Feb 04

Today’s News 4th February 2024

  • Progressive Dems In Congress Move To Block Funding For Israeli Weapons
    Progressive Dems In Congress Move To Block Funding For Israeli Weapons

    Via Common Dreams,

    Calling on the United States to “end its complicity in the nightmare unfolding in Gaza,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday said he would introduce an amendment to remove more than $10 billion from the foreign aid supplemental requested by President Joe Biden.

    The $10.1 billion has been proposed to pay for offensive weaponry funding for the Israeli government, which has reportedly killed at least 27,131 Palestinians in Gaza so far—including at least 11,500 children—and displaced 1.9 million.

    Bernie Sanders on the Senate floor, via YouTube/The Nation

    “Twenty-seven thousand dead—two-thirds of them women and children,” said the Vermont Independent. “Sixty-seven thousand wounded… 70% of housing units damaged or destroyed. And now, hundreds of thousands of children facing starvation.”

    “This is unacceptable,” added Sanders. “The United States cannot be complicit in this humanitarian disaster. That is why I will be offering an amendment to the supplemental bill to ensure zero funding for the continuation of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s illegal, immoral war against the Palestinian people.”

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated Thursday that lawmakers are close to finalizing the text of the national security supplemental, which also includes funding for Ukraine and security at the U.S.-Mexico border.

    Schumer said he would file cloture on a motion to proceed with the supplemental on Monday, “leading to the first vote on the national security supplemental no later than Wednesday.”

    Politico congressional reporter Burgess Everett said Sanders’ amendment “will spark debate” but has little chance of passing.

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    Despite the International Court of Justice’s finding last month that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and Americans’ growing opposition to the U.S. government’s support for Israel, the majority of federal lawmakers continue to claim that Israel is only acting in self-defense against Hamas as it bombards Gaza.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 23:20

  • France Caves To Farmers As Ireland 'Solidarity' Protests Kick Off
    France Caves To Farmers As Ireland ‘Solidarity’ Protests Kick Off

    Two of France’s main farming unions on Thursday agreed to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country after the government announced measures the deemed “tangible progress” in the ongoing revolt against EU ‘climate-driven’ initiatives designed to wean society off of evil, non-bug-based, carbon-emitting food while China, India, and the rest of the world laughs.

    In addition to France, protests have been held in Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Germany and elsewhere. Last week, tensions came to a head in Brussels when farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament building, demanding that European leaders stop punishing them with more taxes and rising costs to finance the so-called ‘green agenda.’

    After French farmers stepped up protests earlier in the week, the government promised on Thursday to extend protections – including better controlling imports and giving farmers additional aid, Reuters reports.

    “Everywhere in Europe the same question arises: how do we continue to produce more but better? How can we continue to tackle climate change? How can we avoid unfair competition from foreign countries?,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, announcing the new measures.

    In response, France’s main farmers union, FNSEA, announced that it was time to lift the blockades and “go home.” Arnaud Gaillot of the Young Farmers’ union echoed the message, however both unions warned that other types of protests would continue, and they’d be back if the government doesn’t make good on their promises.

    Meanwhile in Ireland, farmers began protesting Thursday evening.

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    “There’s a general dissatisfaction with the level of environmental regulation that is being heaped on farmers, the low margins, and (the) resulting low income the farmers have been suffering from for a very long time now,” said Cathal MacCarthy, media director for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, adding “There will be a great deal of sympathy and solidarity with the aim and ambitions of the protests both in Ireland and on the Continent,” EURACTIV reports.

    “They feel they are being regulated out of business by Brussels bureaucrats and Department of Agriculture officials who are far removed from the reality of day-to-day farming,” said Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) President Francine Gorman on Wednesday, ahead of the protests.

    The concerns of the Irish beef and dairy farmers echo the concerns of other European farmers who have been protesting for weeks.

    MacCarthy said Irish beef and dairy farmers also believe they are not being compensated fairly for the agrifood products they cultivate, given the increased costs involved in production as a result of environmental regulations.

    “We need senior politicians to face consumers and say, ‘Lads, listen, the cost of producing this food is X, that has to be paid, and the margin that allows farmers to live (has to be paid), but we can’t just be dependent on what the supermarket feels like charging their customers,’” he said. -EURACTIV

    “We can either continue to have cheap food, or we can have environmentally sustainable food, but we can’t have both,” said MacCarthy.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 22:45

  • Former CIA Coder Sentenced To 40 Years For "Vault 7" WikiLeaks Breach, Child Porn Charges
    Former CIA Coder Sentenced To 40 Years For “Vault 7” WikiLeaks Breach, Child Porn Charges

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A former software engineer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for carrying out the “largest data breach” of classified materials in the agency’s history. He also faced charges related to child abuse imagery, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.

    In this courtroom sketch, Joshua Schulte is seated at the defense table flanked by his attorneys during jury deliberations in New York, on March 4, 2020. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

    Joshua Schulte, a 35-year-old former CIA programmer, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman in a federal court in New York on Thursday for espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography charges.

    The sentencing follows his convictions at trials that concluded in March 2020, July 2022, and September last year.

    Prosecutors initially sought a life sentence for Mr. Schulte, accused of stealing classified CIA documents and leaking them to the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks.

    WikiLeaks began publishing the classified data, known as “Vault 7,” in March 2017.

    The files were dated 2013–2016 and concerned tactics and tools used by the CIA to surveil foreign governments, alleged extremists, and others by compromising their electronics, including smartphones, computers, smart TVs, and messaging applications.

    Mr. Schulte had helped develop the hacking tools used by the agency as a coder at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

    Prosecutors said that Mr. Schulte repeatedly denied any involvement in the leak and refuted being the source of it. Instead, he was accused of “spinning fake narratives about ways the stolen CIA files could have been obtained from CIA computers,” in an attempt to deflect suspicion from himself and divert law enforcement resources toward false leads.

    Breach Cost CIA ‘Hundreds of Millions of Dollars’

    Mr. Schulte has consistently maintained his innocence, claiming that the CIA and FBI have scapegoated him for the March 2017 leak. He insists that it was the result of a hack.

    However, prosecutors say the leak of the files “immediately and profoundly damaged the CIA’s ability to collect foreign intelligence against America’s adversaries” and placed CIA personnel, programs, and assets directly at risk while costing the agency hundreds of millions of dollars.

    Mr. Schulte has been detained, pending trial, since 2018.

    The former CIA worker has also been charged with receiving, possessing, and transporting child pornography after prosecutors said a search of his home led to the discovery of “layers of encryption hiding tens of thousands of videos and images of child sexual abuse materials” on his computer.

    That included 3,400 images and videos of “disturbing and horrific child pornography” as well as “images of bestiality and sadomasochism,” prosecutors said.

    Mr. Schulte collected the images during his employment with the CIA via the dark web, according to prosecutors.

    Schulte’s ‘Information War’

    They further claimed that Mr. Schulte made plans to wage what he called an “information war” against the government after his arrest. He obtained contraband cellphones while in jail, which he used to create anonymous, encrypted email and social media accounts.

    He allegedly used the cellphones to transmit more of the materials to WikiLeaks and “planned to use the anonymous email and social media accounts to publish a manifesto and various other postings containing classified information about CIA cyber techniques and cyber tools,” the DOJ said.

    “Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history. He caused untold damage to our national security in his quest for revenge against the CIA for its response to Schulte’s security breaches while employed there,” U.S. attorney Damian Williams said in a statement announcing Mr. Schulte’s sentencing.

    “When the FBI caught him, Schulte doubled down and tried to cause even more harm to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of publishing top secret information from behind bars. And all the while, Schulte collected thousands upon thousands of videos and images of children being subjected to sickening abuse for his own personal gratification,” Mr. Williams continued.

    Prosecutors praised the “outstanding investigative work” of the FBI and prosecutors in unmasking Mr. Schulte for “the traitor and predator that he is.”

    Their work ensured that he would spend 40 years behind bars, “right where he belongs,” Mr Williams added.

    In addition to the 40 years in prison, Mr. Schulte, who represented himself in court, was also sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release.

    Mimi Nguyen Ly and Reuters contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 22:10

  • Russia Calls Urgent UN Security Council Meeting To Condemn 'Illegal' US Strikes
    Russia Calls Urgent UN Security Council Meeting To Condemn ‘Illegal’ US Strikes

    Russia has condemned the Friday night large-scale US strikes on Syria and Iraq, saying it was an illegal ‘aggression’ and that an urgent United Nations Security Council meeting must be convened to address it.

    Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Saturday of the American operation which killed some 40 people, including civilians, that it “once again demonstrated to the world the aggressive nature of US policy in the Middle East and Washington’s complete disregard for international law.”

    AFP via Getty Images

    According to TASS, “A UN Security Council meeting in connection with the US strikes is scheduled for February 5”; however, the UN has yet to confirm or publish details of the upcoming emergency session. 

    Additionally Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said: “We just demanded an urgent sitting of the UN Security Council over the threat to peace and safety created by US strikes on Syria and Iraq.”

    The Pentagon said it struck over 85 targets in Iraq and Syria, and there are likely more bombing waves to come in the next days. 

    In fresh Saturday remarks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said “This is the start of our response.” Some unnamed US officials have even said the operation could continue for days or even weeks, in response to the Sunday drone attack on the Jordanian border base which killed three Americans.

    While Russia has over several years repeatedly condemned US operations over Syria, and especially the troop occupation in the northeast, it has never responded with an anti-air intercept, or at least this has never been publicly disclosed. 

    But this remains a possibility so long as major US aerial operations continue. Russian jets and convoy patrols are present especially in Syria’s northwest, but have also been known to stretch near Deir Ezzor, the other side of which the Pentagon has a presence.

