GOV/MIL Main "Great Reset" Thread

[marsh]

The Fed's Strong Dollar Policy: A Recipe For Systemic Implosion | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

The Fed's Strong Dollar Policy: A Recipe For Systemic Implosion

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 04:20 AM
Authored by Mathew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

From Main Street USA to the village corners and central banks of Europe, Japan and elsewhere, the Fed’s strong USD policy is backfiring—big time. Just ask the Brits…

Having spent years creating the inflation (QE1 to unlimited QE, Repo bailouts, massive money supply expansion, and an historical wealth transfer from an inflated, Fed-driven stock market), the Fed will be cleaning up its own inflation mess on the backs of the U.S. working class and its other global “allies” while blaming the CPI inflation on Putin, Covid and climate change.

How’s that for rigged to fail?

But that’s just the beginning, and it’s not just about the USA.

Engineering a Recession Powell Can’t Control
By raising rates into what we all know is a recession, Powell, who delusionaly pretends to be Volcker re-born, wants to solve the inflation he helped create by engineering a demand-crippling recession which he thinks he can control, but can’t and won’t.

And this will be the mother of all recessions, as there is an historical and concomitant debt (and hence currency) crisis in every corner of the globe ($300T+) as well as every corner of the nation ($90T+), from the toxic corporate bond market and over-strapped households to a grotesquely bloated ($30T+) government debt market.

Keep It (Horribly) Simple
It’s all horribly simple, in fact.

If debt is the everywhere-driver of the economy and markets, then any significant increase in the cost of that debt will destroy every corner of that economy and those markets, from zombie enterprises to negative yielding US Treasuries.

Powell’s hawkish stance will lead to anything but a “contained recession,” which the Fed will be no less effective “containing” as they were in “containing” their so-called “transitory inflation.”

Rising rates will cripple nearly every asset but the artificially inflated USD until all savings are gone, most citizens are hand-out dependent, and most markets and currencies are on their knees.

At that point, Uncle Sam will either default on the IOU’s (Treasury bonds) which no one will want, or the Fed will pivot to more mouse-click money to buy/support his debt addiction, following the recent example in the UK.

And since the US is too arrogant to fail/default (TAF), the Fed’s only stupid choice left among a long history of stupid, will be a gold-boosting QE pivot.

When?

Yes, An Inevitable Pivot
So, again, when will Powell pivot?

After the pain, politics and panics have reached levels the US and global economy and markets haven’t seen since the FDR era, Powell will throw in the towel and pivot.

In the interim, the US (as well as global) middle class can thank Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen and Powell for all the pain ahead, as it is the direct (and I mean direct) result of years of unprecedented drunken free money and bloated debt, the hangover for which is going to be a record-breaking B!c7%…

A Treasury Market on the Cliff’s Edge
Investors are forgetting that not only is Hawkish Powell raising rates into a debt bubble, he’s slowly tightening the Fed’s balance sheet, which just means dumping more Treasury supply into a demand-less sovereign bond market.

And this supply stream means bonds will fall even further and hence their yields (and interest rates) will keep rising, thereby by adding massive insult to an already fatally injured credit/debt market.

I feel that when UST’s start to tank en masse, Powell’s fantasy of being the next Volcker will end and the pivot toward money printing will be fast and furious—sending precious metals to record highs.

But until then, buckle up.

Powell’s Master Dollar Plan—Foreign Suckers

For now, Powell’s plan is to let rates, yields and hence the dollar rise, in the hopes that the Greenback will be the only place left for global investors (suckers) to hide, which is where they are indeed beginning to hide.



It’s only a matter of time, however, before foreign investors, nostalgic for the days of former US glory, realize that such glory is gone, and that the only way UST’s will ever be “risk-free-return” is if the Fed prints more debased money to buy them, which is not Powell’s current practice.

In essence then, foreigners aren’t hiding in “risk-free-return,” but drowning in “return-free-risk” as even 3-4% yields on the US 10Y Treasury yield a negative -5% return when adjusted for inflation, despite it being under-reported by 50%.

Remember when I said the Fed has no good options left? I meant it. It’s either tighten and risk systemic collapse, or ease and destroy the currency.

Pick your poison.

Furthermore, and ironically, the USD (i.e., world reserve currency) is highly illiquid, despite being mouse-clicked for years. For this USD scarcity, and the immense pressure it is putting on USD-denominated debt holders and sovereign financial partners, we can thank that other poison known as the quadrillion-dollar derivatives market, of which I’ve already written.

Losing Faith in Uncle Sam’s IOU’s
At some point, Americans, as well as the rest of the world, will realize that the US is not what she used to be, and neither are her IOU’s.

For the first time in almost a century, faith in Uncle Sam will reach a nadir and precious metals their apex. But faith, as I’ve also written, is a hard financial indicator to time.

This is not “gold-bug” posturing but hard math and political reality colliding with the lessons of current and past history.

Take the Pathetic Example of Japan
The Fed’s rate hikes have pushed Tokyo and its Yen to its knees.

The Bank of Japan, unlike the controllers of the world reserve currency (i.e., the Fed), flatly cannot afford to raise rates and pay its JGB’s (i.e., IOU’s) at the same time.

Net result?

The Bank of Japan is printing Yen like gangbusters and keeping inflation deliberately above interest rates.

Yet even in this openly negative-real-yield nightmare, the Japanese 10Y didn’t trade for 2 days.

Meanwhile, as the Yen dropped to 50-year lows, Japan was forced for the first time in nearly three decades to prop its currency by making a direct intervention in the FOREX, which entails selling a batch of the UST’s it had on reserve.

This explains why the TLT (US Treasury ETF) lost 3% on the same day. Meanwhile, US junk bonds (as measured by the LQD ETF), fell to lows not seen since the COVID lows.



Tanking junk bonds, by the way, are typically leading indicators for tanking equity markets.

Just saying…

And Then There’s the EU…
Japan, of course, won’t be the last nation to reach such desperate levels, and as more UST’s are dumped/sold, debt costs in the US will only get more, not less painful, regardless of what the Wizard of Powell does from DC/Oz.

Again, just ask the Bank of England and its recent, headline-making pivot to more QE. No shocker at all there…

Foreigners own over $18T is USD assets, including bonds, real estate and dollars. Once the distressed selling starts, it goes from slow to rapid very quickly, which means pain levels for Main Street American debtors will rise equally fast.

Other nations “friendly” to the US are feeling equal pain from Powell’s hawkish Fed and strong USD.

Germany, for example, is seeing yields on its two-year bonds above 2% for the first time since 2008, an otherwise once anemic rate which it literally can’t afford.

As yields in the EU rise as a result of its US “ally’s” policies, the EU starts to quiver and shake, as this means the EU’s interest rates rise too.

But with debt-soaked countries like Italy teetering towards Frankenstein levels, Powell is pushing the EU into a national security (currency and debt) trap as well as political crack-up.

Again, what will EU nations do?

They’ll likely turn Japanese and start dumping US Treasuries and dollars to keep the lights on from Paris to Portugal.

Even in China, big firms are already selling USD assets and commercial real estate (over $20B since 2019) at an increasingly alarming rate.

Powell’s Strong Dollar Policy is Backfiring
In short, Powell’s strong USD policy, like the West’s sanctions against Putin, are openly backfiring as America’s “allies” bend under the oppressive ripple effects and weight of an artificially strong USD—and all of this as the EU heads into a winter with less energy from the East.

Then again, the Fed is always at least two to three steps behind its own learning curve.

As a political rather than independent bank, they can only rely on words and distortions rather than math and honesty when speaking to a public which they have mis-served since the day of their official (and Wall-Street-leaning) birth in December of 1913.

These converging currency, debt and energy patterns look like the weather map of a perfect storm.

In short, foreign currencies, suffocating under the weight of Powell’s strong USD, will continue to tank as global bond markets continue to dry up and hence implode.

Unless the Fed reverses course on its strong USD policy (and pivots to more QE/Mouse-click “magic”), global markets face a legitimate risk of systemic collapse.

But then again, more mouse-click money just means a currency crisis. Again: Pick your poison.

For all of these reasons, I remain steadfast that global currency and sovereign debt markets cannot and will not last long under Powell’s current strong USD policy.

Unless the Fed pivots to more pathetic QE (and hence a weaker, debased USD), the systemic risk discussed above will become systemic implosion.

For now, the ball (or dollar) is in Powell’s court, and he’s got a weak serve.

 

[marsh]

Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Oct 4, 2022 at 8:33am
Cutting and Burning European Forests
04 October 2022
Republic of Ireland
Mind dump, sans Edit

“Migrants” to Netherlands are living on cruise ships. Catered. “Free food.” The invasion continues while many European taxpayers already are unemployed or soon will be.

Meanwhile here in Ireland people are prevented to from using clean burning peat — plentiful in Ireland — while they important forest wood from Lithuania. There was even scandal of peat exported to mainland Europe and re-imported to Ireland.

And the Irish. Of course they know well the famine their ancestors endured yet nearly every Irishman or woman says there is no worry in Ireland. They say things like, “No worries boy. We’ve got fewer than 7 million souls on the entire island yet we can feed 45 million.”

As someone who studies information war…I smell a massive pile of bullshit. The magic of statistics. Especially so of the “90% of the statistics made up on the spot” and fed to a people who are culturally fearful of famine. Statistics as security blanket.

Example — when calculating food imports/exports, a country can pick any metric that suits. Tonnage. Value. Total calories. And not take into account vital imports. Say, a factitious US State that exports 10x more calories than it needs to feed the entire State, but mostly those exports are corn. And so the States import a massive percentage of the food they actually eat.

And there is more important magic. When making calculations for national security purposes, all inputs such as fuel and fertilizer must be calculated. Even down to the tractor parts. All inputs are part of the ultimate calculation. If the diesel and other fuels are cut — famine will not be delayed in catching up.

Ireland was surrounded by fish in the sea during the great famine, yet starved.

Let’s talk merely staying warm. If you drive across Germany, which I recently did, you will witness massive amounts of green forests being felled and destroyed for firewood. Just to stay warm. Most Europeans and Americans today have no idea how much wood is required to keep a home warm during winter. Most fireplaces these days are not really for keeping the home warm, but for making cozy moments.

Most do not even realize you cannot just cut down a tree and toss it in the fireplace. Green wood requires “seasoning.” Like two years resting in the elements. Season after season. Swaths of forest being felled today — forget it. Germany and other countries appear to be deforesting Europe faster than the rainforests ever were.

The Greens are raping European ecosystems for wood that will hardly burn and when it does so, with great pollution. Green wood is dirty firewood.

A friend and Locals reader in Michigan sent the attached photo and message:

“Your post on firewood is interesting to me as that is the only way I heat my house (and hot water) in winter. I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where we see temperatures of -20 every winter (sometimes colder) but hovering around zero most days. I heat a house that is about 2000 sq feet and a garage/shop that is about the same. The garage is kept at about 55 all winter and the house is kept at about 72 all winter. I typically burn through 10 pulp cord every winter but during a cold winter I can go through 15 pulp cord. For reference 10 pulp cord is a log truck load of 8 foot logs. I then cut and split the wood. The wood I burn is well seasoned hardwood. Green wood does not give the BTU’s of seasoned wood. Softwood is not great to burn for firewood either as it burns too fast. I burn in a wood boiler which then pumps water through pex to sub floor heating. Wood boilers are MUCH more efficient than a revitalized fireplace. Trying to heat with fireplaces is extremely inefficient and means much more wood will be consumed. Germany is going to consume massive amounts of wood and much of the BTU’s of the wood will be wasted. A fireplace is very a inefficient way to heat. Wood burning stove or wood boiler are much more efficient at using the BTU’s of the wood. Burning green wood is wasteful.”

You’ve probably wondered why Jews and others willingly boarded trains and were shipped off to concentration camps and were evaporated through chimneys without a fight. And there is the saying, “Never again.” It’s a bullshit saying. This IS AGAIN. Most of Europe and Israel lined up for the death jabs. And nobody is overthrowing their governments now BEFORE famine strikes.

 

[marsh]

"Ian Was Rough On Citrus": First Florida Orange Crop Reports Point To Disaster | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

"Ian Was Rough On Citrus": First Florida Orange Crop Reports Point To Disaster

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 05:48 AM

The first crop damage estimates are in for Florida's citrus groves following Hurricane Ian last week, and they point to utter devastation in certain parts of the state, sending orange juice prices Monday to almost six-year highs.

Bloomberg spoke with Ray Royce, executive director at Highlands County Citrus Growers Association, who said 20% to 80% of the fruit was damaged depending on location.

Royce said a complete assessment of Florida's citrus groves is near impossible at this point because some roads and bridges are impassable. He said some "regions north of the Highlands have had lesser impact, but in some areas we could have lost it all."

Alico Inc., one of the largest US citrus producers, said the widespread damage Ian caused would take at least two years to get production levels back to current levels. The company reported a "significant drop of fruit from trees" due to high winds, though exact estimates could take weeks.

On Friday, Alico wrote in a press release that supply to Tropicana, Peace River, Cutrale, and Florida's Natural (some of the top orange juice processors) would continue with "all available fruit during the upcoming harvest season, which will begin later this year."

Another citrus producer, Mixon Fruit Farms, near Tampa, said crop surveying is underway for their orange and grapefruit trees.

"It looks like about 30% of the fruit was knocked off the tree," Janet Mixon, owner of the citrus producer, said.

Readers may recall days before Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwest Florida and then tore through central parts of the state. We asked the question if an "OJ squeeze was ahead?" That's because the powerful storm was projected to hit an area of the state that is some of the country's top producing regions of citrus. In a follow-up note, we outlined that an estimated 375,000 acres of citrus trees were in the storm's path.

There will be horror stories of crop losses from here. Alico warned the impact of the storm will be on the current season and roll into 2023. This means orange juice prices will be squeezed, as they were today as the crop reports rolled in.

Orange juice prices jumped as much as 5.2% before settling 3.6% higher at $1.9825 per pound, the highest price since December 2016.



And even before the storm, we noted earlier this year that Florida's Citrus Crop To Be Smallest Since WW2, Squeezes OJ Prices Higher, noting that dwindling supply was pushing up orange juice prices at the supermarket.



Breakfast inflation will get costlier as orange juice prices continue to rise. Maybe the Fed should see if their money printers can print oranges.

 

[marsh]

"We Own the Science and the World Should Know it"

Watch now (43 sec) | And according to the United Nations, "Big Tech" knows it.

rwmalonemd.substack.com

"We Own the Science and the World Should Know it"

And according to the United Nations, "Big Tech" knows it.

Robert W Malone MD, MS
Oct 4

Video on website .43 min

The clip above is from United Nations’ global communications representative Melissa Fleming, who spoke on a World Economic Forum disinformation panel on Sept 28, 2022. A transcript of that clip reads:

We partnered with Google, for example. If you Google climate change, at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources. We started this partnership when we were shocked to see that when we'd Googled climate change, we were getting incredibly distorted information right at the top.

We are becoming much more proactive. We own the science and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do. But again, it's a huge, huge challenge that I think all sectors of society need to be very active-

The full video linked below is worth listening to, but it is almost an hour long.

Full link to her presentation here

The United Nations claims that they ‘own the science.’ For this reason, they have partnered with the big tech platforms to manipulate search results, and they are pouring vast quantities of money into globalist media outlets to ensure their version of “the science” is the one that we get to read.

