Month: June 2023

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

It’s not capitalism. It’s not socialism. The new word we are hearing these days is the right word: corporatism…

That refers to the merger of industry and state into a unit with the purpose of achieving some grand visionary end, the liberty of individuals be damned. The word itself predates its successor, which is fascism.

But the “F” word has become totally incomprehensible and useless through misuse so there is clarity to be gained by discussing the older term.

Consider, as an obvious example, Big Pharma. It funds the regulators. It maintains a revolving door between corporate management and regulatory control. Government often funds drug development and rubber-stamps the results. Government further grants and enforces the patents.

Vaccines are indemnified from liability for harms. When consumers balk at shots, government imposes mandates, as we have seen. Further, pharma pays up to 75% of the advertising on evening television, which obviously buys both favorable coverage and silence on the downsides.

This is the very essence of corporatism. But it is not only this industry. It ever more affects tech, media, defense, labor, food, environment, public health and everything else. The big players have merged into a monolith, squeezing out the life of market dynamism.

The topic of corporatism is rarely discussed in any detail. People would rather keep the discussion on abstract ideals that are not really operational in reality. It’s these ideal types that split right and left; meanwhile the really existing threats sail under the radar.

And that is strange because corporatism is much more of a living reality. It variously swept through most societies in the world in the 20th century, and vexes us today as never before.

But corporatism has a long ideological history that actually stretches back two centuries. It began as a fundamental attack on what was then known as liberalism.

Liberalism began centuries earlier with the end of the religious wars in Europe and the realization that permitting religious freedom was overall good for everyone.

It lessens violence in society and still retains the opportunity for the vigorous practice of faith. This insight gradually unfolded in ways that pertained to speech, travel and commerce generally.

By the early 19th century, following the American Revolution, the idea of liberalism swept Europe. The idea was that the state could do no better for society than to let it develop organically and without a purpose-driven end state, a centralized authority that seeks to achieve a specific goal or purpose, often seen as a greater good or common end that justifies the restriction of individual liberties.

In the liberal view, in contrast, liberty for all became the sole end state.

Standing against traditional liberalism was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), the German philosopher who explained the loss of territory at the end of the Napoleonic Wars as merely a temporary setback in the German nation’s historical destiny.

In his vision of politics, the nation as a whole needs a destiny that is consistent with his postulated laws of history. This holistic view was inclusive of church, industry, family and individuals: Everyone must march in the same direction.

The whole reaches its pinnacle in the institution of the state, he wrote in Elements of the Philosophy of Right, which “is the actuality of the ethical idea, “the rationality of the ethical whole,” the “divine idea as it exists on Earth” and a “work of art in which the freedom of the individual is actualized and reconciled with the freedom of the whole.”

If all of that sounds like mumbo jumbo to you, welcome to the mind of Hegel, who was trained in theology foremost and somehow came to dominate German political philosophy for a very long time.

His followers split into left- and right-wing versions of his statism, culminating in Marx and arguably Hitler, who agree that the state is the center of life while only arguing about what it should do.

Corporatism was a manifestation of the “right-wing” version of Hegelianism, which is to say that it did not go so far as to say that religion, property and family should be abolished, as Marxism later suggested. Rather each of these institutions should serve the state, which represents the whole.

The economic element of corporatism gained steam with the work of Friedrich List (1789–1846) who worked as an administrative professor at the University of Tübingen but was expelled and went to America where he became involved in the establishment of railroads and championed an economic “National System” or industrial mercantilism.

Believing that he was following up with the work of Alexander Hamilton, List advocated national self-sufficiency or autarky as the proper managerial trade for trade. In this, he stood against the entire liberal tradition that had long rallied around the work of Adam Smith and the doctrine of free trade.

Such is a brief look at the intellectual roots and development of corporatist thinking, complete with its most noxious ideological elements. The focus on a purpose-driven nationalism in each case comes through dividing and conquering the nation, usually by a “great man,” and allowing the “experts” to run roughshod over the desires of the common people for peace and prosperity.

The corporatist model was deployed in most countries during the Great War, which was the largest experiment in central planning in cooperation with munitions manufacturers and other large corporations.

It was deployed in combination with conscription, censorship, monetary inflation and a large-scale killing machine. It inspired an entire generation of intellectuals and public managers.

The U.S. New Deal, with its price controls and industrial cartels, was largely managed by people such as Rexford Tugwell (1891–1979) who was inspired to rally around corporatism by his experience in this war. The same pattern repeated in the Second World War.

