Aug 25

Today’s News 25th August 2024

  • Fascism 2.0 – Globalism & The Subjects Of Interest
    Fascism 2.0 – Globalism & The Subjects Of Interest

    Authored by Paul Lancefield via Off-Guardian.org,

    This is Part 2 of Paul’s “Fascism 2.0” series, part one can be read HERE.

    In this second article in a series of three, I’m going to set the developments we have seen regarding Social Media censorship in the context of globalist power structures and suggest there is growing evidence the narrative manipulation we information consumers have been witnessing is in service to a globalist cause.

    It’s important, I think, when having this kind of a discussion, to avoid falling into the trap of talking about a conspiratorial nebulous “they” without adequately defining who “they” are because such thinking leads to imprecise and ill justified reasoning and can, quite rightly, lead to the accusation of conspiracy theory style thinking. So I will define exactly what I mean by globalism and globalists. Your own definition may differ, but this is what I mean.

    Globalists possess extreme wealth, typically in the billions, and can live anywhere in the world they choose. They have diversified international business interests, often shared with other globalists, and frequently receive invitations to events like Davos from the WEF.

    The people we are speaking of inhabit a rarified and incestuously small community. Additionally with the arrival of the Internet, Globalism has been transformed, with the opportunity for ad-hoc co-opting of the powerful greatly enhanced. As the world has shrunk, the most influential power brokers have drawn closer together, breaking down barriers of geography and physical location.

    Globalists are in the enviable position that they, unlike the common citizen, are able to leverage tax and legislative competition between countries. So for example Ireland’s GDP leapt after Ireland in 2003 quite deliberately introduced the EUs most competitive corporation tax rate (12.5%). The influx of tech businesses to Dublin brought an immense boost to the Irish economy and boosted Irish GDP to enviable levels. Globalists can pick and choose where they do business.

    Now we know who Globalists are, I’m going to provide a particular definition of Globalism distinct from the old-world brochure-wear version: The old version runs something like this: Globalism is the activity of engaging in Economic Integration, Cultural Exchange, Multilateral Cooperation, Migration and Mobility policy making and Technology and Information exchange. And it is true it does involve these things, but in my opinion, the more revealing way to view globalism is by looking at the subjects and policy areas in which Globalists show greatest interest. And those are:

    • Environment: Man-Made Global warming

    • Global Health Security (World Health)

    • Banking and International Finance

    • Central Banking Digital Currency and Digital Identity

    • Regional economic development

    • Defence (arms manufacture and supply)

    • Population and migration

    We know these interests because the WEF website and agenda over the years, has revealed them to us, over and over. Look carefully at this list. Do you notice a common thread?

    One consequence of the pandemic period was that people began to wake-up to the fact government policy can be implemented at the drop of a hat that will hand billions trillions of dollars to corporations owned by those who are already the wealthiest in the world. Through pandemic policy, the extent of the handover was so fast, so brazen, so deeply affecting of our lives, it could hardly be missed.

    According to a report by Oxfam, during the pandemic, the world’s wealthiest individuals saw their fortunes rise dramatically, with the ten richest men doubling their wealth from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion. This surge highlights a broader trend where the wealthiest 1% gained $1.4 trillion.

    Meanwhile, the world’s poor and middle classes, including small and medium-sized businesses, collectively lost around $1.3 trillion due to economic disruptions.

    Just consider the local shops people were no longer visiting during lockdown. Instead, of course, they were buying from Amazon.

    And pharmaceutical firm revenues were also a part of the redistribution. The revenues, all mandated by government, were mind boggling (even where there were no government mandates and private healthcare, the vaccines were purchased with tax money). Pfizer alone saw revenues of over $150 billion through government vaccine and other mandated pharmaceuticals purchase. And now people are increasingly aware this was off the back of the products that were always unsafe, ineffective and rushed to market.

    Text messages between EU Commission President, Ursula Von Der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, reveal in secret Von Der Leyen agreed to purchase 4.6 billion doses of the Pfizer, vaccine, or ten shots shots per man woman and child living in the EU. Ten!

    To some it has become clear, at best, it can be said that for Pfizer, safety took a second seat to a money grab of epic scale. To others, they are corporate psychopaths of the highest order. And Pfizer, we should not forget, have been subject to the second largest corporate fine – $2.3 billion – for criminal malfeasance ever paid in the pharmaceutical industry. Further during Covid, together with the CDC, Pfizer attempted to use the courts, to hide the vaccine trial data for 75 years. Re-analysis of their own trial data (only possible because they failed in their attempt to hide it) has since shown the vaccines were never safe.

    Through these recent events (and helpfully nudged along by podcasters like Joe Rogan and Russel Brand), many have begun to wake-up to how the globalist money-grab works and how it has been operating similarly, if less obviously, across a number of sectors for years.

    The common thread in these globalist topics is that each represents a vast, policy-driven market worth billions or trillions.

    In the brochure-ware version of the list, each of these subject areas involves moral imperatives. The moral imperatives dictate that the actions and policies implemented by governments around the world, are important to ease fulfilment of virtuous objectives (like preventing global warming).

    In practice, like with the vaccines during the pandemic, the value of these policy endowments to global business is so vast that the likelihood of avarice and self-interest cannot be ignored – indeed, I would argue, it becomes inevitable.

    The scale of these policy-driven markets is so vast, it’s difficult to fully grasp in a single article. The many ways in which they take money from you and me without the policies first having been produced through a clear democratic process are legion. When you start to break it down, the “scam” is so vast, it’s difficult to grasp it all. So I won’t try to do that in a single article.

    Instead I will point to one company which also ties-up an important point I want to make about the nature of globalist finance. Globalists cross-invest. When people become that wealthy, though they usually made the bulk of their money from one sector, they quickly start to diversify.

    Cash is for ad-hoc spending and is only ever a tiny fraction of asset value. Cash loses out on interest payments. Investment asset value in multi-billions is almost always represented by shares in business interests or funds, essentially less liquid financial instruments than cash.

    So almost by definition when you have billions, you have investments in many things. And what you have invested in will overlap with the investments of other globalist billionaires. Through hedging, you end up owning a little bit of pretty much everything out there that is significantly profitable, and there will be a special focus on business in those preferred policy driven sectors I listed above because, as I have indicated, the revenues there can be assured; the playing field tilted.

    The important point to understand is that as well as spreading the risk, the number of areas in which you have an interest is multiplied and, just as importantly, the number of globalist billionaires with whom you share an interest is also increased. The result is a highly diversified, ultra powerful financial unit (a cabal if you like) who hold in common to a massive degree, interest in lobbying for broadly the same policies and ensuring they are applied in the broadly the same policy-driven markets.

    And if you want a good example of kind just how diverse these investments get, you only need to look at the worlds largest fund management company, Blackrock.

    Fortunately for us, a Blackrock executive recently committed to video insight into how the system works. He didn’t mean to. It was a sting. But the video is fascinating. Additionally presidential candidate RFK Jr has also given some great video summary overviews of how the system works.

    So first, let’s examine the video of Blackrock executive Serge Varlay.

    In it we are informed, “Blackrock manages $20 trillion in asset value, it’s incomprehensible numbers. […] All of this is beyond an normal persons understanding.”

    Well I have news for Mr Varlay. No it isn’t. For many of us it stands out like a flashing red-light. But I accept it may be the case that most people are not aware of what Varlay has to say.

    “How do they run the world?” The undercover interviewer asks (who Serge seems to be under the impression is a date).

    “You acquire stuff. You diversify. You acquire, you keep acquiring. You spend whatever you make in acquiring more. And at a certain point your risk level is super low. Imagine you’ve invested in 10 different industries from food to drinks to technology. If one of them fails it doesn’t matter, you have nine others to back you up. The risk money is inherently in just about everything.

    You own a little bit of everything, and that little bit of everything gives you so much money on a yearly basis, that you can take this big f**k-ton of money, and then you can start to buy people.”

    “It’s not the president,” he says, presumably referring to who they own, though on this point weather he is talking literally or illustratively on this point is unfortunately not made clear, “it’s who is controlling the wallet of the President.”

    And on campaign financing we are told, “Yes you can buy your candidates. First there’s the Senators. These guys are f**king cheap. For $10 grand you can buy a Senator. I could give you [meaning a senator] like $500k right now, no questions asked. Are you gonna do what needs to be done?”

    The interviewer asks “Does everybody do that? Does Blackrock do that?”

    “Everybody does that. […] The hedge funds, Blackrock, the banks. These guys run the world.”

    “It doesn’t matter who wins. They are in my pocket at this point.”

    The (presumably hot) date then asks, “Do you have any thoughts on the Ukraine Russia War?”

    “Ukraine is good for business. You know that right. I’ll give an example. Russia blows up Ukraine’s grain silos. The price of wheat is going to go mad up. The Ukrainian economy is tied very largely to the global Wheat market; price of bread, you know, literally everything, goes up and down. This is fantastic if you’re trading. The volatility creates opportunity to make profit. War is real f**king good for business.”

    This last point, we should note, applies equally to all the wars waged by the West for the last 23 years (and more) and backs up the claims by presidential candidate RFK Jr that elements of the US establishment are incentivised to commit the West to a policy of assured “forever-wars” for financial gain. Remember the thread connecting the list of Globalist interests above. The revenues are policy driven. This is not a free market.

    In another online video presidential candidate RFK Jr sums up how effectively Blackrock “launder” money.

    “The entire budget for EPA is $12 billion. That’s all we have for the environment in this country. We are giving 12 times that to Ukraine in one year and that’s just the beginning because even if the Ukraine war ended today we’re still going to spend half a trillion there rebuilding the country. The contracts to rebuild the country are even bigger than the war contracts.

    So [Senator] Mitch McConnell was asked in March, because the Republicans are supposed to be concerned about budget deficit, ‘can we really afford 113 billion’ he was asked, he said ‘Don’t worry. It’s not really going to Ukraine. It’s going to US military contractors so it’s good for our country.’

    He just admitted exactly what we’ve all been saying. It’s all just a money laundering scheme by Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing and Lockheed. Who do you think owns every one of those companies?

    Blackrock.”

    These videos offer critical insights and are essential viewing for anyone seeking to understand the depth of globalist influence.

    There is so much to talk about in relation to policy driven markets and we haven’t even begun to look at climate change and the 2030 agenda which involves yet more astronomical sums (just a little on that later), but I have presented enough to establish the principle these markets afford very substantial special forms of protected revenue – and those revenues are most usually at the expense of the taxpayers and middle classes.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 23:20

  • Net Migration: Which Regions Are Gaining Or Losing People?
    Net Migration: Which Regions Are Gaining Or Losing People?

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, shows the flow of people globally by visualizing net migration by region, from 1950 to 2023 (in 10-year intervals).

    Net migration refers to the difference between the number of people entering and leaving a country or region.

    All data was sourced from the UN World Population Prospects 2024.

    Data and Highlights

    The data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below. Numbers represent net migration (# of people gained or lost) for that specific year.

    *Northern America includes the U.S., Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, and St. Pierre and Miquelon. Mexico is included in Latin America & Caribbean.

    From this data we can see that Northern America, Europe, and Oceania have regularly gained people from immigration. In other words, more people immigrated to these regions than emigrated.

    Note that Europe saw negative values in 1950, 1960, and 1970, likely due to post-war reconstruction and political instability.

    On the other hand, Latin America & Caribbean, Africa, and Asia have regularly lost people to other regions. People often leave developing regions to seek out better job opportunities and to escape political instability or war.

    For example, the number of refugees entering the U.S. has historically spiked during conflicts, with the most recent example being the Russo-Ukrainian War.

    To learn more about this topic from a U.S.-perspective, check out this map graphic that shows where America’s 46.2 million immigrants have come from.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 22:45

  • Biden Taps 'Literal Arms Dealer' For Top Israel Policy Post
    Biden Taps ‘Literal Arms Dealer’ For Top Israel Policy Post

    Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

    Peace advocates on Friday voiced alarm over the Biden administration’s selection of a senior official who has worked to speed the shipment of U.S. arms to Israel as the State Department’s point person on Israel-Palestine policy.

