- Democrats Are Trying To Trump-Proof The Government In Case He Wins In 2024
Democrats Are Trying To Trump-Proof The Government In Case He Wins In 2024
Authored by Fred Lucas via 19fortyfive.com,
Is this what a party does when it can’t keep voting on articles of impeachment?
It’s been almost two years since former President Donald Trump’s defeat, yet House Democrats have managed to build an entire legislative agenda around Trump Derangements Syndrome.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee alone has been firing away Trump-obsessed legislation, as Democratic sponsors for bills on the Census, civil service, and whistleblower protections all cite Trump as a key part of the justification for the proposals. The common line connecting all the bills is to curb executive power that should be in the hands of an elected president and enhance the power of unelected and largely unaccountable bureaucrats.
Three of the bills that began in the oversight panel cleared the House Rules Committee this week to move to the House floor.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is clearly real. To be clear, it’s not necessarily better or worse than Trump sycophancy. Americans–whether serving in public office or everyday working stiffs–should never base their life around idolatry of or seething hatred for one prominent leader. But, of course, that has happened with Trump. I suppose polarizing is a shorter way to put it, but that term seems so trite.
Anyway, the anti-Trump side is presently being more ridiculous and pettier. If Trump sycophancy becomes a legislative agenda, I’ll reconsider that judgment.
The silliness of it all is that Trump might be the only Republican–at least top tier Republican–who could lose to either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris in 2024. While that’s questionable, House Democrats are advancing bills through committee as if they think he’s a sure thing come January 2025 – or water down a second Trump term as much as possible by weakening presidential authority.
Also, some of the bills are based on silly anti-Trump conspiracy theories. The bills would effectively politicize executive branch agencies that shouldn’t be.
HR 8326, dubbed the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act would make it more difficult for a president to fire a Census Bureau director, while also granting the director broad new authorities to conduct statistical sampling. It would expand the number of Census Bureau employees with civil service protections. It also constrains future censuses from inquiring about citizenship–which could favor Democrats for enumeration and apportionment.
When the oversight committee advanced the bill in July, committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., complained about the “Trump administration’s illegal efforts to weaponize the Census Bureau for political gain.”
House Oversight Committee Democrats Reps. Gerald Connolly of Virginia and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania co-sponsored H.R. 302, dubbed the Preventing a Patronage System Act. The theory is that if Trump is elected, he would eliminate the civil service system and return to a spoils system.
The press release for the bill references Trump’s final months in office, when he signed an executive order creating a “Schedule F” category of federal employees.
The order determined that career employees with civil service protections involved with “policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating” positions that are “not normally subject to change as part of a presidential transition” could be more easily removed for insubordination, which was a problem during the Trump administration.
This would affect a maximum 50,000 federal employees out of the 2.2 million federal workforce. That’s far from a patronage system.
The Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act, or H.R. 2988, certainly is a more innocuous sounding name, since many Republican lawmakers love whistleblowers that rat out Democrats. But this bill practically encourages bad actors in the federal workforce to simply engage in meritless accusations–thus abuse the legal whistleblower protections. Whistleblowers have significant legal protection now. But the bill would create a new legal veil around whistleblowers and enshrines whistleblower anonymity in all situations.
Connolly, the Virginia Democrat, said the bill comes “in the wake of the Trump administration’s assault on whistleblowers.”
Maybe considering the record of the Biden administration, Democrats feel they should keep reminding voters of Trump. Perhaps it makes good fundraising letters for these politicians to tell Democrat donors they are still sticking it to the bad orange man.
Still, one must wonder: if Trump had decided to fade from public life like most presidents, what in the world would hold Democrats together?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 23:40 - Tropical Storm Fiona Forms In Atlantic; Caribbean Islands In Path
Tropical Storm Fiona Forms In Atlantic; Caribbean Islands In Path
After a relatively quiet hurricane season, with no named storms in August, a new tropical system has formed in the Atlantic Basin that should be monitored into the weekend.
Tropical Storm Fiona, the sixth named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, is moving westward with sustained winds above 50 mph. It’s about 625 miles east of the Leeward Islands and strengthened from a tropical depression Wednesday.
The islands of Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, Montserrat, Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla have all issued tropical storm watches. Additional watches and warnings could be issued today.
“On the forecast track, the center of the storm is forecast to move through the Leeward Islands late Friday and Friday night, and be near the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this weekend,” the hurricane center said.
Meteorologist Zach Covey pointed out that most models show Fiona could hook right into the Atlantic on Monday. At least one model shows the storm could traverse into the Northern Gulf of Mexico, while another shows it riding up the US East Coast.
Tropical Storm #Fiona will be tracking through Hebert Box 1 – something most Florida meteorologists know well. The boxes, named after former NHC forecaster Paul Hebert, are two regions used as predictors for hurricanes that can strike South Florida. pic.twitter.com/758NaXGuXJ
— Zach Covey (@ZachCoveyTV) September 15, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
It’s still too early to determine what path Fiona takes next week, but it’s a storm to watch.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 23:20 - Space Diamonds From Dwarf Planets May Be Future Of Mining & Manufacturing
Space Diamonds From Dwarf Planets May Be Future Of Mining & Manufacturing
Authored by Victoria Kelly-Clark via The Epoch Times,
Tiny folded diamonds that fell to Earth from an ancient dwarf star may sound like something from an intergalactic feature film, but researchers from Australia and the United Kingdom have proven the existence of the rare gems after examining a stony meteorite.
Scientists from Australia and the UK have established the existence of lonsdaleite, a rare hexagonal diamond, no bigger than a human hair, that researchers note is layered into a distinctive folded pattern, unlike the earth-formed diamonds that have a cubic structure.
The existence of Lonsdaleite—named after the pioneering British crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale—has previously been the subject of debate because its very existence could not be proven.
The lead scientist on the research team Prof. Andy Tomkins, from Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere, and Environment, said the mysteries of the rare diamond were what drove him continue researching ureilite meteorites in his lab.
Tomkins said it was a case of curiosity-driven science.
“This is exactly the sort of curiosity-piquing observation that sends scientists diving down rabbit holes for months on end,” he said.
Scientists from Australia and the UK have established the existence of lonsdaleite, a rare hexagonal diamond no bigger than human hair. Image shows the ‘The Rock,’ a 228.31-karat pear-shaped white diamond, in Geneva on May 6, 2022. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
Naturally formed ureilite meteorites contains a higher abundance of diamond than any known rock on Earth. They are also one of the few opportunities to study the mantle layer of dwarf planets.
The samples are created when asteroids collide with a planet while still hot, creating the ideal conditions for lonsdaleite and diamond growth due to moderate pressure and rapid temperature drops in the fluid and gas-rich environment.
“These findings help address a long-standing mystery regarding the formation of the carbon phases in ureilites that has been the subject of much speculation,” Tomkins said.
Tomkins also collaborated with researchers from the CSIRO, RMIT University, the Australian Synchrotron, and Plymouth University to discover samples of lonsdaleite in nature, offering an insight into potential replication of the process for industrial purposes.
“These diamonds are quite special,” said Alan Salek, physicist and RMIT PhD researcher.
“Normal diamonds that you would find here on Earth, like on an engagement ring, have a specific atomic structure that’s cubic. These special diamonds are hexagonal in structure.”
“It’s pretty exciting because it’s a new form of material.”
The unique shape is believed to be why lonsdaleite is stronger than any other diamond.
Significant Implications For Mining and Manufacturing
CSIRO scientist Colin MacRae in a media release, said the discovery has enormous potential for industries like mining.
“If something that’s harder than diamond can be manufactured readily, that’s something industry would want to know about,” MacRae said.
Manufacturing at a Brisbane factory in Australia, on Jan 25, 2017. (AAP Image/Glenn Hunt)
Macrae noted that the discovery meant they could find a way to reproduce the mineral.
“Lonsdaleite could be used to make tiny, ultra-hard machine parts if we can develop an industrial process that promotes the replacement of pre-shaped graphite parts by lonsdaleite,” he said.
At present, the current method for producing industrial diamonds involves chemical vapour deposition, in which diamonds are formed onto a substrate from a gas mix at low pressures.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 23:00 - Yuan Fades Despite 'Suddenly' Strong China Macro Data Across The Board
Yuan Fades Despite ‘Suddenly’ Strong China Macro Data Across The Board
Just days after Morgan Stanley question whether China could stabilize global growth, tonight’s avalanche of macro data from Beijing suggests the unleashing of various liquidity measures – and the random lifting of some COVID-Zero lockdowns – was just enough to juice the data in August as almost everything beat expectations and improved sequentially…
-
China Industrial Production rose 3.6% YTD YoY in August – IN LINE with expectations of +3.6% and UP from July’s 3.6% MoM rise.
-
China Retail Sales rose 0.5% YTD YoY in August – BEATing expectations of +0.2% and UP from July’s 0.2% MoM drop.
-
China Fixed Asset Investment rose 5.8% YTD YoY in August – BEATing expectations of +5.5% and UP from July’s 5.7% MoM rise.
-
China Surveyed Jobless Rate fell to 5.3 in August – BEATing expectations of 5.4% and BETTER then July’s 5.4% – despite youth unemployment at 18.7%
However, there was was black eye in the bunch:
China Property Investment tumbled 7.4% YTD YoY in August – MISSing expectations of -7.0%% and WORSE than July’s 6.4% decline.
Additionally residential property sales continued their weakness, down 30.3% YTD YoY, suggesting China’s property slump shows little sign of easing…
Digging into the details, Helen Qiao of Bank of America told Bloomberg Television making the point that retail sales has been boosted by auto sales, but broader consumer sentiment remains hostage to the aggressive covid zero strategy.
Looking through the retail sales break down, autos and petroleum saw double digit gains and there was strength also in food, eating out, tobacco/alcohol, medicine. The weakest sectors were cosmetics, furniture and communication appliances
This all seems very well timed – the increase in industrial output is particularly interesting given leading indicators like PMIs and exports have been flagging weakening demand.