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    Moscow says that the US is there illegally, while Russian military intervention was invited in by the Assad government, to stave off externally-sponsored jihadist and terror attacks on the Syrian population.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 21:35

  • Oregon Supreme Court Blocks 10 Republicans From Running For Reelection
    Oregon Supreme Court Blocks 10 Republicans From Running For Reelection

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Ten Republican senators in Oregon cannot run for reelection, the state’s top court ruled on Feb. 1.

    The Oregon Senate in Salem, Ore., in a file image. (Amanda Loman/AP Photo)

    The court found that the senators are banned from running for reelection under a constitutional amendment approved in 2022.

    The amendment, Ballot Measure 113, states that lawmakers who miss at least 10 legislative days without an excuse cannot seek reelection.

    The ruling upheld a decision from Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, a Democrat.

    Ms. Griffin-Valade said in 2023 that the senators, under the measure, could not try for another term after their current term.

    “My decision honors the voters’ intent by enforcing the measure the way it was commonly understood when Oregonians added it to our state constitution,” she said at the time.

    The decision sparked a lawsuit from some of the Republican senators, but the Oregon Supreme Court sided with the secretary of state.

    “Because the text is capable of supporting the secretary’s interpretation, and considering the clear import of the ballot title and explanatory statement in this case, we agree with the secretary that voters would have understood the amendment to mean that a legislator with 10 or more unexcused absences during a legislative session would be disqualified from holding legislative office during the immediate next term, rather than the term after that,” the new ruling reads.

    Justices said they used their typical methodology in construing the amendment “by determining how the voters who adopted the amendment most likely understood its text.” The method included considering the information presented to voters, which stated that voting yes would disqualify legislators with 10 unexcused absences for the term “following current term in office.”

    “Those other materials expressly and uniformly informed voters that the amendment would apply to a legislator’s immediate next terms of office, indicating that the voters so understood and intended that meaning,” the justices wrote.

    The ruling applies to 10 Republican senators in the 30-seat body.

    “I’ve said from the beginning my intention was to support the will of the voters,” Ms. Griffin-Valade said in a statement. “It was clear to me that voters intended for legislators with a certain number of absences in a legislative session to be immediately disqualified from seeking reelection. I’m thankful to the Oregon Supreme Court for providing clarity on how to implement Measure 113.”

    Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner, a Democrat, said that the ruling “means that legislators and the public now know how Measure 113 will be applied, and that is good for our state.”

    The senators in question, including state Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, missed more than 10 days in 2023 while protesting Democrat-sponsored bills on abortion and other issues. Their walkout of about six weeks delayed voting because it resulted in a lack of quorum, or the minimum number of senators needed to be present to hold a vote.

    “We obviously disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling. But more importantly, we are deeply disturbed by the chilling impact this decision will have to crush dissent,” Mr. Knopp said on Feb. 1.

    Oregon voters approved Measure 113 by a wide margin following Republican walkouts in the Legislature in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

    The measure says disqualification applies to “the term following the election after the member’s current term is completed.”

    Mr. Knopp and others had challenged the interpretation of the measure.

    Lawyers for the senators said they viewed the measure language as meaning that the lawmakers could run in 2024, since a senator’s term ends in January while elections are held the previous November. They argued the penalty doesn’t take effect immediately, but rather, after they’ve served another term.

    Oregon Senate Minority Leader Sen. Tim Knopp speaks as Democratic Senate President Rob Wagner listens during a press conference in Salem, Ore., on Jan. 31, 2024. (Jenny Kane/AP Photo)

    All parties in the suit had sought clarity on the issue before the March 2024 filing deadline for candidates who want to run in this year’s election.

    Mr. Knopp and three other Republican senators had already launched reelection bids before the case was considered, while two other senators have said that they’re retiring at the end of their terms. The remaining GOP senators were elected in 2022 for terms that end in early 2027, so they will be barred from running in 2026.

    Justice Aruna Masih didn’t participate in the consideration of the case or the decision, the Oregon Supreme Court stated.

    All justices on the Oregon Supreme Court were appointed by Democrat governors, either Gov. Kate Brown or Gov. Tina Kotek.

    “I’m disappointed but can’t say I’m surprised that a court of judges appointed solely by Gov. Brown and Gov. Kotek would rule in favor of political rhetoric rather than their own precedent,” said state Sen. Suzanne Weber, another lawmaker affected by the ruling. “The only winners in this case are Democrat politicians and their union backers.”

    Another challenge from Republicans, this one in federal court, is still pending. The court recently denied a preliminary request that would have let three of the Republicans run, a decision the Republicans have appealed.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 21:00

  • "Tax Relief Act" Exposed: Something Ominous Lurks Inside…
    “Tax Relief Act” Exposed: Something Ominous Lurks Inside…

    Authored by Peter Reagan via Birch Gold Group,

    As it stands right now, it appears like Biden’s entire first term will have been plagued by varying degrees of unacceptable price inflation (some of which was historic).

    No matter how the corporate media spins it, he just can’t seem to lead the country out of this persistent economic trend. The rate of price inflation is easing, but core inflation remains at a pace not seen since the early 1990s.

    You can see both consumer price inflation (blue line) and core price inflation (red line) reflected on the official graph below:

    Unfortunately, the Fed’s efforts to ease inflation and the easing rate of inflation are both about to get some resistance.

    That’s because the Biden Administration is actively working against these efforts. While the Fed tries to rein in the money supply, the White House is digging in the spurs instead…

    The Trojan Horse hidden in “The Tax Relief” act

    A recent article published on The Daily Signal revealed that legislation claiming to provide tax relief for the middle class doesn’t quite do what it says it will:

    checking inside this Trojan horse known as The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act instead reveals a mixed bag that includes welfare expansions, corporate windfalls, and inflationary deficits.

    Here’s exactly what this “Tax Relief” entails for those of us trying to plan for our taxes:

    The only individual tax cut in the bill is a slight cost-of-living adjustment to the child tax credit – likely from $2,000 to $2,100 – that would apply to taxpayers’ 2025 and 2026 tax filings before expiring.

    The bulk – 91.5% to be exact – of what is being described as “middle-class tax relief” is, in fact, an expansion of welfare benefits.

    Okay, look, just calling it “welfare” doesn’t automatically make it a bad idea. We don’t usually think of “welfare” as something the middle class needs, certainly.

    But times are tough! People are struggling! Maybe everyone needs a little welfare these days?

    Well, there’s a catch.

    Another report provided by the Heritage Foundation revealed exactly what you might expect from this bill:

    The JCT’s formal estimate shows a 10-year deficit impact of only $399 million. However, the 10-year aggregate estimate obscures the uneven distribution of the bill’s deficits. According to the JCT, the bill would generate increased federal deficits of $117.5 billion in FY 2024 and an additional $37.8 billion in FY 2025.

    In other words, this welfare expansion will cost three times more than the White House is willing to admit in the first year alone!

    Okay, so why am I getting so worked up about this?

    Why does it matter if the child tax credit is bumped up 5% in a half-hearted attempt to match the soaring cost of living?

    Here’s how the Heritage Foundation explains the problem:

    These deficits can be expected to drive further inflation and increasing interest rates as the government generates new money… divorced from increases in real productive capacity and as it crowds out private borrowing.

    A lot of Americans (and far too many of our political leaders) seem to believe that the government has a magical treasure chest of wealth hidden somewhere.

    Furthermore, they believe they’re entitled to their “fair share” of government-hoarded wealth. When their expenses go up, they want the government to compensate them for the difference.

    Price of gas too high? Get a “gas tax rebate” (this was a real thing!).

    Can’t afford a house? Don’t worry, there’s a government-sponsored entity that’s ready and willing to loan as much as it costs. Whether or not payments are affordable.

    All they want is their share of the secret wealth in the government’s treasure chest.

    But there’s no magic treasure chest.

    The government cannot make wealth! The government’s revenue comes from one of two things:

    • Taxation

    • Debt

    In an economic sense, taxation just shuffles dollars around. You pay your taxes and the government passes your dollars on to someone else. You have fewer dollars, they have more dollars, but the overall number of dollars doesn’t change.

    Issuing debt, though? That doesn’t make wealth – it just makes more dollars. Since the value of currency, like everything else, is based on supply and demand, making more dollars simply decreases the purchasing power of all dollars everywhere.

    It means more dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services.

    During the Covid panic, the federal government handed Americans tidy little piles of cash. Everyone was happy – at first. Then everyone got angry when prices rose – that free money didn’t go as far as it used to.

    That’s how inflation works.

    This is not a situation the government can spend its way out of! Goodness knows the Biden administration has tried…

    Over the past three years, President Biden has added $6 trillion to the national debt. That is a truly shocking amount of money!

    Let me put it in perspective…

    • Adjusted for inflation, $6 trillion is 20% more than the U.S. spent fighting World War II

    • It’s twice as much as the entire national debt of Germany (in just three years!)

    • By itself, $6 trillion would be the third biggest national debt in the world

    So it’s no surprise that the annual cost of living has risen, on average, $11,400 for the typical American family.

    Giving them more dollars doesn’t help!

    The Biden administration hasn’t figured this out yet. They see there’s a fire, they hear people complaining about the smoke – and so they dump another bucket of gasoline on the blaze. No, the last 6 trillion buckets of gasoline didn’t put the fire out – but maybe this one will!

    Hoping for relief? Well, it looks like the White House’s 2024 budget will rack up at least another $1.7 trillion in debt.

    Don’t ask yourself how many dollars you’ve saved, or how many you earn. Ask yourself instead what you can do with those dollars. What are they worth?

    More importantly, how much less with they be worth tomorrow?

    Inflation-proof your savings

    Dollars are essentially IOUs from the federal government. They have no intrinsic value – which means their purchasing power is subject to the whims of supply and demand (and nothing else).

    Some assets have intrinsic value due to their utility or other benefits they provide.

    Tangible assets are the only financial assets you can own and hold in your hand. They aren’t an IOU or a promise to pay. They can’t be printed, hacked or inflated into worthlessness.

