If there was any doubt that China is back – or was back even when it was still largely mostly locked down with various now defunct Covid zero restrictions – all those doubts were magically whisked away moments ago when Beijing’s not-so-random number goalseekatron published the data dump for Q4 which – drumroll – not only beat across the board, but absolutely smashed expectations.

Here is what China’s National BS (which stands for Bureau of Statistics of course), reported moments ago for a quarter when Covid Zero was still all the rage (before China mysteriously called time on the worst economic policy of the past three years):

• Q4 GDP +2.9% y/y; down predictably from the Q3 +3.9% as zero Covid policies hammered growth for most of Q4 (China was mostly locked down during the quarter), but smashing the estimate of +1.6% and not far from the highest forecast (range -1.1% to +3.5% from 28 economists).
• 2022 cumulative GDP +3% y/y; also beating expectations of +2.7%; curiously this was unchanged from the estimate of the first 9 months which was also at +3%
• Dec. industrial production +1.3% y/y; beating expectations of  +0.1%, and down from Nov’s +2.2%
• Dec. retail sales -1.8% y/y; smashing expectations of a -9% plunge, and a big improvement from Nov’s -5.9% plunge.
• Jan.-Dec. fixed-asset investment excluding rural households +5.1% y/y; also beating expectations of +5%, and a modest slowdown from the Jan.-Nov. print of +5.3%
• Dec jobless rate 5.5%, down from 5.7% in Nov.

Solid data dump aside, there was continued weakness across property and housing, although as we already know this sector is poised for a huge surge now that China is phasing out its “three red lines” and its bad debt firms are planning up to $24 billion in support for developers.

• Jan.-Dec. property investment -10% y/y vs -9.8% in Jan.- Nov.
• Jan.-Dec. residential property sales -28.3% y/y vs -28.4% in Jan.-Nov.

A snapshot of the data:

On paper, all of the above looks great. On paper, however, it’s of course all fake as Australia’s Bill Birties points out:

It is extraordinary that an economic quarter that saw restrictions across multiple cities for Covid followed by mass nationwide outbreak in December… would see not only as much economic activity as the same period a year earlier, but almost 3% more…

But while the “surprise” beat in China’s GDP (and everything else) was tonight’s big headline, there was another big headline in the big (non-surprise) decline in China’s population. As the NBS reported, China’s total population fell by 850,000 in 2022, to about 1.41 billion at end-2022, a drop for the first time since 1961, the final year of the Great Famine under former leader Mao Zedong.

China’s population started shrinking in 2022 marking the first drop since 1961, the final year of the Great Famine under former leader Mao Zedong https://t.co/waPxjeqC3q pic.twitter.com/XNR3pKbcCP

— Bloomberg (@business) January 17, 2023

According to the data, a total of 10.41 million people died, a slight increase from around 10 million recorded in recent years (good thing there were no pandemic at the time). At the same time, some 9.56 million babies were born in 2022, down from 10.62 million a year earlier, the lowest level since at least 1950, despite efforts by the government to encourage families to have more children.

“This is a truly historic turning point, an onset of a long-term and irreversible population decline,” said Wang Feng, an expert on Chinese demographic change at the University of California, Irvine.

While the decline officially began last year, with deaths outstripping births, the FT notes that some demographers argue that the trend likely started before then. Fuxian Yi, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimated that China’s population started to fall in 2018, but the drop was obscured by “faulty demographic data”.

“China is facing a demographic crisis that far exceeds the imagination of Chinese authorities and the international community,” said Yi, noting that the trend will act as a long-term drag on the country’s property market, a crucial engine of growth.

“Abundant labor has been the fuel that has driven China’s rapid growth for more than four decades,” said Yi, “and now China is flying at high speed without enough fuel.”

Some economists argue that the rise of automation will offset rising labour costs as the number of workers shrinks.

China’s demographic disaster aside, the stellar economic data – at least in the context of consensus expectations – was still quite poor: China’s economy grew at the second slowest pace since the 1970s in 2022 as Covid restrictions hammered activity, though better-than-forecast fourth quarter and December data add to optimism it may be primed for a recovery; it was also well below the governments target last year of around 5.5%, although that’s where 2023 comes in. According to Ho Woei Chen, an economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore, China’s latest economic data suggest the momentum for recovery will be stronger in 1Q this year with the reopening of the borders and relaxation of the regulatory oversight in some sectors including property. And it’s all uphill from there.

“We are maintaining our forecast for 2023 at 5.2%. Economic recovery is likely to accelerate in 2Q as the population achieves herd immunity, which will pave the way for further normalization in activities and a v-shaped recovery in private consumption”

“On the key risks, we remain cautious on the external outlook and the sluggish real estate market could also take the tailwind out of this recovery.”