The thing is - when you listen to the full panel discussion linked above, the UN speaker -Ms. Fleming is not just saying that the UN is censoring speech on climate change. She also suggests that the UN with the WEF is censoring many scientific discussions, such as the topic of COVID-19, and the UN is in the process of setting up the tools to censor ALL misinformation that the UN deems unhelpful for a “stable, peaceful, harmonious and UNITED world".

Moderating the “Tackling Disinformation” panel was the WEF managing director Adrian Monc. He states that there has been “professionalization of disinformation” including “COVID -19 state sponsored actors engaged in that.” What does that even mean? That somehow those of us critical of the COVID-19 policies are “state sponsored” actors? Frankly, his statements during the discussion were bizarre and paranoid.

This is what is clear. The actions of the UN, acting with its strategic partner the WEF, to stifle free speech have created a dangerous situation for our country and the world. The United Nations is engaging in psyops operations, on information control on all of us. This is beyond anything we all could have imagined ten years ago. We all used to joke about “1984,” now it just seems like a cliche. Because that future is here. This is a situation that only Congress can rectify.

Melissa Fleming’s remarks in this discussion were astounding, here are a few examples:

“We partnered with Google. For example, if you Google ‘climate change,’ you will, at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources” — Melissa Fleming

“Another really key strategy we had was to deploy influencers […] and they were much more trusted than the United Nations” — Melissa Fleming

“We trained scientists around the world and some doctors on TikTok, and we had TikTok working with us” — Melissa Fleming

Mr. Monc. who now calls critics of the WEF and components of its great reset agenda white supremacists and anti-Semites.

“Own nothing, be happy. You might have heard the phrase. It started life as a screenshot, culled from the internet by an anonymous anti-semitic account on the image board 4chan. ‘Own nothing, be happy – The Jew World Order 2030’, said the post, which went viral among extremists” — Adrian Monck, WEF, 2022

This statement of course, is completely false. One could say that it is disinformation even. In other words, this is pysops from the WEF. The phrase didn’t “start life as a screenshot…culled from the internet by an anonymous anti-semitic account on the image board 4chan” as the WEF director states.

The phrase came directly from a video on the WEF’s own website and social media channels in 2016. The WEF still has it on their own website and it is still part of their agenda!

“You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy” — 8 Predictions for the World in 2030, WEF, 2016 (from the WEF website)

The UN, with its strategic partner the WEF, wants to own more than “The Science,” they want to own and control what is published on the Internet in total. They want to own “The Politics,” “The World Agenda” and “The Narrative.”

The United States as a country, and the free people who are citizens of the United States, cannot let the United Nations and their World Economic Forum strategic partners control what we write and publish, what we get to read, and even what we think. We must elect leaders who are willing to stand up to the UN. Congress must become engaged - the UN is out of control, and the President of the United States is acting like a captured ally of the Globalists.

 

[marsh]

Power Grid Collapse In Bangladesh Leaves 140 Million People In Dark | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Power Grid Collapse In Bangladesh Leaves 140 Million People In Dark​

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 06:27 AM
Bangladesh's national power grid collapsed Tuesday afternoon, plunging 140 million people, or nearly everyone in the country, into darkness, AFP reported.



Reuters spoke with officials at the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board, who said power transmission failed in the eastern part of the country and then tripped power plants nationwide, cutting off power to the capital, Dhaka, and other major metro areas.

Bangladesh Power Development Board official Shameem Hasan said engineers are investigating 'glitches' in the power system. He said restoring the system could take several hours once issues are resolved.

"We are trying to restore the system," Hasan said.

Bangladesh is one of the world's largest garment exporters after China. The country is also an emerging outsourcing destination for business operations, such as call centers...

*Developing...

 

[marsh]

The UN Demands All Central Banks Stop Rate Hikes And Switch To Price Controls Instead | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

The UN Demands All Central Banks Stop Rate Hikes And Switch To Price Controls Instead

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 06:12 AM
By Michael Every of Rabobank

Blinkers and You'll Miss It

New week. New month. New quarter. New brains. New trades. New hope. Or “New balls, please” as they say at Wimbledon.

I don’t have the physical energy to play tennis with markets on an every-other-day basis, sending a detailed volley back at those who think the Fed is about to pivot because of one bad datapoint. That doesn’t mean the UK government can’t though – they just did exactly that on tax cuts.

All I can say is re-read what I have been saying all year about this being about more than just data; and I am told every goldbug, cryptonite, bond-bubble boy, equity enthusiast, derivative devil, property shill, and commodity compere is sitting on the side-lines --bleeding out-- and is waiting for the Fed to pivot in order to go all in on the next inflationary everything asset bubble.

What does interest me enough to cover today is:

#1. UNCTAD, the UN agency dealing with global trade, demanding *all* central banks stop rate hikes and instead switch to price controls. They argue, “policymakers appear to be hoping that a short sharp monetary shock – along the lines, if not of the same magnitude, as that pursued… under Paul Volker – will be sufficient to anchor inflationary expectations without triggering recession. Sifting through the economic entrails of a bygone era is unlikely, however, to provide the forward guidance needed for a softer landing given the deep structural and behavioural changes that have taken place in many economies, particularly those related to financialization, market concentration and labour’s bargaining power.”

I am not playing tennis with them either, but note the radicalism. Indeed, their latest report also argues, “supply-chain disruptions and labour shortages require appropriate industrial policies to increase the supply of key items in the medium term; this must be accompanied by sustained global policy coordination and (liquidity) support to help countries fund and manage these changes." So, industrial policy. And Fed swap-lines. Expect both ahead.

They also ask why we haven’t regulated shadow-banking, and why we allow speculators in global commodity markets who have nothing to do with underlying trade. On the latter they note, “Market surveillance authorities could be mandated to intervene directly in exchange trading on an occasional basis by buying or selling derivatives contracts with a view to averting price collapses or deflating price bubbles.” I expect nothing but that ahead – and geopolitically driven to boot.

#2. A New York Times op-ed (‘A US ‘Ships Act’ Would Break China’s Control of the Seas’) repeating last month’s VOA ‘As China Expands Its Fleets, US Analysts Call for Catch-up Efforts’ that as China builds more naval and merchant ships, US maritime experts are calling for a "Ships Act" comparable to the recently enacted "Chips Act", recalling the effort undertaken in WW2 when domestic shipyards launched more than 5,000 vessels. One expert states: "The Chinese industrial base is a behemoth, and the US shipbuilding industrial base is freakishly undersized as a function of the size of America's economy and its influence in the world."

This was a key argument in 2021’s ‘In Deep Ship’ on maritime logistics: the US would “go back to the sea” to underpin industry and its Mahan geostrategy. Such US actions would be inflationary before they were deflationary; and taken as incendiary.

#3. An article in the Financial Times (‘Investors are learning to love industry again’) noting in deglobalising world there is a structural boom in parts of US manufacturing being led by federal efforts to domesticise supply chains via legislation; a shift from just-in-time to just-in-case shorter supply chains; decoupling from China; productivity-enhancing technology; and an overlooked US equivalent of Germany’s ‘mittlestand’ of mid-sized family-owned companies. Ironically, Germany is about to see a cascading failure of its industrial base due to the cataclysmic failure of its energy policies, and the US having abundant cheap(er) energy is another structural argument for an industrial revival there.

Can you imagine a world where savers get a 4-5% return and banks lend to firms making physical goods, generating decent returns for all? Is this science-fiction possible again? Not if we get a Fed pivot, of course. Then we fire up the everything bubble again instead.

For those who still don’t want to see any of the above, I offer a gift far more useful than any intellectual return volley. Indeed, to show that it’s not only central banks who provide free things, below please find a large amount of FREE BLANK SPACE on which you can draw your own ‘Cut Out ‘n’ Keep!’ intellectual blinkers: just print out the page, draw ones that fit, cut them out, and place them around your head in order to keep out all the annoying news and data that doesn’t fit your world view and trading book, allowing you to happily keep punting as if: (i) that Fed pivot is coming; and (ii) said pivot will take us back to good ‘ol 2019, not bad ‘ol 1971 or 1913.

DRAW

YOUR

INTELLECTUAL

BLINKERS

HERE!

 

[marsh]

Dr. Michael Rectenwald Calls Out The Subversive Elites Poisoning Institutions Globally 6:29 min

Dr. Michael Rectenwald Calls Out The Subversive Elites Poisoning Institutions Globally​

Bannons War Room Published October 4, 2022

(Globalists embrace woke ideology. Objectives - dramatically reduce standards of living of the western world. reduce consumption. reduce sovereignty. The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty - Unraveling the Global Agenda covers economic aspects, climate change catastrophists, history of the WEF, technologies, steps to take to preclude it from prevailing. We are in a cultural revolution that rivals the Maoist one attacking the "4 olds" culture, customs, habits and ideas. Subversives are attacking people at the biological level - including what it means to be a man/woman, promoting abortion at birth or after. Targeting the productive sectors of the economy with Green insanity; deindustrializing the West. While Mao's Great Leap Forward was supposedly an attempt to increase wealth and standards of living, our subversive elites are intentionally trying to dismantle Western civilization, our productive capacities and they have the means technologically to control even our thoughts. We must fight back and he provides the steps for doing so. michaelrectenwald.com

 

[marsh]

Safe and Effective - A Second Opinion | ORACLE FILMS & News Uncut (See description for related info) 55:23 min

Safe and Effective - A Second Opinion | ORACLE FILMS & News Uncut (See description for related info)​

MyCatholicRedPill Published October 4, 2022

Produced in collaboration with Mark Sharman (former ITV and BSkyB Executive) and News Uncut, 'Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion' shines a light on Covid-19 vaccine injuries and bereavements, but also to takes an encompassing look at the systemic failings that appear to have enabled them.

We look at leading analysis of pharmaceutical trials, the role of the MHRA in regulating these products, the role of the SAGE behavioural scientists in influencing policy and the role of the media and Big Tech companies in supressing free and open debate on the subject.

This is a self-financed, one-hour TV programme, formatted for 2 commercial breaks.
Original video on Oracle Films website
Safe & Effective | Oracle Films

 

[marsh]

(Canada)

"Enough of this woke sh*t.' - Conservative MP Goes Off On Trudeau's Justinflation .50 min

"Enough of this woke sh*t.' - Conservative MP Goes Off On Trudeau's Justinflation​

Red Voice Media Published October 4, 2022

"They have failed to inspire investment in our country and they are making it harder for women in my community to put loaves of bread in their cart."

 

[marsh]

SHORTAGE - Full Documentary: We Must Prepare for Unprecedented Food Shortages 19:07 min

SHORTAGE - Full Documentary: We Must Prepare for Unprecedented Food Shortages​

mariazeee Published October 4, 2022 1,669 Views

Farmers across the world have been warning us and protesting for months. Legislation is being introduced in every country to ensure any farmers left are under globalist control. Alternative media has been relentlessly sounding the alarm about what is ahead. The globalists are manufacturing food shortages, and they're coming... fast.

In this short documentary, we show a range of MSM reports about the "mysterious" destruction of hundreds of food plants across the world. Clayton Llewellyn of Heaven's Harvest, a patriot who is helping Americans prepare for what is coming discusses the inevitable - that unless we prepare, millions will go hungry.

 

[marsh]

What is Food Security? | Food Chain Reaction Game

web.archive.org

Food Chain Reaction: A Global Food Security Game – Center For American Progress

• Post authorBy EvidenceNotFear
• Post date3 November 2021

Food Chain Reaction: A Global Food Security Game is a simulation and role-playing exercise intended to improve understanding of how governments, institutions, and private sector interests might interact to address a crisis in the global food system. The scenario is set five years from today in a world where population growth, rapid urbanization, extreme weather, and political crises combine to threaten global food security.

The game’s players—high-level decision makers representing nations, international institutions, and the private sector—will collaborate, negotiate, make decisions, and confront tradeoffs while dealing with a chain reaction of consequences resulting from their actions.

View: https://youtu.be/0wfvtD17G9w
1:03 min

A Deeper Dive on Food Security | Food Chain Reaction Game

web.archive.org

A Deeper Dive on Food Security​

Readings from Food Chain Reaction

• OCTOBER 28, 2015

Through Food Chain Reaction, we seek to show how the issue of food security is deeply intertwined with national security, economic stability, and climate change. As the world’s population continues to grow and the impacts of climate change place ever greater strains on food production, the impacts of food insecurity will be felt across multiple policy dimensions and geographic areas.

But don’t just take our word on it. We have gathered resources to show the breadth of food security’s impacts around the world – from its drivers to the economic and social implications.

The New Geopolitics of Food
In this Foreign Policy article, Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, explains the growing geopolitical and economic risks associated with food scarcity.

A Scary Hidden Stressor
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman comments on Princeton scholar Anne-Marie Slaughter’s “The Arab Spring and Climate Change.” Friedman explains how Slaughter’s essay makes a strong case that the interplay between climate change, escalating food prices, and politics was a hidden stressor that fueled the Arab revolutions and will continue to have ramifications on the development of stable democracies through the region.

In the Fight for Food Security, Sustainable Land Management Plays a ‘Growing’ Role
The Chicago Policy Review published a recent article examining a literature review published in Agronomy for Sustainable Development. This study reveals how implementing sustainable land management techniques to adapt to climate change not only increases crop yields, but also increases soil’s carbon sequestration in specific landscapes, helping to mitigate climate change.

Gender Equality and Food Scarcity: Women’s Empowerment as a Tool Against Food Scarcity
This report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) examines the role women play in Asian and Pacific Island agricultural systems and proposes gender equality as essential part of achieving food security is these regions.

Super El Niño and climate change cause crop failures putting millions at risk of hunger
Oxfam International explains the impact of climate change on global weather patterns and how these prolonged and escalated weather patterns can lead to increased food crises in Central America and Southern Africa.

The Moral Imperatives of Food Security
Madeleine Albright, co-chair of the Aspen Food Security Strategy Group, frames the moral factors that she believes should drive governments, businesses, and nonprofits to work toward global food security. This article in the Aspen Journal of Ideas explains specific steps each sector can take to contribute towards this global common good

A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World Feeding 9 Billion - National Geographic
With agriculture as a top contributor to climate change, this National Geographic article provides five steps that will allow our world to continue increasing agricultural yields while also curbing agriculture’s contributions to climate change.

9 Billion Bowls How will we fill 9 billion bowls by 2050? | #9billionbowls | Thomson Reuters
This article from Thomson Reuters provides an overview of the ways big data can be used to improve results at every link in the food supply chain.

 

[marsh]

Feeding 9 Billion - National Geographic

When we think about threats to the environment, we tend to picture cars and smokestacks, not dinner. But the truth is, our need for food poses one of the biggest dangers to the planet.

web.archive.org

Feeding the World

By 2050 we’ll need to feed two billion more people. How can we do that without overwhelming the planet?

When we think about threats to the environment, we tend to picture cars and smokestacks, not dinner. But the truth is, our need for food poses one of the biggest dangers to the planet.

Agriculture is among the greatest contributors to global warming, emitting more greenhouse gases than all our cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes combined—largely from methane released by cattle and rice farms, nitrous oxide from fertilized fields, and carbon dioxide from the cutting of rain forests to grow crops or raise livestock. Farming is the thirstiest user of our precious water supplies and a major polluter, as runoff from fertilizers and manure disrupts fragile lakes, rivers, and coastal ecosystems across the globe.

Agriculture also accelerates the loss of biodiversity. As we’ve cleared areas of grassland and forest for farms, we’ve lost crucial habitat, making agriculture a major driver of wildlife extinction.

