The timing here is genuinely ridiculous. It’s as if the federal government, specifically the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, led by… Richard Trumka Jr (yes, that guy’s son)… doesn’t think or care that we can see the real issue is to change energy uses.
Now that Russia has been isolated from natural gas sales, the European Union needs the supply of all other natural gas markets in order to keep itself from freezing to death. Simultaneously, natural gas as an energy resource is now bad, terrible like oil and coal, amid the climate change cult.
So, they need to change the narrative and stop people from using natural gas appliances.
Suddenly, after generations of natural gas appliances existing in almost half of the kitchens, suddenly the appliances are toxic, dangerous and likely to require a ban against use.
(Bloomberg) – A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems. “This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, said in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
I like Neil Oliver a lot. I like his perspective, his deliberate nature, his refusal to accept the bullshit, and this monologue is one of the reasons why. I have said it before that in the era of great pretending, the influential people will be those who do not play the game of pretense. Neil Oliver is one of those people who refuses to play.
In this monologue Oliver uses two of my favorite metaphors to describe modern western civilization. First, the Potemkin Villages constructed by political elite in their effort to make it seem like the world is something it is not. Second, the great pretending that is needed in order to sell it.
Though the monologue is specific to the current status of our cousin across the pond, the eloquence of the issues could just as easily apply here; indeed, they are almost identical. WATCH:
[Transcript] – While reading around the subject of Russia and Ukraine this week, I came across the story of the Potemkin villages.
A legend, dismissed as mostly fiction by modern historians, has 18th century Russian statesman Grigory Potemkin building phoney villages along the banks of the Dnipro River just for effect, to create a useful illusion.
His lover, Catherine the Great and her foreign guests, were due to sail down the river on a tour and Potemkin, the story goes, wanted to give them an impressive show of a populous and thriving nation.
As I say, the idea is largely dismissed now – but the term Potemkin village has stuck and is still used today to describe the lengths to which the leaders of a failing, broken country might go in order to create the illusion of success and prosperity when the truth is altogether different.
How many months ago did CTH start saying ‘watch Mexico’? Having said that, what is unfolding right now in the battle between the Sinaloa cartel and the Mexican military is fraught with unknown variables and hidden U.S. interests.
Use the example of the U.S. manipulating Ukraine as the reference point for what is happening in Mexico right now with Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau scheduled to visit Mexico City in four days for the North American Summit.
It’s all sketchy. Do not formulate opinions because we have no idea how many peas and shells are being maneuvered by U.S. intelligence and national security state interests.
We are told the Mexican military arrested Ovidio Guzman-Lopez, the son of El Chapo, who it is claimed to be running the drug cartel Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Some form of Mexican or U.S. military unit, contractor or federal office with guns and big juice then transferred Ovidio Guzman-Lopez to Mexico City where the summit is supposed to take place.
The Sinaloa cartel has now begun a rampage of revenge across the Sinaloa state attacking, police, government buildings, transportation, airports and planes, setting vehicles ablaze and setting up roadblocks. At least seven Mexican security force personnel are reported to have been killed in clashes where the government was trying to retake control. Eight civilians are also reported dead.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released the December jobs report today [DATA HERE] showing 223,000 jobs gained in December ’22.
Most of the job growth was in the “leisure and hospitality” sector (+67,000), healthcare (+55,000), construction (+28,000) and social assistance (+20,000). Additionally, average hourly earnings rose by 0.3%, with a year-over-year measure of wage growth at 4.6%.
At this point in the history of our economic pretending game, we are well aware the employment numbers are heavily manipulated in order to support the government policymaking that is destroying the same workforce they claim to represent. It’s all a ruse, just look around your community and you will see what I am talking about.
The financial pundits, Wall Street, government policy makers and various individuals and economic gaslighters are concerned that worker wage growth could drive inflation. This is one of the most aggravating aspects to reviewing the majority of economic punditry. [Example:]
This knuckleheaded narrative engineer from the New York Times/Atlantic even has the audacity to say, “let prices continue to fall to target,” as if there is a single item at any price that is dropping. His spin is a good example of gaslighting just from the use of the statement “price inflation is falling back towards where we want it.”
Price inflation is not price. ‘Price inflation’ is the rate of increase. There’s a BIG DIFFERENCE between “inflation falling back” and prices dropping. Inflation falling back is merely a lessening of the rate of price increase. The price does not drop, and never will.
