Oct 30

Today’s News 30th October 2021

  • Humanity Is Sleepwalking Towards Medical Apartheid…
    Humanity Is Sleepwalking Towards Medical Apartheid…

    Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The tragic state of affairs, justified by a disease with a better than 99 percent survival rate, cannot continue indefinitely…

    Even as scientific studies show that vaccines alone cannot extricate humanity from the Covid-19 crisis, governments are rushing headlong towards the creation of a ‘vaccinated economy’ without any consideration for the consequences. It’s time for an injection of sanity and informed democratic debate.

    An astonishing thing happened this week that should have – were it not for a media industrial complex that coddles and cossets the powers that be – incited journalists to scream bloody murder around our increasingly imprisoned planet. What the world got instead was the deafening cacophony of crickets.

    When a reporter asked New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern about the possibility of the Pacific island nation being fragmented into two distinct classes of citizens – the vaccinated and unvaccinated – Arden didn’t miss a beat as she responded with her trademark Cheshire grin, “That is what it is. So yep. Yep.”

    After being further prodded by the deferential journalist as to why she favored apartheid, Ardern, who has already mandated vaccines for government employees or else, responded, unscientifically, that “people who have been vaccinated will want to know that they are around other vaccinated people; they’ll want to know that they’re in a safe environment.”

    Under normal conditions – that is, before scientific inquiry was sent back kicking and screaming to the Dark Ages – Ardern’s outrageous remark would have been greeted by robust and vigorous debate from both the political and medical communities. After all, the vaccinated should feel absolutely at ease mingling among the unvaccinated in stuffy public places given that they are, supposedly, protected? Isn’t that the point of the vaccines, to protect the vaccinated and get us back to some semblance of ‘normal’? If not, then why the incessant push to jab every single person on the planet, and not just once, as initially promised, but multiple times? The answer, at least according to Queen Ardern, is so that everyone can feel “confident” once again among their fellow man. That makes absolutely zero sense, especially as new studies show no discernible decrease in infection rates among the vaccinated. So why hedge our bets when just the opposite seems to be happening?

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    In a recent study by Harvard researchers, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, it was discovered that, looking at statistics around the world, “there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases…” The researchers then delivered a brutal body slam to conventional (political) thinking by revealing that “the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have HIGHER (emphasis added) COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.”

    That is a truly shocking discovery, and one that deserves a serious public debate now that a mandatory vaccination regime – replete with the loss of jobs and lives – is being bolted down across much of the globe. But instead of addressing the health crisis with a modicum of restraint and humility, many politicians are gleefully capitalizing on the pandemic, using it as an opportunity to accumulate ever greater political power. This disturbing trend is happening across much of the Western hemisphere where, in what must be one of the greatest coincidences of modern times, a coterie of like-minded liberal leaders hold the destiny of mankind in their very hands. This cannot be considered a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. Although these individuals may owe no special favors to the pharmaceutical industry, their collective actions – denying the unvaccinated the same inherent rights to liberty and freedom as other citizens, including the corporate variety  – do not support such a premise.

    So how to explain this unprecedented power grab happening around the world? Best to examine the unmatched power of the media that promotes the message of Covid authoritarians, like Jacinda Ardern, and their unflinching devotion to a fragmented apartheid state. All in the name of health, of course.

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    Political commentator Chantelle Baker told Sky News Australia that Ardern enjoys practically “full control” of the narrative in New Zealand because the government has paid “hundreds of millions” to the media. Now, in return, the citizens are stuck with compromised journalists who will “only push for promotion of Jacinda and…her ideological ideas.”

    Around the globe, in another power-grabbing liberal hotspot, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also enjoys no small amount of mainstream media support. In its 2019 budget, the federal government lavished select media outlets to the tune of $600 million in subsidies, the overwhelming bulk of the largesse going to left-leaning publications, of course.

    “Trudeau’s media bailout will not save the newspaper business,” warned Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, one of the last free and independent media voices in Canada. “It will put it in a complacent, comatose state on life support, fearful that if it acts against its master, that the plug could be pulled at any time.”

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    South of the border, in the United States of Submission, the liberal-dominated media is almost 100 percent aligned behind Joe Biden and his mandatory vaccine regime. The media whitewashing of the subject comes even as several states, including Texas, Florida and Arizona have drawn a line in the sand, allowing their citizens loopholes from which to escape the wildly draconian, ‘vaccinate-or-vacate’ your job stance.

    Returning to the Pacific basin, in Australia, where new cases of Covid have decreased to a trickle, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews is snorting heavily from the absolute power stash, attempting to ram home a bill that would empower him to pronounce, like any degenerate Caesar, any and all future pandemics and the necessary emergency provisions.

    In a delightful document entitled the Roadmap – which comes off a bit like a Mad Max sequel – Andrews, who apparently moonlights as a PhD when he’s not pretending to be a leader, postulates that “there will come a time when Victorians who choose not to get vaccinated will be left behind…” as Australians begin “transitioning to a ‘vaccinated economy’ in this state, and ensure we have the right systems in place.”

    Those are some truly disturbing words, and ones that few people would expect to be tossed around blithely by a western leader in the 21st century. In fact, they fly in the face of democratic theory to the point where the question of abuse of powers cannot be discounted. I suspect this is the real reason why the ‘progressive’ radicals now working overtime in the U.S. to fracture societies around the planet are the same people who wish to eliminate Thomas Jefferson from the annals of American history, starting with stone depictions of his existence.

    Jefferson, in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which he authored, famously states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    Across the so-called Five Eyes alliance, comprised of the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, a homegrown tyranny based on a creeping medical apartheid is threatening the “life, liberty and pursuit of Happiness” worse than all of history’s former tyrants combined. Covid-19 did not create the unbearable conditions for which millions of people from Auckland to Alaska are now suffering; what created our current crisis is the reckless response to Covid-19, which increasingly appears to be based not on medical science, but rather raw political opportunism. This tragic state of affairs, justified by a disease with a better than 99 percent survival rate, cannot continue indefinitely. In fact, it needs to end immediately.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 23:40

  • 85% Of Afghans Face Food Insecurity In Upcoming Winter
    85% Of Afghans Face Food Insecurity In Upcoming Winter

    Food crisis forecasting for Afghanistan, called terrifying by the FAO, is projecting more than half of the country’s population will experience acute food shortages this winter unless actions are taken.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, according to reports by The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, 85 percent in the country are to experience any type of food insecurity, including food stress classified as non-acute, between November 2021 and March 2022.

    Infographic: Afghan Population Faces Food Crisis in Upcoming Winter | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to the reports, drought conditions paired with the collapse of public services and the economy as a result of the Taliban takeover brought about the dismal conditions, which could increase food prices beyond the reach of many.

    Sanctions, conflict flare-ups and decreased international aid are also expected to decrease the physical access to food. Internal displacement as a result of the crisis is also a driver of food insecurity, putting pressure on larger cities where many of the displaced seek refuge.

    The 55 percent of Afghans expected to experience acute food shortage this winter is the highest ever recorded in the country, according to the IPC. Being in food crisis means that household cannot cover all meals anymore by their usual means but could seek out avenues like selling belongings or seeking extra work. Being in a food emergency, however, means that those avenues have been exhausted.

    A last classification – food catastrophe or the extreme deprivation of food causing malnutrition and death – is not predicted for Afghanistan. This level of food shortage is currently being detected by the IPC in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and to a lesser extend in South Sudan, Yemen and Madagascar.

    We ‘re sure the Taliban have a plan.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 23:15

  • COP26 Is A Global Energy Embarrassment
    COP26 Is A Global Energy Embarrassment

    Authored by Viv Forbes via AmericanThinker.com,

    For 26 futile years, the net-zero maniacs have wasted fuel, energy, and taxpayers’ money to bite the hands that provide their food, energy, welfare, and public-sector jobs.

    Led by E.U. and AUKUS dreamers, they destroy reliable energy from coal, oil, nuclear, gas, and hydro while forcing us to subsidize net-negative dreams like solar, wind, wave-power, CCUS, hot rocks, pumped hydro, and hydrogen.  All such speculative ventures should be funded by speculators, not taxpayers.

    COP-Out-26 illustrates to the realists of China, Russia, India, and Brazil that the West has lost its marbles and is in terminal decline.  For Scott Morrison to surrender Australia to these green wolves betrays an army of miners, farmers, truckies, and workers in primary, secondary, and tertiary industries that support him and his Canberra pack.

    The fakery of COP-Out-26 is well illustrated by the provision of diesel generators to recharge the batteries of 26 electric cars provided for show in Glasgow.  But that’s OK “because the diesels are run on recycled chip fat.”  Horses and covered wagons would be more reliable and appropriate, and dried horse manure could cook their fake meat on their green, chip-fired barbeques.

    Neither E.U. nor AUKUS green dreamers can run their world on energy plans drafted by neurotic schoolgirls, clueless princes, deluded accountants like Ross Garnaut, and serial climate alarmists like David Attenborough.

    China loves Net-Zero, using its growing coal power to manufacture the wind turbines, solar panels, electric engines, and rare earth batteries for the woke world.

    But the subsidy tap feeding green energy development in the Western world will run dry.  Fake energy will fade away, leaving a continent of jobless people with silent mills, refineries, and factories.  Our land will be littered with derelict windmills, decaying solar panels, dead batteries, and sagging transmission lines to be cleaned up in order to restore our land to productive grasslands, crops, and forests.  Those huge concrete bases of abandoned wind towers will become permanent obstacles to restoration of this land.