China’s offshore yuan was fading fast after the data – and was rather notably weaker than the RMB Fix – breaking significantly weaker above 7/USD. That is the 17th straight day of Yuan fixing stronger than the offshore rate.
Will China intervene to halt the imported inflation? Judging by the fix – and the flood of suddenly positive data – they are trying.
As Bloomberg’s Enda Curran notes, these numbers will stoke views that the economy has bottomed – but – given the ongoing challenges from extreme weather, the housing data we saw this morning, weakening global demand for China’s exports and of course covid zero, feels like a big call to say things will turn from here.
Ho Woei Chen, economist with United Overseas Bank Ltd. in Singapore, says:
“The improvements in data provided some relief but economic challenges remain. The pace of recovery in production, consumption and investment is still in question for the coming months. The offshore yuan trend is also a function of the Fed’s monetary policy. For PBOC, it is expected to maintain an accommodative policy to help the economy recover.”
Raymond Yeung, chief economist for Greater China at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, says:
“August’s data does not relieve our concern on China’s growth outlook. It does reflect the impact of Chengdu’s lockdown.”
Furthermore, this is a timely turn for the data given the Party Congress will kick off in four weeks from now and it also runs against the recent narrative that government support isn’t gaining traction.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 22:40 -
- Macleod: Inflation Is Turning Hyper…
Macleod: Inflation Is Turning Hyper…
Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,
Money supply took off during covid lockdowns. It is now about to take off again to pay everyone’s energy bills. But that is not all.
Demands for currency and credit to be conjured out of thin air to pay for everything will be coming thick and fast. Expectations that energy prices, including European electricity, have peaked are naïve. Putin has yet to put the winter and spring screws on Europe and the world fully. It will be surprising if global oil and natural gas prices in Europe are not significantly higher on a twelve-month view. And Europe has messed up its electricity supplies — that is where the energy costs will rise most.
Bankers are trying to reduce their loan exposure to rising interest rates, undermining GDP. Besides paying for everyone’s energy bills, rescuing troubled banks, collapsing tax revenues, and difficulties in selling government debt on rising yields, governments are expected to apply economic stimulus to support both their economies and financial markets.
Furthermore, this article points to evidence as to why the expansion of central bank credit has a far greater impact on prices than contracting bank credit. The replacement of commercial bank credit by central bank credit will have a far greater inflationary impact than the deflation from bank credit alone.
Attempts to rescue the American, European, and Japanese economies by replacing commercial bank credit with central bank credit will probably be the coup de grace for fiat.
We can begin to anticipate the path to the destruction of purchasing power for all fiat currencies, not just those of Zimbabwe, Turkey, and Venezuela et al. A global hyperinflation is proving impossible to avoid.
First it was covid, now it is energy…
For the magic money tree, its exfoliation is just one thing after another…
Having recognised the impracticality of putting price controls on Russian gas and oil, the EU is turning to protecting all households and businesses from the energy crisis. Even Switzerland, and now the UK are bowing to the inevitable consequences of combining inflationary monetary policies of recent years, environmental wokism, and frankly irresponsible energy policies with the decision to sanction the world’s largest energy exporter.
There can be little doubt that a common approach to resolving energy problems has been decided upon following informal discussions at a supranational level. After all, forums such as the G7 and G20 are all about agreeing to act together, a united front to prevent markets taking control of events out of government hands. Lines of communication continue between formal meetings. That way, establishment statists believe there is less chance of a currency crisis created by one government pursuing a rogue course.
The consequence, of course, is that even with successful management, misguided policies get implemented. A group-thinking form of myopia takes over. And while the immediate problem is addressed, the consequences are rarely foreseen. These subsequent effects are almost certainly going to undermine statist attempts to alleviate the hardship their earlier policies have inflicted on their electors.
In Britain’s case, it is proposed that electricity and presumably gas bills will be fully funded above £2,500 per household, with support arrangements to be put in place for businesses. But much of France’s nuclear power is shut down — 32 of Électricité de France’s 56 nuclear reactors are out of action, with four showing stress corrosion and small cracks in the cement works and a further 12 reactors suspected of being similarly affected. The other sixteen are shut for routine maintenance. It seems that France expects to import electricity through October to February from European neighbours, including the UK, while the UK expects to import French electricity.
How support for businesses will be implemented is unclear; it is an extremely complex issue. But there is little doubt that without this support, the economy will collapse this winter as businesses shut down, unemployment rockets, and the lowest rungs in society, emotively the elderly and struggling single mothers, find it impossible to keep body and soul together. From the government’s point of view, if nothing is done now revenue will collapse, welfare costs escalate, civil disobedience could worsen, and law and order break down. The same problems would arise in the European Union, with some nations facing a greater propensity to riot.
There is no doubt that in the practical world of modern politics, where everyone’s business is the business of government, there is no alternative to ramping up support for the people and their employers in the times ahead. Either the problem has to be faced now, or the consequences for government finances will have to be faced later.
The problem of financing energy subsidies is not yet a public issue. As experience with covid showed, governments were able to ramp up their funding to cover emergencies without much difficulty. This leads to an assumption that governments can simply issue more debt — perhaps £150 billion in the UK’s case but likely to be more, taking the government debt to GDP ratio to over 110%. The impact on indebted EU member states with already far higher debt to GDP ratios is not good either, but what else is to be done?
Undoubtedly, selling bonds to pay for everyone’s excess energy bills will be problematic. Government funding through covid and its aftermath was against a background of declining interest rates, when banks, insurance companies and pension funds were prepared to buy government bonds. We now face the prospect of rising interest rates, with price inflation suggesting that interest rates have much, much further to rise. Appetite for fixed interest bonds is bound to be substantially diminished. Furthermore, central banks are no longer quantitatively easing, but beginning to tighten.
Therefore, the market certainty that comes with central banks underwriting their government bond prices is no longer there. Investors, mostly in the form of pension funds and insurance companies, are bound to take a more cautious view and have little alternative to ducking auctions of government debt.
Without genuine investment being diverted from the private sector into government bonds, any issue of government debt exceeding redemptions of existing stock becomes inflationary. Central banks are surely aware that to accommodate this new wave of government borrowing, quantitative tightening will have to be abandoned, funding through short-term commercial bank credit will be increasingly relied upon, and bond yields must rise to the point where debt can be got away. As to whether quantitative easing will be reintroduced, that would represent a policy U-turn of great difficulty at a time of rising interest rates and rising consumer prices.
Market participants have not yet taken this problem fully inboard, confirmed by complacency over valuations in financial markets. Despite the wake-up call this week when US consumer prices rose ever so slightly more than expected and the Dow fell 1,276 points, investors still hope that inflation is transitory, and that the threat of a deepening recession is a far greater problem, limiting the rise in bond yields. Current macroeconomic theories only allow for one or the other outcome. A contraction of credit, higher prices, and higher interest rates is deemed contradictory to the solution for a recessionary outlook.
But rising bond yields in any real magnitude simply destroys value and therefore credit. A shortage of credit ensues, and the scramble for more credit to replace it drives interest rates even higher. It always happens at the onset of a financial crisis, as clearly illustrated by the UK’s secondary banking crisis in 1973. The Bank of England’s rates reluctantly began to rise that April from 9.75% against a deteriorating economic background, reflecting a tightening of credit. Banks exposed to commercial property began to collapse after the BoE’s rate was raised to 12% in October.
The root of the confusion is essentially ignorance of the relation between the quantity of credit in circulation and the consequences of its contraction. It is this relationship which rules prices, not the supply and demand curves favoured by the neo-Keynesian consensus.
Economists and the investing establishment prefer to view the expansion of currency and credit in connection with the covid crisis as a one-off event, with economies and government finances reverting to more sustainable paths in due course. Examples of this thinking are shown in both the Congressional Budget Office’s ten-year forecasts, and in those of the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility. Every time their forecasts are proved incorrect, they simply extend the timeline back to the official inflation target.
Putting aside the legacy of damages done to businesses and personal finances, it can be claimed that covid is behind us. But to believe that government finances are free to recover over time is ill-founded.
Yet more “one-off” inflation waves are to follow
Though the particulars always differ, once the path of inflationary finance is embarked upon, requirements for more inflationary finance always arise. From covid, we segway to energy and food for the masses. The consequences for the western world’s fiat currencies and financial systems are dire, but that is not the end of demand for yet more inflationary finance. The following competing issues are increasingly certain to arise in the coming months, some of them running concurrently and some yet to materialise:
-
Energy supplies. Having shut down Nord-stream 1, Russia is already tightening energy supplies for Europe and the NATO alliance generally, which will strictly limit their ability to accumulate further fossil energy reserves for the winter. While Europe has made good headway storing gas from other sources recently, depleted reserves will still have to be addressed in the spring. Separately, with a large chunk of France’s nuclear generation currently offline electricity prices are set to soar, irrespective of gas and oil prices. The best that Europe can do is pray for a very mild winter. And while EU nations will be ready to impose windfall taxes on energy suppliers, there will still be enhanced budget deficits to be financed if businesses and consumers are to be compensated.
-
Future energy prices. The decline in oil prices since June will almost certainly be reversed. European governments have already or are about to promise to bail out all their consumers and businesses irrespective of cost. The cost can only be met by limitless currency dilution, difficult to achieve when the entire euro system of the ECB and national central banks itself is in negative equity due to falling bond values. The commitment to subsidise energy costs gives Putin an added weapon: yet higher oil and gas prices will undermine EU governments’ finances even further, bringing extra pressure to bear on politicians leading to a likely breakdown of the NATO alliance. This is Putin’s real objective, and he won’t let up until this is achieved. Until then, for Putin the higher European oil and gas prices go, the better.
