Tag Archives: negative interest

Dec 4 2022

Elon Musk Delivering Red Pills to Masses – Notes U.S. Use of Social Media, Including Twitter, to Manipulate Brazil Election


Posted originally on the CTH on December 3, 2022 | Sundance

We are still just watching, evaluating, seeing how this plays out, without making any determination about motive or intent. However, that said, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk is beginning to go to the quiet places that no mainstream media has ever gone before.

Stunningly, with the recent discoveries of Twitter manipulating the free flow of information in the U.S as an example, Elon Musk now engages the discussion of how far social media platforms have gone to support the U.S State Department. Mr. Musk notes the ideologues within Twitter were engaged in tilting the outcome of the election in Brazil:

(Source)

If this direction of inquiry is maintained, it is very likely people will find themselves at the origin of the U.S. Government working with social media platforms to manipulate political outcomes.  The origin of that relationship is the ‘Arab Spring’, specifically the uprising in Egypt and neighboring Libya in 2011.

While average Americans were caught up with ObamaCare news in 2010, President Obama was building out a massive influence campaign in Egypt to install a Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi.   Almost no-one was paying attention to the State Dept enlisting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey into using social media to manipulate a population.

Zuckerberg and Dorsey were enlisted in the endeavor by like-minded travelers in Obama’s tight circle. At the time the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was John Kerry, and the Secretary of State was Hillary Clinton.  The U.S. State Department was in direct alignment with the White House policy objectives.

It wasn’t until the lambs were directed into the social media trap and took over Tahir Square, that most Western media began reporting in depth what was going on.  However, by the time people realized Obama and Clinton had used social media to open the Big Cat cages in the zoo, it was too late.

By the time the young Egyptians realized they’d been snookered by Islamic extremists, Hosni Mubarek was gone, the jails were open, a no-longer-captive Mohammed al-Zawahiri (brother to al-Qaeda’s #2 banana Ayman al-Zawahiri) was stirring up trouble; and the radical Islamists protected by the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood were gang raping CBS correspondent producer Lara Logan just off camera.

After a few months of rising extremism, the crucifixion of Coptic Christians began.  The snookered peacenik revolutionaries looked up from their cell phones and realized they’d listened to a manipulated narrative on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood, they had elected Mohammed Morsi, a violent extremist in alignment with al-Qaeda (AQIM).

Weeks later President Morsi disbanded the entire Egyptian judiciary and court system.  Morsi was only days away from instituting Sharia Law as the national governing legal authority in Egypt when a stunned people cried out for the only possible person who could save them, Commanding General of the military Abdel al-Sisi.

That is how President al-Sisi came to power.  Essentially, a populist reaction to the radical Islamists that were installed by President Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Facebook and Twitter were two of the tools Obama and Clinton used to manipulate the Egyptian electorate.

In the fall of 2013, the secular majority of Egyptian people begged the military to rid of the Islamist regime which was killing its own citizens.   They begged for freedom knowing they were duped into exchanging one form of poor freedom governance in Mubarak, for an even worse loss of freedom in Morsi.

The military listened.   They removed Morsi, dispatched the Muslim Brotherood, eliminated radical hardline Islamic extremism, and put al-Qaeda affiliated Muhammed al-Zawahiri back in jail.

After a period of internal turmoil as the military got the radical jihadists under control, the military leaders then moved to hold elections to vote on a constitution to protect freedom.  This “freedom constitution” was approved by 98% of those who voted in the election.

From the traditional view of “democracy”, you would think this outcome would be viewed by the U.S. administration as a good thing.   However, that was not the case; Secretary Kerry and President Obama’s administration were furious that freedom and democracy gave rise to a true Egyptian democracy that respects the minority.   Where Obama praised the rise of Morsi, he soon scorned the rise of freedom with al-Sisi.

In many very direct ways, the uprisings in Egypt and Libya were the beta test for how the United States government could weaponize social media to work in a public-private partnership toward the goals of the Obama administration.

There is a direct thread connecting Tahir Square, Egypt, to Ferguson Missouri, USA.

Fast forward a few years and that exact same influence scenario played out domestically in the 2020 election.

Dec 3 2022

Fixation with Numbers


Armstrong Economics Blog/Trading Re-Posted Dec 2, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

2032 – How Do We Approach Uncharted Waters? | Armstrong Economics

COMMENT: You Know…years ago, all these different monthly reports did not affect the markets day to day so much.

Now…Today..these reports send huge panic cycles in the markets every time they are announced. Doesn’t that tell you something about the future?? Doesn’t that tell you something about the US economy? The end keeps getting closer.

N

REPLY: This is clearly the uncertainty. Everything seems to be upside down. Nobody understands the future or what might even happen. Will there be war? Will inflation actually stop? Are we headed into a major recession? How can the markets rally facing a major recession? So many questions and most have just opinions.

