Tag Archives: confiscation

Jun 8 2017

What does Trump have in Common with Emperor Nero? Fake News & the Deep State?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics

Re-Posted Jun 8, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

As we approach what is being touted as a Super Bowl of politics with Comey’s testimony people are making bets will end Trump’s Presidency for good, it is curious how one Roman Emperor was taken down by the Deep State and declared a public enemy driving him to suicide. The Roman Emperor Nero (54-68AD) gets a bad rap from history. The popular one is his burned Rome so he could build a palace and played the fiddle as it all unfolded. During July of 64 AD, a great fire ravaged Rome for six days, destroying 70% of the city and leaving half its population homeless. The fakes news created by his enemies was that the decadent and unpopular Nero, “fiddled while Rome burned.” That story was crafted by his enemies who today would be CNN and the Democrats along with the Washington Post and New York Times. It was clearly the ancient fabrication of fake news.

For one thing, the fiddle didn’t exist in ancient Rome since it only made its appearance during the 11th century. There is no such evidence that Nero played anything during the great fire. The Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56–120AD)  wrote that Nero was rumored to have sung about the destruction of Troy while watching the city burn; however, he stated clearly that this was unconfirmed by eyewitness accounts. That was the origin of the saying. When the Great Fire broke out, Nero was at his villa at Antium, some 35 miles from Rome.

Agrippina-Nero

Britannicus-BNero’s unpopularity developed originally from his mother, Agrippina, Jr., who was a dominate mother and a power hungry woman with many attributed of Hillary Clinton. Agrippina, Jr. was the first woman whose portrait appeared on gold coins during her lifetime. She was first banished by her brother Caligula for being suspected of a plot against him to take the throne. She was very lucky to escape that one with her life. She the connived to marry her uncle, Claudius. The plot then thickens for Claudius’s heir, his son Britanicus, is then poised. Some attributed this to Nero, but it seems more likely the deed of his mother. Upon Claudius’s death, which she also may have aided with poison, she really rules the empire in her son’s name who was still a teenage boy.

Nero fought with his mother who was really ruling the empire and dominating him in the process. Eventually, Nero broke free by having his mother at last killed. He stages a death by drowning to make it look like an accident when her barrage sank. But she swam ashore and he ordered her killed on the spot. Her last words were to stab her in her womb from which he was born.

These stories clearly circulated in Rome and resulted in Nero being very unpopular. His father Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (c. 2 BC–41 AD) had a dreadful reputation that stained the image of Nero from the start. His father was known for cheating bankers for purchases he made and for cheating refusing to pay the prize money of victorious charioteers. He was also a major womanizer and the Emperor Tiberius charged him with treason, adultery and incest with his sister and also with adultery with another noblewoman. He was saved only by Tiberius’ death and the ascension of Caligula, his brother-in-law.

The true story of Nero, not the fake news version crafted by his enemies as we see going on by CNN and others today with respect to Trump, was that Nero immediately returned and began relief measures to help the people. They still didn’t trust him for his reputation preceded him. His enemies started the rumor that Nero had ordered the fire started, especially after he used land cleared by the fire to build his Golden Palace and its surrounding pleasure gardens. That was not a good decision, which only created conspiracy theories.

Nero himself blamed the Christians for the fire, and had many arrested and executed beginning the Christian persecutions when he was not executing them for their religion at that time. The real source of the stories against Nero are identical in human nature to those spun by career politicians and mainstream media against Trump today. The issue was reforming the corruption in the Senate.

There were many people complaining about the corruption of the tax collectors and this began Nero’s battle against the Deep State – sound familiar? Nero took on the fight clashing with the bureaucracy that set in motion his own demise. Tax collectors were accused of being corrupt and too harsh with the poor. Nero championed the little guy and transferred collection of tax authority to lower commissioners. Nero banned also any magistrate or procurator from exhibiting public entertainment for fear that the venue was being used as a method to sway the populace to support their corruption behind the scenes. Furthermore, Nero then impeached many officials for corruption and removed them from government as well as having many arrested for extortion and corruption.

