Month: March 2023

Authored by CJ Hopkins via ConsentFactory.org,

I think something is seriously wrong with my brain. Yesterday, I hallucinated that Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified before a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives about the Censorship Industrial Complex, i.e., the US arm of the global official propaganda and disinformation apparatus that has been waging an all-out war on dissent for the better part of the last six years.

I know this couldn’t have actually happened, and was just an extended hallucination (probably the result of the copious amount of drugs I consumed in my misspent youth, or the effects of a Commie bio-weapon with a fatality rate of less than one percent, because I’ve been writing about The War on Dissent (2018), and The Criminalization of Dissent (2021), and the global Corporate COINTELPRO op (2017), and The War on Reality (2021), and The Manufacturing of Reality (2021), and Manufacturing Truth (2018), and Manufacturing Normality (2016), and The Road to Totalitarianism (2022), and The Gaslighting of the Masses (2022) … well, for quite some time. So, I’m sure it was just an hallucination, because there’s no way Matt and Shellenberger were actually sitting there talking about how …

“We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation ‘requests’ from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi-private entities doing the same, including Stanford’s Election Integrity Project, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and others, many taxpayer-funded.”

(Matt Taibbi’s Statement to Congress)

… and documenting the coordinated censorship of sources that interfered with certain official narratives, like “Russiagate” and “The Apocalpytic Virus” …

… because that’s just a crazy “conspiracy theory.”

I am also sure I was hallucinating yesterday, because, right in the middle of my hallucination, right around the time that Stacey Plaskett started squawking like a demon pterodactyl, I had another hallucination, like my hallucinating self was hallucinating, which was like being in a Christopher Nolan film. In this one, Matt asked me to talk about how I was being censored by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et al., and their governmental and NGO partners in 2021, and I started babbling all this “conspiracy theory” stuff about the very “Censorship-Industrial-Complex” that Matt and Shellenberger were testifying about in the hallucination I appeared to be hallucinating the other hallucination in.

And then my hallucination got weird.

Now, it’s been quite a while since I’ve indulged in any seriously mind-bending drugs, but this reminded me of a bad LSD trip, like when Satan starts talking to you through the TV. There I was, happily hallucinating these two distinguished independent journalists who had done all this historic reporting on a story of extreme importance and had been invited to Congress to talk about it, and, suddenly, it all went dark and twisted.

Stacey Plaskett, the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary subcommittee started badgering, insulting, smearing, and baiting Matt and Shellenberger like Joe McCarthy in drag. Trembling with hatred, she accused them of being members of some sort of Substack-based death squad that “poses a direct threat to people who oppose them,” and of stochastically terrorizing Yoel Roth, the former Twitter Censorship Czar, and of unleashing “homophobia and anti-Semitism” on him. Then she launched into a spittle-flecked rant about “January 6” and “threatening our democracy,” until she was restrained by James Jordan, the Subcommittee Chairman. And this was just during her opening remarks.

The other Democrats soon joined in the bullying, and lying, and smearing, and sneering, and generally acting like prosecutors at some hate-drunk witch trial. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who, for whatever reasons, is still allowed to serve in Congress after being forced to resign as the DNC Chair for rigging the 2016 election, staged a whole dog-and-pony show with blow-up photos of Joe Rogan and so on. Sylvia Garcia, who appeared to be drunk, demanded that Matt reveal his source, and then, when he refused, repeatedly tried to weasel it out of him with all the deftness of a one-legged idiot in an ass-kicking contest. Colin Allred put on a PowerPoint show involving Kanye West’s anti-Semitic tweets, random bigots on Twitter, and the Russian agents who conspired against him (i.e., Allred) personally, and then lectured Matt about the “threats to our democracy” and called him a “conspiracy theorist.” Stephen Lynch went full-McCarthy, demanding that the witnesses affirm they “believe that Russians interfered in the 2016 election.”

And so on. I told you things got twisted. Thank God it was just an hallucination and not a live, televised demonstration of precisely what I have been trying to describe the emergence of for the last six years, which is a new totalitarian form of global capitalism that no longer needs to maintain the pretense of upholding (or respecting) our “democratic rights,” because it has no external adversaries, and thus is free to morph into a quasi-Orwellian dystopia where any and all forms of dissent from official ideology can (and must) be delegitimized as “disinformation,” “misinformation, and even “malinformation,” and corporate-owned political puppets feel no compunction whatsoever about behaving like vicious little fascists on television because they know they have the fearsome power of the global-capitalist machine behind them, no matter how openly (and badly) they lie, and that their fanatical followers will parrot any propaganda they are given to parrot, no matter how patently false or absurd, and will spew their mindless hatred at whomever they are ordered to spew it at, and otherwise act like a bunch of fascists.