This brief history only takes us only to the middle of the 20th century. Today corporatism takes a different form. Rather than national, it is global in scope.

In addition to government and large corporations, today’s corporatism includes powerful nongovernment organizations, nonprofits and huge foundations built by huge fortunes. It is as much private as it is public. But it is no less divisive, ruthless and hegemonic than it was in the past.

It has also shaved off most of its egregious (and embarrassing) teachings, leaving in place only the ideals of world governments working directly with the largest corporations in media and tech to forge a single vision for humanity on the march, such as spelled out daily by the World Economic Forum. With that come censorship and restrictions on commercial and individual liberty.

That is only the beginning of the problems.

Corporatism abolishes the competitive dynamic of competitive capitalism and replaces it with cartels run by oligarchs.

It reduces growth and prosperity. It is invariably corrupt. It promises efficiency but yields only graft.

It expands the gaps between rich and poor and creates and entrenches deep fissures between the rulers and ruled. It dispenses with localism, religious particularism, rights of families and aesthetic traditionalism. It also ends in violence.

Corporatism is anything but radical. The word is a perfect descriptive of the most successful form of statism of the 20th century.

In the 21st century, it has been given new life and an ambition that is global in scope.

But as regards the highest American ideals and enlightenment values of freedom for all, it really does represent the opposite.

It is also the single most vexing problem we face today, far more of a going concern than old archetypes of socialism and capitalism. Also in the American context, corporatism can come in forms that masquerade as both left and right.

But make no mistake: The real target is always liberty traditionally understood.

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday has announced new anti-Wagner sanctions in a belated attempt to cut off the group’s weapons funding, at a moment the Russian government has essentially pardoned the mercenary outfit for treasonous actions. It remains unclear what role Wagner will play inside Russia, if any, as its founder Yevegny Prigozhin sets up shop in neighboring Belarus after President Lukashenko mediated a deal on his behalf.

The fresh sanctions, announced Tuesday, target four companies accused of “gold dealing” on Wagner’s behalf as well as an individual Washington says made “weapons deals” tied to Wagner.

Companies in Russia, the UAE, and Central African Republic “have engaged in illicit gold dealings to fund the Wagner Group to sustain and expand its armed forces, including in Ukraine and Africa,” according to the Treasury statement. Wagner in Africa is essentially a foreign policy arm of the Kremlin, which might explain why Moscow sees the group as somewhat indispensable.

Africa has lately been known as a place with the largest Wagner mercenary presence outside of the Ukraine conflict, which has deeply alarmed Washington and West. The US and its allies have long hoped to thwart and dismantle Wagner’s presence there, and deal-making with multiple African governments. 

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement, “The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali.”

“The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and anywhere else.”

And the individual listed, identified as Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov (Ivanov), is a Russian executive of Wagner Group who “worked closely with Prigozhin’s entity Africa Politology and senior Malian government officials on weapons deals, mining concerns, and other Wagner Group activities in Mali,” the Treasury statement alleged.

The Treasury announcement further says action is being taken against a gold mine directly owned by Prigozhin:

Diamville SAU (Diamville) is a gold and diamond purchasing company based in the CAR and controlled by Prigozhin. Diamville is one of several Prigozhin-connected entities that is intimately involved in the CAR mining sector. In 2022, Diamville participated in a gold selling scheme that entailed converting CAR-origin gold into U.S. dollars. Following the imposition of U.S. sanctions on several Russian financial institutions, participants in the scheme planned to move the proceeds by transferring cash by hand. Additionally, Diamville shipped diamonds mined in the CAR to buyers in the UAE and in Europe.

The Treasury statement identifies Mali as a major base of Wagner’s illicit activities in Africa.

Going back years, the Malian government has contracted with Wagner to assist its national armed forces in rooting out al-Qaeda affiliated groups which are active there. Wagner has recently come under allegations of massacring civilians in the context of its large firefights with Islamist insurgents.

Authored by Debbie Lerman via The Brownstone Institute,

Scandalous incompetence. Profound stupidity. Astounding errors. This is how many analysts – including Dr. Vinay Prasad, Dr. Scott Atlas, and popular Substack commentator eugyppius – explain how leading public health experts could prescribe so many terrible pandemic response policies.

