Posted originally on May 1, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Washington state is multiplying taxes for mega corporations in a move to cover its widening budget deficit. The state is expected to face a $12 to $16 billion shortfall over the next four years, according to the Office of Financial Management. The deficit should come as no surprise as state spending has ballooned by 40% in the past four years alone.
Under HB 2081, the state’s Business and Occupation (B&O) tax will be revised to raise the “Advanced Computing Surcharge.” Corporations earning over $25 billion globally will see their tax rate spike from 1.22% to 7.5%, with the maximum payment expanding from $9 million to $75 million. More specifically, the state is looking to shake down big tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon to compensate for its excessive spending.
Companies earning over $5 million annually will face a tax hike from 1.75% to 2.1%. The state has also implemented a temporary 0.5% B&O surcharge from January 1, 20216 to December 31, 2030, for companies earning over $250 million in Washington taxable income.
The state requires more revenue, and targeting corporations is merely the beginning. Senate Bill 5814 will raise the state sales tax from 6.5% to 10.6%. Digital automated services were previously exempt from this tax, but beginning in October, tech companies will be required to pay. The state hopes to collect $2.9 billion from this measure alone.
Yet, the state still requires more revenue. Senate Bill 5813 will restructure the capital gains tax to create a new top tier for gains over $1 million. In addition to the 7% base tax, the state has implemented an additional 2.9% surtax. The state expects to generate $321.6 million from this additional fee.
Per usual, fees will be passed on to the consumers.
Naturally, the decision-makers are failing to address the problem—excessive spending. Tax revenue has already increased by 34% or $18 billion since 2019. Politicians passed a number of social programs without proper funding. The child care subsidy expansion passed in 2021, but it took four years to amass the $300 million required. State-funded pre-K expansion also passed in 2021, but the $214 million has not been fully paid. Washington’s tort liability payout account has been operating at a deficit for multiple years, requiring $1 billion to simply move out of the red. What about the Rainy-Day Fund? Democrats used the $2.3 billion revenue to pay for more social programs.
Washington implemented a freeze on non-essential spending in December. Some believe that the state needs to implement a wealth tax, as Democrat lawmakers seek every option to fix the deficit that does not include spending cuts.
Washington managed to spiral into a massive debt in a short amount of time. Governor Inslee approved of incorporating an additional $2 billion into the $69.8 billion operating budget back in March. Eight months later, the Office of Financial Management declared that there was a serious problem and the state could face a deficit of $10 to $12 billion, revising that figure to $16 billion a month later.
The state was operating at a $14 billion surplus three years ago before politicians ramped up their spending by 40%. State taxes have increased by 99% in the past decade, while state spending has risen by 114% in the same time period. It is always the responsibility of the people to pay for government’s fiscal mismanagement.
Posted originally on May 1, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its first estimate for US GDP in Q1, a 0.3% decline annually.
The decline was mainly due to a sharp 41% uptick in imports as they are subtracted when calculating the final GDP figure. Pharmaceutical goods, medicines and vitamins, computers and parts drove imports in the first quarter.
Government spending decreased significantly as well by 1.4%, with federal expenditures down 5.1%. National defense spending declined by 8%, while non-defense spending decreased by 1%. State and local government spending posted its slowest growth since Q2 of 2022 at 0.8%. Government-driven spending is one of the main components of GDP calculations, but a reduction in government-driven spending in an economy should be viewed positively.
There was a notable rise in business investment at 21.9% as capital is flowing to the US. This is a noteworthy difference, following a 5.6% decline in the fourth quarter of 2024. Nonresidential investment rose 9.8% in the first three months of the year, led by a 22.5% rise in equipment spending.
Consumer spending grew by 1.8%; services led spending with a 2.4% uptick, followed by goods at 0.5%. Personal savings as a percentage of income reached 4%, down from last year’s posting of 5.4%. Disposable personal income reached 2.7%.
ADP released its jobs report for April, anticipating a 62,000 uptick in private sector hirings. This should come as no surprise as thousands were laid off from their public sector positions. However, the figure is below estimates of 115,000 and sharply down from March’s 155,000 figure. “Unease is the word of the day. Employers are trying to reconcile policy and consumer uncertainty with a run of mostly positive economic data,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. “It can be difficult to make hiring decisions in such an environment.” The Labor Department’s nonfarm payroll report is expected to show a 130,000 uptick, well beneath March’s 228,000 posting.
The April 2025 Consumer Price Index (CPI) will be released on May 13, a week after the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting. March posted a core inflation rate of 2.8% on an annual basis, down from February’s 3.1% figure and the lowest noted since March 2021.
