Chicago is broke and under Democrat Control for too many decades

Another Reason to vote Republican!!!! 

Chicago is broke and under Democrat Control for too many decades.

Of the 38 former elected Chicago officials currently receiving pensions, 15 former aldermen see yearly payouts exceeding $100,000, according to documents from the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, or MEABF. Two additional aldermen receive annual pension payouts just a few thousand dollars shy of $100,000. On average, the 15 former aldermen collecting six-figure annual pensions have accumulated $768,500 in total gross pension benefits. Four of those ex-aldermen have accumulated more than $1 million in gross benefits.

Some of the same officials responsible for fueling the city’s $36 billion pension crisis are among the system’s biggest beneficiaries. Taxpayers, on the other hand, are not benefitting from this unstable pension system. In 2016, Chicago City Council approved a new tax on water and sewer services proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to help shore up the city’s underwater pensions. But the water-and-sewer tax isn’t the only recent example of local leaders turning to taxpayers in an attempt to rescue a broken pension system. In August 2017, Cook County implemented a short-lived tax on soda and other sugary drinks. The county’s collapsing pension plan would have consumed most of the revenues from the tax. Fortunately, the Cook County Board of Commissioners quickly voted to repeal the soda tax after it was met with significant backlash from taxpayers. Overpromising pension benefits while underfunding the system that delivers those benefits has led to a growing burden for Chicago taxpayers and looming uncertainty for city retirees. As with state worker pensions, retirement systems for Chicago and Cook County employees are in desperate need of reform. Pension loopholes enabled by a 1991 state law have contributed to the substantial pension payouts received by retired Chicago aldermen. The plan, pushed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, gave special pension perks to Chicago aldermen and other city officials. Among these perks is eligibility for elected officials to receive monthly retirement benefits amounting to up to 80 percent of their final month’s salary. Nonelected city employees enrolled in MEABF are eligible under the law to receive retirement benefits amounting to up to 70 percent of their average monthly salary earned during their last four years of service. The law also allowed aldermen and other elected officials to earn maximum pension benefits after 20 years of service, compared with the nearly 30 years required for all other employees enrolled in the system. But that’s not all. The law also permits aldermen to effectively buy their way to eligibility for maximum pension benefits, without having served the required 20 years. Former Ald. Thomas Allen, 38th Ward, for example, served only 17 years but was able to purchase additional “pension credits” at a cost lower than the value of the retirement benefits he’d receive. Allen currently receives a gross annual pension of nearly $106,000, according to MEABF records. But that isn’t the only lofty income the former alderman collects from taxpayers. Since 2010, Allen has also earned an annual salary upwards of $190,000 serving as a Circuit Court of Cook County judge. While these loopholes have certainly driven the growth of the city’s pension liabilities, the precarious nature of defined-benefit pensions are the fundamental cause of their unsustainability. Establishing a 401(k)-style retirement system for future government employees would serve as a prudent alternative to defined-benefit pensions. This system, in fact, has already served more than 20,000 state university employees over the last 20 years. To cure the fiscal dysfunction plaguing Chicago and Illinois, state and local lawmakers must address the instability of defined-benefit pensions. Until then, the short-term advantages of inflated retirement benefits will continue to fuel growing costs for taxpayers – and uncertainty for future retirees.