-
The war in Ukraine. Military setbacks for Russia in East Ukraine are likely to intensify retaliatory restrictions on European energy supplies. Grain and fertiliser shortages are not going to be resolved in the foreseeable future, and shipments from Odessa are likely to be stopped. While western press reports suggest that Ukraine is winning back territory, it seems to be making progress in thinly defended areas along a 1000-mile border. In any event, the campaign season on the ground cannot last long before late autumnal rains and snow turn battlefields into muddy quagmires. The war will then turn into a stalemate and armies become entrenched like those of the Somme. There is unlikely to be any economic relief for Russia’s “unfriendlies” from current military successes against Russian troops.
-
Geopolitics. Russia’s geopolitical focus is to create with China a new Asian powerhouse. Oil and gas are being heavily discounted for fellow travellers, giving them an economic advantage over Russia’s “unfriendlies”. Even the Saudis recognise that their future is not with fossil-fuel hating Europeans, but with fellow Asians, Africans, and South Americans such as Brazil. The western powers face a relative economic decline, which is bound to encourage governments in the Asian camp to liquidate their US, UK and EU government bond and currency holdings. With substantial Asian-owned debt and currency balances tending to be liquidated, the negative consequences for western financial markets and their currencies are yet to materialise.
-
Eurozone’s financial fragility. Unless NATO compromises sufficiently (i.e., the Americans withdraw from European affairs and remove their missiles), Europe can expect no help from Russia. Germany’s economy is already verging on collapse. It is the EU’s powerhouse: with Germany in steep decline, all sorts of issues are raised — the future of the banks, the future of the TARGET2 euro settlement system, the future of the euro itself. The ECB and the entire euro system can only respond by supplying unlimited quantities of inflationary finance to preserve the euro system: that is more important to the ECB than preserving value for the euro on the foreign exchanges.
-
Rising interest rates. Interest rates are now rising, driven not by central banks, which are determined to resist the trend, but by contracting credit. Falling purchasing powers for the dollar and the other major western currencies are just beginning to accelerate, ensuring a buyers’ strike in bond markets and significantly higher yields. Initially, bank lending margins may benefit, but non-performing loans will increase rapidly. The €9 trillion Eurozone repo market will begin to unwind, creating a liquidity crisis for banks which depend upon it to maintain their balance sheet integrity. Central banks will be called upon to ensure there are no bank failures in this challenging operational environment.
-
Bank credit downturn. We face a cyclical downturn in commercial bank credit. The evidence that it has started is mounting. When bank lending in an economy shrinks, it always leads to a financial and economic crisis, proportional to the expansion that preceded it. It will be a miracle if this downturn does not lead to a collapse of one or more of the major banks, with a domino effect almost certain to follow. The most leveraged banks are in the Eurozone, which faces the added problems of a belligerent Russia on its eastern front, and in Japan. These banks may have to be bailed leading to a further expansion of central bank currency and the introduction of bank lending guarantees to keep zombie corporations out of bankruptcy, this time under the combined direction of both central banks and their governments.
-
Falling financial asset values. Rising interest rates and bond yields will undermine all financial asset values. Not only will this damage economic confidence, but banks will be forced to liquidate financial assets held as collateral against loans. This will magnify pressure on banks to reduce their balance sheet totals while they can, and financial market values will fall more heavily in consequence, undermining economic confidence. Undoubtedly, vested interests will fight for renewed inflationary policies and interest rate suppression in a desire to maintain asset values, particularly in the US which has become over-dependent on investor confidence in financial markets.
-
The slump in GDP. Because the transactions that make up GDP are entirely financed by bank credit, bank credit contraction will lead to a slump in nominal GDP. Driven by interventionist economic policies, in their desperation governments are sure to try to stimulate recovery by increasing their spending at a time of declining tax revenues. The cost of the extra debt incurred will soar, not just due to the quantities involved, but because higher interest rates and auction failures will be the backdrop to what amounts to a global debt trap from which it is impossible to escape.
To summarise so far; from covid being a one-off economic crisis requiring enhanced deficit spending by governments, we now see a second one-off crisis centred on subsidising energy and food. This will be followed by further and increasing demands for inflationary funding, as briefly enumerated in the bullet points above. Attempts to prevent western economies contracting, buyers strikes in bond markets, along with collapsing bank credit will probably be the coup de grace for fiat currencies.
How currency debasement as opposed to contracting bank credit leads to a final collapse of fiat currency purchasing power must be our next topic.
The relative consequences of currency and credit inflation
There has been little or no theoretical analysis done of the different effects on prices from an increased quantity of bank credit, and that of currency. The former is essentially cyclical, while in fiat currency regimes, the increase in the quantity of currency is continual with a strong tendency to accelerate.
Observation of the current situation, informed by the consequences of a rising interest rate outlook, together with statistical evidence from the history of bank credit cycles, point to a periodic and severe contraction in bank credit which is only now becoming evident. Other things being equal, contracting bank credit is likely to apply downward pressure on prices. We can expect contracting bank credit to be replaced by central bank credit expansion. Because they will work in opposition, we need to assess how important the deflationary pressure is likely to be from the bank credit cycle relative to inflationary pressures from increasing quantities of central bank derived credit, issued to finance rising government deficits.
First, we must isolate the effect on prices from variations of commercial bank credit. Under Britain’s gold coin standard which ran from 1817 to 1914, the cycle of bank credit expansion and contraction is evidenced in the effect on the inflation rate of wholesale prices, as shown in Figure 1.
The cycle’s periodicity was remarkably constant, averaging a ten-year span, a constancy which remains evident to this day. The pecked line marks the date the Bank of England joined the commercial bank clearing system, the relevance of which is discussed below. Wholesale prices are a more direct reflection of cycles of bank credit than consumer prices which during those times of very little consumer credit were less affected by cycles of bank lending. Furthermore, statistics representing the general level of consumer prices were not widely available before the 1930s, and consumer price statistics before the First World War are just guesswork.
The swings between credit expansion and contraction affected wholesale prices in accordance with David Ricardo’s quantity theory of money, upon which modern monetary theory is based. That is to say, an increase in bank credit leads to higher prices, and a contraction to lower prices. The validity of Ricardo’s quantity theory was due to an underlying stability provided to sterling by the gold coin exchange standard introduced in 1817. It allows us to link changes in the level of prices with changes in the level of bank credit. Furthermore, a little knowledge of the history of banking is required to understand why the inflationary/deflationary swings diminished after 1864.
Before 1844, banking combined dealing with credit and the issue of bank notes before the note issue monopoly was given to the Bank of England by virtue of the 1844 Bank Charter Act. Banknotes in circulation reflected a higher counterparty risk before 1844, which undoubtedly contributed to less price stability than after the Act, when bank notes became a direct liability of the Bank of England.
In 1864, the Bank of England was admitted to the clearing system set up by the commercial banks, and the use of bank notes and coin in the clearing system ceased entirely. Prior to that date, differences between the commercial banks and the Bank were settled in Bank of England notes, requiring every bank to keep substantial quantities of notes on hand. That the effect of swings in bank credit on the inflation rate of wholesale prices diminished was attributable to improvements in the overall banking system, notably the evolution of centralised clearing of credit imbalances.
We can therefore link the price effect of cycles of bank credit to the efficiency of bank credit clearing systems, particularly after 1864. With the stability provided by the gold coin exchange standard, interest rates measured by undated government debt declined from about 5% in 1815 (where it was restricted from going no higher by law until 1833) to under 3% in 1880. The improvement in the efficiency of credit creation and distribution contributed to the lowering of this measure of interest over time.
It is also understood from Austrian business cycle theory that rises and falls in bank credit were directly linked to economic booms and slumps. These did not diminish after the Bank Charter Act, as might be inferred from the lower wholesale price volatility that followed it, particularly following 1864. Far from it: Overend Gurney collapsed in 1866, and the Barings crisis was in 1890. Rather than being economic in nature, credit crises became more financial.
Following the Panic of 1873, the long depression led to a worldwide decline in commodity prices that lasted for fifteen years. Following the recovery from the Overend Gurney crisis, in Britain it was due to the unwinding of excessive speculation financed by bank credit expansion — the bust phase of the classic bank credit cycle. But Britain’s economy was less affected than those of other countries, and her economy merely stagnated, with heavy industries principally affected. While British wholesale prices declined by about 15% by 1895, the slump elsewhere was worse.
But the lesson learned is that the inflationary consequences of bank credit are to some extent tied to the efficiency of the banking system. And with modern technology and money markets, the price effect of the credit cycle on its own is less significant relative to other factors.
The consequences of fiat replacing a gold standard
It will also be noted from Figure 1, that the long-term average level of wholesale prices remained remarkably constant despite all the cyclical swings of inflation and deflation. This was due to the gold coin standard enacted in 1817, whereby the money standard was set by law to be the gold sovereign, to be freely available in exchange for bank notes and bank credit. All further issues of banknotes by the Bank of England were required to be backed by gold in the 1844 Bank Charter Act. And after the Bank of England joined the clearing system, wholesale prices showed a remarkable degree of stability, despite the economic consequences of the cycle of bank credit.
We have noted how changes in the level of bank credit affect wholesale prices; now we must note the stabilising effect of the gold coin exchange standard.
The transacting population knew that they could access real money, that is gold, in exchange for credit at any time. So long as this was the case, the ratio of personal liquidity to goods purchased remained stable. To understand why the ratio matters, imagine a situation where the general population decides for one reason or another to withhold some of their spending and retain higher balances of credit to hand in the form of banknotes and bank deposits. The general level of prices must fall. Conversely, if the general public collectively decides to reduce the level of credit to hand in favour of purchases, the prices of goods will rise.
The point about a gold standard is not that gold circulates as a medium of exchange: far from it, it is hoarded in greater or lesser quantities. It is almost never spent. Under an effective standard, gold being freely convertible on demand from forms of credit at a fixed rate is what mattered. The gold coin exchange standard imparted an underlying stability to the purchasing power of bank notes and bank deposit credit, which they would not otherwise enjoy.
