On Monday the UN’s nuclear monitoring agency IAEA announced that Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile now stands at over 30 times the threshold set by the 2015 deal limit which the US unilaterally pulled out of under the Trump administration in 2018.

The IAEA also confirmed that there have been no talks or contact with Tehran over its nuclear program in the wake of the death of President Ebrahim Raisi on May 19, when his helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain near the Azerbaijan border.

Despite at this point Iran’s having expanded its near-weapons-grade fissile material to a record level, the Biden administration has reportedly been urging Western allies to back off plans to impose retribution or punishing actions on the Islamic Republic. 

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the policy redirect this week, noting that it has put Washington on a collision course with leading European powers France and Britain over Iran nuclear policy. But after all, Biden has a November election to worry about, and apparently is keeping greater focus on prices at the pump.

“The U.S. is arguing against an effort by Britain and France to censure Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s member-state board in early June, the diplomats said,” WSJ reports. “The U.S. has pressed a number of other countries to abstain in a censure vote, saying that is what Washington will do, they said.”

Officially, Biden admin representatives have denied that such a lobbying effort is taking place. But European leaders are concerned that the US is in effect defanging the UN atomic watchdog. Writes WSJ:

European diplomats have warned that failure to take action would undermine the authority of the IAEA, which polices nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. They say it also weakens the credibility of Western pressure on Iran. And they are frustrated over what they see as U.S. efforts to undermine their approach.

The last time the IAEA passed a formal resolution rebuking Iran over its nuclear program was back in November 2022.

At the moment, France and Britain believe the Biden White House is asleep at the wheel and ultimately has no strategy for dealing with Iran’s fast advancing nuclear program.

The US has been consumed instead with seeking de-escalation in the Middle East after Israel’s April 1st brazen attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus, which killed a top IRGC general and several others. There have been reports the US intervened diplomatically with Tehran behind the scenes, urging it to soften its retaliatory response – and possibly offering incentives for it to do so.

Iran is now deemed a nuclear-threshold state and could any day or week now suddenly declare itself a nuclear weapons state – assuming it is actually poised to achieve a bomb and intent on it.

However, on an official government level at least… the Islamic Republic says it is only seeking to develop peaceful nuclear energy capabilities. The Ayatollahs over many years have issued multiple religious edits or fatwas declaring nuclear weapons to be ‘unIslamic’. 

But some analysts believe Tehran has some clear and legitimate incentives to secretly develop a nuke: 1) Israel has a huge stockpile of undeclared nukes already 2) the US has led regime change wars along either of Iran’s borders: Afghanistan and Iraq 3) a mere years after Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear aspirations and WMD program, he was overthrown and murdered in a NATO-backed military intervention.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

We’re all familiar with the term, “quantitative easing.” It’s described as meaning, “A monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply.”

Well, that sounds reasonable… even beneficial. But, unfortunately, that’s not really the whole story.

When QE was implemented, the purchasing power was weak and both government and personal debt had become so great that further borrowing would not solve the problem; it would only postpone it and, in the end, exacerbate it. Effectively, QE is not a solution to an economic problem, it’s a bonus of epic proportions, given to banks by governments, at the expense of the taxpayer.

But, of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that governments have passed off a massive redistribution of wealth from the taxpayer to their pals in the banking sector with such clever terms. Governments of today have become extremely adept at creating euphemisms for their misdeeds in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the populace.

At this point, we cannot turn on the daily news without being fed a full meal of carefully-worded mumbo jumbo, designed to further overwhelm whatever small voices of truth may be out there.

Let’s put this in perspective for a moment.

For millennia, political leaders have been in the practice of altering, confusing and even obliterating the truth, when possible. And it’s probably safe to say that, for as long as there have been media, there have been political leaders doing their best to control them.

During times of war, political leaders have serially restricted the media from simply telling the truth. During the American civil war, President Lincoln shut down some 300 newspapers and arrested some 14,000 journalists who had the audacity to contradict his statements to the public.

As extreme as that may sound, this practice has been more the rule in history than the exception.

In most countries, in most eras, some publications go against the official story line and may very well pay a price for doing so. But, other publications go along with the official story line to a greater or lesser degree and are often rewarded for doing so.

It should come as no surprise, then, that media outlets often come to report the news in a less than accurate manner.

Mark Twain is claimed to have said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.” Quite so.

Still, only fifty years ago, much of the then “Free World” enjoyed a relatively objective Press. Even on television, reporters such as Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, etc. presented the news in a bland manner. It wasn’t very exciting, but at least it was relatively balanced and, to this day, most people who were around then still have no idea as to whether reporters like Walter Cronkite were liberal or conservative. Although he was a committed Democrat, he never allowed that to significantly colour his reporting.

