COMMENT: I think the danger for Canada is not Quebec leaving because they get 11 billion dollars a year given to them by the federal government, it is the provinces paying the bills that are more likely to leave, western Canada in general but especially Alberta which has been getting hosed. As you noted before resentment is what is produced by giving billions of mostly western Canadian dollars to eastern Canada each year. Now Trudeau is attacking the oil industry that pays the bills, the man is insane and destroying Canada.
RB
REPLY: I am fully aware that the Separatist movement is rising very rapidly in Canada and it is the West v East. Trudeau’s socialist agenda is again imposing the philosophy of class warfare upon the whole of Canada. This only inspires uprising and discontent as we are seeing in Europe. The very same issues were behind the Trump Revolution. The media keeps desperately trying to overthrow Trump as president to save the socialist agenda in the USA.
Understand that this is the death of socialism. As it declines as an economic philosophy, those who are diehard leftists will do whatever they can to take power back.
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Up here in Canada, the politicians seem to not even talk about the NAFTA agreement being changed by Trump. Has something taken place behind the curtain that they are not even worried about that issue?
CB
ANSWER: While playing a front row seat during the 2016 Election in the States, the truth is that Trump was focusing more on Mexico than Canada. The reason why was taxes. Manufacturing plants set up in Mexico, not Canada, which taxed even higher rates than the USA.
Even Stephen S. Poloz, Governor of the Bank of Canada, has set aside the issue of NAFTA claiming there remains uncertainty until he knows more about the nature of the risk, he will not focus of that topic.
The much greater risk to Canada will be the Trump Tax Reform. Canadians will also shift business to the States because it will save 50% in taxes. So, the tax reform is a far bigger issue than NAFTA
It’s not just to make up for taxes lost because electric car use is up.
Rockwall, Texas has become one of the highest income per capita counties in Texas because of flight from income taxes states, especially California. Real estate prices have exploded because of growing business presence in the Dallas/Ft. Worth and flight from other states.
The business exodus and brain drain from California, coupled with the explosion of sanctuary cities there, have replaced tax paying citizens with illegals who neither pay taxes, nor get driver’s licenses, nor inspect nor register their vehicles.
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; I am very impressed. Socrates called the high in BitCoin and Thursday it wrote: “As of the close of Thu. Dec. 21, 2017: Our immediate trend model is bearish as are our momentum models so we should still expect a retest of support. Projected technical Resistance stands tomorrow at 1626085, 1626085, 1626085 and 1626085. Opening above this area will cause it to become support. ”
Even Socrates could correctly forecast this crash. Absolutely impressive!
PJK
REPLY: Yes. It caught the high rather nicely. Even the Global Market Watch calling for a temp high on the monthly level. This is monitoring thousands of markets. There is absolutely no human being who can do this and it would take an army of analysts just to write so many reports.
Several new developments happening today center around the FBI’s use of the Christopher Steele Dossier in gaining FISA warrants to wiretap and monitor the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump; ie. “The Trump Project”. Doug Ross continues to update the ongoing conspiracy Timeline – SEE HERE. And that timeline just gained a big addition from a recently discovered visitor to the White House.
Before going to the White House visitor angle, it’s important to express appreciation for Tablet Mag who did a deep dive into the Fusion-GPS connection to the creation of the Steele Dossier, and more specifically how Fusion-GPS head Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby were instrumental in getting the dossier assembled and into the hands of the White House prior to the DOJ and FBI applying for the FISA warrant – SEE HERE.
Tablet Mag outlines how Mary Jacoby even bragged about getting the “Russiagate” narrative started:
A Tablet investigation using public sources to trace the evolution of the now-famous dossier suggests that central elements of the Russiagate scandal emerged not from the British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s top-secret “sources” in the Russian government—which are unlikely to exist separate from Russian government control—but from a series of stories that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby co-wrote for TheWall Street Journal well before Fusion GPS existed, and Donald Trump was simply another loud-mouthed Manhattan real estate millionaire.
Understanding the origins of the “Steele dossier” is especially important because of what it tells us about the nature and the workings of what its supporters would hopefully describe as an ongoing campaign to remove the elected president of the United States.
[…] In a Facebook post from June 24, 2017, that Tablet has seen in screenshots, Jacoby claimed that her husband deserves the lion’s share of credit for Russiagate. (She has not replied to repeated requests for comment.) “It’s come to my attention that some people still don’t realize what Glenn’s role was in exposing Putin’s control of Donald Trump,” Jacoby wrote. “Let’s be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn.”
