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The Hundred Billion Dollar Man – Jeff Nielson

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

 

 

 

Regular readers are familiar with Warren Buffett’s activities over the past few years. He has been hoarding dollars – lots and lots of dollars. This was first brought to the attention of readers in August 2014. At that time, Buffett was already hoarding $50 billion.

 

With U.S. markets already at bubble levels and the rapidly decaying U.S. economy already showing signs of serious strain, the speculation in that initial article was that Buffett was looking forward to an imminent collapse in U.S. markets – and a feeding frenzy with his mountain of vampire dollars. After all, Buffett was already 83 years old, and his hoard of dollars was already the largest of his entire career.

 

Who knew back then that the bankers would and could continue to pump U.S. markets higher for another three years? Who knew that Warren Buffett would still be alive to see it? Who knew that over the last three years that Buffett’s hoard of vampire dollars would swell to $100 billion in size?

 

How and why could a “long term value investor” like Warren Buffett ever end up with $100 billion investment dollars sitting on the sideline? In a recent article from the Financial Post, Buffett shows that even at age 86 he can tap dance with the best.

 

The Berkshire chief executive officer spoke at length Saturday about his failure to pounce on opportunities in tech stocks, the challenge of lining up large deals, and his frustration with a cash pile that’s approaching US$100 billion.

“We shouldn’t use your money that way for long periods,” Buffett said of the cash during his meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. “The question is, ‘Are we going to be able to deploy it?’ I would say that history is on our side, but it’d be more fun if the phone would ring.”

Buffett sounds like some coquettish 16 year-old, hoping to be asked to the high-school prom. Buffett’s equity portfolio is valued at $135 billion. With $100 billion in cash, that means more than a 40% cash component, an unprecedented mountain of cash in the history of Berkshire Hathaway.

 

If Berkshire Hathaway wanted to invest a few billion dollars in some large corporation, it’s not like Buffett and friends would see any doors slammed in their faces. What’s the real reason that Buffett isn’t doing more buying? The same article sheds some additional light.

 

David Rolfe, who manages about US$6.8 billion including Berkshire shares at Wedgewood Partners, said he wasn’t surprised that Buffett is bummed out by the growing cash pile. Stock markets have been rising for years, making it harder to find attractive investments.

“A run-of-the-mill bear market could certainly solve the cash problem” by offering opportunities for Buffett, Rolfe said. [emphasis mine]

 

It’s not that Warren Buffett can’t find any companies in which he would like to deploy some of Berkshire Hathaway’s (and his own) vampire dollars. It’s that Buffett doesn’t want to pay bubble prices for these equities.

 

When you’re 83 years old, you don’t have long to wait. Apparently, however, the opportunity which Buffett’s banker friends promised him was worth waiting for – for at least three more years. The problem is that no “run-of-the-mill bear market” can provide the Oracle of Omaha with enough stellar opportunities to deploy a mountain of cash this large, not in the time Buffett has remaining.

 

Buffett has named no successor. If he was planning on simply stepping aside and allowing someone fresher/younger to deploy the largest mountain of capital in Berkshire Hathaway history, Buffett has given absolutely no hint of this. On the contrary, all of his public representations indicate that he plans on spending these dollars himself.

 

When?

 

When readers were originally warned that the Next Crash was approaching (November 2014) and told that the most likely time horizon was the spring of 2016, there were several reasons for presenting that prediction. Among them was the Buffett cash hoard.

 

That prediction was obviously premature. Bubble valuations in U.S. markets have grown even more absurd. The mindless parrots of the Corporate media call it “the Trump rally”, despite the fact that all Trump has done since getting elected is exactly what any sane observers expected. He has continued to shoot off his mouth erratically and already managed to get himself involved in several scandals.

 

U.S. markets recently rose again for six consecutive sessions. What was the reason given for the sixth day of rising markets?

 

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite opened at record highs on Thursday after minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting showed policymakers expected the economy to pick up momentum and that they would raise interest rates soon.

 

The U.S. economy is “so strong” that the Federal Reserve is going to raise interest rates (when have we heard this before?). Higher interest rates are bad for the economy. Higher interest rates are bad for markets.

