Month: March 2023

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

The deep animosity against Russia and China that the U.S. national-security establishment has inculcated in the American people brings to mind the remarkable speech that President Kennedy delivered on June 10, 1963, at American University that sealed his fate.

Just imagine what would happen to any American who today dares to say good things about Russia and China. The Russia haters and the China haters will heap condemnation and calumny on them. The haters will accuse them of being “Putin lovers” who support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the case of China, they will accuse them of being communist sympathizers who support China’s military expansionism. 

No, there is no room in America for positive sentiments toward Russia and China. Through the power of indoctrination, the Pentagon and the CIA have succeeded in inculcating a mindset of deep hostility all across America toward both Russia and China.

Of course, they did the same thing back in the Cold War era, perhaps even more so given that, during that time, both Russia and China were communist regimes. Throughout the Cold War decades, Americans were indoctrinated in the same way that Americans today are indoctrinated. They were taught to hate and fear the Russian Reds and the Chinese Reds and, for that matter, the North Korean Reds, the Cuban Reds, the Vietnamese Reds, the Chilean Reds, the Guatemalan Reds, and, well, all the Reds in the world, including those who were inside the United States. 

Among the people Americans were expected to hate was Martin Luther King, not only because he was believed to be a Red but also because he had the audacity to point out that the U.S. government had become the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. They hated him for that, just as they hated Mohammad Ali, who dared to question their war against the Reds in Vietnam. That’s why they targeted both men for destruction. 

In the midst of all this anti-Russia and anti-China hostility stepped President John F. Kennedy. He had had enough of all this hostility.

He recognized it as a destructive and highly dangerous mindset that the Pentagon and the CIA had inculcated in the American people. 

Kennedy realized that it was that mindset that had brought the world to the brink of all-out, life-destroying nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also came to the realization that if the Pentagon and the CIA had not been hell-bent on illegally invading Cuba, there would never have been a Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Keep some important things in mind.

At the time that Kennedy was delivering his Peace Speech, the Soviet Union (of which Russia was the principal member) was still occupying and controlling Eastern Europe. It was also still occupying and controlling West Germany. It was still maintaining and enforcing the Berlin Wall. China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba were still communist regimes. 

Kennedy delivering his Peace Speech. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Kennedy shows up at American University and initiates a surprise attack on the Pentagon and the CIA.

He declared an end to the deep anti-Soviet hostility that the Pentagon and the CIA had inculcated in the American people.

He called for peaceful and friendly coexistence with the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist world. With a slap across the faces of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he declared, “What kind of a peace do I mean? What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.”

Kennedy’s entire speech is worth reading, but here are some more excerpts:

First, examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and we believe they can do it again.

***

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

***

And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and families were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland, a loss equivalent to the destruction of this country east of Chicago.

***

So, let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

The very next evening — June 11, 1963 — Kennedy went on national television to express support for the supposed communist Martin Luther King and the American civil-rights movement, which the national-security establishment, especially the FBI, was convinced was a  communist front for a Red takeover of the United States.

The president had just thrown down a doubly dangerous gauntlet before the U.S. national-security establishment.

As I point out in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, Kennedy’s Peace Speech, combined with his resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which enraged the Pentagon and the CIA, combined with his support of what was believed to be a domestic communist front, sealed his fate.

Several months later, they took him out, on the grounds of protecting “national security,” just as they targeted foreign leaders on the same basis. 

No one in America — and especially not a U.S. president — is permitted to embrace what are considered to be heretical thoughts and policies regarding Russia and China.

The deep anti-Russia and anti-China hostility that the Pentagon and the CIA inculcate in the American people has become a permanent part of American life.

A new wealth report by consultancy firm “Henley & Partners” found more than a third of US centi-millionaires graduated from eight universities. 

The report found 9,630 centi-millionaires living in the US as of December. Of that, 35% of them graduated from just eight schools:

• Harvard

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Stanford

• University of Pennsylvania

• Columbia,

• Yale,

• Cornell, and

• Princeton.

“Nonetheless, a premium education undeniably improves the chances of achieving success, influence, and wealth,” Henley & Partners said. 

The report noted an exception: 

“Education is not the only route to phenomenal financial success though, with two notable examples being Bill Gates, who left Harvard to start Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg, a fellow Harvard drop-out and the poster boy of Facebook, now Meta, both of whom went on to become billionaires.” 

