Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClearPolitics,

“I don’t want any yes-men around me,” said Sam Goldwyn, the Hollywood producer famed for his movies and malapropisms. “I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their job.” The brass at National Public Radio must have heard Sam, but they add a slight amendment. We want only “yes-men” (they/them) and will boot anyone who dares to dissent.

Lest there be any doubt, NPR just proved it by suspending, without pay, the staffer who exposed the pervasive problems there. He dared to write publicly that that National Public Radio was uniformly ideological, deeply committed to its strident left-wing views, and determined to exclude any alternatives. For saying that out loud, they cut off Uri Berliner’s paycheck for five days. It’s their way of saying, “Thank you for your feedback.” Q.E.D.

Berliner, disgusted by NPR’s response, resigned Wednesday with a fiery statement: “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged.” Who could?

There are really two problems here, not one, and they go well beyond one journalist’s resignation. The first is political bias, which is a problem at all “elite” networks and newspapers, where “hard news” is heavily slanted. The second is that some of these outlets, notably NPR, PBS (the Public Broadcasting System) and their local affiliates, receive taxpayer funding.

Let’s take political bias first. It was once a cardinal rule of journalism that partisan or ideological viewpoints should be confined to editorials and opinion columns. The goal was to keep editorial views out of hard-news reporting, as much as possible. To do it, the editorial staff constantly fought with the business team, who wanted coverage to favor their advertisers.

Those days are long gone and so is even the ideal of unbiased coverage. We have returned to an earlier era when American newspapers were closely affiliated with political parties and local political machines and covered the news to favor them. Today’s newsrooms have revived that stance. They are as ideologically driven as a gender-studies class at Smith College. If you depart from that ideology, you are out, like Bari Weiss at the New York Times.

Because newsrooms now have so few dissenting voices, reporters and editors live inside the bubble and hardly notice their surroundings. If they do, they are determined to preserve that insularity.

The fragmentation of today’s media landscape encourages these strong, partisan stances. Newspapers, magazines, cable networks, and podcasts know the market is finely sliced. They have strong incentives to choose a narrow slice for themselves and appeal to it by confirming their audience’s bias, not challenging it. That’s as true for right-wing talk radio as it is for left-wing public radio.

Just as elite attitudes have moved further left, so have elite publications and broadcasts. Since the Democratic Party has trod that same path, even as Republicans have become more nationalist and populist, the bias in elite newsrooms has naturally moved further left. That includes outlets like NPR and PBS. Their audience drives EVs, not Ford F-150s.

What makes this bias a policy issue is that NPR, PBS, and their local outlets receive taxpayer money. They shouldn’t. It was justifiable for educational programming. It cannot be justified for news or entertainment.

Public funding for news programming is fundamentally wrong in a democracy when there are so many other ways to receive news and information. The problem is compounded when taxpayer money pays for coverage is partisan and biased. That’s not an issue for MSNBC or the New York Times. They are private businesses. They can do whatever they damn well please. Not so for NPR, PBS, and their local affiliates. They do receive taxpayer money.

When NPR faced criticism this week, it shot back with deceptive statistics, claiming less than 1% of its money is from the government. That’s three-card-monte accounting.

To understand why, we need to look at how Washington disburses taxpayer money for public TV and radio, some $500 million in the next fiscal year. That money doesn’t go directly to NPR. (Hence, the 1% claim.) They get it indirectly. First, the federal outlay goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private entity, as mandated in a 1967 law. The CPB sends nearly all that money to local public radio and TV stations as “community grants.” The stations then use part of that money to buy syndicated programs like NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

NPR last financial statement showed that about one-third of its revenue came from local stations’ purchasing NPR programs. A significant chunk of the money to make those purchases came from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. To hide that source of taxpayer funding for NPR was its three-card-monte trick.

