Month: November 2024

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

If you boil down everything the woked-up, psychopathic Democratic Party did the past eight years as it drove the country into a ditch, it all amounted to a Great Pretending.

Whatever the party said, they knew it was not so. Whatever they did, they pretended the other side was doing.

They lied lavishly, knowingly, and incessantly and now they are pretending to soul-search in a great public display of pretend humility as they await the dreaded reckoning.

“I don’t know why the Democrats lost. I don’t understand… Prices have come down, the economy is good. I don’t know why they voted against her, against the party.”

– William Shatner (Captain Kirk)

Case in point: the interview on PBS between Aspen Institute chief Walter Isaacson and Harvard civics philosophy prof Michael Sandel, “to make sense of Donald Trump’s Presidency.” Listen to them prattle about “the dignity of work,” “credentialist condescension,” and “income disparities.” You know it was way worse than that: censorship, witch hunts, the gestapo FBI, a stupid money-pit war, medical fascism, the wide-open border, race-and gender hustles, state-sponsored riots, lawfare programmatically destroying lives, careers, reputations, and misuse of the news media (including PBS) to lie about all of it. These two pusillanimous pricks, pretending to be genteel, are the poster boys for a diseased polity.

And behind the scenes now, in the C-suites of the big agencies, the faculty lounges of Higher Ed, the Zoom meet-ups of so many crypto-government NGOs, and especially in the Big Media board-rooms, the cries of anxiety and desperation signal a momentous end of something: the punking of America by a gang of vicious, criminal snobs. The aggregate insult alone deserves a world-class beat-down. They know it, and they know they are going to get it, and it will be satisfying to watch them rat each other out as judgment nears.

But even as all that plays out, and justice returns to the scene, Mr. Trump and Company face the enormous task of getting our nation’s house in order. The balance sheet is a catastrophe, we are functionally bankrupt, and “Joe Biden” has been busy destroying the value of our money in the futile attempt to work around all that. All the economic statistics rolled out to benefit Ms. Harris in the election are false. Something is underway that is too big to stop and it will express itself as ruinous inflation and economic depression in some wicked combo of the two. It will surely lead to epic rearrangements in everyday life. I will suggest a few examples.

The people of this land have been deprived of purpose and meaning in an economy organized among giant enterprises and vast distances from wherever you live. To call ourselves “consumers” degrades us. We are citizens who have duties, responsibilities, and obligations to each other. We are economic actors who can make choices and take risks, not passive units to be exploited. The people need an economic role in their locality: employer of neighbors, producer of useful goods and services, all the way down to faithful servants of something and someone.

Monopolies and chain stores killed American towns and all the complex relations in them that furnished purpose, meaning, and livelihoods for the people in a rich ecosystem of production and services. Now it’s the monopolies and chain stores turn to decline and die off — and they will in the course of things, but it would be foolish to try to prop them up. Let them go and let the people rebuild their networks of making-and-doing locally. It’s already happening.    

The giant shopping malls that came along in the 1970s have already died, and there was no official campaign to rescue them, nor any official funeral. It just happened quietly in the background. The malls were a pure product of the combo of Boomer household formation and Happy Motoring. That’s ending now. What replaced the malls, strangely, is the new model of Garage Sale Nation. That will continue to evolve and elaborate itself, and integrate into what happens next — which will not be the A-I robot nirvana of endless leisure, but rather an era of tribulation. You can see it coming on all around you. So many things don’t work anymore. Medicine. School. The task of reorganizing them is monumental. It will generate plenty of friction and hardship.

The people also need a social role in their community: head of household, mother, mentor, public servant, caretaker, local hero. You need a place in this world to enact those roles, a location in it, at the proper scale, and it must be a place that is worthy of your affection. Too many places in the USA do not meet these requirements. They are ugly, sprawling, chaotic, and grotesque. The suburban template for development is a long-running fiasco, the anti-community, and MAGA’s psychological investment in it is, sadly, a mistake — though it is consistent with the psychology of previous investment (sunk costs).

We’ve got to fix all that and it’s another monumental task. I would argue against the idea that we should just forget about the wrecked existing towns and cities and build all-new ones out in the hard-pan somewhere. First of all, our cities and towns exist where they are because they occupy important geographical sites: rivers, harbors, a rail nexus. Secondly, the capital (money) will not be there to build these proposed sci-fi utopias in the middle of nowhere. We’ve already squandered it on color revolutions, grift, and four-star hotel rooms for Venezuelan gangs. So, forget about that. Just realize that what we’re left with — Detroit, Bangor, Memphis, Spokane, and thousands of small towns — is what we’ve got to work with, and wrap your head around making them better places.

If the Democratic Party had not gone completely insane for a decade, its many eggheads like Walter Isaacson and Michael Sandel would have been working on these major socio-economic transformations instead of punking us with drag queens, pointless wars, and Marxian punishments. I don’t know whether Mr. Trump and Company can tackle the transformations that this new pulse of history is calling for. The Elon-and-Vivek DOGE initiative is at least a good start in rescaling the way we govern ourselves. But it’s going to take a lot more than that to meet what circumstances require of us.

