Armstrong Economics Blog/Armstrong in the Media Re-Posted Nov 6, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
Check out the audio above for my latest interview with Cris Sheridan from Financial Sense.
New Interview: World War III, Commodities, and Overthrowing Putin
Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin
Neil Oliver Responds to the Request for COVID Amnesty, “You want WHAT”?
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 5, 2022 | Sundance
One of the most stubborn voices of unapologetic reason and pushback over the past two years amid COVID madness has been U.K political pundit Mr Neil Oliver.
Specifically, because Oliver and CTH are aligned in a common brotherhood within the rebel alliance movement; and specifically, because Oliver outlined in weekly granular details all of the affronts to reason, liberty and general commonsense throughout the pandemic madness; I was waiting to see/hear how Oliver would respond to the latest request for “pandemic amnesty” from the Branch Covidians. His 15-minute reply to the totalitarians beating a hasty retreat is awesome.
Oliver walks through some of the more egregious examples of totalitarianism and dictatorial fiat from two years of the public-private partnership, and then outlines why it is beyond comprehension that Covidians would even fathom to request “amnesty” after their two-years terroristic campaign and shredding of individual rights at the altar of the Covidian religion. Well worth watching:
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First, the pandemic madness needs to stop. Then the perpetrators need to admit the totality of their brutal conduct. Then an apology. Then there needs to be visible and public requests for forgiveness. Then there needs to be a reckoning, which includes the need for consequential punishment. After the punishment as a deterrent, there needs to be a global vow never to repeat the behaviors.
Any talk of possible amnesty comes long after those sequential issues are resolved. But considering, well, hell, they haven’t even stopped the madness yet, they have some nerve asking for amnesty.
Fed Pivot Myth
Armstrong Economics Blog/Central Banks Re-Posted Nov 4, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
Thank you to the reader who sent in this hilarious image. Despite all the incoming data and price instability, some expected the Fed to pivot on its stance. Even BlackRock reportedly told advisers to expect “pivot language” at the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting. They were hoping that the Fed would announce a looser stance for the December meeting despite conditions failing to improve.
The markets correctly anticipated a 75 bps hike for November. Jerome Powell said that incoming data from the last meeting has led the central bank to believe that rates will edge HIGHER than originally anticipated. PCE rose 6.2% over the past 12 months, with core PCE rising by 5.1%. Long ago after Powell changed his “transitory” stance, he reiterated that the Fed’s main goal is to bring levels back to the 2% target. Price stability is the top priority – period.
“As I’ve said in the last two press conferences, it will become appropriate to slow the pace of increases, as we approach the level of interest rates that will be sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to our two percent goal. There is significant uncertainty around that level of interest rates. Even so, we still have some ways to go, and incoming data since our last meeting suggest that the ultimate level of interest rates will be higher than previously expected,” the chairman reiterated.
The central bank realizes that the situation will only worsen. “Restoring price stability is essential to set the stage for achieving maximum employment and stable prices in the longer run. The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy. We will stay the course, until the job is done,” Powell commented. His Q&A after the announcement only reiterated his extremely hawkish stance (see video above).
Powell said the Federal Reserve is honing in on three main factors: 1) how fast to tighten policy, 2) how high to raise rates, 3) how long to remain on the current course. Powell said they would move “expeditiously” to move rates, especially given the low starting point. He believes that incoming data justifies ongoing rate hikes, and his estimate is higher than what was announced in September. Finally, he said they might have a discussion on when to loosen policy, but there was an emphasis on the word discussion.
Multinational Advertisers Begin Pulling Out of Twitter
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 3, 2022 | Sundance
In the prediction section of the recent Twitter discussion {Go Deep} CTH mentioned the reason and unspoken motive behind a prediction that multinational corporations would start to pull their advertising money from Elon Musk.
We are simply in an era where there is no distinction between the WEF guidance for multinational corporations and the instructions toward governments’ they support. Free speech and freedom of expression are against both their interests.
Multinational corporations are political entities. The former distinctions between the private and public sector have been purposefully erased. Evidence can be found in the vaccination mandate and within corporate responses to voter outcomes during elections. {Go Deep}
As predicted, it begins….
(Via Wall Street Journal) – Food company General Mills Inc., Oreo maker Mondelez International Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Volkswagen/Audi are among a growing list of brands that have temporarily paused their Twitter advertising in the wake of the takeover of the company by Elon Musk, according to people familiar with the matter.
