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It appears somebody at the Federal Reserve has figured out that the central bank can’t tame inflation, so it’s setting up a scapegoat – Uncle Sam.

A paper co-authored by Leonardo Melosi of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and John Hopkins University economist Francesco Bianchi and published by the Kansas City Federal Reserve argues that central bank monetary policy alone can’t control inflation.

The paper’s abstract asserts, “This increase in inflation could not have been averted by simply tightening monetary policy.”

In a nutshell, Melosi and Bianchi argue that the Fed can’t control inflation alone. US government fiscal policy contributes to inflationary pressure and makes it impossible for the Fed to do its job.

Trend inflation is fully controlled by the monetary authority only when public debt can be successfully stabilized by credible future fiscal plans. When the fiscal authority is not perceived as fully responsible for covering the existing fiscal imbalances, the private sector expects that inflation will rise to ensure sustainability of national debt. As a result, a large fiscal imbalance combined with a weakening fiscal credibility may lead trend inflation to drift away from the long-run target chosen by the monetary authority.”

There are a couple of startling admissions in this single paragraph.

First, the authors acknowledge that the federal government uses inflation as a tool to handle its debt. In other words, it acknowledges that we’re all paying an inflation tax.

Peter Schiff talked about this inflation tax in an interview on Rob Schmitt Tonight.

Inflation is a tax. It’s the way government finances deficit spending. Government spends money. It doesn’t collect enough taxes, so it has to run deficits. The Federal Reserve monetizes those deficits – prints money. They call it quantitative easing, but that’s inflation…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

If you thought the Coinbase bankruptcy disclosures were bad…

May 16, 2022

If you thought the Coinbase bankruptcy disclosures were bad…

Just wait ’til you see your government’s bail-in rules

One of the subplots that made for a bad week in crypto included a largely manufactured crisis around “The Coinbase bankruptcy disclosure”. After posting an earnings miss, the next shoe to drop was the discovery in the latest version of the Coinbase Terms of Service, the addition of text that included the following:

“Custodially held crypto assets may be considered to be the property of a bankruptcy estate, in the event of a bankruptcy, the crypto assets we hold in custody on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings and such customers could be treated as our general unsecured creditors”

This verbiage became a big deal with every corporate media outlet dumping all over it. It trended on Twitter and quickly went viral, almost as if this was some sort of revelation.

It’s not. It’s basically the oldest adage in crypto, “not your keys, not your coins” spelled out in writing.

Do you really think if you’re holding your crypto on some exchange that suddenly becomes insolvent it’s going to make a difference if a paragraph to that effect appears in the ToS or not? Good thing Mt Gox or QuadrigaCX didn’t have that in their ToS otherwise everybody with assets in either exchange would have been really screwed, right?

You’re screwed no matter what. At least Coinbase is calling your attention to it.

Don’t hold your crypto on the exchange, any exchange, full stop. Even the largest crypto exchange CEOs will tell you that.

But if you’re one of those people for whom this is something to be up in arms about, I’ve got news for you:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Board” is Even More Pernicious Than it Seems

May 5, 2022

Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Board” is Even More Pernicious Than it Seems

The power to decree what is “disinformation” now determines what can and cannot be discussed on the internet. It is now in the hands of trained disinformation agents of the U.S. Security State.

Official government portrait of Nina Jankowicz, appointed to serve as Executive Director of the new “Disinformation Board” to be housed within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (posted by Jankowicz to Twitter)

The most egregious and blatant official U.S. disinformation campaign in years took place three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. That was when dozens of former intelligence officials purported, in an open letter, to believe that authentic emails regarding Joe Biden’s activities in China and Ukraine, reported by The New York Post, were “Russian disinformation.” That quasi-official proclamation enabled liberal corporate media outlets to uncritically mock and then ignore those emails as Kremlin-created fakes, and it pressured Big Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor the reporting at exactly the time Americans were preparing to decide who would be the next U.S. president.

The letter from these former intelligence officials was orchestrated by trained career liars — disinformation agents — such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Yet that letter was nonetheless crucial to discredit and ultimately suppress the New York Post‘s incriminating reporting on Biden. It provided a quasi-official imprimatur — something that could be depicted as an authoritative decree — that these authentic emails were, in fact, fraudulent.