    Physical gold and silver have served throughout human history as safe haven assets, immune from the whims of governments or central bankers. The price of physical gold has been relatively stable in the face of the economic turmoil that Bidenomics has wrought upon everyday Americans during his first term. In fact, the price of gold grew almost 13% overall in 2023 (easily beating inflation).

    Of course, getting your hands on some precious metals is just one of many different ways to bolster your resistance to inflation. Now might be a good time to take a look at your retirement plan, and reconsider how your assets are diversified.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 19:50

  • Ukraine Drone Reaches Deep Into Russian Territory, Damaging One Of Its Largest Refineries
    Ukraine Drone Reaches Deep Into Russian Territory, Damaging One Of Its Largest Refineries

    There’s been yet another major attack against a Russian oil refinery. In this fresh Saturday incident, a drone launched by Ukraine’s SBU security service slammed into Lukoil refinery in Volgograd, which is among the country’s largest refineries.

    Regional reports say two drones in total hit the primary refining unit, “without which the plant will lose a significant part of its production capacity.”

    Fire at Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka oil refinery in Volgograd, Russia, as a result of a drone attack on Feb. 3

    Ukrainian sources declared that the “The SBU continues to systematically destroy the infrastructure used by Russia to wage war in Ukraine.” A large fire at the plant resulted. “By attacking oil refineries that support Russia’s military-industrial complex, we not only disrupt fuel logistics for enemy vehicles but also reduce funds flowing into the Russian budget,” the SBU said. 

    The extensive fire has since been extinguished, but not before doing significant damage, apparently:

    The fire has already been extinguished, but at its peak, it spread over 300 square meters. Despite this, the governor of Volgograd Oblast, Andrey Bocharov, claimed that the drone attack was repelled.

    The Security Service of Ukraine has lately claimed responsibility for a string of drone attacks on Russian refineries over the past several weeks.

    The range of Ukraine’s drone and missile arsenal appears to have significantly increased of late, leading the Kremlin to suspect these are Western-supplied weapons being used on Russian territory. It’s also likely that Kiev could have targeting help from the US, UK, or France. Moscow has also of late complained especially that French mercenaries are on the ground in northern Ukraine.

    This new drone attack is believed to have been launched from Kharkiv, like other recent attacks. The distance from Kharkiv to the southern city of Volgograd is over 600km, which is a significant flight time for the suicide drone. Russian oil exports have remained strong throughout nearly two years of war, despite US-led sanctions, in large part due to countries like China and India.

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    These stepped up efforts by Kiev to target Russian energy is dangerous trend which looks to only continue, but which will invite greater Russian retaliation on Ukrainian cities, given also that Ukraine is receiving longer range missiles which were pledged last year:

    Washington plans to ship its first batch of ground-launched long-range bombs to Kiev this week. The arms were designed for the Ukrainian military and will give Kiev another option for deep strikes. 

    The new weapon was developed by Boeing and Saab. It combines a 250-pound guided bomb intended to be launched by an aircraft and straps it to a rocket motor. Washington believes it has a range of 90 miles. 

    Boeing and Saab pitched combining the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor in November 2022. President Joe Biden approved the transfer of the long-range bomb to Ukraine in February 2023. However, the delivery of the munitions was delayed because it needed to be developed and tested. 

    Politico spoke with four officials who confirmed the first batch would arrive in Ukraine this week. The officials touted the weapons as giving Ukraine “a significant capability.” “It gives them a deeper strike capability they haven’t had, it complements their long-range fire arsenal,” the US official said. “It’s just an extra arrow in the quiver that’s gonna allow them to do more.”

    This spate of attacks has also raise questions about the quality of Russian air defense systems around key infrastructure facilities, or if they are present at all for that matter.

    Russian oil exports made up about 30% of the country’s budget revenues. As of 2023, Russia became China’s number one oil supplier, taking the top spot long held by Saudi Arabia.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 19:15

  • Joe Rogan Has Shattered The Media Monolith
    Joe Rogan Has Shattered The Media Monolith

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    It was just about two years ago that I wrote an article detailing how the mainstream media was losing the fight of its life against Joe Rogan. In 2022, I also wrote about how CNN had basically crumbled at the hands of alternative media.

    On Friday, news broke that Rogan was renewing his contract with Spotify, and that it would likely be worth (another) $250 million.

    The hilarious thing is that this renewal and the continued success of alternative media sources, like the very blog you are reading right now, come at a time when legacy media corporations are engaging in mass layoffs and losing both subscribers and viewership.

    When I started my podcast in 2018 and this blog in 2021, something Joe Rogan once said echoed in my ears:

    “You don’t have to be everything for everybody; you just have to be something for somebody.”

    And that was exactly why I wanted to start a podcast. The people that I wanted to hear from in the world of finance, like Peter Schiff and Bill Fleckenstein, were given zero time in the mainstream media.

    When they were invited on, they were heckled, ridiculed, and used as punching bags, despite often being the only people correctly predicting how the economy would go and representing the only counterbalance to an always bright, sunny, and cheery mainstream financial media.

    I didn’t really care if anybody ever listened to my podcast; I just wanted to have an excuse to invite people on whose perspectives I wanted to hear but wasn’t getting from the mainstream media. In other words, I became part of a media free market that wanted to test to see if my needs were similar to those of other people who followed the news in the industry.

    Lo and behold, about five years later, my podcast has over 6 million plays/downloads across platforms. It’s definitely not The Joe Rogan Experience, but it’s something for somebody. It’s the same with my blog. Those who are subscribers here know that I write to discuss issues that are on the fringe—issues specifically not covered by the mainstream media. They are not always worth covering, but some times they are — that’s the risk I run. Regardless, for the most part, you wouldn’t be getting it anywhere else so that makes it worth it for me to hash out. I don’t mind sorting through the muck on “the fringe.”

    🔥 6 Months Free: For those of you that are not yet subscribers, this link will afford you a year’s paid subscription for the price of just 6 months. It’s a discount that never expires for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber: Get 50% off forever

    The crumbling of the once-great media establishments like the LA Times, who announced massive layoffs last week, and CNN, who has fired most of the key staff that was on board a few short years ago, goes to show that the free market has determined there is a significant need for other types of media.

    Back in the days of cable news, before streaming video and podcasts, there was really only one way to get your news. Today, the internet has revolutionized the industry and has become the vehicle for us in alternative media. No matter how “fringe” your view of the world is, there is now generally a media echo chamber of some sort you can go lock yourself in when you want to. From there, the free market and consumer dollars will determine who will be raging successes and who won’t.

    Generally, when you sign your second $200 million deal in less than a decade, it’s a pretty good sign that the free market has deemed you a success — especially when your biggest former critics, people like Brian Stelter, are walking around unemployed while you do it.

    And it isn’t some secret as to why the Joe Rogan Experience has been a success; rather, it’s quite simple: he has a range of guests, explores topics that are off-limits elsewhere, takes things in a calm, relaxing and jovial, humorous fashion, asks genuine, open-minded questions, and generally broaches serious topics with a healthy dose of lightheartedness and common sense.

    In other words, Joe Rogan approaches things with good faith and honesty.

    And this, pray tell, has been the main differentiating factor between a lot of the alternative media and giant media empires. The world is becoming aware of the fact that the giant media conglomerates all have a narrative—whether it is left, right, or otherwise—and they are all doing the bidding for their respective powers that be. And don’t get me wrong, there is a place for this, but it is among lobotomized automatons who are happy to have somebody else do their thinking for them, not the rest of us.

    A free market in any industry does well to allocate resources to where they belong. The mainstream media monolith is seeing its foundation crack because its viewership, the “resources” of the industry, is drifting to other sources.

    The beautiful thing about alternative media is that the overhead can be super low, and, in my case, I’ve been lucky enough to not really have to engage in any type of major marketing, save for a couple of emails that I send out each weekend. For the most part, it’s a one-man show. No producers, no multi-million dollar budget, no sponsors to bow to and no “guidelines” about what I can and can’t talk about.

    My friend Phil Bak casually asked me on Friday what I thought the marketing budget was for big media corporations.

    “Like fifty million a year or something,” I guessed.

    “Exactly,” Phil replied to me. “Fifty million f*cking dollars. And they can’t find a single interesting thing to say.”

    Unlike the dolts eating from the trough of their sponsors to determine their content, I’m lucky enough to get incredible content from friends of mine voluntarily because they, too, have been ignored by the mainstream. If they had opinions that were useless, there wouldn’t be a market for them. Instead, my subscriber list continues to grow.

    This means people are thirsty for an honest, open discussion and debate about the merits — especially in the world of finance, where modern monetary theorists proclaim themselves God while in the background their “theory” is self-immolating in plain sight.

    And so, less than a decade in to Rogan’s Spotify push, we have seen a major mutation of the media landscape, and my guess is that it is going to continue shifting as the days, weeks, and months go by. There will be more Rumbles, there will be more Barstool Sports, there will be more independent podcasts, there will be more grassroots news organizations, and, generally, there will be more honesty, candor, and fearlessness in the way news is reported. Some of the most important stories over the last two years, including ones about Covid and censorship, have been broken by independent investigative journalists like Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi.

    It is no mistake that these fearless individuals, bringing truth to light for those who seek it, have been welcomed onto the very same podcast platform that is earning Joe Rogan another $200 million contract. The poplace is thirsting for truth.

    And Rogan is personifying what the free market is telling the mainstream media machine: we’re done with authoritarianism, we can handle the truth, don’t infantilize us, you don’t know what’s best for us, let us make up our own minds and, in not so many words, treat us as adults with sovereignty over our own liberty.

    Congrats on the new contract, Joe, and thanks for the inspiration.

    —

    Thank you for reading QTR’s Fringe Finance. This post is public so feel free to share it: Share

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 18:40

  • House GOP Propose $17.6B For Israel, With No Offsetting Cuts To IRS
    House GOP Propose $17.6B For Israel, With No Offsetting Cuts To IRS

    Next week, the GOP-led House will vote on a new, $17.6 billion Israel aid package that won’t include IRS funding cuts contained in their original bill, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Saturday.

