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Donald Trump’s appointment of Tulsi Gabbard (a former U.S. Representative, whose focus had been to end the control over the U.S. Government by America’s armaments manufacturers) as his Director of National Intelligence, is being treated by America’s main media as being traitorous, because she has pointed out many of the war-promoting lies in the news media about heads-of-state that the U.S. Government has been and is trying to replace, such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and Vladimir Putin in Russia.

For example, the U.S. Public Broadcasting System (PBS) “Newshour” evening ‘news’ progam on November 14th had a segment, “Why Trump’s nomination of Gabbard for national intelligence director is controversial”, which presented her as supporting dictators and as a conspiracy-theorist who is too loyal to Trump and who is suspiciously supportive of America’s enemies (that is, of the heads-of-state in countries whose Governments the U.S. Government spends billions in propaganda and otherwise, in order to get overthrown). Here is part of that (alleged) “news” report (which is actually instead purely an undocumented opinion-piece or ‘news’-commentary to get Americans to oppose this nomination and thus make easier for a Senator to vote against her):

3:31

John Bolton said she should not

3:35

even sit for a senate

3:35

confirmation hearing until the

3:37

FBI investigates her because he

3:40

said she presents a national

3:41

security threat.

3:42

Is that a concern you share?

3:44

Michael [Leiter, former director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, part of the U.S. Government]: I am very concerned

3:47

with anyone in any position who

3:54

is not thinking very critically

3:56

and questioning what enemies of

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the United States like Vladimir

4:01

Putin and Bashar al-Assad say to

4:03

them.

On November 15th, the rabidly neoconservative Democratic Party organ, The Daily Beast, headlined “Dem Rep. Says Tulsi Gabbard Is ‘Likely a Russian Asset’”, which is also what the Democratic Party’s U.S. Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, called her in 2016 when Gabbard endorsed Bernie Sanders for that nomination instead of Clinton. The article opened:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for director of national intelligence, “is likely a Russian asset.”

Asked in a Friday MSNBC appearance about Gabbard’s prospective nomination to a position that would come with extensive access to classified information, the Florida Democrat did not mince words.

“Tulsi Gabbard is someone who has met with war criminals, violated the Department of State’s guidance and secretly, clandestinely went to Syria and met with [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad, who gassed and attacked his own people with chemical weapons,” she said. “She’s considered to be, essentially, by most assessments, a Russian asset.”

Pressed on her own view of Gabbard, Wasserman Schultz doubled down. “I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset,” the congresswomen said.

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Tulsi Gabbard: “There’s no question I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset.”

Watch on X

4:48 PM · Nov 15, 2024

She railed against the “irresponsibility” of Trump’s recent slew of administration appointments, some of which—like Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of Health and Human Services—have dropped jaws on both sides of the political aisle.

She must have the armaments manufacturers terrified. They (their owners) control Washington and the ‘news’-media.

This originally appeared on Eric’s Substack.

The post U.S. Media Pile On Against Tulsi Gabbard as a ‘Russian Agent’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

—Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman’s poem, inspired by the adventurous spirits who formed the vanguard of the westward expansion of the United States, was itself the inspiration for the title of Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers!, a romance of life on the western prairies at the turn of the twentieth century.

In a similar vein, Cather’s novel Death Comes for the Archbishop tells the story of two pioneering priests in the “wild west” of New Mexico. Ostensibly a work of historical fiction, the novel is based on the lives of Fathers Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Projectus Machebeuf, the former of whom would become the first archbishop of Santa Fe and the latter the first bishop of Denver.

Fr. Lamy was born in the mountainous Auvergne region of France in 1814. Ordained to the priesthood in 1838, he arrived in the United States in the following year to serve as a missionary in the virgin west of the expanding New World. Having served in parishes in Ohio and Kentucky, he was appointed by Pope Pius IX to be the first bishop of the newly created Apostolic Vicariate of New Mexico in 1851.

The journey from the Midwest to the “wild west,” in the days before the railroad, necessitated months of arduous travel. In Willa Cather’s fictionalized account, the journey would take almost a year, beginning with a riverboat down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, a shipwreck at Galveston, and finally a long overland trek to New Mexico. This retelling of the real-life journey enables us to appreciate the hardships faced by the newly consecrated bishop. Having set out early in the new year, he didn’t finally arrive in Santa Fe until August 1851. Two years later, the Vicariate of New Mexico became the Diocese of Santa Fe.

Bishop Lamy set about building churches and establishing new parishes and schools, and he instigated and oversaw the construction of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. When the Diocese of Santa Fe was elevated to an archdiocese in 1875, Lamy became the first archbishop, serving for a further ten years until his retirement. He died of pneumonia in 1888, at the age of seventy-three, a good and faithful servant who had served the Church in the United States for almost fifty years.

Fr. Joseph Projectus Machebeuf, the inspiration for the other priest protagonist in Death Comes for the Archbishop, was a lifelong friend of Fr. Lamy. Two years older than Fr. Lamy and born in the same area of the Auvergne, he accompanied his friend to the United States as a missionary priest in 1839 and served in parishes in Ohio until 1851, at which point he accompanied the newly-consecrated Bishop Lamy on his arduous journey to New Mexico. After serving as a pastor in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, he was transferred to Colorado in 1860. Thrown from his carriage on a spur of the Rocky Mountains, he was left lame for the rest of his life.

By 1868, when he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Colorado and Utah, he had built eighteen churches, including the first-ever church in Denver. He would build a school, a convent and a hospital, as well as the College of the Sacred Heart, which is now subsumed within Regis University. By the time he was consecrated as the first bishop of the newly-created Diocese of Denver in 1887, the Catholic population of Colorado had grown to over 50,000. He died two years later, at the age of seventy-six.

Read the Whole Article

The post O Pioneers! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Executive summary

The New Hampshire House of Representatives is about to publish a 38-page report created by a bipartisan committee of NH state legislators entitled, “Special Committee on Covid Response Efficacy: Report of Findings.”

I got an advance copy that I can share with you.

It’s glorious.

In this article I summarize the highlights.

In a nutshell:

1. If you worked for the state or federal government, everything was done right.
2. If you didn’t work for the government, everything was a disaster.

It was an interesting seeing how different people can view the same evidence in totally opposite ways.

Also, all the Republicans on the committee thought the response was a disaster.

All the Democrats saw nothing wrong. The Minority Report is the exact opposite of the Majority report.

You can’t make this stuff up. You really can’t.

The majority report

Here is the 38-page majority report.

The minority report

Here is the minority report. It’s only really one page (with a large attachment).

They basically disagreed, but didn’t cite any specific thing(s) wrong with how the majority report interpreted the testimony that was presented. They give us no clue as to how the Republicans misinterpreted the testimony.

So they are saying that they disagreed on everything? They think 6 foot rule worked? That masks worked? That the vaccines saved lives?

I just got off the phone with Stephen Petty who testified on masks. He said the Democrats were in the room, but mostly fiddling with their cell phones. They didn’t ask Petty a single question.

I also asked John Beaudoin about his testimony in front of the special committee. He told me also that NONE of the Democrats asked a single question. There were at most 2 Democrats in the room at any time.

Furthermore, the Democrats were allowed to call witnesses, but chose not to do so. This is stunning! Call no experts, ask no questions, and expect the public to believe you??

I suspect the reason they called no witnesses is that witnesses can be questioned by the committee and witnesses on this matter don’t like to answer any hard questions.

NH government link

Both majority and minority reports will be made publicly available soon on the official government site, likely on Nov. 18.

VSRF call Nov 21, 2024: BOTH sides are invited to appear

I have invited all the people on the committee to the Thursday VSRF call.

I want to talk about the data and how two groups of people can have completely different perceptions of the same data.

Press coverage of the report

I predict that there will be a worldwide media blackout of the report.

Key messages of the 38-page report

Here are some of the key messages in the Summary of Findings section.

I quote the key statement and then provide a handy English translation to make it easier for you to understand what they are saying.

My personal favorite is #12.

1. Page 5: “The first major goal identified by the committee was to halt the widespread transmission of the SARS-COV-2 virus. In other words, stop the virus from spreading amongst the population and prevent the virus from becoming endemic. This objective led to guidance and recommendations regarding the wearing of various forms of personal protective equipment, masking, and social distancing. At the state level, such guidance was provided by the state epidemiologist, though it appears that there was often a reliance on the guidance being offered by the federal agencies. In many cases, New Hampshire simply followed the federal guidance.Analysis on the efficacy of the response as it pertains to this goal must begin with the fact that despite all measures implemented the spread of the virus was not halted.”Translation: “Masks and social distancing didn’t do shit.”
2. Page 6: “Indeed, no testimony or documents were received by the committee indicating that the mitigation strategies were effective.”Translation: “All these measures didn’t do shit.”
3. Page 7: “However, statistical and graphical analysis of this R0 value over time provided no obvious indication that the spread of SARS-COV-2 was mitigated at all by the cumulative measures implemented.”
   
   Translation: “All these measures didn’t do shit.”
4. Page 8: “It is nonetheless the case that the cumulative effects of the measures taken by the state to slow the spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus were ineffectual. It is nonetheless the case that the cumulative effects of the measures taken by the state to slow the spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus were ineffectual. Little evidence has been presented to this committee credibly indicating that there would have been any increase in morbidity and mortality, or any strain of the New Hampshire healthcare system beyond capacity, in the absence of these measures cumulatively.”Translation: “All these measures didn’t do shit.”
5. Page 8: “Because of the limited availability and the required conditions for treatment, it is unclear what, if any, positive or negative effect this treatment made.”Translation: “All these monoclonal treatments didn’t do shit, as far as we can tell.”
6. Page 8: “Vaccinations … were initially advertised by relevant authorities as preventing the spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus. Clearly, this was unsubstantiated by any clinical evidence and was proven demonstrably false under real-world conditions.”Translation: “The CDC lied; people died.”
7. Page 9: “Therefore, it is not known what role the vaccines and boosters had in the downward trend of the disease, but this committee has seen no evidence that it was effective in reducing incidence of documented cases. Multiple expert testimonies were received regarding both ineffectiveness and the prevalence of serious adverse reactions associated with vaccination.”
   
   Translation: “The vaccines didn’t do shit as far as we can tell; they made things worse.”
8. Page 9: “Most worrisome here is the substantial testimony and documentation indicating that the relevant federal agencies overseeing safety abandoned the established standards for safe use of such products in humans.”Translation: “Safety protocols were ignored. The focus was on lives saved, not how many died.”
9. Page 10: “Given that our state’s actions did not have any meaningful, demonstrable impact on the course of the pandemic, it is recommended for further study, and we call upon the private sectors and academia to study and innovate, in the field of mitigation of biological agents.”
   Translation: “It would be good to have a sane plan for the next pandemic because this one was a total failure.”
10. Page 25: “… when indoors, the spread of a highly contagious, airborne pathogen is unlikely to be successfully mitigated simply by maintaining a three or six foot personal bubble. This is true to such an extent that it is unlikely that any member of this committee would have, independently, recommended such a strange action in the absence of the guidance promulgated by the federal and state Executive branches.”Translation: “The recommendations from the State and Federal experts were comical.”

Read the Whole Article

The post New Hampshire Legislature Special Committee Issues Scathing Report That Eviscerates the Federal and State Covid Response appeared first on LewRockwell.

The more I study science, and particularly medicine, the more I come to see how often fundamental facts end up being changed so that a profitable industry can be created. Recently I showed how this happened with blood pressure, as rather than causing arterial damage, high blood pressure is a response to arterial damage that ensures damaged arteries can still bring blood to the tissues and, in turn, rather than helping patients, aggressively lowering blood pressure can be quite harmful. In this article, I will look at the other half of the coin, the Great Cholesterol Scam—something that harms so many Americans it was recently discussed by Comedian Jimmy Dore.

Note: a link to the Dore’s segment can be found here.

Cholesterol and Heart Disease

Frequently, when an industry harms many people, it will create a scapegoat to get out of trouble. Once this happens, a variety of other sectors will jump on the bandwagon and create an unshakable societal dogma. For example, the health of a population (or if they are being poisoned by environmental toxins) determines how easily an infectious disease can sweep through a population and who is susceptible to it, but reframing infectious diseases as a “deficiency of vaccines” it both takes the (costly) onus off the industries to clean up the society and simultaneously allows them to get rich promoting the pharmaceutical products that “manage” each epidemic and the even larger epidemic of chronic diseases caused by those vaccines (discussed in detail here).

Note: the major decline in infectious illness that is credited to vaccines actually was a result of improved public sanitation, and when the data is examined (e.g., for smallpox) those early vaccination campaigns made things worse not better.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a debate emerged over what caused heart disease. On one side, John Yudkin effectively argued that the sugar being added to our food by the processed food industry was the chief culprit. On the other side, Ancel Keys (who attacked Yudkin’s work) argued that it was due to saturated fat and cholesterol.

Note: leaders in the field of natural medicine, like Dr. Mercola, have made a strong case this spike came from the mass adoption of seed oils (which thanks to our unprecedented political climate is at last being discussed on the mainstream news&). Likewise, some believe the advent of water chlorination was responsible for this increase.

Ancel Keys won, Yudkin’s work was largely dismissed, and Keys became nutritional dogma. A large part of Key’s victory was based on his study of seven countries (Italy, Greece, Former Yugoslavia, Netherlands, Finland, America, and Japan), which showed that as saturated fat consumption increased, heart disease increased in a linear fashion.

However, what many don’t know (as this study is still frequently cited) is that this result was simply a product of the countries Keys chose (e.g., if Finland, Israel, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Sweden had been chosen, the opposite would have been found).

Fortunately, it’s gradually become recognized that Keys did not accurately report his data For example, recently an unpublished 56 month randomized study of 9,423 adults living in state mental hospitals or a nursing home (which made it possible to rigidly control their diets) was unearthed. . This study, which Keys was the lead investigator of, found that replacing half of one’s animal (saturated) fats with seed oil (e.g., corn oil) lowered their cholesterol, but for every 30 points it dropped, their risk of death increased by 22 percent (which roughly translates to each 1% drop in cholesterol raising the risk of death by 1%).

Note: the author who unearthed that study also discovered another (unpublished) study from the 1970s of 458 Australians, which found that replacing some of their saturated fat with seed oils increased their risk of dying by 17.6%

Likewise, recently, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world published internal sugar industry documents. They showed the sugar industry had used bribes to make scientists place the blame for heart disease on fat so Yudkin’s work would not threaten the sugar industry. In turn, it is now generally accepted that Yudkin was right, but nonetheless, our medical guidelines are still largely based on Key’s work.

However, despite a significant amount of data that now shows lowering cholesterol is not associated with a reduction in heart disease, (e.g., this study, this study, this study, this review, this review, and this review) the need to lower cholesterol is still a dogma within cardiology. For example, how many of you have heard of this 1986 study which was published in the Lancet which concluded:

During 10 years of follow-up from Dec 1, 1986, to Oct 1, 1996, a total of 642 participants died. Each 1 mmol/L increase in total cholesterol corresponded to a 15% decrease in mortality (risk ratio 0–85 [95% Cl 0·79–0·91]).

