Tag Archives: New Monetary Theory

Apr 3 2023

McDonald’s Is Temporarily Shutting Down U.S. Corporate HQ to Announce Major Cuts and Layoffs


Posted originally on CTH on April 2, 2023 | Sundance 

Before getting to the headline, I want to remind you what CTH outlined two years ago about these massive food price increases.

You might remember me saying that processed food prices will increase at a much greater rate than fresh or lesser processed foods.  Factually, even organic products (ie. produce) could/would end up less expensive (in relative terms) to the increase in price at your supermarket, as compared to the price increases for the more processed foods.

The reason is simple, processed food use more energy; energy prices are skyrocketing; the processing costs (packaging, transportation, freezing, sanitizing, storage, warehousing and distribution etc.), at each step of the processing cycle, in addition to higher labor costs, drive up the end result of the price.

In this energy driven inflationary environment, less processing and handling equals lower overall cost increases from field to fork.  More processing, handling, distribution equals higher overall costs.  This is simply a supply chain, truism.

Into this issue comes McDonald’s Corp.  Last I heard, approximately 85% of McDonald’s business was franchise.  The franchise has to purchase the product (food) from the main company.  Supply side cost increases in the food are transferred from the company to the franchisee via higher product costs.  The restaurant is then forced to raise prices to accommodate their increased costs.  A portion of the revenue from sales then flows back to the main company.

It is important to note here, there is a natural disconnect in supply side price increases within the franchise model.  The parent company must, must, negotiate the best possible contract terms with the suppliers because the increases in costs are passed directly to the franchise.  The parent company doesn’t immediately feel any problem until the revenue from the franchise drops due to the forced raising of retail prices and diminished sales.  There is a lag.

McDonald’s is extremely exposed to processed food price increases.

McDonald’s franchises were forced by supply cost increases to raise retail prices.  The retail prices were raised into a primary customer base that is already under extreme inflationary pressure. The average McDonald’s customer is exposed to inflation at almost every level of their life.

A typical family of four will now pay between $30 to $40 dollars for a single meal at a McDonald’s restaurant.  That is not practical for the customer base.  The result is lowered sales at retail, as eating a meal at home becomes the less costly option.  The downstream consequence is lower revenue returned to the parent company.

The only way the parent company can offset the supply side costs to the franchisee is to lower overall operating costs. Expenses have to be cut. Advertising budgets reduced. Administration costs reduced. Administrative staffing levels reduced. Supply contracts renegotiated. Packing, warehousing, distribution and all vendor contracts renegotiated, consistently looking for better terms.

(Wall Street Journal) McDonald’s Corp. is temporarily closing its U.S. offices this week as it prepares to inform corporate employees about layoffs undertaken by the burger giant as part of a broader company restructuring.

The Chicago-based fast-food chain said in an internal email last week to U.S. employees and some international staff that they should work from home from Monday through Wednesday so it can deliver staffing decisions virtually. The company, in the message, asked employees to cancel all in-person meetings with vendors and other outside parties at its headquarters.

“During the week of April 3, we will communicate key decisions related to roles and staffing levels across the organization,” the company said in the message viewed by The Wall Street Journal. McDonald’s declined to comment Sunday on the number of employees being laid off.

McDonald’s in January said that it planned to make “difficult” decisions about changes to its corporate staffing levels by April, as part of a broader strategic plan for the burger chain.

Chief Executive Chris Kempczinski said in an interview at the time that he expected to save money as part of the workforce assessment, but said then he didn’t have a set dollar amount or number of jobs he was looking to cut. “Some jobs that are existing today are either going to get moved or those jobs may go away,” Mr. Kempczinski said.

McDonald’s employs more than 150,000 people globally in corporate roles and its owned restaurants, with 70% of them located outside of the U.S., the chain said in February.

McDonald’s in the message acknowledged that the week of April 3 would be a busy one for personal travel, which it said contributed to the decision to deliver the news remotely. Workers who wouldn’t have access to a computer during the week should provide personal contact information to their manager, the company said. (read more)

Apr 2 2023

Col Macgregor on the Neocons


Armstrong Economics Blog/Neocons Re-Posted Apr 2, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Apr 2 2023

FIAT – What is it Really!


Armstrong Economics Blog/Foreign Exchange Re-Posted Apr 2, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Governments create their own sovereign fiat currency, to facilitate trade, among other reasons. So counterfeit is punishable, in some countries, by death, & at minimum, incarceration. Currency is supposed to be sacrosanct, created under the most exacting conditions. So what to do when your own gov’t engages in what is essentially officially endorsed counterfeit? I mean, the “money” has become almost meaningless, unless you’re on the receiving end. For non-insiders like me…buy PM.

