GOV/MIL Main "Great Reset" Thread

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Economic Collapse Has Arrived in Germany — Will the U.S. Be Close Behind?

There have always been extremely close economic ties between the United States and Europe. With Europe facing extreme economic hardships — and Germany in particular — what effects will we feel?

by Michael Snyder September 20, 2022 in Opinions

Olaf Sholz
Things are starting to get really crazy in Germany. The Germans are dealing with the worst inflation crisis that they have seen since the days of the Weimar Republic, and meanwhile economic activity is starting to shut down all over the nation. Of course other European countries are facing similar problems, but Germany was supposed to be the economic rock that the rest of Europe could always depend upon. Unfortunately, the decision by the Russians to cut off the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is hitting Germany extremely hard. If we could just get both sides to agree to end the war in Ukraine, that would greatly help matters, but that simply isn’t going to happen. In fact, it appears that Vladimir Putin has decided to greatly escalate matters, and the western powers will inevitably greatly escalate matters in response. What this means is that the economic turmoil that we are witnessing in Europe isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

This week, we got some inflation numbers out of Germany that are so high that it is difficult to believe that they are actually real…

German producer prices rose in August at the fastest rate since records began in 1949, data released by the Federal Statistical Office showed today, pointing to a further increase in consumer prices.

Producer prices of industrial products rose by 45.8 percent compared to the same month of last year. Compared to July 2022, prices rose 7.9 percent.

Soaring energy prices on the back of Russia’s war against the Ukraine remain the main driver behind rising prices.

If we continue to see monthly increases of around 8 percent, next year at this time we could be talking about a yearly jump of close to 100 percent.

Wow.

How bad do things have to get before we actually start using the term “hyperinflation”?

Energy prices are the biggest reason why inflation has gotten completely out of control, and the German government has been forced to nationalize a huge natural gas company in order to keep it from going under…

The German government is closing in on an agreement to nationalize gas giant Uniper SE, as Berlin moves to stave off a collapse of the country’s energy sector.

A provisional agreement between the government, Uniper and its main shareholder, Finland’s Fortum Oyj, has been reached, according to people familiar with the situation. While contracts haven’t been signed, Berlin is aiming for an announcement later this week.

According to the CEO of Uniper, the company has been losing about 100 million euros a day during this crisis.

Needless to say, the German government cannot save everyone, and so a lot of firms won’t survive this crisis at all.

For example, a manufacturer that has been making toilet paper for Germans for nearly 100 years is now headed into insolvency…

Hakle has been a German household name since 1928, but the Duesseldorf-based toilet paper manufacturer said all it took was this summer’s gas price shock to drive it into insolvency.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

According to the German central bank, the nation is moving into a “broad-based and prolonged decline in economic output”…

“Economic activity may pull back somewhat this quarter and shrink markedly in the autumn and winter months,” the central bank said, adding that it didn’t forecast this adverse scenario in a June report.

Bundesbank continued: “There are mounting signs of a recession in the German economy in the sense of a clear, broad-based and prolonged decline in economic output.” It said a contraction is expected in the third quarter with deeper declines in economic activity in the fourth.

“High inflation and uncertainty with regard to energy supply and its costs affect not only the gas and electricity-intensive industry and its export business and investments, but also private consumption and the service providers dependent on it,” the central bank said.

You can refer to such a scenario as a “recession” or a “depression” if it makes you feel better.

I call it an economic collapse.

The U.S. economy will soon be experiencing immense turmoil as well.

According to billionaire Barry Sternlicht, the Fed’s exceedingly foolish policies are pushing us toward a “serious recession”…

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday, Barry Sternlicht, the chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital, said he believes Americans are facing a major recession if the Federal Reserve proceeds with several more rate hikes as a means of curbing inflation, which is reportedly the central bank’s plan.

“The economy is braking hard,” Sternlicht told the financial news outlet, according to the Daily Caller. “If the Fed keeps this up, they are going to have a serious recession and people will lose their jobs.”

He is right on target, but instead of saying “people will lose their jobs” he should have noted that lots of people are already being laid off. This is something that I have been documenting on my website for quite some time, and this week we learned that Gap has decided to lay off hundreds of corporate workers…

Gap Inc. is cutting about 500 corporate jobs as the clothing retailer struggles with declining sales.

The job cuts, which include open positions, will be primarily at Gap’s offices in San Francisco, New York and Asia and hit various departments, a representative for the retailer confirmed Tuesday. The moves were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Ouch.

In this environment, very few workers are truly safe.

At this point, even the entertainment industry is letting lots of people go…

The struggling TV and film industry continues to run face first into bad news. This week it was reported that Warner Bros. Discovery was firing 100 TV ad salespeople at the same time that Paramount has considered ending offering Showtime as a standalone service, Bloomberg reported.

Netflix followed suit with their own layoffs, the report says. The company has reportedly let go hundreds of employees and abandoned some of its office space. At the same time, the firm’s stock price has collapsed and fallen more than 60% from its all time highs.

Back in 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs.

Will we see something similar in the months ahead?

And just like during “the Great Recession”, the housing market is really starting to slow down. In fact, we just learned that homebuilder confidence has now fallen for nine months in a row…

The confidence of builders of single-family houses fell again in September, the ninth month in a row of declines, “as the combination of elevated interest rates, persistent building material supply chain disruptions, and high home prices continue to take a toll on affordability,” the NAHB report said.

With today’s index value of 46, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index is now below where it had been in May 2006, on the way down into the Housing Bust.

This time around, it won’t just be a few areas of the planet that suffer.

At this moment we are literally witnessing economic implosions all over the planet, and the stage is being set for an immensely painful 2023.

The one thing that could really turn things around would be peace.

Unfortunately, global leaders on both sides seem absolutely determined to drag us into the type of cataclysmic global conflict that I have been warning about for years.

So there isn’t going to be peace, and that means that things are going to get really bad in 2023 and beyond. But I also believe that you were put at this specific moment in history for a reason.

It is when times are the darkest that the greatest good can be done, and that is something that we will all need to remember during the very dark times in front of us.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

UP NEXT: GREEN STARVATION

POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER

As has often been noted, environmentalism is, for many, a religion. It now appears that it is a religion that demands human sacrifice.

Agricultural productivity depends on fertilizers. The world cannot be fed without them. Yet, when it comes to a tradeoff between carbon dioxide and mass starvation, the “green” left is OK with starvation. Reuters reports:

The European Union is divided on how to help poorer nations fight a growing food crisis and address shortages of fertilisers caused by the war in Ukraine, with some fearing a plan to invest in plants in Africa would clash with EU green goals.
***
At a summit of EU leaders later this week, the EU was planning a new initiative that would structurally decrease poorer nations’ reliance on Russian fertilisers by helping them develop their own fertiliser plants.

But at a meeting with EU envoys last week, the EU Commission explicitly opposed the text, warning that supporting fertiliser production in developing nations would be inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies, officials said.

The production of chemical fertilisers has a big impact on the environment and requires large amounts of energy. However they are crucially effective in boosting agriculture output.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Battery Deaths Put Nuclear Safety In Context

Lithium batteries kill many more people than nuclear plants. Why, then, aren't we scared of them?

Michael Shellenberger
1 hr ago

For decades, critics of nuclear power plants have pointed to their unique danger. When there is a loss of water coolant for the reactor cores, plant operators can lose control, leaving them to melt, and potentially spew toxic particulate matter into the environment. Nuclear accidents are unique in requiring people to “shelter-in-place,” and close windows and vents, to avoid breathing radiant particulate matter. And nuclear accidents can unfold in unpredictable and mysterious ways, such as by creating hydrogen gas explosions, like the kinds that occurred during the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011.

And yet nuclear plants remain the safest way to make electricity and one of the most benign of all human activities. Nobody has ever died of nuclear power in the United States, nobody will die from the radiation from the Fukushima accident in 2011, and only roughly 200 people will have their lives shortened by the fire and radiation from the Chernobyl fire. And because nuclear plants prevent the burning of fossil fuels, the climate scientist James Hansen calculates that they have saved nearly 2 million lives to date.

The ability to release intense amount of heat by splitting atoms did indeed bring a unique danger into the world, but it’s clear from decades of experience that the uniqueness of the danger of nuclear plants is how few people they kill, but how many they scare. Far more people were hurt from the too-broad and too long-lasting evacuations of Fukushima and Chernobyl than from their radiant particulates.

And now a series of deadly accidents reveal that even lithium batteries are more deadly that nuclear power. Last Saturday, a fire started by a lithium battery in an electric scooter killed an 8-year-old girl in New York City. In New York City alone, lithium battery fires in 2021 killed 3 and injured 57, while in the first half of 2022, they killed 5 people and injured 73.

Meanwhile, a fire this morning at a Tesla battery facility in Moss Landing in Monterey County, California, emitted so much toxic smoke that the Fire and Sheriff Departments issued a shelter-in-place order, asking people to close windows and vents, and closing several roads. Contrary to widespread perception, shelter-in-place orders are not unique to nuclear accidents but are also used to protect the public from chemical fires and other accidents.



Lithium battery fires have, like nuclear accidents, been unpredictable, mysterious, and difficult to manage. The battery fires that grounded the first Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013 were difficult to control, and mysterious, A Tesla that had been in a Sacramento junkyard for three weeks spontaneously, repeatedly, and mysteriously caught fire. “The batteries would keep reigniting the fire,” said firefighters, who only were able to stop them by flipping the Tesla onto its side.

As such, lithium batteries are deadlier and as dangerous as nuclear power plants. This is obviously true in the U.S., where nuclear power has never killed anyone. But it likely also true globally, or will soon be true, given the rising death toll from lithium fires.

All of this begs a question: if lithium batteries are so much dangerous than nuclear, why is nuclear so much more feared?
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

The Mainstream Media Is Dying. Here’s What Will Take Its Place.​

Douglas Blair / September 20, 2022

CNN, MSNBC, and ABC News all have ratings in the toilet. Public trust in mainstream media outlets has plumbed new lows as Americans realize they’re being fed a steady diet of propaganda.

So what’s going to fill that hole in the information ecosystem?

Programs such as “Counterpoints,” a new digital talk show hosted by Ryan Grim from The Intercept and Emily Jashinsky from The Federalist, hope to cut past the politics and strike straight at the truth.

Jashinsky joins this episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the rise of independent media outlets and how they’re taking on the giants in the industry.

Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript: link at bottom of website page

The Daily Signal Podcast​

INTERVIEW | Emily Jashinsky on The Rise of Independent Media​

20:10 min
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

WATCH: Alex Jones Unloads on The Great Reset in Epic Speech at TPUSA – FULL VIDEO

by Jamie White
September 20th 2022, 2:10 pm

Infowars founder Alex Jones was honored with a standing ovation during a Turning Point USA event dedicated to “Defeating the Great Reset.”

During the event in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday, TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk introduced Jones, who appeared virtually from his studio in Austin, Texas, to raucous applause.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1571244970300018690
.41 min

Jones, whose new book “The Great Reset And The War For The World” has become a best-seller, explained how the globalists’ war on food and farming is a key tenet of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset agenda.

“In more than 100 countries like Sri Lanka and the Netherlands, they’re announcing shutdowns that started three years ago of almost all farming, any nitrogen-based fertilizer that’s totally healthy and good, they already announced within six years they’re going to ban 80% of cows,” Jones told the audience.

“That’s why [WEF founder] Klaus Schwab says you will have no beef, you’ll own nothing and you’ll like it, you’re gonna eat the bugs.”

Jones added that the Democrats’ Green New Deal farce and war against fossil fuel is central to the Great Reset plan, calling it the “queen” in the New World Order’s diabolical game of chess against humanity.

TPUSA’s “Defeat the Great Reset” event was organized to bring attention to the World Economic Forum’s plan to eradicate private ownership and shift the global economy into a communist system in the name of fighting climate change.

From the event website:

Coined by the WEF (World Economic Forum) the Great Reset it is a political, social, economic, and environmental plan to entirely “reimagine” the priorities of society. The ideology implementation has sparked massive protests throughout Europe for limiting energy independence, shutting down farming operations, and limiting private ownership. The WEF aims to “implement long-overdue reforms that promote more equitable outcomes,” and most notoriously, they want people by 2030 to, “own nothing and be happy.”

The World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” poses one of the most dangerous threats to individual freedom, national sovereignty, divinely-ordained rights, and free enterprise that the world has ever seen. The Great Reset must be stopped—and Turning Point USA is leading the charge.


Former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Human Events editor Jack Posobiec, and independent reporter Drew Hernandez also spoke at the event to lay out the WEF’s disastrous Great Reset agenda that’s now unfolding across the globe.

Full encounter below:

Video on the bottom of website 41:13 min
 

Tristan

Has No Life - Lives on TB

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

MONDAY, SEP 19, 2022 - 01:15 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who could have seen this coming?

