Congress passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, and then the new American Communist press shifted their focus immediately to the Democratic legislation known as the Build Back Better Act. That bill includes a host of progressive priorities such as paid family and sick leave, public housing, child care, and universal preschool. Add to that $550 billion aimed at fighting climate change. To get this through, they need absolutely every Democratic vote. Once again, they are trying to bribe people for votes. It would be far better to eliminate taxation and stop borrowing from people interest-free and pretending to be Santa Claus by giving back their own money as a refund.
Half that money is for the Gates’ climate change agenda. He has his money safely tucked away in a fake foundation he uses for power-monopoly play. Everyone else will be devastated by the tax increases, but he will be untouched. They will lower the standard of living with all the new regulations and criminal prosecutions on environmental theories.
Google has been found guilty of violating anti-trust laws by the European Union’s General Court, the second-highest court in the EU. In 2017, Google was accused of violating anti-trust laws by altering its algorithm to favor its shopping services over competitors. Despite maintaining innocence, the EU General Court ruled against the company and implemented a fine of 2.42 billion euros ($2.8 billion).
“The General Court finds that, by favoring its own comparison shopping service on its general results pages through more favorable display and positioning, while relegating the results from competing comparison services in those pages by means of ranking algorithms, Google departed from competition on the merits,” the court stated on Wednesday.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, and other members are indicating that the crackdown on Big Tech will not end with Google. Google may still appeal to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU), but said they are currently reviewing the details of the case and had made the necessary changes to comply with the EU’s laws in 2017. Google has already paid 8.25 billion euros in the last decade for violating EU competition laws. Apple, Amazon, and Facebook are undergoing similar battles in the EU courts. Big Tech is not above the law, at least not in the EU.
New Jersey’s state Senate President, Steve Sweeney, spent almost $500,000 on his re-election to be defeated by a Republican who spent less than $10,000 on his campaign. This is a monumental loss for Democrats, for it is showing that the same trend that elected Trump, anti-politicians, is alive and well. A truck driver for a furniture company, Edward Durr Jr., who describes himself as fiscally conservative and a 2nd Amendment rights advocate, beat the best Democrat spending less than $10,000 on his campaign. Looks like money no longer guarantees a victory for politicians. POPULISM strikes back!
Federal Reserve members are fleeing the central bank. We saw two Fed presidents resign in October amid scandal. Randal Quarles recently announced that he also plans to resign from the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors when his four-year term expires at the end of the year. Another position remains vacant as well. A third position for the central bank will open up in January when Vice Chair Richard Clarida’s term expires. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s term ends in February, and Biden has not stated whether he plans to renominate Powell. Rumors are swirling that Biden may appoint Lael Brainard as he is the only Democrat on the seven-member board.
Biden could choose to renominate Powell and fill Quarles’ position with Brainard. However, does Powell still want the job? The investigation into potential inside trading among Fed members may have pushed him over the edge. We cannot bring inflation down without reaching maximum employment, and we cannot reach maximum employment under Biden’s authoritarian mandates. The Fed is in between a rock and a hard place.
There is a potential for three to four slots to become available in the near future, which would give the Biden Administration the ability to tip the scales in their favor, despite the Fed claiming to be independent from the government. Sarah Bloom Raskin, a previous Fed governor, could be in the running. William Spriggs, chief economist at the AFL-CIO and an economics professor at Howard University, may also throw his hat in the ring. Lisa Cook, an economist for Michigan State, is also a potential candidate. Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee that manages Fed nominations, said, “It’s time we had a black woman on the Board of Governors” in reference to Lisa Cook. Would it be possible to appoint the most qualified person rather than making a decision based on race or gender? They likely want to appoint anyone who is on board with the Build Back Better agenda. These people are making decisions that shape the entire world economy. Unfortunately, it seems as if many of the qualified individuals no longer want the job due to Biden’s mismanagement of the economy.
Bill Gates will emerge as the richest man in human history, for he has succeeded in creating a health monopoly. The royalties from the never-ending vaccines will propel him to more wealth than Bezos, Musk, Buffett, and the top 10 COMBINED. He then puts his wealth in a foundation that will be exempt from the Billionaire Tax he has supported, which will undermine everyone else in the Billionaire Club.
It looks like the greatest plans of those who dream of controlling the world will not work out as they envision. Gates’ surrogates are putting out reports happily projecting their endless power over the world using this fake crisis. They will destroy the world economy indefinitely. Such medical promoters on the take from Gates’ Foundation may be putting their lives and those of their family at risk. They always project the future in a linear manner for they neither believe in God nor in the cyclical nature of the universe.