HS

ANSWER: I have trouble with this misinformation always about the only money is gold and paper dollars are worthless fiats, which have rebuilt the world many times over since 1861 and the introduction of the paper dollar.

The propaganda of the goldbugs which has led so many to lose so much has been this nonsense that gold is the hedge against inflation. When the gold coin was money during the 19th century, it rose and fell in purchasing power no different than any paper currency. These people sell fiction like a used car salesman just to sell their product.  It honestly does not matter what money is. It always is just a derivative of barter. I give you this for that. You will accept paper money because you know that others will accept it from you. A woman tried to spend a $20 gold coin at Walmart and they refused to accept it because they did not know what it was. She then took them to the back and exchanged them for $20 bills.

Try going to Starbucks and spending a $20 gold coin and asking for change. Unless the salesperson knows what it is, they will refuse.MONEY has always been nothing more than a belief system. That’s all!

FIAT simply means by arbitrary decree. Just because a currency is gold or even silver, does NOT make its value intrinsic. Governments have debased their coinage and reduced the weight declaring its value shall be whatever they say. I have written about how Japan did that and eventually, the people refused to accept Japanese coins and they stopped minting them for 600 years.

The Romans reduced the weight of their silver coinage from 6.5 grams to 4 grams and only because they defeated the Greeks, the Roman monetary system became standard.

During the American Revolution, people accepted the Continental Currency. Money has always simply been predicated upon what people will accept.

Gold has no value whatsoever unless the other person also believes it has value. Gold or silver has no value intrinsically any more than a paper dollar or a bag of rice unless there is an unspoken agreement among people that it is a valuable medium of exchange.

This is the truth. All else is propaganda. Money has been many things throughout thousands of years from seashells to cattle and even slave girls.

StPatrick-tokens

Saint Patrick in the 5th Century AD upon his arrival in Ireland, found that MONEY was expressed in human slave girls. He wrote in his Confession, “I think that I have given away to them no less than the price of fifteen humans.” This passage shows something very important. First, MONEY is not defined as the Medium of Exchange exclusively. It also serves the purpose of a Unit of Account. This becomes the true function of MONEY even more so than what it is. MONEY is a language of value.

FIAT is when the government dictates what something is and that will be Digital Central Bank Currency. But if everyone accepts it, then it becomes the medium of exchange.

Apr 2 2023

This is Important – I Have Been Warning – Ukraine Has Been Losing


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine re-Posted Apr 1, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

You should listen to this carefully. The Neocons will have at least another 500,000 people’s blood on their hands. I have stated that Putin NEVER sought to invade and conquer Ukraine. It was also a Special Action only to free the Russian Dunbas. The American Neocons are the ones who have been pushing this to defeat Russia. They never cared about the people of Ukraine. They have been used as cannon fodder. Perhaps as we enter the final days into the target of the ECM – April 10th, it will have this defeat to deal with. To all of those who bought into the whole Putin is just evil scenario, you better think again, why are you so easily manipulated by Neocon propaganda? Because this is not going to end.

Apr 2 2023

Neil Oliver – The Peasants Are Revolting


Posted originally on the CTH on April 2, 2023 | Sundance

For his monologue this week British Pundit Neil Oliver takes a walk around the globe to highlight how an increasingly awake global citizenry are revolting against the professional political class.

From France to the United States and Canada and all the way to Africa and throughout Europe, people are looking at the professional political class and rebelling against the desperate schemes of those barely clinging to power.  Many tremors and trembles are visible amid the action of the people and the responses from the elites that believe they rule them.  WATCH:

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Apr 2 2023

Zelenskyy Sends “New Democracy” Jackboots to Shut Down Orthodox Christian Religion in Ukraine


Posted originally on the CTH on April 1, 2023 | Sundance 

In the aftermath of their assembled COVID-19 powers, the “new western democracy” is an ever-evolving phrase. This version doesn’t have any structural voting representation at the core of the word “democracy,” and is generally akin to totalitarianism with a police state to back it up.

While the United States is sending hundreds of billions to fund the new form of “western democracy” in Ukraine, the outlawing of political opposition, the shutting down of non-state-controlled media, and now the cancellation of religion has a historical rhyming to it. Leftists in the general sense are supporting these new constructs within this newly defined version of democracy, and the western corporate media seem to be subservient to the fiats.

