This is one of those interviews where you don’t have to take my word for what is being said, Gary Cohn and Margaret Brennan are gleeful about the January jobs report and the overall return of the U.S. economy to a service driven system with low wages.   Seriously, this is them celebrating out loud.

In order to calm the Wall Street apoplexy about his election victory, President Trump selected Gary Cohn to be an economic advisor early in the administration.  However, it was also no surprise that President Trump did not follow Cohn’s advice, and quickly dispatched him after Cohn protested.  In this interview the worldview of Cohn is typically globalist, multinational and Wall St centric.

Talking about the January jobs report, Cohn literally gets everything wrong from the position of Main Street USA.  Cohn also celebrates what he calls the “renormalization of the new economy.”  Continuing with his thought process Cohn states, “A lot of the jobs that we saw were jobs in the service industry, the service, the industries coming back very strong because we’re starting to see the economy go back to what we historically think of the economy,” he said.  This is exactly how Wall Street, and the multinationals look at the U.S. economy.

The next part that both Cohn and Margaret Brennan celebrate is even more sunlight. “The interesting thing about last month’s unemployment numbers is we brought people back to work, but we did not have to entice them with pay,” Cohn stated. “So, the monthly, the month over month number in wage gains was 30 basis points. The prior month was 40 basis points. So, we’re seeing we’re getting people back into the labor force for a lower wage than we were prior to this,” he said.   With higher prices (inflation) crushing the middle-class and service workers, the multinationals Cohn represents are celebrating that they don’t have to pay workers higher wages.  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: So 517,000 new jobs, but a lot of companies, particularly in tech, are announcing layoffs. So exactly where’s the economy headed?

(more…)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published a jobs report yesterday [DATA LINK] that has stunned the professional financial class.   However, those who have followed the BLS data assemblies were laughing – not surprised.  Eventually, if this continues, the BLS pretzel logic will start using terms like “eleventy.”

Throughout 2022, the BLS modified the underlying data they used to assemble their jobs reporting.  The latest release shows that 517,000 jobs were gained in the labor market, despite every other economic indicator showing we are in an economy of contraction.  The question becomes, why the disconnect?

There are two surveys that make up the BLS reporting.  The Household survey is conducted by calling people and just asking if they are employed.  The Payroll survey is conducted by reviewing large and medium businesses, no small businesses are included, and that plays a role in the disconnect.

Since the spring of last year, the two surveys have completely disconnected from each other.   The household survey finds a net gain of 12,000 jobs in the last three quarters; the Payroll survey shows gains of 2.7 million jobs during the same time.

ZeroHedge did a good dive on the issue (SEE HERE), and their analysis reports, “[…] the number of full-time workers in March 2022 was 132.587 million. Fast forward to January 2023 when it was 132.577: that’s right: total US full-time workers declined by 10K over a period of 10 months. Meanwhile, part-time workers soared from 25.908 million to 27.400 million, an increase of 1.492 million! So at least we know where the bulk of the increase in US labor came from in the past year: virtually no full-time jobs, and all part-time.”

Additionally, Forbes dove into the data (SEE HERE) and reached a similar conclusion, the BLS data is all nonsense covered in statistical noise.

(more…)

This is so critically important to the understanding of the core, central element where the globalism atom splits and the resulting destruction begins, that I must pause all personal recovery efforts -immediately- and explain.   This is an incredible example of where corporations and government merge.  This is the atom split. This is the root, the nub, the place where “trillions at stake” takes context.

Strong HatTip to Gateway Pundit for this exceptional video and example {Direct Rumble Link Here}.  The understanding comes via a Canadian dairy farmer, who, like thousands of other farmers around the world, is a private business under government control.  This example is about dairy, specifically milk, however, the underlying premise goes much further.

This is modern corporatism, the nexus of govt intervention, regulations and the multinational exploitation of industry.  This is also the globalist example that shows how the concepts of “capitalism” and “free markets” have been destroyed.  First, watch the video:

What you are witnessing in that video is something we have talked about at length for years.

Influential people, politicians (rules) and corporate leaders (profits), both with vested financial interests in the process, have sold a narrative that global manufacturing, global sourcing, and global production is the inherent way of the future. The same voices claimed the American economy was/is consigned to become a “service-driven economy.”

What was always missed in these discussions is that advocates selling this global-economy message have a vested financial and ideological interest in convincing the information consumer it is all just a natural outcome of economic progress.

It’s not.

It’s not natural at all. It is a process that is entirely controlled, promoted and utilized by large conglomerates, lobbyists, purchased politicians and massive multinational corporations.

