Mar 05

Today’s News 5th March 2022

  • Nuclear Power, Gold As Money, And The Forced Pragmatism Of Wartime's Harsh Reality
    Nuclear Power, Gold As Money, And The Forced Pragmatism Of Wartime’s Harsh Reality

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    My readers know that I’ve written about nuclear power as a pragmatic solution to the world’s energy needs since I started this blog. While I’ve kept my readers abreast of countries who have started to adopt the idea of nuclear for energy – places like France, Poland and Japan – one of the biggest holdouts on the global stage has been Germany.

    Germany hasn’t just been a holdout. The country has been hell-bent on ridding itself of nuclear power – easily making it the most prominent of the major European countries to try and pin the energy source as either too risky, bad for the environment, or both.

    Germany, Belgium to close nuclear reactors despite Europe energy crisis
    Photo: Balkan Green Energy News

    But, as I’ve argued, advocates for nuclear power know that it is just the opposite: clean, efficient and safe. A key part of my argument for investing in uranium has been that the world is going to “wake up” one day and realize that nuclear power fulfills the practical energy needs of the world, while appeasing ESG investors and “green” activists at the same time.

    For all intents and purposes, when considering the power it generates and its carbon footprint, nuclear is as close to a “holy grail” of energy that we have at the present moment – and it’s certainly the most common sense solution to our energy needs.

    Among the ethos that has developed in Europe right now, while the entire world focuses on ways to ostracize and sanction Russia, is the embrace of practicality.

    In a wartime scenario, people don’t have time to second-guess, pontificate or otherwise embrace any other type of bullshit that prevents them from getting from Point A (wartime and volatility) to Point B (peace and a return to ‘normalcy’) as quickly as possible.

    There’s been no better shining example of this than the Ukrainian people, who have transitioned from going about their daily lives to being forced to defend their home towns and their country, in just a matter of hours. Everyday citizens, whose morning routines days ago likely included making breakfast and getting ready for work, are now arming themselves with rifles and, “fighting for Kyiv”.

    Ukrainian mom Mariana Zhaglo buys rifle, will 'fight for Kiev'
    Photo: NY Post “Ukrainian mom buys rifle, will ‘fight for Kyiv’”

    Among the sanctions on the table that Europe, and the rest of the world, are considering, is cutting off Russia’s oil supply from the rest of the world. Right now, the globe is collectively scrambling to try and forecast what daily life would look like without global ties to Russia’s economy – or its oil.

    As a result of these ongoing exercises, and as part of an effort to continue to keep its lights on, Germany appears to have “temporarily” performed an about-face when it comes to their stance on nuclear. Reuters reported earlier this week:

    Germany is weighing whether to extend the life-span of its remaining nuclear power plants as a way to secure the country’s energy supply in the face of uncertainty over Russian gas supplies, the country’s economy minister said.

    Asked by German broadcaster ARD whether he could imagine letting nuclear plants run longer than planned under Germany’s exit plan, which foresees shutting down the country’s three remaining plans by the end of 2022, Robert Habeck said: “It is part of my ministry’s tasks to answer this question. I would not reject it on ideological grounds – but the preliminary examination has shown that it does not help us.”

    The harsh realities of war have led the proverbial energy horse to water in terms of what the most practical solution is to maintain energy in Germany. Now, the country needs to also understand that this isn’t just a temporary solution to their energy problem. Instead, nuclear represents the keys to its long-term energy independence if it wants it.

    In other words, the forced pragmatism of wartime has led the country to the most common sense solution and beneficial outcome – in hurried fashion.

    We see the same type of wartime pragmatism in Russia’s flight to the gold market. Once questions started to loom about Russia’s Central Bank and the sanctions it faces, one of the first headlines we saw out of Moscow is that Russia would hurriedly continue buying gold.

    Bank of Russia Resumes Gold Buying After Two-Year Pause - Bloomberg

    The situation that I think is developing into ‘China and Russia versus the rest of the world economically’ has also encouraged the purchasing of gold, because no matter how much your 17 year old cousin told you at the holiday dinner table that Bitcoin has replaced gold, the Central Banks of the world know that just isn’t true.

    Again, the forced pragmatism of wartime cuts through the conjecture and noise, and gets right to the point: gold is money. Russia knows it, China knows it, the U.S. knows it, the EU knows it, and the world’s major financial institutions know it.

    “Gold’s unique role as the currency of last resort will likely be apparent if restrictions on Russia’s central bank accessing its offshore reserves leave it leveraging its large domestic gold stockpiles to continue foreign trade, most likely with China,” Goldman Sachs said earlier this week.

    There are two different types of investors: ones who understand that no matter what, the shit will eventually hit the fan in life – and others who choose to willingly live in a bubble of ignorance.

    There are people that have gone out and experienced the real world – they know how things are made, they know how to fix things, they know where products come from, what keeps our lights on and the harsh realities of sub-par housing, crime and substantial hardships in life. Then there’s people who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, assuming that if they pay the bill, they should be entitled to utilities, products, services and a high standard of living – and they assume that the rest of the world only shows up at their respective jobs to service them and keep them happy.

    Rytteriet - DR2 - Episode 5 (Sæson 1, HD) - YouTube

    Investors and academics who live in these types of bubbles are the ones that have the spare time to bat around postmodern ideas, new ways to virtue signal, ESG investing and “brilliant” ideas like the Green New Deal.

    Investors who live in reality and understand how harsh life can truly be tend to have gritty, steadfast, risk-adverse and pragmatic investing styles. These are the investors that embrace practical and common sense opportunities, like nuclear power and gold as money.

    The unfortunate and horrifying atrocity of war has an interesting byproduct: it forces the former group of investors to strip themselves of their bubble and face the cold hard reality that they truly live in. It forces them to take a hard, sober look at how the world works and it reminds them that, despite their billions, they and their families are not infallible, nor are they invincible. This realization comes as a stark wakeup call. It has even made billionaires cry on national television.

    When I think about how I invest, it’s a product of my life experiences: living in a major city for years, experiencing crime, having to work for a living, realizing that the most practical solution is often the solution that – despite endless bureaucratic prattling and pontificating – usually winds up getting adopted.

    To me, nuclear energy and gold as safe haven assets are pragmatic investing decisions that I feel like I can implement and then forget about. In other words, over a 50 year time horizon, I don’t feel like I have to worry about the viability of either.

    Why? Because they’re the most common sense endpoints for both money and power. And money and power are what make the word go ‘round.

    I just deeply regret that it has taken the atrocities of a hot war for the rest of the world to come to this realization, which I believe will continue to wash over the world in months and years to come.

    Today’s blog post has been published without a paywall because I believe the content to be far too important. However, if you have the means and would like to support my work by subscribing, I’d be happy to offer you 22% off to become a subscriber in 2022:

    Get 22% off forever

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 23:30

  • WarnerMedia Sinks $350 Million Investment Into CNN+ Streaming Platform
    WarnerMedia Sinks $350 Million Investment Into CNN+ Streaming Platform

    CNN is putting its money where its woke, hysterical, “misinformation”-battling, fact checking mouth is.

    According to FT, WarnerMedia has sunk $350 million in investments into the CNN+ streaming platform so that viewers have yet another platform to watch Brian Stelter gain weight offer up his “Reliable” Sources take on the news.

    CNN confirmed this week that the service would be moving forward this spring and that it would cost $2.99 per month upon launch, Reuters reported. 

    Once the introductory rate ends, CNN will charge subscribers $5.99 per month. It’s the same price as “Fox Nation”, the rival streaming service run by Fox News.

    $120 million of the investment into the platform is going toward recruiting “top talent for the new service”, Reuters wrote.

    Former NPR “All Things Considered” co-host Audie Cornish and former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace are among two names that will join CNN+. The streaming service will also offer “original series, true crime shows and food and travel” in addition to news programming, the report says. 

    CNN is dealing with having its image thrashed over the last few years. Recall, it was less than a month ago we pointed out the world’s most popular podcaster absolutely steamrolling CNN anchors Brian Stelter and Don Lemon. 

    Rogan savaged CNN and its top anchors for not reporting ‘honest’ news, and said that the network’s abysmal ratings are a reflection of a lack of trust – while more people “believe me or trust me or want to listen to me talk.”

    “The answer is not to silence me, the answer is [for] you to do better,” said Rogan. “The answer is for you to have better arguments. When you’re on television talking about how I’m taking horse paste, and you know that’s not true. “He’s taking horse dewormer.”

    “What you should have said, “How did Joe Rogan get better so quick? How come he got COVID that’s killing everybody and he was better in five days, negative in five days, working out in six days?” How come that’s never discussed?”

