The Telegraph Fears a Populist Uprising

Brushfyre | James Menendez | February 11, 2016

Allister Heath, deputy Editor for the Telegraph, penned an article in today's Telegraph warning those who ally with globalism that a populist uprising of right-leaning affiliation could be disastrous for the left, the global banks and their ilk.

I literally read each tantalizing word of this article this morning with my mouth agape. I couldn't believe the admissions that one by one were being exposed via the ranting of this globalist. Let's run through them, shall we?

'We' can survive another collapse

From the article:

We are too fragile, fiscally as well as psychologically. Our economies, cultures and polities are still paying a heavy price for the Great Recession; another collapse, especially were it to be accompanied by a fresh banking bailout by the taxpayer, would trigger a cataclysmic, uncontrollable backlash.

The public, whose faith in elites and the private sector was rattled after 2007-09, would simply not wear it. Its anger would be so explosive, so-all encompassing that it would threaten the very survival of free trade, of globalisation and of the market-based economy. There would be calls for wage and price controls, punitive, ultra-progressive taxes, a war on the City and arbitrary jail sentences.

Emphasis mine. By 'We' he means 'them', that is: the globalists. It is extremely apparent in the article that the author does not see himself as one of 'us'. He speaks as if he is talking to his bankster globalist masters, supplicating himself prostrate before them saying 'your way is the best'.

Politicians would become 'Extremist' and 'Populist'

Trump wants to make America Great again.

The fact that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both won their respective New Hampshire primaries is certainly one remarkable indication of the state of mind of many US political activists

The key thing here is that the author is not interested in making America great again. He wants the Fed to continue it globalised central bank policy of managing inflation by printing vast sums of cash for the banks (not you). 

More of the Status Quo

More from the article:

History never repeats itself exactly, but the last time a recession was met by pure, unadulterated populism was in the Thirties, when the Americans turned a stock market crash and a series of monetary policy blunders into a depression. President Herbert Hoover signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, dreamt up by two economically illiterate Republican senators, slapping massive taxes on the imports of 20,000 goods and triggering a global trade war. It was perhaps the most economically destructive piece of legislation ever devised, and it took until the Nineties before the damage was finally erased.

Emphasis mine. Let's make sure the banks keep getting their way. He uses the example of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. This Act of Congress was great for America but really bad for the globalists. The author mentions that this disaster wasn't fixed until the 1990's. What happened in 1990's that would have bolstered globalism and consequently the destruction of American jobs? That's right: NAFTA and GATT. The 'giant sucking sound' Ross Perot warned us about.

If it is not working, why continue failed policies?

The question one has to ask is: why, if the current policies that this author is defending have failed would he continue to argue for the same policies? Make no mistake these policies will lead to the systematic downfall of every country that adopts them. Perhaps then this is the plan: the destruction of every world economy so that one economy can rise above them and take over all the broken countries. A one-world government for instance. That is what globalism is after all, isn't it? One world the central bankers in charge?

DOCUMENTS: OBAMA HAS SPENT $74 MILLION IN TAXPAYER DOLLARS ON HOLIDAYS

Steve Watson | Infowars - FEBRUARY 5, 2016

The Obama family has wracked up a bill of $74 million, charged to the taxpayer, in vacations since taking office, according to recently obtained records.

The watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit to find out how much money the first family has spent on luxury getaways since Obama took office.

Documents, obtained after Freedom of Information Act requests were ignored, reveal that the total figure is at least $74,124,562.48.

“Now that we’ve sued, the Secret Service has stopped ignoring our requests for details on more of the costs of Barack Obama’s luxury vacations,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said on Wednesday.

The records show that just two of the most recent Obama family vacations cost taxpayers more than $5 million dollars.

Secret service accommodations alone for the 2014 Martha’s Vineyard and Honolulu vacations cost taxpayers $1,243,057.

“Taxpayers, the U.S. Air Force and the Secret Service are being abused by Barack Obama, who too often treats Air Force One and his security detail like some of sort of kingly entourage.” Fitton noted.

“Does Barack Obama really think that over $5 million for two family vacations, which include nearly $1 million in Secret Service hotel bills for a two week Martha’s Vineyard vacation, is an appropriate use of tax dollars?” the Judicial Watch President urged.

The group highlighted that in Martha’s Vineyard, the Obama family booked out a “plush, secluded seven-bedroom, nine-bath, 8,100-square-foot house in the exclusive Chilmark neighborhood.”

An earlier day trip to New York, just to “hang out with his girls” was said to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In October, Judicial Watch revealed that in just two months the President spent close to $4.5 million on golfing and fundraising trips.

