Today’s News 20th October 2022

• Multipolar World Order – Part 3
  Multipolar World Order – Part 3

  Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

  In Part 1, we considered the forces shaping the world order and the attempts to impose various models of global governance upon it. In Part 2, we discussed the progress of the global power shift from West to East and asked why so many stalwarts of the so-called “unipolar world order” have not only accepted the inevitability of that power shift but have apparently assisted it.

  

  Ostensibly, the multipolar version of the world order is a departure from the unipolar model in the sense that it will—supposedly—genuinely observe international law and share power among a broader coalition of nation-states. As a result, it will introduce—supposedly—functioning multilateralism into global governance, arguably for the first time. To some, this multipolar model sounds preferable to the current, international rules-based unipolar model.

  Yet, when we look at the statements of the touted leaders of the new multipolar world order, their objectives seem indistinguishable from those of their unipolar counterparts…

  • They express an unwavering commitment to sustainable development and Agenda 2030.

  • They support the United Nation’s Security Council remaining the political centre of global governance—though, notably, loss of the veto isn’t countenanced.

  • They wholeheartedly endorse the World Economic Forum’s AI-driven 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).

  • They also regard censorship and information control as necessary to fight the “infodemic” and to protect the world against “disinformation.”

  • Their global initiatives—and the public-private partnerships that will implement them—are practically identical to the initiatives of their unipolar counterparts, though they offer an important variation, which we’ll discuss in Part 4.

  • Finally, to supporters of multipolarity, a new global “financial system” is, as ever, the key to the supposed “transformation.”

  Thus far, the globalist oligarchs, who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the unipolar model, have not only advocated the polarity shift from West to East but have also played a part in facilitating it. Indeed, they have created the monetary, financial, economic and thus geopolitical conditions that appear to guarantee it.

  We learned in Parts 1 and 2 that the unipolar world order established a system of global governance that is founded upon global public-private partnership and that this empowered oligarchs to engineer policy agendas around the world, unconstrained by national borders.

  If the multipolar world order is something new, then surely this trajectory towards centralised global governance should change, right? But when the multipolar model seems to be accelerating the transition to centralised power, then we have to wonder if there is anything new and different about it at all.

  

  Xi Jinping addresses The Davos Agenda.
  Image: REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo

  THE MULTIPOLAR GREAT RESET

  As mentioned previously, the World Economic Forum (WEF) declares itself to be the leading organisation for global public-private partnerships (G3P). In 2019, the WEF attempted to stake its claim by entering into a strategic partnership with the UN. The broad objective of the partnership was…

  to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

  The WEF has conspicuously inserted itself into the global narrative over the last few years, most notably with its alleged Great Reset (the GR). The book of that name, written by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, purportedly “in response” to the claimed global pandemic, is just another in a long line of attempts to exploit public fear and anxiety to sell a set of policy agendas.

  

  Thierry Malleret

  The tenor of the book and the Great Reset project is to offer “analysis” and “suggest” possible solutions in the spirit of solidarity with and compassion for humanity and nature. The dazzling minds behind it have tried to help us “understand what’s coming in a multitude of domains.” It is not a plan but rather friendly advice. At least, that is what the WEF claims.

  The WEF represents the most powerful global corporations on Earth. As we have seen in the last couple of years, the pharmaceutical corporations alone can and do shape, and often drive, global policy decisions. One would need to be extremely naive to imagine that the WEF and its stakeholders (members) cannot effect that which they claim merely to advise. This is context within which we will analyse their words.

  According to the pair, “the essence” of the GR is a plan to replace “failed ideas, institutions, processes and rules with new ones better suited to current and future needs.” As with nearly every other Western think tank and “international organisation,” they concede that the shift to the multipolar world is simply inescapable:

  The 21st century will most likely be an era devoid of an absolute hegemon during which no one power gains absolute dominance. [. . .] In this messy new world defined by a shift towards multipolarity and intense competition for influence, the conflicts or tensions will no longer be driven by ideology.– [The Great Reset (TGR), p. 76]

  In the GR, gone are the old distinctions between right and left, liberalism, conservatism, socialism and even the extremes of fascism and communism. For the WEF, all that remains is global environmentalism, which, the book’s co-authors claim, is not an ideology:

  In global risk terms, it is with climate change and ecosystem collapse (the two key environmental risks) that the pandemic most easily equates. The three represent, by nature and to varying degrees, existential threats to humankind, and we could argue that COVID-19 has already given us a glimpse, or foretaste, of what a full-fledged climate crisis and ecosystem collapse could entail from an economic perspective.– [TGR, p. 95]

  Fortunately, for the WEF and its partners, this imminent annihilation is actually an “opportunity,” or so they say:

  The broader point is this: the possibilities for change and the resulting new order are now unlimited and only bound by our imagination, [. . .] economies, when they recover, could take the path of more inclusivity and be more attuned to the needs of our global commons.– [TGR, p. 17]

  Enthusiastically adopting accelerationism, Schwab and Malleret claim:

  [W]ithout delay we need to set in motion the Great Reset. This is not a “nice-to-have” but an absolute necessity. [. . .] The pandemic gives us this chance: it “represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world”. [quote attributed to Klaus Schwab.] – [TGR, p. 172]

  And:

  As economies restart, there is an opportunity to embed greater societal equality and sustainability into the recovery, accelerating rather than delaying progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals[.] – [TGR, p. 175]

  The only problem this duo foresee with the “shift towards multipolarity” is that the associated “retreat from globalization” might happen too quickly. Of course, according to them, a premature retreat would cause “havoc” -so we should be properly terrified of the possibility. Consequently, in their eyes, the new “form of globalization” will only be “viable” if the right overarching system is firmly in place: global governance. As they put it:

  A hasty retreat from globalization would entail trade and currency wars, damaging every country’s economy, provoking social havoc and triggering ethno- or clan nationalism. The establishment of a much more inclusive and equitable form of globalization that makes it sustainable, both socially and environmentally, is the only viable way to manage retreat. This requires policy solutions [. . .] and some form of effective global governance.– [TGR, p. 81]

  Schwab and Malleret allege that the pseudopandemic-initiated breakdowns raise what they see as the deplorable prospect of a “global order deficit.” Therefore, in the absence of an “absolute hegemon”—the unipolar world order—nation-states must find a way to “collaborate at the global level.” They said:

  If no one power can enforce order, our world will suffer from a “global order deficit”. Unless individual nations and international organizations succeed in finding solutions to better collaborate at the global level, we risk entering an “age of entropy” in which retrenchment, fragmentation, anger and parochialism will increasingly define our global landscape, making it less intelligible and more disorderly. The pandemic crisis has both exposed and exacerbated this sad state of affairs.– [TGR, p. 76]

  

  The so-called Great Reset has been designed to manage and exploit the orchestrated collapse of the unipolar world order. The path toward multipolarity, redesigned globalisation and a new order is set. It is the “deglobalisation” inherent to the multipolar world order that provides the suggested “opportunity” for the global public-private partnership. No one, especially the WEF, suggests retaining the “hyper-globalization” of the “absolute hegemony.” They explained:

  There is no point in trying to restore the status quo [. . . ], but it is important to limit the downside of a possible free fall that would precipitate major economic damage and social suffering. [. . .] This will only come about through improved global governance – the most “natural” and effective mitigating factor against protectionist tendencies. [. . .] There is no time to waste. If we do not improve the functioning and legitimacy of our global institutions, the world will soon become unmanageable and very dangerous. There cannot be a lasting recovery without a global strategic framework of governance.– [TGR, p. 81]

  That “strategic framework” is the global governance of a multipolar world and the WEF claim that this is simply the most “natural” response to global crises, given that, in the WEF’s view, individual nation-states are unable to address the world’s problems. Consequently, for the WEF, only multilateral institutions of global governance, such as its strategic partner, the United Nations, can avert catastrophe. This is “the essence” of the Great Reset, as the book makes clear:

  [W]ithout appropriate global governance, we will become paralysed in our attempts to address and respond to global challenges, particularly when there is such a strong dissonance between short-term, domestic imperatives and long-term, global challenges. This is a major worry[.]– [TGR, p. 83]

  And:

  [T]he bottom line is this: in the face of such a vacuum in global governance, only nation states are cohesive enough to be capable of taking collective decisions, but this model doesn’t work in the case of world risks that require concerted global decisions. The world will be a very dangerous place if we do not fix multilateral institutions.– [TGR, p. 85]

  The WEF’s “bottom line” is that, real or imagined, the Westphalian model is simply unequipped to deal with “global challenges.” Only “multilateral” global governance can avert descent into a “very dangerous” world. Hence, a shift towards multipolarity is required.

  These are precisely the arguments that the supposed leaders of the new multipolar world order have been making.

  To claim, as some do, that the “Great Reset” represents a defence of the unipolar order and that the shift towards a multipolar model is some sort of antidote to the GR appears to be based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of what the GR is.

  MULTIPOLAR HISTORY

  To illustrate this point further: Schwab and Malleret suggest that the “global challenges” they have identified will continue the trend of “regionalization.” They say that instead of the US-led unipolar hegemony, the world will increasingly be divided into semi-autonomous continental-scale regions:

  The most likely outcome along the globalization–no globalization continuum lies in an in-between solution: regionalization. The success of the European Union as a free trade area or the new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in Asia (a proposed free trade agreement among the 10 countries that compose ASEAN) are important illustrative cases of how regionalization may well become a new watered-down version of globalization. [. . .] In short, deglobalization in the form of greater regionalization was already happening. COVID-19 will just accelerate this global divergence as North America, Europe and Asia focus increasingly on regional self-sufficiency rather than on the distant and intricate global supply chains that formerly epitomized the essence of globalization.– [TGR, p. 79]

  This “regionalised” world bears an uncanny resemblance to the model exposed by Professor Carroll Quigley. In his 1974 interview with Washington Post journalist Rudy Maxa, Quigley spoke about the “three-power world.” He had already meticulously catalogued the activities of an Anglo-American network, whose members had taken great strides toward constructing a system of global governance that they hoped to control:

  They were working to federate the English-speaking world [. . .]. They were closely linked to international bankers. [. . .] [T]hey were working to establish a world, what I call a three-power world. And that three-power world was: The Atlantic Bloc (of England and the Commonwealth and the United States), Germany (Hitler’s Germany), Soviet Russia. [. . .] [T]his is all described in my book, and this was their idea. Now notice, it’s a balance of power system.

