Tag Archives: Twitter

May 3 2023

Government’s Rule #1 – There are no Rules in time of Need


Armstrong Eonomics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted May 2, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; With Mexico pushing to nationalize mines claiming it is targeting lithium, many see this law as opening the door to seizing all mines. You have always warned that as we move closer and closer to 2032, governments will become more authoritarian because they feel that they are losing power. Do you see mines becoming a target when they cancel the paper money and force everyone into government digital currency since gold will be the obvious alternative?

Thank you for sharing your experience. I am sorry for what they did to you, but the positive outcome is first we now know you are not one of them, and secondly that we would never have had access to Socrates. You have your sweet revenge for you are now much more widely known than had you remained exclusive.

Keep that stiff upper lip, as they say.

NP

ANSWER: Yes, I have heard that many times. I was shocked that just 3 months after my release I held a conference mainly because they wanted to shoot the movie The Forecaster. I was totally stunned when people were flying in from around the world. When I asked why they came, they said they wanted to make sure it was really me writing and not the government using my name. That was a surprise but it also shows how much people did not trust the government and that was 12 years ago.

RULE #1 – There are no rules in times of crisis. The government will do whatever they want and it is up to the people to challenge them in court.

In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, also known as The Steel Seizure Case, which made it to the Supreme Court where they ruled against President Truman by invalidating his seizure of the nation’s steel industry. In doing so, the Court limited the extent of the powers of the President of the United States under the Constitution. That was then. Biden has done some outrageous actions all with executive orders that defeat Congress and any democratic system.

Back in 1917, President Wilson nationalized the railroad industry to keep workers from striking during WWI. Truman could do something similar via Executive Order, but he had other options as well. In 1947 Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which banned strategies to help workers organize unions and limited the president’s power to seize industries during times of labor unrest. This allowed Truman to force workers back to work for 80 days while negotiations continued between labor and management. In 1948, an amendment was added to the Selective Service Act, allowing the president to seize industry facilities that were unable to fill their government orders for wartime products. The steel industry was not defaulting on its order obligations; however, as commander-in-chief, the president could make all military decisions for the United States, including mobilization efforts.

The story of the Youngstown decision begins with war. In 1950, the United States became involved in the Korean War when North Korean forces invaded the Republic of Korea. President Truman, without a Congressional declaration of war, sent troops to South Korea. In doing so, President Truman became the first president to involve the United States in a major war without specific authorization from Congress.

We must understand that this is the precedent. Biden will pull the same thing and get us involved in World War III and will circumvent Congress if the Neocons think Congress will not declare an act of war. People will say but that is unconstitutional. We ended up in the Korean War with no declaration of war either.

Herbert Hoover launched an investigation into the Great Crash based on a phone call where someone alleged that people manipulated the market down to discredit his administration. His investigations launched the SEC. In his memoirs, he apologized admitting that something the government will burn down the barn to a single rat.

They can seize gold mines and do the same to cryptocurrencies. Anyone who thinks there is some rule of law that will protect them – good luck. This is why I recommend coins and NOT bars for precious metals. Just as in the EU, they have made it illegal for a hotel to accept cash, they will do the same to cryptocurrencies and probably gold bullion. Already in Europe, it is ILLEGAL to pay for anything in excess of €10,000 in cash.

Anyone who thinks that by some miracle cryptocurrency will run parallel to the government’s digital currencies when they eliminate cash probably smoked too much when they were in college. They will not tolerate any competition. As we approach 2032, they will become much more aggressive and destroy everything we thought was our basic human right. Just look at what Trudeau did in Canada not to the Truckers, but froze anyone’s account to even donated money to them.

We do NOT live in a free society nor in a democracy at all. Because of their fiscal mismanagement, they have killed the economy, and now to prevent an uprising when the people figure it all out, they will become increasingly more authoritarian.

Edward Gibbon wrote of Caracalla: Each

“distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse”

(Book 1, Chapter 4).