(more…)

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI, is the epicenter of the larger intelligence apparatus that controls government.  It was/is the SSCI who helped to create the weaponized system we call the Fourth Branch of Government.  The SSCI is the institutional origin where the outcomes of the FISA courts, domestic surveillance, and downstream consequences of the Patriot Act are supported and facilitated.

Because of their unique role in creating our national security state, where U.S. citizens are regarded as the potential threat to the interests of that state, the SSCI is a unique stakeholder in retaining the corrupt systems of domestic surveillance power.  No institution within the elected legislative branch of government has done more to destroy the freedom and constitutional protections within the U.S. than the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The intelligence community interacts with the SSCI with that benefactor/beneficiary alignment in mind.  This is why the SSCI claims such bipartisanship, and why the corporate media herald the SSCI as an important functional tool. Without the assistance of the SSCI, the U.S. domestic surveillance state could not exist.  When the IC feels threatened, they run to the SSCI for protection.

The chair (Warner) and vice-chair (Rubio) of the committee are also members of the Gang of Eight, intelligence oversight group.  It is laughable to see Senator Mark Warner decry the possibility of national security leaks and compromises within the classified document issue.  Warner himself was the most consequential leaker during the Trump-Russia investigation (Wolfe leak of FISA application), and the SSCI facilitated everything that happened in the Mueller investigation.  [WATCH, Transcript Below]

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Let’s start on the news of the moment. I know the two of you were briefed by the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Do you have any timeline in terms of when you will get visibility into the documents of classified material that both President Biden and President Trump had in their residences?

(more…)

President Trump transmitted a message to congress, warning them not to cut Social Security and Medicare {Direct Rumble Link}.  Many politicians and pundits will look at Trump’s position from the perspective of it being good to campaign for older voters, but that’s not the core of his reasoning.

In 2016 CTH was the first place to evaluate the totality of President Trump’s economic policies; specifically, as those policies related to the entitlement programs around Social Security and Medicare.  We outlined the approach Trump was putting forth and the way he was approaching the issue.   In the years that followed, he was right.  He was creating a U.S. economy that could sustain all of the elements the traditional political class were calling “unsustainable.”

Before getting to the details, here’s his video message and policy as delivered yesterday. WATCH:

Fortunately, we do not have to guess if President Trump is correct. We have his actual economic policy results to look at and see how the expansion of the economy was creating the type of growth that would sustain Social Security and Medicare.  This was/is MAGAnomics at work.

(more…)

On Wednesday President Trump released a new policy video {Direct Rumble link} highlighting “China’s intrusive actions to own America’s infrastructure and vital industries.”

Within the policy, the Trump campaign pledges to enact aggressive regulations to prevent China from influencing American sovereignty. According to the proposal, “the United States will also pressure the Chinese to sell off any current holdings that threaten the country’s national and economic security.” WATCH:

.

President Trump was the largest voice amid U.S. politicians to call out the economic threat represented by China back in 2015, an extension of criticism and warnings he carried for more than a decade before entering the world of politics. Transcript Below:

(more…)

Given the fulsome context of the latest ideological alignment coming from the North American Summit, I am entirely certain the ordinary people in the U.S. and Canada do not have any idea just how badly things are likely to deteriorate in the near future.  However, for the ordinary people of Mexico, already living in a situation of day-to-day survival, they will not likely note any difference.

White House occupant Joe Biden, Mexican President Lopez-Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered remarks yesterday at the conclusion of their trilateral discussions. You can watch the entire speech set HERE with the full transcript below.  What follows is a painful, albeit brutally honest, assessment of the remarks and the predictable future they contain.

AMLO is a soft socialist but has previously indicated his tendency toward economic nationalism.  Trudeau is a modern leftist and a true globalist at heart.   Biden is a puppet for the modern American political left and economically concerned only for his personal crime syndicate financial situation.  Behind Biden’s politics is a blend of Obama domestic ideology and a willingness to align with interventionist foreign policy that benefits his personal financial interests.

♦ IMMIGRATION – On the issue of mass illegal immigration, Trudeau can wax philosophically about the virtues of multiculturalism and diversity because the United States provides a 2,500-mile migration filtration and border protection zone.  For the United States, Joe Biden speaks about the endless ability of America to absorb millions of migrants in the sake of humanity. Biden’s position has little to do with the economic damage created by mass migration because he and his leftist allies are disconnected from the chaos, protected by walls and personal security.

On the issue of illegal migration, it is AMLO’s position that carries the most consequence because Mexico is the funnel control mechanism.  It is clear in his remarks that AMLO is a socialist on the issue of unlimited migration, and he has no compulsion to stop the flow of human trafficking from south and central America into the United States.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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?

(more…)