GOV/MIL Main "Great Reset" Thread

SHEFFIELD: Gavin Newsom Is Turning California Into A Third World State

CARRIE SHEFFIELD
CONTRIBUTOR
September 18, 2022

Declining population for the first time in its existence, rising violent crime rates, soaring homelessness, the highest gas prices in the country, companies leaving in droves – California’s future is withering away.

The disturbing headlines keep churning out of the Golden State: “Suspects arrested for stealing guns from California home of Rep. Karen Bass,” “140+ arrested in massive California child sex crimes sweep,” “Santa Barbara County Reports Highest Murder Rate Since 2015,” and “antisemitic hate as crimes at an all-time high in CA.”

It’s no wonder then that Gov. Gavin Newsom himself has referred to part of his own jurisdiction as “a scene from ‘a Third World country.’” (RELATED: LIEBERMAN: A Little-Known UN Treaty Is A Raw Deal For America And The Senate Can’t Wait To Pass It)

Nonprofit California Forward reported earlier this year that “In terms of Education, another pillar of prosperity that tracks performance across the different stages of education, utilizing indicators like early childhood education and graduation rates, California is broadly similar to Latvia, the small country of 1.9 million in the former Soviet Bloc,” yet “Latvia has a GDP per capita of 17,619 or 22% of California.”

At the National Conservatism Conference in Miami (aka NatCon), tech titan Peter Thiel gave a withering, spot-on analogy comparing the striking similarities between California and Saudi Arabia. Both are subsidized heavily by “insane cash flows” of their main industries — oil for the Arab “Magic Kingdom” and tech for The Golden State.

“The way I would summarize the California framing,” said Thiel, a longtime resident of San Francisco and, since 2018, Los Angeles, “It’s roughly somewhere in between. It’s not as good as Norway. We’re not as bad as Equatorial Guinea. You should think of it basically roughly on par with Saudi Arabia.”

The billionaire tech investor, who said he recently bought a house in Miami that’s doubled in value since 2020, said massive subsidies enable an expansive, inefficient, bureaucratic class that crowds out poorer people by driving up real estate prices.

Indeed, even the liberal New York Times noted the hypocritical housing policies of California, which effectively zones out middle class families by overregulating building permits and denying multifamily housing developments.

Thiel said both California and Saudi Arabia have their own form of extreme religion — strict Islamic Wahhabism (which restricts women’s rights, for example) with the Saudis and liberal, orthodox wokeism for Californians. But he said most of the bureaucratic machines that run these cultural behemoths are “something like 20% true and 80%” convenient man-behind-the-curtain manipulation.

“It’s just sort of the Saudi prince bringing alcohol into the country or Gavin Newsom having dinner with friends at the French Laundry,” Thiel said. “That’s actually in some ways reassuring because it shows that you don’t really believe the Wahhabi or the woke nonsense, even though it sort of is part of the ideology …We should not confuse it as the main thing that’s going on.”

Thiel said while it’s easy to poke fun at the excesses of California’s terrible policies, he cautioned that Republicans shouldn’t just use “nihilistic negation” of these policies — wokeness, soft-on-crime, terrible energy policy and business regulations — without offering their own positive vision.

“We’re leaning way too far into the nihilistic negation,” Thiel said. “We don’t like the woke stuff, all of that’s true, but it’s not necessarily the way we get back to growth.”

Later at NatCon, Gov. Ron DeSantis from Florida (who is welcoming record numbers of wealthy California refugees) offered that positive vision.

In an embattled House and Senate map, Thiel’s wise words hold true: conservatism is William F. Buckley’s man standing athwart history yelling “Stop!” but that’s not enough.

We need a roadmap to restore California’s economy, protect working class jobs from destructive regulation, tamp down inflation, protect our Southern border, and empower parents with school choice that rewards excellence for students.

BREAKING: President Biden Has Just Declared That the Covid-19 Pandemic is 'Over'​

"The pandemic is over," Biden said. "We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over."​

Kyle Becker
2 hr ago

President Joe Biden on '60 Minutes' tonight just declared that he believes the Covid-19 pandemic is "over." The president's announcement marks a major shift in U.S. domestic policy after nearly three years of 'emergency' Covid measures.



"Is the pandemic over?" CBS' Scott Pelley asked.

"The pandemic is over," Biden said. "We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing mask, everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it's changing and I think this is a perfect example."

In February 2020, the Trump administration declared a "public health emergency" due to the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement came 3 days after the World Health Organization declared a Global Health Emergency.
On March 13, President Donald Trump declared Covid to be a national emergency, which activated billions of dollars in federal funding to fight the developing pandemic.

After Joe Biden is determined to be the president-elect on November 7, he announced the names of those who would serve on his COVID-19 Advisory Board. The same day, Pfizer releases data from its COVID-19 vaccine trial claiming that the vaccination was "90% effective."

The U.S. is now at over 99% seroprevalence for Covid-19, meaning that there was near-universal exposure to the virus, despite the vaccine mandates, mask mandates and lockdowns.

Despite the vaccines, President Joe Biden would oversee more Covid-related deaths than former President Donald Trump. Now, 606 days into Biden's presidency, he has finally declared the Covid pandemic to be "over."

While the coronavirus pandemic may now be officially 'over' in the United States, the damage from Covid response measures will still be impacting the country for decades.

White House Covid Advisers are Panicking After President Biden Declares Pandemic to Be 'Over'​

"The declaration was not part of his planned remarks ahead of the '60 Minutes' interview, two administration officials familiar with the matter told POLITICO."​

Kyle Becker
58 min ago

The White House is reportedly panicking after President Joe Biden declared the Covid pandemic "over" on "60 Minutes" on Sunday.

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1571655183138017281/pu/vid/474x270/KNsZI123PV3HHjqG.mp4?tag=12 .23 min

"Is the pandemic over?" CBS' Scott Pelley asked.

"The pandemic is over," Biden said. "We still have a problem with COVID.

We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing mask, everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it's changing and I think this is a perfect example."

According to a report by Politico, multiple White House Covid advisers were taken by "surprise."

Biden’s insistence on Sunday night that the pandemic is over caught several of his own health officials by surprise. The declaration was not part of his planned remarks ahead of the “60 Minutes” interview, two administration officials familiar with the matter told POLITICO.

Politico also attempted to walk back the White House's statement by referring to Covid-19 "cases."

Despite Biden’s statement, Covid has continued to exact a toll in the United States and around the world. The John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center lists more than 2 million Covid cases in the country in the last 28 days, with hundreds dying from the disease every day.

"Biden’s statement was the most definite one he has made about the pandemic since assuming the presidency in January 2021," Politico added. "He was less definitive when asked whether he planned to seek reelection."

“Is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen,” Biden said. He added that he would make his decision after the November midterms.
The U.S. is now at over 99% seroprevalence for Covid-19, meaning that there was near-universal exposure to the virus, despite the vaccine mandates, mask mandates and lockdowns.

Despite the vaccines, President Joe Biden would oversee more Covid-related deaths than former President Donald Trump. Now, 606 days into Biden's presidency, he has finally declared the Covid pandemic to be "over."

While the coronavirus pandemic may now be officially 'over' in the United States, the damage from Covid response measures will still be impacting the country for decades.

Crime vs. Law & Order​

Pritzker and other Radicals coddle criminals, presenting a stark choice for citizens.

Steve Cortes
11 hr ago

Far too many American streets descend into violence and criminal recklessness. The carnage is most alarming in large and historically mismanaged blue cities, but the calamity spreads into urban areas previously considered safe and into suburbs as well.

Looking at the numbers, the nationwide murder rate exploded during the lockdowns – but then increased yet again in 2021. Now, the pace of homicides shows no material 2022 downtick, “threatening to become the new baseline,” according to The Economist which details the “largest increase in over a century” for killings.

In Illinois the mayhem intensifies due to a feckless governor, a radical Chicago mayor, and a Soros-backed, corrupt Cook County prosecutor. This unholy trinity of criminal-coddling politicians - J.B. Pritzker, Lori Lightfoot, and Kim Foxx – creates a crisis for suffering citizens and demoralized police.

Consider the street-level consequences for Chicago. For example, in the pre-lockdown year of 2019, Chicago saw 490 murders. A terrible number, to be sure, but at that time an improvement over prior years and a seemingly reasonable number compared to last year. In 2021, the city endured a staggering 800 homicides, a ghastly 25 year record.

Aside from the terrible body count of corpses (most of them young black males), the broader misery for regular citizens ratchets far higher under the failed leadership of windbag politicians. For example, a carjacking epidemic intensifies in Chicago. In 2014, the city saw 303 vehicular hijackings. This year, per analysis from Wirepoints, the Windy City is on pace to suffer from 1,904 such terrifying acts of violence, the most ever on record. Six times as many Chicagoans being violently kidnapped or ejected from their cars.

Of course, suburbanites should not rest easy either, as city violence increasingly invades surrounding areas as well. For example, just weeks ago in upscale Naperville, a police officer was randomly attacked by an axe-wielding would-be assassin. Thankfully, the officer’s quick response neutralized the perpetrator, captured in a video that went viral. Then, only days later, three men in ski masks robbed a nearby gas station at gunpoint – in the bucolic, white-picket-fence suburb of Naperville.

Clearly, no one is safe in Pritzker’s Illinois and the already awful predicament is about to grow into as all-out street crisis as J.B.’s new law takes effect in a few months that will eliminate bail requirements for even super violent criminals, placing citizens and cops at the mercy of dangerous cretins charged with the most serious offenses possible.

Pritzker’s radical new law deservedly draws national scorn. The New York Post ran the headline “Illinois’ No Cash Bail Law Will Turn the State into the Purge.”

Starting in just a few months on January 1, 2023, those charged with rape, second degree murder, kidnapping, and arson will be released without posting bail. In the name of so-called “equity,” the propaganda-titled Pritzker “SAFE-T Act” will create untold dangers for innocent civilians, crime witnesses, and cops.

Unsurprisingly, downstate prosecutors, who do not share Kim Foxx’s radical notions about crime and punishment, are aghast at this pro-criminal agenda.

Several joined together and assailed this radical new law, writing in the Chicago Tribune that it “makes it significantly harder for our criminal justice system to get repeat violent offenders off the streets and behind bars.”

For a preview into the dangers faced statewide, consider the fallout from Cook County’s bail leniency. So far this year, a total of 38 assailants have either killed or tried to kill Chicagoans while out on bail for pending felony charges, per crime watchdog CWB Chicago. The latest such tragedy just this weekend involved a 12-year-old boy shot in the head at a family birthday party by Isaiah Renteria.

Renteria had been arrested and charged with felony Class X weapons charges previously, but he was released by a progressive Chicago judge on only $1,000 bail with no electronic monitoring. After the child was shot, Renteria and his accomplice led police on a 100-mph car chase before being arrested in the upscale suburb of LaGrange.

The boy lived but is in critical condition. Tragically, the radicalism of politicians like J.B. Pritzker will put more such innocent lives in danger.

Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Sep 18, 2022 at 6:17am
Classic: Putin tells Germany Open Nord Stream 2
18 September 2022
Vienna, Austria

Reality check: the biggest threat to Europe is not Russia, or even China. Both are significant threats. China is collapsing.

The most proximate and immediate threats to Europe are Globalists and their Green Kult. Epicenter Germany.

Bottom line: the greatest threat to Europe, a massive engine of the coming global famines, are Globalists and Germany. Globalists in the United States, Japan, Canada — all are massive contributors to the incredible death toll unfolding in 2023-24 and beyond.

^^^^


Putin tells Europe: if you want gas then open Nord Stream 2

SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Sept 16 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Friday denied Russia had anything to do with Europe's energy crisis, saying that if the European Union wanted more gas it should lift sanctions preventing the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Speaking to reporters after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan, Putin blamed what he called "the green agenda" for the energy crisis, and insisted that Russia would fulfil its energy obligations.

"The bottom line is, if you have an urge, if it's so hard for you, just lift the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, which is 55 billion cubic metres of gas per year, just push the button and everything will get going," Putin said.

Nord Stream 2, which lays on the bed of the Baltic Sea almost in parallel to Nord Stream 1, was built a year ago, but Germany decided not to proceed with it just days before Russia sent its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Russian President Putin attends a news conference in Samarkand
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference following the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 16, 2022. Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS
European gas prices more than doubled from the start of the year amid a decline in Russian supplies.

This year's price surge has squeezed struggling already consumers and forced some industries to halt production.

Europe has accused Russia of weaponising energy supplies in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Russia says the West has launched an economic war and sanctions have hampered Nord Stream 1 pipeline operations.

Russia has cut off gas supplies to several countries, including Bulgaria and Poland, because they refused to pay in roubles rather than the currency of the contract.

Russian gas giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) also said earlier this month the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Europe's major supply route, would remain shut as a turbine at a compressor station had an engine oil leak, sending wholesale gas prices soaring.

^^^^

Gazprom: Nord Stream 1 gas to stay shut until fault fixed, "workshop conditions needed"

LONDON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom said on Friday that natural gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would remain shut off after the main gas turbine at the Portovaya compressor station near St Petersburg was found to have an engine oil leak during a joint inspection with Siemens Energy (ENR1n.DE), which maintains the turbine.

It said the turbine could not operate safely until the leak was repaired, and gave no timeframe for the resumption of gas supplies via the pipeline, which had been due to return to operation early on Saturday after a three-day maintenance break.

Gazprom said in its statement on Telegram that the oil leak detection report "was also signed by representatives of Siemens".

Gazprom cited Siemens as saying that the necessary repairs could only be done in "the conditions of a specialised workshop".

In a statement on Telegram, Gazprom provided what it said was a picture showing leaked oil on equipment at the compressor station.

Nord Stream 1, which runs under the Baltic Sea to supply Germany and others with gas, had been running at only 20% of capacity even before flows were halted for three days this week for maintenance.

Gazprom has said European Union sanctions have resulted in technical problems preventing it being able to provide the full volume of contracted gas through the pipeline.

Siemens Energy rejects this and says there are no legal obstacles to its provision of maintenance for the pipeline.

German Municipalities Preparing for Dark Winter of Blackouts, Simulate 400 Deaths in First 96 Hours

BY LANCE D. JOHNSON September 18, 2022 in Cross-Posted, Opinions

German Winter Riots

Editor’s Commentary: As we’ve noted many times on this site, many government-run “simulations” are done before events that are not only anticipated, but some that are even planned. Who can forget that both Covid-19 and Monkeypox had simulations oddly specific to them months before they actually happened? The simulation described below by Lance D. Johnson pertains to a scenario that is far more likely than past simulations that panned out as true.

There are two important things to know before reading this. First, it’s easy for America First patriots to lament hardships abroad but not be too concerned about them because they’re really none of our business. What’s being described as an energy collapse in Germany and across Europe is one that will DEFINITELY have a major impact on the United States if it happens. We cannot ignore this just because it does not directly affect us yet.

The second important note is that this simulation underestimates the impact of the “dark winter” they describe. If it is even partially accurate regarding the turmoil that would arise, they can’t really believe there would only be 400 deaths in the area in question in the first 96 hours. Moreover, the death toll in the days and weeks following a collapse would reach tens of thousands, perhaps more, as the cascading crises compound one another. This is why we’re so bullish about stocking up on food and moving investments or retirement to precious metals as soon as possible. Here’s Lance’s article…

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) are now warning about a catastrophe that doomsday preppers have long prepared for: blackouts and civil unrest. Thanks to European leaders’ knee-jerk sanctions against Russia and Europe’s hasty implementation of green energy policies, the European people will have to pay insane energy costs and live under the constant threat of blackouts, especially during the upcoming winter months.

Municipalities in Germany are gearing up for a dark winter of blackouts. The Hessian Rheingau-Taunus district hired a company to simulate and analyze the most pertinent threats in the event of a blackout this winter. The simulation predicts that 400 deaths are inevitable inside the district in just the first 96 hours. If temperatures drop, the deaths will be much more catastrophic, especially for the elderly.

The Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA) warn that “this crisis will cost some providers their existence because the burdens from rising energy costs, general inflation and the omnipresent shortage of skilled workers can no longer be borne.” Retirement homes and nursing homes will be “threatened to an unprecedented extent.”

German municipalities preparing for blackouts this winter
DStGB chief executive Germ Landsberg said that hacker attacks have always been a threat to the grid, but this year “there is a risk of a blackout” based on “an overload of the power grid.” He pointed out that 650,000 fan heaters were sold this year. If the gas supply fails and all these heaters are connected to the electric grid at once, a blackout could likely occur. The district is making preparations to consolidate energy for civil protection services and to ensure that electricity is available for servers and satellite supported communication systems.

In the first twenty-four hours of German blackout, substations would fail and water tanks would run dry, causing an entirely new set of problems. Livestock would quickly die. Looting and arson would contribute to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages within the first day. In just two days, most cell phones would be inoperable. People would panic quickly. Violence would overtake the streets. District fire inspector Christian Rossel is warning Germans to prepare by getting a 14-day supply of food and drinking water.

The German government’s €65 billion financial aid package will attempt to offset some of the high energy costs, but at the end of the day, the government cannot print energy. If the energy is not there and the grid is overwhelmed, no amount of money will bring the lights and the heat back on. German economist Jörg Krämer said that the government’s plan only “creates the illusion that large parts of the population can be protected from the consequences of rising energy prices.”

Germany is not the only country facing a potential dark winter. France’s Reseau de Transport d’Electricite warned citizens that they will be asked several times this winter to cut back on their electricity usage. Finland is also warning citizens about upcoming outages and telling everyone to prepare.

The European Commission is taking action now, with new regulations that call on all European governments to cut electricity usage by 10 percent. The regulations include a mandatory 5 percent reduction during peak hours. Germany’s businesses are now paying electricity prices that are 1,000% higher than normal, and many businesses are currently collapsing due to the high energy costs.

CBS Economic Gaslighting Example, Face the Nation Pretends Not to Know Joe Biden Energy Policy Driving Higher Prices

September 18, 2022 | Sundance | 200 Comments

“Gaslighting” is essentially a term used to describe an abuser continually lying to victim in order to make the victim misbelieve reality.

Economic “gaslighting” is a process of lying about the nature of true cause in order to continue advancing the abusive policy.

