Asked about The New York Times‘ novella-length article analyzing his last 18 years of federal income tax returns, President Donald Trump said: “It’s fake news. It’s totally fake news. Made up, fake.”
That hasn’t stopped people from discussing Trump’s inventive accounting, to a chorus of sputtered outrage by Trump’s legion of critics, the vast majority of whom miss a simple point: The tax code is a big, complicated mess because major-party politicians—including those Republicans who insincerely promise to fit the entire form “on a postcard”—like it just fine that way, and voters do not punish them for perennially exacerbating the exasperating status quo.
So argue Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, Matt Welch, and Katherine Mangu-Ward on this week’s Reason Roundtable podcast. The gang also previews tomorrow night’s presidential debate (including those unfairly excluded from it), grapples with the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, and makes a number of editorially questionable sound effects.
Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.
Music: “Jesse’s Carnival Waltz” by The Great North Sound Society.
Drones aren’t just good for speedy package delivery and aerial photography anymore. Last week, the unmanned aviation company MissionGO and an organ procurement group, the Nevada Donor Network, announced the completion of two organ and tissue delivery test flights. The achievement might make organ delivery to U.S. hospitals faster and easier.
The first MissionGO drone transported corneas from Southern Hills Hospital in Las Vegas to San Martin Hospital (also in Las Vegas). The second transported a kidney from an airport to a small Nevada desert town, the longest organ delivery drone flight ever.
This technology will be a boon to transplant patients, especially during the pandemic. In the past, donor organs have been transported mostly via commercial flights; now that these flights have been cut back due to plummeting demand, there’s a risk that some organs will take too long to reach their destination. (Organs are generally only good for 36 to 48 hours after harvesting.)
Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, an August 2019 study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that the U.S. discards more than 3,000 kidney donations annually. Drones could play a major part in reducing such waste by reducing the travel time between donor and ultimate destination. The technology has already played a major role in getting personal protective equipment and other medical supplies to hospitals that urgently need them during the pandemic.
Another way to solve shortages—other than by reducing waste of viable organs—would be to compensate organ donors the same way we do with plasma (and surrogate wombs, semen, and eggs). But in the absence of the political will to take that up, reducing waste of already-scarce organs via more efficient delivery technology is surely a step in the right direction.
Maybe someday the skies will be full of lifesaving kidneys, livers, hearts, and corneas traveling cheaply by drone. A libertarian can dream.
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CBS 13 (Laura Haefeli) reported last week (including video of part of the incident that had been recorded by another student):
“You can sit up, remove the flag, or reposition your camera within the next 15 seconds or I’m kicking you out of class,” the teacher said during their virtual class.
[The student’s mother, Tiffany,] says the teacher then began to count and did not make it to 10 before Tiffany’s son waved goodbye and exited the virtual classroom….
The teacher apparently then apologized, but the school board has declined to explain what the rules are:
Tiffany and her son … asked [at last Monday evening’s school board meeting] that the board clarify the code of conduct for virtual learning.
“And he flat out told me no. We’ve just not been given any guidance,” Tiffany said.
The Colusa County Code of Conduct includes a dress code that bans clothes with alcohol or drug symbols, sexual messages, profanity, or clothing that degrades any race, but nowhere in the 38-page document does it mention politics, elections, or campaigning….
CBS13 did reach out to the superintendent as well as the principal and vice principal of Colusa High School, but we have not yet heard back.
When requesting a comment, a Colusa High School employee referred ABC10 to the code of conduct. However, requests for comment were not immediately returned from Colusa High School, the Colusa Unified School District (Colusa USD), or the Colusa County Office of Education.
“The Governing Board believes that free inquiry and exchange of ideas are essential parts of a democratic education,” the Colusa Unified School District student handbook writes regarding free speech. “The Board respects students’ rights to express ideas and opinions, take stands on issues, and support causes, even when such speech is controversial or unpopular.” …
The school policies generally allow students the right to free speech which includes the wearing of buttons, badgers, and other insignia. The policy bans the use of fighting words and any “expressions” that are obscene, libelous, or slanderous.
