In early November, Dean Foods, the nation’s largest dairy producer, filed for bankruptcy protection. The company, which has secured nearly a billion dollars in debtor financing to keep it afloat temporarily, is looking to sell off some or all of its assets as it attempts to reorganize and survive.
The filing isn’t exactly a surprise. As I explained in a column earlier this year, Dean Foods was a sinking ship.
Many factors caused the company to fail. For one, Americans are drinking less cow milk. “Overall, dairy consumption (including fluid milk, cheese, and butter) has plummetedover the past four decades,” I wrote. “Per capita, Americans are drinking nearly 100 lbs. less fluid milk than they did in 1975.” In place of cow’s milk, Americans are turning in small but growing numbers to cow’s milk alternatives, including almond, soy, coconut, and oat milk.
Other factors, including falling cereal consumption and competition from Walmart—once one of its largest customers—have also hurt Dean Foods. Rising pension costs also ate into the company’s line. Its stock lost nearly all of its value last year. What’s more, decreasing demand for cow milk also comes as dairy farmers continue to break production records. Low demand and robust supply have driven dairy prices to a 50-year low.
But changing consumer preferences, overproduction, and competition from non-dairy producers only tell part of the story of the downfall of Dean Foods. The big picture has the government’s messy fingerprints all over it.
For starters, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is deeply involved in promoting dairy producers and production.
“USDA dairy marketing orders set minimum dairy prices, while the [agency’s dairy] checkoff program takes money from dairy farmers to promote milk and other dairy products,” I detail in my book Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable. “Taxpayers have the dairy checkoff program to thank, for example, for the ubiquitous ‘milk mustache’ advertising campaign. If there are any benefits to be had from either program, they aren’t likely to be enjoyed by your local farmer, creamery, or dairy.”
The failure of Dean Foods indicates these wasteful programs didn’t help larger dairy producers thrive, either. In fact, they encouraged dairy producers to ignore the signals they were receiving from consumers. All the while, many dairy producers in the United States have demanded that the government protect them from competition by forcing the makers of dairy alternatives to label their products with ridiculous and unappealing names. The government has, of course, obliged.
The feds, I wrote, seem more than willing to go to almost any length to manipulate the market in favor of large dairy producers. To help boost dairy prices, for example, the USDA buys up surplus cheese and pays pizza giant Domino’s to produce cheesier pizzas. (I detailed the bizarre Domino’s saga here.)
While the USDA works really hard to make the dairy industry thrive, agency actions have produced the opposite outcome. To fix the problem, I urged the feds to get out of the way and to allow the free market alone to manage dairy production. I also cautioned that bad times will only get worse for U.S. dairy producers. The failure of Dean Foods is just more evidence of that fact. Given that neither Congress nor the USDA has seen fit to rein in or eliminate the programs that got dairy producers into this mess, this bad situation will likely only continue to worsen still.
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Italian police made several arrests and seized a cache of weapons amid a nearly two-year, nationwide investigation of Nazi groups sparked by the participation of Italian fighters in Ukraine’s armed conflict in the Donbass region.
During their probe which stretched from the island of Sicily to the Alps in Northn Italy, Authorities uncovered a plot to form a new Nazi party called the Italian National Socialist Party of Workers, according to Reuters.
Logo of the Italian National Socialist Party of Workers
The probe revealed a “huge and varied array of subjects, residents in different places, united by the same ideological fanaticism and willing to create an openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic and anti-Semitic movement”, a police statement said.
Police did not say how many people joined the group or how many arrests were made. In Italy “defense of fascism” and efforts to revive fascist parties are crimes. –Reuters
The weapons, confiscated during searches of 19 properties, included pistols, hunting rifles and crossbows. Police also found a range of Nazi paraphernalia, including photos of Adolf Hitler and swastikas.
The Nazi network was found to have ties to similar groups abroad, including in France, Britain and Portugal, acording to the report.
