Posted originally on May 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Retail sales in the US fell short of expectations this month, according to data compiled by the Commerce Department. Retail spending decreased 0.6% from April to March, undermining forecasts of a 0.4% decrease. Yet, Americans are spending MORE on the essentials such as groceries. How is this a shocking admittance to anyone?
Even online sales fell by 1.2% from March to April. Americans spent 1.6% less at clothing retailers, and 0.9% less at hobby stores on a monthly basis. Again, of no surprise, gasoline sales rose 3.1%.
The Fed is attempting to smooth over the data, using rhetorical language such as the economy is presenting a “softer tone.”Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams, who believes monetary policy is “in a good place” albeit “restrictive.” Williams, like Chair Powell, said that there are no indicators stating a need to lower interest rates. “I don’t expect to get that greater confidence that we need to see on the inflation progress towards a 2% goal in the very near term.”
The Fed held rates loosely for so long that there was not much it could do, in addition to the utter disaster that is America’s fiscal policy. I explained in another post why the Fed simply cannot attain the 2% target.
People do not have the disposable income to spend on retail at this point, and those who do prefer to invest or save those funds as confidence has vanished, leading to a pullback in spending on nonessentials. Bad news for America’s consumer-based economy.
April’s CPI is up 3.4% YoY, slightly down from March’s 3.5% posting. I do not believe they are accurately calculating prices. No one believes them at this point. So, we should expect the Fed to maintain the 5.25% to 5.50% rates at the next FOMC meeting. Inflation is here to stay.
The attached report on Global Weather for April 2024 Data has charts showing the relationship we tween CO2 growth and Temperature increases going up since we started to accurately measure CO2 in the atmosphere in 1958. These Charts were created by showing CO2 as a percent increase from when it was first measured in 1958, the Black plot, the scale is on the left and it shows CO2 going up by about ~34.0% from 1958 to April 2024. That is a very large change as anyone would have to agree.
Now how about temperature, well when we look at the percentage change in temperature also from 1958, using Kelvin (which does measure the actual change in heat), we find that the changes in global temperature (heat) is about ~.3% and may reach .5% by 2028. To even be able to see this minuscule change we had to reduce the scale of the CO2 axis by a factor of ten.
This Chart 8 uses unaltered values from NOAA and NASA properly displayed ,and the Blue and Yellow projections are created by Microsoft Excel not me.
The NOAA and NASA numbers tell us the story of the Changes in the planets Atmosphere As Carbon Dioxide goes up geometrically.
The attached 40 page report explains how this chart was developed .
Posted Originally on May 16, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Powell reiterated this week that he does not see any short-term need to lower interest rates. The Fed remains delicate in its speech to the public. They knew that inflation would continue rising due to various factors but had to say they were awaiting incoming data. The data is in for Q1 and nothing indicates that inflation is easing, therefore, expect rates to hold.
The Labor Department noted that the PPI rose to 0.5% in April from May, up 2.2% since the year prior. PCE, the Fed’s primary inflation indicator, rose 2.7% in Match from 2.5% in February. The US economy overall advanced 2.7% from October to December. We are looking at inflation beginning to rise faster than economic growth, which will lead to stagflation.
I have pointed out numerous times that the various measures provided to the public drastically downplay the dollar’s loss in purchasing power. Americans can feel it daily every time they make a purchase or check their bank accounts.
I explained that we already began experiencing stagflation in 2021. Normally, the standard definition of “stagflation” has been explained as slow economic growth with relatively high unemployment/or economic stagnation that takes place with rising prices. Some have also defined it as a period of inflation combined with a decline in the gross domestic product (GDP).
Stagflation became a term that defined the 1970s because economic growth was still positive, but the rate of inflation was far greater due to the price shock of the OPEC embargo. The Democrats are constantly pushing to raise taxes, and sent corporations fleeing offshore, and it was NOT merely because of the tax rate. Back then, I testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on taxation, and they wanted to know why NO American company got a contract from China to construct the Yellow River Dam. I explained that German companies were NOT taxed on worldwide income, and as such, they were already 40% less than an American company because Americans pay taxes on worldwide income, and the ONLY other country to that was Japan. Thus, American companies moved offshore, NOT because labor was cheaper, but so they could complete.
Now, we have additional regulations that are making it increasingly difficult for American businesses to prosper. The capital gains tax will be a nail in the coffin. The recent tariff slap on Chinawill also cause the price of goods to rise and harm the supply chain.
Remember, inflation was only 1.4% when Joe Biden took office – far beneath the Fed’s target. Inflation has risen as a direct result of fiscal policies under Bidenomics. The government has completely ignored the Fed’s warning that it must curtail spending. We are sacrificing our economy for the interests of the globalists.
Posted originlly on May 15, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The Press REFUSES to hold all of these failed Climate Change forecasts to test. All they do is keep moving the date for our doom, all due to CO2. In fact, the real crisis is the continued weakening of the magnetic field, which leads to pole shifts about every 43000 years – yes, that conforms to the ECM frequency. The major shifts we discovered from the data scientists provided us came out to be 720,000 years. Either way, they both seem to be lining up in our lifetime. We are headed more into a pole shift than a climate change thanks to CO2. The fact that they are targeting farmers when we should be stockpiling food now is either the most idiotic human decision in history or intentional with hopes of reducing the population.
