Posted originally on Jan 29, 2024 By Martin Armstrong |
Businesses are increasingly preventing customers from using cash as NO CASH ACCEPTED signs line Main Street. No federal law requires businesses to accept cash, but some states and cities have implemented laws mandating businesses to do so. COVID accelerated the push toward a cashless society, as physical cash was seen as unhygienic. Then the US mint faced a physical currency shortage as Americans hoarded their cash. Cashless businesses are now widely accepted and normalized in our society.
Around 6 million Americans who do not have a bank account, and therefore are blocked from participating in our cashless society. This particularly impacts the poorest in our nation, as a recent survey found that 40% of unbanked individuals do not have enough liquidity to meet the minimum balance required by banks. The FDIC found that one-third of respondents simply do not trust the banks and prefer cash for privacy purposes.
Then there are those who use prepaid cards or tools like CashApp that fall in “underbanked” bracket. The latest estimate found that 19 million households fall under this category. Combined, one in five Americans are either unbanked or underbanked, and according to the government, these individuals are merely attempting to avoid taxation.
Another lesser known fact is that banks often charge stores for physical currency. Additionally, the costs of providing and handling physical currency, such as the need for security, transportation, and storage make it more costly for businesses to use cash. The crime wave across blue cities is a contributing factor as well, as it is not uncommon to see signs stating that a business does not have cash on hand to deter thieves.
There is no federal law that requires banks to charge for change, but federal law generally allows banks to charge non-interest charges and fees. Interchange fees are transaction fees that the merchant’s bank must pay whenever a customer uses a credit/debit card to make a purchase, which is why you will often see a surcharge of around 3% at certain businesses to cover this expense. So businesses are faced with fees for all transactions whether they go the cash or card route.
The 2010 Dodd-Frank ruling permitted businesses to set a credit card minimum of $10, as the interchange fees nulled the profits on small purchases. Debit cards are treated as cash, whereby there is no set minimum by law.
They will soon force the unbanked and underbanked into the banking system, which is one of the reasons why the Biden Administration continually talks about erasing junk fees so that the 40% who claim they cannot meet the minimum balance are not excluded from government oversight. The push for a cashless society is a global phenomenon tied to the DPI and other initiatives that aim to centralize our individual data.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 28, 2024 | Sundance
In his own words, Senator James Lankford says if President Trump was president today the border crisis would not exist, because the existing law would be enforced. Simultaneous to this, the same Senator Lankford says the new law he proposes will create significant border enforcement.
If the executive branch can ignore the current border enforcement law (they can and do), what makes Lankford believe new legislation will not be ignored by the same executive branch (they will)? This non-pretending reality frames the essential point: the element of “enforcement” is not within the legislative branch, so the entire effort is a moot exercise. WATCH:
Margaret Brennan is especially annoying in this interview.
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Oklahoma Republican James Lankford. He’s in Oklahoma City this morning. Good morning to you, sir, it has taken you two months to get this bipartisan deal. Do you have the support of your fellow Republicans to actually vote this through?
SEN. JAMES LANKFORD: Well, actually, I wish it would have taken only two months. It’s taken about four months to be able to go through this, we started in October. Everyone’s looking to be able to read the bill at this point. That’s the key aspect, we’re working on the final aspects of it to try to be able to get it out. So everyone can get a chance to read it. Right now, they’re all functioning off of internet rumors of what’s in the bill, and many of them are false. So people want to be able to just see it, read it and go through it. And to be able to see the dramatic change that this really makes and how we handle our immigration system, and how we work to be able to secure our border completely. That’s been the simple request of Americans, whether you’re Republican, Democrat, or independent, people just want a secure border, where we have legal immigration, but we’re not promoting illegal immigration. And that’s what we’ve seen in the last three years.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you don’t have a vote count yet?