In the latest development, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sent the state police to shut down Metropolitan Pavel Lebed, the leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Pavel Lebed is now under house arrest.

Pavel’s sin against the Ukraine regime is described by Politico: “in his public speeches repeatedly insulted the religious feelings of Ukrainians, humiliated the views of believers of other denominations and tried to form hostile sentiments towards them,” said the SBU, which also published what it alleges are phone intercepts from Pavel’s sermons. He also “made statements that justified or denied the actions of the aggressor country,” according to the service.”

(Politico) – Ukrainian investigators are searching the home of Metropolitan Pavel Lebed, an Orthodox Church leader, who they accuse of justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and inciting inter-religious hatred.

Ukraine’s security service (SBU) confirmed on Saturday that Pavel, who runs Ukraine’s most important monastery, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, is suspected of violating the country’s criminal code. (read more)

(Radio Free Europe) – […] Around three dozen Orthodox priests around the country have been arrested by Ukrainian law enforcement since the February 2022 invasion, accused of unspecified acts of sabotage or of gathering intelligence and sending it to Moscow.

In November, Ukrainian security agents raided the Monastery of the Caves complex, searching for what they said were weapons or anti-Ukrainian propaganda. A Russian Orthodox Church spokesman called it an “act of intimidation” against Ukrainian believers. (read more)

History tells us that churches and organized religion are always the first targets of the totalitarian state, because they represent a unity of purpose and assembly that is not reliant on the totalitarian state.  In all communist regimes, religious worship is generally banned.

As the “new western democracy” takes shape in Ukraine, a system of government supported by the U.S. government and NATO, what we see now is an outcome that is something entirely different from the traditional secular democratic norms.

In the United States there are many voices identifying how Christianity itself is under attack from the ideology of leftist government.  In Ukraine those attacks are manifesting more openly as orchestrated by the state.

As we enter the most holy of Christian weeks leading up to Easter, there is a rhyming in current events.

Mar 31 2023

Can We Really Last until 2032?


Armstrong Economics Blog/ECM Re- Posted Mar 31, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION #1: Martin,

Since Trump was already not guilty of having the affair (to which Stormy Daniels admitted never took place), does that mean that the New York Court has indicted him on the charges of “being blackmailed”?

DB

QUESTION #2: Bill Clinton committed perjury. That was legal grounds to indict him and remove him from office. Nobody wanted to indict Richard Nixon either. I can now see why Socrates is forecasting the collapse of the United States. I just realized that the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, announcing the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. What I did not know was it was only a vote of 12 and New York abstained. It seems like New York is at it again. Do you really think we can last until 2032?

ANSWER: What Bragg has done is so undermining to the entire country and he has accepted money from a foreign power seeking to undermine the United States – George Soros. That is treason in my book. He is doing the bidding of a declared enemy against the United States and everything our way of life has stood for.

Yes, the Declaration was designed 1776.506. The United State will exist no more after 2034.50. I am very concerned that the 2024 Presidential election is not going to be fair. By the time we get to 2025.90, this does not look good in the least. It is highly unlikely that we are looking at this lasting as we have known it until 2032. It looks like everything unravels starting in 2027.

Mar 31 2023

US Sent 365 Attack Craft to Confront Russia


Armstrong Economics Blog/Neocons Re-Posted Mar 31, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Marty; It looks like NATO is preparing to invade Russia. What the hell is going on?

HR

ANSWER: Ads I have explained, the Neocons are in full control of US foreign policy. They are intent on starting a war BEFORE 2024. They have 300,000 troops on the border of Russia in Poland. The US has 365 attack aircraft ready to roll. They have used Ukraine to weaken Russia’s conventional forces. They think they can take Russia in less than one week. They believe that Russia will not push the button. What if they are wrong? They believe in their own propaganda.

They have waged a brilliant campaign. They pretend their warmongering is being patriotic. They do not care about America, its people, or anything honorable. They used Ukraine as cannon fodder and they will do the same with Americans. They are INTERNATIONALISTS and in their view, it is to dominate the world. Who cares about Americans? There are too many of us anyhow. Thin the herd is their view.

Welcome to World War III

Mar 30 2023

The War in Ukraine – The Real Version


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Mar 30, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Here is a CNN Report on the Ukrainian Civil War that the US instructed to launch in 2014 by the interim government the West installed with the Revolution. For all the Ukrainian Nazis and the brainwashed people who believe whatever the government tells them, take off your stupid mask, open your eyes, and accept some truth for once.

