Proof Presidential Debates Were Rigged - and By Whom!

From here:

Were the presidential debates unbiased?

Supporters of  Donald Trump have — for weeks — vocally protested the debates were unfair to the Republican presidential candidate.

They were right — and here’s how we know.

With the final presidential debate under wraps, and polls flooding in declaring who the true winner was, it’s important to consider who is in charge of these so-called nonpartisan debates in the first place.

The Commission on Presidential Debates has the responsibility of setting up the debate dates, rules, moderators, and providing “the best possible information to viewers and listeners.”

The Horn News reported in September, before the debates began, that although they claim to be nonpartisan, they were far from it.

Now that the debates are finished, there’s no denying it — Republican presidential candidate Donald
Trump was fighting a biased, uphill battle the whole time.

We took a closer look at the commission members to decide if they are genuinely biased, and what we found is shocking.

The Commission Leadership is made up of 22 members, 2 of which are deceased honorary co-chairmen, former Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. The Commission Co-Chairmen are Ronald Reagan’s press secretary Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr, who is 90 years old, and none other than
Bill Clinton’s press secretary, who is just 62 and has donated thousands to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s previous campaigns.

Of the remaining members, five have either endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or donated to her campaigns.

Not a single member of the committee has either endorsed or donated to Trump.
Trump has zero allies on the debate commission to advocate for a nonpartisan debate. And many of the remaining 13 members are either closely aligned with the Democratic Party, or have publicly criticized Trump.

For example, Co-Chairman Emeritus Paul G. Kirk, Jr is the former chairman of the Democratic National Convention, so it’s safe to assume he would support the democratic candidate in a presidential election.

Antonia Hernandez is a Scholar in Residence at the Clinton School of Public Service Center on Community Philanthropy and former president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which has been outspoken against Trump.

Even the commission’s so-called conservative members have publicly refused to support Trump’s campaign.

John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator, said he wants Trump to leave the Republican Party, according to Newsmax.

Olympia Snowe, also a former Republican senator, said she believes Trump is hurting the Republican brand.

Notre Dame President Reverend John I. Jenkins gave a speech in Mexico in July, in which he said the “vitriol” aimed at Mexicans is “churlish, insulting political theater,” and his aides acknowledged to
The Washington Post that his comments were an attack at Trump.

Perdue President Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. and former Republican Indiana Governor endorsed Romney in 2012 but has so far refused to endorse Trump, or even contribute to his campaign. When asked about Trump, he commented, “I don’t think he takes anyone’s advice.” He invited Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson to speak at Perdue, without ever extending that invitation to the candidate of his own political party.

It’s clear that majority of these members do not have non-partisan mindsets and therefore the debates were definitely not executed in an unbiased way.

Just more proof that the high-power establishment are working together to put Hillary in the oval office.


— The Horn editorial team

TOTAL. HYPOCRITE. 2010 Video of Hillary Lecturing State Dept about CYBER-SECURITY

From here:

This has to be one of the most incredible Clinton videos to come out of the State Department during her tenure there. The woman who told the FBI she remembers no security training whatsoever, is seen here in a video telling State department employees how important cyber security is. Does this mean her memory is so bad she cannot be trusted to run the government? Maybe she just lied. That is not a career move when you lie to the FBI, by the way.



As Written, Reported and Seen First on FoxNews.com:

Despite conducting her own government business through a personal “homebrew” server while secretary of state, Hillary Clinton is seen in a newly obtained video lecturing her staff of their “special duty” to recognize the importance of cybersecurity.

“The real key to cybersecurity rests with you,” Clinton says in the 2010 video, which was obtained by FoxNews.com. “Complying with department computing policies and being alert to potential threats will help protect all of us.”

Clinton goes on in the video to underscore the important work the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security and IT department were doing to guard against cyber-attacks. She warns hackers try to “exploit” vulnerabilities and penetrate department systems. She then urges staffers to log onto the internal cybersecurity awareness website or subscribe to their “cybersecurity awareness newsletter.”

“Together we can do our part to improve the security of the State Department and of our nation,”
Clinton says.

Asked for comment, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told Foxnews.com, "Hillary Clinton needs only to look into the mirror to find the biggest cyber security risk."

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said, "This is not new. It has been widely reported that during Clinton's tenure the State Department issued these kinds of warnings about possible cybersecurity to employees. These warnings were more than appropriate given that it was subsequently confirmed that State's email was hacked."

During her interview with the FBI, according to bureau documents released last month, Clinton claimed she could not remember a number of details regarding the training or guidance she received on various areas of department protocol. The interview summary said Clinton “could not recall” any briefing or training regarding the retention of federal records or the handling of classified information.

She also claimed she could not recall receiving guidance on “email policies outlined in the Foreign Affairs Manual.”

The video marks the latest example of how Clinton ran afoul of the very practices she expected others to follow. As Fox News’ Catherine Herridge previously reported, an internal 2011 department cable shows Clinton’s office once told employees not to use personal email for security reasons.

The same year, Clinton skipped a cyber briefing that the department security team put together just for her, according to congressional investigators and an unclassified letter from the State Department.
In 2010, the same year as the video, some State Department officials were voicing concerns about Clinton’s own email and computer setup. A department report found that two Information Resource Management officials had discussed worries about the system and were told it was approved by the legal department staff.

