While global optimism for 2023 has dropped, despite everything, the world is still on average holding out more hope than not.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, according to the latest data from Ipsos, a global average of 65 percent of respondents say they feel optimistic that 2023 will be better than 2022. Yet, as Statista’s chart shows, that’s down 12 percentage points from last year and the lowest score recorded since Ipsos started running the survey.
Of course, a global average as a single figure hides the differences between countries.
For instance, when looking at an international breakdown, Brazil has a relatively high share of people feeling positive about the coming year. Out of the 32 countries polled, it comes out on top, with 85 percent of respondents feeling more optimistic about 2023 than 2022. This has risen slightly from last year when 82 percent of respondents said they felt optimistic looking ahead.
At the opposite end of the spectrum stands Japan. The country has only 36 percent of its respondents feeling more positive about next year, which is an 18 percentage point drop from one year before. This is supported by a similar survey carried out earlier this year by Nippon, which similarly found that respondents, especially the younger generation, felt little hope that their country was set to improve anytime soon, partly due to the country having entered an era of declining population and low economic growth.
The UK has a more equal split. Where a total of 87 percent of Britons considered 2022 to be a particularly bad year for the country, over 80 percent of respondents also said it’s likely prices will increase faster than people’s incomes next year, that inflation will be higher in 2023 than 2022, and that interest rates will grow further still.
We are careening directly into an abyss of war, pain and misery, and our leaders are thunderously applauding as it happens. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Washington this week because he wanted more money, and our politicians in Washington definitely did not disappoint him. Even though we had already given Ukraine far more money than the rest of the world combined, our politicians agreed to give him another colossal mountain of cash. On some level, we all have to respect Zelenskyy’s skills as a con man. Even though he has banned the main opposition party in Ukraine, and even though he has banned all television stations that were critical of him, and even though he just banned an entire ancient Christian denomination, our politicians continue to worship him like some sort of a pop music star. Zelenskyy has become an extremely oppressive dictator that has set himself up to rule Ukraine for as long as he wants, but members of Congress from both parties continue to hail him as a “champion of democracy” that deserves our unquestioning support.
What makes this so dangerous is that Zelenskyy has been trying very hard to pull the United States into his war with Russia.
To see such an honor bestowed upon a cruel foreign dictator that is ruthlessly oppressing anyone that opposes him should nauseate all of us.
And when Zelenskyy arrived to deliver his speech to a joint session of Congress, he was greeted with a standing ovation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (@ZelenskyyUa) receives a standing ovation from lawmakers as he enters the House chamber to address a joint meeting of Congress.
It isn’t just the Democrats that have fallen for Zelenskyy’s act.
At this point, Mitch McConnell says that showering Ukraine with money should be our “number one priority”…
“Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That’s how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”
Thankfully, there are still at least a few voices of reason that can see exactly what Zelenskyy is trying to do.
Tucker Carlson: Zelensky shows up to DC looking like a strip club manager and demanding money. Our aging leadership class will give him billions from our crumbling economy pic.twitter.com/aIvgiQvkJ0
But no matter how hard Zelenskyy oppresses his own people, our politicians are going to continue to shower him with more money, and that is because Zelenskyy has done an amazing job of positioning his war as the most important “current thing”. I really like how John Nolte made this point in one of his most recent articles…
Zelensky has brilliantly — brilliantly! — positioned himself to be The Thing Through Which The Establishment Proves Its Purity.
That means the only questions anyone dares ask about Zelensky and Ukraine are…
Who can give Ukraine the most money?
Who can give Ukraine the most weapons?
Who can give Ukraine the most praise?
Who can lick Zelensky’s boots the cleanest?
Zelensky is getting everything he wants and more, including America flirting with nuclear war. Why? Because he was savvy enough to crack the code of the shallow, insecure, conformist idiots we elect and reelect as our leaders.
Nolte is quite right.
And once a con man has identified a “golden goose”, he is just going to keep coming back again and again.
The Biden administration will send to Ukraine the most advanced air defense weapon in its arsenal, the Patriot missile system, officials said Wednesday, marking the most significant addition to American military support for the government in Kyiv in months.
