My long-standing skepticism about survey data has reached the point where I feel compelled to comment on the current state of the art. While it is always risky to ignore broad deep reliable surveys I’m following up on a few prior sentiment posts.

First off, I am not discussing online surveys; those easily gamed and worthless. Rather I am discussing the regular surveys that come in to people through their landlines texts and mobile phones.

WhoTF answers these? Who has the time or interest to respond to a random person calling you and interrupting whatever you’re doing to ask a series of questions about the economy? This is a subgroup of people who probably aren’t working or at least aren’t working very hard or busily, and are free to make up whatever they want.

As if polling isn’t bad enough, there is a specific cohort that has been gaming pollsters for years. A recent poll showed that 17% of respondents believe Joe Biden was responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade(!). I’m sorry, I have to call bullshit. I don’t care how dumb you think the public is, but you simply cannot believe nearly 1 in 5 are that utterly clueless. These are partisans trolling pollsters for shits & giggles, full stop.

Anytime you trash polling data, you run the risk of missing a major shift in sentiment. Recall in July 2008 when Phil Gramm called America a “Nation of Whiners,” and said we were in a a “mental recession.” At the time, Housing had peaked 2 years prior and was falling, we were 8 months into what would become not only the worst recession since the Great Depression, but snowball into the Great Financial Crisis (GFC).

A couple of years ago, I asked if it made any sense that that current sentiment readings are worse than:

1980-82 Double Dip Recession 1987 Crash 1990 Recession 9/11 Terrorist Attacks 2000-2003 Dotcom implosion 2007-09 Great Financial Crisis 2020 Pandemic Panic

That makes little sense. Some of the blame belongs to the media and a particularly insidious form of journalistic malpractice. Every time I see an interview of a pollster on TV, I wait for the questions that never seem to come. Two examples of this dereliction of duty:

First, if it’s an economic poll, I want the interviewer to ask something along the lines of:

“You’ve been doing this poll for XX years; what has this reading meant in the past for subsequent market performance?” If they cannot answer that question, what value is an economic poll? “

As an example, I first asked if partisanship was driving sentiment less than 2 years ago (August 9, 2022); since, then, the S&P 500 is up 28.6% and the Nasdaq is 45.6% higher. Rather than scare investors out of markets, this puts sentiment readings into some context.

Second, if economic polling is bad, political polling is worse. We have been deluged with polling data from 15 months prior to the November 2024 election. The journalistic malpractice is even worse here.

Every interview with a pollster discussing the presidential election should ALWAYS ask these questions:

1. How were your polling results relative to the outcome in the 2020 election? 2016?

2. How prescient are polls this far in advance of the election? What is their accuracy, 6, 12, 15 months out?

3. When are your polls most accurate? 7 days? 2 weeks? Where is your sweet spot?

It is kind of astounding that despite the polls blowing it year after year, the media still seems to still hang on every one of them. It’s always more about a sensationalistic horse race, than policies or governance. As a reminder, polls blew the 2016 Trump election, they underestimated Biden’s 2020 margin of victory, and they completely blew the “Red Wave” in 2022 that never arrived.

Any fund manager with a track record that poor would have been fired long ago.

We all understand the economy is complicated and strength in consumer spending and wage growth are not evenly distributed. Especially at extremes, we disregard sentiment data at our peril. But when I look at specifics across the economy, I cannot help but notice that across each quartile of consumer spending, demand continues to overwhelm supply:

-Restaurant reservations are increasingly difficult to get; even moderately popular spots require 2 or 3 weeks advance notice;

-Airline tickets to popular destinations must be purchased many months in advance.

-New Car purchases continue to take much longer to arrive than normal; High end cars (Porsche, Ferrari, etc.) are sold out for a year.

-Boats of many sizes also have delays for deliveries;

-We still have a huge shortfall of single family homes;

– Wage gains have outpaced inflation since the pandemic began;

-Consumer spending is at record highs (See chart, top)…

I went to a local BBQ/Car Show this weekend, and I got dragged into a conversation about “how lousy the economy is.”

Rather than inundating people with data (see below), I asked some questions: Where did you guys go on your last vacation? (It ranged from Disney to the Greek islands to Bali) How is your business? (uniformly Booming). How many people have you hired since the pandemic ended? (5-50). What car did you drive here? (Porsche, Ferrari, Vette, vintage 1950s, Viper, not a junker in the crowd). What is your Daily Driver? (Benz, Lexus, BMW, Range Rover). How much more is primary residence worth today than a decade ago? (anywhere from +$1m to + $5m) How many homes do you own? (between 1 and 5). How many cars do you own? (2 to 400)  Tell me about your boat (28-foot sailboat local to a 75-footer in Palm Beach).

Gee, it sounds like you guys are really struggling…

I get that if you are in the bottom quartile, you face difficult challenges; but the bottom quartile always has a harder time. But overall, looking at the economic data, I see record consumer spending, unemployment under 4% for two years, lots of new jobs created, inflation way down from its fiscal stimulus surge, wages up, and the stock market at all-time highs. That’s not merely an okay economy, but an excellent one.

I cannot help but be reminded of the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote my father was so fond of admonishing me with: “What you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying.”

 

 

 

Previously:
Wages & Inflation Since COVID-19 (April 29, 2024)

Is Partisanship Driving Consumer Sentiment? (August 9, 2022)

Quote of the Day: Phil Gramm (December 10, 2008)

 

The post What Is the Consumer Doing…? appeared first on The Big Picture.

Analyzing The Strategic Importance Of Russia's Reportedly Planned Afghan Oil Hub

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Continued maritime exports to the Indian Ocean Region across the Baltic, Black, and Mediterranean Seas might be deemed strategically undependable due to tensions with the West, hence the need to pioneer a more reliable alternative.

Afghanistan’s acting Industry and Trade Minister Nooruddin Azizi told Reuters earlier this month that his country agreed with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to build a logistics hub in its northwestern Herat province, which he said will also facilitate the export of Russian oil to South Asia via road and rail routes. The outlet noted that he’s particularly optimistic about Russia exporting this resource to Pakistan in the coming future, though they’ve yet to reach a strategic energy deal despite several years of negotiations.

Even in the absence of one, it might be more convenient for Russia to export oil to India and other countries in its namesake ocean’s region via the North-South Transport Corridor’s Arabian Sea and Gulf ports, which Herat is connected to by the new railway to Iran’s border town of Khaf. Continued maritime exports to the region across the Baltic, Black, and Mediterranean Seas might be deemed strategically undependable due to tensions with the West, hence the need to pioneer a more reliable alternative.

Furthermore, the creation of that selfsame alternative right on Pakistan’s doorstep might incentivize its de facto military rulers to finally reach a strategic energy deal with Russia instead of continuing to dillydally indefinitely as a favor to their American patrons, thus unlocking their full trade potential. Azizi is optimistic that this might indeed occur after revealing on the sidelines of last week’s annual Russia-Islamic World Forum that he hopes to sign a transit deal with Russia, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan.

He also told Sputnik about his government’s vision of facilitating Russian oil exports to South Asia via Afghanistan that he earlier shared with Reuters, though Moscow has yet to confirm its participation in these plans, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t interested. Talks with Pakistan are presumably ongoing behind the scenes as suggested by Azizi’s optimistic media claims, which adds more context to the possibility of Russia inviting Pakistan to participate in the “Outreach”/“BRICS-Plus” Summit in October.

The preceding hyperlinked analysis explains how this could inadvertently offend Russia’s decades-long strategic partners in India, while these three here, here, and here detail its pro-BRI policymaking faction that emerged over the past year and the influence that it’s exerting over these calculations. The relevance to the present piece is that this profitable opportunity might convince the Kremlin to invite Pakistan to the aforesaid summit with a view towards increasing the odds of clinching an energy deal.

Leaving aside the unintended consequences that this could have for Russian-Indian relations in the event that Prime Minister Narendra Modi skips the summit out of protest on whatever pretext, improved Russian-Pakistani relations could  lead to the Russian-mediated improvement of Afghan-Pakistani ones. It was analyzed in August 2022 that “The Taliban Envisions Russia Playing A Big Role In The Group’s Geo-Economic Balancing Act”, which is aimed at maintaining Afghanistan’s sovereignty vis-à-vis Pakistan.

It's beyond the scope of the present piece to explain, but these two analyses here and here detail their spiraling security dilemma that brought them to the brink of war in early 2023 and still remains tense. If Pakistan at least partially liberates itself from the American yoke enough to finally seal its long-negotiated strategic energy deal with Russia, then it therefore follows that it would have to improve ties with Afghanistan as well in order to facilitate the planned large-scale transit of oil via that country.

Russia, which has equally excellent relations with both in spite of occasional disputes such as Moscow’s disappointment with the Taliban’s refusal to form an ethno-politically inclusive government that respects women’s rights and suspicions about Pakistan arming Ukraine, could naturally mediate these talks. Any successful outcome would reinforce Moscow’s “Ummah Pivot” from the past few years that can be learned more about here, here, and here, the last of which specifically covers its Afghan dimension.

Russia – or rather its rapidly emerging and newly influential pro-BRI policymaking faction – might calculate that these benefits outweigh the potential loss of soft power in Indian society that would occur if it invites Pakistan to October’s summit in order to set the above into motion. India’s defiance of the US’ sanctions threats over its newly sealed Chabahar port deal with Iran and reaffirmation of its interest in continuing to scale trade with Russia might convince it that the tangible consequences would be nil.

