D.C. Think Tank Urges America To “Invest” In Zelensky’s $1 Trillion Reconstruction Plan 

D.C. Think Tank Urges America To “Invest” In Zelensky’s $1 Trillion Reconstruction Plan 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a video address on Tuesday estimated it will cost more than $1 trillion to rebuild his country following the Russian assault, now over nine months in. If this number sounds absolutely shocking and unrealistic… it is, given this would be five times Ukraine’s entire GDP.

“The reconstruction of our country will become the most momentous economic, technological, and humanitarian project of our time. Even now, we engage dozens of our partner countries to rebuild Ukraine,” Zelensky said during his nightly video address Tuesday, translated by Newsweek. “The total volume of work amounts to over a trillion dollars.”

He slipped this one trillion dollar figure in while saying he hopes his country can show the world its resilience by hosting the World’s Fair in 2030. 

Further, the Latvia-based English language news outlet Meduza described that the Ukrainian leader floated an unusual plan for meeting his astronomical reconstruction price tag. National governments or even large companies could become permanent sponsors of specific regions, cities, or economic sectors

According to Zelensky, Ukraine is developing a system that will allow partner countries to become “patrons” of Ukrainian regions, cities, or businesses. “We’re already seeing interest [in the program] from France, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Poland, Portugal, Czechia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Canada, the U.S., Japan, and Australia. And that’s not an exhaustive list,” he said.

This actually isn’t the first time that a stunning $1+ trillion figure has been proposed. 

The first time Zelensky so publicly floated one trillion seems to have been in September, when he was invited to “ring” the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on the 6th of that month (via video feed of course).

He said at the time during comments which included an appeal for $400 billion in foreign investment: “The general project of Ukrainian reconstruction will be the largest economic project in Europe of our time. The largest for several generations. Its volume is already estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Zelensky then emphasized, “And with the necessary modernization of the Ukrainian infrastructure, taking into account security needs, it is more than a trillion dollars and in a fairly short term – less than ten years.”

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Ukraine was worth 200.09 billion US dollars in 2021, according to official data from the World Bank…

Meanwhile, at least one well-known Washington-based think tank has gotten behind this, arguing that it would provide “strategic benefits” to the United States. A report in Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) issued days ago and entitled, United States Aid to Ukraine: An Investment Whose Benefits Greatly Exceed its Cost, had this to say…

“In practice, Ukraine cannot continue to fight and to recover without continuing aid from the U.S. and other powers. Moreover, if the war drags on as it well may do, the total costs of both the war and recovery states could easily rise well over $500 billion. A truly long war could put the total cost of the war and recovery to a trillion dollars or more.”

It noted, “So far, there has been only limited domestic political resistance in the United States to continuing civil and military aid to Ukraine” – suggesting that US officials should push for more and more foreign aid for Kiev amid the general lack of pushback and apathy.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/30/2022 – 20:45

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Texas Parent Shocks School Board With Graphic Library Books

Texas Parent Shocks School Board With Graphic Library Books

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Texas mother, frustrated by her school board’s reluctance to remove books with graphic sexual content from school libraries, found an embarrassing technique for getting board members and the public to pay attention.

“Sex Is a Funny Word” is a book in the juvenile section of Patrick Henry Library, a Fairfax County Public Library, in Vienna, Va., on Oct. 4, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

Her unusual method may have hastened the removal of one objectionable book from shelves and brought the issue of sexual content in school libraries to the attention of social media viewers worldwide.

At last count, the number of views of her most-recent appearance at a school board meeting had reached nearly 372,000 on Twitter after being shared by Libs of TikTok.

The video shows Shannon Ayres reading from the book, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” at a board meeting of the Frisco Independent School District on Nov. 16.

Frisco parent and member of County Citizens Defending Freedom Shannon Ayres (Courtesy of Shannon Ayres)

Ayres, the mother of grown children who attended school in the district, now serves on the board of the local chapter of the watchdog group County Citizens Defending Freedom.