Trump’s tariff policy is not to blame for the current state of the economy. War, inflation, debt, poor government policy, and collapsing confidence predate Trump. The Fed’s policy is not to blame either as their policy is almost irrelevant in the grand scheme.
Socrates warned of a massive global shift in 2015 as the sovereign debt crisis cycle turned and public confidence began to decline. The computer identified 2020.05 (May 2020) as a major Economic Confidence Model (ECM) turning point, and needless to say, 2020 was certainly a turning point in every aspect of the global economy. The stagflation we see now began, globally, post-pandemic. Once confidence breaks, stagflation is guaranteed to follow.
Posted originally on Apr 30, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Countless truckers gathered for the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, forming a gridlock, with a clear agenda and request to repeal all COVID mandates. The protest was peaceful and no one was injured. They fought on behalf of the world at a time when the global population was imprisoned by mandates that were later revealed to be falsified without any scientific backing. Then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau evoked the 1988 Emergencies Act, which is intended for an “urgent and critical situation” that “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians.” Deeming a peaceful protest an act of terrorism is an act of free speech oppression is something that fellow World Economic Forum member Mark Carney fully supported. As a reminder, Mark Carney was in complete support of freezing the bank accounts of protestors and ignoring the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Credit card companies were required to report any activity that could be intended to help the protestors to Canada’s anti-money laundering agency. All vehicles involved had their insurance suspended. Fundraising sites were not allowed to raise money to support the cause. Anyone can be accused of conspiring with the protestors, and their funds will be frozen. Ottawa law enforcement even began to confiscate the pets of those protesting. There is no low that these men will not stoop to in order to firm their authoritarian grip.
Carney called the protest an “insurrection” and claimed that the freedom convoy was intended to remove power from the Canadian government. ‘This is sedition. That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority,’” Carney wrote in an opinion piece, praising Trudeau for declaring a state of emergency. “They are not patriots. This is not about “restoring freedom” but beginning anarchy. This isn’t getting carried away at a rally. It’s not a rush of blood to the head. It’s deliberate and calculated, and because of that, they must know that from now on, there will be consequences for their actions.”
He acknowledged that Canadian law enforcement officers were hesitant to arrest protestors, because they agreed with them. Carney went for the throat by demanding that the banks comply with the federal government to debank the protestors. In his own words:
“Drawing the line means choking off the money that financed this occupation. Again, many Canadians who were amongst the initial donors were likely well meaning. Perhaps they were unaware of the convoy’s stated objectives, or – like many in positions of authority in Ottawa – they didn’t take them seriously. Perhaps all they wanted was a new COVID-19 policy with fewer restrictions.
But by now anyone sending money to the convoy should be in no doubt: You are funding sedition. Foreign funders of an insurrection interfered in our domestic affairs from the start. Canadian authorities should take every step within the law to identify and thoroughly punish them. The involvement of foreign governments and any officials connected to them should be identified, exposed and addressed.”
The government froze bank accounts and credit cards without a court order or due process. These politicians have no idea how much freezing accounts undermined the confidence in the Canadian banking system. A staggering amount of money began to pour into US banks as money fled Canada. Canadians began withdrawing all of their money from their bank accounts, with most turning to cash, others to gold, and some to Bitcoin. The demand for US dollars more than tripled in the first week of this policy. Trudeau and Carney were unconcerned for their loyalty lies with globalist organizations and not Canada.
Increased banking regulations are discussed in the World Economic Forum’s Agenda 2030, primarily in regard to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provide a framework for climate initiatives that corporations must follow. Carney is an outspoken climate advocate who has admitted that there is money to be made through the climate agenda. The ruling elite consistently let it slip that the climate change agenda is another fear tactic to grasp money and power. Still, the masses listen to the mainstream media and believe it is a virtuous cause.
This video is essential as it reveals what these politicians have in mind for Canada. In 2013, a reporter asked Justin Trudeau which country he most admired. “There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime,” Trudeau smiled and stated with seriousness. He went on to say how he admired (i.e., envied) how dictators could simply implement laws on a whim without the consent of the people, and added a nod to climate change policies, as the left does not see that as a problem yet. Carney has the same mentality when it comes to ruling Canada.
Canada had an opportunity to implement change. Instead, the masses voted for the next Trudeau, who is another indoctrinated WEF puppet who will step on the neck of the Canadian economy to achieve these globalist goals.