Some advertisers are concerned that Mr. Musk could scale back content moderation, which they worry would lead to an increase in objectionable content on the platform. Others are temporarily halting their ads because of the uncertainty at the company as top executives exit and Mr. Musk considers a raft of changes, some of the people said.
Kelsey Roemhildt, a spokeswoman for General Mills, whose brands include Cheerios, Bisquick and Häagen-Dazs, confirmed the company has paused Twitter ads. “As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend,” she said.
A Twitter representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
General Motors Co. paused its spending on the social-media platform last week.
Several ad buyers say they expect the number of brands pausing Twitter ads to rise. They say that the platform isn’t considered a must-buy for many advertisers, with far larger budgets going to tech giants such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc., and that pausing makes sense during the bumpy transition under Mr. Musk.
Many executives on Madison Avenue are uneasy with the rash of sudden executive departures from Twitter’s advertising sales and marketing units. Among those who have exited are Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette, Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland, and Jean-Philippe Maheu, Twitter’s vice president of global client solutions. Those executives helped reassure advertisers that their ad dollars were being spent wisely and appropriately on Twitter. (read more)
Fascism was traditionally defined as an authoritarian government working hand-in-glove with corporations to achieve objectives. A centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, using severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
That system of government didn’t work in the long-term, because the underlying principles of free people reject government authoritarianism. Fascist governments collapsed, and the corporate beneficiaries were nulled and scorned for participating. Then, along came a new approach to achieve the same objective.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) was created to use the same fundamental associations of government and corporations. Only this time, it was the multinational corporations who organized to tell the government(s) what to do.
The WEF was organized for multinational corporations to assemble and tell the various governments how to cooperate with them, in order to be rewarded by them. Corporatism was/is the outcome. The government is now doing what the multinationals tell them to do, and in return the multinationals install the compliant politicians.
Fascism, the cooperation between government and corporations, is still the underlying premise; the World Economic Forum simply flipped the internal dynamic putting the corporations in charge of handing out the instructions.
What results is a slightly modified definition of fascism:
…A massive multinational corporate conglomerate; telling a centralized autocratic government leader what to do; and using severe economic and social regimentation as a control mechanism; combined with forcible suppression of opposition by both the corporations and government.
Doesn’t that define our current reality, especially visible in the era of COVID?
The instructions from the multinational corporations to government would be called the “Great Reset“, or as commonly transposed by the government officials receiving the instructions, “Build Back Better”.
~ Go Deep ~
Virtue Signaling for Ukraine Wanes
Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Nov 3, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
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CNBC reported that Biden and Zelensky exchanged harsh words during a phone call in June 2022. After securing an additional $1 billion in funds from Americans, Zelensky said that the US needs to provide more for Ukraine. Biden losing his temper and Zelensky begging for more money are both believable situations. Similar to a child crying for dessert before dinner, Biden caved and gave Zelensky everything he wanted. Zelensky knows he can continually push for more, but that may change.
The media released this story because they want Americans to believe that the Biden Administration is finding Ukraine’s constant requests asinine at this point. The people at the voting booths this November are watching their own cities crumble and are struggling to understand why America has sent over $20 billion to Ukraine this year. The prospect of a world war has Americans even more wary of this endless support.
A Pew Research Center poll from September showed that public support for Ukraine is fading in America. Out of 10,588 respondents, 26% were no longer concerned about the war in Ukraine. In May, 55% of people cited they were “extremely” or “very” concerned about Russia defeating Ukraine, but that figure fell by 17 percentage points to 38% by September. Around 42% of Americans felt that the US was not providing enough support back in March when the war began, but that number has dwindled to 18%.
Americans are now less concerned with Russia invading other nations outside Ukraine. Putin is not interested in conquering new land, and his motives are not akin to a Hitler situation of expanding a dead empire as the media first presented. Yet, people are more concerned now about the possibility of a nuclear war, as 52% of Democrats and 37% of Republicans expressed in the Pew Research Center survey.
Sources say Ukraine would like up to $60 billion in additional funds and will continue using America and Western allies as an ATM until legislation is passed to stop this nonsense.
An Epic Battle in North America is Looming as The USA and Canada Attempt to Pressure Mexico to Follow the Climate Change Energy Policy
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 2, 2022 | Sundance
Folks, we have all watched the North American economic moves with great interest ever since the first discussions about reforming NAFTA were triggered by Donald Trump. Well, things are about to get even more interesting, and we will have a front seat to see how this plays out.