Combine the economic gaslighting with the historic leftist approach of pretending not to know things, and you get this dynamic on CBS Face the Nation today. In this brief segment describing inflation, we see all the classic strategies deployed by ideological media.

First, notice they blame: (1) the pandemic recovery, (2) consumer demand, (3) Ukraine, and (4) a supply chain ‘muddle’. Not only are these issues ridiculous, but none of them are the cause of supply side inflation. Blaming “consumer demand,” which has transparently collapsed for the last year, is beyond nonsense. WATCH, and also pay attention to the graphics they use to manipulate the audience:

View: https://youtu.be/lA9hZ0aTHGI
2:15 min

The true cause of inflation, and yes that includes ‘global inflation‘, is the collective western economy jump into climate change energy policy known as “build back better.” Stopping the use of oil, gas and coal as the source for cheap energy, has resulted in every element of the inflation they outline.

As an outcome of their ideology, the central banks of the western economies are now trying desperately to lower economic activity to reduce energy consumption. The goal is to lower human activity to the point where windmills and solar farms can sustain it. Everything else is pretending.



Notice the synergy between the western economies who are following the Build Back Better climate change instructions from the World Economic Forum (yellow map) to the actions of the central banks who are trying to support the political agenda (blue map).

Coming out of the pandemic, western oil, coal and gas energy development was blocked. Immediately energy prices skyrocketed, driving up the costs of everything. Using the justification of “too much demand” the central banks (including the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank) are raising interest rates to lower the need for energy.

Western political leaders are pretending this is not a collective intention.





This is all being done by specific design.

Controlling a global population; controlling human activity; is the collective goal.

Show me the powerful political voice who will stop pretending and call this process out directly, and I will show you the most powerful global politician in history of the modern world.

…Who is John Galt?​

(Something I stumbled upon)


Europe Home Alone – What if Trump returns?
The Körber Policy Game brought together a small group of high-level participants to assess policy options for Europe in case of a significant shift in US domestic and foreign policy.

Europe Home Alone–What if Trump returns?​

Protectionism, domestic polarization and democratic backsliding put the United States’ leadership of the West into question during the Trump administration. While the Biden administration has improved transatlantic cooperation in several areas, serious concerns remain that this period is merely an “interregnum” in transatlantic relations. At the same time, Russia’s war against Ukraine and the ongoing challenge of China have highlighted Europe’s reliance on its partnership with the United States.

Against this backdrop, the Körber Policy Game brought together a small group of high-level participants from France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom to assess policy options for Europe in case of a significant shift in US domestic and foreign policy and a breakdown of democratic and transatlantic institutions. Which political, economic and security interests are at stake? And which policy options do European countries have at their disposal?

The discussions took place in a confidential setting in Berlin in June 2022 in cooperation with the Atlantic Council of the United States. The final report summarizes the insights and positions generated by the Körber Policy Game. Please note that it reflects the analysis of the authors and not necessarily that of the participants.

What is Trump’s legacy in Europe?​

Donald Trump’s presidency left Europeans grappling with the implications of his possible return to power. For the Polish team, a second Trump term would not necessarily signal the end of the West; if channelled properly, it could be a continuation of traditional Republican foreign policy priorities in line with Polish interests. While the British team would try to act as a bridge between Europe and the United States, the German and French teams expected a highly transactional and the end of a values-based relationship as well as limited possibilities to influence US policy, with no more “adults in the room”.

Can the United Kingdom and France step in and step up?​

While the British team was willing to demonstrate leadership in European security after a potential US withdrawal from Europe, the French team stressed the importance of managing expectations of what could be achieved in the security realm. The French team would be concerned that it could not offer a nuclear deterrent that matched the credibility of the existing US one. For the Polish team, French commitments and capabilities were seen as not credible. If offered, Poland would seek bilateral security guarantees from the United States, even at the risk of undermining NATO, and negotiate access to US nuclear sharing.

(See website for more)

Cost Of The Green Energy Transition: Who You Gonna Believe, Some Research Assistants From Oxford Or Your Lyin' Eyes?

September 16, 2022/ Francis Menton

Over in Europe, and particularly in those countries in the vanguard of the green energy transition, the enormous costs of this folly have begun to hit home. In the UK, average annual consumer energy bills were scheduled to rise as of October 1 to £3549/year, from only £1138/year just a year ago. (The figure may now get reduced somewhat by means of massive government subsidies, which only conceal, but do not obviate, the disastrous cost increases.) Germany’s regulated consumer gas bills are scheduled for an average annual increase on October 1 of about 480 euros, about 13%, from an already high 3568 euros.

Anyone with a pair of eyes can see what has happened. They thought they could get rid of fossil fuels just by building lots of wind turbines and solar panels, which don’t work most of the time. Then they suppressed fossil fuel production, because that is the virtuous thing to do. Somehow they lost track of the fact that they needed full backup for the wind and sun, and have no alternative to the suppressed fossil fuels. With supply of fossil fuels intentionally and artificially constrained, prices spiked.

And they have not even yet gotten to 50% of electricity, or 15% of final energy consumption, from wind/sun on an annualized basis.

Is anybody learning a lesson here? Doubtful.

Into the mix has just arrived on September 13 a big new paper from a group of geniuses at Oxford University, with the title “Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition.” The lead author is named Rupert Way. For your additional reading pleasure, here is another link to some 150 pages of “Supplemental Information” that go along with the article. The release of the Oxford paper was immediately followed by some dozens (maybe hundreds) of articles from the usual suspects in the press exclaiming the exciting news — Switching to renewables will save trillions!!!!!

Could anybody really believe this? A few examples:

From the BBC, September 14: “Switching to renewable energy could save trillions - study.” “Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says.” The BBC interviewed one of the study’s co-authors: “[T]he researchers say that going green now makes economic sense because of the falling cost of renewables. ‘Even if you're a climate denier, you should be on board with what we're advocating,’ Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News. ‘Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it's going to save us money,’ he said.”

From MSN, September 13: “Going green could save world "trillions" - study.” “The Report says predictions that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive are wrong and too pessimistic. Even without the currently very high price of gas, the researchers say that going green now makes economic sense because of the falling cost of renewables.”

Nature World News, September 14: “Due to the Increase of Oil Prices, Switching To Renewable Energy Could Save Trillions Than Using Fossil Fuels.” “An Oxford University study claimed that switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy might save the world $12 trillion (£10.2 trillion) by the year 2050. . . . However, the researchers asserted that the declining cost of renewable energy means that going green currently makes financial sense.”

There are dozens more of these out there should you care to do an internet search.

My main response is: This paper and others like it are exactly why we citizens and taxpayers need to demand a working and fully-costed demonstration project before we allow ourselves all to be used as guinea pigs in the implementation of these preposterous wind/solar fantasies. As I wrote in a post just a few days ago, if this is so easy and will save so much money, then California and New York should show the rest of us how it’s done before everyone else is forced to go along.

The basic technique of the authors here is to snow anyone who attempts to read their work with mountainous piles of sophisticated-sounding mumbo-jumbo. Example (from Summary): “[W]e use an approach based on probabilistic cost forecasting methods that have been statistically validated by backtesting on more than 50 technologies. . . . “ Clearly the hope is that nobody will be able to penetrate the thicket, and all anyone will come away with is “We’ll save $12 trillion!”

Well, the Manhattan Contrarian is not quite that easy to snow. Based on the waste of several valuable hours of my time, here are what I believe to be the main problems with the work:

The principal driver of the whole thing is a forecast of rapid and continuous declines in the cost of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries. The assumption is that costs of these things will continue to decline exponentially without limit indefinitely into the future. From the “Results” section: “We know of no empirical evidence supporting floor costs and do not impose them . . . “ Of the three technologies at issue (wind, solar, and batteries), the one I know the most about is batteries. Here is the Way, et al., chart of price history of batteries and the projection they use for the future:


That’s a logarithmic scale over at the left. So the chart is showing the cost of Li-ion batteries going down from about $100/[k]Wh in 2020 to something between $2/[k]Wh and about $80/[k]Wh by 2050, with a mid-point of the forecast around $20/[k]Wh.

And in the real world? In June 2021 the government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory put out a document called its “Cost Projections for Utility-Scale Battery Storage: 2021 Update.” NREL’s figure for the 2020 cost of utility-scale Li-ion batteries (page iv of the Executive Summary) is $350/kWh, compared to the $100/kWh of Way, et al. The difference appears to lie mainly in elements of a real-world battery installation other than the core battery itself, like a building to house it, devices to convert AC to DC and back, grid connections, “balance of plant,” and so forth. So let’s say that we begin with a small discrepancy in the starting point. NREL also forecasts declining costs going forward, but only to a mid-point of about $150/kWh by 2050, which would be 50% above Way et al.’s starting point and well more than an order of magnitude greater than the mid-point of the Way, et al. 2050 forecast.

And we are a couple of years beyond 2020 now, so how is it going? Utility Dive has a piece from April 12, 2022, reporting on the progress of New York in acquiring grid-scale batteries to advance its highly-ambitious Net Zero agenda. Excerpt: “The cost of installing retail, non-residential projects that recently won awards was an average $567 per kWh, according to an April 1 storage report by DPS. In 2020-21, the average installation costs of such projects was $464 per kWh.” In other words, instead of going down, the costs are rapidly going up. Reasons, from Utility Dive: “Crimped supply chains, rising demand for batteries and higher costs of lithium used in ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries make for a steep climb ahead, experts say.” Utility Dive then quotes New York regulators as saying that they expect the costs to go way down by the end of the current decade. Sure.

As to continuing rapid declines in the prices of wind turbines and solar panels, I’ll believe it when I see it. Yes there have been substantial declines to date. But at this point these strike me as mature technologies. The main issues in getting them built and operational are mining and processing huge quantities of metals and minerals, forming the metals and minerals into the devices, transporting the (very large and heavy) devices to their sites, and installing them. How are those things going to get cheaper by any substantial amount, let alone another order of magnitude?

The treatment of the energy storage problem in this paper is wholly inadequate, and bordering on the fantastical. The cost fantasies as to short-term storage are discussed above. As to longer term storage, from the Supplemental Information, pages 38-45, it appears that the proposed solution is almost entirely hydrogen, supposedly to be produced by electrolysis from water. (Here, they mostly.call the proposed storage medium “P2X fuels,” somehow implying that it might be something other than hydrogen, much like with New York and its “DEFR” fantasy.). There is currently essentially no existing prototype or demonstration project of this so-called “green hydrogen” anywhere in the world from which realistic cost projections can be derived. (From the 2022 JP Morgan Asset Management Annual Energy Paper, page 39: “Current green hydrogen production is negligible. . . .”). Way, et al., do cite some costs of existing electrolyzers, but I can find no discussion in the paper of the issue that producing hydrogen on a scale sufficient to back up the entire world electricity system is going to require electrolyzing the ocean. And the millions of tons of toxic chlorine gas thereby produced are going to go — where? The problems of dealing with enormous amounts of hydrogen — like explosiveness, embrittlement of pipelines, and the like — are dealt with with a wave of the hand. The creation of a massive green hydrogen infrastructure as the backup for wind and sun hasn’t even been begun by the most fanatical of the green energy crazies like Germany, California or New York. They take one look at the real costs and balk.

The answer of Way, et al., to any of these objections is, you just have to start building the facilities in large enough quantities, and we can assure you that costs will promptly drop like a stone. After all, we have “probabilistic cost forecasting methods” that have been “validated by backtesting on more than 50 technologies. . . .”

Perhaps I should mention that the authors of Way, et al. consist of one senior professor and a bunch of research assistants and post-docs. The senior professor (J. Doyne Farmer) is a mathematician and economist. Way himself is a “Postdoctoral Research Officer.” Matthew Ives is a “Senior Reseach Officer” who previously worked on implementing the Net Zero plans of South Australia. Penny Mealy is an economist at the World Bank with a title of “Associate” at Oxford. All four are part of something at Oxford called the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Lead author Way looks to be under 30. All four specialize in mathematical modeling, and none appears to have any expertise (at least none they are willing to admit to) in how to engineer an electrical grid that works.

We can all see in Europe what happens when you try to suppress fossil fuels and replace them with wind and sun, without having the alternative plan for storage and backup fully costed and engineered and in place for when you need it. But in the face of the ongoing disaster, Way, et al., say, double down! We assure you that if you just spend enough now on renewables and an untried hydrogen system, costs will drop and it will all save you trillions in the end. And after all, they are a bunch of really smart people who work for Oxford. Who are you gonna believe, them or your lyin’ eyes?

Why the World Economic Forum’s Plutocracy Should Be Dissolved

BY J.B. SHURK September 18, 2022 in Cross-Posted, Opinions

WEF Klaus Schwab

• No matter how noble its stated intentions, the “Great Reset” is at its heart a program for driving political power away from individual citizens and toward the controlling interests of a small international class of financial elites…. For citizens to reclaim power, they must not only embrace the basics of free markets once again but also rekindle a fondness for questioning the motivations of political authorities.

• It is not just kings, generals, and popes who possess great power. Wherever a person, group, or institution is capable — through enticement, coercion, or brute force — of bending an individual’s free will, the structures and instruments of power exist. A local school board, after all, may well have more immediate and intimate influences over a person’s family than the United Nations Human Rights Council and its revolving door of despots who tend to promulgate international resolutions shielding their own crimes.

• Limited regulation keeps the costs of market transactions low. Respect for private property and fair and impartial application of commercial laws encourage capital investment. Refraining from taxing the fruits of an individual’s labor fosters an exponentially more productive labor force.
Providing populations with the tools to pursue and obtain knowledge and skills at minimal expense promotes not only an educated workforce but also politically competent citizens.

• The small number of multinational corporations that control most television and print news sources around the globe also control the sociological levers capable of manufacturing or shifting public opinion. Power in any form — political, economic, cultural, spiritual… must always be guarded against as a potential foe.

• “The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants….” — Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion and Death.

• The great mass murderers of the twentieth century attest to this truth. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao killed tens of millions, but they did so, they assured the world, not for their own glory but for the benefit of “the people.”

• It is no secret that money influences politics, no matter how profusely politicians may assert their civic independence from the lobbyists and benefactors filling their campaign war chests.

• Tens of thousands of laws, rules, and regulations make it nearly impossible for any entrepreneur to navigate markets without inadvertently committing infractions or becoming a future target of an ever-growing army of regulatory code enforcers. Citizens are taxed on their wages, incomes, purchases, property, investments, improvements, sales, etc., and should they still possess anything of worth upon their ultimate demise, some agent of the State is likely to take one final cut of their bequeathed estates. The same unit of labor is thus taxed repeatedly along the government’s conveyor belt of confiscation.

• Notably, today’s plutocrats have little interest in truly free markets…. The World Economic Forum, for instance, demands governments take urgent action to combat or address climate change, cybersecurity, online misinformation, artificial intelligence, overpopulation, the use of hydrocarbon energy, farm ownership, food supplies, the elimination of private vehicle ownership, and the imposition of citizen control protocols to defend against future pandemics. Regulation of people and markets is now of paramount importance to those with wealth and power.

• When the uber-elite successfully influence politicians to enact laws that benefit their personal financial interests — a corrupt practice known as “regulatory capture” — they distort the normal dynamics of any free market. When governments mandate more expensive forms of “clean” energy across the market, for instance, wealthy corporations capable of enduring these added costs reap the ancillary benefits of gobbling up the market share abandoned by smaller competitors unable to survive. This is by design.

• This fusion between monied interests and government power has created a type of reverse fascism. Instead of some charismatic political leader in the mold of a Benito Mussolini demanding that titans of industry follow his commands for the benefit of the State and in the interests of the people, a new class of plutocrats now steer the direction of national policies and pay the politicians to make sure the people will comply.

• When market competition is permitted to grow wealth in perpetuity, however, not only does a growing share of the population increase its wealth, but also political power becomes spread out more diffusely. When the “rising tide” of free markets is allowed to “lift all boats,” neither the plutocrat nor communist politburo holds as much sway. For this reason, both communists and plutocrats share a similar goal — minimizing the prosperity of the majority of citizens, while maximizing the political power of a small minority of government officials. Under communism, this type of power arrangement takes the form of an oligarchy, or rule by a small few. Under the World Economic Forum’s brand of oligarchy where the West’s wealthiest manipulate centrally-controlled governments, the result is demonstrably plutocratic.

• When corporate behemoths adeptly forestall their own impending financial deaths through political influence and regulatory capture, however, they cheat the markets at the larger public’s expense.

• For individual liberty to flourish, competing forces must always counterbalance concentrated power in any form. When economic monopoly is used to create plutocratic control over government policy, then it becomes imperative for society to unleash the full potential of market forces to destroy protracted power and wealth and encourage more widespread prosperity.

• Cheap and abundant energy sources reduce the entry costs of building a business. Minimal taxation that seeks neither to confiscate wealth nor to punish successful innovation produces an endless supply of creative talents and energies. Limited regulation keeps the costs of market transactions low. Respect for private property and fair and impartial application of commercial laws encourage capital investment. Refraining from taxing the fruits of an individual’s labor fosters an exponentially more productive labor force. Providing populations with the tools to pursue and obtain knowledge and skills at minimal expense promotes not only an educated workforce but also politically competent citizens.

• Math, science, history, and philosophy have been watered-down to make room for ideological fluff often meant to divide students against each other. The combined and natural effect of all this government-sponsored malfeasance has been that intergenerational social mobility in the United States, once impressively robust, has absolutely plummeted.

• Who benefits when the most basic foundations for creating prosperity are denied to the majority of citizens? Well, those in power benefit because, by rigging the system in their favor and institutionalizing destructive habits, very few people who might challenge their dominion ever rise high enough to do so. The plutocracy wins. The insular and selfish cabal of wealthy elites who populate the World Economic Forum ultimately win. The vast majority of Western citizens, however, lose substantially… over and over again.

A previous essay highlighted the serious threats posed by the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” to individual liberty, human innovation, and general prosperity. It is important to expand discussion of these threats by examining the inherent dangers to free nations when so much wealth is concentrated in the hands of so few.