It’s pretty clear that a student’s having a political message as a background in one’s Zoom, just like wearing a T-shirt or an armband, is constitutionally protected. The government may sometimes restrict such speech, if it’s likely to cause a serious disruption (such as fights); but that’s not likely to be applicable here, especially as to distance learning.
And while of course political messages may be distracting, or could lead to in-class arguments that the teacher might need to restrain, that would have been equally true of black armbands to protest the Vietnam War—yet the Court found that such “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression”:
Any departure from absolute regimentation may cause trouble. Any variation from the majority’s opinion may inspire fear. Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance. But our Constitution says we must take this risk, and our history says that it is this sort of hazardous freedom—this kind of openness—that is the basis of our national strength and of the independence and vigor of Americans who grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often disputatious, society.
I called the high school, got referred to the superintendent’s office, and then left a voice-mail there—I’ll post any response they give me, if they get back to me.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/30ewYmn
via IFTTT
Asked about The New York Times‘ novella-length article analyzing his last 18 years of federal income tax returns, President Donald Trump said: “It’s fake news. It’s totally fake news. Made up, fake.”
That hasn’t stopped people from discussing Trump’s inventive accounting, to a chorus of sputtered outrage by Trump’s legion of critics, the vast majority of whom miss a simple point: The tax code is a big, complicated mess because major-party politicians—including those Republicans who insincerely promise to fit the entire form “on a postcard”—like it just fine that way, and voters do not punish them for perennially exacerbating the exasperating status quo.
So argue Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, Matt Welch, and Katherine Mangu-Ward on this week’s Reason Roundtable podcast. The gang also previews tomorrow night’s presidential debate (including those unfairly excluded from it), grapples with the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, and makes a number of editorially questionable sound effects.
Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.
Music: “Jesse’s Carnival Waltz” by The Great North Sound Society.
Drones aren’t just good for speedy package delivery and aerial photography anymore. Last week, the unmanned aviation company MissionGO and an organ procurement group, the Nevada Donor Network, announced the completion of two organ and tissue delivery test flights. The achievement might make organ delivery to U.S. hospitals faster and easier.
The first MissionGO drone transported corneas from Southern Hills Hospital in Las Vegas to San Martin Hospital (also in Las Vegas). The second transported a kidney from an airport to a small Nevada desert town, the longest organ delivery drone flight ever.
This technology will be a boon to transplant patients, especially during the pandemic. In the past, donor organs have been transported mostly via commercial flights; now that these flights have been cut back due to plummeting demand, there’s a risk that some organs will take too long to reach their destination. (Organs are generally only good for 36 to 48 hours after harvesting.)
Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, an August 2019 study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that the U.S. discards more than 3,000 kidney donations annually. Drones could play a major part in reducing such waste by reducing the travel time between donor and ultimate destination. The technology has already played a major role in getting personal protective equipment and other medical supplies to hospitals that urgently need them during the pandemic.
Another way to solve shortages—other than by reducing waste of viable organs—would be to compensate organ donors the same way we do with plasma (and surrogate wombs, semen, and eggs). But in the absence of the political will to take that up, reducing waste of already-scarce organs via more efficient delivery technology is surely a step in the right direction.
Maybe someday the skies will be full of lifesaving kidneys, livers, hearts, and corneas traveling cheaply by drone. A libertarian can dream.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/36fKCcs
via IFTTT
CBS 13 (Laura Haefeli) reported last week (including video of part of the incident that had been recorded by another student):
“You can sit up, remove the flag, or reposition your camera within the next 15 seconds or I’m kicking you out of class,” the teacher said during their virtual class.
[The student’s mother, Tiffany,] says the teacher then began to count and did not make it to 10 before Tiffany’s son waved goodbye and exited the virtual classroom….
The teacher apparently then apologized, but the school board has declined to explain what the rules are:
Tiffany and her son … asked [at last Monday evening’s school board meeting] that the board clarify the code of conduct for virtual learning.
“And he flat out told me no. We’ve just not been given any guidance,” Tiffany said.