Richard E. Nesbett wrote an interesting book entitled “The Geography of Thought, How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and why.” He attributed his work to a Chinese student who said, “You know, the difference between you and me is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line.” He goes on to quote him:
“The Chinese believe in constant change, but with things always moving back to some prior state. They pay attention to wide range of events; they search for relationships between things; and they think you can’t understand the part without understanding the whole. Westerners live in a simpler, more deterministic world; they focus on salient objects or people instead of the larger picture; and they think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects.”
This is why in Asia, I never had to explain that there were cycles. They looked at the West as primitive locked into this linear view of the world and we can see it in this global warming nonsense. They presume that because the planet warms in 20 years that the trend will last forever. Girls mature and eventually grow too old to produce children and then die for there is a cycle to everything. We all are born, we live, and we die. There is night and day and even the influenza virus mutates cyclically each year, so the vaccine changes. Nothing functions in a straight line yet in the West every form of analysis are linear. There are stock market crashes and they will launch an investigation to try to determine who caused it. Never do they ever consider themselves as any possible cause.
So those who think they are God and can manipulate society because the system is linear void of any nature cyclical nature will discover in 2022 that all things do not always just go up.
Gates is following the script left behind by Rockefeller. Their definition of being a philanthropist is akin to getting some girl pregnant to pay for the abortion, and that makes them a philanthropist. Gates’ monopoly over health is far more dangerous to society than Microsoft or Standard Oil in Rockefeller’s day. Perhaps the 2022 election will cause an upset, and an investigation into Gates and his surrogates will, at last, unfold — including Fauci, who is 80-years-old. Why is he still in government? It is not for a pension. He even had to start withdrawing from a 401K. He is clearly there only for power.
Inflation continued to surge, reaching 5.4% in September. Janet Yellen has never been right about anything and keeps calling this “transitory,” as if it will vanish in a few weeks. The Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, which is supposed to measure a basket of goods and services as well as energy and food costs, came in at 5.4% in September from a year earlier, well beyond expectations. However, our model was projecting a rise in inflation into 2021 which is 13 years up from the November 2008 low. It is interesting how the COVID restrictions with lockdowns came in on target with our computer’s forecast. Curious how events seem to fulfill the forecast when it is done by a computer rather than human judgment.
Nevertheless, as you can see from the chart, inflation has bounced on a month/month basis, but it has not yet reached the Downtrend Line. The long-term forecast beyond a mere decade projects the historical high will be due in 2034, which should exceed all previous highs. A month/month number above 1.05% will signal that inflation is breaking out, and we will indeed make all-time record highs going into 2034.
The numbers are out — 4.3 million people in the US quit their jobs in August. This is the largest number since 2000. The leading sector is hotels and restaurants. I have a friend who has a daughter who had two jobs. She worked as a waitress/bartender at night and at a health food store during the day. She was very industrious, to say the least, and quite impressive. However, she quit the health food job because they demanded a vaccine. She said the bar owner was going to impose a vaccine rule and more than 50% of the staff said they would quit.
Meanwhile, New York’s bars and restaurants are hurting for business because of the vaccine mandates. Our most honorable leaders, who are most likely taking money from Pfizer lobbyists worldwide, are realizing that resistance is not futile. You can mandate vaccines and pretend they are 100% safe, but the truth always surfaces. The people can bring down the entire system if they simply refuse to participate.
Many journalists are too busy selling Biden’s propaganda about the vaccines. The FDA admits there are risks, but they, in their sole discretion, announced they “believe” the benefits outweigh the risk without any explanation of the analysis or a single word of caution (e.g., if you have certain conditions, you should not take the vaccine) despite doing so for other vaccines. So while the press and the Biden Administration are ignoring the facts and the trend, this only raises the question: How much has Pfizer and Moderna paid you?
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 13, 2021 | Sundance | 249 Comments
I do not expect White House Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki to understand how her bosses policies are driving massive price increases; nor do I expect Psaki to understand economics and inflationary impacts. However, the scale of her false statements surrounding inflation are not just false, they are now dangerous.
Following the release of the consumer price index [SEE table 2], in her press briefing today, Jen Psaki outlined the White House perspective on inflation, and specifically the Fed claims surrounding “transitory inflation.”
In her statements today, Psaki referenced people comparing the prices of 2021 consumable goods to 2020 and 2019. [Video prompted below] Within the statements, the scale of falsity is off the charts. WATCH [Video at 19:00 to 22:42, prompted]
There is not one single thing about that three minute verbal exchange that is accurate. Fast turn consumable goods, groceries etc., did not drop in 2020 during the first year of the pandemic. Factually, all goods but especially consumable goods increased in price throughout the pandemic, because demand actually increased and the supply chains were unable to keep up.
