Tag: finance

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

At least 15 million acres of Australia have been devastated by wildfires. Climate change activists are up in arms.

Please consider Why Down Under Is Burning Up

The current round of blazes started late last year. It has charred at least 15 million acres and killed more than two dozen Australians, including brave volunteer firefighters who rush into the inferno to save homes and lives.

The climate-change narrative grossly oversimplifies bush fires, whose causes are as complex as their recurrence is predictable: Australia is in the midst of one of its regular droughts.

Byzantine environmental restrictions prevent landholders from clearing scrub, brush and trees. State governments don’t do their part to reduce the fuel load in parks. Last November a former fire chief in Victoria slammed that state’s “minimalist approach” to hazard-reduction burning in the off-season. That complaint is heard across the country.

On Monday a parliamentarian from the Australian Greens tweeted about one day holding “climate trials” to deal with conservative politicians.

Main Causes

1. Arson: More than 180 people have been arrested for allegedly starting blazes since the start of the current bush-fire season.

2. Secondary Cause: Environmental Restrictions and misguided Green ideology.

Perhaps I have those backwards.

Not Climate Change

Please consider Australian Wildfires Were Caused by Humans, Not Climate Change

The similarities between Australian and Californian politics, vegetation, and climate have always been striking. Both places are drop-dead beautiful, far-left, and politically green. In both places, people like living around vegetation that every year dries out enough to burn sky high — with or without climate change.

This is thanks to relatively short rainy seasons surrounded by perfect beach weather. It is spectacularly green when it rains and tinder-dry brown when it stops. When rainfall is high, as it was for recent years in Australia, vegetation grows even thicker, only to provide even more fuel for wildfires.

At the same time, our culture of vegetation worship militates against purposefully burning things down. In California, these “prescribed” fires are now largely prohibited (because burning releases dreaded carbon dioxide), ensuring that disaster is always just around the corner. Ditto for Australia, where some burning is allowed but nowhere near enough.

Australia has been ready to explode for years. David Packham, former head of Australia’s National Rural Fire Research Centre, warned in a 2015 article in the Age that fire fuel levels had climbed to their most dangerous levels in thousands of years. He noted this was the result of “misguided green ideology.”

It’s very convenient for alarmist greens to blame the fires of Australia and California on global warming. In reality, the policies they themselves advocate are the culprits.

67 Years of Brushfire Data

Arson Crisis

Please consider We don’t just have a bushfire crisis. We have an arson crisis, too.

The number of individuals around Australia whose arson has contributed to the current bushfire crisis has now passed 200.

Here is my favorite: “A volunteer firefighter in Australia has been charged with deliberately lighting blazes during the nation’s bushfire crisis. Police arrested the man, 19, for seven counts of alleged arson in an area south of Sydney, New South Wales.”

There are no conspiracies here. Though arson has been tried and called for before as a tool of terror, the Australian fires seem to result from the actions of unconnected individuals who are either disturbed or reckless. This is nothing new; as ecological criminologist Paul Read wrote back in November:

A 2015 satellite analysis of 113,000 fires from 1997-2009 confirmed what we had known for some time – 40 per cent of fires are deliberately lit, another 47 per cent accidental. This generally matches previous data published a decade earlier that about half of all fires were suspected or deliberate arson, and 37 per cent accidental. Combined, they reach the same conclusion: 87 per cent are man-made.

Scourge of Eucalyptus

Here’s an interesting article from 2013: Australia’s Wildfires: Are Eucalyptus Trees to Blame?

“Looking at the eucalyptus forest outside my window in Tasmania, I see a gigantic fire hazard,” David Bowman, a forest ecologist at the University of Tasmania in Australia, told KQED. “On a really hot day, those things are going to burn like torches and shower our suburbs with sparks.”

Like many plants native to fire-prone regions, eucalyptus trees (aka gum trees in Australia) are adapted to survive — or even thrive — in a wildfire. Fallen eucalyptus leaves create dense carpets of flammable material, and the trees’ bark peels off in long streamers that drop to the ground, providing additional fuel that draws ground fires up into the leaves, creating massive, fast-spreading “crown fires” in the upper story of eucalyptus forests.

Additionally, the eucalyptus oil that gives the trees their characteristic spicy fragrance is a flammable oil: This oil, combined with leaf litter and peeling bark during periods of dry, windy weather, can turn a small ground fire into a terrifying, explosive firestorm in a matter of minutes. That’s why eucalyptus trees — especially the blue gums (Eucalyptus globulus) that are common throughout New South Wales — are sometimes referred to wryly as “gasoline trees.”