This reality is why it is infuriating to see government policymakers and pundits decry wage growth as a bad thing that might cause inflation.
That slow grinding creak you hear in the background; that’s the U.S. economic engine running without oil and beginning that slowdown phase just before it stutters and stalls completely. Alas, the pretending continues…
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, an economic gaslighting institution with a central mission to maintain pretenses, “business surveys show U.S. factory activity declined in December, the Institute for Supply Management and S&P Global both said this week. Separately, S&P Global said Thursday that U.S. services-sector businesses reported a decline in output for the third month running in December.” This comes as “U.S. imports dropped more, by 6.4% on the month, as Americans cut back on holiday-related purchases, including items from other countries such as computers and autos.”
Keep in mind, November retail sales—which included consumer spending at stores, online and at restaurants—fell 0.6% from the prior month for their biggest decline of 2022, according to the Commerce Department. Manufacturing output declined in November as well, the Fed reported, while U.S. home sales fell for a record 10th straight month.
Into this mix of economic metrics, driven by a collapse in disposable consumer income and high energy prices, now we begin to see the number one business expense being curtailed.
(Market Watch) […] Amazon.com Inc layoffs will affect more than 18,000 employees, the highest reduction tally revealed in the past year at a major technology company as the industry pares back amid economic uncertainty.
Interesting timing here as the North American Summit is scheduled to take place in Mexico City, Mexico, on January 10th. Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO) are scheduled to have several meetings to discuss trade, economic and energy policies.
President Trump releases a video {Direct Rumble Link} and outline for a proposal to eliminate drug Cartels.
Mar-a-Lago, FL – As Joe Biden prepares to make his first-ever trip to the southern border that he deliberately erased, President Trump announced that when he is president again, it will be the official policy of the United States to take down the drug cartels just as we took down ISIS.
It’s almost painful to go to the grocery store today, not just because the prices for everything are so high, but also because seeing the stress amid the working-class shopping is palpable. Unfortunately, while we may have a momentary plateau on current pricing, there’s a strong possibility another wave of higher prices is yet to come.
At the core of the issue are energy prices which continue to rise. The immediate cycle of energy price hikes, a direct consequence of political policy, has lessened somewhat and we are now in that slow tick upward as the pressure on oil, gas, heating and electricity prices continues.
Michael Burry, famous for his predictions in/around the U.S. housing market, is noticing the same thing as CTH. “Inflation peaked. But it is not the last peak of this cycle,”he said. “We are likely to see CPI lower, possibly negative in 2H 2023, and the US in recession by any definition. Fed will cut and government will stimulate. And we will have another inflation spike. It’s not hard.”
Peak demand side inflation is long in the rearview mirror, but the peak of supply side inflation is questionable at best – I would say it’s a plateau, not a peak.
The price of goods, including industrialized and processed raw materials from China are going to increase again – and simultaneously become less consistent in availability. This is going to make prices extremely volatile in 2023.
Essentially, everything around price is tenuous as the western economies absorb the full impact of this Build Back Better energy policy, and into this foray comes China with production and processing challenges as a result of COVID bubbles being removed. We are seeing this problem right now in the pharmaceutical industry and with ordinary medicines becoming scarcer on store shelves.
This is an interesting interview in that International Monetary Fund Globalist Director Kristalina Georgieva seems to be laying the landscape for some truthful economic news to surface on the geopolitical level; albeit keeping up the globalist pretenses around western collective energy policy.
One of the more important points Mrs. Georgieva hits on is the reopening of China, from district level COVID bubbles as a containment feature, and the likely impact it will have on global supply chains. Mrs. Georgieva is correct on this issue.
China continued operating their industrial manufacturing base (despite COVID) because they built strict covid isolation bubbles around their industrial sectors geographically. However, with China lifting those isolation bubbles, there is a great potential for the manufacturing sectors to be hit hard by short to medium term virus outbreaks. This could/will have the potential ripple effect of global supply disruptions.
In an ironic twist, ‘deglobalization’ is now a 2023 catchphrase as various nations realize having their supply chains both dependent and interconnected is not good when there are interruptions. A new discussion centering around being dependent on China is the specific issue now being raised. However, the globalists are isolating their viewpoints only to raw material resourcing and development. WATCH:
[Transcript] -MARGARET BRENNAN: I want you to take us around the world and kind of us give us that global view. Let’s start in China. China has been this hub of cheap manufacturing for the world, we are all so dependent on it but right now it looks like COVID cases are exploding as they start pulling back those zero COVID restrictions. What will that mean for the global economy Longterm and short-term?
