GOV/MIL Main "Great Reset" Thread

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(Twitter Grab Bag)

(EU)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1557024983955668992
1:34 min

(Fourth Industrial Revolution)

Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister talks about the 4th Industrial revolution, outlining how Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum is the "premier forum for bringing and co-ordinating the work of public and private sectors together" (date: 2015)
View: https://youtu.be/3d3LYlktDbM
1:29 min

(Netherlands)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1557045609919651846
1:01 min

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(US)
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1557105784798040065
.34 min
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Climate Fears Weaponized Against Farmers (and soon you)

By Chris Martenson on
Tuesday, July 26th, 2022

The governments of Holland and Canada have decided that this moment in time – full of disruption and imminent global food shortages – is the perfect time to crack down on… farmers? Because of…climate change?

Yes, that’s correct. This situation is as comical as it is insensible and ridiculous.

The target is fertilizers and the methods are rules and diktats emitted by political technocrats who apparently have zero understanding of farming or empathy for farmers.

The reason given is “climate change” but the targeted emission which is nitric oxide is at most 7% of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions. Of that, 40% comes from agriculture, and the plans that call for reducing 30% (Canada) to 50% or more (Holland) of fertilizer use will have a negligible impact on climate change gas emissions but a HUGE impact on farm yields and profitability.

After all, even if the whole world joined in, the math would be 7% x 40% x 30% = 0.84% reduction. That’s right a less than 1% reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions, but an extraordinary burden placed directly upon farmers who are being asked to shoulder the entire burden (“for the greater good – same as getting four jabs!”) of the effort. Just farmers directly, and the rest of us later in the form of explosively higher food prices. Again, nothing is being asked of far more obvious, and frivolously wasteful polluters and emitters. The symbolism is stomach-turning.

Meanwhile, these same leaders, Trudeau in Canada and Rutte in Holland, say nothing at all about other obvious and symbolically important targets such as private jets or mega yachts. Nor do they criticize the largest polluter China, whose own emission increases utterly dwarf any putative savings that might result from slamming farmers.

In other words, at the very best, the actions of Trudeau and Rutte are performative. At the very worst, they are meant to drive farmers out of business so that the actual peers and allies of these WEF-compromised “leaders” can scoop up these valuable properties for pennies on the dollar and place them under corporate agriculture control.

They will use whatever bureaucratic, governmental, media, education, and corporate tools they have to scare us into submission. Thankfully the farmers are having none of it and see through these barely concealed plots with ease.
Information is power.

And We The People need all we can get now.
Video on website 32:06 min
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

August 7, 2022
Biden administration’s farcical climate policies to devastate farmers, exacerbate food shortages
By Eric Utter

There has been much talk of food shortages recently.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Or so say folks like Stephanie Nash, a fourth generation dairy farmer. She and many other farmers are warning that President Biden’s new climate plans will jeopardize our food supply and eventually force many of them out of business. Deliberately.

This at a time when food prices are rapidly rising and food processing plants are rapidly disappearing.

Does it make sense to punish the people who grow our food? Especially when there are already shortages?
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This is not your grandfather’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. If Democrats had integrity, they would drop the “F” and “L” from “DFL.” (And if pigs had wings, they could fly.) A truer acronym for their party would be PEA, for Pandering-Elitist-Authoritarians. The PEA Party has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Fitting.

Democrats are rabidly pro-abortion. Their policies foster violent crime. They tend to favor assisted suicide. And the legalization of even hard and hallucinogenic drugs. They were/are all-in on vaccine mandates. Apparently, they never met a population control measure they didn’t like.

So, it’s not surprising they want to curtail our food supply.

Hell, too many Americans are overweight, anyway, right? Taking meat and dairy away from them will be a blessing in itself. And it will help stop climate change! A twofer!

But farmers are revolting in the Netherlands over some comparable policies.

Perhaps those in Canada and the U.S. will join them soon. This has the makings of an “Atlas Shrugged” situation. Who could blame farmers if they eventually said “the hell with it” and walked away.
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Teachers are often said to be the “real heroes.” But, for my money, the people that work dawn to dusk all year long-- fighting through bad weather to feed us-- trump those who are trying to groom our kids and tell them they should consider switching sexes, while teaching them to hate the United States based on faux history. But maybe that’s just me.

Speaking of bad weather, do you really think farmers would be against policies that would likely dramatically lessen the chance that they would suffer through more droughts, floods, and violent storms? (The global warming hucksters don’t really believe what they’re saying, either, else they wouldn’t continue winging around the world in private jets, buying up coastal and island properties.)

I have a big beef with those who would restrict the raising of livestock-- and the production of crops. The fertilizer that comes spewing out of the mouths of the elite globalist snobs is far less useful—and more toxic—than anything made by C.F. Industries or Monsanto.

So why do so many people purport to support leftist policies that are so obviously and demonstrably damaging? Why do roughly half of Americans vote for hypocritical, condescending buffoons?

Some are just ignorant. (Not the same as stupid.) Many are swept up in groupthink. Others are afraid of the possible consequences of deviating from acceptable thought and action. (Say, didn’t this used to be America? Didn’t we used to be Americans?) In a tragic irony, most of our leaders, and the “experts” pushing these policies, know that these measures will devastate farmers—and regular folks—without helping to alleviate or lessen climate change. Instead, these policies help them to get even richer and consolidate their power.

As I’ve stated here before, you have to give them credit for one thing: they are brilliant at being evil.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

August 8, 2022
Pay attention to what's happening to Dutch livestock farmers
By Andrea Widburg

The beauty of climate change, if you're a wannabe totalitarian, is that, because carbon is one of the building blocks of life, if you control carbon, you control everything. To understand how this works, you must pay attention to what is happening in the Netherlands, where the government is planning to seize 20% of livestock farms, all in the name of climate change.

Holland was once a bastion of liberty on a continent that was subject to total monarchal control and riven by religious wars. It wasn't freedom as we have come to understand it in America, but, after they threw off Spanish control, the Dutch allowed faiths other than Calvinism within their borders. There was a reason the Puritans Pilgrims fled there first, although they eventually wanted the complete freedom the New World offered them for practicing their particular Protestantism. That sturdy, self-sufficient, independent, sort-of-free little nation is gone.

Now, livestock farmers are up in arms because they've finally realized that their government is about to seize their land, all in pursuit of "nitrogen reduction."

We've heard about the protests, but Peter of Sweden is the first person I've seen who breaks down the numbers and explains what's really happening (and it's about power more than "climate change"):

According to calculations done by the Finance ministry, a whopping 11 200 livestock farmers will be forced to shut down by the government to reduce nitrogen emissions in order to meet European environmental rules. Another 17 600 farmers would need to reduce the amount of animals they keep to meet these climate goals.

And this is bad. Because there are about 54 000 farms in the Netherlands, meaning that around 1/5 of all farms will be forced to shut down and almost 1/3 of farms forced to scale down and reduce livestock.

Quite obviously, the government's move will severely constrict food supplies, which are already likely to diminish due to fertilizer shortages resulting from the Ukraine war. I'm assuming that those who complain will be told that they need to learn to eat grasshoppers. The irony is that grasshoppers need to eat, too — and what they eat is the greenery best fed by CO2 and fertilizer.

In addition to setting out the specific numbers, which are appalling, Peter of Sweden applies the correct label to what we're witnessing in Holland (which is also what Canada and Ireland plan to do):

The state is planning on forcing farmers to sell their farms to the state (buying them out). State sanctioned appropriation of farms and land. Now where have I heard about that kind of thing before...? Oh yes, under Communism.

If you control carbon emissions (who can produce them and who cannot), you control everything.

And don't believe that this can't happen here in America. Everything that's occurred in the last not-quite two years falls into the category of "I would never have believed it could happen here." As just one example, would any past government have been insane enough to print more money and raise taxes on the middle class in the middle of a recession?
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The current administration is completely in thrall to the same communist green forces that hold sway in Holland (and Canada and Ireland). They will push through similar mandates by hook or by crook.

I know that many people are so disgusted by what's happening that they don't even want to vote anymore. Why bother? they ask. The fix is already in.
Well, yes, there's a lot of fixing going on. But we are still the voice of the people, and our first stop must be at the ballot box. If we can summon the political will to make every politician in D.C. believe that his seat is unsafe, maybe those people will turn their attention to us, rather than to Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates.
 
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marsh

On TB every waking moment

Smart Farming: The Future of Agriculture

IoT For All
Click here to view IoT For All’s profile

IoT For All
Published Aug 8, 2022

"Smart farming" is an emerging concept that refers to managing farms using technologies like IoT, robotics, drones, and AI to increase the quantity and quality of products while optimizing the human labor required by production.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has provided ways to improve nearly every industry imaginable. In agriculture, IoT has not only provided solutions to often time-consuming and tedious tasks but is totally changing the way we think about agriculture. What exactly is a smart farm, though? Here is a rundown of what smart farming is and how it’s changing agriculture.

What Is a Smart Farm?
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Smart farming refers to managing farms using modern Information and communication technologies to increase the quantity and quality of products while optimizing the human labor required.
Among the technologies available for present-day farmers are:
  • Sensors: soil, water, light, humidity, temperature management
  • Software: specialized software solutions that target specific farm types or applications agnostic IoT platforms
  • Connectivity: cellular, LoRa
  • Location: GPS, Satellite
  • Robotics: Autonomous tractors, processing facilities
  • Data analytics: standalone analytics solutions, data pipelines for downstream solutions
Armed with such tools, farmers can monitor field conditions and make strategic decisions for the whole farm or a single plant without even needing to step foot in the field.

The driving force of smart farming is IoT — connecting machines and sensors integrated on farms to make farming processes data-driven and automated.

The IoT-Based Smart Farming Cycle
The core of IoT is the data you can draw from things and transmit over the internet. To optimize the farming process, IoT devices installed on a farm should collect and process data in a repetitive cycle that enables farmers to react quickly to emerging issues and changes in ambient conditions. Smart farming follows a cycle like this one:

1. Observation. Sensors record observational data from the crops, livestock, soil, or atmosphere.
2. Diagnostics. The sensor values are fed to a cloud-hosted IoT platform with predefined decision rules and models—also called “business logic”—that ascertain the condition of the examined object and identify any deficiencies or needs.
3. Decisions. After issues are revealed, the user, and/or machine learning-driven components of the IoT platform determine whether location-specific treatment is necessary and if so, which.
4. Action. After end-user evaluation and action, the cycle repeats from the beginning.

IoT Solutions to Agricultural Problems
Many believe that IoT can add value to all areas of farming, from growing crops to forestry. While there are several ways that IoT can improve farming, two of the major ways IoT can revolutionize agriculture are precision farming and farming automation.

Precision Farming
Precision farming, or precision agriculture, is an umbrella concept for IoT-based approaches that make farming more controlled and accurate. In simple words, plants and cattle get precisely the treatment they need, determined by machines with superhuman accuracy. The biggest difference from the classical approach is that precision farming allows decisions to be made per square meter or even per plant/animal rather than for a field.

