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Governments Cannot Blame Inflation On Energy Anymore

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Governments Cannot Blame Inflation On Energy Anymore

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

At the end of February 2023, the price of oil (WTI and Brent), Henry Hub and ICE natural gas, aluminum, copper, steel, corn, wheat, and the Baltic Dry Index are below the February 2022 levels.

The Supply Chain Index and the global supply-demand balance, published by Morgan Stanley, have declined to September 2022 levels. However, the latest inflation readings are hugely concerning.

Considering the previously mentioned prices of commodities and freight, if inflation were a “cost-push” phenomenon, it would have collapsed to 2% levels already. However, both headline and core inflation measures, from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to Personal Consumer Expenditure Prices (PCE) show extremely elevated levels and rising core inflationary pressures.

We have mentioned numerous times that there is no such thing as “cost-push” inflation. It is only more units of currency going toward relatively scarce goods and services.

The monetary aspect of inflation has been proven on the way up and in the commodity correction. The Federal Reserve’s rate hikes have deflated the price of commodities despite rising geopolitical tensions, supply challenges, and robust demand growth. Rate hikes make it more expensive to store, take long positions, and finance margin calls. Powell offset the entire supply-demand tightness impact on prices.

Governments cannot blame inflation on Putin’s war or the so-called “supply chain disruptions” anymore. Printing money above demand is the only thing that makes prices rise in unison. If a price rises due to an exogenous reason but the quantity of currency remains equal, all other prices do not rise. A PCE index of 4.5% in January 2023 with all the main commodities below the January 2022 level shows how high inflationary pressures are.

Inflation is accumulated, and the narrative is trying to convince us that bringing down inflation from 8% to 5% in 2024 will be a success. No. It will be a massive destruction of more than 20% of purchasing power of citizens from inflation in the period.

However, rate hikes are not enough. Broad-based money growth needs to come down rapidly. So far, in the United States, broad money growth is flat and has declined to more reasonable levels in December 2022. However, the latest ECB reading of broad money growth in the euro area points to a 4.1% increase, which is very high compared to modest gross domestic product (GDP) growth and certainly very high compared with the estimates for 2023.

Broad money growth was too aggressive in 2022 and it may take some time to ease the inflationary pressures to a level that does not make citizens even poorer.   

Two recent papers published by the Bank of International Settlements remind us that money growth was the main culprit for the inflation surge. Borio, Hoffmann and Zakrajzek conclude that “a link can also be seen in the recent possible transition from a low- to a high-inflation regime. An upsurge in money growth preceded the inflation flare-up, and countries with stronger money growth saw markedly higher inflation. Looking at money growth would have helped to improve post-pandemic inflation forecasts, suggesting that its information value may have been neglected” (Does money growth help explain the recent inflation surge?). Reis explains that “Inflation rose because central banks allowed it to rise. Rather than highlighting isolated mistakes in judgment, this paper points instead to underlying forces that created a tolerance for inflation that persisted even after the deviation from target became large” (The burst of high inflation in 2021–22: how and why did we get here?)

The supply chain and Ukraine war excuse has vanished, but inflation remains too high. Many market participants want rate cuts and money supply growth to see higher markets, with multiple and valuation expansion. However, rate cuts are very unlikely in this scenario and central banks know they have caused a problem that will take more time than expected to correct.

Governments cannot expect inflation to correct when public spending is rising, which means higher consumption of new monetary units via deficit and debt.

Citizens are suffering these inflationary pressures via weakening real wage growth added to much higher cost of living as the prices of non-replaceable goods and services—education, healthcare, rents, and essential purchases—are rising much faster than the headline CPI suggests.

We are all poorer, and the headline is slightly lower. CPI does not mean lower prices, just a slower pace of destruction of the purchasing power of currencies.

