Like Ronald Bailey, I used to be skeptical that climate change posed a serious environmental threat and questioned the wisdom of policy responses. Climate change featured prominently in Bailey’s Eco-Scam, and I edited a book and helped develop a policy program aimed at forestalling U.S. adoption of limits on greenhouse gases. And like Bailey, I no longer hold to that view, and I’m now willing to consider policy interventions I would once have rejected out of hand. (The Niskanen Center’s Jerry Taylor has had a similar change of heart.)
As Bailey explains in his most recent Reason piece, the scientific evidence that climate change poses a serious problem continues to accumulate, as does the volume of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. While there is still substantial uncertainty as to the precise consequences of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, there is more reason to fear harmful effects, and seriously adverse scenarios cannot be ruled out. Like it or not, the science has continued to converge in support of the theory that human activity is contributing to a warming of the atmosphere.
Residual uncertainty about the precise timing and magnitude of future climate change is no justification for failing to act. To the contrary, we take action all the time to address uncertain or improbable threats. We invest in national defense not because we know of particular military threats that will manifest themselves at any given time, but to protect against such threats if they should materialize.
Similarly, we don’t buy insurance or install smoke detectors in our homes because we know when disaster will strike. We take such measures because the chance and cost of a calamity are great enough to justify prudent steps to reduce the likelihood and magnitude that such risks will come to pass. Climate change is no different. The potential negative consequences of climate change are large enough and probable enough to justify significant action.
As with national defense, libertarians should remain vigilant as to the threat of government overreach, but this is not an argument to do nothing. The best national defense policy entails taking prudent steps to provide security, while eschewing government interventions that are themselves a particularly serious threat to individual liberty. Striking the right balance can be difficult, but it is what serious policy requires.
There is something comforting in the conceit that any particularly thorny policy problem is a mirage and not something to be take seriously. Alas, that is not the world we inhabit. Climate change is, in many respects, the product of modern industrial civilization, and addressing the threat of climate change is an awesome challenge—but it is a challenge that must be met.
Taking climate change seriously does not require embracing centralized government control of the energy economy or a “Green New Deal.” It is fair to argue that neither the Paris Agreement nor the Clean Power Plan represented a serious approach to climate policy. But you can’t beat something with nothing, and if those who believe in limited government wish to forestall excessive government interventions in the name of environmental protection, it’s long past time they articulate and defend an alternative set of policies that can keep us both free and green.
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International Man: Governments around the world, including the United States, are printing trillions of currency units. This will continue to significantly devalue these paper currencies and create inflation.
Doug Casey recently said:
With all the money that’s been created by governments and central banks, the chances are excellent we’re going to have a gigantic bull market. Maybe the last one, since I expect the world is going back to using gold as money—at which point we’ll have a stable gold price.
In the meantime, I think mining stocks could go absolutely insane. The prices will have no relation to fundamentals, because everybody will want to own them.
How do you think the situation is going to play out for gold and precious metals?
Dave Forest: Inflation is a given. I see it every day in commodities, although many mainstream investors don’t recognize it. Yet.
In the 2000s, investors were over the moon when gold broke above $1,000 per ounce and copper passed $1.50 per pound. During the previous commodities bear market, those levels were unthinkable.
But now, $1,000 gold is peanuts. Hardcore bullion investors were distraught in 2016 when gold “plunged” close to $1,000. That’s seen as a depressed and unsustainable price.
Same with copper. That sector’s been in the doldrums, because the price fell below $2.50 per pound. If you’d told a copper miner in 1999 they’d have $2.50 copper, they would have popped the champagne! Today, it’s seen as scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The thing is, back in the “old” days, you could mine and process an ounce of gold for $100. Today, production costs are more like $600 per ounce. Closer to $1,000 per ounce if you add in sustaining and expansion capital.
That’s the real reason metals, including gold, have to go higher. The gold price isn’t arbitrary. The price must exceed production costs—or mines will shut down and supply will run out.