The Colusa County Code of Conduct includes a dress code that bans clothes with alcohol or drug symbols, sexual messages, profanity, or clothing that degrades any race, but nowhere in the 38-page document does it mention politics, elections, or campaigning….
CBS13 did reach out to the superintendent as well as the principal and vice principal of Colusa High School, but we have not yet heard back.
When requesting a comment, a Colusa High School employee referred ABC10 to the code of conduct. However, requests for comment were not immediately returned from Colusa High School, the Colusa Unified School District (Colusa USD), or the Colusa County Office of Education.
“The Governing Board believes that free inquiry and exchange of ideas are essential parts of a democratic education,” the Colusa Unified School District student handbook writes regarding free speech. “The Board respects students’ rights to express ideas and opinions, take stands on issues, and support causes, even when such speech is controversial or unpopular.” …
The school policies generally allow students the right to free speech which includes the wearing of buttons, badgers, and other insignia. The policy bans the use of fighting words and any “expressions” that are obscene, libelous, or slanderous.
It’s pretty clear that a student’s having a political message as a background in one’s Zoom, just like wearing a T-shirt or an armband, is constitutionally protected. The government may sometimes restrict such speech, if it’s likely to cause a serious disruption (such as fights); but that’s not likely to be applicable here, especially as to distance learning.
And while of course political messages may be distracting, or could lead to in-class arguments that the teacher might need to restrain, that would have been equally true of black armbands to protest the Vietnam War—yet the Court found that such “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression”:
Any departure from absolute regimentation may cause trouble. Any variation from the majority’s opinion may inspire fear. Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance. But our Constitution says we must take this risk, and our history says that it is this sort of hazardous freedom—this kind of openness—that is the basis of our national strength and of the independence and vigor of Americans who grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often disputatious, society.
I called the high school, got referred to the superintendent’s office, and then left a voice-mail there—I’ll post any response they give me, if they get back to me.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/30ewYmn
via IFTTT
The heretical truth is that many of the “consumption rituals” that signified “prosperity” for decades are either meaningless, unaffordable or require way more effort than the meager payoff is worth.
Of all the economic heresies imaginable, perhaps the most heretical is to recognize what we label “prosperity” as increasingly meaningless rituals more akin with Soviet-era staged parades than actual well-being.
This is the most dangerous heresy because it breaks the link between consumption–the core activity of our economy–and human happiness. If conspicuous / surplus consumption is ritualistic rather than fulfilling (i.e. it adds to our well-being), then it becomes meaningless or even corrosive.
The focus them shifts to the negative consequences of consumption, i.e. how the rituals of consumption are eroding / disrupting our well-being.
Rituals are satisfying because the performance of the ritual is itself the source of our satisfaction. Belief or enjoyment isn’t necessary; completion of the ritual is its own reward.
But once we pull away from the rituals, the emptiness of the performance becomes clear and we start asking, what am I getting out of this for the expense and effort?
These questions arise because many conventional consumption rituals have become prohibitively expensive and troublesome and others demand major amounts of time with very little payoff.
Consider the ritual of passively consuming sports. The ratings of televised games were falling before the pandemic, and by some measures appear to be in free-fall. It’s not hard to discern potential reasons: Millennials never formed the habit/ritual of spending hours watching a game, or attending games; despite the protests from die-hard fans, most of the games are interchangeable, as are the players, as pro and college sports have become homogenized in many ways.
As with many other consumption rituals, those performing the rituals rarely stopped to ask themselves if the ritual was actually improving their well-being, or if it had slowly morphed into a colossal waste of time and money.
Many activities of discretionary consumption are in large part rituals: going on vacations, taking cruises, shopping, dining out, and so on. While many will miss the performance of these rituals, others will realize they don’t really miss them. Some will feel immense relief that they no longer have to put up a facade of enjoying the tiresome, meaningless rituals.
