Multinational Corporations and The Export of American Wealth…


To understand the larger objectives of the global and financial elite it is important to understand the three-decade global financial construct they seek to protect. Global financial exploitation of national markets:

♦Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.
♦The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.
♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).
♦With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

Since initially explaining this modern import/export dynamic some have asked for specific examples in order to gain a better understanding.  There are a myriad of interests within each sector that make specific explanation very challenging.  However, here’s an attempt.

For three decades economic “globalism” has advanced, quickly.  Everyone accepts this statement, yet few actually stop to ask who and what are behind this – and why?

People with vested financial interests in the process have sold a narrative that global manufacturing, global sourcing, and global production was the inherent way of the future.  But what’s brutally missed in the discussions is the fundamental truth that advocates selling this “global” message have a vested financial and ideological interest in convincing the information consumer it’s just a natural outcome of progress.

It’s not.

It’s not natural at all.  It is a process that is entirely controlled, promoted and utilized by large conglomerates and massive financial corporations.

Again, I’ll try to retain the larger altitude without falling prey to the esoteric weeds.  I freely admit this is tough to explain and I may not be successful.

Bulletpoint #1: ♦ Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.

This is perhaps the most challenging to understand.  In essence, national companies expanded their influence into multiple nations, across a myriad of industries and economic sectors (energy, agriculture, raw earth minerals, etc.).

Think of these multinational corporations as global entities now powerful enough to reach into multiple nations -simultaneously- and purchase controlling interests in a single economic commodity.

A historic reference point might be the original multinational enterprise, energy via oil production.  (Exxon, Mobil, BP, etc.)

However, in the modern global world, it’s not just oil; the procurement extends to virtually every possible commodity and industry.  From the very visible (wheat/corn) to the obscure (small minerals, and even flowers).

Bulletpoint #2 ♦ The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.

During the past several decades national companies merged.  The largest lemon producer company in Brazil, merges with the largest lemon company in Mexico, merges with the largest lemon company in Argentina, merges with the largest lemon company in the U.S., etc. etc.  National companies, formerly of one nation, become “continental” companies with control over an entire continent of nations.

…. or it could be over several continents or even the entire world market of Lemon/Widget production.  These are now multinational corporations.   They hold interests in specific segments (this example lemons) across a broad variety of individual nations.

National laws on Monopoly building are not the same in all nations.  But most are not as structured as the U.S.A or other more developed nations (with more laws).  During the acquisition phase, when encountering a highly developed nation with monopoly laws, the process of an umbrella corporation might be needed to purchase the interests within a specific nation.  The example of Monsanto applies here.

Bulletpoint #3  ♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).

With control of the majority of actual lemons the multinational corporation now holds a different set of financial values than a local farmer or national market.  This is why commodities exchanges are essentially dead.  In the aggregate the mercantile exchange is no longer a free or supply-based market; it’s now a controlled market exploited by mega-sized multinational corporations.

Instead of the traditional ‘supply/demand’ equation determining prices, the corporations look to see what nations can afford what prices.  The supply of the controlled product is then distributed to the country according to their ability to afford the price.  This is how the corporation maximizes it’s profits.

Back to the lemons.  A corporation might hold the rights to the majority of the lemon production in Brazil, Argentina and California/Florida.   The price the U.S. consumer pays for the lemons is directed by the amount of inventory (distribution) the controlling corporation allows in the U.S.

If the U.S. harvest is abundant, they will export the product to keep the U.S. consumer spending at peak or optimal price.  A U.S. customer might pay $2 for a lemon, a Mexican customer might pay .50¢, and a Canadian $1.25.

The bottom line issue is the national supply (in this example ‘harvest/yield’) is not driving the national price because the supply is now controlled by massive multinational corporations.

The mistake people often make is calling this a “global commodity” process.  In the modern era this “global commodity” phrase is particularly BS.

A true global commodity is a process of individual nations harvesting/creating a similar product and bringing that product to a global market.   Individual nations each independently engaged in creating a similar product.

Under modern globalism this process no longer takes place. It’s a complete fraud.  Currently, massive multinational corporations control the majority of product inside each nation and therefore control the entire global product market and price.

In highly developed nations this multinational corporate process requires the corporation to purchase the domestic political process, the approval, within individual nations allowing the exploitation.  As such, their lobbyists pay hundreds of millions to politicians for changes in policies and regulations one sector or industry at a time.

EXAMPLE:  The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)

CFIUS is an inter-agency committee authorized to review transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person (“covered transactions”), in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.