    CNN notoriously knocked Rogan for taking ‘horse dewormer’ because ivermectin was part of his Covid-19 treatment regimen. He subsequently annihilated CNN‘s Sanjay Gupta over the network’s lies.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 23:00

  • Thomas Schelling's Mad MAD World
    Thomas Schelling’s Mad MAD World

    Authored by Eric Felten via RealClearPolitics.com,

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine has politicians and policymakers talking about something that would have been almost unimaginable as recently as a month ago: the specter that a ground war in Eastern Europe could escalate into a nuclear conflict. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has created an urgent need for what had seemed to be a dusty relic – a strategy for what to do with nuclear weapons. It’s possible the answer may be found in a short policy paper that helped John F. Kennedy blunt Russian ambitions in 1961 when Nikita Khrushchev tested the new American president by threatening to make good on his demand that West Berlin be handed over to the Soviets.

    It’s been a long time since nuclear strategy was as pressing as it was in the dual crises, first in Berlin then in Cuba, faced by President Kennedy. Joe Biden, early in his presidency, downplayed nukes as unusable and thus strategically irrelevant: “We will take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy,” Biden stated in his National Security Strategic Guidance last March.

    If the United States has been looking to take nukes out of the war-fighting equation, Russia has been doing the opposite. According to a Pentagon summary of its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, Russia has “adopted military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success.”

    That doesn’t mean Russia is prepared to use nuclear weapons. But Putin’s regime is clearly using the implied threat of nuclear assault in efforts to constrain NATO’s willingness to help Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union. “The role that nuclear weapons play in Russia’s doctrine is quite elevated,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said last June. “Russia sees much higher utility for nuclear weapons than any other state.”

    Putin is leveraging that utility by matter-of-factly saying aloud what would previously have been considered unspeakable:

    “Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states,” Putin warned last week.

    “There should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.”

    “Vladimir Putin must also understand,” countered French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, “that the Atlantic Alliance is a nuclear alliance.”

    Le Drian’s warning was welcome. But was his threat credible? Having nukes isn’t the same as a willingness to use them. The paradox of “mutually assured destruction,” as it was once called – or even the dicey prospect of using “tactical” nukes against military targets – has always been that to avoid nuclear conflict, political and military leaders have to signal a readiness to fight a nuclear war, and they have to make it clear they aren’t bluffing. Putin is already prodding the West with threats meant to test NATO’s resolve. As his invasion seemed to stall Sunday, Putin placed Russia’s “nuclear deterrence force” on alert.

    It is a dilemma not unlike the one confronting JFK in the summer of 1961, when the three-year-old Berlin Crisis risked escalating into a shooting war. Kennedy turned to a variety of advisors to write strategy papers for how he should meet the Soviet challenge. Among the “Dr. Strangeloves” drawing up strategic plans was an economist, Thomas Schelling, who decades later would be honored with a Nobel Prize for his work on the wonky science of strategy called Game Theory. But in the summer of 1961, Schelling was tasked with setting forward rules for something that was very much not a game – the use of nuclear weapons.

    Schelling’s response was remarkable, and not just for its clear-eyed analysis but for its brevity. (Memo to those who would write policy papers hoping to influence decision-makers: Keep your briefs brief. What leader has the time, particularly in a crisis, to read a hundred pages of options and proposals? If you can’t make your case in a few pages, you probably haven’t thought the issues through well enough.) Schelling achieved an astonishing feat. In just two pages he laid out a complete strategy for if, when, and how to use “nuclears” if the Berlin crisis led to war in Europe. Kennedy read Schelling’s memo at Hyannis Port over the weekend of July 21, 1961. Taking notes was National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, who wrote that the paper had made a “deep impression” on the president.

    Among the issues Schelling addressed were some that may seem obvious, such as how to maintain control of tactical nukes, which “means preventing the misinterpretation of any initial bargaining use as authority for general tactical use.” And then there is the chain of command: “Local commanders who may be called on to fire nuclear weapons must be able to comprehend instructions.” This means both launching when ordered to do so, and not firing unless clearly instructed to do so by someone with the demonstrable authority to give the order. Battlefields are known for their confusion, the danger of which is hugely magnified when nuclears are involved.

    The most important part of Schelling’s memo to Kennedy was his observation that the traditional metrics of winning a war don’t apply when dealing with nuclears. For example, the sort of bombing that was typical in WWII – attacks meant to degrade an enemy’s war-making capacity – were no longer relevant. “A target in a city is important because a city is destroyed,” Shelling wrote, “not because it is a local supply or communication center.”

    “We should plan for a war of nerve, of demonstration, and of bargaining, not of tactical target destruction.” Schelling recommended.

    “Destroying the target is incidental to the message the detonation conveys to the Soviet leadership. Targets should be picked with a view to what the Soviet leadership perceives about the character of the war and about our intent, not for tactical importance.”

    This may seem like crazy talk, but this is where Putin’s aggression and accompanying threats have brought us, back to having to think about how to confront an enemy armed with nukes. It is arguable that over the long, tense decades of the Cold War, it was the credibility of our threat to use nuclear weapons if necessary that kept us from having to use them.

    Now that a Russian strongman has revived the threat of nuclear war, today’s strategists need to rethink what parts of our Cold War strategy worked, and what elements of it are most likely to be useful in our newly dangerous world. They may want to take a lesson from Thomas Schelling. That means being clear-eyed, unsentimental, and ruthlessly rational. And don’t forget, any new strategy should fit on two pages.

    *  *  *

    Eric Felten studied game theory with Thomas Schelling in the last days of the Cold War.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 22:30

  • "We're Getting Creamed" – NYC Small Business Owners Struggle To Confront Surge In Shoplifting
    “We’re Getting Creamed” – NYC Small Business Owners Struggle To Confront Surge In Shoplifting

    New York City’s struggling small businesses are dealing with one of the worst spikes in retail theft rates in recent memory. And owners aren’t sure whether Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to roll back certain COVID restrictions will improve the situation, or make it worse.

    The owner of a couple of downtown boutiques said she has never felt “more exhausted” trying to protect her businesses from emboldened shoplifters and criminal crews working small retail businesses.

    Someone shattered the front door overnight and ripped out the cash drawer. The new security gates cost $2,300. The streets became quieter after four neighboring businesses closed permanently during the pandemic, emboldening shoplifters. Two security guards quit.

    For Deborah Koenigsberger, who has worked in retail for three decades, keeping her two clothing stores open in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood has never felt so exhausting.

    “As small businesses, we are getting creamed right now in so many ways,” Ms. Koenigsberger said. “I might as well leave my store door open and say, ‘Help yourselves.”

    According to data from the NYT, shoplifting complaints are up 16% over the past year, while arrests have fallen.

    The debate over the underlying causes has also focused on New York’s bail laws, on a police force distracted by a spike in shootings and on online marketplaces where organized retail crews can easily sell stolen goods.

    As the city emerges from the public health crisis, officials say a sense of safety is critical to its economic recovery.

    Last year, complaints of retail theft were about 16 percent higher than in 2019, according to the New York Police Department. But arrest rates have dropped, with about 28 percent of the complaints resulting in arrests last year, compared with 48.5 percent in 2019.

    An index of major crimes, including murders and felony assaults, was up 7.5 percent in the same period, but still lower last year than in 2015.

    NYC Mayor Eric Adams is starting to reconsider bail laws.

    The city’s new mayor, Eric Adams, is lobbying to toughen the state’s bail laws, which were amended in 2019, allowing more people who had been arrested to remain free while their cases were pending. Law enforcement officials blame the changes for making it harder to keep certain defendants, like serial shoplifters, detained after an arrest.

    “We can’t have a city where our drugstores and bodegas and restaurants are leaving because people are walking into the stores, taking whatever they want on the shelves and walking out,” Mr. Adams told the State Legislature recently.

    In Manhattan, the heart of the city, the worst-hit neighborhoods are also those that previously relied on commuters, or which harbor the largest number of drug-treatment centers.

    In Manhattan, home to the largest share of the city’s jobs, neighborhoods struggling the most include those that relied on commuters before the pandemic and those that have a large concentration of drug treatment centers, according to interviews with small business workers.

    One reason for the drop in arrests is that there are now more crews targeting small stores with little or no security. The lack of security personnel causes the odds of arrest to decline.

    The Police Department said one reason the arrest rate had dropped for retail thefts was because there was more stealing at stores without security guards who were willing to detain shoplifters.

    During the pandemic, organized crews nationwide also increasingly targeted retailers, stealing large quantities of merchandise to resell online.

    One veteran NYC store owner said he is seeing more patrons who appear to be on drugs, or who seem “unstable”. Ultimately, the fear of being harmed keeps employees from interfering when they see criminals stealing.

    Shoplifting, a longstanding issue for small businesses, took on a more unpredictable form in the last year, according to Joseph Lorenzo, the owner of Macson Shoes, a store that has been in Washington Heights for 45 years. He said more people have walked into his shop who appear to be on drugs or mentally unstable.

    “The fear and unpredictability of these guys turning violent is what scares us the most,” Mr. Lorenzo said.