And for those aspiring to become a centi-millionaire one day, choosing the right industry is important. The report found the top industries in which centi-millionaires have acquired their wealth:  

• Financial and professional services

• Technology 

• Real Estate

• Media and entertainment 

• Energy and basic materials 

• Retail

• Healthcare 

• Hotel and leisure 

• Manufacturing

• Transport 

Unsurprisingly, a handful of Ivy League universities have a monopoly on churning out centi-millionaires. 

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”

– Simone Weil, French philosopher

It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy. 

For instance, an animal welfare bill introduced in the Florida state legislature would ban the sale of rabbits in March and April, prohibit cat owners from declawing their pets, make it illegal for dogs to stick their heads out of car windows, force owners to place dogs in a harness or in a pet seatbelt when traveling in a car, and require police to create a public list of convicted animal abusers.

A Massachusetts law prohibits drivers from letting their cars idle for more than five minutes on penalty of a $100 fine ($500 for repeat offenders), even in the winter. You can also be fined $20 or a month in jail for scaring pigeons.

This overbearing Nanny State despotism is what happens when government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have reached such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.

Consider, for example, that businesses in California were ordered to designate an area of the children’s toy aisle “gender-neutral” or face a fine, whether or not the toys sold are traditionally marketed to girls or boys such as Barbies and Hot Wheels. California schools are prohibited from allowing students to access websites, novels or religious works that reflect negatively on gays. And while Californians are free to have sex with whomever they choose (because that’s none of the government’s business), removing a condom during sex without consent could make you liable for general, special and punitive damages.

It’s getting worse.

Almost every aspect of American life today—especially if it is work-related—is subject to this kind of heightened scrutiny and ham-fisted control, whether you’re talking about aspiring “bakers, braiders, casket makers, florists, veterinary masseuses, tour guides, taxi drivers, eyebrow threaders, teeth whiteners, and more.”

For instance, whereas 70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license, today, almost 1 in 3 American occupations requires a license.

The problem of overregulation has become so bad that, as one analyst notes, “getting a license to style hair in Washington takes more instructional time than becoming an emergency medical technician or a firefighter.”

This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.

As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns, the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at the federal, state and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them all.

“It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead, law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really must follow, because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,” concludes Van Beek. “Federal, state and local regulations — rules created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”

This is the police state’s superpower: it has been vested with the authority to make our lives a bureaucratic hell.

That explains how a fisherman can be saddled with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water. Or why police arrested a 90-year-old man for violating an ordinance that prohibits feeding the homeless in public unless portable toilets are also made available.

The laws can get downright silly. For instance, you could also find yourself passing time in a Florida slammer for such inane activities as singing in a public place while wearing a swimsuit, breaking more than three dishes per day, farting in a public place after 6 pm on a Thursday, and skateboarding without a license.

However, the consequences are all too serious for those whose lives become grist for the police state’s mill. A few years back, police raided barber shops in minority communities, resulting in barbers being handcuffed in front of customers, and their shops searched without warrants. All of this was purportedly done in an effort to make sure that the barbers’ licensing paperwork was up to snuff.

In this way, America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation. And “we the people,” sold on the idea that safety, security and material comforts are preferable to freedom, have allowed the government to pave over the Constitution in order to erect a concentration camp.

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the so-called name of the national good by an elite class of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

We increasingly find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes. 

The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.

In exchange for the promise of an end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to lockdowns, militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, overcriminalization, overregulation and government corruption.

In the end, such bargains always turn sour.

We relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies (terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.

We asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives. So far, we’re up to 4500 criminal laws and 300,000 criminal regulations that result in average Americans unknowingly engaging in criminal acts at least three times a day. For instance, the family of an 11-year-old girl was issued a $535 fine for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Act after the young girl rescued a baby woodpecker from predatory cats.

We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2.3 million people locked up, many of them doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates, who are forced to provide corporations with cheap labor.

A special report by CNBC breaks down the national numbers:

One out of 100 American adults is behind bars — while a stunning one out of 32 is on probation, parole or in prison. This reliance on mass incarceration has created a thriving prison economy. The states and the federal government spend about $74 billion a year on corrections, and nearly 800,000 people work in the industry.

We wanted law enforcement agencies to have the necessary resources to fight the nation’s wars on terror, crime and drugs. What we got instead were militarized police decked out with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers, battle tanks and hollow point bullets—gear designed for the battlefield, more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year (many for routine police tasks, resulting in losses of life and property), and profit-driven schemes that add to the government’s largesse such as asset forfeiture, where police seize property from “suspected criminals.”

