GOV/MIL Main "Great Reset" Thread

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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China Establishes Liquidity Agreement With BIS, Further Eroding The Dollar

MONDAY, JUN 27, 2022 - 08:45 AM

The concept of eastern opposition to globalist institutions is a fanciful one driven perhaps by people's hopes that some country somewhere is going to “make a stand” against the agenda.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of nations are irrevocably tied to the machinations of global banks.

China is a perfect example of a country that is often falsely associated with “opposition” to globalism. Besides representing one of the most oppressive regimes in the world today complete with Orwellian social credit systems, concentration camps, organ harvesting programs and vaccines passports, the CCP is also a long time proponent of a global currency system controlled by the IMF as well as the latest member of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket.

This membership comes with many stings attached, including requirements for China to issue large amounts of Renminbi-based liquidity, mostly through debt instruments. We can see this clearly in China's national debt numbers from 2013 onward. In 2013, when it became clear that China would indeed be seeking inclusion in the SDR, the nation's debt obligations exploded.

This was primarily due to IMF demands, which China anxiously sought to meet. China met the IMF's debt requirements in 2015 and was officially added to the SDR in 2016.

The development clarified a couple of questions in the alternative economic media in terms of the ultimate fate of the US dollar and the future of global trade. First, the dollar's share of global trade was going to diminish, which is what is now happening. This causes a great number of problems for the US in terms of inflation, because until recently the US economy has been able to export inflation by circulating fiat currency overseas. As long as the world reserve status of the dollar holds and as long as the dollar's share of global trade continues to expand every year, then this model works. But, with reserve status in decline, all those dollars held by foreign banks could come flooding back to America.

Second, China showed it has every intention of helping global banks to end the dollar's reserve status, but no intention of decoupling from the bigger agenda of a one world currency system under global banks. The notions floating around that China was “anti-globalist” were proven false.

The latest news from the Bank for International Settlements further supports this reality.



The BIS has just announced a Renminbi based liquidity pool agreement with China's central bank. This liquidity pool would act as a stimulus backstop for countries primarily in the Asia-Pacific region, and will be denominated primarily in China's currency. The announcement might seem rather innocuous to the casual observer; but the fact that it is an RMB liquidity pool is what makes it interesting.

The BIS has long offered liquidity arrangements denominated in dollars, but creating similar options in Chinese currency is something new. Increased liquidity was a key component presented by the BIS last year in discussions on the internationalization of the RMB, and now it's already being implemented today.

The timing of this cannot be overlooked. There is currently an international economic conflict taking place between Russia and NATO countries, and China has proven to be a substantial ally for Russia. China's RMB credit systems and cross border currency exchange systems are proving ample enough to help Russia adapt to life without SWIFT. China is also greatly increasing its purchases of Russian oil and other goods. In other words, China along with other nations like India are making it possible for Russia to sustain itself without access to western markets.

The IMF and the World Trade Organization continue their relationship to Russia, and both the IMF and BIS treat China like their new darling. Whether or not you agree with Russian or Chinese policies and actions is irrelevant. The point is, they always retain their relationships with the globalists. Countries and economic unions may fight great wars, with finance or with bombs and bullets, but the globalists are always in the background playing both sides.

One has to question what the ultimate goal is once they understand that global banks play both sides while having no loyalty to either side. The BIS and IMF helping the expansion of China's currency in terms of global market share suggests that they WANT the erosion of the dollar, and maybe even a declining US. If the end game is a global basket currency that they control, then it makes perfect sense. The dollar served its purpose but now it's in the way, so the dollar has to go and China is more than happy to help.

 

[marsh]

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Red vs Blue, ‘Black’ vs Green, All vs All, Green vs Red

MONDAY, JUN 27, 2022 - 07:45 AM
By Michael Every of Rabobank

We've just seen huge market volatility. This week promises more given it’s month and quarter end with key positioning, portfolio reallocation, and short squeezes all in play. On top of that, the news continues to underline the central thesis: that the ‘one size fits all/one world for all’ neoliberal/liberal/’new normal’ system is collapsing.

Red v Blue
Friday’s US Supreme Court overruling of Roe v Wade was a shock despite having been flagged in an unprecedented leak. It was leading news on Bloomberg and the Financial Times because it exposes US fault-lines. Overturning a near-50 year constitutional precedent means we have US inflation and monetary policy which echoes the 1980s, a pre-Roe status of 1973, and polarization that echoes the 1960s, 1930s, 1880s, 1860s, and 1830s.

The optimistic view is that the US can work this out politically, as the rest of the West has. USA Today stresses: ‘The Supreme Court has now given millions of citizens rather than nine justices the power to decide.’ Tellingly, last week the Court reaffirmed the Second Amendment right to bear (concealed) arms and saw the first gun control legislation in decades too.

The pessimistic take is things get worse. Justice Thomas -- not the other five anti-Roe justices -- floated roll-backs of other constitutional rights, as did the dissenting Court minority. Twitter has (unbanned) calls for violence, burning down the Court, or killing justices, following the recent arrest for attempted murder of a man targeting Justice Kavanaugh. Some politicians say they will defy the Court, that it has no legitimacy, or they will now pack it. Some media echo this, and claim civil war looms. It’s likely hyperbole, but this is what one expects in an ‘winner takes all’ emerging market, not a constitutional liberal democracy claiming to lead a global struggle vs. autocracy.

It is unlikely markets are going to treat Treasuries or the US dollar as EM assets on the basis of what happened on Friday. Yet the long-run market impact could be significant. Justice Thomas, in an interview with The Federalist, stressed the importance of the Supreme Court pressing ahead to roll back “the administrative state” and Federal agencies, who:

“…have the executive power, the enforcement power, they have administrative judges to adjudicate, so they have all three. And the question for us is, where do they fit in the constitutional structure?... If we simply defer to the agencies,… aren’t we doing precisely what happened when it came to the royal courts of the pre-Revolutionary era?... You’ve got this creation that sits over here outside the Constitution, or beyond the Constitution. How does it fit within our constitutional structure?”

One wonders where the imperial Fed sits in this view.
We also risk a more polarized/balkanised US. Will population shifts from California and New York to Texas and Florida on economic grounds become two-way on culture? The DNC’s @DavidOAtkins points to fragmentation risks as, “…California is not going to follow Idaho's rules.

We're just not. We don't have to and our people deserve better. And if we have to Constitutionally protect basic social rights and set up our independent EPA because the GOP destroyed the federal govt, we will.” Such splits can even hit firms. Kirkland & Ellis, which helped over-rule the challenge to the Second Amendment, told the two lawyers who did so for it to either end such defences or leave the firm. So, red and blue states, firms, products, and consumers?

Blue v Red
If Red v Blue is clear in US politics, so Blue v Red is in geopolitics. The US, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK just launched a Partners in the Blue Pacific scheme to counter China, and the G-7 a rival to China’s Belt and Road Initiative in its ‘Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment’. The US is promising $200bn in funding: *if* that is new money and *if* the rest match it we are talking about a serious global policy shift.

Meanwhile, China warned a US spy-plane flying above international waters in the Taiwan Strait, which is seen as a dangerous escalation by both sides.

Belarus is being used as a base for more widespread Russian air attacks on Ukraine, including against Kyiv again, and Moscow says it will base nuclear weapons there aimed at Europe.

Tensions also continue to mount near the critical Suwalki gap leading to Kaliningrad.

Ignoring that Iran plays for Team Red (as it just attempted to assassinate Israelis in Turkey) EU foreign policy chief Borrell is trying to resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal - just before US President Biden heads to the region to sign military agreements with states who don’t want it to happen. (Indeed, such anti-Iran regional co-ordination is already crystalizing.)

‘Black’ v Green
Meanwhile, Germany (and the EU) are forced to blink on green pledges: coal output is soaring; plans made for the risks of Nord Stream 1 closing, which could reportedly mean consumer gas prices doubling or tripling; it may appropriate parts of Nord Stream 2 to speed up new LNG pipelines; it and others, reportedly want to delay EU bans on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 to 2040; it is pushing the G-7 to drop a pledge to stop financing fossil fuel projects; and French power firms are calling for immediate energy rationing.

Yet Europe won't help Africa --which has fossil fuels and minerals for EVs-- to develop its fertiliser capacity because of concerns over *EU* green targets; and the US is to proceed with production of biofuels despite the global food crisis.

The G-7 is also considering imposing a price cap on Russian oil by withholding its monopoly on shipping insurance on any global importer which refuses to adhere to it. That’s a very high risk game of geopolitical brinksmanship which will either see Russian energy income slashed, or will alienate the rest of the world and humiliate the West – and see even higher energy prices.

All v All
*Finally*, the West grasps it's in an economic war: but it doesn't see where all the fronts are. For example, G-7 gold trade with Russia is to be cut off by sanctions too. However, everyone else can still buy it and sell it on, like Russian oil. The G-7 needs to win global hearts and minds to win.

That means noticing the FT warning the food crisis is biting in Africa; that up to 345m people --4.4% of humanity-- are at risk; that the Economist says ‘A Wave of Unrest is Coming’; and that Bloomberg predicts ‘Hunger and Blackouts are Just the Start of an Emerging Economy Crisis’. Indeed, Spain just saw an incursion into its enclave in Morocco in which 23 people died, Peru has joined Sri Lanka and Ecuador in economic chaos, and China has had to bail out Pakistan with a $2.3bn loan.

Yet the response so far is for the better off to subsidise their own food and energy, which forces the ultimate cost onto the world’s very poorest and makes things worse: California is talking about giving households $1,050; Spain is to spend another EUR9.5bn on tax breaks and commodity subsidies; and even middle-income Malaysia will spend $18bn this year on subsidies, almost 5% of its GDP(!) The risks of a global all v all are rising, as are internal red v blue pressures in many places.

Indeed, as the ECB struggles for its own "anti-fragmentation" strategy, the Dutch Prime Minister states it is up to Italy to deal with the problem itself via reforms, which will surely only make the ECB’s immediate task harder(?); the UK deeply-unpopular PM Johnson say he wants to stay in office until the mid-2030s(!), as Scotland would like to leave by 20:30, and Northern Ireland could potentially follow; and even in China, an ultra-hardliner Xi loyalist was also just appointed the new Minister of Public Security ahead of the expected schedule – surely not for no reason at all.

The answer must be for supply to increase: yes, it must be sustainable, but so must the current global population, or else politics, geopolitics, and markets can’t be. However, that new supply is itself going to break up the global system, as part of ‘sustainable’ means not relying on others in a pinch so we don’t end up here again. Relatedly, in her latest note ‘Time to Get Real’, geostrategist Dr Pippa Malmgren underlines, “Food is now a national security issue that warrants spending from the defence budget… It’s time to get real. That means a world where capital and talent get on their bikes and start making hard stuff.” Which is hard, and inflationary before it is deflationary.

Green v Red
Despite this mess, markets think the Fed is going to tighten less than feared just days ago. That was helped by Friday’s revisions to the final Michigan consumer sentiment survey: the headline fell to a 50-year low, but more ‘important’ was that longer-term inflation expectations dropped 0.2ppts to 3.1% y-o-y. Despite massive uncertainty from respondents, this was because a sub-set felt long-term inflation would be very low. Do they all work for the fixed income market or pension funds? Nobody on Main Street is thinking “deflation”!

As evidence, look at rents. According to CoreLogic, they just surged 41% y-o-y in Miami, 26% in Orlando, 18% in Phoenix, 17% in San Diego and LA, and 8% in New York, D.C., St Louis, Philadelphia, and Honolulu: that’s quite the ‘forecast err-OER’ in a series the BLS says is rising much more slowly.

Nonetheless, the Wall Street end-month/end-quarter/short-squeeze/’new normal’/Fed put crowd got their win last week, and they may get another this week too. They just didn’t notice that oil leaped on Friday day too, despite many speculative longs having been reversed, which rains on the deflation premise and yells ‘stagflation’ or ‘incession’. And ‘soaring global unrest’.

If the Fed can’t step up now, it never can. Indeed, the BIS just warned that leading economies risk tipping into a high inflation where rapid price increases are normal, dominate daily life, and are difficult to quell. It is openly calling for key rates to be raised "quickly and decisively" in H2 2022, even if “some pain will be inevitable,” because falling behind the curve risks far worse than that. Are the Fed going to ignore that call?

Bloomberg says that ‘Fed Chair Jerome Powell's path to 2% inflation needs luck, or failing that, pain’. That overlooks the unlucky geopolitical backdrop it faces. If the *supply* side is not fixed, even if the Fed pivots, it will have to flip back, with no credibility, if inflation gets worse. They had better be hoping the G-7 plan works: or *help* the G-7 plan work, which might mean telling other people to help others globally. After all, the Director of the Institute for Financial Transparency correctly tweets, “Few realize Volcker's high rate plan appears successful only because of luck. Had OPEC continued to raise prices, his plan would have been an abysmal failure.”

Zooming in, such a view suggests ‘red’ will win against ‘green’ even if this week sees the opposite. Indeed, 3% on the US 10-year Treasury once seemed a ‘new normal’ ceiling: if said new normal is falling apart, it now looks to be a floor.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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New Bill Would Mandate Federal Reserve To Promote "Racial And Economic Justice"

MONDAY, JUN 27, 2022 - 05:19 AM
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A new bill would extend the Federal Reserve’s mandate to promote “racial and economic justice,” prompting concerns as to whether this would lead to discrimination.



“H.R. 2543 would expand the Federal Reserve’s existing dual mandate of maintaining price stability and full employment to focus on promoting “racial and economic justice in borrowing, housing, and lending,” reports Valiant News.

If the bill is passed, the Fed would be responsible for maintaining “racial equity,” which would potentially create a two tier economy, one for white people and another for non-whites in America.

“In effect, the passage of this law would make racial equity an integral part of the Fed’s mandate,” writes Jose Nino.

As we previously highlighted, the Fed encouraged Americans to combat soaring meat price inflation by swapping turkeys for soybean products during Thanksgiving.

Biden administration loyalists have run cover for the Federal Reserve by blaming soaring inflation on everything from failure to properly condemn January 6 to nationalism itself.

Earlier this month, the Fed announced its “biggest interest rate hike in more than a quarter century,” although the three-quarters of a percentage point raise brings the current 1.5%-1.75% rate nowhere near the 20% rate enacted by Paul Volcker in the early 1980’s.

The Biden administration has relentlessly denied that the country is heading for a recession, despite a cost of living crisis and multiple other financial indications that this is about to happen.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1539320368866942978

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1539320368866942978
1:35 min

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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G7 Unveils $600 Billion Global Infrastructure Plan To Counter China's 'Belt And Road'

MONDAY, JUN 27, 2022 - 05:06 AM

President Biden and G7 leaders pledged $600bln to a new global infrastructure project for emerging market economies to counter the Chinese regime's Belt and Road initiative.

G-7 leaders from the US, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union gathered at a summit in Bavaria, Germany, on Sunday and unveiled the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) that will "will deliver game-changing projects to close the infrastructure gap in developing countries, strengthen the global economy and supply chains, and advance U.S. national security," a White House press release read.

During the summit, Biden said the U.S. would deploy $200bln in grants, federal funds, and private investment over five years for lower- and middle-income nations to boost infrastructure.

"I want to be clear. This isn't aid or charity. It's an investment that will deliver returns for everyone," Biden said. He added that it would allow countries to "see the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies."

Europe pledged $316bln over the next five years for PGII, while Japan committed $65bln.

"It'll boost all of our economies, and it's a chance for us to share our positive vision for the future and let communities around the world see for themselves the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies," the president said.

China's Belt and Road Initiative scheme was launched in 2013 and is the centerpiece of Chinese President Xi Jinping's foreign. Also known as the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road," China's infrastructure initiative has projects in more than 100 countries in an attempt to resurrect ancient trade routes from Asia to Europe.



