Tag Archives: Money laundering

Dec 11 2019

Guyana & the Future


Armstrong Economics Blog/Latin America

Re-Posted Dec 11, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Hi Martin, thanks for including little Guyana in your blog today. I was born in Canada, but my parents emigrated from Guyana decades ago. I haven’t been back yet. Nevertheless, I am eager to see great things become of the country, have been tracking the oil industry developments there, and am invested in it as well. I want to see this country elevate out of poverty as a result of all of this but I am concerned about lack of strong and moral leadership and corruption. If you don’t mind me asking, what makes you so confident that democracy will rule out? Growth is growth, but all we have to do is look across the pond to Africa to see the mix of growth and corruption!
Thanks as always sir – your teachings and insights have reshaped me many times over.
Regards, D

ANSWER: I am not certain that Guyana will be the perfect democracy. South America has historically had a problem with corruption in government. The US sanctions against Venezuela are really stupid. The economy was turning down dramatically and the government has done everything possible against the people. The US sanctions merely give people an excuse to point to the US as the cause of the economic decline despite the fact that the sanctions were put on in response to the events and not before them. I am opposed to sanctions anyhow because they never seem to work. They boosted the support for Putin instead of causing the people to blame Putin. This is really brain dead.

Nevertheless, simply because you can invest in Guyana is a major difference in comparison to Venezuela. There will be corruption. That seems to be systemic in South/Latin America, but it is also a rising problem globally. Hopefully, they will still keep the free market as long as they get their fair share under the table unlike Venezuela. We have added the currency to Socrates.

Dec 11 2019

Manipulating the World Economy – COMING SOON


Armstrong Economics Blog/Reports and DVDs

Re-Posted Dec 10, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

“Manipulating the World Economy” has been printed and shipped to Amazon. We are hoping to have the links up for Christmas. I have tried to make this an interesting textbook on the world economy and how it functions. Every page of this hardcover book is printed in full color. I have illustrated everything I could get my hands on, including old newspaper articles from contemporary events, so you can read what I read. This illustrates the problems we have with governments and how they have lost control of events going forward.

  

I have tried to cover all the important subjects such as economic theories, Philips’ curve, supply & demand, random walks, defining what is really money, banks and their role in the creation of money, capital flows that overpower domestic policy objectives, taxation, a history of contagions, Modern Monetary Theory, and class warfare – among many more subjects.

These hardbound, full color books will make great Christmas gifts. They will be priced under $100.

(Click on any image above to enlarge)

We will let everyone know the moment they go on sale in Amazon.

Dec 11 2019

USMCA Gains Bipartisan Support in House – Senate Leader Mitch Jinping Says Not-so-Fast, Impeachment First…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on December 10, 2019 by 

It’s funny to watch this transparently predictable stuff play out in real time.

After Pelosi gives the nod for USMCA ratification in the House, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell declares he will not allow Senate support until he extracts his impeachment indulgency fees.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday the U.S. Senate would not take up the USMCA trade deal next week before congressional recess.

The Republican leader said that trade deal likely will come up in the Senate after the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. McConnell said the Senate does hope to tackle the defense and spending bills next week. (link)

Too funny…. and way too predictable.

Now, if you are wondering what the heck is going on, it might be worthwhile to remember the question CTH presented about this dynamic last week:

“So what will the White House need to give McConnell… or what will McConnell’s ask be, in order to protect the office of the president?  Here’s where you have to remember Tom Donohue and the Wall St priorities.

McConnell (subtext Donohue) would prefer the confrontation with China be eliminated and the tariffs dropped.  Is that too big an “ask”?  Would the White House sell/trade McConnell a China deal for better impeachment terms?

All of these are questions worth pondering now, because there’s no doubt they are being discussed amid those in DC sitting on the comfy Corinthian wing-backs and gleefully rubbing their hands around a well polished mahogany table” (read more)

Majority Leader McConnell is not about to lose the opportunity to gain his traditional indulgence fees for his legislative work.  Passing the USMCA before the Senate trail of President Trump would be giving up leverage.  It would be akin to working for free.

Both China and Wall Street have been pouring money into K-Street lobbyists.  There’s a boatload of extraction available before any Senator should be forced to take a final position. Slow down there cowboy, the check-writers are lined up at the doors.

First, delaying USMCA benefits China.  Beijing has invested heavily in Mitch McConnell and that level of alignment needs to be carefully navigated.