The threat posed by eucalyptus groves spreading beyond Australia was highlighted in 1991, when a wildfire torched the hills surrounding Oakland, Calif. That conflagration killed 25 people and obliterated more than 3,000 homes, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and was blamed primarily on the thousands of eucalyptus trees found throughout the Oakland Hills.

Despite their well-earned reputation as a firefighter’s worst nightmare, eucalyptus trees remain a favorite landscape specimen, renowned for fast-growing stands of tall shade trees that, according to some research, help repel insects through the same fragrant eucalyptus oil that’s blamed for fueling wildfires.

“Eucalyptus groves on steep hillsides — like those in the East Bay hills — are extremely flammable when hot … winds of late summer and fall start blowing and make control of a moving flame front impossible until the winds stop,” Tom Klatt, UC Berkeley campus environmental manager, said in a report from the university’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources NewsCenter.

Three Eucalyptus Ideas

1. Hey, let’s plant eucalyptus. It grows fast.

2. When it dries out, let’s not do prescribed burns because that would release CO2.

3. Blame global warming if anything goes wrong with points 1 and 2.

“What the hell have humans done?” Bowman said. “We’ve spread a dangerous plant all over the world.“

But that story doesn’t sell. Hype that sells. Like this:

Climate Deniers Cooking Themselves

Climate deniers are cooking themselves — and everyone else.

Australia, like many countries (very much including the United States) is pathologically addicted to fossil fuels, and is roasting itself and the world in the process. Without strong international climate policy, there will be future droughts, fires, and other disasters that make the current crisis seem like a friendly daydream.

On the whole, that only rates a B- or a C+ because it does not end with a projection like AOC’s that the World Will End in 12 Years if We Do Nothing

Everyone in Miami Will Drown in 6 Years

“Cooking yourself” is OK but the article itself fell flat.

To gain real traction one needs a headline like this: “Everyone in Miami Will Drown in 6 Years“

Now, that’s an A++ story headline guaranteed to garner attention.

Lies and manipulations

@DavidBCollum @MishGEA Australia scrubbing and changing climate records from the past to make the present appear warmer. https://t.co/6frT8EMTcE

— Stunned Mullet (@StunnedMulletNZ) December 21, 2019

Amazing stuff.

The Green police discarded temperatures all over the board and manipulated early temperatures lower.

In my favorite example, the climate police discarded a record high temperature because the person who measured temperatures did so on a Sunday. They claim the recorder was not supposed to be working on Sunday, thus the record high should not have been recorded.

Of course they moved thermometers to airports with increasing numbers of planes and hot asphalt, etc. And finally, they switched to electronic measurement recently which tends to be hotter than mercury-based thermometers.

All About Climate Change Except

Other than lies, temperature manipulations, piss poor burn management, arson, environmental restrictions, and other misguided Green ideology, this story is all about climate change.

Unfortunately, a politically incorrect story like this is going nowhere. But “Everyone in Miami Will Drown in 6 Years” just might.

By the way, I propose the most likely reason for arson is global warming activists wanting to blame climate change.

A top House Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith (WA) said on Thursday that “it is time” for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to deliver supposedly urgent impeachment articles to the Senate so they can get on with the business of acquitting President Trump.

Pelosi’s refusal to transmit the articles until GOP leaders in the Senate agree to her terms for a trial has created an impasse – a strategy which an increasing number of Congressional Democrats have asked her to abandon.

“I understand what the speaker is trying to do, basically trying to use the leverage of that to work with Democratic and Republican senators to try to get a reasonable trial, a trial that would actually show evidence, bring out witnesses,” Smith told CNN. “But at the end of the day, just like we control it in the House, Mitch McConnell controls it in the Senate.“

Now it’s happening in the House. Chairman breaks with Speaker over withholding articles. https://t.co/5vng4defLA

— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 9, 2020

As we noted on Wednesday, Senate Democrats, including Dianne Feinstein, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy have made similar comments in recent days.

“If we’re going to do it, she should send them over. I don’t see what good delay does,” said Feinstein, who also told Politico “The longer it goes on the less urgent it becomes.”

“So if it’s serious and urgent, send them over. If it isn’t, don’t send it over.“

Senate Majority Leader McConnell – who has promised a speedy acquittal of Trump – said during a Wednesday speech on the Senate floor: “There will no haggling with the House over Senate procedure,” adding “We will not cede our authority to try this impeachment.”