Anyway, thank God that was just a bad flashback, or a minor cerebral infarction, or whatever, because, if it wasn’t … what a total bummer!

OK, seriously now, I assume that some of my regular readers might be confused by this essay. After all, I have been rather critical of Elon Musk and his handling of the “Twitter Files.” And now, here I am, celebrating Matt and Shellenberger’s testimony yesterday. Did I not call the Twitter Files a limited hangout? Yes, I did. And I will do it again. But not today. Today I will celebrate. I will raise a glass to Matt and Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, and the other Twitter Files journalists. I will even raise a glass to Elon Musk (who continues to maliciously defame and censor me and others like me with fake “content warnings” and other such slimy censorship tactics) for making the Twitter Files available to them.

If that baffles you … well, let me tell you a secret.

The way this little ecosystem works is, writers like me don’t get to testify on television before subcommittees. Actual journalists get to do that. Actual journalists who are “normal” enough. Actual journalists like Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald, et al. You know who I’m talking about. Actual journalists who know where the lines are, who aren’t going to start babbling about “Pathologized Totalitarianism” and “The New Normal Reich” on national television. What writers like me do get to do (and what it is our job to do) is subtly influence, gently pressure, and pester the living hell out of actual journalists who still have a shred of integrity left by saying the things they cannot say, or saying them in a way that they cannot say them, until the time comes when they can almost say them, because we have said them over and over again, and more or less everyone can see them, so it is finally safe to say them, almost.

OK, sure, it doesn’t pay all that much, but it’s fun, and I tend to sleep fairly well.

So, don’t worry, I’ll get back to doing that shortly. The “Censorship-Industrial-Complex” is a much bigger story than just the US division. I’ll be prodding Matt and the other Twitter Files journalists to prod Elon Musk to bring in international journalists to cover the same story in countries like Germany, the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and so on. Feel free to join in the fun.

Who knows? In another four or five years, we might even find out how this photo simultaneously appeared in every paper of record on the planet in January of 2020… that is, if we’re not all locked away in “conspiracy theorist” camps by then.

In the meantime, kudos to the Twitter Files Team!

China has weighed in on the Pentagon’s continued occupation of Syria in the wake of Wednesday’s Republican-sponsored War Powers Resolution in the House, which according to Congressman Matt Gaetz was aimed specifically at forcing President Biden to withdraw all American troops from Syria.

In a Friday press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning was asked for a response to the vote. She demanded that the US “immediately end the troops’ illegal occupation and plundering” and to halt the sanctions regimen which is crushing the Syrian economy and thus increasing the misery of common people.

“Since the US began its illegal interference in the Syrian crisis, its military operations in Syria have taken away a large number of innocent civilian lives and caused grave humanitarian disasters,” she said.

Mao also sought to underscore that Washington is increasingly isolated on the issue, noting the US has been “criticized multiple times” by the United Nations. She further said US forces have conducted “indiscriminate attacks that may amount to a war crime.”

She called on Washington to “respect other countries’ sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” and that it must stop “aggravating humanitarian disasters” in Syria – in reference to widespread reports that US sanctions hindered rescue efforts in the wake of last month’s earthquake.

As for the bipartisan push to get troops out of Syria led by Matt Gaetz, The Intercept has revealed a possible last-minute effort by hawks to sabotage the bill and paint its supporters into a corner:

Before the Rules Committee approved the War Powers Resolution for a vote, Republican leaders added a clause to its consideration that would have blocked Congress from voting again on a motion “introduced during the first session of the One Hundred Eighteenth Congress pursuant to section 5 of the War Powers Resolution with respect to Syria.” The language slipped past the resolution’s supporters, including the three Freedom Caucus members who won new seats on the Rules Committee, Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

Now it all makes sense:@HouseGOP & @DeptofDefense aimed to crush the Syria vote, then block any more action by Congress, giving Admin free rein in Syria.