On April 8th, 217AD, Caracalla was traveling to visit a temple near Carrhae in southern Turkey. On his journey, he stopped briefly to urinate. A soldier quietly approached Caracalla and stabbed him to death. Such is the fate of tyrants. When the military realizes that the enemy is within, they will eventually turn and defend the people. That is what history offers as an important lesson. They are going to do everything to stop Trump from becoming president because he is not a politician and now knows the game. He would fire all the Neocons and they will sooner assassinate him than relinquish the power they have seized under Biden. They have begun WWIII against Russia and China without a declaration of war as was the case against North Korea.

May 2 2023

Government Corruption is Unprecedented


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted May 1, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Hi Martin
Thanks largely to you, my family and I never took the covid vaccines. You are/were right that the Covid pandemic was a scam.
However, today, I read a post by you that reported that an 11% spontaneous abortion rate is something to be concerned about. The average miscarriage rate for woman younger than 35 is 15% and it gets worse, the older you get.

HH

REPLY: I think this T-Shirt sums it all up. We cannot survive under a Republic without term limits. Once someone becomes a politician, all is lost. Our politicians have been bribed and now there is a lawsuit filed against the head of the EU for she never put it to Parliament, bought billions of doses many times more than the population of Europe, with ZERO accountability.

These people have crossed to the other side and we become the enemy. I was in British Columbia about 20 years ago and I was totally shocked by a left-wing woman politician I do not remember her name. She actually said that EVERYTHING we earn belongs to the government. They decide how much we are allowed to retain.

Klaus Schwab is an academic. Most are just Marxists and believe that they need to suppress human nature and we should own nothing, surrender all imagination and creativity, and just work like ants in their leftist vision of a farm.

Schwab’s Dream – the Ant Farm

May 2 2023

FISA 702 Reauthorization Scheduled for This Year – Here’s Why It Must Be Opposed


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

This is a repost of an earlier outline from last week, you’ll soon see why refamiliarizing yourself with the details is important.

Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified April 27, 2023, that more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government. These search queries were based on authorizations related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

[OIG Testimony HERE]

Approximately 30% of those 3.4 million search queries were outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless searches, what the politically correct government calls “non-compliant searches.”  That means more than 1 million searches of private documents and communication of Americans were illegal and outside the rules.

Additionally, IG Horowitz also admitted that somewhere north of 10,000 federal employees have access to conduct these searches of the NSA database; a database which contains the electronic data of every single American, including emails, text messages, social media posts, instant messages, direct messages, phone calls, geolocation identifiers, purchases by electronic funds, banking records and any keystroke any American person puts into any electronic device for any reason.

If we were in a functioning system of government everything would be stopped right now, and no conversation would be taking place that was not about this issue. This is the total and complete surveillance state being talked about as if we were discussing what’s for dinner.

This is beyond jaw-dropping.

Context: In 2018 CTH revealed through research of their own documents that FBI and DOJ/FBI contractors had done more than 1,000 illegal searches using the NSA database, targeting Republican primary candidates from November 2015 through May 2016. These stunning admissions were from the DOJ’s own reporting to the FISA court.

Few were paying attention.

Although the number of the illegal search queries were redacted, we know the number is four digits from the size of the redacted text. More than 1,000 and less than 9,999.

FAST FORWARD TO 2023 – April 27, 2023, IG Horowitz outlined that more than 1.1 million illegal searches of this database were conducted in 2021 during the first year of the Joe Biden administration.

Additionally, and perhaps more consequentially, to give scope to how the process of total domestic surveillance has expanded, Horowitz now admits in 2021 the number of federal government employees with access to this total metadata collection system now exceeds 10,000 people. STOP THE PRESSES!

Yes, congress is talking about this ‘as if’ there is some level of importance.  However, the basic questions are not being asked, or have perhaps just become so accepted that legislators have become oblivious to the insanity of it.   Beyond the blood boiling questions about searching the NSA database, questions like:

In order for these search queries to take place, there has to be a housing facility to capture it.

Where is all of this electronic data being stored?

Why is all of this electronic data being stored?

