Jun 09

Today’s News 9th June 2023

  • Former NATO Head: Some NATO Countries Are Considering Sending Troops To Ukraine
    Former NATO Head: Some NATO Countries Are Considering Sending Troops To Ukraine

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

    The former civilian head of the NATO alliance is warning that some Eastern European states are prepared to send their soldiers to Ukraine if the bloc does not make significant pledges to Kiev during an upcoming summit. 

    Anders Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary-General and current adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is touring Europe and Washington to gauge the level of support Kiev should expect at the Vilnius Summit in July. “I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius,” he said. “We shouldn’t underestimate the Polish feelings, the Poles feel that for too long western Europe did not listen to their warnings against the true Russian mentality.”

    Getty Images

    Poland and the Baltic States may send troops to Ukraine if the alliance fails to make a strong enough commitment to Kiev in Lithuania, according to Rasmussen. “If Nato cannot agree on a clear path forward for Ukraine, there is a clear possibility that some countries individually might take action. We know that Poland is very engaged in providing concrete assistance to Ukraine.” He continued, “I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that Poland would engage even stronger in this context on a national basis and be followed by the Baltic states, maybe including the possibility of troops on the ground.”

    For several months, members of the North Atlantic Alliance have debated how to upgrade Ukraine’s status at the Vilnius Summit. Eastern European members and Kiev are seeking a concrete path to membership with a timeline for when Ukraine will be permitted to join. Some Western European states and Washington do not agree and prefer to focus on the war with Russia.

    A subgroup of Eastern European countries within NATO dubbed the “Bucharest Nine” issued a statement on Tuesday calling for Ukraine to receive a path to membership. “We expect that in Vilnius, we will upgrade our political relations with Ukraine to a new level, and launch a new political track that will lead to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, once conditions allow,” the statement continued. “We will continue our support to Ukraine on this path.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron said last month Paris will not support full membership for Kiev. Macron called for NATO to “build something between the security provided to Israel and a full-fledged membership.” 

    There appears to be a consensus among members of the North Atlantic alliance on arming Ukraine as part of a significant multi-year commitment. “America and our allies are helping meet Ukraine’s needs on the current battlefield while developing a force that can deter and defend against aggression for years to come,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a speech in Finland on Friday. “That means helping build a Ukrainian military of the future, with long-term funding.”

    Anders Rasmussen has been engaged with Ukrainian leadership on behalf on NATO…

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

    Rasmussen claimed that Macron was beginning to budge on the issue. “After a slow start, momentum was now building behind these ideas,” including in France, he said. Rasmussen noted that some members, such as Germany, believe that giving Ukraine a path to membership could provoke Russia. 

    However, the former NATO Secretary-General believes that some member states threatening to send troops to Ukraine will push Berlin and others to give Kiev a quick path to membership in the alliance.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/09/2023 – 02:00

  • Assange Perilously Close To Extradition After High Court Denies Right To Appeal
    Assange Perilously Close To Extradition After High Court Denies Right To Appeal

    Authored by Joe Lauria via Consortium News,

    A single judge on the High Court of England and Wales has rejected imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s nearly year-old request to appeal the British decision to extradite him to the United States to stand trial on espionage and computer intrusion charges.

    The High Court at the Royal Courts of Justice, Wiki Commons

    Assange’s legal team has one last recourse in the U.K. and has five days to request a hearing before the court. 

    Stella Assange, Assange’s wife, issued this statement on Thursday:

    “On Tuesday next week my husband Julian Assange will make a renewed application for appeal to the High Court. The matter will then proceed to a public hearing before two new judges at the High Court and we remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the U.S. government.”

    The single judge on the court, Sir Jonathan Swift, issued the 3-page decision on Tuesday.  It is not yet publicly available on the High Court’s website.  

    In December, Assange appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. The court could issue an emergency injunction to stop Assange’s extradition until it examines the case.    

    Assange initially won the case against extradition in the lower court based on his health and conditions of U.S. prisons. This was overturned by the High Court after the court accepted U.S. written assurances that Assange would not be mistreated in U.S. prisons.  

    An application from Assange to the U.K. Supreme Court to appeal that decision was not granted. In July last year Assange’s team filed a cross appeal to the High Court on eight grounds including that the prosecution was political and that it violated the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty barring extradition for political offenses.  

    It was this application for appeal that Swift rejected 11 months later. 

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

    The reaction from press freedom groups was swift.

    “It is absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life and permanently impact the climate for journalism around the world,” said Rebecca Vincent, director of campaigns at Reporters Without Borders. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 23:45

  • Pence's Inaugural Foreign Policy Of Campaign: 'F-16s For Ukraine Now'
    Pence’s Inaugural Foreign Policy Of Campaign: ‘F-16s For Ukraine Now’

    “President Joe Biden has been slow in providing military resources to Ukraine,” former Vice President Mike Pence complained during a CNN town hall Wednesday. He launched his campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination this week.

    “We are [still] waiting on F-16s to be transferred from somewhere,” he said, arguing there should essentially be no limit to what Kiev receives from the United States.

    Image: then VP Mike Pence at a military base press briefing, via USAF

    “I believe the United States of America needs to continue to provide the courageous soldiers in Ukraine with the resources they need to repel … the Russian invasion and restore their territorial integrity,” Pence declared just on the heels of his official campaign announcement.

    After a-year-and-a-half of wave after wave of anti-Russia sanctions, along with tens of billions pledged and spent for Ukraine, Pence still thinks the real problem is that Biden is not doing “enough”. 

    So it seems the Neocon foreign policy wing of the GOP will be well-represented in the upcoming 2024 debates, given also presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has been loudly denouncing the positions of Trump and DeSantis on Ukraine…

    Haley, the only woman in the race for the Republican nomination, lambasted DeSantis for saying this year that Ukraine was a “territorial dispute”, a comment that drew widespread criticism and that he has since walked back. “For them to sit there and say that this is a territorial dispute – that’s just not the case, or to say that we should stay neutral,” Haley told voters in the early nominating state of Iowa during a televised CNN town hall event.

    She said: “It’s in the best interest of our national security for Ukraine to win.”

    Democrats have tended to use the old Russiagate playbook and smear any Republican presenting a more dovish position as ‘pro-Kremlin’. Certainly they’ve continued this rhetoric with Trump and are doing so with DeSantis as well.

    Looking ahead, Trump in particular will have an easy time of pouncing on Pence and Haley during the primary related to their foreign policy stances. Prior to becoming president, Trump had been the first GOP nominee in history to condemn (and utterly mock) Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. This non-interventionist stance proved popular among Republican voters, especially on the younger end of the spectrum. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 23:25

  • The FDA Pledges To "Stop The Spread" Of Misinformation
    The FDA Pledges To “Stop The Spread” Of Misinformation

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

    It is a tight contest over which U.S. regulatory agency is most captured by industry. But leading the pack is surely the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Many of us in the past believed the main problem with the agency was the costs it imposed on industry. The situation turns out to be more complicated. Whatever its past, it’s become an industry-dominated vending machine for drug approvals enacted with a very expensive rubber stamp.

    The ordeal of the COVID vaccine proved it. So long as the check cleared, the FDA was ready with committee-based approvals for which no one in particular took responsibility. On Aug. 31, 2021, as the FDA was preparing to approve boosters for a variant that had already been superseded, two top officials resigned in protest: Marion Gruber, director of the Office of Vaccines Research and Review, and her deputy, Phil Krause.

    They just couldn’t be part of the unfolding disaster. These were principled decisions. They should have marked a complete upheaval in the agency. But because hardly anyone in the mainstream media cared, and because both the agency and the industry decided to look the other way and pretend like it didn’t matter, the resignations without precedent made no difference at all.

    And here we are in mid-2023 and agency capture is more intense than ever. No one doubts it. But it never ends with just financial and regulatory corruption. There is another stage, which is suppressing information and censorship. One might suppose that the FDA would have nothing to do with that end of things. But that would be wrong.

    The FDA has now joined the censorship crowd, in effect masquerading as the one source of truth regarding pharmaceuticals.

    “Inaccurate information spreads widely and at speed,” the agency says, “making it more difficult for the public to identify verified facts and advice from trusted sources, such as the FDA. However, everyone can help to stop the spread. If you see content online that you believe to be false or misleading, you can report it to the applicable platform:”

    What follows at the FDA’s site are links to all the mainstream social media platforms and a method of reporting wrongthink. Note especially the invocation of the slogan “Stop the spread.” Yes, we heard that during the whole of COVID. It was never clear what the purpose of the slogan was in the first place. The spread simply could not be stopped. The virus did what it wanted to do and everyone got hit and nearly everyone recovered with a stronger immune system than before.

    So “Stop the spread” was always a pretext for human control by the state. It was never anything else. And now we see the FDA appropriating the same language to shut down open discussion of what the heck happened to this agency over the last three years. Keep in mind that the top experts at the FDA itself have penned denunciations of the agency’s own processes. It’s hardly “disinformation.”