    What’s more (oh boy!), the new House bill includes $3.3 billion to support US military operations in the Middle East as regional conflicts break out on multiple fronts, Axios reports.

    Johnson’s announcement comes as Senate negotiators prepare to roll out a comprehensive package that would fund Israel, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific (oh, and border security funds are in there somewhere!).

    In a letter to House Republicans obtained by Axios, Johnson wrote that Senate leadership has “eliminated the ability for swift consideration” of an emergency spending package by refusing to include House leadership in the talks.

    “Given the Senate’s failure to move appropriate legislation in a timely fashion, and the perilous circumstances currently facing Israel, the House will … take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package,” Johnson’s letter reads.

    Johnson noted that the IRS offset was the “primary objection” Democrats had to the previous Israel bill, and that the Senate will “no longer have excuses … against swift passage of this critical support for our ally.”

    More via Axios:

    The backdrop: The House passed a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel in November, shortly after Johnson took office, but Democrats and even some Republicans were upset that its spending was paired with cuts to the IRS.

    • Just a dozen of the most staunchly pro-Israel House Democrats voted for the bill, many vocally criticizing the IRS piece, and it was blocked from consideration in the Senate.
    • The Senate has spent months trying to craft a comprehensive package that would pair Ukraine funding with border security provisions, but Republicans’ openness to such a deal has waned as the talks dragged on.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 18:05

  • Is A Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan Imminent?
    Is A Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan Imminent?

    Authored by Tarik Solmaz via RealClear Wire,

    The recent victory of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Lai Ching-te in Taiwan’s presidential election has heightened tensions between China and Taiwan, renewing the debate on a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan. While most defense analysts do not perceive a war in the Taiwan Strait as imminent, some notable figures have often warned that China might be tempted to launch a military offensive against Taiwan anytime soon. A four-star U.S. Air Force general even suggested last year that Beijing might take military action against the island by 2025.

    Undoubtedly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been relentless in its pursuit of control over Taiwan. Since the presidency of Beijing-skeptic Tsai Ing-Wen began in 2016, the Chinese state has employed a large-scale hybrid warfare campaign against Taipei to subvert Taiwan’s independence-leaning government. China’s hybrid warfare efforts have comprised isolating Taipei diplomatically, undermining public trust through propaganda and fake news, cyber-attacks, economic coercion, and military intimidation through air defense identification zone (ADIZ) incursions and large-scale military exercises.

    Despite China’s prolonged hybrid warfare campaign, the pro-independence DPP’s candidate emerged victorious in the recent election. This victory prompts a reevaluation of China’s approach and raises questions about the potential for the escalation of hybrid warfare to a full-scale military operation. The fact that the Kremlin turned its protracted hybrid warfare campaign against Ukraine into a full-scale military operation on February 24, 2022, reveals that the hybrid model of warfare is not the sole element in the revisionist powers’ national security toolkit, and traditional warfare is here to stay. On paper, Chinese hybrid warfare activities against Taiwan may also escalate to conventional military operations at any time in the future. To assess the likelihood of a military invasion of Taiwan by China, it is crucial to understand the four key factors that led Beijing to adopt the hybrid warfare approach over the past eight years and whether those factors remain relevant.

    The first one is Taipei’s preference for the status quo. Beijing has long warned Taiwan that any attempt to declare formal independence from the mainland means war. Even though Taiwanese policymakers repeatedly asserted that Taiwan is already a sovereign and independent country and, thus, there is no need to proclaim independence, it is evident that they have refrained from making a formal declaration to avoid provoking Beijing. Due to Taipei’s hesitant position, China’s perception of the threat stemming from the Taiwanese independence movement has not reached the alarm threshold. Since the perceived threat has been significant but not vital, Beijing has preferred to employ the hybrid model of warfare, which falls somewhere between diplomacy and conventional warfare. Taiwan’s new president-elect, Lai Ching-te, has frequently emphasized during the electoral campaign that he desires to maintain the status quo with the mainland and has offered dialogue with Beijing. Lai’s emphasis on maintaining the status quo suggests this factor will likely persist.

    The second factor is the U.S. support for Taiwan. Although Washington cut off its diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979, it continued to maintain a robust informal relationship with Taiwan and to sell weapons to its army in the decades that followed. Furthermore, during the previous decade, China’s rise to become the world’s second-largest economic and military power has been perceived as a significant threat to its global interests by the United States. As a result, it has sought to create alliances to restrict its role in Asia-Pacific. In that regard, Washington has seen Taiwan as an important strategic partner and often stated that it will protect Taiwan if China carries out an outright invasion campaign on the island. Therefore, direct military intervention in Taiwan could prompt Washington to impose serious sanctions on China. Moreover, it could spark an all-out war between China and the United States. As such, in recent years, China has prioritized hybrid warfare operations against the island to avoid Washington’s possible countermeasures. The United States has not altered its position regarding a possible Chinese invasion campaign over Taiwan. Indeed, recently, as tension from China intensified, Washington approved a $300 million sale of equipment to help Taiwan upgrade its tactical information systems.

    The third factor involves China’s portrayal as a peaceful actor. Despite seemingly asserting a stance against the pursuit of regional or global hegemony and opposing the use of military force in international relations, China’s rapid economic growth raised concerns about potential dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. In response, Beijing introduced the ‘peaceful rise’ concept in the early 2000s to allay suspicions and assure the global community that its expanding political, economic, and military capabilities would not jeopardize international peace and security. This policy remains essential for China to sustain economic growth and enhance diplomatic influence globally. An overt military operation against Taiwan would significantly damage China’s international image, as has been case with the Russian Federation. Hence, the Chinese leadership has opted for a hybrid warfare model to achieve political objectives concerning Taiwan, avoiding direct military confrontation. Ensuring China’s economic development still depends on its commitment to a peaceful rise, and there is no urgency for Beijing to veer away from the trajectory of peaceful development.

    The fourth and last key factor is that occupying the island might not be that straightforward in military terms. Beijing has consistently modernized and enhanced its military forces over decades, making the People Liberation Army (PLA) currently possess the world’s largest active-duty military personnel. Despite this, undertaking a potential invasion of Taiwan poses significant challenges for China’s military. China has not fought a conventional war since the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. The absence of recent experience in conventional warfare has left the Chinese military without an opportunity to test its doctrine and capabilities. Additionally, a prospective Chinese invasion of Taiwan would require a large-scale amphibious warfare operation. However, currently, the PLA lacks the military capability and capacity to conduct a full-blown amphibious operation against Taiwan.

    In conclusion, China’s reasons for adopting a hybrid warfare approach against Taiwan remain valid. Therefore, hybrid warfare operations still fit better into China’s cost-benefit calculus. China’s invasion of Taiwan seems unlikely in the short term. Instead, China would prefer to step up its hybrid warfare activities. The military aspects of China’s hybrid warfare operations may be more visible in the near future. Beijing may use maritime militias called ‘little blue men’ on a broader scale to harass and intimidate Taiwan.

    One day, Taiwan might experience a fate similar to Ukraine. However, the timing of such a scenario will depend on evolving circumstances, including Beijing’s perceptions of the threat posed by the Taiwanese independence movement, Washington’s stance on the Taiwan issue, and China’s military and economic posture. Changes in these factors may either heighten the probability of an all-out invasion campaign or contribute to the maintenance of peace.

    Tarik Solmaz is a Ph.D. Candidate and research assistant at the University of Exeter.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 17:30

  • "Maybe Trump Is The Answer": Rapper 50 Cent Responds To NYC's $53M 'Cash For Migrants' Program
    “Maybe Trump Is The Answer”: Rapper 50 Cent Responds To NYC’s $53M ‘Cash For Migrants’ Program

    While New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has been complaining about “extremely painful” budget cuts, and warned that the flood of migrants thanks to the Biden administration’s open-border policies “will destroy New York City,” somehow – somehow, Adams’ administration has found it in the budget to allocate $53 million towards handing out pre-paid credit cards to migrant families living in Big Apple hotels, the NY Post reports.

    According to the Post;

    It’ll start with a group of 500 migrant families in short-term hotel stays and will replace the current food service offered there, according to City Hall.

    The cards can only be used at bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores — and migrants must sign an affidavit swearing they will only spend the funds on food and baby supplies or they will be kicked out of the program.

    The Immediate Response Card initiative appears akin to the state’s food stamp program, dubbed SNAP, which provides lower-income New Yorkers with a credit card to cover the cost of meals, and will provide funds based on the same scale.

    If the program is a success, NYC will expand it to all migrant families staying (for free) in hotels – roughly 15,000, according to the report.

    “Not only will this provide families with the ability to purchase fresh food for their culturally relevant diets and the baby supplies of their choosing, but the pilot program is expected to save New York City more than $600,000 per month, or more than $7.2 million annually,” said Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak, apparently employing some type of heretofore unknown math.

    The program is similar to a bill proposed in California which would give unemployment benefits to illegal immigrants.

    50 Cent is not havin’ it

    In response to New York City’s program to take care of illegal migrants before their own homeless population, rapper 50 cent took to Instagram to tell his 31 million followers he might vote for Trump…

    “WTF mayor Adams call my phone, I don’t understand how this works,” he posted, adding “I’m stuck maybe TRUMP is the answer. “

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    A post shared by 50 Cent (@50cent)

     The comment comes days after rapper Snoop Dog said he has “nothing but love and respect” for the former President (who he once rapped about assassinating).

    Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., said in an interview with British newspaper The Sunday Times that he’s still not sure who he’ll endorse in the election. But he made clear his view of the former president on a more personal level.

    “I have nothing but love and respect for Donald Trump,” Snoop Dogg said.

    What’s going on here?

