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?

GAPEN: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Or it could be mild?

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Underreported and essentially invisible within the mainstream news cycles, a critical shortage of ordinary U.S. medicine has been growing and becoming an emergency situation for many families.  If rationing kicks in fully, be careful about what you post on social media.  Determining allowances based on political ideology is a real concern.

In a general sense the issue is mostly an outcome of the U.S. outsourcing drug ingredient procurement and manufacture to China and India.  Many companies in both of those countries have been struggling with operational interruptions as a result of COVID-19.  As supplies in the U.S. rapidly dwindle, local news media outlets are now starting to pick up on the issue.  WATCH:

(Via Fox Business) – The nationwide shortage of basic antibiotics and critical medications that treat chronic conditions and bacterial infections has become the latest issue to hit the medical world. Consequently, it is forcing many doctors to rely on alternative medicines to treat patients.

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According to recent media reports the $1.7 trillion omnibus budget and legislative bill was sent to the White House late Wednesday night.  However, Joe Biden and his familial entourage had already departed DC for their holiday vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

However, the continuing resolution/omnibus spending bill needed to be signed by December 30th in order to fund government without technical interruption, so the White House sent the bill all the way to St. Croix for signature via Spirit Airlines.

(Via Daily Mail) – The White House flew the federal budget to St Croix for President Joe Biden to sign into law ahead of the December 30 deadline, so the government didn’t shut down over New Year’s Eve.

The 4,000-page, $1.7 trillion omnibus package to fund the government through September 2023 arrived at the White House on Wednesday evening, after it completed the legislative enrollment process. On Thursday, it was flown to St Croix, where Biden is spending the holiday week in a luxury villa owned by a billionaire Democratic donor.

The bill arrived in the US Virgin Islands via Spirit Airlines on Thursday evening around 5:30 pm Eastern time. A little over an hour later, Biden’s POTUS Instagram account posted a picture of the president signing the bill.

The caption of the Instagram post read: ‘Today, I signed the bipartisan omnibus bill, ending a year of historic progress. It’ll invest in medical research, safety, veteran health care, disaster recovery, VAWA funding – and gets crucial assistance to Ukraine. Looking forward to more in 2023.’

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As we’ve been saying for seven months, keep watching how the globalists respond to Mexico.  AMLO doesn’t want to join the economic suicide pact known as Build Back Better, or the North American version “Green New Deal.”   This puts him in a precarious place.

This sentence from a recent financial analysis article in Reuters is telling, “concerns about a U.S. recession and a trade spat Mexico is embroiled in with the United States and Canada over Lopez Obrador’s energy policy, which critics call nationalist, muddy the outlook for the peso.”  A “nationalist energy policy”?

What exactly is a “nationalist energy policy,” and why would international financial people be having fits about it?

In the past year the Mexican peso has outperformed the U.S. dollar, in part because Mexico is not following the economic roadmap, a World Economic Forum inspired united inflationary malaise as an outcome of unified energy policy.  [Side Note: The Brazilian currency was also outperforming the western bloc and dollar; but that situation has been rectified now, Bolsonaro removed, and the central bank will start contracting the economy.]

The global financial control mechanisms now start to look at the Mexican non-compliance:

(Reuters) – Mexico’s peso, which is ending 2022 with one of its strongest performances in a decade, could have its gains wiped out in 2023 after an expected end to the Bank of Mexico’s rate hikes cycle and a possible recession in top trade partner the United States.

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We accept the named legislation “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) is a legislative misnomer intended to obfuscate the true construct of the bill.  The IRA was factually the ‘green new deal’ program packaged under the guise of an ‘inflation reduction’ premise.  However, in order to discuss the outcome of the content we have to play the game of pretending around the purpose of the legislation.

