Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the state could take action against Twitter Inc. for launching a poison pill defense to thwart an unsolicited bid by Elon Musk.
“Why would you reject the 20% premium?” DeSantis said Tuesday at a press conference, accusing the company of censorship. “I don’t think that was a rejection based on financial concerns or business judgment. They rejected it because they know they can’t control Elon Musk. They know that he will not accept the narrative.”
Watch Governor DeSantis explain how the Sunshine state will hold Titter’s Board of Directors accountable:
DeSantis announces that Florida is going to look at ways to hold Twitter’s board of directors accountable for breaching its fiduciary duties to the state, which is a shareholder of Twitter stock. pic.twitter.com/DpKdMrHUkr
The Governor has a fiduciary responsibility to insure that Florida’s pension fund, and the companies the pension fun has invested in, increase the value of their stock to keep the fund solvent. Twitter’s stock has not performed well and dropped 10% on April 20th, 2022.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-04-20 22:53:332022-04-20 22:53:33Governor Ron DeSantis, ‘Florida is going to hold Twitter’s board of directors accountable for breaching its fiduciary duties’
“Many people are not living their dreams because they are living their fears.” – Les Brown
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt
One of the many great things done by President Trump was putting in place a conscience rule whereby Health Care workers could refuse to perform certain medical procedures or work if it conflicted with their sincerely held religious or moral beliefs.
The bill was never actually put in place as democrats and leftists in dozens of blue states and other liberal advocacy groups tied it up from 2019 onwards in Federal Courts.
Had it been implemented as planned, it would have allowed any and all health workers to legally refuse to provide services like abortions, contraception, gender affirming care, or any other procedure they objected to on religious and/or moral grounds.
The Democrats, as they get closer to losing power, and understanding that as many red states are introducing legislation to reduce or eradicate abortions and transgender care, they are telling this illegal regime occupying the White House to ensure that the Trump conscience bill never becomes law.
After all, these lefties love abortions! Especially those up to birth!! Destroying lives for political gain is their game. Just suck those babies out!! Murder them and call it a “woman’s choice” while refusing certain Americans the choice of if to take the poison – whoops – I mean China Virus Shot!
The plans to permanently remove Trumps conscious clause is underway at the Office of Management and Budget. Weird place to me to do this but what ever works I guess for these tyrants.
Progressive advocates see the removal of the clause as a major step in dismantling the Trump administration’s policy on reproductive rights, something every libtard in the nation hated. After all, they know better so don’t argue! If you do they will call you names covering everything they think will harm you, like racist, homophobe, anti LGBTQUI etc. What was that old expression? Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me! We need to go back to that and stop fearing everything the left throws at us.
Planned Parenthood, one of the most reprehensible and disgusting companies out there that deal in blood, murder and mayhem, are delirious that the Biden Administration may get this done! Certainly no wailing and gnashing of teeth there!! Especially as they keep sucking up tax payers money!!
Jacqueline Ayers, the senior vice president of policy, organizing and campaigns for Planned Parenthood stated joyously “as state politicians continue to strip people of their sexual and reproductive rights and freedoms, it’s imperative that the Biden-Harris administration revoke this discriminatory policy and help ensure people can access the healthcare and information they need when they need it.” Healthcare? Since when did callous pre thought out murder of a living human being become healthcare? Just asking…..
Originally U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, a Hussein Ovomit – I mean Obama appointed federal judge with a very leftist past and career, was the Judge who initially killed the Trump conscious clause. He got his law degree at Harvard… a liberal bastion of lefties, commies and America haters. He and his wife are both very progressive and woke Jews. Enough said and his bias is obvious.
We will continue seeing this administration under Dumbo in Chief, attacking and destroying as fast as they can, Trumps legacy and finest work.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-04-20 10:52:362022-04-20 10:52:36Biden to Revoke ‘Conscience’ Rule for Health Workers!
EV buyers should be aware that they may be contributing to the pursuit of “blood minerals” to achieve their efforts to go green.
The worldwide movement toward the electrification of everything, from more electric vehicles (EVs) to more intermittent electricity by wind turbines and solar panels, the political actions are supportive of jumping onto the green train, most likely not knowing there is a darker side to green technology, associated with environmental degradation, humanity atrocities, and other embedded costs for materials.
It should concern everyone that those toxic components come from mining for the exotic minerals and metals that are required to manufacture EV batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels. This mining is occurring mostly in less-developed countries with yellow, brown, and black-skinned people with a lack of transparency about the human rights abuses and environmental degradation in those locations.
In an attempt to make the embedded costs of going “green” transparent to the world, the Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy highlights how Asians and Africans, many of them children from the poorer and less healthy countries, are being enslaved and are dying in mines and factories to obtain the exotic minerals and metals required for the green energy technologies for the construction of EV batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and utility-scale storage batteries.
The Tesla EV has a one-thousand-pound battery that contains 25 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds of cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside the Tesla battery are 6,831 individual lithium-ion cells
The environmental impact of battery production is significant. The production of lithium is either carbon dioxide polluting or wasteful of water — up to 500,000 gallons per ton of the mineral. Cobalt mining produces radioactive contaminants, including uranium. About 80 percent of the weight of a Tesla battery –requires mined materials. In practice, that means mining about 50 tons of raw ore per vehicle. If 10 million U.S.-based electric cars are sold in 2030 (about half of sales), that would translate to 500 million tons of new mining with all the accompanying emissions from mining equipment and the accompanying pollution.
All those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just – one – Tesla EV battery.
There was already a huge challenge in just making enough EV batteries. As physicist Mark Mills pointed out in the Wall Street Journal: “The International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that with a globalenergy transition like the one President Biden envisions, demand for key minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and rare-earth metals would explode, rising by 4,200 percent, 2,500 percent, 1,900 percent and 700 percent, respectively, by 2040”.
Amnesty International has documented children and adults mining cobalt in narrow man-made tunnels, and the exposure to the dangerous gases emitted during the procurement of these rare minerals, not to mention the destruction of the local ecosystems when the wastewater and other unusable ores are let loose onto the environments they have no choice but to live in because their wages are so infinitesimally small, it should cause us to take a step back and examine our moral obligations to humanity.
Not only might the planet not have the capacity to meet this demand, but many of these materials come from places that are hostile or that we do not control – such as China/Mongolia, the Congo, and Bolivia – leading to an unpredictable supply.
Most electric vehicles in use today are yet to reach the end of their cycle. The first all-electric car to be powered by lithium-ion batteries, the Tesla Roadster, made its market debut in 2008. This means the first generation of electric vehicle batteries have yet to reach the recycling stage. An estimated 11 million tons of spent lithium-ion batteries will flood our markets by 2025, without systems in place to handle them.
The actions of society are currently supportive of jumping onto the EV train, knowing that EV’s have a very dark side of environmental atrocities, and the non-existing transparency of human rights abuses occurring in other countries, both of which are directly connected to the mining for the exotic minerals and metals that are required to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries.
America could promote sustainable mining in those developing countries by restoring the land to a healthy ecosystem after the mine closes and by leaving surrounding communities with more wealth, education, health care, and infrastructure than they had before the mine went into production. Like mining in America, mining in developing countries must be the objective of corporate social responsibilities and the outcome of the successful ecological restoration of landscapes.
America’s passion for EV vehicles to reduce emissions must be ethical and should not thrive off human rights and environmental abuses in the foreign countries providing the exotic minerals and metals to support America’s green passion.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-04-20 04:00:002022-04-20 04:00:00Are the Environmental Impacts and Human Atrocities Worth an EV Battery?
Top Biden Pollster Warns ‘Most Americans Are Pissed,’ Says Democrats Are Facing ‘Really Sour Environment’
President Joe Biden’s chief pollster John Anzalone warned Democrats about major electoral problems going into the 2022 midterms in an interview released Friday, although he believes that they can still avoid major losses.
Anzalone, who also worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, has previously warned of Biden’s low approval rating overall and among Hispanic voters in particular. He told Politico’s Ryan Lizza that voters are unhappy with the Democrats’ lack of action on key issues such as inflation and health care.
“Voters are very much in ‘What have you done for me lately?’ They always are. And they don’t feel Democrats can get their shit together and get things done,” Anzalone said.
“So if we’re able to do something — a skinny BBB or whatever — on health insurance costs, prescription drug costs, elderly care, childcare, that’s a big deal because it will give Democrats a competitive advantage on what they’re doing for working families. And it’ll cut through the inflation narrative, the Ukraine narrative, the Afghan narrative, the border narrative, etc.,” he continued.
Biden’s campaign pollster John Anzalone thinks Ds are blowing it on their economic messaging by not highlighting inequality enough:
“We’re scared of our own shadow on taxes, and it fucking makes no sense”
Anzalone also pushed back on the perception that Hispanic voters primarily care about immigration.
“There’s this narrative in D.C. among Democrats that you only talk to Latinos about immigration. Like, immigration is the twelfth issue that they’re concerned about. It’s always about the economy or inflation or healthcare or schools,” he said.
Republicans are pinpointing a July special election in South Texas as a test of their newfound gains among Hispanic voters. Republican Mayra Flores, who will also seek a full term in November, is hoping that concerns about immigration and inflation will be decisive in flipping a seat formerly held by Democrat Filemon Vela.