By precisely measuring variations within a field, farmers can boost the effectiveness of pesticides and fertilizers, or use them selectively.

Precision Livestock Farming
As is the case of precision agriculture, smart farming techniques enable farmers better to monitor the needs of individual animals and to adjust their nutrition accordingly, thereby preventing disease and enhancing herd health.

Large farm owners can use wireless IoT applications to monitor the location, well-being, and health of their cattle. With this information, they can identify sick animals, so that they can be separated from the herd to prevent the spread of disease.

Automation in Smart Greenhouses
Traditional greenhouses control the environmental parameters through manual intervention or a proportional control mechanism, which often results in production loss, energy loss, and increased labor cost.

IoT-driven smart greenhouses can intelligently monitor as well as control the climate, eliminating the need for manual intervention. Various sensors are deployed to measure the environmental parameters according to the specific requirements of the crop. That data is stored in a cloud-based platform for further processing and control with minimal manual intervention.

Agricultural Drones
Agriculture is one of the major verticals to incorporate both ground-based and aerial drones for crop health assessment, irrigation, crop monitoring, crop spraying, planting, soil and field analysis, and other spheres.

Since drones collect multispectral, thermal, and visual imagery while flying, the data they gather provide farmers with insights into a whole array of metrics: plant health indices, plant counting and yield prediction, plant height measurement, canopy cover mapping, field water pond mapping, scouting reports, stockpile measuring, chlorophyll measurement, nitrogen content in wheat, drainage mapping, weed pressure mapping, and so on.

Importantly, IoT-based smart farming doesn’t only target large-scale farming operations; it can add value to emerging trends in agriculture like organic farming, family farming, including breeding particular cattle and/or growing specific cultures, preservation of particular or high-quality varieties, and enhance highly transparent farming to consumers, society and market consciousness.

What’s Next in Smart Farming
Of course, all of these innovations are useless if they are not providing solutions to global problems. Here are two ways that smart farming is going to impact the future for the better.

Third Green Revolution
Smart farming and IoT-driven agriculture are paving the way for what can be called a Third Green Revolution.

Following the plant breeding and genetics revolutions, the Third Green Revolution is taking over agriculture. That revolution draws upon the combined application of data-driven analytics technologies, such as precision farming equipment, IoT, big data analytics, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones), robotics, etc.

In the future, this smart farming revolution depicts that pesticide and fertilizer use will drop while overall efficiency will rise. IoT technologies will enable better food traceability, which in turn will lead to increased food safety. It will also be beneficial for the environment, through, for example, more efficient use of water, or optimization of treatments and inputs.

Therefore, smart farming has a real potential to deliver a more productive and sustainable form of agricultural production, based on a more precise and resource-efficient approach. New farms will finally realize the eternal dream of mankind. It’ll feed our population, which may explode to 9.6 billion by 2050.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(Europe)


Europe's Energy Crisis Spills Over Into Food

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 12:30 AM
By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com,

Excessively high energy prices in Europe are pushing up the prices of everything that energy is used for, including food—a trend that will likely feed further inflation.

In a report on the topic, Bloomberg noted that the inflation in the UK is seen topping 13 percent this year, with a third of households having to spend over 10 percent of their income on energy.

In continental Europe, things are not much different as gas prices break record after record.

“Whether it’s roasting coffee or making sugar from beets, companies are so far only talking about the increase in raw materials,” Kona Haque, head of research for commodities firm ED&F Man, told Bloomberg. “I think the worst is still to come as energy prices rise. This winter will be a game changer and processing costs will likely go up.”

“We are now beyond the limits of affordability for many industrial users, and we might see recession alarms going off soon,” Rystad Energy senior analyst Kaushal Ramesh told the FT two weeks ago in comments on the latest price surge in natural gas after Russia reduced flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20 percent.

Indeed, the Bloomberg report notes that excessive energy prices are forcing some vegetable oil producers to relocate their production outside Europe in search of lower energy costs.

It could get worse for food prices, too, if Europe has to resort to energy rationing in case of a shortage of natural gas and electricity in the winter. According to the Bloomberg report, some food factories may have to be shut down as governments prioritize household energy security.

The food price crunch could be especially painful for Britons, who were this month told by water utilities to switch from showers to wet towel wiping in order to save on water.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(UK)


"Anything But A Cashless Society": Physical Money Makes Comeback As UK Households Battle Inflation

TUESDAY, AUG 09, 2022 - 11:45 PM
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has been pushing hard for a 'cashless society' in a post-pandemic world, though physical money has made a comeback in at least one European country as consumers increasingly use notes and coins to help them balance household budgets amid an inflationary storm.

Britain's Post Office released a report Monday that revealed even though the recent accelerated use of cards and digital payments on smartphones, demand for cash surged this summer, according to The Guardian. It said branches handled £801mln in personal cash withdrawals in July, an increase of 8% over June. The yearly change on last month's figures was up 20% versus the July 2021 figure of £665mln.

Across the Post Office's 11,500 branches, £3.31bln in cash was deposited and withdrawn in July -- a record high for any month dating back over three centuries of operations.

The report pointed out that increasing physical cash demand was primarily due to more people managing their budgets via notes and coins on a "day-by-day basis." It said some withdrawals were from vacationers needing cash for "staycations" in the UK. About 600,000 cash payouts totaling £90mln were from people who received power bill support from the government, the Post Office noted.

Britain is "anything but a cashless society," according to the Post Office's banking director Martin Kearsley.

"We're seeing more and more people increasingly reliant on cash as the tried and tested way to manage a budget. Whether that's for a staycation in the UK or if it's to help prepare for financial pressures expected in the autumn, cash access in every community is critical," Kearsley said.

We noted in February 2021, UK's largest ATM network saw plummeting demand as consumers reduced cash usage. At the time, we asked this question: "How long will the desire for good old-fashioned bank notes last?

... and the answer is not long per the Post Office's new report as The Guardian explains: "inflation going up and many bills expected to rise further – has led a growing numbers of people to turn once again to cash to help them plan their spending."

So much for WEF, central banks, and major corporations pushing for cashless societies worldwide, more importantly, trying to usher in a hyper-centralized CBDC dystopia. With physical cash back in style in the UK, the move towards a cashless society could be a much more challenging task for elites than previously thought.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(Germany)


$265 Billion In Added Value To Evaporate From Germany Economy Amid Energy Crisis, Study Warns

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 01:15 AM

A new report published by the Employment Research (IAB) on Tuesday outlines how Germany's economy will lose a whopping 260 billion euros ($265 billion) in added value by the end of the decade due to high energy prices sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine which will have severe ramifications on the labor market, according to Reuters.

IAB said Germany's price-adjusted GDP could be 1.7% lower in 2023, with approximately 240,000 job losses, adding labor market turmoil could last through 2026. It expects the labor market will begin rehealing by 2030 with 60,000 job additions.

The report pointed out the hospitality industry will be one of the biggest losers in the coming downturn that the coronavirus pandemic has already hit.

Consumers who have seen their purchasing power collapse due to negative real wage growth as the highest inflation in decades runs rampant through the economy will reduce spending.

IAB said energy-intensive industries, such as chemical and metal industries, will be significantly affected by soaring power prices.

In one scenario, IAB said if energy prices, already up 160%, were to double again, Germany's economic output would crater by nearly 4% than it would have without energy supply disruptions from Russia. Under this assumption, 660,000 fewer people would be employed after three years and still 60,000 fewer in 2030.

This week alone, German power prices hit record highs as a heat wave increased demand, putting pressure on energy supplies ahead of winter.



Rising power costs are putting German households in economic misery as economic sentiment across the euro-area economy tumbled to a new record low. What happens in Germany tends to spread to the rest of the EU.



There are concerns that a sharp weakening of growth in Germany could trigger stagflation as German inflation unexpectedly re-accelerated in July, with EU-Harmonized CPI rising 8.5% YoY.



Germany is facing an unprecedented energy crisis as Russian natural gas cuts via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will reverse the prosperity many have been accustomed to as the largest economy in Europe.
"We are facing the biggest crisis the country has ever had. We have to be honest and say: First of all, we will lose the prosperity that we have had for years," Rainer Dulger, head of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations, warned last month.
Besides Dulger, Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned of a "catastrophic winter" ahead over Russian NatGas cut fears.

Other officials and experts forecast bankruptcies, inflation, and energy rationing this winter that could unleash a tsunami of shockwaves across the German economy.

Yasmin Fahimi, the head of the German Federation of Trade Unions, warned last month:
"Because of the NatGas bottlenecks, entire industries are in danger of permanently collapsing: aluminum, glass, the chemical industry."
IAB's report appears to be on point as the German economy seems to be diving head first into an economic crisis. Much of this could've been prevented, but Europe and the US have been so adamant about slapping Russia with sanctions that have embarrassingly backfired.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Repression, Terror, Fear: The Government Wants to Silence the Opposition

Posted: August 9, 2022 in Uncategorized

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” — President Harry S. Truman

Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Lockdowns.

This is not the language of freedom. This is not even the language of law and order.

This is the language of force.

This is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who speak out against government corruption, misconduct and abuse.

These overreaching, heavy-handed lessons in how to rule by force have become standard operating procedure for a government that communicates with its citizenry primarily through the language of brutality, intimidation and fear.

We didn’t know it then, but what happened five years ago in Charlottesville, Va., was a foretaste of what was to come.

At the time, Charlottesville was at the center of a growing struggle over how to reconcile the right to think and speak freely, especially about controversial ideas, with the push to sanitize the environment of anything—words and images—that might cause offense. That fear of offense prompted the Charlottesville City Council to get rid of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had graced one of its public parks for 82 years.

In attempting to err on the side of political correctness by placating one group while muzzling critics of the city’s actions, Charlottesville attracted the unwanted attention of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the alt-Right, all of whom descended on the little college town with the intention of exercising their First Amendment right to be disagreeable, to assemble, and to protest.

That’s when everything went haywire.

When put to the test, Charlottesville did not handle things well at all.

On August 12, 2017, government officials took what should have been a legitimate exercise in constitutional principles (free speech, assembly and protest) and turned it into a lesson in authoritarianism by manipulating warring factions and engineering events in such a way as to foment unrest, lockdown the city, and justify further power grabs.

On the day of scheduled protests, police deliberately engineered a situation in which two opposing camps of protesters would confront each other, tensions would bubble over, and things would turn just violent enough to justify allowing the government to shut everything down.

Despite the fact that 1,000 first responders (including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard)—many of whom had been preparing for the downtown rally for months—had been called on to work the event, and police in riot gear surrounded Emancipation Park on three sides, police failed to do their jobs.

In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.”

“Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville,” reported ProPublica.

Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”

In this way, police who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence failed to do either.

Indeed, a 220-page post-mortem of the protests and the Charlottesville government’s response by former U.S. attorney Timothy J. Heaphy concluded that “the City of Charlottesville protected neither free expression nor public safety.”

In other words, the government failed to uphold its constitutional mandates.

The police failed to carry out their duties as peace officers.

And the citizens found themselves unable to trust either the police or the government to do its job in respecting their rights and ensuring their safety.