If I keep forecasting every year that the stock market would crash by 90%, I think they would call me a nut-job and laugh after ten years of perpetual failed forecasts. But with the climate, they just love to keep the fraud going. After June 6th, they are whispering about restricting travel to reduce CO2 this summer. They want to deprive you of your vacation this year as well.
The problem with people’s attitudes toward the national debt is that everyone has forgotten why we borrowed in the first place. The theory was that if you borrowed rather than printed money, you were NOT increasing the existing money supply, and therefore, in theory, it would not be inflationary.
However, the Democrats forgot how to run for government without their Marxist agenda of bribing the people to vote for them. This led to always creating deficits. Add to this the NEOCONS who have done nothing but wage wars ever since World War II to defeat Communism and have spent money lavishly on trying to conquer the world.
During the Presidential Third Debate of 1960, the question about the outflow of gold from the USA reserves arose. This sparked a Gold Panic in the London gold market, whereby gold rallied to $40 for the first time, showing that the Bretton Woods System was beginning to collapse. The United States’ outflow of gold was not really from a trade deficit but from the fact that the USA was defending the world with its military establishing bases everywhere. That meant capital was leaving. Gold rallied again to $40 in the late 1960s, and finally, it forced the collapse of the convertibility of gold under the Bretton Woods System in 1971. Kennedy’s words were:
“Now, on the question of gold. The difficulty, of course, is that we do have heavy obligations abroad, that we therefore have to maintain not only a favorable balance of trade but also send a good deal of our dollars overseas to pay our troops, maintain our bases, and sustain other economies. In other words, if we’re going to continue to maintain our position in the sixties, we have to maintain a sound monetary and fiscal policy. We have to have control over inflation, and we also have to have a favorable balance of trade. We have to be able to compete in the world market.”
The dollars were being spent not to benefit our economy but to fulfill the dreams of the Neocons; when Communism fell, they refused to accept any real change.
Rome takes care of widows and orphans.
We borrow, which is worse than printing because we have to pay interest on constantly rolling the debt. This year, we will spend about $1 trillion on interest, the total national debt when Reagan took office in 1981. At times, 70% of the national debt is accumulative interest. That means it went nowhere to improve society or care for widows and orphans, at least as the Romans did. Had we printed the money instead of borrowing, it would have been less inflationary and the capital would have created more jobs instead of investing in government debt which has only funded the Neocons’ wildest dreams.
Posted originally on May 9, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Germany is moving full speed ahead to reach their asinine climate targets. The citizens who are in essence the very carbon they wish to destroy must be punished for not sacrificing enough to uphold Angela Merkel’s Climate Protection Act. Transport Minister Volker Wissing is now threatening the German people with “an indefinite weekend driving ban.”
“In the dispute over a reform of the Climate Protection Act, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has warned of drastic cuts for motorists – including weekend driving bans. This is according to a letter from Wissing to the heads of the SPD, Green and FDP parliamentary factions. It was made available to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Thursday …
The letter states that if the amended Climate Protection Act does not come into force before 15 July, the ministry will be obliged under the current law to present an action programme to ensure compliance with the annual emission levels for the transport sector in the coming years.”
The climate zealots are worried that this overt threat will expose their ultimate goal to reduce, if not outlaw, private car ownership. Greenpeace has even come out and criticized Wissing for threatening driving bans, as if that measure is not precisely the goal of reducing emissions and ultimately 15-minute cities. Members of various parties in Germany, most of whom support climate change reductions, have attempted to redact his statements. Afterall, Germany does have a poor not so distant history of limiting freedom of movement.
The Free Democrats (FDP) believe that Germany should be climate-neutral by 2045, and while they reject banning car ownership, they would like to begin by implementing speed limits and favoring companies that abide by clean energy trade agreements.
The Social Democrat Party (SDP), highly in favor of forcing Germany to rely completely on renewable energy by 2040, criticized the proposal as well: “The proposal does not further our common goal of reducing CO2 emissions, but to unnecessary uncertainty for people in our country.” The SPD Bundestag faction clearly rejects driving bans for cars and lorries. Such manoeuvres would hardly advance the ongoing deliberations on the Climate Protection Act in the Bundestag, said Müller.”
The AfD Party is the only one in Germany who believes that climate change is not a man-made phenomenon. Hence, the government is attempting to frame the AfD as far-right radicals who wish harm on all of society. The AfD has agreed to keep the restrictions of the Paris Agreement, however, but will not eliminate fossil fuels.
The Germans must understand that their politicians are failing to act in the best interest of Germany. Instead, they are acting upon the wishes of the larger globalist agenda that does not want to see a strong single economy but a unified collection of a one-world government power.
There are an estimated 49,098,685 cars on the road in Germany. This law would change the lives of countless Germans, German manufacturing, and permit the government to have untold power over the people. This is why the media has presented the only party in Germany showing resistance to the climate change agenda as a threat. The true threat are the people in Bonn and Brussels.
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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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