But today, we have a very different corporate structure as regards the media. The same six corporations hold the controlling interest of over 80% of the media. And those same corporations also own a controlling interest in the military industrial complex, Wall Street, the major banks, Big Pharma, etc.

What we’re witnessing today is media having been transformed into something more akin to a three-ring circus than journalism of old. This is no accident.

The present travesty that is the 21st century media, is journalism in name only.

So, why should this be so?

Well, as it happens, people tend not to like governments dominating their lives – simple as that.

And yet, the primary objective of any government is to increase its size and power as rapidly as the populace will tolerate it. The only reason that they rarely do this quickly, is that they can’t get away with it. Like boiling a frog, it takes time to lull the populace into submission, bit by bit.

Once having had enough time to do so, there comes a point at which the government becomes woefully top-heavy, as well as unworkably autocratic. At such times, all that’s necessary to make people rebel is an economic crisis.

Such is the case in much of the world today – the EU, the US, Canada, etc.. Even in their arrogance, the powers that be have to be aware that they’re right at the tipping point. An economic crisis would almost certainly push the situation over the edge.

When truth threatens to undermine machinations for self-aggrandizement, individuals tend to obfuscate in order to delay the inevitable fallout. Governments are no different.

So it was that, in 1999, the largest banks entered into a massive lending scam that would most certainly collapse within a decade. However, before putting the scam in place, they arranged for a “bailout” by the government, which would effectively pass the bill to the taxpayer, while the banks themselves simply increased their own wealth massively.

Of course, QE, as massive as it was, was a mere Band-Aid solution. All those involved (big business and the government) understood that it would hang like a sword of Damocles over the economy until it inevitably came crashing down – a fate far worse than if QE had never been implemented.

And so, for those entities to have invested into the domination of the media was, in fact, essential. Had they not done so, it’s entirely likely that, with a free press, the man on the street would, by now, have figured out that he’d been hoodwinked.

Thus do we see the journalistic equivalent of Quantitative Brainwashing, in which the inevitable realization is delayed for as long as possible.

And, in order to make sure that the public do not figure out what’s been done to them, the news reporting becomes Orwellian in its endless repetition of a false narrative.

It is, however, true that, “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Eventually, the Band-Aid peels back to reveal an infection that’s far beyond what had been generally perceived. It then falls away in layers, as increasing numbers of people become aware that they’ve been scammed – that the media is entirely corrupt and that the media’s owners – big business – have, with the enthusiastic compliance of the government, robbed them on a wholesale basis.

Historically, that’s when the jig is up. What happens then is a matter of historic record.

*  *  *

It’s clear the Fed’s money printing is about to go into overdrive. The Fed has already pumped enormous distortions into the economy and inflated an “everything bubble.” The next round of money printing is likely to bring the situation to a breaking point. We’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. That’s precisely why bestselling author and legendary speculator Doug Casey just released this urgent video. Click here to watch it now.

A quiet macro day in the US – mixed bag of regional Fed survey data (Richmond Manufacturing good, Richmond Biz Conditions bad, Dallas Services bad) and plunging mortgage apps) – followed a hotter than expected inflation print in Germany, which sparked a further hawkish shift lower in rate-cut expectations with 2024 falling back to a 50-50 coin toss for 2 cuts or 1; and 2025 tumbling to less than 3 more cuts…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields surged higher, led by the long-end (2Y +2bps, 30Y +7bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

…steepening the curve even more…

Source: Bloomberg

2Y Yields ramped within 0.25bps of 5.00%, erasing all the gains from payrolls and CPI…

Source: Bloomberg

And higher yields are starting to hit stocks. Today was relatively unusual for recent times with no big BTFD bounce back after almost non-stop selling from the cash close last night. Small Caps lagged on the day with S&P and Nasdaq the best looking horses in the glue factory. The cash open offered a little blip higher but that was sold into…

The Dow broke below its 50- and 100-DMA and Small Caps broke below their 50DMA…

‘Most Shorted’ stocks were monkeyhammered lower… again…

Source: Bloomberg

But, of course, MAG7 stocks levitated…

Source: Bloomberg

…as NVDA hit another new record high…

Since NVDA’s earnings, everything but AI has been sold…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar followed rates higher, back near one-month highs…

Source: Bloomberg

…which hit gold…

Source: Bloomberg

…sent oil lower with WTI back below $80…

Source: Bloomberg

…and bitcoin also fell back below $68,000 (despite the Blackrock flows news)…

Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum slipped back below $3800….