As further complaints arose from the people that the poor were being overly taxed, Nero attempted to repeal all indirect taxes. The Senate convinced him this action would bankrupt the public treasury. As a compromise, taxes were cut from 4.5% to 2.5%. He also began the first debasement of the silver coinage whereas the average fineness pre-64AD was 97.5% as this was reduced to 93.5%. The weight of the silver denarius was also reduced from 3.63 grams to 3.36 grams in 64AD.

Additionally, secret government tax records were now ordered to become public, similar to the $2.3 trillion in missing funds handed to the Pentagon that 911 covered up. To lower the cost of food imports, Nero also directed that merchant ships were declared tax-exempt. None of these measures were Draconian to say the least, but were efforts to weed-out corruption far more than modern governments are willing to carry out. The Deep State was getting very angry at reducing their corruption.

Nero not only reduced taxes, he also gave slaves permission to file civil complaints against unjust masters, which was very shocking to many. Now the elite really got angry. Nero also imposed a tax of 4% on the sale of slaves that was to be remitted by the seller. Nevertheless, purchasers typically found that the tax was merely added as part of the price in a European VAT fashion.

Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65), was a Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman. He was a tutor and later advisor to Emperor Nero. Seneca had a hand in financial reform to improve the financial administration of the Empire. Governors were actually being prosecuted for extortion rather than the modern version of too-big-to-jail. The emperor by an edict forbade any magistrate or procurator in the government of a province to exhibit a show of gladiators, or of wild beasts, or indeed any other public entertainment. This was typically the method Governors bought favor from the people to cover-up the extensive bribery and extortion.

Nero also established retirement colonies of veterans in Italy. There were simply many deed he enacted prior to 64AD that reveal a decent administrator of the Empire. Nero even attempted to promote free trade by removing all indirect taxes. However, this proved too difficult to administer due to the pervasive corruption.

The Deep State conspired to kill Nero for his reforms. Some sources state that Seneca may have been innocent, but he was also implicated and forced to take his own life for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero. The conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso in AD 65 was a major turning point for it was clearly the Deep State rising up against Nero. The plot reflected the growing discontent among the ruling class of the Roman state with Nero’s increasingly attack upon corruption. Piso was a leading Roman statesman who it was said intended to have Nero assassinated and replace him as Emperor through acclamation by the Praetorian Guard. He was joined by many prominent senators, equestrians, and soldiers. The conspirators were said to have varying motives. Some wished to replace Nero with a better emperor, others wished to be free of emperors altogether, and restore a purely Republican form of government. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the ringleaders included a Praetorian tribune named Subrius Flavus, and a centurion named Sulpicius Asper, who helped Piso devise the plot, which was discovered when a woman named Epicharis tried to solicit Proculus, a fleet captain in Campania, to join the conspiracy. Instead, Proculus turned her in, but she committed suicide. Another named Milichus discovered the conspiracy and reported it to Nero’s secretary Epaphroditos. When arrested, many conspirators quickly ratted everyone else out to save themselves. Nero ordered Piso, the philosopher Seneca, his nephew Lucan, and the satirist Petronius to commit suicide.

There is clearly the same plot to overthrow Trump. History repeats because human nature never changes. We have all the elites on Capitol Hill plotting to get ride of Trump and to justify some sort of impeachment trail. Surely, neither Trump nor those who conspire against him on Capital Hill and in the media will commit suicide.  Nevertheless, they are fighting tooth and nail for the very same issue – to maintain the corruption behind the curtain. They too are creating fake news to justify their actions today as they did back then.

Ah – how history repeats. Just follow the money.

Jun 8 2017

Dear Senator – Someone, Anyone, Please Follow-Up With Comey Today On This Line of Inquiry…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on June 8, 2017 by

On March 20th, 2017 a young freshman representative from New York named Elise M. Stefanik used a probative timeline to question FBI Director James Comey.  Using simple common sense Ms. Stefanik single-handily exposed a significant level of intentional intelligence community deception yet no-one seemed to notice.

In the segment of the questioning (video below) Rep. Stefanik begins by asking director Comey what are the typical protocols, broad standards and procedures for notifying the Director of National Intelligence, the White House and senior congressional leadership (aka the intelligence Gang of Eight), when the FBI has opened a counter-intelligence investigation.