According to the Washington Post, these funds have been used to buy guns, armored cars, electronic surveillance gear, “luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.” Police seminars advise officers to use their “department wish list when deciding which assets to seize” and, in particular, go after flat screen TVs, cash and nice cars.

In Florida, where police are no strangers to asset forfeiture, Florida police have been carrying out “reverse” sting operations, where they pose as drug dealers to lure buyers with promises of cheap cocaine, then bust them, and seize their cash and cars. Over the course of a year, police in one small Florida town seized close to $6 million using these entrapment schemes.

We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments. Despite widespread public opposition, corruption and systemic malfunctions, these cameras—used in 24 states and Washington, DC—are particularly popular with municipalities, which look to them as an easy means of extra cash.

One small Florida town, population 8,000, generates a million dollars a year in fines from these cameras. Building on the profit-incentive schemes, the cameras’ manufacturers are also pushing speed cameras and school bus cameras, both of which result in heft fines for violators who speed or try to go around school buses.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is what happens when the American people get duped, deceived, double-crossed, cheated, lied to, swindled and conned into believing that the government and its army of bureaucrats—the people we appointed to safeguard our freedoms—actually have our best interests at heart.

The problem with these devil’s bargains is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.

We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all: the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot – who claimed last year to have the biggest dick in the city, lost her bid for re-election Tuesday after failing to advance to a runoff in the Chicago mayoral race, according to AP.

The loss makes her the first Chicago mayor to lose re-election since 1983.

Lightfoot finished third with 16.4% of the vote, while former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas finished at 35.02%, and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson at 20.25%. The two will now advance to the April 4 runoff as the two candidates who got the most votes.

“Obviously, we didn’t win the election. But, I stand here with my head held high and my heart full of thanks,” Lightfoot told supporters right before 9 p.m., the Chicago Sun Times reports.

“You will not be defined by how you fall. You will be defined by how hard you work and how much you do for other people.”

Or, in Lightfoot’s case, she will be defined by the following:

• “F**k Clarence Thomas!” Shouts Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot During Pride Parade
• Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Granting Interviews “Only To Black Or Brown Journalists”
• Did Chicago Punish Car Dealership Rocked By $1 Million Theft After Lightfoot Called Owner An “Idiot”?
• Chicago’s Ex-City Attorney Brands Mayor Lori Lightfoot A ‘Disaster’ After $2.9 Million Settlement Over Botched Police Raid
• Chicago Homicide Crisis Worsens As Mayor Lightfoot Fails To Quell Violence
• Illinois Sheriffs Reject Mayor Lightfoot’s Urgent Plea To Cover Police Shortage In Crime-Hit Chicago

“I haven’t been this happy since my son returned from Afghanistan,” said Vallas, adding “We will have a safe Chicago. We will make Chicago the safest city in America.”

Johnson, meanwhile, “appears to have claimed a large share of undecided African-American voters who were “searching” for an alternative to Lightfoot,” according to the Sun Times.

What’s next for Lightfoot?

The global economy is proving resilient in the first two months of 2023. Supply chain snarls are easing, while demand conditions are neither hot nor cold. The post–Covid-19 recovery is on shaky ground as the world awaits a China recovery. 

Bloomberg pointed out that “a large number” of container ships are “positioned near China, waiting for a renewed flow of exports as the world’s second-largest economy recovers from Covid Zero restrictions.” 

“It makes sense to be close to the main export centers, to be in a ready-to-go position,” Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research at maritime consultant Drewry, said. 

Drewry data shows unused vessel capacity began inching up in the second half of 2022 and has since hit the highest level since late 2020. 

A slowdown in shipping comes as major central banks sent interest rates sky-high to tackle out-of-control inflation. This has led to falling global demand for goods and services. 

Spot container freight rates have crashed in the last year. 

Many investors have bet on a Chinese recovery since Beijing disbanded Covid restrictions late last year. But on Tuesday, the Chinese Communist Party warned the foundation of economic recovery is not yet solid, according to Reuters. 

After a three-day meeting, a communique released by the Communist Party’s Central Committee said the economy still faces triple pressures, including demand contraction, supply shock, and sliding expectations. 