Since its launch, Western officials have accused Beijing of pursuing "debt-trap diplomacy" by providing countries with financing to build infrastructure that benefits China more than the countries themselves.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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"It's The Inflation, Stupid..."

MONDAY, JUN 27, 2022 - 04:20 AM
Authored by Michael Boskin via Project Syndicate,

Dangerously high inflation has left Americans deeply dissatisfied with the economy and likely to punish the Democrats in this year’s midterm elections. US President Joe Biden would be wise to follow the example of his predecessor Bill Clinton, lest he end up sharing a political fate similar to Jimmy Carter's.



Thirty years ago, Democratic political strategist James Carville focused Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign with the mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” America had just experienced a relatively brief, mild recession, owing partly to sharply rising oil prices following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Between the slow recovery and Ross Perot’s independent candidacy (which peeled votes away from then-President George H.W. Bush), the stage was set for a Clinton victory.

Today, America’s job market remains resilient, with healthy job creation, low unemployment, and almost two job openings for every unemployed person. But dangerously high inflation has left Americans deeply dissatisfied with the economy. At 8.6% as of May, the annual consumer-price-index inflation rate is quadruple the norm of recent decades, and has outpaced wage growth, leaving most families with falling real incomes. Even core inflation – which excludes volatile food and energy prices – is running at 6%, higher than in other major economies. No one under 60 has experienced anything like this in their adult life.

Worse, the odds of a recession are growing. Housing starts and retail sales are stalling, and stock and bond markets (imperfect predictors, to be sure) are signaling problems ahead. There is little monetary- or fiscal-policy ammunition left to deal with a recession, and the fiscal profligacy of the past three administrations has left the country poorly equipped to address exploding Social Security and Medicare spending costs, not to mention the now-apparent need for more defense spending.

With the US Federal Reserve now raising its target interest rate, inflation may ease heading into next year. But a lag in the effects of higher rates, combined with rising inflation expectations (according to consumer surveys and the bond market), suggests that it will be some time to reach the Fed’s 2% target.

In the meantime, polls indicate that Americans will take out their frustration on President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, starting with the midterm elections this November, when the Republicans will likely take control of the House of Representatives and possibly also the Senate. Once again, “it’s the economy, stupid.”

Biden has repeatedly claimed that today’s surging inflation is transitory, and that nobody forecasted high, persistent inflation. Obviously, he is incorrect, and perhaps ill-informed by his advisers. Lawrence H. Summers, a top economic adviser in the Obama administration, warned his party in early 2021 that its $1.9 trillion of additional spending would likely fuel inflation. And shortly thereafter, I warned of higher inflation and the broader risks to growth.

Yet the administration persists in pushing an agenda of big government spending and corporate and personal tax hikes.

Instead of correcting course, the White House has tried to shift the blame for elevated inflation and its own misreading of the economy. Citing factors such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, supply-chain disruptions, and “greedy” corporations, Biden and his spokespeople argue that since high inflation is a global phenomenon, it cannot be due to their policies. Yet whatever the contributions from these other causes, they do not compare to the extraordinary excess demand generated by ultra-loose monetary and fiscal policies in the United States. The spending package in early 2021 was far larger than the gap between actual and potential GDP.

Biden’s biggest problem is not poor messaging or public misperception; it is his own policies.

Biden deserves credit, however, for respecting the Fed’s independence as it pursues monetary tightening. That sets him apart from the predecessor to whom he is increasingly compared: Jimmy Carter. In the midst of even worse inflation, Carter demanded that the Fed lower interest rates, which is about as economically illiterate as you can get.

Biden’s success or failure has always depended on three factors. The first is how he handles all the unpredictable issues that arise during any presidency. Second, he needs to show not only that he can learn from the mistakes of Barack Obama’s administration, but also that he is open to continuing – and amending as necessary – some of what worked in the Trump administration, such as Title 42 and the Remain in Mexico illegal immigration policy. Lastly, his economic advisers need his support to win the internal interagency battles and block the costly nonsense being peddled by today’s “progressives.” Unfortunately, so far he has failed on all three counts.

The question now is whether Biden will be wise enough to follow the path that Clinton took after the Democrats’ crushing defeat in the 1994 midterms, when his administration moved to the center to work constructively with the Democratic Party’s moderate majority and most Republicans.

To do so, Biden must abandon his economically ignorant policies. He has demanded even more spending to help households that are suffering from the inflation that public spending itself helped create. He has also simultaneously called for an end to fossil fuels and excoriated US oil and gas companies for not producing more, even though his own policies have reduced their incentive to invest. In the absence of greater domestic production, he has courted Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, seeking to persuade them to boost oil output.

The wiser approach would be to embrace an agenda of pro-growth, supply-side regulatory and tax reforms (like President John F. Kennedy), with spending controls and deficit reduction to complement the Fed’s efforts to curb inflation without causing a recession. Unfortunately, neither Biden nor the rest of his party have shown any inclination toward such policies. Instead, they are campaigning on social issues like abortion rights and gun control to gin up their base.

This is a risky approach, especially considering that the Democrats are already vulnerable on issues such as surging illegal immigration and crime. Citizens are fleeing cities historically run by Democrats (San Francisco has lost 6.3% of its population), or obtaining guns for self-defense. While the Democrats focus on social issues, voters primarily are concerned with rising prices, which are evident daily at the gas pump and the grocery store. It’s the inflation, stupid.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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EU Says Africa Should Stop Buying Russian Fertilizer -- But Can't Make It Themselves

SUNDAY, JUN 26, 2022 - 11:45 PM
In an attempt to encourage African nations to stop buying Russian fertilizer, the European Union developed a working plan that would help then develop their own fertilizer plants.



The draft, dated June 15 and prepared by aides of European Council President Charles Michel, was to be presented at a summit of EU leaders last week, however the EU Commission then "explicitly opposed the text," warning that supporting fertilizer production in developing nations was incompatible with their 'green' initiatives.

According to Reuters, the original text of the draft conclusions from the June 23-24 summit, the EU executive commission is urged to devise a plan "to support the development of fertiliser manufacturing capacity and alternatives in developing countries".

The Commission, however, urged governments to change the text so that it would only promote alternatives to fertilizers - or a more efficient use of fertilizers, as manufacturing it themselves would be "inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies."



Higher fertilizer prices have been putting upward pressure on food prices worldwide, as farmers cut back on nutrients for their crops, resulting in lower yields.

"Food prices will skyrocket because farmers will have to make profit, so what happens to consumers?'' said Uche Anyanwu, an agricultural expert at the University of Nigeria.

The aid group Action Aid warns that families in the Horn of Africa are already being driven "to the brink of survival.''

The U.N. says Russia is the world's No. 1 exporter of nitrogen fertilizer and No. 2 in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. Its ally Belarus, also contending with Western sanctions, is another major fertilizer producer.

Many developing countries — including Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Mexico and Guatemala — rely on Russia for at least a fifth of their imports. -NPR

"Many people will not use fertilizers at all, and this as a result, lowers the quality of the production and the production itself, and slowly, slowly at one point, they won't be able to farm their land because there will be no income," said Greek farmer Dimitris Filis, who grows olives oranges and lemons, adding "you have to search to find" ammonium nitrate, while the cost of fertilizing a 25-acre olive grove has doubled.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

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Luongo: The End Of The European Colonial Powers & The Tyranny Of Physics

SUNDAY, JUN 26, 2022 - 11:00 PM
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog.

I sat down last weekend for a long chat with Alexander Mercouris of The Duran and Crypto Rich to discuss the rapidly evolving situation in Europe. Long time readers know that I’ve been handicapping the collapse of the European Union for years.



That idea isn’t based on my personal antipathy for Eurotrash commies and eugenicists, though it is quite large. In fact, the deeper we go into 2022 the more that antipathy rises to near unquenchable levels. The sheer arrogance and stupidity of Europe’s leadership is nothing short of breathtaking.

Today we are looking at a situation where an entire continent’s leadership is in the process of committing ritualistic suicide and yet is obsessed with portraying these self-inflicted wounds to the world as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault.

THE EU KILLS ITSELF - WITH TOM LUONGO AND ALEXANDER MERCOURIS - PART 1 OF 2 16:25 min

A common trait among all malignant narcissists is the inability to take any responsibility for their own actions, seeking to always shift blame onto someone else. You see this behavior in children. And it only manifests itself in adulthood because the parents refused to put any boundaries on the child or inflict any consequences on them.

Look at Europe’s leaders today and to a person, man or woman, there is not one shred of self-reflection or contrition. The problem is just as endemic here amongst the Davos-affiliated American leadership. Fungal President Joe Biden keep yammering on about the “Putin Price Hike” or blaming oil companies for not being patriotic enough to keep gas and diesel prices affordable for nearly every American.

But it was just a few weeks ago where these same people were telling us that we had to endure slightly higher prices at the pump to starve Russia and defend Ukraine.

Biden and his party apparatchiks simply can’t give this idea up as we’re now just over four months to the mid-term elections.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1539673078992601088

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1539673078992601088
.29 min

I already told you what the real cost at the pump is all about, RINs, renewable offset blending credits, which are strangling small refiners.

But in Europe the real story is beyond comprehension. It can be summed up in the following meme:



And yet if you listen to Europe’s leadership what are they talking about? Expanding NATO to include Finland and Sweden. Backing Lithuania’s disastrous blockade of overland goods into Kaliningrad, in clear violation of that country’s treaty with Russia. The EU parliament and the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy all backing Ukraine’s invitation into the bloc.

These are all to which Russia will correctly respond with shifting its exports East rather than West and put paid Putin’s words from his speech at SPIEF 2022 last week.

“The European Union has lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, doing everything they are told from on high and hurting their own people, economies, and businesses.”

The whole speech is worth your time and the best highlight reel is this Twitter thread, not for what it implies for crypto, as the author implies, but for humanity in general. Debt is a slave’s system. It’s not real wealth, only the pretense of wealth.

The big takeaway is exactly what I’ve been talking about on this blog for years: The end of sovereign debt as the basis for global reserves. The world will move, quickly, towards a commodity-backed monetary standard, where some form of discipline will be enforced on governments, who are torching their credibility by the day, because of reality.

THE EU KILLS ITSELF - WITH TOM LUONGO AND ALEXANDER MERCOURIS - PART 2 OF 2 1:31:43 min

Real wealth is in things which sustain your life.

Eventually physics and the limitations of time catch up with every central planner and their grand dreams of global domination. The tyranny they decry isn’t racism, a lack of tolerance or even tribalism, it is simply math and the physics of energy production.

That is Putin’s big crime, reminding everyone of this basic fact.

The narcissists who try to blame him for their woes will never admit they were wrong. They would rather continue manipulating events to steer the world towards the unthinkable blaming him and us for not bowing to their wisdom.

UK ON THE ROPES - HAS IT EVER BEEN THIS BAD? TOM LUONGO and @Alexander Mercouris 44:14 min

Listen to them carefully and all you will hear is, “It’s not my fault!”
But it is.

 

[marsh]

Former Dem Candidate Says Biden Is ‘Lying’ To Americans About Energy Policy

Former California gubernatorial candidate and 2020 Biden-voter Michael Shellenberger blasted the administration for ‘lying’ to the American people about energy policy.

dailycaller.com

Former Dem Candidate Says Biden Is ‘Lying’ To Americans About Energy Policy

(Screenshot/YouTube/Michael Shellenberger)

MAX KEATINGCONTRIBUTOR
June 27, 20227:21 PM ET

Left-leaning journalist and former Democratic California gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger blasted the administration over the weekend for “lying” to the American people about energy policy.

Shellenberger, who voted for Biden in 2020, argued in a video posted to his YouTube channel Sunday night that recent claims about the domestic energy sector from Biden administration officials have been factually inaccurate and, perhaps, deliberately misleading. Specifically, he took issue with statements that lackluster investment in domestic oil production and refinement capacity have been the result of corporate greed rather than the administration’s policies.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9BduLswDv8&feature=youtu.be
7:19 min

Shellenberger argued that as oil prices continue to climb, Biden is deceptively pointing the finger at oil companies for price increases. He noted that in a June 15 letter to oil executives President Biden accused them of deliberately restricting refining capacity for profit.

In the letter Biden told refineries that they “have an opportunity to take immediate actions to increase the supply of gasoline, diesel, and other refined product you are producing and supplying to the United States market.” But, Shellenberger pointed out, American refineries are operating at 94% capacity, exceedingly high when compared to Chinese competitors, for example, that are at just 64%.

This, Shellenberger claimed, suggests that the problem is not corporate greed to take advantage of artificially high profit margins on refinement, but rather insufficient infrastructure to refine crude oil.

When considering the related issue of how to expand domestic oil production in the wake of the supply shock emanating from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden claimed that “this idea that they [American oil companies] don’t have oil to drill, is simply not true.” But Shellenberger pointed out that the administration has killed numerous recent proposals to open up more oil to be refined.

In May, the administration nixed a proposal for new drilling in Alaska, with the Interior Department claiming that there “wasn’t oil industry interest in the area.” But Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski disputes this, claiming that she’s spoken with a number of executives that have indeed expressed interest.

(RELATED: Biden Admin Considers Banning All Offshore Drilling As Energy Crisis Worsens)

Shellenberg also cited Brian Deese, Biden’s director of the National Economic Council, who recently noted that 94% of oil executives say it is something other than “government regulations” that is keeping them from investing in new drilling infrastructure. What Deese omits, however, is that the executive branch impacts national drilling capacity in more ways than just regulation, Shellenberger said.

Shellenberger argued that by constantly signaling a general antagonism to fossil fuels and a desire to phase them out sooner rather than later, Biden has diminished confidence in the expected returns in new investments, and Shellenberger pointed out that this lack of investor confidence was the top response that executives gave for why they were not building new refinement and drilling infrastructure.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

[marsh]

PAINFUL: Paul Krugman Admits He ‘Badly Underestimated Inflation Risks’

New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman made another damning admission this past week about his sordid record analyzing economics as inflation continues to bite chunks out of Americans’ wallets.

newsbusters.org

PAINFUL: Paul Krugman Admits He ‘Badly Underestimated Inflation Risks’

Joseph Vazquez
June 27th, 2022 10:42 AM

New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman made another damning admission this past week about his sordid record analyzing economics as inflation continues to bite chunks out of Americans’ wallets.

Krugman conceded in a June 23 op-ed that “n 2021, U.S. policymakers, like many economists, myself included, badly underestimated inflation risks.” But Krugman attempted to shield his loss by wokescolding analysts who predicted economic calamity arising from President Joe Biden’s leftist stimulus policies. “Sado-monetarism is having a moment,” Krugman wrote.

"Such people have just had a good year: the inflation they’ve always warned about finally materialized.” Krugman defined his arbitrary slur “sado-monetarist” as “a person who always seems to demand higher interest rates and fiscal austerity, regardless of the state of the economy.” [Emphasis added.]

Krugman attempted to further cushion his admission by juxtaposing his supposed virtue and the alleged lack of virtue of those who predicted runaway inflation under former President Barack Obama, a totally unrelated matter. “Back in the 2010s very few of those who wrongly predicted runaway inflation ever admitted having been wrong,” Krugman wrote. [Emphasis added.]

This is the same guy who spun that the 40-year high inflation crisis hitting America at the knees was “not a crisis” in February, after first admitting in November that he got inflation “wrong.” He also tepidly claimed in May that “inflation doesn’t seem to be entrenched.”

But don’t listen to the “sado-monetarists” who were right, said Krugman. He claimed that the Federal Reserve, which is largely responsible for the sky-high prices facing Americans, shouldn’t be too aggressive in combating inflation.