The environmental challenges posed by agriculture are huge, and they’ll only become more pressing as we try to meet the growing need for food worldwide. We’ll likely have two billion more mouths to feed by mid-century—more than nine billion people. But sheer population growth isn’t the only reason we’ll need more food. The spread of prosperity across the world, especially in China and India, is driving an increased demand for meat, eggs, and dairy, boosting pressure to grow more corn and soybeans to feed more cattle, pigs, and chickens. If these trends continue, the double whammy of population growth and richer diets will require us to roughly double the amount of crops we grow by 2050.

Unfortunately the debate over how to address the global food challenge has become polarized, pitting conventional agriculture and global commerce against local food systems and organic farms. The arguments can be fierce, and like our politics, we seem to be getting more divided rather than finding common ground. Those who favor conventional agriculture talk about how modern mechanization, irrigation, fertilizers, and improved genetics can increase yields to help meet demand. And they’re right. Meanwhile proponents of local and organic farms counter that the world’s small farmers could increase yields plenty—and help themselves out of poverty—by adopting techniques that improve fertility without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. They’re right too.

But it needn’t be an either-or proposition. Both approaches offer badly needed solutions; neither one alone gets us there. We would be wise to explore all of the good ideas, whether from organic and local farms or high-tech and conventional farms, and blend the best of both.

I was fortunate to lead a team of scientists who confronted this simple question: How can the world double the availability of food while simultaneously cutting the environmental harm caused by agriculture? After analyzing reams of data on agriculture and the environment, we proposed five steps that could solve the world’s food dilemma.

Step One: Freeze Agriculture’s Footprint

For most of history, whenever we’ve needed to produce more food, we’ve simply cut down forests or plowed grasslands to make more farms. We’ve already cleared an area roughly the size of South America to grow crops. To raise livestock, we’ve taken over even more land, an area roughly the size of Africa. Agriculture’s footprint has caused the loss of whole ecosystems around the globe, including the prairies of North America and the Atlantic forest of Brazil, and tropical forests continue to be cleared at alarming rates. But we can no longer afford to increase food production through agricultural expansion.

Trading tropical forest for farmland is one of the most destructive things we do to the environment, and it is rarely done to benefit the 850 million people in the world who are still hungry. Most of the land cleared for agriculture in the tropics does not contribute much to the world’s food security but is instead used to produce cattle, soybeans for livestock, timber, and palm oil.

Avoiding further deforestation must be a top priority.

Step Two: Grow More on Farms We’ve Got

Starting in the 1960s, the green revolution increased yields in Asia and Latin America using better crop varieties and more fertilizer, irrigation, and machines—but with major environmental costs. The world can now turn its attention to increasing yields on less productive farmlands—especially in Africa, Latin America, and eastern Europe—where there are “yield gaps” between current production levels and those possible with improved farming practices. Using high-tech, precision farming systems, as well as approaches borrowed from organic farming, we could boost yields in these places several times over.

• We can no longer afford to increase food production through agricultural expansion.
• It would easier to feed the planet if more of the crops we grew ended up in human stomachs.
• Increasing yields on underperforming farms could significantly boost the world’s food supply.
• We can be more efficient about where we grow, what we grow, and how we grow.

Step Three: Use Resources More Efficiently

We already have ways to achieve high yields while also dramatically reducing the environmental impacts of conventional farming. The green revolution relied on the intensive—and unsustainable—use of water and fossil-fuel-based chemicals. But commercial farming has started to make huge strides, finding innovative ways to better target the application of fertilizers and pesticides by using computerized tractors equipped with advanced sensors and GPS. Many growers apply customized blends of fertilizer tailored to their exact soil conditions, which helps minimize the runoff of chemicals into nearby waterways.

Organic farming can also greatly reduce the use of water and chemicals—by incorporating cover crops, mulches, and compost to improve soil quality, conserve water, and build up nutrients. Many farmers have also gotten smarter about water, replacing inefficient irrigation systems with more precise methods, like subsurface drip irrigation. Advances in both conventional and organic farming can give us more “crop per drop” from our water and nutrients.

Step Four: Shift Diets

It would be far easier to feed nine billion people by 2050 if more of the crops we grew ended up in human stomachs. Today only 55 percent of the world’s crop calories feed people directly; the rest are fed to livestock (about 36 percent) or turned into biofuels and industrial products (roughly 9 percent). Though many of us consume meat, dairy, and eggs from animals raised on feedlots, only a fraction of the calories in feed given to livestock make their way into the meat and milk that we consume. For every 100 calories of grain we feed animals, we get only about 40 new calories of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 of chicken, 10 of pork, or 3 of beef. Finding more efficient ways to grow meat and shifting to less meat-intensive diets—even just switching from grain-fed beef to meats like chicken, pork, or pasture-raised beef—could free up substantial amounts of food across the world. Because people in developing countries are unlikely to eat less meat in the near future, given their newfound prosperity, we can first focus on countries that already have meat-rich diets. Curtailing the use of food crops for biofuels could also go a long way toward enhancing food availability.

A World Demanding More

By 2050 the world’s population will likely increase by more than 35 percent.

To feed that population, crop production will need to double.

Why? Production will have to far outpace population growth as the developing world grows prosperous enough to eat more meat.

Step Five: Reduce Waste

An estimated 25 percent of the world’s food calories and up to 50 percent of total food weight are lost or wasted before they can be consumed. In rich countries most of that waste occurs in homes, restaurants, or supermarkets. In poor countries food is often lost between the farmer and the market, due to unreliable storage and transportation. Consumers in the developed world could reduce waste by taking such simple steps as serving smaller portions, eating leftovers, and encouraging cafeterias, restaurants, and supermarkets to develop waste-reducing measures. Of all of the options for boosting food availability, tackling waste would be one of the most effective.

Taken together, these five steps could more than double the world’s food supplies and dramatically cut the environmental impact of agriculture worldwide. But it won’t be easy. These solutions require a big shift in thinking. For most of our history we have been blinded by the overzealous imperative of more, more, more in agriculture—clearing more land, growing more crops, using more resources. We need to find a balance between producing more food and sustaining the planet for future generations.

This is a pivotal moment when we face unprecedented challenges to food security and the preservation of our global environment. The good news is that we already know what we have to do; we just need to figure out how to do it. Addressing our global food challenges demands that all of us become more thoughtful about the food we put on our plates. We need to make connections between our food and the farmers who grow it, and between our food and the land, watersheds, and climate that sustain us. As we steer our grocery carts down the aisles of our supermarkets, the choices we make will help decide the future.

Jonathan Foley directs the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. Jim Richardson’s portraits of farmers are the latest in his body of work documenting agriculture. George Steinmetz’s big-picture approach reveals the landscapes of industrial food.

The magazine thanks The Rockefeller Foundation and members of the National Geographic Society for their generous support of this series of articles.

(Comment: This presumes that "pastureland" is suitable for cropland. In the arid west, there are thousands of square miles of unirrigated scrub, suitable only for grazing. Crops will not grow there. There is high altitude or latitude land where the growing season is too short. There is land that is not easily accessible for farm machinery. There are grazing allotments on federal land where crops cannot be grown. )

 

[marsh]

In the Fight for Food Security, Sustainable Land Management Plays a ‘Growing’ Role

Though the authors found consistently positive (i.e. increased) yields for cover cropping, organic fertilization, mulching, and water harvesting, even more compelling is the meta-analysis that was …

web.archive.org

In the Fight for Food Security, Sustainable Land Management Plays a ‘Growing’ Role​

October 1, 2015 Marianne Waas

As an environmental concern, food security is no longer something that only ‘foodies’ or farmers care about. Increasingly, the links between climate change and the fragility of food systems are becoming clearer, making innovative solutions in agriculture highly necessary. The production sector seems to be a natural hotbed for research, as conventional agriculture (large-scale, row-crop farming that requires tillage and high fertilizer inputs) is known to be a significant source of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. However, comprehensive reviews of the effects of sustainable agriculture practices on production yields have been scant.

In a literature review published in Agronomy for Sustainable Development, the authors conducted a comprehensive summary of the latest such research, with special attention paid to the practices of organic fertilization, water harvesting, agroforestry, and minimum soil disturbance. Their findings suggest much promise for a future with uncompromised crop yields and minimized carbon emissions—a “have your cake and eat it too” type of situation.

Through a database review of 160 studies displaying original field data, Branca et al. gathered 217 separate crop yield measurements (tons/hectare), with variable scopes, some short and others long-term (over and under five years, respectively). By only including studies that used a control group—farm fields that used conventional agriculture practices—the authors were able to measure the percent change in average crop yields when using conventional and sustainable techniques. Practices of interest included: cover cropping, or the planting of crops in a field post-harvest, which allows for reduced soil erosion; planting of nitrogen-fixing crops that reduce the amount of carbon escape in harvesting; field fallowing, where fields post-harvest are left to idle and build up soil moisture; organic fertilization that avoids introducing erosion-prone nitrates and phosphates into the soil; minimum soil disturbance, which avoids tillage and instead uses mulching to preserve soil cover; construction of ‘water terraces’ that minimize irrigation flooding; and agroforestry, which includes the use of riparian zones or buffer strips to enhance soil fertility.

Though the authors found consistently positive (i.e. increased) yields for cover cropping, organic fertilization, mulching, and water harvesting, even more compelling is the meta-analysis examining the potential for climate change mitigation. Here, ‘mitigation’ is taken to mean the stabilization of organic carbon density in the soil, or any land practice that increases natural carbon or nitrous oxide stocks in the soil. Alternatively, this could also include practices that reduce nutrient loss, such as no-till agriculture. Tillage is a plowing method that conventional farmers use to attack weeds, but it often leads to high soil erosion. In heavy rain events, pesticides and fertilizers have a greater chance of running off into water bodies and polluting them.

To conduct this meta-analysis, the authors looked at cereal crop yield impacts, where all aforementioned practices were shown to increase yields. According to the authors, studies generally found that adopting sustainable land management practices lead to an increase in the amount of carbon sequestered in the soil. Interestingly, amount of rainfall was a key influence.

With the exception of water management practices (use of terraces, micro catchment using buffer strips), mitigation effects were higher in areas of more annual rainfall. The latter observation is particularly interesting, as climate change is thought to lead to an exacerbation of heavy rain events in habitats where heavy rain is the norm. This finding, therefore, could merit a look into negative feedback systems combating climate change.

Dry climates, in contrast, produced higher yield effects than mitigation effects, while humid areas displayed more balanced results. Based off of the tons of emissions reductions per hectare observed, the authors concluded that [these measurements] “provide an economic basis for supporting higher transaction costs in mitigation crediting programs.” Though not explicitly stated, such a statement seems to be one of the few recent endorsements for cap-and-trade systems in a pro-sustainability context.

Other scholars and researchers seem to avoid the politically charged topic of cap-and-trade emissions systems. This may be because the robustness of research results differs across various technologies. A simplistic explanation for this is that many studies typically involve a ‘package’ of practices, such as reducing soil disturbance and water harvesting simultaneously. In these cases, it can be challenging to isolate the impact of any one strategy. Other caveats to the general finding include the wide geographic spread of the studies gathered, the limited data sources (excluding research plots), and the variable timing of yield effects. In many of the studies considered, increased yield effects were only observed over the long run, but these same measurements displayed an increase in average yields, as well as consistency of yields from year to year.

This remarkable consistency may diminish the validity of short-term findings—findings that also display increased production. Interestingly, differing farm sizes for the studies collected were not found to be a factor determining impact on yields. In making the leap to discussing cost-benefit analysis, such an assertion is promising for those skeptics believing that sustainable agriculture can only be profitable for medium and large-sized farming enterprises.

In crafting appropriate public policies—those, for example, that provide technical assistance to farmers wishing to convert from conventional to sustainable agriculture practices—it is necessary to be mindful of these caveats, but to not dismiss the ‘big picture’ findings. After all, the authors were not conducting statistical analyses on crop yields but were trying to summarize large trends in the literature. Policymakers can funnel their energies into creating a robust funding platform for research. This platform should prize investigations that report results for single practices (not ‘packages’), consider a larger data pool, and, most obviously, explore the financial feasibility of implementing these practices on a large scale. Without this practical lens, the idea of sustainable land management remains confined to the research lab.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f03OtxEKXXY
3:11 min

Food Chain Reaction: What Our Food Supply Will Look Like in 2020

Center For American Progress

The global food system is under increasing stress. To address population growth in Africa and Asia and changing consumption patterns, agricultural production will need to substantially increase by 2050. This increase must occur despite a shrinking rural labor force, limited availability of new farmland, growing water stress, and increasing risks from climate change. Numerous demographic, political and social, economic and trade, energy, environmental, and national security and diplomacy factors present significant challenges and opportunities to ensuring global food security for the next 10 years and beyond.

On November 9-10, 2015, more than forty players representing key national, international, and private sector decision makers met in Washington, D.C. for the Food Chain Reaction simulation. The two-day event aimed to examine how to prepare for and mitigate against long-term and deepening disruption of the global food system.

Before game play began, players watched this dramatization of a fictional news cast from the year 2020 about the state of the world's food system.

^^^^

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzA6jRYjVQs
17:33 min

A global food crisis may be less than a decade away | Sara Menker​

Oct 26, 2017

TED

Sara Menker quit a career in commodities trading to figure out how the global value chain of agriculture works. Her discoveries have led to some startling predictions: "We could have a tipping point in global food and agriculture if surging demand surpasses the agricultural system's structural capacity to produce food," she says. "People could starve and governments may fall."

Menker's models predict that this scenario could happen in a decade -- that the world could be short 214 trillion calories per year by 2027. She offers a vision of this impossible world as well as some steps we can take today to avoid it.

^^^^^

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_dMHLxcIsA
14:51 min

Hunger is not a question of scarcity. | Jasmine Crowe | TEDxPeachtree​

TEDx Talks

Jasmine Crowe is a docu-series producer and entrepreneur whose projects addressing hunger and poverty, and access to quality education have positively impacted vulnerable communities in more than 20 U.S. cities, the United Kingdom, and Haiti. Specifically, the Sunday Soul Homeless feeding initiative has successfully fed more than 50,000 and led to the founding of social technology enterprise Goodr in 2016. Under Jasmine’s leadership, Goodr has redirected more than 100,000 pounds of excess prepared foods — in addition to fresh fruits, vegetables, and other supplies — to communities in need since 2016. Jasmine holds a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina Central University and a master’s degree from Arizona State University.

 

[marsh]

Food Chain Reaction—A Global Food Security Game

Global food system disruptions are explored in a policy decision-making game developed and executed by CNA, World Wildlife Fund, Cargill, Mars, and the Center for American Progress.

www.cna.org

FOOD CHAIN REACTION—A GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY GAME​

Mary "Kate" FisherYee San Su
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

BACKGROUND​

The global food system is heavily networked and complex, making it vulnerable to a variety of risks. In 2007 and 2008, the world watched as a modern-era food crisis arose from the complex interplay of several drivers: droughts in major grain- and cereal-producing regions, increased biofuel production consuming grain supplies, and a range of evolving structural problems in the global food supply chain. Disruptions affected developed and developing countries alike, creating political and economic instability, and contributing to social unrest in certain areas. The crisis highlighted the critical importance of better understanding the interdependencies and cascading effects of decisions made throughout the global food system and how the effects of climate change may exacerbate such challenges.

Recognizing the need to address threats to food security, World Wildlife Fund, the Center for American Progress, Cargill, and Mars (hereafter referred to as the sponsors) came together to develop a game exploring a range of questions including: Will increasing levels of stress on the global food system disrupt markets? Will individual nations become isolationist—or cooperate—to restore stability? Will global leaders identify new and innovative approaches to balance short- and long-run considerations? CNA, in collaboration with the sponsors, designed and conducted a policy decision-making exercise with 65 international thought leaders to better understand the global impacts of and responses to deepening global food system disruptions.

