Category: zerohedge

Authored by Viv Forbes via AmericanThinker.com,

For 26 futile years, the net-zero maniacs have wasted fuel, energy, and taxpayers’ money to bite the hands that provide their food, energy, welfare, and public-sector jobs.

Led by E.U. and AUKUS dreamers, they destroy reliable energy from coal, oil, nuclear, gas, and hydro while forcing us to subsidize net-negative dreams like solar, wind, wave-power, CCUS, hot rocks, pumped hydro, and hydrogen.  All such speculative ventures should be funded by speculators, not taxpayers.

COP-Out-26 illustrates to the realists of China, Russia, India, and Brazil that the West has lost its marbles and is in terminal decline.  For Scott Morrison to surrender Australia to these green wolves betrays an army of miners, farmers, truckies, and workers in primary, secondary, and tertiary industries that support him and his Canberra pack.

The fakery of COP-Out-26 is well illustrated by the provision of diesel generators to recharge the batteries of 26 electric cars provided for show in Glasgow.  But that’s OK “because the diesels are run on recycled chip fat.”  Horses and covered wagons would be more reliable and appropriate, and dried horse manure could cook their fake meat on their green, chip-fired barbeques.

Neither E.U. nor AUKUS green dreamers can run their world on energy plans drafted by neurotic schoolgirls, clueless princes, deluded accountants like Ross Garnaut, and serial climate alarmists like David Attenborough.

China loves Net-Zero, using its growing coal power to manufacture the wind turbines, solar panels, electric engines, and rare earth batteries for the woke world.

But the subsidy tap feeding green energy development in the Western world will run dry.  Fake energy will fade away, leaving a continent of jobless people with silent mills, refineries, and factories.  Our land will be littered with derelict windmills, decaying solar panels, dead batteries, and sagging transmission lines to be cleaned up in order to restore our land to productive grasslands, crops, and forests.  Those huge concrete bases of abandoned wind towers will become permanent obstacles to restoration of this land.

Next we will see digital carbon credit cards designed by green academics to ration our energy and food usage to achieve their Net-Zero Nirvana.

A bleak future beckons.

Scott Morrison and his team should boycott this final futile COP-Out-26.

Barnaby Joyce should hang his head in shame — I know that he knows better.

“We’re literally paying people in the form of cash welfare, housing, and other services to live in tents on the street, use hard drugs, defecate publicly, and commit crimes,” says Michael Shellenberger, author of “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities.”

In San Fransicko I explore how the conversation around how to use law and order to advance civil rights gave way to a debate over whether law and order is an obstacle to social justice. The question used to be carrots versus sticks. Do you reward people for not committing crimes, or do you punish them when they do? But that’s been superseded by a question from progressives: what if it’s a form of victimization to try to influence people’s behavior at all?

The governing majority in some of America’s cities seems to believe that the only real public policy problem is how to pay for letting people do whatever they want, from turning public parks into open-air drug encampments, to using sidewalks as toilets, to handing over whole neighborhoods to people who are heavily armed and purposefully unaccountable.

Progressives have been in charge of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, as well as California and Washington, during most of the decades in which the problems I describe here have grown worse. On the fundamental policies relating to mental illness, addiction, and housing for the homeless, moderate Democrats, conservatives, and Republicans have either gone along with the liberal and progressive agenda or been powerless to prevent it since the 1960s. And it was Democrats, not Republicans, who played the primary role in creating the dominant neoliberal model of government contracting to fragmented and often unaccountable non-profit service providers that have proven financially, structurally, and legally incapable of addressing the crisis.

In this episode of Via The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders, Shellenberger breaks down the root causes behind the sprawling homeless encampments found in cities like San Francisco.

Even the word “homeless” itself is a propaganda word, Shellenberger says.

“It suggests that the underlying problem is lack of housing, expensive rents, or poverty. And that’s not the case.”

The term “homeless” lumps together two groups that are radically different.

But it’s irresponsible to conflate mothers escaping abusive husbands, or people who are just going through some hard times, with people who are mentally ill, or drug-addicted, or both, Shellenberger says.

Fundamentally, a victim ideology guides how progressives deal with homelessness.

And this ideology refuses to demand even a modicum of accountability from so-called victims, Shellenberger argues, even when they’re engaging in self-destructive behaviors that could be deadly.

*  *  *

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Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

The few economists who recognise classical human subjectivity see the dangers of a looming currency collapse. It can easily be avoided by halting currency expansion and cutting government spending so that their budgets balance. No democratic government nor any of its agencies have the required mandate or conviction to act, so fiat currencies face ruin.

These are some waypoints to look for on the road to their destruction:

• Monetary policy will be challenged by rising prices and stalling economies. Central banks will almost certainly err towards accelerating inflationism in a bid to support economic growth.

• The inevitability of rising bond yields and falling equity markets that follows can only be alleviated by increasing QE, not tapering it. Look for official support for financial markets by increased QE.

• Central banks will then have to choose between crashing their economies and protecting their currencies or letting their currencies slide. The currency is likely to be deemed less important, until it is too late.

• Realising that it is currency going down rather than prices rising, the public reject the currency entirely and it rapidly becomes valueless. Once the process starts there is no hope for the currency.

But before we consider these events, we must address the broader point about what the alternative safety to a fiat collapse is to be: cryptocurrencies led by bitcoin, or metallic money to which people have always returned when state fiat money has failed in the past.

