Aug 22

Today’s News 22nd August 2023

  • 2023 Women's World Cup Sets Attendance Record
    2023 Women’s World Cup Sets Attendance Record

    Despite the time difference between Australia/New Zealand and major markets such as the United States and Europe playing to the disadvantage of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World in terms of TV viewership, the month-long tournament was a huge success both in terms of at-home audience and stadium attendance.

    Statista’s Felix Richter reports that, according to FIFA, nearly two million people attended the 64 matches played down under, blowing past the previous record of 1.35 million matchday fans at the 2015 World Cup in Canada.

    “In the host countries, we had almost two million spectators in the stadiums – full houses everywhere – and two billion watching all over the world,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in a statement.

    “It’s a great sport, it’s entertaining and people love it.”

    While it needs to be noted that it was the first Women’s World Cup played with 32 teams instead of 24 at the previous two tournaments and 16 before that, it was also only the third Women’s World Cup to surpass 30,000 in average stadium attendance.

    As Statista’s chart shows, the tournaments played in the U.S. in 1999 and in China in 2007 both drew more than 37,000 fans per game, but since they had half the number of games compared to the 2023 competition, they’re far off in terms of total attendance.

    Infographic: 2023 Women's World Cup Sets Attendance Record | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Prior to the final, Infantino had angered players and fans of the women’s game alike, when he said that women should “pick the right battles” in their fight for equality.

    “You have the power to convince us, men, what we have to do and what we don’t have to do. You do it, just do it,” Infantino had said, not only suggesting that it was women’s responsibility to convince men of their worthiness of equal treatment, but also belittling many players’ efforts to promote and advance the women’s game in the face of adversity.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 23:20

  • Inflation Labeled A "Right-Wing Talking Point" In Response To Hit Working-Class Song
    Inflation Labeled A “Right-Wing Talking Point” In Response To Hit Working-Class Song

    Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via The Epoch Times,

    A new folk song with edgy lyrics is causing quite a stir in America, and it’s not “Try That in a Small Town.”

    Oliver Anthony’s blue-collar anthem “Rich Men North of Richmond” has exploded across the internet, racking up 15 million views in its very first week after debuting on Aug. 9.

    Mr. Anthony’s mournful ballad has an almost Depression-era feel. Sporting a bushy red beard and a twangy guitar, the Virginia native channels the struggles of working-class Americans while strumming away in the woods in front of what appears to be a hunting blind.

    “I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day/Overtime hours for [expletive] pay/So I can sit out here and waste my life away/Drag back home and drown my troubles away.

    “It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to/For people like me and people like you/Wish I could just wake up and it not be true/But it is, oh, it is.

    “Livin’ in the new world/With an old soul/These rich men north of Richmond/Lord knows they all just wanna have total control/Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do/And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do/’Cause your dollar ain’t [expletive] and it’s taxed to no end/’Cause of rich men north of Richmond.”

    The song has resonated broadly with listeners, but it has also become a sort of political bellwether with lyrics that take aim at taxes, inflation, and welfare.

    The Los Angeles Times notes Mr. Anthony’s song has been criticized by leftists, who’ve dubbed the tune an “alt-right anthem” that’s “offensive” and “fatphobic.”

    The Guardian, meanwhile, accused Mr. Anthony of “punching down” and mocking the poor.

    Right-wing pundits have seen things differently, including Matt Walsh, who called the song “raw and authentic.”

    “One interesting thing about ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’ is that he (rightly) attacks the welfare state,” Mr. Walsh wrote in a tweet.

    “Many conservatives think that it isn’t populist to criticize entitlements but in reality blue collar Americans are sick of having their money stolen to prop up a system that functions as nothing more than a vote buying scheme for Democrats.”

    It’s not exactly a surprise that Mr. Anthony’s hit song would be received differently by the left and the right, which increasingly operate in different cultural ecosystems with totally different values.

    But some are getting a bit carried away in the effort to turn Mr. Anthony’s blue-collar tune into a right-wing screed.

    Wikipedia’s since edited page on “Rich Men North of Richmond” initially claimed that “the song’s lyrics revolve around common right-wing themes such as inflation ….”

    Did you catch that? Inflation apparently is now “a right-wing talking point” instead of an economic phenomenon broadly defined today as a general and sustained increase in consumer prices and a decline in the value of money.

    The claim is bizarre.

    There’s nothing partisan about inflation, after all. It affects everyone. Rich and poor. Republican, Democrat, and Independent. People of every sex, race, and creed.

    For decades, the term “silent killer” has been used by scholars, economists, and financial asset managers to describe inflation because of the gradual and often unnoticed erosion of purchasing power it causes.

    Inflation has destroyed civilizations (Rome) and ushered in totalitarian regimes (Mao in China), which is why it has been decried by an array of intellectuals who were hardly “right-wingers.”

    The writer Ernest Hemingway, who moved to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to oppose Franco and wrote for Pravda because he hated fascism so much, called inflation “the first panacea for a mismanaged nation.” (The second, he added, was war.)

    John Maynard Keynes, the staunch anti-conservative English economist who became arguably the most influential macroeconomic thinker in history, warned in 1919 (pdf) that Vladimir Lenin “is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency.”

    “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens,” Keynes wrote.

    “The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.”

    More recently, Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard and an economist that served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, warned that inflation is undermining confidence in the American political system.

    “It’s clear that inflation is significantly contributing to distrust in the institutions and to pessimism about the future,” Mr. Summers recently told The Harvard Gazette.

    Clearly, one needn’t be a right-winger to be concerned about inflation. Anyone who goes to McDonald’s and is stunned to see a $50 receipt after ordering a few burgers, fries, and drinks has a right to be concerned over the erosion of their money.

    None of this is to say that there are no political undertones to Mr. Anthony’s song. There clearly are, and this fits snuggly in the long tradition of country music.

    Anyone who has ever listened to Hank Williams Jr. or David Allan Coe or any number of artists can tell you weaving poverty and politics into songs is hardly out of the ordinary in the country music genre. Consider these lyrics from a popular song covered by the band Alabama, “Song of the South”:

    “Cotton on the roadside, cotton in the ditch/We all picked the cotton but we never got rich/Daddy was a veteran, a Southern Democrat/They oughta get a rich man to vote like that. … Well somebody told us Wall Street fell/But we were so poor that we couldn’t tell/Cotton was short and the weeds were tall/But Mr. Roosevelt’s a-gonna save us all”

    The song is more overtly political than Mr. Anthony’s—it mentions a political party and president—but you’ll find no mention of it being left-wing on Wikipedia’s page of the song.

    The primary difference, of course, is that Alabama’s song praised government anti-poverty programs, whereas Mr. Anthony’s song attacks them.

    Sadly, it’s quite possible that we’ve reached a point where any kind of criticism of the federal system is considered “right wing” by many. (After all, even everyday activities such as working out to getting up early have been described as such.)

    But adding inflation to this list of partisan topics isn’t just unwise but dangerous. There is, I suppose, one silver lining.

    The labeling of inflation as a right-wing talking point is a tacit admission that the real cause of inflation isn’t corporate greed or Taylor Swift. Inflation is a policy of the powers in Washington, DC, who are printing trillions of dollars.

    If pointing out basic economic realities makes one “right wing,” I’m not sure what that says about the left.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 23:00

  • US Navy's "Death Star" Destroyer Prepares For Hypersonic Weapon Installation
    US Navy’s “Death Star” Destroyer Prepares For Hypersonic Weapon Installation

    In a move that shouldn’t surprise readers, the US Navy is wasting even more taxpayers’ funds to replace new deck guns of the Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer with missile tubes to house hypersonic weapons.

    “USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) arrived in Pascagoula, Mississippi., today [Saturday] to enter a modernization period and receive technology upgrades including the integration of the Conventional Prompt Strike weapon system,” USNI News has learned, citing a statement from the service. It added, “The upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the US Navy.” 

    Naval warfare journalist and commentator Chris Cavas photographed the guided-missile destroyer as it arrived at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula. 

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    We have told readers in two notes, “US Navy’s “Death Star” Destroyer Will Be Armed With Laser Guns And Hypersonic Missiles” and “US Navy’s Zumwalt Stealth Destroyers To Get Hypersonic Missiles” about the push to swap out existing twin 155 mm Advanced Gun Systems and replace them with four 87-inch missile tubes. 

    Each tube will hold three Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies (C-HGB) hypersonic missiles. However, the Congressional Budget Office states, “The United States has not yet fielded such weapons [hypersonic missiles], for both scientific and policy reasons.”

    Besides the Navy building missile tubes for missiles it doesn’t have, the most expensive destroyer ever built for the service has had a series of mechanical failures over the years. Also, it was delivered to the service seven years late and exceeded shipbuilding costs by over 50%. 

    This is the latest saga of taxpayers’ dollars thrown into the abyss, and there’s still no clarity on when the US fields hypersonic weapons.

     

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 22:40

  • China Emerges As A Global LNG Trading Power
    China Emerges As A Global LNG Trading Power

    By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com,

    China is expanding its presence in the global LNG trading world, with Chinese traders setting up new or expanding their trading desks in Singapore and London, Reuters writes.

    This would put China in direct competition with LNG trade leaders including Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, and Equinor, the report pointed out.

    The trading presence expansion comes even as China secures more long-term supply of the superchilled fuel, the latest deals coming from Qatar and the United States.

    Even so, Chinese importers are not relying on long-term deals only, even if they have swelled to some 40 million tons annually since last year. The amount represents a 50% increase.

    Per the Reuters report, more than 10 Chinese energy trading companies are hiring more traders or expanding their trading desks while state-owned CNOOC plans to open an office in London.