GAME DESIGN​

Food Chain Reaction—A Global Food Security Game was held November 9–10, 2015 in Washington, DC. Players with considerable influence and deep expertise in agriculture, trade and economics, climate and the environment, diplomacy, and security represented national and international governing bodies and organizations and the private sector. During the game, players encountered a decade marked by food price and supply swings amidst burgeoning population growth, rapid urbanization, severe weather events, and social unrest. Recognizing their influence over global conditions, players took action—and, in the process, shaped the world.

The game’s dynamic design allowed players to experience a chain reaction of consequences resulting from their choices.

The game was set between the years 2020 and 2030, a period that was near enough to be familiar, but distant enough to allow players to focus beyond current policy debates. The longitudinal nature of the game presented players with the opportunity to realize the impacts of their choices in the context of the environment-food- stability nexus. The players were organized into eight teams. Six of the teams represented Brazil, China, the European Union (EU), India, the United States, and Continental Africa. The seventh team represented Business and Investors, and the eighth team represented Multilateral Institutions (e.g., World Bank, United Nations, Non-Governmental Organizations). The interests of and events in other key regions, such as the Middle East and Central Asia, were represented within the underlying background scenario and through events that emerged as the game proceeded.

Prior to game conduct, players received background information relevant to each team’s unique geographic and climatic situation, national security issues, and economic and political status. Based on this information and the evolving state of the world—driven to a large extent by their own actions—players confronted a variety of significant decisions and tradeoffs. Teams were afforded the ability to employ national, bilateral, and/or broadly cooperative approaches to addressing the world’s growing food security challenges. Based on team actions and external stresses, a panel of experts (the “Adjudication Cell”), relying on qualitative and quantitative judgment, updated the state of the world to illustrate for players the results of their combined actions. The game proceeded in this manner over four rounds until the scenario advanced roughly ten years.

DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT
Distribution unlimited.

DETAILS​

• Pages: 47
• Document Number: IQR-2015-U-012427
• Publication Date: 12/1/2015

 

[marsh]

Here’s How China Is Cashing In On Europe’s Energy Crisis

As Europe scrambles to avoid a disastrous energy crisis this winter, Chinese energy companies are selling excess gas to Europe at a massive profit.

dailycaller.com

Here’s How China Is Cashing In On Europe’s Energy Crisis

Daily Caller News Foundation logo

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI
CONTRIBUTOR
October 03, 2022

As Europe scrambles to avoid a disastrous energy crisis this winter, Chinese energy companies are selling excess gas to Europe at a massive profit, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The opportunity comes for Chinese companies as reduced economic activity at home has led to lower energy demands, while an impending ban on Russian natural gas imports and the alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has left Europe scrambling for a new supply, according to the WSJ. The source of this excess gas is primarily the U.S. — the two countries have several long-term contracts for the sale of natural gas that were implemented during the Trump administration — or Russia, which has ramped up gas shipments to China by 30% in 2022, according to the WSJ.

Shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. are often being redirected from China to Europe, netting as much as $110 to $130 million dollars in some cases for the Chinese companies that were their original buyers, the WSJ reported. In the first eight months of last year, 133 U.S. vessels containing LNG docked in China, but only 19 had so far in 2022.



“It’s allowed and the prices are favorable,” Wu Qiunan, chief economist at PetroChina International, a subsidiary of state-owned Chian National Petroleum Corp, told the WSJ.

Beyond reselling American shipments, China can resell around 15 million tons of excess LNG it is predicted to have by the end of 2022, according to the WSJ. After selling just a quarter of a million tons of LNG in the first eight months of the year for a total of $449 million, China has increased sales by more than 60 times compared to last year, when it sold just $7.3 million in LNG.

Chinese companies are unsure if the situation will continue much longer, as Beijing mulls loosening COVID-19 restrictions, and increased LNG supply from China, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America pushes prices down, the WSJ reported.

A European Commission spokesperson did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

 

[marsh]

The Benefits Of Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Will Overwhelmingly Go To Wealthier Americans, Analysis Finds

President Joe Biden’s proposed Student Loan Forgiveness Plan will pay a majority of funds to the top-half of incomes in America.

dailycaller.com

The Benefits Of Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Will Overwhelmingly Go To Wealthier Americans, Analysis Finds​

BRONSON WINSLOWCONTRIBUTOR
October 03, 20224:25 PM ET

President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan will largely help borrowers whose salaries are in the top half of American incomes, according to a Monday analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).

Biden announced in August his plan to forgive $10,000 in student loans for individuals making less than $125,000 or families making less than $250,000, forgiving an additional $10,000 for individuals who received Pell Grants. The plan, though marketed by the Biden administration as support for low-to-middle class borrowers, will provide between 57% to 65% of benefits to individuals in the top 50% of income brackets, according to the analysis.

“The actual benefit is likely to be more regressive,” the report read.
The analysis found that the loan forgiveness plan will benefit high-income borrowers because many will be grandfathered in based on their reduced 2020 earnings, while many low-income buyers will be excluded due to a lack of resources.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates only 90% of those eligible will apply for loan forgiveness while the Department of Education only expects 81%. The disparity in loan applications is predicted to affect low-income borrowers who have fewer resources and less access to apply for the forgiveness, according to CRFB.
The method for determining the income of applicants is also flawed, the analysis argued, as the metrics used to qualify an applicant are based on 2020-2021 income statements, which may be lower for higher-income earners due to increased turnover in high-income jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.



“Those in the top half of earnings receive a much larger share of the financial benefit of debt cancellation, since higher-income borrowers are more likely to pay back their loans in full and face higher average interest rates,” the study reported.

On Thursday, the Biden administration scaled back the student loan forgiveness plan to exclude loans from private lenders, according to ABC News. The plan’s reduction follows recent lawsuits against the Biden administration claiming he does not have the power to forgive debt.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

 

[marsh]

Media Lying About Climate And Hurricanes

It's time to state the obvious.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com

Media Lying About Climate And Hurricanes
It's time to state the obvious.

Michael Shellenberger
10 hr ago


Over the last several weeks, many mainstream news media outlets have claimed that hurricanes are becoming more expensive, more frequent, and more intense because of climate change.

• The Financial Times reported that “hurricane frequency is on the rise.”
• The New York Times claimed, “strong storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic Ocean.”
• The Washington Post said, “climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes.”
• ABC News declared, “Here’s how climate change intensifies hurricanes.”
• Both the FT and N.Y. Times showed graphs purporting to show rising hurricane frequency using data from the U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

All of those claims are false.

The increasing cost of hurricane damage can be explained entirely by more people and more property in harm’s way. Consider how much more developed Miami Beach is today compared to a century ago. Once you adjust for rising wealth, there is no trend of increasing damage.



Claims that hurricanes are becoming more frequent are similarly wrong. “After adjusting for a likely under-count of hurricanes in the pre-satellite era,” writes NOAA, “there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts. The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s.” What’s more, NOAA expects a 25% decline in hurricane frequency in the future.

What about intensity? Same story. Explains NOAA, “after adjusting for changes in observing capabilities (limited ship observations) in the pre-satellite era, there is no significant long-term trend (since the 1880s) in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes.“ Bottom line? “We conclude that the historical Atlantic hurricane data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in: frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes, or in the proportion of hurricanes that become major.”



NOAA indeed predicts a 5% increase in hurricane intensity by 2100, but no increase in intensity is today detectable. And the best-available science forecasts that the slight increase in overall hurricane intensity in the future won’t be because there are more intense hurricanes but rather because hurricanes overall will decline more than intense hurricanes (category 4 and 5).

As a result, there will be a greater proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes than categories 1, 2, and 3.

In other words, the relative intensity of hurricanes will rise, even as the total number of hurricanes — and the total number of intense hurricanes — decline.

Why are the media spreading obviously inaccurate information, and not reporting the basic facts? Are journalists simply ignorant? Or is something else going on?

Evidence Of Deliberate Deception

​

The New York Times graph (left) inappropriately cherry-picks data from the post-1980 period while the Financial Times graph (right) misrepresents improved hurricane detection as rising hurricane frequency.

Is it possible journalists are just ignorant of current climate science? Perhaps some are. But mainstream news media outlets have been covering climate change and hurricanes for the last 20 years. And the information on hurricane costs, frequency, or intensity is hardly hidden away. It’s been summarized in the IPCC reports, most recently in 2021. And NOAA even boldfaces its key conclusions.

Consider four of the main ways the media mislead the public about climate change and hurricanes. They:

1. Misrepresent data showing improved observations of hurricanes (thanks in large measure to satellites and other hurricane detection technologies) as evidence of more frequent hurricanes;
2. Misrepresent hypotheses (e.g., that some hurricanes may become more intense by 2100) as facts in the present without mentioning that median projections suggest a decrease in all categories of storms;
3. Cherry-pick data to present trends in a relatively recent period since the 1980s and ignore the fact that there is much longer-term data available;
4. Confuse increasing damage with increasing incidence or intensity, even as there is a strong understanding that what and where we build explains all escalating disaster damage.

Is it possible that the Financial Times reporter Aime Williams and her editors pulled the data from the NOAA website to make their graph, and mistakenly claimed that it shows more frequent hurricanes, but didn’t happen to read the website and its explicit warning that “After adjusting for a likely under-count of hurricanes in the pre-satellite era, there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts”?

If that is indeed what occurred, then Williams and FT are guilty of journalistic malpractice of the highest order. But there is little reason to think that’s what happened. NOAA makes its warning relatively early on its web page and repeats it several times. And FT, like everyone else, has been covering this issue for decades not years.

I asked Williams in an email why she reported that hurricanes were increasing in frequency and intensity, against the best available science, and she did not respond. Whatever the case, FT should issue a retraction or a correction.

Washington Post reporters Scott Dance and Kasha Patel claim that “storms rated Category 4 or stronger… have increased in number in recent decades” and their headline reads, "climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes.”

Those claims are, respectively, misleading and wrong. According to NOAA, 15 Category 4 or stronger hurricanes made landfall in Florida since 1919, with 10 of them occurring before 1960 (over 42 years) and 5 of them since (over 62 years).

There is evidence that Dance and Patel knew they were being misleading.

Consider the following sentence from their article: “One comparable period of hurricane activity came from 1945 to 1950, when five Category 4 hurricanes hit Florida in six years, making [hurricane researcher Philip] Klotzbach reluctant to call the series of intense storms since 2017 unprecedented.”

The word “reluctant” softens the meaning. “Refuses” would be a more accurate word. And he refuses to call the storms unprecedented because, as Dance and Patel acknowledge, they aren’t.

It’s worth pausing on this point for a moment. Klotzbach clearly explained the data to Dance and Patel. They clearly understood it. And yet they softened and buried Kotzbach’s debunking of their headline claim as though it were a quibble.

I emailed Dance and Patel and asked about their reporting decisions, and a Washington Post spokesperson responded with an email that said, “We stand by our reporting on the unusually high number of major hurricanes to make landfall along the U.S. in recent years and which experience rapid intensification, sometimes shortly before landfall. Studies referenced in the article, including analysis by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as work by NOAA have stated the increase in rapid intensification events over the past three to four decades likely cannot be explained by natural variability alone.”

But what she said doesn’t make sense, and contradicts the best-available science. Four decades ago, the 1980s, was a period of historic lows. And the scientific consensus is that natural variability does, in fact, explain the post-1980 increase. “After homogenization,” wrote a team of scientists last year, “increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s. We suggest internal (e.g., Atlantic multidecadal) climate variability and aerosol-induced mid-to-late-20th century major hurricane frequency reductions have probably masked century-scale greenhouse-gas warming contributions to North Atlantic major hurricane frequency.” [emphasis added]

Whether it is a case of poor journalism or deliberate deception, The Washington Post should issue a retraction or correction.

Part 1 of 2

 

[marsh]

Part 2 of 2

What about the article in The New York Times, by-lined by David Leonhardt, which claims that "strong storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic Ocean”? What about its graph, which shows a trend of rising category 4 and 5 storms starting in 1980?

The 1970s and 1980s are well-understood to be the low point in hurricane activity in the 20th Century. In a paper titled “Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century,” which Nature Communications published last year, scientists wrote, “the inactive period in the late 20th century may have been the most inactive period in recent centuries.” So, of course, a time series starting in 1980 will show increased activity.

It is an obviously deliberate and egregiously unprofessional choice.

I have known David for over a decade and know that he can be a careful reporter when he chooses to be. He did some of the most honest reporting for The New York Times on Covid. He won Pulitzers in 2010 and 2011. I emailed David to ask what made him decide to cherry-pick those dates; I have not heard back. Whatever the case, The New York Times should retract or correct the article.

It is notable that journalists twist themselves into pretzels to create the impression that hurricanes are increasing in frequency and intensity without ever acknowledging the data showing that they are not. A simple graph of U.S. landfalls shows that. And yet no major media outlet has ever, to my knowledge, published it.

Consider my on-line interaction with Ginger Zee, chief meteorologist and managing editor of the climate unit of ABC News. In a tweet I wrote, “I have not seen a single mainstream news media outlet mention any of this,” in reference to the NOAA forecast of declining frequency and increasing intensity of hurricanes.

Responded Zee, “We have! Global cyclone frequency down, studies show you need the difference in cold and warm as you go up, & all warming, so less cyclone starts(cyclone is general term for hurricane/typhoon), HOWEVER, once they do start, better chance of rapidly intensifying w/ warmer ocean water.”

I responded, “Ginger, how do you justify the ABC headline given NOAA’s explicit statement that “data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in… the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes”?”

She responded, “That article is Referencing this Noaa study: https://gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/… , @KentonGewecke & @RobMarciano covered this weekend on GMA…We are also all aware of confidence in relationship to CC.”

I replied, “Thanks, Ginger, but that doesn’t answer my question. Do you think the ABC headline, which implies hurricanes *are* intensifying, is accurate, given NOAA’s insistence that such claims can’t be made?”

She didn’t respond. However, Zee made clear that she and her colleagues Kenton Gewecke and Rob Marciano were aware of the NOAA web page that warns that there is no evidence of increasing hurricane frequency or intensity.

How she responded after that seemed indicative of much of the media coverage, which is to pivot away from the cold hard facts and towards presenting speculation and hypothesis as certain. And indeed, when you read through media coverage of climate change, you often find reporters emphasizing that they can’t entirely attribute any given hurricane to climate change, only that “climate change makes such events more likely.”

But such statements are a dodge. The reason we can’t attribute trends in hurricanes to climate change is that since reliable records started being kept the data indicates that hurricanes aren’t increasing in either frequency or intensity — full stop. To suggest that “climate change makes stronger hurricanes more likely or frequent” inappropriately misleads listeners and readers to believe that hurricanes are growing more likely or frequent.

As such, it’s clear that reporters are deliberately seeking to convince their readers and listeners of the false impression that hurricanes are becoming more frequent and intense. Many reporters do so in a subtle way, like ABC’s Zee, while others are more direct about it, like the FT’s Williams

Moreover, these “mistakes” are occurring within a larger context of excluding relevant information, including what I view as the three biggest findings about the relationship between climate change and disasters:

1. deaths from natural disasters have declined dramatically over many decades;
2. costs from natural disasters have also declined as a proportion of our exposure;
3. the frequency of natural disasters is declining this century.
   Share

The Climate Alarmists’ War on Scientists​

​

In 2018, John Podesta (left) and his Center for American Progress launched a campaign of character assassination against leading climate and hurricane researcher Roger Pielke, Jr. (right)

The final piece of evidence that journalists are aware of the fact that hurricanes are becoming neither more frequent nor more intense comes from the vicious war waged against the most important and most outspoken scientist in the field, Roger Pielke, Jr.