SEN. LANKFORD: Do not have a vote count yet on this because everybody’s got to be able to read it to be able to go through. But I do feel very positive about it because even the initial feedback has been good.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you just heard the details laid out there by our immigration correspondent, how do you balance the shutdown power that would be in these new authorities versus the right to claim asylum?
SEN. LANKFORD: Yeah, this is similar to what we had to under Title 42, during the pandemic time period, where we reach a crisis point to say we can’t actually operate. So we don’t have that authority. Right now, as the United States, we’ve reached crisis points. For instance, when we got four or 5,000 people crossing the border, we can no longer process those individuals. So right now, the Biden administration is just releasing them into the country. That’s what’s driving the mayors in Denver, in Chicago, in New York City and other places around the country crazy to say, when the border gets crowded, you just release them to our cities, and it causes all the chaos in these cities. This is a new authority to say, when we can no longer detain and deport, when we can’t process the people and actually make a decision right there at the border, then we’ll actually turn those folks back around to Mexico and say, “We can no longer do this.” That gives the authority to the United States into law enforcement, rather than the authority, just the criminal cartels. Right now. The cartels can just rush our border, they’ll get through as many people as they want to be able to get through. We can not have criminal organizations running our southern border, we have to be able to run our southern border.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So parole authority has been a sticking point for Republicans throughout. I know the administration has used it in a novel way to resettle 1 million people. So how are you changing that authority?
SEN. LANKFORD: Yeah, humanitarian parole is still- is still an issue for us. But it’s been an authority that every President has had to have basic humanitarian parole, but as you mentioned, this administration has used humanitarian parole in a way no other administration has. They’ve said, if you’ll just tell us in advance that you’re coming, come to a port of entry, the first day you get here, we’ll hand you a work permit, and we’ll release you into the country under parole. Well, that’s actually attracting more people, of course, people from around the world are going to want an American work permit to show up. So instead of deterring immigration, they’re literally incentivizing illegal immigration,. They’re handing people a parole and a work permit day one. That has to stop, we can’t just have a system where we have that. In between the ports of entries, when it gets crowded, they’ll just release them under a parole authority there. And they’re just released in the country. We don’t know if they qualify for asylum. We don’t know where they are. By the hundreds of thousands people are just being released in the country. And we have no tracking on them at all. That has to stop. This is a national security issue for us. May I remind you that we’ve had 50 people come across our border that we’ve interdicted, that are on the terror watch list. Just in the past four months, we’ve had tens of thousands of people that came across our border that were identified as a national security risk. Those individuals should not just be waived into the country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board called this the best chance in years to fix asylum law and parole loophole. But Donald Trump, who is the front runner to be your party’s nominee in 2024 is telling Republicans not to support this. Here’s what he said last night in Las Vegas.
(SOUND ON TAPE)
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: A lot of the senators are trying to say respectfully they’re blaming going to me– I said that’s okay. Please blame it on me, please, because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill. And I’ll tell you what a bad bill is– I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill.
(END SOUND ON TAPE)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Can you get this passed without Donald Trump’s approval?
SEN. LANKFORD: Well, I’m looking forward to President Trump having the opportunity to be able to read it like everybody else. There’s a lot of misinformation out there right now that I hear this comment that it waives in 5,000 people, it hands out work permits that- all those things are not true. There’s just a lot of internet rumors that are running around on this right now. We’re looking forward to getting the information out and I can say, there is no question no matter what your political persuasion is, we would not have had the immigration crisis we’re experiencing right now, if President Trump would have been president the last three years. There’s no way we would have had 8 million people illegally cross our border, because he would enforce those different authorities and would have made sure that we actually secure a border. But even while he was president, he was specifically asking Congress to change the standard on asylum to be able to tighten up, to be able to give them additional funds for deportation. All of those things are in this bill. So if he were to be president, this would be new authorities that he had actually asked for when he was president before.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. And I just- you just said that he has not read this bill. He doesn’t essentially know what he’s talking about. So this deal–
Sen. Lankford: — Well, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there’s just a lot of rumors that are out there about the bill. And I want to make sure everyone has a chance to be able to read it before they make a final judgment.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. So the deal you just said would give any future president and the current one new authorities. So on the trail, Trump has vowed to block legal immigrants based on their beliefs to end birthright citizenship, to carry out mass deportations, and he has not ruled out separating kids from their parents. Would you trust Donald Trump with these new authorities?