Someone will invent another excuse to blame inflation on anything except the only thing that causes prices to rise at the same time: printing currency well above demand.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 13:00

Zelensky Berates, Threatens Unsupportive Americans

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Zelensky Berates, Threatens Unsupportive Americans

This is an example of how not to win over the American people: shame and berate them while claiming Washington’s ‘global leadership’ is in peril.

If they do not change their opinionthey will lose NATO, they will lose the clout of the United States, they will lose the leadership position they are enjoying in the world,” Zelensky said at a press conference late last week, in reference to the US public… As if the average American struggling to get by amid soaring food and cost-of-living prices stays awake at night worrying about US global “clout”:

A reporter had asked what Zelensky would tell the “growing number of Americans” who are increasingly critical of the billions in taxpayer money being shoveled into Kiev’s coffers. Officials have lately voiced concern over “Ukraine fatigue” and waning support from the public for the Biden administration’s Ukraine policies, also amid growing GOP resistance

“The US is never going to give up on a NATO member state,” Zelensky continued as part of the response. He then claimed Russia would “enter the Baltic states, NATO member states, and then the US will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the way as we are sending their [sic] sons and daughters to war.”

“They will be dying,” he then declared dramatically, before going on to claim that interrupting the flow of aid would cause Washington to “lose the support of a country with 40 million population, with millions of children.”

Zelensky then posed: “Are American children any different from ours?” 

Republican representative from Arizona Andy Biggs was one among those who quickly rebutted the Ukrainian leader’s comments, pointing out the ridiculousness of the unusually confrontational rhetoric directed at the Western public generally…

“We don’t need Zelensky lecturing Americans on what to think and do,” Rep. Biggs said on Twitter. “We have absolutely every right to question and end all aid to Ukraine.”

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 12:30

Power-Grid Attacks Up 71% And Biden Acolytes Tell Us It’s All Those White Supremacists

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Power-Grid Attacks Up 71% And Biden Acolytes Tell Us It’s All Those White Supremacists

Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

Is there anything the Biden administration can’t inject its wokester politics into?

The latest news is a disturbing report from an industry-watcher using federal data, pointing out that attacks on America’s power grid are up 71%.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which got a leaked copy of the report:

Physical attacks on the U.S. power grid rose 71% last year compared with 2021 and will likely increase this year, according to a confidential industry analysis viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

A division of the grid oversight body known as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation found that ballistic damage, intrusion and vandalism largely drove the increase. The analysis also determined that physical security incidents involving power outages have increased 20% since 2020, attributed to people frustrated by the onset of the pandemic, social tensions and economic challenges.

The NERC division, known as the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or E-ISAC, recorded the sharp increase in incidents in 2022, driven in part by a series of clustered attacks on infrastructure in the Southeast, Midwest and Pacific Northwest. One of the most significant incidents occurred in early December when attackers targeted several substations in North Carolina with gunfire, leaving roughly 45,000 people in the dark.

CBS, which also got a copy of the leaked report, added this:

The analysis by E-ISAC is the most comprehensive and includes mandatory reporting of incidents to federal agencies or NERC, as well as voluntary disclosures made in confidence. 

And while E-ISAC has determined that “overall physical security incident sharing” has increased by 11% since 2021 and 25% since 2020, analysts assess that the spike in grid-impacting incidents “is due to an actual increase in the electric industry’s risk environment and is not just the result of fluctuations in information-sharing patterns by utilities.” 

Between 2020 and 2022, E-ISAC tracked 4,493 incidents: 502 received through mandatory reporting and 3,991 through voluntary means.

The vast majority — 97% — of the incidents “resulted in no disruption of service.” But the remaining 3% of incidents resulted in “varying levels of grid impacts.” Toplines of this study were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. 

That’s disturbing stuff, signaling that our power grid is a sitting duck for predators, and with Joe Biden in charge, we can expect a response comparable to the one that he’s demonstrated in East Palestine, Ohio.  A blown out power grid could put us into the Stone Age in a matter of seconds.

Anybody doing something about this?  There wasn’t much said about it in the reports.

