Tag: finance

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

On a CNN panel on Monday, host John King spoke with Politico reporter Alex Thompson about the possibility of Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard qualifying on Super Tuesday for the party’s primary debate in Phoenix later this month.

“I will note this, she’s from Hawaii,” King said of Gabbard.

“She’s a congresswoman from Hawaii; American Samoa votes on Super Tuesday. The rules as they now stand, if you get a delegate, you’re back in the debates. As of now. Correct?”

“Yeah, they haven’t, I mean, that’s been the rule for every single debate,” Thompson replied.

“And the DNC has not released their official guidance for the March 15 debate in Phoenix, but it would be very obvious that they are trying to cancel Tulsi, who they’re scared of a third party run, if they then change the rules to prevent her to rejoin the debate stage.”

And indeed, as the smoke clears from the Super Tuesday frenzy, this is precisely what appears to have transpired.

Watch it til the end.https://t.co/SMU5NhCDUo

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) March 4, 2020

“The Gabbard campaign said it was informed that it would net two delegates from the caucuses in American Samoa, which will allocate a total of six pledged delegates,” The Hill reports today. “However, a report from CNN said that the candidate will receive only one delegate from the territory on Tuesday evening.”

“Tulsi Gabbard may have just qualified for the next Democratic debate thanks to American Samoa,” reads a fresh Business Insider headline. “Under the most recent rules, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii may have qualified for the next televised debate by snagging a delegate in American Samoa’s primary.”

“If Tulsi Gabbard gets a delegate out of American Samoa, as it appears she has done, she will likely qualify for the next Democratic debate,” tweeted Washington Post’s Dave Weigel. “We don’t have new debate rules yet, but party has been inviting any candidate who gets a delegate.”

Rank-and-file supporters of the Hawaii congresswoman enjoyed a brief celebration on social media, before having their hopes dashed minutes later by an announcement from the DNC’s Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa that “the threshold will go up”.

“We have two more debates — of course the threshold will go up,” tweeted Hinojosa literally minutes after Gabbard was awarded the delegate. “By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

We have two more debates– of course the threshold will go up. By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.

— Xochitl Hinojosa (@XochitlHinojosa) March 4, 2020

“DNC wastes no time in announcing they will rig the next debates to exclude Tulsi,” journalist Michael Tracey tweeted in response.

This outcome surprised nobody, least of all Gabbard supporters. The blackout on the Tulsi 2020 campaign has reached such extreme heights this year that you now routinely see pundits saying things like there are no more people of color in the race, or that Elizabeth Warren is the only woman remaining in the primary. They’re not just ignoring her, they’re actually erasing her. They’re weaving a whole alternative reality out of narrative in which she is literally, officially, no longer in the race.

After Gabbard announced her presidential candidacy in January of last year I wrote an article explaining that I was excited about her campaign because she would severely disrupt establishment narratives, and, for the remainder of 2019, that’s exactly what she did. She spoke unauthorized truths about Syria, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, she drew attention to the plight of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and said she’d drop all charges against both men if elected, she destroyed the hawkish, jingoistic positions of fellow candidates on the debate stage and arguably single-handedly destroyed Kamala Harris’ run.

The narrative managers had their hands full with her. The Russia smears were relentless, the fact that she met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was brought up at every possible opportunity in every debate and interview, and she was scoffed at and derided at every turn.

Now, in 2020, none of that is happening. There’s a near-total media blackout on the Gabbard campaign, such that I now routinely encounter rank-and-file liberals on social media who tell me they honestly had no idea she’s still running. She’s been completely redacted out of the narrative matrix.

All candidates of color are out. An openly gay married candidate is out. 2 women left. The rest? 70+ old white men fighting for the future of America in 2020. Because of course.

— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) March 1, 2020

So it’s unsurprising that the DNC felt comfortable striding forward and openly announcing a change in the debate threshold literally the very moment Gabbard crossed it. These people understand narrative control, and they know full well that they have secured enough of it on the Tulsi Problem that they’ll be able to brazenly rig her right off the stage without suffering any meaningful consequences.