A slow start (volume-wise) with light macro this week dominated by heavy micro with NVDA’s earnings on Wednesday after the close.

Vol markets are already pricing some notable moves – but also then the normalization into the holidays as seasonals help…

Source: Bloomberg

On the bright side from the equity bulls, Nasdaq broke its 5-day losing streak today (while The Dow ended red)…

The ‘Trump Trade’ continues to build momentum, holding its post-election spike gains (Republican policy basket / Democrat policy basket)…

Source: Bloomberg

Cyclicals continue to outperform Defensives post-election…

Source: Bloomberg

GLP-1 weakness continues with the group down for the 5th straight session as near-term catalysts + RFK overhang remain headwinds…

Source: Bloomberg

…pushing Goldman’s MAHA-exposed basket down to multi-year lows…

Source: Bloomberg

 

In the short term – since the election – trannies are trouncing tech…

Source: Bloomberg

But longer-term, drilling down, semis are slamming planes, trains, and automobiles…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields pumped and dumped AGAIN with the belly of the curve outperforming (yields were lower across the whole curve on the day). The overnight Asia session was flat but Europe saw selling which was then dominated by buying during the US session…

Source: Bloomberg

Crypto markets were volatile (as always) today  with bitcoin chopping between $89500 and $92500…

Source: Bloomberg

…but all in all holding up well on the post-election gains…

Source: Bloomberg

Side-note – DJT rumored to buy BKKT…

However, crypto continues to dominate gold post-election…

Source: Bloomberg

But the barbarous relic did surge today…

Source: Bloomberg

While WTI futures front-month soared higher today…

Source: Bloomberg

…A key oil market gauge is flashing signs of oversupply in the US, in the latest indication of a looming global glut. The so-called prompt spread — which measures the difference in price between futures for immediate delivery and those a month later — traded in negative territory for the first time since February.

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, it’s not over yet if history is any precedent…

Source: Goldman Sachs

Goldman’s Pete Callahan notes that during the market rotations around 2016 and 2024 elections, cyclicals sharply outperformed Defensives around the election while domestic facing stocks outperformed international facing stocks by a smaller magnitude.

Trade accordingly.

Donald Trump’s social media company, DJT, soared 8%, amid reports that it was in advanced talks to buy Bakkt, a cryptocurrency trading venue owned by Intercontinental Exchange, as it pushes to expand beyond online conversation.

The US president-elect’s Trump Media and Technology Group, in which he has pledged to retain his 53% stake, is closing in on an all-share purchase of Bakkt, the FT reported citing two people with knowledge. The valuation under discussion was not immediately clear but Bakkt’s market capitalization stood at just over $150 million on Monday. DJT’s market cap was $6 billion before the news hit.

As the FT reports, TMTG, which operates Truth Social, has become one of the most actively traded US stocks since Trump’s election victory as retail investors try to profit on its often-volatile trading moves. What is remarkable is that the company has a $6 billion market cap even though it has reported just $2.6 million in revenues; clearly the stock is extremely overvalued and gives the management a valuable currency with which to buy other companies. Which it is now doing.

A successful deal would deepen Trump’s move into the cryptocurrency market after he began promoting a new crypto venture set up by longtime business partners, World Liberty Financial, from which he stands to earn significant fees. Crypto markets have also soared following his election victory, with bitcoin up more than 30 per cent on speculation that his administration would enact favourable legislation for the industry.

Bakkt, which has also struggled for profitability since its launch, was created by ICE, and the owner of the New York Stock Exchange still holds a 55% economic interest in it. Its stock soared 47% on the news and was promptly halted.

Bakkt’s first chief executive was Kelly Loeffler, a former head of marketing at ICE and a Republican ex-senator for Georgia during Trump’s first presidency. She is co-chair of the committee organising his inauguration in January. She is also married to Jeff Sprecher, ICE’s founder, chair and chief executive.

Bakkt previously said its crypto custody business, which has a regulatory license from New York authorities, is likely to be wound down. The FT noted that it would not be included in the deal.

The crypto business had been set up to hold digital assets such as bitcoin and ether on behalf of customers but failed to gain traction and made operating losses of $27,000 from revenues of $328,000 in the three months to September 30. Bakkt is planning to build a trading platform for institutional investors. Bakkt had faced delisting from NYSE owing to its lowly share price, until it effected a 1 for 25 reverse stock-split in April. Last week its share price rose 15%; the stock soared almost 90% and was halted on the FT news, while DJT stock jumped 8%.

Truth Social remains tiny in terms of its reach, averaging 646,000 daily visits to its website this month, according to Similarweb, compared with 155mn a day for Elon Musk’s X platform. Even so, the president-elect’s stake now accounts for more than half of his $5.7bn wealth, as calculated by Bloomberg.

Separately, the WSJ reported that Trump is meeting with the CEO of Coinbase Monday, according to people familiar with the matter. The duo is expected to discuss personnel appointments for his second administration. The meeting between Trump and Brian Armstrong would mark the first time the two have met since Election Day and comes as Trump continues to fill out his cabinet and other senior posts. Trump, formerly a crypto skeptic, has turned into a vocal supporter of the industry.

