Armstrong Economics Blog/Socialist Re-Posted Mar 28, 2023 by Martin Armstrong
Karl Marx said:
Is the WEF is a Marxist Indoctrination Center?
Tag Archives: Identity politics
Uniparty Peace or Violence? Ray DiLorenzo
| Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable – John F. Kennedy Is violent or peaceful revolution on the horizon? The United States of America as the ‘Great Experiment’ in self-government is failing. While people slept, elites have been allowed to take over, not in governing, but in ruling. Elections are awash in fraud. Government institutions are seemingly impotent in applying checks and balances…corruption is overflowing. Our culture has been pushed to decline by a godless social ideology. The elite have taken an active part. They know the world is about to collapse or be changed, but they are prepared, lifeboats at the ready, while the common folk stare at the cold water nearing their feet. People are now talking about the Uniparty. Who are they? What are they? The Uniparty is a resurrected buzzword for the joining of the Democrat and Republican establishment to obfuscate the will of the American people and push forward The Great Reset for their own interests. The perfect marriage. They’re a veritable fifth column working to destroy America as founded, sometimes competing with each other for lead turncoat. It includes bureaucrats, members of the media, big business, and academia. The Republicans involved (RINOS) are closer to Democrats than members of their own party, but many are so far up in seniority they dare not leave the party. They have become an unrecognized third party, more recently, a party dedicated to stopping the outsider, Donald Trump. Make no mistake, Mitch McConnell would rather be Minority Leader in the Senate than just a senator in a majority Senate. Why else would he withdraw millions in support of 2022 Senate candidates? He’s responsible for trillions in spending under Biden and the inflation we are all feeling. He is a RINO in the first degree, a failure and a disgrace. Polled Democrats and Republicans say they are not well represented in government (PRRI). Except for a brief respite during the Trump presidency, the GOP hasn’t truly represented their voters for many years. The term Uniparty has been applied loosely from time to time from at least FDR, but Ralph Nader gave it proper context in 2000 meaning the Washington establishment. People have used ‘Uniparty’ for various purposes, neo-liberalism, green causes and the like. But, it is now used primarily by conservatives to attack the linking of mainstream Republicans and Democrats against America First or conservatism. The Uniparty is not on our side. They are essentially socialist and globalist or just lowlifes looking for opportunity. They are a government within a facade of a government. They have an agenda, and you are not part of it. Even though George Washington abhorred the thought of political parties, the human trait of forming tribes was always too great. And now the tribe mentality has crossed party lines. Why does it seem like America is on a fast track to a destination no one voted for? No matter how we vote, no matter what we say, no matter what we reject in the market place, the country seems headed over a cliff, and we have no control over it. How is it that Trump was able to turn our country around a full 180 degrees in just a few short years? We were being held back by past administrations. The Uniparty has put our country on autopilot and programmed that autopilot with no input from the people. With only 15% of Americans saying our country is going in the right direction (AP), did we really vote for increased crime, inflation, higher taxes, open borders, more drug trafficking, censorship, the elimination of any morality? Do Americans want 4,000 page bills smelling of pig, made into law in the middle of the night that no one has read? Do Americans want legislation written in the shadows? Why can’t we win an election that reflects the voter’s sentiment? Even Democrats are getting nervous (80%). Why do Disney and Hollywood keep releasing movies that shock our moral conscience, even when they fail at the box office? Hollywood complains that their earnings have fallen, yet they continue to give us junk. Why is it more profitable to stay home rather than work? Why do politicians seem to ignore their constituents? Why do the Biden, Clinton and Pelosi families get to break any law they want? Why does Congress name bills that don’t reflect content. Over a year and a half ago, Congress approved Biden’s $2.5 trillion infrastructure bill. Where’s the infrastructure? Now we find out that only 25% of the bill had anything to do with infrastructure. We did get a $20 million heated sidewalk. Americans were lied to with regularity during the Bush and Obama administrations and now with Biden. We were not allowed to get what we wanted during the Trump administration… nor were we allowed to get what we voted for in 2020 and in 2022. Not allowed? By whom? The Globalist Uniparty. Since Tucker Carlson reported that the CIA had a hand in the JFK assassination, one can imagine Uniparty implication. Representative Constitutional Democracy is dead in America! It is dead because the Uniparty has willed it so. Their power is