After all, if all of these noble and heroic intelligence operatives who spent their lives studying Russian disinformation were insisting that the Biden emails had all of the “hallmarks” of Kremlin treachery, who possessed the credibility to dispute their expert assessment?…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low

April 16, 2022

Feds Weigh Emergency Actions As Lake Powell Hits Historic Low

The megadrought in the US West continues to wreak havoc as Federal officials weigh reducing water deliveries downstream on the Colorado River to prevent shuttering of a massive dam that provides power to millions of people, according to AP News.

Last month, Lake Powell dropped to 3,525 feet (1,075 meters), the lowest level since the federal government dammed the Colorado River at Glen Canyon (located in northern Arizona) more than five decades ago. This has caused officials at the Interior Department to propose holding back water at the dam to maintain the dam’s ability to generate power.

Tanya Trujillo, the Interior’s assistant secretary, warned if Lake Powell drops below 3,490 feet (1,063 meters), it will produce electrical grid uncertainty for the western part of the US, potentially affecting up to five million customers across Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

“We’re in crisis management, and health and human safety issues, including production of hydropower, are taking precedence,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.

The record low water level also comes as researchers have found the US West has been experiencing some of the driest conditions in more than 1,200 years.

Over the decade, drought conditions have worsened. Several major Californian reservoirs have dried up, forcing people to evacuate their boats and causing hydroelectric plants to shutter due to insufficient water supplies to spin turbines.

Reservoirs across California are well below their historical averages (as of Apr. 14).

According to the US Drought Monitor data, the US West is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions.

New forecasts by federal government meteorologists may suggest drought conditions could deteriorate even more as there’s a 59% chance of La Niña for the Northern Hemisphere through summer. What this would mean is drier conditions.

Sri Lanka Cabinet Offers To Resign As Out-Of-Control Inflation Sparks Widespread Social Unrest

April 3, 2022

Sri Lanka Cabinet Offers To Resign As Out-Of-Control Inflation Sparks Widespread Social Unrest

Update (1535ET): Bloomberg reports that Sri Lanka’s cabinet has submitted its resignation, a ruling party member said, amid rising public anger about the government’s economic policies that have led to soaring living costs and a foreign exchange crisis.

“We gave resignations to the Prime Minister saying we are willing to leave at any time,” Education Minister Dinesh Gunawardena told reporters in Colombo late Sunday.

“After discussing with the President the steps to be taken will be decided.”

* * *

As we detailed earlier, the tiny island nation of Sri Lanka is experiencing worsening shortages of food, fuel, and medicine amid a foreign exchange crisis. A 36-hour curfew went into effect this weekend as mass anti-government protests over soaring living costs are underway.

Bloomberg reports that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa imposed a state of emergency on Friday after soaring inflation and widespread rolling blackouts for up to 13 hours a day resulted in protests in the capital and at the president’s private home. The emergency order gives authorities sweeping powers to detain and quell protests to restore public order.

Days ago, the Washington, D.C.-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) swooped in and initiated talks with Sri Lankan authorities on a rescue loan. Rajapaksa will fly to Washington for additional discussions with IMF officials.

A confluence of factors drained the South Asian island nation’s foreign exchange reserves by more than 70% since the virus pandemic began, including the collapse in tourism and poorly timed tax cuts.

Bloomberg explains more about the socio-economic crisis unfolding on the island nation of 22 million people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Coming Up For Air

February 26, 2022

COMING UP FOR AIR

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” – Originally attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but the actual author is now in question.

“That’s another (fine) mess you’ve gotten me into.” – Laurel & Hardy catchphrase.

Even though I’ve written about our collective insanity for well over 10 years now, to actually witness it’s metamorphosis from slow burn to raging wildfire is both frightening and breathtaking in scope and intensity. Unfortunately, we have many miles to go before some semblance of sanity returns, both collectively and individually. We are truly living in interesting times.

Those who still struggle to maintain some sense of sanity during these times are at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with raw unfiltered insanity. “We the Somewhat Sane” rely upon clearly defined rules of social, political and emotional decorum. We call this civilization, with a strong emphasis on being civil.

But we are severely (self) constrained when dealing with others out of a debilitating belief in the right of all to their own beliefs and self-determination. And expect others do the same with us. Normally this works reasonably well, at least in a civil society where the lunatics aren’t running the insane asylum. Or at least the transgressions are kept down to a dull roar, as my mother used to say.