    HuffPost reported that Mira Resnick, the deputy assistant secretary of state for regional security in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, has been tapped to oversee Washington’s handling of issues related to Israel and Palestine. In her current role, Resnick’s office supervises around $40 billion in annual U.S. arms transfers.

    U.S. State Department official Mira Resnick speaks during an official visit to Medellín, Colombia in July 2023. State Dept.

    Using a critical nickname for U.S. President Joe Biden, journalist and podcast host Emma Vigeland said on social media Friday, “Genocide Joe’s swan song is to institutionally entrench our support for Israel and make it as difficult as possible to disentangle it, which the old fool views as romantic and righteous.”

    Over the past 10-plus months, the Biden administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel worth billions of dollars. Earlier this month, the administration greenlighted a new $20 billion arms package for Israel.

    The announcement of the package—which includes dozens of F-15 fighter jets, tens of thousands of 120mm mortar shells, over 32,700 tank shells, and 30 advanced missiles—came just days after Israeli forces used at least one U.S. bomb in an airstrike on a Gaza school where forcibly displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing more than 100 people including women and children.

    As criticism mounted over Israel’s assault and siege on Gaza—which has left a reported more than 144,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and has flattened most of the coastal enclave while stoking deadly famine and the spread of preventable diseases including polio—Resnick helped expedite the flow of U.S. arms to the key Middle Eastern ally.

    She also worked with the hardline government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan wants to arrest for alleged war crimes including “extermination,” to allow private citizens to donate equipment to the Israel Defense Forces.

    Annelle Sheline, a former State Department official who resigned earlier this year over Biden’s support for Israel amid a war for which the key ally is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice, told HuffPost that Resnick’s appointment “reflects a doubling down on the administration’s determination to continue to provide unconditional material support for Israel’s genocidal campaign against civilians in Gaza.”

    American University of Beirut history professor Zeead Yaghi decried the Biden administration’s appointment of “a literal arms dealer.”

    Last month, the Biden administration ended a two-month pause on the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel despite the frequent use of U.S.-supplied weapons by Israeli forces to commit alleged war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Biden has suspended transfers of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs manufactured by aerospace giant Boeing over fears the devastating munitions would be used in airstrikes on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

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    Israel has dropped at least hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs—which the U.S. military avoids using in civilian areas because they can destroy entire city blocks—on Gaza, including in an October 31 attack on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.

    The U.S. is by far Israel’s biggest arms supplier, providing around 70% of Israeli arms imports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 22:10

  • America Divided On The Legacy Of Slavery
    America Divided On The Legacy Of Slavery

    Divides persist between many Black and white Americans’ views on the ongoing impacts of slavery in the United States.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, according to a poll by YouGov conducted in 2023, 52 percent of U.S. respondents believe that the legacy of slavery still influences society today either a fair amount or a great deal. Along racial lines a starker contrast exists, with 78 percent of Black Americans saying the same, versus just 46 of white Americans.

    When asked more specifically about who the legacy of slavery currently affects, respondents again answered differently. 75 percent of Black respondents said all Black Americans are affected by the legacy of slavery today, while 13 percent of Black respondents said only Black Americans who are descendants of slaves. No Black respondents selected the option for no Black Americans. Of the white respondents, only 42 percent said all Black Americans are still affected, 16 percent said only Black Americans who are descendants of slaves and 20 percent selected the option for no Black Americans.

    Infographic: America Divided on the Legacy of Slavery | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    65 percent of Black Americans said that America’s wealth as a nation today is tied to slavery, while only 26 percent of white Americans held the same view. Democrats were more likely to agree that current national wealth is significantly tied to the work done in the past by slaves (50 percent) than Independents (32 percent) or Republicans (15 percent).

    YouGov then asked respondents about which systems or markets Black Americans face prejudice today. The criminal justice system (58 percent), political system (46 percent), health care system (44 percent) and housing market (44 percent) were among the options to receive the highest shares of all respondents agreeing that discrimination is currently a problem there.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 21:35

  • US Strike Eliminates Senior Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorist Leader In Syria
    US Strike Eliminates Senior Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorist Leader In Syria

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    A U.S. military drone strike has killed a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-aligned group in Syria, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in an Aug. 23 statement.

    The strike targeted Abu-‘Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, a prominent figure within the group’s Shura Council responsible for overseeing terrorist activities from Syria, per the announcement.

    Hurras al-Din is a Syria-based force aligned with al-Quaeda that shares the terror group’s objective of attacking American and Western interests, CENTCOM said.

    Al-Makki was riding a motorcycle when the precision strike hit, ending his long-standing role in the region’s jihadist networks, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

    The operation highlights the ongoing U.S. commitment to eliminating threats posed by terrorist organizations in the Middle East, particularly those aligned with al-Qaeda.

    “CENTCOM remains committed to the enduring defeat of terrorists in the CENTCOM area of responsibility who threaten the United States, its allies and partners, and regional stability,” Commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement.

    In recent weeks, U.S. forces have also engaged in multiple operations against Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. On Aug. 22 and 23, CENTCOM forces successfully destroyed several Houthi-controlled missile systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that posed a direct threat to U.S. and coalition forces, as well as commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

    These actions underscore the heightened state of alert in the region, particularly in light of growing concerns over potential Iranian attacks.

    The Pentagon recently bolstered its military presence in the Middle East, deploying additional forces in response to intelligence suggesting that Iran and its proxies might launch significant attacks on Israel and U.S. interests. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and the guided-missile submarine USS Georgia are among the reinforcements sent to the region.

    “We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks, which is why, again, we have increased our force posture and capabilities in the region, even in just the last few days,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said earlier this month.

    The deployment of additional U.S. military assets aims to deter aggression and boost defense capabilities for Israel amid escalating regional tensions. The potential for a broader conflict has increased following the assassinations of high-profile figures in the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas terrorist groups, fueling fears of a widening confrontation involving Iran.

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Aug. 22 to discuss the ongoing exchanges of fire on the Israel–Lebanon border and the escalating threat from Iran and its proxies.

    Austin emphasized that the United States is closely monitoring attack planning by Iran and its allied groups, ensuring that U.S. forces are well-positioned to defend Israel and protect American personnel and facilities across the region.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 21:00

  • Giga-Vaxxed Fauci Somehow Contracts Ultra-Rare West Nile Virus On Heels Of COVID-19 Infection
    Giga-Vaxxed Fauci Somehow Contracts Ultra-Rare West Nile Virus On Heels Of COVID-19 Infection

    Talk about bad luck!

    Former NAIAD Director Anthony Fauci – who outsourced risky COVID gain-of-function research to a shoddy Chinese lab, and was then put in charge of handling a COVID pandemic that broke out down the street from said lab – has somehow contracted the ultra-rare West Nile virus right on the heels of a nasty COVID infection.

    Fauci, 83, was hospitalized for six days and is now at home recuperating from the mosquito-borne disease, the Washington Post reports.

    “Tony Fauci has been hospitalized with a case of West Nile virus. He is now home and is recovering. A full recovery is expected,” said a spokesperson.

    According to the report, Fauci has no idea how he got West Nile – a mosquito-borne illness that can cause fever, body aches, diarrhea and rash – and for which there is no vaccine or treatment.

    Amazingly, there have been just 216 human cases of West Nile reported across 33 states so far this year, according to the CDC. Last year, 1,800 people were sent to the hospital with West Nile, which killed 182 people.

    Earlier this month, the 83-year-old revealed that he caught COVID for a third time despite having been “vaccinated and boosted six times.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsSo in late September / early August, Fauci catches COVID. Then he somehow catches the ultra-rare West Nile virus and is hospitalized. What are the odds?

    In 2021, Fauci famously said “If you get vaccinated, you are protected,” and “When people get vaccinated, they can feel safe that they are not gonna get infected.”

    What are the chances a guy who’s clearly comfortable lying… is lying again?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 20:25

  • Media Claims Elon Musk Is A Threat To Democracy… But Is “Democracy” Even Worth Saving?
    Media Claims Elon Musk Is A Threat To Democracy… But Is “Democracy” Even Worth Saving?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

    There is perhaps nothing more tiresome and embarrassing as the theatrical pearl clutching of leftist media propaganda. For three years the public had to deal with the incessant drone of media fear mongering over the covid pandemic, an event which turned out to be a nothing-burger that 99.8% of the population on average would easily survive. After the 2020 elections we have been inundated with narratives about how conservatives are a “threat to democracy” – A democracy which progressives don’t even believe in as the recent DNC coup against Joe Biden proves.

    The latest evolution of the democracy narrative is that free speech (and probably Russia) is the root evil behind civil unrest in western countries. The notion of thought crime is making its way to the forefront of the establishment tool box and this suggests we are entering the next stage of authoritarianism – Open criminalization of speech.

    The Guardian in the UK is fully onboard with this development. The media outlet is on the warpath against Elon Musk and X (formerly known as Twitter) after Musk defied European and UK officials and their demands for censorship. In an article titled ‘Inciting Rioters In Britain Was A Test Run For Elon Musk. Just See What He Plans For America’, the platform launches into a tirade of delusional progressive talking points, a word salad designed to distract from the reality that what they are actually calling for is the death of free speech.

    The Guardian argues:

    “…Back in the golden days of 2020, tech platforms, still reeling from a public backlash, had at least to look as if they gave a shit. Twitter employed 4,000-plus people in “trust and safety”, tasked with getting dangerous content off its platform and sniffing out foreign influence operations.”

    “In Britain, the canary has sung. This summer we have witnessed something new and unprecedented. The billionaire owner of a tech platform publicly confronting an elected leader and using his platform to undermine his authority and incite violence. Britain’s 2024 summer riots were Elon Musk’s trial balloon…”

    “The presidential election is three months away. What if the billionaire contests the result? What if he decides democracy is overrated…?”

    “…What Musk – the new self-appointed Lord of Misrule – has done is to rip off the mask. He’s shown that you don’t even have to pretend to care. In Musk’s world, trust is mistrust and safety is censorship. His goal is chaos. And it’s coming.”

    The most important question that The Guardian and their leftist ilk never address is this: If a democracy relies on mass censorship and thought crime policies in order to function, if it relies on “protecting” the public from unfortunate truths, then is it really worth saving?

    I and millions of other would argue no – It’s not worth saving. That “democracy” is broken and corrupt and should be wiped from the face of the Earth before it destroys the very culture it claims to protect.

    The political left continues to prove it is emotionally stunted and frantic, relying on lies and self-induced terror to drive its base of supporters forward on the path the gatekeepers (globalists) prefer. If you’ve ever tried to reason with a screaming toddler hellbent on getting what it wants, then you know what it’s like trying to reason with leftists.

    The hyper-emotion of the left is an easy lever for the elites to manipulate, and it’s not relegated to the US. We’ve seen the same trend in Europe and the UK. There’s an accelerating panic in Britain as the working class public (most of them patriots) protested in large numbers across the nation against open borders. Almost 70% of the UK populace is against current policies on mass immigration, specifically from the third-world. The Brexit vote was based primarily on the UK public’s opposition to the forced mass immigration agenda of the EU.

    Yet, the self-described “defenders” of democracy have no interest in the public voice. They only care about majority concerns if those concerns run parallel to their agenda.

    This refusal to take public concerns on third-world migrants seriously, combined with the ongoing two-tier policing system which seeks to hide migrant crime statistics, has led directly to the protests and riots we have seen this past month. Let’s be clear: It’s government officials in the UK that are to blame for the violence. They are the culprits.

    The same goes for the riots of January 6th, an event which started out peaceful and was then triggered to react violently after Capitol police began shooting the crowd with rubber bullets and throwing tear gas grenades into their midst. You can only poke the bear for so long before the bear wakes up and claws your face off.