No matter how noble its stated intentions, the “Great Reset” is at its heart a program for driving political power away from individual citizens and toward the controlling interests of a small international class of financial elites. This shift in society’s balance of power has fundamentally changed the relationship between Western citizens and their national governments. For citizens to reclaim power, they must not only embrace the basics of free markets once again but also rekindle a fondness for questioning the motivations of political authorities.

Of all Lord Acton’s persuasive defenses of individual liberty as the highest end of human civilization, one observation remains most memorable: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As well-known as these words are, the universality of their meaning is often ignored. It is not just kings, generals, and popes who possess great power. Wherever a person, group, or institution is capable — through enticement, coercion, or brute force — of bending an individual’s free will, the structures and instruments of power exist. A local school board, after all, may well have more immediate and intimate influences over a person’s family than the United Nations Human Rights Council and its revolving door of despots who tend to promulgate international resolutions shielding their own crimes. A wealthy landowner who exerts hefty influence over agricultural or cattle markets influences the pocketbook fortunes of more modest farmers, too. The small number of multinational corporations that control most television and print news sources around the globe also control the sociological levers capable of manufacturing or shifting public opinion. Power in any form — political, economic, cultural, spiritual — is an abiding challenge to human liberty, and in this way, must always be guarded against as a potential foe.

It is also true that those with power have little incentive to check what they possess and have every incentive to grow and strengthen the powers already in their grasp. Rare, indeed, is the Cincinnatus or Washington who has gained near total control over a nation state only to relinquish such tremendous authority voluntarily and return with humility to the life of an ordinary farmer.

Examples of virtuous self-restraint are historic exceptions to power’s innate tendency to become all the more coveted once obtained. So, too, is it uncommon to find those in possession of raw power who ruthlessly or bombastically proclaim their dominance over others. Instead, people and institutions with power prefer to remain somewhat in the shadows, exercising authority in the name of ideas, causes, or populations beyond themselves.

“The welfare of the people,” Albert Camus succinctly noted, “…has always been the alibi of tyrants.” The great mass murderers of the twentieth century attest to this truth. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Mao killed tens of millions, but they did so, they assured the world, not for their own glory but for the benefit of “the people.” Castro and Guevara executed tens of thousands of political prisoners while absurdly claiming they did so in the name of “freedom.”

“Most of the evil in this world,” T.S. Eliot is said to have coldly warned, “is done by people with good intentions.” So when people or institutions wrap themselves in the garments of “good intentions” and proclaim loudly to be working for “the people’s best interests,” that is precisely the time when individual liberty is most at risk.

Today in the West we are confronted with an uncomfortable paradox. At the same time as national leaders defend vague notions of “democracy” against “authoritarian” threats beyond their borders, power and influence continue to rapidly amalgamate into the hands of a small few. It is no secret that money influences politics, no matter how profusely politicians may assert their civic independence from the lobbyists and benefactors filling their campaign war chests. With organizations such as the World Economic Forum openly working to direct the legislative programs and executive actions of nation states across the globe, however, wealthy patrons of elite economic societies have become increasingly vocal about their ambitions toward remaking the world according to their own “Great Reset” designsת while flexing their political muscles within the domestic affairs of discreet nation states for ordinary citizens to see.


Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, appeared with David Gergen in 2017 at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and openly boasted of his influence over many national leaders:

“I have to say when I mention names like Mrs. Merkel, even Vladimir Putin and so on, they have all been Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, but what we are really proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, the President of Argentina and so on. So 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 are Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum…. It is true in Argentina and it is true in France now….”

When the chairman of an international economic body publicly brags about his leverage over the leaders of sovereign nation states, he can hardly be mistaken as defending the merits of “democracy.”

In a somewhat farcical display of the World Economic Forum’s control over individual nations, it has become eerily commonplace these last two years to hear the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States all parroting the same “Build Back Better” slogan propagated by Klaus Schwab’s economic club. With wealth and political power bonded densely into such haut monde cabals, the insular prerogatives of the WEF have succeeded in dominating government policies throughout the West.

Both in their immediate handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and their planned response to the harsh economic repercussions dovetailing from prolonged lockdowns, Western nation states have taken many of their cues directly from the World Economic Forum’s policy edicts. Whatever vestige of “democracy” still casts a shadow across North America, Europe, and the South Pacific, it has become unmistakable that plutocracy — rule by a wealthy elite — is fast assuming total control over the West’s future.

Notably, today’s plutocrats have little interest in truly free markets. Unlike J.D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and other late-nineteenth-century industrialists and business magnates who made their fortunes in the heyday of economic growth before the massive expansion of the regulatory State, those with great wealth today often champion government intervention in markets. The World Economic Forum, for instance, demands governments take urgent action to combat or address climate change, cybersecurity, online misinformation, artificial intelligence, overpopulation, the use of hydrocarbon energy, farm ownership, food supplies, the elimination of private vehicle ownership, and the imposition of citizen-control protocols to defend against future pandemics. Regulation of people and markets is now of paramount importance to those with wealth and power.

By their nature, regulations (which are indistinguishable from taxes in this effect) make the cost of doing business more expensive and benefit the deep-pocketed monopoly Goliaths at the expense of any upstart Davids threatening their market positions. When the uber-elite successfully influence politicians to enact laws that benefit their personal financial interests — a corrupt practice known as “regulatory capture” — they distort the normal dynamics of any free market. When governments mandate more expensive forms of “clean” energy across the market, for instance, wealthy corporations capable of enduring these added costs reap the ancillary benefits of gobbling up the market share abandoned by smaller competitors unable to survive. This is by design.

By utilizing law and regulation as a sword and shield to prevent potential competitors from entering the market while expanding monopoly power, plutocrats use political patronage and fashionable policy goals disguising self-interest to maintain their own wealth and control. Climate change, public health, sustainable food supplies — the public policy issue is never anything more than an expedient stalking horse for the wealthiest in the West to use cynically in an effort to maintain economic control.

This fusion between monied interests and government power has created a type of reverse fascism. Instead of some charismatic political leader in the mold of a Benito Mussolini demanding that titans of industry follow his commands for the benefit of the State and in the interests of the people, a new class of plutocrats now steer the direction of national policies and pay the politicians to make sure the people will comply.

Notably, today’s plutocrats take a nearly identical position as traditional communists in asserting that the “economic pie” is only so big and can therefore only be divvied up among a growing population in smaller and smaller portions but never actually enlarged. When economic wealth is seen as finite, preventing others from acquiring personal prosperity is necessary for maintaining political power’s status quo. When market competition is permitted to grow wealth in perpetuity, however, not only does a growing share of the population increase its wealth, but also political power becomes spread out more diffusely.

When the “rising tide” of free markets is allowed to “lift all boats,” neither the plutocrat nor communist politburo holds as much sway. For this reason, both communists and plutocrats share a similar goal — minimizing the prosperity of the majority of citizens, while maximizing the political power of a small minority of government officials. Under communism, this type of power arrangement takes the form of an oligarchy, or rule by a small few. Under the World Economic Forum’s brand of oligarchyת where the West’s wealthiest manipulate centrally-controlled governments, the result is demonstrably plutocratic.

For plutocrats, actual free markets are a threat to their habitual control over political power. When real markets exist, endless human innovation regularly upends the market position of any one firm. Yesterday’s industry leader can go bankrupt fast if today’s upstart inventor designs a better or cheaper competing product. Creative destruction is at the heart of free market growth.

When product innovation is understood as the single greatest variable for generating long-term economic success, it is easy to understand how difficult it is to stay ahead of the market for any length of time. Rare is the company that manages to innovate so effectively year after year that it survives for decades or longer.

This is, of course, why so much capital is sunk into research and development in constant pursuit of the “next big thing.” It is also why corporations and private investors diversify their holdings so that they may still benefit financially, even when successful innovation occurs far from their domains.

When corporate behemoths adeptly forestall their own impending financial deaths through political influence and regulatory capture, however, they cheat the markets at the larger public’s expense. When this alternative, yet corrupt, path to permanent wealth becomes the model for economic “success,” creative innovation takes a permanent back seat to raw political clout. “Absolute power,” in other words, still “corrupts absolutely.”

For individual liberty to flourish, competing forces must always counterbalance concentrated power in any form. When economic monopoly is used to create plutocratic control over government policy, then it becomes imperative for society to unleash the full potential of market forces to destroy protracted power and wealth and encourage more widespread prosperity.

The steps for achieving such a result are no different today than they were when Adam Smith first published The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Cheap and abundant energy sources reduce the entry costs of building a business. Minimal taxation that seeks neither to confiscate wealth nor to punish successful innovation produces an endless supply of creative talents and energies. Limited regulation keeps the costs of market transactions low. Respect for private property and fair and impartial application of commercial laws encourage capital investment. Refraining from taxing the fruits of an individual’s labor fosters an exponentially more productive labor force. Providing populations with the tools to pursue and obtain knowledge and skills at minimal expense promotes not only an educated workforce but also politically competent citizens.

It seems no coincidence, then, that every one of these policy prescriptions is today either stymied or subverted. Political interventionism has precipitated a Western energy crisis. When campaigning for the U.S. presidency in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that he would raise taxes even if doing so ultimately decreased total public revenues because pursuing such a policy was only “fair.”

Regulatory agencies and taxing authorities claim jurisdiction over every element of industry, production, and product distribution. Tens of thousands of laws, rules, and regulations make it nearly impossible for any entrepreneur to navigate markets without inadvertently committing infractions or becoming a future target of an ever-growing army of regulatory code enforcers. Citizens are taxed on their wages, incomes, purchases, property, investments, improvements, sales, etc., and should they still possess anything of worth upon their ultimate demise, some agent of the State is likely to take one final cut of their bequeathed estates. The same unit of labor is thus taxed repeatedly along the government’s conveyor belt of confiscation.

Lastly, in an age of rampant political correctness and “woke” cancel culture, indoctrination and political dogma have supplanted basic education. Math, science, history, and philosophy have been watered-down to make room for ideological fluff often meant to divide students against each other. The combined and natural effect of all this government-sponsored malfeasance has been that intergenerational social mobility in the United States, once impressively robust, has absolutely plummeted.

Who benefits when the most basic foundations for creating prosperity are denied to the majority of citizens? Well, those in power benefit because, by rigging the system in their favor and institutionalizing destructive habits, very few people who might challenge their dominion ever rise high enough to do so. The plutocracy wins. The insular and selfish cabal of wealthy elites who populate the World Economic Forum ultimately win. The vast majority of Western citizens, however, lose substantially… over and over again.

Are You Ready For Societal Winter?​

SUNDAY, SEP 18, 2022 - 08:30 PM
Authored by James Wesley Rawles via SurvivalBlog.com,

Many of you reading this are ready for winter, both literally and figuratively.

Your firewood is stacked and your kindling is split. Your barn is stacked full of hay. Your larder is crammed full of food. Your fuel tanks are topped off. And your home armory is “dialed-in”, with its walls comfortably stacked with ammo cans. But some of you reading this are not nearly so well prepared. Whether by lack of resolve or lack of resources, you aren’t ready for the manifold challenges of the 21st Century.

Winter is coming. The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts that the winter of 2022-2023 will be harsh, for most of the country. And in Western Europe, the winter will surely be an uncomfortable one, since the Russians have embargoed natural gas.

Far worse than the predicted La Niña winter in North America, we are also entering what I term a Societal Winter: An era of rancorous discontent between political factions here in the United States that is replete with iciness, and dismissiveness, by The Powers That Be. With divisive “Woke” rhetoric and plenty of finger-pointing, people are feeling a lot less “United” these days. From my vantage point here in the rural Northern Rockies, it appeared that immediately after Joe Biden and his activist cabinet took office in D.C., the Mainstream Media (MSM) cranked the Acrimony knob all the way up to “11.” (For those not familiar, the 11 is a reference to the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap.)

All signs now point to the advent of a deep and long Societal Winter.
Here are some key indicators of an incipient Societal Winter:

• The “us versus them” chatter in social media has become more extreme and pronounced.
• The homes of Supreme Court justices have been picketed and blasted by vile shouts and taunts on bullhorns.
• Ex-Presidents now frequently criticize the sitting President and other former Presidents. (That was heretofore considered a no-no.)
• There is seemingly no more middle ground in American politics. The “debate” and “conversation” have been turned into one-sided lectures by the left.
• The divide between Red States and Blue States has deepened, prompting many conservatives to “vote with their feet.” The American Redoubt movement is just one manifestation of this.
• The stage-managed and quite partisan congressional hearings on the unarmed January 6th “insurrection”.
• The FBI and DOJ have been used as weapons against political opponents of Biden & Company. The experiences of Roger Stone and Mike Lindell are indicative.
• The ATF has begun to issue edicts on gun parts that go far beyond their legislated mandate. (They should take note of the recent West Virginia v. EPA decision — Federal agencies enforce laws. They are not supposed to create laws.) The ATF edicts have turned parts that they had previously approved into felonies. In just the past three years, the ATF has issued controversial rulings on bumpstocks, solvent traps, forced reset triggers, auto key cards, arm braces, and 80% complete receivers that are sold along with drilling fixtures and parts sets.
• The IRS plans to add 87,000 new employees, and many people fear that they will be targeting conservative small business owners with audits.
• Politically-motivated “swatting” is on the rise.
• The homosexual rights movement has been co-opted by militant trans-sexual crusaders. They’ve also infiltrated public schools and now seem to be proud of grooming children.
• Mask mandates and vaccine mandates have been politicized and used as weapons to purge conservatives from the military.
• A $500 billion student loan forgiveness scheme that is just a thinly-veiled gambit to buy votes.
• The Governor of New York recently taunted conservatives, and suggested that they leave the state.
• Search engine and social media searches are manipulated, via algorithms.
• Conservatives have been systematically de-platformed, de-funded, de-banked, and de-ranked from search engine results. On this, I’m not spouting hyperbole. I’m writing this from personal experience. In late 2021, my own bank account that I’d held for nearly 20 years with never a bounced check was canceled on short notice, with no reason given. And, because of the way that search engine results are algorithmically ranked, I’ve lost 30% of my blog’s readership over the past 10 years. Just do a web search on the word “preparedness”, and scroll through the results. You will see that 95% of the results in the first 10 pages point to government web pages. In contrast, do a web search on the more precise phrase “n”, and see what results. So… The truth is out there, but the tech titans are doing their best to conceal it.
• Mainstream journalists have dropped any pretense of objective reporting.
• Joe Biden recently has given speeches where he castigated conservatives, terming us “a threat to democracy” and “semi-fascists.” Using labels like that puts targets on our backs. In effect, he declared about half of the population enemies of the state.
• Politically-motivated prosecutions of former Trump White House staff members.
• American society’s long-standing tacit agreement to show restraint at public meetings seems to have been dropped. In response, governments have clamped down on dissenters.
• Vocal dissent has now expanded to local school board meetings and library board meetings.
• Character assassination of those with dissenting voices is now carried out on a grand scale, via skewed polls, social media bot influence, “reports” from pressure groups like the SPLC, slanted news reporting, and the overt manipulation of Wikipedia.
• A cozy relationship has developed between government officials — who are constitutionally barred from censorship — and the tech titans who operate social media platforms – who feel that they can censor their users. Some of the tech moguls have admitted that they engaged in censorship and swayed elections “in partnership” with the government. And we’ve all read that the Federal government had plans to create an Orwellian Disinformation Bureau.
• Gun violence restraining orders (GVROs) / extreme risk protective orders (ERPOs) — a.k.a. “Red Flag” laws have been used to exercise ill will, often regarding grudges and even political differences, by the police or within families. This seems to have already increased, in the city and county of San Francisco. In the past year, San Francisco judges have issued more Red Flag court orders than in the rest of the state, combined.
• The overturn of the Roe v. Wade decision infuriated many liberals, to the point of some of them demanding defiance of the court order and that the court be expanded, to create a majority of liberal justices.

So, where does all of this lead us? I believe that it will lead to a winter of discontent, possibly lasting for many years, and perhaps with polarization worsening to the point of Balkanization of the 50 States and even civil war.

WE’LL ALL FEEL THE COLD​

Even if you live in the hinterboonies, don’t expect to be immune from the effects of the nascent Societal Winter. I predict that a lot of these effects will come “top-down”, by orders issued by the Federal government, over the course of several successive Democrat or RINO administrations. Just like the Europeans now facing a government-mandated chilly winter in under-heated homes this winter, we can expect to feel the cold gaze of both liberal elitists and The Woke, in the years to come.

I can foresee that their wrath will be felt in many ways. For example: Higher income taxes, higher fuel taxes, a Federal “per-mile” tax on private highway travel, draconian new gun laws, politically-targeted IRS tax audits, the “dumping” of busloads (or Amtrak trainloads) of illegal aliens in rural towns, Federally-imposed leftist school curricula, umpteen new un-funded Federal mandates on the states, the forced phase-out of internal combustion engine light cars and trucks, the imposition of a Social Credit Score system, manipulated interest rates that will devastate the national economy, the “apportionment” of power grid resources–favoring Blue cities and states, continued government over-spending that is wrecking the purchasing power of the Dollar, Federal over-ride of state fish and game laws, increasingly stringent EPA and OSHA regulations, and a military draft that may include both our sons and our daughters.

If socialists, Marxists, Maoists, fascists, or other collectivists eventually consolidate power, then they will surely make attempts at overtly controlling businesses that go far beyond the already repugnant taxes and minimum wages. How? They could legislate hiring metrics that will arbitrarily dictate the percentage of minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts, mentally ill, simple-minded, and sexual deviants. Or the percentage of members of various religions. Or the percentage of members of various political parties. This forced hiring would be mandated regardless of the qualifications or the merits of applicants. In California, they already attempted to mandate the racial composition of corporate boards. (That was found unconstitutional by the courts, a few months ago.) There could also be attempts to limit farmers and ranchers in the production of livestock. By the way, this was just recently announced in The Netherlands. That triggered massive protests that were clearly downplayed by the American mainstream media. Just imagine a law dictating that 50% of firefighters, or military members, or professional athletes be women, or that 10% of new hires be people that are physically or mentally handicapped? Perhaps Kurt Vonnegut’s fictional Harrison Bergeron wasn’t so fictional, after all.

Collectivists might also take advantage of times of emergency — whether real or fabricated — to simply seize packaged foodstuffs, livestock, farm produce, and/or fish catches. Dictatorial collectivists never learn from history. The term “seizing power” might take on a new meaning, in this era of grid-tied photovoltaic power systems and net metering. (“It is all for the public good, comrade.”)

