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Authored by Gilbert Doctorow,

The notion of “fake news” has entered our vocabulary as a pejorative term for dissemination of bogus information, usually by social media, sometimes by traditional print and electronic channels which happen to hold positions contradicting the tenets of our conventional wisdom, i.e., liberal democracy. The term has been applied to Russian state owned media such as RT to justify denying such outlets normal journalistic credentials and privileges.

In this essay, I will employ the more traditional term propaganda, which I take to mean the manipulation of information which may or may not be factually true in order to achieve objectives of denigrating rivals for influence and power in the world, and in particular for denigrating Russia and the “Putin regime.”

The working tools of such propaganda are

• tendentious determination of what constitutes news, which build on the inherent predisposition of journalism to feature the negative and omit the positive from daily reporting while they carry this predisposition to preposterous lengths

• the abandonment of journalism’s traditional “intermediation,” meaning provision of necessary context to make sense of the facts set out in the body of a news report. In this regard, the propagandistic journalist does not deliver the essential element of paid-for journalism which should distinguish it from free “fake news” on social media and on the internet more broadly

• silence, meaning underreporting or zero reporting of inconvenient news which contradicts the conventional wisdom or might prompt the reader-viewer to think for himself or herself. As a colleague and comrade in arms, professor Steve Cohen of Princeton and NYU, has said in his latest book War with Russia?: the century old motto of The New York Times “All the news that’s fit to print” has in our day turned into “All the news that fits.”

Demonstrations of the arguments I present here could easily fill a book if not a library shelf. However, I think for purposes of this essay, it suffices to adduce several examples of the three violations of professional journalism giving us a constant stream of propaganda about Russia and its political leadership by offering a few reports drawn from the very cream of our print and electronic media.

In particular, I have chosen as markers the Financial Times and the BBC. The use of propaganda methods in their coverage of Russia is all the more telling and damaging, given that in a great many domains these channels otherwise represent some of the highest quality standards to be found in reporting anywhere today and consequently enjoy the respect of their subscribers and visitors, who little suspect they could be so prejudicial in their coverage of select domains like Russia.

*  *  *

As 2019 drew to a close, many of our media outlets drew attention to two Russia-related anniversaries: the just celebrated thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with the retreat of Soviet armed forces from Eastern Europe that it touched off; and the soon to be celebrated twentieth year of Vladimir Putin’s hold on power in the Kremlin. Both subjects may be fairly called news worthy and so fully correspond to traditional journalistic values. What has been exceptional and unacceptable has come in the second category of violations listed above – lack of context.

Starting in October 2019, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg did several programs dedicated to the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the Christmas to New Year’s period, the BBC aired one program which consisted of two parts. In the first half, Rosenberg considered the impact of the withdrawal of Russian forces from East Germany on the Russians themselves and interviewed the former chief of those forces, who explained at length how they “came home” to shocking living conditions in the provinces, how they were abandoned to their fate by their own government. The tone of the reporting was sympathetic to Russians’ hardships and it was good that their side of the story from the ground up was given the microphone. What implied criticism there was of the powers that be came from a patriotic source. However, the second half of the program was turned over to a certain Lydia Shevtsova, a very outspoken Putin-hater, formerly with the Carnegie Center Moscow, till she was finally booted out and moved to a more congenial and supportive think tank, Chatham House, in London, where her anti-Russian vitriol is encouraged and disseminated by her co-author, ex-British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood. Among the gem quotations which Shevtsova delivered was the claim that Russia under Putin is a declining power which is capable only of disrupting the world order, a spoiler not capable of any creative or productive contribution. Of course, Shevtsova has a right to her opinions, however the BBC had an obligation to its audience to explain exactly who the lady is and, if they wanted to practice fair play, to offer an alternative interpretation of what Vladimir Putin’s Russia stands for on the global stage today. They did not do either. The result was pure propaganda not news and analysis.

As for violations in the categories one and two above, a very good example arose following the recent publication of a study performed by the Levada Center public opinion polling organization in Moscow during October which showed that “53 per cent of 18-to-24 year-olds wanted to leave the country.” This was written about by many of our news peddlers, including FT. The decision to feature this factoid and use it to support claims that the Putin regime’ is a failure fits well with tendentiousness of our news coverage. Meanwhile, nearly all coverage of that study, including in the Financial Times, offered no contextual information whatsoever, when the context was begging to be told.

The article in FT which carried the Levada Center findings was published on 9 January as “Generation Putin: how young Russians view the only leader they’ve ever known.” The remarks on Levada followed directly on another statement begging for context: “Youth unemployment in Russia is more than three times the rate of the total population, according to 2018 data, compared with just twice the rate in 2000.”

First, as regards those 53% would-be “leavers,” one might ask: and so, why don’t they just leave? Russia today is truly a free country: anyone other than convicted felons who wants a passport can get it, and get it rather quickly. And thanks to the efforts of their remarkably hardworking Ministry of Foreign Affairs, most of the world welcomes Russian travelers without a visa requirement. But for that matter, getting a Schengen visa for the EU is not so complicated either.

However, those 53% are, in fact, not going anywhere. They are just sounding off about their youthful disgruntlement with a world created and run by their parents.

At the same time, as the Financial Times editorial board knows full well, young, middle-aged and even old have been leaving the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Romania and other former Soviet Bloc countries in droves, for the past thirty years up to the present day. That was the subject of an article published in the FT on the next day, 10 January 2020 under a title which speaks for itself: “Shrinking Europe.” The states I mentioned here have seen 25 and 30% loss of their population to citizens voting with their feet and departing the shrinking economies and personal prospects which result directly from deindustrialization and economic colonization by Germany and other founding Member States of the EU since 1991. The issue appears in the news now because, as the FT explains, “Andrej Plenkovic, the Croatian prime minister, has decided to elevate population decline to the top of his agenda as Zagreb assumes the EU’s rotating presidency.” Good for him! Now that the skeleton has finally come out of the EU closet, all the stories about Russia’s demographic crisis can be put in context – by those few who wish to do so.

