Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

President Joe Biden is facing fresh criticism after his administration released illegal immigrant apprehension numbers from September, showing the number of arrests soared to a record high.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) made 227,547 arrests in September at the U.S.–Mexico border… the most in history.

That was by far the highest number for a September, coming in at some 35,000 more than the first September under Biden, the previous record, and up 12 percent from August.

It was also one of the highest numbers in fiscal year 2022, despite September traditionally being one of the months in which illegal immigration slows because of weather and other patterns.

The number “reflects an accelerating pace of apprehensions when they should be declining seasonally,” Steven Kopits, president of Princeton Policy Advisors, said in a statement.

“This speaks to both a strong U.S. labor market and deteriorating enforcement at the border.”

Biden, a Democrat, reversed or weakened various Trump-era border policies, including halting construction of the border wall. His administration has also curtailed the deportation of illegal immigrants.

“Over the past 21 months, we have witnessed the devastating harm wrought by a rogue administration that is asserting near-dictatorial powers in a relentless effort to keep our borders open,” R.J. Hauman, head of government relations and communications for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement.

“The endless flow of illegal immigrants and the incursion of lethal narcotics pouring across our border will not end until this administration demonstrates a willingness to secure the border and enforce the law.”

Fiscal year 2021 already set a new record of apprehensions, 1.7 million, despite including nearly four months of below-average illegal immigration under former President Donald Trump. Fiscal year 2022 apprehensions reached more than 2.3 million. The new fiscal year started on Oct. 1.

In September, some 182,700 illegal immigrants were captured. Some were arrested more than once. The figure was a 15 percent jump from August.

Neither the White House nor Biden has reacted to the latest numbers, which don’t include “gotaways,” or illegal immigrants who evaded capture after entering the United States.

CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus, a Biden appointee, blamed the wave of illegal immigrants on “failing regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua” but said the administration has been taking action with Mexico in a bid to slow the illegal immigration “and create a more fair, orderly, and safe process for people fleeing the humanitarian and economic crisis in their country.”

Of the illegal immigrants arrested in September, 42 percent were from Venezuela, Cuba, or Nicaragua. About half of the rest were from Mexico or northern Central America.

About three-quarters of those arrested were single adults. The rest were family units or unaccompanied children.

According to CBP figures, the number of Venezuelans trying to enter the United States dropped more than 80 percent after “additional joint enforcement actions with Mexico,” Magnus said.

CBP is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“CBP and DHS will continue to work with our partners in the region to address the root causes of migration, expand legal pathways, facilitate removals, and take thousands of smugglers off the streets,” Magnus said.

“No matter what smugglers say, those who do not have a legal basis to remain in the country will be removed and people should not make the dangerous journey.”

Several months ago, we mocked the ridiculous idea spawned by some of the “best and brightest” progressives currently cogitating in the US, according to which even as Biden was actively steamrolling US energy companies by vowing to end US fossil fuel usage in a few decades and single-handedly crushing the price of oil through the biggest ever release of crude from the strategic petroleum reserve (where the term “emergency” now means not war or a natural disaster but Democrats lagging Republicans in midterm polling) he would be throwing them a bone by “promising” to buy oil if and when it tumbled much lower as otherwise US producers would have zero incentive ever to invest even one dollar in growth (or even maintenance) capex…. or so the “best and brightest” progressive thought went.

Progressives cheering the latest SPR news unaware that the government is literally giving out tens of billions in risk-free dollars to US energy producers arbing the SPR trade. https://t.co/572IYI8t9L

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 26, 2022

This is how the pro-socialist, far-leftist outlet Vox described this “brilliant plan”:

In the summer of 2022, President Joe Biden had a problem. Gas prices had been soaring for most of 2021 and 2022, due to a combination of overhang from reduced production during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And American voters hate when gas prices go up. Biden’s approval rating plunged over his first two years in office. He needed some kind of policy response to address the problem and prevent his party from getting slaughtered in the midterms.

The plan he ultimately arrived at entailed massive releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve combined with a new policy of buying oil futures to provide producers with an incentive to pump more in the near to medium term, preventing another shortage from arising. This approach followed very closely a proposal put out in March by the advocacy and research group Employ America, written by its executive director Skanda Amarnath and his colleagues Alex Williams and Arnab Datta. The Employ America plan explained how the administration could use the petroleum reserve to durably lower gas prices, while also setting a price floor so the cost of gas didn’t fall so far that it imperiled the transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy.

The brain (we use the term loosely) behind this plan, Skanda Amaranth, also sarcastically dubs himself “Neoliberal sellout” (actually, we merely assume it is sarcastic), and at least on paper, his master plan was noble – to lower prices while also boosting oil sector employment. Alas, as progressives so often find out, there is an gaping chasm between their idealistic vision of the future and what actually ends up happening (for the best example of this just ask Europeans who blindly followed the delightfully insane ideas of a petulant Scandinavian teenager for their energy policy).