Introduction

When expected events begin to unfold, they can be marked by waypoints. These include predictable government responses, and the confused statements of analysts who are unfamiliar with the circumstances. We see this today in the early stages of an inflation that threatens to become a terminal cancer for fiat currencies.

Harder to judge is the human element, the pace at which realisation dawns and the public’s consequential response to the discovery that their currency is being debauched and their wealth being transferred stealthily to the state. But history can provide some guidance.

If we consider the evidence from Austria before the First World War, we see that the economic prophets who truly understood economics became thoroughly despondent long before the First World War and the currency collapse of the early 1920s. Carl Menger, the father of subjectivity in marginal price theory became depressed by what he foresaw. As von Mises in his Memoirs wrote of Menger’s discouragement and premature silence, “His keen intellect had recognized in which direction Austria, Europe, and the world were pointed; he saw this greatest and highest of all civilizations rushing toward the abyss”. Mises then recorded a conversation his great-uncle had had with Menger’s brother, which referred to comments made by Menger at about the turn of the century, when he reportedly said,

“The policies being pursued by the European powers will lead to a terrible war ending with gruesome revolutions, the extinction of European culture and destruction of prosperity for people of all nations. In anticipation of these inevitable events, all that can be recommended are investments in gold hoards and the securities of the two Scandinavian countries” [presumably being on the periphery of European events].

The few economists who have studied American and European monetary and economic policies dispassionately and how they have evolved since the Nixon shock will resonate with Menger’s concerns. Mises also noted that this “pessimism consumed all sharp-sighted Austrians”. Menger’s pupil and friend, Crown Prince Rudolf, successor to the Austro-Hungarian throne took his own life and that of his lover in 1889 because of his despair over the future of his empire and that of European civilisation, and not because of his love affair.

As with all historical comparisons, today’s decline in American hegemony is only a most generalised repetition of the process by which an empire dies. But from this distance of over a century from events in Vienna it is easy to forget how important the Hapsburgs were and that before Napoleon the Austro-Hungarian empire had been the largest and most important of the European empires. But putting aside the obvious differences between then and now, today we see little or no evidence of cutting-edge economists sharing the despair of the early Austrians.

There is a good reason why this despair is absent today. Instead of economists independent from the state, universities, and professorial sponsorship, the entire economic profession is paid for by governments and their departments to promote statist intervention in the economic affairs of humanity. Feeding off statistics, mathematics is every policy-makers and investor’s religion. But economics is not a natural science governed by mathematics, like physics or chemistry, but a social science governed by markets; markets being forums where humans interact to satisfy their needs and wants, to exchange their production for consumption, and to manage their savings and capital.

As Hayek said of his friend Keynes, Keynes was a mathematician and not an economist. Today we can confidently state that students are taught mathematics and not economics. Economists are no longer economists, but statisticians and mathematicians devoid of the a priori reasoning that was central to the science before Keynes.

With the entire profession taught to believe in statist intervention, perhaps we should not be surprised that economists are not ringing the alarm bells warning of the consequences of decades of state manipulation of markets and of the catastrophe that evolves from denying there is any difference between money and currency, that is gold or silver, and infinitely expandable promissory notes and credit. Even many modern “Austrians” seem oblivious to the danger of a fiat money collapse, let alone the dire economic consequences. Among them there is even an antipathy against metallic money, which suggests they have not fully absorbed the theories of money and credit so lucidly explained by their earlier mentors.

Hopefully, the decline of America and its dollar hegemony we will not result in military conflict, let alone one on the scale of the 1914-18 European catastrophe. But that might be a vain hope. In today’s America we see a hegemon struggling to get to terms with its decline and the reality that the rise of Asia cannot be stopped. But what concerns us here is the more obvious and immediate problem of its currency, dollars backed by nothing more than the faith and credit of the declining US Government.

It is not too late to avoid a complete collapse of the dollar-led global currency regime, but there is no sign that the measures to avoid it will be taken. And with the exclusive dominance of mathematical economists: neo-Keynesians, monetarists, and modern monetary theorists alike, there is hardly anyone, like Menger, Mises, and the other Austrian economists who, before the First World War foresaw the economic and monetary consequences of unfettered statism and inflationary financing.

Bitcoin — the canary in the currency mine

We find ourselves not being warned of potential inflationary dangers by the state-educated pseudo-economists but by a motley crowd of geeks and speculators instead, who have grasped the relative price effect from different rates of currency issuance. Bitcoin’s quantity is capped while those of fiat currencies are not. All you need to exploit this simple fact is believe and convince yourself and others that bitcoin is the replacement currency of tomorrow for the comparison between bitcoin and state fiat to appear valid.

This was certainly the story being promoted by crypto enthusiasts from shortly after bitcoin’s first trade until the end of last year. But they have become increasingly convinced that the future for bitcoin is not so much as a currency (after all, while its price in dollars is rising it is in no one’s interest to use it as a medium for exchanging goods), but simply that, like a stock index on steroids, it is the inflation hedge par excellence. And for fear of missing out, even investing institutions run by custodians of other peoples’ money are now piling in.

But an index based on equities has the fundamental prop under it of being comprised of stocks the objective of which is to earn money for shareholders by selling goods and services for profit. With bitcoin there are no underlying earnings and nothing which is inflation-linked. In that sense it is a chimera.

