An Intellectual Feast for Contrarians thumbnail

An Intellectual Feast for Contrarians

/in , , , , , /by

By Craig J. Cantoni

A new book questions the conventional wisdom about immigration, diversity, assimilation, and the causes of prosperity.

Caution!  Don’t be seen reading the following book in public.

The Culture Transplant:  How Migrants Make the Economies They Move to a Lot like the Ones They Left, by Garett Jones, 2023, Stanford Business Books, 213 pages.

There is not a whiff of racism, nativism, jingoism, or supremacism in the book.  Nor does it downplay the evils of slavery, Jim Crow, colonialism, and imperialism.  But its conclusions are so counter to today’s zeitgeist on immigration, diversity, assimilation, and the causes of prosperity that you’ll risk being canceled if you’re seen reading it.

The book is not a polemic.  Written by an associate professor of economics, It is a distillation of many scholarly studies—studies that I had never heard of, although I had smugly thought I was well-versed in the topics, especially the topic of diversity, given that I had been at the leading edge of the diversity movement going back to when the movement was started in 1990 by R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr., as a result of his landmark Harvard Business Review article, “From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity.”

Many of the studies cited in the book came out of academia.  Somehow, they got past campus censors, even though the study findings had to hurt someone’s feelings.

Speaking of feelings, some of my fellow Italians might get their Roman noses out of joint.  The book speaks negatively about Italian anarchists and socialists who had immigrated to Argentina, circa 1900.  They joined with like-minded emigrants from Spain in changing the politics and culture of the nation, so that Argentina went from being one of the richest countries in the world to a middling one beset by political strife and a statist government.

The core premise of the book is that “immigration, to a large degree, creates a culture transplant, making the place that migrants go a lot like the places they left.  And for good and for ill, those culture transplants shape a nation’s future prosperity.”  (The same shaping can happen in states, cities, and neighborhoods.)

The shaping can be negative when migrants come from places with low social trust, with centuries of little technological innovation, and with governments that are too corrupt and confiscatory, or too weak to provide basic services and protect rights and property.  It can take many generations for the descendants of these migrants, as a group, on average, to sever the cultural chains and assimilate and prosper in their new country.

Examples abound in the book.  So do statistics, charts, and graphs.  And so do caveats.  The author cites exceptions to the rule, admits when it’s difficult to distinguish between causation and correlation, and quotes studies that disagree with his conclusions.  Still, in spite of the headache-inducing amount of data, it became clear to this reader that the conclusions are on a sound intellectual footing.

Some of the conclusions match the conclusions of a book on my bookshelf, the New York Times bestseller, Why Nations Fail:  The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.  Its take on the socioeconomic problems in Latin America is of special interest to me, given that I live close to the southern border in Tucson and had lived for five years in the barrio of San Antonio. The take is that the Spanish Empire’s confiscatory economic system, two-class social system, and closed political system left a legacy in its former colonies of corruption, poverty, social distrust, inexperience with pluralism, and a paucity of technological innovation.

According to The Culture Transplant, people whose ancestors emigrated from China and Western Europe, excluding those from the Spanish Empire, had an edge in achieving prosperity, due to both regions having long histories of governmental and technical innovations. Some might counter that the edge came from colonialism and imperialism, but it’s difficult to make that case with respect to China.

The author of the book clearly favors the cultural traits that Chinese migrants brought to other countries in Southeast Asia, and more recently in history, to America.  Succeeding generations have done exceedingly well, even where they’ve been in the minority and faced discrimination—and in spite of China’s horrible experiment with communism.  Aided by Confucian values, the traits include a high savings rate, a high degree of social trust, high industriousness, a strong emphasis on education and family, and a natural propensity for trade.  The author goes so far as to say that a surefire way of raising a nation out of poverty would be the admission of a large number of Chinese immigrants.

If that’s not controversial enough, let’s now enter the minefield of diversity.

The author makes a distinction between skill diversity and ethnic diversity.  Clearly, having a diversity of skills, especially higher skills, is a positive for nations and industry. Just as clearly, skill diversity is often the result of ethnic diversity.  It’s far less clear, however, that ethnic diversity is always positive, or to quote today’s cliché, “a strength.” That’s because there are many examples in history and around the world of ethnic diversity leading to mistrust, strife, divisiveness, and identity politics.

When Roosevelt Thomas started the diversity movement, his contention was that companies would be able to better relate to their customers and sell more stuff if their workforce mirrored the racial diversity of the nation.  He also contended that as the nation’s workforce became less white, companies would be able to relate better to employees if the staff at all levels mirrored the national workforce.

There is a lot of truth in the first contention about selling more stuff, but there’s also some hyperbole.  The fact is that nearly homogenous Germany has little difficulty in selling cars in America, and almost totally homogenous Japan and S. Korea have little difficulty in selling cars and electronics in America.

Regarding the second contention, a lot depends on how a diverse staff is achieved.  If accomplished through ham-handed reverse discrimination and the negative stereotyping of white employees in so-called racial sensitivity seminars, diversity initiatives are counterproductive and even harmful.

Then there is a practical issue.  Given that there are over one hundred unique ethnocultural groups in the US, it’s virtually impossible to achieve proportional representation of all of them at all levels throughout a company.

What about profitability?  Don’t some studies show that diversity leads to greater profits?  Yes they do, but the studies tend to be done of companies that are big, deep-pocketed, and already profitable. It’s not possible to determine if diversity in such companies is the result of profitability or the cause of profitability.

No doubt, few Americans are familiar with a landmark study of workplace diversity published in 1998 by Kathryn Williams of Columbia University and Charles O’Reilly of Stanford.  They concluded that:

The preponderance of the empirical evidence suggests that diversity is most likely to impede group functioning.  Unless steps are taken to actively counteract these effects, the evidence suggests that, by itself, diversity is more likely to have negative than positive effects on group performance.

I’m not suggesting here that diversity is not a worthwhile endeavor.  After all, I was at the leading edge of the diversity movement.  But if pursued stupidly, diversity is not a strength.

Given that the US is a multiethnic country, it’s important to get it right and not be stupid about it.  To quote Barack Obama:

America is the first real experiment in building a large, multiethnic, multicultural democracy.  And we don’t know yet if that can hold.  There haven’t been enough of them around for long enough to say for certain that it’s going to work.

Anyway, in closing, a few words of advice:  Be careful in accepting my opinion of The Culture Transplant.  As a lifelong contrarian, I have a strong bias in favor of books that question conventional wisdom.

Carter introduces Fair Tax Act thumbnail

Carter introduces Fair Tax Act

/in , , , , /by

By Dr. Rich Swier

Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA) today introduced H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act, to replace the current tax code with a national consumption tax known as the Fair Tax.

“Cosponsoring this Georgia-made legislation was my first act as a Member of Congress and is, fittingly, the first bill I am introducing in the 118th Congress,” said Rep. Buddy Carter.

“Instead of adding 87,000 new agents to weaponize the IRS against small business owners and middle America, this bill will eliminate the need for the department entirely by simplifying the tax code with provisions that work for the American people and encourage growth and innovation. Armed, unelected bureaucrats should not have more power over your paycheck than you do.”

Joining Rep. Carter as original cosponsors are Reps. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Kat Cammack (R-FL), Scott Perry (R-PA), Bob Good (R-VA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Bill Posey (R-FL), Gary Palmer (R-AL), Jim Banks (R-IN), and Barry Loudermilk (R-GA).

©Congressman Buddy Carter. All rights reserved.

Positive Feedback Loops With Negative Consequences – Part 1 thumbnail

Positive Feedback Loops With Negative Consequences – Part 1

/in , , /by

By Neland Nobel

Editors’ Note: Debate over the budget and deficit spending has been a staple of American political debate since they became chronic with Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. Too bad it has in recent years just become background noise for both political parties because the stakes for America are very high. However, as this article indicates, there is a time when the argument that “someday this is going to kill us” comes due. Unfortunately, because of demographics and their impact on entitlements, rising interest costs, war spending, and reckless social spending, the future is now – the present. This week, the fight over the debt ceiling begins and it will resurface in June. The Democrats have gotten a 30% increase in discretionary spending. Running a trillion-dollar deficit has now been normalized. Will the Republicans show the nerve necessary to curtail spending and set the nation on a course to avoid the inflationary/deflationary crisis described below? Moreover, it may be too late for any actions to avoid significant societal and economic pain. The debt ceiling fight basically is Democrat blackmail. Either accept all of our past excesses or we will shut the country down and blame the Republicans for the crisis. In the past, Republicans have allowed the framing of this crisis to make them look irresponsible and heartless as the last confrontation in 2011 demonstrated. Can Republican leadership find a way out of this blackmail trap? We are about to find out.

All dynamic systems have feedback loops, either negative or positive loops. For example, the sun heats the earth. Heat and humidity form clouds and push them higher with updrafts, which create rain and partially block sunlight, cooling the earth and providing moisture for another cycle. This is a negative feedback loop and is a mechanism in nature for the regulation or maintenance of a specific state of nature.

In comparison, many feedback loops in nature are self-reinforcing and are referred to as positive which tend to a definitive endpoint, such as the death of a living entity. We have a number of these operating in the economy right now related to Federal intervention in the economy. Not only have many become self re-inforcing, but they also intersect with other feedback loops creating even bigger positive feedback loops with serious negative consequences.

In the case of US government finance, we now have some feedback loops that are increasingly dangerous and out of control. This disequilibrium could also spread to foreign governments and the private sector as well.

Let’s take a look at some that are obvious and some not so obvious.

With a total deficit federal debt now over $31 trillion and growing, the cost of rolling over the US debt is rising because the debt pile to finance is both getting larger and the cost of interest payments is rising.  Both trends require more debt to be financed and the more debt that is offered to the markets, the lower the price of bonds and the higher interest rates will otherwise be unless there is offsetting demand for those bonds. The more money paid out to service the debt, the less money is left for the government to spend on other things.

Thus, higher interest rates will help create higher rates, a self-feeding trend that some refer to as a doom loop.

You can sell more debt if there is more demand ready to take the increased supply. We don’t expect the government to go broke. They will be able to finance themselves. The question is at what interest rate will the government be completely funded and who else is damaged by the government’s voracious appetite for funds?

Unfortunately, some of the big buyers of bonds are publicly either pulling out of the market or becoming sellers. For example, the FED has expanded its balance sheet by buying huge quantities of bonds, but now the FED itself is a net seller as it reduces its holdings in an attempt to staunch inflation that it created. We have moved from Quantitative Easing (FED buys bonds) to Quantitative Tightening (FED sells bonds).