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


Bread's not really necessary; here, have some nice, juicy grasshoppers!
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

‘We Cannot Go on Like This’ — U.N. Chief Guterres Pleads for Global Support​

SIMON KENT20 Sep 2022733

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the globalist organization’s 2022 General Assembly on Tuesday, saying the time has come for the world to fall into line and address a range of problems from Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine to rising food and energy prices – or pay a deadly price.

The world “has a duty to act,” and yet “we are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction,” Guterres lamented before more than 100 world leaders who had flown into New York City to attend the session.

After outlining all the problems confronting the planet, the veteran Portuguese Socialist called for action lest his words of warning vanish with the wind as he continued to plead for action to forestall a looming “winter of discontent on a global scale.” He said:

Progress on these issues and more is being held hostage by geopolitical tensions. Our world is in peril and paralyzed.

Geopolitical divides are undermining the work of the security council, undermining its international law, undermining trust and people’s faith in democratic institutions, undermining all forms of international cooperation.
We cannot go on like this.

He also warned of what he called “a forest of red flags” around new technologies despite promising advances to heal diseases and connect people.

Guterres said social media platforms are based on a model “that monetizes outrage, anger and negativity.” Artificial intelligence he said, “is compromising the integrity of information systems, the media, and indeed democracy itself.”
The world lacks even the beginning of “a global architecture” to deal with the ripples caused by these new technologies because of “geopolitical tensions,” Guterres observed, returning to a theme of societal restructure he has broached before.

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Guterres specifically mentioned Ukraine in his speech.

He embraced the export of cereals agreement signed between Kiev and Moscow, in which the U.N. acted as mediator. It was not a “miracle”, but an example of diplomacy, was his summation of the outcome.

“The war (in Ukraine) has unleashed widespread destruction, with large-scale violations of international humanitarian law and human rights,” said Guterres, who is “extremely disturbed” by reports that mass graves have been found in the Ukrainian town of Izium after the departure of invading Russian forces.

The collateral effects of the conflict also extend beyond Ukraine, as it has exacerbated the “global cost of living crisis.”

Guterres recalled some 94 countries in which 1.6 billion people live are facing “a perfect storm” in which rising food and energy prices, the “crushing” burden of debt and the lack of access to new funds are intertwined.

Although Guterres issued a string of warnings to the gathering, not all countries were represented at the highest level.

Several major leaders will not be in attendance this week.

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They include Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, according to the New York Times.

The countries will instead send ministers to deliver speeches.

The global gathering, known as the General Debate, was entirely virtual in 2020 because of the pandemic, and hybrid in 2021. This year, the 193-member General Assembly returns to only in-person speeches, with a single exception — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The U.S. president, representing the host country for the United Nations, is traditionally the second speaker. But Joe Biden is attending the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II and his speech has been pushed to Wednesday morning.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

ANOTHER BP FIRE: Ohio Firefighters Respond to a Fire at the BP Refinery;
Injuries Reported (VIDEO)


By Jim Hoft
Published September 20, 2022 at 9:00pm

On Tuesday night, a fire broke out at the BP-Husky Toledo refinery in Oregon, Ohio.

Around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Lucas County Regional Dispatch received reports of injuries at the refinery located in the 4100 block of Cedar Point Road in Oregon, Ohio, local news reported.

At this point, it is unclear how many people were injured.

The cause of the incident is still unknown.

A number of witnesses have described the incident as an “explosion.”

Watch the videos below:
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572397587415826435
.45 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572388632492904448
.13 min

More from WTOL11:

At least two people were badly burned, the family of the injured refinery workers confirmed to WTOL 11.

Chris Howard was waiting to hear from his father who works at the plant Tuesday night. He received a phone call around 7 p.m. from a friend who works security at the refinery.

“He said it was like some sort of explosion,” Howard said. “He told me there was just a big rumble at the refinery, lots of fire everywhere. He said it’s the worst he’s seen. Lots of people injured.”

Lucas County Regional Dispatch confirmed that EMS responded to the scene and to reports of injuries. Dispatch was unable to say how many people were potentially hurt or how serious the injuries may be.

According to BP Refinery’s website, BP-Husky Toledo refinery has been a cornerstone of the Ohio economy for more than 100 years, supplying fuel to the Midwest, supporting thousands of jobs, and investing in the community.

The bp-Husky Toledo refinery can process up to 160,000 barrels of crude oil each day, providing the Midwest with gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, propane, asphalt, and other products.
On a daily basis, the refinery produces 3.8 million gallons of gasoline, 1.3 million gallons of diesel fuel and 600,000 gallons of jet fuel.
bp’s retail presence in Ohio includes more than 500 retail locations.
It can be recalled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has temporarily suspended a federal rule for fuel sales in four states, including Indiana, in response to a fire that occurred at a BP refinery in Indiana last month, as reported by The Gateway Pundit.

It was feared that the incident might cause disruptions in both gas pricing and supply.

“As part of the Federal Government’s response to a fire and shutdown at the BP Whiting Refinery in Whiting, Indiana, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan today issued an emergency fuel waiver to help alleviate fuel shortages in four states whose supply of gasoline has been impacted by the refinery shutdown,” EPA said in a statement.

Oil & refined products analyst, Patrick De Haan said, “the waiver allows winter gasoline to be sold, and allows more components to be used in gasoline, thereby increasing the amount of available supply. Still no restoration timeline on BP restarting its refinery.”

The devastating fire coincides with the highest gas and diesel prices in US history under Joe Biden.

This is a developing story. Please come back for updates.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

STICK A FORK IN IT: Latest Inflation Numbers Show Germany’s Economy Is Cratering​

By Jim Hoft
Published September 20, 2022 at 7:49pm

Inflation is sinking the largest economy in Europe.

And that is not just a flashy headline.


germany-price-index.jpg

Via Steve Bannon on GETTR.

The Producer Price Index in Germany is up almost 46% in August driven by the soaring energy prices.

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The Bundesbank says Germany faces recession and double digit inflation.

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More…

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The Conservative Treehouse reported:

The statistics behind the energy impact upon the German economy, the largest economy in the European Union, are almost unfathomable in scale.

There is no way for the German industrial economy to continue with this level of price pressure. Stick a fork in the current creation of German industrial products and exports, the inflection point of feasibility for continued production has been crossed. They are done.

According to release statistics from the German economic ministry, energy prices in August were more than double the same period last year, up 139%. The monthly increase was more than 20.4% higher than July. Additionally, producer prices for electricity rose 174.9% compared with August 2021 and by 26.4% in a single month.

This jaw-dropping increase in energy cost has resulted in German manufacturing prices for industrial goods jumping 7.9% in August alone, with a year-over-year increase in the cost to manufacture goods at 45.8%. That is the highest rate of price increase since Germany began recording their statistics in 1939.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

PREDATOR CLASS REUNION: World Economic Forum Hosts Creepy ‘Climate Crisis’ Confab in NYC as Clinton Global Initiative and UN General Assembly Kicks Off Simultaneously Across Town​

By Alicia Powe
Published September 20, 2022 at 8:00am

The World Economic Forum and the Clinton Foundation are hosting summits in New York City this week as the 77th annual United Nations General Assembly convenes.

On Monday, the WEF commenced its “Sustainable Development Impact Meetings” where the organization’s leaders detail a plan to advance its Great Reset agenda and eradicate individual rights and national sovereignty.

The WEF is partnered with major financial and media institutions to execute its “you will own nothing and you will be happy.”

A video that aired at the summit, featuring Al Gore and BlackRock official Pamela Chan, showcases the WEF’s plan to mitigate the so-called “climate crisis.”

WATCH:

View: https://youtu.be/BXWoc3agTRI
51:50 min

“The extreme weather events that the scientists have long connected to the climate crisis are becoming far more frequent and far more destructive,” Gore warns in the 56 minute video. Although, this is mostly untrue.

https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ac71f2b-5991-47ff-a163-c226645d0ee8_1278x520.png


“Younger generations are demanding a sense of purpose. They want to look at a company and say, ‘I am investing with you all for this reason,” Chan, a WEF Global Leader and Global Shaper, says in the video.

https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F92b8b18d-07ac-45b3-87bf-56f631934562_1268x514.png


WEF President Klaus and the predator class intend to manufacture an emergency over the changing climate to justify the confiscation of property from individuals and nations

On Tuesday, the WEF is slated to host two panels during the conference featuring corporate media reporters. MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle will discuss the “Green Transition” and “the future of work panel.”

CNN Vice President Rachel Smolkin will host the other panel titled, “Tackling Disinformation.”

“Disinformation is not new. Examples of disinformation and so-called fake news campaigns are plentiful,” a teaser of the CNN presentation states. “But with increasing fears about the cost of living — exacerbated by the pandemic and the energy crisis — it is now more critical than ever to tackle disinformation head-on.”

This is rich, coming from a CNN official.

On Wednesday, WEF will feature presentations showcasing “Web3’s Climate Impact,” outlining how digital currency, blockchain technology and the “metaverse” will be impacted by the climate crisis the organization is planning to unleash.

Web3, a term coined by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood in 2014, refers to a “decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain.”

Ethereum, a digital asset, was recently re-engineered into the foundation for a potential global Central Bank Digital Currency and is now the “WEF coin”, investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel reports.

“The people in charge of the Ethereum token, a popular digital asset previously marketed as a decentralized money, decided last night to finalize its transition into what amounts to WEF (World Economic Forum) coin, securing the network’s path on the road to state capture, and perhaps, the birth of the ruling class’s 1.0 version of a global Central Bank Digital Currency,” Schachtel notes.

The WEF’s Web3 panel will feature numerous crypto executives who will detail how to “support positive climate action.”

The international organization’s New York conference coincides with the 77th annual United Nations General Assembly meetings.

Joe Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Liz Truss, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi are among the heads of state expected to deliver remarks throughout the week.

From the WEF website:

Convening at the same time as the United Nations General Assembly, the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings will bring together communities of purpose that integrate business leaders, policy-makers, international and civil society organizations, innovators and entrepreneurs.

In a series of carefully curated impact-driven dialogues, these alliances will use the meetings to advance their work and make concrete progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to build momentum on other key milestones in the months ahead, including the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) and the Forum’s Annual Meeting in January 2023.


The Clinton Global Initiative is also convening for the first time in 6 years in New York from Sept – 20.

View: https://youtu.be/dh0mSicox2w
3:28 min
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Biden ‘transhumanist’ executive order: ‘We need to program biology’ like we ‘program computers’

Joe Biden’s call to ‘write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way … we program computers,’ if applied to humans, could not only cause physical harm, but would open up floodgates to eugenics.

Emily Mangiaracina

Mon Sep 19, 2022 - 8:35 pm EDT

(LifeSiteNews) — The Biden administration issued an executive order calling for biotechnology that can “predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers,” a transhumanist practice, in service of human “health.”

As an example of such biotechnology, Executive Order 14081 included by implication the COVID-19 mRNA injections, citing the COVID-19 “pandemic” as demonstrating “the vital role of biotechnology … in developing and producing life-saving … vaccines that protect Americans and the world.”

The mRNA jabs are an example of what has been described as “the most prominent area of biotechnology”: The “production” of ostensibly “therapeutic proteins and other drugs through genetic engineering.” However, while the proteins produced by the mRNA shot were touted as beneficial, evidence has emerged that they are toxic to humans. In fact, as StatNews noted in 2016, mRNA experiments were abandoned by several pharma groups before the COVID-19 outbreak over “concerns about toxicity.”

In support of its proposal to use biotechnology to “aid” human health, the order called upon the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “submit a report assessing how to use biotechnology … to achieve medical breakthroughs, reduce the overall burden of disease, and improve health outcomes.”

Efforts to “program biology” in human beings not only present further potential dangers to health, such as those shown by the mRNA shots, but they would also increasingly open up the possibilities of eugenic “enhancement,” which is why gene editing has often been described as a “Pandora’s Box,” potentially “creating classes of genetic haves and have-nots in society.”

In fact, the use of such technology has been underway for years. For example, the gene editing tool CRISPR has been used in China to alter the DNA of babies to apparently eliminate susceptibility to HIV.

According to Biden’s executive order, while “the power of” biotechnology “is most vivid at the moment in the context of human health,” it “can also be used to achieve our climate and energy goals, improve food security and sustainability, secure our supply chains, and grow the economy.”

Biden accordingly calls for the use of biotech to “sequeste[r] carbon and reduc[e] greenhouse gas emissions,” as well as “increas[e] and protec[t] agricultural yields; protec[t] against plant and animal pests and diseases; and cultivat[e] alternative food sources.”