SEN. LANKFORD: I would actually because these are not only new authorities that had been asked for by multiple presidents, whether it be President Trump, President Obama, President Bush before that, this is a basic thing that we have to have for our national security. When we talk about asylum, right now you cross the border, and you literally say, I have fear in my country, and you’re released into the United States and await a 10-year hearing. No one thinks that actually makes sense to have a 10-year backlog for just saying the magic words. I have fear in my country. We don’t really know if they qualify for asylum. We don’t know their criminal record. We don’t know anything else about it. That absolutely has to change. That’s been an issue for a very long time that changes this in law.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we will have to see where we are on the vote count. But I want to ask you, back in 2022, Donald Trump endorsed your reelection. And in that endorsement, he said, “James Lankford is strong on the border.” Has anything changed with your thoughts about endorsing Donald Trump for president?
SEN. LANKFORD: No, it hasn’t at all. Obviously, he’s been very engaged, as I’ve mentioned already on it, none of the things that are happening in the last three years in the border would have happened if Donald Trump was actually president. He knows I’ve been very passionate about the border. This is an issue I’ve worked on for a very long time. He and I worked together when he was in the White House on some of his border policies. And when he did his big proposal, that was a legislative proposal, because again, President Trump proposed new laws and new issues on this, because we know that we have gaps in the system. So if you want to be able to secure the border, you can have President Trump to be able to come in to actually secure the border, because he’s going to focus in on that. But if he comes in and is elected by the American people to come this November, he’s going to want these additional authorities in this because it will help every president from here on out.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, but you’re not endorsing him?
SEN. LANKFORD: I actually haven’t endorsed anyone on it. But he’d be a much better president than what we’re dealing with right now, definitely on national security.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Before I let you go, I want to get your reaction to the news that he was ordered to pay $83 million to a person that a jury found he defamed after a separate jury found that he had sexually assaulted her. Does it give you any pause about him returning to office?
SEN. LANKFORD: It doesn’t. Obviously, these are legal cases. I don’t want to jump in the middle of a legal case. It’s been interesting the number of legal cases that have come up against President Trump and then have failed and had been dropped or had been kicked out of the courts on it. This one’s actually went through. He’s already said he’s going to challenge it. So let the courts actually make their decisions and let the American people make their decisions. We got states like Colorado that are trying to be able to block the people of Colorado from being able to choose who they vote for. Let the American people decide this in November.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the Supreme Court might decide on that one. We will have to leave it there for today, James Lankford. We will be focusing on what progress you were able to make. We’ll be back in just one minute.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 28, 2024 | Sundance
Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), James Lankford (R-OK), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) have reportedly put the finishing touches on their “bipartisan border deal” that will be tied together with other Senate priorities to permit billions more in funding for Ukraine.
Keep in mind the billions for Ukraine is the goal here; the “border security deal” is the mechanism to deflect attention and give the customary UniParty illusion of justification.
There’s no reason to pretend this is anything of substance; even a cursory review of the media narrative shows just how insufferable this nonsense really is.
First, the motive….
WASHINGTON – […] Linking money for Ukraine to the border, one of the most politically charged issues in Congress, was viewed as a gamble by Senate leadership but necessary to satisfy conservatives in the Republican-led House.
Next up… just how stupid they think we are…
[…] The expulsion powers granted to the president are similar to Title 42, the authority former President Donald Trump relied upon to turn away immigrants during the COVID-19 health crisis and that President Joe Biden ended last year. The new powers come with a penalty for repeat offenders, barring immigrants caught attempting to cross the border twice from entering for a year.