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 16:55

  • Globalists Will Use Carbon Controls To Stop You From Growing Your Own Food
    Globalists Will Use Carbon Controls To Stop You From Growing Your Own Food

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    In early 2020 in the midst of the covid lockdowns, blue states run by leftist governors pursued mandates with extreme prejudice. In red states like Montana, after the first month or two most of us simply ignored the restrictions and went on with life as usual. It was clear that covid was not the threat federal authorities made it out to be. However, in states like Michigan the vise was squeezed tighter and tighter under the direction of shady leaders like Gretchen Whitmer.

    Whitmer used covid as an opportunity to institute some bizarre limitations on the public, including a mandate barring larger stores from selling seeds and garden supplies to customers.

    “If you’re not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store,” Whitmer said when announcing her order.

    The leftist governor was fine with purchases of lottery tickets and liquor, but not gardening tools and seeds.

    She never gave a logical reason why she targeted garden supplies, but most people in the preparedness community understood very well what this was all about: This was a beta-test for wider restrictions on food independence. There was widespread rhetoric in the media throughout 2020 attacking anyone stockpiling necessities as “hoarders,” and now they were going after people planning ahead and trying to grow their own food. The establishment did NOT want people to store or produce a personal food supply.

    Another prospect that was being openly discussed among globalists was the idea that lockdowns were “helpful” in ways beyond stopping the spread of covid (the lockdowns were actually useless in stopping the spread of covid). They suggested that the these measures could be effective in preventing global carbon emissions and saving the world from “climate change.” The idea of climate lockdowns began to spread.

    The corporate media has since lied about the existence of the climate lockdown agenda, but articles and white papers extolling the virtues of shutting down the planet in the name of climate change are easy to find and read. The globalists and their academic defenders wanted PERMANENT lockdowns, or rolling lockdowns every couple of months, shutting down most human activity and travel outside of basic production.

    I have argued in the past that what Whitmer was doing in Michigan was a part of this agenda – That her garden supply ban was part of a wider goal that had nothing to do with public health safety and everything to do with stopping people from prepping. The covid controls were only meant to be a precursor to carbon controls.

    This past week we have seen more confirmation of this, as a study out of the University of Michigan claims that homegrown foods produce five times more carbon emissions than industrial farming methods.  In other words, private gardens could be considered a threat to the environment. The Telegraph and other corporate platforms have jumped on the story, and I believe this is cause for concern.

    The study includes analysis of various gardens from individual family plots to urban and community plots and claims that “garden infrastructure” for individual plots (such as raised beds) contribute far greater carbon pollution than large scale farming. The study seems to ignore the fact that raised beds are more efficient and grow more food in a smaller space, but I doubt they really care to take these kinds of things into consideration.

    The average person might be confused by this and assume the opposite is true – Wouldn’t growing foods at home be BETTER for the environment?

    Not if your funding relies on portraying independent food supplies as bad for the planet.

    The study is bankrolled by a host of international groups, including the European Union’s Horizon Program which lists “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” as one of its project goals.  These 100 cities are then supposed to act as flagship models for the eventual carbon agenda takeover of all cities by 2050.

    Such groups have billions of dollars at their disposal and focus most of that monetary firepower on climate change research (propaganda). Do I think that the Michigan study is rigged in favor of a predetermined outcome? Probably. When these studies are funded by globalist interests, their outcomes always seem to favor globalist goals. The study itself does not necessarily argue that people should stop gardening, but it does push the narrative that carbon controls are necessary, even at an individual level.

    The Michigan report might seem like a meaningless footnote.  However, as we witnessed last year with a study from the Consumer Product Safety Commission on natural gad appliances, these little and obscure studies are often used to justify large scale government interventions into people’s daily lives. The CPSC study inspired months of debates from Democrats in the US demanding that gas appliances including stoves be banned because they MIGHT cause health side effects, specifically in children (it turns out the study had no concrete basis for this claim).

    Leftists and globalists do not care about protecting your health; they care about how these studies can be used to fear monger, thus increasing their power. In other words, if you can rig the science, then you can rig the laws.

    We saw something similar to this in a UN study in 2006 which claimed that meat production contributed to nearly 20% of all carbon emissions and was worse for the environment than transportation. The study was exposed in 2010 as “flawed” (fraudulent), but for years the media and globalist organizations used its false conclusions as a springboard to demand limitations and bans on meat production in the name of saving the climate.

    If you think the war on farming which is raging right now in Europe is only intended to affect industrial farms, think again. The establishment is going to try to use the man-made climate change lie to dictate ALL food production, right down to your unassuming backyard garden.  And they won’t limit their efforts to the EU; they will come after American farms with the same restrictions.

    This is really what the globalist “net zero” programs and 15 minute cities are all about – They are based on the idea that all human activity needs to be monitored and managed. They say it’s for the good of the planet, but the systems they want to put in place from 2030 to 2050 sound like a new digital feudalism, a society where bureaucracies track and trace and micromanage every aspect of your life. The elites benefit greatly while never proving that carbon emissions are a danger to anyone.

    Why the obsessive focus on food? Because if people have their own food, then they might be more willing to rebel against further mandates. It’s really that simple.

    The end game is obvious – Control the food, and you control the world. Do it in the name of saving the planet and a lot of people will even thank you as you starve them.

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 16:20

  • Freedom Convoy Arrives At US Southern Border While Biden Drops Bombs In Middle East
    Freedom Convoy Arrives At US Southern Border While Biden Drops Bombs In Middle East

    The Take Back Our Border convoy reached the Texas-Mexico border on Friday night to show support for the Texas government in its ongoing standoff with radicals in the Biden administration over disastrous open southern border policies that have triggered the worst migrant invasion this nation has ever seen.

    Dozens of videos posted on social media platform X show the convoy of trucks arriving at Cornerstone Children’s Ranch in Quemado, Texas, late Friday night. The area is located about a quarter mile from the US-Mexico border. 

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    Earlier on Friday, Take Back Our Border leader Dr. Pete Chambers and Senate candidate Ben Luna, R-NM, joined “Fox & Friends First” and warned about the out-of-control migrant invasion that is plunging this country into a crisis. 

    “The fentanyl is, I call it, a chemical warfare across the border. The drug trade is tremendous,” said Chambers, an Army veteran, adding the objective of the open southern border policies by Biden is “complete destabilization.” 

    Legacy corporate media automatically bashed working-class Americans who wanted common-sense border security, calling anyone associated with the convoy “Far-right conspiracy theorist. Americans are figuring corporate media is not their friend. 

    Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, musician Ted Nugent, and elected Texas officials spoke at the convoy staging area yesterday. 

    “The eyes of the world are on Texas right now. 

    “Now, more than ever, it’s required of us to stand up and fight for what’s right, because it’s unconscionable, it’s treasonous, what our own federal government is doing to us in actually sanctioning an invasion, a foreign invasion, of our country,” Palin said.

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    The convoy plans two other rallies this weekend, with one event in Yuma, Arizona, and another in San Ysidro. 

    “Fellow citizens and compatriots … I call on you in the name of liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character to come to our aid with all dispatch,” Chambers wrote on the convoy’s website. 

    “If this call is neglected, we are determined to sustain ourselves as long as possible and act like soldiers who never forget what is due to our own honor and that of our country,” he continued.

    The convoy aims to “send a message” to the federal government about the migrant invasion facilitated by the Biden administration and shadowy taxpayer-funded NGOs.  

    Populist uprisings are emerging across the Western world (read: here) as radical leftist elected and non-elected officials have pushed widely unpopular policies that have angered the vast majority of the working poor. 

    Meanwhile, the Biden administration is more interested in starting another major conflict in the Middle East this weekend by dropping bombs on Iraq and Syria. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 15:45

  • A Bitcoin Standard Unleashed
    A Bitcoin Standard Unleashed

    Authored by Michele Uberti via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    INTRODUCTION

    The transition from Fiat Standards to the Bitcoin Standard, though highly desirable, is not inevitable or necessarily imminent. The timing and occurrence of these changes hinge on the adoption choices made by individuals, organizations, and public entities. These decisions are influenced not only by rational considerations but also by emotional and irrational factors (greed and fear above all). The collective will, formed by the intentions of a critical mass with sufficient capital and agency, plays a crucial role in displacing central banks and the entrenched power structures in favor of a new system centered around Bitcoin. Despite Bitcoin’s evident technical, economic, and ethical superiority over other form of money, this struggle will undoubtedly be a formidable one, with the outcome far from assured.

    Nonetheless, it is crucial to reflect on the consequences that this potential revolution, if realized (as we all hope), could have on every facet of social existence. These implications span from the nature of states and international relations to the functioning of economic systems, prevailing value systems, and even the energy market and technological innovation. In this article, without the pretense of being exhaustive, we aim to briefly explore some of these aspects and suggest plausible trajectories.

    BITCOIN AND FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING

    As Hal Finney correctly forecasted, a hypothetical Bitcoin Standard would be incompatible with central banks but not necessarily with a fractional reserve banking system. Algorithmic limits on the number of transactions per block will certainly prevent Layer 1 from serving as a retail payment system. Over time, fewer transactions will occur on it, and these will be of a very high value (in practice, only whales or large public and private institutions, given the high costs, will be able to afford them).

    Some form of free banking 2.0 on Layer 2 would then be quite inevitable in the medium to long term for a Bitcoin-based monetary system. In the absence of a central bank as the lender of last resort and with much easier reserve verifiability than with gold, this Layer 2/layer 3 FRB (Fractional Reserve Banking) will be much more fragile than the current fractional reserve system supported by legal tender, central bank, and practical indistinguishability between the monetary base and the money supply. This will only reinforce the importance of Layer 1 as the solid foundation of the monetary system, similar to the role gold played in past millennia.

    MACROECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS

    Ceteris Paribus, in the medium term, the adoption of a hypothetical Bitcoin Standard should significantly dampen economic cycle fluctuations, preventing excessive indebtedness, mal-investment, and credit bubbles in the private sector, leading to systemic debt crises. Monetary repression would also result in much slower but steady real growth rates in economies in the medium to long term. With the absence of the engine of monetary and credit expansion, i.e., the inflationary policies of central banks, the nominal growth of output within a Bitcoin Standard will be modest, but real growth will remain significant. In other words, any increase in multi-factor productivity will result in a decline in consumer prices measured in satoshis rather than an increase in nominal output. In this context, even in the short term, economic growth will depend on demographic, ecological, and economic factors rather than monetary or credit factors.

    In this regard, with the Bitcoin Standard, there will be a gradual shift of wealth from the financial sector, which has become voracious today, to the real and productive economy. This is a consequence of the significant downsizing of bond and money markets (reduction in the level of indebtedness of economies) and therefore the entire industry profiting from them.

    Among the businesses that will experience the most downsizing are centralized payment and clearing systems, traditional credit institutions, fiduciary agents such as notaries (replaced by smart contracts on Layer 2 and 3 of Bitcoin), and those involved in financial, real estate, and insurance intermediation.

    On the contrary, anything leveraging the potential of Bitcoin’s layers (for smart contracts) and DeFi will experience a real boom.

    (GEO)POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

    Regarding the immutability of the monetary base, it would force states into strict fiscal discipline as the option to monetize deficits or debt as a form of public spending financing would disappear. This will profoundly influence the ability of nation-states to provide welfare or wage wars. In the absence of a monetary printing press and, thus, the insidious tax called inflation, fiscal pressure and the allocation of public spending will become the subject of serious negotiations and political disputes, as they will directly affect the pockets of citizens/subjects/taxpayers.

    On one hand, this could encourage more direct forms of democracy (facilitated by the spread of blockchains and DAOs) to give citizens a greater say in tax and spending decisions. On the other hand, a world based on the Bitcoin Standard could lead to a much more fragmented and apolar geopolitical landscape, given the intrinsic unsustainability of maintaining such large and inefficient state apparatuses, resembling more the classic medieval feudalism. Instead of the sword/blood/robe aristocracy, Bitcoin whales would become the dominant social class, where non-coiners would be a kind of new serfdom. The former, individuals, families, and institutions with huge Bitcoin holdings (created in the early stages of adopting this technology, i.e., in the first two decades of its existence), would be able to provide welfare, work, and protection to citizens/subjects in exchange for loyalty, services, and obedience to their “feudal” rule. The latter, the vast majority of the population whose ancestors arrived too late to adopt and convert their fiat capital into Bitcoin (for various ideological or practical reasons, including economic constraints), would find themselves at the bottom of the pyramid and would be forced to earn their living through the sweat of their brow or (more likely, given technological advances) through the generosity, more or less interested, of philanthropic whales. This dynamic would also apply internationally: there would be pioneering regions or nations that, having adopted Bitcoin as legal tender first, would enjoy a significant relative wealth advantage that would be hard to match by latecomers.

    These would not necessarily be the currently dominant nations; in fact, some may not even exist at present. The ultimate result would be a much more fragmented international system than the current one, consisting of a mix of democratic, socialist, or oligarchic city-states, crypto-aristocratic fiefdoms centered around individual families, and large anarchic and chaotic regions. All these entities would be in competition/cooperation with each other, forming a completely new and constantly evolving geopolitical-ideological landscape. In a world where old identity affiliations (national, ideological, and religious) would overlap and mix with new identities based on the interpretation of the Bitcoin revolution. Given the technological assumptions and ideological foundations of Bitcoin culture, a “coinist” religion could emerge, tied to certain ritualistic and faith-based aspects that are already glimpsed among its staunch supporters (immaculate conception, decentralization, worship of Satoshi, algorithmic infallibility). In any case, the Bitcoin Standard would impose on the societies adopting it some economic norms closely influencing public morality. Among them are the sense of limit, the ethic of saving, prudence in investments, long-termism, honesty in commercial transactions, individual responsibility, fiscal discipline, and, of course, the independence and incorruptibility of money from state powers.

    NODES, MINING, AND GEOPOLITICS

    Nodes are the heart of the Bitcoin network and would, therefore, receive significant attention from political powers. Controlling full nodes (and thus potential miners) within a specific territory by public authorities would be extremely important for claiming sovereignty internally and influencing the international scene. Naturally, given other variables, nations capable of producing energy at lower costs or on a larger scale would have an advantage in allocating and thus controlling significant shares of the global bitcoin hashrate. An eternal struggle for control of the global hashrate will be the new center of geo-economic disputes. That being said, it is by no means guaranteed that most territorial political entities will be able to effectively exert this control, and it’s uncertain how they will go about doing so.

    While legitimate physical coercion might seem like the obvious choice, given the specific nature of states, it may not necessarily be the most successful approach in a geopolitically more fragmented and competitive landscape than the current one. Thanks to the high mobility of Bitcoin and the fiscal constraints imposed on traditional states by this monetary system, miners and whales alike could quite easily opt to move elsewhere if their property rights and entrepreneurial freedom end up in danger, finding sanctuary in more libertarian jurisdictions. On the flip side, a different scenario may unfold for those novel ‘neo-aristocratic’ state entities built around one or more Whales; in this case, the monopoly over mining and the necessary energy resources might be more pronounced, given the immense economic power held by their governing bodies.

    ENERGY MARKET IMPLICATIONS

    Bitcoin is not a commodity currency but an energy one. The power it encapsulates is the energy consumed to create and transfer it. As the lifeblood of the new monetary paradigm, therefore, energy will be even more at the core of the economic system than today. This will radically inform progress in the energy sector, generating a race for technological innovations on both the extraction and energy-saving sides. A whole range of energy sources previously neglected as uneconomical could now become convenient and accessible thanks to their use for mining. Think of the sun in African and Asian deserts, deposits of methane and natural gas in remote locations, or geothermal energy from volcanoes and geysers, or even some systems based on wave motion and temperature differentials in the depths of the oceans.

    With an ever-increasing demand for energy, there will be a growing incentive to generate more energy and do so more efficiently in a virtuous circle that could lead to a major energetical revolution, potentially bringing humankind closer to a level 2 civilization on the Kardashev scale, certainly contributing to electrifying the planet even in the remotest places. Another likely consequence of a Bitcoin Standard will be the reversal of roles between energy producers and consumers. The largest energy consumers (mining farms) will over time become the main energy producers in a vertical integration of assets and energy infrastructure that, starting from the bottom, will assimilate the entire energy industry. Whether this will lead to greater or lesser concentration versus decentralization of energy producers remains to be seen, but it will certainly depend on the commercial dynamics of the mining industry.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 15:10

  • RNC Reports Worst Fundraising Year In A Decade
    RNC Reports Worst Fundraising Year In A Decade

    Authored by Austin Alonzo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2023 raised its lowest amount of money since 2013, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission.

    Ronna McDaniel, Chairwoman of the Republican Party, speaks during the 2023 Republican National Committee Winter Meeting in Dana Point, California, on January 27, 2023. – Divided as never before, the Republican party must choose a new Republican National Committee Chair on Friday, at the meeting where Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is advancing his pawns to compete with Donald Trump’s bid for the White House in 2024. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

    On Jan. 31, the RNC, along with other Republican Party and Democratic Party national committees and congressional committees, filed their annual fundraising tallies with the regulator.

    The RNC, according to its year-end filing, brought in about $87.2 million in total federal receipts. That’s a sharp drop from the about $241.1 million it raised in 2019, the last year preceding a general election. Moreover, it’s significantly lower than the $176 million it raised in 2022.

    The GOP’s primary committee reported it had about $8 million on hand at the end of 2023. That’s the lowest amount it had on hand at the end of the year since 2014, when it had about $5 million in the bank. Additionally, at the end of last year the RNC was saddled with about $1.8 million in debt.

    By comparison, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reported it raised $119.9 million in total federal receipts in 2023. It also held $21 million on hand and was debt-free.

    On Feb. 1, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison posted on X that the Republicans need to “pray” for better fundraising.

    A person familiar with the RNC’s finances who spoke with The Epoch Times said without including transfers from elsewhere, the RNC beat every other Democrat or Republican committee in 2023 fundraising. Only the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised the RNC in 2023, they said.

    The RNC and DNC are the primary committees of their respective parties. The organizations are charged with developing and promoting the parties’ platforms and supporting candidates for local, state, and national offices.

    In the presidential primary race in 2023, the main fundraising arms of former President Donald Trump brought in more than those of President Joe Biden, according to newly released regulatory filings.

    An RNC official who spoke with The Epoch Times said the RNC raised about $12 million in January. Moreover, it is on track for a strong February thanks to gifts from major donors and grassroots supporters. The committee is confident it will have the resources to win in November, the official said.

    DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison speaks at a watch party in Columbia, S.C., on Nov. 3, 2020. (Richard Shiro/AP Photo)

    Congressional committees

    In 2023, FEC filings show the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) outraised their counterparts, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC), by about $26 million.

    Combined, the DSCC and DCCC raised about $195.6 million in total federal receipts in 2023. The NRSC and NRCC brought in about $169.3 million. However, the two GOP congressional committees held the advantage in cash on hand. They had about $17.8 million more in the bank at the end of last year.

    The committees exist primarily to raise money and donate to the campaigns of candidates running for seats in the House or Senate.

    In a statement, DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene hailed its nearly $30 million fundraising victory over the NRCC in 2023.

    “The public is growing tired of Republican dysfunction and their unwillingness to govern responsibly,” Ms. DelBene said in a release. ”The DCCC will have the resources it needs to take back the majority to defend reproductive rights, stop extremism in its tracks, and help grow the middle class.”

    In the 118th Congress, Republicans are the majority party in the House. In the Senate, Republicans hold 49 of the 100 seats, and Democrats hold 48. Still, Democrats are considered the majority party because the three independent lawmakers, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), caucus with the liberal party.