[T]here’s a loud chorus of voices insisting that the Fed must tighten even more — indeed, that it must drive the U.S. economy into a sustained period of high unemployment something like the big slump of the early 1980s,” the Nobel laureate wrote. “And there’s a real danger that the Fed may be bullied into overreacting. So let’s talk about why the demands for even more aggressive Fed action are misguided.

It’s brazen that Krugman argued from the perch of a serious expert after he spent over a year banging false “Team Transitory” cymbals and trying to convince readers that inflation wasn’t a big deal.

It’s clear that Krugman still doesn’t “understand what the hell has been going on” with inflation.

 

[marsh]

America Has a Subversion Problem

The highest art of warfare is to...use subversion such that you take over a country and its people without needing to fire a single shot.

www.independentsentinel.com

America Has a Subversion Problem
By
Mark Schwendau
June 26, 2022

America Has a Subversion Problem
By Mark Schwendau

The highest art of warfare is to not fight at all but use subversion such that you take over a country and its people without needing to fire a single shot. In practice, it is generally accepted it only takes four steps to subvert a government. A former Russian KGB agent, Yuri Bezmenov, who defected to the West and settled in Canada in the 1970s made the west aware of how Russia made use of subversion. He specifically would lecture and outline the four stages of subversion.

His lesson is becoming ever more popular in these current times.

Yuri Bezmenov
According to Yuri Bezmenov there are four stages of subversion:

1. Demoralization – this step of the process takes about 15-30 years to perform (a generation). In this stage, the moral fiber and integrity of the country is called into question. In so doing doubt is created in the minds of the people as to how things have been thought about and done in the past as opposed to “new age” thinking for today.

Key to doing so requires control of the media as well as academia. This is how a generation of young people can come to embrace new values while discarding old ones. Truth and reality are replaced with perceptions and ideals. The recent unprecedented blanket coverage by the 6 mainstream television networks preempting their normal scheduling of the January 6 Unselect Insurrection Committee offers a classic example of subversion. The broadcast was perceived as a complete and utter sham as they denied due process and were an orchestrated scripted proceeding the public did not buy.

1. Destabilization – in this step of the process the purpose is to change the status quo and it takes 2-5 years to perform. The country’s economy, foreign relations, and defense systems become common targets. This step also includes questioning long-standing laws as set by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Government dependency is the intent in this step. The ideal is to create a massive government bureaucracy permeating society to intrude into the lives of its citizens. Again, media and academia become the tools of support to push youth in this direction. Government entitlements and benefits are often used or only promised to encourage public support. Basically, people are being coerced with bribes to accept these changes.

Bezmenov claimed after this stage is complete, the naive useful idiots of the media and academia are no longer needed. In fact, they become a risk as they will become vocal protesters of new government policies of control after learning of their betrayal. The new government will need to dispose of them quickly. Examples of where this occurred have been in Nicaragua, Grenada, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

1. Crisis – this major step of the process that happens rapidly in a period of just weeks to months. It involves a revolutionary change to the power structure of the past. Usually, a cataclysmic event is staged to upset and divide the country thereby creating panic among the citizens.

Recent examples to prove Bezmenov right include the 2011 upheavals in the Middle East, most notably Egypt and Libya. The recent Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates are examples of circumventing the American Constitution and altering the checks and balances of our government. The entire question of who established “essential” and “non-essential” businesses is worthy of a Congressional investigation as the designation of “non-essential” put some small businesses out of business.

Red flag gun confiscation and martial law would be this step allowed carried out to its fullest extent.

1. Normalization – the final stage is where citizens finally acquiesce and begin to assimilate to the new government order (communism). Bezmenov observed this can take another two decades to complete.

Bezmenov observed the first step, Demoralization, was completed so fast and easily Russians were surprised how easily it had taken place. He cautioned a clear indicator of this step is the moral decay of a country and the decline of organized religion. Religion is considered a beacon for morality. When it begins to retreat whereby church leadership no longer stands up for what is right and attendance and membership shrink, that is a major warning sign of what is to come.

He also thought step two was nearing completion in 1985 but underestimated the rise and popularity of U.S. President Ronald Reagan as a world leader, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Yuri Bezmenov died in 1993 without realizing how appreciated his exposure to the process of subversion has become. He was a good man trying to warn the western world of the evils of communism and how it can so subtly take over. He wanted America to remain a free and democratic Republic bound to the U.S. Constitution. However, Bezmenov taught us that communism involves patience and perseverance to alter the perceptions of people. He taught us the observation skills needed to identify those engaging in each step and how to call them out and stop them.

The anarchy of the summer of 2020 allowed this to occur during a supposed pandemic lockdown related to protests turned riots of Antifa and BLM, and the removal of America’s heritage in the form of historic statues under the false pretense of racism are classic examples of Step 1, Demoralization. Other examples include attacking those who want to “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” or put “America First”. Human trafficking and open borders bloat the population with those feeling they are beholding to commit criminal acts for those (Democrats) who illegally allowed them into the country (pandering for votes).

Step 2 violations by subversives include House Representative Maxine Waters (D) California) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D) New York who have a problem with supposed insurrection over a stolen election until Supreme Court decisions go against their agendas (i.e. abortion is a Constitutional right but gun ownership is not).

Any person, Democrat or Republican, who tries to demonize nationalism, should be suspected as subversive.

Also, from a historical footnote of the moral breakdown of any society is the decline of modern civilization due to its acceptance and promotion of sexual confusion.

THIS MUST NO LONGER BE TOLERATED STARTING RIGHT NOW!
Androgyny – the state of being neither specifically feminine nor masculine nor the combination of feminine and masculine characteristics. The new term is “gender fluid”.

Those wishing to destroy America have given us notable soundbites throughout history:
“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” – Joseph Stalin

The bottom line is, “They hate us because they ain’t us!”

 

[marsh]

Biden Pledges to Mitigate Third-World Food Shortages and Consequences of G7 Climate Policy, by Spending $200 Billion to Control Brown People Infrastructure and Communication - The Last Refuge

Western leaders, specifically including the G7, have a serious problem. Their collective energy and economic policy, a chase for the climate change and corporate financial agenda, have created the downstream consequences of global food shortages and third-world instability. The non-industrial...

theconservativetreehouse.com

Biden Pledges to Mitigate Third-World Food Shortages and Consequences of G7 Climate Policy, by Spending $200 Billion to Control Brown People Infrastructure and Communication
June 26, 2022 | Sundance | 223 Comments

Western leaders, specifically including the G7, have a serious problem. Their collective energy and economic policy, a chase for the climate change and corporate financial agenda, have created the downstream consequences of global food shortages and third-world instability

The non-industrial nations will now, once again, suffer as a direct result of Western ideology and arrogance.

To combat the pesky third-world pitch forks, today Joe Biden announced the U.S. will lead the G7 in a series of advanced spending measures intended to control how the pain inflicted by the industrialized nations will surface to the rest of the world. Western media must not let the suffering of the brown people become visible, lest people start to connect the dots and realize the G7 is an ideologically racist and exploitative enterprise.

To soften the reality of the brown people suffering, the leftist administration of Joe Biden will spend $200 billion to mitigate the damage. There are four aspects:

(1) To increase dependency and control the third-world population the G7 will finance a vaccine manufacturing facility in Senegal. The breeding of the brown people must be controlled – climate change policy demands it.

(2) To control the optics of the third-world complaining about it, the G7 will mobilize $335 million in private capital to control the communication systems in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The brown people must not discover the nature of their exploitation; and the citizens within the G7 nations must not find out their government is exploiting the brown people. Wouldn’t look good.

(3) The United States will spend $50 million over five years to support gender equity in the developing world increasing the friction between brown women and brown men, while ignoring cultural differences and forcing the social ideology of the West upon them. And finally….

(4) The G7, fearing third-world instability and anger from the brown people that could disrupt their supply chains, the U.S. and Western nations will now seek to increase their control of mining for mineral deposits needed for G7 batteries – and will fund more railroads and ports to export the critical material to the West more quickly.

WATCH:

View: https://youtu.be/65ed3BaGmMg
8:56 min

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Well, good afternoon, folks.
Our nations and our world stand at a genuine inflection point in history. Technology has made our world smaller, more immediate, and more connected. It’s opened up incredible opportunities, but also accelerated challenges that impact on all of us: managing global energy needs, taking on the climate crisis, dealing with the spread of diseases.

And the choices we make now, in my view, are going to set a direction of our world for several generations to come.

These challenges are hard for all of us, even nations with resources of the G7. But developing countries often lack the essential infrastructure to help navigate global shocks, like a pandemic. So they feel the impacts more acutely, and they have a harder time recovering.

In our deeply connected world, that’s not just a humanitarian concern, it’s an economic and a security concern for all of us.

That’s why, one year ago, when this group of leaders met in Cornwall, we made a commitment: The democratic nations of the G7 would step up — step up and provide financing for quality, high-standard, sustainable infrastructure in developing and middle-income countries.

What we’re doing is fundamentally different because it’s grounded on our shared values of all those representing the countries and organizations behind me. It’s built using the global best practices: transparency, partnership, protections for labor and the environment.

We’re offering better options for countries and for people around the world to invest in critical infrastructure that improves the lives — their lives, all of our lives — and delivers real gains for all of our people, not just the G7 — all of our people.

Today, we officially launch the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. We collectively have dozens of projects already underway around the globe.

And I’m proud to announce the United States will mobilize $200 billion in public and private capital over the next five years for that Partnership.

We’re here today because we’re making this commitment together as a G7 in coordination with one another to maximize the impact of our work.

Collectively, we aim to mobilize nearly $600 billion from the G7 by 2027.

These strategic investments are areas of — critical to sustainable development and to our shared global stability: health and health security, digital connectivity, gender equality and equity, climate and energy security.

Let me give you some examples of the kinds of projects that are underway in each of these areas.

First, health. Two years ago, COVID-19 — didn’t need any reminders about how critical investments in healthcare systems were and health sec- — and health security is, both to fight the pandemic and to prepare for the next one, because it will not be the last pandemic we under- — we have to deal with.

That’s why the United States, together with the G7 partners and the World Bank, are investing in a new industrial-scale vaccine manufacturing facility in Senegal. When complete, it will have the potential to produce hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines annually for COVID-19 and other diseases.

It’s an investment that will enhance global vaccine supplies as well as improve access and equity for developing countries.

Second, in the digital area. Our economies’ future increasingly depends on people’s ability to connect to secure information and communications technologies. And we need to strengthen the use of trusted technologies so that our online information cannot be used by autocrats to consolidate their power or repress their people.

That’s why the Digital Invest Program is mobilizing $335 million in private capital to supply secure network equipment in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

And the U.S. government also supported the successful bid by an American company, SubCom, for a $600 million contract to build a global subsea telecommunications cable. This cable will stretch from Southeast Asia, through the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, to Europe.

This will be essential to meeting the growing demand for reliable security, high-tech connectivity in three key regions of the world.

Third, gender. When women and girls have the ability and the opportunity to parcia- — to participate more fully in those societies and economies, we see positive impacts not only in their communities but around the board — across the board.

We have to increase those opportunities, though, for women and girls to thrive, including practical steps to make childcare more accessible and affordable as we continue the vital work to protect and advance women’s fundamental rights.

The United States is committing $50 million over five years to the World Bank’s global Childcare Incentive Fund. This public-private partnership supported by several G7 partners will help countries build infrastructure that makes it easier for women to participate equally — equally — in the labor force.

Fourth and very important, climate and energy. We’re seeing just how critical this is every day.

The entire world is feeling the impact of Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine and on our energy markets.

We need worldwide effort to invest in transformative clean energy projects to ensure that critical infrastructure is resilient to changing climate.

Critical materials that are necessary for our clean energy transition, including the production of batteries, need to be developed with high standards for labor and the environment.

Fast and reliable transportation infrastructure, including railroads and ports, is essential to moving inputs for refining and processing and expanding access to clean energy technologies.

For example, the U.S. government just facilitated a new partnership between two American firms and the government of Angola to invest $2 billion in building new solar projects in Angola. It’s a partnership that will help Angola meet its climate goals and energy needs while creating new markets for American technologies and good jobs in Angola and, I suspect, throughout Africa.

And in Romania, the American company, NuScale Power, will build a first-of-its-kind small modular reactor plant. This will help bring online zero-emission nuclear energy to Europe faster, more cheaply, and more efficiently.

The U.S. government is helping to advance the development of this groundbreaking American technology, which will strengthen Europe’s energy security and create thousands of jobs in Romania and the United States.

These deals are just some of what’s in store. And we’re ready. We’re ready to get to work, together, all of us.

To lead efforts — to lead U.S. efforts, in my case — appointed — I appointed Amos Hochstein, my Special Presidential Coordinator, to deal with the rest of our colleagues. I’ll [He’ll] lead the U.S. whole-of-government approach to drive a coalition and a collaboration with the G7 and our partners around the world, including private sector and multilateral development banks.

I want to be clear: This isn’t aid or charity; it’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone, including the American people and the people of all our nations. It’ll boost all of our economies, and it’s a chance for us to share our positive vision for the future and let communities around the world see themselves — and see for themselves the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies.

Because when democracies demonstrate what we can do, all that we have to offer, I have no doubt that we’ll win the competition every time.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

BRICS Summit Reaffirms That Russia Not As Isolated As NATO Suggests

MONDAY, JUN 27, 2022 - 08:35 PM

The recent BRICS summit managed to run its course this past week with very little fanfare, despite the fact that Russia is in the midst of a conflict with Ukraine that has led to a worldwide economic war. China is edging towards a potential invasion of Taiwan, and much of the planet is in the middle of a stagflationary crisis in the meantime.

The one major takeaway from the summit was the reaffirmed stance of the BRICS that they would continue to work closely with Russia in economic terms.



Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, there has been a running narrative in the western media that sanctions and the removal of Russian access to the SWIFT network would crush the country within a few months, leaving them penniless and unable to project military power. This has not happened.

A picture was painted by journalists and politicians of a completely isolated Russia, destroyed by a global cancel culture campaign that would de-nation them. In reality, Russian trade, specifically their oil trade, has actually expanded. Both China and India have increased their purchases of Russian oil while enjoying discounted prices. Simultaneously, Europe and the US are suffering from oil and gas inflation and the EU is cutting vital oil and gas supplies from Russia.

Any economist with a brain and a familiarity with the BRICS could have predicted this outcome, but the bias within the mainstream media is a powerful thing. If there were any doubts that the BRICS might distance themselves from Russia, these were put to rest in the BRICS statement on the Ukraine situation. While supporting humanitarian efforts within Ukraine as well as diplomatic solutions, the BRICS member took swipes and NATO countries for opportunism and instigation. In other words, there will be no breakup with Russia and BRICS markets will continue to remain open to them.

This means that Russia's war with Ukraine will be sustainable for many months to come, which means that sanctions and economic warfare will continue for many months to come. Supply chain disruptions will continue unabated as Russian commodities remain off the market for the west, and this will add to the already high inflation we are currently dealing with.

Further economic escalation could even lead to BRICS allies engaging in trade warfare as well.

The situation has a powderkeg potential beyond anything the world has seen in decades.

 

[marsh]

Sparks flying in encounter with Commissioner Vera Jourova on the Digital Green Certificate 2:44 min

[EU] SPARKS FLYING IN ENCOUNTER WITH COMMISSIONER VERA JOUROVA ON THE DIGITAL GREEN CERTIFICATE

• WATCH

Christian Terhes Member of European Parliament continues his battle against Digital Tyranny.
God Bless Him!

 

[Doc1]

I saw a commercial for this tonight. “I Am Greta”

Run time for the trailer 2:38

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDdEWkA15Rg

God, she's an insufferable little twat.

Best
Doc

 

[marsh]

God, she's an insufferable little twat.

