Month: April 2023

Authored by Charles Hugh SMith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Nobody seems to be wondering what happens should the real world no longer respond to the Perpetual Motion Finance Machine.

Scrape away the hand-wringing about interest rates and we find a bedrock of complacency. Nobody seems to doubt that the status quo can grind on for another 30 years doing the same stuff it’s done for the past 30 years.

Japan’s Perpetual Motion Finance Machine can apparently run for another 300 years without a hitch. Here’s how the Perpetual Motion Finance Machine works: the government spends huge sums it doesn’t have by selling bonds to the central bank, which creates the money to buy the bonds out of thin air. Perpetual Motion–perfect!

Japan’s immense success with its Perpetual Motion Finance Machine offers other governments a rock-solid template for permanent funding of all the goodies everyone wants and needs. It’s perpetual motion, nothing can stop it.

This then drives another surefire financial gimmick, the Yen Carry Trade: borrow in yen at near-zero rates and then use the free money to buy US Treasuries yielding 3% or 4%. Free money! This is also assumed to be so ironclad it’s good to go for another 30 years, heck, make it 300 years.

the assumption here is nothing can bring down a system that can create as much money as it needs to solve any spot of bother and we have the past 30 years of history to prove it.

Nobody seems to think there are any constraints on the Perpetual Motion Finance Machine or the alternatives being proposed: crypto, gold-backed currencies, and so on. That these alternatives might fail to solve the underlying problem–there’s no way to keep the Waste Is Growth-Landfill Economy running with solely financial means–that’s impossible. Finance fixes everything.

Until finance in all its flavors is the problem, not the solution. Few seem to ponder the possibility that the whole freaking shebang of debt and leverage might give way and tumble over the cliff regardless of what reforms (gold-backed currencies, etc.) and other financial modifications are instituted.

In other words, few seem willing to entertain the possibility that the system is now beyond the point that a return to stability is possible. In systems terms, the whole shebang (the global financial system and the global economy it enables) has veered so far out of equilibrium that incremental policy tweaks can no longer restore equilibrium.

The dominant dynamic will be wild swings within a widening gyre of instability until the whole shebang unravels. Then there’s the real world, which–and I know this is shocking–can actually trump financial gimmicks.

Imagine the scene on the Titanic when the engineer explains to the captain the ship is doomed because too many watertight compartments have been compromised by the collision with the iceberg, and the captain reassures him: “No worries, we have a printing press on board and we’ll print as much money as we need to repair the ship.” Uh, right.

Yesterday I went to the local outlet of a major national grocery chain to pick up a couple of sale items. I walked around the cavernous store but didn’t spot any hand-baskets, so I asked a clerk, “Did you get rid of the hand-baskets?” She replied, “No, we just don’t have any.”

I submit this as the perfect summary of how the whole shebang unravels. No, we didn’t dispense with X, we just don’t have any.

In other words, we’d be going to Heck in a hand-basket except we’re out of hand-baskets.

This is not an isolated incident. Here are a few more.

1. Tried to reach an office in the healthcare system. Left four polite messages last week, no response. Called the doctor’s office, the staffer said that office is understaffed. Gee, lucky nobody actually needs any prompt response.

2. Submitted a form via their “secure online system” regarding my IRA at a major US bank. No response for several weeks, so I called the number provided and was eventually connected (after many minutes of jarring music) to a support person who wanted to help but did not know what form I was referring to. In other words, every avenue of communication is a dead-end.

3. Another call to Corporate America connected to a support staffer whose English was so poor I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but beyond that, she clearly had not been trained to do the basic functions of her job. So what to do? You know, of course: hang up, spin the roulette wheel and hope for a more competent staffer.

OK, I get it: I’m cursed. The rest of you are getting excellent service from every company, from the DMV, and so on, and there are stacks of hand-baskets waiting to increase your shopping pleasure.

Yes, these are all inconsequential developed-world annoyances. The point isn’t that they’re life-changing, the point is that these systems used to function reliably and now they don’t. This can be written off with various excuses, but what if it’s evidence that the real-world systems we rely on are all sliding toward the cliff edge of systemic dysfunction or breakdown?

