This is the year of political hell. The question is not about supporting one side or the other. This is a time that calls for us not to be small petty creatures but a case that requires rational human beings, which seems to be more impossible with each passing day. Never did there arise a period that has witnessed any generation devolve into such agitations in political views surrounded by every considerable danger to our way of life and the survival of our government structure. The imprisoned winds of the Romans symbolized by keeping the doors to their Temple of Janus closed during peace and opened during war have indeed been let loose, but this is predominantly for civil war.
CONFIDENCE rules everything. It is critical upon what society believes. With all the turmoil in politics, even with the Congress in the hands of the Republicans, they still lack the votes for major reform. Then there is the rise of the left hell bent upon bringing down Trump at all costs to preserve the elite and status quo. The majority are generally fools. They actually believe the words of politicians to their doom.
Nevertheless, it is the unsettling disturbance within politics that reflects the crumbling level of CONFIDENCE. With that, all bets are off. Capital becomes confused. Looking at the Euro, the turmoil politically in Europe one would look to sell the Euro and buy dollars. Then we turn and look at the United States and all we see is incredible infighting and a battle waged by the left to prevent any populist reforms whatsoever. We hear politicians and the press demeaning the rise of “populism” as if the people are just fools who are clueless and do not really know what they are demanding. Thus, the political elites take solace, as does the mainstream media, that this too shall pass and they will be back in control. Meanwhile, the Euro flounders and rises to push out the shorts to confound traders as it must do before it can collapse.
Everything hinges upon this uprising in politics. The bitterness that is rising between left and right is the direct cause of the imprisoned wind of political change being unleashed. The economic question to emerge from all this mess is rather simple. If we do not trust banks, government debt, and commodities remain under pressure from the rise in the dollar and increased production as in oil and gold production reaching record highs in Australia during 2016, and real estate declines in real terms for the majority of the United States while it pushes higher in places such as Finland or some cities as foreign capital still tries to get off the grid.
Then when we look at entertainment, which typically soars in good times, we see that viewership is declining in sports to Hollywood. This too is a confusing trend to most but it reflects the underlying instability in public confidence. With both sports and Hollywood in decline, the omens do not appear to be bright and sunny.
Taxes have risen consistently in Europe, but to a greater extent compared to the United States. Yet still, in the USA, the burden of Obamacare, which was really a ploy to help big corporate hospitals by pushing the cost to the people, namely the youth, who the government also handed to the bankers removing all bankruptcy protect for student loans that deprive them of getting ahead to begin with in this economic race to the top.
Then we have a meltdown in pensions all because of central banks adopting the elitist view that lowering interest rates will stimulate demand. The arrogance of Larry Summers in proposing that negative interest rates will force people to spend when lower interest rates failed to “stimulate” the economy is only matched by his public admitting that he himself is incapable of forecasting the economy.
The inability of the elite to forecast the economy reduces this entire thing to a game that we say as children – doctor. We just keep taking out body-parts until the patient either dies or we find the cure – normally the former and never the latter.
Summers and crew have simply set the stage for the Pension Crisis. They have undermined this entire economic system and there is no way to put this back together to prevent the next complete economic meltdown. They will respond as always and first try to seize all private pensions to merge with failed government pensions at the state and local levels as if this is going to be some permanent fix.
It is really stunning just how naive those who want to rule the world truly are. I argue against conspiracy theories because it elevates these people to a level of intelligence they do not possess. To stimulate the economy, the Fed bought-in 30 year bonds in theory that would lower mortgage rates. But the banks would not lend money. There are now more people working the bank offices and risk departments have done far more damage to the economy preventing business than expanding it. Everything is a risk. So the banks themselves never “stimulated” the economy and begged the Fed to create a facility called excess reserves that reached almost $2.8 trillion. So the money everyone claimed would be inflationary yet gold collapsed, can be easily seen that it never made its way into the economy for the Fed defeated its own QE measures. Then Draghi taking interest to negative territory only resulted in European banks using US branches to ship their funds to dollars and post it at the Fed to collect free money without risk.
Then we have the Obama-Boehner debt ceiling deal that now comes to a head in March. As always, they never solve a problem, they just postpone it. Obama postponed the Cadillac tax in Obamacare until 2017 and the debt ceiling as well so he would not go down in history for this financial crisis. Those in Washington do not even take this serious. You have the Democrats who will not vote to increase the debt ceiling with any cuts to their social programs. Then you have one segment of Republicans who will not vote to raise the ceiling at all, another group who will vote to raise it only if there is a fig leaf pretending to cut something, and the bulk of Republicans who also love to spend money and are indistinguishable from Democrats. There is simply no way to deal with this issue until the system goes bust. The debt that expires can be replaced without increasing the debt ceiling, but the interest still has to be paid. The Treasury can refuse to pay some things that were funded and shift that money to interest to prevent a bond default. But while this will help a short-term bounce in the Euro, it is by no means a long-term solution.