While this plan bore some fruit at least early on, when oil and gas prices did tumble (if only because the SPR was being drained by 1 million barrels every week), the drop has since reversed sharply after OPEC+ openly defied the Biden admin (the neoliberal model did not account for that “eventuality”), and Brent is now trading well above $90, and many banks are warning that oil will soar as high as $120 after the midterms once the SPR drain ends.

But what about the brilliant progressive plan to collar oil prices while encouraging employment with the stated SPR purchase price floor? Well – and this is why we said the plan was “ridiculous” – as Reuters reports, US shale oil executive Matt Gallagher this week took a poll on Twitter to gauge sentiment toward President Joe Biden’s offer to stock the U.S. emergency oil reserve at prices around $72 a barrel, to give producers an incentive to drill more.

WH dribbling out last authorized 15million barrels of SPR in december, a 50% cut to summertime SPR release rate just as EU price cap sanctions hit Russia. Also authorized buybacks for SPR @$67-$72. Will prompt hit $72 in 2023 #OOTT

— Matt Gallagher (@MattG_PE) October 19, 2022

The result: nearly 80% of respondents said they did not expect oil futures next year will fall to a level that would trigger any U.S. purchases – negating any boost from what analysts called the “U.S. put,” or using proposed Strategic Petroleum Reserve buys to set a minimum price for new oil production. In other words, the “forward guidance” on where the US would buy SPR oil would by itself assure that the price never fell that low.

“That announcement was making it appear like he was throwing a bone to the oil industry,” said Trisha Curtis, CEO of consultancy PetroNerds, who dismissed the offer. But “what if oil does not fall to that price: Do we just keep our reserves low?” she asked rhetorically (the answer is of course).

The release of the last of a 180 million barrel sale coupled with a repurchase price was Biden “trying to walk a fine line between supporting his green base and trying to lower fuel prices. And he did neither,” said Curtis.

Another reason why the Biden plan is idiotic: with oil now selling for about $85 a barrel, the offer price of about $70 “is a price where there is no supply growth,” said Abhiram Rajendran, a director at consultancy Energy Intelligence.

But what was so patently obvious to everyone – except a handful of intellectually challenged progressives – is that even though US oil prices hit $120 per barrel this year, that did not trigger a production boom because of shortages and high costs for labor and equipment, said Hunter Kornfeind, oil market analyst at Rapidan Energy Group. The sheer intellectual arrogance of believing that there will be a capex boom if oil tumbles $50 lower but is propped up just because the US is refilling the same SPR it was draining to keep oil from rising above $100, is truly staggering.

Meanwhile, as Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth said, it is tight oil supplies have pushed up price expectations into 2024. But that occurred apart from the SPR offer, she said.

If the Biden administration wants to boost oil supplies, it “should change its policies around producing more oil and gas in the United States,” said Frank Macchiarola, a senior vice president at trade group American Petroleum Institute.

Of course, that won’t happen as the same progressive groups that came up with this idiotic idea will be screaming from the rooftops, demanding that they know the oil industry better than, well, the oil industry.

In a wholly unexpected development, given that until just yesterday any prominent person wishing to talk Ukraine peace plan possibilities or who expressed hope for a negotiated end to the war was denounced and shouted down as a ‘Kremlin agent’, a group of 30 House Democrats is now urging the Biden administration to pursue a diplomatic track with Moscow.

The Washington Post, which detailed the contents of a letter sent to President Biden by the Congressional Dems, underscored they are calling for the US to “dramatically shift” its strategy on the Ukraine war for the first time, with the grinding conflict now reaching the eight-month mark.

“The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the greater the risk of escalation — to widespread, devastating effect,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who is leading the efforts for a comprehensive strategy shift, told the Washington Post. “We should have no illusions about the challenge ahead of us, but … my colleagues and I are urging the Administration to engage in a proactive diplomatic push in an effort to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.”

Crucially, it seems the past month of heightened nuclear rhetoric is actually waking up some of the politicians who appeared to be sleepwalking straight into “Armageddon” – as Biden’s own ultra-alarming remarks on October 6 put it. Biden had said at the time before a Democratic audience at a New York fundraiser, “We’re trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where does he get off? Where does he find a way out?” And he then asserted of the Russian president, “He is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological and chemical weapons.”

The group of 30 Dems in their letter seize on some of these past warnings of stumbling into WW3, addressing Biden as follows…

Crucially, you achieved this while also maintaining that it is imperative to avoid direct military conflict with Russia, which would lead to “World War III, something we must strive to prevent.” The risk of nuclear weapons being used has been estimated to be higher now than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Given the catastrophic possibilities of nuclear escalation and miscalculation, which only increase the longer this war continues, we agree with your goal of avoiding direct military conflict as an overriding national-security priority.

Given the destruction created by this war for Ukraine and the world, as well as the risk of catastrophic escalation, we also believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged conflict. For this reason, we urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire. This is consistent with your recognition that “there’s going to have to be a negotiated settlement here,” and your concern that Vladimir Putin “doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying to figure out what we do about that.”

Except that there really hasn’t been much in the way of earnest “efforts” seeking a “realistic framework” for ceasefire for a long time – really not since the opening three months of the war, which left off with the Istanbul negotiations. One exceptional bright spot to come out of Istanbul, however, was the UN and Turkey-brokered grain export deal, which it should be noted has been hanging by a thread.