Still, even 5.2% might not be enough. According to the head of the National Bureau of Statistics, Kang Yi, China has to more than double the current per capita GDP of about $12,700 in order to achieve its 2035 goal, although now that the population is declining, this target may be easier to achieve even if it means eventually surrendering the superpower status to India which as of this moment is officially the world’s most populous country.

Authored by Christopher Roach via AmGreatness.com,

Lately political analysis in the United States seems closer to Cold War-era Kremlinology. Small hints of what is really happening must be divined from the unintentional slips and innocuous gestures of officials. The reality of governance is concealed by a cloak of normality, procedural regularity, and legality. 

This is to be expected within party politics, where things are resolved with deals among party insiders, i.e., the proverbial “smoke filled rooms.” This is why Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar rather suddenly dropped out to make way for Joe Biden in 2020, after it appeared the divided field could end up with Bernie Sanders as the nominee. 

But this approach – secret groups secretly deciding how to control events – is not supposed to dominate ordinary governance. 

The Deep State Revealed Itself Under Trump

Donald Trump faced harassment from the Intelligence Community and other unelected parts of government throughout his term as president. Delaying the provision of funds Congress appropriated for Ukraine—something well within his authority as president—formed the basis of the first impeachment. A crew of insiders and bureaucrats waxed eloquent about their sacred “interagency consensus,” but the Congress and the American people were not buying it. Americans still think elections are supposed to matter. 

In spite of his manifest unpopularity and refusal even to campaign, Biden was installed as president in 2020. Having rarely met an actual Biden supporter, Trump voters were skeptical and angry. The extended recounts, unceremonious dismissal of legal challenges, and videos of disappearing ballots, along with strident denunciations of “election deniers,” did not reassure anyone. Later revelations showed the coordinated way government officials, the media, NGOs, billionaires, and others conspired to “fortify” the 2020 election. 

Biden governed as he ran: mostly hidden from the public, beholden to donors and party elders, doing as little as possible. This seemed acceptable for a while, since it allowed the various constituent parts of the government to do what they wanted with little interference. Everyone knows Biden’s never been that sharp and seems more decrepit than ever, that his vice president is even dumber than he is, and that he’s not really running anything. 

But this is all a feature, not a bug, for the cabal that brought him to office. For them, the more independence they have from oversight, the better. 

Biden Has Enemies

Lately, it seems there’s a disturbance in the force. Biden and his allies have continued their vendetta against Trump, exposing his tax returns and raiding his home for possessing documents he supposedly owed the National Archives. This did not go over as well as Attorney General (and all-around hack) Merrick Garland anticipated, and it seems Garland and the January 6 Committee have each decided to scale back their demands. 

This is why the recent exposure of top secret documents in Biden’s old office, his garage, and a mysterious third location suggests something is afoot. We went from a Monday disclosure to a special counsel being appointed on Thursday. Nothing like this happens this quickly unless it is by design. 

There are, of course, ways to deal with this situation that do not involve public exposure. Couldn’t Biden or his staff order some FBI agents or White House people to pick them up and take them to wherever they’re supposed to be stored? 

It’s in the news because somehow his lawyers found the documents and reported them before the story could go through White House channels. And, lawyers being lawyers, they followed the street-lawyer rule that if someone has to go to jail, make sure it’s your client and not you. Concerned about individual culpability for obstruction or mishandling documents, they made this hot potato someone else’s problem as fast as possible. 

Someone is responsible for the way this information came out, and that someone is an enemy of Biden. There are plenty of possibilities: some secret Republicans at the Justice Department, Kamala Harris and her people, a committee of Democratic Party insiders concerned about Dementia Joe being president for another four years. The whole thing has a whiff of a conspiracy, and, like the various allegations and pretexts employed to investigate Trump, it may very well originate in the intelligence community. 

As Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) once said, “You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” In this instance, the hypothesis is not completely satisfying. Biden has not really taken on the intelligence community, so far as I can tell, unless they’re still smarting about how he ended the Afghanistan boondoggle. 

Republicans Should Put Country Over Party

Republicans seem gleeful over the news. This is unsurprising. It’s the millionth example of rank hypocrisy from Democrats. But, judging by past results, pointing out such hypocrisy does not seem to get us anywhere. It may put a damper on Merrick Garland’s pursuit of Trump for his alleged violations of the Presidential Records Act, but this already seemed to have lost steam on its own.

Republican glee should be more restrained, as their excitement is akin to aristocrats in Revolutionary France cheering on Robespierre’s Terror when it turned on the revolutionaries themselves. Such a development makes things more dangerous for everyone, even if it sweeps up some of one’s enemies. 

If the exposure of Biden’s apparent mishandling of classified documents arose from an intelligence community operation, it shows that the unelected deep state is beholden to neither Democrats nor Republicans. In other words, it will have revealed itself as a completely unaccountable branch of government, subject neither to Congress, the president, the judiciary, or any ideological faction. 

