Tag Archives: Economic Collapse

Nov 11 2022

The UK is Not Prepared for a Prolonged Recession


Armstrong Economics Blog/Central Banks Re-Posted Nov 11, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

People are simply not prepared for a sharp economic downturn. The Money and Pensions Service conducted a poll in the UK in which it found around 25% of adults have under £100 in savings. The 3,000-person survey found that 17% reported having absolutely nothing set aside. Around 5% reportedly had under £50, while 4% had between £50 and £100.

The drastically increased cost of living has many living paycheck to paycheck. The Building Societies Association (BSA), as reported by the BBC, conducted a separate survey that found that 35% of people in the UK simply stopped saving due to inflation. Around 36% said they are already dipping into their savings accounts to pay the bills.

The Bank of England is anticipating a long recession ahead. The central bank sees economic conditions contracting through the first half of 2024. The central bank’s prediction of five consecutive quarters of contraction would mark the longest recession in UK history. The people have not experienced the full effects of this recession, and most are simply not prepared for what lies ahead.

Nov 11 2022

President Trump Fires Back Against Ron DeSantis, Con Inc and Coordinated Narrative Midterm Effort


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 10, 2022 | Sundance

President Trump can see and hear the same things everyone else can see and hear, including the coordinated media and GOPe effort to diminish him and the MAGA movement within the Republican club.

The Democrats and professional Republican class both want to see the populist movement destroyed for the same reason Mitch McConnell wanted the Tea Party destroyed in 2010.  The assembly of the united middle-class and blue-collar base inside the Republican Party, essentially the broad MAGA movement, represents a Main Street threat to Wall Street control of the GOPe.

There are trillions at stake.

As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ megadonor and Citadel hedge fund billionaire, Ken Griffin, openly admitted recently the Wall Street goals are (1) stop the populist movement and (2) get the Republican Party back in alignment with the multinational “corporate world.”  These are the same goals of the Republican leadership in Washington DC and the same goals as the corporate media who serve as the public relations firms for Wall Street.

The collaborative group, which includes the entirety of the funding mechanism and management behind Ron DeSantis, viewed the 2022 midterm election as an opportunity to reset the Republican Party away from the populist MAGA influence.  The strategy was to roll out of the August DOJ Mar-a-Lago targeting, directly into a nationally rebranded DeSantis operation and then lead up to the 2022 midterm election.

Anything that can cast Donald Trump as a negative would be enhanced, and anything that would cast the MAGA movement as a positive would be diminished.  In part, this is the intent behind the delayed positive election results from key MAGA races in CO, WA, NV and AZ, combined with emphasis on the negative -albeit controlled- election ballot outcomes from Michigan and Pennsylvania.

At the 30,000-foot level the attacks against President Trump are, quite frankly, attacks against the MAGA populist movement represented by President Trump.

The professional political class, both DNC and RNC club members, politicians and donors, want to get back to normal political business operations in Washington DC.  The key element at the core of their concern is financial and economic control.  Again, there are trillions at stake.

Just like we can see this coordinated effort, so too can President Trump see the construct of the narrative as it is being engineered and delivered.  We can see the Paul Ryan wing, the Mitch McConnell wing and the corporate media division all working in concert.  The entities described genuinely do not think the larger Republican base can see it, but they underestimate us at their own peril.

Things are never going to return to normal for them, but they refuse to accept that.  The most adamant of the professional Republican apparatus, in concert with the multinational financial world, would rather see the GOP lose every election – if that’s what it takes to stop the MAGA movement.  They view this as a zero-sum game, and they have planted proactive seeds for exactly this purpose.

A more than happy to assist CONservative Inc new media apparatus, the “influencers” as they call them, are part of the dynamic that was recruited in early 2022 {See Here}. It’s the use of this crew and others of like-minded disposition that helps the corporate group drumbeat an anti-populist, anti-MAGA message with the intention to eliminate the head of the movement.

In addition to their common vertical challenges, the DeSantis 2024 influence group are almost identical to the Cruz 2016 group.  The difference this time around is the pretending game; where they pretend DeSantis is not the intended beneficiary of their relentless anti-Trumpism in both print and broadcast appearances.

The group was recruited in January 2022 and includes Fox News’ Lisa Marie Boothe, Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson, Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer, The Rubin Report’s Dave Rubin, New York Post and FoxNews.com columnist Karol Markowicz, Claremont Institute fellow David Reaboi and conservative writers like Jordan Schachtel, John Cardillo, along with Ben Shapiro and Guy Benson.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been positioned as the intended recipient for the disenfranchised MAGA movement’s support, if they can just get President Trump out of the equation and exploit the vulnerability in his absence.  However, all previous efforts to shake the bond between President Trump and the MAGA movement have failed.

Using the 2022 midterm election control, they are pounding the wedge harder now, with increased ferocity and urgency to break the bond.

Just like in 2016, the GOPe multinationals, corporatists, Wall Street donors, Never Trump CONservatives, and just about all controlled media systems are being enlisted in this effort.  President Trump can see the construct just as clearly as you can.

