TRENDS ON THE ECONOMIC AND MARKET FRONT
TOP TREND 2023, OFFICE BUILDING BUST: INVESTORS BACK AWAY FROM DOWNTOWN PROJECTS
Remote workers have moved out of city centers. Now investors are following them.
Real estate trusts focused on investment in downtown areas are trading at less than half their pre-COVID levels, The Wall Street Journal reported. Lenders are demanding extra interest to make loans against office buildings; bonds to support New York City’s bus and subway system have a hard time finding buyers.
ECONOMIC UPDATE – MARKET OVERVIEW
In identifying, analyzing and forecasting trends, it is essential to understand that all things are connected. As Chief Seattle said in 1855, “All things are connected, like the blood which unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
U.S. BOND MARKET BETS ON RECESSION
Investors in treasury bonds are raising their bets that the U.S. Federal Reserve’s steady stream of interest rate increases will tip the economy into recession this year, even though the stock prices stay high and a growing number of economists doubt the economy will shrink, the Financial Times reported.
FED PROBABLY WILL HIKE RATES MORE SLOWLY, POWELL SAYS
After raising interest rates 10 times in as many meetings, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee is likely to move rates higher less often, Fed chair Jerome Powell told the House financial services committee on 21 June.
THE AMERICAN DREAM TURNING INTO A NIGHTMARE
A key component of the traditional “American Dream” is the ideal that anyone can climb from poverty to prosperity by their own hard work.
EVICTIONS SKYROCKET AFTER COVID-ERA PROTECTIONS EXPIRE
Since the federal ban on COVID-era evictions ended on 21 October, 2021, evictions have shot up across the U.S. and by as much as 50 percent in some cities.
HARD TIMES AHEAD FOR PRIVATE LENDERS, MOODY’S WARNS
The private credit industry—lenders other than banks, such as private equity firms—is confronting its “first serious challenge” as tens of billions of dollars in loans made at the height of a booming economy are coming due amid slumping global business activity, Moody’s Analytics said.
YELLEN AGREES WITH CELENTE: MORE BANKS WILL MERGE
More banks will merge this year as their costs rise, operating margins shrink, and other institutions offer higher interest rates to depositors, U.S. treasury secretary Janet Yellen said at last week’s conference in Paris on global debt and climate issues.
U.S. HOME PRICES FALL BY MOST SINCE 2012
The median U.S. home price sank by 3.1 percent in May in the largest year-over-year drop since December 2011, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported.
REMOTE WORKERS MORE FOOTLOOSE NOW THAN PRE-COVID
Before the COVID War, working at home was a rare privilege and most who enjoyed it were comfortable being close to the office when they needed to stop in.
FEDEX SALES DROP 10 PERCENT IN THIRD QUARTERLY DECLINE
Fedex sales fell 10.1 percent to $21.9 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter ending 31 May, the company reported. Its share price dipped 1 percent on news of the shipper’s third consecutive quarterly decline.
TOP TREND 2023, OFFICE BUILDING BUST: EMPTY OFFICES MULTIPLY IN SILICON VALLEY
As we had long noted, it was the Geeks who were the first to fight the COVID War by ordering their employees not to come to work because they would get/spread the virus. Now, the Silicon Valley bonanza that they created with the dawn of the Internet Revolution has turned to dusk.
TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT
WHEN THE ECONOMY FALLS JOBS GO WITH IT
It’s plain and simple. Across the globe, there are more and more forecasts for rising interest rates and more fears of recession. In this 44 of our job-cut report, the biggest job cuts are from the UBS banksters who are ready to fire some 35,000 Credit Suisse employees following its emergency takeover of the bank.
GET READY FOR THE WORST: WORLDWIDE ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN
Activity in the services economy in Australia, the Eurozone, and Japan fell more sharply than expected, according to purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) published last week by S&P Global, while manufacturing activity in key locales continued to be weak.
CENTRAL BANKS: NOW THE HARD PART BEGINS
Overall inflation has been falling in most countries in recent months as central banks have used higher interest rates to rein it back.
IMF DEVELOPING GLOBAL DIGITAL CURRENCY PLATFORM
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is developing a platform that central banks’ digital currencies (CBDCs) can use to clear transactions between countries, executive director Kristalina Georgieva announced on 19 June.
EU LOSES CONFIDENCE IN CHINA’S ECONOMIC POWER
European businesses are less confident in China’s economy now that its expected post-COVD economic boom has busted and its relations with Europe and the U.S. are deteriorating, according to a survey by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.
SPOTLIGHT: EUROPE’S ECONOMIC CRISIS
Business activity in the 20-country Eurozone continued to slow this month after the region fell into a technical recession during this year’s first quarter, as we reported in “Eurozone in Recession” (13 Jun 2023).
