD victory can send the dollar higher and start to unwind the Euro. It is now 26 years since the birth of the euro. Cyclically, this is just time for the stress to emerge since it is unlikely that the euro will still exist by 2030 – 31 years from its creation.
Posted originally on Jan 30, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Total global debt has peaked to 326% of global GDP, adding an additional $12 trillion of debt in the last three quarters of 2024, according to the Institute of International Finance. This figure surpasses what we saw amid the pandemic and is expected to continually rise and governments continue to borrow with no intention of repayment.
The Big Bang of the sovereign debt crisis began in 2015.75, as indicated by the computers, around the introduction of negative rates and Quotative Easing, which shifted the risk from the free market to the central banks. The 2015.75 date was also 26 years from the first break in Marxism in 1989. The bottom of the ECM from 2015.75 to 2020.05 was also 31.4 years from the start of the fall of communism that culminated in the final stages of the collapse of socialism. I repeatedly warned that our models indicated the banks would become trapped by these policies and now we have a completely unsustainable situation.
If interest rates rise, their portfolios crash in value (price). Such an outcome would raise the question of will the private sector return to the government bond markets when they see there is a rising risk factor? Our model showed that this would not be the case. In other words, the Sovereign Debt Crisis has taken place and to prevent the PRICE crash, the central banks became the buyer to hold interest rates down and bond prices up. We have seen governments and institutions offload bonds and government debt since the Big Bang.
Emerging markets have reached 245% of GDP in debt, totaling $105 trillion. Poor nations are now spending more on their debt than infrastructure, health care, or education. These nations cannot afford to simply not repay and multilateral development banks have turned into lenders of last resort.
ALL government debt is in serious trouble because they just never fund a damn thing. The solution is to always borrow and there is no plan to ever pay anything back. The behind the curtain reasoning is they are burning money for fuel because they are always reducing the value of prior debt that is never indexed to inflation.
We have seen larger economies begin the snowball effect of borrowing after World War II and the repercussions are now arising. Now we have a serious crisis that has shifted from the free trading bond markets exclusively to the central banks. This is part of the crisis unfolding in the repo market. There does not appear to be any recovery on the horizon. Politicians are undermining the confidence in government, to begin with, and that will influence bond buyers.
The astounding debt crisis has fanned the flames of war as initiating a global conflict is a way, politicians believe, to continue delaying debt payments. The majority of nations are simply too far gone in debt to ever properly repay. Who would buy if there is no guaranteed return?
Total global government debt is now $98,000,000,000,000 ($98 trillion) and is forecast to reach $130 trillion by 2028, which is also when the computer has predicted that the world will feel the aftershocks of a global recession.
Total global debt has peaked to 326% of global GDP, adding an additional $12 trillion of debt in the last three quarters of 2024, according to the Institute of International Finance. This figure surpasses what we saw amid the pandemic and is expected to continually rise and governments continue to borrow with no intention of repayment.
The Big Bang of the sovereign debt crisis began in 2015.75, as indicated by the computers, around the introduction of negative rates and Quotative Easing, which shifted the risk from the free market to the central banks. The 2015.75 date was also 26 years from the first break in Marxism in 1989. The bottom of the ECM from 2015.75 to 2020.05 was also 31.4 years from the start of the fall of communism that culminated in the final stages of the collapse of socialism. I repeatedly warned that our models indicated the banks would become trapped by these policies and now we have a completely unsustainable situation.
If interest rates rise, their portfolios crash in value (price). Such an outcome would raise the question of will the private sector return to the government bond markets when they see there is a rising risk factor? Our model showed that this would not be the case. In other words, the Sovereign Debt Crisis has taken place and to prevent the PRICE crash, the central banks became the buyer to hold interest rates down and bond prices up. We have seen governments and institutions offload bonds and government debt since the Big Bang.
Emerging markets have reached 245% of GDP in debt, totaling $105 trillion. Poor nations are now spending more on their debt than infrastructure, health care, or education. These nations cannot afford to simply not repay and multilateral development banks have turned into lenders of last resort.
