Tag: economy

Dirty Barack Obama Who Was Caught Spying on Candidate and President-Elect Trump – Now Takes Credit for Trump’s Booming Economy

Democrats turned to Barack Obama this week to stop the bleeding from the Kamala Harris campaign.

Obama spoke in Pennsylvania on Thursday and used his time on stage to attack President Donald Trump and then lie about his record.

During his appearance in Pennsylvania on Thursday Barack Obama attempted to take credit for the booming Trump economy.

What a crock.

Obama has a lot of nerve slandering President Trump. After all, it was the Obama Administration that was caught spying on the Trump Campaign, President-elect Trump, Trump’s family, and the Trump administration.

Here is a reminder on how Barack Obama was caught spying on Trump from our earlier reporting.

The Gateway Pundit was the first to report back in 2018 that the Deep State was using foreigners to spy on then-candidate Trump in 2015.  President Trump tweeted our report by Joe Hoft the following day and the fake news mainstream media immediately attacked him for promoting what they called a “conspiracy theory.”

We later discovered more evidence in 2020 that we were 100% correct in our initial reporting.

Joe Hoft reported on this development at the time.  In June of 2018 The Gateway Pundit posted an article identifying unredacted words in previously redacted texts between corrupt cops Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two individuals supposedly having an affair and key players at the top of the FBI involved in spying on candidate and then President Trump.

The discovery came from an individual on Twitter who was later removed from the platform, named Nick Falco, who identified a word uncovered in a Senate text that the corrupt DOJ previously redacted.

Keep reading

Israel looking at $66bn war bill as economic woes deepen

The total bill for Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon over several years will be some $66 billion, about 11 to 12 percent of Israel’s pre-war GDP, according to the Israeli Central Bank.

The number was revealed by Adam Tooze, a history professor and director of the European Institute at Columbia University in New York, who has written extensively about financial crises.  

He stated in a 7 October interview with Foreign Policy that Israel is fighting a war of choice, which includes the goal of unleashing mass violence to make Gaza “unlivable” and “deal” with Hezbollah.

Israel “is in a deliberate way escalating the destruction in Gaza and the effort to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon. So this is expensive,” Tooze observed.

Even with US aid, which Tooze estimates at roughly $14 billion to $15 billion per year, the cost of the war is a strain on the Israeli government and society, he added.

Separately, a report published by Brown University’s Costs of War project said the US has given Israel $17.9 billion in military aid in the past year, and spent at least $22.76 billion assisting Israel, the highest amount in the two countries’ histories.

Tooze noted further that as a result of the war, Israeli tourism has collapsed by 75 percent, and hundreds of thousands of workers have been taken out of the economy at times while serving as reservists in the army.

“This is obviously disruptive to Israel, with a population of 10 million. If you take that number out of the workforce, prime-age, working young people, this is going to hurt.”

Tooze says that the Israeli economy, in particular the construction sector, has further suffered after imposing a ban on some 80,000 to 150,000 migrant Palestinian workers from the West Bank.

Estimates of Israeli GDP growth have fallen from three or four percent to roughly zero in the near future. At the same time, it faces a large surge in government spending.

In contrast, the relatively small economy of the West Bank, with a GDP of as little as $18 billion, has plunged roughly 20 to 25 percent.

Keep reading

Global Food Prices Jump Most In 18 Months As Supermarket Inflation Storm Worsens

The world could be on the cusp of another food inflation shock as the benchmark for world food commodity prices recorded the fastest monthly increase in 18 months in September.

A perfect storm of war in Eastern Europe and broadening conflicts in the Middle East, snarled maritime supply chains, extreme weather across croplands, de-growth climate change policies pushed by the far-left in the West, and rogue central bank money printing have all contributed to sticky food inflation.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ Food Price Index, which tracks the international prices of a basket of globally traded food, averaged 124.4 in September, up 3% from August and 2.1% higher versus the same month one year ago.

Keep reading

US Government Behind ‘Housing Crisis”

Make no mistake, the housing shortage is directly the responsibility of the US Federal government and Federal Reserve policies going back to the 1990s. Based on Governor Walz surprise revelation promise of three million new homes, and downpayment assistance, the problem is about to get worse should they be elected. As our great departed President Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help. “. The questions are how did we get here, what is the solution, and how do we implement the solution?

Prior to 1934, homeowners purchased homes with cash or small bank loans that were underwritten by banks. Obviously, this limited homeownership to those with means and hence ownership was historically 46.5%. In 1934 President Roosevelt created the Federal Housing Administration. The objective was to help builders and developers, not necessarily homeowners. Homeownership rates grew to around 65%. In the 1990s, the government encouraged and created a lending environment, along with quasi-governmental agencies backing loans that were increasingly more likely to fail, but with a government backstop, there seemed to be no limit. Homeownership grew to 69% by 2004. The limit, however, was reached, as loans reached maturity, along with a recession in 2008, that led to one of the worse economic crises in US history.