Who is in control of this all-encompassing electronic data collection?

Forget the searches for a moment, what act of congress authorized the capture of this private data collection?  Essentially electronic intercepts of communication systems that flow throughout our life.

The background context here is congress debating the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the power of the DOJ and FBI to intercept American citizen communication and electronic data via the “702” authorizations, that permit the NSA database to be searched and queried.

If the inspector general is now admitting the FISA laws have been so comprehensively corrupted such that 3.4 million searches by more than 10,000 federal employees and government contractors now have access, there is no way that any reasonably intelligent person should support such reauthorization.  Even contemplating this request is absurd, beyond absurd.

The United States government is admitting to the public that a total and comprehensive surveillance state is currently in place, and 10,000 federal government agents have the authorization to monitor everything we do.

This is the admitted and current status of RIGHT NOW.  Yet people are worried about possible ‘vaccination passports’ or ‘digital currencies’ or ‘social credit scores’ sometime in the future?

Have we totally lost connection to the reality of our current condition?

Can you see the insanity of it?…  Or should we just ask, “what’s for dinner?”

Gaetz: It seems every time you write a report then the DOJ comes in and tells us they’ve now fixed everything

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May 2 2023

Senator Ron Johnson Notes Republicans on Senate Homeland Security Committee Refused to Support Hunter Biden Investigation


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

During an interview on Sunday conducted by Maria Bartiromo with Senator Ron Johnson, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Senator Johnson revealed that Republicans on his own committee refused to investigate the issues that surfaced from the Hunter Biden laptop, because they were worried about the appearance of politics during a 2020 election year.  Note, that’s an outcome of a Mitch McConnell decision.

Additionally, following revelations from the laptop of Hunter Biden, Senator Johnson outlines that current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken lied to congress when he said he never had any email contact with Hunter Biden.  Emails from Secretary Blinken are on the Biden laptop. WATCH:

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May 1 2023

Sunday Talks, NBC’s Gleeful Chuck Todd Promotes the Big Trap


Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2023 | Sundance 

CTH has been warning about how the multinationals use the false construct of the DC Potemkin Village to keep people distracted from the true power center that is in control of the system of our national government.  Just as Washington DC and the Legislative branch do not write legislation, the DC system does not control the regulations that flow as an outcome of the Executive branch policy.

Behind the Potemkin Village we discover the mechanisms and people who write the laws, construct the rules, and pay for control over the priority and execution of policy.  Corporations are in control of government; the politicians are the faces that keep everyone distracted.  This dynamic was recently highlighted when Senator Lindsey Graham discovered during a television broadcast that he was a sponsor of a bill he didn’t even understand.

The RNC and DNC are two private corporations within this dynamic.  The same funding mechanisms and corporations behind the Potemkin Village are the same funding mechanisms and corporations who fund the RNC and DNC.  This is one big political apparatus that gives the illusion of government, while the corporations exfiltrate the wealth using laws they construct and policies they create.

Earlier this year we warned these same multinational entities would use the “culture war” to enhance the distraction.  This is ‘The Big Trap.’  Earlier today NBC’s Chuck Todd ran the promotional preview for the 2024 deployment.  WATCH (2 minutes):

Prior to the 2012 election and the rise of the Sandra Fluke free birth control narrative, we used to call them social issues; however, the usefulness of cultural wars has morphed into the larger war of wokeism.

In the big picture, keeping the voting base distracted from the economic expansion of multinational globalism, the corporate ‘masters of the universe’ (ie. the Big Club within both parties), need to keep pushing wokeism and anti-wokeism as a political strategy.  The cultural issues are useful tools to keep control of an alignment of voters.  It has always been thus, and even more important now that people are starting to realize the expansion of the rust belt.

Political parties were created to present you with: (1) a controlled outlet for your focus (pro-tip the Big Club “they” control it); and (2) the illusion of choice.

Now there are some differences between the two political parties – between the two wings of the same DC vulture.