Joe Biden and Canada’s Justin Trudeau are in ideological alignment, willing to destroy the entire North American economy as they construct the new climate change energy systems for the U.S and Canada. However, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO) has already indicated -including direct statements to Joe Biden at the White House– that he is not willing to put the Mexican economy into collapse and try to engineer an economic future on solar panels and windmills.
As a direct result of following an independent path, the Mexican currency has strengthened against the U.S. dollar providing AMLO with evidence his current strategy to stay away from the U.S. energy policy has benefit. Factually, AMLO is a soft-socialist (immigration); however, he is also a strong economic nationalist who has previously expressed a strong dislike for the influence of multinational corporations in Mexico. AMLO is not a World Economic Forum acolyte. AMLO ideologically aligned toward team BRICS.
The U.S. and Canada are going to push every possible political pressure point in order to force Mexico to change energy policy. The stakes are high. It is going to be remarkable to watch what happens as this battle takes place. The Wall Street Journal starts to notice:
(Wall Street Journal) – A shake-up of Mexican trade officials has clouded prospects for a quick resolution of a dispute with the U.S. and Canada over what are seen as Mexico’s nationalist energy policies.
The changes at the Economy Ministry are part of an effort by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to put people who support his stance in charge of negotiations, according to people familiar with the situation.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is scheduled to meet with Mexico’s new top trade official, Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro, on Thursday. But there is a tacit agreement to extend dispute resolution talks until December, when the leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada are expected to meet in Mexico to review the implementation of the North American trade deal known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the people familiar said.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office in July requested dispute-settlement consultations with Mexico under the USMCA, alleging that Mexico’s energy policies undermine U.S. companies in favor of Mexico’s state-run electric utility CFE and oil company Petróleos Mexicanos.
Canada also joined the consultations, which represent a challenge to one of Mr. López Obrador’s top policy priorities: greater state intervention and control over Mexico’s oil and electricity markets.
[…] Mr. López Obrador opposed his predecessor’s opening of the energy sector to private and foreign investment. Since the consultations began he has stepped up his nationalist rhetoric on energy.
“Our sovereign energy policy…isn’t subject to negotiation, it’s a matter of principles,” he said last month.
Mr. López Obrador has also said that he hopes to avoid a costly trade dispute. “We’re looking for an agreement, an understanding, and to avoid confrontation,” he said. (read more)
The ideologues in the Biden administration will not accept Mexico continuing to exploit cheap natural energy products like oil, coal and gas. As the USA and Canada punish citizens with inflation and massive economic consequences from Green New Deal energy policy, they cannot allow Mexico to be a source of stable low-priced goods and services. Amid other economic outcomes, the next-door neighbor contrast would be too politically damaging.
We can expect the Biden administration to work with Wall Street corporations on a level of economic targeting of Mexico similar to the western alliance sanctions against Russia. It will be extremely interesting to see just how strong AMLO can be in the face of serious threats from the USA and Canada.
I’m not talking about little threats, or ordinary economic pressure points; watch closely how the U.S threats are established. The ideologues around Joe Biden will seek to destroy AMLO if he does not go along with the energy change effort.
Watch this closely. The leftist hypocrisies are going to be off the charts as they target the Mexicans for punishment.
♦ Flashback to July, 2022: AMLO tells Biden that Mexico will continue investing in expanded refining of gasoline, and he is willing to sell that gasoline to American companies because Joe Biden will not issue permits to expand gasoline refining capacity in the United States. Additionally, AMLO affirms his position on further oil development in Mexico and then, here comes the kicker,…. offers to expand electricity sales to the United States, including supplying Texas with electricity because both the Biden administration and Texas are not developing their own energy resources.
[Transcript] – PRESIDENT LÓPEZ OBRADOR: (As interpreted.) Yes, I fully coincide with what you have proposed, President Biden. And I could summarize everything we’ve been saying in five basic items of cooperation.
Number one, since the energy crisis started, Mexico has used 72 percent of its crude and fuel oil exports to United States refineries — 800,000 barrels a day.
Therefore, we decided that while we’re waiting for prices of gasoline to go down in the United States — and I hope that Congress approves or passes your proposal, Mr. President —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: It has gone down for 30 days in a row. (Laughs.)
PRESIDENT LÓPEZ OBRADOR: (As interpreted.) — of lowering — lowering prices, yes. That’s it.
In the meantime, while we’re waiting for prices to go down, we have decided that it was necessary for us to allow Americans who live close to the borderline so that they could go and get their gasoline on the Mexican side at lower prices.
And right now, a lot of the drivers — a lot of the Americans — are going to Mexico, to the Mexican border, to get their gasoline.