The establishment narrative warfare against Gabbard’s campaign dwarfs anything we’ve seen against Sanders, and the loathing and dismissal they’ve been able to generate have severely hamstrung her run. It turns out that a presidential candidate can get away with talking about economic justice and plutocracy when it comes to domestic policy, and some light dissent on matters of foreign policy will be tolerated, but aggressively attacking the heart of the actual bipartisan foreign policy consensus will get you shut down, smeared and shunned like nothing else. This is partly because US presidents have a lot more authority over foreign affairs than domestic, and it’s also because endless war is the glue which holds the empire together.

And now they’re working to install a corrupt, right-wing warmongering dementia patient as the party’s nominee. And from the looks of the numbers I’ve seen from Super Tuesday so far, it looks entirely likely that those manipulations will prove successful.

All this means is that the machine is exposing its mechanics to the view of the mainstream public. Both the Gabbard campaign and the Sanders campaign have been useful primarily in this way; not because the establishment would ever let them actually become president, but because they force the unelected manipulators who really run things in the most powerful government on earth to show the public their box of dirty tricks.

*  *  *

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Airlines have canceled more than 200,000 flights as Covid-19 is nearing pandemic status.

More than 92,300 people have been infected by the virus, which has killed about 3,100 people. Many of the cases are in China, but recent cases ex-China have been surging, especially in South Korea, Iran, Italy, Japan, and in many other countries across Europe.  

Airlines have spent the last month canceling flights to China – American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta Air Lines have suspended service to mainland China and Hong Kong. Reuters provides a full list of canceled flights across the world.

Flights to and from China crashed 80% YoY in February, according to Cirium travel industry data. Global air travel has plunged for the first time since the 2008/09 financial crisis, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) recently said.  

Plunging air traffic across the world has resulted in a steep decline in jet fuel. Singapore jet fuel prices have fallen 30% since the start of 2020 and contributed to a 50% collapse in jet fuel crack spreads, now at 2009 lows, Refinitiv data shows.

“The coronavirus outbreak has hampered jet fuel demand in Asia and the impact is expected to linger for a few more months,” said Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at consultancy FGE.

“It’s indeed an unprecedented fall since the global financial crisis… Jet fuel cracks have fallen to about $8 per barrel and we think it will stabilize around these levels in the next few months before seeing a recovery in the third quarter,” Paravaikkarasu said. 

Jet fuel demand will likely remain in a slump for the next several quarters because virus fears will drive a plunge in tourism around the world, eliminate the need for air travel demand as long as the virus spreads. This could suggest the airline industry is headed for turbulence.

“We do see the virus eroding jet fuel demand to some extent in the Western Hemisphere. If the demand erosion develops faster, East-West flows will come under pressure,” Paravaikkarasu said.

Sukrit Vijayakar, director of Indian energy consultancy Trifecta, said people tend to plan their vacations far in advance. This could mean air travel remains depressed for the first half of the year. 

The air travel slump suggests immense pain is headed for the global travel and tourism industry, employs roughly 320 million jobs across the world; Restaurants, travel agencies, hotels, amusement parks, casinos, and shopping malls, could be the most heavily impacted businesses to experience job losses if the virus crisis persists.  

Authored by F. William Engdahl via New Eastern Outlook,

The grave risks and dangers in the process of worldwide out-sourcing and so-called globalization of the past 30 years or so are becoming starkly clear as the ongoing health emergency across China threatens vital world supply chains from China to the rest of the world. While much attention is focused on the risks to smartphone components or auto manufacture via supplies of key parts from China or to the breakdown of oil deliveries in the last weeks, there is a danger that will soon become alarmingly clear in terms of global health care system.

If the forced shutdown of China manufacture continues for many weeks longer, the world, could begin to experience shortages or lack of vital medicines and medical supplies. The reason is that over the past two decades much of the production of medicines and medical supplies such as surgical masks have been outsourced to China or simply made in China by Chinese companies at far cheaper prices, forcing Western companies out of business.

Sole source China

According to research and US Congressional hearings, something like 80% of present medicines consumed in the United States are produced in China. This includes Chinese companies and foreign drug companies that have outsourced their drug manufacture in joint ventures with Chinese partners. According to Rosemary Gibson of the Hastings Center bioethics research institute, who authored a book in 2018 on the theme, the dependency is more than alarming.

Gibson cites medical newsletters giving the estimate that today some 80% of all pharmaceutical active ingredients in the USA are made in China.

