The stock market is dropping, Wall Street analysts are flummoxed, but it just isn’t rocket science folks.  It’s Main Street economics 101.

The price to produce, manufacture and transport goods has skyrocketed, that’s the Producer Price Index (PPI).  Arriving goods at retail are significantly higher in price.  Simultaneously, consumer spending is being squeezed by unavoidable inflation in housing, energy, food and gasoline; so consumer spending is tight, that’s the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Higher costs to retail that cannot be passed on as higher prices to customers, means lower profit margins for the sellers.  That’s it.  That’s the majority of it.  Major retail companies like Target and Wal Mart are reporting the impacts from the squeeze in higher costs that cannot be passed to consumers in higher retail prices.   Checkbook economics.

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Businesses are seeing higher costs in the unavoidable goods they need to sell, the fixed price of goods.  What comes next?  Businesses, knowing they cannot raise prices too much, look at lowering the costs of operations in an effort to remain competitive, stay profitable, and stay in business.

How do businesses lower operational costs?  Increase expectations of employee productivity and/or lower employment costs.  That leads to layoffs.

I guarantee you…. YOU know more about the basic principles of Main Street economics than a room full of these Wall Street analysts.   I like El-Erian, but sheesh, talk about pretending not to know things.

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Zero Hedge published a good article yesterday with some solid internal data showing a strong likelihood that national gasoline prices are likely to rise another 40% from current levels by mid-late summer.  That would put the national average for a gallon of gasoline around $6.20 by August.

The data behind the prediction is solid and essentially boils down to the U.S. refineries not having the expanded capacity needed to keep up with an increased summer demand, particularly as they need to keep generating high volumes of diesel fuel due to current critical shortages.

The issues are created by the Biden administration and the regulatory stranglehold they put on the oil and gas industry last year.  Obviously, all of this is a feature of the administration plan, not a flaw.  The Green New Deal agenda necessarily requires that gasoline rise in price to $7/gal this year in order to force the change in profit dynamic for alternative fueled transportation.

Unfortunately, we the consumers will be the ones punished as the progressive, communist and far-left policy makers chase their climate change agenda.  Cheap and cost-effective energy has to be made ‘not cheap’ and ‘not cost-effective’ in order to create the energy crisis their agenda requires.

Massive increases in gasoline prices are a feature, not a flaw.

Remember, Biden is disposable.  The people behind Biden purposefully selected him in order to generate a kamikaze ‘fundamental change’ mission within a single 4-year presidential term.  Getting crushed on the political outcomes is irrelevant, they just need to push the agenda fast enough, far enough, and destructive enough, so that all energy policies become irreversible.

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Interesting background discussions today, very interesting.  There are some aspects to the Washington Post story about DHS abandoning, at least temporarily, the Dept of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board.

WaPo represents the CIA public relations/narrative engineers, so it doesn’t come as a surprise they would be the announcing outlet for the leaked information.  There’s also an interesting aspect in who was selected to write the article, Taylor Lorenz, the conscripted narrative engineer and lead on-line counterintelligence/propaganda pusher.  [LINK]

However, beyond the background intelligence motive; and accepting the expressed intent of the DHS ministry of truth effort; notice the picture Lorenz published to accompany the notification (see above). “Nina Jankowicz … works in a press room at Volodymyr Zelensky’s campaign headquarters in 2019 in Kyiv, Ukraine.”  Quite telling.

The takeaway from the above data points, outlines how long the DHS has been planning to use the conflict in Ukraine to advance the agenda of the State Dept and intelligence apparatus (CIA).  When combined with the rapid response from big tech search engine notifications about removing on-line content that contradicted the official position of the U.S. government toward the Ukraine conflict (Google and DuckDuckGo), what we see is a very fulsome picture of how the U.S. government advanced propaganda was being constructed.

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…We call it ‘World War Reddit‘ for a reason.

In February the White House said strategic victory in Ukraine would be dependent on who can win the cultural war of social likeability {link}.  In March the White House and State Dept recruited a battalion of TikTok influencers so they could dance and sing about Ukraine and Russia for their audiences in social media {link}.  In April USAID announced they would coordinate entertainment resources to keep the public interested in Ukraine and Bono was recruited to sing in Kyiv {link}.

Following along with the coordinated scheduling, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats took turns rotating through Kyiv with Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans.   Boris Johnson from the U.K and Justin from Canada also took their entourages into Kyiv to hold media events and photo ops with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

All of the U.S. propaganda efforts originate from within the strategy teams at the U.S. State Dept.  It is the Dept of State who coordinates with U.S. intelligence, Hollywood and big tech social media to frame the overall narrative.  Big Tech and social media assist by blocking any platform content that does not fit the narrative created by the State Dept.

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New York Times narrative engineer Charlie Savage is tweeting from within a packed media center at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington DC for the government case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann. [TWEET THREAD]  The mentions and notations, while skewed toward the self interest of media, give us a good insight into what is taking place in the courtroom.

First things first. All media reporting of this case will be done through the prism of their own cooperation in the perpetration of the fraud.  The MSM knew along with everyone else inside and outside of government, that their efforts to create the Trump-Russia conspiracy and collusion narrative were based on fraudulent pretext manufactured by the Clinton campaign.  They all knew it. They all acted collaboratively and they all engaged purposefully.

As noted by Charlie Savage, prosecutor Deborah Shaw, a member of the Durham team, delivered the opening remarks to frame the government position in the case.