    At the link at the FDA itself, there is a 55-second video that is straight out of Orwell. If someone claims that the government is up to no good, the agency says that this is very clearly wrong. You should verify that claim against “nonprofit fact checking organizations” (which are controlled by government) or “a government resource,” as if these are the only two credible venues out there.

    The FDA is coming very close to saying that if the government does not confirm it, it is not true. The first time I heard such a preposterous claim it was from Jacinda Ardern, the one-time dictator of New Zealand who flat out told the national media that the government would “continue to be the one source of truth.” When I heard that, I immediately assumed she would be shouted down by every civilized person on the planet.

    The opposite happened. Ardern instead was lauded and praised, winning a top speaking slot at Harvard and was cheered by know-nothing students. And now the British royal family has conferred on her the title Dame Ardern for her “service” to New Zealand. This woman is probably the single most hated leader in the whole of that country’s history and yet King Charles has decided that her service is worthy of a royal title.

    This censorship stuff is no longer an aberration, a mistake made in panic, a secret plot to violate settled norms, or something about which these people are embarrassed once caught. Censorship has become the main agenda of many governments in the world today. It is being codified by the European Union, promoted by NATO, and institutionalized in every regulatory bureaucracy.

    And there is a feeling of panic in the air about all of this, almost as if these agencies and industries are freaking out about losing control and desperate to regain the monopoly that they believe they once had. They have every intention of ramping up the spying, putting more pressure on social media, and otherwise deploying every trick in the book for clamping down on those who would dare to disagree.

    Over the last three years, we’ve discovered that the best information about the virus and the vaccines has come from outside the agency and from unexpected sources. I invite you to peruse the archive of writing by Dr. Maryanne Demasi at Brownstone, for example. Here you will find extensive and highly documented proof that this agency is captured, manipulating data for industrial ends, and tricking the population into accepting medicines they don’t need and are not proven either safe or effective.

    If government posited itself as one source of information among many, that would be one thing. We could take it with a grain of salt. But that is not what is happening. Governments around the world are positing themselves to gain the full monopoly on information and doing it through surreptitious means that fly in the face of the whole ethos of freedom itself, and with the ironic result of the triumph of misinformation and disinformation.

    We must realize that these efforts can no longer be written off as weird aberrations. The push is organized, focused, intense, and involves security agencies at the highest levels. They have made their peace with the idea of hardcore censorship and will push it as far as it can go.

    There is another worry too. Right now, there are myriad lawsuits extant that are challenging the cooperation between industry and government to restrict the free-speech rights of citizens. These lawsuits are succeeding. Discovery has unearthed a vast amount of proof that all of this is taking place in a very nonchalant way, as if it were perfectly normal for government to insist that social media companies block information they don’t like, even that which is admitted to be true.

    These legal efforts seem to be succeeding. So why does this continue? Why is every agency, even the FDA, ramping up its censorship campaigns? Do they not care? My worry is that their power is so out of control that they frankly do not care what the courts say. Not even the Supreme Count has a police force to enforce its judgments. From what I can tell, the collaboration between government and industry is so tight and normalized that they have every intention to keep it up even after the courts slap them all down.

    What are free people supposed to do then?

    The government has effectively announced that it considers free speech to be a pandemic. And we know how they deal with pandemics: lockdown.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 23:05

  • New Forecast Shows Wildfire Risks Explode In Northeast As El Nino Looms
    New Forecast Shows Wildfire Risks Explode In Northeast As El Nino Looms

    Millions of people in major US cities throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are breathing “unhealthy” air as smoke-filled skies persist for the third day. While the smoke from Canadian wildfires might dissipate in the coming days, troubling weather outlooks reveal new fire risks for the Eastern Half of the US. 

    Hopefully, the apocalyptic Blade Runner 2049-esque scenes from Washington, DC, to New York City will be over by the end of the week. 

    However, a new forecast from the National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlooks reveals beginning in July — wildfire risks will explode to “above normal” conditions in several Northeast states, as well as the Upper Midwest and East North Central states. 

    Also, notice how California fire risks are “below normal” for many areas this summer while the Pacific Northwest will see “above normal” risks. 

    June

    July

    August

    September 

    Meanwhile, corporate media has sounded the alarm about “global warming” as the culprit for the fires. There may be a more logical reason behind the fires, such as an emerging El Nino weather phenomenon that usually tends to change the climate in these regions to hotter and dryer conditions. 

    And for those continuing to promote that humans are responsible for all this weather chaos, well, we have some bad news: “No, El Niño and La Niña are naturally occurring climate patterns and humans have no direct ability to influence their onset, intensity or duration,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has stated. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 22:45

  • "Just Tip Of Iceberg": CMBS Storm Unfolds As Delinquent Office Loans Hit Five-Year High
    “Just Tip Of Iceberg”: CMBS Storm Unfolds As Delinquent Office Loans Hit Five-Year High

    The commercial real estate space is experiencing stress following the recent turmoil in the regional bank sector, with the rapid rise in interest rates, tightening lending standards, and structural changes, such as sliding demand for office buildings. 

    Some structural factors, such as remote work and hybrid work, have doomed the office space segment. This has left empty office buildings scattered across major US cities as the number of landlords falling behind on repayments due to the difficulty of refinancing and high vacancies has hit a five-year high. 

    According to real estate data firm Trepp, more than 4% of office loans packed into commercial mortgage-backed securities were delinquent in the last 30 days as of May, the highest level since 2018. 

    Dan McNamara, the founder of Polpo Capital Management, told Bloomberg about impending CRE turmoil: 

    “This is just the tip of the iceberg for office delinquencies as $35 billion in CMBS office loans are scheduled to mature this year and the refinancing market is effectively shut to this asset class.” 

    The rise in delinquencies comes as security card swipe data from Kastle shows many workers have yet to return to their desks in major US cities, resulting in high office space vacancies nationwide. 

    After banking failures, we first warned premium subs about the “CRE Nuke Goes Off With Small Banks Accounting For 70% Of Commercial Real Estate Loans“ in mid-March. 

    As Goldman pointed out to clients days ago, one major issue is a steep maturity wall of floating and fixed-rate CMBS loans due this year and next. The inability to refinance in these challenging market conditions will likely unleash a tidal wave of defaults in the second half of this year. 

    Already, we have noted “CRE Giant Brookfield Defaults On $161 Million Debt For DC Office Buildings” and “San Fran’s CRE Apocalypse: The City’s Two Biggest Hotels Have Defaulted.” And also cited data from Moody’s Analytics that showed first-quarter CRE prices fell for the first time in over a decade. 

    Goldman Sachs chief credit strategist Lotfi Karoui told clients last month, “the most accurate portrayal of current market conditions” is data via the Green Street Commercial Property Price Index, which suggests trouble ahead. 

    Just how much danger? Karoui believes “Green Street indicates a 25% year-over-year drop in office property values and a 21% drop in apartment property values.” 

    So the combination of high vacancies, sliding prices, and tightening lending standards is a perfect storm that could ignite an eruption of delinquencies in office loans in the coming quarters. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 22:30

  • "It's Really Unprecedented": Solar Power Generation Cut In Half Due To Canada Smoke
    “It’s Really Unprecedented”: Solar Power Generation Cut In Half Due To Canada Smoke

    For the sake of solar power, let’s hope Canada can bring its rampaging arsonists to heel. That’s because the shroud of smoke that covered much of the Eastern US seaboard, has sent solar power generation in parts of the eastern US plummeting by more than 50% as wildfires rage in Canada.

    According to the region’s grid operator, solar farms powering New England were producing 56% less energy at times of peak demand compared with the week before. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that electricity generated by solar across the territory serviced by PJM Interconnection LLC, which spans Illinois to North Carolina, was down about 25% from the previous week.

    Massive wildfires are more commonly associated with the US West – where insurers are quietly dropping coverage due to massive fire-linked losses – but drought across eastern and central Canada has sparked thousands of blazes there so far this year, blanketing the US East Coast and Midwest in an surreal, Marsian-orange haze.

    “With a situation like this, it’s really unprecedented” in the Northeast, said Matt Kakley, a spokesperson for ISO-New England. “We don’t have a lot of historical data to look back on. There is some learning in real time.” Solar accounts for about 3% of power generation in New England.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 22:25

  • Teamsters To Begin Process To Authorize Leaders To Strike UPS
    Teamsters To Begin Process To Authorize Leaders To Strike UPS

    By Mark Solomon of FreightWaves

    UPS Teamsters will begin in-person voting this week to authorize the union’s leaders to call a strike in the event that the rank and file believe that the company refuses to negotiate a fair agreement before the current five-year contract expires July 31.

    The strike authorization vote will be conducted at local union halls or at UPS locations designated by a specific local.

    Voting must be completed by June 16.

    A yes vote does not result in a strike. It only authorizes union leaders to call a strike if deemed necessary.

