Posted originally on the CTH on May 25, 2024 | Sundance
This is interesting. Only a very small segment of the U.S. electorate seemingly understands the ramification of a dollar-based central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the USA. There is also evidence the Russian sanctions were created as the starter fuse for the CBDC process.
WASHINGTON DC – […] Crypto-friendly legislation moving through Congress in the last two weeks drew a surprising level of bipartisan support, surfacing household names such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as unexpected allies, while suggesting that crypto skeptics like Sen. Elizabeth Warren may soon be isolated on the issue.
[…] Republicans who were already aligning themselves with the crypto world are leaning into the embrace even further. Former President Donald Trump is increasingly pledging to support the interests of digital asset traders, and he’s starting to accept campaign contributions in crypto. (MORE)
“The Order directs the U.S. Government to assess the technological infrastructure and capacity needs for a potential U.S. CBDC in a manner that protects Americans’ interests. The Order also encourages the Federal Reserve to continue its research, development, and assessment efforts for a U.S. CBDC, including development of a plan for broader U.S. Government action in support of their work. This effort prioritizes U.S. participation in multi-country experimentation, and ensures U.S. leadership internationally to promote CBDC development that is consistent with U.S. priorities and democratic values.” (WHITE HOUSE)
That announcement was less than 2 weeks after Russia moved into Ukraine.
Posted originally on May 24, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
I discussed how the rising costs of childcare surpass the cost of rent by 25% to 50% across the United States. The cost of raising a child is directly reflected in the birth rate crisis we are seeing across the world. Another new phenomenon is permanently altering the family structure as a result of economics – the absence of the role of grandparents.
Unlike countless animal species, humans were designed to survive well past child-rearing years. Only a few animal species, such as elephants and whales, undergo menopause, and not so coincidentally, these species rely on shared wisdom passed down through the generations for survival. Men begin to decline in testosterone around the same time that women go through menopause, and while they can continue having children throughout their life cycle, men are wired to be less likely to compete for mates later in life. Grandparents served an essential role in the family structure.
The nuclear family has always been supported by the extended family. Older generations helped to care for the younger generations, passing down priceless knowledge. Younger generations had the ability to then care for the elderly. Tens of thousands of years of evolutionary biology is no longer the norm due to economics.
Simply put, most grandparents are still working to survive. I will speak from the US perspective, but this phenomenon is happening throughout the world. Over half of families (53.3%) were dual-income earners in the United States as of 2019. A recent survey found the average age of retirement is between 61 to 64, up from 57 in 1990. The current cost of living will require most to work far beyond this age for survival. Social Security will go bust, and hardly anyone outside of government employees will receive a pension. A comfortable retirement is hard to obtain for the average person.
Additionally, children are less likely to support their parents as they age for cultural and financial reasons. We saw nations like China fining young people for not caring for aging parents. Individualism is favored in our societies, and the youth throughout the world is geared toward starting a new life in the cities away from their immediate families. Younger generations notoriously have less saved for retirement compared to earlier generations due to the high cost of living, and many are unable to financially care for sick and elderly parents because they lack the resources. Life expectancy is slightly declining, but we are living far longer than past generations.
Since grandparents are preoccupied working, the parents are placing their children in daycares rather than with grandparents. That once essential role of the grandparent is less prominent in modern societies. The public education system rather than the family is passing down knowledge, or the knowledge they deem appropriate.
Could the extreme increase in the cost of living revive the multigenerational family structure? Pew Research has found that multigenerational homes, “defined as including two or more adult generations (with adults mainly ages 25 or older) or a “skipped generation,” which consists of grandparents and their grandchildren younger than 25,” are now rising in America. Around 59.7 million Americans lived in multigenerational homes in March 2021, compared to 58.4 million in 2019 before the pandemic. Yet a large cause of this shift is an increase in Asian and Latino immigrants, who account for a higher proportion of multigenerational households.
Around 10,000 Baby Boomers will turn 65 every day from now until the pivotal year of 2030. Estimates believe that there will be a 50% increase in the number of seniors living in nursing homes full-time by 2030. The Washington Post found that 10% of seniors 85 years of age or older now live in retirement homes unless they are working in US Congress.
The role of the grandparent was essential throughout all of evolutionary biology. Women had the opportunity to enter the workforce, and now, it is mostly a mandatory obligation due to living costs. Both parents are working, as are the grandparents, and the children are being partially raised by daycares and the school system. The role of the grandparent is vanishing from our society as a direct result of shifting economic and societal norms.
