"The Collapse Is Confirmed: Job Losses Ramp Up Again As Millions Of Americans Slide Into Poverty"

"The Collapse Is Confirmed: Job Losses Ramp Up 

Again As Millions Of Americans Slide Into Poverty"

by Epic Economist

"A recent study has shown that over 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty this year. Meanwhile, the mainstream media insists that we're in the middle of a significant economic rebound, even though numbers have repeatedly proved the opposite. In fact, another 898,000 new unemployment claims were filed last week, the highest weekly spike since August. 

In this video, we question the mainstream media’s assessment about the misleading reviews of the economy collapse, and present a realistic interpretation of the latest studies that warn further millions could be pushed into the poverty line by the end of the year.

Since the lockdown started and business activities were shutdown pushing millions of workers out of their posts and leaving them reliant on the unemployment checks, the number of vulnerable households has exploded. Sadly, when the stimulus wore off and the benefits were interrupted, many of these families found themselves in desperate situations. They are now facing the threat of losing their homes and going through a difficult winter of acute food insecurity. 

According to the Columbia University study, approximately 8 million Americans have slid into poverty since May. The monthly poverty rate for September was higher than rates during April or May, and it also topped pre-crisis levels, due to the expiration of the CARES Act’s stimulus checks and $600 per week supplement to unemployment benefits. At the same time, the Labor Department announced a spike of nearly 900,000 new claims last week. Which means future poverty rates are expected to present even larger numbers. 

Amid a second round of lay-offs, a surge in infection cases, and deadlocked talks over new stimulus, a separate study by researchers at Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, discovered that 6 million people have slipped into poverty just in the last three months. 

The new data shows, Black people and Latinos are more than twice as likely as white people to be poor. Both minority groups disproportionately work in industries hardly damaged by the economic recession and have faced obstacles to receive federal aid. 

Studies have reported child poverty rates are fast expanding, with an additional 2.5 million children falling below the poverty line since May. Members of both research groups stressed the rising poverty underscores an urgent need for a new round of help. 

But, on the other hand, authorities seem unbothered about this situation. They are considering the 8% increase in poverty since January, a “modest amount”. Their strategy is to maneuver the real data so that next month's political events go as smoothly as possible.  For that reason, official government numbers have been rebranded to present a better outlook. Now, millions of workers are not even categorized as “unemployed". Instead, they have been relocated to a category called “not in the labor force”. 

According to the Axios group, the number of Americans who aren't considered employed but aren’t considered a part of the unemployed climbed to 103 million in April, which accounts for more than a quarter of the U.S. population. 

But Fed chair Jerome Powell has noted a broader measure would be around 11%. Needless to say that labor market conditions are still deteriorating in face of the most recent announcements that more companies let more workers go. Furthermore, the U.S. Census Bureau has reported that California has the hightest poverty rate in the country. With all that said, if that's what they call "economic recovery", we wonder how “bad times” would be."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

"How to Avoid War With China"

"How to Avoid War With China"

by George Gilder

"Recent U.S. naval maneuvers in the South China Sea and the Taiwan straits raised the issue, “Should we risk war to keep China from subjugating Taiwan?” Ever since President Nixon’s trip to China, and UN action recognizing Taiwan as part of China, the U.S. has acknowledged the People’s Republic has ultimate sovereignty over Taiwan. But today, the U.S. seems to be presenting itself as a guarantor of Taiwan’s autonomy in a way that is provoking intense resentment on the mainland. But, as my editor and co-author Richard Vigilante suggests, better than a three-way military debacle is a path to a triple-win for all three countries. The American people can profit from the ascendancy of China together with its satellite industrial power, Taiwan. But first we must give up the fantasy of U.S. rule in the South China Seas.

“A Ship’s a Fool to Fight a Fort”: China is at least 20 times as powerful as it was when the U.S. began its series of mostly failed Asian wars. Admiral Nelson famously said “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.” How about if the fort is defended by 1.4 billion people?

Though Washington does not know it yet, in many ways China’s technology is now superior to ours. Should we risk the destruction of our navy and final loss of our standing as super-power in a contest that would ultimately require an attack on the Chinese mainland? Do we imagine that once this conflict was joined, the PRC would be the first to back down? Could we believe that anything could convince them to let us win a war in the south China seas?

