Tag: National Debt

An Intro to ‘The Unsustainable Trajectory of America’s Economy’


Intro By John R. Houk

Original post by Justin O. Smith

Intro © February 19, 2020

 

As a Conservative in 2016 I was a Cruzer (Ted Cruz). After Cruz’s mathematical elimination from winning the GOP nomination, only then did I support Donald Trump.

 

In my mind Trump did not fit my image of a guy that supported Christian causes such as Christian religious freedom, Pro-Life, Pro-Israel, Pro-Originalist Judges and Anti-LGBTQ (who desire the destruction of Christian morals in America. Trump early got on board with Conservative thoughts on illegal immigration and the craziness of importing American-Culture-hating Muslim refugees. That got my attention.

 

I’m a limited government, Balance the Budget, Bring down deficit spending guy too; but the above issues I listed are more important to me. Trump has delivered or at least worked hard in the face of Dem obstruction to deliver on my primary list of concerns (although Trump seems a bit wishy-washy on LGBTQ morality). Lately President is even vocally lining up behind pro-2nd Amendment issues.

 

For Conservatives that economics is a primacy, President Trump’s economic actions pertaining to Budget issues should be a huge waving red flag. Trump’s centrist perspective could produce big problems for America after a Trump second term in Office (YUP, I’m still voting Trump). Justin Smith effectively goes over those budget red flags.

JRH 2/19/20

Your generosity is always appreciated – various credit, check 

& debit cards are accepted by my PayPal account: 

Please Support NCCR

Or support by getting in the Coffee from home business – 

OR just buy some FEEL GOOD coffee.

BLOG EDITOR: I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”

**********************

The Unsustainable Trajectory of America’s Economy

 

By Justin O. Smith

Sent 2/14/2020 10:38 PM

 

“The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who fund their bailout, are true. It really happened. These suspicions are valid.” ~ Neil Barofsky, TARP Inspector General [Wikipedia info]

 

America is witnessing President Trump’s “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system”” moment, similar to former President George Bush on November 16th 2008 and the high-speed implementation employed by former President Obama in 2009, as Trump presented his 2021 Budget and a $4.8 trillion spending plan to the press on February 10th. It is a farce of a “budget”, since it doesn’t even balance until 2035, according to the Wall Street Journal, and it sells America a load of economic crap, that includes the same old out-of-control socialist spending, now adopted by the Republican Party too, minus the taxes, and certain to harm America; given the socialist trends in the ranks of the Millennials, the Democrats are certain to hold the White House during a few of these years and take full advantage of Trump’s lapse in judgement on this issue.

 

On January 18th 2020, the Washington Post reported: “To those who criticized his spending and the growth of the national debt, Trump said: ‘Who the hell cares about the budget? We’re going to have a country.’

 

For most of President Barack Obama’s time in office, Republicans seemed to care very much about the budget, making fears around the national debt and deficit their top talking point. They’ve backed off those concerns under Trump.”

 

President Trump’s proposal will run a near trillion dollar, $996 billion [Blog Editor: I couldn’t locate “$996 billion” figure nonetheless there are a plethora of sources predicting a near or over a Trillion dollar deficit for 2020; e.g.: fxstreet.com, MarketWatch.com, baynews9.com, cbo.gov and more], deficit next year, just as he did in the previous years of his administration, that is close to fifty-percent higher than the $666 billion deficit Trump inherited from President Obama in 2017. Federal spending will accelerate from $4.6 trillion next year to more than $6.5 trillion in 2030, and the proposed cuts to be made by Congress in this year’s budget are not significant enough to offset the recent spending increases Trump has approved since taking office.

 

And all of this with our national debt at over $23 trillion, rapidly on its way to $24 trillion.

 

Has America so soon forgotten the worse economic recession since the 1930s — the 2008 economic collapse and the collapse of fifty percent of the stock market — and the terrible risks banks and businesses took that created it? Not much has changed, because many of the financial markets proceeded, from the first day of the bailout, that followed, to the present, with the same exact risky practices. They know the government, essentially the U.S. taxpayer — the American people, will bail them out again, that is if there’s any money or credit line available for a bailout, which is going to be unlikely.

 

Midway of 2008, the United States’ national debt was approximately $9.4 trillion and right at 65 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Consumer debt stood at $2.7 trillion, while the total credit market debt had peaked at $54 trillion. And mortgage debt was a massive $14.8 trillion, as the Federal Reserve balance sheet remained below $900 billion as it had for years.

 

Most logical minded Americans believed then and now that there is not any such thing as “too big to fail”, and they thought the regular bankruptcy laws could have handled the situation and allowed the crisis to settle itself. People understood that liquidating bad debt and expunging it from the system would reset the economy forcing corporations and consumers to live within their means and act conservatively, using debt wisely for real needs, and most of us saw that as the best road to take for America’s future.

 

AIG, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, Bank of America and several other “too big to fail” banks were bankrupt by September of 2008. They should have been liquidated through existing bankruptcy law, and their assets should have been sold to still reputable banks that had not undertaken fraudulent risks, that hit their investors with devastating consequences.

 

Nobody in 2007 would have ever forecast that the national debt would climb to over $23 trillion during the past twelve years, or that the national debt would be 105 percent of GDP, with consumer debt exceeding $4 trillion. The ruling class “elite” of both parties have had their propaganda machines operating at warp speed to convince Americans that somehow $1 trillion annual deficits are normal and sustainable.

 

Never underestimate the ability of this president, or any president, or any Congress and the Federal Reserve to take outrageous and reckless steps to convince America that the abnormal is really normal. One should always keep in mind the egregious $700 billion TARP bailout and the lies and threats Hank Paulson perpetrated in order to protect his billionaire pals, whenever one gives scrutiny to today’s events.