Anzalone also argued that Democrats should push tax increases on wealthier Americans, adding that Democrats are too “scared of their own shadow” to do so.
“Biden’s proposal of making those making over $400,000 pay a little bit more taxes and big corporations pay a little bit more taxes so they pay their fair share to make investments in healthcare and education and childcare is really important,” he claimed. “Most Americans are pissed at the fact that they pay their fair share in taxes as middle-class people. They work hard. They want to see the benefits of the economy.”
Election forecasters believe that Republicans could pick up as many as 35 seats in the midterms, which would create the party’s largest majority since the Great Depression. Anzalone believes that such losses could be in the cards for Democrats if they do not act quickly.
“No one’s going to sit there as a Democratic consultant and try to bullshit you that this is anything but a really sour environment for Democrats,” he said.
Editor’s Note: This article is based on Mr. DeMuth’s opening address at theEuropean National Conservatism Conference in Brussels, Belgium, on March 23, 2022.
February 2020 turned out to be the last month to date of normal life in most of the world. Early in the month, a few cases of what came to be known as Covid-19 were identified in Rome, in individuals recently arrived from Wuhan, China. Soon Italian hospitals were overwhelmed and the government locked down the entire nation. Cases began popping up in other well-traveled parts of Europe and the United States, and local, state, and national authorities—with little understanding of the spread or seriousness of the disease, but terrified by the news from Italy—began locking down their populations. The global pandemic was upon us.
Two years later, in February 2022, the worst of the pandemic was receding; its wounds and disruptions were being repaired and life was springing up again. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and commenced killing its people, destroying its cities, and threatening the world with nuclear war. A natural disaster was replaced by a man-made disaster of horrifying savagery and stupidity.
The free nations of the prosperous West that have been under sustained assault constitute a great and admirable civilization. Vladimir Putin and the dictators of China and Iran are right to fear not only the allure of freedom but also its power. One of the first lessons of the Ukraine onslaught is that authoritarians are as bad at military organization as they are at economic and political organization. Our far-flung interconnectedness made the novel coronavirus an instant global killer—but was also key to the rapid invention of equally novel, miraculous vaccines that have saved millions of lives.
The Free World has also, however, fallen prey to certain soft conceits, which Putin and his ilk are right to see as weaknesses. We had imagined that the world’s troubles were amenable to rational management and apolitical expertise. We could leave them to specialized agencies somewhere up there in the cloud, or maybe in Brussels, if only politicians would “follow the science” and accede to the arc of global progressivism. That would free modern man to cultivate his individuality—his personal pleasures and grievances, his likes and dislikes. The fantasy that hard problems can be wished out of our lives has been an important source of decay in our culture, political rhetoric, and institutions of government.
But the last two years have been disenthralling. Experts claimed they could specify the path of global temperatures for a century hence within a few degrees—and it turned out they could miss the path of global disease for one month hence by an order of magnitude. Experts claimed that nation-states and borders were barbaric vestiges and that global bureaucracies could usher in peace and harmony—and it turned out we had barbarians at the gates in the here and now and that nations with borders were essential to peace and harmony. Experts claimed that global markets would bring prosperity and democracy—and it turned out they could also bring domestic division and imperial domination.
Into the breach came, willy nilly, the nation-state. It is unnecessary to argue that the United Nations and the World Health Organization proved useless in the crises at hand, for everyone could see that they mainly got in the way, or yakety-yacked while others took urgent action.
Managing a pandemic—a quintessential global emergency—fell inescapably to individual nations, with their diverse demographics, healthcare, and hospital systems, public attitudes, structures of government, and leaders accountable to actual electorates and fellow citizens. When the European Union asserted authority over vaccine procurement and distribution, it badly mishandled them—even the New York Times called it a “fiasco.” Nations that didn’t have EU insider privileges had to come up with workarounds. When the going gets tough, democracy loses patience with technocracy.
Russia’s latest war has been analyzed in terms of spheres of influence, the return of great-power competition, dictatorship versus democracy. But the heart of the matter is the integrity of the nation. An imperial power invaded a peaceful self-governing nation for conquest, aiming to seize its territory and farms and industry, to subjugate its people, and to extinguish its traditions and institutions. That is why Ukraine has become a popular cause around the world. The Ukrainians cry out, this is our land, our home, our country. President Zelensky compares his countrymen’s struggle and heroism to the historic struggles and heroes of other nations; he is even gauche enough to name names at a time when other nations are toppling their heroes. You don’t have to have taken a course in political science to understand this war. Nor to be overwhelmed by the bravery and determination of the Ukrainians and to reflect on your responsibilities for your own national home.
And the response has been a rallying of sovereign nations that few living people have seen before. In the order of nation-states, each nation defends the overall order as its own interests require or permit. Some nations have been constrained by their existential reliance on Russian energy; others have judged that they may play a useful role as diplomatic intermediaries; plus, we are going to need a delegation to inform Putin that he has lost. Close to the fray, fears that one’s own nation may be next on Putin’s hit-list, or that in desperation he may introduce nuclear or chemical weapons into the military theater, have produced a spectrum of reactions both among and within nations. But the total response has been the provision of stupendous defensive armaments and intelligence, logistical, and humanitarian support, and repudiation of Putin and isolation of the Russian economy. Most striking of all has been the many reversals of national defense, energy, and financial policies that would have been inconceivable the day before the invasion.
All of this has been spontaneous collaboration, each nation bringing its unique assets to the cause without the benefit of direction by any supernational body. The EU has been helpful as a convening body, but it has disgraced itself by imposing heavy financial penalties on Hungary and Poland, for patently partisan and ideological reasons, just as those nations were struggling to welcome and care for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. No self-respecting nation would have behaved in this manner in a time of war. Let us hope that Ukraine’s victory and EU membership will bring Brussels to a new policy of liberality towards the nations of Central Europe.
It is surely a positive development that, from terrible events, we are directing our hopes and expectations at the performance of the nation-state constrained by a renewed sense of realism.
The newly engaged nation-states came to the crises of the past two years woefully unready, following a long period of desuetude, self-indulgent politics, and, for many, mediocre leadership. Sovereignty needs to be earned continuously—through prudent finance and low public debt, diversification in energy and other requisites of national independence, and ample provision to prepare for natural disasters and military defense. Lacking these fundamentals, we have faced many tragic choices that were more painful and costly than they needed to have been. Having witnessed a display of national self-determination that will ring through history, we may be inspired to greater political seriousness in our own nations.
In the pandemic response, the diversity of national approaches, and within the United States the diversity of state approaches, yielded continuous policy competition and learning-by-doing. Among the free Western nations, the sharing of real-time data on infections, hospitalizations, and morbidity and mortality, and the rigorous criticisms of independent physicians and immunologists, contributed powerfully to policy realism. The climate-change mantra of “the science is settled” never got traction in a genuine crisis.
We are now coming to understand, better late than never, that comprehensive lockdowns and school closures were largely ineffective in controlling Covid-19 but fabulously costly to our economies and social well-being. We have gained this understanding precisely because of the knowledge generated by nation-led responses, which would have been obscured by uniform responses directed by the WHO, EU, or the federal government in the United States. For now, government restrictions are being lifted much faster than skeptics were predicting just a month ago. We will come to the next pandemic less confused and perhaps better equipped.
In the Ukraine response, it is disheartening that the German government has stuck with its plans to decommission perfectly good nuclear power plants, and that the U.S. government is still zealous to obstruct the development and use of fossil fuels. Nor has the war inspired Americans to set aside our bad habits of performative politics, personal positioning, and incessant scoring of ideological debating points. But the most striking development in the United States is that Congress has seized the initiative from the foreign policy elites, repeatedly forcing the Biden administration to revise and strengthen its assistance to Ukraine. Congress’s more representative, populist response has displayed Americans’ instinctive support for the underdog, but also a keen appreciation of the constraints and complications that attend American action.
The situation is highly dynamic, with many national elections in-store and adjustments underway in party positions and electoral strategies. Among intellectuals, the new thinking and Left-Right-Radical alignments that began with Donald Trump and Brexit in 2016 are shifting dramatically. Where government is concerned, a good rule of thumb is to Expect the Worst and Hope for the Sufficient. But it is surely a positive development that, from terrible events, we are directing our hopes and expectations at the performance of the nation-state constrained by a renewed sense of realism.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-04-19 03:55:002022-04-19 03:55:00The Nation is the Heart of the Matter
“This above all: to thine own self be true.” – William Shakespeare
Joe Biden, the usurper occupying, in my mind, the White House illegally, continues trying to pretend to be doing his best to get gas prices down. Remember, it’s an election year and he is about to get annihilated! Anyway. Trust me, everything he tries is just propaganda for the weak minded sheep out there who think the old man in his dotage is doing a good job!! None of it makes a real difference. It’s all charades. All a shell game where you gotta find the pea except there is no pea!
Let me explain.
First inflation and gas costs are not the sole fault of Putin or oil companies. His war is not helping but prices and inflation began their swift upward movement within hours of these leftists’ theft of our government and electoral system.
Secondly understand the gas prices we are seeing at the pumps are a direct result of this satanic administration and their energy policies on fossil fuels. They declared war on fossil fuels from the first moment they stole power. We all know, stopping drilling on federal land, no more permits, stopping construction of pipelines, putting so much red tape in front of lease holders to make it unprofitable. I could go on and on but my audience is smart and understands.
