Eagles, “Desperado”
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/25/2020"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 9/25/2020"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"If you want to know who to blame all the violence on, you can find many guilty parties. It’s billionaires like George Soros funding prosecutors that will not prosecute in liberal cities. It’s Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It’s some of the biggest corporations in America, and it’s most definitely the mainstream media that hides the facts and acts as a biased information arm of the communist/Marxist Democrat party. It’s not journalism. It’s propaganda, and it’s helping to fuel the violence in America.
The voter fraud schemes by Democrats are emerging and seeing the light of day. They are blatant attempts to swing the November Election through voter fraud and so-called ballot harvesting. No doubt, this is going to end up in the Supreme Court, which is why Trump wants his pick on the bench by Election Day.
Yet another week where it was celebrated that less than 1 million new claims for unemployment were filed last week. Tens of millions have filed first time claims for unemployment, and this week it’s looking a little worse."
Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks
about these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.
"Unprecedented Monetary Overhaul: Fed Preparing To Deposit Digital Dollars Directly To Each American"
Epic Economist,
"Unprecedented Monetary Overhaul: Fed Preparing
To Deposit Digital Dollars Directly To Each American"
"The Fed has plans to create a hybrid digital legal tender, which differs from reserves that are stuck within the financial system, in that way, it could make direct deposits into US consumer accounts. How is that different from the previous forms of helicopter money? Essentially, it isn't. Apart from the consideration that it would have direct access to consumers information regarding transactions and any other monetary proceedings. Nothing major, right?
Furthermore, Loretta Mester, Cleveland Fed president, has publicly stated in the Chicago Payment Symposium, in a section titled Central Bank Digital Currencies that the experience with the current health-crisis-related emergency payments "has brought forward an idea that was already gaining increased attention at central banks around the world, that is, central bank digital currency (CBDC)". And after the unexpected reveal, she goes on explaining that the "legislation has proposed that each American have an account at the Fed in which digital dollars could be deposited, as liabilities of the Federal Reserve Banks, which could be used for emergency payments."
The boldness - to say the least - of their proposal doesn't end there. By launching in digital cash, the institution would manage to find a way to eliminate the "anonymous" physical currency in its entirety, and then be able to track every single banknote that they have created, knowing the destination of every transaction ever made during the whole time it was in action. And, at some point, the Fed could not only exterminate the digital currency when it becomes convenient, as it could practically disintermediate commercial banks because it would concede loans to US consumers and also deposit funds into their accounts directly, that is to say, they would have the power to make the whole traditional banking system obsolete.
So here we quote Loretta Mester's detailing of the program's functioning, published on the Cleveland Fed website, which explains that the proposal "would create a new payments instrument, digital cash, which would be just like the physical currency issued by central banks today, but in a digital form and, potentially, without the anonymity of physical currency," admitting they can crack the public's privacy data as they please. She continues outlining that "depending on how these currencies are designed, central banks could support them without the need for commercial bank involvement via direct issuance into the end-users’ digital wallets combined with central-bank-facilitated transfer and redemption services," also acknowledging that it has the potential to separate itself from the current banking system and possibly crash its entire operation if it ever becomes fitting to their goals.
With all the evidence on the table, it's possible to understand that the strategy of depositing digital dollars to all Americans gives the Fed powers that were once exclusive to Congress, meaning that they would be able to concede fiscal stimulus at its will, therefore, it will possibly boost a spectacular reflationary spike, since it is the lower-income segments of the American society that are the marginal price setters for economic goods and services.
The bank will have the perfect excuse to constantly keep the inflation high, while the American standard of living crumbles to the benefit of a small group of asset holders. To avoid being swallowed up by the huge federal debt, as ZeroHedge cleverly pointed out "the Fed is now finalizing the last steps of a process that revolutionizes the entire fiat monetary system, launching digital dollars which effectively remove commercial banks as financial intermediaries, as they will allow the Fed itself to make direct deposits into Americans' "digital wallets", in the process also making Congress and the entire Legislative branch redundant, as a handful of technocrats quietly take over the United States." So don't be misled by thinking their money will come without consequences, because this proposal will likely end the monetary freedom of the whole population, while it acts as a new surveillance system."