    According to the dissident group Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a yes vote gives the union more leverage at the bargaining table, while a no vote would destroy its ability to win a fair contract because the company will feel there will be no opposition to a contract proposal.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 21:45

  • Citi Dismantles Popular CitiFX Commentary And Analysis Team
    Citi Dismantles Popular CitiFX Commentary And Analysis Team

    Over the years, we have periodically used CitiFX’s real-time market wire as one of our preferred sources of high-grade commentary and analysis.

    Alas, it in a few days (or hours) this source of information will go dark because according to Bloomberg, Citigroup has “dismantled” its global team that provides commentary and analysis on foreign-exchange markets.

    While all jobs within the CitiFX global FX strategy team are affected – with employees in London and New York leaving the firm – some people may continue to work with Citi in other capacities, sources told Bloomberg.

    Citigroup made the drastic change because other parts of the bank, such as its research division, are offering similar services, according to a person with knowledge of the plans. The real reason: cost-cutting.

    And in another cost-cutting move, Citigroup has also dismantled its Latin America corporate bond trading team as liquidity tightens and issuance dries up, Bloomberg News reported earlier Thursday.

    Among those leaving or expected to leave Citigroup are Ebrahim Rahbari, global head of FX analysis and content; Benjamin Randol, lead North America macro FX strategist; and Giammarco Miani.

    Thomas Fitzpatrick, global head of CitiFX Technicals at the bank’s FX Strategy arm, and one of Wall Street’s better chartists, also exited the firm last week, Bloomberg reported.

    These departures are hardly not the last ones. In early March, Citigroup began cutting hundreds of jobs across the company, with the Wall Street giant’s investment banking division among those affected. However, the cuts amount to less than 1% of Citigroup’s 240,000-person workforce, which is why in a time of stagnating revenues many more heads will roll.

    Staffers across the firm’s operations and technology organization and US mortgage-underwriting arm were also among those being affected, with the routine cuts part of Citigroup’s normal business planning, the people said. There’s been no broad mandate for managers to cut staffers; instead, various divisions have been grappling with different reasons for the cuts, Bloomberg reported.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 21:33

  • Lira Plunges After Erdogan Appoints Co-CEO Of Failed First Republic Bank As New Central Bank Governor
    Lira Plunges After Erdogan Appoints Co-CEO Of Failed First Republic Bank As New Central Bank Governor

    Turkish President Erdogan, fresh from his re-election as president, has named Hafize Gaye Erkan as the new central bank head – and first ever female CBRT governor – replacing Sahap Kavcioglu in a move that some optimists claim may signal an attempt at returning to more conventional monetary policy (spoiler: it won’t). But even if it does mean the attempted end of Erdoganomics, the outcome will be another disaster for the Turkish economy for the simple reason that Erkan was formerly co-CEO of the failed First Republic Bank, and before that she of course worked at Goldman Sachs. Her current job will be to oversee the failure of Turkey, and take as much of the blame as possible even though the real culprit is someone else entirely.

    Hafize Gaye Erkan 

    The announcement, made through a decree in the Official Gazette, completes a makeover of Erdogan’s top economic team after Mehmet Simsek’s appointment as treasury and finance minister. In his time as governor, Kavcioglu never deviated from Erdogan’s belief that lowering interest rates can slow inflation.

    And now that Turkey is out of reserves, even if Erdogan wants to put an end to the devastating MMT episode he put his country through, there simply is no more money.

    While Bloomberg incorrectly claims that her appointment “was taken by markets as a sign of possible normalization in Turkey’s monetary policies after years of ultra-low borrowing costs” the reality is just the opposite and the lira quickly tumbled to a fresh record low in Asia on Friday after the news hit. The currency was indicated down almost 2%, which would mark a fresh record low.

    While we expect Erkan to be fired within a month or two, if not weeks, her success will also depend on how much policy autonomy she will enjoy under Erdogan, according to Nick Stadtmiller, head of product at Medley Global Advisors.

    “Erkan’s appointment hopefully marks an improvement over the policies of her predecessor,” he said. “The lingering question is whether Erdogan will allow the central bank to raise rates sufficiently to bring down inflation.”

    And since Erdogan will never allow anyone else to have full autonomy over Turkey’s money printer, the answer of how much Erdogan will allow rates to rise is zero.

    The Turkish central bank has been at the center of the growth-at-all-costs strategy that Erdogan has pursued since he turned his office into the nexus of all executive power in 2018. Erdogan argues lower interest rates slow inflation, a belief that contradicts conventional economic theories. There is no reason why Erdogan’s outlook on economics should change now that a return to normalcy would mean a devastating economic depression: at least as long as he pursues the status quo, Erdogan can pretend that it’s some evil outside force that is causing Turkey’s misery, much as he has been doing for the past decade.

    And to show just how much Erdogan demands to be in charge of the central bank, before installing the outgoing central bank Kavcioglu as governor in March 2021, Erdogan ousted his three predecessors for tightening monetary policy too much as he wielded more power over the direction of interest rates.

    Kavcioglu never deviated from Erdogan’s guidance on borrowing costs. Despite price growth reaching a peak of 86% last year, the central bank under his stewardship delivered zero rate hikes and instead slashed the benchmark to 8.5% from 19% at the start of his tenure. The result is hyperinflation, economic collapse and a currency that looks like this.

    Finally, since merely switching around puppets will do nothing for the country which now needs to sell most of its gold to kick the can for at least a few months, we expect that today’s news will inevitably lead to an even faster collapse in the Turkish Bolivar. Indeed, at least check the USDTRY was trading at 23.56 for the dollar, a fresh record low.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 21:25

  • Look Around And What Do You See? Social Defeat
    Look Around And What Do You See? Social Defeat

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    How often do you see acknowledgements that social defeat and social depression are rampant in America?

    If you do a search for social defeat, you find hundreds of links to studies of rodents. Here, we demonstrate that social defeat stress (R-SDS) impairs goal-directed motivation in male mice. “Social defeat is initiated when a male rodent is introduced into the home cage of an older, aggressive, dominant male.” “The social defeat stress model.” And so on.

    When applied to humans, the definitions are generalized in psychological terms: “The definition of Social Defeat is the loss of power, status, or self-esteem as a result of verbal or physical abuse by others.” “Social defeat (SD) is defined as a feeling of having lost the fight leading to a loss of valuable status or of important personal goals.” And so on.

    In my analysis, social defeat is a complex response to systemic economic, social and political inequalities. In other words, social defeat is the only possible outcome of structurally generated extreme asymmetries of wealth, income and power. Downward mobility excels in creating and distributing social defeat.

    Social defeat arises in strict social hierarchies in which the few dominate the many. Overcrowding exacerbates the many ills of social defeat within these social hierarchies based on dominance.

    In my lexicon, social defeat manifests as a spectrum of anxiety, insecurity, chronic stress, powerlessness, and fear of declining social status. Countless studies have identified the destructive consequences of chronic social defeat: social avoidance, passivity, depression, hyper-aggression, increased food intake and body mass, drug addiction, and so on.

    What do you see when you look around? I see all the manifestations of widespread chronic social defeat. When the system has been rigged to favor the dominant few at the expense of the many, the only possible outcome is systemic social defeat which manifests as all the ills listed above.

    Downward mobility and social defeat lead to social depression. Here are the conditions that characterize social depression:

    1. Unrealistically lofty expectations of endlessly rising prosperity have been instilled in generations of citizens as a birthright.

    2. Part-time and unemployed people are marginalized, not just financially but socially.

    3. Widening income/wealth disparity as those in the top 10% pull away from the shrinking middle class.

    4. A systemic decline in social/economic mobility as it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain middle class security or hold onto it.

    5. A widening disconnect between higher education and employment: a college/university degree no longer guarantees a stable, good-paying job. (This is what historian Peter Turchin calls overproduction of elites.)

    6. A failure in the Status Quo institutions and mainstream media to recognize social depression as a reality.

    7. A systemic failure of imagination within state and private-sector institutions on how to address social depression issues.

    8. The abandonment of middle class aspirations by the generations ensnared by the social depression: young people no longer aspire to (because they cannot afford) families or homeownership.

    9. A loss of hope in the young generations as a result of the above conditions.

    The rising tide of collective anger arising from social depression is visible in many places: road rage, violent street clashes between groups seething for a fight, the destruction of friendships for holding the “incorrect” ideological views, and so on.

    The unwelcome reality is that America chose economic and financial policies that transferred $50 trillion from labor to politically powerful capital. If this doesn’t seem possible, please read the RAND study in its entirety: Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018.

    Next, read the summary from Time.com The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% — And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure.

    Here’s an excerpt:

    There are some who blame the current plight of working Americans on structural changes in the underlying economy–on automation, and especially on globalization. According to this popular narrative, the lower wages of the past 40 years were the unfortunate but necessary price of keeping American businesses competitive in an increasingly cutthroat global market. But in fact, the $50 trillion transfer of wealth the RAND report documents has occurred entirely within the American economy, not between it and its trading partners. No, this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn’t inevitable; it was a choice–a direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.

