Month: June 2023

Authored by Brian McGlinchey via starkrealities.substack.com 

As the latest debt-ceiling drama winds down, Americans are varyingly exasperated, angered, anxious and maybe even a little bit entertained by the spectacle.

While their emotions vary, most citizens have something in common: They don’t realize they’re being misled about the actual depth of their government’s financial disorder. Despite all the talk of the federal government hitting a Congressionally-set $31.4 trillion debt limit, the truth is that DC’s actual liabilities are far higher than even that disturbing number.

Estimates by the relatively few scholars and organizations who venture to expose Washington’s charade vary, but they overwhelmingly place the federal government’s true total obligations at over $100 trillion. For example, Truth In Accounting’s latest tally puts Uncle Sam’s total IOUs at $156 trillion.

The frequently-mentioned $31 trillion “national debt” figure only encompasses Treasury borrowing in the form of bills, notes and bonds. Critically, it doesn’t include unfunded liabilities. That’s the term for financial promises the government has made without having money set aside to fulfill them.

America’s unfunded liabilities span three main categories of promised future benefits:

• Federal employee and military veteran pensions and benefits.

• Social Security retirement income and disability insurance

• Medicare benefits

Calculations of the present value of unfunded liabilities vary, because they require assumptions about variables including future interest rates, life expectancies and the cost of health care.

Each year, the Treasury produces a mammoth report summarizing the federal government’s financial situation. While the Treasury presents the national debt as it’s commonly understood, and separately presents its own calculation of unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and similar programs, nowhere in 258 pages does the department combine those numbers and present the hideous $100-trillion-plus total.

The absence of that grand total is no oversight: Letting citizens see the stark reality of the government’s financial condition simply isn’t in the interest of our rulers, whether they’re on the blue team or the red one.

Counting only Treasury borrowing, the federal government’s $31 trillion debt equates to 117% of the country’s $26.5 trillion gross domestic product (GDP), a figure that approximates the country’s annual economic production. That’s alarming enough, but if we use Truth in Accounting’s numbers, the total is a jarring 589% of GDP.

Providing a more relatable perspective, the Chicago-based watchdog group says the “true national debt” comes out to $933,000 per taxpayer.

As I wrote in November, the federal government’s path to financial calamity is hardwired into the budget process, as so-called “mandatory spending” on programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid now represent a whopping 71% of the US budget, more than double the share in 1965.

Meanwhile, interest payments alone are consuming ever-higher shares of federal revenues:

There’s good reason why the government chooses not to illuminate citizens about the true national debt. After all, if more Americans grasped the full scope of Washington’s fiscal insanity, they would:

• Understand that promised Social Security and Medicare benefits are unsustainable — particularly for the youngest Americans, who are currently compelled to fund benefits for older Americans in a coercive Ponzi scheme

• Be less likely to support costly foreign interventionism, to include the more than $113 billion already spent on the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine — more Americans would question the premise that their security is impacted by who controls Ukraine’s heavily ethnic-Russian Donbas region.

• Toss aside the rose-colored glasses through which they view big-spending proposals, like last summer’s $375 billion package to fund a crony-enriching and quixotic battle against climate change

• Apply greater scrutiny to military spending, with more people questioning why the Pentagon should spend more than $7.3 trillion over the next 10 years — more than it spent in the decade that encompassed the peak of US warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan

• Cast a harsher eye on thinly-disguised vote-buying schemes — from student debt cancellation to reparations for black people — and increasingly disfavor all varieties of wealth redistribution, from subsidies for Iowa farmers to (illegal) aid for Israel.

Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com 

Nearly 800,000 Maryland drivers sporting the War of 1812 license plate have a URL on the bottom that now links to a website promoting an online casino based in the Philippines. 

The license plate issued between 2012-16 has the URL www.starspangled200.org printed at the bottom. The website once informed people about the American patriot Francis Scott Key and the history of the War of 1812 when the British bombarded Fort McHenry in downtown Baltimore City.

Domain registration information shows that starspangled200.org has since been re-registered to “Philippines Best Betting Site, Deposit 100 Receive 250.” 

A Redditor earlier this week first spotted the change. They said, “I was never a fan of having a plate celebrating the War of 1812, but I’m even more upset now that I (and tons of other Marylanders) are driving advertisements for international online gambling.”

A Maryland Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Administration spokesperson told local news Fox5 that it “does not endorse the views or content on the current website using that URL, and is working with the agency’s IT department to identify options to resolve the current issue.” 

