MARTIN ARMSTRONG: The total “official” amount of illegal aliens has exceeded 6 million. That is more than the total population of Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming

Thank you to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.

Now, they are handing them money, for they will start a crime wave if they do not. The most honest people will steal food when hungry. They think they will be able to buy their votes, and Biden will hand these people citizenship, and they will be able to claim Social Security with some disability. All of this is to rig the 2024 election.  --Martin Armstrong

Sources are saying that the majority of people flooding in through the Southern Border are now from Africa and the Middle East, with a lot of Chinese thrown in for good measure. They denied two of my employees from Europe who have UK and German passports and have been coming to the USA before to come in for the WEC last November. All of a sudden, there is discrimination going on, and it’s about if they are educated and skilled, they are denied. The Biden administration is completely out of control. We cannot afford another four years of this insanity.

The total “official” amount of illegal aliens has exceeded 6 million. That is more than the total population of:

Montana  [1,142,746]

Delaware  [1,044,321]

South Dakota  [928,767]

North Dakota  [788,940]

Alaska  [773,536]

Vermont  [647,818]

Wyoming  [586,485]

TOTAL: 5,912,613  [this is a decent site for tracking data in each state]

The people being let in are not generally highly skilled, and they can’t even speak the language to get a good-paying job. Now, they are handing them money, for they will start a crime wave if they do not. The most honest people will steal food when hungry. They think they will be able to buy their votes, and Biden will hand these people citizenship, and they will be able to claim Social Security with some disability. All of this is to rig the 2024 election. Biden may step down before the Democratic Convention from August 19 to 22, 2024. This sets Biden up to take all the arrows, and Michelle Obama takes the stage. They MUST defeat Trump to adopt the World Economic Forum 2030 Agenda.

We are showing Panic Cycles and Directional Changes due in May markets in September. So get ready. This election year, 2024, will be one epitaph of the United States. It is highly doubtful that we will even see a 2028 election in the future.

MARTIN ARMSTRONG: China and the BRICS they're going to do a direct CBDC, so the government will actually control it directly. The US government cannot do that. So what did they do? They turned it to Big Tech.

China and the BRICS they're going to do a direct CBDC, so the government will actually control it directly.  The US government cannot do that.  The FED can't do it.  It would be an unconstitutional 4th Amendment, illegal search and seizure stuff like that.  The Constitution is negative, it's not positive.  So that's a restraint upon government.  So if you look at the 1st Amendment, it says "the government shall not pass any law," so what did they do?  They turned it to Big Tech.  You can do whatever you want.  Facebook can censor you.  YouTube can. You have no constitutional right to free speech.  That's a misnomer.  The government cannot take it away from you, but everybody else can.   --Martin Armstrong

Thank you to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.

   

20:48.   Same thing happened in Tokyo in '89.  The yen was going up and all the capital was concentrating there, so then you get these sort of bubbles at that point.  And if you look at the three stock market indexes, the NASDAQ, the S&P 500, and the Dow, the NASDAQ is more retail; the S&P tends to be more domestic institutional type stuff, and the Dow is more of the showcase for the international.  Like we said before, when the Japanese came what did they buy?  They bought Rockefeller Center.  They don't go down and buy Mom and Pop houses for $200,000.  They buy the trophies.  When the Dow is leading that's showing you the big foreign money is still coming in.  And we've got these neocons parading war on every front possible from Asia to the Middle East to Europe.  I've had clients in Tokyo who have woken up and when you've got Korea shooting missiles off over testing they've come to the conclusion that they better have some money in the United States.  So you're seeing some real estate still rising in selected areas.  The stock market making new highs I think you're going to see a high here in January and then back off for at least a couple months.  But this is basically just showing what we're dealing with.  As things get chaotic around the world the capital runs over here.  It's hard to invade the United States.  You need a flotilla to get here, 

or an illegal immigrant Invasion, right?  