  

  Prof. Carrol Quigley

  The idea of power blocs that were sometimes antagonistic to one another but that each played their part in maintaining a centrally controlled global system of managed international relations sounds very similar to the model outlined by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Special Studies Project.

  To wit: In 1955, the Rockefellers, fresh from their pivotal role in creating the United Nations, spotted the talents of Henry Kissinger while he was a study director of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), a US foreign policy think tank. The next year, they commissioned him to oversee a five-year project that would…

  …define the major problems and opportunities facing the U.S. and clarify national purposes and objectives, and to develop principles which could serve as the basis of future national policy.

  Kissinger led that project and has remained the Rockefellers’ envoy ever since.

  The subsequent collection of “Rockefeller Panel Reports” was published in Prospect for America (PfA) in 1961. In those reports, the Rockefeller-chosen panelists noted that 19th century imperialism had been a means of maintaining world order but that the two world wars had conveniently put paid to government’s ability to control it, hence the claimed necessity for the UN. The Rockefellers and their man Kissinger identified what the WEF would later call the “global order deficit”:

  One system of organizing international order has been destroyed without replacement by another. – [Prospect for America, p. 164]

  

  The problem was that the UN wasn’t working as the Rockefellers or their partners intended. Annoyingly, representatives of the national governments belonging to that international body kept insisting upon their own ideas.

  This meant that the Rockefellers’ “high hopes” for the “institutional expression” of true global governance were stymied. Where did the blame lie? Here:

  High hopes were not fully realized because the formal institutions of world organizations were designed to achieve more than the consensus of existing shared aspirations was prepared to support. – [PfA, p. 164]

  What this lack of consensus came down to was that nation-states, comfortable in their pursuit of the Westphalian mythology, were acting in their sovereign self-interest and were forming bilateral trade agreements and defence treaties. Thus they were somewhat resistant to absolute global governance by their private partners. The Rockefellers’ solution to the nation-states’ intransigence was to balkanise the planet into more manageable chunks, or blocs, or “poles.” This would then allow global governance, under the auspices of the Rockefellers and their partners, to flourish:

  The hoped-for result is peace in a world divided into smaller units, but organised and acting in common effort to permit and assist progress in economic, political, cultural and spiritual life. [. . .] It would presumably consist of regional institutions under an international body of growing authority — combined so as to be able to deal with those problems that increasingly the separate nations will not be able to resolve alone.– [PfA, p. 26]

  Subsequently, a Rockefeller-funded global policy think tank known as the Club of Rome came up with some farcical predictive computer models in its 1972 publication, The Limits to Growth.

  Then, nearly twenty years later, in 1991, the Club of Rome published more farcical prognoses in its First Global Revolution (FGR). Building upon its silly computer models, it made up some predictions about natural disasters, none of which have transpired as prescribed, for obvious reasons.

  Nonetheless, despite this being nonsense, the FGR really did define the alleged “problems” that nation-states cannot supposedly “resolve alone.” Today, the whole world accepts all of this as if it were factual. We are collectively following a global agenda based upon the calculated, unevidenced musings of a Rockefeller funded, elitest club:

  In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and their actions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.– [FGR, p. 75]

  For the oligarchs who manipulate the global economy and world events, humans are the real problem. The oligarchs’ warnings of climate disaster are used to legitimise their mechanisms for managing us, not the environment. According to their warped logic, human behaviour must be controlled and human beliefs reordered. Their ideas are all very much in keeping with the pathetic quackery of eugenics that many oligarchs, such as Bill Gates, appear to accept.

  The Rockefellers and their partners—a “network,” if you like—designed the UN in order to exert real global governance over the “smaller units”—regional blocs:

  The United Nations [is] the international organisation that today holds out the reasonable hope of being able to take over more and more functions and to assume increasingly large responsibilities. [. . .] The spirit and the letter of the Charter [. . .] gives more than lip service to the indispensable world order[.]-[PfA, p. 33]

  And:

  The UN stands, finally, as a symbol of the world order that will one day be built. –– [PfA, p. 35]

  The Rockefellers and their partners have explained how this world order will emerge. The key to global governance, they insisted, was to be multilateral “regionalization” (a claim the WEF and other advocates of the multipolar world order would later repeat).

  Note that Kissinger’s Rockefeller-funded researchers used the “United States” and “we”/”us” interchangeably in their reports. In this instance, it seems pretty clear who the “we” referred to is:

  The most natural multination arrangements are frequently regional. [. . .] Fully developed, they imply a joint accord on monetary and exchange arrangements, a common discipline on fiscal matters, and a free movement of capital and labor. [. . . ] We believe that this regional approach has world-wide validity. [. . .] What is needed immediately is a determination to move in the direction they imply. Regional arrangements are no longer a matter of choice. They are imposed by the requirements of technology, science, and economics. Our course is to contribute to this process by constructive action.– [PfA, pp. 188–190]

  THE MULTIPOLAR COINCIDENCE

  The multipolar world order is not new. Nor does it stand in opposition to the so-called Great Reset. Both are just two more stepping stones along the path toward the age-old goal of global governance.

  In the Great Reset book, Schwab, speaking for the WEF, declared that global governance in a multilateral, regionalized world with more localised supply chains was “the most natural” response to global crises.

  Perhaps it is just a coincidence that sixty years earlier the Rockefellers published what appears to be precisely the same plan and claimed that the “most natural multination arrangements are frequently regional.”

  Perhaps it is also just a coincidence that, prior to the Rockefellers’ Special Studies Project, the “network” exposed by Prof. Carroll Quigley also suggested essentially the same global governance system based upon a multipolar “balance of power.”

  These coincidences lead one to observe that the formulation of the multipolar plan predates the WEF’s similar plan by more than a century.

  One could also observe that the Rockefeller brothers commissioned their own think tank, the Club of Rome, to dream up scary stories about climate disaster, food and water shortages and the like—and then the WEF used the same fables as alleged justification for its global reset. Mere coincidence, surely.

  That the nominal leaders of the new multipolar world order constantly cite the same tales—none of which mirror reality—as a reason for their proposed reset of global governance might likewise be mere coincidence.

  From central bankers to prominent members of various think tanks to political leaders, it seems that the vanguard of the Western unipolar model accept the inevitability of that system’s replacement. Curiously, many of the same people, in responding to the war in Ukraine, have made decisions and advocated polices that are hastening the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity. Again, probably mere coincidence.

  A central tenet of the suggested multipolar world order is to strengthen adherence to the Charter of the UN, thereby establishing genuine global governance. Globalist oligarchs have long advocated exactly the same approach and so do the claimed leaders of the multipolar world order. Another instance of mere coincidence?

  The ambition of the crowd that Quigley called “the network,” like the ambition of the Rockefellers’ Special Studies Project and the ambition of the WEF’s Great Reset and the ambition of the Club of Rome and the ambition of the Council on Foreign Relations and the ambition of the BRICS, is, and always has been, global governance. Mere coincidence, yes?

  There is a wealth of evidence revealing how these various groups—and more clubs and secret societies than we have room to name here—have manipulated events and shaped policy globally. Recently the shift toward the multipolar order has accelerated sharply due to a major global event (war) and the policy response to it. Certainly, more mere coincidence.

  In both China and Russia, governance is based upon the absolute fusion of the public and private sector. And we know the UN was established as a public-private partnership. Interestingly, Russia and China just happen to be the two permanent members of the UN Security Council who are taking the lead on the development of the multipolar world order. This must be a coincidence.

  The political theory of multipolarity incorporates elements of political philosophies and cultural ideologies, such as Eurasionism and tianxia, which also lend themselves perfectly to global governance.

  We shall discuss these latter points, and more, in Part 4. But the fusion of the public and the private sectors and the overlapping philosophies and ideologies common to both Russia and China are probably just another in a long and remarkably consistent timeline of coincidences.

  If you believe in that sort of thing.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/20/2022 – 02:00

• Top Democratic Senator Admits Biden's $1.9 Trillion Fiscal Package Was Too Big
  Top Democratic Senator Admits Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Fiscal Package Was Too Big

  Democratic Senator Mark Warner admitted that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package was too big, and that the Federal Reserve took too long to raise interest rates.

  “Was there too much in the American Rescue Plan on a relative basis? Absolutely,” said Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee while speaking with Bloomberg Television.

  Warner said that in retrospect, he and fellow lawmakers were worried about the economy falling apart – but there are now mounting concerns over spending. In a separate Tuesday interview with Bloomberg, Warner also admitted that what became the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” was “way more than it should have been” before it was whittled down by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.

  Warner said a bipartisan budget deal including long-term spending and revenue changes to bring down the deficit would be good policy, citing rising federal interest payments as a reason to act. 

  “Is there an appetite? I hope so. Is there any movement on that at all? No,” Warner said. “Neither party has any credibility on this issue.” -Bloomberg

  Now, inflation is running at a 40-year high – giving Republicans ample ammunition to point the finger at Biden’s March 2021 stimulus bill. Warner was quick to point out that more than $3 trillion in pandemic support was passed under Trump.

  Warner also blames the Fed, saying it “waited too long to start his process” of raising rates.

  Warner, whose comments were highlighted by Senate Republicans, said that he didn’t think the Democratic spending measures have had much of an impact on inflation and that he didn’t regret voting for pandemic relief. Instead, he put much of the blame for the cost-of-living surge on the Federal Reserve, which he said was slow to raise interest rates. -Bloomberg

  In March, the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank said that fiscal stimulus during both the Trump and Biden administrations contributed to inflation, but that they likely helped keep the economy afloat.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 23:25

• The Left Is Using Science 'Consensus' To Shut Down Free Speech In America
  The Left Is Using Science ‘Consensus’ To Shut Down Free Speech In America

  Authored by Stephen Moore via The Epoch Times,

  It was about eight to 10 years ago that the Left made a unilateral decision to shut down all opposition and any skepticism about climate change by pronouncing that the debate was over.

