Tag Archives: Student debt

Sep 1 2020

Alberta – Should it Join the USA or Be Independent?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Canada

Re-Posted Sep 1, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Hi Marty,
I live (and have lived) in Alberta for a long time. The WEXIT (Alberta separatism movement) is alive and well here and so this is something to be considered for your blog.
So, Alberta part of the US and way from Justin Trudeau?? Personally I would fight this as it is a bad deal for Alberta (given US deficits and the tiny representation in the US Congress). But it is a good deal for the US as noted in the article in the Calgary Sun as noted above.
What do you and Socrates think about this entire subject?
Best regards
GA

ANSWER: That is an interesting question filled with political hurdles. First, Canada would demand you to accept part of their debt. Then to join the United States, forget the deficits since all countries have that. The question would be how about Social Security etc.

I would recommend simply separatism and independence. Joining any other government you will surrender your freedoms. As long as we have Socialism, we will never have individual freedom and Equal Protection of the law cannot exist when you treat people differently because of class. When they point to the rich, they point to Buffet, Soros, Gates, and other billionaires. The bulk of the “rich” are just small business people. The super-rich can afford to pay bribes and know how to do it. The rest of us do not stand a chance. We are exploited by not just the Socialists, but also by the corrupt billionaires who own government.

Keep your independence. Sell citizenships to raise capital. I will be one of the first in line for that.

Aug 30 2020

Victor Davis Hanson | Trump, China and Black Lives Matter


Victor Davis Hanson is an American classicist, military historian, columnist, and farmer. He has been a commentator on contemporary politics for the National Review and The Washington Times and is currently the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He and John analyse the current culture war and the effect it is having on our geopolitical strategy especially in relation to China, in light of the current pandemic.

Aug 26 2020

The Trump Bull Market


Anyone who has seen my cartoons knows I support Trump and his re-election. Biden and Kamala would be a disaster for our country. However, I don’t always agree with the president and before we at GrrrGraphics begin producing a Republican Convention cartoon extravaganza, I thought I would temper it with a bit of criticism.

When Trump brags about the stock market going up and making new highs, I cringe. This is not a healthy stock market based on logic, earnings, or a healthy economy. The market has disconnected itself from capitalism and a true value discovery.

What’s really going is a Federal Reserve takeover of our economy. What we’re seeing is a monumental transfer of wealth from the have nots to the haves. It widens the gap between a few money lords and the vast majority of We, The Serfs. Before you say I sound like Bernie Sanders, this isn’t about class warfare, but it is about destroying what’s left of the middle class. It makes it easier for the illuminati and their point man, George Soros, to usher in their tyrannical socialism.

Leaving no good crisis unused, they’re leveraging the ‘plannedemic’ to help globalist corporations get fabulously wealthier and more powerful while the smaller businesses—the Mom and Pop middle class–are crushed. The Fed has poured in nearly $7 trillion into the stock market this year alone–and while it does help out those with 401ks as Trump says, it mostly helps those at the very top of the pyramid the most. Amazon’s Bezos has raked in countless billions of dollars has his company makes new highs. Apple has a two trillion dollar market cap. Tesla has the largest market cap of any auto company, even if their sales don’t justify it. Elon Musk is favored by the “Green New Deal” illuminati, so he gets propped up while competition gets stamped out.

The Federal Reserve, in a fascistic manner, gets to funnel money toward favored companies while revenue for small businesses is down 30 percent. The Fed creates money from thin air and keep ‘their’ stock market bull moving up, thus making the fabulously wealthy central bankers and the handful of powerful families at the top who own the Fed gets fabulously wealthier and more powerful. The top 1 percent already owns nearly 40 percent of the stock market. The rest of us get to pay for the bubble through inflation. Have you noticed how expensive food has become? Yet we don’t get to share in the money-glutted stock market. Has the Fed sent you a share of Amazon or Apple? Of course not. Yet we pay for their robbery through the massive creation of debt. It’s always the same—the powerful screw over the powerless. We’ve already passed the point of no return with the national debt (now nearing $27 trillion) and every few seconds another $100,000 is added to it.

https://www.usdebtclock.org

Many Americans can’t afford to participate in the stock market bubble. They’re too busy worrying about how to pay their rent while the rich are getting incredibly richer by ill-gotten means. This is something Trump should consider before he brags about new stock market highs.