Posted originally on May 24, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Bloomberg released a damning report that explains how childcare costs exceed the average price of rent in the United States. This does not factor in the various costs of raising a child, as it merely looks at the cost of sending them to daycare. The true reason we are seeing a birth rate crisis across the world comes down to economics.
Over half of families (53.3%) were dual-income earners in the United States as of 2019. That figure has been steadily rising over the years, and we will see more parents re-enter the workforce amid the cost of living crisis.
The US Department of Agriculture completed a study in 2017, before we were wiped out by inflation, stating that it would take around $233,610 to $306,924 to raise a child in the United States. Brookings Institute found that costs from birth to age 17 would total around $310,605. Expect to pay more.
Child Care Aware of America, a nonprofit, found that child care costs exceed the average rent payment by over 25% on average, but can topple 50% of the average cost of rent in at least eight states. The study found that childcare costs alone, not the overall cost of raising a child, consume 10% of a married couple’s income. Childcare costs spiked to $11,582 per child last year, marking a 3.7% increase from the year prior.
Three million kids are expected to lose childcare benefits this year now that COVID benefits are not available. America is the only advanced nation that does not offer paid maternity leave thanks to lobbying efforts. Statistics show those who have the least have the most kids, and parents expect the government/taxpayers to pay for those costs.
The birth rate declined by 3% in 2022 from the year prior, marking the lowest fertility rate on record. There were 3.59 million new births in 2023, the lowest since 1979. The only demographic seeing a rise in births are women over 40 (13 births per 1,000 women), as couples simply do not have the funding to bring children into this world. If they want to combat the rapidly declining population, they must look at the finances involved.
Posted originally on May 22, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
There is something really wrong at the International Criminal Court. It has been taken over by the Neocons and is violating international law and its own jurisdiction. I had dinner with the ICC, and they were appalled at what was done to me. They expressed how they “wished” they could have charged the judges and prosecutors as well as politicians involved and viewed me as a whistleblower against the bankers and Neocons. I had that dinner, I believe, back in 2012. They said they LACKED THE JURISDICTION to bring charges against NON-MEMBERS.
Here is a list of their members. The United States refused to sign because it did not want it to be charged in a court it did not control. Look closely; you will see that NEITHER Russia nor Israel are members of the ICC. They have NO jurisdiction whatsoever with regard to crimes of aggression, and for that, both states must be members. That is why the prosecution of Putin was clearly a fraud and obviously orchestrated by the Neocons. The charge against Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova was really a stretch, alleging he was responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and the unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute). This was to take children out of the war zone, and they turned that into a war crime of aggression that did not require membership. This was really politically motivated, showing the ICC is a joke. When none of the nations tied to the crimes are ICC Treaty signatories, then the task of contracting the ICC to investigate falls to the United Nations Security Council.
Now, the ICC is acting under political pressure again. Palestine became a special member, so here, there is jurisdiction over only one country. These arrest warrants are for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They have also issued warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, political chief Ismail Haniyah, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of Hamas’ armed wing, also known as Mohammed Deif. The pressure was that ICC is controlled by the West and is irrelevant. This idea that they can use JUSTICE to stop wars is really absurd. You can have a law against murder, but in the heat of passion, nobody calculates if I do this, I can be charged – the act without thinking about the consequences.
The charges, in this case, are different from non-members. They would face a sentence of up to 30 years in prison and possibly life. Being a member state, they would be under a legal obligation to arrest any of those charged if they traveled to any of those 124 countries, which means Europe. That obligation to arrest them demonstrates how internationally the ICC actually threatens world war by preventing any diplomatic conferences. For example, Putin canceled his plans to attend the BRICS summit in South Africa in the apparent light of Pretoria’s obligation to arrest him.
The ICC’s charges here should not be confused with another similar case pending against the state of Israel, namely the charge of genocide leveled against it by several nations. Among others, South Africa has spearheaded a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) based on the high number of casualties in Gaza.
Since Palestine is a member, they should immediately arrest Hamas leaders Sinwar and Deif, who are in Gaza, but Haniyah resides in Qatar, which is a non-member. Will Palestine comply? Israel is not a member and does not have to comply. If the ICC charged Macron in France, is the country then obligated to arrest its own president contrary to its own laws? This introduces the paradox of the ICC questioning if it is even valid under international law. It acts as the supreme authority as if it were a one-world government, which has always been the aspiration and dream of the United Nations.