Statins Marketing

One of the consistent patterns I’ve observed within medicine is that once a drug is identified that can “beneficially” change a number, medical practice guidelines will gradually shift to prioritizing treating that number and before long, rationals will be created that require more and more of the population to be subject to that regimen. Consider for example the history of the (immensely harmful) blood pressure guidelines:

click to enlarge

In the case of statins, prior to their discovery, it was difficult to reliably lower cholesterol, but once they hit the market, research rapidly emerged arguing for a greater and greater need to lower cholesterol, which in turn led to more and more people being placed on statins.

As you would expect, similar increases also occurred within the USA. For example, in 2008-2009, 12% of Americans over 40 reported taking a statin, whereas in 2018-2019, that had increased to 35% of Americans.

Given how much these drugs are used, it then raises a simple question—how much benefit do they produce?

As it turns out, this is a remarkably difficult question to answer as the published studies use a variety of confusing metrics to obfuscate their data (which means that the published statin trials almost certainly inflate the benefits of statin therapy), and more importantly, virtually all of the data on statin therapy is kept by a “private” (industry-funded) research collaboration that consistently publishes glowing reviews of statins (and attacks anyone who claims otherwise) but simultaneously refuses to release their data to outside researchers, which has led to those researchers attempting to get this missing data from the drug regulators.
Note: as discussed in Dr. Malhotra’s interview below, this collaboration (which militantly insists less than 1% of statin users experience side effects) also created a test one could utilize to determine if one was genetically at risk for a statin injury—and in their marketing for the test said 29% of all statin users were likely to experience side effects (which they then removed once health activists publicized this hypocrisy).

Nonetheless, when independent researchers looked at the published trials (which almost certainly inflated the benefit of statin therapy) they found that taking a statin daily for approximately 5 years resulted in you living, on average, 3-4 days longer. Sadder still, large trials have found this minuscule “benefit” is only seen in men. In short, most of the benefit from statins is from creative ways to rearrange data and causes of death, not any actual benefit.

Note: this is very similar to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine trial which professed to be “95% effective” against COVID-19, but in reality only created a 0.8% reduction in minor symptoms of COVID (e.g., a sore throat) and a 0.037% reduction in severe symptoms of COVID (with “severe” never being defined by Pfizer). This in turn meant that you needed to vaccinate 119 people to prevent a minor (inconsequential) case of COVID-19, and 2711 to prevent a “severe” case of COVID-19. Worse still, a whistleblowers later revealed that these figures were greatly inflated as individuals in the (unblinded) vaccine group who developed COVID-19 like symptoms weren’t tested for COVID-19 and their vaccine injuries were never reported. Sadly, in most cases (e.g., the statin trials) we don’t have access to whistleblowers who can inform us of how unsafe and ineffective these drugs actually are.

In circumstances like these where an unsafe and ineffective but highly lucrative drug must be sold, the next step is typically to pay everyone off to promote it. For example: to quote Chapter 7 of Doctoring Data:

The National Cholesterol Education Programme (NCEP) has been tasked by the National Institutes of Health to develop guidelines [everyone uses] for treating cholesterol levels. Excluding the chair (who was by law prohibited from having financial conflicts of interest), the other 8 members on average were on the payroll of 6 statin manufacturers.

In 2004, NCEP reviewed 5 large statin trials and recommended: “Aggressive LDL lowering for high-risk patients [primary prevention] with lifestyle changes and statins.”

In 2005 a Canadian division of the Cochrane Collaboration [who were not paid off] reviewed 5 large statin trials (3 were the same as NCEP’s, while the other 2 had also reached a positive conclusion for statin therapy). That independent assessment instead concluded: “Statins have not been shown to provide an overall health benefit in primary prevention trials.”

Note: the primary reason no cure for COVID-19 was ever found was that the guideline panel for COVID-19 treatments was handpicked by Fauci and comprised of academics taking money from Remdesivir’s manufacturers. Not surprisingly, the panel always voted against recommending any of the non-patentable treatments for COVID-19, regardless of how much evidence there was for them.

Likewise, the American College of Cardiology made a calculator to determine your risk of developing a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years based on your age, blood pressure, cholesterol level, and smoking status. In turn, I’ve lost track of how many doctors I saw proudly punch their patient’s numbers into it and then inform them that they were at high risk of a stroke or heart attack and urgently needed to start a statin. Given that almost everyone ended up being “high risk” I was not surprised to learn that in 2016, Kaiser completed an extensive study which determined that this calculator overestimated the rate of these events by 600%. Sadly, that has not at all deterred the use of this calculator (e.g., medical students are still tested on it for their board examinations).

Note: one of the most unfair things about statins is that the healthcare system decided they are “essential” for your health, so doctors who don’t push them are financially penalized, and likewise patients who don’t take them are as well (e.g., through life insurance premiums).

So, despite the overwhelming evidence against their use, many physicians believe so deeply in the “profound” benefits of statins that they do things like periodically advocating for statins to be added to the drinking water supply.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Great Dangers of Statins appeared first on LewRockwell.

There is every reason to be thankful for the Harris no-go last week, but also absolutely no case to get giddy about the prospects for a second Trumpian term, either. At best, what lies ahead is a wasted four years on the policy front, as Washington is likely to become embroiled in an even more acrimonious melee between the TDS and MAGA polarities of American politics.

Indeed, contrary to the excitement currently extant in many quarters of Team Garbage it needs be recognized that what happened was not the vindication of Donald Trump. There was no mandate for MAGA or some grand political realignment or birth of a new era of governance under which the people have taken back their government.

Ironically, all the realignment chatter is actually rooted in the reason the election was more likely a one-off dead-end. Proponents cite exit polls showing that Trump “outperformed” among Hispanics, blacks, young people, urban, union and working class voters and other left behinds, thereby suggesting a new governing coalition has formed around the Orange Man. Some even imagine it’s a Republican 1933.

But that’s just not so. These backsliding Dem constituencies voted against the soaring cost of groceries and gasoline, not in favor of MAGA or DJT as the savior of the American Way of Life. The inflationary whirlwind that hit the US economy in 2021 to 2023 was such a powerful economic shock to everyday Dem households that on the margin it pushed a considerable slice of them out of their customary lane in the voting. In effect, they checked the GOP box in answer to Ronald Reagan’s call of 1980 under parallel circumstances, when he asked whether you are better off today than four years ago.

For instance, pump prices had been running about $2.00 per gallon thru almost the exact moment of J6, and then it was off to the races for the next 18 months. By June 2022 the national average gas price hit $5 per gallon. Given that the average US household consumes about 650 gallons of gas annually, that $3 per gallon shock drilled a $2,000 per year hole in family budgets.

Yes, prices have partially retraced, but the shock is still fresh and gasoline bills have remained upwards of $1,000 per year higher than before.

Likewise, grocery store prices after January 2021 shot upward like a bat out of hell, reaching a +11% annualized increase by June 2021 and +17% by March 2022. Again, the 20% cumulative gain through December 2022 amounted to $1,200 per year against an average household grocery bill of $6,000 per annum.

Needless to say, gas and groceries are purchased virtually every week by most households. The soaring green line above and the leaping purple line below caused millions of ordinarily Dem coalition households to scrimp, squeeze and sacrifice in the months immediately after they had already suffered through the disruptions and hysteria of the pandemic and lockdowns.

Accordingly, the economic trauma was too severe and too fresh to be extirpated by White House bromides about the alleged roaring success of Bidonomics. Yes, according to the crooked reports of the BLS the US economy was booming along at Full-Employment, but even a steady job did not pay for the soaring cost of everyday living in these backsliding electoral precincts.

In this context, one especially malodorous skunk on the woodpile was the Harris-Biden claim that they had cut the inflation rate by two thirds or more. But that’s Washington and Wall Street based Keynesian-speak.

Stated differently, main street households make no never mind about annualized monthly rates of change to the second decimal point on the various BLS indices. As it happens, those fractoids are not even relevant to the cause of sound money, but they are especially beside the point when it comes to making ends meet in household budgets.

In fact, when it comes to measuring inflation in the main street context, the Reagan question would more than suffice. To wit, do your gas and groceries cost more relative to your paycheck than they did four years ago?

Well, yes, they do. As shown below, since Q4 2020 average worker compensation is up by 17%, which trails the 23% rise in food costs (both at home and away) and 33% gain in energy costs (including gas and electric utilities).

In round dollar terms, the average household spent about $7,500 on food and $3,000 on gas and energy in Q4 2020. Today, the combined figure is about $14,000. What voters remember, therefore, is not that the rate of price change has slowed sharply from the double digit rates two years ago, but that today’s gas and grocery bills are nearly $4,000 per year higher than the were in 2020.

Even when you look at the entire market basket of CPI items, not just gas and groceries, the story remain much the same. The rise in the CPI during Trump’s four years was 1.94% per annum, which accelerated dramatically to 5.0% per annum during the Harris-Biden period.

As shown in the contrast between the red and green columns below, it wasn’t just gas and groceries alone that fueled the assault on main street living standards. Car insurance, for example, is up by 56.5% or  more than eight times the gain during the Trump period.

Inflation is caused by excessive government spending, borrowing and money printing and nothing else. Yet owing to his panicked response to the so-called pandemic, the Donald unleashed fiscal and monetary stimmies that were literally off the charts of history as shown in the chart below.

Government spending, which had been rising at a $200 to $400 billion year-over-year rate, thus accelerated to a $3.6 trillion Y/Y rate of gain in Q2 of 2020 and remained at these nose-bleed elevations through Q1 2021. And even the latter officially recorded on Joe Biden watch was mainly fueled by the Christmas Eve 2020 stimmy bill signed by the Donald and the balance of the $2,000 per capita check Trump advocated during the 2020 campaign.

To be sure, had the Fed not “accommodated” Trump’s fiscal madness, yields in the bond pits would have exploded higher and sent the economy tumbling into the recessionary drink. Subsequent to what would have been a deep and painful recession at the level of the Great Recession or worse, there would have been no fond memories of the Greatest Economy Ever under Donald Trump.

Of course, the Fed was run by Keynesians, including the Chairman appointed by the Donald. And so they unleashed the printing presses like never before, increasing the Fed’s balance sheet by $1.4 trillion in the month of April 2020 alone. That was more new fiat credit in 30 days than the Fed had printed during the first 95 years of its existence.

Needless to say, the monetary explosion shown below turned what would have been a roaring Trumpian recession into an explosive inflation. After all, how could it have been otherwise in the face of the massive flood of fiat credit depicted in the chart below?

In short, Donald Trump sowed the inflationary whirlwind with his massive economic disruptions and fiscal and monetary stimmies during 2020, while Harris-Biden reaped the whirlwind of 40-year high inflation a few months after the Donald reluctantly left town.

The chart below, which shows the annualized monthly rise in the 16% trimmed mean CPI, makes this proposition clear as a bell. It was running at a 1.5% per annum rate during the Donald’s last months, but then accelerated to 5% by May and 9% by October 2021.

In a word, Biden didn’t do that because policy simply doesn’t act that fast. What hit the main street economy with gale-force in 2021 was the massive spending and money printing forces unleashed on the Donald’s watch the prior year.

The historical truth, therefore, is that the Donald got damn lucky, tagging Harris/Biden with the “gas and groceries” inflation that caused historic Dem constituencies to cross-over on November 5. Unfortunately, the voters are not going to be as lucky in the four years ahead, as the myth of the Greatest Ever Trump economy comes a cropper.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

The post How Gas and Grocery Prices Shaped the US Election Outcome appeared first on LewRockwell.

The first Trump term was notable for countless terrible appointments Trump made. This was true in terms of both politics and policy. On the political end, Trump appointed people who routinely sought to undermine him politically. Many of Trump’s own appointees would go on to campaign against Trump in 2020 and 2024. Trump’s more clueless followers assured us that this was all, somehow, 4-D chess. Of course, it wasn’t. The 4-D chess trope has always been, as the kids say, “copium.”

On the policy end, Trump’s appointments were even worse. Neocon warmongers like Nikki Haley, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo—and countless lesser neocon junior bureaucrats—held prominent positions in the administration. Moreover, with their key positions in many federal departments, these advocates of the warfare state were able to protect members of the military who blatantly attempted to undermine the administration and promote war with Russia. The despicable militarist Alexander Vindman comes to mind.

Now, Trump appears to be back to his old habits. Publicly, the administration has said it won’t make the same mistakes again, but incoming evidence suggests the opposite. Already, Trump has appointed Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador and Michael Waltz as National Security Advisor.

Yet again, of course, we hear from the gullible wing of the Trump base that it’s all 4-D chess.

Sure.

Waltz is an acolyte of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, and in this video, Waltz praises Trump for his support of all the usual neocon talking points such as “breaking Iran,” “standing with Israel,” and “making China pay.” Waltz sings the praises of “standing with our allies,” which, presumably includes the Saudis who played Trump like a fiddle on his 2017 trip to Riyadh. Waltz is right about the State of Israel, of course. The Trump White House, was always Israeli-occupied territory. So much for “America First.”

Waltz has repeatedly called for escalation in Ukraine. In other words, he stands for the exact opposite of what Trump told his base throughout most of the campaign.

Stefanik’s career can be defined by her many years of work as a deep-state operative pushing pro-Israel NGOs and serving quintessential conservative establishment politicians like George W. Bush and Paul Ryan. As a reward for her service to the Foreign Policy Blob, Stefanik was immediately appointed to important committees on defense policy within months of arriving in Congress. She presents no danger whatsoever to the status quo in Washington.

It should surprise no one that both Stefanik and Waltz are also enemies of privacy and property rights:

The latest news on Trump appointments is that he plans to nominate Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. Perhaps Dick Cheney was unavailable. Rubio in the top tier of Washington Blob politicians who always and everywhere push for the continuation of global military intervention. Or, as Rand Paul put it “I see Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio as being the same person.”

“I see Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio as being the same person” — @RandPaul, the best Senator
pic.twitter.com/MGjZjvzRee

— Liam McCollum (@MLiamMcCollum) November 12, 2024

Is this the best Trump has to offer? So far, Trump has offered nothing for Tulsi Gabbard, who is qualified for a foreign policy role, and who campaigned hard for Trump. If she ends up with only a minor position in the administration, it will be emblematic of an administration that is rapidly revealing that Trump never had any intention of fundamentally changing how the American Empire functions.

On the other hand, Ben Shapiro is very happy:

Well…somebody is happy… https://t.co/0mWFX16ojQ

— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) November 12, 2024

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post Here Come the Awful Neocon Trump Appointments appeared first on LewRockwell.

For a fourth time the Pentagon is ‘finding money’ outside of the budget that can be spend on Ukraine.

I had previously noticed three occasions in which the Pentagon, on order of the Biden administration, used some  or ‘accounting error’ gimmicks to ‘find’ more money for Ukraine.

Pentagon Again Applies Budget Lies To Deliver More Weapons To Ukraine –  Jul 26 2024, MoA

The piece referred to three relevant news reports:

Exclusive: Pentagon accounting error overvalued Ukraine weapons aid by $3 billion – May 19 2023, Reuters

Pentagon accounting error provides extra $6.2 billion for Ukraine military aid – June 20 2023, AP

Pentagon finds another $2 billion of accounting errors for Ukraine aid – July 14 2024, Reuters

From the last link:

The Pentagon has found $2 billion worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2 billion, a U.S. government report revealed on Thursday.