This latest possible development in Russia’s “Ummah Pivot”, which requires finalizing a long-negotiated strategic energy deal with Pakistan and then mediating an improvement in Afghan-Pakistani relations, largely hinges on Russia’s reportedly planned Afghan oil hub that Azizi was the first to publicly reveal. If substantive progress is made on this by summer’s end, then that’ll greatly raise the chances that Russia invites Pakistan to October’s summit, while a lack therefore would keep the odds at their present level.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/20/2024 - 06:55

Copper Roars, Gold Soars To Record Highs As Metals Hit "History-Making Mode"

While oil remains oddly muted amid yet another middle-eastern shock, the same can not be said for various precious metals and commodities which are soaring to start the week, and which according to Bloomberg's Jake Lloyd-Smith, will make for a lively session in Europe and the US, with flow-through gains on the cards for mining-industry stocks that have already been put on edge as BHP Group bids to swallow (most of) Anglo American.

Copper and gold - the leading lights of the base and precious metals arenas - are in what Lloyd-Smith puts as "history making mode", as both powered to record highs in early Monday trading. Here’s a handful of things to watch in what could be a compelling week.

• Copper: Everybody’s favorite base metal is benefiting from the fallout from a dramatic short squeeze on the Comex that plays straight into long-standing hype about global deficits to come given the energy transition. Still, some physical indicators remain weak, so watch to see if copper’s prompt spread — which has been mired in an ugly, bearish contango — narrows more this week

• Gold: The Godfather of metals is up +18% YTD and is positioned to challenge $2,500/oz. Its latest leg higher appears to stem from a return to usual drivers: real 10-year Treasury yields are coming off a three-week drop, the longest run in a year. A decent batch of Fedspeak, as well as FOMC minutes will help to set the tone

• Silver: is flexing its muscles with gold, up 12% last week and roaring higher again on Monday. Watch to see if the ratio to gold realigns with the long-standing average. That gauge is now back to ~75 , closer to the ~68 since the start of this millennium

• And finally for good measure, here is nickel too, which while not at an all time high yet, may get there soon.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/20/2024 - 06:20

The EU Is Spending Billions On Hydrogen-Ready, But Where's The Hydrogen?

Authored by Mike Shedlock via mishtalk.com,

I’m all in favor of hydrogen-powered plants to produce electricity if only we had cheap hydrogen. But we don’t and likely won’t.

A Bad Bet on Hydrogen Hype

Bloomberg cautions Europe’s Spending Billions on Green Hydrogen. It’s a Risky Gamble

Today, the bright yellow power plant tucked behind a graffiti-covered fence burns planet-warming gas to produce electricity. But if all goes to plan, it will one day switch to emissions-free hydrogen. It’s the first, tiny part of a dream energy system being sketched out by policymakers across Europe, who are banking on the green fuel to meet some of the world’s most aggressive climate targets. That dream rests on converting newly built polluting infrastructure to burn hydrogen, a fuel that’ll be many times more expensive than natural gas and that no one has figured out how to move safely and cheaply in bulk.

Governments and companies that are racing to meet net-zero deadlines but worried about energy security can still build billions of dollars worth of gas infrastructure as long as it’s “hydrogen-ready.” Nine of the world’s 10 biggest carbon polluters have published hydrogen strategies and incentives to grow the fuel’s use, which globally already exceed $360 billion, according to BloombergNEF.

Gas-dependent economies including Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and the UK are among Europe’s biggest proponents for using hydrogen and some have plans to use it to generate electricity. But there’s no official definition of what makes a plant hydrogen-ready, opening the door for greenwashing. For power plants, burning hydrogen hasn’t even been tested at scale.

“There has not yet been any measurable progress in the construction of hydrogen-ready, gas-fired power plants,” said Eric Heymann, an economist at Deutsche Bank Research.

Then there’s the problem of moving hydrogen around. The Leipzig plant isn’t hooked up to the grid (and hasn’t yet set up its own electrolyzers), which means the highly combustible fuel will have to be trucked in until the second part of the government’s grand plan comes to fruition. It’s building a €1 billion liquefied natural gas terminal in Brunsbuettel, a town along the North Sea, that will initially import LNG but be designed to also handle futuristic clean fuels.

Hydrogen can only be liquefied at -253C (-423F), well beyond the capabilities of today’s LNG ships. So Germany is planning to import hydrogen in the form of liquid ammonia, a combination of hydrogen and nitrogen that can more easily be turned into a liquid. But ammonia is toxic and handling requires better ventilation systems. Many components in the terminal, including control valves and fire and gas sensors as well as inline devices — most of which have not been tested with ammonia — will also need upgrades, according to Fraunhofer ISI, an energy think tank.

Not Viable But Full Speed Ahead

Germany doesn’t have an ammonia pipeline network and there are limitations to moving it via trucks on an industrial scale because it’s hazardous. That means ammonia will have to be converted back into hydrogen, yet there’s no economically viable technology currently available to do that. The terminal’s operator said it will discuss alternative strategies if none emerge by next year.

Wind and solar produce clean electricity — a commodity the world already uses. Green hydrogen, on the other hand, will require building more solar and wind farms when, in many cases, it would be simpler to just use that clean energy directly. By the time hydrogen is made, stored and burned to make electricity again, there’s nearly 70% less energy than at the start — and the cost has tripled.

Plans Only Exist On Paper

For the most part, the plans only exist on paper. That’s because they only work on paper.

A trial in the UK was cancelled when people made an uproar after learning they would have to replace their furnaces and stoves for new hydrogen appliances.

That does not apply to the situation discussed above which proposes burning hydrogen to produce electricity. However, there is a 70 percent loss of energy in the conversion from hydrogen to ammonia then back to hydrogen to burn it.

This makes no sense anywhere. Nonetheless, Germany is spending $20 billion to make electricity plants “hydrogen ready”.

Wasting $20 billion is a monthly occurrence in the Biden administration, but that’s a lot of money to Germany which unlike the US has budget rules.

China Shock

Germany is feeling the pinch of China shock. But the US is on deck too. A global trade war looms.

For discussion, please see China Shock II Is Coming, the EU Will Be Hit Hard, Then the US

Germany has too much else to worry about to waste money on absurd projects.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/20/2024 - 05:00

'Poster Boy' Migrant Imprisoned After Beating And Raping His Own Mother

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

A Congolese man who was previously held up as an example of successful migrant integration has been jailed for only nine years in Germany for raping his own mother and beating her almost to death.

The German outlet Nuis reports that 30-year-old Moise Lohombo was sentenced by the Wiesbaden District Court, with the judge barely being able to believe what he had read in the case file.

The report notes that Lohombo, just been released from prison for drug offences last August, returned to an apartment he shared with his mother, who is only 12 years older than him, and proceeded to threaten her at knifepoint to have sex with him.

In an act of desperation, the mother offered him money to spend on a prostitute, the report further notes.

Lohombo then proceeded to rape his own mother while punching her repeatedly in the face. He then called an ambulance and fled.

Investigators noted that they found the apartment walls covered in blood spatter, which Lohombo had attempted to clean off.

The report further details that the mother miraculously survived after being treated for severe brain bleeding. She also suffered psychological trauma and expressed anxiety that her own son may have impregnated her.  

The court found the migrant guilty and rejected a plea to incarcerate him in a psychiatric institution.

The only thing Lohombo said during the trial was “I don’t know how this happened,” according to the report.

It also details how Lohombo was featured in an article in 2017 in the Deutsche Handwerkszeitung newspaper as a migrant who had turned his life around in Germany after arriving from Congo aged 8, turning away from previous violence and crime and completing an apprenticeship as a baker and then training to be a professional boxer.

Instagram screenshot

The piece described Lohombo as “a charming, friendly young man who enthusiastically shows pictures of his bull terrier dog Betty on his cell phone.”

It further described Lohombo’s life as having “ups and downs” and claimed he had “literally fought his way through” and left his “youthful sins” behind.

That certainly did not age well.

As we have noted, recent German government statistics show that 41 percent of all crime suspects are foreigners, despite them making up a much smaller percentage of the population.

Violent crimes, especially knife attacks and rapes, have increased exponentially.

As we also highlighted last week, a German politician was found guilty of ‘incitement’ by a district court and fined $6000 after she posted a link to the same government statistics on crimes committed by migrants, specifically rape, and asked why they are so disproportionately high.

A recent survey found that seven in ten citizens of European countries believe there is too much unchecked immigration. Among Germans, the number was 77 percent.

This also dovetails with another stunning poll out of Germany that finds widespread opposition to mass migration across the board.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/20/2024 - 03:30

Where It's Most & Least Common To Be LGBT+

According to a survey of adults from 43 countries, around 7% of adults identify as LGBT+, Statista reports.

Broken down by country, The United States, Philippines and Israel had the highest percentage - around 11% each. In close second were Thailand and Canada at around 10% of adults. Sweden Brazil and Australia clocked in at 9%.

Broken down by sexual orientation in the US, 3% identified as gay, 6% bisexual, and 1% pansexual. No word on all the other acronyms.

The least gay countries were South Korea and Romania at about 3% of adults identifying as LGBT+.

By age group in the US, 20% of Gen Z self-identified as part of the LGBT+ community vs. 11% of millennials, 6% of GenX and 5% of Baby Boomers.