more important than your freedom and liberty. It is considered ultra-conservative today to preserve our nation as founded. There is, however, a cadre of Republicans like Andy Biggs (AZ), Bob Good (VA), Andy Harris (MD), Lauren Boebert (CO), Matt Gaetz (FL), Matt Rosendale (MT), Eli Crane (AZ), Chip Roy (TX), and Byron Donalds (FL) that are determined to fix Washington, and they will not be deterred. They refuse to compromise with a political cartel that is destroying America, or Kevin McCarthy who has a Conservative Review score of 54% (F). They are our last refuge in this government…true courage! These Representatives are doing their job. They are representing their constituents who put them there and standing for the principles for which this country was founded. What a concept. Maybe McCarthy will lower his head a bit in remorse for his past political transgressions. We are no longer the same country. It’s in the hands of the globalist establishment and they are not about to let go. Oh, they may have allowed us to win a thin margin in the House because the number of votes couldn’t be overcome, or they just want us to think everything is normal, but who is the Speaker of the House?… an establishment shill? Trump was sold as the anti-establishment president, yet many of his appointments were head scratchers. It was a swinging door. It was no surprise that he couldn’t get the wall built or the swamp drained. Paul Ryan was Uniparty. Trump constantly criticized Bush’s WMD/Iraq war and then he appointed Bolton as National Security Advisor. Go figure. I am not an anti-Trumper, but during the Trump administration, it became apparent that it was going to take more than a president to fix this country. Trump was checked at every turn until his checkmate in 2020. In times of emergency, some react quickly, some slowly, needing time to process, in many cases to their detriment. Now that agents from Hell are working to undermine our nation, removing the foundation holding it up, people are still trying to process what is happening in spite of all the evidence. Time is running out. My great fear is that the Uniparty is going to continue destroying our country for their purposes without opposition. Elections now seem futile. The judicial system has been neutered. Congress and the judiciary does not act even when they have legal precedent. Partisanship has taken the place of patriotism. Too many of our patriot politicians are mealymouthed, instead of expressing outrage. Profiles in courage seems relegated to a remote past. The new Congress must take the lead in fixing our country. If the people take the lead, it is not going to be pretty. If enough people feel they no longer have a say in our government, my fear is that they will push back, and push back hard. Americans will put up with just so much. Admiral Yamamoto recognized this after Pearl Harbor and said with regret, “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Will the Uniparty relent, give power back to the people and bring us peace and stability or hold on to their power with a jealous obsession and inevitably bring about violence? What does history say? |
Ukraine Used New Year’s Even to Kill Russians in Barracks
Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Jan 2, 2023 by Martin Armstrong
Zelensky’s forces of the Ukrainian military had fired four long-range missiles that had been provided by the US (HIMARS) with US training to kill Russian soldiers in the barracks on New Year’s Eve. Russia says that they shot down two of the four. Just after midnight on New Year’s Day, Ukrainian missiles were fired and struck a vocational school in Makiivka that housed soldiers. Some 300 are injured and 63 are dead. While that is not supposed to be fair in war just killing soldiers in the barracks rather than on a battlefield, this war is anything but normal.
The Ukrainians used New Year’s Eve. We should be on guard now for attacks over Orthodox Christmas. Both sides will most likely attack fiercely.
Retail Sales Drop 0.6% in November
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 15, 2022 | Sundance
Friends, in the late summer and fall of 2021 CTH warned of massive waves of price increases that would push inflation to record highs. We watched as each wave arrived almost on schedule throughout 2022, and as a direct result of Joe Biden energy and economic policy, prices necessarily skyrocketed.
In essence in 2021 we were warning about the expenditure side of the ledger that all working-class and fixed income families would experience. We advised to take every proactive measure possible to avoid future price increases.
Now, unfortunately, we begin moving those same warnings to the other side of the ledger; because as a natural consequence of consumer checkbook pain, the financial pressure always transfers to the income and employment side of the economic dynamic.
Keep in mind, retail sales are calculated in dollars spent by consumers. November 2022 retail sales as reported by the commerce department today [DATA pdf], reflect a 0.6% decrease in spending vs October. November data includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the traditional early holiday shopping. 0.6% less dollars were spent, despite prices being double digits higher than the prior year.