Second, as regards unemployment in Russia today, I believe that similar ratios of youth unemployment to the general population unemployment can be found most everywhere in Western Europe if not in the world at large. The fact that this ratio has worsened comparatively in Russia since 2000 may be explained by the anomalous situation in Russia prevailing throughout the 1990s in step with the economic collapse that accompanied the transition to a market economy. Precisely the older generations, those over 40, were thrown into the street and their children or grandchildren were the first to be hired by the newly emerging industrial conglomerates, not to mention by Western multinationals settling in. What has happened since 2000 is merely a reversion to more normal distribution of employment and unemployment in the population as the Russian economy stabilizes.

Moreover, it would have been helpful had the author named the current level of youth and general unemployment in Russia. In fact, the general unemployment in Russia stands at something like 5%, so youth unemployment would be 15% by his reckoning. I assure you that there are many EU Member States that would be delighted to have similarly low unemployment rates. Here in Brussels the general rate has been over 20% for ten years or more, while youth unemployment has always been considerably higher.

Dear Reader!

For those who find my examples above too subtle to support my argument for egregious propagandistic treatment of Russia in our media, allow me to introduce violation number three, silence, in a way that should sweep away all objections to my thesis.

I draw your attention to an event that occurred in the past week about which you probably know nothing, or perhaps a wee bit from the odd man out reporting in the Wall Street Journal and a few other outlets. I am talking about the visit of Vladimir Putin to Damascus on Tuesday, 7 January. To their credit, the WSJ carried a short article in their 8 January edition, but went no further than to note this was the second visit by Putin since the Russians joined the fight in support of President Bashar Assad back in September 2015, turning the tide in the civil war his way. That is true, but only represents a tiny slice of what all our journalists, including the WSJ’s could have and possibly did learn from watching Russian state television on the 7th. What our media chose not to report was passed over in silence because it shows the complexity of Russia’s policy in the Middle East that includes but goes well outside the domain of pure geopolitics. This is so not least because of the date chosen for the visit, which happens to be Orthodox Christmas.

On the evening of the 6th, that is to say on Christmas eve, by the Russian Orthodox calendar, Russian state television broadcast live coverage of the Christmas service in the Christ the Savior cathedral in Moscow officiated by Patriarch Kirill, with prime minister Medvedev present on behalf of the Government. Then it cut to the service in St. Petersburg, where Vladimir Putin sat in the congregation, as is his custom. The commentator mentioned in passing that the Patriarch’s father, a parish priest, just happened to be the one who baptized Vladimir Putin as a child where they all lived, in the Northern Capital.

The next coverage of Putin on state television was from Damascus on the 7th, where he obviously arrived on a night flight from Petersburg. I did not see video coverage, perhaps because the journalist pool was very limited for security reasons. But still photos and reports on state television informed us that Putin had not merely held talks with President Assad on the Russian military base outside the capital, but had strolled together with him down the streets of Damascus, had visited the main church in the (still existing) Christian quarter of the city, had presented to the Patriarch of Antioch an icon of the Virgin and had also gone on to visit the city’s oldest and largest mosque.

What you have here is precisely the second line of justification for Russian presence in Syria alongside military/geopolitical reasons: resuming Russia’s 19th century role as protector of the Orthodox population in the Holy Land and the broader Middle East. A similar role was exercised back then by France on behalf of the Catholic populations, but that since has been totally negated by rampant secularism and multiculturalism in Western Europe.

It also has to be said that Putin’s visit to Damascus was back-to-back with other very high visibility political statements: his visit to Istanbul on the 8th for the official opening of the TurkSteam gas pipeline and for lengthy talks with President Erdogan that ended in a joint statement calling for a truce in the Libyan civil war for which Russia and Turkey support opposing sides; and his visit on the 9th to Russian naval exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean that included the launch of Russia’s latest hypersonic missiles, the reality of which U.S. and other Western experts have yet to acknowledge.

With this I rest my case on the unfortunate propagandistic behavior of our media which deprive the broad Western public of any chance to make sense of the most dangerous military and political standoff of our age.

*  *  *

Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book Does Russia Have a Future? was published in August 2017.

Middle age can be a miserable time, particularly for a certain cohort of Gen Xers who are struggling through divorce, a dead-end career, insufficient savings or overwhelming debt.

But David Blanchflower, a professor at Dartmouth College and former BoE policy maker, examined data across 132 countries to measure the relationship between wellbeing and age.

And what he found surprised him, according to Bloomberg.

He concluded that every country has a “happiness curve” that’s U-shaped over a typical lifetime.

“The curve’s trajectory holds true in countries where the median wage is high and where it is not and where people tend to live longer and where they don’t,” Blanchflower wrote in a study that was published Monday by the NBER.

For most of the developed world, the age of peak unhappiness is 47.2 years old.

Most of a person’s middle years are miserable, according to the study. But oddly enough, as we approach the golden years, we start to appreciate life a little bit more.

Perhaps that has something to do with approaching retirement age (something millennials might never reach). Or maybe it’s simply the wisdom of age.

But for most of life, expect the misery to get worse before it gets better. Just one more reason why Americans are seeking mental health advice in droves.

Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

This may not be a surprise to many males, but human females are unlike the rest of the animals on earth.  Human females have a unique and totally differentiating factor from nearly all other animal life; their bodies cease being capable of pregnancy approximately half way through their life cycle.  This natural change to sterility (menopause) does not happen in the animal kingdom (nor in human males) essentially so long as they live (ok, actually there may be a couple of whales and porpoises that may also go through menopause…but I digress).  Animals and male humans are still able to reproduce nearly until the end.  But not human females.  Even before menopause fully takes over, typically around 50 years of age, fertility rates drop radically after 40 and miscarriages surge among those able to get pregnant.  By 45, pregnancies essentially cease.

What the hell does this have to do with economics, you may be asking yourself?