There was also, where it could be found, an odd focus on “white supremacists” conducting the attacks, and yes, there have apparently been a couple, as if the Russians or Chinese or other malevolent actors, such as Mexico’s cartels, wouldn’t dream of disrupting U.S. power grids for their own purposes.  The reports seen, which were oddly coordinated, all quoted experts who cited white supremacists in one form or another as being at the root of the problem.

There also was no clear explanation as to why it’s happening from either news story, it’s just that attacks are up, and they are expected to get worse.

“It’s important to note that new fencing, cameras, or better lighting isn’t going to prevent attacks. They will continue to happen,” said Brian Harrell, former assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“This is why we must invest in resilience, adding redundancy, and removing single points of failure. Certain attacks on critical infrastructure should be legally treated as domestic terrorism.”

Really, Brian?  Who is this guy?  According to a Google search, Harrell was appointed by President Trump to a couple of jobs within Homeland Security, which is a department famous for its NeverTrumps, and who also served as NERC director for critical infrastructure and then electricity for five years before that, according to his LinkedIn page.  Might he be part of the Washington swamp?

To the Wall Street Journal, whom Harrell also talked to, he brought up the old “chatter” argument:

Brian Harrell, former assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security, said there has lately been a notable increase in conversations among extremists about targeting critical infrastructure.

These groups are talking to each other, and they’re learning from each other,” he said. “It gets a lot of people’s attention when you start turning off the lights, and I think that’s what they’re craving.”

OK, fine.  But it sure as heck wasn’t specific or complete as an answer.

Other characters quoted by CBS were even more focused on white supremacists and neo-Nazis as being at the root of the attacks:

But while regulators have worried about targeting of substations for years, there is mounting concern among industry analysts that racially motivated violent extremists, lone wolves and radical environmentalists present an elevated threat, perhaps linked to more readily available information online about specific tactics, techniques and procedures. 

In January, two people were charged in connection with Christmas-Day attacks on substations in Pierce County, Washington state, impacting thousands of customers.

“We’ve seen attacks against the power grid for a number of years, and some of those attacks are simply people shooting into substations around the country for purely criminal reasons,” Kenneth Wainstein, undersecretary of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, told CBS News last week in an exclusive interview. “But some of these shootings are also being done by domestic violent extremists” who are trying to engineer a societal collapse.

This month, two people — including a known neo-Nazi — were indicted by a federal grand jury after allegedly plotting to attack five power substations in Maryland and Pennsylvania to “lay waste” to the city of Baltimore.

In the final part of the CBS report, they got to the money quote:

“The vision, in short, is that they want to take down the energy grid because if they take down the energy grid, they believe that society will then collapse,” Wainstein said.

“And out of the collapse, [they believe], will arise a white nationalist government to replace the current government. And we’ve seen this narrative online among these white nationalist groups.”

White supremacist plots targeting the grid have “dramatically increased in frequency,” according to a study released in September by The Program on Extremism at George Washington University. From 2016 to 2022, thirteen people linked to white supremacist movements have been charged in federal courts with plotting attacks on electrical infrastructure, including 11 defendants indicted after 2020.

Ah.  The old white supremacists, same as the Biden administration argues, elevating these marginal losers and lowlifes to the highest threat in the land.  Most of these dirtbags they catch are Trump-haters, but the strategy is all about Getting Trump, whom they view as the grand-daddy of white supremacism.

After all, the Bidenites have been obsessed with white supremacists, most recently targeting Catholic Latin Mass–lovers as “white supremacists” premised on Biden’s executive order to hunt them down wherever they may be as the nation’s biggest threat.  Now their allies are saying the attacks on the power grid are the work of white supremacists.  No doubt they will go hunting for them in those parts, and yes, they have turned up a few such losers.