 

Back when these manipulated markets were at least being manipulated in a rational manner, the markets would have gone down on such news. Back when the Corporate media at least feigned paying attention to such phenomena, this would have been portrayed as “irrational exuberance”.

 

Oil prices have generally trended higher over the past year. For more than 30 years; U.S. markets have always gone down when crude oil prices go up. Why? Because higher oil prices are like a tax on the economy, since oil is such an endemic input in modern economies.

 

This is especially true for the world’s premier oil and gas-guzzling economy, the United States. But when oil prices have been going up in recent months, the U.S.’s bubble markets have been going up right along with them. Why? Because higher oil prices are now (supposedly) good for the U.S. economy.

 

Economy needs higher oil prices: Goldman Sachs

According to the new mythology, the U.S. is “a rising energy superpower”. The energy sector accounts for about 6% of the U.S. economy. So higher oil prices are good for 6% of the U.S. economy, and bad for the other 94%, but the U.S.’s bubble markets go higher anyways – and the mouthpieces of the Corporate media continue yammering their absurd propaganda.

 

The U.S. is a consumer economy. The U.S. is currently in the midst of the largest wave of retail sector bankruptcies since right after the Crash of ’08. What will happen if the Federal Reserve actually does (finally) start raising interest rates with this train-wreck economy? Ka-boom!

 

The U.S. retail sector is currently going through the largest wave of bankruptcies in seven years because of several years of weak sales in this consumer economy. The U.S.’s bubble markets have continued to go higher and higher and higher all of this time.

 

The disconnect between U.S. market valuations and the actual fundamentals of the U.S. economy is far, far greater than at any other time in history. Worse than in the Crash of ’08. Worse than in the Dot-Com Bubble. Worse than in the Crash of ’29.

 

This is why Warren Buffett is sitting on a $100 billion hoard of vampire dollars. And since Buffett clearly plans on spending those dollars himself, this means that the Mother of All Crashes is coming soon. That’s what Buffett’s mountain of money is broadcasting to anyone who is paying attention.

 

The Mother of All Crashes will take down almost all asset classes with it. The one possible exception will be ultra-fraudulent Western bond markets, where no legitimate trading has taken place since at least 2008.

 

Even though these worthless bonds have already been manipulated to record highs, they will likely be pushed even higher when the Crash arrives. This will be to fuel the equally fraudulent narrative that “investors are fleeing to bonds”.

 

As readers have also been warned,
precious metals will almost certainly get caught up in the wake of this Crash (assisted by all the malicious might the One Bank can summon). So why favor precious metals as our Safe Haven, despite knowing the bankers will attack these markets?

 

Western currencies are worthless.

 

Western bonds are worthless, the IOU’s of bankrupt nations.

 

Western equities are at all-time highs.

 

Western real estate is at an all-time high.

 

Gold and silver are already at extremely depressed valuations. Beyond this, gold and silver have a 4,000 year track record as a bellwether asset class.

 

It was because of these factors that gold and silver (and gold and silver mining stocks) rallied far harder and far faster than any other asset classes following the Crash of ’08. They will do so again.

 

The Dow just hit 21,000. The NASDAQ just hit 6,000. The Buffett cash hoard has just hit $100 billion. The only way things could get any more obvious would be to see the vultures already circling in the air.

 

 

Questions or comments about this article? Leave your thoughts HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hundred Billion Dollar Man – Jeff Nielson

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

via http://ift.tt/2rOwDXw Sprott Money

After soaring over 100% in the last 3 weeks, Sasa Polyster Sanayi – Turkey's best-performing stock of the year – crashed 19% at the open after regulators admitted investigations into potentially fraudulent transactions.

The regulator cited trading irregularities between March 24 and May 23, when the stock more than doubled to become the top performer on the Borsa Istanbul 100 Index.

The regulator said it’s investigating potentially fraudulent transactions that may have been aimed at creating artificial trading activity. That sent shares in Sasa Polyester Sanayi AS crashing by as much as 19%, the most in more than 16 years.

Of course the solution when any market starts to drop – Turkey’s market regulator imposed a temporary ban on short-selling and online trading.