Even my interpretations of the computer arrays are sometimes wrong. Things are unfolding on such a global scale that concerns are rising everywhere. You have North Korea shooting missiles off over Japan, NATO members think Ukraine should join NATO, and Iran is threatening nuclear war in the Middle East. All of this while Schwab tells the world we will own nothing and be happy. To many, it has become just flip a coin and see if you should buy or sell.

Dec 3 2022

Labor Report Shows 263,000 Jobs Added in November, Combined with Significant Wage Growth 0.6% For Month


Posted originally on the CTH on December 2, 2022 | Sundance 

There’s a disconnect in the Main Street data that is perplexing from the standpoint of traditional economic and labor analysis.

There have been significant layoffs in the labor market as the result of diminished consumer spending activity. However, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) is reporting a hotter than expected 263,000 new jobs in November [DATA HERE].

There were declines in jobs within the retail sector [-30,000 in Nov, -62,000 since August] and declines in warehousing and transportation [-15, 000 in November, -30,000 since July], which would indicate the outcome of lowered consumer spending on goods, or at least a change in consumer spending priorities.

Simultaneously, there were significant increases in jobs for leisure and hospitality [+88,000 in Nov], with the majority of those gains in food service and drinking.  However, that sector is still lower than the pre-pandemic by -980,000 jobs.  Also note people are not attending events with high ticket costs, the performing arts and spectator sports segment dropped 7,000 jobs [Table B-1]

Overall, if you were to look at the macro level jobs report, anything attached to the traditional spending of durable goods (retail stores) is declining.  However, the jobs related to the service or life experience are growing.  Oddly, and perhaps creepily, this dynamic falls in line with the ‘you will own nothing and be happy‘ cliche’ that has been oft spoken about the new post pandemic ‘Build Back Better‘ economy as espoused by the World Economic Forum.

Job gains in the infrastructure of life such as, building and construction, as well as the labor sector associated with skilled domestic service trades like plumbing, electricians, maintenance, etc are continuing to hold stable.  The major shift in the labor market surrounds the buying of durable goods which has disappeared along with the disappearance of discretionary income.   Which brings us to the wage portion of the BLS report.

Wage growth was a very high 0.6% for November and brings the annual rate of wage growth to 5.1%.   This outcome is almost certainly an outcome of workers demanding higher pay to cope with inflation, and employers needing to raise their wage rates in order to retain employees.

We also see an increase in the number of workers holding multiple jobs, as individuals are taking second jobs to cope with massive price increases in housing, food, fuel and energy. As noted within the BLS data:

“In November, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls declined by 0.1 hour to 34.4 hours. In manufacturing, the average workweek for all employees decreased by 0.2 hour to 40.2 hours, and overtime declined by 0.1 hour to 3.1 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls decreased by 0.1 hour to 33.9 hours.”

Fewer people are working, but more jobs are being worked – with lowered hours.

Higher wages are good; however, higher wages lead to higher prices for goods and services; which drives inflation higher, which creates the need for higher wages.   It’s an upward pressure spiral.

The supply side pressure on inflation, almost exclusively created by the BBB energy policy, shows absolutely no sign of lessening, despite the drop in demand for domestically produced finished consumer goods which has lowered overall industrial demand for energy.

The Build Back Better energy driven policy changes are creating very weird economic outcomes.

Prices are rising.  Consumers are squeezed.  Jobs attached to spending on goods are declining. Jobs attached to life experience and services expanding.

Ex.1 If you are working two jobs, now you might not have time to mow your grass – so you hire a lawn service.  The lawn service guys are charging more because the gasoline and business costs are higher…. which means you need to work a little longer at the second job to pay for the lawn service you don’t have time to do on your own because you need to work the second job.   That’s the dynamic we are seeing in the quantification of labor and job growth.

Ex.2 If you are working two jobs, you might not be cooking as much at home.  So, you grab dinner/lunch away from home.  The restaurants are charging more because the business costs are higher…. which means you need to work a little longer, ask for higher wages, in order to offset the time you don’t have to eat lunch/dinner at home.

This conflicting duality is what I always called the “serfesque driven economy.”  It is an outcome of erosion of the middle-class.  A status of individuality where your desires for life experience determine the need for your income.

You don’t own a car, you Uber.  You don’t own a house, you rent.  You don’t need a kitchen, you eat out.  Things seem ok, but you eventually become a serf to the people who control transportation costs, housing costs, food costs, etc.  Ultimately you have no control over the time you want to spend in enjoyment, because you don’t own the mechanisms of your life and need to work in order to afford maintaining the costs.  It’s a weird mental exercise.

There is a real outcome in this dynamic where the wealth gap increases.