And it’s true: the so-called experts certainly have made themselves look foolish over the last three years: Public health leaders like Rochelle Walensky and Anthony Fauci make false claims, or contradict themselves repeatedly, on subjects related to the pandemic response, while leading scientists, like Peter Hotez in the US and Christian Drosten in Germany, are equally susceptible to such flip-flops and lies. Then there are the internationally renowned medical researchers, like Eric Topol, who repeatedly commit obvious errors in interpreting Covid-related research studies. [ref]

All of these figures publicly and aggressively promoted anti-public health policies, including universal masking, social distancing, mass testing and quarantining of healthy people, lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

It seems like an open-and-shut case: Dumb policies, dumb people in charge of those policies. 

This might be true in a few individual cases of public health or medical leaders who really are incapable of understanding even high school level science. However, if we look at leading pandemic public health and medical experts as a group – a group consisting of the most powerful, widely published, and well-paid researchers and scientists in the world – that simple explanation sounds much less convincing. 

Even if you believe that most medical researchers are shills for pharmaceutical companies and that scientists rarely break new ground anymore, I think you’d be hard-pressed to claim that they lack basic analytical skills or a solid educational background in the areas they’ve studied. Most doctors and scientists with advanced degrees know how to analyze simple scientific documents and understand basic data. 

Additionally, those doctors and public health professionals who were deemed experts during the pandemic were also clever enough to have climbed the academic, scientific, and/or government ladders to the highest levels.

They might be unscrupulous, sycophantic, greedy, or power-mongering. You might think they make bad moral or ethical decisions. But it defies logic to say that every single one of them understands simple scientific data less than, say, someone like me or you. In fact, I find that to be a facile, superficial judgment that does not get to the root cause of their seemingly stupid, incompetent behavior.

Returning to some specific examples, I would argue that it is irrational to conclude, as Dr. Prasad did, that someone like Dr. Topol, Founder and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, who has published over 1,300 peer-reviewed articles and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine [ref] cannot read research papers “at a high level.” And it is equally unlikely that Anthony Fauci, who managed to ascend and remain atop the highest scientific perch in the federal government for many decades, controlling billions of dollars in research grants [ref], was too dumb to know that masks don’t stop viruses.

There must, therefore, be a different reason why all the top pro-lockdown scientists and public health experts – in perfect lockstep – suddenly started (and continue to this day) to misread studies and advocate policies that they had claimed in the past were unnecessary, making themselves look like fools.

Public health experts were messengers for the biodefense response

The most crucial single fact to know and remember when trying to understand the craziness of Covid times is this:

The public health experts were not responsible for pandemic response policy. The military-intelligence-biodefense leadership was in charge.

In previous articles, I examined in great detail the government documents that show how standard tenets of public health pandemic management were abruptly and secretly thrown out during Covid. The most startling switch was the replacement of the public health agencies by the National Security Council and Department of Homeland Security at the helm of pandemic policy and planning.

As part of the secret switch, all communications – defined in every previous pandemic planning document as the responsibility of the CDC – were taken over by the National Security Council under the auspices of the White House Task Force. The CDC was not even allowed to hold its own press conferences!

 As a Senate report from December 2022 notes:

From March through June 2020, CDC was not permitted to conduct public briefings, despite multiple requests by the agency and CDC media requests were “rarely cleared.” HHS stated that by early April 2020, “after several attempts to get approvals,” its Office of Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs “stopped asking” the White House “for a while.” (p. 8)

When public health and medical experts blanketed the airwaves and Internet with “recommendations” urging universal masking, mass testing and quarantining of asymptomatic people, vaccine mandates, and other anti-public health policies – or when they promoted obviously flawed studies that supported the quarantine-until-vaccine biodefense agenda – they were not doing so because they were dumb, incompetent, or misguided. 

They were performing the role that the leaders of the national security/biodefense response gave them: to be the trusted public face that made people believe quarantine-until-vaccine was a legitimate public health response. 

Why did public health leaders go along with the biodefense agenda?

We have to imagine ourselves in the position of public health and medical experts at top government positions when the intelligence-military-biodefense network took over the pandemic response. 

What would you do if you were a government employee, or a scientist dependent on government grants, and you were told that the quarantine-until-vaccine policy was actually the only way to deal with this particular engineered potential bioweapon?

How would you behave if an unprecedented event in human history happened on your watch: an engineered virus designed as a potential bioweapon was spreading around the world, and the people who designed it told you that terrifying the entire population into locking down and waiting for a vaccine was the only way to stop it from killing many millions? 