In July, investigators in Turin uncovered an even deadlier cache of weapons during raids on neo-Nazis, which included an air-to-air missile in the province of Pavia, roughly two hours away. Three men were arrested, including a customs officer who has previously stood for parliament. In total, 26 guns, 20 bayonets, 306 gun parts and over 800 bullets of various calibers were seized.
Air-to-air missile seized in Pavia province, July 2019
During their raids, police discovered a French-made Matra air-to-air missile that appeared to have once belonged to the Qatar armed forces. Subsequent checks showed the weapon was in working condition but lacked an explosive charge.
Police said the suspects had tried to sell the missile in conversations with contacts on the WhatsApp messaging network. –Reuters
In early November, Dean Foods, the nation’s largest dairy producer, filed for bankruptcy protection. The company, which has secured nearly a billion dollars in debtor financing to keep it afloat temporarily, is looking to sell off some or all of its assets as it attempts to reorganize and survive.
The filing isn’t exactly a surprise. As I explained in a column earlier this year, Dean Foods was a sinking ship.
Many factors caused the company to fail. For one, Americans are drinking less cow milk. “Overall, dairy consumption (including fluid milk, cheese, and butter) has plummetedover the past four decades,” I wrote. “Per capita, Americans are drinking nearly 100 lbs. less fluid milk than they did in 1975.” In place of cow’s milk, Americans are turning in small but growing numbers to cow’s milk alternatives, including almond, soy, coconut, and oat milk.
Other factors, including falling cereal consumption and competition from Walmart—once one of its largest customers—have also hurt Dean Foods. Rising pension costs also ate into the company’s line. Its stock lost nearly all of its value last year. What’s more, decreasing demand for cow milk also comes as dairy farmers continue to break production records. Low demand and robust supply have driven dairy prices to a 50-year low.
But changing consumer preferences, overproduction, and competition from non-dairy producers only tell part of the story of the downfall of Dean Foods. The big picture has the government’s messy fingerprints all over it.
For starters, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is deeply involved in promoting dairy producers and production.
“USDA dairy marketing orders set minimum dairy prices, while the [agency’s dairy] checkoff program takes money from dairy farmers to promote milk and other dairy products,” I detail in my book Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable. “Taxpayers have the dairy checkoff program to thank, for example, for the ubiquitous ‘milk mustache’ advertising campaign. If there are any benefits to be had from either program, they aren’t likely to be enjoyed by your local farmer, creamery, or dairy.”
The failure of Dean Foods indicates these wasteful programs didn’t help larger dairy producers thrive, either. In fact, they encouraged dairy producers to ignore the signals they were receiving from consumers. All the while, many dairy producers in the United States have demanded that the government protect them from competition by forcing the makers of dairy alternatives to label their products with ridiculous and unappealing names. The government has, of course, obliged.
The feds, I wrote, seem more than willing to go to almost any length to manipulate the market in favor of large dairy producers. To help boost dairy prices, for example, the USDA buys up surplus cheese and pays pizza giant Domino’s to produce cheesier pizzas. (I detailed the bizarre Domino’s saga here.)
While the USDA works really hard to make the dairy industry thrive, agency actions have produced the opposite outcome. To fix the problem, I urged the feds to get out of the way and to allow the free market alone to manage dairy production. I also cautioned that bad times will only get worse for U.S. dairy producers. The failure of Dean Foods is just more evidence of that fact. Given that neither Congress nor the USDA has seen fit to rein in or eliminate the programs that got dairy producers into this mess, this bad situation will likely only continue to worsen still.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that freedom of expression must be curtailed in order to keep society free.
Yes, really.
“For all those who claim that they can no longer express their opinion, I say this to them; If you express a pronounced opinion, you must live with the fact that you will be contradicted,” said Merkel during a speech to the German Parliament.
“Expressing an opinion does not come at zero cost, but freedom of expression has limits,” she added, as some in the Bundestag could be heard voicing their disagreement.
“Those limits begin where hatred is spread, they begin where the dignity of other people is violated. This house will and must oppose extreme speech otherwise our society will no longer be the free society that it was,” said Merkel.
