02/13/17

DID FITCH RATING AGENCY MAKE A MOMENTOUS STATEMENT?

By: Kent Engelke | Capitol Securities

The ratings agency Fitch stated the Trump administration has increased the risk to international economic conditions and global sovereign debt markets because of potential changes in trade and other polices.

My translation… Fitch is the first ratings agency that is stating the obvious. The world has dramatically changed and yesterday’s rules may no longer apply. Globalism is dead, replaced by economic nationalism that may alter/harm sovereign economies.

I was flattered that some thought I invented the term economic nationalism, but it was an economic philosophy I studied in a geopolitical/socioeconomic class in 1983. It was over 30 years ago when I was first introduced to the concept of globalism/interdependency versus the then waning status quo of economic nationalism.

For simplicity, economic nationalism is defined as “a body of policies that emphasizes domestic control of the economy, labor and capital formation even if it requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labor, goods and capitol.”

I cannot emphasize enough the significance of this geopolitical/socioeconomic change, especially as the vast preponderance of investing dollars has gravitated to the mega capitalized momentum growth companies, primarily the result of the globalist/interdependent/multipolar environment.

This huge flow of capital has vastly influenced the averages, an influence amplified by the proliferation of ETFs that by their very basic composition suggests past performance will be indicative of future performance, defined as the big get bigger and the small get smaller and fundamental economic and security analysis is regarded as potentially meaningless.

Has a radical change occurred, but are most fighting this change because trillions may now be regarded as “sunk costs?” In other words, is the Establishment fighting a battle that may not be won given the radical change that has occurred in the demands from the electorate?

I have commented many times Main Street may outperform Wall Street for the first time since around 2004. According to one study by Alpha Research, only 46% of individual stocks outperformed the S & P 500 from 2007-2016, the result I believe is the result of indexing and ETFs. A mere 10 companies have accounted for 26.2% of all wealth in the market since 2007.

Perhaps Fitch has offered more evidence to this view that Main Street will outperform Wall Street as I believe 2007-14 was the apex of the globalist environment.

Commenting about Friday’s market, the averages led by the energy and financial sectors ended higher. Regarding oil, it was reported that OPEC has achieved a record 90% compliance with the production cut accord while demand grew faster than expected. Perhaps more significant, Saudi Arabia reduced production even more than it had committed.

I ask was the kingdom forced into this action because of huge demands for monies… monies that this oil rich sheikdom does not have because of gargantuan transfer payments and fighting a war? Saudi Arabia requires $90 oil to balance its budget. Its sovereign wealth fund has dropped from around $735 billion in 2014 to about $430 billion today. Two years ago, Saudi Arabia forecasted a $700 billion fund.

The Treasury market was relatively quiet as oil rose. There were also further talks about upcoming tax cuts, specifics announced in two to three weeks.

What will happen this week? Several inflation indices are posted, retail sales, numerous housing statistics and manufacturing data points.

Last night the foreign markets were up. London was up 0.13%, Paris up 1.10% and Frankfurt up 0.91%. China was up 0.63%, Japan up 0.41% and Hang Sang up 0.58%.

The Dow should open quietly. The 10-year is off 8/32 to yield 2.44%.

02/13/17

It’s Time to Impeach the Judges

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

She endorsed him, and he paid respects at her funeral, but it appears that President Donald Trump hasn’t read Phyllis Schlafly’s book, The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It. Rather than simply Tweet his disgust with rulings against his immigration executive order, Trump and his advisers should read the book, especially Schlafly’s Chapter 15. It offers a series of measures, including impeachment, to stop tyrannical judges.

Originally published in 2004, the book is available as a free download at Schlafly’s Eagle Forum website.

It’s a mess, a complete mess, is what Trump might say of the rulings against his executive order. But as President, he can do something about it. Yet, he has simply issued a series of Tweets, one of the latest being that “dangerous” foreigners are being allowed into the U.S. because of the judicial rulings. But since when do judges decide the foreign or immigration policies of the United States? Where is that written in law or the Constitution?