GEORGIEVA: In the short term, bad news. China has slowed down dramatically in 2022 because of this tight zero COVID policy. For the first time in 40 years China’s growth in 2022 is likely to be at or below global growth. That has never happened before. And looking into next year for three, four, five, six months the relaxation of COVID restrictions will mean bush fire COVID cases throughout China. I was in China last week, in a bubble in the city where there is zero COVID. But that is not going to last once the Chinese people start traveling.
The New Year brings a look of forward-looking economic perspectives from major financial institutions. Unfortunately, if the perspective of Bank of America Chief Economist Michael Gapen is reflective of the larger institutional analysis, the financial pretending is anticipated to continue.
[Side Note: Notice how they will all start talking about ‘deglobalization’ in 2023. There’s a reason for that that I will touch on in the IMF interview to follow]
Appearing on Face the Nation Gapen accurately indicates the U.S. housing market is already in a steep economic recession, housing prices falling rapidly with a considerable amount of distance to go (-30% range), and the overall housing market will likely be in this situation for around two years. On a macro level the Bank of America indicators line up with the general housing trajectory. From a lending standpoint, Gapen would have specific insight.
Beyond the housing sector, Mr. Gapen starts to get sketchy. He anticipates inflation taking 24 to 36 months to lower to the norm 2% range. That is generally in line with CTH expectations; however, nowhere in the analysis does Gapen even mention energy costs and the overall impact to the economy from energy policy. You will note this absence will be present in almost all financial punditries. Mentioning “energy policy’ as a cause of economic pain is a third rail amid his peer group; it is simply not permitted.
Astute readers will note the great financial and economic pretending that surrounds the Build Back Better and Green New Deal climate change agenda will not be discussed by anyone, ever. The massive price impacts, the supply side inflation pressures, are baked into the western global economic outlooks. It is strictly verboten to talk about climate change policy being stopped, modified, reversed or even, well, gasp, removed. WATCH:
[TRANSCRIPT] – […] BANK OF AMERICA CHIEF ECONOMIST MICHAEL GAPEN: Happy New Year as well. Thank you for having me on.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, a majority of voters polled by The Wall Street Journal say that the economy is going to look and feel worse in 2023. What is your forecast?
GAPEN: So I think that’s probably true. I think we’re in a situation where the risk of recession is high, may not be a deep and prolonged one. But we’re in a situation where the economy has recovered very rapidly from- from COVID, and it’s come with a lot of inflation. And the Federal Reserve is trying to slow down the economy, to bring inflation down. And in the past, more often than not, that’s coincided with some sort of recession in the US economy and the U.S. labor market. It’s not baked in. It’s not for certain. We may be able to avoid it, but I would agree that the outlook by most people who sit in the position that I do think 2023 could be a difficult year for the U.S..
MARGARET BRENNAN: So we may be able to avoid recession?
The ideology of these elitist minded control officers is really remarkable. The president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, has given several statements to media saying policy measures must be put into place in order to stop wage growth from fueling inflation.
Think about this in the most practical of terms. Western politicians have created massive inflation through their collective ‘Build Back Better’ energy policy. The central banks have raised interest rates, an effort to shrink the economy by lowering energy demand, to offset the skyrocketing costs of the energy problem the politicians created.
With workers demanding pay raises to help afford the skyrocketing costs of energy, the central EU bank is now worried that wage increases will fuel inflation.
There’s a truckload of pretending needed to avoid seeing the insufferable dynamic of reality.
Political policy drives up energy costs. Central banks try to drive down energy demand. Workers unable to afford the energy prices created by politicians, are then blamed for the inflation the political policy creates.
Sooner or later ordinary people are going to figure out this abusive cycle.
(Via Reuters) – Euro zone wages are growing quicker than earlier thought and the European Central Bank must prevent this from adding to already high inflation, ECB President Christine Lagarde told a Croatian newspaper.
So, they need to change the narrative and stop people from using natural gas appliances.
With workers demanding pay raises to help afford the skyrocketing costs of energy, the central EU bank is now worried that wage increases will fuel inflation.