    We chose to cut taxes on billionaires and to deregulate the financial industry. We chose to allow CEOs to manipulate share prices through stock buybacks, and to lavishly reward themselves with the proceeds. We chose to permit giant corporations, through mergers and acquisitions, to accumulate the vast monopoly power necessary to dictate both prices charged and wages paid. We chose to erode the minimum wage and the overtime threshold and the bargaining power of labor. For four decades, we chose to elect political leaders who put the material interests of the rich and powerful above those of the American people.

    Those who gained the pilfered wealth credit their “hard work.” That’s not the full story. Policies stripmined labor and the middle class and funneled the trillions to well-connected capital via tax loopholes, subsidies, favorable tax write-offs, family trusts and many other policy decisions that could only benefit the top 0.1%, who now own more of America’s wealth than the bottom 80%.

    While the bottom 50% of America’s households lost ground as their share of the nation’s wealth shrank by a third to a meager 3%, the share of the top 1% soared by 40% to 32%.

    How often do you see acknowledgements that social defeat and social depression are rampant in America, and that the causes are systemic, the result of policies chosen by the nation’s leadership elites? Shall we be brutally honest and admit the answer is never?

    And what do you expect to be served at the banquet of consequences of this systemic generation of social defeat and social depression? Perhaps a pendulum swing to the opposite extreme?

    New Podcast: Charles Hugh Smith on Getting Ready for a Real Recession (38 min) (38 min)

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

    Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 21:05

  • Man Convicted Of Nonviolent Crime Cannot Be Stripped Of Gun Rights: Appeals Court
    Man Convicted Of Nonviolent Crime Cannot Be Stripped Of Gun Rights: Appeals Court

    A Philadelphia federal appeals court has ruled that a Pennsylvania man convicted of a nonviolent crime cannot be stripped of his 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

    A rifle at a gun shop in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 13, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    Bryan Range was convicted in 1995 of one count of making a false statement to obtain food stamps amid a dire financial situation. He completed a three-year probation, made $2,500 in restitution, and has committed no crimes aside from minor traffic offenses and fishing without a license since then.

    After he pleaded guilty in 1995, it was classified as a misdemeanor punishable by up to five years in jail – a conviction which technically made him ineligible to possess a firearm under federal law, which states that it is “unlawful for any person … who has been convicted in any court, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” to own guns or ammunition.

    In 2021, a federal judge ruled against Range’s challenge. While his case was pending appeal, the US Supreme Court decided a landmark Second Amendment case which settled on a two-step test for the constitutionality of restrictions on firearms.

    The two-step process, set forth by Supreme Court Justice Thomas Clarence, first requires the court to determine whether the Second Amendment’s “plain text” covers an individual’s conduct. If so, then that conduct is presumptively protected, and the government must prove that its law is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” –Epoch Times

    In applying the test to Range’s case, a majority of the judges agreed in an 11-4 ruling (pdf) delivered on June 6th that despite his criminal record, he remains one of “the people” protected by the 2nd Amendment, and therefore the burden fell on the US government to prove that disarming Range would conform to “historical tradition” dating to the nation’s founding.

    “Yet the Government’s attempts to analogize those early laws to Range’s situation fall short,” wrote Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman in the majority opinion.

    The fact that people during the Early Republic era sometimes got executed for committing nonviolent crimes, according to Hardiman, doesn’t mean that the state, then or now, could constitutionally strip a felon of his Second Amendment rights if he was not executed, because “the greater does not necessarily include the lesser.”

    “Because the Government has not shown that our Republic has a longstanding history and tradition of depriving people like Range of their firearms, [the federal law] cannot constitutionally strip him of his Second Amendment rights,” Hardiman wrote.

    The judges did note that the June 6 decision is limited to Range’s individual circumstances: he was banned from owning guns because the nonviolent crime he committed decades ago carried a relatively lengthy maximum prison sentence. -Epoch Times

    “Our decision today is a narrow one,” read the majority opinion. “Bryan Range challenged the constitutionality of [the federal law] only as applied to him given his violation of [the Pennsylvania law].”

    As the Epoch Times notes further;

    Other Opinions

    Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote a concurring opinion, saying that even though the government failed to carry its burden in this case, the federal felon-in-possession ban still stands lawful.

    “This is so because it fits within our Nation’s history and tradition of disarming those persons who legislatures believed would, if armed, pose a threat to the orderly functioning of society. That Range does not conceivably pose such a threat says nothing about those who do,” Ambro wrote. “And I join the majority opinion with the understanding that it speaks only to his situation, and not to those of murderers, thieves, sex offenders, domestic abusers, and the like.”

    Ambro was joined by Judges Joseph Greenaway and Tamika Montgomery-Reeves, who were appointed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, respectively.

    In one of the three dissenting opinions, Circuit Judge Patty Shwartz pointed to now-unconstitutional firearm bans on groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, Catholics, Quakers, and Loyalists. She argued that these restrictions, no matter how repugnant and unlawful they are today, serve as an analogy good enough to justify disarming people such as Range.

    “The founders [of the United States] categorically disarmed the members of these groups because the founders viewed them as disloyal to the sovereign. The felon designation similarly serves as a proxy for disloyalty and disrespect for the sovereign and its laws,” the Obama appointee wrote. “Such categorization is especially applicable here, where Range’s felony involved stealing from the government, a crime that directly undermines the sovereign.”

    Shwartz also warned that even though her colleagues have clarified that their opinion is “narrow,” the analytical framework they have applied to reach the conclusion could render most, if not all, felon firearm bans unconstitutional.

    “The ruling is not cabined in any way and, in fact, rejects all historical support for disarming any felon,” she wroted. “As a result, the Majority’s analytical framework leads to only one conclusion: there will be no, or virtually no, felony or felony-equivalent crime that will bar an individual from possessing a firearm.

    “This is a broad ruling and, to me, is contrary to both the sentiments of the Supreme Court and our history.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 20:45

  • Jaw Dropping Stats – Reports Of Bud Light Memorial Day Sales Dropping -60% As Brand Boycott Continues
    Jaw Dropping Stats – Reports Of Bud Light Memorial Day Sales Dropping -60% As Brand Boycott Continues

    Authored by Sundance via The Last Refuge,

    Memorial Day customarily kicks off summer and the beer beverage industry generally looks forward to the enhanced sales that come from summer.  However, if the recently published reports of Anheuser-Busch sales are accurate, which includes a stunning 60% sales drop during the holiday, the brand position of Bud Light is in freefall.

    While the impacts do have a regional trend based on consumer boycotts and patterns, when the Daily Mail reports, “numbers are suffering primarily due to a decline in Bud Light sales that reached as high as a 60 percent drop off over the week that ended on Memorial Day,” we can be certain the executive offices of A/B are watching closely. The feedback from wholesalers and distributors to the parent company must be something beyond alarm.

    Worse still, the forward-looking data trend doesn’t offer any hope.  Things are getting worse for the parent company.

    (Daily Mail) – […] For the week ending May 20, Bud Light sales across the US fell nearly 26 percent compared to the same period last year. For the week ending May 6, in-store sales plummeted 23.6 percent. And the week before that, ending April 29, sales dropped by 23.3 percent.

    This follows declines in sales for the week ending April 22, which saw a 21.4 percent decline. Seven days earlier, the dip has been 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.

    The data – showing that US sales of Bud Light are dropping by as much as 20 percent each week – is being uniformly viewed by industry experts as a negative trend that may not reverse itself anytime soon.

    Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the ‘whole industry is in shock’. (read more)

    It is safe to say the Bud Light brand is now firmly connected to the image of transgender ideology. As a result, it would appear that anyone who holds a Bud Light beverage is essentially identifying themselves as a transvestite pickle-puffer, and that could potentially draw considerable side-eyes from anyone in a public place outside the region of San Francisco, California.

    As further noted by the New York Post, “Demand for Bud Light over the crucial Memorial Day weekend — the official kickoff of the summer beer buying season — was lukewarm with many store shelves still holding cases of the once mighty beer, Williams said after a spot check of local stores.  At least one store was trying to unload a 24-pack of Bud Light for just $3.49, according to Beer Business Daily.”

    Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michel Doukeris reportedly addressed the ongoing boycott’s impact on delivery drivers, salespeople, and wholesalers on a recent earnings call. It is a little bit odd to see A/B positioning themselves as victims of their customers.

    “This situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers: The delivery drivers, sales representatives, our wholesalers, Bud owners and servers,” Doukeris said, according to ABC News. “These people are the fabric of our business. They are our neighbors, family members, and friends. They are in every community in America. We’ve been doing everything we can to support our teams.”

    It would appear that Anheuser-Busch the corporation, are refusing to accept or acknowledge their responsibility in creating this crisis for their brand.  The brand image issue was not forced upon them.  These were decisions made by the marketing division of the company, and now they place blame for the consequences on their customers.