One more anecdote. The guy ahead of me in the grocery store line ponied up $255 for a couple bags of groceries and another $22 for some Coors beer. He didn’t look like his household was bringing in $250,000 a year, and yet he didn’t seem troubled by dropping almost $300 for a couple bags of groceries and a few beers. He was clearly price insensitive, i.e. we don’t need no stinking discounts, we pay full pop for whatever we want.

Personally, I would be having a cardiac arrest if all I got for $277 was a couple bags of groceries and a few beers. But again, I guess I’m cursed with frugality and nobody else even cares how much things cost now. A $60,000 pickup truck? No problem, give me two!

Nobody seems to be wondering what happens should the real world no longer respond to the Perpetual Motion Finance Machine. Meanwhile, I’m cursed with the gut feeling that the printing press on board the Titanic isn’t going to keep the whole shebang glued together as long as everyone else seems to think, and that substituting new financial gimmicks won’t restore the system, either.

The lifestyle you ordered is out of stock and we have no idea when the back-order will be filled. But no worries, we’ve got 30 years of history to prove that all we need to do to enjoy 30 more years of Waste Is Growth is play around with various versions of “money,” debt, speculative bubbles and phantom capital.

But really, everything’s FINE (Fragile, Insecure, Nonsensical, Expensive) and it’s all rock-solid for another 30 years. But hey, why be so darned cautious, make that 300 years, we’ve got Perpetual Motion.

New Podcast: Its a Waterfall – Risk, Collateral & Productivity (48 min)

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In this all-encompassing conversation, Matterhorn Asset Management, AG partner, Matthew Piepenburg, meets with the Jay Martin Show to discuss the financial and political forces which daily strengthen the case and role for physical gold.

Centralization of information, politics, digital currencies and reckless monetary policies is a theme which runs throughout this fascinating discussion.

Matthew addresses the consequences of a weaponized reserve currency and an equally politicized/weaponized (i.e., non-transparent/unaccountable) political and media environment to characterize an era of “splintered chaos” in everything from social fracturing to the slow then rapid implosion of financial markets. These forces enhance distrust from the bottom-up colliding from policy failures from the top-down. The subsequent collision historically suggests increased market, military and social stressors followed by less rather than more individual, market and informational freedoms.

Based upon unsustainable debt levels and credit market indicators, Piepenburg foresees a world in which the USD has less rather than more influence in global payment and trade settlements. He tracks the bond market signals from the 2019 repo crisis to the recent collapse of regional banks to confirm credit risks which point to an increased need for synthetic liquidity and inevitable, as well as inflationary, policy reactions to deflationary recession forces.

Gold, of course, loves chaos and broken financial systems marching through and toward classic deflationary to hyper-inflationary cycles. These patterns and debt-strapped doom-loops are clear to any and all who understand the math, history and policies of debt-soaked sovereigns using inflation, currency debasement and war as distractions from—and reactions to—monetary failures created from within.

Piepenburg and Martin pull on many thematic threads (de-dollarization, CBDCs, central bank gold stacking, negative real rates, petrodollar shifts and Powell rate hikes) to make this pattern more apparent.

Watch the full discussion below:

Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,

The “Federal” Reserve – in the usual air-finger-quotes, to emphasize the maliciously disingenuous verbiage, the “Fed” being a conglomeration of private banks that controls the federal government and so, practically everything else, via the issuing of money it creates out of nothing that it loans at interest to the federal government – has up to now been a kind of background evil. Few knew about or understood its machinations – its manipulations – because few had any direct dealings with it.

It was just, you know, the “Fed.”

That is about  to change.

Come July, the Fed will involve itself directly in the affairs of Americans, via Fed Now – a chirpily named etiolation of the “Fed’s” manipulation of the nation’s money supply. The object now isn’t manipulation as much as it is habituation.

To “federal” control over what you are allowed to buy and sell with the digital money it controls. FedNow is the Beta version of what is meant to become the Fed’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). It is just a matter of getting people used to it. As they got used to wearing Face Diapers. To being fondled as a condition of travel. To election months rather than election day. And so many other such things. All in good time, my pretty, the wicked witch says.