    All 435 House seats will be up for election in November 2024. A third of the Senate seats will also be up for election.

    ActBlue Dominates WinRed

    The online fundraising battle continues to be a rout for the Democratic Party.

    In 2023, ActBlue, a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 that raises money electronically for Democratic candidates and liberal causes, raked in about $754.4 million in total receipts, according to its annual disclosure report.

    WinRed, a GOP answer to ActBlue that debuted in 2019, brought in about $431.2 million in 2023, according to its year-end FEC filing.

    ActBlue enjoys a serious advantage in cash on hand. WinRed reported it had about $200,000 in the bank at the end of the year. ActBlue has more than $54.7 million.

    Both ActBlue and WinRed are hybrid political action committees.

    A hybrid PAC, according to the FEC, can solicit and accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions, and other political committees. It must maintain two bank accounts—one for independent spending on advertisements or voter drives and another for making direct contributions to federal candidates.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 14:00

  • US Strikes Killed At Least 39, Including "Many Civilians," As Iraq Warns Stability Is On "Brink Of The Abyss"
    US Strikes Killed At Least 39, Including “Many Civilians,” As Iraq Warns Stability Is On “Brink Of The Abyss”

    Widespread reports say at least 39 were killed in the Friday US airstrikes on Iran-linked targets across Western Iraq and Eastern Syria, which used over 125 bombs and precision munitions, according to a Pentagon statement.

    There are reportedly civilians among the dead. The Baghdad government on Saturday said that 16 Iraqis, among them civilians, were killed – while on the other side of the border the Syrian Defense Ministry confirmed that both militants and civilians were killed but without providing a figure. The Syrian military said that “many civilian and military martyrs” died. The anti-Assad monitoring group, UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the Syria strikes killed 23 militia fighters. 

    The official readout by US Central Command (CENTCOM) described that “The facilities that were struck included command and control operations centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces.”

    Destroyed building in al Qaim, Iraq, after US strikes. via Reuters

    The strikes lasted for over 30 minutes, having begun at 4pm Eastern Time, and additionally utilized B-1B bombers which flew over 6,000 miles after departing from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, among other aerial assets. This was supposedly for the element of “surprise” – despite the White House taking nearly a week to respond.

    On Saturday it has come to light that the Pentagon let Iraqi government officials know shortly before the strikes began. The Biden administration has come under fire especially from hawkish GOP Congress members over telegraphing the operation to the point that IRGC officers could vacate bases and military assets. According to new reporting in NBC:

    Iraq did receive prior warning of American airstrikes, contrary to the claims of Iraqi government officials, a senior administration official told NBC News today.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani earlier described the White House’s assertion that Iraq had been notified of the United States’ intention to conduct airstrikes as “lies,” as the foreign ministry called in the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq to protest what they called the “blatant aggression” against Iraqi sovereignty.

    But according to one administration official, the Iraqi government was given short-notice warning that the U.S. would strike. “It wasn’t a huge heads up,” they said, “but it is not accurate to say they weren’t informed.”

    An official speaking to NBC further said that list of targets were tied directly Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a retaliatory response to the killing of three American soldiers on the Jordan-Syria border Sunday. Importantly, according to Al Jazeera, “Even though Washington said all its intended targets were supported by the Quds Force command of the IRGC, no Iranian personnel are believed to have been killed.”

    President Biden has said, “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.” He added: “But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.” Iran and Iraq are now warning that US action is stoking instability. According to FT:

    The Iraqi government said on Saturday that 16 people, including civilians, were killed in the US attacks, warning that they would “put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss”. 

    But as journalist and geopolitical commentator Aaron Maté points out it was Washington which has kept Americans in harm’s way to begin with, by refusing to finally and fully exit Iraq as the government and its people have urged, and by maintaining the oil and gas occupation of eastern Syria. Maté concludes that essentially Biden has sacrificed American troops and Mideast security for US-Israeli hegemony:

    What remains undoubtedly clear is that Biden has put US troops in harm’s way and provoked a wider regional escalation due to his devotion not only to Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza, but broader regional US hegemony. And because the bipartisan US establishment is in lockstep behind that agenda, the only question at hand is what “level” of aggression to commit.

    The US government is well aware that it has alternatives to enforcing the Israeli genocide of Gaza and the American military presence across the region.

    According to the Times’ Baker, US officials “have said for months that they did not believe Iran wanted a direct war with the United States.” Instead, these officials acknowledge, “Iran has used its proxy forces to keep up the pressure on the United States and Israel as Israel continues to pound Hamas in Gaza.” By “pound Hamas,” Baker means Gaza’s civilian population, the main victims of the US-supplied armaments that regularly pound Gaza.

    In Yemen, Biden understands that his strikes are failing to deter the Ansar Allah movement’s (aka the Houthis’) blockade of Red Sea ships in protest of the Gaza genocide. Days after the US strikes began, Biden was asked if the bombings are working. “Well, when you say, ‘working’ — are they stopping the Houthis? No,” Biden said. “Are they gonna continue? Yes.”

    This means that likely this large-scale tit-for-tat will continue and could easily spiral toward direct US-Iran war, which would also draw in Israel, and perhaps Russia would have something to say as well, given its military presence in Syria.

    * * *

    Below: the Biden administration’s strikes have received mixed – but mostly positive – reaction from the generals. Here are a few initial reactions courtesy of Peter Tchir’s Academy Securities…

    “President Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” President Biden and Secretary of Defense Austin certainly did not speak softly in the run-up to today’s U.S. attacks in Iraq and Syria. We must now wait to see how much of its “big stick” the U.S. Central Command uses in the coming days. It took five days for the U.S. to conduct the retaliatory strikes, and the timing may be tied to today’s dignified transfer of our three U.S. service members. The strikes were focused on Iranian-backed Shia militia groups, and the timing certainly gave those groups (and any IRGC support personnel) time to evacuate the target areas. Iran continues supplying the weapons to the proxies that are used in these attacks against U.S. forces. If the administration is concerned with escalating to a hot war with Iran and does not want to attack Iran itself, they should at least put a strangle-hold on Iranian oil sales. President Biden must make this painful enough to Iran to get them to back their proxy forces off.” – General Robert Walsh

    “These strikes included a significant number of targets and weapons used by the United States. Interesting that the B-1 was used because flying directly from the U.S. provides an additional layer of surprise. Hopefully this sends a message to Iran and the IRGC that it is not in their best interest to continue supporting attacks against U.S. forces. Hard to tell at this point what IRGC leadership personnel were targeted.” – General David Deptula

    “The strikes were well coordinated against a set of targets focused on the IRGC Quds Force, the major trainer and supplier to the other proxies. The targets hit all facets of command and control, supply points, launch locations, and missile/UAV storage locations. We will see an analysis of battle damage and follow-up strikes to ensure that we achieved the desired effects. This included our full complement of capabilities such as aircraft launching from the U.S. directly to targets in the AOR. As expected, this was an increase in scale and scope, and a strike against the Iranian IRGC Quds Force, not just the proxies they support. This is more than just a single targeting effort; I am sure that there will be more in the next few days.” – General Frank Kearney

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 13:25

  • California Bill Would Give Unemployment Benefits To Illegal Immigrants
    California Bill Would Give Unemployment Benefits To Illegal Immigrants

    Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

    On Jan. 1, illegal immigrants in California received free medical care.

    That was thanks to Assembly Bill 133, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in July 2021.

    Cost: $4 billion more a year, as an estimated 764,000 illegal immigrants are added to the already stuffed rolls of the 14.6 million Californians on Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the Medicare program.

    At the signing almost three years ago, Mr. Newsom exclaimed, “We’re investing California’s historic surplus to accomplish transformative changes we’ve long dreamed of—including this historic Medi-Cal expansion to ensure thousands of older undocumented Californians, many of whom have been serving on the front lines of the pandemic, can access critical health care services.”

    Oops! That was when the state enjoyed a nearly $100 billion budget surplus. Now it’s suffering a deficit of $38 billion, according to Mr. Newsom’s Jan. 10 budget proposal. Or $58 billion, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Jan. 13 analysis of that proposal.

    Next up: Senate Bill 277, by state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles). It would give unemployment benefits to illegal aliens. According to the analysis by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, “This bill establishes, until January 1, 2027, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the Excluded Workers Program (EWP) administered by the Employment Development Department (EDD) to provide income assistance to workers ineligible for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.”

    And here are the new costs:

    • $270.7 million to set up the program. The taxpayer dollars would go “primarily to develop a new information technology (IT) system. EDD’s UI program is a federal-state partnership, with the current IT system largely funded through federal grants. However, federal rules would preclude EDD from using existing systems to administer the EWP, thus requiring EDD to establish a new, separate IT system exclusively for the EWP.”

    • Annual costs to run the IT system “ranging from $39.3 million to $53.8 million.”

    • “Ongoing costs of benefit amounts, ranging from $330 million to $2 billion, paid to EWP claimants.”

    Here’s the problem, though. Health care involves an actual, physical patient needing to be patched up or given medications, or preventive medicine. So there’s a limit. But giving unemployment benefits to illegal aliens would make the EDD system even more ripe for fraud than it already is. Many illegal immigrants pay into the system now. But how do we know they’re actually doing the work claimed? What if they’re laid off officially, collect EDD benefits, but then are hired back unofficially for the same jobs? By definition, “illegal” involves at least some measure of illegality.

    Employment Development Department paperwork in Irvine, Calif., on April 2, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    EDD Fraud

    Then there’s the EDD’s long-existing fraud problems. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, as of Jan. 24, the EDD still owes the federal government $20 billion borrowed to pay for the massive fraud committed on its system during the unemployment crisis in 2020 from COVID-19.

    And last October, CalMatters reported on the cost for each California employee: “The current debt has triggered a $21 increase per employee that employers must pay in payroll taxes starting this year. Employers’ rates will keep rising an additional $21 per employee each year until the state pays off the debt to the federal government, for a total of $945 per employee through 2031, according to projections by the Legislative Analyst’s Office based on the average state unemployment insurance tax rate.”