President Trump, meanwhile, has taken to Twitter to berate Pelosi for failing to move forward with the articles, writing on Thursday “Pelosi doesn’t want to hand over The Articles of Impeachment, which were fraudulently produced by corrupt politicians like Shifty Schiff in the first place, because after all of these years of investigations and persecution, they show no crimes and are a joke and a scam!”

Pelosi doesn’t want to hand over The Articles of Impeachment, which were fraudulently produced by corrupt politicians like Shifty Schiff in the first place, because after all of these years of investigations and persecution, they show no crimes and are a joke and a scam!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2020

Trump later added: “remember her “speed & rush” in getting the Impeachment Hoax voted on & done. Well, she never sent the Articles to the Senate. Just another Democrat fraud.”

Hope that all House Republicans will vote against Crazy Nancy Pelosi’s War Powers Resolution. Also, remember her “speed & rush” in getting the Impeachment Hoax voted on & done. Well, she never sent the Articles to the Senate. Just another Democrat fraud. Presidential Harassment!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2020

Authored by Jim Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

Over the past century, monetary systems change about every 30 to 40 years on average. Before 1914, the global monetary system was based on the classical gold standard.

Then in 1945, a new monetary system emerged at Bretton Woods. I was at Bretton Woods this past summer to commemorate its 75th anniversary.

Under that system, the dollar became the global reserve currency, linked to gold at $35 per ounce. In 1971 Nixon ended the direct convertibility of the dollar to gold. For the first time, the monetary system had no gold backing.

Today, the existing monetary system is nearly 50 years old, so the world is long overdue for a change. Gold should once again play a leading role.

I’ve written and spoken publicly for years about the prospects for a new gold standard. My analysis is straightforward.

International monetary figures have a choice. They can reintroduce gold into the monetary system either on a strict or loose basis (such as a “reference price” in monetary policy decision making).

This can be done as the result of a new monetary conference, a la Bretton Woods. It could be organized by some convening power, probably the U.S. working with China.

Or they can ignore the problem, let a debt crisis materialize (that will play out in interest rates and foreign-exchange markets) and watch gold soar to $14,000 per ounce or higher, not because they wanted it to but because the system is out of control.

I’ve also said that the former course (a conference) is more desirable, but the latter course (chaos) is more likely. A monetary conference would be far preferable. Why not avoid the train wreck rather than clear up the wreckage? But will probably be ignored until it’s too late. Either way, the price of gold soars.

The same force that made the dollar the world’s reserve currency is working to dethrone it. It was at Bretton Woods that the dollar was officially designated the world’s leading reserve currency — a position that it still holds today.

Under the Bretton Woods system, all major currencies were pegged to the dollar at a fixed exchange rate. The dollar itself was pegged to gold at the rate of $35 per ounce. Indirectly, the other currencies had a fixed gold value because of their peg to the dollar.

Other currencies could devalue against the dollar, and therefore against gold, if they received permission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, the dollar could not devalue, at least in theory. It was the keystone of the entire system — intended to be permanently anchored to gold.

From 1950–1970 the Bretton Woods system worked fairly well. Trading partners of the U.S. who earned dollars could cash those dollars into the U.S. Treasury and be paid in gold at the fixed rate.

Trading partners of the U.S. who earned dollars could cash those dollars into the U.S. Treasury and be paid in gold at the fixed rate.

In 1950, the U.S. had about 20,000 tons of gold. By 1970, that amount had been reduced to about 9,000 tons. The 11,000-ton decline went to U.S. trading partners, primarily Germany, France and Italy, who earned dollars and cashed them in for gold.

The U.K. pound sterling had previously held the dominant reserve currency role starting in 1816, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the official adoption of the gold standard by the U.K. Many observers assume the 1944 Bretton Woods conference was the moment the U.S. dollar replaced sterling as the world’s leading reserve currency.

In fact, that replacement of sterling by the dollar as the world’s leading reserve currency was a process that took 30 years, from 1914 to 1944.

In fact, the period from 1919–1939 was really one in which the world had two major reserve currencies — dollars and sterling — operating side by side.

Finally, in 1939, England suspended gold shipments in order to fight the Second World War and the role of sterling as a reliable store of value was greatly diminished. The 1944 Bretton Woods conference was merely recognition of a process of dollar reserve dominance that had started in 1914.

The significance of the process by which the dollar replaced sterling over a 30-year period has huge implications for you today. Slippage in the dollar’s role as the leading global reserve currency is not necessarily something that would happen overnight, but is more likely to be a slow, steady process.

Signs of this are already visible.