“It’s not just the ingredients. It’s also the chemical precursors, the chemical building blocks used to make the active ingredients. We are dependent on China for the chemical building blocks to make a whole category of antibiotics… known as cephalosporins. They are used in the United States thousands of times every day for people with very serious infections.”

The made in China drugs today include most antibiotics, birth control pills, blood pressure medicines such as valsartan, blood thinners such as heparin, and various cancer drugs. It includes such common medicines as penicillin, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), and aspirin. The list also includes medications to treat HIV, Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, cancer, depression, epilepsy, among others. A recent Department of Commerce study found that 97 percent of all antibiotics in the United States came from China.

Few of these drugs are labeled “made in China” as drug companies in the USA are not required to reveal their sourcing. Rosemary Gibson states that the dependency on China for medicines and other health products is so great that, “…if China shut the door tomorrow, within a couple of months, hospitals in the United States would cease to function.” That may not be so far off.

At the time the outsourcing of US and European drug manufacture to China began no one could imagine the present health catastrophe growing out of Wuhan in a matter of days. The massive China quarantine since late January has shut some 75-80% of all Chinese factories and created an unprecedented domestic China demand for every kind of medical product since the WHO declaration of medical emergency around the coronavirus or COVID-19 events at the end of January. It is unclear how badly deliveries of vital pharmaceuticals including essential antibiotics from China to the USA or Europe or other countries will be affected though anecdotal reports of hospitals beginning to experience delivery problems are surfacing. Even the idea to turn to India, another major global pharmaceutical supplier, only finds that most Indian manufacturers are dependent on China for their active drug ingredients.

Clinton and Outsourcing

The emergence of China in recent years as the global giant in terms of pharmaceutical drugs and products is embedded in the Made in China-2025 national plan as one of the ten priority areas for China to gain world leadership. It has not been simply a random chance development. This in turn, as the present COVID-19 crisis makes starkly clear, is a huge vulnerability for the rest of the world.

How did such a one-sided situation develop? We have to go back to the role of the Clinton Presidency in what was then dubbed globalization, the Davos model of outsourcing any and everything from advanced industrial countries like the USA or Germany to especially China after 2000.

In May 2000 in one of the most far-reaching actions of his Presidency, Bill Clinton, with the strong backing of US multinational companies, succeeded, over the strong objections and warnings of many trade unions, to get Congressional passage of a permanent “most-favored nation” trade status for China and US support for China entry into the World Trade Organization. That gave the green light to corporate America for a flood of overseas investment in cheaper China manufacture known as “out-sourcing.” Major US drug makers were among them. Within two years of the passage of the US free trade agreement with China the US shut its last penicillin fermentation plant in New York State as a result of severe Chinese low-price competition.

In 2008, the Chinese government designated pharmaceutical production as a “high-value-added industry” and bolstered the industry through subsidies and export tax rebates to encourage pharmaceutical companies to export their products. By 2019 China had become by far the world’s largest source for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

The Achilles Heel of this globalization and sole dependency for vital medicines on one country now becomes alarmingly clear as the future of China as a reliable supplier of needed drugs and other medical supplies has suddenly become a matter of grave concern to the entire world.

Chinese scientists studying the new coronavirus have found two new primary strains of the disease – one of which appears to be far more aggressive.

The researchers, from Peking University’s School of Life Sciences, discovered a milder “S-type” strain, and an “L-type” which is highly infectious and currently accounts for around 70% of cases, according to The Telegraph. The researchers cautioned that their preliminary findings looked at a limited number of cases (103), and that follow-up studies with larger data sets are needed to better understand the virus’s evolution.

A genetic analysis of the coronavirus found in a man who tested positive in the United States on January 21 also showed that it’s possible to be infected with both strains.

Coronavirus, which was first detected in December 2018 in Wuhan, China, has infected at least 94,000 people – officially, and killed more than 3,200 as of this writing.

And while there are now two major strains identified, scientist Trevor Bedford of Nextstrain has been tracking 161 strains of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) in patients across the globe.

Bedford writes in a March 2 blog post that “The novel coronavirus which is responsible for the emerging COVID-19 pandemic mutates at an average of about two mutations per month.“

Visualize the virus radiating out from China, mutating as it spreads.