    Next we will see digital carbon credit cards designed by green academics to ration our energy and food usage to achieve their Net-Zero Nirvana.

    A bleak future beckons.

    Scott Morrison and his team should boycott this final futile COP-Out-26.

    Barnaby Joyce should hang his head in shame — I know that he knows better.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 22:50

  • Shellenberger: The Root Cause Of America's Homelessness Epidemic & Why The Term 'Homeless' Is Misleading
    Shellenberger: The Root Cause Of America’s Homelessness Epidemic & Why The Term ‘Homeless’ Is Misleading

    “We’re literally paying people in the form of cash welfare, housing, and other services to live in tents on the street, use hard drugs, defecate publicly, and commit crimes,” says Michael Shellenberger, author of “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities.”

    In San Fransicko I explore how the conversation around how to use law and order to advance civil rights gave way to a debate over whether law and order is an obstacle to social justice. The question used to be carrots versus sticks. Do you reward people for not committing crimes, or do you punish them when they do? But that’s been superseded by a question from progressives: what if it’s a form of victimization to try to influence people’s behavior at all?

    The governing majority in some of America’s cities seems to believe that the only real public policy problem is how to pay for letting people do whatever they want, from turning public parks into open-air drug encampments, to using sidewalks as toilets, to handing over whole neighborhoods to people who are heavily armed and purposefully unaccountable.

    Progressives have been in charge of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, as well as California and Washington, during most of the decades in which the problems I describe here have grown worse. On the fundamental policies relating to mental illness, addiction, and housing for the homeless, moderate Democrats, conservatives, and Republicans have either gone along with the liberal and progressive agenda or been powerless to prevent it since the 1960s. And it was Democrats, not Republicans, who played the primary role in creating the dominant neoliberal model of government contracting to fragmented and often unaccountable non-profit service providers that have proven financially, structurally, and legally incapable of addressing the crisis.

    In this episode of Via The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders, Shellenberger breaks down the root causes behind the sprawling homeless encampments found in cities like San Francisco.

    Even the word “homeless” itself is a propaganda word, Shellenberger says.

    “It suggests that the underlying problem is lack of housing, expensive rents, or poverty. And that’s not the case.”

    The term “homeless” lumps together two groups that are radically different.

    But it’s irresponsible to conflate mothers escaping abusive husbands, or people who are just going through some hard times, with people who are mentally ill, or drug-addicted, or both, Shellenberger says.

    Fundamentally, a victim ideology guides how progressives deal with homelessness.

    And this ideology refuses to demand even a modicum of accountability from so-called victims, Shellenberger argues, even when they’re engaging in self-destructive behaviors that could be deadly.

    *  *  *

    Subscribe to the American Thought Leaders newsletter so you never miss an episode.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 22:25

  • Waypoints On The Road To Currency Destruction (And How To Avoid It)
    Waypoints On The Road To Currency Destruction (And How To Avoid It)

    Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

    The few economists who recognise classical human subjectivity see the dangers of a looming currency collapse. It can easily be avoided by halting currency expansion and cutting government spending so that their budgets balance. No democratic government nor any of its agencies have the required mandate or conviction to act, so fiat currencies face ruin.

    These are some waypoints to look for on the road to their destruction:

    • Monetary policy will be challenged by rising prices and stalling economies. Central banks will almost certainly err towards accelerating inflationism in a bid to support economic growth.

    • The inevitability of rising bond yields and falling equity markets that follows can only be alleviated by increasing QE, not tapering it. Look for official support for financial markets by increased QE.

    • Central banks will then have to choose between crashing their economies and protecting their currencies or letting their currencies slide. The currency is likely to be deemed less important, until it is too late.

    • Realising that it is currency going down rather than prices rising, the public reject the currency entirely and it rapidly becomes valueless. Once the process starts there is no hope for the currency.

    But before we consider these events, we must address the broader point about what the alternative safety to a fiat collapse is to be: cryptocurrencies led by bitcoin, or metallic money to which people have always returned when state fiat money has failed in the past.

    Introduction

    When expected events begin to unfold, they can be marked by waypoints. These include predictable government responses, and the confused statements of analysts who are unfamiliar with the circumstances. We see this today in the early stages of an inflation that threatens to become a terminal cancer for fiat currencies.

    Harder to judge is the human element, the pace at which realisation dawns and the public’s consequential response to the discovery that their currency is being debauched and their wealth being transferred stealthily to the state. But history can provide some guidance.

    If we consider the evidence from Austria before the First World War, we see that the economic prophets who truly understood economics became thoroughly despondent long before the First World War and the currency collapse of the early 1920s. Carl Menger, the father of subjectivity in marginal price theory became depressed by what he foresaw. As von Mises in his Memoirs wrote of Menger’s discouragement and premature silence, “His keen intellect had recognized in which direction Austria, Europe, and the world were pointed; he saw this greatest and highest of all civilizations rushing toward the abyss”. Mises then recorded a conversation his great-uncle had had with Menger’s brother, which referred to comments made by Menger at about the turn of the century, when he reportedly said,

    “The policies being pursued by the European powers will lead to a terrible war ending with gruesome revolutions, the extinction of European culture and destruction of prosperity for people of all nations. In anticipation of these inevitable events, all that can be recommended are investments in gold hoards and the securities of the two Scandinavian countries” [presumably being on the periphery of European events].

    The few economists who have studied American and European monetary and economic policies dispassionately and how they have evolved since the Nixon shock will resonate with Menger’s concerns. Mises also noted that this “pessimism consumed all sharp-sighted Austrians”. Menger’s pupil and friend, Crown Prince Rudolf, successor to the Austro-Hungarian throne took his own life and that of his lover in 1889 because of his despair over the future of his empire and that of European civilisation, and not because of his love affair.

    As with all historical comparisons, today’s decline in American hegemony is only a most generalised repetition of the process by which an empire dies. But from this distance of over a century from events in Vienna it is easy to forget how important the Hapsburgs were and that before Napoleon the Austro-Hungarian empire had been the largest and most important of the European empires. But putting aside the obvious differences between then and now, today we see little or no evidence of cutting-edge economists sharing the despair of the early Austrians.

    There is a good reason why this despair is absent today. Instead of economists independent from the state, universities, and professorial sponsorship, the entire economic profession is paid for by governments and their departments to promote statist intervention in the economic affairs of humanity. Feeding off statistics, mathematics is every policy-makers and investor’s religion. But economics is not a natural science governed by mathematics, like physics or chemistry, but a social science governed by markets; markets being forums where humans interact to satisfy their needs and wants, to exchange their production for consumption, and to manage their savings and capital.

    As Hayek said of his friend Keynes, Keynes was a mathematician and not an economist. Today we can confidently state that students are taught mathematics and not economics. Economists are no longer economists, but statisticians and mathematicians devoid of the a priori reasoning that was central to the science before Keynes.

    With the entire profession taught to believe in statist intervention, perhaps we should not be surprised that economists are not ringing the alarm bells warning of the consequences of decades of state manipulation of markets and of the catastrophe that evolves from denying there is any difference between money and currency, that is gold or silver, and infinitely expandable promissory notes and credit. Even many modern “Austrians” seem oblivious to the danger of a fiat money collapse, let alone the dire economic consequences. Among them there is even an antipathy against metallic money, which suggests they have not fully absorbed the theories of money and credit so lucidly explained by their earlier mentors.

    Hopefully, the decline of America and its dollar hegemony we will not result in military conflict, let alone one on the scale of the 1914-18 European catastrophe. But that might be a vain hope. In today’s America we see a hegemon struggling to get to terms with its decline and the reality that the rise of Asia cannot be stopped. But what concerns us here is the more obvious and immediate problem of its currency, dollars backed by nothing more than the faith and credit of the declining US Government.

    It is not too late to avoid a complete collapse of the dollar-led global currency regime, but there is no sign that the measures to avoid it will be taken. And with the exclusive dominance of mathematical economists: neo-Keynesians, monetarists, and modern monetary theorists alike, there is hardly anyone, like Menger, Mises, and the other Austrian economists who, before the First World War foresaw the economic and monetary consequences of unfettered statism and inflationary financing.

    Bitcoin — the canary in the currency mine

    We find ourselves not being warned of potential inflationary dangers by the state-educated pseudo-economists but by a motley crowd of geeks and speculators instead, who have grasped the relative price effect from different rates of currency issuance. Bitcoin’s quantity is capped while those of fiat currencies are not. All you need to exploit this simple fact is believe and convince yourself and others that bitcoin is the replacement currency of tomorrow for the comparison between bitcoin and state fiat to appear valid.

    This was certainly the story being promoted by crypto enthusiasts from shortly after bitcoin’s first trade until the end of last year. But they have become increasingly convinced that the future for bitcoin is not so much as a currency (after all, while its price in dollars is rising it is in no one’s interest to use it as a medium for exchanging goods), but simply that, like a stock index on steroids, it is the inflation hedge par excellence. And for fear of missing out, even investing institutions run by custodians of other peoples’ money are now piling in.

    But an index based on equities has the fundamental prop under it of being comprised of stocks the objective of which is to earn money for shareholders by selling goods and services for profit. With bitcoin there are no underlying earnings and nothing which is inflation-linked. In that sense it is a chimera.

    An argument has therefore developed, with investors and speculators buying bitcoin only because the relative rate of issue relative to fiat currencies is capped, which is expected to drive the price still higher as governments continue to print their currencies. The underlying rationale, that bitcoin is a replacement currency for state fiat currencies has been disproved and I have little more to add in this respect. It cannot be used for economic calculation, because for a borrower there is uncertainty of repayment value.

