North Korea On the Brink of Famine


Armstrong Economics Blog/North Korea Re-Posted Nov 4, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

We recently reported that there is a cycle to famine. Sadly, the hermit kingdom of North Korea is no stranger to starvation due to the mass human rights abuses carried out by their government in addition to unfavorable weather. Business Insider recently reported that the country has resorted to breeding black swans to provide a new protein food source for citizens.

Ri Jong Nam, the chief party secretary for South Hamgyong province, claims, “Black swan meat is delicious and has medical value.” North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un noted that his country was amid a “tense” food crisis in September and asked citizens to contemplate their own solutions. Due to intense sanctions and most nations simply refusing to trade with the country, the cost of imports has become astronomical. North Korean News claims a kilo of bananas now costs around $45 USD or around $6.40 per banana. To put that into perspective, the average North Korean earns $5.5 to $11.1 per day, but there are no official records. Experts believe the country will be 1.35 million tons short of food this year, and by contrast, the nation needs 5.75 million tons of food to feed the population. I suppose it is not profitable for the pretend “philanthropists” to help a starving nation.

Rules for Thee, but Not For Me


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted Nov 3, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

A reader submitted this picture that has gone viral. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is cozying up to Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte in a maskless, crowded party without social distancing. It’s almost as if they realize their own tyrannical rules do not work.

Rules for thee, but not for me!

Musk Offers to End World Hunger Under One Stipulation


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted Nov 3, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

If billionaires paid their fair share, we could allegedly solve world hunger. How?

David Beasley, director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), called out billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for not donating funds to solve world hunger. “Just $6 billion could keep 42 million people from dying,” Beasley claimed. Musk took to Twitter with a bold offer — he would personally donate $6 billion if the WFP could explain precisely how they would spend the funds. Furthermore, the richest man in the world is asking the WFP to provide a public record of exactly how the money will be spent.

David Beasley replied to Musk, “Headline not accurate. $6B will not solve world hunger, but it WILL prevent geopolitical instability, mass migration and save 42 million people on the brink of starvation. An unprecedented crisis and a perfect storm due to Covid/conflict/climate crises.” In other words, $6 billion will not solve world hunger as the people managing that sum of money could never keep it out of their pockets. Musk replied to Beasley with a link to an ongoing, unpunished, child sex abuse scandal where UN “peacekeepers” abused hungry children. The details are too grotesque to publish here, but make no mistake about it — the UN is not an entity intent on saving the world. They had to turn down a generous donation of $6 billion because they knew that they could never report the paper trail, and the results would likely be a request for more money.

Carl Sagan’s Wisdom


Armstrong Economics Blog/Behavioral Economics Re-Posted Nov 2, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

Corporate and Political Elite Gather at COP26 To Discuss How The Global Population Destroying The Planet – An Ideological Motive to Deploy a Mandatory Vaccine To Eliminate Human Lifespans


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 1, 2021 | Sundance | 620 Comments

If you really believed that man made global warming was real…. and if you really believed that global population growth was the “existential threat” to all humanity and life on the planet…. and if you were part of the elite group, multinational corporations and politicians, who run the socio-economic systems that sustain human existence….. then a strategy to eliminate the population by reducing the lifespan of people would be viewed internally as an altruistic endeavor to save the planet.

If that sounds like hyperbole, you likely have not listened to the impassioned speeches and pleas at the “Conference of the Parties 26” (COP26) assembly in Glasgow, Scotland today.

Humans, as an existential threat to planetary survival, was exactly the terminology used today by current White House occupant Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emanuel Macron, HRH Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and her son heir to the throne, Prince Charles.

All of these global leaders called the people who populate the planet “an existential threat to mankind.”

Joe Biden said: “This is the challenge of our collective lifetimes. The existential threat to human existence as we know it. And every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases.  So let this be the moment that we answer history’s call” (link)

Prince Charles called for a military approach, a war footing and the assembly of multinational corporations united with politicians in dealing with the existential threat that people represent.  MUST WATCH:

The key point is this:  The global elite consider the population of the planet to be the problem.

Pause and think about that for a moment.  Man made climate change as an issue is only solvable, in its most dire of circumstances, by eliminating the root cause of the problem, people.