    Speaking of CNOOC, the Chinese major said this month that Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project will start production as scheduled before the end of this year. CNOOC has a 10% stake in the Russian project.

    “We’re going to see a paradigm shift in Chinese companies from being total net importers to (being) more international and domestic trading players,” said Trident LNG head of global trading, Toby Copson, as quoted by Reuters.

    The core motive for the trading presence expansion appears to be energy security—the focus of China’s energy policies.

    “Supply security is still at the heart of our business activities. Trading capability is one of the enablers … to help us better deal with market swings,” according to PetroChina International’s global head of LNG trading, Zhang Yaoyu.

    As a result of this expansion, Reuters notes, the total volume of LNG contracted by Chinese traders could reach 100 million tons annually by 2026. That would mean an excess supply of some 8 million tons for that year, per Poten & Partners. On the other hand, ICIS sees the amount as falling short of demand by 5-6 million tons.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 22:20

  • Here's How DeSantis Should Fight In This Week's GOP Primary Debate
    Here’s How DeSantis Should Fight In This Week’s GOP Primary Debate

    Authored by Kurt Schilchter via Townhall.com,

    The word “fight” in the title of this column is intentional – Ron DeSantis is walking into the Octagon alone in the first GOP primary debate. The deck is stacked against him. He’s in a half-dozen or so gunsights. It’s Ronbo against the world. He best be ready.

    Let us assume that Donald Trump takes my advice and makes the smart strategic choice – because Trump is known for always making the smart strategic choice just like Hunter Biden is known for his sobriety – of not attending the debate.

    DeSantis is the leader of the also-ran pack, the only conceivable rival to Trump at the moment, and he will be the guy each of the primary lilliputians is looking to take down by creating A Moment that will catapult them from also-also-ran to just also-ran.

    This complicates things for the Florida governor. Everyone else on stage will have one target, him. Alligator Ron will have three.

    His first target is his opponents onstage.

    Ron has to demonstrate dominance over each of his rivals.

    That’s easy with Mike Pence, who always gives up and gives in to the establishment. The one time he stood firm was in rejecting Trump’s kooky electoral thing, but just last week he went belly-up for the frame job the enemy has launched against his ex-boss. Pence is one of those cons who pretends that passivity in the face of communist enemies is morally superior to crushing them. He makes submission into a fetish, and if he was not so uptight, he’d probably have a regular dominatrix. 

    “Mike, the time of the soft Republican is over. You should retire, teach Sunday school, and build birdhouses.”

    Nikki Haley is the poster girl for 2005 conservatism, and DeSantis will need to dismiss her agenda of a return to the tired old GOP combo of wars n’ tax cuts for corporations that want to turn our kids trans. She’s all in on something-something Ukraine/Putin bad, that establishment mish-mash of cliches and fuzzy fake-tuff pseudo-thinking that substitutes for an actual national strategy that supports American interests. Nukey Nikki is all in for another Afghanistan, except with borscht, and you know that if her crew ever gets the wheel we’ll eventually be seeing CH47s lifting off from the Kyiv embassy roof. But then someone who was on the Boeing board is probably A-OK with dumping billions into the bloody Slavic blender with no articulated strategy for success. Yet she won’t fight at home. When Disney decided to pervertize our kids, Nikki sided with Disney because corporations are always right and the job of Americans is to obey.

    “Nikki, I’ve been to war and if the voters choose me they will know with absolute certainty that their sons and daughters will never die in another useless one, and that I will use every bit of my power as president to fight back against big corporations that want to impose their San Francisco values on normal families.”

    Tim Scott is no threat. His argument is “I have a neat origin story” and “I am nice.” But what has he ever actually done? The biggest thing he did as a senator was failing to pass his Defund the Police Lite bill. Oh, and he echoes bogus Democrat race-baiting.

    “Tim, I first had my doubts about you when you supported the Democrat defund the police movement, but I really lost respect for you when you decided to repeat what you knew were Democrat and regime media lies about Florida history standards. Our voters do not need a candidate who joins with Kamala Harris to tell the lie that Republicans like slavery.”

    Then there’s Chris Christie, whose only rational reason for being in this debate is to get access to the green room’s snack table. Christie will go after DeSantis because, deep down – and you can get very deep in Christie – he is trying to win back the love of Donald Trump. Sadly, we all have to endure this spurned platonic lover psychodrama. But his failure as a governor disqualifies him just as much as his refusal to take our side in the cultural war fight. Christie is a has-been who is more accurately described as a “never was.”

    “Chris, your own state knew you best and when you finally left under a cloud of scandal you were polling on par with chlamydia. All you have is complaints about more successful Republicans, but I noticed that you don’t seem to have a problem with Biden. Just sign your MSNBC contract and get out of the way of those of us who know how to win.”

    Optionally, DeSantis can refer to him as “Garden State Lizzo.”

    Vivek Ramaswamy is an interesting cat with some good ideas and some really poorly-thought out ones. His whole “China, you can have Taiwan after 2028” initiative is, well, innovative. He’s clearly running for Secretary of Keeping It Real or a similar sinecure in a future Trump administration. He is also about 12 years old.

    “Vivek, you’re a smart guy with no experience but a bright future once you learn how the world works. Go do a hitch in the Marines, kid, then maybe at least win a city council election and get a little salty before you try for the White House. America does not need a president who never watched ‘The Brady Bunch” after school on a UHF station or made a call on a rotary phone.”

    Doug Burgum, the governor of East Dakota or something, is another sensible n’ sober, Republican pol who would be just fine if this was 1996 and our biggest problem was a priapic president. He’s not a bad guy, but there’s no crying need for another generic  milquetoast zillionaire trying to buy his way into the White House. 

    “Doug, I turned a purple state deep red. You kept a deep red state deep red. That’s fine, I guess, but the last time we nominated a soft rich guy he got punked live on TV by Candy Crowley.”

    Ron’s second target is Joe Biden

    Biden often seems forgotten in all the online battling about the primary. Once DeSantis disposes of his competition on stage, he should press his real selling point, which is that he stands the best chance of beating the desiccated old pervert in the White House.

    “I turned a purple state deep red. My competitors have never done that. Nikki, Tim, Doug, and Mike all come from safe red states. Chris tried to turn blue New Jersey red and failed hard. Vivek has never even run in an election before, much less won one. And the Dems agree that I am the threat to Joe Biden stumbling his way to another term – the Dems are not spending their money to beat my opponents. They are spending money to make sure I am not on the GOP ticket because I am the only Republican they are afraid of.”

    And Ron’s last target must be Donald Trump.

    He has to make the case about why he is the better choice. On policy, both are similar enough that it’s not clear how much traction RDS would get pointing out that DJT screwed up COVID by hugging Fauci, failed to fire Wray, and so forth. On balance, America under Trump was a mere million times better than under the corrupt President Daddyshowers. The real case for Ron DeSantis is that he can win the general and Trump can’t. He should proceed under the assumption that most Republicans want to actually win, instead of wallowing in glorious defeat, and that Republican moderates who despise Biden but actively hate Trump for his mean tweets will come home if someone who is not orange is on the GOP ticket.

    “Maybe it’s not right or fair or rational, but about 53% of Americans will never vote for Trump. That’s the reality. If we put him on the ticket, we lose. You’re not making a statement by nominating a certain loser. You’re making the Democrats’ day. They are begging you to nominate Donald Trump. Ask yourself why. If you do, say good-bye to the Supreme Court. To your right to keep and bear arms. To free speech. To the right to practice your faith as you see fit. Say hello to more trans tyranny. To more climate hoax insanity that will have you losing your gas-powered car and eating bugs. To more wars. To more taxes. To more crime, and to more chaos. If you want to send a message to Washington, win. Winning is the message. And I have never lost a race and never will.”

    I like Ron DeSantis, but there are no freebies in politics. He’s got to win this all on his own, one man against everyone there on-stage with him and off-stage Truthing at him. The stakes could not be higher.

    It’s go time.

    *  *  *

    Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get Inferno, the seventh book in the Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, as well as his non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 21:40

  • 'Rich Men North Of Richmond' Artist Warns America Will Be Lost In A Generation Unless Country Changes Course
    ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’ Artist Warns America Will Be Lost In A Generation Unless Country Changes Course

    Oliver Anthony’s anthem for the working class, “Rich Men North Of Richmond,” continues to top the charts on iTunes. On Saturday, he gave a free concert in Moyock, North Carolina, attracting thousands. After the show, he expressed grave concerns about the country’s current direction, suggesting that without significant change, it may not sustain ‘more than another generation.’

    Fox News interviewed Christopher Anthony Lunsford (Oliver Anthony’s real name), who provided a message of ‘unity’ — something the Biden administration has struggled with while it promotes differences and divides this nation. He called out “corporate media” and “education,” which is “making everyone identify each other’s differences and not their similarities.” 

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    Lunsford spoke more on the unity subject while also mentioning: “If we continue on the path that we’re going down now, culturally, we won’t have a country very long — 5 years? 50 years? I don’t know.”

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    As of Monday afternoon, Rich Men North Of Richmond is still the number one iTunes song.

    oh, and there’s this headline from Billboard. 

    Country legend John Rich said, “Oliver Anthony has the #1 song in America, and I have the #1 record, and neither of us have record deals. I texted Oliver to congratulate him and he responded “God is good!” Yes He is my friend, yes He is❤️ Thank you to all the supporters of our music, it’s truly humbling.” 

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    Last week, Lunsford said he turned down a $8 million deal from stunned music industry executives. He explained this on Facebook in a lengthy post:

    People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off 8 million dollar offers. I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung. No editing, no agent, no bullshit. Just some idiot and his guitar. The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place.

    We noted last week, Is Anyone Surprised? Left-Wing Media Doesn’t Like ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’… Democrats describe the song as a “right-wing anthem” laced with “conspiracy theories.” 