Big foreign buyers of US debt such as Japan, Saudi Arabia, and particularly China, are also cutting back on what they buy and, in some cases, have become net sellers as well. To make bonds attractive to buyers of any sort, they must pay a superior yield and the bondholder must feel secure that they will be paid in a currency that holds reasonable value.

More supply and less demand mean lower bond prices which is just another way of saying higher interest rates. Higher rates in turn beget more borrowing, resulting in higher rates again, hence a self-reinforcing cycle.

Higher rates mean lower bond prices, so it hurts those institutions like pensions and insurance companies that already own bonds at higher prices. This is one of the reasons a typical 60% stocks and 40% bond portfolio last year delivered the worst results since 1871. The bond portion, which was supposed to “diversify”, was almost as weak as the stock portion.

A higher rate structure also has the potential to destabilize pensions since they have low cash holdings and must meet obligations, by selling investments bought at higher prices. You recently saw a pension crisis in England that caused the fall of a conservative government that was just elected. In fact, it was the shortest-serving government in British history.

Moreover, higher interest rates impact all debtors and all borrowers, not just the US Treasury. Private borrowers also have to refinance at higher rates and thus increased interest payments have to come out of corporate or household cash flow and are thus not available for other things. Ask any recent homebuyer how rising rates have increased monthly payments. Higher interest rates depress company profits. That is why rising rates tend to slow down economic activity.

Foreign governments are also borrowers and for those not well-financed, a generally higher rate structure could cause some defaults among those borrowers that don’t have a strong balance sheet.

Central banks around the world are raising interest rates to deal with the worst inflation in 40 years. That puts pressure on economies worldwide. The idea is that only a recession can relieve the pressure on inflation. That is not a very good policy option, is it? You basically substitute the pain of recession for the pain of inflation. Either way, you are inflicting pain on the citizens because governments spent too much money and central banks financed their excesses.

However, the recession itself creates another set of feedback loops with negative consequences. A slower economy causes a drop in tax revenues, making the deficit larger. That deficit must be financed either by borrowing more (increasing the supply of bonds and increasing interest rates) or currency debasement (inflation), which with some delay, results also in higher interest rates since borrowers want to be paid back in real inflation-adjusted terms.

Government revenue streams are tied to taxes collected and taxes collected are tied to economic activity. An unemployed worker or a shuttered business pays fewer taxes than before. This dependence can become extreme.  In California for example, 49% of income taxes are paid by 1% of the population.  That 1% is the stock and real estate speculators. So, the “everything bubble” created by the FED, drives government revenue. Pop that bubble and a lot of revenue dries up quickly, causing state and federal budgets to go into deficit. Those deficits have to be financed.

Besides causing tax revenue to drop, a recession triggers an internal flaw in the social entitlement welfare states of the US, Canada, and Europe. The worse the recession, the more people fall into the “social safety net.” This causes social expenditures to rise, right as revenue is contracting. This causes budget deficits to bulge everywhere, already aggravated by the previously mentioned problems in government finance.

Congress’s 4,155-Page Omnibus Bill Is a Symbol of American Decadence thumbnail

Congress’s 4,155-Page Omnibus Bill Is a Symbol of American Decadence

/in , , , , /by

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

An eight-ream bill is no sign of legislative nobility.

On December 20th a handful of Republican senators shuffled before an audience of reporters prepared to issue fiery polemics on the year-end omnibus bill which sat, heavy and ponderous in all its eight-ream absurdity on a wheeled cart before the five-senator assemblage.

“DANGER: $1.7 trillion of hazardous debt” read one of the mock-hazard signs decking the cart. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul declared the bill an “abomination,” while Utah Senator Mike Lee skewered the unseemly pressures to freeze it into law by proclaiming the process “legislative barbarism.”

Every year it happens with textbook repetition: Washington politicians procrastinate in releasing a colossal expense prospectus for the following year which unfailingly runs thousands of pages, requests billions of dollars, and is granted mere hours of scrutiny before being thrust to a congressional vote. The process is riddled with partisan intimidations and shrewd slandering. Democratic politicians trot out folksy pleas about supporting struggling Americans, to which, naturally, passing the bill is postured to achieve. Most Republicans cave to its smothering inevitability; a minority bitterly protest.

The omnibus bill earns its name from its practice of absorbing a collection of smaller bills into one vote. You might be tempted to call this government efficiency, but think again. In reality, it’s the gateway of legislative sloppiness and profligacy. And you might be tempted to believe Washington’s Christmas tradition is paternal benevolence for the common man but this too is a smokescreen. If our political overlords actually cared for our future in the manner of responsible stewards they would not bankrupt the nation. They would not smuggle dozens of silly congressional pet projects into our legislative initiatives. They would not make a mockery of the political process by demanding decisions on bills scarcely proffered hours of review. They would not egregiously spend money we did not have. They would not thoughtlessly shovel funds to any hungry bureaucratic mouth in the country. They would not insult American taxpayers by destroying our currency, snowballing our debt, and wrapping it all in a veneer of charity and Progress. Grim and apocalyptic though this indictment may be, it is nevertheless the bitter truth.

As Americans, we have become numb to the money-gobbling maneuvers of the bureaucratic machine. We hardly flinch at billion-dollar price tags, not because we do not cognitively register such a number as large but because we feel detached from its significance. We do not feel connected to its consequences. We don’t even feel particularly sure about what the spending figures should be, so bewildered by the dizzying complexity of contemporary American politics are we. We put our fingers to the glass and watch but we cannot seem to stretch our fingers out and really touch the harrowing reality of a $1.7 trillion bill or a $31 trillion in national debt. Such numbers fail to disquiet our consciences. Why?

Here are a few potential reasons.

  1. Nobody talks about fiscal conservatism anymore. Republicans love to rhapsodize about this fixture of their intellectual tradition but few are those who actually extend this principle from token rhetoric to the necessary scolding and refashioning efforts of current regimes. No matter whether they claim democratic or republican status, administrations do a sordid job of expenditure restraint. This equivalence between the parties is sobering indeed, indicating that the majority of republicans do not know how to defend small-government and balanced budgets with any authentic confidence. You might hear “fiscal conservatism” sprinkled throughout the campaign trail for its old-fashioned appeal and knack for attracting votes, but it is no longer practiced by those in Washington. Longtime champion of fiscal restraint Sen. Rand Paul has made entreaties for years that are drowned out by the opportunism and apathy swarming the Capitol.
  2. Nobody is sure why fiscal conservatism even matters: Government money has been lamentably scrubbed of morality. It bears no qualms about tempering its quantity or maintaining its quality due to an ethical contract with the people. Money has no scruples attached to it anymore. The modern conscience conceives of it as a hollow instrument; a neutral tool to get from A to B. But what is money really made of? Where does it get its value? In what ways can it be a wonderful thing and in what ways can it equally be a dangerous thing? Few care to mull these questions.
  3. Nobody quite feels the consequences of reckless spending yet: Because we raise debt ceilings with impunity and have thrown that old burden of balancing budgets out the window, we stay disconnected from the ramifications of fiscal hedonism. It is hard enough for politicians to make difficult choices that affect life beyond their term limits, because where’s the motivation in that? And so, money becomes this distant, untouchable relic that no one wants to poke at.

And so, not only have we lost a certain emotional reaction to government spending (i.e. an instinctual discernment of when it hits a threshold of moral questionability) but we have also lost an intellectual grasp of it (i.e. an understanding of why extravagance cannot persist in perpetuity.) All of this adds up to a mass desensitization that leaves us dangerously acclimated to an environment that pretends money is a plaything and not actually the beating heart a civilization.

Here are some of the ways in which this unlucky acclimatization has occurred:

  1. Money added is rarely scaled back: In government, addition is the path of least resistance. Subtraction has poor incentives, can be politically painful, and sounds mean and parsimonious to us Americans who see government as our rightful purse strings and sympathetic caretaker.
  2. Added bureaucracy is rarely reviewed or pruned: More money inevitably feeds more bureaucratic cubicles. Bureaucracy is a curious animal: one that has a considerable appetite for more money and workers and administrative projects, but one that also has a deadening effect and leaves decay in its wake. In this way, bureaucracy has always bizarrely appeared to me as a life/death personification. If one thing is for sure, it will seek to justify its existence and once breathed form by taxpayer dollars, will lunge for more funds to legitimize its continuance.
  3. Law becomes more complex and disorienting: As sentences rain from keyboards and paper churns from the printer and more thousand-page legal monstrosities are produced, we end up building on a (new-ish) toxic American tradition of unintelligible, byzantine law. The less lucid and graspable the law is to the public, the less accountable government becomes—and the more fuzzy the political vision of the masses grows. After all, do we even know what laws were passed in the year-end omnibus bill? More worryingly still, do our politicians even know? Is this state of affairs normal? Would we call it a natural progression? I would warn against this particular temptation: the temptation to believe that increasing complexity is a sign of sophisticated progress, of governmental fine-tuning. It is not. It tangles with its serpentine requests and chokes with its punishing demands. And it throws a veneer of precision and compassion (owing to its seeming charity) over it all. As a general rule of thumb, when edicts becomes more profuse and complex and fail to remain concise and coherent to the public, they are unequivocally not serving the masses. (They are probably serving the elites.)

Post-Empire Flavor

What does one see when they gaze upon a 4,155-page bill? A symbol of American decadence. A pile of legal jargon so exhaustive its efforts look undeniably frantic. This utter excess inspires notions of blind mania. What are we doing and why? Is there any principle behind governmental motion? Are there any scraps of real thought or prudence? Or is the impetus merely zombie-like bureaucratic appetite? No matter how comprehensive and caring we would like our present government to appear, the rot cannot be fully concealed. An eight-ream bill is no sign of legislative nobility. It is an insult to the common people. It makes for a ridiculous picture of thoughtless excess. It just looks stupid at first glance. This intuitive, gut-level reaction is important. It’s the embarrassing truth of our attempts at managerial sophistry laid bare. It’s worth mentioning that empire decline is marked by an apathetic watering-down of principle, by money deterioration, and by administrative overextension. Check, check, check.

The larger government grows, the more money it absorbs; sure. But the less functional it becomes too. It ossifies, and its vibrant principles start to decay under the dead weight.

Once a certain threshold in size is reached (and who’s to say exactly where that is) organization lapses into oppression. Vibrancy lapses into atrophy. And decent functionality lapses into chaotic disarray. The lesson?

Overreach and you snuff out life. Congress’ proud 4,155-page creation is a post-empire emblem if there ever was one. Do not be fooled by the legislation’s size: it represents a floundering American system, not a vibrant one.