Here is now another, the fourth, incident of creative budget accounting in favor of money for war in Ukraine:

All reports previously indicated that there was $4.3 billion left in the Presidential Drawdown Authority account, which reimburses the U.S. armed forces for munitions and equipment sent to Ukraine.

Turns out, the number is actually $7.1 billion, thanks to some revised accounting the Pentagon has done, DOD officials tell your anchor. That extra $2.8 billion isn’t just found money. The way things work is that the Pentagon calculates how much buying replacement goods for what it sends Ukraine will cost. The number crunchers at the Pentagon ran through the lists and discovered that replacement for some items cost less than anticipated.

The plan is for the administration to spend down that whole $7.1 billion by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 …

Luckily, not all of the money will reach Ukraine:

[Spending the money] is a pretty tall order given the cadence of aid packages being announced roughly every two weeks work between $200 million and $500 million. Those numbers are going to have to go way up, but even then deliveries of that equipment would continue well into the Trump administration, which could turn off the spigot at any time.

I bet that the lower ‘replacements costs’ the Pentagon has found to spend more on Ukraine, will themselves turn out to be ‘accounting errors’. The replacements will – unfortunately they will say – later require much higher outlays than anticipated today.

Creative accounting like this, i.e. faking the books, is a no-no for commercial entity as it might well end with time spent in jail.

I’ll repeat myself:

Any commercial company doing what the Pentagon is doing here would be asking for serious trouble.

One wonder if and when Congress will wake up to this.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post Fourth Time the Pentagon Is Faking the Books for Ukraine appeared first on LewRockwell.

I have had a horrible thought. Of all of Trump’s appointees, Matt Gaetz and Robert Kennedy will be the most difficult to get confirmed. And Gaetz has resigned from the House of Representatives where he is the most effective member against the ruling establishment. Was his appointment as Attorney General a trick to get him out of public life?

Robert Kennedy’s appointment was said to be in doubt because  he would be hard to confirm, but so would Gaetz. Gaetz’s high profile powerful position  scares to death the corrupt Justice (sic) Department, the corrupt FBI, the corrupt Democrats, and the corrupt ruling elites.

Perhaps the Senate will let Trump have his appointments without confirmation as recess appointments, so non-confirmation is not an issue.

It is revealing that there were no confirmation worries about Trump’s appointments of his Zionist war cabinet. Some claim that it is not a war cabinet, that Stefanik, Waltz, Rubio, and Hegseth have been cured of their Zionism by Israel’s massacre of Palestinians. Perhaps, but I have not heard a recantation from a single one of the “die-for-Israel” crowd. Certainly, Huckabee, sent by Trump as ambassador to Israel, and Witkoff, sent by Trump as his Special Envoy to the Middle East, will not take exception to Israel’s claim to title to Palestine. So how are they going to bring about any Israeli restraint? Isn’t it curious that Trump didn’t appoint anyone inclined to rein-in Israel?

That the Democrats stood down from stealing the presidency in 2024 doesn’t mean they didn’t steal House and Senate seats. The Republicans barely did well enough to change a thin Democrat Senate majority into a thin Republican majority, and it seems there was little, if any, change in the House. In contrast, when Reagan won in 1980 the Republicans captured 12 Democrat seats in the Senate. It is suspicious that Trump’s convincing win did not carry over into Congress.

Trump is taking Republican members of Congress as appointees into his administration. Republican governors can appoint replacements until the next election, but the appointed replacements might be vulnerable as they were not elected. Matt Gaetz was secure in his base. Will his appointed replacement be as secure?

We can be thankful that Trump has appointed some officials who fight for the correct causes.  We can keep hoping that Trump will make a difference.

The post Has Matt Gaetz Been Set-up for Eviction from Public Life? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trump’s hawkish lineup is starting to look like a reunion for the worst of US interventionists. The man who said ‘no wars’ hired a cabinet that’s clearly thirsting for the next one. @ghida_fakhry

It’s not Trump’s pro-Israel cabinet. It’s Israel’s pseudo-American cabinet. Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi

Awww ! It’s over before it even started! Nick@NickJ132388

If George W. Bush was elected to a third term in office, this is what his cabinet would look like. Rubio, Waltz, Stefanik, Hegseth. Not a peacenik among them. Not an antiwar candidate among them. Not even a non-interventionist among them. Every single pick is a hard-boiled, right-wing war-hawk that is committed to marching in lockstep with the world’s most notorious pariah-state, Israel.

Let’s start with Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, the man whose job it is to oversee the War Department and act as the principal defense policymaker and adviser. Trump chose Fox television host Pete Hegseth, “a decorated Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Guantanamo Bay.” Hegseth has no administrative skills or experience, but he is a Trump loyalist who shares the president’s views on “woke” policies in the military. More importantly, Hegseth is dyed-in-the-wool Israel aficionado who thinks the interests of the Jewish state are inextricably linked to those of the United States. Check out this short excerpt from Pete Hegseth’s book, “American Crusade, Our Fight to Stay Free” (2020) that was posted on Michael Tracey Twitter site:

“Simply put: if you don’t understand why Israel matters and why it is so central to the story of Western civilization—with America being its greatest manifestation—then you don’t live in history. America’s story is inextricably linked to Judeo-Christian history and the modern state of Israel. You can love America without loving Israel—but that tells me your knowledge of the Bible and Western civilization is woefully incomplete…..

If you love America, you should love Israel. We share history, we share faith, and we share freedom. We love free people, free expression, and free markets. And whereas America is blessed with two big, beautiful oceans to protect it, Israel is surrounded on all sides by countries that either used to seek, or still seek, to wipe the nation off the map.

The battle wages on Israeli soil as well. With each trip I take to Israel for FOX Nation, and on my personal time, I discover a new way in which Islamists and their leftist enablers seek to deny Jewish history and heritage. Today, Islamists in Jerusalem are attempting to claim that the Holy Temple built by King Solomon and rebuilt by Herod never existed. Apparently, they want us all to believe that Jews—from Abraham to Jesus—never sacrificed, built, or worshipped on that particular piece of real estate. “Temple denial” is yet another tool by which they seek to erase the Jews and the Jewish state. If that isn’t delusional enough, on a recent trip to Bethlehem—the birthplace of Jesus—I discovered that Palestinians now claim that Jesus was not in fact Jewish but instead a Palestinian. Try that one on for size—or watch my two FOX Nation documentaries on the subject: Battle in the Holy City and Battle in Bethlehem.” Michael Tracey@mtracey

A Secretary of Defense doesn’t have to be impartial to fulfil his responsibilities to the president and the American people, but it does make one wonder how Hegseth’s pro-Israel zealotry will impact the way he implements US policy. If, for example, Hegseth was ordered to stop the delivery of all bombs and lethal weaponry to Israel while ceasefire negotiations with Hamas took place, would a Christian Zionist like Hegseth obey such an order or act according to his own deeply-felt religious convictions?

I can’t answer that, but the obvious conflict of interest should have been a red flag for Trump if his goal was actually “America First”.

Oh, and did we mention that Hegseth is also an Iran hawk, which appears to be a basic requirement for any position on the Trump team. This is from Axios:

Alongside his strong support for Israel, Hegseth has also expressed strong positions regarding Iran… He had called the Iranian revolutionary government an “evil regime”, and in 2020 said that if Iran wanted “to come back to the table for talks on their nuclear capabilities” it should do so “limping and begging.”…

“Sometimes we have moments, and I happen to believe we can’t kick the can down the road any longer in trying to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb,” Hegseth said in an appearance on Fox & Friends.

“What better time than now to say ‘we’re starting the clock, you’ve got a week, you’ve got X amount of time before we start taking out your energy production facilities. We take out key infrastructure, we take out your missile sites, we take out nuclear developments, we take out port capabilities.’” Trump appoints pro-Israel, Iran hawk Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, Axios

Does that sound like a reasonable approach to you or the fast-track to a regional war?
And how does this fit with all the non-interventionist gobbledygook that Trump was spewing before the election? Was it all for show? And, please, don’t tell me that Hegseth wasn’t fully vetted or that Trump was unaware of his political views before he picked him. That’s nonsense. Hegseth is a hard-nosed, prowar jingoist who recently dismissed public demands for a ceasefire as “extortion on behalf of Hamas” (say what??) and who thinks the only problem with Biden’s Middle East policy was that it wasn’t tough enough.’ And so it is with all Trump’s picks. They’re all ferociously devoted to Israel and they’re all gung-ho for a war with Iran.

Pete Hegseth on dual loyalty—Wow.

Here’s how the typically temperate Daniel McAdams summed up Hegseth:

President-elect Donald Trump’s designated Secretary of Defense is a certifiable lunatic. A cultist in the manner of Manson. Literally someone who needs to be in a mental hospital. Who craves an apocalyptic war to end all of mankind so that his twisted understanding of God will come down and slaughter all (including Jews) who do not convert to his cult’s beliefs. This is a truly dangerous person. This is the person running our military machine. The madmen have taken the asylum. Daniel McAdams @DanielLMcAdams

Yikes. Looks like Don Rumsfeld won’t be our worst Sec-Def after all.

Then there’s Marco Rubio or “Little Marco” as Trump used to affectionately call him during the 2016 campaign. Rubio—who Trump picked as Secretary of State—is another shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later warhawk whose views veer only slightly from those of John Bolton and Lindsay Graham. In a recent video by peace activist Medea Benjamin, Benjamin—who is shown standing outside Rubio’s senate office next to a giant flag of Israel—says the following:

We are here outside Marco Rubio’s office. You have probably heard that he has been picked by Trump to be the next Secretary of State. We have been to his office before, and we were always curious that there was an Israeli flag outside. And I thought maybe he would take the flag down to show his allegiance is 100% to the US government and not to the Israeli government. But, no, lo and behold, the flag is still here, which gives you a pretty good indication of where his allegiance is going to be as Secretary of State. Medea Benjamin@medeabenjamin

Imagine if Rubio placed a Russian flag outside his office, or a Palestinian flag? What do you think the reaction would be? Is it really appropriate for a US senator to display the banner of a foreign power in front of his taxpayer-provided office? Here’s more background on Rubio from Michael Tracey:

Marco Rubio would arguably be the most hardcore interventionist Secretary of State for an incoming administration in decades, perhaps rivaling Hillary Clinton. Definitely outpaces Colin Powell, who was in the relatively more “realist” faction of the G. W. Bush Administration

And here’s more on Rubio from the horse’s mouth, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

President-elect Donald Trump is filling out his national security team with pro-Israel hawks who favor maximum pressure on Iran… Reports Monday said Trump planned to name two Floridian allies to top jobs: Sen. Marco Rubio will be tapped to be secretary of state, and Rep. Michael Waltz will be his national security adviser.

Both men have said Israel should not be prevented from staging a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That stance echoes Trump who, before the election, urged Israel to “​​Do what you have to do.” Trump had criticized President Joe Biden for confining Israel to only hitting military sites, but not nuclear ones, in a retaliatory strike….

Trump has yet to formally name Rubio, but his pending appointments has been widely reported and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has a longstanding relationship with Rubio, congratulated him.

“President Trump’s choice of Senator Rubio for this critical role sends a message loudly and clearly: The days of weakness and appeasement are over,” the RJC said in a statement on Monday night. “We know that with Senator Rubio leading the State Department, America will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and confront our enemies.”

Rubio came up in Florida politics in part because of the backing of billionaire auto dealership magnate Norman Braman, a past president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. He is known to be close to Miriam Adelson, the pro-Israel casino magnate who funneled $100 million into Trump’s campaign this year…

In October, after Iran barraged Israel with missiles, and as Israel’s conflict with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah was escalating, he tweeted, “Israel should respond to Iran the way the U.S. would respond if some country launched 180 missiles at us. And they should do in Lebanon what we would be demanding our leaders do if terrorists were launching anti-tank rockets at us from a neighboring country, forcing 60000 Americans to evacuate their homes and farms for almost a year.”

In the 2016 election, she and her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, were close to deciding whether they would back Rubio or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as the Republican nominee. Then Trump pulled ahead of the pack and Sheldon Adelson decided to endorse the reality TV star.

Funny how much influence people like Adelson have when it comes to selecting who is going to lead the country. And, it doesn’t stop there either because—as we can see—a hundred million bucks not only buys you a president but everyone in the president’s cabinet as well. Sounds like a bargain to me, although seriously corrupt too. It is convenient, however, when publications, like the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, explain exactly how the system works and then boast about how it serves their overall interests. What’s that saying about “the tail wagging the dog”?

Read the Whole Article

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In today’s world we need to be vigilant and prepared for sudden changes in our environment which may be brought on by Mother Nature or Political Activities. We all want to protect our family from harm, and preparedness for disaster emergencies should be one of our top priorities. I’m not advocating that you pack up your family and move to some isolated location to hide from the world, but I am offering simple preparations for ice storms, floods, hurricanes, or terrorist activities will make your existence much more palatable during the disaster.

1. Be prepared

Yes, the first thing on the list is to use the list to be prepared. It is one thing to take a glance at the list, but unless you actually put this list into a workable plan for your family, then reading this is just wasted time on your part. Just making the preparations will give you a sense of calm when faced with the disaster.

This sense of calm will work in your favor because you will be less likely to be one of the hordes of people acting in a reactionary, fear driven, panic when the reality of the disaster is recognized (usually when the news anchors start saying things like “This is going to be bad.”… or… “We can’t stress enough the dangerous nature of this storm.”… or… “Here is video of people fighting over the last of the bread at this grocery store.”… or… “The police have lost control of this area of town.” While the crowds are rushing to the grocery store and emptying the aisles of bread and milk, you will be safely at home making last minute preparations to keep yourself and your family safe.

Because I realize that there is a definite cost factor in making these preparations, I will try to prioritize the items on the list as to which are absolutely necessary and which ones can be added as funds are available. Any item with an * next to it is a priority item and needs to be included from the beginning. To my Prepper Friends, I do realize that this list will not satisfy your need to prepare for any and all situations and it is only a short term duration solution, so don’t pounce on me with a long list of items that you think I have left off. It is intentionally a short, condensed list which is meant to help an average family through a short term disaster situation, not a nuclear holocaust. I also have not addressed any need for firearms or ammunition.

A big part of the preparation is being organized. There will be enough things to be concerned with when the situation presents itself, trying to remember where all of your supplies might be stored should not be one of them. Buy one of the following. We will be storing everything possible in them, so your preparedness items will be readily available to you when you need them.

a. Storage Locker* – Find a well built, heavy plastic storage locker that is large enough to hold a lot of gear, but still small enough to fit in the trunk of your car or the bed of your truck. This is not one of those plastic storage bins that people use to store winter clothes in during the summer, this thing needs to be a bit more durable than that. Find one with handles to make it easier to move into and out of your vehicle. Most stores like Academy will have them starting at about $20.

b. Backpack* – This is not a child’s school backpack. Go to the camping section and find one that is well made, durable, and large enough to hold lots of stuff. Don’t worry about it being too big, we are not going to have to backpack across the Grand Canyon with it, and my experience is that you ALWAYS need more space to store stuff. The starting price for a good one will be around $39, but if you can only afford a back-to-school type backpack, go ahead and get it, we can always upgrade later.