Right: map with different strains color-coded
Left: phylogenetic tree, showing how individual strains mutate and diverge

Very impressive work by @trvrb and the group at Nextstrain. https://t.co/p3wkhvtDPL pic.twitter.com/BuoxBaW81A

— Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) February 28, 2020

Here is his latest situation report, and thread on the virus which provides a detailed analysis of what mutations have been found, and where (click the tweet to jump into the thread):

Thus, I believe, similar to the case in Washington State (https://t.co/8wWxtiotE3), we had a situation in which a cluster was identified via intensive screening of travelers, but containment failed shortly thereafter and a sustained transmission chain was initiated. 6/7

— Trevor Bedford (@trvrb) March 4, 2020

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & prosperity,

The 1978 Humphrey-Hawkins Act requires the Federal Reserve to “promote” stable prices and full employment. Of course, the Fed’s steady erosion of the dollar’s purchasing power has made prices anything but stable, while the boom-and-bust cycle created by the Fed ensures that periods of low unemployment will not last for long. Despite the difficulties the Fed faces fulfilling its “dual mandate,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently announced a new Fed mandate: to protect the financial system from being destabilized by climate change.

Powell appears to have bought into the propaganda that “the science is settled” regarding the existence, causes, and effects of climate change. But the statement “the science is settled” is itself unscientific. Science is rarely settled as today’s new discoveries disprove yesterday’s consensus. In the case of climate change, many scientists dispute the claim that absent massive expansion of government power a climate apocalypse will soon be at hand.

So far, the Fed’s actions regarding climate change include holding a conference and Chairman Powell indicating the Fed is likely to join the Network for Greening the Financial System. This network is composed in part of central banks from around the world that are attempting to work together to assess the risks of, and plan possible responses to, climate change.

While Powell has not given details regarding other actions the Fed might take to protect the financial system from climate change, there are a number of actions that the Fed could take.

For starters, Powell could signal that the Fed would be willing to increase its purchase of government debt if Congress passes Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. The Fed, since its creation, has been monetizing federal debt, and thus enabling the growth of the welfare-warfare state.

The Fed could implement “Green Quantitative Easing” by purchasing bonds of green energy and other companies whose products fit the environmentalist agenda.

The Fed could also use its monetary and regulatory authority to “encourage” financial institutions to support “environmentally-friendly” businesses.

Whatever policies the Fed adopts to protect the financial system from climate change, the result will be further erosion of the dollar’s purchasing power, increased government control over the economy, lower economic growth, increased crony capitalism, and a reduction in liberty and prosperity.

Ironically, the Fed’s plans to address climate change will harm the environment. History shows that the most effective way to protect the environment is via a system of private property rights and free markets. Private property owners are better stewards of the environment than are government bureaucrats because private property owners have greater incentives to maintain the value of their property. This is why the greatest pollution in history was in the communist countries of the 20th century.

The Fed’s failure to provide any details on how it will carry out its self-imposed climate change mandate is another reason why Congress must rein in the secretive, rogue central bank. A step in restoring a monetary policy that truly promotes prosperity is to pass the Audit the Fed bill so Congress and the people can at last learn the full truth about the Federal Reserve.

New Rochelle, NY is offering the rest of America a glimpse into what happens once Covid-19 has arrived in your home town.

New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir visited New Rochelle yesterday and started reporting. She wandered around the mostly deserted down town, talking to restaurant workers and a handful of patrons brave enough to defy the rumors.

By Wednesday evening, it had become clear that the virus was spreading in the community: Gov. Andrew Cuomo had confirmed that the man’s wife son and daughter had all tested positive for the virus, as did a neighbor who drove him to the hospital last week. And just a few minutes ago, Cuomo confirmed the number of cases in the state had risen to 11, with ten of those 11 cases in Westchester.

But even before Cuomo’s first press conference on Tuesday, word had already gotten out: A local had been infected with the dangerous new flu-like virus from China. Nowhere outside would be safe.

By the time Cuomo held his first press conference yesterday, word had already gotten out.

Even before the latest news, worry had already seeped across New Rochelle. At Mikey Dubb’s Frozen Custard shop, the custard machines whirred idle, and at Eden Wok, a kosher Chinese restaurant, workers stood in a doorway, anxiously peering around for customers.

One diner customer who spoke with Nir said she would wash her hands carefully once she returned home. She added that she felt “terribly sorry” for the victim and his family.

“I recognize that the gentleman who is now in the hospital with coronavirus in New York was walking up and down this street,” said Vicky Sturner, 62, a landscape designer and one of the few customers dining at Maestro’s Italian restaurant on North Avenue on Tuesday evening.