Nearly 800,000 Marylanders are driving billboards for a Philippines casino. Great job, MVA… 

 

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Major brands such as Bud Light and Target, among others, are facing immense backlash from supporting LGBTQ causes, with the market capitalization of the firms crashing by double digits in recent weeks.

Stores of Target were boycotted after the retail giant rolled out its Pride collection at the beginning of May, including some items targeted at children. Between May 1 and May 30, Target’s market capitalization fell from $72.52 billion to $61.78 billion—a decline of 14.80 percent. Bud Light became a target after partnering with transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney in a promotional campaign in April. Between April 3 and May 30, the market cap of Anheuser-Busch, which owns Bud Light, fell from $132.06 billion to $108.19 billion—a decrease of over 18 percent.

Target shares were trading at $130.93 as of 06:07 EDT, June 1, down 13.71 percent year to date and at a fresh 52-week low. It is the stock’s longest losing streak since November 2018. Shares of Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA were trading at €49.97, down 12.18 percent for the year.

In addition to Target and Bud Light, several other companies, including PetSmart, Chick-fil-A, and Walmart, are also now facing boycott calls due to their endorsement of the LGBTQ agenda.

A major factor enticing brands to increasingly promote transgender ideologies is an attempt to score points on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards used by several high-profile investors.

Target

Target rolled out its Pride collection at the beginning of the month, offering over 2,000 products, including clothing, books, home furnishings, and calendars, among others. Some of the items were targeted at children.

For example, books for kids aged 2–8 had titles like “Pride 1,2,3,” “Bye Bye, Binary,” and “I’m Not a Girl.” Target also suggested “The Pronoun Book” to kids aged 0–3. In home décor, Target offered mugs labeled “Gender Fluid.” It also offered transgender swimsuits for adults with a “tuck-friendly” feature.

The company’s actions attracted a lot of negative reactions online, eventually leading to a boycott call. The firm then decided to remove some of the controversial items.

Target’s 2022 ESG report shows that at least 51 percent of its suppliers are “owned, controlled, and operated by women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, veterans, or people with disabilities.” In addition, 59 percent of their Pride Month assortment was created by LGBT creators and brands.

Target has also donated $2.1 million to New York City-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), an activist group that puts LGBTQ-themed books in K–12 school libraries and encourages teachers to discuss sex and gender with kids.

Bud Light

In April, Anheuser-Busch sent custon Bud Light beer cans to Mulvaney featuring the trans-activist’s face, a move that was criticized as pushing the transgender agenda. The can was created to celebrate a full year of Mulvaney transitioning to “girlhood.” In the ad, Mulvaney is shown promoting Bud Light drinks with the hashtag #budlightpartner.

As the promotional campaign went viral, criticism started to pour in. Mike Crispi, a podcast host and former Republican New Jersey primary candidate for Congress, called for a boycott. “Boycott Bud Light and NEVER DRINK IT AGAIN EVER,” he said in a tweet on April 3.

The campaign has been devastating for the company’s sales numbers.

Data by Bump Williams Consulting and Nielsen IQ reported by the New York Post showed that sales of Bud Light fell by 25.7 percent for the week ended May 20.

As for ESG policies, Anheuser-Busch’s 2022 ESG report (pdf) shows that the company has created employee resource group (ERG) toolkits focusing on “LGBTQ+, gender, and racial equity.”

PetSmart

Pet products retailer PetSmart faced backlash for its “You Are Loved” collection that was launched just days before the June Pride Month.

The collection featured rainbow-colored toys, clothes, and other items like aquarium ornaments and dog bandanas that had the words “pride vibes” emblazoned on them.

The company’s offerings for dogs include a Pride dog bikini. For cats, rainbow-colored collars and tents are on offer. PetSmart provides “Pride wings” costumes and “Pride vibes” tank tops for reptiles.

Similar to Target, PetSmart also carries a partnership with GLSEN, having made contributions totaling $600,000—with $200,000 made this year alone.

Chick-Fil-A

Fast-food chain Chick-fil-A came under recent scrutiny after the firm was discovered to have hired a vice president of “diversity, equity, [and] inclusion,” or DEI.

“We have a problem,” Joey Mannarino, a conservative host highlighting Chick-fil-A’s prior announcement, wrote on Twitter on May 30. “Chick-fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?”