Example. A loaf of bread at $2.50 in 2019, climbed to $3.00 in 2020. That price jumped again to $3.75 this year (2021) and will likely continue rising as monetary policy driven inflation continues devaluing our currency.
Even if, as Psaki claims, inflation slows down (not likely) – “decelerating inflation” does not mean declining prices; it means a slower rate of price increase. Stuff still costs more, it just costs more at a slower rate. Consumable goods will cost more in 2022 than they do this year. The 2022 loaf of bread likely to climb to $4.00; it will never return to the 2019 price of $2.50 because the dollar is worth less.
This massive inflation is a direct result of the multinational agenda of the Biden administration in combination with the spending spree. Inflation is a feature not a flaw, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with COVID. The first group to admit what was obvious were banks, specifically Bank of America, because the monetary policy is the primary cause.
You might remember, when President Trump initiated tariffs against China (steel, aluminum and more), Southeast Asia (product specific), Europe (steel, aluminum and direct products), Canada (steel, aluminum, lumber and dairy specifics), the financial pundits screamed at the top of their lungs that consumer prices were going to skyrocket. They didn’t. CTH knew they wouldn’t because essentially those trading partners responded in the exact same way the U.S. did decades ago when the import/export dynamic was reversed.
Trump’s massive, and in some instances targeted, import tariffs against China, SE Asia, Canada and the EU not only did not increase prices, the prices of the goods in the U.S. actually dropped. Trump’s policies led the largest deflation in consumer prices in decades. At the same time, Trump’s domestic economic policies drove employment and wages higher than any time in the past forty years.
With Donald Trump’s policies, we were in an era where job growth was strong, wages were rising and consumer prices were falling. The net result was more disposable income for the middle class, more demand for stuff, and ultimately that’s why the U.S. economy was so strong.
♦Going Deep – To retain their position, China and the EU responded to U.S. tariffs by devaluing their currency as an offset to higher prices. It started with China, because their economy is so dependent on exports to the U.S.
China first started subsidizing the targeted sectors hit by tariffs. However, as the Chinese economy was under pressure, they stopped purchasing industrial products from the EU, that slowed the EU economy and made the impact of U.S. tariffs, later targeted in the EU direction, more impactful.
When China (total communist control over their banking system) devalued their currency to avoid Tariff price increase, it had an unusual effect. The cost of all Chinese imports dropped, not just on the tariff goods.
Imported stuff from China dropped in price at the same time the U.S. dollar was strong. This meant it took less dollars to import the same amount of Chinese goods; and those goods were at a lower price. As a result, we were importing deflation…. the exact opposite of what the financial pundits claimed would happen.
In response to a lessening of overall economic activity, the EU then followed the same approach as China. The EU was already facing pressure from the exit of the U.K. from the EU system; so, when the EU central banks started pumping money into their economy and offsetting with subsidies, they essentially devalued the euro. The outcome for U.S.-EU importers was the same as the outcome for U.S.-China importers. We began importing deflation from the EU side.
In the middle of this, there was a downside for U.S. exporters. With China and the EU devaluing their currency, the value of the dollar increased. This made purchases from the U.S. more expensive. U.S. companies who relied on exports (lots of agricultural industries and raw materials) took a hit from higher export prices. However, and this part is really interesting, it only made those companies more dependent on domestic sales for income. With less being exported, there was more product available in the U.S for domestic purchase…. this dynamic led to another predictable outcome, even lower prices for U.S. consumers.
From 2017 through early 2020, U.S. consumer prices were dropping. We were in a rare place where actual deflation was happening. Combine lower prices with higher wages, and you can easily see the strength within the U.S. economy.
For the rest of the world this seemed unfair, and indeed they cried foul – especially Canada. However, this was America First in action. Middle-class Americans were benefiting from a Trump reversal of 40 years of economic policies like those that created the rust belt.
Industries were investing in the U.S., and that provided leverage for Trump’s trade policies to have stronger influence. If you wanted access to this expanding market, those foreign companies needed to put their investment money into the U.S. and create even more U.S. jobs. This was an expanding economic spiral where Trump was creating more and more economic pies. Every sector of the U.S. economy was benefiting more, but the blue-collar working class was gaining the most benefit of all.
♦ REVERSE THIS… and you now understand where we are with inflation.
The JoeBama economic policies are exactly the reverse. The monetary policy that pumps money into into the U.S. economy, via COVID bailouts and ever-increasing federal spending, drops the value of the dollar and makes the dependency state worse.