In the clip, Ayres takes her spot at the podium during public comment and begins reading a passage from the book found in the library of at least one district high school. The excerpt graphically describes a young girl protesting and crying as a boy forces her to perform oral sex.

I ask you why this book has survived two attempts…” Ayres tries to ask board members.

Off-camera, a school board trustee can be heard talking over her as Ayres’ microphone is turned off at the end of her comment period.

“Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you so much. There’s a child in our boardroom, so I’d like for you to please stop reading that,” board president Rene Archambault interrupts, drawing loud complaints from the audience.

Ayres told The Epoch Times she decided to begin reading excerpts from books that remained in libraries after making it through at least one review process. Though distasteful, she felt reading passages would focus attention on the remaining books.

“Identical,” which has a scene where a father rapes his daughter, was already under a second review but removed within 48 hours after she read from it at a previous school board meeting.

So Ayres signed up to speak again during the meeting set aside for public comment. And that’s what drew her public scolding now circulating around the world.

My heart was beating so hard I felt like they could see it beating through my shirt. It was scary. I had to say a little prayer to get the words out. It’s just vile,” she said.

The irony of Archambault’s comment seems to amaze viewers—that a school library book is too graphic to be presented in front of children.

“The hypocrisy was so blatant,” Ayres said.

Archambault’s comments later in the meeting indicated that the child in the audience was of elementary-school age. She said it was vastly different for a child to be “forced” to listen to the material read during a board meeting versus checking out a book from the library.

She apologized that the child’s mother had to cover her ears while the book passage was read and asked people to email concerns about books in the future so children wouldn’t be exposed to the content during board meetings.

At that point, trustee Marvin Lowe, one of two conservative board members, spoke up.

“I understand what you’re saying for a kid to hear what was in that book, but do we need to apologize to the community that those books are in our library, to begin with?” Lowe said, prompting applause from the audience.

Ayres said she did not realize a child was at the meeting.

“And I was upset when I realized afterward there was a child in the room because obviously that’s what I’m trying to avoid is children having to be exposed to that,” she said.

“Parents rights first”: Fairfax County resident Lin-Dai Kendall protests at a rally outside Luther Jackson Middle School before a Fairfax County Public Schools board meeting, in Falls Church, Va., on Sept. 15, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

The frustrating part is that she said some objectionable books have been on shelves for a year after being challenged.

Besides the “Wallflower” book, six other titles remain on the shelves: “Check, Please! Book 1:#1 Hockey,” “Chicken Girl,” “Glass,” “Glass Castle,” “The Perks of Being a Wildflower,” “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” and “The Exact Opposite of Okay.”

Frisco ISD’s website says parents and community members may object to titles that don’t follow district policy. But it also noted that the district must protect students’ First Amendment rights.

Ayres said board members shouldn’t hide behind claims that removing inappropriate books would violate students’ rights.

Ayres said minors aren’t allowed to carry guns, which isn’t an infringement on their Second Amendment rights. Likewise, she added, taking books with sexual content out of libraries doesn’t infringe upon their First Amendment rights.

Even with the intervention of state Rep. Jared Patterson, a Frisco Republican, the seven books remain on school library shelves after two appeals.

Patterson told The Epoch Times he was sorry the child in the audience heard the book’s content.

“I’m sorry that any child has to see that in their school,” he said.

Patterson started objecting to books last November, he said. But when school started in August 2022, there were still 28 books with sexual or inappropriate content in Frisco ISD libraries.

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/30/2022 – 20:25

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/oru1Ljd Tyler Durden

“Crypto Bros” Dump G-Wagons And McLarens Amid Digital Asset Bust

“Crypto Bros” Dump G-Wagons And McLarens Amid Digital Asset Bust

Readers have been well-informed about the slide in wholesale used-vehicle prices. A combination of increasing new car and truck supply, soaring interest rates, and economic uncertainty have been drivers of slowing consumer demand. But let’s concentrate on the luxury side of the used car market, where storm clouds quickly gather. 