Eddie Damstra Writer  Illinois Policy

Mad Money/ Illinois

With election season upon us, one man’s face will fill the mailboxes of Illinoisans more than any other. His visage will flash across screens constantly. Low voices will utter his name over radio waves. Of course, I’m talking about the longest-serving state House speaker in American history, Mike Madigan. The man is widely despised, yet he retains extraordinary power. That puts quite a few Democratic representatives in a trick bag. The candidates facing the toughest races need cash to keep the lights on. But with the most unpopular politician in the state holding the purse strings for the party, that money isn’t “clean.” There is a price to pay. Madigan is the chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois and controls its campaign spending. He is the only legislative leader in the country who is also a state party chairman. He’s also chairman of three other active committees: Friends of Michael J. Madigan, the 13th Ward Democratic Association and Democratic Majority. More than 60 sitting state representatives have received money from one or more of those committees over the course of their careers, totaling around $15 million. And many of the top recipients find themselves in tough races this fall. Incumbent state Rep. Sam Yingling, D-Grayslake, tops the table among those running for a seat. He’s received nearly $1.5 million in donations and in-kind contributions from Madigan’s committees. State Rep. Carol Sente, D-Vernon Hills, is the only sitting lawmaker who has received more, but she’s not seeking re-election. The following state representatives running for re-election have received more than half a million dollars from Madigan’s committees: Sam Yingling, D-Grayslake ($1,493,600) Deb Conroy, D-Villa Park ($1,313,932) Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines ($981,242) Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estate ($895,336) Sue Scherer, D-Decatur ($892,609) Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville ($869,501) Michelle Mussman, D-Schaumburg ($869,089) Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego ($732,852) Kathleen Willis, D-Addison ($588,821) Natalie Manley, D-Joliet ($535,940) Two things to note about these dollar amounts: First, they are only up to date as of June, when candidates filed their most recent campaign finance reports with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Madigan’s spent plenty more since then. Second, they don’t capture the dollars funneled to candidates by other organizations at Madigan’s behest.  The speaker has directly funded 10 members of his caucus running for re-election with over half a million dollars each, but that by no means is the only way he provides support to candidates. In districts where his name is particularly toxic, he can direct loyal lieutenants – most commonly labor unions – to fund candidates directly. Madigan’s money itself might not be a problem for some state lawmakers. Of course, on the other side of the aisle, Gov. Bruce Rauner heavily funds the Republican Party, which then backs candidates in tough races. He is also unpopular at the moment. But there is a key difference. No other state gives its House speaker so much power over the legislative process. And Madigan just needs one vote every two years to retain that iron grip: the vote for speaker. Each lawmaker who has received more than half a million dollars from Madigan has, in exchange, dutifully given him that key vote. Collectively, they’ve cast 36 speaker votes for the man who’s held the gavel for 34 years. Madigan gives money to lawmaker. Lawmaker gives ultimate power to Madigan. The campaign mailers write themselves. Some lawmakers have yet to feel the pressure that comes with an influx of Madigan cash. Take Natalie Phelps Finnie, for example, who was appointed to her cousin’s Democratic House seat in southern Illinois last year and has received less than $1,000 from Madigan committees. As the Democratic Party tries to hold on to that seat in a district that overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in 2016, one can expect money from the speaker to flow into the district one way or another. As that happens, calls for independence from the speaker’s money will surely only grow louder within her district – as they will throughout the state. Will she, or others, give in to that pressure? Not if history is any indicator. After all, the Democratic state representatives who do usually add “former” to their job title soon after.