And what if any of the 50 States start making secession noises? I’m sure that the Federal authorities will find ways to severely penalize and downright punish any such states, economically.

Some of the measures that I’ve outlined might seem outrageous or downright inconceivable. Take a minute to read this recent news article: RAF ‘pauses job offers for white men’ to meet ‘impossible’ diversity targets.

INCREMENTAL TYRANNY​

Just consider how socialists operate: by incrementalism. Here is their time-proven game plan in a nutshell: “Good ideas” morph into “suggestions”, then “guidelines”, then “targets”, and finally into “mandates” with penalties for noncompliance. The busybodies and do-gooders have already instituted a myriad of laws and taxes, and yet surprisingly there hasn’t been a revolt. They won’t stop adding more laws, new taxes, increased monitoring/surveillance, higher fines/penalties, more licenses, more permit inspections, additional fees, and new reparations to the point that they dictate just about every aspect of our lives. It is as if they want to turn America into an enormous Homeowner’s Association (HOA). It is all about control and power — and they want every bit of it.

We are facing a very cold Societal Winter, indeed. Nothing cuts to the bone quite like the icy gaze of someone in a position of authority–especially when they are backed by the might of law enforcement and the armed forces.

In closing, I’d like to remind my readers that the Greek general and politician Pericles once famously wrote: “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

Organized Retail Crime Reaching "Crisis Scale"

SUNDAY, SEP 18, 2022 - 05:30 PM

Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The massive wave of retail thefts in the United States over the past two years have become a major challenge for both the retail industry and law enforcement.

Weakened law enforcement policies and lesser penalties for these criminal bandit gangs have hit a critical juncture, as crime in the United States has hit proportions not seen in three decades.

The number of increasingly professional organized retail crime (ORC) rings and their frequent attacks have reached crisis scale, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF) in a Sept. 14 report.

These crimes have hurt thousands of businesses and have contributed to higher prices for consumers and loss of key retailers in many communities, as countless stores have closed to due to lack of security.

“The factors contributing to retail shrink have multiplied in recent years, and organized retail crime is a burgeoning threat within the retail industry,” said Mark Meadows, NRF vice president for research development and industry analysis.

“These highly sophisticated criminal rings jeopardize employee and customer safety and disrupt store operations. Retailers are bolstering security efforts to counteract these increasingly dangerous and aggressive criminal activities.”

A Spike in Organized Thievery
According to the 2022 National Retail Security Survey, issued by NRF, the total loss of stolen goods hit $94.5 billion by the end of 2021, up from losses of $90.8 billion in 2020.

The NRF found that the average shrink rate in losses for 2021 was 1.44 percent, a slight decline from the previous two years, but comparable to the five-year average of 1.5 percent.

Acts of fraud are being reported across all venues, ranging from brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce, and omni-channel platforms since 2020.

A sudden increase store violence is another growing area of concern, such as random attacks on store personnel, robberies, and ORC gangs.

The majority of surveyed retailers reported a 89.3 percent increase in violence and a 73.2 percent uptick in shoplifting.

The reported incidents of both ORC and employee theft rose 71.4 percent, much of it involving organized crime or for the gangs’ own benefit.

The NRF said that respondents reported that ORC robberies have risen 26.5 percent since the onset of the pandemic.

The most targeted store items fall under the acronym CRAVED: concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable, and disposable.

Items under CRAVED include apparel, health and beauty, electronics/appliances, accessories, food and beverage, footwear, home furnishings and housewares, home improvement, eyewear, office supplies, infant care, and toys.

In search of solutions, retailers are boosting spending on theft-prevention measures.

The NRF survey showed that 60.3 percent of retailers are increasing their security budgets.

At least 52.4 percent are increasing their investments in technology, such as radio frequency identification tags and readers, computerized security scanners, and license plate-recognition devices.

“We are seeing more and more, particularly, organized retail crime,” said Corrie Barry, Best Buy’s CEO, in late 2021 to the NY Post.

“You can see that pressure in our financials. And more importantly, frankly, you can see that pressure with our associates. It’s traumatizing,” she said.

Radical Crime Policies and Recidivism
Wealthy liberal enclaves throughout the country with district attorneys thought of as “soft on crime” appear to be the regions most affected by the crime wave and which has only grown worse since the pandemic.

The top five metropolitan areas affected by store bandit gangs in the past year were the Californian cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland; New York; Houston, Texas; and Miami, Florida.

Retailers across the country are calling for stronger legislation, especially at the federal and state level, along with better enforcement of existing laws to quell increasing acts of violence and theft, which are hurting their survival.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanded earlier this year that Congress take action to address the rise of ORC crimes, calling them a “national emergency.”

“Retail theft is becoming a national crisis, hurting businesses in every state and the communities they serve,” said Neil Bradley, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s chief policy officer, in a letter to Congress in March.

“We call on policymakers to tackle this problem head-on before it gets further out of control. No store should have to close because of theft.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva blamed radical Democrats and prosecutors, saying that they “live in this ‘woke palace’ where they’re not affected by the policies, but the average person IS impacted by them.”

THIS energy move shows we live under ‘soft’ AUTHORITARIANISM 8:25 min

THIS energy move shows we live under ‘soft’ AUTHORITARIANISM​

Glenn Beck Published September 18, 2022

17 states now are blindly following whatever standards California dictates regarding certain energy and climate decisions. But did YOU vote for that? No, but that apparently doesn’t matter to the lawmakers in those 17 states. It is moves like this one, Glenn explains, that show America has become a ‘soft’ authoritarian state. When will important decisions like this one be returned to the PEOPLE?

Maajid Nawaz: We Are Involved in a War Against Our Very Souls 17:32 min

Maajid Nawaz: We Are Involved in a War Against Our Very Souls​

The Vigilant Fox Published September 18, 2022

"We need to understand what's happening on a wider level to understand the role we play in making sure that we don't fall for this psychological abuse. And that's exactly what it is."

"We must remain peaceful because everything they want to do is for us to turn angry and violent so that they can say, 'See. This is why these people need to be controlled.'"

Tune in: Newsroom

Why is China buying so much U.S. farm land? | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris 9:24 min

Why is China buying so much U.S. farm land? | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published September 18, 2022

China is buying up millions of acres of farm land in and around U.S. military bases. Why??

(China owns 191,300 acres of farm land in the US.)

(Canada)

Could Mark Carney, architect of climate social credit, become the successor to Justin Trudeau? 8:47 min

Could Mark Carney, architect of climate social credit, become the successor to Justin Trudeau?​

Rebel News Published September 18, 2022

On Friday's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, guest host Sheila Gunn Reid discussed rumours that former Bank of Canada head Mark Carney is gunning for a position as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. "Carney is a climate hypocrite, that's nothing new. But did you know he's been in charge of much of your life over the last two and a half years? And since he's not elected by anyone, you don't get to hold him accountable for any of it," Sheila said.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXHXCGjlqWM
14:14 min

Europe is facing ECONOMIC HELL, & America is close behind​

Not only do troubling signs continue to plague America’s economy, but they’re pointing towards another collapse — like 2008 — as well. In this clip, Glenn explains the similarities between what occurred in September 2008 and what’s happening now. Plus, he details Europe’s bleak energy outlook and why he believes they’re heading for economic HELL. And it’s not just Europe...America isn’t too far behind. ‘A NIGHTMARE is about to hit,’ Glenn warns but...at least we have cute puppies to distract us, right?!

(Twitter grab bag)

(Immigration)


(indoor farming)




View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1569521955975331840
.59 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1570720700285198336
.16 min







(Germany)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1571713843382067200
.37 min

(UK)



(US)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1570124339412086785
.43 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1571643283880787968
2:01 min

(Canada)

World’s largest indoor vertical farming company has opened in Pittsylvania

AeroFarms is part of a larger movement toward controlled environment agriculture.

by Grace Mamon
September 12, 2022

The ribbon cutting for Pittsylvania’s AeroFarms facility will be this afternoon, signifying the end of the construction phase for the New Jersey-based indoor vertical farming company. AeroFarms says this operation will be the largest of its kind in the world.

The 140,000-square-foot facility is a $42 million investment, located in Cane Creek Centre, a joint industrial park owned by Danville and Pittsylvania County.

AeroFarms has already started growing and selling out of its Pittsylvania location, and the ribbon cutting is an official grand opening for the site.

But what exactly is indoor vertical farming? And how does it fit into the agriculture industry?

Indoor vertical farming is a subset of something called controlled environment agriculture. CEA is a technology-based approach to farming, where factors like temperature, humidity, airflow, light intensity and duration, and water supply can be controlled to try to produce optimal conditions for growth.

Familiar examples of controlled environment agriculture include greenhouses and hydroponics.

Indoor vertical farming is exactly what it sounds like. Crops – usually leafy greens – are organized in vertical racks and grown in a controlled environment indoors.

“We’re producing in three dimensions,” said Mike Evans, associate director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center in Danville. This leads to “a lot more production per area.”

This center is a joint project between the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research in Danville and Virginia Tech. It conducts research and does outreach education on controlled environment agriculture, and works with companies in this field.

Evans is also the director of the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech and specializes in CEA.

Unlike greenhouses, indoor vertical farming facilities don’t need translucent or transparent buildings. This means they can be located in “renovated buildings or warehouses built from scratch,” Evans said.

There’s no one formula for indoor vertical farming, Evans said. All systems are slightly different.


Indoor agriculture at AeroFarms’ New Jersey headquarters. Courtesy of AeroFarms.
AeroFarms runs an aeroponic system, meaning that plant roots are misted with “targeted nutrients, water and oxygen,” according to the company’s website.

“Our aeroponic system is a closed loop system, using up to 95% less water for leafy greens than field farming and even less than hydroponics, as well as a fraction of the fertilizers,” the website says.

This is similar to most controlled environment agriculture systems, which can conserve and recycle resources.

And there are other advantages to CEA, including a year-round growing season, quicker harvests, more production in smaller areas, and the ability to farm in places that wouldn’t be suitable for traditional agriculture, like brownfields and on non-arable land.

For Baby Leafy Greens, AeroFarms boasts 26 crop turns per year, using no pesticides.

“A field farm may only get one to three harvests a year,” said Marc Oshima, co-founder and chief marketing officer of AeroFarms.

AeroFarms also uses less than 1% of the land required by traditional agriculture to achieve the same harvest volume, according to its website.

“That means we are over 390 times more land efficient than field farming annualized based on our vertical nature of growing and up to 26 harvests per year,” the website says.

These advantages make CEA, including indoor vertical farming, very attractive in light of present food shortages and environmental concerns.

“Over the past five years, I wouldn’t say there’s been an explosion, but there’s been a rapid increase in the amount of indoor vertical farming that’s occurring,” said Chris Mullins, indoor agriculture extension specialist at Virginia State University.

According to a 2022 study by Grand View Research, Inc., the global indoor farming market size was valued at $39.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $44.3 billion in 2022.

By 2030, the expected value of global indoor farming is $122.3 billion. This is a 13.5% growth rate from 2022 to 2030.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture is working to obtain a count of the number of indoor vertical farm operations there are in the state, said spokesperson Michael Wallace.

But right now, there’s no official list of operations.

The Grand View study attributes this growth to rising population, which is causing increased worldwide demand for food.

Mullins said growth has also been driven by a decrease in the cost of technologies needed for indoor vertical agriculture, especially LED lighting, which is typically the main light supply for the crops.

And venture capitalists and other investors have become more interested in indoor vertical farming because of the environmental benefits, Mullins said.

Indoor vertical farming is expensive to get into, Mullins said. Plus, it’s necessary to have a management and workforce that are very knowledgeable about this method of agriculture.

But after the upfront investment, there can be some cost savings, too.

“Sometimes these are very automated systems,” Mullins said. “They can operate the system robotically, and fewer people are needed. There’s less manpower involved.”

Despite many competitive advantages, there are challenges to indoor vertical farming.

“You have a lot less reaction time,” Mullins said. “If you do get a pest or disease problem, it can very quickly spread. You have to constantly look for issues, and that’s where the management knowledge comes in.”

Although monitoring the system can be automated, “somebody still has to read those numbers and look at labor productivity,” Mullins said. “These aren’t systems that you can just leave alone for extended periods of time.”

And indoor vertical farming is most suited to growing leafy greens and culinary herbs. It doesn’t work as well for other crops.

For this reason, traditional farmers likely don’t see CEA as a threat when it comes to jobs, Wallace said.

“I’m not aware of any concerns about that,” he said. “The crops grown indoors are usually different than the crops grown outdoors.”

Still, Mullins said future innovations could possibly widen the plant variety grown in indoor systems.

Another reason that CEA might be non-threatening to traditional farmers is because it won’t eradicate field agriculture. Mullins said he thinks there will be a shift toward more controlled environment agriculture in the future of farming, but not a total replacement.

“It’ll always be a combination,” Mullins said. “[CEA] won’t take over, but certainly it’s going to chip away.”

Evans agrees. It’s not going to be “this or that,” he said.

“We face a whole lot of environmental issues going forward,” he said. “Lots of issues that we need to work on. We’re going to have issues related to food supply in the future. …Controlled environment ag, with vertical farming being a subset of that, is another tool in the toolbox for us to produce safe healthy foods in the future.”

This is part of AeroFarms’ vision, according to its website. The company works to “protect the environment for future generations, growing more while using less.”

And despite the potential for automated systems, the AeroFarms operation in Danville-Pittsylvania County will have over 158 employees. The company initially planned to bring 92 jobs to the area, announcing an additional 66 jobs in July.

Virginia Tech and the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research are helping AeroFarms with workforce development assistance and plant testing.

The company has over 250 standard operating procedures, meaning “we are able to take unskilled workers and transform them into productive farmers,” Oshima said.

A group of 75 people, including state and federal elected officials and Virginia Secretary of Agriculture Matt Lohr, will be at the ribbon cutting today at 1 p.m.

The Pittsylvania location is AeroFarms’ second commercial indoor farm, with the first in Ithaca, New York. The Virginia operation will distribute its leafy greens and microgreens primarily to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast region.

This operation is part of a larger interest in controlled environment agriculture in the Danville-Pittsylvania area.

The Danville Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center is partnering with Indoor Ag-Con, an indoor agriculture trade show, to put on a CEA summit in October.

This event’s audience will include CEA thought leaders, researchers and experts, with the goal to increase collaboration and partnerships to drive growth in this field.

The Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center is located just a few miles from the AeroFarms facility.

“We meet with AeroFarms quite regularly,” he said. “We have a very cooperative relationship and expect that to grow in the future.”

World’s largest indoor vertical farming campus planting roots in Virginia​

by: Jackie DeFusco
Posted: Sep 14, 2022 / 06:25 PM EDT

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC)- Virginia will soon be home to the world’s largest indoor vertical farming campus, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on Wednesday.

The California-based Plenty Unlimited Inc. plans to invest $300 million in Chesterfield County, creating more than 300 full-time jobs.

Youngkin celebrated the announcement on Wednesday morning at Meadowville Technology Park, where the facility will be built.

Plenty will construct 30-foot towers, which will grow peak-season produce year-round by using technology to simulate the perfect spring day.

The campus will be developed in multiple phases over the next six years but the first farm on site, a dedicated Driscoll’s berry farm, is expected to be complete by winter 2023-2024. The farm will focus on strawberries at first, then expand to other produce.

“I think it clearly places Virginia at the forefront of this next generation AgTech industry that is experiencing a meteoric acceleration,” Youngkin said.

Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai said their system is better for the environment and more efficient than traditional farming.

“This farm will be able to produce 20 million pounds, which is about 350 times on a per-acre basis the amount of produce that is being grown on a single acre,” Kukutai said.

Kukutai said they chose the Chesterfield site because it’s a day’s drive from 100 million customers. He said growing crops closer to shoppers will result in fresher and more flavorful produce. That proximity can also help mitigate supply chain disruptions to better meet demand.

Kukutai said the movement towards indoor farming will also provide stability as a changing climate creates uncertainty for the food supply.

“So it doesn’t just impact Central Virginia but I think it impacts the world,” Youngkin said. “We’re building the supply chains, the workforce, the leading companies, the best customers.”

Kukutai said Virginia is well-positioned to capitalize on future investments from this growing industry.

“One of the reasons for selecting this campus and the scale of it is the ability to build this next farm and then move rapidly to build the next one,” Kukutai said. “We think this is going to be a great location, not just for us, but I’m sure we are going to see other players come into Virginia.”

Plenty to Build ‘World’s Largest’ Indoor Vertical Farming Complex

The $300 million, 120-acre facility in Virginia will grow crops including strawberries, leafy greens and tomatoes.

ByErin X. Wong
September 14, 2022 at 1:15 PM PDTCorrectedSeptember 15, 2022 at 11:33 AM

Plenty Unlimited Inc. said Wednesday it will build the world’s largest indoor vertical farming campus on 120 acres near Richmond, Virginia. The $300 million facility will grow multiple crops, including leafy greens and tomatoes, starting with a Driscoll’s strawberry farm in the winter of 2023-2024. The company says the project, expected to produce up to 20 million pounds of produce annually, will also create 300 new jobs.

The farm complex will include 30-foot climate-controlled and pesticide-free grow towers that maximize light exposure for crops, which will be tended to in part by tall robotic arms. Similar locations in California and a research center in Wyoming already provide kale, mizuna and arugula to Whole Foods Market Inc. and Instacart Inc.

Comment: With fertilizer shortages, diesel costs, "ecosystem services" accounting being pushed by the UN/sustainable development goals, and the "carrot" (USDA programs for regenerative agriculture) and stick" (ESG proposals to require supply chain carbon accounting,) I think the Great Reset is pushing us into faux meat and industrial indoor vertical gardening.

Biden plans floating platforms to expand offshore wind power

By MATTHEW DALY and JENNIFER McDERMOTT
September 15, 2022

FILE (Pic. on website) - President Joe Biden shows a wind turbine size comparison chart during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, June 23, 2022, with governors, labor leaders, and private companies launching the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership. The Biden administration says it will hold its first offshore wind auction next month. It's offering nearly 500,000 acres off the coast of New York and New Jersey for wind energy projects that could produce enough electricity to power nearly 2 million homes.