The survey was conducted online between April 2023 and March 2024 by Statista Consumer Insights.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/20/2024 - 02:45

A Former Ukrainian MP Blew The Whistle On Burisma's Connections To Terrorism

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Former Ukrainian MP Andrey Derkach, who’s reviled by the Biden Administration for sharing dirt about Hunter Biden’s Burisma corruption scandal with Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani ahead of the 2020 elections, just gave a very important interview to Belarus’ BelTA where be blew the whistle even louder. According to him, the $6 million bribe that was paid in cash to shut down the investigation into the First Son’s scandal eventually found its way to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and its military-intelligence agency.

Derkach claimed to have proof of the secret court order that divided these funds between those two, with the first investing its portion into building up their country’s drone army while the second financed terrorist attacks like the assassination of Darya Dugina, which he specifically mentioned in the interview. These allegations expand upon the ones that he shared earlier this year regarding the real-world impact of Hunter’s corruption scandal, which were analyzed here at the time.

On the subject of Ukrainian assassinations and terrorism, Derkach said that the CIA and FBI actually condone these actions despite their public claims to the contrary, but he warned that this immoral policy will inevitably ricochet into the US itself. In particular, he cited FBI chief Christopher Wray’s testimony to Congress last April where he said that law enforcement officials fear that Crocus-like attacks are presently being plotted against their country.

About that, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Ukraine’s military-intelligence service GUR is the chief suspect of Russia’s investigation into what became one of the worst terrorist attacks in its history, thus meaning that the portion of Burisma’s $6 million bribe that made its way into their hands likely financed part of it. In other words, the third-order effect of Hunter’s corruption scandal is that it was partially responsible for the brutal murder of innocent civilians halfway across the world some years later.

That’s already scandalous enough, but Derkach shared even more details about the other indirect consequences of this cover-up into the First Son’s illicit activities, adding that some GUR-linked figures have been connected to the Western narrative about September 2022’s Nord Stream terrorist attack. He regards that story as a distraction from the US’ complicity, the view of which was elaborated upon here at the time that it entered the discourse, but lauded the CIA for the lengths it went to cover up its role.

In his view, the CIA might very well have sent a highly trained Ukrainian diving team to the Baltic Sea exactly as the Western media reported, though only to plant fake bombs. In his words, “when a cover story is made, it is done quite well. We shouldn’t belittle the experience of the CIA or the experience of MI6 in preparing cover operations. They have quite a lot of experience in using proxies, in using cover stories to form a certain position in order to dodge responsibility. This is actually what happened.”

Looking forward, Derkach expects Ukraine to attempt more terrorist attacks against Russia, which the US public is being preconditioned to accept via the CIA’s various leaks to the media. While many might lay the blame for all this on Zelensky’s lap, Derkach believes that it’s actually his Chief of Staff Andrey Yermak who’s running the show, albeit as a Western puppet. Nevertheless, he’s also convinced that the West is indeed preparing to formally replace Zelensky, but doesn’t yet know when or with whom.

Altogether, the importance of Derkach’s interview is that he’s a former veteran Ukrainian politician who still retains a lot of sources inside the regime, having served in the Rada for a whopping 22 years from 1998-2020. While his homeland charged him with treason after he fled to Russia in early 2022, which followed the US charging him with election meddling on behalf of that country in September 2020, the argument can be made that these are politically driven attempts to intimidate a top whistleblower.

The dirt that Derkach shared about Hunter’s Burisma corruption scandal, not to mention its newly revealed third-order effects that led to the brutal killing of civilians halfway across the world after part of his company’s bribe made its way into GUR’s hands, made him an enemy of the US Government. They and their Ukrainian proxies will therefore always try to discredit him with sensational allegations, but everyone would do well to listen to what he says and then make up their own minds about it.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/20/2024 - 02:00

Is America Losing?

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

Below, we soberly assess the lessons of history and math against the current realities of a debt-defined America to ask and answer a painful yet critical question: Is America losing?

The End of History and the Last Man

In 1992, while I was still an undergrad with a seemingly endless optimism in life in general and the American Dream in particular, the American political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, published a much-discussed book entitled, The End of History and the Last Man.

Released in the wake of the wall coming down in Berlin and a backdrop of continually low rates and rising US markets, this best-selling and optimistic work captured the Western mindset with obvious pride.

With its central theme (supported by an overt Hegelian and dialectal framework) of capitalism and liberal democracy’s penultimate and victorious evolution (Aufhebung moment) beyond the Soviet dark ages of a debt-soaked and centralization/autocratic communism, the famous book made headline sense in this Zeitgeist of American exceptionalism.

But even then, amidst all the evidence of Soviet failures (from extended wars, currency destruction, unpayable debts and a clearly dishonest media and police-state leadership), my already history-conscious (and fancy-school) mind could not help but wonder out loud if this book’s optimistic conclusion of the West’s ideological and evolutional end-game was not otherwise a bit, well: naïve.

Had the West truly reached a victorious “end of history” moment?

Pride & An Insult to History?

In fact, and as anyone who truly understands history should know then as now, history is replete with rhyming turning points, but never a victorious and eternal “end-game.”

Stated more simply, the famous book, which made so much sense at that particular moment in time, seemed to me even in 1992 as a classic example of “hubris comes before the fall.”

In other words, it may have been a bit too soon to declare victory for liberal democracy and capitalism, as these fine systems require fine leadership and even finer principles to survive history’s forward flow.

Today’s History…

Fast-forward many decades (grey hairs, advanced degrees and sore muscles) later, and it would seem that my young skepticism (and historical respect) was well-placed.

The evidence around us now suggests that the “victorious” capitalism Fukuyama boasted of in 1992 died long ago, replaced in the interim years by obvious and mathematically-corroborated examples of unprecedented wealth inequality and modern feudalism.

Furthermore, if one were to contrast the principles of America’s founding fathers as evidenced by their first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution (remember our Bill of Rights?) to the current and obvious destruction of the same in what is now a far more centralized, post-9-11 “Patriot Act” USA, the evidence of democracy’s crumbling façade is literally all around us.

In other words, perhaps Fukuyama got a little too ahead of himself.

Or more to the point, perhaps he was dead wrong about the final “victory” of genuine US capitalism and an actual, living/breathing liberal democracy?

Is the USA the Old USSR?

In fact, and with a humble nod to modesty, blunt-speak, current events, simple math and almost tragic irony, the actual evidence of history since 1992 suggests that today’s Divided States of America (DSA) (and Pravda-like media) appears to look far more like the defeated USSR than the victor presented by Mr. Fukuyama…

Such dramatic statements, of course, mean nothing without facts, and we all deserve a careful use of the same if we seek to replace emotion with data and hence see, argue and prepare ourselves politically and financially with more clarity.

Facts Are Stubborn Things

Toward this end, I am once again grateful for the facts and figures which Luke Gromen provides in supporting the otherwise “sensational” conclusion that America may have won the “cold battle” with the USSR, but it is now losing a “cold war” with the Russians and Chinese.

Really?

C’mon.

Really?

Again, let’s look at the facts. Let’s look at the numbers. Let’s look at current events, and let’s look at history, which is anything but at an “end.”

For those whose respect for history goes beyond a twitter-level attention span or the assistance of mainstream media Ken and Barbies (from CNN to The View), none of whom understand anything of history, you will recall that Regan’s successful war against the USSR was won by bankrupting the Soviets.

But as Gromen so eloquently reminds us, “nobody seems to notice that is EXACTLY what the Russians and Chinese are doing to us now.”

This is not fable but fact, and I warned of this in How the West was Lost the moment the US weaponized the USD in 2022. This desperately myopic (i.e., stupid) policy gave a very patient and history-savvy Russia and China just the opportunity they have been waiting for to turn the tables on the DSA.

History’s Fatal Debt Trap Lesson

As I also recently wrote, with the insights of both Niel Ferguson and Luke Gromen, you know (and history confirms) a nation (or empire) is ALWAYS doomed the moment its debt expenses (in interest terms alone) exceed its defense spending.

And as of this writing, the DSA’s gross interest is 40% higher than its military spending.

Nor are we, the Russians, the Chinese or even a select minority of informed Americans alone in this knowledge of the DSA’s fatal debt trap.

No Hiding the Obvious

The current turning point in American debt is now increasingly and more globally understood in what Ben Hunt calls “the Common Knowledge Game.”

Stated more simply, and as evidenced by the now undeniable move away from the US IOU and USD by an ever-increasing (and ever de-Dollarizing) BRICS+ membership roster, the world is catching on to the blunt fact that the American empire (of citizen lions led by political donkeys) is spending fatally more than it earns.

What is far more sickening, however, is that Uncle Sam is then paying its IOUs with debased Dollars literally mouse-clicked into existence at the not-so “federal” and not-so “reserved” Federal Reserve.

This desperate reality, and completely fantasy-based monetary “solution,” has resulted in an empirically bankrupt nation who quantifiably spends more on entitlements (cashed out by 2030), sovereign IOUs and warfare than it does on transportation, agriculture, veteran benefits and citizen education (our apologies to Thomas Jefferson).

See for yourself:

Returning from simple math to otherwise forgotten (or now increasingly “cancelled) history, it becomes harder to deny Gromen’s observation “that the US appears to be reprising the role of the USSR this time, with a heavy debt load, uncompetitive and hollowed-out industrial base, reliant on a Cold War adversary for imported manufactured goods, and needing ever-higher oil prices in order to keep its oil production from falling.”

Democracy’s Suicide?