Meanwhile, the Russians continue to escalate the conflict as well.
In fact, it appears that the Russians have been very busy moving tanks into position for another major offensive campaign from the north.
If both sides just keep escalating matters, we will eventually reach a point where somebody crosses a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.
We have been pushed to the brink of nuclear war, and the Russians are getting ready to officially deploy their new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles in January…
Putin said on Wednesday during a meeting with military chiefs that he aimed to deploy his terrifying RS-28 Sarmat missile – nicknamed Satan-2 – in January.
The world-ending missile can blast targets at almost 16,000mph – meaning it has the potential to obliterate the UK 1,600 miles away in just six minutes.
Sadly, the quote that you just read is not an exaggeration.
Each Sarmat can reportedly carry up to 15 independently-targetable nuclear warheads.
That means that one missile goes up, and 15 warheads come down.
And each one of those warheads can instantly wipe out an entire major city.
The Sarmat is the most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile in the entire world by a wide margin, and we have no way to defend against them.
So maybe we should think twice before getting into a nuclear war with Russia.
Unfortunately, our leaders seem to have gone completely mad at this point, and of course our leaders in Washington are simply a reflection of what has happened to the rest of our society.
Sitting in a hotel bar in San Francisco, going through what’s become a nightly “remembering to eat” ritual. As readers here know, this has been a crazy month, during which time I lost track of a lot of things. I’ve been an absentee father during the holidays, which is contemptible, and also remiss when it comes to responsibilities to subscribers to this site, omitting to even take time to explain basic things, which I’ll try to do now.
Once again today we did not publish the written America This Week, which frankly will have to stay on hold for at least a little while longer. Also once again, I’ve abused the patience of podcast partner Walter Kirn, who’s been a great friend during this time and deserves better. We will do another makeup episode early next week, and I’ll announce the details as soon as I can.
The reason for all this of course is the Twitter Files story. This last week saw the FBI describe Lee Fang, Michael Shellenberger and me as “conspiracy theorists” whose “sole aim” is to discredit the agency. That statement will look ironic soon, as we spent much of this week learning about other agencies and organizations that can now also be discredited thanks to these files. Selfishly I may release some of that information in the morning, to be done with it so I can be fully-present Dad on the actual holiday.
A group of us spent the last weeks reading thousands of documents. For me a lot of that time was spent learning how Twitter functioned, specifically its relationships with government. How weird is modern-day America? Not long ago, CIA veterans tell me, the information above the “tearline” of a U.S. government intelligence cable would include the station of origin and any other CIA offices copied on the report.
I spent much of today looking at exactly similar documents, seemingly written by the same people, except the “offices” copied at the top of their reports weren’t other agency stations, but Twitter’s Silicon Valley colleagues: Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, even Wikipedia. It turns out these are the new principal intelligence outposts of the American empire. A subplot is these companies seem not to have had much choice in being made key parts of a global surveillance and information control apparatus, although evidence suggests their Quislingian executives were mostly all thrilled to be absorbed. Details on those “Other Government Agencies” soon, probably tomorrow.
One happy-ish thought at month’s end:
Sometime in the last decade, many people — I was one — began to feel robbed of their sense of normalcy by something we couldn’t define. Increasingly glued to our phones, we saw that the version of the world that was spat out at us from them seemed distorted. The public’s reactions to various news events seemed off-kilter, being either way too intense, not intense enough, or simply unbelievable. You’d read that seemingly everyone in the world was in agreement that a certain thing was true, except it seemed ridiculous to you, which put you in an awkward place with friends, family, others. Should you say something? Are you the crazy one?
I can’t have been the only person to have struggled psychologically during this time. This is why these Twitter files have been such a balm. This is the reality they stole from us! It’s repulsive, horrifying, and dystopian, a gruesome history of a world run by anti-people, but I’ll take it any day over the vile and insulting facsimile of truth they’ve been selling. Personally, once I saw that these lurid files could be used as a road map back to something like reality — I wasn’t sure until this week — I relaxed for the first time in probably seven or eight years.