—Ben Garrison

Aug 26 2020

U.S. Tightens The Noose By Initiating Snapback of UN Sanctions Against Iran


“When the U.S. sanctions were violated, we enforced them. When UN sanctions are violated, we’re going to do everything we can to enforce them as well”

Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist image

Re-Posted from the Canada Free Press By  —— Bio and Archives—August 25, 2020

U.S. Tightens The Noose By Initiating Snapback of UN Sanctions Against Iran

The United Nations Security Council disgracefully rejected the U.S. initiative to extend the UN arms embargo against the Iranian regime beyond its current expiration this October. As the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft said at the time on August 14th, “the United States stands sickened – but not surprised – as the clear majority of Council members gave the green light to Iran to buy and sell all manner of conventional weapons. History will easily trace the path of leadership in this era, and unfortunately it will not go through the UN Security Council.”

Iranian Defense Minister General Amir Hatami made the Iranian regime’s malevolent intentions crystal clear. “We have made it known that we are ready to provide high-quality and appropriately-priced weapons and equipment to countries that need this,” he said on August 18th.

Iran: World’s leading sponsor of terrorism

Ambassador Craft promised that the United States would not give up trying to prevent the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism from gaining unfettered access to the global arms market.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), lifted various nuclear-related UN sanctions against Iran that had been imposed in previous Security Council resolutions. The Security Council took this major UN sanctions relief step upfront in contemplation of the Iranian regime’s continuing compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA. Resolution 2231 provided a mechanism for those previous resolutions, with their accompanying prohibitions imposed on Iran, to “snap back” in the event of Iran’s breach of the JCPOA.

Iran has committed multiple material breaches of its JCPOA commitments relating not only to arms transfers and missile tests, but also to its core nuclear-related commitments regarding nuclear enrichment levels and access for international inspections. As one of the original participants in the process leading up to the full implementation of the JCPOA in reliance on Iran’s commitments, the United States has every right to initiate snapback of the provisions of previous Security Council resolutions that had been in place prior to January 2016, regardless of whether the U.S. has the support of other countries that are parties to the JCPOA or otherwise.

On August 20th, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally delivered letters to both UN Secretary General Guterres and to the president of the Security Council initiating the snapback process, leading to the restoration of virtually all UN sanctions on Iran lifted under UN Security Council Resolution 2231. “America will not appease,” Secretary Pompeo told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. “America will lead.”

U.S. has not violated any legally binding obligations imposed by Resolution 2231

The snapback is supposed to take effect in 30 days from notification of an issue involving “significant non-performance of commitments under the JCPOA,” according to the process outlined in Resolution 2231, unless a Security Council member or the President of the Security Council introduces a draft resolution beforehand that is passed to extend the sanctions relief on Iran. Such a draft resolution would not pass, however, as long as President Trump remains in office. The United States would be able to veto such a draft resolution, allowing the snapback to proceed into effect automatically.

Opposition to the U.S. initiative from China and Russia is to be expected. It is disappointing to say the least, however, that the Western European permanent members of the Security Council, France and the United Kingdom, have also come out publicly against the U.S. on invoking the snapback process. Then again, Western European countries are not known for their moral courage when potentially lucrative commercial deals are at stake.

The critics of the U.S. snapback initiative claim that the U.S. has no authority to invoke it after withdrawing from the JCPOA. The critics are wrong. The JCPOA itself is a non-binding political document that was not even signed. Security Council Resolution 2231’s endorsement of the JCPOA does not convert a non-binding political document into a legally binding agreement. If the U.S. decided, as it did for national security reasons, to reimpose its own unilateral sanctions, the U.S. has not violated any legally binding obligations imposed by Resolution 2231. However, what Resolution 2231 did do is to legally condition the lifting of United Nations sanctions that the Security Council had previously imposed on Iran upon Iran’s meeting of its JCPOA commitments.

The United States is identified in Resolution 2231 as one of the “JCPOA Participants.” The U.S.’s “participant” status under Resolution 2231 derives solely from its original active participation in the negotiation, finalization and implementation of the JCPOA. Resolution 2231 sets no other qualifications or conditions on the original or continuing eligibility of such specifically identified JCPOA Participants to initiate a snapback.

Attempt by China, other UN Security Council members to change the explicit text of Resolution 2231 with hollow declarations is meritless

The U.S. could have vetoed Resolution 2231 because of the provisions lifting the previous UN sanctions but did not do so in reliance upon Iran’s commitments to abide by the terms of the JCPOA. Absent an amendment to the resolution to delete the United States as a JCPOA participant state after President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal in May 2018, which the Security Council never adopted, the U.S. maintains its original standing to initiate a snapback.