In other words, and in the many years since Fukuyama declared victory in 1992, the interim sins/errors of increasingly suicidal (or grotesquely negligent/stupid) US military, financial and foreign policies have irrevocably placed the DSA into a defeated decline rather than victorious “End of History.”

This reality, of course, gives me no pleasure to share, as I was, am and will always remain a patriotic American—or at least patriotic to the ideals for which America originally stood.

But as I’ve said many times, today’s DSA is almost unrecognizable to the American I was when Fukuyama’s book of hubris was released over three decades ago.

As our second US President, John Adams, warned his wife Abigail: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did commit suicide.”

Again, this is history, and it appears to be a history that Fukuyama misunderstood in 1992, when he apparently thought it had reached its happy “end.”

The Past Informs the Future

Looking forward, I/we must be equally capable of looking backward.

History has far more to teach us than the stump-speeches (or pathetic cue cards) of current political opportunists (puppets?) who, with very few exceptions, care far more about preserving their power (via coalitions, the legalized bribery of K-Street lobbyists, the promulgation of mis-information and the deliberate omission of mal-information) than serving their public.

The Sad History of Currency Debasement

History also warns/teaches that the leadership of all debt-soaked and failing regimes will buy time saving their “systems” (and covering their @$$’s) by debasing their currencies to monetize their debts.

Folks, this is true throughout history, and WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

Sadly, the DSA and its hitherto “exceptionalism” is no exception to this otherwise ignored historical lesson.

Toward this end, and as Egon and I have argued for years, the DSA will thus pretend to “fight inflation” while simultaneously seeking inflation, as all debt-strapped (and hence failed) regimes need inflation rates to exceed interest rates (as measured by the yield on the US10Y UST) in what the fancy lads call “negative real rates.”

The Sad History of Dishonesty

Inflation, however, is not only politically embarrassing, but stone-cold proof of failed monetary and fiscal leadership.

To get around this embarrassment, politicos from the Fed and the White House to the so-called House of Representatives (and the Don-Lemonish/Chris Quomo/ 1st Amendment-insulting/hit-driven legacy media which supports them) will do what most children do when faced with making an error, that is: Lie.

And in this case: Lie about inflation data.

Of course, a nation that lies to its people is not best suited for leading its people.

As Hemingway warned, and as I often repeat, those at fault will point the fingers of blame to others (from Eastern bad guys, and man-made viruses to political fear campaigns on everything from global warming, white nationalism or green men from Mars); or worse, leaders will distract their constituents in perpetual wars.

Sound familiar?

In the interim, those “people” will continually and increasingly suffer from the sins of their childish leadership under the crippling yet invisible tax of the debased purchasing power of their so-called “money.”

This too, is nothing new to those who track history…

Golden Solutions?

Gold, of course, cannot and will not solve for all of the myriad and “human, all too human” failures of national leadership and the monetary, social and centralized disfunctions which ALWAYS follow in the wake of too much debt.

But as history also confirms (and equally without exception), each of us can at least protect the purchasing power of our wealth by measuring that wealth in ounces and grams rather than openly dying paper/fiat money.

This is not a biased argument. This is not a “gold bug” argument.

It is far more simply an historical argument, which further explains why governments don’t want you to understand the history of money nor the history of gold.

In fact, even Fukuyama’s now embarrassing book ignores this simple lesson of gold lasting and paper money dying, which only adds to my opening observation that history never “ends” it simply teaches and protects the informed.

The same is true of physical gold.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 23:55

Visualizing America's Average Retirement Savings, By Age

Painting a concerning picture, the median retirement savings for Americans stands at a mere $87,000, a figure far lower than what is needed for a comfortable nest egg.

This savings gap—the amount people have actually saved versus what they believe is needed for retirement—is significantly rising. In fact, a recent survey from Northwestern Mutual reveals that $1.46 million is the ideal savings target for retirement, up from $1.27 million last year.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows the retirement savings that Americans currently hold, based on data from the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances.

Savings for Retirement Fall Short

Below, we show the average and median retirement savings in the U.S. by age group:

For people aged 35 and under, the median savings were $18,880, while this amount increased to $200,000 for those aged 65 to 74.

At current rates, this means that older generations are living on a mere $10,000 per year in retirement based on these savings alone. Given this shortfall, Americans will need to increasingly rely on Social Security benefits to make ends meet. In fact, it’s estimated that state and federal governments will need $1.4 trillion for public assistance costs by 2040.

One reason behind declining retirement savings is the steep drop in employment-sponsored pension plans over the last several decades. As of 2022, there was $37.8 trillion held in U.S. pension plans and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). Of these, employment-sponsored plans comprised a substantial 70% share of these assets.

However, for many Americans without employer-sponsored plans, saving for retirement has become an increasingly uphill battle. In fact, a separate survey shows that just 58% of Americans aged 55 to 64 have retirement accounts, underscoring the growing challenges faced in preparing for retirement.

Among the most common retirement planning mistakes are underestimating the impact of inflation, one’s life expectancy, and healthcare costs. To combat this problem, 12 states have adopted automated retirement savings accounts for private employees. These programs, impacting up to 56 million people, enroll employees automatically with the choice to opt out, to help encourage Americans to save for the future.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 23:20

Morgan Stanley On Japan In Rome

By Seth Carpenter, Managing Director and Chief Global Economist at Morgan Stanley, and Matthew Hornbach, Global Head of Macro Strategy at Morgan Stanley

Japan in Rome

Last month at our annual Fixed Income CIO conference, one of the liveliest sessions was on Japan’s reflation. The BoJ ending negative rates and normalizing policy for the first time in eight years marked the end of decades of a deflationary equilibrium. Nominal GDP growth hit 5.7%Y in 2023, and our Japan team forecasts that Japan’s nominal GDP growth will remain above 3%Y across our forecast horizon. Nominal growth tends to translate into earnings, and so it is no surprise that our equity strategy team remains bullish, with a target for the TOPIX of 2,800.

Our baseline forecast is that the BoJ hikes rates in July this year, a view that has been reinforced by recent communications from Governor Ueda. Because we think inflation will stabilize and drift lower, we look for only one more hike after that, in 1Q25. We think the risks are to the upside for policy, if inflation doesn’t drift down the way we expect.

The falling value of the yen prompted intense market focus and ultimately intervention by the MoF. Since the exchange rate directly affects import prices (after all, 90% of energy is imported in Japan), the risks to inflation cannot be ignored when the currency moves. Our baseline view is that the yen will appreciate through the end of this year and into next year, partly based on our view that the Fed will cut rates by 75bp this year and 100bp next year. If we are wrong, and the yen continues to weaken, further intervention seems plausible and would also increase the risks of more hikes by the BoJ than in our baseline forecast.

Of course, the exchange rate is only one factor. Governor Ueda also emphasized a so-called "second force" driving inflation, the virtuous cycle between wages and prices. We remain convinced that the cycle is intact, even if the empirical outcome remains a question. We are in the middle of a fundamental shift in equilibria. The labor market is tight and tightening; the spring wage negotiations resulted in a substantial 5.2% rise, including a base wage increase of 3.6%. Domestic and foreign demand remain strong.

The strong macro backdrop and the BoJ’s shift to a hiking campaign have coincided with a sell-off in sovereign curves around the world. The 10-year JGB almost touched 1% in November, and after retracing it is now looking to test similar highs. Our baseline is that the yield returns to 1% by the end of this year. However, our bear case has a more notable sell-off, possibly to as high as 1.25%, by year-end, if inflation dynamics point to more persistence, building in a steeper curve along with more rate hikes.

While the forecast may not be crystal clear – forecasting is hard, as the saying goes, especially about the future – that fact that Japan is undergoing a fundamental shift should now be clear. Before Covid, it would have strained credulity to say that Japan would be a focus of macro investors around the world. The fact that it was one of the most heated discussions at our conference in Rome shows just how much the world has changed. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 22:45

Comparing New And Current US Tariffs On Chinese Imports

This week, the U.S. introduced a new series of tariff increases on Chinese imports, amounting to over $18 billion worth of goods.

In the announcement, President Biden said they are aiming to “counter China’s unfair trade practices” by targeting specific sectors where the U.S. is boosting domestic production.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, shows the new and current U.S. tariff rates set on a variety of Chinese imports.

Tariff rates and implementation years for the new rates come from The White House’s May 14 press release announcing the new tariff rate increases. Implementation years for the current rates comes from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and United States International Trade Commission (USITC).

Tariff Raises on China Hit EV and Medical Industries

Below, we show the current and new tariff rates, as well as the implementation years for both, for a range of Chinese imports, as of May 14, 2024.

†Current rate for steel and aluminium products and personal protective equipment ranges from 0 to 7.5%.

*Tariffs implemented in 2019 started at 15% and were reduced to 7.5% in January 2020

The U.S. directed many of its new tariff increases on the Chinese EV industry, targeting imports such as semiconductors, lithium-ion batteries, and other battery parts.

Notably, tariffs on electric vehicles from China were bumped to 100% and new tariffs on certain critical minerals, which are essential for manufacturing battery parts and semiconductors, were introduced.

Medical-related products, such as medical and surgical gloves and certain personal protective equipment like face masks were also impacted by the new tariff increases. Some of these items were previously granted exclusions from Section 301 tariffs due to COVID-19.

Syringes and needles, which were previously not subjected to any tariffs, were also hit with a new 50% tariff.