CFIUS operates pursuant to section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended by the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA) (section 721) and as implemented by Executive Order 11858, as amended, and regulations at 31 C.F.R. Part 800.

The CFIUS process has been the subject of significant reforms over the past several years.  These include numerous improvements in internal CFIUS procedures, enactment of FINSA in July 2007, amendment of Executive Order 11858 in January 2008, revision of the CFIUS regulations in November 2008, and publication of guidance on CFIUS’s national security considerations in December 2008 (more)

Bulletpoint #4 ♦ With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

The process of charging the U.S. consumer more for a product, that under normal national market conditions would cost less, is a process called exfiltration of wealth.

It is never discussed.

To control the market price some contracted product may even be secured and shipped with the intent to allow it to sit idle (or rot).   It’s all about controlling the price and maximizing the profit equation.   To gain the same $1 profit a widget multinational might have to sell 20 widgets in El-Salvador (.25¢ each), or two widgets in the U.S. ($2.50/each).

Think of the process like the historic reference of OPEC (Oil Producing Economic Countries).  Only in the modern era massive corporations are playing the role of OPEC and it’s not oil being controlled, it’s almost everything.

Individual flower growers in Florida out of business because they didn’t join the global market of flower growers (controlled market) by multinational corporate flower growers in Columbia and South America, who have an umbrella company registered in Mexico allowing virtually unrestricted access to the U.S. market under NAFTA.

Agriculturally, multinational corporate Monsanto says: ‘all your harvests are belong to us‘.  Contract with us, or you lose because we can control the market price of your end product.  Downside is that once you sign that contract, you agree to terms that are entirely created by the financial interests of the larger corporation; not your farm.

The multinational agriculture lobby is massive.  We willingly feed the world as part of the system; but you as a grocery customer pay more per unit at the grocery store because domestic supply no longer determines domestic price.

Within the agriculture community the (feed-the-world) production export factor also drives the need for labor.  Labor is a cost. The multinational corps have a vested interest in low labor costs. Ergo, open border policies.  (ie. willingly purchased republicans not supporting border wall etc.).

This corrupt economic manipulation/exploitation applies over multiple sectors, and even in the sub-sector of an industry like steel.   China/India purchases the raw material, ore, then sells the finished good back to the global market at a discount.  Or it could be rubber, or concrete, or plastic, or frozen chicken parts etc.

The ‘America First’ Trump-Trade Doctrine upsets the entire construct of this multinational export/control dynamic.  Team Trump focus exclusively on bilateral trade deals, with specific trade agreements targeted toward individual nations (not national corporations).  ‘America-First’ is also specific policy at a granular product level looking out for the national interests of the United States, U.S. workers, U.S. companies and U.S. consumers.

Under President Trump’s Trade positions, balanced and fair trade with strong regulatory control over national assets, exfiltration of U.S. national wealth is essentially stopped.

This puts many current multinational corporations, globalists who previously took a stake-hold in the U.S. economy with intention to export the wealth, in a position of holding contracted interest of an asset they can no longer exploit.

RELATED:

♦The Modern Third Dimension in American Economics – HERE

♦The “Fed” Can’t Figure out the New Economics – HERE

♦Proof “America-First” has disconnected Main Street from Wall Street – HERE

Next up: How the Stock Market is disconnected and why that matters.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Scraps Senate Healthcare Bill…


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced the senate version of the ObamaCare repeal and replace bill is no longer viable due to party conflicts.

Instead the Senate will vote on the House Bill with a primary Senate amendment for a full repeal of ObamaCare with a two year delay providing time to construct the replacement.

I’m not sure what McConnell’s strategy is here because a “repeal only” amendment on the bill would need 60 votes for passage.  It is beyond doubtful that eight democrats are going to vote for a “repeal only” bill.  Correction, I just noticed McConnell’s trickery, the 2015 bill was a defunding bill, not a repeal.  McConnell is just tricking people into thinking this was going in the direction of a repeal. It’s not.

The GOP have never, ever, voted for a repeal. That would take 60 votes. They voted in 2015 to defund it using the 51 vote threshold of ‘reconciliation’.  They’ve never once had a repeal vote on Obamacare.

Therefore, if this actually goes to a vote, this appears to be constructed simply as an exercise to prove a vote was taken.  ObamaCare remains and the implosion continues.  McConnell’s political calculation here is trickery.  Nothing more. O-Care remains.

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday night that his chamber will vote to completely repeal President Obama’s health care program — with a two-year delay to come up with a replacement.

“Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” McConnell said in a statement.

McConnell wants the Senate to vote on a 2015 bill that passed both chambers and was vetoed by President Obama.  The two-year delay would “provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health care system,” MCConnell said.  (link)

 

Navigating the Business Cycle = Prosperity


The key to the future is understanding (1) the past and (2) how everything functions. Sure there is a risk of a Dark Age after 2032. Hopefully, we can learn from the past to push things in the right direction at least for once. For whatever reason, the people who like to run government are the least qualified. They seem to be people who just like to order others around.

Since they have typically never had a job in the real world, they remain clueless about how to really deal with society no less the economy. This last crisis is the classic example. We have people in power who do not understand the past no less how things really function. As a result, someone comes up with this idea of lower interest rates to stimulate demand and NEVER even once do they review history and asked – Hey; did this every work before?

 

I find it truly amazing that I can even write about how lowering interest rates failed to stimulate the economy for almost 10 years in Europe, and yet people want to argue that somehow I am wrong. They never review the past and offer only opinion often taught in school as if that makes it absolute doctrine. Interest rates NATURALLY drop in a recession/depression because demand declines as people lose confidence in the future.

You cannot reverse a recession/depression by lowering interest rates. Until people BELIEVE they can make a profit in the future, they will never borrow as long as the horizon appears dark as dismal.

This solution from the 2007-2009 crisis of lowering interest rates has undermined the Pension funds. This has set the stage for the collapse in government as pensions being to fail first in the state/province level of government and municipalities.

I’m sorry. This is not Nobel Prize winning theories here. All you have to do is just open your eyes, shut your ears to propaganda, and look at the history. Just ask what happens and let the charts show you without political bias.

Throughout history, the solution to every crisis sets the stage for the next crisis. This is what happens when we have unqualified people running the joint.

The key to making money to secure your future is to shed all bias and just let the markets dictate the outcome.

The Rising Youth & Civil Unrest


Here is a picture taken from a reader in Hamburg. The degree of violence rising in Europe and in the United States post-Trump election, have been organizing the youth. I have warned that revolution always comes from the youth so this is not something we should push aside lightly.

It was wisely summed up that a man has no heart before the age of 25 if he was not a socialist, and no head after 25 if he remains one. These words ring true. All the violence in Germany, France, and USA just to glaze the surface, all involved primarily the youth. What we must be deeply concerned about is who has been funding these civil uprisings and they should not be allowed to bribe their way out with political donations

Trump Jr & the Russian Meeting


A lot of people have picked up on the mention of the Magnitsky Act is Donald Trump, Jr. statement of a meeting with a Russian woman. Trump Jr., said the meeting was “the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it.” I seriously doubt that the woman explained the full background as to what took place in that affair and it is not likely that she even fully understood what took place behind the curtain. This Magnitsky Act was passed by Congress to “punish” anyone who was involved in sending him to prison where he dies before getting a trial. This is the company that was started by Safra in which they were soliciting me to join in Russia and I declined. This was the plot to takeover Russia by blackmailing Yeltsin  to step down. When Yeltsin realize he was being set up by NY bankers to grab the natural resources of Russia, he turned to Putin for help and then handed him the Presidency.

Just as the undercover tape on CNN exposed that everybody tries to influence political elections of friends and foes, the attempt to takeover Russia by the NY Bankers was at the center of my issue and is why there could never be a trial. They did not know how much I knew and they knew I had very good contacts all the way up even in Russia. Even Maggie Thatcher had asked me what I knew about a secret underground facility Russia was constructing that satellites could not see back in the Nineties. As I said, the fundamental principle in law is you never ask a question you do not know the answer to. Who knows what will come out. That was their problem with me.

And here’s a statement by Donald Trump Jr published on 11 July 2017:

To everyone, in order to be totally transparent, I am releasing the entire email chain of my emails with Rob Goldstone about the meeting on June 9, 2016. The first email on June 3, 2016 was from Rob, who was relating a request from Emin, a person I knew from 2013 Ms. Universe Pageant near Moscow. Emin and his father have a very highly respected company in Moscow. The information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research. I first wanted to just have phone call but when that didn’t work out, they said the woman would be in new York and asked if I would meet. I decided to take the meeting. The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official. And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act. To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue. As Rob Goldstone said just today in the press, the entire meeting was “the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it.”

Sunday Talks: Corey Lewandowski and Maria Bartiromo…


The putrid guardians of the swamp were all out in force today doing their best swamp guardian Russia, Russia, Russia screeds writ large.   So, rather than showcase the inane, today we stick with the more substantive.