Judging the size and change of humankinds population is quite different than any other species on earth because of this truncated period of fertility among human females. Thus, to gauge the direction of our species, and the future consumption and potential economic activity, we must focus on annual births versus the 20 to 40 year-old female population and understand that the post childbearing, 40+ year-old female population is, from a fertility perspective, simply an inert echo chamber. The 20 to 40 and 40+ year-old populations shown below through 2040 are not estimates or projections but actual persons which already exist and (absent some pandemic, world war, or change in life spans) will slide through the next 20 years.  All data (except where noted) comes from the UN World Population Prospects 2019 and they collect / compile all the data from the national and regional bodies.  The only real variables in what I’ll show below are immigration, deaths, and births over the next 20 years.  I also primarily focus on the world excluding Africa.  Africa consumes so little, has relatively very low emigration rates, is highly reliant on the rest of the world for it’s economic growth, but from a population perspective, is growing so rapidly as to skew the picture.

But at the onset of a declining childbearing population (excluding Africa) and ongoing declines in fertility rates, the UN projects that the decline in births (excluding Africa) since 1989 will only continue.  But I’ll show why significantly lower annual births are far more realistic than the UN projections.  And given nation after nation is reporting “shocking” declines in births in 2018 and again 2019…the estimated numbers of births are only set to be significantly lower as something very momentous is appears to be happening.

Last 70 years…

1950-’89 +32 million annual births, +375 million female 20-40 year-olds, +320 million female 40+year-olds

1989-’20 -17 million annual births, +230 million female 20-40year-olds, +680 million female 40+year-olds

Next 20 years…

2020-’40 -10 million births annually by 2040, -32 million female 20-40year-olds, +435 million female 40+year-olds

Below, looking at the same data as above, but focusing on the year over year change of 20 to 40 year-olds (red columns) versus the same for 40+ year-olds (blue columns), annual births (black line), and federal funds rate (yellow line).  From a global population perspective, the 1980’s were the turning point; federal funds rate peaking in 1981 (restricting access to capital as the growth in global demand was at its zenith), annual childbearing female population growth peaking in 1985 (adding nearly 18 million females in that year alone), and annual births subsequently peaking in 1989. Since 1989, the under 40 year old annual growth keeps decelerating, the births keep declining, and the federal funds rate moving lower.

In 2020 or 2021, the global childbearing population of females (excluding Africa) will begin outright declining.  The only thing rising was the annual growth of the 40+ year old population.  However, the echo of annual growth among the post childbearing female population will peak around 2028…and then rapidly begin the deceleration glide path (still growing, but much slower while the childbearing population will continue to be in outright decline indefinitely).

Looking at the pictures through the global regions.

East Asia (China, Japan, Taiwan, S/N Korea, Mongolia)

For East Asia, 1989 was peak annual births, and the crossover point of post-childbearing outnumbering childbearing was in 2000.  Births continue tanking and so is the childbearing female population.  Only the fertility-wise inert post childbearing population continues soaring.  By 2040, the region is set to reach a 2.8 post-childbearing to childbearing ratio.  The higher this ratio moves, the greater the financial and societal pressure of elderly generations on the younger generations…further negatively impacting fertility rates and economic demand/growth.

China

2020 births will be about 50% lower than the 1989 peak, and given the known decline of a minimum of 45 million females of childbearing age by 2040 (and almost 70 million fewer, or -30% fewer, than the 2000 peak) there is really no good reason (other than massive government intervention) that births don’t fall significantly further.  My guestimate in blue is likely to be far too “optimistic”.  By 2040, there will be more than 2.7 post-childbearing females for every potential mother.  And now a trade deal with a nation that has an indefinitely shrinking domestic demand and massive housing over-capacity, factory overcapacity, etc. for a population (let alone middle class population) that will never be coming…hmm, interesting.

Japan

If Japan were a human, now would be about the time to bring in hospice care.  From a growth perspective, they are terminal as even the 40+ year-old segment is now making its turn to decline along with births and the childbearing population.  By 2040, there will be more than 3.7 post-childbearing females for every potential mother.  What saved Japan during the long decline in domestic demand, a long rise in global export demand…is now over.  The Japanese / German models of reliance on exports to make up for decelerating/declining domestic demand was premised on fast rising global demand which is simply no longer supported by a growing population of potential consumers.

South Korea

Again and again I am shocked when I look at South Korea.  The 70% collapse in annual births will only continue picking up speed to the downside as those capable of childbearing are in freefall…while the 40+ population dwarf’s the under 40 year-olds by more than 2 to 1 now and will be almost 4 to 1 by 2040 (a done deal, not a prediction).  Absent state mandated pregnancies (or the like) births will fall in excess of 80% and may even be down 90%+ by 2040?  A society collectively choosing not to reproduce or replace themselves…essentially committing a collective suicide at a time of the most relative plenty Korea has ever known, it boggles the mind!?!  Again, collapsing domestic demand while global export markets are turning away and inward to meet their needs…it boggles the mind and this is not going to be pretty.

Eastern Europe (Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia)

By 2030, the childbearing females of Eastern Europe will be nearly a third fewer than existed as of 2011.  I am suggesting that given a third fewer potential females of childbearing age and given continuing flat to falling fertility rates…births will be significantly lower than the UN is projecting.  The existing decline of 50% is likely to be down something like 70%+ by 2040.  Like Japan, Eastern Europe’s post-childbearing population is set to begin declining around 2030, and accelerating depopulation will be the order of the day.  2030 will also be the peak post-childbearing to childbearing ratio at nearly 3 to 1.

Western Europe

Not as dramatic as East Asia or Eastern Europe thanks to ongoing immigration, but the destination is the same.  Growing quantities among the post childbearing population and ever fewer births and potential mothers.  Almost a 2.9 post child-bearing to child-bearing ratio by 2040.  The weight of the promises made to the old to be paid from the young is a crushing weight only further depressing births.

United States

The charts for the US have a big problem, they assume high rates of immigration (primarily of childbearing age) to maintain a flat childbearing population shown from 2020 through 2040.  However, the reality is that in 2019, the US had the lowest population growth in it’s history for three reasons, tanking births, net outflow among illegal Mexicans, and far tighter border controls reducing immigration to a relative trickle.  Further, the locations that US immigrants are now coming from (China, India) and the education and income levels of the females coming in is with fertility rates even lower than the general US population.  Surging costs of living (rent, healthcare, insurance, daycare, education, etc.) beyond income is forcing females to work to avoid financial wreck.  Getting married, having children is simply a luxury more and more simply find beyond their means…and given widely available contraceptives, this is more of a choice than ever.  Minimum of 2.2 ratio by 2040…but if the childbearing population falls, as I expect, the ratio (and societal weight it represents) will move northward.