Something tells me the coming year is going to be a better one. Happy Holidays, everyone. Enjoy your loved ones, ignore the rest, and see you all again soon.
US Says Putin Finally “Acknowledging Reality” After 300 Days Of War
The Biden administration has responded to a Thursday speech by Vladimir Putin wherein the Russian leader used the word “war” for the first time to refer to what for ten months he previously only called a “special military operation”. The State Department on Friday called on Putin to keep “acknowledging reality” and to pull his troops from Ukraine.
“Since Feb. 24, the United States and rest of the world knew that Putin’s ‘special military operation’ was an unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine. Finally, after 300 days, Putin called the war what it is,” a State Department spokesperson said.
“As a next step in acknowledging reality, we urge him to end this war by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine,” the US official added.
The statement explained that regardless of Putin’s now apparent shift in terminology, it remains that “Russia’s aggression against its sovereign neighbor has resulted in death, destruction and displacement.”
“The people of Ukraine no doubt find little consolation in Putin stating the obvious, nor do the tens of thousands of Russian families whose relatives have been killed fighting Putin’s war,” the spokesperson said.
Putin had said at a Thursday televised news conference: “Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” adding that “This is what we are striving for.”
Putin’s unprecedented word choice of “war” came the day after Ukrainian President Zelensky visited Washington and met with President Biden, and gave an address before Congress, wherein he pledged “absolute victory”. Kremlin officials have throughout the invasion carefully avoided using the term “war” in describing the Ukraine invasion.
US policymakers and defense officials have been forecasting a “very extended conflict” which could last “years” – and at the same time there seems little appetite for any level of dialogue or peace talks on either side.
I’m not going to lie – even as a grown man, I love watching Christmas specials. Snoopy decorating his dog house. The Grinch folding up the Christmas tree like an umbrella and stuffing it up the chimney. And Frosty the snowman melting in the greenhouse.
There are a lot of great memories in those shows.
But today, in the spirit of the season, I’m going to mess with one of your Christmas special memories!
My all-time favorite Christmas special is Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved Rudolph.
I still do.
It was different then though. We had to wait until the shows came on TV. I think that’s lost on a lot of people today in our world of on-demand streaming. I used to scour the TV guide from our local newspaper beginning in the first week of December (boy, I’m dating myself) eagerly waiting to see Rudolph pop up on the schedule.
Mom always made an event out of it, making me a special Christmas treat – maybe a hot chocolate or apple cider. Sometimes, I even got freshly baked cookies.
Here’s a confession: when I was really little, the abominable snow monster horrified me.
In retrospect, I have to wonder why. Remember when he tipped over? The bottom of his feet looked just like the bottom of my footie pajamas. How did I not notice that? How did I not realize that the abominable was a total fake?
I guess a 5-year-old has limited powers of observation.
But other than being scared of the PJ-footed snow monster, I loved the show as a little kid. And as I said, I still do.
Now, as a guy who writes about gold and silver for a living, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Yukon Cornelius. As you recall, he wandered the north in search of silver and gold. But I bet you don’t know the whole story behind old Yukon. Because the version most of us watched on TV as kids cut it out.
I kid you not!
You’ll recall that when Cornelius meets Rudolph and the elf Hermey, he launched into a dramatic and emphatic introduction.
The name’s Yukon Cornelius, the greatest prospector in the north! And you know, it’s rich with gold! Gold! Gold and silver! Silver and gold! Wahooo!”
He punctuates his greeting by tossing his pickaxe in the air, licking it, and declaring, “Nothin’.”
This pickaxe toss and lick behavior repeat throughout the show. When you stop and think about it, it’s kind of weird. And maybe a little gross. But I never thought about that as a kid. Of course, this is the same kid who didn’t notice the snow monster was wearing footed pajamas.
On a side note, how did his tongue not freeze to the metal in the frozen arctic?
Anyway, you almost certainly think Yukon was hoping to discover riches in the form of gold and/or silver. That’s certainly the impression the show gives you.
Well, you think wrong!