“Chick-fil-A isn’t the Lord’s Chicken anymore … it’s the Woke Chicken … Funding ties also to BlackRock and Vanguard in addition to hiring for DEI to up their ESG scores,” Morgonn McMichael, a contributor at Turning Point USA, said in a June 1 tweet.

Chick-fil-A used to support organizations perceived as anti-LGBTQ. But in 2019, the company changed its stance and said that it would extend support to other charities. As part of the restructure, Chick-fil-A stopped donating to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA).

Walmart

After Target, Walmart is another retailer under scrutiny for its LGBT support. The company’s July 2022 ESG report states that it conducts an “inclusive sourcing” program for LGBTQ groups. “For our U.S. businesses, we sourced more than $13.3 billion in goods and services from approximately 2,600 diverse suppliers.”

Walmart received a full 100 points on The Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI). In order to obtain a perfect CEI score, an organization has to donate to LGBTQ causes as well as refuse to donate to non-religious organizations that oppose such causes. The organization must also support gender transitioning.

In 2021, Walmart donated $500,000 to PFLAG, the largest organization in the United States that advocates for LGBTQ causes.

Walmart is also offering Pride products. A controversial product being offered by the company is a “breathable” chest binder aimed at “trans, lesbian, and tomboys.” The binder, offered online, features pictures of a young girl modeling the product.

GLSEN

GLSEN, the organization to which Target and PetSmart made donations, has a “Rainbow Library” program under which the nonprofit has sent more than 46,000 “LGBTQ+ affirming K-12 books” to over 4,600 schools across the nation. GLSEN also encourages teachers to incorporate gender and sex discussions in topics like mathematics.

Among the list of books that GLSEN wants elementary school students to read is “When Aidan Became a Brother,” which is a story about a couple who “fixed the parts of life that didn’t fit anymore” after their daughter told them she “felt more like a boy.”

Read more here…

Authored by ‘Robert Kogon’ via The Brownstone Institute,

So, word has it that Twitter has withdrawn from the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, a fact that appears only to be known thanks to a couple of pissy tweets from EU officials. I cannot help but wonder if this is not finally Elon Musk’s response to the question I asked in my article here several weeks ago: namely, how can a self-styled “free-speech absolutist” be part of a “Permanent Task-Force on Disinformation” that is precisely a creation of the EU’s Code?

But does it matter? The answer is no. The withdrawal of Twitter’s signature from the Code is a highly theatrical, but essentially empty gesture, which will undoubtedly serve to shore up Musk’s free speech bad-boy bona fides, but has virtually no practical consequences. 

This is because: (1) as I have discussed in various articles (for instance, here and here), the effect of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) is to render the hitherto ostensibly voluntary commitments undertaken in the Code obligatory for all so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and (2) as discussed here, the European Commission just designated a whole series of entities as VLOPs that were never signatories of the Code.

Twitter is thus in no different a position than Amazon, Apple and Wikipedia, none of which were ever signatories of the Code, but all of which will be expected by the EU to comply with its censorship requirements on the pain of ruinous fines. 

As EU officials like to put it, the DSA transformed the “code of practice” into a code of conduct: i.e. you had better do it or else.

Compliance is thus not a matter of a signature. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. And the fact of the matter is that Musk and Twitter are complying with the EU’s censorship requirements. Much of the programming that has gone into the Twitter algorithm is obviously designed for this very purpose.

What, for instance, are the below lines of code?

They are “safety labels” that have been included in the algorithm to restrict the visibility of alleged “misinformation.” Furthermore – leaving aside the handy “generic misinfo” catch-all – the general categories of “misinformation” used exactly mirror the main areas of concern targeted by the EU in its efforts to “regulate” online speech: “medical misinfo” in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, “civic misinfo” in the context of issues of electoral integrity, and “crisis misinfo” in the context of the war in Ukraine.

Indeed, as Elon Musk and his lawyers certainly know, the final version of the DSA includes a “crisis response mechanism,” (Art. 36) which is clearly modeled on the European Commission’s initially ad hoc response to the Ukraine crisis and which requires platforms to take special measures to mitigate crisis-related “misinformation.” 

In its January submission to the EU (see reports archive here), in the section devoted precisely to its efforts to combat Ukraine-war-related “misinformation,” Twitter writes (pp. 70-71): 

“We … use a combination of technology and human review to proactively identify misleading information. More than 65% of violative content is surfaced by our automated systems, and the majority of remaining content we enforce on is surfaced through regular monitoring by our internal teams and our work with trusted partners.”