The fallout of the 2008 housing crisis had far reaching consequences that most Americans who are not in building or developing understand. From the 1980s until the year 2000, annual single-family housing starts fluctuated from 750,000 to 1.2 million homes. The supply chain around those number of starts, the number of builders, even considering consolidation, was steady, lot acquisition and development, real estate companies, mortgage lenders, and construction workers all found equilibrium. But when products like 3-1 ARMs with low introductory rates, low rate construction loans, interest from Wall Street in monetizing construction, and fly by night mortgage brokers flipping loans to Freddie and Fannie began, the whole industry was thrown into chaos.

From 2000 to 2005, housing starts ramped from 1.2 million to 1.7 million. In order to supply products like lumber, engineered lumber, brick, mortar, windows, doors, roofing, plumbing materials and fixtures, electrical materials and fixtures, heating and air conditioning units, et cetera, industry invested in new facilities to match the “new normal” rate of construction. Land developers had to acquire and develop hundreds of thousands of new lots, and given rezoning and permitting, the lead time is around 18 months to 2 years. Large builders made up a lot of the slack, but new “builders” were leaving jobs in insurance, banking, landscaping, trades or whomever wanted to fulfill their American dream of owning a business. Small banks were being created out of thin air and lending to all these new, inexperienced builders with 100% financing. All was going well until the bottom fell out.

Beginning in 2007 and continuing through 2009, housing starts fell from 1.7 million to less than 500,000, where it remained until 2013. In 2014, the rate of new starts got back to the historic level of 700,000 homes annually, and remained in the historic band between 750,000 to 1.2 million. The trouble is the intervening years, the population continued to grow and the shortfall grew to 4.5 million homes where we stand today. In fact housing starts really grew rapidly until 2021, when the combined Covid scare and Federal Reserve rate increases caused another correction in the market.

For the long period of sub-3% mortgage interest rates, buyers again flooded the market to buy up all the existing inventory and any new homes being built. This had the combined effect of low supply and massive demand, leading to increased prices of homes. Everyone felt comfortable that we had weathered the worst of the post-2008 market, but unfortunately the Fed created yet another bubble. Once they raised rates well above the historic level, and mortgage rates skyrocketed to 7-8%, the market once again was stuck in a dilemma created by the government.

Keep reading

Union boss who threatened to ‘cripple’ economy lives in luxe 7,000-square-foot mansion

Harold Daggett — the union boss who has vowed to “cripple” the US economy if ports don’t ban automation and raise dockworkers’ wages sharply — had a Bentley convertible parked outside his sprawling mansion in New Jersey this week, exclusive photos obtained by The Post reveal.

Photos taken by drone on Tuesday show the British luxury car parked with its top up outside what appears to be a five-car garage that’s connected to his 7,136-square-foot, Tudor-style home by a covered skyway.

The hulking, two-story mansion — located on a 10-acre property in Sparta, a leafy enclave 50 miles west of New York City — encircles a spacious backyard patio with an amoeba-shaped pool.

Keep reading

Unmasking the Forgotten Villain: How Robert Doughton’s Secretive Anti-Liberty Agenda Still Haunts America and North Carolina Today

Few politicians have had as lasting and detrimental an impact on U.S. governance as Robert L. Doughton. 

Serving in Congress for over four decades (1911–1953), Doughton helped shape some of the most sweeping expansions of federal power in U.S. history. 

His policies, ranging from supporting high taxes to advocating for massive entitlement programs, left a legacy that prioritized government control over individual liberty. 

Despite being celebrated for his role in projects like the Blue Ridge Parkway, Doughton’s broader impact on personal freedoms and economic freedom casts a long, dark shadow. In examining his career, it becomes clear that Doughton was one of the most damaging figures to the principles of limited government and free markets in U.S. and North Carolina history.

Keep reading

The “Financial Coup” That Seized America

In the wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis, former chief economist of the IMF Simon Johnson warned that the same dysfunctional policies he saw in his basketcase banana republics had taken hold in the United States.

Johnson warned that if America didn’t act fast, we would plunge into a “Quiet Coup” as the American financial system effectively captures the government, bailing itself out until we run out of money.

Well, we didn’t act fast. In fact, we got worse.

And here we are.

Our Bankrupt Financial System

In recent videos I’ve talked about the trillion of distress in the financial system, the common thread being that you, the taxpayer, will be bailing them all out – we saw this in the 2023 bank bailouts, pre-paid in the dark.

Of course, given our $35 trillion in national debt, we can’t afford it. But pay it we will, driving that $35 trillion to, according to the CBO, $50 trillion-plus.

At some point, it gets too big to bail out. This means either hard default – they stop paying interest. Or the more likely soft default – they let inflation rip, melting away the national debt along with our life savings. And between here and there is a wholesale fleecing of the middle class and the working class who rely on them for a job.

The Ignored Warning

So, first, the ignored warning by Simon Johnson. I’m no fan of the IMF – their role is essentially feeding their client dictators fresh drugs at massive taxpayer expense. But one thing the IMF does know is dysfunctional governments.

