Tag: economy

Highest Tax State of California Bracing for Budget Shortfall of Ten Billion or More

The state of California is currently looking down the barrel of a possible budget shortfall of ten billion dollars, or possibly more than that.

This news comes just weeks after it was reported that their state-run healthcare plan, which covers illegal aliens, is over budget by billions. The state is also dealing with a massive recovery effort after wildfires ravaged a huge area in the southern part of the state earlier this year.

It’s incredible that some Democrats and people in media think Governor Gavin Newsom would be a good candidate to run for president in 2028. What has he done besides drive his state into poverty and population loss?

Breitbart News reports:

Gavin Newsom, California Face Another Budget Shortfall; $10-$20 Billion

California Governor Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers are bracing for a $10 billion budget shortfall — even before federal spending cuts undertaken by the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Newsom and the Democrats took a near-$100 billion surplus in 2022– partly fueled by federal coronavirus funds under the Biden administration — to a near-$50 billion deficit in 2024.

Earlier this year, the state was forced to borrow $6.2 billion to fund Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, which Newsom and his party expanded to cover illegal aliens.

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Gas prices could top $8 in California by 2026 due to refinery closures, report warns

According to a new report, gas prices in California could increase up to 75% by the end of 2026 as the state prepares to lose nearly one-fifth of its oil refining capacity.

The scheduled closure of the Phillips 66 refinery in Los Angeles, along with Valero’s planned shutdown of its facility in Northern California, represents a potential 21% reduction in California’s refining output over three years, according to a report by Michael A. Mische of USC’s Marshall School of Business.

“The estimated average consumer price of regular gasoline could potentially increase by as much as 75% from the April 23, 2025, price of $4.816 to $7.348 to $8.435 a gallon by calendar year end 2026. We can expect retail prices to be even higher in counties such as Mono and Humboldt,” Mische wrote.

California currently consumes more than 13.1 million gallons of gasoline daily. With the state producing just under 24% of its crude needs, the loss of refining capacity could create a deficit of 6.6 million to 13.1 million gallons per day.

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Worse Than Trudeau: Canadians Should Expect Disaster With Carney In Charge

Justin Trudeau’s far-left regime in Canada has finally come to an end as the politician exits leadership in disgrace.  His legacy includes authoritarian governance during the pandemic, whereby he threw Christian church goers and pastors in prison for refusing to stop congregations.  He called for mass forced vaccinations, and he locked the bank accounts of protesters speaking out against the covid mandates.  His admin compared people donating to the cause to “terrorists”. 

His socialist economic policies helped to exacerbate Canada’s inflation crisis and his open immigration policies greatly expanded the the flood of third-world foreigners, driving up housing prices, crushing the labor market and straining social services.  By most accounts, the majority of Canadians were ecstatic to see Trudeau exit the stage. 

But what if they still haven’t learned their lesson?  How is that even possible?

According to recent polls for the 2025 election set for April 28th, it is likely that Canadians have very short memories or they’re gluttons for punishment.  Why?  Because Mark Carney and the Liberal Party are projected to make considerable gains.  Carney has rebranded himself as a “centrist” in order to win public favor, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Mark Carney is, in fact, worse than Trudeau on every level.

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“Take Control Of Their Food Supply”: Tractor Supply CEO Says Backyard Chicken Demand Skyrockets  

President Trump’s swift action to combat soaring egg prices, caused by the Biden-Harris regime’s mass culling of egg-laying hens just before he took office, has been nothing short of spectacular.

Egg prices have since collapsed, forcing Democratic strategists to abandon their propaganda warfare efforts with corrupt leftist corporate media to blame “egg-flation” on Trump when, in reality, it was a crisis of Biden’s making through improper culling practices and no countermeasures to offset loss production. It’s almost as if the prior administration wanted consumers to feel pocketbook pain. 

Trump saves the day. 

Earlier this year, as egg prices spiked to record highs during the tail end of the Northern Hemisphere’s winter season, we urged readers to purchase backyard chicken coops and take control of their own food supply chains:

Months later, with the latest USDA retail egg prices down 62% from record highs of more than $8 per dozen, Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton confirmed to investors on an earnings call this week that the nationwide egg shortage sparked an unbelievable surge in chick demand at stores nationwide.

Here’s more from Bloomberg:

Tractor Supply Co., a rural retailer best known for its animal feed and ranching equipment offerings, expects to sell a record amount of chicks this year as customers expand their broods and first-timers seek to avoid record-setting egg prices.

Those novice poultry farmers are attempting to “take more control of their food supply,” Tractor Supply Chief Executive Officer Hal Lawton said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call Thursday, after egg prices more than doubled this year.