So – roughly translated – we know fraudulent behavior ramped this thing to the moon but we are not going to allow you poor Turkish investors to sell, because that would be dangerous… we are just protecting you from your irrational self.

via http://ift.tt/2rcNn83 Tyler Durden

Authored by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Entropy never sleeps. It works remorselessly to transform things of value into useless, dissipated waste and heat. Complexity stokes it especially as the law of diminishing returns multiplies the wheels of futility spinning down to zero. Hence, the intellectual decay of American life in which spin is everything, anything goes, and nothing matters.

The latest manifestation of this dynamic is the curious movement that styles itself The Resistance, lately adopted by the grotesque handmaiden of the Deep State that the Democratic Party became in the regency of Hillary Clinton. Its mission is to undo the results of the last national election by claiming that Russia undid it. It pretends to seek the restoration of something — but what? Of dissipated power relations within the Deep State itself?

President Trump is actually taking care of that by turning government management over to his generals and the minions of Goldman Sachs. The generals are reinvesting in the strategic black hole of our military adventures overseas. The Goldman Sachs appointees are making Wall Street safe for the continued asset-stripping of the USA. The last time I checked, Hillary’s gang did not oppose either of these endeavors.

The Resistance employs cadres of useful idiots — Black Lives Matter, “undocumented” visitors, “Antifa,” the LGBTQ “community” — to pretend that it stands for social justice, but these are just straw persons fronting a gang devoted only to regaining the levers of “privilege” — which they also pretend to be against. The Resistance takes its name from the movement in World War Two France that fought the Nazi occupation, thus self-valorizing itself. But the pre-owned styling is just another victory of spin in the public relations nightmare that American political life has become.

It also begs the question: what would a real resistance look like? First, it would oppose the aforementioned asset-stripping that the US economy has become, the transfer of capital in all its forms — monetary, political, cultural, social — from the dis-employed former middle classes to the tiny, select beneficiaries of financial manipulation. Note that the things being manipulated — markets, currencies, securities, and interest rates — are increasingly phantom entities that appear to maintain their value only because the high priests of financial authority say that they do.

The shelf-life of that flim-flam approaches its endgame as it self-evidently immiserates the masses and their sheer faith in its recondite promises dwindles away to nothing. A genuine resistance would begin to deconstruct this clerisy and its institutions, namely Too Big To Fail banks and the Federal Reserve. The best opportunity to accomplish that would have been the early months of Mr. Obama’s turn in the White House, the dark time of the previous financial crash when the damage was fresh and obvious.

But the former president blew that under the influence of high priests Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. And the lower order clerics were allowed run their hoodoo machine flat out in the following eight years. Just look at the long chart of the Standard & Poors index. Tragically, this ever-upward arc is now taken to be the normal state of things, and when it fails the implosion will be orders of magnitude more violent than the last time.

One would think that a genuine resistance would also oppose the growing consolidation of power in the now-colossal spying apparatus of the nation — the often averred to “seventeen intel agencies” that show signs of being actively at war against other parts of the government and against citizens themselves. Hence, the non-stop murmur of allegation about “Russian interference in the election,” going back to the summer of 2016 without either any real evidence, or any clarification of what is actually alleged to have happened.

Another tragic turn is that this fifth column of rogue intel agencies has recruited the major organs of the news to incessantly repeat its allegations until the public accepts the story as established fact rather than just the manufactured story it so far appears to be. Well, the lives of persons and societies founder on versions of the “reality” they fabricate for their own purposes. A genuine resistance would show foremost some fidelity to a reality beyond the spin-factories of self-delusion. And it would lead in the hard work of shedding this over-burden of self-multiplying despotisms.

Maybe this Memorial Day is a good moment to question the claims of the so-called resistance, and perhaps patriotically meditate on what the nature of an authentic resistance would be to the ongoing decay of this nation while it is still possible.

via http://ift.tt/2rxXmYm Tyler Durden

With Mario Draghi praising the European economy in his quarterly speech at the European Parliament, albeit conceding that inflation is still too low for the ECB to remove its unprecedented monetary support, one would be left with the impression of a slow, steady European recovery, also explaining the recent record inflow into European stocks. Alas, as is often the case, the full story is just below the surface. And it is here that a big problem is emerging.