 

[Blog Editor: Articles examining Hank Paulson:

 

 

 

 

 

President Donald Trump promised to eliminate the national debt in eight years, and although I thought it was an impossible task at the time, I did think Trump might reduce spending quite a bit, along with reducing annual deficits. He was constantly haranguing the Federal Reserve’s moves to keep interest rates at an unsafe level, which created a stock market bubble and contributed to the exorbitant rise in debt; and, one would have thought that after experiencing one Federal Reserve induced market crash after another, the American people would have realized this gross rise in debt since the 1990s had to end.

 

But Trump’s relationship with the Truth is something far less than stellar, and for him, it is something to manipulate at the drop of a dime and to shift in content depending on the President’s immediate need and desired effect. And over the years, he has used this manipulation to bend Fed puppet, Jerome Powell, to do his bidding, after finding the Fed’s 2.25 percent rate increase too much to handle.

 

In July 2019, President Trump stated: “The U.S. economy would grow more quickly if monetary policy were eased. If we had a Fed that would lower interest rates, we would be like a rocket ship. We don’t have a Fed that knows what they’re doing. Our most difficult problem is not our competitors, it is the Federal Reserve. The Fed raised rates too soon, too often, and doesn’t have a clue!”

 

That’s quite contrary to what Candidate Trump was saying on the campaign trail in September 2016, when he stated: “They’re keeping the rates down so that everything else doesn’t go down. We have a very false economy (J. Smith: something I’ve stated for years now). At some point the rates are going to have to change. The only thing that is strong is the artificial stock market. The U.S. economy is in a big, fat, ugly bubble. I will get rid of the nation’s more than $19 trillion national debt over a period of eight years. I’m renegotiating all of our deals, the big trade deals that we’re doing so badly on. (J. Smith: And still are, i.e. USMCA)”

 

Will the Real Donald Trump please stand up? It’s almost as though we have a president with multiple personalities, at least two at conflict with one another.

 

Trump’s proposed $4.4 trillion cuts to domestic spending, including $2 trillion in promised savings from entitlement programs, with some $844 billion cuts to Medicaid and $750 billion to Medicare spread over the next decade. With Congress unlikely to cooperate on this and Trump unwilling to spend too much political capital on it, this will probably fall by the wayside. After calling for fairly large domestic spending cuts in 2018, Trump still signed a deal in 2019 that added $320 billion in spending and demolished previous spending caps.

 

And even when Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate, they still agreed to a bipartisan budget that increased domestic discretionary spending in all government departments, especially the Pentagon. They essentially refused to cut the State Department’s and the Environmental Protection Agency’s budgets, so whether they follow through with cutting the EPA by 26 percent in this budget is anyone’s guess.

 

Ironically, on February 4th, when Pres. Trump was practicing his State of the Union Speech for twenty Republican supporters, former Congressional deficit hawk, Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget, argued there wasn’t any need to mention the growing deficit, because :nobody cares” about it. That’s a one-hundred and eighty degree turnaround since he campaigned to earn his spot over the OMB and a time he made deficit reduction his “central policy concern.” Mulvaney’s change of heart seems to have coincided with the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

 

And, on February 7th 2020, Vice-President Mike Pence told MSNBC’s audience that deficits can help boost economic growth, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Republican Party, or at least Trump’s Republican Party, has now seeming embraced socialist and Keynesian economics and notions on spending. This same argument used by Leftists across America used to drive Republicans to some great degree of anger, whenever it was stated by Obama and his staff.

 

[Blog Editor: Economics theory hurts my brain. Simplistically, choice in supply and demand good. Being told what, when, or able to buy – bad. To those of you who like to hurt your brain, here are some Mises Institute economics critical of Keynesian economics (article, audio, pdf-book & video):

 

 

 

  • The Critics of KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS; Edited with an Introduction and new Preface by HENRY HAZLITT; Published by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. – 439 page pdf on Mises Institute; ©1995 – Originally published 1960 by D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.

 

 

 

Posted by misesmedia

88.4K subscribers – Jul 30, 2019

 

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 18 July 2019.

 

Mises University is the world’s leading instructional program in the Austrian school of economics. Mises.org/MU19]

 

 

The federal subsidies are still flowing to the Repurchasing Markets at $100 billion a day, as they have since October, so corporations can buy back billions of their own stock, resulting in the artificially high stock market, the highest valuations since 2000. And in the meantime, the military is getting anything and everything it wants, as America continues to act as the World’s Policeman and our entitlement payouts are constant and on an unsustainable trajectory, as President Donald John Trump and all the feckless Congressmen in Washington, D.C. pretend all is well.

 

Despite boasts of the “Greatest Economy Ever”, record corporate profits, stock market the highest ever, lowest unemployment in history and the Federal Reserve balance sheet at $750 billion, approximately $150 billion lower than normal, and interest rates still at emergency levels, somehow the Federal Reserve feels compelled to cut rates and restart Quantitative Easing, although they are not using that terminology. Powell is taking Trump’s orders and acting in a way that is only ever seen during a recession or a financial crisis.

 

Several successive administrations have used every debt based solution for this debt based crisis in their attempt to avoid another 1930s style Depression, but essentially, they have merely ensured that the next collapse is going to be exponentially much worse than it has to be. And the angst and divisions in our society are only compounding the situation through a whispered promise of impending catastrophe that sweeps the existing social order away in a chaotic cataclysm of death and destruction and all-out war.

 

America’s future is being stolen and sold. The future of America’s children is being stolen and sold. America is being sold down the river, pillaged and raped, by the few at the top, the “elite” ruling class, at the expense of the American people, in an egregious manner that harms all society and America during the long journey ahead towards our eventual rise from the ashes of the coming economic chaos.

 

By Justin O. Smith

+++++++++++++++++++++++

BLOG EDITOR: I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”

_______________________________

Edited by John R. Houk

Text embraced by brackets and source links are by the Editor.

