Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Mar 17 2025

US Household Debt Surpassed $18 Trillion


Posted originally on Mar 17, 2025 by Martin Armstrong 

Debt Hole Cannor Climb Out

American households have been unable to pay off their debts. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently reported that household debt has reached a new all-time high at $18.04 TRILLION.

Americans acquired an additional $93 billion in outstanding payments during Q4 of 2024, with half of this debt finding its way onto high interest credit cards. Credit card debt has also reached a record high at $1.21 trillion. I reported in January that credit card defaults his a 14-year high after skyrocketing by 50% in a one-year period.

Donald Trump said during his campaign that he would like to cap credit card interest fees at 10%, perhaps for a temporary period. There are now bipartisan calls for companies to lower fees, with Congresswomen like AOC and Anna Paulina Luna both championing a 10% credit card cap.

Prior to the pandemic, Americans paid $120 billion annually in credit card interest fees from 2018 to 2020, amounting to $1,000 annually per household. In 2022, consumers were paying $105 billion in interest as it has become the main cost behind having a credit card. Rates on credit cards have doubled in a mere decade from 12.9% in 2013 to 22.8% in 2023.

US Household Debt

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s February 2025 Survey of Consumer Expectations also found that Americans are highly concerned about missing payments, falling into delinquency, or losing their livelihoods. Consumers foresee inflation spreading across the board. In February 2026, the general public believes gas will rise by 3.7%, food by 5.1%, rentals by 6.7%, and medical costs by 7.2%.

Then, around 14.6% of Americans said they believed they would miss a minimum debt payment over the next three months. Americans have not expressed this much concern about missing payments since the early pandemic days of April 2020, when the mainstream media insisted the world was coming to an end.

Aggregate delinquency rates rose 0.1% over a one-quarter period. Mortgage balances increased by $11 billion, hitting $12.6 trillion by December 2024. When choosing between home or auto payments, consumers are prioritizing shelter. Auto loan balances also experienced an $11 billion increase, rising to $1.66 trillion in Q4 2024, but serious delinquencies on auto payments have risen substantially.

Student loan balances increased by $9 billion, and now sit at $1.62 trillion. Students who once thought their loan debt would be forgiven have been notified that their future social security payments will be garnished by the government if they fail to pay.

Most households are a few missed payments away from financial ruin. In fact, 47%, nearly half, of American households currently live paycheck to paycheck. Americans are in an extremely delicate financial situation right now, and this looming debt crisis will not disappear.

Mar 16 2025

DOWD: For The Past Two Years Government Spending Has Been Fueling Our Economy


Posted originally on Rumble By Bannon’s War Room on: Mar 15 2025, at 6:00 pm EST

Mar 16 2025

LAWFARE DEFEATED: Boris Epshteyn Reacts To President Trump Rooting Out Deep State At DOJ


Posted originally on Rumble By Bannon’s War Room on: Mar 15 2025, at 5:00 pm EST

Mar 16 2025

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg Orders Trump Administration to Halt Deportation of Illegal Aliens and Narcotrafficking Gang Members


Posted originally on CTH on March 16, 2025 | Sundance 

It will not come as a surprise to CTH readers to hear the name Judge James Boasberg associated with efforts to protect the institutional interests of a corrupt DC deep state.  Boasberg has a long, very long, and well documented history of protecting the DC apparatus {CTH Archives on Boasberg HERE}.

On Saturday, without giving the Trump administration any time to respond, Judge Boasberg issued an immediate temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking DHS, Customs and Border Patrol and ICE from deporting illegal aliens and narcotrafficking gang members belonging to Tren de Aragua (TdA), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Boasberg ordered the flights of criminal gang members to turn around and immediately bring the criminals back to the USA to enjoy a life of criminal conduct and terrorism in the USA.  National security is secondary to the rights of criminal aliens to sell drugs, continue child/sexploitation, murder American citizens and rape their targets.

As I wrote in 2021, Judge James Boasberg has long been severely compromised; there simply is no other way to look at his interception of cases to protect the system, and the depth of his corruption is clearly visible in this set of rulings.

WASHINGTON DC – A federal judge has ordered an immediate hold on efforts by President Donald Trump to quickly deport Venezuelan nationals under rarely used wartime powers intended to resist a foreign invasion — and demanded the return of planes already headed to Central America.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to immediately halt efforts to remove those Venezuelan migrants until he has more time to consider whether Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was illegal.

[…] “Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished,” Boasberg announced. “Make sure it’s complied with immediately.”