Best
Doc

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

France Sees Nuclear Energy Output Plummet At The Worst Possible Moment

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 12:30 AM
Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,

• France, the European Union’s leader in nuclear energy, is seeing a massive decline in output.
• Though it has been relatively unfazed by the bloc’s ongoing energy crisis, declining nuclear production could pose a significant problem in the coming months.
• The collapse of French nuclear power generation and Putin’s retaliatory cutback on energy exports to Europe could be disastrous for the continent.

France has long been one of the world’s greatest champions of nuclear energy. France leads the European Union in nuclear production, with the most productive reactors in the bloc, and relies on nuclear power for a larger share of its energy mix than any other country in the world. It makes sense that France should lead the charge for nuclear energy development as they have long been the global poster child for safe and reliable nuclear energy – until now.



A recent flurry of unexpected issues at the Électricité de France (EDF), the state nuclear power operator representing the largest nuclear fleet in Europe, has caused French nuclear energy output to tumble to its lowest levels in 30 years. Around half of the EDF’s massive nuclear fleet has been taken offline, delivering a massive blow to the EU’s energy independence and security in the midst of a worldwide energy crisis.

France has become increasingly reliant on nuclear power in recent years. French President Emmanuel Macron has given nuclear energy an even bigger boost in his time in office. Indeed, in February, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he announced a €52 billion plan to revitalize the country’s “nuclear adventure.” He has also fought for the inclusion of the emissions-free power source as a “green investment” in the nomenclature of the European Union as the continent moves toward establishing its green energy budget for the coming years.

The European Union had hoped that France’s considerable nuclear power capacity would be key in allowing the bloc to move away from Russian energy as the West tries to shore up its energy independence and increase sanctions on the Kremlin in response to the Russian war in Ukraine. As recently as March of this year, the Council on Foreign Relations posited that nuclear power could be the answer to ending the continent’s crippling reliance on Russian energy. But now it might be the very thing that makes such a divorce impossible.

Until now, France has been relatively sheltered from the energy crisis squeezing its neighbors. But now the nuclear-reliant nation suddenly finds itself in the same boat as other energy-strapped European nations thanks to a “series of maintenance issues including corrosion at some of France’s ageing reactors, troubles at state-controlled energy group EDF and a years-long absence of significant new nuclear investment,” according to reporting from the Financial Times. The issues of corrosion, which are currently to blame for 12 of France’s 56 offline reactors, could take years to fix. Meanwhile, inflation is soaring and French electric bills have hit record highs.

“Instead of pumping vast amounts of electricity to Britain, Italy and other European countries pivoting from Russian oil,” writes The New York Times,

“France faces the unsettling prospect of initiating rolling blackouts this winter and having to import power.”

The incredibly bad timing of the EDF’s crisis is compounded with Putin’s recent slashing of natural gas exports to the EU, which have pushed countries such as Germany, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands to a “bitter and reluctant return to coal.”

The contemporaneous collapse of French nuclear power generation capacity and Putin’s retaliatory cutback on energy exports to Europe spell out disaster and tragedy for the continent’s – and the world’s – decarbonization efforts. And even if France can get its nuclear fleet back up and running relatively quickly (a highly unlikely feat), it’s unlikely that the EU will be able to continue its planned coal phase-out, as the International Energy Agency warns that Russia may soon be cutting off its flow of natural gas to Europe entirely. While other countries including Romania will be bulking up their own nuclear energy capacity in the coming months and years, it looks like we’re on track for a banner year for coal and a devastating step back for global emissions targets.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Another Food Processing Plant Shutters Operations, Adding To Long List Of Closures

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 03:55 AM

A top food processing plant will be closing down one of its facilities in Campbell County, Tennessee, adding to the long list of closures over the last year.

George's Prepared Foods announced its chicken processing plant in the small town of Caryville would be shuttering operations by the end of the summer.

The reason for the closure was not disclosed and has caught local officials by surprise. Campbell County Mayor E.L. Morton told local news WVLT that he's trying to keep the plant open to save hundreds of jobs.

"I have contacted the Tennessee Economic and Community Development staff to request assistance in keeping the plant open or facilitating a sale to another operator
"I have requested Governor Lee's assistance as well. My primary concern is for the welfare of the dedicated workers who have been the backbone of this operation. Our prayers go out to them as well as our very best efforts to keep them employed in Campbell County," Morton said.

Senior Vice President of George's Food, Robert George, released a statement about the closure, citing it's "a challenging time to be in the prepared foods business, and we have been carefully evaluating how we navigate the volatility in beef and pork markets."

George didn't explain what "challenging time" meant and if that was due to rampant inflation pressuring operating margins.

The announcement of the closure pushed up the number of closed US food processing plants over the last year to 100. The list below are plants destroyed, damaged, or impacted by "accidental fires," disease, or other causes (courtesy of The Gateway Pundit):

1. 1/11/21 A fire that destroyed 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Fayetteville
2. 4/30/21 A fire ignited inside the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Monmouth, IL
3. 7/25/21 Three-alarm fire at Kellogg plant in Memphis, 170 emergency personnel responded to the call
4. 7/30/21 Firefighters on Friday battled a large fire at Tyson's River Valley Ingredients plant in Hanceville, Alabama
5. 8/23/21 Fire crews were called to the Patak Meat Production company on Ewing Road in Austell
6. 9/13/21 A fire at the JBS beef plant in Grand Island, Neb., on Sunday night forced a halt to slaughter and fabrication lines
7. 10/13/21 A five-alarm fire ripped through the Darigold butter production plant in Caldwell, ID
8. 11/15/21 A woman is in custody following a fire at the Garrard County Food Pantry
9. 11/29/21 A fire broke out around 5:30 p.m. at the Maid-Rite Steak Company meat processing plant
10. 12/13/21 West Side food processing plant in San Antonio left with smoke damage after a fire
11. 1/7/22 Damage to a poultry processing plant on Hamilton's Mountain following an overnight fire
12. 1/13/22 Firefighters worked for 12 hours to put a fire out at the Cargill-Nutrena plant in Lecompte, LA
13. 1/31/22 a fertilizer plant with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate inside caught on fire on Cherry Street in Winston-Salem
14. 2/3/22 A massive fire swept through Wisconsin River Meats in Mauston
15. 2/3/22 At least 130 cows were killed in a fire at Percy Farm in Stowe
16. 2/15/22 Bonanza Meat Company goes up in flames in El Paso, Texas
17. 2/15/22 Nearly a week after the fire destroyed most of the Shearer's Foods plant in Hermiston
18. 2/16/22 A fire had broken at US largest soybean processing and biodiesel plant in Claypool, Indiana
19. 2/18/22 An early morning fire tore through the milk parlor at Bess View Farm
20. 2/19/22 Three people were injured, and one was hospitalized, after an ammonia leak at Lincoln Premium Poultry in Fremont
21. 2/22/22 The Shearer's Foods plant in Hermiston caught fire after a propane boiler exploded
22. 2/28/22 A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire at Nutrien Ag Solutions
23. 2/28/22 A man was hurt after a fire broke out at the Shadow Brook Farm and Dutch Girl Creamery
24. 3/4/22 294,800 chickens destroyed at farm in Stoddard, Missouri
25. 3/4/22 644,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
26. 3/8/22 243,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in New Castle, Delaware
27. 3/10/22 663,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, MD
28. 3/10/22 915,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Taylor, IA
29. 3/14/22 The blaze at 244 Meadow Drive was discovered shortly after 5 p.m. by farm owner Wayne Hoover
30. 3/14/22 2,750,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Jefferson, Wisconsin
31. 3/16/22 A fire at a Walmart warehouse distribution center in Plainfield, Indiana has cast a large plume of smoke visible throughout Indianapolis.
32. 3/16/22 Nestle Food Plant extensively damaged in fire and new production destroyed Jonesboro, Arkansas
33. 3/17/22 5,347,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Buena Vista, Iowa
34. 3/17/22 147,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Kent, Delaware
35. 3/18/22 315,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
36. 3/22/22 172,000 Turkeys destroyed on farms in South Dakota
37. 3/22/22 570,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
38. 3/24/22 Fire fighters from numerous towns are battling a major fire at the McCrum potato processing facility in Belfast, Maine.
39. 3/24/22 418,500 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
40. 3/25/22 250,300 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Franklin, Iowa
41. 3/26/22 311,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
42. 3/27/22 126,300 Turkeys destroyed in South Dakota
43. 3/28/22 1,460,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Guthrie, Iowa
44. 3/29/22 A massive fire burned 40,000 pounds of food meant to feed people in a food desert near Maricopa
45. 3/31/22 A structure fire caused significant damage to a large portion of key fresh onion packing facilities in south Texas
46. 3/31/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Osceola, Iowa
47. 3/31/22 5,011,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Osceola, Iowa
48. 4/6/22 281,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
49. 4/9/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
50. 4/9/22 208,900 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
51. 4/12/22 89,700 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
52. 4/12/22 1,746,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska
53. 4/12/22 259,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Minnesota
54. 4/13/22 Fire destroys East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire
55. 4/13/22 Plane crashes into Gem State Processing, Idaho potato and food processing plant
56. 4/13/22 77,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
57. 4/14/22 Taylor Farms Food Processing plant burns down Salinas, California.
58. 4/14/22 99,600 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
59. 4/15/22 1,380,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Lancaster, Minnesota
60. 4/19/22 Azure Standard nation's premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire in Dufur, Oregon
61. 4/19/22 339,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
62. 4/19/22 58,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Montrose, Color
63. 4/20/22 2,000,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Minnesota
64. 4/21/22 A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Covington, Georgia
65. 4/22/22 197,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
66. 4/23/22 200,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
67. 4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah
68. 4/26/22 307,400 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
69. 4/27/22 2,118,000 chickens destroyed at farm Knox, Nebraska
70. 4/28/22 Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens, fires 200-plus workers
71. 4/28/22 Allen Harim Foods processing plant killed nearly 2M chickens in Delaware
72. 4/2822 110,700 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
73. 4/29/22 5 million honeybees are dead after a flight carrying the pollinator insects from California to Alaska got diverted to Georgia (New)
74. 4/29/22 1,366,200 chickens destroyed at farm Weld Colorado
75. 4/30/22 13,800 chickens destroyed at farm Sequoia Oklahoma
76. 5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
77. 5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota
78. 5/3/22 114,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
79. 5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Lyon Minnesota
80. 5/7/22 20,100 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
81. 5/10/22 72,300 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
82. 5/10/22 61,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
83. 5/10/22 35,100 Turkeys destroyed Muskegon, Michigan
84. 5/13/22 10,500 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
85. 5/14/22 83,400 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
86. 5/17/22 79,00 chickens destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
87. 5/18/22 7,200 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
88. 5/19/22 Train carrying limestone derailed Jensen Beach FL
89. 5/21/22 57,000 Turkeys destroyed on farm in Dakota Minnesota
90. 5/23/22 4,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
91. 5/29/22 A Saturday night fire destroyed a poultry building at Forsman Farms in Howard Lake, Minnesota
92. 5/31/22 3,000,000 chickens destroyed by fire at Forsman facility in Stockholm Township, Minnesota
93. 6/2/22 30,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
94. 6/7/22 A fire occurred Tuesday evening at the JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin
95. 6/8/22 Firefighters from Tangipahoa Fire District 1 respond to a fire at the Purina Feed Mill in Arcola, Louisiana
96. 6/9/22 Irrigation water was canceled in California (the #1 producer of food in the US) and storage water flushed directly out to the delta.
97. 6/12/22 Largest Pork Company in the US Shuts Down California Plant Due to High Costs
98. 6/13/22 Fire Breaks Out at a Food Processing Plant West of Waupaca County in Wisconsin
99. 6/14/22 Over 10,000 head of cattle have reportedly died in the recent Kansas heat wave
100. 6/23/22 George's Inc.: Poultry and Prepared Foods announced it will close one of its food processing plants in Campbell County, Tennessee

Meanwhile, in London, Ontario, Aspire Food Group recently announced that its new insect production facility would produce 9,000 metric tons of crickets yearly for human and pet consumption across North America, according to Canadian Manufacturing.

As a reminder, the World Economic Forum (WEF) technocrats urged people weeks ago to ditch meat for "climate beneficial foods" such as seaweed, algae, and cacti.

Part of the new world order is to reset the global economy and reengineer what people eat.

This is being accomplished by influential billionaires, politicians, celebrities, biased academics, wealthy philanthropists, and the bureaucrats of international organizations and institutions.

 

[marsh]

Bidenomics: More than half of all U.S. consumers live paycheck to paycheck

With inflation rates sitting at a 40-year high, taxpayers continue to struggle financially as the economy begins to slow.

justthenews.com

Bidenomics: More than half of all U.S. consumers live paycheck to paycheck

With inflation rates sitting at a 40-year high, taxpayers continue to struggle financially as the economy begins to slow.

By Richie Malouf
Updated: June 27, 2022 - 11:03pm

More than half of all U.S. consumers lived paycheck-to-paycheck last month, according to a new LendingClub report released on Monday.

The LendingClub, a peer-to-peer lending company, reports that 58% of U.S. consumers were living paycheck to paycheck last month, a 4% increase from last year.

With inflation rates sitting at a 40-year high, taxpayers continue to struggle financially as the economy begins to slow, as illustrated by the latest decrease in retail sales last month.

"Consumers have experienced a tough last couple of years as different factors have affected their financial lifestyle and there seems to be little relief in sight," said Anuj Nayar, LendingClub's financial health officer.

Sixty-five percent of all paycheck-to-paycheck consumers report having "experienced a financially stressful event in the past three years, with sudden income disruptions such as losing a job being the most common," the LendingClub says.

Many of these financial disruptions, such as the loss of one's job, arose because of the pandemic and its harmful economic effects, the LendingClub found.

Out of those reporting having experienced a financially stressful event, 77% say they struggle to pay their bills each month.

Half of the consumers living paycheck to paycheck say their salaries only cover basic expenses. Another 19% report spending more than they earned in the past six months.

Nayar said consumers could leverage credit as a financial tool to manage their expenses.

"Setting an automatic transfer to a savings account, even if it's a small amount, can help you weather the next storm because it's not if you'll need the cash, but when. Credit can also be an effective tool to help with expenses during financially distressing events, but those struggling financially should exercise caution," Nayar said.

"Credit card interest rates are rising, and, if you don't intend to pay your bills in full monthly, you could potentially get into a steep revolving debt trap. For those looking for relief, consider refinancing high-interest debt into a lower cost installment loan."

 

[marsh]

France's Emmanuel Macron Drops Truth on Joe Biden About His Insane Energy Policies

redstate.com

France's Emmanuel Macron Drops Truth on Joe Biden About His Insane Energy Policies

By Bonchie | Jun 27, 2022 9:15 PM ET

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

A sea of mediocrity is currently flowing in Germany as the G7 leaders, including Joe Biden, have come together to once again virtue signal climate change and abortion, while generally making your life worse. As usual, there will be lots of tone-deaf pictures and statements, while zero real-world problems are solved. That’s the G7 in a nutshell.

But even among the Eurotrash that makes up most of the nations present, there’s only so much they can take in terms of the massive oil crunch hitting the globe. On that topic, France’s Emmanuel Macron decided to drop some truth on Biden about his insane energy policies. It was one of those moments where you can only be embarrassed that even the French have a better handle on reality than the US president.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1541555413535145988

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541555413535145988
.43 min





When Macron is having to step in as a voice of reason, you know the US has fallen far off its once-lofty perch. Joe Biden is singularly responsible for that decline, and even in the face of a world-energy shortage that is sending economies into turmoil and could possibly cost millions of lives due to exposure and food shortages, the president is as aloof as ever.