According to the 2017 European Payment Report compiled annually by Swedish debt collector Intrum Justitia AB, a growing number of small and medium-sized businesses in Europe have complained they face excessive delays in being paid for their work, with large parts of the sector seeking tougher laws to address the problem. First discussed by Bloomberg, the Justitia report reveals that 61% of the 10,468 small and medium-sized companies surveyed say they’ve been asked by counterparties to accept longer payment delays than they feel comfortable with. This is a staggering increase of over 30% in just one year: in 2016, that figure was 46%. 

The surge is non-payments is perplexing as it takes place at a time when Europe is said to be actively recovering, with GDP rising, unemployment sliding, PMI surveys at or near post-crisis highs, and confidence  at near record levels.  The development is also “a growing concern” according to Intrum Justitia’s Chief Executive Officer Mikael Ericson, who told Bloomberg “this clearly significantly affects both growth and investments in European companies.”

Even more surprising, in 2011 the EU adopted the “Late Payment Directive” and said Europe’s whole economy is “negatively affected by late payment” and that “for Europe’s valued SMEs, any disruption to cash flow can mean the difference between solvency and bankruptcy.”

As such, the survey suggests that – among other things – Europe isn’t living up to its goal of protecting smaller companies from the liquidity issues they face when payment doesn’t arrive. It also suggests that there has been a sharp decline in liquidity within the supply chain, usually a harbinger of recessionary economic conditions, and hardly the environment in which a central bank sees “recovery.” Quit the opposite.

As Bloomberg adds, a large number of firms surveyed said they want tougher payment rules to combat what Intrum Justitia describes as a “deteriorating payment culture.” Some 40% of businesses would welcome new legislation while about 30% want new voluntary-based codes of conduct.

Going back to the Late Payment Directive, it explicitly advises enterprises to pay their invoices within 60 days “unless they expressly agree otherwise and provided it is not grossly unfair.” Public authorities have to pay for the goods and services they procure within 30 days (or in very exceptional circumstances, 60 days). But the public sector, especially in Greece, stands out for particularly slow payment of its bills.  The European public sector’s average payment time rose to 41 days in the 2017 survey, from 36 last year. In Greece, the average payment time for public authorities is 103 days while in Italy and Portugal, it’s 98 days. Ericson says those numbers “should be troubling news to European governments, as their own authorities hinder efforts to stimulate growth and job creation.”

But the most troubling finding of the survey is that low interest rates – the only policy crutch that has been somewhat effective in Europe in recent years, even if it meant the ECB’s balance sheet is now the largest in the world – have lost their effectiveness, and only 13% of firms surveyed said low borrowing costs have led to an increase in their investments, with 81% reporting no change.

Justitia’s CEO Ericson concludes that with 4 of 5 companies saying low rates aren’t encouraging more investment, “it’s now all about cash flows” and that “ensuring stable cash flows early on” is now “more important” than investing in growth.

There are two major concerns emerging from the survey findings: first, as Ericson’s data suggest, the flow of cash within Europe’s businesses is rapidly declining, leading to surging receivables and non-payments. Second, while low rates may no longer stimulate businesses, it is certain that rising rates will adversely impact them and further exacerbate this troubling trend, which unless remedied immediately may culminate with mass corporate defaults. Finally, small and medium businesses are the bedrock of any stable “developed” economy. If Europe’s SMEs are signaling a cash flow alarm, how is it possible to claim a European recovery is taking place?

via http://ift.tt/2rd4c2x Tyler Durden

It appears it's time for Woods to swap one driver for another…

via http://ift.tt/2s6UDT0 Tyler Durden

The Trend Retains the Name

Intro by Vince Lanci  and Bon Scott for Soren K. Group

The pattern continues in Gold, with last week’s move reaffirming the wave count Enda is using below. Friday’s rally puts the market right above the high on the 30 minute chart established in the previous “5”. The next  “1” would be completed if gold pierced the $1271.21 level. After that, any retracement that holds $1259.78 further confirms a wave  seeking final extensions to the $1550 area. A drop below $1247 at this point puts into  question the pattern, but does not negate it. 