Amid the ongoing humanitarian and severe food and medicine crisis in war-ravaged Gaza, a United Nations agency has confirmed a Saturday incident which saw a convoy of 109 aid trucks come under attack by desperate Palestinians. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has described the worst such incidnet since the 13-month-old Israeli military assault on Hamas and the Gaza Strip began. A UN official called said it “highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza.” The UN further said the situation in the Strip has reached a low point.

“⁠The urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated; without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen, further endangering the lives of over two million people who depend on humanitarian aid to survive.” The UN didn’t identify who carried out the assault on the large convoy. 

In a new Monday development, Hamas said it has shot at Palestinians who carried out the robbery of aid trucks, resulting in 20 killed. In a highly unusual statement Hamas said it shot and killed over 20 people who it called “gang members”:

The Hamas TV channel Al-Aqsa quoted Hamas interior ministry sources in Gaza as saying that over 20 gang members involved in looting aid trucks were killed during an operation carried out by Hamas security forces in coordination with tribal committees.

It said anyone caught aiding such looting would be treated with “an iron fist”.

This seems an unprecedented first wherein Hamas conducts a mass slaughter of other Palestinian groups seeking to access aid. 

Details of who exactly was behind the looting remain unclear, and Hamas describing that “gang members” were behind it seems dubious or at least a surprising development. The more desperate things have gotten in the Strip, the more that violence spirals out of control.

However, the NY Times and many other outlets have described that the initial weekend theft of over 100 trucks was conducted by armed gunman, and that the truck drivers were forced to abandon their vehicles at gunpoint. 

The UNRWA, said it happened at Kerem Shalom border crossing in southern Gaza. Given the large-scale nature of the theft, those attacking the convoy were likely lying it wait, and thus the plot had some level of pre-planned organization.

Prior footage from many months ago shows the break down in security at aid stations and warehouses in the Gaza Strip:

Hamas stole the food from the people of Gaza? ✋⛔️

A new video shows Hamas warehouse full of supplies.

It seems that when the Hamas reduced the number of guards, people were able to break into them pic.twitter.com/leu99ynXyp

— Hezi Hershkovitz (@hhezi) January 30, 2024

Some large swathes of the Stip have been in a state of lawlessness since the Israeli military ground invasion began. Israeli officials have argued that this underscores the need to keep a permanent IDF military presence there.

Several top Hamas leaders have been assassinated over the past several months, and it remains unclear of the degree to which the terror group still has a governing and command structure in tact.

Authored by Josph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, is a top contender to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the next Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Bhattacharya was a key figure who spoke out against COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates during the pandemic.

The consideration, first reported by The Washington Post, comes after President-elect Donald Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH.

If Bhattacharya is ultimately nominated and confirmed to lead the agency, he would be responsible for 27 institutes and centers on issues ranging from cancer and aging to drug abuse. Those include the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was formerly chaired by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The agency’s $48 billion budget funds medical research on cancers, vaccines, and other diseases through competitive grants to researchers at institutions across the nation. The agency also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at NIH labs in Bethesda, Maryland.

In October 2020, Bhattacharya was a lead author of the Great Barrington Declaration alongside Harvard University’s Martin Kulldorff and Oxford University’s Sunetra Gupta. That document, which garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, called for an end to the COVID-19 lockdowns, which had been in effect for most of 2020.

“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies,” the letter reads.

In the letter, Bhattacharya and his co-authors described the COVID-19 vaccines as merely one aspect of public health policy, which they said should also focus on immunity through natural infection because of the low risks the disease posed to the young and healthy.

Bhattacharya and his co-authors were opposed to both lockdowns and mask mandates.

In emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, former NIH Director Francis Collins—who left the post in December 2021 but continued to work as a science adviser to President Joe Biden—expressed concern that the declaration was “getting a lot of attention.”

“There needs to be a quick and devastating public takedown of its premises,” the October 2020 email from Collins to Fauci reads.

Bhattacharya said during an April 2022 appearance on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” that COVID-19 policy was “the biggest public health mistake in history,” citing both the direct harms it caused to the economy and the indirect harms it caused to children.

Research by the University of California–Riverside released in March 2023 found that lockdowns alone contributed to a more than 5 percent dip in U.S. gross domestic product and caused a 7.5 percent dip in consumer spending.

NIH research into the effect of COVID-19 policies on children has also found that these policies caused children to miss important opportunities for crucial early socialization in the first five years of life. Since then, the NIH has found a marked increase in developmental delays, learning disabilities, and behavioral disorders in children.

Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times that these and other costs were ignored. He blamed senior health officials for this, who he said imposed a narrative of medical unanimity on how to respond to COVID-19 that didn’t truly exist.

If Bhattacharya is chosen and confirmed, he would be subordinate to Kennedy if the latter is also confirmed. Trump’s HHS secretary pick has said he would fire about 600 NIH employees on his first day.