FreightWaves pointed out last week, “an unprecedented flood of new container ships is about to enter service.” This would further increase unused vessel capacity as a welcoming sign of lower container rates. 

One thing is clear: The world has entered a period of immense economic uncertainty with no definitive timeline for a robust China recovery. Plus, ultra-hawkish central banks worldwide are dampening demand. 

Frank Andersen, head of Asia at maritime data provider Shipfix, believes a rebound in vessel use is coming, though “these will slowly get activated, although we could see that taking a few more months.” 

Perhaps the China recovery everyone has been expecting won’t be as strong as initially thought. 

Authored by Roger L. Simon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Last week, I had a remarkable phone call with a man or a woman—I am equivocating to protect the identity, though I assure you he or she was one or the other, not in the least transgendered—from my former home in the Los Angeles area, regarding Hollywood and COVID-19 or, as it is known hereabouts, the CCP virus.

Ironically, this was exactly one week before the deadline for Oscar voting. Although no longer working in the industry, I have been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since the mid-’80s, but never have I received so many emails, texts, and phone calls reminding me to vote.

This tells me that other members may be as bored with the process as I am. Who wants to vote in the event, let alone watch it?

Besides being reactionary in its obsession with race and sexual identity, “Woke” Hollywood just isn’t fun (or entertaining) anymore.

Even less fun for all of us was COVID-19, but for Hollywood, it was especially inconvenient because of the stringent California laws that the studios took to with alacrity. You had no career without mRNA certification. You were supposed to be vaccinated just to get on the studio lot.

The phone call I mentioned above was with a person who works in the entertainment industry and said he or she obtained—through connections—vaccination record cards for use by major Hollywood celebrities and others.

These aren’t counterfeits, but actual cards purloined from a hospital pharmacy where the vaccines were sold and included batch numbers but without names attached. In essence, they were contraband.

The person claims to have been inspired to do something for people in the face of forced vaccination after news emerged the virus might have been the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, and that the government had been lying about the pandemic in general.

My interlocutor says he or she began selling the cards in early April 2021. Between then and early October of that year, calls were apparently coming in every day for contraband cards.

The individual estimates that he or she sold at least 250 of the cards during that period. When asked whether he or she was afraid of the Justice Department and IRS because of this, the answer was affirmative.

The celebrities for whom this person made these counterfeits were almost uniformly liberals or progressives, at least publicly. In other words, if you asked them, they supported mandates, masks, and so forth, sometimes adamantly. Behind the scenes was another matter.

The stories this person told me were amusing, nauseating, and, in some sense, edifying all at once. We have long known that Hollywood types are some of the most hypocritical people on the planet—living large while endlessly lecturing the little folk on climate and the rest—but this may take the proverbial cake.

Many of the clients of this person, I was told, were well aware of details of the growing concerns about potential side effects of the vaccines—particularly in the reproductive area. Not surprisingly then, the person estimated 90 percent of the clients were female.

The general state of these people was described as fear and paranoia, reminiscent of the 1980 Lichtenstein-like cartoon in the LA Weekly that showed an anguished female studio executive intoning, “NUCLEAR WAR? There goes my career!”

It didn’t always go well.

One of my informant’s clients—a well-known entertainer whose name I was assured I would know—was allegedly upset that a favorite local sports team was demanding proof of vaccination for entry, even at the VIP entrance.

So this person apparently panicked when offered a card by my interlocutor. It was said there would be ushers at all entrances with iPads, checking the cards against the California state database.

My informant replied the database was hodgepodge—apparently, 30 percent of vaccinations were never recorded—and that the celeb should just insist the card was valid, loudly, if necessary, and all would be well. The entertainer apparently replied that was fine for the man and woman on the street, but if the celeb made a fuss, it would be on TMZ before morning, a career-ender like the 1980s cartoon.

The celeb ended up giving the VIP tickets, sans card, to the entertainer’s manager, only to find out later that no one was at the door checking anything.

Read more here…

A total of 7.2 percent of U.S. adults identified as LGBT in 2022, a new record high.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, Gen Z, newly added in the Gallup survey‘s 2020 edition, is the gayest generation in terms of self-identification.

Almost 20 percent of those born between 1997 and 2004 identified as LGBT, compared with around 11 percent of Millennials.

You will find more infographics at Statista

While scientists believe that the share of LGBT individuals has not actually changed over time, younger people in the U.S. are more likely to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual.