He’s not looking for gold or silver!
Now for those of you who grew up on network TV, you know that things were often edited for commercials. This was the case with Rudolph. CBS deleted the scene that explains exactly what Yukon was looking for. Rick Goldschmidt wrote a book on Rudolph and calls this “the most significant deleted scene.” An article in the Huffington Post explains what happened.
It comes right after Rudolph guides Santa through the air to the Island of Misfit Toys. Rudolph’s parents, Donner and Mrs. Donner, Rudolph’s girlfriend, Clarice, and Cornelius are featured, while Donner says, ‘That’s my buck!’ finally confirming Rudolph’s dad is no longer ashamed, as Goldschmidt points out. But more illuminating is that the scene finally gives an answer as to why Cornelius kept licking his pickax throughout the special. In this deleted scene, Cornelius throws his ax in the air, lets it strike the ground and then, after licking it as he has been wont to do, declares, ‘Peppermint! What I’ve been searching for all my life! I’ve struck it rich. I’ve got me a peppermint mine … Wahoooo!’”
And here’s the deleted scene. You’re welcome!
Interestingly, if you’re just a tad bit older than I am, you may actually remember the deleted scene. It last aired on TV in 1964. It’s also on the DVD. So, if you have watched it with your kids, you already knew this little secret. And I feel better that I didn’t smash your childhood memories.
Anyway, I get the whole peppermint Christmas motif, but I don’t really like peppermint. I’d rather have chocolate. And let’s be honest, Yukon was a little misguided. I’ll take gold and silver, thank you very much.
On behalf of everybody here at SchiffGold, I wish you a wonderful holiday season!
Credit Suisse Sues, Files Criminal Complaint, Against Financial Blog “Harshly Critical” Of The Bank
Today in things not to do when you’re not panicking news…
Credit Suisse has reportedly filed a criminal complaint against a financial blog in Zurich, escalating a legal attack the bank has been putting in place over reader comments that were appended to a series of stories the blog ran about the bank earlier this year.
Bloomberg reports that the complaint follows a 265 page civil lawsuit that was filed over the comments, which the bank said “were harshly critical of it and some of its executives”, including the bank’s new CEO Ulrich Koerner.
The civil claim against the publisher was for 300,000 Swiss francs ($322,000) and demanded the retraction of comments on the blogs. The bank has argued that the blog, Inside Paradeplatz, should have exercised more discretion in picking what comments it allowed to publish.
Filing a criminal claim now escalates the situation, as a conviction of defamation could result in a fine or up to three years in prison, Bloomberg wrote on Friday.
Credit Suisse would not comment on the complaint and simply told Bloomberg it had “decided to proceed with a legal review of the legality of reader comments and texts. We are taking this step to protect our employees, who are regularly the subject of abusive and disparaging comments on the blog.”
Sure sounds like everything is going just peachy over at Credit Suisse…
Extreme cold temperatures are pressuring power grids in the eastern half of the US. Rolling blackouts have affected many Americans, some of which have taken to Twitter to complain:
18 degrees this morning and the woke idiots at Duke Energy are running “rolling blackouts” to conserve electricity. Thank God for a fossil fueled generator and wood burning fireplace! pic.twitter.com/0pIhZV7lDT
Memphis is under a mandatory rolling blackout and boil water advisory. Meanwhile, TVA is allowing the NFL to fully power Nissan Stadium in Nashville. Story below. #poweroutage#Titans#TVA#MLGW#Memphis
PJM Interconnection’s power generation mix this morning is primarily coal, natural gas, nuclear, and crude oil. So much for unreliable renewables helping out when the regional grid that supplies power to 65 million Americans in 13 states and the District of Columbia is in an emergency.
It’s time for Americans to realize renewables are unreliable — also, decommissioning fossil fuel power generation in the name of ‘climate change’ is idiotic at this point.
* * *
The powerful winter storm that battered a large swath of the eastern half of the US has left behind an Arctic chill Saturday morning. A regional power grid with 65 million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia has declared a rare emergency, over a million people have no power, air travel remains disrupted, and reports of highway accidents are some of the most trending topics this morning.