When the prices you are charging for goods and/or services are 10, 20, even as high as 60 percent more than prior year, yet your sales are running flat to negative – that means consumer purchases of those goods/services are substantially lower.
If you were selling 100 widgets for $1 each in 2021, you gross $100. If your widgets now sell for $1.25 and you gross $94 in 2022 sales, you have sold 75 widgets.
In 2021 you sold 100 widgets, in 2022 you sold 75 widgets, a difference of 25 widgets.
Everything attached to the raw material, creation, manufacturing, distribution and sale of those 25 missing widgets is no longer part of the economic activity associated with your widget business. You are now telling your suppliers you don’t need as many widgets, because they are not selling. You have lost 25% of your business in this scenario.
Everything associated with the drop in consumer spending now begins to downsize. Downsizing means less labor needed. This process triggers the economic impact shifting from the consumer sales side of the ledger to the income side of the ledger for employers, employees and workers.
If this consumer spending trend continues, and there is absolutely no reason to think it will reverse, we are entering a phase of serious financial instability for the American worker, at a scale that will dwarf the 2006/’07 and ’08 recession.
I am not a doomsayer pundit on economic matters. I am a proactive planner on economic forecasts. With consumer credit costing more, with fed interest rates climbing, with import orders cancelled, with shipping costs dropping, with consumer spending contracting, with fewer units moving, with inventories climbing, all of the data only points in one direction.
Serious consumer defaults are looming.
Government policy has been hammering the demand side of the economy, proclaiming -falsely- that excessive consumer demand was the cause of inflation. This game of economic pretending is about to get very serious.
Consumer spending, as measured in actual units created and purchased in the economy, has been contracting since the third quarter of 2021 (started June, July, August ’21). Simultaneously, consumer spending as measured in actual dollars spent to purchase food, fuel and energy, has been skyrocketing. This is a supply side inflationary cycle with no soft landing.
(Wall Street Journal) – U.S. retail spending and manufacturing weakened in November, signs of a slowing economy as the Federal Reserve continues its battle against high inflation.
November retail sales fell 0.6% from the prior month for the biggest decline this year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Budget-conscious shoppers pulled back sharply on holiday-related purchases, home projects and autos. Manufacturing output declined 0.6%, the first drop since June, the Fed said in a separate report.
The Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate 0.5 percentage point to a 15-year high and signaled plans to continue lifting rates through the spring. Fed officials have increased rates at the fastest pace since the 1980s to cool the economy and bring down inflation, which is running near a 40-year high.
“Most households are acting strategically, planning for a road ahead that may be more difficult to traverse, with higher interest rates, the housing slump, and ongoing inflation—and the very real possibility of a recession,” said Craig Johnson, president of the retail consulting firm Customer Growth Partners. (read more)
Businesses are going to start cutting expenses in order to survive.
The number one expense for almost all businesses is the labor cost.
Non-essential and high wage labor is going to get removed first.
Not Just Recession—Massive Economic Shift!
Lee Camp Published originally on Rumble on November 26, 2022
This is not just a Recession — it is a Massive Economic Shift!
The Consumer Economy Has Completely Collapsed – “It’s a Ghost Town” for Holiday Shopping Everywhere
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 26, 2022 | Sundance
“Crowds? I see nothing. I’m surprised,” retail worker Jeremy Pritchett told FOX 2. “Normally, it’s wrapped all the way around the building. Today: no one.”
That’s the typical ground report from areas all over the country. No one, literally almost no one, is doing any holiday shopping and the traditional Black Friday rush to get deals and discounts just didn’t happen. Financial media are scratching their puzzlers, perplexed with furrowed brows.
Interestingly, almost every financial media outlet is using the same Retail Federation talking point about anticipating an 8% increase in holiday sales this year. Apparently, pretenses must be maintained. Meanwhile, news crews and camera crews are having a desperate time finding any holiday shopping to use as background footage for the claims that sales are strong.
“Look, over there. There’s a person buying something. Oh, wait, no, that’s just an employee dusting the empty cash register.” At a certain point, one would have to believe reality would run head-first into the mass delusional pretending. Maybe this holiday season will be it, maybe not.
