Today’s News 24th November 2024

• Taxpayer Funded Censorship: How Government Is Using Your Tax Dollars To Silence Your Voice
  Taxpayer Funded Censorship: How Government Is Using Your Tax Dollars To Silence Your Voice

  Submitted by Open the Books

  

  Campaign season brought with it a steady stream of accusations that various parties and platforms were spreading misinformation and disinformation.

  Most recently, the scandals at FEMA over avoiding homes with Trump signs was quickly slapped with a “misinformation” label…until FEMA itself admitted it had happened. MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki suggested “laws have to change” to combat the scourge.

  With the misinformation category being weaponized across the political spectrum, we took a look at how invested government has become in studying and “combatting” it using your tax dollars. That research can provide the intellectual ammunition to censor people online.

  Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has spent $267 million on research grants with the term “misinformation” in the proposal.

  Of course, the Covid pandemic was the driving force behind so much of the misinformation debate. Sure enough, the feds have spent at least $127 million in grants specifically targeted to study the spread of “misinformation” — or to help people “overcome” it, so to speak — by persuading them to go along with Covid-related public health recommendations and mandates.

  In one particularly brazen instance, $200,000 was spent slandering President-elect Trump himself. The grant resulted in a paper suggesting populist leaders and movements in various countries kept people from coming together in “solidarity” and public officials need to have the “main say” on health guidance next time.

  In other words, it would be better if your voice were silenced in favor of the “expert” class.

  BACKGROUND

  The COVID-19 pandemic instigated a rush of funding for research and projects addressing misinformation. At the time bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci contended that false information spread online undermined scientific recommendations coming from the government. Many of those government recommendations—vaccines for children, masking and double masking, and six feet for social distancing—have since been found to have dubious scientific basis.

  The federal government used both carrots and sticks, in the form of grants and censorious pressure campaigns, in the name of combating COVID misinformation. At the same time, it was working hand in glove with social media companies to silence critics of repressive COVID-19 policies.

  There is robust documentation by now proving that the Biden-Harris administration worked closely with social media companies to censor content deemed “misinformation,” which often included cases where people simply questioned or disagreed with the Administration’s COVID policies.

  Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that such activities did not violate the First Amendment, but Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted such pressure was “wrong;” Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased Twitter (now X) in part because of the company’s extreme restrictions on speech during COVID.

  In February the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government issued a scathing report against the National Science Foundation (NSF) for funding grants supporting tools and processes that censor online speech.

  The report said, “the purpose of these taxpayer-funded projects is to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-powered censorship and propaganda tools that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others.” $13 million was spent on the censorious technologies profiled in the report.

  While the NSF was singled out for particularly egregious ideology-driven behavior, the full universe of misinformation-related spending in the federal government is much larger and goes far beyond colluding with the tech sector to restrict opinions online.

  Federal spending records show at least $127 million tax dollars funding anti-misinformation efforts directly related to COVID-19 for a variety of activities, from on-the-ground advocacy working to dispel vaccine misinformation, to scientific studies on how supposed misinformation is spread online.

  The result of all this was a record loss of trust in science and government and compounding economic and social disasters that may never be able to be fully quantified.

  Learning to think critically and discern truth from lies is an important life skill, but the federal government has proven it is not capable of addressing that need responsibly. It’s the worst possible arbiter of truth, as it were, because it makes the state a gatekeeper of speech.

  BY THE NUMBERS

  Misinformation-related grants actually stretch back to FY2017 during the first Trump presidency. $273 million has been awarded for grant proposals containing the term since then—but there was an explosion of cash during the years-long Covid malaise. The vast majority of that figure ($267 million) was for grants that began in 2021 or later.

  METHODOLOGY NOTE: This likely does not cover all grants given to combat misinformation, because transaction descriptions may not include this keyword, but the trend in spending illustrates a sudden explosion of interest in misinformation starting in 2021.

  An enormous year-over-year jump in new grants occurred between 2020 and 2021—from $2.2 million to $126 million as the federal government poured money out to address COVID-related “misinformation,” among other projects.

  While spending has since slowed down, it is still far higher than it was pre-pandemic in 2020: $18.3 million in new grants began in FY 2024.

  

  Grants mostly came from the Department of Health and Human Services ($185 million), followed by the National Science Foundation ($65 million), with the Department of State ($12 million) in a distant third. CHART: Click here for a breakdown of misinformation spending by agency.

  An additional $17 million has awarded to misinformation-related contracts since 2020, and again, most of it ($12.5 million) was in FY 2021.

  WHAT IS MISINFORMATION, ANYWAY?

  According to the Department of Health and Human Services website:

  “Misinformation is information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time.”

  The website goes on to detail supposed issues with COVID-19 related misinformation:

  “During the pandemic, health misinformation has led people to decline vaccines, reject public health measures, and use unproven treatments. Health misinformation has also led to harassment and violence against health workers, airline staff, and other frontline workers tasked with communicating evolving public health measures.”

  These definitions leave a lot of room for interpretation and abuse—who decides what the “best available evidence” is at any given time? And who decides which experts should be considered authoritative or not?

  Famously, then-National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease director Anthony Fauci promoted the notion that people should stand six feet apart from each other to achieve “social distancing” to reduce COVID transmission.

  In January of 2024 Fauci would admit to Congress that this recommendation had no scientific basis and “sort of just appeared.”

  The six feet social distancing rule was used to justify extended school and business closures, wreaking economic havoc and leading to tremendous learning losses for children.

  BACK TO THE START: MISINFO SPENDING UNDER TRUMP

  

  Before most of the furor, the Trump administration granted about $6.7 million in funding related to misinformation, the bulk of which were awarded in FY 2019 and 2020. Most of these grants—12 of the 16 total—funded technological developments to monitor social media and flag misinformation.

  The earliest one of these was awarded in 2017: $316,000 from National Science Foundation for “training computers and humans to detect misinformation by combining computational and theoretical analysis.”

  No such grants were given out domestically in 2018, but in 2019 over $2 million were awarded for projects with titles like “Online Dynamics of Misinformation” and “Social Media and Mass Communication: Curriculum Development to Combat Misinformation.”

  Spending stayed about the same at $1.7 million in FY 2020 for six projects, including two that directly address COVID:

  • $149,858 from National Science Foundation for “tracking and network analysis of the spread of misinformation regarding COVID-19.”

  • $104,491 from National Science Foundation for “countering COVID-19 misinformation via situation-aware visually informed treatment.”

  While this spending is a drop in the bucket for what was to come, the censorious ideology behind “misinformation” grants which were abused during the Biden-Harris administration first got traction under Trump.

  NEXT STEPS: CASH TO FIGHT COVID MISINFO

  When examining the number of projects on misinformation, most did not specifically relate to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many involved misinformation concerning HIV, the HPV vaccine, or the opioid epidemic, for instance. Multiple projects also addressed more obscure topics, like this $234,401 grant to “combat misinformation that negatively impacts public perception of crabbing and the commercial fishing industry.”

  But dollar for dollar, $127 million was directly related to COVID.

  Projects receiving funding generally comprised two categories:

  • Public-interfacing programs meant to mitigate the supposed impact of misinformation through on-the-ground advocacy

  • Scientific studies or conferences on how misinformation is spread

  ON-THE-GROUND ADVOCACY

  The federal government pumped millions of dollars into on-the-ground campaigns to “dispel” misinformation and convince people to take COVID-19 vaccines or otherwise comply with COVID policies. Some examples include:

  • $80,092,486, Department of Health and Human Services, National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, to build a network of nonprofits through which to disperse materials about COVID and flu vaccines. Project goals include “the design, development, and management of a searchable repository platform to house a multi-lingual inventory of communication materials and tools to support collaborative efforts to increase adult immunization.”

  • $2,000,000, Department of Health and Human Services, Durham County, NC. Proposed activities include “a mass media campaign, SMS distribution of health messaging, out-of-home advertising within targeted geofencing, coordinating existing networks of community health workers, expanding peer advocacy programs to address vaccine hesitancy, outreach to address health-related misinformation, mini-grants for native content development with accurate health messages, and a digital learning community to advance organizational health literacy.”

  • $1,293,614, Department of Health and Human Services, University of Iowa. To leverage trusted community members to address “disparities in COVID testing and vaccine uptake.”

  Other grants were revised to add an anti-misinformation component. For example, $150,000 was added to a $1.2 million grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service (also known as AmeriCorps) to nonprofit Seeds 4 Success.

  The original grant was to connect “foster grandparents” to children to serve as tutors and mentors. The revision stated the foster grandparent program will instead “dispel misinformation about COVID vaccination and help [the target community] see the benefits, especially vaccinating children when eligible, and help maximize contract tracing resources to ensure safety of the families we serve.”

  MISINFORMATION STUDIES

  Other funding went to researchers seeking to understand how supposed misinformation is shared online and how it can be combatted or mitigated using social or technological tools. Universities were often the recipient of such research spending.

  

  Although much of this research is academic, it is often intended to lay the groundwork for public interventions.

  Examples include:

  • $2,356,413, Department of Health and Human Services, University of Pennsylvania, for “investigating and identifying the heterogeneity in COVID-19 misinformation exposure on social media among black and rural communities to inform precision public health messaging” because “misinformation contributes to confusion, distrust, and distress around health behaviors such as vaccination, mask wearing, and social distancing.” In other words, they wanted to find the different messages and media various communities were receiving in order to tailor the government’s rebuttal.

  • $2,175,835, Department of Health and Human Services, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, for research on the “social processes and cognitive factors underlying misinformation comprehension” in social media. By developing an algorithm to automatically detect “intent and belief attributes underlying COVID-19 misinformation” researchers can develop computational infrastructure to mitigate the spread of that misinformation “easing public health burden and informing policy regulations as needed.”

  • $348,310, Department of Health and Human Services, Michigan State University, “to counteract the negative impact of misinformation on digital platforms that threatens public health.” The overall goal of the project is “to develop a publicly accessible vaccine informatics system to track vaccine debate, and to test the impact of vaccine debate… during the onset of a global pandemic.”

  OTHER GRANT EXAMPLES

  $200,000 to Slander a Political Opponent

  One notable research grant awarded to George Washington University in FY 2022 targeted former president Donald Trump. The study, called “Pandemic Communication in Time of Populism: Building Resilient Media and Ensuring Effective Pandemic Communication in Divided Societies” received a $199,516 grant from the National Science Foundation.

  Researchers on this Biden-era grant examined how so-called “populist” leaders supposedly prevented society from coming together in “solidarity” during the COVID pandemic. Trump’s presidency was a focus of the research, along with the leaders of three other countries.

  One researcher said in a video interview:

  “What went wrong in different ways in all these countries and in a lot of countries around the world that had populist governments…there was just this very high level of polarization and politicization of the pandemic response…and it really interfered with the ability of society to pull together in a consistent way and to get through the pandemic.”