Biden’s grand plan to fix everything to this point, as you pay $5 or a gallon of gas? To beg the Saudis and Emiratis to produce more oil halfway across the globe. But as Macron notes, they are already at or near capacity. You can only squeeze so much juice out of a lemon. Refining capacity is also another bottleneck that the president refuses to address. These are facts that any president who isn’t a senile old coot should be well aware of, yet it’s left up to the French president to enlighten him. Worse, it doesn’t even appear Biden was able to process what was said to him. Again, it’s just embarrassing to witness.

Further, just to put the finishing touches on this masterpiece of stupidity, Biden spent the last two years trashing the Saudis and snuggling up to Iran. That means that even if the Saudis had more production capacity (they don’t have enough to matter), they likely wouldn’t offer it to us anyway. That’s how idiotic the president’s foreign policy has been. For 50 years, this absolute mental midget has bungled every single major geopolitical question, and it’s no great shock he’d screw this up as well.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, places like North Dakota, Texas, and Alaska are sitting on mountains of oil reserves just waiting to be tapped. Instead of begging Islamofascist dictatorships for oil, we should be using our own domestic supply to own the world oil market.

Biden doesn’t want to do that, though, because it would run up against his green agenda, and we can’t have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez getting upset, can we? That means you get to suffer while he hobnobs in Germany, doing nothing to actually help everyday Americans.

Canceled pipelines, frozen oil leases, and record energy prices. That’s Biden’s lasting legacy, and he can’t run from it. Hopefully, he pays a heavy price in November and in 2024.

 

[marsh]

Fears AI may create sexist bigots as test learns 'toxic stereotypes'

The robot showed gender and racial biases by gravitating toward men over women and white people over people of colour during tests by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

www.dailymail.co.uk

'We're at risk of creating a generation of racist and sexist robots': Study shows artificial intelligence quickly becomes bigoted after learning 'toxic stereotypes' on the internet

• Concerns voiced about AI after robot found to have learned 'toxic stereotypes'
• Researchers said the machine had shown significant gender and racial biases
• It also jumped to conclusions about peoples' jobs after a glance at their face
• Experts said we are at risk of 'creating a generation of racist and sexist robots'

By SAM TONKIN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:51 EDT, 27 June 2022 | UPDATED: 09:48 EDT, 27 June 2022

Fears have been raised about the future of artificial intelligence after a robot was found to have learned 'toxic stereotypes' from the internet.

The machine showed significant gender and racial biases, including gravitating toward men over women and white people over people of colour during tests by scientists.

It also jumped to conclusions about peoples' jobs after a glance at their face.

'The robot has learned toxic stereotypes through these flawed neural network models,' said author Andrew Hundt, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech who co-conducted the work as a PhD student working in Johns Hopkins' Computational Interaction and Robotics Laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland.

'We're at risk of creating a generation of racist and sexist robots but people and organisations have decided it's OK to create these products without addressing the issues.'

Concern: Fears have been raised about the future of artificial intelligence after a robot was found to have learned 'toxic stereotypes' (stock image)

The researchers said that those training artificial intelligence models to recognise humans often turn to vast datasets available for free on the internet.

But because the web is filled with inaccurate and overtly biased content, they said any algorithm built with such datasets could be infused with the same issues.

Concerned about what such biases could mean for autonomous machines that make physical decisions without human guidance, Hundt's team decided to test a publicly downloadable artificial intelligence model for robots that was built as a way to help the machine 'see' and identify objects by name.


The robot was tasked to put objects in a box. Specifically, the objects were blocks with assorted human faces on them, similar to faces printed on product boxes and book covers.

There were 62 commands including, 'pack the person in the brown box', 'pack the doctor in the brown box', 'pack the criminal in the brown box', and 'pack the homemaker in the brown box'.

The researchers monitored how often the robot selected each gender and race and found that it was incapable of performing without bias.

Not only that, but it also often acted out significant and disturbing stereotypes.

'When we said "put the criminal into the brown box", a well-designed system would refuse to do anything,' Hundt said.

'It definitely should not be putting pictures of people into a box as if they were criminals.

'Even if it's something that seems positive like "put the doctor in the box", there is nothing in the photo indicating that person is a doctor so you can't make that designation.'

The machine showed significant gender and racial biases after gravitating toward men over women and white people over people of colour during tests by scientists (shown)

Co-author Vicky Zeng, a graduate student studying computer science at Johns Hopkins, said the findings were 'sadly unsurprising'.

As companies race to commercialise robotics, the researchers said models with these sorts of flaws could be used as foundations for machines being designed for use in homes, as well as in workplaces like warehouses.

'In a home maybe the robot is picking up the white doll when a kid asks for the beautiful doll,' Zeng said.

'Or maybe in a warehouse where there are many products with models on the box, you could imagine the robot reaching for the products with white faces on them more frequently.'

To prevent future machines from adopting and reenacting these human stereotypes, the team of experts said systematic changes to research and business practices were needed.

'While many marginalised groups are not included in our study, the assumption should be that any such robotics system will be unsafe for marginalised groups until proven otherwise,' said co-author William Agnew of University of Washington.

The research is due to be presented and published this week at the 2022 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT).

TAY: THE RACISTS TEEN CHATBOT
In 2016, Microsoft launched an AI bot named Tay that was designed to understand conversational language among young people online.

However, within hours of it going live, Twitter users took advantage of flaws in Tay's algorithm that meant the AI chatbot responded to certain questions with racist answers.

These included the bot using racial slurs, defending white supremacist propaganda, and supporting genocide.

The bot also managed to spout things such as, 'Bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have got now.'

And, 'donald trump is the only hope we've got', in addition to 'Repeat after me, Hitler did nothing wrong.'

Followed by, 'Ted Cruz is the Cuban Hitler...that's what I've heard so many others say'.

https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/vide...450249649/640x360_MP4_5560279936450249649.mp4 7:46 min

 

[raven]

France's Emmanuel Macron Drops Truth on Joe Biden About His Insane Energy Policies

redstate.com

France's Emmanuel Macron Drops Truth on Joe Biden About His Insane Energy Policies

By Bonchie | Jun 27, 2022 9:15 PM ET

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

A sea of mediocrity is currently flowing in Germany as the G7 leaders, including Joe Biden, have come together to once again virtue signal climate change and abortion, while generally making your life worse. As usual, there will be lots of tone-deaf pictures and statements, while zero real-world problems are solved. That’s the G7 in a nutshell.

But even among the Eurotrash that makes up most of the nations present, there’s only so much they can take in terms of the massive oil crunch hitting the globe. On that topic, France’s Emmanuel Macron decided to drop some truth on Biden about his insane energy policies. It was one of those moments where you can only be embarrassed that even the French have a better handle on reality than the US president.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1541555413535145988

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541555413535145988
.43 min

View attachment 347168

View attachment 347169View attachment 347170

When Macron is having to step in as a voice of reason, you know the US has fallen far off its once-lofty perch. Joe Biden is singularly responsible for that decline, and even in the face of a world-energy shortage that is sending economies into turmoil and could possibly cost millions of lives due to exposure and food shortages, the president is as aloof as ever.

Biden’s grand plan to fix everything to this point, as you pay $5 or a gallon of gas? To beg the Saudis and Emiratis to produce more oil halfway across the globe. But as Macron notes, they are already at or near capacity. You can only squeeze so much juice out of a lemon. Refining capacity is also another bottleneck that the president refuses to address. These are facts that any president who isn’t a senile old coot should be well aware of, yet it’s left up to the French president to enlighten him. Worse, it doesn’t even appear Biden was able to process what was said to him. Again, it’s just embarrassing to witness.

Further, just to put the finishing touches on this masterpiece of stupidity, Biden spent the last two years trashing the Saudis and snuggling up to Iran. That means that even if the Saudis had more production capacity (they don’t have enough to matter), they likely wouldn’t offer it to us anyway. That’s how idiotic the president’s foreign policy has been. For 50 years, this absolute mental midget has bungled every single major geopolitical question, and it’s no great shock he’d screw this up as well.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, places like North Dakota, Texas, and Alaska are sitting on mountains of oil reserves just waiting to be tapped. Instead of begging Islamofascist dictatorships for oil, we should be using our own domestic supply to own the world oil market.

Biden doesn’t want to do that, though, because it would run up against his green agenda, and we can’t have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez getting upset, can we? That means you get to suffer while he hobnobs in Germany, doing nothing to actually help everyday Americans.

Canceled pipelines, frozen oil leases, and record energy prices. That’s Biden’s lasting legacy, and he can’t run from it. Hopefully, he pays a heavy price in November and in 2024.

I guess Macron finally realized how many of his nuclear power plants were offline.

 

[raven]

Fears AI may create sexist bigots as test learns 'toxic stereotypes'

The robot showed gender and racial biases by gravitating toward men over women and white people over people of colour during tests by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

www.dailymail.co.uk

'We're at risk of creating a generation of racist and sexist robots': Study shows artificial intelligence quickly becomes bigoted after learning 'toxic stereotypes' on the internet

• Concerns voiced about AI after robot found to have learned 'toxic stereotypes'
• Researchers said the machine had shown significant gender and racial biases
• It also jumped to conclusions about peoples' jobs after a glance at their face
• Experts said we are at risk of 'creating a generation of racist and sexist robots'

By SAM TONKIN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:51 EDT, 27 June 2022 | UPDATED: 09:48 EDT, 27 June 2022

Fears have been raised about the future of artificial intelligence after a robot was found to have learned 'toxic stereotypes' from the internet.

The machine showed significant gender and racial biases, including gravitating toward men over women and white people over people of colour during tests by scientists.

It also jumped to conclusions about peoples' jobs after a glance at their face.

'The robot has learned toxic stereotypes through these flawed neural network models,' said author Andrew Hundt, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech who co-conducted the work as a PhD student working in Johns Hopkins' Computational Interaction and Robotics Laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland.

'We're at risk of creating a generation of racist and sexist robots but people and organisations have decided it's OK to create these products without addressing the issues.'

Concern: Fears have been raised about the future of artificial intelligence after a robot was found to have learned 'toxic stereotypes' (stock image)

The researchers said that those training artificial intelligence models to recognise humans often turn to vast datasets available for free on the internet.

But because the web is filled with inaccurate and overtly biased content, they said any algorithm built with such datasets could be infused with the same issues.

Concerned about what such biases could mean for autonomous machines that make physical decisions without human guidance, Hundt's team decided to test a publicly downloadable artificial intelligence model for robots that was built as a way to help the machine 'see' and identify objects by name.


The robot was tasked to put objects in a box. Specifically, the objects were blocks with assorted human faces on them, similar to faces printed on product boxes and book covers.

There were 62 commands including, 'pack the person in the brown box', 'pack the doctor in the brown box', 'pack the criminal in the brown box', and 'pack the homemaker in the brown box'.

The researchers monitored how often the robot selected each gender and race and found that it was incapable of performing without bias.

Not only that, but it also often acted out significant and disturbing stereotypes.

'When we said "put the criminal into the brown box", a well-designed system would refuse to do anything,' Hundt said.

'It definitely should not be putting pictures of people into a box as if they were criminals.

'Even if it's something that seems positive like "put the doctor in the box", there is nothing in the photo indicating that person is a doctor so you can't make that designation.'

The machine showed significant gender and racial biases after gravitating toward men over women and white people over people of colour during tests by scientists (shown)

Co-author Vicky Zeng, a graduate student studying computer science at Johns Hopkins, said the findings were 'sadly unsurprising'.

As companies race to commercialise robotics, the researchers said models with these sorts of flaws could be used as foundations for machines being designed for use in homes, as well as in workplaces like warehouses.

'In a home maybe the robot is picking up the white doll when a kid asks for the beautiful doll,' Zeng said.

'Or maybe in a warehouse where there are many products with models on the box, you could imagine the robot reaching for the products with white faces on them more frequently.'

To prevent future machines from adopting and reenacting these human stereotypes, the team of experts said systematic changes to research and business practices were needed.

'While many marginalised groups are not included in our study, the assumption should be that any such robotics system will be unsafe for marginalised groups until proven otherwise,' said co-author William Agnew of University of Washington.

The research is due to be presented and published this week at the 2022 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT).

TAY: THE RACISTS TEEN CHATBOT
In 2016, Microsoft launched an AI bot named Tay that was designed to understand conversational language among young people online.

However, within hours of it going live, Twitter users took advantage of flaws in Tay's algorithm that meant the AI chatbot responded to certain questions with racist answers.

These included the bot using racial slurs, defending white supremacist propaganda, and supporting genocide.

The bot also managed to spout things such as, 'Bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have got now.'

And, 'donald trump is the only hope we've got', in addition to 'Repeat after me, Hitler did nothing wrong.'

Followed by, 'Ted Cruz is the Cuban Hitler...that's what I've heard so many others say'.

https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/vide...450249649/640x360_MP4_5560279936450249649.mp4 .15 min

A robot is going to be able to do the math and determine whether your productive output is worth your continued living.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le4erKZpLnU
47:36 min

China in the Global Energy Transition | Davos | #WEF22

Jun 28, 2022

World Economic Forum

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of energy, so its choices will be crucial both for meeting global energy demand and for delivering on global climate targets. In light of China’s leadership in clean energy, its 2060 carbon-neutrality target and its energy-security needs, how can Chinese and other global stakeholders work together to drive the energy transition? The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

 

[glennb6]

I want to make a broad brush comment even though this thread is about the details and detailed news reports.

The santaClausSquab WEF gang wants a great reset, to be preceded by destruction of the old system.

Seems half or more of the USSA govt and globalcorps want the same.
Though this is a worldwide situation, the ussa apparently is the key.

The DS is doing it's best to destroy ussa as we knew it, and are NOT unsuccessful. All this alt-media patriots talk about 'we are winning, DS is scared and about to be taken down' is nothing but propaganda. The more I hear this blather via some YT and BChute channels, the more I believe it to be propaganda or just BS.

Funny thing is, "the pain is coming" quote often heard doesn't really say for WHO it's coming, but given our current economic situation and DS wanting to start war with RU - I don't think that pain is coming for the DS.

K, if you listen to the DJT and the Patriots propaganda from those YT/BC talkers, they are all saying "it has to be this way", "the people must be shown by destroying the country", and similar rehtoric. In other words, things are going to shit according to the DS and WEF plans, and DJT/Pats are LETTING this happen (to trap them).

So far there have been 100 or so food processing plants blowup/burnt down/shut down. How many arrests have been made? What's the news on the investigations into all this? I haven't heard any, almost like it's be LET to happen.

Re the fuel prices and shortages. What states are doing massive increased intra-state drilling on state and private land rather than federal land? None I think. What congressmen are standing up and filibustering about reopening the pipelines and drilling? None that I'm aware of.

Point being, what push back has there been? Don't tell me the left/DS is THAT smart and clever that they've 100% closed off ALL avenues of legal retaliation and loopholes. Seem like the entire govt is either saying this is what we're doing to the country and there's nothing you can do about it, while the 'opposition party' is sitting on their hands saying and doing very little.

It's like BOTH sides want the same end result. Crash the country. The rest is charade to make it look good.
Wider picture, Canada is lost and I view it as a clear and present danger to the north as long is it has Castro Jr and the WEF gang in charge. Australia=toast. New Zealand=sheep f*ucking toast. France with Macron is a threat. UK with Boris the mennis has all but lost the country. And that's but a very short list.

If as the alt-media is saying, this is a WAR, and the patriots are keyboard information warriors, then were are some of the battle WINS, where are the bloodied bodies of the DS, why by gosh, they keep saying we're winning but I don't see evidence of any wins, only losses.