Gregory Mannarino, "Fed. Warns, US Economy In Free-Fall, More Money For Wall St."
Gregory Mannarino, Post-market Report 9/24/20:
"Fed. Warns, US Economy In Free-Fall, More Money For Wall St."
"Economic Impact of Second Covid Lockdowns Will Be Severe"
Chris Martenson, Peak Prosperity
"Economic Impact of Second Covid Lockdowns Will Be Severe"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue vdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this well-composed celestial still life with dark, obscuring clouds recorded in Edward E. Barnard's 1919 catalog of dark markings in the sky. All are interstellar dust clouds, blocking the light from background stars in the case of Barnard's dark nebulae. For vdB 31, the dust preferentially reflects the bluish starlight from embedded, hot, variable star AB Aurigae.
Exploring the environs of AB Aurigae with the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the several million year young star is itself surrounded by flattened dusty disk with evidence for the ongoing formation of a planetary system. AB Aurigae is about 470 light-years away. At that distance this cosmic canvas would span about four light-years.”
"Let It Roll Off Our Back: Dodging and Deflecting"
"Let It Roll Off Our Back: Dodging and Deflecting"
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM
"When we are criticized or attacked it is important to not take it into our heart space. One of the most difficult challenges in life is learning not to take things to heart and hold on to it. Especially when we’re younger, or if we’re very sensitive, we take so much of what comes our way to heart. This can be overwhelming and unproductive if it throws us off balance on a regular basis. When we are feeling criticized or attacked from all directions, it becomes very difficult for us to recover ourselves so that we can continue to speak and act our truth. This is when we would do well to remember the old saying about letting certain things roll off us, like water off a duck’s back.
Most of the time, the attacks and criticisms of others have much more to do with them and how they are feeling than with us. If we get caught up in trying to adjust ourselves to other people’s negative energy, we lose touch with our core. In fact, in a positive light, these slings and arrows offer us the opportunity to strengthen our core sense of self, and to learn to dodge and deflect other people’s misdirected negativity. The more we do this, the more we are able to discern what belongs to us and what belongs to other people. With practice, we become masters of our energetic integrity, refusing to serve as targets for the disowned anger and frustration of the people around us.
Eventually, we will be able to hear the feedback that others have to offer, taking in anything that might actually be constructive, and releasing that which has nothing to do with us. First, though, we tend ourselves compassionately by recognizing when we can’t take something in from the outside without hurting ourselves. This is when we make like a duck, shaking it off and letting it roll off our back as we continue our way in the world."
- http://www.dailyom.com/
"I'd Still Swim..."
"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim.
And I'd despise the one who gave up. "
- Abraham Maslow
The Poet: John Clare, “I Am”
“I Am”
"I am - yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes -
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes;
And yet I am, and live - like vapors tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange - nay, rather, stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man hath never trod,
A place where woman never smiled or wept,
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie,
The grass below - above the vaulted sky."
- John Clare
About the poet: John Clare (13 July, 1793- 20 May, 1864) was an English poet. He was born in Northamptonshire, England in the family of a farm laborer. Clare's poetic work mostly showcases his celebratory representations of the English countryside. In his time, Clare was commonly known as "Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" His early work delights both in nature and the cycle of the rural year. "I Am" is a commentary on the complexity of existence.
•
“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering - these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love - these are what we stay alive for.”
- “Dead Poets Society”
"Top Twenty Lessons Learned In 2020"
"Top Twenty Lessons Learned In 2020"
by Jeffrey Tucker
"This year has been a shock. Here is an early sketch of what I think I’ve learned.
1. Governments are fully capable of doing the unthinkable, and doing so suddenly with no exit plan, little consideration of cost, and a callous disregard for individual rights.
2. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights are largely irrelevant when governments declare an emergency.
3. The business lobby is far less powerful than I had previously assumed.
4. Many politicians care more about their personal power than public opinion.
5. People in general are less committed to their freedoms than I had previously believed.
6. Economic understanding is rare.
7. There is no such thing as settled science; scientists disagree, sometimes radically, and many times for political reasons.
8. The structure of law and the regime are fully capable of dramatic and even overnight change.
9. Influence is mysterious: the media report what fits their preferred narrative and ignore everyone with a different view.
10. Professional credentials are useful but not decisive for any argument: in a crisis they are weaponized.
11. People under duress, in the shock of lockdown, are capable of stunning lies and cruelty.
12. Most people haven’t the slightest clue about how to think about statistics and hard science; for many people, data are mere abstractions.
13. Hardly any political lobby or interest group genuinely cares about the poor, working classes, or marginalized groups, at least not enough to put their interests above a political agenda.
14. Very often people’s proclaimed “principles” are nothing but social signalling devices.
15. The propagation of truth is burdened by disadvantages relative to error and lies.
16. Known science is fully capable of vanishing in one generation.
17. No matter how seemingly intelligent and impressive are our institutions, they are neither created nor managed by equally intelligent people.
18. Markets are adaptive beyond anything I ever imagined possible.
19. Psychological health for most people is bound up with possessing rights and freedoms.
20. Individual moral courage is the society’s most precious treasure, as rare as it is powerful."
"Job Losses 'Stunning'”
"Job Losses 'Stunning'”
by Brian Maher
"The S&P entered “correction” this morning - down 10% from its most recent high. It later resumed its erring ways, gaining 9 points by closing whistle. The Dow Jones duplicated the mistake. It ended up gaining 52 points of its own after the opening wobbles. Technology stocks saved the day. Someone decided it was a grand occasion to “buy the dip.” The Nasdaq posted a 39-point gain on the day. But what explained this morning’s swoon? Here is the reason widely on offer: The latest unemployment numbers...
“The Labor Market Losses Are Stunning”: We learn this morning that 870,000 Americans filed unemployment claims last week. Economists had soothsaid 840,000. That is, the report was a “miss” — to the downside. Chris Rupkey, chief business economist for MUFG Union Bank: "The labor market losses are stunning in that they show there isn't enough work out there yet in the middle of September nine months after the Covid-19 virus shut the economy down."
And so the rambunctious recovery we were promised has proven a chimera, a phantom... elusive as quicksilver… and as illusory as swamp fire. Where is the cavalry to rescue the day? Where is the man atop the white steed charging in? The cries for aid go out. Yet they are met with silence…
We Need Fiscal Stimulus!!! Jerome Powell paces the floor back at headquarters, pleading for reinforcements. He has done what he can do. But he alone lacks the firepower to break the enemy, he appears to concede. Yesterday, he appeared before Congress and whinnied: The recovery would pack more oomph “if there is support coming both from Congress and from the Fed,” adding: “Direct fiscal support may be needed.” Thus, his men begin to question his generalship… and cough sadly behind their hands at his feebleness.
Strategist Dennis DeBusschere claims the Federal Reserve is “diminishing its own credibility by continually emphasizing the ineffectiveness of monetary policy and begging for fiscal support.” We were unaware the Federal Reserve retained any credibility whatsoever. But let it go. The fiscal support for which it begs is not forthcoming. It is a casualty of politics, the unfolding Battle of the Supreme Court.
No Reinforcements Until 2021: Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs: We think it is now clear that Congress will not attach additional fiscal stimulus to the continuing resolution (to avoid a government shutdown). This implies that after a final round of extra unemployment benefits that is currently being disbursed, any further fiscal support will likely have to wait until 2021.