“I’m going to wash my hands, I’m going to try never to ever touch my face, and I feel terribly sorry for the family that has coronavirus – it affects everybody, the entire community,” Ms. Sturner added. “But I can’t stop it and I can’t change it, and I’m going to live my life.”

Some congregants at a local temple were surprised to find it closed Tuesday afternoon. In fact, congregants who had attended certain events were asked to self-quarantine.

Shortly before dusk on Tuesday, Nathan Lindenbaum, an accountant, had walked up to the temple doors of Young Israel of New Rochelle for evening prayers. He was perplexed to find them locked, and the synagogue empty. The man with coronavirus had attended services there.

Hours before, the Westchester County health commissioner had ordered all services at the synagogue to halt, and the congregants who attended a funeral and a bat mitzvah there on Feb. 23 to self-quarantine in their homes. Over 100 families are under the order, according to the New Rochelle mayor, Noam Bramson.

The mayor of New Rochelle said the fact that a local family had caught the virus was “deeply concerning.”

“It is deeply concerning and distressing to see one’s own community, one’s own neighbors, dealing with a challenge of this scale and this intensity,” Mayor Bramson said after leaving City Hall at 8 p.m. Tuesday, where he said he spent the day huddling with faith leaders, officials and city staff to make sure that information like the town’s messaging was accurate.

The mayor told the NYT he has only just started planning with other local leaders for potentially ugly contingencies, like if the Police Department had to intervene to enforce mandatory self quarantines.

“It is deeply concerning and distressing to see one’s own community, one’s own neighbors, dealing with a challenge of this scale and this intensity,” Mayor Bramson said after leaving City Hall at 8 p.m. Tuesday, where he said he spent the day huddling with faith leaders, officials and city staff to make sure that information like the town’s messaging was accurate.

The mayor also hashed out thornier contingencies – including whether the New Rochelle Police Department would have to intercede if the self-quarantine had to be enforced. “The hope and expectation is that those subject to the quarantine will abide by its terms voluntarily,” Mr. Bramson said.

Meanwhile, one restaurant owner said he had already hired a PR team and started offering steep discounts. He also told the NYT that he had heard some…uh…interesting stories from fellow restaurant owners.

The same day as the man’s diagnosis on Tuesday, Josh Berkowitz, the owner of Eden Wok in New Rochelle, hired a public relations specialist and started offering 15-percent-off coupons to stem an anticipated drop in diners.

Tending to his single table of customers during what is usually the dinner rush, Mr. Berkowitz answered the phone. A fellow caterer was calling to express shock at an order he had just received.

“The customer wanted sushi, but told him…” Mr. Berkowitz said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “He didn’t want any Asians to touch it.”

Mr. Berkowitz shook his head. “People have just gone nuts,” he

Informed by the reporter that a local man and his family had caught the virus, a local delivery driver told the Times that he would probably start avoiding the man’s neighborhood.

“I can’t afford to get sick,” he said.

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckonig,

Is gold a commodity, an investment, or money?

The answer is…

Gold is a chameleon. It changes in response to the environment. At times, gold behaves like a commodity. The gold price tracks the ups and downs of commodity indices. At other times, gold is viewed as a safe haven investment. It competes with stocks and bonds for investor attention. And on occasion, gold assumes its role as the most stable long-term form of money the world has ever known.

A real chameleon changes color based on the background on which it rests. When sitting on a dark green leaf, the chameleon appears dark green to hide from predators. When the chameleon hops from the leaf to a tree trunk, it will change from green to brown to maintain its defenses.

Gold also changes its nature depending on the background.

Let’s first look at gold a commodity…

Gold does trade on commodity exchanges, and it tends to be included in commodity industries. The common understanding here is that gold is a commodity. But I don’t think that’s correct.

The reason is that because a commodity is a generic substance. It could be agricultural or a mineral or come from various sources, but it’s a substance that’s input into something else. Copper is a commodity, we use it for pipes. Lumber is a commodity, we use it for construction. Iron ore is a commodity, we use it for making steel.

Gold actually isn’t good for anything except money. People don’t dig up gold because they want to coat space helmets on astronauts or make ultra-thin wires. Gold is used for those purposes, but that’s a very small portion of its application.