This administration sold its soul and our country to the extremists on the far left and have bought whole heartedly into the global warming lies. They say they are the party of science until science takes them in a different direction to their commie agenda. Then truthful science must be disregarded and mocked.
We see this by their choice to stop as much CLEAN production of oil here in my beloved United States of America and to buy oil from (a) our enemies and (b) from producers who will never produce oil as clean and safely as we do. Their lies and hypocrisy blow my mind as does the stupidity and ignorance of the sheep following them to the slaughter.
Let’s be honest here. If we had not made a big deal about us buying Russian fuel and therefore paying Russia’s military expansion tab in the Ukraine, we still would be. This administration is absolutely shameless. Then there is the Iranian deal they are trying to put together so as to get oil from Iran! By the way they are using China and Russia to negotiate that deal! You cannot make this stuff up.
Treason? You bet!
Oh. I forgot, they also want to buy oil from Venezuela and OPEC! All while we have enough right here for 100% of our needs plus a massive surplus we could export!
So, back to this administrations efforts to pretend they care!
That too is a lie.
They have authorized several releases of oil from our strategic reserves, oil that is there for emergencies, not to cover up terrible policy decisions in an election year. Thus they are damaging our national security – not that they care at all about that. The amounts amount to a tiny percentage of our daily use.
They have gone like the weak cowards they are on bended knees to OPEC begging them to increase production hoping that would bring the prices down. However, we were humiliated as a now weak nation multiple times as OPEC said no.
That wouldn’t have happened under Trump – in fact nothing we have seen the last 14 months or so would have happened under President Trump.
So. A brief resume of events so far before I come to their latest stupidity and lies. We have so much oil we can cleanly produce here that we cannot now obtain. We buy oil from our enemies that is produced without too much care about global warming and the pollution. We bought from Russia until the scandal came out. Now we want to buy oil from Iran, the worlds largest international sponsor of terrorism. Plus give them countless billions of dollars on top of that so they can become a nuclear armed state! Israel – look out, we are stabbing you in the back. Then we want to buy oil from Venezuela, a terrible socialist dictatorship that hates America. They will use those American Petro dollars to further keep their citizens down. Forcibly.
Everyone happy with those choices? I know I am not.
The latest scam is to allow ethanol fuel year round. This is fuel with a percentage of ethanol and sells for about 10c a gallon less. It is highly subsidized with tax payer money to the farmers.
Here is the kicker!
You get a little more performance BUT you do not get as many MPG out of it! Chicanery? Yep! Like a card shark.
Now they have just reversed course again and will begin offering for sale oil leases on federal land – again.
Hmmmmm ….. again, why? They are not reducing the red tape, cost and the years oil companies would need to start production, they are not allowing pipelines to be finished or started to move the oil cheaply once produced. These new announcements will produce more barriers and hoops for oil companies to jump through.
Most of the more significant areas of land with potentially the most easily and cheaply obtainable oil are not being included in the sales. The increased costs that will come with these leases will not encourage drilling as the oil cannot most likely be produced economically or for years. They are offering 173 parcels of land on 144000 acres which is an 80% reduction from the acreage originally stated. So not a big deal. By the way oil companies have to pay these leases monthly regardless to if they are actually drilling.
U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart said the following on Neil Cavuto’s show the other day after this latest Biden scam was proudly heralded by Biden’s Secretary of the Interior, that the oil crisis will be further compounded by this latest stupidity.
In his words from the Cavuto Show on Fox he said the following,
“I realize that the Secretary of Interior is very much on message with the rest of the Biden administration…which is we all pay 50% more for 80% less…she was very clear that’s what she was going to do for those oil and gas operators who were interested in doing work on federal lands, that we should be prepared to pay about 50% more in royalties and other fees that we already pay. At the same time, we’re only going to have access to about 20% of the current acreage that we have put forward to the secretary as potential oil and gas opportunities for us. It goes to this fundamental question of when we’re in a crisis like this, is this policy, will it do anything to increase production? And the answer is no…actually it will compound the problem. We have a short-term production shortfall right now. The Secretary’s actions that she announced yesterday will push this problem out three, five, seven, 10 years.”
You guys beginning to see it now? The lies. The propaganda? The chicanery?
The MSM will as always attempt to show Biden in a good light, showing how his wiseness and kindness plus his real concern for we, the people is coming out with these latest Team Biden solutions!!
DO NOT BUY INTO THAT.
TRUST ME.
THE ONLY THING THIS ADMINISTRATION CARES ABOUT IS THE TOTAL ANNIHILATION OF THIS CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-04-18 21:51:232022-04-18 21:51:23Bidens’ Stupidity on Gas Continues!
The left cannot permit the free exchange of ideas because their failed ideas cannot stand up to scrutiny and challenge.
Freedom of speech is the foundation of a free society. Without it, a tyrant can wreak havoc unopposed, while his opponents are silenced.
Putting up with being offended is essential in a pluralistic society in which people differ on basic truths. If a group will not bear being offended without resorting to violence, that group will rule unopposed while everyone else lives in fear, while other groups curtail their activities to appease the violent group. This results in the violent group being able to tyrannize the others.
If speech that offends a group is outlawed, that group has absolute power, and a free society is destroyed. A group that cannot be criticized cannot be opposed. It can work its will no matter what it is, and no one will be able to say anything to stop it.
Inoffensive speech needs no protection. The First Amendment was developed precisely in order to protect speech that was offensive to some, in order to prevent those who had power from claiming they were offended by speech opposing them and silencing the powerless.
A free society is by its nature one in which people put up with others being uncivil and offensive. The alternative is a quiet authoritarian society in which only one opinion is allowed and the others are silenced, and ultimately sent to the camps.
And just like that Elon Musk proved the system is rigged.
If Elon Musk does nothing else, he already won. All this freaking out, crying, screaming on social media and scrambling to out buy stock, just because someone who believes in free speech has a stake in the company, is deeply telling. And it all happened out in the open.
Twitter’s board of directors on Thursday unanimously adopted a plan Friday to stop Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plan to take private the social media company
Under the plan, which is also referred to as a “poison pill”, shareholders’ rights will become exercisable if an entity, person or group acquires beneficial ownership of 15% or more of Twitter’s outstanding common stock in a transaction not approved by the board,” according to Fox News.
The board says the plan “is intended to enable all shareholders to realize the full value of their investment in Twitter” and will “reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders,” the news outlet also reports.
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The AFL-CIO appears to recognize that the Jones Act is part of the US supply chain problem.
As reported by Politico earlier this week, the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trade Department has authored a new statement on US maritime policy that features predictable enthusiasm for protectionist policies such as the Jones Act and cargo preference laws. More interesting, however, is the statement’s inclusion of language calling for a fleet of feeder vessels to transport cargo through the country’s coastal waters:
Creating a fleet of U.S.-built, U.S.-flag and crewed feeder vessels to carry a portion of America’s trade along our coasts to be offloaded in underutilized ports for transportation by truck and rail to their ultimate inland destination will not only strengthen the maritime industry and create jobs aboard ship and in our ports but will help mitigate against future shipping supply chain disruptions.
This passage is significant for at least two reasons. First, it acknowledges that the United States currently lacks such vessels connecting smaller ports to larger ports as part of a hub and spoke system. Second, it states that such a transportation option would help relieve supply chain disruptions by alleviating demands on overburdened truck and rail networks.
Thus, US policies that stand in the way of developing a network of coastal shipping—also known as short sea shipping or marine highways—contribute to the supply chain crisis.
As I’ve written before, one of those policies is the Jones Act. Simply put, requiring the use of vessels that are far most costly to build and operate than foreign ships is a significant disincentive to utilizing this method of transporting goods. The capital costs alone of acquiring such vessels—which must be constructed by US shipyards much less efficient than their foreign counterparts—were perceived by ocean carriers as the single largest obstacle to the implementation of short sea shipping in the United States according to a 2006 study.
As my colleague Scott Lincicome pointed out last September, this lack of coastal shipping has “worsened the current shipping situation by (1) putting additional pressure on inland transit (i.e., trucks and trains are used instead of ships that could travel between US ports); and (2) causing companies to avoid the Jones Act by “port hopping” up and down US coasts using larger, foreign‐flagged ships that take longer to offload and are prohibited from picking up additional cargo while they’re in port.”
Fortunately, the AFL-CIO may be catching on. Noting the lackluster state of US shipbuilding, the head of the organization’s Metal Trades Department stated in a December interview that foreign‐built ships may have to be purchased to help jumpstart marine highways. For that to happen, however, Congress would have to pass legislation waiving the Jones Act’s US-built requirement.
This legislative change wouldn’t solve all of the Jones Act’s problems but would mark an excellent first step in reducing the law’s burdens. Allowing an influx of new, less expensive ships would generate jobs for US mariners, business for smaller US ports, and even potential repair and maintenance work for US shipyards while reducing American highway and rail congestion and transportation costs.