This explains why they flew @thejointstaff Milley to Syria for 1st time & @HouseForeign put huge effort into floor debate. https://t.co/Y6nt5IjgnG

— Erik Sperling 🌍 (@ErikSperling) March 10, 2023

The update in The Intercept continues:

According to sources familiar with the fallout, Massie, Roy, and Gaetz discovered the language and pressed Republican leadership to strip it out, with some members threatening to vote down the rule if the language wasn’t removed. Ultimately, the lobbying worked, and Massie went to the floor to ask that the language be removed by unanimous consent, which requires the full chamber to agree, or at least not to contest the move. Democrats went along with the motion. One Republican member of Congress involved in the negotiations said that his initial assumption that party leadership was trying something nefarious – grant a vote on the resolution but then crush it and bar any future votes – evolved into a belief that the move had been driven by “muscle memory,” as both Democratic and Republican party leaders had consistently confronted efforts to use the War Powers Act with counter efforts to limit its use.

And yet, it still remains entirely unclear what the real “mission” is in Syria. The Trump administration had said it was to “secure the oil” – while Biden has pushed a ‘counter-ISIS’ focus.

But many analysts have pointed to the real underlying reason of the US wanting to keep squeezing Damascus by controlling the country’s natural resources (US troops are occupying the country’s oil and gas fields in the northeast) at a moment crippling sanctions have been ratcheted up. Or in other words, despite President Assad having emerged victorious in the decade long war, this is all a remnant part of Washington’s regime change playbook.

Authored by Will Blakely via The Mises Institute,

What if America’s elite told the truth?

It seems a ridiculous question to ask. It’s obvious to most of us here that our politicians, bureaucratic managers, and state-associated business leaders hardly ever tell the truth. What use is it for us to ask, “What if?”

There seems to be a considerable amount of social pressure urging us to abandon our better judgment, not for the sake of reason, but for cooperation.

If we don’t, the uncritical mob will label us “conspiracy theorists,” placing us in a box with schizophrenics in tinfoil hats who babble on about aliens and flat earth.

Any mature person notices the obvious discrepancy between what we see with our own eyes and what our country’s elites tell us.

When covid-19 hit, we knew from the beginning that “fifteen days to slow the spread” was fraudulent, yet the masses blindly expected us to give our leaders the benefit of the doubt. When the feds churned out as much as 80 percent of the money supply in a matter of two years and they said inflation was merely “transitory,” we again knew better yet were expected to remain silent.

Sure, we might not always know exactly what the truth is, but we can generally get an idea about what it isn’t. Something is telling us that the truth is not what the people in charge say it is.

The proper thing to do is to accept what we can’t know and home in upon what we do. We should take what our public officials do and say and ask ourselves, “How does this compare to what they would say and do if they were telling the truth?” By performing this thought experiment, we can be sure our skepticism is well guided.

When we ask ourselves this question, let’s place ourselves in the shoes of the elite: our legislatures, judges, executives, and bureaucrats, particularly those on the federal level. Let’s also consider the state-sponsored business leaders, the spokespeople of the corporate press, and established celebrities.

Let’s assume (against our strongest inclinations) we are incorrect in thinking what they tell us is dishonest. We can even take at face value that they are acting in good faith in everything they say and do, intending wholeheartedly to be completely honest both in their words and their actions.

What would they say and what would they do?

They Would Be Transparent

First of all, an honest elite would be completely transparent, and they certainly wouldn’t silence their opponents. Why hide something if there is nothing to hide? Wouldn’t an honest person be open to an honest investigation? If being transparent provided an answer to us pesky skeptics, what would be the cost?

Yet, this is not what they do. The very leaders who claim to be the bastions of progress and virtue seem to keep plenty of secrets.

After over half a century of questions, President Biden continued to withhold documents about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Nearly every edition of the Twitter Files exposed how public officials intentionally colluded with a so-called private company to silence particular narratives, some of which turned out to be likely true, such as the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the lab-origin theory of covid-19. Moreover, the federal government is consistently predatory toward whistleblowers and investigative journalists like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.

They Would Avoid Ambiguity

If they were honest, the elites would also speak as clearly as possible. Their PR professionals would advise them to avoid all ambiguity and maintain clear and simple language.

After all, the goal of honest communication is to deliver a message, not to obscure it. If a subject is complicated—such as that of economics, warfare, or virology—that is all the more reason to simplify it.

But we know the elites don’t do this either. Perhaps there’s a reason. In his great essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell explains how politicians can use meaningless words to cover up their real actions and intentions. As an example, he cites the use of the word “democracy”:

In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.