An argument has therefore developed, with investors and speculators buying bitcoin only because the relative rate of issue relative to fiat currencies is capped, which is expected to drive the price still higher as governments continue to print their currencies. The underlying rationale, that bitcoin is a replacement currency for state fiat currencies has been disproved and I have little more to add in this respect. It cannot be used for economic calculation, because for a borrower there is uncertainty of repayment value.

Nor does bitcoin as a rival to state currencies hold water because no central bank will permit it to act as such. This is one reason why they are heading private cryptocurrencies off at the pass by developing their own, state-issued, and state-controlled digital currencies which can be used for economic calculation. Not only has the argument for ever rising bitcoin prices become its sole support, but the underlying rationale, that cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin qualify as a medium for transactions and will be permitted to replace state-issued fiat currencies cannot apply.

By identifying relative rates of currency issue as a valuation factor the tech-savvy millennial generation has understood a partial truism. The other part of which they appear not to be fully aware is that the effect of monetary inflation is to undermine a currency’s purchasing power. It is a separate argument from one based solely on relative rates of currency issue. However, having half the story understood at least is an advance from not comprehending any of it, and when further rises in prices for goods become widely expected, as they appear to be beginning to today, crypto fans are likely to learn the consequences of monetary inflation earlier than their non-tech predecessors, and perhaps even before state-educated economists as well.

For now, investors are being enticed by nothing other than the promise of riches to buy bitcoin as an inflation hedge, being disappointed by gold’s non-performance. In a recent quote in the UK’s Daily Telegraph a Morgan Stanley analyst stated just that: “We believe the perception of bitcoin as a better inflation hedge than gold is the main reason for the current upswing… triggering a shift away from gold [funds] into bitcoin funds since September”. But without the prop of being a credible form of replacement money the only reason to buy bitcoin is that circular argument: it should be bought because it is being bought.

Furthermore, buying bitcoin funds dissipates potential bitcoin demand, because for a bitcoin fund to qualify as a regulated investment, obtaining regulatory permission is easiest when a fund deals mostly or wholly in contracts on a regulated futures exchange instead of the underlying unregulated bitcoin. In other words, much of the demand for bitcoin is being side-lined into paper versions rather than for bitcoin itself.

Bubbles based on pure speculation always fail. That is not to say that speculative flows won’t drive bitcoin’s price higher still; as a possibility it seems highly likely. But that is for speculators, not those who seek protection from evolving economic and monetary events. Attention should be paid to Menger’s reported words 120 years ago, quoted above, that “In anticipation of these inevitable events, all that can be recommended are investments in gold hoards and the securities of the two Scandinavian countries” — except the securities of the two Scandinavian countries offer no escape today.

That being the case, the price of gold measured in bitcoin would appear to present a remarkable opportunity for lucky holders of bitcoin and similar private-sector cryptocurrencies. This is shown in Figure 1 below.

Since April 2015, the ratio of gold to bitcoin prices has fallen from over 5 to 0.03, a decline of over 99%. We have established why bitcoin has advanced: it is now due solely to the madness of an investing crowd, given that it is apparent that it will have no monetary role in the future. Market participants have either forgotten about or turned their backs against the metallic monies of millennia which have always returned as circulating media when state-issued fiat currencies fail.

Why gold is under-owned and unappreciated

Bitcoin is just part of this story: the other is the central banks’ resistance to rivalry to their fiat currencies from sound money. When US citizens were banned from owning gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates by executive order in 1933, the US Government’s desire to escape the discipline of gold as money became public. The resetting of international currency arrangements at Bretton Woods replaced gold with the dollar as the reserve currency with convertibility into gold limited to central banks and certain post-war supranational organisations. Even that failed, leading to the Bretton Woods agreement being suspended by President Nixon in 1971.

Led by the US Fed, ever since the Nixon shock central banks have run a propaganda campaign to convince their private sectors that gold’s historic role as the money “of last resort” had been made redundant through the magic of monetary progress. That propaganda campaign is now fifty years old and encompasses the entire working lives of employees in all financial sectors. The dollar myth as the ultimate form of money is now fully institutionalised.

In parallel with statist propaganda there has been a fundamental reform of the financial system to permit the development of various forms of derivatives. While derivatives previously existed in limited quantities, their massive expansion since the mid-eighties big-bang and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act created the means to absorb speculative demand for all commodities, including metallic money. According to the Bank for International Settlements, outstanding notional amounts of gold OTC derivatives at the end of last year stood at $834bn, to which must be added derivatives on regulated markets totalling a further $100bn. Together they are the equivalent together of over 15,000 tonnes of gold.

There is little doubt that, like bank credit, the financial system’s ability to create paper gold out of thin air has had a profound effect on the price. Backing this inflation of derivative paper has been the expansion of bank and shadow bank credit. That is now coming to an end, with the implementation of the latest phase of Basel 3 banking regulations.

Basel 3 and the net stable funding ratio

If you Google it, you find that Basel 3 is an internationally agreed set of measures developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in response to the financial crisis of 2007-09.

It was a crisis centred on derivatives, which highlighted the inadequacies of minimum capital requirements, banking supervision and market discipline, the three pillars of banking regulation. Basel 3 is gradually being introduced, but the regulations which concern gold and silver derivatives are what specifically concern us. Curbing balance sheet risk from inappropriate funding of precious metal derivative positions has already been introduced in Europe, Switzerland, and the US with the introduction of the net stable funding ratio. The last major financial jurisdiction to be affected is the UK, which introduces appropriate regulations from the first trading day of 1922 — in only nine weeks’ time.