FILE (Pic. on website) - President Joe Biden shows a wind turbine size comparison chart during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, June 23, 2022, with governors, labor leaders, and private companies launching the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership. The Biden administration says it will hold its first offshore wind auction next month. It's offering nearly 500,000 acres off the coast of New York and New Jersey for wind energy projects that could produce enough electricity to power nearly 2 million homes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday announced plans to develop floating platforms in the deep ocean for wind towers that could power millions of homes and vastly expand offshore wind in the United States.

The plan would target sites in the Pacific Ocean off the California and Oregon coasts, as well as in the Atlantic in the Gulf of Maine.

President Joe Biden hopes to deploy up to 15 gigawatts of electricity through floating sites by 2035, enough to power 5 million homes. The administration has previously set a goal of 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 using traditional technology that secures wind turbines to the ocean floor.

There are only a handful of floating offshore platforms in the world — all in Europe — but officials said the technology is developing and could soon establish the United States as a global leader in offshore wind.

The push for offshore wind is part of Biden’s effort to promote clean energy and address global warming. Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. A climate-and-tax bill he signed last month would spend about $375 billion over 10 years to boost electric vehicles, jump-start renewable energy such as solar and wind power and develop alternative energy sources like hydrogen.

“Today we’re launching efforts to seize a new opportunity — floating offshore wind — which will let us build in deep water areas where turbines can’t be secured directly to the sea floor, but where there are strong winds that we can now harness,″ White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy said at a news conference Thursday.

Deepwater areas in the Pacific especially have potential to vastly expand offshore wind energy in the U.S., McCarthy and other officials said.

McCarthy acknowledged that the floating technology is at an early stage. But she said “coordinated actions” by federal and state officials, working with the private sector, can position the U.S. “to lead the world on floating offshore wind and bring offshore wind jobs to more parts of our country, including the West Coast.″

Two pilot projects are planned off the north and central California coast, and a third is planned in southern Oregon, officials said.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said her state and California have some of the best wind resources in the world, but called floating platforms crucial to develop them due to the depth of the ocean floor along the West Coast.

Heather Zichal, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, an industry group, called the announcement a “game changer” that will spark investment in a new domestic supply chain and allow the U.S. to lead in this emerging technology. Along with incentives in the sweeping climate-and-tax bill, Zichal said she expects costs for offshore wind development to dramatically decrease, allowing deployment of clean energy at the scale needed to take action to address climate change.

The Energy Department announced nearly $50 million, including funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law Biden signed last year, for research, development and demonstration work to support floating offshore wind platforms. Officials aim to cut the cost of floating offshore wind energy 70% by 2035, to $45 per megawatt hour, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.

“We think the private sector is going to quickly see the real opportunity here not only to triple the country’s accessible offshore wind resources but to make the U.S. a global leader in manufacturing and deploying offshore wind,″ she said.

Emerging technology for floating platforms “means there’s real opportunity for greater energy security,″ affordability “and course tens of thousands of good-paying in-demand jobs,″ such as electricians, engineers, ship builders and stevedores, Granholm said.

The Biden administration “is all-in on making floating offshore wind a real part of our of our energy mix and winning the global race to lead in this space,″ Granholm said. ”And that’s why we set this big, hairy audacious goal″ of 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said her department has approved the nation’s first two major offshore wind projects in federal waters and has begun reviewing at least 10 more. An offshore wind lease sale off the New York and New Jersey coast set new records, she said, and a lease sale also was held in North Carolina. Seven lease sales for offshore wind projects are planned by 2025.

More than half of the nation’s offshore wind resources are in deep waters where traditional offshore wind foundations are not economically feasible, Haaland said, adding that “floating wind will help us reach areas once not attainable. And this is critical because floating wind will help us build on the administration’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.″

The world’s first floating wind farm has been operating off Scotland’s coast since 2017. Norway-based Equinor, which operates the 30-megawatt Hywind Scotland project, is currently building a huge, floating offshore wind farm off Norway to provide electricity for offshore oil and gas fields.

Lauren Shane, a spokeswoman for Equinor in the United States, said the company is upbeat about floating offshore wind and will evaluate possible opportunities in the U.S. “We’re excited about the development of offshore wind in the U.S.,″ she said.

Another offshore wind developer with projects in the United States, Denmark-based Ørsted, also applauded the administration’s efforts.

“The administration’s innovation priority is well-placed, and with the right investment and public-private partnerships,″ floating platforms “can expand deployment, drive down costs and bring more clean energy to millions of Americans,” said Bryan Stockton, head of regulatory affairs for Ørsted North America.

Is The European Union About To Rupture?

SUNDAY, SEP 18, 2022 - 11:00 PM
Authored by Tuomas Malinen via The Epoch Times,

The possible, even likely, collapse of the European economy would inflict some heavy costs to present European institutions. In this entry, Dr. Peter Nyberg and I detail why we believe we are likely to see some rupturing of the European Union (EU) as originally conceived.

This may occur in two ways: Either the European Union disintegrates completely, or it mutates into something unrecognizable to its original purpose. This comment concentrates on some of the factors causing disintegration.

The functioning of the EU has, until recently, been built on two political pillars that now appear to be crumbling. Primarily, German growth has made possible the joint financing (through low-cost debt, the EU budget, and the central banks’ clearing system) of unsuccessful economies without the EU forcing them to commit to politically unacceptable reforms. Beneficent global developments have made possible the concentration on economic integration while going slow on the much more contentious integration of cultural, social, and foreign policies.

The deterioration of the global economy, together with EU policies, now threaten industry and living standards in EU member states, reduce the scope of joint economic support, and force member states to rapidly evaluate their readiness for possibly radical reductions in their political self-determination. This is most evident in Italy.

The yields of Italian sovereign debt have reached levels that can be considered unsustainable, given the country’s high indebtedness and low rate of economic growth. For example, the yield of the Italian 10-year bond breached the 4 percent line late this past week. The maturity structure of Italian debt is also rather unfavorable. At the end of June, for example, Italy had issued only 52 percent of its needs for external financing in 2022. In addition, 35 percent of her outstanding debt will come due already in 2024. Half of her total debt will come due within five years.

Without active country-specific support from the European Central Bank (ECB), which the newly introduced Transmission Protection Instrument is designed to facilitate, Italian debt is unsustainable at current yields. Disagreements among member states on the wisdom of filling the ECB with Italian bonds is bound to weaken the glue keeping the EU together as before.

The energy crisis is also sowing seeds of serious inner conflict. The politics in the EU are becoming less forgiving as difficulties mount.

Contentious Issues Piling Up
Both Hungary and the Czech Republic have objected to the plans for a price cap of Russian gas, which now looks unlikely to be enforced. The European Commission is also planning to cut funding for the Hungarian government of Victor Orban due to “rule-of-law concerns.” This is unlikely to increase the incentives of Hungary to stay in the union. More generally, as funding is made conditional on countries meeting the test of adhering to “European values,” one can expect the list of such essentially political requirements to grow as economic conditions worsen and demands for uniform policies grow.

For example, Poland is fed up with constant extra demands from the EU, like the demand to walk back from the changes Polish government was planning to the judicial system, considering the distribution of funds from the Recovery Fund to its government. Krzysztof Sobolewski, the governing party’s secretary-general, has warned that without a clear change in the actions of Brussels, “We will have no choice but to pull out all the cannons in our arsenal and open fire.” Since a number of contentious decisions still require unanimity, such a threat might be unwise to take lightly.

Fault lines are also emerging regarding the Russia sanctions.

Moderation in this respect, as ultimately needed by Germany and especially Italy, is not readily accepted (and may even attract internal sanctions). Russia naturally uses existing differences to reduce the cohesion of the EU. Reports state that Russia is preparing a first shipment from its new liquefied natural gas plant to Greece. Hungary, as an outlier, is buying additional gas from Russia in accordance with their new agreement. It will be interesting to see what Germany may choose to do if the impact of energy scarcity on its economy and population is as large as some reports suggest.

Besides financially, Italy is also between a “rock and a hard place” on gas issues. While she has been able to cut Russian gas imports from around 40 percent to 15–20 percent, it’s becoming practically impossible to cut them much further. There are serious bottlenecks dictating how much gas can be transferred from south to north Italy. Essentially, only a sufficient Russian gas supply can keep the lights on in the north of Italy, which is also the industrial hub of the country.

Practically, this means that President Vladimir Putin has the ability to push Italy into a deep recession and create yet another economic basket case in the EU. This time Germany may not be able to guarantee the financing needed for saving Italian companies and the nation’s banks. If so, yet another debt crisis may well come ablaze in the eurozone. The question is, will the new government of Italy just sit and wait for this, or will it perhaps insist that the EU or itself negotiate a deal with Russia?

So, how will the EU respond to these threats?

We are assuming that European Commission is at some point encouraged to propose a Recovery Fund 2.0, which would need to be considerably larger than the previous one (of around €800 billion). The fund would provide financing for countries to cope with rising energy prices as well as to help the bond markets of Italy, and others, retain market confidence. The ECB may even be forced to restart quantitative easing while it raises rates. Indeed, this may already be happening, as the balance sheet of the ECB has grown by some €13 billion since mid-August.

The commission is likely to try to gather more power for itself through essentially un-constitutional demands, like the preposterous “mandatory demand cut” for electricity consumption. The commission has no right, legally or otherwise, to prescribe such an action from member states, though reducing demand by itself is a sensible policy at this point and could be the subject of a commission suggestion.

The question remains, will all the member states “play ball” in this and coming issues? We are not so sure.

The Unintended Consequences Of The EU Energy Emergency Plan

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 12:30 AM
Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

The EU Commission presented an energy crisis emergency plan this week.

The plan includes a windfall tax and a framework on capping energy prices in EU member states.

The $140 billion windfall tax plan could slow down investment in both oil and gas and renewables.

This week saw the European Commission's President Ursula von der Leyen do something that would have probably been considered the opposite of democracy just a few years ago. She proposed that governments impose a ceiling on certain energy producers' revenues and add a windfall profit for Big Oil majors. Called "a solidarity contribution" or "a crisis contribution," the windfall tax's aim is the same as the aim of the revenue ceiling: manage energy costs in a runaway inflation environment and get some additional money to, according to the plan, distribute among those who most need it.

Like all grand plans, however, unintended consequences abound with this one, and one of the gravest is the discouragement of oil and gas investments at a time when global oil and gas investments are already lower than they should be in light of demand projections.

JP Morgan's head of global energy strategy said it this week in an interview with Bloomberg.

"If you're planning your capital budget, you have to think twice now that you have a new risk," Malek told Bloomberg.

"It encourages majors to return cash to shareholders as they use that free cashflow that could have been used in investment."

Per plans, the EU seeks to "raise" some $140 billion from windfall taxes on non-gas electricity generators and oil gas, and coal companies for their "extraordinary record profits benefiting from war and on the back of consumers," to quote Von der Leyen.

Reaction from the industry was swift. Austria's OMV said the consequences of such measures could be huge, adding that it was unfair to base the windfall levy proposal on oil companies' profits from the last three years since these were not normal times, Reuters reported, quoting CEO Alfred Stern.

"We will keep an eye on that, as it can already have a massive impact," Stern told media, noting, however, that the exact impact was difficult to glean because the proposal has yet to be fleshed out.

Per von der Leyen's State of the Union speech, in which she listed the windfall tax among measures to cope with the energy crisis, the idea is to tax oil and gas companies with 33 percent of any current-year profits that were 20 percent above the company's average earnings for the last three years.

OMV's Stern noted that the last three years included two pandemic years when a lot of companies in the oil and gas industries struggled to stay afloat, let alone post a profit, with oil prices falling as low as $25 per barrel.

"Major oil, gas and coal companies are also making huge profits. So they have to pay a fair share – they have to give a crisis contribution," the European Commission's President said in her speech.

If what JP Morgan's Malek predicts is correct, this would mean less energy security for the future with less new oil and gas production outside Russia. The key, Malek told Bloomberg, was whether the levy would stay for years or be quickly removed once the money was raised.

"It's not the absolute number, it's the uncertainty, the unpredictability of this," he said said.

"There's a risk this becomes recurring."

Von der Leyen has assured the audience of her speech that the additional taxes were "all emergency and temporary measures," adding that for long-term energy security, the EU needed to reduce its energy consumption.

Reuters noted in its report on OMV's reaction to the speech that, according to analysts, the most likely targets of the new tax would be refiners in Europe since there is little upstream activity going on in the EU.

Yet integrated energy companies have integrated policies, and an additional tax on European refining may well have an impact on future plans for operations in, say, the Gulf of Mexico.

It's worth noting that, at the moment, the windfall tax is only a proposal. It is certainly a proposal that comes from a high place, but it has yet to be approved by all EU members. According to an FT report on the topic, not all are on board with all the measures.

The report also quoted S&P Global's executive director for gas industry in EMA, Laurent Ruseckas, as saying that the proposals put forward by Von der Leyen were "all extraordinarily complex" and "would be impossible to work out and implement in time for winter even if there were political consensus behind them — which there isn't."

"It makes sense to agree to EU-wide targets and measures, but without allowing national flexibility on how to get there we risk breaking the markets we're trying to fix," a European diplomat told the FT.

All this suggests that Big Oil might yet avoid the additional levy, although given its reputation as the Big Bad in climate change, the additional levy on the industry might be the only measure to receive wide support.

Europe, More Than Putin, Must Shoulder The Blame For The Energy Crisis

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 03:30 AM
Authored by Jonathan Cook via AntiWar.com,

The same arrogant, self-righteous posturing from the West that fueled the Ukraine war is now plunging Europe into recession

Outraged western leaders are threatening a price cap on imports of Russian natural gas after Moscow cut supplies to Europe this month, deepening an already dire energy and cost-of-living crisis. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Europe will “freeze” this winter unless there is a change of tack.

In this back-and-forth, the West keeps stepping up the rhetoric. Putin is accused of using a mix of blackmail and economic terror against Europe. His actions supposedly prove once more that he is a monster who cannot be negotiated with, and a threat to world peace.

Denying fuel to Europe as winter approaches, in a bid to weaken the resolve of European states to support Kyiv and alienate European publics from their leaders, is Putin’s opening gambit in a plot to expand his territorial ambitions from Ukraine to the rest of Europe.

Or so runs the all-too-familiar narrative shared by western politicians and media.

In fact, Europe’s arrogant, self-righteous posturing over Russian gas supplies, divorced from any discernible geopolitical reality, reflects precisely the same foolhardy mindset that helped provoke Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in the first place.

It is also the reason why there has been no exit ramp – a path to negotiations – even as Russia has taken vast swaths of Ukraine’s eastern and southern flanks – territory that cannot be reclaimed without a further massive loss of life on both sides, as the limited Ukrainian assault around Kharkiv has highlighted.

The western media has to carry a major share of the blame for these serial failures of diplomacy. Journalists have amplified only too loudly and uncritically what US and European leaders want their publics to believe is going on. But maybe it is time that Europeans heard a little of how things might look to Russian eyes.

Economic war
The media could start by dropping their indignation at “insolent” Moscow for refusing to supply Europe with gas. After all, Moscow has been only too clear about the reason for the shutdown of gas supplies: it is in retaliation for the West imposing economic sanctions – a form of collective punishment on the wider Russian population that risks violating the laws of war.

The West is well practiced in waging economic war on weak states, usually in a futile attempt to topple leaders they don’t like or as a softening-up exercise before it sends in troops or proxies.

Iran has faced decades of sanctions that have inflicted a devastating toll on its economy and population but done nothing to bring down the government.

Meanwhile, Washington is waging what amounts to its own form of economic terrorism on the Afghan people to punish the ruling Taliban for driving out US occupation forces last year in a humiliating fashion. The United Nations reported last month that sanctions had contributed to the risk of more than a million Afghan children dying from starvation.

There is nothing virtuous about the current economic sanctions on Russia either, any more than there is about the blackballing of Russian sportspeople and cultural icons. The sanctions are not intended to push Putin to the negotiating table. As US President Biden made clear in March, the West is planning for a long war and he wants to see Putin removed from power.

Rather, the goal has been to weaken his authority and – in some fantasy scenario – encourage his subordinates to turn on him. The West’s game plan – if it can be dignified with that term – is to force Putin to overextend Russian forces in Ukraine by flooding the battlefield with armaments, and then watch his government collapse under the weight of popular discontent at home.

But in practice, the reverse has been happening, just as it did through the 1990s when the West imposed sanctions on Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Putin’s position has been bolstered, as it will continue to be whether Russia is triumphing or losing on the battlefield.

The West’s economic sanctions against Russia have been doubly foolish. They have reinforced Putin’s message that the West seeks to destroy Russia, just as it previously did Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen. A strongman is all that stands between an independent Russia and servitude, Putin can plausibly argue.

And at the same time, the sanctions have demonstrated to Russians how truly artful their leader is. Economic pressure from the West has largely backfired: sanctions have barely made an impression on the value of the rouble, while Europe looks to be heading into recession as Putin turns off the gas spigot.

It will doubtless not only be Russians quietly rejoicing at seeing the West get a dose of the medicine it so regularly force-feeds others.

Western conceit
But there is a more troubling dimension to the West’s conceit. It was the same high-handed belief that the West would face no consequences for waging economic warfare on Russia, just as earlier assumed it would be pain-free for NATO to station missiles on Moscow’s doorstep. (Presumably, the effect on Ukrainians was not factored into the calculations.)

The decision to recruit ever-more east European states into the NATO fold over the past two decades not only broke promises made to Soviet and Russian leaders, but flew in the face of advice from the West’s most expert policy-makers.

Guided by the US, NATO countries closed the military noose around Russia year by year, all the while claiming that the noose was entirely defensive.

NATOflirted openly with Ukraine, suggesting that it too might be admitted to their anti-Russia alliance.

The US had a hand in the 2014 protests that overthrew Ukraine’s government, one elected to keep channels open with Moscow.

With a new government installed, the Ukrainian army incorporated ultra-nationalist, anti-Russia militias that engaged in a devastating civil war with Russian communities in the country’s east.

And all the while, NATO secretly cooperated with and trained that same Ukrainian army.