This new push for the US to get serious about the negotiating table comes after leading Republicans signaled that in a future GOP-led house, there would be no “blank check” writing for Ukraine, after the US has already pledged an unprecedented tens of billions of dollars. So now it seems a contingency of Democrats are bracing for that distinct possibility given the nearness of the November mid-terms.

BOOM

*HOUSE DEMOCRATS URGE BIDEN TO SHIFT UKRAINE WAR STRATEGY; SEEK “DIPLOMATIC PUSH”: WAPO

cc: @elonmusk

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 24, 2022

“We are under no illusions regarding the difficulties involved in engaging Russia given its outrageous and illegal invasion of Ukraine,” the Democrats’ letter continues.

“If there is a way to end the war while preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America’s responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue to support such a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine.”

And yet, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to never negotiate or compromise on ceding territory (apparently including Crimea), especially so long as Putin is still in power. But likely Washington alone has the power to push Zelensky to back off this maximalist stance. It seems some within Biden’s party realize such an intractable posture in Kiev is recipe for a lose-lose escalation leading to catastrophe in the making.

Notable that @AOC is among the Democrats calling for negations in Ukraine after she ridiculed the protesters who were demanding that very thing from her.

— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) October 24, 2022

Yet, so far those voices remain a minority. WaPo notes that despite the big Democratic Progressive names on the letter, including AOC, a major shift in administration policy in Ukraine remains unlikely for now. “The letter was signed by some of the best-known and most outspoken liberal Democrats in Congress, including Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Ro Khanna (Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.),” the report details.

Maybe the growing pressure from progressive anti-war activists had something to do with AOC doing some soul-searching on the Ukraine issue?…

AOC humiliated at a Town Hall:

“You ran as an outsider yet you voted to start this war in Ukraine. You’re voting to start a nuclear war with Russia and China” pic.twitter.com/dSldpyKVLT

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) October 13, 2022

WaPo concludes, “For now, their position remains a minority in the Democratic Party, which has overwhelmingly supported Biden’s denunciations of Russia and his spearheading of a global coalition to funnel massive support to Ukraine. Biden has framed the conflict as part of his broader view that the world is witnessing a historic confrontation between authoritarianism and democracy.”

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

The Biden administration is reportedly considering opening a national security review of Elon Musk’s business ventures which could see the plutocrat’s purchase of Twitter blocked by the White House, in part because Musk is perceived as having an “increasingly Russia-friendly stance.”

Bloomberg reports:

Biden administration officials are discussing whether the US should subject some of Elon Musk’s ventures to national security reviews, including the deal for Twitter Inc. and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to people familiar with the matter.

US officials have grown uncomfortable over Musk’s recent threat to stop supplying the Starlink satellite service to Ukraine — he said it had cost him $80 million so far — and what they see as his increasingly Russia-friendly stance following a series of tweets that outlined peace proposals favorable to President Vladimir Putin. They are also concerned by his plans to buy Twitter with a group of foreign investors.

The “group of foreign investors” the Biden administration is reportedly worried about oddly includes Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who has already been a massive Twitter shareholder for years. The White House certainly never had a problem with foreign investors there before.

Scoop: Biden admin officials are discussing whether US should subject some of @elonmusk’s ventures to national security reviews, including his deal for Twitter Inc., and the Starlink satellite network, sources tell @SalehaMohsin and me. @BloombergTV pic.twitter.com/pZx1As8RUZ

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 21, 2022

“Officials in the US government and intelligence community are weighing what tools, if any, are available that would allow the federal government to review Musk’s ventures,” Bloomberg writes. “One possibility is through the law governing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States [CFIUS] to review Musk’s deals and operations for national security risks, they said.”

“Musk, the world’s richest person, has taken to Twitter in recent weeks to announce proposals to end Russia’s war and threaten to cut financial support for Starlink internet in Ukraine,” says Bloomberg. “His tweets and public comments have frustrated officials in the US and Europe and drawn praise from America’s rivals.”

“If the Twitter acquisition was to be reviewed by CFIUS for national security reasons, the agency could recommend to President Biden that he nix the deal — something Musk himself has tried and failed to do in recent months,” writes Business Insider’s Kate Duffy on the Bloomberg scoop.

Indeed Musk has already indicated that he’d find it funny if the Biden administration blocked his purchase of Twitter, a $44 billion buy that the Tesla executive has made every legal effort to back out of. But how revealing is it that someone could be forbidden by the White House from purchasing a giant social media company on the grounds that they’re not sufficiently hostile toward Moscow?