  The research also concluded that “experts” should have the “main say” during the next public health crisis, with another investigator saying:

  “One of the recommendations stemming from our strand is related to who is in charge of disseminating information related to the public health crisis, in our view based on the data that we have, it’s obvious that governments should allow the experts to have the main say in how society should respond to public health crisis.”

  At the end of the video “climate change” is the next crisis these experts suggest requires strong public solidarity that populist leaders are incapable of creating.

  

  WILL THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES THEMSELVES SPREAD MISINFORMATION?

  In a similar vein, $994,950 was awarded from the National Science Foundation to the National Academies of Science on “Understanding and Addressing Misinformation about Science.” This report was needed because, according to the grant description, “concern about the spread of misinformation and its role in undermining scientific expertise and facts in civic dialogue has grown significantly, especially over the last 5-10 years.”

  The report has yet to be published, but there is reason to suspect it will also lack introspection from its supposed expert panel of researchers.

  The chair of the research committee, Kasisomayajula Viswanath also worked on the report “Communication Strategies for Building October Confidence in COVID-19 Vaccines: Addressing 2021 Variants and Childhood Vaccinations.”

  Viswanath said at the time to “continue to emphasize [to parents] how safe the vaccines are and how they are effective in preventing serious disease. More than 6 billion doses of vaccines have been given globally so far with very few serious adverse effects.”

  But as the New York Times reported in February 2024, many other countries no longer recommend or even offer COVID-19 vaccinations or boosters for children.

  The New York Times article suggested that U.S. Center for Disease Control’s recommendation for childhood vaccination diminishes the agency’s credibility, because, as other countries have concluded, the benefits of childhood COVID vaccines do not outweigh the costs.

  It remains to be seen if this misstep in COVID policy will be a part of the new $1 million report on how misinformation erodes public faith in “scientific expertise.”

  MISINFORMATION CONTRACT SPENDING

  As we’ve illustrated, public grants focused on “dispelling” misinformation with supposedly accurate information in order to coerce people into compliance with health policy directives.

  But beginning in 2020, contracts were often concerned with monitoring or eliminating supposed misinformation at its source.

  Because contract descriptions are frequently vague, it is unclear how many are directly related to COVID-19. Only one explicitly mentioned the pandemic in its contract transaction description.

  Examples of these misinformation contracts include:

  • $300,000, Department of Health and Human Services, Innov8AI, “capturing medical misinformation in social media for targeted interdiction using an advanced AI solution set.” [Interdiction means “to forbid in a usually formal or authoritative manner,” according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary.]
  • $300,000, Department of Health and Human Services, Melax Technologies, “real-time surveillance of vaccine misinformation from social media platforms using ontology and natural language processing technologies.” In other words, Melax would sort posts it deemed “misinformation” into categories to analyze.
  • $299,964, Department of Health and Human Services, Gryphon Scientific, “systematic understanding and elimination of misinformation online.”

  Other contracts raised eyebrows for different reasons:

  • $1,205,826 from Department of Homeland Security went to defense contractor  Guidehouse for “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation analysis.”

  NOTE: Malinformation is a controversial term for information that is true, but presented without sufficient context in a way that could mislead or harm. The opportunity to use this word to censor political or ideological opponents should be obvious.

  • As first reported in the Daily Caller, Meedan Inc received $749,974 from the National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator in 2022 for “FACT CHAMP: fact-checker, academic, and community collaboration tools combating hate, abuse, and misinformation with minority led partnerships,” later re-branded as Co-Insights.

  The non-profit went on to receive $5 million more from NSF for the same project a year later.

  A press release states the project will “narrow the gap between research into misinformation and responses designed to curb it.”

  CONCLUSION

  In October the House Committee on Energy & Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations published a report outlining nearly $1 billion in spending on a vaccine promotional campaign. Despite this huge expenditure, the report notes that “the Campaign and the Biden Harris administration’s response to the pandemic resulted in a collapse of the public’s trust in public health messaging.” Report authors blamed flawed messaging about the effectiveness of masks, overstating the risk of COVID to children, and recommending vaccinations for all Americans over the age of 6 months.

  It appears the administration most concerned with “misinformation” itself trafficked in misinformation: on masks, on risks to children, on social distancing, and on the need to vaccinate even infants. At least one grant specifically targeted the sitting president’s main political rival.

  Americans simply cannot trust that continued grant and contract spending and various bureaucratic programmatic activities involved in “misinformation” will not be ideologically motivated to silence critics.

  Case in point: a $249,691 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to the University of Washington to build and deploy an “online escape room hosted by librarians” to address misinformation. The grant also included a co-design camp around the far-left Black Lives Matter movement to “demonstrate use of the design kit for creating interest-driven escape rooms.” (Play the escape room here.)

  How much more misinformation spending is purely ideological or promoting contested or even false information?

  No doubt the internet is awash with patently false information that can confuse and needlessly alarm readers. So far it has been proven, however, that the federal government is not capable of addressing this issue objectively. It would be better to stop entirely than further undermine federal credibility with accusations of partisanship and First Amendment rights violations.

  The incoming Trump administration must end the government’s involvement in managing so-called misinformation, and Congress must keep the purse strings closed on this spending.

  Otherwise, taxpayers remain at risk of underwriting their own censorship.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 23:20

• Young Americans Are Turning Off The TV
  Young Americans Are Turning Off The TV

  As streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ have taken over a huge chunk of TV consumption in the United States, traditional TV is finding itself under increased pressure to defend its place as the go-to medium for entertainment, distraction and information.

  And while people still spend a lot of time watching live and timeshifted TV on average, Statista’s Felix Richter notes that’s largely due to heavy TV usage by Americans aged 65 and above, who watch roughly 10 times as much traditional TV as young adults do.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  According to Nielsen, Americans aged 18 to 34 watch less than five hours of live and timeshifted TV per week.

  At the other end of the scale, those aged 65 and older watch more than 40 hours on average.

  Making this worse for the TV industry, there’s a growing share of young adults who don’t watch TV at all, as they get all they need from digital sources.

  According to Statista Consumer Insights, 50 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. say that they don’t watch any traditional TV, compared to just 29 percent of 55 to 64-year-olds.

  That share would likely be even lower for those aged 65 and older, but they have not been surveyed in this case.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 22:45

• China's New Port In Peru: A Strategic Threat To US Security
  China’s New Port In Peru: A Strategic Threat To US Security

  Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times,

  The new Chinese-controlled port in Peru is part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s strategy to outflank the United States by establishing a maritime and land corridor linking China to Latin America.

  

  As the Biden administration winds to a close, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is aggressively expanding its influence in South America. On Nov. 14, Xi Jinping and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte inaugurated a $3.6 billion port in Chancay, Peru, marking another major step in China’s economic foothold in the region.

  Earlier this year, Boluarte traveled to Beijing to strengthen Sino–Peruvian ties, cementing Peru’s position as the second-largest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment in Latin America. Notably, this includes China Southern Power Grid’s acquisition of Peru’s electricity distribution, placing 100 percent of this critical infrastructure under CCP control.

  In stark contrast, the White House failed to engage Boluarte during her 2023 visit to Washington, missing a key opportunity to counter Beijing’s growing influence. The port inauguration coincided with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, where U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders from 21 member economies convened. The timing underscores a stark reality: while the United States watched from the sidelines, the CCP was actively drawing Latin America deeper into its orbit, delivering a clear and humiliating message to the United States about its waning influence in the region.

  The Chinese shipping giant COSCO owns a 60 percent stake in Peru’s Chancay port, which will serve as a critical node in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its first logistics hub in the Americas. Strategically positioned, the port grants China access to Peru’s abundant copper reserves—essential for dominating global markets in electric vehicles and data centers. Equipped with cutting-edge technology, including automated cranes and driverless electric trucks, the port’s scale and proximity to the United States have raised serious concerns about potential military use by the Chinese People’s Liberation Navy.

  Gen. Laura J. Richardson, then-commander of U.S. Southern Command, warned Congress that while the port is officially designated for commercial purposes, its size and capabilities could accommodate military assets, including combat vessels. She emphasized that China, as a strategic competitor, undermines international norms and democratic values in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through corruption, disinformation, cybercrime, and human rights abuses, the CCP bolsters authoritarian regimes in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to further its geopolitical agenda.

  While China deepens its regional foothold, the United States has pressured Boluarte on human rights abuses and democratic violations, contrasting with Beijing’s hands-off approach. Beijing openly supported Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro after his contested election victory in July, despite widespread allegations of fraud by international observers. The fraudulent election sparked massive protests across Venezuela, met with a violent crackdown by Maduro’s regime. Security forces used tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition to suppress dissent, resulting in at least 23 deaths and more than 2,200 arrests. The brutal suppression drew international condemnation, further isolating Maduro’s regime, yet China’s backing reinforced its alignment with authoritarian leaders in the region.

  China’s investments in dual-use infrastructure, such as ports, telecommunications, and space facilities, extend well beyond commercial purposes. Deep-water ports like the proposed maritime facilities in Argentina could serve as future naval access points for the People’s Liberation Army. These strategic installations, including projects near the Panama Canal and Antarctica, create chokepoints that enhance Beijing’s global power projection capabilities.

  These ports also enable the CCP to monitor U.S. naval and commercial ships, with the potential to restrict their access to vital waterways. Additionally, Chinese state-owned enterprises like Nuctech and ZPMC, which operate in Chancay and other Latin American and Caribbean ports, could leverage port scanning equipment and cargo cranes to gather sensitive commercial data from allies and adversaries alike. Similar concerns have been raised regarding Chinese-built ports in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, underscoring the broader risks of China’s expanding infrastructure network.

  In the Western Hemisphere, Chinese state-owned companies have financed, built, or now operate several key ports along strategic waterways, including the Panama Canal and the Caribbean Sea. In Argentina, China recently attempted to develop a naval base near the Strait of Magellan and Antarctica, but President Javier Milei opted in April to partner with the United States for the project instead.

  These Chinese-controlled ports pose significant challenges for U.S. military operations. In a potential conflict, such as one in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea, the U.S. Navy may need to quickly move ships between the Atlantic and Pacific through critical chokepoints like the Panama Canal or the Strait of Magellan. Chinese companies managing these infrastructures could delay or obstruct U.S. movements.

  Major Chinese shipping and port management companies, including COSCO, operate under heavy influence from the CCP. With many top executives holding CCP membership and China’s 2017 National Security Law requiring companies to prioritize national security interests, the CCP wields significant control over these operations. This allows Beijing to strategically leverage these assets to support its geopolitical objectives.

  Telecommunications is another key area in which China has established a stronghold in Latin America. Companies like Huawei and ZTE have implemented network infrastructure across nearly every country in the region, raising serious cybersecurity concerns. Meanwhile, China has also expanded its presence in space, building at least 10 facilities in Latin America—the largest concentration outside its mainland. These installations bolster the People’s Liberation Army’s global surveillance and military capabilities, presenting a direct threat to U.S. security.