The 4 hour chart shows a nice traditional channel with an upward bias that also respects the counts described. Note the steepness in the rally in that chart. Impulsiveness is in play now. To clarify, we identify “impulsiveness as a negative describing momentum chasing funds. But the term is not being used the same way here. The  author is describing a market that is following the path of least resistance; which right now is higher. This does warn of equally violent pullbacks, but until the wave count is put into question below $1247 the short term and long term bias are aligned.

The daily chart shows the macro goal of this pattern: a “corrective” high in the $1550 area. Nothing new here. But that is what bulls want right now. And they are getting it.

 GBPUSD, JPY, and Gold Walking Hand in Hand?

Other currencies are lining up to corroborate the  count here as well. As her title implies, a GBPUSD high is potentially indicative of an acceleration  in Gold. We are fans of JPY behavior when it comes to Gold correlation. Note the similarities at the 30 minute and daily charts of the Gold and the JPY below in the analysis. Here is a quick overview. 

?

Why is this? There are several potential reasons for the eerie parallel between JPY and Gold. One simple one is this. In Asia, the JPY is viewed as the most stable regional currency. The Yen is viewed as the USD of the far east. So when Chinese and other Asian players seek safety, the buy Gold and Yen as well as USD if the crisis is EU based. We feel as the Asian Cartel picks up more strength and the USD Petrodollar becomes less powerful, this JPY/ Gold positive correlation will strengthen more.

Enda’s GBP/USD noted pairing is just icing on a Golden cake to us. But we are happy to now see it. –  SKG

GBPUSD top in place, GOLD ready to rocket?

by Enda Glynn of BULLWAVES.ORG

GOLD – 30 min

4 Hours

Daily

My Bias: Long towards 1550
Wave Structure: ZigZag correction to the upside.
Long term wave count: Topping in wave (B) at 1550
Important risk events: USD: N/A. 

Today’s rally in GOLD has triggered the alternate wave count for wave ‘ii’ brown which I had spoken about.
That means wave ‘ii’ brown traced out a running flat which bottomed at 1247.
The rise off that low now has a nice impulsive look to it,
and one more push up would break the resistance level and create a clear five wave form off the low.
That type of action would complete wave ‘1’ pink.
Wave ‘2’ pink should find support at 1259.
Any break of 1247 form this point will signal that wave ‘ii’ brown was extending into a more complex form.

For early next week, watch for a break of 1271 to prove the bullish case.

Thats it for this week, I wish you all a happy and peaceful weekend.

GBPUSD

30 min

4 Hours

Daily

My Bias: short below parity.
Wave Structure:  continuing impulsive structure to the downside in wave (5)
Long term wave count: decline in wave (5) blue, below parity
Important risk events: GBP: N/A. USD: N/A. 

Well!
The market finally gave us the action which the main wave count had called for.
That is an impulsive decline in a possible wave ‘3’ grey and a break of that important support line at 1.2865.

The focus has now fully shifted to the downside, and the beginning of a renewed downtrend in wave (5) blue.
The indesision in the wave pattern over the last few days was resolved with a very impulsive third wave down.

Wave ‘2’ grey traced out a running flat correction, a wave which is always throws the cat amongst the pigeons!
At the moment I can count five waves complete ‘within wave ‘3’.
For next week we should get a three wave correction in wave ‘4’ grey and wave ‘5’ grey will likely decline into the trend line once more.
Support at 1.2865 now becomes a significant resistance level and should hold the price down for now.
Look for wave ‘4’ grey to complete below 1.2865 on Monday.

USDJPY

30 min

4 Hours

Daily

My Bias: LONG
Wave Structure: rally in wave [C]
Long term wave count: wave [C] is underway, upside to above 136.00
Important risk events: JPY: N/A. USD: N/A. 

Despite further declines today in USDJPY,
The price did not take out the support at 110.85 which leaves the bullish short term wave count intact.
Today’s decline completes a three wave form off the recent high labeled wave ‘1’ pink.

The current wave count still calls for a major rally in wave ‘3’ pink, and the support is at that wave ‘2’ low of 110.85.
If the price breaks 111.95, then wave ‘3’ will likely be underway.
A break of 111.47 strengthen the bullish case in the short term.
In the early trade next week, watch for the key support at 110.85 to hold, and a break of 111.47.

DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS

30 min

4 Hours

Daily

My Bias: market topping process ongoing
Wave Structure: Impulsive 5 wave structure, possibly topping in an all time high.
Long term wave count: Topping in wave (5)
Important risk events: USD: N/A. 

The DOW is now moving in a corrective pattern, possibly in wave ‘ii’ pink.
I have labelled the short term chart as a complete wave ‘a’ and ‘b’ in blue.
That leaves wave ‘c’ blue to the downside to finish off wave ‘ii’ pink.

I have marked 20925 as the initial target for wave ‘c’ blue.
This is the low of the previous fourth wave.
20875 marks the Fibonacci 38.2% retracement level.

For Monday, a break of 21037, the wave ‘a’ low will signal wave ‘c’ has started.
The low at wave ‘ii’ pink offers the next best opportunity to enter long.

It is Memorial Day on Monday, and U.S market is closed, the London market is closed also for the summer bank holiday.
So, I will see you all again after the close on Tuesday the 30th.

More analysis HERE

 

Good Luck

via http://ift.tt/2rOpp5y Vince Lanci

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

What would America look like today if the dream of our Founding Fathers of a limited central government had actually been realized? We have become so accustomed to big government that many of us simply assume that this is the only way that things can be done. But the truth is that things don’t have to be this way. We can have the kind of very limited federal government that our forefathers originally intended, but it is going to take a great deal of education and an enormous amount of political engagement in order to get there. On this Memorial Day, we will remember those that have died for our country, but let it also be a call to action. In every generation, Americans have had to stand up to defend the cause of liberty and freedom, and it will be no different in our generation. Just like during the Revolutionary War, there is no guarantee that we will be able to save America from the forces that are trying to destroy it, but if we sit back and do nothing they will win by default.

Just because there is no war to fight does not mean that the threat that we are facing is any less serious than what other generations of Americans have had to face. Over the last several decades, the U.S. Constitution has essentially been shredded, and at this point our republic is basically hanging by a thread. If we surrender to the left in this generation, the country that our forefathers envisioned may be gone for good.

Today I would like to share with you an excerpt from my upcoming book. It will be released about halfway through 2017, and when it is out you will be able to find it on my author page. As you will see, limited government is something that I am quite passionate about…

*  *  *

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.” (George Washington)

Big government tends to suck the life out of everything. If you doubt this, just look around the globe. In nations where a central government dominates every aspect of society, the people seem quite lifeless. Of course an extreme example of this is North Korea. Their entire culture is centered around a philosophy known as “Juche”, and in this philosophy the “leader” essentially becomes an object of worship. Literally everything in North Korea revolves around the state and the “leader”, and as a result most of the population resembles a horde of mindless zombies.

On the other hand, the most dynamic societies throughout human history have always been the ones where people have had a tremendous amount of freedom to express their passions and creativity. There is a reason why we saw an unprecedented explosion of remarkable inventions in early America, and there is a reason why so many millions of immigrants have risked their lives to get here. Liberty has always been such a rare commodity in our world, and almost all governments eventually become tyrannical. That is why it is so imperative that we defend the liberty that we still have in this nation.

Our Founding Fathers envisioned a country where freedom and liberty would be maximized. Of course there always must be some sort of government, because otherwise you would have total anarchy. We want potential thieves and murderers to be frightened of the power of the law, and we are thankful for those that protect us from them. But way too often it is government that becomes the greatest threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that is the sort of tyranny that we desperately wish to avoid.

Today, there are literally hundreds of thousands of statutes, rules and regulations on the federal level, and when you throw in the state and local levels you get a total that is in the millions. Virtually every aspect of our lives is very tightly regulated and controlled these days, and this has been going on for so long that most people have begun to accept it as normal.

But the way our society works today is definitely not “normal”. Let me share with you an example from the state of California that makes my blood boil. If you can believe it, government officials actually fined one farmer 2.8 million dollars for plowing his own field…

The California farmer who became the poster child for EPA reform under President Donald Trump is being fined $2.8 million by state and federal regulators for plowing his own field in Tehama County.

 

According to a story in the Redding Record Searchlight:

 

“The case is the first time that we’re aware of that says you need to get a (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) permit to plow to grow crops,” said Anthony Francois, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation.

 

“We’re not going to produce much food under those kinds of regulations,” he said.