• The DNC wants power. The RNC wants money.
• The DNC uses money to get power. The RNC use power to get money.
• The ideology of the DNC drives their donor activity. The ideology of the donors drives the RNC.

This is the essential difference in their business models.  This is also how the system works when you think about ‘money’ and raw ‘ideological power’.

Let me give you an example in current culture, around “wokeism“.

The social and cultural ideology of the left-wing is clear; they are pushing ideology.  However, when you look at the right-wing corporate response, notice the focus is on money.  The left is pushing a cultural revolution; the right is seeking to gain money in (a) corporate alignment, or (b) velvet-gloved combat against it.

The leftist ideology advances. Notice there is no ideological pushback against the cultural revolution from Congress.  Why?… Money

Democrats know if they want to advance ideology, simply find a mechanism to pay Republicans.  Easy peasy.

The rust belt, the diminishment of the U.S. economic manufacturing base, was an outcome of corporate control over politics.  Corporations and banks seek profit, those profits are inflated by a U.S. service driven economic model.  Skilled jobs require higher wages.

If the skilled jobs can be outsourced to lower cost labor nations, the subsequent lowered labor costs drive bigger margins.  Again, it has always been thus.

At the core of the U.S. political issue, you discover that both wings of the DC UniParty agree with this basic economic model.  Republicans and Democrats now use the catchphrase ‘service driven economy‘ with bipartisan frequency.  Many voters no longer have any reference to an economic system that is anything except a ‘service driven economy’, yet nothing about that system provides long-term value for U.S. voters or workers.

Within this very specific dynamic, you find the root of the support for Donald J. Trump.  A larger, formerly considered silent majority who comprise the baseline middle class workforce, find common understanding with President Trump because he sees the flaws in the economic model.

Not coincidentally, it is only Donald Trump who has ever discussed these economic issues. Factually, no national politician in the modern era prior to Donald Trump ever dared broach the subject of economic globalism, and the negative consequences therein, because they would find themselves in the target field of the corporations who fund the political system.  A general platform more akin to a code of omerta covered the entire subject of republican economic policy.

As the pandemic years have shown, economic security is deeply tied to national security.  As an outcome, economic policy ultimately drives foreign policy.  When combined, the economic and foreign policy outlooks form the structural alignment of the UniParty platform.

Following the downstream effect of multinational corporate influence, modern Democrats support expansionist and interventionist foreign policy.  Meanwhile, modern Republicans, previously called “neocons” have always supported expansionist and interventionist foreign policy.  Leadership of both parties now align in a singular foreign policy outlook; thus, we see support for the Ukraine spending and intervention by both Democrats and Republicans.

However, outside the DC bubble of multinational corporate influence, the support for the interventionist foreign policy doesn’t exist in the same scale and scope.  Voters inside both the Democrat and Republican base do not support the intervention at the same level as the political leadership of both parties.  There is a structural breakdown between the priorities of voters and the priorities of the elected officials.  None of this is new discussion, we all accept this basic reality.

With political leadership of both parties supporting the same economic outlook, and both parties supporting the same foreign policy outlook, we find the source of opposition against U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Economic policy and foreign policy form the uniting bond that drives both parties to oppose Trump’s America First ideological outlook.

As long as Donald J Trump singularly represents the only counterforce against this UniParty globalist construct, he will continue to be targeted by the system of financial controllers who fund the political system.  For the sake of brevity this alignment of multinational corporate and financial economic interests is called “the big club.”

As part of the strategic political effort, the Republican wing of the Big Club needs to carve up the supporters of Donald Trump into smaller, easier to target, pieces.

This is where the value of the culture war, what is now considered as ‘wokeism’, plays into the strategy of those who seek to control political outcomes and remove the threat that Trump represents to their financial interests.  This is the division that Ron DeSantis is being funded by them to assist.

In many ways, this is why we are seeing prominent Republican officeholders pushing the culture war as a tool for their own political advancement.  The same Big Club members who are directly fighting against the America-First economic agenda, are the same Big Club members who are funding the Republican politicians to push the culture war.