Neither Bloomberg nor any other mainstream members of the imperial commentariat appear to take any interest in the jarring notion that the US government could end up banning the purchase of an online platform because it views the purchaser as having an unacceptably “Russia-friendly stance.” Not only is it uncritically accepted that the US government mustn’t allow the purchase of a social media company if the would-be buyer isn’t deemed adequately hostile to US enemies, many mainstream liberals are actively cheering for this outcome:

BREAKING: Biden is considering blocking Musk’s Twitter deal (due to close 10/28), worried by his threat to stop supplying Starlink to Ukraine and his Russia-friendly “peace proposals.” The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) CAN nix the deal! 🧵

— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) October 21, 2022

This just says so much about how the US government views the function of Silicon Valley megacorporations, and why it has been exerting more and more pressure on them to collaborate with the empire to greater and greater degrees of intimacy. As far as the US empire is concerned, Silicon Valley is just an arm of the imperial propaganda machine. And empire apologists believe that’s as it should be.

None of this will come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to things like the drastic escalations in online censorship since the war in Ukraine began, including on Twitter, or the ongoing expansion of internet censorship protocols that were already well underway before this war started. It will also come as no surprise to people whose ears pricked up when the White House summoned top social media influencers to a briefing in which they were instructed how to talk about the Ukraine war. It will also come as no surprise to those who paid attention to the public outcry when it was discovered that the Biden administration was assembling a “disinformation governance board” to function as an official Ministry of Truth for online content, or when the White House admitted to flagging “problematic posts” for Facebook to take down, or when Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop October surprise in the last presidential race was done in conjunction with the FBI.

It is abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that Silicon Valley tech companies are a major part of the imperial narrative control system.

The US empire has invested in soft power to an exponentially greater degree than any other empire in history, and has refined the science of mass-scale psychological manipulation to produce the mightiest propaganda machine since the dawn of civilization. Silicon Valley is being used to manipulate the way people think about world events via algorithm manipulation, censorship, and sophisticated information ops like Wikipedia in an entirely unprecedented way that is becoming more and more important to imperial control as the old media give way to the new.

Narrative control centers like Silicon Valley, the news media and Hollywood are just as crucial for US imperial domination as the military. That the US government is weighing intervention to stop the purchase of an online platform, because it lacks confidence that the would-be owner would reliably advance US information interests, is just the latest glimpse behind the veil at the imperial agenda to control human understanding and perception.

*  *  *

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Authored by Allen Stein via The Epoch Times,

Jeff Worsham is a realist regarding the weather because he believes what he sees.

That the regional drought is a bad one, getting worse, is beyond dispute. The Mississippi River is at the lowest it’s been in decades, he said.

Worse, the barges are backing up because of it, running aground, and wreaking havoc on the regional supply chain.

“There’s no relief in sight as far as rainfall,” said Worsham, port manager of Poinsett Rice & Grain’s loading facility in Osceola, Arkansas.

When will it rain next?

Worsham said, “Who knows?”

Jeff Worsham, port manager of Poinsett Rice & Grain in Osceola, Ark., said the Mississippi River is at the lowest it’s been in decades due to an ongoing drought wreaking havoc with commercial barge lines. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Loaded at about 65 percent capacity with soybeans to reduce weight, the barges at the Osceola facility have been “dead in the water” for days in a jagged queue, blocked by a single barge that became stuck in the shallow mouth of the port.

Unprecedented Times

“I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Worsham, who’s been with the company for over 20 years. “We had water [levels] close to this in 2012. But it was August, and it wasn’t the harvesting season. It wasn’t a big deal for us.”

At the height of the corn and soybean harvest, and with tons of products waiting to be shipped, Worsham remains optimistic.

“A lot of the soybeans have been stored on the barges. We’ll be down a little bit on volume and stretched out. We’ll be able to get the bushels [out]. It’s just going to take longer,” he told The Epoch Times.

Barge loader Raul Rivas walks to the loading station at Poinsett Rice Grain on Oct. 20, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Worsham said a tow boat would eventually drag the stuck barge to deeper water and free up the other barges. He said until then, nothing can get in or out of the port—and then the phone rang.

It was Worsham’s boss asking for an update.

“It’s more than hard,” Worsham told his supervisor. “They would get them [out] if they could … I don’t know what else to do.”

The situation is no less challenging with other competing barge lines, Worsham said.

In recent weeks, hundreds of barges have become stalled in the receding Mississippi, caught in the lower depths. In early October, some 2,000 barges reportedly clogged the channels in long pileups along the river south of Memphis.

The barges need around a nine-foot depth to navigate. The problem is that the water levels have fallen so low in many places even the tugboats are getting stuck.

Barges sit in the port facility at Poinsett Rice & Grain in Osceola, Ark., on Oct. 20, 2022. Behind the barges, the river tributary’s water line has been receding for months in the continuing drought. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Near the Gulf of Mexico, the ocean has begun seeping into the weakening river, threatening the water supply. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working to build a temporary levee to fend off the ocean’s slow advance north.

Situation ‘Grave’

As the nation’s second-largest river, the Mississippi stretches 2,340 miles from its source at Lake Itasca in northwestern Minnesota to the Gulf. The river provides easy access for midwestern farmers looking to ship their products cheaply and efficiently.

Commercial barges each year account for about 418 million tons of goods moved between U.S. ports along the Mississippi River system. Nationally, it’s around 700 million tons.

But as water levels continue to fall, it allows less room for the barges to navigate and more opportunities to become stuck, said Ben Lerner, vice president of public affairs for the American Waterways Operators, a national trade association.