“We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave,” Kennedy said on Nov. 9 at the Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Kennedy told The Epoch Times in September that he would order the NIH to focus on the sharp increase in autism, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopment disorders in recent decades.

The Associated Press and Jeff Louderback contributed to this report. 

The political left’s whole world has been turned upside down and just like 2016, millions of people are sitting back and enjoying the show on social media with a big tub of popcorn.  However, some may have noticed that the behavior of the woke mob is even more unhinged than eight years ago.  The defeat of Hillary Clinton hit Democrats hard because polling had been so drastically weighted in Clinton’s favor.  Trump’s win in 2016 shook their faith in the mainstream media, election statistics and their belief that progressive ideology was the dominant force in American society.  

Their response to the loss was tears and rage.  They acted as if they had been betrayed by the system; that ever present cradle rocking them to sleep with a sense of false security.  Nanny government was no longer there to protect them from scary words and contrary ideas.  Unfortunately this led to years of false Russian collusion conspiracies and race riots. 

This year’s election, though, seems to have broken progressive brains.  They aren’t just lashing out, they’ve gone completely insane.  Liberal women have been shaving their heads in protest of men (as if men care), Kamala Harris supporters have taken to social media to scream incoherent gibberish about misogyny and racism, and many are threatening to divorce their spouses, cut off ties to their families and even kill Trump voters using poisons, guns, knives, etc.

The WORST Election Day Meltdowns – @CarolineDowney_ reacts to the worst and most extreme meltdowns from progressive TikTokers over the re-election of Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/LupSgV0dg3

— National Review (@NRO) November 13, 2024

The corporate media has been actively endorsing and encouraging this behavior.  It’s a good thing their ratings are plunging and their influence continues to wane.

Yale psychiatrist tells people not to spend the holidays with their family members if they voted for Trump. pic.twitter.com/HX5gejOfDV

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) November 9, 2024

The amped up media rhetoric might explain the hysterical fears of fascism, but there’s more to it than the forked tongues of CNN and MSNBC.  Why does it seem like leftists have gone far more insane during the latest election cycle?  What’s different this time?

Losing The Popular Vote

Democrats often fall back on the argument that “something is wrong” with American voting methodology when they lose an election.  They blame the electoral college because they don’t understand how it works or why it’s important.  Needless to say, the Founding Fathers were highly suspicious of pure Democracy and sought to prevent tyranny by the majority.  The EC helps to stop the major population centers of the nation (people that lean towards exploitation of rural producers) from ruling over all the people in the “flyover states”.   

Because the protections of the 10th Amendment and state’s rights have been diluted over the past century, the Electoral College is usually the only thing standing in the way of fully centralized government under the control of blue population centers holding a few million more votes more than the rest of the country. 

In 2024, though, Trump won the popular vote on top of the EC.  The Democrats have no excuses to hide behind and they can no longer claim they’re the majority.  They realize the popular vote, which they hold in reverence, is against them.  The “democracy” they claim to protect did not work in their favor and now they’re confused.

Desperation For A Token Female President

The establishment media initially argued that Kamala Harris lost because of her race.  But when it became clear that more black men and a large percentage of Hispanics voted against her compared to Barack Obama, the MSM shifted their narrative and blamed “misogyny” instead. 

The same people who refuse to accept the scientific definition of a woman are mad that we still don’t have a woman president.  Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, and this has driven third-wave feminists into a spiraling breakdown.  The problem is not that Democrats ran two women against Trump, the problem is that they ran two corrupt and reprehensible women against Trump.  The character of the individual matters far more than identity politics.  

Kamala Harris’ massive loss heralds the death of the social justice crusade and feminism in general, and this is very difficult for leftists to handle.

Get Woke, Go Broke Confirmed

When asked why they voted for Trump Americans often mention the economy, but in the same breath they cite woke ideology as the reason why they no longer support the Democrats.  For years the political left built up their power using woke taboos as a basis for social control.  People don’t forget.  Even when Dems tried to go more centrist towards the end of the election cycle the public wasn’t buying it.

The last straw was undoubtedly the targeting of children with trans propaganda.  Voters will only tolerate drag queen story hour, sexualized dances in front of kids (or involving kids), men in women’s bathrooms or tampons in boys bathrooms for so long.  The public finally snapped and sent leftists a clear message:  Your ideology is cancer and we’re cutting it out.

For a long time progressives have denied that “Get Woke, Go Broke” is a reality.  Now it’s undeniable.  Kamala Harris, the ultimate DEI candidate who once argued that all of America needs to “go more woke” has been rejected by the masses. 

The Fall Of The Mainstream Media

If it wasn’t obvious before it’s clear now; the mainstream media is done.  Their viewership is dwindling to nothing.  Certain outlets (like MSNBC) are about to be parceled out in a fire sale.  Only a tiny percentage of the population watches or listens to corporate journalists anymore.  They’re about to be jobless.

The era of the Fourth Estate is over and the alternative media has won.  The political left clings to the false legitimacy of the academic elite, the end of the establishment controlled media leaves them in a whirlwind of doubt.  The “experts” have been exposed as impotent but the left refuses to move on with the rest of Americans.  Their beloved gatekeepers have been crushed.