The global political elite wax philosophically about the issue, with increasing levels of severity according to their own definition of alarm signals, but their underlying problem is with a planet that is -according to their worldview- overpopulated.

Now, with that level of urgency behind what they claim to be the “existential threat”, what actions would they consider appropriate in order to save the planet?

This is where the fundamental question about why there is such a big push on the COVID-19 vaccination, that is wildly disproportionate to the risks from the virus itself, start to make a little more sense.

If you want to reduce the population, a key method would be to reduce the lifespan of the average human on the planet.

What exactly would a product do that is designed to reduce lifespan?

A product designed to reduce lifespan would likely attack or replace the body’s natural immune system.  This would leave the human immune system compromised so that ordinary ailments, viruses, diseases and illness would become much more deadly.

The human body’s natural reaction to attacking ordinary cancers would be compromised allowing cancer to grow and become more deadly.  By suppressing a natural immune system, or replacing it with a synthetic mRNA type immunity design, the natural ability of the human body to deal with illnesses would be weakened.  People would die more frequently and people would not live as long.

If people died more frequently, and/or people did not live as long, the objective of saving the planet from the existential threat -by reducing the population- could be achieved.

How do you get the human immune system compromised on a mass scale, in a global population consisting of billions of people?  WATCH:

The process to reduce life-expectancy, and save the planet, would explain why there is such a disproportionate push to get people vaccinated.

The virus was the premise.

The vaccine becomes the method.

That would explain why they have been pushing the vaccine so hard.

That would explain why they want to vaccinate kids who are not at risk from the virus.

.

CTH is not prone to conspiracy theories or dark imaginings.  CTH analyzes a multitude of disparate data patterns and connects dots in their most logical sequences.

This motive makes sense.

The scale of their anxiety underpins it.

The need for control is a reaction to fear.

Australia Seizing People Homes & Bank Account if you have Unpaid COVID Fines


Armstrong Economics Blog/Australia & Oceania Re-Posted Oct 31, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

This is the face of absolute tyranny. Unfortunately, he is supported by the police so like a Roman Emperor who has usurped power, he only can do so because the police have turned against the people as they have done in Venezuela. Any unpaid COVID fines, they are now seizing people’s homes, will throw them onto the streets, and auction off their homes. They are also raiding people’s bank accounts so you can see why they want digital currencies. This is the face of a want-to-be Hitler of the 21st century.

The children and their children will NEVER know what liberty and freedom were all about. My deepest condolences to our Australian readers. So these outrageous fines we heard about $5,000 or even $10,000 for not wearing a mask is a prelude to the confiscation of private property.

This is what Pelosi dreams of in the United States.

Companies Warn Biden Administration They May Need to Drop Fed Contractor Status Because Workers Will Not Comply With Vaccine Mandate, Meanwhile American Airlines Cancels 1,700 Flights This Weekend


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 31, 2021 | Sundance | 224 Comments

As we have continued to point out, a federal vaccine mandate might sound like a good idea on a think tank, academic or white-paper policy level of consideration; but on a practical level, wiping out a large percentage of your most productive workforce over a vaccine mandate is unworkable, and might even end the operation of the entire business.

That is the message today within an article written by Politico about several large federal contractor companies warning the White House they may need to drop their federal contracts because they simply will not be able to continue business operations if they lose their unvaccinated workforce on December 8th.

Thus the power of the blue-collar workforce is being recognized:

WASHINGTON DC – Objections among certain vendors over President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors are reaching an inflection point. As the deadline for workforce vaccination approaches, some trucking companies are mulling whether to end their work with the federal government altogether, according to two industry insiders.

In an interview, the American Trucking Associations’ executive vice president for advocacy Bill Sullivan told POLITICO that some companies may simply decide that the cost of the mandate is not worth the government’s checks. Sullivan said he has raised concerns to the White House, Office of Management and Budget and other executive branch officials. He noted that if companies drop their contracts, it may be harder to get certain foods to troops, transport fuel for military vehicles, or even deploy the National Guard.