Put briefly, a bank will no longer be able to run unrestricted derivative assets and liabilities without them being tied together. In other words, if a bank has a derivative as an asset on its balance sheet, it must relate specifically to and match a liability for netting purposes and be otherwise unencumbered if a balance sheet funding penalty is to be avoided. If a bank owns unencumbered physical gold as an asset, it can match that against a customer’s unallocated account without a funding penalty, if it has successfully sought and obtained regulatory permission to do so.

Two consequences follow. The first is that a bullion bank can only run an uneven book if it is prepared to accept a funding penalty through the application of the net stable funding ratio.[iii]Therefore, liquidity will almost certainly be withdrawn from futures and forwards markets, at least because banks want to appear fully compliant with the regulations. And the second is that most of the BIS gold derivative number of $834bn referred to above reflects bullion banks liabilities to their gold deposit accounts. By the year-end bullion banks will want to remove them, and the only way this can be achieved is by paying off customer gold accounts in fiat currency.

There could be thousands of tonnes equivalent of paper gold to reconcile in this way, leaving gold account depositors to either abandon their gold exposure entirely or to buy physical replacements in the market. And while the gaff is being blown on gold forwards and futures, reconciling central bank swaps and leases could also emerge as a problem.

In short, the factors that have suppressed the gold price since the early 1970s are not only coming to an end but are being reversed. The liquidation of paper gold threatens a gold liquidity crisis, which in the past would have been resolved by making bullion available through central bank gold swaps. But with central banks already owed bullion by the commercial banks and increasingly concerned about monetary inflation, this facility may be restricted.

For the leading central banks, the introduction of Basel 3’s net stable funding ratio therefore comes at a difficult time. They are already fighting to convince their markets that inflation is only a transient price effect and are beginning to reluctantly admit it is more intractable than they thought. The last thing they need is for the gold price to be forced higher by their own regulations, adding to fears of yet higher inflation to come.

But for individuals seeking to escape a fiat money catastrophe it appears that the ratio of gold to bitcoin is at an extreme of overvaluation for bitcoin and an extreme undervaluation for gold.

The next waypoints in understanding inflation

Because bitcoin has introduced the concept of relative rates of issue for currencies, the masses of the millennial generations will be alerted to the debasement of fiat currencies sooner than they would otherwise have been. We are less interested in how this is reflected in cryptocurrency prices than how this knowledge changes relations between consumers and state currencies.

Statist economists and monetary policy makers at the major central banks insist that higher prices for consumer goods are being driven by a combination of increased spending, which was stored up during covid lockdowns, and logistics disruption. To this can be added labour problems, with acute shortages in certain industry sectors and absenteeism due to continuing covid infections. Furthermore, energy and other input costs for businesses have been rising rapidly.

Monetary policy makers are aware that a wider consumer panic over rising prices must be avoided. They understand that continuing reports of product shortages will risk encouraging consumer stockpiling, driving consumer prices even higher. They will fear that interest rates would have to be increased significantly to bring price inflation back under control. But growth in the major economies appears to be stalling, which in the Keynesian playbook calls for lower interest rates and monetary stimulation instead. This leads us to…

Waypoint 1. Commentary in the main-stream media has yet to address this dilemma. It is to be expected at any time.

Following our first waypoint, we can assume that interest rates will be forced to rise by markets beginning to discount further losses of currency purchasing power for which interest compensation is demanded. That will inevitably terminate the bull market in equities because it undermines bond prices, pushing up yields and disrupting relative valuations. Figure 2 shows that this process has probably started, though markets are not yet discounting a rise in bond yields beyond a minor amount.

The technical message from this chart confirms that the 10-year UST yield is set to go significantly higher, affecting government borrowing adversely through rising interest costs. And when the bear market in these bonds becomes more obvious to investors and foreign holders of them alike, funding the government deficit will become much more difficult. The scale of the rise in fixed interest yields is likely to take market participants and policy planners alike by surprise.

The only way in which monetary policy planners can attempt to control rising bond yields and to stop equities sliding into a bear market is to increase the pace of currency creation, particularly through enhanced QE. But for now, the Fed’s stated intention is to taper QE, not increase it. This leads us to…

Waypoint 2. No anticipation of this dilemma in the media or independent commentary has yet been detected. Look out for it.

In the run up to the northern hemisphere winter and the Christmas shopping season, energy prices and fuel costs are set to rise further. There is no sign of product shortages being resolved. The danger is that with continuing product shortages, consumers will push their purchases of goods not immediately needed even further into the future in case they become unavailable. This will drive consumer prices even higher, creating expectations of yet higher interest rates in financial markets.

The Fed will have a straightforward choice: resist market pressures for higher interest rates to save financial markets, stave off insolvencies by over-leveraged borrowers and minimise government funding costs; or protect the dollar by raising the funds rate sufficiently to take all expectation of higher rates out of the market and ignore the financial carnage. This will be next…

Waypoint 3. No anticipation of this dilemma in the media or independent commentary has yet been detected.

There is a specific danger developing from consumer demand leading to a general stockpiling goods. When the process goes beyond a certain point the consequences of consumers disposing of their currency and credit in favour of goods become apparent. Currency no longer works as the objective value in a transaction, this role being switched to goods, because people begin to buy goods just to get rid of currency.