As an example of biotech that could reduce carbon dioxide, commonly demonized as a major culprit of global warming, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed solutions such as the use of trees and microbes to “draw excess Co2 out of the atmosphere.” The U.S. Department of Energy has also proposed the use of a process to convert waste gases into “important chemicals,” which “captures more carbon gases than it releases.”

More controversial is the use of biotech to “assist” farming, such as by increasing crop yields and protecting against disease through the use of genetically modified (GM) foods, which have been shown to have toxic effects on the human body.

Raising further privacy-related questions is Executive Order 14081’s establishment of a “Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative,” which calls for “biological data sets,” to include “genomic” (gene-related) information deemed critical for societal advances.

The Executive Order further calls for a “plan to fill any data gaps” and “make new and existing public data “findable” and “accessible.” This proposal raises the question of whether and how individuals’ genomic information might be publicly disclosed, and whether it would be done so only with informed consent.

Biden’s call for the “programming” of biology the way we program software, if applied to humans, would facilitate transhumanist’s vision of the creation of “superhumans” through various kinds of technology, including biotechnology.

In anticipation of major transhumanist developments, including biotech advances, World Economic Forum (WEF) adviser Yuval Noah Harari has gone so far as to declare that “we are one of the last generations of homo sapiens,” and that “within a century or two, earth will be dominated by entities that are more different from us than we are different from chimpanzees.”

“We’ll soon have the power to re-engineer our bodies and brains, whether it is with genetic engineering or by directly connecting brains to computers … and these technologies are developing at breakneck speed,” Harari explained to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes in October 2021.

^^^
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_KruQhfvW4
2:27 min

Gattaca (1997) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers​

 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Beyond Meat Is Beyond Hope​

Of course its stock crashed. The animal kingdom already had a 95% market share.

Andrew Boucher
Sept. 18, 2022 6:10 pm ET

Beyond Meat stock is crashing. What a stunning development.

In 2019 Beyond Meat went public amid massive media coverage, and its stock popped. It reached a high of $234 a share in the summer of 2019. Partnerships with distributors, retail grocery chains and fast-food restaurants were announced. A PR blitz led to fawning press coverage. This is the future. It’s healthy. It’s sustainable. Cow flatulence causes climate change. Eat this fake burger or everyone’s going to die.

Beyond Meat was inundated with initial-public-offering cash, and its products began appearing in restaurants and on grocery shelves. You can find Beyond Meat burgers, breakfast sausages, brats, Italian sausages and something called “Beefy Crumbles” at Walmart. Beyond Meat jerky even started showing up in convenience stores next to the real beef jerky, corn nuts and pork rinds.

McDonald’s introduced the McPlant.

The question that many investors, cheerleaders or financial analysts apparently didn’t bother to ask: Who’s going to eat this?

If you’re a vegetarian, good for you. But how many vegetarians are there?

According to Gallup, about 5% of Americans “consider themselves” vegetarians. Out of the gate, we have a product that 95% of the population has little use for.

Even among vegetarians, how many were ever in the market for something that reminds them of the taste of charred cow flesh? Just a guess, but someone who “considers” himself a vegetarian and gets in line at McDonald’s is probably going to order the usual fare.

With the dot-com booms and busts, we were assured that market share was more important than early profitability, and to an extent that made sense. The competition for eyeballs and brand loyalty was critical. It was a survival-of-the-fittest sprint in the early days, and the winners of the market-share battles eventually figured out how to turn a profit.

But this isn’t about eyeballs. It’s about stomachs, and we’re not going to see huge numbers of non-vegetarians choosing fake over real meat. The only way this was going to work was if the average omnivorous long-haul truck driver, looking at the snack display at a Flying J, says to himself, “Well, I was planning to grab my regular bag of Jack Links Sweet & Hot Jerky, but I think I’m going to go with this Beyond Meat jerky instead.”

Beyond Meat’s market capitalization reached a high of $14 billion in 2019 and was still over $9 billion in June and early July 2021, with a stock price around $150 a share. On Friday the stock closed at $18.29, for a market cap of $1.16 billion. Even that’s probably too high.

There’s a lesson here: It’s important to ask the simple questions like, “Who’s going to eat all the product?” Wishful thinking, media hype, and “It’s the future!” bandwagon appeals can’t repeal the laws of supply and demand. Speaking of supply, does anyone know what the shelf life is for those Beyond Meat burgers at Walmart?
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Orbán's Warning for Europe

Sohrab Ahmari
September 15, 2022

If the United States were a serious power, it would pay heed to the warnings issuing from Hungary about the economic calamity facing Europe. Instead, Team Biden has dispatched a same-sex-married liberal activist as its envoy to Budapest in an apparent attempt to tweak the Hungarians’ conservative sensibilities. It’s the sort of stunt that would elicit little more than eye rolls—but for the fact that we live in deadly serious times.

At the ruling Fidesz party’s annual “picnic” last weekend in Kötcse, a village two hours’ drive southwest from the capital, the message was dire: The United States is driving its trans-Atlantic allies to ruin by globalizing a local, intra-Slavic conflict in Ukraine. And European leaders are going along, obstinately sticking with sanctions that have failed to force a rethink in Moscow, let alone “collapse” the Russian economy or trigger a palace coup against Vladimir Putin.

“Sanctions work when deployed by stronger actors against the weak,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told me as we sat down for a brief interview on the sidelines of the Kötcse conference. “Europe isn’t the stronger actor when it comes to energy. And so the sanctions aren’t working.” It seems like an obvious enough point, but these days, it takes the gruff rationality of the “black sheep” of the European family to voice the obvious.

Western leaders make-believe as if Moscow is some small-time Mideast “rogue regime,” which they can bring to heel by cutting it off from global trade and financial flows. There are only two problems. One is that this isn’t 1999 anymore: What Fareed Zakaria condescendingly called “the rise of the rest” means the rest of the world doesn’t salute when Washington and Brussels hand down sanctions diktats—“the rest” can afford to disobey.

The bigger problem is that Russia isn’t some small-time Mideast country, but a Eurasian civilization with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and most valuable energy reserves. Even in the case of those classic sanctioned “rogues,” Western embargoes have as often spurred autarkic internal development as caused pain to ordinary people. But in the case of Russian energy, the sanctions were always structurally bound to backfire against Europe.

“If someone believes you can beat Russia, and change things in Moscow, it is a pure mistake,” Orbán told his party’s grandees in Kötcse, speaking forthrightly about the war’s military endgame.

His attitude isn’t born of any deep love for Moscow—impossible, given half a century of Soviet occupation and the premier’s belief that Russian civilization is fundamentally different from Europe’s. Rather, it comes from the realism and cold rationality that Hungary’s historical and geographic circumstances have imposed on her.

Realism: The Russians have utterly confounded the energy sanctions’ intended effects, whether by selling their reserves to the Chinese, who then resell to the Europeans at a markup, or by simply selling less of the stuff at higher prices created by sanctions. In the event, the war and the sanctions have buoyed the ruble to historic highs.

Realism: Seeking to beggar their giant neighbor to the east, the Europeans have beggared … themselves. Fuel lines are now a common sight in Poland and elsewhere. Manufacturers have shuttered production in Germany and across much of Northern Europe. Energy bills are already unsustainable for British small businesses, and winter isn’t even here yet.

Realism: Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary very much included, risk serious developmental backsliding, just when the region is poised to become a net contributor to the EU budget. As Orbán said to me, “the war and the sanctions prosecuted by the West will cause the region to lose all the gains it’s made relative to Western Europe.”

All this raises a vexing question for American policymakers—at least those willing to listen, rather than mindlessly dismiss Orbán as “illiberal.” Is the United States really prepared to see Europe turn itself into an energy and economic basket case for no tangible gains against Moscow? Would it be desirable for millions of German workers laboring in high-end manufacturing to join jobless rolls? Is mass Polish poverty worth appeasing Warsaw’s insane and hopeless determination to fight an apocalyptic war against Russia on Ukrainian soil?

The most cynical Hungarian answer is that that is exactly what Washington wants to bring about: to downgrade German manufactures and sever the energy-manufacturing synergy between Russia and Germany, to end Europe’s aspirations to “strategic autonomy” and induce a total dependence on America, and ultimately to reduce the number of America’s industrial rivals from two (China and Europe) down to one (just China). I, for one, have trouble seeing this degree of evil genius at work in Gen. Mark Milley’s Pentagon and Antony Blinken’s Foggy Bottom.

American newspapers.”
But whatever the motives of the sanctions architects, one small but feisty country in Central Europe is prepared to resist the drive to European de-industrialization. It can afford to fight—come “pro-Putin” epithets and ostracism—because the alternatives are far more costly, and because Orbán is serenely indifferent to what’s said about him in the councils of Europe or the pages of American newspapers.

“In Hungary,” he told me as he wiped his fingers and pushed away a plate of deep-fried veal, “I would be dead politically if I showed any ambition for international popularity. Luckily, I don’t work for The New York Times. The people out there vote for me, not the Times editorial board.”
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Sep 21, 2022 at 1:00am
Significant: BP Refinery Fire


Massive Explosion at Ohio BP Refinery, Injuries Reported

SMG News Wire
| Sep 20, 2022

A giant explosion with multiple injuries was reported Tuesday at a British Petroleum (BP) refinery near Toledo, Ohio.

The Oregon Fire Department responded to the massive blaze that had columns of black smoke at the Husky Toledo Refinery.

According to BP’s website, “the refinery can produce 3.8 million gallons of gasoline, 1.3 million gallons of diesel fuel, and 600,000 gallons of jet fuel.”

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— WTVG 13abc (@13abc) September 20, 2022
At least two people were severely burned, WTOL reports.

Chris Howard, who was still waiting to hear from his father, Tom, who works at the plant, told the station about a call he received around 7 p.m. EST from a friend who works security at the refinery.

“It’s super stressful,” Howard said.

His from told him “there was just a big rumble at the refinery, lots of fire everywhere. He said it’s the worst he’s seen. Lots of people injured.”

View: https://youtu.be/9pPtOr6Ea0A
1:45 min

This is a developing story.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(Twitter Grab Bag)

(Energy)
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View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572303328616206336
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View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572401199193677825
4:51 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572186432718114816
1:13 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1571895606880178186
.29 min

(Cost of Living)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572473335451357185
.38 min

(European Collapse)
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View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572251502483312640
2:18 min

(UN)
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(COVID)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572465034865053697
2:20 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572421215360536578
.53 min (US)

(Immigration)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572427008436744192
1:10 min

(UK multiculturalism Muslim vs Hindu, I believe)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572311377439789056
.45 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572339792100331521
.59 min

(Farms)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572364728793731072
6:19 min
 
Last edited:

marsh

On TB every waking moment

A Natural Gas Shortage Is Looming For The US

WEDNESDAY, SEP 21, 2022 - 02:00 AM
Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

As natural gas demand around the world breaks new records, U.S. shale producers are struggling to keep up with demand.

While natural gas prices in the United States fell after a railway strike was averted last week, it looks likely that prices both at home and abroad will spike this winter.

A hotter-than-expected summer and a lack of alternative energy sources have left U.S. inventories below the seasonal average.

Last week, the media rushed to report that natural gas prices in the United States had fallen sharply after trade unions and railway companies reached a tentative deal that averted a potentially devastating strike.

Indeed, natural gas prices fell by nearly a dollar per million British thermal units, helped by a respectable build in inventories. And yet, inventories remain below the seasonal average, exports are running at record rates, and producers are beginning to struggle to meet demand, both at home and abroad.

Reuters’ John Kemp wrote in a recent column that domestic and international gas consumption had risen to record highs, and shale producers—the ones that account for the bulk of U.S. natural gas output—were having a hard time catching up with this demand.

Meanwhile, although higher on a weekly basis, inventories remained at the second-lowest for this time of the year for the last 12 years, Reuters’ market analyst noted. He also added there were no signs of any improvement in the level of inventories despite the rise in prices.

None of this suggests lower prices for natural gas are coming to either the United States or international markets as the northern hemisphere heads into winter. On the contrary, the latest figures suggest more financial pain for gas consumers. And they confirm, to an extent, forecasts made earlier this year.

In the spring, the principals of investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg said U.S. gas prices will converge with international prices towards the end of 2022. They noted something few other analysts tend to mention: the concentration of much of U.S. gas production in a handful of fields, with just two—Marcellus and Haynesville—accounting for as much as 40 percent of the total.

The Permian contributes another 12 percent of the U.S. total gas output, and the rig count in the Permian has been down for two weeks in a row, according to the latest data. Less drilling means less associated gas to add to the national total.

Meanwhile, on the demand side, electricity generation in the United States is seen reaching a record high this year, Kemp noted in his column, driven by the post-pandemic economic rebound. A hotter summer also contributed. A cold winter would certainly push gas consumption even higher.