Dec 2 2022

Right v Wrong


Armstrong Economics Blog/Socrates Re-Posted Dec 2, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty, I have been following you now for a few years. You seem to be never wrong. You always say it is not your opinion. Is there some secret to how you do this? Nobody else seems to even compare. Or is it all just the computer?

FK

ANSWER: We all are human and as such we make mistakes. I understand that the big picture with war and events seems to be never wrong. That is Socrates – not me. I have been wrong in regard to my interpretation at times, but the cycles are always correct like the ECM.

I was one of the first International Hedge Fund Managers. I had even warned Congress back in 1985 that they should merge the CFTC and SEC because complying with one meant you went to prison with the other. They forced funds management offshore. We are all connected. You cannot have gold rise to $10,000 and the dollar turns to dust and nothing else happens. The world economy is like a set of dominoes. If you get the first one right, all the rest will follow.

These people who try to forecast one market can NEVER be correct for the wildcard always comes externally. Right now, the Ukraine war is impacting the global economy and markets. You could not asses the impact by simply watching the Fed. If it were not for (1) the stupid lockdowns of COVID disrupting the supply chain, then (2) this proxy war against Russia and imposing the absurd sanctions on them when they are a key supplier around the world in many areas, then inflation would not have risen and the Fed would not be raising interest rates. Those in power simply only look in front of their nose. Every action has a ripple effect that impacts long-term events. We cannot escape that. I have designed Socrates to survive me. It is not my opinion and when I do express my opinion I state the difference. Even my interpretation of an array can be wrong, not the array.

Everything is connected. We cannot escape that. Without Socrates monitoring everything around the world and writing its own reports on over 1,000 instruments globally, there is nobody who can possibly compete with a personal opinion. The world is far too complex for an individual to see everything from a personal gut feeling.

Because I had focused on currencies from the collapse of Bretton Woods and was called into the first bank failure in 1973 because of a 7% move in currencies,  my company attracted clients from around the world. I had to see the world through everyone’s eyes – not just the dollar. In July 1985, I took the back cover of the Economist for 3 weeks announcing the end of deflation/peak in the dollar, and the reemergence of inflation, which led to the Japanese Bubble in 1989. Interest Rates peaked the very day at 1981.35. The end of that wave was 1985.65 the month of July. It was the beginning of a Private Wave which will end 2037.25.

We published charts back in Barron’s during the early 1980s showing gold in dollars compared to a basket of currencies. We ended up with the largest institutions in the world because our reports went out on telex and the communication costs per market were $225 per day. Only the biggest institutions could afford our services. Then came fax, and then email which has expanded our reach to everyone these days. But make no mistake about this. People may criticize me and others are desperate to try to prevent people from using us. It is either because they cannot compete and pretend this is my opinion rather than a computer, or they want to manipulate the markets and we just get in their way.

Dec 1 2022

The West Simply Wants War With Russia


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Dec 1, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

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If you dare suggest peace, you suddenly are painted as a Putin Supporter. The West simply wants war and this is really about Climate Change. Even the propaganda pretending this is all Putin and if somehow he was removed, the world would be better is utter nonsense. We may see the reality of that come April/May 2023. The West is perfectly fine with sacrificing the Ukrainian people for their agenda. They are just collateral damage that they are willing to sacrifice until the last Ukrainian dies.

There are people who know Russia as I do. The press will not air their views or question the narrative they have been instructed to push because it goes against their desired agenda. Former Commander of US Army General Ben Hodges admitted that Putin’s successor will be “much worse.” Hodges said. “We see the North Caucasus and (Chechen leader Ramzan) Kadyrov, who is anticipating Russia’s possible collapse and is trying to protect himself somehow. I absolutely don’t call for regime change in Russia – this is the choice for the Russian people to make, but we must understand that whoever comes after Putin will be much worse.”

What the Western news is presenting is worse than propaganda – it is a deliberate lie. The West is really waging war for Climate Change. This is why not a single Western leader is calling for any peace or negotiation. My mentor in geopolitical analysis has been Henry Kissinger. Henry has publicly stated that EVERY president has always invited him to the White House but not Biden.

On the other side of the world, the US has been supplying military equipment to Taiwan since 1979 under the Taiwan Relations Act. Before Biden, the US has agreed to acknowledge the One China policy that states Taiwan is under Chinese rule. “A direct confrontation should be avoided and Taiwan cannot be the core of the negotiations because it is between China and the United States,” Kissinger stated, going as far as to say neutrality is crucial to “overall peace.”

In pledging to defend Taiwan from any Chinese attack, the president has made war with China much more likely. He has openly reverse policy with China since the days of Nixon. The Climate Change people in his administration driven by the insane Progressive Green Movement, has done everything possible to create World War III with no regard for humanity because the planet takes top priority. I suppose a bunch of nukes flying around is good for the planet if it removes more of we – the new plague of vermin.