As things have stood since the creation of the “Fed” by the private banks – by the rich men that controlled those banks – using their riches to buy politicians such as Nelson Aldrich (whose daughter married a Rockefeller, who gave birth to politician Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller) the “fed” has controlled the economy via its control of the money used by the economy.

It has used what is styled “inflation” to devalue the buying power of money and so egg-on people to spend it before it buys less. This discourages savings and rewards profligacy, which profits the “Fed” and those close to it via the encouraging of debt-based living, upon which the banks and related institutions feed, via the interest they collect. The end result is a society in which the banks own almost everything that matters, while most people pay interest on debt most of their lives, many of them ending their lives with little to show for it.

But impoverishing people by eroding their wealth and keeping them chained to debt is only a partial solution as there are still people who find a way to live within their means, avoid debt and – worst of all – avoid being controlled. They are the people who aren’t wage slaves, who deal in cash, anonymously – and by dint of that, avoid what are styled “taxes,” the legalized robbery committed by the government that is the tag-team enserfer of the American people, along with “inflation.” If money retained its buying power – if it were not made of paper – and if people weren’t robbed of their money – most people would have money enough to live comfortably and, most of all, they would  be largely immune to much of the bullying so many currently endure at the hands of the government-corporate nexus.

The “Fed” being one of the first mergers of the two when it was created back in 1913 – courtesy of the services rendered by bought-and-paid-for politicians such as Senator Nelson Aldrich. The latter was also instrumental – uncoincidentally – in the passage of the 16th Amendment, which legalized the federal income tax. So as to assure the people would be robbed of their money when they earned it as well as their money robbed of its value when they spent (or tried to save) it.

Now the nexus wants to assure that people who have managed to escape these forms of control will be placed under control – by making it so that every transaction they make is known – or put another way, they will make it impossible for anyone to make any transaction without it being known.

And subject to approval as well as immediate robbery.

The “Fed” – which is to say, the nexus – would know every last detail of your financial life, down to the can of soda you just bought – using their app in lieu of cash. You will pay every cent of what they say you “owe” in taxes. The good news is it will probably no longer be necessary to file taxes every April. The bad news is you’ll be paying taxes – all of them – all year long. No more under-the-table cash transactions, the latter imputed with disreputability – as if it were disreputable to hide one’s money from those who would rob one of it.

But the worst part isn’t the being rendered naked and defenseless before the robbers. It is that the robbers will be able to tell you what you may – and may not – do with whatever they leave you after they rob you.

When they can prevent you from buying, you will only be able to buy with their permission. Which will only be granted if you are obedient. Easy – instantaneously –  when money becomes a digitized app, the app under their control

The main reason the “pandemic” didn’t achieve its ends entirely was that millions were able to ignore it and go about their lives – and their business. Especially those who operated outside of the grasp of the nexus, being self-employed or self-sufficient. They could buy food; they could buy fuel. Thus, they were able to say a stalwart No to face diapers and the drugs pushed by the nexus. They are still able to not buy an EV – and drive an SUV – to and from their single family home, which isn’t an apartment in a 15 Minute City.

It will be much harder to say No – to anything – when the nexus can say No, to them.

Attention, citizen! There is a climate lockdown in effect. Shelter in place. Await instructions.

Or else.

This is what FedNow is all about. Not immediately, of course. But piece-by-piece. Just as the income tax was only paid – at first – by the “rich.” Who of course didn’t pay it, being rich enough to pay politicians to enact exemptions and “write-offs” so as to ameliorate the burden, which was quickly passed on to the middle and working classes, who could not afford to buy politicians.

FedNow is presented as innocuous and even helpful. Instantaneous transfer of money! Avoid those late fees! Pay at the very last second, anytime you like!

“FedNow is the Federal Reserve’s new instant payment service that will enable customers at participating banks and credit unions to send and receive money within seconds, 24/7 and every day. You’d be able to complete payments or transfers on weekends, holidays and after banks’ business hours.”

