Brink Of Unrest? Migrants “Flood” NYC City Hall In Protest Of Losing Luxury Hotel Rooms
New York City could be on the cusp of social unrest as hundreds of migrants have flooded the grounds of City Hall in Lower Manhattan to protest the scaling down of their luxury hotel accommodations (funded by us, the taxpayers).
The Babylon Bee’s Ashley St. Clair posted on X a disturbing photo of migrants “flooding NYC City Hall to protest being moved to shelters instead of the luxury hotels.”
Migrants are now flooding NYC City Hall to protest being moved to shelters instead of the luxury hotels. pic.twitter.com/Cy5L16MDP2
Elon Musk responded with “Wow,” while another X user posted a video of angry migrants surrounding the City Hall complex building. Security is beefed up as the situation remains tense.
Hundreds of migrants are in NYC City Hall Park to protest against being moved to Shelters instead of the LUXURY HOTELS pic.twitter.com/86zLiWENCh
The migrant protest comes one day after pro-Palestinian groups shuttered critical infrastructure nationwide across various metro areas of the US, including the Brooklyn Bridge.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO:
This is the exact moment when “Free Palestine” pro HAMAS terrorist supporters charged the fence next to the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday in NYC, and stormed the bridge.
Many of the “protesters” got into physical altercations with NYPD and were arrested. pic.twitter.com/u73lY7SHCg
The risk of social instabilities nationwide is elevated as the Biden administration (through open southern borders), and a shadowy network of NGOs have facilitated the greatest invasion of illegal aliens this nation has ever seen.
Allowing millions of unvetted people from third-world countries – some of which hate the United States – as well as are accustomed to violence – are ingredients to spark a perfect storm of social unrest if Democrats don’t continue spending taxpayer funds on luxurious hotel rooms, fancy meals, and monthly stipends for illegals.
Threats of migrant unrest are a national security threat that Democrats are too embarrassed even to acknowledge because their failed policies are sparking this mess. Democrats are risking the health and safety of law-abiding citizens and the nation as a whole to steal future elections and stack the Census.
Two counts of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, approved on Feb. 13 by the House of Representatives, are to be formally presented to the U.S. Senate today.
Eleven House members previously named as impeachment managers will walk from the lower chamber through Statuary Hall in the Capitol and then to the Senate in a brief ceremony that has been repeated only 17 times since the first Congress in 1789. House Democrats did so twice after impeaching former President Donald Trump in 2020 and 2021.
Eight of the 17 Senate impeachment trials resulted in convictions, while nine ended without convictions. A two-thirds majority of the Senate is required to convict an impeached officer of the federal government. Neither former President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton in 1998, nor President Andrew Johnson in 1868 were convicted.
Senate rules require the House managers to read the two counts in the Senate chamber. Then Senate Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-Wash.) will swear the senators in as jurors. A written summons will be issued to Mr. Mayorkas for him to appear, which he may or may not choose to heed.
The senators will then have an opportunity to adopt rules governing how the trial will be conducted. The rules adopted by the Senate in 1986 were in place for the Clinton and Trump trials.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is expected to enter a motion either to dismiss or table the two impeachment counts against Mr. Mayorkas. Earlier this year, Mr. Schumer described the House impeachment action as a “sham.”
With public anger over the more than 8 million illegal immigrants allowed to enter the country under President Joe Biden, Mr. Schumer is determined to avoid a public trial during which the House managers can be expected to present evidence demonstrating Mr. Mayorkas acted at the direction of the chief executive.
Senate Republicans, led by senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and Roger Marshall of Kansas will attempt to bring multiple points of order against Mr. Schumer’s motion.
If any one of the GOP points of order is approved by a simple majority of the Senate, the motion will be defeated and the trial will commence. But Ms. Murray is not obligated under Senate rules to recognize any of the senators offering points of order, so none of their objections may be heard on the Senate floor.