We who are reasonably sane are self-constrained, those who are not are not. And to be perfectly frank, the unconstrained are quite alarming when witnessed up close and personal. It’s a proximity thing. A bear seen in the distance is an entirely different animal than one seen loping through the front lawn while you’re lounging on the porch. Or worse, you round the corner and find yourself between mama bear and her cubs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trudeau’s References to ‘Misinformation’ When Justifying His Emergencies Act Are Very Troubling

February 23, 2022

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises during Question Period in Ottawa on Feb. 15, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Trudeau’s References to ‘Misinformation’ When Justifying His Emergencies Act Are Very Troubling

With the parliament now formally invoking the Emergencies Act, many civil freedoms can be suspended in the name of dealing with our current emergency, whatever that may be.

The right to peaceful assembly and association has been suspended as gatherings are banned in certain areas. Property rights are being suspended as supporters of the Freedom Convoy are having their bank accounts seized and vehicles impounded. Rights pertaining to the security of the person have been suspended as police can force labour from people, such as tow truck drivers, upon threat of imprisonment.

As if the suspension of all the aforementioned rights wasn’t enough, in listening to Prime Minister Trudeau, it sounds like his government may want to infringe upon our rights even further under the dubious justification of quelling a protest crisis in Ottawa.

The Trudeau government may go after our rights to free speech, expression, and press.

During a press conference just prior to the parliamentary vote on the Emergencies Act, Trudeau expressed at length the reasons he felt invoking the Act was justified. Trudeau mentioned what he called “misinformation and disinformation” multiple times during the presser. What is in the Act that could be used to battle apparent misinformation if indeed such misinformation was part of why the Act was needed?

Nothing in the Emergencies Act itself refers to misinformation but it does give the government some strong powers that are open to some pretty broad interpretation. The government can now force Canadian banks to seize the assets of citizens without a court order. With no judicial oversight required, the government doesn’t need to justify to anybody why a citizen’s bank accounts should be seized. They need only order it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

WEF ‘Infiltration’: Rogan Redpilled, Canadian MP Cut Off For Asking – Accused Of Spreading “Disinformation”

February 20, 2022

WEF ‘Infiltration’: Rogan Redpilled, Canadian MP Cut Off For Asking – Accused Of Spreading “Disinformation”

Last month, 2017 footage of World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab resurfaced in which he boasts of having ‘penetrated’ various governments through its Young Global Leaders program. The clip is notable because the WEF – known best for its annual gathering of the global elite in Davos – has been openly pushing for digital IDs and vaccine passports, while leaders of said governments continue to impose Orwellian vaccine mandates which have resulted in widespread protests for medical freedom.

“I have to say, when I mention now names, like Mrs. (Angela) Merkel and even Vladimir Putin, and so on, they all have been Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum … But what we are very proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau … We penetrate the cabinets.”

“So yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau and I know that half of his cabinet, or even more than half of his cabinet, are actually Young Global Leaders.” -Klaus Schwab

Watch:

Other notable Young Global Leaders include: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda “this will never end” Ardern, French President Emmanuel Macron, and other high ranking officials from Germany, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark. It might even explain Pete Buttigieg’s odd success-to-competence ratio.

Enter the pandemic

Three years after Schwab bragged about having ‘penetrated cabinets’ of world governments, he wrote in a June 2020 publication titled Now is the time for a ‘great reset’ how the pandemic presented a “rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.”

Then in May 2021, the WEF acknowledged that “The Forum is involved in the WHO task force to reflect on those [vaccine credential requirements] standards and think about how they would be used.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

#222. The Forecast Project

February 15, 2022

#222. The Forecast Project

PREDICTING THE ECONOMY OF THE FUTURE

In the Western world, at least, there’s an almost palpable sense of public uncertainty, anxiety and discontent which might be attributed to a variety of causes.

Some ascribe it to specific issues, some to the over-reach and incompetence (or worse) of governments, and others to widening inequality between “the elites” and everyone else.

The view taken here is that the deteriorating public mood has a more straightforward explanation, which is that prior growth in economic prosperity has gone into reverse.

The cessation of growth and the onset of involuntary economic contraction are, of course, denied by governments, but this makes popular dissatisfaction worse.

If the economy as a whole is supposed to be growing, but the individual finds that his or her economic circumstances are deteriorating, it’s easy to assume that there must be some kind of bias in the system.

In fact, we don’t need to posit conspiracy theories, or look to ‘the machinations of the mighty’, to explain worsening hardship.

The simpler reality, hidden in plain sight, is that the prosperity of the average person is eroding and so, at the same time, is his or her sense of economic security. Efforts to use financial innovation at the macroeconomic level to stave off this trend have failed, driving people ever deeper into the coils of debt and other financial commitments.

