How badly do the high-finance and multinational trade groups want to eliminate the threat President Trump represents?  Badly enough to support organizing all elements of the leftist electorate to vote for Nikki Haley in the Republican primary.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made this suggestion earlier today at The New York Times DealBook Summit to discuss the 2024 presidential election.  WATCH the first minute:

(more…)

The Daily Caller has an interesting synopsis of the donors who are now rallying behind Nikki Haley.

The billionaire donors named in the outline are the same donors who backed Jeb! in 2016.

(Via Daily Caller) – […] “I’m a long way from making my mind up — something could change — but I’m very impressed with her,” billionaire co-founder of Home Depot Kenneth Langone told the NYT. “I think she’s a viable candidate. I would certainly like her over Trump.”

Langone has already contributed to Haley’s presidential bid, and is weighing donating additional funds, according to the NYT. Another Home Depot co-founder, Bernie Marcus, has endorsed Trump.

“It’s invigorating to be truly excited by a candidate again,” Jonathan Bush, CEO of Zus Health and cousin to former President George W. Bush, told the NYT.

Bush, who held a fundraiser for Haley’s campaign in early November, voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 and libertarian Gary Johnson in 2016, according to the NYT.

(more…)

You want to go deep weeds, let’s go deep weeds.  Almost all of the conversations about the $6 billion given back to Iran have focused on the fungible aspect of money.  While true, that focus misses the key and essential point, where the money was delivered.

The captured $6 billion was held in a South Korean bank, the result of sanctions violations.  What the Biden/Blinken crew did, was move the money from South Korea to a bank in Qatar.

Now, many people may not at first understand the nature of how that makes such a significant difference.  The lack of understanding is the result of people not fully grasping what Qatar does in the Middle East.   Qatar is the financial center for Islamic extremist operations.  Qatar is the banking center for the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Brotherhood is the political umbrella for a host of Islamic extremist groups.

Qatar is well known to CTH readers and those who follow the deep weeds of geopolitics.  Qatar has historically been the financial center and funding mechanism of the Muslim Brotherhood.  In many ways Qatar is to the U.S. State Dept, CIA and political elements of the Intelligence Community in the Middle East, as Ukraine is to those same entities in Europe.

We have outlined the long history of Qatar as it pertains to a myriad of U.S. interests.

EXAMPLES: •When the Obama/Clinton State Dept wanted to fund the covert weapons to the Benghazi rebels, they used Qatar. •When President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expelled the radical leaders of The Brotherhood from Egypt, they went to Qatar.  •When President Donald Trump asked the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to confront radical Islamic extremism, the Arab nations confronted Qatar.  •When Qatar was forced to expel the five most radical leaders of The Brotherhood, they went to Turkey.  [Turkish President Recep Erdogan is aligned in common principle with The Brotherhood.]  •When the U.S. released captured Islamic extremists from Gitmo (al-Qaeda in Afghanistan), they were transferred to Qatar.  •When the Taliban took back control over Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda leaders from Qatar went back to Afghanistan.

(more…)

Oil prices shot passed $90/bbl today after Saudi Arabia and then Russia announced a continuance of production cuts through the end of this year.

The BRICS alliance is going to deliver some pain to the Western alliance.  Those people living in the yellow zone, with leadership chasing climate change and Green New Deal policies, are going to see more durable inflation as the cost of oil is attached to just about every product and service.

Gasoline, energy products, petroleum products, home heating oil, groceries, everything will cost more as the geopolitical battle continues; but we are supposed to pretend we are unaware of the global political dynamic.

(Zero Hedge) – […] Just after 9am ET, Saudi Arabia said it would extend the voluntary cut of 1 million b/d of for another 3 months, from October until the end of December, well beyond the expectation of just 1 more month. Saudi press agency SPA notes that the voluntary cut decision will be reviewed monthly to consider deepening the cut or increasing production.

The extension of cuts is meant to reinforce the precautionary efforts made by OPEC countries with the aim of supporting the stability of the oil market. The Saudi announcement came a shock to market as 20 of 25 traders and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg last week had predicted the additional cutback would be continued for just one additional month.

(more…)

That’s BILLION, with a “B”.   According to recently revealed court transcripts, in the US Virgin Islands lawsuit against JPMorgan, in the aftermath of Epstein’s death the massive bank reported over $1 billion in suspicious activity reports to the U.S. Treasury.

Attorney for USVA, Mimi Liu, outlined details to Judge Jed Rakoff in U.S. District Court in Manhattan last Thursday.  According to the astonishing revelations, the entire financial relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and JPMorgan was centered around payments for sex trafficking.  There was no other business between the two entities in the 16 years of Epstein’s use of the bank.  All of the Epstein account transactions were based around his sex trafficking operation.