Should the Senate trial go forward, the House managers will present their evidence, and defenders of Mr. Mayorkas from among the Senate Democratic majority will respond. At some point thereafter, a rollcall vote will be taken, which is expected to fail to reach the required two-thirds for conviction.
At that point, Mr. Mayorkas will be able to continue performing his duties but he will go into the history books as only the second presidential cabinet member to be impeached.
The first was Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who resigned in 1876 after the House passed five counts of impeachment against him. The Senate failed to convict Mr. Belknap, who was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant.
Article I of the measure accuses Mr. Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and claims that “in large part because of his unlawful conduct, millions of aliens have illegally entered the United States on an annual basis with many unlawfully remaining in the United States.”
“His refusal to obey the law is not only an offense against the separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States, it also threatens our national security and has had a dire impact on communities across the country,” it reads.
Article II accuses Mr. Mayorkas of breaching the public’s trust by having “knowingly made false statements, and knowingly obstructed lawful oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, principally to obfuscate the results of his willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.”
The 20-page impeachment resolution contains two articles with multiple examples of laws Mr. Mayorkas is alleged to have ignored or refused to enforce and illustrations of his blocking congressional oversight, including not producing requested copies of documents.
The House managers, all Republicans, include Mr. Green, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Reps. Mike McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Ben Cline of Virginia, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Andrew Garbarino of New York, August Pfluger of Texas, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Laurel Lee of Florida.
“Only Good For WW3”: Slovakia To Oppose Ukraine’s NATO Membership Bid
Last October saw a significant shift in Slovakia’s trajectory related to its stance on the Ukraine war, after thepopulist left-wing party Smer took the most votes in the country’s national election. Its head, who ascended to his fourth term as prime minister, Robert Fico, advanced a platform of pursuing peace in Ukraine rather than continuing to pour weapons into an increasingly hopeless campaign to evict Russian forces from the country’s eastern provinces.
In the wake of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month controversially declaring “Ukraine will become a member of NATO” – Slovakia under PM Fico is pushing back. He said in fresh comments at a press conference that Slovakia will stand firmly against any efforts to pursue Ukraine’s accession into NATO.
“Ukraine may say: ‘We want to join NATO.’ This will be their own decision. We are saying that we will not ratify [the documents on Ukraine’s accession to NATO] in parliament because Slovakia needs a neutral Ukraine. Slovakia’s interests will be threatened if Ukraine becomes a NATO member,” Fico said.
However, while rejecting the idea of Ukraine being in NATO, he did say that Slovakia supports Ukraine’s bid to become a member of the European Union. “The Slovak prime minister expressed hope that Brussels and Kiev begin talks on launching this process as soon as possible,” Russian media indicated.
In separate comments days ago he explained that “Ukraine’s membership in NATO is only good for World War III. An independent Ukraine is enough for us.”
Those remarks were made in a weekend radio interview, where he went on to explain of his plans for relations with Moscow: “In the aftermath of conflict, there’s a keen interest in re-establishing normalcy in relations with Moscow,” he said.
“I want to pursue a policy of good, friendly relations with anyone interested in such a policy,” Fico affirmed while highlighting the small country of Slovakia’s geography.
Back in September, just ahead of his becoming prime minister again, Fico said that “Peace is the only solution”and explained, “I refuse to get criticized and labeled as a warmonger just for talking about peace, whereas those who support war and killing are being called peace activists. We have it all messed up in our heads. We will not send a single bullet to Ukraine from the state stocks.”
Fico has also said the Ukraine war didn’t start in 2022: “I say it loud and clear and will do so: The war in Ukraine didn’t start yesterday or last year. It began in 2014, when the Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder the Russian citizens in Donbas and Luhansk.”
A March opinion poll found that 51% of Slovakians think the West and/or Ukraine are responsible for the conflict. Half also said the United States posed a security threat to their country. Fico’s opposition to arming Ukraine and his support for an immediate, negotiated peace echoes the stance of neighboring Hungary, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Both countries have borders with Ukraine.