The massive inflation in production costs is driven by lots of things: rising fuel prices, increasing wages and benefits for workers, and higher steel prices. Barrick Gold, the world’s largest public gold miner, saw costs for one of its new mines, Pascua Lama, rise by billions of dollars within just a few months!
Politicians can’t sleight-of-hand those costs away—they’re real. So, the only conclusion is gold—and all metals—need higher prices in order to keep supply coming.
International Man: What other factors are affecting gold right now?
Dave Forest: We think of gold as a “safe haven”: Break glass and use when things really fall apart.
But many players in the financial sector are already using gold day-to-day, as a financial instrument.
In China, for example, many exporters don’t have access to currency hedging. They’re exposed to fluctuations in the exchange rate between the dollar and yuan while they’re waiting for dollar-denominated payments to come in.
If you can’t hedge currency rates through the banks, what do you do? Chinese firms found an alternative: Buy gold. The idea is, if the US dollar depreciates, the value of gold holdings will go up, because gold is globally sold in US currency.
In effect, these firms hold gold as a short-term hedging instrument. They could actually do the same thing with sheets of copper cathode or barrels of oil, but gold is the easiest major commodity to purchase, hold, and eventually sell once currency has been converted.
Of course, the root cause here is currency instability: people fearing a breakdown in the US dollar. So, it’s not far off the reasons doom-and-gloomers buy gold. Just that Chinese buyers are doing it in the short term, for purely commercial reasons.
International Man: The mining business is extremely volatile and risky. There are thousands of mining companies out there, and most of them are junk. What is your approach to separating the winners from the losers?
Dave Forest: First off, recognize that “junk,” in terms of mining stocks, comes in several forms.
There are of course, outright scams. That ranges from full-on fraud (not that common) to huckster promoters who legitimately take people’s money but then use it to pay themselves huge salaries while doing little or no technical work (much more common).
Looking at salaries is a good way to spot those latter cases. Public companies in Canada disclose their officers’ wages. It’s not uncommon to see CEOs of a company with $1 million in the bank making $400,000 per year. When 40% of your firm’s budget is going to pay one person, there’s not a chance the company is going to perform. Never mind that these people generally would be unemployable, even for $1 yearly, in any other industry.
A much more subtle form of junk is the “hobby farm” company. You know how people, often older, will buy a farm for the fun of being outdoors? They’ll putter around doing a little work here and there, but the whole thing is mainly for enjoyment rather than serious commercial endeavor.
A significant number of junior mining stocks are like this. Exploration companies, after all, are just a couple of guys with a pickup or maybe a helicopter walking around picking up rocks.
Older geologists will often do this for the fun of it. It’s nice to have shareholders pay for your summer fishing trip up north. While there, these “execs” might walk into the bush and grab a few samples, but they’re not pushing to run a real business. Those companies go absolutely nowhere, very slowly.
You have to really watch out for those, because the people will seem sincere and often credible. But their heart isn’t in it, so they never accomplish much.
Once you weed out those, you’re left with a small group of more-interesting stocks. These are the companies that have good ideas about where new mineral discoveries might be made. They’re motivated and hungry; they usually have their own money invested in the hunt.
They run the company like a business. That means they consider whether the cash they’re spending will add value to a project. It also means they know what value looks like in a mineral property!
International Man: As a geologist, you’re on the ground in obscure places like Colombia, Russia, Mongolia, etc., searching for new deposits and breakthroughs. What are some of the most interesting places on your radar right now and why?
Dave Forest: North America, minus Mexico. As you say, I’ve spent a lot of my career in obscure places. Ten years ago, you would go abroad, because it was tough to break into established spots like Ontario or Nevada.
But the recent downturn in exploration’s changed all that. I spend a lot of my time in Nevada now, and it’s astounding how little exploration work is going on, despite the state being ranked number one in the world for mining.
Today, you can get acreage and try new ideas. I’ve even seen companies stake out whole districts that were abandoned during the downturn.