Austin Berg Director of Content Strategy  Illinois Policy

The Real Reason Millennials Hate Capitalism

The Real Reason Millennials Hate Capitalism By Jason Stutman It’s no statement of revelation by now to say that many millennials hate the idea of capitalism. In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement gave the world its first real glimpse into the anti-capitalist angst of today’s youth. Chants of “We are the 99%” shed plenty of light on the manifesting divide between the purported haves and have-nots of American society. In 2016, widespread fervor over “democratic socialist” and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders only further confirmed the growing anti-capitalist sentiment among millennials. During the primaries, Sanders won more votes among people under 30 than both Clinton and Trump combined. That same year, a Harvard University survey confirmed what by then seemed obvious enough: only a minority (42%) of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 now supported capitalism. It’s a stunning statistic considering that prior generations widely recognize the economic system as the greatest wealth generator in history. As a millennial myself, I have to admit I find the sentiment of my demographic bewildering at times. At a moment in history when Venezuelan children are literally dying of hunger en masse and its average citizen is losing 24 lbs in body weight a year, many of my peers are decrying the fact that college and medical treatment are not “free.” At the same time, I do understand where much of the ire comes from. Millennials undeniably drew the economic short straw of our time, and many are looking for something to blame. Justified or not, capitalism turns out to be an easy target for those who are struggling to succeed within it.Millennials were hit with a financial crisis in 2008, as many were first entering the workforce. They were corralled like sheep into a system of “higher” education as academic debt doubled between 1996 and 2006. They’re also the first generation in modern history to be worse off than their parents in terms of income. These factors aside, a long list others have led folks like those at The Atlantic to dub millennials the “Unluckiest Generation,” and, in a relative sense, it’s an accurate characterization. What gets lost in that framing, however, is the fact that economics is not a zero-sum game. The reality is that millennials are living in what is objectively the most prosperous period in history. BBC has summarized this point succinctly in its reporting: Life expectancy has risen more in the past 50 years than the previous 1000; the likelihood of a violent death has never been lower; on average, we’re better educated than ever, and childhood mortality has plummeted. Among the most striking changes, the last few decades has brought remarkable success… Yet despite these absolute truths, many millennials can’t stop comparing themselves to the wealthiest members of society and declaring that something just isn’t right. After all, if Jeff Bezos is worth $139 billion and John Doe is working for minimum wage, there must be something inherently wrong with our economic system, right? Well, not necessarily. But if you try to debate these individuals, they simply won’t have it: The self-imposed blinders should say enough about the legitimacy of the ideology at work here. But rather than bash socialism as a tribalistic bubble, I’m actually going olive branch and recognizing a legitimate grievance these people have with modern capitalistic society: materialism. Perhaps the epitome of this socialist grievance is the $1,000 24K gold ice cream sundae, a product of capitalism that’s been recently cited by leftist figureheads and activists as a surefire indicator that something is truly rotten with capitalism. The basic premise is that there really is no reasonable justification for eating gold-covered ice cream, and, quite frankly, I have to agree. You’re either pretentious or just plain dumb (at least in my opinion) if you ever spend that much money on a sundae. Yet where a socialist sees this as a direct failure of capitalism, it seems more to me that this is a failure of society and individual decision-making. In a free market, the reality is that the only things that thrive are the things we feed. Another way of putting it is this: Millennials aren’t necessarily upset at capitalism itself; they’re upset with the decisions being made within it. Ultimately, I think this touches the core hypocrisy of most millennial socialists. They hate on opulence but can’t keep their eyes off the Kardashians. They despise corporate consolidation but only buy Apple products. They decry oil companies but spend significantly more on gas than older generations. At the end of the day, there really are only two solutions to this problem. Solution #1 is to have the government compel different consumer choices. Solution #2 is to compel those decisions collectively. As you may have guessed, I bring this all up in part because of the recent victories of progressive candidates in this week’s primary elections, namely Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ben Jealous. The former has called for the complete abolishment of ICE, while the latter is the latest to push for a universal health care system within his respective state. No doubt these candidates were lifted by young voters who are grabbing more weight every election cycle. And while still few in number, such representatives do pose a potential threat to the free market if this trend is to continue, as they and their constituents are directly against the idea of it. To be clear, this shouldn’t strike any immediate fear into investors’ hearts, but it’s enough to proceed with a sense of awareness. Should voters ever fully embrace the rising democratic socialist movement, the long-term bull case of U.S. stocks (which has remained solid for two centuries now) would simply fall apart. For now, though, there are more pressing threats to the free market coming from the complete opposite side as fears of a trade war persist. We’re operating in polarizing times with threats from both ends, so believe me when I say it pays to stay both aware and active as an investor.

Real costs to taxpayers often obscured from government budgets

Group warns real costs to taxpayers often obscured from government budgets

·         By Cole Lauterbach | Illinois News Network

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Chicagoans are on the hook for more public debt than residents of any of the nation’s 10 largest cities even though the total cost of the city’s debt is less than many others.

According to a new report by Truth in Accounting, Chicago’s debt burden is a little more than $45,000 per taxpayer. That’s much less than the city of New York. But if you add the burden from all of the other units of government, Chicago schools, the park district, and many more, the total taxpayer burden is $125,000, much more than the Big Apple.

Of that added burden, more than $50,000 comes from the state of Illinois’ pension burden, estimated at anywhere from $140 billion to as much as $250 billion. Other debt is couched in the total debt of Chicago Public Schools, Cook County, and other smaller levels of government that are able to take on debt.  

Bill Bergman, director of research with Truth in Accounting, says this allows Chicago and other cities to say they’re budgets are balanced when they’re highly leveraged.

“It allows them to balance budgets on a cash basis when they’re accumulating debt and spending more money than they take in,” he said.

Illinoisans should be concerned about their largest city carrying too much debt, Bergman said, because it could end up coming out of the entire state’s budget in one way or another.

“Chicago may have to rely on taxpayer money from, say, Kankakee in order to close their books,” he said.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is currently debating an initiative to force cities to factor in their debt when filing their annual budget reports, or accrual accounting standards.

Meanwhile, a bill on Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk would allow local governments in Illinois to use another method of budgeting that solely factors cash on hand in their accounting.

Even with new pension spiking threshold, some worry taxpayers will still pay extra

Even with new pension spiking threshold, some worry taxpayers will still pay extra

·         By Greg Bishop | Illinois News Network

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The Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois.