However, we could increase our inventories immediately. We are committed to guaranteeing twice as much supply of fuel. That would be considerable support.
Right now, a gallon of regular costs $4.78 average on this side of the border. And in our territory, $3.12.
Let me clarify something, and I also want to take advantage of this opportunity to thank you, Mr. President. Most of this gasoline, we are producing it in the Pemex refinery that you allowed us to buy in Deer Park, Texas.
Two, we are putting at the disposal — or sending at the disposal of your administration over 1,000 kilometers of gas pipelines throughout the southern border with Mexico to transport gas from Texas to New Mexico, Arizona, and California for a volume that can generate up to 750 megawatts of electric energy and supply about 3 million people.
Three, even though the USMCA has made progress for the elimination of tariffs, there are still some others that could be immediately suspended. And we could do the same with some regulations, regulatory measures, and tedious procedures or red tape in terms of trade related to foodstuffs and other products so that we can lower prices for consumers in both our countries, always being very careful in the protection of health and the environment.
Four, starting a private-public investment plan between our two countries to produce all those goods that will be strengthening our markets so that we can avoid having importations from other regions or continents.
In our country, we shall continue producing oil throughout the energy transition. With the U.S. investors, we are going to be establishing gas-liquefying plants, fertilizer plants, and we shall continue promoting the creation of solar energy parks in the state of Sonora and other border states as well.
And we’re going to accomplish this with the support of thermal electric plants and also through transmission lines to produce energy in the domestic market, as well as for exports, to neighboring states in the American union, as for instance, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
It’s also important to mention that, two months ago, we took the sovereign decision of nationalizing lithium in Mexico. This is a fundamental mineral, a fundamental input to advance in our purpose not to depend on fossil fuels. And this will be available for the technological modernization of the automotive industry among our great countries — the countries of the USMCA.
Five, orderly migration flow and allowing arrival in the United States of workers, technicians, and professionals of different disciplines. I’m talking about Mexicans and Central Americans with temporary work visas to ensure not paralyzing the economy because of the lack of labor force.
The purpose of this plan would be to support and to have the right labor force that will be demanded by the plan you proposed and that was passed by Congress of using $1 trillion for the construction of infrastructure works. (read more)
Mexican President Lopez-Obrador was offering to bail out the United States energy crisis.
A crisis that Joe Biden has created.
Dump of all the Wikileaks File
Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange
Australian computer programmer
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided
Wikileaks just dumped all of their files online. Everything from Hillary Clinton’s emails, McCain’s being guilty, Vegas shooting done by an FBI sniper, Steve Jobs HIV letter, PedoPodesta, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Bilderberg, CIA agents arrested for rape, WHO pandemic. Happy Digging! Here you go, please read and pass it on….. https://file.wikileaks.org/file/… These are Clinton’s emails: https://file.wikileaks.org/file/clinton-emails/ Index file! https://file.wikileaks.org/file/?fbclid=IwAR2U_Evqah_Qy2wxNY12FMqFC5dAFUcZL5Kl4FIfQuMFMp8ssbM46oHXWMI Send to everyone you can as fast as you can!
Index of /file/
Rumble Rejects French Govt Demand for Control Over Content
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 2, 2022 | Sundance
The team at Rumble Video have taken a strong position in defense of free speech, an open internet and protection of a diverse public square.
Apparently, the French government demanded that Rumble remove content the government does not support. [Source] Rumble said no.
Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski then followed up delivering a statement via Twitter: “The French Government has demanded that Rumble (@rumblevideo) block Russian news sources. Like @elonmusk, I won’t move our goal posts for any foreign government. Rumble will turn off France entirely (France isn’t material to us) and we will challenge the legality of this demand.”
Pavlovski and Rumble being transparent and making the demand from the French government public raises a few questions.
Rumble said ‘no’, but who said ‘yes’?
It would be highly unlikely that Rumble is the only tech platform the French government have contacted with their demands. What did the other platform providers do?
How many other ‘western‘ governments make demands on content from Big Tech platform providers that we do not know about?
On the domestic side, the issue of what France is demanding is essentially analogous with what the U.S. government (DHS) has been doing within the censorship discussion recently highlighted by The Intercept. However, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google and Microsoft have not been open with the American people about these back-channel discussions and demands from the U.S. government.
Most of what we are now learning about government control over social media content is coming as a result of a lawsuit filed by the State of Missouri against the Biden administration.