The enormous expense of once-affordable rituals such as dining out means many will give up these consumption rituals because they can no longer afford it. Two sandwiches and two drinks, sales tax and a tip is now routinely $50 or more. (Note to wealthy readers: in the real world, it’s pretty difficult to earn $50 net of taxes and the cost of doing business.)
Other consumption rituals were embedded in modes of work that are dissolving because they’re no longer financially viable. The rituals of business travel and attending conferences paid by employers are dying because the luxury of these consumption rituals is no longer affordable to employers whose revenues and profits are in terminal decline.
Every manager pounding the table for a return of all employees to the central office has yet to discover what happens when the corporation reports a staggering loss and refuses to provide forward guidance. If the manager is fortunate enough to retain their job, their task will be to eliminate all offices and digitize and/or automate every function to cut costs.
The many rituals of a central office–the endless meetings, the petty arguments, the smoking breaks, going out for lunch–goodbye to all that. A couple of quarters of steep losses in revenues will push every company and agency to strip away all the rituals of consumption that are no longer affordable.
Did all that enormous expense of time and money really make us happy, or were we just going through the motions? Even those who were so anxious to resume the performance of these consumption rituals may find that the performance leaves them with a nagging sense of ennui and hollowness, as if something is missing, despite the perfect repetition of the ritual.
Some will blame the pandemic, but this is not the real source of their dissatisfaction. The heretical truth is that many of the consumption rituals that signified “prosperity” for decades are either meaningless, unaffordable or require way more effort than the meager payoff is worth.
So the game is playing on the TV but nobody’s watching. The news is playing on another TV, but nobody’s watching that, either. A disembodied stock market pundit declares a new Bull market but nobody’s listening. The social media feed is scrolling by in a mad fury on a smartphone but nobody’s clicking on any of it. It’s all pointless, hollow, tiresome, for the completion of the ritual is no longer enough.
The meaningless of the engagement rituals and the consumption rituals is now so obvious that the desperation of the purveyors to get everyone back on board adds an exclamation point to the emptiness of their offerings.
Here’s why addressing this is heresy: what props up the economy once all the consumption rituals fall out of favor or are no longer affordable? The answer is of course nothing.
Gold, Silver, & Stocks Surge As Real Yields Tumble Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/28/2020 – 16:01
Election Uncertainty reached its cycle highs today as the VIX curve steepened dramatically…
Source: Bloomberg
And stocks still appear unwilling to accept that level of uncertainty…
Source: Bloomberg
So which pill do you want to take?
Real Yields tumbled today, despite nominal yields being unch…
Source: Bloomberg
Gold rallied over $30 from the ovenright lows…
Silver also surged…
And gold’s gains dominated the USD rally this afternoon…
Source: Bloomberg
Stocks were also bid on the real rate slump as well as hope for stimulus (though from where we are completely unsure)…Small Caps dominated the day…
S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all pushed back up to their 50DMAs but with around 30 minutes to go in the day, the markets rolled over…
Today’s price action saw the biggest buy program since the start of July, following last week’s major sell program…
Source: Bloomberg
3rd short-squeeze day in a row – erased last Wednesday’s tumble…however, the ammo seemed to run out during the day…
Source: Bloomberg
Some claimed that today’s surge in stocks was driven by month-end rebalancing but that seems to be rejected by the fact that there is no bond-selling… none!
Source: Bloomberg
And if that’s the case – the quarter-end rebalancing suggests a massive selling pressure on stocks…
Source: Bloomberg
Credit continues to bearishly diverge from excited stocks…
Source: Bloomberg
Treasury yields were mixed in a small range with the short-end lower and long-end modestly higher…
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar chopped around within its own 2-day range
Source: Bloomberg
The Turkish Lira was the FX markets’ headline maker today… tumbling to record lows amid warring states…
Source: Bloomberg
Cryptos were modestly higher from Friday (with Bitcoin Cash best)…
Source: Bloomberg
The gold/silver ratio dropped back below 80x today…
Source: Bloomberg
WTI broke back above $40 today…
Finally, we note fear and greed are equally balanced… for now…
Russia Was Trying To Hurt Trump? Impending Declassification To ‘Flip Collusion Theory On Its Head’: Solomon Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/28/2020 – 15:40
New declassifications expected as soon as this week could flip the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory on its head, according to Just The News‘ John Solomon.