Even within the generation of Millennials, defined as those born between 1981 and 1996, self-identification quotas rose in the past years. In 2014, only 6.3 percent of Millennials had said they identified as LGBT.

For older generations, levels of self-identification did not change majorly in the past decade.

The Gallup survey question did not ask respondents to identify as other sexes, sexual identities or sexual orientations like intersex, asexual or queer.

Authored by Graham Young via The Epoch Times,

Inflation is rising everywhere, which does not mean it’s not a problem for politicians in Australia, just that they are a subset of politicians everywhere.

So we are seeing a global hunt for alibis and scapegoats.

In Australia,  the federal government and the union movement have chosen business—in particular mining and food—as their fall guy.

There are a bunch of reasons why inflation is up.

One is that demand is stronger than normal, but the supply of goods hasn’t kept up due to logistical problems left-over from COVID and normal resource scarcity.

The reason demand has exploded is that money that couldn’t be spent for two years is being spent quickly and immediately. This is being funded by savings that accrued while most of us had our “gap year” for COVID and couldn’t travel or go out.

No blame accrues there, apart from the fact they collectively shut us down when the pandemic handbook said that was the last thing you should do.

Blame does accrue to governments who have also fuelled demand by loose monetary policy in the first place, and debt-fuelled expenditures in the second. They are adding record public spending to private spending.

In the U.S. the spending is in packages such as the so-called “Build Back Better” and “Inflation Reduction” Acts.

In Australia, we have various programs initiated by the government for energy transition, aged care, and childcare.

Another reason is that the price of energy has skyrocketed. This is partly a result of the war in Ukraine, but the stats show prices rising well before then.

This inflation is due to the energy transition, and it will intensify the further we transit into it. While politicians tout wind and solar as “clean, green, and cheap,” they are certainly not cheap, as evident by the rising cost of carbon credits.

This is an outcome of government choice.

Bigger Government, Designating Villain Status to Capitalism

Another driver in Australia that will become more apparent as time goes by is government-driven labour market changes which will make wages artificially higher while decreasing the flexibility of the economy.

Changes like the recent re-introduction of pattern-bargaining, centralised wage fixing, national industry awards, clamping down on the “gig economy,” increasing unionisation, and freeing the CFMEU (the union involved in all infrastructure work) from the oversight of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Inflation has been bubbling away under the surface as variants of Modern Monetary Theory—the idea that governments could borrow and spend what they pleased without risking inflation—leading to insanely low-interest rates and over-extended national “credit cards.”

These inflationary pressures manifested first in rising stock market valuations and then in elevated house prices. Now, they are hitting the hip pocket.

None of this is to the credit of any government, so who to blame if you are intent on re-election?

If your constituency is notionally labour, this is a very easy choice, it must be the capitalists.

And so the intellectual establishments of the Australian left, like The Australia Institute and the ABC, are hard at work fabricating a case for inflation being caused by “profiteering” and “price gouging” by corporate Australia, particularly the energy and mining sector and food.

They also point to an increase in capital profits versus labour as a share of the economy.

Except the facts don’t bear them out.

Energy and mining companies are price takers, with the price of their commodities swinging wildly in tune with small fluctuations in demand and supply.

It was only in 2020 that the price of oil went negative for a brief period, hitting -$37 per barrel (negative US$23) in late April.

For a period of a year or two, their financial statements were swimming in red ink.

Now there is a shortage of supply, partly caused by the war in Ukraine, but mostly by the energy transition, with governments deliberately restricting new oil and gas developments. Purchasers know there is not enough to go around, so they are bidding the price up.

This is how shortages are supposed to be handled—high prices encourage new developments and new supply, which eventually increases supply and lowers cost.

Greedy for Profits or Just Better Business Practice?

You can’t blame the energy companies for taking the prices their customers want to give them.

The argument for food is similarly flawed. Take Woolworths, with 37 percent of the Australian grocery market, who reported their first half results this week. Profit is up 18 percent, but not because food prices are up. Their turnover in food is up only 2.5 percent, less than the rate of inflation.

Increased profit appears to be the result of better management, increased sales in Big W, and rotation from expensive products into cheaper but more profitable home brands.

The Australia Institute’s chief economist Richard Dennis points to an increase in the share of the economy of Capital Profits.

However, as the graph below shows, labour has remained quite stable as a share of the economy, with the greatest retreat being “Gross Mixed Income.”