University of Colorado scientist Pielke, Jr. in the late 1990s literally invented the method of “normalizing” the cost of hurricanes to account for a rising population, buildings, and wealth as the factors capable of explaining all of the rising cost of hurricanes, which meant that he and his colleagues discovered that there was no evidence that climate change was so far detectable in the escalating costs of hurricane disasters.

Pielke, Jr. has for a quarter-century been a strong advocate for strong action on climate change. But because his scientific work on hurricanes undermines climate alarmism, progressive activists and Democrats in Congress and the White House have vilified him. In 2008, the Center for American Progress, led by John Podesta, the former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, joined in on a shockingly vicious and personal series of attacks on Pielke, including falsely claiming he was funded by fossil fuel interests.

All of these efforts were plainly aimed at discrediting Pielke, Jr., to journalists. They triggered an enormous quantity of media coverage which culminated in a 2014 effort by CAP to get Pielke, Jr. fired as a columnist for Nate Silver’s website, fivethirtyeight.com, after it published an article by Pielke, Jr. summarizing the science showing no increase in hurricane frequency or intensity.

Pielke, Jr. then wrote about the experience of being canceled by fivethirtyeight.com in The Wall Street Journal in 2016. I wrote about the attacks in Apocalypse Never, in a viral article I wrote introducing the book, and again last week. Every senior editor, producer, or reporter working in a mainstream news media outlet knows about the debate over Pielke, Jr.’s work, and the fact base behind it.

Roger has responded to these attacks, which have undermined his professional career, and intimidated his colleagues, many of whom behaved with the cowardice typical of academics today, with grace and dignity. He is a model of courage in public life. You can support him by taking a moment now to subscribe to his excellent, must-read Substack.

I asked Roger whether he thought most reporters knew that hurricanes are not increasing in frequency and intensity, and were choosing to present information aimed at giving readers the opposite impression. He pointed to the graphs showing no change, and even a slight decline, in landfalling hurricanes and in major hurricanes.

“We should ask why the data in these graphs have never appeared in the mainstream media,” he said. “Journalists should understand that by playing things straight with their readers and the public, more trust is gained in their work and in climate science more generally. People are not fools and won’t be tricked for long. Good science always wins in the end, even if it takes a little while.”

It’s one thing for a journalist to accuse his fellow journalists of getting something wrong; it’s quite another to accuse them of deliberately misleading the public. The former is understandable and forgivable. We all make mistakes.

But to deliberately mislead the public is a violation of the duty of the journalist to report basic facts accurately. To accuse a journalist of deliberately misleading the public is to accuse him or her of lying. I recognize that it’s a very serious charge.

But it is time to state the obvious. The media are consciously and deliberately misleading the public about the relationship between climate change and hurricanes. That means they are lying. Mainstream news reporters, and their editors, at The Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, and other outlets know perfectly well that hurricanes are not increasing in either frequency or intensity and have decided to mislead readers and viewers into believing the opposite.

It’s time for that to change.

 

[marsh]

https://www.agweb.com/news/policy/politics/expect-new-wotus-testing-rules-end-2022-according-government-lawyer

Expect New WOTUS Testing Rules by the End of 2022, According to Government Lawyer​

By JIM WIESEMEYER October 4, 2022
Lawyers yesterday tried to challenge the scope of the Clean Water Act, which could limit how much the EPA can protect U.S. waterways.

Several justices appeared ready to reject a key argument put forward by an Idaho couple behind the lawsuit. And the court’s liberals sought a compromise that would retain the government’s authority to regulate wetlands adjacent to lakes, rivers and other waterways.

The case stems from a 2007 property dispute, in which Idaho landowners Michael and Chantell Sackett were told they needed a federal permit to build a home on land they owned because it supposedly contained regulated wetlands.

What's at Stake​

If the court sides with the Idaho property owners, environmental advocates say about half of all wetlands and roughly 60% of streams would no longer be federally protected.

“This case is going to be important for wetlands throughout the country, and we have to get it right,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said during the nearly two-hour argument on the opening day of the court’s term.

SCOTUS last term restricted the EPA’s authority to curb emissions from power plants.

In the Heat of the Argument ​

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito Jr. expressed the most skepticism about how broadly the government defines wetlands subject to regulation, offering targeted questions for the government’s lawyer, Brian H. Fletcher.

Gorsuch asked, “How does any reasonable person know … whether or not their land” is covered? Is the property subject to regulation if it is located three miles or two miles from waters subject to federal jurisdiction. Fletcher responded that there are not “bright-line rules,” but limits and government manuals that explain the process. Gorsuch then asked, “So, if the federal government doesn’t know, how is a person subject to criminal time in federal prison supposed to know?”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back against suggestions that the regulations were unfair to the Sacketts or would likely result in criminal liability.

“Shouldn’t they have gathered information about the property prior to purchasing?” Jackson asked the Sacketts’ attorney. “You say the question is which wetlands are covered, which I agree with,” she said. “But I guess my question is, why would Congress draw the coverage line between abutting wetlands and neighboring wetlands when the objective of the statute is to ensure the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters?”

WOTUS Boundaries​

A key question in the case, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, is how to determine how far from the water’s edge the Clean Water Act applies.
The court failed to reach consensus in a 2006 case, Rapanos v. United States.

The 9th Circuit relied on the test put forward by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided the deciding vote in that case and said the wetland must have a “significant nexus” to regulated waters. Kennedy, now retired, watched the argument from the front row of the courtroom on Monday, the Washington Post reported.

The Sacketts’ attorney Damien M. Schiff asked the court to embrace the narrow interpretation proposed by Justice Antonin Scalia, the late conservative. Scalia’s definition limits regulation to wetlands with a direct “continuous surface connection” to “navigable waters.” Schiff said a wetland can be regulated only “to the extent that it blends into and thus becomes indistinguishable from an abutting water” and that the physical connection is essential.

“I’m not sure that’s right,” Roberts said. “You would readily say that a train station is adjacent to the tracks even though it’s not touching the tracks.”
Kavanaugh noted that presidents in both political parties had consistently interpreted the law to give the government jurisdiction over wetlands separated from water by dunes, berms and other barriers.

“Why did seven straight administrations not agree with you?” he asked Schiff.

New WOTUS Rules By Year-End​

Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor pressed lawyers on both sides about the possibility of a new test for figuring out which wetlands are covered.

“As you can probably tell, some of my colleagues are dubious that this is a precise enough definition of adjacency to survive,” Sotomayor told the government’s lawyer. “Is there another test that could be more precise and less open-ended?”

By the end of the year, the Biden administration is expected to issue new rules that Fletcher told the court will “provide greater clarity to the regulated public on all parts of the test.”

Bottom line​

While the court did not signal a clear outcome during its questioning, the current court has a history of looking skeptically at the federal government’s claim of regulatory authority over the environment when its powers are not clearly defined by law.

The three most conservative justices seemed to want to pare back the government’s environmental authority, while the court’s three more liberal members appeared to favor an expansive view. Some of the other justices sent mixed signals.

(COMMENT: Original jurisdiction was to regulate Interstate Commerce, the feds had jurisdiction over the continued navigability of interstate navigable streams. The states had jurisdiction over other bodies of water and have their own rules on littoral rights, etc. Federal water quality regulation related to navigability, not ecosystems or drinking water. Little by little, this expanded to wetlands, prairie potholes, water bodies that entered into streams that emptied into rivers that emptied into navigable streams.)

 

[marsh]

https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/low-mississippi-water-levels-growing-concern-us-exports-and-basis-levels

Low Mississippi Water Levels a Growing Concern for U.S. Exports and Basis Levels at and After Harvest​

By MICHELLE ROOK October 4, 2022

Video on website 2:46 min

As if agricultural shippers did not have enough supply chain challenges, there is current and growing concern related to the diminished water levels along the inland waterway system that will impact barge transportation. Due to the scarcity of precipitation throughout the year, the water depth along U.S. waterways is limiting the efficiency of barge transportation in two ways – channel depth and channel width. For farmers that can negatively impact cash basis levels and their ability to export during and after harvest.

Low water levels on the Mississippi River are of particular concern in the area south of St. Louis. Barge companies are having load barges lighter to prevent groundings, which have already occurred. Mike Steenhoek, Soy Transportation Coalition Executive Director says, "One foot less of water level will result in you having to lighter load that barge with 5000 fewer bushels of soybeans. And then when you consider that a single barge can accommodate easily 50,000 bushels of soybeans you’re looking at a 10% reduction."

The width of the barges is also down from the normal 40, to a maximum of 25.

This a concern for farmers like Mike Korth of Randolph, Nebraska, who are in the midst of harvest. "Depth of the barge and now they’re even talking width of the barges which I’ve never heard before. But they’re going to have to narrower because the water level is so low that you know they don’t want to ground them. You ground one of them and you’ve got problems," he says.

Steenhoek says with the lower volume the barges have to make more turns and that has pushed freight rates up over last fall as well. He says, "From this period last year barge rates have increased 41% if you’re loading a barge in the middle part of the Mississippi River between Minneapolis St. Paul and St. Louis."

Slowing barge traffic is already having an impact on cash grain prices and soybean basis around St. Louis plummeted last week. Matt Bennett, AgMarket.Net says, "You saw bean basis go down 50 to 60-cents on soybeans depending on which terminal you were talking about. You know there’s a lot of issues because you can’t float barges that are full down the river and with that being the case you know it just increases costs for everyone to move less bushels."

And basis could be impacted for some time according to Allison Thompson, with The Money Farm, "We could see basis definitely get wider if they don’t see any relief and I don’t think they will." And Unfortunately, precipitation over the next month is expected to be limited – further exacerbating the shipping challenges and export concerns.

USDA’s weekly export inspections will be the key thing to watch in the weeks ahead to see how much the low river levels are impacting new crop export shipments from the U.S.

 

[marsh]

Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Oct 4, 2022 at 8:25pm
America Under Attack — Alex Jones, Steve Bannon — millions more
05 October 2022
Republic of Ireland

Am watching from Ireland as fascism grows for now across America. And fascists say, “Hold my beer while I douse myself in gasoline and dance around the fire and burn the Constitution.”

 

[marsh]

Biden Regime Paid $12 Million to Censor Political Opponents on 'Enemies List,' Interfere in Elections: Documents

"I’m on the EIP’s list with@charliekirk11, @RepMTG, @DonaldJTrumpJr, @JackPosobiec & more. I was censored while I ran for Congress"...

thekylebecker.substack.com

Biden Regime Paid $12 Million to Censor Political Opponents on 'Enemies List,' Interfere in Elections: Documents

"I’m on the EIP’s list with@charliekirk11, @RepMTG, @DonaldJTrumpJr, @JackPosobiec & more. I was censored while I ran for Congress"...

Kyle Becker
38 min ago

The Department of Homeland Security paid $12 million to a consortium of private actors to censor President Joe Biden's political opponents and engage in election interference on social media platforms.

The bombshell report was revealed by Robby Starbuck, who had made a bid for U.S. Congress in Tennessee's House District 5, before running into opposition from the Republican Party to appear on the GOP primary ballot.

"THREAD: DHS coordinated with a group called the 'Election Integrity Partnership'" to censor Biden’s opponents. I’m on the EIP’s list with @charliekirk11, @RepMTG, @DonaldJTrumpJr, @JackPosobiec & more. I was censored while I ran for Congress. Biden’s regime paid EIP groups 12M+!" Starbuck wrote in a Twitter thread.

"For all of us this was a gross violation of our rights and a blatantly illegal act by the US Government. In my specific case this was state sponsored election interference. In this thread I’ll explain who’s involved and what they did. They crossed lines that can’t be uncrossed. This is who makes up the EIP":

• Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO)
• University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public
• Atlantic Council's DFR Lab
• Analytics firm Graphika

"Screenshots below show the grant $ each of them received from the Biden Admin."



"The simplest way to explain the way the EIP works is to compare it to something you already know," Starbuck went on. "You know how the CIA & DOD use contractors to fight battles they don’t want to be seen fighting in an official capacity? That’s essentially the EIP but acting as a Ministry of Truth.

How it worked: DHS, the State Department, the DNC, Common Cause and the NAACP would file tickets with the EIP on posts or people they wanted censored. The EIP did the dirty work of going to Big Tech. @jsolomonReports breaks it down perfectly in this piece. (justthenews.com/government/fed…)

That’s how easy they made it. DHS, the DNC and others just filed a ticket with the EIP who then acted as their messenger to demand Big Tech take action on the posts or people flagged by the United States Government or the DNC and their report shows Big Tech delivered for them. The EIP created what’s been called an 'enemies list' of a select group they branded as misinformation in need of censorship. I was one of them & have the distinction of being the only one who was running for Congress while the EIP worked to censor us on behalf of the government."



"Some context: I announced my run for Congress in Nov. of 2020. The EIP operation lasted through 2021. That means that they worked to censor and malign a Congressional candidate on behalf of the US government and the Democratic Party. Sadly, they were successful. Let me explain…," he added. "During the course of the EIP’s communication with Big Tech, my accounts on IG & Twitter were put on a search ban which remains to this day & thousands wrote that Twitter made their accounts unfollow me. This was clear election interference and an in kind donation to my opponents."

"Here’s another great @jsolomonReports piece that breaks this down in even more detail." he went on. "They didn’t just do it to me, they did it to @RepMTG and other enemies of the Biden regime too. The damages for all of us and for our country are incalculable. (justthenews.com/government/con…) This thread is already getting long but if anyone really wants to get their wheels turning, look up each of the four groups that make up the EIP and you’ll find the insidious ties they have to characters like George Soros."

"Soros for example is a donor to the Atlantic Council," he noted. "Remember: This coordination, the grant money, the enemies list, the election interference and the people involved is what we know BEFORE discovery in any lawsuits. Imagine the facts AFTER… Speaking of discovery, you know who else was on the list? My lawyer @pnjaban."

"My family came from Cuba where Marxists have enemies lists to target and silence opponents they fear most, economic ruin, a committee that removes candidates from ballots, fraudulent elections + total control of media, academia and culture. Sound familiar?"

"This is the road to hell we’re on forever if we don’t stand up together to this modern day communist regime masquerading as 'Democrats'. The government crossed an unprecedented line by coordinating to censor Americans and interfere in an election to keep me out of Congress. Every move they made to stop me and others on the list was an attack on you, your vote and our values as a nation," he added. "I haven’t yet begun to fight these communists and I suspect I’m not alone. These communists can delay the inevitable but it’s still inevitable. The people will win."

John Solomon's report at Just the News provides more context:

The Election Integrity Partnership is back in action again for the 2022 midterm elections, raising concerns among civil libertarians that a chilling new form of public-private partnership to evade the First Amendment's prohibition of government censorship may be expanding.

The consortium is comprised of four member organizations: Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, and social media analytics firm Graphika. It set up a concierge-like service in 2020 that allowed federal agencies like Homeland's Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and State's Global Engagement Center to file "tickets" requesting that online story links and social media posts be censored or flagged by Big Tech.

Three liberal groups — the Democratic National Committee, Common Cause and the NAACP — were also empowered like the federal agencies to file tickets seeking censorship of content. A Homeland-funded collaboration, the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, also had access.