    The owner of a Harlem coffee shop shared one particularly jarring horror story with the NYT.

    Last summer, a man walked into the Monkey Cup, a Venezuelan cafe in Harlem, demanding free coffee, according to Laura Leonardi, a co-owner. After receiving one, he began arguing with Ms. Leonardi’s husband and punched him in the face, video footage showed. The man then punched Ms. Leonardi after she leapt from the counter. He fled before the police arrived.

    In November, a different man walked in naked while a child was in the shop, refusing to leave. He came back two months later and smashed a stool to pieces.

    Two weeks ago, the man walked in again repeatedly, until a barista pointed him out to a police officer who happened to be in the cafe. The man was arrested, a scene that Ms. Leonardi described as “horrible in every way.”

    Of course, there are still plenty of Democratic politicians in the city who are willing to deny that the city has a crime problem. One state senator from the Bronx, Gustavo Rivera, said the following: “Communities are safer when they have more resources, not when they’re overpoliced.”

    But even Alvin Bragg, the new Manhattan DA who has been widely criticized for his easy-on-crime policies, has decided to backtrack when it comes to shoplifting and theft, forming a task force to “tackle” the issue.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 22:00

  • Stockman Slams America's Debt Palooza… From $1 Trillion To $30 Trillion In A Heartbeat
    Stockman Slams America’s Debt Palooza… From $1 Trillion To $30 Trillion In A Heartbeat

    Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

    My, how the frog does boil!

    Recently, the national debt (aka public debt) crossed the $30 trillion milestone, yet neither Wall Street nor Washington took note. But it did catch our attention and we want to recall why a young budget director was thumping on the Gipper’s chest in the Oval Office photo below.

    Namely, we were informing him of the distinctively unwelcome news that the $846 billion public debt we had inherited in December 1980 — which had been accumulated over 190 years by 39 presidents — was already surging within days of the Reagan inauguration. Accordingly, within a matter of just weeks there would be no choice but to ask Congress to raise the debt ceiling above the dreaded $1 trillion mark.

    Exactly 41 years later, the public debt — measured appropriately at market value — stands at $30.7 trillion, a figure 36-fold larger than the figure being discussed in the “conversation” below.

    So here’s what we mean by the boiling frog metaphor: At the time of the above photo, no one — and we do mean no one — in Washington or Wall Street thought that the public debt could be let run wild with impunity. That’s because there were always unpleasant, near- and mid-term consequences.

    That is to say, when Uncle Sam barreled massively into the bond pits, it caused an immediate repercussion on the balance of the supply and demand for borrowable funds, thereby driving yields higher and rationing the available supply to borrowers willing to pay the highest price.

    Back in the day, that was called “crowding out” and believe us, it was a very real thing. It was an honest, albeit destructive form of financing the public debt, and nobody mistook it for a free lunch.

    To be sure, the congressional Republicans of those days were not political super-heroes who said, “Interest groups be damned.” To the contrary, it was just that the interest groups were lined up on both sides of the debt and spending equation!

    The National Farmers Union, for instance, wanted bigger wheat subsidies, but the Farm Bureau wanted smaller deficits and lower interest rates. Likewise, for every food stamp advocacy lobby, there was a car dealers association demanding less federal borrowing and lower interest rates for the floor plan financing costs of their members.

    Stated differently, double-entry bookkeeping worked under honest public finance. Thus, in January 1981 the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond stood at 15.6%, which meant that there were a hell of a lot of car dealers, farmers, homebuilders, retailers, etc., who had to pay 20% or more and just couldn’t and didn’t.

    So congressmen didn’t have to make like frogs and tell their constituents that federal deficits and debt didn’t matter and that they merely needed to ignore the rising temperatures in the debt markets because there would be no adverse downstream repercussions.

    That scheme was totally destroyed over the next four decades.

    Market Value of the Public Debt, 1980–2022

    Prior to 1970, the Fed’s balance sheet stood at about 5% of the public debt — other than during the extremities of war-time finance. By the early 2000s, however, that had inched up to 10% or more under the Greenspan money-printing policy after 1987.

    Fed Balance Sheet as % of Public Debt

    But then it was off to the races and now it stands at 26% of the massively bloated public debt. In a word, the boiling frog is nothing more than massive monetization of the public debt — financial fraud on a biblical scale.

    *  *  *

    The Fed has already pumped enormous distortions into the economy and inflated an “everything bubble.” The next round of money printing is likely to bring the situation to a breaking point. If you want to navigate the complicated economic and political situation that is unfolding, then you need to see this newly released video from Doug Casey and his team. In it, Doug reveals what you need to know, and how these dangerous times could impact your wealth. Click here to watch it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 21:30

  • Sacklers Reach $6 Billion Deal Over Purdue Pharma's OxyContin Lawsuits 
    Sacklers Reach $6 Billion Deal Over Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin Lawsuits 

    Members of the billionaire Sackler family who control Purdue Pharma LP have agreed to fork over as much as $6 billion in a settlement with state governments for their role in fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic — a massive step in clawing back billions of dollars from the family’s fortune to support addiction treatment centers nationwide, according to a court filing on Thursday.

    The deal comes after years of litigation over Purdue Pharma’s marketing of the OxyContin painkiller that subsequentially sparked the opioid crisis, claiming the lives of more than half a million Americans over the last two decades. 

    Attorney generals of eight states and the District of Columbia announced the deal after rejecting a $4.3 billion cash payment from the Sacklers. 

    The family demanded that a bankruptcy deal wouldn’t be possible unless they were released from all future liability related to Purdue’s OxyContin. 

    The new deal would restructure the company into a new entity called Knoa Pharma that a public board controls. 

    At the very end of the court filing, the Sacklers said they’re “pleased to have reached a settlement with additional states.” 

    They also said, “they sincerely regret that OxyContin … unexpectedly became part of an opioid crisis that has brought grief and loss to far too many families and communities.” 

    On Twitter, Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN), a non-profit activist group against the Sackler family, called the family’s statement “horrendous.”

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

    Connecticut Attorney General William tweeted a statement:

    “After years of lies and denial, the Sackler family must now directly apologize for the pain they have caused. They must reckon face-to-face with the survivors of their reckless greed at a public hearing. Museums and universities may now scrub the tarnished Sackler name from their walls—ensuring this family is remembered throughout history for their callous disdain for human suffering and nothing else.”

    Judge Robert Drain, handling Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings in White Plains, New York, must approve the deal with a hearing slated for March 9.  

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 21:00

  • US Faces Nuclear Threats From China, Russia As Never Before: US Admiral
    US Faces Nuclear Threats From China, Russia As Never Before: US Admiral

    Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Adm. Charles Richard, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, said it has become imperative for the United States to have the capability to defend against Russia and China at the same time.

    “Today, we face two nuclear-capable near-peers who have the capability to unilaterally escalate a conflict to any level of violence in any domain worldwide, with any instrument of national power, and that is historically significant,” Richard told the House Armed Services Committee on March 1.

    Military vehicles carrying DF-5B intercontinental ballistic missiles participate in a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)

    He pointed out that while the need to deter both China and Russia at the same time was only at the level of major concern in April last year, the concern “has now become a reality.”

    “That need is now an imperative.”

    In April 2021, he told lawmakers at another congressional hearing (pdf) that the United States for the first time in history was “on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time.”

    Months later, he said the United States was “witnessing a strategic breakout by China,” adding that the Chinese regime’s “explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces” was “breathtaking.”

    “Last fall, I formally reported to the secretary of defense, the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] strategic breakout,” Richard said. “Their expansion and modernization in 2021 alone is breathtaking.”

    China and Russia pose a threat to the United States now more than ever, as the two neighboring countries currently boast a “no-limits” partnership, according to a statement released following a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Feb. 4.

    Last summer, China reportedly tested nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, prompting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley to say the tests were very close to a “Sputnik moment.” Additionally, there were reports that China was building hundreds of new nuclear silos.

    In November 2021, the Pentagon warned that China might have as many as 1,000 deliverable nuclear missiles by 2030.

    So far, China hasn’t slowed down in its pursuit of hypersonic weapons, according to Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of the U.S. Northern Command.

    “They’re aggressively pursuing hypersonic capability, tenfold to what we have done as far as testing within the last year or so, significantly outpacing us with their capabilities,” he said at the hearing.

    As for the current U.S. defensive posture, Richard said he felt quite confident.

    “I am satisfied with the posture of my forces. I have made no recommendations to make any changes,” he said. “The nation’s nuclear command and control is in its most defended, most resilient lineup that it’s ever been in its history.”

    However, Richard told lawmakers that it’s important to keep monitoring China’s development.

    “We don’t know the endpoint of where China is going in terms of the capabilities it’s developing and the capacities that it’s developing,” he said.

    “While I’m very confident we’re going to wind up with a very good strategy, I think it will need to be a question that we continue to ask ourselves as we see where China goes, as we see where others go. What are the overall capability and capacity that the United States requires in order to execute that strategy against a changing threat.