 

© Justin O. Smith

 

America’s Economy at the 11th Hour


Republicans tend to report to constituents on the economy as look at we are doing now and Dems report on the economy in terms imagine how your life will be when we manage the economy. Neither the GOP nor the Dems look at current economic warning signs with the lens of history and potential disastrous future economic outcomes. Conservatives looking past the “now” view current tendencies coupled with past mistakes potentially leading to future economic disaster.

 

I don’t see policy changes from either Republicans or Dems, but I do see political exploitation from both sides to extract political votes to control government. So I wonder … What is your best Liberty position under whoever succeeds in a government-tyranny of the majority election?

 

I certainly don’t want to live under a government that tells me how to live, think and believe (ahem Dems). I will not be pleased living free but wondering about my well-being in nourishment and quality of economic life (ahem Republicans). Is there a third path of Liberty and well-being for an American to vote? Unfortunately not in today’s viable political choices. In my opinion that MUST CHANGE. Until then, I’m voting President Trump for the best possible Liberty in November 2020.

 

JRH 11/19/19

Your generosity is always appreciated: 

Please Support NCCR

Support this Blog HERE. Or support by getting in 

the Coffee from home business – OR just buy some healthy coffee.

 Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.

 

I got this message from Fascistbook (11/13/19):

 

“You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups until November 20 at 7:05 PM (We’ll SEE).” So PLEASE SHARE. My Conservative voice is currently in a restricted Facebook jail.

************************

America’s Economy at the 11th Hour

America’s Economic House of Cards – America’s Economy Pushed Beyond Reality 

 

By Justin O. Smith

Sent 11/17/2019 10:43 PM

 

“We are living in a system of the banks, by the banks and for the banks, and that is the reality …..” ~ G. Edward Griffin, author of ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island’

 

“The Best Economy Evah” is the constant mantra we hear from the Trump economic experts and Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, and yet, it is hard to ignore the warning signs that something isn’t quite right with this economy. Despite unemployment purportedly at an all-time low and the stock market riding high, the Federal Reserve Bank is still printing between $80 to $100 billion a day, after stating two months ago that this action was only going to be necessary for a few weeks, as they increase their own balance sheets by $200 billion since September, through Quantitative Easing on steroids, and more rapidly than they did at the height of the 2008 economic crisis when the amount of dollars in circulation doubled from $880 billion to $1.76 trillion.

 

The mainstream media and investors tend to focus on these statistics, despite the manner that allows them to be most usually and easily manipulated. If one points to the recent collapses in some sectors of manufacturing or the explosion in consumer and corporate debt, the ready retort is always “But the stock market is at an all-time high”. The average person ignores the fact that stock markets are meaningless trailing indicators, and they also ignore the fallacies surrounding the GDP numbers and the tens of millions of jobless people not included in the unemployment numbers, for any number of reasons.

 

The Federal Reserve repossession market purchases continue to run in high demand, and this in turn has tightened corporate cash flows to a near standstill. We saw something quite similar just before the credit crisis hit in 2008.

 

The recent increase in consumer spending is also deceptive, since it doesn’t necessarily indicate people are buying more goods or have more disposable income. If one views the steep declines in traffic and goods shipped via the trucking and railroad freight systems, it becomes more readily apparent that we are in the throes of inflation, as the cost of living increases and the people spend more on the same amount of goods, being bled dry along the way.

 

The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates three times this year, including the 0.25 percent cut at the end of October. Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, noted this move was made to “provide some insurance against ongoing risks”.

 

These are actions taken by a central bank when an economy is weak.

 

The Federal Reserve’s decisions directly affect the prices of everything on the planet, because the U.S. dollar is the world’s dominant reserve currency, dictating one’s salary, interest rates on loans, home values and all other assets, goods and services. They recently acknowledged they were in uncharted waters.

 

On November 13th 2019, Jerome Powell told Congress that economic conditions are totally unprecedented, and he added that his committee has “significant humility” because so many of their basic assumptions have been wrong. He also stated that the Fed was attempting measures that have never been previously attempted, in order to correct and balance the economy.

 

America’s most vulnerable people today are the fifty-three million workers, forty-four percent of the workforce between the ages of 18 and 64, considered low-wage and low-skilled workers. And according to a Brookings Institution report, most of these people make considerably less than $11.00 an hour, and they are stuck in an economy where short term contracts and freelance work are prevalent and permanent jobs are not as plentiful as advertised by political rhetoric, with median annual earnings of only $17,950.

 

An overwhelming number of these people currently find themselves unable to pay their loans, whether those are for cars, college tuition or credit card debt. They will be hit hardest during the next recession.

 

Looking at the “Big Picture”, the federal government’s October budget deficit has the U.S. on track to a one trillion dollar deficit, possibly larger, in fiscal 2020, largely due to the penchant Democrats and Republicans alike have for out-of-control spending. Our budget deficits began rising again in 2016 and have risen for four straight years, and a combination of tax cuts and spending is pushing the deficit to take five percent of our Gross Domestic Product, by next September, topping $1 trillion for the first time since 2012. For the first time in history, deficits topped $1 trillion each year from 2008 to 2012, in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

 

And this also ignores the manipulation of the GDP numbers. Fancy accounting omits taxpayer dollar expenditures on inflated programs and Obamacare, and according to many experts, the U.S. GDP is actually in the negative. However, even government figures show official GDP growth in decline at 1.9 percent and below the projected three percent growth for this year.

 

Massive U.S. consumer debt, both government and private, now totals over $14 trillion, with our national debt at $22 trillion, and this places tremendous pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low and even experiment with negative rates; however, the Federal Reserve can only keep the price of money artificially low for so long without serious consequences. And in the meantime, it is in a panic to prevent an economic crisis more severe and catastrophic than seen in 2008.