The left-wing Guardian newspaper reported on the brutal stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney that was caught on camera by saying the victim was “allegedly stabbed.”
Yes, really.
Watch the video. There’s really no “allegedly” about it…
Christian under attack again. Priest Mar Marry got stabbed multiple times few minutes ago live in church, he is been taken to hospital another priest got stabbed in his hind while helping. Praying they both alright. #Assyrian#assyrianchurch#assyrianunderattackpic.twitter.com/L2uJ2wTBAL
The teenager, dressed all in black, approached the altar at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church, before launching a frenzied attack on the bishop’s head and upper body, leaving him with multiple stab wounds.
According to a video report posted by the Guardian, Bishop Emmanuel was only “allegedly stabbed.”
The Pope is also allegedly Catholic.
A video of the attacker shows him smirking while being restrained by churchgoers and police.
The unrepentant smirk of the attacker.
The face of evil.
Islam is a scourge on the world and must not be tolerated in the West.
The time is coming when we will have to make some very difficult decisions.https://t.co/fqNxwpmuuO
The Telegraph also highlighted how, “Bishop Emmanuel has a reputation as a fire and brimstone preacher who expresses anti-LGBTQ+ views.”
The stabbing prompted a massive riot outside the church, with the Bishop’s supporters shockingly not choosing to hold hands and sing ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ instead.
“Bring him out!” A crowd of over 5000 angry Australian Christians surrounded the church in Sydney where hundreds of riot police officers were guarding the “man” who attacked the bishop and the faithful. pic.twitter.com/vM8DVwQCgl
Full blown riot in Western Sydney outside the Assyrian Aramaic Church following the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and multiple priests.
Police have the suspect in custody and the crowds want to lynch him. All filmed by @Chriscoveriespic.twitter.com/qMGMcvlUU9
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Johnson Unveils Separate Israel, Ukraine Funding Bills That MTG Calls A “Scam”
After months of pushback over packages to send US-taxpayer-funded foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a plan Monday evening to hold four different votes on bills which would decouple aid by country, including Taiwan. Johnson will also put forth a House-approved bill that could ban TikTok from the US, and a measure aimed at satisfying Republican foreign policy demands.
According to WaPo, a draft of Johnson’s plan mirrors a Senate bill, but may not include humanitarian aid for Gaza. In February, the Senate approved a bill which allocates $95.3 billion in supplemental spending, including $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $9 billion to Gaza, and $5 billion towards Indo-Pacific allies against Chinese threats.
And while Johnson pretended that the Senate bill would be a ‘non-starter’ in the House without border security measures, there’s zero in there for border security demanded by House Freedom Caucus Republicans as a condition of approving foreign aid.
After promising he would secure the border before sending billions to foreign nations, Mike Johnson has banned amendments to secure the border and is holding Israel hostage to get more money for Ukraine. https://t.co/1zGDa9KyEt
“I hate this, that [Johnson’s] saying it and not following through with it, that the hill to die on was the border and he would not put Ukraine up without the border. Looks like that’s going down the tubes,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) following the meeting.
Johnson said after the meeting that “Every member ultimately will be able to vote their own conscience on all of these matters and everybody have the opportunity to weigh in,” Johnson said following a Monday GOP conference meeting. “I think the final product will be something that everybody can take confidence in because they got to vote their district.”
During Monday’s meeting, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) suggested passing a rule that would instruct the Senate to take up a measure known as H.R.2 approved by House Republicans last year which would severely restrict migrant entry into the US, before taking up any House-passed national security package.
A seemingly defeated Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) left Monday’s meeting speechless, saying “It’s just what it is.”
That said, WaPo reports that it’s possible Johnson may work in border security measures to the fourth bill, which is essentially a GOP wish list, or through an amendment process.
Scam!
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Grene, who’s been threatening to introduce a measure to oust Johnson, called the plan a “scam” that she’s “firmly” against. That said, she hasn’t said yet whether she’ll move against Johnson over concerns that it could jeopardize the Republican majority in the House.