This would be a profoundly un-American development, but it would not be a huge surprise. Instead of accepting the small fry of defeating an already unpopular, not-quite-elected president, Republicans should instead join forces with everyone of good will and focus on exposing and defanging the unelected portions of government, which mean to place themselves above every branch of government, as well as the American people themselves.

By Ewa Manthery of ING Economics

Copper jumped above $9,000/t for the first time since June at the beginning of 2023 on optimism about China’s economy, after Beijing abandoned its zero-Covid policy.

We believe there is more upside for copper prices as demand in China picks up after the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of this month.

Copper benefits from zero-Covid exit

Copper has been rallying since late November amid a series of supportive policies in China and Beijing’s abrupt abandonment of Covid controls. The red metal has also received support from the weaker US dollar, which slid to a near seven-month low recently on growing expectations for a less hawkish Federal Reserve after cooler inflation and employment data.

In our November outlook, we said China remained the big question mark for the copper market going forward. There have been important developments since then, with China making a full U-turn on its zero-Covid strategy.

The virus was officially downgraded on 8 January when international arrivals were no longer required to quarantine.

China’s lifting of Covid measures will, in time, help the economy to normalise, our China economist believes. But we can expect the short-term to be dominated by the very high level of Covid cases, which have come at a time when the economy is already very weak.

Looking at other economies in the region which have suffered similar severe waves of Covid (India’s Delta wave) we would expect this wave to last no more than three months at which time the economy could start to revert to a more normal footing. Zeng Guang, the former chief scientist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, has recently said that China’s Covid outbreak could continue for another two to three months.

However, this could also coincide with the US and Europe entering recession, which will weigh on any manufacturing recovery and export growth even as China’s domestic issues abate.

We believe, for copper, China’s Covid policy change should prove supportive for demand in the medium to long run, although rising Covid infections could weigh on demand in the immediate term.

Copper is rising on China reopening, slower Fed rate hikes

Property stimulus improves confidence

Beijing has released a raft of policy measures in recent weeks which have increased confidence that the economy is stabilising, improving the outlook for industrial metals, including copper. For almost two decades, China’s property sector growth and the country’s rapid urbanisation have been the key driver of growth for copper demand. 

China will return to “normal” growth soon as Beijing steps up support for households and businesses, Guo Shuqing, party secretary of the People’s Bank of China, told state media recently.

The world’s biggest consumer of copper is expected to quickly rebound because of the country’s optimised Covid response and after its economic policies continue to take effect, Guo said.

In its most recent move, China is planning to allow some property firms to add leverage by easing borrowing caps and pushing back the grace period for meeting debt targets. The move would relax the strict “three red lines” policy which had contributed to a historic property downturn, hitting demand for industrial metals. The easing would add to a raft of policy moves issued since November to bolster the ailing property sector, which accounts for around a quarter of the country’s economy.

China’s economy ended 2022 in a major slump. Factory activity in the country contracted in December at the fastest pace in nearly three years. The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slumped to 47 last month from 48 in November, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

It was the biggest drop since February 2020 and also marked the third straight month of contraction for the index.

The non-manufacturing PMI, which measures activity in the services sector, plunged to 41.6 last month from 46.7 in November. It also marked the lowest level in nearly three years.

And although the government has stepped up its support for the property market, the effects are still slow to take effect – home sales fell again in December. The 100 biggest real estate developers saw new home sales drop 30.8% from a year earlier to 677.5 billion yuan ($98.2 billion) in December, according to data from China Real Estate Information Corp. That compared with a 25.5% decline in November.

Housing prices fell 0.25% in December from the previous month, the 16th consecutive month of declines.

We believe more stimulus and infrastructure spending could be unveiled at the National People’s Congress in March, which is likely to boost demand for commodities further.

Global stocks at multi-year lows

The demand boost for copper comes at a time when global stockpiles held by exchanges remain low. Last year, shrinking inventories were overshadowed by weakening global demand, but a revival in demand this year could set up the market for further squeezes and spikes in prices.

Copper stocks in LME warehouses remain low, representing just two days’ worth of global usage. Inventories on the SHFE and COMEX are also extremely low. Between the three exchanges, global copper inventories are now down to just a few days of consumption.

More price upside ahead

We have increased our 2023 copper price forecast amid China’s reopening optimism, but we maintain a cautious view for the first quarter as Covid cases across China continue to rise. We now see copper prices averaging $8,700/t in the first quarter. We believe any further gains are likely to be capped as the Lunar New Year approaches.

Following a surge in cases, economic activity will start to revert to a more normal footing with demand recovering by the second quarter.

But we expect this to be temporary and China’s Covid policy change should prove supportive for copper demand in the medium and long term.

We believe that once China gets over the current wave of Covid-19 infections and the country learns to live with Covid, a recovery in Chinese demand will boost copper prices further.