Latin America (Western Hemisphere except US/Canada)

Births are declining, the childbearing population is at it’s zenith and will shortly begin its secular decline, and only the post-childbearing population is growing.  By 2040, the childbearing to post childbearing ratio will be about 1.8 to 1.

Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Brunei, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam)

The growth of the childbearing population is over and a decades long period of a flat childbearing population is underway.  Births will likely slowly recede with declining fertility rates among a zero growth childbearing population.  By 2040, the post childbearing will outnumber the childbearing by a 1.8 to 1 ratio.

South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Bhutan/Nepal, Sri Lanka)

Like Southeast Asia, a long period of zero growth among annual births will be coming through the childbearing population beginning in 2030.  By 2040, India’s childbearing population will essentially be at it’s peak and the 1.4 post childbearing to 1 childbearing ratio will be ready to rip higher over the next two decades.  The engine of population growth among the worlds most populous region has already stalled and begun to reverse although it will take decades before this is apparent in the overall population numbers.

But Africa Will Continue To Populate The Earth!?!

Finally, the chart below shows the year over year change in births among the world (excluding Africa) versus year over year change in Africa, from 1950 through 2040.  Note the great gyrations for births among the world (black line) versus the smooth and steady year over year increases in Africa (aqua line)…except that one deceleration around 2018?!?  All forward growth among births is anticipated to take place in Africa, essentially just offsetting the declining births among the remainder of the world.

Getting a closer look from 2000 through 2040, the great 2008 through 2018 deceleration (still growing, but much slower) in growth of births among Africa is much more noticeable.  Also of import, this UN report came out in early 2019, and the last hard data is through 2018 most everything from 2019 on is projections.  So, note the hard data 2008 through 2018 is suggesting the same issues plaguing the worldwide slowdown in births is likely impacting Africa as well.  Of course, with a fast rising childbearing population in Africa, the UN demographers immediately project that Africa’s births will return to high year over year increases from 2019 onward…rather than suggesting that the same something that has turned global births upside down world-over will continue to show up in Africa.  Definitely something to watch as, again, the only thing keeping global births from really tanking has been Africa, but I’ve a funny feeling this depopulation contagion is likely working it’s way through Africa now.

What is the point of all this?

The global economy is premised on perpetual growth of demand, of supply, of money, of asset prices, etc.  But the pre-eminent engine for the growth (at least for the last few centuries) has been a rising population.  More people need more of everything.  This means more factories, more supply networks, more infrastructure, more homes, more cars, creating more employment, etc.  Including more loans and debt being lent into existence, particularly among the younger populations allowing for the purchase of vehicles, homes, etc. in the present to be repaid “later”.  But when the collective younger adult population, undertaking the vast majority of leverage, ceases growing and all the growth shifts to older and elderly adults, who undertake relatively low levels of debt or in elderly years move to outright deleverage…the money supply ceases to grow organically and begins to shrink antithetically to a perpetually growing system. 

It has been a long run-up since WWII to get here; decades of rate hikes during accelerating demand (constricting supply of money and causing inflation), then decades of rate cuts during decelerating demand (expanding supply of money and causing deflation but simultaneously asset inflation), resultant debt through individuals, corporations, and federal governments, all intertwined with the deceleration of population growth.  Since 2009, the Fed is committed to buying bonds so as to avoid a free-market pricing for those bonds and avoid yields on US debt that would soar and consume much/most of the federal taxes collected.  The Fed is also now committed to not allow free-market pricing of assets based on decelerating population growth of young and large deleveraging among elderly.  I think it is also highly likely the Fed (and/or agents at its direction) are also manipulating precious metals and/or crypto’s so as to hide the severity of the situation.

All of this is inorganic money creation taking place now is to mask the fundamental accelerating weakness that a low population growth can organically support.  The Federal government and Federal Reserve have now gone so far that any deceleration in inorganic growth (let alone outright declines in balance sheet, rate hikes, declines in excess reserves, tax hikes, lower federal deficits) have a high potential to take the economy into not a recession but a depression unlike the world has known.  The primary ingredients for removing ourselves from previous recessions/depressions no longer exist.  Global demand will begin declining indefinitely as this demographic picture plays out and rates back at zero will do little to move the needle (aside from more asset inflation).  The fast rising population of elderly will continue to consume less than they did in their prime years and deleverage more…far beyond the capability of the young adults to offset the financial, economic, and currency impacts.  The true picture is that a generations reset is likely in the offing before the demographic and depopulation dynamics can be turned around, before the debt can all be extinguished, before the overcapacity can be expunged.

And I guess, the trillion dollar question should be how did we get here?  Were the gyrations in the population and subsequent decelerations (and imminent population collapses in many nations/regions) simply the result of birth care becoming widely available, urbanization, female employment rates, etc. etc. that happened of their own accord…or if instead this is by design as central banks had an over-riding mandate since the 1970’s (not unlike China…but by a different means), only now becoming clear?!?  Was this simply humankind going beyond itself or was this imminent collapse centrally designed and engineered?

On the same day as 17-year-old Great Thunberg stood in front of thousands of young people in Switzerland, fearmongering their imminent death due to old white men in charge of the world refusing to listen to her; a US federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit by 21 ‘climate kids’ who claimed the U.S. government’s climate policies and reliance on fossil fuels harms them, jeopardizes their future and violates their constitutional rights.

The Oregon-based youth advocacy group Our Children’s Trust filed the lawsuit in 2015 in Eugene on behalf of the youngsters (aged between 8 and 18). It sought an injunction ordering the government to implement a plan to phase out fossil fuel emissions and draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide emission.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the children must look to the political branches – Congress and the executive branch – for action, rather than the courts.