“I support the majority and I want it next time. So I’m being careful,” said Greene. “He’s definitely not going to be speaker next Congress if we’re lucky enough to have the majority.”
Johnson responded to Greene, saying “I don’t spend my time worrying about motions to vacate. We’re having to govern here and we’re going to do our job. I don’t know how that shakes out.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told Punchbowl News Monday night that he’s opposed to the package of four bills, saying he received no clarity from Johnson over his intentions.
Rep. Jim Jordan says he is opposed to tying foreign aid together in one package.
Jordan said he asked Johnson about his plans during conference, but did not get clarity on the speaker’s intention.
He wouldn’t commit to supporting a rule if it’s all tied together.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and his whip team are going to have quite the job of neutralizing conservative opposition. Johnson, Emmer and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise only have 72 hours to assemble a coalition to pass the rule and underlying bill — perhaps even using different groups of GOP lawmakers to do so.
There’s no indication of when the bill text would be ready, however once it’s unveiled House rules provide 72 hours for members to read it before voting. Complicating matters is a week-long break the House is scheduled to take on Thursday, while Johnson said the earliest the House could consider the bills is Friday if legislative text is released by Tuesday (today).
If the bills advanced to floor debate but the House still can’t agree to pass them, Johnson may be out of options. To that end, House Democrats are collecting signatures for a petition which could trigger a vote on the Senate bill – which currently has the backing of 194 Democrats and one Republican.
US Industrial Production rose 0.4% MoM in March – as expected – which was… wait for it… the same rise as in February after that data was revised notably higher. However, even with the revision and the subsequent rise, Industrial Production remains unchanged YoY…
Source: Bloomberg
We can’t help but see the irony that after we highlighted the serial downward revisions in data last month, that all of a sudden February’s Industrial Production data is revised drastically higher…
Source: Bloomberg
Capacity Utilization ticked modestly higher (from a downwardly revised 78.2% to 78.4% (below expectations)…
Source: Bloomberg
US Manufacturing also saw February’s data revised higher (from +0.8% to +1.2% MoM) and March rose 0.5% MoM (better than the 0.2% rise expected). That lifted YoY Manufacturing up by 0.8%…
Source: Bloomberg
Soft and Hard manufacturing data in agreement that things are turning up…
Nothing but blue skies here for The Fed to cut rates into… not!
Watch Live: House Subcommittee Reveals Chinese Gov’t Involvement In America’s Fentanyl Crisis
Submitted by David Asher, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and former senior advisor to the State Department on China,
At 0800 ET, the China Subcommittee in the House of Representatives will convene a critically important hearing on the Chinese government’s involvement in fentanyl trafficking.
Congressman Mike Gallagher will make his final appearance as Chair of the Committee. Expect some mind-altering news as the results of a year-long special investigation are unveiled.
The US faces a drug death catastrophe where we incur fatalities approaching those during the entire Vietnam War every six months. The vast majority of deaths are derived from fentanyl-laced narcotics, many of which are marketed as “ordinary” painkillers and anti-depressants by Mexican cartels. China knowingly supplies the ingredients to Mexican cartels manufacturing illicit fentanyl drugs, and Chinese organized criminals in the US handle the laundering of proceeds. It’s an end-to-end Chinese Communist conspiracy.
Nationwide drug overdose deaths have topped 100,000 in the last few years.
The overdose crisis is from Coast to Coast.
This is shocking.
A joint DEA-State Department investigation between 2017 and 2020 found that over a thousand Chinese Communist students here on visas alone deposited well over a billion drug dollars in America’s largest banks, mainly in cash to pay for real estate. The role of the Chinese Communist Party in coordinating this “reverse opium war” was apparent to those of us who led the investigation.