  

  The “scientific consensus” had been reached, as if sent down on tablets from God, that mankind was causing the rapid warming of the planet. Period. End of argument. Doubters will be denounced as science deniers and stripped of their science credentials and muzzled by the speech police.

  This idea of a scientific consensus is, of course, the diametric opposite of what scientific inquiry is all about. It is completely ahistorical. History’s greatest minds and inventors were people who challenged the conventional wisdom of the day. It’s an updated version of the Flat Earth Societies in the Middle Ages that would imprison those who dared question the scientific consensus of the time that the Earth was flat. The Spanish Inquisition tortured heretics who questioned papal orthodoxy.

  The irony of the modern-day inquisitionists is that they are the very people who were the doomsayers of the 1970s who have been so consistently wrong about the future. These were the people who peddled the “population bomb,” which fizzled. They were the ones who said the Earth was cooling and that we were headed into another Ice Age. They were the ones who said we were running out of energy, food and farmland, and we were headed to a Malthusian nightmarish future. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

  You’d think they would be humbled. But they are reiterating their certainty that they are the fountains of wisdom. And now they are getting dangerous with their heavy-handed tactics to squash dissent.

  Consider what has happened in California—and soon coming to blue states near you. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a law that will revoke a physician’s medical license for conveying “misinformation” (defined as deviation from expert “consensus”) about COVID-19 and its treatments. Remember, by the way, this comes from the same people who said that the scientific consensus was to shut down schools and businesses to stop the spread of COVID-19 and that children as young as 5 had to be vaccinated—yet another set of the catastrophic and wrongheaded decision by “the experts.”

  Since when does the government have the right to censor doctors? Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality? Whatever happened to “my body, my choice”? Even Leana Wen, a former leader of Planned Parenthood and Baltimore’s health czar, warns this law “will have a chilling effect on medical practice.”

  She worries that physicians could be suspended or have their licenses revoked “for offering nuanced guidance on a complex issue that is hardly settled by existing science.” Those accused of “misinformation” would be subject to discipline from the Medical Board of California, 13 of whose 15 members are appointed by none other than Newsom. We should call this the “inquisition panel.”

  These are the political hacks who will decide what transgresses scientific consensus.

  During COVID-19, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, resembled weather vanes as the “scientific consensus” seemed to shift on the pandemic from day to day. Newsom himself first insisted that travel restrictions were racist and unnecessary, that masks were superfluous and that California had the infection under control. If his censorship law had been around, would the doctors who disagreed with him have been punished for that?

  We also now have major social media platforms censoring any skepticism about the effectiveness of the latest vaccines—even the opinions of major medical experts. Even when skeptics are wrong, they should be able to have their voices heard in a free society. Shouldn’t we all be able to agree on that basic truism?

  If, God forbid, the COVID-19 speech restrictions are upheld by the courts, the next step will be to muzzle “climate misinformation.” Bans on free speech aren’t far behind in this new age of “scientific consensus,” which is apparently defined as whatever The New York Times and President Joe Biden’s administration decree the consensus to be. At that point, we can toss the First Amendment into the dustbin of history.

  This is very scary and dangerous stuff the Left is imposing on us. Most alarming of all is that almost no commonsense liberals are speaking out against this madness. Have they been muzzled, too?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 23:05

• Regulation Is Coming And Bitcoin Will Benefit
  Regulation Is Coming And Bitcoin Will Benefit

  Authored by Shane Neagle via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  CFTC and SEC regulation for bitcoin is inevitable. While some people are against it, regulatory clarity will help bitcoin adoption and boost the price…

  

  The continued discussion about the need for a comprehensive U.S. regulatory framework to identify opportunities and risks within the rapidly growing Bitcoin sector has caught the attention of the wider public.

  Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said recently that proper regulation of the cryptocurrency space could have significant positive effects on market growth, particularly for bitcoin.

  “Growth might occur if we have a well-regulated space,” Behnam said during his appearance at New York University School of Law.

  Behnam also said, “Bitcoin might double in price if there’s a CFTC-regulated market,” which made headlines around the globe. His comments aren’t surprising given that he has emphasized the need for regulatory clarity in the Bitcoin market several times before.

  THE CFTC AND SEC MUST WORK TOGETHER

  Earlier this year, representatives of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC, proposed a new bill that would make the CFTC the primary regulator of the digital assets industry and strengthen its control over cryptocurrency spot markets. The bill would also require trading companies to register with the CFTC. Behnam voiced his support for the bipartisan bill, which would also allow the CFTC to charge fees on regulatory entities and reinforce its financial power.

  “We are [currently] appropriated money by Congress, and it has put us in a position where we feel like we’re constantly on edge about how much money we will be appropriated,” Behnam added during the NYU School of Law event. “We are still feeling the wounds and scars from about five or six years of flat funding.”

  Behnam added that its modest financial budget and other headwinds have also prevented the agency from putting up a proper fight against crime involving bitcoin and other digital assets. Because the CFTC has no jurisdiction, the agency lacks traditional surveillance services and market oversight solutions to appropriately oversee trading platforms and other intermediaries, Behnam further noted.

  These remarks come roughly a month after the former CFTC chairman, Timothy Massad, called for the CFTC and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to come together and address the current crypto regulatory gaps by establishing a self-regulatory organization (SRO).

  Massad argued that neither CFTC nor the SEC has the necessary power to regulate bitcoin and other digital assets. At the moment, there is a significant gap when it comes to regulating what he called “the cash market for crypto assets.” This includes bitcoin trading activities on exchanges like Coinbase or Kraken. While the U.S. Congress has attempted to address this issue through several bills, Massad believes that the solution lies in an SRO. 

  Earlier this month, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said that he supports the idea of handing the CFTC the role of top non-securities cryptocurrency regulator, though Congress shouldn’t overlook the SEC if that happens. He stressed that it’s important to make sure that securities laws regulating the $100 trillion capital markets must not be undermined as these laws have made capital markets the envy of the world.

  At the moment, the CFTC is responsible only for regulating cryptocurrency derivatives, though many in Washington and the bitcoin-centered industry seem to support the idea of handing the reins of cryptocurrency regulation to the agency.

  WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM REGULATION?

  The idea that a well-established regulatory framework could lure more institutional investors and boost bitcoin market adoption is a stance prompted by many within the industry. Behnam also argued that digital asset firms see significant potential “for institutional inflows that will only occur if there’s a regulatory structure around these markets.”

  Behnam added that Bitcoin projects “thrive on regulatory certainty” and the organization hopes to have more clarity in the near future that will allow these companies to continue delivering innovative products that change people’s lives. Again, this stance is not surprising as Behnam has consistently argued for the need to provide market participants with regulatory clarity — something that many in the industry have argued is lacking.

  Finally, putting bitcoin under the supervision of the CFTC could put the entire securities discussion to bed. This increased clarity and visibility could then pave the way for more institutional players — who insist on having a clear framework regulating digital assets — to increase their exposure to bitcoin.

  However, while many are calling for more regulatory clarity, some analysts believe that a comprehensive regulatory framework could hurt some of the biggest businesses in the U.S., including Coinbase. Wells Fargo analysts initiated research coverage on Coinbase at an underweight rating, citing, among other factors, the risk of a more restrictive government stance toward digital assets.

  A tougher regulatory environment as well as continued macro headwinds, could materially impact Coinbase’s volumes and revenue in 2023, analysts wrote in the initiation note.

  “Regulation in particular will be a challenge for COIN, for example, note the recent discussion coming from the SEC about ‘cryptos as securities’ (e.g., for staked assets),” Wells Fargo analysts added.

  BOTTOM LINE

  For years, the CFTC and the SEC have squabbled for the role of top regulator of the cryptocurrency industry. Both have been reluctant to issue much in the way of formal guidance for Bitcoin companies, choosing instead to set a regulatory precedent through enforcement actions.

  While some industry experts aren’t supportive of the creation of a comprehensive regulatory framework for Bitcoin, many continue to stress the importance of having more clarity in this area. While many Bitcoin natives are still against any regulation, the added clarity could further accelerate the evolution of the asset.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 22:25

• Forget Oil, The Real Crisis Is Diesel Inventories: The US Has Just 25 Days Left
  Forget Oil, The Real Crisis Is Diesel Inventories: The US Has Just 25 Days Left

  For all the drama surrounding Biden’s latest Strategic Petroleum Reserve fiasco and his admin’s ridiculous idea to “stimulate” US energy producers to pump more oil because, you see, Biden promises to buy oil at some unknown point in the future (he may or may not, but right now he is certainly draining a million barrels of emergency US energy lifeblood just to buy a few midterm votes, assuring energy producers have zero incentive to produce more), the real crisis is not oil or gas, but diesel.

  The problem is that as we repeatedly warned over the summer, even as others were transfixed by the moves in gas, see:

  • Sorry, Diesel Prices Are Likely To Climb Again Soon (Aug 4)
  • Can The Global Gasoline And Diesel Crisis Be Solved? (June 21)
  • D-Day Approaches: Crack Spread Soars As Diesel Market Braces For Historic Shock (May 3)
  • The Diesel Market Is Soaring, And Gasoline Prices Will Catch Up This Summer (May 1)
  • Global Diesel Shortage To Push Oil Prices Much Higher (March 25)
  • “Gas Stations Will Run Dry”: Catastrophic Scenario For Diesel Emerging (March 23)
  • Global Diesel Shortage Raises Risk Of Even Greater Oil Price Spike (Mar 12)
  • China Asks State-Owned Refiners To Halt Gasoline, Diesel Exports (Mar 10)
  • U.S. Diesel Stocks Set To Fall Critically Low (Feb 18)
  • Diesel Is The U.S. Economy’s Inflation Canary (Feb 8)

  … the crisis gripping the US diesel market is getting out of hand, as demand is surging while supplies remain at the lowest seasonal level for this time of year ever, according to government data released Wednesday.