Building a mine anywhere is tough these days. Environmental activism (or commercial interests masquerading as such) and “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) concerns are rising everywhere. Places like Nevada or northern Saskatchewan have the advantages of having established mining sectors, relatively stable governments, and—most importantly—very few people. No backyards, no NIMBY.
That said, I still love travel. And I do keep an eye out for emerging opportunities abroad—they just have to be big opportunities to make up for the increased political risk.
One spot I checked out recently was Uzbekistan. The country has the world’s largest gold mine, called Muruntau, which has something like 200 million ounces.
Uzbekistan’s dictator died in 2016, and the new prime minister seems very sincere in accelerating free-market reforms. That includes opening the mining sector to foreign exploration and development.
I visited last summer and couldn’t believe what’s happening. Government officials couldn’t meet until 10 PM, because they were too busy working at the office to get the prime minister’s orders done. There have been reported cases of government staff dying from overwork! These people are serious. It’s one to watch.
International Man: You recently came across a new technology that could change the way mining companies find gold deposits. What exactly is this and what is the potential?
Dave Forest: A few years ago, I was introduced to a PhD mathematician. He’d been an executive consultant for 25 years to one of the world’s largest mining companies. He had a corner office and a green light for three-hour, two-bottles-of-wine lunches whenever he wanted.
Why?
Because he could do something I’ve never seen before (and apparently this mega-mining firm never had either).
He could use satellite data to find gold, copper, or zinc.
Now, there are lots of geologists who try to use satellite data to pinpoint ore deposits. This “remote sensing” has been in use since the 1980s.
I’ve always been a skeptic. Most times, satellite geologists just torture the data until it fits their preconception of the target. I never saw a convincing case where satellite imaging revealed a new discovery.
But when I met this PhD, I was intrigued. It wasn’t just his impeccable credentials in the industry—his approach is elegantly simple in a mathematical sense. He didn’t torture the data with interpretations. He just ran his algorithm and let the results speak for themselves.
I wanted to find out more. So, I gave him a test. It was a gold project in dense jungle in eastern Myanmar. I knew the gold mines are there, only because I’d been on the ground, under the tree canopy. But from the satellite view, you couldn’t see anything. There was no way to cheat.
He used his techniques and sent me a “heat map” that pinpointed the mine locations almost exactly. I was floored.
Since then, we’ve used this “digital treasure map” in Mongolia, Colombia, Nevada, and eastern Canada. The results, when field checked, have been excellent.
We started thinking about how this could benefit investors. What if you knew about a big mineral find on a company’s property before the company did? That’s what we can do with this satellite system. We can scan anyone’s property, almost anywhere on Earth.
Using the system, we recommended three stocks to International Speculator readers. One stock was bought out by a larger gold company within months of our recommendation, for a 219% profit. Another stock has risen more than 200% since our recommendation, on excellent gold drill results.
The last stock is still moving toward drilling. I think we knew they had a potentially major discovery before they did!
This also shows why now’s the perfect time to invest in mineral exploration. Why was this PhD genius available and not squirreled away in the bowels of a major mining firm? Only because the company he was working for laid off their entire exploration department during the most recent industry downturn. Crisis = opportunity.
* * *
Dave has just deployed this satellite technology to pinpoint gold mining deposits and identify a speculative opportunity with enormous upside. That’s exactly why, he released this new video where he shares all the details for how you could get in on the ground floor. Click here to watch it now.
* * *
Dave Forest is a geologist who has worked professionally in mining and petroleum over a 20-year career. He has also bridged his technical expertise into the finance and investment sector, originally joining Doug Casey in 2004 when he founded an advisory dedicated to finding high-potential investment opportunities in oil, natural gas, uranium and renewables globally.
India In “Very Deep Crisis,” Witnessing “Death Of Demand,” Warns Former Indian FM
Former Indian Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said India’s economy is in a “very deep crisis,” witnessing “death of demand,” and the government is “befooling people” with its economic distortions of how growth is around the corner, reported India Today.
“No matter what the powers that be say, the fact is that we are in a very deep crisis,” warned Sinha.