The corporations, billionaires and multinationals who are funding the Republican candidates do not have any vested interest in the culture war. For them the social issues are a tool, technique or insurance policy to guarantee security of the interest that does matter, their financial status.

There are trillions at stake, literally trillions.  Additionally, decades of their prior investment interests are contingent upon the ‘service driven economy’ being maintained.

Dollars drive the U.S. global trade and financial exchanges.  The multinationals, both corporations and banks, have pre-deployed investments all around the globe.  However, many of those investments are entirely contingent upon the retention of the U.S. economic system they pre-established before the investment was made.  President Donald J. Trump represents the threat to that entire financial system.

Once you understand this, then a great deal of the more nuanced and granular U.S. political moves, almost all of which are funded by the corporations and billionaires who are attached to the global investment process, begin to make sense.

Every non-Trump candidate, funded to create the opposition to America First, is part of this process to use anti-wokeism as a strategy.

With this level of money at stake, do not be surprised when you look at how much is being spent to construct the system that guarantees the continuation of globalism. The money spent in funding the Republican candidates to advance the distracting cultural war pales in comparison to the amount of money at risk in the 2024 election outcome.

That’s the baseline for this:

…“GOP leaders and candidates should take from this poll one important lesson: voters expect them to fight wokeness,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling said. “Support for policies protecting families from gender ideology is off the charts, with the majority of the base showing a strong preference for tackling these issues. Meanwhile, approval of Republican establishment priorities was much more muted, with most of those surveyed even agreeing that GOP elected officials have given up too much ground in the culture war.”  

…“Any candidate who expects to win a Republican primary next year for any office needs to lead on cultural issues in order to win over voters,” Schilling said. “Perhaps the two most prominent leaders on these issues so far have been Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, so it should be no surprise they are far and away the favorites in the presidential field. It’s time for the rest of the party to pay heed and set their priorities accordingly.” (more)

Candidate Donald Trump understands the real priorities of the Big Club extend beyond this useful cultural war, deep into the world of economics and foreign policy.

As each of the corporate funded Republican candidates hits the cultural war (wokeism) effort as part of the distracting political strategy, watch President Trump generally agree with the ‘social issues’, but then counter the distraction with arguments specifically targeting economic and foreign policy.

The entire field of Republican candidates will hold the same economic and foreign policy outlook (Ukraine example), with only Donald Trump representing an alternative.

May 1 2023

Elon Musk Interviewed by Ann Coulter’s Old Boyfriend


Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2023 | Sundance 

Over the weekend Ann Coulter’s ex-boyfriend interviewed Elon Musk on his legacy enterprise HBO television show.  The interview is interesting from the dynamic of a few short soundbites that come from a brief discussion.  It’s 20 minutes for those who are interested.  WATCH:

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May 1 2023

Victor Davis Hanson Gives Big Picture Perspective on Fox News and Tucker Carlson Firing


Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2023 | Sundance 

Victor Davis Hanson often has a unique big picture perspective on current events, linking and contrasting the disconnected high-brow outlook to the pragmatic perspectives of the modern populist movement.

Hanson takes an academic approach to the reality of current social constructs, yet in his own unique way he can describe the current status in a thoughtful and practical way.  In this analysis VDH contrasts the goals of the ideological media, specifically the goals of those in the Republican wing of the media control apparatus, to the reality they have created by removing the voice of Tucker Carlson.  WATCH:

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In their quest to control the mounting opposition to the corporate manipulation behind the DC Potemkin Village, the corporate media are creating a nimbler and more consequential army of opposition to their efforts.  The need for control is a reaction to fear.

There is a particular type of spider that carries several hundreds of young on her body after birth.  If you spot one of these in your shower, and your irrational fear instinct is to smash what seems to be a big scary spider, what you discover in the aftermath is the bathtub walls moving.  Yes, you may have squished the spider, but hundreds of smaller spiders are now crawling all around you.