This sounds familiar to us. It wasn’t so long ago when scripted corporate news anchors around the country repeated “this is extremely dangerous to our democracy” to warn us about what they deemed to be “disinformation.”

How many times have we heard other meaningless buzzwords—“unity,” “equality,” “equity,” and even “patriotism”—repeated time and time again as justifications for things like war, taxation, and mass surveillance?

They Would Admit Their Mistakes

Though this experiment requires us to assume that our elites are never ill willed or intentionally incorrect, we don’t have to assume they’re always right. We can and should explore how they deal with honest mistakes.

Of course, an honest person admits he’s wrong when he makes a mistake. He would never ask other people to accept a contradiction by forcing them to pretend like a mistake was never made, like the draconian Ingsoc regime does to Winston Smith in the book 1984, another one of Orwell’s great works.

When have the public officials who botched their response to covid-19 apologized for being wrong about “gain-of-function” research or suggesting that the covid-19 vaccines would prevent the spread of the disease? Did Bush or Cheney ever apologize for completely missing the mark about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Limitations

There certainly are limitations to our experiment. Our public officials could act irrationally. They could, at heart, be good, good people but act out of fear of being falsely discredited.

But shouldn’t we want leaders with some degree of fortitude? Either way, it seems they are in the wrong and it seems we’re in the right to take what they say with a grain of salt.

The elite could also simply believe that society isn’t intelligent enough to handle the truth, which, though perhaps false, isn’t such an unreasonable opinion. After all, a large part of our society is stupid enough to believe everything they say.

However, many of us are catching on. Plenty know they are being misled but care more to avoid conflict than to point out the discrepancies. The truth is good in its own right. Justice can’t be rooted in falsehood.

We know that our nation’s elites aren’t acting like people who are both honest and rational. Therefore, it’s safe to say that our public officials are either dishonest, irrational, or both. Regardless, they shouldn’t be blindly trusted, and anyone who tells us we are delusional for thinking so is wrong.

Out of respect for the truth, we ought to think critically about what our elites say and do, and we shouldn’t feel guilty at all for doing so.

Jacob Chansley, the January 6th protester cast by the media as a ‘violent insurrectionist’ and sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison, has been vindicated in the eyes of many, after new footage emerged last week which refutes the entire narrative surrounding the events of that day.

After reviewing footage withheld from the public by the January 6th Committee, Fox News host Tucker Carlson revealed that Chansley (given the moniker “QAnon Shaman”), was calmly escorted throughout the Capitol complex by Capitol Police, who even helped him find open doors.

“The tapes show the Capitol police never stopped Jacob Chansley,” said Carlson. “They helped him. They acted as his tour guides,” said Carlson.

Legacy media is no better at truth telling than the Soviet Pravda. Today we learn the truth: the Q-Anon Shaman was escorted around the capital and let into the Senate chambers by police. He even praised them for their hospitality. pic.twitter.com/AExUn5hzru

— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) March 7, 2023

Now, footage has emerged of Chansley telling protesters to go home after former President Donald Trump tweeted to his followers.

JUST IN: Censored video re-emerges of Jacob Chansley reading Trump’s tweet, telling protestors to GO HOME and remain peaceful..

WON’T SEE THIS ON CNN…
pic.twitter.com/L8bLXMGUAs

— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) March 10, 2023

To which Elon Musk responded: “Free Jacob Chansley.“

Free Jacob Chansley https://t.co/8BbeXF2Fye

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2023

Chansley, the ‘violent insurrectionist’ has said that his one “very serious regret” was “believing that when we were waved in by police officers, that it was acceptable.”

Very intelligent statement from Jacob Chansley. Watch.

pic.twitter.com/giMTzmTTX7

— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) March 10, 2023

“Let him out,” tweeted Elon Musk in response, defending Chansley.

This shaman/muffin-guardian is obviously not going to overthrow the state

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2023

The tide has absolutely turned…

The bullshit J6 lies are collapsing.

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) March 10, 2023

Yet of course…

The Capitol Police literally opened the Senate chamber door for him on camera!

But who are you going to believe, Instagram “fact-checkers” or your own lying eyes!?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2023

🧐

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2023

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The White House is asking Congress for a whopping $886.4 billion military budget for the fiscal year 2024, with $842 billion of it going to the Pentagon. The rest would go toward other federal agencies’ military spending, including the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons program.

The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act will likely be much higher than the White House request as Congress added tens of billions to the previous two military budgets. For 2023, President Biden requested $813 billion, but Congress added $45 billion, bringing the finalized NDAA to $858 billion.