  Numerous Republicans, including former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), highlighted the urgent need to revive the Monroe Doctrine—a U.S. policy established in 1823 to oppose foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere—in response to mounting threats from the CCP. They warn that the Chinese regime is aggressively expanding its influence in Latin America, backing authoritarian regimes, infiltrating markets, and undermining regional sovereignty, posing a direct challenge to U.S. security.

  Risch called on the White House to recognize the stakes, as failure to act will leave the United States increasingly vulnerable. In his view, reviving the Monroe Doctrine isn’t just historical—it’s essential for modern security.

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 22:10

• Making America Great Again Means Fixing Its Dystopian Cities
  Making America Great Again Means Fixing Its Dystopian Cities

  Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

  Of all the celebrities promising to leave the country if Donald Trump won this month’s election, at least one has already kept that promise and decamped to supposedly greener pastures. The actress and filmmaker Eva Longoria recently told Marie Claire that she, her husband, and her son now split their time between Spain and Mexico.

  “It just feels like this chapter in my life” – the chapter in which she is an American, apparently – “is done now.”

  

  On the one hand, it’s a bit surprising that one of the big-talking Hollywood leftists actually kept her promise and allowed politics to rule her life. On the other hand, if any of the Glitteratti were going to run from Donald Trump’s America, Longoria would be the one. She doesn’t just support Democratic politicians, after all. She has dedicated much of her adult life to their cause:

  In 2016, Longoria took to her bed after Trump prevailed. “I’ve never been depressed in my life,” she recalls…. Longoria spent the better part of this past summer campaigning for Kamala Harris. She rallied volunteers with Tim Walz. Countless celebrities endorsed the Democratic ticket, but Longoria is more than a famous surrogate. The Washington Post has called her a genuine “political power broker” for the “fierce and productive” work she has done to organize women and Latinos. The Texas Tribune profiled her efforts to recruit and support Hispanic Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

  Needless to say, Longoria is all in on Democratic politics—which makes her reasons for leaving the United States all the more interesting. Although she tells Marie Claire that Trump was an issue for her, he wasn’t the only issue. Indeed, she and her family had moved out of the country before Trump even won the election on November 4. She gave up on this country for far different reasons. It’s “dystopian,” she says, and it’s been getting worse for some time: “I had my whole adult life here…But even before [the pandemic], it was changing. The vibe was different. And then COVID happened, and it pushed it over the edge. Whether it’s the homelessness or the taxes, not that I want to sh*t on California….”

  I’m not one to kick a gal when she’s down, but Longoria’s complaints about the United States—dystopian, homelessness, excessive taxes, etc.—have a familiar ring to them. Indeed, they sound a lot like the complaints registered by that other leftist icon…<>…Tucker Carlson?

  As you may recall, not quite nine months ago, Carlson won the enmity of both liberals and conservatives for saying that Moscow is “so much nicer than any city in my country.” Like Longoria, Carlson lamented the dystopian nature of much American life, complaining that “If you can’t use your subway, for example, as many people are afraid to in New York City because it’s too dangerous, you have to sort of wonder like, isn’t that the ultimate measure of leadership?” Unlike Longoria, however, Carlson didn’t give up on his country and exercised his “privilege” (her word, not mine) to abandon it. What he did was say that visiting other large cities in the world was “radicalizing” for an American because those cities, “no matter how we’re told they’re run and on what principles they’re run, are wonderful places to live….”

  As I say, Carlson was roundly criticized for his comments. Some of that criticism was entirely justified, although much of it was not. And in any case, Longoria will not be criticized at all for her statements, in part because she’s a leftist and, thus, above criticism, and in part because she, like Carlson, has a point. Public spaces in American cities are, in most cases, grotesque. That’s almost inarguable. Among other things, Tucker was bashed because he made what seemed to be a partisan argument. He was clearly and undeniably criticizing urban Democratic politics and policies. The irony here is that Longoria was too, although neither she nor any of her supporters and fans understand that.

  As Democrats continue their soul-searching, and as media and other analysts try to dissect the causes of the enormous Republican victory not quite two weeks ago, one lesson will likely go unlearned. The American people really do want their country to be great again. To them, that doesn’t mean that the United States should be an omnipotent global colossus, striding the globe, enforcing its will on everyone and everything. And it doesn’t mean that Americans should win every gold medal at every Olympics or every Nobel Prize or anything like that. Americans just want their country to work again. They just want their cities to function. They want to be able to build homes or power plants or new factories without having to spend countless months and endless resources complying with arcane and ridiculous regulations. They want their country to look and feel and operate like a normal place again.

  For at least the last 60 years, American cities have been governed not for the benefit of their residents but for the benefit of political power consolidation. Cities are managed specifically to ensure the application of ideological principles and the maintenance of the partisan status quo. In other words, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco (and practically every city in between) are experiments in liberal-left policies and Democratic machine politics. They are run of, by, and for the machines and their ideological solons, not for the people who live there.

  Sometimes, on very rare occasions, cities can break out of this politicized rut, electing new leaders with new ideas—Rudy Giuliani, for example—who change the entire spirit of the metropolis. In time, however, even these breakout efforts fall victim to ideological sniping and partisan grift, leaving the city polarized, politicized, and further degraded.

  Eva Longoria doesn’t know this, but she’s not leaving the United States because of Donald Trump. She’s leaving because of Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass, London Breed, and all the rest of the party-machine politicians, who see this nation’s cities and states not as places where people live and desire to live well but as opportunities to ply their ideological biases and fulfill their personal ambitions.

  Donald Trump is not the dictator his detractors want us all to believe he is. But even if he were, there is nothing he could do to the people of San Francisco that is worse than what London Breed, Edwin Lee, and Gavin Newsom have done to them. There is nothing he could do to the people of Chicago that is worse than what Brandon Johnson and Lori Lightfoot have done to them. There is nothing he could do to the people of New York that is worse than what Eric Adams and Bill DeBlasio have done to them.

  So go, Ms. Longoria. Go use your privilege to start the next “chapter” in your life. Go use your privilege to escape the dystopian nightmare of American cities. But as you go, understand that the problems with America and its cities are less about Donald Trump and his indiscretions than about people, like you, who abhor the outcomes of certain ideologies and policies and yet vote for them—and even campaign aggressively for them—time and time again.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 21:35

• Terror To The South: Hezbollah In Latin America
  Terror To The South: Hezbollah In Latin America

  Authored by Matias Ahrensdorf & Santiago Vidal Calvo via RealClearDefense,

  The reelection of Donald Trump has sent ripples across terror-supporting and anti-Israel regimes. In the Middle East, Qatar claimed it would rescind its longtime asylum for Hamas leadership, and Iran is reportedly recalibrating its retaliation for Israel’s recent airstrikes. But the new Trump Administration should also be focusing on Latin America, where complicit nations have enabled Hezbollah to thrive. The U.S. must curtail Hezbollah’s active regional fundraising which not only supports attacks against Israel but transnational criminal activity, including bringing drugs and potential terrorists across America’s southern border. 

  

  Both Luis Arce, socialist president of Bolivia, and Nicolas Maduro, the authoritarian president of Venezuela, have not only made horrifically antisemitic comments, but completely severed diplomatic ties with Israel. Maduro mourned the death of terrorist and Hezbollah founding member, Hassan Nasrallah, expressing support for the terror group while condemning Israel.    

  In the early 90’s, Hezbollah bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and two years later the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish cultural center. In November of 2023, police in Brazil foiled plans for a major terrorist attack on multiple Jewish targets in the country—home of Latin America’s second largest Jewish population second only to Argentina.     

  Hezbollah’s patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran, facilitates Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America by building advantageous relationships with authoritarian-leaning countries in the region.    

  In July of 2023, the BBC reported that Iran and Bolivia signed a bilateral agreement to expand “cooperation in the fields of security and defense.” The Iranian defense minister, Mohamed Reza Ashtiani, acknowledged that the deal involved “the sale of equipment and the training of personnel,” including the purchase of Iranian drones by Bolivia. Iran and Venezuela signed a 20-year cooperation agreement in 2022 to increase ties in the oil, petrochemical, economic, and military sectors.     

  Bolivia and Venezuela are rich in uranium and other resources. In 2009, Iran helped Venezuelan engineers with “geophysical aerial probes and geochemical analyses (to find) uranium deposits” as reported by EcoAmericas. By contrast, while the presence of uranium deposits is known in Bolivia, the government has labeled information on the topic as ”reserved”, meaning the location, size, and potential for mining are not publicly disclosed. Around the same time Venezuela and Bolivia had discovered uranium deposits in their regions, a secret Israeli government report obtained by AP news found that: “Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program.” In fact, in late October 2024, Bolivia produced its first nuclear fuel for a research reactor.

  Furthermore, both countries are linked with narcotrafficking markets, in which Hezbollah and other terrorist groups are involved. Historically, Bolivia is one of the largest producers of the coca leaf. Due to its abundance, Bolivia naturally played a large role in the Latin America drug trade and supplied an estimated 15% of the cocaine market in the United States during the 1980’s. According to a 2022 White House press release, Bolivia’s steadily growing cocaine production poses a public health threat to the U.S. due to increasing cocaine related overdoses. As of 2009, Bolivia’s president at the time Evo Morales, expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from the country after nearly three decades of maintaining a presence.

  Venezuela is also involved in the cocaine market. Through collaboration with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a known Hezbollah ally, Venezuela serves as a main export hub for cocaine into the United States and Europe. Early in the Biden Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice announced several narcoterrorism indictments against the Maduro regime, including Nicolás Maduro himself, for conspiring with FARC to facilitate and profit from the cocaine trade.     

  In March of 2020, former Venezuelan-Syrian politician, Adel El Zabayar, was indicted by the Justice Department for conspiring with Nicolas Maduro and other regime leaders in a narcoterrorism plot involving Colombian FARC dissidents, Mexican drug cartels, and operatives from Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah to carry out planned attacks on the United States. Last month, Mijal Gur Aryeh, Israel’s Ambassador to Costa Rica, condemned Venezuela and Bolivia for hosting Hezbollah and Iranian terrorists. Earlier this year, Patricia Bullrich, the Security Minister of Argentina, also made the claim that “Bolivia hosts hundreds of members of the Quds Force,” a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

  People on terrorist watchlists have been apprehended at the southern border of the United States, and at least one Hezbollah operative attempting to enter the country illegally. Since the October 7th attack on Israel, Hezbollah has launched over 8,000 rockets at the Jewish state, causing “over 70,000” Israeli’s to evacuate their homes.    

  Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America should alarm Western defense officials. While the terrorist organization continues to volley missiles at Israel daily, it is also increasing its involvement in transnational criminal activity, as its financiers the Islamic Republic of Iran increases its influence in the region. The incoming Trump Administration, with newly appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio—an unyielding opponent of repressive regimes—should work closely with its Latin American allies and Israel to destroy Hezbollah’s fundraising in the region  which not only enables terrorist activity in the Middle East, but also threatens the southern border with illicit drugs and potential terrorism.  

  Matias Ahrensdorf – Data Analyst for Policy and Research in New York City.

  Santiago Vidal Calvo– Tech and Public Policy Scholar and master’s student at Georgetown University.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 21:00

• 'Terminator' Robot Dog Now Equipped With Amphibious Capabilities 
  ‘Terminator’ Robot Dog Now Equipped With Amphibious Capabilities 

  The use of robotic dogs on modern battlefields in Eastern Europe and the Middle East has expanded rapidly. Over the past decade, we have thoroughly documented their growing presence and proliferation.

  The latest quadruped robot designed for modern warfare is the Ghost Robotics V60. However, this is far from a typical robotic dog. A separate defense firm, Onyx Industries, has equipped the V60 with an autonomous maritime mobility system, enabling it to navigate rough terrain and traverse bodies of water—all while carrying a machine gun.

  

  Last month, Onyx shared a short video on YouTube showcasing the V60’s maritime mobility system in action.

  “We’re incredibly excited to share the next evolution of our systems—NAUT amphibious capabilities with SENTRY kinetic and ISR payloads. This integration on the Ghost Robotics V60 is just one example of the many options available,” Onyx stated in the video’s description.

  On a separate note, we recently highlighted the terrifying capabilities of Deep Robotics’ quadruped robot, which is equipped with wheels. Its mobility is nothing short of alarming.

  The ever-increasing capabilities of these robotic dogs are becoming deeply concerning.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 20:25

• Maddow Hit With $5 Million Pay-Cut As Musk, Trump Jr Joke About Buying MSNBC
  Maddow Hit With $5 Million Pay-Cut As Musk, Trump Jr Joke About Buying MSNBC

  The left-wing cable news channel MSNBC has reportedly cut the salary of one of its top hosts, Rachel Maddow, by a staggering $5 million as the network suffers from ongoing financial problems and a steep decline in ratings.

  As reported by the New York Post, Maddow saw her salary fall from $30 million to $25 million during her contract renegotiations this month. Her show, “The Rachel Maddow Show,” airs weekly on Mondays. Her show has been highlighted as one of the few on the network that is still doing well with viewership in the weeks since the 2024 election.

  “This is a difficult time and they needed to keep her,” said one anonymous executive. “No one else can do what she does. You can’t build a brand like it overnight.”

  As Eric Lendrum writes at American Greatness, the report comes after the news that MSNBC’s parent company Comcast has decided to spin off all of its cable news channels by the end of 2025, as the cable news sector struggles to earn money in comparison to Comcast’s other properties. As such, MSNBC will be split off from NBC News, a move that could force MSNBC to change its name, logo, and headquarters, as well as lay off many employees.

  As part of Maddow’s new deal, she will be allowed to continue producing podcasts and documentaries in addition to her weekly show every Monday. She will also be utilized for breaking news segments during other shows, due to her popularity with MSNBC’s shrinking audience.

  In the period of just over two weeks since the 2024 election on November 5th, MSNBC’s ratings have plunged by 54%. Their Nielsen ratings are down 40% year-over-year.

  “We were so Harris propaganda that when she lost, viewers were shocked,” said one anonymous MSNBC commentator.

  “It turned into one giant echo chamber. If MSNBC wants to be of service to its viewers, they can’t keep them in fantasy land.”

  But the story has a risible ending, as Donald Trump Jr. and Tesla owner Elon Musk joked around on social media about potentially purchasing MSNBC.

  “Hey @elonmusk I have the funniest idea ever!!!” Trump Jr. tweeted in response to the news of Comcast spinning off its news units (including MSNBC). 

  “How much does it cost?” Musk said in response.

  

  Later Musk said that the outcome would be very “entertaining” if he actually purchased the outlet. 

  Popular podcaster Joe Rogan later chimed into the banter, saying he would like to replace news host Rachel Maddow. 

  “If you buy MSNBC I would like Rachael [sic] Maddow’s job. I will wear the same outfit and glasses, and I will tell the same lies,” Rogan said.

  “Deal,” Musk responded.

  Elsewhere on MSNBC, “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have faced backlash from the far-left for their recent decision to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

  They expressed an interest in restoring communications with the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President, even despite their ideological disagreements.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 19:15

• What Lessons Will Shapiro Take From The 2024 Election?
  What Lessons Will Shapiro Take From The 2024 Election?

  Authored by Guy Ciarrocchi via RealClearPennsylvania,

  Gov. Josh Shapiro was almost selected as Kamala Harris’s running mate, and he wants to be president more than Phillies fans want to win the World Series. As he reflects on the 2024 election, what does he see? How will the lessons he draws affect his governorship, his budget, and how he leads the state?

  

  Donald Trump carried Pennsylvania, all of the “blue wall” states, and a majority of the popular vote. Incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris – with over $1 billion in campaign cash and the open support of most of legacy media and Hollywood – got less votes than her boss did in 2020.

  Pennsylvania Republican Dave McCormick defeated 18-year incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Casey. Every other statewide Republican won election, too. The GOP now holds more statewide offices than the Democrats for the first time in a generation.

  Two Pennsylvania Republican challengers defeated Democratic incumbent members of Congress, while the top Republican incumbent targeted by Democrats – Scott Perry – survived.

  The 50-seat Pennsylvania State Senate remains in the GOP’s possession at 28-22, with a new, 29-year-old member from Philadelphia, of all places. The Pennsylvania House stands at 102-101, Democrats. They owe this narrow advantage to spending nearly $5 million to hold on to a statehouse seat in rural Cambria County, a campaign in which they alleged that the 16-year incumbent Democratic member loved Donald Trump more than the Republican challenger.

  We’re getting a sense of what Shapiro thinks he needs to do to become president. The normally gregarious, loquacious governor has lately been quieter than Calvin Coolidge. Thirteen days after the election, after the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Casey’s legal arguments – and the actions of Democratic county commissioners – were in violation of state law, Shapiro issued a written statement. He advised county officials to follow the law but did not ask Casey to concede.

  Most national Democrat leaders and elected officials – and the ladies on The View – argue that Harris lost because most Americans are misinformed or are bigots or misogynists. (That would be news to the millions of blacks, Hispanics and Jewish voters who voted Republican, and the white voters who don’t see themselves as morally bankrupt, either.) Governor, is it the voters’ fault that Harris lost?

  Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have suggested that national Democrats forgot working-class people. Any thoughts, governor?

  National activists and television commentators have suggested that the Democrats need to recommit to progressive policy positions. Maybe Democrats did a poor job of explaining why these polices are desirable. What do you think, governor?

  Most Pennsylvanians don’t care much about post-election analysis at this point. We’re more interested in what Shapiro will do next as governor. Several upcoming decisions will show where he stands. Will he appease the far-left activists in his party, or build bridges to the GOP? Will he refocus on working-class families?

  His 2024 budget grew faster than inflation. Will he try to spend his way to reelection – and perhaps to the White House – or will he be more fiscally conservative in 2025?

  Will 2025 be the year that Shapiro includes scholarships/family-tax-credits in his budget, or will he leave them out – again? In 2024, he cut cyber charter school funding. In the battle of students versus the teachers’ union, who will he support?

  Pennsylvania’s business taxes are among the nation’s highest. Shapiro has pledged to cut them. Will he follow through?

  Small businesses need regulatory reform and tax relief. Will Shapiro move beyond press conferences and embrace true regulatory relief – like “deemed approved” swift green-lighting of applications for licenses and permits? Will he go further to help start new businesses by eliminating licensing for entrepreneurs? Or will he try to buy off would-be entrepreneurs as Harris did, by offering “free” taxpayer money?

  Pennsylvania is home to more natural gas reserves than Saudi Arabia has in oil. Harris talked about banning fracking, then retracted that pledge, then seemed to backtrack again. What does Shapiro think? Will he enforce policies to get our low-cost, clean-burning natural gas out of the ground and into Pennsylvania homes and businesses? Will he support President-elect Trump’s plan to let Pennsylvanians sell liquified natural gas to our European allies, creating jobs and generating tax revenue, while keeping Russian gas out of Poland, Germany, and France?

  Will he give up on his unnecessary, wasteful “green energy” dreams (“PRESS” and “PACER”) – using taxpayer money to subsidize unreliable energy sources, forcing Pennsylvanians to import Chinese materials and green energy products, and thus increasing the cost to heat our homes and operate our factories? Or will he choose common sense, realizing that his green initiative is too costly and creates a disincentive to use the almost-limitless supply of natural gas that lies beneath our feet?

  Will he govern and run for reelection – and eventually for president – as the governor who rescued children from failing schools, helped small businesses grow, and unleashed Pennsylvania’s energy assets? Or, does he see himself as the savior – the superior messenger – of the same left-wing policies that led his party to defeat?

  What message did Shapiro hear from the 2024 election results? Pennsylvanians want to know.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 18:40

• US Adoptions From Abroad Are Declining
  US Adoptions From Abroad Are Declining

  The number of children adopted from abroad is declining in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Department of State. As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, where more than 12,700 children were adopted internationally in 2009, that figure has dropped to under 1,300 in 2023.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  This is due to several reasons.

  For example, although the U.S. signed the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 1994, it wasn’t until 2008 that it came fully into effect there. Designed to ensure more ethical intercountry adoptions and to prevent the abduction, sale of, or trafficking in children, the Convention requires proof that each given child has been deemed eligible for adoption by the child’s country of origin and that due consideration has been given to finding an adoption placement for the child in its country of origin. Each adoption agency must also be accredited or approved on a Federal level. According to Adoption.com, while the Hague Convention is beneficial it has also led to increased waiting times and fees, with many poorer countries unable to meet standards.

  Looking more closely at country specific examples, Guatemala is frequently held up as an example of what can go wrong when adoptions are commercialized and ethics disregarded, with stories of corruption and of children being kidnapped to then be adopted. These findings led Guatemala to placing a moratorium on new intercountry adoptions in 2008 until a Hague-compliant adoption process could be created and implemented. Until that point, Guatemala had been the only country worldwide to allow fully privatized adoptions, and in 2008 accounted for the second largest group of international adoptees after China.

  In the last two and a half decades, more children from China have been coming to the U.S. as adoptees. Between 1999 and 2023, they numbered almost 83,000 compared with 46,000 from Russia, 30,000 from Guatemala, 21,500 adoptees from South Korea, 16,000 from Ethiopia and 12,000 from Ukraine. China stopped international adoptions during the pandemic, resuming the practice again in 2023, when 16 children were adopted in the U.S. However, this figure is set to fall to zero once more, following an announcement from Beijing that the country will no longer be facilitating intercountry adoptions unless to blood relatives. The move takes place in a country experiencing a shrinking and aging population with a falling birth rate.