Another contributor is the lack of alternative sources of electricity generation: coal plants are being retired, and droughts in many parts of the country have compromised its hydropower capacity, the Reuters analyst also noted.

While this is happening at home, demand for gas continues strong across the globe, too, as everyone seeks to stock up on fuel for the winter. U.S. energy companies are exporting liquefied natural gas at record rates. And disgruntlement at home is beginning to rear its head.

“We appreciate that the [Joe] Biden administration has been working with European allies to expand fuel exports to Europe. A similar effort should be made for New England,” a group of governors from New England wrote in a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm this summer, per a Financial Times report.

The governors then went on to call on the administration to make sure there was enough LNG for American consumers, essentially asking politicians to reduce LNG exports. This does not bode well for balance in the U.S. gas market.

In May, John Kilduff from Again Capital told CNBC he expected gas prices to top $10 per mmBtu and maybe reach $12 to $14.

“This is a commodity that trades parabolically a lot. It’s no stranger to parabolic moves up and down. It’s incredibly volatile, and it also has the ability to reset. We could get to $10 or $12 and if you have a cool August, then you could be down below $8 again,” he said at the time.

The Energy Information Administration this month revised its gas price forecast for the full year upwards, seeing the commodity average $9 per mmBtu in the final quarter before falling to $6 per mmBtu in 2023. The decline would come as a result of rising local gas production, the EIA noted.

In the meantime, however, until this increase in production materializes to a degree that begins to affect prices, there seems to be only one way they will be going: up. With heating season around the corner in both Europe and the United States and with a lot of people in both places using gas for heating, the price outlook for gas does not look good from a consumer’s perspective. It does look good from a gas exporter’s perspective, however.

It is unlikely that U.S. gas prices will climb anywhere near European levels, but they are up by a whopping 300 percent from a few years ago when gas was cheap because it was abundant. That sort of price increase affects everything along the supply chain that involves electricity produced using gas, sending ripples across the economy. And the more gas utilities use for lack of reliable alternatives, the longer the energy-driven inflation will continue.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

European Investment Bank Head Rejects NatGas Funding For African Countries

WEDNESDAY, SEP 21, 2022 - 02:45 AM

Despite the historic energy crisis rippling through the world, the European Investment Bank (EIB) isn't reconsidering green lending policies, which exclude fossil-fuel funding in Africa and other emerging countries.

EIB president Werner Hoyer said the future lies with sustainable energy sources. He said the current energy crisis caused by the sudden reduction of Russian natural gas supplies "hasn't changed our view."

"We as a European public institution should not invest in assets that one day will be seen as stranded assets," Hoyer told the Financial Times.

He said many African countries consider a so-called 'transition' from coal to NatGas, though EIB's view is much different. He added, "the energy transition must include renewables."

The direction of the EU's investment bank, the biggest multilateral bank by assets, has been very clear for several years: In 2019, begin to phase out all fossil fuel funding, including NatGas power plants, by the end of 2021. Last year, the bank chief said, "NatGas is over."

EIB's anti-fossil fuel lending restrictions have already sparked tensions with some African countries over what constitutes a "just" energy transition. Not everyone wants to travel down the route of unreliable solar and wind power sources.

Pravin Gordhan, South Africa's minister of public enterprises, called out the hypocrisy of EIB's 'green' lending policy as domestically, EU leaders scramble to restart NatGas and coal power generators after Russian energy Gazprom slashed Nord Stream 1 NatGas fuel supplies to zero last month.

"Europe, which took the hardest line in terms of emissions, is now in trouble. It is keeping coal-fired power stations going and importing coal.

"How does the EIB reconcile its views with what European governments are doing? Gordhan said.

And it gets better. European lawmakers recently approved new rules designating NatGas and nuclear as sustainable energy sources for investment purposes. That designation has infuriated leaders abroad who can't access EIB's funding for NatGas projects...

Hoyer admitted a widening gap between European and African positions on energy transition power sources. He reaffirmed EIB's financing would only be for access to clean and reliable energy in emerging markets -- nothing else.

He said many African countries had presented fossil fuel projects as "transitional," though EIB's view is that it will continue to bolster demand for fossil fuels.

Hoyer accused some countries of "hiding behind the war in Ukraine . . . because they do not seriously want to go into the energy transition and into renewables."

At the latest summit of African leaders in Rotterdam, Hoyer said he was very disappointed to see very few European representatives attend the event to discuss climate change transformation of power grids.

Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who attended the summit earlier this month, said:

"I deplore the absence of the leaders of the industrialized nations and the private sector who are, as we know, the greatest polluters."

FT noted Africa is only responsible for 2-3% of cumulative carbon emissions from energy and industry.

"On a per capita basis, Europe's electricity consumption from fossil fuel is at least 25 times Nigeria's consumption from all energy sources," Aliyu Suleiman, chief of strategy at Dangote Group, Nigeria's largest conglomerate, said.

"Pragmatically, some of this will have to come from natural gas," Suleiman added. "Denying such funding for Africa is denying Africa the opportunity to grow its economy and improve standards of living for its citizens."

It seems hypocritical that EIB's green lending policies abroad for energy projects aren't in tune with what's happening domestically.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Western Sanctions Against Russia Spark Mayhem In Shipping As New Threat Emerges​

WEDNESDAY, SEP 21, 2022 - 03:55 AM

The unilateral sanctions that Western countries unleashed on Russia have caused energy supply disruptions and energy hyperinflation across the world. Europe is rejiggering its energy supply chain away from Russia as it sources energy products elsewhere. EU countries are scrambling for tankers to import energy products from abroad, which has led to a surge in global tanker shipping rates.

Since slapping Russia with sanctions, the West has realized that global supply chains are fragile. Even before the Ukraine war, supply chains struggled due to uneven Covid economic recovery, trade war conflicts, and increasing geopolitical risks.

As such, the decision to rejigger Europe's entire energy supply chain away from Russia amid all the chaos in the world has created a shortage of vessels to carry essential fuels to energy-stricken regions this winter.

Bloomberg reported that Europe is importing liquefied natural gas, diesel, and crude from far away regions that keep tankers in transit for extended periods and delay return to service for other critical shipping lanes. Shipping experts warn this is sparking the latest surge in global tanker freight rates.

LNG freight rates are at elevated levels for this time of year and threaten to surpass last year's winter peak. The cost of shipping a US oil cargo to China is at the highest since 2020, while transporting a cargo of naphtha petrochemical feedstock from the Middle East to Japan costs more than twice as much as it did in March, according to data from the Baltic Exchange.



The ship shortage threatens to impact Asian economies that import oil and gas from the US, as they may find it difficult to get spare cargoes at short notice if the weather turns extremely cold this winter, said traders and shipowners. Even petrochemical feedstock shipments are becoming more expensive to transport, further burdening buyers grappling with sluggish demand for chemicals as the pace of manufacturing slows.

Concerns are growing that the limited availability of LNG vessels this winter may cause cargo disruptions.

Shipowners are demanding LNG carriers back to the Freeport facility in Texas ahead of restarting operations in November after a fire shuttered the plant in early June.

"What we've seen in shipping this year has been remarkable as a result of the war in Ukraine," said Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, a freight market analytics platform.

Western sanctions on Russia is the culprit behind energy chaos worldwide and soaring tanker rates, and risks increase of limited ship availability to hire this winter. What a mess this has become.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Inflation could cost your family an extra $11,500 this year​

Prices are up 8.5% year over year​

By Rachel DePompa
Published: Sep. 20, 2022 at 12:50 PM PDT|Updated: 16 hours ago

InvestigateTV - New estimates from NerdWallet project that, due to inflation, the average household would have to spend an extra $11,500 this year in order to maintain the same standard of living as previous years.

Elizabeth Renter from NerdWallet explained that groceries would cost around $100 more per month and utilities an extra $70 monthly.

Renter offered a few tips for holding down increased costs:

Make simple changes to reduce spending: something as simple as switching to generic products could make a big difference.

Prepare for higher interest rates: put off big purchases if possible until interest rates come back down.

Continue to put money away in an emergency fund: those extra dollars may come in handy if inflation persists.

If you can’t put more money into emergency savings and these rising prices are putting you over the edge, one option for assistance is visiting 211.org or call 211 to get in touch with community resources in your area
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

As border crisis rages, Homeland Security champions … electric vehicles​

"DHS is leading the charge among federal agencies to transition its fleet vehicles from internal combustion engines to zero-emission electric vehicles."

By Ben Whedon

Updated: September 20, 2022 - 11:30pm

Amid record illegal immigration and migrants dying in droves at the "deadliest land crossing in the world," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has chosen to highlight its forays into clean energy through the deployment of electric vehicles.

In June, over 50 migrants were found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer after a botched migrant trafficking effort. In late August, the bodies of two young children were discovered in the Rio Grande. Earlier this month, eight migrants drowned in the same river as part of a mass crossing attempt.

Incidents such as these are commonplace at the U.S. border with Mexico and their prevalence prompted the United Nations International Organization for Migration in July to dub that frontier the "deadliest land crossing in the world."

Under the Biden administration, which has only loosely enforced immigration law, migrant encounters at the border have skyrocketed. On Monday, numbers from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) revealed that migrant encounters had, for the first time, topped 2 million during the same fiscal year. Moreover, in just the month of August, that figure cleared 200,000. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced earlier this month that Border Patrol agents had encountered more than 80 members of the Terror Watchlist at the crossing since President Joe Biden took office.

A dozen more illegal migrants with ties to terrorism were apprehended in August alone.

But amid documented evidence of the humanitarian and security disasters at the nation's southern border, DHS chose to focus on climate action, unveiling a plan this week to field all-electric vehicles for its law enforcement operations.

In the announcement, DHS boasted that it had become the first federal agency to debut an electric vehicle for law enforcement use and asserted its plans to field a variety of such vehicles across the country.

"The Ford Mustang Mach-E is the first of a variety of EVs DHS plans to field across its varied law enforcement missions throughout the homeland," the statement reads.

"DHS is leading the charge among federal agencies to transition its fleet vehicles from internal combustion engines to zero-emission electric vehicles," said Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security John Tien. "As the Nation’s third largest federal agency and largest law enforcement agency, DHS has an inventory of more than 50,000 vehicles, with law enforcement vehicles making up 60 percent of its fleet."

"DHS is proud to be the first Federal agency to upfit a battery electric vehicle for law enforcement use. As we ramp up EV adoption, we are excited to see how this and other EVs perform for our mission," he continued. The agency noted that the Ford vehicle was undergoing "high threshold testing" and was the target of cybersecurity assessments to clear it for DHS use.

"DHS is proactively seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, EVs have the potential to significantly improve federal fleet efficiency and reduce vehicle operation and maintenance costs," acting Under Secretary for Management R. D. Alles said. "DHS is also looking to create climate-resilient facilities and infrastructure, and to continue transitioning the DHS vehicle fleet towards electrification in the years to come."

The department's prioritization of climate action comes amid the Biden administration's ongoing legal battle to end Title 42 expulsions, a practice by which border enforcement may remove apprehended illegal migrants if they arrived by way of a country known to host a communicable disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the expulsion was both a significant deterrent to migrants and a boon to border enforcement operations.

A Louisiana judge blocked the lifting of the order and litigation is ongoing. Republicans have warned that lifting the order would exacerbate an already dire situation and prompt a human "tsunami."

The ongoing border crisis has prompted some Republicans to float the possibility of impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. "This is his moment in time to do his job but at any time if someone is derelict in their job, there is always the option of impeaching somebody," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in April, prior to the release of record-breaking migrant numbers from CBP.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Rising interest rates forcing families into 'credit card trap'​

Here are some ways to avoid running up huge credit card debt

By: John Matarese
Posted at 6:00 AM, Sep 21, 2022
and last updated 4:08 AM, Sep 21, 2022

Paying with credit cards is convenient, and you can spread out your payments, if money is tight.

But rising interest rates are making those credit cards dangerous these days.
Alicia Turner knows that. This mom says buying food for her family is getting more and more expensive every week.

"It's very hard to purchase what you are trying to purchase," she said.

With grocery inflation running well over 10 percent, she says is putting more charges onto her credit card.

And if you don't pay the bill in full every month, that bill can get bigger very quickly.

More credit card use at the same time as rising rates
Inflation and the end of stimulus checks mean many consumers are putting more purchases onto their credit cards right now.

But at the same time, rates are shooting up, with the average credit card interest rate now over 18 percent, according to Bankrate.com.

As card rates approach 20 percent, financial experts say it's easy to fall into the "credit card trap."

That's where you don't have enough cash each month to pay even half of your monthly credit card bill, so the balance keeps going up and up.
Suzanne Powell is a financial advisor and author of "The Ultimate Money Moves for Women over 50."

She says, "what could have taken you 5 years to pay something off, may now take 8 or 9 or 10 years."