Mizuho Securities Director David Bellinger wrote in a note earlier this month that 7 million to 8 million of Tractor Supply’s loyalty members now own chickens. 

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The Case For Tariffs – How Tariffs Can Help Bring Back The Golden Age Of American Economy

About once a decade, the question of Protective Tariffs finds its way into the national debate. Whether a political candidate dares to raise the issue or a clever collection of activists and analysts work together to inject it into the national discussion, the reaction is always the same from the halls of entrenched power – hysteria and panic over the mere discussion of tariffs. 

Both the establishment Right and the establishment Left in the United States argue that tariffs represent an end to industry and trade, that they deny opportunity to the third world, will only raise prices for American consumers, and that they are the first shot in a tragic trade war. In the halls of corporations and academia, everyone seems to agree – tariffs are bad for the economy and the country as a whole. Predictably, corporate property in Congress parrot the same line and it appears that opposing tariffs is one of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans can agree.

Thus, when anti-tariff politicians, CEOs, and academics speak, their warnings that tariffs represent an end to their globalist vision where international corporations continue to abandon Western workers with their pesky wages, rights, and protections while exploiting third world workers for lower wages, easy replacement, and lack of concern for basic human needs are thinly veiled. This latter, more honest, concern is, in fact, correct. tariffs do threaten globalism and corporate exploitation of workers and societies. Particularly older working class citizens remember the days of American Tariffs and the undeniably better economic distribution of wealth and opportunity they afforded. Younger (middle aged) Americans remember at least the removal of those Tariffs and the “giant sucking sound” of American jobs leaving for Mexico, South and Central America, Asia, and China that decimated their communities and the American economy before their eyes. Indeed, it seems that the working class inherently understand the benefit of Tariffs and Protectionism, at least when they are properly explained. This is why such a massive and sustained media, academic, and governmental propaganda campaign has been invoked to convince them otherwise and why, whenever Tariffs are mentioned in the public discourse, they are immediately attacked as fringe, crazy, xenophobic, racist, populist, and dangerous. 

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Cloward-Piven And The Migrant Invasion

John Maynard Keynes, who should be burning in Hell for his shyster economic theories, is largely responsible for our current looming apocalypse. 

His theory basically is that only demand, made more real than just wishing for things by creating fiat money and credit, is important, since in his myopic, context-dropping theory, people produce a supply when there is a demand. 

(That they’d want the money they are paid to be valuable enough to buy someone else’s products he neglects to envision.)

His theory was refuted by F.A. Hayek at the time. But politicians usually ignored the refutations, since they saw a way of expanding their power and budgets while using a bit of Cambridge University produced con artistry as cover. Politicians are the first ones to get to spend new fiat currency and credits, deciding which donors, cronies, businesses, organizations will get it, before it causes inflation and reduces the purchasing power of the currency in general. It allows a constant redistribution of wealth to whoever controls the printing press and those nearest to them.

Keynes is also famous for saying: 

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.” 

Once again he is wrong. 

We are currently being pushed even faster toward disaster, not just by his voodoo macroeconomics, and not by the ideas of dead economists, but of a deceased sociologist.

The sociologists in question are a husband and wife team, the late Richard Cloward and his wife Francis Fox Piven (still with us at 92), professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. 

The Cloward-Piven Strategy, which the couple first published in the socialist magazine The Nation, sought to bring change out of chaos. The idea was that social workers and other government employees and leftist groups (Ms. Piven was on the board of Democratic Socialists of America) would cajole anyone they could to apply for every government assistance program, until the welfare state was so overloaded it broke down, which would lead, they thought, to the institution of a “free” minimum guaranteed income for every American.

Whether this would have worked or not, subsequent strategists on the left clearly decided to expand it by importing poor people from anywhere in the third world. 

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Oakland’s New Mayor Wants $50 Minimum Wage, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Barbara Lee, a longtime Democratic politician, is stepping into her new role as mayor of Oakland amid economic chaos and public concern.

After leaving her congressional seat in 2024 to pursue a U.S. Senate bid—ultimately losing to Adam Schiff—she returns to city politics at a precarious moment.

Oakland’s city government is staring down an $87 million budget deficit.

Pensions, insurance, and a shrinking tax base are expected to make matters worse.

The city has become a symbol of urban decline in California, marked by rampant crime, business closures, and general lawlessness.

Oakland voters have made their choice, and now they’ll live with the consequences.

Barbara Lee’s election is not just another leftward lurch—it’s a hard swerve into fantasy economics and failed policies repackaged as “progress.”

Anyone who thinks raising the minimum wage to $50 an hour—equivalent to $104,000 a year—is a sane or sustainable policy shouldn’t be running a lemonade stand, much less a major city.