Here is the leader of the American Neocons who has created ENDLESS wars and has no remorse for all the people they have killed and the carnage they have unleashed upon the world. Even Ron Paul understands the Neocons. The so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), run by Ukraine’s security forces began in 2014 and justified slaughtering civilians in the Donbas by calling all the people there terrorists who have sought a separatist solution because of the Neo-Nazis of Ukraine have reinstituted their ethnic cleansing of all Russians living in the Donbas for hundreds of years.

McCain was openly meeting with the Neo_nazis and encouraging them that the US will support them to wage war on Russia. As soon as Trump was elected in November 2016, McCain ran to Ukraine and promised full support to wage war against the Russians in the Donbas. In December 2016 he was openly meeting with the Neo-Nazis.

Trump was convinced to send lethal weapons to Ukraine. But when he saw what the Ukrainians were doing to civilians, he began to fire all the Neocons that had been stuffed into his cabinet. The press began to run stories that nobody wanted to work for Trump because he was a horrible person. That was the start of the Neocon propaganda against Trump.

I have had employees both from Donestk and Kiev. I am well aware of the hatred that is so deeply rooted it will NEVER be subdued. The Neocons instructed Kiev to immediately attack the Donbas in 2014 to force Russia to come to their aid. This has been an intended war against Russia from the outset. That is why Merkel openly said that they never negotiated with Russia in good faith, it was all a stall tactic to enable Ukraine to raise the largest army in Europe to wage war against Russia.

Those who support Biden and this war, I wish you were on the front line when Americans are drafted. And as for every American company that is joining this war for money, the blood on your hand will not wash off as Pontius Pilate tried. The blood on your hands will stay with you right until your deathbed as your loathful life passes by you in a flash of light.

As soon as Biden took office, the Neocons seize full control. They are back and are prepared to sacrifice every Ukrainian for their own hatred of Russians just as  Lindsey Graham champions. And when the last Ukrainian falls, they are preparing to draft not just American and European young men, but women as well.

Neocons are NOT American, they are Internationalists with a global agenda to also rule the world. They are exploiting the United States as they have always done just as they are doing to Ukraine. They slaughter countless people for their own policy of ethnic cleansing and use the press to pretend this is American policy and then anyone who objects is not a patriot or some Putin supporter. You must be ruthless and want every Russian to be slaughtered or you are not a patriot in their propaganda. They do not care about America, our economic future, and certainly not about you or your family. They are obsessed and consumed by hatred. According to Washington, D.C., clinical psychologist Dana Harron, the things people hate about others are the things that they fear within themselves. They accuse Putin of wanting to resurrect the old USSR, which he has never taken one step in doing since 1999, yet the Neocons have pushed NATO right up to its borders and armed that front with nuclear weapons.

This old film from 1947 serves as a warning — do not allow the government to divide us.

Mar 29 2023

Biden Mocks School Shooting Victims


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Mar 29, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The POTUS lives in a reality that is far different from ours. His brain has deteriorated to the point that all of his speaking engagements end in utter disaster. Biden delivered the most cold-hearted speech in Nashville following a school shooting that killed six people, including three children. Again, this man received more votes than any president in US history.

Joe Biden said he showed up in Nashville for ice cream–not to comfort the people. The audience roared with laughter as Joe Biden laughed in the faces of fearful parents. “My name is Joe Biden. I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband. I eat Jeni’s ice cream — chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream,” Biden said with a smile. “By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. You think I’m kidding? I’m not,” Biden told the joyful crowd.

Then Biden used the opportunity to condemn Republicans and gun control. Did Joe Biden laugh off the disgustingly cruel murders because they do not coincide with the woke agenda? The disaster occurred at a private Christian school, and Christians are not a protected class in our society.

Strike two against the woke agenda – the shooter identified as transexual. While school shootings are revoltingly common in the US, the murderer is always male. In fact, 98% of mass shootings in general are committed by men. “However, if we look specifically at K-12 school shooting cases in our database, the perpetrators were 100% male. Most were current or former students of the schools they targeted,” the Violence Project said in a statement. Now politicians are fighting on whether the problem is mental health or gun control. “How much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville school shooter taking? Everyone can stop blaming guns now.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on Twitter.

Three children never came home from school that day. This tragedy goes far beyond gun control; politicians should not use a disaster to promote an agenda. As far as Biden, the video of his speech is truly unbelievable. All those people laughing in the audience are the lowest level of mindless sheep our nation has to offer.