Powell says when carrying a balance on your card with 18 percent interest, a vacation or big screen TV can cost you a lot more than you ever dreamed.

"Over time they really don't realize they pretty much paid double for it," she said.

Powell suggests if you are falling into the credit card trap:
  • Try to pay down your balance, starting with the highest rate credit card first.
  • Look for a zero percent balance transfer card, if you qualify. There are still cards that will charge zero percent interest if you move a balance to them.
  • Pay with cash or a debit card, not a credit card, when possible. Limit credit cards to gas, groceries, and essential purchases.
Mom Alicia Turner is trying not to rack up big credit card bills, but inflation is making it difficult.

"It gets tighter," she said. "You have to work twice as hard for your income."

The worse news for many families: Credit card rates are expected to rise even further in the coming weeks.

So be careful how often you say "charge it," so you don't waste your money.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Serbian President Warns of “Great World Conflict” Within Two Months

Worst situation since WWII.

21 September, 2022
Paul Joseph Watson

The President of Serbia has warned that the planet is entering into a “great world conflict” that could take place within the next two months.

Aleksandar Vucic made the alarming comments during the first day of the UN General Assembly session in New York.

“You see a crisis in every part of the world,” Vucic told the Serbian state broadcaster RTS.

“I think realistic predictions ought to be even darker,” he added. “Our position is even worse, since the UN has been weakened and the great powers have taken over and practically destroyed the UN order over the past several decades.”

The Serbian leader cautioned that the war between Russia and Ukraine had moved on to a far deadlier phase.

“I assume that we’re leaving the phase of the special military operation and approaching a major armed conflict, and now the question becomes where is the line, and whether after a certain time – maybe a month or two, even – we will enter a great world conflict not seen since the Second World War,” he said.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1572501672798355459
.45 min

Vucic’s remarks were made on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an immediate “partial mobilization” of troops amounting to 300,000 soldiers.

In a public address to the nation, Putin warned that he wasn’t bluffing and that he was prepared to use “all the means at our disposal” to protect Moscow’s territorial integrity.

“Now they (the West) are talking about nuclear blackmail,” said Putin.

“The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was shelled and also some high positions – representatives of NATO states – who are saying there might be possibility and permissibility to use nuclear weapons against Russia,” he added.

Putin ominously asserted that western powers should “be reminded that our country also has various weapons of destruction, and with regard to certain components they’re even more modern than NATO ones.”

As we highlighted last month, a study conducted by Rutgers University found that nuclear war between the United States and Russia would cause two-thirds of the planet to starve to death within two years.

5 billion people would perish, primarily as a result of nuclear detonations causing huge infernos that inject soot into the atmosphere which blocks out the sun and devastates crops.

One wonders how a generation that thinks words are “violence” and misgendering someone is stochastic terrorism will react to an intercontinental nuclear war.

The mind truly boggles.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Budget Analysts Conclude Biden Policies Will Add $4.8 Trillion To National Debt​

BY: CHRISTOPHER JACOBS
SEPTEMBER 21, 2022

This nearly $5 trillion represents a conservative estimate of the amount this administration’s actions have added to the national debt.

Why does inflation continue to plague American households? Part of the problem stems from monetary policies the Federal Reserve put into place as a stimulus response to Covid-19 and kept in place for far too long. But a new analysis puts much of the blame — $4,800,000,000,000 worth, to be exact — at the feet of President Biden.

The estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) in some ways understates the scope of the fiscal irresponsibility by this administration — in far too many cases with at least some Republican support. But it speaks to the extent of the reforms that future administrations, and frankly future generations, will have to enact to clean up the fiscal mess that Biden and current lawmakers have created.

jacobsimage9.19-1024x766.jpg

Spending Like Drunken Sailors

One can characterize the policies included in the CRFB analysis into three broad buckets.

Administrative Actions: These consist of executive policies enacted without approval from Congress (and, at least some would argue, without authority from Congress).
  • Student “loan forgiveness,” which according to CRFB will cost $750 billion.
  • A more than 20 percent increase in the reference cost of food stamps, which will cost $185 billion.
  • A series of health-related administrative actions, including a (questionably legal) proposal to alter the Obamacare subsidy regime, and a recent proposal designed to liberalize the Medicaid enrollment process. In total, CRFB concludes these actions will cost $175 billion.
Bipartisan Legislation: Many other budget-busting measures passed with significant bipartisan support — in this case, at least 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. These bills include:
  • The omnibus spending legislation enacted this March, which the CRFB analysis notes will increase discretionary spending by $625 billion over a decade, assuming the higher spending levels in the measure continue to rise with inflation.
  • The infrastructure measure enacted last summer, which included several notable budget gimmicks and according to CRFB will result in $370 billion of debt.
  • Legislation regarding veterans’ benefits (i.e., the “burn pit bill”) passed by Congress this summer, which will result in $280 billion in additional deficits and debt.
  • The semiconductor legislation passed over the summer, which contained $80 billion in new automatic spending for various subsidized corporate projects.
  • A total of $55 billion in supplemental spending since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year.
These measures account for more than $1.4 trillion in new deficits and debt, even before one considers interest costs. Even if some of the projects included in the bills have merit, responsible lawmakers would have demanded spending reductions elsewhere in the budget to offset these new outlays.

Partisan Legislation: This bucket includes the two measures Democrats rammed through along party lines via the budget reconciliation process, which allowed Senate Democrats to avoid a Republican filibuster. According to CRFB, the “Covid relief” measure Democrats enacted last year will add $1.85 trillion to the debt, while the “Inflation Reduction Act” signed last month will reduce the debt by $240 billion.

In addition to all the added spending above, CRFB calculates an additional $700 billion in estimated higher interest rate costs over the coming decade to arrive at its $4.8 trillion figure.

Analysis Too Optimistic?

Believe it or not, some would argue that the CRFB analysis doesn’t go far enough when quantifying the effects of this administration’s fiscal irresponsibility. For instance, the Penn-Wharton budget model concluded that the cost of the Biden “loan forgiveness” program “could exceed $1 trillion,” several hundred billion dollars more than the CRFB estimate.

The CRFB analysis also takes the $240 billion of supposed deficit reduction from the “Inflation Reduction Act” at face value, rather than looking behind some of the budget gimmicks and questionable assumptions in that law.

It says something about the Democrats’ agenda that nearly $5 trillion represents a conservative estimate of the amount that this administration’s actions have added to the national debt. Republicans, who have no great history of cutting spending — either in this administration or during the last one — had better get ready to make some tough choices in the years ahead.

Whether they want to or not, our country’s dire fiscal situation will almost certainly require it.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Steve Sisolak Is Backing a Massive Lithium Mine in Nevada. So Is a Chinese Company With Communist Leaders.

Chinese lithium giant Ganfeng's role in Nevada mining project prompts concern that Dems' green energy push benefits communist nation

Collin Anderson • September 21, 2022

Democratic governor Steve Sisolak is backing a foreign company's plan to deliver America's green energy future through a massive Nevada lithium mine. That company's largest shareholder is a Chinese enterprise led by known Chinese Communist Party members, prompting concern that the project could ultimately benefit America's top adversary.

Sisolak in September 2020 approved $8.5 million in tax abatements for Lithium Americas, a Canadian company that intends to mine tens of thousands of tons of lithium—the key component in electric vehicle batteries—from a site in northern Nevada. Another top Nevada Democrat, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, in 2019 met with the company's executives and two years later persuaded her colleagues on the Hill to scrap legislation that would have imposed costly royalties on Lithium Americas and other hardrock miners.

Both Sisolak and Cortez Masto have argued that lithium mining in Nevada will accelerate America's clean energy economy by securing a domestic supply chain for crucial minerals, a sector that China dominates. But those arguments ignore Lithium Americas's largest shareholder—Chinese mineral giant Ganfeng, which holds a seat on Lithium Americas's board and "may … be in a position to affect the company's operations and direction," according to Lithium Americas's most recent annual report.

Ganfeng's influence over Lithium Americas is prompting concern that Sisolak and Cortez Masto's green energy push will prop up the Chinese Communist Party, particularly given Ganfeng's extensive ties to Beijing. Ganfeng president Li Liangbin, for example, holds positions on an array of committees and advisory boards that feed into the Chinese Communist Party, and the company's 2021 annual report describes board member Yu Jianguo as "a member of the Communist Party of China." In addition, Ganfeng executive vice president Wang Xiaoshen—who serves on Lithium Americas's board—"established himself in the lithium sector with China State-Owned Enterprises," according to a 2011 press release.

China already controls roughly 60 percent of the world's lithium resources thanks in part to Ganfeng. With the support of China's state-owned banks, the company has acquired sizable stakes in lithium mining projects in Chile, Argentina, and Australia. Now, Ganfeng could extend its footprint into the United States for the first time, causing former secretary of state Mike Pompeo to express extreme alarm over the Chinese company's significant stake in Lithium Americas and ties to China's government. Should the project move forward, Pompeo argued, China would "get a foothold in America on lithium mining."

"The United States government has a responsibility to look through this façade, this corporate entity that is fronting the Chinese Communist Party, and prevent them from moving forward," Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon. "This is clearly an intention by the Chinese Communist Party to control the entire supply chain for green energy. They want a monopoly on lithium, and allowing them to do this by presenting themselves through a Canadian entity is dangerous. The United States Department of Treasury has the capacity to stop this from happening, and they should."

Lithium Americas minimized its connection to China, telling the Free Beacon that while Ganfeng has direct ownership in a different Lithium Americas mine in Argentina, the company "owns 100 percent" of its Nevada project and remains "focused on selling to U.S.-focused customers to strengthen the domestic battery supply chain." Still, Lithium Americas confirmed both Ganfeng's 11.1 percent stake in the company and Wang's role on the company's board. Lithium Americas's management and directors, by contrast, hold a 5.6 percent stake in the company, according to its September corporate presentation. No company or individual other than Ganfeng owns more than 10 percent of Lithium Americas's shares, the company's 2022 shareholders report states.

Neither Sisolak nor Cortez Masto returned requests for comment. Sisolak in September 2020 said he was "grateful" for Lithium Americas's "major" investment in Nevada. Roughly two years later, in July, the Democrat said Nevada "is leading the way in clean energy" thanks to Lithium Americas's work with the University of Nevada-Reno to "help identify and advance new processes for the electrification and battery industry." Cortez Masto, meanwhile, is known as a "fierce critic of policy proposals that would create new rules around mining" and argued that President Joe Biden's $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which allocated $17 billion in loans to "support the domestic battery supply chain," would "benefit national security by leveling the playing field with China."

Now, China-tied companies such as Lithium Americas could tap into the loans. In April, the company announced its "submission of a formal loan application to the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Technologies Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program," a funding source that Lithium Americas expects will cover "the majority" of "capital costs" stemming from its Nevada mine, which sits on the largest known reserve of lithium in the United States.

It's unclear if the company's connections to Beijing will deter its loan application. Ganfeng invested $174 million in Lithium Americas in 2017, and Li has acquired considerable political clout in China since the deal. A 2019 Foreign Policy report, for example, says Li in 2018 joined the Standing Committee of the 12th Political Consultative Conference of Jiangxi province. And in June, Li became an elected leader of the China Democratic Construction Association, a Chinese Communist Party front group that last week published a report pledging to adhere to Communist leadership and "unswervingly follow the party."

Beyond Biden's 2021 infrastructure bill, Lithium Americas—and, by proxy, Ganfeng—has benefited from Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which invests $370 billion in green energy. Lithium Americas CEO Jonathan Evans went in "full celebration mode" after Biden signed the law, which was "chock-full of mining industry benefits," according to E&E News. "It's a big deal. We're delighted with it," Evans said of the law in August. Just weeks later, Biden tapped John Podesta, who has encouraged Chinese investment in American infrastructure, to oversee the law's hundreds of billions in climate spending.

Lithium Americas plans to yield a quarter of the world's lithium demand from its Nevada mine, according to Real Clear Investigations. The company expects "early-works construction" at the mine to commence "later this year."

Published under: Catherine Cortez Masto, CCP, China, Green Energy, Nevada, Steve Sisolak
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Thought it was bad? Putin is about to make it MUCH worse | Redacted with Clayton Morris 19:13 min

Thought it was bad? Putin is about to make it MUCH worse | Redacted with Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published September 20, 2022

The Western media is responding to a major speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin. But he didn't give it yet. The speech was rescheduled for Wednesday but many expect that he will lay the foundation for a major war escalation. And now the West is saying that the referendum election for the Donbask region is a scam, signaling that they will not recognize any outcome, no matter what happens.