Brainwashing And Irrational Fears Of “Fascism”

For the past four years Democrats have been drowning in a sea of anti-conservative propaganda telling them that anyone who disagrees with them is a fascist, an insurrectionist and an enemy of democracy.  The corporate media has been conjuring endless images of Nazi marches, genocidal purges and book burnings.  Even though Trump was already President for four years and none of these things happened under his direction, leftists are convinced that he intends to resurrect the Third Reich in his final term.

Nationalism by itself is not a precursor to fascism and the system has nothing to do with conservative principles.  In fact, fascism is a creation of the far-left.  Both Hitler and Mussolini held up Karl Marx as the inspiration for the development of National Socialism.  Hitler’s efforts to expand control over the means of production was rooted in Marxist ideology and most industries were run behind the scenes by the fascist leadership.  They also instituted price controls, wage controls and inflated the money supply to expand their power, just as Marxists do. 

Leftists have spent decades trying to plant the association of conservatives as fascists into the collective consciousness, but as Adolph Hitler noted in 1934:

“National Socialism derives from each of the two camps the pure idea that characterizes it, national resolution from bourgeois tradition; vital, creative socialism from the teaching of Marxism.”

Socialists and communists go to war with each other all the time.  Leftists turn on each other all the time.  It’s not surprising that they turned against each other during WWII, and it’s not surprising that leftists today have no understanding that they have more in common with Nazis than conservatives do.  The defeat of the progressives in 2024 is forcing them to question if they’re on the right side of history.  Some of them are starting to wonder if they might be the baddies, and that revelation is devastating.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

Many commentators cannot understand why Trump won the elections despite a robust economy. The reality is far more complex. I have repeatedly stated in my articles and TV appearances on Making Money (Fox News) and CNBC’s Squawkbox Europe that the U.S. economy was significantly weaker than the official headlines suggested. I called it a “private sector recession”.

Anyone who has delved into the supposedly solid headline figures can clearly see the real weakness of the U.S. economy. An unsustainable increase in government spending and federal debt bloated the official GDP, making gross domestic income significantly weaker than headline GDP. Additionally, the Conference Board and University of Michigan consumer confidence readings, well below 2019 and 2021 levels, indicated a stagnant economy. Significant negative revisions and concerning elements were evident in the job reports. The entire improvement of the labor force since 2021 came from foreign workers, and the employment-to-population and labor force participation ratios remained significantly below 2019 levels. Real wages were stagnant in the past four years using official figures. Investment was weak, and the Russell 2000 index, which includes the top small-cap companies generating most of their business in the US, reflected an insignificant 1.8% sales growth and no real earnings growth between 2021 and November 2024.

Professors EJ Antony and Peter St Onge recently published an excellent study, “Recession Since 2022: US Economic Income and Output Have Fallen Overall for Four Years,” through the Brownstone Institute. It perfectly summarizes why Americans have not responded favorably to Bidenomics and his assessment of his economic legacy as the “best economy in the world” or “the best economy ever.” The study concludes that adjustments reflecting a more realistic measure of average price increases in the period have understated cumulative inflation by nearly half since 2019. An enormous divergence between reported CPI and adjusted inflation led to an overstatement of cumulative GDP growth by roughly 15%. Furthermore, these adjustments indicate that the American economy has been in recession since 2022.

As the authors rightly say, “Our results are consistent with the perceptions of the American public, of whom a majority believe we are in recession.”.

The study reveals that understating the CPI and GDP deflator measures of inflation has boosted GDP and real disposable income, resulting in figures that no American who pays bills and receives a wage can relate to. Once adjusted, the harsh reality arrives. The U.S. economy has been in recession for years. Interestingly, Keynesian economists spent these past two years trying to explain why the disaggregated macroeconomic figures I mentioned before did not match the strong headline GDP and disposable income. Despite their numerous justifications, the underlying issue was the government’s overstatement of the growth in disposable income and real GDP.

Americans are not stupid. You cannot tell them that the economy is marvelous and stronger than ever when they do not see it in their daily finances. Such ludicrous propaganda may work in France or Spain, but not in America. Thus, the optimism, publicity, and complacency of a government that constantly repeats that the economy is great backfires. Normal.

Governments create inflation, a hidden tax that erodes the purchasing power of the currency through increased spending and money printing. People often mistakenly report inflation and CPI as identical. CPI is just a measure of the loss of purchasing power of the currency.

Economists often criticize the CPI and GDP deflator measures of inflation for their inadequate reflection of real inflationary pressures. Indeed, there have been numerous studies that show how CPI calculation understates real inflation. “Underweighting of rising food prices and overweighting of falling transport prices are the main causes of the underestimation of inflation,” according to the IMF’s Marshall Reinsdorf (COVID-19 and the CPI: Is Inflation Underestimated?). Peter Schiff also explains it perfectly: “If you run today’s price data through the old formula, you will find that the CPI is nearly double the number the government reports. So, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 9.2% CPI in June 2021, it was closer to 18% when calculated using the 1970s formula.” Why Do You Say the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Understates Inflation?). Vahan P. Roth also comments that, “One of the most important effects that an inaccurate and possibly biased measure of inflation has on the consumer and taxpayer is that it directly influences and justifies monetary and fiscal policy decisions”

(How CPI calculations misrepresent real inflation, GIS).