[…] interviews with more than a dozen industry advocates across the aerospace, distribution, defense and trucking sectors — some of whom have also been in discussions with administration officials — reveal they either have little confidence they will be able to meet the Dec. 8 deadline for their workers to receive their first vaccine shot or expressed concerns about difficulties the mandate would pose on their labor force.

The White House has repeatedly insisted — both in private meetings and publicly — that the federal contractors can avoid potential service disruptions during the holiday season. (read more)

The reaction from the Biden administration is laughable.  As you would expect from a wonk-minded bureaucratic outlook, their solution is to put the employees into intensive reeducation camps saying the companies “must begin counseling them on the vaccine’s benefits and the ramifications for noncompliance.”

It is important to note the recent NBC poll on this issue amid the outlook of the vaccine mandates.  A majority of the country do not support the vaccine mandates, and worse still, the number of unvaccinated workers is essentially unwavering in the past six weeks {poll data}.  Remember, the number of Americans who willingly quit their jobs increased to 4.3 million in August {link}. People are not f**king around now.

{DATA LINK}

The number of cumulative hard “NO’s” has gone from 26 percent in August, to 27 percent now.

We are down to the hardened group, an educated and solid bunch of people who use common sense, and they are not going to take the forced vaccination.   In quantifiable terms, the increased pressure to force the jab into the arms of the American workforce has now crossed into “the law of diminishing returns.”  More government pressure ain’t going to yield the previous level of compliance.   This threshold crossed is also quantifiable in the 4.3 million Americans who quit working (242,000 of them in August alone).

There are 205 million legally eligible U.S. workers between 15 and 74-years-old (census figures) with a workforce participation rate of 61% (BLS figures) which would equal 125 million legally eligible workers.   However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the number of working Americans at 161 million workers (BLS figures).  The majority of the difference between the two figures are most likely illegal alien workers (yeah, lots of them).

Approximately 40 percent of the eligible population are not working.  Some people are single family income (wives or husbands who don’t work), and some are just people who choose not to work, cannot work or have not yet started to work (college etc).  With somewhere between 125 million and 161 million workers doing the jobs that keep the country functioning, there are also approximately 10 million unfilled job openings.

According to the most recent statement from Joe Biden on October 14th: “We’re down to 66 million — it’s still an unacceptably high number — of unvaccinated people from almost 100 million in July.”  Approximately 60 million of those are within the current U.S. workforce.

If we split the difference (census -vs- BLS) and take the mid-point at 140 million workers, then 60 million workers refusing the vaccine mandate represents about 40 percent of the entire population of eligible workers.  Put another way, in the best case scenario, if 60 million people quit working or were fired, the national unemployment rate would be at least 35% !

What we call the United States doesn’t function with 35% unemployment; systems of commerce start to collapse, then government, then civil society.

The U.S. economy is currently functioning with 5% unemployment and 10 million unfilled jobs.

Just imagine the economic impact of 35% unemployment and 70 million unfilled jobs.

Keep in mind, the vast majority of those 60 million jobs are the productive workforce that keep the entire machine of the U.S. functioning.

This is the workforce that keeps the goods moving, the lights on, garbage picked up, streets safe, shelves stocked, stuff fixed and facilitates everything that makes the entire system of society function.

It is the force of this crew or hard core, dirty fingernail, no-nonsense workers that is pushing those federal contractor companies to contact the administration and tell them this mandate is not going to work for them.   If the companies have to choose between losing their ability to contract with the federal government, or losing the most critical part of their workforce, well, they ain’t going to stick with Biden’s mandate.

There ain’t no way in heck that government or private industry can function with tens of millions of Americans in the workforce getting forcibly removed for refusing the vaccine.   I believe that is why you are now hearing from companies saying they will not fire the unvaccinated workers (ex Delta Airlines).

Pontificating leftists and academics, without a bit of sense for what actually happens in the Main Street economy, have no concept of what it looks like if ten million people quit or are fired from working next month…. let alone five times that many. Bottom line: THIS IS A NON-ENFORCEABLE MANDATE, even if they wanted to do it.

The power of the American workforce is in the scale of dependency each person brings to the system when they are united.  It might seem like a few thousand here/there, because that’s the way the media are framing it. However, if you add up all those few thousands together, you end up with millions.