But what’s missing here is that America has enemies.  And some of the most terrifyingly effective power grid attacks, such as the one that hit the Metcalf Station, near San Jose, in 2013, bore all the earmarks of an actual foreign enemy attack.  Mark Wauck has noted that Russia and other U.S. adversaries have plenty of motivation for retaliatory attacks against the U.S., given that many Russian infrastructure installations have gone up in flames in what one apparently credible source claims is the work of the CIA striking deep into Russian territory as part of the U.S. war effort to defend Ukraine.

So now we see an upsurge in attacks on the grid, and it’s weird stuff that only white supremacists are the focus, given the age we are in now.  We know that CBS last year brought up the possibility of Russian attacks on the grid in its February 2022 report.  This year (weird how these grid threat reports seem to happen on an annual basis each February), the possibility of Russians stepping up the attacks is absent from every news report I looked at.

The Russians couldn’t be behind any of this activity?  That would be the same Russians who launched successful grid attacks on Ukraine and Estonia in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine?  The same Russians who have engaged in hundreds of electrical grid attacks in Ukraine since the war started?  They’d never think to take that show on the road?

The Chinese, who collect amazing amounts of data from America’s land mass, including its power stations on the grid, and from America’s individual citizens, and who have been accused of manipulating the grid already, would never dream of taking out an American power grid now?  The same China that threatened to take out India’s power grid?

No, it’s just ragtag white supremacists we need to be on the lookout for to protect the grid, based on the reports out now. 

We all know that the FBI seems to be obsessed with white supremacists — at school board meetings, in the military ranks, and at Latin Masses — while catching remarkably few actual Russian and Chinese spies and saboteurs.  The last one they caught who made headlines, Charles McGonigal, was one of their own.  Might there be just a little slacking off on the core mission as money floods into the ever-expanding agency from Biden?

It’s just strange stuff that the possibility of retaliatory sabotage from nations Biden has effectively declared war on are not named as suspects for the huge upsurge in power grid attacks because those white supremacists are just too powerful.  It sounds like a spin operation, one that might be covering up something pretty serious.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 12:00

Leftists Furious As Woody Harrelson Sneaks Covid Vaccine Mandate Joke Onto SNL

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Leftists Furious As Woody Harrelson Sneaks Covid Vaccine Mandate Joke Onto SNL

On his fifth time as guest host on the now far-leftist Saturday Night Live, Harrelson entered into a monologue which seemed to catch the New York audience off guard as the joke ended with a scathing indirect indictment of Big Pharma, lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

The progressive media is, not surprisingly, furious, accusing Harrelson of not only spreading a “conspiracy theory” but being high with the Rolling Sone’s Marlow Stern claiming he was “apparently under the influence.”

The same Rolling Stone, of course, which was caught in that whole Ivermectin fabrication-cum-retraction

As if given a green light by the Pfizer C-Suite, the leftist pile-up began…

Still, the trend of celebrities and mainstream figures coming out in opposition to the draconian covid restrictions is growing along with skepticism about the vaccines, though, the starved for ratings and pro-establishment SNL is probably the last place we would expect to see such voices given a “platform.” Unless, of course, this was just a marketing ploy to end the viewership bleeding…

And while the old media – a melting ice cube still generously funded by ads from companies such as, oh, Pfizer – is losing its mind, Twitter owner Elon Musk had a clear and sobering reaction to the monologue.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 11:30

They Do Not Want Peace, And So You Need To Prepare For A Horrific Global War

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They Do Not Want Peace, And So You Need To Prepare For A Horrific Global War

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

I knew exactly what would happen when China unveiled their peace plan for the conflict in Ukraine.  The night before, I told my wife that western leaders would immediately dismiss it.  Sadly, that is precisely what happened.  Of course any peace plan proposed by China was not going to be perfect.  But for the good of humanity our leaders should be willing to at least sit down and talk with the Russians.  Because if we stay on the path that we are currently on, eventually somebody will use nuclear weapons.  And once things go nuclear, we could be facing a nightmare scenario in which hundreds of millions of people die.

This is not a game.

At some point, peace talks may become impossible.  So if we have an opportunity to talk now, we should grab it.