The Trump Administration seems to suppose that this is our last chance to force the issue of a free Taiwan; the last plausible moment when our military superiority might intimidate the Chinese communists into letting go. Trump may be right about it being the last moment, but this is not reassuring. Ten years from now Taiwan will still be 100 miles off the coast of China, and Chinese land-based missile technology will be able to sweep the U.S. Navy from China’s homeland seas almost effortlessly.

The Battle Over TSMC: The Administration seems to imagine that we can bully Taiwan into separating its fate from the world’s second - soon to be first - largest economy, a few hours away by sea. Thus, it hectors Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation and threatens it with being cut off from the U.S. market if it dares make chips for China. TSMC is the world’s most important microchip maker, the foundry that executes the designs of hundreds of U.S. semiconductor firms, producing tens of billions in value for the U.S.

The Chinese can’t be bullied into giving up leadership in Taiwanese microchip technology that is crucial to their prosperity and defense. Nor ultimately will it make sense for TSMC or even the Taiwanese government to side with the U.S. China is a bigger market and soon will be the overwhelmingly dominant regional power. Of Taiwan’s investment over the last decade, 60% has gone to the Mainland. Guns and money beat lawyers and liberals every time.

A Peaceful Resolution: What if instead of trying to grab Taiwan, we created a way to share it? Instead of making it a locus of conflict, we turned it into a premium for peace? This could be done relatively easily, in a way that would not even require a negotiation with China or raise Chinese hackles about the U.S. interfering in China’s “internal affairs.”

Make Taiwan a free trade zone for U.S. imports. Declare that any goods transiting Taiwan, even if made on the mainland, may enter the U.S. duty free. For those concerned - as only economic illiterates can be - about a flood of cheap goods from China, the U.S. could make clear that imported goods must be off-loaded and re-loaded in Taiwan. This would serve not only as a boost to the Taiwanese economy, but also as a modest tariff on mainland exports. This is a good thing for multiple reasons…

Maintaining the Status Quo: Overnight, this would create a huge incentive for China to amicably extend the status quo on Taiwan - as it has for 70 years its claim to sovereignty - while refraining from military action. Free passage for exports to the U.S. could be worth hundreds of billions to the Chinese. Even pre-Trump, U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports averaged about 3.5%, or $35 billion on traffic close to $500 billion. Under Trump tariffs on many goods are as high as 15% and in some cases higher, even 25%. In a duty-free environment, trade could reach into the trillions.

To avoid triggering nationalist resentments from the Chinese, the U.S. need never to state the obvious - that this deal is contingent on the Communists leaving Taiwan alone. Nor should we expect the Communists to cease fulminating about the island. Promises to retake Taiwan are a staple of Chinese politicking and so far, have been about as predictive of reality as most political promises. The Communists can fulminate forever, as long as they don’t launch an invasion.

In retrospect, this is what we should have done with Hong Kong in 1997 when the Brits ceded control to the PRC. The benefit to Chinese - businesses in the entrepreneurial regions around Hong Kong - the first to take advantage of Deng’s loosening of the economy would have given the U.S. great leverage to demand that China abide by the Fundamental Law, guaranteeing Hong Kong’s autonomy. It’s probably too late for Hong Kong. Declaring a free trade zone on the premise that Hong Kong will regain its autonomy would be too blatant an intervention for the Communists to swallow.

China Was an Underrated Ally During WWII: We have become accustomed to think of ourselves as a supreme military power. Yet, the United States has not been on the winning side of a war since 1945. Even when we have been militarily dominant, our democratic politics has not been willing to sustain the kind of brutal operations that are necessary for victory.

Even in World War II, our opponents were three nations without domestic supplies of oil, and in the case of Japan not even self-sufficient in coal. Modern Italy has never won a war against an enemy possessed of gunpowder.

On our side was the largest army on earth - the Soviet Union’s; up till then, the greatest navy on earth from Great Britain; and often forgotten, China, which held down at least a million Japanese soldiers during the war. Add a million Japanese soldiers to the fight for Pacific islands, and that flag might never have been raised over Iwo Jima. Shift Japanese resources from the Army, tied down in China, to the Navy preparing to take on the U.S., and there might have been 10 Japanese carriers at Midway. No tide would have been turned that day.

