Tag Archives: Hunt for Taxes

Nov 4 2017

Crimea & Carving up the World


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics

Re-Posted Nov 4, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

ukraine-ethnic-divide-data

COMMENT: Dear Marty
You mention that Crimea was taken by Russia. However, this is just the MSM view. The West is accused of fermenting the problem in Ukraine which precipitated this. The people voted in a referendum with 31 international observers, 95% to reunify with Russia where they had belonged since 1783. Why does the West not recognize the referendum??

Ukraine had passed a law making Russian not the first language after the coup. The people of Crimea have voted in overwhelming numbers and by an overwhelming margin to leave Ukraine and to federate with Russia. The majority population in Crimea speaks Russian, identifies with Russia and was formally a part of Russia until the region was transferred to Ukraine as a largely administrative measure in 1954 when Ukraine and Russia were full republics united in one country: the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.

REPLY: From the outset, my position was that Ukraine should have been split according to language. Borders have been drawn by politicians, and this policy has given us so many problems over the years. It is language and culture that should define a national border. It is also wrong for the refugees to enter Sweden and then refuse to adopt the culture of that nation demanding their own laws will apply in specific regions. This is not like colonizing the Moon.

Yanukovych_Viktor

What I would disagree with you on is that the West instigated the revolution. I personally have friends who were in Maidan and they were not puppets of the CIA. The revolution was over the corruption in the Yanakovich administration and the extortion of small businesses as his sons were running a protection operation.

The West did instigate the civil war in Syria. That was to help Qatar get a pipeline through Syria to Europe in order to compete with Russia. That was the whole issue and Obama’s agenda.

The vast majority of people in Crimea were Russian with Tartars as well. Crimea was Russian and was given to Ukraine to manage by the Soviet Union. It is Russian by culture and the sanctions against Russia are political for economic reasons and are not based upon the desire of the people of Crimea. The people should decide the same as they should decide in Catalonia, Scotland, Northern Ireland, etc., etc..

Nov 3 2017

President Trump Reacts to DNC Clinton Campaign “”Rigged Primary” Scandal…


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

President Trump has weighed in on the shocking admission by former interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile about the Clinton Campaign controlling the DNC throughout the 2015 and 2016 Democrat primary election.

Twitter Link

Nov 3 2017

Trump’s Tax Reform


Armstrong Economics Blog/Economics

Re-Posted Nov 3, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

 

 

These days, US President Donald Trump is pushing his number one agenda of his term in office – major tax reform. Trump has been meeting with some of his own party senators seeking approval for the planned tax reform he is hoping will be signed by the end of December at the latest for a Christmas present. The negotiations on the details are in the final stages. If the reform is very real indeed, and make no mistake about it, this would be a tremendous triumph for Trump and for the nation as a whole. Trump has the potential to take the United States counter-cyclical (cycle inversion) that would actually put a tremendous amount of pressure on the rest of the world.

There are some who are concerned about removing the tax deduction for state income taxes. Deducting state income taxes from your Federal taxes has been quietly talked about behind the curtain for some time. It was also one factor in my own relocate out of New Jersey to Florida. The elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes will be a major death blow for the high taxed states like California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut etc..

The states have been effectively double-dipping. I remember when the New Jersey state income tax was put in. The politicians said it would cost you nothing because you could deduct it from your federal taxes. Essentially, it was the way for the state to covertly get more money that they were not accountable for. That game is coming to an end. If Trump eliminates that deduction, then and ONLY then will the people start to hold the states accountable for the first time EVER! Repealing it would increase federal revenue by $1.3 trillion over the decade

Deductions would remain for mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Additionally, the standard deduction would nearly double to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples.

Nov 3 2017

Choosing the Fed Chairman


Armstrong Economics Blog/Central Banks

Re-Posted Nov 3, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Many expect Mr. Jerome H. Powell to be President Trump pick for Fed Chairman. Trump is resisting pressure by conservatives to make a larger change at the Fed. Many conservatives, including Vice President Mike Pence, preferred John B. Taylor, who is an economist at Stanford and an outspoken critic of the Fed’s monetary policy. Taylor previously served in the Treasury Department during the Bush administration. However, he is best known as an academic economist with no real experience hands-on. He wrote an approach to monetary policy, known as the “Taylor Rule,” where he suggested that the Fed should be raising rates more quickly. That was obviously based on the economic theory of the Quantity of Money leads to inflation. He also has closely advised House Republicans on legislation that would require the Fed to adopt such a policy rule taking a hawkish approach to monetary policy.

Representative Warren Davidson, a Republican on the House Financial Services Committee’s monetary policy panel, is one of the people who want a change in policy toward more conservative and austerity. He is circulating a letter opposing Yellen’s reappointment. Personally, I believe Yellen has done a good job. She has been under international pressure not to raise rates from the IMF and just about everyone else because Europe is still floundering and higher rates would be expected to push the ECB and emerging markets off into the deep-end of the pool.