2. Shelter from the weather

Unexpected disasters will likely subject you to the elements. This could be due to a fast developing situation where you are caught away from home when the disaster strikes, or it could result from a storm that has caused widespread power outages, broken windows in your home, or taken off a portion of your roof. Exposure to the weather is not just annoying, it can be dangerous. The combination of being wet and cold is deadly.

a. Polyethylene tarp – These come in a variety of sizes and are quite inexpensive. (a 6×8 tarp is only about $5 if you check some camping supply stores). These are great for keeping out the weather if windows are broken during a storm. They can also be used for a makeshift tent if you happen to be caught out of your home when the disaster strikes. They will be great for keeping you dry and holding off the wind. Get 3-4 of them. Put them in your storage locker.

b. Plastic rain poncho* – One for every member of your family, plus a few extra (they are cheap (as little as $1) and will get torn when being worn for any length of time). Get the kind that fold up into a small pouch. Put into your backpack.

c. Quart – ½ Gallon sized plastic zip-lock bags* – These will be used to store some of the items on this list as well as storage of food and medicines. These are important, but cheap. Put in the storage locker.

d. Wool, Cotton, Fleece pullover or Hoodie – One for every member of the family. My preference would be wool, but anything is better than nothing. They are about $12 each for Haynes brand at most stores. If the power goes out, or if you are caught away from home, the cooler temps at night are deceptively dangerous. One main goal is to stay dry and warm. Roll up and place into a zip-lock bag and then put in your backpack.

e. Extra wool or cotton socks* – Two or three pair for every member of the family. Style is not important here, regular white tube socks are just fine (about $8 for a pack of 3). Cheap, but a fresh change of socks can do wonders, and will help keep your feet more healthy and comfortable during the disaster situation and can act as emergency mittens if needed. I can’t say enough about taking care of your feet. I know it sounds trivial, but it is not. Put unopened packs into zip-lock bags and then into your backpack (keeping them dry is key).

f. Change of clothes* – A complete change of clothes for each member of the family. This is not time for a fashion statement, we are after durability and function here. Long pants (blue jeans) and a long sleeve shirt. Don’t forget a change of underwear. Also include a pair of shoes that you would be comfortable wearing for long periods of time. An old pair of tennis shoes might be the answer. Really no costs here, we are going to use clothes we already have in the closet, but probably don’t wear because it has a stain on it, or it is not a color we wear often. Put in the storage locker.

g. Sleeping Bag – One for each member of the family. In this case, I am recommending a specific product, SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag* (do a Google search for stores selling it). Sells for about $17 each but packs up very small and will save your life. Much smaller than a standard sleeping bag (starting price, around $20). If you have the room for a sleeping bag for each person, by all means get them. Store the SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag in your backpack, and the Sleeping bags in a single location near where you will store the backpack and storage locker.

Read the Whole Article

The post Most Important Things You Need To Do Right Now To Be Prepared For a Natural or Man-Made Disaster appeared first on LewRockwell.

(I was, I now recognize, unintentionally deplatformed here because Substack had switched to a no-human totally automated system for enabling writers to sign in, and it led in circles, so I haven’t been able to sign in ever since October 12th. By a stroke of luck, I was finally able to sign in today; and, so, here is today’s article:)

14 November 2024, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

On November 13th, I headlined “Why Trump Must Fire His National Security Advisor Mike Waltz”, and documented that Waltz advises Trump to allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons in order to bomb The Kremlin — something that (as I explained) even the deeply neoconservative President Biden had finally (on October 10th) decided not to do. Later that day (November 13th), Trump announced his appointment of Tulsi Gabbard to be his Director of National Intelligence (DNI) — the U.S. President’s eyes and ears on the latest confirmed information from all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (all member-agencies of the U.S.A. Intelligence Community), such as the CIA, FBI, and Defense Intelligence Agency. The fight to confirm her in the almost totally Deep-State-controlled U.S. Senate will be huge, but any Republicans who vote against her will be conspicuously on the side of Hillary Clinton and (since she’s hated by that Party) might become defeated at the next election, and any Democrats who vote against Gabbard will lose all support from the significant progressive segment of that Party’s electorate; so, the result could go either way. I think that her appointment will be approved.

Unless Mr. Waltz will be taking a crash course on the actual history entailed in protecting U.S. national security (which would have to include, at a bare minimum, all of the linked-to documents in my November 13th article, as well as in the documents that are linked-to therein), and correct himself on that matter prior to Inauguration Day, 20 January 2025, Trump will be informed by Gabbard that the National Security Advisor (NSA) Waltz’s recommendation to say yes to the Ukrainian President’s (Volodmyr Zelensky’s) request for permission to be granted to use U.S. weapons to bomb The Kremlin would almost certainly lead, in very short order, to a nuclear war between Russia and the United States, WW3.

At that point — if not even sooner — President Trump will almost certainly appoint a different person to be his National Security Advisor.

The DNI doesn’t only report to the President, but also advises the President. This is perhaps the most important post in the Administration of any U.S. President. Beyond serving merely as a reporter of facts to the President, the DNI also serves, upon the President’s invitation, as the principal advisor to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council on all intelligence matters. The DNI, supported by his/her Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), produces the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a top-secret document including intelligence from all 17 Intelligence Community (IC) agencies, which Brief is handed each morning to the President of the United States. If the President will fail to invite the DNI to advise and not only to report, to the President, then the President will likely replace that DNI, because the DNI is the only individual who receives all of this information; the NSA doesn’t. The NSA is one of many federal posts that are superfluous (if not even worse).

The DNI position received its power from the President on 18 February 2005, when GW Bush reorganized the U.S. Intelligence Community and transferred to the Director of National Intelligence the authority that, till the creator of the CIA, Truman’s, time, had rested with the Director of the CIA: the power to produce the President’s Daily Brief on intelligence.

The CIA is one of many federal agencies that are superfluous (if not even worse — anti-Constitutional) because the actual central intelligence agency of the U.S.A. is, and since 2005 has been, the ODNI. The only other powers that the CIA had had (which were not transferred) were the Directorate of Operations within the CIA, which in 2005 became re-named the National Clandestine Service (NCS), but under President Biden they were “rebranding” it back again to the Directorate of Operations, because the straightforwardly named NCS was too-obviously an aristocratic dictatorial organization, a foreign coup-producing machine, at odds with, and inconsistent with, the intent of the U.S. Constitution, which was intended by its authors to produce a democratic republic, not any type of dictatorship nor empire. Already, back in 1983, after the 1976 (Frank) Church Committee hearings on the CIA (its Directorate of Operations) as being the aristocracy’s coup-producing machine, the Directorate of Operations was largely transferred to the so-called (but likewise funded largely by the U.S. Government) charity, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which continues the Truman-created coup-producing machine, such as in the Philippines, Bangladesh (and this), and, of course, Ukraine, but does all of this as a ‘charity’ (501(c)3) (or ‘nonprofit’), so that the U.S. regime’s acquisitions of new colonies (such as Ukraine in 2014) will be ‘acts of kindness’ instead of acts of greed.

The report by the Church Committee acknowledged (page 438) that “The CIA engages in both overt and clandestine activity within the United States,” but was not critical of it, except that they advised that it “could lead to an exploitation of cooperating Americans beyond that which they themselves envisioned,” etc. And the report was otherwise entirely uncritical, and avoided saying anything about coups. It explicitly accepted that there must be “The conduct of foreign covert action operations” (including coups). It acknowledged (p. 536) that “The U.S. intelligence community soon became a global city desk to support the role of global policeman,” but had no criticism against that “global policeman” role. Though it was a total cover-up, the Committee’s mere existence scared America’s Deep State to make some PR changes. Thus far, that is all of the change which has actually occurred.

Trump, during his campaign for re-election, made many promises to conservatives, which everybody knows about, but he also made many promises to progressives (of which I am one), which are far less well-known (and I have documented those promises here. They included: “With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we will expell the war-mongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists Marxists and fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country, we will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains, once and for all.” With the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as his DNI (and, though not yet as official, of RFK Jr. to head a “Make America Healthy Again” operation in the federal Government), maybe he’s not ignoring us, after all.

(I should note here that when I refer to “progressivism” I refer to the opposite of “conservatism,” not to the mixture of progressivism and conservatism that is called “liberalism,” which is actually the extremely hypocritical form of conservatism, which pretends to be compassionate toward the poor but is just as ruthless as conservatism is, so that, for liberals, tax-exempt ‘charities’ that are more for the benefit of the billionaires who create and fund them than they are for the benefit of the poor in order to help them to rise into the middle class, are doing what is actually the most important obligation that the government and taxes — NO ‘nonprofits’ — OUGHT to be funding. In other words: all ‘nonprofits’ are, to progressives, basically mere scams for billionaires, though viewed by liberals as authentic kindnesses. A progressive opposes all tax-advantages for the super-rich, but liberals join with conservatives in approving of those tax-advantages, which actually constitute government funding of increased wealth-inequality.)

This originally appeared on Eric’s Substack.

The post Why I Predict that Trump Will Fire His National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz appeared first on LewRockwell.

Late yesterday, as I was finishing a hike in the Catskills, I received word that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been nominated to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy’s prayers were answered. So were mine.

In a video Kennedy posted on YouTube two weeks ago, the newly nominated candidate for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tells a Tucker Carlson Live audience, “For 19 years, since 2005, I have spent 30 minutes praying every day . . . I ask God … to put me in a position where I could end the chronic disease epidemic and bring health back to our children.”

God listened.

Kennedy has been censored by the Biden administration for speaking the truth. He has been excluded and vilified by the DNC-aligned legacy media as being “anti-vaccine” and “anti-science.” Despite everything that the DNC, the legacy media, and Big Pharma has thrown at him, Kennedy now stands tall as the man with a historic opportunity to reform HHS.

The Department of Health and Human Services is the massive federal agency that has failed in its mission to protect the health of Americans due to corruption, corporate capture, and an arrogant lack of transparency on everything ranging from vaccine safety data to research that serves the interests of industries it is supposed to regulate.

Following President-elect Trump’s announcement on November 14, Kennedy issued this statement on X:

“Thank you, Donald Trump, for your leadership and courage. I’m committed to advancing your vision to Make America Healthy Again. We have a generational opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic. I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth. Together we will clean up corruption, stop the revolving door between industry and government, and return our health agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science. I will provide Americans with transparency and access to all the data so they can make informed choices for themselves and their families. My commitment to the American people is to be an honest public servant. Let’s go!”

Kennedy’s plan is long past due because the poor health of Americans is now a national crisis.

Americans now die years earlier than people in European countries do even though Americans spend more on health care. Cancer rates are skyrocketing and the term “turbo cancers” in adults under 50 has entered our national health parlance. Diabetes rates and costs are crippling the economy. Autism, once a rare disorder, now dominates our nation’s special education expenditures.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of HHS has said nothing about the ongoing global excess deaths crisis, explained so well here by Dr. John Campbell.

Looking back at the Covid pandemic, the vast majority of our countrymen who died had multiple comorbidities. Our public health system cranked out vaccines that produced serious adverse consequences and failed to stop the spread of the virus. Nothing was done about the comorbidities.

The result was Pfizer and Moderna reaped record profits.

Americans died in droves.

HHS is supposed to protect the health of Americans – not the interests of Big Pharma, Big Ag and Big Chem. The DNC-aligned legacy, such as CNN, are going to scream “Kennedy is anti-vaccine” from now until the confirmation hearings – and well beyond. The thought of Kennedy upending the profitable apple carts of their Big Pharma sponsors is terrifying to decaying news outlets like CNN, which may soon announce layoffs. One can expect what is left of the legacy media will now try to push the U.S.  Senate to block Kennedy’s confirmation.

Big Pharma is already feeling the heat: As reported by Just The News, Pfizer and Moderna stocks fell immediately after RFK Jr. was chosen for HHS Secretary. Moreover, Republican Senator Rand Paul is planning to hold hearings on the Covid cover-up.

Big Pharma is now under seige in the Senate.

My advice to Republican Senators is to reject the influence of Big Pharma and the legacy media. Republican Senators need to respect the will of the people. Afterall, it was  two movements – MAGA and MAHA – that have given their party a mandate to lead and to improve the health of Americans.

For Senators from the Democratic Party, it is time to finally smell the coffee. Supporting Kennedy’s nomination is an opportunity to show Americans that you care about their health more than you do about Big Pharma donors.

Trump and Kennedy now have a mandate to improve the health of the nation. It is an opportunity to leave an historic legacy.

As I finished my hike, I said a prayer of thanks. I thought about the vaccine injuries my sons suffered. I thought about the people I know who have endured Covid vaccine injuries. I thought about the autism warrior moms and dads I have been blessed to meet over the past twenty years. The children we raised to adulthood and to better health. The doctors and scientists who stood up for the truth and were persecuted by their profession, their peers, and the media. The advocates who spoke out and who were attacked. The authors who wrote books they knew would be censored but wrote them anyway.

All of that work and sacrifice led to this moment.

A warrior mom friend of mine who has raised three children with autism sent me a text – an old Mexican proverb.

“They tried to bury us,” she wrote. “They didn’t know that we were seeds.”

This originally appeared on The Kennedy Beacon.

The post Kennedy’s Nomination to Lead HHS Answers His Prayers – and Mine appeared first on LewRockwell.

The autumn sky above the old shot-and-beer city was a deep and endless blue. Woodsmoke hung in the air and small boats chugged out purposeful routes on waterways. The Ravens are playoff-bound, and the youth-strapped Orioles made it to the postseason again. All was right on Baltimore’s harbor Wednesday—perfect even—as joggers politely zig-zagged through the 200 or so folks who’d gathered to pray the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary alongside the world’s loneliest bishop.

Sunlight poured onto the face of Joseph Strickland when he rose from the concrete after leading the Catholic blue-collar symphony in the Salve Regina. Leaves scraped the ground, seagulls called, and a few of the faithful readied themselves to see if the bishop might not mind having his picture taken.

It was as picture-postcard an autumn day as you’re going to find in Baltimore; all seemed just perfect—until that bishop just had to go and spoil everything.

He picked a fight; he confronted the expanding Babylon.

Ah, but wasn’t it such a lovely day to go and die?

Directly after the Rosary, the outcast from Tyler, Texas read aloud a letter he’d written to his episcopal brethren. After just a few words, some in the gathering stood gape-mouthed. The bishop-with-no-flock seemed to have transmogrified into Ezekiel—albeit, a humble and soft-spoken Old Testament version—but still, one who had been commissioned by God, or perhaps by Mary (to whom he had given his priesthood) to address the silence of his old friends in the aftermath of the Synod on Synodality.

Keeping to O.T.-prophet form, Bishop Strickland dismissed pleasantries from the beginning of his letter, a letter that might as well have been written with a reed onto parchment and discovered a thousand years from now in a cave outside of Baltimore. From the top:

You gather here today, present-day apostles, as the Church and, therefore, the world stand perched on the edge of a cliff. And yet you who are entrusted with the keeping of souls choose to speak not a word of the spiritual danger which abounds. Today we stand on the cusp of all that has been prophesied about the Church and the abominations which would come forth in these times, a time when all of hell attacks the Church of Jesus Christ, and a time when the fallen angels of hell no longer seek entry into her sacred halls but instead stand inside, peeking out of her windows and unlocking doors to welcome in more diabolical destruction.