The inspector general report said it “found no evidence that staff in the Office of the Legal Adviser reviewed or approved Secretary Clinton’s personal system.”

Further, the same report detailed a January 2011 incident where an adviser who provided tech support for the Clinton email system notified a Hillary Clinton aide that “he had to shut down the server because he believed ‘someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didnt [sic] want to let them have the chance to.’” 

Hints Clinton Campaign Set Up Assange Rape Slanders

From here:

I have been looking into the San Fransisco address listed in the Wikileaks Final Report and found something possibly big, who may be behind the Assange Pedophile attacks a corporation called Premise Data Corporation

This address was searched with the association of the business name of toddandclare.com, but that isn't who actually resides there. Who really resides there is a company known as Premise Data Corporation, some sort of private intelligence corporation. I found this due to a Yahoo page after I Ducked(I use DuckDuckGo, I call searches Ducks). Curious, I went onto the Premise site, that lists a different address: 185 Berry Street, Suite 6850 San Fransisco CA, 94107. As you can see it is VERY close to the other address listed in the CA Business registry here(just search for the business name). Image of the record itself I was poking around the site itself and noticed a familiar name on their board of directors: Larry Summers, Lawrence Summers as he is known sometimes. This is the same Larry Summers that is part of the Center for American Progress where “loyal Soldier” Neera Tanden works. There was also a strange autoreply with the subject Larry Summers in the Podesta Leak 8-11-2015

Now this may be nothing but I find it quite strange that a website/company that is attacking Julian Assange just so happens to share an address of record with a corporation that happens to have 2 people that are connected w/ the Clinton Campaign, Larry Summers and Neera Tanden. Suspicious at a minimum but given recent events I am starting to think there may be more of a connection, maybe someone here can help out as well.

Additional Premise Team Members for research

Edit 1 Guess who has a pic w/ Hillary Clinton, the founder of the company

Edit 2: Given this new information can some amazing people(Who don't have work early) look further into the companies that share this address, maybe compare them with the Guccifer 2.0 leaks, I think there were donation lists in there. I will be chomping at the bit and researching as much as possible at work tomorrow as well.

Edit 3(Oct 19 1149 GMT): Wikileaks tweeted our story!. Also I have been inundated with PM's giving new information for me to look into, I promise I read every PM and will look into everything possible and make a new post if I find more good info.

EDIT 4 BIG NEWS(Oct 21 0348AM GMT): We did it guys toddandclare.com just shut theur site down!

Trump's Not-So-Subtle Post-Debate Hillary ROAST!

From here (remember - she hates Catholics LOL)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN7cLyyJgGY



;-)

YES HILLARY IS RIGGING THE ELECTION

From here:

O'Keefe complaint to FEC cites Dems' 'criminal conspiracy'

Operative confirms Hillary-DNC-Democracy Partners-Foval Group chain to set up protests

Published: 1 hour ago Bob Unruh About 

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

Citing a Democratic operative’s confirmation of a chain of command that runs directly from Hillary Clinton’s campaign to agents who “execute … on the ground,” the activists at Project Veritas are asking the Federal Election Commission to investigate the “criminal conspiracy.’

The filing of the complaint with the federal agency follows the release earlier this week of two videos on which Democrats explain how they can attempt to change the outcome of the election through apparently fraudulent means – like having people travel across state lines to vote illegally.

It also follows the filing of an earlier complaint with the FEC, by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to protect the right to vote, preserve the constitutional framework of American elections, and educate the public on the issue of election integrity.”

Both cite the evidence in the videos released by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas.

The videos have resulted already in two Democratic operatives who appeared on them losing their jobs.

Editor’s Note: Be aware of offensive language throughout videos and in quotes from videos.

One is Scott Foval, who had worked for People for the American Way, a George Soros-funded group, and more recently with Americans United for Change.

In the video, he said: “You know what? We’ve been busing people in to deal with you f—ing a—–es for 50 years, and we’re not going to stop now.”

Also, he said he and his agents are “starting anarchy” by creating “conflict engagement … in the lines at Trump rallies.”

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Also now out of work is Bob Creamer, founder and partner of Democracy Partners, and husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

Foval credited Creamer with coming up with a number of ideas and strategies to enhance Democrats’ standing among voters.

The new complaint from O’Keefe’s organization explained his journalists “have uncovered a criminal conspiracy where, in the words of Scott Foval, ‘The way that works is: The [Clinton] campaign pays DNC, DNC pays Democracy Partners, Democracy Partners pays The Foval Group, The Foval group goes and executes … on the ground.”

“This has been done in a manner to evade federal election laws and violating coordinated expenditure rules,” the complaint states.

It is supplemented with pages of evidence.

“The criminal conspiracy involves the knowing and willful creation of coordinated expenditures from prohibited corporate sources. As is detailed numerous times in the Veritas transcript, attached as EXHIBIT A, the supposedly independent speech and actions of third-party groups were directed, controlled, or puppeteered by HFA or the DNC.

“Indeed, the record establishes not just simple violations of the FECA’s coordination provisions, but ongoing knowing and willful evasion of federal election law requirements through a complicated scheme. Because this conspiracy involves large numbers of employees, heightened travel, production, and distribution costs and because of the nationwide scale of the operation, upon information and belief, this triggers criminal penalties…”

For example, one result of the six-month undercover investigation is that “the supposedly spontaneous and independent protests occurring at Donald Trump events nationwide were controlled and directed by Democratic Party operatives.”