  

  According to the EIA, the US now has just 25 days of diesel supply, the lowest since 2008; and while inventories are record low, the four-week rolling average of distillates supplied – a proxy for demand – rose to its highest seasonal level since 2007.

  

  In short, record low supply (courtesy of stifling regulations that have led to a historic shortage of refining capacity) meet record high demand. What comes next is, well, ugly (while weekly demand dipped slightly in the latest week, it’s still at highest point in two years amid higher trucking, farming and heating use).

  The shortage of the fuel used for heating and trucking and – generally speaking – to keep commerce and freight running, has become a key worry for the Biden administration heading into winter, perhaps even bigger than the price of gas heading into the midterms (well, not really).  As Bloomberg’s Javier Blas writes, “such low levels are alarming because diesel is the workhorse of the global economy. It powers trucks and vans, excavators, freight trains and ships. A shortage would mean higher costs for everything from trucking to farming to construction.”

  National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told Bloomberg TV Wednesday that that diesel inventories are “unacceptably low” and “all options are on the table” to build supplies and reduce retail prices. 

  But while the White House claims to be so very concerned about the coming diesel crisis, it is doing absolutely nothing besides draining the SPR which has zero impact on diesel production.

  The historic diesel crunch comes just weeks ahead of the midterm elections and will almost certainly drive up prices for consumers who already view inflation and the economy as a top voting issue. Retail prices have been steadily climbing for more than two weeks. At $5.324 a gallon, they’re 50% higher than this time last year, according to AAA data.

  Wholesale diesel prices in the spot market of New York harbor, a key pricing point, have surged this week to more than $200 per barrel. Excluding a brief interval from late April into mid-May, that would be a record high.

  

  As a result, American refiners are enjoying the best-ever diesel margins, with the profit of turning a barrel of crude into one of diesel – i.e., the diesel crack spread – hitting a record high of $86.5 per barrel, up roughly 450% from the 2000-2020 average of $15.7 per barrel.

  

  This isn’t all that surprising. as we have been warning all year, the American diesel market has been in crisis mode for most of 2022; if only others had caught on this crisis may have been averted. But now, it’s too late, and national stockpiles have drained as refiners entered maintenance season and as Russia’s war in Ukraine tightened global supplies and limited imports. Meanwhile, market backwardation – where prompt deliveries are priced at a premium over future deliveries – has made building inventory extremely costly, feeding into a vicious cycle of tight supplies and price spikes. In New England, where more people burn fuel for heating than anywhere else in the country, stockpiles are less than a third of typical levels for this time of year.

  

  The reasons for the collapse in inventories and the price surge are four-fold.

  • First, local diesel demand has recovered quicker than gasoline and jet-fuel from the impact of the pandemic, draining stocks.
  • Second, foreign demand is also strong, with American diesel exports running at unusually high level.
  • Third, and according to many, most important of all, the US also has lower refining capacity than before, reducing its capacity to make fuels.
  • Fourth is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The US was importing a significant amount of Russian fuel oil before the war, which its Gulf of Mexico-based refiners turned into diesel. The trade ended after the White House sanctioned Russian petroleum exports.

  Some relief is on the way, courtesy of those handful of international sources of commodities that the Biden admin hasn’t declared an implicit war on. At least two vessels carrying around 1 million barrels of diesel are due to arrive in New York after being diverted from their original destinations in Europe. Delta’s Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania is also returning from seasonal maintenance, which will increase regional diesel production.

  But the impact of such band aids will be tiny. As Bloomberg’s Blas writes, “the diesel crisis leaves the Biden administration facing very difficult choices. If he leaves the market alone, prices are likely to rise further before they drop; if he intervenes, either setting up minimum inventory levels or restricting exports, price increases will likely be felt elsewhere into the world. Either route will have big implications for inflation at home and for energy security in Latin America and Europe.“

  In a testament to just how clueless the Biden admin is, last spring wholesale diesel prices surged to all-time high as inventories plunged in April and May, pushing retail prices to a record high. At the time, this website (and many others) warned that we have to take urgent steps now to avoid a crisis… and nobody moved a finger; jaw bones on the other hand never stopped. Well, fast forward to now when a new crisis is in the making. America typically uses the low-demand seasons of spring and summer to rebuild its stocks of distillate fuels ahead of the winter. But it failed to do so this year – something even Europe avoided by stockpiling nat gas knowing it faces a freezing winter otherwise – and stocks are now nearly as low as they were in April, at the end of the last heating season.

  

  If inventories decline between October and April by their 20-year average of about 25 million barrels, the US will emerge from winter with a little more than 80 million barrels in stock. That, according to Blas, is an unlikely scenario, however: The oil market would try to keep inventories from falling that much, with prices rising high enough to slow the economy, curtailing demand. Over the last 40 years, American diesel inventories have never dropped below 85 million barrels, even at the end of the heating season.

  So now that the genie is out the bottle, here are the choices the Biden admin faces, all of them unpalatable:

  1. The White House can let the market continue doing its job, with surging prices likely denting consumption and boosting supply. With refineries enjoying sky-high margins, more diesel should be coming. But the cost of the laissez-faire approach is higher inflation and a much faster recession as US industries shut down. Because diesel increases trucking costs, it’s a particularly pernicious sort of inflation as it quickly embeds into everything that needs to be transported, lifting core inflation measures.
  2. If the White House opts to intervene, the less harmful measure would be to release a small reserve of diesel that the government keeps for emergencies (clearly they have no problem doing that). The Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve only has one million barrels, so it would be, at best, a Band-Aid. But it’s better than nothing, and Biden should order its release. For those asking, releasing more crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would do little to resolve the problem, since the bottleneck is refining.
  3. Other interventions would have significant consequences, potentially harming American allies. In Washington, officials are mulling restricting, or even banning, diesel exports. If the measure is approved, it would leave neighbors including Mexico, Brazil and Chile short of diesel. In July, the last month with available full data, US diesel exports to Latin America hit a record high of 1.2 million barrels, double the amount a decade ago.
  4. Another option is forcing oil companies to build up stocks quickly ahead of the winter by setting a minimum inventory level, similar to what the European Union did for natural gas stockpiles. US officials are particularly worried about the northern part of the US East Coast, where inventories are low both seasonally and in absolute terms. The region, known in the industry’s jargon as PADD1A, is where the greatest demand is: Of the roughly 5.3 million households that use heating oil in America, more than 80% are in the Northeast. The problem with a mandatory minimum stock level is that it would force American refiners to import more or reduce their exports — or both. The impact in Latin America would be noticeable. Prices in the US may decline, but they will soar elsewhere.

  The bottom line, as the Bloomberg energy strategist notes, is that “the timing of today’s diesel crisis couldn’t be worse.” That’s because the EU, which relies still on Russian diesel exports, will ban imports from February onward (assuming it survives the winter). Europe will be short of diesel then, and Biden needs to consider that too. Ultimately, the imminent arrival of the bone-crushing recession will rebalance the market, reducing demand, particularly as the housing market cools and construction slows down, and consumer demand for goods declines, reducing trucking needs.

  That’s a heavy price to pay to resolve the problem, but with an administration as hopelessly clueless as this one, which today blasted the following tweet to make a point yet proved just the opposite…

  It’s simple: When the cost of oil comes down, we should see the price at the pump come down as well. That’s how it should work.

  But right now, refiners and retailers are making record profits at the expense of the vast majority of Americans. It’s unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/h3xiyEYEdv

  — President Biden (@POTUS) October 19, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  … we are sadly out of options.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 22:05

• IRS Releases Inflation Adjustments for 2023 Taxes: Here’s What It Means For You
  IRS Releases Inflation Adjustments for 2023 Taxes: Here’s What It Means For You

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  As the cost of living has soared for Americans battling against chronic inflation, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may be bringing some welcome relief.

  

  The federal agency announced on Oct. 18 a string of new annual inflation adjustments that will impact the 2023 tax year, potentially bringing a boost to your paycheck, particularly if your salary hasn’t kept up with the increasing cost of living.

  Tax rates are typically adjusted for inflation annually by the IRS, so this is nothing new; but with red-hot inflation currently at a 40-year high in the United States, this year’s changes are likely to feel more significant for millions of Americans.

  The adjustments will impact individual income tax brackets, deductions, and credits for next year, potentially bringing relief to taxpayers who may now fall into lower tax brackets.

  Here are the changes announced by the IRS, effective for the 2023 tax year:

  Standard Deduction

  The standard deduction is typically used by most people who don’t itemize their taxes and reduces the amount of income you must pay taxes on.

  Under the new annual inflation adjustments announced by the IRS, the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly in 2023 is $27,700, up $1,800, or 7 percent from the prior year.

  For single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately, the standard deduction rises to $13,850 for 2023, up $900, and for heads of households, the standard deduction will be $20,800 for the tax year 2023, up $1,400 from 2022, marking a 7.2 percent increase.

  Tax Brackets

  For the tax year 2023, the top marginal rate, or the highest tax rate based on income, remains 37 percent for individual single taxpayers with incomes greater than $578,125, or $693,750 for married couples filing jointly.

  The lowest rate is 10 percent, and applies to single individuals with incomes of $11,000 or less and married couples earning $22,000 or less.

  The other rates are: 35 percent for incomes over $231,250 (or $462,500 for married couples filing jointly), 32 percent for incomes over $182,100 (or $364,200 for married couples filing jointly), 24 percent for incomes over $95,375 (or $190,750 for married couples filing jointly), 22 percent for incomes over $44,725 (or $89,450 for married couples filing jointly), and 12 percent for incomes over $11,000 ($22,000 for married couples filing jointly).

  Earned Income Tax Credit

  The maximum amount for households who claim the earned income tax credit will be $7,430 for the tax year 2023 for individuals who have at least three children. In the tax year 2022, or the current tax year, this was $6,935, according to the IRS.