Second, passage of the USMCA hurts the Wall Street multinationals.  Those multinational corporations have paid the legislative brokers, K-Street lobbyists, to defend their interests. The multinationals who were ignoring President Trump’s multiple warnings, likely need more time to reposition their assets.

Third, the Wall Street hedgefunds have also paid K-Street.  If USMCA assists the decoupling from China (it does), those hedgefunds need time to extract their financial position from the Stock Market.   **nudge/nudge, wink/wink** We’re talking “folding money” here. Trillions at stake.  If you’re in the market… position yourself accordingly.

All of these trade opportunities are tied together.  The impeachment effort is the Alamo for a global financial network.   Imagine how much money McConnell can make from each of these issues?  (1) Impeachment is worth billions. (2) USMCA is worth billions.  (3)U.S-China is worth billions.  McConnell cannot move quickly without giving up some major financial opportunities. Slowing it all down makes it easier to indulge.

Each of the three issues above is worth some major cash; each must be taken individually.

….You give me the impeachment rules, and you can take the budget and trade checks, deal?….

James Wallner@jiwallner

“If McConnell and Schumer can’t secure a deal, that leaves two backup options: passing GOP-only rules, which some Republicans say they are willing to do, or a free-for-all on the Senate floor where whatever can get 51 votes is adopted.” https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/473462-senate-braces-for-brawl-on-trump-impeachment-rules …

Senate braces for brawl on Trump impeachment rules

Senators are bracing for a partisan brawl over the rules of President Trump’s looming impeachment trial.

thehill.com

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It was my pleasure to meet today with @NathanLawKC, a Hong Kong activist and member of a new generation of aspirational leaders continuing Hong Kong’s fight for freedom and autonomy. The United States is proud to stand with them.

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Dec 11 2019

Full Interview – AG Bill Barr Discusses IG Report and FBI Institutional Issues With Political Corruption…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on December 10, 2019 by 

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr has sent the totality of the U.S. media into spasmodic fits of apoplexy today as he discusses the findings of the DOJ inspector general review of a highly corrupted FISA process.

The Attorney General talks about how the FBI weaponized their official duty in an effort to carry out what seems to be a political agenda.  Mr. Barr goes into detail with his thoughts on the current criminal review assigned to U.S. Attorney John Durham; and the unfortunate issues with a group at the top of the organization who politicized the FBI as an investigative agency and used an alliance of media assets to achieve political goals.

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Many people are writing and asking for my personal opinion of AG Bill Barr. I shall provide that below.

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Thoughts: Leading up to the trial of George Zimmerman he had two attorneys: Mark O’Mara and Don West. Don West was the deliberate and angered attorney who was rightly furious over how a completely false case was assembled against his client. The entire CTH community agreed on the value of Don West.

(Left to Right) Mark O’Mara, Don West, Mark Geragos.

However, Don West wasn’t the lead attorney… there was another, Mark O’Mara.

Mr. O’Mara gave the intentional impression of being above it all, elevated above the politics, and affable to the groups who wanted to hang Zimmerman in the town square and also understandable toward the defenders of Zimmerman who recognized the rail-roading.

O’Mara became a Rosetta stone. Some Zimmerman supporters saw O’Mara as self-serving, duplicitous, cunning (not in a good way) and essentially deceiving his client by not trying to be assertive in defense. Others saw O’Mara as smart, prudent and staying above the fray to be more influential toward the benefit of his client amid circles of media opposition.

The strong differences of opinion over O’Mara were fought on the pages of CTH for over a year. Pro-O’Mara and Anti-O’Mara we both good groups of people; excellent and passionate people; but each saw Mark O’Mara in a different way.

Personally I did not see Mark O’Mara in a good light. I predicted his positioning was to gain a lucrative media gig at the conclusion of a fraudulent trial. [He took a CNN contract within three weeks of trial ending]  But more important than that recognition of selfish sensibility was the evidence.

The evidence was overwhelming (at least to CTH in 2012) that Witness #8, Rachel Jeantel, was an imposter.

The anonymous Witness #8 was the only reason the State of Florida could get an arrest. Witness #8 was also manufactured by the corrupt Scheme Team of Trayvon’s family.

Completely made up.

Incredibly the corrupt State of FL prosecution team consisting of SAO Angela Corey and Bernie De La Rionda went along with a criminally corrupt prosecution using evidence they knew was manufactured.