The documents showed that:

Obama’s February 14, 2015, golf outing to Palm Springs required a five-hour flight, costing taxpayers a total of $1,031,685.
Transportation for Obama’s February 19 day trip to Chicago cost taxpayers $619,011.00.
Transportation for Obama’s March 2015 fundraising trip to Los Angeles cost taxpayers $1,980,835.20.
Obama’s March 28, 2015, golf outing to Palm city required a 3.9-hour flight, costing taxpayers $804,870.30.

The two golf outings alone cost taxpayers $1,836,555 in travel expenses. Obama played a total of five rounds of golf, equating to a cost of $20,406 per hole.









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Steve Watson is a London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com.

$19 Trillion and Counting: The Dangers of Unlimited Debt

Veronique de Rugy | Reason - FEBRUARY 4, 2016

The statutory limit on how much debt the federal government can accumulate is back in the news, but this time it's not because Washington is close to breaching it. That's not a present concern thanks to the year-end bipartisan spending spree that included a suspension of the debt limit until March 2017. The news is that a report from the House Financial Services Committee found that the Obama administration's Treasury Department has been repeatedly misleading the American public on the matter.

Treasury has routinely rejected the idea that once the government reaches the debt limit, federal spending could be prioritized to avoid a default. During a previous debate over the debt limit in 2011, my colleague Jason Fichtner and I wrote a paper explaining that even if Treasury is unable to issue more debt, it can still avoid a default and thus give policymakers more time to implement reforms that would put the government on a more sustainable fiscal path.

Contrary to Treasury's claims, we argued that it has several financial management options to continue paying the government's primary obligations. Specifically, Treasury could use incoming tax receipts to cover high priority claims including the interest on existing debt, the principal on that debt, Social Security benefits, and more. Government assets could also be liquidated to pay bills.

Treasury claimed that such options were neither acceptable nor feasible, and thus the only choice was for Congress to promptly agree to increase the debt limit. Then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner claimed that prioritizing was out of the question and that failing to pay any of the government's bills would be the equivalent of defaulting on the debt. The same thing happened again during the administration's 2013 showdown with Congress over lifting the debt limit. This time it was Geithner's replacement, Jacob Lew, claiming that prioritization was not an option.

We now know that the administration's claims were untrue. As it turns out, documents subpoenaed by the House Financial Services Committee reveal that during the 2013 debt ceiling debate the Obama administration knew it was actually capable of prioritizing payments. Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was conducting "tabletop exercises" in preparation for what the administration was publicly stating couldn't be done. The documents show that while Treasury was helping the administration scare the public, its behind-the-scenes actions proved otherwise.

While Treasury and the administration's deceptive behavior is disturbing, it's good news for the next battle over lifting the debt limit early next year. I have repeatedly made it clear in the past that I believe defaulting on the debt is not an acceptable option. However, continuing to raise the debt limit without making any substantive changes to the unsustainable financial path we are on is just as irresponsible. Under the watch of both Republicans and Democrats, the debt limit has been raised 20 times since 1993. The result is that the federal debt has ballooned from less than $5 trillion in 1993 to $19 trillion and counting today.

Deficits are also going back up thanks to a bipartisan inability to get spending under control. According to the Congressional Budget Office's latest projections, cumulative annual budget deficits will add another $9.4 trillion in debt to the federal government's mountain of red ink. That figure is $1.5 trillion higher than the CBO projected less than six months ago.

Will Rogers once said, "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." Policymakers need to stop digging and instead implement institutional reforms that constrain government spending, which is the underlying cause of the mounting debt. Indeed, that should be a precondition to raising the debt limit next year. And this time we will know that Treasury has the means to give Congress the time to finally get it done.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

RETAIL APOCALYPSE: 2016 BRINGS EMPTY SHELVES AND STORE CLOSINGS ALL ACROSS AMERICA

Michael Snyder | End Of The American Dream - FEBRUARY 1, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: TWITTER, EZLEEINFAMOUS.

Major retailers in the United States are shutting down hundreds of stores, and shoppers are reporting alarmingly bare shelves in many retail locations that are still open all over the country.

It appears that the retail apocalypse that made so many headlines in 2015 has gone to an entirely new level as we enter 2016. As economic activityslows down and Internet retailers capture more of the market, brick and mortar retailers are cutting their losses. This is especially true in areas that are on the lower portion of the income scale. In impoverished urban centers all over the nation, it is not uncommon to find entire malls that have now been completely abandoned. It has been estimated that there is about a billion square feet of retail space sitting empty in this country, and this crisis is only going to get worse as the retail apocalypse accelerates.

We always get a wave of store closings after the holiday shopping season, but this year has been particularly active. The following are just a few of the big retailers that have already made major announcements…

-Wal-Mart is closing 269 stores, including 154 inside the United States.

-K-Mart is closing down more than two dozen stores over the next several months.

-J.C. Penney will be permanently shutting down 47 more stores after closing a total of 40 stores in 2015.