Indeed, “the CPI is a government statistic, and since the government’s expansionary monetary policy creates the inflation, officials have an incentive to underestimate it” (Mark Brandly at Mises). According to Professor Joseph Salerno, author of the excellent book “Money, Sound Unsound” (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015), the current method of calculating the annual inflation rate is backward-looking, as the previous eleven months’ rates significantly outweigh the most recent monthly rate. In contrast, calculating the annual inflation rate by compounding and annualizing the most recent monthly or quarterly rate of change in the CPI gives a better idea of what inflation currently is and how it may be trending.” Thus, after the recent figures, no one would declare victory over inflation, and the Federal Reserve’s policy would be completely altered.

Bloated government spending has disguised a private sector recession and the real decline in real disposable income, real wages, and margins of SMEs (small and medium enterprises). We can now see that real GDP has been in contraction for the past two years, even after accounting for real inflationary pressures. Furthermore, the temporary and exogenous factor of widespread weaker commodities boosted the external contribution of gross domestic product.

The issue is that attempts to lessen the impact of currency destruction have repeatedly compromised the reliability of official data. As the government’s influence in the economy increases, technical recessions may not show up in official data, but they still affect citizens. Furthermore, deficit spending and money printing now result in both higher taxes and lower real wages in the future. Therefore, the unintended consequence of an official recession is an increase in government debt, an increase in taxes, and a decrease in the purchasing power of the currency.

Biden and Harris believed that strong official headline figures would reward them, leading them to implement an ultra-Keynesian approach: the most aggressive government expenditure and debt increase plan in decades. They also thought that citizens would fall for the trick of blaming corporations and shops for inflation. They were wrong. They engineered a recession, and families and businesses suffered as a result. However, many people mistakenly believe that Bidenomics was a miscalculation that ultimately backfired. The objective was to advance the stealth nationalization of the economy by increasing the public sector size and dissolving the wealth of the private sector, making it impossible for the next administration to undo the damage. That is what all socialist parties do. They leave a mess that is difficult to unravel, then return in the next election to continue raising taxes and expanding the role of government in the economy.

The United States should steer clear of these impoverishing Keynesian policies and instead adopt a private sector-driven pro-growth strategy, coupled with a sound money policy, to stabilize public sector finances and restore prosperity to America. It has successfully achieved this in the past and can continue to do so in the present.

Boeing, still grappling with financial setbacks, regulatory scrutiny, and the aftershocks of an eight-week machinists’ strike, has begun delivering layoff notices to more than 400 members of its unionized workers as part of a broader plan to cut approximately 10% of its workforce, or 17,000 jobs.

The layoffs target members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), a union representing thousands of Boeing employees. According to the union, 438 members received pink slips last week, with affected employees remaining on the payroll through mid-January.

According to an October statement by Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, the layoffs are the result of ‘overstaffing,’ adding that the company must “reset its workforce levels to align with our financial reality.”

Of the 438 SPEEA members impacted:

• 218 are engineers and scientists from the union’s professional unit.
• 220 are from the technical unit, which includes roles such as planners, technicians, and skilled tradespeople.

SPEEA, which represents 17,000 Boeing workers, noted that most of its members are based in Washington State, though the layoffs also affect employees in Oregon, California, and Utah.

For those losing their jobs, Boeing is offering limited support, including career transition services, subsidized healthcare benefits for up to three months, and severance packages typically amounting to one week of pay per year of service.

A Company Under Pressure

Boeing’s challenges have been mounting for years, exacerbated by a series of missteps and external pressures.

Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has been in financial and regulatory trouble since a panel blew off the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines plane in January. Production rates slowed to a crawl, and the Federal Aviation Administration capped production of the 737 MAX at 38 planes per month, a threshold Boeing has yet to reach. -AP

The company’s troubles worsened in September when its machinists went on strike for eight weeks, further disrupting operations. Although unionized machinists began returning to work earlier this month, the strike strained Boeing’s already fragile finances.

Ortberg has insisted that the layoffs are unrelated to the strike and are instead part of broader efforts to address overstaffing. However, the timing has raised questions among labor advocates and analysts, who point to the compounding financial pressures Boeing faces.

Authored by Peter Reagan,

We’ve been through a lot over the last four years. Between pandemics, actions taken to prop up the economy through the pandemic, and the miserable effects of Bidenomics, you’re probably asking when the misery will end.

It’s a good question to ask, and we all want something hopeful to look forward to. When times are tough, a vision of a better day can keep us going.

And many people look at what the Fed is doing to try to “help” the economy with the hope that what the Fed is doing will be the magic bullet to fix our economic issues.