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Stocks surge as White House confirms 100 countries want a trade deal with U.S.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has confirmed that there is progress on President Donald Trump’s agenda to get fair international trade standards for American manufacturers and consumers alike.

The president launched a series of tariff battles because for years American producers have had to pay high tariffs to get their products and services into other nations, while those nation’s often have been given virtually free access to American markets.

The imbalance is what has caused America’s large trade deficit and other financial complications.

Trump’s tariffs have been producing results she said.

“We’re doing very well in respect to a potential trade deal with China. There have now been 18 proposals and more than 100 countries around the world who are wanting to make a deal with the United States of America,” Leavitt confirmed.

“The president and administration are setting the stage for a deal with China. … We feel everyone involved wants to see a trade deal happen — and the ball is moving in the right direction.”

The Daily Mail pointed out the Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed up 600 points on the announcement. Actually, the market surged about 1,000 points on the news.

Fox News reported she continued, “You have Secretary Bessent, Secretary Lutnick, Ambassador Greer, NEC Director Hassett and Peter Navarro, the entire trade team meeting with 34 countries this week alone. We are moving at Trump speed to ensure these deals are made on behalf of the American worker and the American people.”

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Trucking Industry Says Positive Marijuana Tests And ‘Sometimes Outdated’ Federal Regulations Are Contributing To National Driver Shortage

A recent policy paper from a pair of companies in the trucking industry says the sector was short about 80,000 drivers last year—an issue it asserts was exacerbated by workers testing positive for marijuana under the federal Department of Transportation’s (DOT) strict, zero-tolerance drug policy.

“A significant number of otherwise qualified drivers fail pre-employment or random drug tests due to marijuana use,” says the new report. “These drivers are often unaware of the DOT’s strict zero-tolerance policy or mistakenly believe that legal marijuana use in their home state is acceptable under federal law.”

Titled “Cannabis, Compliance and Driver Retention,” the white paper was published by fleet management firm Fleetworthy in partnership with the trade publication FreightWaves.

As marijuana has “moved from a largely prohibited substance to a widely legalized and socially accepted drug,” it says, “these cultural and legal shifts create complex challenges for both carriers and drivers.”

Other obstacles it points to are what it calls “the widespread proliferation of marijuana and CBD products” and “rigid (sometimes outdated) DOT regulations.”

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US Trade Wars and Military Globalization Spark Complex Alignments

President Trump’s new round of reciprocal and universal tariffs will escalate trade tensions, lower investment, hit market pricing, distort trade flows, disrupt supply chains, and undermine consumer, business and investor confidence. It will certainly penalize global economic prospects.

As fears of a recession mount and mass protests in the US have begun, the loss of over $6 trillion on Wall Street in only two days is just a prelude of what’s to come. Along with China, the large trading economies in Europe, Japan and South Korea, India and Brazil and the rest of the world are positioned to counter the Trump tariffs.

Days before Trump’s new tariffs, China declared its trade minister had agreed with Japan and South Korea, Washington’s two treaty allies in Asia, on a common response to Trump’s actions. In Seoul and Tokyo, the statement was seen as overstated. Nonetheless, after the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, the divided South Korea must cope with trade war amid a constitutional crisis, whereas Japan’s PM Shigeru Ishiba has declared it a “national crisis.” In South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, developing economies coping with natural disasters and external destabilization efforts are targeted by Trump tariffs as well.

As Washington is decoupling the old linkages between trade and defense policies, it has opened the Pandora’s box for multi-dimensional alignments.

“National security” as pretext for global fragmentation

Taken at face value, the Trump reciprocal tariffs indicate that contemporary America’s greatest threats would be Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Lesotho and Cambodia; that is, a few tiny French islands close to Canada and two poor and small developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, respectively.

Ostensibly, the new international tariffs are legitimized by “national security.” In practice, they foster new volatility and uncertainty.

In the past, US military allies were trade partners and vice versa. Now military allies are trade adversaries. In the past, disagreements were resolved while tariffs were reduced; today the reverse applies.

The new protectionism is reminiscent of the Smoot-Hawley and reciprocal tariffs in the 1930s that went hand in hand with assertive nationalism, xenophobia and massive military rearmament paving the way to World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is thus odd that the military dimension has been largely ignored in recent globalization/deglobalization surveys.

In 1945, the United States accounted for almost half of the global economy. It was the world’s manufacturing giant and greatest debtor. US dollar monopolized cross-border transactions. Today, the relative share of the US in the world economy has halved. It’s the world’s de-industrial giant and greatest borrower. And the global dominance of the US dollar in world transactions has likely been halved, too.

Military power is an entirely different story, however. It is the muscle that the Biden administration used covertly and the Trump White House likes to tout overtly. It is this brute military primacy that is systematically exploited as the White House seeks to hammer the world into its image.

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