  Flexible Spending Arrangements

  A flexible spending account, also known as a flexible spending arrangement, allows workers to contribute a portion of their regular earnings, up to a limit set by the IRS, into an account that can be used to pay for certain health care costs. Given that the funds taken from the account are not subject to income and payroll taxes, they offer specific tax advantages

  For the taxable years beginning in 2023, the dollar limitation for employee salary reductions for flexible spending arrangement contributions increases to $3,050, up from the current tax year’s threshold of $2,850.

  Other Notable Adjustments

  These include the annual exclusion for gifts, which increased to $17,000 for the calendar year 2023, up from $16,000 for the calendar year 2021.

  For the tax year 2023, the monthly limitation for the qualified tax-free public transit and parking costs will also increase, to $300, up $20 from this year.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 21:45

• Texas AG Urges Prosecution Over "Grotesque" 'Child-Friendly' Drag Show Near Dallas
  Texas AG Urges Prosecution Over “Grotesque” ‘Child-Friendly’ Drag Show Near Dallas

  Following what’s probably the single most horrifying and egregious example of a so-called “child friendly drag show” that we’ve ever seen, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called for legal prosecution against those involved. 

  The event took place on Saturday in Plano, Texas – a large suburb of Dallas (of all places) – and involved a drag performer simulating a sex act in front of children at what the venue dubbed an “all ages” show.

  “This is grotesque, disturbing behavior. Under Texas law, local district and county attorneys are charged with taking up the mantle to protect Texas kids by prosecuting these types of totally inappropriate acts,” Paxton was quoted as saying after viewing disturbing footage of the event.

  🚨 I attended another all ages drag brunch in Plano, TX over the weekend and the footage I have is shocking.

  “My p*ssy good, p*ssy sweet
  P*ssy good enough to eat…f*ck me all night”

  It gets worse. More footage to come. We WILL stop this. 🚨 pic.twitter.com/xVghUT0ORb

  — Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) October 18, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The performer can be seen going up to a small child, while adults in the background cheered the person on with dollar bills being waved, at which point the performer “flashed underwear in front of children” – as Daily Caller described.

  At least one young girl could be seen with a confused and disturbed look on her face. The dancer twerked to a song that had the lyrics, “My p*ssy good, p*ssy sweet. P*ssy good enough to eat” and “F*ck me all night”…

  AG Paxton also urged greater legal protections for children in response: “What’s more, in 2023, the Texas Legislature should amend the Texas Penal Code to expressly prohibit this kind of grossly sexual conduct and empower my Office to prosecute when district and county attorneys refuse,” he said.

  Who are these women attending this pornographic event in Plano TX where children were in attendance? pic.twitter.com/AVgzezv6jS

  — River Flint (@RiverFlint1) October 19, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Journalist Sara Gonzales of BlazeTV captured the video content, which has since gone viral and driven outrage: 

  “This is something that was overtly sexual,” she said. “And now apparently the left is gaslighting me into thinking that I’m somehow the crazy one for having a problem with this.”

  An advertisement for an upcoming drag show said minors were allowed to attend with an accompanying parent or guardian, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” reported.

  In further footage of the event, a little girl can be seen encouraged by the crowd to “tip” a drag dancer with dollar bills…

  Full footage from the “all ages welcome” drag brunch event in Plano, TX.

  A dominatrix with a whip, a little girl forced to tip a man wearing prosthetic breasts, and sex toys being given away.

  This is child abuse. Help us stop it at https://t.co/Fztyk27mLC pic.twitter.com/YfJRDjuNQz

  — Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) October 19, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The restaurant and bar that hosted the event has boasted there will be more: “Following the October 15 event, Ebb & Flow’s Drag Brunch will take place on a monthly basis with dates to be announced soon,” an event page cited by Fox News indicated.

  Screenshot of the venue’s public Facebook page and the prominent “Drag Brunch” advertisement:

  

  It’s as yet unclear whether the Plano Police or prosecutor will move forward with either an investigation or arrests; however, AG Paxton’s statements are sure to draw increased scrutiny and pressure on the venue that hosted the drag event. Ebb & Flow in a statement given to the Dallas Morning News sought to defend what happened as “very tasteful”. 

  Many observers have pointed out that typically bars offering sexually explicit shows maintain a strict 21 and over age policy, and yet examples abound lately of “LGBTQ-friendly” events actively targeting minors and young children.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 21:25

• Watch: Moderna CEO Admits COVID Is Like Seasonal Flu, Only Vulnerable Need Jabs
  Watch: Moderna CEO Admits COVID Is Like Seasonal Flu, Only Vulnerable Need Jabs

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  In a rare moment, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel admitted that COVID is akin to a seasonal flu and that only older people and those who have compromised immune systems need to get vaccinated.

  

  Speaking at a finance conference Monday, Bancel noted “I think it’s going to be like the flu. If you’re a 25-year-old, do you need an annual booster every year if you’re healthy?”

  “You might want to… but I think it’s going to be similar to flu where it’s going to be people at high-risk, people above 50 years of age, people with comorbidities, people with cancer and other conditions, people with transplants,” the Moderna head added.

  Bancel urged that it is “very important to think about” whether or not to get Covid boosters, adding that there are “1.5billion people” on the planet who have vulnerabilities to such diseases, but emphasising that younger people “are going to have to decide for themselves what they want to do”.

  Watch:

  Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel compares COVID-19 to the seasonal flu and believes young, healthy people should decide for themselves if they want an annual booster. Bancel maintains, that older people 50+, and those in vulnerable categories should definitely consider a booster shot. pic.twitter.com/7QowinbkMq

  — Rukshan Fernando (@therealrukshan) October 18, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  So this begs the question, why is the CDC pushing Moderna and Pfizer boosters for 5 year old kids?

  It’s quite a turnaround for Bancel, who just one year ago declared that even younger people will have to get vaccine booster shots at least once every three years for ever if normality is ever to return.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 21:11

• Biden Admin Tells Arizonans: Using Shipping Containers To Plug Gaps In Border Wall Is Illegal
  Biden Admin Tells Arizonans: Using Shipping Containers To Plug Gaps In Border Wall Is Illegal

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Using shipping containers to plug gaps in the U.S.–Mexico border wall violates federal law, a Biden administration official told top Arizona officials in a recent letter.

  “The unauthorized placement of those containers constitutes a violation of federal law and is a trespass against the United States,” Jacklynn Gould, a regional director for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, told Arizona Homeland Security Director Tim Roemer and Arizona Division of Emergency Management Director Allen Clark in the missive.

  “That trespass is harming federal lands and resources and impeding Reclamation’s ability to perform its mission.”

  

  Gould cited federal law that restricts public conduct on Bureau of Reclamation lands.

  She asked officials to not place any additional shipping containers on federal lands or lands within the boundaries of Indian reservations, and said federal officials want to “discuss a way forward and requests your cooperation in the removal of the containers.”

  Roemer, Clark, and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey did not respond to requests for comment.

  U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded a contract to close two gaps in the border barrier, according to the letter.

  C.J. Karamargin, a spokesperson for Ducey, told the Arizona Republic that state officials aren’t acting until they see the contract.

  Some 122 containers were placed along the border in Yuma County, including 80 on bureau lands and 42 on Cocopah Indian Tribe lands, according to federal authorities.

  Ducey, a Republican, ordered the containers to be placed in August.

  “Arizona has had enough,” Ducey said at the time. “We can’t wait any longer. The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty. For the last two years, Arizona has made every attempt to work with Washington to address the crisis on our border.”

  Yuma County Sheriff’s Office deputies said that the containers have helped prevent illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 21:05

• Could This Be The First Video Of A New Chinese Stealth Drone?
  Could This Be The First Video Of A New Chinese Stealth Drone?

  Video has surfaced on social media of what could be a Chinese flying-wing stealth drone in the air, according to The Drive. The mysterious drone appears very similar in platform to the Northrop Grumman X-47B. 

  

  The video was first uploaded to the Chinese blogging website Weibo and has since been shared on Twitter. The 14-second video shows what appears to be the Star Shadow flying in the skies of China. 

  1er video del vuelo del UAV de ataque y reconocimiento ñ, con características furtivas 🧐, CH-7 🇨🇳.@jesusfroman@alexgarcialonso @jpartej @Juanjo_Writter @ReinaldoDMM @RODRIGORRC72 https://t.co/cJE6Jo2bh2 pic.twitter.com/b9CForldZb

  — CROM (@CRNICASMILITAR1) October 16, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “At first sight, the drone in the video looks a lot like the Star Shadow, which is a flying wing design with a modified ‘cranked kite’ wing. However, the blurry nature of the original footage makes it hard to determine many details,” The Drive explained. 

  The military blog continued: 

  “Indeed, it’s difficult to even gauge the scale of the vehicle shown in the footage, which may also show some kind of reduced-size test specimen or radio-controlled model that could be associated with the Star Shadow or with other projects entirely.”

  Remember, China has been betting on drone warfare and developing high-tech military unmanned aerial vehicles over the last decade. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 20:45

• Oregon And Oklahoma May Shock Us On Election Day
  Oregon And Oklahoma May Shock Us On Election Day

  Authored by Bill Scher via RealClear Wire,

  Ten states currently have governors who are not from the same party as the person who won that state’s 2020 presidential election. That number could dwindle after November.

  

  Two of those states, Massachusetts and Maryland, will almost surely replace retiring moderate Republican governors with Democrats, as GOP primary voters nominated candidates far to the right of their states’ electorates. In Kansas, Democratic incumbent Laura Kelly is in a tight reelection campaign in a state Joe Biden lost by nearly 15 percentage points. And in Arizona, where the incumbent Republican is retiring, the RealClearPolitics polling average shows that less than a single point separates the margin between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake.

  It is also possible that new states will soon join the list of gubernatorial ticket splitters, showing that an appetite for bipartisan state governance can be found, even in places with long partisan histories.

  President Biden drew attention to Oregon’s wild gubernatorial race by campaigning Saturday with struggling Democratic nominee Tina Kotek. The Beaver State has elected only Democrats for governor since 1986, and supported Democrats for president since 1988. But frustrations with crime, drugs, and homeless encampments in Portland have frayed the Democratic coalition. Polls show a Democrat-turned-independent candidate Betsy Johnson is threatening to split the vote and allow a socially conservative Republican, former state House minority leader Christine Drazan, to win with a mere plurality.