When that process starts in earnest, the fate of the currency is sealed. A hundred years ago this was called the crack-up boom, the final abandonment of currency.

Waypoint 4. No anticipation of the final nails in the fiat currency coffin is currently anticipated. When it is, the fate of the currency will have already been sealed.

Summary and conclusions

Those of us not under the direct management of the US monetary policies will not escape the consequences. All western central banks accept the dollar as their reserve currency and not metallic money, so events affecting the dollar affect all the other fiat currencies. Furthermore, the other major central banks led by the Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, and the Bank of England are pursuing similarly inflationary monetary policies. Central bank groupthink is concreted into global monetary policies. Without a change in their mandate the end of modern currencies is only a matter of time — and a shortening one at that.

The dying days of fiat are foreshadowed by the speculative fervour in bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies. A new millennial tech-savvy class of investors has got at least half the message, that fiat currency quantities are being inflated. That a significant element of the population has grasped this much about currencies early challenges the long-held wisdom that not one in a million understands money, which allows governments to oversee a limitless expansion of currency and credit for significant periods of time. Therefore, the danger to state inflationism is that significant numbers will act sooner to avoid currency depreciation by dumping it in favour of goods. It is a process that once started is impossible to stop.

While the establishment appears vaguely aware of this danger, it lacks the theoretical knowledge to deal with it. Ninety years of denying classical economics in favour of Keynesianism and other statist monetary theories are too embedded in the official mind. And in the absence of understanding the destructive forces of inflationism, prescient individuals seeking protection for their families, close friends and themselves have no option but to reduce their dependency on fiat currencies and all ephemeral financial assets tied to them. These include savings deposits and “stores of wealth”, particularly fixed-interest bonds and equities.

The fashionable alternative is distributed ledger cryptocurrencies which are beyond the interference of the state, exemplified by the rise and rise of bitcoin. But this article points out that this has now become dominated by speculation, so much so that in their ignorance of catallactics investors are discarding metallic money in favour of bitcoin.

This is a mistake. There are sound reasons why metallic money, gold and silver, have always been money used as a medium of exchange. And as Figure 1 in this article illustrates, relative to bitcoin gold is now less than 1% of its value in 2016. Bitcoin is the bubble; gold has become the anti-bubble.

The systematic suppression of gold in favour of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is now coming to an end. The fact that westerners hardly own any bullion as part of their savings is a mistake they will rue, if, as seems inevitable, current monetary and economic policies persist.

Until now, China’s increasingly totalitarian regime had raged over, scolded its companies and generally cracked down over (somewhat) legitimate reasons: fledgling monopolies, information warehousing, educational profiteering, and generally anything that did not comply with Xi’s new “shared prosperity” theme. But all that went out of the window overnight when China’s Xinhua reported that four regional broadcasters were summoned for an inquiry on Friday for airing “excessive entertainment” programs in their satellite TV services.

The broadcasters under question are the regional radio and TV stations of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Hunan; the four were called to a meeting with officials from the CCP’s central propaganda department and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), Xinhua reported.

During the inquiry, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the National Radio and Television Administration did acknowledge the contribution of the four regional broadcasters in promoting mainstream values and spreading positive energy in recent years.

Taking a page right out of a Stalinist purge, the satellite channels of these four stations were found to have flaws of streaming “excessive entertainment” materials and hyping entertainment stars to varying degrees, which according to a statement issued after the inquiry, “must be resolutely rectified.”

In other words, no more “excessive entertainment” which may be similar to “too many notes” only nobody really knows: after all this is just the latest example of Beijing censors losing their mind.

“In recent years, radio and television stations in these four provinces and cities have … made positive contributions in promoting mainstream values and spreading positive energy,” the bosses were told.

“But some satellite channels also have problems, such as an excessive focus on entertainment, star-chasing and speculation, which must be resolutely rectified,” the officials warned.

The central authorities asked the four stations to carry out comprehensive measures to improve their cultural and entertainment programs, maintain political consciousness, and give priority to social benefits.

Like not airing “excessive entertainment.”

Similar to channels like MSNBC, the scolded stations should instead focus more on vigorously prompting core socialist values, praising ordinary workers, and playing a leading role in the transformation and development of provincial radio and television services, the statement added.

The broadcasters said they will earnestly implement the directives, comprehensively push forward rectifications, and speed up transformation. Because under a totalitarian socialist regime, that’s what you do.

The warning to the satellite channels came as the SARFT unveiled a new production process for centrally approved radio, TV, and online audiovisual content “in the new era.” In other words, even more censorship is coming.

The agency called on all radio, TV, and online content producers to start making TV dramas, documentaries, and cartoons, as well as public service films, that “depict the major achievements and history of the CCP’s century of struggle.”

The newly commissioned content should “fully demonstrate that Xi Jinping’s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics has taken root,” it said in a directive on Oct. 29. The SARFT will also impose strict controls on the selection of actors and guests, as well as on performance styles, costumes, and make-up, it said.

Some social media users said the four satellite channels targeted for “rectification” were the only channels they ever watched. Online commentators took issue with the ongoing ideological crackdown on China’s media, which was already tightly controlled.

“Isn’t the point of TV that it’s just for entertainment?” one comment said. Others worried that the move would take China’s radio and TV industries back to the pre-reform era.