    Perhaps this is why the political elite north of Richmond hate the most viral song in America… It could be because it encourages the unity of the masses. 

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    … and more from Michael Shellenberger. 

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    Just remember this Ron Paul quote…

    Elites have become masters of deceit and spent decades distracting, dividing, and conquering the masses. Maybe this time, the scheme that has left everyone zombified for years is falling apart in front of our eyes as people realize they’ve been brainwashed – manipulated – into a “us” against “them mindset.” Unifying the masses is the worst-case scenario for elites. Queue the next crisis… 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 21:20

  • Clean Energy Exploitations & The Death Spiral Of An Auto Industry
    Clean Energy Exploitations & The Death Spiral Of An Auto Industry

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Biden is so wrong, even the liberal Guardian sees it. But it’s full speed ahead with massive subsidies for something counterproductive…

    Ronald Stein at the Heartland institute says Unsold Electric Cars May Be Signaling a Death Spiral for the Auto Industry

    As the future is fast approaching, virtually all the automobile manufacturers, through government mandates to reduce the emissions of their fleet of vehicles, are going all-in to only manufacture EV’s in the coming years. To meet low emissions for their fleet of vehicles, we’re most likely going to see fewer and fewer hybrids as the auto industry manufacturers need to eliminate the gasoline engines in hybrids to meet those lower emission targets.

    The problem is that manufacturers are loading up the “supply chain” with EV’s on dealer lots, but they’re not seeing the “demand” for EV’s coming from the public.

    Demand Flop Reasons

    • driving range,

    • vehicle reliability,

    • price,

    • the availability of electricity for the buildout of the charging infrastructure,

    • charging time,

    • the cost and lifespan of batteries and their environmental impact,

    • the actual impact EVs will have on reducing carbon emissions,

    • the growing statistics about uncontrollable fires of lithium batteries in EV’s,

    • problems with battery recycling and end-of-life management,

    • concerns that the EV free ride of usage of highways and not paying fuel taxes is about to end with the Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT), i.e., more costs for the EV owners of the future,

    • concerns that home chargers are destined to follow the UK and be on separate meters so that EV charging will be at higher rates to help stabilize the electrical grid, again more costs for the EV owners of the future.

    None of the above is new except perhaps that last bullet point. I have written about the above concern list many times, but it is an excellent synopsis.

    Additional Problems

    Another problem for the automobile industry is convincing the buyers that its ethical, moral, and socially responsible to buy an EV, especially since most of the exotic mineral and metal supplies to build the batteries are being mined in developing countries with limited environmental regulation nor labor regulations.

    Interestingly, the 2021 Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy does an excellent job of discussing the lack of transparency to the world of the green movement’s impact upon humanity exploitations in the developing countries that are mining for the exotic minerals and metals required to create the batteries needed to store “green electricity”. Complimentary to the book is a  2-minute clip from Michael Moore’s 2020 documentary film, Planet of the Humans, that’s been viewed by more than 14 million, that illustrates how so-called green electricity is made

    It’s not often I agree with Michael Moore on anything, but his video ought to be an eye opener for those who mistakenly believe EV will do anything for the environment.

    The video start at the 36:44 mark, a good spot for the exploitation that goes into producing the minerals needed for EVs and how solar energy is destroying the desert.

    California Leads the Way

    • Most states lack the year-round temperate climate that Californians enjoy, the distribution of EV ownership throughout the nation should be a concern to the auto industry. With 40 percent of the EV’s in America being in California, that leaves the other 60 percent being among the other 49 States, or approximately 1+ percent per State.

    • To support the State’s EV growth, California imports more electricity than any other US state,  more than twice the amount of Virginia, the second largest importer of electricity. California typically receives between one-fifth and one-third of its electricity supply from outside of the state.

    • The other 49 states have virtually non-existent EV charging infrastructures, and a few of them may be exporting their electricity to California!

    UK Madness

    • As of May 30, 2022, in the UK, new home and workplace chargers being installed must be “smart” chargers” connected to the internet and able to employ pre-sets limiting their ability to function from 8 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 10 pm.

    • In addition to the nine hours a day of downtime, authorities will be able to impose a “randomized delay” of 30 minutes on individual chargers in certain areas to prevent grid spikes at other times. 

    • The UK Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021 came into force on June 30, 2022. All home installed electric vehicle chargers are required to be separately metered and send information to the Smart meter data communications network. Potentially this legislation allows the electricity used for charging EVs to be charged and taxed at a higher rate than domestic electricity. The technology enacted also enables the rationing of electricity for EV charging because the government can decide when and if an EV can be charged, plus it also allows the EV battery to be drained into the grid if required.

    Carnage of Child Labor and Ecological Destruction ‘Elsewhere’ acceptable to Wealthy Countries

    Next, please consider Carnage of Child Labor and Ecological Destruction ‘Elsewhere’ acceptable to Wealthy Countries, also by Ronald Stein.

    The Administration is laser-focused on ending the “climate crisis” by switching to “clean” electricity. It has few qualms about importing the critically needed materials from foreign countries, primarily China – regardless of economic, defense, national security, ecological or human rights implications. It just wants the dirty aspects of “clean” electricity far away and out of sight.

    In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has been vocal about his commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the state. However, some of his recent actions of “leaking” emissions to other countries violate many sections of the written legal framework of The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32).

    The silence is deafening from billionaires like Bill Gates, John Kerry, Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and President Biden.Through the encouragement of tax incentives and subsidies to go to EV’s and electricity from wind and solar, they are providing financial incentives to China, who already controls the supply chain for the minerals and metals to go green, furthering our total dependence on China to achieve the green goals of America.

    “The wealthy country elites continue to demonstrate their lack of ethical, moral, and social responsibilities, by using subsidies that encourage the continued exploitations of people with yellow, brown, and black skin and the environmental degradation occurring elsewhere, out of view of those living in wealthy countries,” says Stein.

    The destruction, however, is not just elsewhere.

    How an Oasis Becomes a Dead Sea

    The Guardian comments Solar Farms Took Over the California Desert: ‘An Oasis Has Become a Dead Sea’

    Kevin Emmerich worked for the National Park Service for over 20 years before setting up Basin & Range Watch in 2008, a non-profit that campaigns to conserve desert life. He says solar plants create myriad environmental problems, including habitat destruction and “lethal death traps” for birds, which dive at the panels, mistaking them for water.

    He says one project bulldozed 600 acres of designated critical habitat for the endangered desert tortoise, while populations of Mojave fringe-toed lizards and bighorn sheep have also been afflicted. “We’re trying to solve one environmental problem by creating so many others.”

    Madness in Michigan

    Last week a reader called me regarding use of solar panels in Michigan. Since he began fighting such projects a few years ago, he has been targeted by IRS audits.

    The harassment continues despite him winning the battles.

    Michigan is probably one of the worst places to place solar. I suggested to my reader to look up Michigan cloudiness. Check this out.

    A 2013 study concluded that over a 31-year period, Michigan winters are filled with clouds more than 50% of the time. That means the months of December, January and February are quite cloudy. Places like Wisconsin, however, are less than 30% cloudy on average in the winter.

    A 2023 update shows it’s even worse. PBS reports Michigan winters are super cloudy and getting worse.

    For nearly two weeks, clouds blanketed large swaths of Michigan, occasionally accompanied by rainfall that transformed our winter wonderland into a muddy mess.

    The bad news is gloomy, muddy winters could become increasingly normal in Michigan as climate change chips away at Great Lakes ice cover, strengthening the forces that drive lake effect clouds, rain and snow.

    And how much of the time would those solar panels be covered in snow?

    Even with subsidies, there is no way solar projects in Michigan can possibly work.

    Solar Energy Is Not Cheaper

    I am sick of all these lies about solar being cheaper. On a new facility, in sunny place, it might appear so on the surface. But that ignores the fact that existing plants are up an running and will need to be mothballed, if and when there is storage capacity to deal with the inconvenient issue that sun does not shine at night.

    Destruction of productive facilities for something only marginally better makes little sense. And it makes no sense at all when one factors in required grid updates, child labor exploitation, and also the destruction of US deserts, the latter discussed in detail below.

    What to Expect When Politicians Try to Pick Technology Winners

    On May 25, with a spotlight on the EU, I commented on What to Expect When Politicians Try to Pick Technology Winners Part 1

    Biden’s Solar Push Is Destroying the Desert and Releasing Stored Carbon

    The Left ignored environment destruction, even in the US.

    On May 28, 2023, I noted Biden’s Solar Push Is Destroying the Desert and Releasing Stored Carbon

    Biden is so clearly wrong, even the extremely liberal Guardian sees it. But it’s full speed ahead with massive subsidies for something counterproductive for the goal.

    Electric Vehicles for Everyone?

    On July 19, I asked Electric Vehicles for Everyone? If the Dream Was Met, Would it Help the Environment?

    My follow-up post was What Do MishTalk Readers Think About “Electric Vehicles for Everyone?”

    Math Does Not Add Up

    The EV math does not add up in the EU or here. But the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), better known as the Eurozone, has economic debt brakes and budget rules that make matters more painful for the 20 EMU countries.

    In the US, deficits pile up as do the economic impacts of a massive wave of Bidenomic regulations and mandates.

    We pretend that deficits don’t matter and mainstream media not only looks the other way, but is in on the act with countless fearmongering stories.

    Inflationary Madness Marches On

    On August 17, I commented Yet Another Biden Regulation Will Increase Costs and Promote More Inflation

    It involves a new Biden regulation that will increase the price of all government projects. Click on the link for details.

    Rooftop Solar Panel Madness

    The one place where solar might makes sense is roof top solar panels. But even there, we have environmental madness, taxing the hell out of panels, making them too expensive to use.