“The plaintiffs have made a compelling case that action is needed; it will be increasingly difficult in light of that record for the political branches to deny that climate change is occurring, that the government has had a role in causing it, and that our elected officials have a moral responsibility to seek solutions,”

…

“We reluctantly conclude, however, that the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large, the latter of which can change the composition of the political branches through the ballot box. That the other branches may have abdicated their responsibility to remediate the problem does not confer on Article III courts, no matter how well-intentioned, the ability to step into their shoes.”

As KOIN reports, the 2-1 vote for dismissal was a major blow for the climate activists, who have filed numerous similar cases in state and federal courts and currently have nine cases pending in state courts from Alaska to New Mexico.

Of course, it goes without saying that a lawyer for the children said the group intended to appeal the decision to a panel of the full circuit.

“The Juliana case is far from over. The Youth Plaintiffs will be asking the full court of the Ninth Circuit to review this decision and its catastrophic implications for our constitutional democracy,” said Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, in a statement.

“The Court recognized that climate change is exponentially increasing and that the federal government has long known that its actions substantially contribute to the climate crisis,” Olson added.

The full ruling can be read below…

Authored by Christoph Gisiger via TheMarket.ch,

David Rosenberg, Chief Economist & Strategist of Rosenberg Research, doesn’t believe in the sustainability of the stock market rally, and warns that investors may be disappointed at the end of the year. He is bullish on energy stocks – and predicts that the gold price will surge to $3000.

Mr. Rosenberg is also the author of Breakfast with Dave, a daily distillation of his economic and financial market insights.

“At this level, many things have to go optimally so that the prices are higher at the end of the year,” comments David Rosenberg on the growing complacency among investors.

The renowned economist and strategist is one of the most profound experts on the U.S. economy and one of the last remaining skeptics to warn of a correction.

His bearish view is based on exorbitantly high equity valuations and over-optimistic earnings expectations. He also thinks that the US consumer sector is in worse shape than the consensus believes.

Rosenberg, who recently launched his own economic consulting firm, explains in this extensive interview with The Market/NZZ why he is pleasantly surprised by the phase one agreement between the United States and China, why the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is currently the most important determinant for the financial markets, and why he is betting on gold, Treasuries, energy stocks and emerging markets.

Mr. Rosenberg, after a strong start to the year, equity markets seem to be somewhat more hesitant recently. What’s your outlook for the coming months?

This is a liquidity and momentum driven market. It’s been that way for the past four months where the correlation between the S&P 500 and the Fed’s balance sheet has expanded to a 95% relationship. This is a case of a very accommodative Fed policy. The double-digit growth in the money supply is bypassing the real economy and has entered into asset markets broadly, and specifically into equities. So as long as the Fed is in the game priming the monetary pump, shorting stocks is going to be a very dangerous game to play.

How sustainable is this rally?

I’m not bullish. Valuations are at extreme levels and the level of complacency is also a red flag. There are needles in the haystack, but this overall market rally is more a house of straw than a house of brick. You can rent liquidity rallies, and you can rent them for an extended period of time, but they’re very difficult to own. This is not a fundamentally based bull market like in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, gains in stocks where premised on much better demographics and much more solid productivity growth.

What are your main concerns regarding the U.S. economy?

There’s this view that we’re going to have either a growth stabilization globally or a re-acceleration of economic growth. I don’t see that in any leading indicator. I think there’s going to be a lagged response in the U.S. economy to the sharp slowing that we saw abroad. Remember, twelve years ago it was the rest of the world that ultimately followed the U.S. This time around, the U.S. will follow the rest of the world.

Then again, concerns of a U.S. recession have faded since last summer. Are we definitely out of the woods?

People will claim that there is no recession. Statistically speaking that’s true as far as GDP is concerned. But we know for a fact that we actually had a four-quarter earnings recession. I never quite understood why GDP is so important to an equity investor who is buying an earnings stream. There’s no ticker “GDP” on the New York Stock Exchange. So it’s not about the overall level of GDP, it’s really about earnings and about the fact that if you look at the 30% share of the U.S. economy that is outside of the consumer space, we actually have been in a recession in the past two quarters.

Why would you exclude the other 70% of the economy from an investor’s point of view?

As an equity strategist, you look at the stock market from a breadth perspective to gauge the overall health of the marketplace. You should do the same thing to examine the breadth of GDP. On a median basis, the U.S. economy has stopped growing three quarters ago. Also, the U.S. consumer is not as nearly in good shape as people think. We see signs that the labor market is starting to show some fatigue. Moreover, there is a big split between spending growth on discretionary and non-discretionary items where things don’t look as robust. We surely saw that not just in the latest retail sales report but also in the CPI numbers this week. If consumer demand was really that strong the underlying inflation rate would be accelerating not decelerating. The Fed would not be cutting interest rates three times and then re-extending its balance sheet at a rate that even exceeds what they were doing with QE3.

How stimulative is monetary policy right now?

The most important correlation to the stock market today is the Fed’s balance sheet. The power of the Fed has become so acute that it has replaced the economy as a principle influence over the stock market to the point where there is only a 7% correlation between GDP and the S&P 500. Historically, in any given cycle that relationship was anywhere between 30% and 70%. The amount of easing that the Fed has done since the beginning of October by expanding the balance sheet is just about as strong in terms of basis points as the three rate cuts they engineered last year. They have cut rates almost a 150 basis points when you look at it on an equivalent basis.

How are the financial markets going to react when the Fed tries to wind down its “Not-QE”-program?

A lot will depend on what the macroeconomic background looks like, especially what’s happening with earnings estimates. But we have a template of what happened when the Fed provided a lot of liquidity juice to the marketplace with the Y2K special lending facilities in late 1999. At that time, the market strongly surged, and kept on rallying into the early part of 2000. Then, the Fed started to withdraw that liquidity and it wasn’t a pretty picture.

Keep in mind that the recession didn’t start until March of 2001, even though the problems in the stock market and particularly in technology started about a year ahead of the economic downturn.

What do you think will happen this time?

It’s tough to time when the Fed is finally going to sit back and say: “Ok, you know what: I’m not handing any more candy to the kindergarten class”. My sense is that the response to the Fed no longer priming the pump could be significant. We could end up unwinding almost anything we saw since last October. That wouldn’t surprise me at all. It doesn’t necessarily bring you a 20% stock market correction, but it certainly could bring you a 10% pull back.