^^^^
This COULD change everything if it happens | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris 14:52 min

This COULD change everything if it happens | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published September 20, 2022

A judge in Texas ruled that social media companies cannot censor speech that they do not like. This is a victory for conservatives who are unequivocally being censored more than liberals. Will this help Florida to reinstate its own similar law or will the Supreme Court take up this case?
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Oh SH*T, the WEF climate lockdowns are already starting | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris 27:28 min

Oh SH*T, the WEF climate lockdowns are already starting | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published September 20, 2022

Does the World Economic Forum want you to voluntarily lock down for the environment? Maybe Covid lockdowns were a warm up because left-leaning leaders seem to be signaling that they want to take away the life you know for the health of the planet. And their own enrichment of course.

^^^^

Coming soon: Climate lockdowns?​

BY KRISTIN TATE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 02/02/22 9:30 AM ET

The past two years have been a checklist for the worst impulses of government and public sentiment. COVID allowed for supposedly temporary measures to morph into two years of “emergency” restrictions. But what if COVID was only the opening act, and another proclaimed crisis is the main event? Implementing significant but partial restrictions, one by one, in the name of the common good can allow for encompassing government control that results in relatively little backlash. Fear over climate change could lead to long-term soft lockdowns, given the precedent of immense growth of government power and significant support for sweeping state actions.

This isn’t a right-wing fever dream. Calls for harsh government measures in the name of saving the environment are already in the parlance of influential organizations and figures. In November 2020, the Red Cross proclaimed that climate change is a bigger threat than COVID and should be confronted with “the same urgency.” Bill Gates recently demanded dramatic measures to prevent climate change, claiming it will be worse than the pandemic. Despite millions of people having died from COVID, former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney last year predicted that climate deaths will dwarf those of the pandemic. Lockdowns, which significantly reduced carbon emissions during 2020, could be the solution. After all, the EU’s climate service gloated, the first COVID lockdown may have saved 800 lives.

What would climate lockdowns look like? Most likely, cities and states would begin a gradual and discrete ramp-up of restrictions. During the early days of the pandemic, millions of Americans worked from home; this could become the permanent norm if special carbon taxes are put in place. Such taxes could be imposed on companies, limiting driving or air miles, and extend to individual employees. Drive to work in a car? You get hit with the tax. Children could be impacted by climate lockdowns, too. Schools, especially those heavily influenced by teachers’ unions, could impose permanent online-only days.

Delhi, India is already using a version of this concept to crack down on smog pollution.

At the same time, either through direct government fiat or due to ineffective green energy policies, some areas of the country could regularly experience California-style rolling blackouts. And as fossil fuels (and nuclear power) go by the wayside, consumers may be prevented from buying new gasoline cars, lawnmowers, or chainsaws.

Significant measures are already being planned to combat climate change.

California will ban the sale of gasoline cars in 13 years, as will Germany. Britain plans to do the same in just eight. Prohibiting internal combustion engines could save the planet, the argument goes. As each negative weather event is blamed on climate change, government will increasingly use its restrictive tools.

While deaths from natural disasters have fallen by two-thirds over the past five decades, mostly thanks to technological innovations, elites insist that climate change is the “biggest threat modern humans have ever faced.” Climate lockdowns and other restrictions will be framed as saving the people of the United States, and the world, from themselves. What goal could be more noble?

Anyone against such measures could be labeled a “climate denier” who stands against progress — or simply a “domestic terrorist.” Defectors likely won’t have much choice, anyhow. Facial recognition and plate-reading software, coupled with the impressive scope of drones, could lead to severe enforcement. Don’t like the restrictions on your gas guzzler? The government could easily track its location and send automatic tickets — or worse. The ability for officials to depend on a significant minority of zealous supporters to enforce measures is invaluable, as well. How many COVID “Karens” justify their fanaticism by contrasting themselves with uneducated, rural Donald Trump supporters?

But don’t expect the new rules to apply to everyone equally. During the pandemic, elites don’t wear masks in private — only their servers, drivers and cleaners do. You will be held responsible for your personal carbon footprint, enforced by either law or social convention. But climate evangelists such as Jeff Bezos or “climate czar” John Kerry will receive special dispensations for their carbon use.

The pandemic proved to be the precedent of 21st century governance. The initial lockdowns were a desperate attempt to understand more about the virus and shut it down. In hindsight, the overreaction will simply provide a backdrop for the next major government overreach. If COVID could kill millions, imagine the powers the government will assume against a threat that could kill billions.

Political leaders have learned that fear prompts the public to accept dramatic curtailing of freedoms for vague promises of safety — they must realize the incredible power at their fingertips. COVID gave the government mouse a cookie, and power-hungry officials and bureaucrats can utilize the precedents of the past two years to institute a much longer, much more comprehensive lockdown.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

International Energy Agency Demands Worldwide Lockdowns to Meet Climate Goals

EU Times on May 3rd, 2022 //

The International Energy Agency has demanded Governments worldwide essentially ‘lockdown’ the public to cut down the use of oil and meet “climate change” targets.

To be blunt, the ordinary, hardworking man and woman is being brainwashed to believe that the planet is heading for disaster, it is their fault, and they must change their behaviour in order to save the world. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Humanity could most certainly be kinder to nature and the other living things that inhabit Earth, but the argument that the world will essentially end as we know it if we don’t get to carbon zero by the year 2050 or earlier is propaganda. It is a tool being used by the elites to shape the future through fear, just as they have done with the alleged Covid-19 crisis, and as they are now doing with the war in Ukraine.

One example of this lie is that ordinary men and women are the reason plastic is polluting our seas.

As you’ll have now encountered if you’ve visited a Mcdonalds, you are now forced to use one of the worst inventions ever to grace our planet – the paper straw.

But plastic straws aren’t the problem. The real problem is lost and abandoned fishing gear, which is deadly to marine life and makes up the majority of plastic pollution in the oceans (source). The next source of contamination is huge loads of plastic waste being dumped at sea by ships.

So the real problem here is corporations, not the ordinary man and woman. It’s not us who needs to change, it’s big business that needs to change.

But the vultures have smelt their next opportunity to get rich quick. But to do so they need you to believe there is a problem, and they need you to pay for it. This is where the International Energy Agency comes in.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) was founded in 1974 following the 1973 oil crisis. The IEA was initially dedicated to responding to physical disruptions in the supply of oil.

In the decades since, its role has expanded to cover the entire global energy system, encompassing traditional energy sources such as oil, gas, and coal as well as cleaner and faster growing ones such as solar photovoltaics, wind power and biofuels.

As Government policy set off a global health and economic crisis in early 2020 in response to the alleged Covid-19 pandemic, the IEA called on governments to ensure that their economic recovery plans focus on clean energy investments in order to create the conditions for a sustainable recovery and long-term structural decline in carbon emissions.

Today the IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states which include the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as major emerging economies.

The IEA’s current Executive Director is Fatih Birol, who took office in late 2015 and began his second term four years later.

Here he is chatting to the founder of Microsoft, major investor in Big Pharma, and founder of ‘Breakthrough Energy’, Mr Bill Gates at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in May 2021 –

Yes, Bill Gates is involved yet again. Isn’t he always?

In March 2022, the IEA published a report titled ‘A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use’.

Here’s how the organisation described the report –

“In the face of the emerging global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the IEA’s 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use proposes 10 actions that can be taken to reduce oil demand with immediate impact – and provides recommendations for how those actions can help pave the way to putting oil demand onto a more sustainable path in the longer term.”

And here’s an infographic of their proposed 10-point plan –

Reducing highway speed limits by about 6 miles per hour; more working from home; street changes to encourage walking and cycling; car-free Sundays in cities and restrictions on other days; cutting transit fares; policies that encourage more carpooling; cutting business air travel.

Sounds an awful lot like a “climate” version of Covid-19 lockdowns, doesn’t it?

The IEA even propose the following –

“Restricting private cars’ use of roads in large cities to those with even number-plates some weekdays and to those with odd-numbered plates on other weekdays”

The real question of course is whether Governments will adopt the measures. But they claim to have been “following the science” (at least the funded by Big Pharma version of Science) for the past two years, so why stop now?

In the UK, the Government has written into law that the ‘zero emissions’ target must be met by 2050, and a report published by Oxford University and Imperial College London states that in order to meet those targets the following actions must be taken –

All airports must close between 2020 and 2029 excluding Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast airports, which can only stay open on the condition that transfers to and from the airport are done via rail.

All remaining airports must then close between 2030 and 2049 as to meet the legal commitment of zero emissions by 2050 every citizen of the United Kingdom must “stop using aeroplanes” for a significant period of time.

The public will be required to stop doing anything that causes emissions regardless of its energy source. According to the report this will require the public to never eat beef or lamb ever again.
To do this national consumption of beef and lamb will drop by 50% between 2020 and 2029. Then between 2030 and 2049 beef and lamb will be “phased out”.

Construction of new buildings must also cease by 2050.

The report was released in November 2019 and was authored by ‘UK Fires’, a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Nottingham, Bath and Imperial College London – the home of Professor Neil Ferguson.

Entitled ‘Absolute Zero’, the report is a research collaboration in which the authors reveal what the UK must do to meet its legal requirement to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and it makes for harrowing reading.

Is it just a coincidence that four months after the release of the report, the UK Government brought in the Coronavirus Act and implemented a national lockdown which decimated the travel industry? A quick read-through of the report certainly suggests the real reason for lockdowns may have been so that the Government can meet its legal commitment to reduce emissions.

Do you not find it odd how Draconian Covid-19 policies also allegedly helped the climate and now the same solutions are being touted to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and meet absurd climate targets?

These proposed ‘solutions’ to climate change, Covid-19, and now the Russian war are all exactly the same – hammer the poor and middle class with more restrictions on travel, less freedom, and even more surrendering of power to unelected government regulators.

This isn’t about your health or the health of the planet, it’s about wealth and ultimately control.

^^^^^
https://ukfires.org/absolute-zero/

Download the report Absolute Zero

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marsh

On TB every waking moment

Wealthy Nations Must Support Africa in the Face of Famine and Climate Change, Says Bill Gates​

BY ARYN BAKER
SEPTEMBER 13, 2022 9:36 AM EDT

On Sept. 25, 2015, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, 193 world leaders committed to a series of ambitious objectives and targets to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change by 2030. Now at the halfway point, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, as they are known, are significantly off track, largely due to the confluence of Covid 19, climate change, and conflict.

According to the annual Goalkeepers report published today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world would need to speed up progress five times as fast to make the 2030 deadline. It may sound like a depressing prognosis, write Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in the report’s introduction, but they add that there is real hope and opportunity in innovation. “Human ingenuity can render our careful projections irrelevant and make our boldest aspirations seem timid.”

On the eve of the report’s release, TIME spoke with Bill Gates about the next steps. The key message, he said, is prioritizing Africa despite the combined strains of the post-pandemic economy, climate change, and the war in Ukraine: “Because it is about millions of lives, [Africa] is more critical now than ever.”

TIME: The war in Ukraine has disrupted food supply chains globally, bringing some countries to the brink of famine. But in your report, you note that maize crops in Africa—responsible for one third of the continent’s calories—could be reduced by 25% by the end of the decade due to higher temperatures. How much more of a threat is climate change?

Gates: Heat is your enemy. Get above a certain temperature and maize productivity drops a lot. If you get really, really hot, you eventually have to switch to something like sorghum [a high-protein cereal grain], which evolved to deal with very high temperatures. Now, we face not only population growth, but climate change, which of course was caused by rich countries but is far more acute in the problems it causes poor subsistence farmers.

So, what is the best way to combat this?
Of course, you have to provide food aid, but that isn’t the solution. You’ll just be back providing food aid again and again because of population [growth] and climate [change]. So, we are saying that we need to get Africa to be self-sufficient. African food productivity is about a quarter of what rich countries, including the U.S., are able to achieve. That’s tragic because Africa should be a net food exporter as the cost of land and the cost of labor is very low. If you don’t have a credit system [to buy better seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides], and you don’t educate farmers—both men and women farmers—then you don’t get this extra productivity. If they had the right ingredients, they would benefit from those assets.

If donations aren’t the solution, what is?
It starts with better seeds. We want the Green Revolution [a crop science intervention that transformed Asian agriculture in the 1970s] for Africa. We say we care about climate adaptation, yet we haven’t fully funded the research [on climate-adapted seeds], and we haven’t funded the education of farmers. It’s a tragedy.

What are some of the technological interventions or innovations that we can use to get better quality seeds?
I’ll give you two that are probably a decade off. One is that you can make photosynthesis more efficient. Science magazine had a cover on some work we funded that saw a 20% improvement [in soybean yields]. That’s a very promising area, although it will take time. Another is leguminous crops, [beans, peas, and lentils] including soybeans that work with fungi and bacteria in the soil to create their own nitrogen—their own fertilizer. So we’re taking that leguminous nitrogen fixation pathway and moving it into other crops including rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, and millet; that looks very promising.