John Spataro | Illinois News Network

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INN investigation: Pension spiking still prevalent despite massive debt

Big end-of-career spikes can significantly boost the annual pension payments an educator gets in retirement and the total amount the taxpayer-supported pension system has to pay out over the term of the benefit.

A decades-long practice of jacking up salaries in Illinois' public education arena has been checked by state lawmakers for the second time in 13 years, but decreasing the threshold of allowable pension bumps may not end the costly practice that hits taxpayers across the state.

The new Illinois state budget addresses pension spiking, when state employees salaries are increased significantly in the final few years of their career, leading to an increase in their annual pension payouts upon retirement.

The enacted budget for fiscal 2019 requires pension funds like the Teachers Retirement System to bill a local employer, such as a local school district, if they spike someone’s salary over 3 percent a year. That is down from a penalty on any bump over 6 percent, where the law was before July 1 this year.

“Three percent is obviously fairly close to inflation, plus considering when somebody is going to make a job change as they go along, it makes perfect sense,” state Rep. Mark Batinick said.

The updated plan capping spiking at three percent is estimated to save $21 million annually, “which really isn’t a lot of money when you’re talking about splitting that over 2 million school children in this state. And that’s between all the [state pension] systems, that’s not just [the Teacher Retirement System]," Batinick said.

“The way our system is set up ... has incentivized the people to do some nefarious things,” he said.

When spiking happens, Batinick, R-Plainfield, said “the pension is based on that much higher amount and there hasn't been enough contributed along the way to the make up for that.”

An Illinois News Network investigation found school districts all over the state having to pay millions of dollars in pension spiking penalties from when the law had a six percent cap. Some examples from the investigation were “egregious (and) extremely costly for taxpayers,” Batinick said.

Pension spiking has been happening for years.

“The career service raises have been a decades-long practice,” said state Sen. Elgie Sims, noting the six percent limit was implemented back in 2005.

“What the career service raises have done,” said Sims, D-Chicago, “they’ve incentivized educators to take lower salaries to back-fill their raises on the backend.”

But Batinick doesn’t think the new change lowering it from six percent to three percent in the current budget will do much.

“There’s still end-of-career massive spiking that’s going on that’s stressing the pension systems and people are just writing checks,” Batinick said of the previous six-percent cap. “So obviously where the abuse is is from the six percent and well beyond that. My guess is that if it was set to zero, we’d still have problems."

Spiking takes taxpayer money away from other services.

“It's going to take away supplies, to hire other people,” Batinick said. “When police and fire spiking happens, then it’s going to take police off the streets and so forth. It’s money that’s taken out of society essentially.”

“That kind of thing is going on around the state,” Taxpayer Education Foundation President Jim Tobin said.

Tobin cited the Chicago suburb of Harvey where more than 40 police and fire personnel were laid off because money from the state meant for the city was diverted into pension funds.

The Taxpayer Education Foundation recently published a report showing 19,000 state government retirees make more than $100,000 in pensions a year, up 15 percent from last year. More than 100,000 retirees get $50,000 a year. The report estimates next year that more than 21,000 state government employees will have $100,000 annual pensions.

“Pension benefits double every 24 years,” Tobin said, giving blame to the three percent guaranteed annual raise in pensions for Tier I employees.

One example Tobin noted is a teacher he said retired at the age of 57.

“His annual pension is $321,000 this year. He’s already received $3 million. He’s a pension millionaire,” Tobin said. “If he lives until he’s 85, he’ll get over $9 million from Illinois” taxpayers.

Tobin said spiking should be criminal.

“The spiking thing needs to end, not be capped. It needs to be terminated and that is the solution,” Tobin said.

Sims advocated for paying teachers a minimum salary of $40,000 by 2022, a bill that sits on the governor’s desk.

“Why don’t we pay them an adequate wage throughout their service so we’re not worried about that,” Sims said. “Let’s pay our educators a salary that they deserve throughout their service and I think you’ll see a drop in the penalties.”

Tobin responded.

“If they’d get rid of these stupid pensions, I’d be in support of higher salaries for government people,” Tobin said. “I think they should get paid what they’re worth in the sector now, but these pensions are out of whack and out of control.”

Batinick urged people to pay attention to local elections and get out and vote.