AUTHOR

Lauren Reiff

Lauren is a writer of economics, psychology, and lots in between. To read more of her work, follow her on Medium.

RELATED ARTICLE: Nancy Pelosi’s Other Legacy: A Mountain of Debt for Our Children

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Is Lying about the Jobs Data thumbnail

Biden Is Lying about the Jobs Data

/in , , /by

By Ryan McMaken

The personal savings rate is near seventeen-year lows. Credit card debt is at record levels. Millions of prime-age workers have quit the job market, and full-time employment continues to wither. On the other hand, the Biden Administration wants you to think things have never been better.

Last week, following the release of December’s jobs data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Biden crowed that “Real wages are up in recent months … and we are seeing welcome signs that inflation is coming down as well.” Biden concluded by saying “it’s a good time to be a worker in America.”

Unfortunately, things aren’t nearly as good as the White House and its accomplices in the corporate media would have us believe.

It’s only a “good time” to be a worker in America if one equates falling real wages and falling full-time employment with “robust” employment conditions.

Moreover, the numbers that the administration continued to cherry-pick to burnish its political image are themselves quite suspect. Response rates to employment surveys sent out by the BLS have gone into steep decline, and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve has recently accused the BLS of vastly overstating employment growth in 2022.

A more sober look at broader economic trends continues to point toward economic pain in 2023, and there is less reason than ever to think that the Federal Reserve will engineer a fabled “soft landing” for the economy after years of record-breaking monetary inflation.

Falling Real Wages, Falling Full-Time Employment

In spite of what Biden may say, real wages in the United States fell, year-over-year from April 2021 to November 2022. That’s likely to also be the case for December once we get the inflation growth numbers for December. Put another way, wages are falling in real terms because the inflation rate has been outpacing wage growth during all that time. Nominal wage growth actually slowed in December according to the new BLS numbers, so unless the inflation rate suddenly collapsed to below 4.5 percent in December—which is unlikely—we will find that real wages fell in December for the twenty-first month in a row.

Another factor pointing to weakness in job markets is the fact that the number of full-time workers fell in December. Nearly all of the gains in workers were part time.

Specifically, full-time employees dropped by 1,000 workers while part-time workers rose by 679,000 (month-over-month). The total gain in all workers for the period was 717,000. Moreover, the overall trend since 2021 is one in which growth in full-time work in general is falling—and turning negative in some months—while part-time employment represents most of the growth.

An important aspect of the “household survey” Rosenberg mentions is that it considers part-time workers and barely-employed self-employed people as among the “employed” on a par with full-time workers. Yet, when we consider the reality of slowing wages combined with a lack of growth in full-time workers, one suspects that the employment situation isn’t exactly lucrative for a great many workers. There is also good reason to believe that many workers who are now taking on part-time work are doing so because the cost of living has increased substantially. For example, over the past year, the average hourly wage increased 4.6 percent while CPI prices rose 6.4 percent. Workers are falling behind, and it’s hard to square this with Biden’s claim that workers are doing unusually well.

Stagnant Labor Force Participation

Another reason to suspect the labor market isn’t as great as we’re being told is the fact that total prime-age (i.e., age 25-49) workers are hardly flocking to join the labor force. People leaving the work force could be a sign of a very robust economy, of course, as people can scale back working hours when real wages surge. But its extremely unlikely that’s what’s happening in our current period of rising costs, falling wages, and rising debt.

In fact, the number of prime-age workers “not in the labor force” is still up from where it was before the covid panic of 2020. In January 2020, about 21.3 million workers labeled themselves “not in the labor force.” That is, these people reported not working for market income at all during the previous year. As of December, the number had risen to 22.2 million. Since the Great Recession began in late 2007, the number of workers not in the labor force is up by more than a million. Biden may think it’s a great time to be a worker in America, but apparently many prime-age workers don’t agree.

This all reflect a larger historical trend in which workforce participation has fallen, with men especially prone to leaving the work force. This all helps to push down the unemployment rate as the pool of potential unemployed workers continues to shrink.

“Jobs” vs. Employed People

But why is it that we keep hearing about how there is so much job growth? Those “good” numbers are based mostly on a separate job survey which looks only at the number of jobs created, as opposed to the number of employed persons. This means a large number of part-time jobs could be created, with few new employed persons, and this could be reported as robust job growth. In fact, in terms of cumulative employment growth since January 2021, we find a persistent gap between the two surveys. This gap narrowed in December 2022, but, as noted above, this was mostly driven by part-time work. In every month since April 2022, this unexplained gap between employed persons and “new jobs” has ranged from 96,000 up to 1.8 million.

This gap could theoretically be explained by a rising number of multiple job holders, but it seems this need not explain all of the gap, as it seems the establishment survey has been overestimating job growth considerably. According to a new report released by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve the total number of new jobs added during the second quarter was closer to 11,000 than the 1.1 million that the establishment survey had shown. This doesn’t tell us much about the second half of the year, of course, but it does suggests there’s something very wrong with the survey that’s been repeatedly used to “prove” the job market is excellent.

The iffy numbers might have something to do with declining response rates to the BLS’s surveys. Since the covid panic, the surveys used to collect this data have seen sizable drops in response rates. The establishment survey (CES) response rate has fallen from 59 percent in early 2020 to 45 percent today. The “JOLTS” survey, which produces many rosy estimates about job openings, has fallen to a 30-percent response rate since 2020. In contrast, the Household Survey (CPS) still has a response rate over 70 percent.

Without parsing the data sources, it’s impossible to guess how much the establishment survey’s narrowing data sources are affecting the numbers. In any case, the establishment survey is increasingly delivering estimates that appear questionable given larger economic indicators. The “good” employment data still leaves us wondering why the savings rate is falling and why disposable income is below trend. Why is credit card debt mounting if households are enjoying the fruits of a “strong” labor market?

The writers of Biden’s press releases offer us no answers. Once we take a broader view, however, the numbers point to recession and declining fortunes for a great many of America’s workers. In November, the money supply actually fell, continuing a trend of rapidly falling money-supply growth. That’s a strong recession signal. An even more reliable recession signal is the yield curve showing the 3-month/10-year yield spread. When this goes negative, a recession has been assured in every case for decades. This spread is now the deepest in negative territory it’s been in more than 40 years.

Misplaced Trust in the Federal Reserve

At this point, Wall Street and the regime are both banking on the hope that the Federal Reserve will engineer a “soft landing” through its monetary policy. The idea here is that the Fed will somehow figure out how to allow interest rates to rise just the perfect amount to rein in inflation while also not triggering a recession. This is hope based on fantasies, however. It’s entirely possible a recession may somehow be averted this year or next, but if that occurs, we hardly have any reason to assume the Federal Reserve planned it all. After all, the Fed has made it abundantly clear in the past two years that it has absolutely no special insights when it comes to economic trends or how monetary inflation will affect the economy. After record breaking amounts of monetary inflation in 2020 and 2021, Fed economists were still insisting that price inflation would be no problem and would be “transitory.” Numerous Fed economists from Neel Kashkari to Jerome Powell continued to state that the Fed should keep interest rates low well into 2022, or even into 2023.

*****
This article was published by Mises Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Coming Soon: Judgment Day for Pfizer, Share This Film thumbnail

Coming Soon: Judgment Day for Pfizer, Share This Film

/in , , , , , , /by

By MERCOLA Take Control of Your Health

People who have been harmed by COVID-19 shots have suffered a range of medical issues — everything from death and permanent disability to pericarditis, nerve damage and overwhelming fatigue. While their symptoms vary, they share several common themes:

  • Abandonment — Those injured by COVID-19 jabs have been largely abandoned by the mainstream medical community and government.
  • Shame — Those who spoke out about their injuries have been shamed, ridiculed and labeled unethical; their medical issues have been politicized, while society provides no empathy.
  • Hopelessness — With no programs in place to help those injured by COVID-19 shots, and many doctors afraid to even acknowledge the shot’s connection to patients’ symptoms, many of those harmed feel lost and don’t know where to turn for help.

Bringing attention to the issue — and to the people whose lives have changed drastically since receiving a COVID-19 shot — is the first step to recovery. The film “Anecdotals” does just that, providing a glimpse into the lives of people who have suffered significant adverse reactions from COVID-19 shots.1

Many of them have been told their stories don’t matter. After all, they’re just anecdotes. But as you’ll see in the film, their journeys need to be heard, not only so they can access much-needed medical care but also so society becomes aware of the real risks of COVID-19 shots that have been covered up and censored.

Secrets From the Trials

One case involves Maddie de Garay, who was a healthy 12-year-old when she signed up for Pfizer’s COVID-19 trial for 12- to 15-year-olds. She suffered a severe systemic adverse reaction to her second dose of the shot, however, and struggled through 11 ER visits and four hospital admissions in the year and a half that followed.

Injuries from the shot have left her unable to walk or eat — she receives her nutrition via a feeding tube — and suffering from constant pain, vision problems, tinnitus, allergic reactions and lack of neck control.2

As though the physical trauma weren’t enough, Maddie and her family were continually dismissed by the medical professionals put in place to help, ignored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and denied the care needed to help Maddie. But the first red flag, Maddie’s mother Stephanie said at a hearing, was the way the trial was set up in the first place.3

Participants were given access to the TrialMax app to record side effects, like a swollen arm, but de Garay was surprised at the format it used. There wasn’t space for open-ended comments, only direct questions with “yes” or “no” options for answers, or check boxes to signify a set of predetermined potential effects.4 She explained:5

“I just want to give everybody a little better idea of what happened in our trial, because I did not know when you enter the trial, everybody uses a trial app. The app only allows you to record solicited adverse events — fever, redness, mild, moderate.

There’s no free form to fill in any other reaction that you have. What you have to do, if you have any other type of adverse event, is you have to call this study doctor. This leaves a lot of room for human error and concern of reporting bias coming from the principal investigator.”

In Pfizer’s April 2021 disclosure of Maddie’s case to the FDA, it’s stated only that she had abdominal pain:6

“One participant experienced an SAE [serious adverse event] reported as generalized neuralgia, and also reported 3 concurrent non-serious AEs (abdominal pain, abscess, gastritis) and 1 concurrent SAE (constipation) within the same week. The participant was eventually diagnosed with functional abdominal pain. The event was reported as ongoing at the time of the cutoff date.”

Then, a day before Pfizer submitted their request for emergency approval of the COVID-19 shot for 12- to 15-year-olds to the FDA, they added functional neurological disorder as a diagnosis in Maddie’s chart.7 Her mother noted in the film:8

“By the data cut off for the trial, Maddie experienced over 35 adverse events. None of these were mentioned … Maddie was in the hospital when the EUA [emergency use authorization] was approved. I thought that Maddie would be in the best hands possible in the rare chance she has a severe reaction. That was not the case. They did everything in their power to hide everything. Neither Pfizer, the FDA or the CDC has ever talked to us.”