There's just a lot going on that way.  Honestly, our computer keeps projecting war but as I have said on your show before . . . long-term trends and things of this nature we published . . . back in 1987 that the 2016 election would be the first time a 3rd party could possibly win.  Well, that ended up being Trump who's neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

23:35. And then for 2024, it said that that could be the last election for the United States; nobody's going to accept it from either side.  2028 might not even take place.  Now these are forecasts that the computer put out back in 1985, so having to live through this and see how it actually unfolds is like, you know, wow.  It's not my personal opinion it's not being pro-Trump or against Trump, or anything else.  Just the way it is.  Even Nigel Farage came to speak at our 2019 convention in Rome.  He said, "Of course I'm here.  You're the only one who forecast that Brexit would win." All the polls said Brexit was going to lose, and they did the same thing with Hillary.  I mean these things are driven mostly by the combination of what's happening in the world economy, and the real issue here is they know they're going to default.  I've been warning and meeting honestly for 50 years that this is not going to work out and end well and they've always argued, "Well, we're the government, we're different."  Yeah, how governments collapse and this has been the standard model throughout centuries, and you can see it unfolding now.  You have the Neocons running off blasting China all the time.  You got generals coming out and saying we're going to be at war with China within 2 to 3 to 5 years or whatever.  Why would China then buy our debt?  They are the largest holder of US debt now; if they stopped buying right, how governments collapse is that you issue new debt and nobody buys it, so you can't pay off the old debt.  That's when it all comes crashing down, and we are coming to that area (meaning we're getting close to that time).

How close? How close are we to that? 

I would say that we are honestly it could be less than 2 years.  So what they're really looking at here . . . that's what the CBDC stuff is about.  And people have to understand, all right, China and the BRICS they're going to do a direct CBDC, so the government will actually control it directly.  The US government cannot do that.  The FED can't do it.  It would be an unconstitutional 4th Amendment, illegal search and seizure stuff like that.  So what they're doing is they're using the test model that they ran on COVID and people don't understand.  I mean if you look at a case it's Harris versus McRae, 1980, the Supreme Court case.  I suggest reading it.  A woman said "I have a right to an abortion, so the government should pay for it," and the Supreme Court said no.  The Constitution is negative, it's not positive.  So that's a restraint upon government; it's not a right that you actually have.  So if you look at the 1st Amendment, it says "the government shall not pass any law," so what did they do?  They turned it to Big Tech.  You can do whatever you want.  Facebook can censor you.  YouTube can. You have no constitutional right to free speech.  That's a misnomer.  The government cannot take it away from you, but everybody else can.  So that's what they're doing with the CBDCs. The top banks are already queuing up to create these digital dollars.  They will be the ones that actually issue the coins.  The FED will then cancel the currency, and they will be the monitors, all right, because the FED can't do it legally.  So if they see something in your account, "Oh, this looks strange," they are already required to file a "suspicious activity report."  So then they'll go to them and say, "Oh, hey, Kery Lutz just did this, and then that's the fine.  And then the government can go in.  It's a tip, but the government would have to do is issue a search warrant to go after the same thing.  That's the difference.  So the banks are doing the same thing as like Facebook, and everything else when they did with their first amendment issues.  Now the banks are going to do it with the CBDCs.  So the Fed will not be issuing a CBDC, and you have to understand this: it will be indirect, not direct.  Now once they do that like I said I've been in meetings for years and heard nothing but the same nonsense all the time and they never assume that the government is ever the problem it's always us they think that eliminating paper money and then we go to these digital dollars and whatever what happens is that will eliminate the underground economy they really think they're going to get 35% more in taxes this is the number I've been told.  There are no mirrors in Washington and Brussels; they never look at themselves, and this is what is really behind this.  I see these people out.  No, the great taking, I mean it's complete nonsense.  Really, if they took everybody's assets, okay, then you're talking about the military.  Why would the military then defend the government?

You can't do that, and it would be unconstitutional anyhow.   When they confiscated gold, it went up to the Supreme Court.  You can read those cases.  You still have the same number of dollars.  You didn't lose anything, right?  That was their interpretation.  It could have been clam shells, or gold, or whatever, but you still got the same amount of dollars in your account.  So you didn't lose anything.  So what they're going to do, in my opinion, is that they're going to be selectively defaulting.  So by starting these wars, they will just default on China.  They're not going to pay that debt, and anybody that opposes us they'll just default on it, and that's part of what they will do 

31:31. China has their debt that they defaulted on that England settled it when [1997] they negotiated the Handover of Hong Kong but we never settled it with the US.  We'll just tender our debt to we'll just cancel it out right?