At what level will the S&P 500 trade at the end of the year?

I would be surprised if the market is higher than today. The question will be how much lower, because earnings are going to be very challenged to meet the double-digit growth forecast based on the consensus view. Earnings will disappoint this year and I don’t think we’re going to get another 4-point multiple expansion. The question also will be the extent to which companies continue on this path of share buybacks. The principal source of demand in the stock market have been the corporations themselves. There is a big disconnect between the dollar level of earnings and earnings per share. The share count has been driven down to the lowest level in two decades, and that’s providing the support on a per share basis.

On a positive note, the U.S. and China have finally signed the long-awaited trade agreement. What do you make out of this deal?

The deal preserves the U.S. bargaining “stick” in the form of tariffs remaining on $360 billion of goods imported from China. But investors do seem impressed with this ‘Phase One’ trade deal, which did end up addressing IP protection issues, forced technology transfer, and termination clauses/dispute resolutions if either party reneges. Even skeptics like me have to be open minded to the possibility that there is more to this agreement than met the eye initially. At a minimum, the hostilities appear to be behind us for now and President Trump does have something tangible to campaign on. But the trade war is not over despite rising hopes that this trade deal with China is going to open up a prolonged period of appeasement. In fact, this is a much broader economic war between two clashing ideologies.

It’s not much more than two weeks until the start of the Democratic primaries. To what degree are the U.S. elections going to impact the financial markets?

Most market participants think that Donald Trump has a lock on the November elections. He may well, but I don’t think the odds are as close to a 100% as people think. There is going to be political risk in polling, and that’s going to inject more volatility into the marketplace.

What should investors do in this kind of environment?

I believe in Bob Farrell’s 10 Rules for investing. He was a legend at Merrill Lynch & Co. for several decades, and his first rule is that markets tend to return to the mean over time. Whether you’re looking at price/earnings, price/book or price/Ebitda, we’re pressing against the valuation levels we saw at the peaks back in 2000. So at this stage, a lot of things have to go right for the market to continue to appreciate until the end of the year. It can happen, but there is going to be bumps along the road. So to me, it’s less about buying the index. It’s more about identifying the sectors and subsectors that will hold up well in that sort of environment.

What’s your advice for a Swiss investor coping with deeply negative interest rates?

You want to be investing in things that are reversely correlated to negative interest rates. Firstly, as a Swiss investor or a European investor, I truly would want to be invested in bonds that have a positive yield and liquidity. That means you want to be in other countries’ fixed income markets where Central Banks have the capacity to ease monetary policy. The United States fits that bill. That’s why I’m still a big fan of Treasuries. I think the U.S. Treasury market will be a very good refuge.

Where else do you spot opportunities?

Gold is inversely correlated with either near zero rates, zero rates, or negative rates which makes it an ideal investment. Mark Twain coined the phrase “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”. But the thing about charts is that they don’t lie. Gold went through a long-term, multi-year basing period. Now, it has broken out and the chart looks fantastic. Also, gold is no country’s liability. For example, in the United States M2 growth is running at double digits. So when you compare the new supply of gold against the supply of money coming into the system from Central Banks, to me it’s a very clear cut case that you want to have very high exposure to bullion.

You’re predicting that the gold price will surge to $3000 an ounce. What are the fundamentals your forecast is based on?

It’s just a matter of when, not if. Gold demand is predicated on the final act which is going to be right-out debt monetization. When we get to the lows of the next recession, we’re going to find that these Central Banks that already have been extremely aggressive are going to engage in what is otherwise known as the “debt jubilee” or a right-out debt monetization which was actually the final chapter of the Bernanke playbook. Remember, Ben Bernanke got his nickname “Helicopter Ben” because in a speech in 2002 he suggested that helicopter money could always be used to prevent deflation. So we’re going to have helicopter money.

That doesn’t sound very encouraging.

Would you ever have thought that, at or near the peak of this cycle interest rates would be at the lowest level since the 1500s? Just imagine what happens to monetary policy in the next downturn.

What do you think?

This debt morass has been the principal reason why – notwithstanding how wonderful the stock market has done – this has been the weakest global expansion on record. What happens in the next recession is that the cash flows to service that debt are going to become significantly impaired and we’re going to get a destabilizing default and delinquency cycle. I know, that sounds absolutely horrible, but we’ve hit the end of the road on negative interest rates, and we’ve really hit the end of the road on quantitative easing. So the Central Banks are going to go into a new, non-conventional toolkit called debt monetization. They will lose control of the monetary base and then we will go into a situation where, even with technology and with aging demographics in the industrialized world, we will be talking about inflation again. That might come in the next 18 to 24 months, and gold is going to skyrocket.

Do you also see attractive investments in the stock market?

There is not a lot of visibility in terms of earnings. But defense and aerospace is an area where the earnings surprises will be on the upside for the foreseeable future. So you want to participate in that. Every single country is raising its defense budget, and Donald Trump has successfully pressured his NATO allies to ramp up their military spending. For the first time in the post World War II area, we see Japan doing the same thing. We’re not talking about classic warfare. We’re really talking about defense technology and cybersecurity. It’s just like the chart of gold: Even though multiples in this sector have been re-rated because of the earnings visibility, this is a chart you want to buy.

What about opportunities from a value perspective?

The energy sector’s market capitalization relative to the overall stock market valuation is the lowest it’s ever been. We’re down to almost a 4% energy share of the S&P 500. That’s lower than it was when the oil price was $11 a barrel back in 1998. We will not all be sitting in driverless electric cars three years from now. Fossil fuels are not going to go away that quickly. At this stage, there is a very firm floor. The energy sector is nowhere close to being priced for where oil prices are right now and there is justification for why the oil price will remain close to where it is for an extended period of time. So in a world where practically every asset class from real estate to corporate credit to equities is extremely expensive, energy offers very deep value. At peaks of the cycle this is where you want to be buying.

Are there also promising investments globally?