    Of course, when the bear does attack, play the victim and be sure not to tell anyone how you provoked it. It’s the kind of gaslighting conservatives and patriots have been dealing with for the duration and the latest events in the UK suggest it’s not going to end anytime soon.

    The Guardian is, in a way, testing the waters of totalitarianism by moving away from the old-school rationale of the “greater good.” They touch on it briefly, but their core argument here is that the system is sacrosanct no matter how corrupt it might be. Those in power and their policies cannot be criticized or protested because, well, they are the elites and we just have to trust that they know what’s best for us.

    If we interfere with them in any way, collapse will befall us and chaos will reign supreme. And we don’t want that, now, do we?

    Maybe we do. Maybe it’s time for the system as it stands today to go down. Maybe we should stop allowing the beneficiaries of the two-tiers system to hide behind the thin veneer of democracy. After all, their version of democracy is simply incremental tyranny. They’ve proven this is the end game in the UK (in case anyone had previous doubts).

    At bottom, it’s not the job of Big Tech conglomerates or government officials to police public speech. Their positions are entirely predicated on their ability to serve the public interest and this includes ALL of the public, not just progressives. From what I have seen so far, Elon Musk’s defiance is a natural reaction to incompatible government. Musk is a symptom of a greater movement, not the cause.

    The gatekeepers want to make it all about one man, or a handful of men. They want you to focus on Musk, or Trump, because they don’t want to admit the truth: That the real threat they want to neutralize is YOU, along with millions of other conservatives and independents. You are the great danger to their agenda.

    If a specific political leadership is not able to offer a good argument as to why they should exist, then maybe they shouldn’t. If a system needs to be replaced, then it will be and there’s nothing that progressive hand-wringers and globalists from Davos can do about it. They are not necessary. They are not the future. They are only holding us back.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 19:50

  • Billionaire Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Arrested In France
    Billionaire Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Arrested In France

    Pavel Durov, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram was arrested at the Bourget airport outside of Paris Saturday evening, according to TF1 TV, citing an unnamed source.

    According to the report, Durov, 39, was traveling aboard his private jet after arriving from Azerbaijan, which triggered a French search warrant issued by the OFMIN of the French judicial police due to his inclusion in a wanted persons file (FPR).

    Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging – and allows users to set up “channels” to disseminate information quickly to followers.

    “He made a blunder this evening. We don’t know why … Was this flight just a stopover? In any case, he’s in custody!” a source close to the investigation told the news outlet (translated by Google).

    Durav was detained by the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF), over the alleged facilitation of various crimes including terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and fraud.

    “On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of offences and crimes to be committed, for which he did nothing to moderate or cooperate,” a source told TF1 TV.

    The arrest was characterized by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom as part of the “crackdown against free speech.”

    Dotcom recommends that people “Backup and clean your Telegram account while you still can.”

    The Russian-born Durov notably left Russia in 2014 after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has since sold. He now lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based, and holds dual citizenship in France and the UAE.

    Durov, whose net worth is estimated at $15.5 billion, has said that some governments had sought to pressure him, but that the Telegram app – which has 900 million active users, should remain a “neutral platform,” and not a “player in geopolitics.” Durov and his brother founded Telegram in 2013.

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    According to The Guardian, the Russian embassy in France is taking “immediate steps” to clarify the situation.

    He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 19:15

  • The Permanent Temptation Of All Governments
    The Permanent Temptation Of All Governments

    Authored by Alex Pollock via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    In We Need to Talk About Inflation, his thoughtful, accessible tour of the history, theories, politics and future of inflation, Stephen King warns us that:

    “Inflation is never dead.”  

    He is right about that, and that blunt reminder alone justifies the book. 

    The book begins, “In 2021, inflation emerged from a multi-decade hibernation.” Well, inflation had not really been in hibernation, but rather was continuing at a rate which had become considered acceptable. It was worry about inflation that had been hibernating. People found themselves caught up in the runaway inflation of 2021-2023, a wake-up call. As the book explores at length, that explosive inflation had been unexpected by the central banks, including the Federal Reserve, making their forecasts and assurances look particularly bad and proving once again that their knowledge of the future is as poor as everybody else’s. 

    Now, in the third quarter of 2024, after historically fast hikes in interest rates, the current rate of inflation is less. But average prices continue going up, so the dollar’s purchasing power, lost to that runaway inflation, is gone forever. Inflation continues and has continued to exceed the Fed’s 2-percent “target” rate. And the Fed’s target itself is odd: it promises to create inflation forever. The math of 2-percent compound shrinkage demonstrates that the Fed wants to depreciate the dollar’s purchasing power by 80 percent in each average lifetime. Somehow the Fed never mentions this. 

    King shows us that such long-term disappearance of purchasing power has happened historically. Chapter 2, “A History of Inflation, Money and Ideas,” has a good discussion, starting with the debate between John Locke and Isaac Newton, of the history, variations and continuing relevance of the quantity theory of money. It also contains an instructive table of the value of the British pound by century from 1300 to 2000. The champion century for depreciation of the pound was the twentieth. The pound began as the dominant global currency and ended it as an also-ran, while one pound of 1900 had shriveled in value to two pence by 2000. The century included the Great Inflation of the 1970s, during which British Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced, the book relates, that “he hoped to bring inflation down to 10 percent by the end of 1975 and under 10 percent by the end of 1976.” His hopes were disappointed, as King sardonically reports: “The actual numbers turned out to be, respectively, 24.9 percent and 15.1 percent.”

    These inflationary times need to be remembered, as should numerous hyperinflations. Best known is the German hyperinflation of 1921-23, the memory of which gave rise to the famous anti-inflationist regime of the old Bundesbank. (It was once wittily said that “Not all Germans believe in God, but they all believe in the Bundesbank” — however, this does not apply to its successor, the European Central Bank.) King also recounts that the effects of the First World War gave rise to three other big 1920s hyperinflations — in Austria, Hungary and Poland, and that “inflation in the fledging Soviet Union appears to have been stratospheric.” He discusses the 1940s hyperinflation in China, and how in the 1980s “Brazil and other Latin American economies…succumbed to hyperinflation, currency collapse and, eventually, default.” We must add the inflationary disasters of Argentina and Zimbabwe.  

    All these destructive events resulted from the actions of governments and their central banks. The book considers the theory of how to put a stop to this problem that Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Sargent made in 1982. First and foremost, as described by King, it is “the creation of an independent central bank ‘legally committed to refuse the government’s demand for additional unsecured credit’ — in other words, there was to be no deficit financing via the printing of money.” Good idea, but how likely is this suggested scene in real life? The central bank says to the government, “Sorry about your request, but we’re not buying a penny of your debt with money we create. Of course, we could do it, but we won’t, so cut your expenses. Good luck!” Probably not a winning career move for a politically appointed central banker, and not a very likely response, we’ll all agree. 

    Moreover, in time of war or other national emergency, the likelihood of this response is zero. War is the greatest source of money printing and inflation. War and central banking go way back together: the Bank of England was created in 1694 to finance King William’s wars, was a key prop of Great Britain’s subsequent imperial career, and in 1914, fraudulently supported the first bond issue of the war by His Majesty’s Treasury.i The Federal Reserve was the willing servant of the U.S. Treasury in both world wars and would be again, whenever needed. In the massive war-like government deficit financing of the 2020-2021 Covid crisis, the Fed cooperatively bought trillions in Treasury debt to finance the costs of governments’ closing down large segments of the economy. 

    Reflecting on the enduring temptation of governments to inflate and depreciate their currencies, King rightly observes: 

    • “Inflation is very much a political process.”  

    • “Left to their own devices, governments cannot help but be tempted by inflation.” 

    • “Governments can and will resort to inflation.” 

    • “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” (Here he is quoting J.M. Keynes.) 

    Just as economics is always political economics and finance is always political finance, central banking cannot avoid being political central banking. The book considers at length the inevitable interaction between government spending and debt, on one hand, and money creation and inflation, on the other—in economics lingo, between fiscal policy and monetary policy. In theory, there can be a firm barrier between them, the spending and taxing done in the legislative and executive branches; and the money printing, or not, in the control of the central bank. In practice, the two keep meeting and being intertwined. King calls this the “Burton-Taylor” problem. Here is his metaphor: 

    “History offers countless examples in which fiscal expediency trumps monetary stability. The two big macroeconomic levers are the economic equivalent of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the Hollywood stars who were married twice [and divorced twice] and who were, perhaps still in love when Burton died: occasionally separated but always destined to reconnect.”  

    Indeed, governments’ desire for deficit spending and the ready tool of money printing and inflation are always destined to reconnect.  

    This reflects the fundamental dilemma of all politicians: they naturally want to spend more money than they’ve got to carry out their schemes, including wars. As the book observes, “Wartime provides the ultimate proof of inflation’s useful role as a hidden tax.” Politicians want to keep their perhaps lavish promises to their constituencies, to reward their friends, to enhance their power, to get re-elected; they like much less making people unhappy by taxing them. The simple answer in every short term, is to borrow to finance the deficit and run up the government’s debt. When borrowing grows expensive or becomes unavailable, the idea of just printing up the money inevitably arises, the central bank is called upon, and yet another Burton-Taylor marriage occurs.  

    Just printing up the desired money is a very old idea. As the book discusses, this frequently practiced, often disastrous old idea has been promoted anew—now under the silly name of “Modern” Monetary Theory. 

    King writes: 

    “The printing press is a temptation [I would say an inevitable temptation] precisely because it is an alternative to tax increases or spending cuts, a stealthy way in the short run of robbing people of their savings…. Ultimately, there is no escaping ‘Burton-Taylor.’” 

    When governments and central banks yield to this temptation, can the central banks correctly anticipate the inflationary outcomes? Do they have the required superior knowledge? Clearly the answer is no. 

    Chapter 6 of the book, “Four Inflationary Tests,” provides an instructive example of failed Bank of England inflation forecasts, to which I have added the actual outcomes, with the following resultsii: 

    To apply an American metaphor to these British results, that is four strikeouts in a row. The inflation forecasting record of the Federal Reserve presents similar failures. 

    Central banks try hard, including their large political and public relations efforts, to build up their credibility. They want to preside over a monetary system in which everybody believes in them. 

    But suppose that everybody, including the members of Congress, instead of believing, developed a realistic understanding of central banks’ essential and unavoidable limitations. Suppose everybody simply assumed it is impossible for central banks to know the future or the future results of their own actions. Suppose, as King puts it, the whole society had “a new rule of thumb… ‘these central bankers don’t know what they’re doing.’” Rational expectations would then reflect this assumption. 

    In that case, central banks would certainly be less prestigious. Would our overall monetary system be improved? I believe it would be. We Need to Talk About Inflation, among many other interesting ideas, encourages us to imagine such a scenario. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 18:40

  • RFK Jr. & Trump Will End War On Small Farms To Save Nation's Food Supply Chain
    RFK Jr. & Trump Will End War On Small Farms To Save Nation’s Food Supply Chain

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades as an environmental lawyer fighting polluters and supported ‘green’ organizations for environmental justice. He is now setting his crosshairs on the pharmaceutical industry and cleaning up the nation’s food supply chain of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that poison consumers. He has determined that suspending his presidential campaign to team up with former President Trump will be necessary for the strongest success rate in making Americans healthier again, not through big pharma’s Ozempic shots but instead revitalizing small farms and shaking up corrupted federal agencies.

    Lifelong liberals like RFK Jr. backing Trump is one of the strongest indicators of just how extreme the ticket, unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats have become. Harris’ team recently announced their first proposed economic policy, which was rooted in communism and included disastrous price controls. It appears the far-left ticket is being advised and heavily influenced by Marxists. 

    Between RFK Jr’s special announcement earlier Friday and his speech at Trump’s packed campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, the liberal with millions of supporters nationwide appears to have made a deal with Trump to join the campaign with a shot at waging war against corrupt federal health and food agencies, resetting the nation’s poisonous food supply chain, and launch a crusade against big pharma if the Trump team wins in November. 

