THE DOCTRINE OF THE N.A.F.T.A. GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS IS TO SERVE THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ENDLESS WAVES OF INVADING 'CHEAP' LABOR SUBSIDIZED WITH WELFARE FUNDED BY TAXES ON MIDDLE AMERICA.
In many speeches, Mayorkas says he is building a mass migration system to deliver workers to wealthy employers and investors and “equity” to poor foreigners. The nation’s border laws are subordinate to elites’ opinion about “the values of our country,” Mayorkas claims.
With no moral code, no center, nothing matters. You just read what’s in the teleprompter and hit the sack by 7:00 while your degenerate son collects piles of cash for the family until you’re free to do it on your own. All you have to do is what you’re told, your handlers and the media will take care of the rest.
That Joe Biden hasn’t come close to fulfilling any campaign promises, or even that those promises were made, is a testament to what he was willing to do to get the job. Just imagine what he’s willing to do to keep it. Even scarier, just imagine how much worse things have the potential of getting as he works to do just that.
Financial house of cards becoming increasingly shaky
There are a growing number of indications that global financial markets could be hit with a storm potentially as serious as the March 2020 meltdown at the start of the pandemic.
A sign for a Wall Street building, Wednesday, May 19, 2021, in New York (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Since that crisis, when the $23 trillion US Treasury market, the basis of the global financial system imploded, markets have been sustained by the trillions of dollars pumped in by the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks on top of the quantitative easing measures developed after the 2008 global financial crisis.
But now central banks are reversing course, lifting interest rates and seeking to wind back their asset holdings in response to four-decade high inflation in a bid to clampdown on workers’ wage demands.
The most immediate sign of growing stress is the loss of liquidity in key areas of the financial system. Markets are deemed to be liquid when relatively small transactions only provoke a very small response. Conversely, an illiquid market is one in which a minor transaction can set off large movements leading to rapid, and unexpected, changes in financial conditions.
A report in the Financial Times (FT) this week drew attention to the worsening liquidity conditions.
“Liquidity across US markets,” it said, “is now at its worst level since the early days of the pandemic in 2020, according to investors and big US banks who say money managers are struggling to execute trades without affecting prices.”
It cited one investment officer at a financial firm who said bluntly: “Liquidity is terrible.”
Minutes from the latest policy meeting of the US Fed show that officials “were concerned with the problems being created in the Treasury and commodities market by weak liquidity,” the article said.
According to a Bloomberg index, the health of the US Treasury market is at its worst level since the March 2020 meltdown.
The FT report also cited findings from the major US bank JPMorgan Chase which warned that “liquidity recently started declining again, and market depth over the last three months is now the lowest since March 2020.”
An example of the kind of violent movement which can occur took place last month when the two US retail giants, Walmart and Target, saw a combined total of $71 billion wiped off their share market valuation in just two days—the biggest plunge since the Wall Street crash of October 1987—when they reported that rising costs were affecting their bottom line.
The rapid rise in global inflation, especially energy, is a key factor in the growing instability. The head of the commodities trading firm Jeremy Weir warned at a conference this week that the oil market could enter “parabolic state.” That is, their rise would resemble the right-side of a U-shaped graph.
He warned that oil prices could rise to as much as $150 a barrel. This echoed remarks made earlier this month by JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon that the US economy and its financial system were facing a “hurricane” and the oil price could rise to $150 or even $175 a barrel, up from its already high level of around $120.
Weir warned that price hikes of this magnitude would bring about a recession.
“If we see very high energy prices for a period of time we will eventually see demand destruction. It will be problematic to sustain these levels of and continue global growth,” he said.
Another source of instability is the shift in monetary policy by the European Central Bank. The ECB will raise its base interest rate from its present negative level by 0.25 percentage points in July and again in September by at least the same amount. But the ECB’s policy statement, issued after its meeting yesterday, said “a larger increment will be appropriate at the September meeting” if inflation persists or worsens.
The euro zone is facing a period of much lower growth and a recession as a result of the continuing effects of the pandemic and the sanctions it has imposed on Russian energy supplies. Under so-called “normal” conditions, this would indicate that a loosening of monetary policies to provide a stimulus to the economy.
But that is no longer possible with inflation in the euro zone now running at 8 percent and expected to go higher.
The lift in interest rates threatens to widen the gap between the yields on the bonds of the stronger northern European economies, Germany and the Netherlands, and those of the more indebted south, Italy and Spain.
The widening of this gap, coupled with a banking crisis, threatened the very existence of the euro as a single currency in 2012, which led to the then ECB President Mario Draghi pledging to do “whatever it takes” in order to stabilise the financial system.