    “We’re going to have to ask that question much more frequently than we have in the past.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 20:30

  • Oil Crisis 2.0: US Gas Prices Jump Most Overnight Since Iraq War, Record Highs Imminent
    Oil Crisis 2.0: US Gas Prices Jump Most Overnight Since Iraq War, Record Highs Imminent

    Gas prices at the pump were soaring long before Russia invaded Ukraine. The conflict has produced the prospect of a shortage of commodities, especially energy products, and sent Brent and WTI well over the $110 mark in recent days. Russia is one of the world’s largest crude oil suppliers. The spillover effects of the Biden administration sanctioning the country into oblivion have resulted in one of the most significant daily jumps of gasoline on record. 

    According to new AAA fuel data, the current national average gas price is $3.837, up almost 11 cents overnight, the second biggest move on record since the early days of the Iraq war in 2005. At this rate, gas prices could exceed the record in days, which is only 27 cents away. 

    On Thursday, for the first time ever, a U.S. city breached the $5/gal per gallon average – this is San Francisco, De Haan tweeted yesterday.

    Since last Thursday, the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine, the following ten states have seen the largest increases in their averages, according to AAA: Michigan (+39 cents), Indiana (+36 cents), Illinois (+31 cents), Ohio (+30 cents), Tennessee (+26 cents), Kentucky (+24 cents), South Carolina (+20 cents), Georgia (+21 cents), Delaware (+19 cents), and Alabama (+18 cents).

    WTI futures surpassed the $110 mark, and wholesale gasoline prices are following suit down the supply chain, both providing a leading indicator of where gas prices are headed next. We find below that prices at the pump could rise well beyond $4 with upper-end targets of even $4.50 if geopolitical turmoil in Ukraine worsens or supplies globally tighten. 

    Gas prices at the pump have never been this high for this time of year. 

    The transition to a summer grade versus winter fuel grade will also increase prices. 

    A sharp rise in gas prices is causing a drag on consumer sentiment and will likely impact President Biden’s polling data with another drop.

    The shock to energy prices is sparking staglfation fears as it stokes inflation while suppressing economic growth. Commodities this week posted their largest weekly gain since 1974 (a time when inflation was rampant). Jim Bianco of Bianco Research points out:

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

    Inflation is widespread as consumers are plagued with some of the highest food prices in a decade. The combo of high gas and food prices will impact household spending patterns and dent sentiment ahead of the midterms, but just this morning, the Biden administration stated – with absolutely no ‘scientific’ support – that it’s uniquely well-positioned to deal with inflation.  We shall see…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 20:00

  • Will The World Soon Be Ready For Central Bank Digital Currencies? The IMF Thinks So…
    Will The World Soon Be Ready For Central Bank Digital Currencies? The IMF Thinks So…

    Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

    The move towards central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) “is gaining momentum, driven by the ingenuity of Central Banks.”

    As a barrage of Western sanctions visit all manner of pain upon Russia’s economy, attention is turning in some quarters to potential ways of circumventing U.S. economic sanctions in the future. One potential weapon for defanging future sanctions is central bank digital currency (CBDC) networks, according to Lewis McLellan, the digital editor of the Digital Monetary Institute of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF):

    Cross-border central bank digital currency networks are in development across Asia (like the mCBDC Bridge, which involves Thailand, Hong Kong, China and the United Arab Emirates). Russia’s central bank is working on a digital rouble and Governor Elvira Nabiullina has expressed interest in its value as a means of facilitating cross-border payments, particularly with China.

    A massive and surprising new transition could soon impact the wealth of thousands, while leaving everyone else worse off than before. Learn More

    The digital yuan could also be pressed into service. It is widely usable within China and is likely to be accepted by anyone with costs or liabilities in China. Even dollar stablecoins, which are growing in scale and importance, could help form the backbone of a payments network that cannot be curtailed by revoking access to Swift or the Fed’s clearing system. There is no evidence that China intends to help Russian businesses circumvent sanctions — they are likely to face their own sanctions if they do — but if the dollar payments network is becoming a tool of foreign policy, it adds a new sense of urgency for some to develop an alternative.

    Beijing Expands Public Testing of Digital Yuan

    The digital renminbi is the first CBDC to be issued by the central bank of a major economy and has been undergoing public testing since April 2021. China’s testing of CBDCs has so far taken place in ten cities and regions (Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu, Xiong’an, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao and Dalian). According to Chinese state-backed financial media outlet Securities Times, Beijing is on the verge of launching trials of its digital yuan currency in a third batch of localities, which could include Henan, Fujian and Heilongjiang provinces, and the cities of Guangzhou, Chongqing, Fuzhou and Xiamen.

    China’s central bank has been exploring the possibilities offered by digital currencies since 2014. Those possibilities include reduced operating costs, increased efficiency and “a wide range of new applications,” said Fan Yifei, a deputy governor of the PBOC, in 2016. A year later, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China gave its blessing to the development of the digital RMB. Commercial banks were invited to participate in the project, as too were Chinese tech giants Tencent, Alibaba, Huawei, JD.com and UnionPay.

    The digital renminbi has since been flagged as a “national security issue” threatening the U.S. dollar by Josh Lipsky, a former IMF staffer who is now at the Atlantic Council, an influential U.S. think tank. Yet the People’s Bank of China is hardly what you would call an outlier when it comes to experimenting with or piloting a digital upgrade of its national currency.

    In total, 87 central banks in economies representing 90% of global GDP are currently at it, including the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England. The Reserve Bank of India recently announced that it will introduce a digital rupee in the coming financial year (April 2022 to March 2023). Three CBDCs have actually gone fully live in the past two years: the so-called DCash in the Eastern Caribbean, the Sand Dollar in the Bahamas and the eNaira in Nigeria, whose impact so far has been pretty underwhelming, as the technology news website Tech Monitor reports:

    Almost as soon as it was launched, users complained of poor functionality and the app was briefly withdrawn from the Google Play Store for improvements. By January, only 694,000 eNaira wallets had been downloaded (the e-Yuan, by contrast, remains in its pilot stage but boasts some 260 million users). Spending also remained low, with $450,000 worth of transactions recorded.

    IMF Firmly on Board

    As one might expect, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the world’s most important supranational financial institution, is deeply involved in this process, including by providing technical assistance to many of its members. Speaking at an event organized by the Atlantic Council last month, the IMF’s President Kristalina Georgieva outlined the potential benefits of CBDCs while heaping praise on the “ingenuity” of central banks:

    We have moved beyond conceptual discussions of CBDCs and we are now in the phase of experimentation. Central banks are rolling up their sleeves and familiarizing themselves with the bits and bytes of digital money.

    These are still early days for CBDCs and we don’t quite know how far and how fast they will go.  What we know is that central banks are building capacity to harness new technologies—to be ready for what may lie ahead.

    If CBDCs are designed prudently, they can potentially offer more resilience, more safety, greater availability, and lower costs than private forms of digital money. That is clearly the case when compared to unbacked crypto assets that are inherently volatile. And even the better managed and regulated stablecoins may not be quite a match against a stable and well‑designed central bank digital currency.

    We know that the move towards CBDCs is gaining momentum, driven by the ingenuity of Central Banks.

    All told, around 100 countries are exploring CBDCs at one level or another. Some researching, some testing, and a few already distributing CBDC to the public.

    In the Bahamas, the Sand Dollar—the local CBDC—has been in circulation for more than a year.

    Sweden’s Riksbank has developed a proof of concept and is exploring the technology and policy implications of CBDC.

    In China, the digital renminbi [called e-CNY,] continues to progress with more than a hundred million individual users and billions of yuan in transactions.

    And, just last month, the Federal Reserve issued a report that noted that “a CBDC could fundamentally change the structure of the U.S. financial system.”[i]

    As you might expect, the IMF is deeply involved in this issue, including through providing technical assistance to many members. An important role for the Fund is to promote exchange of experience and support the interoperability of CBDCs.

    A Digital Peso?

    Even countries where cash is still the undisputed king of the payments landscape are frantically trying to roll out a CBDC. Three days ago, El País published an article (in Spanish) titled “Is Mexico Ready for a Central Bank Digital Currency?” The article begins by looking at recent moves by Mexico’s central bank, Banco de Mexico (Banxico), to explore the possibility of rolling out a digital peso, which Banxico believes could be ready as early as 2024:

    Othón Moreno, director of policy and studies of payment systems and market infrastructure of the central bank, recently said in a seminar on cryptocurrencies that there is a demand for stable currencies (known as stablecoins), and that several central banks are currently analyzing the issuance process. “Central banks have historically successfully issued their legal tender currencies. We have limited ourselves to doing it physically, but I think it shows that the technology is there, and that the demand is there to be able to issue the same functionalities of legal tender, in a digital version”, he mentioned.