In short, the average person is getting poorer, and feeling less secure. He or she doesn’t like it, and is baffled and suspicious over official assurances that it isn’t happening at all.

Projection – the land of hazard

Forecasting involves entering territory ‘where angels fear to tread’. But the publication of projections has now become imperative, made so (a) by the rapid worsening in the public mood, and (b) by the incomprehension that continues to inform policy decisions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trudeau To Unleash Never-Before-Used ‘Emergency Powers Act’ To Counter Protests As US-Canada Bridge Reopens

February 14, 2022

Trudeau To Unleash Never-Before-Used ‘Emergency Powers Act’ To Counter Protests As US-Canada Bridge Reopens

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has learned that Prime Minister Trudeau “will inform the provinces he will invoke the Emergencies Act to give the government extra powers to deal with the protests across the country. But in a meeting with the Liberal caucus, the PM said there were no plans to deploy the military.”

The move follows a meeting Sunday of the federal cabinet and its Incident Response Group (IRG).

Trudeau tweeted late Sunday that the IRG discussed “further actions the government can take to help end the blockades and occupations.”

Earlier that day, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live that the federal government has discussed invoking special emergency powers to deal with ongoing protests in Ottawa.

Blair described the attitude around invoking the Emergencies Act as “appropriate caution” rather than “reticence.”

As CBC concludes, the law gives the federal government carte blanche to cope with a crisis, including the ability to enact emergency powers that allow it to prohibit travel within a specified area or remove personal property, while imposing fines or jail time on people contravening new orders.

This is basically the ability to unleash ‘selective’ martial law on Canadians.

This comes after reports on Sunday, Canadian officials cleared the roadway and arrested “Freedom Convoy” demonstrators who held the line and blocked the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing for nearly a week. Canadian officials confirmed the bridge reopened earlier Monday morning as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to invoke emergency powers to squash protesters around the country.

Traffic cameras on Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor and Canadian automotive plants with Detroit, show increased traffic flows around 0930 ET in both directions, into the US, and into Canada.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Total Collapse in Confidence of Government on Every Level

February 13, 2022

The Total Collapse in Confidence of Government on Every Level

QUESTION: Greetings!
You have said “they” want the economy to turn down, this is their goal with all the lockdowns.
So now you say that if the economy has a low after March it will mean a decline into 2023.
Does this mean “they” are winning if this happens?

ANSWER: No. This is the most disastrous economic mess I think I have ever seen in history or my personal career. Here we have a collapse in the confidence of governments thanks to the COVID regulations. There is even confusion in businesses in NYC do they demand masks or is that now out completely? The WEF conspirators thought they would win. Just look at the Truckers who have brought Trudeau to his knees.

Biden and Western Leaders are begging Putin to PLEASE invade Ukraine. They now think this will provide the distraction they need to escape from their disastrous COVID scam that was the brainchild of the WEF and has FAILED to work.

Now, add to this mess, we are staring in the face of a total collapse in the confidence of central banks. They have nothing they can do about this type of inflation. Raising rates will have ZERO impact upon shortages other than making them worse. The Fed can keep raising rates until they hit 20%. All they will do is bankrupt more companies in the supply chain, bankrupt emerging markets, and in the end, the shortages will get far worse and prices will soar.

We are facing the total collapse of any confidence in government I suppose this is part of the computer warning that 2022 is a Panic Cycle Year in politics. Even the WEF crew has lost control. As an EXXON Gas Station boldly posted: “YOU ASSHOLES VOTED DEMOCRAT” and we now see what we will get when the only agenda is Climate Change.

Video from 1947 – Don’t Be a Sucker

February 13, 2022

Video from 1947 – Don’t Be a Sucker

This old film from 1947 serves as a warning — do not allow the government to divide us.

The video discusses how the people came together as the German people until Hitler came to power. The people were then divided by race and religion, separated, and no longer allowed to identify as simply “German.”

“If those people stuck together, if they had protected each other, they could have resisted the Nazi threat. Together they would have been strong, but once they allowed themselves to be split apart, they were helpless. When that first minority lost out, everybody lost out. They made the mistake of gambling with other people’s freedom,” the narrator said.

“You have a right to be who you are and say what you think because here we have personal freedom. These are not just fancy words, this is a practical and priceless way of living. But we must work it. We must guard everyone’s liberty or we will lose our own.”