  International politics also play a role in the global flows of adoption. This is the case with Russia, which banned adoptions by U.S. parents in 2012 in retaliation to the U.S.’ Magnitsky Act, which had sanctioned Russian officials and nationals for human rights abuses.

  As the chart above shows, where 1,588 Russian children were adopted in 2009, this fell to 0 in 2015, with no children having been adopted from the country since.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 18:05

• Trump Names Billionaire Scott Bessent As Treasury Secretary
  Trump Names Billionaire Scott Bessent As Treasury Secretary

  After Trump appointed Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary and Kevin Warsh was clearly being groomed as Powell’s replacement at the Fed, it was just a matter of time before the most important appointment in the Trump admin was made. That happened late on Friday when president-elect Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent to lead the Department of the Treasury, ending days of speculation after other names emerged as competitors to the reported favorite.

  

  “Scott is widely respected as one of the world’s foremost international investors and geopolitical and economic strategists. Scott’s story is that of the American Dream,” Trump said in a statement on the nomination.

  

  Bessent, 62, is a Wall Street veteran who once worked for George Soros, and founder of international macro investment company Key Square Group. He served as a key economic adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

  Others contenders for the role included Howard Lutnick, the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners. He co-chairs the Trump–Vance transition team, which is in charge of selecting administration candidates, vetting personnel, and crafting policy. Lutnick was ultimately chosen on Nov. 19 to lead the Department of Commerce.

  Kevin Warsh, 54, a former Morgan Stanley banker and former Federal Reserve Board governor, likewise entered the conversation. He became the leading candidate for treasury secretary on the betting website Polymarket after reports emerged that the president-elect was expanding his search to fill the position.

  In his statement on Bessent’s nomination, Trump said that economic policy under his administration would maintain the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status, fortify the United States’s position as the world’s strongest economy, and invigorate the private sector.

  “As a lifelong champion of Main Street America and American industry, Scott will support my policies that will drive U.S. competitiveness, and stop unfair trade imbalances, work to create an economy that places growth at the forefront, especially through our coming world energy dominance,” Trump said.

  The president-elect also noted Bessent’s deep family roots in South Carolina, saying that he belongs to a historic French Huguenot Church, which members of his family founded in the 1680s, in the port city of Charleston.

  Like his predecessors, Bessent will now oversee a vast portfolio to employ the president’s economic agenda.

  As the Epoch Times notes, the two immediate issues Bessent will grapple with will be averting a default as the national debt ceiling limit will expire on Jan. 1, 2025, and extending the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act due to expire at the end of next year.

  More importantly, Bessent will also be tasked with the delicate, if not conflicting, job of championing Trump’s trade proposals, including across-the-board tariffs, on one hand, while keeping the debt and deficit in check and preventing bond yields and the dollar from rising too high, too fast, as an even more rapid tightening in financial conditions will surely tip the US economy into recession.

  Bessent previously told CNBC he preferred trade levies to be imposed gradually to ensure higher prices appear over time and allow disinflationary policies to offset tariffs. Additionally, the hedge fund manager has professed support for broad-based tariffs that he believes are “more effective than microeconomic interventions like industrial policy that generally rely on the government to pick winners and losers,” as he wrote in an opinion published by The Economist in October.

  Cryptocurrency could be another area that Bessent – and Trump who has transformed from a rabid crypto skeptic into one of the most ardent fans of bitcoin – will home in on.

  “I have been excited about the president’s embrace of crypto and I think it fits very well with the Republican Party, crypto is about freedom and the crypto economy is here to stay,” he stated in an interview with Fox News earlier this year.

  Here are the full comments on #crypto and #bitcoin Bessent made on @FoxBusiness in July. https://t.co/3O09jKZLJD pic.twitter.com/ggeLHs5JVc

  — Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) November 12, 2024

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

  If confirmed by the Senate in January, Bessent will succeed Janet Yellen. Steven Mnuchin served as Trump’s Treasury secretary during his first term.

  Following Trump’s victory earlier this month, Bessent wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the financial markets were celebrating “the Trump 2.0 economic vision.”

  “Markets are signaling expectations of higher growth, lower volatility and inflation, and a revitalized economy for all Americans,” Bessent wrote.

  Bessent has received support from several prominent Wall Street individuals, including Kyle Bass, the founder of the Dallas-based Hayman Capital Management. “He has a masterful knowledge of the architecture of the global financial system and its players,” Bass told The Epoch Times.

  The hedge fund investor, Bass said, has invested across the globe, formed relationships with global finance ministers and central bankers, and understands financial markets. “Scott is by far the best candidate for the job as Secretary,” Bass said.

  Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller recently told Axios that Bessent is “not only a market participant but very fluent and comfortable in academic circles.”

  The announcement of the Treasury secretary role was one of the most eagerly awaited decisions among Trump’s cabinet picks, sparking a wide range of reactions on social media platform X.

  Eric Wallerstein, chief markets strategist at Yardeni, praised Scott Bessent, stating, “Bessent is the only candidate who specifically addresses Treasury’s faulty debt management strategy. the best candidate for the job.”

  Even warhawk neocon Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) expressed support on X, saying, Trump’s economic agenda is “in good hands with Scott Bessent.”

  “He is a great combination of being academically gifted and real world tested,” Graham wrote.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 17:30

• With Or Without Tariffs, The US Dollar Is A Ponzi
  With Or Without Tariffs, The US Dollar Is A Ponzi

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  With soaring deficits, soaring debt, and interest payments that can only be made by issuing a debt-based currency on which even more interest will be due, the USD can only possibly be described as an elaborate nation-state level bankster Ponzi scheme. 

  

  Dollars are backed by debt, which requires infinite economic growth to service. 

  Without constant inflation to erode the debt’s value, transferring wealth from savers to the government and bankers, it all falls apart. 

  Without new borrowers to sustain current spending, it all falls apart.

  Without a petrodollar system where the USD is no longer the world reserve currency, and other countries no longer are forced at gunpoint to use dollars, it all falls apart.

  Just as a Ponzi scheme collapses when enough investors lose confidence in it, because there’s no underlying value and not enough new suckers to pay back previous waves of investors, the USD collapses under the same scenario.

  And while I see the surface-level, superficial appeal of president-elect Donald Trump’s plan to replace the income tax with tariffs, there’s (at least) one very big problem. We’re in a country that, for decades, hasn’t had a manufacturing base, making the economic viability of the plan incredibly questionable. Even if it somehow worked, it wouldn’t solve the problem of the world’s largest economies being based on glorified, state-sanctioned Ponzi schemes.

  Until we revert back to dollars that are pegged to something of real value, like gold, the scam will continue. And it’s gone on for so long that tremendous economic pain is now a prerequisite for weaning ourselves off of it. Just as a Ponzi scheme collapsing harms everyone unlucky enough to be involved, the unwinding of the petrodollar USD Ponzi will hurt every American and, indeed, people all around the world as it reels under the chaos of the realization that the dollar was hollow all along, and the line of new suckers to buy US debt has officially dried up.

  

  Total Public Debt, U.S.

  With 10-year Treasury yields rising and major pressure on interest rates to go higher, the Fed and Trump are desperate to keep them low. But at $35 trillion, our debt bomb isn’t going away, and the deficit isn’t going anywhere. A heavier interest payment burden and QE are going to blow the USD Ponzi balloon bigger and bigger, so the only question will be when it pops.

  Painful as the explosion will be, it’s unavoidable and necessary, and will only be more severe the longer the Ponzi goes on. Just as more investors get hurt, and more spectacularly so, when a Ponzi is able to grow larger, the US dollar collapse will be more painful the longer the can is kicked down the road. This reset will be an opportunity to go back to sound money, but as in the 2008 crisis, the same elites that caused it will try to exploit it as an opportunity to implement an increasingly centralized system that gives them even more control.

  Unfortunately, we’re past the event horizon for the Ponzi. Past the point of no return. No amount of economic tinkering, even of the right sort and on a big-enough scale, from Trump or anyone else, can reverse or solve the problem without a major implosion causing terrible pain across the economy. Gold is one way to protect yourself from the fallout, but when it comes crashing down, no one will be immune to the effects of such a spectacular burst.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 17:30

• Winter Storm Threat Looms Over Thanksgiving Travel Week In Mid-Atlantic & Northeast
  Winter Storm Threat Looms Over Thanksgiving Travel Week In Mid-Atlantic & Northeast

  While folks across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast are still recovering from the snow and rain storm that swept through the region late last week, another storm might impact the Interstate 95 highway network between Washington, DC, and New York City just ahead of the Thanksgiving travel holiday. 

  Private weather forecaster BAMWX wrote on X that over 100 blended weather model ensembles show a potential winter storm traversing the Mid-Alantic area into parts of the Northeast around Thanksgiving.

  “Right now a multi model probability % forecast for #thanksgiving is starting to indicate a risk for 4″ + snow Wednesday into Thursday,” BAMWX said. 

  Here at BAM our data in Clarity takes a blend of well over 100 different weather model ensembles.

  We then create probability maps to look at possible threats and the odds of them.

  Right now a multi model probability % forecast for #thanksgiving is starting to indicate a risk… pic.twitter.com/hdueFUdPuv

  — BAM Weather (BAMWX) (@bamwxcom) November 23, 2024

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

  In a separate note, FOX Weather meteorologist Cody Braud told NYPost, “There is 100% going to be a system knocking on our door, we just don’t quite know the timing yet.” 

  “I would plan for a really bad travel day Friday, because that low is likely going to be just offshore, bringing strong winds, rain, probably snow,” Braud noted.

  Trans-Siberian Express?? 

  00z EPS is “orchestrating” a Trans-Siberian Express as we head into the post Thanksgiving Day timeframe and into the 1st week of December. Early #winter weather for the East?? Haven’t seen that in awhile!! @weatherchannel @spann @JimCantore pic.twitter.com/1ML9f4zOo4

  — Tom Niziol (@TomNiziol) November 23, 2024

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

  Great news for NatGas prices.

  NatGas Hits Highest Price In Year On “Very Cold Pattern Developing” Across Lower 48 https://t.co/zxmJIbJVac

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 21, 2024

  The threat of winter weather across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coincides with AAA’s forecast that 79.9 million people will travel at least 50 miles from their homes during the Thanksgiving holiday travel period.

  “Thanksgiving is the busiest holiday for travel, and this year we’re expecting to set new records across the board, from driving to flying and cruising,” Stacey Barber, Vice President of AAA Travel, wrote in a note last week.