The relationship between gold and forms of credit as circulating media is thus clarified. We must now turn to the situation of fiat currencies, where gold is not available in exchange for credit on demand. Currency and credit loses its anchor, and we must anticipate human action in these circumstances. We are no longer simply addressing fluctuating levels of bank credit but changing perceptions of the purchasing power of banknotes issued by central banks as well. And it should be noted that all instances of collapses in the purchasing power of media of exchange have been the outcome of the public rejecting fiat currencies by minimising their exposure to them.
Therefore, we can easily understand the consequences of the general public rejecting a currency entirely, preferring to hold goods instead of credit, needed or not. The currency’s purchasing power diminishes towards nothing, a situation demonstrated in multiple currencies today which lack their public’s credibility. Zimbabwe, Cuba, Lebanon, Turkey, Myanmar, Venezuela etc. The list is becoming extensive.
It has nothing to do directly with changes in the quantities of currency and credit, which can vary independently from a fiat currency’s purchasing power. We have seen that expanding and contracting bank credit does have a price effect, but on its own it corrects back to a norm. But if that norm is not gold but a fiat currency, we can expect a different outcome.
Understanding this is of fundamental importance, particularly in the situation we face today when we can expect commercial bank credit, contracting GDP, to be replaced with central bank credit. So, why is bank credit set to implode, taking GDP with it?
Commercial banks around the world are as highly leveraged in their ratios of balance sheet assets to equity as they have ever been. While regulators concentrate on balance sheet liquidity, bank directors are responsible to their shareholders. In an environment of high consumer inflation, and therefore rising interest rates, they know that a large proportion of their loans will go sour. And where they have loaned credit for financial activities and speculation, the value of collateral against those loans is bound to fall as well. There can be no doubt that to protect their shareholders, bankers will reduce their loan books to private sector businesses as much as possible and restrict their lending to state actors to short maturities, such as treasury bills.
Almost every transaction recorded in nominal GDP is paid for by deposit transfers between bank accounts. The level of bank deposits is the counterpart of bank lending. Bank lending is just beginning to contract, evidenced by the expansion of broad money supply turning down. So will GDP.
Commentators almost always miss the importance of the currency side of transactions, talking instead of recession as if it were a matter of consumers or businesses driving the fall in economic activity. This is a grievous error. It is banks withdrawing credit from the economy which drives it all, and the level of nominal GDP is a direct reflection of bank credit being used for qualifying transactions. Today, commercial banks around the world are on the verge of withdrawing more credit from economic activity than since the early 1930s.
We know from our analysis of post-1864 Britain to expect a negative price effect from bank credit contraction, but at that time the price effect of contracting bank credit was not a big deal for wholesale prices, having far greater consequences for speculative activity in financial markets. Today, banks seem to be slow to withdraw consumer credit, perhaps under the baleful influence of their central bank. Instead, they are withdrawing credit from businesses, particularly the small and medium size enterprises that make up a Pareto 80% of any economy. And state support for businesses facing higher energy costs will not change this at all. On its own, the contraction of bank credit seems unlikely to have a significant negative effect on prices (i.e., lead to their decline), since it is leading more to the restriction of the supply side of the economy than consumption.
Under current economic and monetary policies, falling GDP, due to contracting bank credit will be replaced by central bank currency in one form or another. From their magic money trees, central banks must procure the currency and credit for their governments to inject into their economies. We will see less destabilising commercial bank credit with respect to prices being replaced by more destabilising central bank credit, particularly when the public sees no end to its expansion.
It is central bank issued credit, not that emanating from commercial banks, which is evaluated by the public. And when the public adopts a general view that it should be reduced to as little as possible by purchasing goods simply to be rid of it, then price rises accelerate, and its purchasing power collapses, irrespective of changes in the quantity in circulation.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 22:20 -
- The Last Development Parcel In The Country's Wealthiest Zip Code Just Sold For More Than $100 Million
The Last Development Parcel In The Country’s Wealthiest Zip Code Just Sold For More Than $100 Million
While the poors have been arguing about abortion and inflation back on the mainland, the richest people in the nation have been quietly snatching up all of the best real estate.
Such was the case this week when Related Group, a developer led by billionaire Jorge Perez, bought the last development parcel available on Miami Beach’s ritzy Fisher Island, according to Bloomberg.
The address, 6 Fisher Island Drive, was sold for more than $100 million to buyers that included Related, Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi, BH Group and Wanxiang America RE Group, the report says.
The plan is to build about 50 condos on the site with penthouses priced at more than $60 million and “normal” units priced at about $30 million. The condos will be between 3,800 sq. feet and up to more than 12,000 sq. feet.
Perez told Bloomberg this week: “This is the last opportunity for someone to buy a new development, pre-construction in Fisher Island. To be able to develop on Fisher Island is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
And he made it no secret about who he is eventually looking to sell to: “An executive for Citadel is one of our perfect buyers, where if he wanted to, he could get picked up by boat right from the property and take it across the bay to Brickell. That is an amenity and perk, where we’re the only project that will offer that.”
Off the coast of Florida, Fisher Island is described as “an ultra-exclusive private island” and “the wealthiest zip code in the United States”.
The island is “accessible only by private yacht or 7-and-a-half-minute auto-ferry from Miami Beach” and “spans 216 private acres of tropical resort-style living, located within minutes from the cultural enticements of Miami.”
The island’s Fisher Island Club provides access to the oceanfront Beach Club, Vanderbilt Mansion, Spa Internazionale, a par-35 championship nine-hole golf course, state-of-the-art Racquet Club, and two private deep-water marinas, among other amenities.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 22:00 - Woke Twilio CEO Conducts "Anti-Racist" Mass Layoff
Woke Twilio CEO Conducts “Anti-Racist” Mass Layoff
Yesterday saw San Francisco-based tech firm Twilio join the growing ranks of companies that are laying off employees as post-pandemic growth reality falls short of pandemic-pumping hype.
Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson announced plans to cut around 11% of the company’s workforce, after admitting that the company had grown too fast:
“Twilio has grown at an astonishing rate over the past couple years. It was too fast, and without enough focus on our most important company priorities. I take responsibility for those decisions, as well as the difficult decision to do this layoff.”
But this announcement was different.
For the first time we can remember, the CEO appeared to make the case that race was involved in the decision-making process around who lost their jobs…
“Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities,” Lawson wrote in a memo to employees.
“So we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens.”
Forgive us for our obvious bias, but doesn’t that statement infer that if they hadn’t considered race then the layoffs would have been ‘racist’?
Of course, the liberal media rose up as one to defend Lawson’s comments. Fortune reports, that two sources at Twilio told them the anti-racist effort was not controversial inside the company.
“No one at Twilio has made any mention of it,” one of the sources said.
“Being an anti racist company is part of our core values.”
The employees dismissed claims of “race-based” job cuts.
“I’m sure right wingers think this means firing only white people,” one of the employees said, noting that it appeared anecdotally that the laid off employees were “an equal mix” of women, men, and underrepresented minorities.
Well how do they explain his comments then… since Lawson did not provide any details about how the company would ensure that the layoffs did not cut deeper into certain groups of its 7,800 worldwide employees
Are we really at that point?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 21:44 - Doug Casey On Class Warfare, 'Eat The Rich' Sentiment, & What Happens Next
Doug Casey On Class Warfare, ‘Eat The Rich’ Sentiment, & What Happens Next
International Man: Politicians looking for ways to finance their extravagant spending increasingly complain that the wealthy aren’t paying their “fair share.”
It’s a trend in motion that is accelerating. This rising anti-wealth sentiment seems to be taking the US into dangerous territory.
Our friend Rick Rule once said, “Eat the rich? Prepare to starve.”
What is your take?
Doug Casey: Once upon a time, government apologists liked to say that the rich had to be taxed in order to help the poor. That’s no longer the case. Nobody in America is starving. Even poor people have flat-screen TVs, air conditioning, and refrigerators. The poor live better than medieval royalty.
What’s going on is the institutionalization of envy, a terrible vice. It’s different from jealousy.
Jealousy says, “You have something that I want. I want one too. Give it to me.”
Envy says, “You have something that I want. If I can’t have it, I’ll destroy it, so you can’t have it either.” Envy is the moral flaw that underlies all socialist economic theories. Socialist feelings and morality underly the economic lies, race hatred, class hatred, sex antagonism, and political polarization tearing the US and the West apart. Envy and socialism have become secular religions. The country has been divided into two different and mutually antagonistic worldviews.
It’s a question of what’s right and wrong, what’s good and evil. It’s not a question of economics, about what’s more productive. This is a much more serious division. It amounts to a religious war between the Left, who want to overthrow and transform society, and the Right, who want to more-or-less maintain traditional values, but lack any real ideology.
The Left is proposing all manner of outrageous, destructive, and genuinely stupid ideas. Free stuff for everybody. Not just food, shelter, schooling, and medical care provided at the expense of producers—which they’ve basically achieved. But now a guaranteed annual income. Everybody is supposed to get a thousand dollars a month, according to the silly twit and wannabe US president Andrew Yang. They won’t have to do anything, just exist, presumably hanging out at Starbucks playing with their iPhones all day. They’ll genuinely be what Yuval Noah Harari, the World Economic Forum’s mincing court intellectual, has called a permanent class of useless eaters.
At some point, however, people who work, create, produce, and believe in traditional values will react. Maybe they’ll explode in a violent counter-revolution. Maybe they’ll quietly go on strike, as did Ayn Rand’s heroes in “Atlas Shrugged.” Or maybe they’ll roll over and be transformed into serfs—which is what The Elite would prefer and expect. But something wicked this way comes.
International Man: What do you make of the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents in the context of this trend?
Doug Casey: Those people aren’t being recruited just to collect taxes, although that’s absolutely one of the things that they will do. They will amount to a national police force, one that has a different mandate than the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, or other Praetorian agencies. The tax authorities have a right to look at any economic activity everywhere and anywhere.