In short, the snapback provisions of Resolution 2231 are keyed to Iran’s JCPOA non-performance, not to the performance or non-performance of any other JCPOA Participant.

“[T]he United States” and any other “JCPOA participant State” may initiate snapback. Operative paragraph 11 of Resolution 2231 sets out the requirements for initiating snapback. Those requirements are that (i) a “JCPOA participant State” (ii) notify the UN Security Council (iii) of an issue it believes constitutes “significant non-performance” of commitments under the JCPOA. That has been done, and the snapback clock is ticking.

The attempt by China and other UN Security Council members to change the explicit text of Resolution 2231 with hollow declarations is meritless. China and Russia also attempted to enlist the current president of the Security Council in essentially ignoring the U.S. notification, as if somehow that would make the notification disappear or render it null and void. Indonesia’s UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, Security Council president for August, went along with the scheme. In his capacity as Security Council president, he said that he was “not in the position to take further action” on the U.S. snapback notification. Ambassador Djani said that there was no consensus in the Council supporting the U.S.’s move. Ambassador Djani should go back and read Resolution 2231 in detail. While a consensus may be desirable, no consensus is required for the snapback to take effect.

Simply ignoring the U.S. notification as if it did not happen will have no legal effect in stopping the snapback from taking effect

Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, tweeted what he viewed to be the result of the Security Council president’s decision to take no action: “It means, there is NO SNAPBACK.”

Wrong! The president of the Security Council does not have authority under Resolution 2231 to decide on whether the United States’ snapback notification is valid or not. He is authorized to introduce a draft resolution for a vote by the Security Council to keep the sanctions relief provisions of Resolution 2231 in place, which the United States can then veto. Simply ignoring the U.S. notification as if it did not happen will have no legal effect in stopping the snapback from taking effect.

When asked by reporters at the UN about sanctions enforcement, Secretary Pompeo would not get ahead of President Trump’s decision. “But you just need look no further than the history of the last two and a half years,” Pompeo said. “When the U.S. sanctions were violated, we enforced them. When UN sanctions are violated, we’re going to do everything we can to enforce them as well.”

Aug 26 2020

Premier Liu He and USTR Lighthizer Discuss Renewed Phase-1 Deliverables…


Posted originally on The Conservative tree House  on August 25, 2020 by 

United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and China’s Vice-Premier Liu He release a joint statement showing renewed emphasis on phase-1 purchases.

Washington, DC – Ambassador Lighthizer and Secretary Mnuchin participated in a regularly scheduled call this evening with China’s Vice Premier Liu He to discuss implementation of the historic Phase One Agreement between the United States and China. The parties addressed steps that China has taken to effectuate structural changes called for by the Agreement that will ensure greater protection for intellectual property rights, remove impediments to American companies in the areas of financial services and agriculture, and eliminate forced technology transfer.

 

The parties also discussed the significant increases in purchases of U.S. products by China as well as future actions needed to implement the agreement. Both sides see progress and are committed to taking the steps necessary to ensure the success of the agreement. (link)

This is interesting timing. In the foreground President Trump has openly stated he was/is not seeking further trade discussions with China. However, in the background if China does not meet the $75 billion phase-1 purchases, then a set of automatically triggering tariffs kick-in…. so it is in China’s interest to engage.

This trade leverage, combined with President Trump’s willingness to completely decouple from China…. combined with tariffs against China being favored by President Trump… explains the position of the administration.  Do nothing and tariffs kick back in.

According to Reuters analytics China has only purchased $7.3 billion in agricultural products through the first half of the year. The phase-1 agreement (tariff avoidance) requires $36.5 billion in purchases for 2020.

Additionally, in the energy sector: “China bought only 5% of the targeted $25.3 billion in energy products from the United States in the first half of 2020. Chinese state-owned oil firms have booked tankers to carry at least 20 million barrels of U.S. crude for August and September.” [Reuters Link] Again, if China doesn’t meet the agreement threshold the suspended tariffs return in full force.

It looks like Vice-Premier Liu He is attempting to head-off the re-institution of tariffs due to phase-1 purchases falling below the agreement; thus Beijing is trying to avoid the built-in tariff penalty aspect.

…If you plant your trees in another man’s orchard, don’t be surprised when you have to pay for your own apples…

Aug 25 2020

Republican National Convention – RNC Live Coverage


Day 1 Land of Promise

Right Side Broadcasting image

Re-Posted for the Canada Free Press By  —— Bio and Archives—August 24, 2020

Land of Promise, Speakers include former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, Donald Trump Jr., and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.