Let’s begin with PJM Interconnection, a regional power grid that stretches from Illinois to New Jersey, which declared a Stage 2 emergency late Friday and asked customers to conserve electricity due to the rising risk of grid instability.
“PJM is asking consumers to reduce their use of electricity, if health permits, between the hours of 4 a.m. on December 24, 2022, and 10 a.m. on December 25, 2022,” PJM wrote in a press release.
PJM asks consumers to conserve electricity in the face of continuing frigid temperatures. https://t.co/ks01AvBr9g
PJM’s request for customers to reduce power comes as the grid manager is trying to prevent a Stage 3 emergency, which would result in rolling blackouts across the 13 states and the District of Columbia.
“Demand soared more than 9 gigawatts above forecasts Friday evening — much faster and higher than anticipated. That’s the equivalent of about 9 million homes just popping up on the grid on a typical day,” Bloomberg said.
PJM spokeswoman Susan Buehler told Bloomberg that Stage 2 emergency would “certainly be enough” to avert blackouts across the regional grid because the Arctic blast is only temporary.
In the Carolinas, Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, and several other utilities, have asked customers to conserve power due to energy shortfalls.
Duke wrote in a statement Saturday morning it has “implemented load shedding steps that include interruptions in service.” This means power is being curtailed for some customers to protect the grid from collapse.
With power grids in an emergency across the eastern half of the US, there are also a million customers without power — most outages are in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Maine.
Bloomberg said 200 million Americans — around 60% of the country — are under winter weather alerts this morning.
The Ambient Weather network of weather stations across the US shows much of the country is below freezing this morning.
And for the third day, travel remains disrupted. FlightAware showed over 1,600 flights within, into, or out of the US were canceled. Another 1,700 were delayed. Most of the disruptions were at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, O’Hare International Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport.
And it wasn’t just air travel that experienced troubles. As millions of Americans hit the highways to see loved ones, there were numerous reports of massive pileup crashes. One of the most spoken about this morning is the 46-car pileup on the Ohio Turnpike.
🚨#BREAKING: Mass Casualty Incident’ declared following pileup on Interstate 75 in Ohio
Multiple emergency crews are responding too a very serious accident is occurring on I-75N. With Mass Casualty Incident declared reports of over 100+ vehicles are piled up pic.twitter.com/TgfCm852Si
The good news is the unbearable cold blast will begin to dissipate next week. Average temperatures across the Lower 48 will jump from 24 degrees Fahrenheit to over 50 degrees by January 1.
Hoping for a White Christmas?
There’s not one peep from climate alarmists about the cold blast after they spewed nonsense this past summer about the world imminently burning. ‘Trust the science,’ they say…
British Woman Arrested For Silently Praying Near Abortion Clinic
Americans tend to believe that freedom of speech is a value represented across all of western culture from the US to Europe to Australia and beyond. However, this is simply not the case. While there have been numerous attempts to degrade the 1st Amendment in America, being arrested outright by police for your thoughts alone is not a low we have sunk to yet. In the UK and through most of Europe it’s a different story.
UK laws designed to prevent the obstruction of businesses have opened the door to policies called Public Space Protection Orders, which create a “buffer zone” around certain areas or buildings and prohibit activities that, in the words of UK authorities, foster “anti-social behavior.” Yes, this is as Orwellian as one could imagine, but it gets even worse.
In October, a PSPO was declared around an abortion facility in Bournemouth, U.K. A picture of a sign, obtained by ChristianConcern.com, outlined where a number of activities were banned. Among them were “prayer or counseling” as well as “holding vigils where members audibly pray, recite scripture, genuflect, sprinkle holy water on the ground or cross themselves if they perceive a service-users is passing by.” These activities do not obstruct the operations of the clinic in question, but they do make pro-abortion advocates angry.