This is not much different from what is happening on the present-day national scene.

Indeed, there’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention.

Civil discontent leads to civil unrest, which leads to protests and counterprotests. Tensions rise, violence escalates, police stand down, and federal armies move in. Meanwhile, despite the protests and the outrage, the government’s abuses continue unabated.

It’s all part of an elaborate setup by the architects of the police state. The government wants a reason to crack down and lock down and bring in its biggest guns.

They want us divided. They want us to turn on one another.

They want us powerless in the face of their artillery and armed forces.

They want us silent, servile and compliant.

They certainly do not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and lawfully, whether it’s protesting politically correct efforts to whitewash the past, challenging COVID-19 mandates, questioning election outcomes, or listening to alternate viewpoints—even conspiratorial ones—in order to form our own opinions about the true nature of government.

And they definitely do not want us to engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

Why else do you think Wikileaks founder Julian Assange continues to molder in jail for daring to blow the whistle about the U.S. government’s war crimes, while government officials who rape, plunder and kill walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist?

This is how it begins.

We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “domestic terrorism” has become the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties.

Of course, “domestic terrorist” is just the latest bull’s eye phrase, to be used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”

This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose. The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware.

So what’s the answer?

For starters, we need to remember that we’ve all got rights, and we need to exercise them.

Most of all, we need to protect the rights of the people to speak truth to power, whatever that truth might be. Either “we the people” believe in free speech or we don’t.

Fifty years ago, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas asked:

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet… [A]t the constitutional level, speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive… [A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.”

In other words, the Constitution does not require Americans to be servile or even civil to government officials. Neither does the Constitution require obedience (although it does insist on nonviolence).

Somehow, the government keeps overlooking this important element in the equation.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

How High Can US Shale Production Climb

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 10:05 AM
By David Messler of OilPrice.com

The shale drilling boom that ended in March of 2020, as the full effects of the pandemic hit the economy, contributed to a surplus of oil in storage that kept prices down.

Richly supplied both in the U.S. and globally, the market took the spot delivery prices down to unprecedented levels. In April 2020, the spot price actually went negative for the first time ever.



As the economy recovered, inventory levels declined, bottoming out in March of this year, at about 415 mm bbls across all PADD districts.

Not only did storage decline, but U.S. production declined sharply in this period as the low prices made much of it uneconomic to drill. Rigs were stacked like cordwood in the outskirts of Midland, with the active rig count falling to 252 by June 2020. As we moved into the third quarter, WTI prices surpassed $40 and rigs began to go back to work. Over the course of 2021/22, another 500+ rigs were added with about 40% of that coming this year as drillers moved to take advantage of still low rig rates and WTI prices in the $80-$120 range. A combination that doesn’t often present itself.



Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil above $100 per barrel, causing gasoline and diesel prices to soar and consumers to suffer a lot of pain at the pump. At the same time, the recovering economy and the loosening of Covid restrictions created a surge in travel, both on the open road and in the air. There has been an expectation from regulators and politicians that oil companies would take their increased revenues and hire more rigs to bring down prices. A practice that would have fit their former model of compound annual growth rate - CAGR, using borrowed capital, and nearly brought many of them to ruin in the years leading up to 2020.

Instead, the shale drillers, now wiser, have adopted a practice of capital restraint that has the objective of maintaining production at current levels with a slight bias to growth. Attending the JP Morgan Energy Conference in Houston last June, Pioneer Natural Resources, (NYSE:PXD) CEO was quoted addressing this issue in an Oil and Gas Journal article.

“We’re [Pioneer] only going to grow 5% per year; I’ve been asked that in every meeting today,” Sheffield told attendees at the June 22 event. “We’re not going to grow 7, 8, 9, 10, 12%," he said, noting that the company told the Biden administration the same thing when asked to increase production. "We said no to them also," Sheffield continued. "We’re trying to get them to understand the model and the reasons the model changed," he said, in discussing a past model of boom-bust cycles in which the oil and gas industry responded by ramping up production that ended in oversupply.”

Other CEOs have made similar commentary, stressing that their priority for capital allocation is not production growth, but the return of capital to shareholders. Another large shale driller, Devon Energy, (NYSE:DVN) has made the same commitment. Devon CEO, Rick Muncrief noted in a Bloomberg interview that the company would continue to be disciplined in capital allocation with a growth target for 2022 of ~5%.

What hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is an external, natural limit to growth in shale production. Shale drillers in the lean times chose to develop their best locations to ensure payouts that would return more revenue than they cost to drill. (I discussed this trend in an earlier Oilprice article last May.) The industry calls these Tier I locations. The linked Rystad article notes the following in regard to remaining Tier I locations.

“Taken together, the inventory size corresponds to 18-25 years of drilling at the pace expected in 2020. If Tier 1 activity returns to the record level of 2019, then we can have six-eight years of drilling capacity in the Eagle Ford and Bakken, and 11-15 years in the DJ Basin and Permian. In the Permian Basin, the total size of the remaining Tier 1 inventory is about 33,000 locations, assuming there are no changes in the current well spacing strategies.”

While a significant amount of Tier I acreage remains, there are signs the wells now being developed contained a higher mix of lower-tier rock. The chart below, compiled from the EIA-DPR’s published data reveals a troubling trend in overall shale activity, with a particular focus on the Permian basin. The Permian basin contributes over half of U.S. shale production.



The DPR monthly report makes a simple calculation of individual well productivity per rig by dividing the production for that month (shown two months in arrears), by the number of active rigs. The data is revelatory in the following respects.

The blue line, representing all eight basins tabulated in the report, trends down over the last year, while the total rig count as reported by Baker Hughes is rising sharply. The orange line, representing the Permian basin, follows the same trajectory, with daily production declining per well by about 120 bbl per day over this time.

What is additionally noteworthy about this data is while production is declining as rigs are added - something that is a little counter-intuitive - the rates of monthly DUC-Drilled but Uncompleted wells and withdrawals are also declining.

This is suggestive that the daily production rate per rig, already on the downslope, was boosted artificially by operators fracking an already drilled well to turn it inline.

I next turned to the EIA-914, the monthly report of all producing states put out by the agency. The 914 report also contains data 2-months in arrears, and in this case shows the data through May. I took all states producing more than 400K BOEPD and tracked their output.


Note-the Total U.S. line is plotted on the right-hand Y axis

What it shows is that across all key basins production has been relatively flat for most of the past year, and in particular for 2022. Since the Gulf of Mexico is included in this total there are some weather anomalies that can skew the overall data temporarily, with the same being true for onshore production in wintertime.

Takeaway
We may yet add another 800K BOEPD by the end of next year as the EIA Short Term Energy Outlook-STEO suggests we may. You never want to say never until time passes. The data I’ve reviewed says otherwise, however.

What this means for oil prices is yet unclear in the short term as for the last six weeks concerns about a possible recession have trimmed roughly $20 per barrel from the price of WTI and Brent. Longer term, if this trend toward lower well productivity bears out, we could see a sharp reversal higher, as shale output declines.
Many analyst firms have kept a YE-2022 exit price target above current levels, with Goldman Sachs the most bullish of all at $135 for Brent. If all of these things come together consumers could be in for more pain in the pocketbook, as tight supplies result in higher prices.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

"Millions Will Freeze This Winter; Or Fall Into Debt To Avoid Doing So"
By Michael Every of Rabobank

Yes, today is finally inflation day! Not high unit labor cost inflation day – that was yesterday in the US, which is why markets sold off. Not house price inflation day – that’s every day. I mean actual headline and core US CPI day, where increases in the price of just about everything are likely to be offset by temporary declines in gasoline prices. Yet that still opens the door for a new pre-US mid-terms phase of “sic transitory gloria mundi” back-patting in markets and politics.

We also get inflation in China (CPI and PPI), which will show it is firmly under control. That’s largely because they are pumping out coal and have over-supply and under-demand. However, also note this is an economy where Bloomberg notes that the huge headline trade data are NOT matched by the trade-related money flows recorded by SAFE. There are technical reasons why the two differ, but now the simple message is: “China “bought” lots of goods from abroad, but they have never arrived.” It could be supply-chain related, or it could be capital flight. Either way, don’t trust the simple headline numbers on your screen.



Indeed, today’s marvelous magical ‘turn around’ in US inflation is because of base effects. The 0.0% m-o-m CPI headline print this July will line up against a far higher print from July 2021. The problem is that the 0.0% is then the base for whatever July 2023 will be - and it will be lucky to be another 0.0%, even this far out, when you look at how the deck is stacked in some regards.

As a parallel, despite potential champagne corks today, UK household power bills are now likely to soar to as much as £4,200 from January, a staggering increase. Indeed, the government, which is not going to do anything about it until a new PM is chosen, holds a “reasonable worst case scenario” (that is “highly unlikely to materialise”) for losing a sixth of the electricity grid, meaning enforced blackouts that will close down rail networks and public buildings.

What is highly likely is that millions will freeze this winter; or fall into debts to avoid doing so;
and the result will be deflationary demand for everything else, along with cost-push price increases for everything; and yet government help will just mean the latter inflation and less of the former.

(Relatedly, yesterday on Twitter I saw more bitter political satire speaking to how inflation is being handled in the UK, ostensibly through the eyes of a media correspondent from Papua New Guinea. It begins: “To the island of Shakespeare, where energy companies ring 400% profits, and energy consumers are reduced to ringing Jeremy Vine. In the home of blank verse, nobody can afford to use a meter.” It only gets better from there.)

But don’t worry: headline inflation is slightly lower this month.

Meanwhile, other headlines are about the FBI’s raid on former President Trump’s home. It would appear the potential crime is the removal of classified documents from the White House, a serious, albeit obscure, charge. Yet the declassification of such documents is the president’s prerogative, in which case the issue may not be as it appears.

Clearly, the raid has implications for 2024 because if found guilty, Trump could be barred from seeking federal office. At the same time, the (social) media coverage is again exposing deep polarisation. We have the *very* valid argument that all are equal before the law (even Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton); on the other, muttering that “If they can go after the former president, they can go after anyone.” Even neutral (and some anti-Trump) observers say that unless concrete charges emerge, all the raid will likely do is cement Trump’s base.
The parallel with the inflation print is that what we see right now is not necessarily what we are going to be seeing in the medium-term.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Is The US About To Go Full Louis XVI?

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

On September 3, 1783, after nearly a year of excruciating back-and-forth negotiations, all sides had finally gathered together in Paris to sign a historic peace agreement.

It was a pretty important peace deal. Because the Treaty of Paris, as it is now known, is what formally ended the American Revolution, and when Great Britain legally recognized the United States as an independent nation.

The treaty was signed in Paris because France had been a major supporter of the US war effort. And just as soon as the ink was dry, French King Louis XVI ordered his finance minister to prepare an accounting of exactly how much money France had spent on US independence.

The result was nothing short of astonishing—more than 1 billion livres.

To put that number in context, the French Treasury’s entire annual revenue only amounted to around 200 million livres.

So they had basically sunk FIVE YEARS worth of their tax revenue fighting someone else’s war.