Watch till the end. Angela Merkel says: we have to take away your freedom of speech, or else society won’t be free. pic.twitter.com/Y3qROvDQXg
Of course, what “violates” the “dignity” of other people is completely subjective and could include all manner of speech that most people would find perfectly acceptable.
The debate over free speech in Germany has intensified since the country accepted over a million migrants from the Middle East and North Africa from 2015 onwards.
Many Germans have found themselves hit with charges of hate speech for pointing out ‘hate facts’ like migrants being responsible for crimes and sexual assaults
This happened despite the German government’s own numbers showing violent crime in Germany rose by 10 per cent between 2015 and 2016 and that more than 90 per cent of the rise was attributable to young male “refugees.”
Lawmakers in one area of Germany even attempted to pass a law that would have jailed people for insulting the EU anthem or burning the EU flag.
As we document in the video below, Germans were subjected to a re-education campaign to encourage them to accept their new reality rather than the government actually addressing their concerns about mass migration.
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In the lead up to the 2017 general election, YouGov’s MRP projection model accurately predicted a hung parliament at a time when many other pollsters were indicating a Conservative majority. As Statista’s Martin Armstrong details, the MRP technique (Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification) is used to make estimates for small geographies for which only small sample sizes are available. Anthony Wells, Director of Political and Social Research at YouGov, explains:
“It works by using an extremely large number of interviews to model people’s voting preferences based upon their demographics and the local political circumstances. Once this model has been developed it is applied to the demographic make-up and political circumstances of each of the 632 constituencies in Great Britain, providing projected vote shares for each and every seat”.
As the infographic below shows, the projections for 2019 are a far cry from the hung parliament predicted for 2017.
According to this year’s calculations, Boris Johnson’s Conservative party is set for a large parliamentary majority, taking 359 seats to Labour’s 211. That would represent an increase of 42 seats for the tories and a devastating decrease of 51 for Labour – surely prompting a change in party leadership.
In Scotland, the SNP is forecast to gain eight seats, taking five from Labour, two from the Conservatives and one from the Lib Dems. Speaking of the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson’s party is apparently also due for a disappointing election night, taking just 13 seats, representing a measly gain of one.
French police recently cleared more than 2,000 migrants from makeshift encampments in northern Paris. The crackdown comes after the government announced a series of measures to curb illegal immigration.
The migration crackdown appears to be aimed at blunting the rising popularity of the anti-mass-migration party National Rally and its leader Marine Le Pen. She has dismissed the government’s actions as a “political swindle” that will increase, not decrease, immigration.
On November 28, police began removing hundreds of migrants from a camp at Porte d’Aubervilliers in the 19th arrondissement in northeastern Paris. The clearance operation was delayed by a week due to an insufficient police presence to guarantee security. An estimated 2,000 migrants are living in the camp in squalid conditions.
On November 7, 500 police officers cleared more than 1,600 migrants from two makeshift camps near Porte de la Chapelle in the 18th arrondissement in northern Paris. The camps, consisting mostly of tents, were located under the Boulevard Périphérique, a massive, multi-lane ring road that loops around the French capital.
A total of 1,606 migrants, from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, were put on buses and taken to temporary accommodations in other parts of Paris. Many other migrants, presumably those whose asylum applications have already been denied, fled before the buses arrived to avoid being registered, processed and possibly deported.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said that the migrants will be housed at public facilities while their asylum requests are being processed. He added that those whose asylum requests are denied would have to leave France.
Police said that they would maintain a presence in the areas to ensure that the migrants do not return. “I will no longer tolerate these installations by the roadside here or anywhere else on public spaces in Paris,” said Paris Police Chief Didier Lallement.
The Deputy Mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, said that in addition to the camp in Porte de la Chapelle, there were another 1,600 migrants in a camp at nearby Porte d’Aubervilliers and more camps at Porte de la Villete and in Seine-Saint-Denis, all in northern Paris.