In 2000, dollar assets were about 70% of global reserves. Today, the comparable figure is about 62%. If this trend continues, one could easily see the dollar fall below 50% in the not-too-distant future.

It is equally obvious that a major creditor nation is emerging to challenge the U.S. today just as the U.S. emerged to challenge the U.K. in 1914. That power is China. The U.S. had massive gold inflows from 1914-1944. China has been experiencing massive gold inflows in recent years.

Gold reserves at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) increased to 1948.31 tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2019. For comparison, it held 1,658 tonnes in June, 2015.

But China has acquired thousands of metric tonnes since without reporting these acquisitions to the IMF or World Gold Council.

Based on available data on imports and the output of Chinese mines, actual Chinese government and private gold holdings are likely much higher. It’s hard to pinpoint because China operates through secret channels and does not officially report its gold holdings except at rare intervals.

China’s gold acquisition is not the result of a formal gold standard, but is happening by stealth acquisitions on the market. They’re using intelligence and military assets, covert operations and market manipulation. But the result is the same. Gold’s been flowing to China in recent years, just as gold flowed to the U.S. before Bretton Woods.

China is not alone in its efforts to achieve creditor status and to acquire gold. Russia has greatly increased its gold reserves over the past several years and has little external debt. The move to accumulate gold in Russia is no secret, and as Putin advisor, Sergey Glazyev told Russian Insider has said, “The ruble is the most gold-backed currency in the world.”

Iran has also imported massive amounts of gold, mostly through Turkey and Dubai, although no one knows the exact amount, because Iranian gold imports are a state secret.

Other countries, including BRICS members Brazil, India and South Africa, have joined Russia and China in their desire to break free of U.S. dollar dominance.

Sterling faced a single rival in 1914, the U.S. dollar. Today, the dollar faces a host of rivals. The decline of the dollar as a reserve currency started in 2000 with the advent of the euro and accelerated in 2010 with the beginning of a new currency war.

The dollar collapse has already begun and the need for a new monetary order will need to emerge. The question is whether it will be an orderly process resulting from a new monetary conference, or a chaotic one.

Unfortunately, it’ll probably be chaotic. Don’t count on the elites to act in time.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) couldn’t stop laughing and joking with fellow progressive ‘squad’-mates, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (MI) and Pramila Jaypal (WA) as Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee (TX) gave a House Progressive Caucus press conference discussed US casualties from the Iraq war.

“I’m very glad to say that I was part of the 132 and also the vote for Barbara Lee’s amendment, but I think that the point of that is that that is the same war that we’re dealing with today,” said Lee. “We never solved any problems with AUMF, we left four thousand plus, maybe even forty four hundred dead, and over sixty thousand who came back injured in some form and the war never ended.“

As Lee spoke, Omar and her progressive pals continued to trade jokes, smiles and laughs.

“I recall the language in AUMF, it deals with hostilities in Iraq,” Lee continued, according to the Daily Wire. “It doesn’t deal with an incident or a dislike or someone in a car coming in from the airport. That is the danger of not acting and I do think with our leadership, meaning the leadership CPC, that will come together around specific answers.”

.@ConorLambPA, I’m calling on you to condemn your colleague’s behavior here & defend our men & women in uniform who fought & bled for our nation.
I know you vote with her 90% of the time, but this is beyond politics.
As a US Marine, this should horrify & disgust you. https://t.co/UVkGvrqSF6

— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellUSA) January 8, 2020

Later, the bemused Omar took to the microphone, where she said that the possibility of war with Iran had caused her to be “stricken with PTSD.”

“I feel ill a little bit because of everything that is taking place and I think every time I hear of conversations around war I find myself being stricken with PTSD,” she said, before attacking President Trump over the imposition of additional sanctions against Iran following an attack on airbases housing US forces.

.@IlhanMN says she has PTSD and the talk of conflict w/ Iran is making her uneasy pic.twitter.com/jzjUfKjEUY

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 8, 2020

“This makes no sense. Sanctions are economic warfare,” Omar said over Twitter Wednesday morning, adding “They have already caused medical shortages and countless deaths in Iran. You cannot claim to want deescalation and then announce new sanctions with no clear goal. This is not a measured response!”

This makes no sense. Sanctions are economic warfare.

They have already caused medical shortages and countless deaths in Iran.

You cannot claim to want deescalation and then announce new sanctions with no clear goal. This is not a measured response! https://t.co/sGWtwXuNDT

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 8, 2020

Two days earlier, Omar suggested that Iran could “threaten Trump hotels *worldwide* and he could provoke war over the loss of revenue from skittish guests,” adding that “His business interests should not be driving military decisions.”

