GOV/MIL Main "Great Reset" Thread

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Oh SH*T, something BIG is happening in Germany, the WEF is scared | Redacted with Clayton Morris 17:45 min

Oh SH*T, something BIG is happening in Germany, the WEF is scared | Redacted with Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published September 28, 2022

Germany's future looks bleak due to war-based sanctions and an energy crisis. Germans continue to protest but will it do any good? We ask academic researcher Ralph Schoelhammer what we can expect from Germany and what he calls "incompetent politicians."
 

marsh

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Putin issues DIRE warning to the WEF globalists and it's game time | Redacted with Clayton Morris 17;45 min

Putin issues DIRE warning to the WEF globalists and it's game time | Redacted with Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published September 28, 2022

The destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline reads like a Whodunit novel only real lives are at stake. Affordable energy from energy will not be an option for Germany this winter due to this. Russia and Germany want answers and many signs point to U.S. sabotage. This is eco terrorism. What is happening!?
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Shocking New Ties Discovered Between China And The Vaccine 10:00 min

Shocking New Ties Discovered Between China And The Vaccine​

RealAmericasVoice Published September 28, 2022

Dr. Naomi Wolf joins the #WarRoom to discuss the new information recently revealed from a FOIA request that vaccine testing was being conducted in China!

(COMMENT: Nagging at the back of my mind is that China knew about the reproductive/fetal impacts of the spike protein and that is why they are so insistent upon zero COVID.)
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Joe Biden: Global inflation & Putin's war in Ukraine have SPARKED global food crisis .34 min

Joe Biden: Global inflation & Putin's war in Ukraine have SPARKED global food crisis​

Punugupati Srikanth Published September 28, 2022

President Joe Biden: "This work on hunger, nutrition, physical health is critical to addressing our mental health and wellness as well, which is a key pillar to my unity agenda that I call for in my State of the Union address.Again, bipartisan.

This is something that we should be all rallying the whole country to work on together.I'm thinking internationally.Global inflation and Putin's war in Ukraine have sparked global food crisis.

So, just last week at the United Nations, I talked about commitments we were making to tackle food insecurity worldwide.Because in every country in the world,in every state in this country."

^^^^
Biden Opening Remarks
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MswrQe8gCV4
49:00 min

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beDOChoTVkQ
34:40 min
remarks during the White House conference on hunger, nutrition and health

^^^^
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMqWRe7HrF0
3:55 min

White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health - Shavana Howard
Sep 28, 2022
 
Last edited:

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Memorandum on Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2023​

SEPTEMBER 27, 2022•PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS
Presidential Determination
No. 2022-25
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
SUBJECT: Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2023
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in accordance with section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the “Act”) (8 U.S.C. 1157), and after appropriate consultations with the Congress, I hereby make the following determinations and authorize the following actions:

The admission of up to 125,000 refugees to the United States during Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.

The admissions numbers shall be allocated among refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States in accordance with the following regional allocations:

Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40,000
East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000
Europe and Central Asia . . . . . . 15,000
Latin America/Caribbean . . . . . . 15,000
Near East/South Asia . . . . . . . . 35,000
Unallocated Reserve . . . . . . . . . 5,000

The 5,000 unallocated refugee numbers shall be allocated to regional ceilings, as needed. Upon providing notification to the Judiciary Committees of the Congress, you are hereby authorized to use unallocated admissions in regions where the need for additional admissions arises.

Additionally, upon notification to the Judiciary Committees of the Congress, you are further authorized to transfer unused admissions allocated to a particular region to one or more other regions, if there is a need for greater admissions for the region or regions to which the admissions are being transferred.

Consistent with section 2(b)(2) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (22 U.S.C. 2601(b)(2)), I hereby determine that assistance to or on behalf of persons applying for admission to the United States as part of the overseas refugee admissions program will contribute to the foreign policy interests of the United States and designate such persons for this purpose.

Consistent with section 101(a)(42) of the Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 (a)(42)), and after appropriate consultation with the Congress, I also specify that, for FY 2023, the following persons may, if otherwise qualified, be considered refugees for the purpose of admission to the United States within their countries of nationality or habitual residence:
a. Persons in Cuba;
b. Persons in Eurasia and the Baltics;
c. Persons in Iraq;
d. Persons in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; and
e. In certain circumstances, persons identified by a United States Embassy in any location.
You are authorized and directed to publish this determination in the Federal Register.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
So, He Did LIE! 14:32 min

So, He Did LIE!​

Russell Brand Published September 28, 2022

A new report reveals that 20% of Congress trade shares in the industries they’re supposed to be overseeing AND Democrats are trying to delay a ban on insider trading. Still, the pandemic is “over” and Putin is threatening nuclear Armageddon – so nothing to see here!
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

The British Government is Experimenting With Feeding African Kids Worms, Locusts, and Flies.

FORCING BLACK KIDS TO EAT BUGS. HOW VERY WOKE.

BY NATALIE WINTERS
SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

The British government is funding projects pushing Africans to farm and consume insects, including school-age children, in randomized trials, to assess their effects.

The United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) – a subsidiary of the country’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – is responsible for backing the projects taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe.

With a roughly $320,000 grant from the aid office, researchers in Zimbabwe will be experimenting with using mopane worms in porridge served to children in schools. Poor children aged seven to 11 in the towns of Gwanda and Harare will be fed the concoction derived from the caterpillars, which researchers allege are high in vitamins and minerals.

UK GOVERNMENT WEBSITE.
Ultimately, a randomized trial will be carried out to compare if children consuming insects perform better in school than their counterparts.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, researchers will use a roughly $55,000 grant to “promote the production of insects for human food and for use in the manufacture of animal feeds,” according to a synopsis from the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office’s development tracker website. The funds are being provided by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod).

Among the insects being pushed for consumption are caterpillars, migratory locusts, and black soldier flies. The project, which began in March and will conclude in December, is a response to water shortages allegedly due to stress placed on the environment from animal farming.

It is unclear whether or not the conclusion from the work in Africa will be applied back in the United Kingdom, though, experts in the field interviewed by mainstream media outlets have claimed it is likely.

Dr. Sarah Beynon, for example, the founder of the Bug Farm in Pembrokeshire and an academic entomologist, claimed these aid projects were “a sure way to save lives and improve nutrition of the poorest people on planet Earth,” while speaking with The Guardian.

“We are also actively encouraging people in the developed world to include insects in their diets,” she later added.

“With a population that has an appetite set to far exceed the planetary limits, and with current agriculture decimating biodiversity and changing the climate, we have no option but to change how we produce and consume food … and our views on the topic too,” Dr. Benyon continued.

Similarly, a spokesperson from the UKRI admitted:

“We support specific research projects with funding, but we anticipate that the learnings and knowledge gleaned will benefit citizens around the world irrespective of their economic status. The protein and environmental benefits of consuming insects have been widely reported globally.”

The unearthed grant is the latest example of the environment and climate being used as an excuse to push radical changes to traditional diets and farming practices.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Conservatives finally are forming global coalitions

By Mike Gonzalez September 28, 2022 02:23 PM

TALLINN, Estonia — Conservatives seldom have been great at forging international coalitions. But that is changing rapidly. A common enemy always does that.

Failure to form global networking is a bit of an occupational hazard for conservatism, inherently a nation-oriented, inward-looking endeavor.

Conservatives, after all, seek to conserve very different national traditions, sometimes contradictory ones. What a conservative in Kansas will want to conserve often will differ from what a conservative in Pakistan or Portugal holds dear.

Yet members of more than 50 conservative groups met last week here in Tallinn, Estonia, to discuss how to pool resources, compare notes, share best practices, and hone skills for an emergent and consequential battle of ideas with Marxist opponents.

A week earlier, in Miami, the international contingent was strong at, of all things, the third conference of the national conservatism movement.

The stunning electoral victory Sunday in Italy of a conservative coalition led by Giorgia Meloni , a politician who understands these challenges thoroughly, bodes well for the entire enterprise.

The nature of the foe is making such coalition building possible. We all find ourselves facing a new type of Marxist who, in his endeavor to dismantle existing societies, attacks them at their different vulnerable points.

In the United States, white-black relations remain our most festering gash, so the new Marxists prick incessantly at this wound. In Latin America, it’s relations between descendants of European whites and those of indigenous people, so “indigenism” is the thing there.

In countries without a large mix of races, the Marxists rely on gender theory to smash society. Because all societies have two sexes, they also use gender theory in the U.S., Mexico, Estonia, etc.

And of course, everywhere, too, activists push extreme environmentalism on corporations through so-called environmental, social, and governance diktats, or ESG. Most of these take the form of boycotting fossil fuels, thereby grinding capitalism to a screeching halt.

But despite these divergent opportunistic tactics that prick at the different pressure points of each society, the ideology conservatives confront is the same collectivism that wants to destroy society, institute despotism, censor speech, and impose an anti-human, utopic egalitarianism.

“We have less freedom today. Society has become more politicized,” intoned Polish philosopher and European Parliament member Ryszard Legutko (the unofficially acknowledged eminence grise of this new coalition) as he faced politicians, think tankers, academics, journalists, and others here in Tallinn.

They came from nations as far away as Japan, Iceland, Mexico, Italy, the United States, Georgia, and many, many others. They were brought together by the Brussels-based think tank New Direction, established in 2010 under the patronage of Baroness Thatcher.

The Croatian member of parliament Stephen Nikola Bartulica put his finger on what is at the heart of the different tactics when he observed the irony that “people who have grown up in the most privileged societies in history are being taught to hate their countries.”

There were solutions offered, too.

“Go back to teaching the basics — history, geography, philosophy, mathematics,” said the Spanish academic Rodrigo Ballester. The American Latin-American expert Joseph Humire gave a presentation on how foreign-based actors, many based in Caracas, are destabilizing Latin American countries and getting Marxists elected president.

Conservatives were able to form global coalitions during the Cold War, a heroic battle that people around the world waged against a totalitarian, dehumanizing ideology. They were then able to put aside their differences and concentrate their intellectual firepower on this threat. They had to. It was, to employ that overused word once again, existential.

Our moment is analogous. Today we face Marxists again, but they come in a different shape. They are no longer being manipulated by the Kremlin but are inside our borders. They are not Soviets, they are compatriots.

So the tactics will have to differ somewhat. But make no mistake, we have to take the threat very seriously—and conservatives are finally starting to do so.

The new Marxists, like Marx himself and every Marxist since, lust for revolution and for razing all that exists. They believe that they can change human nature. They equally hate private property, the family, God, and the nation-state.

Their plan today may not be to wage war through armed revolution, because that has a poor record of ever working (though as we saw in 2020 with Black Lives Matter, whose architects were trained by these new Marxists, that violence and intimidation will also be part of the mix). And these new Marxists also no longer believe that economics determines everything about human behavior.

Instead, they want to put in the hard work of indoctrinating the population first, or at least a significant segment of it. Their new approach has earned them the name of “cultural Marxists,” or often, in the American slang, woke.

But, all over the world, conservatives are finally starting to wake up to the threat. About time.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

King Charles Can’t Serve Globalist Elites And The British People​

BY: EVITA DUFFY
SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

“My whole life,” said then-Princess Elizabeth on her 21st birthday in 1947, “whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service,” and it was. The late Queen Elizabeth II reigned for more than 70 years, and while the world went through dramatic changes caused by wars, social revolution, and the rise of the digital age, she remained a symbol of stability and continuity in Britain and a figurehead under which Brits of all ideological leanings could unite.

Winston Churchhill praised the monarchical government for “seperat[ing] pomp from power.” In other words, prestige is given to a unifying, politically-neutral monarch, while power, but not cachet, is left in the hands of elected members of parliament. Often critics of our American system of government point to how the absence of a head of state has led to politicians acquiring celebrity status and our elections devolving into high school-like popularity contests.

Churchill also boasted about the “wisdom” with which Britain “places the supreme leadership of the State beyond the reach of private ambition.” Unfortunately, this idea that the modern monarchy is “beyond the reach of private ambition” appears to have died with the queen. Her son, King Charles III, has abandoned all semblance of impartiality and has aligned himself with globalists cloaked as environmental activists who don’t care about the welfare of Charles’ people or any of us common folk, for that matter.