It’s easy to understand why they hope that: Inflation is still affecting us all, everytime that we go to the grocery store, to the gas pump, or pay our power bill. Eric Revell writes for Fox Business,

Inflation ticked slightly higher in October as prices remained stubbornly high for consumers, giving Federal Reserve policymakers more data to consider ahead of their meeting next month.

The Labor Department on Wednesday said that the consumer price index (CPI) — a broad measure of how much everyday goods like gasoline, groceries and rent cost — rose 0.2% in October from the prior month and was up 2.6% from a year ago.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices (which to be honest can be quite volatile), came in at a more concerning 3.3%.

That’s uncomfortably well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

Whether you call it 2.6% or 3.3%, we all know that real inflation is higher than that official number, though… John Williams’s data seems a lot closer to correct for me and most people I speak to on a daily basis.

Courtesy of ShadowStats.com

If we still measured inflation the same way we did back in 1990, our uncomfortable 3.3% becomes an alarming 7.5%.

It’s the Fed’s job to keep inflation under control. So you’d expect them to do something.

They did react, but not in the way you might expect…

The Fed lowered interest rates

Wait? They did what?

Yes, they cut interest rates.

Now, they keep telling us that the Fed uses interest rates to control inflation. The Fed, to prevent inflation, will raise interest rates, and they know that we’re dealing with inflation. So, why are they cutting interest rates?

They’re trying to kick-start an economy critically injured by Bidenomics.

Whih, as you know, is bad. I mean, official reports about the economy (and press conferences from the White House) claim it’s humming right along, the greatest economic recovery in American history.

To give just one aspect highlighting how bad things are, Wolf Richter writes,

Total household debt outstanding ticked up by $147 billion in Q3, or by 0.8%, from Q2, to $17.9 trillion, according to the Household Debt and Credit Report from the New York Fed today. Year-over-year, total household debt grew by 3.8%.

And why are average people like you and me borrowing more, now?

It’s because the Biden/Harris economy is struggling. It is being stubbornly slow, not wanting to get moving again. So much so that two respected economists speculate the real economy, the place where you and I live and work, might’ve entered recession in 2022.

And that’s why the Fed cut interest rates again despite the latest CPI report. They’re trying to stimulate the real economy so it starts to seem more like those press conferences and official reports.

So when will it end?

Before we can even begin to answer that question, we have to understand how it started…

What causes inflation?

Most people get inflation and price fluctuations confused – fortunately, my friend and Birch Gold partner Dr. Ron Paul explained the difference between inflation and rising prices earlier this year.

So, what is the real cause of inflation? Dr. Paul says:

When the Federal Reserve prints more money, it makes each dollar worth less. This causes prices to rise for everything, from the raw materials companies use to make products to the prices we pay for finished goods.

When the Federal Reserve pushes interest rates down, that lowers the cost of credit. (Think of credit as spending money before you earn it.) More credit makes each dollar worth less, just like money-printing does.

That’s what inflation is.

Higher prices are a symptom of inflation, not inflation itself.

Ron Paul is one of the few people who actually understands how the cycle works!

The federal government’s addiction to deficit spending – enabled by the Fed’s interest rate repression and outright money-printing – devalue the dollar. Prices go up, but that’s just a side effect.

Side note: Personally I’m absolutely thrilled that Dr. Paul may indeed be joining the Department of Government Efficiency in the near future!

I’d be happy to talk with you about it, Elon. https://t.co/tjG6O5CpIj

— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) November 1, 2024

BREAKING: Vivek Ramaswamy plans to reach out to Ron Paul for assistance with the Department of Government Efficiency. pic.twitter.com/XSjI3q2qdF

— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) November 14, 2024

Dr. Paul would agree with me when I tell you It’s incredibly frustrating that the Fed, whose mission is to deliberately debase our currency at 2% and has caused multiple boom and bust cycles in our economy, is still at it.

They think they’re untouchable by mere mortals.

Or President-elect Donald Trump. As Ryan McMaken tells the story:

There were a few seemingly tense moments at the FOMC press conference on Thursday when two reporters asked Jerome Powell about the prospect of Donald Trump asking Powell to resign. The first reporter asked “would you resign if asked to do so by Donald Trump?” To this, Powell responded with a resounding “no” followed by silence. A few moments later, Powell was asked by another reporter if it was lawful for Trump to either remove or “demote” – that is, remove Powell as chairman, but leave him on the Board of Governors – Powell. To this, Powell responded with a forceful “not permitted under the law.”

Huh – maybe someone who’s done such a terrible job should be held accountable? At the very least, lose their authority to cause so much economic harm?

If you asked Chairman Powell about this, I guarantee he’d tell you that whatever financial harm you and I have suffered under his tenure as head of the Fed, it was for the greater good.

They’re saving the economy

And, if you know the history of the Fed (and central banks throughout history), it never has, no matter what happens, ever accepted responsibility for a poor outcome.

Remember Covid, and the 9% official inflation rate? Whose fault? Supply chains and Vladimir Putin – but don’t worry, it’s transitory. Did 0% interest rates and $4 trillion-plus in money-printing have anything to do with it? Next question!