With the FED pumping money into the U.S. system, the dollar value plummets. Now the value of the Chinese and EU currency increases. This means it costs more to import products, and that is the primary driver of price increases in consumer goods.
Simultaneously, a lower dollar value means cheaper exports for the massive multinational conglomerates who now control our farms and farming resources (Big AG and raw materials). China, SE Asia and even the EU purchase U.S. food and raw material at a lower price. That means less food and raw material in the U.S. which drives up prices for U.S. consumers.
It is a perfect storm. Higher costs for imported goods (durable goods) and higher costs for domestic consumable goods (food). Combine this dynamic with massive increases in energy costs from ideological Green New Deal policy, and that’s fuel on a fire of inflation.
Annualized inflation is now around 8 percent, and it will likely keep increasing in the short term. This is terrible for wage earners in the U.S. who are now seeing no wage growth and higher prices. Real wages are decreasing by the fastest rate in decades. We are now in a downward spiral where your paycheck buys less. As a result, consumer middle-class spending contracts. Eventually, this means household purchasing of durable goods drop because people have less disposable income.
Gasoline costs more (+50%), food costs more (+10% at a minimum) and as a result, real wages drop; disposable income is lost. Ultimately this is the cause of Stagflation. A stagnant economy and inflation. None of this is caused by COVID-19. All of this is caused by economic policy and monetary policy sold under the guise of COVID-19.
This inflationary period will not stall out until the U.S. economy can recover from the massive amount of federal spending.
If the spending continues, the Fed keeps printing money. The dollar continues to be weakened. As a result the inflationary period continues. It is a spiral that can only be stopped if the policies are reversed…. and the only way to stop these insane policies is to get rid of the Wall Street democrats and republicans who are constructing them.
Tucker Carlson hit this point very well last night:
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 12, 2021 | Sundance | 78 Comments
This is not a surprise data-point for readers here. However, it is good to see honest statements from corporate executives on what to expect with food inflation.
As noted by Kroger Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip in a call with financial media, we can expect to see even more rapid inflation in food prices overall in the next several months:
MSM – Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., which had $132 billion in sales last year, says inflation is running hotter than management previously anticipated and that expectations are now for prices to rise 2% to 3% over the second half of this year.
Kroger is “passing along higher cost to the customer where it makes sense to do so,” said CFO Gary Millerchip on the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Friday. (read more)
The reason for more inflation is not too difficult to understand. Fresh foods show fast price increases immediately because they have almost no pre-existing inventory. Fresh foods go from field to fork the fastest, and price increases show up immediately. The same applies to restaurants.
However, processed foods and shelf stable foods have a deeper inventory, the turns on that inventory take longer, and as a consequence, it takes longer for the price increases to show up. Millerchip is simply saying the total supply chain price increases are going to hit, and they are going to hit even harder than the last few months, as the new processed inventory carries a higher cost.
The skyrocketing prices at the grocery store are predictable based almost entirely on Joe Biden’s pro-Wall Street and Multinational Corporation policies. Main Street is getting hammered, and the working class is suffering as a direct result.
Their specific accountability for these outcomes is why the Biden administration is trying to distract and blame COVID-19 for supply chain issues. However, it is not COVID driving the prices, it’s Joe Biden policies that benefit multinationals. {Go Deep}
Food products are fast-turn consumable goods, and the inflation in the food sector is jaw-dropping already. However, fresh and processed foods turn at different inventory levels.
Obviously fresh foods spoil fastest (think produce, fish, meats and dairy), so they are replenished more quickly, and the thin supply chain (field to fork) passes along increased costs fast. Processed foods have a longer shelf life (boxed, canned, frozen, etc), and as a consequence, have a much larger inventory level in manufacturing, warehousing and retail storerooms/shelves. Within processed foods, there is a lag between cost increase at origination and that cost hitting the stores.
The problem identified within the current ‘producer price index’, is that price increases in the raw material and intermediate material are building into the supply chain. Keep in mind, the entire supply chain is dependent on energy costs and the fuel prices that impact transportation.
The retail consumer supply chain for manufactured and processed food products includes bulk storage to compensate for seasonality. There are over 800 commercial and public warehouses in the continental 48 states that store frozen products (2020 data). The previously processed food price increases are currently reflected on store shelves (already hurting). However, the coming processed processed food price increases will be much, much higher. We will see even higher prices on processed foods in the supermarket.
The same price increases happen for restaurants, albeit faster as they follow the similar supply chain to fresh foods.