In other words, the neighborhoods around abortion clinics are now consecrated ground where even private thoughts against the establishment’s practices are illegal. If the simple presence of Christians near the building makes people uncomfortable, then they have broken the law and can be arrested. It sounds ridiculous, but here is the proof:
A pro-life woman was arrested earlier this month for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, U.K. on the grounds that she had breached a speech buffer zone established by the local city council. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was subsequently charged with four counts of failing to comply with a Public Space Protection Order.
The greater threat inherent in these kinds of laws is that they can be broadly interpreted and are often broadly applied over time. A PSPO might apply to one building this year, and next year it could apply to an entire city, or the entire country. Once a government is given the power to arbitrate “anti-social behavior” and punish citizens for something as subjective ideas that offend other citizens, that society is now on the fast track to full blown tyranny. The government is no longer a protector of rights and is now an oppressor of liberties.
It would appear that the UK, in legal terms, is utterly lost.
The United States and the Netherlands are set to buy dozens of T-72 tanks from Morocco and then forward the weapons on to Ukraine, in a deal negotiated in secret between Washington and Rabat. Notably, the move marks a deviation from Morocco’s neutral stance toward the conflict with Russia.
Under the agreement, the US and the Netherlands will buy 90 T-72B Main Battle Tanks for$95 million, and there is an option to add 30 tanks to the sale next year. Rabat will provide spare parts, and the tanks will be upgraded by Excalibur, a Czech military contractor.
Though Morocco owns the vehicles, at least some are already undergoing upgrades in the Czech Republic. The first five tanks will be sent out next week, while Excalibur plans to ship 18 T-72s by the end of the year, according to the company’s commercial director Richard Kubena.
The Czech Ministry of Defense confirmed the sale in a statement, saying “the final customer has satisfied the request of the above-mentioned countries and considers the agreement reached on the transfer of tanks (in exchange for other equipment) as assistance to the government of Ukraine.”
Morocco will become the first African nation to provide weapons to Kiev, but was previously hesitant to support any side in the Russo-Ukrainian war. In March, Rabat abstained from a UN vote that condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
According to reports by Military Africa and the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), the United States played a key role in facilitating the T-72 agreement, though Rabat has yet to confirm the transfer.
Morocco buys 91% of its arms from American suppliers, and Washington is a key backer of Rabat’s claim over Western Sahara – where some 500,000 people currently live under Moroccan military occupation.
Morocco’s claim to the disputed region has caused friction with its neighbor, Algeria. Rabat believes Algiers has strengthened ties with Moscow in recent months, and reportedly agreed to sell tanks bound for Ukraine as a way to spite Russia.
A group of ‘drunk’ Santas tried to navigate a large tank through a tiny Cornish village and got stuck, blocking street access to residents and festive revelers.
Local English newspaper The Cornishmansaid the tank got stuck in a narrow street of Angarrack in Cornwall, and residents fumed at the drunken Santas for their lousy driving of a vintage armored personnel carrier.
One traffic warden can be heard telling them off and insisting they can go no further. “You cannot come in with your tank. There are cars parked there,” she told the Santa tank driver, pointing towards the centre of the village. “You are not going to get through.”
One of the Santas – not the driver – tries to argue but is visibly too drunk, while the driver then argues with the traffic warden about being allowed into the village. There has been no suggestion that the driver had been drinking.
Devon and Cornwall Police have confirmed they attended the scene. Some people who had tried to go to Angarrack to enjoy the village’s amazing Christmas lights took to social media either seeing the funny side or to complain at the chaos the Santas and their tank caused.
One woman said: “Well that was eventful. An army tank, yes an actual Army tank, driven by several inebriated Santas trying to get to the pub in Angarrack who got stuck on the way.”
Another woman said: “I have seen it all now. A tank being driven by several Santas tried to drive into Angarrack, got wedged and blocked the entrance to the village.”
The tank full of drunk Santas was also spotted earlier in the day driving around town.
By Thursday night, people on Twitter posted videos of the stuck tank blocking traffic to the village’s entrance.
One person said, “Come on Santa you can get a tank through there!”
Another said: “A wonderful evening down at Mousehole to see the fantastic lights! Shame we couldn’t carry on to Angarrack as the road was closed due a stuck tank!!”