  While Johnson takes swipes at both major party candidates, her harshest attacks target Kotek. Her latest ad features a self-described “diehard Democrat” and mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose. The mother says, “Tina Kotek passed the horrible law to legalize hard drugs like heroin, meth and fentanyl.” Nothing is said about Drazan.

  The charge leaves out many details. The spot makes it sound as though Kotek, the state House speaker until recently, shepherded the law legalizing hard drugs through the legislature. Actually, the law was passed by Oregon voters in a 2020 referendum, with a strong 17-point margin. (Also, the law significantly decriminalizes possession of small amounts of hard drugs, but it stops short of legalization, while shifting resources into addiction prevention and treatment.)

  Kotek does support the measure, but has criticized implementation of the new public health programs as too slow. Drazan and Johnson want the whole law repealed in a new referendum, though repeal is not necessarily the politically safe position. A September poll by Data for Progress found the current level of support for the decriminalization law still matches the 58% support it received in the referendum.

  However, in another September poll from The Oregonian, nearly half of voters said “the most important problem facing Oregon” was either homelessness (32%) or crime (16%). No other issue ranked higher. Tied for fifth place, at 8%, was drugs, but for many, the drug problem is intertwined with crime and homelessness. (Unlike other parts of the country where reproductive freedom is more acutely threatened, in Oregon only 2% of voters named abortion as the state’s most important problem.)

  For Drazan to be thwarted, Kotek needs more Democrats to abandon Johnson and come home. Third party candidates do often fade in the stretch. But Johnson’s hard-edged approach to homelessness, crime, and drugs tracks with Drazan, not Kotek. The Democratic nominee’s ad campaign touts a progressive plan to end homelessness by relying on more affordable housing, shelters, and outreach programs.

  Kotek’s attempt to portray herself as compassionate and effective does not seem to be protecting her from Johnson’s and Drazan’s broadsides. The Republican’s ads yoke Kotek to the unpopular Democratic incumbent Kate Brown and the problems festering on Democrats’ watch. Drazan also accuses Kotek in ads of blocking a sex abuse investigation of a state legislator, though an Oregonian fact check concluded the charge is “untrue.” Nevertheless, an Emerson poll pegs Kotek’s unfavorable rating at 50%, with only 38% holding a favorable view. Johnson’s numbers are not much better, while Drazan is slightly above water. For Kotek to unify Oregon’s Democratic majority, she will likely need to drive up Drazan’s negatives and argue that a vote for Johnson is effectively a vote for Drazan.

  Johnson and Drazan have overlap on crime and other issues (both would rescind the current governor’s executive order capping greenhouse gas emissions). But Johnson is ideologically idiosyncratic, and speaks frequently about melding Democratic and Republican ideas. In contrast, Drazan was known for obstructionist tactics while serving in the state legislature. The word “bipartisan” does not appear on Drazan’s website. However, in a recent debate a softer-edged Drazan argued, “I will be a person who will reach across the aisle. Because we will likely have Democrat majorities in the legislature, the opportunity to force negotiations only exists with a Republican as Governor.”

  Over in Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt is in trouble. On October 8, the Sooner Poll gave his Democratic challenger Joy Hofmeister a four-point lead. Don’t believe it? Yesterday, a poll from a Republican political consulting firm, Ascend Action, gave Hofmeister a seven-point lead. And a poll from KOCO-TV gave her a 0.6 point lead. Stitt’s campaign appears rattled by the new numbers. A few days after the Sooner Poll’s release, negative ads appeared attacking Hofmeister. 

  Why the ultra-conservative Stitt is straining to win reelection in a deep red state may be a surprise to those living outside Oklahoma. He is following a culture warrior model that is working for other Republican governors like Texas’ Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis. Stitt has banned nearly all abortions, fought pandemic restrictions, and withheld money from hospitals that provide hormone therapies and surgeries to transgender minors.

  Yet Stitt may get tripped up by some old-fashioned corruption. As The Oklahoman reported, “Hofmeister has regularly accused Stitt of running a ‘corrupt’ office, pointing to an [Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation inquiry] into state park restaurant contracts that resulted in the resignation of the governor-appointed Tourism and Recreation Department director, and a federal investigation into Stitt’s use of pandemic relief funds for education.”

  Hofmeister is also a proven vote-getter, having won two terms as Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, running as a Republican. She only switched parties last year, and her gubernatorial ads don’t stress her new affiliation.

  In a recent debate she described herself as “aggressively moderate” while tagging Stitt as “pitting neighbor against neighbor.” She says in ads “I’m tired of the extremism” without citing specific examples of Stitt’s extremism, lest she step on a political land mine. Her ads do not even mention abortion. (Her website carefully defines her as “personally pro-life” yet believing abortion “is a healthcare decision between a woman and her doctor.”) When it comes to issues, she generally sticks to bread-and-butter matters like education and health care; Hofmeister opposes Stitt’s moves towards privatization in both areas.

  Of course, partisan loyalties may well snap into place in both Oregon and Oklahoma on Election Day. But regardless of the final outcome, the apparent closeness of the two races is a reminder that even in deep red and blue states, bipartisanship is not a dirty word.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 20:25

• Uber Eats Sparks Up Weed Delivery Service In Toronto
  Uber Eats Sparks Up Weed Delivery Service In Toronto

  Uber Eats announced on Sunday that it will now deliver marijuana from local dispensaries to residents in the Toronto area.

  

  The food delivery service said in a statement that it has partnered with online marijuana directory Leafly to deliver from three local dispensaries – Hidden Leaf Cannabis, Minerva Cannabis and Shivaa’s Rose, The Hill reports.

  

  “We are partnering with industry leaders like Leafly to help retailers offer safe, convenient options for people in Toronto to purchase legal cannabis for delivery to their homes, which will help combat the illegal market and help reduce impaired driving,” said Uber Eats Canada GM Lola Kassim.

  Residents over the age of 19 will be allowed to place orders from the three local licensed cannabis retailers in the city through the Uber Eats app. Then the retailers will send staff certified under the province’s cannabis retail education program, CannSell, to deliver customers’ purchases to their doorstep. -The Hill

  “Over the last few years, we have invested heavily in our delivery business and selection has expanded tremendously. Uber Eats has grown quickly to become a versatile platform usable by diverse businesses large and small,” Kassim continued.

  Leafly CEO Yoko Miyashita said in a separate statement that the new partnership will promote the safe and legal delivery of cannabis.

  “Leafly has been empowering the cannabis marketplace in Canada for more than four years and we support more than 200 cannabis retailers in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area],” Miyashita said in a statement. “We are thrilled to work with Uber Eats to help licensed retailers bring safe, legal cannabis to people across the city.”

  As The Hill notes, “The new initiative comes as the Ontario Cannabis Store detailed that the number of cannabis stores has risen to 1,460 this year, up from the 1,333 reported stores in the province from the previous year, according to the CBC.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 20:05

• Mayor Adams, NYC Schools Chief Hire Each Other’s Girlfriends
  Mayor Adams, NYC Schools Chief Hire Each Other’s Girlfriends

  Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClear Wire,

  It pays to have friends in high places.

   

  Shortly after NYC Mayor Eric Adams hired NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks’ longtime girlfriend, Sheena Wright, as a deputy mayor, Banks quietly promoted Adams’ longtime girlfriend, Tracey Collins, to a top post at the Department of Education, The New York Post reported.

  As the DOE’s senior advisor to the deputy chancellor of school leadership, Collins received a hefty pay bump to $221,597 in July. She had been a school administrator with the DOE since 2008, making $173,710 in 2020, The Post reported.

  Wright, now deputy mayor for strategic initiatives, is one of five women deputy mayors hired by Adams. It’s unclear what Wright makes since taking office in early 2022, but in 2021, deputy mayors pulled in $251,982.

  Wright had been president and CEO of United Way of New York City, a nonprofit that helps low-income New Yorkers. The two women now receive a collective pay of $473,579

  The hirings have raised eyebrows.

  David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor, told The Post, “It’s not only a bad look, smacking of favoritism and cronyism. It displays a degree of insularity and groupthink that’s adverse to organizational effectiveness.”

  NYC law explicitly prohibits nepotism.  In a city that cries out for innovative solutions to vexing problems – credit where credit is due. Adams, and Banks, a long-time confidant, creatively sidestepped the matter, since neither hired their own girlfriend. 

  Fabien Levy, Adams spokesman, said the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board gave the OK for Adams and Collins both working for the city simultaneously, since Adams, as mayor, is her boss.

  The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 19:45

• Used-Car Prices Record Largest YoY Decline Since Financial Crisis
  Used-Car Prices Record Largest YoY Decline Since Financial Crisis

  For those who’ve held off on purchasing a used vehicle over the last two years while watching prices soar to astronomical levels, we have some promising news: 2023 could be the year of the “deal.” 

  Auction giant Manheim found that wholesale used-vehicle prices in the first 15 days of October recorded the most significant year-over-year decline of 10.4% since January 2009. 

  

  “Used car prices are now down 10% over the past year, the largest YoY decline on record with data going back to 2009. This was a leading indicator of higher inflation rates in 2020 and the recent downturn is likely a leading indicator of lower inflation rates to come,” Compound Capital Advisors Charlie Bilello tweeted. 

  The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index peaked in January 2022 and continues to slide through the fall, now down more than 15% from the high. 

  

  All six types of vehicles experienced year-over-year declines. Luxury cars and SUVs saw the most significant price drops in the first 15 days of this month. 

  

  Using Bankrate data of the average used auto loan rate inverted on a chart with year-over-year change in wholesale used-vehicle prices clearly shows that the Federal Reserve’s most aggressive interest rate hikes in decades are hitting demand, which has led to a late-year cooling in prices. 