Granted, Britain was still one of France’s main rivals. And the French did not care for British King George III.

But the American War was simply too costly, and France had already been on very shaky financial footing well before this point.

Louis XIV had nearly bankrupted the country a century before. His successor, Louis XV, had to drastically slash expenses and could barely hang on financially.

Then, in 1774, just prior to the American Revolution, Louis XVI became king at a time that France was rapidly deteriorating.

You’d think that with so much economic turmoil at home that he would have focused on his own national interests… and, in lieu of money, weapons, and ships, he would have instead sent the royal thoughts and prayers to America.

But no. Lucky for the United States, Louis XVI courageously fought the American Revolution down to the very last French taxpayer.

Only after the war did Louis finally take stock of the situation and realize the truth: America was in a much better position. Britain was bruised but still powerful. Yet his own

France was nearly bankrupt and desperately in need of cash. Not exactly a win/win.

Louis XVI was King, but his powers were limited; he was beholden to the legislature, called the Estates-General, and he couldn’t simply decree new taxes without their consent.

The King did, however, control the tax collectors. And Louis made sure they had every authority to coerce, harass, and intimidate money out of French citizens.

French tax collectors had the authority to walk right into people’s homes unannounced, conduct surprise inspections to look for hidden wealth, and walk away with whatever money or property they felt would satisfy the peasant’s tax bill.

This is actually a pretty common theme throughout history: governments that are on the ropes routinely resort to plundering the savings of their citizens.

Several ancient Roman emperors, in fact, from Diocletian to Valentinian III, famously sent ruthless tax collectors to harass their citizens and steal their wealth. Several ancient Chinese dynasties did the same thing. So did the declining Ottoman Empire.

Significantly ramping up tax collection efforts is typically a hallmark of an economy and empire in decline.

So we can’t be too surprised that, in its latest legislative bonanza, the US government is setting aside $80 billion for IRS tax collection efforts.

They’re calling the bill, of course, the Inflation Reduction Act. This is pure comedy—the legislation will do no such thing. Why would inflation, which in part was caused by excessive government spending, magically dissipate because of more government spending? It’s ludicrous.

But inflation aside, front and center in the legislation is $80 billion in funding for the IRS, primarily to step up its tax collection and enforcement efforts.

To put that number in context, the annual budget for the IRS is about $12 billion. So, even though the $80 billion will be leaked out over a period of several years, it constitutes a major increase in the IRS budget.

The entire idea is based on a bizarre notion known as the ‘tax gap’. This is the difference between the amount of tax the government collects, versus the amount the government thinks they should collect.

In other words, the tax gap represents how much they believe people are cheating. And the estimates vary wildly, from $100 billion per year to a whopping $1 trillion per year.

Frankly these numbers have always seemed to me like they were completely made up. No one has explained how they actually come up with such estimates. They just barf up some number and pretend that it’s true.

Obviously there are a whole lot of hardcore tax cheats out there, stealing and defrauding the system. But that’s not why the IRS is receiving an $80 billion boost.

This money will go to hire a small army of tax inspectors who will fan out across the nation on a giant fishing expedition that will ensnare countless middle class Americans and small businesses.

Certainly they’ll catch a few cheats along the way. And they may even find a few bucks to close that mythical ‘tax gap’.

But at what cost?

One of the biggest problems with the US economy right now is that it’s so much more difficult to produce goods and services.

Over the past few years, the people in charge have put up endless road blocks and obstacles for small business.

They vanquished the labor market and made it all but impossible to find workers. They destroyed the supply chain. They engineered historically high inflation. They came up with a myriad of costly new environmental and public health rules.

On top of that they constantly create new rules and regulations, many of which step far beyond the government’s authority.

(Last year, for example, the CDC Director decided in her sole discretion that she controlled the entire $10+ trillion US housing market.)

23% of full-time workers today require a government license to do what they do, according to the US Department of Labor. Even being a hairdresser is full of red tape and costly bureaucracy.

This new threat of widespread tax audits is going to be yet another obstruction to Americans’ productivity…. at a time when the economy desperately needs maximum focus.

Inflation is raging because there is a serious, global imbalance between the supply and demand of goods and services.

Specifically, demand is too strong because they doled out trillions of dollars in free money. And supply is weak because nearly every single government policy makes it harder for people to produce (which is yet another hallmark of empires in decline).

Now, on top of everything else, there is a very high likelihood of being harassed by the tax authorities.

Audits are incredibly unpleasant, costly, and time-consuming. Even if all of your accounts are in order and you’ve done nothing wrong, a tax audit monopolizes a tremendous amount of time and money.

It’s debilitating. Say goodbye to actually running your business, growing sales, or spending time with your family on nights and weekends… and say hello to preparing for your tax audit.

Your time will now be spent digging up receipts, finding old contracts, and trying to recall specific details of trivial decisions you made years ago.

Plus you’ll most likely have to pay outside experts to assist with the process, like CPAs and attorneys. And naturally the government does not reimburse you for such expenses. But at least you’ll get to deduct them… from your taxes.

In the end, after endless financial scrutiny, the government may conclude that you owe them a few bucks because of some undocumented deduction from several years ago. So you write them a check for some trivial sum… after having spent countless hours and effort taken away from your productivity.

The cost/benefit just doesn’t compute. And that’s why healthy, prosperous nations don’t engage in such absurd activities. They don’t need to.

Taxes ultimately represent the government’s ‘slice’ of an economic pie. So when a country is prosperous and an economy is strong, the government’s slice continues to grow because the overall economic pie is constantly getting bigger.

But nations in decline don’t see it this way. For them, the pie is shrinking. So they think the only way to increase their slice is to go after other people’s crumbs.

History shows this is absolutely the wrong move. Raising tax rates, inventing new taxes, and recruiting armies of tax collectors only makes the pie shrink even more.

Their efforts, instead, should be focused on making the pie bigger. But they don’t think that way.

Bear in mind this is all brought to you by the same people who are shoveling your tax dollars out the door to Ukraine $50 billion at a time. It’s very ‘Louis XVI’ of them.

All of these trends—the cannibalistic surge in tax authorities, the anti-productive regulations, the economic scarcity mentality—are all hallmarks of an empire in decline.

The situation is NOT terminal. It is NOT irreversible. But it is reason enough to have a Plan B.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Why Wokeness Is Doomed

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 01:20 PM
Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

Four Megatrends of Reality Have Become Impossible To Ignore

What we call “Wokeism” today has its roots in so-called “political correctness” which goes back decades.



It began to accelerate in the early years of the 21st century, and while it was always driven by left-wing, liberal, impulses, who seemed to have the upper hand in culture and media; they still always feigned powerlessness and victimhood. Even in 2012, at possibly the apogee of the Liberal World Order, Paul Krugman wrote, with no sense of irony,
“the big threat to our discourse is right-wing political correctness, which – unlike the liberal version – has lots of power and money behind it. And the goal is very much the kind of thing Orwell tried to convey with his notion of Newspeak: to make it impossible to talk, and possibly even think, about ideas that challenge the established order.

This victimhood-as-bedrock continues to this day, especially since 2016 when the unthinkable happened. Brexit and Trump (basically, a backlash of populism) precipitated a full fledged psychotic break in the progressive zeitgeist, which until that moment was consolidating its hegemony.

Political correctness metastasized into terminal Wokeness, where all aspects of discourse, popular culture and even public policy became delineated into whether it meshed well with left-wing sanctimony, or not.

“Wokeness” takes the otherwise noble aspirations of egalitarianism and stewardship and twists them into a dogma that provides a Trojan Horse for despotism. The high priests of this mindset assert total moral authority and claim an elevated consciousness over the infantile, sub-human masses. Especially if those masses live in fly-over country, hold blue-collar jobs or are otherwise un-credentialed and without pedigree.

This ideology (a word invented by rudderless Jacobins who went to work for Napoleon, helping him consolidate absolute power), translated well into modern times. The “science of ideas” provides the camouflage of choice for the totalitarian impulses of an elite class – increasingly destined for secular, sclerotic decline under the weight of its own corruption, internal contradictions and excess.

For years we (the contrarian, non-compliant “we”, the “racist”, “fringe” we) have been sounding the alarm that the pillars of “Wokethink”, such as “all or nothing”, emotional thinking, catastrophizing and seven other markers, were highly congruent with mental illness. Worse, they are detrimental and destructive to society on a fundamental level.

Where many fear a coming, Davos-inspired technocracy of owning nothing, eating bugs and living in the pod, I think the COVID pandemic created an irreversible phase-shift. Where before we were headed for a totalitarian dystopia that would ultimately fail, but probably last for large swaths of our lifetimes, COVID (more accurately, the overbearing policy response) created an inflection point in history. Several decades of creeping authoritarianism was compressed into eighteen months, and that was Too Much, Too Soon, for everyone.


Serious question.

My contention is that The Lockdown Era was the crescendo of Peak Wokeness. Under the guise of a not-so-cataclysmic pandemic, the moralizing and sermonizing reached fever pitch. Wokeness itself degenerated into Mass Formation Psychosis on a global scale.

Only recently, in this year, has The True Cost of Wokeness begun to make itself apparent:

  • Liberal run cities and states across the US are facing mass exoduses of citizens, capital and tax revenue as their socially motivated policies like “defund the police” cause them to descend into chaos and criminality.
  • Political leaders everywhere look more out-of-touch than ever as they try to run economies and respond to geo-political events with unhinged platitudes.


The list is endless, growing, and we are just into the early innings.

The Four Megatrends Exposing True Cost of Wokeness
Wokeness as an ideology will fail, it’s just a matter of how much damage will it do to the rest of us before it collapses under its own internal contradictions and failures.

#1 Wokeness is Inherently Unprofitable
The expression “Get Woke, go broke” is more than sardonic wit. It’s a powerful meme that captures the essence of wokenomics’ never-ending failures.

Whether it’s so-called “green energy” sources that have larger carbon footprints than their hydrocarbon or nuclear counter-parts, or Hollywood perpetually losing their shirt on “woke” reboots, politically correct sitcoms or short-lived streaming channels, Wokeness is economically unviable across the board.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1534538344255967235
.47 min

Without government subsidies there wouldn’t be a profitable “woke” company anywhere and with governments increasingly teetering on the edge of insolvency, the money spigot for the platitude industry may be drying up fast.

#2 Conspicuous Hypocrisy of The High Priests of Wokeness
People are getting sick of being told they’re going to own nothing, eat bugs and live in a pod in order to save the climate by people who are flying around in private jets, lounging on super-yachts and dining on grass fed beef.

1660168957358.png

It goes beyond self-important celebrities or messianic politicians who flagrantly live a “my rules are for other people” lifestyle. The double-standard is so palpable and abrasive that to ignore it requires hyper-normal rationalizations.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1555932961236586499
.22 min

#3 Negative Externalities Are Being Re-shored
If the well-meaning rank-and-file of the social justice warriors were right about anything, it’s that the global economic system has been rigged. Since at least the onset Bretton-Woods Era the developed, industrial nations in orbit around the USA have been able to externalize their negatives to the rest of the world (inflation, conquest, etc) while leaching everybody else’s wealth and natural resources.