How is this not compliance? Or at least a very vigorous effort to achieve it? And the methodology outlined is presumably used to “enforce on” other types of “mis-“ or “disinformation” as well.

Finally, what is the below notice, which many Twitter users recently received informing them that they are not eligible to participate in Twitter Ads because their account as such has been labeled “organic misinformation?”

Why in the world would Twitter turn away advertising business? The answer is simple and straightforward: because none other than the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation requires it to do so in connection with the so-called “demonetization of disinformation.” 

Thus, section II(d-f) of the Code reads:

(d) The Signatories recognise the need to combat the dissemination of harmful Disinformation via advertising messages and services.

(e) Relevant Signatories recognise the need to take granular and tailored action to address Disinformation risks linked to the distribution of online advertising. Actions will be applicable to all online advertising.

(f) Relevant Signatories recognise the importance of implementing policies and processes not to accept remuneration from Disinformation actors, or otherwise promote such accounts and websites.

So, in short, vis-à-vis the EU and its Code, Twitter is complying, not defying. Removing Twitter’s signature from the Code when its signature is no longer required on the Code anyway is not defiance. Among other things, not labeling content and/or users as “misinformation,” not restricting the visibility of content and/or users so labeled, and accepting advertising from whomever has the money to pay would be defiance.

But the EU’s response to such defiance would undoubtedly be something more than tweets. It would be the mobilization of the entire punitive arsenal contained in the DSA and, in particular, the threat or application of the DSA fines of 6 percent of the company’s global turnover.

It is not enough to (symbolically) withdraw from the Code of Practice to defy the EU. Defying the EU would require Twitter to withdraw from the EU altogether.

Chinese scientists broke ground Tuesday on a planned 10,000-meter (32,808) foot hole into the Earth’s crust – the country’s deepest ever borehole according to Bloomberg, citing the Xinhua state-run news agency.

The shaft will penetrate over 10 continental strata, or layers of rock, and will reach the cretaceous system in the earth’s crust which dates back some 145 million years. The project will provide data on Earth’s internal structure, as well as prove up underground drilling technologies, according to China’s National Petroleum Corp., which is in charge of the 457-day project.

The effort could be used to identify mineral resources as well as help assess environmental risks such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

“The construction difficulty of the drilling project can be compared to a big truck driving on two thin steel cables,” said Sun Jinsheng, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, in a statement to Xinhua.

President Xi Jinping called for greater progress in deep Earth exploration in a speech addressing some of the nation’s leading scientists in 2021. -Bloomberg

The current record for a hole bored into the earth is the Russian Kola Superdeep Borehole, which has a recorded depth of 40,230 feet (12,262 meters) and was completed in 1989 after 20 years of drilling.

For reference, the earth’s crust is an average of 30 km (19 miles) thick.

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com,

ExxonMobil and Chevron could gain access to Algeria’s vast natural gas resources as the U.S. supermajors are in advanced talks for exploration and production deals in the North African country, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, quoting sources with knowledge of the talks and Algerian Energy Minister Mohamed Arkab.

Algeria holds huge conventional natural gas reserves, and it is also estimated to have the third–largest shale gas reserves in the world after China and Argentina.

ExxonMobil and Chevron could complete the talks on the deals with Algerian state-held oil and gas firm Sonatrach by the end of this year, the sources told the Journal.

“I am pushing Sonatrach,” Arkab told the WSJ, “because we need to increase our volumes.”

Sonatrach is discussing the terms of agreements with Exxon and Chevron which would include both conventional and shale gas reserves exploration. 

Earlier this year, the Journal reported that Chevron had increased efforts to reach an energy exploration agreement with Algeria and was assessing the North African country’s estimated huge shale gas resources.

Most of Algeria’s gas exports are heading to Europe, which is increasingly betting on Africa to import large volumes of pipeline gas and LNG to replace pipeline gas supply from Russia, which was Europe’s top gas supplier before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Italy’s energy major, Eni, has been particularly active in securing more natural gas supply for Europe from Africa and has fast-tracked projects in Africa to meet Europe’s gas demand in the absence of Russian pipeline deliveries.

At the announcement of the 2022 results in February, Descalzi said, “During the year, we were able to finalize agreements and activities to fully replace Russian gas by 2025, leveraging our strong relationships with producing states and fast-track development approach to ramp-up volumes from Algeria, Egypt, Mozambique, Congo and Qatar.”