As a reminder, a political essay by a little-known commentator was showcased by China’s state-run media over the summer, suggesting that Xi Jinping is taking the country away from the pro-market policies of the past four decades, which have become associated with decadence by party ideologues.

The essay, titled “Everyone can tell that profound social change is under way” and printed in CCP mouthpiece the People’s Daily, uses the recent crackdown on China’s scandal-hit entertainment industry to argue that profound political change is afoot that will focus on easing inequality. The essay argues that the CCP has launched a “profound revolution” with its crackdown on celebrity culture, billionaires, and the private sector generally.

“This revolution will wash all of the dirt away,” said the essay, signed by Li Guangman, columnist and former editor of the trade publication Central China Electric Power.

“Our capital markets will no longer be a paradise for capitalists to get rich overnight; our cultural sphere no longer a paradise for sex-crazed celebrities, and the worship of Western culture will no longer be a feature of our news coverage or public opinion,” Li wrote.

The article was reprinted on Aug. 29 by state news agency Xinhua, CCTV, China News Service, the Global Times website, and Guangming.com.

“Literary and artistic workers, film and television workers must get down to the grassroots of society, making ordinary workers and ordinary people the masters and protagonists of art and literature,” it said.

In retrospect, it may not be a terrible idea to force a similar standard on Hollywood celebs who under China’s new draconian regime would be limited to make not much more than average wage. One wonders how many of them remain vocal liberals once their money was gone…

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Last month, the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia released a new study which showed that, at least among those polled, “roughly 4 in 10 (41%) of Biden and half (52%) of Trump voters at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.”

Moreover, majorities in both groups agreed there are “many radical, immoral people trying to ruin things” and that “it is the duty of every true citizen to help eliminate the evil that poisons our country from within.”

On might conclude that people who think that things are generally going well in a country aren’t so concerned with “the evil within” that they think it’s time to “split the country.”

It seems that President Biden has been unable to “unite” the country after all, in spite of his promises that it’s “time to heal in America” and that he will “be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify.” Rather, it appears the country embraces a hard divide over a variety of issues with vaccine mandates and parental rights in public education being only the most current ones.

At this point, there’s no reason to believe these divides are simply going to go away. Secession is likely to become even more mainstream as has been occurring in recent years, and as the old “liberal consensus” of the mid-twentieth century recedes ever more into the distant past. Moreover, opponents of secession are clear that they’re not willing to tolerate a separation that would allow Americans in neighboring jurisdictions to embrace other models of society or governance. But in the real world, major political changes can come suddenly and in unexpected ways. In 1987, most Soviet still assumed the USSR would continue to exist for many more decades—if not centuries. Because of this, now is the time to begin asking the difficult questions about secession and how military and financial questions can be addressed.

Considering all this, we see three main reasons why it is increasingly unwise to ignore secession as a serious possibility. 

Secession Went Mainstream

The first reason we must now take secession seriously is that it’s no longer a topic of discussion among the most radical.

In 2014, for example, a quarter of those polled said they thought their state should secede. By 2018, 39 percent were saying they think a state should “have the final say” as to whether or not that state remains part of the United States. In 2020, more than a third of those polled said states have a legal right to secede.

Mainstream conservatives increasingly suggest the possibility, from Rush Limbaugh to Dennis Prager. Indeed, just last week, Prager admitted that secession offers a chance to live in a country that better reflects one’s own values. Should secession happen, Prager said, “ I would live in a state governed by Judeo-Christian values versus one governed by left-wing values.” Even elderly conservatives are started to grasp the idea: separation brings choice, and choice is better than ossified notions of “patriotism.”

Indeed, it appears it’s no coincidence that older conservative operatives like Prager have been among those who are late to warm to the idea of secession. According to Zogby’s 2020 poll on secession, favorable attitudes toward secession decline as the polled group gets older. In the 18-29 year-old group, a majority (52 percent) think states have a legal right to secede. In the over-65 group the number is only 23 percent. In other words, the dogma of national unity is a dogma of older generations. Not only is secession increasingly mainstream, it may be the wave of the future as well.

Meanwhile, members of Congress—including Iowa’s Steven Holt and Florida’s Marjorie Taylor Greene—now openly speak well of secession. They wouldn’t say this unless they thought their constituents agree with them. 

Moreover, we might measure the growth of the secessionist position by the number of pundits who now feel the need to condemn it. Once upon a time, secession was regarded as so “out there” that it scarcely deserved any attention at all. No longer. Nowadays, conservative beltway pundits feel the need to go on rants about it on Fox News. 

The Left’s Unionists Want to Run Your Life

A second reason to take secession seriously is the fact that the Left doesn’t seem to be learning anything from the rise of separatism. Just as many Americans appear to be embracing a posture in opposition to rule from the center, the Left is doubling down on the idea that more local autonomy is not to be tolerated.

A clear example of this is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act introduced in the US Senate. The legislation, if passed, would give Washington vast new powers in regulating and controlling how states conduct their own elections. Originally, of course, state governments had almost total control in how elections were governed and conducted within each state. This makes sense in a country that began as a collection of sovereign republics. Just as EU member states conduct their elections in a way that’s locally controlled, the same was once true for the US. Over time—as in most areas—the federal government asserted more control. But with the Voting Rights Advancement Act, local control over elections would be virtually abolished with most any changes subject to a federal imprimatur.