    For discussion, please see The Cost of Soup is About to Increase, Thank President Biden

    The above article discusses soup and solar panels. Soup is the sideline.

    US policy is so convoluted that we aim to put solar where it makes no sense at all, and kill the idea where it does.

    Meanwhile, If you actually believe you are doing something positive for the environment by buying a Tesla, you are an environmental fool.

    *  *  *

    Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 21:00

  • 'Egregious': Biden's Favorite Super PAC Has $12 Million Accounting Discrepancy
    ‘Egregious’: Biden’s Favorite Super PAC Has $12 Million Accounting Discrepancy

    President Biden’s favorite political action committee (PAC), Future Forward, has some ‘splainin’ to do – after a $12 million “discrepancy” was found in its financial disclosures, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

    According to the 2021 filings, Future Forward claimed it received a mere $3.4 million in contributions from its dark-money sister entity, Future Forward USA Action. However, the latter group declared to the IRS that it had funneled a whopping $15.3 million to the Super PAC in the same year. The $12 million delta is not only puzzling but raises red flags that could trigger a federal probe. Kendra Arnold, the executive director of the watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, didn’t mince words: “This situation calls for an investigation.” And that’s putting it mildly.

    Of note, the White House has endorsed Future Forward as the “pre-eminent super PAC” supporting Biden’s reelection bid.

    This revelation could turn into a PR disaster for Biden, especially as he gears up for the 2024 elections. Remember, Future Forward has amassed a war chest of nearly $400 million in the last five years to fuel Democratic ad campaigns in crucial battleground states. Much of this has been filled by its dark-money affiliate, Future Forward USA Action, which operates under a veil of secrecy.

    And of course – Biden, a hypocrite and a liar, decried dark money last September, labeling it a “serious problem facing our democracy.” A few months later, his deputy chief of staff, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, was singing praises for Future Forward’s “key role” in his reelection bid.

    When asked about the $12 million gap, both Future Forward and its dark money arm provided crickets.

    “Future Forward USA Action admitted to making over $3 million in earmarked political contributions, where they apparently obscured the true super PAC donor’s identity by routing the money through the nonprofit,” GOP election lawyer Charlie Spies told the Beacon. “The U.S. DOJ has sent people to prison for this sort of illegal activity, and the FEC has imposed major fines on conservative organizations accused of less blatant earmarking.”

    From 2018 to 2020, Future Forward’s reporting contained even more discrepancies. In one instance, the Super PAC claimed it had no dedicated staff and had never reported any payroll expenditures to the FEC. Instead, it used staff from its dark money affiliate. And yet, the numbers don’t add up—again. In 2020, Future Forward reported $467,204 in in-kind staff contributions from the dark money arm, which in its IRS filings claimed it provided only $67,479 worth of in-kind staff time. The two amounts should match.

    According to nonprofit attorney Jason Torchinsky, such discrepancies could lead to “substantial fines,” as FEC penalties are often assessed based on the amount in dispute. Paul Kamenar, an attorney with the National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group, is pushing for an “independent audit” and an “investigation and possible enforcement action by both the IRS and the FEC.”

    “There must be an independent audit of both groups for these egregious discrepancies and an investigation and possible enforcement action by both the IRS and the FEC,” said Kamenar.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 20:40

  • How Unions Have Betrayed America
    How Unions Have Betrayed America

    Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,

    Government unions control and corrupt public services; private sector unions betray the worker…

    Anyone suggesting there is no role for unions in America today might first consider a fact of history: more than a century ago, when oligarchs and the companies they owned had treated workers as if they were livestock, reduced to living in squalid pens with rationed food and water, it was unions that organized these workers to resist. It was unions who gave these workers back their humanity, and negotiated collective bargaining agreements and laws that eliminated child labor, enforced workplace safety, established an 8-hour work day, paid overtime, health benefits, and retirement pensions.

    Unions today operate in a very different America. But how Big Labor has adapted calls into question their commitment to helping all American workers have a chance at a middle class lifestyle. In critical areas affecting everyone trying to thrive in 21st century America, unions have betrayed the American worker. In particular, their failure to challenge the globalist agenda of open borders and environmentalist extremism has inverted their priorities, putting them into alignment with the corporations and oligarchs they once so nobly opposed. This betrayal is most exemplified in the agenda of unions that didn’t exist a century ago, America’s powerful unions of government employees.

    Government Unions Control and Corrupt Public Services

    A distinction must be made between public sector unions, and the now less influential private sector unions. Public sector unions today have embraced a potent blend of toxic ideologies, centered around woke politics and environmentalist extremism. The most powerful public sector unions, those representing teachers and school employees, have forced this ideology into the public schools. This has not only indoctrinated a generation of young voters to vote for leftists, it has left them without the literacy and numeracy necessary to more easily grasp the nihilistic essence of leftism.

    In critical ways, government unions don’t even fulfil the basic definition of a union. They don’t negotiate with independent management, they “negotiate” with politicians they elect. In California, public sector unions collect and spend nearly $1 billion per year, applying at least one-third of that spending to explicitly political activities such as lobbying and campaign contributions. Another third is spent on allegedly nonpolitical activities such as public education which almost invariably has a political objective. Even in a state as big as California, spending $1.2 billion every election cycle will buy a lot of politicians and profoundly influence public opinion.

    Government unions also don’t have to rely on the profitability of the enterprise they’re negotiating with. Unions have to be more reasonable when negotiating with private employers because they can go out of business. But government agencies just increase taxes, and in “information campaigns” using public money, abetted by public union money, more taxes and more borrowing are repeatedly sold to voters. In November 2022, in deep blue, union controlled California, taxpayers approved 92 bonds totaling $23 billion in new local government borrowing, and they approved 152 local tax increases, set to raise another $1.6 billion per year in perpetuity.

    Government unions, contrary to the essential notion of a union, are not fighting power structures. They are the power, and they use it to further their agenda – higher pay and more workers, which in-turn means more government programs and higher taxes. And thanks to their ideological preferences, the programs they promote, such as inefficient renewable energy mandates and counterproductive policies towards crime and the unhoused, repeatedly fail and in so doing require even more spending. Thus, for government unions, failure is success, because the remedy is always more government. But what about private sector unions?

    How Private Sector Unions Betray the American Worker

    The problem with private sector unions is not because they want to maintain and increase their wages and benefits. There are compelling reasons why private sector unions, properly regulated, ought to be a necessary counterweight to private corporate interests. The problem is that the American oligarchy, which intends to flatten the world, erase national sovereignty, obliterate the middle class, and abolish borders, cultures, cash, small businesses, medium size businesses, and decentralized private ownership, has coopted private sector unions.

    When was the last time anyone heard the leader of a national labor organization call for controlled immigration, which is a certain way to keep upward pressure on wages? When in recent years have any private labor leaders called for anti-trust legislation against the handful of trillion dollar hedge funds that are buying up America’s housing stock to turn us into a nation of renters, or called for the breakup of the cartel that controls the nation’s food supply? Where were the unions, when the nation was in lockdown for nearly two years, devastating small businesses and driving households into crippling debt and bankruptcy?

    America’s private sector unions are vocal proponents of every item on the leftist agenda, but they are not doing anything to help the vast majority of American workers, even as they engage in a handful of labor actions, scattered across the country. And what every defender of leftism and unions must understand is that there is no longer any significant functional difference between “leftist” state ownership and “right-wing” ownership by monopoly corporations that have coopted the state. One is called communism, the other fascism. They are both authoritarian political models that are founded on centralized control. What the American oligarchy has evolved into is soft fascism. Soft, because with the high-tech tools available today, mass persuasion is easy. And it is here, where private sector unions have committed perhaps the biggest betrayal of all.

    Instead of recognizing the so-called Green New Deal, or Great Reset, as a corporate tool designed to transfer upward and further centralize wealth at the same time as it reduces ordinary workers into living in micromanaged pens with rationed food and water, unions endorse it. Their endorsement finds expression in their support for policies guaranteed to achieve this pernicious goal. They support hundreds of billions, and ultimately trillions, in government spending to build, for example, large-scale CO2 capture facilities, EV charging stations, and floating wind turbines. They support urban rezoning to construct high-rise apartments, and light rail mass transit. All of these projects are staggeringly expensive, and not one of them will yield practical economic benefits downstream. Union construction workers will get jobs, big civil engineering firms will get government contracts, but the ordinary American will pay for these projects at a price they can’t afford. It isn’t as if there aren’t obvious alternatives.

    Private sector union leadership has abandoned a common sense principle of fundamental importance: how public infrastructure priorities are set determines whether or not ordinary Americans are able to achieve and maintain a middle class lifestyle. California’s bullet train project is a classic example. After more than a decade of work and more than $10 billion already spent, not a single track has been laid. The cost for the first segment, which transits the emptiest, flattest stretch of the entire planned line, is estimated to cost more than $200 million per mile. The entire project is now projected to cost $130 billion, with no credible completion date, and it will always be an economic drain on Californians.

    In order to follow the path of least resistance private sector unions in California support this fraud. It is make work, designed to appease unions while preventing their workers from completing projects that make economic sense: widening and upgrading roads and freeways, upgrading existing railroad lines, bringing California’s remarkable system of water storage and transport into the 21st century, building wastewater recycling and desalination plants, upgrading the state’s capacity to engage in oil extraction and refining, increasing natural gas drilling and upgrading the distribution pipelines, and building more nuclear power stations. Much of this work could be accomplished with private funds. But the unions, and the corporations with which they have made common cause, will not challenge the extreme environmentalists, or the oligarchy that finds them so useful.