So I don’t really think of gold as a commodity. But nevertheless we have to understand that it does sometimes trade like a commodity.

As far as being an investment, that’s probably gold’s most common usage.

People say, “I’m investing in gold,” or, “I’m putting part of my investment toward bullion gold.”

But I don’t really think of gold as an investment either. I understand that it’s priced in dollars, and its dollar value can go up. That will give you some return, but to me that’s more a function of the dollar than it is a function of gold.

In other words, if the dollar gets weaker, sure the dollar price of gold is going to go up. If the dollar gets stronger, then the dollar price of gold may go down.

So if you’re using the dollar as the measure of all things, then it looks like gold is going up or down. But I think of gold by weight. An ounce of gold is an ounce of gold. If I have an ounce of gold today, and I put it in a drawer, and I come back a year from now and take it out, I still have an ounce of gold. In other words it didn’t go up or down.

The dollar price may have changed, but to me that’s the function of the dollar, not a function of gold. So again, I don’t really think of it as an investment.

One of the criticisms of gold is that it has no yield. You hear it from Warren Buffet, you hear it from others, and that’s true. But gold is not supposed to have a yield because it’s money. Just reach into your wallet or your purse and pull out a dollar bill and hold it up in front of you, and ask yourself what’s the yield? There is no yield. The dollar bill doesn’t have any yield. It’s just a dollar bill, the way a gold coin is a gold coin.

If you want yield, you have to take some risks. You can put that dollar in the bank, and the bank might pay you a little bit of interest, but now it’s not money anymore. People think of their money in a bank deposit as money, but it really isn’t money. It’s an unsecured liability of an occasionally insolvent financial institution. The risk may be low, but there’s some risk, and that’s why you get a return.

Of course, you can take more risk in the stock market or the bonds market and get higher returns (or losses, as the stock market is currently proving). The point is, to get a return you have to take risk. Gold doesn’t have any risk. It’s just gold, and it doesn’t have any return. But again, it’s not supposed to.

Gold’s role as money is difficult for investors to grasp because gold hasn’t been used as money for decades. But gold in recent years has been behaving more like money than a commodity or investment. It is competing with central bank fiat money for asset allocations by global investors.

That’s a big deal because it shows that citizens around the world are starting to lose confidence in other forms of money such as dollars, yuan, yen, euros and sterling.

When you understand that gold is money, and competes with other forms of money in a jumble of cross-rates with no anchor, you’ll know why the monetary system is going wobbly.

It’s important to take off your dollar blinders to see that the dollar is just one form of money. And not necessarily the best for all investors in all circumstances. Gold is a strong competitor in the horse race among various forms of money.

Despite the recent price action, which is far more a function of the stock market rather than gold itself, this is great news for those with price exposure to gold. The price of gold in many currencies has been going up as confidence in those other currencies goes down. Confidence in currencies is dropping because investors are losing confidence in the central banks that print them.

For the first time since 2008, it looks like central banks are losing control of the global financial system. Gold does not have a central bank. Gold always inspires confidence because it is scarce, tested by time and has no cre‌dit risk.

Lost confidence in fiat money starts slowly then builds rapidly to a crescendo. The end result is panic buying of gold and a price super-spike.

We saw this behavior in the late 1970s. Gold moved from $35 per ounce in August 1971 to $800 per ounce in January 1980.

That’s a 2,200% gain in less than nine years.

We’re in the early stages of a similar super-spike that could take gold to $10,000 per ounce or higher. When that happens there will be one important difference between the new super-spike and what happened in 1980.

Back then, you could buy gold at $100, $200, or $500 per ounce and enjoy the ride. In the new super-spike, you may not be able to get any gold at all. You’ll be watching the price go up on TV, but unable to buy any for yourself.

Gold will be in such short supply that only the central banks, giant hedge funds and billionaires will be able to get their hands on any. The mint and your local dealer will be sold out. That physical scarcity will make the price super-spike even more extreme than in 1980.

The time to buy gold is now, before the price spikes and before supplies dry up. The current price decline gives you an ideal opportunity to buy gold at a bargain basement price. It won’t last long.

It appears the official death of the so-called ‘historic’ peace deal between the United States and the Taliban, as the US military has bombed Taliban positions Wednesday in the first such strike after the truce deal, and the first attack in nearly two weeks.