“The commission should find reason to believe that Hillary for America and other named respondents have violated 52 U.S.C. [paragraph] 30101, et seq, and conduct an immediate investigation,” the complaint explains. “Because of the weighty public interest at stake here, it should do so within 120 days of the filing of this complaint. … the complainants request that the FEC impose sanctions appropriate to these violations and take further action as may be appropriate, including referring the matter to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation.”

Foval explains the subterfuge about hiring people:

“We can hire any demo that we want. We use the same mechanism to recruit them that we do to make focus groups. … We have to be really careful. Um, because, what we don’t need is for it to show up on CNN that the DNC paid ‘x’ people to … that’s not gonna happen. We need to keep it, you know, I hate to use the Beyonce term, ‘partition,’ but we need to keep the partition. That’s as gay as I’ll get.”

The earlier complaint from the PILF was over the same events.


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When the videos appeared, former House Speak Newt Gingrich also raised questions about the
apparent disdain for the law.

“Where is the FBI, why is the FBI not investigating this?” the former House speaker asked during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, BizPacReview reported. “You have a deliberate willful effort to foment violence, to break up a presidential campaign [and] to intimidate voters.”

The PILF complaint, directed to the office of the general counsel for the FEC in Washington, names Hillary for America, the DNC, Democracy Partners, Americans United for Change and others.
“This complaint is based on information and belief that respondents have engaged in public communications, campaign activity, targeted voter registration drives, and other targeted GOTV activity … at the request, direction, and approval of the Hillary for America campaign committee and the Democratic National committee in violation of 11 C.F.R. 109.20 and 11 C.F.R. 114.4(d)(2) and (3).”

The activities, the complaint explains “potentially registered persons who were not citizens.” They also illegally coordinated political maneuvers between a candidate’s committee and groups that are supposed to be operating independently, the complaint charges.

That puts them in violation of Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the complaint explains.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on Twitter, according to the Washington Examiner, that multiple visits to the White House by a “voter fraud operative” merits “a serious criminal investigation.”

See the second video:

Talk-radio icon Rush Limbaugh said the evidence is worrisome.

“Every Trump rally would feature none of this [violence] unless the Democrats were paying for it. I
think it’s a big deal, folks. The media is complicit. They know who these people are. … They’re in on it. They’re part of the game. … None of it’s organic. None of it’s natural. None of it’s real. Every bit of it is bought and paid for.

“[Democrats] can’t leave elections to chance because they know that, despite the way it may look, the majority of Americans would not support them if they knew who they are.”

Foval said he works backward in his thinking. He first speculates how a charge of voter fraud could be proven, and then he manipulates circumstances and events to avoid those tactics.

He talked about bringing voters from one state to another to vote illegally.

Hiring a bus could be used as evidence of conspiracy, he noted, so people would need to drive their own cars, or better yet, rentals.

There also was a discussion about using local addresses for illegal voters.

He said what needs to happen is to “implement the plan on a much bigger scale.”

“You implement a massive change in state legislatures and in Congress. So you aim higher for your goals, and you implement it across every Republican-held state.”

In Monday’s video, Creamer confirmed, “The campaign is fully in it.”

That video:

Sign the precedent-setting petition supporting Trump’s call for an independent prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton!

Project Veritas says the actions are “behind-the-scenes shady practices with consequences most Americans have seen on national television at Donald Trump campaign rallies across the country.”
“What the media hasn’t reported is that the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee has been directing these activities with, at very best, a very thin veil of plausible deniability.”

Commented Foval at one point, “I’m saying we have mentally ill people, that we pay to do s—, make no mistake. Over the last 20 years, I’ve paid off a few homeless guys to do some crazy stuff, and I’ve also taken them for dinner, and I’ve also made sure they had a hotel, and a shower. And I put them in a program. Like I’ve done that. But the reality is, a lot of people especially our union guys. A lot of our union guys … they’ll do whatever you want. They’re rock and roll. When I need to get something done in Arkansas, the first guy I call is the head of the AFL-CIO down there, because he will say, ‘What do you need?’ And I will say, ‘I need a guy who will do this, this and this.’ And they find that guy. And that guy will be like, ‘Hell yeah, let’s do it.'”

Last week, O’Keefe reported his Twitter account was shut down as he was releasing reports on voter fraud.

In one video he released last week, a Clinton staffer confessed that ripping up voter registration forms – if they are for Republicans – is “fine.”

The video also revealed a sexist atmosphere inside the Clinton campaign in which another staffer boasts he would probably have to “grab a–” twice before he’d even be reprimanded. It underscores the double standard by Democrats who have been critical of the 11-year-old recording of Donald Trump making lewd remarks about women.

In the video, both Wylie Mao, a field organizer for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party of Florida in West Palm Beach, and Trevor Lafauci, a Clinton campaign staffer, agree that ripping up registration forms from Republicans should be “fine.”

“If I rip up completed VR forms, like 20 of them, I think I’ll just get reprimanded. I don’t think I would get fired,” Mao said.

Lafauci, after being told that someone else ripped up Republican registration forms, said, “Yeah, that should be fine.”

When Project Veritas journalists confronted both Mao and Lafauci about the comments they made on camera, they “refused to answer and walked away,” the organization said.