Section 301 Tariffs Still Going Strong

Tariffs are taxes imposed by a country on imported goods, increasing their price to protect domestic industries, regulate trade, or generate revenue for the government.

These new tariff actions were introduced under Section 301, a provision that allows the U.S. government to investigate and respond to unfair trade practices by foreign countries.

Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods were first introduced by former President Donald Trump in 2018, which sparked retaliatory tariffs on China and set off a years-long trade war between the two countries.

Currently, Section 301 tariffs apply to over $300 billion worth of Chinese imports.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 22:10

Unpacking Ray Dalio's Alarmist Prediction Of Civil War

Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

The other day, Ray Dalio, the billionaire investor and founder of Bridgewater Associates, told The Financial Times that he sees the risk of a second American civil war as “growing” and places the odds of such a war at “35-40 percent.” According to FT, Dalio’s “research” has led him to conclude that “we are now on the brink,” although we “don’t yet know if we will cross over into much more turbulent times.”

On the one hand, it’s important to remember that Dalio is nearly universally known as a world-class crank. He’s made a lot of money in the markets and has long been considered an astute investor, but he has also long been considered an odd duck, to put it gently. Additionally, the idea that this proclamation and setting of odds are based on “research” is silly. There are no variables one can examine and analyze and then use to calculate an objective estimate of a civil war’s occurrence. To pretend otherwise is… well… perfectly Dalio-esque.

On the other hand, Dalio is hardly alone in his belief that tough times are imminent. Virtually the entirety of the ruling class seems to believe that the zeitgeist of the moment is characterized by anger, hatred, and the expectation of confrontation between political adversaries. Hollywood is busy making movies about a potential Civil War. Political magazines are warning that totalitarianism looms just over the electoral horizon. And even the President of the United States is releasing videos that sound more like pre-fight smack talk than political posturing. In short, Ray Dalio is hardly the first major public figure to express his fear/hope that the nation is “on the brink.”

Ironically, the part of this story Dalio and his fellow elites are missing is that in which they’re the cause of the turmoil that currently plagues the United States, or, at the very least, are exacerbating that turmoil and aggravating the people’s frustrations.

Consider, for example, the description Dalio gives of one of the primary causes of this possible civil war:

This election would be a test of ‘can democracy work well? Will there be an acceptance of the rules and an ability to work well under those rules?’ he said.

[Republican candidate Donald] Trump will follow more rightist, nationalistic, isolationist, protectionist, non-regulatory policies — and more aggressive policies to fight enemies internally and externally, including political enemies. [President Joe] Biden, and even more so the Democratic party without Biden, will be more the opposite….

Ah, I see. It’s all Donald Trump’s fault. Strangely, Dalio doesn’t address the almost inarguable fact that Donald Trump is a symptom of this nation’s political dysfunction rather than the cause of it. Whatever one thinks of Trump—good, bad, indifferent—he and his political movement did not emerge fully formed, as if Athena springing forth from the forehead of Zeus. They were the result of decades of political malpractice by both parties, decades of betrayal and decades of self-dealing.

Likewise, Donald Trump remains popular today because both parties, as a whole, remain indifferent to the plight of the country class and are concerned almost exclusively with the needs and wants of Washington and its allies. Billionaire Ray Dalio may think that the people are revolting, but that is, in large part, the fault of the Washington uni-party and its disregard for the people’s interests.

Dalio also describes the form that the civil war he so fears might take: “The civil war Dalio imagines was not necessarily one in which people ‘grab guns and start shooting’, although such a scenario was possible, he said.” Rather, the civil war Dalio envisions would involve “people mov[ing] to different states that are more aligned with what they want and they don’t follow the decisions of federal authorities of the opposite political persuasion.”

To be clear, I don’t think that consistently disregarding the actions and decisions of the federal government is something that we, as a nation, should encourage, much less tolerate. At the same time, there’s a term for what Dalio describes. It’s called “federalism,” and it was precisely what the Founding Fathers had in mind almost 250 years ago.

It is worth remembering here that when the Founders debated the Constitution, two primary factions fought over the particulars. The Federalists—James Madsion, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, in particular—sat on one side of the question, while the anti-federalists—Patrick Henry, James Monroe, Samuel Adams, George Mason, and a host of others—sat on the other. The anti-federalists were opposed to the Constitution not because they disapproved of its weak federal government and demanded something stronger, something more like what we have today, but because they disapproved of a federal government at all. In other words, the vision Dalio now derides and implies is the precursor to civil war was, in fact, the most radically centralized of the forms of government considered by the Founders.

Dalio’s problem with such a vision of government is undoubtedly closely akin to the problem that much of the ruling class today has with that vision: he wants the people to think and behave as he wants them to, in alignment with his “values.” He finds their insistence on thinking for themselves and behaving accordingly irritating and inefficient.

Roughly two years ago, Victor Davis Hanson penned an essay accusing factions of “the left” of engaging in what he called “civil war porn.” Some on the left fantasized, he argued, about how the country’s majority white right-wing rabble were intent on harming minorities, destroying democracy, and engaging in violence against their enemies. Such fantasies gave them the opportunity to engage in moral grandstanding. They saw themselves as the heroes of the story, noble warriors who would sacrifice everything to save all that is right and good in the world.

Today, that “civil war porn” is the purview of much of the ruling class, people like Ray Dalio, who cosplay as the self-righteously indignant and “rational” grown-ups in the room. They warn that the evil ones, the naughty children, are plotting against the nation, planning a fascist takeover of the government or even secession from the Union.

Again, the irony is that in doing so, in prattling on about the risks that the great unwashed masses pose to “Our Democracy™,” the Ray Dalios of the world make it all the more likely.

Every time they open their mouths on the subject, they make the idea of a political separation that would liberate the masses from those who deride and hate them sound far more agreeable.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 21:35

These Are The 10 US States With The Lowest Real GDP Growth

While the U.S. economy defied expectations in 2023, posting 2.5% in real GDP growth, several states lagged behind.

Last year, oil-producing states led the pack in terms of real GDP growth across America, while the lowest growth was seen in states that were more sensitive to the impact of high interest rates, particularly due to slowdowns in the manufacturing and finance sectors.

In the following graphic, Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte shows the 10 states with the least robust real GDP growth in 2023, based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Weakest State Economies in 2023

Below, we show the states with the slowest economic activity in inflation-adjusted terms, using chained 2017 dollars:

Delaware witnessed the slowest growth in the country, with real GDP growth of -1.2% over the year as a sluggish finance and insurance sector dampened the state’s economy.

Like Delaware, the Midwestern state of Wisconsin also experienced declines across the finance and insurance sector, in addition to steep drops in the agriculture and manufacturing industries.

America’s third-biggest economy, New York, grew just 0.7% in 2023, falling far below the U.S. average. High interest rates took a toll on key sectors, with notable slowdowns in the construction and manufacturing sectors. In addition, falling home prices and a weaker job market contributed to slower economic growth.

Meanwhile, Georgia experienced the fifth-lowest real GDP growth rate. In March 2024, Rivian paused plans to build a $5 billion EV factory in Georgia, which was set to be one of the biggest economic development initiatives in the state in history.

These delays are likely to exacerbate setbacks for the state, however, both Kia and Hyundai have made significant investments in the EV industry, which could help boost Georgia’s manufacturing sector looking ahead.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 21:00

A Global Censorship Prison Built By The Women Of The CIA

Authored by Elizabeth Nickson via 'Welcome to Absurdistan' substack,

The polite world was fascinated last month when long-time NPR editor Uri Berliner confessed to the Stalinist suicide pact the public broadcaster, like all public broadcasters, seems to be on. Formerly it was a place of differing views, he claimed, but now it has sold as truth some genuine falsehoods like, for instance, the Russia hoax, after which it covered up the Hunter Biden laptop. And let’s not forget our censor-like behaviour regarding Covid and the vaccine. NPR bleated that they were still diverse in political opinion, but researchers found that all 87 reporters at NPR were Democrats. Berliner was immediately put on leave and a few days later resigned, no doubt under pressure.

Even more interesting was the reveal of the genesis of NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, a 41-year-old with a distinctly odd CV. Maher had put in stints at a CIA cutout, the National Democratic Institute, and trotted onto the World Bank, UNICEF, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Technology and Democracy, the Digital Public Library of America, and finally the famous disinfo site Wikipedia. That same week, Tunisia accused her of working for the CIA during the so-called Arab Spring. And, of course, she is a WEF young global leader.

She was marched out for a talk at the Carnegie Endowment where she was prayerfully interviewed and spouted mediatized language so anodyne, so meaningless, yet so filled with nods to her base the AWFULS (affluent white female urban liberals) one was amazed that she was able to get away with it. There was no acknowledgement that the criticism by this award-winning reporter/editor/producer, who had spent his life at NPR had any merit whatsoever, and in fact that he was wrong on every count. That this was a flagrant lie didn’t even ruffle her artfully disarranged short blonde hair.

Christopher Rufo did an intensive investigation of her career in City Journal. It is an instructive read and illustrative of a lot of peculiar yet stellar careers of American women. Working for Big Daddy is apparently something these ghastly creatures value. I strongly suggest reading Rufo’s piece linked here. It’s a riot of spooky confluences.