  

  Keep an eye on the weather models as we approach the travel holiday week.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 16:55

• Trump Plans To Use Impoundment To Cut Spending – What Is It?
  Trump Plans To Use Impoundment To Cut Spending – What Is It?

  Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  President-elect Donald Trump has said he intends to cut government spending by reasserting the presidential power of impoundment, a move certain to spark a court battle and one that could redefine presidential power for decades to come.

  

  Impoundment occurs when the president chooses not to disburse funds authorized by Congress; instead leaving them unspent in the U.S. Treasury.

  This power is not mentioned in the Constitution but has been employed by presidents since Thomas Jefferson. Congress enacted limits on the practice 50 years ago.

  Now, Trump intends to challenge the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA), which he believes is unconstitutional.

  “I will use the president’s long-recognized Impoundment Power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings,” Trump said when announcing his plan in June 2023.

  Others say the ICA was needed to prevent the misuse of impoundment to alter congressional spending priorities, not merely eliminate waste.

  Expanded use of impoundment power seems certain to be challenged in court.

  Resolution is likely to hinge on two constitutional questions that define the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.

  Jefferson appears to have been the first to use impoundment.

  In 1803 he delayed purchasing gunboats to patrol the Mississippi River because they were no longer needed after the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory from France.

  Since then, most presidents appear to have used the practice from time to time, and usually because the spending was no longer in the public interest.

  President Ulysses S. Grant used impoundment to prevent federal funds from being used on river or harbor projects that would benefit private parties rather than the public.

  President Franklin Roosevelt used it to limit spending on civilian construction projects to concentrate on wartime spending.

  President Lyndon Johnson impounded some money to reduce inflation.

  President Richard Nixon used the practice more frequently than previous executives, and his use of impoundment represented “a difference in kind, not simply in degree” from his predecessors, according to Joshua Chafetz a professor of law and politics at Georgetown University.

  Nixon’s opponents argued that he was assuming the power to do away with certain government programs by simply starving them of funds, which violated the will of Congress.

  

  His team argued that presidents have a duty to consider other factors, including inflation, when deciding if or when to release government funds.

  Congress then passed the ICA, which, in addition to reforming the congressional budgeting process, strictly limited the executive’s ability to cut or delay spending the money appropriated by Congress.

  Nixon signed the bill into law.

  The ICA stipulates that presidents must ask congressional permission to impound funds. The president can ask Congress to permit either a recision or a deferral of spending.

  A recision is a spending cut.

  When the president asks Congress to cut certain spending, he may defer that spending for up to 45 days while Congress considers the matter.

  If Congress does not grant the request, the president must release the funds.

  A deferral is a delay in spending certain funds to a later point within the current fiscal year.

  If Congress doesn’t respond to the deferral request, the president may defer the spending.

  Robert Kravchuk, professor emeritus of public policy at Indiana University told The Epoch Times: “In one case, he’d have to hear positively from Congress not to spend money, and that’s the recision.

  “In the second case, he hears nothing, then he could go through with his deferral, but he can’t defer it to the next year or the year after that.”

  

  Trump’s Challenge

  Article II of the U.S. Constitution states that the president must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

  Trump has said the ICA violates that clause because it strips the president of discretion in how best to achieve the government’s purposes.

  “The [ICA] dramatically limited impoundment, the power of the president to choose not to unnecessarily spend taxpayer dollars, forcing the executive branch to spend every penny of congressionally appropriated funds,” Trump wrote in his statement.

  A second argument in favor of impoundment is that congressional appropriations specify a maximum amount that may be spent, not a minimum.

  “Congress has the ‘power of the purse,’ so its appropriations necessarily set a ceiling on federal spending for a particular purpose, but it should not set the floor,” Trump said.

  That argument was made as early as 1876 when Secretary of War James Cameron wrote that “spending the full amount” of an appropriation “was in no way mandatory.”

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 16:20

• Viktor Orban Invites Netanyahu To Visit Hungary, Flouting ICC Arrest Warrant
  Viktor Orban Invites Netanyahu To Visit Hungary, Flouting ICC Arrest Warrant

  Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has issued formal invitation for his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu to visit his country, Orban’s office has confirmed. This follows immediately on the heels of The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing final arrest warrants for Netanyahu and ex-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for overseeing alleged war crimes in Gaza.

  “Today I will invite Israel’s prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu, for a visit to Hungary and in that invite I will guarantee him that if he comes, the ICC ruling will have no effect in Hungary, and we will not follow its contents,” Orban said Friday.

  

  Hungary currently holds the European Union’s rotating six-month presidency, and this sets Orban up once again to clash with EU consensus, given EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has demanded that all member states execute the arrest warrant if Netanyahu or Gallant travel to their territories.

  Orban on Friday told state radio that the ICC move is “wrong” and asserted that the Israeli prime minister would be able to engage in talks in Hungary “in adequate safety”.

  The NY Times further cited Orban as saying the following:

  Inviting Mr. Netanyahu to visit, he said that Hungary “will ensure your safety and freedom.”

  Mr. Orban’s vow to protect Mr. Netanyahu from arrest made Hungary the first European Union country to openly flout the I.C.C. ruling.

  Thursday’s ICC warrant issuance also got a swift response from the White House, which said it “fundamentally rejects” the move and won’t recognize it (though the US has never been a member state of the ICC).

  “Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security” President Joe Biden said in reaction, agreeing with Israel that it is “outrageous.”

  The reaction in Europe has been mixed. While all 27 member states of the EU are part of the ICC, and the majority have said they plan to enforce the ruling. However, Germany has said it is “examining” how to respond while signaling it’s unlikely to enforce it if PM Netanyahu visits the country.

  But none have been so bold as Orban in quickly issuing an open invitation for Netanyahu to visit, in direct defiance of the ICC, despite Hungary being a signatory to the Rome Statutes.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 15:45

• F-35's Cooling Crisis: Design Flaws Fuel $2 Trillion Dilemma For Pentagon
  F-35’s Cooling Crisis: Design Flaws Fuel $2 Trillion Dilemma For Pentagon

  Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times,

  The Pentagon is facing a difficult decision regarding the F-35’s chronic, crippling problems with overheating brought on by its insufficient cooling capacity.

  

  Should the U.S. taxpayers pay for a costly upgrade to the stealth fighter’s cooling that will handle its immediate needs, or should U.S. taxpayers pay for a far more expensive upgrade that theoretically could handle increased future cooling needs?

  Before we briefly address the two options facing the Pentagon, let’s look at why cooling capacity is so important for the F-35 and why the most expensive weapons system program in world history produced a plane that was destined to have inadequate cooling from the very beginning.

  Having adequate cooling is vital because a fighter’s avionics, radar, and other electronics-based systems generate heat. While air cooling is always part of the cooling solution, modern fighters cram so much heat-producing electronics into a relatively small space that air cooling alone is insufficient.

  Various types of liquid cooling are necessary, especially for power-hungry radars. This is particularly true of the F-35, which is advertised as a flying supercomputer crammed full of heat-producing computers, communications, and avionics equipment. When it comes to heat production, its powerful AN/APG-81 AESA radar leads the way.

  The bottom line is that it takes a whole bunch of electronics to produce a whole bunch of heat to give the F-35 its much-touted capabilities and make it the world’s preeminent fighter.

  Regardless of the validity of the claims to preeminence, there is zero doubt that the F-35’s designers designed a fighter that, from the outset, had insufficient cooling. This nearly intractable problem has been exacerbated as new capabilities are added, requiring more computing power and generating more heat. In particular, the group of new Block IV capabilities that we are told are necessary for the F-35 to fulfill its long overdue promise of being a dominant fifth-generation fighter will require a whole bunch more cooling.

  The underlying issue powering the cooling crisis is that the F-35 design team only designed the F-35 with 14 kilowatts (kW) of cooling power. Yet the F-35 was not declared fully operational until Block 3F capabilities were incorporated—capabilities that required roughly 32 kW of cooling and have only recently been rolled out, some 30 years after development began on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Block 3F upgrade necessitated modifying the F-35’s cooling system. It negatively impacted the longevity and reliability of the F-35’s F135 engine, which was already struggling with reliability issues.

  So why was the F-35’s cooling capacity initially so under-specced?

  The answer to this question is also the answer to most of the problems that have plagued a plane that came out of a design-by-committee process—a process that took what was supposed to be a low-cost, relatively lightweight replacement for the F-16 and the F/A-18 A and C Hornet that would complement bigger, more expensive fighters like the F-22 and the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

  Ultimately, what was supposed to be a relatively low-cost, lighter complement to large twin-engined fighters like the F-22 and F/A-18E/F became a single-engine fighter heavier than many twin-engined fighters.

  The massive weight of the F-35 meant that Pratt & Whitney had to design an engine with a far higher power-to-weight ratio than the F-22’s still cutting-edge F119 engine. It also meant that the F-35 had to undergo a draconic weight reduction program where every ounce mattered. Pratt & Whitney succeeded in getting the power by ramping up the operating temperature far beyond what had ever been done for a production fighter engine.

  Still, as time has proven, the massive increase in turbine inlet temperature to an insane 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit—900 to 1,100 degrees more than most other jet fighter engines—ensured that the engine would suffer from reliability and longevity issues. The fact that engine power is required for cooling only exacerbated the problem as power requirements for each F-35 capability upgrade added the need for more cooling, which meant the F-35 engine was subjected to more stress.

  That this would be the case had to be understood by the F-35 design team, but they also understood that without the massive increase in engine power only possible by pushing the F-35 engine operating temperature far into bleeding edge territory, the F-35 program was dead in the water and that adding any weight for anything would also seriously jeopardize the program.

  Consequently, the decision to under-spec the F-35 cooling capacity happened because incorporating enough cooling capacity into the F-35’s design to allow for reasonable growth would have added weight that would have reduced the range and payload of all the F-35 variants, but in particular, the Marine’s VTOL capable F-35 where any additional weight threatened to lower its range and payload combination below minimum acceptable performance parameters.

  If truth be told, the capabilities crammed into the F-35 would have made sense for a two-engine design. However, changing the F-35 to a twin-engine design was a no-go because it would have immediately dispelled the illusion that the F-35 was going to be a low-cost replacement for the F-16. Just as importantly, there was no twin-engine vertical and take-off landing (VTOL) F-35 design for the Marine Corps.

  So, in the end, the F-35 was released with an engine destined to be unreliable with a cooling capacity that no experienced aerospace engineer could have credibly claimed would meet future cooling needs.

  This brings us back to the question of whether it makes sense to go with an expensive short-term solution or a costly longer-term cooling solution. From a sales perspective, this is a choice of two positives that the Pentagon would like us to focus on. But before committing to the options being presented, let’s consider that the current F-35 engines are wearing out faster than promised. The engine control units that will supposedly make them reliable are not due to have their design completed until 2029.

  Also, consider that the program cost, including sustainment, is now projected to be over $2 trillion, 400 percent more in inflation-adjusted dollars than its 2007 GAO estimate. Further, as has happened so many times before, the cost estimate could grow once again.