India’s GDP has been rapidly slowing since peaking in 2016. Official data shows Q3 growth slumped to 4.5%, the lowest since 1Q13.
Sinha was speaking to an audience at the Times Litfest 2019 conference, located at Habitat World Center in Delhi, India, on Sunday.
He warned that President Narendra Modi’s government is attempting to deceive everyone about how growth is coming in the next quarter or the quarter after but cautioned there’s only a crisis ahead.
“They (the government) are trying to fool the people by saying the next quarter will be better…This type of crisis takes a long time like three to four or even five years (to subside). It cannot be resolved at the drop of a hat or by wielding a magic stick,” he said.
He said the economy is experiencing what is called the “death of demand,” and the epicenter of it is the agriculture and rural sector.
“There is no demand in the economy, and that is the starting point of the crisis. They (government of the day) are least bothered about what is happening to our farmers, people living in rural areas, now that is where the death of demand started. The demand first dried up in agriculture and rural sector, then it dried up in the informal or unorganized sector, and ultimately it traveled to the corporate sector,” he said.
Sinha said he’s been warning the government of the crisis that is coming down the pipe.
“In fact, this was something I had done after already warning them (people in the government) personally through letters, personal meetings… it is only when the party’s doors were closed on me that I had to start speaking publicly,” he added.
Though there’s no recession in India at the moment, the warning signs are showing up. Private consumption has plunged, both public and private investments have fallen, exports have dropped in the past quarter, the economy has been decelerating for several years, and there’s zero evidence that the economy has bottomed out.
The bias against those who are not politically affiliated similarily is the last acceptable form of discrimination. It’s now okay and accepted by the masses, to treat other human beings as less than if they disagree with you on politics.
One new study is showing that most are embracing this type of discrimination with extreme fervor.This study shows discriminatory behavior thrives in the one area where it remains socially acceptable to judge people based on shared attributes: political affiliation. Politics remains one of the few personal characteristics not protected by equal opportunity hiring laws, and if this study is any indication, lawmakers will want to get on top of that quickly.
Belief in certain political values is akin to belief in a religion. It’s all based on opinion and discrimination is still discrimination, even if you label it “politics.” We all know the media has been trying to brainwash us with government-approved opinions for years now, and those who don’t accept their brainwashing willingly are being discriminated against.
Shared political ideology outweighs seemingly more important factors like professional qualifications in hiring decisions, researchers from Clemson University and the University of Kansas confirmed in a study published this month in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Unchecked, this kind of discrimination is liable to produce powerful echo chambers, in which groupthink eventually becomes a prerequisite for employment.
Study participants readily picked a job candidate with whom they shared a political affiliation over a more qualified candidate without that affiliation when presented with Facebook profiles containing clear indicators of the prospective hire’s political alignment. These might include statements about leading a campus Democrat or Republican group, or party symbols like the Democratic donkey or GOP elephant. The closer the participant, acting as a recruiter, identified with a party, the higher ratings they gave to candidates who touted their membership in that party – qualifications were nigh on irrelevant.-RT
There is real irony in the mainstream media’s role in pushing for this discrimination too. The media environment has actively encouraged this polarization. It gets clicks as it drives destructive wedges into society while at the same time condemning any other form of attribute-based preference as “unthinkable bigotry.” In other words, while discriminating against different opinions, the media calls those opinions “bigotry” and says that those are the discriminating opinions.
Welcome to the U.S.S.A. Where groupthink is our future.
“The Free State Project is the most recent and successful face of libertarian separatism—or, as some call it, libertarian Zionism. To be sure, many involved in the search for new libertarian communities reject such terms. Roderick Long, a philosophy professor at Auburn University and the brains behind the Libertarian Nation Foundation, a group dedicated to theorizing about the possibilities for libertarian polities, tells me he doesn’t like the term separatist because ‘the attraction is not that I don’t want to live near or interact with nonlibertarians. Most of my best friends are nonlibertarians. We don’t want to live by ourselves but simply want a chance to demonstrate to the world that libertarian principles actually work. We want to escape from government, not escape from ordinary decent people’ who happen not to share their political philosophy.”