Pfizer Trial ‘Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’

While health agencies continue to assure the public that COVID-19 shots are safe, those working closely on the trials had a different take. “I was working on Pfizer’s trial,” Brooke Jackson, a regional director formerly employed by Pfizer subcontractor Ventavia Research Group, which was testing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, said in the film.9 “What I saw was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

She witnessed falsified data, unblinded patients, inadequately trained vaccinators and lack of proper follow-up on adverse events that were reported. After notifying Ventavia about her concerns repeatedly, she made a complaint to the FDA directly — and was fired the same day.10 In her words:11

“The speed in which they were enrolling in the study — four to five coordinators pushing through 40, 50, 60 patients a day. We were not storing the vaccine at its appropriate temperature, the failures in reporting serious adverse events. We had so many reports of adverse events … we just could not keep up. The study doctor signed a physical exam when he wasn’t even in clinic.

Then Ventavia had unblinded every patient that was randomized in the trial. When we brought it to their attention, that’s what we were instructed to do — remove the evidence and destroy it. Emails about mislabeled blood specimens per Pfizer’s protocol, we should have immediately stopped enrolling, but they never told Pfizer.

I would bring the concerns to my managers and it was, ‘We’re understaffed.’ The FDA, they only see what Pfizer gives them. So I was documenting all of this. And on the 25th of September, I went directly to the FDA, and about six and a half hours later, I lost my job. I was fired.”

The FDA and Pfizer attempted to hide the COVID-19 shot clinical trial data for 75 years, but the FDA was ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to release redacted versions of trial documents on a much faster schedule. As part of the court order, 80,000 pages of documents related to the FDA’s approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shots were released June 1, 2022.12

Among those documents were case report forms (CRFs) revealing that deaths and severe adverse events took place during Phase 3 trials, but, as reported by Children’s Health Defense, Pfizer had “a trend of classifying almost all adverse events — and in particular severe adverse events (SAEs) — as being ‘not related’ to the vaccine.”13 Journalist Naomi Wolf explained:14

“We’ve got these amazing 2,500 volunteers — highly credentialed medical researchers, doctors and nurses — pouring over these 55,000 documents that a court order forced Pfizer and the FDA to release.

Well, they’re finding that there were horrible harms — deaths, spontaneous abortions, neurological problems, fainting, heart damage, debilitating muscle pain, debilitating joint pain — that were concealed by Pfizer and the FDA from the American people.”

Adverse Reactions — Real, Not Rare

The film details adverse reactions that have stolen careers, independence and the ability to function normally in daily life from countless people. Dr. Joel Wallskog, a former orthopedic surgeon, shared his story after getting the shot:15

“My life has dramatically changed after this adverse reaction. My career of 19 years, that I took almost 14 years to train for, is likely over. I’m just not safe to work as an orthopedic surgeon. Assuming the FDA and the CDC would be alarmed at my diagnosis, I expected to be contacted soon after my VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] submission. No phone call, no contact.”

Kellai Rodriguez also detailed her struggles since receiving a COVID-19 shot:16

“I lost my ability to speak naturally. I have become unable to walk without a walker, and never know if or when the tremors will come or go. I can no longer cook, clean or even pick up and hold my baby for too long, before my body begins to shake uncontrollably or is thrown into excruciating amounts of pain.

I’ve seen countless ER doctors as well as two neurologists who have given me no diagnosis, no further testing besides regular bloodwork, CT scans, ECGs, EKGs and an MRI, all of which the doctors told me came back normal.”

At a rally for those injured by the shots, hundreds came together to share their experiences, with striking similarities. Many suffered from tremors that left them unable to walk, with onsets within days of receiving the shots. In the hospital, nurses shared that other patients were experiencing similar symptoms, but doctors refused to label the conditions shot-related. Jennifer Bridges, a former nurse with Houston Methodist Hospital, who was fired for not getting the shot, explained:17

“I’ve seen emails, where hospitals threatened their doctors — you cannot sign medical exemptions, you cannot talk about, you cannot report adverse reactions to these vaccines. And if somebody was actually brave enough to do that in writing, there were other people higher up to erase those. I have the proof, and I have the people that have shown me these things.”

Stories Censored and Silenced

Those injured by the shots were left abandoned during shot mandates. The film’s director, Jennifer Sharp, is among those who suffered from debilitating symptoms after the shot, including facial numbness, electric shock-like feelings and muscle weakness. She opted to not get a second dose of the shot after experiencing the serious adverse events after the first dose, and lost her job as a result:18

“In January 2022, I lost a job because I wasn’t vaccinated. I had a VAX card showing one shot, I had a blood test showing that I still had antibodies and a doctor’s exemption. And I was willing to get tested every day. They didn’t care. I couldn’t go to restaurants, gyms, malls, events.

So when the anti-mandate rally came to Los Angeles, I attended it to represent those of us who were suddenly societal outcasts just for doing what the government asked us to do. Even if you fundamentally disagree with someone else’s stance, does that justify the lack of compassion for them losing their livelihoods?”

Yet, when those affected tried to speak out about their experiences, they were silenced and shunned. One woman who was injured by the shots shared:19

“We are being so censored that we can’t get the message out that we’re even being censored, because if it’s through social media, they are one of the platforms that is censoring us. And even if it’s not outwardly, we’re being shadow banned …

So you could share something, but nobody acknowledges it. And you’re thinking, ‘Oh, I’m isolated, I’m alone,’ but they’re probably not seeing it. It’s been moved to the bottom of the timeline or it’s not in existence. You literally cannot post on social media about having a vaccine reaction without it being censored.”

When Sharp decided to film “Anecdotals,” she made a pitch video that she shared privately on the platform Vimeo. It described her reaction to the shot and the need for compassion. “It was removed for misinformation. They said they don’t allow content that goes against the CDC recommendations. I am not allowed to tell my own story,” she said.20

Suicides Due to COVID-19 Shot Reactions

Brianne Dressen, cofounder of React10, a nonprofit offering financial and other support to those suffering from long-term adverse events from COVID-19 shots, detailed several suicides among victims suffering from electric shocks, neuropathy, tinnitus, tremors and other effects from the shots. She also considered suicide due to adverse effects she suffered after participating in the AstraZeneca trial:21

“I don’t think people realize how debilitating the symptoms are. My husband couldn’t leave me alone for months. He’d leave the house and he didn’t know if he was going to come home to a wife that was alive. He was afraid, every moment of every day, and it seeps into our kids’ lives.

Six months, I was not mom, I was not a human. I was just going to drive down to the lake. And I was going to carbon monoxide my car. And I was gonna put AstraZeneca did this on a sign in the window. And I was too sick to do it. So only reason I’m alive is because I was too sick to do it. And I would like to finish with a letter from a friend, Bree:

‘I cannot take this any longer. This has taken everything away from me, my career, my family, my life, my body will not stop attacking itself. And this is beyond the worst amount of torture. Please accept my apologies. I must bid farewell to this world. Please make sure the world knows the cruelty that has been imposed upon us. Goodbye, my dear friend, I will see you on the flip side.’

Rochelle Walensky. Janet Woodcock, Peter Marks, Anthony Fauci, you erased her and the many others like her, their blood is on your hands. You cannot bring my friends back. But you can save others from their fate. If you finally just tell the truth.”

The film calls for an open dialogue and a movement from humanity to ask the difficult questions and acknowledge those who are suffering due to COVID-19 shots. “We must be seen, believed and helped,” Sharp said. “Our stories are anecdotal, but in a situation where the science is changing, the studies are flawed and political agendas regulate, anecdotes could quite possibly be the most reliable data that we have. Yes, we are anecdotal. And these are our stories.”22

Sources and References

EDITORS NOTE: This MERCOLA column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Dip in Mortgage Rates Not Slowing Housing Bust 2: Mortgage Lenders Sing the Blues thumbnail

Dip in Mortgage Rates Not Slowing Housing Bust 2: Mortgage Lenders Sing the Blues

/in , , /by

By Wolf Richter

It just keeps getting worse. 

Mortgage applications to purchase a home are a forward-looking indicator of where home sales volume will be. Existing home sales that closed in November already plunged by 35% year-over-year, the 16th month in a row of year-over-year declines, making for a historic plunge. And mortgage applications went in the wrong direction from there, despite the dip in mortgage rates.

Applications for mortgages to purchase a home fell to the lowest level since the Christmas week of 2014, and beyond the lows of 2014, we have to go back all the way to 1995, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association today.

Compared to a year ago, purchase mortgage applications have plunged by 44%. Even during Housing Bust 1, mortgage applications didn’t plunge that much year over year.

That little dip in mortgage rates had no impact. This drop in mortgage applications came despite the dip in mortgage rates that started in mid-November from the 7.1% range and hit a low point in mid-December at 6.28%. In the latest reporting week, the average 30-year fixed rate was at 6.42%, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association today.

The drop in mortgage applications indicates that it doesn’t really matter to the volume of home purchases whether the 30-year fixed rate is 6.3% or 7.1%. The difference is just cosmetic. The current home prices – though they have come down in many markets, and have come down hard in some markets – are still simply way too high.

Refinance mortgage volume has died: Applications to refinance a mortgage have collapsed by 86% from a year ago, despite the invisibly small uptick in the latest week. Since October, refinance applications have hovered at the lowest levels since the year 2000. And this makes sense because hardly anyone would be refinancing a 3% or 4% mortgage with a 6% or 7% mortgage, except when under duress to extract cash.

Mortgage lender woes.

Mortgage lenders, whose revenues have collapsed as mortgage applications volume has collapsed, have spent the last 12 months laying off people and shutting down divisions. Some smaller operations have shut down entirely…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Wolf Street.

UN Gives 100s of Millions of $ to Illegal Migrants Entering US thumbnail

UN Gives 100s of Millions of $ to Illegal Migrants Entering US

/in , , , /by

By Catherine Salgado

The United Nations (UN) is not only keeping busy supporting terrorists and their propaganda campaigns, pandering to the genocidal Chinese Communist Party, and celebrating World Toilet Day. The UN is also apparently running a program that gives hundreds of millions of dollars away to illegal immigrants as they head to the US border to cross in illegally. Now not only is the US government rewarding law-breaking migrants while ignoring US citizens’ problems, but the UN is apparently paying migrants to enter America illegally. How does that not count as foreign funding of an invasion force?