    Obviously most Mexicans are not even aware that Banxico is exploring the possibility of launching a CBDC, or even what a CBDC is, let alone how it may impact their lives, so just how Moreno can claim that the “demand is there” for a digital peso is hard to fathom. It is even harder to fathom when you consider that 86% of Mexicans still use cash while just 4% use mobile payment platforms or the country’s interbank electronic payments system (SPEI).

    Zero Public Debate

    As with the vaccine passports and digital identity programs that have been or are being rolled out by governments across the world, there is virtually no attempt made to even inform let alone consult the general public on the matter. One of the few attempts was a POLITICO survey of 2,500 Brits conducted in 2021, which found that “British people harbor more suspicion about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) than excitement”:

    The poll found only 24 percent of those surveyed believed the digital pound would bring more benefits than harm — 30 percent said the opposite. The rest couldn’t decide one way or the other.

    Concerns among the U.K. public vary. The threat of cyberattacks and hackers left 73 percent of poll participants reluctant to hold Britcoins. The prospect of losing payment privacy worried 70 percent, while 45 percent were mindful of Britcoin’s potential environmental impact — a debate that enveloped other cryptocurrencies.

    Fear of government power was also widespread, with 62 percent saying they feared the idea of public authorities being able to seize Britcoins from their digital wallets.

    The benefits CBDCs offer central banks are likely to be significant, including far greater control over the money supply as well as the possibility of going much deeper into negative interest rate territory. The benefits for the general public are a lot less clear while the risks, including loss of anonymity and privacy, are potentially huge. The ability to track and trace spending in real time is one of the major attractions (for central banks) of having CBDCs, as Agustín Carstens, the president of the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank of central banks, and former chairman of Banco de Mexico, said in a recent interview:

    “We don’t know who’s using a $100 bill today and we don’t know who’s using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank digital liability, and also we will have technology to enforce that.”

    One way central banks could use its expanded powers is to exert control over people’s spending habits, as Etienne Luquet, a Mexican lawyer specialized in cryptocurrency, tells El País. “Imagine that central banks would become a kind of all-powerful Financial Intelligence Unit that can audit or block accounts, or ensure that money can only be spent on certain items.”

    This is not beyond the realms of possibility. In June 2021, the Daily Telegraph reported that the Bank of England had asked Government ministers to decide whether a central bank digital currency should be “programmable”:

    Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference on Monday that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency, in which the money would be programmed to be released only when something happened.

    He said: “You could introduce programmability – what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]?

    “There could be some socially beneficial outcomes from that, preventing activity which is seen to be socially harmful in some way. But at the same time it could be a restriction on people’s freedoms.”

    He warned that the Government would be required to intervene and make the final decision.

    Another huge possible consequence of CBDCs, whether intended or not, is the disintermediation of commercial banks, which will suddenly face unfair competition from their senior market regulator, which has unlimited ability to create money. According to Luquet, commercial banks could disappear altogether (though one can imagine certain well-placed institutions finding a new role in the emerging paradigm). This is an issue NC contributor Clive discusses in greater detail in his 2019 piece, “Mark Carney’s Trojan Unicorn — Are Central Banks Considering Stealth Nationalization in Sovereign Digital Currencies?”

    In a speech at the China Europe Finance Summit, in Octobe 2020, Burkhard Balz, a member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, posited: “What if, in times of crisis, bank deposits were rapidly withdrawn and converted into a digital euro? We call this scenario a ‘digital bank run.’ The result could be the destabilisation of the entire financial system.”

    Another major risk posed by CBDCs is they could grant central banks the power to deprive people exhibiting the wrong sorts of views or behavior of the ability to transact altogether. It would be similar to what happened in the Trudeau government’s recent money heist in Canada, just a lot less visible and messy. This, of course, would only be possible if governments and central banks completely eliminated physical cash once the CBDCs were fully established — something many central banks swear they won’t do. But central banks are not exactly known for keeping their word.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 19:40

  • Panasonic Reportedly Considering Building U.S. Plant To Supply Tesla With 4680 Cell Batteries
    Panasonic Reportedly Considering Building U.S. Plant To Supply Tesla With 4680 Cell Batteries

    While questions loomed about the ongoing relationship between Panasonic and Tesla over the last few years, it looks like the battery maker is officially ready to “throw down” in the Tesla camp. 

    Panasonic is currently planning to build a U.S. plant specifically to provide Tesla with batteries, a new report from Bloomberg says. The Japanese company is considering Oklahoma and Kansas as potential locations. 

    Tesla, meanwhile, continues to work on bringing its plant in Texas online.

    The two companies have been paired up since jointly operating Tesla’s Gigafactory outside of Reno. The new batteries to be produced will likely be larger 4680 cells, the report says. “Because of their higher capacity, fewer are needed for EVs, making it possible to build cars more cheaply with a longer range,” Bloomberg reported.

    A Panasonic spokesperson said that the report wasn’t based on official company information.

    A source familiar with the matter said that Panasonic is thinking about spending “several hundreds of billions of yen” on the factory. Panasonic also announced this week it would start mass production of its 4680 batteries in the FY that ends March 2024. 

    Elon Musk has referred to the batteries as a “massive breakthrough” and the potential key to unlocking a $25,000 EV.

    We’ll believe it when we see it…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 19:20

  • Ukraine’s NATO Membership 'Will Not Take Place': German Chancellor
    Ukraine’s NATO Membership ‘Will Not Take Place’: German Chancellor

    Authored by Allen Zhong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (L) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrive to hold a joint press conference in Kyiv on Feb. 14, 2022. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

    Ukraine’s membership is not on The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s agenda, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday.

    “I also made it clear in Moscow and in my visit that this option [Ukraine’s membership of NATO] is not on the table and will not take place,” he said during an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF.

    “I said publicly that we all know that Ukraine’s NATO membership is not on the alliance’s agenda today,” he added. “That was understood by the American president, that [was] also understood by the French president.”

    Scholz said he shares Russian President Vladimir Putin’s security concern and clarified to Putin that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO.

    “The Russians were worried about the control issue of their security. [Putin was worried] that NATO has a military setup and rockets in Ukraine targeting Russian territory. That is why we tried to make it clear that this will not occur,” he elaborated.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to NATO’s press office for comment.

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a press conference ahead of a two-day meeting of the alliance’s Defence Ministers at the NATO Headquarter in Brussels on Feb. 15, 2022. (Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images)

    Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership appeared to be one of the core disputes that caused the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

    In February 2019, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a constitutional amendment committing the country to becoming a member of NATO and the European Union after the parliament passed the bill.

    Poroshenko told the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine days after he signed the amendment that joining NATO was a guarantee of security for Ukraine.

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

    On the Russian side, Putin says Russia needs to lay down “red lines” to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO saying that Ukraine’s growing ties with the alliance could make it a launchpad for NATO missiles targeted at Russia.

    The United States and other Ukraine alliances have tried to avoid war by deescalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

    However, the Kremlin criticized the United States and NATO for failing to address the fundamental security concerns of Moscow, demanding that NATO stop its eastward expansion and that strike weapons not be deployed near Russia’s borders.

    Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 after the efforts to deter war failed.

    Russian armed forces made rapid progress and had reportedly encircled several Ukrainian cities or facilities in the first week.

    They also reportedly gained control of Kherson, a port city in Ukraine’s south.

    However, the Russian forces were met with strong resistance from the Ukrainian military, especially on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

    The resistance from Ukrainian forces and Russia’s own logistical difficulties have slowed down the Russian military’s speed of the advance, the UK’s Ministry of Defense said.

    People walk past a destroyed Russian military vehicle at a frontline position in Irpin, Ukraine, on March 3, 2022. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

    A United Nations official said around 1.2 million people have fled Ukraine as the war entered its ninth day.

    U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi confirmed the staggering figure in a tweet on March 4.

    Grandi said on Thursday that in his four decades of work in refugee emergencies, he had rarely seen an exodus as rapid as the one in Ukraine.

    “Hour by hour, minute by minute, more people are fleeing the terrifying reality of violence. Countless have been displaced inside the country,” he said in a statement.

    This image made from a video released by Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant shows bright flaring objects landing on the grounds of the nuclear plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine Friday, March 4, 2022. (Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant via AP)

    The U.N. also said that, as of March 3, they had recorded 1,006 civilian casualties in the context of Russia’s military action against Ukraine, mostly caused by shelling and airstrikes.

    The agency said that 331 civilian deaths have been recorded, including 19 children, while 675 have been injured, including 31 children. The U.N. says, however, that the “real toll is much higher.”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that, to date, 9,200 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war. Russian authorities have reported that 498 of its service members have been killed.