Win-Win: Nothing is as dangerous to us right now as the uncontested myth of our military supremacy in Asia, which is based on bloated spending and an unusably self-defeating nuclear capability. The U.S. has been in a war with China - in Korea - long before China became the world’s leading manufacturing power. The Chinese had no air force, no navy, and no true mechanized divisions. The Chinese invaded over the mountains of Korea with only the munitions they could carry on their backs. And we could not beat them. China’s rise is all but inevitable. Either we work out ways to rise together, or the U.S. will fall. Chinese and Taiwanese prosperity is crucial to the future of our country."

- dailyreckoning.com

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Related:

"Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?"

Gregory Mannarino, “Economic Collapse: US Budget Deficit Explodes, Poverty Level Skyrockets”

Gregory Mannarino,

“Economic Collapse: US Budget Deficit Explodes, Poverty Level Skyrockets”

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Even Now"

2002, "Even Now"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Planetary nebula Abell 78 stands out in this colorful telescopic skyscape. In fact the colors of the spiky Milky Way stars depend on their surface temperatures, both cooler (yellowish) and hotter (bluish) than the Sun. But Abell 78 shines by the characteristic emission of ionized atoms in the tenuous shroud of material shrugged off from an intensely hot central star. The atoms are ionized, their electrons stripped away, by the central star's energetic but otherwise invisible ultraviolet light. 

The visible blue-green glow of loops and filaments in the nebula's central region corresponds to emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms, surrounded by strong red emission from electrons recombining with hydrogen atoms. Some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Cygnus, Abell 78 is about three light-years across. A planetary nebula like Abell 78 represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own Sun will experience... in about 5 billion years.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Free Download: Jiddu Krishnamurti, “The Book of Life”

"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. 

That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, 

that is why you must sing and dance, 

and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Freely download “The Book of Life”, by Jiddu Krishnamurti: 

- https://selfdefinition.org/krishnamurti/

"A Long March..."

"The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in times of despair."

- Bertrand Russell

"Things We Don't Want to Do: Outside the Comfort Zone"

"Things We Don't Want to Do: Outside the Comfort Zone"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"Doing things we don't want to do, or that scare us, creates flow in our lives and allows us to grow. Most of us have had the experience of tackling some dreaded task only to come out the other side feeling invigorated, filled with a new sense of confidence and strength. The funny thing is, most of the time when we do them, we come out on the other side changed and often wondering what we were so worried about or why it took us so long. We may even begin to look for other tasks we've been avoiding so that we can feel that same heady mix of excitement and completion.

Whether we avoid something because it scares us or bores us, or because we think it will force a change we're not ready for, putting it off only creates obstacles for us. On the other hand, facing the task at hand, no matter how onerous, creates flow in our lives and allows us to grow. The relief is palpable when we stand on the other side knowing that we did something even though it was hard or we didn't want to do it. On the other hand, when we cling to our comfort zone, never addressing the things we don't want to face, we cut ourselves off from flow and growth.

We all have at least one thing in our life that never seems to get done. Bringing that task to the top of the list and promising ourselves that we will do it as soon as possible is an act that could liberate a tremendous amount of energy in our lives. Whatever it is, we can allow ourselves to be fueled by the promise of the feelings of exhilaration and confidence that will be the natural result of doing it.”

- http://discuss.dailyom.com

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Of course, some have different perspectives...

Very strong language alert!

"All Swearengen", Ian McShane's character in “Deadwood”

The Daily "Near You?"

 
Machias, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Kicked in the Teeth by 'Stimulus'”

"Kicked in the Teeth by 'Stimulus'”

by Bill Bonner

"We like stimulus, we want stimulus. We think we should have stimulus."

– Donald Trump

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "As anticipated, the “recovery” is petering out. Here’s CNN: "Americans filed another 898,000 first-time jobless claims last week on a seasonally-adjusted basis, according to the Department of Labor. That’s more than economists had expected and up 53,000 from the prior week. Weekly claims have fallen a long way since peaking at 6.9 million in late March. But the improvements have slowed to a snail’s pace in recent weeks – and went into reverse last week. That means it could take a long time to get back to the pre-pandemic level of around 200,000 claims per week."

And here’s The New York Times: "8 Million Have Slipped Into Poverty Since May as Federal Aid Has Dried Up." "After an ambitious expansion of the safety net in the spring saved millions of people from poverty, the aid is now largely exhausted and poverty has returned to levels higher than before the coronavirus crisis, two new studies have found. The number of poor people has grown by eight million since May, according to researchers at Columbia University, after falling by four million at the pandemic’s start as a result of a $2 trillion emergency package known as the Cares Act."