Then the question turns to where do we put our money? The majority of people believe the stock market is overvalued. The popular myths are that the PE Ratio at 25:1 says crash and that if interest rates rise, sell stocks. This has kept the majority of people out of the market. Retail participation remains at record lows. So exactly how is a crash supposed to take place when the bulk of the people are not in the market? For whatever reason, the talking heads on TV appear on all the shows because they are drumming up business rather than doing the research to actually provide real forecasts. A simple look at the historical PE Ration reveals that the historical high took place in 2009 – at the bottom of the crisis not the peak in a bull market. When things get bad and you do not trust bonds, government, or banks, where do you go? Real estate is nice for some part of a cash holding, but it is taxed to hold it and it is not liquid. Stocks are the ONLY game in town – but the blue-chips and not speculative issues.
Then the myth of interest rates up and stock down is another classic nonsense theory touted by the talking head of TV. Not a single one of them has ever bothered to check the facts behind this one either. Andrew Melon said Gentlemen buy bonds (not blonds) for traditionally bonds was the place capital would flee to when the stock market declined. However, look closer. The Fed raised interest rates doubling them between 1927 and 1929 and the stock market doubled.
The analysis that is put out there on TV by the talking heads is just pathetic. Nothing that these people say seems to have any rational foundation. In politics, everything once to discredit someone else claiming to check facts. Well, that is not the way it is in analysis.
Underlying all these trends in politics and the rising tide of civil unrest, the combination for all of this becomes more and more unstable. Consequently, so will the economy and capital respond less for profit and begin to shift seeking safety. The undoing of the EU and the assault to stop any reforms in the Trump agenda, are critical to say the least. They will undermine the confidence in market & alter the trend.
The EU summit on Thursday ended illustrating the deep divisions and how the EU is collapsing. Poland has rejected the re-election of President Donald Tusk, who is Polish, for his autocratic leadership that refuses to look at the economic decline. Poland tried to block his election and this has led to a deep disagreement between Poland and the rest of the EU member states. Poland denounced the EU as an instrument of German power interests and vetoed all resolutions of the summit. Poland responded to its efforts to prevent the confirmation of Tusk at the head of the council.
Tusk, in response, warned Poland: “Be careful what bridges you break behind you,” he said. Because after “you can never cross them”.
The Polish government has made it clear that Germany refuses to listen to the views of other members and imposes its economic views of austerity upon the whole of Europe because of Merkel’s misapprehension of the German Hyperinflation. Poland delivered very serious accusations to EU summit partners. “We now know what that is, an EU under the dictate from Berlin,” said Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski. They have made it clear that the fact that a large country such as Poland is ignored is a “very poisonous union”.
The choice of Tusk was not affected by the blockade of his home country, Poland. This is the first time that an EU Council President was elected against the will of his home government. Clearly, the EU is moving towards disintegration. If Poland exits the EU, then Tusk could not be President. The entire crisis is in fact that Merkel has far too much power. The entire refugee crisis is solely due to Merkel and was created for her personal standing in the press. There was no unified vote of all members. From this perspective, it has been a dictate from Berlin, but for Merkel’s personal career, not that of Germany.
The entire crisis with BREXIT has been up to Chancellor Merkel to make a reasonable compromise. But Merkel tried to put pressure on London and offered a technocrat deal for the benefit of the EU. This backfired and resulted in the British voting for BREXIT. Even now, the EU hands Britain a bill for dues of 50 billion euros. Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May rejected EU demands for high payments after her EU exit from the EU. PM May stated bluntly: the popular vote on the BREXIT made it clear “that we will not pay huge sums of money to the European Union every year,” adding “And that will of course be the case when we leave the European Union.”
The EU is simply not going to end nicely. The EU should have remained as a simple trade deal like NAFTA. There was no plan for Washington to dictate laws in Mexico or Canada. The EU simply went way too far.
On March 15th, 2017, the Ides of March, we will see the Dutch elections which are the next big test of nationalist populism as it is being called by politicians. Yes, “populism” is being smeared by the press and the politicians because this is actually democracy where the vote of the people is supposed to rule. When it goes against the elite, we find the press degrading this “populism” as some sort of lapse in sanity because it goes against the establishment. The Washington Post calls Geert Wilders the Trump of the Netherlands and we all know how the Washington Post hates Trump. Wilders has adopted an explicit anti-Muslim platform that calls for making “the Netherlands ours again,” banning mosques and closing the Dutch borders. Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) is leading in the polls, but the left still bashes him hoping for a last minute vote to maintain the establishment.
The anti-Muslim position that is rising within Europe is being caused by the influx of people who are not interested in becoming Westernized. I have many Muslim friends in Europe and we have staff that are Muslim who were born in Europe. They have assimilated into the culture and that is the critical distinction. The United States is known as the great melting pot. All the Europeans adopted English and merged into the American culture. So if you ask an American what are they, the response is typically half Irish and half German or whatever. Rarely do you see such combinations within Europe itself because the first barrier is language and then culture.
This is why many of the Spanish have retained isolated pockets within the United States failing to blend in. They do not assimilate retaining their culture and language. The next generation often does, but the first generation coming in does not. Make a phone call to some service and they instantly say press (1) for English or (2) for Spanish. The failure to assimilate eventually defeats the melting pot and fosters ultimately division.