The response from Comey is a generalized reply (with uncomfortable body language) that notification of counter-intel investigations are discussed with the White House, and other pertinent oversight officials, on a calendar basis, i.e. “quarterly”.

With the statement that such counterintelligence notifications happen “generally quarterly”, and against the backdrop that Comey stated in July of 2016 a counter-intel investigation began, Stefanik asks:

…”when did you notify the White House, the DNI and congressional leadership”?

BOOM! Watch an extremely uncomfortable Director James Comey outright LIE… by claiming there was no active DNI to notify -which is entirely false- James Clapper was Obama’s DNI.

.

Watch it again.

Watch that first 3:00 minutes again. Ending with:

…”Because of the sensitivity of the matter” ~ James Comey

FBI Director Comey intentionally obfuscates knowledge of the question from Rep Stefanik; using parseltongue verbiage to get himself away from the sunlit timeline.

The counter-intel investigation, by his own admission, began in July 2016. Congress was not notified until March 2017. That’s an eight month period – Obviously obfuscating the quarterly claim moments earlier.

The first and second questions from Stefanik were clear. Comey’s understanding of the questions was clear. However, Comey directly evaded truthful response to the second question. When you watch the video, you can see Comey quickly connecting the dots on where this inquiry was going.

There is only one reasonable explanation for FBI Director James Comey to be launching a counter-intel investigation in July 2016, notifying the White House and James Clapper (ODNI), and then keeping it under wraps from congress: James Comey was a participant in the intelligence gathering for political purposes – wittingly, or unwittingly.

It became clear during that testimony that Director Comey was using his office as a facilitating conduit for political purposes; presumably in favor of the 2016 White House.

Unfortunately, a slightly nervous Stefanik, never forced Comey to go back to the non-answered question and respond by saying:

No, Mr. Comey, there WAS a DNI in place in 2016, please answer the question of when did you notify him (James Clapper) and the White House?

….. then it would get a little ugly:

Why did you notify Clapper and the White House but delay congressional notification?

With all the banter about these hearings, and against this slight moment of clarity of purpose, it bears repeating:

There is only ONE KNOWN Factual and CRIMINAL activity currently identified: the unmasking and leaking of Mike Flynn’s name to the media.

FBI Director Comey stated his organization is “investigating”, fair enough.  Director Comey stated the investigation was a counterintelligence operation; again, fair enough.  However, not a single congress person followed-up to his admission and questioned why only he decided to act without oversight, and only this aspect of the investigation was kept secret from congress and the gang-of-eight.

Why?

Additionally, during this same March 20th testimony Director Comey stated there was an ongoing leak investigation.  However, almost two months later, on May 8th 2017, both James Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates stated they were unaware of any leak investigation and neither of them had been contacted or questioned as part of the supposed leak investigation.

How can there be a leak investigation if the key stake-holders who possessed the intelligence that was leaked have never been questioned?

How?

 

Jun 6 2017

Comey to Testify Thursday June 8th – Same Day as British Elections


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics

Re-Posted Jun 6, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Comey is to testify Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He will most certainly be asked about conversations with Trump and the FBI probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. But this is the Intelligence Committee, so the focus is supposed to be about about Russian election meddling in the 2016 election while nobody will ask about the Obama Administration getting briefs from the CIA/NSA/FBI as to what Trump’s people were talking about for the campaign.

I have prepared an in-depth report on how Congress can impeach Trump. The plain truth is shocking. Congress has played the impeachment card normally for political purposes and has RARELY ever followed the constitution. They have put people on trial in the senate to impeach them after they left office just to score points. The impeachment process is perhaps the most corrupt exercise of raw power Congress likes to play.

There are so many issues circulating around Behind the Curtain that it’s just impossible to blog about this much stuff particularly when the fate of the nation rests upon the rule of law, that Congress is unlikely to follow. I have written this report in one week. It was a lot of work. It is being priced at $35 because this is important to everyone.

Jun 3 2017

U.S. Paid $1 Billion To Paris Agreement Green Fund – All Other Nations Combined $0…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on June 3, 2017 by

The Paris Treaty was/is always about distribution of economic wealth; and the convenient use of “climate phrases” as branding instruments used to create political policy favorable to multinational corporate interests who control the shifting of economic wealth.