Magic Elixir: And from colleague Dan Denning come further details… "Back-row America is getting kicked in the teeth… Check out the stats below from the Social Security Administration on wage earners.

• 32% of wage earners make less than $20k/year

• 44% make less than $30k

• 56% make less than $40k

• 66% make less than $50k

• The median wage for 2019, says Dan, was only $34,248.

And yet, these people – who can barely support themselves… and who have lost jobs and income in the COVID-19 lockdowns – are also expected to support 76 million retiring baby boomers. How’s that going to work?

Maybe more of the magic elixir – free money – is needed. Donald Trump certainly thinks so. On Fox Business yesterday: "President Trump called Thursday for even more stimulus spending than the $1.8 trillion proposed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in his talks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “I would take more. I would go higher,” Trump said in an interview on Fox Business Network, repeating his directive from earlier in the week to “Go big or go home!” Trump said he’s communicated his views to Mnuchin. “I’ve told him. So far he hasn’t come home with the bacon.” Trump’s latest comments illustrate the fluid and disorganized state of affairs in the stimulus talks at a time when the economic recovery appears to be stalling.

Everything’s Fake: But the “recovery” is not stalling. It’s fake. And so is the stimulus that is supposed to help it. And the fakeness of it, like so many other things, is hidden by a mountain of phony numbers, fraudulent statistics, and fake money.

So far, it looks like the COVID-19 lockdowns have taken about 4.3% out of nominal GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Last year’s GDP was $21.4 trillion. This year, U.S. GDP will clock in at around $20.5 trillion. But… and this is a big BUT… that’s after the feds pumped in beaucoup money. For the sake of round numbers, we’ll say the total input, in extra federal spending – including the Paycheck Protection Program, $1,200 checks, and unemployment boosters – was between $3 and $4 trillion.

But… and this is an even bigger BUT… that printing-press money is not the same as real GDP. You can’t really replace honest output – goods and services that people are willing to pay for – with pieces of paper or electronic notations. And yet, this printing-press money is included in the GDP figures, as if it were real. Take it away, and the real GDP falls. How much? Hard to say, maybe by $3 trillion… maybe less… maybe more.

The flimflam is further disguised by “average” numbers. As we pointed out yesterday, if a single billionaire’s wealth goes up by 10%, 99 million people could get poorer… but the average would still be positive. The whole slimy edifice is fraudulent. Fake money. Fake GDP. Fake stimulus. Fake growth. Fake opinions. And fake numbers.

Chaos and Confusion: The feds are already $27 trillion in the hole… with a deficit this year that would embarrass even sh*thole countries. And yet, both Trump and the Democrats are planning on making it worse. How? With more fake, printing-press money, of course. But all the phony money does is distort, mislead, and cheat. Like all counterfeit money, it can make some people richer… but only by making others poorer.

Ninety percent of the nation’s financial assets are held by 10% of the people. Want to make them richer? Just give more counterfeit money to Wall Street. But the general effect is to cause chaos, confusion, and envy. That’s why one of the techniques of modern warfare is to counterfeit an enemy’s currency… hoping to wreck his economy.

Complex Web: But while you can make some people richer, there’s no case in history where “stimulus” has made most people richer. Most people rely on the economy for their income – not the stock market. And an economy is a complex web of give and take. Favor the savers and you punish the borrowers. Favor the exporters and you pinch the importers. Privilege the rich and you give the poor a kick in the teeth. Or, if you try to stimulate the whole economy – by dumping money from helicopters – all you do is raise prices and cause misery and pandemonium for everyone.

So… What’s the alternative? What choice do Trump or Biden have? What choice do voters have? Stay tuned for a look at the upcoming election and what it really means…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"Market Fantasy Updates 10/16/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates 10/16/20"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

○

"The more I see of the monied classes, 

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Gregory Mannarino,

AM Oct 16, 2020: 

"ALERT: Stock Market Going MUCH Higher"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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Updated live.

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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Daily Update (October 15th to 16th)

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Insanity... 

○

And now. The End game...