    Private sector unions are one of the last special interest groups left in America that still have the power to change national policy. As the nation slowly transitions into a technology driven police state, with a workforce disenfranchised and impoverished by “climate” mandates, mass immigration, and intelligent machines, the potential will grow for unions to exercise bipartisan appeal. The only question that remains is will any of them have the courage to fight the trend and challenge the power, or will they continue to be part of the establishment they were originally formed to oppose?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 20:20

  • "Bummer Summer": Sad Music Tops Gen Z's Spotify Searches
    “Bummer Summer”: Sad Music Tops Gen Z’s Spotify Searches

    Music can influence our emotions, and listening to happy or sad tunes can reflect the world around us and or even alter it. 

    A new report by Spotify Technology SA reveals that Gen Z, aged between 9 and 24 and numbering over 68 million in the US, has been searching for the saddest music on the streaming music platform this summer than any other generation. 

    “Sad” is the most-searched term for Gen Z listeners on Spotify globally, and they’re tuning into our sad playlists—including pop-infused sad hour, R&B-inspired All The Feels, rap-heavy tear drop, sad sierreño, sad girl country, and sad girl starter pack—more than any other age group. –Spotify blog 

    Spotify said they created a new playlist called “bummer summer” to match the mood of Gen Z:

    To match the vibe in the US and Canada, we launched bummer summer, the ultimate lineup of moody jams and soul-filling songs. Complete with tracks from d4vd, Frank Ocean, Phoebe Bridgers, Lana Del Rey, Big Thief, and Billie Eilish, the playlist echoes the honesty and transparency that Gen Zs emulate in their lives and listening—and harnesses the ability of emotive, lyrical music to enhance any mood.

    Krista Scozzari, Spotify’s North American Marketing Lead, explained the trend shows “Something really unique about this generation. They embrace their feelings so much. They’re really flipping the stigma of vulnerability. Gen Z has brought a raw, authentic new reality to expressing their emotions, and we’re seeing that in how they listen. We wanted to celebrate this powerful thing they’re doing.” 

    Spotify spoke with Michael Bonshor, Ph.D., a music psychology expert, who said:

    “Sad music can help us to release, express, channel, or purge our emotions.” 

    We must consider some possibilities of a depressed Gen Z: Is it that corporate media brainwashed them into believing in imminent ‘climate doom’? Or maybe maybe ‘Bidenomics’ and two years of crushing inflation have paralyzed this generation’s economic mobility? Or perhaps this heavily medicated generation is mentally ill. 

    But the sour mood is shared across generations and social classes. We saw this with the viral hit of Oliver Anthony’s gritty coal country ballad “Rich Men North Of Richmond.” The song remains number one on iTunes (as of Monday).

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 20:00

  • IRGC Warns "Expect To Be Struck Back" As US Starts Offloading Tanker Suspected Of Carrying Iranian Oil
    IRGC Warns “Expect To Be Struck Back” As US Starts Offloading Tanker Suspected Of Carrying Iranian Oil

    Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

    • An oil tanker that is suspected of carrying Iranian oil has begun to offload oil near Texas, a development that is sure to lead to an escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

    • Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had warned that those involved in the offloading of the cargo from the Suez Rajan “should expect to be struck back.” 

    • The tanker’s arrival in Texas was likely the result of a deal between the Biden Administration and the owners and operators of the vessel.

    A tanker suspected of carrying Iranian crude oil has offloaded near Texas, the AP reports, adding the cargo was offloaded on another tanker.

    The U.S. seized the Suez Rajan in April this year, prompting quick retaliation from Iran, which seized a Chinese-owned, Turkish-operated tanker that was loaded with crude for delivery to Chevron.

    Iran claimed that the tanker collided with an unidentified Iranian vessel just hours prior to its seizure, with several crew members reportedly falling overboard while others were left injured. The tanker then fled the scene and ignored radio calls for eight hours before a court ordered its seizure.

    The Suez Rajan, according to an FT report from June, had received a license from the U.S. Treasury Department to import Iranian crude into the United States. Its cargo is some 800,000 barrels of crude and, per an unnamed former member of the Biden administration, its arrival in Texas was likely the result of a deal that got struck between the administration and the owners and operators of the vessel.

    That deal appears to not have involved Iran, however. The AP reports that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had warned that those involved in the offloading of the cargo from the Suez Rajan “should expect to be struck back.” 

    The Suez Rajan was never officially seized by American forces, the AP recalls. The tanker sat for months off the coast of Singapore after an activist group sounded an alarm that it was carrying Iranian crude, and then it suddenly set off for the U.S. Gulf Coast. Two tanker seizures from Iranian forces followed in the Persian Gulf.

    At the time, a senior Iranian military official warned against offloading the cargo of the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel.

    “We hereby declare that we would hold any oil company that sought to unload our crude from the vessel responsible and we also hold America responsible,” Read Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s naval section said.

    This latest development comes at a particularly sensitive moment in U.S.-Iranian relations, with the two countries negotiating over five Iranian-Americans being held in Tehran, billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, the supply of Iranian drones to Russia, and a broader military buildup in the Gulf.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 19:40

  • "If We Press This With Russia, It Will Reach Us Here In The US" – Col. MacGregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now
    “If We Press This With Russia, It Will Reach Us Here In The US” – Col. MacGregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now

    Tucker Carlson on Monday published an interview with former Trump administration official Col. Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), who explained why the war in Ukraine has put the United States on the brink of a ‘catastrophic war that could easily destroy us.’

    Carlson begins with a bold statement: “pretty much everything that NBC and The NYTimes have told you about the war in Ukraine is a lie.”

    “‘The Russian army is incompetent’ – they claim. ‘Ukraine is a Democracy!’ ‘Vladimir Putin is Hitler and he’s trying to take over the world!’ ‘Thankfully, the Ukrainians are winning.’

    “Every claim is false, the last one especially,” said Carlson, adding “the Ukrainian army is not winning – in fact, it’s losing badly. Ukraine is being destroyed. Its population is being slaughtered.”

    “Most American know nothing about Ukraine,” Macgregor continued, adding that “if they knew anything about the history of Eastern Europe, they would all say ‘get out!’… because the wars and the blood and the hatred that’s been fought over for centuries is something we can’t sort out.”

    Macgregor’s comments grow more ominous in their tone as the discussion continues.

    He notes that President Biden has enabled ‘combat pay’ which implies there are American forces on the ground in Ukraine.

    “It would be a mistake to think that the Russian forces do not know where they are,” the retired colonel explains, pointing out that the Russians are sending a message with recent precision missile strikes near the borders of Poland and Moldova:

    “if you think you can hide from us, if you come in here, if you cross these borders, we will annihilate you.” 

    We need to come to terms with these realities because we can’t defeat it,” he remarked reflecting on the fact that people have called him ‘unpatriotic’ for his comments.

    He summed the situation in Ukraine up rather succinctly:

    “if we press this war with Russia in Central East Europe, it will reach us here in the United States.”

    According to Macgregor, “The smartest thing we can do is end this war now,” adding “The Russians will never tolerate NATO forces on Ukrainian soil.”

    “Ukrainian forces are in piecemeal fashion, surrendering to the Russians, not because they don’t want to fight; it’s because they can’t fight anymore, they have so many wounded they can’t evacuate them …  we’re going to see this army that we have spent so heavily on, melt away.”

    When it comes to the equipment being used to fight, MacGregor said that “a lot of the equipment we sent over there is quite frankly, obsolete… its very old, it’s not new.”

    “Integrated air defenses will knock virtually everything that flies out of the sky,” he said, adding “We will then fall back on a nuclear deterrent – a tactical nuclear weapon that says ‘if you keep advancing, we’ll have to use a nuclear weapon.’ We don’t want to go there, because the notion that there are so-called tactical nukes ‘oh, it’s just a little nuke, so that won’t precipitate a nuclear war’ – the use of any nuclear weapon is going to precipitate an escalation very rapidly,” he said.

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

    Carlson ends by asking Macgregor about the “leftist American man dressed as a woman” that is now the mouthpiece of Ukraine who claimed “Vlad Putin is a vampire bathing in the blood of Ukrainian children.”

    Macgregor asks “is that a transgender man?” To which Carlson replies, “yes, that’s a guy with fake breasts.”

    Macgregor retorts: “well I think everything else is fake too… this war is a catastrophe… the people bathing blood are in Kiev and Washington.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 19:21

  • Should The Fed Declare Defeat And Move On?
    Should The Fed Declare Defeat And Move On?

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    The Wall Street Journal author Jason Furman fires the opening salvo by mainstream media pleading for higher inflation targets…

    Total Credit Market Debt Owed courtesy of the Fed, annotations by Mish

    The Fed Should Carefully Aim for a Higher Inflation Target

    Please consider The Fed Should Carefully Aim for a Higher Inflation Target by WSJ author Jason Furman

    The Federal Reserve has appropriately focused on a single objective for a year and a half: getting inflation down. While the war isn’t won, and I fear the hardest battles may be ahead, it is necessary to think about what victory would entail. In the short run, the Fed should be aiming to stabilize inflation below 3%. If it can achieve this goal, then it should shift to a higher target range for inflation when it updates its overall strategy around 2025.

    If the Fed were adopting an inflation target from scratch, it would likely choose a target above 2%. A higher target inflation rate has costs, especially the time and attention people spend trying to account for how much their current dollars will be worth in a year or 10. But a higher target also has the benefit of helping cushion the economy against severe recessions.

    If the Fed were adopting an inflation target from scratch, it would likely choose a target above 2%. The Fed, however, isn’t starting from scratch. The 2% inflation target, which was formalized in 2012 and has been reiterated innumerable times, has had some real benefits. People expected inflation around 2%, and for the most part that’s what they got. If inflation expectations hadn’t been so well anchored, the disinflation over the past year would have been much more painful.