  Finally, there is no guarantee that the desperately needed engine core upgrade from Pratt & Whitney, which is supposed to be delivered in 2029, will be delivered on time or that it will actually make the F-35 engine reliable.

  Consequently, given that the level of risk and costs for the F-35 program only seems to be growing, maybe we should think of a creative way to get our existing  F-35s flying with some reasonable level of reliability. Before building new F-35s, a carefully chosen set of hardware and software capabilities that do not require increases in power and cooling should be considered.

  Doing this would be a significant achievement!

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 15:10

• IMF Calls For Economy-Crushing Carbon Restrictions That Dwarf COVID Lockdowns
  IMF Calls For Economy-Crushing Carbon Restrictions That Dwarf COVID Lockdowns

  At the height of the covid lockdowns and mandates a massive portion of the global economy was shut down, leading to supply chain instability, huge job losses and a stagflationary crisis.  However, climate change propagandists argued that the event was actually a positive for the planet when it was revealed that emissions fell by 5.4%.  They asserted that the covid lockdowns were a practice run for what they called “climate lockdowns” – Presenting a plan for scheduled disruptions to global economic activity as a means to slow the effects of climate change.  

  Globalists also presented climate lockdowns as a kind of collective social punishment in the event that populations refused to cut carbon output on their own.  As World Economic Forum “Agenda Contributor” Mariana Mazzucato argued in 2020:

  “Under a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.

  Many think of the climate crisis as distinct from the health and economic crises caused by the pandemic. But the three crises – and their solutions – are interconnected…”

  After a public uproar over the notion of extending pandemic lockdowns into climate lockdowns, the establishment media would go on to “Fact Check” the issue and assert that it was a “conspiracy theory.”  They lied.

  

  The pandemic lockdowns would eventually be exposed as pointless; a disastrous drain on the global economy that did nothing to prevent the spread of the covid virus.  But as we witnessed with most of the restrictions instituted during covid, the goal was never to protect the health of the populace.  Rather, the goal was to acclimate the populace to an exponentially increasing list of violations of their basic freedoms.

  One organization that has a distinct interest in diminishing economic activity for the sake of preventing global warming is the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  In a recent ‘call for global climate action’ the IMF states that restrictions on economic activity and general emissions activity would have to far surpass those enforced during the pandemic in order to get to their stated temperature target of less than 1.5°C. 

  Open lockdowns of developed nations might not ultimately be the tool that globalists use to reach net zero, but carbon taxation on an oppressive scale could end up having the same effect.  Carbon taxes could act like steep interest rate increases commonly used by central banks to slow economic activity during inflation.  An indirect economic shut down of this magnitude would be absolutely devastating for western nations in particular, resulting in crippling energy shortages, food shortages, job losses, and eventually total collapse and a population plunge. 

  Net zero is not possible otherwise.

  The IMF and other globalist organizations suggest that all nations must achieve a net zero carbon goal by 2030 in order to avoid the “climate cliff” – The theory that once the Earth hits warming of more than 1.5°C, there will be a domino effect which will lead to environmental catastrophe and even more carbon emissions and warming.

  To be clear, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea of the climate cliff, primarily because there is no evidence of a causation relationship between carbon emissions and global warming.  In fact, there is no evidence that that human industry has a warming effect on the climate whatsoever.

  Temperature records for hundreds of millions of years prove that warming periods are a mainstay of the Earth’s climate history.  In comparison, our current era is one of the coldest, not the warmest.  Climate scientists ignore this data and use temperature records going back to the 1880s.  Meaning, their data is based on a mere 140 years of the Earth’s history.

  

  The current warming rate is not significant to other periods, nor is there any evidence that human activity is causing it.  Data on carbon levels of the past show that temperatures do not necessarily rise in tandem with carbon activity.  Carbon emissions are also far lower today than they have been in the past. The claim that carbon concentration due to human activity has a drastic influence on global temperatures (or weather) is absolutely unfounded.

  

  The real reason for climate controls and carbon taxes seems to have far more to do with wealth redistribution from developed nations over to developing nations.  The agenda is about centralizing the control of national wealth as well as individual liberties and private property.  And the IMF, of course, would like to be one of the institutions at the helm of that wealth management empire.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 14:35

• Market Forecasts Are Very Bullish
  Market Forecasts Are Very Bullish

  Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

  A Holiday Rally Is Likely

  Last week, we discussed the impact of the Trump Presidency on the financial markets based on expectations of tax cuts, tariffs, and deregulation. Since then, the “Trump Trade” went into full swing, pushing the markets higher; however, as we noted, that the trading had gotten a bit ahead of itself, and we saw some consolidation and profit-taking that reverted the market to the 20-DMA. Such is unsurprising given the overbought conditions with a more extreme deviation from the 50-DMA. However, the market recovered somewhat this past week, with buyers entering and reversing early morning market declines.

  Notably, after holding support at the 20-DMA for several days, the market gained some traction late in the week. That buying pressure will likely reverse the short-term MACD sell signal, allowing the market to rally further next week.

  

  That action aligns with Friday’s Daily Market Commentary, wherein we noted the market seemed to be setting itself up for a pre and post-holiday trading bump into the end of the month. To wit:

  “The good news is that we just past the normal “weak” period for the market in November. While not always the case, on average, the market trends to trade better the week before and after the Thanksgiving holiday. If that turns out to be the case again this year, a retest of recent highs at 6000 seems likely.”

  

  While the trade into month-end tends to be positive, we expect to see another patch of weakness in early December as mutual funds complete their annual distributions. However, post that weakness, the bullish bias remains into year-end as professionals window dress their portfolios for year-end reporting.

  If you are underweight equities, consider minor pullbacks and consolidations to add exposure as needed to bring portfolios to target weights. Pullbacks will likely be shallow, but being ready to deploy capital will be beneficial. Once we pass the inauguration, we can assess what policies will likely be enacted and adjust portfolios accordingly.

  While there is no reason to be bearish, this does not mean you should abandon risk management. As we will discuss this week, the market forecasts for 2025 are exceedingly optimistic.

  Market Forecasts Are Very Bullish

  It’s that time of year when Wall Street analysts begin trotting out their predictions for where the S&P 500 index will be by the end of the coming year. As is always the case, these market forecasts are ALWAYS higher, and this year is no expectation.

  Goldman Sachs and BMO have already forecasted that the market will rise to 6500 and 6700, respectively, by the end of 2025. However, one of the more interesting market forecasts came from long-time bear Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley. This past week, he matched Goldman’s forecast of 6500 as a base case with a bullish case of 7400. That is interesting because Michael Wilson has been a long-time market bear.

  

  His basis for that call was quite interesting:

  “A potential rise in corporate animal spirits post the election (as we saw following the 2016 election) could catalyze a more balanced earnings profile across the market in 2025.” 

  If you don’t understand the importance of “animal spirits,” we discussed this in detail concerning Yardeni’s recent prediction of S&P 10000 by the end of the decade:

  “The term Animal Spirits” comes from the Latin term “spiritus animals,” meaning “the breath that awakens the human mind. Its modern usage came about in John Maynard Keynes’ 1936 publication, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.” He used the term to describe the human emotions driving consumer confidence. Ultimately, the financial markets adopted the “animal spirits” to describe the psychological factors that drive investors to take action. This is why human psychology is essential in understanding the close linkage to short-term valuation measures.

  Note that this has nothing to do with underlying fundamentals; it is purely “sentiment” or “hope” that things will improve. However, as investors, we must focus on the ultimate driver of market prices over time: earnings. Three very obvious facts about earning growth currently should concern investors heading into next year.

  First, as noted in last week’s Bull Bear Report, valuations on both a forward and trailing basis are significantly elevated. While this does NOT mean the market is about to crash, it does suggest that earnings have not kept up with investor’s expectations. The problem with elevated valuations is the risk an event occurs that causes investors to realign expectations with actual reality.

  

  Secondly, earnings expectations, which support Wall Street’s market forecasts, are very optimistic.

  

  Lastly, the equity risk premium currently suggests that investors are not getting “paid” for the risk they are taking. We last saw equity risk premiums at these levels heading into the “Dot.com” bubble.

  

  Let me reiterate that none of this data suggests a market crash is imminent. However, investors should be aware that given the current market conditions, the risk of disappointment in the future is much greater today than it was just two years ago.

  The Historical Problem Of Analyst Market Forecasts

  Here is the critical question for investors: “If the market is priced based on future earnings expectations, then how reliable are those estimates?” The chart below is from Yardeni Research and shows the evolution of earnings forecasts over time. You will notice that analysts’ initial forecasts were wrong in almost every case.

  

  In other words, if you bought stocks at the beginning of virtually every analyst’s annual forecast, based on the assumption that earnings would grow, you overpaid for investments virtually every given year. However, in most cases, you make money anyway, so why worry about it?

  The reason to worry is that over-estimation eventually leads to reverting events.

  The biggest single problem with Wall Street today and in the past is the consistent disregard for the possibilities of unexpected, random events. In a 2010 study by the McKinsey Group, they found that analysts have been persistently overly optimistic for 25 years. During the 25-year time frame, Wall Street analysts pegged earnings growth at 10-12% a year when, in reality, earnings grew at 6%, which, as we have discussed in the past, is the economy’s growth rate.

  This is why using forward earnings estimates as a valuation metric is so incredibly flawed—the estimates are always overly optimistic.

  As the McKenzie study noted, on average, “analysts’ forecasts have been almost 100% too high,” which leads investors to make much more aggressive bets in the financial markets. 

  With valuations elevated, why are analysts once again pushing more optimistic forecasts?

  Why Are Analysts Always So Optimistic?

  It’s a great question.

  Wall Street is a group of highly conflicted marketing and PR firms. Companies hire Wall Street to “market” for them so that their stock prices will rise, and with executive pay tied to stock-based compensation, you can understand their desire. The chart below is from the survey conducted by WSJ researchers, showing the main factors that play into analysts’ compensation. What analysts are “paid” to do is quite different from what retail investors “think” they do.

  

  If analysts are bearish on the companies they cover, their access to information about them is cut off. This reduces fees from the company to the Wall Street firm, hurting their revenue. Furthermore, Wall Street has to have a customer to sell their products to—you.

  Talk about conflicted. Just ask yourself why Wall Street spends billions of dollars each year in marketing and advertising just to keep you invested at all times.

  Since optimism is what sells products, it is not surprising, as we head into 2025, to see Wall Street’s average expectation ratcheted up another 7.5% this year. Of course, comparing your portfolio to the market is often a mistake anyway. Unsurprisingly, earnings have grown at 7.5% over the last 70 years because the companies that make up the stock market reflect real economic growth. Stocks cannot outgrow the economy in the long term. 