May 1 2023

Sunday Talks, Gary Cohn Discusses the First Republic Bank Dynamic, and Confirms Something Interesting…


Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2023 | Sundance 

Gary Cohn is connected to the banking and finance industry, well connected.  In this interview with Face The Nation earlier today, Cohn is discussing the current status of First Republic Bank, another big player in the California banking system that is about to collapse.  Cohn notes something at the 1:15 mark that just seems obvious yet is undiscussed in most outlines of the FRB discussion.

Six weeks ago, in an effort organized by the FDIC, $30 billion was pushed into FRB by eleven larger banks to stabilize it.  However, the only thing that infusion of capital did was allow institutional depositors time and ability to withdraw their funds. A complete racket.  Once the at-risk group exits, suddenly the collapse is back on the tee.  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We want to turn now to Gary Cohn, who is the vice chairman of IBM, former Goldman Sachs president and a former Trump administration top economic adviser. Good morning to you. Lots of titles, Gary, Lots of experience. That’s why we like having you here. I want to ask you about what’s happening with First Republic. It’s been under pressure. We know they’ve been looking for a buyer, the FDIC, the government is looking to arrange, moving it into government control and then maybe selling it. What are you hearing about how this would roll out?

GARY COHN: Margaret, thanks for having me. I think you’re portraying the situation as we find ourselves again on a weekend. As we closed business of Friday, the FDIC was in a process of looking for acquirers or bidders for the assets over the course of the weekend. I think the FDIC has asked potentially three banks for their final bids for the entire bank. The FDIC would prefer to sell the bank in its entirety than the pieces. What will most likely happen is the FDIC will seize control and then simultaneously resell the asset to the successful bidder. I think that will happen sometime later this afternoon before the markets open in Asia this evening.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And this will be a faster process than what happened with SVB?

COHN: It will be- it will be a much faster process. Now, we’ve been going down this process for the last two weeks or so as first republics continues to be under pressure and continues to lose deposits. Unfortunately, First Republic reported this week that they had a massive outflow of deposits over the last quarter.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So if First Republic is sold, then the acquirer would take on the deposits. So what do you think about the conversation we had earlier with Congressman Khanna about whether Congress needs to do something here? Because it seems like we’re just going into emergency mode now for three banks.

COHN: Yeah.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does there need to be a broader change to the regulatory system and to the laws?

COHN: Well, it’s an interesting question. So, look, I don’t agree with Congressman Khanna that we want unlimited FDIC insurance. I think that to me is a bit of a race to the bottom.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You had picked like two, 2 million. 5 million, 10 million.

COHN: Yeah. I mean, there’s got to be some limit. It’s- at some point you have to limit because you don’t want to race to the bottom where you know, the weakest bank with the weakest balance sheet in the world can offer you the highest rate of return on your deposits. And therefore, you take your deposits there because guess what? They’re insured by the federal government. That’s not what we want to see. We want to see some type of discipline in the system. When you talk about more and more regulation, I smiled because if you look at the report that came out that you referenced with Ro Khanna as well, you know, one of the findings in the report is that the regulators did not do a very good job enforcing the existing rules. So if you can’t enforce the rules you already have on the books and by- it’s hard to enforce the rules because there are so many rules, do you want to create more and more rules when you can’t enforce the one you already have? Part of me feels like we need to get a simpler, more coherent set of rules so the bank regulators can actually enforce them and they know what the important rules are.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But the bank regulators here are at the Fed. That’s what we’re talking about here.

COHN: They’re at the Fed and at the States. Remember–

MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s true.

COHN: –we have state regulated banks and federally regulated banks.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that’s a big conversation for California since they just had two banks–

COHN: It is.

MARGARET BRENNAN: –have some big problems. But Fed Chairman Powell is going to face questions from the press midweek.

COHN: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: They- he gives a press conference around the decision on interest rates that he is expected to be making. Do you think these banking problems are going to interfere with his plan?

COHN: I don’t think these problems are going to interfere with his plans. I actually think they’re helpful to his plans.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Because they’re slowing the economy?