According to multiple officials familiar with the planned declassification, “new evidence will raise the specter that Russian President Vladimir Putin was actually trying to hurt President Trump, not help his election in 2016, as the Obama administration claimed.”
The rumored release comes on the heels of revelations that former UK spy Christopher Steele’s primary dossier source was tied to Russian intelligence – suggesting that the Kremlin was in fact working with Trump’s enemies to harm his chances of winning the 2016 US election. And while the Mueller investigation found no ‘collusion’ between Trump and Russia, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham (R-SC) brought up the notion of Putin working against Trump.
“Everything Russia-Trump was looked at. You had $25 million, 60 agents. You had subpoenas, you had people’s lives turned upside down,” Graham told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “The question is, ‘Did they look at Russia coming after Trump?'”?
“We’ve got a Russian spy on the payroll of the Democratic Party putting together a document that details the FBI was not reliable,” he added.
Is ANYONE in the media going to ask Joe Biden why his and Barack Obama’s DOJ & FBI used a Russian agent who was a “threat to national security” to spy on the Trump campaign?
It would be really nice if someone would do their job & ask that. Thanks.
The possibility that the FBI and CIA had reason to suspect Russia was trying to hurt Trump and help rival Hillary Clinton first emerged in a Just the News article last month that revealed a House Intelligence Committee secret report accused the U.S Intelligence Community Assessment of ignoring credible evidence that the Russians tried to help Clinton in 2016.
“When I was briefed on the House Intelligence Committee report on the January 2017 ICA, I was told that John Brennan politicized this assessment by excluding credible intelligence that the Russians wanted Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 election and ordered weak intelligence included that Russia wanted Trump to win,” former CIA and National Security Council official Fred Fleitz told the outlet last month – which noted that Brennan was CIA director at the time.
“I also was told that Brennan took both actions over the objections of CIA analysts. I am concerned about what happened to these analysts and worry that they may have been subjected to retaliation by CIA management,” Fleitz added. “These analysts are true whistleblowers, and they should come to the congressional intelligence committees to tell their stories and set the record straight on the ICA.”
To that end, the impending document release will show that the intelligence community “cherry-picked pebbles of evidence” to help support the case that Russia was trying to help Trump win the 2016 election, when ‘there was similar evidence to the contrary.’
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3n12RZm Tyler Durden
International Man: Bill Clinton’s infamous phrase during the 1992 presidential election was “It’s the economy, stupid.” How important of a role do you think the economy and a continued rally in the stock market will play in the outcome of the presidential election?
David Stockman: Well, in the befuddled mind of Donald Trump, probably a considerable role as manifest in his campaign oratory. And since there are less than 50 days left, he might get away with his groundless boasting. That is, we seriously doubt that the great reckoning will commence before November 3, meaning that he will keep peddling the “but for COVID” canard, claiming that, before that, he single-handedly created the Greatest Economy Ever.
Actually, it’s the greatest BS story ever told. It rests on the utterly misleading circumstance that the Donald entered office in month #90 of what became the longest business cycle expansion in history (at 128 months in February).
Consequently, his “record” was artificially flattered by the low U-3 unemployment rates (3.5%) that naturally occur during the last 38 months of the cycle as the inventory of unused labor is finally exhausted. Of course, that’s also exactly what occurred during the final months of the 118-month expansion of the 1990s and the 106-month expansion of the 1960s, when Democrats happened to be incumbent in the Oval Office.
But when measured by something relevant, such as the average real GDP growth rate during his tenure, it turns out that the Donald’s cherished “score” is the very worst among all the presidential terms since 1948.
That’s right. Even after setting aside the economic plunge in Q2, real GDP growth averaged 1.8% per annum during the Donald’s first 38 months in office compared to annualized gains of 1.9%, 2.2%, 2.5%, 2.7%, 3.2%, 3.6%, 3.8%, 5.2%, and 5.5%, respectively, during the terms of Obama, Bush the Younger, Bush the Elder, Eisenhower, Nixon-Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Kennedy-Johnson, and Truman.