If sinews, flesh, and bones are to reconnect in the valleys of dry bones—in the valleys of both the morally-collapsing world and the Catholic Church— the voice and message should be pointed and strong. Still—in his innermost recesses—even the bishop knew that spinal columns and all the rest wouldn’t be reconnecting inside the high-end hotel. I have to imagine, he believed things would just keep running their course.

But that’s the glory of supernaturalists—those who believe in everyday miracles, the guiding light of guardian angels, and the way in which the flames of Hell or Purgatory consume those who neglect properly shepherding souls. Supernaturalists, like Bishop Strickland, understand God has the power to take a letter, shunned by bishops, and place it as a sacred icon into long-slumbering or timid souls.

Prophets just do what they’re told, and leave the rest to God.

Supernaturalists believe in miracles of wide sweeping scope.

Bishop Strickland finds himself in the middle of both, which is why he finds himself on the fringes.

But on Wednesday, he was more the prophet, who was considering the millions of Catholic youth, the college-aged, and young adults who pour from the Church like biblical plagues, even on a day when Pope Francis urged an international community at the United Nations’ COP29 event to respond swiftly to climate change and to implement billion-dollar plans to make it happen.

Prophets pick strange words and images-rarely heard anymore in this world-to make substantive points about a natural worldview supplanting the spiritual.

Do you not know that Our Lord will send forth His avenging angels to heap coals of fire upon the heads of those who were called to be His apostles and who have not guarded what He has given unto them?

And yet almost all of you, my brothers, stood by silently watching as the Synod on Synodality took place, an abomination constructed not to guard the Deposit of Faith, but to dismantle it, and yet few were the cries heard from you – men who should be willing to die for Christ and His Church.

The Synod’s final document has been released, yet with the sleight of hand which is so characteristic of the Francis-controlled Vatican. By drawing attention to the issues which worried many, they have slipped in what was always their real goal without anyone even noticing. What they were after in the first place was the dismantling of Christ’s Church by replacing the structure of the Church as Our Lord instituted it with a diabolically-inspired new structure of “synodality” which in actuality is a new church that is in no way Catholic.

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Going into the November 5th election, I predicted if the Democrats didn’t cheat, President-Elect Donald J. Trump would win 31 states with 312 votes and win the popular vote by 3% and the GOP would hold the House and pick up the Senate and that is exactly what happened. Trump’s election as the 47th President of the United States has given hope to tens of millions of Americans that his new administration will act to end Biden’s proxy wars with Russia and Iran and will steer clear of an all-out war with the PRC when they blockade China likely sometime early next year perhaps in January around Inauguration Day. Millions of non-Americans abroad likely felt the same sense of relief from Trump’s landslide victory that proved democracy works and the American people still have a choice on who they want to serve as their President.

I have never been more excited about a Republican presidential ticket in my life. Trump now has a mandate from 75 million Americans to fulfill his pledge to end Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine in the first several days of his presidency. He also has a mandate to make peace with China and avoid the outbreak of World War Three over Taiwan and to end our proxy war with Iran in the Middle East while restoring prosperity and freedom to Americans here at home in the interests of healing and uniting our great country.  President-Elect Trump recently stated “I am not going to start wars, I am going to stop wars.” That statement is the very definition of a Reaganite policy of policy of peace through strength that enabled us to win the Cold War against the Soviet Union. A similar policy may enable the US to win our Cold War against the People’s Republic of China.

In addition to pledging to end America’s foreign wars, Trump won by pledging to put America First, implement broad revenue-based tariffs of ten to twenty percent on foreign goods—essentially a variation of former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Border Adjustment Tax which he proposed six years ago, deporting 25 million illegal immigrants and driving down food, fuel and housing prices to make life more affordable for working class and middle-class American citizens. Trump was rewarded with record-breaking support from blacks, Latinos and young adults under thirty years of age.

President-Elect Trump has already begun announcing many of his senior Cabinet member picks, some of them more controversial than others. He announced he has chosen neocon Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a US Army Reserve Colonel, to serve as his National Security Advisor. Waltz served as a Green Beret and served as a counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney (who notably endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for President) and later opposed withdrawing large numbers of troops from Afghanistan without strict conditions. LTC Darin Gaub (USA Ret.) wrote that “Waltz is well known as a hawkish figure and NEOCON who is more likely to continue to advocate for and push for forever wars than for ending them. If appointed, it remains to be seen how his push for continued conflict will mesh with Trump’s goal of ending it.” However, on the bright side, Waltz is well-informed on the existential threat of super EMP attacked having been briefed by members of the Task Force on National Security which I help lead.

Trump also announced he will nominate Sen. Marco Rubio to serve as his Secretary of State. RFK Jr. reportedly expressed strong opposition to Trump appointing Rubio as Secretary of State while Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) cautioned fellow MAGA supporters from believing Trump had chosen Rubio until Trump had officially confirmed the pick.  According to Politico, this nomination has provoked major backlash from Trump’s MAGA supporters.  Politico reported: “Conservative comedian Dave Smith said Tuesday that Rubio is “a disaster.” “Might as well give Liz Cheney the State Department,” Smith wrote. “Awful sign.” “Rubio? Was Hillary unavailable?” wrote another far-right influencer. Other MAGA acolytes recirculated old Trump Twitter posts about Rubio, including during the 2016 primary, when Trump called him a “perfect little puppet” for the late donor Sheldon Adelson, as well as a “total lightweight” and “overrated politician.”

Glenn Greenwald, a Trump aligned anti-war activist criticized the picks, posting on X: “Trump’s last 3 appointees – Elise Stefanik, Mike Waltz (sic), and Rubio – are war hawks fully aligned with the worst prongs of bipartisan DC consensus.” It seems clear they are not aligned with Trump’s stated America First foreign policy priorities. Unfortunately, Trump’s ‘superhawk’ neocon warmonger Republican establishment picks for Secretary of State with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and National Security Advisor with Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), could serve to prolong the war in Ukraine indefinitely as they will likely push Trump to demand harsher peace terms for Russia that Putin will never accept.

Before the 2024 presidential election when I was asked during dozens of interviews how I thought Trump’s election would change US foreign policy towards Russia and China, I expressed confidence that Trump would steer clear of wars with both nuclear superpowers so long as Trump didn’t make the same mistake he made during his first term by appointing neocon warmongers and former Iraq war cheerleaders who worked to sabotage all his attempts to end America’s foreign wars in Iraq, Syria and especially Afghanistan. I had hoped that Trump would appoint America First conservatives like Vivek Ramaswamy to his Cabinet. However, it seems he is making the same mistakes in doing so he made during his previous term failing to appoint any America First conservatives/foreign policy restrainers to his incoming administration.

A week ago, I wrote: “I am concerned about the number of neocon imperialist warmongers that are being considered for Trump cabinet positions. Also, he is reportedly being advised by the neocon “America First Policy Institute” think tank on who to pick. We may see a lot of Deep Staters in his second term cabinet. The good news is that if he makes VP Elect JD Vance, his main national security policy advisor, he will make the right decision every time.”

Trump’s neocon Cabinet picks have left his supporters concerned given that there are multiple Trump MAGA supporters on Trump’s transition team. One would think would be strongly advising Trump against some of his counterproductive Cabinet choices who don’t align with his foreign policy views and who could work to sabotage Trump’s America First foreign and national security agenda from within the senior ranks of the administration as well as from Congress with both Houses set to be led by neoconservatives. If Trump’s America First agenda were to be sabotaged by his Deep State Cabinet members and Deep State US Senate Majority Leader, Democrats could take back both houses of Congress in 2026 and then Trump may end up having a failed presidency.

Earlier this year, a host of retired generals and neocons acolytes reportedly briefed Trump at Mar-a-Lago and persuaded Trump to drop his opposition to the Biden-Johnson $61 billion monstrosity. Now, this same neocon cabal that misled Trump to abandon his opposition to further Ukraine aid may be helping to hand-pick his Cabinet officials who will be in charge of determining US foreign policy and national security policy. Suspending aid to Ukraine is absolutely necessary to pressure Zelensky to agree to negotiate an end to the war with Russia so Johnson’s decision to support the Biden Ukraine foreign aid boondoggle has only served to prolong the war several months longer than necessary leading to the deaths of tens of thousands more Ukrainian soldiers. The question is will the neocon cabinet officials Trump is surrounding himself with succeed in convincing him to drop his opposition to forever wars being fought in opposition to US national security interests?

Trump’s choices for Cabinet seem to prioritize loyalty but some of them also seem calibrated to ensure easy bipartisan US Senate confirmation with multiple Democrats voting to support them given Democrats support a hawkish foreign policy particularly with regards to Russia showing he is not overly concerned with picking Cabinet officials who are ideologically aligned with his laudable America First foreign policy agenda. Far-left Democrat members of Congress are also beginning to express support for Trump’s neocon Cabinet picks with whom they align ideologically in terms of supporting America’s failed policy of liberal hegemony. The Hill reports that Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman said he would vote to confirm his colleague Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as secretary of State if selected by President-elect Trump.

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The Trump transition team on Wednesday announced that he is nominating South Dakota governor Kristi Noem as the next head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In the coming weeks, we’ll hear a lot about Noem’s personal politics and origins. We’ll also hear about how the DHS is, as the AP puts it, “one of the biggest government agencies that will be integral to his vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.”

Unfortunately, all this misses the most important point about the DHS which is that the DHS was invented in 2002 to justify more government spending, to reward political allies, and to influence local governments with federal grants.

For voters who supported Trump because they thought a Trump presidency might actually reduce government waste, they should now be asking why Trump is appointing any new DHS head at all. The only thing Trump should do with the DHS is abolish it.

For younger readers, or people with terrible memories, this might sound radical or extreme. But, I can assure you, dear reader, that the United States somehow managed to get along for more than 225 years before this department was created twenty-two years ago by Congress and the Bush Administration.

Much of what the Department does today was not new in 2002, of course. The federal government already had a border patrol, and it already collected tariffs on imports. The Coast Guard was alive and well. The Secret Service already existed, as did various agencies related to nuclear energy and the inspection of agricultural projects.

But, the DHS has always been more than just a reorganization of existing agencies. The DHS has overseen new slush funds for domestic police departments. It is the DHS that has largely facilitated the militarization of local police forces. As Wired put it in 2020, “the Homeland Security Grant Program has funneled billions of dollars to law enforcement agencies to acquire military-grade equipment.”

Nonetheless, the creation of the DHS has done nothing to make the border more secure, or to facilitate the enforcement of tariffs. The DHS has never been necessary to patrol US coastal waters. Rather, federal bureaucrats and elected officials pursued the creation of this new enormous government department for political reasons.

The DHS was created to be a cabinet-level agency, and the thing about cabinet-level status is that the move makes it easier for the bureaucrats in charge of the agencies to politically agitate for more government spending in their favor, and to push bigger government in general. It’s no coincidence that as the US government has grown ever larger and more intrusive, so has the number of cabinet-level agencies. So, now we have the EPA, the SBA, and the departments of HUD, Energy, and Education all provided with more direct access to the president and the media. Everything they do is deemed “essential.” Everything they do, we’re told, is a matter of national importance.

DHS is no different. When the 9/11 attacks occurred, they exposed the sheer incompetence, laziness, and inefficiency of government security and defense organizations. Year after year, hundreds of billions of dollars were poured into these organizations — in addition to the countless billions spent on the Pentagon. But when they were shown to be asleep at the switch, what happened? Rather than have their budgets cut, and senior officials fired in droves — as should have happened — George W. Bush and his cronies decided that what the federal government really needed was a new department into which billions more in taxpayer money could be poured.

The was politically important in the sense that making DHS a department made it easier to call for every more funding for its constituent agencies.

It has certainly worked.

Prior to the creation of the DHS, “homeland security” functions were rarely funded at levels exceeding $20 billion per year. Since 2002, though, federal spending on these functions—now consolidated into the DHS—has soared. Since 2001, the total budget for these activities has nearly tripled, rising from $28 billion in 2001 to $112 billion in 2024. (That’s in inflation-adjusted 2023 dollars.) Since the Cold War ended, by the way, spending on so-called homeland security has increased by more than six-fold.

Since 2001, has it really become almost three times more expensive—in inflation adjusted terms, mind you—to patrol the border, to collect tariffs, and to check luggage for guns at the airport? It is difficult to see how.

What we do know is that the DHS has become an important pass-through for government largesse. Some of this goes to local governments, and these dollars give the federal government more power by providing yet another carrot the feds can hold out to local politicians. Billions more goes into the FEMA black hole which spends prodigiously on federal agents who use DHS dollars as a means of punishing their political opponents.

While the Department was created in response to the 9/11 attacks, the Department does nothing to address anything like a 9/11-style attack. All the agencies that were supposed to provide intelligence on such attacks — the FBI for instance, which failed miserably on 9/11 — already exist in other departments and continue to enjoy huge budgets. Meanwhile, the Transportation Security Administration — an agency that has never caught a single terrorist—has managed to smuggle at least $100 million worth of cocaine.

Once upon a time, “homeland security” was supposed to be the job of the Department of Defense. but, it seems the Pentagon has been too busy in Ukraine or Iraq to trouble itself with the defense of the borders and airspace of the United States. In spite of having been freed of its responsibility for “the homeland,” however, the Pentagon’s budget just keeps getting bigger. In 2024, it was at a thirteen-year high and remains—in inflation adjusted terms—above the levels of Reagan’s Cold War spending spree. Pentagon spending is up by 57 percent, inflation-adjusted, since 2001.

There is no doubt, however, that heading the Department in Washington will be great for the career of Kristy Noem. She’ll get invited to cabinet meetings, go on national TV, and generally enjoy the pampered life of a high-ranking bureaucrat. Meanwhile, American taxpayers will pay more and more, in depreciating dollars, for yet another federal department.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post Abolish the Department of Homeland Security appeared first on LewRockwell.

 

 

di Francesco Simoncelli

Ci sono schemi per ogni cosa. Ciò che si osserva di questi tempi è la sovrapposizione tra gli schemi dei mercati, in particolare il cosiddetto Trend primario, e gli schemi delle politiche pubbliche.Queste ultime oggi sono sempre più del genere “win-lose” (somma zero), rafforzando il Trend primario e aprendo la strada una discesa ripida. Vilfredo Pareto ci ricorda che ci sono sempre delle persone che formano l'élite di un Paese. Per lo più sono benigne e disponibili: tracciano strade, si assicurano che gli impianti idraulici funzionino, risolvono controversie e stabiliscono standard civili. Ma col tempo i loro cuori piccoli e vili si oscurano: invece di agire come giudici imparziali, assicurandosi che le regole siano rispettate, ne inventano di nuove a loro piacimento. Sanzioni, dazi, regolamenti, leggi, limiti alla libertà di parola, deficit, bombardamenti, uccisioni, sussidi e tangenti: sono tutti parti del programma.

Il potere, come si suol dire, corrompe.

La Repubblica Popolare Cinese è piuttosto nuova: è stata fondata solo nel 1949. Allora l'economia americana era 600 volte più grande di quella cinese. L'America ha continuato a crescere, ma dopo il 1978 la Cina ha intrapreso la strada del capitalismo e ora il 18% del PIL mondiale è suo. In termini di parità del potere d'acquisto, la sua economia è già più grande di quella statunitense.