More mundanely, if your position and power depended on going along with whatever the powers-that-be in the NSC and DHS told you to do – if your job and livelihood were on the line – would you go against the narrative and risk losing it all?

And, finally, in a more venal vain: what if you stood to gain a lot more money and/or power by advocating for policies that might not be the gold standard of public health, but that you told yourself could bring about major innovations (vaccines/countermeasures) that would save humanity from future pandemics?

We know how the most prominent Covid “experts” answered those questions. Not because they were dumb, but because they had a lot to lose and/or a lot to gain by going along with the biodefense narrative – and they were told millions would die if they failed to do so.

Why understanding the motives of public health leaders during Covid is so important

Paradoxically, deeming public health experts stupid and incompetent actually reinforces the consensus narrative: that lockdowns and vaccines were part of a public health plan. In this reading, the response may have been terrible, or it may have gone awry, but it was still just a stupid public health plan designed by incompetent public health leaders.

Such a conclusion leads to calls for misguided and necessarily ineffectual solutions: Even if we replaced every single HHS employee or defunded the HHS or even the WHO altogether, we would not solve the problem and would be poised to repeat the entire pandemic fiasco all over again.

The only way to avoid such repetition is to recognize the Covid catastrophe for what it was: an international counterterrorism effort focused myopically on lockdowns and vaccines, to the exclusion of all traditional and time-tested public health protocols.

We need to wake up to the fact that, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (if not earlier), we have ceded control of the agencies that are supposed to be in charge of public health to an international military-intelligence-pharmaceutical cartel. 

This “public-private partnership” of bioterrorism experts and vaccine developers is not interested in public health at all, except as a cover for their very secret and very lucrative biowarfare research and countermeasure development.

Public health was shunted aside during the Covid pandemic, and the public health leaders were used as trusted “experts” to convey biowarfare edicts to the population. Their cooperation does not reflect stupidity or incompetence. Making such claims contributes to the coverup of the much more sinister and dangerous transfer of power that their seemingly foolish behavior was meant to hide.

Earlier this month, UBS Group AG successfully “completed” the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse. With the merger completed, UBS plans to begin the first phase of a massive headcount reduction of Credit Suisse’s workforce in July. 

The upcoming layoffs should not be a surprise to readers. We have detailed “Massive Layoffs On Deck At Credit Suisse“ and “UBS Reportedly Re-Starts Layoffs” following a $3 billion deal, first announced in March and brokered by the Swiss regulators that allowed UBS to purchase the struggling Swiss lender.

As previously noted, UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti has been hush-hush about what’s on the chopping block at Credit Suisse. He was recently brought back to ensure the integration of the two banks, which could take several years, will go smoothly. 

A person familiar with the upcoming layoffs told Bloomberg that half of Credit Suisse’s workforce, including bankers, traders, and support staff across New York, London, and Asia offices, will be fired. There will be three rounds, with the first expected next month and two other rounds between September and October. 

The person stated the headcount at Credit Suisse stands approximately at 45,000. When UBS took over the troubled lender, its workforce jumped to about 120,000. It plans to cut jobs to save $6 billion. Two people said UBS would reduce its headcount by 30%, or 35,000 people. 

The people said UBS hopes to keep most of Credit Suisse’s private bankers. However, many have departed from the bank. 

The people said that the first round of job cuts is related to the “extensive overlap” in both banks’ domestic operations. 

Ermotti has stated that the “base case scenario” for UBS is to keep Credit Suisse’s domestic unit. The people expect businesses to be fully merged. 

An incoming tsunami of bank layoffs at Credit Suisse will add to the thousands of firings this year and last. Bloomberg Vonnie Quinn said Monday that bank layoffs are mounting and quite possibly the worst since the financial crisis. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

The White House seems to have edited out footage of Today News Africa reporter Simon Ateba confronting Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Monday with a series of comments that prompted her to threaten to end the briefing altogether.

Ateba again accused Jean-Pierre of refusing to call on him for any questions for months, after the Press Sceretary had claimed that the Biden Administration is “committed to freedom of the press.”

“You’ve been discriminating against me for the past nine months,” Ateba charged, much to the chagrin of the other reporters at the briefing.

“Stop. How is she discriminating?” another reporter intervened, to which Ateba responded “She called on you, she gave you a few questions. Please, allow me to do my job and ask my question.”

Jean-Pierre tried to ignore Ateba and go to aq different reporter for a question, but he refused to be passed over.