"The American Revolution - The Sequel"

"The American Revolution - The Sequel"

by Jeff Thomas

"The US is the most observed country in the world. Since it’s the world’s current empire (and since it is beginning its death throes as an empire), it’s fascinating to watch. Those of us outside of the US watch it like Americans watch TV. It’s like a slow-motion car wreck that we observe almost daily, eager to see what’s going to happen next. We criticize the madness of it all, yet we can’t take our eyes off the unfolding drama. It has all the excitement of a blockbuster movie.

• The national debt is, by far, the highest of any country in history.

• The economic system is a house of cards, getting shakier every day.

• The government has become mired in progress-numbing fascism and increasing collectivism.

• The government is aggressively creating the world’s most organized police state.

• The majority of the population have become wasteful, spendthrift consumers who apathetically hope that their government will somehow solve their problems.

• The media consistently misrepresents international events, prodding the citizenry into accepting that the ongoing invasion of multiple other countries is essential.

• The most popular candidates for president (both parties) are the candidates that are the most egotistical, out-of-control blowhards who preach provocative rhetoric rather than real solutions.

Still, most Americans retain the hope that, somehow, it will all work out.

Hope Is a Desire, Not a Plan: There are growing numbers of Americans who have accepted that the US is unravelling rapidly and is headed for a social, economic, and political collapse of one form or another. Some talk of a new revolution (but hopefully a peaceful one, of the Tea Party sort). Some imagine that, if they can store enough guns and ammunition in their homes, they might be able to make a stand against government authorities. Others mull over the idea of organised secession by some of the states. A small, but growing, number are quietly leaving for more promising destinations.

Except for the last of these, most of the "hopes" are understandable, but any attempt at a "Second American Revolution" is unlikely to succeed. Why? Well, just for a start,

• The power of the US state is far greater than that of King George III in the late eighteenth century.

• The present US state would be fighting on its own ground, not some continent thousands of miles across the ocean.

• The US state is committed to the concept that it dealt definitively (and forever) with the concept of secession between 1861 and 1865.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that a breakup of the union, or complete removal and replacement of the government were possible in the US. What then? Well, unfortunately, here comes the really bad news for those who hope that the US could start over as the free nation it was in its infancy:

In the late eighteenth century, America was a largely agrarian collection of colonies. Colonists had to work hard just to survive, so the work ethic and self-reliance were paramount in the colonists’ makeup. They were a brave people who were accustomed to providing for themselves and physically fighting off those who would challenge them.

Colonists received no significant largesse from the British or local governments. No welfare, no social security, no Medicare or Medicaid, no benefits of any kind. Colonists made their own daily decisions. They had no government schools or media telling them what to think or what choices to make. They relied on common sense and self-determination to guide their decisions and actions.

Today, of course, the opposite is true. Less than 2% of Americans are involved in agriculture. A mere 9% are actually employed in the production of goods. They are rarely directly involved in their own physical protection (Most, if not all, combat is overseas and fought by defence contractors or those who voluntarily serve the military).

Most Americans receive benefits of one type or another from their government. Most recipients regard these benefits as "essential" and could not get by without them.

Most Americans receive their opinions from the media. Although this is not apparent to many Americans, it’s glaringly clear to those outside the US who can only shake their heads at the misinformation proffered by the US media and the wholesale acceptance of this "alternate reality" by so many Americans.

But what bearing does this have on what the future would be for Americans if they were to become determined enough to either remove their entire government or, alternatively, for some states to secede?

There have been many revolutions in the history of the world, both peaceful and otherwise. In the case of the American Revolution of 1776, the colonists themselves were largely self-contained as a people and possessed the ideal ethos to succeed as a productive country. But this has rarely been true in history. Whenever a people have been heavily dependent on the State in one way or another, they had become accustomed to receiving largesse at the expense of others. This is a major, major factor. Such a group is unlikely in the extreme to either produce or elect a Washington or a Jefferson. They almost always choose, instead, to fall in behind someone who promises largesse from the State. In choosing such leaders, the people are more likely to receive a Robespierre or a Lenin. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The pervasive difficulty here lies in the erroneous concept that there can be a return to freedom whilst maintaining the dependency upon largesse from the State. The two are mutually exclusive. Those who seek a return to greater freedom must also accept that "freedom for all" means an end to the State being empowered to steal from one person in order to give to another. Or, as stated by Frédéric Bastiat in the mid-nineteenth century, "Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

Whether the US continues on its present downward progression, or if it breaks free in a bid for greater freedom, the eventual outcome is likely to have more to do with the collectivist mindset of the majority than with the libertarian vision of a few, the economic, political, and social implications of which will impact all of us."