    RFK Jr. informed journalists at his special press conference in the early afternoon of Friday that America’s health crisis stems from ultra-processed foods pushed by giant food/pharma companies that have corrupted various federal agencies: 

    Autism rates were about one in 10,000 in my generation – in my kids Generation 1 in 34. I’ll repeat in California 1 and 22. Why are we letting this happen? Why are we allowing this to happen to our children? These are the most precious assets that we have in this country how can we let this happen to them.

    About 18% of American teens now have fatty liver disease, that’s like one out of every five – that disease when I was a kid only affected late stage alcoholics who were elderly.

    Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the Young and the old young. Adult cancers are up 70 79%. One in four American women is on anti-depressant medication. About 40% of teens have a mental health diagnosis and 15% of high schoolers are on Aderall, and half a million children on SSRIs.

    So what’s causing this suffering? I’ll name two culprits first and the worst is ultra-processed food. About 70% of American children’s diet is ultra-processed that means industrial manufacturing – these Foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains, and seed oils.

    Scientists who, for many of them, formerly worked for the cigarette industry, which purchased all the big food companies in the 1970s and 80s, deployed thousands of scientists to figure out chemicals new chemicals to make the food more addictive, and these ingredients didn’t exist a 100 years ago. Humans aren’t biologically adapted to eat them. Hundreds of these chemicals are now banned in Europe but ubiquitous in American processed foods.

    The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food and our medicine and our environment pesticides food additives pharmaceutical drugs and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The Assault on our children’s cells and hormones is unrelenting – name just one problem many of these chemicals increase estrogen – because young children are ingesting so many of these hormone disruptors, America’s puberty rate is now occurring at age 10 to 13, which is six years earlier than girls were reaching puberty in 1900 our country has the earliest puberty rates of any continent on the Earth and no this isn’t because of better nutrition – this is not normal – breast cancer is also estrogen-driven and it now strikes one in eight women. We are mass poisoning all of our children. 

    RFK Jr. then touched on the processed food industry lobbyists who have corrupted Washington, resulting in a food supply chain filled with poison that is killing Americans. He said several federal agencies that are supposed to protect consumers have also been corrupted. 

    He pointed out that the processed food industry has been “destroying small farms, and they’re destroying our soils.” 

    And RFK Jr. at Trump’s campaign rally… 

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    RFK Jr. is entirely correct about the war on small farms. More than ever, the corrupt government and the processed food industry have contributed to the more recent small farm collapse. 

    Taking a step back, in the 1800s, about 90% of the US population lived on farms. It was unheard of to see morbidly obese folks back then. Small farm owners began to decline as folks moved to towns and cities. Small farms have now collapsed to less than one percent of the US population. And the billionaire class like Bill Gates, who wants to ban cow farts, has been buying up small farms nationwide in a massive consolidation move. 

    In the US, small farms accounted for less than 25% of food production in 2020, down from nearly half in the 1990s. We have detailed the government’s war on small farms in numerous reports, including the war on Amish farmers in Pennsylvania.

    The change of guard in farming across America and who controls the food supply chain has morphed from the people to the processed food industry. As mega-factory farms rise in power, inversely, small farms have been burdened by high operation costs and climate regulation – a stealthily way of bankrupting the small competition. 

    Unlike factory farms, small farms are deeply rooted in communities. They are more likely to feed their neighbors and provide real, nutritious food rather than have their produce end up in a Walmart store halfway across the country. The latest data from the USDA shows the massive farm collapse across America over the last century.

    Mega corporations, some of which are part of the ‘green’ cult, want greater and greater control over the nation’s food supply chain. Some are even pushing insect-based diets.

    The big takeaway from RFK Jr.’s support of Trump is that he believes the correct path to restoring America’s health is not Ozempic shots but revitalizing the nation’s local food supply chains by making small farms great again. He wants to reset the food supply chain system and purge it of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that are killing consumers. He also proposed shaking up federal agencies in health and food that have close ties with ultra-processed food companies. 

    For years, we have told readers that it’s critical to support local farmers and put the food supply chain back into the hands of the people—not corrupt mega-corps that flood store shelves with cancer-causing junk food.

    Henry Kissinger famously said, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

    It’s time for Americans to regain control of the nation’s food supply chains by making small farms great again. Also, boycotting the processed food industry and buying local food is critical.

    If Trump wins, RFK Jr. will likely provide tailwinds for small farmers. And Europe will take note as corp/gov’ts have also waged war on small farms. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 18:05

  • Beheaded During BLM Riots, Washington Monument At GWU Vandalized By Pro-Palestinian Protesters
    Beheaded During BLM Riots, Washington Monument At GWU Vandalized By Pro-Palestinian Protesters

    Authored by Jennifer Kabbany via The College Fix,

    One bust of President George Washington inside the nation’s capitol just can’t catch a break.

    The monument at George Washington University was beheaded during the height of the Black Lives Matter riots in June 2020.

    The university finally had it fixed by the summer of 2022.

    Now the private institution is going to have to send its custodial crew back out there.

    On Wednesday the monument was hit with graffiti stating “disclose divest now” in red spray paint. It was one of several places peppered with such vandalism, according to images posted by pro-Palestinian social media accounts.

    The vandalism came as the pro-Palestinian protesters kicked off the first day of school with aggressive protests — this despite the fact that GWU suspended both Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace for the fall semester in an attempt to rein in the chaos.

    “Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside University President Ellen Granberg’s on-campus house and the barricades surrounding University Yard on the first day of the fall semester to underscore ongoing demands that GW discloses its finances and divests from Israel,” the GW Hatchet student newspaper reported.

    The demonstrators also tried to get back into the fenced-off GW University Yard: “Police are on the scene, but students seem adamant. This was the location of their encampment, ‘Shohada Square,’” reported citizen journalist Stu Studio.

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    The Student Coalition for Palestine at GWU posted on Instagram on Thursday about the vandalism:

    Last night, autonomous protestors sent a message to Provost Christopher Alan Bracey at his home, spray painting the message amplified and repeated by students, faculty, and the people of this city onto Bracey’s very own driveway: “DISCLOSE DIVEST NOW!” During the encampment earlier this spring, Provost Bracey himself violently assaulted two students. A statue of George Washington on campus was also branded with the same demand.

    Let this be a message to Bracey and every administrator at this University. We will never falter from our demands. This administration has the blood of 186,000 Palestinians on their hands. The burn of pepper spray, the bruises of police brutality, and the mark of handcuffs and zipties on our comrades are forever seared into our memory and consciousness. Your crimes will follow you wherever you go. You will be confronted in your events, in your offices, at your homes. Every step you take we will be there to hold you accountable.

    This week’s uproar at GWU comes a few months after a pro-Palestinian GWU student tribunal called for campus leaders to be beheaded on guillotines. Protests got so bad in the spring semester GWU administrators called on help from the metro police.

    A memo from University President Ellen Granberg stated at the time that all of the university’s efforts to end the encampment and deter protesters from escalation failed.

    Granberg’s memo stated in part that “when protesters overrun barriers established to protect the community, vandalize a university statue and flag, surround and intimidate GW students with antisemitic images and hateful rhetoric, chase people out of a public yard based on their perceived beliefs, and ignore, degrade, and push GW Police Officers and university maintenance staff, the protest ceases to be peaceful or productive. All of these things have happened at GW in the last five days.”

    As GWU Professors Jonthan  Turley writes, the continued vandalism on our campus is often defended as free speech. It is not.

    As he discussed in his book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” there is a difference between conduct and speech. I have defended the right of pro-Palestinian groups to protest on campus. However, occupying buildings or trashing property is criminal conduct that should be sanctioned or prosecuted. The problem is that the few charges brought against such actors were largely dropped.

    As students return, protests are again ramping up around our campus and other schools.

    As for George, the monument will have to be, again, restored. It is all being heralded as “a message to Bracey and every administrator at this University.”

    The question is whether officials will be equally clear and consistent in their own message that threats, property damage, and other offenses will not be tolerated on our campuses.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 17:30

  • Visualizing $5 Trillion In Global Commodity Exports, By Sector
    Visualizing $5 Trillion In Global Commodity Exports, By Sector

    This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, categorizes over $5 trillion in global commodity exports by sector and the value of material exported.

    Data was averaged between 2019–2021 to represent an annual estimate. Source figures can be found at The State of Commodity Dependence 2023 published by UN Trade & Development.

    Commodity Exports with the Highest Value

    Oil and its products account for 30% of global commodity exports on average, valued at $1.5 trillion annually.

    Figures rounded.

    When including natural gas, electricity, and coal exports, the energy sector contributes 40% to the value of global commodity export per year ($2 trillion). Agricultural exports ($1.9 trillion) rank second and are higher in value than mineral exports ($1.4 trillion).

    Within agriculture, crops and forestry has the lion’s share of value at $1.2 trillion. This category includes everything from wheat to wood exports.

    Meanwhile, the minerals sector is more equally divided between base metal exports (like copper, iron, and aluminum) and precious metals and stones (gold, silver, diamonds).

    Not pictured in this graphic is how international the commodity trade tends to concentrate in just a few countries on the exports side. For example, one-fourth of all copper produced in 2023 came from Chile.

    The flip side of this means some of these major resource exporters have a significant amount of commodity dependence. And relatedly, many of them are low or middle income countries. When international prices for the commodity exported decline, the likelihood of financial crises and reduced public spending increases, further entrenching economic challenges in these regions.

    Oil’s export value closely mirrors its consumption as a primary energy source. Check out “What Powered the World in 2023?” to see the world’s energy mix.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 16:55

  • Illegal Immigration Lull At Southwest Border Likely Temporary; Experts Say
    Illegal Immigration Lull At Southwest Border Likely Temporary; Experts Say

    Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

    The number of immigrants illegally entering the United States is down at least temporarily because of deals cut with the United States’ southern neighbors and other measures, according to experts, but the crisis is far from over.

    U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) numbers showed 205,000 illegal immigrant encounters in June, slightly lower than the 208,000 in June of 2021 after President Joe Biden took office.

    The Biden administration has taken credit for the recent drop, attributing it to new asylum rules limiting the number of people allowed to cross illegally into the country and through the CBP One app, which enables migrants to make appointments with Border Patrol to enter the United States.

    Other factors limiting the number of illegal migrants crossing the border include deals with Mexico and Panama.

    In December 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, seeking help with decreasing illegal immigration.

    This summer, the Biden administration promised to help pay for Panama’s efforts to repatriate hundreds of thousands of migrants headed to the United States via the Darien Gap, one of the most treacherous migration routes.

    Biden’s efforts came after millions of people from more than 150 countries crossed the U.S. southern border illegally last year, drawing intense media attention with the 2024 election on the horizon.

    Even with help from southern neighbors and a new executive order in place, illegal immigrant encounters stand at 2.4 million through June so far this fiscal year—likely to outpace the 2022 total of 2.8 million.

    Last year, a record 3.2 million illegal immigrants entered the United States. More than 10 million migrants have crossed into the country unlawfully since Biden reversed Trump administration policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” under which asylum seekers waited until their asylum claim could be heard.

    The arrangement between the Biden administration and Mexico triggered a crackdown on migrants headed to the U.S. southern border. Mexican officials have rounded up tens of thousands of migrants, busing them to the southern cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula.

    Honduran girl Dareli Matamoros holds a sign asking President Joe Biden to let her in during a migrant demonstration at San Ysidro crossing port in Tijuana, Mexico, on March 2, 2021. Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

    Some U.S.-bound migrants in Mexico reported being sent back to southern Mexico as many as six times, causing them to run out of money and become stuck at least temporarily.

    That’s significant, because the CPB One app currently doesn’t work south of Mexico City, meaning migrants must start their journey all over again or remain stranded in southern Mexico.

    The Biden administration announced that the app will begin to work throughout Mexico, including in the southern region, on Aug. 23, which is likely to increase traffic again.