Naturally, opposition to surrendering state elections to federal control is denounced as motivated by racism and other nefarious goals. And this is reflective of the Left’s general opposition to secession and decentralization in general. The idea is “we can’t let those people run their own affairs because they’re sure to use local prerogatives for evil.”

For example, when condemning secession in New York magazine, Democratic strategist Ed Kilgore made it clear he has no intention of letting people do much of anything without federal “oversight.” He writes:

So might we drift apart more or less peacefully this time around? Possibly, but count me out when it comes to agreeing to a National Divorce. …[H]ow could I happily accept the accelerated subjugation of women and people of color in a new, adjacent Red America, any more than abolitionists could accept the continuation and expansion of the slavery they hated? Would it really be safe to live near a carbon-mad country in which the denial of climate change was an article of faith? And could I ever trust that a “neighbor” whose leadership and citizens believed their policies reflected the unchanging ancient will of the Almighty would leave our fences intact?

Kilgore can barely contain his contempt. He might as well be saying “If those Red State troglodytes are allowed freedom, they’ll surely embrace a racist and misogynistic dystopia that fills the air with poisonous fumes. These are religious zealots, after all!”

Anyone who doesn’t want to live out his or her life as subject to the whims of men like Kilgore should take his few moments of candor as an ominous warning. These people will never “happily accept” self-governance outside Washington’s purview because they quite literally equate it with slavery and the hatred of women.

In other words, the more the Left condemns secession in detail—as they must now do because dismissive scoffing no longer works—they only provide additional reasons for why secession is likely the only real solution to the national divide.

Now Is Time to Ask the Difficult Questions

Finally, the mainstreaming of secession means now is the appropriate time to start asking the difficult questions about how separation would actually take place.

For example, the issue of nuclear weapons cannot be ignored—although the case of post-Soviet Ukraine shows it’s not as intractable a problem as many suspect. Moreover, the question of the national debt ought to be approached. It will likely also be necessary to admit that under all realistic scenarios, a partial default is the likely outcome either with or without secession. And finally, there is the problem of “ethnic” enclaves. Historically, this always comes with secession, as with the ethnic Russians in the secessionist Baltics or the pro-Spaniard populations left behind throughout Latin America in the nineteenth century. Moreover, how “complete” would this separation be? It is entirely conceivable that a United States with two or more self-governing pieces could nevertheless remain within under a single head of state or within a single military alliance. 

In real life, big political changes have a habit of occurring regardless of what the official planners want, and what the official plans say. That is, events have a way of overwhelming what the elites think is the proper way of doing things. But fostering serious discussion now could help avert at least some unpleasant surprises in the longer term. On the other hand, living in denial about secession won’t improve things. And, of course, the matter of secession is not “if” but “when.” All polities come to an end at some point either through disintegration or revolution. In many cases, the world improves when old states like the Roman Empire collapse.  The fanciful America-will-last-forever position is something that should seem plausible only to small children or the hopelessly naïve. 

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have outdone themselves with “wokeness” once again on behalf of the animal kingdom. This time, PETA is in the news for urging Major League Baseball to stop referring to pitcher warmup areas as “bullpens”. 

Because we’re sure this hurts the animals’ feelings when they sit around and watch baseball, right?

And while that’s sarcasm, that hasn’t stopped the agency from petitioning the MLB to change the term. PETA actually argued that “bullpen” is insensitive to cows, TMZ reported this week. PETA is insisting that the MLB change the name of the warmup area to the “arm barn”. 

As if referencing a barn is going to be any less “insensitive” than saying “bullpen”? Couldn’t the mention of a barn wind up giving horses somewhere PTSD? But we digress…

PETA exec Tracy Reiman, who obviously has a lot of time on her hands, commented: “Words matter, and baseball ‘bullpens’ devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals.”

The organization takes exception with the fact that the “bullpen” is a holding area where bulls are kept before slaughter.

“Strike out the word ‘bullpen,’ which references the holding area where terrified bulls are kept before slaughter, in favor of a more modern, animal-friendly term,” PETA said.

Ah, strike out. We see what you did there. Great work advancing the cause, guys. Godspeed.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

FBI Director Christopher Wray urged private companies Thursday to work with the agency to counter China and prevent the Asian country from becoming “the world’s only superpower.”

Wray claims China could become the world’s dominant power by amassing intellectual property. The accusation that Beijing steals intellectual property was the primary basis for the Trump administration’s trade war with China, which is continuing under President Biden.

Wray accused China of trying to access information through cyberattacks. “Too often when we see a cyberthreat and start digging, we find that the same adversary is also working with an unwitting company insider to target… sensitive and proprietary information,” he said.

The FBI chief also claimed China was using “non-traditional collectors” to gain information in the US, including “businessmen, different kinds of researchers and graduate students, scientists, ostensibly private companies.”

He said these private individuals are “effectively under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party, all geared towards a common aim of trying to steal our information to put the Chinese government in a way to become the world’s only superpower.”

The idea that the FBI suspects anyone from China of being a spy for Beijing has grave implications for the civil liberties of Chinese Americans and Chinese residents living in the US. The FBI’s campaign has already led to the agency falsely accusing Chinese professors in the US of spying for Beijing.

It’s now common for US officials to claim China is the top “threat” facing the US, but Wray, a holdover from the Trump administration, has been making that claim for years. In 2018, he told Congress that China represents “the broadest, most complicated, most long-term counter-intelligence threat we face.”