Aug 24 2020

Kellyanne Conway Announces Departure from White House…


Posted originally on The Conservative Tree House on August 23, 2020 by 

Citing a need to renew focus on her children, White House advisor Kellyanne Conway has announced her departure from the administration:

STATEMENT: The past four years have allowed me blessings beyond compare as a part of history on Election Night 2016 and as Senior Counselor to the President. It’s been heady. It’s been humbling.

I am deeply grateful to the President for this honor, and to the First Lady, the Vice President and Mrs. Pence, my colleagues in the White House and the Administration, and the countless people who supported me and my work. As many convention speakers will demonstrate this week, President Trump’s leadership has had a measurable, positive impact on the peace and prosperity of the nation, and on millions of Americans who feel forgotten no more. (read more)

Aug 22 2020

Bill Gates Lies about His Connection to Epstein


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy

Re-Posted Aug 22, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

 

Aug 22 2020

Will Epstein Case with Maxwell Go Beyond just Sex?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy

Re-Posted Aug 22, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

 

The real question is what is going on in this case? Are prosecutors going to limit this to just sex? Or will they look at this for real that Epstein was using the underage girls for the purpose of blackmailing high profile people? The connection of Maxwell’s father to “the club” would open a lot of doors including the attempt to blackmail even Yeltsin. Somehow I suspect that would never happen because it would lead to the Clinton’s deal with the bankers.

Aug 21 2020

Kalamity Kamala a Calamity for America


Kamala won’t be Biden’s VP. Biden will be Kamala’s president only if she gets up in a good enough mood to give him permission

Joan Swirsky image

Re-Posted from the Canada Free Press By  —— Bio and Archives—August 20, 2020

Kalamity Kamala a Calamity for America

Calamity Jane was a frontier heroine in the mid-19th century who during an uprising in 1872, saved a Captain Egan from certain death, whereupon he told her: “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.”

This is in stark contrast to Kalamity Kamala of 21st century America, who would accelerate the downfall of our Democratic Republic in the unlikely event of a Biden-Kalamity win on November 3rd.

Why? Because Biden and Kalamity are promising to resurrect the failed policies of the Obama years, and inflict even more damage on America the Beautiful.

According to author and television host Mark Levin, although the media are rushing to portray California’s junior senator as a moderate, nothing could be further from the truth.
She is the “most extremist radical politician ever to run for high office” in the U.S.A., Levin states, even “farther left than 97% of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate,” even “left of avowed Marxist Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.”

Levin and his guest attorney Mark Pulliam provided several examples. Kalamity Kamala, they said:

  • Rejects a physical wall on the Southern border.
  • Compared ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service) to the Ku Klux Klan.
  • Believes in government-run health care for illegal aliens.
  • Believes in the elimination of private health care.
  • Believes in the Green New Deal which would bankrupt our country.
  • Wants to repeal the president’s tax cuts for the middle class.
  • Wants to massively increase taxes on all Americans.

When it comes to support for Jewish issues in America as well as support for Israel, the estimable Daniel Greenfield in his powerful article, The Democrat Party is Getting Rid of Jews, has a warning:

“Obama and Harris both signed off on Iran’s nuclear program and the flow of money to terrorists.” In addition, “While Harris has been depicted as a moderate, her chief of staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, was the national spokeswoman and senior adviser for MoveOn, the radical group [with] a long history of trafficking in anti-Semitism and attacking the Jewish State.”

And, Greenfield reminds us, Kalamity Kamala is a full-throated supporter of the virulently anti-Semitic members of the so-called “Squad”––Cong. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Cong. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Cong. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Cong. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and all the others who avidly support both the Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement to destroy Israel economically and to deny foreign aid to America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East.

In a chilling but all-too-credible warning, Greenfield says that “Jewish Democrats who imagine that Israel is the problem are about to learn they’re the problem.”

CENSORSHIP TO THE RESCUE

Clearly, the Democrat Party poohbahs recognize the liability Kalamity Kamala poses to a November victory and so, according to reporter Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon, an active campaign involving Democrat Party operatives like Obama handler Valerie Jarrett, Regressive activists, and all of the predictable media whores are declaring that any criticism of her be off limits.

The long list of words the media is forbidden to use include, among others: “ambitious,” “angry,” “unlikeable,” and “unqualified.” Don’t report on the “heritage” of non-white candidates is another directive, and don’t publish unflattering images.