Coming in dead last, of course, is not entirely the Donald’s doing, try as he did. The fact is, the US economy was sinking under the dead weight of $77 trillion of public and private debt and the decades of public waste and private malinvestment this debt explosion enabled. Now, Donald’s wrong-headed sponsorship of Lockdown Nation via the recommendations of his malpracticing doctors and the public hysteria they fostered has delivered the coup d’ grace.
So, yes, it is the economy, stupid. That is to say, whoever wins on November 3rd is going to inherit an economy so battered, bruised, and freighted with speculative excess and debilitating debt that they are sure to go down in history as the President who made Herbert Hoover look like a winner.
International Man: The United States appears to be more divided than it has in anyone’s lifetime. Yet, politicians and talking heads on both sides of the aisle seem to wholeheartedly agree on the same destructive fiscal policy that includes money printing, sky-high debts, and freebies. What do you make of all this? What are the consequences for the dollar and for gold?
David Stockman: There is only one thing to do—get out of the casino and sell any security that moves or stands still. That’s because the bipartisan duopoly has lost all contracts with the principles of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and minimalist government intervention on which sustainable capitalist prosperity depends.
For instance, the GOP Senate is so oblivious to the monstrous fraud being perpetrated by the nation’s central bank that it can’t even muster the votes to put a single once and former sound money advocate—Judy Shelton—on the Fed Board of Governors.
Indeed, the Judy Shelton nomination failure is the monetary Rubicon. There is literally no hope left that our stupefied elected politicians will move to stop the unelected monetary politburo domiciled in the Eccles Building from utterly destroying the capital and money markets that are at the heart of the capitalist growth engine.
What lies ahead, therefore, is more years of massive monetization of the public debt and never before imagined fiscal profligacy on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Already the public debt at $27.7 trillion stands at 138% of GDP, even as there is zero will in either party to brake its ascent.
At some point in the not-too-near future, confidence in the money-printing scam at the Fed will finally evaporate. Then, look out below. The financial sins of 50 years will come crashing all around.
International Man: When the COVID lockdowns first started, the government told us we needed a few weeks to “flatten the curve.” The idea was economic activity could be restarted relatively easily. Six months later, most economic activity is at a standstill. Is it possible for Main Street to bounce back? What type of long-term damage do you think this will have?
David Stockman: The damage will be immense and well nigh irreversible. That’s because never before–even during the full military mobilization of WWII—have we had this kind of draconian economic marshal law.
As it was, the US economy was already a hand-to-mouth cripple when the lockdowns came smashing down out of the blue in March. That is, businesses had no dry powder, having freighted down their balance sheets with cheap debt to fund stock buybacks and massively over-valued M&A deals; and, likewise, 80% of US households had borrowed to the hilt and had no rainy day funds to speak of.
Save for nearly $3.5 trillion of the Everything Bailouts, the US economy would be hemorrhaging already in a cascading chain of delinquencies, defaults, and payment lapses. There is no other outcome possible when the household and business sector are each laboring under $16 trillion of debt, and the government and financial sectors are carrying another $45 trillion between them.
Moreover, the massive infusion of borrowed funds from the virtually bankrupt US Treasury is not sustainable and is already beginning to measurably abate as the original bailout programs expire and even the spendthrift US Congress is unable to form a consensus on new measures to keep the Ponzi Scheme going.
Well, they might abjure. After all, the explosion of spending in April was theretofore unimaginable.
To wit, government transfer payments soared from a $3.2 trillion annual rate on the eve of the lockdowns in February to a $6.5 trillion annual rate two months later in April, representing an unprecedented explosion of free stuff that was still running at a $4.9 trillion annual rate in July.
All this spending was for the purpose of holding harmless the tens of millions of workers and millions of small businesses sidelined by the writ of the Donald’s malpracticing doctors and the brutal shutdown orders of the Blue State governors and mayors they unleashed.