Our system of financial law enforcement is broken. Hundreds of billions of dollars annually are being laundered for the cartels and their Chinese triad partners through the global financial system, while banks and dirty bankers are treated as too big to fail and too big to jail. The Department of Justice has not taken down a major narcotics trafficking bank in decades. The last significant criminal law enforcement operation against a major bank occurred in 1988 when Bank Credit Commerce International — at the time one of the ten largest banks on the planet — was targeted and eventually put out of business with its dirty executives taken away in chains.
Hopefully, former Attorney General William Barr will address the failure of the Department of Justice to apply its authority against financial institutions during the hearing. Likewise, former DEA Chief of Special Operations Ray Donovan will shed insight into the failings of his former agency to secure top-down financial prosecutions.
Having advised the DEA on financial investigations for nearly a decade, I can assure you it is not due to a lack of evidence.
It’s time to take the drug war into the financial arena, holding not just the money launderers legally accountable but their dirty banks and bankers responsible as well. The first step should be applying Section 311 of the USA Patriot Act against a Mexican bank. Mexico, not surprisingly, is ground zero for cartel finances. 311 is our primary anti-money laundering tool protecting the US financial system, but it has never been applied in Mexico. To its maximum extent, 311 empowers the US Treasury Department to cut off a foreign financial institution from the ability to transact and settle dollar transactions via the US. It concerns the “nuclear option” in the Treasury’s war against illicit finance. How many more Americans have to die before 311 is applied and we wage war to put murderous drug traffickers out of business?
The second step should be to designate a Chinese bank as a “primary money laundering concern.” This 311 authority should have been applied against China-based HSBC in Mexico City 15 years ago, but it was waved off due to concerns over financial stability. The multi-year DEA undercover investigation into HSBC’s involvement in cartel finance was similarly driveled down into a deferred prosecution agreement and a couple billion dollar fine. At the end of the day, the status quo reigned supreme.
Finally, the RICO charge needs to be applied strategically and systematically in federal law enforcement investigations and indictments against the profits of illicit narcotics trafficking. The business of drugs is about making money. It’s run from the top down.
The Mexican and Chinese governments are fully aware and complicit. That should not be an excuse for the abysmal US failure of the US government to enforce the law over a bizarre rendering of supposed sovereign immunity.
Philadelphia – The birthplace of America’s Independence
No funds for OUR PEOPLE, but Mike Johnson will give Ukraine $64 BILLION on April 9! pic.twitter.com/6DfcZom8ui
The prospect of a million dead Americans over the next decade should prompt authorities to embrace the war on drugs, starting with attacking the profits that underwrite mass murder via fentanyl.
When we talk about monetary policy, people do not understand the importance of interest rates reflecting the reality of inflation and risk. Interest rates are the price of risk and manipulating them down leads to bubbles that end in financial crises, while imposing too high rates can penalize the economy. Ideally, interest rates would flow freely and there would be no central bank to fix them.
A price signal as important as interest rates or the amount of money would prevent the creation of bubbles and, above all, the disproportionate accumulation of risk. The risk of fixing rates too high does not exist when central banks impose reference rates, as they will always make it easier for state borrowing—artificial currency creation—in the most convenient—what they call “no distortions”—and cheap way.
Many analysts say that central banks do not impose interest rates; they only reflect what the market demands. Surprisingly, if that were the case, we wouldn’t have financial traders stuck to screens on a Thursday waiting to decipher what the rate decision is going to be. Moreover, if the central bank only responds to market demand, it is a good reason to let interest rates float freely.
Citizens perceive that raising interest rates with high inflation is harmful; however, they do not seem to understand that what was really destructive was having negative real and nominal interest rates. That’s what encourages economic agents to take far more risks than we can take and to disguise excess debt with a false sense of security. At the same time, it is surprising that citizens praise low rates but then complain that home prices and risky assets rise too fast.
Inflation is a huge advantage for the currency issuer. It blames everyone and everybody for the rise in prices, except for the only thing that makes aggregate prices go up, consolidate that increase, and continue to rise, even at a more moderate rate: printing much more currency than the private economy demands and setting rates well below the real risk levels.