This was “the exorbitant privilege” of running the world’s reserve currency. But once the anchor to gold was severed in ’71, it began an inexorable process of what people like Michael Greer call “catabolic collapse“.

The perimeter of the economic leaching began to contract. Once the 80’s or so hit, began to hollow out the homelands of the developed countries themselves.

We can see this dynamic when we look at how GDP diverged from median earnings. If the working class didn’t really participate in the GDP gains, who did?


This chart from a former Chief Economist at the World Bank Group isn’t fully current, but if anything, the trends accelerated after 2015.

The table showing the stratification of wage growth does capture 2022 and we see what’s happening quite starkly:



He’s using data from Thomas Pikkety, who often argues for redistribution schemes I oppose, but mainly for the reason that I don’t trust policy makers to distribute anything effectively, let alone redistribute other people’s wealth.

But the point is clear, the globalist financial system is “structurally unjust”.

However this is not, as the social justice warriors believe, because of systemic racism, or the patriarchy. It’s because of a deeply flawed (rigged) financial system that enables aristocratic elites to print value ex nihilo, and then distribute it to their Cantillionaire cronies. As everybody should know by now, the Cantillon Effect provides benefit from newly printed money for the insiders, before it turns into inflationary cost-of-living increases for everybody else.


The Cantillon Effect

Since The Lockdown Era (which is now being opportunistically pivoted into intensified climate hysteria), this dynamic has only intensified to blow-off top levels. We can see this in the trajectory of M2 money supply:



Before the fiat currency era started, this economic leaching could work when its effects were largely externalized to far off shores, where it could be dolled up under the rubrics of “spreading democracy” and “economic development”.

But now that the fiat currency system is eating itself (too much debt, not enough actual productivity, supply chain failures), that thin scab of elites that sits atop the global cap table now needs to somehow convince the rabble that the most important thing in the world right now is for everybody (else) to drastically ratchet down their standard of living.

Wokeness looked perfect for this, except for one last problem:

#4 Wokeness is Inherently Self-Destructive
Once catabolic collapse had already started in earnest, it hit a disorderly phase transition in COVID. The legacy of that chapter in recent history has been so defined by failure that a crisis in legitimacy has set in.

This has left policy-makers no choice but to double-down. Globalists had to resort to a more intense, emotionally charged zeitgeist that justifies running the rigged tables at much closer quarters: the ESG movement was elevated to primacy.

This is now resulting in self-induced energy crises, supply chains seizing up, and if this new obsession on demonizing fertilizer goes well (for policy makers), global famine.

Rationalizations about climate emergencies aside, the underlying reality is that we’re in a genuine Austrian-school style crack-up boom. The global elites are facing a crisis in credibility and desperate to ensure that they get to stay in charge after the whole system derails.

It bears repeating: globalism, as exemplified by the likes of the World Economic Forum is essentially a Malthusian and Marxist philosophy. The reality behind all forms of collectivism is that collectivists create inclusive-sounding mythologies that are really intended to apply to everybody else, not themselves.

The consequences of Woke-ism manifest in absurd policies that lead to self-destruction. When everything is politicized, it becomes impossible to correct a bad trajectory. If undoing previous policy errors means abandoning core tenets of the ideology, the policy makers will choose destruction instead. Anything is better than loss of credibility, especially it’s only the rabble that has to bear the consequences for the policy-makers’ failures.

Here we arrive at why Woke-ism is ultimately doomed, because one of its own internal contradictions is a glaring example of creating its own headwinds:

The COVID pandemic was politicized beyond any rationality, and the Woke are now fully committed to a course of action that could result in incalculable damage to themselves and the public. Where vaccine uptake is plummeting among the normies, (people who aren’t ideologically committed to COVID), the most devoted, brainwashed Covidians are continuing with rabid adherence to COVID as a religion: including a desire for lockdowns, the more masks the better, and a regimen of never-ending boosters.

For the longest time I thought the people who were talking in terms of “Nuremberg 2” and “tribunals” were, in word, unhinged.

But when you look at official, vetted data, there is no sugar coating it. The same way I became a lockdown skeptic by tracking the government supplied numbers, and I knew by June 2020 that COVID was not an existential threat. In this case the data coming out from official vacine injury databases is painting just as stark a contrast between reality and official narrative:


Via Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) with data sourced from CDC VAERS and FDA FAERS databases

Somewhere along the line, “safe and effective” turned into “sudden and unexpected”.

Even if the economic and reality-based failures we’ve mentioned so far were not enough to put an end to this, the Woke have gone too far with hard-line vaccine policies. Too much, too young in this case. Trying to jab children being the line in the sand for many adults.

I take no joy nor solace in pointing out that since the woke are truly committed to these vaccines, they may actually be thinning themselves out as the data and evidence continues to mount that the probability of an adverse affect from the “cure” may exceed the risk of dying from the disease itself, at least for adults under the age of 70 and especially in children.

The public is catching on: despite the best efforts of the mainstream media to demonize people asking questions about this as “anti-vaxxers” and Big Tech duly co-operating through concerted deplatforming, public compliance is rapidly dwindling (and the most boosted people among us keep catching COVID).

In Canada, where 81% of the population received two doses in order to be deemed “fully vaccinated”, we have the lowest uptake of boosters throughout the entire G7. This despite Health Canada’s declared intention to move the goalposts such that Canadians would be required to get boosted every nine months.

That won’t happen, and the only people who will comply going forward are the über-woke…

It’s a parody account, but it is hard to tell these days.



These four super-trends are converging to create a zeitgeist saturated with hyper-normality and failure. As The True Cost of Wokeness plays itself out with accelerating consequences, the logical conclusion is that it will be abandoned en masse by a disgruntled populace feeling increasingly betrayed.
 
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marsh

On TB every waking moment
(Germany)


Germany's Industrial Heartland Faces Crisis As Rhine River May Become Impassable By Friday

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 06:37 AM

Water levels on the Rhine River are nearing dangerously low levels, and new forecasts expect Europe's most critical waterway for inland commodity shipments via barges could be impassable by the end of the week.

The river at Kaub, Germany, is 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) on Wednesday and is expected to drop to the critical depth of 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) by Friday, according to the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration. There is even the possibility water levels could fall as low as 37 centimeters (14.5 inches) during the weekend.

Below 40 centimeters would mean barges at the key transit point in Germany would no longer be able to pass and restrict shipments of energy products and other commodities along Europe's most crucial waterway amid the worst energy shortage in decades.

In the next couple of days, if forecasts are correct, Germany's industrial heartland may risk a repeat of the disruption seen during the river's historical low in 2018. Rhine River becoming impassible would certainly exacerbate Europe's ongoing energy crisis.



The Rhine snakes about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from the Swiss Alps through Europe's largest industrial areas and has already dented cargo shipments for chemicals giant BASF SE, steelmaker ThyssenKrupp AG, and utility Uniper SE. Bloomberg lists the most exposed companies to low Rhine River levels:



Uniper warned low water levels have reduced barge coal shipments to a major power plant. The utility said its 510-megawatt Staudinger-5 coal-fired power plant had seen fewer and fewer barge shipments of coal due to dwindling low water levels that could soon result in "irregular operation."

Bloomberg outlines the most transported goods on the waterway. If water levels fall below 40 centimeters, companies must use rail and trucking for transportation.
As much as 10% of Europe's chemical shipments utilize the Rhine River, including feedstocks, fertilizers, intermediates and finished chemical products. The Rhine accounts for about 28% of chemical shipments in Germany, based on our analysis of 2019 and 2020 transport data. The nation is the heart of Europe's chemical industry, accounting for 36% of EU production over the past decade by tonnage.

Industrial gases, many of which move by pipeline or truck, are excluded from this analysis, which includes data from Eurostat, The Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, and Verband der Chemischen Industrie. Key publicly listed producers with facilities along or near the Rhine include BASF, Wacker, EMS-Chemie, DSM, Umicore, Akzo-Nobel and Celanese. -Bloomberg
Top commodities shipped via barge on the river.



Low water levels on the Rhine are set to unleash unwanted and additional supply-chain issues for the EU's largest economy as the persisting energy crisis may spark economic hell by winter.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Inflation Reduction Act Will Increase Middle Class, Small-Business Taxes: Tax Law Expert

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 07:17 AM
Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

While Democrats insist that the Inflation Reduction Act won’t boost taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year, collateral effects from the legislation will cause workers and small businesses alike to pay more, according to Preston Brashers, a senior tax policy analyst at the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

The measure, hammered out as a compromise agreement between moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), serves to fulfill a series of broad Democratic aspirations: increasing federal revenue by closing so-called tax loopholes, enacting climate change policies, expanding the Affordable Care Act, and reducing prescription drug prices.

Its supporters say the legislation also will help to slow the growth of the ballooning U.S. national debt by decreasing the deficit.

While it authorizes about $433 billion in new spending, Democrats’ internal estimates suggest that the bill will bring in around $725 billion in new revenue to the federal government, thus reducing the federal deficit and slowing the growth of the national debt. Specifically, Democrats estimate that the bill will reduce the deficit by about $292 billion annually.

The bill won’t directly increase taxes on individuals at any income level, Brashers told The Epoch Times. The most substantial change will be a modification of corporate taxes, setting a mandatory minimum rate of 15 percent on corporations making $1 billion or more annually.

There’s nothing in here specifically targeting income levels,” Brashers said.

They’re not targeting people making $400,000 or more.

Neither, Brashers said, are they targeting businesses necessarily.

“A brand can’t pay a tax,” he said. “Technically, legally, the corporations are the ones paying taxes, but ultimately that has to be paid by people, one way or the other. It’s not like Jeff Bezos—if you tax Amazon—that this is coming out of Jeff Bezos’s pocket.

“It’s coming out of everyone’s pocket that’s involved in that operation, whether you’re a worker, if you buy the products, if you have any stock in the companies, if you have a 401(k).

“Basically, what they’re doing, they’re applying these taxes and they’re not specifically hitting lower-income people. What they’re doing is they’re applying general taxes across the whole economy, and so everyone’s gonna be caught up in it.

“These are gonna be taxes that are just kind of economy-wide.”

In addition, Brashers argued that through indirect effects, individuals below the $400,000 threshold will see an increase in how much they pay.

There’s no way to take … [Democrats’] claim about $400,000 seriously,” Brashers began, when asked about the truth of the assertion.

“You can quibble with details, but there’s simply no way you can say that these taxes are being exclusively paid by people making $400,000 [or more]. There’s no way you can say that because none of these taxes are being applied to people making $400,000. So you have to look at this as—some of these taxes are gonna hit labor, some portion of that might be shifted off to capital.”

But laborers will be hardest-hit, Brashers said. While investors are able to leave U.S. markets to invest in foreign markets like China, where such rules aren’t in place, laborers “are kinda stuck where [they] are.”

In addition to the economy-wide effects of the new corporate minimum tax, Brashers noted, the bill also contains provisions related to the IRS.