That’s why President Trump is hitting back against the effort by singling out the wedge they are trying to use.

President Trump isn’t pretending.  He’s targeting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis because President Trump, like us, can clearly see the nature of the construct that has been manufactured to oppose the MAGA movement.  This is a fight for the future of the Republican party.

DeSantis is playing too-cute-by-half, in pretending not to be a participant in the professional republican operation.  If Governor Ron DeSantis was not an active participant, he would not be playing coy with his 2024 GOP nomination intent.   Trump isn’t going to play pretend.  As long as DeSantis pretends, he will be targeted by President Trump because Trump isn’t going to allow the professional republican apparatus to destroy the populist movement.

Let Con Inc go and form a new party now of acceptable republicans.  Let the people of selfie-importance assemble to take pictures of their lunches and dinners for social media shares, while the scruffnecks in MAGA assemble to push back against the new American corporatist agenda that finances them.

The new republican party is the working-class people’s party, the MAGA party, and President Donald J Trump is going to defend it.

Steadfast….  This is “The Big Ugly“!

Nov 11 2022

CPI Report – Inflation on Food, Fuel, Home Heating and Essentials Continues Growing – Overall Inflation Moderation Now Claimed as Calendar Cycles


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 10, 2022 | Sundance

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) provides the latest data on consumer prices (inflation) [DATA HERE].  We explained in 2021 how inflation would grow on a month-over-month and year-over-year basis until the calendar became more friendly and the government officials could claim “diminished inflation growth.”  Well, we are now entering that phase of economic parseltongue.

October consumer prices increased 0.4% over September.  However, we are now comparing year-over-year (Y0Y) inflation to the period where last year’s prices had already skyrocketed, so YoY inflation seems to be moderating at 7.7%, it’s a false premise. {Go Deep}

As expected, the energy-driven consumer inflation in the food sector has arrived.  The proverbial field inflation is arriving at the fork, and the October CPI now shows the third wave of food price increases we had previously discussed.

Table 2 Details: Egg prices increased +10.1% last month and now 43% higher than last year.  Butter +1.9% last month, 26.7% for year.  Margarine +1.3% for month, 47.1% for year.  Coffee +1.3% for the month, 15.6% for the year.

Heading into baking season we find flour +0.2% for the month, +24.6% for year.  Essentially, as expected, all of the holiday foodstuffs are now rising in price as the increased field and commodity prices hit the store shelves.

Some row crops are starting to moderate in price growth, while dairy products continue rising throughout the fall season.  It is going to be painful on the checkbook grocery shopping this holiday season.

On the energy front, home heating oil increased 19.8% in October and is now a whopping 68.5% higher than last October.  Unleaded gasoline increased another 3.5% and now is now 20.9% higher than last year (Oct ’21), which was already 40% higher than January 2021.

Food, fuel, electricity, home heating and housing costs continue growing monthly, but give the illusion of moderating when compared to last year.

Food away from home (restaurants etc.) are starting to show the cumulative price impacts for restaurants, hotels and cafeterias.  Additionally, as the kids returned to school the lunchroom prices have skyrocketed a jaw-dropping +3.8% for October and +95% compared to last year [Table 2].  Packing lunches for kids is going to become an even more important aspect for the family food budget.

The stock market is happy with the news because the lowered 7.7% (YoY) inflation number, a product of the calendar and nothing else, gives optimism the Fed may moderate the increased federal reserve rate hikes.  However, don’t count on it because inflation is easily identified as embedded now.  Lemons at the grocery store are now $0.99/each.

Think about that.  $1 for a single lemon and roughly 50¢ per egg at the supermarket.  A full shopping cart of groceries now easily exceeding $200.  This is devastating for those on fixed incomes and blue-collar workers.

Wages are nowhere near keeping up with this level of price increase.

(CNBC) The consumer price index rose less than expected in October, an indication that while inflation is still a threat to the U.S. economy, pressures could be starting to cool.

The index, a broad-based measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.4% for the month and 7.7% from a year ago, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics release Thursday. Respective estimates from Dow Jones were for rises of 0.6% and 7.9%.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core CPI increased 0.3% for the month and 6.3% on an annual basis, compared with respective estimates of 0.5% and 6.5%.

A 2.4% decline in used vehicle prices helped bring down the inflation figures. Apparel prices fell 0.7% and medical care services were lower by 0.6%.

“The report overstates the case that inflation is coming in, but it makes a case inflation is coming in,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It’s pretty clear that inflation has definitely peaked and is rolling over. All the trend lines suggest that it will continue to moderate going forward, assuming that nothing goes off the rails.” (read more)

The Biden energy policy is the root of the consumer inflation. Nothing will happen to moderate overall consumer inflation on Main Street until energy policy changes.

Additionally, with the 2022 election in the rear-view mirror, we should start to see layoffs and unemployment increasing now.  The bureaucrats will now let the recession become evident.