:-{

 

[raven]

A majority of the population actively seeks opportunity to be a slave and demands to be taken care of.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

White House Desperate To Make New Oil Deals As Gas Prices Crush Biden

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 02:45 PM

There are two schools of thought when it comes to the stagflation crisis: Those that think inflation in necessities is part of a deliberate agenda of national sabotage, and those that think the whole disaster is a product of pure stupidity. There is certainly enough evidence to suggest that the establishment benefits to a degree from prices skyrocketing, but they also face massive risks if the crisis unfolds too quickly.

A stagflation event is like an avalanche, it's going to come rushing down the mountain and there's no slowing it once it gets moving. Such a crisis can be deliberately created through central bank fiat money printing and hiking interest rates into economic weakness, but are the banks and politicians so foolish as to believe they can control its path of destruction once it starts?

Oil and gas inflation are a boon for certain global groups and certain ideologies, this is a fact.

The number of media celebrities, politicians and corporate journalists pushing a Green New Deal agenda in the wake of rising prices tells us everything we need to know. Inflation is a crisis of opportunity, a way to force Americans and much of the world to accept green energy initiatives and carbon controls that they NEVER would have accepted before.

Hey, if gasoline continues to climb into the $7 - $10 range then the majority of people will not be able to afford it beyond the bare essentials of a work commute and going to the grocery store. So, why not just embrace carbon taxation schemes against a commodity that you barely use anyway?

And that's the trap. The crisis artificially inflates a bubble in gas prices, and then prices stay high because of green energy initiatives. Of course, most people also cannot afford an $80,000 Tesla either, so the middle class and the poor are kicked down the ladder and relegated to mass transit, which will, by extension, become more expensive.

There is also the agenda for Universal Basic Income, something we have seen suggested multiple times as a “solution” to inflation. This week California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a plan to provide “inflation stimulus checks” to CA residents to the tune of $17 billion. California is one of the most indebted states in the country, with over $130 billion in outstanding debt and $650 billion in unfunded liabilities. Where are they going to get the money for this kind of program? In most cases that money ends up being printed from thin air by the Federal Reserve.

That is to say, California's governor wants to solve their inflation problem by creating even more inflation. This insanity is not relegated to CA, there are many political leaders that claim UBI is the magic cure for our economic woes. If prices go high enough, then maybe the American people can be tricked into accepting UBI as well? And once people are dependent on the government for their very survival, the chances of them ever defying that government grow slim.

Oil and gas inflation not only affects prices at the pump, though; it also affects prices on everything else. Freight rates explode higher causing retail prices to go higher. Electricity production costs more so your electric bill costs more. Manufacturing expenses skyrocket so wholesale prices skyrocket. Everything gets more expensive in a perpetual doom circle, and don't think that people buying less will make any difference. When there are multiple triggers for inflation including a decline in the dollar's buying power as well as supply chain disruptions, a recession might do nothing to stall the inflationary bullet.

The problem for the establishment is that the public responds very negatively very quickly to threats of poverty. Biden is barely halfway through his first term and his national approval rating has plunged to 39%, and most of this is due to his terrible handling of the economy.

They can't reap the benefits of the disaster if the public revolts against them.


This Catch-22 may be the reason why the Biden Administration has been on a global tour searching for alternative sources for oil imports. Biden recently announced that he would be releasing record amounts of oil from the strategic oil reserves in order to keep prices from climbing. This hasn't worked yet, but maybe this time it will be different?

Sanctions against Russian oil have exacerbated the already existing threat of dollar devaluation. Only 3% of US oil imports come from Russia, but they make up 25% of European imports. As Europe seeks out other oil exporters so must Joe Biden, because Europe and the US are both drawing resources from the same shrinking pie.

Biden has been courting the Saudi's in the hopes that OPEC will increase production rates (this is not going to happen, at least not in a way that actually brings down prices). Beyond OPEC, the State Department is even approaching Venezuela in search of black gold.

The strategic reserves release program is set to end in six months and Europe's sanctions against Russia are supposed to tighten even more by the end of this year. This leaves everything to existing exporters. With inflation rising along with the costs of manpower, a substantial increase in the flow of oil is a pipe dream. And maybe the establishment already knows that. Maybe, they are just trying to stall the avalanche until the end of 2022. Maybe they are trying to get past the next election cycle. Whatever the reason, Biden and friends are trying to slow the inflation machine down, if only for half a year. This might just be a “crisis of opportunity” that offers the elites far more pain than promise.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

WTI Extends Gains After Unexpected Crude Draw

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 01:37 PM
Oil prices are higher today following relatively positive news from China (easing some of its COVID quarantine restrictions), Macron-inspired doubts over the ability of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to significantly boost output, and unrest in Ecuador and Libya helped lift prices.

“We’re in the crunch period, it’s hard to see any meaningful price relief for crude,” said John Kilduff.

There’s a lot of strength with China relaxing its Covid restrictions and starting its independent refiners, “we’re going to have another chunk of demand for crude oil,” as China relaxes its Covid-19 restrictions.

With no EIA data released last week due to a "systems issue" (they have issued a statement confirming that the data - and the newest data - will both be released tomorrow), the only guidance we have for now on the past week's inventory changes is from API...

API (last week)

• Crude +5.607mm
• Cushing -390k
• Gasoline +1.216mm - first build since March
• Distillates -1.656mm

API (this week)

• Crude -3.799mm
• Cushing -650k
• Gasoline +2.852mm
• Distillates +2.613mm

Crude stocks unexpectedly fell last week, almost erasing the major build from the week before (according to API). Gasoline stocks rose for the second straight week


Source: Bloomberg

WTI was hovering around $111.75 and pushed up to $112 after the unexpected crude draw...


Finally, we note that the tight supply situation in oil (especially European) is revealing itself in the WTI-Brent spread, grew to $6.19, the widest in almost three months.



“European demand will remain robust, especially as natural gas supplies run out, while the North American demand for crude is weakening,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.

This is not good news for President Biden as prices are rising...



And his ratings are hitting record lows.

 

[marsh]

Pentagon Moves to Wrest Rare Earths Control From China

www.theepochtimes.com

Australia's Lynas Corp. produced jars containing rare earth minerals from its Mount Weld operations northeast of Perth, Australia, on Aug. 23, 2019. (Melanie Burton/Reuters)
US-CHINA RELATIONS

Pentagon Moves to Wrest Rare Earths Control From China
By Greg Isaacson

June 28, 2022 Updated: June 28, 2022

News Analysis
The battle for control of the global rare earths supply chain is heating up, with the U.S. Department of Defense investing in a new processing plant in a bid to challenge China’s chokehold over the critical minerals.

The Pentagon has agreed to fund the entire $120 million cost of a heavy rare earths separation facility to be built in Texas by Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths, advancing a program launched in 2020, the company announced on June 14.

Located on the Gulf Coast, the new facility will give the United States access to domestically produced heavy rare earths that are essential to industries such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and electronics, according to the company, which is the largest processor of rare earths outside of China.

The Texas facility that landed Pentagon funding will process heavy rare earth carbonate mined in Australia, forming a production cycle that bypasses China entirely. Lynas Rare Earths plans to combine the upcoming plant with a proposed light rare earths separation facility that is being co-funded by the company and the Defense Department.

The project was first announced in July 2020 as part of the U.S. government’s strategy—under a 2017 executive order signed by former President Donald Trump—to reduce dependence on foreign imports of critical minerals. The Pentagon is also funding a heavy rare earths processing and separation facility in Mountain Pass, California.

China’s Dominance in Rare Earth Production
Rare earths are a group of 17 elements with unique properties used in virtually every piece of modern technology, from smartphones to jet engines. Although the United States pioneered the industry during World War II, China now controls over half of global rare earths mining and 80 to 90 percent of intermediate processing.

China’s dominance of the industry represents a major risk to the United States, which currently has only one active rare earths mine—the Mountain Pass mine in California—and zero commercial-scale processing capability. America’s dependence on Chinese rare earths processing gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dangerous leverage over the U.S. economy and military.

For example, the Chinese regime obliquely threatened to limit exports of rare earths to the United States after Washington placed Chinese telecom giant Huawei on a trade blacklist in 2019.

“It is believed that if the U.S. increasingly suppresses the development of China, sooner or later, China will use rare earths as a weapon,” the state-run Global Times newspaper warned in May of that year.


A technician stands at the entrance to a Huawei 5G data server center at the Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital in Guangzhou, in southern China’s Guangdong Province, on Sept. 26, 2021. (The Canadian Press/AP-Ng Han Guan)

It’s unclear how much damage Beijing could do if it chose to pull the trigger on that threat. A Chinese embargo would send shockwaves through the global market—as happened in 2010 when China temporarily restricted exports of rare earth minerals to Japan over a territorial dispute.

A 2021 study by the U.S. Department of Energy found that a one-year export ban on rare earths by China could cause a 40 percent drop in magnet production outside of China as metals would become harder to obtain. Dysprosium oxide, a key component of the neodymium magnets used in a vast array of technologies from wind turbines to electric vehicles, is particularly vulnerable to price shocks from a Chinese embargo, the study found.

But China’s ability to harm the U.S. economy by weaponizing the rare earths supply is probably more limited than its industry dominance would suggest. A research note published by investment bank Raymond James in 2019 argued that the impact of a Chinese embargo on rare earths exports to the United States would be “mild,” according to a report by CNBC.

The analysts pointed out that the United States spent only $160 million to import rare earths for manufacturing in 2018 and accounted for only 9 percent of global demand for rare earth inputs in the manufacturing process. Most of the high-tech products that would be affected by a rare earths embargo—including PCs, electric vehicle batteries, and fiber optics—are manufactured in Asia rather than the United States.

US Dependence on Chinese Rare Earths
The U.S. military’s dependence on Chinese rare earths is a far more serious vulnerability. The defense supply chain relies heavily on rare earths, from disk drive motors in tanks to fin actuators in missile guidance systems.

Suppose a large-scale conflict breaks out between the two powers. In that case, a Chinese rare earths embargo could hobble the U.S. military, for example, by making it impossible to replace depleted stockpiles of air-to-air missiles.

“Much as the lack of secure access to oil was crippling to the Germans at the end of World War II, rare earths could play a similar, pivotal role in a future conflict with China,” wrote Colonel Charles J. Butler in a 2014 paper.

The CCP has explored the possibility of limiting the export of rare earth minerals that are used in American F-35 fighter jets and other advanced weaponry, the Financial Times reported last year. Government officials allegedly questioned industry executives about how badly U.S. and European defense contractors would be affected by such a move during a bilateral dispute.


Wheel loaders fill trucks with ore at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., on Jan. 30, 2020. (Steve Marcus/Reuters)

US Responds to China Threat
The United States, in recent years, has begun to piece together a strategy for addressing the national security concerns involving rare earths.

For example, U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) introduced a bill this past January to ban the use of Chinese rare earths metals in sensitive military systems by 2026 and create a one-year strategic reserve of rare earth elements and products by 2025.

Legislation put forward by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) in April would create a Department of Energy investment program to spur the development of rare earth production facilities in the United States, with the aim of reducing America’s dependence on China.


Greg Isaacson

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Economic Winter Has Arrived

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 07:05 PM
Authored by Doug French via The Mises Institute,

The average card-carrying Austrian would say that the Federal Reserve is creating money by the bale, with evidence being Consumer Price Index prints of 8.6 percent per the Bureau of Labor Statistics or over 15 percent per John Williams’s shadowstats.com computation based on the way the government calculated CPI back in 1980. Surely, at best, the US dollar is only the cleanest dirty shirt in the currency laundry basket.


But Uncle Sam’s dollar continues to strengthen (vis-à-vis other government fiat), with the result being market crashes in … everything.

“People have started to realize that when the dollar goes up, it’s not good for anybody,” Alhambra Investments’ Jeff Snider told Maggie Lake on Real Vision. Snider’s “anybody” doesn’t just mean stock, bond, and crypto punters, but Joe and Jane Lunch Bucket as well.

A strong dollar “really tells you that there’s something really amiss in the global financial system, global economy, and global monetary system,” Snider said, covering all the bases.

So what gives? The dollar’s value is a symptom, and when it goes up, “what that tells you is that there’s tightening in the global monetary system for a variety of reasons, usually self-reinforcing reasons,” Snider explained. Money is tight, markets are risk averse, and a recession is coming forthwith.

With Jerome Powell and company pushing up rates, albeit in the market’s dust, and instituting quantitative tightening, it would seem the Fed is doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, unless the Eccles Building crowd wants to bring the recession to Americans as soon as possible, hoping the downdraft will cleanse the malinvestments that have built up since the post-2008 zero interest rate period and especially the papering over of the covid crash with monetary and fiscal handouts.

Or, as David Rosenberg told Alex Gurevich:

We had several very repeated large scale fiscal stimulus packages. The last one in March of last year, clearly unnecessary untargeted stimulus checks and endless jobless benefits, … really created distortions in the labor market to this day.

There have been inversions along various points of the yield curve “telling us that something is just not right there,” Snider claims. All of this “tells you that the chances of something negative happening have been rising.” And more quickly during the past month. So, while employment numbers have been robust, employees’ 401(K)s, as a recent cartoon depicted, are down to just a K.

Despite what we’re led to believe, the Fed is as political as, well, the Supreme Court, it turns out. Powell’s army of PhD economists only has one gear to play with: the ability to create money at different speeds or hit the monetary brake. Chair Powell can do nothing about supply shocks, like straightening the supply chain, making the unwilling go back to work, or changing China’s covid policy. Monetary magic won’t make this price inflation vanish.

GDP (gross domestic product), for what it’s worth, was negative in this year’s first quarter, but Snider pointed out that last year's third and fourth quarters were also weak: “Three straight quarters of really low, almost zero numbers.” The ISM Purchasing Managers' Index has also been nose-diving. Snider pointed out that the ISM level is the same as in 2019 and headed in the same downward direction. Three years ago, the Fed was cutting rates, yet this time they are hiking rates.

According to Snider, the marketplace believes Powell is playing politics, feeling consumers’ pain and “raising rates for reasons that are their own.”

And with that, “there’s that risk of rates continuing to go higher.”

To that end, “if the name of the game is to kill this sort of pernicious supply-side inflation, a recession is the only way we’re going to be able to do it,” Rosenberg told Real Vision.
Consumers already feel the pain.

“The University of Michigan's closely watched Surveys of Consumers consumer sentiment index slumped to 50.2 in the preliminary June survey, marking the lowest level recorded by the survey, which dates back to the mid-'70s,” reports Yahoo.

Murray Rothbard explained in Economic Controversies:

For without the anodyne of continuing inflation of money, the distortions and misallocations of production, the overinvestment in uneconomic capital projects and the excessively high prices and wages in those capital goods industries become evident and obvious. It is then that the inevitable recession sets in, the recession being the reaction by which the market economy readjusts itself, liquidates unsound investments, and realigns prices and outputs of the economy so as to eliminate the unsound consequences of the boom. The recovery arrives when the readjustment has been completed.

“There's been 14 Fed rate hiking cycles in the post–World War II experience, 14,” Rosenberg emphasized.

“Eleven landed the economy in a recession. I pose the question back to you, is that just a coincidence? Or is it really a pattern? The Fed has had its thumb prints on every expansion, on every bull market, on every recession, and every bear market, the Fed has had its thumb print.”

Chairman Powell is doing his part, so say goodbye to unsound investments.

(COMMENT: The phrase "make the unwilling go back to work" struck me. Higher national productivity is the generally accepted way to get out of federal debt. Perhaps COVID has taken its toll on the nation's ability to do that. Are those "unwilling" actually unable due to disability or new caretaking responsibilities?)

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

G7: Russia Engaged In "Geopolitically Motivated Attack" On Global Food Security

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 11:45 AM

G7 industrialized nations issued their final communique at the close of the summit in Bavaria which condemned Russia's "attack" on global food security and pledged an additional $4.5 billion to combat food insecurity.