 

Very similar to the insider buying schemes that centered on the 1929 stock market crash, in recent history, the money elites are still prone to engineer economic disasters while deliberately hiding the real statistics from the public, in order to benefit from their insider knowledge and pick stocks up for pennies on the dollar, a federal crime by the way that they seem willing to commit with abandon. They also use economic crises, such as the one impending, to change the power structure in the nation, or the world, just as FDR did through the New Deal, something that may not have been created otherwise.

 

It’s either this, or some of them truly believe the answer lies in doing more of the same, by once again pumping trillions into the banking sector as was done in 2008 to 2012, freeing even more lines of credit. Essentially, it seems as though some may really believe in Keynesian economics and the notion that an economy can be grown and expanded through more debt, thus saving the system and America from suffering.

 

More often now, in an attempt to stave off the approaching catastrophe, America hears bankers advocating for universal incomes and making way for “green deal” investments and many different short and long term economic stimulus packages, while the global and U.S. economy are slowing and grinding to a halt. The Federal Reserve sees the only solution as doing more of the same by way of various forms of Quantitative Easing, in order to avoid riots in the street.

 

I’m no prophet of doom, but I do believe in taking a realistic look at all matters, including our economy. If our economy is not on the verge of collapse, why has the Federal Reserve, the central bank, been buttressing it for the past decade? How much longer can the Federal Reserve continue this practice and how much longer do they actually want to do so? What if allowing the entire house of cards to fall benefits them, just as it has in past similar situations?

 

Currently the top ten percent of Americans are living large, prospering greatly from the Federal Reserve’s government bubble scheme and President Trump’s stock market pumping on Twitter, and they have amassed hard assets in gold, silver, real estate, factories, tools and food supplies, with the certain knowledge that everything based on paper and debt will collapse soon. They will pick everything up for pennies on the dollar, just like 1929 all over again.

 

They know it’s on the way, the collapse. So, what is the Big Plan of the Bankers?

 

Our central bank and its owners see the U.S. financial system once again on the verge of collapse and a system of inflation that cannot be sustained forever, since all systems of exponential growth are always doomed to collapse. Our system entered the surreal whenever it started working with numbers in the trillions, just as Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Presidential candidate, easily and nonchalantly as though it were nothing, bandied about a $52 trillion number to front her agenda if elected, and America is at the breaking point as She is being purposefully pushed beyond reality.

 

The Federal Reserve Bank and its private concerns and board members understand the dynamics better than anybody, so they must believe the end to be near, along with those of us paying attention, who can very nearly see and touch the coming end. And on the last day, the Big Banker Bandits will grab all they can in their desire to safeguard their own financial situation and be secure, as hell unfolds for everyone else; so in the meantime, they are going for broke, because they know the system is broken and little remains to fix it.

 

The only real fix will come whenever America returns to a truly free capitalist economic system, unseen in America since 1913 and even less so after FDR’s New Deal hit the government. And, as our artificial economy continues to fail and the wealth inequality gap swells, America finds Herself at the 11th hour and an awakening that will ignite the auto-correction of our system and the wealth inequality imbalance, along with major protests in the streets of our largest cities, much like we now see in Chile and elsewhere, and a revolution focused on eradicating the Federal Reserve Bank and arresting and prosecuting those un-elected officials who have raped, pillaged and ruined the U.S. economy, enriching themselves at the expense of most of America.

 

By Justin O. Smith

++++++++++++++++++

Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.

 

I got this message from Fascistbook (11/13/19):

 

“You’re temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups until November 20 at 7:05 PM (We’ll SEE).” So PLEASE SHARE. My Conservative voice is currently in a restricted Facebook jail.

___________________________________

Edited by John R. Houk

Justin Smith and the Editor provide source links.

 

© Justin O. Smith

 

The End of the Line


Justin Smith views warnings of an imminent economic crisis from billionaire investors. AND the so-called Green New Deal may make the predictions even worse.

JRH 2/10/19

Your generosity is always appreciated: 

Please Support NCCR

******************

The End of the Line

 

By Justin O. Smith

Sent 2/9/2019 5:00 PM

 

The United States’ economy has surpassed all normal ebbs and flows, corrections, by approximately five years, since on average in each past cycle it rose for 56 months before collapsing. We’re about five years past that point and our economy is only now “cooling”. We’re just about due for another economic recession, if not a collapse that makes 2008 look small. We’re at the end of the line.

The U.S. spends almost a third of its revenue on interest payments alone, and it doesn’t seem like it can afford to pay much more.

In the short decade since 2008, the national debt, ever on the rise, has jumped from $10.6 trillion to $22 trillion. It also comes with a deficit that’s currently over $1 trillion currently. The interest payments alone may be forming a “black hole” from which the U.S. may never escape.

These facts alone should raise concern in any interested observer.

 

And now we see twenty-nine year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a product of the Puerto Rican Enlightenment and a Bronx resident, and other red, radical socialists like her in the House of Representatives, promising Pie-In-The-Sky Utopia for everyone. This makes her a danger to herself, her constituents and the nation, since she believes there isn’t any problem that a government program cannot solve, and she is already advocating for Medicare for all, a job guarantee, free college tuition, a green infrastructure program, and a squeeze the rich tax plan (70% for those making over $10 million).

 

Most political pundits say, “It will never pass … it’s crazy … it will harm the economy.” But, crazy plans that hurt the economy just might stand a chance at passing, since just over half the population in its entirety, and 51% of all Millennials, now have an acceptable view of socialism, some even embracing communism.

 

When existing laws of the land cause bankruptcy and chaos, people seem to look to legislate even more absurd laws, which is precisely how the first New Deal was pushed through Congress, during the panic and despair of the 1932 elections. And the New Deal gave President Franklin D. Roosevelt carte blanche to enact a series of costly programs.

 

A good guess is that the next economic crisis will be severe and long-lasting, too, as stocks fall hard and the economy goes into a deep recession.