As we previously outlined, this is not about vaccines per se’, this is more about a slippery slope of having the government dictate how you can live your life and earn a living.

If they can force us to have a medical procedure, and then carry documentation of that procedure in order to work… why can’t they force us to get a small electronic implant of our identification, which would coincidentally include your medical authorizations for work?

It’s just a metal detector…. it’s just taking off your shoes… it’s just wearing a mask…. it’s just a vaccination….. it’s just a COVID passport… it’s always, “just”.

Factually, at the end of all this, I still do not believe a federal mandate for a vaccine is even possible or legal. It appears to me that all of Biden’s threats in this regard are simply that, threats.

The purpose of the threat is to push people to take the vaccine without actually attempting a legal federal mandate; and that approach so far has been successful.  However, now they are going to encounter the more hard-core groups who will not concede liberty or freedom to a federal mandate.

It is obvious Anthony Fauci also knows a federal vaccine mandate on the private sector will lose in court when challenged.  The fact that Fauci brings up state vaccination requirements for education as examples of historically forced vaccinations is both a strawman argument and structurally false.  There has never been a FEDERAL mandate for any vaccination.  All the vaccinations Fauci discusses (ex. his kids) were state mandates.  Each state also has a different set of standards and laws for children and vaccines.  There is nothing federal.

The federal government is attempting to set up a federal work authorization standard for private businesses.  Non-compliance means you cannot work, or you lose your existing job if your employer goes along with the government demand. THAT alone should alarm everyone.

There is a particularly enraging irony in that Joe Biden’s federal DOJ and Dept of Labor do not enforce employment eligibility authorization for illegal aliens based on legal status, while at the same time the Biden Dept. of Labor is putting OSHA in charge of a federal policy that will enforce vaccination requirements.  Go figure.

All of the federal exemptions essentially undermine the “national health emergency” argument, because if there really was such a public health emergency, there would be no exemptions at all.   The application of the executive order undermines the actual cornerstone of the executive order itself.   It cannot withstand scrutiny…. hence, Biden doesn’t actually put any rules or regulations into writing because that gives lawsuits something specific to file injunctions against.

In the interim, as the freedom coalition digs in to mount a patriotic challenge, the authoritarian attempt of the federal government, the rebellious alliance is hitting back in unique ways as noted by the Southwest Airline pilots and Air Traffic Controllers, both groups hold a significant military service record.  As noted, this weekend American Airlines was forced to cancel 1,700 flights due to staffing issues:

NPR […] American Airlines cancelled more than 1,700 flights over Halloween weekend, including more than 800 on Sunday alone, due to weather and staff shortages, the company said. […]   American Airlines says that 343 were cancelled on Friday, followed by another 548 cancellations on Saturday. Most of the cancelled flights were coming to and from the airline’s main hub in Dallas/Fort Worth, as well as in Charlotte, N.C.

[…] In a letter to staff sent out Saturday, the company’s chief operating officer, David Seymour, said the company “proactively” cancelled flights on Sunday because of severe winds in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and a shortage of crews.  (read more)

Another group who are pushing back against the federal effort are local law enforcement and firefighters.  Again, another private sector group that has a heavy percentage of former military service members amid the ranks.

The blue-collar effort to bolster the resistance by these groups does not have to be too massive to have an impact.  Remember, almost all of these leftists and elite minded communists who now operate as Democrats have no capacity for self-sufficiency.   If the working class stops picking up their trash; stops mowing their lawns, shopping for them, doing their cleaning and essentially facilitating their lives, this entire group of scholastic-minded knuckleheads cannot function.

From a commonsense and logistical perspective, regardless of the federal outlook, there’s no way they can pull it off.  We are the quiet, and according to those who look down their noses – the “invisible” unwashed masses.  However, when it comes to keeping the gears turning, we are the majority.

We keep their shit working and just want to be left alone.   The system will not function if tens-of-millions of American workers stand united against the vaccine mandate. It really is that simple.