    There are two prerequisites for a successful transition. The first is to make clear that the Fed isn’t raising the inflation target merely to avoid the pain of getting inflation down. The second prerequisite is that if the Fed raises the inflation target, it needs to stick with it. It wouldn’t work to announce, say, a new target range for inflation of 2% to 3% and end up with 3.5% inflation. It would threaten the Fed’s credibility.

    Mr. Furman, a professor of the practice of economic policy at Harvard, was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, 2013-17.

    No Benefit to Inflation

    There is no economic benefit to inflation. However, it does create winners and losers, with the winners being those with first access to money, especially the banks, the politically well connected, and the already wealthy.

    I have discussed this many times before but it’s worth repeating again. Routine consumer price deflation is a benefit. It’s credit deflation resulting from the bursting of asset bubbles that is very damaging.

    That’s not just my opinion, it’s the opinion of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). 

    Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?

    For discussion, please see Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?

    Concerns about deflation – falling prices of goods and services – are rooted in the view that it is very costly. We test the historical link between output growth and deflation in a sample covering 140 years for up to 38 economies. The evidence suggests that this link is weak and derives largely from the Great Depression. But we find a stronger link between output growth and asset price deflations, particularly during postwar property price deflations. We fail to uncover evidence that high debt has so far raised the cost of goods and services price deflations, in so-called debt deflations. The most damaging interaction appears to be between property price deflations and private debt. 

    Deflation may actually boost output. Lower prices increase real incomes and wealth. And they may also make export goods more competitive.

    Once we control for persistent asset price deflations and country-specific average changes in growth rates over the sample periods, persistent goods and services (CPI ) deflations do not appear to be linked in a statistically significant way with slower growth even in the interwar period. They are uniformly statistically insignificant except for the first post-peak year during the postwar era – where, however, deflation appears to usher in stronger output growth. By contrast, the link of both property and equity price deflations with output growth is always the expected one, and is consistently statistically significant.

    The exception to the general rule was the Great Depression but, that was also an asset bubble deflation coupled with consumer price deflation.

    In their attempts to fight routine consumer price deflation, central bankers create very destructive asset bubbles that eventually collapse, setting off what they should fear – asset bubble deflations.

    Economists fail to see that asset inflation matters, not just CPI inflation. That’s another point Furman fails to understand. The Fed has blown several assets bubbles of increasing amplitude in a foolish attempt to create more inflation while totally ignoring massive inflation in housing and other financial matters.

    Most economists have no idea how to even measure inflation and/or focus only on consumer inflation. The result has been problem after problem.

    Inflation Expectations

    Furman’s noise about inflation expectations is also a hoot. Fed studies and common sense both show inflation expectation theory to be total nonsense.

    Second Fed Study Concluded Inflation Expectations Theory is Nonsense

    Also consider A Fed Economist Concludes the Widely Believed Inflations Expectations Theory is Nonsense.

    Here are some excerpts from the actual study:

    The direct evidence for an expected inflation channel was never very strong. Most empirical tests concerned themselves with the proposition that there was no permanent Phillips curve tradeoff, in the sense that the coefficients on lagged inflation in an inflation equation summed to one.

    In addition, most standard tests of the new-Keynesian Phillips curve suffer from such severe potential misspecification issues or such profound weak identification problems as to provide no evidence one way or the other regarding the importance of expectations (much the same statement applies to empirical tests that use survey measures of expected inflation).

    What little we know about firms’ price-setting behavior suggests that many tend to respond to cost increases only when they actually show up and are visible to their customers, rather than in a preemptive fashion.

    It is far, far better and much safer to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought. John Kenneth Galbraith (1958).

    Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)

    One should not need a study to prove the obvious. And it’s obvious that inflation expectation theory is nonsensical.

    The reason has to do with the way inflation is calculated. 

    What Can the Fed Do About the Price of Food, Medicine, Gasoline, or Rent?

    CPI Weights from BLS chart by Mish

    Stupidity Well Anchored: Absurdity of Inflation Expectations in Graphic Form

    I discussed the silliness of inflations expectations theory in Stupidity Well Anchored: Absurdity of Inflation Expectations in Graphic Form

    Inflation Expectations Q&A

    Q: If consumers think the price of food will drop, will they stop eating out?

    Q: If consumers think the price of food will drop, will they stop eating at home?

    Q: If consumers think the price of natural gas will drop, will they stop heating their homes and stop cooking to wait for the event.

    Q: If consumers think the price of gas will drop, will they stop driving or not fill up their car if it is running on empty?

    Q: If consumers think the price of gas will rise, can they do anything about it other than fill up their tank more frequently?

    Q: If consumers think the price of rent will drop, will they hold off renting until that happens?

    Q: If consumers think the price of rent will rise, will they rent two apartments to take advantage?

    Logically speaking, since the vast majority of the CPI is inelastic, and some of “everything else” is also inelastic, how can expectations matter at all? A Fed study concluded the same thing.

    Asset Irony

    People will rush to buy stocks in a bubble if they think prices will rise. They will hold off buying stocks if they expect prices will go down.

    People will buy houses to rent or fix up if they think home prices will rise. They will hold off housing speculation if they expect prices will drop.

    The very things where expectations do matter are the very things the Fed ignores.

    Economic Wizards and Their Targets

    Furman wants the Fed to stabilize targets below 3 percent then aim for something higher later. What is magic about 2 percent, 3 percent or any other number, given the fact there is no benefit to inflation at all?

    The strive for inflation in a disinflationary world created massive asset bubbles and led to global wage arbitrage, outsourcing, and just in time manufacturing.

    Now, we have gale force inflationary winds blowing stiffly in our face thanks to deglobalization, decarbonization, and inane energy policies of the Biden administration.

    Don’t Worry It’s Only Temporary

    The push for 3 percent, 4 percent, whatever percent is of course only temporary just as Nixon’s trashing the gold standard in in 1971 was only temporary.

    We still pay the costs of that temporary move. In fact, all of the boom-bust cycles and exponential increase in debt dates to that event.

    It would behoove economists to understand that point.

    Bottom Line is More Inflation

    Not only does Biden demand more clean energy, he also demands consumers pay the maximum amount for it, despite that being counterproductive to the main goal. For discussion, please see The Cost of Soup and Solar Panels is About to Increase, Thank President Biden

    And president Biden has latched on to prevailing wages as discussed in Yet Another Biden Regulation Will Increase Costs and Promote More Inflation

    No one has bothered to do any analysis of how the push to EVs does not scale or the infrastructure costs to achieve the goal even if the idea did scale.

    My readers are far better informed than these alleged economic wizards. For discussion, please see What Do MishTalk Readers Think About “Electric Vehicles for Everyone?”

    But, “It is far, far better and much safer to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.”

    That’s what made Furman the perfect choice for President Barack Obama’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). And as you can see, he still has the magic touch.

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 19:00

  • Trump's Georgia Bond Conditions Revealed By Judge
    Trump’s Georgia Bond Conditions Revealed By Judge

    Former President Donald Trump will have to post bond of $200,000 under a set of release conditions outlined by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.

    The Georgia state-level court also set release conditions that include restrictions on co-defendant or witness intimidation, which includes a requirement that Trump refrain from communicating with any co-defendant about the facts of the case without going through an attorney.

    According to the ‘witness intimidation’ section, Trump is not to make an direct or indirect threat against co-defendants, witnesses, unindicted co-conspirators or victims, including “posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media.”

    According to constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, the Georgia indictment is “dangerous,” and “essentially criminalizes challenges to elections.”

    Trump and 18 co-defendants were indicted by a grand jury on August 14 over alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 US election. He faces 13 charges, including Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, as well as Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer and other conspiracy charges, according to the Daily Caller.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 18:40

  • Actually, Joe, All Your "Objectives" Were Failures
    Actually, Joe, All Your “Objectives” Were Failures

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    “Name me a single objective we’ve ever set out to accomplish that we’ve failed on. Name me one, in all of our history. Not one!”

    -President Joe Biden, August 16, 2023

    Joe Biden in one of his now accustomed angry “get off my grass” moods dared the press to find just one of his policies/objectives that has not worked. Silence followed.

    Perhaps it was polite to say nothing, given even the media knows almost every enacted Biden policy has failed.

    Here is a summation of what he should instead apologize for.

    Biden in late summer 2021 sought a 20th anniversary celebration of 9/11 and the 2001 subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.

    He wished to be the landmark president that yanked everyone out of Afghanistan after 20 years in country. But the result was the greatest military humiliation of the United States since the flight from Vietnam in 1975.

    Consider the ripples of Biden’s disaster. U.S. deterrence was crippled worldwide. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea almost immediately began to bluster or return to their chronic harassment of U.S. and allied ships and planes. We left thousands of allied Afghans to face Taliban retribution, along with some Western contractors.

    Biden abandoned a $1 billion embassy, and a $300 million remodeled Bagram airbase strategically located not far from China and Russia, and easily defensible. Perhaps $50 billion in U.S. weaponry and supplies were abandoned and now find their way into the international terrorist mart.

    All our pride flags, our multimillion gender studies programs at Kabul University, and our George Floyd murals did not just come to naught, but were replaced by the Taliban’s anti-homosexual campaigns, burkas, and detestation of any trace of American popular culture.

    Vladimir Putin sized up the skedaddle. He collated it with Biden’s unhinged quip that he would not get too excited if Putin just staged a “minor” invasion of Ukraine. He remembered Biden’s earlier request to Putin to modulate Russian hacking to exempt a few humanitarian American institutions. Then Russia concluded of our shaky Commander-in-Chief that he either did not care or could do nothing about another Russian invasion.