But to take out 10% of GDP through what amounted to economic martial law and backfill it with massive public borrowing was the height of derangement.
That’s because Lockdown Nation battered the economics and personal liberty of 267 million Americans under the age of 65, when their risk of serious illness or death from the COVID was tiny, even as 80% of deaths per the bloated CDC count occurred among the population 65 and older, which could have, and did, self-quarantine out of an abundance of personal medical precaution.
That’s right. The normal mortality rate for the under-65 population is about 300 per 100,000, while the with-COVID rate, by the CDC’s own inflated figures, was just 13 per 100,000 as of September 1 or barely 4% of normal mortality.
In that context, knocking $565 billion out of the GDP in the second quarter alone to prevent a marginal change in the mortality rate for the under-65 population was the very essence of national derangement and a reminder that current economic governance is so unhinged that recovery during the decade ahead—when the retired Welfare State-dependent population will grow from 55 million to 73 million—will be well-nigh impossible.
International Man: Recently, the Federal Reserve announced they would seek to create even more inflation, which means the cost of living is about to get more expensive. Why would any sane person want to do such a thing?
David Stockman: The short answer is that they obviously wouldn’t. The baleful truth is that our central bankers are lost in a miasma of groupthink that is devoid of any connection to sound money and the economic prosperity that flows therefrom.
Instead, the Fed has become the pathetic handmaiden of the den of gamblers that now operate on Wall Street. There is literally no minor stumble or tepid correction in the stock indices that fails to elicit a chorus of demands for more “stimulus” on Wall Street, but it is blatantly evident by now that the resulting massive injections of fiat credit into the bank accounts of the Fed dealers never leaves the canyons of Wall Street.
It simply inflates, inflates, and inflates again the value of existing debt and equity securities traded in the secondary market pits of pure speculation.
After all, that’s how we get the great ten-to-one anomaly. As it happened, since Greenspan’s Irrational Exuberance speech in December 1996, the nominal GDP has gained 136%, while the NASDAQ 100—the long-standing leading edge of the speculative mania—has gained 1,376%.
That’s madness. That’s the smoking gun that shows the degree to which the stock market has been ripped from its proper moorings in the actual income and profits of the Main Street economy.
It’s also the reason for another great anomaly. Namely, that the stock market, which originated as a curb where capital users came to raise investment funds from savers, has now been turned upside down. It is now a place where equity capital is massively and chronically liquidated in favor of massive increases in growth-throttling debt.
Thus, during the last 23 years, there have been only two quarters in which U.S. nonfinancial corporations raised equity capital on a net basis (i.e., new issuance exceeded buybacks).
Overall, $7.2 trillion of corporate equity has been liquidated, averaging some $315 billion per year.
Old-fashioned economists called this “eating your seed corn.” And it still is, whether the Keynesian money-pumpers at the Fed acknowledge it or not—and also notwithstanding the egregious, unearned windfalls that have accrued to speculators in the Wall Street casino.
For want of doubt, here is a very opposite picture. While the Fed-corrupted financial markets were busy shrinking the stock of equity capital, they were also inducing the C-suites to borrow hand over fist. Between December 1996 and the present, in fact, nonfinancial corporate debt has soared from $3.2 trillion to $10.5 trillion, or by 3.3 times.
Obviously, that was far faster than the growth of GDP, or, more to the point, the increase in corporate value added. In fact, cumulative growth in corporate debt of 223.4% far exceeded the growth of gross value added, which rose by just 137.1%.
In short, they are doing what no one in their right mind should be doing. The negative consequence in both the fiscal profligacy of the public sector and the financial engineering folly of the corporate sector speak for themselves.
International Man: In addition, the Fed said it will continue to manipulate interest rates to the lowest levels they have ever been. In other words, people can forget about earning any meaningful return on their savings. How does any prudent individual protect and preserve their savings in such an environment?
David Stockman: Buy gold and either forget or (if you are courageous) short the rest.
* * *
The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HFwgrR Tyler Durden