Listen to the responses from participating EU corporate comptrollers discussing climate and the entire purpose of the Paris Treaty becomes self-evident.  Example:

“The preservation of our competitive position is the precondition for successful climate protection. This correlation is often underestimated.”

~ Matthias Wissmann, President of German Auto Industry Group VDA

The preservation of Germany’s competitive auto manufacturing position is contingent upon the U.S. exporting it’s wealth and handcuffing itself to a faux-climate treaty.  Do not take my word for it, read Wissmann’s own interview.  The Paris Treaty is nothing about climate, and everything about economics and multinational corporate interests.

Forbes on Fox had an interesting discussion segment earlier today where some of the panel participants explained and discussed this exact issue.   The Paris Climate Treaty was never about “climate” it was fundamentally about “economics”.

The Paris Climate Treaty has nothing to do with “climate” and everything possible to do with economics, globalism and the controlled redistribution of economic wealth as constructed through decades of advanced policies by multinational financial interests.

There are factually TRILLIONS of dollars at stake.

The primary concern for every affiliated entity surrounds economics, not climate. “Climate” issues are the Trojan horse, the false ruse, the talking point, the scheme to get economic systems in place -yes, political systems- to control the distributive flow of larger economic wealth within all nations. Period.

What ObamaCare was to our loss of healthcare individualism, so too is the Paris Treaty a political tool to deconstruct national economic individualism.

FULL-STOP.

To understand the larger objectives of the global and financial elite it is important to understand the three-decade global financial construct they now seek to protect. Global financial exploitation of national markets:

♦Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.
♦The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.
♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).
♦With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

The ‘America First’ Trump-Trade Doctrine upsets the entire construct of this multinational export/control dynamic. Team Trump focuses exclusively on bilateral trade deals with specific policy only looking out for the national interests of the United States.

Under President Trump’s Trade positions exfiltration of U.S. national wealth is essentially stopped. This puts multinational corporations, globalists who previously took a stake-hold in the U.S. economy with intention to export the wealth, in a position of holding interest of an asset they can no longer exploit.

Multinational banks have underwritten multinational corporations to own and control U.S. assets and industries.  The multinationals then hire K-Street Lobbyists, Tom Donohue (U.S CoC) etc., to create/write the political policy which allows the exploitation and exfiltration of the U.S. asset and U.S. industry.  Climate change political policy is part of that legislative tool.

President Trump has STOPPED the entire system dead in its tracks.

If you can see the ramifications, understand how much they have already invested in this entire construct, you can begin to understand the severity of the opposition to President Trump – and can grasp reason for the inherent anger we are all witnessing.

Multinational corporations and billionaire financiers use climate change as a tool toward furtherance of collected global wealth. Their strategy is quite simple, and has been played out for several cycles.

Create an institutional trade instrument (housing financial bubble example), control it, expand the financial use globally, drive the controlled pricing to an apex and reap the financial rewards.  Wash – Rinse – Repeat.

Their expressed holy grail for ultimate human behavioral control is a global tax on all people more commonly known as a “carbon-trading tax”.   Just like ObamaCare, this tax on personage first requires everyone to accept the assumption of why the tax is needed.

A planetary tax on personage, behavior and activity, through a market-based trade vehicle (Paris Agreement), under U.N. exclusive control; which subverts the national economic interests of sovereign nations.

The “Carbon Trading” fundamental financial instrument is the foundational block of the financial interests behind modern climate change. The latest exhibition of a decades long series of international construct was the Paris Climate Change agreement.

REUTERS – Investors with more than $15 trillion of assets under management urged governments led by the United States to implement the Paris climate accord to fight climate change despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to pull out.

“As long-term institutional investors, we believe that the mitigation of climate change is essential for the safeguarding of our investments,” according to the letter signed by 214 institutional investors and published on Monday.

“We urge all nations to stand by their commitments to the Agreement,” it said. Signatories of the letter included the California Public Employees Retirement System and other pension funds from Sweden to Australia. (read more)

Why are multinational banks, and multinational corporations, and multinational investment groups and pension funds so desperate to retain the Paris agreement?

Simple, those funds have been used by the multinational interests to create the entire system.  These funds provided the seed money for the entire financial scheme.   Ask yourself….