- internationalman.com

"Enemies..."

"You know the saddest thing about betrayal? 

It never comes from an enemy."

- "Michael Corleone"

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."

- John F. Kennedy

"The Clocks Struck Thirteen"

"The Clocks Struck Thirteen"

by Jim Kunstler

"Was it just me, or did you also notice that NBC’s Savannah Guthrie decided to play Special Prosecutor in Thursday night’s “town hall” gotcha-fest with Mr. Trump, who they had perched on some Modernista stool-of-punishment? The hectoring interrogation started from the get-go — the “townies” distributed around the set apparently just props — while Ms. Guthrie barked over the President with various renderings of the old shyster’s retort, but do you still beat your wife?

Over on ABC, Ol’ White Joe Biden lounged comfortably in low light and cushy seating with his therapist, George Stephanopoulos, free associating on the wonders and marvels he will bring about in the Kingdom Come of his presidency. Strangely, the subject of his family’s lucrative business dealings in Ukraine, China, and Russia a few years back never came up in the confab, a therapeutic omission that seemed to amount to malpractice.

I speak of the evidence found on a laptop computer apparently belonging to R. Hunter Biden, Ol’ White Joe’s crackhead son, outlining the many services Biden & Co. rendered to bigwigs in foreign lands for millions of dollars when Pop, “the big guy,” was vice-president. The Democrats’ new Ministry of Truth played a DEFCON-3 defense on these matters when it all broke in The New York Post at midweek. Twitter labeled it “unsafe” and banned all transmission of the news. Facebook’s Communication’s Director Andy Stone, a former Democratic Party employee (House Majority Political Action Committee Director; Press Secretary to Sen. Barbara Boxer), likewise squashed any links to the story on FB’s social network.

The New York Times rolled out the latest Ministry of Truth strategy Friday morning, in a tortured front-page story resorting to the tried-and-true claim that the laptop evidence was “Russian disinformation.” Sh’yeah…. The laptop had languished in the possession of Christopher Wray’s FBI since December 2019. The evidence contained in its some-40,000 emails pertained exactly to the matters at issue in the impeachment of President Trump at that time, i.e. Ukraine favor-seeking. The Delaware repair shop owner who handed over the machine burned a copy of its hard-drive, and when the FBI just sat on all that, he turned the drive over to Rudy Giuliani, one of the President’s attorneys.

One would have to suppose a number of things about these explosive revelations: For instance, that the FBI conducted some kind of forensic study of the laptop and its contents, and that it would not be too difficult to ascertain that the email trove was authentically the “work product” of R. Hunter Biden. If so, Mr. Wray has an awful lot to answer for.

Likewise, one might suppose that Rudy Giuliani, working on an extremely consequential case for a sitting president, and being a former distinguished federal attorney experienced with, and fastidious about, the handling of evidence, took some pains to ascertain the authenticity of the documents he received. Having done so, one might also suppose that Mr. Giuliani had handed off this material to the Attorney General, Mr. Barr — along with documentation he’s known to have collected about the Biden family’s money-laundering trail through the Baltic states to process additional payments for services rendered above and beyond the millions paid to R. Hunter Biden by Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company whose board of directors he was installed on in 2014.

What all that evidence speaks of is a Biden & Co. foreign influence-peddling scheme that amounts to selling out the USA while Ol’ White Joe was vice-president carrying out official tasks in the countries that paid his son enormous sums of money. The evidence clearly contradicts Mr. Biden’s basic claim that he never spoke with his son, Hunter, about his business dealings. The evidence also indicates clearly that Mr. Biden, then vice-president, received a cut of the collected lucre distributed among the family members. In a normal America, these issues would prompt some sort of official inquiry possibly leading to indictments. But these are the most abnormal times, and the final weeks of a vicious national election that is an existential threat to that coterie of Deep State seditionists whose careers, reputations, and livelihoods are at stake in the outcome.

So, of course, their Ministry of Truth is pulling out all the stops to squash the story. But their hubris is showing. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter, being mega-billionaires, probably think that they have the resources to hire every attorney in the known universe to guard their empires. One important lesson for the nation might come out of this: that lawyers and lawfare do not amount to a supernatural protection force. The truth has a mighty power of its own and there are moments in history when it manages to overcome organized evil."