Twitter user CarDealershipGuy pointed out that a 2021 G-Wagon with only 3,330 miles just sold at auction for around $187,000. He said the latest auction figures were a 30% plunge from the nearly $300,000 price the luxury SUV commanded earlier this year. 

CarDealershipGuy explained, “exotic car market is getting decimated right,” even though the overall decline in the average wholesale used car prices is only “-13.7% y/y (according to Manheim).” He attributed the turmoil in the luxury space to “crypto bros” panic dumping high-end vehicles. 

NYPost said, “an uptick in like-new models of sought-after luxury cars has hit resale sites such as AutoTrader in recent weeks.” 

CarDealershipGuy told The Post the crypto winter has forced “crypto bros” to dump luxury vehicles at auctions or list them on online marketplaces. 

“It’s clear that in the last couple of months the decline in prices for exotic vehicles has accelerated and that correlates very, very well with the meltdown in the crypto markets where we know that some of the biggest customers of exotic vehicles were crypto millionaires,” he said.

Here’s the crash in bitcoin.

Software engineer Brianna Wu also noticed an uptick, though she said McLaren listings on AutoTempest were “exploding.” 

If “crypto bros” are offloading vehicles, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before they unload other assets, such as Rolex, yachts, and mansions, as the winter in the digital asset space could worsen in the months ahead. 

Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/30/2022 – 20:05

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“Just… Wow!”: Record Numbers Turn Out For Early Voting In Georgia Senate Runoff

“Just… Wow!”: Record Numbers Turn Out For Early Voting In Georgia Senate Runoff

Authored by Dan M. Berger via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Early voting in Georgia’s Senate runoff between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker is setting records, as it did before the November general election.

Georgia voters line up for early voting in the Senate runoff at the North Fulton County Annex in Sandy Springs on Nov. 29, 2022. (Dan Berger/The Epoch Times.)

More than half a million of the state’s 7 million active voters had already voted as the polls opened on Nov. 29.

Just … Wow!” Georgia’s Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling posted on Twitter late on Nov. 28.

“Georgia voters, facilitated through the hard work of county election and poll workers, have shattered the old early vote turnout, with 300,438 Georgians casting their votes today. They blew up the old record of 233,000 votes in a day. Way to go voters and election workers.”

Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock during his campaign for the Georgia Senate runoff in Fowler Park in Cumming, Ga., on Nov. 19, 2022. (Courtesy of Justin Kase Photo)

At the North Fulton County Annex in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, a line of waiting voters stretched out the front door, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk during four different visits by The Epoch Times to the building on Nov. 28 and Nov. 29.

A man who had just voted on Nov. 29 checked his watch and told The Epoch Times he’d waited about 45 minutes.

Early voting continues through Dec. 2. The runoff Election Day is next Tuesday, Dec. 6.

The closely watched, closely matched race will determine whether the Democrats get a 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate or whether the chamber splits once more 50-50 between the two parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.

In the previous Congress, Senate party leaders Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) negotiated a power-sharing agreement in which the parties had equal representation on committees, but Democrats held the gavels.

Polls show the race is close. A Fabrizio/Anzalone poll of 500 likely voters from Nov. 11–17  had Warnock up by four points, still within the margin of error.

Another released on Nov. 28, done by FrederickPolls, Complete Digital, and AMMPolitical of 939 likely voters surveyed from Nov. 23–26, had the two tied at 50 percent each.

Herschel Walker speaks in Gainesville, Ga. on Nov. 17, 2022, as he campaigns for the Senate runoff. (Courtesy of Justin Kane Photography.)

Georgia AARP said in a press release that Walker runs nine points ahead among voters aged 50 or older, who make up 62 percent of likely runoff voters. But other demographics showing strongly in early voting include female and black voters, who tend to favor Warnock.

The runoff was forced because while Warnock led in the general election, he failed to reach the 50 percent of the ballots required by Georgia law. He had 49.4 percent, Walker had 48.5, and Libertarian Chase Oliver had 2.1 percent.