If we knew the manufacturing of evidence to be true… demonstrably and provably true.. well, Don West and Mark O’Mara certainly knew it to be true.

Yet Mark O’Mara did nothing about it… EVER. O’Mara knew the state had manufactured evidence. O’Mara Explicitly knew his client was being railroaded by a criminal enterprise carried out by the State of Florida and Trayvon Martin Family. And Mark O’Mara never brought it up before, during, or even after the trial… Not once.

Attorney Mark O’Mara won the case because the case itself was a fraud. However, the “case” never should have gone to trial. In my passionately frustrated opinion O’Mara should have called out the fraud and defended his client by avoiding the ridiculous trial.

[NOTE: Seven years later, with Witness #8 admitting to the fraud, George Zimmerman is rightly suing all of those who participated.]

Why do I bring up this example?

Because in my opinion, having watched nine months of his professional effort, right now the metaphor is: Bill Barr is Mark O’Mara, the U.S. Constitution is George Zimmerman, and we’re about to go to trial again.

Peace.

Dec 10 2019

The Mother of all Financial Crises


Armstrong Economics Blog/Reports and DVDs

Re-Posted Dec 9, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Sir,

While taking a break from reading the Repo Report, I came across these words written by Albert Einstein before he passed away

“Not one statesman in a position of responsibility has dared to pursue the only course that holds out any promise of peace…” he wrote. “For a statesman to follow such a course would be tantamount to political suicide. Political passions, once they have been fanned into flame, exact their victims.”

I fear we are going to crash and burn as you have said

Keep up the good work

DK

REPLY: That is a very good quote. It is so true. All the disinformation circulating around about this Repo Crisis one must question can they really be that stupid? This is really the Mother of all Financial Crises which will impact everything it touches. This will make the 2007-2009 financial crisis look like a trial run.There is no politician who will stand up and talk about this crisis nor will they dare to even ask pertinent questions for fear what will be revealed.

This is why this report does not end with this report alone. We will update it next year as everything unfolds. So it is more like a subscription to this catastrophe.

Categories: Reports and DVDs
Dec 6 2019

Drug Trade, Violence, & Capital Flows


Armstrong Economics Blog/Opinion

Re-Posted Dec 6, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION:

Good afternoon Mr. Armstrong,

First of all, thank you for all the information you give us on your blog so that we who are and live in third world countries like me can understand the behavior of the global economy and especially in the rich countries. The way I approach the issue of the sovereign debt crisis has been very helpful, but I think that just as the press does not talk about the issue, you do not address the issue of how the illegal economy, especially that of drug trafficking, It affects the global economy.

Can you tell us what Socrates says about this last topic?

A big and warm greeting

CMGB

ANSWER: The drug trade is cash. It has had a major impact upon keeping the political governments south of the United States in chaos. In all honestly, if drugs were legalized, it would save so many lives and help reduce crime. In America, many are attracted to selling drugs because of the money they can make without education. South of the border, people are killed and subjected to slavery, tyranny, and political corruption all because of the drug trade. The number of people who die from the violence far exceeds the number of people die of an overdose.

Socrates picks up the cash flows. Much of the money is laundered into real estate around the world, but particularly into Miami.

 

Dec 6 2019

The Senate and Impeachment Dynamic…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree house on December 5, 2019 by 

As the House impeachment of President Donald Trump becomes more of a forgone political conclusion it’s worth considering what terms and conditions Senate Leader Mitch McConnell will extract in order to preserve a Trump Presidency.

Most political pundits will not correctly outline the status of the possibilities, because most political pundits are willfully blind to the structure of the McConnell Senate.

First, McConnell doesn’t care about holding a majority position in the Senate.  Whether he is a majority leader or a minority leader doesn’t matter to McConnell. In fact McConnell’s political skill-set does better in the minority than the majority.

The preferred political position for Mitch McConnell is where he has between 45 and 49 republican Senators, and the Democrats hold the Majority with around 55.  Of course with Reid’s retirement, this would now be with Majority leader Chuck Schumer holding office.

Why does McConnell prefer the minority position?

The answer is where you have had to actually follow Mitch McConnell closely to see how he works.   When the Majority has around 52 to 55 seats, they need McConnell to give them 8 to 9 votes to overcome the three-fifths (60 vote) threshold for their legislative needs.  It is in the process of trade and payment for those 8 to 9 votes where McConnell makes more money, and holds more power, than as a sitting Majority Leader.