Mr. Powell, on the other hand, has consistently supported the Fed’s campaign to stimulate economic growth. However, Powell expressed some reservations in internal debates about the extent of those efforts. In more recent years, Powell has backed the methodical unwinding of those efforts, and analysts expect he will seek to raise interest rates at about the same pace as Ms. Yellen.

Nov 2 2017

A Twitter “Employee Inadvertently Deactivated” President Trump Account – “Human Error”…


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

Shortly before 7:00pm EST the personal Twitter account of President Donald Trump was removed by an employee of the company.  Twitter says “human error”:

(LINK)

This is somewhat surreptitious timing as CTH has been compiling some exclusive data for a later research article about internet and social media control agents.

Shorthand preview is the “Vast Russian Conspiracy” narrative is directly related to Google’s ideological efforts, in collaboration with like-minded allies, to retain monopolistic and ideological control over the business side of the internet through e-commerce, revenue controls, and financial exploitation.  ie. “Internet Racketeering”.

Nov 2 2017

Mega-MAGA Moves: Robert Mercer Leaves Hedge Fund, Sells Breitbart, Distances From Bannon and Rebukes Milo Yiannopoulos


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

Robert Mercer the multi-billionaire hedge fund co-chief of Renaissance Technologies; owner of Breitbart media; previous backer of Ted Cruz and currently reformed supporter of President Trump is making significant moves.

The overarching direction of the repositioning appears to be common sense. The end result, at least from a 30,000 ft level, positions Mercer toward the pragmatic MAGA Trump movement (CTH perspective) and politely distanced from the gnats and Bannon Bros.

Mr. Mercer sent a letter to his hedge fund principles (investors and pension advisers) notifying them of his stepping down from Renaissance Tech, including the board of directors, though he will remain deeply involved in the research and analytics side of the operation.

Additionally, Mercer appears to have caught-on to the general direction where the gnat swarm was/is headed and is now distancing himself from the nuttery side of right-minded political engagement.  Mercer is shifting controlling ownership of Breitbart media to his two daughters.  This is good news for team common sense and bad news for the hungry gnats.

In a very rare statement attributed directly to Mr. Mercer, he explains his perspectives on Steve Bannon and how despite the general agreement on intent, the methods and approach by Bannon is not always in alignment with Mercer’s own outlooks on politics.

No doubt there are a multitude of CTH readers who will identify with the sentiments contained within the statement from Mr. Mercer.  Indeed, as CTH has oft repeated: if you hang around a one-legged man long enough, sooner or later you’re gonna start limping.

There are a myriad of very important ideological battles being waged upon a large and encompassing ideological geography.  A candidate riding to the voting booth on a horse might sell well to a particular viewer/voter, but in the larger picture it does nothing to draw in the man or woman who hits the alarm clock at 5:15am prior to working for the next and necessary paycheck.

Good moves here by Mr. Robert Mercer, and from a perspective of intellectual honesty, CTH offers appreciation toward any influence agent of such established caliber who puts reasonable logic at the forefront of purposeful planning.

 

Nov 2 2017

Elizabeth Warren Admits the 2016 Democrat Primary Election Was “Rigged”…


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

… And here we go.  Toldyaso.  Right on cue…  Elizabeth “Liawatha” Warren outlines to Jake Tapper, the #1 goal of current DNC Chairman Tom Perez is to bring back the Bernie Sanders supporters ahead of the 2018 elections.

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Of course the part Senator Elizabeth Warren leaves out is that she knew the DNC was under the direction and control of the Hillary Clinton campaign back in 2015, Hillary told her, and that’s why Warren never put her name in the candidacy hat. Duh.  Oh, and like none of the-deep-in-the-weeds political reporters knew this?  Ohhkay. Sure. Whatevs.

Unfortunately the Bernie crowd is just gullible enough to buy this re-branding strategy. And of course, in an effort to retain their opinion of Teh One, none of the progressives will admit to themselves that President Obama most certainly knew of the plan.

FULL OUTLINE HERE

On the positive side, considering the timing, the Democrats are conceding to lose all remaining special elections in 2017 due to deflated voter enthusiasm.  However, that’s a short price to pay for the larger re-branding strategy.

Nov 2 2017

Twitter Testifies on 2016 Analysis: Clinton Used Twitter More But Trump Much More Effective…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on November 1, 2017 by

Twitter admits during 2016 election Trump used platform half as much as Clinton but had twice as much success.  Additionally, Twitter legal counsel admits to hiding up to 48% of negative Clinton twitter content (hashtag tweets surrounding DNC and Podesta emails), yet suppressed nothing negative about candidate Donald Trump…

During testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sean J. Edgett Acting General Counsel for Twitter, Inc. delivered a 20 page opening statement (full pdf below).  Within the statement attorney Edgett shared the protocol for Twitter hiding hashtags they deemed troubling in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

The volume of activity on our system is enormous: Our users generate thousands of Tweets per second, hundreds of thousands of Tweets per minute, hundreds of millions of Tweets per day. ~ Sean J Edgett, Twitter General Counsel

However, amid all the examples cited, Twitter did not “hide” any material that was negative toward candidate Donald Trump.  In every example cited Twitter only took action to hide user content that was negative toward candidate Hillary Clinton.  A remarkable ‘coincidence‘.