There are clues to be taken out of the general election results.

Around one in 10 Republicans voted for Republican Brian Kemp for governor but crossed over to vote for Warnock or not vote in the Senate race at all.

Warnock was the Democrats’ leading vote-getter, well ahead of their gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Will those ticket-splitters come back for the runoff or just stay home? Will Oliver’s Libertarian voters come back? If so, who will they vote for?

Walker constitutes a wild card: a celebrity athlete who has never run for office, with huge name recognition in Georgia, but whom Warnock says is unprepared to represent the state.

Warnock has poured more than $100 million into ads attacking Walker over a number scandals—such as allegations of domestic violence, revelations about previously unacknowledged children born out of wedlock, and allegations about abortions the pro-life candidate allegedly paid for or solicited.

Warnock has aired ads featuring Republicans who say they can’t vote for Walker. Those who voted for Kemp and other Republicans running for statewide office—but for Warnock and not Walker—show there is a significant number.

But despite all this, poll numbers in Georgia have hardly moved since the summer. Warnock led narrowly during the summer and Walker in the fall, but always within the margin of error.

Democrats are pressing hard to lock in their base by getting them to vote early.

The party sued and won to get an extra day of early voting on Saturday, Nov. 26, after Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had first said it would be allowed, then changed course and barred it, citing a passage in state election law.

Once permitted, it took place on a county-by-county basis. DeKalb was the only county in the state to start early voting before that, with one day on  Nov. 23, the day before Thanksgiving. Some counties also opened the polls on Nov. 27.

After Nov. 28’s turnout, almost 504,000 Georgians had voted, either through early voting or returned absentee ballots, slightly more than 7 percent of the state’s approximately 7 million registered and active voters. About 468,000 used early voting, while around 36,000 absentee ballots had been returned.

In 11 counties—including DeKalb, the Atlanta metro area county that is the second largest in the state, more than 10 percent of voters had already voted.

Of early voters, about 244,000 were white and 193,000 black, with about 48,000 whose ethnicity was classified “other or unknown,” around 10,000 Hispanics, 8,000 Asian or Pacific Islanders, and a little more than 1,000 classified American Indian or Alaskan Native.

The state is about 57 percent white and 32 percent black, but blacks, who vote heavily Democrat, comprised 41 percent of those voting early.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/30/2022 – 19:45

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How Inflation Changes Culture

How Inflation Changes Culture

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

The midterm elections are over (no Red Wave), but nothing has changed. In fact, the Biden regime will probably become even more emboldened to pursue destructive economic policies because it will interpret the lack of a Red Wave as some kind of mandate.

Every day seems to be a day of spin, with every regime apologist assuring the public that inflation is getting better. Just look at the wonderful trend line! They point to the latest inflation numbers, which were down a bit from the month prior.

The regime insists that yes, inflation will vex us for a bit more time but will settle down in a few months. Plus, the president is working to fix this! And we know the American people are on board with him since no Red Wave materialized.

But in the footnotes, you’ll find the truth: it was a tiny drop and mostly for technical reasons and the main reason for the drop has already disappeared from the price trends.

Has any political propaganda on this topic ever been this ineffective? It’s truly a joke.

Where’s the Relief Coming From?

The producer price index that came out recently paints a clearer picture. It’s grim. It reveals no softening at all. In fact, it shows that there are plenty of coming price increases. Here is the index by commodities from 2013 to the present.

Remember how last year many people finally came to the conclusion that we had to learn to live with COVID? That was a smart choice because there was no way that the China-style suppression method could work.

Well, here we are now with a preventable inflation pandemic and the realization that we have to learn to live with inflation. Soon we’ll realize that we have to live with recession at the same time.

But what does this mean?

The impact will be felt not just in terms of economics but in culture. Inflation causes a society-wide shortening of time horizons.

True Prosperity

Let’s review some basics. All societies are born desperately poor, fated to live off foraging and just getting by. Prosperity is built through the construction of capital, which is the institution that embodies forward thinking.