The latest video (Some listeners may find the language objectionable):
See the video showing a top Democrat admitting voter fraud is common:

O’Keefe previously released an undercover video of Alan Schulkin, the New York Democratic commissioner of the Board of Elections, confirming there is widespread fraud.

In the video, he is heard disclosing that organizers use buses to haul people from poll to poll to vote.
“Yeah, they should ask for your ID. I think there is a lot of voter fraud,” he said in the video, which was recorded some months ago.


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Impending Cataclysm

From here:

It all comes down to this. The final presidential debate before Americans head to the polls to decide whether Western Civilization will survive another presidential term. Fox News's Chris Wallace will be moderating the debate, the first time a Fox News personality will have such a privilege.

For the informed voter, for the American who values his heritage, for people around the world who still hold out hope that greatness is possible and desirable, the choice could not be clearer. They can choose a man whose life story defines the American success story, who will tell the truth in the face of great adversity, and protect what is ours from those who would destroy it. Or, they can choose a woman whose entire existence is based in rent seeking through State power, a ruthless lying criminal who married a degenerate for political power, and revictimized his many victims countless times over to maintain her status.

We have a choice. We can choose the type of strength and fortitude that made America great, the spirit of men and women who sailed across an ocean with nothing to form the most powerful economy and military in the history of mankind. Or, we can choose equality with third world savages who make nothing but complaints and pleas for handouts.

A choice like this should not be difficult to make, but elements of our society have clouded the information pool in a way never before seen. At the commander in chief forum, the first and second debates, and throughout all the news coverage, including on Fox to date, Globalist owned media outlets have worked diligently and at great expense to their own credibility to skew the discussion and set America on a course to her utter destruction with Hillary Clinton at the helm. Despite all of this, polls are still neck and neck.

What role will Chris Wallace play? Will he attempt to level the playing field? Will he go after Hillary Clinton the way Matt Lauer, Lester Holt, Andersen Cooper, and Martha Raddatz went after Donald Trump? I doubt it. All Wallace has to do to please his masters is hold himself to the same journalistic standard his leftist counterparts pretend to play. By feigning neutrality, he will leave the scales tipped to Hillary Clinton, and the electorate will be left to do their own research, a task the average dumb as a box of rocks voter simply isn't up for.

Hillary’s Top 13 Acts of Treason against the U.S.

From here and here:

Here is a nice list of 13 actions by Hillary Clinton that could be considered treasonous. From ‘donations’ to ‘birthday gifts’ to the good old pay-to-play influence pedaling, here are the things we know about. Read about the Iran nuclear deal and her public and private positions on issues. Don’t call me surely, but there has to be a better candidate running.

As written by iPatriot:

The last nine days has revealed the inner workings of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and mind – what’s been found hasn’t been pretty or American. Instead what has been seen through the Wikileaks revelations has been incredible details of illegalities, immorality, and treason against the American people. It’s difficult to digest all of the details and with that in mind, through the first 8 days of Wikileaks revelations, the following are 13 of the most relevant emails from Hillary Clinton which show acts of treason.

13 Acts of Treason against the Citizens of the United States

1. Qatar gifts Bill Clinton $1,000,000 for his birthday:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8396#efmAEOAGW
2. Saudi Sheikh won’t donate money to Clinton Foundation unless he receives a phone call from Bill Clinton. Staff responds: Bill won’t do it “unless Sheikh Mo has sent us a $6 million check”:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6775#efmACoADwAIqAJzAOXASM
3. Iran Deal (which Hillary negotiated and defends) “condemns the next generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf”. John Podesta responds with “Yup”:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/727#efmAAGAAJABQAEL
4. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta owned 75,000 shares in Putin-connected energy company:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4635#efmAFyAGUAWLAYP
5. Transcripts from Hillary Clinton’s lucrative closed-door paid speeches delivered to elite financial firms and other special interests groups (which she has refused and failed to disclose to the public after much demand) have finally surfaced:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 (See Attachment)
6. Clinton staff conspiring to stage ‘leaking’ of favorable excerpts from wall street speech, in efforts to calm down the public while leaving out more damaging parts:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8086#efmAYqAgR
7. Leaked private speech, Clinton: “You Need Both A Public And A Private Position”
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmAaQAdiFjUFkd
8. Leaked private speech, Clinton: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with
   open trade and open borders”:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmFjUFkd
9. Leaked private speech transcript shows Clinton’s warm ties to Wall Street’s most powerful figures: Clinton: “There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives” The pressure on officials to sell or divest assets in order to serve, she added, had become “very onerous and unnecessary”:
   https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmDEMDKk
10. Leaked private speech to Goldman Sachs, Clinton: “Wall Street was only accountable for the financial crisis for political reasons. The blame placed on the United States banking system for the crisis “could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really politicizing what happened”:
    https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927#efmA2YA5Q
11. Leaked private speech, Clinton: US will “ring China with missile defense” and has right to rename Pacific Ocean the “American Sea”:
    https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 (See attachment)
12. Hillary Clinton flipped her public position on TPP after her team discussed how she would be “eaten alive” by Labor:
    https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8452#efmAH1APRA0NA5c
13. Clinton speechwriter: “We are trying to find a good way to leak her opposition to the pipeline without her having to actually say it”:
    https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3855#efmAAGADH