Keep reading

Who Wins When the Longshoremen Go on Strike?

Some things are true — for collectivist communists and individualist capitalists, for all people, regardless of who they are.

For decades now, Americans have been inundated with propaganda that the only entity that cares for them is found in the Democrat party, as collectivism has been promoted as America’s savior and individualism and individual liberty have been castigated as “selfish” and self-serving.  But although there is no shame in looking out for one’s own interests, there is plenty of shame in it when you put the entire population and the nation at risk in the process, which is precisely what the International Longshoreman’s Association is doing, as it just went on strike, four and a half short years after the supply chain suffered a catastrophic break and economic repercussions the nation is still handling. 

Unionists and collectivists claim to be for “the little man” and “the working man,” but in reality, they are only for themselves.  They are special interest groups primarily seeking to make gains for only those who are associated with them, and to hell with all others. 

Early last month, the president and chief negotiator of the longshoremen’s union, Harold Daggett, detailed (15 min., 24 sec. mark) how he would shut the nation down unless his demands were met: “I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means.  Nobody does.”

Yes, it certainly does sound as though Daggett and his people stand for the working man and all Americans, as one can readily see and understand that such a tactic will hurt all Americans, some more than others.  But these collectivists make anywhere between $85,000 and $200,000 a year, depending on how much overtime they work, whereas the average salary in America is approximately $56K.  Their demands are both unreasonable and unrealistic, as they now demand “a 77% percent pay raise increase over six years” and chafe against new technology for fear of lost jobs.  They all have nice little nest eggs set aside and can weather this shutdown infinitely better than those making only minimum wage, who will suffer during this strike, as shelves empty and many products become impossible to find, and all products’ prices rise to new, exorbitant highs. 

The cost of this strike will be approximately $4.5 billion per day, according to investment bank J.P. Morgan.  For each day, one can expect a week to recover, compounding the problem exponentially the longer it lasts.  You can bet your bottom dollar that the corporations will pass along this loss to consumers in higher prices for everything.

Americans concerned over individual liberty would never do this.  We understand that the best solutions are those that only serve all Americans equally.

Keep reading

Here’s How the Dockworkers Strike Could Affect Us

Just in case getting supplies isn’t expensive enough (or difficult enough in the areas hit by Hurricane Helene), now the dockworkers from Maine to Texas have gone on strike. And whether they win or lose their standoff, it’s the American consumers who will lose the most.

Last night, at midnight, the contract between the ports and nearly 50,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired. Workers immediately walked off the job. Thirty-six ports are currently affected by the strike.

(If you plan to use Amazon to stock up, please use my affiliate link to get there. It costs you nothing extra but helps us out a lot!)

What do the dockworkers want?

Well, your mileage may vary. Here’s their statement:

In a statement to ABC News early Tuesday, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) confirmed the union’s first coastwide strike in nearly 50 years was underway. The statement said that “tens of thousands of ILA rank-and-file members” started to set up picket lines at shipping ports up and down the Atlantic and Gulf coasts as of 12:01 am.

“We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,” ILA President Harold Daggett said.

Other information was added.

“We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,” Daggett said in the statement. “They must now meet our demands for this strike to end.”

The fight against having their jobs taken over by robot dockworkers is understandable. They note that the shipping companies made billions of dollars during the pandemic, and they feel some of that should trickle down.

The union’s opening offer in the talks was for a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract, with president Harold Daggett saying it’s necessary to make up for inflation and years of small raises.

ILA members make a base salary of about $81,000 per year, but some can pull in over $200,000 annually with large amounts of overtime.

Keep reading

Doctors: “Port Strike Could Delay Delivery Of Critical Medications”

We may be facing the most significant medical crisis since COVID and almost no one is talking about it. According to Fox Business, 

“Patients’ access to critical medications may be threatened in the event of prolonged strikes at ports along the East and Gulf coasts, medical professionals are warning.”

Sadly, millions of Americans are unaware of just how reliant the United States is on the import of life-saving prescription medications,

Susan Thomas, chief commercial officer of pharmacy benefit manager LucyRx, says most people underestimate how much medication is manufactured outside the U.S. 

The reality of the situation, according to New York City-based emergency room physician Dr. Robert Glatter, “is that a looming strike could impact imports of medical supplies and critical life-saving medicines from other countries that U.S. hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers depend upon to take care of their patients.” 

It could also restrict the amount of life-saving medications and surgical supplies the U.S. exports to other countries, Glatter said.

Indeed, Americans could begin to see drug shortages within 5-7 days after the port strike begins and these delays are on top of existing supply chain challenges that are limiting access to many life-saving drugs:

“While manufacturers and wholesale distributors may carry a month or more of certain drugs, as you get closer to the point of patient contact, namely providers and retail pharmacies, they carry a much more limited supply, potentially five to seven days in many cases,” Basu said. 

Keep reading