As a moral issue, they’ll try to turn nonpayment of tax on the part of producers into a crime against society. I shudder to think of the type of amoral creatures being recruited—at fat salaries and with immense powers—to investigate the lives of their countrymen. They’ll be exactly analogous to Germany’s Gestapo or Stasi.
These new IRS agents will have little to do with the poor. The poor are increasingly irrelevant, except for their votes. As it’s been throughout history, the uneducated lower classes basically do hand-to-mouth labor. They’re mainly interested in bread and circuses, and that’s what they’ll get. Their numbers are growing in this country for the first time.
The new IRS agents won’t have much to do with the elite either; they can afford tax lawyers and accountants to fend them off. They’ll take a few casualties for show and the sake of “fairness,” but the elite are the main beneficiaries of the hundreds of billions of dollars that the government is pouring on society. This is all going to be paid for by the middle class, the people who actually produce and save.
These new IRS agents are a direct attack on the middle class. The elite hate the middle class and what they stand for—independence, stability, and traditional values. The fact that they’re doubling the size of the tax police is truly extraordinary. As the economy continues to decline, you can expect class warfare—along with race and sex warfare—to increase.
As I explained last week, this is an important part of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Hundreds of billions of dollars that the government will spend through their Inflation Reduction Act will be financed—intentionally—by the creation of new dollars.
The reason why they say it’s “inflation reduction” is because the same number of dollars will theoretically be taken out of society through taxes. The new dollars will be placed with the people and companies the government likes. They say it won’t be inflationary because the same number of dollars will be taken out of the economy from people and companies that they don’t approve of. So, theoretically, the net number of dollars in society will stay the same, and the general price level will stay the same because the money supply will stay the same.
That’s their economic argument. But the moral argument is far more important. MMT allocates hundreds of billions to those the Left approves of and will take that much away from the middle class through taxes. It’s diabolically clever. As I said, this amounts to a religious war because the people behind MMT are actually evil.
Unfortunately, “evil” is a word which has been discredited; people no longer take it seriously. It’s been overused by emotional and often corrupt Bible thumpers, hell, and brimstone preachers. But evil really does exist. Evil is the intentional act of destroying something good.
International Man: With financial markets falling and the US dollar’s purchasing power plummeting, many people are feeling poorer and are looking for someone to blame.
What is your view on this dynamic and how it could affect the political situation?
Doug Casey: The speech Biden gave on September 1 was intended to be shocking and disturbing. It mimicked a scene out of V for Vendetta or 1984. They went out of their way to have Biden deliver it in Philadelphia, where the US was founded, and use red lighting against a dark background to fan emotions. These people are serious. Biden’s words were full of hate and venom, calling out half the country as the enemy—the speech was unprecedented. It was a warning and an overt threat.
Look at the scene. The red background was over the top. Placing a couple of Marines in the background said, “I have power, and I’ll use it against the enemy.” Theatrics such as these are unprecedented. It amounted to a declaration of civil war. It was followed up by the outrageous raid on Trump’s home and the FBI perp-walking about 50 of his prominent supporters, with dawn raids, in subsequent days.
These people truly want to overturn society. They’re actually a reincarnation of the Jacobins and could turn out to be just as violent and dangerous.
They’re working to create an active environment of class warfare in the US. They’ve succeeded in fomenting race hatred, where people identify not as human beings but as people of color and anti-white. And sex warfare, wherein people are no longer either men or women—albeit a few with aberrations of varying degree—but as one or more of 50 or 60 genders.
These people hate the middle class, with their traditional cultural and religious values. This is why Trump is so popular and why they identify with him. It’s not because many of his ideas are particularly good; he’s essentially a populist with no philosophical center.
The elite and wannabe elitists hate Trump because he’s a cultural traditionalist. These people want to overthrow traditional culture itself and eliminate the middle class. In the ideal world of the WEF types, the vast majority of people, the deplorables, would be serfs and the kulaks serving the nomenklatura ruling on the top, assisted by their apparatchiki.
I know it sounds outrageous, but that’s what’s on their minds. We’ve seen this before in history when Leftist intellectuals get control of real power, the apparatus of the State. They truly want to overturn the very basis of civilization. The Jacobins in revolutionary France, the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Nazis in Germany, the Maoists during China’s Great Cultural Revolution, and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. It can happen anywhere when conditions are right. It seems to be happening now in the US and other Western countries.
Let’s hope it blows over. But don’t plan your life around that…
International Man: Historically, the size and power of the middle class made the US different from other countries.
But now, the US middle class is shrinking and feeling squeezed.
Where is this trend going, and what can the average middle-class person do about it?
Doug Casey: What was the average man supposed to do when the Jacobins brought out the guillotines in France in 1793? What should the average middle-class person have done in Russia in 1917? What should the average middle-class person have done in Germany in 1933?
There’s not much you can do when actual forces of evil are in control. There’s very little that you can do except get out of Dodge.
Here in the US, we still have a large middle class. Many are fat, dumb, indoctrinated, or addicted to Prozac and Zoloft. But millions of others are, to coin a phrase, mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. The things we’ve been talking about could turn into a genuine civil war.
What to do? Diversify your political jurisdictions. Don’t roll over like a whipped dog; speak up, and resist. But the most important thing you can do personally is become as rich as possible while maintaining your ethics. Being rich can help you to insulate yourself from evil and stupidity.
* * *
If you want to navigate the complicated economic and political situation that is unfolding, then you need to see this newly released video from Doug Casey and his team. In it, Doug reveals what you need to know, and how these dangerous times could impact your wealth. Click here to watch it now.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 21:40 - Adderall Shortage Worsens As People Without Drug "Not Able To Focus", May Impact Productivity
Adderall Shortage Worsens As People Without Drug “Not Able To Focus”, May Impact Productivity
Adderal supplies in the US are dwindling as pharmacies and patients report shortages. The crux of the problem appears to be a major supplier of the drug for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder has run into supply chain issues. Patients who find themselves without their medication might experience “withdraw” or even a “crash” that could impact productivity at work.
The supply crunch first hit our radar last month when the National Community Pharmacists Association found hundreds of pharmacies across the US had trouble purchasing Adderall and generic versions of the brand in late July.
Bloomberg spoke with a dozen patients in California, Indiana, and Michigan who were told by their local pharmacists at CVS Health Corp. or Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. about a worsening drug shortage.
“In some cases, patients were told they might have to wait more than a week to get their medication, which is supposed to be taken every day,” Bloomberg noted.
Walgreens spokesperson Rebekah Pajak acknowledged that “supply chain challenges” persist with the drug. She said instant-release and extended-release Adderall are the ones in the shortest supply. Meanwhile, CVS spokesperson Matthew Blanchette said Adderall prescriptions at the company’s pharmacies can be filled “in most cases.”
The shortage began at Teva Pharmaceuticals, the US’ largest branded and generic Adderall supplier. Blomberg noted the Israeli multinational pharmaceutical company experienced “labor shortages” that led to the limited supply of brand-name and generic instant-release Adderall. Then three other companies Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc., Rhodes Pharmaceuticals LP, a subsidiary of Purdue Pharma LP, and Novartis AG’s Sandoz unit, all were hit with a surge in orders for generic extended-release Adderall that is now on “back order.”
What appears to have happened in the world of pharmaceuticals is that when one drug manufacturer has a problem, it quickly has a ripple effect across the industry.
The shortage comes as amphetamine sales are at record highs, driven by increased ADHD diagnoses. During the virus pandemic, the federal government eased rules requiring patients to see a doctor in-person before the controlled substance was prescribed which is one of the contributing factors to over-prescription.
For those who miss their daily dosage because of the shortage, it’s entirely possible to experience symptoms of Adderall withdrawal. Some describe it as a “crash” that can leave people drowsy for hours, if not days, and include symptoms of mental and physical exhaustion and feelings of depression.
Anthony Anderson, a 34-year-old special education teacher at a Michigan high school, said he has been without his Adderall since Sept. 6. He’s been taking the medicine for 15 years to treat his ADHD, and without it, he says it’s incredibly difficult to concentrate, which makes it challenging for him to do this job. Sometimes, he forgets what he is talking about mid-sentence.
Anderson was recently talking with a student about a suicide at the school, and at a time when he was supposed to be helping the grieving student, he just couldn’t pay attention.
“I even spaced out when I’m trying to have a serious conversation with this girl to console her, but I spaced out because I’m not able to focus,” he said. “This is a huge issue for me.” -Bloomberg
We would love to see the productivity metrics of performance-based companies over the next several months to see how an Adderall shortage impacted productivity. Then again, Wall Street has the luxury of another stimulant if an Adderall shortage affects Manhattan pharmacies; that is cocaine.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 21:20 - Intolerance – Remain Silent Or Be Branded An Extremist
Intolerance – Remain Silent Or Be Branded An Extremist
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
It appears we are rapidly approaching or have reached the place where we must remain silent or be branded an extremist. There is a growing trend of intolerance. In such an environment it is little wonder that many people have become less vocal and afraid to speak their mind. The source of this is rooted in a blatant disregard for the opinions of others by both those on the left and the right. Democracy as a form of government is far from perfect. Its greatest weakness is rooted in the ability of a small vocal group to force its opinions on others. Sadly, this is not something that is going to rapidly go away.
In a recent speech akin to something you might have witnessed in Germany or Italy before World War II President Biden demonized what he called MAGA Republicans. Biden labeled this group of Americans as dangerous extremists. The message was clear, anyone that expressed the views bantered about by former President Trump could be marked as an extremist. Those that do speak out under such a political framework are now part of a group that law enforcement officials target and might be inclined to place under tighter scrutiny or surveillance.
This growing fear of speaking out is not limited to America, we are seeing it in countries that claim to be free across the world. The tech giants and governments have been throwing fuel on the fire by adding to the feeling retaliation is a fair response to those we disagree with speaking their mind. The tech giants’ effort to closely watch, silence, and censor those not marching in line with their desired narrative is a dagger in the heart of free speech. This effort is apparent when we hear about small fringe groups outside mainstream society threatening to block highways, shut down ports, and occupy state capitols if things fail to go their way. It even extends to harassing elected officials, we are hearing more threats from groups vowing to hound and badger members of Congress or the judicial system at their homes.