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, while financial conditions remain drastically loose (especially relative to Fed rates), we note that they are starting to tighten…

Source: Bloomberg

We’ve seen this before a few times this year – so let’s not hold our breath, but The Fed surely wants the market ‘tighter’ than it is before it starts actually ‘easing’.

You’re about to meet a group of New York University graduates with fresh degrees, likely burdened with a few hundred thousand dollars in debt unless their elite liberal parents footed the bill. Many companies are increasingly viewing woke degrees as liabilities rather than assets.

If these graduates are lucky—and don’t end up as Starbucks baristas—they will have a bright and colorful future at some woke mega-corporation. There, they will be placed in non-productive managerial roles to advance destructive ESG and DEI movements.

It all starts at NYU classrooms indoctrination camps, where the kids are being uploaded the woke mind virus by activist professors. These kids are being brainwashed into not improving society but, in fact, being managers to spread wokesim to dismantle Western society.

In return, these corporations can out woke each other – and they have. Remember the Bud Light incident more than a year ago?

The brewer’s pro-trans marketing executive nuked the brand by featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a TikTok promotional ad in April of 2023, an attempt to score high brownie points with DEI & ESG indexes. Again, these woke degrees are not productive and are only a means to spread wokeism, which is at risk to the company’s brand. 

The problem with these useless degrees is that they’re based on a woke system. With an anti-woke tide sweeping the nation and wokeism falling apart, some degrees are worthless.

These are real majors that NYU students are going into debt for. This is not satire. pic.twitter.com/rNXWhTeCrC

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 27, 2024

Furthermore, New Discourses, an expert on the woke mind virus, recently wrote an open letter to students, explaining that pursuing woke degrees in college won’t lead to a positive outcome in the end.

Let’s get back to an education system that focuses on actual learning, not woke activism. This is destructive, and that is why Elon Musk is seizing the opportunity to create a new university. 

Don’t worry. The Biden administration will be bailing these folks out. 

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Dr. Chris Martenson holds a PhD in pathology from Duke University, is a futurist and an economic researcher.  Dr. Martenson was one of the very few scientists who called BS on the FDA’s approval of Pfizer’s CV19 vax back in August 2021.  Dr. Martenson went on the record to say, “Comirnaty CV19 Vax Approval is Actually Fraudulent.”

Now, Dr. Martenson is out warning about a new kind of fraud that could leave you broke in the next financial disaster.  Dr. Martenson thinks financial trouble of Biblical proportions could be coming sooner than most people think.  Dr. Martenson is not worried about a brokerage going under, such as Lehman Brothers in the 2008. 

Martenson is worried about the entire system melting down and says, “When the system freezes up, they get really scared.  If you are not a complete moron, you would make that system smaller because it scared you that much, but instead, they made it even bigger…”

“We not only have to worry about a brokerage going down, but we now have to worry about these clearing parties…

These are the houses that are supposed to be clearing all the trades with the derivatives and the loans… The law says the brokerages have to hold your shares and bonds you have in a proportional amount.  They don’t hold them.  A higher company does that . . . . and you can’t peer into them.

  It you want to see what Fidelity or Schwab has . . . . I found out you cannot see an audit trail.”

In a new market meltdown, Dr. Martenson sees chaos and gives a hypothetical example:

“China attacks Taiwan, and there is a 10 sigma move in the bond market.  Oh no, all these derivatives have blown up.  These people are supposed to be winners, and these people are supposed to be all losers.  No, no, they don’t have any money for that stuff. 

It’s too complicated.  I don’t think anybody understands how this works anymore.  I could not find anybody who could tell me the whole thing.  I could find people who knew bits and pieces, but they knew their slice…

I am trying to stitch this thing all together.  I get uncomfortable when I can’t answer the most basic questions, and that is how much risk is there in the system and where is it?”

In short, Dr. Martenson is worried about the whole financial system going down.  Dr. Martenson says:

“Yes, I am worried about the whole system going down, and that leads to all sorts of speculation…

Imagine this, we wake up one day, and the markets are not open on Monday.  Oh no, glitch.  Problem.  Then, it’s two days and not open, three days not open.  People are getting worried.  Friday, and the markets are still not open. 

Monday comes, and they say it’s a super big problem, and we don’t know how to resolve it…

They offer you 100% value today in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) account or you can wait it out and hope it gets resolved, and it might take a decade.”

Dr. Martenson likes gold, silver, land and basically all (clear title) physical assets to protect you from “The Great Taking.”  Martenson has an upcoming seminar with “The Great Taking” author David Webb (and others) to help you to counter the theft that will surely come in the next financial meltdown.