31:46. Yeah this is just nonsense; you know they're not going to pay it.  I mean that's as simple as that.  China is a fool for even buying anything at this point.  Like I said, it would be like me pointing an empty gun at you and demanding you to lend me $100 so I can buy bullets to shoot you.

So then the dollar loses its Reserve currency status.  Is that what's going to happen?

32:17. The reason I'm going to the dollar as the reserve is because of nothing that the government does; it has to do really with the economy.  The US economy is a consumer-based economy, and China is trying to copy the United States.  The other type of economy is like what Germany did, it's the old Mercantile model from like the 18th century: we build stuff and sell it to everybody else that uses.  But if you look at the stats, the average German has less net worth than net worth than Italian: they keep their taxes high, etc., you know, they're more interested in building BMWs, Mercedes, and selling them to the whole world.  You know that's it.  So the US is what has made the US the major economy it's that everybody needs to sell something here.  If the Japanese need to sell the Toyotas , etc.  So what you're looking at here, once they put in the sanctions against Russia that undermined the world economy, that was the first blow because you start dividing [the world].  So China starts setting up its chip system, and then it started getting more countries to go in that lines so the dollar will not be the exclusive settling currency.  But from an economic standpoint, China really had nothing after communism finally fell. Japan was wiped out after World War II, so was Germany.  It's the people that make an economy, all right?  So Japan and Germany rose to the top.  Why? Because the people were very hard producing.  Now you know you get these people that just talk about our precious metals, that's it.  Now I'm sorry.  You look at Russia, they're the richest nation in the world from a natural resources perspective.  In 1917, they had the largest gold reserves of any country on the face of the Earth, but if they don't have an economic system that allows people freely to develop things, it doesn't matter.  That's the real thing about the United States.  Listen to the speech by the head of Argentina, Javier Milei, at Davos.  He was absolutely correct and he was trying to warn, you know, the West, "You're following the path that brought us down."  Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world at the time and they fell from the top 10 to number 140.  His speech is very, very good, and a lot of people at Davos didn't like it.

36:00.  

Could Texas Survive as an Independent Nation?

in November, the real GDP for Texas grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in Q2, outpacing the U.S. growth rate of 2.1%. Its real GDP stood at $2.5 trillion in Q3 of 2023. Therefore, Texas is the world’s 8th largest economy. For context, Russia’s economy was valued at $1.862 trillion in nominal terms and $5.056 trillion in PPP. Texas has a larger economy than Australia, Spain, Italy, and Mexico, to name a few. 

Thank you to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics. 

The severity of the migrant crisis may be new to those who do not live on a bordering state. Yet Texas has been grappling with this issue for years, resulting in countless calls for a secession from the United States or “Texit.” How would Texas manage as an independent nation?

SIZE AND POPULATION

Texas would be the 39th largest nation by land mass. Texas encompasses 268,596 sq. miles, roughly the size of France, and is larger than many developed nations including the United Kingdom.  Texas had an estimated population of 30,503,301 as of July 2023, making it the second-most populous state in the United States after California. Texas would be the 50th most populous country in the world.

ECONOMY  

Texas has the second-largest economy in the United States behind California. In 2023, the Texas economy exhibited a mix of trends. While the state’s economic growth slowed in Q4, with job growth falling sharply in October and business activity contracting slightly in November, the real GDP for Texas grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in Q2, outpacing the U.S. growth rate of 2.1%. Its real GDP stood at $2.5 trillion in Q3 of 2023. Therefore, Texas is the world’s 8th largest economy. For context, Russia’s economy was valued at $1.862 trillion in nominal terms and $5.056 trillion in PPP. Texas has a larger economy than Australia, Spain, Italy, and Mexico, to name a few. 

MILITARY POWER

Texas alone boasts one of the best militaries in the world, with over 115,000 active duty troops. The Texas Military Forces, which include the Texas Army National Guard, Texas Air National Guard, and Texas State Guard, have a total size of 23,200 personnel and a budget of $1.851 billion as of 2023. In addition to the state forces, Texas is also home to about 70,000 U.S. Army personnel, 30,000 Air Force troops, and 8,000 Navy and Marines. Texas is home to 15 military bases and installations distributed across the state, with most of them clustered around San Antonio and Corpus Christi.