UNA SCALATA OSTILE MASCHERATA DA INCOMPETENZA

Una delle date chiave per capire come siamo arrivati ​​dove siamo è il 1992. Quello fu l'anno in cui Francis Fukuyama scrisse il suo famoso saggio e si chiese se fosse arrivata la “fine della storia”. L'Occidente era trionfante e non c'era bisogno di ulteriore “storia”. Nessun altro esperimento, non c'era più bisogno di imparare, di evolversi, o di mettere in discussione. Guerre? Rivoluzioni? Nuovi sistemi di governo o economie? Tutto questo era il passato, avevamo trovato la formula vincente. Guardandosi allo specchio, allora, sembrava ovvio cosa sarebbe successo dopo: tutti volevano essere come noi. Erano diventati tutti “occidentali”. La Cina stava già imparando velocemente: seguendo il modello stabilito dal Giappone, stava costruendo un'economia guidata dalle esportazioni vendendo prodotti a basso costo, acquisendo competenze e capitale, e costruendo i suoi settori manifatturieri. Tutte quelle esportazioni contribuirono a mantenere bassi i prezzi al consumo negli Stati Uniti e diedero alla Cina i soldi per acquistare obbligazioni statunitensi. E perché non avrebbero dovuto? Tutti sapevano che erano l'asset più grande, più liquido e più sicuro del mondo.

La Russia, a quel tempo, era appena tornata Russia. L'Unione Sovietica, con la sua pianificazione centralizzata e i soffocanti controlli economici, non riusciva a competere. I suoi addetti ai lavori guardavano oltre confine alla Germania Ovest e volevano ciò che vedevano: si resero conto che possedere i mezzi di produzione, come capitalisti, sarebbe stato meglio che continuare a controllarli come burocrati. Smisero di essere burocrati nel sistema sovietico e divennero oligarchi nel nuovo sistema “occidentale”. Vladimir Putin pensò persino che la Russia avrebbe potuto unirsi alla NATO. Il problema per gli oligarchi era che l'Unione Sovietica produceva pochissimi beni/servizi che gli occidentali avrebbero acquistato. Tutto ciò che avevano veramente erano materie prime ed energia, ma con la carota del profitto davanti a loro, piuttosto che il bastone comunista sulle loro spalle, gli oligarchi si gettarono a capofitto nelle miniere e i pozzi e presto iniziarono a far scendere i prezzi delle risorse energetiche.

Con la minaccia sovietica fuori dai piedi, gli Stati Uniti avrebbero potuto godere di un “dividendo grazie alla pace”, avrebbero potuto tagliare la spesa militare di centinaia di miliardi e, con gli oligarchi che inondavano il mondo di materie prime a basso costo e i cinesi che sfornavano prodotti finiti a basso costo, “l'Occidente” se la passava bene. I suoi costi al consumo stavano scendendo mentre i prezzi dei suoi asset stavano salendo. Il Trend primario era in ascesa per gli asset finanziari e i policymaker in Cina, Russia e Stati Uniti contribuirono a mantenere il boom, ma gettarono anche le basi per il successivo Trend primario: gli Stati Uniti avrebbero potuto usare questo periodo di “vacche grasse” per aumentare i propri risparmi, aggiornare le proprie istituzioni e migliorare la propria infrastruttura, invece, dopo il 1999, hanno commesso alcuni degli errori di politica più disastrosi nella loro storia.

La spesa militare è aumentata; non c'è stato alcun “dividendo grazie alla pace”. Invece ci sono state richieste di capitale per pagare un'invasione dell'Iraq e una farsesca guerra al terrorismo. Poi, nel 2009, i burocrati hanno salvato Wall Street e hanno portato i tassi d'interesse sotto lo zero (aggiustati all'inflazione) e li hanno lasciati lì per più di 10 anni. Come se non bastasse, sono state istituite barriere commerciali per rallentare le importazioni cinesi; sono state imposte sanzioni sconsiderate, indebolendo il sistema di pagamenti internazionali basato sul dollaro; migliaia di miliardi di dollari sono stati sperperati per finanziare guerre all'estero e assegni dello stato sociale in patria.

Nel 1992 gli Stati Uniti ebbero un'opportunità straordinaria: erano già in cima al mondo e, grazie alle nuove linee di politica in Cina e Russia, avrebbero potuto rafforzare la loro posizione, liberarsi dai debiti, liberarsi dai grovigli burocratici... in pace e più prosperi che mai. Invece si sono lanciati in una serie di guerre e spese in deficit aggiungendo $30.000 miliardi al loro debito e ora la sua politica interna è uno zimbello, la sua politica estera è una vergogna, e lotta contro un nuovo e spietato Trend primario.

ESASPERARE IL NUOVO TREND PRIMARIO

I tassi d'interesse ultra bassi hanno esasperato i massimi, ora, come se fossero guidati da una “mano invisibile”, esaspereranno i minimi. Le amministrazioni americane precedenti a quella Trump, ad esempio, hanno speso troppi soldi a livello statale, hanno tenuto in piedi troppe guerre, hanno limitato il commercio, hanno premiato gli “ammanicati”, hanno punito i loro oppositori e hanno promulgato regolamenti che limitavano la produzione, aumentando così i prezzi reali al consumo e aumentando la povertà.

Potere e sfere di influenza mutevoli tendono a far degenerare un impero che ha raggiunto la sua grandezza massima. Non è una semplice supposizione, è la realtà. È vandalismo, è l'apertura dei cancelli ai “barbari”. E finora le amministrazioni democratiche, in particolare, hanno fatto esattamente questo: il loro vero obiettivo è stato quello di abbassare di livello gli Stati Uniti e peggiorare le cose per la maggior parte degli americani. Questo punto di vista è il migliore per comprendere l'ennesimo invio di aiuti esteri approvati dalla Casa Bianca di Biden.

E che dire delle generazioni che ci hanno preceduto e che ora dormono sottoterra? Erano chiari al riguardo: per gli Stati Uniti era opportuno evitare “coinvolgimenti esteri”; ora invece sono dappertutto. E per 180 anni hanno fatto del loro meglio per controllare i deficit. Perfino ai tempi dell'amministrazione Reagan il debito totale accumulato dagli Stati Uniti era inferiore a $1.000 miliardi. Erano stupidi anche loro per aver cercato di vivere secondo le proprie possibilità?

L'ELEZIONE DI TRUMP

La vittoria di Trump in queste elezioni epocali ha indirizzato in definitiva il Paese verso quel cambiamento di paradigma di cui ho scritto nel dettaglio nel Capitolo 6 del mio ultimo libro, Il Grande Default. Questo cambiamento di percorso è iniziato nel 2017 e, per quanto sia stato rallentato negli ultimi 4 anni, adesso è pienamente operativo: spostare l'epicentro del Grande Default e piazzarlo lì dove merita di essere, ovvero in Europa. L'emancipazione monetaria di cui parlo in quel capitolo è una strategia di sopravvivenza che gli USA possono permettersi, Bruxelles no. Ecco perché da questo lato dell'oceano si sperava in una vittoria della Harris. Ecco perché la cricca di Davos ha riscoperto un vecchio adagio: le bugie sono costose da mantenere a lungo andare, la verità si vende da sola. La pubblicazione del sopraccitato libro, infatti, ha l'intenzione di fornire un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato “fuori controllo” negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto con i membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

La cosiddetta “onda rossa” che vedete nell'immagine qui sotto non equivale a una “rivolta popolare” contro il malgoverno democratico, rappresenta invece una presa di posizione del sistema bancario commerciale statunitense contro la “soluzione” proposta dalla cricca di Davos al problema del debito pubblico: scalata ostile del dollaro e riduzione degli USA a mera succursale dell'Europa e, soprattutto, della City di Londra. Chi riceve le chiamate qui non è Trump, ma personaggi del calibro di Jamie Dimon. Senza la benedizione di Wall Street la FED non avrebbe mai potuto rialzare i tassi d'interesse. Se non si ha chiaro il vero obiettivo dell'Agenda 2030 del WEF, ovvero il sistema bancario commerciale statunitense, allora non si è in grado di unire coerentemente i puntini. Una volta compreso questo punto, va da sé che diventa chiaro come deve essere un meccanismo di difesa: chiudere i rubinetti dell'eurodollaro e indicizzare i debiti interni a un indice nazionale (SOFR) piuttosto che internazionale (LIBOR).

Come avevo avuto modo di dire in precedenza, la FED avrebbe agevolato il compito di Trump una volta eletto tagliando i tassi (senza mai tornare, però, allo zero percento). Non l'avrebbe fatto con la Harris, invece, dato che una sua amministrazione avrebbe portato “serpi in seno” così come le hanno portate le amministrazioni Biden e Obama. Fino a quando ci sarà Powell alla FED, quest'ultima rimarrà indipendente e apporrà quanta più pressione politica possibile affinché vengano risanati le deformità fiscali alimentate dalle amministrazioni precedenti. In questi ultimi anni la FED ha resistito a diversi assalti alla sua indipendenza tramite il proxy del budget fiscale: giganteschi deficit, curva dei rendimenti “impazzita”, senatori come Elizabeth Warren che avrebbero voluto rifonderla con il Ministero del Tesoro, ecc. Tutte le linee di politica adottate dalla FED negli ultimi 4 anni in particolar modo sono state tutte indirizzate per arrivare al momento di oggi, “all'onda rossa”. Con una maggioranza sia alla Camera che al Senato, la FED potrà tagliare i tassi e permettere al sistema bancario commerciale americano di affrontare la tormenta finanziaria. Questo è solo l'inizio di un cammino lungo, non avverrà in 4 anni, le deformazioni economiche del passato sono state talmente profonde che richiederanno anni per essere risanate.

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Con la vittoria di Trump è legittimo aspettarsi oggi un taglio dei tassi di 25 punti base e un ulteriore taglio da 50 punti base il mese prossimo, premesso che i Dem non mettano i bastoni tra le ruote al normale processo di insediamento.

— Francesco Simoncelli (@Freedonia85) November 7, 2024

La reazione dei mercati post-elezioni era prevedibile: euro in calo, sterlina in calo, mercato obbligazionario europeo in calo... mercato azionario statunitense in ascesa. Liquidità drenata dal mercato dell'eurodollaro e che vola nei mercati finanziari statunitensi. Niente di più, niente di meno di quanto scrivo nel mio libro per spiegare con dovizia di dettagli il momento a cui siamo arrivati partendo dal suo incipit. Alla luce di tutto ciò, ecco perché Dimon è uno di coloro che guida il processo decisionale dietro Trump. “L'onda rossa” equivale a dire a chi lavora per la fazione avversa, o cricca di Daovs, e che ha remato contro gli USA: “Ora voi lavorate per me”. Sto parlando di gente come Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Elizabeth Warren, ecc.

Come ho sempre detto, vedetela come una cupola mafiosa al cui interno le famiglie a volte stringono accordi e a volte si accoltellano alle spalle. Il messaggio di Dimon è chiaro: “Se non volete perdere quel poco che vi resta ancora, farete come diciamo e approverete le leggi che vi diremo di approvare. Potrete tenervi le vostre ricchezze, potrete ricevere contratti di ricostruzione in Ucraina o altrove, verrete pagati. Però voterete a favore di qualsiasi cosa vi diremo di votare quando l'amministrazione Trump proporrà leggi in materia fiscale, commerciale, tagli agli sprechi, ecc. Adesso lavorate per noi. Siete asset americani adesso. Non volete? Bene, ci sarà qualcuno che vi rimpiazzerà... ma voi verrete distrutti così come le vostre famiglie”. È così che funziona questo gioco. Questa gente, quindi, verrà richiamata “all'ordine” fino a quando la cricca di Davos si ritroverà che nessuno dagli USA risponderà più alle sue chiamate. Sono queste le vere conseguenze dell'elezione di Trump.

Da questo punto di vista la carta vincente è stata senza dubbio la scelta di Musk di comprare Twitter. Per quanto si sia rivelato, nel breve termine, una scelta economicamente negativa (visto che ci sta perdendo soldi), si sta invece rivelando una scelta economicamente vantaggiosa per il lungo periodo. Twitter, ormai X, ha rappresentato una breccia nelle vie di comunicazioni della cricca di Davos, la quale ha visto aumentare il costo delle menzogne. In particolar modo dopo la questione Twitter files. Vogliamo poi parlare di come Starlink abbia funzionato come un mezzo attraverso il quale le persone nelle zone di guerra hanno potuto inviare video e quindi scavalcare quelle notizie fuorvianti date dai media generalisti?

Questo è un tipo di mentalità che è stata venduta egregiamente da Trump e amplificata da Musk. Inutile dire che il mio intero libro è permeato dalla necessità di spiegare questa filosofia, perché sarà cruciale nel futuro prossimo, soprattutto per gli USA. I “troppo grandi per fallire”, la cricca di Davos e le sue sfere d'influenza, adesso sono “troppo grandi da tenere in piedi”.

Infatti, sulla scia della vittoria di Trump, quegli “strumenti” che la cricca di Davos ha usato per modificare usi/costumi della società e seminare il controllo capillare di cui aveva bisogno per sedimentare la propria influenza, si sono spuntati. La cultura woke sta esalando i suoi ultimi respiri, così come tutto quel perbenismo e politically correct che ha permeato negli ultimi anni il mondo LGBT, per non parlare dell'abominio rappresentato dalla sessualizzazione precoce dei bambini. Lo stesso destino attende i criteri ESG, già in dismissione da parte di Wall Street da un po' di tempo. Altrettanto “curioso”, poi, è l'implosione del governo tedesco e dell'azienda ucraina Ukrenergo legata a doppio filo all'UE tramite la Banca europea per la ricostruzione e lo sviluppo. Perché è importante? Perché può rappresentare una potenziale LTCM dei giorni nostri. Se lo scorso luglio c'era ancora tempo per concedere una moratoria all'Ucraina per il rimborso dei suoi prestiti, adesso l'orologio sta ticchettando più forte. Come ho detto anche in precedenza, non mi sorprenderebbe vedere istituti finanziari che come asset hanno titoli ucraini (sia sovrani che non). L'eurodollaro è prosciugato e gli USA si apprestano a mettere ordine anche dal lato fiscale dell'equazione, quindi i pasti gratis per Bruxelles sono destinati a diminuire drasticamente.

CONCLUSIONE

Come Buffett, è opportuno essere pronti per un periodo di caos finanziario. Il Trend primario è sceso; potrebbe durare per molti anni. Con il calo dei prezzi degli asset è inevitabile che si verifichino delle crisi. Non è necessario fare alcuna previsione, basta solo vedere che le azioni sono costose. L'indice S&P ha un rapporto CAPE di 35+, il doppio del prezzo medio delle azioni, storicamente nel 97° percentile. Ciò suggerisce che i prezzi delle azioni potrebbero scendere della metà, solo per tornare a un intervallo “normale”.