In closing, Dr. Martenson says,

“This has been a series of large amplitude blunders that keep getting bigger and bigger.  ‘The Great Taking’ is the framework built, that just in case all this colossal blundering blows up, Congress and Wall Street flips a coin and you get heads we win and tails you lose.  This is the oldest story in the book.”

There is much more in the 38-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with the founder of PeakProsperity.com, Dr. Chris Martenson for 5.28.24.

*  *  *

To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

There is lots of totally free information and analysis on PeakProsperity.com. If you want to see the “How to Protect Your Wealth From The Great Taking” seminar on June 15th, click here.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has increasingly of late lashed out publicly at the proverbial hand that feeds him. He and his top officials have long complained that the billions in approved Western defense aid and shipments have been much too slow to reach Ukraine, giving the superior-armed Russians a clear advantage.

But now as things get more desperate especially in the Kharkiv region where Russian forces are fast advancing, Zelensky is going after President Biden himself. There’s a major Ukraine-backed peace summit in Switzerland set for next month, and it’s looking very unlikely that Biden will attend, leaving Zelensky deeply unhappy.

During a visit to Belgium on Tuesday, Zelensky told reporters that it would not be “a strong decision” if Biden failed to attend the summit, which is to take place June 15-16 outside Lucerne. He went so far as to say it would be tantamount to a standing ovation for Putin.

In a clear slight and back-handed insult, the Ukrainian leader essentially said Biden would be doing Putin’s bidding if he’s a no-show:

“[The] peace summit needs President Biden and so do the other leaders who look at the reaction of the United States. Putin will only applaud his absence, personally applaud it – and standing, at that,” Zelensky said.

But notably, Russia was never invited to send a representative. Given that Moscow is on the other side as a direct party to the war, this means the conference’s aim to secure “a just and lasting peace” appears an exercise in futility. 

It ultimately seems another photo op for Zelensky where he can be seen standing beside the most powerful world leaders. The Kremlin has dismissed the whole thing as but a pro-Kiev PR opportunity. At this moment, Zelensky is desperately urging for his Western backers to approve of using externally supplied long-range weapons to attack directly inside Russian territory.

But what is it that has Zelensky and his more hawkish supporters so angry? Bloomberg had this headline days ago: Biden Set to Skip Ukraine Peace Summit for Hollywood Fundraiser. The story said as follows:

President Joe Biden will likely miss a Ukraine summit next month because it conflicts with a campaign fundraiser in California he’s set to attend alongside George Clooney, Julia Roberts and other stars.

Switzerland scheduled the conference for June 15-16, after a meeting of the Group of Seven in Italy. Several G-7 leaders plan to join but neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to be there, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing private deliberations. President Vladimir Putin wasn’t invited and leaders from other nations are also planning to skip.

The Ukrainian president has also been urging for China’s President Xi Jinping to be at the Swiss summit, seeing in Beijing a powerful country which has sway with Putin – if it can be convinced to back Ukraine’s peace formula.

Lame Duck Biden dumps Zelensky’s peace summit in Switzerland so he can campaign with Clooney and Roberts, former President Barack Obama and late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel fundraiser on June 15

In December Joe went from AS LONG AS IT TAKES TO AS LONG WE CAN. pic.twitter.com/hgIwzputU0

— Joni Job (@jj_talking) May 27, 2024

Zelensky has said of recent deadly Russian strikes on Kharkiv: “Everything was blown up, children, people, civilians and you cannot answer [Russia]. You receive the satellite images from your intelligence but there is nothing you can do to respond. I think this is unfair. But – and this is a fact – we cannot risk the support of our partners. That is why we are not using our partners’ arms to attack the Russian territory. That is why we are asking please give us the permission to do that.”

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

When predicting the future, we’re best served by following “what benefits the wealthy and powerful,” as that is the likeliest outcome.

This contrarian sees a strong consensus around the notion that hyper-inflation is the inevitable end-game of nation-states / central banks issuing fiat currencies, i.e. currencies that are not restrained by being pegged to tangible assets such as gold reserves. The temptation to issue (via “printing” or borrowing new currency into existence by selling sovereign bonds) more currency becomes irresistible to politicians and central bankers alike. as the means to mollify every constituency, from elites to the military to commoners dependent on state-funded bread and circuses.

This unrestrained creation of new money far in excess of the expansion of goods and services (i.e. the real economy) devalues the currency, as “all the new money chases too few goods and services.” Gresham’s law kicks in–bad money drives good money out of circulation–as precious metals, fine art, gemstones, etc. are hoarded and the depreciating currency is spent as fast as possible before its purchasing power declines even further.