    Nor does bitcoin as a rival to state currencies hold water because no central bank will permit it to act as such. This is one reason why they are heading private cryptocurrencies off at the pass by developing their own, state-issued, and state-controlled digital currencies which can be used for economic calculation. Not only has the argument for ever rising bitcoin prices become its sole support, but the underlying rationale, that cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin qualify as a medium for transactions and will be permitted to replace state-issued fiat currencies cannot apply.

    By identifying relative rates of currency issue as a valuation factor the tech-savvy millennial generation has understood a partial truism. The other part of which they appear not to be fully aware is that the effect of monetary inflation is to undermine a currency’s purchasing power. It is a separate argument from one based solely on relative rates of currency issue. However, having half the story understood at least is an advance from not comprehending any of it, and when further rises in prices for goods become widely expected, as they appear to be beginning to today, crypto fans are likely to learn the consequences of monetary inflation earlier than their non-tech predecessors, and perhaps even before state-educated economists as well.

    For now, investors are being enticed by nothing other than the promise of riches to buy bitcoin as an inflation hedge, being disappointed by gold’s non-performance. In a recent quote in the UK’s Daily Telegraph a Morgan Stanley analyst stated just that: “We believe the perception of bitcoin as a better inflation hedge than gold is the main reason for the current upswing… triggering a shift away from gold [funds] into bitcoin funds since September”. But without the prop of being a credible form of replacement money the only reason to buy bitcoin is that circular argument: it should be bought because it is being bought.

    Furthermore, buying bitcoin funds dissipates potential bitcoin demand, because for a bitcoin fund to qualify as a regulated investment, obtaining regulatory permission is easiest when a fund deals mostly or wholly in contracts on a regulated futures exchange instead of the underlying unregulated bitcoin. In other words, much of the demand for bitcoin is being side-lined into paper versions rather than for bitcoin itself.

    Bubbles based on pure speculation always fail. That is not to say that speculative flows won’t drive bitcoin’s price higher still; as a possibility it seems highly likely. But that is for speculators, not those who seek protection from evolving economic and monetary events. Attention should be paid to Menger’s reported words 120 years ago, quoted above, that “In anticipation of these inevitable events, all that can be recommended are investments in gold hoards and the securities of the two Scandinavian countries” — except the securities of the two Scandinavian countries offer no escape today.

    That being the case, the price of gold measured in bitcoin would appear to present a remarkable opportunity for lucky holders of bitcoin and similar private-sector cryptocurrencies. This is shown in Figure 1 below.

    Since April 2015, the ratio of gold to bitcoin prices has fallen from over 5 to 0.03, a decline of over 99%. We have established why bitcoin has advanced: it is now due solely to the madness of an investing crowd, given that it is apparent that it will have no monetary role in the future. Market participants have either forgotten about or turned their backs against the metallic monies of millennia which have always returned as circulating media when state-issued fiat currencies fail.

    Why gold is under-owned and unappreciated

    Bitcoin is just part of this story: the other is the central banks’ resistance to rivalry to their fiat currencies from sound money. When US citizens were banned from owning gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates by executive order in 1933, the US Government’s desire to escape the discipline of gold as money became public. The resetting of international currency arrangements at Bretton Woods replaced gold with the dollar as the reserve currency with convertibility into gold limited to central banks and certain post-war supranational organisations. Even that failed, leading to the Bretton Woods agreement being suspended by President Nixon in 1971.

    Led by the US Fed, ever since the Nixon shock central banks have run a propaganda campaign to convince their private sectors that gold’s historic role as the money “of last resort” had been made redundant through the magic of monetary progress. That propaganda campaign is now fifty years old and encompasses the entire working lives of employees in all financial sectors. The dollar myth as the ultimate form of money is now fully institutionalised.

    In parallel with statist propaganda there has been a fundamental reform of the financial system to permit the development of various forms of derivatives. While derivatives previously existed in limited quantities, their massive expansion since the mid-eighties big-bang and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act created the means to absorb speculative demand for all commodities, including metallic money. According to the Bank for International Settlements, outstanding notional amounts of gold OTC derivatives at the end of last year stood at $834bn, to which must be added derivatives on regulated markets totalling a further $100bn. Together they are the equivalent together of over 15,000 tonnes of gold.

    There is little doubt that, like bank credit, the financial system’s ability to create paper gold out of thin air has had a profound effect on the price. Backing this inflation of derivative paper has been the expansion of bank and shadow bank credit. That is now coming to an end, with the implementation of the latest phase of Basel 3 banking regulations.

    Basel 3 and the net stable funding ratio

    If you Google it, you find that Basel 3 is an internationally agreed set of measures developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in response to the financial crisis of 2007-09.

    It was a crisis centred on derivatives, which highlighted the inadequacies of minimum capital requirements, banking supervision and market discipline, the three pillars of banking regulation. Basel 3 is gradually being introduced, but the regulations which concern gold and silver derivatives are what specifically concern us. Curbing balance sheet risk from inappropriate funding of precious metal derivative positions has already been introduced in Europe, Switzerland, and the US with the introduction of the net stable funding ratio. The last major financial jurisdiction to be affected is the UK, which introduces appropriate regulations from the first trading day of 1922 — in only nine weeks’ time.

    Put briefly, a bank will no longer be able to run unrestricted derivative assets and liabilities without them being tied together. In other words, if a bank has a derivative as an asset on its balance sheet, it must relate specifically to and match a liability for netting purposes and be otherwise unencumbered if a balance sheet funding penalty is to be avoided. If a bank owns unencumbered physical gold as an asset, it can match that against a customer’s unallocated account without a funding penalty, if it has successfully sought and obtained regulatory permission to do so.

    Two consequences follow. The first is that a bullion bank can only run an uneven book if it is prepared to accept a funding penalty through the application of the net stable funding ratio.[iii]Therefore, liquidity will almost certainly be withdrawn from futures and forwards markets, at least because banks want to appear fully compliant with the regulations. And the second is that most of the BIS gold derivative number of $834bn referred to above reflects bullion banks liabilities to their gold deposit accounts. By the year-end bullion banks will want to remove them, and the only way this can be achieved is by paying off customer gold accounts in fiat currency.

    There could be thousands of tonnes equivalent of paper gold to reconcile in this way, leaving gold account depositors to either abandon their gold exposure entirely or to buy physical replacements in the market. And while the gaff is being blown on gold forwards and futures, reconciling central bank swaps and leases could also emerge as a problem.

    In short, the factors that have suppressed the gold price since the early 1970s are not only coming to an end but are being reversed. The liquidation of paper gold threatens a gold liquidity crisis, which in the past would have been resolved by making bullion available through central bank gold swaps. But with central banks already owed bullion by the commercial banks and increasingly concerned about monetary inflation, this facility may be restricted.

    For the leading central banks, the introduction of Basel 3’s net stable funding ratio therefore comes at a difficult time. They are already fighting to convince their markets that inflation is only a transient price effect and are beginning to reluctantly admit it is more intractable than they thought. The last thing they need is for the gold price to be forced higher by their own regulations, adding to fears of yet higher inflation to come.

    But for individuals seeking to escape a fiat money catastrophe it appears that the ratio of gold to bitcoin is at an extreme of overvaluation for bitcoin and an extreme undervaluation for gold.

    The next waypoints in understanding inflation

    Because bitcoin has introduced the concept of relative rates of issue for currencies, the masses of the millennial generations will be alerted to the debasement of fiat currencies sooner than they would otherwise have been. We are less interested in how this is reflected in cryptocurrency prices than how this knowledge changes relations between consumers and state currencies.

    Statist economists and monetary policy makers at the major central banks insist that higher prices for consumer goods are being driven by a combination of increased spending, which was stored up during covid lockdowns, and logistics disruption. To this can be added labour problems, with acute shortages in certain industry sectors and absenteeism due to continuing covid infections. Furthermore, energy and other input costs for businesses have been rising rapidly.

    Monetary policy makers are aware that a wider consumer panic over rising prices must be avoided. They understand that continuing reports of product shortages will risk encouraging consumer stockpiling, driving consumer prices even higher. They will fear that interest rates would have to be increased significantly to bring price inflation back under control. But growth in the major economies appears to be stalling, which in the Keynesian playbook calls for lower interest rates and monetary stimulation instead. This leads us to…

    Waypoint 1. Commentary in the main-stream media has yet to address this dilemma. It is to be expected at any time.

    Following our first waypoint, we can assume that interest rates will be forced to rise by markets beginning to discount further losses of currency purchasing power for which interest compensation is demanded. That will inevitably terminate the bull market in equities because it undermines bond prices, pushing up yields and disrupting relative valuations. Figure 2 shows that this process has probably started, though markets are not yet discounting a rise in bond yields beyond a minor amount.

    The technical message from this chart confirms that the 10-year UST yield is set to go significantly higher, affecting government borrowing adversely through rising interest costs. And when the bear market in these bonds becomes more obvious to investors and foreign holders of them alike, funding the government deficit will become much more difficult. The scale of the rise in fixed interest yields is likely to take market participants and policy planners alike by surprise.

    The only way in which monetary policy planners can attempt to control rising bond yields and to stop equities sliding into a bear market is to increase the pace of currency creation, particularly through enhanced QE. But for now, the Fed’s stated intention is to taper QE, not increase it. This leads us to…

    Waypoint 2. No anticipation of this dilemma in the media or independent commentary has yet been detected. Look out for it.