A Globalist King
During the 2020 Davos World Economic Forum (WEF), then-Prince Charles officially launched “The Great Reset,” declaring that the Covid-19 pandemic “offers an unprecedented opportunity to rethink and reset the ways in which we live and do business.” The prince, who traveled to Switzerland on a private jet, stated, “We need nothing short of a paradigm shift, one that inspires action at revolutionary levels and pace.”

Charles had his remarks turned into a video titled “#TheGreatReset,” which was posted on the royal family’s official YouTube channel, complete with dramatic background music and high-definition footage of solar panels and melting ice caps.

By making himself the face of the WEF’s “Great Reset,” Charles made clear his brand of environmental activism isn’t hugging trees or establishing wildlife sanctuaries.

The World Economic Forum’s Crooked Agenda
The WEF lobby has used its money and powerful supporters like Charles to push governments into adopting their “Build Back Better” socialist master plan for transitioning economies from relying on coal, oil, and natural gas to insufficient supplies of wind and solar power. Consequently, manufacturing and transportation costs have skyrocketed.

Thanks to the WEF, the whole world, but particularly Europe, is experiencing not a climate crisis but an energy crisis. Fox News reported Monday that as winter descends on Europe, “offices are getting chillier. Statues and historic buildings are going dark. Bakers who can’t afford to heat their ovens are talking about giving up, while fruit and vegetable growers face letting greenhouses stand idle.”

The WEF’s push to heavily regulate agricultural and livestock farming is also making food more expensive and scarce. When Sri Lanka embraced the Davos way and put bans on imported chemical fertilizers, it resulted in massive crop failures and sky-high fuel prices. In July, the Sri Lankan president fled to the Maldives as hungry citizens stormed the capital. Today, the socialist country has turned into a totalitarian hellscape.

If the World Economic Forum and its supporters were in the business of helping people, they would have had a moment of introspection after watching the horrible outcome of their policies in Sri Lanka. They’d have collected donations from the more than a hundred billionaires who attend their yearly conference and sent food and supplies to starving, suffering Sri Lankans, apologized to the world, and then quietly disappeared off the face of the Earth.

They didn’t, though. Three months after Sri Lanka declared a food emergency in August 2021, Charles instructed world leaders to adopt a “military-style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector” in order to help combat the so-called climate crisis.

How do the environmental elites plan on using the private sector? So-called “Environmental, Social, and Governance,” or ESG. ESG, according to the World Economic Forum, is a measure of how “good” a company is.

This environmentalist moral scoring system allows the centralized bureaucracy to control businesses and their products (Sri Lanka received a nearly perfect score for its fertilizer ban). “This creates a situation where companies are no longer competing on product quality or customer service — but virtue,” wrote Flat White in the Spectator.

“It is the sort of policy that allows a billion-dollar chemical company growing food in a lab to earn a ranking as a ‘morally superior entity’ — shoving out the little family farmer living on the land with a couple of cows,” White added.

While the WEF has carried on creating the West’s current energy and food insecurity crisis, regular people are catching on and fighting back. Notable examples include the Dutch farmers rebellion and the Canadian truckers’ Freedom Convoy. More recently, Sweden and Italy elected populist right-wing governments. Britain is not blind to the crooked intentions of the global elite, either, as they famously showed during the 2020 “Brexit” from the European Union.

Charles Threatens the Monarchy
People aren’t stupid. A worldwide revolt against the global elite is catching fire. Charles now finds himself in the perilous situation of being the face of the WEF’s “Great Reset,” which is the reason people can’t afford groceries or heating in their homes.

Over the decades, the royal family has been plagued with scandal. Every time the royal PR department thinks they can catch a break, Harry and Meghan are doing another interview and Netflix’s “The Crown” is coming out with another season. Holding the institution together through decades of scandal was Queen Elizabeth. Her steadfast devotion to duty kept the royal family in the good graces of the people. During his years as Prince of Wales, Charles proved he is no Queen Elizabeth.

Churchill declared with pride that the monarchy was “a practical instrument and means of national self-preservation against every type of republic and every degree of dictatorship.” However, it’s evident that only works when the monarch understands his or her role.

The crown is in a precarious state in the wake of Elizabeth’s death. Charles is about to make a solemn oath to the British people, not Davos. One heart cannot serve two masters, and the new king would do well to remember that at his upcoming coronation ceremony. The future of the crown depends on it.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Multipolar World Order – Part 2

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 12:30 AM
Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

In Part 1, we discussed the nature of “world order” and global governance. We learned the crucial difference between the Westphalian model of equal, sovereign nation-states—a mythical ideal, never an actuality—and the various attempts to stamp a world order on that template.

In particular, we considered how the UN has been the leading organisation promoting global governance and how its founding Charter facilitates the centralisation of global power.

We observed that the UN has undergone a “quiet revolution” that has transformed it into a global public-private partnership (UN-G3P).

Latterly, we have seen the rise of a prospective multipolar world order that some say opposes the hegemony of its unipolar predecessor. This new model of global governance will apparently be led by allies Russia and China, the two countries that head up the multilateral partnerships of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

The multipolar world order is predicated upon a more prominent role for the G20 rather than the G7. Thereby strengthening Russia’s and China’s positions as permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Whereas the existing unipolar world order established a system of global governance that enables UN-G3P oligarchs to influence policy agendas of nation-states around the world, the new multipolar world order is designed to advance the power of those oligarchs even further - by transforming their influence into absolute control.

Look no further than the Russian and Chinese governments, where the marriage between the political and corporate state is complete. We will address this in detail in Part 3.

WHO WANTS A MULTIPOLAR WORLD ORDER?
We ask: who wants a multipolar world order?

The short answer: everyone.

The longer answer: everyone who has sufficient power and influence to change global governance.

The multipolar model isn’t being pushed solely by the Russian and Chinese governments, their oligarchs and their think tanks. It’s also being promoted by the erstwhile “leaders” of the unipolar world order.

Consider this remark by German Chancellor Olaf Sholtz. His speech, set within the context of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine—which every member of the Western establishment lambastes for the cameras—was given at the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Davos gathering:

I see another global development that constitutes a watershed. We are experiencing what it means to live in a multipolar world. The bipolarity of the Cold War is just as much part of the past as the relatively brief phase when the United States was the sole remaining global power[.] [. . .] The crucial question is this: how can we ensure that the multipolar world will also be a multilateral world? [. . .] I am convinced that it can succeed – if we explore new paths and fields of cooperation. [. . .] If we notice that our world is becoming multipolar, then that has to spur us on: to even more multilateralism! To even more international cooperation!

Western central banks, too, have looked toward the multipolar model. In a 2011 round table discussion at the Banque de France, then-French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who subsequently became the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and then was appointed President of the European Central Bank (ECB), said:

Our starting point is to create the conditions to achieve two closely intertwined objectives, i.e. strong, sustainable, and balanced growth, on the one hand, and an orderly transition to a world that is multipolar in economic and monetary terms, on the other. [. . .] The G20 reached agreement [to] promote the orderly transition from a world where a small number of economies, with their currencies, represent the bulk of wealth and trade, to a multipolar world where emerging countries and their currencies represent a growing if not predominant share.

That same year, Mark Carney, then Governor of the Bank of Canada, delivered a speech to the Canada Club of Ottawa, during which he said:

We meet today in the midst of another great transformation—one that is occurring more rapidly than most recognise. The financial crisis has accelerated the shift in the world’s economic centre of gravity. Emerging-market economies now account for almost three-quarters of global growth. [. . .] [W]eakness in advanced economies and strength in emerging economies [. . .] determines the global economic outlook. [. . .] This shift to a multi-polar world is fundamentally positive, [but] it is also disruptive.

Still a third speech in 2011, this one by Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, who was representing the Executive Board of the ECB, emphasised the potential of the multipolar world order. Smaghi noted that, in order to move towards the new world order, an economic, financial and policy shift was required. Bemoaning the lack of progress in the financial and policy fields, he suggested:

[W]e have a multi-polar economic world, but no multi-polar financial or policy world yet. [. . .] [H]ow can we improve the functioning of the international monetary system? The first avenue is to start building a new institutional framework[.] [This] will have to be designed for this new multi-polar world. [. . .] The second avenue involves implementing policies consistent with the transition to a more complete multi-polar world, in all its dimensions. [. . .] A more balanced multi-polar world also requires deeper financial and economic integration in Europe[.] [. . .] The G20 is thus destined to become an over-arching grouping, capable of tasking institutions like the IMF, World Bank or FSB with specific mandates but also to give guidance on politically sensitive issues, in the way the G7 operated in the past.

The World Economic Forum, which describes itself as the international organisation of public-private cooperation, has been advocating the potential of a multipolar world order for some time.

For example, in 2019 it published an article by Credit Suisse’s Global Head of Investment Strategy & Research, Nannette Hechler Fayd’herbe, who advocated investment in “emerging markets.”

Credit Suisse is one of the nine global investment banking giants that collectively comprise the Bulge Bracket. The opinion of its head of strategic investment is notable:

In 2018, we moved closer to the multipolar world that looks set to replace the bipolar US-Russian geopolitical regime that emerged from the Cold War. China’s ascent as a serious economic and geostrategic rival for the US, and its growing assertiveness with programs like “One Belt, One Road” or “Made in China 2025”, has strengthened its influence on the world stage. [. . .] From an investor standpoint, the newly emerged multipolar world brings national champions [—companies in large countries with a sizeable domestic workforce in strategic sectors—] and brands into focus, including emerging market consumers.

Even the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), whose elitist members are ardent pro-NATO US foreign policy supremacists, accepts the imminent arrival of the multipolar world order.

Stewart M. Patrick, the CFR senior fellow who defined the International Rules Based Order (IRBO), wrote in 2021:

[T]he Western-led order was on its heels well before Trump, knocked off balance by rising geopolitical competition from China and Russia; a shrinking collective share of global GDP among the member states of the high-income Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; and public disillusionment with globalization, particularly after the financial crisis. These weaknesses remain. [. . .] The Cornwall summit [G7 summit] will also allow observers to gauge the G-7’s political cohesion and global relevance in an ideologically diverse, multipolar world.

A final example: Speaking at a White House business convention on 21st March 2022, US President Joe Biden said:

We are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy[.] [. . .] t occurs every three of four generations. [. . .] Now is a time when things are shifting[.] [T]here’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it and we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.

What’s going on? Why would the architects of the unipolar hegemony obligingly accept being replaced by multipolarity—and offer to help make the transition? Why, no matter where you look, even in the most hawkish Western think tanks, is there universal acquiescence to the emergence of a new multipolar world order?

You could argue that this is the only realistic perspective.

Still, the lack of any resistance at all is conspicuous. It suggests that there is more to this baffling contradiction than meets the eye. Indeed, these statements we have quoted, and many more like them from other Western power brokers, reveal, more than acquiescence to a multipolar world, a clear rationale for the creation of a “new world order.”

The point is, if the current holders of global power wish to retain control, then transition to the multipolar world order is required. They understand that the multipolar system is the necessary next step in the evolution of the unipolar order.

THROWING THE DOLLAR RESERVE CURRENCY AWAY
As if to hammer home the fact that the dollar-backed unipolar world order is over, Jerome Powell, Governor of the US Federal Reserve (the Fed), said in April 2022:

The US federal budget is on an unsustainable path, meaning simply that the debt is growing meaningfully faster than the economy. And that’s by definition unsustainable over time.

He then added a reassuring, but ultimately empty caveat:

It’s a different thing to say the current level of the debt is unsustainable. It’s not. The current level of debt is very sustainable. And there’s no question of our ability to service and issue that debt for the foreseeable future.

If the gods were perfectly aligned, geopolitics didn’t exist, universal peace and joy sprang forth and the world ran smoothly and predictably, then Powell’s reassurances may have been plausible. But that is not how the world works. Nor are Powell’s imaginary “ifs” any basis for a sound global reserve currency. His admission was the salient point.

The US government debt-to-GDP ratio currently stands at an estimated 137.2% of GDP. The cost of the COVID-19 countermeasures and the West’s sanction response to Russia’s military action in Ukraine—including the vast sums the US and some European countries have invested in Ukraine’s supposed militarisation—has only made the situation worse.

Spiralling government debt is nearly as bad in every other major Western economy. It stands at 103.7% of UK GDP and in the Euro Monetary Union (Eurozone), it eclipsed 100% of GDP in 2021.