There are, of course, tens of thousands of criminals and national security risks among the migrant flood at the southern US border. Furthermore, the criminal cartels entirely control which migrants make it to the US. How can we say with certainty that the UN is not indirectly, or even directly, funding criminals?

“[CIS, Jan. 9, Todd Bensman] The ‘Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan’ for 2023-2024, coordinated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), both of which receive substantial annual U.S. taxpayer contributions, calls for a quarter of the $1.72 billion it wants for 2023 — some $450 million — to go directly as cash or cash equivalents to ‘migrants and refugees’ on the move throughout Latin America.

All the planning and money handouts happen under the UN-coordinated ‘Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants’, a network of some 228 non-profit entities and religious institutions established in 2018 that hands the money out or delivers other comforting, perhaps even enticing, services (p. 268 of the downloadable report lists the current participating organizations and their ‘financial requirements’).”

All this is not only unfair to American citizens but also to legal migrants. But the UN never does care about objective justice.

“‘Cash Working Groups’ made up of more than 50 of the non-profit migrant advocate organizations will distribute the $450 million as ‘Cash and Voucher Assistance’ (CVA) or ‘Multipurpose Cash Assistance’ (MCA) to those paused outside their home countries and contemplating journeys or actually moving already along the migrant trails in 17 countries from South America through Central America and Mexico, the planning document reveals.

The $450 million for 2023 is less than 2022’s $518 million. But its latest regional plan for Latin America still sees a heavy role for cash support this year and in 2024 because historic numbers of Latin Americans are migrating north, along with many other nationalities.”

You can read the full report at Center for Immigration Studies. It’s a sobering insight in just how committed the globalists are to destroying America and rewarding those who harm it.

*****
This article was published by Pro Deo et Libertate and is reproduced with permission.

The Cult of the National Health Service thumbnail

The Cult of the National Health Service

/in , , , /by

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

How the tribalistic mentality around Britain’s healthcare has led to everyone worse off.

A month ago The Guardian ran a story exposing the fact that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak received private healthcare. Sunak faced online backlash for resorting to the market instead of relying on the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

To an outsider, it may seem ridiculous that the British public is so vexed over such a personal decision. It’s his money after all. What next? Is there going to be an inquiry on whether he prefers McDonalds or KFC?

However, this story was used by the British left to score political points about out of touch Sunak is with the British public because of his wealth. The National Health Service has developed a cult following in British politics and has even been dubbed as “the closest thing to a state religion.” This is why it is seen as politically scandalous that the prime minister does not depend on the NHS.

For example, Dr. John Puntis, co-chair of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public said on the topic: “It should be no surprise that Rishi Sunak has private medical care arrangements; this will be the norm for many of the rich and powerful … those making decisions about vital public services are often least likely to use them, which of course reinforces their ideological animosity.”

While it is true that out of touch politicians shouldn’t decide on healthcare, Dr. Puntis and other NHS fanatics prescribe the wrong antidote. The issue is not that Rishi Sunak has a choice over his healthcare. The problem is that he has the power to limit other people’s choices on their healthcare.

In the UK, the National Health Service has a near monopoly on healthcare and the vast majority of the country rely on it. The standard excuse—that the NHS is performing badly because it is underfunded—does not hold up. The NHS has received a large increase in funding every year: by 2023 Britons will be spending £175 billion on the NHS which will be a 50% real term spending increase since 2009.

However, despite this increase in funding, the NHS is still failing those who are forced by the state to depend on it. Over 7 million people are on NHS waiting lists and over 30,000 patients have to wait over 12 hours in emergency rooms each month. A recent story by The Daily Mail reported that a 93-year-old woman was left lying on the floor for 25 hours after suffering a hip fracture. When the NHS is failing people so drastically, is it any wonder that those who can afford to choose to receive healthcare elsewhere?

If those in the cult of the NHS really care about providing quality service for those who need it, they should advocate for more choice in healthcare rather than force people to pay for a service that does not serve them. Even for the most vulnerable, what’s the point of the NHS being free at the point of use when the endless waiting lists mean that no one can use it?

The shaming of Rishi Sunak for using private healthcare is a fine example of how socialists want to make the rich suffer even if that results in the poor suffering as well. To quote the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher: “So long as the gap is smaller, they’d rather have the poor poorer.”

AUTHOR

Jess Gill

Jess Gill is a fellow with FEE’s Henry Hazlitt Project for Educational Journalism. A resident of Manchester in the United Kingdom, she is the host and director of Reasoned UK where she makes daily videos on British politics from a libertarian perspective. She is also the social media strategist of Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA).  Follow her on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Substack.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

$7.2 Billion In U.S. Subsidies Can’t Keep Southwest In The Air For Christmas thumbnail

$7.2 Billion In U.S. Subsidies Can’t Keep Southwest In The Air For Christmas

/in , , , /by

By Adam Andrzejewski

TOPLINE:

Southwest Airlines received $7.2 billion in federal subsidies for payroll and operations since 2020. However, the airline stranded tens of thousands of passengers around the country on the Christmas holiday when it canceled 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com verified the federal aid using government disclosures.

WHAT HAPPENED:

Southwest is blaming the failure on a crash of its internal systems that schedule flight crews and pilots. A union for Southwest Airlines flight attendants attributed the meltdown to outdated scheduling systems that should have been upgraded years ago.

FEDS ANNOUNCE INVESTIGATION:

Late yesterday, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it opened a federal investigation into the airline. The USDOT cited concern about an “unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays and reports of lack of prompt customer service.”

Indeed. The Southwest mobile app, phone lines, and website were offline for much of yesterday afternoon and evening. In major hubs like Chicago Midway, some in-person customer service personnel walked off the job with hundreds of stranded passengers waiting to reschedule cancelled flights.

Once bags were checked, the bags flew to final destinations even though no flights were available for canceled passengers. Stranded passengers found this baggage policy completely unacceptable – passengers were not able to reclaim checked luggage after flights were cancelled.

It was absolute chaos for thousands and a logistical nightmare for the airline that won’t be solved for weeks.

GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES SINCE 2020

Where could Southwest have found the money to upgrade their systems?

In September 2020, as part of massive COVID relief packages, Southwest received a $3.3 billion from the federal government. The government received stock agreements as a mechanism to partially recoup taxpayer money, however, those warrants are worth only a small fraction of the overall subsidy payments.

In April 2021, as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act and other subsidies, Southwest received another $3.8 billion, according to data on the federal transparency website and disclosed company 10-K reports to Wall Street…..

Continue reading this article at OpenTheBooksSubstack.

BBC Sued for Setting Up Global Network of ‘News’ Liars and Corporate Censors thumbnail

BBC Sued for Setting Up Global Network of ‘News’ Liars and Corporate Censors

/in , , , /by

By The Geller Report

There is conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact. This is proof of an active, terrible conspiracy against freedom loving people. The media is the enemy of the people. Their goal was to “stamp them out and choke” the independent sites (like Geller Report) by denying them platforms on the social media sites.

By Debra Heine, American Greatness, January 10, 2023

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced Tuesday night that he and several other plaintiffs had filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against several major news organizations, accusing them of antitrust and constitutional violations.

During a live interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Kennedy, chairman and chief litigation counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the

lawsuit against several major news organizations, accusing them of antitrust and constitutional violations.

During a live interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Kennedy, chairman and chief litigation counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the lawsuit targets the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), a self-described “industry partnership” launched by several of the world’s largest news outlets—including the BBC, The Associated Press (AP), Reuters, The Washington Post, Google Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter—in March of 2020.  The lawsuit argues that the TNI was launched, in part, because the corporate media organizations believed that smaller independent news outlets were threatening their business models.

On Tucker Carlson Tonight, Kennedy stressed that a TNI “misinformation” label does not necessarily mean that an outlet is reporting false information.

He told Carlson that the TNI had two purposes. “One was to suppress and censor any information—whether true or not—that departed from official government orthodoxies and government proclamations,” he explained, adding: “I think probably the more motivating purpose of the cartel was revealed in one of the memos we have obtained from the BBC—which is to destroy their rivals in the independent media.”

Kennedy said that the BBC, a British government-owned news network, “orchestrated the secret anti-competitive collaboration” with the other news outlets.

He told Carlson the BBC essentially told the other groups “although we are ostensibly all rivals and competitors with each other, the existential threat to all of our business models comes from thousands of independent news sites who are now not only providing all this content that people are reading, but they are now diminishing trust in our organizations.”

As evidence of this allegation, the lawsuit includes the March 2022 statement by Jamie Angus, then-senior news controller for BBC News.

The BBC, Kennedy said, also told its TNI partners that they could “stamp them out and choke” the independent sites by denying them platforms on the social media sites.

“The viral movement of news stories is critical for the business models of those smaller news providers,” Kennedy explained.

“What they said is, anybody who departs from the trusted news, which is the official government narratives of WHO, CDC, the White House, Anthony Fauci, and NIH, we will make sure to identify them, and to make sure they are not given a platform.”

He added; “This has nothing to do with whether the statements were inaccurate. They use the word misinformation—and they acknowledge this throughout—as a euphemism for any statement that departs from official government orthodoxy.”

That’s the point right there, Carlson commented. “They were censoring things that were true, and that’s when you cross into criminal propaganda in my opinion.”

According to the complaint, “TNI members have deemed the following to be ‘misinformation’ that could not be published on the world’s dominant Internet platforms: (A) reporting that COVID may have originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China; (B) reporting that the COVID vaccines do not prevent infection; (C) reporting that vaccinated persons can transmit COVID to others; and (D) reporting that compromising emails and videos were found on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.”

“All of the above was and is either true or, at a minimum, well within the ambit of legitimate reporting,” the lawsuit points out.

Keep reading.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Is Pete Buttigieg The Most Incompetent Transportation Secretary In History? thumbnail

Is Pete Buttigieg The Most Incompetent Transportation Secretary In History?

/in , , , , /by

By The Daily Caller

Things just keep getting worse for Pete Buttigieg. After Southwest Airlines ruined many Americans’ holiday plans with mass cancelations, now a “glitch” is causing hundreds of flights to be canceled again.

Fortunately, a massive snowstorm meant that I wasn’t going anywhere over the holidays, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t grind my gears that for the umpteenth time the guy whose job it is to do something isn’t doing anything. Much like the establishment GOP tends to do when confronted with its failings, Pete fell back on a strongly worded Twitter statement.

He followed that up with a not-so-strongly worded letter to the airlines asking them to treat passengers like people and threatening to use the department’s enforcement power. Seriously, $221,000 a year to write strongly worded letters? Get this guy into Congress because he and Sen. Lindsey Graham are going to be the Beltway’s new bipartisan force.