  

  Bloomberg’s Chief Economist for Financial Products, Michael McDonough, tweeted how the slide in wholesale used-vehicle prices could have potential implications for the upcoming CPI print. 

  The Manheim Used Car Price Index is Down Big in October YoY, Here Are the Potential Implications to CPI: {ECAN} pic.twitter.com/SLA3r9hAy9

  — Michael McDonough (@M_McDonough) October 18, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Some on Twitter said wholesale used-vehicle prices are “about to crash worse than anything we’ve ever seen.” 

  Some said, “I’m shopping for a used car rn, and prices still seem high AF.” 

  In April, we asked the question: “Are Used Car Prices About To Peak For Real This Time?” Followed by a note one month later titled “Used Car Prices Are Crashing At A Near Record Pace.” And by August said that “Used-Car Market Cools As Prices Plunge To One Year Low.” Then, weeks ago, reported “Used Car Prices Record First Annual Drop In Two Years.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 19:25

• Why We Need True History And Good Historians
  Why We Need True History And Good Historians

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  [This article is adapted from the introduction to the Historical Revisionism panel at the 2022 Supporters Summit at the Arizona Biltmore.]

  In his novel 1984, George Orwell noted the role of the regime in controlling information about the past. After being “re-educated” by the ruling party, the protagonist Winston Smith dutifully recited the party’s wisdom regarding the fact that “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

  

  In other words, the ruling party in the world of 1984 understood that controlling historical narratives is key in influencing the public’s ideological views. 

  This is difficult to deny. 

  Speaking on the Industrial Revolution, historian Ralph Raico noted the importance of history in winning ideological and political battles. According to Raico:

  It’s a curious fact that of all the disciplines, it seems that history more than philosophy or economics determines people’s political views. We might consider this unfair. We might think that economics has more to say about what people should think about competition and antitrust, philosophy has more to say about what people should think about natural rights. But in fact, most often it seems that its history—or interpretations of history—that will influence the positions that people take.

  Some people, of course, will insist that the most important means of convincing people to one position or another involves rigorous logical arguments. This approach no doubt is of special importance to some, and sound economic and philosophical thinking is certainly important when it comes to interpreting and explaining events. 

  But for most people, it seems—as Raico notes—historical narratives have had an outsized role in influencing and setting ideological views. 

  We can easily see this by noting several examples. 

  Among the most important historical narratives that affect people’s ideological views are views of the Industrial Revolution. 

  Myth as History

  The general historical narrative goes like this: once upon a time, the people of Western Europe lived simple but decent lives in agriculture. But that all ended when capitalists forced the common people into factories, or what the anti-capitalists called “the satanic mills.” Thanks to the capitalists, the standard of living of ordinary people went down, and the quality of life was destroyed for generations. Only after governments intervened to regulate these factory owners did life improve for the working man. 

  Here’s another historical narrative we all know: in the years leading up to the Great Depression, the economies of the Western world were almost completely unregulated. Then, capitalism—somehow—brought on the Great Depression. The world was plunged into poverty, thanks to these capitalists, and it was only thanks to government intervention—yet again—that people were saved. The only reason we have not had repeated great depressions in the decades since has been thanks to governments intervening to prevent capitalists from causing another such calamity. 

  Ideologically motivated historians – and even fair-minded historian doing bad history – have taught the world these narratives. The world believes them, and the result is an enormous public bias against freedom and free markets. Fortunately, good historians have, in recent decades, done the hard work of economic history in showing that actually the standard of living increased during the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. Good historians—such as Murray Rothbard in his book America’s Great Depression—have shown that the Great Depression was hardly caused by too much laissez-faire. They’ve also shown that it certainly wasn’t government intervention that “solved” the problem of depressions. 

  These are just two examples having to do with economic history, of course. Ideologically charged historical narratives go back much further than these examples, and cover even more sweeping historical topics. For example, to this day, our views of modern politics, political institutions, and religion, continue to be heavily influenced by historical narratives of the Middle Ages. These narratives are actually centuries old, and as Raico notes, the myth of the Middle Ages as the “Dark Ages” was “maybe the biggest … next to the myth of the Industrial Revolution, one of the biggest historical frauds perpetrated by Renaissance humanists and French philosophes.” 

  Why does this matter? Because what we think we know about the Middle Ages feeds into our ideas of the so-called “enlightenment” which ushered in a new era of powerful, centralized, absolutists states build on secularism. Thanks to this narrative, we think we need governments to protect us from religious institutions, and to protect us from the localized, decentralized style of government that came before the alleged “age of reason.” This historical narrative serves as an important foundational myth for the Left.

  And it’s easy. After all, how much do people actually know about the Middle Ages? What they “know” mostly comes from Monty Python. 

  New History Is Being Written All the Time 

  New historical narratives are being written all the time. 

  For example, a popular historical narrative in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis was that the financial sector was more or less unregulated, and the financial crisis was an example of what happens when government fails to rein in capitalists. 

  Of key importance is the historical narrative that will be taught about covid-19.

  We already know the narrative that the regime wants: once upon a time the covid disease appeared—we have no idea where it came from!—and had it not been for governments, the death count would have been much worse. Thanks to lockdowns, mask mandates, business closures, border closures, and forced vaccines, total disaster was averted. It was necessary to abandon freedom to save lives. Thank goodness for Anthony Fauci and his friends! 

  That’s what the regime wants the history books to say. 

  The task at hand for us is to write correct history and spread good history, rather than the official regime-approved history. Because if bad history becomes the accepted version of history, it’s history that will convince countless millions of the idea that governments saved us from capitalists or saved us from covid. 

  We must do the hard work of writing good history which tells true stories about markets, of the modern state, of decentralization, and of the tyranny of government health officials. Yes, we absolutely need good economics to understand how markets work and why, for example, government regulation impoverishes us rather than protects us. But it’s the stories of history that people so often remember. 

  We have to tell the right stories. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 19:05

• Supreme Court Asked To Block Bailout As Applications Open For Biden’s Billion-Dollar Student Loan Forgiveness Program
  Supreme Court Asked To Block Bailout As Applications Open For Biden’s Billion-Dollar Student Loan Forgiveness Program

   The Supreme Court on Wednesday was asked by a Wisconsin tax advocacy group to block the Biden administration’s student loan debt relief scheme, which is set to take effect this weekend.

  

  The emergency filing from the Brown County Taxpayers Association asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who is responsible for handling such requests from the 7th federal appeals court, to delay implementation of the debt relief plan while their lawsuit plays out, according to CNBC.

  NEW: Supreme Court asked to block Biden student debt relief plan from taking effect. pic.twitter.com/UT1xM9OUbV

  — Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) October 19, 2022

  And as the Epoch Times notes (emphasis ours), tens of millions of Americans across the country are now eligible to apply for student loan cancellation under President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program despite a number of lawsuits opposing the scheme.

  

  Biden announced the launch of the official application site at StudentAid.gov on Monday after a “beta” test version of the site was rolled out over the weekend.

  “Today, I’m announcing millions of people, working and middle-class folks, can apply to get this relief. And it’s simple and it’s easy, it’s fast,” Biden said in remarks delivered from the South Court Auditorium of the White House. “You’ll be able to fill out your name, Social Security number, date of birth, and contact information. No forms to upload. No special log-in to remember. It’s available in English and in Spanish, on desktop and mobile.”

  Biden said the application will take “less than five minutes” to complete and will be a “game changer for millions of Americans,” noting that it took an “incredible amount of effort to get this website done in such a short time.”

  Biden announced in August that he plans to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt for individuals making less than $125,000 a year, or as much as $20,000 for eligible borrowers who were also Pell Grant recipients.

  An update on Sept. 29 states that borrowers who have federal student loans that are owned by private entities and not by the Department of Education will no longer qualify for the relief program.

  Borrowers have until Dec. 31, 2023 to submit an application.

  The White House said on Monday that over 8 million borrowers had already applied for loan forgiveness through the beta version of the website “without a glitch or any difficulty.”

  

  Lawsuits Mounting

  “We had over 10,000 people contact the White House and be—either send us letters or calls thanking us,” Biden claimed.

  His comment’s come as a number of Republican-led states and business groups filed a lawsuit against the loan forgiveness plan, which comes in the midst of soaring inflation, contesting that it is illegal.

  Last week, the Job Creators Network Foundation Legal Action Fund, a small-business advocacy group, became the latest group to file suit against Biden’s plan, arguing that it is counterproductive, inflationary, and that it is in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment procedures through which the administration should have sought the public’s input or comment on the program.

  * * *

  The legal challenges that have been brought against the president’s plan continue to mount.

  Six Republican-led states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina — are trying to block Biden’s plan, arguing that the president doesn’t have the power to issue nationwide debt relief without Congress. They’re also claiming that the policy would harm private companies that service some federal student loans by reducing their business.

  A federal judge earlier this month dismissed The Brown County Taxpayers Association’s lawsuit against the Biden administration, finding it didn’t have standing to bring its challenge. -CNBC

  According to Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe, the biggest obstacle for those seeking to challenge Biden’s plan is finding a plaintiff who can prove they’ve been harmed by the policy.

  “Such injury is needed to establish what courts call ‘standing,’” said Tribe, who isn’t convinced that any of the current lawsuits pending against the policy have successfully done that.

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 18:45

• Marx's 5th Plank: What You Need To Do As The Fed's Credibility Evaporates
  Marx’s 5th Plank: What You Need To Do As The Fed’s Credibility Evaporates

  Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

  International Man: First, the Federal Reserve told us there was no inflation.

  Then, they told us not to worry when inflation became undeniable because it was only “transitory.”

  Then, when it became apparent that it was not merely transitory, they told us not to worry because inflation is actually a good thing.

  Then, when it became obvious that inflation was not good, they told us not to worry because they had it under control.

  Do you think the Federal Reserve has lost its credibility?

  

  Nick Giambruno: The Fed should have lost credibility long ago for anyone with gray matter between their ears.

  The Fed is discrediting itself because of the ridiculous lies they’ve been spewing for the past couple of years, like “inflation is good.”

  What kind of person thinks higher grocery, gas, clothing, rent, and medical care costs are good?