The economic, financial and political basis of the unipolar world is rapidly evaporating.

As central bankers like Powell (US), Lagarde (EU), Andrew Bailey (UK) Elvira Nabiullina (Russia) and Agustín Carstens (Bank for International Settlements) know, as do all the other major players like Carney (UN), there is every reason to question how long the US can service its debt obligations—that is, repay the minimum required amount.

America’s only option is to keep the metaphorical money printing presses running, which can only lead to further inflation and eventual economic ruin.

As the US economy sinks, so does the dominant global reserve currency and, apparently, the financial power of the Western-aligned oligarchs. This looks likes deliberate self-destruction.

Just two days after the launch of Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, the governments of the US, UK, Canada, and the European Union—the core of the G7—announced that they had decided to freeze the Central Bank of Russia’s $630 billion foreign currency reserves.

While the US administration has done this kind of thing before, it did it to Afghanistan two weeks earlier, taking the wealth of a major developed nation and a fellow member of the UN Security Council sent very clear signals to the rest of the world.

Countries hold foreign currency reserves for numerous reasons, but chief among them is to hedge against the economic impacts of crises of various kinds.

If, for example, the currency of a nation is devalued, holding reserves of a stable foreign currency ensures that it can maintain levels of international trade in the short term. For some markets, notably the global oil market, trade is overwhelmingly conducted in the current leading reserve currency, the US dollar.

As there is no single, overarching framework of “international law” adjudicating reserve currency, if ever the concept of an “international rules based order” were applicable it was to the agreed role of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.

Regardless of the morality of the Russian government’s military action or its human cost, the Western unipolar clique, in seizing Russia’s reserves based purely upon a foreign policy disagreement, announced to the world that their IRBO was completely meaningless.

The only reason nation-states agree to holding a dominant global reserve currency, beyond economic force, is that they trust the stability of that currency. If those currency reserves are seized whenever the issuing state feels like it, then that currency couldn’t be more unstable and has lost credibility as a viable reserve.

Despite the claims of the Western politicians and their mainstream media (MSM) propagandists, the whole of the world is not united in its condemnation of Russia’s military action in Ukraine. Beyond North America, Europe and Australasia, censure is notable for its absence. By grabbing Russia’s reserves, the so-called IRBO more or less openly declared to the rest of the world that its US dollar, as a global reserve currency, was dead.

Vladimir Putin was apparently right to observe:

Imposing sanctions is the logical continuation and the distillation of the irresponsible and short-sighted policy of the US and EU countries’ governments and central banks. [. . . ] The global economy and global trade as a whole have suffered a major blow, as did trust in the US dollar as the main reserve currency. The illegitimate freezing of some of the currency reserves of the Bank of Russia marks the end of the reliability of so-called first-class assets. [. . .] Now everybody knows that financial reserves can simply be stolen.

He also dropped in some virtue signalling, praising the Russian private sector for its “sustainable development” efforts:

I would like to thank the business community and the teams at companies, banks and organisations, which are not only responding effectively to sanction-related challenges but are also laying the foundation for the continued sustainable development of our economy.

The NATO-aligned nation-states behind the sanctions also decided to progressively cut Russian commercial banks out of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) network.

This is the international financial communication system that enables banks and financial institutions to notify each other of international fund transfers using a standardised set of codes.

Both Russia and China have prospective alternatives to the SWIFT system. Russia developed its System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) in 2014 and China its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in 2015.

According to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) SPFS has expanded rapidly in response to the sanctions. Potentially both systems could supplant the West’s, but CIPS appears to be the most likely replacement for SWIFT.

The G7’s claimed objective for these sanctions was to sever the Russian Federation’s access to global markets, but the world is a big place. All the sanctions did was curtail Russia’s ability to trade its energy and other key commodities such as grain and palladium—vital for the manufacture of semiconductors, with the West. Primarily at the West’s own expense.

Part 1 of 3
 
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marsh

On TB every waking moment
Part 2 of 3

Russia and China have long sought to “de-dollarise” their economies and have forged numerous bilateral trade agreements outside of the dollar system. With the sanction, the West handed the Russian Federation one of its major monetary foreign policy objectives on a plate. A strange kind of punishment.

This year the IMF reported that countries around the world have increasingly diversified their foreign currency reserves over the past two decades. In the last quarter of 2021, the dollar share of global reserve currencies had already fallen to below 59%. The sanctions against the Russian Federation provided a massive boost to Russian and Chinese ambitions to reset global reserve currencies for the benefit of their own economies.

In June 2022, following the sanctions, the BRICS nations announced their plans to establish a new form of global reserve asset based upon a basket of BRICS currencies. This is a direct challenge to the special drawing rights (SDRs) that the IMF allocates to nation-states. Based upon the underlying value of the currencies in the “basket,” they can be exchanged, like any asset, for goods, services, or commodities—or redeemed for currency.

MULTIPOLAR GLOBAL GOVERNANCE IS DIFFERENT BECAUSE REASONS

It is easy to believe, as some do, that the Western oligarchs are in danger of losing their power base. Many of the people who hold such views also contend that the current world order is dominated by these same oligarchs. We have to wonder what they think globalist oligarchs do with all that power and authority. Simply sit idle and watch it slip away as the world turns around them?

In reality, they haven’t been idle at all. As witnessed by their statements and actions, they have been making preparations to move to the new multipolar system for decades.

To illustrate: in 2009, global investor, currency speculator and oligarch George Soros told the Financial Times:

[Y]ou really need to bring China into the creation of a new world order, a financial world order. [. . .] I think you need a new world order that China has to be part of the process of creating it and they have to buy in. They have to own it the same way as, let’s say, the United States owns the Washington consensus, the current order[.] [. . .] I think the makings of it are already there because the G20, in agreeing to peer reviews, effectively is moving in that direction. [. . .] As long as the renminbi is tied to the dollar, I don’t see how the decline in the dollar can go too far. [. . .] [A]n orderly decline of the dollar is actually desirable. [. . .] China will emerge as the motor replacing the US consumer and [. . .] China will be the engine driving it [the world economy] forward and the US will be actually a drag that’s being pulled along through a gradual decline in the value of the dollar.

According to representatives of the Russian and Chinese governments, the multipolar world order, supposedly led by them, will empower the G20, rather than the G7, to manage “global economic governance.” No surprises there.

Further, the stated objective is to supposedly reinstate an “international law-based world order” that will enhance “genuine multipolarity with the United Nations.” The UN Security Council will continue to play “a central and coordinating role,” with the objective of promoting “democratic international relations” and “sustainable development across the world.”

This global agenda is virtually indistinguishable from the one promoted by the unipolar IRBO. The claimed difference is that Russia and China will lead a BRICS-centric multipolar order which does more than pay lip service to international law and multilateral agreement. Allegedly, the multipolar model will abide by international law and focus upon collective decision making.

The belated pushback by some US states against BlackRock’s investment strategy in US pension funds is only a minor irritation for the global corporate titan. While they have pressured the US economy to “decarbonise” they have not taken the same approach in China.

BlackRock, and the Western oligarchs who invest through it, decided to make an enormous investments in China’s “state owned” hydrocarbon giant PetroChina.

The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is among the largest “fossil fuel” energy companies in the world. It deals in both gas and oil and PetroChina is its publicly listed arm.

In 2021 BlackRock was the first foreign company “allowed” by the Chinese government to launch a mutual fund in China which aims to achieve “long-term capital growth” for Chinese investors. The capital growth will come from BlackRock’s commitment to “sustainable development.” This was met with consternation by the Western MSM, and disgruntled oligarch George Soros, who claimed this was a huge blunder, adding:

The BlackRock initiative imperils the national security interests of the U.S. and other democracies because the money invested in China will help prop up President Xi’s regime.

China’s authoritarian style of technocratic government suits BlackRock. Speaking to Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker in 2011, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink infamously said:

Markets don’t like uncertainty. Markets like, actually, totalitarian governments where you have an understanding of what’s out there and, obviously, the whole dimension is changing now. [. . . ] with the democratisation of countries. And democracies are very messy, as we know in the United States[.]

This followed the 2010 comment of George Soros that “today China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States.” So perhaps his little spat with BlackRock is surprising.

As mentioned in Part 1, oligarchs are not a homogenous group of automatons that all think with one mind. They are collectively committed to long-term goals but often disagree on how to achieve them.

While BlackRock’s investors apparently see China’s technate as advantageous, Soros has always sought to destabalise nation from within, through various revolutionary means, and then use his wealth to instal the system he wants. His apparent backing for violent revolt in Hong Kong and his financial crimes, directed against Chinese companies, hasn’t endeared him to China’s oligarchy.

But upsetting your partners is no reason to loose sight of the long game. Having publicly slated the Chinese government, calling Xi Jinping “the most dangerous enemy” of democracy in 2019, Soros backed NGO’s like the Sunrise Movement and ActionAid USA wrote an open letter to the US administration in 2021 urging closer cooperation with China on the oligarchs’ shared ambition of sustainable development.

Post Russia’s war with Ukraine and the West’s sanction response, BlackRock’s PetroChina investment doesn’t look like such a monumental mistake now. The spike in oil prices saw a huge surge in profits for PetroChina, as it did for nearly every other oil and gas company. But BlackRock’s Chinese investment strategy is astute for other reasons too.

With energy flows suddenly being directed away from the West and towards the East, moves such as the multibillion dollar deal between Russia’s “state owned” Gazprom and China’s “state owned” CNPC will further improve BlackRock’s bottom line.

Pushed by the sanctions, Gazprom and CNPC will conduct their business in the ruble and the yuan. The consequent underpinning of their currencies strengthens the BRICS plan to challenge the primacy of the dollar as a reserve currency. With its Chinese mutual fund in operation, not only will BlackRock investors capitalise on their PetroChina deal, they are also well placed to take advantage of the likely shift in the International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS).

It seems BlackRock possesses almost magical powers of prescience.

There is no hint that the multipolar world order will do anything the tackle the inordinate power of the private sector oligarchs who dominate the United Nations’ global public-private partnership (UN-G3P). Neither they nor their investment portfolios are confined within national borders. Any nation-state can be an investment vehicle and international relations are just part of their strategic financial planning.

The global mechanisms and partnership networks that “act as a force multiplier” for the globalist oligarchs are not at risk. In terms of global governance, from the oligarchs’ perspective, the shift to the multipolar model is simply a change of middle management.

The oligarchs’ policy agendas, including the creation of a new global economy built upon debt–based sustainable development and natural asset classes, set within a $4 quadrillion carbon-neutral IMFS, remain firmly on track. Far from a threat, the multipolar world order is crucial. Without it, the theft of our natural resources and the capitalisation of nature cannot proceed.

Recently, Larry Fink, speaking at the Clinton Foundation’s Global Initiative seminar, said:

If we are going to change the world, there’s just not enough money that is going in to the emerging world. We must change the Charters of the IMF and the World Bank if we are going to get there. [. . .] There’s huge pools of capital but that capital is not equipped[.] [. . .] Its up to the equity owners [. . .] basically the G20, they have to have a desire for doing this. [. . .] If we can do that, the amount of capital that is going to go into the emerging world, into Africa [for example], will be extraordinary. [. . .] there is that opportunity in the next few years to do this and then we will have, not just a tectonic shift in the developed world, but a tectonic shift in all of the world.

Perhaps Larry is thinking of the kind of reforms that the BRICS, exploiting the pseudopandemic, suggested in 2021. Collectively the BRICS stated priorities for reform of the IMF and the World Bank included “innovative and inclusive solutions, including digital and technological tools to promote sustainable development” and stregnthening nations’ capacity to tackle problem relating to “terrorism, money laundering, [the] cyber-realm, infodemics and fake news.”

The hegemons of the multipolar world order would also like to see “reform” of the UN Security Council by increasing “representation of the developing countries,” such as Brazil, India or South Africa, thereby swinging control in the BRICS favour. They also recognised “the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda as a comprehensive, indivisible, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative targets.” All of this will supposedly improve “the system of global governance” they said.

The only perceptible difference is that the BRICS “emphasized the urgency of revitalization of the UN General Assembly so as to enhance its role and authority.”