Jean-Pierre then stated “If this continues, we’re gonna end the press briefing. If this continues – you’re being incredibly rude. You’re being incredibly rude. You’re talking over your colleagues.”

Watch:

Simon Ateba is back at it again in the press briefing. pic.twitter.com/4BXTT4gfbw

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 26, 2023

When the stream was uploaded by the White House, the exchange was gone:

The White House has edited out every interaction between KJP and @simonateba from their YouTube livestream. pic.twitter.com/QxAgEWFItc

— Kevin McMahon (@Kevin__McMahon) June 26, 2023

Ateba responded on Twitter, asserting that the Press Secretary is a hypocrite for citing freedom of the press but refusing to let him ask any questions.

On what some are calling the so-called chaos at the White House today, I was just trying to ask a question. It’s a pity what’s going on. How can @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre preach about the freedom of the press when she is violating the First Amendment many died to protect? May… pic.twitter.com/wOBsOv6GwI

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) June 26, 2023

The reporter also alleged that he was barred from attending an appearance by Joe Biden, and says this happens “99.9 percent of the time.”

Because you ask real questions.

— Mitzi (@mitzi1946) June 26, 2023

Ateba has continually charged that he is being denied access despite regular requests to resolve the matter.

Video: Reporter Shouts At White House Press Sec. For Promoting TV Show Instead Of Taking Questions

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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed Tuesday that Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has arrived in Belarus three days following the armed uprising he led against Russia’s defense ministry, which has grabbed world headlines.

“Yes, today he’s in Belarus,” Lukashenko was cited in state-run Belta news agency as saying. “We’ll help you if you want to stay with us for a while at [Wagner’s] expense of course,” the Belarusian leader said. Ironically the words came the same day President Putin revealed in a speech that the Russian government paid Wagner group about $1 billion in contracts over the past year of conflict in Ukraine.

“The upkeep of the entire Wagner Group was fully provided for by the state,” Putin had said while also thanking soldiers and security services for their part in “stopping civil war”.

The Minsk government has also batted down rumors that Wagner could play a role in guarding the Russian tactical nukes now stationed on Belarusian territory. 

And yet Lukashenko still said of Wagner in the Tuesday statements, “But I could use such a unit in the army,” and revealed that he instructed his defense minister to explore such a possibility as assisting the armed forces.

It was Lukashenko who mediated a ceasefire deal between the Russian military and Wagner on Saturday. He said that he personally urged Putin not to kill Prigozhin amid the uprising. 

“I said to Putin: we could waste (Prigozhin), no problem. If not on the first try, then on the second. I told him: don’t do this,” Lukashenko said.

As for Putin, he said that he will uphold his word in giving Prigozhin and his mercenaries pardon, and allow the Wagner chief’s safe departure to Belarus, despite also calling them traitors.

Prigozhin is widely believed to have exited Russia in his private jet, an Embraer Legacy 600. Regional media reported that “An Embraer Legacy 600 — which investigative journalists have previously linked to the Russian businessman — landed southwest of the Belarusian capital of Minsk on Tuesday at 07:37 a.m. local time, flight tracking data showed.”

there is nobody funnier Putin could have asked to intervene in all this than Lukashenko, not even close.

the man never shuts up (he’s been going for something like 8 hours and still hasn’t finished) and has the habit of saying what he thinks https://t.co/fXT9s5w7pm

— max seddon (@maxseddon) June 27, 2023

Putin also on Tuesday teased the possibility of future corruption charges against Wagner, or possible members of the defense ministry. But so far the expected shake-up of top brass hasn’t materialized, and Defense Ministry Shoigu has been present at all major events of the past days.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Heads of state and various organizations gathered in Europe the past two weeks for climate change summits. Let’s discuss the demands.

Bonn Climate Conference

Image from United Nations press release

The Bonn Climate summit ended on June 15. On Thursday, June 22 and 23, another conference started in Paris, discussed below.

Call for New Global Financial System

France24 reports Paris summit aims to overhaul global financial system for ‘climate solidarity’ with South

Around 50 heads of state, along with representatives from international institutions and civil society, will attend a summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday and Friday in Paris. Their objective is to develop a new global financial system so the most vulnerable countries will be better equipped to combat both poverty and climate change. 