 

“How did we get here”, one young lady recently asked me. Short answer: America has been guided to this point, by the consequences of the Federal Reserve Act, centralized banking, regulations, currency manipulation, devaluing the U.S. dollar, socialist initiatives in Congress to fast-track globalism, unfunded debt, monetized debt and acts of anti-American national sovereignty on both sides of the aisle who are intent on tearing apart the Founders’ vision and U.S. sovereignty, in order to pave the way for the globalists and their vision of a “new world order”.

 

The enemies of America, both foreign and domestic, have been working towards this goal for the past 120 years, and they have been working tirelessly and consistently towards leveling America’s power and wealth to the point She can be managed and coerced or forced to submit to the global agenda of the few power elite, the oligarchs of the world,

 

Mainstream media almost never hype a financial crisis, so it’s significant when they do. But when billionaires are sounding the alarm, you might want to pay close attention.

At least two billionaires are doing just that, starting with Baupost Group’s Seth Klarman. Baupost Group is a $28 billion hedge fund, and Klarman normally positions himself out of the limelight. His fund is only open to private investors, so he has little incentive to promote his brand to the public.

But recently, he felt the need to write a warning to investors about the global debt, with specific reference to the U.S., according to Sovereign Man:

In a 22-page letter to his investors, Klarman warned that government debt levels, particularly in the US (where debt exceeds GDP), could lead to the next global financial crisis.

“The seeds of the next major financial crisis (or the one after that) may well be found in today’s sovereign debt levels,” he wrote.

 

Even ignoring economic history, there are signs everywhere, as nearly every major asset class around the world, from stocks and bonds to real estate, is selling at nearly an all-time high at prices that defy common sense. This suggests the possibility of a big recession and market correction just before the 2020 election, giving the socialists a much needed crisis that could catapult them into a majority in both houses of Congress. And that’s why we should all be praying that if any coming recession must come, let it hit soon, so it can be properly addressed before it becomes a major election issue.

In the same letter, Klarman continued: “There is no way to know how much debt is too much, but America will inevitably reach an inflection point whereupon a suddenly more skeptical debt market will refuse to continue to lend to us at rates we can afford…”

Since the U.S. spends almost a third of its revenue on interest payments alone, it doesn’t seem like it can afford to pay much more.

And Klarman isn’t the only billionaire expressing unease. At the World Economic Forum [Blog Editor: WEFORUM – Globalization 4.0; Breitbart-Pompeo-Nationalism; New American-Merkel-Communist China-Globalist Agenda; & TheGatewayPundit-Ted Malloch-Criticizing Davos] in Davos, Switzerland, Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, said that debt would be to blame for the next downturn, which he believes will be bigger than the Great Depression.

“The biggest issue is that there is only so much one can squeeze out of a debt cycle and most countries are approaching those limits”.

You might think the U.S. government would do everything to curb this problem, but Uncle Sam’s total debt is rapidly approaching $22 trillion, and according to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest ten-year projection, it will be more than $33 trillion by 2029, with $1 trillion annual deficits set to begin again and stay above that for as far as the fiscal eye can see.

Skyrocketing debt, check. Deficit to match, check. Or will it be checkmate?

Although I’ve stated this twice before in this piece. let me reiterate — The U.S. spends almost a third of its revenue on interest payments alone.  America and Her people cannot afford to pay much more.

WE’VE ARRIVED AT THE END OF THE LINE.

~ Justin O Smith

____________________

Edited by John R. Houk

Source links are by the Editor.

 

© Justin O. Smith

Intro to ‘If This Is “Representation” Give Me Rebellion’


Intro by John R. Houk, Editor

By Justin O. Smith

Posted March 26, 2018

After President Trump signed the 2,000-plus page HR 1625 omnibus bill, America’s Conservative base screamed betrayal. For good reason: The bill appeared to give the Marxist Dems everything they desired with the non-Establishment GOP receiving scraps (or perhaps crumbs in Pelosi terminology).

 

This is good reasoning for Conservative outrage!

 

On a personal level though, despite the Leftists spoils going to the Dems (and those the spoils are legion as you will read from Justin Smith), the YUGE Omnibus Bill was also the largest military budget Bill in American history. The military spending purpose was more than merely reversing Obama’s military dismemberment. The money was needed to modernize the American military to regain steps over the leaps taken by Russian and Chinese military modernizations to overcome current American weapons technology. This is ESSENTIAL!

 

Due to the purpose of military spending I’m not quite as hot against President Trump as many – perhaps most – of my fellow Conservatives. In a Congress that has no super majority for the GOP (especially the Senate), the only way to get and keep government moving on a Conservative agenda is to make some painful concessions. The problem with HR 1625 way too many concessions were made that give the appearance of Conservative diminishment.

 

Justin sent this insightful post on the Omnibus package on March 24. I have since come across some info that may temper Justin’s and Conservatives’ anger a bit. The President has hinted via his favorite path to communicate with Americans – a tweet – that he will build The Wall with the Defense Budget allocation. Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker illustrates how this is possible.

 

Unfortunately, the President hasn’t addressed some of the other Omnibus egregious pork such as funding ungodly Planned Parenthood is one of probably many examples.

 

Without further ado, here is Justin’s very valid reasons for displeasure with President Trump’s signature on HR 1625.

 

JRH 3/26/18

Please Support NCCR

******************************

If This Is “Representation” Give Me Rebellion

 

By Justin O. Smith

Sent: 3/24/2018 3:01 PM

 

As I listen to President Trump on his action of signing the current Omnibus bill, I am left with no other conclusion than he is really not as strong a leader as many seem to believe him to be. He signed this terrible $1.3 trillion bill for all the wrong reasons and lamented its exclusion of terrible other items, like DACA, but nowhere did he castigate these do-nothing “leaders” for adding a bad gun control act called “NICS“; this Omnibus bill is all smoke and mirrors and the 33 miles of added funding for border fencing is just that – a fence [barely], not a wall.