    Every time, in every story, in every print and broadcast update, as the ongoing events are told or written – every visual aide that accompanies the news includes that weird guy with the Bud Light beer in his hand.  This is now a bizarre marketing self-fulfilling prophecy. The articles and news telling updates to the story are now optically affirming the Bud Light brand as a beverage exclusively for transgenders.

    This level of ongoing public relations failure is something for the record books.  I wonder if Target Inc is paying attention.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 20:25

  • Revealed: Bombshell FBI Document Alleges $5 Million Bribe Paid To Joe Biden By Burisma Exec
    Revealed: Bombshell FBI Document Alleges $5 Million Bribe Paid To Joe Biden By Burisma Exec

    Someone has leaked the contents of the stonewalled FBI document, form FD-1023, which alleges that President Joe Biden was paid $5 million by an executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, where his son Hunter sat on the board.

    This, according to a confidential human source, who told this to the FBI during a June 2020 interview, according to Fox News.

    The form, dated June 30, 2020, is from a “highly credible” confidential human source who had detailed multiple meetings and conversations they had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, beginning in 2015. The CHS had been working with the FBI as a regular, reliable source of information since 2010, and has been paid approximately $200,000 by the bureau.

    The Burisma executive sought the advice of the confidential source, a business professional, on gaining U.S. oil rights and getting involved with a U.S. oil company, the sources familiar with the documdnt said. The Burisma executive was speaking with the confidential source to “get advice on the best way to go forward” in 2015 and 2016.

    According to the FD-1023 form, the confidential human source said the Burisma executive discussed Hunter’s role on the board. The confidential human source questioned why the Burisma executive needed his or her advice in acquiring access to U.S. oil if he had Hunter Biden on the board. The Burisma executive answered by referring to Hunter Biden as “dumb.” -Fox News

    According to the Burisma executive, the company had to “pay the Bidens” because Ukraine’s lead prosecutor, Victor Shokin, was investigating Burisma.

    According to the CHS, he suggested that the Burisma executive “pay the Bidens $50,000 each,” to which the Burisma executive replied “not $50,000,” it is “$5 million.”

    “$5 million for one Biden, $5 million for the other Biden,” the executive reportedly said.

    The $5 million payments appeared to reference some sort of “retainer” Burisma intended to pay the Bidens in order to ‘clean up’ several issues – including the investigation led by Shokin. Another source told Fox it was a “pay-to-play” scheme.

    The CHS believes that the $5 million payment to Joe Biden and $5 million to Hunter happened, as the Burisma executive said he “paid” the Bidens is a way “through so many different bank accounts” that investigators would not be able to “unravel this for at least 10 years.”

    The document also makes reference to ‘the Big Guy,’ thought (and as seen on Hunter’s laptop) to be a reference to Joe Biden.

    According to the Burisma executive, they “didn’t pay the Big Guy directly.” Meanwhile, sources tell Fox that the Burisma executive appears to be at a “very, very high level” of the company, with one source suggesting it could be the president, Mykola Zlochevsky – though the executive’s name is redacted in the document.

    Biden notably bragged on camera about a quid-pro-quo arrangement to have Shokin fired.

    “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden said in 2018 at a Council for Foreign Relations event, recalling a conversation with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

    “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired,” he continued. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

    Of course we would be remiss if we didn’t note that this is exactly what Trump was impeached for asking about, after a 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy – who Trump asked to launch investigations into the Biden family, particularly Hunter’s dealings with Burisma, and Joe Biden’s involvement in Shokin’s ouster.

    The confidential source, according to the sources familiar with the FD-1023 form, told the Burisma executive he should “get away” from the Bidens and said the executive should “not want to be involved” with them.

    A source familiar with the document told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source goes on to detail a later conversation with the Burisma executive following the 2016 presidential election. The confidential source asked the Burisma executive if he was “upset” that Donald Trump won.

    The source said the Burisma executive told the confidential source that he was “an oracle,” referring to his or her advice to “get away” from the Bidens due to fears of potential investigations into their dealings. -Fox News

    The revelations came to pass after a whistleblower approached GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) to let them know that the FBI was in possession of the FD-1023.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 20:05

  • Rickards: The Coming Shock To The Global Monetary System
    Rickards: The Coming Shock To The Global Monetary System

    Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

    On Aug. 22, about 2½ months from today, the most significant development in international finance since 1971 will be unveiled.

    It involves the rollout of a major new currency that could weaken the role of the dollar in global payments and ultimately displace the U.S. dollar as the leading payment currency and reserve currency.

    It could happen in just a few years.

    The process by which this will happen is unprecedented, and the world is unprepared for this geopolitical shock wave.

    This monetary shock will be delivered by a group called the BRICS.

    The acronym BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

    This play for global reserve currency status by the BRICS will affect world trade, direct foreign investment and investor portfolios in dramatic and unforeseen ways.

    The most important development in the BRICS system concerns the expansion of BRICS membership. This has led to the informal adoption of the name BRICS+ for the expanded organization.

    There are currently eight nations that have formally applied for membership and 17 others that have expressed interest in joining. The eight formal applicants are: Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

    The 17 countries that have expressed interest are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

    There’s more to this list than just increasing the headcount at future BRICS meetings.

    If Saudi Arabia and Russia are both members, you have two of the three largest energy producers in the world under one tent (the U.S. is the other member of the energy Big Three).

    If Russia, China, Brazil and India are all members, you have four of the seven largest countries in the world measured by landmass possessing 30% of the Earth’s dry surface and related natural resources.

    Almost 50% of the world’s wheat and rice production as well as 15% of the world’s gold reserves are in the BRICS.

    Meanwhile, China, India, Brazil and Russia are four of the nine highest-population countries on the planet with a combined population of 3.2 billion people or 40% of the Earth’s population.

    China, India, Brazil, Russia and Saudi Arabia have a combined GDP of $29 trillion or 28% of nominal global GDP. If one uses purchasing power parity to measure GDP, then the BRICS share is over 54%. Russia and China have two of the three largest nuclear arsenals in the world (the other leader is the United States).

    By every measure — population, landmass, energy output, GDP, food output and nuclear weapons — BRICS is not just another multilateral debating society. They are a substantial and credible alternative to Western hegemony.

    BRICS acting together is one pole of a new multipolar or even bipolar world.

    When the new currency launch is announced in August, the currency will not fall on an empty field. It will fall into a sophisticated network of capital and communications. This network will greatly enhance its chances of success.

    The BRICS are also developing an optical fiber submarine telecommunications system that would connect its members. It is being developed under the name BRICS Cable. Part of the motivation for BRICS Cable is to foil spying by the U.S. National Security Agency on message traffic carried through existing cable networks.

    What’s behind this quest to ditch the dollar? In no small part the answer is U.S. weaponization of the dollar through the use of sanctions.

    On numerous occasions from 2007–2014, I warned U.S. officials from the Treasury, Pentagon and intelligence community that overuse or abuse of dollar sanctions would lead adversaries to abandon the dollar to avoid the impact of sanctions.

    Such abandonment would lead to the diluted potency of sanctions, unforeseen costs imposed on the U.S. and eventually to the collapse of confidence in the dollar itself. These warnings were mostly ignored.

    We have now reached the first and second stages of this forecast and are dangerously close to the third.

    For years, the U.S. has used sanctions to punish nations like Iran. But the sanctions the U.S. and its allies imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine last year went far beyond previous sanctions regimes. They were unprecedented.

    Many other nations began to conclude that they could be next if they run afoul of the U.S. on certain issues. And that fear has greatly accelerated the push to opt out of the dollar system entirely.

    This desire is not limited to current targets such as Russia but is shared by potential targets including China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and many others.

    The BRICS+ present a realistic effort to de-dollarize global payments and eventually global reserves.

    For years, I’ve argued that the dollar would remain the world’s leading reserve currency for longer than most people think.

    But below, I show you why a new BRICS+ currency could greatly accelerate the demise of the dollar as the world’s leading reserve currency.

    How could it happen so much faster than I previously thought? Read on.

    The Coming Shock to the Global Monetary System

    The global desire to move away from the dollar as a medium of exchange for international trade in goods and services is hardly new. The difference today is that it’s gone from a discussion point to a novelty to a looming reality in a remarkably short period of time.

    Dubai and China have recently concluded an arrangement whereby Dubai will accept Chinese yuan in payment for oil exports from Dubai. In turn, Dubai can use the yuan to buy semiconductors or manufactured goods from China.

    Saudi Arabia and China have been discussing similar oil-for-yuan arrangements but nothing definitive has yet been put in place. These discussions are made complicated by Saudi Arabia’s long-standing petrodollar deal with the U.S. Still, some progress along these lines is widely expected.

    China and Brazil have recently reached a broad-based bilateral currency deal where each country accepts the currency of the other in trade. Meanwhile, there’s a growing strategic relationship between China and Russia as the two superpowers jointly confront the United States. In the trading relationship between the two nations, Russia can pay in rubles for Chinese manufactured goods and other exports while China pays in yuan for Russian energy, strategic metals and weapons systems.