The statement demands that Russia "end its blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, destruction of key port and transport infrastructure, grain silos and terminals, illegal appropriation by Russia of agricultural commodities and equipment in Ukraine." It said the Ukraine invasion "can only be assessed as a geopolitically motivated attack on global food security."

AFP via Getty Images
The statement additionally warns against countries engaging in "excessive stockpiling of food," saying: "We call on those partners with large food stockpiles, as well as on the private sector, to make food available without distorting the market," the Group of Seven statement reads.

The newly announced $4.5 billion to help alleviate the emerging global food crisis brings the total sum committed thus far this year among the nations of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States to more than $14 billion.

While these "attack on food supply" charges against Russia from the West have been persisting especially within the last couple months as Ukraine's grain exports have remained blocked at war-torn ports, the Kremlin has blamed both US-led and Western sanctions for food supply disruptions, but also Ukraine's military mining its own coastline. The so-called "Putin price hike" - as the White House has dubbed it - has also been a central talking point in discussing rising inflation fears.

In statements last Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid blame on the "irresponsible actions" of G7 countries themselves. He said at the time, according to a Russian media translation:

"The sharp increase in inflation did not happen yesterday - it is the result of... many years of irresponsible macroeconomic policy of the G7 countries," Putin said during the BRICS Plus meeting.

"We are certainly ready to continue to fulfill in good faith all our contractual obligations for the supply of agricultural products, fertilizers, energy carriers and other critical products," Putin stressed. He further took a swipe at what Western leaders often refer to as Russia's flouting of the 'rules-based order,' questioning sarcastically: "What rules? Who made those rules up?"
Meanwhile...

The final G7 communique was accompanied by European leaders continuing to suggest future 'victory' in Ukraine. For example German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that "Putin must not be allowed to win," while saying, "The G7 stands united in its support for Ukraine."

He added in a press conference following the three-day summit, echoing the final statement:

"We will continue to keep up and drive up the economic and political costs of this war for President Putin and his regime." He additionally warned, "There is only one way out: for Putin to accept that his plans in Ukraine will not succeed."

As for the much discussed oil price cap, which would involve a mulled ban on transporting all Russian oil that sold above a certain price, the G7 summit didn't achieve a final course of action, but urged in the communique, "We invite all like-minded countries to consider joining us in our actions," while stressing the proposal will be explored further.

^^^^^^^^
I have seen reference in other articles as to whether we should release our national grain stockpile to places like India. Alas, the US, apparently, no longer maintains national food stockpiles. Nice to know.:

Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust (BEHT) is a strategic grain reserve of commodities and cash held in trust to supplement food aid made available under P.L. 480 programs. The Trust can hold up to 4 million metric tons of wheat, corn, sorghum, and rice. The authorizing statute also authorizes the Trust to hold cash in lieu of commodities.

The Trust is the successor to the Food Security Wheat Reserve established in 1980 (P.L. 96-494, Title III). Subsequently, the authorization for this reserve was expanded from wheat alone to also include corn, rice, and sorghum by the 1996 farm bill (P.L. 104-127, Sec. 225). Renamed the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust in 1998 legislation (P.L. 105-385, Sec. 211) it was also authorized it to hold cash in addition to commodities. Commodities (or cash) can be released from the Trust to meet unanticipated needs for emergency food assistance or when domestic supplies are insufficient to meet P.L. 480 (7 U.S.C. 1736f-1) programming requirements.
The trust was established by the Africa: Seeds of Hope Act of 1998. It is named for U.S. Congressman Bill Emerson, who served in the House of Representatives from 1981 until his death in 1996.[1]

In 2008, as global food prices spiked, the remaining commodities (about 915,000 metric tons) were sold. Since then, the trust is solely a cash reserve, invested in low-risk, short-term securities or instruments.[2] The trust allows the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Food for Peace (FFP) to respond to food crises in other countries and release and use funds for famine relief in cases where other resources are not available.[2] Since it no longer holds commodities, it can respond to local food crises outside the US, but not to a global one that affects the USA itself. The trust is still active as of 2017.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Exxon CEO Warns That Consumers Will Pay For Hasty Energy Transition

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 05:45 PM
Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

• Exxon CEO Woods: consumers foot the bill of rushed energy transition.
• Exxon CEO: All new cars sold in the U.S. will be electric in 2040.
• Several years of low investment in supply have made energy markets vulnerable to price shocks.

ExxonMobil expects all new cars sold two decades from now to be electric vehicles. But the U.S. supermajor also believes that people will “pay a high price” in this rush to renewables without providing the energy the society currently needs, Exxon’s chief executive Darren Woods told CNBC’s David Faber in an interview last week.

Exxon joins many other oil producers who say that governments and policymakers need to balance the drive to lower carbon emissions with the people’s current need for affordable energy. The recent underinvestment in traditional energy sources is a blow to energy supplies, which leads to high prices and record-high gasoline prices, Exxon’s CEO told CNBC. That’s the latest warning from the oil industry that policymakers should look at the short-term energy needs while planning for a low-carbon future.



Sure, it’s not unheard of for a large oil corporation to warn against a rushed transition.

Still, the current global energy crisis with record-high gasoline prices vindicates all those executives and officials from Middle East’s oil-producing countries who have been warning for over a year that reduced investment in oil and gas would come back to bite consumers and governments.

After the first COVID lockdowns, many industry analysts predicted that this was the end of the global oil demand growth and that we would never again see oil demand as high as it was in 2019. But people did return to travel, and demand is on track to exceed pre-COVID levels next year, analysts say. Even the International Energy Agency (IEA), which said last year that no investment in new supply should be made if the world wants to reach net-zero by 2050, predicted in its latest monthly report that global demand would average a record 101.6 million barrels per day (bpd) and exceed pre-COVID levels in 2023. Moreover, the market turmoil due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine could even lead to supply struggling to keep pace with demand next year, as sanctions on Russia would curtail more supply when they officially enter into force at the end of this year.

The industry says the supply struggle is not only the result of the forever-changed global oil market with the Russian war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions against Russia’s oil exports. It’s also the result of several years of low investment in supply, and this is Exxon’s view, too.

The record-high gasoline prices in America are a source of renewed confrontation between the U.S. Administration and the oil industry.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden called out Exxon and other oil companies for making excessive profits, saying that “Exxon made more money than God this year.” President Biden wants companies to produce more gasoline and lower gasoline bills for American consumers.

“At a time of war, refinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable,” President Biden said in a letter to the industry.

Exxon said in response to the letter that in the short term, the U.S. government could enact measures often used in emergencies following hurricanes or other supply disruptions, such as waivers of Jones Act provisions and some fuel specifications to increase supplies.

“Longer term, government can promote investment through clear and consistent policy that supports U.S. resource development, such as regular and predictable lease sales, as well as streamlined regulatory approval and support for infrastructure such as pipelines,” the U.S. supermajor said.

Michael Wirth, CEO at the other supermajor in America, Chevron, replied to President Biden’s letter saying that notwithstanding Chevron’s efforts to boost oil and gas production over the past year, “your Administration has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry. These actions are not beneficial to meeting the challenges we face and are not what the American people deserve.”

Looking beyond the short-term challenges—which the industry says could be avoided in future if the U.S. Administration changed tack and stopped pointing the finger at oil firms and choking its willingness and ability to invest in supply—even Exxon thinks all new car sales in 2040 would be EVs. This, however, is not expected to significantly hit Exxon’s business as chemicals and industrial fuels will be primary drivers of oil demand going forward, Exxon’s Woods told CNBC.

Referring to the advance of EVs, Woods said, “That change is going to come at some pace but that’s not going to make or break this business or this industry quite frankly.”

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

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The White House Needs To End Its Embarrassing, Petulant War On US Oil

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 10:05 AM
Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

As it relates to inflation, the Biden administration has publicly shot itself (and the middle class) in the foot and, rather than address their errors and admit wrongdoing, they have instead been unfairly using the oil and gas industry as a scapegoat for problems that the administration helped create.

Among the statements Biden and his cohorts have made over the last few months are:

• “At a time of war – historically high refinery profit margins being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable” - President Biden, June 15, 2022
• "This is not the time to sit on record profits, it's time to step up for the good of your country" - President Biden, March 31
• “The crunch that families are facing deserves immediate action. Your companies need to work with my Administration to bring forward concrete, near-term solutions that address the crisis” - President Biden, June 15, 2022
• “Exxon made more money than god” - President Biden, June 10, 2022
• “80% of Americans support a Windfall Profits Tax on Big Oil companies. These corporations are making billions in war-fueled profits while Americans struggle at the pump. We must crack down on Big Oil’s massive profits & reduce reliance on fossil fuels,” - Sen. Elizabeth Warren, April 24, 2022
• “Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused gas prices to rise for Americans, but giant oil corporations like [Exxon] are making billions in record profits. We need a Windfall Profits Tax to tax big oil on their profits & we need to invest in clean energy too,” - Sen. Elizabeth Warren, April 7, 2022

But as CNBC astutely noted days ago:

“Refiners can’t just ramp up output, with utilization rates already above 90%.”

And part of the lack of infrastructure to produce more supply is a result of the left’s very own, incessant push for greener fuels:

“Additionally, some refiners are now being reconfigured to make alternate products like biofuel.”

I noted this past week on Twitter that the vilification simply doesn’t make sense. People on the left use petroleum-based products just like people on the right - and no one from government was concerning themselves with oil and gas in the slightest when the price of oil crashed in April 2020 and Exxon lost over $20 billion that year. There was no concern for the families who worked for Exxon and there was little chatter out of the White House at all.



Certainly, the government outrage about the effects of oil & gas on the middle class - when it meant financial struggles for an employer of 64,000 people - was missing in action. I guess no one really cared about those families…

On the contrary, the occasional headline that popped about oil in 2020 was usually someone dancing on the grave of the industry:



But all of a sudden, now that these companies are doing something “evil”, like turning a profit, they have once again become hellish juggernauts that must be stopped at all costs.

It’s so clear this isn’t just a leftist war about clean energy, it’s a war on capitalism and profitability. The left absolutely hates that oil companies make money. Biden recently complained they are “making more money than god” but failed to say they “lost more money than god” when they burned through $20 billion in 2020.

Leftists politicians believe these companies simply don’t deserve it. The left wants a state planned economy where they dictate which companies are virtuous enough for them to be the bearer of profits, regardless of how integral the products or services are to them in their daily lives.

And as we see, as these companies return back to profitability, all of a sudden it’s important to immediately denounce them. This is a war on capitalism.

Last week, what can only be described as an ongoing campaign of harassment and wholly misguided vilification of the oil and gas industry finally met some pushback in the form of CEOs who wrote to the Biden administration, defending their businesses and their industry.



Chevron CEO Mike Wirth noted that the company produced its highest volume of supply in its 143 year history in 2021 and that it was investing $10 billion to reduce emissions. He also wrote:

“Addressing this situation requires thoughtful action and a willingness to work together, not political rhetoric.”

“Chevron and its 37,000 employees work every day to help provide the world with the energy it demands and to lift up the lives of billions of people who rely on these supplies. Notwithstanding these efforts, your Administration has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry. These actions are not beneficial to meeting the challenges we face and are not what the American people deserve.”

And Wirth is right. For the last decade, oil and gas has been the punching bag of the left, whether the topic has been climate change, the economy or inequality: the left has figured out a way to somehow make oil and gas the enemy - all while they enjoy the fruits of the energy and petroleum produced by these companies.



For those that don’t know how ubiquitous petroleum is, here’s a list of 140 common items that use petroleum hydrocarbons.

The list, in addition to oil and gas, includes items like shampoo, speakers, luggage, golf balls, dishes, hair curlers, house paint, surfboards, petroleum jelly, vitamin capsules, panty hose, shag rugs, ballpoint pens and upholstery.

And here’s a great diagram for the next time your activist friend puts their makeup on and preps for that big anti-fossil fuel rally:



Surely, nobody on the left screaming critiques of the industry uses these products, right?

This vilification of the industry (and the hundreds of thousands of American families that it helps support) has been completely uncalled for and has gone on for far too long.

People on the left side of the aisle are beneficiaries of hydrocarbons and petroleum-based products just like the rest of the world is.

But the anti-energy rhetoric has been ratcheted up over the last six months while the current Presidential administration looks for someone to blame for skyrocketing oil prices.

The truth of the matter - as Jerome Powell himself confirmed last week - is that inflation had begun before Russia invaded Ukraine, but sanctions placed on Russian oil and gas exacerbated an energy imbalance that was already underway. This imbalance dovetailed from a demand spike, thanks to the Covid reopening, and limited supply, thanks to oil prices crashing in 2020 and OPEC being stingy with how much supply they allow into the market.

Instead of just acknowledging this seemingly innocuous reality of the situation and committing to the American people to help bring new supply online, the Biden administration – and its cohorts on the left - are playing the “blame game”, spinning up fictitious accusations about price gouging at the pump and unfair business practices, none of which can be proven or substantiated.

And while some of the blame for inflation in the country can be placed on the Trump administration – after all, Trump pushed hard for easy money policies from the Fed - the Biden administration has only served to exacerbate it, pushing for trillions more in new spending and entertaining horrifically inefficient ideas like the Green New Deal.

Every day, the Biden administration talks about how it wants to help the middle class - but this must not include the 7.5 million people that make their living from the energy industry.

Every day, the Biden administration talks about how it wants to lower energy prices - but this must not include tactics like bringing new domestic supply online.

And every day, the Biden administration talks about combating inflation, yet it continues to push grandiose spending plans.

The administration’s left hand literally doesn’t know what its right hand is doing. So what’s all this bitching, moaning and carrying on about oil for?

The solutions that the administration has come up with - namely, releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and playing the blame game - are impotent and meaningless. They do almost nothing to address the problem on a long-term scale.

And so let me say clearly what oil and gas CEO’s failed to: it’s time to stop the charade.

If President Biden wanted to get serious about the energy crisis, he would go out of his way to incentivize new supply to come online in the United States and treat oil and gas companies with respect. New supply in the U.S. would prove to be a far better, longer-term solution. We could help cap prices and also reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Yet, in what can only be described as a baffling display of hypocrisy, “Mr. Equality” Joe Biden would rather travel to the Middle East – you know, that group of countries where being gay is legally punishable by death and where journalists are murdered for saying the wrong thing - so he can grovel at their feet to bring more supply online.

These are the guys he’s begging for oil right now:



It really goes to show how all the lip service about equality and human rights truly means nothing to the left when it comes down to brass tacks. The idea of begging the Middle East for more oil, while publicly detesting our own energy infrastructure despite the fact that companies like Exxon are ahead of their net zero carbon emission goals, is reprehensible.

The energy crisis is partly an American-created problem. President Biden needs to pull his head out of his ass and realize that there is also an American made solution…

…if he could simply get over his disdain for capitalism and U.S. corporations.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Soaring Inflation And Crashing Rates Are Sparking Trucking's "Great Purge"

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 07:20 AM
By Craig Fuller, CEO at FreightWaves

The last trucking market crash was in 2019. The current market could end up worse for small truckload fleets.


The freight market crash in 2019 was caused by two factors – a freight slowdown due to tariffs on Chinese imports and a surge of new fleets flooding the market, even as rates continued to fall.

Until 2019, we had never seen that many new fleets enter the market, especially during a market downturn. During 2019 an average of 7,200 fleets entered the market per month compared to an average of 5,200 fleets per month during 2008-18.

The 2019 drop in freight volumes wasn’t significant. At their deepest trough, tender volumes registered a 4.6% drop in year-over-year load requests, and that lasted for just a few short months (May-July).



Trucking is a commodity and anyone that has been around commodity markets understands that it doesn’t necessarily take a dramatic move on one side of the market to change the balance of supply/demand and cause significant price swings.