Congress could easily bring the 2024 NDAA to over $900 billion, closing in on the $1 trillion mark. The NDAAs don’t include the funds authorized for the Ukraine war, which could add another $100 billion if the US keeps spending on the conflict at the same pace.

In a statement on the request, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the funds were needed to confront China, which the Pentagon has identified as its top priority.

“The President’s budget request provides the resources necessary to address the pacing challenge from the People’s Republic of China, address advanced and persistent threats, accelerate innovation and modernization, and ensure operational resiliency amidst our changing climate,” Austin, a former Raytheon board member, said in a statement.

According to Responsible Statecraft, more than half of the budget will likely go to defense contractors, with Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon getting the biggest chunk.

We may be looking at $1 trillion in defense spending for the first time ever—this is madness.

NEW @WilliamHartung in @RStatecraft on Biden’s whopping $886B defense budget request https://t.co/Nu3FnXxFy8 pic.twitter.com/WpUaTirSno

— Quincy Institute (@QuincyInst) March 9, 2023

The budget includes $170 billion for weapons procurement and $145 billion for the research and development of new arms. “We may be looking at $1 trillion in defense spending for the first time ever—this is madness,” Responsible Statecraft writes.

The unseasonably warm weather in January and February was too good to be true to stick around. Old Man Winter returned this month in the Northeast, as temperatures have been freezing this past week in New York City. A powerful nor’easter early next week could bring a burst of wintery precipitation to the region. 

The storm will traverse the Midwest this weekend and might become a nor’easter that travels up the East Coast on Monday, according to The Weather Channel. These types of storms are notorious for wind, snow, rain, and coastal flooding. 

Here’s the forecasted timeline of the storm:

Later Sunday: Light s​now could spread into the interior Northeast and New England. Rain may be favored farther south, especially near the coast of the mid-Atlantic.

Monday: Snow, possibly heavy, will fall in the interior Northeast with rain closer to the Interstate 95 corridor from southeastern New England to the mid-Atlantic. Winds will likely increase along much of the Northeast Seaboard.

Tuesday: Snow, possibly heavy, will fall in most of New England, and parts of upstate, central and possibly western New York. That could mix with or change to rain in parts of southern and coastal New England. Strong winds are expected, particularly in coastal New England, but also in much of the Northeast.

The most probable area for accumulating snow is the interior Northeast, from central New York state to western and northern New England. Snowfall amounts may decline in regions closer to the Interstate 95 corridor from downtown New York City to Boston, where the weather event could be just rain. 

Weather experts on Twitter are chatting about nor’easter. 

4 days out, we have excellent agreement from our two best long-range models for a high-impact Nor’easter Monday PM to Wed AM. High elevations are best bet for 1-2 feet of heavy snow. Coastal cities mostly rain. High winds will also be an issue for Coastal New England. pic.twitter.com/jxJcuZmgPx

— Bill Karins (@BillKarins) March 10, 2023

Model differences for next week’s Nor’easter pic.twitter.com/kxACLl6e10

— Steve Petyerak (@StevePetyerak) March 10, 2023

Stormy pattern across the USA. Another atmospheric river on the way for the west coast, and potential nor’easter early next week. pic.twitter.com/buROtmQp6g

— Praedictix Weather (@Praedictix) March 11, 2023

Tuesday into early Wednesday is when winds are expected to increase along the Eastern Seaboard. 

When a nor’easter is forecasted to form, it captures everyone’s attention. However, the storm’s trajectory and impacts are still uncertain. 

Authored by Raghuram Rajan, op-ed via The Financial Times,

In his testimony to Congress earlier this week, Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell indicated “the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated” and “restoring price stability will probably require that we maintain a restrictive stance for some time”.

This was the tough Fed on display, and markets accordingly tanked.

Yet a few weeks earlier, Powell had set the financial markets off to the races when he said, “We can now say, for the first time, the disinflationary process has started.” Financial markets, used to years of easy money, celebrate at the slightest indication that the Fed will soften policy, making its task harder. Yet they are not the only market that is not currently co-operating.