    Yet all these arrangements may soon be superseded by a new BRICS+ currency, which will be announced in Durban, South Africa, at the annual BRICS Leaders’ Summit Conference on Aug. 22–24.

    The currency will be pegged to a basket of commodities for use in trade among members. Initially, the BRICS+ commodity basket would include oil, wheat, copper and other essential goods traded globally in specified quantities.

    In all likelihood, the new BRICS+ currency would not be available in the form of paper notes for use in everyday transactions. It would be a digital currency on a permissioned ledger maintained by a new BRICS+ financial institution with encrypted message traffic to record payments due or owing by participating parties. (This is not a cryptocurrency because it is not decentralized, not maintained on a blockchain and not open to all parties without approval.)

    The latest information from the BRICS working groups is that this basket valuation methodology is encountering the same problems that John Maynard Keynes encountered at the Bretton Woods meetings in 1944.

    Keynes initially suggested a basket of commodities approach for a world currency he called the bancor. The difficulty is that global commodities included in any basket are not entirely fungible (there are over 70 grades of crude oil distinguished by viscosity and sulfur content among other attributes).

    In the end, Keynes saw that a basket of commodities is not necessary and that a single commodity — gold — would better serve the purpose of anchoring a currency for reasons of convenience and uniformity.

    Based on the impracticality of commodity baskets as uniform stores of value, it appears likely that the new BRICS+ currency will be linked to a weight of gold.

    This plays to the strengths of BRICS members Russia and China, who are the two largest gold producers in the world and are ranked sixth and seventh respectively among the 100 nations with gold reserves.

    These and related developments are frequently touted as the “end of the dollar as a reserve currency.” Such comments reveal a lack of understanding as to how the international monetary and currency systems actually work.

    The key mistake in almost all such analyses is a failure to distinguish between the respective roles of a payment currency and a reserve currency. Payment currencies are used in trade for goods and services. Nations can trade in whatever payment currency they want — it doesn’t have to be dollars.

    Reserve currencies (so-called) are different. They’re essentially the savings accounts of sovereign nations that have earned them through trade surpluses. These balances are not held in currency form but in the form of securities.

    When analysts say the dollar is the leading reserve currency, what they actually mean is that countries hold their reserves in securities denominated in a specific currency. For 60% of global reserves, those holdings are U.S. Treasury securities denominated in dollars. The reserves are not actually in dollars; they’re in securities.

    As a result, you cannot be a reserve currency without a large, well-developed sovereign bond market. No country in the world comes close to the U.S. Treasury market in terms of size, variety of maturities, liquidity, settlement, derivatives and other necessary features.

    So the real impediment to another currency as a reserve currency is the absence of a bond market where reserves are actually invested. That’s why it’s so difficult to displace Treasuries as reserve assets even if you wanted. Again, no country in the world can come close to the U.S. in that regard.

    But here’s where it gets interesting, and why the dollar could lose its leading reserve status much faster than previously thought.

    That’s because the BRICS+ currency offers the opportunity to leapfrog the Treasury market and create a deep, liquid bond market that could challenge Treasuries on the world stage almost from thin air.

    The key is to create a BRICS+ currency bond market in 20 or more countries at once, relying on retail investors in each country to buy the bonds.

    The BRICS+ bonds would be offered through banks and postal offices and other retail outlets. They would be denominated in BRICS+ currency but investors could purchase them in local currency at market-based exchange rates.

    Since the currency is gold backed it would offer an attractive store of value compared with inflation- or default-prone local instruments in countries like Brazil or Argentina. The Chinese in particular would find such investments attractive since they are largely banned from foreign markets and are overinvested in real estate and domestic stocks.

    It will take time for such a market to appeal to institutional investors, but the sheer volume of retail investing in BRICS+-denominated instruments in India, China, Brazil and Russia and other countries at the same time could absorb surpluses generated through world trade in the BRICS+ currency.

    In short, the way to create an instant reserve currency is to create an instant bond market using your own citizens as willing buyers.

    The U.S. did something similar in 1917. From 1790–1917, the U.S. bond market was for professionals only. There was no retail market. That changed during World War I when Woodrow Wilson authorized Liberty Bonds to help finance the war.

    There were bond rallies and Liberty Bond parades in every major city. It became a patriotic duty to buy Liberty Bonds. The effort worked, and it also transformed finance. It was the beginning of a world where everyday Americans began to buy stocks, bonds and securities as retail investors.

    If the BRICS+ use a kind of Liberty Bond patriotic model, they may well be able to create international reserve assets denominated in the BRICS+ currency even in the absence of developed market support.

    This entire turn of events — introduction of a new gold-backed currency, rapid adoption as a payment currency and gradual use as a reserve asset currency — will begin on Aug. 22, 2023, after years of development.

    Except for direct participants, the world has mostly ignored this prospect. The result will be an upheaval of the international monetary system coming in a matter of weeks.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 19:45

  • Trump: "I Have Been Indicted"
    Trump: “I Have Been Indicted”

    Former President Donald Trump on Thursday posted on Truth Social that he’s been indicted, “seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” and that he’s been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday at 3pm.

    According to the NY Times, Trump faces seven charges, and is expected to surrender himself to authorities in Miami on Tuesday.

    Donald Trump via Truth Social:

    The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is “secured” by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time.

    I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM. I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!

    This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America. We are a Country in serious and rapid Decline, but together we will Make America Great Again!

    Meanwhile, the NY Times writes;

    Here’s what to know:

    • The indictment reaches back to the end of Mr. Trump’s term in January 2021, when the documents — many of which were said to be in the White House residence — were packed in boxes along with clothes, gifts, photos and other material, and shipped by the General Services Administration to Mar–a-Lago.

    • After lengthy efforts by the National Archives throughout much of 2021 to get Mr. Trump to turn over the material he had taken with him — considered government property under the Presidential Records Act — Mr. Trump turned over 15 boxes of material in January 2022. The boxes turned out to contain highly sensitive material with classified markings, prompting a Justice Department investigation.

    • Last August, federal agents descended on Mar-a-Lago to conduct an extraordinary search that turned up material that Mr. Trump had failed to turn over in response to a subpoena months earlier demanding the return of any classified documents still in his possession.

    • The Justice Department has repeatedly questioned Mr. Trump’s level of cooperation with the efforts to recover the documents, saying that it had recovered more than 100 documents containing classified markings even after an attestation by one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers that a “diligent search” by his legal team had not turned up any further materials.

    • Mr. Trump still faces other ongoing criminal investigations. They include Mr. Smith’s inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to hold onto power following his election loss — and how they led to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol — and an investigation by a prosecutor in Georgia into his attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss in that vital swing state. Mr. Trump is scheduled to go on trial in the Manhattan criminal case next March.

    According to sources familiar with the case, the DOJ declined to delay the planned indictment of Trump to investigate allegations that a senior prosecutor on the case tried to influence a key witness by discussing a federal judgeship with the witness’ lawyer, Just the News reports.

    On Monday, Trump said via Truth;

    Trump was indicted last month in Manhattan on allegations that he falsified business expenses to conceal hush money payments to a porn star.

    As Techno Fog notes via The Reactionary;

    After years and years of prosecutorial and investigative abuses and crimes, the Department of Justice has finally indicted Trump. In doing so, the DOJ has inserted itself into the 2024 presidential election, again disenfranchising millions of voters. It’s a sad day for the country and a sobering day for those who wish for the equal administration of justice.

    And as Just the News notes, no prior sitting US president has ever been indicted in federal court. If the grand jury accepts the case, it will spark an unprecedented legal battle which will undoubtedly make its way to the Supreme Court, while casting a shadow over the 2024 election. According to some polls, Trump leads the GOP field by as many as 50 points.

    Trump’s defense

    According to the report, “Trump’s lawyers have prepared a robust defense based on months of legal research, anticipating Smith might pursue charges. Trump’s lawyers are prepared to argue that a president had broad powers under the Constitution to keep documents or declassify without any fanfare documents from his presidency and take them with him upon leaving office.”

    They will rely heavily on a U.S. District Court case in Washington more than a decade ago involving former President Bill Clinton that concluded a president had broad and mostly unchallengeable power to determine which documents from his presidency can be kept personally and that any documents moved to Trump’s homes in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., and Bedminster, N.J., fall under that category.

    An American Bar Association report in 2022 seemed to agree with Trump’s assertion that “guidelines support his contention that presidents have broad authority to formally declassify most documents that are not statutorily protected, while they are in office.” -Just the News

    Prosecutors, meanwhile, plan to counter by arguing that constitutional authority doesn’t extend to documents which contain National Defense Information.

    As Jonathan Swan notes;

    Meanwhile…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 19:38

  • Tucker Talks Taboos After MSM Ignores Instagram Kiddie-Porn Bombshell
    Tucker Talks Taboos After MSM Ignores Instagram Kiddie-Porn Bombshell

    After his first episode topped 100 million views, Tucker Carlson is back with Episode 2, exploring how we, as a population, are controlled (or coerced) directly (through laws) or indirectly (through taboos).