The telling remarks came early: “Shaw addresses “the elephant in the room” – tells jury their feelings about Russia, Trump, Clinton can’t play a role in the case. This is about “our FBI” which should not be used as a tool by anyone, Republicans or Democrats.”  In essence, prosecutor Shaw is telling the jury the FBI were duped into the Trump-Russia conspiracy investigation by outsiders connected to the Clinton campaign.

That’s a critical baseline from the government we must understand and accept.  That baseline now indicates that none of the DOJ and FBI operatives involved in the fraudulent scheme will be held accountable by the Durham team.  “Our FBI should not be used as a tool by anyone,” yet they were, so sayeth the United States Government.

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The ramifications for Twitter surrounding fake users or algorithmic bots are considerable.  One issue is overcharging advertisers for ad impressions based on mDAU’s, which are “monetized Daily Active Users.”  The second issue is an outcome of the first and relates to the valuation of Twitter.  If Twitter bots are higher than Twitter estimates, then the mDAU rate is overstated.

Elon Musk is indicating there may need to be a lowering of the purchase price unless Twitter becomes transparent with how they are calculating the number of bot users at less than 5%.  All outside reviews attempting to estimate the number of fake accounts, or bots, puts the estimations considerably higher than the claims by Twitter.  Elon Musk tweeted:

At “The All In Summit 2022,” Elon Musk gave the impression the purchase price of Twitter may be tenuous.  He said that a deal with a lower price tag is not “out of the question,” Bloomberg reported.  “Currently, what I’m being told is that there’s just no way to know the number of bots… It’s like, as unknowable as the human soul,” Musk said at the Miami conference, per a social media video, Bloomberg added.

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Democrats love war, even when they have to go looking for one.  The New York Times is reporting that Joe Biden has signed a Defense Dept order authorizing 700 combat troops to redeploy to Somalia, reversing the Trump-era troop withdrawal.

WASHINGTON — President Biden has signed an order authorizing the military to once again deploy hundreds of Special Operations forces inside Somalia — largely reversing the decision by President Donald J. Trump to withdraw nearly all 700 ground troops who had been stationed there, according to four officials familiar with the matter.

In addition, Mr. Biden has approved a Pentagon request for standing authority to target about a dozen suspected leaders of Al Shabab, the Somali terrorist group that is affiliated with Al Qaeda, three of the officials said. Since Mr. Biden took office, airstrikes have largely been limited to those meant to defend partner forces facing an immediate threat.

Together, the decisions by Mr. Biden, described by the officials on the condition of anonymity, will revive an open-ended American counterterrorism operation that has amounted to a slow-burn war through three administrations. (read more)

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Turkey as a member of NATO has always been a thorny and multi-layered geopolitical issue.  In the latest chapter of the dynamic, Turkish President Recep Erdogan, a man with visions of his own grandiose importance as the leader of the next Ottoman empire, has said Sweden and Finland do not warrant entry into NATO because they have held positions adverse to the interests of Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood.

As the entry point from the middle east into Europe, Erdogan has long leveraged his gatekeeper status to create an oversized influence of power.  When the EU formally declared the era of multiculturalism was failing 2012, and Islamic extremists were carrying out terrorism attacks all over the NATO alliance, Erdogan leveraged his ability to open the floodgates from Syria to gain additional financial benefits.

On one hand, when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in northern Syria, Erdogan hid behind the skirt of NATO seeking protection from Russian retaliation.  On the other hand, when the U.S. refused to give Turkey missile defense systems, Erdogan buried the hatchet with Putin and purchased Russian missile defense systems.   President Erdogan plays all sides in advancing his interests.

In the latest development, what Joe Manchin is to the leftist agenda of Joe Biden, Erdogan is playing that role toward the globalist agenda of NATO.  The big picture behind Erdogan’s priorities is always connected to the agenda of the Brotherhood.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid.

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In the second segment of the interview with Maria Bartiromo, Devin Nunes and Kash Patel discuss the trial of Michael Sussmann which begins tomorrow. {Direct Rumble Link}

Ultimately the issue in the Michael Sussmann trial is quite simple:

Did the DOJ and FBI know the material Michael Sussmann was giving them came from the Hillary Clinton campaign?

We all know the answer to that question, of course they did.  However, there has been –and continues to be– a game of grand pretense from the DOJ/FBI group where they pretend not to have known.

Two groups: the “insider group” (DOJ/FBI) and the “outsider group” (Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS, Clinton campaign, Sussmann, Elias, Mook, etc).

Claiming the DOJ and FBI were duped, is the government firewall that protects the inside group.  However, this claim is now against the interest of Michael Sussmann who has been accused of false representation and lying to the FBI about the provenance of the information he provided.

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Fox News Maria Bartiromo interviewed Devin Nunes and Kash Patel ahead of the trial for Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann which begins tomorrow.  The interview breaks down into two segments, the first segment outlines the discussion of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter. {Direct Rumble Link}  WATCH, Part I

The issue of ‘bots’ operating on the Twitter platform is an interesting aspect when you consider the cost of platform operation.

On one hand, extensive auto-generated ‘bots’ would be an issue of cost and data-processing, a net negative.  On the other hand, the use of bots would be a manipulative practice for the creation of false impressions to generate advertising revenue.

If the scale of data-processing was subsidized, an outcome of a network of data processing centers -clouds- linked to government resources, the bots would not be an issue for the operation.  Despite the false impressions generated, bots would, however, under this weird situation, be useful for the manipulation of the conversation.  At the root of Elon Musk’s line of inquiry is the need to discover if this suspicion is true.

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