Governments Are Adding To The Fear
This started several years ago and ramped up when the term “politically correct” moved front and center. In the minds of some individuals if you say anything that they consider “incorrect” it justifies a harsh response. It has now extended to declaring saying something that could hurt the feeling of some individual or group could be considered “hate speech.” As a result of this growing intolerance, people feel compelled to deny their opinions and remain silent.
The United Nations has weighed in on this subject since hate speech incites violence and undermines social cohesion and tolerance. It claims such speech is nothing new, however, its scale and impact are nowadays amplified by new technologies of communication. The impact of hate speech cuts across numerous existing United Nations areas of focus, from human rights protection, preventing atrocity crimes, sustaining peace, promoting gender equality, and supporting children and youth. The problem here is when hate speech is allowed to be defined by the ears of the beholder.
Forcing Agreement Can Be Ugly
A sign of growing intolerance is seen in the mass arrest of nonviolent protesters by governments. It is important we remember the cornerstones of democracy are the freedom of assembly and the right to speak freely. When these are trampled upon for any reason, the system is in danger of being cast aside.
This article is about the ability of a vocal minority to make people so uncomfortable they become silent. It is about how we should be appalled by those that justify violence, aggression, and force towards those that simply disagree with them. It is about how the threat you may be demonized if you say what you feel tends to breed silence. Watching this unfold is leaving a sickening feeling in those valuing free speech.
We should be alarmed by a survey taken by Cato Institute/YouGov that found most Americans say “the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive”. The survey indicated that 52% of Democrats, 59% of independents, and 77% of Republicans now say they have political opinions they are afraid to share. Most people do not enjoy confrontations or being harassed and as a result, are self-censoring themselves. With the free exchange of opinions and ideas being the foundation of a free and healthy democracy the sign public discourse is being destroyed does not bode well for our continued freedom.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 21:00 - Inflation Has Couples Who Grocery Shop Together Arguing Over Coke Zero, Kit Kat Bars And Pine Nuts
Inflation Has Couples Who Grocery Shop Together Arguing Over Coke Zero, Kit Kat Bars And Pine Nuts
We’re sure that some in the Biden administration would like to have you believe that the effects of rising prices across the country have been minimal, and have had a small effect on middle and lower class families.
However, in actuality, inflation and the budgetary issues it is causing in U.S. households, is resulting in “infighting” amongst families, according to the Wall Street Journal.
35 year old Leibel Sternbach, a financial adviser, told the Journal: “If I buy more of my milk before the one in the fridge is empty, there’s going to be hell to pay.” He said his wife double checks the fridge after every shopping trip and tells him of all the things he didn’t need to buy.
Ah, the joys of marriage…
The couple spends about $350 per week in groceries – a bill that is up from $220 a year prior. They are cutting back on items like pre-cut vegetables and oven ready meals to try and cut additional costs from their bill.
The couple has given up on their favorite discretionary snacks, which for the patriarch is babka, and the matriarch is Kit Kat candy bars.
Arne Boudewyn, head of family wealth and culture services at Wells Fargo, told the Journal that similar discussions are happening in households across the country: “You don’t want to have these conversations in the grocery store aisle.”
39 year old Ruth Abolofia has seen her grocery bill rise to $1,000 per month from less than $900 per month a year ago. Her and her husband recently clashed over six $3 pints of blueberries that she bought.
The couple has cut back on the number of times they dine out to try and save money. “We’re trying to take a more collaborative approach,” she said.
42 year old Dan Wyckoff spars with his wife 43 year old Kristin Wyckoff about “how sugary baked goods make their way into the family’s pantry under the guise of breakfast food” before his wife reminds him that the food is for their four children. They spend about $750 a month on groceries, up from $650 a month a year ago.
“They often seem more like hobbits than humans,” Dan said of his children. Meanwhile, he has given up on one of his favorite products, Coke Zero, switching to a 12 pack every other week instead of one per week.
Another couple, the Sturgeon family, said their grocery bill is up to $767 per month, up about 20% from a year ago. Their arguments have come over tree nuts, which cost $2.50 an ounce.
“Don’t get me wrong, a dash of pine nuts can really elevate a salad. But $2.50 for an ounce of tree nuts starts to get a little ridiculous,” Scott Sturgeon said.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 20:40 - Rickards: Forecasting The Midterm Elections
Rickards: Forecasting The Midterm Elections
Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,
There are 435 seats in the House of Representatives (not counting nonvoting seats for D.C. and some U.S. possessions) and all of them are up for election in November. Right now, the Democrats control the House with 219 Democrats versus 211 Republicans (there are five vacancies).
It takes 218 votes to control the House. This means if the Republicans hold the seats they have and pick up just seven seats from Democrats, they will control the House.
Will this happen? The 2022 election cycle is more challenging to predict than usual because it’s the first election since the 2020 Census that the House map had redrawn to reflect population gain or loss on a state-by-state basis.
Texas gained two House seats, while Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon gained one each. The losers were California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, which lost one seat each.
The new district maps favor Republicans on the whole. Another factor favoring the Republicans is that voters often turn back to the party opposing the incumbent president, either out of dissatisfaction with their presidential choice or simply to balance the scales in ways that keep any one party from becoming too powerful.
The average loss for the president’s party in a first-term midterm since 1982 was 30 seats. If that were the only information I had, my forecast would be that the Republicans would gain 30 seats this November. That would put the House at 241 Republicans and 189 Democrats, a solid 47-seat majority.
Interestingly, a RealClearPolitics forecast based on the average of numerous polls has a forecast of 219 Republicans and 182 Democrats, with 34 seats in the too-close-to-call category.
If those toss-ups were decided in the same ratio as the likely winners (55% Republican to 45% Democrat), that would sort the undecided into 19 Republicans and 15 Democrats. That would produce a final House of 238 Republicans and 197 Democrats, almost exactly the result that the historical track record predicts.
But can we go beyond statistics and polls to discern idiosyncratic factors that could push the results away from the central tendency? There are two.
The first is the trend of Hispanics and African-Americans toward Republicans and away from Democrats.
The Hispanic vote has historically been around 70% for Democrats, but recent polls show the Republicans may capture more than 50% of the Hispanic vote this time because Hispanics are trending conservative and are culturally anti-abortion, anti-crime and in favor of controlling the border.
Hispanics make up about 20% of the total population. If you shift 20% of voters by 20% in preference, that yields a 4% gain for Republicans in the overall vote. With many districts split close to 50/50, a four-point pickup is huge. We’ve already seen this dynamic with Republican gains in seats on the Texas/Mexican border that were solidly Democratic until this year.
The same trend is clear in the African-American community. They are 12% of the electorate and vote about 90% Democrat. However, recent voting results and polls show that the African-American vote could go as much as 20% for Republicans this time.
A 10% gain in a 12% community adds another 1.2% to the Republican column. Crime and the economy are the big issues for African-Americans. Combined with the Hispanic shift, this could put over five percentage points in the Republican column, enough to tip a lot of close races to Republicans.
The second trend that could push the results away from statistical tendencies is Biden’s very low approval ratings. Right now, Biden’s approval rating is 41.8% based on the average of 11 major polls. However, the polls contained in the average include some conducted as long ago as Aug. 15 (Marist) or Aug. 12 (NBC News) when Biden was riding high based on some legislative accomplishments.
The more recent polls show Biden at 38% approval (Reuters, Aug, 30). So it is likely that Biden is in a real-time downtrend back toward the 39% level he held most of the summer.
Based on these idiosyncratic variables, it seems reasonable to push the expectation of 241 Republicans and 189 Democrats to an adjusted result of 245 Republicans to 185 Democrats, a 34-seat gain for Republicans, leading to a 60-seat Republican majority.
In summary, my forecast for the 2022 midterm House result as of now is: Republicans – 245 seats, Democrats – 190 seats.
Forecasting the outcome in the Senate is both easier and harder than forecasting the House. It’s easier because there are fewer races and even fewer contests that are genuinely competitive. It’s harder because the smaller sample size makes it more difficult to use statistical methods. We have to go state by state and candidate by candidate to produce an accurate forecast.
The Senate has 100 members, two from each state. The current split is 50 Democrats/independents and 50 Republicans. Under the Constitution, the president of the Senate, Kamala Harris (the vice president), can break a tie vote.
This puts the Democrats in control of the Senate even with the 50/50 split.
There are 35 Senate seats in play this election. The Republicans are at a slight disadvantage going in because they currently hold 21 of the 35 seats being contested, whereas the Democrats only have to defend 14 seats. The good news for Republicans is that 16 of the 21 seats they are defending are rated “Solid” or “Likely” to stay Republican by The Cook Political Report.
The Democrats have nine out of 14 seats they are defending rated “Solid” or “Likely.” This means that only 10 of the 35 Senate seats in this election are truly competitive. Control of the Senate will come down to those 10. The Republicans and Democrats currently hold five of the competitive seats each.
To control the Senate, either party has to hold their five competitive seats and take one from the other party. If you lose a seat, you have to pick up another just to stay even. It’s that close.
My current best estimate is that Republicans will retain Florida, North Carolina and Ohio. Likewise, the Democrats should retain their seats in Colorado and New Hampshire. This means control of the Senate comes down to Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
If that list seems familiar it should. Those were the same five states that were hotly contested in the 2020 presidential race. All five went for Biden. Although those remaining races are all close, I rate Nevada and Georgia as wins for Republicans.
Those two wins represent a pickup of two Senate seats for Republicans since both are currently held by Democrat incumbents. I rate Arizona a win for Mark Kelly, which is a hold for the Democrats.
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are both extremely close, but right now one would have to rate those as wins for the Democrats. That’s a pickup of two for the Democrats since both seats are currently held by Republicans.