“We have all these units of government, if we’re going to keep them it’s our responsibility to make sure they run properly,” Batinick said. “We have something like 10 to 20 percent turnout in local races. They make a lot of decisions and spend a lot of your money.”

The Dodge Report

Dodge calls for consolidation, saving millions Illinois State Treasurer candidate Jim Dodge and Comptroller candidate Darlene Senger called for consolidating the offices they are seeking, the move will save taxpayers an estimated $12-$14 million per year. Dodge’s Democrat opponent challenged the savings estimate until confronted with previous interviews where he confirmed Dodge’s figures. House Speaker Mike Madigan and the Democrat leadership in Springfield has consistently refused to let consolidation come to a vote.

(Learn More)


“I will be a tireless advocate for taxpayers as treasurer,” said Jim Dodge. “My opponent’s silence has been deafening when issues of saving taxpayers money arises.”

Globalists may prefer that the Fed be taken down by conservatives now so that we become the bumbling villains that triggered a historic fiscal panic.

By Brandon Smith

There is a disconnect within the liberty movement over the notion of where to find the root source of globalism. A portion of people within the movement seem to think that the fount of globalism resides within America itself; that American imperialism is the foundation of the globalist scheme and the dollar is the single most important mechanism supporting their power. This is an naive oversimplification of the problem.

Numerous misconceptions stem from the idea that globalists actually have loyalty to the U.S. system. For example, over the past several years you might have often heard the argument that the Federal Reserve would "never end QE," that they would "never let stock markets fall," that they would "never raise interest rates," that they would "inevitably go to negative interest rates," that they would "never cut the balance sheet," etc. etc. All of these assumptions were based on the idea that central bankers and globalists need the U.S. economy and the dollar system in order to maintain financial control of the world in general.

All of these assumptions also turned out to be completely false as the past couple years show the direct effects of the Fed pulling the plug on its artificial support of the U.S. economy.

Not only this, but we have numerous examples of Fed officials admitting that a crash in markets and the economy would occur if the Fed cut off support. This includes current Fed chairman Jerome Powell, who outlined the result of balance sheet cuts and interest rate hikes back in 2012. Meaning, skeptics cannot argue that the Fed is somehow "unaware" of its own actions and the consequences. The central bankers know exactly what they are doing and what will happen as a result. They are bringing down the U.S. economy deliberately.

This has caused considerable confusion for many alternative analysts. They have spent so long operating under the notion that the Fed will protect U.S. markets, protect the dollar and thus protect itself. What they refused to accept was the possibility that the Fed is actually a suicide bomber whose goal is to eventually destroy itself and everything around it, thus bringing down America from within.

But why would the globalists do this? For those that assume the U.S. economy represents the "goose that lays the golden eggs," what I describe above is inconceivable. In order to understand what is happening and why, we must cast off the lie that America is a golden goose that perpetually supports the globalist agenda. Rather, America is more like a host to the globalist parasites, and once the host is drained of all vitality, the parasites will leave and move on to bigger and better targets.

In other words, just as numerous empires before it, the U.S. system served a purpose for a particular window of time. It was exploited as a means to an end, and now the banking elites are moving on to a "new world order" in which America plays a far diminished role. This is why the Fed continues to act in a manner that appears bewildering to so many people. This is why the Fed is taking actions that they have openly admitted will cause a crash. They want a crash.

The Fed itself is merely an empty shell. It is an institution on paper, representing a set of illusions that are treated as concrete. If we are looking for the top of the globalist pyramid, we would certainly not start with the Fed. The Fed is a tool for manipulating the U.S. political framework and economic engine, and like all other central banks in the world its policies are dictated by much more important entities like the Bank For International Settlements (BIS).

It is organizations like the BIS and the IMF that are set to become the NEW centers of the financial world as the U.S. economy and the dollar sink into obscurity. I outlined this plan in detail in my article "The Economic End Game Explained," but it has taken quite some time for the facts I presented to be accepted by a greater percentage of the movement. The claim that the Fed "would never" sacrifice itself is a powerful distraction from the truth.

The globalists do not care about maintaining the U.S. system as it is. They are even willing to sabotage it in order to create the chaos needed to generate social and political capital; the kind of capital that will buy them a worldwide economic reset and their so-called "new world order." Within this construct, the masses would be made to accept open centralization of financial and political control into the hands of the banking elites. That is to say, the globalists no longer want to be covert; they prefer to be overt, and venerated as saviors of humanity rather than despised as parasites.

