A very interesting interview with Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Association.

During a House Transportation Committee hearing on supply chain issues, CEO Chris Spear shares an internal survey showing that 37% of truck drivers “not only said no, but said hell no” to the Biden vaccine mandates.

To give some perspective of the downstream consequence, the ATA President noted that “if just 3.7 percent, not 37 percent, just 3.7 percent” of the drivers left the industry, there would be over a quarter million vacancies resulting in a “catastrophic” collapse of the U.S. supply chain.  Mr. Spear also shared his opinion the OSHA rule is completely unworkable and unlawful.

The consequences are grave if just 3.7% did not work.  However, if ten times that many, 37 percent of truck drivers, stopped hauling products because of the Biden vaccine requirement, American civic society would collapse within days as panicked citizens took to the streets.  Desperate Americans would be clamoring for scarce products, and the impact on society could not be measured.  WATCH:

As we have continued to point out, a federal vaccine mandate might sound like a good idea on a think tank, academic or white paper policy level of consideration; but on a practical level, wiping out a large percentage of your most productive workforce over a vaccine mandate is unworkable, and might even end the operation of the entire business.

It is important to note the recent NBC poll on this issue amid the outlook of the vaccine mandates.  A majority of the country do not support the vaccine mandates, and worse still, the number of unvaccinated workers is essentially unwavering in the past six weeks {poll data}.  Remember, the number of Americans who willingly quit their jobs increased to 4.3 million in August {link}, and then increased again to 4.4 million in September {link}. People are not f**king around now.

(more…)

Neel Kashkari is head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. If you know the financial lingo, you can see the dire forecast behind the opaque language.  In plain-speak, Kashari is saying when it comes to prices and inflation, “we’re screwed“…

In this interview with CBS talking head Margaret Brennan, Kashkari admits inflation is still going up, and it will get worse. Keep in mind, the lingo of the inflation conversation is discussing “percentages of change.” Kashkari claims the percentages of change will start to slow in a few years, but the prices will never return to their former level.

The percentage of inflationary change (this year vs last year) will continue going up, as prices continue to skyrocket over almost every sector. CTH points out this issue, because as the Fed continues printing current money, the value of future money drops and the price of goods continues to climb. The fast-turn goods rise in price quickest (now recorded at 6.2%), and the inflation on slow-turn durable goods lags but hits even harder.

Current real inflation inside the ‘total’ economy, the cumulative snowball that is coming down the mountain, is over 20% and still growing. This situation puts the forecast prices of 2022 goods at an alarming level. WATCH:

The fed has no tools to slow the rate of current inflation, as interest rates are disconnected {Revisit The New Dimension in Modern Economics} from the cost of goods produced. The only thing the Fed can do is to stop purchasing debt (Quantitative Easing), stop purchasing our own bonds, at a slower rate.

Despite being a progressive himself, even Neel Kashkari is telling congress to stop spending money.

(more…)

One thing CTH does is to look at proposed leftist advancements through the prism of previously blocked moves.  The Joe Biden nomination of avowed communist Saule Omarova to the Treasury Department Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) should be considered in a similar perspective.

There’s a couple of different issues surfacing in the Omarova nomination.  Obviously, she is aligned with the view that controlling money is another way to control the behavior of businesses and people; Omarova’s previous statements {Go Deep} about intentionally bankrupting oil and gas companies is indicative of the former – and the most recent statements are aligned with the latter.  WATCH:

.

Obviously, Saule Omarova is interested in the concept of an all controlling central bank that would eliminate the need for private banking interests.  As she states, “There will be no more private bank deposit accounts, and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the fed.”  The basic premise is that all employers would funnel their payrolls into a centralized federal depository, where they would be then be taxed and re-distributed, electronically, to the workers.

One central bank, owned and operated by the federal government, would replace all the purposes within the private banking system.  Given her upbringing in the former Soviet Union, and considering her education at the University of Moscow, perhaps this outlook shouldn’t be surprising.   However, her nomination alone should be viewed as astonishing.

♦ Big Picture – The COVID Passport concept, now currently deployed in Europe and Australia, then becomes the vector for entry into a digital identification process.  At the end of that digital ID process is a centralized database, which, not coincidentally, directly aligns with the capability of the U.S. federal government to trigger what Omarova is advocating in that video – a centralized system to control all financial deposits and transactions through the digital ID previously created.