But instead, our leaders made it abundantly clear that they aren’t even interested in considering China’s peace plan…

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking on CNN, brushed off the Chinese proposal, saying it should have ended after the first bullet point, which calls for “respecting the sovereignty of all countries.”

“This war could end tomorrow, if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine and withdrew its forces,” he said.

Asked about the proposal, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “China doesn’t have much credibility” in light of its failure to condemn Putin’s war.

And Volodymyr Zelensky is completely rejecting the idea of ever negotiating with Vladimir Putin

The Ukrainian president has repeatedly rejected the idea of negotiating a peace deal that would see Ukraine lose any of its territory. Speaking on Friday, he said he would not negotiate with Putin – even though he was prepared to speak to him before the war started.

“It is not the same man. There is nobody to talk to there,” he said.

I think that Zelensky would see things quite differently if he was one of the men that was being forced into the meat grinder in eastern Ukraine.

According to a former U.S. Marine that is fighting there, the “average life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is just four hours”…

The average life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is just four hours, a former US Marine fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas told ABC News.

“It’s been pretty bad on the ground. A lot of casualties. The life expectancy is around four hours on the front line,” American Troy Offenbecker said.

It is a really, really horrible war.

But those that are far from the front lines can afford to talk about how glorious the war is

Just one day before the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion, the official Twitter account for the NATO military alliance has come under criticism for a post that said Ukraine is “hosting one of the great epics of this century” and compared the war to Hollywood movies.

The post, which quoted a Ukrainian soldier named Pavlo, said: “We are Harry Potter and William Wallace, the Na’vi and Han Solo. We’re escaping from Shawshank and blowing up the Death Star. We are fighting with the Harkonnens and challenging Thanos.”

The idea of comparing the war, which has claimed thousands of lives, seen widespread destruction, and destabalised the world’s food and energy supplies, to fictional characters was quickly deried by many on the social media platform.

I would like to see leaders from both sides be forced to serve on the front lines.

If that ever happened, this war would end really quick.

Sadly, a conflict with Russia is apparently not enough, and so the Biden administration is now relentlessly provoking the Chinese.

This week, a new round of sanctions that were announced by the Biden administration actually included entities located inside China

The White House has announced yet another package of sweeping sanctions targeting Russia on the one-year anniversary of its brutal invasion of Ukraine – with new efforts to target third countries including China for sanctions evasion.

And it is being reported that the U.S. will soon “quadruple” that number of U.S. troops in Taiwan…

The US is expected to quadruple the number of forces deployed to Taiwan in the coming months as tensions with Beijing continue to simmer.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Pentagon plans to deploy between 100 and 200 troops to the self-ruled island, up from around 30 a year ago.

Service members from the Marines and the special forces have been sent to Taiwan in the past and the number has fluctuated over the years.

The Chinese consider Taiwan to be their sovereign territory.

This is something that they believe with a passion.

And so the fact that the Biden administration will be sending more U.S. troops to the island has really pissed them off

A commentator for the Global Times, a media project of the Chinese Communist Party, issued a threat to the United States on Thursday night, intimating that China would not hesitate to engage U.S. forces stationed in Taiwan if the Chinese launched an invasion of the island nation.

Hu Xijin, formerly the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, reacted to a Wall Street Journal report about U.S. troops traveling to Taiwan by calling it “illegal” and suggesting that the Chinese would treat them as enemy combatants.

“It’s illegal for these US soldiers to go to Taiwan and Chinese mainland won’t take any responsibility for their safety,” tweeted Hu. “If we take military action when necessary, they’ll be wiped out together with the resisting Taiwan troops. They can also be eliminated first as the invading army.”

But most Americans don’t understand any of this.

Most Americans have absolutely no idea that we are literally on the verge of a war with China.