Il rapporto Dow/oro ci dice che le azioni hanno ancora molta strada da fare per scendere. Il rapporto è solitamente intorno a 10; ora è 16,5. Le azioni dovranno perdere circa il 40% del loro valore per tornare alla media. Ma i mercati non si spostano semplicemente alla “media” e ci rimangono. Passano da prezzi troppo alti a prezzi troppo bassi... e viceversa. In questo momento le azioni sono destinate a una fase di ribasso di portata sconosciuta, ma poiché le banche centrali hanno spinto l'ultimo Trend primario all'estremo, e poiché ora sembra che stiano spingendo all'estremo opposto, il prossimo periodo di caos dovrebbe essere decisamente pronunciato.

Il modello Dow/oro ci dice di restare in “modalità sicurezza” finché il rapporto non scende a 5 o meno (quando si può acquistare l'intera lista di 30 azioni Dow Jones per l'equivalente di 5 once d'oro). A quel punto sarà il momento di seguire il consiglio di Buffett e “giocare all'attacco mentre gli altri si dannano per sopravvivere”. Ma per questi aspetti c'è sempre il servizio di consulenza del blog a cui potete rivolgervi.

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

Ricordo a tutti i lettori che su Amazon potete acquistare il mio nuovo libro, “Il Grande Default”: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DJK1J4K9 

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Mark Jeftovic

All'inizio di quest'anno, dopo aver digerito una brusca correzione dopo le approvazioni degli ETF, Bitcoin ha raggiunto un nuovo massimo storico, il che è stato anomalo, perché l'halving doveva ancora arrivare. Nei cicli passati i nuovi massimi storici non venivano raggiunti fino a dopo l'halving, come minimo qualche mese dopo.

Questa volta ne è arrivato uno nuovo (in realtà due consecutivi) prima dell'halving, ma il prezzo si è subito ritirato e fino a poco tempo fa BTC stava oscillando lateralmente in una banda che i bitcoiner hanno chiamato “chopsolidation”.

L'oro, da parte sua, aveva mostrato un andamento simile, anche se su onde più lunghe. Quando il metallo giallo ha segnato un nuovo massimo storico a dicembre 2023, ho guardato la dinamica su DollarCollapse.

Dal massimo dell'oro nel 1980 a $800/oz, ci sono voluti 28 anni per raggiungerne un altro. Una volta entrato nell'era post-Grande crisi finanziaria, ha avuto diverse difficoltà: ogni nuovo massimo storico preannunciava un possibile ritiro e consolidamento pluriennale. Quando l'oro ha raggiunto il picco nel 2011 dopo la sua corsa post-Grande crisi finanziaria, ha segnato l'inizio di una fase di “chopsolidation” durata più di un decennio.

Ci sono voluti più di otto anni affinché l'oro superasse il massimo storico del 2011 e più di tre anni perché ci riuscisse di nuovo alla fine del 2023.

Nel 2024 l'oro ha cambiato marcia, facendo registrare una serie di nuovi massimi storici (ben oltre trenta volte ormai) e si trova in un mercato rialzista indiscusso (e comunque non supererà i massimi storici del 1980 in termini di aggiustamento all'inflazione fino a quando non raggiungerà quota $3.000 l'oncia).

L'oro è entrato in modalità “Solo su”.

E ora, catalizzato dalla storica e schiacciante vittoria delle elezioni americane, anche Bitcoin è entrato in modalità “Solo su”.

Dopo aver raggiunto un nuovo massimo storico subito dopo la conclusione della campagna elettorale, da allora ha continuato a farne registrare di nuovi, tra cui uno appena sotto gli $81.000 mentre scrivo questo articolo.

I trader più astuti, che hanno cercato di prevedere il momento giusto per investire in oro o Bitcoin, avrebbero potuto fare bene a vendere nei momenti di massimo e riacquistare nei momenti di calo, e per un po' di tempo ciò avrebbe funzionato.

Il problema è che, se l'oro e Bitcoin si trovano in mercati rialzisti, a un certo punto questi movimenti ciclici o subciclici cambiano ritmo: nuovi massimi storici iniziano ad arrivare a intervalli più brevi, per non parlare dei consolidamenti pluriennali o mensili, finiamo con nuovi massimi ogni tot. settimane o giorni, oppure, data la velocità con cui si muovono i mercati delle criptovalute, ogni tot. ore.

Una volta che ciò accade, siamo in modalità “Solo su”.

Nonostante l'animosità tra la folla “oro contro Bitcoin” (come ho sempre detto, sono un tipo da “oro e Bitcoin”, anche se da molto tempo sono più sbilanciato su Bitcoin che sull'oro) entrambi gli asset sono entrati in suddetta modalità.

Mentre in passato non c'era molta correlazione, nel 2024 quella tra Bitcoin e oro ha iniziato ad avvicinarsi; ecco un grafico che utilizza la media mobile a 10 settimane, anche se bisogna ammettere che c'è volatilità (quella dopo le elezioni ne è un buon esempio).

Ma nel complesso questi due asset ci stanno dicendo la stessa cosa: l'era della moneta fiat sta per concludersi.

È troppo tardi per prendere posizione?

Molte persone osservano la crescita senza precedenti di Bitcoin e pensano che sia troppo tardi per cogliere il lato positivo di questa operazione.

Utilizzo questa frase per un motivo: come ho sottolineato per anni, Bitcoin non è uno trade, ma un  cambiamento di paradigma monetario.

E il parametro di riferimento che utilizzo per valutare a che punto siamo nel processo (siamo in anticipo o è troppo tardi?) è la capitalizzazione del mercato obbligazionario globale rispetto a quella di Bitcoin:

Accanto a questi livelli di debito davvero sbalorditivi, abbiamo il mercato obbligazionario globale: $120.000 miliardi (di cui circa $15.000 miliardi hanno un rendimento negativo) e l'offerta M2 degli USA è nell'intervallo dei $20.000 miliardi.

Per comprendere il Great Reset, immaginate i $120.000 miliardi in obbligazioni e tutta la massa monetaria M2 come enormi palloncini, i cui steli sono collegati a un marchingegno dall'aspetto steampunk che aspira l'aria da questi due palloncini e la pompa fuori dall'altra estremità in palloncini molto più piccoli su cui c'è scritto “Oro” e “Bitcoin”. L'ultima parte di questo esercizio è ricordare una cosa: non prestare attenzione ai numeri (il “valore nominale”) sui palloncini Bond e M2.

Ciò che bisogna davvero tenere sotto controllo è il flusso d'aria da sinistra a destra.

Questo flusso d’aria è chiamato “potere d’acquisto”.

Il nostro obiettivo è quello di creare ricchezza e accumulare asset all'interno dei palloncini in espansione sul lato destro. Ciò che stiamo vivendo come enormi bolle dei prezzi degli asset soddisfa tutte le definizioni di ciò che gli economisti della Scuola Austriaca chiamano “Crack Up Boom”.

Si tratta di un volo globale fuori dai palloncini dalla parte sbagliata della storia. In realtà si tratta dei primi brontolii di un evento iperinflazionistico mondiale, uno che colpirà tutte le valute nazionali, capovolgerà il sistema monetario globale, sostituirà lo status di valuta di riserva mondiale del dollaro, eliminerà il contante e sposterà il mondo intero lungo un nuovo ordine monetario.

Naturalmente all'epoca in cui scrivevo questa cosa, circolavano obbligazioni con rendimento negativo  per circa $20.000 miliardi a fronte di una capitalizzazione di mercato totale di $100.000 miliardi.

Ora sembra che le obbligazioni stiano prendendo la direzione opposta: nonostante i tagli dei tassi da parte della FED, i rendimenti stanno salendo, e questo è un problema per la gigantesca bolla del debito.

Bitcoin è ora un asset da $1.500 miliardi e le obbligazioni sono ancora 100 volte più grandi, ciononostante hanno iniziato a essere considerate “rischio senza rendimento”. Le obbligazioni sono un “morto che cammina”.

Non sto dicendo che ci sarà un esodo da queste ultime e che $120.000 miliardi in titoli sovrani e aziendali finiranno in Bitcoin.

Ma vedo che gli allocatori stanno riducendo la loro ponderazione e potrei vedere il 10% o il 20% delle obbligazioni spostate su altri asset; se anche il 10% di questa percentuale cerca di entrare in BTC, ciò si tradurrà in altri $1.200 miliardi in entrata.

Il grande salto

Abbiamo attraversato un cambiamento di fase, in cui in passato gli allocatori di asset avrebbero affrontato un rischio reale per quanto riguarda la loro carriera se avessero allocato risorse in Bitcoin. È qualcosa che è stato inaugurato da miliardari anticonformisti ed eccentrici, fondamentalmente persone come Stan Druckenmiller, Paul Tudor Jones o Bill Miller, i quali gestiscono i propri fondi e hanno già abbastanza influenza da non doversi preoccupare di rispondere a nessuno.

Ora invece se avete un ruolo come gestore di fondi, un family office, o un fiduciario, finite sotto torchio se non investite in Bitcoin. Da oltre un anno lo definisco “il mantra dell'1%” e lo stiamo vedendo concretizzarsi.

????????It started with a 0.1% allocation to Bitcoin by the Wisconsin pension fund.

????????Then it escalated with a 3% allocation by a British Pension fund...

????Who will be the next shoe to drop and how big will their allocation be?

The $72 trillion pension fund… pic.twitter.com/5mTG0oxvDq

— Luke Mikic⚡️???????????????? 9-5 Escape Artist (@LukeMikic21) November 10, 2024

Ora che siamo alle prese con la valanga di voti per Trump (e improvvisamente essere un negazionista elettorale è accettabile), è significativo notare che nessuno dei due candidati ha mai parlato del debito galoppante e dei deficit in aumento, e tanto meno di affrontarli come parte del proprio programma elettorale.

Questo è l'elefante nella stanza e nessuno se ne sta occupando, perché è irrisolvibile. L'unica linea d'azione è quella di gonfiare il debito e distruggere la valuta: quale? Tutte.

Ecco perché il semplice atto di “partire da zero”, da qualsiasi importo, e poi integrarlo con acquisti regolari (un approccio basato sul costo medio del dollaro) — $100 al mese, $5 a settimana, ecc. — vi posizionerà in uno strato socio-economico completamente diverso da chi non avrà alcun bitcoin quando il cambio di paradigma monetario finalmente arriverà. A quel punto si instaurerà una sorta di apartheid monetario di fatto.

Siamo alle battute finali di questo gioco.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

Ricordo a tutti i lettori che su Amazon potete acquistare il mio nuovo libro, “Il Grande Default”: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DJK1J4K9 

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Tom Luongo

C'è un momento grandioso in Mad Max: Fury Road in cui i protagonisti si avvicinano a una donna nuda incatenata a una torre e Max pronuncia una delle sue quattordici battute in tutto il film: “Quella è un'esca!”. Questa è una metafora dell'intero panorama mediatico nell'era dei social media.

Da quando Trump ha vinto, i soliti noti hanno gettato in mare ogni possibile cattiva idea per scoraggiare e indebolire quella vittoria. È tutto un'esca!

Non erano passate nemmeno 24 ore dal discorso di resa delle armi di Kamala Harris, una copia carbone di quello pronunciato da Hillary Clinton nel 2016, prima che le acque venissero pasturate di fronte ai libertari affinché iniziassero a scatenarsi con gli slogan per porre fine alla FED.

Kamala Harris said the word “fight” 20 times in her concessions speech.

20 times. I counted.

She also said “and we will continue to wage the fight… in the public square”.

Impeach her. Their rules, not mine.#ImpeachKamala pic.twitter.com/tqJ0IkB0j0

— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) November 6, 2024

Jerome Powell è stato costretto a rispondere a una domanda durante la conferenza stampa all'ultima riunione del FOMC circa le sue dimissioni, qualora gli venissero chieste dal presidente Trump.

Powell ha “chiuso la porta” a tutto questo con una sola parola: “No”.

A quel punto tutti sono rimasti scioccati nello scoprire che il presidente della FED non può essere rimosso perché al Presidente della nazione non piace. Lo stesso vale per i giudici della Corte Suprema, per esempio. Questa è politica, gente, non filosofia. Non approvo la situazione, voglio solo sottolineare che coloro che hanno ripetuto a pappagallo “End the FED” da quando Ron Paul si è candidato nel 2008 avrebbero dovuto saperlo.

Quindi, dati questi presupposti, si deve concludere che si tratta della più sporca delle linee di politica sporche, progettata per creare divisioni all'interno della cerchia dei sostenitori MAGA, in un momento in cui dovremmo unirci sulle giuste questioni, dotare la nuova amministrazione di personale, discutere quali dipartimenti tagliare, come finanziare il debito.

In altre parole dovremmo essere noi a dettare il ritmo, anziché reagire di fronte a chi è più vulnerabile a un governo statunitense e a una Federal Reserve che lavorano insieme per difendere la sovranità degli Stati Uniti.

Per più di un anno vi ho detto che ci sarebbero stati due grandi obiettivi nel mirino dei democratici in questa tornata elettorale: Jerome Powell ed Elon Musk.

Powell è il nemico pubblico numero uno per la sua politica monetaria restrittiva, cosa di cui tutti gli Austriaci dovrebbero rallegrarsi piuttosto che inventare argomenti sempre più torbidi su un “QE nascosto”. Per i pensatori sistemici, avere un diagramma di flusso a un livello su qualcosa di così importante e pertinente come la politica monetaria è, francamente, un aspetto piuttosto patetico.

Musk concorre ora con Powell per il primo posto nell'elenco delle cartoline di auguri della cricca di Davos, a causa del modo in cui Twitter e Starlink hanno messo a dura prova il loro motore di creazione delle narrative.

Tornando a Powell, sin dalla crisi bancaria del marzo 2023, da lui fomentata per ragioni politiche e a metà della quale ha rialzato i tassi d'interesse, solo per assicurarsi che tutti quelli che contavano ricevessero il fottuto promemoria, ho smesso di arrabbiarmi nei confronti di Elizabeth Warren e ho iniziato a ridere di lei.

Ha inviato lettere severe chiedendo alla FED di riabbassare i tassi d'interesse a ogni riunione del FOMC, cercando di alimentare la polemica sulla FED. E non era per dare sollievo a qualcuno, ma per aiutare i democratici a vincere le elezioni e allentare la morsa mortale che la linea di politica di Powell “higher for longer” aveva sui mercati dei capitali europei.

Ma grazie a questa domanda sciocca posta da un giovane collaboratore di Politico, ora la “sinistra woke” e la “destra woke” si vedono derubate di ciò che restava dei vecchi cartelli bancari che entrambe credono di dover combattere.

Se non fosse così dannatamente importante, starei già ridendo.

Poi è toccato all'esca lanciata ai conservatori su persone come Mike Pompeo e Nikki Haley. Il segnale più forte che Trump avrebbe probabilmente vinto a valanga è stato il blob dell'intelligence che ha fatto circolare la voce settimane fa che Trump amasse ancora Pompeo e che quest'ultimo stesse già annusando il posto di Segretario di Stato o della Difesa.

Era un'esca, gente! E Trump l'ha segnalata in quanto tale dopo un paio di giorni. Avrebbe dovuto zittirla prima, ma chi sono io per dare consigli al Maestro della Finestra di Overton su queste questioni?