Additionally, in the aftermath of Epstein’s death, JPMorgan then reported at least $1 billion worth of transactions under the auspices of “suspicious activity.”  This certainly looks like what lawyer Mimi Liu called in court, “covering their ass.”

[VIA CNBC] – JPMorgan Chase notified the Treasury Department of more than $1 billion in transactions related to “human trafficking” by Jeffrey Epstein dating back 16 years after the notorious sex predator killed himself in 2019, a lawyer for the U.S. Virgin Islands told a federal judge at a hearing.

“Epstein’s entire business with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s entire business with Epstein was human trafficking,” Mimi Liu, an attorney for the Virgin Islands, told Judge Jed Rakoff in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, according to a transcript reviewed by CNBC.

(more…)

President Trump sat down for an extensive interview with former National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow from Fox Business News. {Direct Rumble Link}

Within the interview President Trump first starts talking about the Fulton County, Georgia, prosecution by Fani Willis, then shifts to discuss the current state of the economy and the outcomes of Bidenomics.  WATCH: 

Part 2 below:

(more…)

Some economic data released by the land of the rising sun points to a larger global weakness in manufacturing demand.   Within the data year-over-year exports from Japan fell in July by 0.3%, which is the first time since 2021 the contraction was noted.

Digging a little deeper, the weakness in Japanese exports is driven primarily by a decline in exports to China of 14.3% in July, which follows a 10.9% decline in June.  Japan is a component supplier to China, which would indicate the demand for Chinese products globally is substantially less than Beijing has previously admitted.

That said, Japan’s direct export of finished goods to the U.S. actually increased 13.5%, mostly driven by the export of electric vehicles.

However, 13.5% is identical to the overall decrease in Japanese imports.

Essentially, component parts to China are down, but completed finished goods to the U.S. are up.  Overall, the results from Japan point to a soft overall global economic status, the result of continued contraction of Western economic activity.

TOKYO, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Japan’s exports fell in July for the first time in nearly 2-1/2 years, dragged down by faltering demand for light oil and chip-making equipment, underlining concerns about a global recession as demand in key markets such as China weaken.

(more…)

Collapse is never a sudden occurrence; it is an outcome of gradual erosion over time. A weakening that takes place almost invisible to those who pass through the construct, until eventually, at an uneventful time in the mechanics of history, the process gives way.

Fitch has joined with the prior position of Standard & Poors to downgrade the USA credit rating. The weight of debt, in combination with reverberations from the continued hammering deep inside the political fundamental change operation, has triggered another flare.

In the bigger picture, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy driven by the latest focus on unsustainable economic policy, aka The Green New Deal. The efforts of the fiscal, monetary and economic policy are all aligned to shrink the U.S. economy, thereby creating the era of “sustainable energy” a possibility. Unfortunately, this is akin to a household intentionally shrinking their income while at the same time taking on credit card debt. The process itself is not sustainable.

(Reuters) – Rating agency Fitch on Tuesday downgraded the U.S. government’s top credit rating, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors, coming despite the resolution of the debt ceiling crisis two months ago.

Traders’ immediate response was to embark on a safe-haven push out of stocks and into government bonds and the dollar.

Fitch downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA, citing fiscal deterioration over the next three years and repeated down-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills.

(more…)

Today at 1:00pm ET the House Oversight Committee will accept testimony from two IRS investigators who are whistleblowers with allegations the DOJ and FBI intentionally interfered with their investigation of Hunter and Joe Biden in an effort to politically protect the Biden family.

The statements by the whistleblowers have been corroborated recently by an FBI supervisory special agent.  The hearing is scheduled to begin at 1:00pm ET, with livestream link below.  [HOUSE LIVESTREAM LINK]

.

(more…)

The sanctions levied against Russia by the collective West have essentially failed.  There is inconvenience within Russia amid ordinary citizens for global and economic transactions, but most of the govt transactions have continued.

On the opposite side of the consequence coin, absent the ability to purchase consumer goods on the global market, Russian domestic consumer independence has grown dramatically.  There is more stuff being made and created inside Russia, for Russians to purchase, than ever before.

I cannot see how the Russian GDP doesn’t benefit from this in the long-term.

Then again, I don’t buy the official Western narrative about the “horrible” life inside Russia, because I talk to ordinary middle class Russians who seem to have found a way to organize life without too much disturbance.

Russia is actually a case study in the elimination of imports and the economic outcomes therein.

It doesn’t suck to be a consumer; average Russians are doing fine, and it seems to get better over time.  Ironically, give them a few more years of Western sanctions, and Russia could be a manufacturing powerhouse.  Russia is a big country with a lot of raw material resources.

UNITED NATIONS, July 12 (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of grain from Ukraine in return for connecting a subsidiary of Russia’s agricultural bank to the SWIFT international payment system, sources told Reuters.

(more…)