Unfortunately, such a conflict is getting a little bit closer with each passing day.  In fact, we just witnessed a very alarming incident over the South China Sea

A voice, saying it’s coming from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) airport, crackles over the radio of the US Navy P-8 Poseidon as a CNN crew, given rare access aboard the US flight, listens in.

“American aircraft. Chinese airspace is 12 nautical miles. Not approaching any more or you bear all responsibility,” it says.

For some reason, the U.S. Navy aircraft was carrying a CNN crew, and the Chinese fighter jet got so close to them that they “could make out the red star on the tail fins and the missiles it was armed with”

In a few minutes, a Chinese fighter jet armed with air-to-air missiles intercepts the US plane, nestling in just 500 feet off its port side.

The Chinese fighter jet was so close, the CNN crew could see the pilots turning their heads to look at them – and could make out the red star on the tail fins and the missiles it was armed with.

Why does the Biden administration see the need to endlessly provoke China at a moment like this?

It is madness.

We could easily find ourselves involved in conflicts with both Russia and China at the same time, and I have been precisely warning of such a scenario for a very long time.

Unfortunately, we have a hothead in the White House that is in an advanced stage of mental decline.

And he is surrounded by irrational warmongers such as Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and Victoria Nuland.

They do not want peace.

So global war is coming, and I would strongly encourage you to get prepared for such an outcome.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 11:00

Papers Cancel ‘Dilbert’ After Adams Tells Whites To ‘Stay Away’ From Blacks

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Papers Cancel ‘Dilbert’ After Adams Tells Whites To ‘Stay Away’ From Blacks

Hundreds of newspapers will no longer carry the long-running “Dilbert” office cartoon after creator Scott Adams said white people should “stay the fuck away” from blacks, a demographic he called a “hate group.”  

Those remarks in a recent episode of his “Real Coffee with Scott Adams” podcast came after he shared the unsettling results of a Rasmussen poll. When asked if they agree with the statement “It’s ok to be white,” 26% of blacks disagreed and 21% weren’t sure. 

In addition to the USA Today Network — which includes the Arizona Republic, St. Augustine Record, Courier-Journal (KY), Austin American-Statesman and hundreds more — the Washington Post, Los Angeles TimesSan Antonio Express-News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune and Cleveland Plain Dealer were among other individual papers racing to drop Adams like a hot potato

“By Monday, I should be mostly canceled,” said Adams on his YouTube channel. “So most of my income will be gone by next week. My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can’t come back from this.”

Adams put forward a seemingly paradoxical attempt to clarify his intended message, saying:

  • “Everyone should be treated as an individual”    and
  • “You should also avoid any group that doesn’t respect you, even if there are people within the group who are fine” 

As they dropped Dilbert, newspapers issued statements condemning Adams. John Hiner, VP of content for Michigan’s MLive Media, said the group has “zero tolerance for racism. And we certainly will not spend our money supporting purveyors of it.” 

As is typically the case with cancellations, Hiner chose not to provide details of Adams’ remarks, and also told readers not to research them and make their own judgments: “I will not characterize Adams’ racist views or even provide a link to the video….My advice: Save yourself the poison.” 

ZeroHedge is more respectful of its readership, so here are some key excerpts of the segment that triggered a cancellation wave that’s sure to grow exponentially larger in the coming hours and days: 

“Add ’em together: That is 47% of black respondents who were not willing to say it’s ok to be white

As you know, I’ve been identifying as black for a while — years now — ’cause I like to be on the winning team and I like to help. I always thought, well if you help the black community, that’s sort of the biggest lever. You know, you can find the biggest benefit…So I thought, well, that’s the hardest thing and the biggest benefit, so I’d like to focus a lot of my life resources in helping black Americans — so much so that I started identifying as black to just be to be on the team I was helping.

But it turns out that nearly half of that team doesn’t think I’m ok to be white…I have to say, this is the first political poll that’s ever changed my activities…As of today, I’m going to re-identify as white, because I don’t want to be a member of a hate group. I’ve accidentally joined a hate group. If nearly half of all blacks are not ok with white people — according to this poll, not according to me — that’s a hate group…and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. 