While the IMF is currently gearing up to introduce its new global CBDC system called the UMU (also known as the Unicoin), The Bank for International Settlements has been busy with multiple projects designed to centralize all international banks and central banks into a single umbrella network that allows for quick cross-border transactions using digital currencies.  In other words, a cashless society.   

One such concept, called Project Icebreaker, dealt specifically with creating a SWIFT-like bottleneck system which would allow global banks to regulate and eventually homogenize all currencies into a single one world exchange model that would give them the power to cut out any nation or company that does not meet their ideological approval.

The latest idea from the BIS is Project Aurora, which may be even more disturbing than Icebreaker in its implications.  Aurora is designed to use “machine learning” (AI) as a tool to monitor vast flows of financial transactions from all over the world in order to identify specifically flagged patterns.  The BIS says that this is meant to discover criminal money laundering structures protected by “money mules.”  However, in order for the AI to sift through global transactions in real time, corporate banks and governments would have to create extensive streamlined access to accounts then open the doors wide for the AI to operate with impunity.  

Some banks are already implementing their own private AI monitoring systems to catch unusual account activities, but Aurora would require international access on a scale that would be incredible as well as horrifying.

Much like the drug war was used as a rationale in the US and Europe to give governments unfettered access to citizen finances; a power which has since been abused in a number of ways (in some cases accounts can be seized on the mere suspicion of a crime, rather than conviction), Aurora relies on the bogeyman of money laundering to give governments and global banks vast surveillance powers.  The project’s focus on AI is presented as if this will protect individual privacy, but all AI programs serve their makers.  Whoever controls the AI also controls who the AI targets.

The idea of a worldwide AI integrated bank monitoring system in the hands of the BIS or other globalist institutions is immensely dangerous.  One could even imagine a future in which personal accounts are frozen regularly for any number of infractions, from financial to political.       

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

China’s halting recovery will keep the slowing inflation trend gathering pace around the world intact for now, allowing central banks to take their foot off the tightening pedal.

The global disinflationary trend is in full swing. Virtually every country has seen a slowdown in its annual inflation rate.

This is likely to continue for the time being given the situation in China. After another false start, China’s outlook has taken a negative turn.

Real-estate activity continues to decline, house-price growth is low, yields have started to fall again, and imports have dropped, reflecting stagnating demand.

The typically sure-fire sign all is not well in China is when capital outflow picks up, and that is what appears to be happening. The chart below shows a proxy for capital outflow, based on the difference between FX-reserve accumulation and the trade surplus.

In short, if reserves are not growing despite China running a large trade surplus, this tells us capital must be leaking abroad (which, officially, it does not as China has a (nominally) closed capital account).

This also explains the yuan’s depreciation. The fact China has not been leaning against the weakening currency tells us they are allowing it to decline as a pressure valve to ease the capital outflow.

China’s slowdown will keep pressure off commodity prices, and therefore allow global disinflation to continue. However, watch for signs when China is likely to re-stimulate – perhaps in a “flood-like” manner – as a sign for when the disinflationary trend could, in the following three-to-six months, reverse.

The inflation lull will allow the Federal Reserve and other central banks more leeway to ease back for now, but they may be back sooner than they would like when China decides enough is enough.

Adding more evidence to our previous note, “There Goes The US Consumer,” is new data that shows monthly Swiss watch exports to the US declined in April for the first time in two years. The significance of this data might reveal wealthy individuals are reducing their spending, particularly on luxury items, such as timepieces, amid fears of recession. 

On Thursday, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry released a report that shows exports to the US fell 4.9%. The decline was the first since Jan. 2021. Besides the US, Singapore recorded a monthly decline. However, Swiss watch exports to China recorded a massive surge due to the reopening of its economy following several years of draconian lockdowns.

Bloomberg pointed out that Patek Philippe, Oris, and Zenith have recently warned about sliding demand for their products. 

Despite weakness in the US and Singapore, total Swiss watch export continued higher in April, increasing by 6.8%. Moreover, the exports are up 10.5% in the first four months of the year. 

Another sign of US consumer weakness is the Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index, which tracks prices for the 50 most-traded watches by value on the secondary market, showing prices are down 26% over the last 12 months.

Slumping US demand for luxury timepieces is more evidence consumers are dialing back spending as the Federal Reserve has aggressively raised interest rates in the last 14 months and risks sparking a recession. 

All of this adds to the narrative the luxury bubble just “burst.”