Sticking to the concept of mean reversion, I want to be taking my profits out of growth and moving into value. Part and parcel of that is taking profits in the US and moving them into other markets that are a lot cheaper and that have lagged well behind. Emerging markets are inherently riskier, but the valuations are very compelling. Moreover, I expect the U.S. dollar to go down rather than go up which is an additional benefit for the emerging market space.

What countries should investors look at?

You can’t get much cheaper than Hong Kong. But there are other markets that look pretty attractive. I would say Korea is another market that you would be focusing on as well.

And how about countries in the developed world?

The most positive story is Japan. I continue to believe that Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has emerged as a transformational leader. There has been a positive re-rating of Japan’s secular growth rate as a result of his policies. The back of deflation has been broken by the Bank of Japan. So Japan is a market that’s under owned and relatively inexpensive. There is going to be a positive re-rating, not just in terms of Japan’s GDP growth rate. There are also nascent signs of an equity culture being developed that reminds me a lot of what happened in the U.S. in the early 1980s.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch warned Wednesday that if China continues to go unchecked, it threatens to enslave the entire global population and eviscerate freedom for good.

In its annual report, the think tank cautioned that the Communist Chinese government is using technology, censorship and violent repression to such an effective extent that it threatens to fundamentally undermine international human rights forever.

“Beijing has long suppressed domestic critics. Now the Chinese government is trying to extend that censorship to the rest of the world,” the 652-page report concluded.

HRW declared that China is now engaged in the “most intense attack” ever on freedom, and that President Xi Jinping’s government is executing “the most brutal and pervasive oppression that China has seen for decades,” including the implementation of a “nightmarish surveillance system” in Xinjiang province.

The report outlines how China is using its might to systematically silence political dissidents, religious groups, and ethnic minorities.

The report is so damning that Beijing banned HRW executive director, Kenneth Roth, from traveling to Hong Kong to attend an event to release it. Instead, the report was launched at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The report also criticized the UN, other countries, and global corporations for not doing enough to stand up to China, accusing them of  being “willing accomplices,” of “enabling” the crackdown and turning a blind eye to “a dystopian future in which no one is beyond the reach of Chinese censors.”

“Far from being spurned as a global pariah, the Chinese government is courted the world over, its unelected president receiving red-carpet treatment wherever he goes, and the country hosting prestigious events, such as the 2022 Winter Olympics.” Roth noted.

“The aim is to portray China as open, welcoming, and powerful, even as it descends into ever more ruthless autocratic rule.” he added.

“While other governments commit serious human rights violations, no other government flexes its political muscles with such vigor and determination to undermine the international human rights standards and institutions that could hold it to account.” Roth further asserted.

The report also criticized the US, but conceded that “the Trump administration is one government that has been willing to stand up to China, best evidenced by its October 2019 imposition of sanctions on the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau and eight Chinese technology companies for their complicity in human rights violations.”

The warnings come as Trump continues to push for restrictions on Chinese technology, including the exclusion of Huawei Technologies from the trade deal, and the grounding of more than 1,000 civil drones, owing to fears of espionage because they use Chinese technology.

Details also continue to emerge regarding claims by an anonymous former Microsoft contractor that the Chinese government is able to access and listen to Skype conversations and audio from Cortana, Microsoft’s voice assistant equivalent of Apple’s Siri.

“Their foreign bank accounts should be frozen. They should fear prosecution for their crimes.” the HRW report demands.

“Chinese companies that build and help run detention camps in Xinjiang, and any company that exploits the labor of prisoners or provides the surveillance infrastructure and big data processing, should be exposed and pressured to stop.” the report concludes.

If you didn’t expect Trump to kick off the long holiday weekend with some feisty tweets about Iran, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention.

Bolstered by this week’s twin trade victories and Iran’s embarrassing acknowledgment of culpability in the crash of UIA Flight 752, Present Trump clearly felt the need to respond in kind after news of a rare Friday sermon by the Ayatollah reached the American press.

During the sermon, the Ayatollah called Trump a “clown,” and warned the Iranian people that Trump’s messages of sympathy were insincere.

In response, Trump mocked the “Supreme Leader” – whom Trump joked hasn’t “been so Supreme lately” – and gloated about the crumbling Iranian economy, which has sagged under the weight of US sanctions (and now the possibility that UN sanctions might be reinstated, thanks in part to Trump’s threats).

The so-called “Supreme Leader” of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United States and Europe. Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2020

The president followed that up by tweeting the same message in English and Farsi, with a screenshot of a tweet sent from an account commonly associated with the Iranian regime.

The noble people of Iran—who love America—deserve a government that’s more interested in helping them achieve their dreams than killing them for demanding respect. Instead of leading Iran toward ruin, its leaders should abandon terror and Make Iran Great Again! https://t.co/RLjGsC5WLc

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2020

مردم نجیب ایران، که آمریکا را دوست می دارند، سزاوار دولتی هستند که بیش از تمرکز بر کشتن آنها به جرم احترام خواهی، به آنها کمک کند تا به رؤیاهایشان دست یابند. رهبران ایران به جای آن که ایران را به سمت ویرانی بکشانند، باید هراس افکنی را کنار بنهند و ایران را دوباره باعظمت کنند! https://t.co/RLjGsC5WLc

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2020

Tomorrow, other senior Iranian officials will step in to lob insults at Trump in defense of the Islamic Revolution. And we imagine President Trump will continue to respond in kind.

Ivanka Trump’s sister-in-law disclosed on Thursday that she doesn’t plan on voting for President Trump in 2020, and will instead be supporting whomever wins the Democratic nomination at this summer’s convention in Milwaukee.

The “Project Runway” host told Bravo’s Andy Cohen during a taping of “Watch What Happens Live” that she doesn’t feel the need to agree with her family on politics, and that she’s certainly not the only one who has political differences with her family.

“I’m sure I’m not the only person in this country who does not necessarily agree with their family on politics,” Kloss said.

During an episode of “Project Runway” earlier this season, one contestant made a snarky remark about Kloss’s ties to the first family. While judges were reviewing a poorly designed dress by one of the show’s contestants, one of Kloss’s fellow judges said he “cannot see Karlie wearing [the dress] anywhere.”