It looks like the department is belatedly doing something and we shall see just how effective the response is. But Pete’s job is to make sure this doesn’t happen — not enforce gender-neutral language for airmen.

For those paying attention, absolutely none of this should be surprising. Remember when the port of Los Angeles got so backed up that suddenly basic goods we all take for granted started disappearing from the shelves?

Pete was off on paternity leave. I don’t have any problem with people taking paternity leave. But since Pete occupies such an (allegedly) important government office, couldn’t Chasten have taken care of the kids? Gay or straight, there is still that second parent to help out. People have been doing it for millennia. He can do it too.

I would have slightly more respect for Pete if he could at least lie well about the crisis. But instead he blamed Joe Biden’s economic “success.”

Middle Americans aren’t stupid, Pete. You should know that being from my neck of the woods near South Bend and all. I can do math and tell when my grocery bill has doubled. And going on MSDNC or whatever other network may have worked with people in the past, but it isn’t going to cut it anymore. Not even with seniors – they’re too busy working at the local Home Depot because Biden’s greatest economy ever is murdering their retirements.

The LA Times blamed the shortage on workers refusing to take the jobs at such low wages (for California, anyway). As for Pete, he could have at least blamed COVID, as Democrats tend to do when the race card exhausts itself. But then he would have had to also blame COVID shutdowns, vaccine mandates and California’s insanely high cost of living – which would have indicted Gov. Hairgel … I mean Gov. Newsom. And we can’t have criticism of America’s favorite governor before he’s anointed as the DNC nominee for 2024 now, can we?

Instead, Pete has been trying to demolish one “racist” highway in Detroit. Look, I hate these highways that divided neighborhoods in the 50s and 60s. They’re ugly and some of them were actually built for racist reasons. But, let me tell you something Pete: your party has run Detroit for over 60 years. Your party built those highways, not only in Detroit, but New York and Chicago too. Detroit was America’s wealthiest city and is now a shithole. One highway is not the problem – it’s you guys.

Seriously, why the hell is this guy in charge? Ask yourself why Joe Biden is president and you have your answer. Neither of them have any clue what they’re doing (in Joe’s case, he doesn’t have a clue, period). They both take time off while the country burns.

Let’s face it. Pete’s a young, good-looking white guy in a Democratic administration. You either have some intersectional points or need to be really good at your job – like Merrick Garland rounding up dissidents or Janet Yellen shilling for CBDCs to turn us all into financial slaves of the Federal Reserve.

Before now, I rarely, if ever, heard the transportation secretary pop up on TV or elsewhere. I can’t name the previous transportation secretaries from any other administration except Trump, mostly because he’s been attacking her lately. So if Pete has to be doing media hits and go on Twitter to defend his department’s flubs before an angry America, it means he’s not doing a very good job.

As punishment, Pete should be forced to fly coach on his own dime. No more private jets. And he doesn’t get to deduct it from his taxes, either. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz: if you guys are reading this, pass a bill to that effect and restore the IRS expansion but with the sole job of making sure Pete can’t avoid this punishment. Then, shut down the Transportation Department. We did fine without it before 1966.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.

AUTHOR

MICHELE GAMA SOSA

Michele Gama Sosa is an opinion editor for the Daily Caller and a historian by training.

RELATED ARTICLE: More Transportation Nightmares On Mayor Pete’s Watch

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Regime Looking To Ban Gas Stoves thumbnail

Biden Regime Looking To Ban Gas Stoves

/in , , , , /by

By The Geller Report

Banning gas stoves. And fireplaces next. Bottom line is good ventilation is all that’s required.  Every good thing is in their crosshairs. Gas stoves have been in use since the late 1800s.

This is just more destruction to our economy and our way of life by the totalitarian primitives.

They claim it’s for the children, These are the same folks mandating deadly RNA vaccines for kids, genital mutilation and chemical castrations for children.

Banning Gas Stoves over Health Concerns

A federal agency may look to ban gas stoves over concern about the release of pollutants that can cause health and respiratory problems, according to a new report. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is set to open public comment on the dangers of gas stoves sometime this winter. The commission could set standards on emissions from the gas stoves, or even look to ban the manufacture or import of the appliances, commissioner.

Keep reading.

US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears

Natural gas stoves, which are used in about 40% of homes in the US, emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter at levels the EPA and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions, according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Elite University Department Bans Use Of Word ‘Field,’ Claiming It’s Too Racist

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Federal Aviation Administration Grounds All Domestic U.S. Flights thumbnail

Federal Aviation Administration Grounds All Domestic U.S. Flights

/in , , , , /by

By The Daily Caller

All domestic flights in the U.S. were grounded overnight Wednesday into the morning due to a technical error. Some flights gradually started to resume shortly before 9:00 am (eastern time).

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) worked overnight to restore a system that allows air traffic control to alert pilots when there are potential hazards on their flight path. Normal air traffic operations resumed just before 9am on Tuesday while agents continued to look into the original cause of the issue, according to an update from the FAA.

Update 4: The FAA is making progress in restoring its Notice to Air Missions system following an overnight outage. Departures are resuming at @EWRairport and @ATLairport due to air traffic congestion in those areas. We expect departures to resume at other airports at 9 a.m. ET.

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

“We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now. Operations across the National Airspace System are affected,” the FAA wrote on Twitter. “We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.”

Roughly an hour after their initial tweet, the FAA sent an update to followers, announcing that the agency had “ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9am Eastern Time,” to allow for research to be done on the “integrity of flight and safety information.”

Cleared Update No. 2 for all stakeholders: ⁰⁰The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage. ⁰⁰While some functions are beginning to come back on line, National Airspace System operations remain limited.

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

Delays for arriving and departing domestic flights are likely to be substantial Wednesday, just a few short weeks after a significant winter bomb cyclone disrupted tens of thousands of flights through the holiday season.

Twitter users were quick to express concerns over the total shutdown of domestic travel, with the CEO of Evercontact writing, “This is alarming. There should be an independent audit on such a large-scale incident. Is it due to obsolete equipment? is it a hack? Human error? Accountability is key to restoring trust in an industry that can’t allow mistakes!”

The FAA then retweeted a post from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who noted that “there is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed the Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the causes.” She furthered that the FAA would continue to provide regular updates.

AUTHOR

KAY SMYTHE

News and commentary writer.

RELATED ARTICLE: Amtrak Trolls Southwest Airlines For Highly Questionable Free Ukulele Giveaway

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Lessons from the Southwest Debacle thumbnail

Lessons from the Southwest Debacle

/in , , , /by

By Tim Young

Does anyone else remember last October when Southwest employees went on a strike against the vaccine mandates and the airline tried to blame their mass cancellations on the weather . . . even though no other airlines were affected by said weather? That was the first thing that came to mind when I was watching every Southwest flight get canceled and the customer service lines grow throughout the airport as I was returning home from my Christmas travels.

Over Christmas weekend, many airlines had to cancel holiday flights due to the weather from winter storm Elliott. Not all airlines are created equal, however. Southwest Airlines had a striking number of cancellations compared to other airlines. While Delta canceled 9 percent of their flights, United canceled 5 percent, and American canceled less than 1 percent, Southwest Airlines canceled over 70 percent, amounting to more than 2,500 flights.

It’s hard to ignore the disparity in numbers between the airlines, especially if you’re one of the tens of thousands of people who received the great Christmas gift of getting stranded in the airport. So, what makes Southwest so especially awful? The difference was so apparent that even the Department of Transportation is now investigating the “unacceptable rate of cancellations” to see if they were actually out of the company’s control, which I don’t think will go well for the airline considering their history of coverups.

The Biden Administration even tweeted from the POTUS account, stating: “Thousands of flights nationwide have been canceled around the holidays. Our Administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable. If you’ve been affected by cancellations, go to @USDOT’s dashboard to see if you’re entitled to compensation.”

Many disgruntled passengers took to social media to voice their complaints and travel horror stories about the airlines. From videos showing thousands of dumped suitcases to memes about Southwest’s less-than-helpful response to concerned travelers, there has been no lack of content inspired by the debacle.

On the bright side, Biden’s freakish former nuclear energy official Sam Brinton had already been caught and was (probably) unable to steal any of the thousands of bags that Southwest just left lying around.

The backlash led to the crashing of Southwest’s stock, which dipped nearly 6 percent as of Tuesday. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan attempted to avoid responsibility for the crisis, expressing surprise and shock with a statement in which he said the airline was facing “the largest-scale event that I’ve ever seen.”

Ever since the COVID lockdowns and the corporate vaccine mandates that followed, many businesses have not been able to recover, and large corporations like Southwest are no exception. In today’s world, traveling has become more inconvenient and disorganized than ever before. Even with the mask mandates gone from the airports and flights, the effects of the pandemic still linger.

Unlike many small businesses across the country, Southwest received massive support with over $7 billion in taxpayer aid during the pandemic. Despite the government’s help, Southwest has clearly struggled to sustain itself in post-pandemic America.

It turns out that when you shut down the country, incentivize people not to work, then force the remaining employees to get an experimental vaccine they don’t want, things don’t just snap back to normal—who would’ve thought?

The real issue now becomes whether or not this could ever change. Without strong leadership in this country—and a belief in self-governance and responsibility—things will only get worse.

*****

This article was published by American Greatness and is reproduced with permission.

Only Spiritual Brotherhood Can Save Men In The Job Crisis thumbnail

Only Spiritual Brotherhood Can Save Men In The Job Crisis

/in , , , /by

By Mark Warren

There’s a strange thing happening in the American economy right now — what we read in the newspaper or see on TV doesn’t match what we’re witnessing with our own eyes. Job numbers reported in the media seem wonderful. Amazingly low unemployment that hasn’t been witnessed in 50 years! Hundreds of thousands of new jobs created monthly. Yet for all these rosy numbers, when we look at the real world, we see critically understaffed businesses, long waits for repairs, and customer service in the gutter.

America’s young men are in crisis, and the answer to this problem is spiritual, not economic or political. While the media continues to trumpet good news about the economy, the reason your real-life experiences don’t match such optimism is because these reports typically only give you part of the picture. What corporate media doesn’t tell you is that about 11 million jobs remain unfilled right now.

That’s why service is lousy everywhere and you can’t get a plumber. Those jobs go unfilled because millions of young American men between the ages of 25 and 54 aren’t working. At all. As Bloomberg reports, they’ve been left behind, with a lower percentage of men between those ages working than in 1970 — a statistic that emerged before the economic disaster brought by coronavirus lockdowns.