Some argue that this prosecutor had no choice because Palestine is a member of the ICC and the criticism has been that they are the puppet of the West after the Putin nonsense. So he has charged Netanyahu to politically vindicate the ICC. However, what he has unleashed is breaking the European ties and support for Israel. ICC arrest warrants against Israeli officials he can cleverly use to interfere in the entire backing for Israel. Israel’s European allies could be forced to terminate their relationship with Israel or risk being indicted in the ICC for aiding criminals.
If Palestine now refuses to turn off Hamas leaders in Gaza, then they too would be in a conspiracy, and Europeans who support Palestine could be forced to cut all ties. This illustrates that this idea of the ICC was clearly never well thought out, that they would never prevent war with justice but could promote war with arrest warrants that prevented diplomatic negotiations. For example, Putin can no longer even attend G20 meetings. When you cut off all diplomatic communications, then the ONLY alternative is war. The ICC should be terminated. Like NATO, which exists ONLY for war, the ICC dangerously breaks down the possibility of peace with its political interference in international relations.
For political propaganda purposes, the European countries supported the ICC arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for purported transporting children, not atrocities in Ukraine. I have videos captured by Ukrainians showing the crucifying of Russian soldiers and setting them on fire. Accounts from French volunteer soldiers who left Ukraine witnessed Ukrainians shooting the heads of Russian prisoners of war for fun. The ICC has refused to charge anyone on the Ukrainian side for war crimes. They never charged the British or Americans for war crimes in Iraq.
Karim Khan is the Chief Prosecutor at the ICC since 2021. He is a British lawyer whose father was born in Mardan, Pakistan. Issuing an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel when Israel is not a member is outrageous on the pretense that Palestine is a member. But he got away with it and issued the political arrest for Putin, ensuring there could be no diplomatic meetings, and everyone cheered. If Putin flew to America for a White House meeting and flew over France, do they have the right to send up jets to intercept Putin’s flight and shoot it down if they refuse to land?
This is what I have warned about precedent. He got away with Putin and will obviously abuse his power against non-members, and the ramifications can be dramatic from a political perspective; sure, Israel will not cooperate, and neither will the United States. Will Palestine really arrest and hand over Hamas’s leadership? But what will the members in Europe do now? If they send any support to Israel or Palestine, if they do not comply, they can be charged under the conspiracy theories. The ICC can easily hurl the world into international war over their pretend authority that nobody ever thought through the true consequences of this one-world government approach.
A new film, War and Justice, is about the ICC. It also highlights the jurisdictional issues.
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The ICC has abused its power and should now be disbanded.
Enough is enough!
About the Film:
The International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, for war and crimes against humanity.
The award-winning documentary WAR AND JUSTICE by directors Marcus Vetter and Michele Gentile about the ICC in The Hague couldn’t be more spot on. It will have its German theatrical release on June 6, 2024. The film will be shown in the presence of Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, and Herta Däubler Gmelin (former German Minister of Justice), followed by a live Q&A in Tübingen. Due to the events in Israel/Palestine, the directors continued filming after the world premiere at the Munich Film Festival and edited an the final version that sheds light on the role of the ICC in the current Gaza war.
WAR AND JUSTICE is a fascinating documentary that tells the 25-year history of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its mission to end the most serious crimes against humanity. In recent years, the ICC has made a name for itself by issuing an arrest warrant against President Putin. On October 7, 2023, Hamas carries out a horrific massacre of Israeli civilians. Israel responds with the largest offensive on the Gaza Strip to date. ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan travels to the Middle East and announces that he will prosecute any kind of war crimes on both sides.
WAR AND JUSTICE focuses on Karim Khan, the current Chief Prosecutor, and Argentine lawyer Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who was appointed the ICC’s first Chief Prosecutor in 2003 and whose case against the junta in his country was the subject of the Oscar-nominated feature film “ARGENTINA: 1985“.
Posted originally on May 21, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Let me explain something. Klaus Schwab is NOT retiring, nor is he leaving the WEF. Because of all the toxic hatred hurled at Schwab personally, he has only stepped down from the executive position. That is no different from the Chairman of a Board, who is also the CEO, steps down from only the CEO but retains the Chairmanship to which the new CEO is subordinate. You are NOT getting rid of Schwab so easily.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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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