Analysis by the Reserve Bank of Australia fingers the rise in the housing market and the financialisation of the economy (as it becomes more white-collar) as the reason for these moves.

Labour and Capital Income. (Reserve Bank of Australia)

There is nothing unusual about politicians seeking to implicate someone else in their failures, but there is a real inflationary danger here.

If the public is convinced that it is corporate profit gouging that is causing the problem that can lead to price caps and super-taxes, that actually makes the problems worse.

It can also trigger unsustainable wage rises, meant to rectify the situation but which, in fact, perpetuate the vicious cycle of spiralling price increases and inflation.

By world standards, inflation is relatively low in Australia at the moment. Bad analysis followed by bad policy could change that and entrench high inflation for a lot longer.

Real estate developers in Orange County, California are about to make some dreams come true, after the City Council adopted a plan to build thousands of apartments, lawns, walking trails and other amenities at the Westminster Mall.

The new mall would contain at least 600,000 square feet of retail space, up to 3,000 residential units, and up to 425 hotel rooms – all surrounded by a 17-acre park.

“It was the hip place to be, and it’s really faded out, but it’s just sad to see it go,” said KL DeHart, who grew up in Orange County in the late 1970s, and often wandered the mall with her mother, the LA Times reports.

Hart, a 55-year-old massage therapist who lives near the mall in the house she grew up in is one of the locals who are worried that the new apartments will increase traffic while doing nothing to solve the area’s housing affordability issues.

In Orange County, the San Fernando Valley and suburbs throughout America, the mall was a gathering spot where there were few other places to hang out. It was where kids stocked up on the latest fashions and roamed in packs after school, spawning the term “mall rat.”

The 1980s cult classic “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” began and ended at the mall where the teens worked. In the 1995 film “Clueless,” a Beverly Hills teen retreated to the mall, which she described as a “sanctuary,” after failing to persuade a teacher to boost her grade.

Now, teenagers text with their friends and make TikTok videos. Their parents are more likely to shop online than at a brick-and-mortar store. -LA Times

Orange County, meanwhile, is desperate for new housing as rents and prices skyrocket in an area where there is little to no underdeveloped land.

According to City Manager Christine Cordon, the Westminster Mall is “probably one of the largest areas of developable space that still exists in our time in this area.”

“This is really our opportunity to create something that we can be absolutely proud of for the next generation to create those same fond memories that I have and that others have in a fashion that is consistent with what the times are now,” said Cordon.

According to Shopoff Realty Investments CEO, Bill Shopoff, upscale malls thrive because “they have entertainment, food, there’s a reason to go there,” adding “I think we need to do that in Westminster to create a sense of something.”

And who might be interested in living at the mall? Shopoff – who purchased the Macy’s store and the former Sears store in the Westminster Mall last year – is counting on ‘a modern type of suburban dweller,’ who would rather walk to restaurants and other things than live in a single-family home suburban house with a yard.

Experts say that new laws, along with increased pressure from the state to build more homes, have convinced some local officials who might have been resistant to rezoning commercial properties in the past.

Roughly every eight years, California cities are assigned a certain number of new housing units they’re required to zone for. As part of the 2020 assessment, Orange County needs to make space for about 183,000 new units, shared among all its cities.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two pieces of legislation aimed at spurring housing development in corridors otherwise zoned for large retail and office buildings. -LA Times

“Whether you want to call Orange County urban suburbia or suburban urbanism, it’s definitely shifting,” said Elizabeth Hansburg, People for Housing Orange County co-founder and executive director. “We have an interesting mix of historic districts and tract housing of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and even the ’70s, but I don’t see us building like that again. It’s going to be interesting to see how families evolve in denser spaces.”

Meanwhile, Simon Property Group is reportedly opening additional residential zoning in its Mission Viejo mall, and has proposed redeveloping 15.5 acres of the Brea mall to include apartments, a resort-style fitness center, shops and a large green space.

That said, some of the locals, such as DeHart are furious, and insist they aren’t just NIMBYs.

“That’s not what this is,” she said. “We’re asking legitimate questions, and we’re not getting answers.”

Residents have also voiced concerns about ‘tall residential buildings looming above single-family homes.’

Despite their concerns, city officials such as Laguna Hills Mayor Janine Heft say change is needed.

“There’s a lot of nostalgia for what the mall used to be,” she said. “What we didn’t want was a blight, and that’s really what we had. We had this mall that hadn’t been kept up in years.”