    The app allows migrants on their way to illegally cross the U.S. southern border to set up an appointment with border patrol at ports of entry. The immigrants are processed at ports of entry in Arizona, Texas, and California and released into the country to await asylum hearings.

    The House Committee on Homeland Security, after reviewing documents provided by DHS, contend that the CBP One app is being abused, because almost 96 percent of noncitizens using it are unlawfully released into the country.

    Panamanian President-elect José Raúl Mulino visits the Reception Center for Migrant Care in Lajas Blancas, in the jungle province of Darién, Panama, on June 28, 2024. Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

    Many illegal immigrants’ asylum claims are ultimately rejected because they came for economic reasons, instead of fearing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

    In 2021, one study by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse showed that less than 30 percent of illegal immigrants who applied for asylum qualified for it.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration in 2023 over the CBP One app, claiming that the administration used rulemaking to circumvent immigration laws made by Congress.

    “Federal law makes clear that those entering the country illegally should be expelled from the United States, except in very rare circumstances,“ Paxton said in a statement.

    ”However, the Biden border app does not and cannot verify that an illegal immigrant would qualify for an exception, which would prevent them from being deported.”

    Todd Bensman is the senior national security fellow at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies think tank, and he spoke to The Epoch Times on Aug. 13 from Panama, where he assessed the number of migrants coming through the Darien Gap.

    Traffic was down substantially, he said, but some migrants he spoke with on the Colombia side of the jungle passage seemed to be in a holding pattern, waiting to see whether others were making it through.

    “There’s a lull right now for sure, a decisive lull in Darien,” he said.

    Fabiola Suarez from Venezuela rests at Bajo Chiquito in the Darien Gap after a 3-day trek from Colombia on Feb. 18, 2024. She said her destination is Denver, where her husband is waiting. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

    Venezuelans, who make up the most significant number of migrants trekking through the dangerous route into Panama, may be waiting to see what happens in the wake of their country’s contested presidential election, he said.

    President Nicolás Maduro has refused to step down after the opposition party running against the de facto dictator claimed victory in the July 28 election. The United States has refused to recognize Maduro’s claim that he won.

    Maduro’s forces have rounded up more than 2,000 dissidents who demonstrated or cast doubt on his having won a third term despite evidence showing that he lost by more than two to one.

    Bensman predicted that traffic would stay low for the next couple of months as migrants weigh the situation.

    “The migrants are definitely nervous about what the Panamanians said out loud that they were going to do and the fact that some barbed wire went up on some of the trails,” he said.

    “But I think that’s temporary because the Panamanians are really kind of still letting everybody in.”

    Bensman said Panama is deporting about 50 to 100 migrants with criminal records out of the country each week by plane.

    A Venezuelan family treks from Bajo Chiquito to Lajas Blancas on Feb. 18, 2024. The woman, who was limping as she walked, said her knee gave out. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

    Panamanian officials who spoke with him said American personnel aren’t helping with the operation, he added. And the Biden administration has yet to provide funds to pay for repatriation flights for immigrants as promised.

    Mayorkas, who attended Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino’s July 1 inauguration, signed a memorandum of understanding to provide financial assistance to Panama for illegal immigrant repatriation flights out of the country.

    Bensman said he believes Mexico’s actions of rounding up migrants near the U.S. border and busing them back south has made the most difference in the number of migrants attempting to illegally cross the United States’ southwest border.

    Meanwhile, immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) have been quietly flown into the United States under a Biden administration mass parole program that was recently suspended over fraud concerns.

    Up to 30,000 CHNV nationals per month were allowed into the United States under the administration’s use of parole, enabling most to stay up to two years and receive work permits.

    The illegal immigrants needed a sponsor and to purchase their own airplane tickets to qualify for the program.

    Miami received the bulk of flights of those entering under mass parole, according to CBP statistics.

    Border Patrol numbers filtered for those CHNV nationalities arriving at the Miami airport for fiscal year 2023 through June 2024 total almost 335,000, with all interior ports totaling more than half a million, according to CBP statistics.

    Mexican federal military troops check the identification of people on the bank of the Rio Grande across from the United States, in Piedras Negras Mexico, on April 21, 2022. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

    The pause in the CHNV program came after an internal report by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services found fraudulent information in thousands of application forms filed by sponsors. The Federation for American Immigration Reform obtained the report.

    Internal government documents showed that the same Social Security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers were used hundreds of times in some cases. Also, 100,948 forms were filled out by 3,218 serial sponsors, meaning sponsors whose numbers appeared on 20 or more forms.

    Documents showed that 24 of the 1,000 most used sponsor Social Security numbers belonged to people who were deceased. Also, 100 physical addresses were used between 124 and 739 times on more than 19,000 forms.

    Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) called mass parole an “unlawful” program that obscured the problem of an overrun border.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 16:20

  • New York To Pay $155 Per Megawatt Hour For Wind-Power, Current Rate Is $36 Per MWH
    New York To Pay $155 Per Megawatt Hour For Wind-Power, Current Rate Is $36 Per MWH

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    It currently costs NY about $36 per MWH for energy. But the state demanded wind. Let’s discuss the amazing bottom line results.

    So Much for So Little

    The Wall Street Journal asks Why Is New York Paying So Much for Wind Power?

    New York state signed a contract in June to buy electricity generated by two large wind farms, Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind, off the coast of Long Island. The projects are expected to begin in 2026 and 2027, with power delivered to Brooklyn (Empire) and Long Island (Sunrise). The state will pay $155 and $146 per megawatt-hour, respectively. These prices are steep, at least four times the average grid cost paid over the past year.

    States agree to pay wind-power operators—known as the “offtake price”—based on a project’s “break-even cost,” the estimated bill for building and operating the wind farm over its useful life. That is undoubtedly part of the problem. The offshore wind business off the East Coast is in turmoil. Operators have canceled projects from Massachusetts to Maryland that were due to be constructed in the next four years. Some have been delayed, while others have renegotiated their contracts at prices 30% to 50% higher than originally promised.

    Two widely quoted sources of break-even costs are the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Lazard, an investment bank. In its most recent estimates, the EIA suggests the average break-even cost of offshore wind farms, adjusted to 2024 prices, is $131 per megawatt-hour, not counting government subsidies, and $101 per megawatt-hour after allowing for basic tax credits. The latter figure is what matters, because every offshore wind farm expects to take advantage of investment or production tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.

    EIA Says Wind is Not Economical

    Let’s pause right there because wind is absurd by any measure.

    The cost of wind is $131 per MWH without credits and $101 with $30 in tax credits according to the EIA.

    A handout of $30 is an 83 percent subsidy (30/36) and the deal still is still nearly 100% per MWH in the red, losing $35 per MWH over the cost of buying energy at market rates.

    A Sweetheart Deal

    The deal (thank you team Biden and New York), will pay $155 and $146 per megawatt-hour, respectively to Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind.

    The owner-operators of the two farms—Equinor for Empire and Orsted for Sunrise—are two of the top five global wind-farm investors and operators. Equinor is Norway’s state oil company, while Orsted previously was Denmark’s.

    With a break even cost of $101 (thanks to subsidies), Equinor will make $54 per MWH and Orsted will make a mere $45 per MWH on something whose total cost should be $36 per MWH.

    The Journal calculates Equinor and Orsted (foreign corporations) will each receive a total subsidy of more than $3 billion courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

    The Journal asks “Did New York sign an agreement that allows large wind-farm operators to earn unreasonably high after-tax profits at the expense of its residents?”

    I believe the math speaks for itself.

    Not only will New Yorkers pay over four times the going rate for energy, the US will send $3 billion to foreign companies to do so.

    Congrats team Biden and New York State.

    Another Green Energy Company Declares Bankruptcy

    Meanwhile, Another Green Energy Company Declares Bankruptcy, Thank Biden’s Tariffs

    And in case you missed it Ford Loses $132,000 on Each EV Produced, Good News, EV Sales Down 20 Percent

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 15:10

  • Gat Summer: 22 Shot, 6 Dead In Chicago During First 3 Days Of DNC
    Gat Summer: 22 Shot, 6 Dead In Chicago During First 3 Days Of DNC

    While Democrats prance around the DNC in Chicago with manufactured enthusiasm for Kamala Harris, a deadly week unfolded outside in the Democrat-run city.

    According to the Washington Times, 6 people were murdered amid 22 shootings in the first three days of the Democratic National Convention, while a member of the Texas delegation was robbed at gunpoint while walking in downtown Chicago Wednesday morning.

    The weekend before, there were 26 shootings and five deaths, according to police.

    In the first three days of the DNC, according to the Chicago Police Department:

    • On Monday, there were eight shootings, four of which were fatal, and an armed robbery.

    • On Tuesday, there were five shootings involving 12 victims and an aggravated battery shooting.

    • On Wednesday, there were nine shootings involving 12 victims, one of whom died, and a stabbing.

    Of course, the violence hasn’t been allowed anywhere near the convention site at the United Center, located a few miles from downtown.

    “Our officers are out there. They’re out there. They’re highly visible,” said Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling in a Monday presser. “And we have officers not only along the corridors downtown, in and around the venues of the Democratic National Convention, but also in our neighborhoods to continue to protect our people who are living in areas that are the most vulnerable.”

    According to HeyJackass, there have been a total of 244 people shot and 38 killed in the windy city.

    Hilariously, President Joe Biden on Monday bragged about violent crime coming down under his administration – though as the Times points out, that claim is based on data compiled from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which relies heavily on oft-incomplete reporting from city officials.

    As part of Thursday’s DNC program, several speakers were addressing gun violence.

    Even if crime is down nationally, it has soared in Chicago over the past year. Violent crime in Chicago grew to its highest level in a decade in 2023, but the arrest rate dropped, according to data from the Illinois Policy Institute. In 2023, violent crime in Chicago was 11.5% higher than it was in 2022.

    There were at least 617 homicides in Chicago in 2023, making it the nation’s murder capital for the 12th consecutive year. Murders are down slightly in the city this year, with 344 through Aug. 4, compared with 379 at the same date last year, or a drop of 9%.

    On Tuesday, morning a 25-year-old man was robbed around 2 a.m. near the Allegro Royal Sonesta Hotel — in the heart of downtown — when two men in a black Range Rover pulled up to him as he walked along the sidewalk, according to local media reports. The assailant then crossed the street to rob the Texas delegate and his friend. -Washington Examiner

    For those who might find themselves strolling around Chicago, here’s where not to go…

    via HeyJackass

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 14:35

  • It Hasn't Worked Once, So Why Would A Politician Go All-In On Price Controls Now?
    It Hasn’t Worked Once, So Why Would A Politician Go All-In On Price Controls Now?

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via TheNationalTelegraph.com,

    August 15th was the anniversary of the infamous “Nixon Shock”, when excessive spending and trade deficits had governments on the ropes, as prices climbed relentlessly, inflation soared into the double digits, while economic growth stalled.

    In 1971 of that year, Nixon “temporarily” suspended convertibility of the US dollar for gold (still in effect), while simultaneously proclaiming a 90-day freeze on all wages and prices across the United States.

    The stagflationary 70’s also saw Trudeau the 1st enact “The Anti-Inflation Act of 1975”, with his infamous “6 and 5” measures (a 6% cap on wage increases with a 5% cap on prices was supposed to put 1% back into the pocket of the peasants).

    None of this worked, and as the lumpenpublic were mulched by higher prices and growing government, gold served as a barometer to it all – soaring from $35/oz at the time of the Nixon Shock to $850/oz in 1980 (that all-time high still won’t be exceeded in inflation adjusted terms until gold cracks about $2,580).

    It took Paul Volcker  to get inflation under control with double-digit interest rates – (when the news came that he had been elevated from President of the New York Fed under Gerald Ford to Chairman by Jimmy Carter, Volcker’s wife burst into tears).

    Today, 50 years later with a monetary regime that makes the 70’s look austere, double-digit interest rates are simply not an option – we’ve just seen a 5-sigma event nearly blow up the global monetary system from the BoJ nudging interest rates from the zero bound to 25bps.