They’re expanding enforcement of [tax law by the IRS], they’re going to expand audits on individuals and businesses,” he said, noting the appropriation of $80 billion to bulk up the IRS.

Proponents of the bill suggest that, in addition to the new tax code changes, a bulkier IRS will bring in an additional $124 billion annually through enforcement efforts.

The funding for the IRS will go toward “necessary expenses for tax enforcement activities … to determine and collect owed taxes, to provide legal and litigation support, to conduct criminal investigations (including investigative technology), to provide digital asset monitoring and compliance activities, to enforce criminal statutes related to violations of internal revenue laws and other financial crimes … and to provide other services.”

Brashers argued that the IRS expansion will affect lower-income individuals and small businesses.

If you look at the [dispersion] of audits right now, there’s a lot of audits that happen on the lower end,” he said. “Especially on the business side: if you’re a small business, a sole proprietor—if you’re running your own books—a lot of times the IRS looks at that as a prime target because you don’t have the accountants that are keeping everything buttoned down necessarily.

“If you’re a sole proprietor and you’re keeping your own books … it’s probably just gonna be harder for you to keep up with the convoluted tax code.

“So, if anything, more of that weight is probably gonna hit small businesses.”

After a marathon session to vote on amendments, the Senate approved the bill in a party-line 51–50 vote on Aug. 7. The Democrat-led House is expected to approve the measure before sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

The Geopolitics Of Inflation

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 03:20 PM

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via DailyReckoning.com,

Though it’s difficult to be confident of anything in the current flux we’re experiencing, I am pretty confident of three things:

1) Price is set on the margins.

2) Currencies are the foundation of every economy.

3) The financial forecasts issued to calm the public do not reflect operative geopolitical goals.

Let’s break this down. Every national government has “global interests.” Governments naturally do whatever they can to boost dynamics favorable to the state and nation, and obstruct or hinder dynamics injurious to the state or nation.

As a general rule, nations have relatively few levers they can pull to influence global finance, trade, growth, currencies or the geopolitical balance of power.

One such lever is the interest the state pays on its sovereign bonds.

Leverage
If a central bank/state increases the interest it pays on its bonds, that attracts capital seeking higher return (presuming the bond is perceived as safe from default). This inflow of capital strengthens demand for its currency, because the bonds are denominated in the state’s currency.

As the currency strengthens vis-à-vis other currencies, it buys more goods and services. Imports become cheaper and the nation’s exports become more costly to those using other currencies.

Another lever is to reduce the exports of commodities, especially essential commodities like energy and grains. If this reduction reduces the global supply, the price leaps.

If allies get the exports and enemies don’t, this punishes enemies and rewards allies.

A third lever is to limit imports.

A consumer nation can limit imports from specific exporters, or make do with domestic supplies or only buy from allies.

A fourth lever is to meet with allies and reach an agreement about finance and commodities to stave off imbalances that threaten the stability of the alliance.

An example of this is the 1985 Plaza Accord that weakened the U.S. dollar at the expense of the Japanese yen and European currencies. The strong dollar was crushing U.S. exports and generating destabilizing trade deficits in the U.S.

Each of these levers has geopolitical consequences.

It’s All Connected
Financial actions such as raising interest rates are presented as purely financial, but their geopolitical consequences are not lost on the nation’s political/military leadership.

Boosting or trimming exports of commodities can be presented as financial as well, even when the real purpose is geopolitical.

In other words, events which are presented as solely financial can also serve geopolitical aims beneath the domestic-centric rah-rah.

Consider how the price of oil contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, the price of oil fell and stayed relatively low for years.

In 1986, oil fell under $10/barrel. Adjusted for inflation, this was lower than prices paid in the late 1950s.

Although this ample oil supply was fundamentally a result of super-major oil fields discovered in the 1960s and 1970s coming online, it had a geopolitical consequence few fully appreciate: It pushed the Soviet Union over the fiscal cliff into collapse.

No Coincidence, Comrade
Oil and natural gas exports were the primary source of the Soviets’ hard cash it needed to buy goods and commodities from other nations.

Once the oil revenues dried up, the Soviet Union was no longer financially viable.

Was this lengthy “glut” of oil just good luck for the U.S., or was a policy agreement with Saudi Arabia and other oil exporters that “nudged” the price lower also a factor?

What do you reckon — pure luck or luck “nudged” to achieve a geopolitical goal? Given the high stakes and the vulnerability of the USSR to low oil prices, is it plausible that it was entirely happy happenstance?

In the 37 years since the Plaza Accord, the U.S. has endeavored to keep the dollar relatively weak for a number of reasons: to limit trade deficits and avoid putting undue pressure on emerging countries with debts denominated in USD and nations that imported commodities priced in USD, which is virtually all commodities.

This weak-dollar policy has changed, with profound implications. The soaring USD is adding a currency “surcharge” on top of rising prices for commodities such as oil and grain.

A Double-Whammy of Inflation
Take Japan as an example: The yen has weakened 20% against the USD. This means every commodity priced in USD is 20% higher in price for those using yen.

Add the increase in cost due to global scarcities and that’s a double-whammy hit of inflation.

These sharp increases in inflation/price of essentials are recessionary as demand craters. People simply don’t have enough earnings to pay higher costs for essentials and maintain their discretionary spending on goods and services.

Recall that price is set on the margins. If supply of oil falls 5 million barrels per day (BPD), price rises. But if demand falls 10 million BPD, the price of oil plummets.

As the price of oil falls, oil exporters receive much less money, and so they compensate by pumping more oil. This serves to further depress prices.

Who would benefit from a rising U.S. dollar and a global recession, and who would be hurt? The U.S. would benefit from a higher USD because that lowers the cost of all imports. Everyone else using weaker currencies would pay more for imported commodities.

As demand for oil falls, the price plummets. That helps consumer nations and hurts oil exporters.

Is China the Target?
As the USD rises, it drags every currency pegged to the USD higher with it, making their exports more expensive. That would pressure China’s exports, forcing China to adjust its currency peg, reducing the purchasing power of everyone using yuan/RMB.

Is the looming global recession merely “bad luck” or could an unavoidable global recession be “nudged” to serve geopolitical aims?

The forces that have been unleashed (higher interest rates, scarcities, strong dollar) will take time to work through the global economy. The USD may drop and oil may rise over the next few months, but where will global demand and oil be in a year?

What Really Matters
Many people expect the dollar to weaken and the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates back to zero once the recession becomes undeniable.

I am not so sure. A case can be made that interest rates have completed a 40-year cycle of decline and are now in a secular cycle higher.

A case can also be made that the weak-dollar policy has ended and the dollar will move higher, accelerating the financial and geopolitical consequences described above.

A strong currency exports inflation to those nations which do not issue the currency. Luck, coincidence or “nudge”?

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe what matters is that it’s happening.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY7NdYInleM


Flour Mill Destroyed By Fire Just Now In Oregon


The Economic Ninja


Fires Destroying Food Processing Plants All Over The Country Right Now (Food Supply Chain Collapse)


Firefighters fight large fire at Pendleton Flour Mills
Pendleton police asked people to stay away from the mill near Southeast Emigrant Avenue and Southeast 6th Street.

a3c3ba45-4e6f-435c-b908-d3a758027a5c_750x422.jpg

Credit: Pendleton Police Department
Author: KGW Staff
Published: 12:25 PM PDT August 10, 2022
Updated: 12:43 PM PDT August 10, 2022

PENDLETON, Ore. — Firefighters battled a fire that destroyed a building at Pendleton Flour Mills in eastern Oregon. No injuries were reported.
The Pendleton Police Department asked people to stay away from the mill near Southeast Emigrant Avenue and Southeast 6th Street Wednesday morning.
Dispatchers received a report of black smoke coming from the mill on Aug. 9 at 2:55 p.m. Crews with the Pendleton Fire Department extinguished a small fire and remained on scene to monitor the situation. The fire reignited around 4 a.m. and destroyed a building due to dry grain and a wooden structure inside, police said.

As of 10:55 a.m., Pendleton police said crews were able to knock down the flames and were focused on monitoring hot spots. A total of eight agencies are assisting the Pendleton Fire Department.

"Although the building is a total loss, this will be an ongoing emergent situation due to the amount of grain that is [slowly] burning," said Pendleton Police Chief Chuck Byram in a news release.

Byram said first responders are confident that the fire has not spread to any other building on the property.

Fire officials have not released the cause of the fire.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJUQefeMlJI
7:29 min

EXPLAINED: Biden’s ‘zero inflation’ claim is an ABSOLUTE LIE

Aug 10, 2022


Glenn Beck


Our far-left leadership truly believes the average American voter is an IDIOT. Why else would they repeat absolute LIES, seemingly without fear of getting caught? President Biden’s latest one was about inflation, claiming on Wednesday that inflation numbers in July hit zero percent. But Stu tells Glenn that Joe's claim actually is not an outright lie — it's more like an insane, 'disingenuous' manipulation of the facts. The guys explain it all in this clip…
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgEq2sXoAyE
32:20 min

IRS Job Listing Requires Use of DEADLY FORCE Sparking OUTRAGE, Democrats Just Massively Expanded IRS


Tim Pool


IRS Job Listing Requires Use of DEADLY FORCE Sparking OUTRAGE, Democrats Just Massively Expanded IRS. Democrats claim middle and lower income people will not face more audits but this is misleading. You do not need to be audited in order for the IRS to extract more money from you. Democrats know this is the case but are misleading people in order to massively expand the IRS. Republicans are pushing to defund federal law enforcement agencies especially now that Trump has been raided by the FBI.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX72Mmt3bEk
12:54 min

US Consumer Price Inflation Slows In July, Real Wages Continue To Tumble ( CPI Report )


The Economic Ninja


US Consumer Price Inflation Slows In July, Real Wages Continue To Tumble ( CPI Report ). While economists expected another modest rise in inflation on a MoM basis (if far below the 1.3% surge in June), the headline US Consumer Price Inflation was expected to slow from +9.1% YoY to +8.7% YoY in July, but it actually slowed significantly more than expected to +8.5% Yoy (flat MoM), ending a 16-month streak of MoM gains.


^^^^

US Consumer Price Inflation Slows In July, Real Wages Continue To Tumble

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 08:35 AM

While economists expected another modest rise in inflation on a MoM basis (if far below the 1.3% surge in June), the headline US Consumer Price Inflation was expected to slow from +9.1% YoY to +8.7% YoY in July, but it actually slowed significantly more than expected to +8.5% Yoy (flat MoM), ending a 16-month streak of MoM gains.


Source: Bloomberg

Core CPI (ex food and energy) however was expected to re-accelerate (rising from +5.9% YoY to +6.1% YoY in July), but instead it too continued to decelerate to 5.9% YoY...


Source: Bloomberg

Services inflation continued to rise but Energy and Goods price growth slowed...


Source: Bloomberg

... as energy prices tumbled MoM.


... driven by plunging gasoline prices.



Full breakdown - Fuel Oil (-11%) and Gasoline (-7.7%) were among the biggest drivers:



...but Shelter costs continued to rise (+0.5% MoM)...
The shelter index continued to rise but did post a smaller increase than the prior month, increasing 0.5 percent in July compared to 0.6 percent in June.