As we discussed previously, under the UN Charter, the General Assembly doesn’t have any “authority.” Yet the BRICS envisaged reform of the General Assembly will be “in accordance with the UN Charter.” If the BRICS statement doesn’t make any sense that is because it doesn’t.

Clearly BlackRock and the BRICS are on the same page, but leaving that aside, this new model of global governance, headed by China and Russia, while the same as the existing model, will be better presumably because Russian, Chinese and Indian oligarchs are nicer people than their Western counterparts. We will explore that assumption in Part 3.

Just like the IRBO, the multipolar world order has signalled its intention to maintain the censorship agenda. The commitment to reform the IMF and the World Banks is firmly based upon an unshakeable commitment to “sustainable development” and Agenda 2030—thus Agenda21—which suits BlackRock, Vanguard and the rest of the global-public-private partnership perfectly.

In order for this new model of G20 based “global governance” to have a bite and not merely a bark, a global tax system is required.

To this end, in December 2021 the G20 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) finalised their “Two Pillar Solution To Address Tax Challenges.”

Supposedly designed to stop the tax avoidance of “multinational enterprises” (MNEs), which it won’t, the impetus for this nascent global tax system has largely come from the G20.

Unsurprisingly, the BRICS core of the multipolar world order are all signatories to the first concerted effort to legislate a single, unified global tax system into being. It seems that the new world order will fund itself into existence just as all empires do—by taxing the people.

CHANGING THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

The Western, unipolar, debt-ridden world order is economically and financially spent and, for the UN-G3P, is approaching its used by date. The current IMFS, first established with the Bretton Woods Agreement and maintained by the subsequent petrodollar scheme, is finished. It finally pegged out in 2008 with the global financial collapse. Since then it has been kept on life support simply by printing—digitally speaking—trillions of dollars.

Little of that money found its way into the real economy that you and I inhabit. The bulk of it has been siphoned off to prop up the financial markets while the move towards the multipolar system progresses.

This excess supply of the US dollar, the current leading global reserve currency, will keep eroding—and ultimately destroy—its value. Consequently, the US economy in its present form, along with significant swathes of the Western economic order, is degrading.

As noted by BlackRock, the existing drivers of financial exploitation are tapped out. Now that Western economies have reached their limits of growth, new sources of global economic stimulus are required.

Neither Russia nor China have become the world’s engine for growth by chance. China is energy hungry and Russia is energy rich. Collectively they lead the world in military technology and China leads the world in manufacturing which Russia is happy to fuel with its oil, gas and coal.

Part 2 of 3
 
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marsh

On TB every waking moment
Part 3 of 3

Despite the enmities of the past, the leadership in both nations not only recognised the mutual benefit of a closer partnership, they forged one.

If capable, all nation-states engage in industrial espionage. It is silly to claim that Russia and China don’t. Equally silly were the comments of the former director of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and then head of US Cyber Command, Gen. Keith Alexander, who, when speaking about China’s technological development, told a 2015 US Senate Armed Forces Committee:

All they’re doing is stealing everything they can to grow their economy. [. . .] It’s intellectual property, it’s our future. I think it’s the greatest transfer of wealth in history.

Tax and inflation are the greatest transfers of wealth in history, but that wasn’t the end of Gen. Alexanders blunders. Contrary to his claims, the Western public-private partnership has done everything it possibly can to assist China’s development.

In 1970 Zbigniew Brzezinski published Between Two Ages: America’s Role In The Technetronic Era. He recognised that private sector power had already exceeded that of governments and saw the a merger of the political and corporate state as the logical way forward in an emerging world dominated by digital technology:

The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multi-national corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.

In 1973 Brzezinki joined the oligarch David Rockefeller in the formation of the Trilateral Commission (think tank). Their objective, with a mind to US led public-private partnership dominance, was to invigorate development in the East, with a particular focus upon China. Recounting their initial purpose and subsequent evolution, the Commission says:

[T]here was a sense that the United States was no longer in such a singular leadership position as it had been in earlier post-World War II years. [. . .] , and that a more shared form of leadership [. . .] would be needed for the international system to navigate successfully the major challenges of the coming years. [. . .] [T]he enduring effects of the financial crisis that began in 2008 has been felt in every nation and region. It has fundamentally shaken confidence in the international system as a whole. The Commission sees in these unprecedented events a stronger need for shared thinking and leadership by the Trilateral countries.

In 2009 delegates from the governments of China and India joined the Pacific Asian Group of the Trilateral Commission. Hence trilateralist George Soros’ promotion of greater involvement for China in the creation of a “new world order” in the same year.

Efforts to shift the centre of global power eastward began in earnest in the 1980’s. Guided by the policy trajectories advised by the Trilaterlists and other globalist think tanks, the West notably stepped up its efforts to bolster China’s economic, financial and technological development.

Between 1983 – 1991, Western foreign direct investment (FDI) in China increased from $920M to $4.37Bn. In 1994, in terms of US overseas investment, China ranked 30th. By 2000, it was 11th, as Western multinational corporations quadrupled their FDI into China between 1994 and 2001. By 2019, it had eclipsed $2.1Tn.

The pseudopandemic saw an initial 42% slow-down in global FDI, but not in China where it grew again by another 4%. Consequently, China overtook the US to temporarily become the world’s leading recipient of foreign direct investment.

While the private sector drove the modernisation of the Chinese economy, the public sector in the West encouraged China to embolden its global political presence.

In 1979, the US granted China full diplomatic recognition; in 1982, the commitment was reaffirmed in the third joint communiqué; in 1984, Beijing was permitted to purchase US military hardware; in 1994, the Clinton Whitehouse intervened to scrap the cold war embargo on the export of “sensitive technology” to China (and Russia); the 2000 US – China Relations Act was signed by President Clinton (a member of the Trilateralist Commission), establishing further improvements to trade relations; In 2003 the US supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation and soon thereafter the Bush administration established permanent normal trading relations (PNTR) with China and, in 2005, then Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, called on China to take its place as a “responsible stakeholder.”

A 2019 report by the World Bank, titled Innovate China: New Drivers of Growth, noted the depth of the West’s G3P commitment to Chinese development:

Governments in other high-income countries have supported specific technologies and industries, particularly by targeting research and development (R&D). In the United States, government agencies such as the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Institutes of Health provided critical financing for key technologies. [. . .] These policies are complemented by support for key enabling technologies and industries—such as the space, defense, automotive, and steel industries—including through various funds, such as the European Structural and Investment Funds (five funds worth more than €450 billion) and Horizon 2020 (€77 billion for 2014–20).

Bringing his enthusiasm for the multipolar world order with him, then Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, and now UN Special Envoy for Climate Action & Finance, spoke at the G7 Central Bankers symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in August 2019.

This remarkable speech, shocking to anyone who believes that politicians run the world, more or less laid out where the world order is heading:

[A] destabilising asymmetry at the heart of the IMFS is growing. While the world economy is being reordered, the US dollar remains as important as when Bretton Woods collapsed[.] [. . .] In the medium term, policymakers need to reshuffle the deck. That is, we need to improve the structure of the current IMFS. [. . .] In the longer term, we need to change the game. [. . .] Any unipolar system is unsuited to a multi-polar world. [. . .] In the new world order, a reliance on keeping one’s house in order is no longer sufficient.

The neighbourhood too must change. [. . .] [A] multi-polar global economy requires a new IMFS to realise its full potential. That won’t be easy. Transitions between global reserve currencies are rare events. [. . .] t is an open question whether such a new Synthetic Hegemonic Currency (SHC) would be best provided by the public sector, perhaps through a network of central bank digital currencies. [. . .]

[A]n SHC might smooth the transition that the IMFS needs. [. . .] The deficiencies of the IMFS have become increasingly potent. Even a passing acquaintance with monetary history suggests that this centre won’t hold. [. . .] Let’s end the malign neglect of the IMFS and build a system worthy of the diverse, multi-polar global economy that is emerging.

In a nutshell, according to Carney: The “world economy is being reordered,” the dollar only remains “important” in the short term and “we”—the G7 central bankers—need to improve the IMFS by changing “the game” to suit a “multi-polar world” because the unipolar system is unsuitable. “The neighbourhood” (the Earth) must change to realise the potential of a “multi-polar” IMFS.

This requires transforming “the global reserve currency” to some sort of “Synthetic Hegemonic Currency,” perhaps based upon “central bank digital currencies” (CBDCs).

China, thanks in part to Western assistance, leads the world’s developed economies in CBDC technology. It began seriously testing CBDC in 2014, and started rolling it out in cities like Shenzhen, Chengdu and Suzhou in 2020. This year, China extended use of the digital yuan, called e-CNY, as it surged ahead in the race to become the first cashless major economy.

Russia aren’t far behind. Russia 12 leading banks began technical trials of the digital ruble in 2021 prior to its official launch on the 15th February 2022, just nine days before the “special military operation” began in Ukraine. The First Deputy Chairman of the CBR, Olga Skorobogatova, said:

The digital ruble platform is a new opportunity for citizens, businesses and the state. We plan for citizens transfers in digital rubles [to] be free and available in any region of the country[.] [. . .] The state will also receive a new tool for targeted payments and administration of budget payments.

More than that, adoption of CBDC in a cashless society, where no other form of payment is “permitted,” enslaves every citizen to the state. CBDC is both programmable money and a liability of the central banks. Not only does it always belong to the central bank, and never the user, it can be programmed to function as they see fit.

Russia has already installed the legal framework to make this a reality.

In 2019 Vladimir Putin announced amendments to Russian federal law that enables the Russian state to outlaw the use of cryptocurrencies. In a “cashless society” these could potentially be a form of alternative currency.

As yet, the legal amendments have had little effect. But, if and when Russia moves to a cashless control grid the regulatory platform is ready and waiting.

According to the NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council, as 105 countries representing 95% of global GDP explore CBDC, “the G7 economies, the US and UK are the furthest behind on CBDC development.”

It seems strange that the unipolar IRBO is apparently lagging so far behind again. Especially given that fact that some of its leading “thinkers” would like to see “a network of central bank digital currencies.”

Still, in its search for a Synthetic Hegemonic Currency, it may come as some relief to the leaders of the IRBO that, as noted by the Atlantic Council, “many countries are exploring alternative international payment systems” and that the “proliferation of different CBDC models is creating new urgency for international standard setting.”

While it is evident that China are leading, perhaps the IRBO and the Central Bank of Russia can take some consolation in the NATO think tank’s assessment:

The trend is likely to accelerate following financial sanctions on Russia.

The neighbourhood is certainly changing.

Mark Carney – former MD Goldman Sachs, Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, UK Prime Minister’s Special Climate Envoy To COP26, Chairman of the FSB, WEF Board of Trustees member and current vice chairman and head of Impact Investing at Brookfield Asset Management and UN Special Envoy on Climate Change.

BUILDING THE NEW IMFS

Russia is the third–largest oil-producing nation after the US and Saudi Arabia and the second–largest producer of natural gas after the US. But since US domestic energy consumption far exceeds Russia’s, it is the second–largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia, and the leading natural gas exporter in the world. Russia also possesses the largest gas reserves on Earth.

In 2018, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange started trading oil futures denominated in the Chinese yuan (CNY). All that was required, in order to make the yuan a full-blown petroyuan, was for crude oil exporters to widely accept it as payment. China has been paying Russia and Iran for oil using yuan since 2012, but the sanctions this year moved the credibility of the petroyuan to a whole new level.

The Russian Federation has not only massively increased its oil exports to China, becoming its leading oil supplier, but is accepting payment in renminbi (RMB). The CNY is the principle of account for the RMB. Globally, as a direct consequence of the West’s sanctions, the petroyuan is now a practical reality.

Venezuela, too, has already agreed to accept the petroyuan. If Saudi Arabia accepts the petroyuan, as seems increasingly likely, the yuan will also have taken a leap forward as a potentially dominant global reserve currency.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both the pseudopandemic and the war in Ukraine have resulted in nation-states the world over committing to policies that precisely facilitate the transition to the multipolar world order. That both of these world-changing events just happen to “reshuffle the deck” exactly as desired by the global parasite class is certainly uncanny, if not downright unbelievable.

Nonetheless, as the centre of power moves eastward, maybe the new world order will ultimately deliver on the promise claimed by some—namely, that Russia and China really are standing up to the insidious Great Reset. Could it be true? We live in hope.