The deep divide between the American people and mainstream politics and media

February 12, 2022

The deep divide between the American people and mainstream politics and media

A dangerous gulf exists between Americans’ concerns about their lives, their country and their future, and the priorities, proclivities and pre-occupations of the country’s mainstream politics and media. Other liberal democracies should heed the lessons.

In 2013 I collaborated in a survey that investigated the perceived probability of future threats to humanity in four Western nations: the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Across the four countries, over a half (54%) of people rated the risk of ‘our way of life ending’ within the next 100 years at 50% or greater, and almost three-quarters (73%) rated the risk at 30% or greater. A quarter (24%) rated the risk of ‘humans being wiped out’ in this time at 50% or greater.

The US stood out from the other three countries in several respects. It had the highest percentage (30%) who thought humans might be wiped out (19-24% in the other countries). It had a much higher level of agreement with fundamentalist responses to global threats, with 47% agreeing or strongly agreeing that ‘we are facing a final conflict between good and evil in the world’, and 46% that ‘we need to return to traditional religious teachings and values to solve global problems and challenges’. (The results presumably reflect the strength of religion in the US, especially ‘end time’ thinking among Christian fundamentalists.) In the other three countries only 30-33% agreed with these two statements.

The survey also included questions about how concerned people were about a range of personal and societal issues. The US stood out here too, with higher levels of concern about many societal issues, especially political and economic. Two thirds (65%) were moderately or seriously concerned about ‘the state of politics in my country’, compared to 42-53% for the other three countries; 64% were concerned about ‘corruption of politicians/officials’, compared to 39-47% in the other countries.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

They Don’t Just Lie To Us About Wars. They Lie To Us About Everything.

February 12, 2022

They Don’t Just Lie To Us About Wars. They Lie To Us About Everything.

Listen to a reading of this article:

❖

Propaganda isn’t just about manufacturing consent for wars and ridiculous governmental measures we’d never normally accept. That’s what most people think of when they hear that word, but there’s so very, very much more to it than that.

The lion’s share of propaganda goes not toward convincing us to accept new agendas of the powerful, but toward keeping us entranced in the status quo dream world which enables the powerful to have power in the first place. Toward normalizing status quo systems and training us to shape ourselves to fit into them like neat little cogs in a well-oiled machine.

And it’s not even a grand, monolithic conspiracy in most cases. The giant corporations who indoctrinate us with their advertisements, their Hollywood movies and shows, their apps, their websites and their news media are all naturally incentivized to point us further and further into delusion by the fact that they benefit from the status quo systems which have elevated them to wealth.

So day in and day out we are presented with media which train us what to value, where to place our interest and attention, what success looks like, and how a normal human behaves on this planet. And it always aligns perfectly with the interests of the rich and powerful.

They don’t just teach us what to believe. They teach us who we are. They give us the frameworks upon which we cast our ambitions and evaluate our success, and we build psychological identities out of those constructs. I am a businessman. I am unemployed. My life is about making money…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Societal Collapse Due to Climate Change and Conflict

February 11, 2022

SOCIETAL COLLAPSE DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT

An Existential Threat

There is a good paper floating about the internet warning that society could collapse due to climate change-related disasters and conflict in the next 20 years or so. Not good. Furthermore, according to the authors, such a collapse has been deemed not just possible, but quite plausible should nations of the world fail to take meaningful action.

This policy paper, titled “Existential climate-related security risk: A scenario approach,” paints a scenario in which global social order breaks down after people fail to band together and address the causes and effects of climate change. And soon, like within the next twenty years. Food shortages emerge as supplies run low, financial systems buckle causing economies to collapse, sickness and disease kill people by the millions, and natural disasters ravage the land. Mass migrations of refugees from broken countries and ruined environments strain even the more resilient nations to the breaking point. Trade breaks down, nations stop co-operating with each other, and conflicts eventually break out, plunging the world into war, and possibly into darkness.

The authors, David Spratt and Ian Dunlop write, “This scenario provides a glimpse into a world of ‘outright chaos’ on a path to the end of human civilization and modern society as we have known it, in which the challenges to global security are simply overwhelming and political panic becomes the norm.” I highly recommend giving it a read using the above link to the PDF.

They present this scenario, carefully outlined in the paper, as a potential outcome for the world in the near future should things continue as they have been. They are hoping that such a dire prediction will prompt governments around the world to treat the climate crisis as a national security issue, one that represents a clear existential threat to humanity…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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