And to anyone who does these sinful things, the self-appointed guardians of the Biden-Kalamity Censorship Committee are advised to use the magic formula: Cry “racist”––and then throw in “sexist”!

All of us can see the pitiful cognitive decline of Mr. Biden. But wasn’t Kamala chosen to cover for him, to be his pit bull, to prove to people she was capable of taking her seat in the Oval Office––unfortunately when and not if Biden’s rapid decline continues?

Now this committee is telling us that the entire Biden-Kalamity ticket is so vulnerable, indeed fragile, that it cannot withstand legitimate criticism, probing policy and personal questions, and what most of the country continues to cherish as a bedrock American value: Free Speech!

These are today’s Democrats––camouflage the ailing and failing and prettify the ambitious, angry, unlikeable and unqualified––or else!

Yet, laughably, Democrats continue to entertain the conceit that they are tolerant.

A THANK YOU IS IN ORDER

Actually, the Biden-Kalamity Censorship Committee has precedent. In 2007, a leftwing journalist named Ezra Klein formed a group called JournOlist which consisted of 400 equally leftist journalists, ostensibly to discuss politics but in fact to insult, degrade, vilify, marginalize and generally try to destroy anyone who disagreed with their largely radical points of view.

The “O” stood for the man then ascending in the political world who two years later would find himself at the pinnacle of power in the White House. One of JournOlist’s first tasks was to savage anyone who questioned Mr. Obama’s viciously anti-American and anti-Semitic pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Their magic formula was to call anyone who said or wrote anything negative about Obama a “racist.”

JournOlist members continued to hurl “racist” accusations at Obama’s critics for eight long years. What Americans learned from those overwhelmingly false charges was that weak and insecure people cave when people called them names but strong and confident people see the accusations for what they are––transparent attempts to intimidate them into silence.

Multimillions of Americans, including me, have to thank the JournOlist “strategy” because it succeeded in bringing to America the quintessentially strong and confident leader––President Donald J. Trump––who in less than four years has truly transformed our country into a flourishing Democratic Republic.

Why is that relevant today? Because President Trump recognizes that in every law, policy, philosophy, deal and strategy that Obama employed, VP Biden was right by his side, supporting every action and touting it enthusiastically on his globetrotting travels. And worse, with far-far left Kalamity Kamala now by his side, Biden’s plan to resurrect Obama’s policies would be even more extreme.

Keep that in mind when you read this brief review of what Barack Obama inflicted on our country and what President Trump fixed:

  • Obama-Biden eviscerated our military and President Trump reconstituted it to become the strongest military in the world.
  • Obama-Biden had a failed economy and chronically unemployed citizens and President Trump boosted employment to the highest levels in American history––including Black employment, Hispanic employment, women’s employment, and youth employment.
  • Obama-Biden displayed visceral antagonism to our most reliable Mideast ally and President Trump told the entire world that America stands with Israel. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the American embassy there; recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and now forged the first deal between Israel and an Arab state in 26 years––that of the now-promising partnership between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, with more Arab states coming on board in the near future.
  • Obama-Biden’s genocidal-to-Israel deal with Iran allowed the terrorist state to develop nuclear weapons and President Trump cancelled it, although he couldn’t recoup the $150-billion in cold hard cash that Obama & Co. shipped in pallets to Iran, all while the Mullahs were promising––as they are to this very day––to wipe Israel off the map.
  • Obama-Biden continued America’s decades-long dependence on foreign oil and President Trump made America completely energy independent.

BUT, BUT, BUT…

But Kalamity Kamala is only a Vice Presidential candidate, you may say. It’s the President who formulates the policies, determines the direction of our nation, and makes the decisions. Why such a brouhaha about her?

It is not only because candidate Biden’s handlers have succeeded in moving the once-vital politician to the far left, but because the far-far left is where Kalamity Kamala lives.

In a lacerating profile of Kalamity Kamala, journalist Ixtu Diaz says that after reading thousands of pages about her, she is a woman “who boasts of instilling fear in her opponents, who despises individual freedom, and who rages at half the planet for being men or for not thinking like her.”

“But let’s not fool ourselves,” Diaz continues, “Kamala won’t be Biden’s VP. Biden will be Kamala’s president only if she gets up in a good enough mood to give him permission. She has two big things going for her: that she is a woman and that she is black––a truly extraordinary feat that has never been accomplished by anyone before.

“She certainly deserves an award, although perhaps the vice presidency of a government without a president is excessive.”

Now that would be a true calamity!