Intelligence has been embedded in media forever and a day. During my time at Time Magazine in London, the bureau chief, deputy bureau chief and no doubt the “war and diplomacy” correspondent all filed to Langley and each of them cruised social London ceaselessly for information. Tucker Carlson asserted on his interview with Aaron Rogers this week that intelligence operatives were laced through DC media and in fact, Mr. Watergate, Bob Woodward himself, had been naval intelligence a scant year before he cropped up at the Washington Post as ‘an intrepid fighter for the truth and freedom no matter where it led.’  Watergate, of course, was yet another operation to bring down another inconvenient President; at this juncture, unless you are being puppeted by the CIA, you don’t get to stay in power. Refuse and bang bang or end up in court on insultingly stupid charges. As Carlson pointed out, all congressmen and senators are terrified by the security state, even and especially the ones on the intelligence committee who are supposed to be controlling them. They can install child porn on your laptop and you don’t even know it’s there until you are raided, said Carlson. The security state is that unethical, that power mad.

Now, it’s global. And feminine. Where is Norman Mailer when you need him?

At the same time, at the same time, Freddie Sayers, the editor-in-chief of Unherd, testified in Parliament on the Global Disinformation Index which had choked Unherd's ability to grow. Unherd had hired three advertising firms who were, one after the other, unable to place ads. The third sourced the problem to the Index, which had deemed his interviews with journalist Katherine Stock about the problems faced by young people transitioning their sex, had made him persona non grata for all advertising agencies across the world. Eerily, that same week, Katherine Stock was awarded a high honorable mention in the National Press Awards for her work.

Here is Clare Melford, the fetching chief of the Global Disinformation Index, a woman seemingly bent on sterilizing confused children, Yet another non-profit authoritarian working for a mysterious Big Daddy. Who the hell trained her?

On Tuesday this week, out pops Europe’s headmistress, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Politico.eu, complaining about “Russia” and “right-wingers” sowing distrust of Europe’s election processes. She is, she says, launching a new war on Disinformation. Most importantly, no more reporting on migrant assaults. This seems to be their new crusade. Please note the halo over her Christed head. Honestly, they are shameless, vain, silly creatures with limited bandwidth. Other than obedience to some grim reaper.

Said Politico:

“She promised to set up "a European Democracy Shield," if reelected for a second term, to fight back against foreign meddling.

EU cybersecurity and disinformation officials expect a surge in online falsehoods in the 20 days prior to the European Parliament election June 6-9, when millions of Europeans elect new representatives. Officials fear that Russia is ramping up its influence operations to sow doubt about the integrity of elections in the West and to manipulate public opinion in its favor.”

By the way, madam, western election integrity has been thoroughly compromised by the men who tell you what to do. More than half of us think elections are stolen. More than half. That’s not disinformation, it’s math.

This week Michael Shellenberger, who is the acknowledged lead in the take-down of the global censorship complex, had a look at Julie Inman Grant, another American Barbie, now Australia's "e-safety commissioner," with ties to the WEF. Grant had demanded that X censor a migrant stabbing, and X refused. Grant, as Shellenberger describes, is the Zelig of internet history tinkering in the bowels of said internet until she burst onto the public stage as Australia’s chief censor, bent on building a global online safety network.

Working for Big Daddy is apparently something these ghastly creatures value.

At a recent government hearing, she announced, “We have powerful tools to regulate platforms with ISP blocking power, and can collect basic device information, account information, phone numbers and email addresses, so that our investigators can at least find a place to issue a warning.” Grant went on to say they could compel take-downs, fine perpetrators and fine content hosts.

The Daily Mail had a ball with Inman Grant, mocking her and pointing out that she was wasting taxpayer money on a game of whack-a-mole.

Nevertheless, Grant takes herself very very seriously and since she is accreting power at a massive clip, so must we.

Grant's network of independent regulators is called the Global Online Safety Regulators Network. "We have Australia, France, Ireland, South Africa, Korea, the UK and Fiji so far, with others observing. Canada is coming along,” she preens, “and is about to create a National Safety Regulator." Canada's proposed censorship program is so draconian you can be jailed for something you posted online years ago. And the government proposing it is so unpopular, it will be lucky to hang onto 20 seats in the next election.

There are literally hundreds of these women. Why? Why?

At a meeting this year of the World Economic Forum, Věra Jourová, from the European Commission, outlined just how exciting she and her team found the tools she is being given. "We can," she said, "influence in such a way the real life and the behavior of people!” She sighed with excitement after this sentence. Jourova was caught last September trying to spread yet another Russia hoax. You have only to hear censorship plans uttered in a central-European accent to really understand what is happening here.

As terrifying as this all seems, and it is terrifying, it is instructive to look at the ruination of the career of America's chief censor, Renée DiResta. DiResta, as research head of the Stanford Internet Observatory, is now being sued for abuse of power and unethical behavior that violates the constitution. Spookily, DiResta soared from "new mom" to providing the intellectual under-pinnning for censorship, until she headed up the Stanford Internet Observatory during Covid, where she was instrumental in censoring vaccine and Covid "disinformation." People thought her backstory contrived and in fact, Shellenberger found that she was, unmistakably another CIA trained censor of inconvenient information under the guise of "safety."

At this point, every time you hear the word ‘safety”, it’s best to check your ammunition supply. Said Shellenberger:

As research director of Stanford Internet Observatory, DiResta was the key leader and spokesperson of both the 2021 “Virality Project,” against Covid vaccine “misinformation” and the 2020 “Election Integrity Project.”

Shellenberger goes on to look into DiResta’s work history and finds a lot of congruence with CIA operations.

But then I learned that DiResta had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The journalist Matt Taibbi pointed me to the investigative research into the censorship industry by Mike Benz, a former State Department official in charge of cybersecurity. Benz had discovered a little-viewed video of her supervisor at the Stanford Internet Observatory, Alex Stamos, mentioning in an off-hand way that DiResta had previously “worked for the CIA.”

In her response to my criticism of her on Joe Rogan, DiResta acknowledged but then waved away her CIA connection. “My purported secret-agent double life was an undergraduate student fellowship at CIA, ending in 2004 — years prior to Twitter’s founding,” she wrote. “I’ve had no affiliation since.”

But DiResta’s acknowledgment of her connection to the CIA is significant, if only because she hid it for so long. DiResta’s LinkedIn includes her undergraduate education at Stony Brook University, graduating in 2004, and her job as a trader at Jane Street from October 2004 to May 2011, but does not mention her time at the CIA.

And, notably, the CIA describes its fellowships as covering precisely the issues in which DiResta is an expert. “As an Intelligence Analyst Intern for CIA, you will work on teams alongside full-time analysts, studying and evaluating information from all available sources—classified and unclassified—and then analyzing it to provide timely and objective assessments to customers such as the President, National Security Council, and other U.S. policymakers.”

At this juncture it is a race, as the intelligence community moves to shut down the revelations of its manipulations and machinations, and people injured by the vaccine and the flagrant abuse of election integrity move to fight them. It is instructive to note that DiResta, while apparently soaring to the heights of journalism at Wired, the New York Times, the Atlantic, selling her safety/censorhip program, cannot seem to get actual people to read or subscribe to her Substack. DiResta, like so many women in power now, are in reality, talentless cutouts for a hidden and malignant agenda.

An agenda that the people of the world roundly hate. I have just one final thing to saw to these truly dreadful human beings. My God is stronger than whatever demon or predator you obey. And as a woman, I am ashamed of each and every one of you. To use one of your awful phrases: Do Better.

*  *  *

There is a lot of work to do, please consider funding a very cheap annual subscription.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 20:25

Inflation Is A Policy. Gold Does Not Reflect Monetary Destruction, Yet

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The money supply is rising again, and persistent inflation is not a surprise. Inflation occurs when the amount of currency increases significantly above private sector demand. For investors, the worst decision in this environment of monetary destruction is to invest in sovereign bonds and keep cash. The government’s destruction of the purchasing power of the currency is a policy, not a coincidence.

Readers ask me why the government would be interested in eroding the purchasing power of the currency they issue. It is remarkably simple.

Inflation is the equivalent of an implicit default. It is a manifestation of the lack of solvency and credibility of the currency issuer.

Governments know that they can disguise their fiscal imbalances through the gradual reduction of the purchasing power of the currency and with this policy, they achieve two things: Inflation is a hidden transfer of wealth from deposit savers and real wages to the government; it is a disguised tax. Additionally, the government expropriates wealth from the private sector, making the productive part of the economy assume the default of the currency issuer by imposing the utilization of its currency by law as well as forcing economic agents to purchase its bonds via regulation. The entire financial system’s regulation is built on the false premise that the lowest-risk asset is the sovereign bond. This forces banks to accumulate currency—sovereign bonds—and regulation incentivizes state intervention and crowding out of the private sector by forcing through regulation to use zero to little capital to finance government entities and the public sector.

Once we understand that inflation is a policy and that it is an implicit default of the issuer, we can comprehend why the traditional sixty-forty portfolio does not work.

Currency is debt and sovereign bonds are currency.

When governments have exhausted their fiscal space, the crowding-out effect of the state on credit adds to the rising taxation levels to cripple the potential of the productive economy, the private sector, in favor of constantly rising government unfunded liabilities.

Economists warn of rising debt, which is correct, but we sometimes ignore the impact on currency purchasing power of unfunded liabilities. The United States is enormous at $34 trillion, and the public deficit is intolerable at nearly $2 trillion per year, but that is a drop in the bucket compared with the unfunded liabilities that will cripple the economy and erode the currency in the future.