COHN: Exactly. What the- what the chair has been trying to do is slow the economy down. He’s been trying to tamp down inflation. Inflation is too many goods chasing too few products. And part of the chasing has been the easy availability of credit. Now that we’ve seen deposits lose- the- leave the system and we’ve seen banks in tighter financial position, they are not offering loans as easily as they were before and the loans have become more expensive. So people are borrowing less money, they have less access to credit, so their ability to purchase is going down. Purchasing power is waning in the United States, which is exactly what the chairman’s been trying to do by raising interest rates. So he’s in essence, getting enormous amount of help out of this banking crisis, not what he wanted to see happen in any way, shape or form, but the unintended consequence is very helpful to slowing down the economy and tamping down inflation.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So does it up the odds of a recession being more than mild?

COHN: It probably ups the odds. Yes. I mean, it definitely ups the odds. It takes control out of the Fed. The Fed is no longer in total control of slowing down the economy. They’ve now got the banking industry playing along with them. But as we’ve seen in the economic data recently, the consumer in the United States still is in relatively good shape. They are starting to run out of savings. The money that they got during COVID, we put an enormous amount of stimulus into consumers bank accounts and that administrations, both administrations, every every administration put enormous amount of stimulus in the bank accounts. We see from the savings data that’s starting to to wear down. It’s starting to run off. So is that runs off further and further. The economy would become more credit dependent to keep thriving. So I think we will see a slowdown. And I still think we’re in a relatively decent shape. We may have a recession, but I still. I think we could muddle through the bottom here without a real deep recession.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Congressman McHenry, called the Fed’s report a self-serving justification of Democrats long held priorities. He may be venting. It doesn’t look like Congress is doing anything to change regulation or laws related to banking. There was an FDIC report on the collapse of Signature Bank, which blamed bad management, but it also said regulators just didn’t have enough staff. In New York. I mean, there’s some pretty damaging bits of information in here. If you put aside the politics, the regulators don’t have enough staff. They didn’t act. So who are they being held accountable by unless it’s Chair Powell?

COHN: Well, it is Chair Powell. And I think- I think when the chairman goes to Congress and remember, he testifies in front of both the House and the Senate a couple of times a year. Historically, all of the questions have been on monetary policy. I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more questions on the regulatory and the regulatory policy. How is regulation working? Are they keeping up to what they need to do? Do they have proper staff or there are issues that are going by that are not being covered? This is a huge finding. I mean, this is a bit of a seismic moment because we believe in the United States and I think the US population believes that the banks where they deposit their hard earned money are well regulated. And we have found out this week in the Fed’s own report that these banks are not well regulated, and they admitted it themselves. I ran a regulated bank. I know that if we would have ever told our regulator that we did not have a enough people to regulate ourselves, they would have shut us down. So we cannot be in a position where the regulators themselves say we do not have enough staff to regulate you properly.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You ran one of the biggest banks. Gary, we’ve got to leave it there. We’ll be back in a moment.

May 1 2023

Wall St Journal Outlines Documents from Jeffrey Epstein Showing Contact with Highly Influential People, Including Current CIA Director Bill Burns and Clinton/Obama Lawyer Ruemmler


Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2023 | Sundance

Despite no one knowing ‘how’ Jeffrey Epstein actually made his money, one of the great mysteries amid a labyrinth of rabbit hole mysteries, the network of government officials and high-profile names who associated with and met Epstein has never been fully outlined or absorbed.

Other than a few random and specific names that surface from time-to-time, the lack of media curiosity into the bigger context of the Epstein story has always been somewhat perplexing.  One would ordinarily think the opportunity for a Pulitzer might entice an intrepid media outlet to do a lengthy dive into the matrix of Epstein; alas, no effort toward that objective ever surfaced.

Today, another fragment in the story seemingly finds its way to the surface as the Wall Street Journal outlines a list of names that were not included in the “black book” story, but nonetheless were intertwined with Epstein *after* his first conviction as a sex offender [STORY HERE].