At no point in the eight long years of Ukraine’s civil war did Europe or the US care to imagine how all these events unfolding in Russia’s backyard might look to ordinary Russians. Might they not fear the West just as much as western publics have been encouraged by their media to fear Moscow? Putin did not need to invent their concern. The West achieved that all by itself.

The encirclement of Russia by NATO was not a one-off error. Western meddling in the coup and support for a nationalist Ukrainian army increasingly hostile to Russia were not one-offs either. NATO’s decision to flood Ukraine with weapons rather than concentrate on diplomacy is no aberration. Nor is the decision to impose economic sanctions on ordinary Russians.

These are all of a piece, a pattern of pathological behavior by the West towards Russia – and any other resource-rich state that does not utterly submit to western control. If the West were an individual, the patient would be diagnosed as suffering from a severe personality disorder, one with a strong impulse for self-destruction.

Bogeyman needed
Worse still, this impulse does not appear to be open to correction – not as things stand. The truth is that NATO and its US ringmaster have no interest in changing.

Their purpose is to have a credible bogeyman, one that justifies continuing the massive wealth redistribution from ordinary citizens to an elite of the already ultra-rich. A supposed threat to Europe’s safety justifies pouring money into the maw of an expanding war machine masquerading as the “defense industries” – the military, the arms manufacturers, and the ever-growing complex of the surveillance, intelligence and security industries. Both NATO and a US network of more than 800 military bases around the globe just keep growing.

A bogeyman also ensures western publics are unified in their fear and hatred of an external enemy, making them readier to defer to their leaders to protect them – and with it, the institutions of power those leaders uphold and the status quo they represent.

Anyone suggesting meaningful reform of that system can be rounded on as a threat to national security, a traitor or a fool, as Britain’s former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn found out.

And a bogeyman distracts western publics from thinking about deeper threats, ones that our own leaders – rather than foreigners – are responsible for, such as the climate crisis they not only ignored but still fuel through the very military posturing and global confrontations they use to distract us. It is a perfect circle of self-harm.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the demise of the Soviet Union, the West has been casting around for a useful bogeyman to replace the Soviet Union, one that supposedly presents an existential threat to western civilization.

Iraq’s weapons of mass distraction were only 45 minutes away – until we learned they did not, in fact, exist.

Afghanistan’s Taliban was harboring al-Qaeda – until we learned that the Taliban had offered to hand Osama bin Laden over even before the 9/11 attacks.

There was the terrifying threat from the head-choppers of the Islamic State (IS) group – until we learned that they were the West’s arm’s-length allies in Syria and being supplied with weapons from Libya after it was liberated by the West from its dictator, Muammar Gadaffi.

And there is always Iran and its supposed nuclear weapons to worry about, even though Tehran signed an agreement in 2015 putting in place strict international oversight to prevent it from developing a bomb – until the US casually discarded the deal under pressure from Israel and chose not to replace it with anything else.

Braced for recession
Each of these threats was so grave it required an enormous expenditure of energy and treasure, until it had served its purpose of terrifying western publics into acquiescence. Invariably, the West’s meddling spawned a backlash that created another temporary enemy.

Now, like a predictable Hollywood sequel, the Cold War is back with a vengeance. Russia’s President Putin has a starring role. And the military-industrial complex is licking its lips with delight.

Ordinary people and small businesses are being told by European leaders to brace for a recession as energy companies once again clock up “eye-watering” profits.

Just as with the financial crash nearly 15 years ago, when the public was required to tighten its belt through austerity policies, a crisis is providing ideal conditions for wealth to be redistributed upwards.

Like other officials, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has sounded the alarm about “civil unrest” this winter as prices across Europe soar, even while demanding public money be used to send yet more weapons to Ukraine.

The question is whether western publics will keep buying the narrative of an existential threat that can only be dealt with if they, rather than their leaders, dig deep into their pockets.

German Bakery Slapped With €330,000 Gas Bill After Contract Canceled

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 01:15 AM

A German bakery was slapped with a €330,000 (US$330,000) gas bill after a new energy company suddenly terminated their contract which guaranteed pricing until the end of 2023, Junge Freiheit reported, citing Bild.

"Are they crazy?" said owner Eckehard Vatter, who says he has 14 days to pay the bill. "A year ago, we paid €5,856 per month in gas costs for our large furnaces and heating," he added.

Vatter said his new energy supplier hasn't given him a reason for the 1,200% price increase.

What's more, since Vatter's bakery is considered a 'craft business' under commercial law, he can't receive any support from the state. He claims to have paid €19.9 million in taxes in recent years, according to ReMix.

Almost three weeks ago we noted that shocked Europeans had been posting viral photos of absurdly high energy bills.

Days later, the German government announced a €65 billion relief package to cushion citizens and companies from skyrocketing energy costs. The agreement, which brings total relief to almost 100 billion euros since the start of the Ukraine war, was agreed upon by Germany's three-way ruling coalition of Scholz's Social Democrats, the Greens, and the liberal FDP.

Among the headline measures are one-off payments to millions of vulnerable pensioners and a plan to skim off energy firms' windfall profits. In short, creeping nationalization of the energy sector.

And a couple days after that package was announced, Economy Minister Robert Habeck promised to help small and medium businesses.

"We will open a wide rescue umbrella," he said during a Sept. 8 speech in Berlin. "We will open it widely so that small and medium enterprises can come under it."

Unless you're a bakery classified as a 'craft business.'

Who could have seen this coming?

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1570024171379245058
1:15 min

The Weakness Is Broadening Out From Low-Income To Middle-Income Consumers

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 03:55 AM

Earlier today, when making a case why the US economy has so far proven highly resilient to the Fed's increasingly shrill attempts to push it into a recession, Morgan Stanley's cross-asset strategist Andrew Sheets said that about half of all the income in the US is earned by households making more than $100,000 per year, and since most of these households own their own homes, and either have no mortgage or have refinanced into a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at an extremely low rate, it means that the largest expense for these households is not rising even as the Fed is hiking, but their wages are (median wage growth in the US is ~6.5%, per the Atlanta Fed). For many of these households - which represent a large share of national income- Sheets said that financial conditions aren’t tightening, they’re easing, which may also help to explain why core inflation is so ‘sticky’ on the way down.

Naturally, this is good news for America's wealthy and upper-middle class, but it's not good news for everyone else, and as Sheets admits, things look different at the low end of the income distribution, where households are more likely to face high rent inflation and be more impacted by higher food and energy costs. "This seems to present a real dilemma, one that in the market’s eyes increases the likelihood that the Fed will have to do more."

Perhaps, but in a note published by Morgan Stanley's Michael Wilson last week, the chief US strategist writes that he recently held his monthly meeting with lead analysts across US research and the bank's economists/strategists, to better connect macro and micro data points. Understandably, the session focused around inventory and especially the health of the consumer.

One theme, Sheets warns, that repeatedly came up was that "consumer weakness is broadening out from low income consumers to middle income consumers" although as noted above, high income consumers have continued to hold up, for now.

Below we present the highlights from the gloomy Morgan Stanley monthly meeting broken down by sector:

Internet: Online e-commerce has held up better than expected and the consumer has held in across the board especially for AMZN. The ad markets are not great but holding in. It sounds like August was better than July and 4Q is shaping up to be better than 3Q even though the comp is harder. This comes despite trade down.

Media: DIS said ad market has remained choppy – seeing strength in experiential advertising. Consumer spend on entertainment remains robust across our coverage and in general, commentary from companies does not point to slowing spend from the consumer side yet. Theme park spend continues to outpace expectations on per caps and attendance. Comcast’s Universal parks delivered record ebitda despite international tourism to the US parks in FL and CA still at half of pre-pandemic levels. At Disney, domestic parks continue to deliver record revenue and margins with no signs of a slowing consumer. 70% of guests who have purchased Genie+ and Lightning Lane are saying they’re buying again when they come back; current trends from 2q earnings remain robust; have seen more advanced booking on international dates coming back, not yet back to historical though so more opportunity there. Consistent with results we’ve seen elsewhere in premium live experiences, EDR highlighted return of concerts, comedy touring driving outperformance while Live Nation, bookings are up over 30% and fan attendance grew 13% over ’19 levels at operated venues. August box office came in ahead of expectations. The main message within cable/move activity here is that move activity continues to be below pre-covid levels and continues to generally be very low but seasonality has started to come back into the business; Charter has called out that voluntary churn was flat YoY and in-line with lowest levels ever seen; move and non-pay churn continue to be below covid levels.

Software: We have seen a deceleration in IT spending growth intentions.

Software companies are calling out the more difficult macro environment. The dynamic we are seeing is not what investors expected. You would expect small businesses to see it first and for nice to have projects get cut first while large enterprises hold in. What we have actually seen is deal cycle elongation for the biggest/most expensive projects. This is a step one response to a more uncertain environment. There is probably another shoe to drop and for IT budgets to actually get cut. You are likely to get indications on that when companies set 2023 budgets in Oct/Nov.

Semiconductors: There is still an idiosyncratic supply disruption problem within semiconductors. Even though companies are seeing capacity freeing up, we are still seeing shortages from China lockdowns and substantial double ordering. That being said, with the current pace of supply and demand corrections, we will probably be done talking about shortages by Q4

Tech Hardware: Tech hardware companies had a challenging 2Q – consumer segments did poorly and guided down results for the remainder of CY22 while enterprise results were more mixed but started to show cracks in demand. We have already seen discounting occurring on the consumer side – those discounts are accelerating and now starting to bleed into the enterprise side, with Dell and HP recently highlighting PC demand deterioration in commercial markets could drive more aggressive pricing. We saw significant margin compression in 2Q. We are seeing a slowing in spending/hiring - we aren’t seeing hiring cuts yet, but slowdown across the board and widespread opex management (i.e. cost cuts) as demand worsens.

Banks: Consumer spend running at about 10% YOY. REAL spending is coming down but nominal is high. Wages have kept up with spend requirements so losses remain low with prime customers but sub-prime is having trouble. Loan growth is running at 11% while deposit growth is running at 3% due to QT.

Hardlines/Broadlines/Food Retail: June was a very bad month for consumption but mid to late July and August back to school spending helped bail these companies out. Some of the momentum is likely to slow but companies feel a bit better now. Companies are seeing pressure and trade down at both the high AND low end. Inventories are still enormous and yet companies are saying this is not a problem. We think there is about one to two standard deviations of too much stuff. We haven’t seen promotions come back with a vengeance YET. The consumer is okay and hanging in but the risks are higher than the opportunity.

Specialty Retail: In 2Q22, the vast majority of retailers & brands missed topline & gross margin estimates. This reflected a sequential monthly topline deceleration, with May the peak followed by a material step-down in 2H June that only remained depressed or worsened in July & into August. And perhaps even more telling, retailers did not offer positive back-to-school commentary, unlike many in Simeon Gutman’s space. We also saw consumer pressure expand into the middle income group in 2Q22, suggesting weakness is no longer isolated to lower income consumers. However, luxury has held in.

Additionally, we have not seen any trade down benefit yet, as evidenced by the Off-Pricers’ still-pressured results. However, we continue to expect this materializes, though the timing is the key debate. Moving down the P&L, revenue softness only exacerbated the inventory problem we’ve been highlighting all year, leading to broad-based 2Q22 gross margin misses as retailers increased their promotional & discounting levels in an attempt to clear through extremely bloated Spring/Summer inventory stock. We think inventory will remain elevated through year end, making for an incredibly competitive promotional/discounting environment, which doesn’t bode well given there is no pricing power in this industry (as evidenced by the collapse in AUR this year). Finally, retailers & brands were able to partially offset some of this revenue & GM pressure by taking another look at SG&A expenses & implementing a variety of actions – hiring freezes, less store payroll hours, headcount reductions, among others. The good news is cost pressures are abating as retailers lap LY’s high wage & freight expenses.

Electrical Equipment/Multi-Industry: We’re entering a key seasonal point for working capital and inventory positioning into year end. Inventories appear to be higher in the channel after mostly sitting in manufacturing WIP for the past several quarters. Improving supply chain should start to convert WIP to finished inventory and then drive the decision process on order vs. cancel over the next several months. Overall, demand across markets looks resilient, including in Europe, and we don’t expect negative updates for another month or two as the final ingredients for a short-cycle slowdown come together. Capex, productivity, infrastructure, and efficiency spending remain solid demand drivers while price/cost is starting to be a major tailwind for names with high exposure to metals (e.g., steel).

Restaurants: Restaurant sales decelerated this summer, but it wasn’t that bad on a 3 year stack. This has been a strange summer- some of this change is because seasonality is going back to normal. Food inflation is running about mid teens and is generally being viewed as peak inflation. We won’t get into deflation but expect the rate of inflation to fall. The availability of labor is good but labor is expensive. Wage increases should be less onerous in back half of the year.

Packaged Food: Pricing has been up low double digits to mid teens. Volume elasticity has been better than expected. In 2Q volumes were only down 3%. However, consumers are starting to trade down more within packaged food. Private label started gaining share in March. Private label hasn’t raised prices to the same degree as brands. Food companies realize cost inflation on a 6 month lag.

Peering Into The Crystal Ball, We See... Instability Leading To Collapse

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 05:15 AM
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We can only choose one: open, dynamic stability (evolution) or autocracy (instability and collapse).

When the fundamentals of life change, every organism must evolve or die. This is equally true of human organizations, societies and economies.

Evolution requires conserving what still works and experimenting until something comes along that works better. We call the fundamentals changing selective pressure and the process of experimenting with mutations / variations natural selection.

In genetic and epigenetics, this process is automatic. In human organizations, those in power influence the choice of what is conserved or replaced and what it's replaced with. Those who benefit from the current arrangement will fight to conserve it as is, while those being weakened by selective pressure and those hoping to gain advantages with a new arrangement will fight for replacing the old with the new.

Longtime correspondent Ron G. recently shared an insightful economic characterization of this dynamic: wealth defense vs wealth creation. Those holding the system's wealth have few incentives to risk changing the system, as those changes could undermine or erode their wealth. They have incentives to limit evolutionary forces that threaten their wealth as a means of defending their wealth.

Those who have lost wealth and those with little wealth have incentives to change the system to favor wealth creation.

We can describe the first as orthodoxy--evolution threatens the stability of the status quo, so limit evolution to the margins--and heretics being the second option that tosses out the status quo in favor of a more advantageous variation.

This isn't either / or, of course. As Ron points out, corporations have incentives to both conserve stability and embrace variations that increase revenues and profits by expanding the markets for the company's products. In Ron's words: "The function of orthodoxy or corporate policy / rigor is to mitigate variations that would decrease stability."

In other words, there's a danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Dynamic equilibrium is based on a constant flux of variations and experiments--that is, low-level instability--continually modifying the system to maintain core stability.

Without this constant flux of low-level instability, sources of instability pile up, unnoticed and uncorrected, until they become consequential enough to destabilize the entire system. The system implodes, crashes, unravels, etc.

We can understand this flux of variations and experiments as evolutionary churn, and this churn requires two things: a steady flow of mutations / variations to feed the process of experimentation, and transparency so advantageous variations aren't suppressed. In a transparent evolutionary system, data and information about each variation and experiment flows freely between all nodes in the system.

You see the problem. Those benefiting from the status quo are threatened by variations that could replace whatever is defending their wealth. Those in power benefit from the status quo, so their Job One is to suppress evolution by limiting transparency and variations, which include dissent.

Theoretically, those in power favor evolutionary advances that enhance their power and wealth, but anything that powerful is generally a two-edged sword: modified slightly, it could disrupt the entire status quo and fatally undermine their power.

So the safe bet is to suppress all evolutionary churn except those improvements which can be used to further cement their power. These are by definition autocratic.

You see the delicious irony: autocrats suppress evolutionary churn and transparency as threats, but evolutionary churn and transparency are the essential forces maintaining the system's dynamic equilibrium. Once the system's dynamic equilibrium decays, systemic instability builds up and eventually brings the entire system crashing down.

Because this process is obscured by authoritarian suppression of transparency, "nobody saw it coming."

As those in power adopt ever stronger authoritarian measures to limit the potential threats of evolutionary churn and transparency, they accelerate the fatal instabilities building up within their self-serving, kleptocratic social, political and economic systems.

By suppressing the evolutionary churn and transparency that maintain the system's dynamic equilibrium, they doom their regime to collapse.

The crystal ball isn't cloudy, it's crystal-clear: rising instability leading to collapse. "Nobody saw it coming" except those who understand evolution requires evolutionary churn and transparency.

Collapse is a perfectly good evolutionary solution. Stability is either dynamic or it's not actually stable; it's merely a simulacrum of stability sliding toward instability and ruin.



The better option is to embrace evolutionary churn and transparency and accept the trade-off: we can only choose one: open, dynamic stability (evolution) or autocracy (instability and collapse). Choose wisely, for once systems collapse there's no turning back the clock.

How Global Warming Is A Lot Like ‘Get Trump’

I & I Editorial Board
September 19, 2022Add comment

Brilliant author Tom Wolfe wrote more than 45 years ago that “the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.” While still relevant to our present times, it’s the sort of observation that can also be applied to a couple of other events playing out in our world today.

First up, global warming. We’ve been hearing the shrill warnings, a constant wave of hysteria for more than three decades. Because of man’s use of fossil fuels, we’ve been told the polar ice caps would melt, glaciers would collapse en masse, snow would stop falling, rising sea levels would flood coastal regions, and droughts and floods would be the rule rather than rare exceptions.

It’s hard to even recall a time when this alarmist or that climatista wasn’t trying to convince the world that we have only eight or 10 or 11 or maybe “zero” years, possibly even less than 100 months, to change our fossil-fuel-burning ways before Gaia would see to it that we begin to suffer and perish.

In fact, we shouldn’t even be here today. In 1989, the Associated Press reported that “a senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”

But as we look around us, and as we review the data, the dark night of global warming that is always descending has never landed.

And it’s unlikely that it ever will. As the science shows, there is no climate emergency.

The enduring-beyond-all-logic climate scare reminds us of the “Get Trump” campaign, which has been claiming for about seven years now that Donald Trump is on the verge of being either: indicted, kicked out of the White House before his term was up, found guilty, imprisoned, or chased from the public square.