If that forecast holds, we’re back to a 50-50 Senate. A few states would change from Democrat to Republican (Nevada and Georgia) or from Republican to Democrat (Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) but the total 50-50 split would be unchanged.
I have one other forecast: The current forecast will change. They always do when you’re still two months away.
We could see Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin tip Republican over the next two months. Georgia could remain in the Democratic column. All I can say is I’ll be watching closely and keeping you updated every step of the way.
A prudent investor would keep an above-average allocation to cash, both to withstand the volatility from potential wild cards and to profit from attractive entry points on certain assets while others are losing fortunes.
Strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy but fascinating ride.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 20:20 - DOJ Denied Access To Trump Raid Docs After Judge Appoints Special Master
DOJ Denied Access To Trump Raid Docs After Judge Appoints Special Master
A special master has been appointed to act as a firewall between the Justice Department and materials seized during an Aug. 8 raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
In a pair of Thursday orders from federal district Judge Aileen Cannon, the DOJ’s motion to access a subset of classified records stored on the Trump property was denied, and a recently retired judge that both the DOJ and Trump’s team agreed on – recently retired Judge Raymond Dearie – will serve as special master.
Pdf source, Highlights via The Last Refuge Raymond has until Nov. 30, 2022 to complete his review.
Cannon struck down the DOJ’s request for a partial stay of an earlier motion on accessing the seized materials, after lawyers for the government argued that they should be able to review over 100 classified documents taken during the raid – as they are not covered by any claims of personal property or executive privilege.
That said, Cannon sided with a DOJ request for Trump to pay the full cost associated with a special master.
“If the court were willing to accept the government’s representations that select portions of the seized materials are—without exception—government property not subject to any privileges, and did not think a special master would serve a meaningful purpose, the court would have denied plaintiff’s special master request,” wrote Cannon. “The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 20:00 - We Need A Common Understanding Of What 'Capitalism' Means
We Need A Common Understanding Of What ‘Capitalism’ Means
Authored by John Bitzan & Clay Routledge via RealClear Wire,
Almost every day, there is a news story or opinion piece blaming a societal problem on capitalism. A recent one blames capitalism for destroying art, citing Warner Brothers cancelling the release of Batgirl. While sometimes it seems that people are just looking for some kind of scapegoat, there continues to be deep skepticism about capitalism, especially among young Americans. When skeptics and advocates talk about capitalism, are we really speaking the same language when we use the word? Though some critics have a deep understanding of different economic systems, new evidence shows how many are confusing free markets with cronyism. This confusion hinders coherent policy discussions, as well as the future of economic freedom and flourishing.
In what has been referred to as “the hockey stick of human prosperity,” there have been huge advances in human prosperity in the last 200 to 300 years after centuries where the world was extremely poor. To better understand why young adults are so skeptical of capitalism — despite the important role that free markets have played in enabling this prosperity — we conducted a survey of 2,000 students at 130 four-year universities and colleges across the U.S., examining how their conceptions of capitalism relate to their attitudes about it.
We found much disagreement among students about what is meant by capitalism. When presented with a free market definition (“property is privately owned, exchange is voluntary, and production and pricing of goods/services are determined by market forces”), a cronyism definition (“corporations utilize grants, special tax breaks, political connections, and special rules that favor them…”), and the option of “I’m not sure,” 49% chose the free market definition, while the remaining 51% chose cronyism (36%) or indicated being unsure (15%).
This conceptual confusion seems to influence how young people view capitalism. Overall, only 23% of students have a positive view of it, compared to 38% with a negative view. However, among those who define capitalism as cronyism, only 6% have a positive view and 70% have a negative view. For those who define capitalism as free markets, 40% have a positive view and 19% a negative view.
Moreover, the pessimistic views toward capitalism may be fostered by professors’ views. Of students reporting that professors have expressed views on capitalism, 62% say such views have been negative.
As pointed out in a recent study by Peter G. Klein and several colleagues, confusing capitalism with cronyism may result in decisions and policies that are harmful to society. They point to other studies which link a number of societal problems often attributed to capitalism — poor child health, weak environmental protection, higher income inequality, poor infrastructure quality — to cronyism instead.
They also point to an unvirtuous spiral that occurs as a result of such confusion. Policy responses that wrongly target market capitalism result in more government intervention in the economy, which creates even more opportunities and incentives for firms to engage in cronyism. This leads to additional harm and distrust in capitalism.
Two recent examples illustrate this unvirtuous spiral. Recent supply chain disruptions are at least partially rooted in cronyism, with dockworkers unions fighting port automation for decades and lobbying various governments to prevent it, and with the Jones Act preventing non-U.S. owned, built, and crewed ships from transporting goods between U.S. waterway ports. This has led to calls for “reshoring” with trade tariffs and corporate giveaways to bring supply chains “back home.” Not only do such policies harm consumers and taxpayers, they incentivize firms to engage in lobbying to make sure the “wrong” products are charged tariffs and the “right” ones receive subsidies — a recipe for more of the type of government favoritism that sours the reputation of capitalism. One needs to look no further than the tariffs imposed on steel, aluminum, and Chinese products by the Trump administration to see how they can encourage lobbying and harm small businesses.
As another example, the important role played by cronyism in hindering the technological progress and institutions needed to combat climate change in developing countries has been ignored by those blaming capitalism for the problem. Policies for combatting climate change have amounted to favoring one technology over others through subsidies, banning other tech, and micromanaging which solution is best through regulations such as building codes. Again, this type of intervention necessarily favors some businesses over other, potentially more environmentally friendly ones, and invites the political lobbying that characterizes cronyism. A great example of this type of cronyism and its implications is the failed Solyndra, a company that went bankrupt shortly after being given $535 million in loans in the Obama administration, where political lobbying played a huge role. Such lobbying incentives are eventually blamed on “capitalism” and further intervention will be sought.
There are many more such examples. To the extent that we fail to distinguish capitalism from cronyism and treat the wrong disease, we’ll get more cronyism and distrust of honest capitalism will only grow. And however one feels about market capitalism, if America is to continue as the world’s largest economy and a hub of experimentation, innovation, and opportunity, plenty of it will be necessary. This requires, at the very least, a common understanding.
We believe this effort needs to start in universities, the institutions responsible for forming many of our future leaders. The results of our survey suggest there is much work to be done.
John Bitzan is Menard Family Director of the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth, North Dakota State University.
Clay Routledge is Vice President of Research and Director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 19:40 - Tesla Mulling Chinese Retail Model Reset, Including Moving Showrooms Out Of Large Cities Like Beijing
Tesla Mulling Chinese Retail Model Reset, Including Moving Showrooms Out Of Large Cities Like Beijing
In a move we’re absolutely sure has nothing to do with rising tensions between the West and China and/or perpetual Covid lockdowns, Tesla is reportedly mulling a “reset” for its retail strategy in the country.
Tesla is “reevaluating the way it sells electric cars in China” and even considering closing some of its showrooms in malls in major cities like Beijing, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing Reuters.
Tesla appears to be looking for ways to cut its costs while, at the same time, addressing its years-long issue of not being able to provide adequate customer service. The idea for moving its retail locations is reportedly to put more emphasis on stores in less costly areas where it is easier to provide support.
For now it appears that Tesla isn’t removing any of their footprint from China, just relocating it. The report says that the company is looking to add staff, with its China recruitment website showing more than 300 openings for service jobs this week.
Recall, it looks like business is back to usual in China, as we reported last week that Tesla had delivered 76,965 vehicles in China for August after its Shanghai factory returned to normal operations.
The automaker delivered 76,965 China-made vehicles in August, which was up 172.8% from the month prior. Data from the China Passenger Car Association showed that the automaker sold 34,502 cars in China and exported 42,463 vehicles.
The numbers come even as battery maker CATL had to shut down part of its operations due to power restriction constraints during the month, Reuters reported. CATL’s Yibin plant supplies battery cells to Tesla Shanghai.
The stark difference in month-over-month numbers comes as China’s Shanghai plant was down for a planned upgrade for most of July. Recall, deliveries in China had crashed -64.2% heading into the month of August.
We noted then that if the trend continued into August, there would be cause for alarm, but August’s numbers look as though the planned shutdowns are finally in the past. Production was halted to upgrade the factory’s Model 3 and Model Y lines.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 19:20 - Locals In North Dakota Oppose Massive Corn Mill Project By Chinese Company
Locals In North Dakota Oppose Massive Corn Mill Project By Chinese Company
Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
One by one, residents opposed to a corn mill investment by a Chinese company with reputed ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through its chairman, got up to chastise the mayor and city council of Grand Forks, North Dakota.
“You guys are the scariest people I know. You are willing to endanger this city, the people, the country, and this nation,” said Dennis Kadlec, an outspoken critic of the project.
A sign opposing a corn mill in Grand Forks, N.D., stands near 370 acres recently annexed by the city for the project. Many residents don’t want the project in the city because the owner, Fufeng Group, has reputed ties to the Chinese Communist Party through its company chairman. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) He believes city officials have ignored residents’ concerns over the project and the flag they serve.
“This is a republic. Please treat it as such,” Kadlec said.
Jodi Carlson is lead organizer of the Concerned Citizens for Fufeng Project, a non-partisan grass roots group that opposes the increases presence of Chinese-owned businesses in Grand Forks, N.D. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) Kadlec’s accusations of inaction and secrecy on the part of city officials seemed to resonate with other concerned citizens at the city council meeting on Sept. 6.
The group views the corn mill as a potential Chinese spying operation and a threat to the environment and municipal resources.
Some residents see divisions over the project worsening in a close-knit agricultural community of 56,000, where sugar beets and wheat—not corn—are king.
The city of Grand Forks is not a significant producer of corn, either, straddling the Minnesota border about 75 miles south of Canada, where winter temperatures can drop to well below zero.
So the question arises: why would a Chinese company build a corn mill in Grand Forks when harvest volumes are so low?