Former Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski interviews with Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo.  Additionally, it must be noted, that Ms. Bartiromo has, at times, a striking similarity to Suspicious Cat.

Another Corporation, Reebok (Adidas), Jumps Into Politics – Against President Trump…


President Trump created a stir amid his political opposition when he was reported to have told French first-lady Brigitte Macron: “you’re in such great shape“.   Apparently, according to the ever-pliable rules of the virtue signaling political left, it is “sexist” to compliment a woman on her physical appearance.

Of course it didn’t take more than a news cycle for yet another corporate entity to jump head-first into the opportunity to attach their own brand-image to anti-Trumpism.  [Adidas is the parent company of Reebok]  The hypocrisy behind this opportunistic marketing endeavor/virtue-signaling is stunning.  Here’s the tweet from Reebok:

(link)

As you can see, Adidas/Reebok have made a political decision.  Virtue signaling your superiority in defining what is/isn’t appropriate is never a good look.

You would think the loss of brand value for companies who previously did this (Macys, Starbucks etc) would be enough to stop any reasonable corporate marketing head with a fiduciary responsibility. Alas, the allure of scoring cheap political points finds another victim.

However, when contrast against the actual marketing image of Reebok, the outcome is even worse.

Reebok is specifically stating that complimenting a woman based on her appearance is “sexist” and “inappropriate”.

Sexism?

Inappropriate?

OK, well let’s check out the latest Reebok commercial (WATCH):

.

Or how about the print advertising for Reebok:

Oh, these are only the PG-13 versions. There’s full naked female imagery within the European Reebok AD campaign.

Somehow using a woman’s physical shape to create a marketing brand is ok. But pointing out a woman’s physical shape, born out the success of applying that marketing brand approach as an outcome, is… well, “inappropriate”.

Tell a man he’s in great shape and it’s no big deal; no-one would even think twice of it.

Tell a woman she’s in great shape and it’s an immediate crisis.

Yeah. Gender equity. Huh?

Anticipate a diminished brand value to Adidas and Reebok as an outcome.  Financially position yourselves accordingly…

Artificial Intelligence & the Future


A number of people have asked about Elon Musk’s reference to us already being cyborgs and the possibility of humans being transformed into house cats dominated by Artificial Intelligence. I have been involved in developing AI since the 1970s. In coding the Socrates systems, I have not found it to turn me into a house cat. To the contrary, I have learned much more about the world using the systems.

Back in the early 1980s, I appeared on FNN (Financial News Netwrok) which was a finance and business news TV network in California that operated throughout the USA until it was bought by and merged with CNBC in 1991. I appeared on air with Walter Bressert and the computer forecast was that the British pound would fall from $2.40 to $1 going into 1985 following the Economic Confidence Model at that time. That forecast was done by the computer although I did not explain the scope of Socrates back then because it was too far ahead of the curve. The computer also forecast that the British economy would divert from Europe and move counter-trend aligning itself more with the United States. That forecast it made back in 1981. I had to develop a natural language in order to speak with it because I thought that forecast was insane and wrong. When I coded the ability to inquire how it was making its decisions, that is when it began to teach me. It picked up the discovery of the North Sea Oil fields which began to change the UK from a net oil importer to self-sustainable. The Gullfaks oil field was discovered in 1978 with the Snorre Field in 1979, followed by the Oseberg oil field and Troll gas field which were also discovered in 1979. The capital flows had been altered and then it made sense.

The idea of interfacing humans with a neural net is possible, but this is clearly something that would need to be approached with caution. It is once thing to have a unit in the house like Amazon or Google where we can ask questions and something that taps into your brain. The danger there is who control the neural net. Government could then use the net to control people. I would never submit to something of that nature.

Artificial Intelligence cannot take over the world with its own evil mind. My fear would be that someone steps in to direct it to control various things or people for their benefit.

The Dow Outlook


We are getting close to unleashing Socrates. The hold up has been in the delivery rather than in the analysis. We have had some problem with pushing the results up to the cloud, which we hope to solve. The Pro version wrote this as of Friday concerning the Dow Jones Industrial Index. Note that while we are making new highs, we are losing momentum and breaching the bottom of the Breakout Channel. The support has been rising sharply so caution is now warranted. Note also beware the week of 07/24.