Trump needs to immediately divest from his businesses and comply with the emoluments clause. Iran could threaten Trump hotels *worldwide* and he could provoke war over the loss of revenue from skittish guests.

His business interests should not be driving military decisions.

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 6, 2020

Meanwhile, as PJ Media notes, Omar has expressed more outrage over the killing of Iranian #2 Qasem Soleimani than she did over 9/11.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

The list of warmongering excuses is nearly endless.

Here’s 10 of them.

1. It’s OK to kill someone today if there is reason to believe they may do something wrong in the future: Senator Lindsey Graham January 3, 2020. “This was not an act of revenge for what he had done in the past. This was a preemptive, defensive strike planned to take out the organizer of attacks yet to come.” Apparently only the US has this right.

2. Assassinating foreign leaders is OK and does not constitute an act of war. Trump, Graham, Ben Shapiro, and too many neocons to count.

3. Declared wars, who needs em? Bush, Obama, Hillary, Trump. Rand Paul Mocks the idea October 15, 2019. “Senator Graham and Hillary Clinton stood together to support Islamic extremists in the Syrian civil war. America should come first,” said Paul

4. It will be a short war: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld November 2002

5. Keeping US troops in Iraq will only cost $3.9 billion: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld 2003

6. It’s OK for the US to fight everyone else’s war: Bush, Cheney, Obama, Hillary, Trump, and every neocon, too many to name. In contrast, “I’m tired of America always paying for everybody else’s war,” said Rand Paul, February 4, 2019.

7. Crippling economic sanctions are not an act of war. Who cares how many starve to death? Too many neocons to count.

8. “We Came, We Saw, He Died!”: Hillary Clinton joked in 2011 when told of news reports of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi death at US hands. Libya is now a Jihadist wonderland led by ISIS and Al Qaueda.

9. Iran’s retaliation in response to Trump’s Assassination of a foreign leader was an “Act of War” but the assassination was not: Senator Lindsey Graham, January 7, 2020.

10. “In order to get elected, Barrack Obama will start a war with Iran”: Donald Trump November 29, 2011.

Here’s a bonus 11th. “We have to get them over there so they don’t get us here.”

That goes back at least to the wonderful domino theory and false flag incident that kicked off the Vietnam War.

Iran History Lesson

Iran has every reason to mistrust if not hate the US for its role in the 1953 Iranian Coup D’état.

The coup the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project or “Operation Ajax”) and the United Kingdom (under the name “Operation Boot”). It was the first covert action of the United States to overthrow a foreign government during peacetime.

In August 2013, sixty years afterward, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out “under CIA direction” and “as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government”.

This is what led to the Iranian revolt years later under President Carter.

CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

Foreign Policy Magazine reports CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

“The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew,” he told Foreign Policy.

Saddam & Rumsfeld Shaking Hands

And where did Iraq get the chemical weapons? Some allege the US.

At a minimum, the US looked the other way.

Here’s a nice video clip of future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein on December 20, 1983.

Donald Rumsfeld was then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan.

Trump Treats US Allies Like Tainted Dog Meat

On May 8, 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrawal from a nuclear accord with Iran that China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany signed.

Every country but the US said Iran was following the accord.

The UK, Germany and France, which all opposed the sanctions, set up an alternative payment mechanism aimed at helping international companies trade with Iran without facing US penalties.

Unfortunately, the payment mechanism has been a big failure. Iran has been unable to sell more than minimal amounts of oil.

US Steals Iran’s Assets and Returns Them

Ben Shapiro made the claim today the the money for Iran’s attack on the US in Iraq came from the US.

This lie stems from the fact that under the accord, Iran gained access to more than $100 billion in assets frozen overseas.

We impound Iranian assets, return them, and the likes of Ben Shapiro act as if we “gave” Iran money.

US, By Far, the Global Leader in State Terrorism

The US, by far, is the leader in state-sponsored terrorism. No other country comes close.

Mind you, the US overthrew a democratically elected Iranian leader and replaced that person with a US puppet to steal Iranian oil.

Start there. https://t.co/R8b9FD1zvE

— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) January 8, 2020

“Sissy!”

If you don’t support war, you get accused of being an Incomprehensible America Hating Sissy.

Let’s make that Warmongering Idea Number 12.

John Bolton’s Warmongering Notes

Image from John Bolton’s Warmongering Notes by Brian McFadden on The Nib.

Not Black and White

Yes, the US has done a lot of good.