    In the run up to the northern hemisphere winter and the Christmas shopping season, energy prices and fuel costs are set to rise further. There is no sign of product shortages being resolved. The danger is that with continuing product shortages, consumers will push their purchases of goods not immediately needed even further into the future in case they become unavailable. This will drive consumer prices even higher, creating expectations of yet higher interest rates in financial markets.

    The Fed will have a straightforward choice: resist market pressures for higher interest rates to save financial markets, stave off insolvencies by over-leveraged borrowers and minimise government funding costs; or protect the dollar by raising the funds rate sufficiently to take all expectation of higher rates out of the market and ignore the financial carnage. This will be next…

    Waypoint 3. No anticipation of this dilemma in the media or independent commentary has yet been detected.

    There is a specific danger developing from consumer demand leading to a general stockpiling goods. When the process goes beyond a certain point the consequences of consumers disposing of their currency and credit in favour of goods become apparent. Currency no longer works as the objective value in a transaction, this role being switched to goods, because people begin to buy goods just to get rid of currency.

    When that process starts in earnest, the fate of the currency is sealed. A hundred years ago this was called the crack-up boom, the final abandonment of currency.

    Waypoint 4. No anticipation of the final nails in the fiat currency coffin is currently anticipated. When it is, the fate of the currency will have already been sealed.

    Summary and conclusions

    Those of us not under the direct management of the US monetary policies will not escape the consequences. All western central banks accept the dollar as their reserve currency and not metallic money, so events affecting the dollar affect all the other fiat currencies. Furthermore, the other major central banks led by the Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, and the Bank of England are pursuing similarly inflationary monetary policies. Central bank groupthink is concreted into global monetary policies. Without a change in their mandate the end of modern currencies is only a matter of time — and a shortening one at that.

    The dying days of fiat are foreshadowed by the speculative fervour in bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies. A new millennial tech-savvy class of investors has got at least half the message, that fiat currency quantities are being inflated. That a significant element of the population has grasped this much about currencies early challenges the long-held wisdom that not one in a million understands money, which allows governments to oversee a limitless expansion of currency and credit for significant periods of time. Therefore, the danger to state inflationism is that significant numbers will act sooner to avoid currency depreciation by dumping it in favour of goods. It is a process that once started is impossible to stop.

    While the establishment appears vaguely aware of this danger, it lacks the theoretical knowledge to deal with it. Ninety years of denying classical economics in favour of Keynesianism and other statist monetary theories are too embedded in the official mind. And in the absence of understanding the destructive forces of inflationism, prescient individuals seeking protection for their families, close friends and themselves have no option but to reduce their dependency on fiat currencies and all ephemeral financial assets tied to them. These include savings deposits and “stores of wealth”, particularly fixed-interest bonds and equities.

    The fashionable alternative is distributed ledger cryptocurrencies which are beyond the interference of the state, exemplified by the rise and rise of bitcoin. But this article points out that this has now become dominated by speculation, so much so that in their ignorance of catallactics investors are discarding metallic money in favour of bitcoin.

    This is a mistake. There are sound reasons why metallic money, gold and silver, have always been money used as a medium of exchange. And as Figure 1 in this article illustrates, relative to bitcoin gold is now less than 1% of its value in 2016. Bitcoin is the bubble; gold has become the anti-bubble.

    The systematic suppression of gold in favour of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is now coming to an end. The fact that westerners hardly own any bullion as part of their savings is a mistake they will rue, if, as seems inevitable, current monetary and economic policies persist.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 22:00

  • China Summons Four TV Broadcasters For "Excessive Entertainment"
    China Summons Four TV Broadcasters For “Excessive Entertainment”

    Until now, China’s increasingly totalitarian regime had raged over, scolded its companies and generally cracked down over (somewhat) legitimate reasons: fledgling monopolies, information warehousing, educational profiteering, and generally anything that did not comply with Xi’s new “shared prosperity” theme. But all that went out of the window overnight when China’s Xinhua reported that four regional broadcasters were summoned for an inquiry on Friday for airing “excessive entertainment” programs in their satellite TV services.

    The broadcasters under question are the regional radio and TV stations of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Hunan; the four were called to a meeting with officials from the CCP’s central propaganda department and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), Xinhua reported.

    During the inquiry, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the National Radio and Television Administration did acknowledge the contribution of the four regional broadcasters in promoting mainstream values and spreading positive energy in recent years.

    Taking a page right out of a Stalinist purge, the satellite channels of these four stations were found to have flaws of streaming “excessive entertainment” materials and hyping entertainment stars to varying degrees, which according to a statement issued after the inquiry, “must be resolutely rectified.”

    In other words, no more “excessive entertainment” which may be similar to “too many notes” only nobody really knows: after all this is just the latest example of Beijing censors losing their mind.

    “In recent years, radio and television stations in these four provinces and cities have … made positive contributions in promoting mainstream values and spreading positive energy,” the bosses were told.

    “But some satellite channels also have problems, such as an excessive focus on entertainment, star-chasing and speculation, which must be resolutely rectified,” the officials warned.

    The central authorities asked the four stations to carry out comprehensive measures to improve their cultural and entertainment programs, maintain political consciousness, and give priority to social benefits.

    Like not airing “excessive entertainment.”

    Similar to channels like MSNBC, the scolded stations should instead focus more on vigorously prompting core socialist values, praising ordinary workers, and playing a leading role in the transformation and development of provincial radio and television services, the statement added.

    The broadcasters said they will earnestly implement the directives, comprehensively push forward rectifications, and speed up transformation. Because under a totalitarian socialist regime, that’s what you do.

    The warning to the satellite channels came as the SARFT unveiled a new production process for centrally approved radio, TV, and online audiovisual content “in the new era.” In other words, even more censorship is coming.

    The agency called on all radio, TV, and online content producers to start making TV dramas, documentaries, and cartoons, as well as public service films, that “depict the major achievements and history of the CCP’s century of struggle.”

    The newly commissioned content should “fully demonstrate that Xi Jinping’s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics has taken root,” it said in a directive on Oct. 29. The SARFT will also impose strict controls on the selection of actors and guests, as well as on performance styles, costumes, and make-up, it said.

    Some social media users said the four satellite channels targeted for “rectification” were the only channels they ever watched. Online commentators took issue with the ongoing ideological crackdown on China’s media, which was already tightly controlled.

    “Isn’t the point of TV that it’s just for entertainment?” one comment said. Others worried that the move would take China’s radio and TV industries back to the pre-reform era.

    As a reminder, a political essay by a little-known commentator was showcased by China’s state-run media over the summer, suggesting that Xi Jinping is taking the country away from the pro-market policies of the past four decades, which have become associated with decadence by party ideologues.

    The essay, titled “Everyone can tell that profound social change is under way” and printed in CCP mouthpiece the People’s Daily, uses the recent crackdown on China’s scandal-hit entertainment industry to argue that profound political change is afoot that will focus on easing inequality. The essay argues that the CCP has launched a “profound revolution” with its crackdown on celebrity culture, billionaires, and the private sector generally.

    “This revolution will wash all of the dirt away,” said the essay, signed by Li Guangman, columnist and former editor of the trade publication Central China Electric Power.

    “Our capital markets will no longer be a paradise for capitalists to get rich overnight; our cultural sphere no longer a paradise for sex-crazed celebrities, and the worship of Western culture will no longer be a feature of our news coverage or public opinion,” Li wrote.

    The article was reprinted on Aug. 29 by state news agency Xinhua, CCTV, China News Service, the Global Times website, and Guangming.com.

    “Literary and artistic workers, film and television workers must get down to the grassroots of society, making ordinary workers and ordinary people the masters and protagonists of art and literature,” it said.

    In retrospect, it may not be a terrible idea to force a similar standard on Hollywood celebs who under China’s new draconian regime would be limited to make not much more than average wage. One wonders how many of them remain vocal liberals once their money was gone…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 21:35

  • McMaken: Three Reasons To Start Taking Secession Seriously
    McMaken: Three Reasons To Start Taking Secession Seriously

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Last month, the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia released a new study which showed that, at least among those polled, “roughly 4 in 10 (41%) of Biden and half (52%) of Trump voters at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.”

    Moreover, majorities in both groups agreed there are “many radical, immoral people trying to ruin things” and that “it is the duty of every true citizen to help eliminate the evil that poisons our country from within.”

    On might conclude that people who think that things are generally going well in a country aren’t so concerned with “the evil within” that they think it’s time to “split the country.”

    It seems that President Biden has been unable to “unite” the country after all, in spite of his promises that it’s “time to heal in America” and that he will “be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify.” Rather, it appears the country embraces a hard divide over a variety of issues with vaccine mandates and parental rights in public education being only the most current ones.

    At this point, there’s no reason to believe these divides are simply going to go away. Secession is likely to become even more mainstream as has been occurring in recent years, and as the old “liberal consensus” of the mid-twentieth century recedes ever more into the distant past. Moreover, opponents of secession are clear that they’re not willing to tolerate a separation that would allow Americans in neighboring jurisdictions to embrace other models of society or governance. But in the real world, major political changes can come suddenly and in unexpected ways. In 1987, most Soviet still assumed the USSR would continue to exist for many more decades—if not centuries. Because of this, now is the time to begin asking the difficult questions about secession and how military and financial questions can be addressed.

    Considering all this, we see three main reasons why it is increasingly unwise to ignore secession as a serious possibility. 

    Secession Went Mainstream

    The first reason we must now take secession seriously is that it’s no longer a topic of discussion among the most radical.

    In 2014, for example, a quarter of those polled said they thought their state should secede. By 2018, 39 percent were saying they think a state should “have the final say” as to whether or not that state remains part of the United States. In 2020, more than a third of those polled said states have a legal right to secede.

    Mainstream conservatives increasingly suggest the possibility, from Rush Limbaugh to Dennis Prager. Indeed, just last week, Prager admitted that secession offers a chance to live in a country that better reflects one’s own values. Should secession happen, Prager said, “ I would live in a state governed by Judeo-Christian values versus one governed by left-wing values.” Even elderly conservatives are started to grasp the idea: separation brings choice, and choice is better than ossified notions of “patriotism.”

    Indeed, it appears it’s no coincidence that older conservative operatives like Prager have been among those who are late to warm to the idea of secession. According to Zogby’s 2020 poll on secession, favorable attitudes toward secession decline as the polled group gets older. In the 18-29 year-old group, a majority (52 percent) think states have a legal right to secede. In the over-65 group the number is only 23 percent. In other words, the dogma of national unity is a dogma of older generations. Not only is secession increasingly mainstream, it may be the wave of the future as well.

    Meanwhile, members of Congress—including Iowa’s Steven Holt and Florida’s Marjorie Taylor Greene—now openly speak well of secession. They wouldn’t say this unless they thought their constituents agree with them. 

    Moreover, we might measure the growth of the secessionist position by the number of pundits who now feel the need to condemn it. Once upon a time, secession was regarded as so “out there” that it scarcely deserved any attention at all. No longer. Nowadays, conservative beltway pundits feel the need to go on rants about it on Fox News. 

    The Left’s Unionists Want to Run Your Life

    A second reason to take secession seriously is the fact that the Left doesn’t seem to be learning anything from the rise of separatism. Just as many Americans appear to be embracing a posture in opposition to rule from the center, the Left is doubling down on the idea that more local autonomy is not to be tolerated.

    A clear example of this is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act introduced in the US Senate. The legislation, if passed, would give Washington vast new powers in regulating and controlling how states conduct their own elections. Originally, of course, state governments had almost total control in how elections were governed and conducted within each state. This makes sense in a country that began as a collection of sovereign republics. Just as EU member states conduct their elections in a way that’s locally controlled, the same was once true for the US. Over time—as in most areas—the federal government asserted more control. But with the Voting Rights Advancement Act, local control over elections would be virtually abolished with most any changes subject to a federal imprimatur.

    Naturally, opposition to surrendering state elections to federal control is denounced as motivated by racism and other nefarious goals. And this is reflective of the Left’s general opposition to secession and decentralization in general. The idea is “we can’t let those people run their own affairs because they’re sure to use local prerogatives for evil.”

    For example, when condemning secession in New York magazine, Democratic strategist Ed Kilgore made it clear he has no intention of letting people do much of anything without federal “oversight.” He writes:

    So might we drift apart more or less peacefully this time around? Possibly, but count me out when it comes to agreeing to a National Divorce. …[H]ow could I happily accept the accelerated subjugation of women and people of color in a new, adjacent Red America, any more than abolitionists could accept the continuation and expansion of the slavery they hated? Would it really be safe to live near a carbon-mad country in which the denial of climate change was an article of faith? And could I ever trust that a “neighbor” whose leadership and citizens believed their policies reflected the unchanging ancient will of the Almighty would leave our fences intact?

    Kilgore can barely contain his contempt. He might as well be saying “If those Red State troglodytes are allowed freedom, they’ll surely embrace a racist and misogynistic dystopia that fills the air with poisonous fumes. These are religious zealots, after all!”

    Anyone who doesn’t want to live out his or her life as subject to the whims of men like Kilgore should take his few moments of candor as an ominous warning. These people will never “happily accept” self-governance outside Washington’s purview because they quite literally equate it with slavery and the hatred of women.

    In other words, the more the Left condemns secession in detail—as they must now do because dismissive scoffing no longer works—they only provide additional reasons for why secession is likely the only real solution to the national divide.

    Now Is Time to Ask the Difficult Questions

    Finally, the mainstreaming of secession means now is the appropriate time to start asking the difficult questions about how separation would actually take place.

    For example, the issue of nuclear weapons cannot be ignored—although the case of post-Soviet Ukraine shows it’s not as intractable a problem as many suspect. Moreover, the question of the national debt ought to be approached. It will likely also be necessary to admit that under all realistic scenarios, a partial default is the likely outcome either with or without secession. And finally, there is the problem of “ethnic” enclaves. Historically, this always comes with secession, as with the ethnic Russians in the secessionist Baltics or the pro-Spaniard populations left behind throughout Latin America in the nineteenth century. Moreover, how “complete” would this separation be? It is entirely conceivable that a United States with two or more self-governing pieces could nevertheless remain within under a single head of state or within a single military alliance. 

    In real life, big political changes have a habit of occurring regardless of what the official planners want, and what the official plans say. That is, events have a way of overwhelming what the elites think is the proper way of doing things. But fostering serious discussion now could help avert at least some unpleasant surprises in the longer term. On the other hand, living in denial about secession won’t improve things. And, of course, the matter of secession is not “if” but “when.” All polities come to an end at some point either through disintegration or revolution. In many cases, the world improves when old states like the Roman Empire collapse.  The fanciful America-will-last-forever position is something that should seem plausible only to small children or the hopelessly naïve. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 21:10

  • PETA Wants Major League Baseball To Stop Saying "Bullpen" Because It's "Insensitive To Cows"
    PETA Wants Major League Baseball To Stop Saying “Bullpen” Because It’s “Insensitive To Cows”

    People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have outdone themselves with “wokeness” once again on behalf of the animal kingdom. This time, PETA is in the news for urging Major League Baseball to stop referring to pitcher warmup areas as “bullpens”. 

    Because we’re sure this hurts the animals’ feelings when they sit around and watch baseball, right?

    And while that’s sarcasm, that hasn’t stopped the agency from petitioning the MLB to change the term. PETA actually argued that “bullpen” is insensitive to cows, TMZ reported this week. PETA is insisting that the MLB change the name of the warmup area to the “arm barn”. 

    As if referencing a barn is going to be any less “insensitive” than saying “bullpen”? Couldn’t the mention of a barn wind up giving horses somewhere PTSD? But we digress…

    PETA exec Tracy Reiman, who obviously has a lot of time on her hands, commented: “Words matter, and baseball ‘bullpens’ devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals.”

    The organization takes exception with the fact that the “bullpen” is a holding area where bulls are kept before slaughter.

    “Strike out the word ‘bullpen,’ which references the holding area where terrified bulls are kept before slaughter, in favor of a more modern, animal-friendly term,” PETA said.

    Ah, strike out. We see what you did there. Great work advancing the cause, guys. Godspeed.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 20:45

  • FBI Asks US Businesses To Work Closely With The Agency To Counter China
    FBI Asks US Businesses To Work Closely With The Agency To Counter China

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    FBI Director Christopher Wray urged private companies Thursday to work with the agency to counter China and prevent the Asian country from becoming “the world’s only superpower.”

    Wray claims China could become the world’s dominant power by amassing intellectual property. The accusation that Beijing steals intellectual property was the primary basis for the Trump administration’s trade war with China, which is continuing under President Biden.

    Via AP

    Wray accused China of trying to access information through cyberattacks. “Too often when we see a cyberthreat and start digging, we find that the same adversary is also working with an unwitting company insider to target… sensitive and proprietary information,” he said.

    The FBI chief also claimed China was using “non-traditional collectors” to gain information in the US, including “businessmen, different kinds of researchers and graduate students, scientists, ostensibly private companies.”

    He said these private individuals are “effectively under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party, all geared towards a common aim of trying to steal our information to put the Chinese government in a way to become the world’s only superpower.”

    The idea that the FBI suspects anyone from China of being a spy for Beijing has grave implications for the civil liberties of Chinese Americans and Chinese residents living in the US. The FBI’s campaign has already led to the agency falsely accusing Chinese professors in the US of spying for Beijing.

    It’s now common for US officials to claim China is the top “threat” facing the US, but Wray, a holdover from the Trump administration, has been making that claim for years. In 2018, he told Congress that China represents “the broadest, most complicated, most long-term counter-intelligence threat we face.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/29/2021 – 20:20

  • Airbnb Canceling One Night Halloween Bookings To Deter "Party Houses" 
    Airbnb Canceling One Night Halloween Bookings To Deter “Party Houses” 

    Airbnb is taking steps to prevent wild Halloween weekend parties at homes rented through its platform. New restrictions began on Wednesday and will last through the weekend that will limit large gatherings. 

    For the second consecutive year, Airbnb has enforced temporary restrictions around Halloween to prevent parties. One-night reservations will be blocked this weekend for users without a history of positive reviews.

    The vacation rentals platform also announced occupancy limitations to 16 and encouraged neighbors to report suspicious activity. 

    Restrictions led to a 49% plunge in unauthorized parties for Halloween in the U.S. and Canada for 2020.

    Last year, restrictions were first implemented after a Halloween party at a Bay Area Airbnb rental left five people dead in 2019. At the time, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the company would examine measures to ban “party houses.” 

    The company this year has published a set of rules for guests for this weekend: 

    • For one-night reservations — Guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will be prohibited from making one-night reservations in entire home listings.
    • For two-night reservations — Airbnb will deploy more stringent restrictions on two-night reservations that may pose heightened risk for parties. For example, the company will use technology that restricts certain local and last-minute bookings by guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb and also block reservations within an expanded radius.
    • Guests who have a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will not be subject to these restrictions.
    • Guests making one or two-night reservations will need to attest that they understand Airbnb’s party ban and that they could face legal consequences for breaking the rules.

    Airbnb expects their anti-party measures this Halloween weekend will deter “Project X” type style parties. 

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 19:55

    • Dan Bongino Ends Radio Program In Vaccine Mandate Battle With Employer
      Dan Bongino Ends Radio Program In Vaccine Mandate Battle With Employer

      Authored by Christopher Burroughs via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

      Conservative radio host Dan Bongino announced his daily show will only air replays while he deals with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate with his show’s parent company Cumulus Media.

      LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 21: Dan Bongino speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 21, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon )

      Bongino shared the news during his Wednesday online podcast.

      “They didn’t consult with us content providers. I strongly object to the mandate,” Bongino said.

      “The fight with them is having a real impact. Behind the scenes, it’s getting a little ugly here. I wasn’t on the radio today. I don’t know what they did, played the ‘best of’ or whatever. You don’t treat people this way. You don’t let people go because they insist their body is theirs,” he added.

      During Wednesday’s podcast, Bongino also urged listeners to join the Locals platform. Video platforms Rumble and Locals merged on Tuesday after Rumble recently acquired the tech company.

      “It is unfortunately an ugly fight. I wish it weren’t,” Bongino said as he reviewed the controversy with Cumulus during his Wednesday episode.

      “Some of the people who were fired by Cumulus whose stories are piling in, they are really disturbing. I hear you … I read one of the emails yesterday and I’m going to get to more of them as time goes on.”

      Though Bongino is personally fully vaccinated against COVID-19, he opposes the company’s vaccine mandate.

      The former New York police officer and Secret Service agent’s message first pushed back on the media group’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate requirement last week.

      “You can have me or you can have the [vaccine] mandate. But you can’t have both of us,” Bongino said during his nationwide radio program on Oct. 18.

      “I’m not letting this go,” Bongino publicly declared in another post.

      “I’m not even considering letting it go. I’m announcing it publicly so you know I’m not letting it go,” he added.

      Cumulus Media announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees on Aug. 12.

      CEO Mary Berner stated in a message to employees that they needed to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 27—two weeks prior to the scheduled return date.

      The statement included various exceptions to the mandate. Cumulus Media says its workforce includes approximately 4,000 people and runs more than 400 stations in 80 markets.

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      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 19:30

    • Janet Yellen Flip-Flops, Insists Biden's 'BBB' Plan Will Actually Help Suppress Inflation
      Janet Yellen Flip-Flops, Insists Biden’s ‘BBB’ Plan Will Actually Help Suppress Inflation

      Before jetting off to Rome for a weekend G-20 summit in Rome, President Biden on Thursday offered his most detailed outline yet of the Dems new $1.75 trillion social spending/climate changing package, a number that was too small for progressives, who proceeded to block a Thursday vote on the president’s “bipartisan” infrastructure bill.

      Speaking to CNBC from Rome where Yellen is attending the G-20 conference of global leaders with President Biden, the Treasury Secretary delivered her latest pitch in support of the $1.75 trillion social spending-climate agenda, covering a critical area of concern that her boss did his best to avoid during his speech yesterday.

      That subject? Inflation, which Biden’s aides probably felt might be too dangerous for him to discuss due to his cognitive decline.

      And so Treasury Secretary Yellen was left to pick up the slack with a 0500ET interview on CNBC’s Worldwide Exchange. The broad takeaway from her remarks: President Biden’s two-party social-spending-climate plan and his “bipartisan” infrastructure plan will actually help lower inflation by reducing costs for households for key services like child-care, health care and other issues. Ultimately, she expects these pressures to subside by the second half of next year.

      “I don’t think that these investments will drive up inflation at all,” she told CNBC’s Sara Eisen during a live “Worldwide Exchange” interview.

      Months ago, Yellen was one of the first to warn about the looming inflationary beast. But now she’s in charge of taming it, so of course her rhetoric has changed.

      Biden claimed during his White House address yesterday that “17 Nobel winning economists” had signed off on his framework, claiming it wouldn’t push up inflation because it would be – more or less – be fully paid for by tax hikes while creating new economic opportunities. Right now, the bigger driver of inflation is the supply-side shocks like those unveiled by Apple during last night’s earnings.

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      Yellen renewed her push for White House spending plans that are unpopular with several factions of Congress and have yet to be approved. But even as the headline CPI number hits its highest level in 30 years, Yellen insisted that Biden’s program would be a net benefit for workers.

      “It will boost the economy’s potential to grow, the economy’s supply potential, which tends to push inflation down, not up,” she said. “For many American families experiencing inflation, seeing the prices of gas and other things that they buy rise, what this package will do is lower some of the most important costs, what they pay for health care, for child care. It’s anti-inflationary in that sense as well.”

      The only problem with Yellen’s worldview right now is that, as the holiday’s approach, GDP is slowing because more than 100 ships are being left floating in a massive logjam making it nearly impossible for companies to obtain the goods they need ahead of the holiday season. As we noted the other day, economists from the American farm bureau warned that the US is headed for its expensive Thanksgiving ever.

      In effect, the reality of our current economy reflects the exact opposite of what Yellen says is coming just around the corner.

      “Not only has inflation risen, but growth also has decelerated. Due in large part to supply issues that have left dozens of ships stranded at U.S. ports, the pace of gross domestic product growth slowed to 2% in the third quarter, the slowest rate since the pandemic-induced recession ended in April 2020.

      Part of the administration’s G-20 agenda will be addressing its pet economic concerns, including the implementation of a global minimum for corporate taxes, as well as addressing climate change and the supply chain issues that have hampered growth and threaten to cut into holiday spending patterns. Yellen said she expects the supply chain issues “will be addressed over the medium term.” She called the White House’s Build Back Better program “transformational” in addressing the economy’s needs as the nation seeks to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. She insisted that the spending plans are “fully paid for” through tax proposals primarily aimed at higher earners and corporations. “I think it really helps us invest in physical capital. That’s public infrastructure that’s important to productivity growth,” she said. “There’s investment in human capital, there’s investment in research and development, the support that families will receive that will help them participate in the labor market.”

      As we quipped on twitter just a week ago, the nabobs running American fiscal and monetary policy have been slowly moving the goalposts vis-a-vis inflation since the start of the year, when Larry Summers first warned about the risks of rising inflation – prompting his fellow academics to response with a mix of derision and mockery.

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      Now, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has revised the narrative once again: President Biden’s massive spending plan won’t stoke even more inflation (like other recent COVID-related stmulus plans have) because the Biden plan will help stoke economic growth by allowing more women to participate in the workforce while investing in “public infrastructure.”

      She called the White House’s Build Back Better program “transformational” in addressing the economy’s needs as the nation seeks to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. She insisted that the spending plans are “fully paid for” through tax proposals primarily aimed at higher earners and corporations.
      “I think it really helps us invest in physical capital. That’s public infrastructure that’s important to productivity growth,” she said. “There’s investment in human capital, there’s investment in research and development, the support that families will receive that will help them participate in the labor market.”

      In the end, she’s hopeful that economic growth will accelerate and inflation will recede. But to claim that this is a certainty is magical thinking at best.

      Over the past few weeks, the debate surrounding the inherent “transitoriness of inflation” has become increasingly fierce, forcing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to tacitly signale to other senior Fed officials that the word “transitory” shouldn’t be used during public remarks, even as  America’s current inflationary issues, as the accelerating price pressures have already risen more quickly than the Fed had anticipated (something billionaire PTJ warned is the “biggest threat to society).

      Yellen said she Friday she expects inflation to ebb over time and return to its longer-run average around 2%, which tracks with the Fed’s latest economic projections. The fact that it hasn’t subsided as quickly as the Fed had hoped is simply a reflection of the fact that humanity is still caught in an unprecedented pandemic in a globalized world.

      “I think it’s still fair to use [‘transitory’] in the sense that even if it doesn’t mean a month or two, it means a little bit longer than that. I think it conveys that the pressures that we’re seeing are related to a unique shock to the economy,” she said. “As the United States recovers and as vaccinations proceed globally, and the global economic activity revives, that pricing pressure will ease.”

      To be sure, not every business has been harmed or frustrated by inflation. Take hotels, for instance, which have the luxury of re-setting their prices every night.  “If you look at the $3 trillion of incremental savings during COVID, there’s a long way to go to spend it all. Thank you Federal Reserve and the U.S. Congress for fiscal and monetary stimulus,” said CEO Christopher Nassetta.

      But what we would like to know is why Yellen and other top officials at the Fed and elsewhere seem so blithe to throw away their reputations as sober-minded observers of the American economy. There was – not all that long ago – a time when Yellen spoke honestly about the inflationary threat. But now that this threat has apparently surpassed the Fed and Treasury’s worst-case scenarios, the Bide Admin and its top economic officials have decided to return to magical thinking while Biden weighs deploying the National Guard to drive trucks laden with goods off boatss.

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 19:05

    • South Dakota Gov. Noem Signs Order To 'Protect' State Employees From Biden's Vaccine Mandate
      South Dakota Gov. Noem Signs Order To ‘Protect’ State Employees From Biden’s Vaccine Mandate

      Authored by Isabel Van Brugen via the Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

      South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed an executive order this week to “protect” state employees against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate by allowing them to easily obtain medical and religious exemptions.

      “South Dakota is fighting back against the heavy hand of @JoeBiden & his Administration,” the Republican governor announced on Twitter. “Today I signed an Executive Order to protect state employees, & those w/ federal contracts who are being forced to get vaccinated against their wishes. The order protects medical & religious exemptions for these workers.”

      “Additionally, I am working w/ legislators on addressing other areas. I have always said the decision to get vaccinated should be a personal choice-not a mandate from Joe Biden, Fauci or your boss,” she added.

      Noem said the move was necessary to ensure that employees aren’t forced to get COVID-19 vaccinations under  Biden’s initiative, which covers not only people directly paid by federal contracts but also anyone who works to support them.

      South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 27, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

      State lawmakers have said South Dakotans are being denied medical and religious exemptions from feds and have called for a special session to stop it.

      Noem spokesman Jordan Overturf said Noem’s exemptions are “explicit and offer a clear path” for state workers to opt-out of the shots.

      In a press release from Noem’s office, the governor said that employees who wish to receive a medical exemption from the vaccine mandate need a note from a doctor stating that the COVID-19 vaccination is too risky for health reasons.

      Workers who wish to be exempted for religious reasons must fill out a form from the Bureau of Human Resources that states that they “dissent and object to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds, which includes moral, ethical, and philosophical beliefs or principles.”

      “Due to established precedent, this Executive Order does not apply to service members with the South Dakota National Guard who must meet federal readiness responsibilities for deployment,” the release adds.

      It also states that Noem will work during next year’s legislative session with South Dakota lawmakers to make these “protections” for state employees permanent, and “to extend similar health and religious liberty protections” to employees of private businesses who adopted mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies.

      The governor earlier criticized proposals by Republican lawmakers to ban vaccine mandates as “not conservative” because they’re telling businesses what to do and how to treat their employees. This order, spokesman Overturf said, is about upholding rights already included in the Constitution.

      “She has repeatedly said private businesses should offer medical and religious exemptions for COVID vaccine mandates,” Overturf said.

      Noem earlier said on Twitter that the state will “l stand up to defend freedom,” referring to the president’s vaccine mandates.

      “@JoeBiden see you in court,” she wrote in September, later adding that her legal team is prepared to stand up to the Biden administration’s mandates.

      The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 18:40

    • Lincoln Project Democrat Operatives Busted For White Nationalist Hoax
      Lincoln Project Democrat Operatives Busted For White Nationalist Hoax

      The anti-Trump, pedo-protecting Lincoln Project was forced to issue an emergency press release Friday afternoon after Democratic operatives they paid to impersonate tiki-torch wielding Trump supporters were doxxed, after they stood in front of Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus.

      The hoax was spread by several notables, including Terry McAuliffe’s spokeswoman, Christina Freundlich.

      It was also spread by MSM journos:

      And then… the internet figured out who the operatives were;

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      And they began frantically scrubbing their social media history:

      After the hoax unraveled, the Lincoln Project issued a press release taking credit.

      “Today’s demonstration was our way of reminding Virginia voters of what happened in Charlottesville four years ago, the Republican party’s embrace of those values, and Glenn Youngkin’s failure to condemn it.”

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      Bringing it home is Glenn Greenwald, who opines with yet another killer thread: 

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      Is anyone surprised?

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 18:12

    • 'Poison Frogs': US Urged To Make Taiwan Islands Too 'Painful' For China To Seize In Response To War Game Results
      ‘Poison Frogs’: US Urged To Make Taiwan Islands Too ‘Painful’ For China To Seize In Response To War Game Results

      Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

      The United States would have little recourse if China invaded one of the minor islands controlled by Taiwan, according to a new report by Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington-based think tank.

      Three US-made AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters take part in the annual Han Kuang military drills in Taichung on July 16, 2020. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

      The report analyzed the results of a virtual war game carried out by the CNAS Gaming Lab that sought to simulate how the United States, Taiwan, and China would behave if China seized Dongsha, a minor island about 190 miles southeast of Hong Kong.

      “With few viable coercive options and the onus of escalation falling on the U.S. and Taiwan teams, the game reaffirmed the difficulty of rolling back territorial aggression of this kind,” the report said.

      War games are not intended to predict future outcomes, the report said. But they are useful for identifying vulnerabilities and exploring different branches of decision making.

      In this instance, the game underscored several potential weaknesses in how the United States is carrying out its competition with China in the Indo-Pacific, and a mismatch in strategies between the United States and its allies in the region.

      Ultimately, the report found that U.S. national security strategy focused too much on defending the island of Taiwan itself from a Chinese invasion, rather than seeking to mitigate more limited acts of coercion and aggression in the region.

      To solve this problem, the authors of the report recommended turning islands like Dongsha into “poison frogs,” a meal too dangerous for China to risk devouring.

      Whereas poison frogs telegraph their deadliness with bright colors, the report suggested that the United States and Taiwan should work to make minor islands more militarily formidable and to clearly telegraph to the world what would happen should they be attacked.

      “This approach would make Chinese attempts to seize these islands so militarily, economically, and politically painful from the outset that the costs of coercion or aggression would be greater than the benefits,” the report said.

      A Worrying Scenario

      A Chinese invasion of Dongsha and other, smaller Taiwanese islands, is a long-feared scenario. It would effectively grant the Chinese military free navigation of a greater part of the South China Sea and would present logistical and military hurdles to others operating in the region.

      The war game sought to explore this problem with a fictional scenario: China used a military exercise as a cover to unexpectedly land a military force on Dongsha, and to seize it from the small Taiwanese garrison stationed there. Following the seizure, China replaced the garrison with one manned by the People’s Armed Police and an allegedly “civilian” force, who then begin converting the island into a military base.

      The game was played by three teams with one representing Taiwan, one the United States, and one China and other international actors, who then sought to respond to the situation as best they could. The teams were composed of Taiwanese, American, and regional experts with backgrounds in defense, policy, and other subjects.

      The exercise immediately unveiled several blind spots in strategy and diplomacy.

      Notably, the United States and Taiwan teams failed to communicate effectively due to technical challenges, language barriers, and differing ideas about the nature of the crisis and the response needed.

      “As a result, although the Taiwan team wanted to take a deliberate, diplomacy-led approach to regain Dongsha, the U.S. team immediately started planning military options to retake the island,” the report said.

      This resulted in a situation in which the U.S. team continuously struggled to compel China to cease its gains.

      The U.S. team could not further escalate the situation without risking war, which would alienate its allies, and its soft power was blunted by the fact that Taiwan had immediately opened back-channel communications with the China team.

      The China team, meanwhile, was able to avoid escalating the situation because its sole act of aggression in taking the island allowed it to sit still and refuse to cooperate without risking war.

      As such, the U.S. team deployed troops to Taiwan and became mired in slow-burning policies aimed at developing regional partnerships and encouraging public-private coordination at home. This ultimately failed to seize the initiative and China retained its gains, undeterred from future hostilities.

      “The move to put troops on Taiwanese territory reflected a broader U.S. team bias toward a somewhat symmetrical action-reaction strategy when responding to the China team,” the report said.

      “For example, when the Chinese team targeted U.S. satellites, the U.S. team responded by targeting Chinese satellites. This impulse could be interpreted as a means of avoiding escalation, but strategically it tended to cede the initiative to China.”

      Lessons Learned

      An integral lesson gleaned from the game was that the United States and Taiwan needed to improve their advance planning for crisis communications and joint responses to Chinese hostilities. Such improvements, the report said, would be necessary to adequately respond to an emerging crisis such as the seizure of Dongsha.

      Regardless, the United States would likely be caught on the back foot in such a scenario, the report said, because of the limited effectiveness of available responses.

      “Punitive non-military options, such as economic sanctions or information campaigns, took too long to produce effects and appeared too weak to compel China to abandon its gains,” the report said.

      “More aggressive military responses risked escalation to war, which both the U.S. and Taiwan teams wished to avoid.”

      Given the few credible options for compelling China to give up its gains after the fact, the report said that the United States and Taiwan ought to consider a more effective strategy of deterrence.

      It suggested using diplomacy, economics, and military power to make small islands such as Dongsha so dangerous to a potential predator as to ward away any potential hostility. Thus “poison frogs.”

      “This approach would make Chinese attempts to seize these islands so militarily, economically, and politically painful from the outset that the costs of coercion or aggression would be greater than the benefits,” the report said.

      “Indeed, discouraging China from seizing Taiwanese territory before it happens is the most salient lesson of the game,” the report said.

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 17:50

    • Tucker Rips 'Lying Coward' Liz Cheney After She Joins Democrat Meltdown Over His J6 Exposé
      Tucker Rips ‘Lying Coward’ Liz Cheney After She Joins Democrat Meltdown Over His J6 Exposé

      On Wednesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson released a preview for a trailer on a new series scheduled to debut next week, which tells the “true story” of the January 6th Capitol riot.

      It appears to both condemn the left for framing the incident as terrorism and its participants as terrorists, while exploring the potential role of the FBI in staging a false flag.

      First, the trailer for “Patriot Purge”:

      And a reminder of how the left and its corporate media lapdogs framed participants, anyone who supported the protest, and their little dogs too: 

      https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsUnsurprisingly, the left has been absolutely triggered over Carlson’s upcoming exposé, and wants it stricken from existence before millions, perhaps tens-of-millions of Americans are presented with an alternative narrative that contains highly uncomfortable truths.

      “There is no lie too big or conspiracy theory too dangerous for Tucker Carlson to propagate,” said top Russiagate / Ukrainegate peddler Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in a statement to WaPo. “His latest salvo is nothing less than an invitation to violence. By airing it, Fox News demonstrates yet again a willingness to profit from tearing the country down.”