Reuters – […] About 166 million people were planning to shop from Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday through this coming “Cyber Monday,” according to the National Retail Federation, almost 8 million more than last year. But with sporadic rain in some parts of the country, stores were less busy than usual on Black Friday.
“Usually at this time of the year you struggle to find parking. This year, I haven’t had an issue getting a parking spot,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry adviser of the NPD Group Inc.
“It’s a lot of social shopping, everybody is only looking to get what they need. There is no sense of urgency,” Cohen added, based on his store checks in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.
At the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, there were no lines outside stores. A Toys ‘R’ Us employee was handing out flyers with a list of the Black Friday “door buster” promotions. (read more)
It’s almost Kafkaesque to see how the media are continuing to maintain economic pretenses, yet the reality of a completely collapsed consumer economy is physically staring them in the face.
(Bloomberg) – Activity Light at One San Francisco Mall (4:40 p.m.) – At the Stonestown mall in San Francisco, shoppers were few and far between. The Target and Zara stores were mostly empty, and there was no line for the mall’s Santa Claus. Uniqlo and Apple were the busiest locations, but they still weren’t crowded.
[…] Crowds were thin in the late morning at the Stamford Town Center mall. Kay Jeweler, empty. Safavieh, empty. Only a couple of people waited at the checkout line at Forever 21 and just a few were in line for a purchase at Barnes & Noble.
[…] At a Target store on Chicago’s North Side, the parking lot was barely half full at about 9 a.m. local time. Shoppers were greeted with $3 ornaments and discounted Christmas trees when entering, and the store seemed calm and relatively quiet.
[…] The Macy’s in Stamford, Connecticut, was neat and orderly — maybe a little too neat and orderly on a day associated with shopping chaos. The furniture section was nearly deserted, though there were more shoppers looking at shoes. (read more)
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New Interview: 2023 Will Be A Year Of Chaos and Big Challenges for the US
Armstrong Economics Blog/Armstrong in the Media Re-Posted Sep 5, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
Watch the latest interview above or click here.
Understanding Insurrections for Dummies
How the Democratic Party Abandoned Liberals | Dave Rubin | POLITICS | Rubin Report
Re posted from the The Rubin Report Published on Rumble on May 20, 2022
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Tucker Carlson, Lewis Howes, Larry King, and the Babylon Bee about why the Democratic party is turning so many liberals into conservatives in this special “best of” episode. Was Dave Rubin ahead of the curve for leaving the left? As identity politics and the oppression olympics destroy the Democratic party, many more Democrats are being turned towards conservatism and classical liberalism. Whether it’s trainings about intersectionality in the workplace or talk of reparations for slavery no one can run away from woke politics any more. Dave discusses what he learned about systemic racism from Larry Elder, and why collective guilt and victimhood culture are pushing many on a similar political journey.
Fannie Mae More Than Triples Negative Forecast for Housing Sales
Posted Originally on the conservative tree house on April 19, 2022 | sundance
Lots of people talk about an inflation driven recession. Essentially, that’s a total economic contraction in the value of goods and services produced, sold and purchased, due to rising prices. However, as CTH has been pointing out for more than six months, if you subtract the federal COVID infusion money from the overall economy, we have been in a contracting demand economy for almost nine months.
A negative GDP outcome is quite possible, perhaps likely, when the first quarter GDP figures are released on the last Friday of this month. The most recent sales and economic data shows that U.S. consumers are prioritizing spending and high priced durable good sales are negative.
Now, Fannie Mae is delivering a rather stunning shift in their economic forecast. In addition to projecting a recession for 2023, these revised home purchase figures are remarkable:
...”We have downgraded our total home sales forecast for 2022 to a decline of 7.4 percent (previously a 4.1 percent decline) followed by a decrease of 9.7 percent in 2023 (previously a 2.7 percent decline).” (link)
That is a very significant change in home sales forecast to the negative position.
We already have serious energy inflation to contend with and low wage growth. We already know a third inflation wave on highly consumable goods is coming this summer, likely around 30% or more in food prices at the grocery store.
The professional forecasts are always tilted toward the positive for this administration, so this new statement by Fannie Mae should be considered accordingly. Remember, Boy Scouts motto.
Centinel2012 