The Cantillon Effect also kicks in: those closest to the spigot of new money get first dibs on converting the depreciating currency into tangible goods, leaving the non-elites to sweep up the “trickle-down” shreds left as the currency loses purchasing power daily.

The consensus holds that there is no way to stop this decay of purchasing power to near-zero, i.e. hyper-inflation, once it starts. As in a Greek tragedy, the fatal flaw of the protagonist–in this case, fiat currency–leads inevitably to its destruction.

In the real world, things having to do with money tend to occur because they benefit powerful interests. This leads us to ask of hyper-inflation: cui bono, to whose benefit? Exactly which powerful interests benefit when a currency’s purchasing power plummets to near-zero?

The idea here is that there will be pushback if it doesn’t benefit the wealthy and powerful. So either hyper-inflation somehow benefits the wealthy and powerful, or it escapes their control and wipes them out along with the powerless commoners. That raises the question: didn’t the wealthy and powerful see what was coming and couldn’t they have reversed the policies generating hyper-inflation? If not, why not?

There are a couple of different threads to follow here. One is that capital is what matters to the wealthy and powerful because they own the vast majority of it while credit is what matters to the poor, as credit is their only way to acquire a bit of capital to invest in their own enterprise / household.

The poor owe debt, the wealthy own debt: debt (such as a home mortgage) is an asset to the wealthy, who buy the loan for its income stream, while debt is a liability to the commoners that must be serviced out of their earned income.

If wages rise in parallel with high rates of inflation, those who owe debt find their burdens lightened as their mortgage payment remains fixed while their income rises with inflation. Imagine how cheering it is when one finds a once-onerous $200,000 mortgage can now be paid off with a month’s salary due to hyper-inflation.

On the flip side, the wealthy and powerful who own the debt are less delighted, as the purchasing power of the currency used to pay off the mortgage has diminished, effectively robbing them of most of the value of their original purchase of the mortgage. Where the $200,000 they paid for the mortgage could have bought two nice luxury vehicles, the $200,00 they now receive in full payment can barely buy a used clunker.

This raises an interesting question: why on Earth would the wealthy and powerful let hyper-inflation destroy the value of all their debt-based assets and income streams? Isn’t that completely counter to their interests? If so, why would they let that happen?

At this juncture it’s important to draw a distinction between ancient examples of hyper-inflation and the present-day economy. In the declining era of the Roman Empire, the government drastically reduced the silver content in the coinage to generate the illusion that everyone was still being paid in full with only a fraction of the silver contained in old coinage. This artifice was quickly uncovered, and old coinage disappeared from circulation due to hoarding and inflation caused prices and wages to soar.

The difference is back then, the poor owned virtually nothing. Today, the poor “own” debt service: they owe interest and principal on the vast quantities of debt owned by the wealthy, who will lose out when the value of their debt-based assets crash to near-zero in hyper-inflation. Hyper-inflation is incredibly beneficial to debtors with earned income and incredibly destructive to those who own the debt being wiped out.

This leads to a second thread: the wealthy shift their wealth overseas as inflation picks up, wait for the hyper-inflationary storm to wipe out the value of literally everything in their home economy, at which point they return, foreign cash in hand, to scoop up all the best assets at fire-sale prices.

This certainly works on small developing-world economies, but it doesn’t work in large economies such as the U.S. with $156 trillion in assets to convert into other nation’s currencies and assets. In large economies, the wealth of powerful elites is generated by a functioning economy that produces goods and services and maintains a stable currency. Buying a castle and some gold overseas is not a replacement for productive capital that generates income and capital gains.

Wiping out the value of the nation’s currency also destroys its value as a reserve currency and in global trade, two additional disasters the wealthy and powerful would seek to avoid at all costs. If we tote up the winners and losers of hyper-inflation, the commoners who owe debt win as long as wages rise with inflation, while the wealthy and powerful lose out. Given the vast asymmetry of wealth and power, do you really think this is going to happen?

We must also draw a distinction between borrowing currency into existence via paying interest on a sovereign bond and “printing” currency, as some studies have found borrowing currency into existence precludes hyper-inflation, as the interest payments on the rising debt act as a negative feedback loop on future borrowing: as interest consumes more of the state tax revenues, political and financial pressures to curtail runaway borrowing/spending emerge.

What seems more likely because it serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful is interest rates on sovereign bonds soar, enabling the wealthy who sold off all their risk assets such as stocks and commercial real estate to earn a healthy, low-risk return in Treasuries. The central bank is ordered to stop “printing money” and the government cuts spending across the board, leading to howls of outage but since the interests of the wealthy and powerful are at stake, too bad, suck it up, kids, everyone takes a cut.