    Julia Mira and Tom Ozimek contributed to the report.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 19:00

  • "A Total Disaster": Why The Iran Nuclear Deal Will Spark An Even Greater Geopolitical Crisis
    “A Total Disaster”: Why The Iran Nuclear Deal Will Spark An Even Greater Geopolitical Crisis

    There was a glimmer of hope for Joe Biden today, who is increasingly cornered by soaring inflation in general and the relentless surge in oil prices in particular, when Russia’s chief negotiator in talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran said on Friday that he thought a deal was possible in the middle of next week.

    “As far as I know, the Iranians are not ready for direct talks (with the United States),” Mikhail Ulyanov told reporters, cited by Reuters. “We will have a deal maybe in the middle of next week. We are talking about the last efforts before crossing the finish line.”

    But, as Rabobank’s resident geopolitical strategist Michael Every writes in his daily note, think about this in the full context.

    The deal’s terms, according to former Iran offical at the State Dept, Gabriel Noronha, who quit in disgust seeing it hatched out, is driven by Russia, which, along with China, is helping Iran evade sanctions.

    It will allegedly include:

    • removing sanctions on human rights abusers and designated terror groups such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council (IRGC);
    • allow Iran to buy tens of billions of dollars of Russian weaponry;
    • to develop ballistic missiles; and
    • offers no tougher controls on nuclear development;

    Noronha’s full explanation can be found here.

    So, in 2031 – if not sooner given it reportedly already has 60% of the processed uranium needed for a bomb – Every warns that Iran will be a nuclear break-out state able to get one when it wants.

    Every next says to look at the reaction from US-friendly UAE, under attack from Iranian proxies, at the UN Security Council; from US-friendly Saudi Arabia, under attack from Iranian proxies, via an interview with its de facto ruler Prince MBS in The Atlantic where he threatens to stop investment in the US and do more in China (Does Joe Biden misunderstand something about him? “Simply, I do not care,” MBS replied. “It’s up to him to think about the interests of America.” He gave a shrug. “Go for it.”); and from US ally Israel, under attack from Iranian proxies, which states it will ignore any deal and act as needed.

    The risks are that rather than lowering oil prices and *preventing* war – against an Iran whose economy has been flattened by sanctions the US is now imposing on Russia: so do they work or not? – a new nuclear deal is more likely to *lead* to war and see oil soar to new record highs.

    Every concludes that the deal also suggests the risk of the US losing critical allies at a time when sides are being taken. On which, Russia is to hold the first “International Anti-Fascist Congress” in August this year, inviting the Saudis, China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Iran and other “stalwart defenders of democracy and human rights”, as a mirror image of the recent US Summit of Democracies.

    India has been invited to both; and while the US and India collaborate on the Quad against China, yesterday saw US diplomats suggest D.C. may sanction New Delhi for buying Russian weapons; and we got this 2-minute clip on Indian TV summarizing the passions and confusion.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 18:40

  • Fauci Agency Knew Chinese Authorities Were Withholding COVID-19 Data In Jan 2020, Documents Show
    Fauci Agency Knew Chinese Authorities Were Withholding COVID-19 Data In Jan 2020, Documents Show

    Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. State Department and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) were aware in January 2020 that Chinese authorities were withholding COVID-19 data, according to government documents obtained by a legal watchdog organization.

    The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) also sent “experts” from the NIH-supported P4 lab at the University of Texas Medical Branch to train Wuhan Institute of Virology technicians in “lab management and maintenance” – nearly two years before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic – the records obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit show.

    Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said he believes the 90 pages of communication records between the NIH and the Wuhan lab show that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s agency, NIAID, has been “hiding information on China’s failure to provide essential data on COVID-19.”

    On Jan. 8, 2020, staff at NIH and NIAID, led by Fauci, circulated an email from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, “PRC Response to Pneumonia Cases Shows Increased Transparency Over Past Outbreaks, but Gaps in Epidemiological Data Remain.”

    “Hi, here is the cable from US Embassy Beijing reporting on the pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China. It has ruled out SARS, MERS, and flu. [Redacted] confirmed it is viral infection,” reads an email to colleagues from Dr. Ping Chen, who had been NIAID’s top official in China.

    Embassy officials in the email said they were concerned that a “lack of epidemiological data” hindered better risk assessment and response by public health officials.

    The officials noted that because of “gaps in [detailed] information” provided by the Chinese regime and “lack of a final confirmed pathogen,” the risk to the United States and global health is “difficult to assess at this time.”

    “The flow of official PRC information on this outbreak is limited to that coming from the Wuhan Health Commission and National Health Commission,” the email reads.

    “China CDC is referring queries to the three official notices issued to date by the Wuhan Health Commission.”

    The first known cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, were reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.

    “As of January 7, the Wuhan Health Commission has reported 59 local cases of pneumonia with unknown cause,” the email reads.

    Workers are seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

    Lab technicians from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were also directly trained by NIH-supported experts in April 2018.

    “In addition to French assistance, experts from the NIH-supported P4 lab at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston have trained Wuhan lab technicians in lab management and maintenance,” an April 19, 2018, email reads.

    “The Wuhan institute plans to invite scientists from the Galveston lab to do research in Wuhan’s lab. One Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher trained for two years at the Galveston lab, and the institute also sent one scientist to U.S. CDC headquarters in Atlanta for six months’ work on influenza.”

    Another email between the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and NIH headquarters on Feb. 23, 2018, shows that NIH officials were flagging “China Health News from Chinese Media.”

    Among these media reports is an article from state-run outlet Xinhua, “Chinese scientists find how bats carry viruses without getting sick.”

    Chinese scientists have identified “bats that harbor highly pathogenic viruses like Ebola, Marburg and SARS coronavirus but do not show clinical signs of disease,” according to the report.

    “According to researchers, in humans and other mammals, an immune-based over-response to one of these and other pathogenic viruses can trigger severe illness,” the report reads.

    U.S. intelligence officials and numerous experts have obtained evidence suggesting that the CCP virus originated in a lab, but other officials maintain that it originated naturally.

    In September 2021, records obtained by The Intercept via a FOIA lawsuit against NIH showed that nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance funneled U.S. funds to scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to research bat coronaviruses.

    “The slow-rolling and stonewalling by Fauci’s agency on China, gain of function, and its COVID response generally is pure obstruction,” Fitton said.

    NIAID and State Department officials didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 18:20

  • Coinbase CEO: "Ordinary Russians Are Using Crypto As A Lifeline"
    Coinbase CEO: “Ordinary Russians Are Using Crypto As A Lifeline”

    As we reported earlier this week, most popular crypto exchanges have declined requests by western officials to cut off all Russian customers, as crypto trading volume soared as investors appeared to front-run expectations for massive capital outflows as sanctions bite.

    While most trading denominated in Russia rubles has been taken place on Hong Kong-based Binance, even popular US exchanges like the publicly traded Coinbase have refused to cut off all Russian users – at least, for the moment.

    And for the first time since this “controversy” first emerged, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has spoken up to offer an explanation. And that explanation is that millions of ordinary Russians are now using crypto “as a lifeline” to preserve their hard-won assets during a time when the Russian ruble, and other Russian assets, are being mercilessly devalued.

    “Some ordinary Russians are using crypto as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed. Many of them likely oppose what their country is doing, and a ban would hurt them, too,” Armstrong said.

    As Armstrong pointed out, Coinbase is obligated to comply with US sanctions, like any other US-based business. But until sanctions stipulate otherwise, the exchange will continue providing services to the Russian people (excluding those whose names have wound up on the US Treasury’s sanctions list).

    And bitcoin’s public blockchain, a feature of most cryptocurrencies, makes it an ill-suited avenue for Russian oligarchs looking to protect their billions, he added.

    See the full thread below:

    Armstrong’s Twitter comments reflect those from Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who said on Wednesday that it would be “unethical” for his exchange to restrict all Russians. “It’s not our decision to make whether to ban Russians…we just follow rules, we don’t make them. Also, just from an ethical point of view, many Russians don’t support this war.”

    Does this leave crypto on the “wrong side” of the norms? Not necessarily, CZ said.

    “We’re doing exactly what their recommendations are.”

    Just like all major banks and any other financial institutions.

    And as strategists from Citi explained earlier this week, while the potential for capital flight from Russia remains high, trading volumes (although impressive-looking on the chart) have been relatively small in absolute terms so far (around 210 bitcoin per day on average).

    This suggests that the price action is more due to investors positioning for an expected uptick in demand from Russia, rather than Russian demand itself, and furthermore, it underlines the reality that bitcoin and crypto more broadly are being treated like a ‘boogeyman’ by Western officials.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 18:00

  • Johnstone: Defending Freedom And Democracy Sure Requires An Awful Lot Of Censorship
    Johnstone: Defending Freedom And Democracy Sure Requires An Awful Lot Of Censorship

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    Kremlin-backed media outlets have been banned throughout the European Union, both on television and on apps and online platforms. RT has lost its Sky TV slot in the UK, where the outlet is also blocked on YouTube. Australian TV providers SBS and Foxtel have dropped RT, and the federal government is putting pressure on social media platforms to block Russian media in Australia.