  “Since 1947, earnings per share have grown at 7.7% annually, while the economy expanded by 6.40% annually. That close relationship in growth rates should be logical, particularly given the significant role that consumer spending has in the GDP equation.”

  

  This correlation is more apparent when looking at corporate profits as a percentage of GDP versus stock prices.

  

  With future earnings already being revised lower for 2025, as seen below, and corporate profitability at risk due to less government stimulus and fiscal support, the risk of current market forecasts being overly optimistic is likely elevated.

  

  The Headwinds In 2025

  The problem with current forward estimates is that several factors must exist to sustain historically high earnings growth and record corporate profitability.

  1. Economic growth must remain more robust than the average 20-year growth rate.

  2. Wage and labor growth must reverse (weaken) to sustain historically elevated profit margins.

  3. Both interest rates and inflation need to decline to support consumer spending.

  4. Trump’s planned tariffs will increase costs on some products and may not be fully offset by replacement and substitution.

  5. Reductions in Government spending, debt issuance, and the deficit subtract from corporate profitability (Kalecki Profit Equation).

  6. Slower economic growth in China, Europe, and Japan reduces demand for U.S. exports, slowing economic growth.

  7. The Federal Reserve maintaining higher interest rates and continuing to reduce its balance sheet will reduce market liquidity.

  You get the idea. While analysts are currently very optimistic about economic and earnings growth going into 2025, there are risks to those forecasts. For example, on December 7th, 2021, we wrote an article about the predictions for 2022.

  “There is one thing about Goldman Sachs that is always consistent; they are ‘bullish.’ Of course, given that the market is positive more often than negative, it ‘pays’ to be bullish when your company sells products to hungry investors. It is important to remember that Goldman Sachs was wrong when it was most important, particularly in 2000 and 2008.

  However, in keeping with its traditional bullishness, Goldman’s chief equity strategist David Kostin forecasted the S&P 500 will climb by 9% to 5100 at year-end 2022. As he notes, such will “reflect a prospective total return of 10% including dividends.”

  The problem, of course, is that the S&P 500 did NOT end the year at 5100.

  

  While analysts are currently rushing to “out-predict” the other guys, it is worth noting:

  • Markets are pushing historic levels of extreme overbought conditions,
  • 2nd highest level of valuation on record,
  • Extreme deviations from long-term growth trend lines,
  • Investor sentiment and confidence pushing extreme bullishness, and
  • Investors fully committed to the market with low levels of cash.

  In other words, after 15 straight years of a bull market advance, The “risk” of something derailing continued optimistic expectations has risen significantly.

  

  While the odds of a positive year in 2025 are more or less balanced, one should not dismiss the potential for a decline. With the current market already well advanced, pushing more extreme overvaluations, and significant deviations from long-term means, the risk of a decline is not minuscule.

  How We Are Trading It

  With this in mind, we suggest focusing on what is important to you: your specific goals, risk tolerance, and time frames, and conservatively growing your savings to outpace inflation.

  This is why we always focus on risk management. Greater returns are generated from managing “risks” rather than attempting to create returns. Although it may seem contradictory, embracing uncertainty reduces risk while denial increases it.

  Another benefit of acknowledging uncertainty is it keeps you honest.

  “A healthy respect for uncertainty and focus on probability drives you never to be satisfied with your conclusions.  It keeps you moving forward to seek out more information, to question conventional thinking and to continually refine your judgments and understanding that difference between certainty and likelihood can make all the difference.”  – Robert Rubin

  We can’t control outcomes; the most we can do is influence the probability of specific outcomes. Thus, managing risks daily and investing based on probabilities rather than possibilities is vital to capital preservation and investment success over time.

  I read most mainstream analysts’ predictions to gauge the “consensus.” This year, more so than most, the outlook for 2025 is universally, and to some degree exuberantly, bullish.

  What comes to mind is Bob Farrell’s Rule #9, which states:

  “When everyone agrees…something else is bound to happen.”

  The real economy is not supportive of asset prices at current levels. The more extended prices become the greater the potential for a future market dislocation. For investors close to or in retirement, some consideration should be given to capital preservation over chasing potential market returns.

  Will 2025 turn in another positive performance? Maybe. But, honestly, I don’t know.

  As noted last week, the stock market reflects both challenges and opportunities. Therefore, we can take action to participate if the market continues its bullish trend but hedge against the risk of something going wrong.

  1. Build a diversified portfolio and adjust based on evidence, not fear.
  2. Keep perspective,
  3. Focus on your financial goals and;
  4. Communicate with your financial advisor to remain steady amid uncertainty.

  While there is no reason to be bearish, this does not mean you should abandon risk management.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 14:00

• Chinese Defense Minister Rebuffs Austin's Request For Military Talks Over Taiwan Support
  Chinese Defense Minister Rebuffs Austin’s Request For Military Talks Over Taiwan Support

  China’s military has once again blamed Washington for the breakdown of talks, with the Chinese Defense Ministry blasting US support to Taiwan as the reason for Chinese defense chief Dong Jun rebuffing a direct request for dialogue from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin this week.

  Both leaders were in Laos for meetings with Southeast Asian officials on Thursday. “The responsibility lies fully with the American side,” said Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian.

  

  “The US side cannot undermine China’s core interests on the Taiwan issue, yet at the same time try to conduct exchanges with the [mainland] Chinese military as if nothing had happened,” the statement said.

  Wu explained that the US must “immediately correct its mistake, earnestly respect China’s core interests, and strive to create favorable conditions for high-level exchanges between the two militaries.”

  Austin’s reaction was as follows: “It’s unfortunate. It affects the region because the region really wants to see us, you know, two significant players in the region, two significant powers, talk to each other,” he told reporters.

  Just weeks ago, late last month, the Biden administration unveiled $2 billion more in approved arms sales to Taiwan, including an advanced surface-to-air missile defense system, which drew Beijing’s swift rebuke and anger.

  CNN reported earlier that the package “includes three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and related equipment valued at up to $1.16 billion, according to the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.” Radar systems were also listed, at over $800 million.

  While high level military-to-military contacts between the US and China resumed earlier this year, having been off since then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ultra provocative visit to Taiwan, the official dialogue appears on ice again.

  Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te is meanwhile planning to visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific in the opening week of December, including the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.

  He might pause in the US while on the tour, which China will watch closely. “Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day,” The Associated Press writes.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 13:25

• The Home-Based Battery Storage Fantasy
  The Home-Based Battery Storage Fantasy

  Authored by Jonathan Lesser via RealClearEnergy,

  According to a recent article published in The Conversation, installing millions of storage batteries distributed through the grid — in homes, businesses, and local communities – coupled with wind and solar generation, can avoid investments in new transmission infrastructure. But unless installing those batteries is accompanied by physically disconnecting from the grid, or consumers are willing to forgo reliable electricity, this claim is yet another example of electricity “magical thinking.”

  

  Electricity customers, both residential and industrial, need to be aware of this home-based battery storage fantasy.

  First, batteries store electricity; they don’t generate it. But the move towards electrifying the U.S. motor vehicle fleet, along with electrifying space and water heating, will double electricity consumption. Although some of the additional electricity needed may come from distributed sources such as rooftop solar, green energy advocates claim that most of the needed electricity will be generated at large-scale wind and solar facilities located far from cities and towns.

  The article also claims, “[w]e could get by with fewer transmission lines if we store more solar and wind power for later.” But delivering the additional electricity needed will require building new transmission lines, regardless of how much battery storage is installed in homes and in local communities. Moreover, local distribution systems—the poles and wires running down streets—will also have to be upgraded to handle the additional loads.

  Second, the costs of building sufficient battery capacity (to say nothing of the costs of additional wind and solar generation) to ensure homes and local communities do not suffer from extended blackouts will be prohibitive.

  The numbers tell the story.

  In the U.S., a typical residential household consumes around 10,800 kWh annually, or about 30 kWh per day. Of course, the amount varies depending on the size of home, the region of the country, and the season of the year. With electrified space and water heat, some regions of the country where electricity demand now peaks in summer will see demand peak in winter, while existing winter-peaking regions will see winter demand spike even further.

  According to a U.S. Department of Energy model, a heat pump in a typical home will consume about 5,500 kWh annually. That alone represents a 50% increase in electricity use. Charging a typical EV adds another 4,300 kWh annually. In total, those will add almost 10,000 kWh of consumption annually, roughly doubling current consumption to about 60 kWh per day, although the increase will be greatest in winter when heating loads peak.

  Supplying the additional electricity while ensuring the same level of service reliability (i.e., no extended outages or limiting consumers’ access to electricity because of insufficient supplies) will require enough battery storage to provide electricity at night and over multi-day periods when there is little wind and sun available to recharge those batteries. Although the article recommends using consumers’ EVs to supply electricity, few consumers will likely wish to wake up to an uncharged EV and an inability to travel, especially if there is no stored electricity available to recharge their EVs.

  Using the U.S. consumption averages, if existing local distribution systems can serve today’s average load of 30 kWh/day, then enough battery storage must be built to supply the remaining 30 kWh. and, more importantly, the peak power demand of electric heat pumps and EV chargers. A typical Level 2 home EV charger, for example, can draw 20 kilowatts (kW). A heat pump can draw 7 kW.

  The largest Tesla Powerwall, which is designed for home use, provides a maximum of 11.5 kW of power and 13.5 kWh of storage under ideal conditions. (When temperatures fall, so does battery capacity and efficiency.) Hence, at least three Powerwall units would be required to provide a typical home with sufficient electricity to supplement existing grid capacity. For one million homes, that means three million Powerwall units providing a maximum of 40.5 million kWh (40,500 megawatt-hours) of battery storage.

  At a cost of around $12,000 installed, that translates into a cost of $36,000 per home. The U.S. has over 80 million single-family homes and over 130 million dwelling units. Hence, 240 million Powerwall units would be required just for single-family homes, costing almost $3 trillion. By comparison, Tesla’s current manufacturing capacity is 700,000 units per year. Thus, outfitting all single-family homes with them would require almost 350 years of Powerwall production. The minerals requirements would also be staggering and would require mining billions of tons of ore for the necessary lithium, copper, cobalt, and other metals.

  In theory, an electric system could be designed to provide reliable service using wind, solar, and battery storage. However, in reality, huge investments would still be required in new transmission and distribution lines, regardless of how many storage batteries are installed. It would also be ruinously expensive.

  Ignoring physical and economic realities may be fashionable, but reality always wins in the long run. The electric grid and its components form a complex system which most of us take for granted, which enable misleading claims regarding the simplicity of electrifying everything and powering it all almost exclusively with wind, solar, and batteries. Electric utilities and planners can provide a public service by explaining why this scenario, given today’s technology, isn’t possible.

  Jonathan Lesser is a senior fellow with the National Center for Energy Analytics, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, and the president of Continental Economics.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/23/2024 – 12:50

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