“Not even to dinner with the Kushners?” the contestant replied snarkily.

He was immediately chastised for the remark by the judges and told to keep his comments on topic. He was later eliminated.

“I cannot see Karlie wearing it anywhere, honestly.”

“Not even to dinner with the Kushners?”#ProjectRunway pic.twitter.com/O9qJbrC2ZN

— Ξvan Ross Katz (@evanrosskatz) January 3, 2020

When Cohen asked her what she thought of the contestant’s snide remark, Kloss replied: “I was honored to be one of the first memes of the decade” (the clip went viral).

She also denied that the contestant’s dismissal was in any way related to the remark.

“Honestly, the real tragedy of this whole thing is that no one is talking about how terrible that dress was,” she added. “That’s why he went home. I would not wear that dress to any dinner.”

The contestant, meanwhile, told People that he felt like his remark was “misunderstood.”

Neasloney said he felt “misunderstood” over the episode, People reported. “I felt like we had built a really cool rapport. I was laughing, they were laughing, we were going tit-for-tat. There was shade, there were jokes, and it was really fun.”

Of course, we could hardly blame Kloss for publicly denying voting for Trump: Despite her immense fame, her career would almost certainly take a hit if she was exposed as a supporter of the “evil” orange man.

Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

In the trailer for our recent (and excellent) webinar WTF: What The Fed?!?, I ask:

What’s it going to take for the pitchforks to come out? How much more does the common man need to be abused before he wakes up and says ‘I’m not going to take anymore!’?

As discussed in detail in the webinar, our economic and political systems have been captured by monied interests. Industry, government, markets and the judicial system all work for their benefit, not ours.

The result? An acceleration of wealth and opportunity away from the masses and into the pockets of the top 1% (really, the top 0.1%)

The public is literally being sacrificed so that a tiny number of powerful elites can enjoy “more”.

Today, I’m not going to make my point with my usual onslaught of charts and data. Instead, I’m going to make it visually.

We’ve all read the articles about the dying middle class and the explosion of homelessness in recent years.

Well, I live in northern California, in Sonoma County, about an hour north of San Francisco. It’s quite pleasant up here, with lots of small farms, orchards and vineyards.

Yes, there are some rich folks here. But nothing like the rest of the Bay Area. Most families are working class.

The local economy is nothing like the Tech frenzy of Silicon Valley. But it’s better than most places in the country.

At least, it has been.

Recently, it’s become impossible not to see the signs that more and more people are falling into poverty. They just can’t afford the rising cost of living, even if they have a job.

Here where I live, nowhere is this more apparent than the Joe Rodota trail connecting my small town of Sebastopol with the nearby city of Santa Rosa. Over the past year, this previously quiet, clean, bike & pedestrian route has exploded into a sprawling homeless encampment for hundreds of dispossessed people.

Here’s a 2-minute video I took of the encampment this afternoon (h/t to my daughter Charlotte for manning the camera as I drove):

YouTube is full of similar shocking video of much larger encampments across the West Coast, from Los Angeles to Seattle. Here in the Bay Area, even our “jewel” cities of San Francisco and Berkeley are becoming overrun by an exploding homeless problem and the mental health, sanitation, addiction, safety and crime issues associated with it.

It’s a major issue with no clear fix in sight. And folks, it’s only going to get worse. Far worse.

Remember, we’re in the 11th year of the longest economic expansion in US history. The markets are at record highs. The official reported unemployment rate is at a record low.

When the next recession hits it will be like pouring jet fuel on this fire.

Homelessness in California has doubled in just the past few years and our social support systems are already overwhelmed. What’s it going to be like if mass layoffs cause the homeless population to quadruple in a single year?

I remain amazed at how difficult life is for the millions of working poor in America. What harsh conditions they suffer just to hold a job, sleep under (any) shelter, find food, and wake up the next day to do it all over again. Day after day, always worried that sickness, injury, misfortune or theft is going to jeopardize the little you have.

Once you’ve dropped into poverty, especially if you have family dependents, it is damn hard to extricate yourself from it. Regardless of how hard you apply yourself.

If you have the time, I recommend watching this 45-minute documentary on US poverty produced by a German public broadcast service. Currently more than 40 million Americans live beneath the poverty line — that’s twice as many as in 1970.

Viewing our country through their outsider’s eye is a stark warning that we ignore this metastasizing  social epidemic at our peril:

Back to my question at the start of this post: What’s it going to take?

How many more millions will fall into poverty? How much more abuse will continue until of those of us paying attention, with growing fear at the social implications and perhaps at our own financial vulnerability, actively revolt against the elite-centric status quo?

For thousands of years, history has warned us that such social imbalance will not stand:

Are we going to listen in time?

The US will begin screening airline passengers beginning Friday after a SARS-like pneumonia outbreak in central China has claimed a second life after a 69-year-old man died on Wednesday, according to the Straits Times. 

“To further protect the health of the American public during the emergence of this novel coronavirus, CDC is beginning entry screening at three ports of entry,” said CDC official Martin Cetron, adding “We’re expecting that the screening over the next couple of weeks could include as many as 5000 people” starting Friday night.

The three airports are; San Francisco International, New York’s JFK, and Los Angeles International.

The second death from the new coronavirus occurred at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital in the Hubei province. He had been ill approximately two weeks before experiencing multi-organ system failure, according to Bloomberg, citing a Thursday statement by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission.

As of Friday, the city has reported 45 cases of the coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV. According to the report, five patients are in critical condition, twelve have been cured and discharged, and two have died.

Authorities in Japan reported a case Thursday in a resident of Kanagawa prefecture aged in his 30s, who had spent time with an infected person in Wuhan. That’s the second time someone outside China was found to be infected with the novel coronavirus, which has captured international attention because of similarities with the one that sparked Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, 17 years ago.

Unlike SARS, which killed almost 800 people, the new virus doesn’t appear to spread easily between people. Much remains to be understood about the new coronavirus, which was first identified in China earlier this month, the World Health Organization said in a statement Thursday in response to the case in Japan. –Bloomberg

It is unknown how the virus is spread, however it is believed to be concentrated among a Wuhan fish market which carries other meat as well.