Two aircraft believed to be carrying Venezuelan deportees took off from an airport in Harlingen, Texas, during a break in a video hearing Boasberg conducted Saturday for the lawsuit filed by immigrant-rights advocates. According to flight tracking databases, one plane was bound for San Salvador, El Salvador, and the other for Comayagua, Honduras, and they were in the air nearing their destinations as Boasberg issued his order. (more)

Judge James Boasberg, an ally of SSCI Chairman Mark Warner, has intercepted several cases that brought sunlight upon the corrupt DC system.  In each case Boasberg ruled in favor of maintaining the corruption, including his willfully blind support of the FBI searching NSA databases to conduct illegal surveillance of Americans.

This is the same Judge Boasberg who sat as presiding judge on the FISA court.  The same Judge Boasberg who gave FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith a slap on the wrist for manufacturing evidence used in the Carter Page FISA application that defrauded the court.  The same Judge Boasberg who appointed former DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord as amicus curiae advisor to the court, after she knowingly and fraudulently submitted the FISA application to the court.

This is the same Judge Boasberg gave J6 FBI agent provocateur Ray Epps a sentence of probation. This is the same judge who, on his vacation, went to sit in the DC courtroom to observe defendant President Trump who was forced to appear in DC court.  This is the same Boasberg who established a horrible precedent in forcing Vice-President Mike Pence to testify before a DC grand jury about his conversations with President Trump (breaking executive privilege).

Boasberg sits at the epicenter of a thoroughly corrupt and compromised DC court system.

The ‘ah-ha’ moment to understand just how bad James Boasberg was/is, came during his decision to appoint the wife of Chief Justice John Robert’s senior staff Sheldon Snook, Mrs. Mary McCord as amicus to the FISA Court. {GO DEEP}

It will be interesting to watch how this case, appeal and challenge ends up.

EXECUTIVE ORDER – Tren de Aragua (TdA) is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States. TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking. TdA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States. (read more)

Mar 15 2025

“Are Independent Agencies Even Constitutional?” Jim Rickards On Lawfare 2.0


Posted originally on Rumble By Bannon’s War Room on: Mar 14 2025, at 5:00 am EST

Mar 14 2025

US Deficit Surpassed $1 Trillion in February


Posted originally on Mar 14, 2025 by Martin Armstrong 

US Treasury Bldg

According to the Treasury Department, America’s deficit surpassed the $1 trillion mark this February. The deficit reached $307 billion for the month, marking a 2.5X increase on a monthly basis and 3.7% higher on an annual basis.

The deficit for the first five months of FY25 hit $1.15 trillion, a $318 billion increase (+38%) from the same period last year. America is paying $74 billion simply to finance this debt, with interest payments over the FY rising to $396 billion.

The deficit under the last three years of Biden-Harris grew from $1.38 trillion to $1.83 trillion as the public sector and government spending multiplied. Trump is attempting to make a dent in government spending through DOGE, but he is hitting America’s revenue with these tariffs. Both measures have only just begun and have not made a major impact on the economy yet.

Deficits no longer create economic growth; instead, they now consume it. Each additional dollar of debt generates diminishing returns, meaning the cost of servicing this debt will soon exceed the nation’s ability to function without radical restructuring.

Investors and global capital are beginning to take notice. Foreign demand for US debt has waned, with China and Japan significantly reducing their Treasury holdings. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is trapped. If it raises rates to combat inflation, it exacerbates the debt crisis. If it lowers rates, it risks unleashing another speculative bubble, but central banks tend to lower rates when they see a recession looming. There is no way out without structural reform.

Mar 13 2025

Crazy Lawfare – DC District Judge Beryl Howell Now Rules President Trump Cannot Make National Security Decisions on Private Enterprise or Law Firms


Posted originally on CTH on March 12, 2025 | Sundance

In more than a few ways this decision is even more crazy than District Judge Beryl Howell’s prior rulings.

Judge Howell (pictured below) issued a temporary restraining order, blocking President Trump from barring the law firm of Perkins Coie from representing federal contractors.

There are a few outlines of the hearing HERE and HERE that essentially tell the story.  Consider this quote:

“When you say that if the president, in his view, takes the position that an individual or an organization or a company is operating a way that is not in the nation’s interests, he can issue an executive order like this and take steps to bar that individual, that entity, that company from doing any business with the government, terminate whatever contracts they’ve got, bar them from federal buildings,” Howell said. “I mean, that’s a pretty extraordinary power for the president to exercise.”

Yes, and that’s called the power of the presidency.  Apparently Judge Howell has never heard of ‘executive power’ that allows the elected President of the United States to determine what is in our nation’s best interests.  Approving his ability to make these decisions, is what that whole voting thing is all about.