Posted originally on Apr 29, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Carney’s Victory Speech was an acknowledgement that what we are witnessing is truly more than just a hate fest against Trump. Carney is saying the relationship between USA and Canada is over. This is not about tariffs. This is about power. Just as the media has been 92%+ anti-Trump, this is the FAR LEFT and their WOKE Agenda fighting to take over the world because their economics is failing. They refuse to reform and expect to keep borrowing for their endless promises of free gifts. This is by no means simply Carney and Canada. This is the agenda in Europe, and it is why there was a coup against Schwab at the World Economic Forum.
Schwab’s bold statements, which did not hide their Agenda 2030, were to have total control of everything, all because their economic system is collapsing. You cannot borrow forever without any intention of ever paying it off. A three-year-old with a pocket calculator could probably figure out this is not going to end well – i.e., 2032.
Monitoring everything you say on social media is becoming a reality. It used to be that only Santa Claus knew who was naughty or nice. Now it’s the NSA and the rest of the government. They have the right to search your social media to get a visa for a vacation or even for an American to return home.
Schwab took the position that if you have nothing to hide, then you should not be afraid. He obviously knows nothing about law and how a word can have different interpretations. I went to mail some Roman coins to a client, and the Post Office refused to accept them, saying it was illegal to send money through the mail. I tried to explain that these were ancient coins and were no longer in use as money. I was rejected and told it was still money. I had to go home and redo the paperwork and call the coins antiquities to mail them.
This very issue sparked the American Revolution. Schwab obviously does not know his history. There was a legal case that became the seminal beginning of the American Revolution known as Entick v. Carrington and Three Other King’s Messengers (1765), reported at length in 19 Howell’s State Trials 1029. This case was the start of the American Revolution and was also based on the abuse of the king’s agents. The action, dated November 1762, was for trespassing and interfering with the plaintiff’s dwelling by breaking open his desks and boxes and searching and examining his papers.
After George III became king in 1760, by February 1761, Parliament enacted the Writs of Assistance, that was challenged in court in Boston, Massachusetts. These were writs that empowered the king’s agents to search anything they suspected, like the NSA today, at their discretion. The defending lawyer James Otis (1725-1783) pronounced these writs as “the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an Englishlaw book.”Otis warned that the king placed discretion in the hands of every agent to act as he desired. Nothing has changed, for our current government can do whatever it desires today, and it is always the citizen’s burden to prove they have any rights whatsoever.
John Adams (1735–1826; 2nd President 1797–1801) was in the audience at that hearing that day, and the four-hour speech of James Otis so moved him that he declared:
“Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there, the child independence was born.”
Reliable sources confirm that Carney has aligned with the Globalists of the EU and will attempt to shift Canada. He is purposely making his first foreign trip to the capital cities of the two countries that shaped Canada’s early existence. He will seek to link the Canadaian economy to that of the EU and he has won an election all on the hatred of Donald Trump and this was an intentional ploy instigated by the Neocons and the EU who will collapse from a sovereign debt crisis so they are desperate to creat World War III to retain power and use that as the excuse for the 80 years of a failed socialist agenda which has produced debt that is never paid off and the interest is escalating crowding out all other spending.
Carney is the ultimate WEF insider who was a leading force in creating the whole Net ZERO climate agenda that has undermined Europe’s economy and that of Canada.
As I had warned, the computer was showing that this would be the typical split, EAST vs WEST. Eventually, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba will break from the EAST out of pure economic survival. Europe will break up as well, and eventually the same will unfold in the United States. CENTRALIZED dictatorial government has always failed, and what they have engaged in since World War II is socialism, where they still have their nose into personal lives.
A simple comparison of quarterly GDP growth between Canada and the United States demonstrates the utter failure of Canada’s socialistic policies that are indeed akin to those of Europe. Carney ran on the hate fest against Trump because he could not run on the economic track record of managing the economy of Canada under Trudeau.
Even the economic growth of Germany, the best within the EU, cannot compare to that of the USA, with less regulation and less socialism. The more any government tries to intervene and control aspects of the economy, the greater its failure, just like Marxism took down communism in China, Russia, and much of South America, especially Cuba.
Posted originally on CTH on April 29, 2025 | Sundance
After losing to far-left, WEF controlled Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre swore to stand firm as the leader of the conservative party in Canada. However, as dawn breaks it is revealed that Poilievre lost his own district in the election.
CANADA – Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party, was unseated as the parliamentary representative of his Ottawa district in a stunning upset that could put his leadership of the party in question.
Mr. Poilievre was first elected in 2004 as the member of Parliament representing Carleton, a largely rural district bordering parts of the Ottawa River. His long-held Conservative seat was flipped to the Liberal Party.
Bruce Fanjoy, the Liberal candidate who is a well-known community volunteer but was initially considered a long shot, won the race. (more)
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