The rent index rose 0.7 percent in July and the owners’ equivalent rent index rose 0.6 percent.



The index for lodging away from home continued to decline, falling 2.7 percent in July after a 2.8-percent decrease in June.
The shelter index rose 5.7 percent over the last year, accounting for about 40 percent of the total increase in all items less food and energy.



This was partially offset by a modest drop in used car prices.



Finally, and perhaps most importantly, real average weekly earnings continues to plunge, now down 16 straight months as inflation eats away at any wage gains...


Source: Bloomberg

Is this drop in CPI big enough to signal a Fed pivot? One look at rate hike odds shows a collapse in tightening expectations...



... which are playing out broadly across markets, where risk assets are soaring and yields are crashing.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTh_TuiKfwk
45:31 min

The Outlook for Inflation | Davos | #WEF22

Aug 10, 2022


World Economic Forum


Global supply chain disruption, loose monetary policy, pent-up demand and an unfolding energy, food and commodities crisis are among the factors driving consumer prices to their highest levels in decades. What is the outlook for inflation in 2022 and beyond, and how well-equipped are policy-makers to control it? The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
(Serbia)

Serbian Farmers Revolt Against the State and Block Roads Leading to Government Offices .29 min

Serbian Farmers Revolt Against the State and Block Roads Leading to Government Offices
Red Voice Media Published August 10, 2022

The Great Resistance is becoming a global movement, and farmers, truckers, and blue-collar workers have established themselves as the frontline against bureaucratic betrayal.
Source: https://twitter.com/RadioGenova/

^^^^
10.8.22 Serbian farmers hit the streets of Novi Sad in protest against fuel costs. .27 min

10.8.22 SERBIAN FARMERS HIT THE STREETS OF NOVI SAD IN PROTEST AGAINST FUEL COSTS.

^^^^
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1557346285950320640
.30 min

^^^
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1557532255118979072
2:20 min

^^^^^
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1557469011855953920
2:12 min

^^^^^
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1557613796109291522
.44 min
 
Last edited:

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Farmer protest supporters work to craft the largest Dutch flag ever flown 7:42 min

Farmer protest supporters work to craft the largest Dutch flag ever flown

Rebel News Published August 10, 2022
We spoke with supporters about the significance of flying the Dutch flag upside down, how they feel about the current situation with the protests and the government's radical green policies that will decimate the agricultural sector.
Visit Rebel News for more on this story

^^^

Farmer protest supporters work to craft the largest Dutch flag ever flown
We spoke with supporters about the significance of flying the Dutch flag upside down, how they feel about the current situation with the protests and the government's radical green policies that will decimate the agricultural sector.
In this report, supporters of the Dutch farmers band together in an undisclosed location to craft the largest Dutch flag ever made, which could potentially break a world record.

The supporters were kind enough to allow us to film at their undisclosed location, to ask them what the significance of flying the Dutch flag upside down is and how they feel about the current situation with regards to the Dutch farmers and the government's radical green policies that will decimate the agricultural sector.

As you are aware, protests have sparked across the Netherlands over these policies. In fact, these protests have been ongoing since 2019, when the Dutch government declared a nitrogen emissions cap. The emissions cap means the farmers have to reduce fertilizer usage, are forced to cut livestock by up to 50% and face the worry of having to give up their land to the state.

Fast-forward to today in 2022 and the situation has escalated. The protests have grown substantially, with the government not backing down on their push towards the agenda 2030 goal, and the farmers are continuing to rally to show their discontent for the Dutch government and the World Economic Forum-pushed blueprints.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Uninformed Consent - A Matador Films Documentary 2:09:33 min

UNINFORMED CONSENT - A MATADOR FILMS DOCUMENTARY
An in depth look into the Covid 19 narrative, who’s controlling it and how it’s being used to inject an untested, new technology into almost every person on the planet. The film explores how the narrative is being used to strip us of our human rights while weaving in the impact of mandates in a deeply powerful story of one man's tragic loss. Hear the truth from doctors and scientists not afraid to stand up against Big Pharma and the elite class who profit from mandates.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Are We Witnessing the Collapse of America’s System of Government?
BY MICHAEL SNYDER

August 10, 2022

The corruption is right out in the open now. The whole world was stunned by the vicious raid on Mar-a-Lago, and it is quite obvious why it was ordered. Even though close to half of the country wants Donald Trump to run for president again, the Washington establishment is going to do whatever it takes to keep that from happening. If the Washington establishment is successful, will our system of government be able to survive? I think that is a legitimate question at this point. In order for any system of government to function, a certain percentage of the population must have faith in it. Even before the raid on Mar-a-Lago, poll after poll showed that confidence in our system of government was hovering near all-time lows. If the elite get what they want and Trump is banned from ever running for president from this point forward, it is going to fundamentally shake this nation to the core.

For the first time in U.S. history, the home of a former president has been raided.

Meanwhile, the FBI has evidence of major crime after major crime on Hunter Biden’s laptop and has done nothing.

At this point, I think that the Biden crime family could literally sacrifice children to pagan deities on the White House lawn and get away with it.

And of course the Clintons have been committing major crimes for decades without suffering any serious consequences.

In fact, Hillary Clinton used the raid on Mar-a-Lago as an opportunity to sell hats mocking her email scandal…

Hillary used the opportunity to cash in on sales of the hats which bear the slogan ‘But Her Emails’.

By mid-morning, the $32-a-pop accessories were sold out online.

Everyone knows that the Clintons were very close to Jeffrey Epstein, but none of the names in Epstein’s infamous “black book” have ever been charged.

Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times, and Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s private jet at least 26 times, and our corrupt law enforcement officials know all about this and have done nothing.

So perhaps it is appropriate that the judge that approved the raid on Mar-a-Lago literally represented some of Jeffrey Epstein’s former workers in court…

The Florida judge who signed off the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s mansion represented Jeffrey Epstein’s workers, it has been revealed.

Bruce Reinhart acted for several employees of the billionaire pedophile before he sanctioned the ‘unannounced’ search on Mar-a-Lago yesterday.

He left the local US Attorney’s office over a decade ago to set up a private practice and help staff members including his Lolita Express pilots and his scheduler.

The more you dig, the more connections you find.

It is one big giant club, and you aren’t part of it.

And anyone that threatens that club becomes a target. As Ted Cruz has correctly observed, the FBI and the Department of Justice are now being used as weapons against the enemies of the D.C. establishment…

The FBI raiding Donald Trump is unprecedented.

It is corrupt & an abuse of power.

What Nixon tried to do, Biden has now implemented: The Biden Admin has fully weaponized DOJ & FBI to target their political enemies.

And with 87K new IRS agents, they’re coming for YOU too.

If we actually had a just society, the Bidens and the Clintons would already be in prison.

But that will never happen.

The entire world can see the hypocrisy, and Ron DeSantis hit the nail on the head when he said that we have now become a banana republic…

The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.

What we are witnessing is a classic case of selective enforcement.

The other side can literally get away with murder, and meanwhile federal law enforcement officials are desperate to dig up any shred of evidence against Trump that they possibly can.

Could this potentially backfire on the D.C. establishment in a major way? Matt Taibbi is warning that what is playing out right in front of our eyes could be “the dumbest and most inadvertently destructive political gambit in the recent history of this country”…

As of now, it’s impossible to say if Trump’s alleged offense was great, small, or in between. But this for sure is a huge story, and its hugeness extends in multiple directions, including the extraordinary political risk inherent in the decision to execute the raid. If it backfires, if underlying this action there isn’t a very substantial there there, the Biden administration just took the world’s most reputable police force and turned it into the American version of the Tonton Macoute on national television. We may be looking at simultaneously the dumbest and most inadvertently destructive political gambit in the recent history of this country.

The top story today in the New York Times, bylined by its top White House reporter, speculates this is about “delayed returning” of “15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives.” If that’s true, and it’s not tied to January 6th or some other far more serious offense, then the Justice Department just committed institutional suicide and moved the country many steps closer to once far-out eventualities like national revolt or martial law. This is true no matter what you think of Trump.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The stakes are incredibly high. The D.C. establishment has gone all-in on destroying Trump and preventing him from ever running for the presidency ever again.

If they win, they win big. If they lose, they lose big. And either way, what they are doing is incredibly destructive to our system of government.

Once people lose faith in our system, it will be nearly impossible to restore it.

For the very first time since the founding of our nation, the very legitimacy of our system of government is being called into question.

Everyone can see that our federal government has become deeply, deeply corrupt, and at some point all of that corruption could cause it to completely collapse.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Inflation Rages On As Gas, Food Prices Squeeze Americans

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI
CONTRIBUTOR
August 10, 2022

Inflation remains at historic highs, at 8.5% from July 2021 to 2022, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Wednesday, as the Biden administration takes a victory lap on lowering energy prices.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) didn’t change from June to July, according to the BLS. From May to June, the CPI, which represents the average change in the price of consumer goods, rose by 1.3%.

“The food index increased 1.1 percent in July; this was the seventh consecutive monthly increase of 0.9 percent or more,” the BLS report states. “The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in July after increasing 0.7 percent in June. The shelter index continued to rise but did post a smaller increase than the prior month, increasing 0.5 percent in July compared to 0.6 percent in June.”

“On the inflation front, the Biden administration has lost all credibility,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “After excusing last month’s horrendous CPI report as ‘out-of-date,’ they can hardly take a victory lap on July’s energy prices, since those numbers are now out of date as well, as is every single one of these government data reports.”

1660179845987.png

Last month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre downplayed June CPI data as out of date, since energy prices were falling from their peak in June.
No such announcement has been released for the July data.

While energy prices have come down substantially from their peak of over $5 per gallon in June, they had only fallen to $4.03 per gallon as of Tuesday, still 26% higher than they were last year, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA). While the AAA did credit the falling cost of gasoline in part to a decrease in oil prices, reduced demand as consumers avoided the pump was also a major factor, according to an AAA press release.

“Oil is the primary ingredient in gasoline, so less expensive oil is helpful in taming pump prices,” said Andrew Gross, AAA spokesman. “Couple that with fewer drivers fueling up, and you have a recipe for gas prices to keep easing. It’s possible that the national average will fall below $4 this week.”

In July, Biden credited the reduction in gas prices to the release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. Last week, the DCNF spoke with Daniel Turner, executive director of energy advocacy group Power The Future, who pointed out that while the strategic petroleum reserve was filled at $60 per barrel, the Department of Energy is planning to refill it at $90 per barrel, a net loss of $30 per barrel on the millions of barrels the administration has released from the reserve.

“Biden is fleecing taxpayers to save the midterms,” said Turner.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Inflation: A Play In Three Acts

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 03:40 PM
By Simon White, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and reporter

Today’s drop in inflation potentially sets the stage for less tightening - or even easing - in the medium term, leading to a resurgence in inflation later in the cycle, eventually requiring a significant re-tightening of monetary conditions. Even if today’s fall in consumer-price inflation means we are over the peak, and it continues to slow, we are still probably only in the first act of a three act play.