Brian Doherty “Revolt of the Porcupines!”
20 Years Ago
December 1999
“There are complications to Net radio, though, that most press accounts ignore, notably the medium’s traffic problem. There’s a finite number of people who can tune to any audio stream at once; if you top that number—which could be as low as 50—no one else will be able to hear you. The techies are working on a solution to this, called multicasting. If and when it’s in place, Internet broadcasting will be ready to bloom. Until then, though, it will be too bottlenecked to be competitive.”
Jesse Walker “Station to Station”
“It might well be that laws like Wisconsin’s eventually backfire by scaring away established companies from working with parole and probation officials to hire released inmates (which seems to be how Waste Management Inc. became the target of Gerald Turner’s unwanted attentions). If you risk legal trouble every time you disagree with a social worker or probation officer on the feasibility of a particular placement, there’s nothing to stop you from joining the majority of companies that don’t actively fish in this particular pool.”
Walter Olson “Felon Protection”
30 Years Ago
December 1989
“We’ve long since given up any real hope that politicians can do us much good, but they can entertain us by being human, by falling from perfection, and by keeping our minds off what matters and our thoughts stuck in the gutters of gossip. Soon, the 21st century. Can you wait?”
David Brudnoy “The Sex of Politics”
“The Democratic reaction was so perfect as to provoke hints of Republican sabotage. No sooner had the president’s trick with the cocaine-filled ziplock baggie faded from the screen than Senator Joseph Biden, himself admittedly well-versed in the evils of narcotic ingestion, and Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (yes, the House Appropriations chair) were giddy with the pronouncement that they were fully backing the president on this crusade—backing him, in fact, 128.2 percent (their price tag divided by his). They argued that the real solution to drugs was…a tax increase.”
Thomas Hazlett “Wartime”
45 Years Ago
December 1974
“Put simply, allowing market forces to determine the allocation of a commodity at a point in time and through time does not increase the demand for bureaucrats. However, the proposals of the bureaucrats—price controls, ‘excess-profit’ taxes, additional regulation, nationalization—all serve to increase the demand for bureaucrats.”
Paul Craig Roberts and N. Van Cott “Bureaucratic Conspiracy and the Energy Crisis”
50 Years Ago
December 1969
“This is a classic example of the fallacy of false alternatives….The issue is invariably presented in terms of ‘Who should control seabed exploitation and how should the resources be divided up?’ rather than asking whether it should be controlled and whether anyone other than the entrepreneur has the right to ‘divide up’ the resources. For in fact there is a third alternative—a libertarian alternative—based firmly on rights, rather than feelings.”
Robert W. Poole “The Wave of the Future; the Future of the Waves”
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“The Free State Project is the most recent and successful face of libertarian separatism—or, as some call it, libertarian Zionism. To be sure, many involved in the search for new libertarian communities reject such terms. Roderick Long, a philosophy professor at Auburn University and the brains behind the Libertarian Nation Foundation, a group dedicated to theorizing about the possibilities for libertarian polities, tells me he doesn’t like the term separatist because ‘the attraction is not that I don’t want to live near or interact with nonlibertarians. Most of my best friends are nonlibertarians. We don’t want to live by ourselves but simply want a chance to demonstrate to the world that libertarian principles actually work. We want to escape from government, not escape from ordinary decent people’ who happen not to share their political philosophy.”
Brian Doherty “Revolt of the Porcupines!”
20 Years Ago
December 1999
“There are complications to Net radio, though, that most press accounts ignore, notably the medium’s traffic problem. There’s a finite number of people who can tune to any audio stream at once; if you top that number—which could be as low as 50—no one else will be able to hear you. The techies are working on a solution to this, called multicasting. If and when it’s in place, Internet broadcasting will be ready to bloom. Until then, though, it will be too bottlenecked to be competitive.”