Texas has two nuclear power plants. The South Texas Project Electric Generating Station, located southwest of Bay City, Texas, has two Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactors with a total capacity of 2,700 megawatts. The Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, located south of Fort Worth, Texas, also has two reactors with a total capacity of 2,300 megawatts. These two plants combined have an installed capacity of more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity and contribute to about 10% of Texas’ total energy generation. 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

While not always reliable, Texas has its own power grid, known as the Texas Interconnection. It is an alternating current (AC) power grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), providing power to 90% of the state. Texas Interconnection is one of the three minor grids in the North American power transmission network, and the state has maintained as a separate grid for political reasons. The grid does not cross state lines and is not under federal regulation. 

The state features more miles of public roads and freight rail than any other state, with 313,220 miles of public roads and 10,539 miles of freight rail. Additionally, Texas is home to the nation’s top airport for a number of domestic destinations. 

Texas has a total of 393 airports available for public use, making it the state with the highest number of airports in the United States. Texas is a major hub for cargo and trade, with its ports moving more cargo than any other state. In 2020, Texas ports handled over 607 million tons of cargo, including 464 million tons of international cargo and 143 million tons of domestic cargo. 

CONCLUSION 

Texas could survive as an independent nation. Naturally, the United States would fight tooth and nail to preserve its second-largest economy. Based on the data, Texas has the resources to be an independent nation if permitted to operate independently.

Washington cannot override the sovereignty of the states.

When historically a centralized government seeks total control, it collapses like the Soviet Union. Most people do not know that Lenin wanted to copy the United States, whereas each province retained its sovereignty. Stalin poisoned Lenin and his wife and usurped total central control.  --Martin Armstrong

Thank you to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.

Most importantly, Texas has oil, gas, and refining capacity and would continue to produce and refine fossil fuels. Without Texas, the United States would not be able to wage war, lacking the energy to fuel its tanks. Texas could stand on its own, and to ensure energy, other Red States would join hands against Washington.

There is rising sentiment toward separation due to the Biden Administration’s abuse of executive orders. The Biden Administration thinks executive orders are the way to change the character of the United States without the people’s consent. Truman seized all the steel mills without statutory authority using an executive order that the Supreme Court reversed. We have so many violations using executive decrees without statutory authority, circumventing Congress and the people. The abuse of this power is causing severe discontent. People are talking about separating, even in Florida. When historically a centralized government seeks total control, it collapses like the Soviet Union. Most people do not know that Lenin wanted to copy the United States, whereas each province retained its sovereignty. Stalin poisoned Lenin and his wife and usurped total central control. Biden has endangered the survivability of the United States. Washington cannot override the sovereignty of the states.

Believe it or not, on New Year’s Eve, we still celebrate the ancient Roman religion/myth of Janus, who presided over the beginning and end.

Thank you to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.

Believe it or not, on New Year’s Eve, we still celebrate the ancient Roman religion/myth of Janus, who presided over the beginning and end. So one face looked at the past, and the other the coming new year.

In fact, January is named after Janus. He also represented the beginning and end of the conflict. 

In ancient Rome, the Temple of Janus stood in the Roman Forum with doors on both ends, and inside was a statue of Janus, who is always represented as the two-faced god. The doors of his temple were open in times of war and closed to mark peace. This represented that things could change politically during a war.

Janus, therefore, represented war and peace. This may be particularly true as the Neocons are determined to usher in World War III. They are scheming to create war BEFORE the election just in case Trump wins overwhelmingly to trap him into a war that he cannot negotiate his way out of. The critical periods in 2024 will be January, April, and July/August 2024.

So when we celebrate New Year’s Eve, we say goodbye to the past and look forward to the future, a concept stemming from Janus. So much of today is traditions extending back thousands of years and terms like your Achilles’ Heel, named after the Greek warrior who died at the battle of Troy. 

It was said that when he was born, his mother dipped him in a sacred river to protect him but held him by his heel, which the water never touched. He was shot in his heel with an arrow and died. This statue shows him pulling the arrow from his heel as he died.

The Greeks were masters in creating stories handed down through the centuries—even the state of New Jersey in Latin in Nove Caesaria – the land of the new Caesar. 

Even Christmas Day, December 25th, was the feast day of the ancient sun god – Sol.