And as I have pointed out many times, the US has the largest, most open capital markets in the world. Google, Apple, and Microsoft could not exist in the EU because the EU would bust them up in the name of competition.

Google thrives because it allows people free use of its search engine. People use it because they like it. Those who don’t like it are free to try something else. From its enormous search engine profits, Google started the entire new field of autonomous driving.

Earlier today someone asked me why I am in the US, as if my opinion on warmongering mattered.

To answer, because this is where I want to be.

But that does not mean one can never criticize the US or US leaders.

Might Is Not Right

One should never accept the principle that might makes right, or that US leaders can do no wrong (or right). For discussion, please see the Number One Person Afflicted with TDS is Trump.

The fact is, Trump’s actions are far removed from what the constitution would allow. We have gone from one undeclared war to another to another.

The second fact is the US has wasted trillions of dollars on not only stupid, but counterproductive wars.

The asinine decision to invade Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein, our once ally on the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” thesis led to the creation of ISIS.

Rational Decision by Iran

When you look at 7 decades of US policy and belligerency towards Iran, they would be nuts to not want a nuclear bomb. Their top reason would be to defend themselves from the US.

Few in the US can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. If you lived in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, or Afghanistan and a US drone killed your kid, you would have every reason to want to strike back, wouldn’t you?

Instead, the mindless US public, brainwashed by neocon and the warmongering media, couldn’t care less about collateral damage. Note that the Left Wing “Liberal Media” Cheers War and Assassinations

Questions Abound

What do we have to show for two decades of endless wars?

We have wasted several trillion dollars for what?

What?

Did might make right?

Could we not make better use of that money on US infrastructure than blowing up the world and making enemies in the process?

Nah. That kind of thinking is for sissies. Real men are willing to kill innocent men women and childrens with drones and blow up cultural sites in the name of peace.

The defining strategy of the 2010-2019 market was riding the monetary policy mistakes which pumped money into financial assets – it was a brilliant game for those who played it well. As Bill Blain recently noted:

The last 10-years were largely about denial of rationality by piling on risk in what looked to be risk-off markets, holding your nerve in the face of improbable market gains, all of which required a long-term suspension of disbelief. 

 Do these three things and you did well! It really didn’t require that much skill – just the understanding of why Central Banks could not afford to stop juicing markets via flawed monetary policy.

Correlation is not causation… especially when your salary depends on it…

Source: Bloomberg

But, as stocks soar to ever record-er record highs, Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow notes that – as Bill Blain hints at – it was a strange juxtaposition, therefore to read the official comments that are also in the news.

• ECB President Christine Lagarde argued for EU-wide fiscal stimulus to jump-start the sluggish economy.

• The World Bank cut growth forecasts for China and Europe and warned of downside risks generally.

• Outgoing Bank of England Governor Mark Carney drove sterling lower by saying that the MPC is debating the need for further stimulus in response to the economy slowing below potential.

• And a Fed deputy director in the financial stability unit warned that even a moderate recession could lead to yields at the long-end of the curve falling to “near-zero.” Just like in Japan and Europe.

Of course, we all know a lot of the feel-good pricing of assets has to do with the knowledge that central banks are just incapable of weaning themselves off the loose, looser, loosest for long, longer, longest liquidity policies. And if they can’t bear to part with this addiction, the global economy and corporate decision-makers won’t be able to either. We act as we are incentivized.

I assume we’ll get more of the same from the long list of Fed speakers on today’s schedule: “Everything is going well but know we are here to protect you.”

• 8am: Fed’s Clarida Discusses Economy, Monetary Policy in New York

• 9:30am: Fed’s Kashkari Speaks at Regional Economic Conference

• 11:30am: Fed’s Williams Speaks at BoE in London

• 12:45pm: Fed’s Barkin Speaks in Richmond

• 1:20pm: Fed’s Evans Speaks on Economic Outlook

• 2pm: Fed’s Bullard Speaks to Wisconsin Bankers

It’s becoming an example of poor parenting. At some point, we all need to try to ride the bicycle without a smothering presence running alongside and holding the back of the seat.

Source: Bloomberg

They have infantilized the business and financial investment process. And along with it continue to steadfastly embrace policies that by their own academic definition aren’t working. There isn’t only one way to fulfill a mandate. This obsession with inflation targets is merely an excuse to stay in their own comfort zone and may have little to do with the real world. Where inflation, by the way, is nowhere near as low as they want to believe.

