French President Emmanuel Macron was in the Netherlands today speaking to an audience in the Hague about his vision for the future of Europe.  A remarkably disassociated speech was the outcome.

Speaking of the importance of innovation to maintain economic competitiveness, on his right-hand Macron cheers for capitalism as an outcome of competition from the only venue it exists, the nation state.  Yet on his left hand, Macron proclaims the importance of ‘globalism’ and economic socialism, which is the anthesis of creating innovation.

Economic nationalism is the only way competition between nation states succeeds. Innovation is born from competition, and without the nation state there is no baseline to maintain capitalism.  Globalism creates socialism, equity as the baseline for distribution of innovative outcomes.  Capitalism and socialism cannot coexist if innovation and competition is the goal.  The pillars which form the baseline for Macron’s view of a new Europe, collapse in his contradictory worldview.  Prompted to 10:55, WATCH:

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Macron’s solution to the problem of innovation lacking in ‘globalist‘ economic models, is to force citizens to produce and innovate.  This is what he means by “reforms” in the competitive agenda.  Forced innovation, is the worldview of totalitarians.   Capitalism relies on freedom, not coercion.

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The United States Treasury Dept is planning to send officials to key parts of the globe to act as enforcers for western sanctions against Russia. Essentially, it’s a blackmail and extortion tour, where Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson will visit non-compliant nations and central Western banking hubs to threaten foreign nations against continued noncompliance.

Whether any nation complies with the pressure campaign threats is still unknown. However, against the backdrop of various geopolitical alliances now cleaving the global economy, and with a larger network of non-western nations now forming their own trade partnerships without regard for Washington DC opinion, the effort to draw “with us” or “against us” lines could backfire.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top sanctions officials from the U.S. Treasury Department plan special international trips this month to pressure firms and countries still doing business with Russia to cut off financial ties because of the war on Ukraine.

The message is that those working with Russia’s government must decide:

1. Continue to provide Moscow with material support or

2. Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy.

Those are the choices to be laid out, senior Treasury officials told reporters on a call Friday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the travel plans.

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Attorney Thomas Renz was working on a legislative bill in Missouri for informed consent around vaccines, when suddenly he encountered pushback from Big Pharma and agriculture lobbyists.  When he looked into the nature of their opposition, he discovered the intent to use mRNA technology in the U.S. food supply.  Ever since he discovered this intention Renz has been trying to alert and warn everyone {Direct Rumble Link}.

Thomas Renz appears on the Bannon War Room for a discussion with Natalie Winters.   The first segment begins at 04:58 of the video below:

The second part of the interview {Direct Rumble Link} is below.  Start at 02:39:

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The labor unions are trying to maintain the momentum against French President Emmanuel Macron’s unilateral decision to raise the retirement age.  However, despite nationwide majority support, on the 11th day of a national strike there are fewer protests disrupting commerce.

On the positive side, the offices of Blackrock were targeted and torched.  So, we know the focus is generally on the right multinational target.  Meanwhile, President Macron is in Beijing, China, getting slapped around by the panda paw.

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PARIS (Reuters) -Clashes erupted in Paris next to a Left Bank brasserie favoured by French President Emmanuel Macron during a day of nationwide protests against a pension bill that he has pushed through despite widespread opposition.

La Rotonde, whose awning was briefly on fire as protesters threw bottles and paint at police, is well known in France for hosting a much-criticised celebratory dinner for Macron when he led the first round of the 2017 presidential election.

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For his opening monologue and first interview tonight, Fox News host Tucker Carlson outlined the ramification of non-western nations now trading in alternative currencies to the U.S. dollar.   {Direct Rumble Link Here]  As the dollar diminishes in value, and as an outcome of Biden using U.S. treasury bonds as part of the sanction regime against Russia, various non-western nations now perceive holding dollars as exposing themselves to risk.

Carlson is joined by Luke Gromen who accurately notes the dollar as a global trade currency may continue, but foreign nations holding U.S. treasury bonds as an asset will likely start contracting.  The result of U.S. treasury bonds returning after maturity with no repurchase, would be an inability of the U.S. to borrow against their sale. This could, perhaps likely will, severely diminish the amount of money the U.S. congress can spend.  WATCH:

None of this should come as a surprise to those who have paid attention. Factually, in March of last year, one month after the Russian sanctions were announced, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Deputy Managing Director said the sanctions against Russia are likely to undermine the US dollar’s global dominance as a trade currency.  Everyone could see this coming.

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You know, it’s funny.  If you viewed the world through the prism of western corporate media, aside from North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un, the other world leader to draw the strongest criticism from President Trump was Mexican President Lopez-Obrador.  Yet, both Chairman Kim and President AMLO are two of Trump’s strongest defenders against the leftist regime of Joe Biden.

Secondly, I have to give heaps of credit to President Lopez-Obrador for his comments about the Biden administration’s targeting of President Trump.  If there was one leader who was closest in proximity to feel genuine retaliation from the American targeting operation, it would be AMLO.   Yet for two years this guy has faced-down the Biden administration, undressed Biden verbally and publicly while refusing to acquiesce to the #1 priority of the current U.S. regime around energy policy.

I will admit, with all of my former reservations about the soft-socialist tendencies of AMLO, he has been a far better steward for the interests of the ordinary Mexican people than I ever suspected he would be.  On the economics of the issues critical for Mexico in the long term, Lopez-Obrador has been solid as a rock.