Risk assets deflate, the purchasing power of the commoners’ debt service stabilizes, and the ensuing deflation only hurts those who didn’t bail out of speculative risk assets at the top and stash the cash in short-term Treasuries. Then, when rates max out, the smart money shifts capital into long-term sovereign bonds and waits for the deflation to send risk asset prices to the basement. Then the long-term bonds can be liquidated for cash, and the deflated assets scooped up at fire-sale prices.

If we ask cui bono, which scenario is more likely: hyper-inflation or a deflationary crushing of risk assets and soaring interest rates? Yes, a bunch of zombie / marginal borrowers will default, and those holding the debt will be wiped out, but all that is foreseeable and can be remedied by selling when everyone is bullish on real estate and risk assets.

As for the commoners, deflating prices increase the purchasing power of their wages. Those with little or no debt will benefit from deflation, as their wages will go farther and they’ll finally be able to afford risk assets once prices return to pre-bubble levels. As for interest rates, we all paid 12% mortgages in the early 1980s and life went on because the loans were modest in size compared to today’s bloated Everything Bubble.

Other than China, it doesn’t appear that global money supply is going parabolic:

As this chart indicates, inflation is tolerated as long as it’s stretched over a century and wages rise along with prices.

When predicting the future, we’re best served by following what benefits the wealthy and powerful, as that is the likeliest outcome. Is hyper-inflation a “solution”? Not to the wealthy and powerful.

*  *  *

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Authored by Paul Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

In a shot across the bow against Scientific American’s continued descent into unscientific twaddle, a BMJ investigation documented over a dozen social media posts by editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth promoting transgender care for children, despite scientific evidence showing such treatment has had “devastating consequences” for minors.

“Laws preventing trans kids from getting gender-affirming treatment are dangerous and abusive, as well as against all medical evidence,” Helmuth posted on X in late 2022, one of many examples that The BMJ sent to Scientific American and its publisher Springer Nature, asking them to explain Helmuth’s trans advocacy which runs contrary to medical evidence.

In other social media posts, Helmuth has labeled critics of dangerous trans gender medicine for children “biased,” “bigoted,” “antiscience,” “misinformation,” “cruel,” and compared them to Nazis.

Last year, Helmut promoted false news in Scientific American that argued, “The research is clear and all the relevant medical organizations agree: Gender-affirming care is evidence-based & medically necessary & leads to much better outcomes for trans kids than refusing them care.”

Six days later, The BMJ released an investigation of new research finding that the evidence for trans gender care for children lacked evidence and that medical authorities were urging caution.

England, Scotland, Wales, and Sweden have all ceased prescribing puberty blockers for children, except for research studies, and the Finnish psychiatrist who first founded the field of transgender care for children now calls it “dangerous.” Many countries’ medical authorities have concluded that studies promoting trans treatment for children were either biased or of low quality.

The BMJ’s targeting of Laura Helmuth was a warning, of sorts—an admonition that Helmuth should focus on science, cease the advocacy, and stop saying stupid things. But if you continue to read Scientific American, expect Helmuth to continue saying stupid things.

Last month, Harvard’s Steven Pinker labeled Helmuth a “woke fanatic” on X and promoted an article discussing Scientific American’s descent into progressive ideology. “Another noble American institution run into the ground when clueless trustees handed over the keys to a woke fanatic,” Pinker posted.

The article Pinker promoted appeared in City Journal (“Unscientific American”) and carefully documented the magazine’s decline into a political rag since Helmuth took the reins in early 2020. Other outlets have also cast a disapproving eye on Helmuth’s political crusades.

The Wall Street Journal noted that Helmuth tweeted last year that “sparrows have four different chromosomally distinct sexes,” forcing the community notes on X to correct Helmuth’s error.

“It’s just incredible how far @sciam — a periodical I admired — has fallen from its mission to provide accurate, clear, and vivid coverage of science,” Yale professor and physician Nicholas Christakis, posted on X.

“EXCLUSIVE: unScientific American! Popular magazine is slammed by experts over ‘woke’ article titled ‘Why Human Sex is Not Binary’,” reported The Daily Mail, a few months prior to Christakis’ criticism of Helmuth. Dr Carole Hooven, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, told The Daily Mail that Scientific American’s unscientific claims could put women in danger.

“On average, men are bigger and stronger than women, and commit the overwhelming majority of rapes and murders. Most men could kill most women with their bare hands,” Hooven explained. “These facts have informed the establishment of laws and social policies that protect female spaces, particularly those where women are in vulnerable positions such as where they sleep or shower (prison cells and locker rooms, for example).”