The Death of the Virtuous Cycle

By Michael Lebowitz

Authored by Michael Lebowitz via 720Global.com,

Despite many promises, there has been no sustainable economic recovery. The United States, and the developed world for that matter, have made repetitive attempts over the last 16 years to return economic growth to the pace of years long past. These nations are stuck in a cycle in which hopes for economic “escape velocity” get crushed by economic recession and asset price collapse. Following each failure is an increasingly anemic pattern of economic growth accompanied by rising mountains of debt, which ultimately lead to another failure. The perpetual excuse from the central bankers is that not enough was done to foster “lift-off”. In their view, lower interest rates, more fiscal spending and additional quantitative easing will eventually provide the needed spark that will cause the economic engine to fire on all cylinders. In the profound words of Mark Twain:

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

What follows in this article is evidence that current economic policy is not simply flawed in its logic and application but actually destructive. As should be evident to all by now, these experimental monetary and fiscal policies provide short term economic relief but only serve to exaggerate the problems they claim to solve. The elegant Virtuous Cycle that propelled western economies to prosperity has been quietly dismantled and replaced with an unproductive imitation. This new, Un-Virtuous Cycle euthanizes discipline and prudence in exchange for the immediate gratification of debt-fueled consumption.

The Virtuous Cycle

One of the primary differentiating characteristics between rich and poor countries is the presence or absence of physical capital in the form of abundant sophisticated machinery and equipment. These productive assets are accumulated through savings (individual or institutional) which is converted to investment in physical capital. In the natural order, there is a sequence of events properly characterized as The Virtuous Cycle (illustrated below). It is an identity associated with sustainable productive output and growth.

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Saving, or simply the discipline of consuming less than one earns, is a prerequisite for capital accumulation and the chief requirement in the Virtuous Cycle. The amount of saving determines how much investment will take place. Investment in new property, plant and equipment – better tools – fuels new and improved forms of production and leads to increased productivity and enhanced income. Higher incomes increase consumption and produce higher levels of savings, so economic prosperity continually grows. This cycle enables us to produce things of greater complexity than we otherwise could, and thus advance productivity, income and prosperity.
It is logical therefore that government and central bank policies should focus on promoting a healthy savings rate. However, over the last several decades we have seen the exact opposite. Central bank policy dismembers the Virtuous Cycle by punishing savers.

Two Primary Factors of Economic Growth

The impact of misguided economic policy is best understood through an evaluation of the two key components of economic growth.

1.) Demographics – the size of the working population
2.) Productivity – the amount of goods and services that can be produced in a unit of time

The working age population in the United States and most developed nations has become stagnant with the recent on-set of the baby boomers retiring. There is little a country can do to influence this variable outside of a dramatic relaxation of immigration policies which clearly runs counter to the current trend. Productivity, on the other hand, is more readily influenced by policy. Economic policy however, has incentivized a preference for consumption fueled by debt instead of saving which feeds and encourages productivity. Productivity growth is experiencing a multi-year decline as a direct result of these policy errors. As demographic and productivity trends worsen, it should be no surprise that economic growth remains anemic and the outlook will deteriorate further.

Despite the fact that in the long-run it is the primary determinant of a country’s future standard of living and affluence, the importance of productivity is not well understood by many outside the economics profession. As a clinical economic measure, productivity tells us how much an individual is able to produce in one hour of labor. If productivity is growing, then workers are incrementally able to produce more in an hour of work than they were previously. Although productivity can improve for a variety of reasons, it generally occurs because the tools employed make workers more efficient.

In the United States, we are currently experiencing a secular decline in productivity growth and this has troubling implications for the future. As shown below, productivity growth trends in the U.S. and 9 other leading economies are currently measured at their lowest levels since at least the year 2000.

While this fact may seem counter-intuitive given how much technological advancement there appears to have been, Total Factor Productivity and Labor Productivity data clearly point this out. Further supporting this analytical evidence is the consistently poor rate of economic growth, stagnant wage levels and the widening gap of wealth disparity.

Why is Productivity Falling?

The question of why U.S. productivity growth is so weak has been a topic of much debate. Explanations include employer and worker behavior patterns, the influence of a rising service sector economy and the most commonly cited excuse, measurement error. The disparity of explanations implies that most economists do not have a sound diagnosis for this “economic mystery” as Neil Irwin of The New York Times recently called it. One thing is certain to economists – to the extent that productivity is in fact weak and even potentially in decline, a continuation of this trend will have important implications for U.S. and developed world economic growth and, of course, asset prices whose returns are predicated on growth.

No Economic Mystery

Dear experts,

The solution to the mystery is straight-forward. Rising productivity depends upon the perpetuation of evolving complex production which hinges upon saving, otherwise known as consumption deferred. The accumulation of, and refinements to, physical capital through savings and investment provides the cornerstone for the advancement of labor and technology. In other words, productivity requires savings to feed the Virtuous Cycle.

That is, simply enough, the answer to this great economic mystery.

The Un-Virtuous Cycle

Since the financial crisis, a growing number of people are beginning to question the foundation upon which our economic prosperity rests. Our ability and willingness to transact does not appear to have changed but we seem to harbor more doubts. Stagnant growth and incomes aggravate this view. Inflation is reported as worryingly low but the cost of many high expense items such as healthcare, tuition and rents are rising significantly faster than wages. A dwindling middle class is most acutely suffering the consequences resulting from this squeeze.