Obviously they want to avoid a recession. Clearly they have lowered rates where they don’t feel comfortable with the room they have to maneuver. Belatedly they are realizing that negative rates are a fool’s errand. But they need to stop setting policy and guidance for a recession that isn’t here. And if one happens it won’t have anything to do with the level of interest rates. Although, they could talk us into one. They have utterly missed the boat in understanding the law of unintended consequences.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it’s hard not to be intrigued at the very nascent attempt of bund yields to once again push up against resistance. Some of this clearly has to do with the heavy debt issuance taking place. I’d like to think today’s German industrial production beat had a contributing influence. I’m strangely optimistic that Lagarde will have greater success than her predecessor in getting the surplus nations to kick in some monies. There are three ECB speakers today and it would be nice if their outlooks were constructive. Or at least of the glass-half-full variety.

Looking at the screens, and seeing everything look bubbly, it is sobering to realize it reflects price appreciation but not necessarily greater confidence that might lead to investment. Thinking about what asset-price movement would actually stoke business and consumer confidence, and could be a development far more consequential than just favorable mark-to-markets, it would be seeing bund yields back above zero. And the ECB shouldn’t continue to resist it happening.

As we warned overnight, just as the market got addicted to QE and the result was a 20% drop in the S&P in late 2018 when markets freaked out about Quantitative Tightening, the Fed’s shrinking balance sheet, and declining liquidity, Curvature Securities’ Scott Skyrm cautions that “it will take pain to wean the Repo market off of cheap Fed cash” since “it‘s a circle” which can be described as follows:

For the Fed to end daily RP ops, they need outside cash to come back into the Repo market. For the Repo market to attract cash, Repo rates need to move higher. For rates to move higher, the Fed needs to stop RP ops.

Does this look like they are ‘weaning’ the system off?

Remember when the liquidity shortage was a “year-end” issue? On Dec 31, the Fed had pumped a total of $255.95 billion into the market versus $258.9 billion on Friday. pic.twitter.com/w1YSabtMuF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 9, 2020

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Investors, pension funds and companies need to get ahead of the financial risk from climate change, as many fossil fuel assets risk becoming worthless.

“We can’t have a financial sector that ignores an issue, and then all of a sudden has to deal with it,” Mark Carney, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, said in a recent interview with BBC. Carney is referring to the fact that current plans by fossil fuel companies, and investors who own assets in those companies, are to continue on a path that puts the world on a trajectory of 3.7-3.8 degrees of warming, “far above the 1.5 degrees that governments say they want and that people are demanding.”

Government action to limit emissions, however, would obviously disrupt that trajectory. As a result, the valuation of so many assets will remain at a certain level, until all of a sudden there is a massive repricing of companies and entire sectors. “How many of those assets that exist today are actually going to be stranded?”

Carney has lamented that the predicament amounts to a “tragedy of the horizon,” which refers to the fact that the problem of climate change is a long-term one, which makes it difficult to convince investors and companies to act. The problem is, once the real-world climate problem becomes impossible to ignore, there will be draconian policies put in place. And, in financial terms, once it becomes impossible to ignore, a sharp loss in value becomes impossible to avoid.

That’s exactly why he is urging investors to get ahead of this issue. That means pension funds, banks and many other financial institutions need to put limits on their fossil fuel investments, and also to disclose more information about their exposure. Carney will soon be taking on a role of UN special envoy for climate action and finance. He has been sounding the alarm about stranded assets and the financial risk of climate change for years.

“A question for every company, every financial institution, is ‘what’s your plan?’” Carney said.

“If there is no action, we will be in a climate emergency.” Every pension fund and investor needs to justify their stakes in fossil fuels, he said.

Carney will try to tighten up international standards ahead of the Glasgow climate talks later this year.

The rising focus on the financial sector and investors presents another threat to oil and gas companies. But companies are vulnerable in different ways. U.S. shale drilling, for example, may not be all that exposed to this financial bubble. The bulk of a shale well’s production occurs in just a few years, allowing them to dodge the government restrictions and demand risk that likely lie in the future. That’s not to say that shale is not littered with its own set of financial problems, but the problem of stranded assets is a deeper problem for long-lived oil and gas projects.

That includes Canada’s oil sands, LNG, offshore oil drilling and pipeline projects.

“Mark Carney is a thoughtful person so I want to listen closely to what he has to say,” Michael Tims, vice-chairman of Calgary-based Matco Investments, told the Financial Post.

“The harder part is to try to rationally assess what the implications are to value for longer-horizon projects.”