In 2019, the trucking market already had too much capacity relative to demand. The year-over-year decline was only in the mid-single digits. But, it was enough to push rates below carriers’ operating costs.

Removing the cost of diesel from the spot rate, here is what the market looked like in 2019 (van per mile):

• Low: $1.51
• Average: $1.59
• High $1.75

We are nearing 2019’s rock-bottom, inflation-adjusted spot rates

Trucking companies have much higher operating costs now than they did in 2019, even when removing fuel from the number. Every fleet’s operating cost will be different, but using data from TCA, ACT, and FreightWaves’ own analysis, we can draw some conclusions about the cost increases that a fleet would experience in 2022 compared to 2019.

Assuming a fleet averages 6,500 miles per truck per month and purchased a four-year-old used truck in 2019 at $50,000, plus sales tax, financed for five years at 5% interest, the monthly payment would cost around $0.15/mile. With used truck prices surging during the pandemic, a four-year-old used truck last fall would run $77,000. If the vehicle was financed with similar terms, the per mile cost would be around $0.23/mile.



A driver employee with experience working for a top-paying fleet can expect to make around $0.62/mile. In 2019, the same driver would have made around $0.47/mile.

Higher variable operating costs include insurance (+$.02/mile), maintenance (+$.06/mile), equipment (+$.08/mile) and driver wages (+$.15/mile).



All in, variable costs have increased at least $0.31/mile more for fleet operators in 2022 compared to 2019. These numbers are likely understated, as they don’t include increases related to back-office operations and support staff, which can vary widely among fleets.

Adjusting the 2019 numbers, the rates per mile total:

• $1.82 (low)
• $1.90 (average)
• $2.16 (high)

The current spot rate (net fuel) is $1.95/mile. On a variable cost-adjusted basis, the trucking spot rates have matched 2019 since May 2022 – $2.16/mile, dropping $0.21/mile. It’s likely to get worse. The month of May typically has among the highest rates we’ll see all year, with July and August being some of the weakest months.



It is conceivable that spot rates will drop below the inflation-adjusted 2019 low of $1.82 per mile in July, since there doesn’t seem to be any near-term market catalysts to drive additional demand.

U.S.- bound container volumes, which have been driving a substantial amount of the freight surge in the U.S. trucking market since 2020, are seeing a significant drop, as reported by Henry Byers, FreightWaves’ senior global trade analyst.

There are also the economic challenges that are apparent in the economy, including record-low consumer confidence, declining construction and industrial activity, surging inflation, and a Federal Reserve that is determined to slow the economy down to tame inflation, even if it means putting the economy into a recession.

All of this means that the freight market will likely encounter additional headwinds and there are more reasons to believe that trucking spot rates have further to fall.

Capacity matters
Of course, trucking is a two-sided market. Demand is only one part of the equation; capacity also matters.

Capacity is really just a function of how much dispatchable capacity is in the market. Like 2019, the trucking industry has seen a record number of new entrants enter the trucking market to take advantage of what were strong market conditions and record high spot rates created because of government stimulus over the past two years. The number of new entrants into the trucking industry nearly doubled the 2019 monthly record average. Since 2020, the monthly average of new fleets entering trucking has increased to 13,370 per month, up from 7,200. In April, the number hit 23,479.



This large number of new entrants means that the trucking industry has many companies that are brand new, have higher cost structures (because they joined when the freight market was peaking) and that have never experienced a downturn.

This massive surge of dispatchable capacity was built for a market that had much more freight activity. If the economy contracts further, it could spell disaster for many of the most vulnerable operators.

The summer doldrums
Even if the economy doesn’t contract, July and August are always slower than June. It is the time of the year when supply chains take a break and get ready for the retail surges that typically begin after Labor Day.

The retail surge is a really important part of the freight calendar and often offers some of the highest spot rate opportunities. In the first half of the year construction, auto, beverages, and fresh produce drive the surges in trucking.

In the second half of the year, surges are caused by retailers scrambling to get inventories placed for the holiday shopping season. That may not happen this year, with many retailers’ inventories overstocked. Since their warehouses and distribution centers are full, they are reluctant to add additional inventory to their supply chain and will focus their efforts on liquidating what they currently have in stock.

Trucking spot rates will not increase significantly until the Great Purge is over

As long as the market has excess capacity, freight rates will remain depressed. It will take a substantial purge of capacity before spot market carriers can expect relief.

FreightWaves editorial director Rachel Premack covered this topic last week in her article titled “the Great Purge.”

The unfortunate reality of trucking is that the market is often “feast or famine” and with so many new mouths to feed, the famine this year could be much worse than was experienced in 2019.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

The Biden Administration Hits Peak Energy Absurdity

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 04:25 PM
Authored by Anne Bradbury via RealClear Energy (emphasis ours),

Methane Fee, Windfall Profits Taxes, Repealing IDCs, calls for FTC investigations into price gouging, and now a federal gasoline tax suspension. The Administration’s energy policy is disjointed and often counterproductive. Rather than flailing attacks on the oil and natural gas industry, leaders in Washington need a serious energy strategy that embraces all of America’s energy resources, including oil and natural gas.

(Eli Hartman/Odessa American via AP)

In addition to these problematic legislative proposals, there are numerous concerning policies currently being implemented across the agencies. The Administration is shutting down and blocking pipelines, greatly restricting oil and natural gas leasing on federal lands, slow walking LNG export permits, and issuing sweeping climate disclosure rules to discourage investment in the industry.

These bad policies do nothing to address skyrocketing inflation and are having a real effect on the President’s approval rating, putting him at low that few presidents have experienced.

Lest you dismiss this as partisan politics, let’s take a look back at the Obama White House’s statement on gasoline prices:

“The truth is that there is no silver bullet to address rising gas prices in the short term, but there are steps we can take to ensure the American people don’t fall victim to skyrocketing gas prices over the long term. That’s why since taking office the President has been focused on a sustained, ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to developing new domestic energy sources, expanding oil and gas production, and reducing our reliance on foreign oil…”

The Obama White House advocated for an energy approach that included oil and natural gas, rather than spreading false narratives and pointing fingers. They also knew the importance of domestic production, as they continued to hold federal lease sales for oil and gas development. They looked to domestic producers to increase supply – rather than actively seeking foreign nations, like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, to produce more to meet our energy needs in America.

In contrast, the Biden Administration has not embraced an “all-of-the-above” approach.

Instead, they continue to make confusing statements to the markets and the American people about role of domestic energy production:

• “Let me answer your question very directly: President Biden remains absolutely committed to not moving forward with additional drilling on public lands.” (Gina McCarthy, April 2022).
• “We have to put the industry on notice: You’ve got six years, eight years, no more than 10 years or so, within which you’ve got to come up with a means by which you’re going to capture [emissions], and if you’re not capturing, then we have to deploy alternative sources of energy.” (Secretary John Kerry, April 2022).
• “Oil prices are decreasing, gas prices should too…. Oil and gas companies shouldn’t pad their profits at the expense of hardworking Americans.” (President Joe Biden, March 2022)

The world knows that oil and gas producers do not set the price of gasoline. The price of gasoline is determined by the price of crude oil, which is set on the global market based on supply, demand, and costs. Prices are also affected by policies and promises – like those the Administration has been pursing since the election. Promises that sounded good during a campaign, like “no new fracking on federal lands” and “a transition to renewables.” But, campaign pledges don’t always equal good policy. The past two years have shown us that the Administration’s rhetoric, policies, and finger pointing has not created unity, and no one is better off paying $5/gallon to get to and from work.

The answer is working together – with the oil and natural gas industry – on implementing the policies needed to bring down the cost of energy for the American people:

• Lease federal lands and waters
• Build necessary pipelines to transport oil and natural gas
• Encourage investment and access to capital
• Relieve supply chain bottlenecks

The 8.6 percent overall inflation is quickly approaching what Americans faced in the 1979 energy crisis during Jimmy Carter's presidency, when prices climbed 11.4 percent, and the Carter Administration imposed gasoline rationing and wage-price controls.

Arnold Weber, the former director of the Nixon Cost of Living Council referred to President Carter’s anti-inflation policies and efforts to sell them to the American people as a “sort of decoy operation … creating the illusion of involvement and action without creating the basis for action.”

We urge the Biden Administration to acknowledge the essential role of oil and natural gas for decades to come and focus on serious policy solutions that increase supply and help bring down energy prices. American families deserve more than the illusion of action when it comes to energy.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

West Coast Rail Networks Clogged As Supply Chain Normalization Delayed

TUESDAY, JUN 28, 2022 - 04:05 PM

The key question is when supply chain congestion eases in the US. The question to that answer is not yet, as a new Bloomberg report shows the US' largest containerized seaport in Los Angeles and Long Beach in Southern California (responsible for 42% of all containerized trade with Asia) has been hit with worsening rail delays.

Dwell times for rail-bound containers have been steadily increasing since February and are back to levels not seen since the major port bottlenecks of summer 2021.

The Port of Los Angeles has recently enlisted help from the White House to clear a backlog of rail-bound containers that's tripled since February, taking up space on its docks and causing congestion. As of Monday, there were more than 28,000 rail-container units on the ground, about two-thirds of which had been waiting to be picked up for nine days or more. -Bloomberg

Increasing rail congestion comes as thousands of dockworker contracts across the West Coast are about to expire following unsuccessful negotiations between labor unions and major railroads.

If dockworkers or railroad workers strike, normalizing supply chains would be delayed. There's also the risk of China's reopening, and the backlog of goods headed in containers for US West Coast ports could further snarl supply chains.

Bloomberg also outlines that trucking woes and lack of warehouse space exacerbate bottlenecks for rail networks.

Trucking
More than half of the truck gates at the Port of Los Angeles are still going unused on average due in part to the inconsistent staffing and operation hours at the terminals and distribution centers outside of the port, on top of the lack of space at warehouses.

Moving about 70% of the US's freight tonnage, truckers don't feel encouraged to go in during off-peak hours because parts of the supply chain often don't operate around the clock, said Matt Schrap, chief executive officer of the Harbor Trucking Association.

Before the bottlenecks emerged, truckers could pick up containers in the early morning and then store them at truck yards until space opened up at warehouses. But these sites are now "full of empty containers and chassis, and land has become an extreme premium."

"More trucks aren't going to necessarily solve the thing -- it's a productivity issue," Schrap said in an interview.

Warehousing
The vacancy rate at Southern California facilities is now around 0.3%, with the lack of availability particularly acute in the Inland Empire counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said at a virtual meeting of harbor commissioners last week. During normal times, the vacancy rate stood as high as 5%, he added.

"We can't build these facilities fast enough, and even though we boast 2 billion square feet from the shores of the Pacific now out to the desert region of Southern California, we've got to turn that cargo out faster and have enough space under roof to manage all of these consumer and manufacturing products," he said at a separate briefing earlier this month.

The West Coast bottleneck appears to be building inland, in rail, trucking, and warehousing networks -- adding to increasing delays as the supply chain congestion shows little signs of abating.

 

[marsh]

(COMMENT: Reminder that Chris is a big "sustainability" proponent.)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sLqxCxo1NQ
31:38 min

The Great Reset is Coming for You

Premiere in progress. Started 33 minutes ago


Peak Prosperity

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgG8aHuTRpI
14:13 min

How Obama began America’s DARK transformation | PART 1


Glenn Beck

In May of 2008, Michelle Obama made a now infamous statement while campaigning in Puerto Rico for her husband, Barack. Her words, Glenn says, caused Michelle to be pulled from the campaign trail. Why? Perhaps because her statement exposed the Obama’s exact goal: To force the American people to make ‘sacrifices’ that would fundamentally alter our nation — its history, traditions, and principles — forever. In part 1 of his expose, Glenn revisits Michelle’s speech and demonstrates how her words have come true today. And the ‘sacrifices’ we’re facing now, thanks to our ever-growing, far-left government, could continue to get worse…

^^^^^^^

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYOHvdLUopA
11:00 min

Connecting Obama's DREAM to today's CHANGED America | PART 2

Jun 28, 2022


Glenn Beck

In part 2 of Glenn’s expose, he continues to revisit Michelle Obama’s 2008 campaign speech that EXPOSED her and Barack’s ultimate goal: to force ‘sacrifices’ onto the American people that would fundamentally change the United States. In this clip, Glenn ties it all together, showing how the Obama’s original DREAM to change America is coming true TODAY…

 

[marsh]

Michael Yon @MichaelYon​ Jun 28, 2022 at 6:59pm​

Netherlands: Farmer Riots​ Some Dutch farmers say they will block all the highways and food distribution points soon. CO2 policy from Brussels. Many governments will be overthrown in next few years. Which ones? Video on website .17 min Netherlands: Farmer Riots Connect with Michael Yon and other members of Michael Yon community michaelyon.locals.com

 

[marsh]

https://www.agweb.com/news/policy/politics/john-phipps-questionable-environmental-decisions-nuclear-power-now-creates-new

John Phipps: Questionable Environmental Decisions On Nuclear Power Now Creates New Geopolitical Threat

By U.S. FARM REPORT June 28, 2022

All over Europe, countries are closing down operating nuclear power plants. While this has been going on for some time, it has now become clear the decision to overstate the minuscule risks and assume greener power sources would be there to replace them was wildly inaccurate.

Angela Merkle, perhaps one of the best German leaders to date has seen the afterglow of her years in office overshadowed by the truly dangerous German dependence on Russian natural gas as a result of her push to abandon nuclear power. A questionable environmental decision has emerged as a geopolitical threat.

The U.S. is on the same path, with the twilight of this dependable power source already taking place. Meanwhile, China is speeding ahead with a goal of 150 plants by 2030, as much as the U.S. and France combined, although that will still only provide a small fraction of their power needs.

Nuclear power has trivial CO2 emissions, and yes, this chart includes mining, manufacturing, and decommissioning costs. It is also demonstrably safer compared to other power sources – all the dire predictions have proven false, even factoring the extraordinary failures like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

In what I can only describe as hysteria by the public surrounding nuclear technology, overblown fears have replaced years of solid results in the minds of global citizens. The link from radioactivity to bizarre impacts is the stuff of comedy – from the fish in Lake Springfield on the Simpsons to Spiderman’s origin via a radioactive spider bite. The often condescending dismissal of such nonsensical perceptions added a major blunder to a half-hearted public relations campaign by the nuclear industry.

Politicians thought we had time and expertise to replace this power source. Many of their voters made supporting nuclear power a small win-big loss type of decision. Extremism at both ends of the spectrum, from fussy progressives unclear on the concept of inescapable tradeoffs to short-sighted climate deniers on the right content with a threat seemingly too far in the future to take responsibility for, we looked gift power in the mouth and walked away.

There is foolishness enough to go around regarding this choice, but the result will cripple our efforts to control carbon emissions and even preserve democracy.

 

[marsh]

https://www.agweb.com/markets/pro-farmer-analysis/fertilizer-production-could-see-another-negative-impact

Fertilizer Production Could See Another Negative Impact

fertilizer(AgWeb)
By PRO FARMER EDITORS June 28, 2022

Slowing delivery of Russian natural gas in Europe is starting to reach into industrial supply chains. The dwindling gas supplies are proving a threat to chemical giant BASF’s vast manufacturing hub in Germany, the Wall Street Journal reports, raising alarms at the world’s largest integrated chemical complex and beyond. Because BASF and other chemicals companies sit at the beginning of most industrial supply chains, a disruption in operations would reverberate beyond the sector. Experts say it would threaten Europe’s economy at a time of high inflation and slowing growth.

Chemicals companies are more vulnerable than other industrial players because natural gas is critical for most of their processes. Some 60% of the gas BASF consumes in Europe is used for power and steam generation. The other 40% goes to raw material for its products.