Observers said that the crackdown in Paris could trigger a mass movement of migrants to the northern port city of Calais, from where they may try to reach Britain by crossing the English Channel. French authorities cleared a sprawling migrant camp in Calais in 2016, and many residents of the camp fled to Paris and set up migrant camps across the city.
The clearing operation in Paris is part of a package of 20 measures announced by Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on November 6 to “take back control” over migration policy.
Philippe, who serves under President Emmanuel Macron, said that the government would clear all the migrant camps in France before the end of the year, restrict access to medical care for migrants who are not authorized to be in France, and establish quotas for migrants with professional skills to offset labor shortages. He also said that the government would create 16,000 more housing spaces for migrants, along with three more detention centers for those not authorized to be in France.
“We want to regain control of our immigration policy. Taking back control means ensuring that when we say yes, it really means yes, and when we say no, it really means no.”
Philippe insisted that the measures were the mark of a “France that is open but not naïve,” adding that they strike the “right balance between reassuring our citizens and not giving ground to populism.”
Critics noted that Philippe’s measures will not resolve the underlying problem — that the French government refuses adequately to secure the country’s borders to prevent illegal migrants from entering France in the first place.
Immigration has become a major political issue ahead of French municipal elections to be held in March 2020, and presidential elections set for 2022. Polls show that Macron’s La République En Marche party (LREM) is currently running neck and neck with Le Pen’s National Rally party, according to an Ifop survey published by Le Journal du Dimanche on November 3.
In September, Macron hinted at a tougher line on immigration, arguing the government must stop voters from drifting to populist parties. “France cannot host everyone if it wants to host them well,” Macron told French radio station Europe 1 on September 25.
Macron’s comments caused a backlash from left-leaning members of his own party who penned two open letters warning against “fueling hatred against all Muslim citizens.” LREM lawmaker Jean-François Cesarini accused Macron of “co-opting the talking points” of Le Pen’s National Rally.
On October 7, during a parliamentary debate on immigration, Philippe tried to present a united front. He told lawmakers at the National Assembly that the government does not seek to crack down on immigration “as a whole,” but rather to simplify some processes and improve the situations of those who are legally in France. He added that the government wanted to crack down on illegal migration and people-smuggling.
Le Pen described the government’s announced crackdown on illegal immigration as a “political swindle” and a “smokescreen” that will lead to even more immigration. Speaking on Europe 1 Radio, she noted:
“The government has decided nothing. There will always be 255,000 legal aliens per year, plus 100,000 asylum seekers, plus all the illegal immigrants that no one has even considered counting, plus thousands of unaccompanied minors.”
Le Pen also questioned the government’s plan to establish quotas for foreign workers: “With six million unemployed, is the urgency not to find employment for the French?”
MP Nicolas Dupont-Aignan of the eurosceptic party Debout la Francesaid that the government’s plan “will bring in migrants to nurture professions that should be nurtured by our youth.”
Independent MP Emmanuelle Ménard dismissed the government’s plan as “symbolic” and a denounced the “absolute record” of new asylum applications since Macron took office in May 2017.
“The number of asylum applications in France increased by more than 20% in 2018 while it is declining everywhere else in Europe. Why is it declining elsewhere and increasing in France? Maybe we need to ask the question, why is this ‘French Eldorado’ being promoted everywhere?”
France received a record 122,743 asylum requests in 2018, a 22% increase over 2017, when France received 100,775 requests, according to the Interior Ministry’s Directorate General of Foreigners in France (DGEF). By comparison, France received 85,726 asylum requests in 2016, 80,075 in 2015, 64,811 in 2014 and 66,251 in 2013.
Asylum seekers in 2018 were mostly from Afghanistan, followed by Guinea, Albania, Georgia, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Bangladesh, Congo and Mali, according to DGEF.
In 2018, 6.5 million immigrants were living in France, representing 9.7% of the total population of 67 million, according to data published on October 8 by the French statistics agency INSEE. In 2018, 46.1% of immigrants living in France were born in Africa; 33.5% were born in Europe.