Labour markets have, if anything, become even tighter, despite the Fed raising interest rates by 450 basis points since last March, and Friday’s strong jobs numbers did not alleviate concerns. While goods production is slowing after the pandemic increased consumption significantly, services, which are more labour-intensive, are now picking up strongly. Workers are hard to find, especially when it comes to hospitality and leisure. One reason is that the labour force is missing 3.5mn workers relative to pre-Covid projections. Older workers understandably quit during the pandemic, and many did not return. Retirements still continue at an accelerated pace. And tragically, as Powell pointed out, Covid-19 also ended the lives of half a million workers in the US, while a slower rate of immigration has led to about a million fewer workers than expected.

In addition, given the difficult nature of jobs in leisure and hospitality, workers have sought opportunities elsewhere in the economy. And perhaps as importantly, companies have been holding on to their staff precisely because hiring has been so hard. Until they are confident that the economy will slow down and they will not need these workers, and also perhaps until they see enough unemployment around them to signal that hiring will not be difficult in the future, labour hoarding may continue.

Other markets are also treading water. For instance, US house sales have slowed considerably, but property prices have generally held up, probably because there is not much supply entering the market. With mortgage rates having risen by so much over the past year, a homeowner with a 30-year mortgage at 4 per cent will have to shell out much more in monthly payments if she upgrades to a slightly better house with a new mortgage at 7 per cent. Because she cannot afford to buy, she does not sell. And because this is limiting the supply of homes on the market, there is only modest downward pressure on prices.

Finally, inflation has been trending down because pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and war-induced commodity supply disruptions are now being sorted out.

Beliefs in a painless “immaculate disinflation” and soft landing lead to a self-reinforcing equilibrium, in which few believe the Fed will have to do much more. As a result workers are not being laid off, financial asset prices and housing are holding up, and households have the jobs and wealth to keep spending. But without some slack in the labour market, the Fed cannot feel comfortable pausing its efforts.

To get the job done, therefore, the Fed has to force markets to abandon their belief that disinflation will involve only mild job losses. Indeed a recent study by Stephen Cecchetti and others suggests that every disinflation since the 1950s has involved a significant rise in unemployment.

There are dangers in the Fed taking a soft landing with mild job losses off the menu of possible outcomes.

The first, evidenced by the questioning Powell underwent during his Congressional testimony, is that politicians will be irate if the Fed torpedoes a recovery they have just bought with trillions of dollars in fiscal spending. The central bank is not immune from Congressional wrath.

Second, the benign equilibrium may turn into a vicious one. The markets could have their Wile E. Coyote moment. Lay-offs may spur more lay-offs now that businesses are confident they can hire back if necessary. In turn, laid-off employees may be forced to sell their houses, depressing property prices and reducing household wealth. Unemployment and lower wealth may hurt household spending, which will in turn depress corporate profits. That will lead to more lay-offs, falling financial markets and financial sector stress, and yet more muted spending . . . We may end up with a deeper recession than currently anticipated because it is hard to get just a little unemployment.

Of course, the Fed could then revive the economy by cutting rates, but it will need to be wary of doing so until it sees enough slack build up in the labour market. If it turns too fast, markets will celebrate and the job will be left unfinished. But if it waits until there is sufficient slack, lay-offs could develop a momentum of their own.

The temptation then is for the Fed to be more ambiguous, keep a soft landing on the menu and pray for an immaculate disinflation.

If so, the Cecchetti study warns that the eventual unemployment needed to rein in inflation could be much higher.

The Fed’s only realistic options may be a hard landing and a harder landing. It may be time for it to choose.

Yesterday afternoon, after the equity market close, USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle revealed that $3.3 billion of its $40 billion reserves were tied up in now-failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

Specifically, on March 9, Circle initiated a wire transfer to remove its funds from SVB as the FDIC-insured bank was about to shut operations. However, two days later, on March 11, Circle confirmed that the wire transfers were not wholly processed, with $3.3 billion of USDC reserves still with SVB.

2/ Like other customers and depositors who relied on SVB for banking services, Circle joins calls for continuity of this important bank in the U.S. economy and will follow guidance provided by state and Federal regulators.

— Circle (@circle) March 11, 2023

Almost immediately, leading crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase both said that they would temporarily suspend USDC conversions as the contagion from the collapse of SVB plays out.

Citing “current market conditions” without naming Silicon Valley Bank, Binance said it has temporarily suspended auto-conversion of USDC to BUSD.

Binance has temporarily suspended auto-conversion of USDC to BUSD due to current market conditions, specifically related to high inflows & the increasing burden to support the conversion.

This is a normal risk-management procedural step to take while we monitor the situation.