 

 

This bill continues to fund Planned Parenthood too. — Oh — And Sanctuary Cities Too. Really? What happened to all Trump’s talk about “defunding” sanctuary cities?

 

And how many more times are we going to provide border wall funding only to see a lesser plan offered and implemented for less money and the appropriated money simply disappear? Into someone’s pockets? Especially now that we see this bill provides funding to secure the borders of Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Trump should have refused to sign this bill and let the chips fall where they may, but he’s terrible when it comes to policy on funding government and many other items. If Trump had not signed the bill, any government shutdown would not have stopped the military from functioning. Since the military is considered an “essential” function, i.e. halting its operations could result in fatalities or impede national security, it will continue to operate regardless of whether or not the government shuts down; military spending would have been addressed soon enough, once Congress returned with a cleaner bill.

 

Whose side is the GOP really on and when are they going to start keeping their promises? This is not REPRESENTATION. THIS Is A PERPETUAL CON GAME BEING RUN ON THE U.S. TAXPAYER AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

 

Trump says, “I’ll Never Sign Another Bill Like This One” … Wanna bet?

 

It still doesn’t assuage or change the fact that some other very bad permanent pieces of legislation rode in on the tail end of this bill. That’s what happens when the Senate reverts back to pork spending legislation and why Trump is now asking for line-by-line veto authority from Congress, which was “ruled” unconstitutional in 1998, by the Supreme Court during the Clinton presidency.

 

This is also the same sort of bill that allows for funds to be easily shifted and misappropriated in the most corrupt fashion, just like Obama, because there is No Budget and these are only “spending suggestions”. This makes this entire thing end up as one great big $1.3 trillion slush fund (the largest in U.S. history)— more abuse of the U.S. taxpayer.

 

Who’s going to account for it? The GAO? The Big Govt. commie Democrats and statist RINOS?  HA!

 

Whatever the structure of this bill, it is certain and known that bills were attached, like the NICS Act [Blog Editor: See Heritage post subsection “Includes the Fix NICS Act”], a piece of leftist gun control, that Did Become PERMANENT U.S. Law now to be fully employed and implemented against U.S. Citizens. Congress even gave itself a raise and that’s Permanent and doesn’t go away in six months.

 

This was 2,232 pages that NOT ONE SENATOR READ, except for Senator Rand Paul. This is the stuff that SWAMPS ARE MADE OF and the very sort of thing that Trump was elected to END.

 

If this is what we are paying for folks, You’d be better off to break out the axes, knives and pitchforks on the front steps of the Capitol Building in DC and have a good tar and feather party for the criminal pigs and traitors to their oaths to the Constitution and America.

 

Trump called this a matter of national security because of the military spending involved, which is just wrong. The real national security issue at hand is that this takes us one step closer to another massive economic collapse, greater than 1929 or 2008 either one. What are they going to do when this actually happens, because they refuse to control the federal government’s out-of-control spending?

 

Daniel Horowitz of ‘Conservative Review’ writes: “Taken in totality, this bill validates, legitimizes, and codifies the world view of the Democrats, only with slightly less enthusiasm. Which is why the Democrats are crushing Republicans in turnout so far this election season. This bill will essentially end Republican control of Congress.”

 

This bill is conclusive evidence that House and Senate Republicans are whistling by the political graveyard, because they seem to be unaware that the content and means they used to pass this bill will turn off their base.

 

This is the bottom line: If you are a conservative voter and your party just passed a bill that funds a number of liberal priorities while busting the budget, would you bother to knock on doors for them this fall? Nope.

 

This Omnibus bill doesn’t bode well for the future of America. It appears conservative values are dead in our government, as all the GOP pays them lip service and then promptly ignores them in their votes. This is pushing middle America into an untenable position where rebellion, in some form or fashion, in the not too distant future, begins to look like an appealing choice, unless Americans start electing real conservative Constitutional minded Statesmen of honor, who will restore traditional American principles and values, and the American Heritage, under the Original Intent of Our Founders. [Bold text by Blog Editor]

 

By Justin O. Smith

__________________________

Intro to ‘If This Is “Representation” Give Me Rebellion’

Intro by John R. Houk, Editor

By Justin O. Smith

Posted March 26, 2018

_____________________

If This Is “Representation” Give Me Rebellion

 

Edited by John R. Houk

All source links as well as text enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.

 

© Justin O. Smith

 

THE TOWER OF BABEL


Economics definitely is not my strong suit. Athanasios Laspopoulos sent a submission to pertaining to the economic crisis facing Greece. The nation of Greece is facing a debt problem which American Conservatives suggest is due largely to an unaffordable entitlement society maintained by the Greek government. Athanasios paints another side of that debt crisis picture. He cites government corruption and the collusion of the European and Greek wealthy engendering that corruption.

Since I have gone through the editing process of Athanasios’ submission I am also posting the Greek version he sent along as well. So for those of you who read Greek you can see if I guessed correctly to sentence structures I was certain about. The Greek portion will be after the post credits.

JRH 7/14/15

Please Support NCCR

_____________________

THE TOWER OF BABEL

By Athanasios D. Laspopoulos

Sent: 7/11/2015 4:50 AM

I remember when I was at school, many years ago, that a course was developed for the Tower of Babel and a sketch showing a huge Tower building from thousands of people. As I remember the Tower was a building by many countries and different peoples in order to reach heaven and God. This project because of the multilingualism and misunderstanding was abandoned. Was this the model on which the EU was based on?? Because as I can see in pictures and the model, the EU [and the Tower] are made almost the same. And the funny thing is that in EU there are multiple states, multiple languages and a relative disconnection between the members just as it was happening at the Tower of Babel.

Seeing the results of the EU and Greece I begin to believe that somewhere we are confused, because Germany, the great economic power of Europe, is not watching what happens in her banks and especially the Deutsche Bank one of the strongest banks in the world which is at risk to blow up a great number of the Economics of Germany and other states, but tries to restrict the lending in Greece which Greece so much needs in order to continue its development in Tourism and Industry.