ANALYSIS UPDATED AS OF THE CLOSE OF  Fri. Jul. 14, 2017: This market has been making a new historical high this month on Fri. 14th at 2168153. Closing support on a weekly basis now lies at 2133300. A weekly closing below this level will signal a short-term correction is beginning. From a technical trading risk perspective, long positions should be exited if this level is broken on a weekly closing basis.

From the view of a position trading perspective, the market has exceeded the previous high made back in June at 2153503 reaching 2168153. So far we have a very dramatic event breaking last year’s low 1545056 and exceeding last year’s high of 1998763 making and outside reversal to the upside. The technical resistance stands at 2172761 with technical support resting at 2148041 and 2100653. Any long position should use a protective sell stop on a monthly closing basis at 2055344. Remember this is just a trading suggestion given it is merely a trading observation rule. Buy or sell signals take place on Reversals and Cycles.

Understanding Time & the Kondratieff Wave


QUESTION: Dear Martin,

I am an reader of your blog and attendee of some of your conferences. I am quite impressed about the timing of your forecasting arrays. In particular,  May 1 you published the arrays for DJIA (attached) where you showed two clusters of volatility: the weeks of 15 May and 26 June. I was really stupefied when I witnessed two vicious drops in XIV (an ETF replicating the inverse of 60 days expected implied volatility of S&P500) precisely in the weeks you indicated. The best model academia has come up with for modelling volatility is a Stochastic Volatility Model with Jumps, where returns of the underlying (index) are random, their volatility is random (mean reverting though) and infrequent jumps also occur randomly. In fewer words forecasting volatility is just impossible for academics, but not for you.

Do you see any more clusters coming in the summer? Are you going to give access to forecasting arrays through ask-Socrates soon?

Best regards.

 

  ANSWER: Academics try to create models about things they do not comprehend.  Volatility comes in different flavors and stochastic is an interesting confirming tool, but never a forecasting tool. Volatility is interlinked with TIME, but it is simply deeply hidden within this complex fourth dimension.

You cannot forecast volatility in any of its flavors without interfacing TIME in every other aspect of this dimension. Creating flat models like a stochastic take one aspect of a market and then attempts to extrapolate the future based upon this single tool only to fail. We have a stochastic model you can plot and the interesting thing is it is never consistent since sometimes it’s peaking in advance to a turn and at other times after the turn. They never forecast a flash crash or anything on that nature. This Fourth Dimension is extremely complex. Far beyond any one dimensional model can map.

Even those claiming to be using the K-Wave cannot make real forecasts. The basis of Kondratieff’s argument came from his empirical study of the economy’s performance of the USA, England, France, and Germany between 1790 and 1920. Kondratieff took the wholesale price levels, interest rates, production and consumption of coal, pig iron, and lead for each economy. He then sought to smooth the data using an averaging mathematical approach of nine years to eliminate the trend as well as shorter waves. Kondratieff thus arrived at his long-wave theory suggesting that the economic process was a process of continuous waves of boom and bust.

The problem with his data was that it properly reflected the beginning of his study. But as the Industrial Revolution took place, agriculture, which was 70% of the economy in 1850, fell to 40% by 1900 and eventually to 3% by 1980. His model failed because there was a cycle to the economy as well which he did not take into account. We moves from a commodity based system, to industrial, and now to primarily service. As we move further down this road, we can see that economic growth has declined for government has growth too big and is now consuming 40% of GDP compared to less than 10% at the beginning of his work. Then we now have the internet displacing jobs in stores (service industry) just as the invention of automobiles displaced the horse and buggy. There is a cycle to change as well and this is absent from the K-Wave.

Under Marxism, seizing control of all private assets was supposed to eliminate this boom and bust cycle. Kondratieff suggested that changes in technology, wars and revolutions, and the emerging of new countries as well as the surges in the production of gold was the cause of this business cycle. (see his 1935 English Translation not someone else’s commentary on his work)

Anyone claiming to be using the work of Kondratieff to forecast the business cycle is most likely creating a smoke-screen since we can even see from the chart, that his original wave varied greatly both in time duration 47 to 63 years, as well as intensity. Moreover, Kondratieff himself explained the cause was shifts in production, war, and great booms and busts in the discovery of gold. So the K-Wave offers no reliable method to forecast the economy, yet it stands as a testament to the existence of a complex business cycle.

Kondratieff was by no means the first to discover the business cycle. There were many others trying to investigate the complexity of the business cycle.

Nevertheless, Kondratieff explained that the cause was complex and not a single thing. Any attempt to create a one-dimensional model will fall flat on the drown.

The pro-version should be available by September. I am pushing the staff as hard as I can.