Millions of Young Men Doing Nothing All Day

So, how can millions of men be out of work when unemployment is extremely low? Easy, if you don’t count them.

Yes, the unemployment rate hovers at a record low figure, but this number doesn’t count all unemployed people. It only includes those who don’t have a job and are actively seeking one. This cheery (and erroneous) unemployment rate doesn’t count the millions of young men who aren’t looking for a job. Young males fitting this description are often referred to as “NEETs,” an acronym originating in the U.K. that stands for “Not in Employment, Education or Training.” These fellows aren’t working and, worse, aren’t interested in work.

Of course, this was already a growing problem in the last decade. But unemployment went full supernova during the coronavirus lockdown — and finally smart people are paying attention to it. Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame recently hosted a podcast discussion on the crisis of young men not working.

To further understand the problem’s depth, Rowe interviewed economist Nicholas Eberstadt, who wrote “Men Without Work.” It explains the seriousness of this issue, documenting how the unemployment crisis goes far beyond simply not having a job. Too many men in their prime have fallen into a hollow existence. And their parents — and our tax dollars — subsidize such incredible waste.

What do such men do with their copious amounts of leisure? According to Eberstadt, they aren’t only not working. They aren’t going to church. They typically aren’t dating. They aren’t engaging in charity work or civic activities either, or even helping with housework.

Instead, they play video games, binge watch TV and movies, and, perhaps most concerningly, abuse drugs. So many young men are not only lost to our economy, but lost to their families as well. They are at risk of becoming another gloomy statistic in the opioid epidemic.

Social and Spiritual Solutions

So, what is the answer? Unsurprisingly, it depends on who you ask. Eberstadt, the expert on young men dropping out of the economy, believes in secular and market-driven solutions to this crisis. He explains to Rowe on the podcast that we could use shame as a powerful motivator, much like our nation has shamed smokers to give up the habit.

But a campaign to shame men is already widespread in America — and not particularly helpful. In recent years, so many expressions of traditional male values have been labeled “toxic masculinity.” Combine this message with readily available drugs ranging from prescription opioids and fentanyl to legal marijuana in many states, and it almost feels like society is encouraging young men to disconnect from the real world and play “Call of Duty” all day.

We therefore believe the real solution to this crisis is spiritual. And we don’t mean just dragging young men away from the TV and into church. When Eberstadt’s book was first published in 2016, The New York Times highlighted it with an op-ed that made an eye-opening point about the root cause of the problem.

In the article, the journalist explored the issue via an interview with a young man who lost his job in the oil industry. He told the interviewer he feels as if America doesn’t care about him. He says he feels as if he’s “considered nothing.” This is a tragedy that likely resonates with millions of other young men not working. No shaming campaign will solve this. It will only worsen things.

Instead, these men would do well to unite. We suggest they form small groups with other men to help each other and provide non-judgmental spaces to work through life’s problems.

Form a Small Band of Brothers

I did this with several brothers a couple of decades ago — and continue to do to this day. Recently, I recounted what drove me to create such fellowship and how it’s transformed my life and so many others in the new book “Power of 4: How Christian Men Create Purposeful Lives By Not Going It Alone.”

If young men feel isolated and valueless, the answer is to bring them together in brotherhood to help them understand their worth. “Power of 4” emphasizes how much more powerful men can be when they don’t try to go it alone. When a man has three brothers to meet with regularly to work through life’s challenges, he is much better off than trying to handle his problems on his own.

Consider a hypothetical Power of 4 group comprised of men not in the workforce. They could work together to build each other up, for instance, by engaging in charity work while also collaborating on resumes and professional networking. (Simply having regular face-to-face contact with other men who are not keen on blaming themselves for their station in life will do worlds of good for young men in crisis).

An even more powerful approach to a Power of 4 group might be to mix together men with established careers with those not in the workforce. Young men who feel lost and without purpose could get unimaginable benefits from spending time with men who are on solid footing in their profession. Such successful men might even assist their Power of 4 brother by arranging an internship or introductory position.

What’s more, men currently working know just how nearly every employer is screaming out for quality employees now. That means a resume with some gaps in it won’t necessarily hold back a man who wants to better his situation. Undoubtedly, our young men in crisis can transform their lives once they realize they do have value — and even the potential for greatness. All it takes is a determination to relinquish those behaviors holding them back — whether it be drugs and alcohol or Netflix and PlayStation (or all of the above!).

Ultimately, we are deeply concerned by the crisis of young men dropping out of society. Despite so much bad news, we see many positives in the future. If men come together to support each other, this problem can and will correct itself.

With the right support system, young men can achieve tremendous personal growth. Every human has value, a fact lost on so many men for far too long. With the help of three brothers, our blueprint for the Power of 4, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, American men will return to a society that so desperately needs them.

*****

This article was published by The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.

In 2022, The IRS Went After the Very Poorest Taxpayers thumbnail

In 2022, The IRS Went After the Very Poorest Taxpayers

/in , , , , , /by

By The Geller Report

And so many of them vote Democrat — Stockholm Syndrome.

I am sure they are comforted in their freezing beds in the knowledge that Ukraine is living large on their dime.

In 2022, the IRS Went After the Very Poorest Taxpayers

By: Liz Wolfe, Reason Magazine, January 5, 2023: (thanks to Van):

Despite $80 billion in new funding, the agency is living up to its reputation of hassling low-income taxpayers over rich people.

On Wednesday, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) released data provided to it by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on audits performed by the agency in fiscal year 2022. Despite the infusion of new funding earmarked for the IRS via last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, the agency continued historic trends of hassling primarily low-income taxpayers, with relatively few millionaires and billionaires getting caught up in the audit sweep.

“The taxpayer class with unbelievably high audit rates—five and a half times virtually everyone else—were low-income wage-earners taking the earned income tax credit,” reported TRAC, noting that the poorest taxpayers are “easy marks in an era when IRS increasingly relies upon correspondence audits yet doesn’t have the resources to assist taxpayers or answer their questions.”

In fact, “if one ignores the fiction of auditing a millionaire through simply sending a letter through the mail, the odds that millionaires received a regular audit by a revenue agent (1.1%) was actually less than the audit rate of the targeted lowest income wage-earners whose audit rate was 1.27 percent!”

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, directed $80 billion worth of new funding over the next decade to the IRS so it could hire 87,000 new workers, purportedly to better target millionaire and billionaire scofflaws. The Biden administration and credulous journalists claimed that this would in no way increase audits for those making under $400,000 annually—suspect assurances not provided within the text of the actual bill. This increased capacity meant only those at the top would be targeted, supporters insisted. But this ignores how the IRS’s incentives work and how agencywide reform might be too heavy of a lift.

Correspondence audits—which are conducted via mail, and are the type frequently used when interacting with the poorest of taxpayers—are much easier and cheaper to conduct than other types of audits. Plus, the earned income tax credit is easy to get wrong. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that new hires with experience in the field will take almost three years of ramp-up time, with more junior new hires taking longer. The lag time between 2022’s infusion of funding, and legitimately increased capacity, will be enormous—if the agency can even snag the best in the industry when TurboTax and H&R Block will surely be swelling their own ranks. It makes sense that, given a dearth of experienced auditors not likely to be fixed soon, the agency would rely on the easiest and least time-consuming types of audits.

But be suspicious of the idea that an infusion of cash will solve longstanding problems within the IRS. This is, after all, the agency that sent $1.1 billion in child welfare payments to the wrong people over the course of merely five months during the pandemic. It’s the agency that was hacked back in 2015, resulting in the personal information of more than 700,000 taxpayers being compromised. It’s the agency that has been foolishly going after Americans who hold $10,000 or more in a foreign bank since 2010, never mind the fact that many of them are middle-class expats, not folks with yachts in the Mediterranean. And it’s the (leaky) agency that enabled the richest Americans’ intimate financial information to be thumbed through by ProPublica readers. It will take more than a little cash to fix all this, and, as the IRS’s competence and tenacity increase, so too will the tenacity of the vast infrastructure of accountants and lawyers hired by the rich to creatively minimize their tax burdens.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEET:

Watch: Newly-elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy: “I know the night is late, but when we come back, our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents.” pic.twitter.com/1IAbz27NsR

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) January 7, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Understanding Today’s Economy and Financial Markets thumbnail

Understanding Today’s Economy and Financial Markets

/in , , , /by

By Mark Wallace

Editor’s Note: The Prickly Pear published a related article last week on January 3 entitled The Price of Easy Money Now Coming Due. We recommend reading both articles together to understand current economic conditions and our readers’ concerns about personal financial situations.

When it comes to the economy, nearly the entire populace is of the same mind.  Almost all of us like economic expansions and booms and almost all of us dislike recessions and depressions.  For decades the federal government and the Federal Reserve have accommodated these desires.  A few interruptions have occurred, namely, the 1987 crash, the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000-2002, and the mortgage-backed securities meltdown in 2007-2008.  But by and large, it’s been onward and upward from, say, 1982 to approximately the middle of 2021.

The Fed has fueled the expansion and booms by fostering the expansion of credit and debt, by creating money out of thin air through open market purchases of U.S. Treasury obligations, and by keeping interest rates significantly below the levels that would prevail but for the two aforementioned policies.  Congress has done its part by running enormous budget deficits almost every year since the onset of the Great Depression.

An expansion of total credit and debt on a nationwide basis creates an economic expansion because virtually no one borrows money to put it under a mattress.  It is borrowed to be spent, either by buying consumer goods and services or by investing in assets such as stocks,  bonds, real estate, etc.  Individual and corporate debtors occasionally end up bankrupt, but as long as the overall amount of credit and debt is growing nationally, the expansion continues.

Note, though, that this is a two-way street.  Should the total amount of credit and debt contract on a nationwide basis, the economy will contract as well.  Money paid to a creditor where the creditor does not re-loan the money to someone else is money that the debtor no longer possesses to buy consumer goods and services or to invest.

A somewhat similar force is at work in the stock and bond markets.  If the price of stocks and bonds is rising, the investor holding the stocks and bonds becomes wealthier and is in a better position to both buy consumer goods or invest in financial assets (including real estate).  This also is a two-way street.  A decline in stock and bond prices diminishes wealth and, generally speaking, may make it more difficult for the investor to purchase consumer goods or more stocks and bonds.

The Fed and the U.S. government have striven mightily to keep the economic expansions going and to ensure that stock and bond prices rise in the long run.  One of the enduring mysteries is how —until recently — the government has been able to print vast quantities of money out of thin air without causing rip-roaring consumer price inflation.  This mystery can be solved by focusing on the different ways in which the wealthier and the poorer elements of the population spend money.