ALL government debt is in serious trouble because they just never fund a damn thing. The solution is to always borrow and there is no plan to ever pay anything back. The behind the curtain reasoning is they are burning money for fuel because they are always reducing the value of prior debt that is never indexed to inflation.
We have seen larger economies begin the snowball effect of borrowing after World War II and the repercussions are now arising. Now we have a serious crisis that has shifted from the free trading bond markets exclusively to the central banks. This is part of the crisis unfolding in the repo market. There does not appear to be any recovery on the horizon. Politicians are undermining the confidence in government, to begin with, and that will influence bond buyers.
The astounding debt crisis has fanned the flames of war as initiating a global conflict is a way, politicians believe, to continue delaying debt payments. The majority of nations are simply too far gone in debt to ever properly repay. Who would buy if there is no guaranteed return?
Total global government debt is now $98,000,000,000,000 ($98 trillion) and is forecast to reach $130 trillion by 2028, which is also when the computer has predicted that the world will feel the aftershocks of a global recession.
Posted originally on Jan 30, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
President Donald Trump implemented a widespread freeze on federal loans and grants, ordering all agencies this week to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.” He was forced to back off after a federal judge halted some of the freeze. The public sector has been multiplying in recent years to the point that there are thousands of agencies whose true purpose are unknown. While many view the act as extreme, public sector growth has become detrimental to our economy and one must determine what exactly the government is funding.
As Adam Smith wrote in “Wealth of Nations”:
“Like an improvident spendthrift, whose pressing occasions will not allow him to wait for the regular payment of his revenue, the state is in the constant practice of borrowing of its own factors and agents, and of paying interest for the use of its own money.”
The wealth of a nation is composed of more than money or gold, for the original idea of “money” did not embrace the concept of true wealth. Money is merely our mental measure of wealth. Cultures in different parts of the world all conceive of money but it is merely how they measure this universal concept of wealth.
There is only one constant and that is the greater the size of government, the lower the production of national wealth. Therefore, the higher the percentage of a nation’s work force is employed by the public sector, the lower its real national product. We saw this in Argentina as of late. Of course, government wishes to include itself in the GDP calculation and it counts government workers twice in many countries. It adds total government spending and adds that to total personal income. By doing this they count all government employees twice for they do not back it out of the total government spending. So we have bogus statistics in GDP as well for the economy appears better when government hires rather than the public sector. That is why we will see unemployment rise under Trump but in all actuality that figure will not be indicative of the overall health of our economy.
Now, Trump specifically is asking for more information on 2,600 programs to determine their legitimacy. Biden implemented a slew of DEI iniatives and programs that do nothing but TAKE from our economy. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent the aforementioned companies the following questions:
Does this program provide funding that is implicated by the directive to end discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities, under whatever name they appear, or other directives in the same EO, including those related to “environmental justice” programs or “equity-related” grants?
Does this program promote gender ideology?
Does this program promote or support in any way abortion or other related activities identified in the Hyde Amendment?
“It means no more funding for the green new scam that has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday at her first news briefing. “It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies.” The new press secretary, who actually responds to questions, said it is “the responsibility of this president and this administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.” Welfare aid programs are not vanishing, rather, the government is reevaluating its spending to best direct dollars.
Organizations promoting woke gender ideology, DEI, and the green new deal will be the first to go but a significant cut is needed to restore some order. The fear mongering about Trump eliminating Medicaid and food assistance programs are unfounded. The new administration must determine what agencies are legitimate and eliminating services that do not add to our society in any meaningful way is the first step.
Argentina is an excellent example of how quickly an economy can recover when we remove socialistic programs. There were 341,477 people in the public sector on government payroll when President Milei took office, and his aim is to eliminate 70,000 needless positions. From December 2023 to October 2024, Argentina reduced the national administration was reduced by 10% and state-run firms decreased by 12.6%. Reducing the national administration alone saved the government $3.82 billion in the short-term, not accounting for future payouts, additional staffing, or pensions. Yet he began by eliminating services that were simply unnecessary.