The head of the “Fed” – Jerome Powell – says “What FedNow will do is it will enable all the banks, any bank in the United States — not just the big ones — to offer instantly available funds and real-time payments to their customers.”

And many other things besides.

This is poison. Cancer. We will not survive it if it is not excised, then burned and the ashes scattered to the winds. The nexus intends to “launch” FedNow in July. If we do not wish to be controlled – utterly and implacably and forever – this “launch” must be met with resistance. This option is still available to us – in the form of not having anything to do with it. Or the banks that are involved with it.

No is an immensely powerful weapon. If only people would learn to use it.

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Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A former US Army psychological warfare officer says that Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox News because of the regime’s agenda to maintain an “uninformed semi lobotomized quasi retarded population.”

The remarks were made by US counter-terror expert Scott Bennett.

Carlson and Fox News “parted ways” on Monday with speculation still raging as to the specific reason why the network canned its highest rated and most popular host.

According to Bennett, Carlson posed too much of a threat to institutional power because he turned Americans into proper “researchers and thinkers”.

Carlson offered an “intellectualism, truthfulness, and an analytical depth that no other news personality has ever done in the history of the United States as far back as I can remember,” said Bennett.

Tucker needed to be “silenced” because he represented too big a threat to the “powers and principalities, institutions and agendas that seek an unenlightened uninformed semi lobotomized quasi retarded population that do not question, do not research, do not analyze but simply digest and follow instructions,” according to Bennett.

“Tucker Carlson also exposed the fraud and money laundering racketeering crimes of FTX and the Democrat Party in Ukraine involving the United States government. He exposed the US biochemical labs in Ukraine and their connection to the Democrat Party, President Barack Obama, Vice President Biden, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates, and other US government agencies and pharmaceutical companies,” Bennett told Sputnik.

The ex-host’s anti-regime rhetoric “could no longer be tolerated by the corrupt American media and political establishment,” said Bennett, adding that his exit signals “the death of American media”.

The former US army psyops officer suggested that Senator Chuck Schumer had threatened to utilize the CIA and the FBI to deploy secret government operations against Tucker to get him off air unless he was fired.

Schumer previously called for Carlson to be taken off air after he broadcast footage showing the January 6 ‘riot’ leaders were actually allowed into the Capitol and chaperoned around by authorities.

As we highlighted earlier, one of the reasons behind Tucker’s dismissal is a lawsuit fired by former show producer Abby Grossberg, who claims she was bullied and subjected to sexist and anti-semitic harassment.

However, Grossberg’s own lawyer revealed that she has never even met Carlson.

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It looks as though it isn’t just Tesla participating in a price cut war to win business.

Stellantis’ Citroen is also joining the fray, according to Bloomberg, who reported on Thursday that the brand is now going to focus more on making “accessible” cars. CEO Thierry Koskas is likely targeting an ongoing cost-of-living crisis taking place in Europe, the report said. 

The manufacturer is targeting India, South East Asia and South American markets with its new India-made C3 Aircross SUV, according to the note. Koskas said India “is a very specific market. We can only establish ourselves here if we design vehicles for India that can be built in India with as much local content as possible.”

He continued: “We are not a low-cost brand but we need products targeted to our customers’ needs. Citroen clients don’t need technology Christmas trees or screens everywhere.”

The company is launching an “international offensive” with hopes of expanding beyond Europe, Bloomberg wrote. 

Tesla also recently “cut prices in numerous European markets including Germany and France because of a scaling up and improvement in its production capacity.” 

Prices in Germany for the Model 3 and Model Y were cut between 4.5% and 9.8%, marking the second price cut for the country this year, the report says. Singapore saw price cuts of between 4.3% and 5% and Israel saw price cuts of an astounding 25% for the base rear-wheel drive Model 3. 

Pricing is becoming an issue not just overseas, but also in the United States. The company closed its first quarter with record deliveries hitting over 423,000 units worldwide, using price cuts throughout the quarter to help move metal. As Bloomberg calculated last week, the latest price cuts on the Model Y makes it a third cheaper than it was at the start of the year, in part due to the introduction of a new lowest level trim.