Such change would be good for the environment too: reduced traffic means fewer emissions while ships are a more carbon‐friendly means of transporting goods than trucks or rail. Once realized, such benefits could spark an appetite for further liberalization and a paring back of maritime protectionism.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-04-18 09:51:502022-04-18 09:51:50Labor Unions [Quietly] Admit the Jones Act Is Contributing to America’s Supply Chain Problems
Food shortages and skyrocketing food prices now appear inevitable. The global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month. On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months
Inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID responses have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day
Ukraine has ceased exports of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, and Russia has banned exports of fertilizer
Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers. Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports
The long-term answer lies in regenerative biodynamic farming, which does not use any chemical inputs
In the featured video, “Breaking Points” cohosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti discuss one of the greatest threats currently facing the people of the world, namely food shortages and skyrocketing food prices.
According to a recent NPR report,1 the global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month.2 On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months.3
But while the Ukraine conflict is cited as the primary cause, it’s not the sole reason. Price inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID response have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day.
The climate has also been uncooperative, causing poor harvests around the world. China, for example, has reported it expects the lowest harvest yields in history this year, thanks to serious flooding of its farmland in the fall of 2021.4
Compounding Crises Threaten Global Food Productivity
That said, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is certainly making a bad problem worse. Ukraine is known as “the bread basket” of Europe, responsible for producing and exporting 12% of all food calories traded on the international market. Russia is also a major exporter of food, and together with Ukraine, the two countries account for nearly 30% of global wheat exports, nearly 20% of the world’s corn and more than 80% of the sunflower oil.5
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s projections, wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine will be reduced by more than 7 million metric tons in 2022. At the same time, the Ukrainian government has decided to ban all export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, to ensure food safety for its own people, while Russia has banned exports of fertilizer.6
As reported by Wired, the current food crisis in Ukraine is made up of several components, and the effects will have a worldwide rippling effect, thanks to our dependency on global trade:7
“Goods that have already been harvested — last autumn’s corn, for instance — can’t be transported out of the country; ports and shipping routes are closed down, and international trading companies have ceased operations for safety. (Plus, while those crops sit in bins, destruction of the country’s power gridtakes out the temperature controls and ventilation that keep them from spoiling.)
This year’s wheat, which will be ready in July, can’t be harvested if there’s no fuel for combines and no labor to run them. Farmers are struggling over whether to plant for next season — if they can even obtain seeds and fertilizer, for which supplies look uncertain [ … ]
Analysts worry that the countries that buy the most wheat from Ukraine — predominantly in Africa and the Middle East — will have the hardest time paying as prices rise.”
Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist and professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois told Wired magazine:8
“This crisis is beyond the normal ability to shuffle supplies around. We’ve exploded that system, and the cost is going to be extreme economic pain.”
Serious Fertilizer Shortage Looms
Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers.9
Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports. For some farmers, that will be a death knell that causes them to go out of business. The rest will be forced to charge more for their commodities, resulting in skyrocketing food prices.
Biodynamic Solutions
Are there any solutions to this pressing dilemma? I would argue that there are, but it’ll require rapid response and adaptation from farmers everywhere. As explained in “Kiss the Ground,” a documentary about biodynamic farming, a beautiful harmony exists within nature, and we can benefit by tapping into that natural system with biodynamic practices rather than working against it.
As noted in the film, a preview of which is included above, “Biodynamic farming is simply farming in service of life.” While it requires a leap of faith to make the transition, the results speak for themselves. Biodiversity improves rapidly on farms that make the transition, and the quality of the food (and the quality of life of the farmer) is greatly augmented.
Biodynamic agriculture builds upon the foundation of organic farming. That means zero pesticides and synthetic fertilizers are used. But biodynamic then goes a step further. The goal is to make the land better than it was before. It doesn’t just stop the destruction of soil, but actually regenerates it.
The farm as a whole is basically viewed as one organism, where each part of the farm supports the rest. Livestock have their role, as do microorganisms and beneficial insects. Rather than working against you, they’re now working for you to improve the fertility of the soil and the quality of the food grown in it.
Biodynamic farming is really about being a part of nature and working with it rather than trying to conquer nature through unnatural and ultimately destructive means.
Biodynamic farming can also, over time, help stabilize the climate. Not only do biodynamic farmers not pollute the air, water or soil in the first place, but the plants also pull carbon from the air, depositing it back into the soil where it does the most good, and requires far less watering. Regenerative practices also prevent the loss of topsoil and increase rainfall.
For example, regenerative ranchers in Northern Mexico, in the Chihuahuan Desert, who have added 1 million acres of rotational grazing, report getting 15% to 20% more rainfall than their neighbors who haven’t regenerated their land.
Support Biodynamic Farming
Many of the food products we sell under the Mercola brand are produced by Demeter certified biodynamic farmers in eight countries. Demeter is the oldest ecological certification in the world. Most recently, we’ve initiated the first-ever standards for Demeter Certified Biodynamic supplements as well.10
We also fund the Billion Agave Project, initiated by Regeneration International on a regenerative farm in Mexico run by the Organic Consumers Association. It’s a fantastic solution that solves several problems at once.
This project is a game-changing ecosystem-regeneration and reforestation strategy that uses a combination of agave plants and mesquite (a nitrogen-fixing companion tree), to salvage and regenerate degraded semi-arid lands that aren’t suitable for other crops.
Forty percent of the world is arid or semi-arid and in danger of becoming desert where nothing will grow. But we can reverse this process using native plants and permaculture techniques such as this one.
By taking a limb from a healthy mesquite tree, adding some natural hormones and wrapping the branch with a bag filled with compost, you will, after three to four months, have a small tree ready for planting as new roots grow into the compost-filled bag. At that point, you can either plant it into a container or directly into the soil.
This process is known as “air layering.” A 1-year-old mesquite tree grown in this way will be as big as a 7-year-old mesquite tree grown from seed, significantly speeding up the reforestation effort. The roots of the mesquite tree can burrow hundreds of feet down in search of water, and they in turn provide nutrition for other plants, as they exchange liquid carbon from the tree for the nutrients from the soil.
In this way, the mesquite supports the growth of the agave without need for chemical fertilizers, and the agave can then be used to produce a fermented nutrition-rich biomass that supports grazing livestock that otherwise might not have enough to eat.
A Way to Support Grazing Cattle on Semi-Arid Lands
Agave is best known for producing tequila, but a local farmer in Mexico discovered he could use the massive leaves, which are typically discarded as junk, to produce a nutrient-rich livestock feed. Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and even sheepdogs enjoy it.
The feed is produced by finely chopping up the leaves, each of which can weigh 40 to 80 pounds, and then fermenting them in a closed container. To this fermented mash, you can then add mesquite pods at a ratio of 80% to 90% agave leaf and 10% to 20% mesquite pods. This mix is superior to alfalfa in terms of nutrition, but costs only a third or a quarter of the price.
A big part of the cost-savings is from the reduced water consumption. Alfalfa needs about 26 times more water than agave and mesquite. Most of the animals on the farm eat the natural vegetation and get the agave mash as a supplement.
However, by adding garbanzo beans — another low-water crop — you could produce a feed that the animals could live on exclusively. Considering some areas are now considering culling their livestock herds due to a shortage in cattle feed,11 this could be a novel solution in some instances.
New Market Opportunities
Changing the farming subsidies to prioritize regenerative farming would go a long way to changing the status quo, but private investing is another route to success that is now coming to the fore.
There’s a new type of asset being developed on the stock exchange called Natural Asset Stocks, or Natural Asset Corporations. The government of Costa Rica, for example, is putting all government-owned forests and farmlands into a Natural Asset Corporation.
This is a type of stock different from anything we’ve seen so far. Basically, these stocks will allow fund managers, private investors and corporations to invest in natural assets. The part you end up owning is the ecosystem services of that land.
So, for example, you could own the environmental services resulting from the Billion Agave Project, which include carbon sequestration amounts and water savings. Over time, as the whole system matures and the soils are regenerated, your asset rises in value.
This new asset system will allow Wall Street to divert financial assets into ecosystem assets that benefit the planet in a multitude of ways, and still get a return on their money.
The Organic Consumers Association has also developed a system of verification to go along with this new asset system. Using modern technology, it will be able to accurately measure things like the number and size of plants and the health of the soil.
Had heed been taken sooner, we wouldn’t be in such a precarious position right now. But hindsight is 20/20, and I believe many farmers will now be forced to make the tough choice to make the conversion to biodynamic if they want to survive in the long term.
They’re also using a blockchain accounting system to verify the calculations and make it very difficult to cheat. So, anyone who invests in a natural asset will be able to verify, several years down the road, at a very low cost, whether the asset has improved or degenerated.
Regenerative Farming Could Save the World
A number of people have pushed regenerative farming for decades, warning that the current chemical-dependent monoculture is unsustainable in the long run, and subject to geopolitical disruptions. We’re seeing the reality of those warnings right now.
Had heed been taken sooner, we wouldn’t be in such a precarious position right now. But hindsight is 20/20, and I believe many farmers will now be forced to make the tough choice to make the conversion to biodynamic if they want to survive in the long term.
Their transition is not going to bring immediate help to the global population, as it takes a number of years to turn depleted soils into soils that can support food production without chemical inputs. But we have to start thinking in the longer term if any of us are to survive.
As a nonfarmer, you can support this effort by buying food from regenerative and biodynamic farmers. Regenerative International, incorporated in 2014, has built a global network of regenerative farmers and ranchers, with some 400 affiliates in 60 countries.
