An Environmental Economist to Take the Head of the IMF


QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You had once written the Christine Lagarde was only a lawyer and she was really put in the role of the IMF chief by Obama. What do you have to comment on this new Bulgarian selection? DO you know her?

HU

ANSWER: Kristalina Georgieva will probably take over the International Monetary Fund (IMF). At least this Bulgarian is an economist, and she has banking experience whereas Christine LaGarde did not. Georgieva is currently chief executive of the World Bank. I do not know her personally, although we probably shook hands yet nothing more.

Georgieva was considered back in 2016 for the post of the UN Secretary General, but was passed over for the Portuguese António Guterres. For the IMF, Georgieva was the candidate of France and of some Eastern European states. Germany and others were backing the former Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. This time the French won.

If we look at Georgieva background, she does hold a doctorate in economics and research at the London School of Economics and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1993 to 2010 she worked at the World Bank. She headed the Environmental Department of Washington Bank and, in the meantime, her representative office in Moscow. In 2010 she moved to Brussels becoming a Commissioner as Europe’s top development aid worker.

When Jean-Claude Juncker took over the Presidency of the Commission in 2014, he made Georgieva Vice-President in charge of the budget. Georgieva had been involved in a major restructuring at the World Bank turning it greener. We should keep in mind that Georgieva wrote her doctoral thesis on “Environmental Policy and Economic Growth in the US.”

 

Can the Fed really Control the Economy?


QUESTION: This whirligig talk of whether the Fed cuts rates by 25 or 50 basis points is carnival-level absurdity. Does the Fed have the “pretense of knowledge,” as F.A. Hayek, said, that they can regulate the economy like turning up or down the thermostat? I know you don’t agree with this, Martin, but then, Wall St. trades on daily sentiment not ideology.

TM

ANSWER: I understand the theory, but where it is seriously flawed is the idea that people will borrow simply because you lower rates. More than 10 years of Quantitative Easing, which has failed, answers that question. The way the Fed was originally designed allowed it to stimulate the economy by purchasing corporate paper directly, which placed it in a better management position. Buying only government paper from banks who in turn hoard the money fails. As Larry Summers admitted, they have NEVER been able to predict a recession even once.

 

 

The Fed lowered rates during every recession to no avail just as the ECB has moved to negative rates without success. The central banks are trapped and they are quietly asking for help from the politicians which will never happen.

Reuters Post-Debate Poll: Biden 22%, Bernie 18%, Warren 8% and Harris 6%….


Reuters/IPSOS conducted a poll [see here] following the second round of Democrat debates.  The latest results show Creepy stayed the same at 22%; Crazy gained 2 points and is now 18%.  However, Spank Me lost almost half of her support, now 6%; and Howdropped to 8%.  No-one else registers anywhere close to being a contender:

(Poll Data Here)

This latest national poll erases the momentum for Kamala Harris (media favorite) and Elizabeth Warren (limo-liberal favorite), who now appear to be sliding backwards along with Robert Francis O’Rourke (anxious people snorting adderall favorite).

Pete Buttigeg gained one percent and is now bringing up the rear on the top five candidates with 4 percent support (meh twinkles).  Meanwhile Corey Booker went from one percent to 3 percent (woo-woo uptwinkled spanglish).

Joe Biden was obviously helped by the lack of broadcast ratings for the debates; so most voters didn’t see his oddly structured jibberish and stunted cognition.  Bernie gained ground on Biden by two percent going from 16% before he started shouting, to 18% after he was done yelling at the other candidates to get off his lawn. (Reuters Article Here)

Selling Liberty: National Delusions and the Madness of Crowds | Yuri N. Maltsev


Published on Apr 23, 2011

Presented by Yuri Maltsev at the Mises Circle in Chicago: “Strategies for Changing Minds Toward Liberty,” on 9 April 2011. Sponsored by Dr. Don Stacy.

 

What Soviet Agriculture Teaches Us | Yuri N. Maltsev


Published on May 25, 2011

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Presented by Yuri Maltsev at the Mises Circle in Indianapolis: “Agricultural Subsidies: Down on the D.C. Farm,” on 14 May 2011. Sponsored by Weaver Popcorn Company.

 

Traveling Down the Road to Serfdom: History of Socialism from Marx to Obama | Yuri N. Maltsev


Published on Sep 30, 2010

Presented by Yuri N. Maltsev at “The Delusion of Good Government”: the Mises Circle in Colorado Springs, Colorado; 18 September 2010. Sponsored by Pikes Peak Economics Club. Includes an introduction by Douglas French. Music by Kevin MacLeod

Did the CIA Orchestrate the Ukrainian Revolution?


The attribution to the CIA orchestrating the Ukrainian Revolution against Yanukovich is total BS!!!!!!!!! I had personal friends on the barricades at Maidan when the protests began on the 21st of November 2013. I was advising the people I knew that they had to get the police to switch sides. A personal friend had the guts to go up to a Russian soldier when they entered Eastern Ukraine before the news. She went up to him and asked if she could take a photo since they were there to protect them. He allowed her to take the photo. I posted it but cut her image out for obvious reasons. I posted her photo on May 22, 2014.

I had firsthand knowledge of how this event unfolded and it was NOT organized by the CIA. We even had two staff members there in Ukraine. When they would visit the USA and saw any policeman, they would panic and try to avoid them because the police pre-revolution would abuse the people and even rape women. I explained that for the revolution to win, they had to get the police to switch sides.

Yes, the CIA gained influence and picked who would take charge but they did not get the people to rise up — they did that on their own. They threatened the people and warned that if they overthrew the new hand-picked leaders that they would be on their own. You MUST draw a line between what the people did and what the West did afterward. These people who attribute everything to an all-powerful CIA plot have NO personal knowledge of anything and spin their opinion as if it were fact. The whole “Fuck the EU!” comment by Victoria Nuland phoning with Geoffrey Pyatt was reported February 7th, 2014 and it only illustrates that there were efforts to gain control of the situation in Ukraine, but it does not demonstrate that the CIA organized the revolution from the start. Yanukovych fled Ukraine on February 22, 2014, just about 3 months from the beginning of the protests.

Yanukovych was an oligarch and his police were shaking down businesses and forcing them to pay his two sons. He was running Ukraine the same way oligarchs ran Russia. You obey their commands or you die. If you had a business that was really doing well, Yanukovych and his sons would confiscate it. That is what caused the people to rise up, it was nothing the CIA managed to do. I had personal friends on the barricades. I was deeply concerned for their safety and was in regular contact offering my advice.

Bipolarized Journalism…


Good grief.  In the latest exhibition of bipolar narrative engineering, the New York Times encapsulates everything wrong with the current state of U.S. journalism.

The first New York Times headline for tomorrow was presented with text: “Trump Urges Unity VS. Racism”… (see below)

… This triggered the mob; who immediately began an apoplectic outrage campaign against the publication.    So the editors jumped quick to the typeset to correct their headline, acquiesce and engineer a more adversarial narrative; as below.

The second New York Times headline for tomorrow was changed to the text: “Assailing Hate But Not Guns”… (see below)

Welcome to narrative engineering by mob rules.

Yup, that’s journalism in 2019.

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