Chicago University emeritus professor of ecology and evolution, Jerry Coyne, has written several times about Helmuth promoting factually inaccurate claims in Scientific American, which he labeled “Scientific Pravda.”

Somebody called my attention to three new articles and op-eds in Scientific American that have no science in them, but are pure ideology of the “progressive” sort.  I agree with some of the sentiments expressed in them, as in the first one. But my point is, as usual, to show how everything in science, including its most widely-read “popular” magazine, is being taken over by ideology. Not only that, but it’s ideology of only one stripe: Leftist “progressive” (or “woke,” if you will) ideology, so that the “opinion” section is not a panoply of divergent views, but gives only one view, like a Scientific Pravda.  Remember that the editor refused when I offered to write an op-ed expressing different (but of course not right-wing) views.

In a previous City Journal article in 2022, science writer Nicholas Wade called Scientific American’s shift away from science a “new Lysenkoism” referring to the Soviet doctrine that forced biologists to ignore evolution and the genetics of plants to conform to political ideology.

And in an investigation I conducted for the BMJ(“The covid-19 lab leak hypothesis: did the media fall victim to a misinformation campaign?”) I noted that Helmuth harassed CDC Director Robert Redfield for telling CNN he thought the COVID virus may have come from a Wuhan lab:

The growing tendency to treat the lab leak scenario as worthy of serious investigation has put some reporters on the defensive. After Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appeared on CNN in March, Scientific American’s editor in chief, Laura Helmuth, tweeted, “On CNN, former CDC director Robert Redfield shared the conspiracy theory that the virus came from the Wuhan lab.” The following day, Scientific American ran an essay calling the lab leak theory “evidence free.”

In short, Helmuth is a political fanatic who doesn’t care much for science, unless it’s science that fits her personal politics.

The BMJ’s investigation highlighted the Cass Review which found little evidence to support Helmuth’s claims that the puberty blockers or other trans therapy for children are safe, including surgery. Dr. Hilary Cass is a British physician and former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who spent three years examining the evidence for treating gender questioning young people.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Dr. Cass said that doctors in the United States are “out of date” with understanding trans care for children. “But what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good,” Dr. Cass told the New York Times. “And I think that’s where you’re misleading the public.”

And in podcast for the BMJ, Dr. Cass noted that of the 100 studies for puberty blockers and hormone treatment, only two were of passable quality. She also dismissed claims by activists such as Helmuth that trans care lowers risk of suicide in children.

“There, unfortunately, is not evidence that gender affirming treatment in its broadest sense reduces the suicide risk,” Dr. Cass said, during The BMJ podcast.

Below are several social media posts by Laura Helmuth crusading for trans care for kids—many of them dangerous messages for children, all lacking quality medical evidence.

To find the latest quality medical evidence on trans care for children, please read The Cass Review, which NHS England commissioned to improve NHS gender identity services, and ensure that children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria receive a high standard of care, that meets their needs, is safe, holistic and effective. 

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The week following Russia holding tactical nearly drills in its southern military district, near Ukraine, the Kremlin is alleging that NATO is secretly engaged in drills which seek to prepare for a potential nuclear strike on Russian territory.

General Vladimir Kulishov, First Deputy Director and Head of Russia’s Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Service has said the military has observed increase NATO military activity near Russia, which includes fresh nuclear drills.

He stated in an interview with state Ria Novosti news that “Near the Russian border, NATO’s reconnaissance activities are increasing, the intensity of operational combat training of the alliance’s troops is growing, during which scenarios for conducting combat operations against the Russian Federation, including the launch of nuclear strikes on our territory, are being worked out.”

Kulishov added: “The situation requires taking appropriate steps to protect and secure our borders.”

NATO itself has not confirmed that it is engaged in ‘nuclear drills’ near Russia, and it is unclear the degree to which Gen. Kulishov was merely speculating or perhaps ‘reading into’ things based on the serious threats from the West that Moscow currently perceives.

Putin’s Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has also said separately “that NATO is flirting with military rhetoric, increasing the degree of escalation and falling into military ecstasy.”

At the same time, and to be expected, France’s Emmanuel Macron has added his voice to the growing chorus of NATO leaders who want to see restrictions lifted on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons supplied by the West.

Macron said that his government’s position is that “we think we must allow (Ukraine) to neutralize the (Russian) military sites from which the missiles are fired.”

“If we tell (the Ukrainians) you do not have the right to reach the point from which the missiles are fired, we are in fact telling them that we are delivering weapons to you, but you cannot defend yourself,” he had explained late Tuesday while on an official visit to Germany.