How many times did we hear during his four years that “a turning point” or “a tipping point” or “the beginning of the end” of his presidency had been reached? Predictions of him being “done,” of bombshells exploding all around him were reported with a grave seriousness hiding an inner glee for years. To have listened to the media in recent years it was hard not to believe the walls were relentlessly closing in on him and his last days were quickly approaching. Even now, as a former president, the Democrats, the media, and the Never Trump Republicans are sure that the FBI search of his home will be his end.

Yet the dark night has yet to land on Trump.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, and much of the media want the country to believe that, led by “MAGA Republicans,” the dark night of fascism continues to descend on the U.S. They are partly right. There is a distinct whiff of fascism in the air. But it’s the Democrats who released the stench with their efforts to crush dissent and establish single-party rule over constitutional governing.

White House Introduces the Joe Biden “U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency”

September 18, 2022 | Sundance | 356 Comments

If you combine government use of energy policy, government regulation on individuals around that energy policy, and the self-interested need to control political opposition, you discover one of the most effective ways to control human activity is to control their finance.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave us a great example of that when he weaponized the power of the Canadian government to target the protesting truckers and those who support them. You might remember Trudeau’s government locked down bank accounts, froze assets, denied loans, blocked mortgages and generally confiscated the wealth and incomes of his political opposition without any due process; all because the people were challenging his totalitarian COVID dictates.

Take those reference points as an overlay and now consider this undiscussed recent announcement from the Biden administration:

[White House] – President Biden often summarizes his vision for America in one word: Possibilities. A “digital dollar” may seem far-fetched, but modern technology could make it a real possibility.

A United States central bank digital currency (CBDC) would be a digital form of the U.S. dollar. While the U.S. has not yet decided whether it will pursue a CBDC, the U.S. has been closely examining the implications of, and options for, issuing a CBDC. If the U.S. pursued a CBDC, there could be many possible benefits, such as facilitating efficient and low-cost transactions, fostering greater access to the financial system, boosting economic growth, and supporting the continued centrality of the U.S. within the international financial system. However, a U.S. CBDC could also introduce a variety of risks, as it might affect everything ranging from the stability of the financial system to the protection of sensitive data.

Notably, these benefits and risks might vary significantly based on how the CBDC system is designed and deployed. That is why Executive Order 14067, Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets, placed the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a U.S. CBDC. The Executive Order directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in consultation with other Federal departments and agencies, to submit to the President a technical evaluation for a potential U.S. CBDC system.

Today, OSTP is publishing its report, Technical Evaluation for a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency System,, which lays out policy objectives for a potential U.S. CBDC system and analyzes key technical design choices for a U.S. CBDC system. The report also estimates the technical feasibility of building a CBDC minimum viable product and describes how a U.S. CBDC system might affect Federal operations. The report makes recommendations on how to prepare the Federal Government for a U.S. CBDC system. Importantly, the report does not make any assessments or recommendations about whether the U.S. should pursue a CBDC, nor does it make any decisions regarding particular design choices for a potential U.S. CBDC system. (read more)

When you read that full announcement, you realize they have already built the system.

If the system is built and they are now making policy recommendations for implementation, the question becomes ‘what’s the goal’?

We do not have to look far for the explanation.

the World Government Summit 2022 took place on March 29 and 30 in Dubai, hosting more than 4,000 individuals from 190 countries including senior government officials, heads of international organizations, and global “experts.” The invited participants presented ideas and worldviews from within their various fields of specialty.

One presentation was from Dr. Pippa Malmgren, an American economist who served as special advisor on Economic Policy to President George W. Bush.

Her father, Harald Malmgren, served as a senior aide to US Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. In this segment, Mrs. Malmgren says the quiet part out loud. Yes, they are no longer hiding the construct; indeed, as you will hear they are saying quite openly what the future will look like. WATCH (2 minutes):

View: https://youtu.be/iDrV58hWKcU
1:46 min

[Full Source – 6 hours View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTDzH2A1tM
(internal segment at 18:30)]

Transcript – Dr. Malmgren: “What underpins a world order is always the financial system. I was very privileged. My father was an adviser to Nixon when they came off the gold standard in 71. And so, I was brought up with a kind of inside view of how very important the financial structure is to absolutely everything else.

And what we’re seeing in the world today, I think, is we are on the brink of a dramatic change where we are about to, and I’ll say this boldly, we’re about to abandon the traditional system of money and accounting and introduce a new one. And the new one. The new accounting is what we call blockchain.

It means digital, it means having a almost perfect record of every single transaction that happens in the economy, which will give us far greater clarity over what’s going on. It also raises huge dangers in terms of the balance of power between states and citizens.

In my opinion, we’re going to need a digital constitution of human rights if we’re going to have digital money. But also this new money will be sovereign in nature. Most people think that digital money is crypto, and private. But what I see our superpowers introducing digital currency, the Chinese were the first the US is on the brink, I think of moving in the same direction the Europeans have committed to that as well.

And the question is, will that new system of digital money and digital accounting accommodate the competing needs of the citizens of all these locations, so that every human being has a chance to have a better life? Because that’s the only measure of whether a world order really serves!”

The entry into a digital currency, needs a digital identity.



The end goal of a digital currency is why western political leaders have not been worried about following the COVID-19 spending demands from the World Economic Forum.

When the global trade currency does not need to be pegged to anything to determine value, it is completely fiat. This is the current problem with global trade and transactions taking place in U.S. dollars, which arbitrarily lifts the standard of life for Americans while providing no similar benefit to other nations. That view became the underlying motive for Osama Bin Laden to target the World Trade Center, twin towers. That view was/is also the perspective carried by Barack Obama, that lay behind his “fundamental change” statement.

A digital currency allows ultimate control on a global basis by a one world government, or western system of collective governments, that can assign value. No other mechanism will have as much control over the life of a person than a digital currency that will create a system of transactional credits and debits, perhaps also influenced by your social credit score.

The digital currency requires a digital identity in order for apportionment based on your value to society. This is essentially an extension of the Fabian mindset into the world of financial transactions and monetary evaluations.

Fabians believed that some form of socioeconomic tribunal would be needed in order for each citizen to be quantified according to their “worth” to society. The Chinese social credit score is a variant of that same concept.

The phrase “you didn’t build that,” when espoused by former President Obama and current Senator Elizabeth Warren is also based on this collective worldview. Both believe that individuals do not succeed independently, but rather gain their ability to grow wealth by using the resources of the larger society, infrastructure, labor and education. The phrase “it takes a village” to raise a child, as espoused by Hillary Clinton is another variant of the same collective advocacy.

A digital currency and digital identity is not a conspiracy theory, these “global leaders” are explaining it to us out loud. However, I am concerned that most will not hear it, or understand it, until it is too late.

Americans feeling pain of housing crisis as millions fear eviction under Bidenomics

Essential costs of living — food and shelter — are skyrocketing for Americans as their real wages are going down.

By Aaron Kliegman
Updated: September 18, 2022 - 11:59pm

Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to afford rent or mortgage payments as housing costs continue to soar, spotlighting a broader trend of inflation making the most basic and fundamental costs of living exceedingly high for working people.

Shelter costs, which include rents and various other housing-related expenses, rose 0.7% in August from the prior month — the biggest monthly increase since 1991 — and skyrocketed by 6.2% compared to this time last year, according to data released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Meanwhile, mortgage rates on Thursday surged above 6% for the first time since the housing crash of 2008. The 30-year fixed rate stood at 2.86% a year ago and at 2.65% in January 2021, when President Biden entered office and former President Trump was leaving the White House.

"This has raised interest payments on a 30-year mortgage for a $500,000 house by about $200,000 over the life of the loan," economist Stephen Moore wrote in a newsletter this week sent out by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. "That doesn't help home sellers or buyers."

Housing has also become more expensive for those renting their homes.

The rent index by itself rose by 0.7% from July to August and was up 6.7% from a year ago, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to data from Zillow, the typical U.S. monthly rent in August was about $2,090, a 12.3% increase from a year earlier. By comparison, average U.S. rent was $1,660 in February 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the rent surge is still well above the historical average, the pace of growth is slowing from where it was earlier this year.

With rent hikes adversely affecting millions of Americans, 8.5 million people were behind on their rent at the end of August, and 3.8 million of those renters say they're somewhat or very likely to be evicted in the next two months, according to data from the Census Bureau.

One city that has been hit particularly hard by this trend is Phoenix, Ariz., where rent skyrocketed by 21% over the last year. And earlier this year, Phoenix led the nation in home price growth, at one point hitting a 33% year-over-year gain. Increases have slowed in recent months, but they've taken their toll.

"We're finding out here in Arizona and Phoenix, it's rent prices and housing prices" driving inflation, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake told the "Just the News, Not Noise" television show this week. "As so many people flee these blue states, which are being run into the ground by Democrats, they're coming to Arizona. They're nabbing up our housing and driving the prices up, and it's almost becoming impossible to find affordable housing.

"So, we need to quickly build more housing here in Arizona, and we've got a plan in place when I'm governor to make that happen. We want to have enough homes for our citizens."

According to experts who spoke to Just the News, many factors contributing to the current housing situation have existed for decades. But what's different now, they say, is historically high inflation due to government spending.

"The U.S. housing crisis is fundamentally driven by a lack of supply," said Thomas Wade, director of financial services policy at the American Action Forum. "In order to meet today's demand, we would need to increase the number of homes available to purchase or rent (known as housing inventory) by about 1.5 million units.

"The creation of this many homes is likely impossible and, even if it were possible, would take decades and a fundamental rewrite of zoning laws, land management, and other bureaucratic barriers to construction. This housing shortfall has existed for decades, but what is new is the historic levels of inflation the economy is seeing as a result of heavy congressional spending."

Inflation, which reached a four-decade high earlier this year, rose more than economists expected in August, with consumer prices increasing 0.1% from the prior month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The price surge came despite a 10.6% drop in gas prices, which had been on the rise and a chief contributor to inflation for most of the year. The high cost of shelter helped offset lower gas prices.

Cost increases related to housing account for about 30% of consumer inflation tracked by the Labor Department.

"The housing market is therefore a particular focus of the Federal Reserve as it seeks to combat inflation," said Wade. "By raising rates (including mortgage rates), the cost to borrow to finance a home will increase. While painful for prospective homeowners (as Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged) this is precisely what the Fed is seeking to achieve. If demand decreases for housing, fewer people will chase the same limited number of homes, and house prices will eventually fall in line with the decrease in demand.

"Whether the Fed can engineer a fall in house prices without triggering a recession remains to be seen. And in the very short term, the U.S. housing market is experiencing as hostile an environment as it is possible to create — high mortgage prices, too few homes, and prices that have yet to fall significantly."

Experts have cited Biden's economic policies — including massive, Democrat-backed government spending — and the Federal reserve keeping interest rates near zero until recently as key causes of higher prices.

Beyond housing, sharp surges in food prices also contributed to last month's unexpected increase in inflation.

The latest government data showed food costs spiked 11.4% over the past year, the largest annual increase since May 1979.

Specifically, restaurant menu prices increased 8%, and grocery prices surged 13.5%.

In other words, arguably the two most basic and essential costs of living — food and shelter — are skyrocketing for Americans.

Adding to the problem, paychecks are not keeping pace with rising prices. This week, the Labor Department said real average weekly earnings decreased 3.4% over the last 12 months.

A key effect of lower real wages is reduced ability to buy goods and services — and to make a rent or mortgage payments.

Moore told Just the News last month that the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, which he founded, estimated that purchasing power of a median income household family was down about $4,000 over the past 14 months.

A recent report by the American Consumer Institute's Center for Citizen Research reached a similar conclusion.

"The combination of increased spending, energy shortages, and increased regulations have led to increases in inflation that have far outpaced wage increases," said the report. "Based on our analysis and those of others, consumers are likely to lose thousands of dollars this year alone — by one measure, $4,400 per household in 2022 — disproportionately hurting poorer Americans and those on fixed incomes."

Since Biden took office, real average weekly earnings have declined more than 5% and, according to some estimates, equate to real earnings dropping an annualized $3,000 for the average American.

University of Chicago economist Case Mulligan has calculated that the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrat- and Biden-backed tax and spending bill signed into law last month, will cause average household incomes to fall by roughly $1,200 over the next decade.

"Congress has remarkably few policy levers available to alleviate the economic burden available to homeowners and renters," according to Wade, who argued long-term policies should revolve around incentivizing new construction and reforming the secondary mortgage market, which is dominated by government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"The problem is that these supply-side solutions are difficult and will take a long time, neither of which is attractive to Congress," he continued. "Instead, congressional Democrats are eager to seize the only policy tools they have available to them in the form of demand-side subsidies. Although this may take a variety of forms, from housing vouchers to rental assistance, at the end of the day it boils down simply to giving homeowners and renters money."

While these measures may help certain populations in the short term, they will inevitably lead to a further increase in demand, Wade explained.

"As the government artificially makes more cash available to compete over the same number of homes, prices will inevitably rise," he said. "Not only do higher home and rental prices necessarily harm vulnerable populations the most (meaning that many of these demand-side policies actively harm those that they are trying to help), but by increasing the amount of cash in the system, Congress risks actually undoing the painful work at the Fed to combat inflation. In the worst case, inflation will persist even longer, prove harder for the Fed to combat, and increase the risks of the Fed triggering a real recession."

(AUSTRALIA)


Blaming Business Profits for Inflation an ‘Incoherent Narrative’: Economist

By Daniel Y. Teng
September 19, 2022 Updated: September 19, 2022

An economist has criticised claims that business profits are driving up inflation, calling it an “incoherent narrative.”

His comments come as businesses come into the firing line of commentators, politicians, and the Reserve Bank of Australia amid rising inflation in the country.

Australia’s official inflation rate has risen in lockstep with fellow democratic nations like the United States, Canada, and New Zealand—following the widespread deployment of lockdowns and government handouts during the pandemic—as of the June quarter, the official inflation is 6.1 percent.

“The narrative implies that only until a couple of years ago businesses weren’t greedy. For the last 40 years they were just benevolent philanthropists,” said John Humphreys, chief economist of the Australian Taxpayers Alliance.

He said the narrative then argues all businesses got together around 12 months and decided that they were “going to start being greedy and start jacking up the prices.”

“I mean, it’s an incoherent narrative. I find it hard to believe anyone takes it seriously,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Nothing’s changed. What’s changed is the government printed too much money [during the pandemic], there was more money in the economy, and we have too much money chasing too few goods,” he said.

Pandemic Policy After-Effects Continue to Linger​

His comments echoed that of Gene Tunny, former Commonwealth Treasury official, who said decisions like the previous federal government’s $89 billion (US$60 billion) JobKeeper resulted in billions of extra dollars being printed and injected into the economy.

JobKeeper was a fortnightly payment to businesses and sole traders to help keep them afloat while state governments locked down their jurisdictions.
“That was always going to have an inflationary effect because you’re increasing the amount of money, but you’re not increasing the productive capacity of the economy by the same proportion. Hence, you have too much money chasing too few goods,” Tunny previously told The Epoch Times.

“That sort of thing was always going to end up with some inflationary impact. So we were starting to see that before the war in Ukraine, and now, the war has amplified that.”

Tunny said reining in spending would help curb inflation in the long run, but the impact of pandemic policy on government budgets continues to linger.

Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has faced pressure to continue extending pandemic leave payments to workers who contract COVID-19 and are forced to keep isolated.

While on Sept. 19, federal Health Minister Mark Butler announced $1.4 billion in funding for COVID-19 response measures, including $840 million for the aged care sector.

Meanwhile, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, told a parliamentary hearing last week that he believed the country’s inflation was the result of higher input prices (cost for businesses to produce their products), higher wages, and higher profit margins.

“Today, (inflation) is largely from higher input costs,” he said on Sept. 16.

“There’s some pickup in wages, but that’s not driving inflation. And I think in some industries, there has been an increase in [business profit] margins.”
This is likely due to material shortages that have forced businesses to increase prices to cover costs.

Lowe also said he was not surprised to hear of companies raising their prices in the current economic conditions.

“Many firms say to me they want more workers, they don’t want more customers at the moment,” he said. “And when that’s your mindset, you’ve got to push your margins up. It would be kind of strange if you didn’t.”

Alex Marlow: ‘Historic Inflation, Stifling Taxation’ Are Part of World Economic Forum’s Plan for ‘The Great Reset’

Turning Point USA video clip on website 3:36 min

ALANA MASTRANGELO18 Sep 2022834

Breitbart News’ Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow spoke at Turning Point USA’s Defeating The Great Reset conference on Saturday in Phoenix, Arizona, where he told the audience that “stifling taxation” and “historic inflation” resulting from coronavirus-related restrictions are part of the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s plan to implement “The Great Reset.”

“They’re using lavish parties and vacation destinations in beautiful parts of the world, and cajoling people with celebrities and world leaders to talk about climate change,” Marlow said of how the World Economic Forum gains power.

“By the way, if you want to go to one of these things, good luck getting there without a private plane,” the editor-in-chief quipped.

Marlow went on to explain that the WEF achieves its power by appealing to the egos of the elite, telling them, “You’re saving the world, and of course, you’ll be very powerful when you do save it. And all the powerful people are already in on it, and you don’t want to be left behind.”

In order to target the middle class, countries that have embraced the WEF vision suppress them “with stifling taxation and socialism,” Marlow added. “They make it harder to traverse from class to class.”

“They make it more difficult to stay in the middle class if you’re already there, because the tax burden falls so heavily on the middle classes in what we refer to as Western capitalist societies, though, I would say we’re kind of inching toward socialism here, when you start thinking about how 75 percent of medical expenditures are now done by the government,” he said.

“This keeps the middle class distracted and unable to compete on the global idea stage,” Marlow said.

The Breaking the News author added that these governments “distract the poor with bread and circus: addictive screens, tech, and then you buy off the rest of them by printing money — keep them stuck on their phones, scrolling.”

“Not doing anything productive, not reading a book, not writing a book, not starting a business, not trying to get that job and working those extra hours to have the capital to start your business,” he continued, adding that if anyone believes that isn’t good enough, they’ll “cut you a little check.”

“That’s how they don’t have any opposition,” Marlow said, before pointing to the recent Chinese coronavirus pandemic as a prime example.