Before that, the Great Financial Crisis – caused by “irrational exuberance” among homeowners and real estate investors. The dot-com meltdown? Well, everybody knows that was the internet’s fault… 

Here’s the real issue: Powell’s “transitory” inflation started more than three years ago! And it’s still hanging around – because lower interest rates and massive deficits continue to destroy the purchasing power of our dollars.

Remember, though – it’s for your own good. And if you disagree, if you’d prefer your purchasing power not steadily destroyed, well, too bad, because nobody can fire the Fed head.

Don’t wait for inflation to subside

If you’ve been waiting and hoping for inflation to finally burn out, I have some bad news for you. That’s not going to happen.

Because the Fed and the federal government keep pouring more fuel on the fire, then fanning the flames.

You can’t fire the Fed – but you can opt out of the rigged boom-and-bust, currency depreciation game. Physical precious metals are real, tangible assets that are immune to inflation. They can’t be printed like currency, they can’t be diluted like nearly every other financial asset in existence – and, best of all, they tend to become much more valuable during economic crises.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“People violate laws any time they want.”

Those words, shrugging off an alleged unlawful move last week, did not come from some Chicago gangbanger or Washington car thief. Those words of wisdom came from Democrat Commissioner Diane Marseglia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

They came in response to the fact that the Democratic majority on the election commission had decided to ignore a binding state Supreme Court ruling in an attempt to engineer the election of Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

Rather than prompting a degree of introspection, the loss of both houses of Congress and the White House has had a curious effect on many Democrats, dropping any pretense of protecting democracy over partisanship.

Despite polls showing that the public trusted former president Donald Trump more than Vice President Harris in combating threats to democracy, Democrats made “saving democracy” the thrust of this election.

The polls reflected a certain common sense of the public when harangued with predictions from President Biden, Harris and a host of politicians and pundits warned that this would likely be our last election. Few believed that after over two centuries as the most stable and successful democracy in history, all three branches would collapse in unison and embrace dictatorship. Even fewer believed the predictions of the rounding up of homosexuals, journalists and political critics for camps in what some described as an American Third Reich.

American voters are not chumps and what they saw were strikingly anti-democratic positions from those claiming to be the defenders of democracy, including:

• Seeking to strip Trump from ballots under an unfounded theory rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court.

• Fighting to block opponents of Biden from ballots in the primary and general elections.

• Suing to keep Robert F. Kennedy on ballots after his withdrawal in swing states, in order to confuse voters and reduce the vote for Trump.

• Calling for blocking dozens of incumbent GOP officials and legislators from ballots as “insurrectionists.”

• “Protecting democracy” through the most extensive censorship in history and the blacklisting of opponents.

• Engaging in open and raw lawfare in the prosecutions of Trump in places like New York.

Each of these efforts ultimately failed to stop Trump and was opposed by a majority of voters even before the election. So now, Democrats are dropping the pretense for open partisanship.

That was evident in Bucks County, when a motion arose to reject a challenge to count provisional ballots, including undated or invalidly dated mail ballots.

It should have been easy.

To its credit, the majority-Democratic Pennsylvania Supreme Court had already refused a Democratic push to change the rules shortly before the election and to ignore the plain language of the election laws.

In ordering the rejection of ballots without dates, Justice Kevin Doughtery (joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd) wrote a concurrence declaring

“This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’  We said those carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation unfolds.”

It is apparently still not being heard. In the Bucks County hearing, Marseglia spoke as she and Democratic Board chairman Robert Harvie, Jr., dismissed the earlier rulings in order to accept ballots without required signatures or mandatory dates.  She declared that she would not second the motion to enforce the rulings “mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”

That was a lot of words to say that she does not really seem to care if this is lawful. For his part, Casey has shown the same abandon as he clings to his Senate seat at any cost.

That cost, in this case, was an alliance with Marc Elias, the controversial Democratic lawyer at the center of the infamous Steele Dossier scandal. Elias has been sanctioned in court and criticized for his work to flip elections. He is known for baselessly blaming voting machine errors for electing Republicans and pushing gerrymandering plans rejected by the courts as anti-democratic.

Casey is unlikely to change the result without counting defective or challenged ballots. Fortunately, law and precedent “does matter in this country.”  There are still officials who can transcend their political preferences to maintain the rule of law. After the last presidential election, many Trump appointees ruled against the former president, and many Democratic judges rejected the effort to strip Trump from ballots.

That does not mean that Democrats who value the weaponization of law will not continue to embrace lawfare warriors like New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).

Others will use the rage of these times as a license to ignore legal and ethical obligations altogether. They are arguably the saddest manifestation of our political discord. They are people who have not just lost faith in our system but in themselves. They have become untethered from any defining principle for their own conduct. This election has left them adrift in a sea of moral and legal relativism, with only their rage as a following wind. They cling to that rage as reason vanishes like a distant shore.

For the rest of us, there is work to be done as a nation committed to the rule of law. We cannot win at any cost when that cost is the very thing that defines us.

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”