Despite the fact that the Western public-private partnership has played a pivotal and seemingly intentional role in this polarity shift, perhaps the Russian and Chinese governments are determined to create a better world order for us all, as some commentators suggest:

[A] higher geopolitical reality is being born which will have a much greater benefit to [. . .] humanity more generally if it is not sabotaged. [. . .] A potentially beautiful new future driven by the re-awakening of the spirit of the Silk Road is being painted before our eyes.

When we conclude this series with Part 3, we may just discover that the wondrous vision of a “beautiful new future” led by China and Russia is a realistic prospect.

Or perhaps not.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Supply Chain Effects From Hurricane Ian Could Linger For Weeks

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 04:20 AM
By Eric Kulisch of FreightWaves

The risk to manufacturing, agriculture and distribution sectors in Florida is rapidly intensifying as powerful Hurricane Ian takes aim at the state’s southwest coast. But the economic ripple effects are likely to be felt well beyond the storm zone.

Experts are predicting severe disruption to supply chains from flooding, power outages and wind damage that could stall factory and farm production, as well as freight movement through major port, airport, highway and rail nodes. The Tampa-to-Orlando corridor is chockablock full of huge retail and e-commerce distribution centers.

Meanwhile, Typhoon Noru is similarly upsetting supply chains in Southeast Asia as it barrels across the South China Sea toward Vietnam.

Ian is expected to make landfall in western Florida on Wednesday, according to forecasters. Major flooding from the storm surge is expected for communities along Tampa Bay.

The storm could impact up to 2,800 manufacturing firms in aerospace, automotive components, heavy machinery, chemicals and plastics, as well as about 7,000 health care producers in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostics and other fields, Everstream Analytics, which uses predictive software to help customers like Apple and Schneider Electric manage supply chain risk, said in a weather update Tuesday.

“Even just a couple hours of downtime at a major production site or industrial zone means additional time making repairs, spinning up machinery and restarting work,” said analyst Anthony Yanchuk.

According to Resilinc, which maps customers’ supply chains and provides early warning of potential disruptions, Ian’s impact could be much wider and long-lasting.

More than 4,500 factories, warehouses and distribution centers, which produce or distribute about 74,000 parts for everything from electronics to chemicals, are in the projected storm zone, Resilinc CEO Bindya Vakil told FreightWaves.

Nearly $20 billion in revenue is at risk just for companies Resilinc monitors.

Companies in other states could face shortages of truck capacity in the coming days if many motor carriers shift resources to provide logistics support for recovery efforts through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, humanitarian aid groups or state governments, said Vakil.

It will take an average of nine weeks for business to recover to pre-Ian run rates, based on historical experience with similar weather events and what suppliers in Resilinc’s network are communicating, she said in the interview. Production and shipping ability could be hindered by damage to buildings, equipment or inventory. The length of downtime will be influenced by whether businesses have alternative sites and redundant manufacturing.

“A lot of times people sort of know where the warehouse that they place their orders is, but they don’t know where the factories are actually located, and how the different factories connect into their supply chain,” Vakil said. “That’s, that’s really important because if companies are not monitoring their suppliers that are in Florida right now, then three weeks later, they might have a critical supplier who says, ‘Hey, remember that hurricane that actually knocked down power and my factory went down for two weeks and now I can’t ship you something.’

“When you have companies who know that they have factories in the region, they are picking up the phone right now, before the hurricane even made landfall, they know exactly how much inventory they have, where it is, and they can start to control and allocate in a right way and and control the usage. But if you’re not aware, then you’re reacting three weeks from now. And that’s too late,” Resilinc’s CEO said.

Everstream Analytics said the sector facing the biggest harm is agriculture. The storm could cause extensive crop damage ahead of the harvest season, which starts in November. Concerns have increased as the storm’s track shifted further south in the last 24 hours toward more orange-producing counties.

South Florida produces 70% of U.S. citrus. High winds could blow down oranges before they are picked and fields could be flooded. As Ian moves north, it could also degrade cotton crops and soybean and tobacco production in the Southeast, according to Everstream.

Truckers face the possibility of less business if there are reduced crop volumes to move, and consumers could see higher produce prices, exacerbating already high inflation.

Freight transport constraints
Power outages and high water are expected to paralyze traffic on major highways, especially Interstates 4 and 75, the Everstream forecasters said.

Expedited trucking company Sterling Transportation said its shippers should expect delays due to facility closures and that it may hold cargo at origin instead of sending it into the storm area until conditions are considered safe.

Aftermath of Hurricane Laura in 2020
Vessel traffic is already being halted. Port Tampa Bay and Seaport Manatee, which handles large quantities of steel, fertilizer and other noncontainerized goods, both closed Tuesday so workers could secure equipment and vessels could get out to sea. Port Tampa Bay specializes in imports of food and beverage products, as well as fuel.

Port Miami’s two main container terminals are closed on Wednesday and Port Everglades, in Fort Lauderdale, has stopped accepting inbound traffic on the expectation of high winds from Ian as it passes to the west. And the ports of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, have issued advisories for tropical force winds later this week. Depending on Ian’s path and strength, they could be forced to shut down too.

All four ports handle large amounts of container traffic.

Freight railroads haven’t revised their schedules yet but are monitoring conditions.

As for air cargo, Tampa International Airport shut down at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Orlando International Airport is shutting down at 10:30 A.M. Wednesday.

Delta Airlines said no cargo can be picked up or delivered Tuesday until after midnight at many airports in Florida, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando. The service stoppage is likely to change Wednesday as the storm’s path becomes clearer.

Miami International Airport said it is open, but some flights are delayed or canceled due to the weather. Worldwide Logistics Group said in a customer notice that local drayage drivers in Miami are considering adding 48 hours to current cut off windows for receiving freight due to expected delays from weather and heavy traffic

Shippers with global supply chains are also closely tracking Typhoon Noru, which has strengthened and is headed toward central Vietnam after slamming through the Philippines. Everstream Analytics is warning of major disruptions to industries such as transportation and agriculture, with the key logistics hub of Da Nang expected to take a direct hit. Heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides are expected.

Vietnam closed airports and hundreds of flights were canceled Tuesday, according to Reuters.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Powell's Plan Is Not Working - Initial Jobless Claims Plunge To 5-Month Lows​

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 05:36 AM
Well this is not going to help fight inflation...

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time dropped back below 200k last week (193k) - the lowest number since April...



Continuing Claims also fell to its lowest in 3 months.

Fed Chair Powell will not be happy that his cunning plan to fight inflation by easing the tightness in the labor market - by raising rates and crushing the economy - does not seem to be working.

Presumably this means more higher and more longer rate-hikes are to come...



Which explains why futures are tumbling.
 

marsh

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

Putin to annex four Ukrainian regions during ceremony​

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Sky News Australia

Russian President Vladimir Putin will begin formally annexing 15 per cent of Ukraine's territory during a ceremony planned for Friday local time. The Kremlin announced four Ukrainian regions will be declared Russian territories during a signing ceremony in the St George's Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Following the signing ceremony, Mr Putin will meet Moscow-appointed administrators of the Ukrainian regions.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPsRQ0D0h2E
32:40 min

China EXPOSED Running SECRET POLICE In US, Canada, And Europe As Fear Of World War Three Escalates​

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Tim Pool

China EXPOSED Running SECRET POLICE Stations In US, Canada, And Europe As Fears Of WW3 Escalate. Russian and Chinese warships are confirmed to have entered US economic water near Alaska as fear of world war three grows and Putin and Xi Jinping remain steadfast. Among those in the US 80% surveyed said that WW3 may be upon us. Biden has made threats of ending Nord Stream and now NATO says it was sabotaged with many member states blaming Russia. Russia and China recently cooperated in military drills sending signals of a stronger alliance and the possibility that China uses the European conflict as a chance to take Taiwan
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4klYhy6nmRk

General Motors Just Failed ( Remote Work, Quiet Quitting Will Cause Failures )​


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The Economic Ninja

General Motors Just Failed ( Remote Work, Quiet Quitting Will Cause Failures ).

GM delays return-to-office mandate after employee backlash​

PUBLISHED TUE, SEP 27 2022 12:41 PM EDTUPDATED TUE, SEP 27 2022
Michael Wayland

KEY POINTS
  • General Motors is conducting damage control around its return-to-office plans after a Friday afternoon message to employees spurred backlash and confusion.
  • The company's senior leadership team on Friday said corporate workers would be required to return to physical locations at least three days a week, beginning later this year.
  • On Tuesday, a second message walked back that timing and clarified the policy.
In this article

DETROIT – General Motors is conducting damage control around its return-to-office plans after a Friday afternoon message to employees spurred backlash and confusion.

The company's senior leadership team on Friday said corporate workers would be required to return to physical locations at least three days a week, beginning later this year, in what the company called an evolution of its current remote work policies.

On Tuesday, a second message walked back that timing and clarified the company won't be mandating specific in-office days, instead leaving that decision to individual teams.

"Our plan was always, and still is, collaboratively design the solution that best balances the needs of the enterprise with the needs of each of you," read the memo, which was signed by CEO Mary Barra and other executives, a copy of which was viewed by CNBC.

The follow-up message says no workers will be required to return to offices sooner than the first quarter of next year.

"While we have maintained a highly collaborative culture over the past two years during a very challenging time, the intangible benefits of in person collaboration are going to be a critical success factor as we move into a period of rapid launches," the Tuesday message said. "This evolution is about being ready for the next phase of our transformation."


A GM spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the message, saying it sought to "provide more clarity to help answer some of the questions and concerns that we've been receiving." She said the timing of the return-to-office has shifted, but "the overall plan has not really changed."

Both messages are a stark change from the automaker's flexible "work appropriately" rules that were announced by Barra and lauded by the company in April 2021. GM described it as a flexible, evolving policy that will differ depending on the employee, week and project.

GM on Tuesday apologized for the timing of the original message and its vagueness. Leaders said the earlier communication was sent out after some information about the company's plan was prematurely shared with some departments.

"We elected to communicate enterprise wide before we had the opportunity to collaborate more broadly on the implementation plan. We believe the benefits of being transparent — even with suboptimal timing and partial details — outweighed the risk of creating mistrust by having you hear the information second hand," the Tuesday message reads.

GM said it will communicate more information at the end of next month, as the company intends to spend the "next few weeks continuing to listen to your feedback so that we incorporate it into our implementation plans."
 

marsh

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Biden’s Treasury Secretary Could Be On Her Way Out: REPORT

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
ARJUN SINGH
CONTRIBUTOR
September 28, 2022

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen may leave her post following the midterm elections, according to a Tuesday report by Axios.

Though a firm decision has not been made, White House staff are preparing for Yellen’s departure and are already searching for a potential replacement, according to Axios, quoting White House sources. Yellen is the first woman to hold the post and Biden’s first Treasury Secretary, but is reported to be frequently at loggerheads with Biden’s political advisers on economic issues.

Yellen, a former professor of economics at Harvard University and UC Berkeley who previously served as Chair of the Federal Reserve, reportedly pushed back against White House pressure to make public statements she believed were contrary to economic principles. In June, Yellen stated that she “was wrong about the path inflation would take,” and advocated for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to combat inflation.

Additionally, she reportedly disagreed with Biden’s decision to cancel a portion of federal student loan debt for borrowers and the administration’s effort to blame corporations for inflation.

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Yellen’s departure, however, has not been confirmed, with some in government denying that it will occur. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department told Axios that Yellen “has no plans to leave,” a statement echoed by Biden Senior Advisor Anita Dunn.

Additionally, reports indicate that the Director of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese, will be leaving the administration after November’s midterms. Deese has been Biden’s top economic advisor within the White House and taken a primary role in crafting the administration’s major legislative initiatives, including the American Rescue Plan Act, Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Though Deese has denied that he intends to depart, other officials have confirmed that one of Biden’s cabinet-level economic advisers, Cecilia Rouse, will leave the administration. Rouse, currently the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, is on two-year public service leave as a professor of economics at Princeton University, which will expire in 2023.

Rouse’s and Yellen’s replacements will require the Senate’s advice and consent before taking office. Overseeing the search for replacements for such roles are Jeff Zients and Natalie Quillian, who were coordinators of Biden’s COVID-19 Response team, according to Politico.