    With an unprecedented levels of monetary expansion and debt levels somewhere beyond nosebleed elevations, policy-makers and central bankers are trapped.

    This is why we’re seeing a resurgence in popular rhetoric around the idea of price controls – everywhere from Jagmeet Singh here in Canada, who blames grocery store CEOs for inflation, to Dem nominee and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris, channeling him with promises of food price controls as part of her election campaign.

    Price Controls Invariably Presage Decline (& Tyranny)

    The definitive chronicle of price controls throughout recorded history comes to us by way of Robert L. Schuettinger and Eammon F. Butler’s “Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls” – or “How Not to Fight Inflation“.

    I could not for the life of me find my hard copy, but during the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, The Mises Institute saw the value in republishing it…

    “By special arrangement with the authors, the Mises Institute is thrilled to bring back this popular guide to ridiculous economic policy from the ancient world to modern times. This outstanding history illustrates the utter futility of fighting the market process through legislation. It always uses despotic measures to yield socially catastrophic results.”

    It starts as far back as Urakagina of Lagash, a King of Sumeria in around 2350BC who came to power and overturned wage and price controls held in place by an unnamed line of despotic predecessors:

    “[he]began his rule by ending the burdens of excessive government regulations over the economy, including controls on wages and prices…
    An historian of this period tells us that from Urakagina,

    ‘we have one of the most precious and revealing documents in the history of man and his perennial and unrelenting struggle for freedom from tyranny and oppression.’

    This document records a sweeping reform of a whole series of prevalent abuses, most of which could be traced to a ubiquitous and obnoxious bureaucracy …it is in this document that we find the word ‘freedom’ used for the first time in man’s recorded history; the word is ‘amargi’.“

    It is somewhat telling to find that the word “freedom” was seemingly coined to describe the end of price controls.

    The Code of Hammurabi of ancient Babylon is often cited as one of the earliest legal codes, thought to be the first to enshrine the presumption of innocence, but it also contained detailed tables of price controls on everything from goods to services – like the hiring of a wagon (“forty qa of corn per diem”) to the wages of a field laborer (“eight gur of corn per annum”).

    According to Schuettinger and Butler, historical records show that Hammurabi’s price controls dampened trade and economic activity for both Hammurabi and his successors, citing W. F Leemans, who found that:

    Prominent and wealthy tamkaru (merchants) were no longer found in Hammurabi’s reign. Moreover, only a few tamkaru are known from Hammurabi’s time and afterwards . . . all . . . evidently minor tradesmen and money-lenders.

    Concluding:

    “it appears that the very people who were supposed to benefit from the Hammurabi wage and price restrictions were driven out of the market by those and other statutes.”

    Finding that:

    “There was a remarkable change in the fortunes of the people of Nippur and Isin and the other ancient towns which he ruled, which came in the middle of Rim-Sin’s reign [Hammurbi’s predecessor – whose policies he extended] . The beginning of the economic decline corresponds exactly with a series of “reforms” inaugurated by him.

    For the first of many times throughout this piece, I will ask the reader to “hold that thought”.

    We can fast forward to ancient Greece where Athens, a city state “perpetually short on grain” sought to control the prices at which it was sold in order to keep them “just”. At one point, under a measure that was supposed to be temporary (sound familiar?), state appointed corn buyers called “Sitonai” were mobilized to set the pricing.

    Predictably, the problem got worse, and there were calls to make the measures permanent.  One politician, Lysian of Athens wanted to put grain dealers who broke the code to death.

    The book is exhaustive in its examinations, covering China, India, the Medieval age, even modern times (Canada and the US in the seventies) – but ancient Rome warrants a deeper look – particularly the road to Emperor Diocletian’s Edict of 301AD.

    “Under the tribune Caius Gracchus the Lex Sempronia Frumentaria was adopted which allowed every Roman citizen the right to buy a certain amount of wheat at an official price much lower than the market price.

    In 58 B.C. this law was “improved” to allow every citizen free wheat. The result, of course, came as a surprise to the government.

    Most of the farmers remaining in the countryside simply left to live in Rome without working.

    If that wasn’t enough:

    Slaves were freed by their masters so that they, as Roman citizens, could be supported by the state.

    (There is a modern day analog here with open borders and the illegal immigration crisis – where we could be looking at mass migrations as being, at least partially, incentivized by governments of weakening economies trying to jettison dependents and potential rebels – offloading them to countries dumb enough to think they’re acting enlightened by taking them on and supporting them).

    By 45BC, Julius Caesar found that roughly a third of the citizenry was living on “free food” from the government.

    He managed to reduce this number by about half, but it soon rose again; throughout the centuries of the empire Rome was to be perpetually plagued with this problem of artificially low prices for grain, which caused economic dislocations of all sorts.

    Succeeding emperors resorted to the ancient version of “Quantitative Easing” – currency debasement:

    In order to attempt to deal with their increasing economic problems, the emperors gradually began to devalue the currency. Nero (A.D. 54–68) began with small devaluations and matters became worse under Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–80) when the weights of coins were reduced. “These manipulations were the probable cause of a rise in prices,” according to Levy. The Emperor Commodus (A.D.)

    By Diocletian’s time in the 4th century it reached truly hyper-inflationary levels when measured in other provincial currencies:

    Egypt was the province of the Empire most affected, but her experience was reflected in lesser degrees throughout the Roman world. During the fourth century, the value of the gold solidus changed from 4,000 to 180 million Egyptian drachmai.

    Diocletian’s Dilemma

    Gresham’s Law states that “bad money drives out the good” – it means that rapidly devaluing or debased currencies are traded for anything other than themselves (which drives prices denominated in that currency up) – while “sound” currencies, like gold, or nowadays Bitcoin are hoarded – or at least more carefully spent.

    “[I]n the years before Diocletian, emperors were issuing tin-plated copper coins which were still called by the name ‘denarius.’ Gresham’s Law, of course, became operative; silver and gold coins were naturally hoarded and were no longer found in circulation.” 

    The result of iterative generations of government mismanagement and currency debasement was the hollowing out of the middle class:

    “The middle class was almost obliterated and the proletariat was quickly sinking to the level of serfdom. Intellectually the world had fallen into an apathy from which nothing would rouse it.”

    The same thing is happening today, but in Diocletian’s time, he saw what was happening and moved to impose some kind of order, first by issuing a new Denarious, that after centuries of declining silver content, openly contained none:

    Via Armstrong Economics

    …and then, moving to a system that attempted to replace money entirely (again, hold that thought):

    Since money was completely worthless, he devised a system of taxes based on payments in kind. This system had the effect, via the ascripti glebae [tenant serfs], of totally destroying the freedom of the lower classes—they became serfs and were bound to the soil to ensure that the taxes would be forthcoming. 

    But he had a dilemma:

    The principal reason for the official overvaluation of the currency, of course, was to provide the wherewithal to support the large army and massive bureaucracy—the equivalent of modern government.

    Diocletian’s choices were to continue to mint the increasingly worthless denarius or to cut “government expenditures” and thereby reduce the requirement for minting them.

    In modern terminology, he could either continue to “inflate” or he could begin the process of “deflating” the economy.

    Diocletian decided that deflation, reducing the costs of civil and military government, was impossible. On the other hand: To inflate would be equally disastrous in the long run. 

    Diocletian’s problem is the same one central banks and policy makers face today, all over the world:

    Source: IMF

    The world is awash in too much debt – with debt-to-GDP more than doubling from 100% to over 256% since the Nixon Shock. With interest rates being artificially suppressed for decades – austerity is off the table, for now — I’ve been writing for years how CBDCs and #Netzero are essentially setting the table for forced austerity.

    But we’re not there yet – retail CBDCs are a few years away from being ready but the global financial system is unravelling now (in the meantime, you can get on the waiting list for my CBDC Survival Guide, which is coming out this fall).

    How did Diocletian navigate the quagmire?

    The Solution: Inflate with Price Controls

    As Schuettinger and Butler recount,

    It was in this seemingly desperate circumstance that Diocletian determined to continue to inflate, but to do so in a way that would, he thought, prevent the inflation from occurring.

    He sought to do this by simultaneously fixing the prices of goods and services and suspending the freedom of people to decide what the official currency was worth. 

    Contrary to our own political leaders,  Diocletian wasn’t stupid (in fact, he may have been the most intelligent Roman Emperor after a long string of weak minded half-wits who were propped up by the military).

    He knew that the incentives would be against the productive class working, selling, and entrenpreneuring at a loss and he understood that Incentives Are Everything. In his case:

    “if farmers, merchants and craftsmen could not expect to receive what they considered to be a fair price for their goods they would not put them on the market at all, but would await a change in the law (or in the dynasty).”

    So Diocletian had to realign people’s incentives:

    “From such guilt also he too shall not be considered free, who, having goods necessary for food or usage, shall after this regulation have thought that they might be withdrawn from the market; since the penalty ought to be even heavier for him who causes need than for him who makes use of it contrary to the statutes.”

    The penalty was …death.

    Same for anyone who purchased goods or services at prices above the prescribed amount (no matter how hungry or desperately you needed something or how scarce that something was).

    As draconian as that sounds, it almost looks like more people were killed by deprivation and mob rule than were executed for violating price controls:

    There was much blood shed upon very slight and trifling accounts; and the people brought provisions no more to markets, since they could not get a reasonable price for them and this increased the dearth so much, that at last after many had died by it”

    The authors go on to cite Roland Kent:

    “In other words, the price limits set in the Edict were not observed by the traders, in spite of the death penalty provided in the statute for its violation; would-be purchasers, finding that the prices were above the legal limit, formed mobs and wrecked the offending traders’ establishments, incidentally killing the traders, though the goods were after all of but trifling value; hoarded their goods against the day when the restrictions should be removed, and the resulting scarcity of wares actually offered for sale caused an even greater increase in prices, so that what trading went on was at illegal prices, and therefore performed clandestinely.

    Within four years, the law was set aside, and Diocletian abdicated.

    Michael Rostovtzeff, another leading Roman historian, remarked:

    “Diocletian shared the pernicious belief of the ancient world in the omnipotence of the state, a belief which many modern theorists continue to share with him and with it.”

    Here We Are Again

    Since the unprecedented monetary stimulus during Covid, we are now beginning to see exactly how trapped we are – with politicians taking victory laps for 2.9% inflation (hedonically adjusted and perpetually revised) – nobody is really remarking that the official targeted inflation rate is in the process of being hiked by half from 2% to 3% target.

    The Fed is getting ready to cut interest rates, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the ECB are already cutting and as I told readers in the latest issue of The Bitcoin Capitalist, the Bank of Japan just showed the world that they can’t raise:

    On Tuesday, August 6th, the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance held an emergency meeting, and the next day announced “no more rate hikes” until the global financial system could handle it.

    Which will be never.

    For the first 50 years of the post-Bretton Woods era, since the Nixon Shock, monetary debasement has been mostly under-the-radar and after the stagflationary 70’s, had been largely confined to asset inflation.

    This was thanks to a massive bond super-cycle that saw the cost-of-capital come down for 50 years, igniting an asset bubble on the other side of the ledger:

    Consumer inflation never really started hitting hard until the aftermath of Covid, and the central banks took to hiking rates to try and get it back under control (my suspicion was always that what they really wanted to do was reload as high as possible so they could cut, once again):

    Again, from this month’s TBC (see end of this post for a trial deal):

    We’ve been saying since the Fed originally started hiking, that they would do so until something broke.

    In March of 2023, something broke – with Silicon Valley Bank and the regional banking crisis; it was quickly papered over with FDIC backstops on all deposits, while the Fed abandoned their balance sheet reductions and quickly reinflated the money supply.

    Everything since then has been a theatrical, slow-motion pivot.

    Now, after this Bank of Japan miscalculation, something really broke – and the world now sees how the BoJ is trapped, the rest of the central banks are paused or already cutting, right when the global liquidity cycle is starting to turn back up.