[Page #6 of Testimony ] Before the election, we also detected and took action on activity relating to hashtags that have since been reported as manifestations of efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. For example, our automated spam detection systems helped mitigate the impact of automated Tweets promoting the #PodestaEmails hashtag, which originated with Wikileaks’ publication of thousands of emails from the Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account.

The core of the hashtag was propagated by Wikileaks, whose account sent out a series of 118 original Tweets containing variants on the hashtag #PodestaEmails referencing the daily installments of the emails released on the Wikileaks website.

In the two months preceding the election, around 57,000 users posted approximately 426,000 unique Tweets containing variations of the #PodestaEmails hashtag. Approximately one quarter (25%) of those Tweets received internal tags from our automation detection systems that hid them from searches.

As described in greater detail below, our systems detected and hid just under half (48%) of the Tweets relating to variants of another notable hashtag, #DNCLeak, which concerned the disclosure of leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee. (pdf link)

Additionally, according to the Twitter analysis (Page #11) their review found a negligible amount of overall activity (within the Hashtags they forcibly hid from view) came from any account with “potential” linkage to Russia:

“Slightly under 4% of Tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from accounts with potential links to Russia. […] With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts.”

…which begs the question.  This analysis was, by their own admission, “in retrospect”, meaning after the fact.  There’s no way they could identify the user affiliation as it was happening.  So why did they “hide” the trending hashtag?

Further, and in relationship to that question, if slightly under 4% of tweets containing #PodestaEmails came from concerning accounts, then why take the action to hide 25% of total user content including that hashtag?  Similarly, if “roughly 2%” of #DNCLeak use was from concerning users, then why did they hide 48% of the trending hashtag content?

See the problem?

Essentially Twitter legal counsel is admitting here, through twisted analytic hindsight obfuscation, they censor Twitter based on their internal opinion of the content within trending hashtags.

Hilariously, the page #11 testimony also shows that Hillary Clinton used Twitter twice as much as Donald Trump – yet had half as much engagement (re-tweets).

Our data showed that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,625 @HillaryClinton Tweets were Retweeted approximately 8.3 million times.

The 851 Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account during this period were Retweeted more than 11 million times.

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https://www.scribd.com/embeds/363258194/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-2HFd4vNj7NpML2e4rFh2

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Nov 2 2017

Germany Also Engages in Political Prosecution


Armstrong Economics Blog/Germany

Re-Posted Nov 2, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

The Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in Germany has asked the Federal Government to file a lawsuit against all decisions of European Central Bank (ECB) regarding the purchase of government bonds and corporate bonds as well as derivatives since 2015. They are petitioning to file in the European Court of Justice asserting that the policies of the European Treaties and by the Federal Constitutional Court were being violated.

Effectively, the ECB “stimulus” policy (QE) has completely failed and instead has become a life-support system subsidizing the debt of Eurozone member states. Even reducing the amount bought per month is an attempt to see if the marketplace takes up the debt. But the Eurozone governments never cut back spending or reformed. They never had to. The QE program was merely targeting to support the government – not the average person in the economy.

Meanwhile, the former leader of the nationalist AfD, Frauke Petry, was formally charged with perjury and was accused of lying under oath about the party’s finances. If found guilty she would face a minimum sentence of six months in jail, but it would be the end of her political career. This seems to be another political-prosecution.

Frauke Petry resigned from the AfD and has plans to form a new political group in the German parliament that will be distant from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). For this reason, she is a threat politically.

Why are all politicians not prosecuted for lying to the public to win an election and then do the opposite? The charges against Petry are intended to stop her political career.

Nov 2 2017

Towns Restoring to Extortion of Drivers to Raise Money


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption

Re-Posted Nov 2, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

 

I have written about the abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture laws in the United States, which have mimicked now in Europe. Police are no longer used to protect society, but to target and harass society to raise money for the politicians. It is a shame that Trump has never been pulled over by the police. He would have received a taste of the attitude that confronts you.

The town of Castleberry, Alabama is just the tip of the iceberg. This tiny town of just 550 people has a police force 5 times the size of the national average per citizen. Why? They use every excuse to pull people over and confiscate whatever they can. The police have become the highway robbers that the Knights Templar were once formed to protect travelers on their pilgrimages.

The Knights Templar began a banking system because it became too dangerous to travel with money. These people would rob you giving rise to the term “highway robbery”. If you were in London and needed to send money to someone in Rome, you went to the Knights Templar and they would simply send a message and the local branch in Rome would make the payment for you and London took in your payment. This was how international payments began to surface after the Dark Age.

The French king seized the Papacy, moved it to Avignon in France, install a French Pope who then declared the Knights Templars were devil worshipers and seized all their wealth on Friday the 13th. They were all burned at the stake alive and the king got to keep all the money. This became the Financial Crisis of the 13Th-14th Century.

Looks like history repeats. We are back to highway robbery. Castleberry is by far not unique. %There are many small towns now doing the same thing to raise money for public officials.