Lerner said the Mississippi River at a historically low level presents a significant challenge for the nation’s supply chain.

“In some spots in the river, it is at its lowest level since 1988, so it’s a real challenge for the supply chain and our industry,” Lerner told The Epoch Times.

Barges laden with agricultural products now have longer waiting times to deliver their cargos while in transit, causing back-ups along the river.

Lerner said a standard barge has 16 rail cars or 70 semi trucks carrying capacity, but it’s cheaper and more efficient.

“The bottom line is the American barge industry is a major component of the global and American supply chain. If we can’t move cargo on the Mississippi efficiently, that ultimately has far-reaching economic implications,” he said.

“I don’t want to understate the gravity of the situation we’re dealing with—the tremendous strain on the supply chain.”

Barge loader Raul Rivas (R), deckhand Clifton Brown (L), and other workers at Poinsett Rice & Grain in Osceola, Ark., walk to the loading docks on Oct. 20, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

At its widest point, the Mississippi River is over seven miles wide, allowing for as many as 42 lashed barges to operate, pushed by a single tow boat.

“We’ve got a river now that’s shallower and narrower than it’s ever been,” Lerner told The Epoch Times.

Many commercial barge lines have reduced loads by as much as 50 percent to compensate for the shallower water. Other barge lines have switched to shipping via the more costly and less efficient rail and trucking systems.

“The more shippers switch to rail or truck to move their cargo, the more congested our railways and highways ultimately become,” Lerner said.

It also translates into higher costs for the nation’s agricultural producers, 92 percent of whose output travels through the Mississippi River Basin.

About 60 percent of grain and 54 percent of soybeans for U.S. export rely on barges for delivery to foreign and domestic markets, according to FreightWaves.

The market research site ReportLinker.com projected that the U.S. barge transportation market should grow from $25.17 billion in 2021 to around $39.9 billion by 2028 due to increased demand, infrastructure, and investment.

Poinsett Rice & Grain deck hand Clifton Brown points to where the water level used to be at the loading port near the Mississippi River on Oct. 20, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

“The system needs water,” said Lerner, confident that the commercial barge industry is resilient and accustomed to operating in a crisis.

‘Game Time’ For Farmers

“It’s a significant challenge for U.S. agriculture and farmers to be successful and profitable,” noted Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition.

The organization comprises 13 state soybean boards, including the American Soybean Association and the United Soybean Board, encompassing 85 percent of soybean production.

Steenhoek said while farmers are geographically distant from coastal ports, they enjoy easy access to inland waterways like the Mississippi, Ohio, and Illinois rivers.

“It’s game time for agriculture,” Steenhoek said. “When the system operates as normal, there’s no more effective way of moving commodities long distances in an economical manner” than commercial barges.

“When the system goes awry, it poses a significant hardship.”

The problem going into 2022 has been the lack of rain and snowmelt to replenish inland rivers to allow the ground to become saturated ahead of the spring planting season.

A large pile of beans lies under a tarp at Consolidated Grain & Barge in West Memphis, Ark., as seen from the highway on Oct. 20, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

While crops this year have benefited from the available moisture, very little has made its way into the water system, contributing to lower river levels.

“When you have a [barge] grounding, it’s a major effort to alleviate,” Steenhoek said. “It shuts down the river. So you have to resort to putting less freight per barge.”

Steenhoek said in the case of soybeans, for every 12 inches of lost channel depth, a standard barge must shed 5,000 bushels—about 136 tons—to stay afloat. He said it means that fewer barges can operate in tandem, resulting in the industry-imposed maximum of 25 lashed barges per shipment.

“You don’t have your optimal route available to you. It still will find a way—maybe not as much as normal—not as efficiently as normal,” Steenhoek said. “Whenever you have a disruption like this, those costs get passed on. It adds a lot of costs [and] the farmer will bear a lot of that.

“Some of it’s going to be borne by the shipper. It adds insult to injury when you’ve got challenges with our inland waterway system.”

Other barge lines, such as Consolidated Grain and Barge Co. in West Memphis, have begun storing beans in large outdoor piles under tarps in the wake of the barge crisis.

Steenhoek compared switching transportation modes from barge to rail and truck to a garden hose attached to a fire hydrant, where “you’ve got lots of [product] volume” and less efficient ways to move it.

A towboat sits in its dock along the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tenn., on Oct. 20, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

“When you’re in that scenario, it’s not efficient, and it’s not as cost-effective. There are consequences,” he said. “What’s particularly inopportune right now and consequential is how comprehensive it is—not just one part of our nation. It’s the whole [transportation] system” under stress.

Worse Before It Gets Better

Poinsett Rice & Grain operates with a fleet of 100 barges, each of which carries around 85,000 bushels of rice, soybeans, or corn to ports along the river. Those volumes are about 35,000 bushels less in the drought to reduce weight and increase floating capacity.

“Hopefully, we will be able to continue operations. It’s gotten a lot worse [but] we’re still loading,” Worsham said.

The company, which ships around five or six million bushels per year, had expected to ship eight million bushels this year, given the robust harvest.