You can find a map of these regenerative farms on RegenerationInternational.org. Of course, you can also implement regenerative strategies in your own garden, even if it’s a small one. The future does look bleak at the moment, with food shortages and skyrocketing prices appearing inevitable, but doing nothing is not the answer. We must all start thinking ahead and make wiser choices.
The globalization of food production has led us to the brink of disaster. The answer is to return to locally grown foods. Similarly, our reliance on chemical-dependent monocultures has just been proven to be a weak link that needs to be replaced by regenerative methods that don’t need chemicals to thrive. We have the answers to the problem. We just need to implement them, as rapidly as possible.
As we here at the Geller Report have reported for the past two years. One only has to look at countries that did not lockdown, ie Sweden, who fared better.
Still Democrats, in their relentless pursuit of American destruction, continue to threaten us with them.
According to a new study by Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic “lockdowns have had little to no public health effects,” and have “imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted.”
“While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted,” the authors of the study reported.
They added, “In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
Wow, you mean the “conspiracy theorists” were right?? No wonder social media giants, the media, and the government worked so hard to keep them quiet.
The authors are Jonas Herby, special advisor at Center for Political Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark; Lars Jonung, professor emeritus in economics at Lund University, Sweden; and Steve H. Hanke, a Professor of Applied Economics and Founder & Co-Director of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
The study, the authors said, was “designed to determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that ‘lockdowns’ reduce COVID-19 mortality.” The authors defined lockdowns “as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).”NPIs, they explained, “are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel.”
The authors explained that “public health experts and politicians” have “embraced compulsory lockdowns” to address the coronavirus pandemic, and their study was to answer the question of other or not that has done more harm than good.
“To answer our question, we focused on studies that examine the actual impact of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality rates based on registered cross-sectional mortality data and a counterfactual difference in-difference approach,” the authors said.
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Don’t be surprised if the states topping this new list start losing people to states that don’t take as much of their money.
ax season is in full swing, and many Americans are likely grimacing as they crunch the numbers and prepare to open up their wallets. But some more so than others, as the relative tax burden in the US varies vastly across different states. And now, a new analysis reveals which states will have the highest (and lowest) taxes in 2022.
The right-leaning, nonpartisan Tax Foundation just ran the numbers to rank the states based on their average combined state and local tax burden. This does not include the many federal taxes all Americans must pay regardless of state residency.
This ranking does not look solely at the absolute amount received in taxes by state and local governments. It also attempts to account for the true burden of taxes, given that sometimes the real cost of a state tax can be imposed on residents of other states. (For example, people who live in New Jersey but work in New York City also pay many New York taxes).
The Takeaway: Tax Competition
These differences in taxation levels are more than just a pleasant surprise for taxpayers in some states (and an ugly reality for taxpayers in others). With combined state and local tax burdens varying between nearly 16 percent in New York and just 4.6 percent in Alaska, there’s a big enough difference between the states to encourage tax competition.
What is tax competition?
It’s when “jurisdictional competition leads to better tax policy,” economist Dan Mitchell explains. “Simply stated, politicians are less greedy when they have to worry that the geese with the golden eggs can fly away.”
Americans can (and do) relocate when their local and state governments excessively raise taxes. This means states must always be on the watch against losing residents to lower-tax neighbors, a positive incentive structure that helps keep the growth of government in check and protect our wallets from greedy politicians.
So, don’t be surprised if the states topping this new list of high tax burdens start losing people to states that don’t take as much of their money.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-04-18 08:52:142022-04-18 08:52:14These 5 States Will Have Highest Tax Burdens in 2022, New Analysis Reveals
The Consumer Price Index today – a measure of how fast the dollar and everything denominated in dollars, including labor, lost its purchasing power – is a horror show, the likes of which the majority of Americans have never experienced in their lives. The reality on the ground is even worse for many people because CPI is slow to pick up the red-hot housing inflation as we’ll see in a moment, and because CPI structurally is skewed to represent the inflation felt by higher-income households, while lower-income households, as Fed governor Lael Brainard pointed out last week, face higher inflation and feel it much more.
The overall Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) spiked by 1.2% in March from February, and by 8.5% from a year ago, the worst since 1981, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.
But in 1981, the Fed was effectively cracking down on inflation with double-digit policy interest rates, and inflation was on the way down.
Now inflation is spiking, and the Fed is still repressing short-term interest rates to near 0%, and it still holds $8.9 trillion in assets on its balance sheet as a result of years of money printing, including $4.8 trillion that it printed over the past two years to repress long-term interest rates and to produce the biggest wealth disparity ever. And now we’re surprised by this spike in inflation?
There is no period in history that compares to this period, not even the 1970s because the Fed wasn’t printing money in the 1970s.
WHOOSH goes the Dollar’s Purchasing Power.
Consumer price inflation is not a sign of anything positive, but a sign of the loss of the purchasing power of the consumer’s dollar, including the purchasing power of labor. And it’s cumulative, month after month, year after year. In March, the purchasing power of $100 in January 2000 dropped to a new record low of $58.80, which explains why the mood of Americans has curdled:
Inflation in services is now spiking.
The CPI for services – which includes housing costs – jumped by 0.7% in March from February, the third jump in a row of this magnitude, and by 5.1% compared to March last year, the worst services inflation since 1991. Given how slow the CPI is in picking up the surging housing costs, this portion of the CPI will continue to get worse, even as prices of gasoline and used cars might come down some.
Inflation in housing costs.
The largest component in CPI is “shelter,” a basket of services that is designed to represent housing costs and accounts for 32.7% of total CPI. The largest components in this basket are “Rent of primary residence,” accounting for 7.3% of total CPI, and “Owner’s equivalent rent of residence,” accounting for 24.0% of total CPI.
“Rent of primary residence” jumped by 4.4% in March (red in the chart below). This tracks what tenants reported as their actual rent payments, including in rent-controlled apartments.
“Owner’s equivalent rent of residences” rose 4.5% (green line). This tracks the costs of homeownership as a service, based on what homeowners reported that their home would rent for.
Because both of these rent measures are lagging, they will continue to spike as they catch up, even if over the next 12 months housing inflation actually were to cool down a little. So these housing components that weigh much more heavily than used cars or gasoline are guaranteed to provide upward pressure on CPI well into 2023 (my discussion of this phenomenon).
Note that both measures are still well below the overall CPI and therefore are still holding down CPI, but less than before, and as they rise, they will hold down CPI even less.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-04-18 04:05:002022-04-18 04:05:00WHOOSH, Dollar’s Purchasing Power Goes to Heck as Services Inflation Takes Off, Food Spikes, Energy Explodes, But Used Cars Finally Stall
Blaming high inflation on corporate greed has become a favorite pastime of some prominent politicians. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has accused large corporations of driving inflation, a view that is out of sync with the data. More recently, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) joined the chorus. “Corporate greed is Tyson Foods raising the price of beef by 35 percent while its owner became $1.6 billion richer during the pandemic, its profits skyrocketed by 140 percent last quarter to $1.12 billion and its CEO got a 22 percent raise last year to $14 million,” Sanders tweeted, “It’s not inflation. It’s greed.”
If inflation is the result of greed, as Sanders claims, one should expect to see more inflation in more greedy countries and less inflation in less greedy countries. But that’s not the case.
The 2021 CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) World Giving Index ranks countries based on (1) the amount of help given to strangers, (2) money donated to charities, and (3) time volunteered to an organization. The higher the score, the higher the giving. To the extent that giving is (negatively) correlated with greed, one can use the CAF World Giving Index as a measure of how greedy a country is. The higher the score, the lower the greediness of the country.
The following figure plots the CAF World Giving Index score and inflation rate for 66 countries. There is no relationship between greed and inflation. And, to the extent that there is any relationship, it goes in the opposite direction than suggested by Senators Warren and Sanders: Greedy countries have slightly lower inflation rates.
Figure 1. Inflation and greed across countries, 2021
If the Warren-Sanders greed hypothesis were correct, one would observe a negative trend between inflation and the CAF World Giving Index with countries relatively close to the trend line. Instead, there is a slightly positive trend line, with countries located all over the place. Japan and Italy are greedier than the US, but they have significantly lower inflation rates. India and Thailand do not differ much from the US in terms of greediness, but both countries have lower rates of inflation than the US. Estonia and Pakistan, on the other hand, are greedier than the US and have higher rates of inflation. Needless to say, the correlation between inflation and the CAF World Giving Index offers no support for the Warren-Sanders greed hypothesis.
The lack of correlation between greed and inflation is not the only empirical problem for the Warren-Sanders view. The data also show that, at least relative to other countries, the US is not very greedy. Indeed, it is one of the most charitable countries in the world. In terms of greed, the US ranks 54th out of 66 countries. It has the 10th highest inflation rate.
Blaming big corporations for inflation no doubt serves the political interests of Sens. Warren and Sanders. But it is inconsistent with the available data. That is not surprising: It is inconsistent with standard monetary economics as well.
*****
This article was published by AIER, American Institute for Economic Research, and is reproduced with permission.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-04-18 03:50:002022-04-18 03:50:00Do Greedy Countries Have Higher Inflation?
President Biden thinks his real title is “Spender in Chief,” not Commander in Chief. He is always throwing our money around. It seems every answer he provides has him committing our money without any clear explanation of his authority. His recent failings have caused him to refocus his efforts on a new, but recurring subject – student loans.