“What happened during the pandemic?” Marlow asked. “A lot of Netflix and chill, and then the bag of cash where you just look at your bank account, and if you’re not in the middle or upper class, you’ve got a pile of money there.”

“This wasn’t just the United States that did it, this was all over the world,” he said. “You were told you’re not allowed to work. You’re not allowed to advance yourself. You actually have to stay home while the people in Davos can congregate.”

“And where do we find ourselves now? Historic inflation,” Marlow said. “And what does the inflation do? It suppresses the growth of the lower and middle classes the most. They get hit the hardest, as always. And this is part of the plan, it’s already in motion.”

Watch Marlow’s full speech below:

Video on website 32:19 min

(Canada)


Alex Marlow: World Economic Forum Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab ‘Groomed’ Justin Trudeau, ‘Penetrated’ Canadian Government

Turning Point USA video on website 1:54 min

ALANA MASTRANGELO18 Sep 2022218

Breitbart News’s Editor in Chief Alex Marlow spoke at Turning Point USA’s Defeating the Great Reset conference on Saturday in Phoenix, Arizona, where he told the audience that the World Economic Forum (WEF) has groomed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The World Economic Forum, based in Switzerland, “openly claim they’re trying to influence governments. Unelected people, small town of elites in Switzerland, openly advocating to influence governments, Western governments in particular,” Marlow said.

“They don’t have any representation of populism,” he continued. “They don’t have any representation of nationalism on their board. It is all the same globalist mindset.”

Marlow added that “they’re grooming a younger generation of globalist talent. They’re focused on cultivating this next generation, and they’ve proven that they’re quite good at this.”

The editor-in-chief then read a quote by WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab in 2017:

I have to say that when I mention now names like miss Angela Merkel, even Vladimir Putin, and so on, they have all been young global leaders at the WEF. But what we are very proud of now is the young generation, like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we penetrate the cabinet.

Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab delivers a speech at the Congress center during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on May 23, 2022. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

“Now, I know, I don’t think English is his first language, but I don’t know about ‘We penetrate the cabinet.’ That’s odd imagery,” Marlow said.

Enter your email address
SUBSCRIBE
By subscribing, you agree to our terms of use & privacy policy. You will receive email marketing messages from Breitbart News Network to the email you provide. You may unsubscribe at any time.

“But we see he’s complementing himself for infiltrating the Canadian government, grooming the Prime Minister, and then infiltrating his cabinet,” Marlow said. “This is all a rebrand and relaunch of the New World Order.”

Marlow added that the WEF’s goal is to “create a totalitarian world government, perhaps something akin to what we’ve seen from the UN, from the EU, or the W.H.O. — they’ve been in the news a little bit lately — unelected, unaccountable to the people, but they tell you what to do with your lives.”

“What the Great Reset architects believe is that modern democracy and a free market capitalism — not the kind of capitalism we have today — has failed, and the only way to fix it is by marrying corporate interests and the increasingly powerful state,” Marlow said.

“This will create corporatist superstates, or maybe one day, a superstate that will see a new world government take shape,” he added. “It’s already happening, though it might not necessarily take the form of a government, it’s a functional dictatorship via corporations.”

What The End Of The Fed Put Actually Means

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 05:50 AM
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

For more than a year I’ve been arguing that the Fed was tightening US dollar supply. When I first put the idea out there it was met with intense skepticism and, for the most part, it still is.

The Fed has long been the punching bag of hard money and alternative finance types because, frankly, it always deserved it. For nearly the past generation, until June of 2021, the Fed acted as the Central Bank of the World.

But we’re rapidly reaching the moment where a lot of people are finally beginning to realize maybe the vaunted “Fed Put,” the belief that the Fed always comes to the market’s rescue isn’t going to show up anytime soon, if at all.

Whenever there was a major crisis on the horizon the Fed was always there to provide the world with the dollars needed to keep things from collapsing completely. This was especially true in the aftermath of Lehman Bros. and the 2008 housing crisis which broke the post-Bretton Woods Dollar Reserve Standard ushered in by Paul Volcker’s extreme monetary policy of the early 1980’s.

2008’s crisis led to the aftershocks of the summer of 2011 when the US lost its AAA debt rating and gold spiked to over$1900 per ounce on the fears the unfolding sovereign debt crisis in Europe would take center stage.

Only a statement of coordinated Central Bank policy from the major players — The Fed, ECB, BoJ, SNB and BoE — stopped the system from melting down then. Under both Ben Bernanke and then Janet Yellen the Fed under President Obama proved time and again unwilling to let asset prices fall lest it take the banking system down.

To effect this these Central Banks took turns expanding their balance sheets through QE until Yellen’s term ended in late 2017 and Jerome Powell took over as Fed chair. The looming demographic crisis in US entitlements forced Yellen to begin the tightening cycle which Powell accelerated.

Zero-bound rates fueled stock repurchase programs and a massive boom in equities worldwide. And with it the top layers of Exter’s Pyramid expanded while the base was shored up not with an expansion of gold prices or reserves but with base money, M0.



We can’t call QE ‘circulating money’ because most, if not all of it, was sterilized as bank reserves. So, it has to go to the bottom of the pyramid even if it was mostly just Gov’t debt. Visualizing this as an expansion of the gov’t debt layer is the wrong metaphor, because this was a pyramid trying to tip over, so it’s better to think of the Coordinated Central Bank era as a trying to shore up a leaning tower of debt with more debt rather than fueling new productive business up the value chain based on an expanded pool of savings (gold reserves).

Moreover, in order to keep the gold price from calling the Central Banks’ collective bluff with this scheme we accepted the fiction of producing ‘paper gold’ with this QE rather than adding physical gold to reserves. This is why we’ve seen the ratio of paper gold to exchange reserves explode.

It was in nearly everyone’s best interest to just keep using gold as a currency hedge rather than as a reserve asset. As long as no one wanted the actual gold the leverage could expand and the pyramid would stay more or less upright.

That policy clearly has a limit because in at some point someone will call the bluff about the value of the debt created by QE and ask how can we procure goods while all of our spare activity is being used to service the debt.

Where is the actual growth going to come from?

Growth? How are we even going to stay even?

This is the trap of QE and it meant that at some point there would be a reckoning because you can’t heat your home or feed your kids with digital euros or dollars.

That reckoning had to come in the form of one of the major central banks breaking with the cartel of them. This has been my thesis for more than a year.

And only the Fed had the real incentive to break with the cartelization of the Central Banks because it was the one who was bearing the brunt of the loss of confidence.

For years we heard about how Mario Draghi was the wizard of Europe. The euro remained way too strong. Germany’s mercantilism was still fueled by its insane leverage of cheap Russian gas.

The SNB used this period to become the world’s largest equity hedge fund.

The Bank of Japan was allowed to turn the yen into the ultimate carry currency with its insane yield curve control, which continues to this day.

And the Bank of England was allowed to perpetuate the myth that the pound was a currency backed by anything other than City of London’s financial services and clearinghouse business.

But the Fed’s credibility vanished by degrees every time Europe caught a cold and the Fed showed up with the monetary chicken soup.

Now the Fed is facing the same crisis of confidence Volcker faced when he took over for Arthur Burns.

But we have two generations of market participants who have never had to face that. Their imprinting is the Fed always has their back. I’ve warned in the past about this idea that we have guys approaching retirement who have never had to trade a true US treasury bear market.

So, do you really think we’ve reached that point where a majority of people are convinced that the “Fed Put” under the markets is a thing of the past? I don’t.

I look at the complacency of credit spreads and shake my head. Have people really not grokked that the EU is ready to commit their people to deindustrialization, famine and militarization in a Quixotic campaign to rid the world of Russian energy?

Do you really think the Fed is going to bail these people out this time? Why would they? No matter whether you view the US as predatorily destroying Europe or defending itself from Neo-feudal Eurocentric globalists the outcome is the same.

As the guy on Seinfeld used to say, “No Eurodollars for you!”

Just because Fed chairmen have always pivoted at the first sign of trouble in Europe’s troubles in the past doesn’t mean anything. What matters are the threats the Fed is responding to right now. And if you chase those threats down it’s clear what it’s best course of action is.

No pivot. No “Put.” No more Central Bank of the World.

The biggest tail risk in markets today is that complacency; that normie analysis the Fed is just talking tough and doesn’t really mean it.

This is why so many people believed the bullshit after July’s rate hike that the Fed had already pivoted, not because the Fed actually did so but because so many needed to believe that given the positions of their books.

But the incentives are there, especially in the greater geopolitical context, that there is a new world on the horizon which holds a whole lot of positive incentives for American banks and businesses if the Fed holds course here.

This is especially true if Europe continues on the path its on without pivoting on energy policy. Russia has only just begun turning screws on Europe.

The pushback I get from these arguments never addresses this point. What if the US’s future is brighter on the other side of a protracted slowdown and reorganization which prioritizes itself over maintaining the Empire?

Can the Fed hold Congress’ feet to the fire in the absence of foreign central bank buying?

What if the assumption of who runs the Empire is wrong and it’s not actually the US but the same people consolidating power in Europe right now?

The world is de-dollarizing after all. We just watched an SCO Summit in Samarkand go off without a hitch after all the major attendees were beset by fresh new conflicts along Russia’s underbelly.

And yet Putin wasn’t ostracized. Quite the opposite, actually.

To those that think I’m off base, in a multi-polar world where the dollar is diminished but not destroyed is not a global Fed Put not redundant?

I put a lot of this together in a recent Twitter Spaces I did with Michael Gayed filling in some of the history and a quick overview of how we got to today and the US’s path out of its current troubles. Maybe, just maybe it’s the realization that there is a path out that has so many people triggered by these ideas in the first place.

View: https://youtu.be/4Y6J0MF24_E
41:55 min

Creating the Worst Socioeconomic & Geopolitical Crisis in History – Gerald Celente​

By Greg Hunter On September 17, 2022 In Political Analysis 158 Comments
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com (Saturday Night Post)

Renowned trends researcher and publisher of “The Trends Journal,” Gerald Celente, contends the world is going into a very dark period. Celente explains, “We are facing the worst socioeconomic and geopolitical crisis in modern history. The Covid war, this happened and that happened because of the pandemic. There was no pandemic. This happened because of politicians, little pieces of scum crap . . . one after another said close down your business, don’t go outside, don’t go to the beach, close down the swings and don’t let kids go and play. You have a socioeconomic crisis, the likes of which are unprecedented, and the damage caused by the Covid war is incalculable. (The CV19 Vax is part of Covid War.) Office occupancy rates are at about 45% tops. So, all the businesses that depended on commuters are gone. 30% of dry cleaners are out of business. No more happy hours. In New York City, there are about 1,300 less people that clean office buildings now. This is real.

People forget that in 2019, Germany was going into a recession. There were protests and demonstrations going on all over the world. . . . People were taking to the streets and protesting a lack of basic living standards, government corruption, crime and violence. It was one of our top trends. This is before the Covid war. They artificially propped up the governments. It was the Federal Reserve and the central banksters. They artificially pumped up the economies. There is almost $8 trillion pumped into the U.S. economy by the government to artificially prop it up. . . . When you look at the Covid war, the draconian, demonic mandates and lockdowns that they imposed on businesses, when you look at the Ukraine war, the sanctions and the stupid things they are doing, they are creating the worst socioeconomic and geopolitical crisis in modern history.”

Celente points out, “Nobody is talking about peace . . . and don’t you dare talk about peace. . . . We are being driven to war by mentally ill people . . . All they want is control.”

Celente says the number one investment trend is physical gold. Celente explains, “I don’t give financial advice, but to me, gold is the number one safe haven asset. . . . Gold keeps going down because interest rates are going up and bullion does not pay interest. It’s true, but gold is a safe haven asset in times of socioeconomic and geopolitical despair, which we are in now. That’s when you need to have it as I see it. Can gold go down further? Yep. It could go down a little bit more. Then only reason the dollar is strong is because all the other currencies are so weak. . . .Sales are down, and when you put inflation into it, they are really down. So, to me, gold is the one, and I am only speaking for myself, and on Friday, I bought more gold.”

In closing, Celente says, “At The Trends Journal, we see things the way they are, not the way we want them to be.”

There is much more in the 55-minute interview.

Facing Worst Socioeconomic & Geopolitical Crisis in History – Gerald Celente 55:14 min

Facing Worst Socioeconomic & Geopolitical Crisis in History – Gerald Celente​

Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com Published September 17, 2022

In Europe, Little Energy Relief

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 06:28 AM
By Bas van Geffen, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank

Governments across Europe have announced measures to cap utility bills and reduce energy use. The European Commission told national governments to find ways to cut electricity demand by 10%, and several member states have announced their own plans to shield households and/or businesses. So far, these measures appear to have at least some impact on gas prices. The European benchmark has been on the decline after peaking halfway last week, although 1 month ahead prices remain at very elevated levels compared to their historical rates.

Interestingly, however, this decline seems to do little for other markets. The 5y5y EUR inflation swap has hardly budged, and if anything the contract quotes a little higher – despite the lower gas prices. And equities remain on the backfoot. Clearly, markets are getting increasingly sceptical that such measures will do much to alleviate inflationary pressures, except for shifting them from the short- to the medium-term, perhaps. Indeed, in contrast to the European contract, the US 5y5y inflation swap has come down somewhat – arguably reflecting the Fed’s more proactive stance against the recent bout of inflationary pressures.



In other words, even as governments are unveiling their support measures, central banks’ inflation fight is far from over. In fact, as we argue below, their job could become that much more difficult. Markets are therefore starting the week as they ended last week: equities are lower and rates are drifting higher ahead of a week packed with central bank meetings.

Week ahead

Amidst the as of yet uncontrolled global surge in inflation, we’ve got no less than seven major central banks setting policy this week. Coming up are the PBOC and Riksbank on Tuesday, the Fed on Wednesday, and on Thursday the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, Norges bank and the SNB.

The outlook that the Fed might slow down to 50bp clips is well behind us, and some are even considering that the US central bank could add a full percentage point to its target rate. Our US strategist acknowledges that there are risks that the FOMC could go for 100bp to signal their resolve to fight inflation and to keep expectations in check. Nonetheless, he believes that the FOMC will stick to a 75bp hike this month.

Now, this is not the time to cheer for those expecting the Fed to pivot or slow down in order to save their stock portfolios. We expect the FOMC to follow this up by a fourth 75bp hike in November, which has us estimating the terminal rate at 5% by early 2023. What’s more, we don’t see how the Fed can reverse any of these hikes before 2024. Although the exogenous shocks of supply chain disruptions may fade soon enough, the wage-price spiral may keep core inflation elevated – which would make the path down for inflation a slow grind.

While other countries aren’t yet dealing with a similar wage-price spiral, inflation is becoming increasingly broad-based. And as much as they may want to help the population, governments could become part of the problem.

Last week, the European Commission presented a plan to siphon ‘excess’ profits from power companies to electricity consumers – either households or businesses hit by the surging utility costs. And in the UK, PM Truss unveiled a plan to cap utility bills for an average UK household at levels well below those computed by the UK energy regulator earlier. However, this also means that consumers will feel less of the pinch, and that aggregate demand may not moderate as much as it would have.

Don’t get me wrong, support is necessary. Particularly for the increasing number of households that has to choose between a warm home and a warm meal. Demand destruction is an awful, academic way to describe the hardship many people are currently going through. Yet, the impact of offsetting fiscal support cannot be ignored. If households are left with more cash to spend –as little as it may be– that will find its way into demand for other goods. Goods that Europe may not have the energy for to produce.

There are two lessons to be drawn here. First, where will governments draw the line? Again, it is hard to argue against policies that ensure people don’t freeze or starve to death. But how much fiscal relief is required? And what if the subsequent extra demand raises the price of clothing, of kitchen tools, of furniture? Sure, these price increases are of a different order of magnitude than the astronomically high energy bills. Yet, it illustrates how governments may not be in the position to solve the burden of inflation unless they find a way to solve the energy shortages – and rationing and redistribution are no solutions. Governments can only take the sting out of it in the near term. This also argues for very targeted intervention.

Secondly, it means that any government intervention that goes beyond that which is absolutely necessary could have negative repercussions in the form of more persistent inflation. The extent to which inflationary pressures become entrenched hinges on the amount of fiscal support and how well-targeted it is. Central banks will have to take this into account as they continue to push back against inflation becoming more entrenched.

With that in mind, UK Prime Minister Truss’ plans to cap utility bills at £2,500 should reduce inflation by nearly 5 percentage points, and plans to support businesses will keep the job market tighter than it would have been if companies had been forced to shut their doors due to the energy costs. That, however, risks shifting the UK’s inflation from what was mostly an external headwind to domestically generated. It also changes the profile of inflation significantly. Energy-driven inflation will now certainly be significantly lower in the near-term, but it will probably lead to more persistent, demand-driven inflation in the medium-term – though the latter isn’t yet a given.

Our UK strategist therefore believes that Truss’ policies make a 75bp hike this week unnecessary, and believes the Bank of England will raise rates by 50bp. However, the prospect of more entrenched inflation also reduces the scope for the Bank to reverse some of its tightening next year, and we have therefore removed the rate cuts we were predicting for 2023H2 from our expectations for UK rates.

How Globalist Elites Want to Impoverish Mankind

BY REBEL CAPITALIST
MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 5:30

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ40aTSHIl8
35:49 min

The past century has witnessed the rise of a rootless cosmopolitan class of elites who want to transform countries across the globe in accordance to their fantastical vision

These individuals view themselves as “enlightened” and above the masses. Due to their arrogance, they believe that they have all the solutions to our problems. The conceit of the anointed at its maximum expression.

Any one who dares question their plots is immediately branded “backwards”, “racist”, and “reactionary.”

From their plots to impose digital currencies to impoverish millions of people by destroying non-renewable energy sources, these rootless schemers believe that their globalist vision must be imposed on the rest of the world….

…At all costs.

That’s the ethos that animates the World Economic Forum and similar globalist institutions.

These people are working diligently to cook up all sorts of anti-human projects to make all of our lives miserable.

They hate national sovereignty and the various concepts that made the West great — Rule of law, private property rights, and voluntary association.

They are truly the enemies of humanity and must be stopped.

Before we can truly confront these globalist creeps, we must understand what motivates them and the plans they’re rolling out.