This assertion is hardly a simple assertion of family pride; it goes directly to the nature of what became known as the “Steele dossier,” on which the Russiagate narrative is founded. (read more)
The Tablet-Mag outline shows the distinct trail of the finished Steele Dossier entering into the White House and how President Obama likely saw and reviewed the content. However, missing from the this report is an origination angle even more nefarious.
Remember, previous media reporting -in conjunction with Clinton campaign admissions- have confirmed the DNC and Clinton Campaign financed Fusion-GPS through their lawyers within Perkins Coie. Fusion then sub-contracted with retired British MI6 agent Christopher Steele to write the dossier.
The dates here are important because they tell a story.
The origin of the Clinton effort with Fusion-GPS was April 2016. That’s the same month Fusion hired Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr, to gather opposition research on candidate Trump. It would be most likely that Nellie Ohr was in contact with Christopher Steele. DOJ Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr was later demoted for his unreported contacts with Christopher Steele and Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson.
However, there was another event in this April 2016 timeline which enhances the trail of the Dossier origination. [Hat Tip Katica] Check this out:
In April 2016 Mary Jacoby shows up on White House visitor logs meeting with President Obama officials. In April 2016 the Clinton Campaign and DNC hired Fusion-GPS to organize the Russia research, that later became known as the “Steele Dossier”.
The wife of Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS), Mary B. Jacoby, with years of Russia-angled reporting –including Donald Trump– visits the White House in April 2016, at the same time as the DNC and Clinton hire Fusion GPS to conduct the opposition research on Donald Trump, surrounding Russia?
This timeline is entirely too obvious to be coincidental.
Expand slightly and consider:
April: Mary Jacoby, wife of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, visits the White House. The Clinton Campaign and DNC then hire Fusion GPS to conduct ‘Opposition Research’, with a Russian emphasis. Fusion GPS then hires Nellie Ohr who specializes in Russian-centric counterintelligence. Nellie Ohr then contacts MI6 agent Christopher Steele to write a Russian Dossier. A month later, May 2016: Nellie Ohr’s husband inside the DOJ, Bruce Ohr, is then working with FBI counterintelligence head Peter Strzok. By June 2016: Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr and DOJ Attorney Lisa Page then apply for a FISA warrant.
June 24th, 2017, Mary Jacoby appears on Facebook taking credit for the origination of the Russiagate narrative.
This timeline is so transparent it’s deafening.
[More from the Tablet] Simpson and Jacoby had ID’d Manafort as a world-class sleazeball and they were right. A slick Georgetown Law grad running in GOP circles since the Reagan campaign, Manafort used his talents and connections to get paid by some very bad people. I would only add here that, in my personal experience, journalists are not in the habit of forgetting major stories they’ve written, especially stories with a character like Manafort at the center.
So when the Trump campaign named Paul Manafort as its campaign convention manager on March 28, 2016, you can bet that Simpson and Jacoby’s eyes lit up. And as it happened, at the exact same time that Trump hired Manafort, Fusion GPS was in negotiations with Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to see if there was interest in the firm continuing the opposition research on the Trump campaign they had started for the Washington Free Beacon. (more)
Mary Jacoby and Glenn Simpson – Fusion GPS
If the counterintelligence FISA warrant was obtained through deception, misleading/manipulated information, or fraud; and that warrant is what led to the wiretapping and surveillance of candidate Donald Trump and General Flynn; and that warrant was authorized by FISA Court Judge Contreras –who was the judge in Flynn’s case, and is now recused– the entire tenuous FBI and DOJ operation begins to collapse and the outline of a “conspiracy” becomes clearly evident.
The back-story to the FISA warrant is the cornerstone. The back-story contains both the FBI and the DOJ scheme. Expose it, remove it, and the entire ‘muh Russia’ conspiracy fraud collapses under the weight of sunlight. WATCH:
♦Release #2 outlined the depth of FBI Agent Strzok and FBI Attorney Page’s specific history in the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton to include the changing of the wording [“grossly negligent” to “extremely careless”] of the probe outcome delivered by FBI Director James Comey.
♦Release #3 was the information about DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr being in contact with Fusion GPS at the same time as the FISA application was submitted and granted by the FISA court; which authorized surveillance and wiretapping of candidate Donald Trump; that release also attached Bruce Ohr and Agent Strzok directly to the Steele Dossier.