The expulsion powers in the new legislation are the same as the currently existing expulsion powers that are not enforced. And, if the illegal alien gets caught twice coming across, they have to wait a year for their third or next attempt.
But wait, it gets better.
The entire effort to “secure” the border, an exercise in actually just doing what they can already do but pretend they cannot, is only triggered if the total number of border crossers exceeds a certain threshold.
[…] If crossings exceed 5,000 daily per week or 8,500 in a single day, the authority would be triggered automatically, with the Department of Homeland Security forced to turn away immigrants with limited exceptions. (MORE)
Even in the expressed justification they admit DHS would be “forced to turn away immigrants.” Or, put in non-pretending terms, they would be forced to do something they can already do – but choose not to. And they swear to do the thing then, that they can do now, but pretend they cannot do – or something.
.
We The People are in an abusive relationship with our government, and at this point the gaslighting is ridiculous.
“Today, America’s heart is heavy. Last night, three U.S. service members were killed—and many wounded—during an unmanned aerial drone attack on our forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syria border. While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.” (LINK)
A few more details are starting to emerge including the number of “many wounded.” According to recent media reports 25 were wounded along with the 3 killed.
Yahoo – “Biden said the United States “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing.”
There was no immediate reaction from Jordan, a kingdom bordering Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
U.S. troops long have used Jordan as a basing point, and the attack took place in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. U.S. Central Command said 25 service members were injured the attack in addition to the three killed.
Some 3,000 American troops typically are stationed in Jordan.
Jordanian state television quoted Muhannad Mubaidin, a government spokesman, as insisting the attack happened outside of the kingdom across the border in Syria. The conflicting information could not be immediately reconciled.” (more)
I guess we are not supposed to remember this earlier announcement from three months ago:
…”I have also activated the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as well as additional Patriot battalions to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. forces.”… (link)
Apparently, there are drones capable of outwitting the THAAD defense system, or something.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 28, 2024 | Sundance
President Donald J. Trump was accused of withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine in order to force compliance with his requests. This was the exact claim of those who attempted to impeach President Trump in 2019; this was their originating justification.
Today, NBC is reporting that Joe Biden is looking at what military aid can be withheld from Israel in order to force compliance with their requests. I doubt the insufferable dolts in the media can see the ridiculous hypocrisy in this story.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is discussing using weaponry sales to Israel as leverage to convince the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to heed long-standing U.S. calls to scale back its military assault in the Gaza Strip, according to three current U.S. officials and one former U.S. official.
At the direction of the White House, the Pentagon has been reviewing what weaponry Israel has requested that could be used as leverage, said the sources. They said no decisions have been made.
The sources said Israeli officials continue to ask the administration for more weapons, including large aerial bombs, ammunition and air defenses.
After weeks of private administration requests produced fewer results than the White House wants, the sources said, the U.S. is considering slowing or pausing the deliveries in the hope that doing so will prod the Israelis to take action. (MORE)
Posted originally on the CTH on January 28, 2024 | Sundance
A story surfacing in Politico about the collapse of the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the inability of the entire trade policy group to find any willing trade partners was entirely predictable.
You might remember how the insufferable U.S. business media constantly said the Trump trade team was not going to be successful because the administration was disliked by global trade partners. Every Trump trade approach from tariffs to section 301 compliance, to U.S. demands around foreign policy tied to the economic Trump Doctrine was decried by U.S. multinational corporations as too divisive, too intransigent. However, Donald Trump and his trade wolverines racked up more trade wins and established more trade agreements than any administration in history.
From KORUS (Korea/US) to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, European energy deals, massive changes with China, new Ag agreements, demanded technology sector investment back in the USA, and the successful renegotiation of NAFTA (Canada, Mexico, USA) into the USMCA – all of it was stunning in scale, scope and success. Trump’s global trade success was exactly the opposite of every predictive declaration by the professional media. All of the Trump strategic policy shift created the framework for the largest domestic expansion of the U.S. economy, evident in every 2019 economic metric prior to the pandemic.