Hence, the refugees have poured into Europe, get welfare, and single males have abused European women raping them on the streets or in swimming pools. Yet the Response in France after terror attacks has been to force Muslim women to undress on beaches when it certainly is not the women that have caused a problem. The French ban on burkinis misses the point. The problem has been Muslim boys coming in as refugees and then you have a real clash of French topless girls alongside. In Israel, they have women-only days on the beach to solve the problem.
So whose rights are to be protected? The Europeans or the Refugees? This is the whole crisis in Europe. Does European culture have to change to assimilate with the refugees? This is what is all coming to a head in politics and the left newspapers like the Washington Post are so fixated upon overturning Trump and anyone who agrees with him in this “populist” movement, they fail to see that the acceptance of the refugees is forcing Europe to adopt its culture to theirs – not the other way around.
Following the unexpected death of 65-year-old Russian ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, conspiracy theorists were stirred up as the ongoing Russophobic Deep State war combined with the deaths of nine Russian diplomats in the last year raised many coincident-questioning eyebrows. Now, as The Hill reports, pouring further fuel on that fire, the State Department asked the New York Medical Examiner not to publicly release information about Churkin’s cause of death.
“In order to comply with international law and protocol, the New York City Law Department has instructed the Office of Chief Medical Examiner to not publicly disclose the cause and manner of death of Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations,” Office of Chief Medical Examiner spokesman Julie Bolcer said, according to New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum.
“As outlined in formal requests from the United States Department of State, Ambassador Churkin’s diplomatic immunity survives his death. Further questions concerning this matter should be directed to the United States Department of State.”
1. You probably remember Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov — he was assassinated by a police officer at a photo exhibit in Ankara on December 19.
2. On the same day, another diplomat, Peter Polshikov, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment. The gun was found under the bathroom sink but the circumstances of the death were under investigation. Polshikov served as a senior figure in the Latin American department of the Foreign Ministry.
3. Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died in New York this past week. Churkin was rushed to the hospital from his office at Russia’s UN mission. Initial reports said he suffered a heart attack, and the medical examiner is investigating the death, according to CBS.
4. Russia’s Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, died after a “brief illness January 27, which The Hindu said he had been suffering from for a few weeks.
5. Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei Malanin, was found dead in his apartment January 9. A Greek police official said there was “no evidence of a break-in.” But Malanin lived on a heavily guarded street. The cause of death needed further investigation, per an AFP report. Malanin served during a time of easing relations between Greece and Russia when Greece was increasingly critiqued by the EU and NATO.
6. Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected of helping draft the Trump dossier, was found dead in the back of his car December 26, according to The Telegraph. Erovinkin also was an aide to former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who now heads up state-owned Rosneft.
If we go back further than 60 days…
7. On the morning of U.S. Election Day, Russian diplomat Sergei Krivov was found unconscious at the Russian Consulate in New York and died on the scene. Initial reports said Krivov fell from the roof and had blunt force injuries, but Russian officials said he died from a heart attack. BuzzFeed reports Krivov may have been a Consular Duty Commander, which would have put him in charge of preventing sabotage or espionage.
8. In November 2015, a senior adviser to Putin, Mikhail Lesin, who was also the founder of the media company RT, was found dead in a Washington hotel room according to the NYT. The Russian media said it was a “heart attack,” but the medical examiner said it was “blunt force injuries.”
9. If you go back a few months prior in September 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s driver was killed too in a freak car accident while driving the Russian President’s official black BMW to add to the insanity.
If you include these three additional deaths that’s a total of nine Russian officials that have died over the past 2 years that WeAreChange.com’s Aaron Kesel knows of – he notes there could be more.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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
Everything 
hinges upon this uprising in politics. The bitterness that is rising between left and right is the direct cause of the imprisoned wind of political change being unleashed. The economic question to emerge from all this mess is rather simple. If we do not trust banks, government debt, and commodities remain under pressure from the rise in the dollar and increased production as in oil and gold production reaching record highs in Australia during 2016, and real estate declines in real terms for the majority of the United States while it pushes higher in places such as Finland or some cities as foreign capital still tries to get off the grid.
Taxes have risen consistently in Europe, but to a greater extent compared to the United States. Yet still, in the USA, the burden of Obamacare, which was really a ploy to help big corporate hospitals by pushing the cost to the people, namely the youth, who the government also handed to the bankers removing all bankruptcy protect for student loans that deprive them of getting ahead to begin with in this economic race to the top.
Then the myth of interest rates up and stock down is another classic nonsense theory touted by the talking head of TV. Not a single one of them has ever bothered to check the facts behind this one either. Andrew Melon said Gentlemen buy bonds (not blonds) for traditionally bonds was the place capital would flee to when the stock market declined. However, look closer. The Fed raised interest rates doubling them between 1927 and 1929 and the stock market doubled.
The analysis that is put out there on TV by the talking heads is just pathetic. Nothing that these people say seems to have any rational foundation. In politics, everything once to discredit someone else claiming to check facts. Well, that is not the way it is in analysis.
Centinel2012 