This is not America. It is a far more egregious attack on citizens' Constitutional rights than anything that happened under the Trump administration. There must be accountability before the free country we grew up in is gone forever.

 

[marsh]

The German Pandemic is Over

In fact it ended months ago; it remains only for people to notice.

www.eugyppius.com

The German Pandemic is Over​

In fact it ended months ago; it remains only for people to notice.​

eugyppius
11 hr ago

These must be strange times for the virus hysterics among us. The propaganda machine is still plugged in and churning out verbiage. Maybe it’s not quite as loud or insistent as it was before, maybe it has little more of an auto-generated feel, but the messaging is there for anyone who wants it:

There’s a new scary subvariant!

The Fall wave is coming!

The hospitals are filling up!

More and more, though, all this feels like a radio playing in an empty room. If Fall infections are such a problem and packed indoor spaces are so dangerous, why did they let Oktoberfest happen? If masks are so important, why did Germany drop the requirement in airplanes? (And why do we still have to wear them on trains?) Even worse for the true believers, every time one of these dumb rules is retired, it’s an occasion for celebration.

To everyone who spent the last years believing that masking and hiding at home and constantly testing were the only ways to lead a minimally decent moral life – sorry about that. Joke’s on you.

 

[marsh]

The Musk Peace Plan for Ukraine and Russia is both practical and sound

Peace is the prize.

dossier.substack.com

The Musk Peace Plan for Ukraine and Russia is both practical and sound​

Peace is the prize.​

Jordan Schachtel
13 hr ago

There seems to be no end in sight to the Ukraine-Russia war, which is being fueled largely by global powers that are increasing the chances for spillover conflict. Concerns are mounting about the potential use of nuclear weapons, as the war continues with no end in sight. Additionally, the casualty count is soaring, resulting in a continuing humanitarian disaster among the Russian and Ukrainain peoples. With world governments pumping billions of dollars on a weekly basis into facilitating this perpetual conflict, it seems that it is past time to consider bringing the peacemakers to the table.

On Monday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk decided to tweet a proposed outline for a plan that could result in the end of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.



Unsurprisingly, it has ignited fury in the twittersphere, and throughout the global press, especially among the forces that seek the continuation of the war at all costs. Major figures like Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky weighed in and leveled serious accusations against Musk, who just months ago, donated tens of millions of dollars worth of Starlink satellite equipment to the Ukrainian government.







Beyond the major noise generated by the forces for never-ending warfare, however, is the reality that the Musk Peace Plan is both practical and sound.
We can break down the peace plan into three major items:

1. Crimea officially becomes Russian again
2. Independent referendum verification
3. Ukraine remains neutral (a buffer state between Russia and NATO)

Let’s start with Crimea.
Ukraine’s chances of retaking Crimea are slim to none. And even in the miraculous event that their forces secure the strategically important plot of land, they would be met by a civilian population that is completely hostile to Kiev rule.



An overwhelming majority of Crimeans want to be Russian, with over 19 out of 20 voting in the past referendum to be governed by Moscow. Independent surveys from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Pew Research, Gallup, and others all came to a similar end result in their survey concerning the legitimacy of the referendum. The people of Crimea want nothing to do with the state of Ukraine. A successful Ukrainian effort to take back Crimea from Russia would not result in some kind of humanitarian victory, but just the opposite in the form of incredible human suffering.

It’s time to accept that Crimea, which was “gifted” to Ukraine (as part of a Soviet satellite network) six decades ago, is currently part of Russia, and should remain that way. And if we believe in the principle of self government, it’s always worth considering which government is preferred by the people who actually live in these territories.

Speaking of self government, this is a good time to transition to another part of the Musk peace plan labeled as contentious, which has sparked fury in the Ukraine absolutist camp.

Similar to the Crimea referendum, the results of the most recent referendums on the border region saw citizens voting overwhelmingly to become part of Russia.

As for his second leg of the peace plan, the SpaceX founder wants international observers (Musk proposes the U.N.) to run a separate referendum to assess the legitimacy of the elections.

This is the part of the Musk Peace Plan that upsets both the Russian side and the Ukrainian side of the debate. The Russians feel these local referendums were legitimate, and the Ukrainians don’t want to even entertain the idea of potentially losing more territory to independent elections.

This again goes back to the principle of self government, and defending what is best for the people who actually live in the region. Similar to the Crimea referendum, the results of the various border region referendums came as a shock to westerners who only consume western media sources. This bias is coupled by the consensus accusation among internationalist western governments that the votes were rigged in Russia’s favor.

So let’s find a handful of independent bodies, similar to the effort of the Crimea referendum post-analysis surveys, to go in and talk to these people. Sure, the United Nations might not be the best entity to get the job done, but the general idea of verifying a claimed consensus and bolstering self government is sound.

Third, Musk is proposing that Ukraine remain a neutral entity.
This should be understood as the least controversial aspect of the Musk Peace Plan, as it aligns with Ukraine’s history as a neutral entity that has elected both pro-Russia and pro-NATO politicians. Specifically, neutrality for Ukraine must mean that the country’s leaders cannot commit to joining international security alliances on either side of the geopolitical tug-of-war. Joining NATO or a proposed Russian bloc security alliance is a non-starter. In recent history, Ukraine has successfully operated as a buffer state between East and West, and that buffer has served to thwart the prospect of hostile major powers clashing on a major border.

Peace is not profitable, and certainly not the ideal result to the primary stakeholders involved in the Russia-Ukraine war, but it is for sure the preferable outcome for the rest of humanity. It’s time to seriously consider the Musk Peace Plan as a roadmap for stability in a region that desperately needs to turn down the temperature.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsJ9YbubUQE
11;59

Central Banks Do Not Want You To Know This (PM recommendations)​

The Economic Ninja

The Economic Ninja Talks About Central Banks Do Not Want You To Know This

(Central Banks and countries buying physical gold.)

^^^^^

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Central Banks Add Gold For Fifth Straight Month​

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 03:30 AM
Via SchiffGold.com,

Central banks globally added to their net gold holdings for the fifth consecutive month in August, according to the latest data released by the World Gold Council.

On net, central banks added 20 more tons of gold to their reserves. Three banks drove buying in August and there were no notable sellers.

So far this year, central banks have added over 300 tons of gold to their goldings.

Turkey was the biggest buyer in August and has added more gold than any other country in 2022 to date. With its 8.9-ton purchase in August, Turkey has increased its gold reserves by 84 tons year-to-date. Turkey now holds 478 tons of gold between its central bank and treasury holdings, the highest level since Q2 2020.

Uzbekistan added 8.7 tons to its reserves in August, roughly the same amount as the previous five months. This brings its y-t-d net purchases to over 19 tons despite having begun the year by selling almost 25 tons in the first quarter. Gold reserves account for just over 60% of Uzbek’s total reserves.

After being the only notable seller in July, Kazakhstan bought 2 tons of gold in August. Total Kazakh gold reserves stand now just shy of 375 tons, down almost 28 tons since the start of the year. It is not uncommon for banks that buy from domestic production – such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan – to switch between buying and selling.

Mexico and Serbia both made small 0.1-ton purchases in August.

Qatar was the biggest gold buyer in July with an addition of 14.8 tons added to its reserves. Preliminary data published by the Qatar Central Bank suggests a further addition to its gold reserves during August, but the data has not been reported but the IMF IFS database. The WGC said it decided to exclude the Qatar purchase from their data until the IMF reports the official numbers.

India’s lack of gold purchases in August was notable. India had been buying gold consistently for months. India now owns 781 tons of gold, ranking it as the ninth largest gold-holding country in the world. Since resuming buying in late 2017, the Reserve Bank of India has purchased over 200 tons of gold. In August 2020, there were reports that the RBI was considering significantly raising its gold reserves.

Central banks purchase a net 270 tons of gold through the first half of the year. This fell in line with the five-year H1 average of 266 tons.

“This is a continuation of the strong buying that we saw last year and we now expect full-year central bank demand for 2022 to be on a par with 2021 levels,” a World Gold Council report said.

Central banks added 463 tons of gold to global reserves in 2021. That was 82% higher than in 2020.

A WGC survey found that “gold’s performance during a time of crisis and its role as a long-term store of value/inflation hedge are key determinants in the decisions of central banks to hold it.”

Last year was the 12th consecutive year of net purchases. Over that time, central banks have bought a net total of 5,692 tons of gold.

After record years in 2018 and 2019, central bank gold-buying slowed in 2020 with net purchases totaling about 273 tons. The lower rate of purchases in 2020 was expected given the strength of central bank buying both in 2018 and 2019. The economic chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic has also impacted the market.

Central bank demand came in at 650.3 tons in 2019. That was the second-highest level of annual purchases for 50 years, just slightly below the 2018 net purchases of 656.2 tons. According to the WGC, 2018 marked the highest level of annual net central bank gold purchases since the suspension of dollar convertibility into gold in 1971, and the second-highest annual total on record.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fsd4WALY8Y
19:23 min

Life Will Simply STOP! Europe Facing FREEZING Winter Without Energy​

Neil McCoy-Ward

((No summary given. Have not watched.)

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mttpnpBdx24
23:56 min (starts at
1:40 min)

The Globalist Created New Dark Age​

Oct 4, 2022

Operation Freedom

In this week's edition of Dave Vs The MSM, Dr. Dave takes an objective look at a number of critically important current events. He takes a look at why several geopolitical and economic events may be related, and what you need to know about them.
(No real summary given. Have not watched.)

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSl3JkM-4O0
19:38 min

People Flee Cities En Masse As Woke Liberals & Corporations Destroy Cities​

Timcast IRL

Guest: Benny Johnson - Host, The Benny Show

 

[marsh]

"When Will They Learn?" | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

"When Will They Learn?"

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 07:45 PM
Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Dependency upon government is a disease. Once it has been caught, it becomes chronic and does not reverse itself in a population until the system collapses under its own weight.

For many years, frustrated colleagues of mine who are either conservative or libertarian have posed the rhetorical question, “When will those liberals learn?”

Surely, at some point (they reason), liberals will recognise that bailouts, entitlements, and a “planned” society simply do not work. It’s not even a question of whether liberalism is a laudable concept. The problem is that it just… doesn’t… work.

Of course, my colleagues are correct in their appraisal of the liberal concept. Unfortunately, they are gravely mistaken in their belief that there comes a point at which the liberal “bubble” pops and suddenly all liberals wake up and smell the coffee.

Truth be told, as long as governments can benefit from maintaining a strong liberal consciousness in their citizenry, and as long as they can count on the media to maintain that consciousness, it will always be possible to convince liberal thinkers that, whatever negative events have taken place in a given country, they are the fault of the “enemy”—the non-liberal contingent.

But, surely, when there is clear-cut evidence that liberal policies have failed, liberals must accept that liberalism is an economic and social dead end. No, I’m afraid not. Let’s look at how just three examples are likely to play out—not as we’d like to see them play out, but how they will play out in reality.

When the bailouts end, the economy will collapse. Liberals will then grasp that bailouts do not work. Not so, I’m afraid. Although endless QE is as implausible as perpetual motion, when it is finally halted, the economy will inevitably crash, and crash badly—made worse by QE. Will liberals then realise the failure of QE? No, they will only argue that the only problem was that it was halted—that, had it continued, it would eventually have saved the day.

No liberal will hazard a guess as to what amount of QE or length of time would have created salvation; however, the blame for the crash will be placed squarely at the feet of the greedy One Percent, whom the liberals will say “engineered the end of QE in order to impoverish and enslave the middle class.” Liberals will be more committed than ever to government spending as a solution.

When cities such as Bradford in the UK or Detroit in the US reach fiscal collapse, liberals will realise that ever-increasing entitlements are simply not sustainable, that such tax-based benefit programmes drive out thriving industries, leaving the poor behind, in a dying metropolis. Again, this will not happen. Instead of learning the obvious lesson, liberals will redouble their belief in collectivism. They will reason that the government had successfully protected inner city workers through benefit programmes. However, big business, wanting to create slaves of workers, sent jobs overseas, to countries where enslavement by the rich is still possible.

By doing so, they removed tax dollars from the system, causing the impoverishment of inner-city dwellers, destroying their lives. Rather than abandon social programmes as ineffective, liberals will set about creating massive relocation programmes, such as moving the disenfranchised inner-city people to areas where there is sufficient local business for taxation to continue supporting those on public assistance. In so doing, those areas that were previously economically viable will also be bled to the point of fiscal failure, spreading the disease. However, the liberal conclusion will remain the same: “The problem is the greedy rich.”

When the government has fully morphed into a dictatorial police state, liberals will realise that governmental overreach has destroyed their liberty. Again, this will not be the liberal view when the time comes. Instead, they will conclude, as they do now, that freedom is a small price to pay for safety. They will, therefore, not only accept, but encourage the government to redouble its Gestapo approach every time a lone gunman fires into a classroom. And any single such incident will be cause for a nationwide ramping-up of policing. (If no lone gunman appears on the scene just prior to a planned ramping-up, a suitable incident can always be created by the government.)

In each of the above cases, nothing is learned by liberals, except that they were right all along: “Don’t trust the conservatives. They are evil and will destroy all good in society.”

These three examples should be sufficient to demonstrate that there will be no magic day when liberals figure out the failings of collectivism. In fact, quite the opposite will be true. Just as any government benefits from its own expansion of power, so governments and the media propaganda systems will ensure good that the EU and US will only become more liberal over time.

Throughout history, a basic truism has been evident: Dependency upon government is a disease. Once it has been caught, it becomes chronic and does not reverse itself in a population until the system collapses under its own weight.

A good example of this is East Germany in the early 1990’s. In 1987, US President Reagan famously delivered the words in Berlin, “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” His words were heard so loudly that Mister Gorbachev did, indeed, tear down the wall. Almost immediately, West Berliners, thrilled to be reunited with their brothers to the East, created thousands of job opportunities for East Germans. East Germans were equally thrilled, anticipating that they might now have larger apartments, higher pay, and possibly own televisions and cars. However, East Germans did not respond well to the standards of the West, feeling that employers were too harsh in their requirements and the benefits were not what they had been used to.

East and west re-unified, but the transition was not a smooth one.

But, before we place all the criticism on liberals, it is well to note that, in both the EU and US, conservatives often tend to be just as dogmatic in their assessments. Whilst conservatives arguably may have a better grasp than liberals as to fiscal realities, they, too, are continuously programmed to adhere to a fixed group of perceptions.

Conservatives and liberals are both programmed to maintain ongoing opposition to each other. Conservatives are perceived as greedy and evil by liberals; liberals are perceived as naïve and stupid by conservatives. The more they can be polarised from each other, the more governments may make use of the polarity as a distraction from their own actions. The more conservatives and liberals place the blame on each other, the more governments may present themselves as the referee, whist, in fact, they do all they can to expand the mutual animosity.

When people are angry, they do not think straight. The angrier they become, the more reason goes out the window. Consequently, the more a government can stir up its minions to attack each other, the more power the government has to impose ever-greater controls on the population. In a conservative administration, a government will institute greater social controls. In the following liberal administration, the government will institute greater economic controls. And the police state will be increased under both administrations.

The net effect is overall increased dominance by government. Under the two-party system, this dominance is not only tolerated by the populace, but encouraged.

The day never comes when a people convince their government to “lighten up.” Relief only comes when an overly-powerful governmental system collapses under its own weight.