To make capital requires the deferral of consumption: you have to give up some today in order to make tools that enable more consumption tomorrow. This means discipline and a future orientation. And it means, above all, savings that can be invested in productive projects. Only through that path can societies grow rich.

A key component of this concerns the stability of the medium of exchange. And not just stability: a currency that rises in value over time incentivizes saving and thus investing for the long term.

The late 19th century provided a good example of this. Under the gold standard, money grew more valuable over time, thus rewarding long-term thinking and instilling that outlook in the culture at large.

Live for Today

Inflation has the opposite effect. It punishes saving. It forces a penalty on economic behavior that is future-oriented. That means also discouraging investment in long-term projects, which is the whole key to building a complex division of labor and causing wealth to emerge from the muck of the state of nature. Every bit of inflation trims back that future orientation.

Hyperinflation utterly wrecks it.

Living for the day becomes the theme. Taking what you can get now is the method and the theme. Grasping and spending. You might as well because the money is only going down in value and goods are in ever shorter supply.

Better to live hard and short and forget the future. Go into debt if possible. Let the devaluation itself pay the price.

The Seeds of Destruction

Once this attitude becomes instilled in a prosperous society, what we call civilization gradually devolves. If inflation persists, this kind of short-term thinking can wreck everything.

This is why inflation is not just about rising prices. It’s about declining prosperity, the punishing of thrift, the discouragement of financial responsibility, and a culture that gradually falls apart.

Another factor in reducing time horizons is legal instability. This was my first concern when the lockdowns began. Why would anyone start a business if governments can just shut it down on a whim? Why plan for the future when that future can be wrecked by the stroke of a pen?

Many people had assumed that this new path would be short-lived. Surely the politicians would wise up and stop the madness. Surely! Tragically, it got worse and worse. The spending and printing began and ramped up over time. It was a perfect storm of sheer madness, and now we are paying the highest possible price.

The Hinge of History

We need to speak frankly about what’s happening to the global economy. It’s not just about supply chain breakages. Those can be repaired. It’s not just about inflation affecting every country. We are living amidst a fundamental upheaval in the whole world.

The most significant single danger to global prosperity now comes in the form of a devastating and deeply tragic wreckage of the country that was set to lead the world in finance and technology: China.

The WSJ summarizes the current pain:

China in 2021 accounted for 18.1% of global gross domestic product, according to International Monetary Fund data, behind the U.S. at 23.9% but ahead of the 27 members of the European Union at 17.8%. It accounts for almost a third of global manufacturing output, according to United Nations data from 2020. China’s economy expanded modestly at the beginning of the year but data for March and April point to a sharp slowdown.

The trouble there traces to the top. When Xi Jinping locked down Wuhan, the world celebrated him for achieving what no other leader in history had achieved: the eradication of a virus in one country. Even now, he gets accolades for this.

The rest of the world followed, and elites in all countries said that this path was the future.

Going Backwards

Now the virus is on the loose all over the country, and the eradication methods are intensifying. This is crushing economic growth and now threatening genuine economic depression in the country that only a few years ago was seen as the greatest economic engine of the world.

It’s truly the case that Xi Jinping has put his personal pride above the well-being of all people in China. The scientists in the country know that he is wrong about this but no one is in a position to tell him.

We cannot really trust the data coming out of China but officially the rate of infection in that country is one of the lowest in the world. Billions more people need to get the bug and recover in order to have anything close to herd immunity. This means that lockdowns are the way for years to come so long as the present regime remains in power.

American prosperity for decades has relied on: relatively low inflation, fairly stable rules of the game, and widening trade with the world and China in particular. All three are at an end. Yes, it is heartbreaking to watch it all unfold.

I’m not defending China’s human rights abuses. Far from it. But the best way to end these abuses is through engagement, not estrangement.

We all need hope right now but it’s very difficult to find, since we are on a course that is not likely to be fixed for a very long time.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/30/2022 – 19:05

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/ehBlc9X Tyler Durden