♦Release #4 was information that Deputy Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was an actual contract employee of Fusion GPS, and was hired by F-GPS specifically to work on opposition research against candidate Donald Trump. Both Bruce Ohr and Nellie Ohr are attached to the origin of the Christopher Steele Russian Dossier.
♦Release #5 was the specific communication between FBI Agent Strzok and FBI Attorney Page. The 10,000 text messages that included evidence of them both meeting with Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to discuss the “insurance policy” against candidate Donald Trump in August of 2016.
QUESTION: Why do you paint the left/Democrats as really being Marxist?
OP
ANSWER: Marx is the one that started the entire focus on the class warfare. Keep in mind that Marx began his position with socialism – not communism. It was the Commune Movement in Paris that persuaded Marx to adopt communism, which was the surrender of all property.
The reason I call the left Marxist is that this is where the class warfare begins. This philosophy did far more than simply invoke class warfare. It instigated the entire belief that government could manage the economy and eliminate the business cycle. John Maynard Keynes also followed that segment of Marx taking the position that government could control the business cycle. Therefore, both Marx and Keynes shared a common belief that the government could eliminate the business cycle. Towards the end of Keynes’ life, he relented that he had fought against the business cycle and Smith’s Invisible Hand, and came to realize he was wrong.
Here you have a video clip of Larry Summers being interviewed by Bloomberg. The question asked was simple. Why have economists been unable to ever predict a recession and manage the economy?
Then you have the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Arthur Burns, who was there for the end of Bretton Woods. He too stated bluntly that this entire philosophy that began with Marx advocating that government can manage the economy has failed.
The next Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, also maintained the same position that the business cycle always won (Rediscovery of the Business Cycle). This “New Economics” was the Keynesian position that government could manage the economy eliminating the business cycle, which has utterly failed.
Therefore, anyone who says that this is not Marxism is really ignorant of where this entire line of economic thought began in modern times.
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Did Donald Trump take your Tax Reform Proposal you submitted to Congress back in the nineties?
RK
ANSWER: I know a lot of people have been asking that since his original corporate tax rate was 15%. What I can say is that the notion to eliminate deductions for State income tax has been bantered around for a long time. I believe that was added to the reform and was not actually Trump’s plan initially out of the gate.
What you have to understand is that if California gets 13.5% and Alabama is 5%, the States have seen this as welfare for California and other high taxes States. Their residents get to deduct that money and it is really a welfare check for the State. To make it fair, there should be NO deduction for State income taxes. That will then force the local politicians to be respectful of other people’s money perhaps for the first time in history.
This is why I knew it would be time to move to Florida where there was no state income tax. I cannot tell you how many friends from New Jersey have already called and want to move their businesses to Florida asking how hard was it.
While the American press keeps pushing the class warfare along with the Democrats, outside the USA there is a major panic taking place on a grand scale. I have been called into meeting in Europe and even in Asia all deeply concerned about the loss of competition with the United States due to the Trump Tax Reform. Naturally, the American press would NEVER tell the truth how cutting the corporate tax rate will upset the powers that be around the globe.
A German study warns that its economy will be among the losers in the face of the Trump Tax Reform, which they warn will fuel the tax competition between America and Europe, but also the study leader, Christoph Spengel from the Economic Research Institute ZEW, came out and told Reuters:
“In addition, competition between EU members for US investment will increase; Germany is the loser.”
German Industry is already screaming. They want the Solidarity Surcharge terminated. That was put on for the unification and was never lifted, as is always the case. Without the surcharge, the German corporate rate would be 28.2%, still well above the EU average tax rate of 20.9%.
To finance the reunification of Germany a surcharge, the government taxed all taxpayers on their income tax withholding and corporation tax. The assessment basis was the income tax or corporation tax. This became known as the Solidarity Surcharge and is currently 5.5 % of the relevant assessment basis. Therefore, the effective corporate tax rate in Germany has been 33.7%. Of course, the Solidarity Surcharge is no longer is really needed to pay for the unification. But as always, once a tax is imposed, the government just can’t let it go.
The taxation levels in Germany were always much higher. When I was working on corporate restructuring helping companies select where to set up inside Europe for the birth of the Euro, I never placed any manufacture in Germany. I sent them to Britain for the net tax was 40% less. If they did not need skilled-manufacturing labor and just the best tax rate, I put those companies in Ireland. Never did I recommend anyone to move to Germany or France.