 

[marsh]

Nearly Half Of Americans Making Six-Figures Living Paycheck To Paycheck | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Nearly Half Of Americans Making Six-Figures Living Paycheck To Paycheck​

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 05:25 PM

Roughly 60% of Americans say they're living paycheck to paycheck - a figure which hasn't budged much overall from last year's 55% despite inflation hitting 40-year highs, according to a recent LendingClub report.

Even people earning six figures are feeling the strain, with 45% reporting living paycheck to paycheck vs. 38% last year, CNBC reports.

"More consumers living paycheck to paycheck indicates that many are continuing to lose their financial stability," said LendingClub financial health officer, Anuj Nayar.

The consumer price index, which measures the average change in prices for consumer goods and services, rose a higher-than-expected 8.3% in August, driven by increases in food, shelter and medical care costs.

Although real average hourly earnings also rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, they remained down 2.8% from a year ago, which means those paychecks don’t stretch as far as they used to. -CNBC

Meanwhile, Bank of America found that 71% of workers say their income isn't keeping pace with inflation - resulting in a five-year low in terms of financial security.



"It is no secret that prices have been increasing for everyday Americans — not only in the goods and services they purchase but also in the interest rates they’re paying to fund their lives," said Nayar, who noted that people are relying more on credit cards and carry a higher monthly balance, making them financially vulnerable. "This can have detrimental consequences for someone who pays the minimum amount on their credit cards every month."

According to an Aug. 30 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, credit card balances increased by $46 billion from last year, becoming the second-biggest source of overall debt last quarter.



And as Bloomberg noted last month, more US consumers are saddled with credit card debt for longer periods of time. According to a recent survey by CreditCards.com, 60% of credit card debtors have been holding this type of debt for at least a year, up 50% from a year ago, while those holding debt for over two years is up 40%, from 32%, according to the online credit card marketplace.



And while total credit-card balances remain slightly lower than pre-pandemic levels, inflation and rising interest rates are taking a toll on the already-stretched finances of US households.

About a quarter of respondents said day-to-day expenses are the primary reason why they carry a balance. Almost half cite an emergency or unexpected expense, including medical bills and home or car repair.

The Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates for the fifth time this year next week. Credit-card rates are typically directly tied to the Fed Funds rate, and their increase along with a softening economy may lead to higher delinquencies.

Total consumer debt rose $23.8 billion in July to a record $4.64 trillion, according to data from the Federal Reserve. -Bloomberg

The Fed's figures include credit card and auto debt, as well as student loans, but does not factor in mortgage debt.

 

[marsh]

(Canada)

Is Canada On The Verge Of A Political Revolution? | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Is Canada On The Verge Of A Political Revolution?​

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 04:25 PM
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

Canada like many other countries may be on the cusp of a political revolution. To the chagrin of the mainstream media in Canada, Pierre Poilievre has been elected the leader of Canada's Conservative opposition party. As a result of his win, attacks on Poilievre have dramatically increased. He has been declared as "dangerous" and even reckless. In short, Canadian media is busy painting him as a mini Donald Trump.

In what is seen as a move to appease many of his critics Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently declared an end to Canada's vaccine mandate. This includes the policy of requiring travelers entering Canada to provide their vaccine passports and a slew of other restrictions and requirements. This took effect on September 30th and was considered partly in response to the growing threat of the populist sentiment popping up in Canada. Many Canadians had come to view Trudeau's vaccine dictate as overtly authoritarian, it reeked of government overreach and Gestapo-style tactics.


The Poilievre surge has resulted in Canada's mainstream media ramping up the fear factor by declaring Poilievre's recent win as dangerous. Some of the recent headlines, such as the one to the left put out by the Toronto Star, leave little question as to the color of paint they wish to use. The headline in the Tyee was also unkind, it read, "Pierre Poilievre Is a Symptom of the Conservative's Sickness"

The surge in Canada is occurring at the same time the populist movement is strengthening in several other countries. For instance, in Italy, Giorgia Meloni's right-wing bloc is celebrating a historic victory and its clear majority. Meloni's victory came despite European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen threatening to bring the EU mechanism to bear against Italy if Italian voters placed Giorgia Meloni in power.

Even after the threat, the latest election in Italy resulted in a landslide win for the conservative coalition and Italy's first woman prime minister. Following her win, Georgia Meloni, gave a rousing victory speech that directly exposed the far-left invasion of western nations, globalism, and the poisonous collusion with woke corporations to silence dissent. Meloni called for a return to freedom, and the response from the media was to call her a “fascist.”

Meloni Called For A Return To Freedom​

A two-minute video of a Meloni speech went viral as the votes in Italy were being counted. In it, the new Italian Prime Minister eloquently describes that Italians and human beings, in general, are not mere identity-less consumers and economic playthings of the ivory tower technocrat class. Apparently, her attitude resonated with voters that have simply had enough.



Meloni's win is just a small part of an ongoing trend. It should also be noted that in this year’s municipal elections in the Czech Republic the populist ANO party, led by former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, came in first in eight of 13 regional capitals. Babiš, considered a close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, narrowly lost the Czech national elections in 2021. These latest numbers indicate that his party is clawing back voters due to a souring economy and growing cost-of-living crisis.

Opinion polls, controlled by the mainstream media, often understate the strength of right-wing candidates. Another place where the same populist dynamic has flared up is Brazil. On Sunday, President Jair Bolsonaro's numbers far exceeded pollsters' consensus. Heading into the election a major poll pointed to former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva winning by a 14% margin. In the end, Lula only received 48.4% of the votes forcing the two men into a run-off election on Oct 30. At this point, it seems that momentum is on Bolsanaro's side.

While political leaders like Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden strut around on the media stage accusing ideological opponents of being "enemies of democracy and dangerous," their mostly conservative rivals talk about restoring power to the people. What could be more democratic than that? We can only hope enough of those people that feel their country is headed down the wrong path wake up and question what they are being told.

The one thing Poilievre, Meloni, and most of the politicians spouting populist or conservative messages have in common is that they are hated and branded as dangerous by the mainstream media. It could be argued that much of this is rooted in the fact these politicians denounce all notions the globalist elites should be allowed to expand their power and rule. In short, they are willing to swim against the tide.

 

[marsh]

Roubini: The Stagflationary Debt Crisis Is Here | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Roubini: The Stagflationary Debt Crisis Is Here

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 02:25 PM
Authored by Nouriel Roubini via Project Syndicate,

The Great Moderation has given way to the Great Stagflation, which will be characterized by instability and a confluence of slow-motion negative supply shocks. US and global equities are already back in a bear market, and the scale of the crisis that awaits has not even been fully priced in yet.

For a year now, I have argued that the increase in inflation would be persistent, that its causes include not only bad policies but also negative supply shocks, and that central banks’ attempt to fight it would cause a hard economic landing. When the recession comes, I warned, it will be severe and protracted, with widespread financial distress and debt crises. Notwithstanding their hawkish talk, central bankers, caught in a debt trap, may still wimp out and settle for above-target inflation. Any portfolio of risky equities and less risky fixed-income bonds will lose money on the bonds, owing to higher inflation and inflation expectations.

How do these predictions stack up? First, Team Transitory clearly lost to Team Persistent in the inflation debate. On top of excessively loose monetary, fiscal, and credit policies, negative supply shocks caused price growth to surge. COVID-19 lockdowns led to supply bottlenecks, including for labor. China’s “zero-COVID” policy created even more problems for global supply chains. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves through energy and other commodity markets. And the broader sanctions regime – not least the weaponization of the US dollar and other currencies – has further balkanized the global economy, with “friend-shoring” and trade and immigration restrictions accelerating the trend toward deglobalization.

Everyone now recognizes that these persistent negative supply shocks have contributed to inflation, and the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the US Federal Reserve have begun to acknowledge that a soft landing will be exceedingly difficult to pull off. Fed Chair Jerome Powell now speaks of a “softish landing” with at least “some pain.” Meanwhile, a hard-landing scenario is becoming the consensus among market analysts, economists, and investors.

It is much harder to achieve a soft landing under conditions of stagflationary negative supply shocks than it is when the economy is overheating because of excessive demand. Since World War II, there has never been a case where the Fed achieved a soft landing with inflation above 5% (it is currently above 8%) and unemployment below 5% (it is currently 3.7%). And if a hard landing is the baseline for the United States, it is even more likely in Europe, owing to the Russian energy shock, China’s slowdown, and the ECB falling even further behind the curve relative to the Fed.

Are we already in a recession? Not yet, but the US did report negative growth in the first half of the year, and most forward-looking indicators of economic activity in advanced economies point to a sharp slowdown that will grow even worse with monetary-policy tightening. A hard landing by year’s end should be regarded as the baseline scenario.

While many other analysts now agree, they seem to think that the coming recession will be short and shallow, whereas I have cautioned against such relative optimism, stressing the risk of a severe and protracted stagflationary debt crisis. And now, the latest distress in financial markets – including bond and credit markets – has reinforced my view that central banks’ efforts to bring inflation back down to target will cause both an economic and a financial crash.

I have also long argued that central banks, regardless of their tough talk, will feel immense pressure to reverse their tightening once the scenario of a hard economic landing and a financial crash materializes. Early signs of wimping out are already discernible in the United Kingdom. Faced with the market reaction to the new government’s reckless fiscal stimulus, the BOE has launched an emergency quantitative-easing (QE) program to buy up government bonds (the yields on which have spiked).

Monetary policy is increasingly subject to fiscal capture. Recall that a similar turnaround occurred in the first quarter of 2019, when the Fed stopped its quantitative-tightening (QT) program and started pursuing a mix of backdoor QE and policy-rate cuts – after previously signaling continued rate hikes and QT – at the first sign of mild financial pressures and a growth slowdown. Central banks will talk tough; but there is good reason to doubt their willingness to do “whatever it takes” to return inflation to its target rate in a world of excessive debt with risks of an economic and financial crash.

Moreover, there are early signs that the Great Moderation has given way to the Great Stagflation, which will be characterized by instability and a confluence of slow-motion negative supply shocks. In addition to the disruptions mentioned above, these shocks could include societal aging in many key economies (a problem made worse by immigration restrictions); Sino-American decoupling; a “geopolitical depression” and breakdown of multilateralism; new variants of COVID-19 and new outbreaks, such as monkeypox; the increasingly damaging consequences of climate change; cyberwarfare; and fiscal policies to boost wages and workers’ power.

Where does that leave the traditional 60/40 portfolio? I previously argued that the negative correlation between bond and equity prices would break down as inflation rises, and indeed it has. Between January and June of this year, US (and global) equity indices fell by over 20% while long-term bond yields rose from 1.5% to 3.5%, leading to massive losses on both equities and bonds (positive price correlation).

Moreover, bond yields fell during the market rally between July and mid-August (which I correctly predicted would be a dead-cat bounce), thus maintaining the positive price correlation; and since mid-August, equities have continued their sharp fall while bond yields have gone much higher. As higher inflation has led to tighter monetary policy, a balanced bear market for both equities and bonds has emerged.

But US and global equities have not yet fully priced in even a mild and short hard landing. Equities will fall by about 30% in a mild recession, and by 40% or more in the severe stagflationary debt crisis that I have predicted for the global economy. Signs of strain in debt markets are mounting: sovereign spreads and long-term bond rates are rising, and high-yield spreads are increasing sharply; leveraged-loan and collateralized-loan-obligation markets are shutting down; highly indebted firms, shadow banks, households, governments, and countries are entering debt distress.

The crisis is here.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

South Korea & US Fire 4 Surface-To-Surface Missiles In Rare Response To North's Launch

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 03:38 PM

Update(1838ET): The United States and South Korea have "answered" Tuesday's ultra-provocative North Korean launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile which flew directly over Japan, triggering nationwide emergency alerts warning Japanese citizens to take shelter.

Yonhap news is reporting that allied militaries of S.Korea and the US have now launched 4 surface-to-surface missiles into the East Sea, in a clear and rare "response to the provocation" from Pyongyang, during the overnight hours (local time). There are simultaneous though unconfirmed reports that one of the South Korean missiles may have failed or crashed soon after launch:



Rumors had already been circulating for hours prior to Seoul revealing the new missile launches in response, amid ongoing joint military drills with the US, of a large explosion or fire at the south's Gangneug Airbase.

Could the two be directly related, or coincidence? There's still very little confirmed at this point.




* * *

Hours after North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile that soared over Japan for the first time since 2017, Japanese and US military warplanes carried out a joint exercise in response to Pyongyang's recklessness, according to South China Morning Post, citing Japanese officials.

"As the security environment surrounding Japan grows increasingly severe, including North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile that flew over Japan, the Self-Defence Forces and the US military conducted a joint exercise," the Joint Staff said in a statement.

Eight Japanese and four US fighter jets conducted war drills in airspace west of Kyushu, the southwesternmost of Japan's main islands. There were no further details in the statement about what defensive maneuvers the fighter jets were exercising.

Joint Staff continued: Forces "confirmed their readiness and demonstrated domestically and abroad the strong determination of Japan and the United States to deal with any situation."

Earlier in the day, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held immediate discussions with the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino, about the missile launch.

Ahead of the joint exercise, Kishida told reporters Tokyo and Washington would "conduct a joint drill" to show they're "taking swift action."

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North's missile flew 2,800 miles, hitting an altitude of approximately 603 miles. The missile was launched around 0723 local time on Tuesday from the North's Chagang province, which borders China.

As the missile flew over Japan, reaching speeds of March 17, the government issued warnings for citizens, urging everyone in the country to seek shelter as a ballistic missile was headed their way. The missile flew for 22 minutes and past northern Japan before plunging into the Pacific Ocean.



"This is an outrageous act following the recent repeated launches of ballistic missiles and we strongly denounce it," Kishida said.

North Korea has conducted more than 20 missile tests this year, more than any other year. The Kim Jong Un regime seems angry as they recently rejected denuclearization talks with the US and South Korea.

 

[marsh]

Four States Deploy National Guard to US-Mexico Border

New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Kentucky, and Illinois are deploying several national guard units to the U.S.- Mexico border. ...

www.theepochtimes.com

Four States Deploy National Guard to US-Mexico Border​

By Alice Giordano
October 3, 2022 Updated: October 4, 2022

New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Kentucky, and Illinois are deploying several national guard units to the U.S.- Mexico border.

According to the office of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, the four states are sending 500 soldiers to help secure the border. The units will act under the command of the 941st Military Police Battalion, which already has 44 soldiers in place.

An additional 120 soldiers from the 237th Military Police Company will be deployed to set up surveillance sites along the border to block the laundering of drugs, weapons, and money into the U.S. by Mexican cartels, according to the release.

The units will cover a 250-mile stretch where illegal immigrants have been flooding into the U.S.

Lt. Col. Carla Raisler, director of public affairs for the Kentucky National Guard, told The Epoch Times that she was surprised Sununu released specific details about the deployment.

“Due to the security concerns of where the soldiers are inside the US border, we do not generally release information about the units or the size or their movements for security reasons to keep them and their families safe,” said Raisler.

In echoing Raisler’s position, Major Jarred Rickey of the Rhode Island National Guard told The Epoch Times that he could only confirm that the state is under a recent federal command to deploy National Guard units to the southwest border. He emphasized that it was only a support mission and not part of Operation Lone Star implemented by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, last year.

Lt. Col. Brad Leighton, public affairs officer for the Illinois National Guard, told The Epoch Times that a transportation company was being sent as part of a routine rotation to replace a guard unit that has been in place for several months. It will be withdrawing its aviation detachment this month because its done with its mission at the border, according to Leighton.

Leighton said he couldn’t talk too much about the mission but did say it was specifically to assist border patrol with surveillance.