    In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Latvia, speaking in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will get you years in prison.

    Twitter, historically the last of the major online platforms to jump on any new internet censorship escalation, is now actively minimizing the number of people who see Russian media content, saying that it is “reducing the content’s visibility” and “taking steps to significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter”. This censorship-by-algorithm tactic is exactly what I speculated might emerge after former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey resigned back in November, due to previous comments supportive of that practice by his successor Parag Agrawal.

    Twitter is also placing warnings labels on all Russia-backed media and delivering a pop-up message informing you that you are committing wrongthink if you try to share or even ‘like’ a post linking to such outlets on the platform. It has also placed the label “Russia state-affiliated media” on every tweet made by the personal accounts of employees of those platforms, baselessly giving the impression that the dissident opinions tweeted by those accounts are paid Kremlin content and not simply their own legitimate perspectives. Some are complaining that this new label has led to online harassment amid the post-9/11-like anti-Russia hysteria that’s currently turning western brains into clam chowder.

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

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

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

    This is all on top of all the other drastic escalations in censorship which came roaring in at the beginning of the Ukraine war, and I personally find it a bit scary how fast it’s all happening, how fine people are with it, and how much worse it seems likely to get.

    Others agree.

    “The purge of RT and other Russian media outlets in the US and Europe is 100% censorship,” tweets journalist Michael Tracey.

    “Go ahead and argue it’s justified, but at least don’t be a coward and admit you are advocating censorship.”

    “The western world believes that it has a monopoly on what constitutes ‘political truth’ and that their ideological worldview is the only correct, valid and authoritative one,” writer and analyst Tom Fowdy observed.

    “They preach freedom of speech and the press to other countries, but exempt themselves from it.”

    And I can’t help but find it odd that the fight for freedom and democracy should require such copious amounts of censorship. You’d think a free society would have no objection to people trying to learn the other side of the debate about a war which NATO powers very plainly had a hand in starting, rather than being forced to consume only western mass media narratives which tell us this is happening exclusively because Vladimir Putin is evil and Hitlery and hates freedom.

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

    You’d think a society devoted to truth and freedom, the kind of society western powers purport to be trying to defend in Ukraine, would not require a Ministry of Truth to protect us from “disinformation” about a government long targeted by the US-centralized empire, or from trying to seek out alternative perspectives beyond the homogeneous blanket of authorized mainstream narratives.

    You’d think the truth would be more robust than that. You’d think freedom would extend farther than that. You’d think democracy would be more tolerant of dissent than that.

    Almost like this has nothing to do with freedom, or truth, or democracy.

    Almost like it never has.

    Kind of makes you wonder if perhaps rallying behind the idea that it’s fine to censor people to preserve the establishment narrative about things, like Covid-19 and vaccines for example, was every bit the slippery slope that everyone warned it would be. If perhaps we have foolishly consented to a reality where the most powerful people in the world get to control the information people consume in order to shut down dissent against a murderous and oppressive globe-spanning oligarchic empire.

    And it kind of makes you wonder, as we watch the same empire that just destroyed Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen being entrusted to carefully navigate extremely delicate nuclear brinkmanship escalations without ending the world, if we might perhaps be better off with a lot more dissent, rather than a lot less.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 17:40

  • "We Want To See The Faces Of Our Children": NYC Lifts Indoor School Mask Mandate, Suspends Vaccine Requirements
    “We Want To See The Faces Of Our Children”: NYC Lifts Indoor School Mask Mandate, Suspends Vaccine Requirements

    Covid is officially over.

    On Friday, NY Mayor Eric Adams said that come Monday, hundreds of thousands of public school students in the nation’s largest district and their educators can ditch face masks indoors as he announced the looming end of one of the most profoundly hated longstanding mandates of the COVID pandemic, one which Congress also strategically dropped the day before Biden’s SOTU address in response to dismal internal polling. Face masks will still be required for students younger than the vaccine-eligible age of 5, though, the Democrat announced, which affects some pre-K classes, all 3-K classes and many daycare and kids’ programs overseen by the health department.

    Also effective next week: businesses throughout NYC’s five boroughs won’t have to check vaccine cards at the door either starting next week, though they can continue to do so if they choose. The rule mandating employee vaccinations, though, remains in effect. Asked whether he may shift NYC transit mask rules should the CDC opt to change its guidance on that front when it revisits the issue March 18, Mayor Eric Adams said he isn’t prepared to do that just yet

    Parents of kids affected by the mandate’s lifting can still send them to school with masks if they prefer, and schools will have face coverings handy for anyone in need.

    Adams acknowledged “it may take time for some to feel comfortable without masks” in certain settings – if not so much children who can’t wait to drop the loathed facial diapers, as much as their snowflake parents – and he said the city fully supports their right to discretion.

    “We are not going to get in the way of your discretion and we want New Yorkers to be smart, flexibility and be able to feel comfortable without any bullying, without any teasing. If you feel comfortable wearing your mask feel free to do so,” he said.

    But it’s time to lose the rule, the mayor said, citing an in-school positivity rate of just 0.18% — on top of a lower-than-neighborhood average rate throughout the entire pandemic — and drastically receding viral metrics across the board.

    “We want to see the faces of our children, we want to see their smiles, we want to see how happy they are, we want to see when they’re feeling sad so we can be there to comfort them. The masks prevented us from doing so for almost two years,” Adams said.

    Health “experts”, who have become the laughing stock of the nation by confirming that Covid was never about science but purely about politics, say government officials have reached a point in the pandemic where they have to weigh public health policy as much as the science itself. Covid rates have dropped precipitously – the seven-day positivity rate is down to 1.8% – and nearly 87% of New York City adults have received two doses of the vaccine.

    “There’s a reward for making this kind of incredible progress, and part of that is not having to constantly be checking people’s vaccine passes,” said Anna Bershteyn, assistant professor of population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “We’re lucky to be in an in-between wave time right now. In general, now is the time to take a breath, get back to normal activities.”

    Bershteyn said lifting the vaccine mandate for indoor activities is a reasonable step for Adams to take, and removes the inconvenience of digging out vaccine cards each time someone goes to a restaurant or the gym. It also creates more friction than the employer vaccine mandate, which requires minimal effort from city residents who would only have to prove their vaccination status at work once, she said.

    She warned New Yorkers that this isn’t necessarily the end of the pandemic era. “Its entirely possible we’ll get another wave and we’ll need to tolerate these inconveniences again to stay safe,” she said. “We just have to get used to the fact that these things are going to come on and off, just like a coat in cold weather.”

    To that end, Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi announced the launch of a color-coded Covid risk alert system to “give New Yorkers a road map for how to mitigate their own risk today or in the future, in the event we see a surge or increase in transmission,” he said. “While this Covid-19 wave is ebbing, we can’t yet say the pandemic is ending. We still have more work to do.”

    And if cases surge again? “We will pivot if we see a reason to change any policies,” Adams said. “We are going to be unafraid to make those adjustments and changes.”

    Sick of the propaganda, city restaurateurs celebrated the end of the vaccine mandate. They found checking customers’ vaccine passes tedious, costly and sometimes dangerous, as staff were forced to question, and possibly confront unvaccinated customers.  

    “It feels like a waste of time, like bureaucracy to check vax cards at this point,” said Justin Lee, chef and owner of the Lower East Side restaurant Fat Choy. “It can slow down service, there’s only so many people at a door that can check vaccines,” he said. “When we think about omicron, anyone who is asymptomatic can walk in with their card and still spread it everywhere.”

    New York’s lifting of restrictions follow similar moves by Boston, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, and are, in part, intended to help lure visitors to the city. “That’s why we’re here in Times Square,” Adams said. “To tell people from Canada, Arkansas, from New Zealand to come here. But don’t come here and just walk, spend some money.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 17:20

  • CNN Pulls Out Of Russia After Putin Signs "Misinformation" Law
    CNN Pulls Out Of Russia After Putin Signs “Misinformation” Law

    Update (1716ET): This’ll teach ’em…

    CNN will no longer broadcast in Russia “while we continue to evaluate the situation and our next steps moving forward,” according to host Brian Stelter.

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

    *  *  *

    Update (1451ET): Interfax is reporting that a Russian watchdog says Twitter is now blocked in Russia, adding to the western social media freeze that now includes Facebook and access to app stores.

    *  *  *

    Update (1437ET): Vladimir Putin signed several laws on Friday – including one which would seize the assets of foreigners if they harm Russians or otherwise infringe on Russian rights, according to Interfax.

    The threat comes in parallel with another law signed on Friday which will criminalize whatever the Kremlin deems “disinformation” about the military in a crackdown on “fake information.” As a result, the BBC has pulled all reporters from Moscow.