Biden is not the only one who wants to spend wildly. He has gotten immense pressure from his party (particularly the Left). Now that the Build Back Better boondoggle has tanked, the Left and other Democrats feel compelled to spend money somehow. They want to relieve the debt from student loans, and they are using the pandemic as a front for their battle on the issue.
Student loan repayments have again been deferred until August 1, 2022, with no interest accruing during the deferred period. Biden had said the deferral to February 1, 2022, would be it, but that did not hold for long. This is the sixth time the repayments have been deferred during the pandemic with zero evidence that the people who owe the loans are not capable of repayment.
The drumbeat for relief rolls on. Katrina vanden Heuvel who writes for the Washington Post and is a darling of the Left wrote “But the move also raises the question: Why restart payments at all?” She states, “89 percent of borrowers reported they are not ‘financially secure’ enough to resume payments.” That is some new financial standard that has been created. Loans used to be based on whether someone had the financial capability to repay the loan, not their state of mind.
There is extensive duplicity being displayed by the people favoring loan relief.
While people argue to eliminate college loan debt, they likewise encourage people to attend college. They tell young adults how much more they are going to make than with only a high school degree. If you get a bachelor’s degree, it is estimated you will make on average 75% more over your lifetime — or roughly $1.2 million. Those with a master’s degree will earn an additional $400,000 above a bachelor’s degree and it gets even better for a Ph.D. who will earn $1.2 million more than a bachelor’s degree. Coming in at the top is a professional degree which will earn a stunning $1.9 million more over their careers than having a bachelor’s degree.
That begs the question: Why would we let any of these people off the hook for their student loans? It seems like people are making a conscious investment in their future. A lot are obtaining their degrees or advanced degrees with the idea they will make more money, and statistics prove that out.
My favorite Senator, Lizzie Warren, sponsored a resolution with Majority Leader Schumer and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass and Squad member) urging Biden to cancel up to $50,000 of student loan debt which supposedly would relieve 36 million people from their loans. This equates to $1.8 trillion. There is no mention of President Biden’s “authority” to cancel any student debt in the resolution. Once again Congress is shirking its own responsibility by not passing its own bill. Methinks the reason they sponsored the resolution is because they could not get a bill through Congress.
None of these proposals are accompanied by any procedures to change the accumulation of this debt in the future. As has been previously discussed in this column, colleges shovel these loans out to students with one concern – feeding the colleges’ coffers to pay the fat salaries of their overstuffed staff. There is no counseling by perhaps asking someone if it might be a bit nuts to get a master’s degree in sociology with no prospects for a job when you graduate that will allow you to repay the $150,000 you borrowed. There is no explanation that once you graduate from college with your $75,000 debt you will have to start making payments of $600 per month and how long it will take to pay off your debt. There is no mention of the fact that 40% of people with college degrees are working in positions that don’t require having a college degree.
There are three major objections to these proposals:
1. What about parents who went into debt to make sure their child doesn’t acquire these student loans? Or how about the many people who have paid back their student loans? Or the 70% of Americans who do not attend college who will be saddled with this debt.
2. These college graduates earn more than high school graduates. They made investments in their futures so why should they be relieved of their investment obligations?
3. If we relieve these debts if we piled that $1.8 trillion or more onto the national debt, what are we doing to stop the same situation from reoccurring ten years from now? We are doing nothing at present. We are not requiring these universities to be more financially responsible as evidenced by them loading up on average 45 staff for DEI. We are not requiring outside people to advise these students of the risks involved in taking on these loans.
This is a manufactured crisis to continue to feather the beds of a major constituency of the Left – university personnel. We are looking at relieving debts for people who by definition are the less needy of Americans. Relieving this debt will do nothing but put our national government in a bigger hole from which it cannot dig itself out. It is feathering the nest of special interest groups to get them to vote for Democrats for the remainder of their lifetimes. It is inherently un-American for someone to shift their debt onto the backs of other Americans when they are capable of repayment.
Call me when the problem has been fixed going forward by taming costs and properly educating borrowers by a disinterested third party. Until then this is the ultimate boondoggle.
And the ruling party’s number one concern is sexualizing your children.
Producer prices rose 11.2% from a year ago in March, the biggest gain on record
The producer price index, which measures prices paid by wholesalers, rose 1.4% in March and 11.2% from a year ago, both records for data going back to 2010.
Prices for final demand goods led with a 2.3% monthly rise, while services prices gained 0.9%.
Wednesday’s release comes the day after the BLS reported the consumer price index for March surged 8.5% over the past year.
The producer price index, which measures prices paid by wholesalers, rose 1.4% in March and 11.2% from a year ago, both records for data going back to 2010. Prices for final demand goods led with a 2.3% monthly rise, while services prices gained 0.9%.
Wednesday’s release comes the day after the BLS reported the consumer price index for March surged 8.5% over the past year.
Producer prices soar 11.2% from a year ago in March, hit new all-time high
The prices that goods and services producers receive rose in March at the fastest pace since records have been kept, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
The producer price index, which measures the prices paid by wholesalers, increased 11.2% from a year ago, the most in a data series going back to November 2010. On a monthly basis, the gauge climbed 1.4%, above the 1.1% Dow Jones estimate and also a record.
Stripping out food, energy and trade services, so-called core PPI rose 0.9% on a monthly basis, nearly double the 0.5% estimate and the biggest monthly gain since January 2021. Core PPI increased 7% on a year-over-year basis.
PPI is considered a forward-looking inflation measure as it tracks prices in the pipeline for goods and services that eventually reach consumers.
Wednesday’s release comes the day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index for March surged 8.5% over the past year, above expectations and the highest reading since December 1981.
On the producer side, prices for final demand goods led with a 2.3% monthly rise, while services prices gained 0.9%, up sharply from the 0.3% February increase. Goods inflation has outstripped services during the Covid pandemic, but March’s numbers indicate that services are now catching up as consumer demand shifts.
Energy prices were the biggest gainer for the month, rising 5.7%, while food costs increased 2.4%.
EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
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Critics frequently accuse markets and capitalism of making life worse for the poor. This refrain is certainly common in the halls of left-leaning academia as well as in broader intellectual circles. But like so many other criticisms of capitalism, this one ignores the very real, and very available, facts of history.
Nothing has done more to lift humanity out of poverty than the market economy. This claim is true whether we are looking at a time span of decades or of centuries. The number of people worldwide living on less than about two dollars per day today is less than half of what it was in 1990. The biggest gains in the fight against poverty have occurred in countries that have opened up their markets, such as China and India.
If we look over the longer historical period, we can see that the trends today are just the continuation of capitalism’s victories in beating back poverty. For most of human history, we lived in a world of a few haves and lots of have-nots. That slowly began to change with the advent of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. As economic growth took off and spread throughout the population, it created our own world in the West in which there are a whole bunch of haves and a few have-more-and-betters.
For example, the percentage of American households below the poverty line who have basic appliances has grown steadily over the last few decades, with poor families in 2005 being more likely to own things like a clothes dryer, dishwasher, refrigerator, or air conditioner than the average household was in 1971. And consumer items that didn’t even exist back then, such as cell phones, were owned by half of poor households in 2005 and are owned by a substantial majority of them today.
Capitalism has also made poor people’s lives far better by reducing infant and child mortality rates, not to mention maternal death rates during childbirth, and by extending life expectancies by decades.
Consider, too, the way capitalism’s engine of growth has enabled the planet to sustain almost 7 billion people, compared to 1 billion in 1800. As Deirdre McCloskey has noted, if you multiply the gains in consumption to the average human by the gain in life expectancy worldwide by 7 (for 7 billion as compared to 1 billion people), humanity as a whole is better off by a factor of around 120. That’s not 120 percent better off, but 120 timesbetter off since 1800.
The competitive market process has also made education, art, and culture available to more and more people. Even the poorest of Americans, not to mention many of the global poor, have access through the Internet and TV to concerts, books, and works of art that were exclusively the province of the wealthy for centuries.
And in the wealthiest countries, the dynamics of capitalism have begun to change the very nature of work. Where once humans toiled for 14 hours per day at backbreaking outdoor labor, now an increasing number of us work inside in climate-controlled comfort. Our workday and workweek have shrunk thanks to the much higher value of labor that comes from working with productive capital. We spend a much smaller percentage of our lives working for pay, whether we’re rich or poor. And even with economic change, the incomes of the poor are much less variable, as they are not linked to the unpredictable changes in weather that are part and parcel of a predominantly agricultural economy long since disappeared.
Think of it this way: the fabulously wealthy kings of old had servants attending to their every need, but an impacted tooth would likely kill them. The poor in largely capitalist countries have access to a quality of medical care and a variety and quality of food that the ancient kings could only dream of.
Consider, too, that the working poor of London 100 years ago were, at best, able to split a pound of meat per week among all of their children, which were greater in number than the two or three of today. In addition, the whole family ate meat once a week on Sunday, the one day the man of the household was home for dinner. That was meat for a week.
Compare that to today, when we worry that poor Americans are too easily able to afford a meal with a quarter pound of meat in it every single day for less than an hour’s labor. Even if you think that capitalism has made poor people overweight, that’s a major accomplishment compared to the precapitalist norm of constant malnutrition and the struggle even 100 years ago for the working poor to get enough calories.