    Via RBC Global Asset Management

    (Also – M2 is also beginning to rise again)

    Price Controls Are The ‘Hail Mary’ Play of a Bankrupt System

    All the usual tricks which got us this far, money printing, interest rate suppression, ballooning debt have finally run out of runway because they are now resulting in. consumer price inflation.

    This is 100% the fault of bad political leadership and central bank policy but that will never be admitted (to be fair, the St. Louis Fed’s Chris Neely authored a piece in 2022 explaining “Why Price Controls Should Stay In the History Books“)

    Instead, politicians will resort ad hominem attacks on the productive class, and absurd accusations that it is the fault of investors and entrepreneurs, who must navigate the risks of monetary debasement, for causing it.

    Hence, we have Kamala Harris seemingly anchoring her political campaign on “ending price gouging” once she’s in office.

    She seems to be channeling Canada’s own champagne socialist, Jagmeet Singh, the Rolex wearing, Versace sporting millionaire  who routinely demonizes CEOs – particularly those of grocery store chains, for causing inflation:

    Corporate greed in our country has reached a breaking point after decades of Liberal and Conservative governments that have rewritten the rules to favour the ultra-rich.

    Now, every bill you pay makes CEOs richer.

    It’s wrong.

    I’ll change the rules to help you, not CEO profits. 

    (What’s ironic in both cases, is Harris is promising to do something upon being elected, although she’s the incumbent Vice President since 2020, while Jagmeet Singh is the one person in Canada, who is single-handedly propping the Trudeau government in power with a coalition government that he could end at any time).

    The Lure of Technocracy For Price Controls

    After one looks at the historical record – 4,000 years of endless failures, in price controls, communism and every permutation of centrally planned economies, there has to be a reason politicians are still reaching for it as a solution to problems they have caused and why a small – but vocal and influential, segment of the public cheerleads this as a net benefit for society.

    The secret sauce of “it’s different this time” is technology – particularly Big Tech, big platforms, Total Information Awareness and surveillance. Central planners think it is now technically feasible to run all the calculations and tracking in real time that would enable unrestrained monetary stimulus while keeping a lid on negative externalities like inflation.

    Politicians like Kamala Harris and Jagmeet Singh are just farming public sentiment created by their own policy failures, but there are very serious people – mostly unelected technocrats of a particular globalist mindset, who think we have the means, motive and opportunity to create a kind of “fully automated luxury communism”.

    One of my go-to clips for illustrating the mindset is J Michael Evans at a WEF meeting talking about coming personal carbon trackers:

    I’ll lay out the quote again here:

    “We are developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual – carbon – footprint – tracker. Stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet, but it’s something we’re working on”.

    The stage is set, when politicians tell you they want to be able to control prices, believe them – but what the public must understand is that price controls means spending controls.

    The politicians will tell you that it’s all about putting “greedy CEOs” in their place.

    What they won’t tell you is that price controls also means is telling  you what you can or cannot eat, how you use energy – whether you’ll be permitted to travel, or make any other kind of economic decision or make any kind of value exchange that you used to take for granted.

    In a world of price controls, that’s over.

    Throughout history, price controls have always brought about serfdom and tyranny because that is the only way to override individual incentives. In today’s highly wired world that would mean total technocratic feudalism.

    The most vivid example we have today is Venezuela – where price controls were so effective, the rabble had to break into public zoos to eat the animals.

    *  *  *

    Sign up for the Bombthrower Mailing List and get The CBDC Survival Guide when it drops this fall (you’ll also get a copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto while you wait). Follow me on Twitter, or Nostr. You should also try The Bitcoin Capitalist for one month here

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 14:00

  • Elon's SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing
    Elon’s SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing

    NASA said it has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring home the US astronauts who were forced to extend their stay at the International Space Station because of the latest debacle plaguing the woke DEI disaster that is Boeing, whose space capsule suffered major technical issues.

    Boeing’s spacecraft will return without people on board, the US space agency said during a Saturday news conference announcing its decision, in which it said that it was too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months.

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

    The contingency plan means that NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams will hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s rival Crew Dragon capsule during a mission slated to launch in late September. That would put them back on US soil in February, when that capsule is slated to return and months later than originally planned. Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in a week or two and attempt to return on autopilot.

    The seasoned pilots have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. A cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred their trip to the space station, and they ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the trip back.

    Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams 

    As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey, with touchdown in the U.S. desert.

    It was a blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side. Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.

    Retired Navy captains with previous long-duration spaceflight experience, Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, anticipated surprises when they accepted the shakedown cruise of a new spacecraft, although not quite to this extent.

    Before their June 5 launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, they said their families bought into the uncertainty and stress of their professional careers decades ago. During their lone orbital news conference last month, they said they had trust in the thruster testing being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed pitching in with space station work.

    Wilmore’s wife, Deanna, was equally stoic in an interview earlier this month with WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, their home state. She was already bracing for a delay until next February: “You just sort of have to roll with it.”

    There were no other options.

    The SpaceX capsule currently parked at the space station is reserved for the four residents who have been there since March. They will return in late September, their stay extended a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency.

    The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of flying only three — two of them Russians wrapping up a yearlong stint.

    So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. It’s due to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four for a routine six-month stay. NASA yanked two to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in late February.

    NASA said no serious consideration was given to asking SpaceX for a quick stand-alone rescue. Last year, the Russian Space Agency had to rush up a replacement Soyuz capsule for three men whose original craft was damaged by space junk. The switch pushed their mission beyond a year, a U.S. space endurance record still held by Frank Rubio.

    Starliner’s woes began long before its latest flight.

    Bad software fouled the first test flight without a crew in 2019, prompting a do-over in 2022. Then parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that nixed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks sprouted following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed.

    All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers remain perplexed as to why some thruster seals appear to swell, obstructing the propellant lines, then revert to their normal size.

    These 28 thrusters are vital. Besides needed for space station rendezvous, they keep the capsule pointed in the right direction at flight’s end as bigger engines steer the craft out of orbit. Coming in crooked could result in catastrophe.

    With the Columbia disaster still fresh in many minds — the shuttle broke apart during reentry in 2003, killing all seven aboard — NASA embraced open debate over Starliner’s return capability. Dissenting views were stifled during Columbia’s doomed flight, just as they were during Challenger’s in 1986.

    Despite Saturday’s decision, NASA isn’t giving up on Boeing.

    NASA went into its commercial crew program a decade ago wanting two competing U.S. companies ferrying astronauts in the post-shuttle era. Boeing won the bigger contract: more than $4 billion, compared with SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.

    With station supply runs already under its belt, SpaceX aced its first of now nine astronaut flights in 2020, while Boeing got bogged down in design flaws that set the company back more than $1 billion. NASA officials still hold out hope that Starliner’s problems can be corrected in time for another crew flight in another year or so.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 13:28

  • Newest US Aid Package For Ukraine Includes More HIMARS Munitions To Attack Russia
    Newest US Aid Package For Ukraine Includes More HIMARS Munitions To Attack Russia

    The United States has introduced another new package of military aid to Ukraine, reported to be worth around $125 million, and this time it includes more munitions for HIMARS systems, at a moment Kiev has acknowledged using the missile system inside Russian territory.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described in press statement at the end of this week that this additional assistance is “provided under a drawdown from Department of Defense stocks, includes: counter-unmanned aerial systems equipment and munitions” as well as “additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).”

    High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), US Army file image

    The statement also listed the following additional items: 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor missiles, Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles, small arms ammunition, ambulances, demolition equipment and munitions, and spare parts, medical equipment, ancillary equipment, services, training, and transportation.

    The Presidential Drawdown Authority is a long-used, albeit controversial, mechanism in Ukraine, that allows the president to transfer weaponry to allies from current US stockpiles. Essentially it depletes America’s defense stores.

    Moscow is sure to take this new package as a huge and intentional provocation from Washington, given it was only days ago that Ukraine’s military for the first time openly acknowledged it is using US-provided HIMARS rocket systems to attack Russia and destroy its major infrastructure, especially bridges, inside its own territory.

    Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces made the admission in a Wednesday Telegram post to its official account, writing: “Where do Russian pontoon bridges ‘disappear’ in the Kursk region? Operators … accurately destroy them.”

    “The statement said U.S.-manufactured HIMARS rocket systems were used,” Reuters described of the statement. What’s more is that Ukraine’s military published footage of US HIMARS being used to target several key bridges in Kursk in a new video montage.

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    Starting over a week ago, Russian officials began accusing Ukraine forces of using the American-supplied weapon, after at least two bridges were destroyed. By last weekend, a third strategic bridge was taken out as Ukraine forces tried to solidify their hold in Kursk.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 12:50

  • Must Watch: RFK Jr Drops 'Reality' Mic On Dems, Suspends Campaign – "Who Needs Policy When There's Trump To Hate?"
    Must Watch: RFK Jr Drops ‘Reality’ Mic On Dems, Suspends Campaign – “Who Needs Policy When There’s Trump To Hate?”

    The 2024 presidential election race is about to take its next unexpected turn…

    “Democrats have become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money wanting to abandon democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president.

    I left the party to run as an independent…

    The DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for VP Harris based upon nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates. Only smoke and mirrors.”

    “A Chicago circus that is based on NOTHING. Who needs a policy if you hate Donald Trump?“

    “How did the Democratic Party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle?” Kennedy asked.

    “We know the answer: They did it by weaponizing the government agencies. They did it by abandoning democracy. They did it by suing the opposition and by disenfranchising American voters. What most alarms me isn’t how the Democratic Party conducts its internal affairs or runs its candidates. What alarms me is the resort to censorship and media control and the weaponization of the federal agencies.”

    Kennedy refuses to be a spoiler… “Many months ago, I promised the American people that I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler… In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control.”

    “I am simply suspending it and not ending it. My name will remain on the ballot in most states.

    I encourage you to vote for me.

    In an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election.

    After all, the polls consistently showed me beating each of the other candidates.

    In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name.”

    …

    I throw my support behind Donald Trump.”

    Kennedy said that in a series of meetings with Trump and his team, he realized he shared more in common with the former president than he thought. He compared their potential partnership to President Lincoln’s famous “Team of Rivals,” which saw him stock his Cabinet with former foes.

    “In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues. In those meetings, he suggested that we join forces as a unity party. We talked about Abraham Lincoln’s team of rivals. That arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately and fiercely if need be on issues over which we differ while working together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance.”

    “I was a ferocious critic of many of the policies during his first administration, and there are still issues and approaches upon which we continue to have very serious differences.” 

    “But we are aligned with each other on other key issues like ending the forever wars, ending the childhood disease epidemics, securing the border, protecting freedom of speech, unraveling the corporate capture of our regulatory agencies, getting the US intelligence agencies out of the business of propagandizing and censoring and surveilling Americans and interfering with our elections.”

    “Suspending my candidacy is a heartrending decision for me. But I’m convinced that it’s the best hope or ending the Ukraine War and ending the chronic disease epidemic that is eroding our nation’s vitality from the inside and for finally protecting free speech.”

    “I feel a moral obligation to use this opportunity to save millions of American children above all things.”

    Most notably, RFK Jr. admitted in front of the nation that he attempted to contact VP Harris first and that she neither wanted to talk or meet with him is a strong message to Independent voters:

    “Following my first discussion with President Trump, I tried unsuccessfully to open similar discussions with Vice President Harris. Vice President Harris declined to meet or even to speak with me.”

    “Democrats want nothing to do with you, Republicans will at least give you a seat at the table.”

    RFK addressed details on the Russia-Ukraine war (via Kyle Backer): 

    “We have pushed Russia closer to China and Iran. We are closer to the brink of nuclear exchange than at any time since 1962. And the Neocons in the White House don’t seem to care at all.”

    “Our moral authority and our economy are in shambles. And the war gave rise to the emergence of BRICS, which now threatens to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.”

    “This is a first class calamity for our country.”