Of course, from Greece we have people who instead of looking to restrict or control the NSRF (ΕΣΠΑ) [National Strategic Reference Framework: 2007 – 2013 and 2014 – 2020] and development programs, they have left to promiscuity various favorite persons of politicians to consistently skim the state and not perform any work. Those “gentlemen” naturally have the way to be covered legally, with the state completely ignoring and not wanting to do anything about them.

Certainly the same political parties, that were previously in power, cared to cover many of these illegalities. Of course today we ask an Elected Government for just a few months to find a solution to this entire mess of theft and corruption. Despite all the complaints that have been made, if the Government will not stop the famous SA covered with the name “Non Profit” Greece [Blog Editor: Please forgive my economics ignorance – I suspect a SA refers to nonprofit public limited company] will not have any growth. The only thing we can do is to point, to anyone who wants of course, [to find] where the problem is.

People working for [an] Independent Journalism Agency investigate [Blog Editor: Perhaps this is an example] by themselves in all areas, are people who have not gotten any grant or program that pays them a profit and they pay all costs by themselves funded only by their relatives because they are unemployed and basically poor. Knowing that they will not get any ‘well done’ or ‘you do your job well’ and having threats directly or indirectly, for the good of our country they continue to work day and night to find some satisfaction in their work and to improve our country’s Economy.

Of course in addition I would like to say that any project we propose finds the door closed and it falls into a bureaucracy that makes it unattractive for its continuation because anyone who wants to deal knows that there will be no Government or Bank assistance because everything is done for profit of [the] Government’s favorite people or not and various “Families” who dominate Greece [Blog Editor: This Zero Hedge article could be enlightening – “How Fascist Capitalism Functions: The Case Of Greece”].

They have come some lowers and not and suggested me to go to denounce [Blog Editor: I suspect Athanasios’ sentence meaning is lost in translation – Perhaps Athanasios means to say, “I need to be wary when investigations lead me to denounce Greek Authorities] to the Authorities all the irregularities and illegalities. This is funny because I have personally made several complaints to the authorities and they answered that the case entered the Archive. After that I’m sorry but I have no more courage when I find no right anywhere because of bureaucracy and some mindless functionaries of justice and so we lose all our trust to denounce something that is fair and right.

For example: Recently, I have been beaten and robbed and citizens who rushed to stand by me told me to call the police and report it. But the funny thing is that the same Authorities would tell me to sue VS [Blog Editor: I have no guess if “VS” is acronym or abbreviation] unknown person. I am not complaining, but I regret how we got there.

For all that I write I can bring evidence and data on the severity of the case. But I don’t want to disturb the Authorities and the State because this time they have larger problems than me.

We have a new Government, young persons, whom the people have elected and instead of standing by them to help them, we look in every way to sabotage them in order to enable again the old Government to recover their chairs and bring us more [of an] Economic destructive crisis.

Athanasios D. Laspopoulos

Journalist

__________________

Edited by John R. Houk

All text and links enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.

© Athanasios D. Laspopoulos

For more information contact me at laspopoulos@ifroc.eu

If you have not received the previous articles or you want to download them in editable form (Word .doc) for publishing, you can find them all here:

http://ifroc.eu/kataggelies

Feel free to share this with content and attachments with friends via email and social media, in an attempt of helping us fight corruption and spread the word about this to everyone.

+++

[ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ]

ΟΠΥΡΓΟΣΤΗΣΒΑΒΕΛ

Θυμάμαι από τα σχολικά μου χρόνια, πολλά χρόνια πίσω, που αναπτύχθηκε ένα μάθημα για τον Πύργο της Βαβέλ και ένα σκαρίφημα έδειχνε ένα τεράστιο Πύργο που έκτιζαν άνθρωποι. Από ότι θυμάμαι αυτό είχε γίνει από πολλά κράτη και διαφόρους λαούς για να φτάσουν στον ουρανό τον Θεό. Αυτό το έργο όμως μετά από την πολυγλωσσία και ασυνεννοησία εγκαταλείφθηκε. Μήπως ήταν το μοντέλο που πήρε η Ε.Ε. ; γιατί όπως βλέπω σε φωτογραφίες και αυτό που έχτισε η Ε.Ε. είναι σχεδόν το ίδιο. Και το αστείο της υπόθεσης είναι ότι και στην Ε.Ε. έχουμε πολλαπλά κράτη, πολλαπλές γλώσσες και μία σχετική ασυνεννοησία μεταξύ των μελών του όπως ακριβώς συνέβαινε και στον Πύργο της Βαβέλ.

Βλέποντας τα αποτελέσματα της Ε.Ε. και της Ελλάδας αρχίζω να πιστεύω ότι κάπου έχουμε μπερδευτεί, γιατί η Γερμανία, η μεγάλη οικονομική δύναμη της Ευρώπης, δεν κοιτάει τι συμβαίνει στις Τράπεζες της και ειδικά της Deutsche Bank μία από τις ισχυρότερες Τράπεζες του κόσμου που βρίσκεται σε κίνδυνο να τινάξει στον αέρα ένα μεγάλο μέρος των οικονομικών της Γερμανίας και άλλων κρατών, αλλά προσπαθεί να περιορίσει την Ελλάδα σε δανειοδοτήσεις τις οποίες η Ελλάδα τόσο πολύ χρειάζεται για να συνεχίσει την ανάπτυξή της στον Τουρισμό και την Βιομηχανία.

Βέβαια και από την Ελλάδα έχουμε ανθρώπους που αντί να κοιτάξουν να περιορίσουν ή να ελέγξουν τα ΕΣΠΑ και τα αναπτυξιακά προγράμματα έχουν αφήσει στην ασυδοσία διαφόρους ευνοούμενους των πολιτικών να ξαφρίζουν συστηματικά το κράτος και να μην αποδίδουν κανένα έργο. Οι κύριοι αυτοί όπως είναι φυσικό έχουν τρόπο να καλύπτονται νομικά, με το κράτος να έχει πλήρη άγνοια και να μην θέλει να κάνει τίποτα γι’ αυτό.