… Where exactly in the U.S. budget did this little $1 billion line-item expenditure come from?

Again, as we have done in the past, we draw attention to the secret meeting in Sea Island Georgia in 2016 when the billionaire vested participants gathered with the political class to discuss how they could stop candidate Donald J Trump.

2016 -Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.

The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump. (The meeting was not planned to be a strategy session on how to stop the GOP front-runner, but rather evolved into one, as a subsequently obtained agenda makes clear.)

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended.

So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he “cannot support Donald Trump.”

Along with Ryan, the House was represented by Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.), Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) and almost-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), sources said, along with leadership figure Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Diane Black (Tenn.).

Philip Anschutz, the billionaire GOP donor whose company owns a stake in Sea Island, was also there, along with Democratic Rep. John Delaney, who represents Maryland. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was there, too, a Times spokeswoman confirmed.

“A specter was haunting the World Forum—the specter of Donald Trump,” (read more)

Pay attention to the voices now shouting opposition to President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Treaty and you will identify those same oppositional voices who assembled in all economic matters prior to this moment in 2017. Their vested interests center around the economics, not “the climate”.

At first glance, the scope of this entire scheme seems so all encompassing it may seem like a political conspiracy theory.  However, this is a conspiracy reality.

President Trump is very smart about the long-term ramifications to this ‘treaty’. If the heavily influenced industrialized nations commit themselves to this agreement they will be anchoring their economic manufacturing base within a tiered system of ridiculously burdensome regulations and agreements.

The strategic benefit to the United States will stem from not participating in the regulatory stranglehold that accompanies the agreement. Obviously all nations that compete with the U.S on international trade agreements would, for once, be at a disadvantage; and our American manufacturing and industrial base would be able to take strategic advantage.  This is why those nations will never complete their promises under the Paris Agreement, they can’t and they won’t.

In larger terms back in the U.S., President Trump’s refocused policy objectives remove the political benefit from Wall Street and places it back with Main Street, reversing a three decade long shift.

This approach is adverse to the interests of the globalists.

President Trump’s economic team are well aware of the strategic advantage is walking away from the Paris Climate Treaty. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and their entire economic and financial team know what is needed to reverse the decades long construct and defeat the interests of the global elites.

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From cjzak

Jun 3 2017

SCOTUS Requests Trump VISA Restriction Challengers File Legal Responses by Monday June 12th….


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on June 3, 2017 by

President Trump has requested the Supreme Court grant an expedited review of lower court rulings that have blocked the temporary travel restrictions and visa bans.

The Supreme Court justices have now asked challengers to the Trump Executive Order to file their responses to the petition for review (the requests for stays of the lower courts’ rulings).  Those responses are due on or before 3 p.m. Monday, June 12.

(Via SCOTUS BLOG) […] Arguing that lower courts “openly second-guessed” President Donald Trump’s determination that national security concerns require a freeze on new visas for travelers from six Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen), last night the federal government asked the Supreme Court to step into the legal dispute over the constitutionality of the executive order that the president signed on March 6.

The government also asked the court to put on hold two lower-court rulings blocking the implementation of the executive order, telling the justices that those rulings undermine “the President’s constitutional and statutory power to protect” the United States.  (read more)

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/350275533/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-rDRB60dtZhSXdRNMUuMm

Jun 3 2017

Kathy Griffin Gets Axed From Every Scheduled Performance Venue…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on June 2, 2017 by

After appearing with high profile attorney Lisa Bloom to claim her victimhood status the last remaining venue, Uptown Theatre in Napa California, has now cancelled Kathy Griffin’s show.

According to TMZ: Kathy Griffin’s offensive against Donald Trump Friday apparently fell on deaf ears … because the only remaining venue that would allow her to perform has just pulled the plug.

(FULL STORY HERE)

Politics might be downstream from pop culture; but pop culture is downstream from economics.   By stating her intention to target the 11-year-old son of President Donald Trump for her attacks, Kathy Griffin has made herself a dangerously toxic financial risk.

Jun 3 2017

Unanimous Agreement – UN Security Council Expands Sanctions on North Korea…


RE-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on June 2, 2017 by

Showcasing a unique aspect of the President Trump common sense approach toward coalition building, today the United Nations security council voted unanimously, in public, to increase sanctions against North Korea.   Yes, ‘unanimously’.