The reality is that the rich have always lived well historically, as for centuries they could commandeer human labor to attend to their every need. In a precapitalist world, the poor had no hope of upward mobility or of relief from the endless physical drudgery that barely kept them alive.
Today, the poor in capitalist countries live like kings, thanks mostly to the freeing of labor and the ability to accumulate capital that makes that labor more productive and enriches even the poorest. The falling cost of what were once luxuries and are now necessities, driven by the competitive market and its profit and loss signals, has brought labor-saving machines to the masses. When profit-seeking and innovation became acceptable behavior for the bourgeoisie, the horn of plenty brought forth its bounty, and even the poorest shared in that wealth.
Once people no longer needed permission to innovate, and once the value of new inventions was judged by the improvements they made to the lives of the masses in the form of profit and loss, the poor began to live lives of comfort and dignity.
These changes are not, as some would say, about technology. After all, the Soviets had great scientists but could not channel that knowledge into material comfort for their poor. And it’s not about natural resources, which is obvious today as resource-poor Hong Kong is among the richest countries in the world thanks to capitalism, while Venezuelan socialism has destroyed that resource-rich country.
Inventions only become innovations when the right institutions exist to make them improve the lives of the masses. That is what capitalism did and continues to do every single day. And that’s why capitalism has been so good for the poor.
Consider, finally, what happened when the Soviets decided to show the film version of The Grapes of Wrath as anticapitalist propaganda. In the novel and film, a poor American family is driven from their Depression-era home by the Dust Bowl. They get in their old car and make a horrifying journey in search of a better life in California. The Soviets had to stop showing the film after a short period because the Russian audiences were astonished that poor Americans were able to own a car.
Even anticapitalist propaganda can’t help but provide evidence that contradicts its own argument. The historical truth is clear: nothing has done more for the poor than capitalism. AUTHOR
Steven Horwitz is the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in the Department of Economics at Ball State University, where he also is Director of the Institute for the Study of Political Economy. He is the author of Austrian Economics: An Introduction.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-04-14 01:51:502022-04-14 01:51:50Capitalism Is Good for the Poor
Dump your stock. Take the kids to Dollywood. Unsubscribe to Disney plus. These cretins are sexually grooming your kids. Protect the children. Do not support sexualizing children.
NEW: Disney corporate president Karey Burke, the “mother of two queer children,” says the company has been “targeting Gen Z and millennials” with LGBTQIA+ “inclusion” content. Her son told her that “Gen Z is 30-40% queerer” and that Disney “better get with it.” pic.twitter.com/CYYD7NqKZg
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 7, 2022
In recent weeks, Disney has been emerging as an increasingly vocal activist for the LGBTQ+ agenda.
Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek has argued that Disney is simply seeking more diversity because it is good for business.
In that light, Chapek apologized to the LGBTQ+ community “for not being the ally you needed me to be,” and pledged to be a better ally, in a new video that journalist Christopher Rufo tweeted.
Chapek said that he is working with the “LGBTQIA+ Advisory Council” to discern different suggestions about how to take action to help the LGBTQ+ community.
He added that “words are not enough so we are taking some actions now.”
“I want you to know that your words have made a real impact on me,” he said. “I understand that we have made mistakes, and the pain that those mistakes have caused.”
“I and the leadership team are determined to use this moment as a catalyst for meaningful and lasting change,” Chapek added.
Disney has continued to insist that there is a growing queerness in our culture that now must be catered to in entertainment.
Karey Burke, head of entertainment, said that her son had told her: “Gen-Z is 30-40 percent queerer than the other generations Mom, so Disney better get with it,” the Daily Mail reported.
NEW: Disney corporate president Karey Burke, the “mother of two queer children,” says the company has been “targeting Gen Z and millennials” with LGBTQIA+ “inclusion” content. Her son told her that “Gen Z is 30-40% queerer” and that Disney “better get with it.” pic.twitter.com/CYYD7NqKZg
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 7, 2022
Disney keeps pushing the envelope beyond just verbal support of the LGBTQ+ agenda, though, as Chapek said they would.
The entertainment giant also announced to its employees that they have a new benefits program that will allow employees and their families to access gender reassignment surgeries or hormone usage, the Post Millennial reported.
“The other big area is gender identity and expression. So doing all of this work to ensure that our employees and cast can express their gender here authentically and proudly at the company. So, you know, coming up with guides on how to change your photo information about pronouns, working with our benefits team to give information about gender affirmation procedures, both for our employees who are transitioning and trans, but also our employees who have kids who are transitioning,” a man explained in a video of a Disney internal meeting, that journalist Christopher Rufo then tweeted.
NEW: Disney has adopted a benefits program to assist employees and their minor children with “gender affirmation procedures.” This type of treatment typically includes puberty blockers, breast removal, and genital surgeries for “kids who are transitioning.” pic.twitter.com/a2zSSboe0S
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 7, 2022
Disney’s strong stance has come particularly to light after Florida passed the Parental Rights in Education bill (which critics inaccurately call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill). The bill prohibits Florida teachers from teaching about sexual orientation to children in kindergarten through third grade.
Disney blatantly declared that they opposed this bill and would try to overturn it, CNBC News reported.
Since then, Disney has grown bolder in its stance of allying with the LGBTQ+ community and more evidence has been published about just how the corporation is planning to do that.
Either through catering to LGBTQ+ employees, or featuring more trans and gay characters in its content, Disney is acting on its promise.
For instance, Disney, alongside three other media corporations, announced that it will air a new public service announcement from GLAAD that will feature a transgender teen and will call for nationwide support for LGBTQ+ youth, CNBC News reported.
Chapek was serious when he announced that Disney would be taking more action.
“By now, I hope you have all read my most recent note in which I pledged to be a better ally for the LGBTQ+ community; apologized for not being the ally you needed me to be; and committed to ensuring that our company lives up to its values,” Chapek said in the video. “I meant every word.”
A new report that ranks each state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed GOP-led states, including Florida, among the top performers, with Democrat-led states dominating the bottom of the list.
The Committee To Unleash Prosperity (CUP) has released the most comprehensive analysis to date on how states handled the COVID-19 crisis. These results have also been published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
“The Report Card on the States measures and compares state performance on three metrics: the economy, education, and mortality from the virus. It answers the question: how did states do in balancing the health of their citizens, allowing their economies to remain operational and keeping job losses low, and keeping their schools open so that school-aged children did not suffer long term educational setbacks,” the committee said in a statement provided to The Daily Wire.
“Each of these three metrics were equally weighted. The states that received an F grade were New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois and Washington, D.C. These states performed poorly on every measure. They had high age-adjusted death rates; they had high unemployment and significant GDP losses, and they kept their schools shutdown much longer than almost all other states,” it added. “The top performers were Utah, Nebraska, and Vermont with Montana and Florida right behind.”
A total of 18 states received a grade of A or B. Of the top-ranking 18 states, 16 are led by Republican governors. No Democrat-led states appeared in the top five.
The “biggest mistake” observed in the study was the long-term closing of businesses and schools.
“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during Covid, particularly in blue states,” said CUP Co-Founder Stephen Moore. “We hope the results of this study will persuade governors not to close schools and businesses the next time we have a new virus variant.”
States with locked down economies averaged about two points higher in unemployment than states that did not engage in more severe lockdowns, according to the study.
Despite the emphasis on Florida’s openness versus California’s restrictions, the study showed that the adjusted death rates in the two states from COVID-19 were nearly the same.
The study also offered an important insight regarding states’ rights from the study, noting “one of the wisest policy decisions was to ultimately let the 50 states and their governors and legislators make their own pandemic response policies. Federalism worked.”
A concerning takeaway from the study regarded the relationship between unemployment and social problems. For example, for each one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate, there were 920 more suicides and 650 more homicides. Increases in mental health concerns, domestic violence, and homelessness were also associated with increased unemployment rates.
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The federal government’s latest inflation indicator showed that consumer prices skyrocketed 8.5% in March, the quickest uptick in four decades.
“We’re seeing strong inflation momentum across the board, both for goods and services,” Blerina Uruci, a U.S. economist at T. Rowe Price Group, told The Wall Street Journal.
“This is a direct result of Biden’s Federal Reserve being too preoccupied with ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ and ‘climate change’ while ignoring all the warning signs on inflation for more than a year,” said E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.
A key consumer price metric used by the government to measure inflation soared 8.5% over the last 12 months — the fastest pace of inflation since December 1981 — the Department of Labor (DOL) announced Tuesday.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 1.2% between February and March, the fastest month-over-month figure since 2005, according to the Labor Department report released Tuesday morning. Economists surveyed by the Dow Jones projected that CPI would increase 1.1% last month and 8.4% over the 12-month period ending in March, CNBC reported.
“We’re seeing strong inflation momentum across the board, both for goods and services,” Blerina Uruci, a U.S. economist at T. Rowe Price Group, told The Wall Street Journal.
The White House warned Monday that the CPI figures would be “extraordinarily elevated” ahead of the report, but blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin. Gasoline prices hit record highs in March after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which disrupted global energy markets dominated by Russian supplies.
“Because of the actions we’ve taken to address Putin — the Putin price hike, we are in a better place than we were last month,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a press briefing. “But we expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike.”