The world’s wealthiest nations are demonstrating a “surge of solidarity” with those most vulnerable to climate change, said Cécile Duflot, president of the NGO Oxfam. Some 50 heads of state and government, representatives from international financial institutions, members of the private sector, climate experts and members of civil society will be attending the summit in Paris hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron on June 22 and 23. The objective of this ambitious conference is to “build a new contract between [the global] North and South”, according to the Élysée Palace.

Solidarity

13 political leaders – including Macron, US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – wrote that they are “urgently working to fight poverty and inequalities” in a contribution to French daily newspaper Le Monde.

A Just and Inclusive Transition

Le Monde reports Biden, Macron, von der Leyen, Lula, and more: ‘We must prioritize a just and inclusive transition’

On the occasion of the Paris Summit for a new global financial pact, which opens on Thursday, 13 world leaders, including Rishi Sunak, Mia Mottley, Macky Sall and Olaf Scholz, affirm their commitment ‘to improving the well-being of people everywhere on the planet.’

We are urgently working to fight poverty and inequalities. An estimated 120 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty in the last three years and we are still far from achieving our United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. We should thus place people at the center of our strategy to increase human welfare everywhere on the globe.

We want a system that better addresses development needs and vulnerabilities, now heightened by climate risks, which could further weaken countries’ ability to eliminate poverty and achieve inclusive economic growth. Climate change will generate larger and more frequent disasters, and disproportionately affect the poorest, most vulnerable populations around the world. These challenges cross borders and pose existential risks to societies and economies.

Eurointelligence goes off the deep end with a claim “the case to financially support developing countries to develop green economies is easy to make.”

Whether you call it more solidarity with the South or the self-interest of the North, the case to financially support developing countries to develop green economies is easy to make.

Decarbonisation, biodiversity, and the fight against poverty are inextricably linked. A gathering with 50 heads of states alongside representatives from international institutions, private sector, and civil society will discuss how to adapt the IMF and the World Bank to today’s world. They will also discuss new financial resources, and how to deal with the plight of over-indebted countries. Last November, COP23 agreed to compensate for the effects of climate change on developing countries. But the money is not flowing just yet.

The Cost of Solidarity

• An expert group under the auspice of the UN estimates that investments have to reach the order of $1 trillion per year until 2030 to respond to the climate and biodiversity crisis.

• Oxfam estimated that $3.9 trillion per year will be needed over the same time period to fight poverty, inequality and climate change.

• The World bank estimated that it takes $4 trillion per year to build the infrastructure for this.

The cost of this “easy to make” vision is $1 trillion per year for the biodiversity crisis, plus $3.9 trillion per year to fight poverty and inequality, plus $4 trillion per year for the infrastructure. That’s a mere $8.9 million per per year until 2030, a 7-year cost of $62.3 trillion.

I assure you it will not stop there. How are we doing?

Money Not Flowing Yet, Fortunately

Eurointelligence notes that G7 countries considered reallocating $100 billion in special drawing rights to developing countries, but the measure is still blocked in the euro area.

“Developed countries also pledged 0.7% of their wealth in support, though the funds were only partially released. There will be discussions about new sources of financing, like new taxes. Ahead of the summit, the only consensus that could emerge is a tax on maritime transport that could yield $60-$80bn per year, according to the World Bank.”

Excuse me for pointing out Team Biden may have made this pledge but it is not constitutional. Precisely when did Congress pledge 0.7 percent of US wealth for this colossal boondoggle?

Eurointelligence moans “Rich countries are used to giving money mostly as loans, and only 26% of the committed climate funding are currently grants. This logic needs to change.”

Yes, the logic needs to change. Let’s start by throwing $62.3 trillion worth of climate demands straight into the ash bin of looney ideas.

Energy Policy Madness

In the US, Biden’s Energy Policy Mandates Cause Severe Shortage of Electrical Steel and Transformers

In California, California Utilities Seek to Charge People Based On Income, Not Energy Usage

Also in California, Oakland Teachers Strike in 5th Day Over Climate Justice, Homeless Housing, Reparations

Finally please consider Ford Gets a $9.2 Billion Cheap Government Loan With Inflationary Strings Attached

In response, a friend just pinged me with this comment: “This is colossally, stupid public policy. The government should not get involved in determining what is the best approach to electric vehicles. It should set standards and let the free enterprise system work it out.”

Unfortunately, it appears Biden pledged 0.7 percent of US wealth for global inequities.

Fortunately, the money isn’t flowing. But it would have if Democrats held the House, Senate, and White House.

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