That sounds promising, but you are talking about transgenic modification—GMOs. That is something that has become taboo in many circles. Do we need to get over that hesitation to ensure a better food supply in the future?

Some of these seeds actually aren’t full GMO. Some of them use what’s called gene editing, which is no different than normal crossbreeding. But in the leguminous example you are taking genes from soybeans and moving those [into other plants] so it will be subject to a high regulatory standard, and we have no issue with that. In areas where climate change is raising already very high levels of malnutrition and threatened starvation, well those countries should look at the safety record and look at the data and be able to use modern seeds. Just like vaccines—at some point you’ve got to say “Okay, we have the safety data, we don’t want to starve, so let’s go ahead.”

What about more immediate solutions?
We do have some things that are much more near term, like avoiding cassava diseases that are spreading throughout Africa. Cassava is a root crop that you only pull out when there’s an emergency, like in a year where you have bad weather. But if it is diseased, then you really do have severe malnutrition. [We have developed] a way to prevent cassava mosaic disease using a technique called RNA interference.

NYC Climate Week starts on Sept. 19, alongside the UN General Assembly meetings. What is the single most important thing global leaders need to do to address climate impacts in the developing world?

Most of the people in poor countries are farmers, and most of them are farmers with very small amounts of land and not much capital. So, getting them weather data so they know exactly when to plant, and mapping their soils so they know the exact amount of fertilizer to use, is even more important when you get better seeds.


Small and developing nations that are the most affected by global warming are pushing for climate finance and loss and damage payments. What is the best and fairest way to set this up?

I have to admit that with the pressure on European budgets stemming from the war in Ukraine, in terms of defense costs and electricity costs and refugee costs, the idea of maintaining a commitment to climate adaptation and to helping Africa in particular [is not easy]. But having stability in African countries is a good thing. If countries aren’t functional, they won’t spot outbreaks that can lead to pandemics. A farming crisis in Syria was a significant part of the unrest [that led to war]. The war showed that the mass migration is troubling, even if you didn’t care about people in Syria, which of course we should.

How much responsibility do wealthy nations have to provide funding to help the developing world deal with climate change?

Ideally, we want rich countries to give 0.7% of [their] GDP [to fund climate adaptation]. It’s not a gigantic sacrifice. We need to focus our aid on low-income countries, and particularly on the agricultural piece, where the climate is creating this incredible problem. The innovation pipeline is very exciting.

One piece of R&D can benefit millions of farmers. That’s pretty dramatic for both health and agriculture. So, if we can’t fund the CG system [a scientific group that develops climate-adapted, public domain seeds for poor farmers] for 2 billion [dollars] a year, as well as the downstream piece which is helping countries adopt those seeds, then it won’t look like we’re at all serious about climate adaptation. [Right now] I look at that CG funding number and say, “Are we serious about adaptation or do we just like meetings?”

^^^^
annual Goalkeepers report

We need to change how we think about world hunger​

The war in Ukraine shows that hunger can’t be solved just with humanitarian assistance alone. Investments in agriculture R&D are required.

by Bill Gates
Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

In February, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine interrupted the flow of grain from Europe to Africa, creating another humanitarian crisis on a second continent.
Fourteen African nations relied on Ukraine and Russia for half their wheat.

Now, those shipments were canceled, and the supply shock spiked the price of replacement wheat to its highest level in 40 years. Prices eventually started falling in May, but in the interim, there were the makings of a modern famine, with world leaders sounding the alarm bell, calling for an influx of aid—money and pallets of food to be shipped to sub-Saharan ports immediately.

Even before the war in Ukraine, food aid had been skyrocketing, and it’s projected to keep rising through the end of the decade.

Food aid to low-income countries is at record levels—and rising

1663766930198.png
In one sense, this is a very good and necessary thing. The world should be generous and prevent people from going hungry. But in another sense, it doesn’t solve the larger problem.

The goal should not simply be giving more food aid.

It should be to ensure no aid is needed in the first place.

It’s worth stepping back and asking a basic question: Why did a crisis in Eastern Europe threaten to starve millions of people six thousand miles away?

It’s a complex issue. But mostly, it’s a story about where it’s easy to produce food—and where it isn’t.

Since the 1960s, agricultural productivity has increased all over the world.
Farmers saw their harvests get bigger, but they didn’t get bigger everywhere at the same rates. In places like China and Brazil, harvests boomed, while productivity in many South-East Asian countries—Laos and Cambodia, for instance—lagged behind the global average. In sub-Saharan Africa, harvests grew much more slowly than those anywhere else in the world—and not nearly fast enough to feed the domestic population.

When a region can’t grow enough to feed its people, there’s only one solution—to import food—which Africa does on the order of US$23 billion a year.

Each African nation is different, but none is likely buying grain from Eastern Europe because it wants to. It’s importing because it has to.

"The goal should not simply be giving more food aid. It should be to ensure no aid is needed in the first place."
—Bill Gates

The size of your crop often depends on where you live

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The low agricultural productivity has everything to do with the conditions in which African farmers labor. Most eke out a living by farming very small plots of land, often less than a hectare (2.4 acres), without enough irrigation or fertilizer, so whenever there’s a shock to the wider food system—and the total global supply of food is reduced—they cannot grow enough to make up the deficit. People go hungry. This time, the shock was a war that created a disconnect between Eastern European farms and the global supply chain, but next time it could be a different type of shock, like a drought or heat wave that wipes out entire farms across Africa. In fact, that’s the more likely scenario.

This is where climate change enters the story. The war in Ukraine was a major disruption to the global food supply, but climate change presents a much, much bigger problem. It’s the largest threat to food production since the invention of agriculture, especially in Africa where the environment is deteriorating faster than anywhere on Earth.

To more clearly see the potential impact of climate change on farming in Africa, our foundation recently supported development of a data visualization tool called an “Agriculture Adaptation Atlas.” When experts saw the visual results, they were alarmed. The easiest way to understand is by focusing on a single crop: corn (or as most of the world refers to it, “maize”).

Maize accounts for about 30% of all the calories people in sub-Saharan Africa eat. It’s an incredibly important crop, but also a sensitive one. When temperatures exceed 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), the growing process starts breaking down; pollination and photosynthesis slow. Every additional degree above 30 Celsius per day cuts crop yield by at least 1%. For example, if there are five days of 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) temperatures, that’s five multiplied by five—25% of the harvest is lost.

Current domestic production isn't enough to feed Africa

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Sub-Saharan Africa’s most important crops are at risk

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That’s what the Agriculture Adaptation Atlas predicts: By the end of the decade, 30% of Africa’s maize crop will exist in these conditions—as will every other food source, from crops to livestock. And that severe climate stress is the principal reason 32 million more people in Africa are projected to be hungry in 2030.

For farmers on small plots of land, there aren’t many obvious solutions. A recent survey by the World Bank and the Nigerian government asked farmers, “How are you responding to lower crop yields,” and the second and third most common responses were “eating less” and “selling livestock,” while the top answer was just “do nothing.”

Fortunately, there are other, better options.

How can farmers fight climate change? Magic seeds
Fourteen years ago, our foundation began supporting a group of African crop researchers. Their goal was to develop a new type of maize—what I started calling “magic seeds.”

Of course, the seeds weren’t actually magic, but by breeding select varieties of the crop, the researchers believed they could produce a hybrid maize that would be more resistant to hotter, drier climates. They succeeded wildly.

When researchers in Kenya compared plots of this new maize, which they called “DroughtTEGO®,” with the old one, they saw the DroughtTEGO farms were producing an average of 66% more grain per acre. That harvest is enough to feed a family of six for an entire year, and the family would still have so much surplus maize that they could sell it for about $880, equivalent to five months of income for the average Kenyan. In fact, many farmers could finally afford to send their kids to school or build new homes once they switched to DroughtTEGO.

This kind of agricultural innovation is happening around the world, including in Punjab. The region’s farmers grow India’s two main staple crops—rice in the wet season and wheat in the dry northern Indian winter—but climate change is upending their livelihood. In 2010, and then again in 2015, early heat waves turned the wet season into a dry one, overcooking the rice. In response, local farmers worked with the Punjab Agricultural University to find a new solution: a short-duration rice variety that required three fewer weeks in the field. It could be harvested before the climate change-induced heat waves cooked the crop. And it allowed farmers to plant their wheat earlier, too. With one seed, Punjab was supercharging two crops.

(Read the rest on website)
 
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marsh

On TB every waking moment

Debt... And Why The Fed Is Trapped​

WEDNESDAY, SEP 21, 2022 - 05:40 AM
Authored by Lance Roberts via The Epoch Times,

The massive debt levels provide the single most significant risk and challenge to the Federal Reserve. It is also why the Fed is desperate to return inflation to low levels, even if it means weaker economic growth. Such was a point previously made by Jerome Powell:

“We need to act now, forthrightly, strongly as we have been doing. It is very important that inflation expectations remain anchored. What we hope to achieve is a period of growth below trend.”

That last sentence is the most important.

There are some important financial implications to below-trend economic growth. As we discussed in “The Coming Reversion to the Mean of Economic Growth“:

“After the financial crisis [of 2008–09], the media buzzword became the ‘new normal’ for what the post-crisis economy would be like. It was a period of slower economic growth, weaker wages, and a decade of monetary interventions to keep the economy from slipping back into a recession.

“Post the ‘COVID crisis,’ we will begin to discuss the ‘new new normal’ of continued stagnant wage growth, a weaker economy, and an ever-widening wealth gap. Social unrest is a direct byproduct of this ‘new new normal,’ as injustices between the rich and poor become increasingly evident.

“If we are correct in assuming that PCE [Personal Consumption Expenditures price index] will revert to the mean as stimulus fades from the economy, then the ‘new new normal’ of economic growth will be a new lower trend that fails to create widespread prosperity.”


As shown, economic growth trends are already falling short of both previous long-term growth trends. The Federal Reserve is now talking about slowing economic activity further in its inflation fight.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

The reason that slowing economic growth, and debilitating inflation, is critical for the Fed due to the massive amount of leverage in the economy. If inflation remains high, interest rates will adjust, triggering a debt crisis as servicing requirements increase and defaults rise. Historically, such events led to a recession at best and a financial crisis at worst.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

The problem for the Fed is trying to “avoid” a recession while trying to kill inflation.

Recessions Are an Important Part of the Cycle​

Recessions are not a bad thing. They are a necessary part of the economic cycle and arguably a crucial one. Recessions remove the “excesses” built up during the expansion and “reset” the table for the next leg of economic growth. Without “recessions,” the build-up of excesses continues until something breaks.

In the current cycle, the Fed’s interventions and maintenance of low rates for more than a decade allowed fundamentally weak companies to stay in business by taking on cheap debt for unproductive purposes, such as stock buybacks and dividends. Consumers have used low rates to expand consumption by taking on debt. The federal government increased debts and deficits to record levels.

The assumption is that increased debt is not problematic as long as interest rates remain low. But therein lies the trap the Fed faces.

The Fed’s mentality of constant growth, with no tolerance for recession, has allowed this situation to inflate rather than allowing the natural order of the economy to perform its Darwinian function of “weeding out the weak.”

The chart below shows total economic system leverage versus gross domestic product (GDP). It currently requires $4.82 of debt for each dollar of inflation-adjusted economic growth.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

Over the past few decades, the system has not been allowed to reset. That has led to a resultant increase in debt to the point that it impaired the economy’s growth. It is more than a coincidence that the Fed’s “not-so invisible hand” has left fingerprints on previous financial unravellings. Given that credit-related events tend to manifest from corporate debt, we can see the evidence below.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

Given the years of ultra-accommodative policies following the financial crisis of 2008–09, most of the ability to “pull forward” consumption appears to have run its course. This is an issue that can’t, and won’t be, fixed by simply issuing more debt, which, for the last 40 years, has been the preferred remedy of each administration. In reality, most of the aggregate growth in the economy was financed by deficit spending, credit creation, and a reduction in savings.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

In turn, this surge in debt reduced both productive investments and the output from the economy. As the economy slowed and wages fell, the consumer took on more leverage, decreasing the savings rate. As a result of the increased leverage, more of consumers’ income was needed to service the debt.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

A Long History of Terrible Outcomes​

After three decades of surging debt against falling inflation and interest rates, the Fed now faces its most difficult position since the late 1970s.

The U.S. economy is more heavily levered today than at any other point in our history. Since 1980, debt levels have continued to increase to fill the income gap. Bigger houses, televisions, computers, etc., all required cheaper debt to finance it.