An estimated 320,000 people were living in France illegally in 2018, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Health. The estimate is based on the 318,106 migrants who have a card that allows free access to state medical services (L’aide médicale de l’État, AME), costing French taxpayers roughly 1 billion euros a year. Not all illegal immigrants have an AME card, so the actual number of undocumented immigrants may be much higher.
Meanwhile, illegal immigration to and through France continues unabated. On November 2, for instance, 31 Pakistani migrants were found in the back of a truck on the A8 motorway during a police check at a toll booth near Nice. The migrants were sent back to Italy. October 28, eight Afghan migrants, including two children, were found with hypothermia in a refrigerated truck at the port of Calais.
On October 19, thirteen migrants, including one child, were found in the back of a cattle truck at the port of Calais. The British driver was detained by French authorities. Four others were arrested by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) in a string of raids in Romford, London and Brentwood in Essex.
A total of 237 vessels were intercepted in the English Channel during the first nine months of 2019, according to Pas-de-Calais prefecture, the regional government in Calais. British authorities brought 138 boats to the UK, while the rest were intercepted by the French. More than 1,460 migrants have crossed the Channel to England successfully in 2019; another 1,105 were stopped in France.
A fundamental pillar of true free markets is the existence of choice; the availability of options from production to providers to purchase mechanisms without interference from governments or corporate monopolies. Choice means competition, and competition drives progress. Choice can also drive changes within society, for if people know a better or more secure way of doing things exists, why would anyone want to stay trapped within the confines of a limited system? At the very least, people should be allowed to choose economic mechanisms that work best for their particular situation.
This is NOT how our society functions today, and free market do not exist anywhere in modern nations including the US. Whenever I hear someone (usually a socialist) blame free market “capitalism” for the oppressive ailments of the world, I have to laugh. The alliance between governments and corporate monopolies (what Mussolini called national socialism or fascism) makes free markets utterly impossible. What we have today is an amalgamation of socialist economic interference and corporatocracy. Our system is highly restrictive and micro-managed for everyone except the money elites, who do not have to follow the same rules the rest of us do.
Of course, I might be preaching to the choir when it comes to these issues. But, there are some underlying developments being pushed forward by globalists hell-bent on a one world monetary system and a one world government that even many liberty activists are not fully aware of.
In alternative economic circles, the US dollar is seen as the end-all-be-all of fiat currency dominance. Many activists see it as the key to the power of the global elites and they think the Federal Reserve is the top of the globalist pyramid. This is not exactly true.
The US dollar is itself just another tool of the banking cabal, and tools sometimes lose their usefulness over time. While it could be said that for the past several decades the dollar as the world reserve currency was the core of globalist influence, this is about to change and we can see the signs today. The rush towards a cashless society in the past few years is startling and unfortunately too many liberty activists have been suckered into thinking that it’s is a good thing.
There are a number of reasons for this. As mentioned above, activists see the dollar (or Fed note) as fuel for the globalist machine, and so obviously they would like to see it go down in flames. They also are generally proponents of free markets, and the exploding trend of cryptocurrencies has given them the illusion that “choice” is returning to economy through “monetary competition”. I understand the basis for this attitude, and I appreciate where it’s coming from. I also have never been a proponent of the dollar or any other central bank fiat system. This article should not be misinterpreted as a defense of dollar hegemony.
That said, there is a much bigger agenda at play here, and the dollar is only one fading part of it as it is being quietly replaced by a completely digital framework. We have to once again ask ourselves – Who really benefits from a sudden shift in the economic and monetary world? Who gains political and social power through a cashless society? Is it the public? Or, is it the same banking elites and globalists that have always held sway over our economic structure?
In 2017 I published an article called ‘The Globalist One World Currency Will Look A Lot Like Bitcoin’. In it, I warned that the trendy marketing of cryptocurrencies to the general public by the mainstream media was extremely suspicious and contrary to the notion that the establishment was “terrified” of Bitcoin or blockchain tech putting them out of business. I also warned of the deep involvement of international banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan in the progress of blockchain infrastructure and more specifically Goldman Sachs and the IMF’s love affair with digital monetary systems. Goldman Sachs even referred to the blockchain as “the new technology of trust…”
Clearly, the banking elites are not worried about this technology. In fact, they have been investing in it heavily. But why? I have long held that current popular cryptocurrencies are nothing more than a beta test for a global digital currency system controlled by the elites.