And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people. Just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get away.

There’s no fixing this...I think it makes no sense whatsoever as a white citizen of America to try to help black citizens anymore…I’m gonna back off from being helpful to black America, because it doesn’t seem like it pays off. I’ve been doing it all my life, and the only outcome is I get called a racist…It makes no sense to help black Americans if you’re white. It’s over. Don’t even think it’s worth trying. Totally not trying.

We should be friendly. Like, I’m not saying start a war or do anything bad…I’m just saying get away.”  

Surprisingly, as we write this, the video version (and his channel) are still accessible on YouTube: 

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 10:30

Watch: Polish Media Accidentally Captures Zelensky’s Body Double On Camera

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Watch: Polish Media Accidentally Captures Zelensky’s Body Double On Camera

Six months ago Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky suggested to western media outlets that Vladimir Putin “might be dead” or that he was fighting health problems, and that the Russian government was using a body double to fool the public. 

Ironically, it is Zelensky that appears to have been caught using a body double on camera by the Polish media during Joe Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine. 

The footage seems to have been accidental, but it does reinforce the old adage – When the establishment accuses you of doing something, it’s actually a confession of what they are doing. 

Now, if only someone can capture evidence that Biden is being controlled remotely by ChatGPT, the “Russian bot” narrative can come full circle…

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 09:20

The Most Violent Cities In The World

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The Most Violent Cities In The World

Out of the world’s 50 most violent cities, 38 are in Latin America including 17 in Mexico.

The Mexico Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice releases its findings on the homicide rate in cities with populations over 300,000 around the world every year.

Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the following infographic, the world’s top 10 most violent cities, with Mexican city Colima in first place and New Orleans in the U.S. state of Louisiana ranking eighth.

Infographic: The Most Violent Cities in the World | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, had ranked first in previous editions, but due to the situation in the country, data is no longer available. The majority of the violence in Latin America can be attributed to drug trafficking, gang warfare and political instability.

Another country that appears among the top 50 is Brazil at ten cities, the highest ranked being Mossoró in the country’s North in the 11th spot.

Also featured on the list frequently are Colombia (six cities starting from Cali in rank 32) and South Africa (four cities, including Cape Town and two more ranked in the top 20).

The continental United States racks up seven mentions in total. Other than New Orleans, Baltimore (rank 17), Detroit (rank 23), Memphis (rank 25), Cleveland (rank 27), Milwaukee (rank 39) and Philadelphia (rank 46) make the list.

San Juan in Puerto Rico can be found in rank 41.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/26/2023 – 08:45

Are Americans Trying To Eat Healthy?

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Are Americans Trying To Eat Healthy?

Around half of Americans are healthy eaters, at least according to their own testimonies.

As Katharina Buchholz reports, according to Statista Consumer Insights, 50 percent of Americans claim to actively try to eat healthy. 

Infographic: Are Americans Trying to Eat Healthy? | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

The attitude is most prevalent among Baby Boomers at 58 percent agreeing, but not much lower among Gen Z, where 44 percent said they were pursuing the aim.

At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found out that more than 36 percent of Americans are consuming fast food regularly, to the extend that on any given day, a third of Americans is eating from fast food restaurants.

In a separate survey by the Cleveland Clinic, 46 percent of U.S. adults said a barrier to eating healthy foods was their price. Almost a quarter of Americans stated that they had to little time to cook and prepare healthy foods, while a high 20 percent said they didn’t know how to cook healthy foods.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/25/2023 – 23:00

Dictators Bent On Building Military Empires: The Cost Of The Nation’s Endless Wars

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Dictators Bent On Building Military Empires: The Cost Of The Nation’s Endless Wars

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Autocrats only understand one word: no, no, no. No you will not take my country, no you will not take my freedom, no you will not take my future… A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never be able to ease the people’s love of liberty. Brutality will never grind down the will of the free.”