    The result so far is more than 500,000 dead and wounded in the war, a Verdun-stand-off along with fortified lines, the steady depletion of our munitions and weapon stocks, and a new China/Russia/Iran/North Korean axis, with wink and nod assistance from NATO Turkey.

    Biden blew up the Abraham accords, nudged Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States over to the dark side of Iran, China, and Russia. He humiliated the U.S. on the eve of the midterms by callously begging the likes of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to pump more oil that he had damned as unclean at home and cut back its production. In Bidenomics, instead of producing oil, the president begs autocracies to export it to us at high prices while he drains the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve for short-term political advantage.

    Biden deliberately alienated Israel by openly interfering in its domestic politics.

    He pursued the crackpot Iran Deal while his special Iranian envoy was removed for disclosing classified information.

    No one can explain why Biden ignored the Chinese balloon espionage caper, kept mum about the engineered Covid virus that escaped the Wuhan lab, said not a word about a Chinese biolab discovered in rural California, and had his envoys either bow before Chinese leaders or take their insults in silence—other than he is either cognitively challenged or leveraged by his decade-long grifting partnership with his son Hunter.

    Yet another Biden’s legacy will be erasing the southern border and with it, U.S. immigration law. Over seven million aliens simply crossed into the U.S. illegally with Biden’s tacit sanction—without audits, background checks, vaccinations, and COVID testing, much less English fluency, skills, or high-school diplomas.

    Biden’s only immigration accomplishment was to render the entire illegal sanctuary city movement a cruel joke. Given the flood, mostly rich urban and vacation home dwellers made it very clear that while they fully support millions swarming into poor Latino communities of southern Texas and Arizona, they do not want any illegal aliens fouling their carefully cultivated nests.

    Biden is mum about the 100,000 fentanyl deaths from cartel-imported and Chinese-supplied drugs across his open border. He seems to like the idea that Mexican President Obrador periodically mouths off, ordering his vast expatriate community to vote Democratic and against Trump.

    Despite all the pseudo-blue collar dissimulation about Old Joe Biden from Scranton, he has little empathy for the working classes. Indeed, he derides them as chumps and dregs, urges miners to learn coding as the world covets their coal, and studiously avoids getting anywhere near the toxic mess in East Palestine, Ohio, or so far the moonscape on Maui.

    Bidenomics is a synonym for printing up to $6 billion dollars at precisely the time post-Covid consumer demand was soaring, while previously dormant supply chains were months behind rebooting production and transportation. Biden is on track to increase the national debt more than any one-term president.

    In Biden’s weird logic, if he raised the price of energy, gasoline, and key food staples 20-30 percent since his inauguration without a commensurate rise in wages, and then saw the worst inflation in 40 years occasionally decline from record highs one month to the next, then he “beat inflation.”

    But the reason why more than 60 percent of the nation has no confidence in Bidenomics is because it destroyed their household budgets. Gas is nearly twice what it was in January 2021. Interest rates have about tripled. Key staple foods are often twice as costly—meat, vegetables, and fruits especially.

    Biden has ended through his weaponized Attorney General Merrick Garland the age-old American commitment to equal justice under the law. The FBI, DOJ, CIA, and IRS are hopelessly politically compromised. Many of their bureaucrats serve as retrieval agents for lost Biden family incriminating laptops, diaries, and guns. In sum, Biden criminalized opposing political views.

    Biden has unleashed the administrative state for the first time in history to destroy the Republican primary front runner and his likely opponent. His legacy will be the corruption of U.S. jurisprudence and the obliteration of the American reputation for transparent permanent government that should be always above politics, bribery, and corruption.

    If in the future, an on-the-make conservative prosecutor in West Virginia, Utah, or Mississippi wishes to make a national name, then he has ample precedent to indict a Democrat President for receiving bad legal advice, questioning the integrity of an election, or using social media to express doubt that the new non-Election-Day balloting was on the up-and-up, or supposedly overvaluing his real estate.

    The Biden family’s decade-long family grifting will likely expose Joe Biden as the first president in U.S. history who fitted precisely the Constitution’s definition of impeachment and removal—given his “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear “bribery”-related.

    If further evidence shows he altered U.S. foreign policy in accordance with the wishes from his benefactors in Ukraine, China, or Romania, then he committed constitutionally-defined “treason” as well.

    Defunding the police, and pandemics of exempted looting, shoplifting, smashing, and grabbing, and carjacking merit no administrative attention. Nor does the ongoing systematic destruction of our blue bicoastal cities, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. All that, along with the disasters in East Palestine or Maui are out of sight, out of mind from a day at the beach at Biden’s mysteriously purchased nearly 6,000 square-foot beachfront mansion.

    Biden ran on Barack Obama-like 2004 rhetoric (“Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America).”

    And like Obama, he used that ecumenical sophistry to gain office only to divide further the U.S. No sooner than he was elected, we began hearing from the great unifier eerie screaming harangues about “semi-fascists” and “ultra-MAGA” dangerous zealots, replete with red-and black Phantom of the Opera backdrops.

    What followed the unifying rhetoric was often amnesties and exemptions for violent offenders during the 120 days of rioting, looting, killing, and attacks on police officers in summer 2020.  In contrast, his administration lied when it alleged that numerous officers had died at the hands of the January 6 rioters. In addition, the Biden administration mandated long-term incarceration of many who committed no illegal act other than acting like buffoons and “illegally parading.”

    The message was exemptions for torching a federal courthouse, a police precinct, or historic church or attempting to break into the White House grounds to get a president and his family—but long prison terms for wearing cow horns, a fur vest, and trespassing peacefully like a lost fool in the Capitol.

    Finally, Biden’s most glaring failure was simply being unpresidential. He snaps at reporters, and shouts at importune times. He can no longer read off a big-print teleprompter. Even before a global audience, he cannot kick his lifelong creepy habit of turkey-gobbling on children necks, blowing into their ears and hair of young girls, and squeezing women far too long and far too hard.

    His frailty redefined American presidential campaigning as basement seclusion and outsourcing propaganda to the media. And his disabilities only intensified during his presidency. Biden begins his day late and quits early. He has recalibrated the presidency as a 5-hour, 3-day a week job.

    If Trump was the great exaggerator, Biden is our foremost liar. Little in his biography can be fully believed. He lies about everything from his train rides to the death of his son to his relationship with Biden-family foreign collaborators, to vaccinations to the economy. Anytime Biden mentions places visited, miles flown, or rails ridden, he is likely lying.

    Biden continues with impunity because the media feels that a mentally challenged fabulist is preferrable to Donald Trump and so contextualizes or ignores his falsehoods.

    Never has a U.S. president fallen and stumbled or gotten lost on stage so frequently—or been a single small trip away from incapacity.

    So, yes, Biden’s initiatives have succeeded only in the sense of becoming successfully enacted—and therefore nearly destroying the country.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 18:20

  • America's Great Investment Firm Migration Reveals Sun Belt Reaped Multi-Trillion Dollar Reward
    America’s Great Investment Firm Migration Reveals Sun Belt Reaped Multi-Trillion Dollar Reward

    Major cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles punished investment firms with high tax rates and a lack of business-friendly policies that only sparked an exodus during Covid. Progressive city leaders in these metro areas also implemented failed social justice reforms that unleashed a crime wave and exacerbated the exodus. Many of these firms fled to Florida, Texas, and other Sun Belt states. 

    From 1Q20 through the end of 1Q23, Bloomberg data shows more than 370 investment firms — or about 2.5% of the US total — with $2.7 trillion assets under management — moved their offices to a new state. 

    “The vast majority of the migration was out of high-cost-of-living locales in the Northeast and on the West Coast and into Florida, Texas, and other Sun Belt refuges,” Bloomberg said. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    The exodus of investment firms from crime-ridden and high-taxed Northeast and West Coast cities show Florida, Tennessee, and Texas were some of the top destinations. While the South booms, the exodus has left northern cities with weakening commercial property markets and a decline in tax revenues that could soon strain local budgets. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Even though New York City is the world’s financial capital, Wall Street of the South, that is, Miami — is booming. Most of the investment firms fleeing NYC and California moved to South Florida and Dallas. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    “The Sun Belt is continuing to change — no longer just a place of traditional industries like oil and gas, no longer just focused on tourism, or just focusing on the retirement community,” said Amy Liu, the interim president of the Brookings Institution and a researcher on urban policy.

    Liu continued, “These pandemic moves sort of reinforce that the major metros in these states are certainly becoming a destination for new industries.”

    Florida has become a prime location for many financial firms. Ken Griffin’s Citadel moved to Miami, while hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. relocated its headquarters to West Palm Beach. Similarly, Point72 Asset Management, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, and Millennium Management have all shifted operations to Florida. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Texas gained the most investment jobs during the great migration. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    It’s only a matter of time before Florida rivals NYC as a finance hub. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 18:00

  • Old Dominion Ups Ante With $1.5BN Bid On Yellow's Terminals As Bidding War Heats Up
    Old Dominion Ups Ante With $1.5BN Bid On Yellow’s Terminals As Bidding War Heats Up

    By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves

    Less-than-truckload carrier Old Dominion Freight Line entered a $1.5 billion bid for Yellow Corp.’s terminals, according to a Friday filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court.

    The new offer exceeds the $1.3 billion bid from LTL peer Estes Express Lines, which was revealed at a Thursday status update.

    The offer for the 166-terminal portfolio is a stalking horse purchase agreement, wherein the bidder sets the floor for the value of the assets to be sold out of a bankruptcy estate. The properties will still undergo a marketing and sale process in which higher offers from other parties may be accepted.

    The terms provide a maximum breakup fee of $26 million and up to $2 million in expense reimbursement. Old Dominion is required to make a 5% deposit. The bid remains effective for 180 days.

    The Thursday court proceeding also named bankruptcy financing lenders.