As we noted when it began unraveling Monday while the ink was barely dry after US State Department and Taliban representatives signed the truce in Doha Saturday, the first major milestone in the controversial deal that saw Washington engage with terrorists while desperately wanting to bring an end to the eighteen-year long occupation would have ultimately seen all American troops out of Afghanistan within 14 months. 

That now appears a pipe dream, and awkward timing to say the least, given President Trump just held a phone call with the Taliban’s top representative Tuesday.

CNN reports of the details of the attack via drone strike:

The United States conducted an airstrike Wednesday against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan who are accused of attacking an Afghan National Defense and Security Forces checkpoint, according to the US military.

The strike comes hours after a telephone call between President Donald Trump and Taliban chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Tuesday amid reports that the Taliban had resumed violence in Afghanistan days after the US and the Taliban signed a historic agreement in Qatar on Saturday.

A Pentagon spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan said in a series of statements, “The US conducted an airstrike Wednesday against Taliban fighters in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand, who were actively attacking an #ANDSF checkpoint. This was a defensive strike to disrupt the attack. This was our 1st strike against the Taliban in 11 days.”

US defense leaders have lately sought to temper expectations in the wake of the deal’s signing. “To think that there’s going to be an absolute cessation of violence in Afghanistan, that is probably not going to happen,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said Monday.

And Monday was the very day the Taliban declared it would resume operations against Afghan security forces, effectively ending the partial truce. There’s been a noticeable ramping up of attacks and bombings against national forces in the past two days.

The whole thing appears to have unraveled after Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had again demanded the government release some 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the Kabul government.

But Afghan President poured cold water on this key element of the deal, responding earlier, “There is no commitment to releasing 5,000 prisoners. This is the right and the self-will of the people of Afghanistan. It could be included in the agenda of the intra-Afghan talks, but cannot be a prerequisite for talks.”

This seems to be driving the Taliban’s non-commitment to the truce, even after all the hype in Western media. It increasingly appear the headlines never matched the reality in the first place, considering how it unraveled pretty much immediately upon being signed with Washington.

Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

A Ukrainian court has ordered an investigation into whether Joe Biden violated any laws when he forced the March 2016 firing of the country’s chief prosecutor.

The ruling could revive scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s lucrative relationship with an energy firm in that corruption-plagued country just as the former vice president’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is surging after a lackluster start.

Former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who has long alleged he was fired because he would not stop investigating the Burisma Holdings firm that employed Hunter Biden, secured the ruling last month. Ukrainian officials confirmed the State Bureau of Investigation has since complied and initiated the probe.

The Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv ruled last month that Shokin’s lawyers had provided sufficient evidence to warrant a probe and “obliged the authorized officials of the State Bureau of Investigation” to accept the ex-prosecutor’s complaint and “start pre-trial investigation of the reported data,” according to an official English translation of the ruling provided by Shokin’s attorney.

The ruling does not mention Biden by name, but court filings by Shokin’s lawyers that led to the decision show that the former prosecutor had alleged “the commission of a criminal offense against him by Joseph Biden, a citizen of the United States of America, in Ukraine and abroad: interference in the activities of a law enforcement officer.”

Ukraine officials say the court-ordered investigation could include a review of non-public documents and possibly even interviews.

The court order revives allegations that were at the center of President Trump’s recent impeachment and acquittal, and which have dogged Joe Biden since he boasted in a 2018 video interview that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S.-backed loan guarantees if Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko did not fire Shokin as the country’s chief prosecutor.

Shokin alleges he was fired on March 29, 2016 specifically because his office refused to shut down a long-running corruption investigation into Burisma, one of Ukraine’s larger natural gas companies.  The firm hired Hunter Biden as a board member in spring 2014, shortly after Joe Biden was named by President Obama to oversee Ukraine-U.S. relations. Records gathered by the FBI show Hunter Biden’s American firm was paid more than $3 million between 2014 and 2016.

President Trump’s private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, asked the State Department and Ukraine officials back in 2019 to investigate the Bidens, an act which gave rise to the impeachment proceedings,

During impeachment testimony, multiple State Department officials said they believed the Bidens’ arrangement created the appearance of a conflict of interest and that the department even blocked a business deal with Burisma at one point over concerns the company was corrupt.