The estimated unfunded Social Security and Medicare liability is $175.3 trillion (Financial Report of the United States Government, February 2024). Yes, that is 6.4 times the GDP of the United States. If you think that will be financed with taxes “for the rich,” you have a problem with mathematics.

The situation in the United States is not an exception. In countries like Spain, unfunded public pension liabilities exceed 500% of GDP. In the European Union, according to Eurostat, the average is close to 200% of GDP. And that is only unfunded pension liabilities. Eurostat does not analyze unfunded entitlement program liabilities.

This means that governments will continue to use the “tax the rich” false narrative to increase taxation on the middle class and impose the most regressive tax of all, inflation.

It is not a coincidence that central banks want to implement digital currencies as quickly as possible. Central Bank Digital currencies are surveillance disguised as money and a means of eliminating the limitations of the inflationary policies of the current quantitative easing programs. Central bankers are increasingly frustrated because the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy are not fully under their control. By eliminating the banking channel and thus the inflation backstop of credit demand, central banks and governments can try to eliminate the competition of independent forms of money through coercion and debase the currency at will to maintain and increase the size of the state in the economy.

Gold vs. bonds shows this perfectly. Gold has risen 89% in the past five years, compared to 85% for the S&P 500 and a disappointing 0.7% for the US aggregate bond index (as of May 17, 2024, according to Bloomberg).

Financial assets are reflecting the evidence of currency destruction. Equities and gold soar; bonds do nothing. It is the picture of governments using the fiat currency to disguise the credit solvency of the issuer.

Considering all this, gold is not expensive at all. It is exceedingly cheap. Central banks and policymakers know that there will be only one way to square the public accounts with trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities. Repay those obligations with a worthless currency.

Staying in cash is dangerous; accumulating government bonds is reckless; but rejecting gold is denying the reality of money.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 14:35

Israel's Wartime Government Fracturing As Top Minister Threatens To Quit

Tensions within the Israeli government are exploding, after Defense Minister Yovav Gallant earlier this week called out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and gave him an ultimatum, demanding that a day-after plan be offered and approved by the government.

"I call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza strip, that Israel will not establish military governance in the Gaza strip, and that a governing alternative to Hamas in the Gaza strip will be raised immediately," Gallant said recently. 

What's more is that Washington is backing Gallant's pressure campaign against Netanyahu. "We share the Defense Minister’s concern that Israel has not developed any plans for holding and governing territory the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] clears, thereby allowing Hamas to regenerate in those areas. This is a concern because our objective is to see Hamas defeated," a senior Biden administration official told The Hill. 

Gallant first issued his indictment days ago, but over the weekend Axios reported that a timetable has been issued. It was War Minister Benny Gantz's turn to ratchet up the pressure, backing Gallant's stance:

Minister Benny Gantz, a notable member of Israel's war cabinet, gave an ultimatum to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday and said his party will leave the government if the cabinet doesn't approve a strategy for the war in Gaza by June 8.

Gantz complained in the Saturday speech that the hardliners in Netanyahu's coalition are "taking Israel into a wall" - a reference to ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotruch. Gantz threatened to withdraw from the fragile coalition government which could collapse it.

It didn't take long over the weekend of the prime minister to issue a statement defying both his own top ministers and Washington. 

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office rejected Gantz threat in a fresh statement. "The conditions set by Benny Gantz are washed-up words whose meaning is clear: the end of the war and a defeat for Israel, the abandonment of most of the hostages, leaving Hamas intact and the establishment of a Palestinian state," it said.

Netanyahu further questioned Gantz and his political allies' resolve to see the mission through. "Prime Minister Netanyahu thinks that the emergency government is important for achieving all the goals of the war, including the return of all our hostages, and expects Gantz to clarify his positions to the public on these issues," the statement continued.

Gantz then hit back again in response to Netanyahu's office, saying the prime minister should not "drag his feet for fear of the extremists in his government."

Anti-Netanyahu protests have meanwhile only grown larger and stronger...

#TelAviv tonight: Tens of thousands are back on the streets calling for Netanyahu's ouster.

▪️ Rallies held as War Cabinet Min Gantz issues an ultimatum to Netanyahu.

▪️ For the 1st time, Opposition Leader Lapid speaks at Tel Aviv rally. pic.twitter.com/iPvNvezHNz

— Yonatan Touval (@Yonatan_Touval) May 18, 2024

Critics of Netanyahu have accused the Israeli leader ultimately placing his own political survival above the true security interests of Israel. They've charged that his incentive is to prolong the conflict, and that this does further harm to the cause of bringing the hostages home.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 14:00

University's COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Violates US Constitution: Court

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Colorado university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal court has ruled.

A COVID-19 vaccine is prepared in Colorado in a file image. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

The Sept. 1, 2021, mandate “clearly violates the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause as interpreted by our precedents,” a majority of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit said in the May 7 decision.

While the mandate was later updated, the newer version also violates the Constitution, the judges said.

The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in 2021 required COVID-19 vaccination of all students and employees. It initially offered religious exemptions to anyone who checked a box, but later said administrators would “only recognize religious exemptions based on religious beliefs whose teachings are opposed to all immunizations.”

Officials, for instance, said that Christian Scientists would qualify for an exemption but Buddhists would not.

They also said that exemptions would only be granted to people who never received any vaccinations.

Medical exemptions, on the other hand, were available if a doctor said the prospective recipient’s health or life would be endangered.

Seventeen students and employees, all of whose applications were denied, sued over the policy, alleging it was discriminatory.

U.S. District Judge Raymond Moore, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, in 2022 ruled that the plaintiffs did not show they would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay of the initial mandate, and that they had not met the burden of showing the updated mandate was not neutral.

The case against the Sept. 1 mandate also became moot because the requirements were updated, the judge said.

That ruling was wrong, according to the appeals court, in part because the initial mandate was used to fire two employee plaintiffs and Judge Moore placed the burden regarding mootness on the plaintiffs.

Under the Sept. 1 policy, Anschutz administrators “rejected applicants’ beliefs based not on their sincerity, but rather on their perceived validity,” according to the new ruling. Even after receiving numerous pages of explanations of religious beliefs, each application was denied. Administrators rejected one application because officials claimed that it was “morally acceptable” for Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines, judging any position otherwise as personal objections as opposed to religious ones.

The policy was “explicitly non-neutral” since, according to a ruling in a separate case, the First Amendment does not allow governments to “discriminate in favor of some religions and against others,” the majority said.

Policies that infringe on constitutional rights can survive under “strict scrutiny” if officials can prove they are justified by a “compelling state interest” and were “narrowly tailored in pursuit of that interest.” Anschutz said it was motivated by a desire to stem the spread of COVID-19, but “has not even attempted to explain why its interest is served by granting exemptions to practitioners of some religions, but not others,” according to the panel.

The Sept. 24, 2021, policy was a purported update that was said to assess whether religious exemption requests were “made based on a sincerely-held religious belief” but evaluations conducted under that policy reached the same results, indicating the updated version “was a mere pretext to continue the Administration’s September 1 Policy,” the majority said. It said the updated version also failed the strict scrutiny test because it has a lower bar for medical exemptions than religious exemptions.

U.S. Circuit Judge Allison Eid, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, authored the opinion. She was joined by Circuit Judge Jerome Holmes, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Circuit Judge David Ebel, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, in a partial concurrence and dissent, said he agreed the Sept. 1 policy likely violated the First Amendment but that the Sept. 24 version fixed the constitutional issues.

“The September 24 mandate is neutral toward religion and generally applicable,” he said.

Defendants in the case included the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents and officials at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine.

The board and the school did not respond to requests for comment.

The appeal was brought by the Thomas More Society on behalf of the students and employees.

“The University of Colorado ran roughshod overstaff and students of faith during COVID, and the court of appeals has now declared plainly what we’ve fought to establish for almost three years: the university acted with ‘religious animus’ and flagrantly violated the fundamental religious liberties of these brave healthcare providers and students,” Peter Breen, executive president of the society, said in a statement.

“The court of appeals correctly ruled,” he added later, “that no government entity has the right to appoint itself as a doctrinal tribunal that defines which religious beliefs count as deeply and sincerely held and deem those religious beliefs valid or invalid.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 13:25

Fears Mount Of Undersea Cable Sabotage By Chinese Repair Ships, Report Says

State Department officials told a team of Wall Street Journal reporters about the increasing risks that undersea telecommunications cables could be susceptible to espionage. 

The officials became concerned when a state-controlled Chinese firm that repairs undersea cables, SB Submarine Systems, unexplainably and repeatedly concealed the location data of its ship from radio and satellite tracking services. They said the ship's concealment of its position "defied easy explanation."

The warnings about potential espionage or even sabotage of undersea cables come nearly three months after underwater telecommunications cables linking Europe and Asia were "damaged" in the Red Sea between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti in East Africa. 

We were the first to report a mysterious Iranian spy ship was operating near the incident area. At the time, David Asher, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, said, "The Qods Force is operating a spy ship called the 'Behsad' that is reportedly in the Gulf of Aden, not far from where the undersea cables were cut. This ship highly likely carries a Qods Force special underwater warfare force component more than capable of carrying out an undersea cable attack."