Two conservative scholars, Dr. John C. Eastman and Hans von Spakovsky, have clearly explained how the judicial rulings against the order are not based on law or the Constitution. What is lacking is an effort by the administration and Congress to remove or restrict the power of tyrannical judges who present their own liberal personal opinions as expressions of the facts and the law.

In matters like this, the media are careful to outline the bounds of acceptable legal opinion. Hence, it is assumed in much of the coverage and commentary that Trump has no option other than to abide by the judicial rulings. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Schlafly’s book explains.

In his column, Eastman writes, “…the notion that a single federal trial court judge can take it upon himself to determine national security and immigration policy, in the face of explicit determinations made by the president with the full support of law actually adopted by Congress, is so far beyond the judicial role as to pose a serious threat, not just to our national security, but to the rule of law.”

Columnist J.B. Williams argues that Trump’s new head of the Department of Homeland Security, General John F. Kelly, appeared to be taking orders from unelected judges instead of the Commander-in-Chief when he issued a statement promising “compliance” with the court order. This constituted a “mutiny” against the President, Williams argued. Kelly knows “that the order issued by Trump was both legal and necessary to the security of the United States and that the Commander-in-Chief had the full authority to issue that directive,” he wrote.

Trump and his advisers should read Schlafly’s book to understand the damage that has already been done by these tyrannical judges.

A lawyer who wrote more than a dozen books, Schlafly listed many examples of how judges have rewritten the Constitution, noting how they have:

  • censored the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools;
  • removed the Ten Commandments from public schools, buildings, and parks;
  • changed the definition of marriage;
  • banned the acknowledgment of God in public schools, at graduations, and at football games;
  • imposed taxes and spending of taxpayers’ money;
  • rewritten laws of criminal procedures;
  • dismantled laws that protect internal security; and
  • upheld racial preferences and quotas in hiring and college admissions

Schlafly wrote, “The cancer of judicial supremacy will not go away until the American people rise up and repudiate it. It’s time for the American people to notify their elected representatives, federal and state, that it is their mission to restore the Constitution with its proper balance among the three branches of the federal government. We must save self government from the rule of judges. The whole future of America depends on it.”

The future is now. The American people don’t have to wait for Judge Neil Gorsuch or others to be confirmed to the high court for this problem to be rectified. The President and the Congress can, and should, take action right now.

Schlafly’s steps to terminate the rule of judges and restore constitutional self-government include:

  • Reforming Senate rules so liberals are not able to defeat constitutionalist nominees by preventing the Senate from voting them up or down;
  • Curbing the power of the judicial supremacists by legislating exceptions to court jurisdiction;
  • Prohibiting the spending of federal money to enforce obnoxious decisions handed down by judicial supremacists;
  • Congress should impeach federal judges who make outrageous rulings that have no basis in the Constitution; and
  • Congress should prohibit federal courts from relying on foreign laws, administrative rules, or court decisions.

Columnist J.B. Williams wonders if Trump is really up to this task. He asks if the President has the backbone to fight and defeat these anti-American activists in the courts in order to “drain this swamp?” He then asks, “Do his appointees, like General Kelly and Jeff Sessions, really have what it takes to put these illegal activists in their place and return this country to the rule of constitutional law?”

In his statement on her passing, Trump called Phyllis Schlafly “a conservative icon who led millions to action, reshaped the conservative movement, and fearlessly battled globalism and the ‘kingmakers’ on behalf of America’s workers and families.”

One of her best and most relevant books was The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It. Trump’s advisers should purchase or download copies of the book and provide them to members of the Cabinet and members of Congress. The book outlines how the president can go beyond Tweets in curbing the power of tyrannical judges.

If Trump and his Cabinet are serious about draining the swamp, writes J.B. Williams, the left must be stopped from using activist judges to thwart Trump’s attempts to secure the USA and enforce our laws. “Or else,” he writes, “the notion of draining this swamp is a joke!”

Trump is now in a position to confront the “kingmakers” in the courts. But he must do more than Tweet his disapproval of them. In his words, they are so-called judges. But recognizing their authority by filing another set of appeals is not the answer. He must seek their removal from the bench.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.