It doesn’t take a deep thinker to see how the federal government would eventually respond to having that much power over the financial accounts of Americans.  Cue the visual reference:

(more…)

I’m not sure what is more blood boiling: that Joe Biden thinks it is okay to mock the American electorate, or that he actually believes the horse crap that comes out of his twisted, stupid brain.

The question was a perfectly well presented inquiry about the Biden administration’s incompetence to put policies in place to streamline the supply chain chaos that he has created.  His response is disconnected, absent of anything even remotely accurate, and entirely disconnected from factual substance.  This guy is a complete and utter failure of staggering and stunning incompetence.  WATCH:

I do not use the word ‘hate‘ lightly.  I have a solid grounding on what that word actually means.  However, the only people I hate worse than the current occupants of the White House, are the complicit DC media stenographers who sit there and giggle as this pontificating pustule of an idiot spouts nonsense. They clap and comply as if this is the professional or normal state of a functioning government.

COVID didn’t do squat to disrupt supply chains, impact prices or create massive shortages and inflation… people did.  Specifically, the people in the background of this administration who intentionally trashed the U.S. economy, because they are ideologically aligned with that destruction.  The current economic team is devoid of any real world experience that would shape their outlooks on how to solve problems. Example: Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg.

[Transcript] – […] THE NATIONAL FOOL: (Laughs.) (The fool covers his eyes and points towards the press.) (Laughter.)

Q Mr. President, Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger said of your presidency this week: “Nobody elected him to be FDR. They elected him to be normal and stop the chaos.” How do you view your mandate after Tuesday’s election losses for Democrats? And is she wrong?

THE NATIONAL FOOL: Well, Abigail is a friend. We had a long talk. She joked and said that I have a picture — she said I have a picture of Roosevelt hanging in my office — her office, okay?

I don’t intend to anybody but Joe Biden. That’s who I am. And what I’m trying to do is do the things that I ran on to do. And, look, people out there are — ordinary, hardworking Americans are really, really — been put through the wringer the last couple years, starting with COVID.

(more…)

The final registered roll call vote will be [available here], it’s not yet registered.   However, at almost midnight the House finally passed the previous $550 billion Senate infrastructure bill.

After a day of backbiting and internal debate among the far-left communist wing and the socialist wing inside the Democrat caucus, Nancy Pelosi was forced to bring the long delayed ordinary infrastructure bill to a vote.  13 republicans supported it.  The final vote was 228/206.

This bill has a long backstory {SEE HERE}, as it was originally going to be connected to a massive Build Back Better social spending bill demanded by the communists in the House.  However, after months of attempts to structure some way to get two bills out of the House, one of them insanely over-the-top with social spending, eventually the communists were forced to let the original Senate bill come up for a stand alone vote.

With the Democrats needing a win, any win, to show they are capable of doing something…. they put this bill to a vote.   The future of their communist social spending bill is unknown.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on the DC narrative shaping program hosted by swamp gatekeeper Chris Wallace.  Within the interview Buttigieg was questioned about why West Coast port backups are worse now than before the White House announced their solution to operate ports 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Buttigieg proclaimed the ports are being impacted by the pandemic, and ships stuck in China are the reason why ships are sitting off the coast of California.   Yeah, try to square that circular logic.  LOL.  The scale of incompetence, even in common sense politispeak, is off the charts.  The illogical statements by this guy are legendary; however, he outdid himself today.

Eventually Pete weaves his way through fourteen nonsensical catch phrases to get to a point where he proclaims nothing in the supply chain will start being more efficient until everyone is vaccinated.  And yes, it appears that he is so stuck in pretzel-speak, Buttigieg actually believes that.

All of that said, I wouldn’t post this for review if it wasn’t for the ‘hard-hitting‘ segment from Wallace that comes right after.  You just gotta watch (prompted):

.

The southern border is in crisis, food inflation is skyrocketing, transportation and logistical supply chains are a mess because of emissions and regulation, store shelves are empty, gasoline is ridiculously expensive, the blue-collar working class is getting crushed, the vaccination mandate is wreaking havoc on jobs, airlines and employment for first responders, overall national anxiety is at a high point, the economy is in a free-fall and two-thirds of all Americans now say the administration is incompetent.  Along comes Chris Wallace with the hard-hitting question about what Pete and his husband are doing with their twins for Halloween.