“We expect a large difference between core and headline inflation, reflecting the global disruptions in energy and food markets,” she added.
Prices at an Exxon gas station in Washington, D.C. are pictured in March. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
But core CPI, which measures prices of all goods excluding the historically-volatile energy and food categories, still rose 6.5% between April 2021 and March, the DOL said. While lower than the headline figure, the core inflation number reported Tuesday still represented its largest jump since August 1982.
Inflation has surged over the past several months: CPI surpassed the Federal Reserve’s 2% benchmark in May 2021 and has since precipitously climbed higher, according to federal data. Inflation increased a whopping 7.5% and 7.9% in January and February respectively, before Putin ever ordered troops to assault Ukraine.
Prices for new and used vehicles, rent, medical care, commodities and transportation costs like airline fares have all skyrocketed over the past year, the Tuesday report showed.
“As expected, inflation soared in March,” Joel Naroff, the chief economist of the Pennsylvania-based economic consulting firm Naroff Economics, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But it wasn’t just energy, which continued to spike as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Food, clothing, medical care and transportation were all up sharply as well.”
While recent jobs reports have shown strong growth, Americans are more concerned about inflation when it comes to the economy, according to a CBS News poll released Monday. Just 31% of those surveyed said they approved of President Joe Biden’s handling of inflation.
Small business owners listed inflation as the biggest issue facing them, a survey released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business showed.
Critics, meanwhile, have accused the Federal Reserve of failing to properly act as prices have shot up across sectors over the last 12 months. Fed officials have turned their focus too much toward social justice issues instead of monetary policy, a recent Independent Institute report concluded.
“This is a direct result of Biden’s Federal Reserve being too preoccupied with ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ and ‘climate change’ while ignoring all the warning signs on inflation for more than a year,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, told the DCNF. “The Fed is laughably behind the curve and people are demonstrably poorer because of it.”
Prior to the report Tuesday, Antoni predicted the 12-month figure to reach 8.3% and the month-over-month number to surpass 1.0%. He added that, under his projections, real wages would be down over 4.0% since Biden took office in January 2021.
Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee have repeatedlyslammed the Federal Reserve for its persistent push to address climate change in recent months. The lawmakers said the Fed is increasingly focusing on areas outside of its congressional mandate.
White House wants to blame inflation on the Russia-Ukraine war in Eastern Europe but the US itself went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and more and we didn’t see inflation like this from it
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-04-12 13:51:452022-04-12 13:51:45Inflation Under Biden Reaches Staggering New Heights
Forecasting the economy is always difficult, but the number of external and internal variables associated with this business cycle is unusually complex. Forces of recovery from lockdown and gigantic fiscal and monetary stimulation are colliding with record-high debt, overvaluation in many markets, and severe inflationary pressures that must be dealt with. If that is not enough, now we get to mix in war and a serious oil and food price shock.
The odds of recession seem to be growing. We will be very lucky if we can avoid one.
Among the difficulties are the government’s astounding mistakes concerning the Covid policy. While some latitude must be given to the novel nature of the Coronavirus, the government went overboard and basically shut down production with its “stay at home orders” and other restrictions, while at the same time bulling up demand by running huge deficits and handing out money to the public. That decrease in supply and increase in demand is partially responsible for record-high deficits and price inflation.
Apparently, our leaders thought something as complex as the international economy could be turned on and off like a light switch. It obviously has proved to be much more complex than that.
Another government agency, the Federal Reserve Board which feigns independence, deliberately advertised its desire to increase inflation, kept interest rates too low for too long, and kept injecting reserves into the banking system through continual “quantitative easing.” Never in centuries of financial history have interest rates been kept so low, for so long.
This combination of excessive monetary and fiscal policy created massive inflation first in asset prices. It has pushed stocks, bonds, and real estate into record territory. There is significant evidence that the Federal Reserve deliberately set about to elevate asset prices, claiming that a “wealth effect” would prove positive for the economy.
But the wealth effect largely benefited the ultra-wealthy that owned assets and makes large donations to political parties. For working people, homes are now too expensive for many to purchase, and even rent for apartments in most major cities now exceeds the normal rule of thumb of not exceeding one-third of income. Housing costs are squeezing the middle class.
Equity prices too have become quite elevated. The Cyclically Adjusted Price to Earnings ratio (the so-called CAPE ratio) is just one measure among many that indicates high equity prices. The average CAPE ratio for example over the past 10 years is about 17, while the market at the most recent peak was above 37. This would require a drop of more than 50% just to return to the mean average. And during bear markets, there is always a tendency to overshoot to the downside.
Markets that have been elevated by ultra-loose monetary and fiscal policy, tend to weaken and create a “reverse wealth effect” when they decline. While timing such moves is extremely difficult, it would seem reasonable that markets that have been stimulated to high levels by cheap money run the risk of retreating when then cheap money policies are reversed.
With Republicans likely to take the mid-term elections, fiscal policy will hopefully become saner, and Federal spending decline. And the Federal Reserve has vowed to fight the inflation they helped set loose on the country by raising interest rates. So, it would seem easy money policies will be reversed, at least for a while.
Equity markets have held up better. True, some smaller cap indices and foreign markets have fallen more than 20%, but the large-cap indices have not, and hence have had a “correction”, but nothing yet too traumatizing.
Thrown into this mix we must add very high energy costs. It is just not their nominal level; it is the record speed prices rose to these levels. This is taking money away from other purchases. Compounding that problem is the Biden Administration has openly declared war on American energy producers, all the while begging for more oil from dictators and enemies in Venezuela and Iran.
While Putin built up for months his army on the border of Ukraine, the West seemed quite surprised when the invasion took place. Europe seemed astounded to learn their “green” policies left them hostage to a thug like Putin.
But along came another surprise. Both Ukraine and Russia produce a lot of food, especially grain, and the invasion clearly will disrupt both trade in food and the normal planting season.
The spike in energy hits food producers outside of the conflict area. American farmers are reporting difficulties with record-high fertilizer costs, energy costs, and equipment shortages due to continued supply chain and labor issues. This will be equally true of farmers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and Australia.
Food prices will put added pressure on hard-pressed consumers and likely will create social and political turmoil in poorer regions of the world. Once again, it is not just the high prices, it is the speed that prices got to this level. Such rapid moves tend to shock the consumer and hence the economy since consumer spending is 70% of GDP. Such rapid increases in food and fuel are beyond the capacity of most individuals or corporations to adapt.
While economies do have a cyclical nature (that is why it is called the business cycle), this particular cycle seems to have an abnormal amount of government interference written into it.
Just in the last two years, it was the government that shut down the economy, touched off inflation, held interest rates too low for too long, paid people not to work, and disrupted the labor markets.
It is the government that goes to war and it is government policy that is restricting the supply of energy due to their policy of a Green New Deal.
Record high housing costs, high fuel costs, high food costs, and overall inflation coupled with supply chain problems. All brought to you by your government!
All of these factors come together at a time when markets are abnormally elevated in price, and both government and private sectors are carrying huge amounts of debt.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can raise rates high enough to kill off inflation, without harming the economy too much. This is the much-desired “soft landing.”
But that was argued before in the last two cycles (2000-2002) and (2007-2009) and the goal remained elusive. Particularly the last recession had the dangerous effect of creating a housing crisis, which in turn created a banking crisis, which lead to record bailouts of financial institutions and unprecedented monetary policy which remained in place far past the emergency period.
One of the most reliable indicators of recession has been the “inversion of the yield curve.” Normally, the longer you contract for money, the higher the interest rate. That only makes sense, since over time more bad things can happen such as default and inflation. Higher risk should create a higher interest rate. That would be a normal shape for the yield curve, i.e., longer rates are higher than shorter rates. But when short-term paper carries an interest rate higher than long-term paper, you have a major distortion in the credit markets.
In the chart above, when inversion occurs, the chart goes to zero or below. Notice inversions lead by a year or so, the onset of a recession, the gray vertical bar. The chart is interactive so you can peruse the last 40 years of history.
Very recently, the yield on short paper, the two-year Treasury bond, is about the same as it is on 10-year bonds. If short rates move above longer rates, this is the inversion of the yield curve. Such inversions have had an almost flawless record of preceding recessions.
There are some other indicators as well we can briefly touch on. The rate of change of money supply growth is starting to fall, consumer sentiment looks wobbly, real incomes have been falling for seven months, and Biden plans a massive tax increase. All these are negatives for the economy.
The probabilities grow not just for a slowdown, but a slow down with persistent price inflation. This is the dreaded “stagflation” of the miserable years of Jimmy Carter.
If indeed we do nose into recession, we hope citizens will remember all the governmental factors involved in this particular business cycle. This one the Left can’t blame on the “inherent contradictions” of capitalism.
Almost all of the factors mentioned stem from the failure of government policy or are the consequence of government manipulation and intervention which distorted values, debt levels, and market forces.
No, this recession will be caused by the inherent contradictions of socialist intervention.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-04-12 04:00:002022-04-12 04:00:00The Inherent Contradictions of Socialism
![Labor Unions [Quietly] Admit the Jones Act Is Contributing to America’s Supply Chain Problems thumbnail](https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/AFL-CIO-SUPPLY-CHAIN-FEE.jpg)