We expect prices to continue to recover from the second quarter onwards on the back of improving reopening sentiment and tight inventories with prices hovering around $9,100/t in the fourth quarter.

However, global macroeconomic headwinds are likely to persist in 2023 and the risk of global recession will remain a threat to the demand recovery in China, capping further gains.

Any further spikes in copper prices will also depend on the US Federal Reserve’s stance towards its monetary policy. Less aggressive tightening would limit any upside in the US dollar and could further boost copper prices.

Longer-term, we still believe copper demand will improve amid the accelerated move into renewables and electric vehicles (EVs). In EVs, copper is a key component used in the electric motor, batteries, and wiring, as well as in charging stations. Copper cannot be substituted in EVs or wind and solar energy, and its appeal to investors as a key green metal will support higher prices over the next few years.

ING forecasts

ADRs of Didi will be on watch heading into the shortened trading week as the company has reportedly “secured the green light to resume signing up new users”, according to new reports from Bloomberg and Yahoo. 

The resumption of business as somewhat normal came as Didi was made the poster child for a Beijing-led crackdown on China’s internet industry. The decision to allow Didi to continue operating is being hailed as a “clear sign” that Beijing is prioritizing re-starting the country’s economy after locking down for Covid. 

Didi’s app had been removed from app stores in 2021, but services could “soon return to Apple and Android stores” as a result of the resumption. Didi has long been compared to Uber in China, but most recently became famous alongside of the halted Ant Group Co.’s IPO as a symbol of China’s crackdown on its internet industry. 

The crackdown on Didi came after the company “pushed ahead with a $4 billion-plus US initial public offering against Beijing’s wishes”. It is being speculated that now, with the resumption of signing up users, the company may eventually list in Hong Kong.

Combined with recent concessions made regarding Ant Group, it sends a signal that the government may be easing up on the industry as a whole. Guo Shuqing, party secretary of the People’s Bank of China, has alluded to the regulatory clampdown drawing to a close, Bloomberg wrote. 

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Catherine Lim said in a report this weekend: “The relaunch of Didi apps supports earlier indications from Beijing that required reforms within local technology sector are near-completion. Disruptions to the operations of tech giants such as Alibaba, Tencent should be minimal in 2023.”

It may also see Didi stock – which had traded on the over the counter markets – once again attempt an uplisting in the United States. 

“In the future, the company will take effective measures to guarantee the security of our platform infrastructure and big data, and maintain national cybersecurity,” Didi said in a company-issued statement this weekend.

Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

The United States is lurching towards an epic financial catastrophe.  This isn’t a novel insight.  The great tragedy has been in the works for decades.  Anyone with a mild inkling of curiosity knows what’s going on.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s population clock, the U.S. population is over 334 million.  This, no doubt, is a lot of mouths to feed and people to clothe and shelter.  But that’s not all.

Many of these people also need some sort of medical care throughout the year.  Some may break their arm.  Others may have their appendix burst or suffer cardiac arrest.  There are also serious medical emergencies from car accidents or other hazards.

In an economy characterized by limited government and individual liberty people are self-supporting.  They provide the means to pay for these needs through the fruits of their own labors.  Minors are supported by their families until they can provide for themselves.  The elderly may fall back on their kids if they didn’t squirrel away enough nuts during their working years.

In an economy characterized by central planning this is not the case.  Large segments of the population are dependent on government programs for their daily bread.  They also look to the benevolent hand of government to pay for their drugs and other medical needs.

The U.S., over the last 100 years, has transformed from a nation of self-supporting individuals to a nation of collective dependents.  In fact, the U.S., at this very moment, is closing in on a significant milestone.

Several days before the Ides of March, 100 million people – or approximately 30 percent of the total population – will be on Medicaid.  Can you believe it?

Forced Philanthropy

An outfit out of Naples, Florida, called the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), even has a special website with a countdown clock so you can monitor precisely when this magical moment arrives.  The FGA is forecasting that Medicaid enrollment will hit the 100 million mark sometime between the late evening of March 12 and early morning of March 13.

Will you pop a bottle of bubbly and toast this momentous accomplishment?

The actual significance of 100 million is found primarily in the number itself.  It’s big.  And round.  It offers a unique opportunity to pause and contemplate the madness of what’s been erected.

How is it that 100 million Americans ended up on Medicaid?  Could it be that the entire Country will one day be ensnared by this program’s wide casted nets?  What happens to the quality of medical care when payments for services rendered are diverted through an ultra-mega government program?

Politicians, by and large, are enamored by transfer payment programs.  The more idealistic of the lot may believe that through their programs of forced philanthropy they’re making the world a better place.  Others just get a thrill out of employing central planning to control the masses.