 

However, U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller agreed with the Army Corps in a judgment issued in June 2016. A penalty trial, in which the U.S. Attorney’s Office asks for $2.8 million in civil penalties, is set for August.

In early America, they would have howled with laughter if someone would have suggested that farmers should be required to get permission from the government in order to plow a field and grow food.

This is just one example that shows why I am proposing that the Environmental Protection Agency should be completely shut down. I am very much in favor of protecting the environment, but I believe that the citizens of each state should decide how their own natural resources are managed.

And at this point it has become exceedingly clear that the EPA is wildly out of control. Prior to the Trump administration, the EPA had been operating under Bill Clinton or Barack Obama for 16 of the previous 24 years, and it is absolutely packed with radical leftists that are obsessed with promoting their own political agendas. Instead of trying to fire everyone, the easiest thing would be to just end the agency and start completely over.

If you are not with me yet, perhaps another outrageous example will persuade you. The following comes from Fox News…

A Wyoming man threatened with $16 million in fines over the building of a stock pond reached a settlement with the Environment Protection Agency, allowing him to keep the pond without a federal permit or hefty fine.

 

Andy Johnson, of Fort Bridger, Wyoming obtained a state permit before building the stock pond in 2012 on his sprawling nine-acre farm for a small herd of livestock.

 

Not long after contruction, the EPA threatened Johnson with civil and criminal penalties – including the threat of a $37,500-a-day fine — claiming he needed the agency’s permission before building the 40-by-300 foot pond, which is filled by a natural stream.

(http://ift.tt/1rSd1gZ)

Could you imagine being threatened with 16 million dollars in fines for constructing a pond on your own property?

This isn’t how America is supposed to operate.

I really don’t understand how we can still claim to be “the land of the free” when we allow leftist control freaks to dominate our lives down to the minutest detail.

The left always wants government to become bigger and bigger and to get more and more control. They want a government that is going to guide them safely through life and that will give them everything that they need. But every time government grows, liberty and freedom are diminished.

Yes, liberty and freedom can be dangerous and messy sometimes. But living free sure beats being told what to do every single moment of every single day.

One of the things that greatly troubles me is that progressives almost completely dominate our system of public education. Our public schools have now become liberal indoctrination centers, and survey after survey has shown that each successive generation has moved to the left compared to the preceding generation.

That is why it is so imperative that we end federal interference in education and return control of our schools back to the local level. I would shut down the Department of Education and I would cut off every penny of funding for Common Core.

Even though we spend far more on education than anyone else in the world, we are producing absolutely disastrous results. The following comes from a CBS News report…

Half of American Millennials score below the minimum standard of literacy proficiency.

 

Only two countries scored worse by that measure: Italy (60 percent) and Spain (59 percent). The results were even worse for numeracy, with almost two-thirds of American Millennials failing to meet the minimum standard for understanding and working with numbers.

 

That placed U.S. Millennials dead last for numeracy among the study’s 22 developed countries.

(http://ift.tt/1GAB19Z)

Our public schools are failing badly, and we need to get them fixed. But we also need to greatly support parents that are pursuing other educational avenues such as homeschooling and private schools. At this point I completely understand why any parent would want to keep their kids out of our horrific public schools, and ultimately our entire system of education needs to be completely rebuilt from the ground up.

Big government sucks the life out of the economy as well. Over the past ten years, the U.S. economy has grown at an average yearly rate of just 1.33 percent, and the only other era in U.S. history when economic growth was so bad was during the 1930s.

The business community is being absolutely strangled by rules, regulations, red tape and excessive taxes, but the Democrats always want to pile on more. Big corporations can hire lots of people to comply with all of the demands that government places on them, but small businesses and entrepreneurs are rapidly becoming an endangered species.

Today, there are less Americans that are self-employed than there were 27 years ago. In April 1990, 8.7 million Americans worked for themselves, but in April 2017 only 8.4 million Americans were working for themselves.

That may not sound that bad until you realize how much our population grew over that time frame. In 1990, the population of the United States was 249 million, but today the population is 321 million.

So the percentage of Americans that are working for themselves has gone way, way down.