Ασφαλώς τα ίδια πολιτικά κόμματα που βρίσκονταν στο παρελθόν στην εξουσία φρόντισαν να καλύψουν πολλές από αυτές τις παρανομίες. Βέβαια σήμερα ζητούμε από μια εκλεγμένη κυβέρνηση μόλις ολίγων μηνών να βρει λύση σε όλο αυτό το μπάχαλο κλοπής και διαφθοράς.

Παρ΄ όλες τις καταγγελίες που έχουν γίνει αν δεν σταματήσει ή κυβέρνηση τις περίφημες Α.Ε.

που καλύπτονται με την επωνυμία «Μη Κερδοσκοπικές» δεν θα έχει καμία ανάπτυξη.

Εμείς το μόνο που μπορούμε να κάνουμε είναι να υποδείξουμε, σε όποιον θέλει ασφαλώς, που βρίσκεται το πρόβλημα.

Ο κόσμος που εργάζεται για τον Ανεξάρτητο Δημοσιογραφικό Οργανισμό και ερευνά αφιλοκερδώς σε όλους τους τομείς, είναι άνθρωποι που δεν έχουν πάρει καμία επιχορήγηση ή πρόγραμμα που να τους αποδίδει κάποιο κέρδος και πληρώνουν όλα τα έξοδα που κάνουν εξ΄ ιδίων χρηματοδοτούμενοι μόνο από τους συγγενείς τους διότι είναι άνεργοι και φτωχοί στην ουσία.

Ξέροντας ότι δεν θα πάρουν κανένα ‘μπράβο’ ή ‘κάνετε καλά την δουλειά σας‘ και δεχόμενοι απειλές έμμεσα ή άμεσα, για το καλό της Πατρίδας μας συνεχίζουν να εργάζονται νυχθημερόν για να βρουν κάποια ικανοποίηση στην εργασία τους από την προσπάθεια βελτίωσης της οικονομίας της χώρας μας.

Βέβαια θα ήθελα να προσθέσω ότι οποιοδήποτε έργο προτείνουμε βρίσκει την πόρτα κλειστή και πέφτει σε μια γραφειοκρατία που το κάνει απωθητικό για την συνέχισή του γιατί οποιοσδήποτε θέλει να ασχοληθεί ξέρει ότι δεν πρόκειται να έχει καμία κυβερνητική ή τραπεζική βοήθεια γιατί όλα γίνονται για το κέρδος ημετέρων κυβερνητικών και μη και διαφόρων οικογενειών που διαφεντεύουν την Ελλάδα.

Έχουν έρθει ορισμένοι νομικοί και μη και μας έχουν συστήσει να πάμε να καταγγείλουμε στις Εισαγγελικές αρχές τις ατασθαλίες και παρανομίες. Αυτό είναι αστείο γιατί προσωπικά έχω κάνει αρκετές καταγγελίες στις αρχές και μου έχουν απαντήσει ότι μπήκε στο Αρχείο.

Μετά από αυτό λυπάμαι αλλά δεν έχω πια το κουράγιο όταν δεν βρίσκω κανένα δίκιο πουθενά γιατί μπλέκω στα γρανάζια της γραφειοκρατίας και μερικών ανεγκέφαλων λειτουργών της Δικαιοσύνης και έτσι χάνουμε όλα μας την εμπιστοσύνη μας να καταγγείλουμε κάτι που είναι δίκαιο και σωστό.

Π.χ. Πρόσφατα με κτύπησαν και με λήστεψαν και συμπολίτες που έτρεξαν να μου συμπαρασταθούν μου είπαν να φωνάξω την αστυνομία και να το καταγγείλω. Αλλά το αστείο είναι ότι οι ίδιες οι αρχές θα μου έλεγαν να κάνω μήνυση κατ’ αγνώστων. Δεν παραπονούμαι αλλά λυπάμαι για εκεί που έχουμε φτάσει.

Για όλα αυτά που γράφω μπορώ να φέρω αποδείξεις και στοιχεία για την σοβαρότητα του θέματος.

Δεν θα ήθελα όμως να απασχολήσω τις Αρχές και το κράτος γιατί αυτή την στιγμή έχουν μεγαλύτερα προβλήματα από αυτά που απασχολούν εμένα.

Έχουμε μια νέα Κυβέρνηση νέων ανθρώπων, τους οποίους ο λαός έχει εκλέξει, και αντί να συσπειρωθούμε όλοι να τους βοηθήσουμε, κοιτάμε με κάθε τρόπο να τους σαμποτάρουμε για να μπορέσουν πάλι οι παλαιοί Κυβερνητικοί να ανακτήσουν τις καρέκλες τους και να μας φέρουν σε μεγαλύτερη καταστρεπτική οικονομική κρίση.

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες επικοινωνήστε μαζί μου στο 2103223788 ή στο  laspopoulos@ifroc.eu

Εάν δεν έχετε λάβει τα προηγούμενα άρθρα ή επιθυμείτε να τα κατεβάσετε σε επεξεργάσιμη μορφή (Word .doc) για δημοσίευση, μπορείτε να τα βρείτε όλα εδώ:

http://ifroc.eu/kataggelies

Μπορείτε ελέυθερα να μοιράζεστε αυτό το περιεχόμενο και τα συννημένα με φίλους μέσω email και κοινωνικά δίκτυα, στην προσπάθεια να μας βοηθήσετε στον αγώνα μας κατά τις διαφθοράς και να διαδώσουμε το μήνυμα σε όλους.

Αθανάσιος Δ. Λασπόπουλος

Δημοσιογράφος

%d bloggers like this: