- When People Get Married Around The World
Marriage ages vary widely across the globe – with a lot of underlying reasons. An analysis of UN data (for all countries where data for 2013 or newer was available) shows that the oldest grooms in the world can be found in Italy, where men get married at the median age of 35.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The oldest brides live in Ireland (median age of 32.4 years), which is also the country with the smallest age gap between men and women. Grooms were on average one year older than brides in Ireland, reflecting a global trend of male median marriage ages always being higher those of females.
As Statista’s Katherina Buchholz details, median marriage ages tend to be higher in more developed countries, which is also where the age gap between men and women getting married was mostly, but not always, smaller.
In developing countries, including many in Africa, people got married younger on average, with age gaps being a little wider at times. Malawi had the lowest marriage age of countries analysed, with women getting married at 19.9 years and men at 23.7 years.
Scientific studies have found that smaller age gaps in marriages are correlated with higher socioeconomic status and higher class. In some developing countries, large age gaps show a reality of arranged marriages that are tied to families’ econmic well-being through dowry payments as well as reflecting customs that value youth in women and experience in men.
The country with the largest age gap in the analysis was Guyana, where the median marriage age was 20 for women and 31.8 for men. The Caribbean state has tried to battle child marriage in the past.
- How The Digital Currency Agenda Has Grown Amidst Resurgent "Nationalism", Part One
In my last two articles I examined the detail behind the simultaneous plans of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve to establish new payment systems. From the evidence at hand, the objective of central banks has been to make their new systems compatible with distributed ledger technology (DLT) as a basis for introducing central bank digital currency to supersede physical money over the next decade.
As we will learn, the rhetoric from globalist institutions and figureheads on the subject of digital currency has developed significantly since the EU referendum and Donald Trump’s presidency.
But to begin with, it is worthwhile looking at some of the commentary from the central banking community prior to the onset of renewed political ‘nationalism.’
2015
A few days after the EU referendum bill passed through parliament, the Bank of England’s Chief Economist Andy Haldane delivered a speechwhich discussed negative interest rates on currency (referred to as the ‘zero lower bound‘). He brandished the idea of removing the lower bound by abolishing paper currency and issuing a government backed currency in electronic form which would be held in digital wallets. Such a move would ‘allow negative interest rates to be levied on currency easily and speedily.’
Haldane also remarked that the distributed ledger technology within Bitcoin ‘has real potential‘ before going on to say:
Work on central bank-issued digital currencies forms a core part of the bank’s current research agenda. Perhaps central bank money is ripe for its own great technological leap forward.
This generated some press coverage at the time, notably from the Financial Times who said converting paper currency into digital would ‘help the bank to manage inflation by enabling it to bypass the current constraint against lowering rates below zero.’
In November 2015, the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures issued a paper simply titled ‘Digital Currencies‘. The CPMI works through the Bank for International Settlements in that the BIS hosts the CPMI secretariat. The governing body presiding over the CPMI is the Global Economy Meeting, which is one of three bimonthly meetings held at the BIS. The CPMI is also a member of the Financial Stability Board, another association hosted at the BIS.
In the paper, the CPMI reflected on how the bulk of digital currencies such as Bitcoin are transferred via a distributed ledger:
This aspect can be viewed as the genuinely innovative element within digital currency schemes.
One option is to consider using the technology itself to issue digital currencies.
They concluded by recommending that ‘central banks could consider investigating the potential uses of distributed ledgers in payment systems or other types of FMI’s‘ (financial market infrastructures). This is something that central banks are now openly doing.
2016
As the UK was preparing for the upcoming EU referendum, the Bank of England’s Deputy Governor for Monetary Policy Ben Broadbent spoke at the London School of Economics in March (Central banks and digital currencies).
Speaking about Bitcoin, Broadbent was adamant that the most important innovation within this particular digital currency was the distributed ledger. He spoke of potentially widening access to the BOE’s balance sheet ‘beyond commercial banks‘, and how DLT would make this process easier for non-financial firms and perhaps even individual households.
If so, our accounts would no longer be a claim on commercial banks but, like banknotes, the liability of the central bank.
Broadbent aligned himself with Andy Haldane by agreeing that were a central bank digital currency to replace physical assets, it would ‘open the door‘ to ‘materially negative interest rates.’
That would require explicitly abolishing cash, not just introducing an electronic alternative.
CBDC’s, as explained by Broadbent, would become ‘the fundamental structure of the financial system.’
Seven days before the EU referendum took place, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney gave a speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet at Mansion House in London (‘Enabling the FinTech transformation – revolution, restoration, or reformation‘). In my last article I outlined several quotes made by Carney from this speech that were relevant to DLT, one of which was:
If distributed ledger technology could provide a more efficient way for private sector firms to deliver payments and settle securities, why not apply it to the core of the payments system itself?
Suffice to say, Carney went on the record as saying that ‘in the extreme, a DL for everyone could open the possibility of creating a central bank digital currency‘.
2017
With the Brexit withdrawal process now underway and Donald Trump newly installed in the White House, media outlets began to promote the soundings of avowed internationalists on the subject of global currency. One of these was Mohamed El-Erian, a former deputy director at the IMF. In April, Project Syndicate published an article by El-Erian titled, ‘New Life for the SDR?‘. Here is the preface to that article:
The rise of anti-globalization political movements and the threat of trade protectionism have led some people to wonder whether a stronger multilateral core for the world economy would reduce the risk of damaging fragmentation. If so, enhancing the role of the IMF’s incipient global currency may be the best option.
In re-publishing the article, the UK Guardian mused that ‘amid the rise of populism and nationalism, some are asking if revamping the SDR could re-energise multilateralism.’
As for El-Erian himself, he asked whether ‘today’s anti-globalisation winds create scope for enhancing the SDR’s role and potential contributions?‘
A connection between rising nationalism and calls to reform the global monetary system had been established.
At the beginning of Autumn, the now former IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde spoke at a Bank of England Conference under the heading, ‘Central Banking and Fintech – A Brave New World?‘ Here she commented that:
Citizens may one day prefer virtual currencies. If Privately issued virtual currencies remain risky and unstable, citizens may even call on central banks to provide digital forms of legal tender.
We want no holes in the global financial safety net, however much it gets stretched and reshaped.
I am convinced that the IMF has a strong role to play in this respect. But the Fund will also have to be open to change, from bringing new parties to the table, to considering a role for a digital version of the SDR.
2018
This was the year where the narrative around digital currencies was ratcheted up a notch. It began in February with BIS General Manager Agustin Carstens, who gave a lecture called, ‘Money in the digital age: what role for central banks?‘
Aside from asking what constitutes acceptable money, Carstens proclaimed that distributed ledger technology had ‘potential benefits‘, and expected central banks to ‘remain engaged on this topic.’
As with Andy Haldane and Ben Broadbent, Carstens singled out DLT as being the most attractive element of cryptocurrencies. In large part he denounced Bitcoin as being untrustworthy and inefficient. What he did not do, however, is denounce the technology that underpins it. The central message from Carstens was that only central banks can legitimise and regulate digital currencies to make them safe.
Credible money will continue to arise from central bank decisions, taken in the light of day and in the public interest.
Carstens’ intervention on the subject of money in the digital age created a path for national central banks to further the discourse.
Yves Mersch, a member of the Executive Board at the European Central Bank, took the baton with a speech two days after Carstens’ presentation (Virtual or virtueless? The evolution of money in the digital age).
Mersch labelled Bitcoin as ‘heavily resource intensive, and certainly not a green technology.’ Virtual currencies in general had no intrinsic value, particularly because they were neither legal tender or backed by central banks. For that to change, ‘regulatory acceptance is necessary.’ In other words, until central banks control the infrastructure and regulate their use, digital currencies will not succeed as real money.
In closing, Mersch said it would be up to citizens to demand a ‘digital representation of cash that replicates the features of cash‘. He did not go into specific societal circumstances that may occur to guide people in this direction.
Mark Carney was next with a speech in March titled, ‘The Future of Money‘. This speech in particular covered a lot of ground, but to summarise:
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Carney cautioned against anyone assuming that the Bank of England was an ‘archaic vestige’ that will be ‘swept aside by a digital, distributed future.’
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He called the rise of the ‘cryptocurrency revolution‘ amidst the financial crisis and rapid technological developments a ‘coincidence.’
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Expanding on Yves Mersch’s speech, Carney stressed that ‘bringing crypto assets into the regulatory tent could potentially catalyse innovations to serve the public better.’
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The chief take away from the speech was Carney’s call for payment systems to evolve to meet the ‘demands of fully reliable real-time distributed transactions.’ This is of course a nod to DLT, which at the time Carney said was not yet advanced enough to consider issuing central bank digital currency as a ‘near-term project.’
The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures then returned with a new paper, ‘Central bank digital currencies.’ They focused much of their attention on ensuring that a future central bank digital currency fulfilled ‘anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing requirements.’
Add to this concerns raised by globalists on how cryptocurrencies are not environmentally friendly, and it becomes clear that there are multiple inherent weaknesses built into the current crypto network. Weaknesses which central banks are well placed to exploit over time. For example, the CPMI said that dangers arising from today’s cryptocurrencies may necessitate the need for a CBDC to be ‘non-anonymous‘.
For now, the CPMI recommended that central banks continue their ‘broad monitoring of digital innovations‘, which points to the introduction of a CBDC being a medium to long term objective.
The year closed out with new speeches from Agustin Carstens and Christine Lagarde (Money and payment systems in the digital age and Winds of Change: The Case for New Digital Currency respectively.)
Starting with Carstens, he cited the three tenets to ‘sound‘ money. It must be a unit of account, a payment instrument and a store of value. From Carstens’ perspective, cryprocurrencies meet none of these requirements, and he characterised them as ‘fake money‘ and an ‘environmental disaster‘.
As for distributed ledger technology, the versions used currently ‘are not any better than what we already have today.’ Which is why Carstens continues to advocate that central banks carry on experimenting with the technology:
I see central banks continuing to play a critical role in pushing the boundaries of how technology can enhance the payment landscape.
In November, Christine Lagarde’s speech prompted the mainstream pressto pick up on her overriding message: central banks should consider issuing their own digital currency.
Making the case for central bank digital currencies, Lagarde envisaged a system where central banks provide the currency, with commercial banks providing the service through which the currency flows. According to her, this would represent ‘public-private partnership at its best.’
If digital currencies are sufficiently similar to commercial bank deposits—because they are very safe, can be held without limit, allow for payments of any amount, perhaps even offer interest—then why hold a bank account at all?
What if central banks entered a partnership with the private sector—banks and other financial institutions—and said: you interface with the customer, you store their wealth, you offer interest, advice, loans. But when it comes time to transact, we take over.
November also saw the European Central Bank launch an extension of its TARGET2 payment system called ‘TIPS’ (TARGET Instant Payment Settlement). This system allows access to payment service providers as well as banks.
As for where the ECB stand on DLT, their position is that it ‘cannot at this stage be considered as an option for the Eurosystem’s market infrastructure.’ But as you might expect, they in no way dismiss it entirely:
As DLT-based solutions are constantly evolving, the ECB will continue to monitor developments in this field and explore practical uses for DLT.
By the end of 2018, the Bank of England had advanced their plans to introduce a ‘renewed‘ RTGS payment system that would have the capacity to interface with distributed ledger technology.
In part two of this series we will look at developments so far in 2019 in regards to digital currency, and how this relates to the current geopolitical climate.
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- The Guide To Real History: Profit & World Domination
Authored by Sylvain LaForest via OrientalReview.org,
In the last two centuries, all wars have been machinations orchestrated by bankers pursuing two very simple objectives: profit and a world domination that bears a name: the New World Order.
Education and medias are the main culprits to blame for keeping the important role of bankers in the dark shadows of history. The genuine relevance of Rothschild, Rockefeller, Warburg, Morgan and their peers is voluntarily kept hidden from public scrutiny, so that any investigator that digs in the realms of our past can easily be discredited as a «conspiracy theorist». Author Carroll Quigley once had full access to the Council on foreign relations documents and he confirmed the very real world banking conspiracy designed to dominate the world, in his book «Tragedy and hope».
Bizarrely, education and medias prefer to bring everything back to public figures and politicians like Churchill, Hitler or Stalin, but they will never tell you that these charismatic monsters had no money, nor created it. Hitler was a failed artist that built the most formidable war machine the world had seen in 6 years only, in a near-bankrupt country deprived of any oil production, so do you think he might have had some help?
The Grand Scheme
Before 1971, bank loans were based on their gold reserves, but no bank really owned the value in gold of the money it lent over the years, so the scheme wasn’t very different than today’s fractional system of money creation, in which banks have to own 1/10th of their loans. For example, if bank A has a million dollar, it can lend 10 millions to bank B, which can lend 100 millions to a country, since bank B owns 10 millions. This is basically how the world ended up owing 184 trillion dollars (184 000 000 000 000$) to private banks as of today.
If you doubt this private money creation scheme, just tell me where that money was before we owed it to them? I guess that settles it.
When a country goes to war, it borrows money from private banks that lend funds that they create out of thin air. Now, bankers will not only get back the funds that they never had, but will also charge interest on these loans. They will even change the interest rate at will, trying to hold in their laughter. Next step, countries will use this fake money to buy military equipment from industries in which international bankers are major shareholders or partners in investment. This equipment is then used to destroy as much infrastructure as possible in the countries at war, so that everything needs to be rebuilt by governments that will borrow more money from bankers, to pay construction companies partially or totally owned by bankers. This is why carpet-bombing on civilians was invented. All of these loans and interests add up to the national debt, or if you prefer, the bill that citizens have to repay through their taxes that they hand to the government with much trust on their good use.
«War is a racket», wisely said General Smedley Butler. Therefore, why would the almighty central banks that hold a permanent private power and control over countries, would kindly accept to share it with a puppet president on his 4-year journey?
But the plot thickens.
Splitting ideologies
Just when you think that you’ve discovered the ultimate manipulations that have been set on us for centuries, thorough researches will lead you even further in the abyssal depth of the conspiracy that few have talked about. Thanks to James Madison, we know that the American founding fathers had designed the bipartite electoral system as a way to confine democracy in a tiny box limiting the choice of the people between two heads of the same monster, so that a mass of poor people could only maintain an effective plutocracy with their votes. All that was left to do would be to polarize opinions, by adding different ideologies and characteristics to each party, to give the impression that your vote could really determine the future of the country, but we all know by now that it never fundamentally changed anything. Therefore, an objective analysis will quickly take over the initial astonishment of your findings, since what’s next describes more likely than not how politics really work.
We often imagine Karl Marx as a lone writer in some crummy apartment, designing his great Communist Manifesto in 1848 under a flickering candlelight to break the capitalist tyranny, in the name of the workingman. Nothing could be further from the truth, since the general plan was to divide the world and bring it to wage perpetual wars, for perpetual revenues. Guy William Carr just wasn’t anybody; he was an officer in the Canadian Secret Services and had been in charge of the whole Royal Canadian Navy. Much like Carroll Quigley, he was a real insider with access to secret plans that we’re never told. Here’s what he had to say in his 1958 praised book «Pawns in the game».
Karl Marx
While Karl Marx was writing the Communist Manifesto under direction of one group of Illuminists, Professor Karl Ritter of Frankfurt University was writing the antithesis under direction of another group, so that those who direct the conspiracy at the top could use the differences in these two ideologies to start dividing larger and larger numbers of the Human Race into opposing camps, so they could be armed and then made to fight and destroy each other, together with their political and religious institutions.
It is public knowledge by now that the Rothschild family had financed both Napoleon and his British foes early 19th century, which set a most successful example for profiting from double funding. One cannot lose a war if one owns both sides of the front line! Thus, author Anthony Sutton made a lot of sense when he described the details on how Zionist bankers and Wall Streeters funded communism in «Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution», published in the mid-seventies.
This activity in behalf of the Bolsheviks originated in large part from a single address: 120 Broadway, New York City. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York was at 120 Broadway. The vehicle for this pro-Bolshevik activity was American International Corporation — at 120 Broadway. AIC views on the Bolshevik regime were requested by Secretary of State Robert Lansing only a few weeks after the revolution began, and Sands, executive secretary of AIC, could barely restrain his enthusiasm for the Bolshevik cause. Ludwig Martens, the first Soviet ambassador, had been vice president of Weinberg & Posner, which was also located at 120-Broadway. Guaranty Trust Company was next door at 140 Broadway but Guaranty Securities Co. was at 120 Broadway. John MacGregor Grant Co., which was financed by Olof Aschberg in Sweden and Guaranty Trust in the United States, and which was on the Military Intelligence black list, was at 120 Broadway. The Guggenheims and the executive heart of General Electric (also interested in American International) were at 120 Broadway. We find it therefore hardly surprising that the Bankers Club was also at 120 Broadway, on the top floor.
You get the idea. So here’s what a timely little mustached totalitarian then said in «Mein Kampf», right after WW1 and the Bolshevik Revolution:
This colossal Empire in the East is ripe for dissolution. And the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a State. We are chosen by Destiny to be the witnesses of a catastrophe, which will afford the strongest confirmation of the nationalist theory of race.
Destiny, really Adolf? This looked more like a boxing match between artificial ideologies created decades earlier, with Hitler and Stalin wearing the gloves, accompanied by Karl Ritter in one corner and Karl Marx in the other, holding the spit-buckets.
A twist in history
Thing is, Hitler had been vastly funded by American banks and industries to pressure the Rothschild to share their hegemony on the world, which was confirmed in Bretton-Woods in 1944, where the US dollar replaced the English pound as the world reserve currency. In other words, the American Empire replaced the British Empire to lead the New World Order, but it was the same banking scheme, just a different set of owners.
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin at the Yalta Conference in 1945. Source: US Library of Congress/wikipedia.org
In Yalta, Stalin and Roosevelt effectively divided the world in two ideologies for their masters, while Churchill was wondering what had bloody happened, since the other two seem to have a lot of fun together. That left him with ample time to think about his next historical quote for posterity.
After WW2, NATO and the CIA were created to counter the lurking Red Menace. Soviet citizens were depicted everywhere like cold-blooded killing robots, as if they were something else than ordinary folks making a living for their kids and having fun on the weekend. The whole planet got in the Cold War, providing great tension zones such as Eastern Europe and Southern Asia, justifying insane military funding and the industrial production of nukes. Wars could be waged without any objective, just for the sheer pleasure of making big money to the profit of bankers and military industrialists; on both sides of the Iron Curtain, I should add.
Perpetual wars
The case of the Korean War is sad and appalling. The UN conducted the aggression on North Korea as soon as 1950, because neither China nor USSR vetoed the attack at the Security Council. There are a few reasons that were given for this, but none as likely as the existence of Bigfoot.
General MacArthur quickly pushed back the North Koreans all the way to the Chinese frontier and only had to blow up the bridges on Yalou River to break any hopes of reinforcement from China, when he got a call from CFR member General Marshall, whom ordered him to leave the bridges untouched. A Chinese army crossed them, the communists pushed the UN troops back to the middle of the country, MacArthur resigned, and they settled for a tie. After a couple of years of bombing and 3 million dead Koreans later, the separation line was put back in its original place on the 38th parallel, but if we look at the bright side, banks and military industries had made an impressive bundle ending with 9 zeros, and we owed it to them, with interests.
United Nations forces cross the 38th parallel while withdrawing from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, 1950
Then there was Vietnam. And then Afghanistan. Fighting communism was the motto for perpetual purposeless wars. We cannot have any serious analysis about the 75-year Cold War, without taking account of how and why the communist movement was created. This manipulation ended with the fall of USSR in 1991, which was immediately replaced by the fear of Islamism, ignited that very same year with the Gulf War in Iraq. Since history repeats itself over and over, what happened in Korea solves the mystery of why George Bush Sr didn’t go all the way to Saddam.
What used to be communism vs. capitalism is now Islam vs. Christianity. If we listen to medias, every Muslim is a potential jihadist that wants to impose the sharia law on us, as if they were something else than ordinary folks that make a living for their kids and have fun on the weekend. We’re stuck in a carbon-copy replica of the Cold War that scared the world for three-quarters of a century.
Conclusion
The sad reality appears to be that politics and ideologies are nothing more than bullcrap created to polarize opinions and divide the population, while central bankers don’t give a hoot if a country is run by democrats, communists, fascists, Nazis, dictators, socialists, green parties, a king or even plumbers, as long as the government maintains the plutocracy that enslaves the population through debt, that plunders our natural resources, and fully controls our economy through their money creation monopole.
Dividing the population prevents it from uniting against our real common enemy, who gives the true meaning to «Divide and conquer». For example, independence movements are perfect to polarize opinions and split people apart, and once a nation becomes independent, it is from the neighbor who’s stuck in the same crappy plutocracy as yours, not from bankers who will keep looting your money and profit from your resources. Think about it next time you argue with your brother-in-law about politics, when you praise your party that is so much better than his. Think about it when you vote.
If we got rid of private banking in public affairs, and governments issued all currencies, unbearable peace and prosperity would roam the earth. Today, a few men are fighting this deeply corrupted world financial system: Putin was the first and main one by helping President Assad to keep Syria free from international banks, then came Xi and Trump. Now you know what Donald means by «giving back the country to the people»! He’s openly fighting the Federal Reserve, talks about the nationalization of this private institution, and he’s been the most efficient politician ever to convince the people on the constant media lying, the base of our general ignorance.
US Department of Defence conducted a flight test of a conventionally configured ground-launched cruise missile at San Nicolas Island on August 19, 2019, less than 3 weeks after the U.S. officially abandoned the INF Treaty.
But neither mainstream medias, nor official history books ever talked about the grand scheme, and that makes me a «conspiracy theorist» to most. Even independent journalists and analysts rarely mention banks by fear of the conspiracy theory curse, a label that was created by the CIA in 1967 to ridicule those who disputed the Warren Commission conclusion on JFK’s murder, by the same agency. Conspiracy theories now apply on everything that mainstream medias can’t justify with lies that appear to make some sense and are not too obvious.
If you do a quick check on Wikipedia, Carroll Quigley, Guy William Carr, General Smedley Butler and Anthony Sutton are all described as conspiracy theorists today, because they all decided to use their access to extremely serious files and secrets for the benefit of the people through a denunciation of international banks as the source of every war, and the conspiracy curse is the last desperate attempt to discredit them. The CIA technique works on those whose minds are still programmed by mainstream medias, though more and more people now understand that these amazing analysts and genuine humanists weren’t some dumb lunatics, but were simply describing a reality that many of us find difficult to accept.
So, I’m sorry, forget what I said, nothing wrong happened. Just keep working, whistle and look away as you’re being robbed, carpet-bombed, spied-on or sent to war, as you’re being told what you can or can’t do with your life, when you vote or argue with someone who’s trying to explain, like you’ve done all of your life, and like your great-grandfather also did.
But at least, your old man didn’t know.
- US Travel Industry Nightmare Unfolds As Chinese Tourist Stay Away From Washington, DC
A new report via China News Service shows how Chinese tourists visiting Washington, DC, has fallen off a cliff.
Destination DC, a local tourism promotion organization, said in a new report that 226,000 Chinese tourists visited DC in 2018, which is a 25% drop from the prior year.
The plunge in Chinese tourism represents the second consecutive year of declines, having fallen 3% in 2017.
Benoit Barraud, general manager of bus company Big Bus Tours, said his company had seen 20-25% declines in overseas customers taking tours in downtown DC in 2018. Barraud said much of the decline is coming from Chinese tourists.
“I absolutely do not want this trend to continue,” Barraud said.
With nationalism and protectionism rising in the US, and even anti-Chinese sentiment that is being manufactured by the Trump administration, Chinese tourists have had enough, and are now going elsewhere. This could be problematic for the DC tourism industry because on average, these folks spend $6,700 per visit, are some of the top spenders in the world.
“The Chinese are my best clients, I like them,” a Washington events planner who declined to be named told to Xinhua.
China News Service said New York City is also feeling the slump in Chinese tourist.
New York’s tourism promotion agency, NYCgo, said the rate of Chinese inbound travel “continues to cool from previous gains” but is still expected to grow marginally this year.
Some believe the trade war between the US and China is directly responsible for the decline of inbound Chinese to DC and New York.
“Rhetoric from the White House is dampening foreign tourists’ enthusiasm to visit Washington,” Destination DC’s CEO Elliot Ferguson said.
NYCgo told businesses in New York that the trade war was responsible for the slowing traffic from China.
Wilka Nascimento, sales director at a Hyatt Place hotel in central DC, noted that the uptick in visa denials for foreign tourists had slowed the hospitality business.
“In one case half of a tour group were denied visas,” she said, adding that new rules only allow tourist with vias to book rooms.
The US Travel Association warned that tourism from China might never recover as other countries will take market share.
In the last year, Chinese tourists have been flocking to Russia, Europe, Australia, and Canada, spending record amounts of money.
“If market share loss continues in future years, the United States will be losing out on one of the largest and fastest-growing source markets of global travel,” the US Travel Association warned.
Earlier this month, we reported that a collapse in tourism was seen in Beverly Hills as Chinese and Saudi tourist went elsewhere.
With escalating trade tensions between both countries might not result in a trade deal until after the 2020 election, the tourism industry in DC, New York, and even Beverly Hills will likely implode, due to the lack of Chinese tourist.
- A Blogger's Lament: Demoralized, Depressed, Detached, & Defiant
Authored by Jim Quinn, founder of The Burning Platform blog,
I’ve now been running The Burning Platform blog for over ten years. It’s been over eleven years since I wrote my first article – Why We Need Ron Paul – in May 2008 during the Republican primaries. I really thought I could change enough minds through my writing to influence voters and help wake up people to the truth about our deteriorating financial situation. I would send op-eds to my local paper, and they would publish them. My articles on Seeking Alpha in 2008/2009 were the most read and commented on their site.
My assessment of the Wall Street banks, coming financial crisis and recession were accurate enough that I was being sought out by Glenn Beck on CNN, Neal Cavuto on Fox, and Maria Bartiromo on CNBC to be interviewed on their shows. I didn’t want that kind of attention, since it would likely have negatively impacted my day job – which actually supported my family.
I had already experienced negative blowback when I predicted the bankruptcy of General Growth Properties in one of my articles. It seems the CFO was a Wharton grad and large donor to the real estate department. He called the Dept. head, who called the Deputy Dean, who called my boss, the CFO. It was at this point where any mention of Wharton was forbidden on my part, or I risked being terminated.
The interesting part of the story was the General Growth CFO said none of my facts were incorrect and six months later General Growth Properties filed for bankruptcy. I sent a link of the announcement to my boss, who throughout his tenure defended my right to free speech whenever the Dean’s office received complaints about my articles. We had a good laugh about their bankruptcy.
During late 2008 and early 2009 I was driven to write at least two massive articles per week about the financial industry, the economy or the military industrial complex. My views were virtually identical to those of Ron Paul. The two sites who published all of my articles – Seeking Alpha and Financial Sense – loved me during the early days of their sites when they were trying to attract eyeballs.
But their goal was to become mouthpieces for Wall Street and make money, so articles critical of financial markets did not help them achieve their financial ambitions. I had no such ambitions, other than seeking the truth. They began to edit my article submissions. This really pissed me off. In early 2009 a Seeking Alpha reader offered to create a website where I could publish without fear of censorship. Jason created the Raging Debate website and in February 2009 I was live.
The intelligent, volatile, nasty, humorous comment stream, that has been a hallmark of TBP, began immediately, as Seeking Alpha fans followed me to the new site. I was eventually banned by both Seeking Alpha and Financial Sense, as they sold out to the establishment for money to pump stocks and regurgitate the fake Wall Street narrative. As the markets continued to fall and we experienced the deepest recession since the Great Depression, I was contacted through email by some guy saying he wanted me to be in his documentary about the financial crisis. I said no. I didn’t want to be in the public eye, and I was skeptical that it was a real documentary. I had done a number of phone interviews with various like-minded websites, but eventually began turning those down. I couldn’t risk my livelihood, as I was financially responsible for a wife and three boys.
The documentary filmmaker was persistent. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He had read all my Seeking Alpha articles and insisted I be in his film. I finally agreed to meet him in NYC after work. I paid my own way to take an Amtrak train after working a full day at Wharton. I arrived at an office building and went up to the floor where they were filming. I expected to be asked questions and then answer.
Instead the filmmaker just asked me to start talking about how the housing market led to the greatest financial collapse in history. I talked for 30 minutes and about 20 seconds made it into the documentary. The documentary was Generation Zero, based upon Strauss & Howe’s Fourth Turning theory. And the filmmaker was a little-known man named Steve Bannon. It was a cool moment in my life when I was able to take my wife and kids to the world-premiere in NYC the following year. I think Bannon went on to bigger things.
Not having the chore of running the website allowed me to do nothing but write. I was pumping out one large article per week and daily posts about the various economic lies put out by the government. But, my penchant for scorning and ridiculing the establishment, the government, Wall Street and corporate America was at odds with Jason’s plan to convince a mainstream media outlet to buy the Raging Debate and cash out.
I had no interest in his vision. He began to censor my articles and tell me what I could and couldn’t publish. It got ugly and we both burned our bridges. He pulled the plug on me and I was left without a site. A good friend at Wharton had an Indian IT company and put his best guy to work on creating a WordPress site using a cheap server company to host it. I was up and running about a week later with version 1 of The Burning Platform.
The daily visitor counts averaged 3,000 in the early days. It was the wild wild west. The daily commenters (Smokey, Llpoh, Stuck in NJ, AWD, Davos, and a few others) would have epic shitfests over the smallest disagreements. During the OWS protests in 2012 the competing factions would fight with such vitriol and venom, we would abandon the site for days. I tried everything I could think of to increase visitors, including having Burning Platform business cards printed, and leaving them next to student computers across the university.
But it turns out the best way to increase traffic to your site is to write provocative articles and get them published on other more popular sites. I owe most of my site’s success to Zero Hedge for publishing every article I’ve sent them for ten years. But Lew Rockwell, 321gold, Dollar Collapse, Market Oracle, Steve Quayle and several other sites have also contributed to my increase in visitors.
In the early days I was driven to write. I felt I could influence enough people with my views regarding the crooked politicians, terrible financial shape of the country, government lies, media propaganda, Deep State control, and how all of this would be impacted by the current Fourth Turning. My Fourth Turning articles even came to the attention of Neil Howe and we met for lunch to discuss how this Crisis might progress. As I kept writing, the visitor counts grew. I signed up for Google Ads and I started to make a few bucks. The revenue covered my server costs.
But my articles tended to piss off the establishment. It wasn’t long before Google pulled the plug after I wrote a critical article about their Orwellian tactics. Being a capitalist at heart, it was gratifying to earn a few bucks from my writing, but it is like getting punched in the gut when these left-wing goliath social media companies ban you from their ad platforms. Over the next several years at least a half dozen ad companies have abruptly pulled the plug on TBP with no warning and no chance to respond.
I can honestly say it is depressing when you work 365 days per year trying to keep a blog interesting and lively, and the rug is pulled out beneath you when the modest amount of income you were generating is gone in an instant. The goal of the SJW’s who complain to the left-wing internet media conglomerates about my site is to shut me down and shut me up. They don’t want dissent from their fake news narrative. They don’t want my site to infect too many people with the truth.
They are worried truth-telling, fact-based sites like mine will undermine the establishment and create resistance to their agenda of control. The undermining of my revenue streams has temporarily taken the wind out of my sails, but every time they have knocked me down, I’ve found alternative advertisers and my dedicated TBP family have picked me up with their generous donations.
As this Fourth Turning has progressed (or regressed is more fitting) I’ve found myself becoming more and more detached from the daily minutia. For years I would scour every BLS, BEA or Census report from the government apparatchiks and methodically and sarcastically skewer their fake data narratives. But, based on the lack of comment stream on these posts and me getting bored saying the same thing over and over again, I stopped analyzing the bullshit government reports. What good does it do?
Anyone who has followed TBP for a long period of time knows the government lies. The ignorant masses who believe everything they are told by their keepers don’t read my website. Trying to convince people who are already onboard is not necessary. The blog has migrated towards political and social issues because that’s what the readers want. This has required a shift in how I view my blog.
I decided it was no longer about me and what I had to say. I’ve resolved myself to the fact nothing I write or say will change anything in this world. We are on a path towards a painful future. I thought it had arrived in 2008/2009 and we’d be faced with a relentless onslaught of pain and suffering. I filled my storage area in the basement with water, food, and survival supplies. I bought some guns and took lessons to learn how to shoot properly. I had exited the stock market well before the crash and have stayed out for the last ten years of this bull market.
I could chalk it up to being early, but that isn’t any different than being wrong for a decade. I’ve made it a mission to use any funds from TBP to pay down my mortgage. Being completely debt free in the next three years is the goal. I’ve had a tumultuous work situation for the last four years that has sapped my mental strength. We’ve dealt with some serious medical issues in our household over the last couple years, which further detracted from my ability to think and write. Hopefully, the work and medical issues are resolving themselves, but you never know what looms over the horizon.
As my increasing detachment has led to less output on my part, I’ve encouraged my extremely intelligent readers to make their voices heard by writing their own articles. This has been a resounding success, as dozens of readers have found their voice and written outstanding, thought provoking articles. Many other bloggers have approached me as they try to get their blogs off the ground and asked if I would post their articles. I’ve done this gladly, as I remembered how ZeroHedge and Lew Rockwell helped me get off the ground.
Supporting like-minded websites is our only defense against the oligarchy, media conglomerates, surveillance state and leftist Big Brother agenda. Whenever I’ve found myself depressed or in a funk, it’s the commentary, courage, fortitude and not giving a fuck attitude of the TBP crowd that sustains me and keeps me plugging away. I’ve always been inspired by this Samuel Adams quote:
“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
The readers of my blog are most certainly a minority in this warped, corrupt, decadent society. I met a few of them at Marc’s farm. We are irate. We are tireless. We love liberty and freedom. We coalesce on TBP because we want to be among others who believe in freedom from a tyrannical government, a manipulative media, an out of control military industrial complex, and a cabal of greedy evil bankers.
By committing myself to keeping TBP relevant and entertaining, I’ve become mostly a publisher of others, rather than a writer of my own stuff. It is grueling trying to find 15 to 20 posts every day, mostly done at night after work or early in the morning before work. When I start to feel sorry for myself, I think about what my life would be like without the people I’ve come to admire and call family on TBP.
So here we are, eleven years since the start of this Fourth Turning. It probably has close to ten years to go. I hope I’m wrong again about the intensity and amplitude of the coming hurricane of consequences brought on by our recklessness and foolishness over many decades. But I fear I will not be wrong this time. The mood in the country and across the globe continues to darken. Sides are being drawn. Enemies are being chosen by nations, politicians, and citizens alike. Simmering animosities are rising to the surface.
There will be no compromise in the current environment. The unmistakable smell of conflict is in the air. We have entered the time of year when stock markets crash and those swimming naked are revealed. Debt, civic decay and global disorder are three category 5 hurricanes relentlessly moving towards a final denouement. The next decade will surely be perilous, but most people are wholly unprepared, mesmerized by their iGadgets and zombified by the relentlessly false mainstream media narrative.
“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” ― Emiliano Zapata
I simply cannot visualize a positive outcome to our current Crisis situation. Some people may say I’m prone to viewing situations from a negative viewpoint, but I think I view the world from a rational realistic point of view. The problem for people like me is the world has adopted a delusional, unrealistic, head in the sand perspective on the desperately irrational “solutions” put forth by our ruling class.
I’ve been wrong for ten years because I thought rationality would come back into style after the second crash in eight years caused by the Federal Reserve and their minions in Washington D.C. Instead, they double downed on their debt dependent debauchery. The world has gone mad and I’ve been left demoralized, depressed and now detached.
No one blinks an eye at $22 trillion in debt, trillion dollar annual deficits, 0% interest rates for ten years, $17 trillion of negative interest debt in the world, retro-active adjustments to GDP and savings rate calculations to make them more positive, 40% of the working age population not working – but unemployment reported as 3.7%, inflation reported at less than 2% when the average person experiences inflation in excess of 5%, corporations using their billions in tax cuts to buy back stock to boost their stock price, a military waging undeclared wars across the globe, an out of control surveillance state monitoring our communications, media companies using propaganda and censorship to push their new world order agenda, and $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities that cannot be honored.
Facts won’t matter until they matter. I wonder what historians fifty or one hundred years from now will say about this profoundly corrupt, aberrational, willfully ignorant episode in world history. How could we be so stupid, egotistical and disinterested in the fate of future generations by wasting the wealth of the unborn to live above our true means today? The selfishness, greed and myopia of those steering the ship of state, and the willingness of the masses to go along with the lies as long as they can be distracted and entertained by their phones is mind numbingly ludicrous in my opinion.
But clearly my opinion is not worth much these days. I guess that’s why I find it harder and harder to write articles pointing out the absurdity of everything going on around me. I think my time is better spent working in the yard, taking long walks with my wife, going to the gym, and just letting this Fourth Turning play out as it will, with an unforeseeable culmination and new beginning – I hope.
Whenever the feelings of demoralization and depression sweep over me and I wonder what’s the use of running my blog, I am sustained by the thoughts of the long-time virtual relationships I’ve formed, the community that has grown within TBP, the great people I’ve met in person, the knowledge there are thousands of people who read TBP every day but don’t comment, and knowing the establishment would like it if I shut TBP down. This is where defiance enters the picture.
The establishment has tried to shut me down with denial of service attacks, trying to get me fired from my job, cutting off my modest revenue stream, and trying to suppress my articles. They didn’t realize pissing me off is the exact opposite of what will work. It was my anger and outrage that drove me to start the blog. The anger directed inward results in depression. As long as I have enemies to fight, I’ll keep TBP alive and defying the forces I view as the enemy.
As my brain tells me the next phase of this Fourth Turning will be tumultuous, dangerous and bloody, my heart hopes I won’t have to face the tragedy and fateful choices that lie ahead. I doubt many people are mentally and emotionally prepared for tests on par with those about to be faced by Americans in 1860 and 1940. Note the 80- year gap. And understand 2020 is 80 years since the last major test of human fortitude and courage. I find myself pondering what trigger will ignite the next phase of this Crisis period.
A financial crash resulting in a bail-in from 401k holders to sustain the Wall Street cabal would push people into the streets (i.e. Hong Kong, Paris). A leftist president attempting to initiate national gun confiscation would provoke violence in the streets. Lastly, if the government tried to force my three sons to fight in a foreign war for oil, the gloves would come off and I’d take to the streets. I will continue to fight the establishment through the free thought allowed on my blog. It’s good ideas and freedom of thought which are the only hope for generating a positive outcome at the climax of this Fourth Turning. The gathering storm approaches. The tests ahead will try our souls.
“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid … Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.” ― Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
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The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn – PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] - Manhattan Luxury-Apartment Sales Plunge After New Transfer Tax
A new report from The Wall Street Journal shows how a new transfer tax in Manhattan has led to a slump in sales of luxury properties this summer.
The new tax, basically a one-time payment on homes valued above $2 million, was enacted on July 01. The new policy led to a massive surge in June sales of luxury residential properties. But when it came time for luxury sales in July, those sales collapsed to a six-year low.
The change in tax policy suggests New York City policymakers were attempting to manipulate consumer behavior by forcing home sales to be brought forward this summer to lift the sagging real estate market.
“Consumer behavior is modified by tax-policy change, and this is exactly what we are seeing,” said Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of the market research and appraisal company Miller Samuel.
The new transfer tax sparked sellers to close on homes before the July 01 deadline, setting records with the most sales above $2 million, above $10 million and above $25 million. And as soon as all of the artificial selling was over, luxury home sales (above $2 million) collapsed to 162 homes for July, compared with 685 in June.
WSJ said Manhattan luxury home sales fell from a record $4.9 billion in June to about $1.54 billion in July, which is the lowest July total since 2009 and the weakest month overall since 2013.
Last month, we mentioned how the median sales price for an apartment in Manhattan was $975,000 in July, flat on the year, but down from its $995,000 peak last July.
Miller was cited in another report talking about the deteriorating Manhattan housing market and said sales prices are a lagging indicator. He noted that the market has been trending lower for third consecutive quarters.
“I characterize that as a reset, and it does have the potential to fall farther,” Miller said.
“Demand is continuing to be softer than it was last year.”
WSJ said the new transfer tax didn’t affect apartments below $2 million. Those sales were up 2.5% from June.
Donna Olshan, a broker who monitors the Manhattan luxury market, said the slowdown in luxury housing is becoming more evident in late summer. Olshan said the number of contracts signed for properties with a list price above $4 million plunged 17% this year through August.
The slowdown in Manhattan is a combination of an exodus of foreign buyers; President Trump’s income tax changes, which limited the deductions for mortgage interest to the first $750,000 borrowed and capped state and local taxes (including property taxes) to $10,000; a domestic economy that is slowing; trade war uncertainties from the Trump administration; and a global synchronized slowdown.
“The crisis seems to be going sideways,” Olshan said. Sellers who lower their prices are doing deals, she said, while other listings sit on the market. Many condo developers aren’t lowering prices, but they are telling brokers to “‘just make me an offer,'” she said.
WSJ said 12 transactions for $10 million or more were completed in July, a below-average month, and the lowest monthly total since 2015.
Miller said inventory is quickly building with more than 6,000 units for sale in Manhattan.
“We’re definitely going through a period of change,” Miller said, “and it’s not entirely clear where it’s heading right now.”
And it was only last year when we cited a report from Bank of America that rang the proverbial bell on the US real estate market, which said existing home sales have peaked, reflecting declining affordability, more significant price reductions and deteriorating housing sentiment.
“Call your realtor,” the BofA note proclaimed: “We are calling it: existing home sales have peaked.”
Interventionist policymakers in New York City, who are willing to change tax law to spur artificial economic activity in a sagging real estate market in Manhattan shows just how desperate officials are to reverse the housing market downturn. However, with intervention, there are always consequences, those consequences are being seen with a drastic drop in sales in July and the months ahead.
- Is Elon Musk Right About Global "Population Collapse"?
Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,
Elon Musk continues to suggest a population collapse is in store within a few decades time…and he is 110% correct if you make two caveats…
1) focus on the young and potential child bearing populations and
2) look at the world excluding a single continent…Africa.
To begin, note the collapsing populations of young (0 to 15 years old) and childbearing populations (15 to 40 years old) across broad swaths of the greatest consumer nations on earth. Absent broad die-offs from war, pandemics, famine, etc.; population collapses begin from the decline of births that eventually work their way into declining childbearing populations.
East Asia (China, Japan, N/S Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia) childbearing population (blue line) and young population (green line), below.
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Young, peaked in 1976 – declined by 138 million (32% decline) so far, projected to decline 259 million (61% decline) by 2100. This is based on the assumption of rising fertility rates…if they remain flat or fall further, the reality is likely to be far lower!?!
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Childbearing peaked in 2005, declined by 96 million (14% decline) so far, projected to decline 357 million (54% decline) by 2100.
Europe (including Russia and Eastern Europe) childbearing population (blue line) and young population (green line), below.
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Young peaked in 1965, declined by 48 million (29% decline) so far, projected to decline 78 million (46% decline) by 2100. Again, this decline is based on the assumption that fertility rates will do the exact opposite of the current reality and suddenly rise?!? If not, far lower births and resultant populations should be expected.
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Childbearing peaked in 1989, declined by 41 million (15% decline) so far, projected to decline 105 million (39% decline) by 2100.
Latin America plus Caribbean (everything in Western Hemisphere but US/Canada) childbearing population (blue line) and young population (green line), below.
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Young peaked in 2001, declined by 11 million (7% decline) so far, projected to decline by 74 million (44% decline) by 2100.
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Childbearing set to peak in 2025 and projected to decline by 87 million (33% decline) by 2100.
North America (US/Canada) childbearing population (blue line) and young population (green line), below.
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Young peaked in 1965, zero growth since ’65, projected to grow by 9 million (14% increase) by 2100. I have detailed repeatedly why given current fertility rates, trends, and immigration patterns, this growth is highly unlikely and continued flat to outright declines should be the base case. Since 2007, US fertility rates have been in freefall and in 2018, the US hit a record low fertility rate of 1.72 and is still falling fast…with Canada even lower at 1.56. There is no sign nor logical rationale to anticipate a rise in fertility rates in North America.
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Childbearing projected to grow 13 million (11% increase) by 2100. Again, this is premised on unrealistically high fertility rates and immigration rates above the current reality…this is also highly unlikely and near zero growth should be the base case.
ASIA (excluding East Asia) childbearing population (blue line) and young population (green line), below.
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Young peaked in 2018, projected to decline 275 million (34% decline) by 2100. This is India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. plus all of Western Asia (Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.).
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Childbearing projected to peak in 2038 and decline by 240 million (20% decrease) by 2100.
Africa childbearing population (blue line) and young population (green line), below.
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Young projected to rise 400 million and peak around 2090!?!
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Childbearing population projected to grow nearly 1 billion through 2100.
Consider:
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Since 1980, Africa has grown from 11% to 17% of the worlds total population
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Since 1980, Africa has grown from 17% to 30% of annual global births
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In 1989, annual global births (excluding Africa) peaked and have declined 15% since (and still falling)
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The 3+ decade decline in global births (excluding Africa) has nearly (but not quite) been offset by increasing births in Africa
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By 2023, the worlds childbearing population (excluding Africa) will be in indefinite decline…and only Africa’s childbearing population will continue growing
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A declining childbearing population (excluding Africa) with deeply negative fertility rates (excluding Africa) is highly likely to see births fall at an accelerating rate (far more than the gradual decline predicted by the UN)
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However, over the past five decades, African income per capita has risen just 240% compared to Upper Middle income nations (China, Brazil, Russia, etc.) rising 950% and high income nations 410%…Africa is clearly losing ground
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By the best proxy for true economic activity, energy consumption, suggests Africa has grown from just 2.4% to 3.6% of global energy consumption…and the future there is not brightening.
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Africa’s economic growth is dependent on global growth (x-Africa)…but with declining global markets for exports and significant overcapacity, Africa’s export driven growth potential is very low
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Lastly, Africa (particularly Sub-Saharan Africa where most of the population growth is occurring) has one of the lowest emigration rates of any poor region.
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By 2030, Africa will be 22% of the worlds population, be 200% of annual growth among the childbearing population, and be responsible for 38% of global births…but still just estimated to be 4.6% of global energy consumption.
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In short, when excluding Africa, births have already collapsed and due to the imminent decline in childbearing population, far larger declines (also known as collapse) are imminent
That is to say, Africa is all the growth in the childbearing population and births…but with minimal increase anticipated in energy consumption or global economic impact. There is essentially no transfer mechanism from the first world wealth to the poor of the third world nor is there a strong avenue for emigration. The global economy will impact Africa but Africa is very unlikely to impact the global economy. And as the UN noted recently, the end of global population growth is now in sight and the global population is likely to peak around 2100, under 11 billion persons (detailed here, HERE). The collapse of populations in East Asia, Europe, and Eurasia is already a done deal.
The Big Picture
Annual global population change, excluding Africa, peaked in 1988 and growth has decelerated since. However, growth really decelerates from here and is projected to end entirely by 2055…and global depopulation (excluding Africa) is the primary global feature there-after.
But focusing on the 15 to 65 year old working age population (x-Africa) which drives the global economy and consumption, the halving of growth in millions (and 2/3rds decline in percentage) is already in the rearview mirror. By 2040, global working age population growth is estimated to end entirely and a persistent decline (depopulation) among potential employees/consumers persists indefinitely there-on.
Why point all this out? Because it is the annual growth in the global childbearing population (excluding Africa, blue columns below) that drives demand, inflation, and the Federal Funds interest rate (yellow line). From 1950 to 1980, it was the accelerating rise in the childbearing population of potential consumers (above and beyond existing capacity) that pushed prices upward (more demand than supply) just as the Fed was hiking the cost of servicing debt (reducing growth in potential capacity). Then from 1981 to present, the deceleration of growth among the same population coincided with decelerating inflation (decelerating demand with accelerating supply from lower interest rates). The imminent declines in the same population will coincide with outright deflation (declining demand against a flat to potentially rising capacity thanks to a return to ZIRP or even NIRP).
15 to 40 year old population growth (as a %) versus federal funds rate, below.
Looking at the global childbearing population (excluding Africa, blue line below) versus 0-15 year old young (x-Africa, red line), the divergence is plain to see below. The total size of the two population sets were essentially identical in the late 1960’s. However, outside of Africa, the global population of young is clearly in decline…and soon, the global childbearing population (x-Africa) will follow.
Below, the annual change in the global childbearing population (x-Africa, blue columns) and annual change in the global population of young (x-Africa, red columns) versus the Federal Funds Rate (yellow line). The shape of the rate curve should make more sense when matched against the real world changing demand of potential consumers. The rationale for rate cuts, ZIRP, and sooner than later, NIRP should also be clear as we are at the end of population growth driven demand increases. The onset of secular declines among the nexus of economic activity is inevitable and imminent. From a growth perspective, the sky has truly fallen…and will only continue to fall faster.
Broadening out to view the global annual childbearing population growth, world (excluding Africa, blue columns) versus Africa (red columns, below). The 90% deceleration of the annual growth of the childbearing population (excluding Africa) versus the doubling of the childbearing population growth in Africa has not resulted in rising economic activity.
Below, global births annually (excluding Africa, blue line) versus births in Africa (red line). Global annual births (x-Africa) peaked in 1989 and have declined by 17 million (-15%). Over the same timespan, annual births in Africa have risen 18 million (+178%). Trading a poor soul for a relatively wealthy soul (essentially a 1:1 population trade but a 90%+ downgrade in purchasing power) ultimately means global consumption is in big trouble, as rate cuts and debt burdens have reached their full potential.
Africa consumes 3.6% of the total global primary energy supply. From 1980 through 2016, Africa’s portion of global energy consumption has risen from 2.4% to 3.6%.
Below, 1980 through 2016, year over year change in global total primary energy consumption. World consumption (excluding Africa, blue columns) versus Africa (red columns). The deceleration of global annual growth with little to no offsetting demand growth from Africa is clear.
As growth ends among the world (x-Africa) and shifts solely to Africa, the differential and disparity of income per capita between the groups that make up the world versus that of Sub-Saharan Africa doom further economic growth. The population rise in poor Africans is only offsetting the declining population of the rest of the world. The chart below details that the average African can consume just 3% what a single high income nation resident would. The average African can consume just 18% what an upper middle nation resident (China, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, etc.) would…and only 70% what a lower income nation resident (India, Pakistan, etc.) would consume.
Total population among each age segment below, green line is the young (0-14yr/olds), blue line is the child bearing population (15-44yr/olds), and the grey line is the “post breeding stock” (45+yr/olds).
Noteworthy is the peak population of young (x-Africa) was hit over 2 decades ago, and the worlds population of young is in active decline. Prior to 2030, the global childbearing population (x-Africa) will likewise begin it’s secular decline.
Looking at population growth (x-Africa) by age groups but on a year over year change basis, below.
Super noteworthy is the 90%+ deceleration of annual population growth among the childbearing population of the world (x-Africa). And by 2023, the childbearing population will begin declining. BTW – the annual growth of the childbearing population (x-Africa) is very closely mirrored by the Federal Funds Rate. The accelerating growth of this population drove demand above and beyond existing capacities, pushing organic inflation and the deceleration in growth of this population is the death of organic, demand based inflation (too much accelerating capacity thanks to automation, AI, robots, etc. versus decelerating demand growth). Inflation is now a synthetically engineered currency event, not demand based.
The impact of a shrinking population capable of childbearing with significantly negative fertility rates (x-Africa) will collide…likely producing a must sharper decline in young (x-Africa).
Next, Africa is nearly all the population growth, but little of the global immigration…
Sources of Global Migration
Since the source of population growth is pretty much solely Africa, the sources of migration should also be clear. The chart below shows the primary sources of migration, per five year periods (1950 through 2015), by global region. Some key takeaways:
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Sub-Saharan Africa has been a relatively insignificant source of immigration since the 1980’s…and even then it never rivaled the migrations from Latin America (primarily Mexico) or presently from S. Asia. Essentially, what happens in Sub-Saharan Africa stays in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Northern Africa has been a more significant source of migration since the 1990’s but the regions birthrates (2.8 children per female) are falling more in-line with Europe than Sub-Saharan Africa (4.9 children per female).
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Latin America was the primary source of migration but this has hugely decelerated, with Mexico experiencing a 10 fold decrease in immigration since 2005.
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The S. Asia region, (primarily India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) are producing the bulk of the worlds migrants.
This whole scenario seems to suggest not just a global slowdown is imminent, but an outright collapse in demand, birthrates, and global populations is more likely than not.
Population data from UN World Population Prospects 2019, Migration data from UN 2017 International Migrant Stock; Primary energy data from EIA, GNI per capita via Atlas method, World Bank.
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- "A Murderer's Row": Oil And Gas Bankruptcies To Accelerate As $137 Billion Debt Matures Over Next Two Years
Oil and gas companies are facing an onslaught of bankruptcies as the “shale revolution” appears to be coming to an unceremonious end, at least on Wall Street, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Companies like Sanchez Energy Corp., Halcon Resources Corp. and 26 other oil and gas producers have all filed for bankruptcy this year, already matching the 28 industry bankruptcies from all of 2018. The number is expected to rise as debt maturities for those looking to cash in on the shale revolution and make bets on higher oil prices years ago are now looming.
5.7% of all energy companies with junk rated bonds are defaulting as of August, the highest level since 2017. The metric is “considered a key indicator of the industry’s financial stress.”
The defaults are on the rise as companies struggle to service debt, bring in new money and refinance existing debt. The once-darling shale business model has been under significant scrutiny from Wall Street over the last 18 months, adding to the headwinds for many companies.
Investor interest has faded after years of meager returns while, at the same time, companies struggle to meet their cost of capital with oil prices below $60/barrel.
Private companies and smaller drillers have felt the most pain thus far. These companies “collectively generate a large portion of U.S. oil,” and their distress is indicative of wider distress throughout U.S. shale.
Patrick Hughes, a partner at Haynes & Boone said: “They were able to hang in there for a while, but now their debt levels are just too high and they’re going to have to take their medicine.”
Halcon filed for bankruptcy in August, just three years after it last filed for bankruptcy, due to a production slowdown in West Texas and higher than expected processing costs. The company’s chief restructuring officer (which we guess is probably becoming somewhat of a permanent position after filing bankruptcy twice in 3 years) said the bankruptcy was partly a result of lenders cutting the company’s credit line by $50 million earlier this year after it violated its debt covenants due to too much leverage.
Sanchez Energy also filed for bankruptcy in August, citing falling energy prices and a dispute with Blackstone over assets that were jointly acquired from Anadarko Petroleum in 2017. Blackstone said Sanchez defaulted on a joint deal to develop the assets and, as a result, Blackstone was entitled to take them over.
Other shale drillers, like EP Energy Corp., have also missed debt payments. EP missed a $40 million interest payment due August 15 as it continued to struggle from the debt piled atop of it as a result of an Apollo-led buyout in 2012.
As of Q2 2019, the company had debt to the tune of 6x its EBITDA. The company has said it has to mid-September to make the payment and is considering a “range of options”, including bankruptcy, to deal with the issue.
Lately, the slew of bankruptcies isn’t so much a result of low crude prices, either. In 2016, when crude prices were below $30/barrel, 70 U.S. and Canadian oil and gas companies filed for bankruptcy. Crude prices have nearly doubled since then. Instead, it’s more a result of debt – and the many companies who took on debt after the 2016 slump all face upcoming maturities over the next four years. While just $9 billion is set to mature throughout the remainder of 2019, about $137 billion will be due between 2020 and 2022, according to S&P.
And debt of companies like Alta Mesa Resources remains as risky as it gets. After being handed a $1 billion “blank check” to invest in shale, the tide has turned on the company in a big way.
Paul Harvey, credit analyst at S&P, said: “A lot of companies are highly levered and facing maturities on their debt that I like to call a murderer’s row, maturities are coming year after year.”
According to S&P, the lowest possible yield an investor can earn on a bond without the issuer defaulting stands at 7%, as of July, in oil and gas. That metric is about 4% for the overall market. For junk bonds, such yields are almost 13%. Energy companies have predictably backed away from the high yield market as the cost of capital has increased, with high yield issuances falling 40% from the same period a year earlier. Overall high yield issuances were up 32%.
Tim Polvado, the head of U.S. energy for the Paris-based bank Natixis SA concluded: “Any available capital structure is going to be more expensive than it was a year ago.”
As is the case in many bankruptcies, equity holders could be “all but wiped” in many of these shale companies, while bondholders jockey for seniority and priority as the likely new owners.
- Venezuela Smashes Weekly Bitcoin Trading Record With 114 Billion Bolivars
Authored by William Suberg via CoinTelegraph.com,
Bitcoin trading has hit a giant new record yet again in Venezuela as the country’s crippling hyperinflation continues to play out…
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
Localbitcoins volume up 48%
Data published on Sep. 2 from monitoring resource Coin Dance, which tracks trade volumes on P2P crypto exchange platforms, showed Venezuelans traded more last week than ever before.
In the seven days ending Aug. 31, 114 billion sovereign bolivars (VES) changed hands on Localbitcoins alone.
That figure dwarfs the previous record set the week before at 77 billion. In Bitcoin terms, however, the uptick was far smaller, rising from 465 BTC to 533 BTC.
Venezuela Localbitcoins trade volume. Source: Coin Dance
Authorities tout sanctioned Petro
As Cointelegraph has reported, recent weekly highs in VES trading underscore the weakness of the Venezuelan currency as it devalues against every other.
The inflation rate in fact dipped in July after the government brought in financial controls. While figures of 10 million percent circulated before, July’s annual rate of inflation was more like 265,000%, Reuters reported in August.
The government nonetheless is still pushing its controversial national currency, which includes state-issued digital currency, Petro. Last week, a remittance system for Petro came into being, but its use perspectives remain uncertain in the wake of sweeping sanctions against the token.
A deal to allow one of Venezuela’s largest department store chains, Traki, to accept cryptocurrency payments meanwhile completed the week previously.
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