Jesse Walker “Station to Station”
“It might well be that laws like Wisconsin’s eventually backfire by scaring away established companies from working with parole and probation officials to hire released inmates (which seems to be how Waste Management Inc. became the target of Gerald Turner’s unwanted attentions). If you risk legal trouble every time you disagree with a social worker or probation officer on the feasibility of a particular placement, there’s nothing to stop you from joining the majority of companies that don’t actively fish in this particular pool.”
Walter Olson “Felon Protection”
30 Years Ago
December 1989
“We’ve long since given up any real hope that politicians can do us much good, but they can entertain us by being human, by falling from perfection, and by keeping our minds off what matters and our thoughts stuck in the gutters of gossip. Soon, the 21st century. Can you wait?”
David Brudnoy “The Sex of Politics”
“The Democratic reaction was so perfect as to provoke hints of Republican sabotage. No sooner had the president’s trick with the cocaine-filled ziplock baggie faded from the screen than Senator Joseph Biden, himself admittedly well-versed in the evils of narcotic ingestion, and Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (yes, the House Appropriations chair) were giddy with the pronouncement that they were fully backing the president on this crusade—backing him, in fact, 128.2 percent (their price tag divided by his). They argued that the real solution to drugs was…a tax increase.”
Thomas Hazlett “Wartime”
45 Years Ago
December 1974
“Put simply, allowing market forces to determine the allocation of a commodity at a point in time and through time does not increase the demand for bureaucrats. However, the proposals of the bureaucrats—price controls, ‘excess-profit’ taxes, additional regulation, nationalization—all serve to increase the demand for bureaucrats.”
Paul Craig Roberts and N. Van Cott “Bureaucratic Conspiracy and the Energy Crisis”
50 Years Ago
December 1969
“This is a classic example of the fallacy of false alternatives….The issue is invariably presented in terms of ‘Who should control seabed exploitation and how should the resources be divided up?’ rather than asking whether it should be controlled and whether anyone other than the entrepreneur has the right to ‘divide up’ the resources. For in fact there is a third alternative—a libertarian alternative—based firmly on rights, rather than feelings.”
Robert W. Poole “The Wave of the Future; the Future of the Waves”
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This Is The Chart Albert Edwards Is Watching To Decide When The US Becomes “Japanified”
Last week, in order to help the Fed find some of that oh so “mysterious” inflation it has been so powerless in tracking down for the past decade, we showed a chart of healthcare inflation which is now soaring at a record 20% (for a complete discussion of soaring US healthcare costs, see here).
Commenting on this particular surge in health insurance premiums, SocGen’s restless permabear said that such inflation “proves temporary.” Which, coming from Albert, is to be expected: while some say the world will end in fire, to Edwards it will be ice as far as the eye can see – after all, it was Edwards who first coined the term “ice age” some two decades ago to explain the deflationary singularity that will consume everything, and as such it is understandably why to him any surge in inflation is a one-time event.
There is another reason why Edwards dismisses any incipient signs of inflation in the US: his latest piece is titled “Japanification of the US beckons”, in which he writes that despite the Fed’s recent announcement of a halt to further rate cuts, “GDP growth looks fragile and there is good evidence to suggest that core CPI inflation is set to collapse towards zero. In fact, a resumption of Fed easing on the back of recessionary data and sliding inflation is likely to accelerate the convergence of US yields towards negative eurozone and Japanese yields.”
Hence, the Japanification of the US, and as he further notes, if the US economy slides into recession, it is clear that “inflation will likely fall ever closer toward Japanese-style deflation. But a rapid decline in key inflation measures, like core CPI, may be beginning to unfold already, irrespective of whether a recession is about to start or not.”
To make his point, Edwards points out the October CPI data which “shocked” him, but not for the surprisingly high 0.4% headline rise M/M, but because of a specific data set that he will now be watching very closely to determine if US inflation is indeed converging with that of Japan: shelter CPI.
it was this key component of the CPI basket that last month collapsed to almost zero. And since shelter has a very heavy 33% weighting in the overall CPI and an overwhelmingly dominant 42% weighting in the closely watched core CPI (ie ex food and energy), it’s only a matter of time before the decline in shelter hits the broader inflation basket.