(New York Post) – A little-noticed federal lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, is uncovering astonishing evidence of an entrenched censorship scheme cooked up between the federal government and Big Tech that would make Communist China proud.
So far, 67 officials or agencies — including the FBI — have been accused in the lawsuit of violating the First Amendment by pressuring Facebook, Twitter and Google to censor users for alleged misinformation or disinformation.
Victims of the Biden-Big Tech “censorship enterprise” include The Post, whose Hunter Biden laptop exposé was suppressed by Facebook and then Twitter in October 2020 after the FBI went to Facebook, warning it with great specificity to watch out for a “dump” of Russian disinformation, pertaining to Joe Biden, with an uncanny resemblance to our stories.
“We allege that top-ranking Biden administration officials colluded with those social media companies to suppress speech about the Hunter Biden laptop story, the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks, and election integrity,” is how the lawsuit was summarized by intrepid Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is leading the action.
The censorship related to alleged “misinformation” about pandemic lockdowns, vaccines and COVID-19, and included material from the esteemed infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists associated with the Great Barrington Declaration, which proved over time to be correct and eventually much of which was adopted as official policy by the CDC.
Defendants include FBI special agents Elvis Chan and Laura Dehmlow, who gave Facebook that detailed “disinformation” briefing right before The Post was censored; White House press secretaries, current and former, Karine Jean-Pierre and Jen Psaki; Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, and former White House senior COVID-19 adviser Andrew Slavitt; counsel to President Biden Dana Remus; the DHS over the disbanded Disinformation Governance Board; the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; the FDA; the State Department; and the US Election Assistance Commission.
Last month a federal judge ordered a reluctant Fauci and Jean-Pierre to hand over their records, so the case is progressing nicely.(read more)
As various entities and Big Tech platforms prepare to launch lawfare litigation, a strategy built on threats, against any member of the Rebel Alliance who outlines the schemes and connections between government and Big Tech, they would be wise to reconsider the unstable cornerstone of their position…
…Why would any social media platform, at any scale and on any level, be in any relationship with the United States government?
Eurozone Inflation Reaches New High – Recession Incoming
Armstrong Economics Blog/European Union Re-Posted Nov 2, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
Inflation in the Eurozone hit a new record in October, according to Eurostat who reported a 10.7% rise. That marks an increase from September’s 9.9% posting and an all-time high since Eurostat began compiling Eurozone data in 1997. The European Central Bank (ECB) attempted to curb inflations with another 75 bps hike last week. The ECB knows that inflation is here to stay. They recently changed their annual inflation target for next year to 5.8% compared to the 3.6% they were predicting three months ago. They can’t release the actual figures without causing a panic.
Economic growth “slowed significantly in the third quarter of the year and we expect a further weakening in the remainder of this year and beginning of next year,” ECB head Christine Lagarde warned. Inflation is hitting some countries harder than others. Estonia (22.4%), Latvia (21.8%), and Lithuania (22%) all experienced nearly double the average inflation rate this October.
The downturn will not be equal across the Eurozone. The managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, is warning that half of the 19 countries in the bloc will fall into a recession. “Europe is affected more severely by the increase of energy prices. The heat on European economies is such that we actually expect half of the countries in the eurozone to experience at least two quarters of negative growth. In other words, a recession,” she said, without naming the countries,” Georgieva warned. She further stated that the IMF’s pre-pandemic projections compared to current projections differ by a loss of half a trillion euros.
“I am not going to sugar-coat it: 2023 will be tougher than 2022. Next winter for Europe may be even harsher than this winter,” she declared. “Why? Because European policymakers acted very swiftly to fill gas storage. If conditions remain as they are with Russia not providing gas to Europe, how is this gas storage going to be filled next year?”
Another question comes to light – can Europe remain untied amid a serious recession? The ECB will use the same strategy in an attempt to fix the broken system for the entirety of the Eurozone instead of looking at each individual economy. Let’s not forget that deeply indebted countries will only face higher costs that they likely will not be able to repay. The ECB dug its grave in 2014, and they do not have the tools to handle the current crisis. It is easy for Europe to appear as a united front when there is peace and prosperity. The real test will come when everything crashes down, and fairness goes out the window.
This is it! Last chance for PEACE before Putin launches massive Winter offensive | Redacted Live
Redacted News Published originally on Rumble on October 31, 2022
This weekend Russia called on the U.S. to come to the table for peace talks. At the same time the U.S. is sending a 15th round of weapons to Ukraine. A new report from Finland shows that many of these weapons are winding up in the hands of known criminals.
Centinel2012 