- https://kunstler.com/

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Related:

"Ukrainian Lawmaker Releases Leaked Phone Calls of Biden and Poroshenko"

"How It Really Is"

 

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/16/2020"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/16/2020"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"For months, Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden denied he knew anything about his son’s business dealings. New emails released by the New York Post show a different story. Joe Biden not only knew about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in foreign countries such as Ukraine and China, but he got a piece of the action. Some of these dealings are linked to the transfer of U.S. technology to the Chinese military. This comes at a time when tensions are mounting between the U.S. and China over trade and Taiwan. Is it a campaign ender for Joe Biden? Nope, because the mainstream propaganda media, along with big tech, are covering for Joe.

It looks like a big tech censor storm has hit this election season. Anyone trying to make the Joe Biden email story go viral is being denied and even ejected from Twitter in some cases. Facebook is also blocking the story from the New York Post for going viral. Back to Twitter, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was thrown off of Twitter for posting the NY Post story. The Trump campaign was also taken down off Twitter. The censorship is off the charts this election season, and it is all in favor of Democrats and Joe Biden.

The economy continues to flounder. Unemployment filings got closer to 1 million with 890 new filings this past week. States like Illinois are borrowing money from the Fed to close big budget shortfalls. Is Illinois going to be the first financially failing state in the USA? It looks like it."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks about 

these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

◆

Related:

"The 2020 Election Bamboozle:

 We Are All Victims Of The Deep State's Con Game"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 10/16/20"

by David Leonhardt

10/16/20

• New daily coronavirus cases have reached their highest point yet in 17 states, including Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin. In no state are cases clearly on the decline.

• Pfizer’s chief executive confirmed its vaccine won’t be ready until at least late November, disappointing Trump’s hope for a pre-election announcement.

• Nationwide, first-year enrollment has dropped 16 percent at four-year colleges, and 23 percent at community colleges. Enrollment has risen at for-profit colleges, which have a weak overall record. “This is an unmitigated disaster,” Susan Dynarski, an economist, said.

• Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor recently hospitalized with Covid-19, said he was “wrong” not to wear a mask at a White House event.

Oct 16, 2020, 12:11 AM ET:

 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 38,922,400 

people, according to official counts, including 8,019,028 Americans.

      Oct 16, 2020 12:11 AM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

◆

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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Updated 10/16/20, 4:24 AM ET

Click image for larger size.

- https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

◆

A highly recommended "must read":

"We Destroyed the World’s Greatest Economy for No Reason"

Unemployment Crisis Rocks America; Goodbye Middle Class; Economic Reckoning; Jobless Claims Surge”

Jeremiah Babe;

“Unemployment Crisis Rocks America; Goodbye Middle Class;

 Economic Reckoning; Jobless Claims Surge”

Gregory Mannarino, "And It's Gone... But The Freak Show Continues! Or Is It A Clown Show?"

Gregory Mannarino, 

"And It's Gone... But The Freak Show Continues! Or Is It A Clown Show?"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The Fed Finally Admits It"

"The Fed Finally Admits It"

by Brian Maher

"We have it on highest authority - the Federal Reserve itself - that it may never permit free markets again. Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles: "The Treasury market is now so large that the U.S. central bank may have to continue to be involved to keep it functioning properly."

Next we come to the president of the Federal Reserve’s San Francisco outpost - Mary Daly by name: "I am not willing to trade millions of jobs for people who need a ladder rung up in order to keep the stock market from going up for a few who have those holdings." That is, Ms. Daly tacitly concedes that the institution for which she toils accounts heavily for the stock market’s ludicrous outperformance.

The Federal Reserve was originally fashioned to be the “lender of last resort.” Yet that designation is presently a cruel and mocking jest. It has passed from lender of last resort to stockjobber. Long have we known it. Now they admit it.

“Free Markets”: We will hear no more gabble about the stock market being a mirror of the economy. We will hear no more gabble about the stock market “discounting the future.” Indeed... we will hear no more gabble about free markets. Only traces, scraps, vestiges remain. Reduce it to its essentials, and the message is this: The Federal Reserve can never turn back. Massive intervention is here to stay, world without end. It is as permanent as stone, as permanent as the stain on a politician’s honor.