Our Republican comes from Rome, and Democracy comes from Athens. Legal Codes go back even before Babylon.

So when we celebrate New Year’s Day, let us hope the doors are slammed shut rather than wide open.

friend

The Heart of Jenin (2008): Ismael Khatib, a Palestinian father, donates with his wife's consent the organs of his slain son, Ahmed, to Israeli children

Thank you to Martin Armstrong. 

The Heart of Jenin is a 2008 documentary about a Palestinian father, Ismael Khatib, whose son was shot in the head and donated, with his wife's consent, his son's organs to Israeli parents whose own children were waiting for organ transplants.  Wikipedia captures it, 

The Heart of Jenin recounts the true story of Ismael Khatib, a refugee in the Jenin refugee camp in northern West Bank. In 2005, his eleven-year-old son Ahmed suffers fatal head shots by Israeli soldiers who mistake him for an armed Palestinian due to a toy weapon. After physicians in a hospital in Haifa declare Ahmed brain-dead, Ismael has to decide if his son's organs should be donated. His decision (with his wife's consent) demonstrates humanity at the moment of his greatest sorrow. Thus, the Palestinian enables the survival of Israeli children in the midst of the Arab–Israeli conflict.

The film accompanies Ismael Khatib on his visits to the families of three children who survived thanks to Ahmed's organ donation. The different encounters – with an Orthodox Jewish, a Druze and a Bedouin family, as well as with soldiers at checkpoints – always reflect the situation in the conflict-laden region.

The US and Mexican governments collaborated on Operation Wetback in June 1954.

from Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.

Illegal aliens are pouring into America from the southern and northern borders. Cities have been destroyed, public places overrun, and local governments are wiping out their budgets to support these intruders. US citizens are beginning to clash with refugees, as was witnessed in Staten Island, NY, when people tried to prevent migrants from exiting a bus. The NYPD was there in full force but was nowhere to be seen when Black Lives Matter was burning down neighborhoods. The migrants are here because the Biden Administration allowed them in. If elected, Donald Trump promises to kick them out.

“One of the most important issues in this campaign is ending the nation-wrecking catastrophe on our southern border,” Trump stated. He says that the invasion has created such a crisis that he would work to secure the borders on day one. “A vote for President Trump means Joe Biden’s horror show at the southern border ends at high noon on Inauguration Day, 2025,” he stated. Trump said he would end every open border policy and follow the Eisenhower Model.

Here is Trump in 2015.

I love the spin by the CNN reporter, "Trump's claim is true but misleading."  If it's true, doesn't that make the claim a fact, taking it out of the realm of an unproven claim or conjecture?

President Dwight Eisenhower implemented Operation Wetback in 1954 to deport Mexican citizens. The term “wetback” has been considered derogatory ever since, but both the Mexican and US government participated. America needed cheap labor during World War II and introduced the Bracero program from 1942 to 1964. Mexicans could work in the US temporarily on short-term contracts. Mexico agreed as they wanted their citizens to return with USD to boost the economy. The US government was unable to handle the influx and this led to the El Paso incident where Border Patrol simply opened the borders with Texas. Two million Mexicans applied for the Bracero program but 70% were denied.  

Mexico was facing a time of political instability and extreme poverty. No one wanted to return to Mexico with their dollars, angering the Mexican government, and a portion were there illegally without a contract. The US and Mexican governments collaborated on Operation Wetback in June 1954. The goal was to deport as many people as possible with little to no processing time. Numerous planes, buses, and boats descended on the US and brought everyone they could find back to the Mexican border. The Mexican government then moved these people to a portion of the country in need of labor, primarily agricultural. Over 1,074,277 people were deported back to Mexico.

Human rights groups back then shrieked at the inhumane handling of migrants. In today’s world, the Social Justice Warriors would use their own children to barricade the border to prevent this from taking place. But there is no alternative. South Korea recently implemented a less extreme mass deportation strategy that was successful. There are estimates that over 3 million illegals have entered the nation under Biden, and they’re not here to work in the fields. Trump has long touted the importance of securing the border and perhaps now others will listen.

Do the homeless camps in California take your eye off the immigration problem and its million-dollars costs to U.S. taxpayer?

Thanks to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.