  The only ones who do are fools or those who benefit from lowering the standard of living of everyone else. It’s like saying America needs more tapeworm infections. It’s repugnant.

  Please don’t believe the Fed’s absurd deceptions.

  They’re spitting on your boots and telling you it’s raining. It’s gaslighting.

  The reality is that inflation is out of control, nothing can stop it, and it’s poisonous for individuals and the economy.

  Here’s the correct way to think about the problem.

  Did you know the US government has printed more money recently than it has for its entire existence?

  Since the outbreak of the Covid hysteria in March 2020, the US government has inflated the money supply by around 41%.

  That amount of extreme money printing has never occurred before. So here’s what it means…

  If your after-tax wealth has not increased by 41% since then, you are not keeping up with the Fed’s monetary debasement and are losing ground. You’re on the road to serfdom.

  It’s just an anecdote, but I don’t know anyone whose after-tax wealth has grown by 41% since March 2020. I imagine that most people don’t know anyone, either.

  Here’s the bottom line.

  Most people are getting poorer, and the Fed is to blame.

  International Man: Do you think the Fed can get inflation under control?

  Nick Giambruno: This is a popular topic in the financial media, but the framing of the question is incorrect and deflects from the actual source of the problem.

  The truth is the Fed is the engine of inflation and is incentivized to create much more of it.

  Putting the Fed in charge of getting inflation under control is like putting Marlboro in charge of getting lung cancer under control.

  Further, it should be self-evident to everyone by now that central planning doesn’t work.

  In Marx’s Communist Manifesto, the 5th plank calls for the “centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

  That is a perfect description of the Federal Reserve and other central banks.

  In reality, the Fed is nothing more than a politburo of bureaucrats attempting to centrally plan the economy by tinkering with the money and interest rates—the most important prices in all of capitalism.

  Even if we presume the Fed has benign intentions—which it doesn’t—central planning is an impossible task and failure is inevitable.

  That’s why the Fed is in a mission-impossible situation—much like it was an impossible task for the Soviets to centrally plan their economy.

  The best thing investors can do is recognize that the Fed can’t save the day any more than the State Planning Committee of the USSR could—and get positioned accordingly.

  International Man: Since the Fed can create an unlimited amount of fake money out of thin air, does the US federal government’s debt even matter anymore?

  Nick Giambruno: Yes, I think the debt is becoming an urgent problem for the Fed. That’s because of the out-of-control inflation, which the Fed is attempting to combat by raising interest rates.

  However, the amount of federal debt today is so extreme that even a return of interest rates to their historical average would mean paying an interest expense that would consume more than half of tax revenues. Interest expense would eclipse Social Security and defense spending and become the largest item in the federal budget.

  According to even the government’s own crooked inflation statistics, which understate the problem, price increases are soaring to 40-year highs.

  That means a return to the historical average interest rate will not be enough to reign in inflation—not even close. A drastic rise in interest rates is needed—perhaps to 10% or higher.

  If that happened, it would mean that the US government is paying more for the interest expense than it takes in from taxes.

  In short, the Federal Reserve is trapped.

  Raising interest rates high enough to dent inflation would bankrupt the US government.

  The Fed could combat rising prices by hiking interest rates in the past. Today, thanks to the extreme debt levels, it does not have that option, which means inflation will continue to spiral out of control.

  That’s why the situation is unprecedented and dangerous.

  *  *  *

  Washington DC politicians and central planners have unleashed the most destructive monetary policies in the country’s history. It’s a foolish financial gamble that will ensure the destruction of the economy, people’s livelihoods, and ultimately the US dollar. There are still steps you can take to ensure you survive the coming turmoil with your money intact. That’s why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent new PDF report that explains how you to survive and thrive in the months ahead. Click here to download it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 18:25

• Peak Shipping Season A Bust Due To Reversal In 'Bullwhip-Effect'
  Peak Shipping Season A Bust Due To Reversal In ‘Bullwhip-Effect’

  We predicted in May that an inventory glut, i.e., the reverse bullwhip effect, would cool the booming freight market. It’s now peak shipping season — retailers cancel overseas orders as freight companies reduce freight capacity ahead of the busiest shopping season of the year: Black Friday through Christmas. 

  Trans-Pacific shipping rates are cratering. Since last year’s peak, the Shanghai-Los Angeles freight rate for 40-foot shipping containers has plunged 73%. 

  

  Weeks ago, we pointed out that October cancellations for vessels on the world’s busiest shipping lanes (between China and US West Coast) are in a sharp decline. WSJ said the pullback in ordering from overseas has resulted in carriers reducing capacity on “concerns a deeper downturn is coming.”

  “The growth in US import volume has run out of steam, especially for cargo from Asia.

  “Recent cuts in carrier shipping capacity reflect falling demand for merchandise from well-stocked retailers, even as consumers continue to spend,” said Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates and the author of the Global Port Tracker report issued by the National Retail Federation. 

  Remember, Morgan Stanley Shipper Survey showed ordering by 100 corporations reached the lowest point in the survey’s 12-year history. Ordering levels are down 40% year over year. Net inventory levels are also unusually high.

  

  Wonder why?

  

  “The NRF report is one of several measures showing shipping volumes slowing sharply from August to September, signaling waning demand rippling through supply chains even as retailers are lining up goods for the traditional sales season,” WSJ said. 

  An accelerating slowdown in imports means an even more significant decline is ahead, according to Descartes Datamyne, a data analysis supply-chain software company. 

  Descartes Datamyne’s recent report said September container imports, measured in 20-foot-equivalent units, fell 11% YoY and declined 12.4% from August. A slump in shipping activity is highly unusual for peak shipping season. They said imports of electronics, furniture, and toys for major US retailers from China plunged 18.3% from August to September. 

  Import slowdown has already led to a decline in rail and trucking traffic:

  The slowdown in imports is already hitting rail volumes. Average weekly loads carried in intermodal operations, a combined truck-rail service favored by retailers, fell 4.8% year-over-year in September, according to the Association of American Railroads. The volume was also 5.4% below August levels. –WSJ

  FTR Transportation Intelligence published a report Monday that shows Truckstop.com’s spot-market rate for available loads for truckers on the West Coast plunged to the lowest level since May 2020. The report added demand in the Southeast “fell sharply after recent strength.”

  Another website that shows trucking spot rates, DAT Solutions LLC, reveals similar downward trends, showing average spot rates for truckload vans dropped from August to September for the first time since 2015. 

  And remember, in mid-September, FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam warned about declining worldwide cargo volumes and mounting macroeconomic headwinds that may indicate the global economy is on the brink of a recession.

  Freight winter is here thanks to high inventory as consumer behaviors changed from buying computers, televisions, and Pelotons to now spending on services, such as restaurants… 

  The silver lining is supply chain stress is rapid easing, as explained by Liz Ann Sonders, the chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab:

  Supply chain stress essentially back to pre-pandemic level (black line is average) ; commodities & used car prices helping lead on way down
  ⁦@DataArbor⁩ ⁦@Conferenceboard⁩ ⁦@federalreserve⁩ @ISM ⁦@NFIB⁩ ⁦@UMich⁩ pic.twitter.com/5UZsrvuDwt

  — Liz Ann Sonders (@LizAnnSonders) October 19, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Goldman Sachs’ Supply Chain Congestion Scale is back to “4,” indicating bottlenecks are easing. 

  

  This could be good news that inflation is moderating.  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 18:05

• Whistleblowers Reveal FBI Has 'Voluminous Evidence' Of Possible Hunter Biden Criminal Conduct: Senator
  Whistleblowers Reveal FBI Has ‘Voluminous Evidence’ Of Possible Hunter Biden Criminal Conduct: Senator

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  FBI whistleblowers have revealed that the bureau has “voluminous evidence” of possible criminal conduct by President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, according to a top senator.

  “Based on recent protected disclosures to my office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told FBI Director Christopher Wray and other officials in a letter dated Oct. 13.

  James Biden is the president’s brother.

  

  Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been approached by a number of whistleblowers in recent months about how the bureau has handled its investigation of Hunter Biden, who carried out business in China and other countries while his father was vice president.

  The evidence of possible criminal activity includes a summary of an interview FBI agents had conducted with Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden’s onetime business partner, shortly before the 2020 presidential election.

  “In that interview, Mr. Bobulinski stated that the arrangement Hunter Biden and James Biden created with foreign nationals connected to the communist Chinese government included assisting them with potential business deals and investments while Joe Biden was Vice President; however, that work remained intentionally uncompensated while Joe Biden was Vice President. After Joe Biden left the Vice Presidency, the summary makes clear that Hunter Biden and James Biden worked with CEFC and affiliated individuals to compensate them for that past work and the benefits they procured for CEFC,” Grassley wrote.

  CEFC China Energy, now defunct, was a large energy firm in China.

  According to the summary, Grassley said, Hunter Biden, James Biden, and their associates created a venture that would enable them to be compensated.

  An operating agreement attached to Grassley’s letter outlined the percentage each individual would receive through LLCs. Ten percent of Hunter Biden’s interest was to be held for his father, according to Bobulinski.

  “Based on allegations provided to my office, the information provided by Mr. Bobulinski formed a sufficient basis to open a full field investigation on pay-to-play grounds; however, it is unclear whether the FBI did so and whether the information is part of the ongoing criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney Weiss,” Grassley wrote.

  The bureau also is in possession of other documents, including one noting that the former vice president met with his son and business associates in 2017 at a conference in Los Angeles, the senator wrote.

  He sent the letter to U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss, a Trump appointee, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, in addition to Wray.

  Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz received a copy of the letter.

  Grassley said the disclosures “beg the question” of what U.S. authorities have done to investigate, while noting that the Department of Justice and FBI haven’t disputed any previous revelations based on whistleblower disclosures regarding Hunter Biden since May.

  “Simply put, enough is enough—the Justice Department and FBI must come clean to Congress and the American people with respect to the steps they have taken, or failed to take, relating to the Hunter Biden investigation,” Grassley wrote.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/19/2022 – 17:45

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