    The “employer” payment, by the way, over the long term actually is paid, through reduced wages, by those employees at the company.

    In explaining the bill last June, Ms. Durazo’s website shamelessly pulled the “race card”: “SB 227 would address a longstanding racist exclusion that has had a devastating economic impact on immigrant communities, California’s industries, and the wellbeing of our state particularly during times of disaster, such as wildfires and historic winter storms. Millions of undocumented immigrant workers work in jobs that help California prosper; they are unable to access unemployment benefits when they experience job loss.”

    Actually, if SB 227 impacts the state budget for $2 billion—or maybe a lot more if the EDD’s fraud risk crops up again—everyone, of all races, creeds, and colors, will be hurt by either cuts to other state programs, or tax increases. Moreover, also included should be benefits that illegal immigrants get already, beginning with the aforementioned Medi-Cal care, plus free education for their children in public schools.

    Illegal immigrants who passed through a gap in the U.S. border wall await processing by Border Patrol agents in Jacumba, Calif., on Dec. 7, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Tough to Make SB 227 Law

    Last year, numerous rallies were held across the state for SB 227. CBS News Bay Area reported on April 13, “A group of workers from the Bay Area and across California gathered at the State Capitol on Thursday, urging lawmakers to pass a bill to make unemployment benefits available to undocumented immigrants. …

    “After almost an hour and a half, the bus reached Sacramento. More than 100 undocumented workers from all over the state were already gathered.”

    The bill was not passed last year, but continued to 2024. “Probably the earliest action that could take place on that would be June,” Jennifer Richard, Ms. Durazo’s chief of staff, told me. “But the most important part would be seeing if there was some kind of funding in the budget. And right now that’s not looking so good because of the budget shortfall that we’re facing.”

    There’s the rub: The $38 billion or $58 billion budget deficit. Even if SB 227 passes the Legislature, it likely would face a veto by Gov. Newsom. Indeed, in 2022 he vetoed a similar bill, Assembly Bill 2847, due to budget concerns.

    As I wrote in The Epoch Times on Jan. 19, “California Gov. Newsom’s 2024 Presidential Hopes Fade,” he’s looking to 2028. He’s term-limited as governor, so he doesn’t have to care about getting reelected here.

    But he has to get that budget deficit under control, or it will be a heavy albatross hanging around his neck once he leaves office in January 2027 and takes aim at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 12:50

  • Visualizing Past Interest-Rate-Cut Cycles & 2024 Forecasts
    Visualizing Past Interest-Rate-Cut Cycles & 2024 Forecasts

    A key question mark for the U.S. and global economy is around when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in 2024 and by how much.

    After a rapid set of rate hikes throughout 2022, the U.S. Federal Reserve now faces the challenge of timing its easing of monetary policy to ensure a soft landing for the economy.

    Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte created this visualization (from their 2024 Global Forecast Series) using data from the Federal Reserve to chart past interest rate cut cycles and visualizes forecasts by top banks and institutions on when they expect the first rate cut of 2024 and the number of cuts they expect by end of year.

    Looking Back at Past Interest Rate Cuts Cycles

    While interest rate cycles are an economic balancing act which must be carefully managed, rate hikes and cuts of the past have typically been steep and swift.

    Looking back at past interest rate cuts for historical context, we can see how quickly these easing cycles played out, especially those in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Rate cuts typically begin once the Federal Reserve has confirmation that the economy has slowed down and inflationary pressures have subsided. Nearly every interest rate cutting cycle has seen the economy enter a recession right before or after rate cuts have started.

    “There is always a delay between when central banks raise interest rates and when the economy feels the effects.”

    – Simon Rabinovitch, The Economist

    While the recessions occur around the time rates are cut, they’re usually a delayed effect from the tighter financial conditions caused by rate hikes, with cuts bringing looser and more accommodative financial conditions for the economy down the line.

    Institutional Forecasts for Interest Rate Cuts in 2024

    After some of the most rapid rate hikes in history kicked off this latest interest rate cycle in 2022, market participants and banks are leaning towards similarly rapid set of rate cuts in 2024.

    Most institutions, including J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley, are expecting the Fed’s first rate cut to occur at the mid-point of the year in June. There is a group of outliers which includes UBS, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs, that are expecting the first rate cut as early as March.

    When it comes to the total amount of interest rate cuts we’ll see in 2024, the majority of institutions are forecasting around 100 to 125 basis points (bps) in rate cuts, which would bring the Federal Funds Rate to around 4-4.25%.

    Rate Cuts or Not, is a Recession Inevitable?

    While nearly every interest rate cycle of the past has experienced a recession around the time of rate cuts, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is optimistic that this time may be different.

    “I have always felt, since the beginning, that there was a possibility, because of the unusual situation, that the economy could cool off in a way that enabled inflation to come down without the kind of large job losses that have often been associated with high inflation and tightening cycles.

    So far, that’s what we’re seeing.”

    – Jerome Powell, Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve

    With FOMC members themselves projecting more conservative rate cuts in 2024 with a forecasted median year-end rate of 4.6%, time will tell whether more conservative or agressive rate cuts this year will manage to keep the economy out of a recession.

    *  *  *

    This visual is from Visual Capitalist’s 2024 Global Forecast Series Report:

    Get full access to the series, which compiles insights from 700+ expert predictions for what will happen in 2024, by becoming a VC+ member today.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 12:15

  • Will The Fed Elect Biden?
    Will The Fed Elect Biden?

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

    The Federal Reserve guards its independence with indefatigable ferocity.

    It is so intent on keeping it that it will practically do anything for the politicians that might otherwise take it away.

    It’s been like this for one hundred years and more.

    The irony should be obvious.

    If you have to acquiesce to your masters to retain your decision-making autonomy, you do not really have it at all. And the Fed never has had it. It has actually two masters: the largest and most powerful banks and the largest and most powerful forces within government. Most of the time these days, those are the same people.

    The Fed is there to serve them while imposing costs on the rest of us.

    Everyone associated with the Biden administration has been propagandizing for months and years about the glorious results of Bidenomics. All corporate media echos this gibberish even though most people know it is completely untrue. The data is fake. When it is not fake it is not relevant. When it is relevant, the underlying reality is terrible.

    You can see it in the savings rates alone. It is going down, now at 3.7 percent (historical rates have been closer to 10 percent). This is true even though for the first time in more than a generation there is finally a positive return on savings!

    Without savings, you don’t get sustainable investment. Without that, prosperity dies a gradual death.

    How could personal savings be going down? The answer is unbearably obvious. People do not have discretionary income to save. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, despite record numbers of multiple jobholders. The most reliable data we have reports real income as down.

    What buoyancy there is in American economic life is due to growing debt and government spending which means more debt. It simply cannot last. It’s a ticking time bomb. The substance of a genuinely prosperous society is being eaten out before our very eyes. You know this in your heart.

    In the last four years, the Fed has stolen 20 cents on the dollar of your purchasing power. They sent you money in the mail and then took it away with the hidden tax called inflation. Then they raised rates to curb the inflation just when American households had run out of money to save.

    Who ended up with the trillions in newly printed dollars? The banks. Great reset businesses like wind turbine companies. Online learning platforms. New billionaires were minted at your expense and you are left holding pockets of change. Now the IRS wants those.

    But here’s the thing.

    The Fed has said it is prepared to lower rates this year. Not now but later. Perhaps closer to the election so the credit-addicted financial markets can get another injection of narcotic to make it float as high as possible. The idea here is to create the illusion of prosperity in service to the deep state that absolutely prefers that Donald Trump not get a second term.

    The idea of rate-cutting, in theory, is to dig the economy out of recession or prevent one. It does not work for the long term but that’s the theory. This is what’s called countercyclical policy. It’s a discredited disaster but the Fed does it anyway.

    As a rule, a long history of failure does nothing to dissuade the Fed from repeating the same.

    But if the economy is all peachy keen and everything is just hunky dory, why would the Fed need to be talking about cutting rates? What possible purpose could it solve?

    You can observe the mainstream financial press warming the public up now for this eventuality. They are answering the obvious question the following way. The Fed is just being cautious and deploying earned slack in their interest rate management in service of the American people.

    I’m sure you believe this!

    There is absolutely no basis whatsoever for cutting rates now. They have barely been positive in real terms for a few months of the last quarter century. The policy of zero interest gave rise to bloated companies, absurd financialization, DEI, ESG, and an entire overclass of wildly high-paid credentialed elites who do nothing but the devil’s work.

    So good riddance. But rates are now barely positive according to all official inflation and rate data. Indeed they need to be vastly higher if they are going to be anything approaching free-market reality.

    (Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

    Right now we have an economy running on fakery. The Fed’s plan to cut more later this year is a political strategy and nothing more. It will do long-term damage. It will further the credit/debt addiction and it will install a regime that is currently working to convert the United States into a prize for the great reset, ruled by the World Health Organization and throwing aside its pro-freedom patrimony for a ghastly and malicious hellscape.

    Meanwhile, the path could reignite inflation, just as it did after 1976. But, heck, the Biden junta will be running things and the goal will have been achieved.

    I’m not being partisan here. I’m only suggesting that having a giant money-printer down the street from the White House might not be the best path for guaranteeing democratic fairness or sound money. The mix of politics and monetary policy is utterly toxic. And if this year proceeds like it appears to be mapped, we are about to find out just how nefarious this mix is.

    And, hey, if this Fed caper doesn’t work, they always have Taylor Swift and her Pfizer-salesman boyfriend.

    They have laid very clever plans but what the Fed and the White House cannot control is the massive loss of trust among the public, and they cannot quell the growing public anger about immigration disasters and declining American prosperity and freedom. The illusion works until it suddenly does not work anymore.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 02/03/2024 – 11:40

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