The 60 vote threshold, and McConnell’s incredible skillset in the minority, is where he shines.  Each of the needed votes to achieve sixty is worth buckets of indulgence to the minority leader.  This is why McConnell never changed the Senate rules for legislative passage.

Except for budget passage (reconciliation); and McConnell being forced by intransigence in the era of Trump resistance to change the judicial vote threshold to 51; McConnell would never consider changing the legislative threshold to a simple majority because it would be removing his favored position.  A simple majority vote is adverse to his interests; that’s why he retained it during his reign as majority leader; as did Harry Reid before him.

The vote selling to the 60 vote threshold in the Senate is where the UniParty operates; and where the status of maximum financial benefit for the minority exists.

Currently, as majority leader, McConnell needs to purchase eight or nine votes for each legislative priority.

Mitch McConnell doesn’t like being the purchaser, he prefers being the vote seller where his skill-set as a broker really shines.  McConnell is much better at extracting terms for his vote sales, than being the purchaser for the votes of an intransigent minority wing. This is why the current Senate doesn’t pass many bills.

If Democrats were in the majority, and McConnell was the minority leader, we would see much more legislation pass because Schumer is a more well financed buyer (K-Street) and McConnell is a much better seller.  Whenever we have this minority dynamic it always leaves people confused because few really watch what McConnell is doing.

McConnell takes his favorite twenty controlled GOP senators and brokers their votes on an ‘as needed’ basis.  The eight to ten senators he selects each time get compensated in the process.  McConnell rotates the financial beneficiaries on a bill-by-bill basis.  As a consequence each of the 20 or so McConnell senators gets quite wealthy over time, and McConnell gains additional power and influence.

If any of the republican Senators attempt to disrupt this UniParty business model McConnell excommunicates them from the legislative process; the best reference for the ‘incommunicado’ approach is former U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Additional references for how McConnell operates this scheme as the Minority Leader can be found in the Corker-Cardin amendment which allowed the Iran nuclear deal/payments under Obama; and/or the “fast track” Trade Promotion Authority deal for TPP passage, again for President Obama’s maximum benefit.   In these examples McConnell worked with Harry Reid to flip the vote threshold from votes to approve, to votes needed to deny.

Within TPP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was again working on the priorities of U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue.   McConnell and Donohue have been working together on UniParty trade and domestic legislative issues for around twenty years. It is well established that Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has one major career alliance that has been unbroken and unchanged for well over two decades. That alliance is with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and specifically with CoC President Tom Donohue.

CoC President Tom Donohue represents Wall Street interests and supports: all multinational trade deals, open-border immigration policies, amnesty legislative constructs, and all of the issues that have generally irked common-sense GOP voters for the same period of time. [SEE HERE and SEE HERE].

Tom Donohue is the biggest lobbyist spender in DC every year, by a mile.

To remind ourselves how Minority and Majority Senator McConnell took down the threat of the Tea Party revisit these old articles:  CNN Part I and CNN Part II  both showcase how McConnell works.   Then do some research on how McConnell worked with Haley Barbour in Mississippi [SEE HERE].

So the reason for outlining this Senate dynamic is simply to remind everyone that with a Senate impeachment trial coming up, it’s not the 2020 campaign to hold a majority in the senate that matters to Mitch McConnell.  If McConnell can rid himself of Tom Donohue’s nemesis, President Trump, and simultaneously return to his preferred and more lucrative position as minority leader, he would be quite happy.

The first opportunity for leverage over the White House will come in the shape of the Senate “rules of impeachment”.  The senate will have wide latitude in how they set-up the processes and procedures for the trial – and McConnell never misses an opportunity to leverage a “get” from his senate position.

So what will the White House need to give McConnell… or what will McConnell’s ask be, in order to protect the office of the president?  Here’s where you have to remember Tom Donohue and the Wall St priorities.

McConnell (subtext Donohue) would prefer the confrontation with China be eliminated and the tariffs dropped.  Is that too big an “ask”?  Would the White House sell/trade McConnell a China deal for better impeachment terms?

All of these are questions worth pondering now, because there’s no doubt they are being discussed amid those in DC sitting on the comfy Corinthian wing-backs and gleefully rubbing their hands around a well polished mahogany table….

….There are trillions at stake !