    “Judging by her bellicose, belligerent speech last night in Chicago, we can assume that President Harris will be an enthusiastic for this and other Neocon military adventures.”

    “President Trump says he will reopen negotiations with President Putin and end the war overnight as soon as he becomes president.”

    “This alone would justify my support for his campaign.”

    “Last summer, it looked like no candidate was willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine War, to tackle the chronic disease epidemic, to protect free speech, our Constitutional freedoms, to clean corporate influence out of our government or to defy the Neocons on their agenda of endless military adventurism.”

    “But now, one of the two candidates has adopted these issue as his own to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration.”

    “I am speaking, of course, of Donald Trump.”

    Trump expressed his gratitude:

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    Must Watch:

     

    As Kyle Backer wrote on X: 

    I don’t think a politician has ever moved me emotionally like RFK Jr. did in his speech since at least Ronald Reagan. 

    Truly sincere and stirring speech that speaks highly of his intellectual honesty and moral integrity.

    The Truth is a very powerful thing. It is obvious why social media giants and captured corporate media colluded so closely to deprive RFK Jr. of a bigger platform.

    And the attacks begin:

    In response to RFK Jr.’s endorsement of Trump, his family members have issued a strong statement condemning the move:

    “Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story.”

    The Trump campaign just released a memo on RFK Jr dropping out and endorsing the former president.

    “As you can clearly see, in every single state RFK Jr.’s vote breaks for President Trump.”

    *  *  *

    As we detailed earlier, Robert Kennedy Jr. is expected to suspend his presidential race, and if the rumors are true, he will endorse Donald Trump in a stunning rebuke to the party that is inexorably linked to the legacy of his father and his uncle, brothers Jack and Bobby Kennedy.

    While Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann point out that RFK Jr. was never a serious candidate, he had a famous name (to those of us old enough to remember), a tinge of legitimacy, and a wealthy billionaire running mate to keep the train going.

    It wasn’t enough to reach office but it got his foot in the door after RFK Jr. was shunned by Democrat Party insiders in their initial effort to prop up husk of a president, Joe Biden.

    Now they are stuck with Biden’s insurance policy, Kamala Harris.

    It terrified the Dems to have RFK Jr. in the running, so they rigged the rules, banned him from state ballots, and vilified him as extreme. And to dampen his impact on the Harris-Walz ticket, after trying to deny him ballot access and remove RFK Jr. from the state ballots he made his way to, Democrats will now attempt to keep him on ballots to hurt Trump.

    Such hypocrites.

    He’s an environmental attorney, about as Lefty Democrat as you can get! He was expected to capitulate, kiss the crown, and get in line with everyone else. Instead, he went rogue. He showed them by unexpectedly running as an Independent. 

    In exchange for his potential endorsement, what can Trump promise?

    A cabinet post? Being named director of the FBI to clean up that mess? Or ironically, heading up the CIA? Maybe after six decades, we’ll find out exactly what was the role of the agency in assassinating his uncle and if it had any role in his own father’s assassination.

    He’s now rumored to be ready to endorse Trump and is expected to announce his campaign suspension in Phoenix, where Trump is scheduled to hold a rally nearby. Coincidence? Unlikely.

    If this happens, it will take much of the post-DNC momentum away from Harris-Walz and focus attention on the PR value of RFK Jr.’s endorsement.

    Imagine the son of RFK and the nephew of JFK, endorsing a Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump no less.

    It will be a net positive gain for Trump, although not much and only for so long. But it could make all the difference in a race that’s expected to be tight in the all-important swing states—especially Pennsylvania.

    After spending millions to keep him off the ballot, the Democratic National Committee released a memo Friday dismissing the potential impact Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Donald Trump will have on the presidential race.

    The DNC claimed, without evidence, that the only reason Kennedy was in the race was to be a spoiler candidate to help former President Trump, but derided him as “a near-negligible factor” with “no meaningful base of support.”

    The DNC memo purported, again without evidence, that Trump was “at a low point and acting out of desperation.”

    “Embracing RFK Jr. now —when he has nothing to offer but months of disqualifying revelations—is not a decision a campaign makes when they’re acting from a position of strength.”

    The memo went on to accuse RFK Jr. as having an “unsavory and reckless past, ties to MAGA donors, and MAGA-lite positions on abortion bans and January 6th pardons,” and assert that “his support has dwindled to make him a near-negligible factor.”

    “The little support that remains is soft, split across ideologies, and disproportionately among lower propensity voters. With no meaningful base of support and sky-high negatives among Democrats, RFK Jr.’s threat to VP Harris was neutralized,” the DNC memo stated.

    The DNC memo argued Kennedy could actually hurt Trump because of his allegedly “controversial” positions on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Sept. 11 attacks and vaccines.

    Right now, in their post-DNC euphoria, Democrats believe that they have positioned Harris to win.

    Don’t be fooled by their misplaced optimism. It’s an illusion even when presented by seasoned political analysts like Mark Halperin.

    Where Things Stand in the Swing States

    Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,

    From west to east, let’s look at the latest polling, factoring in the impact of the potential Kennedy endorsement factored in, considering how the polls misread the 2016 and 2020 results. Remember that if Trump wins the states he did in 2020 and adds Georgia and Pennsylvania, he’s at the 270 Electoral College votes needed to become the 47th president of the United States. We are also factoring in Harris’s surge in polling in the wake of her anointment after Joe Biden ended his reelection bid. The latest polling and anecdotal analysis indicate that the surge is fading and that the Harris-Walz ticket, especially in the wake of Walz misstating (the way the mainstream media is couching his lies) his personal story. On Thursday afternoon on her podcast, Megyn Kelly ripped Walz apologist Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) a new one in a very contentious interview. That damage on the stolen valor issue has yet to be fully baked into the electoral cake.

    (Response bias and Democrat oversampling in many of the polls—most specifically the New York Times/Sienna poll—over the last month radically shifted the polls after Biden ended his campaign.)

    We should note that Harris is lagging behind Biden’s polling at this point in 2020 with Black, Latino, and blue-collar voters in all of the crucial swing states.

    Nevada: In recent election cycles, Nevada is trending right. With its large hospitality industry voter base in Las Vegas, Trump got out in front of Democrats with his no taxes on tips policy position. It was such a positive move, that it was quickly copied by Harris. But hospitality segment workers are smart enough to realize that Trump is the better choice to look out for their interests. Taking into consideration Trump’s increasing appeal to the state’s Hispanic community along with rural Nevada’s traditional right leanings, Trump could potentially win the state by as much as five percent, especially when the way past polls have consistently underestimated Trump in both 2016 and 2020 even though he lost Nevada in both previous races.

    Arizona: Arizona was one state that massively benefited from the move from Biden to Harris. Before the swap, Trump was comfortably leading Biden but that gap closed with Harris actually leading in some polls. But things have swung back in the opposite direction. Factor in RFK Jr.’s withdrawal in a tight race and it appears to shift the advantage back to Trump. What can be important in Arizona is that with the shift back to Trump, can he carry Kari Lake across the finish line? She is currently losing to Democrat Rubin Gallego by up to five percent in most polls. Immigration is indirectly on the ballot in Arizona and, as Election Day approaches, should benefit both Trump and Lake. As with other tight races, just 20 or 30 thousand net votes moving from RFK Jr. to Trump could easily deliver Arizona back to the GOP.

    Wisconsin: Harris is currently up by 1 percent in Wisconsin according to the latest Rasmussen polling, which over the last two election cycles has been the most accurate. But several other polls show Trump outperforming his 2020 results. And this is another state where polls in both 2016 and 2020 underestimated Trump’s support. The polling is likely underestimating his support this year as well and if that turns out to be the case, Trump is probably leading by 3 to 4 percent. Democrats will continue trying to keep Harris’s unpopular far-left positions cloaked, much as they did in 2020 with Biden. But it is unlikely that the strategy will work this time. Expect Harris’s numbers to plummet after Labor Day, especially following the first—and currently only confirmed—debate on September 10 in Philadelphia, hosted by the Harris-friendly ABC network. Notably, Democratic shill George Stephanopoulos will not be moderating. Harris’s policies on the border and the economy are likely to face intense scrutiny.

    Michigan: Of the six swing states, Michigan is the least favorable for Trump but with its large Muslim population in the Detroit area, Michigan is trending away from the Democrats and Harris knows it. She will try her best to tack away from Biden’s unpopular support for Israel but it’s going to be very difficult to do. This only got worse with Democrat leadership’s decision to not offer Palestinian Americans any speaking slot at the DNC. We don’t think this important voting block will vote for Trump but they can show their displeasure by staying away from the polls in November. In a tight race, that could swing the state to Trump. Also, with its very heavy blue-collar auto workers constituency, Trump’s stance on electric vehicles could prove to be a deciding factor even without RFK Jr.’s endorsement. (More than any other state, in Michigan Harris-Walz is caught between a rock and a hard place on the Israel-Palestinian Gaza conflict. Democrats have alienated both sides.)

    Georgia: In a state where Trump lost by 0.2 percent in 2020, even factoring in the state’s large Black population, it appears that Harris is not moving the needle. Trump is very strong in the rural areas and is improving in the Atlanta suburbs he lost in 2020 after winning them in 2016. We expect that Georgia will flip back in 2024, especially if Trump continues to improve his numbers with Black men. Previously, Trump shot himself in the foot with his previous ill-advised attacks on popular Governor Brian Kemp (who is supporting Trump). But yesterday Trump and Kemp settled their differences dating back to the 2020 election with Kemp issuing a full-throated endorsement of Trump. Trump currently enjoys a two percent lead in the polling aggregates and with Kemp’s endorsement its 16 EC votes should go to Trump. We think that with Kemp’s endorsement—who defeated Stacey Abrams for Governor twice and has a powerful statewide machine—Georgia’s is now off the table for Harris-Walz. Look for Trump to win Georgia by four points or more.

    Pennsylvania: It’s been our observation since Biden stepped down with Harris taking his place, by selecting Tim Walz instead of Josh Shapiro as her running mate, she’s made a huge mistake with national implications. Those implications? Jewish voters in other crucial swing states will view the snub of Shapiro in a very negative way. It seems that Democrats think they can win the Keystone State without him being her running mate. Pennsylvania has been trending to the right with Republicans enjoying a big edge in new voter registrations. This is one state where RFK’s exit from the race should benefit Trump. In the multi-candidate polls, RFK was taking more votes from Trump than Harris. Depending on which poll you follow, the state is anywhere from +1 for Harris to +4 for Trump. With RFK Jr. just dropping out (and not endorsing Trump), it looks like Pennsylvania’s 19 EC votes will go to Trump giving him the election.

    (With an RFK Jr. endorsement combined with Glenn Youngkin’s popularity, is Virginia now a swing state that Trump can flip? This bears watching between now and the first debate in September.)

    The RFK Jr. campaign probably peeled off more Dems than Republicans, so this endorsement is going to piss off the Dems in a higher proportion to the votes they will lose. They realize the mistake they made by trying to sabotage Kennedy’s presidential bid, and now an RFK Jr. endorsement puts new swing-state wind into Trump’s sails. To understand the full extent of disillusionment of the Kennedy campaign over Democrat Party sabotage, here is VP candidate Nicole Shanahan—a California Democrat lawyer—eviscerating her party over its naked election interference.

    If anything, it will be entertaining to see left-on-left infighting. Dems will not take this endorsement lying down; they will trot out Kennedy’s “weirdness” (seems to be more projection than usual coming from them) and maybe tout his betrayal of the Kennedy legacy as if anyone under 60 even remembers. The left hates defectors from the plantation, no matter what legacy a defector’s surname might suggest.

    The 2024 race has been the wildest in modern American history and it’s not even Labor Day yet. And what will be this cycle’s October Surprise? In this crazy year, we predict it’s going to be Biden’s resignation after the one scheduled debate so Harris can run as the official incumbent. Could that swing the final result back to Harris? We shall see. Buckle up, it’s only going to get crazier over the next 70 days.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 08/24/2024 – 12:45

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