Worsham said that number is down to around three million bushels.

“We’ll probably match last year’s volume” of around four million bushels.”

Poinsett Rice & Grain barge loader Raul Rivas points to the long line of barges awaiting delivery of soybeans on Oct. 20, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Barge loader Raul Rivas said the barge logjam at the Poinsett facility is a logistics headache.

“We can’t load that many barges right now. The traffic right here can’t get in and out. Right now, this will be our last barge for a while,” Rivas said.

Typically, Rivas’ crew will load three barges daily with soybeans, rice, or corn from loading towers.

“There isn’t much we can do. Everything we’ve got is overstocked or on the ground. We got one [barge] stuck last night. We had to get to the tugboat at least until it broke free. Then we finished loading [the barge],” Rivas said.

“Supposedly, when it gets down to a negative 12 [feet level], that’s when they’re supposed to shut the barges and boats down.”

A grain loader operator awaits instructions at Poinsett Rice & Grain in Osceola, Ark., on Oct. 20, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Poinsett deck hand Clifton Brown said that dock workers have been “running into a lot of problems” with the low water levels, now going on two months.

“That’s about the worst of it—[barges] getting stuck. It’s pretty rough on us just loading barges right now. See that barge over there, stuck on the bank, on the corner?”

Brown pointed toward the far end of the port at the former water line where that “used to be to those trees.”

In the current drought, Brown also remains positive, saying it’s only a matter of time before the Mississippi is back up and running as the water level fluctuates.

“We’ll be down for another week or so until the river comes back up. Everything is good.”

Today’s market moves were very much specific as geopolitical and macro-economic chaos reigned…

It appeared like BoJ stepped in rather inelegantly last night as the Asian FX markets started trading (in an attempt to use the thin markets to extend Friday’s intervention liftathon). It worked for around 15 minutes… and then yen started to fall and by the end of the US session had erased all of that yen-tervention and erased half of Friday’s gains…

Source: Bloomberg

Chinese markets shit the bed, technically speaking, overnight as Xi’s new era appears anything but more open.

Chinese tech stocks were a total bloodbath today with Nasdaq’s Golden Dragon index down a stunning 16% (biggest daily drop ever) to its lowest since Dec 2012…

Source: Bloomberg

The offshore yuan plunged to new record lows (breaking down below the RMB Fix lower bound)…

Source: Bloomberg

And all that after they announced better than expected GDP growth and Industrial production.

Next up was the UK as Rishi Sunak became the new UK PM (by default), which appeared to reassure British capital markets as bond yields tumbled (2Y gilt yields plunged 37bps – the biggest daily drop since 1992!), but we do note that Cable was modestly lower today…

Source: Bloomberg

And then came the US… where PMIs plunged into contraction and Janet Yellen told MSNBC she “can’t rule out the risk” of a recession (is she a biologist?)… which of course is great news for stocks.

Small Caps underperformed, but the rest of the majors accelerated higher on the day with The Dow leading. We did see ‘Dump Capital’ appear around 1530ET though, which wiped some lipstick off this pig. Nasdaq had ytet another day of being down 1% and then being up 1%…

Today’s melt-up should not have been a surprise to readers since Goldman warned “the pain trade is to the upside”…

ICYMI: “The Pain Trade Is To The Upside”: 10 Reasons From Goldman’s Trading Desk For A November Meltuphttps://t.co/DSSrkjUB3A

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 24, 2022

TSLA bucked the trend of the day (tumbling in the pre and early market, down to its lowest level since mid-2021, below $200 briefly), but was bid all afternoon and ended just over 1% lower…

But, we note that the market’s expectations for Fed rates shifted notably hawkishly, erasing some of Friday’s dovish dive (odds for a 75bps hike in Dec rose to 40% from 30%)…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were volatile intraday but ended higher with the long-end underperforming…

Source: Bloomberg

Most notably, long-term inflation breakevens (market expectations) soared in the last week…

Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar managed modest gains on the day, but remains well down from Friday’s pre-yentervention puke…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin is higher from Friday’s close after a surge in buying yesterday early afternoon (which was sold into)…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices tumbled overnight (perhaps on the back of Xi’s ‘crowning’ signaling the likelihood of ZeroCOVID policies continuing) then rallied back to a modest loss with WTI just below $85…

Gold was very modestly lower on the day with futures hovering around $1655, holding most of Friday’s gains…

Finally, as Bloomberg details, the value of the yen against its peers – adjusted for inflation – has slumped to a 52-year low, as widening interest-rate differentials between Japan and other major economies continued to pile pressure on the currency.

A gauge of the real effective exchange rate slumped 3% in September, based on the most recent data from the Bank of Japan and Bank for International Settlements.

The decline has been driven in part by outflows from Japan owing to the lack of attractive investment opportunities locally, according to Takuya Kanda, general manager at Gaitame.com Research Institute in Tokyo.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The narrative to attack any tax cut and defend any increase in government size is reaching feverish levels. However, we must continue to remind citizens that constantly bloating government spending and increasing the size of monetary interventions are some of the causes of the widespread impoverishment of the middle class. Constantly increasing taxes and diminishing the purchasing power of the currency is wiping out the middle class in most developed nations.