Within the IRA there was a $7,500 tax credit for American made Electric Vehicles.  The intent of the legislation was to provide incentives for U.S. consumers to purchase ‘sustainable’ and environmentally friendly electric cars, trucks, SUV’s etc made in America.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scored the bill with this legislative intent in mind.   However, the Treasury Department is now taking apart the granular details of the legislation in order to qualify foreign made vehicles for the $7,500 credit. The rules interpretation from the Treasury Dept essentially negates the CBO score, and the outcome is going to be much more expensive than initially stated.

Because the $7,500 comes in the form of a tax credit, the IRS (Treasury) is the institution making the determinations for qualification.  Treasury is changing the qualifications to permit basically any EV to qualify, by parsing a difference between a leased vehicle and a purchased vehicle.  Additionally, Treasury is changing the battery sourcing aspect by qualifying essentially any trade agreement as a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), saying the term Free Trade Agreement was undefined in the legislation.

As an outcome & simply cutting to the chase, EV batteries from just about anywhere, inside EV vehicles from basically anywhere, that are purchased as leases from just about any auto manufacturer, will qualify for the $7,500 credit. It’s all a shell game, with the Biden administration determining where the pea is located.

Dec 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday that electric vehicles leased by consumers starting Jan. 1 can qualify for up to $7,500 in commercial clean vehicle tax credits, a decision that makes those assembled outside North America eligible.

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BlackRock, Inc. (together with its subsidiaries) is a massive publicly traded multinational investment firm with over $8.68 trillion in assets under management [December 31, 2020 financial statement] in more than 100 countries across the globe.  To say that Blackrock is invested in globalism, climate change and leftist politics, would be a severe understatement {See Here}.  Larry Fink is the CEO and people like Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s attorney of record, are on the board.

The Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute, the guy who tells the $8.7 trillion investment firm BlackRock where to put their money, is Tom Donilon; President Obama’s former National Security Advisor (before Susan Rice), and a key advisor to Joe Biden throughout his career in politics; who was also recently put in charge of U.S-China policy by the State Dept. {link}

Tom Donilon’s brother, Mike Donilon is a Senior Advisor to Joe Biden {link} providing guidance on what policies should be implemented within the administration.  Mike Donilon guides the focus of spending, budgets, regulation and white house policy from his position of Senior Advisor to the President. Tom Donilon’s wife, Catherine Russell, was the Biden White House Personnel Director {link}.  In that position Donilon’s wife controlled every hire in the Office of the Presidency. Tom Donilon’s daughter, Sarah Donilon, who graduated college in 2019, now works on the White House National Security Council {link}

Yes, Blackrock, the world’s largest investment firm, is essentially in a private-public partnership with the Biden White House fraught with massive financial conflicts of interest. Tom Donilon is the bagman.  The Donilon family coordinates the Biden foreign policy toward Ukraine, and the Donilon family positions Blackrock financially to benefit as a specific outcome of the relationship with the Biden family and the White House.  Now this….

WASHINGTON DC – Zelensky and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink met virtually on Wednesday, the president’s website revealed, and discussed plans for the financial behemoth to play a prominent role in the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine, which has been subjected to massive Russian depredations for most of this year.  Plans for BlackRock leaders to visit Ukraine in the new year were finalized at the meeting.

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In the background of international geopolitics and all things economically attached, the larger climate change agenda, the Build Back Better program, has been unfolding.

Energy driven inflation has destabilized most western economies as the various governments (politicians) and central banks (bureaucrats) work together on behalf of the corporations (World Economic Forum). All of these interests can only advance if they work together. If any individual nation breaks from the group energy agenda, their economy will thrive beyond the limits created by the BBB operation and the association of western nations.

It is with this context at the forefront where we have said to watch Mexico closely. In North America, Mexico has the least to gain from economics behind the climate change agenda. Conversely, if Mexico were to go rogue, they would gain the most. This dynamic puts Mexico in a more powerful position than most realize.

During a July 2022, meeting at the White House, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO) appeared to indicate -for the first time- his understanding of his new position as the ‘Green New Deal’ (climate change) energy agenda was being deployed by the U.S. and Canada. AMLO read from a prepared script in the oval office during a public bilateral meeting with Joe Biden. AMLO’s remarks were quite remarkable in their independence.