Two of the names within documents, schedules and calendars attributed to the Epstein life include current CIA Director Bill Burns and former White House lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler.  In addition to being the White House legal counsel, Ms. Ruemmer was also the foundation lawyer for Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as the personal lawyer for Susan Rice.

(Wall St Journal) – The nation’s spy chief, a longtime college president and top women in finance. The circle of people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein years after he was a convicted sex offender is wider than previously reported, according to a trove of documents that include his schedules.

William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2021, had three meetings scheduled with Epstein in 2014, when he was deputy secretary of state, the documents show. They first met in Washington and then Mr. Burns visited Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan.

Kathryn Ruemmler, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, had dozens of meetings with Epstein in the years after her White House service and before she became a top lawyer at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2020. He also planned for her to join a 2015 trip to Paris and a 2017 visit to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.

[…] The documents show that Epstein arranged multiple meetings with each of them after he had served jail time in 2008 for a sex crime involving a teenage girl and was registered as a sex offender. The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, haven’t been previously reported.

[…] Mr. Burns met with Epstein about a decade ago as he was preparing to leave government service, said CIA spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp. “The director did not know anything about him, other than that he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on transition to the private sector,” she said. “They had no relationship.”

Ms. Ruemmler had a professional relationship with Epstein in connection with her role at law firm Latham & Watkins LLP and didn’t travel with him, a Goldman Sachs spokesman said. Epstein introduced her to potential legal clients, such as Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the spokesman said. “I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Ruemmler said.

A spokeswoman for Latham & Watkins said Epstein wasn’t a client of the firm.

[…] Mr. Burns, 67 years old, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Russia, had meetings with Epstein in 2014 when Mr. Burns was deputy secretary of state.

A lunch was planned that August at the office of law firm Steptoe & Johnson in Washington. Epstein scheduled two evening appointments that September with Mr. Burns at his townhouse, the documents show. After one of the scheduled meetings, Epstein planned for his driver to take Mr. Burns to the airport.

Mr. Burns recalls being introduced in Washington by a mutual friend, and meeting Epstein once briefly in New York, said Ms. Thorp. “The director does not recall any further contact, including receiving a ride to the airport,” she said.

The following month, October 2014, Mr. Burns stepped down from his role at the State Department to serve as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank. He ran the Carnegie Endowment until he was nominated in early 2021 by President Biden to serve as CIA director.

The documents show that Epstein appeared to know some of his guests well. He asked for avocado sushi rolls to be on hand when meeting with Ms. Ruemmler, according to the documents. He visited apartments she was considering buying. In October 2014, Epstein knew her travel plans and told an assistant to look into her flight. “See if there is a first class seat,” he wrote, “if so upgrade her.”

[…] Epstein and his staff discussed whether Ms. Ruemmler, now 52, would be uncomfortable with the presence of young women who worked as assistants and staffers at the townhouse, the documents show. Women emailed Epstein on two occasions to ask if they should avoid the home while Ms. Ruemmler was there. Epstein told one of the women he didn’t want her around, and another that it wasn’t a problem, the documents show.

Ms. Ruemmler didn’t see anything that would lead her to be concerned at the townhouse and didn’t express any concern, the Goldman spokesman said.

[…] Over the next few years, Ms. Ruemmler, then a partner specializing in white-collar defense at Latham & Watkins, had more than three dozen appointments with Epstein, including for lunches and dinners.

“In the normal course, Epstein also invited her to meetings and social gatherings, introduced her to other business contacts and made referrals,” the Goldman spokesman said. “It was the same kinds of contacts and engagements she had with other contacts and clients.”

In 2015, she was scheduled to fly with Epstein to Paris and in 2017 he planned to stop in St. Lucia to take her to his island home in the U.S. Virgin Islands for the day, according to the documents. (read more)

Sketchy… All of it!

Dirty people, working amid a system that trades dirt as currency…

Apr 30 2023

The Press Called Out To Their Face – Refuse to Answer They Are Just Propaganda Agents Today


Armstrong Economics Blog/Press Re-Posted Apr 30, 2023 by Martin Armstrong