This is not to say that many people are familiar with using Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. In fact, only a tiny percentage of the population ever comes into contact with or trades crypto. What I am saying is, the terminology, the idea of cryptocurrencies, is now widespread.
Thanks to a vast amount of media attention, Bitcoin is a household brand even though most people have never owned a bitcoin (or a portion of a bitcoin). Whale investors have hyperinflated the price of Bitcoin and certain other coins to levels beyond all reason as demand by the investment world and average people for the mechanism is minimal at best. These price explosions, though brief, have spurred public curiosity. And, in the minds of many if something is considered valuable, no matter how ethereal or arbitrary the measure, there must be a reason…right? Therefore, in the minds of bitcoin cheerleaders high market prices prove by default that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are necessary and desirable and anyone who is critical or skeptical is merely “upset” that they “missed out on the opportunity”.
I have always said when asked about my position on Bitcoin and crypto that if you want to try to make money on one of these coins and think you can play the market, then by all means, the more power to you. But, for those who thought that cryptocurrencies are a tool for activism and fighting the central banks, all I can say is you have been duped.
Over the course of a decade, the masses have been acclimated to the idea of a digital currency system. They are now being acclimated to the idea that physical currencies should be done away with and replaced with the “more efficient” blockchain tech – Death to the dollar, death to the Fed and death to the globalists say activists as they cheer for the new digital landscape! But this is not what is really happening. The death of the dollar and physical cash is only the primer for a new and even more invasive world order.
In the past two years the agenda for a cashless system and a one world currency has gone mainstream. The plans that liberty analysts were once called “conspiracy theorists” for talking about ten years ago are now out in the open. The latest barrage of propaganda was launched by the governor of the Bank Of England, Mark Carney, who openly warned of the end of the dollar’s world reserve status, comparing it to the end of the Pound Sterling’s reserve status after WWII. He also noted that the dollar could be replaced by a new digital currency system and that this would be advantageous the banking system.
This piggybacks on comments made by globalist and PIMCO CEO Mohamed El-Erian in 2017, who stated in an op-ed that the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket system could be used to replace the dollar as world reserve and that this would help to “fight the rise of populism”.
Next, Facebook introduced the concept of the “Libra” digital currency, which Mark Carney also suggested central banks would be watching closely. Libra, in my view, is a test designed to lure wider public into using digital currency on a regular basis. As noted, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies gained exposure but not preference. Where they failed to infiltrate the daily trade of the average citizen, Libra could eventually succeed.
So far I think the reaction is not what the globalists hoped for. Instead, Facebook is taking it slowly by introducing a new internal payment system called “Facebook Pay” similar to Paypal. Libra, or something like it, will likely make a reappearance in the next couple of years on Facebook and on other platforms.
Next, former ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet argued in favor of a digital version of the SDR basket system at the Caixin conference in Beijing, arguing that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were not stable enough or “legitimate” enough to take on the role of central bank currencies. Many argue that this is proof that the globalists are afraid of cryptocurrencies. On the contrary, I see this as yet another example of the ongoing fake battle between bankers and crypto. They criticize certain aspects of the technology while at the same time investing in it and promoting it. Like the false left/right paradigm, there is a kind of false central bank/crypto paradigm as well.
Trichet’s argument for an IMF dominated crytpocurrency was surely welcomed in Beijing, where the Chinese have long supported the proliferation of the SDR and have called for the SDR to replace the dollar. The Chinese are not the only one’s. The Russian government has also called for the IMF to take over the global monetary system with the SDR basket. Russia has all but decoupled from the dollar, dumping it’s US treasury holding, stockpiling a large supply of gold and removing the dollar in bilateral trade agreements with other nations.