The benefit of statism is that it puts the blame for high interest rates on banks, just as it blames supermarkets for consumer prices.
Who prints currency and disguises risk?
Of course, we look at the ECB and the Fed, who dictate the increase in money supply through repurchases and fixed interest rates. However, central banks do not buy back state assets, print money, or impose negative real interest rates because they are evil alchemists. They do so because the state’s deficit—which is artificial monetary creation—remains unsustainable, public debt is atrophied, and state solvency is worsened by imbalanced public accounts. The central bank is not responsible for implementing fiscal policy. Thus, the state is the one that prints money out of nowhere and passes the imbalance to the citizens through inflation and taxes.
Banks, in an open economy, do not create money out of nowhere; they lend to real projects that are expected to be repaid with interest, and those loans have collateral. If commercial banks created money out of nowhere, none of them would go bankrupt. They only create money out of nowhere when regulation imposes risk-disconnected rates and eliminates the need for capital to sustain the government by accumulating its bonds and loans under the false construction that they are “no-risk assets.” Thus, the castle of cards built under the disguise of public sector risk always creates inflation, financial crises, secular stagnation, and liquidity traps. The amount of money created goes to unproductive expenditure, destroys the purchasing power of the currency, impoverishes citizens, and at the same time decapitalizes the most fragile companies, SMEs (small and medium enterprises). That’s what they call the social use of money. Seriously.
The ECB has announced a possible interest rate cut in June that is in danger of being premature and wrong. First, because money supply, credit demand, and supply are rebounding, inflation remains persistent and above the 2% target. Furthermore, the underlying trend is a much higher inflation level than the ECB’s target, even after two changes in the CPI calculation. After a 20% accumulated consumer price level since 2019, calling victory on inflation after two changes in the calculation of CPI and still elevated core inflation is insane. If we see the rise in non-replaceable goods prices, we can understand why citizens are angry. Real non-replaceable goods’ CPI is probably closer to 4-5% per year.
The ECB rate hikes are signaled by many market participants as the cause of the euro zone’s stagnation, but curiously, no one mentions that the euro area was already experiencing massive stagnation due to negative interest rates. Besides, if you need to have real negative rates to “grow,” you’re not growing but accumulating toxic risk. The ECB knows that the base effect, which played in favor of year-on-year inflation in 2023, will not be supportive in 2024. They also know that monetary aggregates were down a few months ago but are rebounding, and that the supply of credit has not collapsed. The ECB, like the Federal Reserve, knows that inflation is a monetary phenomenon and that there is no cost-push inflation, “greedflation,” or similar statist excuses. None of those factors can cause aggregate prices to soar, consolidate, or continue to rise; it is only the destruction of the currency’s purchasing power that causes inflation.
Of course, no central bank will acknowledge that inflation is its fault, among other things, because no central bank increases the money supply at will but to finance an unsustainable public deficit. However, no central bank will challenge a financial structure that is based on the myth that public debt is risk-free. Central banks know that inflation is a monetary phenomenon, which is why they attack rising consumer prices with rate hikes and money supply reductions. They just do it mildly because governments benefit from inflation.
The problem of lowering interest rates now, when there is no evidence of having controlled inflation and achieved a target that already erodes the purchasing power of the currency by 2% annually, is to fall into the narrative that the eurozone is in a poor economic situation because of monetary policy when it is due to the wrong fiscal policy, the disaster of the Next Generation EU Funds, whose failure is already only comparable to the forgotten Juncker Plan, a shortsighted and destructive energy, agricultural, and industrial policy, and a taxation system that shifts innovation and technology to other countries.