Pro Tip – Buy your Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday shelf-stable items now (spices, condiments, flour, sugars, dried foods etc.) before the prices go up in the next few months.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 17, 2021 | Sundance | 228 Comments
The U.S. Census Department releases retail sales data today showing a strong contraction in consumer spending for July [MSM LINK]. The out-of-touch financial pundits were looking for a 0.3% decline; however, the drop was four times greater with a contraction of 1.1% in spending.
“The slide in retail sales comes after Friday’s preliminary consumer sentiment report from the University of Michigan showed one of the largest drops on record, leading some strategists and economists to warn of downside risk to the sales data.” (link)
This should not be unexpected for those who read here. Massive price inflation on essential goods is eating up wages. Food, fuel and energy price increases are changing consumer spending habits. Non-essential purchases have stopped….. they haven’t slowed, they have stopped. ←Emphasize this because it is not showing up yet in the data lag.
The data reflects that auto sales were the primary contributor to the decline in spending (-4.3%). This should make sense to people because auto purchases are the largest general consumer purchase outside of home purchasing.
When purchase decisions are made by families; and food and fuel prices are skyrocketing; replacing a vehicle is not essential. Auto sales are a key indicator of consumer confidence and income.
Overall inflation is the primary driver. Real wages are declining (wages – inflation), and disposable income is dropping quickly. Americans need to start talking very deliberately about what is about to happen. CTH predicted this and has been walking through the visible outcomes as each set of new data surfaces {SEARCH BOX}. Nothing happening right now is unforeseen or not easily understandable.
There is a cascading effect that happens within the economy. Income shrinks, then spending shrinks, then employment shrinks and work hours reduce. It is an unavoidable outcome inside the middle-class economy.
Two-thirds of our national economy (GDP) is dependent on middle-class consumer spending. Any impact to that spending cornerstone triggers downstream consequences. Large ticket items (like cars) are the first to drop. [Car sales have declined 10.4% from their peak in April.] Luxury goods in general come next.
Wage-earners, families around the table, husbands and wives, start making decisions on finances based on income outlays. The roof over your head is the priority; then comes food, and the prices are rising; then gasoline, and again rising prices; finally facilitating expenses for work and school.
I said in June, at a macro level home prices had reached their peak (last two weeks of May, first two weeks of June was apex). Obviously, there are some geographic home value increases still happening as COVID related regional issues and work opportunities are shifting populations. There is also a lag and ripple effect that takes time to work through the economy. The macro-apex will not be visible until next year.
People go where the work is, and the work is in the freedom zones (red states/regions). Population shifts keep some area home prices increasing. However, on a national macro-level the apex has been reached. People cannot afford higher mortgage payments and simultaneously deal with massive inflation on essential purchases.
Economic pressure works to the benefit of the command and control authority who wish to force vaccinations upon people. The fear of losing a job becomes more of an issue for people when income security is threatened and they see food prices rising so quickly. It is unnerving, unsettling and for paycheck-to-paycheck families extremely stressful. This creates leverage for corporations to require vaccinations for employment. I wish I had the answers; alas, I do not.
Bottom line is… Depending on your personal situation, prepare yourself now for prices to continue rising on both consumable and durable goods. In the longer term, specifically due to a lack of purchasing, durable good prices will level and eventually drop. Less people buying stuff makes prices drop as competition triggers and businesses selling durable goods look to survive. Unfortunately at that point we are usually headed to a recession.
The downside for a drop in durable good purchasing is the workforce behind the manufacturing, distribution and sale of those goods are at risk of losing employment. Again, a natural outcome. For the auto-industry, and heavy industrial manufacturing, this is the time of year when retooling is taking place and some manufacturing and production lines are closed. However, when they return to production those companies might be shocked to find fewer purchase orders for the goods they produce.
Employment is currently stable (especially in the freedom zones); but we should watch for continued signs of consumer spending contraction. Any employment contraction will be made worse by the millions of illegal aliens now purposefully permitted to enter our nation.
Keep in mind, the Federal Government is pumping money into their command and control economy. This short-sighted (I would say purposeful and ideological) monetary and economic policy is contributing to massive inflation.
Inflation puts pressure on incomes and savings…. which puts demands on government to support income losses…. which leads to govt pumping more money. This is the dependency and welfare cycle that seems intentionally being deployed by Biden and the socialists behind him.
FORBES – “Consumers spent less last month than economists had expected, buying fewer things online and holding off on car purchases, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday morning, following Friday’s report of “a stunning loss of confidence”
[…]Consumers spent 1.1% less in July than June, more than the 0.3% decline economists cited by MarketWatch had been expecting, after increasing 0.7% the previous month. The decline was driven by the lack of motor vehicle sales, which fell 4.3%. Nonstore retailers, which includes online shopping, fell 3.1%” (link)
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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