Howell further pressed — what would happen if Trump were to “get annoyed” by the law firm representing Perkins Coie in this lawsuit and issue a separate order targeting them?

“If he made a finding that there’s a national security risk with a particular law firm, then yes,” Mizelle responded.

Chad Mizelle is not exactly the best voice to be making the DOJ argument, after all it was this knucklehead who as Rod Rosenstein’s counsel wrote the authorities for the Robert Mueller special counsel.  However, on this issue Mizelle is exactly correct.

Yes, the president has the ability to make decisions about national security threats and private enterprises who the President might feel are detrimental to the national security of our nation, like Perkins Coie.  Howell then went into crazyville to extend her logic.

The executive order, which Trump issued last week, “runs head on into the wall of First Amendment protections,” the judge concluded.

No. That’s not at all what the executive order does.  Perkins Coie is free to talk about how terrible Donald Trump is, free to rail against him, free to take to the public square and decry his approach, free to do and say anything they want; the law firm just cannot represent federal contractors or hold security clearances granting them access to materials that are national security matters.

The core of Beryl Howell’s decision boils down to her wanting to protect the business interests of Perkins Coie. Howell/Coie want the firm to retain access to clients who are federal contractors.

Even Perkins Coie didn’t try to keep their security clearances because they know the President has absolute plenary power to issue or remove them.

[…] The executive order also stripped security clearances from lawyers at the firm, but the firm has not challenged that provision. Under Supreme Court precedent, the president has nearly unfettered discretion to grant or remove security clearances.

Dane Butswinkas, a lawyer representing Perkins Coie, described the president’s order as “like a tsunami waiting to hit the firm.”

“It truly is life-threatening. … It will spell the end of the law firm,” he said. (source)

Apparently, stopping Perkins Coie from representing federal contractors will “spell the end of the law firm.”

That’s interesting.

Mar 12 2025

How Can We Apply the Teachings of Winston Churchill to America’s Approach to the Russia/Ukraine War?


Posted originally on Rumble By Charlie Kirk show on: Mar 11, 2025 at 2:00 pm EST

Mar 11 2025

Gold the Confusion & Risk of a High


Posted originally on Mar 11, 2025 by Martin Armstrong 

GCNYNF M Tech 3 10 25

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, we all know you have sources beyond what everyone else has. My question concerns is there anything else that is moving the gold from Europe to the USA besides the prospect of war?

DS

ANSWER: Yes, what I have been warning about is the coming capital controls. You may see a high even here in March. Be very careful because of the upcoming elections in Poland. The first round of the presidential election will be held in Poland on 18 May 2025, and, if necessary, the second round will be held on 1 June 2025. The fear is that, like Romania, they are desperate to keep the power in play. They may start a false flag to influence that election. I’m not sure they can annul it like Romania.

It looks like capital controls will be in place for at least 2026. Without permission, you will not be able to move gold or cash out of Europe.

Then Trump may revalue gold from its official price of $42 to market value to improve the US balance sheet. This would also impact moving gold to the USA. From a market perspective, it really does not matter what value they place on gold. We will not likely see a return to a gold standard with a fixed value, which would be highly deflationary.

Mar 11 2025

Markets Crash On Cue & Trump Refuses to Rule Out Recession


Posted originally on Mar 10, 2025 by Martin Armstrong 

ECM Wave 2020 2028 Pi
DJIND W Array 3 4 25

COMMENT: Marty, it looks like Trump is aware of the ECM. The markets crashed right on cue with Socrates, and he refused to rule out a recession. What is most curious is that you had a Panic Cycle for this week of the 10th. I heard you prevent Google from searching your private blog. If you are not advising him, they must be following Socrates.

Kirk

REPLY: The ECM turned May 7th. That was the day of the attempted assassination of Zelensky. Within weeks, the central banks started lowering rates. I believe Canada was the first to cut rates. Look, most subscribe to Socrates; they would be fools if they didn’t. Even those who hate my guts subscribe just as I subscribe to the Washington Post and the New York Times to see what propaganda they are pushing this week.

This is NOT my personal opinion. This is the only fully functioning Artificial Intelligence Computer with more than a 40-year track record. I cannot reveal who our clients are. We respect the client’s privacy. As I have said, Socrates calculates the timing by itself. There are not enough analysts in the world collectively to write and forecast as many markets and instruments as Socrates does every day. As one of the top ten institutional funds in the world commented, I never want to be on the opposite side of Socrates.

Recession Global

We are headed into a Global RECESSION no matter what Trump thinks or does. It will be a depression in some regions, primarily Europe. One country alone does not dictate the trend globally. Trump cannot create an economic boom when the rest of the world is imploding.