Maybe the success of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are reflective of the erosion in confidence and trust. Perhaps current generations have realized they are not likely to be wealthier than their parents. Certainly the secular decline in our economic and productivity growth offers clues. Whatever the reasons, the system on which our affluence was built has been quietly dismantled. The doubts and frustrations reflected in all various forms by the general population are among its manifestations. Finding a culprit is also part of the problem because it appears no one can quite put their finger on how we got here. Equity and housing market bubbles are often-cited villains but those and other financial irregularities are the symptoms not the causes.

In a world where governments and central banks of the most affluent countries are manipulating interest rates to zero or even negative yields, the Virtuous Cycle, which depends upon saving and investment, is conspicuously neglected. In its place, the natural order of economic output has been rearranged for political expediency and at times as a reaction to numerous financial crises. A durable, time-tested model of prosperity, Savings-Investment-Production-Income, has been hi-jacked by a model focused solely on consumption, requiring ever increasing levels of debt to grow. It is an impatient, undisciplined model. Not only is such a model unsustainable, it is destructive.

In their textbook Macroeconomics, Rudiger Dornbusch and current Federal Reserve Vice-Chairman Stanley Fischer state:

“When the return on savings becomes negative, one of three things happens: Households sharply reduce their saving or they shift their saving abroad (which we call capital flight) or they accumulate their saving in unproductive assets, such as gold. One way or another, the financial environment for saving is an important factor in mobilizing resources for capital formation and in channeling them from households, via financial intermediaries, to investing firms.”

To paraphrase their point: When the financial environment discourages savings, the investment and production components of the virtuous cycle suffer which also negatively affects productivity and income. That is precisely what we are seeing.

Some may argue that the recent rise in the national savings rate invalidates this perspective. On the contrary, policies that incentivize consumption over savings have been in effect for decades. It is myopic to observe the savings rate over the last few months in an effort to invalidate what is best described as a secular, policy-driven change. The cumulative effects of these policies are quietly corrosive. The savings rate (expressed as a percentage of disposable income) as shown below, averaged 8.9% from 1976 to 1996. Over the most recent 20 years the average is 4.9%.

The subordination of saving to consumption was born in earnest in 1971 when President Nixon closed the gold window and eliminated any form of discipline imposed on the value of our currency. It was further advanced in the Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen eras at the Federal Reserve through so-called “pre-emptive” monetary policy and more recently quantitative easing. Those efforts allowed citizens and lawmakers to shirk their fiscal responsibilities and as a result, the size of the national debt is now seen as a major security risk.

Further proof of this behavior can be seen in the record low yields, and rash of negative yields in the global bond markets. As evidenced by the bond yields in the table below, the incentive to save and fuel the Virtuous Cycle is nil.

Summary

The organic economic structure that made western economies uniquely successful and prosperous has been altered. The virtues of discipline, patience and work ethic have been mortgaged away, traded in for quick growth schemes that yield far less than promised. The Virtuous Cycle of savings, investment, production and income which delivered unparalleled prosperity and opportunity for centuries has been tossed aside by those charged with shepherding this durable but fragile gift.

The nation’s economic illness and her citizens’ growing intolerance is testimony. The developmental effects of this economic subversion has taken decades to emerge. The economy is sick but leaders refuse to acknowledge it, offering only weak reassurances because the implications are deeply troubling. The fact that the Fed and other central bankers were blindsided by asset bubbles and have so wrongly predicted economic activity highlights their lack of understanding of the principles of the Virtuous Cycle.

Unfortunately, ignoring or not understanding the facts does not change them, and if repairable at this late stage, fixing the problem will be very painful. At the same time, and even more importantly, repairing America’s economic foundation first requires proper diagnosis and understanding of the cause as has been presented here.

THE SUICIDE OF THE WEST

From here:

OCTOBER 18, 2016 SHEIKYERMAMI 3 COMMENTS

MERV BENDLE

Dr Mervyn Bendle of James Cook University in Townsville was one of the first people to warn of the dangers associated with Saudi Arabian funding coming into Australian universities. Almost instantly, he was shunned by his colleagues  and systematically eliminated from the wakademic circus. He seems to be recovering. Here is his latest observation on our civilizational suicide:

A treasonous, self-lacerating and nihilistic worldview is now institutionalized throughout academia, the press and political class, which funds with taxpayer dollars the very activists and agitators whose goal it is to sow the ideological contagion of shame and self-loathing

Can the West save itself? Or will it decline and collapse, like all the great civilizations of the past? There are many components of civilizational decline, but one of the most important is demography, involving a plummeting birthrate and a large scale invasion of legal and illegal immigrants, as I pointed out in an earlier Quadrant article, “How Civilisations Die”. This is complemented by another component, which involves the collapse of the culture that sustains the civilization, usually involving the treason of the intellectual and political elites. These become cultural quislings, turning their backs on the very culture that sustains them in their privilege, proudly declaring themselves enemies of their own civilization, and working actively to undermine it, effectively handing over control to the aggressive invaders.