Currency printing is not neutral, and it never is. It disproportionately benefits government and massively hurts real salaries and deposit savings. It is a massive transfer of wealth from savers to the indebted.

Readers may say that what needs to happen is to tax the rich and corporations and all will be solved. Why do you think that many of the ultra-wealthy are extremely happy with financial repression, issuing more currency, cutting rates and higher taxes? Because the net effect is positive for them and negative for you. Financial repression is a tool that makes it more difficult for the middle class to be richer and therefore wipes out private savings and any possible competition at the top.

The latest dogma is that tax cuts are negative because they boost inflation. However, it is yet another fallacy predicated on the idea that money is better off in the pocket of government.

Inflation is the destruction of the purchasing power of a currency, not “rising prices.” Prices do not rise in unison due to an exogenous factor like a war unless the quantity of currency issued is higher than the growth in the productive sector.

Government spending weighs close to 50% of GDP in most developed economies. One unit of currency in the pocket of government is certainly spent and even multiplied, as most of the public sector will spend that unit of currency and more via deficit.

Cutting taxes does not add units of currency to the economy. It is the same quantity of currency only a bit more in the pocket of those who earned it.

When governments reduce taxes, the citizens and businesses that have earned money have more in their pockets. Some might spend it, others might save it, which means investment, and others might take more credit. Tax cuts are only inflationary if they boost and extraordinary and unjustified credit impulse. This is rarely if ever the case.

A unit of currency in the hands of government is certainly going to be spent, adding even more money into the system via debt and deficits. A unit of currency in the hands of those who earned it is not just likely to lead to a better capital allocation but also it is fair.

Tax cuts in an inflationary environment are not just logical and just, but necessary because most governments do not deflate their tax receipts and, by keeping monetary tax rates untouched, receipts rise, and the amount of taxes paid by citizens increases.

Inflation is a tax and a policy. Governments benefit from inflation collecting higher receipts due to the inflation impact on tax revenues, while citizens suffer elevated prices, higher direct and indirect taxation, and lower real wages.

If increasing the size of government is always dangerous it is even more perilous in times of high inflation because the risk of malinvestment becomes a certainty.

There has been a massive campaign against any tax cuts all over the world that adds to a view that all government spending is justified. The concepts of efficiency, saving and prioritization have been abandoned and the administration is perceived as an entity that cannot perform any of those measures and needs constantly rising revenues to undertake its duties, yet all is false.

Taxes are not set because the government needs more revenues, but to pay for services and adjusted to the reality of the economy. When the public sector becomes an all-consuming and never-saving entity it does not contribute to growth and productivity, it prevents them.

Governments use any excuse to increase their size in the economy and using constant emergencies or alleged crises is the easiest way to advance a confiscatory and extractive view of the economy where citizens and businesses are viewed as cash machines of the political sector, where the private sector is at the service of the government and not the other way around.

Tax cuts do not increase inflation, it is giving a bit more of the existing money to the ones who earned it. What increases inflation, always, is bloating government spending, perpetuating deficits, and monetizing it by printing constantly depreciated currencies.

Government spending is not the engine of the economy. Tax hikes are not the only solution to bad administrations. Printing money is not a tool for growth, but one for cronyism. Upside down economics does not work. We need to return to monetary and fiscal sanity. A tax wedge of almost 40% of income is not normal. It is confiscatory.

If we want to reduce inflation, we need to limit the uncontrolled policies those that create it: central banks and governments.

Via The College Fix,

The University of California Berkeley will be offering a course this coming spring which focuses on popular female rapper Nicki Minaj.

Officially titled “The Galaxy of Hip-Hop Feminisms” in the UC Berkeley 2022-23 Academic Guide, instructor Peace And Love B El Henson’s (pictured below) class will delve into the “many iterations” of the topic “on stage and in everyday spaces.”

According to its description, the course will “track the constellation of dynamic voices, theories and productions of underground and mainstream Black feminine rappers who have influenced the origins of Hip-Hop and its ongoing evolution.”

It will also look at the “genealogy and nuance of key Black feminine rappers and theoreticians in the field, practice, and culture of Hip-Hop Feminisms across the Black Diaspora.”

Readings for the course come from the areas of “Hip-Hop Studies, Feminist Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Porn Studies, Media & Film Studies, Performance Studies.”

Students need permission from both Henson and “the department” (presumably African American and African Diaspora Studies) to get into the course … which may account for why there currently is no one enrolled (below).

WKRC reports that Minaj noted on Twitter she would “love to stop by” upon hearing news of the class.

I’d love to stop by

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) October 6, 2022

Henson’s faculty page describes her as a “black feminist urban ethnographer and critical porn studies analyst” whose research deals with “black queer femmes, state violence, pornography, and ethnography.”

Regarding that first research topic, Henson says it utilizes “black femmes’ theatrical performances from online interracial pornography to read real-life state policing encounters and vice versa [and] aims to denude the unconscious racialized pornographic BDSM […] structured into interracial relations across sites of chattel slavery, professional pornography, public schools, universities, neighborhoods, and beyond.”