The effect of the withdrawal by the ECB from its bond-buying program in July is another area of concern.
At the end of May, the ECB owned €341 billion worth of company debt, having increased its holdings by almost €140 billion since March 2020.
The dependence of the corporate bond market on the ECB was highlighted in remarks by Barnaby Martin, the head of European credit strategy at Bank of America, to the FT.
“The ECB became not just the buyer of last resort but the buyer of first resort. The sheer volume they were buying was enormous,” he said. The question is what will be the market reaction to the withdrawal of this support which starts next month.
Under the policy of quantitative easing major hedge funds were raking in billions of dollars hand over fist because of the availability of ultra-cheap money. But the major investment fund Bridgewater is now anticipating a sell-off in corporate bonds that will not be short lived.
“We’re in a radically different world,” one the company’s chief investment officers told the FT. If the Fed was committed to bringing down inflation to 2 percent “they may tighten in a very strong way, which would then probably crack the economy and probably crack the weaker [companies] in the economy.”
The growing instability in financial markets, rampant inflation and the threat of recession underline the essential meaning of the political economy of the past decade and a half. All the measures undertaken by the central banks to try to avert an economic and financial breakdown have only created the conditions for ever-deeper crises.
IDEO
Ralph Nader: Biden's First Year Proves He Is Still a "Corporate Socialist" Beholden to Big Business
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) warned Tuesday that without a major course correction, the Democrat Party will get demolished in November, blaming “two corporate Democrats” in the Senate for obstructing President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.
With November looming in the distance and majorities in the House and Senate at stake, Sanders has sent a dire warning to Democrat lawmakers. “You really can’t win an election with a bumper sticker that says: ‘Well, we can’t do much, but the other side is worse,'” the far-left Vermonter said to Politico.
“The Republicans stand an excellent chance of gaining control of the House and quite possibly the Senate,” Sanders added. The far-left senator predicted that Republicans are “gonna march to victory based on those [economic] issues,” despite his misgivings about the GOP’s pro-life stance. “I think that that is not correct,” Sanders said.
President Joe Biden has been polling at low numbers with few accomplishments to boast of. Meanwhile, some House Democrats have been trying to ride his coattails to victory in their reelection campaigns but are ultimately starting to appear quite vulnerable.
However, rather than ascribe the party’s poor electoral prospects to Biden’s performance, Sanders blamed two Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin (VW) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ).
“Two corporate Democrats, Sens. Manchin and Sen. Sinema, sabotaged [Build Back Better]. And it has been downhill ever since for the Democratic Party,” Sanders said.
“Say to the American people: ‘Look, we don’t have the votes to do it right now. We have two corporate Democrats who are not going to be with us,'” he said of the two Democrats who have often declined to vote with their party on radical partisan ideas.
“The leadership has got to go out and say we don’t have the votes to pass anything significant right now. Sorry. You got 48 votes. And we need more to pass it. That should be the message of this campaign,” Sanders said.
While Sinema did not comment on the story, Manchin hit back when asked to respond to Sanders’ attack. He told Politico in a statement, “I have never berated Sen. Sanders for his socialist views. It is a shame he refuses to accept the more moderate views I share with my constituents.”
A plurality of Americans say economic issues will be the top set of problems on their minds when they cast their votes in the upcoming midterm elections, a Politico/Morning Consult poll released this week found.
“Now, thinking about your vote, what would you say is the top set of issues on your mind when you cast your vote for federal offices such as U.S. Senate or Congress?” the survey asked.
A plurality, 42 percent, said economic issues — including taxes, wages, jobs, unemployment, and spending — top the list. No other issue came close, as security issues — terrorism, foreign policy, and border security — came in a distant second with 12 percent.
Women’s issues, including birth control, abortion, and “equal pay,” came closely behind with ten percent identifying it as a top issue. Other topics, such as seniors’ issues, health care, education, and energy, garnered single-digit support.
The survey also found that nearly three-quarters, 73 percent, are at least somewhat enthusiastic to vote in the midterms, and of those, 29 percent are “extremely” enthusiastic.
The survey was taken June 4-5, 2022, among 2,006 registered voters and has a margin of error of +/- 2 percent. It comes as the Biden administration continues to face a series of domestic issues, such as rampant inflation and continually record-breaking gas prices.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Senate Finance Committee this week that she expects inflation to remain high.
“I do expect inflation to remain high, although I very much hope that it will be coming down now,” the Biden administration official said. “I think that bringing inflation down should be our number one priority.”
She also did little to assuage concerns over ever-rising gas prices, telling lawmakers that the Biden administration has exhausted all efforts to reduce energy costs.