Biden took office with the full support of the lying liars who lie in the media, and they said Biden’s team was a shoo-in for success. Again, exactly the opposite has happened.
The ideological leftists who came with the Obama/Biden plan forcibly tried to push their Green New Deal policies into every trade agreement. The result and response from all U.S. trade partners has been a massive failure of epic proportions.
Despite the international pontifications around support for the globalist energy policies, ie. the “Build Back Better” bulls**t pushed by western government, the World Economic Forum and the globalists, when it comes to where the rubber hits the road no nation is willing to attach themselves to the economically destructive millstone demands of U.S trade. In material fact, many of the BBB agenda priorities are now completely rejected by the same politicians who promoted them.
In part, we in the USA are suffering through some of the most horrific inflationary economic outcomes from this Biden ‘Green New Deal’ program. Any nation that aligned itself is feeling the same impact in direct proportion to how close they followed the program. The more ‘Green’ compliant the nation, the more the economic hardship upon the citizens within that nation. This is just the non-pretending reality of the thing.
So, it doesn’t come as any great surprise to see a thoroughly rejected and dejected career trade group now walking to the exits with zero accomplishments for their last three years of effort.
WASHINGTON – Frustration with a stalled trade agenda and unhappiness with the leadership of President Joe Biden’s trade chief is pushing more than a half-dozen senior trade officials out the door, according to four current and former administration officials with knowledge of the departures.
The exits include the White House’s point person on international economics and two of the three deputy U.S. trade representatives responsible for implementing the Biden administration’s “worker-centered” trade policy.
The exodus comes after Biden’s trade agenda ran aground on multiple fronts in 2023: failing to reach a green steel and aluminum deal with the European Union and pulling out of trade talks that were part of the U.S.-crafted Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in November. The administration, meanwhile, remains internally divided on other key trade policy decisions, like how to regulate digital information flowing across the globe.
Those headwinds — and the realization that little real progress is likely to be made in an election year during which former President Donald Trump will put a glaring spotlight on trade — have convinced some officials it’s time to move on. Adding to the frustration: simmering discontent with the management practices of U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
[…] Biden’s “worker-centered” trade agenda was designed to smooth over frayed relations with close trading partners and win back those blue-collar workers in battleground states. But his sweeping plans to reshape global trade rules haven’t assuaged concerns from Democrats who worry that Trump will again use trade issues as a cudgel against them in the industrial Midwest — a region that could determine control of Congress and the White House in November.
That disconnect has forced USTR to freeze, abandon, or dramatically scale back its signature initiatives and negotiations, leaving some top lawmakers and staffers frustrated. In particular, Wyden and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are fuming that the administration hasn’t matched the Trump administration’s accomplishments on trade, like the binding labor and environmental standards that Democrats got inserted into the rewrite of NAFTA that Trump signed in 2020.
“Sen. Brown and I have consistently said that you need the kind of proposal that you saw in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement where you open up markets for business and you have tough enforcement,” said Wyden, “and a lot of what’s been put up doesn’t meet that test.” (read more)
Go figure!….
Want success?…
Want trade deals that lift the USA economy?…
Want USA “deflation,” yes, the actual lowering of prices for goods and services?…
Want lower costs of goods, and lower prices for consumers by leveraging the size of the USA market?…
Posted originally on the CTH on January 26, 2024 | Sundance
Texas Governor Greg Abbott calls in for an interview about the federal -vs- state conflict on border security. Gov. Greg Abbott says ten other states have already sent national guard to the Texas border, and others will follow. Abbott says he is “prepared” for a conflict with federal authorities.
Following the Abbott interview, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joins Carlson in the larger legal discussion. WATCH:
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