UKRAINE WAR TREND UPDATE
AS U.S. INFRASTRUCTURE ROTS, U.S. KEEPS UKRAINE WAR ROLLING AS ‘BIGS’ CASH IN WITH WAR PROFITS
Still optimistic that there will eventually be a country to reconstruct, the U.S. announced last week that it will provide Ukraine with another $1.3 billion for its post-war rebuilding effort, while insisting that ultimately Russia will be handed the bill.
ZELENSKY: U.S. HAS 2 CHOICES IF UKRAINE IS DEFEATED: WATCH THE DEMISE OF NATO, OR GO TO WAR
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said last week that the U.S. will be faced with two bleak choices if Kyiv loses the war with Russia.
COMEDIAN ZELENSKY ADMITS COUNTEROFFENSIVE IS FAILING, SAYS IT’S NOT A MOVIE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—who has benefited from Hollywood adulation that included made-for-the-camera visits by Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, and Orlando Bloom—admitted last week that the long-anticipated counteroffensive is faltering and reminded reporters the war is not a Hollywood movie.
DESPITE STALEMATE, ZELENSKY KEEPS HIS WESTERN-BACKERS HAPPY, SAYS HIS FORCES ARE ‘ACTIVELY DESTROYING THE ENEMY’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week must have made his Western-backers happy when he told reporters that his forces were “actively destroying” Russian troops positioned in his country.
U.S., BRITAIN ‘FULLY DRAGGED’ INTO UKRAINE WAR IF THEIR EQUIPMENT IS USED TO STRIKE CRIMEA
Russian Defense minister Sergey Shoigu said Russian intelligence indicates that Ukraine is coming up with plans to use U.S. and U.K.-made artillery to strike Crimea, a move that would further not only escalate the Ukraine War, but it would officially put the U.S. and U.K. at war with Russia.
EU ANNOUNCES NEW SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA THAT WILL ONLY HURT EUROPEANS
There’s an old saying that goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
LAVROV SAYS HE’S NOT WORRIED ABOUT NATO OFFICIALLY JOINING THE CONFLICT
Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said last week that he is not worried about the prospect of NATO officially joining the war effort and fighting for Ukraine after the near constant saber-rattling from Brussels.
FUCK PEACE! U.S. MOBILIZES TO TARGET COUNTRIES WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT AGAINST RUSSIA
As we have long noted, those who speak out for peace and hold and attend peace rallies, such as Gerald Celente, are blackballed and ridiculed by the “libtard” people and the press.
WAGNER GROUP MOVES ON MOSCOW AS WEST TRIES TO PORTRAY PUTIN AS UNDER FIRE DOMESTICALLY
The only way that Russia can “lose” the Ukraine War is if there is an internal uprising, so when reports emerged on Friday that Yevgeny Prigozhin was advancing on Moscow with his mercenary forces and the Kremlin was in chaos, it was music to the Presstitute media’s ears.
FEATURED TRENDS GUEST ARTICLE By Paul Craig Roberts
PUTIN SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE HEAD
Putin’s latest speech is one that should never have been made. With his ill-considered speech, Putin has lent his weight to U.S. neoconservative propaganda that he is in a weakened and challenged position and that the U.S. can win in Ukraine. With the Ukrainian forces essentially defeated, the fake news “mutiny” is precisely what the neoconservatives needed to keep the conflict alive, which is why Scott Ritter thinks Victoria Nuland might have instigated the “coup.”
FEATURED TRENDS GUEST ARTICLE by Dr. Joseph Mercola
MORE REASONS TO QUIT USING ANY ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned people not to consume aspartame (Equal), sucralose (Splenda) or other artificial sweeteners for weight control.
PRESIDENTIAL REALITY SHOW® 2024
PRESIDENTIAL REALITY SHOW: WSJ ATTEMPTS TO PAINT RFK JR AS CONSPIRACY THEORIST, DOING MURDOCH’S BIDDING
The concerted effort by the corporate media complex in the U.S. continued its attempt to write Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off as a loon last week with a Wall Street Journal article that—as expected—tries to paint him as a conspiracy theorist.
ABORTION BECOMING ISSUE REPUBLICANS WANT TO GO AWAY
Red states that celebrated the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade are now dealing with the political realities of what no abortion access has on voters.
TRENDS IN TECHNOCRACY by Joe Doran
IS AMAZON LOOKING TO CANCEL HUMAN AUTHORS?
Is Amazon looking to dominate the bookselling space even more than it does already, by deploying AI to generate fiction and nonfiction content?
THIS WEEK IN SURVEILLANCE
Using deep-learning neural net AI to mine public (and certainly other) data, and report on travelers to government agents?
TRENDS IN CRYPTOS
IMF SOFTENS CRYPTO STANCE…FOR THE MOMENT
A new report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has moderated previous calls for outright bans of cryptocurrencies.
BLOCKCHAIN BATTLES
On the surface, it has seemed a (sort of) positive development: the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, one of the largest U.S. based banks, Bank of New York-Mellon, and the largest U.S. crypto exchange, Coinbase, all working together to gain the greenlight for a Bitcoin Spot ETF.