The 1970s are an imperfect analogy, but they have one crucial aspect in common with today: the monetization of large fiscal deficits. Runaway inflation is almost always preceded by large government borrowing financed by the central bank.

Both the late 1960s and the last few years saw rising fiscal deficits facilitated by a central bank that thought it had more room to ease than it really did, as was the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s; or one that decided to ignore rising inflation altogether, as the Fed did with its recent maximum-employment/average-inflation-targeting framework.

Once the conditions for high inflation are there, the economy is at the mercy of “events”, whether that be the Arab Oil Embargo in the early 1970s, or the pandemic and the Ukraine war in the current period.

We are now in Act I, where inflation is high and rising. We will soon enter Act II, where a respite in inflation hoodwinks the Fed into believing it can take its foot off the tightening pedal prematurely. This sets the stage for Act III, where price growth stops falling, and takes off again, this time making new highs.



But what’s maybe happening under the surface here? A way to think about this is to quantitatively break up inflation into cyclical and structural components.

Cyclical price pressures should soon start to ease, taking the headline number down. But, as the chart below shows, the estimate for structural inflation is very high, making up almost half the headline number.



If almost half of current inflation proves harder to shake, the cyclical-driven fall in the headline number would only be cosmetically positive. Once the cyclical components start contributing positively again, they would reinforce the stickier, structural inflation, potentially leading CPI to new highs.

This would be Act III, and we know from the Volcker era how that has to end.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Ring Cameras Amassing Info On Users...And Their Neighbors

WEDNESDAY, AUG 10, 2022 - 04:20 PM
About 18% of Americans now own a video doorbell. That means a significant and growing slice of American neighborhoods are under a form of intermittent surveillance. If the surveillance video and associated data were the exclusive property of individual homeowners, it might not be of much concern.

However, that's not the case. For example, Ring, the company behind the top-selling brand, maintains a vast database on its users and their cameras. Ring is an Amazon subsidiary, thanks to the tech giant's 2018 purchase of the company for over $1 billion.

Ring says it doesn't sell its customers data, but sometimes it gives it away for free -- to the police. In the first half of 2022 alone, Ring fielded more than 3,500 requests from law enforcement agencies.

Ring keeps plenty of info that you'd expect them to have. According to Wired magazine:
Ring gets your name, phone number, email and postal address, and any other information you provide to it—such as payment information or your social media handles if you link your Ring account to Facebook, for instance. The company also gets information about your Wi-Fi network and its signal strength, and it knows you named your camera “Secret CIA Watchpoint,” as well as all the other technical changes you make to your cameras or doorbells.
But that's not all. In 2020, the BBC reported that Ring keeps data on every motion detected by its cameras, including the exact time "down to the millisecond." The event database also tracks doorbell rings -- and how many rings -- as well as on-demand actions by the Ring doorbell's owner, such as requesting live video or speaking through the speaker.

A look at one user's Ring event database (via BBC)

BBC also found Ring's database tracked interactions with the company's apps -- every time it's opened, various types of screen-taps, and instances where the owner zoomed in on video footage. Over time, scrutiny of all this data can provide insights into whether you're home or not.

If you subscribe to the Ring Protect Plan -- which archives 6 months of video and audio -- Ring may even keep the video you've personally deleted, according to a Wired analysis of the company's privacy policy.

Maybe you've opted against buying a Ring doorbell out of privacy concerns.

That's fine, but don't forget that your neighbor's Ring camera may be watching you -- or even listening to you. Tests have found Ring cameras can record audio from 20 feet away. If you're strolling by a Ring-equipped house and talking to someone, you and your conversation could be in Ring's database. The same is true if you're on your own property and you're close enough to a neighbor's camera and microphone.

This isn't just a question of whether you trust Amazon and Ring not to misuse your video, audio and associated data. There's always the chance that your info could be hacked by common criminals -- or the ones who work for the government.

Speaking of the latter, earlier this year, Amazon was awarded a $10 billion renewal of a secret NSA contract.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

BIDEN ECONOMY: Inflation Remains Historically High in July with the Price of Food Increasing the Most Since 1979

By Joe Hoft
Published August 10, 2022 at 8:45am

This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its report for July and the results continue to show inflation ravaging America.

Inflation in America remains at historic highs. While the price of gasoline decreased in July, this was offset by the increase in food costs which rose to the highest levels since 1979.

The BLS reports:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in July on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 1.3 percent in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 8.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The gasoline index fell 7.7 percent in July and offset increases in the food and shelter indexes, resulting in the all items index being unchanged over the month.
The energy index fell 4.6 percent over the month as the indexes for gasoline and natural gas declined, but the index for electricity increased. The food index continued to rise, increasing 1.1 percent over the month as the food at home index rose 1.3 percent.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in July, a smaller increase than in

April, May, or June. The indexes for shelter, medical care, motor vehicle insurance, household

furnishings and operations, new vehicles, and recreation were among those that increased over the month. There were some indexes that declined in July, including those for airline fares, used cars and trucks, communication, and apparel.

The all items index increased 8.5 percent for the 12 months ending July, a smaller figure than the 9.1-percent increase for the period ending June. The all items less food and energy index rose 5.9 percent over the last 12 months. The energy index increased 32.9 percent for the 12 months ending July, a smaller increase than the 41.6-percent increase for the period ending June. The food index increased 10.9 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending May 1979.

In 2016 after President Trump won the election, liberals across media warned of the dangers of the Trump Presidency. There were even warnings on the cost of food. Foodbeast warned that under Trump’s presidency the cost of food will likely increase.

With the dust mostly settled following one of the most divisive Presidential elections in American history, we have our new president-elect: Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Reactions have already sprung up all across the world over what this means for America. Some of these reactions have considered the potential future for the food industry. We’ve taken a look at articles from the Wall Street Journal, Eater, and others to figure out what president-elect Trump’s plans outline for the future of your food. The Cost of Food Will Likely Increase

Instead, President Trump brought the most prosperous economy in US history to America. This was despite the FED trying to derail Trump’s economy every chance it got.

Today food prices are increasing as much as they were during the Carter years going back to 1979. Under Biden food is tremendously expensive. Ask any American who dines out and they will tell you of the doubling in costs for meals at restaurants across the country.

The Biden economy is hurting Americans – period.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

BIDEN ECONOMY: Manufacturing Data Shows Companies Are Paying Employees More to Produce Less

By Joe Hoft
Published August 10, 2022 at 9:15am

On Monday while the world was watching the corrupt Deep State FBI’s machine gun-toting raid of President Trump’s home, there was more bad news for Biden’s economy.

Biden’s policies are crushing the US economy.

Conservative Treehouse noted that in the first quarter of this year US productivity dropped 7.4% which was the largest quarterly drop in 74 years. On Monday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the second quarter productivity dropped another 4.6% [Data Here].

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, as output decreased 2.1 percent and hours worked increased 2.6 percent. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) From the same quarter a year ago, nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased 2.5 percent, reflecting a 1.5-percent increase in output and a 4.1-percent increase in hours worked. The 2.5-percent decline in labor productivity from the same quarter a year ago is the largest decline in this series, which begins in the first quarter of 1948. (See table A1.)

Unit labor costs in the nonfarm business sector increased 10.8 percent in the second quarter of 2022, reflecting a 5.7-percent increase in hourly compensation and a 4.6-percent decrease in productivity. Unit labor costs increased 9.5 percent over the last four quarters. (See tables A1 and 2.) This is the largest four-quarter increase in this measure since a 10.6-percent increase in the first quarter of 1982.

BLS calculates unit labor costs as the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity. Increases in hourly compensation tend to increase unit labor costs and increases in productivity tend to reduce them.

Labor productivity, or output per hour, is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of hours worked by all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers. The second quarter of 2022 is the second consecutive quarter in which output decreased while hours increased. The resulting productivity declines over these two quarters reduced the average annual productivity growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2019–the last quarter not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic–to 0.6 percent in the nonfarm business sector. Output and hours worked in the nonfarm business sector are now 2.9 percent and 1.5 percent above their fourth-quarter 2019 levels, respectively.

The result of these numbers is that final output costs will either result in higher prices or lower profits.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

– […] Rising productivity is the key to improving living standards; it allows companies to raise wages without raising prices and fueling inflation. Instead, businesses appear to be paying workers more to produce less. The higher unit labor costs suggest companies will either endure lower profits or pass on higher costs to consumers.

“The trend in productivity growth has worsened compared to prior to the pandemic, and the surge in unit labor costs makes the Fed’s challenge of getting inflation back down to its 2% target all the more challenging,” Wells Fargo economist Sarah House said in a research note.

With increasing inflation and fuel costs, Biden’s actions have destroyed the economy. We are seeing it in every measurement possible.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

NY Times: Electric Cars ‘Province of the Rich’ Even with Democrats’ Subsidies

JOHN BINDER10 Aug 2022141

Even as House and Senate Democrats look to further subsidize electric vehicles, the New York Times admits the cars “remain largely the province of the rich.”

Senate Democrats recently passed their “Inflation Reduction Act” on a party-line vote, a plan that is estimated to eliminate nearly 30,000 American jobs and includes subsidies for consumers to buy electric vehicles.

The subsidies come as the average cost of an electric vehicle has hit $66,000 — a 13 percent increase compared to the same time last year. Today, the average price of a Tesla electric vehicle is nearly $69,000, a cost far out of reach for the nation’s working and middle classes that continue to be squeezed by inflation.

After the passage of the Democrats’ deal, the New York Times admitted that the subsidies for electric vehicles are unlikely to help most working- and middle-class Americans, instead giving a boost to upper-middle-class and wealthy Americans who are most likely to be able to afford electric vehicles.

The Times reports:

Policymakers in Washington are promoting electric vehicles as a solution to climate change. But an uncomfortable truth remains: Battery-powered cars are much too expensive for a vast majority of Americans.


The bottlenecks will take years to unclog. Carmakers and suppliers of batteries and chips must build and equip new factories. Commodity suppliers have to open new mines and build refineries. Charging companies are struggling to install stations fast enough. In the meantime, electric vehicles remain largely the province of the rich.


With so much demand, carmakers have little reason to target budget-minded buyers. Economy car stalwarts like Toyota and Honda are not yet selling significant numbers of all-electric models in the United States. Scarcity has been good for Ford, Mercedes-Benz and other carmakers that are selling fewer cars than before the pandemic but recording fat profits.

Still, Democrats have continued suggesting that Americans avoid sky-high gas prices by buying electric vehicles, despite the inability of many to do so because of the costs.

“Under my plan … we can take advantage of the next generation of electric vehicles, that a typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump,” President Joe Biden said in March.

“Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well. So the people from rural, to suburban, to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV [electric vehicle],” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in March, just as Tesla raised the prices of all its models.

Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC), running for Senate, blasted Democrats for what he said will amount to working- and middle-class American subsidizing the rich.

“I see that [Democrats] want to help rich people buy a Tesla and … want to hurt working families who are trying to afford gas,” Budd said. “They completely have it backward.”
 
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