WASHINGTON DC – Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday slammed the history-making charges against former President Trump, but as U.S. politics is consumed by the indictment, most world leaders have been largely silent on the issue.

[…] López Obrador spoke Wednesday, doubling down on comments he made last month before charges against Trump were announced and saying the case is political.

“Supposedly legal issues should not be used for electoral, political purposes,” López Obrador said. “That’s why I don’t agree with what they are doing to ex-President Trump.” “It should be the people who decide,” he added.

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Before getting to the headline, I want to remind you what CTH outlined two years ago about these massive food price increases.

You might remember me saying that processed food prices will increase at a much greater rate than fresh or lesser processed foods.  Factually, even organic products (ie. produce) could/would end up less expensive (in relative terms) to the increase in price at your supermarket, as compared to the price increases for the more processed foods.

The reason is simple, processed food use more energy; energy prices are skyrocketing; the processing costs (packaging, transportation, freezing, sanitizing, storage, warehousing and distribution etc.), at each step of the processing cycle, in addition to higher labor costs, drive up the end result of the price.

In this energy driven inflationary environment, less processing and handling equals lower overall cost increases from field to fork.  More processing, handling, distribution equals higher overall costs.  This is simply a supply chain, truism.

Into this issue comes McDonald’s Corp.  Last I heard, approximately 85% of McDonald’s business was franchise.  The franchise has to purchase the product (food) from the main company.  Supply side cost increases in the food are transferred from the company to the franchisee via higher product costs.  The restaurant is then forced to raise prices to accommodate their increased costs.  A portion of the revenue from sales then flows back to the main company.

It is important to note here, there is a natural disconnect in supply side price increases within the franchise model.  The parent company must, must, negotiate the best possible contract terms with the suppliers because the increases in costs are passed directly to the franchise.  The parent company doesn’t immediately feel any problem until the revenue from the franchise drops due to the forced raising of retail prices and diminished sales.  There is a lag.

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Despite the fact the Western Alliance have created the policy that will deliver pain to their citizens, not a single government leader will look at this move as a bad thing.

The pain will not be felt by the elites, it will only hit the citizenry.  Lowered oil production outputs that drive up gasoline prices and fuel inflationary drivers, expedite the Build Back Better narrative and objective.

However, that said, in context to this announcement, a pain that will hit the Western economies of the alliance represented in yellow, the last 18 months of moves by Mexico makes President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador look remarkably prescient.  The new strategic relationships and trade partnerships between China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and beyond, take on an added geopolitical dimension.

DUBAI, April 2 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ oil producers on Sunday announced further oil output cuts of around 1.16 million barrels per day, in a surprise move that analysts said would cause an immediate rise in prices and the United States called inadvisable.

The pledges bring the total volume of cuts by OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries with Russia and other allies, to 3.66 million bpd according to Reuters calculations, equal to 3.7% of global demand.

Sunday’s development comes a day before a virtual meeting of an OPEC+ ministerial panel, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, and which had been expected to stick to 2 million bpd of cuts already in place until the end of 2023.

The latest reductions could lift oil prices by $10 per barrel, the head of investment firm Pickering Energy Partners said on Sunday, while oil broker PVM said it expected an immediate jump once trading starts after the weekend.

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Two major energy trade developments today highlight how the Western Alliance is quickly losing a grip on the world energy market, as an alliance between China, Russia, Iran and the Middle East Gulf Cooperation Council starts to take shape with actual trade exchanges that are not in dollars.

Last year, in response to big panda’s own interest and seeking to exploit two western alliance self-created weaknesses; (1) sanctions against Russia and (2) weakened investment in LNG production; China spearheaded the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange.

The exchange was aimed at group purchasing services for liquefied natural gas (LNG) though the use of the yuan to replace the dollar.  Essentially, team Gray operating without the global trading system of team Yellow (map).  The Shanghai exchange allows purchases of LNG portions by small and medium-sized buyers in yuan.

Today, CHINESE national oil company CNOOC and France’s TotalEnergies have completed China’s first yuan-settled liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade through the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange, the exchange said on Tuesday (Mar 28).

Approximately 65,000 tonnes of LNG imported from the UAE changed hands in the trade, it said in a statement. TotalEnergies confirmed to Reuters that the transaction involved LNG imported from the UAE but did not comment further. (read more)

This exchange between the UAE and France is taking place without dollars. If the process continues the dollar weakens.  In the geopolitical world of currency valuations and trade, this might be considered the Archduke Ferdinand moment for the end of the petrodollar.  The question will become, can they grow this process with OPEC+ support and begin eventually trading oil in yuan?

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Almost as soon as German Chancellor Olaf Schulz said, “The banking system is stable in Europe – Generally, I think we are in good shape,” shares of German-based Deutsche Bank began dropping.

After a Friday loss of 14%, the bank came back to close -9.8%, and on the heels of the Credit Suisse collapse and subsequent purchase, concerns are still reverberating.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders Friday played down the risk of a banking crisis developing from recent global financial turbulence and hitting the economy even harder than the energy crunch tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

After a meeting in Brussels, the EU government heads said lenders in Europe are generally in sound health and in a position to weather a combination of rising interest rates and slowing economic growth.

“The banking system is stable in Europe,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters after the summit. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said: “Generally, I think we are in good shape.”

The EU deliberations came in the wake of U.S. regulators’ shutdown of two U.S. banks, including Silicon Valley Bank, and a Swiss-orchestrated takeover of troubled lender Credit Suisse by rival UBS.

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