TRENDS IN THE COVID WAR
AS FORECAST, COVID LOCKDOWNS LEFT KIDS FAT AND DUMB
You don't need to be an education professional to know that if you tell students they can no longer attend in-person classes for about three years they will face unprecedented challenges during their lifetime of education.
COVID REVELATIONS: CDC KNEW ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH CASES IN JAN 2021, AND HOTEZ CITES CHILD STUDY SHOWING TINY COVID RISK TO ARGUE PUSHING THE VAX ON KIDS WAS RIGHT
Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine developer and “TV expert” during the COVID war, has been spending a lot of Twitter time lately defending his refusal to debate RFK Jr. on the subject of vaccine history and safety.
RFK JR POINTS OUT HOTEZ CLOSE TIES TO CHINESE COVID EXPERIMENTS
The war between “TV expert” COVID vaccine pusher Dr. Peter Hotez and rising Democrat Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. just witnessed a late-breaking salvo.
TRENDS IN GEOPOLITICS
‘FAR-RIGHT’ SURGES IN GERMANY AMID ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY, AS WE LONG FORECAST
Establishment politicians in Germany are pressing panic buttons amid the surge in popularity for the country’s top “far-right” political party—the Alternative for Germany, or AfD—that seems poised to make gains in local and national elections based on financial hardship and disgust for the ruling elite.
MIDDLE EAST MELTDOWN: ISRAEL KEEPS RAMPING UP WAR IN OCCUPIED TERRITORY
Israel further inflamed tensions with Palestinians last week when its troops destroyed the home of a Palestinian who is accused of killing an Israeli soldier in a drive-by shooting in 2022.
UN: OK FOR ISRAEL TO KILL PALESTINIAN CHILDREN, BUT SHAMES RUSSIA FOR KILLING CHILDREN IN UKRAINE
Not every child is equal, according to the United Nations.
TRENDS-EYE VIEW
WHAT CAME FIRST, THE LAB-GROWN CHICKEN OR THE CELLS?
The U.S. approved two companies in California to sell “chicken” to the public that are “cell cultivated” and developed by scientists aiming to create meat without having to kill the animal.
FOREVER CHEMICALS, NOT FOREVER LITIGATION: 3M TO PAY BILLIONS TO MAKE LAWSUITS GO AWAY
3M, the Minnesota-based conglomerate, will attempt to settle a class-action lawsuit tied to its production of “forever chemicals” by compensating public water systems impacted by their production since the 1940s.
LIFE ON TITANIC SUBMERSIBLE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MIGRANTS ON FISHING BOAT
You couldn’t turn on the television last week without up-to-the-minute news reports on the hunt for the five missing “explorers” on the Titanic submersible that lost radio contact shortly after beginning its descent to the world’s most famous shipwreck.
OPERATION WARP SPEED: OBESITY ADDITION
Drug makers across the world are racing to bring weight-loss drugs to the market given the surging popularity of such medications as Ozempic and Wegovy.
TOP TREND 2023: COLLEGES CONTINUE TO CLOSE ACROSS U.S. AS WOULD-BE STUDENTS WEIGH OTHER OPTIONS
Over the past seven years, 91 private colleges in the U.S. have closed, merged with another school, or announced plans to close, CNBC reported, citing analysis of data from Higher Ed Dive. The analysis found that about half of these schools closed after the COVID-19 outbreak.
POLITICIANS CAN’T FIGHT HOMELESSNESS, CELENTE HAS SOLUTION
Housing First, the decades-old, bipartisan effort to provide no-strings-attached homes to the homeless, is under fire by conservative lawmakers who see the approach as outdated, rewarding bad behavior.
TRENDS IN HI-TECH SCIENCE by Ben Daviss
NEW HYDROGEL DISTILLS WATER FROM AIR
The world is running short of clean water at a time when the global population is growing.
SOLAR REACTOR CONVERTS PLASTIC TRASH, CARBON FROM AIR INTO FUEL
At the University of Cambridge, researchers have created a solar-powered reactor that can turn carbon pulled from the air into “syngas” or synthetic gas, a hydrocarbon that can be used as a fuel or chemical feedstock in a variety of manufacturing processes.
HAVE DIABETES? EAT YOUR INSULIN
Borrowing a technique from plants, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s dental school have infused lettuce with the three proteins that make up insulin, the drug that controls symptoms of diabetes.
TRENDS IN AI
WHAT’S AI WORTH? $4.4 TRILLION A YEAR, McKINSEY SAYS
ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligences (AI) will add as much as $4.4 trillion a year to the global economy, according to a new study from the McKinsey Global Institute.
CHATBOT AS BIOTERRORIST
Bioscientist Kevin Esvelt at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked students to use Chat GPT, Google’s Bard, or any similar “large language model” AI to find a virus capable of launching a global pandemic and help them gather the elements needed to manufacture it.
WALL STREET’S NEW WORRY ABOUT AI
On 22 May, a fake photo created by an artificial intelligence (AI) showing an explosion at the Pentagon was posted on Twitter. The image immediately went viral.