      And the above SUERPCUT! isn’t an invitation to violence?

      “It is irresponsible and dangerous for Fox News to promote lies and conspiracy theories,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

      Many pointed out that the calls for censorship were fundamentally anti-American:

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      And of course, Neocon Rep. Liz Cheney joined the Democrats calling for Tucker’s free speech to be stripped.

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      Carlson responded to Cheney on Thursday, slamming her as a liar and a coward.

      “This show is somehow, she says, abetting violence. Now if that argument sounds familiar, there’s a reason that it does. That argument is a staple for the hysterical purple-haired activist you see yelling at people in violent videos. ‘Your speech is violence’ they shout, ‘Our violence is speech.’ So in other words, burning down America’s cities is a civil rights protest. Shooting an unarmed female Trump supporter to death is an act of courage. But, objecting to racist propaganda being imposed on your kids in school – that’s terrorism, lock those parents up.”

      “Until yesterday, she [Cheney] and Nancy Pelosi had a monopoly on how Americans were allowed to understand January 6th. ‘It was a racist insurrection,’ they told us with straight faces. ‘It was the single worst day of political violence since 9/11 or the Civil War. That was their often-repeated storyline, and they were entirely in charge of that story – no questions were allowed.

      “But unfortunately for them, that is not how a free society works. Politicians don’t get to put parameters around your thoughts or conversations. Free people are permitted to ask any question they want. They can follow the facts to their own logical conclusions, and that is exactly what we set out to do months ago…”

      After Cheney refused to appear on Tucker’s show to discuss her tweet, the Fox News host called her a “liar” and a “coward.”

      Watch:

      What the left doesn’t realize is that they’ve just Streisanded Tucker’s series into national prominence with the best advertising money can’t buy. Whoops!

      Meanwhile, speaking of being on the wrong side of the fence:

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      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 17:46

    • Latest Lancet Study Exposes Limits Of Vaccines At Preventing COVID Infection
      Latest Lancet Study Exposes Limits Of Vaccines At Preventing COVID Infection

      The Lancet has just released another study comparing the efficacy of COVID vaccines to the efficacy of protection provided by previous COVID infections. Their conclusion: while vaccines lower the risk of infections with the delta variant within households, those who are fully vaccinated are still vulnerable to a ‘breakthrough’ infection if somebody they live with gets infected.

      What’s more, people who have been vaccinated against COVID can be equally as infectious as the unvaccinated, the study showed.

      The new study, which was published Thursday in the Lancet, the British medical journal that published some of the earliest research on COVID, is one of few to use detailed infection data from actual examples of household transmission, and it showed that – as we noted above – the viral loads of both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients infected with COVID are “broadly similar”.

      The study involved 621 people in the UK with mild COVID infections, identified via the UK’s contact-tracing system.

      The data showed that vaccination status doesn’t make a whole lot of difference in the ability to pass COVID on to others.

      Roughly 25% of vaccinated household members subsequently tested positive for the virus after close contact with a fellow household member with a confirmed case of COVID. That’s compared with 38% of infection for people who haven’t been vaccinated.

      These data show that the delta variant has a “greater capability for breaching the vaccine’s defenses when compared with predecessors.

      “Our findings show that vaccination alone is not enough to prevent people from being infected with the Delta variant and spreading it in household settings,” said Professor Ajit Lalvani of Imperial College London, the co-leader of the study.

      The study’s author said the lower transmission rates between vaccinated patients is just another reason to get the jab – although not a particularly compelling one.

      “The ongoing transmission we are seeing between vaccinated people makes it essential for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated to protect themselves from acquiring infection and severe Covid-19, especially as more people will be spending time inside in close proximity during the winter months,” he said.

      The study also underlines the importance of the vulnerable to get booster shots, since it also shows that vaccine immunity wanes with time.

      “We found that susceptibility to infection increased already within a few months after the second vaccine dose – so those eligible for Covid-19 booster shots should get them promptly,” the professor said.

      Following a summary of its findings, the Lancet wrote the “interpretation” of the study: “Vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance. Nonetheless, fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory.”

      Readers can find the full study below:

      s 1473309921006484

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 17:45

    • Largest US Homeowner Raises Rents As Housing Crunch Persists
      Largest US Homeowner Raises Rents As Housing Crunch Persists

      Demand for single-family rental homes is off the charts and shows no signs of abating anytime soon, and that is pushing rents sky-high. This has allowed the largest owner of houses in the US to raise rents. 

      According to Bloomberg, Invitation Homes Inc., which owns approximately 80,000 homes across the country, increased rents by 11% in the third quarter. They raised rents by 8% on renewals and 18% on new leases. Geographically, much of the new increases were found in the Southwest, where rents increased 30% in Las Vegas and 29% in Phoenix.

      “It’s a little bit crazy,” CEO Dallas Tanner told analysts during a Thursday call. “There just isn’t enough quality housing available right now.”

      In a separate report, CoreLogic wrote this week, on a national basis, rents rose 9.3% in August from the same period last year. Data showed that all top metro areas tracked by the real estate research firm recorded positive rent growth. The highest growth areas were Miami at 21%, Phoenix at 19%, and Las Vegas at 15%.

      “Converging economic trends are driving a surge in single-family rent prices, and consumer confidence has driven an uptick in demand for both renters and buyers,” Molly Boesel, an economist at CoreLogic, said who was quoted by CNBC.  

      “The ongoing preference toward more living space — and slim for-sale inventory — is forcing would-be buyers back into renting, putting significant strain on the single-family rental market,” Boesel said. 

      However, Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors’ chief economist, believes that surging rents could lead to more homebuyers to avoid rising inflation. 

      Because if you can’t afford to rent, you can afford a million-dollar starter-home?

      Needless to say, rising home prices and rents is more bad news for whatever is left of the middle class. Most Americans will soon be priced out of owning a home and stuck in a renting society where more and more of their incomes are used for shelter expenses, unable to save for a downpayment. 

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 17:25

    • Uranium Bull Case Strengthens As Japan Calls Nuclear "Key" To Its Decarbonization Goals
      Uranium Bull Case Strengthens As Japan Calls Nuclear “Key” To Its Decarbonization Goals

      Submitted by Quoth the Raven at QTR’s Fringe Finance,

      Days after the U.K. said that nuclear would be “at the heart” of its decarbonization strategy, Japan has now called nuclear reactor restarts “key” to achieving its own green energy goals. This marks a far quicker global adoption of nuclear during the ESG age than I had anticipated and, in my opinion, will likely bode well for my long-term uranium bull case.

      Source: Anadolu

      Last Friday, Japan adopted a new energy policy that went little noticed by those participating in the uranium market.

      The plan seeks to bring the country to carbon neutrality by 2050, according to AP.

      And while this plan is mostly in line with what many other countries are implementing, the proverbial angel for uranium investors may be in the details.

      “Japan has been undecided over what to do about its nuclear power industry since the 2011 Fukushima plant disaster. It now says reactor restarts are key to meeting emissions targets as Japan tries to step up in the global effort against climate change,” the AP report reads.

      Fumio Kishida, who is replacing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, is officially “a backer of nuclear plant restarts”, the report notes.

      As you can see by the below chart, the country’s operable nuclear power capacity has dwindled in the years following the 2011 incident, after rising steadily in the 4 decades prior.

      As common sense slowly starts to win the day in counties like Japan, I am expecting this capacity to once again rise to, and past, all time highs.

      Source: World-Nuclear.org

      I had pointed out a couple weeks ago a wonderful piece by Zerohedge that said Suga’s replacement would likely back nuclear.

      The AP report continued:

      The plan keeps the target for nuclear power unchanged at 20-22%. Japan says it aims to reduce its reliance on nuclear power as much as possible but that nuclear will remain an important energy source. Experts say a phase out is unlikely anytime soon.

      Economy and industry minister Koichi Hagiuda has said “drastic energy conservation, maximum promotion of renewables and safe restarts of nuclear reactors” are key.

      Japan will continue its nuclear fuel reprocessing cycle, in which spent nuclear fuel is converted to plutonium, despite the failure of its Monju plutonium-burning reactor and international concerns over safeguards for its plutonium stockpile.

      A government taskforce will “accelerate” restarts of reactors, which have been slowed by stricter safety standards set after the Fukushima meltdowns, the plan says.

      And while new reactors don’t seem to be on the agenda just yet, common sense says they will be, in time. Japan, like France, is also looking at developing small modular reactors for power.

      Remember, just days ago I noted that a second large uranium trust – in addition to Sprott’s already active trust – could soon be a buyer in the uranium spot market. I also noted that China could be in the midst of adoption nuclear, a path I thought would make tons of sense for the country. I explained my reasoning in this article:

      Days prior to that, I wrote about how widespread coming adoption of nuclear as an ESG solution – especially in places like the U.K. – could be a serious catalyst that keeps uranium prices moving higher.

      With Japan now seriously throwing its hat in the ring, I continue to expect long-term tailwinds for uranium heading into 2022 and plan to remain long the commodity.

      As a wonderful supplement, the World Nuclear Association has prepared a massive and comprehensive report on the state of the nuclear industry in Japan, which can be read here.

      Remember that I laid out my case for why I was going long uranium in detail in a subscriber-only post that can be viewed here.

      —

      Zerohedge readers get 10% off an annual subscription to my blog by using this special link here.

      DISCLAIMER: I own URA, URNM, CCJ and have tons of uranium stocks and options. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. 

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 10/29/2021 – 17:05

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