Imagine you have one billion dollars and are given a choice:  either give the entire one billion dollars to a tech billionaire or, alternatively, give $1,000 apiece to one million U.S. citizens chosen at random.  What are the differences in how the money is spent?  Will the billionaire use part of his new one billion dollars to buy a big-screen TV?  Probably not.  He likely already has as many big-screen TVs as he cares to own.  The tech billionaire is more apt to invest his new billion in some fashion.  Now, some of that money will go into the real (as opposed to the financial) economy (building a new factory and hiring workers, for example), but the fact remains that more of the billionaires new billion is likely to go into the financial economy than the collective billion of the million average Americans who receive $1,000 apiece.  The average American is more likely to use their windfall to spend on consumer goods and services, to take vacations, etc. as opposed to investing in stocks and bonds.

The upshot is that it’s possible to print gigantic quantities of money without creating consumer price inflation as long as policies are put into place to keep the wages and salaries of America’s middle and working classes stagnant and low.  And this is precisely what’s been happening since around 1982.  Keep the average guy broke, and you can print vast quantities of money without creating a lot of consumer price inflation.  Among those policies are the following:  exporting good manufacturing jobs to other countries; bringing in hordes of immigrants to keep wages low under the ironclad law of supply and demand; creating vast amounts of student loans to turn the newly-minted graduates into a form of indentured servants once they enter the workforce; and that old reliable, union-busting.  In the January 5, 2023 edition of the New York Times, there was an article on the op-ed page by Peter Coy entitled “The Fed Doesn’t Want Your Pay to Catch Up to High Inflation.”  Of course not — keep those wages and salaries of average Americans low so that Congress can continue to run huge budget deficits and the Fed can continue to print vast quantities of money without creating much in the way of consumer price inflation.

And where does a great deal of that printed money go?  It goes into financial assets (including real estate).  Hence we have a Dow Jones Industrial Average that has risen from approximately 900 in 1982 to over 30,000 today.

These policies have been greatly aided by technological advances.  It’s now possible to pay bottom-basement wages without creating widespread starvation in the working classes.  We live in a society where even many of the destitute are obese.

For decades it looked like the U.S. government and the Fed had a perpetual motion machine.  The economy kept booming and the prices of stocks and bonds continued marching upward (except for the aforementioned retreats in 1987, 2002, and 2008).

And then came the Covid pandemic and the re-emergence of significant consumer price inflation.

What happened during the pandemic, in a nutshell, was that (1) production of goods and services was greatly reduced, and (2) large amounts of cash were passed out to the nation’s average Americans.  It was the perfect formula for consumer price inflation, and that is what we got.   Average Americans began spending that new money in the real (as opposed to the financial) economy in an environment where the supply of goods and services had been curtailed.  Higher demand and lower supply imply higher prices.

The initial response of the Fed and politicians was to pooh-pooh the CPI increases as “transitory,” but after that dog didn’t hunt anymore the Fed was forced to finally raise interest rates in a semi-serious manner.

We haven’t had a stock market crash yet, but individual issues have in fact seen stock prices reduced to crash-like levels.  As of this writing, Tesla’s 52-week high was 390.11; it’s now at 113.46; Google, 152.10, now 88.58; Apple, 180.17, now 127.03; Netflix, 592.84, then down to 162.71 and now back at 305.92.  Trillions of dollars of value in the equities market have evaporated.  Losses in the bond market have also been enormous (in the trillions) as interest rates advanced.

It’s beginning to look like the perpetual motion machine engineered by the Fed and the Treasury over the past 40 years is starting to go in reverse.

As the price of stocks and bonds retreats, the buying power of those who hold those stocks and bonds is diminishing.  As the late Richard Russell may have said, the ammo boxes of the investing classes are starting to empty.  It’s been a slow burn — trillions have been lost, but the volatility index (the VIX) remains relatively low.  There’s no panic yet.  Paradoxically, this is a very bad sign indeed for the equity and bond markets.  Another aphorism from Mr. Russell is apt here:  “The Bear likes a full elevator when he presses the down button.”  The Bear certainly has that now.  Stocks and bonds may be of great value at some time in the future, but prices can’t rise very much if there’s little or no buying power when that time finally arrives.

The other big part of the equation is credit and debt.  The gigantic amount of credit and debt that the Fed and the federal government have nurtured into existence is the fuel for a giant deflationary crash.  There are only three things that can happen to debt:  it can be repaid, it can be re-financed, or it can default.  The rising interest rates engineered by the Fed have increased the pressure on borrowers, and one wonders whether there is a tipping point when large portions of that credit come crashing down (notice: thereby reducing the buying power of creditors), creating an environment where repayment and re-finance of debt become rarer and rarer and default more common.

The all-important moment may be the moment when the Fed is put to a choice:  either (1) continue raising interest rates (or maintain them at their then-current level) for the purpose of reining in inflation even though the effect of that is to cause the stock market, the bond market and the economy to crash, or (2) lower interest rates to save stocks, bonds, and the economy, even though the cost of that is galloping inflation, where inflation rises from 7 or 8 percent per annum to 18 or 20 percent or more per annum. 

I will hazard a guess here and predict that in this situation, the Fed will opt for galloping inflation over a catastrophic crash and a new Great Depression.  If we see the Fed lowering interest rates after a major retreat in the stock market even though consumer price inflation remains high, we will likely know that the Fed has made its choice.

Will that all-important moment arrive in 2023 or sometime thereafter?  It’s difficult to say at the present time.  Perhaps the Fed will be able to engineer a soft landing, where inflation subsides, interest rates can come down, and recession is avoided.  An interested observer can continue to monitor monthly changes in the CPI, monthly changes in unemployment, and other economic statistics and make his or her own educated guess.

If there is one important market to keep a close eye on, it’s the gold market.  Major and persistent increases in the price of gold over $2,500 or $3,000 per troy ounce almost certainly will signal that the market believes the Fed is throwing in the towel in terms of fighting inflation and is doing whatever is necessary to prevent a crash and a new great depression.  If the economy remains troubled with inflation remaining high and there is suddenly a major upward surge in the price of gold, it can be inferred that the elite donor class knows the Fed has made its choice and which way things will be headed.   

*****

Mark Wallace is a long-time student of financial markets and a former Federal Bankruptcy Judge.        

Tech Companies Continue Massive Layoffs, Amazon Announces 18,000 Job Cuts thumbnail

Tech Companies Continue Massive Layoffs, Amazon Announces 18,000 Job Cuts

/in , , , /by

By The Geller Report

The labor figures coming out of the Biden government are pure fiction (like every thing coming out of this treacherous regime). The unemployment rate, for example, is artificially depressed by excluding people who stopped searching for a job. Everything they say is a lie. Look around, use your eyes and your brain and think.

WHAT IS THE REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE?

But the job market outlook is more complicated than that, because the headline unemployment figure is artificially depressed by excluding people who might only be earning a few dollars a week, but who want to find full-time work. It also does not encompass any workers who have stopped searching for a job because they are discouraged or caring for a child.

The Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity shows the “true rate of unemployment” is much higher than those government figures suggest.

A labor market metric developed by researchers at the institute evaluates workers who they consider “functionally unemployed” – individuals who are looking for work and do not currently have a full-time job, but want one, or who do not earn a living wage, which is roughly $20,000 annually before taxes. In April, about 23.1% of the labor market was functionally unemployed.

That is still in line with pre-pandemic levels: According to the Institute, which was founded by former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig, the true level of unemployment in February 2020 was about 24.5%.

The figures are even higher for Americans of color. The true unemployment rate is about 26.5% for Black Americans and 25.7% for Hispanic Americans. By comparison, White Americans have a true unemployment rate of 22%. (FOX Business)

Amazon Announces 18,000 Job Cuts

Amazon informed staff on Wednesday that it plans to cut 18,000 jobs amid slowing consumer and corporate spending.

The cuts include workforce reductions already announced in November. The company had previously flagged that it would make additional cuts this year.

Tech Companies Continue Massive Layoffs

Wall Street Journal: Amazon layoffs will affect more than 17,000 employees, a higher number than the company initially planned and one that would represent the most reductions revealed so far during a wave of cutbacks at major technology companies, according to people familiar with the matter. The Seattle-based company in November said that it was beginning layoffs among its corporate workforce, with cuts concentrated on its devices business, recruiting and retail operations (Wall Street Journal). CNBC: Salesforce said Wednesday that it is slashing 10% of its staff and curtailing office space. The cloud-based software firm had over 79,000 employees as of December. The layoffs, part of a broader restructuring plan at Salesforce, are the company’s latest headcount reductions after it let go of hundreds of employees in November (CNBC).

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Great American Family Network Is Bad News For The Hallmark Channel thumbnail

Great American Family Network Is Bad News For The Hallmark Channel

/in , , /by

By Martin Mawyer

If anyone needed evidence that the majority of Americans are sick up to here with the woke agenda dished out by mainstream T.V., look no further than the Great American Family Network (GAF).

This week the network – which launched less than a year ago as a breakaway and competitor to the Hallmark Channel – announced that it ranked number one in total day ratings growth in households, up 113%, and in total viewership, up 116%, according to the Nielsen ratings. It also came first in primetime rating growth for households, up 128%.

Why is this Hallmark knock-off channel gaining so much viewership? The main reason is its wholesome faith and family programming and its departure from Hallmark’s gay-friendly programming, which has been turning away viewers for the past several years.

Candace Cameron Bure, one of the biggest stars of Hallmark, jumped ship last year and moved to GAF. She came under fire recently for daring to note that GAF would focus on “traditional marriage.” The predictable hell storm erupted and is still swirling around an unperturbed Bure, who is happily acting and producing at GAF.

During the December Christmas programming, Hallmark further turned off viewers with its first Christmas story focusing on a gay couple, called “The Holiday Sitter.” It tells the heartwarming story of Sam, who babysits his niece and nephew before the holidays, and finds unexpected romance when he recruits handsome neighbor Jason to help.

Did I say heartwarming? Sorry, I meant heartburn-inducing.

Hallmark may have made the biggest mistake of its previously saccharine life by deciding to pander to the homosexual lobby, which makes up a small minority of viewers while thumbing its nose at the millions of viewers who always flocked to Hallmark for family-friendly viewing.

We wonder, though, will Hallmark regret its gay programming decision enough to go back to its roots? It’s doubtful … but they’re probably squirming right now with the release of the latest Nielsen ratings.

EDITORS NOTE: This Christian Action Network column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

STAY INFORMED

Receive regular news, commentary, and analysis straight to your inbox.

POWERED BY

DrRichSwier.com | ThePricklyPear.org

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.