Lets Go Brandon !

(more…)

When I first saw the headline about Joe Biden paying illegal aliens $450,000 per person in reparations, I thought it was a joke.  So I contacted a friend who works for DHS in Washington DC to check.  I just received independent confirmation this story is entirely legit.

The Justice Department, Health and Human Services and Dept of Homeland Security are in negotiations with representatives from the ACLU and lawyers representing illegal aliens to pay out $1,000,000 per family for the hardship they endured in crossing the border illegally in 2017 and 2018.   Approximately 1,000 families will each receive a million dollars giving the total settlement a taxpayer cost of around $1 billion or more.

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is in talks to offer immigrant families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter, as several agencies work to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting psychological trauma.

The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said. Most of the families that crossed the border illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included one parent and one child, the people said. Many families would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their circumstances, the people said.

(more…)

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has released the first estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter (July, Aug, Sept). [DATA HERE]  The top line number of two percent GDP growth is significantly worse than most economists and financial pundits expected.

The second quarter GDP was 6.7%, so a slow down to 2% is very significant considering the economy should be rebounding and reopening after the COVID-19 impacts.  However, when we dig into the details [Table One] you will see how what is happening in your life is actually reflected in the data.   None of this should be a surprise, as the data is simply reflecting what is happening in your personal checkbook economics.

First, here’s the media jaw agape, with false explanations and justifications:

.

The drop has nothing to do with the ‘delta variant’, and everything -EVERYTHING- to do with inflation and impacts from Joe Biden’s economic policies.

Let’s take a look at the details, and you will see how the national GDP is simply a reflection on what we are doing to survive the Biden economy.

(more…)

Taxing “unrealized capital gains” sounds like a catchy and obscure way to make wealthy people pay more in taxes, but it doesn’t work.  A government that moves in this direction ignores the reality that people are not static.  The process also involves “taxing wealth” which then becomes an arbitrary definition.

Unrealized capital gains are not income, they are simply increases in value.

If your home was worth $200,000 last year and $300,000 this year, you have an unrealized capital gain of $100k.   A 15% tax bill on that value increase means the homeowner would have to pay $15,000 to the IRS.

Joe Biden is proposing to pay for his multi-trillion expansion in debt through this type of tax upon billionaires.   Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted this was part of their thinking to help pay for the Biden budget last Sunday.  WATCH:

.

Proposing a tax on money that does not exist is the peak of government.   Sure the proposal applies only to billionaires who have massive gains in their stock portfolios, but billionaires are not esoteric titles.  Billionaires are people who can, if needed, move their physical location and avoid any U.S. tax on their wealth.

(more…)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the third quarter review of average weekly wages [Main Data Here].  The results of the year-over-year comparison should alarm everyone.  This is a very serious data point that likely means we are in a recession, it just has not been quantified yet.

By now, everyone knows the term “stagflation”, which means a stagnant economy and large inflation (price increases), the easiest comparison is Jimmy Carter economic program in the 1970’s.  However, let me assure you what this latest BLS release foretells is not that.  This is far more serious than stagflation.  I am not an alarmist, but I am encouraging everyone to take this economic data seriously.

In this graphic I have modified the spread sheet to focus attention on the part that really matters. [Original Data Table 2 Here]  What you are seeing here is a comparison of weekly wages for the third quarter (July, Aug, Sept) of this year, compared to the weekly average wages in 2020:

Weekly wages went up a sum total of seven bucks [$7/1,000 = 0.7%] year over year.  THAT is ridiculously low.  However, worse yet look at all the categories of workers who saw an actual decline in wages.   This is not a decline in wage value, this is an actual decline in net wages earned.  WAGES HAVE DROPPED !

This is not only saying wages are failing to keep up with inflation, that part is beyond obvious, the data shows actual declines in wages for full time workers.  This is far more concerning, check that…. this is four alarm fire – running around the neighborhood naked and panicked level concerning… when you take actual declines in wages and factor in the September inflation numbers [Main Data Here].

(more…)