– President Biden

Oh, the hypocrisy.

To hear President Biden talk about the Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, you might imagine that Putin is the only dictator bent on expanding his military empire through the use of occupation, aggression and oppression.

Yet the United States is no better, having spent much of the past half-century policing the globe, occupying other countries, and waging endless wars.

What most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with propping up a military industrial complex that has its sights set on world domination.

War has become a huge money-making venture, and the U.S. government, with its vast military empire, is one of its best buyers and sellers.

America’s part in the showdown between Russia and the Ukraine has already cost taxpayers more than $112 billion and shows no signs of abating.

Clearly, it’s time for the U.S. government to stop policing the globe.

The U.S. military reportedly has more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty, with more than 200,000 of them stationed overseas in nearly every country in the world.

American troops are stationed in Somalia, Iraq and Syria. In Germany, South Korea and Japan. In Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman. In Niger, Chad and Mali. In Turkey, the Philippines, and northern Australia.

Those numbers are likely significantly higher in keeping with the Pentagon’s policy of not fully disclosing where and how many troops are deployed for the sake of “operational security and denying the enemy any advantage.” As investigative journalist David Vine explains, “Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history.”

Incredibly, America’s military forces aren’t being deployed abroad to protect our freedoms here at home. Rather, they’re being used to guard oil fields, build foreign infrastructure and protect the financial interests of the corporate elite. In fact, the United States military spends about $81 billion a year just to protect oil supplies around the world.

The reach of America’s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”

This is how a military empire occupies the globe.

After 20 years of propping up Afghanistan to the tune of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives lost, the U.S. military may have finally been forced out, but those troops represent just a fraction of our military presence worldwide.

In an ongoing effort to police the globe, American military servicepeople continue to be deployed to far-flung places in the Middle East and elsewhere.

This is how the military industrial complex, aided and abetted by the likes of Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and others, continues to get rich at taxpayer expense.

Yet while the rationale may keep changing for why American military forces are policing the globe, these wars abroad aren’t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer, are certainly not making America great again, and are undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt.

War spending is bankrupting America.

Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.

In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.

The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.

Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $4.7 trillion waging its endless wars.

Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour.

In fact, the U.S. government has spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.

Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.

Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.

Unfortunately, even if we were to put an end to all of the government’s military meddling and bring all of the troops home today, it would take decades to pay down the price of these wars and get the government’s creditors off our backs.

As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”

War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors. Indeed, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”

Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked.

A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:

$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.

That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government.

Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.

Americans have thus far allowed themselves to be spoon-fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts, the ruined lives, the ravaged countries, the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands, or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone.

That needs to change.

The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It’s making the world more dangerous. It is estimated that the U.S. military drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes. Since 9/11, the United States government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 human beings. Every one of those deaths was paid for with taxpayer funds.

The U.S. government is not making America any safer. It’s exposing American citizens to alarming levels of blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s international activities. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America’s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback.

The 9/11 attacks were blowback. The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback. The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback. The Fort Hood shooter, a major in the U.S. Army, was blowback.

The U.S. military’s ongoing drone strikes will, I fear, spur yet more blowback against the American people.

The war hawks’ militarization of America—bringing home the spoils of war (the military tanks, grenade launchers, Kevlar helmets, assault rifles, gas masks, ammunition, battering rams, night vision binoculars, etc.) and handing them over to local police, thereby turning America into a battlefield—is also blowback.

James Madison was right: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” As Madison explained, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

We are seeing this play out before our eyes.

The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.

Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of an overhauling.

At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:

The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

This is the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us more than 50 years ago not to let endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, was alarmed by the rise of the profit-driven war machine that emerged following the war—one that, in order to perpetuate itself, would have to keep waging war.

We failed to heed his warning.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, war is the enemy of freedom.

As long as America’s politicians continue to involve us in wars that bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, and push the nation that much closer to eventual collapse, “we the people” will find ourselves in a perpetual state of tyranny.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/25/2023 – 22:30