It is common for senior members of an administration to leave after midterm elections. Though some of Biden’s non-economic advisors, such as Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, have announced plans to retire from government service this year, the administration has had a lower turnover rate than all of its six predecessors.

The Daily Caller News Foundation has reached out to the White House for a comment on this story.
 

marsh

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Senior Fed Official Warns Against Repeating This ‘Mistake’ Of The 70s - Neel Kashkari

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
HUGH DEMASTRI
CONTRIBUTOR
September 28, 2022

The head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis cautioned the Fed about lowering interest rates too quickly, noting that the Fed’s goal to reduce inflation took precedence over avoiding a recession, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Neel Kashkari said cutting interest rates amid weak economic conditions soon after inflation begins to decrease would be a “mistake,” mirroring a move made in the 1970s that ultimately led to inflation spiking once again, the WSJ reported. Kashkari’s statements echo Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s hardline anti-inflation stance, as the chairman has repeatedly committed the Fed to bring inflation down regardless of secondary effects.

“I think a hard landing is substantially more likely than a soft landing,” said Lawrence Summers, former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, speaking in a WSJ interview alongside Kashkari on Tuesday. “I think if inflation is going to come down in two or three years rather than the 10 [seen in some past crises], that’s likely to be in the context of a recession not in the context of a smooth path.”

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Inflation held relatively steady overall in August, near 40-year highs at 8.3% year-on-year, shattering investor expectations of a drop and motivating the Fed to hike interest rates by 0.75% for the third time in four months. Although overall inflation remained relatively steady off the back of declining energy costs, so-called core inflation, which measures inflation without accounting for more-volatile food and energy prices, was up from 5.9% in July to 6.3% in August.

Summers estimated that the odds of inflation coming to 2% within two and a half years while the unemployment rate stayed below 4.5%, less than one-in-four, the WSJ reported. While the Fed is doing what it can to reduce the chances of a hard landing, Kashkari claimed that it would need help to make that happen.

“I think a soft landing is still possible, and certainly we will work very hard to try to achieve it, but a lot of it is out of our control,” said Kashkari in the WSJ interview. Without assistance from the private market in the form of reduced supply, inflation would likely need to be brought down purely through Fed rate hikes that reduced demand, which Kashkari admits carried a significant chance of inducing a recession.

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

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German Authorities Fear Nord Stream Pipelines May Be Permanently Unusable Following Sabotage

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
JACK MCEVOY
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
September 28, 2022

German security officials believe that both Nord Stream 1 and 2 could be damaged beyond repair as large amounts of corrosive saltwater flowed into pipelines following multiple leaks that were discovered on Tuesday, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday.

European countries found significant gas leaks at three separate locations in the Baltic Sea which caused the pipelines’ pressure to drop, forcing the pipelines to go offline. German authorities are concerned that the saltwater’s damage to the pipelines could make them permanently inoperable which would further cut fuel supplies to an energy-starved Germany, according to The Telegraph, which cited the German outlet Tagesspiegel.

Both the German government and the European Union believe that the leaks were caused by an intentional act of sabotage. Sweden detected underwater explosions in the pipeline’s area before the damage was detected, according to The New York Times.

Germany is currently embroiled in an energy crisis that is being exacerbated by the reduction of Russian gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. The German government is planning to place price caps on natural gas and electricity to bring down the crippling energy bills that are forcing businesses to shut down, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Russia, which delivered 45% of Europe’s natural gas before the invasion of Ukraine, has also been previously accused of cutting off gas deliveries to punish Europe for its support of Ukraine. However, the Russian government on Wednesday claimed that it had nothing to do with the pipeline leaks, according to Reuters.

Germany and other EU nations have continuously placed sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and will ban Russian oil imports at the end of 2022.

The German Ministry Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the Federal Intelligence Service did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
 

marsh

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What You Need to Know About Biden's Hunger Conference

“We need to leave here with an assignment for tomorrow. And for next week and the week after that," said McGovern. "This is an opportunity. We can’t blow it.”

By JIM WIESEMEYER September 29, 2022
To reduce such diet-related diseases and end hunger by 2030, President Biden on Tuesday announced a 44-page package, National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, that will focus on five primary pillars:

1. Improve food access and affordability
2. Integrate nutrition and health
3. Empower all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices
4. Support physical activity for all
5. Enhance nutrition and food security research

Speaking on the plan at a hunger conference on Wednesday, Biden outlined the details of the strategy.

Nationwide Free Lunch
Biden wants to lower income thresholds to make nine million more children in high-poverty communities eligible for free school meals, a measure Biden called “a major first step toward free meals for each student.”

A pandemic-era program that provided free breakfast and lunch to all schoolchildren expired this school year. Republicans voted against Democratic efforts to include universal free school meals in this week’s stopgap government funding bill and have expressed skepticism about other programs to expand free school meals.

The President also urged making permanent the Summer EBT program, which gives low-income families money to buy groceries during the summer when children don’t have access to school meals.

Opportunities for More Food & Nutrition Funding Ahead
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Ct.) pointed out two upcoming opportunities to improve food and nutrition policy — the farm bill reauthorization and the annual appropriations process.

Republicans will inevitably propose cuts to SNAP in the 2023 farm bill, as they did in the 2014 and 2018 bills, said Stabenow.

“I say, we’re not going to cut food stamps,” said Stabenow. “We need your help, because No. 1 is to not go backwards on public nutrition.”

But not losing ground isn’t enough, she said, “we have to build and build and build.”

“The farm bill is every five years. Friends, appropriations is every single year,” added DeLauro.

She urged Biden to put the Child Tax Credit expansion in the 2024 budget “so that we can deal with it and move on.”

Another $8 Billion
Officials announced they had secured $8 billion in commitments from public and private entities toward helping provide more food and better nutrition in coming years. The commitments underscore the Biden administration’s reliance on the private sector to meet its goals of ending hunger by 2030 and prompting healthier eating habits.

Efforts were launched to make healthy food more affordable and accessible, provide more options for physical activity, and bolster research on food and nutrition.

Worker Rights
Fair wages, collective bargaining rights. Biden reiterated his support for fair wages and collective bargaining rights for the workers who “grow, produce, and process our food.” As part of its anti-hunger strategy, the administration proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the House Rules Committee chair who spearheaded the effort for the conference, praised the Biden administration for making hunger and nutrition a national priority. But he also acknowledged that the conference was only a beginning

“We need to leave here with an assignment for tomorrow. And for next week and the week after that," said McGovern. "This is an opportunity. We can’t blow it.”

He called for a bipartisan effort to “make history” and “transform this country where 35 million people don’t know where their next meal is going to come from into a country where hunger is illegal or doesn’t exist at all.”

Hunger Strategy Opposition
Some Republicans criticized the confab. Rep. GT Thompson (R-Pa.), Republican leader of the House Ag Committee, called it “nothing more than a political stunt.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), senior Republican on the House Education Committee, which oversees child nutrition, said the administration had prioritized liberal activist groups instead of a diverse range of stakeholders to “set up this conference to be forgotten before it even started.”

More information about the strategy will likely be announced in coming months.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Ending Beef Exports/Imports Would Cost Cattlemen $Billions

Both exports and imports add value for U.S. cattlemen.

By GREG HENDERSON September 29, 2022
Entirely ceasing U.S. international beef trade would be an economic catastrophe for America’s beef industry, and retail beef would be even more expensive for American consumers. That’s the conclusion of a new economic report co-authored by livestock economists Glynn Tonsor, Kansas State University, and Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University.

Even a 10% reduction in U.S. beef exports and imports would cause a significant disruption to prices and quantities of both feeder cattle and fed cattle. According to the report, the cumulative loss from a 10% reduction in exports and imports over 10 years would create an economic loss of $12.9 billion to feeder cattle sellers and $6.8 billion to fed cattle sellers.

The report, “Assessing Economic Impact That Would Follow Loss of U.S. Beef Exports & Imports,” outlines why the U.S. trades beef internationally, summarizes historical beef trade data, quantifies national fed and feeder cattle market impacts that could follow loss of beef trade, and allocates national impacts to state-level impacts. The report was prepared for the Kansas Beef Council, the Oklahoma Beef Council, and the Texas Beef Council.

“It’s hard to over-state the complex and ever-growing role of beef export and imports,” the authors wrote. “Beef export and imports combine to provide opportunities to increase value to the U.S. industry by exporting products that have more value in foreign markets and importing products that can be sourced more economically in international markets.”
 

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One Word Summarizes Yields in Drought-Hit Areas of the Western Corn Belt: Disappointing

Video on website 1:21 min
South Dakota Harvest 092922

By MICHELLE ROOK September 29, 2022

Harvest progress is running a bit ahead of normal in the western Corn Belt, including South Dakota, where harvest is around 9% complete on corn and soybeans. The continued dry conditions are pushing the harvest along quickly.

Around Elk Point, S.D., Doug Hansen combined some early soybeans that yielded well below his farm averages.

"These two fields ran in the low 40s, which would be at least 15 bu. off our normal," Hansen says. “We were 11.5 inches of rain behind normal for the growing season, so that's substantial."

The soybeans were short with the driest conditions in his area since the drought of 2012.

Farther north near Centerville, S.D., Tim Ostrem has already harvested some dryland corn, with yields that are down nearly 50%.

“It's really a tough year," Ostrem says. "We’re talking 90 bu. per acre and it should be 180 on a field average, and some of my other fields that are heavier I would be shooting for over 200 on those.”

Fortunately, because he could harvest the corn early, he got a better price, which will offset some of the lower production. And Ostrem’s yields are better than others in his area.

"I’ve heard of guys being zeroed out. Their corn just lost it and it's toast," he says. Many cut corn for silage already if there was anything to salvage."

These farmers say they will rely on crop insurance and look ahead to next year.
 

marsh

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Want To End Hunger? Animal Protein May Be the Answer

Video on website 1:29 min
Effort to End Hunger 092822

By TYNE MORGAN September 28, 2022

The White House hosted its first conference on hunger since 1969 this week. While President Biden announced several steps to increase access for free school meals and more incentives to purchase fruits and vegetables with food stamps, some say protein from animal agriculture could be a major answer in the need for healthy and nutritious food for Americans.

According to the USDA, the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health is aimed to bring various parties together to work toward ending hunger and reducing diet-related diseases and disparities in the U.S. by 2030. Some of the announced steps include:

Chobani launching a national corporate responsibility initiative – Food Access in Reach (F.A.I.R.) – to encourage businesses of all sizes to “adopt-a-school” and pledge to make it food- and nutrition-secure. As part of this initiative, businesses including Chobani will pledge to help schools meet child nutrition standards and pay their employees at least a $15/hour minimum wage to reduce hunger within their own ranks.

The National Grocers Association will expand access to full-service grocery stores – grocery stores that stock and sell fresh produce, meat, and dairy, in addition to processed and packaged goods – across the country. It will double the number of retailers offering SNAP Online, prioritizing rural areas and areas with low food access, such as agricultural communities. NGA will also build a toolkit to support its members expanding full-service grocery stores into USDA-designated food deserts.

National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) was in attendance Tuesday. Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF, says they worked with other agricultural and anti-hunger groups in preparation of the conference and urged the White House to place a high priority on affordable, diverse and healthful foods. As a result, Mulhern says NMPF is welcoming the strategy’s consistent emphasis on increasing consumption of healthful foods to levels recommended in the dietary guidelines.

"We know from decades of working in this area that dairy products — and the 13 essential nutrients they provide such as protein, calcium, Vitamin D and potassium — will be vital ingredients to meeting these goals," says Mulhern. "The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) shows that dietary patterns that include dairy are associated with beneficial health outcomes, such as lowered risk for cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. The guidelines also note that dairy is under-consumed across all age categories. Scientific evidence clearly indicates that milk and dairy foods are part of the solution to challenges like food and nutrition insecurity, health equity, and diet-related and other noncommunicable diseases."

Animal Protein is the Sustainable Answer
While much of the White House’s plan centers around increasing fruit and vegetable availability for families, Elanco, the world’s second largest animal health company, says livestock producers are also a part of the solution. Elanco CEO Jeff Simmons says the company has a clear vision of how animal agriculture is the answer in addressing both hunger and climate demands today.