Goldman Sachs - incidentally - has downgraded its Q4 GDP projections. Previously a 10% annualized rate, it now envisions a 4% annualized growth rate. Yet if a fresh wave of the virus rolls ashore this fall — a true plausibility — harsh lockdowns may resume. Millions more could be turned from their jobs. And growth could lag further yet. It is a grim possibility. Yet it is a possibility. But a vaccine is on the way, the sunshine-blowers assure us. Worry not. Yet we are not half so convinced it is true…
Don’t Count on a Vaccine: COVID-19 is of course a coronavirus. And as we have written before: "Not once - despite all the angels and saints - have medical men brewed a successful vaccine against a coronavirus. Decades of effort have led them down blind alley after blind alley after blind alley. We are further informed that the respiratory system is generally unreceptive to vaccination… as a round hole is unreceptive to a square peg. It is walled off, inaccessible to the vaccinary machinery.
Dr. Ian Frazer - a scientist - has himself helped develop vaccines. Says he: "It’s a separate immune system, if you like, which isn’t easily accessible by vaccine technology. It’s a bit like trying to get a vaccine to kill a virus on the surface of your skin." Not only are these vaccines poor respiratory disease fighters. They sometimes turn their coats… and go over to the enemy side: "One of the problems with corona vaccines in the past has been that when the immune response does cross over to where the virus-infected cells are it actually increases the pathology rather than reducing it. So that immunization with SARS corona vaccine caused, in animals, inflammation in the lungs, which wouldn’t otherwise have been there if the vaccine hadn’t been given."
In conclusion: "I think it would be fair to say even if we get something which looked quite encouraging in animals, the safety trials in humans will have to be fairly extensive before we would think about vaccinating a group of people who have not yet been exposed to the virus." Of course, it is possible the medical men will mix a vaccine that proves both safe and effective. Heaps and heaps of scientists labor furiously for that very purpose. But history is against them. And the possibility of a functioning vaccine in the near future appears… unlikely. What is likely - what is certain - is the continued yelling for fiscal stimulus…
The Myth of Consumer Spending: From the general run of financial analysts, to economists of nearly every model and make, to the Federal Reserve itself… we are told fiscal stimulus is the potion for our ills. And the larger the dose, the quicker the recovery. That is, spending money the nation does not have is the way up. That is, plunging deeper into debt is the royal route to prosperity. In back of it all is the conviction that consumption is king. Consumption represents 70% of the United States economy, they bellow. When consumption teeters the economy reels. We must therefore pry open wallets and set cash registers jingling. Americans must consume - lest the heavens fall.
Yet we have challenged the mother myth that consumer spending equals 70% of the United States economy. That is because official GDP calculations do not include heaping piles of economic goings-on. These piles include business investment and spending on “intermediate” goods. These are inputs required for the production of final goods - hence intermediate. The steel in the automobile, the sugar in the candy, the wood of the furniture… these are intermediate goods. Yet their purchase does not classify as consumer spending - else they would be double-counted.
Consumer Spending Is Only 30% of GDP? Explains economist Mark Skousen: GDP only measures the value of final output. It deliberately leaves out a big chunk of the economy -intermediate production or goods-in-process at the commodity, manufacturing and wholesale stages - to avoid double counting.
Now mix in expenditures on intermediate goods. What do we find? We find consumer consumption only constitutes perhaps 30% of GDP: I calculated total spending (sales or receipts) in the economy at all stages to be more than double GDP… By this measure - which I have dubbed gross domestic expenditures, or GDE - consumption represents only about 30% of the economy, while business investment (including intermediate output) represents over 50%.
Assume the foregoing is true. If business investment constitutes over 50% of the economy… perhaps business investment should be the grail… rather than consumption. Production must come first. We must produce before we can consume. “Products are paid for with products,” argued Jean-Baptiste Say over two centuries ago. Yet the consumption-mongers place the wagon cart of consumption before the draft horse of production. They would have us consume before we have produced. And their fiscal stimulus would yield little production. Thus they produce moonshine. And they would have all of us consume it. Barrels of the hooch will likely arrive early next year… with the hangover to follow."
"Of All Tyrannies..."
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."
- C.S. Lewis
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)