Airbnb is taking steps to prevent wild Halloween weekend parties at homes rented through its platform. New restrictions began on Wednesday and will last through the weekend that will limit large gatherings. 

For the second consecutive year, Airbnb has enforced temporary restrictions around Halloween to prevent parties. One-night reservations will be blocked this weekend for users without a history of positive reviews.

The vacation rentals platform also announced occupancy limitations to 16 and encouraged neighbors to report suspicious activity. 

Restrictions led to a 49% plunge in unauthorized parties for Halloween in the U.S. and Canada for 2020.

Last year, restrictions were first implemented after a Halloween party at a Bay Area Airbnb rental left five people dead in 2019. At the time, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the company would examine measures to ban “party houses.” 

The company this year has published a set of rules for guests for this weekend: 

• For one-night reservations — Guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will be prohibited from making one-night reservations in entire home listings.
• For two-night reservations — Airbnb will deploy more stringent restrictions on two-night reservations that may pose heightened risk for parties. For example, the company will use technology that restricts certain local and last-minute bookings by guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb and also block reservations within an expanded radius.
• Guests who have a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will not be subject to these restrictions.
• Guests making one or two-night reservations will need to attest that they understand Airbnb’s party ban and that they could face legal consequences for breaking the rules.

Airbnb expects their anti-party measures this Halloween weekend will deter “Project X” type style parties. 

Airbnb is taking steps to prevent wild Halloween weekend parties at homes rented through its platform. New restrictions began on Wednesday and will last through the weekend that will limit large gatherings. 

For the second consecutive year, Airbnb has enforced temporary restrictions around Halloween to prevent parties. One-night reservations will be blocked this weekend for users without a history of positive reviews.

The vacation rentals platform also announced occupancy limitations to 16 and encouraged neighbors to report suspicious activity. 

Restrictions led to a 49% plunge in unauthorized parties for Halloween in the U.S. and Canada for 2020.

Last year, restrictions were first implemented after a Halloween party at a Bay Area Airbnb rental left five people dead in 2019. At the time, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the company would examine measures to ban “party houses.” 

The company this year has published a set of rules for guests for this weekend: 

• For one-night reservations — Guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will be prohibited from making one-night reservations in entire home listings.
• For two-night reservations — Airbnb will deploy more stringent restrictions on two-night reservations that may pose heightened risk for parties. For example, the company will use technology that restricts certain local and last-minute bookings by guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb and also block reservations within an expanded radius.
• Guests who have a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will not be subject to these restrictions.
• Guests making one or two-night reservations will need to attest that they understand Airbnb’s party ban and that they could face legal consequences for breaking the rules.

Airbnb expects their anti-party measures this Halloween weekend will deter “Project X” type style parties. 

Authored by Christopher Burroughs via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Conservative radio host Dan Bongino announced his daily show will only air replays while he deals with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate with his show’s parent company Cumulus Media.

Bongino shared the news during his Wednesday online podcast.

“They didn’t consult with us content providers. I strongly object to the mandate,” Bongino said.

“The fight with them is having a real impact. Behind the scenes, it’s getting a little ugly here. I wasn’t on the radio today. I don’t know what they did, played the ‘best of’ or whatever. You don’t treat people this way. You don’t let people go because they insist their body is theirs,” he added.

During Wednesday’s podcast, Bongino also urged listeners to join the Locals platform. Video platforms Rumble and Locals merged on Tuesday after Rumble recently acquired the tech company.

“It is unfortunately an ugly fight. I wish it weren’t,” Bongino said as he reviewed the controversy with Cumulus during his Wednesday episode.

“Some of the people who were fired by Cumulus whose stories are piling in, they are really disturbing. I hear you … I read one of the emails yesterday and I’m going to get to more of them as time goes on.”

Though Bongino is personally fully vaccinated against COVID-19, he opposes the company’s vaccine mandate.

The former New York police officer and Secret Service agent’s message first pushed back on the media group’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate requirement last week.

“You can have me or you can have the [vaccine] mandate. But you can’t have both of us,” Bongino said during his nationwide radio program on Oct. 18.

.@dbongino to Cumulus Radio: “You can have me or you can have the [vaccine] mandate. But you can’t have both of us.”

Find your local station to listen LIVE: https://t.co/IK6DZpbTzJ

Or watch here: https://t.co/NaTE4NeVLy pic.twitter.com/tKzemVWEbB

— Bongino Report (@BonginoReport) October 18, 2021

“I’m not letting this go,” Bongino publicly declared in another post.

“I’m not even considering letting it go. I’m announcing it publicly so you know I’m not letting it go,” he added.

.@dbongino publicly calls out Cumulus, who carries his radio show on hundreds of stations, for issuing its own vaccine mandate.

“I’m not letting this go.”

Find your local station to listen LIVE: https://t.co/IK6DZpbTzJ

Or watch here: https://t.co/NaTE4NeVLy pic.twitter.com/7fAfJY9FoH

— Bongino Report (@BonginoReport) October 18, 2021

Cumulus Media announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees on Aug. 12.

CEO Mary Berner stated in a message to employees that they needed to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 27—two weeks prior to the scheduled return date.

The statement included various exceptions to the mandate. Cumulus Media says its workforce includes approximately 4,000 people and runs more than 400 stations in 80 markets.