These projects are based on the assumption that they will stick around for decades. The problem is that many of them are unviable in a world that gets serious about climate change. So, either the world blows past climate targets and hurtles toward catastrophe, or governments crack down on oil and gas, upending assets currently worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) is reporting that Jia Qingguo, a top foreign policy expert in China and professor of international studies at Peking University, said the “phase one” trade deal with the U.S. and China wouldn’t lead to “phase two” trade deal because “excessive” demands by Washington have left Chinese officials feeling “useless” to engage. 

“Despite the recent announcement that we are going to have the first phase agreement, [the] relationship between China and the U.S. is still in deep trouble and is heading south rather than north. It is getting worse,” the SCMP cited Jia at the Regional Outlook Forum 2020 hosted by the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore on Thursday.

Started year of #Asia #security policy at @ISEAS Regional Outlook Forum & listened to David Shambaugh, Joseph Liow @FGodement and Jia Qingguo on great power relations. Clearly, #middlepowers and small states need to work together to safeguard rules – not least #EU and #ASEAN pic.twitter.com/eomBzndBnz

— Niclas Kvarnström (@nkvarnstrom) January 9, 2020

Jia, who was a panelist at the forum, said Sino-American relations are in pretty “bad shape.” 

He said the trade war has morphed into a tech, stating that the U.S. has blacklisted some Chinese firms from purchasing semiconductor components from U.S. companies. This has forced firms, especially Huawei, to develop domestic microchips as an alternative. 

“[This] makes it impossible for the two countries to interact and benefit from interaction … It is bound to affect the trade relationship between the two countries,” he said.

“China’s patience is wearing thin,” argues Jia Qingguo, dean of school of international studies at peking uni, at @ISEAS regional forum. Says conciliatory moves with US seen as “useless”. leaders
increasingly convinced they need to struggle against containment instead. pic.twitter.com/xE5ze0DFmW

— james crabtree (@jamescrabtree) January 9, 2020

As for the hard agriculture commitments in phase one trade deal, he said it was “very unreasonable” for China to purchase that much from the U.S. 

Jia said a “whole deal” might not be likely, considering the Trump administration wants “to topple the Chinese government and contain China simultaneously.” 

He explained that the U.S. feels threatened by China’s ascension to become a global superpower, and a great power competition was underway.  

“The U.S. has come to the South China Sea and tells us how to handle territorial disputes their way,” said Jia. “But China has not been telling the Americans to do all these things.”

He said the U.S. military is increasing tensions between both countries by conducting Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea near China’s militarized islands. 

Jia said a cold war could break out between both countries — for that to happen, there would need to be continued military confrontation, economic decoupling, and ideological rivalry.

“[U.S. President Donald] Trump has not been able to decouple [our economies] as much as he may have wished. But the chance for China and the U.S. to get into a cold war is increasing,” he warned.

With increasing doubts of a full trade deal between the U.S. and China, this comes at a time when President Trump has switched from pumping a phase one agreement to a phase two deal — all of this is optically pleasing in an election year. 

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

In a not so surprising report, the FBI conducted a record number of background checks for gun sales in 2019.  All of these gun purchases ramp up every time democrats open their mouths voicing support to disintegrating the rights of the people.

The FBI carried out a record 28 million background checks on firearms purchases in 2019, as Americans rushed to buy weapons amid calls by wealthy elitists in Hollywood and Democrat politicians for tougher gun laws.

According to FBI data, 28,369,750 background checks were performed in 2019, smashing the previous record of 27 million in 2016. The agency ran 202,465 checks on Black Friday alone. The Christmas period was a festive one for firearms retailers, with just under three million checks carried out in December, the second-highest month since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System began in 1998. –RT

“Americans are choosing to invest their hard-earned dollars in their ability to exercise their rights and buy the firearms they want before gun control politicians attempt to regulate away that ability,” a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation told the Associated Press in December.

Though violent crime has decreased by more than 50 percent since the early 1990s, mass shootings continue to make gun control a headline issue in the US. Last year saw a number of high-profile slayings, including two shootings in Texas in August that left 30 people dead, a massacre in Virginia Beach that killed 13, and a bloodbath at a nightclub in Dayton, Ohio, that killed nine. But that’s all in how the mainstream media (a mouthpiece for the government) prefers the populace “feel” about guns.

Here’s What A Criminology Professor Learned By Studying Every Mass Shooting Since 1966

Every Democratic candidate for next year’s election has promised to restrict gun rights in some manner, with Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke proposing a mass confiscation of AR- and AK-style rifles in September, shortly before dropping out of the race.

O’Rourke’s fellow Democrats, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, then announced that they too would introduce their own mandatory buyback schemes. The following month saw the third-highest number of checks in the whole year. –RT