COMMENT: Getting a lot of stuff about migrants (pictures attached). Afghanis and Uzbeks are seen and the Uzbeks speak English after a fashion. By the way, why is the Panamanian Red Cross putting out their message in English?? Afghani speaks no English and is making this trip with a young daughter?? (Says he is from Kabul). Note also the last bullet point on the Red Cross literature about migratory routes!!

 

 

More to the point is that a LOT are sick when they come into the US. Of the people filming this material, five out of six got sick when they went to Panama and the Darien Gap point.  The Uzbek (speaking some English) said he flew from Central Asia to Turkey to Mexico City to Tijuana (and then back to Panama??). He is 18 years old. Who paid for all of this?? He also said that his father lives in NY City. So he can’t use normal immigration family reunification methods but goes through Hell like he has??

Tuberculosis is a biggie here and yet these people stream North and are admitted into the US and then bussed/flown to every podunk town you can think of. Forget new pandemics made in a lab – just look at what is being brought into the US by people supposedly illegal!

-Gerry  

MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S REPLY: A lot of emails are coming in that the US is staging people to enter the country. The Biden Administration has opened the borders in hopes of securing a second term. Title 42 prevents illegals from entering the country under the premise of COVID. That was before the Ukraine war when the fixation was COVID and the spread of germs. COVID never went away, nor did other ailments, but they need the beehive mind to focus on Ukraine and defeating “Russian aggression.”

Tuberculosis (TB), as you mentioned, is also airborne and highly contagious. Those who do not receive treatment will die and it is currently one of the top 10 causes of death in the world. The World Health Organization even admits that refugees are prone to diseases. “They undertake long, exhausting journeys with inadequate access to food and water, sanitation and other basic services, which increases their risk of communicable diseases, particularly measles, and food- and waterborne diseases,” the WHO states. The WHO blames the lack of health care on xenophobia, but those who enter legally are in fact tested. US taxpayers pay millions per year to treat migrants, but states such as Florida are now requiring hospital patients to show proof of citizenship.

As for the Red Cross and Red Crescent, they fund the illegal voyages of migrants. They are partners with the UN Refugee Agency, which boasts of resettling 57,500 refugees worldwide in 2021. “Whether on the ground or at sea, our teams deliver help to anyone in need—regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or citizenship status,” the American Red Cross states on its website.

The American Red Cross also directly assists people at the US-Mexico border:  Meaning these organizations have made the US-Mexico border a safe haven where care and supplies are almost guaranteed. They are incentivizing people to come into America illegally. And what is the penalty? It is unlikely that they will be deported or even detected upon arrival. The situation is far worse than Biden turning a blind eye to the border crisis. There is a deliberate global effort to keep America’s borders open which threatens public health, elections, and national security.

Basic Aid at the U.S.–Mexico Border and in U.S. Cities 

The American Red Cross may provide support as needed to people being bussed by other organizations from the U.S.-Mexico border to U.S. cities. This includes supporting these lead organizations with services for people in their care by providing relief supplies or training. And, depending on local needs, our assistance might also include providing food, water, comfort, health services and mental health support. We aim to prevent and mitigate additional humanitarian consequences that migration can bring — including the potential for separation and loss of contact with family, disappearances, detention and medical issues.

The American Red Cross may also provide relief supplies — such as cots, blankets, hygiene items, first aid kits and towels — for use by local nonprofits caring for people. In some cases, the Red Cross has provided phones to local organizations, which people can use to reconnect with family members back home to let them know they’re safe.

Meaning these organizations have made the US-Mexico border a safe haven where care and supplies are almost guaranteed. They are incentivizing people to come into America illegally. And what is the penalty? It is unlikely that they will be deported or even detected upon arrival. The situation is far worse than Biden turning a blind eye to the border crisis. There is a deliberate global effort to keep America’s borders open which threatens public health, elections, and national security.

Nordstream 2: Cold War all over again? Reagan and the CIA blew up the Soviet Union pipeline that pumped natural gas to Europe in 1982, "the “most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space"

Thank you to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.

Intelligence agencies backed by the mainstream media are still trying to blame Russia for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. A new BBC report claims that Russian ships and submarines of the Nord Stream pipelines. A new BBC report claims that Russian ships and submarines were present when the blasts occurred. These “ghost ships” allegedly had their transmitters turned off, but they were not clever enough to encode their radio communications. The report admits that there is no conclusive evidence to pin the destruction on Moscow, but they’re seeking to create evidence.