— Binance (@binance) March 11, 2023

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, also said it would suspend USDC conversion to USD while banks are closed over the weekend.

We are temporarily pausing USDC:USD conversions over the weekend while banks are closed. During periods of heightened activity, conversions rely on USD transfers from the banks that clear during normal banking hours. When banks open on Monday, we plan to re-commence conversions.

— Coinbase (@coinbase) March 11, 2023

USDC prices fell almost immediately, dramatically breaking the $1 peg, trading as low as 87c to the $1 at one point but currently ‘stabilized’ around 90c.

As CoinTelegraph reports, according to Dante Disparte, the chief strategy officer and head of global policy for Circle, SVB is critical to the United States economy and warned that “its failure – without a federal rescue plan – will have broader implications for business, banking and entrepreneurs.

“As with Silvergate, our teams have worked at speed to limit any exposure to banks. This includes a wire transfer request made before SVB’s FDIC receivership. A $3.3 billion cash exposure remains — but we follow state and federal regulatory guidance.”

Crypto investors redeemed more than $2 billion in Circle’s stablecoin in the past 24 hours, according to blockchain data provider Nansen as of 10 p.m. ET on Friday. The pace of USD Coin redemptions accelerated through Friday, with most of the USD Coin burned in the last eight hours, Nansen said.

As WSJ reports, some crypto executives questioned whether Circle has enough assets to cover its liabilities.

“Are you solvent?” David Schwartz, chief technology officer at crypto company Ripple, asked on Twitter in response to a post from Circle.

Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of Tether, said the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin doesn’t have any exposure to Silicon Valley Bank.

Tether has a market cap of around $72 billion, down from $74 billion late Friday, while USD Coin’s market cap is roughly $38 billion, down from about $41 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Additionally, following USDC’s depegging, the stablecoin ecosystem immediately came under pressure, as DAI, USDD and FRAX also depegged from the U.S. dollar.

Finally, as CoinDesk notes, if SVB customers, including Circle and its USDC stablecoin, are forced to take a haircut on their money, the repercussions are unclear.

So who, if anyone, will step in?

When Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan tweeted late Friday that Twitter should buy SVB and turn into a digital bank, billionaire Elon Musk tweeted in reply, “I’m open to the idea.”

Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,

The UK’s largest oil and gas producer, Harbour Energy, is cutting investments and jobs after the new windfall tax on the industry sapped nearly all of its 2022 profits.

Harbour Energy’s profits last year were $2.5 billion, pre-tax, but after taxes, the company was left with just an $8 million profit – that’s after the $1.5 billion that needed to go towards the Energy Profits Levy.

Harbour Energy has not divulged how many workers will lose their jobs.

Harbour Energy said it has cut back on investments, too, with Harbour choosing not to move forward on two drill sites and declining to participate in the North Sea offshore licensing round.

The windfall tax has hit UK North Sea producers, many which have already announced reduced investments on the UK Continental Shelf, the new head of trade body Offshore Energies UK said last month.

The UK raised the windfall tax on oil and gas operators’ profits last autumn by 10 percentage points, to 35 percent.

The increased rate for the Energy Profits Levy went into effect on January 1 of this year. It was also extended into March 2028, from December 2025.

The additional levies increased the total tax rate on oil and gas companies to 75 percent – the highest of any industry in the UK.

Shell has said it is reevaluating all of its UK projects which make up $30 billion of investments, and TotalEnergies has also said it would cut investments in the UK by 25 percent.

Oil and gas companies saw a substantial increase in profits last year thanks to higher oil and gas prices amid geopolitical turmoil and tight markets.

Women in Berlin, Germany will soon be able to whip off their tops at the city’s public swimming pools following a policy change by local government in response to a woman’s complaint that she was discriminated against.

The women argued that females, like men, should be able to swim topless, according to a statement from the city’s senate for justice, diversity and anti-discrimination.

In response to the local ombudsman’s involvement in the case, Berliner Baederbetriebe, which operates the city’s public pools, changed its rules on acceptable clothing.

“The ombudsperson’s office very much welcomes the decision of the Baederbetriebe, because it establishes equal rights for all Berliners, whether male, female or non-binary, and because it also creates legal certainty for the staff at the Baederbetriebe,” said Doris Liebscher, the head of the ombudsperson’s office, AP reports.

“Now it is important that the regulation is applied consistently and that no more expulsions or house bans are issued.”

It wasn’t made clear exactly when the rules go into effect.