BREAKING: President Trump clarifies that he will not be inviting Amb Nikki Haley and Sec Mike Pompeo into his next administration. pic.twitter.com/ZypWqhGr5v

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 9, 2024

Anche la Haley non era sulla sua lista. Trump la odia. Ora ha le porte spalancate per una carriera nei fast food.

Infatti sapete che Trump odia Marco Rubio tanto quanto la Haley perché credo alle voci secondo cui egli potrebbe diventare Segretario di Stato.

In quale altro modo si potrebbe far uscire dal Senato “Little Marco” e sostituirlo con qualcuno che lavorerà con Trump, piuttosto che contro di lui, sulla grande legislazione che deve essere approvata nel 2025?

Promuovetelo, tenetelo al guinzaglio per quanto riguarda le riforme e fatelo fare il pavone sulla Cina. E se non fa quello che gli viene chiesto? “Sei licenziato!”

E se mi sbaglio e Rubio sarà solo l'ennesima esca per i neocon, allora Masal Tov! Oi vey.

Quelle voci su Mike Rogers a capo della CIA e tutto il resto che avete visto... sono tutte esche. Tutti tentativi di inondare l'etere di cattive informazioni e creare spaccature tra i più grandi sostenitori di Trump e lui stesso.

Se a questo punto del gioco non riuscite a cogliere i tentativi britannici di divide et impera, forse siete solo dei pessimi giocatori.

Ci è voluta la fuga di notizie di una votazione segreta organizzata dal leader uscente della maggioranza del Senato, Mitch McConnell, per far finalmente capire alla gente fino a che punto il sistema immunitario burocratico sta lottando contro la chemioterapia rappresentata dalla vittoria di Trump.

Se Marjorie Taylor Greene contribuirà a impedire a John Cornyn di diventare il nostro leader al Senato, ritirerò la maggior parte delle cattiverie che ho detto su di lei.

La maggior parte, almeno...

Scandalo a Berlino

La vittoria di Trump ha causato un terremoto politico a Berlino: il crollo del governo tedesco dopo che il cancelliere Olaf Scholz ha cercato di soddisfare una richiesta di denaro sull'Ucraina. Il ministro delle finanze dell'FDP, Christian Lindner, ha rifiutato di approvare altri €6 miliardi all'Ucraina. Ma la Germania è a corto di soldi in questo anno fiscale e doveva andare al Bundestag, così Scholz lo ha licenziato e Lindner ha tirato fuori l'FDP dalla coalizione.

Ora la situazione in Germania è una di quelle che solitamente vediamo solo nei luoghi colpiti da rivoluzioni colorate.

Sono così disperati nel tentativo di mantenere il potere che ora ci viene offerta l'ennesima fantasia dei “Separatisti sassoni”, tutti e tre, come ragione per bandire Alternativa per la Germania (AfD) e impedirgli di partecipare alle prossime elezioni anticipate.

Questa è un'altra esca per i tedeschi. Anche se il divieto non funzionasse, toglierebbe un paio di punti ai totali nazionali dell'AfD, ma queste sono solo ritirate tattiche. Non è una vittoria, è più un tentativo di non perdere subito.

Il cambiamento culturale e demografico contro questa follia globalista è già avvenuto.

Stiamo osservando il vecchio ordine politico in Germania, tenuto insieme in precedenza dal pugno di ferro di Angela Merkel, andare in pezzi. L'idea che i tedeschi avrebbero votato per annichilirsi a causa della loro colpa collettiva non si è mai concretizzata.

A un certo punto la classe industriale tedesca avrebbe fatto sentire la sua presenza. La vittoria di Trump probabilmente ha catalizzato questo sentimento recondito.

L'intero progetto della cricca di Davos si basava sull'uso dell'impronta generazionale della popolazione del dopoguerra per fabbricare realtà politiche in contrasto con i loro interessi personali. Ma questo pone un limite temporale a un tale progetto: doveva materializzarsi prima che le generazioni che avevano combattuto la seconda guerra mondiale, e che erano cresciute nella fase di ricostruzione, si sarebbero estinte.

Ad esempio, per i tedeschi era la loro vergogna collettiva nei confronti di Hitler. Per il Giappone era la vergogna di essere stati bombardati dagli americani. Per l'America era alimentare la nostra autosufficienza e trasformarla in autocompiacimento.

Come ha sottolineato Howard Lutnick su CNBC qualche mese fa, abbiamo ricalibrato queste persone attraverso il nostro dominio e consentito loro di imporre dazi sui nostri beni per rigenerare le loro economie locali. Tali dazi sono ancora in vigore ed è tempo di rimuoverli negoziando accordi migliori per tutti.

Ma il cambiamento demografico è avvenuto. Lo abbiamo visto nelle elezioni in Germania lo scorso settembre, quando AfD ha visto enorme consenso tra i 18-29enni. La stessa cosa è accaduta in Grecia in seguito allo smantellamento del Paese da parte della Germania/UE dopo le sue molteplici crisi del debito sovrano.

Negli USA i giovani si stanno allontanando dai boomer. Anche i millennial stanno finalmente realizzando i loro desideri di autenticità, dopo essere sopravvissuti a tre fallimenti nazionali nel corso della loro vita: Millennium bug, Lehman Bros. e COVID-19.

Ciò ha permesso alla Generazione X di affermarsi finalmente e di ottenere il risultato di cui il mondo aveva bisogno.

Quindi, per favore gente: esultate per la vittoria e chiudete Twitter per qualche giorno. Vogliono che siate ansiosi e spaventati. È tutto ciò che gli è rimasto. Abbiamo appena detto loro che non vogliamo ciò che stanno offrend,o o che non abbiamo bisogno di ciò che ci hanno venduto

Fidatevi un po' del risultato che avete ottenuto. Questa non è la stessa storia del 2016.

La fiducia nei media generalisti non solo è crollata, ma ha ormai raggiunto la sua fase terminale. Abbiamo appena rotto le sue vie di comunicazione, perché mai dovremmo volerle vedere riparate dando credibilità alla loro volgarità?

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

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Ricordo a tutti i lettori che su Amazon potete acquistare il mio nuovo libro, “Il Grande Default”: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DJK1J4K9 

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Jane Johnson

P. T. Barnum avrebbe dichiarato che “ogni minuto nasce un babbeo”, anche se  non ci sono prove  che lo abbia effettivamente detto. Che sia vero ai tempi di Barnum o nell'era odierna dei social media, l'aforisma descrive coloro che sono abbastanza creduloni da credere a qualsiasi cosa, anche quando il buon senso (se ne possiedono uno) suggerisce loro il contrario.

Circola una storia su TikTok, dove il 40% dei giovani adulti si informa in questi giorni: video immortalano persone che credono di poter ottenere denaro “gratis” dagli sportelli automatici della Chase Bank. Questi video mostrano persone che depositano assegni per grandi somme di denaro agli sportelli automatici della Chase e poi effettuavano prelievi per importi più piccoli, ciononostante sostanziali, portando a credere di aver scoperto un problema informatico di cui approfittare. Un video visualizzato oltre 100.000 volte mostra una giovane donna che chiama sua madre e le dice che potrebbe ottenere da $40.000 a $50.000 dal suo conto Chase depositando un assegno e sfruttando il “problema”.

La Chase normalmente consente ai clienti di prelevare una parte degli assegni depositati prima che l'importo totale dell'assegno venga liquidato, ma un errore tecnico ha consentito ai clienti di prelevare tutti i fondi da un assegno prima che fosse liquidato. La Chase afferma che questo errore è perdurato per alcuni giorni prima di essere rapidamente risolto.

Se sembra una frode, lo è. In passato simili schemi venivano chiamati “check-kiting”, quando qualcuno sfruttava il saldo attivo della banca per utilizzare fondi inesistenti. È illegale sia per legge statale che federale da molti anni. Il check-kiting è molto meno comune oggi rispetto al passato, non perché i clienti delle banche siano più rispettosi della legge, ma perché il tempo trascorso dal deposito dell'assegno alla sua approvazione si è notevolmente ridotto nel tempo.

Il bank float potrebbe offrire l'opportunità di fare check-kiting

In passato un assegno cartaceo da $100 emesso da una banca di New York City, ad esempio, e poi depositato in una banca di San Francisco, poteva impiegare da tre a cinque giorni via treno per raggiungere la banca di New York per l'accredito e l'incasso, e talvolta anche di più, a seconda delle condizioni di trasporto e meteorologiche. Durante questo processo di autorizzazione dell'assegno, i $100 comparivano nei conti sia di chi firmava l'assegno che del destinatario.

La banca di San Francisco poteva accreditare sul conto del destinatario i $100 prima che l'assegno venisse effettivamente incassato dalla banca di New York. Ciò offriva al titolare del conto della banca di San Francisco l'opportunità di utilizzare fondi che in realtà non possedeva ancora. Questo spiega perché le banche molti anni fa si sono rese conto della necessità di bloccare la disponibilità di fondi per impedire il check-kiting.

Questo lasso di tempo tra il deposito dell'assegno presso la banca del destinatario e la sua approvazione presso la banca che lo emetteva è chiamato “bank float” e i $100 venivano conteggiati due volte durante tale periodo. Quando l'ufficio postale statunitense ha aggiornato il suo servizio dal trasporto ferroviario a quello aereo, il bank float è diminuito in modo significativo, ma è comunque rimasto.

Storicamente la maggior parte del check-kiting si verificava tra banche nella stessa città o nelle vicinanze, come nel caso dei video di TikTok. In questo caso esiste il bank float, sebbene il tempo di compensazione trascorso sia molto più breve rispetto a quello nell'esempio New York-San Francisco.

Per ridurre ulteriormente il bank float, nel 2003 il Congresso ha approvato e il Presidente George Bush ha firmato la  legge Check 21 che ha ulteriormente ridotto sia i tempi di compensazione degli assegni sia la possibilità di check-kiting. Questa legge ha apportato numerose modifiche all'elaborazione degli assegni: ora tutte le compensazioni degli assegni vengono effettuate elettronicamente, la maggior parte di essi viene compensata durante la notte, gli assegni originali non vengono più trasportati fisicamente da una banca all'altra e i clienti della banca non ricevono più regolarmente i loro assegni annullati con i loro estratti conto mensili.

Le valute digitali delle banche centrali (CBDC) potrebbero prevenire le frodi legate al check-kiting?

Il sistema di pagamento tramite assegno bancario è sopravvissuto per molti decenni, ma il volume di emissione è diminuito significativamente negli ultimi anni, poiché le carte di credito e di debito, così come i sistemi di pagamento per l'e-commerce, hanno guadagnato popolarità e accettazione tra le transazioni aziendali e personali. In seguito al miglioramento della compensazione degli assegni derivante dalla legislazione Check 21 del 2003, le banche distrettuali Federal Reserve hanno ridotto il numero dei loro uffici di elaborazione degli assegni cartacei da quarantacinque nel 2003 a un solo nel 2010.

Ora i Paesi di tutto il mondo stanno iniziando a prendere in considerazione le valute digitali delle banche centrali (CBDC). Se implementata negli Stati Uniti, una CBDC renderebbe tutti clienti della Federal Reserve, un accordo radicalmente diverso da quanto mai visto in questo Paese perché essa non ha mai svolto il ruolo di banca per il pubblico. Una CBDC creerebbe conti bancari presso la FED per ogni americano.

La tesi a favore delle CBDC è che funzionano in modo simile alle valute fiat, aggiungendo alcuni vantaggi della valuta digitale o crittografica. Ad oggi solo quattro CBDC (Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Bahamas e Giamaica) sono state inaugurate ufficialmente, anche se molte altre sono in fase di pilotaggio o sviluppo.

Alcuni sostengono che le CBDC potrebbero aiutare nella prevenzione delle frodi. Una proposta prevede di rilasciare fondi dai pagamenti solo dopo che siano stati soddisfatti criteri specifici. A parte rallentarli, imporre blocchi sulla disponibilità di credito e migliorare l'autenticazione, finora non è stata introdotta alcuna soluzione semplice ed efficace. Le preoccupazioni sulla privacy, inoltre, continuano a perseguitare la discussione sulle CBDC, poiché la banca centrale di una nazione sarebbe a conoscenza dei modelli di spesa di tutti.

Risoluzione del problema evidenziato dai video su TikTok

Pochi istanti dopo la diffusione del video su TikTok, la Chase Bank ha avvisato i clienti e il pubblico in generale che la truffa del denaro facile non era un glitch, ma piuttosto una frode pura e semplice, e che i responsabili sarebbero stati perseguiti con la massima severità della legge. La Chase continua a  indagare sulla truffa e sull'entità delle sue perdite, ma non ha rilasciato altre notizie a parte l'annuncio che l'errore è stato corretto. Quindi la storia potrebbe rimanere semplicemente l'ennesimo esempio del vecchio adagio “se sembra troppo bello per essere vero, quasi sicuramente lo è”, una lezione che la generazione di TikTok dovrà imparare prima o poi.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

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Two days after Donald Trump became the first American since Grover Cleveland to win nonconsecutive presidential elections, the Federal Reserve announced a quarter percent cut in interest rates. Following this announcement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell held a press conference where he said that he would not comply with any presidential request that he step down before his term ends in May of 2026.

Powell claimed that the president lacks the legal authority to fire the Fed chairman. So, if President Trump tells Chairman Powell “you’re fired,” Powell could bring suit asking a court to review Trump’s action.

President Trump and Chairman Powell are at odds over President Trump’s desire to require the Federal Reserve to consult with the president before changing interest rates or taking other significant actions. Powell is likely to do all he can to convince Congress to reject any legislation giving the president any type of official role in setting monetary policy. After all, Chairman Powell is so protective of Fed autonomy that he opposes auditing the Fed on the grounds that it could threaten the Fed’s independence, even though there is nothing in the Audit the Fed legislation giving the president or Congress any new authority over the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy.

Requiring the Fed to consult with the president regarding monetary policy would likely increase price inflation and dollar devaluation. Politicians usually like low interest rates because they associate low rates with economic growth. Politicians also want the Fed to keep rates low so the federal government can keep racking up huge amounts of debt. Without a central bank that is ready, willing, and able to monetize the federal debt, the welfare-warfare state would not exist.

Despite the claims of Chairman Powell and other central bank apologists, the Fed has never been free of political pressure. Presidents were trying to influence the Federal Reserve long before Donald Trump began posting “mean tweets” about Jerome Powell. Requiring the Fed to consult with the president would at least make the president’s efforts to influence monetary policy open and transparent.

President Trump and other Fed critics such as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren think they are more capable of determining the “correct” interest rate than the Fed. This ignores the fact that interest rates are the price of money and like all prices are shaped by a variety of constantly changing factors. When the Fed manipulates interest rates, it distorts the signals sent to investors. The result is the boom- bust business cycle. The fiat system is also responsible for rising income inequality and the decline of the dollar’s purchasing power, which has lowered most Americans’ standard of living.

President Trump should work to eliminate the need for the Fed to keep interest rates low. He can do this by fighting for massive spending cuts, starting with the military-industrial complex. He should also push Congress to pass the Audit the Fed bill. Additionally, President Trump should support legalizing all competing currencies. The forthcoming tax bill should include a provision exempting precious metals and cryptocurrencies from capital gains taxes. The key to making America great again is to make money free again.

The post Make Money Free Again appeared first on LewRockwell.