“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, AMLO said, striking a chord that is not in alignment with Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau.  AMLO continued, “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 not just what he said, it’s how AMLO said it.

Keep in mind, the month before that July visit to the White House, AMLO boycotted Joe Biden’s Latin-America Summit. AMLO joined the leaders of Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and the tiny Caribbean state of St. Vincent in refusing to attend the Biden summit because Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were blocked from attending by the Biden administration.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration from lifting Title 42, which allowed Customs and Border Patrol to expel cross border migrants due to the COVID-19 emergency. [Background of Case Here]

In a 5-4 decision with Justice Gorsuch joining the liberal members, the Supreme Court ruled that Title-42 should remain in effect.  It wasn’t really a surprising decision if you think about the Biden administration hypocrisy.

On one hand the Biden administration extended the national COVID-19 emergency through April of 2023.

On the other hand, the same Biden administration was saying there was no COVID-19 emergency as the foundation for their effort to remove Title 42.

The Supreme Court seemed to recognize the inherent contradiction and applied a non-pretending logic.  If the national health emergency exists, then Title 42 still applies.  It’s really just a simple affirmation of Biden policy.  [Ruling Here]

WASHINGTON – In a blow to the Biden administration’s ability to set the nation’s immigration policy, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said the government could not halt the expulsion of migrants for public health reasons under the controversial Title 42 program.

That program, which has been in place since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, must continue while courts assess a lawsuit filed by Republican officials in 19 states who say that unwinding the Title 42 policy would unleash a national “catastrophe.”

The emergency intervention from the high court came days after the Trump-era program was set to expire. The justices announced they will hear arguments about the program next year, but limited their review to whether the conservative states may intervene in the litigation. Oral arguments are expected in February. In the meantime, expulsions will continue.

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A very interesting data point surfaces as a result of CTH explaining how Twitter File #8 connects to the U.S. State Dept, IC and Pentagon used Twitter to amplify specific types of political messaging {GO DEEP}. The nation of Qatar has now blocked access to CTH. 

As a reminder, release #8, was essentially a basic outline showing how the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and U.S. State Department (DoS) work with the social media platform to amplify messaging and create specifically anonymous government accounts intended to spread propaganda globally. [Twitter File Release #8 Here]  The govt then asked the platform engineering side to boost the messaging of the govt accounts and use the internal tools to promote government users.  Essentially, social media propaganda.

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.

Qatar is aligned with the Obama/Biden worldview of all things political.  In many ways Qatar is an Arabic version of Ukraine.  Here’s where it gets interesting….

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Twitter File release #11 hits on the long-anticipated information surrounding how the platform was instructed by various government agencies to remove content adverse to the expressed opinion of CDC, HHS, and DHS officials. [Release #11 Here]

The first installment of the Twitter COVID-19 files comes from David Zweig, a writer for New York Mag, New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications.  Because the U.S. Government COVID-19 information control operation was so extensive, there will likely be several Twitter File releases related to the SARS-CoV2 pandemic issue.  However, in this first release Zweig starts to build the story of how the CDC and HHS set the foundation for the echo-chamber that ended with Twitter executives running amok.

[Twitter File #11 – Release Here]

As Zweig begins his review he noted, “The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19.”  While the Trump administration was worried about information that would create panic, like runs on grocery stores, the Biden administration was more focused on content control to push the overall narrative about fearing COVID and the vaccination demand.

“When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson,” Zweig writes as he then begins to give examples of various medical professionals that were targeted by the White House and the platform.

The outcome of the HHS and CDC push circled around politics, which, when combined with the ideological perspectives of the Twitter executives, inevitably ended up making COVID-19 a political issue on the platform.  Critics of COVID-19 policy were blocked, censored, removed and restricted.  Advocates of government policy were enhanced, amplified, promoted and enlarged.

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