-Macy’s has decided that it needs to shutter 36 stores and lay offapproximately 2,500 employees.

-The Gap is in the process of closing 175 stores in North America.

-Aeropostale is in the process of closing 84 stores all across America.

-Finish Line has announced that 150 stores will be shutting down over the next few years.

-Sears has shut down about 600 stores over the past year or so, but sales at the stores that remain open continue to fall precipitously.

But these store closings are only part of the story.

All over the country, shoppers are noticing bare shelves and alarmingly low inventory levels. This is happening even at the largest and most prominent retailers.

I want to share with you an excerpt from a recent article by Jeremiah Johnson. The anecdotes that he shares definitely set off alarm bells with me. Read them for yourself and see what you think…

*****

I came across two excellent comments upon Steve Quayle’s website that bear reading, as these are two people with experience in retail marketing, inventory, ordering, and purchases. Take a look at these:

#1 (From DJ, January 24, 2016)

“Steve-
[Regarding the] alerts about the current state of the RR industry. This is in line with what I’ve been noticing as I visited our local/regional grocery store, Walmart, and Target this week in WI. I worked in big box retail for 20 years specializing in Inventory Management. These stores are all using computerized inventory management systems that monitor and automatically replenish inventory when levels/shelf stock get low. This prevents “out of stocks” and lost sales. These companies rely on the ability to replenish inventory quickly from regional warehouses.
As I shopped this week and looked at inventory levels I was shocked. There were numerous (above and beyond acceptable levels) out of stocks across category lines at all three retailers. And even where inventory was on the shelf, the overall levels were noticeably reduced. Based on my experience, working for two of these three organizations in store management, they have drastically/intentionally reduced their inventory levels. This is either due to financial stresses/poor sales effecting their ability to acquire new inventory, or it could be the result of what was mentioned earlier regarding the transporting of goods to these regional warehouses. Either way this doesn’t bode well for the what’s to come. Stock up now while you can!”

#2 (From a Commenter following up #1 who didn’t provide a name, January 26, 2016)

“I’d like to tailgate on the SQ Alert “based on my experience…” regarding stock levels in big box stores. This weekend we were in two such stores, each in fairly isolated communities which are easily the communities’ best source for acquiring grocery items in quantity.
I myself worked in retail (meat) for thirty years so I know exactly what a well-stocked store looks like, understand the key categories and category drivers, and how shelves are stocked and displays are built to drive sales and profits. I also understand supply chain and distribution methodologies quite well.
Each of the stores we were in were woefully under-stocked.This time of year-the few weeks following the holidays-is usually big business in groceries and low stock levels suggest either poor ordering at the store level, poor purchasing at the distribution level or a purposeful desire to be under-stocked.

Anyone familiar with the retail grocery industry is also familiar with how highly touted “the big box store’s” infrastructure is. They know exactly when demand is high and for what items and in what quantities. It is very unlikely that both stores somehow got “surprised” by unusually high demand. It is reasonable then to imagine that low stock levels in rural areas with few options is a purposed endeavor to assure that both the budget conscious and the folks in more remote areas are not fully able to load up their pantries.

Simply put I believe the major retailer in question is doing their part to limit the ability of rural America to be sufficiently prepared. Nevertheless, we are wise to do our best to keep ahead of the curve. God bless your efforts, Steve.”

*****

Yes, this is just anecdotal evidence, but it lines up perfectly with hard numbers that I have been discussing on The Economic Collapse Blog.

Exports are plummeting all over the globe, and the Baltic Dry Index just plunged to another new all-time record low. The amount of stuff being shipped around by air, truck and rail inside this country has been dropping significantly, and this tells us that real economic activity is really slowing down.

If you currently work in the retail industry, your job is not secure, and you may want to start evaluating your options.

We have entered the initial phases of a major economic downturn, and it is going to be especially cruel to those on the low end of the income spectrum. Do what you can to get prepared now, because the economy is not going to be getting better any time soon.

And The Biggest Contributor To U.S. Growth in 2015 Was...

Zero Hedge | By Tyler Durden | January 29, 2016

By now, not even CNBC's cheerleading permabulls can deny that the US is in a manufacturing recession: in fact, it is so bad that even the staunchest defenders of Keynesian dogma admit what we said in late 2014, namely that crashing oil is bad for the economy.

And yet, the "services" part of the US economy continues to hum right along, leading to such surprising outcomes as a stronger than expected print in Personal Consumption Expenditures. How can this be?

Simple: one look at the chart below should explain not only how the "services" half of the US economy continues to grow, but just which tax, because that is how the Supreme Court defined Obamacare, is responsible for healthcare "spending" amounting to a quarter of the growth in US personal consumption expenditures, almost 100% higher than the second highest spending category which was... Recreational goods and vehicles?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you convert a tax into a source of economic progress.