“The way to Hell is paved with good intentions,” remarked Karl Marx in Das Kapital.  The devious fellow was bemoaning evil capitalists for having the audacity to use their own money for the purpose of making more money.

Marx, a wordy busybody, was consistently wrong.  The road to hell is paved with plenty more than good intentions.  Grift, graft, larceny, corruption, and fake money all compose the pavement.  Good intentions are simply sprinkled on top to improve the aesthetic.

Government Scam

Perhaps Medicaid, when it was first created under the Social Security Amendments of 1965, was established with good intentions.  Who, but a complete Scrooge, could possibly be against providing medical aid to low-income residents?

But what you may not know is that Medicaid, in its current form, is an absolute government scam.  Strings from the coronavirus fiasco have been attached to the program, which places state governments at the mercy of the federal government.  The FGA offers the following details:

“The sharp rise in enrollment is largely due to the federal government’s continued extension of the COVID-19 public health emergency which locks states in ‘Medicaid Handcuffs.’  While the emergency is in effect, states receive extra Medicaid funding on the condition that everyone enrolled remains locked into the program.  This has led to an additional 24 million enrollees, more than 21 million of whom would previously not have qualified because they earn too much money or are otherwise ineligible.” 

The price tag for these 21 million otherwise ineligible Medicaid enrollees comes to $16 billion per month – or $192 billion per year.  The taxpayer – that’s you – foots the bill.

As perspective, to better understand how many ineligible people 21 million represents let’s look to Florida.  The population of Florida, the third largest state in the Country, is 22 million.  So, the equivalent of nearly the entire population of Florida, is illegitimately on Medicaid.

Think about that on Monday morning when you rise at the crack of dawn to start up your daily grind once again.  Think about that the next time you peruse your paycheck and see the massive federal income tax deduction being confiscated.

How many other government scams are you working to pay for?

The actual costs of the scam portion of Medicaid are much, much more than $16 billion per month.  As the FGA notes, as welfare enrollment – including Medicaid enrollment – increases, workforce participation decreases.  So, the ability of the U.S. economy to pay for Medicaid and other government scams is diminished.

Yet the madness continues.  Washington policies are handcuffing people to dependency who are entirely ineligible for the programs they’re dependent on.  What’s more, they’re doing this at the worst possible time.

Will You Beat Uncle Sam’s Relentless Pursuit of Your Wealth?

Presently, the U.S. national debt is over $31.4 trillion.  Factor in unfunded liabilities – such as social security, Medicare parts A, B, and D, federal debt held by the public, and federal employee and veteran benefits – and the number jumps to $173.5 trillion.  That comes to over $519,000 per citizen.

These debts won’t magically disappear.  However, they won’t be directly paid either.  Simple arithmetic doesn’t allow it.  But they will be paid, nonetheless.

You’ll pay with your time and your talents.  You’ll pay with a declining standard of living.  In fact, you already are.

This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest inflation data.  According to the government’s aggregate data manufacturers, consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), increased at an annual rate in December of 6.5 percent.  After peaking in June 2022 at 9.1 percent, the rate of inflation has steadily slowed.

Should you be happy that you’re only being robbed of 6.5 percent of your savings per year instead of 9.1 percent?

Remember, at an ‘official’ inflation rate of 6.5 percent it only takes 11 years for the purchasing power of your savings to be cut in half.  And 11 years is only about one-fourth of a person’s working years.  In other words, over the duration of a person’s working life their earnings will be cut in half at least four times.

Wage and salary increases may soften the blow.  But they won’t keep pace with government sponsored inflation.  In truth, real wages have declined for 21-months in a row.

And what about after retirement when employment income disappears?  In this regard, a retiree should expect the purchasing power of their savings to be cut in half at least once – possibly twice.

This, in essence, is how you’ll pay for Washington’s massive debts and unfunded liabilities.  The Medicaid scam is but one example of the servitude you’re indentured to.

By this, saving and investing your income and wealth has never been more important.  With hard work, diligence, unending perseverance, and some luck, you can maintain your independence and standard of living in the face of Uncle Sam’s relentless pursuit of your wealth.

The challenge is great.  The stakes are grave.

*  *  *

This is a very challenging time for investors.  Inflation.  Deflation.  Recession.  The dangers are prominent.  However, it’s also the genesis of the next great wave of wealth over the next decade.  And we intend to ride it all the way.  If this interests you, take a gander at my Financial First Aid Kit.  Inside, you’ll find everything you need to know to prosper and protect your privacy as the global economy slips into a worldwide depression.

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

With each new release of the “Twitter Files” we learn more and more about the deep corruption in Washington. We sensed during Covid that something was really wrong – for example the bizarre denial of natural immunity. But thanks to Elon Musk’s decision to open the books, our worst fears have been proven true. Each new release seems to show something even more criminal inside America’s rotten ruling class.