The ECB is aware that interest rates are not high and that the system’s money supply has not decreased as expected. In fact, it continues to repurchase outstanding bonds and will not carry out a significant reduction in its balance sheet in real terms until the end of the year. Lowering interest rates now includes the risk of depreciating the euro against the dollar and thus increasing the euro area’s import bill in real terms, reducing the inflow of reserves into the eurozone, and further encouraging public spending and government debt that has not been contained in countries like Italy and Spain, which boast of “growing” by massively increasing debt and where inflation, moreover, is not under control. All this reminds us of the mistakes of the past when Greece boasted to be the EU’s growth engine, and many said that Germany was Europe’s “sick member.”
The ECB cannot pretend to be the Bank of Japan for two reasons: the eurozone lacks the luxury of Japanese society’s dollar savings structure or its iron citizen discipline, and, above all, because the failure of Japan’s ultra-Keynesianism has brought the yen to a 35-year low against the dollar.
To those who say that the euro and the ECB are the problem, I recommend that you exercise your imagination of what Spain, Portugal, or Italy would be with their own currency and populist governments printing as if Argentina were Switzerland. You don’t have to imagine it; remember when these countries had an inflation rate of 14–15% and they destroyed savings and real wages with the falsehood of “competitive” devaluations? Not that long ago.
Don’t be fooled. The eurozone is not weak due to monetary policy. The eurozone is weak even with monetary policy.
These Are The Largest US Corporations By Number Of Employees
Revenue and profit are common measures for measuring the size of a business, but what about employee headcount?
To see how big companies have become from a human perspective, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized the top U.S. companies by employees. These figures come from companiesmarketcap.com, and were accessed in March 2024. Note that this ranking includes publicly-traded companies only.
Data and Highlights
The data we used to create this list of largest U.S. corporations by number of employees can be found in the table below.
Retail and Logistics Top the List
Companies like Walmart, Target, and Kroger have a massive headcount due to having many locations spread across the country, which require everything from cashiers to IT professionals.
Moving goods around the world is also highly labor intensive, explaining why UPS has half a million employees globally.
Below the Radar?
Two companies that rank among the largest U.S. corporations by employees which may be less familiar to the public include Concentrix and Cognizant. Both of these companies are B2B brands, meaning they primarily work with other companies rather than consumers. This contrasts with brands like Amazon or Home Depot, which are much more visible among average consumers.
A Note on Berkshire Hathaway
Warren Buffett’s company doesn’t directly employ 383,000 people. This headcount actually includes the employees of the firm’s many subsidiaries, such as GEICO (insurance), Dairy Queen (retail), and Duracell (batteries).
If you’re curious to see how Buffett’s empire has grown over the years, check out this animated graphic that visualizes the growth of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio from 1994 to 2022.
Volker Wissing does not really want to ban driving.
But no, despite the headlines, they are not going to take away our cars.
Amazingly, not even the Greens want to do that. For once the story is not about German authoritarianism, or woke insanity or anything like that.
Rather, it’s about how nobody can really bring himself to care about the climate anymore – not even our forward-thinking, progressively minded, environmentally responsible political establishment.
For the backstory, we must go all the way back to the pre-Covid era, when aggressive climate legislation was popular even with centre-right CDU voters, and before the electorate had a taste of what Green policies like the draconian home heating ordinances really feel like on the ground.
Back in those halcyon days, when the child saint Greta Thunberg was cutting class to save the earth, Angela Merkel’s government passed the Climate Protection Act. The law mandates a 65% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to 1990 levels by 2030, an 88% reduction by 2040, and an utterly unrealisable carbon neutrality by 2045. In the near term, the Climate Protection Act also establishes maximum annual emissions levels for various economic sectors. Should a given sector exceed its maximum, the responsible Ministry must submit an ominous “action programme” to bring things back on target.
The Climate Protection Act is archetypal climate nonsense. Politicians like to take credit for Doing Something about the climate, but because Doing Something amounts to massive economic restrictions and drastic interventions in daily life, they would prefer not to Do that Something themselves. Far better is to pass legislation committing future governments to Do Something and let them deal with the mess. Then you can reap the short-term rewards of being tough on carbon emissions, without bearing direct responsibility for all the chaos that actually being tough on carbon emissions would unleash. Alas, time marches forwards at a steady pace. I am sure that 2030 sounded like an unimaginably distant date when it was floated at the Paris Accords in 2015, but now it is a mere six years away. That is becoming a big, big problem for the climatists.