Two weeks before the midterm elections, the Republican National Committee hit Alphabet Inc.’s Google with a lawsuit, claiming they can’t communicate with party members to fundraise because the big tech firm routes their emails into spam folders. 

The GOP lawsuit alleges Google “has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building.”

“The timing of Google’s most egregious filtering is particularly damning… 

“For most of each month, nearly all of the RNC’s emails make it into users’ inboxes. At approximately the same time at the end of each month, Google sends to spam nearly all of the RNC’s emails. Critically, and suspiciously, this end of the month period is historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful,” GOP said. 

GOP argues in the lawsuit this has been an ongoing issue for ten months. The committee is asking for unspecified monetary damages and a court order to “remedy Google’s violations of state and federal law.”

None of these allegations are surprising in the age of censorship pushed by the government and left-leaning big tech firms. Google, of course, denies culpability:

“As we have repeatedly said, we simply don’t filter emails based on political affiliation. Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions. We provide training and guidelines to campaigns, we recently launched an FEC-approved pilot for political senders, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam,” spokesperson Jose Castenada said in an email to Bloomberg. 

For years, GOP officials have expressed discontent with big tech, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, for their unrelenting censorship. 

“Google, far more than any other single entity, determines what humanity thinks is true about current events and knowledge in general. The platform continues to filter and refine its left-wing ideology through artificial intelligence, brainwashing most of the globe with a subtlety never seen in history,” Epoch’s Roger Simon wrote. 

Big tech’s censorship of conservatives could be on full display again, and just more evidence that elites are becoming desperate ahead of next month’s elections:

“Censorship is the tribute that lies pay to truth. If truth were not so powerful, no censorship would be necessary,” Epoch’s Jeffrey Tucker recently opined. 

Even with the GOP whining about big tech censorship, pre-midterm polls still show momentum is clearly in Republicans’ favor. 

After being caught on up in earlier controversy and pushback over his Russia-Ukraine peace proposal, resulting in a back-and-forth with the Pentagon over the status of public funding for SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink, Elon Musk on Sunday made a new pledge seeking to reassure Ukraine.

“Before [the Department of Defense] even came back with an answer, I told @FedorovMykhailo that SpaceX would not turn off Starlink even if DoD refused to provide funding,” Musk stated in a Sunday evening tweet, referring to Ukraine’s vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.

The new pledge to not “turn off” the Starlink services used by Ukrainian troops means that even if the US Department of Defense ultimately refuses to share the bill, Musk will personally ensure it stays on.

The Register reported of the controversy that “The Starlink-Ukraine honeymoon period appears to be at an end: SpaceX reportedly wants the US to begin picking up the tab for more of its war-zone services.” Musk has said SpaceX already forked over $80 million in costs to keep the internet systems operating, which the Ukrainian government has long acknowledged as crucial to its military operations and communications.

This public promise comes also as some hawkish pundits have begun to float the idea of nationalizing the Starlink systems. This is precisely what Former George W. Bush speechwriter and columnist for The Atlantic David Frum argued last week: 

Frum argued on Monday that it is becoming too “unwise” to suspect that Musk will continue to provide Starlink satellite equipment to help Ukrainian citizens access the internet during Russia’s invasion of the country. To remedy this, he suggested the U.S. government should seize and nationalize the company if Musk ever plans to pull his satellites. 

Frum had tweeted “It was always unreasonable, and is becoming unwise, to expect @elonmusk to provide Internet to Ukraine for free forever. Western allies should pay. And US should have a plan ready to nationalize Starlink fast if Musk cuts off Ukraine’s connection to advance his political agenda.”

Socialism comes at you fast.

“Nationalize Starlink.”

From a former conservative. https://t.co/6lbkXhs3LJ

— Tom Giovanetti (@tgiovanetti) October 18, 2022

In September, SpaceX’s director of government sales spelled out in a letter to the Pentagon that “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time.”

It’s expected that by year’s end SpaceX will have eaten through $100 million for the donated 25,000 Starlink terminals so that Ukraine can continue using the services. Ukraine’s government has lately “played nice”, expressing its gratitude – for example in this Sunday exchange with Musk:

“Before all the talks about funding, you confirmed to me that in any case, you will ensure the work of Starlink in Ukraine. This was critically important for Ukraine,” Mykhailo wrote.

Musk replied: “You’re most welcome.”

Mykhailo had previously thanked SpaceX while declaring that “Ukraine will stay connected no matter what.”

Interestingly as part of the same thread, on Monday Musk indicated he would be donating more Starlink terminals for use in Iran amid ongoing anti-government protests and efforts by authorities to restrict internet and social media access…

Yes

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 24, 2022

Musk has of late come under greater media and even possible government scrutiny for unfounded allegations that he’s been in direct contact with the Kremlin, a charge he’s rejected as patently false. This merely because he has sought ways that the warring sides in Ukraine might compromise toward ceasefire and negotiated settlement, as opposed to escalation to the point of nuclear armed powers – namely the US and Russia – clashing directly.