The chart below shows the inflation-adjusted median living standard and the difference between real disposable incomes (DPI) and the required debt to support it. Beginning in 1990, the gap between DPI and the cost of living went negative, leading to a surge in debt usage. In 2009, DPI alone could no longer support living standards without using debt. Today, it requires almost $7,000 a year in debt to maintain the current standard of living.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

The rise and fall of stock prices have little to do with the average American and their participation in the domestic economy. Interest rates are an entirely different matter. Since interest rates affect “payments,” increases in rates quickly negatively affect consumption, housing, and investment, which ultimately deters economic growth.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

Since 1980, every time the Fed tightened monetary policy by hiking rates, inflation remained “well contained.” The chart below shows the federal funds rate compared to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a proxy for inflation. The current bout of inflation is entirely different, and as the Fed hikes interest rates to slow economic demand, it is highly probable that it will over-tighten.

History is replete with previous failed attempts that created economic shocks.


(Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Refinitv; Chart: RealInvestmentAdvice.com)

The Fed has a tough challenge ahead of it, with very few options. While increasing interest rates may not “initially” affect asset prices or the economy, it is a far different story to suggest that they won’t. There have been absolutely zero times in history the Federal Reserve began an interest rate-hiking campaign that did not eventually lead to a negative outcome.

The Fed is now beginning to reduce accommodation at precisely the wrong time. To the point:
  • There are growing economic ambiguities in the United States and abroad: peak autos, peak housing, peak GDP.
  • Excessive valuations exceed earnings growth expectations.
  • There is a failure of fiscal policy to “trickle down.”
  • Geopolitical risks abound.
  • Yield curves are declining amid slowing economic growth.
  • There are record levels of private and public debt.
  • Junk bond yields are exceptionally low.
Such are the essential ingredients required for the next “financial event.”
When will that be? We don’t know.

We do think, however, that the Fed will make a policy mistake as “this time is different.”

Unfortunately, the outcome likely won’t be.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Watch Live: Big Bank CEOs Face 'Mad Maxine' In "Holding Megabanks Accountable" Hearing

WEDNESDAY, SEP 21, 2022 - 06:40 AM

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are set to grill the CEOs of the largest consumer banks Wednesday morning on several hot-button topics, including consumer protection and compliance issues, mergers and acquisitions, and issues relating to the public interest, among other topics.

In testimony before the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee will be JPMorgan Chase & Co's Jamie Dimon, Wells Fargo's Charles Scharf, Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, and Citigroup's Jane Fraser, the heads of the top four largest banks. And US Bancorp CEO Andy Cecere, PNC Financial CEO William Demchak, and Truist's Bill Rogers, who are the country's largest regional lenders.

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The House Financial Services Committee hearing is led by Chair Maxine Waters, D-Calif, who will get the first crack at the bankers on Wednesday. The second round of hearings will be held Thursday and led by Chair Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Hearings with top banking heads seldomly result in legislative action. But this one comes ahead of the November midterm elections in which some lawmakers could be very outspoken to boost their political campaigns. Lawmakers on the bank-oversight committee will question the executives on high inflation and soaring interest rates:

"We will continue to hold the nation's biggest banks accountable so that Americans can keep more of their hard-earned money—at a time that they need it most," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a written statement. Brown is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Some Democratic lawmakers will press the executives on racial equity, climate change, overdraft fees, mergers with other banks, and the economy's overall health.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers will question executives on the banking industry's increasingly liberal leanings on the environment and social issues:

"Americans deserve to hear how these banks will support their customers through troubling economic headwinds…instead of far-left talking points to appease progressive activists," said North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, the ranking GOP member on the House financial-services panel, in a written statement.

Reuters provided a quick summary of biographies of the CEOs who will testify and part of their prepared statements:

JPMorgan

Jamie Dimon, the outspoken leader of the largest US bank, is expected to defend the industry and field tricky questions after sparring with lawmakers in past hearings. Last year, he had a contentious exchange with Senator Elizabeth Warren over Chase's overdraft fees. In prepared testimony ahead of the 2022 hearings, Dimon criticized strict capital requirements for large banks as a hindrance on lending and "bad for America."

Dimon took the helm at JPMorgan in 2006 and is the longest tenured of all the CEOs who will testify. He's not shy about weighing in on policy topics such as infrastructure and education, which are cited in his annual letter to shareholders.

Bank Of America

Brian Moynihan, who became Bank of America's CEO in 2010, rebuilt the company after it almost collapsed under the weight of its troubled crisis-era acquisitions of Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch and mortgage lender Countrywide. In his prepared testimony, Moynihan touted the firm's focus on "responsible growth" as critical to its stability and strength.

While steering BofA's turnaround efforts, Moynihan also became a leading proponent of so-called stakeholder capitalism, which combines business interests with societal goals.

Citigroup

Jane Fraser, the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank, was appointed in March 2021. She inherited a slew of problems from her predecessor, including demands by regulators to clean up Citigroup's internal controls. She has announced plans to exit Russia in a bid to pare down risky assets and cull consumer businesses in 13 other countries to focus on multinational companies and wealthy clients.

In her prepared testimony, Fraser said the bank had made "significant progress" in divesting from those areas, while supporting institutional clients.

Wells Fargo

Charles Scharf took the reins at Wells Fargo in 2019, tasked with resolving punishments meted by regulators over the bank's fake accounts scandal, including an asset cap imposed by the Federal Reserve in 2018. Scharf plans to tell lawmakers he expects it will take several years to ultimately rectify those issues, but that he is confident his team is well positioned to do so, according to his prepared testimony.

US Bancorp

Andy Cecere, who has run US Bancorp since 2017, presided over its $8 billion deal to buy MUFG Union Bank, which was announced last year. The transaction is still awaiting regulatory approval and comes as government officials are looking more closely at bank mergers. In his testimony, Cecere said the merger would provide new tools and products to customers, and boost competition along the West Coast where MUFG Union Bank operated by establishing a "new, formidable regional bank competitor."

US Bancorp is currently the fifth largest bank in the US with $582 billion in assets, and the largest bank outside of the "globally systemic" firms.

PNC Financial Services

Since 2013, William Demchak has been CEO of PNC, which operates in 27 states and is headquartered in Pittsburgh. Demchak described the $534 billion bank as a "Main Street banking organization" that focuses on traditional products and endeavors to embed itself in local communities, according to his prepared testimony.

Truist Financial

William Rogers Jr., said US consumers and businesses were in "good shape" at a banking conference in New York earlier this month. He took charge of Truist in September last year as part of a planned transition after the merger of BB&T Corporation and SunTrust Banks was completed in 2019. The deal vaulted the firm to seventh largest in the country with $532 billion in assets.

Rogers describes the bank as "purpose-driven" in his prepared testimony, and highlighted efforts to boost investment in lower income and majority-minority communities.

Watch: Holding Megabanks Accountable: Oversight of America's Largest Consumer Facing Banks (hearing begins at 1000ET)

View: https://youtu.be/dNO9iBPlvzk
LIVE
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Germany To Nationalize Struggling Uniper In Deepening Energy Crisis​

WEDNESDAY, SEP 21, 2022 - 05:59 AM

Germany on Wednesday announced a move to nationalize struggling natural gas supplier Uniper SE as it strives to keep the industry functioning in the wake of a global energy crisis, according to Reuters.

Uniper is Germany's largest importer of Russian NatGas and has suffered tremendous losses after Russian energy giant Gazprom slashed Nord Stream 1's pipeline capacity to zero, forcing the utility to purchase natgas outside contracts on the open market at record high prices.

Berlin agreed to purchase the remaining stake owned by Uniper's parent company, Finnish utility Fortum Oyj for $1.69 (1.70 euro) per share. Buying Fortum's stake means Germany will own 99% of Uniper. The cost of nationalization comes as Berlin is set to inject 8 billion euros, equivalent to around $8 billion, into the utility.

The move is to keep the lights on across German homes and businesses as the risk of power rationings increases.

"This step has become necessary because the situation has worsened significantly.

"The state will do everything necessary to keep systemically important companies in Germany stable at all times," Robert Habeck, Germany's economy minister, said Wednesday.


Uniper shares crashed by as much as 39% to 2.55 euros. Shares are down 93% on the year...



In July, Berlin injected a whooping 15 billion euros ($14.95 billion) to save the utility though the move to nationalize ahead of winter shows further deterioration in energy security for Europe's largest economy.

Here's what Markus Rauramo, CEO and President of Fortum, said about the deal:

"Under the current circumstances in the European energy markets and recognising the severity of Uniper's situation, the divestment of Uniper is the right step to take, not only for Uniper but also for Fortum.

"The role of gas in Europe has fundamentally changed since Russia attacked Ukraine, and so has the outlook for a gas-heavy portfolio. As a result, the business case for an integrated group is no longer viable."


Uniper CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach also commented:

"This secures the energy supply for companies, municipal utilities, and consumers."

The bailouts and nationalization of utilities won't likely end with Uniper. Berlin plans to take control and shore up positions in other struggling utilities to avoid a 'Lehman-style' collapse.

The good news is Germany has managed to fill up its NatGas storage facilities ahead of winter to approximately 90%. These supplies only cover two months, and without increased imports of liquefied natural gas from afar, it could only suggest a dark winter for Europe.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Yz6uCKZqI
32:38 min

Putin Threatens Use of NUCLEAR WEAPONS & Mobilizes Military Sparking PANIC, WW3 Fears Escalate​


AMLnZu-r6oSrkSDkHGMt3Ql1sSpEKQjV3avfqvWOoXm3Tg=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj

Tim Pool

Putin Threatens Use of NUCLEAR WEAPONS & Mobilizes Military Sparking PANIC, WW3 Fears Escalate. Biden Hits Back As US Warns It Will Strike Russia Directly If They use Nukes. Russia is mobilizing 300,000 troops as 4 regions in Ukraine are set to vote to join Russia. Russia is moving to annex these regions and in the West it is viewed as a sham election and propaganda. Meanwhile the Pope restates his warning that WW3 has begun.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoBJh9Teayo
11:44 min

UK Bank Withdraw Issues (Boots On The Ground)​


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The Economic Ninja

UK Bank Runs Coming. The United Kingdom are having issues with their citizens trying to withdrawal cash out of their banks. As people get your money out of the banks...

^^^^
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-0DT1ypqVU
10:33 min

The Fed Rate Hike

The Economic Ninja

All eyes are on the Federal Reserve and Jerome Powell as the Fed is expected to raise interest rates today. The Fed Rate Hike has been on everyone's mind as the Fed try's to slow inflation. How will CNBC or Yahoo Finance News will spin this today?
 
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marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVNgXVkZQvs
19:19 min

Prepare For MASS Civil Unrest (It's Started...)​



AMLnZu-M6YB44n0swsi5bH4ZYehgHhCabSYis30WikmB9g=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj

Neil McCoy-Ward

(WEF prophecies. Mass protests around the world. Germany putting military on street on Oct. 1 - mandatory mask mandates. What are the triggers when social cohesion breaks down - anger, wealth inequality/transfer tipping point, racial, religious, food, energy cost of living, the poor being left behind. Spending on food, energy and housing and going in debt each month and seeing public paid for opulent events. Asset bubble bursts, banking crisis, stock market collapse, collapse systemically important industries - like energy. Employment collapse, mass migration, backlash against science, failure of public infrastructure, lack of social security systems , widespread youth disillusionment,

^^^^^
WEF, The Global Risks Report 2022 pdf
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNWCIGQbBjc
4:29 min

Sen. Rubio: This isn't immigration, this is mass migration​

Sep 21, 2022


https://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AMLnZu_64n1WvB5AW__6tdA7RqqQiX73ix5yeF****iK1AI=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj
Fox News

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., joins 'America's Newsroom' to discuss a class-action lawsuit filed by migrants against Gov. Ron DeSantis, President Biden's move to dodge blame for the crisis at the border and the apprehension of suspected terrorists.

^^^^

Mass Migration Law and Legal Definition​

According to 8 USCS § 1182, [Title 8. Aliens And Nationality; Chapter 12. Immigration And Nationality; Immigration, Admission Qualifications For Aliens; Travel Control Of Citizens And Aliens], the term 'mass migration' means a migration of undocumented aliens that is of such magnitude and duration that it poses a threat to the national security of the United States, as determined by the President.

^^^
Mass migration refers to the migration of large groups of people from one geographical area to another. Mass migration is distinguished from individual or small scale migration; and also from seasonal migration, which may occur on a regular basis.

A specific mass migration that is seen as especially influential to the course of history may be referred to as a 'great migration'. For example, great migrations include the Barbarian Invasions during the Roman Empire, the Great Migration from England of the 1630s, the California Gold Rush from 1848–1850, the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural American south to the industrial north during 1920–1950, and The Great Oromo Migrations of Oromo tribes during the 15th and 16th centuries in the Horn of Africa. UNHCR estimates 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during the partition of India, the largest mass migration in human history. The largest documented voluntary emigration in history was the Italian diaspora from Italy between 1861 and 1970, with 13 million people leaving the country.
 
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