Joe Biden and his defenders have denied any wrongdoing, saying the vice president sought Shokin’s firing because the prosecutor was ineffective in fighting corruption. His supporters have also claimed that the Burisma investigation was dormant at the time Shokin was fired and therefore not a high priority.

But evidence has emerged in recent weeks that the probe into Burisma, in fact, was heating up when Shokin was fired in spring 2016. The prosecutor’s office had secured a ruling re-seizing assets of Burisma’s owner in early February 2016, and the Latvian government acknowledges it sent a warning to Ukraine officials that same month flagging several Burisma transactions, including payments to Hunter Biden, as “suspicious.”

Documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act also show Burisma’s lawyers were pressuring the State Department in February 2016 to end the corruption allegations against the firm, even invoking Hunter Biden’s name as the reason.

And Shokin himself says he was making plans to interview Hunter Biden, an act that likely would have garnered major attention in the United States as Democrats were trying to defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Hunter Biden recently left Burisma’s board and said he believes in retrospect it was bad judgment to join the Ukraine company while his father oversaw U.S.-Ukraine relations. He also acknowledged he likely got the job because of his last name.

Whatever Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation does, the emergence of an investigation in Ukraine focusing attention on the Biden’s ethics comes at an unwelcome time for Joe Biden, whose presidential campaign lagged for months but got a jolt over the weekend when he won convincingly in South Carolina’s primary.

Biden’s momentum continued Monday on the eve of the critical Super Tuesday elections when rivals Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropped from the 2020 Democratic presidential race and announced plans to endorse the former vice president.

While the Ukraine probe just gets started, a separate investigation launched by Republicans in the U.S. Senate has been growing for weeks as investigators seek documents on Hunter Biden’s finances, his overseas travels with the vice president and possible interviews with Ukraine officials.

For a more complete timeline of key events in the Ukraine scandal, click here.

First Chuck Schumer threatened President Trump when he said the intelligence community has “six ways from Sunday” of getting back at him. Now it’s Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch – who will “pay the price” and “won’t know what hit you” if they rule the wrong way on a landmark abortion case.

In which Chuck Schumer threatens TWO sitting Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. pic.twitter.com/pA3mryeVK2

— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 4, 2020

Schumer was speaking at a rally in front of the Supreme Court, where the justices heard June Medical Service v. Russo – in which an abortion provider has challenged a 2014 Louisiana state law, the “Unsafe Abortion Act,” which requires abortion doctors to hold admitting privileges in a hospital at least 30 miles away from the abortion facility.

His comments drew rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said that his comments were “not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.“

NEW: Chief Justice Roberts chastises Schumer for “threatening” statements about Kavanaugh, Gorsuch. pic.twitter.com/jQWHJTfpks

— Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) March 4, 2020

Opponents argue that the law would limit abortion access across the country – hence the protests against the two recent conservative additions to the Supreme Court. If the law is upheld, all three of Louisiana’s abortion clinics could no longer end the lives of unborn children.

When the law was signed in 2014, only one of the state’s six abortion clinics at the time had a physician who was compliant with its requirements. The law has been largely blocked from implementation, but was briefly allowed to go into effect in early 2016, prompting the closure of two of the state’s remaining clinics.

Today, Louisiana has just three abortion clinics across the state. If the Supreme Court finds Louisiana’s law constitutional, all of them would stop offering the procedure, as first reported by CBS News. The court’s ultimate decision is expected early this summer. –CBS News

Pro-life advocates also gathered at the Wednesday rally. 

Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman put quite the spin on the threat, telling the Daily Caller that the senator’s comments referenced the political price Republicans “will pay for putting them on the court,” as well as “a warning that the justices will unleash major grassroots movement on the issue of reproductive rights against the decision.”

Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse slammed Schumer, saying that Schumer threatened Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

“The Democratic Party is so radicalized on abortion politics that today Chuck Schumer threatened Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh if they didn’t strike down a simple, common-sense, pro-woman law that simply says that abortion doctors need to have admission privileges at a local hospital,” Sasse said in a statement provided to the DCNF.

The Nebraska senator argued that if a Republican threatened Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor or Ginsburg, “it would be the biggest story not just in Washington but all across America.” –Daily Caller

“But, Chuck Schumer’s bully tactics aren’t getting much air time right now because there’s so many people in bed with his defense of abortion and his attack on an independent judiciary,” Sasse continued. “These bullying tactics need to stop.”