You could say that Merkel’s Climate Protection Act bequeathed the hapless Scholz government a small collection of ticking time bombs, which they’ve developed a considerable interest in defusing. One way to do this, is to revise the Climate Protection Act and remove its strict sector-based emissions limits before anybody is forced to field a climate-saving “action programme.” In the meantime, they’ve been studiously ignoring the requirements, which is why our Minister of Economic Destruction Robert Habeck could be found complaining back in June that no cabinet ministers were complying with Climate Protection Act emissions limits.
The fly in the ointment is the Green Party, who are as crazy as their oblivious out-of-touch upper middle-class urbanite constituents, and who have thought it best to block government efforts to (however temporarily) defang Merkel’s odious law.
In the dispute over a reform of the Climate Protection Act, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has warned of drastic cuts for motorists – including weekend driving bans. This is according to a letter from Wissing to the heads of the SPD, Green and FDP parliamentary factions. It was made available to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Thursday …
The letter states that if the amended Climate Protection Act does not come into force before 15 July, the ministry will be obliged under the current law to present an action programme to ensure compliance with the annual emission levels for the transport sector in the coming years.
And just like that, the climatists are falling all over themselves to reassure Germans that no, don’t worry, driving is fine, nobody wants to take away your cars:
The Federal Environmental Agency believes [driving bans are] unnecessary. “Of course we don’t need driving bans. Nobody is even discussing such a ban; this is frightening people for no reason,” said [Green-affiliated] President Dirk Messner. Instead, he once again suggested a general speed limit on German motorways …
The SPD also criticised the proposal: “Scaremongering with far-fetched proposals won’t help climate protection in the transport sector at all, quite the contrary,” SPD Bundestag faction leader Detlef Müller said … “The proposal does not further our common goal of reducing CO2 emissions, but to unnecessary uncertainty for people in our country.” The SPD Bundestag faction clearly rejects driving bans for cars and lorries. Such manoeuvres would hardly advance the ongoing deliberations on the Climate Protection Act in the Bundestag, said Müller.
I like this paragraph so much that I’ve read it five times.
It’s just so entertaining to read some right-thinking lunatic like Müller insisting up and down that literally banning driving “does not further our common goal of reducing CO2 emissions.”
Along with the Green Party and Greenpeace, the environmental organisation BUND has also criticised Wissing’s statements on the threat of driving bans. BUND transport expert Jens Hilgenberg said:
“It fits the picture that this minister, of all people, who blocks every measure, no matter how easy to implement, such as a speed limit on motorways, is now playing on people’s fears.”
He is only doing so to further increase the pressure on the coalition partners, Hilgenberg says. “This is a shabby tactic.”
So what are the solutions, if we’re not going to ban driving on weekends, and the Greens insist on blocking reforms to the Climate Protection Act? Well, aside from the speed limit, which has the same attraction for the left in Germany as banning guns does for the left in the United States (and about equal chances of achieving any of the stated goals), the experts have nothing but the same tired nostrums: We need more public transit! We need more electromobility! We need more expansions to the electric vehicle charging networks! The problem is not only that none of this amounts to an “action programme” to sink vehicle emissions posthaste; it is also that there is no money for any of this. Electric vehicle subsidies have been withdrawn since the courts blew a 60 billion dollar hole in the government’s budget. Far from expanding public transit, we’re fighting to maintain the decaying rail network we already have. And nobody believes that more charging stations will save the planet.
This is late-stage climatism and it will linger for a long time.
There await years if not decades of haggling over the ambitious goals set by past governments, years of fig leafs and excuses, years of relaxing restrictions in elaborate ways so we can pretend we’re still doing something.
It is going to be very tedious, but also, I suspect, occasionally entertaining.