    Meanwhile, Moscow has offered foreign companies three options for a path forward: remain in Russia, exit entirely, or hand over their holdings to local managers.

    First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov spelt out the government’s position a little more than a week after Russia invaded Ukraine, and a day after French bank Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) sent a chill through the corporate world by saying Russian authorities could seize its assets in the country.

    Belousov outlined three alternatives for foreign firms.

    “The company continues to work fully in Russia,” he said in a statement. “Foreign shareholders transfer their share to be managed by Russian partners and can return to the market later,” he added, and: “The company permanently terminates operations in Russia, closes production and dismisses employees.” –Reuters

    Check back for more updates…

    *  *  *

    Update (1418ET): Following the seizure of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine announced that it was preparing to repel a potential assault by Russian troops near the Black Sea city of Odesa – shortly after the Ukrainians scuttled their own flagship to avoid it falling into enemy hands.

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

    According to the general staff of the Ukrainian army, Russian troops are ‘encircling the capital’ of Kiev.

    Meanwhile, Russia’s communications regulator has blocked Facebook, according to Bloomberg, citing Interfax.

    Facebook was banned in retaliation for its freezing of accounts of RT, Sputnik and RIA Novosti and other media, communications regulator Roskomnadzor said in a statement.

    Two liberal broadcasters, Ekho Moskvy and TV Rain, went off air Thursday under pressure from prosecutors, while the websites of the BBC, Deutsche Welle and Meduza, an independent news group, weren’t accessible Friday. -Bloomberg

    Check back for more updates…

    *  *  *

    Thursday night was quite the exercise in information warfare, after Russian forces seized control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plan in Ukraine.

    As a skirmish broke out, Ukraine claimed Russia was “firing from all sides,” and warned that if it blows up, “it will be 10 times larger than Chernobyl,” while also claiming that the facility had been ‘shelled’ and radiation levels were rising.

    This was quickly debunked by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which reported that there had been no change in radiation levels at the site.

    In fact, Russia attacked an administrative complex, not the reactors.

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

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

    Some have suggested Ukraine was trying to bait the West into greater assistance, while the Associated Press breathlessly repeated the Ukrainian reports.

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

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

    Russia maintains they used kid-gloves, that the plant is operating normally, and that there’s no threat of radioactive materials escaping. This account appears to be corroborated by a ‘top US nuclear official,’ who told Reuters that the US hasn’t seen evidence that Russia attacked the reactors themselves.

    According to the Russian UN envoy, reports regarding the attack are ‘lies,’ and that there’s no threat of radioactive materials being released.

    Now, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield says that Russian President Vladimir Putin must ‘stop this madness.’

    “By the grace of God, the world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night,” she said, adding “Cooler heads must prevail.  Russian forces are now 20 miles, and closing, from Ukraine’s second largest nuclear facility. So this imminent danger continues(..)The international community must be unanimous.”

    ‘Cooler heads’ are denying there was anything close to a ‘nuclear catastrophe’ last night, but we digress.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 17:18

  • "Resounding Win": Judge Blocks New York Attorney General’s Attempt To Dissolve NRA
    “Resounding Win”: Judge Blocks New York Attorney General’s Attempt To Dissolve NRA

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

    A New York judge on March 2 dismissed an attempt by state Attorney General Letitia James to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA), saying the allegations against the organization didn’t meet the requirements for ordering its dissolution.

    National Rifle Association members listen to speakers during the NRA’s 142 annual Meetings and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston on May 4, 2013. (Johnny Hanson/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

    James, a Democrat, has claimed that top executives of the gun advocacy and education group have siphoned millions of dollars from the organization, and she’s seeking restitution and other financial relief from four current and former officers. She also moved for dissolving the NRA, arguing that doing so is in the interest of both the public and NRA members.

    But state Supreme Court Justice Joel Cohen said in his ruling that the allegations “concern primarily private harm to the NRA and its members and donors, which if proven can be addressed by the targeted, less intrusive relief she seeks through other claims in her complaint.”

    “The complaint does not allege that any financial misconduct benefited the NRA, or that the NRA exists primarily to carry out such activity, or that the NRA is incapable of continuing its legitimate activities on behalf of its millions of members,” he wrote.

    “In short, the complaint does not allege the type of public harm that is the legal linchpin for imposing the ‘corporate death penalty.‘”

    New York Attorney General Letitia James addresses a news conference at her office, in New York on May 21, 2021. (Richard Drew, File/AP Photo)

    Dissolving the NRA, the nation’s largest group of its kind, could impinge on its members’ free speech and assembly rights, according to the judge.

    NRA President Charles Cotton said in a statement: “This is a resounding win for the NRA, its 5 million members, and all who believe in this organization. The message is loud and clear: the NRA is strong and secure in its mission to protect constitutional freedom.”

    William Brewer, a lawyer representing the organization, alleged that James “has pushed a contrived narrative about the NRA in her attempt to support a dissolution claim that is improper.”

    Cohen did decide that the remaining portions of the case, which accuse the NRA and the defendants of violating several laws, can move forward. Those allegations, he said, are sufficient to withstand motions to dismiss them.

    “Today, the court affirmed my office’s right to pursue its long-standing claims that fraud, abuse, and greed permeate through the NRA and its senior leadership,” James said in a statement.

    “While we’re heartened that the judge rejected the NRA’s attempts to thwart most of the claims in our case against the NRA, we are disappointed that the judge ruled against the dissolution portion of the case.

    “We are considering our legal options with respect to this ruling. We remain committed to enforcing New York law regardless of how powerful any individual or organization may be.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 17:00

  • If You Want To Build Back Better, Reshore Our Entire Supply Chain
    If You Want To Build Back Better, Reshore Our Entire Supply Chain

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    It is entirely accurate to say that the U.S. is addicted to waste and distant sources of essentials.

    The downside of dependency is in the air. The U.S. has allowed itself to become dependent on other nations for essentials, a policy that I view as an insanity fueled by greed.

    The problem with dependency is the cost can’t be calculated until it’s too late. Restoring independence is a massive, costly undertaking, but if you wait until the cost of dependency is clear to all, it’s too late to escape the collapse triggered by the cut-off of essentials from other nations.

    The happy story of “free trade” (there is no such thing) is that everybody wins. The reality is everyone loses except corporate profiteers. The problem with deciding on the wunnerfulness of “free trade” by looking at the price tag is that all the real costs of dependency and profiteering are not in the price on the tag: the “market” doesn’t include those costs because that would reveal “free trade” as a catastrophically bad deal for the people whose nation becomes dependent on others for their essentials.

    Missing from the “low, low price” on the tag:

    1. The degradation of quality and durability due to planned obsolescence and reliance on shoddy components.

    2. The environmental degradation in the developing-world autocracies which welcomed the poisoning of their water, soil and air as “growth.”

    3. The inherent fragility of long, sole-source supply chains

    4. Two generations of wage suppression as American workers were forced to compete with a billion workers willing to work for low, insecure wages as “better than nothing.’

    5. Soaring wealth and income inequality as the “winners” of dependency skimmed trillions in profits as the quality of goods and services plummeted and wages stagnated.

    No worries, pal, here’s a minimum wage job on my $100 million yacht.

    6. The cost of depending on distant sources for essentials.

    The unspoken context of dependency on distant sources is that wasting resources is considered America’s birthright. Since we gave up making essentials as a waste of time, now we’re consumers, and so it’s our “right” to waste as much as we want: we waste 40% of our food, energy, water, healthcare spending, etc.–and we get real huffy and defensive when this reality is pointed out: it’s our “right” to waste as much as want and not have to pay any price for that squandering.

    The assumption is the rest of the world exists to provide us stuff to waste. We now have a Landfill Economy: we buy low-quality goods designed to fail on credit, use the pretty-looking piece of junk until the cheapest component fails and then we dump it in the landfill and buy another–on credit, of course.

    Boo-hoo, we ran out out money to waste, so print us up another couple trillion dollars to blow, Jay Powell–and make it snappy.

    If you want to build back better, then we’re going to have to re-learn how to build quality goods here, not in a distant environmental wasteland. We’re going to have to cut our dependency on shoddy components and materials from overseas. We’re going to have to incentivize efficiency and durability rather than waste, fraud and profiteering.

    The spoiled child screams, “I want more!” The adult understands life is a series of trade-offs. The true cost of our wasteful, fraud-riddled, dependent-on-distant-others Landfill Economy have been hidden because waste is easy (and oh-so profitable) while trade-offs are hard.

    It is entirely accurate to say that the U.S. is addicted to waste and distant sources of essentials. Addiction has a very steep price and the withdrawal and recovery is long and painful. There is no magic pill. The one thing we know is the sooner the addict starts the process the sooner the recovery begins.

    Becoming dependent is insane. Remaining dependent is even more insane. I lay out a pathway to recovery in my book Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States.

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $8.95, print $20). If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/04/2022 – 16:37

Digest powered by RSS Digest