    Hedge funds Citadel and MFN Partners will provide $142.5 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing, which will give Yellow’s estate the funds necessary to liquidate assets.

    The deal also includes an additional commitment from MFN for a delayed draw of up to $70 million.

    MFN acquired a 42.5% equity stake in Yellow ahead of its shutdown.

    Citadel recently bought Yellow’s term loan from Apollo Global Management after superior DIP financing offers came forward following Yellow’s Aug. 7 bankruptcy filing.

    Apollo’s DIP deal was said to be the only viable offer provided to Yellow prior to the Chapter 11 petition.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 17:40

  • SoftBank's Arm Files For IPO
    SoftBank’s Arm Files For IPO

    In what could be 2023’s largest IPO, SoftBank Group’s semiconductor unit Arm Holdings publicly filed a registration statement on Form F-1 with the SEC relating to the proposed initial public offering of American depositary shares representing its ordinary shares.

    Arm has applied to list the ADSs on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “ARM”.

    The number of ADSs to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have yet to be determined.

    Barclays, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Mizuho are acting as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering.

    The filing lists 24 other underwriters below that top tier.

    Arm plays a pivotal role in the world of consumer electronics, designing the architecture of chips that are found in 99% of all smartphones, making it a key provider of technology to Apple, Google,  and Qualcomm

    Bloomberg reports that while Arm had been aiming to raise $8 billion to $10 billion in the IPO, that target could be lower since SoftBank has decided to hold onto more of the company after buying Vision Fund’s stake in it.

    Bloomberg has previously reported that Arm was aiming for valuations between $60 billion and $70 billion, as the chip designer tries to cash in on investors’ frenzy for stocks that can benefit from the rise in artificial intelligence.

    • Arm reported $524 million in net income on $2.68 billion in revenue in its fiscal 2023, which ended in March, according to the filing. Arm’s 2023 revenue was slightly down from the company’s 2022 sales of $2.7 billion.

    SoftBank Group Corp., which owns Arm, bought a 25% stake in the company from the Vision Fund at a $64 billion valuation.

    Those kinds of levels are high compared with the valuations that investors have awarded smaller Arm competitors like Synopsys Inc. and Cadence Design Systems Inc.

    Using the price-to-sales ratios of those public companies for Arm would imply a value of between about $32 billion and $43 billion for the chip designer.

    That’s based on the $2.68 billlion of revenue from Arm’s latest fiscal year. A representative for Arm declined to comment.

    That range jibes with what analysts at Bernstein Research suggested in a July 23 note, when they said the company should be worth around $40 billion.

    They added that there “could be upside” to that valuation on “the potential for more significant growth based on future AI applications and further profitability improvements,” as more information will be made public during the IPO process.

    Arm is the clear market leader in the market for semiconductor design, Bernstein said.

    Comparables based on price relative to past earnings offers more upside potential to Arm’s valuation…

    However, if using an average blended forward price-to-earnings ratio across Nvidia, AMD, Synopsys and Cadence, then Arm would need to generate $1.1 billion of income to justify a $40 billion valuation or around $1.7 billion for a $64 billion value (more than 3x the current level).

    Finally, we can’t help but wonder – with all the exuberance around chipmakers and AI – whether Arm’s long-anticipated IPO could ring the bell on this boom.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 17:20

  • The US Will Be Forced To Embrace Gold… Or Become Isolated
    The US Will Be Forced To Embrace Gold… Or Become Isolated

    Authored by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

    Dollar Hegemony Is Ending Due to Geopolitical Changes

    Since the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, the dollar has been the world’s preferred reserve currency – the major trading nations of the world were willing to hold dollars in vast amounts to satisfy their need for a readily accepted worldwide payment medium. Even when, in 1971, the United States violated its solemn promise to redeem its dollars for gold at thirty-five dollars per ounce, nations were still willing to hold dollars.

    Germany Shies Away from Monetary Leadership

    In the mid-2010s, I was certain that Germany would abandon the euro and reinstate the deutsche mark. It was clear, especially to some German central bankers, that Germany was being cheated by the European Central Bank. Germany’s TARGET2 surplus represented a vast excess of German exports to other European Union members, who were pledging near-worthless government and corporate bonds in exchange for newly printed euros from the European Central Bank. These bonds would never be redeemed for anything of real value; therefore, it would be simple rational self-interest for Germany to quit the charade.

    I predicted that such an action would cause the eurozone to collapse, make Germany’s deutsche mark the preferred unit of trade in Europe, and possibly threaten the dollar for worldwide reserve dominance. Obviously, this never happened. Why?

    Germany knew and feared that alarm bells would sound all over the world that, once again, Germany was rising and would dominate Europe. The French, especially, would panic for at least two reasons. One, the collapse of the euro would force France to make a stark choice. Either adopt the deutsche mark—as I expected most northern-tier European countries to do—or try to revert to the French franc, knowing that almost no other nation would be willing to hold francs. France would be cut off from international trade unless it reformed its unsustainable welfare system. However, every time France tried to institute any modicum of welfare reform, the population rioted.

    Two, France benefited immensely from internal EU transfer payments—most importantly, farm subsidies. French farmers would be forced to reform or go bankrupt, ending a cushy lifestyle that seemed to be synonymous with France itself. The stark fact was that France had nuclear weapons, and Germany did not. It was unthinkable that either Germany or Japan—the losing Axis powers of World War II, along with Italy—would ever get nuclear weapons. Independent control of one’s own nuclear arsenal was the minimum stake for playing the reserve currency game. Thereafter, the game belonged only to nations with large economies that produced a variety of export goods and services desired throughout the world. That left only America in the game.

    The great question is why Germany, even though it eschewed nuclear weapons under its own control, would assent to giving up the deutsche mark and adopting the euro in the first place. At the time, Germany wanted to reunite East and West Germany. The French, who legally held veto power over such a move, made adopting the euro a condition for reunification.

    However, why couldn’t Germany just ignore this now-irrelevant agreement in more recent years? The answer is just a theory but probably pertains to some extent to all major European nations. Germany had suffered between six and seven million military losses during the two great wars (World War I losses and World War II losses). Germany’s best and brightest, its future leadership, was lost for all time. These were wars in which the elite of all belligerents fought. Such leadership can never be replaced. The loss of future leadership was equally harsh on the other major European combatants. In the two world wars, the Soviet Union/Russia suffered between nine and thirteen million military dead. France suffered a million and a half dead, the vast majority in World War I. The United Kingdom suffered slightly over one million dead (this number excludes India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.) As former member of the European Parliament Godfrey Bloom has stated: “The 1914–18 war killed the best of the British Empire. The 1939–45 war killed what remained. Then the welfare state danced on their graves.”

    The Event that Changed Everything

    Then, a great geopolitical event occurred—Deng Xiaoping rose to power in China following the death of Mao Zedong. Deng instituted sweeping, capitalistic economic reforms, and China rose to become a rival to America in terms of economic power. China had obtained nuclear weapons under Mao. Despite the fact that China was and remains a one-party dictatorship, it now had the two ingredients to challenge the US dollar—a large economy and nuclear weapons. China was blackmail proof.

    Like China, Russia had thrown off the worst of its Soviet economic policies under Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, but its small population and relatively backward economy was not in the same league with America and China. Nevertheless, Russia had been a great ally in World War II and had every reason to believe that, now that it had thrown off communism, it could become a vital part of Europe once again. When the US, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the European Union spurned Russia’s attempt to rejoin the old Concert of Europe, it gradually saw its future as aligned with China.

    So, what does all this have to do with the end of the dollar hegemony? The answer is that the new Asian nexus saw a way to break the US use of the dollar hegemony as a political tool. The Achilles’ heel of the dollar is that it is a fiat currency. This suits the US political establishment very well since it allows the US to inflate the dollar at will to pay for welfare and warfare. It also allows the US to impose sanctions on its perceived enemies, such as Russia and Iran, by cutting them out of the Swift international trade messaging system.

    It is similar to what happened to Brexit advocate Nigel Farage in the UK. For strictly political reasons, his bank closed his accounts, and Farage was unable to find another that would accept his money for deposit. No bank account means no way to exist in a modern economy. Farage feared that he might be forced to leave his own country.

    The US-imposed Russian sanctions froze billions of Russian-owned assets. Rather than cause Russia to back down in Ukraine, however, it seems to have sped up the process—started by Russia—to develop a new world reserve currency backed in some measure by gold. The “BRICS” nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—have been joined by dozens of others who are determined to break away from the fiat dollar hegemony and use an honest, gold-backed trading settlement system. This new BRICS+ group claims that it will announce a first step in pursuing this goal at its meeting in Johannesburg at the end of August.

    The US Will Be Forced to Embrace Gold . . . or Become Isolated

    There are many who dismiss this development. After all, the US and the US dollar have been supreme worldwide for eighty years. These critics fail to understand real economics, real monetary theory, and real international statesmanship.

    The US has been enthralled by three destructive concepts.

    • The first is Lord John Maynard Keynes’s economics – which ignores Say’s law of markets—effectively endowing the Keynesian concept of “aggregate demand” with godlike status while disregarding “production”—the only means of satisfying the demand.

    • The second is the so-called modern monetary theory, which posits that sovereign states can never go bankrupt due to their ability to print all the money they need.

    • The third concept is the out-and-out arrogance of the US since the end of World War II, which deigns to cancel entire nations.

    All this will come to an end when gold returns as the focal point of the BRICS nations’ monetary reform project. At that point, the US will start losing friends until it, too, reluctantly regains its senses and returns to gold, honest dealing, and honest, respectful statesmanship. America will need new leaders for this task. They are there, waiting to be called by the people. The US and the world will be a much better place as a result.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/21/2023 – 17:00

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