In order to achieve such a fantastic farce, certain steps need to be taken. In particular, someone else needs to take the blame for the disastrous consequences of the global reset when it accelerates.

Donald Trump fits the bill perfectly for a number of reasons, but the ultimate scapegoat for a crash of the U.S. system is not Trump alone, but the conservative ideal overall. I have argued for some time that Trump is controlled opposition — a pied piper for conservatives. His rhetoric is almost everything liberty advocates and Republicans like to hear, but his actions do not always match his words.

In particular, the induction of multiple banking elites and Council on Foreign Relations members into Trump's cabinet makes it impossible for true change to ever take place within the White House, let alone the rest of Washington. Which is why I believe we have seen Trump flip-flop on so many issues recently. Trump is supposed to present the face of a "populist" conservative stalwart while at the same time doing the bidding of the globalist handlers standing over his shoulder in the Oval Office.

More specifically, Trump has reversed course on his relationship to the Fed many times.

In September of 2016, Trump attacked the Fed on the campaign trail, stating that they were keeping interest rates low in order to artificially boost stock markets for the Obama administration. This was mostly true, though the Fed could not care less about protecting the image of any particular president. Instead, they were preparing for the global reset while getting ready to lay blame at the feet of their populist scapegoat.

After Trump entered office, he suddenly changed his attitude, offering full support to Janet Yellen and then Jerome Powell and taking credit for the spike in stocks fueled by Fed's balance sheet purchases and low rates. Trump also stated that a strong dollar was better for America.

Today, the situation has changed yet again. Trump now suddenly has conflict with the Federal Reserve and the rising dollar index, voicing his concerns that the Fed is creating conditions that will lead to difficulty in the trade war as well as an economic crisis. Fear are rising within mainstream economic circles that this is leading to a war between Trump and the Fed.

To the casual observer, all this makes Trump appear rather schizophrenic — but maybe this is the point.

The Fed's usefulness is waning. Their only job now is to continue raising interest rates and cutting their balance sheet in a controlled demolition of financial markets and equities. Once they are done, the only thing left is for the dollar to lose its world reserve status and then the sabotage of the U.S. will be complete.

A battle between Trump and the Fed serves a couple of purposes; firstly, it provides cover for the dismantling of the U.S. stocks and the U.S. dollar, just as the trade war (also blamed on Trump) provides cover for the same. A conflict between the president of the United States and the Fed would lead to substantial doubt in markets over the safety of investment in U.S. equities, debt and currency.

Secondly, if Trump is seen as getting "getting tough" on the Fed, liberty activists that are skeptical of the Trump administration and his globalist appointed cabinet might be lured into the fold and support policies which are ultimately the unmaking of liberty. Dismantling the Fed several years ago would have done irreversible damage to the banking elites and their plans for a perfectly timed economic reset. Today, it's too little too late. In fact, the globalists may prefer that the Fed be taken down by conservatives now so that we become the bumbling villains that triggered a historic fiscal panic.

This is not to say that I support the continued existence of the Fed, but I do want to point out that Trump is not talking about combating the IMF or the BIS, nor is anyone else in the mainstream discussing it. Removing one sacrificial appendage of the vampire squid is useless; we must go to core organizations and shut them all down to make any difference in the outcome. The fact that they are going to sacrifice the Fed and the dollar anyway does not help matters.

I believe Trump's "schizophrenia" on the Fed is due to him simply following the script that has been given to him. I do not think the globalists were always certain they wanted to use the tactic of a president vs. Fed crisis. But I did predict back in early 2017 that this is exactly what they would end up doing in my article "In A Battle Between Trump And The Federal Reserve, Who Really Wins?"

It only makes sense at this stage in the game. The Fed is going to continue to raise interest rates and cut its balance sheet no matter what happens. They are going to use "inflationary pressures" supposedly caused by Trump's infrastructure spending and the trade war as as excuse for their actions. Trump, in turn, is going to blame the Fed for the inevitable stock market crash and the rising dollar causing difficulty in "winning" the trade war.

I do not know if the globalist script calls for Trump to go as far as shutting down the Fed completely, but rest assured if he does there will be thousands of alternative analysts decreeing that it is irrefutable proof that Trump is not controlled opposition and he "must have a plan." The actual plan will be the end of the dollar as the world reserve currency to make way for the global economic reset and a NWO currency framework, all in the name of stopping a catastrophe initiated by "evil conservative populists."