Victoria To Make Emergency Powers PERMANENT


Armstrong Economics Blog/Australia & Oceania Re-Posted Oct 30, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

COVID Madness Down Under Continues – State Now Confiscating Bank Accounts, Property, Licenses and Businesses if COVID Fines Not Paid While Unemployed Workers Locked Down


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 29, 2021 | Sundance | 250 Comments

Of all the extreme measures carried out by various states in Australia, the collections and confiscations by the State Penalty and Enforcement Register (SPER) might just be the icing on the cake.

During the lengthy COVID lockdown in the state of Queensland, Australia (Brisbane area), most workers were not permitted to work or earn a living.

Several states stepped in to provide wage subsidies so people could purchase essential products and pay their living expenses.  However, during the lockdown if you were caught violating any of the lockdown rules, you were subject to a civil citation, a fine or ticket for your COVID violation.

Get caught too far from home, outside your permitted bubble, and you get a ticket.  Get caught spending more than the permitted 1 hour outside, get a ticket.  Get caught without a mask, even by yourself – and yep, ticket.  Enter a closed quarantine zone (park, venue, etc.) and you get a ticket.  Tickets were being handed out by police on the street as well as during random checkpoints on the roadways.

Additionally, people returning to Queensland were put into a system of involuntary quarantine.  The costs for that quarantine, mostly hotel rooms, were to be paid by the people being involuntarily captive and not allowed home.

Citizens were required to have their physical location scanned via a QR code on their phone. These checkpoints were to assist in controlling the COVID spread and were used for contact tracing throughout the past two years.  However, the checkpoints and gateway compliance scans also registered your physical location; the consequence was an increased ability for police and COVID compliance officers to catch people violating the COVID rules.  Ex: If you checked in at the grocery store, they knew how far from home you are, and the police could figure out if you violated your one hour of time outside the home at the next checkpoint.

The result of all this compliance monitoring was thousands of fines, civil citations for violating COVID rules.  Thousands of people given thousands of fines that would need to be paid.

Now the state is requiring all of those civil citations get paid, or else.  And the enforcement actions to collect these fines from the State Penalty and Enforcement Register are quite extreme.  Citizens who have outstanding tickets are finding their driver’s licenses suspended; bank accounts are being frozen and seized; homes and property are are being confiscated, as well as business licenses suspended for outstanding citations.

“Queenslanders who received fines for breaking Covid-19 rules risk having their homes seized and bank accounts frozen in a government crackdown to collect $5.2 million in repayments.” (LINK)

Brisbane Times – “SPER was undertaking “active enforcement” on another 18.4 per cent of fines, worth about $1 million, which a spokesman said “may include garnishing bank accounts or wages, registering charges over property, or suspending driver licences”.   The remaining 25.2 per cent of fines were either under investigation or still open to payment without further action being taken.

Outside SPER’s work, Queensland Health took the unusual step of calling in private debt collectors to chase up $5.7 million amounting from 2045 significantly overdue invoices for hotel quarantine.  (read more)

The Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Delay


Armstrong Economics Blog/Energy Re-Posted Oct 29, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

(Nord Stream Pipeline)

European Union leaders are scrambling for solutions to the energy crisis, but their feared friend from the East has reminded them that a solution exists. According to the Associated Press, gas prices in the EU have spiked to 95 euros from about 19 euros per megawatt-hour in the past year. Around 90% of gas is imported to the EU, and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said that the only long-term solution is to invest in renewable energy. “And in the long term, there is only one solution — invest more in renewable energy so we are less vulnerable to price fluctuations for fossil fuels,” he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blamed the Green Deal plan for higher prices, which aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 55% by 2030, with the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Some leaders are pointing to the use of nuclear energy, such as France, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. However, the 27-nation bloc has not designated nuclear power as a sustainable investment yet.

(Nord Stream 2 Pipeline)

In comes Putin and the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would carry much-needed gas from Russia to the EU beneath the Baltic Sea. “If the German regulator gives approval tomorrow, supplies of 17.5 billion cubic meters of gas will start the day after tomorrow,” Putin said. The Russian president has previously criticized the EU for not signing long-term contracts and failing to work with Russia on energy trade. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that relying on gas from Russia makes the bloc “vulnerable,” but it seems that they are already vulnerable and in a worsening situation with no solution in sight. EU energy ministers are set to meet in December, where they are likely to kick around solutions while ignoring the one that is a pipeline away.