Critics who fear Chinese espionage say one needs to look no further than Grand Forks Air Force Base, about 12 miles away. The base stores and tests the military’s sensitive drone, satellite, and surveillance technology.
However, city officials supporting the corn mill see the project as an economic opportunity too good to pass up. As the most significant single capital investment in the city’s history, it promises 230 permanent high-paying jobs, higher corn prices for regional growers, and other long-term benefits.
Fufeng USA, the American subsidiary of Fufeng Group, wants to build on 370 acres it acquired that would add millions in sales and property tax revenues and improve city infrastructure.
The “wet corn” mill would employ thousands of workers during construction and, in operation, extract ingredients used to produce animal feed products for sale in the domestic market.
At least on paper, the project looks and sounds good.
What doesn’t sit well with project opponents is the parent company, Fufeng Group, which is based in Shandong Province in China. The company has reputed links with the CCP through its chairman and controlling shareholder, Li Xuechun.
Many residents opposed to the corn mill also feel the city has been translucent in moving the project along, voting to annex land without proper notice to business abutters to sell to Fufeng USA.
Some residents have felt so neglected by the local powers that Jodi Carlson and several others recently formed the Concerned Citizens of Fufeng Project in Grand Forks.
The public group has nearly 3,000 followers on Facebook and vehemently opposes the corn mill project.
Group meetings have become “very contentious,” Carlson told The Epoch Times, “primarily because we’re just tired. The city council continues to say they’ve answered our questions and haven’t. We still have a lot of questions.”
One question is what Fufeng USA plans to do with 250 acres not listed in the development plan, Carlson said.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen with that. We think we have a right [to know], especially since it’s a foreign interest. We don’t think [the city council] vetted it properly. We have a lot of concerns.”
Two U.S. Senators representing North Dakota have raised alarm bells over potential national security issues surrounding the Fufeng USA project amid building tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan.
City officials reportedly vowed to stop the project should China invade Taiwan.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 19:00 - Philadelphia 'Soda Tax' Completely Backfired: Study
Philadelphia ‘Soda Tax’ Completely Backfired: Study
A new study shows that Philadelphia’s ‘soda tax’ on sugary drinks completely backfired.
According to researchers from the University of Georgia conducted five years after city lawmakers imposed a 1.5c per ounce tax on sugary drinks, demand for sugary drinks did drop by around 31% – however consumers simply turned to other sweets, or traveled to nearby towns to buy soda according to UGA Today.
People shopping for sodas outside city limits canceled out almost 40% of the decrease in sugar-sweetened beverage purchases.
Additionally, the soda pop tax actually led to about a 4% increase in purchases of other high-sugar goods in Philadelphia and in neighboring towns. But compared to the sugar decrease from sodas in Philadelphia, additional sweetened food purchases offset an additional 40%.
“Can we influence behavior through taxation? Yes, but only if you enact a policy at broader levels of government, such as at the state or national level that prevents people from cross-border shopping,” said the study’s lead author, Felipe Lozano-Rojas, an assistant professor in the School of Public and International Affairs.
Using nearly four years of data from Nielsen Retail Scanner Data aggregates checkout scanner statistics from participating stores across the country, researchers analyzed over 804 million weekly reports on purchases of sugary foods and sugar-sweetened beverages.
What’s more, the soda tax disproportionately affected low-income individuals, as such taxes always do.
“You probably don’t need to run a complicated statistical analysis to know that if somebody charges you more, then you buy less,” said Lozano-Rojas. “But it’s a double-edged sword from the standpoint of who is going to carry the burden of that tax. Low-income groups are going to be disproportionately affected.”
Previous research has shown people with lower socioeconomic status tend to spend a higher amount of their pay on sugar-sweetened beverages. And the tax burden hits them harder than people who can afford the additional cost to continue purchasing their favorite drink.
Some experts may argue the taxes are working if they curb consumption and improve health. But there isn’t much definitive research on how soda taxes affect health outcomes in communities, Lozano-Rojas said. -UGA Today
“If we were to subsidize healthier options, especially for these groups, the tax might work better,” said Lozano-Rojas. “Subsidizing water, making it more accessible, particularly in places where tap water is not drinkable, these are things that might make going with the healthier choice easier. I think this issue requires more of a magnifying glass into these populations to determine the causes driving excessive sugar-sweetened beverage consumption.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 18:40 - States To Ban Gas-Powered Cars Despite Human And Environmental Cost Of Electric Vehicles
States To Ban Gas-Powered Cars Despite Human And Environmental Cost Of Electric Vehicles
Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, locals watch helplessly as their ancestral lands wither and die, their precious water resources evaporating in salar brines.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, hope for a better life dissolves as well-funded Ugandan-led extremist groups force children as young as six into cobalt mines.
Closer to home, Nevada’s Fort McDermitt Tribe and local ranchers fight to protect a sacred burial site and agricultural lands set to be sacrificed by Lithium Nevada, a mining company, in the coming days.
Meanwhile, in California and other states, politicians like Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) pat themselves on the back for their “aggressive” environmental stance and boast that their gas-powered vehicle bans are leading “the revolution towards our zero-emission transportation future.”
Miners at a cobalt cleaning site in Lualaba Province, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Northwestern Now) The Hidden Costs
According to politicians like Newsom and President Joe Biden, electric vehicles are “zero-emission” because they use lithium-ion batteries—consisting of lithium, cobalt, graphite, and other materials—instead of gas.
Thus, starting in 2035, California will ban gas-powered vehicle sales, while several other states plan to follow suit, citing the embargo as a “critical milestone in our climate fight,” on Twitter.
Additionally, according to a statement from Biden, banning gas-powered vehicles will “save consumers money, cut pollution, boost public health, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis.”
Disagreeing with such claims, John Hadder, director of the Great Basin Resource Watch, pointed out to The Epoch Times that “industrial” nations might benefit from the electric vehicle transition but it’s at the expense of others.
Vice President Kamala Harris charges an electric vehicle in Prince George’s County, Md., on Dec. 13, 2021. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo) “This expansion of [lithium] mining will have immediate consequences for front-line communities that are taking the ‘hit.’”
For example, Copiapó, the capital of Chile’s Atacama region, is the location of one of the world’s largest known lithium reserves.
“We used to have a river before that now doesn’t exist. There isn’t a drop of water,” Elena Rivera Cardoso, president of the Indigenous Colla community of the Copiapó commune, told the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
She added that all of Chile’s water is disappearing because of the local lithium mine. “In all of Chile, there are rivers and lakes that have disappeared—all because a company has a lot more right to water than we do as human beings or citizens of Chile.”
Brine pools from a lithium mine, that belongs to U.S.-based Albemarle Corp, is seen on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama desert, Chile, on Aug. 16, 2018. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters) In collaboration with Cardosa’s statement, the Institute for Energy Research reports that 65 percent of the area’s limited water resources evaporate in salar brines.
That’s displacing indigenous communities who have called Atacama home for over 6,000 years because farmers and ranchers have cracked, dry soil, and no choice but to abandon their ancestral settlements, according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Mine Proposed in Northern Nevada
Saying goodbye to an ancestral homeland as a local lithium mine destroys it is something the communities in Northern Nevada are fighting to avoid.
“The agricultural communities on either side of the pass are likely to be changed forever,” Hadder told The Epoch Times. “The [Thacker Pass mine] could affect their ability to farm and ranch in the area. The air quality will decrease … and increased water scarcity is likely.”
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 18:20 - Pelosi Going To Armenia As Death Toll Rises In Azerbaijan Border Fighting
Pelosi Going To Armenia As Death Toll Rises In Azerbaijan Border Fighting
A tenuous ceasefire along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border appears to have held since it was enacted at 8pm local time (16:00 GMT) on Wednesday, but the death toll has risen in this biggest flare-up in fighting since the Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020.
As of Thursday, after two days of fierce shelling the total death toll stands at 176 soldiers killed, with Armenia saying 105 of its troops were killed, and Azerbaijan counting 71 deaths among its forces. Each side blames the other for starting the fresh clashes.
Nancy Pelosi meeting with Armenian officials in 2019. The United Nations praised the two sides reaching a ceasefire, with a statement saying, “The international community must remain fully committed to a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and spare no effort to de-escalate the current tensions, bring the parties back to the negotiation table and help them achieve peace and stability in the region.”
Politico is reporting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel Armenia this weekend in a show of support for the country and to work toward ensuring a peace holds. She’s expected to meet with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan, following the G-7 Speakers’ Summit in Berlin.
She’s expected to travel with Armenian-American Congress member Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). Politico observes that “It will be the speaker’s latest dramatic foreign trip following her contentious arrival in Taiwan last month. With the midterms approaching — and the possibility that she will lose the gavel if Republicans return to the majority — the belief in Washington is that Pelosi wants to cement her legacy as a champion of human rights, not only in the United States but around the world.”
While citing two anonymous officials who confirmed plans for the trip, there hasn’t been official verification from either Pelosi nor Speier’s offices “due to longstanding security protocols.”
German independent MEP Martin Sonnebom addressing Ursula von der Leyen:
In order to break with a gas supplier who is waging a brutal war of aggression – Putin – you have found us another one who is waging a brutal war of aggression – Aliyev. 1/#Azerbaijan #Armenia #EU pic.twitter.com/VnA9wmTv70
— History of the Armenian People (@historyarmenia) September 14, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Complicating matters regarding boiling border tensions, there are still several hundred Russian peacekeeping troops in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, as part of the settlement from the last round of fighting centered there. This peacekeeping mission is now in doubt, and Russia’s major base in Armenia territory is said to be on “high alert”.
Azerbaijan previously “necessary response measures” by military units stationed at the border on Wednesday just before a ceasefire took hold. That’s when Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan told Reuters “the clashes could escalate into a war – a second major armed conflict in the former Soviet Union while Russia’s military is focused on the invasion of Ukraine.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/15/2022 – 18:00
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