In the latest release, thanks to the excellent reporting of independent journalist Matt Taibbi, we see outgoing Chair of the House Intelligence Community, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), continuously pressuring Twitter to validate his fantasies of “Russian bots” manipulating US politics.

The short version of what Taibbi reported comes from around the time then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was about to release his Committee’s findings about the FBI misuse of the FISA Court to spy on the Trump presidential campaign. The FBI, it turns out, relied exclusively on the widely-discredited “Steele Dossier” – paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign – as justification to spy on the Trump campaign.

When pressure grew to release the Nunes findings, Twitter exploded with users demanding that Congress “release the memo.”

That’s where then-ranking Member Schiff and his staff began relentlessly pressuring Twitter to show that the accounts demanding the release of the memo were actually Russian agents, out to help their supposed favorite, Donald Trump. Schiff was not alone. Fellow “Russiagate” hoaxers like Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also pressured Twitter to find Russians behind the demand to release Nunes’ findings.

Over and over, Twitter – which was hardly sympathetic to Trump – told Schiff and his colleagues there was simply no evidence of Russian involvement. As much as some Twitter employees may have liked to report the opposite, to their credit they refused to participate in the scam.

Even after Twitter had informed Schiff and his fellow hoaxers that there was no Russian involvement, Sen. Blumenthal released a statement he knew was not true:

“We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans.”

Again, this was right after he had been informed by Twitter employees – who were by-and-large strongly opposed to Trump – that there was just no evidence to back up such a statement.

We are moving closer and closer to a nuclear showdown with Russia over Ukraine. For political gain the Democrats – and plenty of Republicans – have been pushing the “Russiagate” hoax and in so doing have fertilized the ground for the obsessive Russia hatred prevalent in the US today.

I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that if US/Russia relations had not been poisoned by the lie of “Russiagate” for pure political gain, we would not be anywhere near our current state of near-direct conflict with the largest nuclear power on earth, Russia.

It is shocking that Schiff and his “Russiagate” allies would potentially sacrifice millions of dead Americans to defeat Trump and other political enemies.

Let’s not forget: Rep. Jim Trafficant was expelled from Congress for asking his staffers to wash his boat.

Shouldn’t there be at least equal punishment for Senators and Members who are lying us into World War III?

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Two top economists said that despite contrary predictions, a recession will likely hit the United States in the near future.

“Some economists argue that the strength of the labor market – as well as household balance sheets – will keep the economy strong enough to avoid a recession,” wrote Lakshman Achuthan and Anirvan Banerji, the co-founders of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, in a Friday opinion article.

“We disagree,” they wrote, saying that “it remains our expectation that the U.S. economy will enter a recession this year.”

That’s because, in part, because of the Federal Reserve’s recent decisions to raise interest rates to their highest levels in decades in a bid to slow inflation levels not seen since the early 1980s, they wrote. The rate hike appears to have worked to an extent as the Labor Department last week confirmed that the consumer price index that measures inflation fell 0.1 percent in December to 6.5 percent.

Last month, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates by half a percentage point, while the last four hikes were all three-quarters of a percentage point.

“Recessions always entail noticeable declines in both GDP and jobs, but such pullbacks are not necessarily obvious at the recession’s outset,” the two wrote for CNN, telling Americans “don’t be fooled” by rosy forecasts saying otherwise.

“While GDP and jobs do move in step with the economy, by the time they are released, they only tell us where the economy had been in the recent past.”

There have been similarities made to the current U.S. economy and the 2008 Great Recession, they wrote.

Cartons of eggs are seen for sale in a Sprouts Farmers Market in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 15, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

“Then, many—including then-President George W. Bush—were not concerned about a recession because GDP hadn’t declined yet, even though job losses had begun,” their article said.

“We pushed back against the prevailing complacency, writing for CNN at the time, ‘While GDP has yet to decline, we have already seen four straight months of payroll job losses. That suggests that the economy is on a recession track. And it implies that either one or both of the recent, slightly positive GDP estimates will be revised down to negative readings by next year.’”

A recession would include job losses. There have already been layoffs carried out this winter in the tech sector, led by Amazon, Meta and Facebook, Twitter, and others.

“That is why—having predicted that the economy would enter a recession—last spring we urged job seekers ‘to update the resume and make any career moves while the job market is still hot,” Banerji and Achuthan wrote.

And while a dropping GDP, or gross domestic product, and higher unemployment rates are telltale signs that a recession is underway, the two economists said that those two factors “do move in step with the economy, by the time they are released, they only tell us where the economy had been in the recent past.”

“Employment, in particular, can hold up longer than expected in a recessionary scenario,” they added.

“That was true in the inflationary era around the 1970s. Most notably, unemployment didn’t peak until eight months after the start of the severe 1973-1975 recession.”

The Biden administration hasn’t released its December jobs report. In November, the country added 263,000 jobs, and unemployment held at 3.7 percent.