There is another reason why Shelter is such a key inflationary metric: as the next chart shows, inflation for core CPI has exceeded the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the core PCE deflator, since 2014, largely because the dominant shelter component has been running around 3½%, pulling up core CPI sharply. Without shelter, core, core CPI has been running just above 1% (blue line in chart below)
The SocGen strategist then notes that if, as he believes, the recent burst of rapid shelter inflation is ending, this will reveal core, core CPI inflation only just above 1%, especially if and when the abovementioned burst in healthcare inflation fades.
Finally, to determine in which direction shelter inflation is headed in the future, Edwards looks at the price of new homes, which suggests that shelter and rent inflation may now be falling away rapidly: “This will come as a surprise to investors, as even without a recession, core CPI could quickly head towards zero. The markets will then embrace the Japanification theme in the US, just as they have done in Europe.”
Putting it all together, Edwards concludes that “I had been waiting for a while for the shoe to drop and now it has started to fall towards the floor, revealing that core CPI inflation in the US is closer to zero than many assumed. And the obvious question arises that if this is all the consumer price inflation that the US economy can produce at the end of the longest cycle in history, what will happen when it falls into recession?”
His rhetorical answer: “The Japanification of the US awaits”, but just in case he is wrong – something even Edwards admits to being more often than not – keep an eye on that shelter inflation chart…
I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure.
I had travelled a long distance by train to an address I had been given over an encrypted email.
I was nervous that the meeting might be some sort of trap. Leaks from inside arms verification organisations are very sensitive matters. Powerful people mind about them.
I wasn’t sure whether to be afraid of being followed, or to be worried about who might be waiting behind the anonymous door on a dark afternoon, far from home. I took all the amateurish precautions that I could think of.
As it happened, it was not a trap. Now, on carefully selected neutral ground, I was to meet a person who would confirm suspicions that had been growing in my mind over several years – that there is something rotten in the way that chemical weapons inspections are being conducted and reported. And that the world could be hurried into war on the basis of such inspections.
Inside the safe house, I was greeted by a serious, patient expert, a non-political scientist whose priority had until now always been to do the hard, gritty work of verification – travelling to the scenes of alleged horrors, sifting and searching for hard evidence of what had really happened. But this entirely honourable occupation had slowly turned sour.
The whiff of political interference had begun as a faint unpleasant smell in the air and grown until it was an intolerable stench. Formerly easy-going superiors had turned into tricky bureaucrats.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had become so important that it could no longer be allowed to do its job properly.
Too many of the big powers that sponsor and finance it were breathing down its neck, wanting certain results, whether the facts justified them or not.
My source calmly showed me various pieces of evidence that they were who they said they were, and knew what they claimed to know, making it clear that they worked for the OPCW and knew its inner workings. They then revealed a document to me.
This was the email of protest, sent to senior OPCW officials, saying that a report on the alleged Syrian poison gas attack in Douma, in April 2018, had been savagely censored so as to alter its meaning.
In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks: leaks over luxurious, expensive lunches with Cabinet Ministers, anonymous leaks that just turned up in envelopes, leaks from union officials and employers, diplomats and academics.
But I’ve never seen one like this. It scared me. If it was true, then something hugely dishonest and dangerous was going on, in a place where absolute integrity was vital.
If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood.
Last week I reported on the first episode in this story. Within days the OPCW had confirmed that the email I leaked was authentic.
Nobody followed me home or threatened me. A few silly people on social media told blatant lies about me, insinuating that I was somehow a Russian patsy or a defender of the disgusting Syrian regime that I have been attacking in print for nearly 20 years. That was what I had expected.
But there is much more to come. And, as it grows harder for everyone to ignore this enormous, dangerous story, I suspect I shall be looking over my shoulder rather more than usual.