    Carlson observes the changing societal taboos in America, suggesting that they are being dictated from above rather than evolving organically, focusing explicitly on the shift in attitudes towards race-based attacks, adultery in politics, and child molestation.

    “Let’s say you wanted to control a country,” the former Fox News man begins rather joltingly.

    “Well,” he explains “you’d want to make sure you had the complete obedience of everybody within your borders who was authorized to use deadly force… you’d start with the military… [and other agencies] like the IRS.”

    “Controlling the guns would be a top priority for you if ever wanted to go dictatorial.”

    But, Carlson, asks, what if you wanted more, not simply to control people’s behavior, “but to control how they think.”

    “In that case,” he remarks, “you’d need to take charge of its taboos.”

    A taboo is something that by popular consensus is not allowed, it is not illegal, but it doesn’t need to be.

    “Over time, social prohibitions are more powerful and more enduring than laws.”

    Until fairly recently, Tucker points out that it was taboo in this country to attack people on the basis of their race, but he notes “apparently we no longer believe that – punishing people on the basis of their skin color is not only permitted in modern America, it is mandatory… as long as the victims are white.”

    Carlson questions the definition and scope of white supremacy as described by President Joe Biden…

    Which brings Carlson to this week’s horrific WSJ expose of Instagram’s kiddie-porn rings which he notes has resulted in exactly nothing as “one of the largest circulation newspapers in the world reported that one of the world’s most influential companies was promoting pedophilia and nobody in power did anything about it.”

    As Carlson notes, “The people who run this country no longer see child molesters as the worst among us”

    He expresses concerns about the blurred lines of crime, the erosion of defined legal codes, and the need to protect societal taboos as guiding moral principles.

    In fact, he continues, “what we are allowed to dislike is being dictated to us from above, sometimes by force.”

    The trick, that has happened slowly and then all at one, is that “when a crime has no definition, anyone can be guilty of it”

    “Don’t let them rationalize away your intuitive moral sense.”

    “Cling to your taboos like you life depends on them… because it does.”

    Watch the full Tucker On Twitter episode below:

    Here is the full Tucker transcript:

    Transcript:

    Hey it’s Tucker Carlson let’s say you wanted to control a country how would you start we’d want to make sure you had the complete Obedience of everybody inside your borders who was authorized to use deadly force he would start with the military and then federal law enforcement and move your way down ultimately to agencies like the IRS controlling the guns would be a top priority for you if you would ever wanted to go dictatorial if you wanted to be baby doc

    But let’s say you had deeper Ambitions; let’s say you wanted the power not simply to control people’s behavior but to control how they think not just their bodies but their minds as a God would in that case you need to take charge of the society’s taboos a taboo is something that by popular consensus is not allowed a taboo may not be illegal but it doesn’t need to be over time social prohibitions are more powerful and more enduring than laws.

    Societies are defined by what they will not permit as our famously religions; Muslims don’t eat pork neither do Orthodox Jews traditional Christians oppose extramarital sex the Amish avoid electricity and so on.

    American society isn’t overtly religious but it’s governed by taboos and it always has been what’s interesting is how fast our taboos are changing this is not happening organically what we’re allowed to dislike is being dictated to us from above sometimes by force until fairly recently for example it was Taboo in this country to attack people on the basis of their race that was the main lesson of the second world war we were told again and again

    The one thing we learned from the Nazis is that it’s dangerous to reduce human beings to their genetic code there is no master race that made sense but apparently we no longer believe it punishing People based on their skin color is not only permitted in modern America it is mandatory

    Throughout business and government and higher education as long as the victims are white at one time that would have been unimaginable so the current behavior of our politicians as recently as the 1992 presidential campaign adultery was considered disqualifying for anyone seeking higher office Bill Clinton was very nearly derailed in the New Hampshire primary by his affair with Jennifer Flowers Clinton went to elaborate lengths to lie about the relationship because he had no choice; but he was the last presidential candidate who had to meet the standard

    By 2008 it was obvious to anybody who was paying attention that Barack Obama had a strange and highly creepy personal life yet nobody ever asked him about it; by that point a Leader’s Behavior within his own marriage the core relationship of his life had been declared irrelevant it was Barack Obama’s business not yours one by one with increasing speed our old taboos have been struck down those that remain have lost their moral Force

    Stealing flaunting your wealth striking women smoking marijuana on the street Shameless public hypocrisy taking other people’s money for not working all of these things used to be considered unacceptable in America not anymore;

    So it probably shouldn’t surprise us that the greatest taboo of all is teetering on the edge of acceptability – child molestation.

    A generation ago talking to someone else’s children about sex was widely considered grounds for a thrashing; touching them sexually was effectively a death penalty offense. When Jeffrey Dahmer was bludgeoned to death in the bathroom of a Wisconsin prison in 1994 the Milwaukee district attorney had to caution the public not to turn Dahmer’s killer into a folk hero.

    Jeffrey Dahmer had molested and murdered children people felt justified in celebrating his death; 25 years later that standard had changed dramatically in the state of Wisconsin as in the rest of the country in the summer of 2020 during the BLM riots in Kenosha seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse defended his life from a convicted child molester called Joseph Rosenbaum Rosenbaum was trying to kill Rittenhouse so Rittenhouse shot him in self-defense but it was Joseph Rosenbaum whom the media cast as the victim of the story

    Kyle Rittenhouse meanwhile an underage boy fending off violence from a child molester was denounced as the villain ultimately he was indicted for murder one of the things that this tells us is the people who run our country no longer see child molesters as the worst Among Us.

    It’s never been more obvious than it was yesterday when the Wall Street Journal ran a long expose about Kitty porn on Instagram Instagram the journal found quote helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage sex content Instagram connects pedophiles and connects them to content sellers of child pornography

    In one instance the paper discovered that Instagram was recommending the phrase “incest toddlers” to users who’d expressed interest in similar material.

    By the way no one at Instagram denied that any of this had happened nor did Mark Zuckerberg who controls the company the journal story was accurate it was all pretty shocking; but not as shocking as what happened next which was effectively nothing at all

    The largest circulation newspaper in the United States revealed that one of the world’s most influential companies was promoting pedophilia and nobody in power did anything about it; the justice department did not announce an investigation Congress did not schedule hearings the guy who runs Instagram Adam Ozeri still has his job; in fact Ozeri’s last tweet which is pinned is a video of himself bragging about how effective Instagram’s algorithm is.

    Keep in mind as you watch this it’s real people often talk about the algorithm but there is no one algorithm for Instagram there are many algorithms and ranking processes we use to try to personalize the experience to make it as interesting as we can for each and every person who uses Instagram we believe in this idea of personalization what you’re interested in and what I’m interested in is different and so therefore your Instagram and my Instagram should be different

    What you’re interested in and what I’m interested in is different Ozeri explains patiently so your Instagram feed will be different from mine; you’re interested in children that’s why you’re getting all the incest toddler posts it’s a highly personalized experience that tweet is still up tonight of course everybody at Instagram in fact everyone everywhere in Authority will still claim to think that child molestation is bad but the tone has changed unmistakably;

    When they say it’s bad they mean it in a kind of abstract way bad like a Civil War in central Africa is bad you wouldn’t prefer it but there are reasons it happens that’s what we now refer to pedophiles as minor attracted persons because honestly who can judge these people are a sexual minority; so pause before you attack them and in any case it’s not like pedophiles are barging into the Capitol Building to sit in Nancy Pelosi’s chair we’re asking uncomfortable questions about the last election; for miscreants like that no punishment is too harsh so far this month the FBI’s Washington field office has issued 11 press releases 10 out of 11 have been about January 6th

    Keep in mind that January 6th happened more than two and a half years ago now you know why the feds were ignoring kid touchers on Instagram they’re too busy to respond they’ve got much more important things to do like finding White supremacists;

    White supremacists are America’s new child molesters; we’ve got zero tolerance for white supremacists because no one threatens the life of this country more than they do here’s Joe Biden once again making that very clear last month “stand up against the poison of white supremacists I did my inaugural address to a single out as the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy [Applause] and I’m not saying this because I’m at a black hpcu I say wherever I Go”

    Pardon the feedback but you heard the point white supremacy is the most dangerous threat to the American Homeland Joe Biden just told us that it’s more dangerous than the threat of nuclear war with Russia it’s more dangerous than the threat of the Mexican drug cartels who’ve already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and are now in control of swaths of our Southwestern States; white supremacy is that bad. Joe Biden says in fact it’s worse but what is it that’s the question can anyone in Authority actually Define white supremacy; what is it is white supremacy liking white people too much? if so that’s going to put those of us with white children in a pretty tough spot; or as white supremacy something much more obviously bad like trying to expel all non-whites from America in creating some kind of ethno state. 