China and Russia voted in alliance with the permanent security council members the U.S., France and the United Kingdom to support increased sanctions.  They voted in alignment publicly.  Don’t look for the anti-Trump media to make note of this critical point.

(Via Reuters) […] Adding names to the U.N. blacklist – a global travel ban and asset freeze – was the minimum sanctions measures the Security Council could have taken and comes after five weeks of negotiations between Washington and Beijing.

“The Security Council is sending a clear message to North Korea today – stop firing ballistic missiles or face the consequences,” Haley said.

The resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15-member council, sanctions four entities, including the Koryo Bank and Strategic Rocket Force of the Korean People’s Army, and 14 people, including the head of Pyongyang’s overseas spying operations.

North Korea’s Koryo Bank handles overseas transactions for Office 38, a shadowy body that manages the private slush funds of the North Korean leadership, according to a South Korean government database.

‘CRITICAL WINDOW’ – The measures adopted on Friday could have been agreed by the council’s North Korea sanctions committee behind closed doors, but Washington convinced China to back a public vote on the blacklist, amplifying the council’s unhappiness with Pyongyang’s defiance of a U.N. ban on ballistic missile launches.

The U.N. Security Council first imposed sanctions on Pyongyang in 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear tests and two long-range missile launches. North Korea is threatening a sixth nuclear test.

“There is a critical window of opportunity for the nuclear issue of the peninsula to come back to the right track of seeking a settlement through dialogue and negotiations,” Chinese U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi told the council. “It is incumbent on all parties concerned to exercise restraint and to do more to help ease the tension and build mutual trust.”

He again proposed a simultaneous freeze of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and South Korea and the United States’ joint military exercises. Russia said the suggestion merits “serious consideration.”

Haley said: “We want a negotiated solution, but North Korea must fulfill its basic obligations by first stopping all ballistic missile launches and nuclear weapons testing and taking concrete steps towards getting rid of its nuclear weapons program.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the Security Council on April 28 that it needed to act before North Korea does. Just hours after the meeting – chaired by Tillerson during his first visit to the United Nations as the top U.S. diplomat – Pyongyang launched yet another ballistic missile.  (read more)

Jun 3 2017

CNN Refuses to Confess Its Bias


Armstrong Economics Blog/Press

Re-Posted Jun 3, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

It is very interesting that CNN has fallen from the number one news station to dead last. Their bias is so outrageous and they have ceased being a valid news provider crossing over into yellow journalism to the point they are now desperately trying to take down trump perhaps just to get their ratings back.

According to the ratings, CNN has basically committed suicide. They have lost credibility and indeed become fake news.

Jun 2 2017

A NAFTA Conversation With Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on June 2, 2017 by

Commerce Secretary Wilbur “Wilburine” Ross sits down for a big picture conversation to discuss the upcoming NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) trade renegotiation.

This interview is well worth the time to understand the dynamics and objectives of the Trump administration.

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We are incredibly blessed to have Wilbur Ross, Steven Mnuchin (Treasury) and Robert Lighthizer (U.S. Trade Rep.) as the leading edge of the new America-First economic revitalization.

These U.S. policy titans of trade, finance and commerce are the most comprehensively well-skilled people we have had assembled in our lifetime.

Also, semi related, there’s some confusion about the leading economic indicators, specifically the messaging, coming from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

We repeat a familiar refrain for emphasis: This new economic dimension is uncharted territory. The BLS and the larger FED policy groups have no accurate way to present economic data that runs in conflict to their reference points.

Additionally, there’s a political angle within the federal bureaucracy that is partisan and inherently predisposed to undermining the policy outcomes of the Trump administration.

You will notice several incongruities in most of the BLS financial reports.  Cue today’s audio/visual demonstration within a single article:

  • …”Roughly 180,000 new jobs each month are needed to keep up with demand in the labor force.”
  • …”U.S. employers added 138,000 net new jobs to the rolls last month.”
  • …”the jobless rate, also declined to 4.3% from 4.4%, hitting the lowest level since 2001.”
  • (link)

See the incongruity?