A US defense official recently warned Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Meta Platforms about the mounting risks the Chinese could threaten US-owned cables: 

US officials have told companies, including Google and Meta, about their concerns that Chinese companies could threaten the security of US-owned cables, a person familiar with the briefings said. In some cases, the conversations have included discussion of Shanghai-based SB Submarine Systems, the person said. -WSJ

WSJ provided more color on the Chinese maintenance firm that repairs broken internet lines: 

Senior Biden administration officials have also received briefings in recent months about the risks posed by Chinese companies, including SBSS, working on repairs to undersea cables, according to the person.

The security of undersea cables "is rooted in the ability of trusted entities to build, maintain, and repair" them "in a transparent and safe manner," the National Security Council said in a statement, noting that satellite ship tracking "is one such measure that supports vessel monitoring and safety."

Digging deeper into SBSS, data from Sayari, a top counterparty and supply chain risk intelligence provider, shows a web of connections the company has, including several major risk factors.  

One of those risk factors includes "possibly owned (minority, majority, or wholly) by" Global Marine Systems Ltd., which is "listed in the USA Department of the Treasury Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies," Sayari says on its online platform.

Sayari data shows SBSS is "possibly owned (minority, majority, or wholly) by a sanctioned entity up to 3 hops away via direct shareholding relationships with 10% or more controlling interest" by China United Network Communications Group Co. 

One of the ships in question is called "Bold Maverick," and it has periodically turned on and off its transponder data near areas with undersea cables, which continues to worry US defense officials. 

"The data gaps were unusual for commercial cable ships and lacked clear explanation," the officials said.

Defense officials and big tech firms are increasingly concerned about companies like SBSS tapping or even severing undersea cables. 

The Red Sea cable severing incident earlier this year was the most recent wake-up call about these emerging national security risks. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 12:50

Green Irony: Massive US Lithium Source Found - In Fracking Wastewater

The global, government-coerced transition into "green energy" has geologists scouring the Earth for new sources of lithium -- the element that's required for batteries, like those used in electric vehicles.

Now, in a cosmic practical joke on environmentalists, researchers say they've found a lithium mother lode -- in Pennsylvania fracking wastewater. 

It turns out that the Marcellus Shale --  a long swath of sedimentary rock in the northeastern United States that holds huge amounts of frackable gas -- holds huge quantities of lithium too. Justin Mackey and other researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pennsylvania were pleasantly surprise when they studied the contents of wastewater dredged up in the fracking process at 515 sites in the Keystone State, reports Science Alert.

Long before the frackers showed up, deep groundwater has been dissolving the lithium in the Marcellus Shale for eons. "It's been dissolving rocks for hundreds of millions of years—essentially, the water has been mining the subsurface," Mackey told the University of Pittsburgh's Brandie Jefferson. 

When they analyzed the wastewater data, they were stunned by the volume of lithium. The shale "has the capacity to provide significant lithium yields for the foreseeable future" he says. Their detailed findings were published in Scientific Reports. 

It's unclear if other fracking hotspots have abundant lithium too. However, even using conservative estimates of how much can be recovered from the wastewater suggests that Pennsylvania alone could cover more than 30% of America's 2024 demand. 

The lithium rich wastewater from oil fracking in the Marcellus Shale has the potential to provide 30% of the US demand for Lithium. Unfortunately New York bans the practice of fracking for this oil & its lithium rich wastewater. https://t.co/Ry3gZJexGD

— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) May 19, 2024

The US government is targeting lithium independence, with the Department of Energy specifically aiming for all of the country's lithium needs to be covered by domestic production by 2030. That's causing a mad rush -- and conflicts that pit green energy boosters against environmentalists and American Indians who are litigating to shut down promising sources. 

Case in point: the Thacker Pass mine in northern Nevada, which is supposed to be the nation's largest open-pit lithium mine. Indian tribes sued, claiming the mine is too close to the site of an 1865 massacre.  Environmentalists sued, saying the mining process will destroy animal habitats and harm groundwater. Now the federal Fish and Wildlife Service is doing a year-long study on the potential impact to a tiny snail. 

via ECIU

The United States is way behind other countries. Here's the 2023 lithium production leaderboard according to Investing News Network: 

1. Australia: 86,000 metric tons (MT)
2. Chile: 44,000 
3. China: 33,000 
4. Argentina: 9,600
5. Brazil: 4,900  
6. Zimbabwe: 3,400
7. Canada: 3,400 (tied for 6th)
8. Portugal: 380 
9. USA: Production numbers withheld, purportedly to protect proprietary company data

An artisanal mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reportedly uses rotating 5,000-worker shifts (Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty and NPR)

Lithium and cobalt mining in third-world countries is often a highly toxic and hazardous enterprise. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, militias have reportedly abducted children and brought them to dig away to fulfill leftists' green dreams. 

Here's how Harvard's Siddharth Kara described the horror show: 

"You have to imagine walking around some of these mining areas and dialing back our clock centuries. People are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain.

"Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust."

Compared to that, harvesting Pennsylvania fracking wastewater sounds positively idyllic. Whatya say, Greta?

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 11:40

Why Has The Vatican Chosen This Precise Moment To Drop Bombshells About UFOs, Aliens, & "Apparitions"?

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

For centuries, the Vatican has been carefully guarding their most precious secrets.  In recent years, that has been especially true regarding what they know about UFOs, aliens and the mysteries of the universe.  So why have they chosen this exact moment in history to publicly talk about these things?  The press conference at the Vatican on Thursday is the very first time that the Vatican has held a press conference about UFOs, aliens and “apparitions” since 1978. 

So this is a really big deal.  It is being reported that the Vatican has decided to issue new guidelines “on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future”…

The Vatican has announced that it is set to hold a press conference on “supernatural phenomena” tomorrow, and it will touch on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future.

According to a notice on the Vatican’s website, it will kick of at noon tomorrow, and will feature three prominent Vatican members.

Being held to “present the new provisions of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for discerning between apparitions and other supernatural phenomena,” it will be led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandex, Messenger Armando Matteo and Daniela Del Gaudio.

If the Vatican feels a need to issue guidelines about how to “deal with potential encounters in the future”, that seems to imply that they believe that there will be “potential encounters in the future”.

What do they know that they aren’t telling us?

Probably a lot.

The last time that the Vatican did something like this was all the way back in February 1978…

The last time the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued norms for evaluating alleged apparitions and reports of supernatural events was in February 1978.

At the time, the prefect, Cardinal Franjo Seper, said the norms were necessary given how news of alleged apparitions spreads rapidly thanks to the mass media.

What has changed between then and now?

One thing that has changed is that the current pope seems to be quite interested in the topic of aliens.

In comments that he made near the end of 2023, Pope Francis seemed to suggest that aliens could actually be baptized…

However, Pope Francis did touch on aliens at the end of last year, when he was talking about how early Christians discussed associating with “Jews and Gentiles” – which, for some reason, he compared to aliens.

He said: “That was unthinkable. If, for example, tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here…Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them…And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?”

He didn’t answer his own question, but added: “It was never the ministry of the closed door, never,”

So he plans to have an “open door” for the aliens?

What would that look like?

The producer of a new documentary entitled “God Versus Aliens” seems to believe that the Vatican wants to prepare us for the day when humanity finally makes contact with such beings…

The documentary ‘God Versus Aliens’ is to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and reveal the Vatican’s secrets about UFOs.

The award-winning filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee says that the Vatican publishing new guidance on apparitions means that the full disclosure about the UFO phenomena is getting closer.

He said: “The Vatican has been studying UFOs for decades and even has its own Cardinal appointed to deal with first contact. From my research I believe that this new guidance on apparitions is proof that they know that UFOs are more than just physical crafts from other worlds and that they have a paranormal side to them.”

What most people don’t realize is that the Vatican has been on the cutting edge of the search for extraterrestrial life for a long time.

The Vatican Observatory in Rome is very well funded, and the Vatican also has a “research group” that uses the very high-powered equipment at the University of Arizona in Tucson…

Many people are surprised to learn that the Vatican even has an observatory. The history of the Vatican Observatory goes back two and a half centuries. During its history, there has been some turmoil and several moves to escape the light and other hindrances that large cities, such as Rome, pose to doing astronomy. Therefore, more than a half-century ago the Vatican Observatory established a research group at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, while the Vatican Observatory’s headquarters remained in Italy.

Needless to say, the Vatican isn’t going to tell us everything that they know right now.

But a couple of things have become quite clear.

Number one, the Vatican believes that extraterrestrial life exists.

Number two, the Vatican plans to develop a positive relationship with any “aliens” that do make contact with humanity.

Could all of this be setting us up for a great deception of absolutely epic proportions?

While he was still alive, author Tom Horn made the following observation…

Why the Vatican has taken this carefully designed and deliberate course over the last few years is the greater mystery, but implies knowledge on their part of facts yet hidden to most of the world that may hold far-reaching and historic implications. It also illustrates how Rome has wittingly or unwittingly set itself up to become the agent of mass end-times deception regarding “salvation from above.” That’s because, historically, there exists a clear pattern wherein man’s psychological need of a savior is displayed during times of distress—a time like today—when people look skyward for divine intervention.

It is true.

When things get bad enough, the world is going to be looking for a savior.

And if a “superior race” appears on the scene that seems to have all the answers, many people out there will fully embrace them.

For decades, books, movies and television shows have conditioned us to expect that someday we will interact with “aliens” from another planet.  100 years ago, everyone would have dismissed such talk as nonsense, but now we have been well prepared for the great deception that is eventually coming.

Sadly, the Vatican seems to be quite ready to welcome “aliens” as their new best friends, and that is extremely unfortunate.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 11:05