Gloves Come Off: China “Insists” Existing Tariffs Must Be Scrapped For “Phase 1” Trade Deal
Until now, China had largely kept the key hurdles in the ongoing US-China trade talks close to the vest, fearful that “breaking the embargo” so to speak on what have been confidential talks so far, could anger the US side. Now in a surprise diplomatic reversal, one which has the intent of signaling to the world that China will no longer play by Washington’s unspoken if assumed rules, overnight China’s nationalistic Global Times tabloid reported that Beijing now “insists” that existing tariffs must be removed as part of a “Phase 1” trade deal, well beyond the US “ask” of merely scrapping those tariffs which are set to kick in on December 15.
“Sources with direct knowledge of the trade talks told the Global Times on Saturday that the U.S. must remove existing tariffs, not planned tariffs, as part of the deal,” said the report.
Global Times, which is published by the official People’s Daily newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, also cited another unidentified source close to the talks as saying U.S. officials had been resisting such a demand because the tariffs were their only weapon in the trade war and giving up that weapon meant “surrender.”
Which is precisely what we said last night, when we noted that by going public with its demands, it would make Trump look even weaker, as the US president can no longer spin the outcome of negotiations as one where he proposed the removal of existing tariffs, but rather such an act would be seen as caving to China.
Here we go: China breaks the negotiation embargo and goes public with its deal demands, insisting rollback of existing tariffs. Trump now can’t concede or will be seen as caving to China https://t.co/h4ZnFa8Q0Q
Of course, by eliminating existing tariffs, the US would lose any leverage it currently has as it is only the current tariffs squeezing Chinese exporters that make the current situation unpalatable for Beijing, and any roll back to a status quo would mean that China can now indefinitely delay any further concessions toward a bigger trade deal.
Needless to say, should Trump agree, he would be squeezed by both parties as having capitulated to Beijing after a year and a half, with absolutely nothing to show for it besides the S&P at all time highs, of course, which however is not his but rather the Fed’s doing.
On Tuesday, Trump said Washington was in the “final throes” of a deal aimed at defusing a 16-month trade war with China, a few days after Chinese President Xi Jinping had expressed his desire for a trade agreement. Top trade negotiators for both countries also spoke again and agreed to continue working on the remaining issues.
Trade experts and people close to the White House told Reuters last month, however, that signing a phase one agreement may not take place until the new year as China pressed for more extensive rollbacks of tariffs, with US trade hawks led by Peter Navarro, refusing to concede realizing well that such an act would be a surrender by the US.
Last Tuesday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley told reporters that Beijing invited U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for in-person talks in Beijing. Grassley said Lighthizer and Mnuchin were willing to go if they saw “a real chance of getting a final agreement.
A source familiar with the trade talks also told Reuters that U.S. officials could travel to China after Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.
It is unclear if Trump will comply with China’s demands and roll back all existing tariffs just to avoid any market turbulence in the critical, for his re-election, year 2020.
Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Pope Francis Warns “Consumerism Is A Virus That Corrodes Faith”
During Sunday Mass, Pope Francis bashed Black Friday and Cyber Monday and urged people to resist consumerism leading up to the Christmas holiday season. The Pope called consumerism a virus and said it hurts the poor, Reuters reported.
This isn’t the first time Pope Francis spoke negatively of the biggest shopping holidays of the year. Last year he delivered a message on the dangers of consumerism.
In 2015, Pope Francis warned the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics not to be “intoxicated by consumerism.”
He has also warned about the “throwaway culture” and the “dictatorship of an impersonal economy.”
This holiday season, he said: “When you live for things, things are never enough, greed grows, other people become obstacles in a race,” he said at a Sunday Mass, criticizing the West where “consumerism reigns supreme.”
The Pope added, “consumerism is a virus that corrodes faith” because it clouds the minds of many who forget “the brother who knocks at your door.”
He urged people this Sunday to “resist the blinding lights of consumerism, which will shine everywhere this month,” leading up to Christmas.
The Pope has pointed out before, the abusive advertising and consumer brainwashing techniques by mega-corporations have become very sophisticated. Advanced marketing techniques have sucked in broke consumers, buying products they can’t afford, nor do they need with credit card rates at 25-year highs.