If it takes 180,000 jobs each month to retain stasis, and the economy only added 138,000 jobs, then how does the unemployment rate decrease from 4.4 to 4.3%?

The FED and BLS are unable to reconcile what is happening within the economy because they have no reference point for what happens within the time and space between the two economic engines (Wall Street and Main Street).

Just like their “rate of inflation” measures do not include high consumables (food, fuel and energy prices), so too does their employment measure miss any jobs disconnected from actual GDP outputs.

The ADP payroll stats (actual payrolls spent), do a better job accounting for those who are involved in the pre-economy manufacturing work force.  Think of it like a house being built.

During the construction period of a home all of the workers are being paid but there is no end product to provide a valuation.  After the home is built it has an immediate value that becomes part of the GDP.

President Trump’s economic policies (and the investments therein) are in the building stage, currently not part of the larger economic valuation.

…”Average hourly earnings, a closely-watched metric, rose 0.2% during the month, as expected, putting year-over-year wage gains at 2.5%. The figures help reinforce the idea consumer spending, and therefore overall economic growth, will see a bounce.”…

According to BLS stats, wages increased May ’16 -vs- May ’17 by 2.5%.  In my opinion this is significantly underestimated.  Wage rate growth is much higher on ADP payrolls, but yet unrecorded because the end product created by the worker is not yet recorded in the economy.

Last point, and I mean this will all sincerity… THANK YOU for voting for President Donald Trump. No-one else understood; no-one else was even close to understanding what was needed; and no-one else could have, or would have, assembled the economic team we have leading our national economy.

Every single positive economic outcome for you, your family, your children and your grandchildren is directly and specifically due to your vote for President Trump.

Thank You just doesn’t seem to convey the scope of appreciation.

Truly.

Jun 2 2017

It Begins – German Auto Makers Fear Losing Competitive Advantage Over U.S…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on June 2, 2017 by

For those following along over the past two years this will not come as a surprise. European manufacturers understand the entire foundation for the Paris Treaty was about economics, economic advantages and the transfer of economic strength away from the U.S., not climate.  Specifically for Germany the outlook is especially troubling.

First, Germany will be the primary EU country to fill the financial void from the U.K. leaving the EU (Brexit); that financial hole is approximately €15 billion per year.  Secondly, Germany will be faced with having to renegotiate trade deals with the U.S. while they remain encumbered with the regulatory burden of the Paris treaty, while the U.S. negotiators are not.  This is a large advantage for Team America.

As such, today we see and immediate reaction. German auto manufacturers announce they are faced with losing a competitive advantage over the U.S. in the global market, and will now need to reassess their domestic production and manufacturing standards:

REUTERS – Germany’s powerful car industry said Europe would need to reassess its environmental standards to remain competitive after the United States said it would withdraw from the Paris climate pact.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would withdraw the United States from the landmark 2015 global agreement to fight climate change, drawing anger and condemnation from world leaders and heads of industry.

“The regrettable announcement by the USA makes it inevitable that Europe must facilitate a cost efficient and economically feasible climate policy to remain internationally competitive,” Matthias Wissmann, president of the German auto industry lobby group VDA, said in a statement on Friday.

“The preservation of our competitive position is the precondition for successful climate protection. This correlation is often underestimated,” Wissmann said, adding that the decision by the Unites States was disappointing.

The VDA said electricity and energy prices are already higher in Germany than in the United States, putting Germany at a disadvantage. (link)

Think about the underlying argument here.

Funny that.  Apparently, when push comes to economic shove the German sensibilities are connected more to their economics than to any do-gooder need to save the planet.

It won’t stop with Germany either.  Specifically by design of their negotiating teams, China and South-East Asia writ large are inoculated from the economic damage of the Paris Treaty.   The EU and the U.S. were set-up by the global financial systems to fall hardest on the economic sword of redistribution.   Other massive manufacturing growth economies did not have to meet the same level of intentional economic infliction.

Germany is merely responding to the predictable future.

We can anticipate many more industrialized nations accepting the looming financial burden and positioning themselves for the exits.  Anticipate treaty exits coming faster than a fat kid playing dodge ball.

Bottom Line:

We are no longer an American economy being led by “stupid people”…