The paradigm for this intellectual treason was established by the Comintern nearly a century ago, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, when Lenin decided that the new Soviet Union slave state would only survive if it was able to foment revolution in the West and could mobilize the intelligentsia to achieve this. The poisonous message these intellectuals were to carry, an ideological contagion, was enunciated vividly by the leading French communist ideologue, Louis Aragon, in 1925:

“We will destroy this civilization that you cherish … Western world, you are condemned to death … We will awaken everywhere the germs of confusion and malaise. We are the agitators of the mind … those who will always hold out our hands to the enemy.”

This treasonous, self-lacerating, and nihilistic worldview is now institutionalized throughout Western academia and it has an ideological stranglehold over political activism, as we see in Australia with the Green-Left. These academics and activists live in a parallel universe where the source of all evil in the world is their own society, in which they posture as reluctantly privileged rebels. Consequently, as Pascal Bruckner observes in The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (2010), “nowadays all it takes to attack Europe is a bit of conformism” to the all-pervasive hatred of the West that constitutes the intellectual monoculture of our society.

The West must repent continuously and unreservedly for the vast litany of sins for which it is held responsible. Indeed, “from existentialism to deconstructionism, all of modern thought can be reduced to a mechanical denunciation of the West”, which is depicted as “the very figure of Satan”. According to this fashionable nihilism, “we Europeans are born with a burden of vices and ugliness that marks us like stigmata”.  Indeed, “a curse is hidden behind our civilization that corrupts its meaning and mocks its grandeur … The whole world hates us, and we deserve it.”

This grotesque vision of their own civilization as a global predator has been systematically promoted throughout academia, the schools, and the media for decades and has poisoned the intellectual atmosphere. Excellent current examples of how this self-lacerating ideology operates at the personal level is the infamous Safe Schools program and the new $22 million ‘respectful relationships’ education program that is also presently being imposed on Victorian school students. It exemplifies Bruckner’s observation that the white male is now a pariah, a monster “genetically determined to kill massacre and rape; he has split himself off from the rest of humanity in order to enslave it”. Consequently, under the new program boys and girls will be taught that males are violent, powerful, and privileged predators:

“Proposed lessons will introduce students to the concept of ‘privilege’, which is described as ‘automatic, unearned benefits bestowed upon dominant groups’ based on ‘gender, sexuality, race or socio-economic class’.”

In particular, boys will be taught in Years 7 and 8 that they enjoy “male privilege” that encourages “control and dominance”, and that:

“Being born a male, you have advantages — such as being overly represented in the public sphere — and this will be true whether you personally approve or think you are entitled to this privilege.”

As with the Safe Schools propaganda, this new program is really just an ideological Trojan Horse dominated by radical ideology, as Kevin Donnelly points out (“Marxist Agenda in Anti-Violence Campaign”), Apparently, whether they are just intellectually thick or utterly cynical, Premier Daniel Andrews and his education minister, James Merlino, are proud to preside over the pedophile grooming, ideological indoctrination, mass brainwashing, and terrorizing of school children.

Nothing however, can trump the all-pervasive anti-Americanism that has an intellectual stranglehold over the Green-Left, academia and the media. For them, as Bruckner explains,

“…evil America condenses in a single place, a single people, and a single system all the abjection of which Europe used to be capable. Parasitical, murderous, arrogant, America seems to bear all the signs by which we recognize the West’s guilt: as rich as it is inegalitarian; dominating, polluting, and founded on a double crime, the Indian genocide and the Black slave trade … it is entirely devoted to the worship of the almighty dollar, the only religion in this materialist country.”

America, in brief, is the global anti-Christ.

The strategy of ideological subversion has proven very effective over the past century, but the cultural demoralization and decline it produces has accounted for many previous major civilizations. In general terms it follows the model of internal cultural disintegration identified by Edward Gibbon in his magisterial Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and the comparison is now routinely made, especially with respect to America. https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2008/05/america-as-the-new-rome/

It seems clear however that it will be Europe that will go first, that the ancestral home of Western Civilization will be Ground Zero in the decline of the West. As Mark Steyn observed a decade ago in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006), Europe faces the “Four Horsemen of the Eurocalypse”:

“Death—the demise of European races too self-absorbed to breed; Famine—the end of the lavishly-funded statist good times; War—the decline into bloody civil unrest that these economic and demographic factors will bring; and Conquest—the re-colonization of Europe by Islam.”

And, of course, the situation has only gotten worse since then – far worse, in fact, as the never-ending Muslim insurgency and endless jihadi massacres reveal. Indeed, according to Daniel Pipes, writing this week in The Washington Times, “Islamist Violence Will Steer Europe’s Destiny”. And sadly this outcome is because

“some of the richest, most educated, most secular, most placid, and most homogeneous countries in the world [have] willingly opened their doors to virtually any migrant from the poorest, least modern, most religious, and least stable countries.”

Tragically, these interlopers share no heritage whatsoever with the essential values, conventions, institutions, sexual mores, cultural, political, and legal systems that underpin and are integral to the liberal democratic societies that they are so eagerly invading. Even worse, they are neither interested in them nor have any respect for them. To them, these open societies are simply an easily transgressed staging post, a place where they can set up their closed monocultural and theocratic enclaves and grow stronger while living off the largess of the welfare states that so eagerly welcome them. Moreover, their community leadership is guided by a firm belief in Islamic supersessionism, the notion that Islam supersedes, surpasses and must displace all previous religions and the civilizations based on them. As Diana Muir Appelbaum explains:

“Islamic supersession can be understood in two senses, as replacement and as erasure. Going forward, Islam will supplant all other faiths. But Islam also controls the time before the birth of Muhammad; it claims to have preexisted all other faiths with the Qur’an pre-existing all other scripture … The claim that Islam has always existed effectively erases all that went before Muhammad. The notion that Islam is the final, true faith, divinely ordained to rule everywhere, has driven Islamic imperialism for 1,400 years.”