“Animal protein demand continues to grow,” Simmons says. “It's probably the biggest misnomer, even inside our industry. The last 10 years, we have increased demand 60 million metric tons. The prediction the next 10 years, 90 million, another 50% more growth.”

He says part of it is more export trade and countries around the world increasing their demand for animal protein. He says the other reason is the health benefits of animal protein.

“You’re seeing this Western diet, more protein, less carbs. What we produce is under tremendous demand, the fastest growing food segment today is animal protein. When demand is up, you turn and say, ‘Hey, there's real opportunity here for the farmer to play a role,’” he adds.

Simmons says in order to meet those challenges, he has a clear message for livestock producers.

“There are three C's that matter,” Simmons says. “It's calories, it’s climate, and it’s choice. On this whole calorie side, 60% of the world is not getting the right calories, they're not getting enough, or they're getting the wrong ones. Animal protein is the hot segment inside of that 50% more growth. That's critical.”

As the livestock sector answers the need on the calorie side, he thinks the climate piece is equally as important. The United Nations claims as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, countries that adopted the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius. And Simmons thinks livestock producers are a valuable piece of that solution.

“Whether you believe or not, that eight-year United Nations statistic is making the whole world, consumers, governments, industries, big companies like Elanco, say we got to get behind climate, and methane is what can do that,” Simmons says.

The third “C” Simmons outlined is “choice.”

“Consumers want your product,” he adds. “And it's growing significantly. This is an opportunity we need to look at. I believe every farmer needs to gain the knowledge and understanding within the next 24 months. Get a roadmap and action plan together. There's a lot of people out there to help. Elanco is one of them. There are other companies to help get farmers on this path. It's the next era of opportunity and animal agriculture.”

Meat Companies Already at Work
The North American Meat Institute (NAMI), which represents the major meat processing companies in the U.S., agrees that meat is part of the solution, and NAMI says meat companies are already working toward that goal.

“According to Feeding America, meat is one of the top three most needed foods for food charities. Yet, meat represents just 1% of food distributed by food charities, in part due to limited capacity to limited infrastructure for cold storage, packing, and distribution,” says Meat Institute President and CEO, Julie Anna Potts. “The resulting “protein gap” worsens hunger and particularly impacts women, children, and older adults who have greater need for the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals best and sometimes only found naturally in animal-source foods.”

Potts says filling that protein gap is a top priority for their members, who have already committed to help end hunger in the U.S. by sharing information and investing in protein pack rooms and refrigerated transportation. She says that’s being done through:

Cargill announcing in August a new $4.9 million donation to Feeding America, including to build and expand protein pack rooms.

JBS already donating more than $2 million for improvements in cold storage and distribution, along with contributing to food safety training and safe meal preparation.

Tyson Foods donating $2.5 million to Feeding America in September , allocating $1 million to Equitable Food Access grants, and 2.5 million pounds of protein.

While the White House Conference on Hunger announced a bold plan this week, some Washington watchers say that with midterms looming, Biden may not have support in Congress for long enough to see these measures through on a federal level.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Protests Explode Across Europe Over Nordstream 2 Pipeline Amid Huge Spike in Gas Prices

"If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

Kyle Becker
4 hr ago

The Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany suffered catastrophic damage in a series of explosions on Monday. According to Danish authorities, the explosions were the result of "deliberate actions." European Union Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said the leaks were due to "sabotage."

The massive pipeline explosions occurred near the Danish island of Bornholm, which is located in international waters. The methane gas that is pouring out from is now the basis of an environmental catastrophe. A worst case scenario of 778 million cubic meters of methane gas would comprise a record amount of the gas released into the atmosphere from any manmade source during a single event.

One day prior to this devastating attack on Nordstream 2 on Monday morning, thousands of Germans took the streets to protest a huge surge in energy prices in the Central European country.

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Thousands of people in Gera in Germany against Olaf Scholz's policy and the explosion of energy and gas prices. They demand an end to sanctions on Russia and the reopening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Demonstrations also in other German cities but EU media censors them.

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The energy price explosion has accompanied a drastic rise in inflation, such as in Germany.

"Inflation in Germany jumps to 10% in September — the highest annual increase in the history of the index since World War II," Disclose TV reported on Thursday.

Many of the German protesters were also calling for a peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has fueled the skyrocketing prices. Germany relies heavily on natural gas, which comprises 27% of its overall energy portfolio. When it comes to home heating and industrial power, natural gas is about 37% of the energy supply, overall.

As the Guardian reported in July, "Very little gas is flowing from Russia to Germany through any of the three pipelines that connect the two countries. The Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom in May ceased deliveries through the Yamal pipeline passing through Belarus and Poland, while the Ukraine-transiting Transgas, an extension of the Soyuz pipeline from Russia, is prioritising deliveries to Slovakia and Austria. Germany’s most important pipeline, Nord Stream 1, used to carry up to 170m cubic metres of gas a day. But in mid-June Gazprom reduced its deliveries to about 40m cubic metres a day, citing the delayed 'repair' of a turbine by the German company Siemens."

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It is in this context that not even 12 hours after the explosions of Nordstream 2, European Union officials gathered in Szczecin, Poland to inaugurate the Baltic Pipe. The pipeline is expected to bring natural gas from Norway to Denmark to Poland, where it can be distributed across the European Union. The Baltic Pipe would bring 10 billion cubic meters of gas to the E.U., and was initially planned in 2014 after the Russian annexation of Crimea as a way to mitigate the dependence on Russian gas.

Thus, amid this confluence of events, it is with great scrutiny that veiled threats from the Biden administration are now being analyzed by international observers.

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In February, President Biden warned: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

"But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?" a reporter asked.

"I promise you, we will be able to do that," Biden said.

Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs at the State Department, issued a similar warning to Russia in late January.

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"If Russia invades, one way or another, Nordstream 2 will not move forward," Nuland vowed.

It is a given that the United States would never publicly claim responsibility for a clandestine operation to blow up the Nordstream 2 pipeline, since this would be tantamount to an act of war against nuclear-armed power Russia.

Accusations that Russian President Vladimir Putin blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline, which carries natural gas supplied by state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, rely in part on U.S.-sourced reports that Russian warships were in the vicinity prior to the explosions. The U.S.-based sources also note that Russian submarines were in the area the previous week.

However, there are a number of major flaws with the presumption that Putin must have ordered the pipeline destroyed. Firstly, Putin controls the gas fed into Nordstream 2, thus, he only needs to order the gas to be shut off, as he has done on previous occasions. Secondly, the Russian government relies heavily on natural gas, which constitutes 45% of the state budget, according to the International Energy Agency.

There are a number of indicators that Germany has grown increasingly aggressive in its actions to offset natural gas shortfalls that have arisen since the start of the Russia-Ukraine War.

In June, Germany seized three Gazprom liquefied natural gas tankers. In September, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz directed the government to seize a Russian oil refinery belonging to Rosneft.

"Germany took control of a major Russian-owned oil refinery... risking retaliation from Moscow as Berlin strives to shore up energy supplies and meet its European Union commitment to eliminate Russian oil imports by the end of the year," Reuters reported.

"The economy ministry said it was putting a unit of Russian oil firm Rosneft under the trusteeship of the industry regulator and taking over the business' Schwedt refinery, which supplies 90% of Berlin's fuel," the report added.

"This is a far-reaching energy policy decision to protect our country," Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

This is a strikingly desperate move by a country that was once considered to be the engine of Europe. But the German government cannot say that they weren't warned.

"Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation," former President Donald Trump said in a speech at the United Nations in 2018 that drew chuckles from the German delegation.

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"That is why we congratulate European states, such as Poland, for leading the construction of a Baltic pipeline so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs. Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course," Trump said. "Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers."

The Germans aren't laughing now.
 
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On TB every waking moment
Steve Cortes: America's In A Deep Recession That Will Turn Into A Depression If Left Unaddressed 13:30 min

Steve Cortes: America's In A Deep Recession That Will Turn Into A Depression If Left Unaddressed​

Bannons War Room Published September 29, 2022

No summary given. Have not watched
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^^^^^

"Horrendous" CarMax Results Confirm Fed Has Successfully Pushed US Economy Off A Cliff​

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 09:14 AM
So much for that used-car price bubble, one of the main drivers - pardon the pun - behind the inflationary surge of 2022.



Shares of US auto dealers cratered today after CarMax’s Q2 reported catastrophic results which wildly missed estimates, sparking concern about the whole group. EPS of only 79c, almost half the $1.40 consensus estimate, shocked markets, while net sales of $8.14 billion also missed expectations. The stock lost a quarter of its value on Thursday.




A soundbite from the Vital Knowledge newsletter set the tone: it said that KMX “horrendous report” was bad for the stock and autos, but would be welcomed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell as proof the Fed has successfully pushed the economy into a recession. That's because vehicle affordability issues stemmed from inflationary pressures, higher interest rates and low consumer confidence.

On the other hand, the results will exacerbate concern about the automotive industry. Indeed, the entire US automotive industry is being hammered by soaring interest rates and a stretched consumer. GM and Ford are also among the biggest decliners with Ford warning last week on inflation costs.

The silver lining: used car prices - which as noted above had an outsized contributed to high inflation - are finally tumbling as the next Manheim Used Car index update will undoubted show. But, as Bloomberg notes, the overall pain in a cyclical industry will outweigh that point. The auto complex and cruise lines (another consumer proxy) made consumer discretionary the worst performer in early US trading. Tech and real estate continue to get smacked by rising yields. This is just the latest confirmation that crushing inflation comes at a cost, which is usually a collapse in demand and a recession.

There was another silver lining: since it was unbridled consumer spending (thanks trillions in Biden stimmies) that prompted the Fed's erratic response to crush the economy, observing first hand just how hard the US consumer is being crushed by soaring rates (as a reminder, the average mortgage just rose above 7% for the first time in 22 years earlier this week), may finally force the Fed to recognize that nuking inflation in a world where there is nothing more than smouldering, recessionary rubble, may not be the best strategy.
 
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marsh

On TB every waking moment
The US Patent System Is Under Assault from the Inside | Guest: Randy Landreneau | Ep 20 27:13 min

The US Patent System Is Under Assault from the Inside | Guest: Randy Landreneau | Ep 20​

Economic War Room Published September 29, 2022

From the very beginning, the Founding Fathers knew that intellectual property rights were the key to success. They enshrined property rights in the Constitution. But now, our government and the administrative state have significantly weakened the U.S. patent system. This is mostly benefitting Big Tech and giant corporations. Small businesses and innovators are getting their patents thrown out nearly 82% of the time. Randy Landreneau joins Kevin Freeman in the Economic War Room to talk about this domestic economic weapon and what can be done to stop it. If this is not stopped, the world's greatest creative and innovative system will be crushed.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(excerpt from full episode previously posted.)

'This Is Accelerating': People in Their 30s and 40s Are Starting to Have Serious Health Issues 1:47 min

'This Is Accelerating': People in Their 30s and 40s Are Starting to Have Serious Health Issues​

Red Voice Media Published September 29, 2022

"Anecdotes lead to a thesis, and then you start analyzing data."

Anecdote # 1

A Healthy and fit 30-year-old's heart rate inexplicably drops to 30 beats per minute. He went to the beach and left in an ambulance.

Anecdote # 2

Man forced to get the jab says he has "COVID heart." He doesn't think it's long-COVID, but the jab.

Anecdotes #3 - 6

Four individuals who never used to have problems are not having heart-racing issues.

Ed Dowd: "If I get [have] six people in my friend group that this is happening to, the numbers are going to be horrendous once I get the data [moving forward]."

Full Video: Unpayable Debt & Deadly Vax Causing Hell on Earth - Ed Dowd [VIDEO]
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Billionaire Investor(Druckenmiller) : We're In Deep Trouble, US Heading Towards Debt Crisis, Recession​

Red Voice Media Published September 29, 2022

"So everything I said at those colleges is worse in terms of the metrics..."

(Interest on the debt eating health care, social security, etc.)

More on the Delivering Alpha Summit: Delivering Alpha
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Al Gore & John Kerry Aim To Hijack The World Bank For Climate Agenda

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 03:20 PM
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Let's discuss the goals of the World Bank and climate activists aim to change those goals...

World Bank Goals
The World Bank has two ambitious goals neither of which is climate change.