The most recent cuts to Model X and Model S prices came on March 6, a little more than a month ago, when the company reduced the starting prices for the S and X in the US by 5.3% and 9.1%, respectively, to $89,990 and $99,990. Additionally, the higher-performance Plaid version of the Model S and X had been lowered by 4.3% and 8.3%.

Via Remix News,

The Russian tennis player Vitalia Diatchenko was denied permission to board a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Cairo to Warsaw. LOT representatives stated that they acted in accordance with the law and cited regulations put into place after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian tennis player recently competed in Egypt, where she won only one match and was scheduled to play in the Ladies Open de Calvi-Eaux de Zilla tournament in Corsica, but ultimately did not participate due to her travel difficulties.

Diatchenko expressed her frustration on social media, revealing that she had letters of support from the WTA and ITF, and documents confirming that her father was born in Ukraine and works in the United Nations.

She also tried to board a Lufthansa flight, but the German airline also denied her entry.

“(I was) stuck for 18 hours in Cairo airport, sleeping on benches, no food available and not allowed to leave the airport! I was treated like a 3rd class citizen and spent a couple of thousand euros,” wrote Diatchenko in a social media entry.

The incident highlights the restrictions that citizens of the Russian Federation face after Russian aggression against Ukraine.

These restrictions prevent Russians from entering Polish territory, including air and sea borders, for economic, sports, tourist, or cultural purposes.

LOT representatives stated that they acted in accordance with the law introduced after the war in Ukraine broke out, and there were no shortcomings on their part.

Russian media accused the Polish side of discrimination and Russophobia. Diatchenko’s compatriots are urging her to fight for compensation and damages for what they see as an unjust decision by the Polish carrier.

Vitalia Diatchenko is currently ranked in the top 300 in the world; her highest ranking was 71st in November 2014. Her greatest achievement was reaching the third round of the Wimbledon Grand Slam five years ago. She defeated Maria Sharapova and Sofia Kenin, the later Australian Open champion, on her way to the third round.

Climate activists in Berlin have taken their idiocy to a new level – deploying a new type of glue which, when applied to a human hand and a roadway, requires a jackhammer to remove.

Members of the group Last Generation descended upon Berlin earlier this week, gluing themselves to streets all over the German capital, where they blocked roads in an effort to pressure the government to take more drastic action against climate change. (So they want the nuclear plants back online?)

“We will no longer accept that the government has no plan to stop the destruction of our livelihoods,” said Last Generation in a statement, adding “We are resisting now.“

More than 30 roads were blocked according to German news agency DPA.

According to the Berlin police, up to 500 officers were on the streets in the city all day to prevent the blockades or end them quickly, dpa reported. A police helicopter was hovering over the city to alert colleagues on the ground about the blockades as well.

The group said last week that its members would step up their actions in the coming days and try to “peacefully bring the city to a standstill.” –AP

According to the report, “In some cases, it took more time than in the past to detach protesters from the streets because some of them used a different kind of glue this time. Instead of using oil to detach the protesters’ hands from the streets, officers had to use tools and damage the asphalt to remove the protesters.”

Last Generation is demanding that German cease the use of all fossil fuels in the next 6.5 years, and want short-term measures in the meantime, including a 62-mph (100 km/hr) speed limit on highways in order to curb transport emissions.

Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Monday that the current administration has done a lot to curb emissions.

“We are a parliamentary democracy. There are possibilities to express criticism. I have my doubts that such massive disruptions of public order and the like serve the intended purpose,” he said. “Naturally we don’t support such forms of protest.”

Asked whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to meet with the activists, like other politicians have and are planning to, Hebestreit said he wasn’t aware of any appointments.

“Such talks make particular sense if one wants to exchange views and not if the aim is to force through maximum demands,” he added.

Transport Minister Volker Wissing, who has rejected the demand for a speed limit, plans to meet activists on May 2. He has sharply criticized the group for its road blockades in the past. -AP

Really makes you think…