On Monday NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the same. The increasing momentum for this policy change could culminate in Washington making an official announcement. Already some Biden admin officials have strongly hinted they’d be OK with Kiev using American weapons to strike inside Russia. Likely this is already happening, at least on a covert level.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The long-term forecast for higher interest rates, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, makes it more difficult to control US borrowing needs, which emphasizes the significance of raising revenue in the forthcoming budget talks with Republican lawmakers. There is only one problem. She is wrong.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline, which does not assume a single year of recession and already counts with record tax revenues, the 2025 primary deficit will reach $851 billion, while net interest outlays will rise to $951 billion. Furthermore, the minimum expected primary deficit from 2025 to 2034 will be a staggering $676 billion with $1.2 trillion of net interest outlays, while the average annual deficit will likely be above $700 billion. The accumulated figures are even more concerning. The CBO estimates that the aggregate primary deficit in the 2025–2034 period will reach a brutal $7.4 trillion, with accumulated interest expenses of $12.4 trillion. We must remember that the CBO baseline estimates no recession and constantly rising tax receipts above the record 2024 level.

If the CBO’s optimistic estimates lead to the conclusion that deficits and interest expenses are going to soar in a booming economy, it is evident that no revenue measure is going to end this disastrous trend.

Those who say that revenue measures will cut the deficit have a problem with mathematics and reality. There is no revenue measure that will generate $700 billion in additional receipts every year. Furthermore, there is no revenue measure that will generate those additional annual revenues, regardless of the economic cycle. A single year of recession could destabilize the administration’s optimistic estimates.

The United States’ unsustainable budget deficit is a problem, and interest expenses are rising because the government rejects any form of budget discipline.

The administration believes that all expenses are necessary but too low, and that your hard-earned money is excessive and should be subject to higher taxes.

Deficits are always a spending problem. Only interventionist bureaucrats assume that revenues are the issue. Tax revenues are cyclical, and expenditures consolidate and rise faster than revenues because the administration never gets enough.

When the economy soars, governments spend more, and when the economy weakens, they spend even more, making deficit spending a burden on the economy that leads to discontent in recessions and expansion periods.

We are witnessing a deadly proposal for the U.S. economy. The government rejects any possibility of administering and balancing the budget. The unsustainable deficit is printing money, resulting in higher taxes and likely persistent inflation. You are poorer, and the government becomes larger every year.

Keynesianism is the destruction of the middle class. By printing money and bloating deficits and spending, the size of government in the economy rises faster than the private and productive sectors. The size of the government increases during recessions by increasing expenditure to combat them, and it also increases during economic downturns by hiking taxes and creating inflation, which is a hidden tax.

What we are witnessing is a slow nationalization of the economy. Small businesses and families are suffering from higher rates because the government has created inflation and driven deficits to unsustainable levels, and the government demands more tax revenues.

The trick, as always, will be to deceive us by claiming that taxes will only be imposed on the wealthy. An unfair taxation system is no less unfair if it affects only a small proportion of citizens. However, it does not even matter. There is no way in which the government can boost revenues without passing a massive burden to the middle class via inflation, a hidden tax, and higher direct and indirect taxes.

According to Yellen, the government will not compromise on spending, and you will pay with inflation and higher taxes. This is the danger of letting Keynesianism reign. They start by presenting the government as the solution, and they always impoverish the middle class.

There is no way in which the administration can fill a structural annual $700 billion budget hole with “taxes on the rich.” Therefore, when they talk of compromise, what they mean is that the middle class and small businesses will continue to suffer.

Government spending has already reached $3.82 trillion from January to May, a 6% increase over the same period in 2023, according to the Treasury’s Fiscal Data website. Only if we consider the year-on-year increase so far, $208 billion, there is no revenue measure that would have collected that amount from the rich, from corporations, or from anyone, for that matter.

Considering that Yellen and the Biden administration are unwilling to even moderate the insane government spending trend, the Federal Reserve finds itself in the position of trying to curb the cost of debt by slowing the path of balance sheet normalization. This means that the Fed abandons its fight against inflation because fiscal policy fails to reduce inflationary pressures. In doing so, the Fed is unwillingly passing the entire burden of policy normalization and higher rates to the productive sector, while the Treasury looks at the enormous deficit and thinks, “Well, we must collect more revenues.” You pay.

There is only one way to save the US dollar from losing more purchasing power and the US from becoming a stagnant and unproductive economy: reduce the size of government. If you believe the government is too small, be prepared to be poorer by losing your real wage and ability to make ends meet. If you want more government, you will have it. And you will overpay for it. Inflation, higher taxes, and lower wages are the price of more state control. Always.