One Intervention Leads To Another: The central trouble with intervention is that one intervention invites another, invites another, invites another. Intervention puts out one fire only to start a second. Another intervention douses the second and a third erupts somewhere else. The firemen are on permanent duty. Let us cling to our fiery theme…

The wildfires presently raging in California are largely the result of poor forest management. Under sound management, authorities initiate controlled burns to clear out the deadwood and underbrush that feed a blaze. If a natural fire erupts, there is less combustible material to spread the trouble… and the fire is easier to barricade. But the state of California has neglected to clear away the deadwood. And so otherwise manageable fires have become hellish infernos that fanned out in horrific contagion.

The Fed’s Poor Forest Management: The Federal Reserve is the state of California. It will not allow controlled burns. Through its interventions it lets rotting and dying businesses and industries pile up - deadwood. The rotten timber accumulates and accumulates in the economy. The forest becomes too big to fail. When a fire does ignite - as in 2008 - the entire forest is soon a riot of flames.

The Federal Reserve would not allow a small fire... so it got a near conflagration… which required greater intervention yet to contain. Scroll the calendar forward to 2020. The pestilence ignited the greatest economic fire since the Great Depression. Or rather... authorities allowed the pestilence to ignite the greatest economic fire since the Great Depression.

Two Options: Once again the crisis presented the Federal Reserve two options. The first was to let the fire complete the job the 2008 burning began. The second was intervention on a vastly mightier scale. Explains Lance Roberts of Real Investment Advice: "Allow capitalism to take root by allowing corporations to fail and restructure after spending a decade leveraging themselves to [the] hilt, buying back shares and massively increasing the wealth of their executives while compressing the wages of workers. Or… Bail out the “bad actors” once again to forestall the “clearing process” that would rebalance the economy and allow for higher levels of future organic economic growth."

The Federal Reserve selected option two of course. That is, it chose intervention on a supergargantuan scale. Was it necessary under the nightmare circumstances? Perhaps it was. Yet condemns the United States economy to a lost decade of stagnation… and drowsiness.

Debt Is a Drag: As we have explained before: Each intervention piles up additional debt within the system. The system sags and groans under the added burden. Progress slows as inefficient enterprises absorb capital - capital that could have flowed into worthier hands.

As summarized by Wikipedia, a central bank exists to: (1) protect the money stock instead of saving individual institutions; (2) rescue solvent institutions only; (3) let insolvent institutions default… The Federal Reserve fails on all counts — 1,2,3.

The weak and inefficient know they will not succumb to the flames. The authorities will have the hoses on them if needed. They survive. But thrive?

A Titanic Burglary of the Future: Plunging into debt introduces a sort of hand-to-mouth living. It diverts cash flow to the service of existing debt - often unproductive debt. And so investment in the future never makes it past the present. It is a titanic burglary of the future, a grand heist.

Explains Daily Reckoning contributor Charles Hugh Smith: "Debt has one primary dynamic: Borrowing money to consume something in the present brings forward consumption and income. If we choose to consume now, we have less income to save for future consumption or investments. If we sacrifice consumption today, we have more money in the future for consumption or investing. Those who brought their consumption forward can no longer add to present consumption, as their future income is already spoken for."

Fifty years ago, $1 of debt may have yielded an additional dollar of economic growth, real or otherwise. Perhaps even more. That is of course because the national debt burden was vastly lighter. Each dollar borrowed since 2008 has yielded under $1 of growth. It is perhaps 40 cents by some estimates we have encountered. It is a dismal calculus.

Deficits, Deficits, Deficits: Meantime, this year’s budget deficit will likely near $4 trillion - the largest in history. Goldman Sachs estimates a $6 trillion combined deficit over the next two years alone. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (do not laugh!) projects publicly held debt will eclipse its post-WWII record by 2023.

Debt service is already rising faster than any other federal shell-out. Prior to this crisis the Congressional Budget Office had already projected debt service would scale $915 billion by 2028 - nearly 25% of the entire budget. The Lord only knows the ultimate figure. But it will likely be far higher absent a drastic reversal of economic fortune.

How will the government afford to pay for anything else? And so our shoulders stoop and our head lowers, forlorn. Yet we cling to hope, as a drowning man clings to a life ring - or as a drunkard clings to his bottle. But the nation’s debt is not a crisis, argue the spenders. That is because “we owe it to ourselves.” But one scalawag takes them at their word. “Note to self,” he writes: “Pay up.”

- dailyreckoning.com