The advice I gave to those in a position to put the counter-reform in motion was straightforward. I advised them to ELIMINATE income tax completely. The political cover should be that they are adopting the original structure of the United States whereas only indirect taxation was permitted prior to 1913. A few mouths dropped. But they underst6ood the advice I was giving if they really wanted to compete.
QUESTION: I loved your mention of how our money is not “printed”. You are THE ONLY financial expert to mention this. And you can’t understand our economy without understanding Electronic Money. I researched this 3 or four years ago and came up with, .003 physical currency vs the rest as Electronic Money. I later stumbled across an article on the same subject by an economics professor who put the ratio at .0003 physical. SO, who/where/how much/ and by who’s authority is E money created? E money is how the economy is propped up, and the amount is in TRILLIONS UPON TRILLIONS.
ANSWER: That is about correct. However, it is actually much worse. About 40% of the value of the paper currency of the United States circulates outside the USA. In fact, about 40% of the debt is also held outside the USA.
Moreover, the bulk of the money is not just electronic already, but people failed to understand the change in the debt structure. Why do governments even borrow money when they have NO INTENTION of ever paying anything back? Once upon a time, before 1971 under Bretton Woods, it was illegal to borrow against government bonds. That was when the theory emerged that it was LESS INFLATIONARY to borrow than to print. The bonds were not part of the money supply. However, post-1971, you could borrow freely against government bonds. It no longer made any difference to print v borrow.
Today, on average, 50%+ of the national debts of most countries is accumulative interest payments. When Federal paper money began, it was really circulating bearer bonds in the United States. In fact, the reverse of the notes displayed the interest you would earn holding that currency.
When the government switched to DEMAND notes, dropping all interest payments, this is when the dollar was fondly referred to as a “Greenback” meaning there was nothing but green ink on the reverse side and no table of interest payments.
This is when the dollar became paper money and no longer was actually a circulating form of a bearer bond. The government paid interest to encourage people to accept the paper currency and it was introduced during the Civil War to pay for the costs.
All this hype about BitCoin and electronic money is a bit strange since most money is electronic. The only distinction that BitCoin actually has is its claim as an alternative form of money separate from legal tender, which means the government will accept that currency in payment of fines or taxes.
The bulk of all purchasing transactions are by plastic cards which are comprised of 66% of all in-person sales, with nearly half of them, or 31% are made with debit cards. Welcome to the electronic currency economy. It’s here already.
My recent meetings in Brussels reveals some concern what happens when Merkel loses power? Schultz is calling for the complete federalization of Europe – the United States of Europe as he puts it. The power is starting to slip between their fingers and as Italy approaches its confrontation with the EU in the next elections, there too we see the Social Democratic ruling party PD is losing its support in the same manner as the SPD in Germany.
Now with only a few weeks before the expected dissolution of the Italian parliament before the new elections, the PD is already down to only a 23.4% approval rating. The Socialist agenda is losing around the world just as Hillary lost in the States as did Schultz in Germany.
In Italy, the center-right coalition of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is on the road to a major come-back gathering 36% of the polls, which is the strongest political party in Italy right now. The second party in line is also the anti-Euro Five-Star movement coming in at 28.2%.
If the polls are correct and the election took place today, 64.2% of the people would vote AGAINST the EU. This type of coalition could become the strongest single party in the next parliament and the strongest as a percent of the population throughout Europe. There is a rising feeling in Italy that the EU has been a disaster burdening them with refugees they refuse to compensate or allow to move north within Europe. Italy is now just trying to keep the EU out which or interfering ever again.
In Italy, a new parliament is likely to be elected at the beginning of March. It is expected that President Sergio Mattarella will dissolve Parliament between Christmas and New Year, paving the way for new elections.
I previously wrote that it was the EU which conspired to overthrow Berlusconi because he was anti-Euro back then and wanted to take Italy out before BREXIT. For Berlusconi, this is political payback.
The more political chaos in Europe, the crazier the markets will become in 2018 driving the dollar up until the monetary system cracks wide open.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
In Italy, the center-right coalition of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is on the road to a major come-back gathering 36% of the polls, which is the strongest political party in Italy right now. The second party in line is also the anti-Euro Five-Star movement coming in at 28.2%.
Centinel2012 