Last year Europe began establishing a new alternative to the US controlled SWIFT payment system. Germany in particular criticized the US system as a geopolitical weapon. Now, an association of major banks in Germany and in the EU is calling for a digital Euro based on the blockchain ledger.
The IMF has been openly publishing white papers that agree with the assessment that a global digital currency is needed, and with former IMF head Christine Lagarde now in charge at the ECB, it is likely that a Euro cryptocurrency system will soon make a public appearance.
In the meantime, multiple central banks are pursuing a cashless system and digital currencies of their own. China has announced a national digital currency system will be realized in the next 18 months. The Swiss central bank is exploring digital currency options, and Russia is considering launching a cryptocurrency as well.
The rhetoric coming from the mainstream media and the banking establishment is that physical methods of payment will soon disappear. This is being called the “democratization of money”, and the “multipolar world order”; I’m sorry to say that it’s the exact opposite.
The claim is that the end of cash and specifically the end of the dollar will result in more choice in the monetary world. But the end of physical cash is actually a removal of choice and the result is MORE centralization. The banking elites are so excited about the digital currency model because it removes all privacy from trade. As I have outlined in past articles, cryptocurrency and blockchain tech have no anonymity whatsoever despite claims originally circulated by proponents and cypto-activists. It is also clear that central banks intend to introduce their own highly managed currencies and most other coins will be buried in the process.
The multipolar and multilateral world order memes are also a fraud. China, Russia, Europe and other nations are demanding an alternative to the dollar, but if that alternative ends up being a digitized version of the SDR basket under the IMF’s control as these countries have suggested, then this means total global centralization, NOT decentralization.
Real decentralization would mean the removal of bureaucratic oversight and micromanagement. It would mean that physical currencies backed by gold and silver could be offered as an alternative option, not just cryptocurrencies or fiat backed by nothing. After all, gold and silver have far more individual investors worldwide than cryptocurrencies do. How about some real competition instead of price suppression of metals by the likes of JP Morgan?
It would mean localized currencies and payment systems backed by hard commodities, not one worldwide currency and payment system backed by nothing. It would mean nations breaking from dependence not just on the dollar, but also breaking from globalist institutions like the IMF, BIS and World Bank. The globalists are attempting to sell us on slavery by packaging it as “free markets”. The solution is to not use the systems they promote and be ready to fight tooth and nail for real decentralization.
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673 Million People Still Defecate Outdoors (Not Just In San Francisco)
With World Toilet Day having just passed, the United Nations released a report focusing on water, sanitation and hygiene around the world. It has found that approximately 2.2 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water, 4.2 billion have to go without safe sanitation services and three billion lack basic handwashing facilities.
Additionally, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, the report also examined the state of open defecation and progress in eliminating it. As recently as 2015, close to a billion people were still defecating outdoors, resulting in widespread disease and millions of deaths. That drove the UN to call for an end to the practice and some parts of the world have proven hugely successful in eradicating it.
In 2000 for example, the rate of open defecation was even worse with 21 percent of the global population – 1.3 billion people – practicing it.
The impact of the UN’s call to action has been telling and by 2017, the global share of people practicing open defecation had fallen to just 9 percent – 673 million people.
Ethiopia saw the largest fall during that period, -57 percent. Cambodia and India also experienced declines of -53 and -47 percent respectively. The latter has been particularly ambitious in installing proper toilets. Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, just under 40 percent of India’s population had access to a household toilet. He promised to change that and billions of dollars were invested under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (“Clean India”) campaign which kicked off in October 2014. India’s Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation states that toilet coverage today stands at an impressive 99.22 percent.
Altogether, 91 countries reduced open defecation by a combined total of 696 million people between 2000 and and 2017 with Central and Southern Asia accounting for three quarters of that figure.
The news isn’t positive everywhere though and 39 countries experienced increases during the same period, totaling 49 million people. The majority of that increase occurred in Sub-Sahara Africa which has experienced steady population growth since 2000. That of course means that there’s still a lot of work to do but as India has shown with its toilet building marathon, progress can be rapid.