    If that’s Joe Biden’s definition what exactly is the scope of this threat how many people are currently working on this American white ethnostate project and what are the chances they’re going to pull it off? Our guess is not very many and precisely zero but we can’t say for sure because no one has showed us the numbers.

    These are not rhetorical questions when the president of the United States describes something as the worst possible crime Americans can commit you have a right to know what that crime is; you used to have that right under our pre-revolutionary legal code before George Floyd questions like these were easy to answer. A crime was defined as something that an elected legislature had explicitly banned usually an act that hurts somebody else.

    In America crimes were described precisely with words in English and then preserved in books which you could read yourself; if you ever wondered whether you were committing a crime you could just look it up; you could know for sure whether you were a criminal, now you can’t.

    And needless to say that’s the point the point of the exercise – to keep you off balance, to keep you afraid. When no one’s willing to define the offense you can’t be sure whether or not you’re committing it; you could be accused at any time and everything you have taken from you: you live in fear.

    Remember this guy Emmanuel Cafferty was driving near a black lives matter protest in Poway in his E Truck when he says he noticed somebody following him and trying to get his attention later that person posted a picture of him making what some believed is a white supremacy symbol on Twitter. Cafferty says he had no idea about any white power symbols and was just cracking his knuckles outside his window when the picture was taken of him later that day he says he was notified by SDG&E that he would be suspended pending an investigation and a few days later he was fired.

    What that man did was so offensive as you just saw that local news had to blur the photograph of his hand he was fired from his job his life was destroyed for cracking his knuckles. He didn’t know cracking his knuckles was racist in his defense but then nobody did until the day that poor Emmanuel Cafferty was unwise enough to crack them.

    When a crime has no definition anyone can be guilty of it. It’s hard to relax in a country like that the old system was better: government operated on the basis of laws not amorphous moral Terror. Politicians couldn’t accuse you of something they couldn’t Define the legal code was straightforward; child molestation was a crime; having unfashionable opinions was not. Outside of the public sphere the population mostly governed itself as it does in every society and used taboos to do it.

    You knew what was allowed and what wasn’t because the rules didn’t change very often the taboos were organic; they derived from collective experience and Instinct the two most reliable guides to life. They evolved for a reason they still do.

    Our job at this point is to protect them despite the hectoring – the non-stop hectoring from the people in charge. You know the outlines of right and wrong you’re born knowing them. So don’t let them talk you out of what you can smell don’t let them rationalize away your intuitive moral sense. Cling to your taboos like your life depends on them, because it does.

    Cherish and protect them like family heirlooms: that’s exactly what they are.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 19:34

  • "Family Man" Lionel Messi Snubs Saudis In Favor Of Miami To Usher In Twilight Of Legendary Career
    “Family Man” Lionel Messi Snubs Saudis In Favor Of Miami To Usher In Twilight Of Legendary Career

    While the Saudis may have notched a win this week with their tie-up between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, legendary soccer star Lionel Messi quickly handed Riyadh a comeuppance when he chose to spend the twilight of his career in Miami instead of in Saudi Arabia. 

    It was rumored that Messi was going to be offered $1 billion to play in Saudi Arabia, a country where he has reportedly already worked as a tourist ambassador, Bloomberg wrote this week. 

    But the star turned down the payday to head to Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami, where details of his agreement have not yet been made public, though there are rumors of profit sharing agreements with Apple Inc. and Adidas AG, the report notes. 

    “I made the decision that I am going to Miami. I still haven’t closed it one hundred percent. I’m missing some things but we decided to continue my journey there,” Messi said earlier this week, as was reported by CNN. 

    Major League Soccer stated: “We are pleased that Lionel Messi has stated that he intends to join Inter Miami and Major League Soccer this summer. Although work remains to finalize a formal agreement, we look forward to welcoming one of the greatest soccer players of all time to our League.”

    Simon Chadwick, a professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School in Paris told Bloomberg that Messi is “a family man, very stable in his personal life, so as a brand he is very different than Ronaldo’s.”

    He said that in Miami, Messi will be “enjoying much more the day to day.”

    Messi’s foil, Cristiano Ronaldo, famously went on to play for Saudi Professional League club Al Nassr to end his career, reportedly reaping an ungodly €200 million per year in salary. Ronaldo reportedly turned down a move to Major League Soccer for the deal. Messi, naturally, has done the opposite. 

    Soccer mega-star David Beckham is part of Inter Miami’s ownership team, which may have helped in Messi’s decision making, multiple reports stated. 

    Barcelona club president Joan Laporta “understood and respected Messi’s decision to want to compete in a league with fewer demands, further away from the spotlight and the pressure he has been subject to in recent years,” a statement said. 

    Laporta and Messi’s father have committed to working on a “tribute from Barça fans to honor a footballer who has been, is, and always will be beloved by Barça,” CNN concluded. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 19:25

  • Inflation & Biden Regulations Are Making Life Hard; Small Business Owners Say
    Inflation & Biden Regulations Are Making Life Hard; Small Business Owners Say

    Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

    Small business owners are calling on Congress to address inflation by easing business regulations and taxes. They say Biden administration policies show disdain for small businesses.

    Silvia Lee, executive vice president, and Chief Lending Officer for First Community Bank in Corpus Christi, Texas, said a commercial customer told her he felt targeted.

    “He mentioned that he feels our government doesn’t want small businesses to succeed and only wants large companies in business,” she told the House Committee on Small Business at a June 7 hearing.

    David Zittel, a vegetable farmer from New York, called on Congress to protect small businesses.

    “The Zittels hope that vegetables will always be grown on our land for generations to come, and we look forward to carrying on the farming tradition but also look to Congress to ensure that laws and regulations do not put us out of business,” Zittel said.

    Zittel and the other witnesses said regulation is raising the cost of doing business to the point that they are in danger of pricing their products out of the market.

    Members of small business owners take part in a “Save Small Business” protest in Los Angeles, Calif., on Dec. 12, 2020. (Ringo Chiu/AFP via Getty Images)

    Lee said that raising interest rates to control inflation forces many of her bank’s customers, home builders, to scale back their operations.

    She told the committee that two builders in her area were forced to close with unfinished homes. This left their customers scrambling to find a builder to finish the jobs. She said she sees every day the impact government has on a business’s bottom line.

    Lee said that all of her bank’s employees bear some responsibility for compliance; at least 30 workers are responsible for ensuring compliance with banking regulations. She pointed out that ensuring compliance doesn’t increase a business’s profit margin. Committee member Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) agreed that something should be done.

    “That’s a dead investment,” he told Lee.

    A letter signed by 66 business owners and submitted to the committee called on Congress to mitigate the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

    A worker sits in an empty gift shop in New York City’s Chinatown on Feb. 13, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    That policy requires businesses to carry research and development costs on their books and depreciate them as an asset. The letter reads that in the past, business was allowed to expense research and development, which reduces the business’s tax burden and frees up money for more research, payroll, or other needs.

    According to the letter, the tax regulation is tough on new businesses.

    “Research, development, and experimentation costs can quickly eat away at a growing startup’s budget,” the letter reads.

    “But immediate expensing for R&E expenditures helps to offset these costs, allowing startups to propel the U.S. as a leader in global innovation.”

    But, at least one economist blames business for inflation.

    Josh Bivens is Chief Economist and Research Director for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. He said inflation is a complex issue, in this case, driven by businesses trying to deal with disruptions from the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He said that inflation is a global issue and that the United States is faring better than other countries in its recovery.

    ‘Shocks and Ripples’

    Bivens said the inflationary cycle began with “shocks and ripples” during the pandemic.

    “These shocks were the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the ripples were mostly about jockeying by different economic actors—corporations, workers, and suppliers—to protect their real incomes from these shocks,” Bivens’ written testimony reads.

    According to Bivens, the solution is more regulation. He said wealthier businesses could raise their prices while refusing to meet the increase in their suppliers’ prices. Some companies were forced to shut down. Others consolidated to survive. All this further disrupted the already tangled supply chain.

    According to Bivens, whether those transactions were good or bad depends on which side of the deal you are on.

    “One person’s income is another person’s cost,” he said.

    Not Happening Fast Enough

    Bivens said enacting and enforcing strong antitrust policies would “level the playing field.” This would hasten the reduction of inflation, which he said is already underway, although it is trending very slowly.

    “It’s not happening fast enough for most of us,” he said.

    Zittel pointed out that, as a farmer, he has practically no control over market prices, the weather, and other forces that impact his business. In addition, he said that the state and federal labor regulations, including minimum wage laws, control 50 percent of his business costs.

    “Farmers are price takers, not price makers,” Zittel said.

    Lee and Zittel disagreed with Bivens’ solution. They said a better plan is to reduce regulation and allow businesses to expand. Gordon Gray, of the American Action Forum agreed. He told the committee that the solution to inflation is basic.

    “Increase the supply,” Gray said.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/08/2023 – 19:05

Digest powered by RSS Digest