The solution is to get the government off of our backs. The greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was between the Civil War and 1913. During this era there was no income tax, no IRS and no Federal Reserve. Many on the left would consider that to be a recipe for disaster, but instead there was an explosion of innovation and industry that was absolutely unprecedented. The following is how Wikipedia describes the economic conditions during this period of time…

In the last third of the 19th century the United States entered a phase of rapid economic growth which doubled per capita income over the period. By 1895, the USA leaped ahead of Britain for first place in manufacturing output.^[175] For the first time, exports of machinery and consumer goods became important. For example, Standard Oil led the way in exporting kerosene; Russia was its main rival in international trade.^[176] Singer Corporation led the way in developing a global marketing strategy for its sewing machines.^[177]

 

The greatly expanded railroad network, using inexpensive steel rails produced by new steel making processes, dramatically lowered transportation cost to areas without access to navigable waterways. Low freight rates allowed large manufacturing facilities with great economies of scale. Machinery became a large industry and many types of machines were developed. Businesses were able to operate over wide areas and chain stores arose. Mail order companies started operating.^[119] Rural Free Delivery began being implemented in the early 1890s, but it was not widely implemented for a decade.^[178]

 

Companies created a new management systems to carry out their operations on a large scale. Companies integrated processes to eliminate unnecessary steps and to eliminate middlemen.^[119]

 

An explosion of new discoveries and inventions took place, a process called the Second Industrial Revolution. The electric light, telephone, steam turbine, internal combustion engine, automobile, phonograph, typewriter and tabulating machine were some of the many inventions of the period. New processes for making steel and chemicals such as dyes and explosives were invented. The pneumatic tire, improved ball bearings, machine tools and newly developed metal stamping techniques enabled the large scale production of bicycles in the 1890s. Another significant development was the widespread introduction of electric street railways (trams, trolleys or streetcars) in the 1890s.

(http://ift.tt/2rMl3w8)

But the progressives couldn’t leave a good thing alone, and in 1913 the Federal Reserve was established and a federal income tax was instituted.

Since that time there have been 18 distinct recessions or depressions, and now we are entering another one.

We are always asking our politicians to “fix the economy”, but the truth is that the best thing that they can do is to get out of the way.

If you take the shackles off, free enterprise works exceptionally well.

Those that follow my work on a regular basis already know that I believe that the Federal Reserve should be shut down, that the IRS should be phased out, and that the federal income tax should be reduced as much as possible with the eventual goal of eliminating it completely.

It has been said that nothing is inevitable except for death and taxes, but there is nothing that says that we must have an income tax.

We have had an income tax for so long that most people could not imagine life without one. But the United States absolutely thrived without one during the decades prior to 1913, and today states such as Texas and Florida are doing quite nicely without a state income tax.

There are lots of other ways to fund the government that do not involve an income tax. And actually only 46.2 percent of all federal revenue is brought in through taxing individual incomes. If we cut the size of government in half, we might even have some money to spare.

Of course considering the fact that we are 20 trillion dollars in debt, the truth is that we don’t have a single penny to spare, but I think that you get my point.

I just hope that you are able to see that life is generally better when government is reduced to the proper size and scope.

We should be able to say what we want to say without fear of retribution.

We should be able to live out our convictions and worship as we please.

We should be able to protect our own homes and do what we want with our own property.

We should be able to raise our own children and make our own health decisions.

We should be able to be free from the fear that the government is watching, tracking and monitoring all of our electronic communications.

In every human heart there is a hunger to live free, and big government is the enemy of freedom.

The dreams that our forefathers once had for this nation may have faded, but they aren’t dead just yet.

A new generation of patriots is rising, and we are determined to take our country back.

via http://ift.tt/2s6Q37g Tyler Durden

In his first public event since returning to Washington, D.C. from an overseas trip,
President Trump is scheduled to give remarks during a Memorial Day wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday morning.

Trump has been tweeting his support of the nation’s bravest already…

Honoring the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to America. Home of the free, because of the brave. #MemorialDay????????

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2017

Today we remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in serving. Thank you, God bless your families & God bless the USA!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2017

I look forward to paying my respects to our brave men and women on this Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery later this morning.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2017

Live Feed – scheduled to begin at 10:55 ET

 

via http://ift.tt/2r4oahq Tyler Durden