More Forecasts

Another economist, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, said in a recent interview that the U.S. economy still faces a recession sometime in 2023. That’s despite the encouraging reports in recent weeks about lower inflation and steady jobs numbers.

“One has to be careful of false dawns,” Summers told Bloomberg last week. “I would stick with my view that a recession this year is more likely than not.”

And about 61 percent of Wall Street Journal-surveyed economists predicted there would be a downturn within the next 12 months.

“While recent inflation prints have shown some progress, a few persistent categories like core services are associated with the historically tight labor market, suggesting that there is still ‘a long way to go’ for the Fed,” Deutsche Bank economists Brett Ryan and Matthew Luzzetti said in the WSJ survey, released Sunday. “The Fed would stay on its tightening trajectory to restore the rebalance of labor market and price stability, which in our view would engineer a sharp rise in unemployment and recession,” they added.

Read more here…

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

This week, 2,658 of the “world’s decision-makers” will gather in Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. 

Protected by thousands of police officers and soldiers, the elite of the world will feast and party throughout the week as they shape the global agenda for the coming year.  Needless to say, our input is not desired or welcomed.  In order to get into this conference, you have got to be a part of their club, and in order to be a part of their club you must be a very important person.  It is being reported that the official list of 2,658 attendees this year includes “heads of state, business royalty, actual royalty, media honchos, and academics”…

The world’s decision-makers are gathering in Switzerland this week for the World Economic Forum meeting. The annual event of business and government leaders is expecting a solid turnout as it returns to its traditional winter time slot following two years of covid disruptions.

According to the official list, which is accurate as of Jan. 10, 2,658 attendees are registered for the event. Among them are heads of state, business royalty, actual royalty, media honchos, and academics. There are hundreds more participating on the sidelines, whether organizing, catering, or attending corporate events along the promenade that cuts through the center of Davos.

I suppose that someone could try to show up at the conference unannounced, but it is not likely that anyone that is not authorized will get very close.

All of the roads leading to the conference have checkpoints, and apparently fingerprint scanners are being used in some cases to verify identities.

NOW – Police and military have blocked the access roads to Davos, where Klaus Schwab is holding his World Economic Forum summit.

People, vehicles, and fingerprints are now being checked. pic.twitter.com/K5p1r2iMas

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 13, 2023

I can’t recall ever seeing anything quite like this.

In addition to hordes of regular police, the Swiss military will be providing “up to 5,000 soldiers” to bolster security…

With one week to go until the who’s who of the most radical globalists descend upon the picturesque ski resort town of Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, up to 5,000 soldiers from the Swiss army will be deployed to offer military support to the civil authorities of the canton of Graubünden, who are responsible for securing the summit’s premises and its participants.

In a statement released Friday, January 6th, the Swiss Defense Department (VBS) said that the Federal Assembly, the country’s parliament, had approved the deployment of the Swiss army contingent to ensure the security of thousands of participants, the Swiss German-language newspaper Blick reports. This year’s deployment is part of a three-year commitment, from 2022 to 2024, by Parliament to support these high profile civic activities.

Somehow, Klaus Schwab and his minions have turned this annual gathering in Davos into a “must attend” event for the global elite.

And if there is anything that the global elite do not like, it is mixing with the general population.

As Paul Joseph Watson has aptly observed, it is a big club and you and I are not part of it.

Leading up to the conference, the WEF issued a “global risks report”, and in that report they actually created a brand new term to describe the extreme chaos that is gripping our world right now…

The collective vocabularies stored in the world’s great dictionaries didn’t appear to hold a single world to sum up all this strife. So here’s a new one: Polycrisis.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 uses the term, to explain how, “present and future risks can also interact with each other to form a ‘polycrisis’ – a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”.

Normally, I disagree with everything that the World Economic Forum does, but I actually kind of like this new term that they have come up with.

We are definitely facing “a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”, and 2023 will almost certainly be another year when we are hit by one crisis after another.

I have often referred to what we are facing as “a perfect storm”, but I think that “polycrisis” is a pretty good descriptor as well.

Unfortunately, virtually every “solution” that will be on the agenda at Davos will be bad for humanity.

The globalists don’t seem to realize that the system that they have worked so hard to carefully construct is rapidly failing, and many in the general population are sick and tired of the self-destructive policies that they have been trying to push on all the rest of us.

Interestingly, as the global elite gather in Davos an extremely rare “green comet” will be making a run toward Earth…

A rare green comet, last seen in Earth’s skies 50,000 years ago, is revisiting our solar system and may become visible to the naked eye within the next few weeks.

The comet – formally identified as C/2022 E3 (ZTF) but commonly called the “green comet” – won’t be as bright as other famous comets such as Halley’s or Hale-Bopp.