In August, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a Proclamation For Asylum Seekers declaring the state “a disaster area” based on busloads of immigrants from Central and South America arriving from Texas.

Pritzker, a Democrat, said he declared a state of emergency. In the interest of aiding the people of Illinois and the local governments responsible for ensuring public health, safety, and welfare in the wake of the influx of what he called “asylum seekers” in Illinois.

In his statement about the New Hampshire Guardsmen being deployed, Sununu called the border situation “an ongoing humanitarian crisis.”

While he didn’t elaborate in the statement about the reasons for sending National Guard troops to the border, last week Sununu expressed support for Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s move in September to send 50 illegal border crossers to Martha’s Vineyard. It was a move that set off a hailstorm of criticism against DeSantis, with Democrats calling for his arrest for human trafficking.

Sununu called the New Hampshire guardsmen answering the call to the border “heroic men and women.”

“They answered the call to serve during the COVID pandemic, and are now answering our nation’s call—deploying to the ongoing humanitarian crisis along our southern border,” Sununu said.

According to Sununu, the two New Hampshire National Guard units will remain in place for a year at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The announcement of the deployment comes just weeks after Abbott announced he was reducing the 10,000 national guard soldiers he had in place at the southern border down to 5,000.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly described the status of the Illinois aviation detachment. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

 

[marsh]

Russia To Allow International Trade In Bitcoin, Crypto For Any Industry: Report | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Russia To Allow International Trade In Bitcoin, Crypto For Any Industry: Report

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 10:12 AM
Authored by Shawn Amick via BitcoinMagazine.com,

The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation plans to let any industry in the country to accept bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for international trade without restriction, per a report from local media outlet TASS.

Ivan Chebeskov, director of the Financial Policy Department for the ministry, explained in a recent interview.

"We are going to allow international settlements in cryptocurrencies for any industries without restrictions."

However, though the ministry intends to offer a non-restrictive flow for the acceptance of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, there seems to be a difference of opinion coming from the Bank of Russia.

“[The central bank] is in favor of creating a full-fledged infrastructure for the circulation of digital currencies in Russia,” said Chebeskov.

Thus, while the Ministry of Finance prefers a local approach to the regulation of digital assets, the central bank is pursuing a broader range of regulatory action. Chebeskov detailed that the Ministry of Finance has two primary functions as it relates to the regulation of digital assets for international payments.

"We believe that we need local crypto infrastructure,” said Chebeskov.

“First of all, to protect the interests of citizens.”

“Because now those who trade their digital currencies on crypto exchanges are limited,” Chebeskov continued.

“Secondly, to control when digital currency is used legally and when not.”

Last month, the central bank and the Ministry of Finance agreed on a draft bill that would establish a regulatory framework for the acceptance of digital assets as payment. This decision follows an ongoing debate between the two institutions which has seen multiple draft bills, and even led to President Vladimir Putin expressing his concern that the country not miss an opportunity to use the country’s “advantage” in the ecosystem.

Moreover, the central bank will reportedly begin testing a digital ruble sometime in April 2023. The exchange of the digital ruble for foreign currencies and the opening of digital wallets to non-residents is expected to take place in 2024.

 

[marsh]

KeyBanc Warns Investors Of A "Trucking Winter" Amid Anemic Economic Conditions | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

KeyBanc Warns Investors Of A "Trucking Winter" Amid Anemic Economic Conditions

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 06:45 AM
By Rachel Premack of FreightWaves,

KeyBanc’s Todd Fowler and Carney Blake, who are the group’s airfreight and logistics analysts, wrote in a Thursday note that freight activity has been “seasonally weak.”

There’s been “limited indication” of the typical peak season activity that carriers and shippers expect in the fall as retailers prepare for the holiday season, Fowler and Blake wrote. Weak containerized imports underline the possibility that we won’t have a full peak season.

For public trucking companies, KeyBanc’s team is expecting results for the third quarter and estimates for 2023 to be “weaker.” The team downgraded trucking giants J.B. Hunt and Schneider.

Spot rates have already declined by 30% compared to last year, Fowler and Blake wrote. And now, they’re expecting trucking’s larger contract market to suffer as well — to the tune of mid-single-digit percentage declines.

“[G]iven macro pressures to slow economic demand and the potential related impact on freight activity, we are more inclined to prepare for a ‘trucking winter’ before a ‘trucking spring,’” they wrote.

Some trucking insiders believe the industry is headed for the “Great Purge” or even a “bloodbath.”

Part of that is thanks to unusually high inventory levels at retailers like Target, Kohl’s, Walmart and Amazon. Many retailers appear to have prepared for the holiday season earlier this year, anticipating disruptions in importing goods from manufacturing hubs in East Asia.

However, the growth in consumer demand has slumped from 2021, and it’s left retailers with more stock than they may have anticipated. That means the traditional peak season that carriers experience each fall may be muted.

Meanwhile, spot rates in America’s $800 billion trucking industry have collapsed in 2022. According to the FreightWaves National Truckload Index, spot rates have declined by nearly 33% from the beginning of this year to the beginning of October. Meanwhile, the costs to run a trucking company, particularly fuel spending, have only increased — putting the pressure on small truckers in particular to make ends meet.



This decline is driven both by overcapacity, in which too many truck drivers jumped into the red-hot market of 2021, and softening demand.

Spot rates are now 25%-30% below contract rates, KeyBanc’s analysts wrote. Usually, those rates are 5%-10% above the contract market — and that’s why the team believes contract rates will decline by mid-single digits.

 

[marsh]

"Labor Force Participation" Exemplifies The Foolishness Of Economic Statistics | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

"Labor Force Participation" Exemplifies The Foolishness Of Economic Statistics

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 08:40 AM
Authored by John Tamny via RealClear Wire,

David Thayer is a prominent investor in Philadelphia who formerly served in the military. It’s something he noticed while serving in the military that will be the subject of this write-up.

Thayer was sent to Bosnia at the height of the country’s troubles in the 1990s. Upon landing in the poor and war-torn country, he came across a statistic indicating a level of unemployment in Bosnia that reached well into the double digits. The only problem was that the stat was visibly absurd. As Thayer recalls, every Bosnian was working and the work had an all-the-time quality to it.

What Thayer witnessed in another life came to mind while reading a recent Associated Press report from Afghanistan. The title of the article said it all: “For many poor Afghan kids, school is not an option.” Thayer would understand.

Poverty is rampant in Afghanistan, which means everyone is working.

According to the AP report, “Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty labor of packing mud into molds and hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks.” Nabila is 12 years old, and at 12 is thought to be the oldest of her co-workers. She’s been working in brick factories roughly half of her life.

Such is life in poor countries. Where poverty is immense, the work is never-ending. It’s as simple as that, which is the point. Or should be the point.

This is something to keep in mind when politicians promise to “create jobs,” or they talk about policies that will “create jobs.” They come off as not terribly wise. If job creation were the goal, the solution would be simple: just abolish the internet, cars, and fuel consumption. Everyone would be working, though life would be defined by unrelenting drudgery. We’re talking sheer misery that includes lots of kids working from an early age ahead of a not very long, and not very healthy life.

The simple, rather obvious truth is that the labor force participation rate is logically highest in the poorest parts of the world, and lowest in the richest parts of the world. Remember this the next time you see some self-serious PhD. on CNBC droning on about labor force participation, and bashing this president or that president for overseeing a decline in the rate.

The reality is that low labor force participation is an effect of prosperity. Where growth and soaring wealth inequality are the norm, so is choice about how much to work; including the choice about not working at all.

Where prosperity is abundant it’s frequently the case that mothers or fathers opt out of work of the “job” variety so that they can be home with the kids. As for the kids, work is a distant object made distant by years of schooling, including the four-year party that some refer to as college. While learnedness is a choice made by the educated and uneducated alike, let’s call school and education one of the many brilliant options that is a consequence of wealth creation.

Crucial about wealth creation is that it’s always and everywhere the result of job destruction. Yes, you read that right. It’s where jobs are being destroyed the fastest that prosperity is greatest. Think about it.

What is one of the most powerful constants of prosperous societies? It’s the mechanization of everything. Entrepreneurs frequently become staggeringly rich entrepreneurs by automating work formerly done by humans. What can’t be stressed enough is that this automation doesn’t create breadlines as much as it frees humans to specialize their labor in ways never imagined, and in specializing their labor, it renders their labor much more productive. Translated for those who need it, where automation is most prevalent is logically where compensation is greatest.

The above scenario explains why parents can more often than not just be parents, and why kids can be kids. They don’t work because they don’t have to, and they don’t have to because increasingly productive work of one parent pays the bills for Mr. Mom, or Mrs. Mom, plus schooling for the kids. It’s a beautiful thing.

What’s not beautiful is the life being led by Nabila. She once again works because she has to, and because she has to she doesn’t get to be a child.

None of this means that she’ll never be learned, but it’s no exaggeration to say that her ability to pursue a life of knowledge will be severely limited by work that is never-ending, and it’s never-ending because there’s a shortage of the wealth unequal in Afghanistan. Where the wealth unequal are scarce, work is necessary in order to live much less than well.

It’s once again something to think about when politicians reduce life to “job creation” and “labor force participation.” They come off as clownish, and not very learned.

 

[marsh]

Shocking JOLT: Biggest Crash In Job Openings On Record (Outside Of Global Covid Lockdown) | ZeroHedge

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

www.zerohedge.com

Shocking JOLT: Biggest Crash In Job Openings On Record (Outside Of Global Covid Lockdown)​

TUESDAY, OCT 04, 2022 - 08:44 AM

Last month was a big surprise: as readers will recall, for the month of July, the BLS did not yet get the memo, and instead "Job Openings Unexpectedly Surged To Two For Every Unemployed Worker, Crashing Fed's Plans To Nuke The Job Market." Needless to say that made no sense, and as we warned at the time "this is not the first time the DOL was forced to manipulate data - we caught them almost a decade ago in a gaping disconnected between data series one which they were forced to subsequently admit was a mistake - and we expect that the BLS will do the same and completely revise both its JOLTS and labor market data."

Fast forward to today, when the BLS did just as we expected, and in a release that was not merely a surprise, but sheer JOLTing shock, reported that not only was the July surge revised sharply lower, but that in August the labor market cratered as job openings tumbled to just above 10 million from a downward revised July print of 11.1 million, a collapse of 1.1 million in job openings, the biggest one-month crash outside of the covid global lockdown crash in April which was clearly an outlier.



According to the BLS, the largest decreases in job openings were in health care and social assistance (-236,000), other services (-183,000), and retail trade (-143,000)

Still, while the first derivative of job openings was a disaster, the absolute number of openings remained high: at 10.05 million, there was still a generous 4.039 million more job openings than unemployed workers... which nonetheless was the lowest number since October 2021.



It also meant that the number of workers competing for every job opening barely budged and was just off its all time lows, rising to 0.6 in August.



It wasn't just job openings which plunged: hiring did too, and in August, the BLS reported that total hires dipped to 6.277 million which would have been the lowest print since May 2021 if only the BLS had not strategically revised the July print sharply lower to 6.238MM from above 6.3MM. In any case, the trend here too is clear: down and to the right. According to the BLS, the only notable decline in hiring was in the federal government, which saw 8,000 fewer hires.



But while openings and hires were ugly, one category remained solid: in August the number of quits rose again, and after dropping to the lowest in a year in July at 4.058 million, quits rose modestly to 4.158 million... although as the labor recession spreads expect this number to plummet.



In retrospect, the dismal labor prints perhaps should not have been a surprise because if one ignores the clearly politicized nonfarm payrolls report, the latest ADP change of just 132K was ugly, but it was the collapse in the ISM Mfg employment index that was the real shocker.



And now that the "first" BLS hand is finally aware of what the "other" BLS hand is doing, expect this Friday's job report to be just as shocking as today's jolts, something which the market already is pricing in and sending stock soaring as expectations of a Fed pivot soar again. Why? Because as the Fed's own WSJ mouthpiece, Nick Timiraos just said, "today's collapse in JOLTS is exactly what the Powell Fed has been looking for. Here is Powell on Sept. 22: "Job openings could come down significantly—and they need to—without as much of a an increase in unemployment as has happened in earlier historical episodes."



The buy signal couldn't be more clear, and just in case it isn't, here are some other strategists piping in, starting with Pantehon Macro who echoes what we said, namely that “this is the first official indicator to point unambiguously, if not necessarily reliably, to a clear slowing in labor demand. If it continues over the next few months the Fed will not be hiking by 125bp by the year end. Our base case is 100bps.”..



... and here is Vital Knowledge, doving it up even more: "If Fri BLS is anything like ISM and JOLTs, the Fed will do 50bp on 11/2 and the next dot plot (out on 12/14) will prob have a Fed Funds ceiling of 4.4% or lower for 2023. Fed hawkishness is past its peak"

 

[marsh]

(Australia)

WORLD WIDE FREEDOM RALLIES, Australia 4:45 min

WORLD WIDE FREEDOM RALLIES, AUSTRALIA​

• WATCH

Everyone’s coming to Melbourne! Unity in numbers is a powerful thing!
Thank you, freedom fighters

^^^^
The revolution won´t be televised. But more are being made aware :-). NO "vax" for kids!!!!! .34 min

THE REVOLUTION WON´T BE TELEVISED. BUT MORE ARE BEING MADE AWARE :-). NO "VAX" FOR KIDS!!!!!​

• WATCH

4th Oct 22
Freedom Fighters Coonabarabran

^^^
(Canada)

SHARE!!!! as Msm won´t let us know ..... Thank you, dear courageous freedom fighters!!! .02 min

SHARE!!!! AS MSM WON´T LET US KNOW ..... THANK YOU, DEAR COURAGEOUS FREEDOM FIGHTERS!!!​

• WATCH

Freedom Rally in Kelowna BC October 1, 2022.
Lawyer Keith Wilson, who is representing former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford’s lawsuit against the federal government for what they describe as the most far reaching breach of charter rights in Canadian history. It prevented six million people’s right to freedom of movement because of a ban against unvaccinated people from traveling on buses, trains and planes.

^^^^^
(Germany)

World Wide Rallies, Germany 1:24 min

WORLD WIDE RALLIES, GERMANY​

• WATCH

Saxony - Tens of thousands are demonstrating across Saxony against the insanity

^^^^
Bad Doberan, Germany, Truckers Protest .31 min

BAD DOBERAN, GERMANY, TRUCKERS PROTEST​

• WATCH

German Truckers Protest!!
Protesting… World Health Organization… The European Union… The Mandates…

^^^^^
3.10.22 Ravensburg Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom .31 min

3.10.22 RAVENSBURG GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^
3.10.22 Lutherstadt Eisleben Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom 2:44 min

3.10.22 LUTHERSTADT EISLEBEN GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^^
3.10.22 Prien Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom 1:13 min

3.10.22 PRIEN GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^^
3.10.22 Leinefelde Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom 1:20 min

3.10.22 LEINEFELDE GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^^
3.10.22 Zwickau Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom .40 min

3.10.22 ZWICKAU GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^
3.10.22 Waldheim Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom 1:07 min

3.10.22 WALDHEIM GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^^
3.10.22 Heidenheim Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom .26 min

3.10.22 HEIDENHEIM GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^
3.10.22 Hof Saale Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom .10 min

3.10.22 HOF SAALE GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH

^^^^^
3.10.22 Halberstadt Germany #StopAgenda2030 #NoWarWithRussia #Freedom .26 min

3.10.22 HALBERSTADT GERMANY #STOPAGENDA2030 #NOWARWITHRUSSIA #FREEDOM​

• WATCH