It is simply astonishing that purportedly sophisticated societies would so eagerly embrace such a large, aggressive and religiously-driven mass of invaders, especially when the historical record about the inevitable disastrous outcome is so clear. Indeed, this type of civilizational suicide finds a parallel only with era of the ‘Barbarian Invasions’ that undermined and ultimately destroyed the later Roman Empire. At that time, the ruling elites had become decadent, over-indulged, effete, and crippled by self-doubt, lacking the inclination and capacity to confront the external challenges that eventually overwhelmed them, swept their once great civilization away, and ushered in the Dark Ages, from which it took Europe a millennium to recover. Like many of us, Pipes is bemused at this civilizational death-wish:

“Why have mostly Christian countries decided to take in mostly Muslim immigrants? Why do so many Establishment politicians, most notably Germany’s Angela Merkel, ignore and revile those who increasingly worry that this immigration is permanently changing the face of Europe? Why does it fall to the weaker Visegrád states of eastern Europe to articulate a patriotic rejection of this phenomenon? Where will the immigration lead?”

It can lead only to civilizational destruction.

Pipes blames the complacency of the Establishment, pointing out that “what I call the 6Ps (politicians, police, prosecutors, the press, professors, and priests), generally insist that everything will turn out fine”, when it is obvious that this is an illusion, as the enclaves, alienation, aggression, and welfare costs grow exponentially. Compounding the problem is the iron rule of political correctness that forbids criticism or even questioning of these policies:

“The influx of non-integrating Muslim peoples raises the profound question whether Europe’s civilization of the past millennium can survive. Will England become Londonistan and France an Islamic republic? The Establishment castigates, dismisses, sidelines, ostracizes, suppresses, and even arrests those who raise such issues, demeaning them as right-wing extremists, racists, and neo-fascists.”

And this torrent of abuse only exacerbates the crisis by forcing rigid postures of militancy and intransigence onto apprehensive people who initially only wanted to have their voices and concerns heard and respectfully regarded.

In Bruckner’s view, the Western intelligentsia has become “the penitential class par excellence”, and intellectuals “officials of original sin”. In academia and government bureaucracies they preside over a vast ideological apparatus designed to ensure that this secular penance is honoured repeatedly with meaningless ceremonies and hollow observances kowtowing to anything non-Western, however vacuous, while the unparalleled glories of that civilization are ignored, scorned, and disrespected. This contrived world of make-believe is protected and reinforced by laws prohibiting freedom of thought and speech, and by aggressive government agencies that monitor and regulate every act and utterance, threatening criminal charges against those who fail fully to embrace self-hatred or adequately abase themselves before all things non-Western.

In this fashion, a vast cultural discourse of guilt, remorse, and repentance has been created and elevated to a supreme status where it lurks like a supernatural presence, with bureaucrats “appointed to maintain it like the ancient guardians of the sacred flame and issue permits to think and speak”, as Bruckner observes.

What of the future? In Europe, Pipes sees some hope in the rise of anti-immigration political parties, which are now typically winning some 20 percent of the vote but could poll over 30 percent if current trends continue. Such a trend could develop in Australia, especially as the state and federal governments continue their kowtowing to minorities while ridiculing and disrespecting a growing mass of mainstream voters. Whether such a bloc would be able to guide effective political change remains unclear, however, especially in Europe and Australia where so much power is now vested in virtually autonomous, anti-democratic, quasi-judicial, regulatory, punitive, and propaganda agencies, all of which are committed to the debilitating guilt-ridden anti-Western ideology.

Sadly, however, Pipes thinks that Europe’s future will be determined not by statesmen (there are none), but by violence. For him, the greatest question facing Europe is whether it is the elitist cultural quislings or the masses that will decide the continent’s future. If the jihadists continue their reign of terror then the political momentum might swing towards the people; if they are suppressed then the Establishment will remain in charge: “Ironically”, he concludes, “the actions of migrants will largely shape Europe’s destiny”.

Bruckner concludes that the battle must continue in the realm of ideas, and that the balance must be restored:

“We must have done with the blackmail of culpability, cease to sacrifice ourselves to our persecutors. A policy of friendship cannot be founded on the false principle: we take the opprobrium, you take the forgiveness. Once we have recognized any faults we may have, then the prosecution must turn against the accusers and subject them to constant criticism as well.”

These are fine sentiments, and the ideological battle must continue to be fought, however one-sided it is. But Bruckner seems excessively optimistic that there is good will on the side of those who seek continuously to undermine the West and seek to exploit the burden of guilt it has so unwisely accepted. In fact, there appears to be little or no good will there at all and absolutely no openness to criticism or compromise. Indeed, since Bruckner wrote the situation has only become more intransigent and unforgiving.

Ultimately, it seems that the West is caught up in a zero-sum game where there can only be one winner. As it has been for the past century, we are engaged in a fight to the finish with external and internal forces that want only to destroy our civilization and build their tyrannies upon the ruins.