Russia had no motive to destroy the pipeline that provided energy to the majority of Europe. The pipeline was Russia’s biggest tool of leverage, and they had the power to turn off the gas flow without destroying the entire thing. There is no possibility that Russia would have destroyed its biggest bargaining chip. There is a possibility, however, that Europe would have caved and continued purchasing Russian energy. Neocons like National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Policy, and Secretary of State Tony Blinken openly stated that they did not approve of the pipelines and wanted them gone.

“If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be, there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” Biden stated in February 2022 during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “I promise you, we will be able to do it.”

It comes as no coincidence that politicians began thanking America after the explosions. Radek Sikorski, Poland’s former minister of national defense and EU Parliament member, posted an image on Twitter of the leak with the caption, “Thank you, USA.”

Seymour Hersch won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and reported on the Nord Stream sabotage in detail.

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions.

Furthermore, this tactic has been used in the past! In January 1982, Ronald Regan and the CIA planned to destroy the Soviet Union’s economy by using the technology available at the time to create a massive explosion. The US wanted to block Europe from importing Soviet Western gas amid the Cold War and was willing to take extreme measures. Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who served in the National Security Council, wrote a book entitled At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War, 2005.

In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds,” Reed writes. According to the Washington Post, Reed later commented that it was the “most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."

The destruction of Nord Stream was an unauthorized act of war by the US, with the help of its Western alliance. Intelligence agencies are still attempting to pin the blame on Russia as a false flag, but their claims are invalid.

"only 32% of mortgage companies were profitable in 2022 compared to 98% in 2020" because "

Thank you to Martin Armstrong.

The talking heads have been warning of a housing crash, but that is not what Socrates indicated. The 30-year fixed rate is around 6.89% at the time of this writing. Housing costs continue to rise, causing the costs of servicing mortgage debt to rise. Housing inventory is limited, and a recent report explains why we saw mass layoffs in the banking sector. The demand is still there and it is a sellers’ market. Cash is king when it comes to real estate for those who can afford it.

Mortgage lenders are in trouble. In fact, only 32% of mortgage companies were profitable in 2022 compared to 98% in 2020.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) recently announced that independent mortgage banks and subsidiaries of chartered banks lost around $301 for every mortgage they financed in 2022. This marks a 113% decline from the prior year’s average and the first-time banks are seeing losses on mortgage products. This is not 2008 when banks handed out loans to anyone who asked.

“The rapid rise in mortgage rates over a relatively short period of time, combined with extremely low housing inventory and affordability challenges, meant that both purchase and refinance volume plummeted,” said Marina Walsh, CMB, MBA’s Vice President of Industry Analysis. “The stellar profits of the previous two years dissipated because of the confluence of declining volume, lower revenues, and higher costs per loan.” Production costs reached a high of $10,624 per loan last year. Productivity was 1.5 loan originations per production employee, down from 2.5 per employee the year prior, and an indicator of why we are seeing layoffs in the banking sector. No one is refinancing at these rates either and most chose a fixed rate, as we saw what happened in 2008 with adjustable costs.

First-time mortgages reached an all-time high of $323,780 last year, up from $298,324, the largest annual increase since the MBA began collecting data. The increased cost of loans increased the cost of serving mortgages. The MBA expects volume to decline further in 2023 before rallying in 2024 and 2025. The banking crisis may lead to banks and lenders selling off their mortgage debts once they cannot afford to service the debt. Again, the housing crisis today is not relative to the 2008 crash.

In a coffee shop in Odessa a raging Ukrainian Nazi challenged the staff for listening to Russian music and speaking the Russian language.

The resentment between these two people is something. 

In Ukraine the Russian Language is banned by law according to Ukrainian Nazis harassing shop workers.
In a coffeeshop in Odessa a raging Ukrainian Nazi challenged the staff for listening to Russian music and speaking the Russian language. pic.twitter.com/uqjZ7G8m2q

— John Carter (@JohnEdgarCarter) March 19, 2023

BILL GATES IDENTIFIES AS A DOCTOR

Thanks to Martin Armstrong @ Armstrong Economics.