Dec 1 2022

Comments from the Netherlands


Armstrong Economics Blog/European Union Re-Posted Nov 30, 2022 by Martin Armstrong


COMMENT #1: The “Dutch Farming Crisis” crack-down in Netherlands says it all.
As a former UK citizen repatriated to The Netherlands, life in Holland has been ideal, plenty on the super market shelves with a strong export market of food to rest of Europe.
Food growing science at it’s finest. Economical, productive and effective for all.

The recent crack down on farmers to curb use of Nitrogen base fertilizer (Nitrogen being the most abundant gas on the planet!!!) has come as an unexpected and unjustified shock, to Netherlands and the good of all. Within the time frame of one year, we have gone from a land of plenty to a land of maybe. Not wasting one once of food, meanwhile stocking up on goods in case the supplies are no longer there tomorrow. It’s not how I envisioned bringing up my two boys, but reflects strongly on the tales my parents told me of their experiences surviving the second world war.

Klaus and his rotten army have done what they set out to do. To bear hardship on the population.
But my parents survived and lived to see a better world, I too strive to follow in their footsteps.
PS. incidentally, Ammonia is a by-product of burning water as a fuel.

SW

COMMENT #2: Dear Mr. Armstrong,

Your article about the Dutch farmers is all true. But this story goes deeper. Is not about them stopping theirs farms because of these insane climate policies. All eyes are on the farmers while the big industries and airports aren’t even part of the discussion.
All this of course knowing that nitrogen is just another fake crisis.

What they really want is the land of the farmers. They claim they need it to build houses. There is an enormous shortage of affordable houses. Partly because these insane politicians claim houses can’t be build because of the nitrogen problems. All the while the same politicians are welcoming ten of thousands of refugees and immigrants. This while our own young people can’t even get or afford a house.

So in the end the farmers need to be removed of their company and property because our corrupt leaders are flooding our country with immigrants. Immigrants that are here because of the free money. They don’t share our values, they don’t want to work. They just want their free lunch.

It’s all part of their Great Reset.

Keep up the good work!
SL

REPLY: I have spoken with scientists in the field and this entire agenda is just so outrageous. I suppose this is our fault for electing people with ZERO experience to public office who just real the cue cards that are written for them. This only adds to the chaos our computer projected for 2023 which we first published back in 2019. I an stunned myself to witness how everything is unfolding as our computer forecast well in advance.

I have said before, I had the mandate from Hong King to negotiate with Australia to try to buy land for them to move before the hand-over back to China in 1998. I met with former Prime Minister Paul Keating. Nothing I proposed was acceptable. I finally asked – Is this racist? He said no! They are fleeing communism and would vote conservative. He was the Labour Government. Australia would not let Hong Kong move because it would have changed their politics.

All of this overwhelming hoard of refugees into Europe and what Biden is doing in the United States, is all about trying to shift the balance of power to the left assuming all of these people who have nothing will vote for them and shake ever last penny from those who have made our countries what they are today.

Between the Climate Change nonsense and this mass invasion of the have-nots, they are destroying our very way of life all to simply retain power.

Nov 29 2022

Trudeau Justifies Invoking Martial Law


Armstrong Economics Blog/Canada Re-Posted Nov 29, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Trudeau changed the world’s entire perception of Canada after his mishandling of the Freedom Convoy protest. Hard-working Canadian men and women demanded medical freedom and protested the vaccine mandates. The Canadian media was not permitted to question the COVID agenda, and dissenting voices were muffled. The Canadian trucker’s convoy (aka the Freedom Convoy) sparked the first major backlash for the Trudeau Administration after protestors could not be silenced by threats. Trudeau had to make good on those threats to assert whatever is left of his authority. Justin Trudeau is back to being a celebrity, not a politician, and is focusing on winning a drag queen race this week.

The convoy was completely peaceful until Trudeau, who refused to even speak to the protestors, invoked Martial Law. “What if the worst had happened in those following days? What if someone had gotten hurt, what if a police officer had been put in hospital?” Trudeau said. “I would have worn that,” he continued. “The responsibility of a prime minister is to make the tough calls and keep people safe.”

Trudeau knelt down amid Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and allowed the chaos to ensue because it fits the woke agenda for this New World Order. And guess what? Numerous Canadian police officers were injured or killed by those BLM protests that were not only allowed to continue but strongly encouraged.

Countless people were hurt by the government’s response to the protest of a “fringe minority.” The completely peaceful protestors were thrown in jail, sometimes without bail. They had their bank accounts frozen, and assets seized. People who donated to their cause had their assets frozen. The world saw a glimpse of how ruthless Canada has become under Trudeau.