“The brightness of comets is notoriously unpredictable, but by (Feb. 1) C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could become only just visible to the eye in dark night skies,” NASA said in its blog.

This comet will be the closest to our planet on February 1st and 2nd, and that will be the best opportunity to potentially see it with the naked eye.

Before I end this article, I wanted to acknowledge the passing of Lisa Marie Presley.

Lisa Marie Presley dead at 54 due to cardiac arrest 💉 pic.twitter.com/KHILRupP5z

— Sharaiya Negron 🗣 (@SharaiyaN) January 13, 2023

It is such a tragedy to lose her at such a young age.

If Elvis was alive today, how do you think he would have responded to the sudden death of his little girl?

2023 is just a little over two weeks old, and already there has been so much sadness.

Unfortunately, I believe that much more sadness is coming, because the “polycrisis” that we are facing will only intensify even more as global events continue to accelerate.

*  *  *

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

Natural gas futures bounced off 18-month lows during the holiday session period as the latest runs of long-term weather models suggest winter might not be over for the Lower 48. 

US NatGas futures for February delivery moved up 21 cents to $3.63 per million British thermal units. The price is now trading above the 76.4% Fibonacci retracement level of the main drop from the high of $10 in August 2022 and the low of $1.43 in June 2020. 

The price of NatGas tumbled to an 18-month low last week as mild weather boosted injections into storage facilities by slashing demand. Last week, the Energy Information Administration announced a rare rise in inventories of 11 billion cubic feet in stocks.

However, as we’ve pointed out in recent weeks and even days, first in “US NatGas Prices Slide To 18-Month Low On Warm Spell; Some Models Forecast Cold Blast In Weeks” and “California Pounding Continues, But Upcoming Large-Scale Weather Pattern Change On The Way,” as well as “Siberia Records Minus-80 Degrees As Talk Of Polar Vortex Grows,” long term weather models are showing the increasing possibility for colder weather. 

The latest run of the Global Forecast System (GFS) shows the possibility of the return of winter by the end of the month. 

Both GFS and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) models for the Lower 48 show the possibility of a cold spell — when both long-term models suggest colder weather, the likelihood increases. 

More mainstream meteorologists, such as Ryan Maue, are now pointing out that a wicked cold spell might be headed for the Lower 48. 

100%. Combination of Greenland and Siberian polar vortex to unload on Lower 48 in 13-17 day time frame.

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) January 15, 2023

“Winter coming back,” tweeted Weather forecaster Joe Bastardi. 

Week 2 all ensembles go to positive TNH which is widespread cold stormy pattern for US. Winter coming back pic.twitter.com/8hBFEezXlm

— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) January 15, 2023

NatGasWeather said cold returns around Jan. 26-30 and might last through the first week of Feb. 

Weekend weather data trends colder for Jan 26-30 and has led to higher nat gas prices to open new trading week. Longer-range data suggests cold can last into first week of Feb. Although, still very light demand the next 7-days to trudge through first. #natgas #oilandgas pic.twitter.com/S4u71B5pAV

— NatGasWeather.com (@NatGasWeather) January 16, 2023

Winter isn’t over yet. 

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice

Chevron Corp has sold a cargo of Venezuelan crude oil to another U.S. refinery, Phillips 66, anonymous sources have said.

Chevron Corp recently sold 500,000 barrels of heavy Hamaca to U.S. refiner Phillips 66 to be used in its Sweeny, Texas refinery, the sources told Bloomberg.

It would be the first such sale since the United States sanctioned Venezuela’s crude oil.

In separate news, ConocoPhillips, which spun off its downstream business now known as Phillips 66 back in 2012, has expressed its willingness to sell Venezuela’s crude oil in the United States as a way to claw back some of the $10 billion owed by Venezuela. ConocoPhillips’ Venezuelan assets were nationalized in 2007—along with many other oil companies’ assets. ConocoPhillips has been authorized by the United States to negotiate debt recovery with PDVSA.

Earlier this week, PDVSA assigned a third crude oil cargo to Chevron under the latter’s new license to import sanctioned Venezuelan crude oil after a more than three-year ban.

Venezuela’s heavy crude oil is prized by U.S. refiners, who, until recently, looked to Russia’s heavy crude to replace it. In December, it was reported that several refiners were hitting up Chevron to get their hands on the rare Venezuelan crude oil.

It was originally thought that Chevron could prioritize its own refineries, which have a history of using Venezuela’s heavy crude—and the first delivery of 500,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil—also Hamaca crude—did go to its Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery.

Hamaca crude is an extra-heavy, sour blend, and the recent cargoes came from the Petropiar oil JV operated by Chevron and PDVSA. 

While Chevron is the only oil company with approval from the U.S. to import crude oil from Venezuela, other oil and gas companies are looking for a similar authorization—including foreign oil and gas companies who are demanding fair treatment.