End extreme poverty within a generation

Boost shared prosperity

Goal number one will not happen, even within several generations. Goal number two is ambiguous enough that it might.

Neither of those goals has anything to do with climate change but Al Gore and John Kerry want to change that.

1664494925533.png

At a New York Times sponsored event last week, Gore and Kerry accused World Bank President David Malpass of being a climate denier. The climate lobbyists in the press then piled accusing Malpass for refusing “to acknowledge that the burning of fossil fuels is rapidly warming the planet.”

But climate science is not part of Malpass' expertise, not should it be given World Bank goals. Let's pick up from there with comments by the WSJ.

Gore-Kerry Political Hit Job
Please consider A Gore-Kerry Political Hit Job.

Bloomberg and Axios, both advocates for the Gore-Kerry agenda in their reporting, teased that the Biden Administration is looking into the issue and that Mr. Malpass’s job could be in jeopardy. Axios even hinted that Mr. Gore might then get the World Bank job.

Mr. Malpass said he isn’t resigning and made clear he thinks greenhouse gases are contributing to climate change. He has no cause to step down, having managed the bank in a commendable fashion since he took the job in 2019.

The World Bank’s main job is to alleviate poverty. This requires energy, which today is still most efficiently and affordably provided by fossil fuels. Yet Mr. Kerry recently cautioned African leaders against investing in long-term natural gas production, as if they have an alternative if they want to develop.

This is an indulgence in a place like California, which is affluent enough to pay twice what its neighboring states do for energy. But it amounts to condemning countries in Africa and much of the developing world to more decades of poverty.

Mr. Kerry may even be consigning poor countries to needless hunger from rising prices and perhaps a global shortage of natural gas for fertilizer. Climate monomania is easier to preach with a sea-side view from a bluff in Martha’s Vineyard than it is from a village with unreliable electricity in the Congo.

Climate Hypocrites
Meanwhile, Kerry and Gore travel the globe in carbon-spewing private jets or government aircraft.

Gore has been wrongly preaching climate doom for decades. They hold doom conferences to foster unrealistic emissions targets.

The irony, as noted by the Journal, is U.S. carbon emissions reductions in recent decades are almost entirely the result of the expansion of natural gas production that the climate lobby wants to shut down.

Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral
In case you missed, it please see Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral

To the shock of everyone with any semblance of common sense, we are clearcutting forests and burning the trees based on the idea the process is carbon neutral.

Also, Let's Review 50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts and What Actually Happened

Many of the predictions are outrageously funny.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(UK)


Next Blowup Shows The Sheer Pain In UK Backdrop

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 12:05 PM
By Heather Burke, Bloomberg markets live commentator and reporter

To get a sense of the deteriorating UK macro backdrop, look no further than the slump in one of its biggest retailers as UK stocks, the pound and bonds have another tough day.

Next gave its second profit warning this year, saying inflation is keeping UK shoppers from buying non-essential items. The bellwether said in its financial report:

“Sales during August were below our expectations and, despite improving sales in September, we think it is sensible to moderate our expectations for sales and profit in the second half. It is important to stress that, with so many variables at play, predicting near-term sales trends is unusually difficult. All the more so with recent Government stimulus measures yet to take full effect.”

Next also said the pound’s devaluation looks set to prolong inflation, even once factory gate prices ease. It looks like “we may be set to have two cost of living crises: this year, a supply side led squeeze, next year a currency led price hike as devaluation takes effect.”

1664495248218.png

H&M is cutting costs after its exit from Russia and higher garment and transport costs pressured earnings. Retail and autos are leading European stocks lower in early trading as recession fears rise, with Next the biggest Stoxx 600 decliner. UK stocks are lagging peers, with FTSE 100 declines led by retail. S&P 500 futures are also extending declines as the risk-off backdrop picks up.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

US Rail Volumes Fell 4.4% In Latest Week

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 11:20 AM
By Progressive Railroading.

U.S. freight-rail traffic declined 4.4% to 489,111 carloads and intermodal units in the week ending Sept. 24 compared with the same period in 2021, according to Association of American Railroads data.

The railroads logged 231,258 carloads, down 3.2%, and 257,853 containers and trailers, down 5.4%.

Three of the 10 carload commodity groups that AAR tracks weekly posted increases. They were motor vehicles and parts, up 1,610 carloads to 13,165; coal, up 819 carloads to 70,697; and nonmetallic minerals, up 372 carloads to 34,436.

Commodity groups that posted decreases compared with the same week in 2021 included metallic ores and metals, down 3,405 carloads to 20,708; grain, down 2,276 carloads to 19,540; and chemicals, down 1,758 carloads to 30,261.

For the first 38 weeks of 2022 compared with the same period in 2021:
  • U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 18,782,988 carloads and intermodal units, down 2.7%;
  • Canadian railroads reported 5,499,480 carloads, containers and trailers, down 2.4%;
  • Mexican railroads reported 1,417,850 carloads and intermodal containers and trailers, up 2.5%.
Meanwhile, Canadian railroads posted 79,152 carloads for the week, down 1.2%, and 68,448 intermodal units, down 3.6%. Mexican railroads reported 22,855 carloads, up 22.4%, and 15,718 intermodal units, up 15.3%.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Court Orders Production Of Seth Rich Laptop

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 11:05 AM
Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

Today, a federal judge ordered the FBI to “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop.”



This case involves a multi-year fight by attorney Ty Clevenger to obtain records relating to the FBI/DOJ investigation of Seth Rich, particularly whether Rich was involved in the hack of the DNC or had communicated with Wikileaks.

This fight dates back to 2017 and includes two FOIA lawsuit. In the first lawsuit, the FBI produced no responsive documents. The parties knew the FBI had something, and so this sparked a second lawsuit – where the FBI somehow found 20,000 pages of potentially responsive documents. The court explains:



Of those 20,000 pages, the government found 1,596 pages of responsive documents, of which the government withheld 1,469 pages under various FOIA exemptions (privacy, law enforcement exemption, etc.).

The FBI also withheld the contents of Seth Rich’s personal laptop, which it possesses, in its entirety, alleging the privacy of Rich’s family in “preventing the public release of this information” outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

The court rejected that argument, stating “the FBI has not satisfied its burden of showing more than a de minimis privacy interest that would justify withholding information from Seth Rich’s laptop.”
It concluded:



What will the laptop reveal? Time will tell. (Time is especially relevant becausethe DOJ will appeal and drag this out.)

What might be more interesting is the FBI’s complete records on Seth Rich. The FBI has fought production of those records - first by failing to “find” its own documents, and now by alleging documents must be withheld due to “national security grounds” and the “basis that disclosure of the information would threaten intelligence-gathering efforts.”

The information in the FBI’s possession includes that which was “provided by foreign government agency authorities under an implied assurance of confidentiality.” It also may - or may not - include whether the FBI used a “code name” associated with Seth Rich. And, if FBI representations are to be believed, it also includes “details of intelligence activities, sources, and methods related to national security.”

Unfortunately, the court won’t require the production of this information. Some questions will remain unanswered. Read the full order here.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Most Americans Support Biden's Student Loan Handout -- Until They Realize It Raises Taxes: Poll​

THURSDAY, SEP 29, 2022 - 10:05 AM

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A majority of Americans would oppose President Joe Biden’s plan to “forgive” billions of dollars of federal student loan debt if it led to higher taxes, according to a recent poll.

The survey (pdf), conducted by British data company YouGov on behalf of the libertarian Cato Institute, found that 64 percent of American adults said they are in favor of the federal government “forgiving” up to $10,000 in federal student loans for people earning less than $150,000 a year, or less than $300,000 per year for married couples.

“However, support for cancelling federal student loan debt plummets when Americans consider its trade-offs,” the Cato Institute said.
When asked whether they would support the same plan if it “raised your taxes,” 64 percent of respondents said they would oppose the move, according to the results.

Meanwhile, 68 percent of respondents said they would oppose the student loan bailout if it would “primarily benefit higher income people.” Seventy-six percent would oppose the plan if it would cause universities to raise their tuition and fees, while 71 percent would oppose it if that means more employers would require college degrees even when they are not necessary for the job.

“These data show that Americans don’t like the costs that many experts believe are associated with federal student loan forgiveness,” said Cato’s Director of Polling Emily Ekins.

The poll also shows some differences between Democrats and Republicans in their response to the trade-offs. “Without considering trade‐offs, Democrats strongly support (88 percent) federal student debt cancellation, as do a majority (58 percent) of independents,” a summary of the finding reads.

“However, Republicans oppose about 2 to 1, with 63 percent opposed.”

“A majority (56 percent) of Democrats would continue to support student debt cancellation even if it raised taxes,” it continued. “But Democrats turn against forgiving $10,000 in student debt per borrower if doing so meant colleges would raise their prices (67 percent) or if it led to credential inflation (64 percent).”

The poll was conducted online between Aug. 17 and Aug. 23 among 2,227 American adults, with an error margin of plus/minus 2.39 percentage points.

Plan Faces Legal Challenge​

Under the plan unveiled Aug. 25 by U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, individual borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year or families earning less than $250,000 will be eligible for up to $10,000 in debt cancellation, while Pell Grant recipients who meet those income standards will be eligible for relief of up to $20,000. Pell Grants are typically awarded to students from low-income households to help them cover their college expenses.

In a memo released the day before the announcement, Cardona said the plan is justified under what’s known as the HEROES Act, a 2003 higher education law created as a response to the Iraq War.

Specifically, the law states that the education secretary may “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provisions” relating to federal student financial aid for those serving in the military during a war, those living or working in an area affected by a disaster, or those who “suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

According to Cardona, the federal government has declared the COVID‐19 pandemic a national emergency that encompasses the entire country, which means that his government can invoke the HEROES Act to provide relief for every borrower living in the United States.

Two lawsuits have so far been filed to block the plan. Both of them argue that Cardona’s justification is flawed.

The U.S. Education Department has failed to prove that “the broad class of 43 million borrowers ‘suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency’ with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic,” reads the complaint filed Sept. 12 by Daniel Laschober, who ran in the Republican primary for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat in 2016.

“[The HEROES Act] states the Secretary of Education is not required to exercise the waiver or modification authority on a case-by-case basis; however, the amount of student loan forgiveness per person or per household as determined by [the Education Department] is arbitrary and capricious,” it added.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Trump Reveals His Biggest Fear, Warns ‘We’re at the Most Dangerous Time … Maybe Ever’

By Tom Ozimek September 28, 2022 Updated: September 28,

Former President Donald Trump said his biggest worry now is where geopolitical tensions over Ukraine and Taiwan may be headed, saying that he thinks “we could end up in World War III” and that the conflict could go nuclear.

Trump, in a Sept. 27 appearance on the “Cats at Night Show,” was asked about his chief concerns and what keeps him “up at night.”

“More than anything else, I think we could end up in World War III,” the former president replied.

He said World War III could be sparked by “all of the horrible things that took place in Ukraine,” adding that it “looks like it’s going to happen in China with Taiwan … you see what’s going on over there.”

China’s communist regime recently ramped up its military threat against the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory to be taken by force, if necessary.

“China has acted increasingly aggressively when it comes to Taiwan,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent interview, according to CBS News. “That poses a threat to peace and stability in the entire region.”

Even though the United States ended formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 and switched recognition to Beijing under the “One China” policy, Washington maintains a robust unofficial relationship with Taipei and is legally bound to provide it with the arms necessary to defend itself.

Tensions in Ukraine, on the other hand, have taken a turn for the worse as Ukrainian forces launched a major counteroffensive, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to mobilize more troops and suggest in a speech on Sept. 21 that Moscow was prepared to use nuclear weapons in the conflict.

In his interview, Trump commented on Putin’s remarks and the nuclear threat.

“I think we’re at the most dangerous time maybe in many, many years—maybe ever—because of the power of nuclear,” Trump said.

“For a major nation that’s equal with us on nuclear power to be throwing around the word cavalierly, like nuclear, is a very bad time. A very bad time for this country and a very bad and a very dangerous time for the world,” Trump added.

Trump once again expressed the view that if he were still in the White House, Putin would not have ordered his troops into Ukraine.

“I got along with him very well. I spoke to him. I understood him,” Trump said of Putin. “He understood me, probably. But I understood him well, and he would have never done it.”
 
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