Milei first eliminated useless agencies such as the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labor, and Ministry of Social Development. In his words, Argentina WAS a poor country that could not afford these departments that do absolutely nothing to improve the nation’s economic conditions. No one noticed when he reduced the cabinet by 50%, but the economy certainly took note and posted its first budget surplus in 123 years this December.
“The deficit was the root of all our evils — without it, there’s no debt, no emission, no inflation. Today, we have a sustained fiscal surplus, free of default, for the first time in 123 years. This historic achievement came from the greatest adjustment in history and reducing monetary emission to zero. A year ago, a degenerate printed 13% of GDP to win an election, fueling inflation. Today, monetary emission is a thing of the past,” Milei proudly announced.
Yes, other factors contributed to Argentina’s recent success, but moving away from socialism and ever-growing social programs was paramount. Socialism NEVER works but world leaders refuse to learn from the past.
Under Biden, we saw manufacturing flee the US. The jobs reports often looked promising but they failed to recognize the rising public sector that can never contribute to GDP. We have seen what happens when governments grow to disproportionate figures and it never ends well. The longest reigning empire, the Roman Empire, fell as a direct result of an oversized public sector that bankrupted Rome. The private sector produces economic growth, while government is a public servant consuming the wealth generated by others.
The Deep State is more than a swamp; it is an ocean. It is so deeply rooted that I wish Trump all the best, but I am not sure he will be able to root out the core corruption. That will probably take a sovereign default, and history warns that a revolution will often follow. This time, the government is entrenched in bribing the people to retain power, giving them free food and circuses, and they will be the government alone, as they used to say in Rome.
Posted originally on Jan 30, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. made it clear what Free Speech was in Schenk v. U.S., 249 U.S. 47 (1919) (1919), ruling that a restriction is legitimate only if the speech in question poses a “clear and present danger”—i.e., a risk or threat to safety or to other public interests that is serious and imminent. Yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre is not free speech. There have been many cases involving freedom of speech and of the press over the years, and what is taking place in Europe is a rejection of free speech. In Britain, they sentenced a man to 20 months in prison for saying he was tired of paying taxes to support migrants who then raped their children. They are defining much that simply disagrees with government policy as “hate speech,” which is expressing a political opinion.
In Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), Justice Hugo L. Black on the Supreme Court traced the origins of the First Amendment to a bill establishing religious freedom that Jefferson drafted and introduced in the Virginia General Assembly in 1779, but was finally passed only in 1786 demanded by James Madison. This had three main sections prohibiting compulsory religion requirements of any kind, maintaining that men were free to express their opinions on religion and choose how or if to worship. That was a fundamental right as citizens and it was the foundation as a natural right of mankind. Justice Black wrote:
“Yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that, if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.”
Justice John Marshall Harlan, whose grandfather had been on the Supreme Court from 1877 to 1911, delivered the decision in Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971) where the state criminalized the word “f–k” being used in political protests against the government. He made it clear that the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense. Starmer in Britain imprisoning people for merely saying migrants raped their children was a criminal offense and sentenced a man to 20 months in prison.
Freedom of speech includes the rights to:
Not to speak (specifically, the right not to salute the flag). West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).
Of students to wear black armbands to school to protest a war (“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.”). Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).
To contribute money (under certain circumstances) to political campaigns. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
To engage in symbolic speech (e.g., burning the flag in protest). Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989); United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).
What you MUST understand is that the EU is collapsing. The failure to ever consolidate the debts has led to (1) disparity among members, and (2) the Euro has never been able to replace the dollar, lacking a unified debt market to attract capital. The more desperate the financial crisis unfolds in Europe between war and debt, the more authoritarian the government will become. This is why Scholtz has the audacity to claim Germany has free speech as long as you are not their opposition. You cannot have free speech and ban the political speech of your opposition.
With all the talk of war in Europe, we are starting to see a massive exodus of European investment by foreigners. The Japanese dumped a record $53 billion worth of Euro investments, and we see the same from European investors trying to get out before capital controls coincide with the first bullet fired. The European leaders are braindead. They cannot grasp that the harder they beat their war drums, the more smart money will get out of the EU before it is too late. The Euro has been in an overall bear market decline since 2008.
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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
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