The larger problem here is not the deception or partisan bias, bad as they are. It’s not the scale of public funding, either. The fundamental problem is that taxpayers should not be underwriting any domestic news organizations, for any amount. Reporting should be completely independent of city, state, and federal government so journalists can report political issues without fear or favor.

Government-funded broadcasting to foreign audiences is different. American taxpayers have legitimate reasons to fund the Voice of America and other channels, primarily to get honest news past the dictators’ censors. But the VOA is prohibited, by law, from broadcasting within the United States or creating programs for U.S. audiences. That’s entirely proper. The same logic should apply to news and news-interview programs from NPR and PBS and their local affiliates.

What about “educational TV”? There were good reasons for a publicly funded network devoted to that mission in the 1950s and 1960s. There were only three major networks and, of course, a genuine need for educational content. That non-political service lasted from 1954 until 1970. It was succeeded by the Public Broadcasting Service, which quickly dropped any mention of “educational.” Member stations of the old National Educational Television were folded into PBS. Their schedules now include a mix of entertainment, educational programs, news, and news interviews.

National Public Radio, by contrast, has never included much educational content. For years, it has been simply a left-wing alternative to right-wing talk radio. That would be fine only if all the funding were private. It’s not.

The evidence shows that the best educational TV, such as “Sesame Street,” does help children learn. So there are good reasons to continue underwriting such programs. Ideally, they should be provided free to anyone who wishes to broadcast them, post them on the web, or use them in class.

But there is no reason for federal, state, or city governments to own any broadcast channel, other than to broadcast public meetings and hearings. For everything else, including educational programs, there are countless channels on cable TV and YouTube.

A good example of what the government can properly fund are the wonderful videos about scientific discoveries, presented in accessible language by Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln. The lab is funded by the government, and Dr. Lincoln conveys its work to the public by posting brief lectures on the web. He is doing what “educational TV” did in the 1950s. In the 2020s, programs like Dr. Lincoln’s can be posted online for the public to use, free. We don’t need public TV or radio to do it, and we don’t need their publicly funded podcasts.

If private institutions want to publish their own educational videos, either free or for sale, the world is open to them. Let “the Great Courses” do that by selling them online. Let “Prager University” do it. Let MIT broadcast its science courses. Let a million podcasts bloom. Privately.

If the federal government wishes to fund genuinely educational content, fine. It’s also fine to provide public services like weather information, which taxpayers already fund. But if the federal government, cities, or states wish to fund news and news interview programs, that’s not fine. Let private entities do it. Exclusively.

What should be done with existing public broadcasting frequencies on radio and television? Put them up for auction and put the money into the public treasury. If civic groups or philanthropies buy them, fine. If commercial enterprises buy them, that’s fine, too. The Department of Education can still fund education programs and make the content available to anyone who wishes to use it or broadcast on their channels. $500 million should buy a lot of new content each year.

What the government should not fund, produce, or broadcast are news or news-interview programs. The issue is not just political bias. The issue is that the heavy hand of government should not control any broadcast news within the U.S. Let the president, Cabinet secretaries, senators, and representatives hold press conferences. Let the White House, Pentagon, or State Department hold briefings. That’s more than enough to get their message out.

They don’t need to fund broadcast networks. That would be true even if their journalists and presentations were fair-minded. They aren’t, and that’s one more reason to end this public funding. But it is not the main reason. The main reason is that it is simply wrong for the government, with its deep pockets and coercive power, to control any broadcast network. Not in a free country.

Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com.

Days ago, The Wall Street Journal featured a headline that underscored Israel’s war leaders don’t trust one another. This comes as they are dealing simultaneously with the operation in Gaza, repelling Hezbollah daily drone and missile attacks in the north, and of course the new tit-for-tat crisis with Iran.

“Long-simmering grudges and arguments over how best to fight Hamas have soured relations between Israel’s wartime decision makers—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the former head of the Israeli military, Benny Gantz,” the publication wrote. “The three men are at odds over the biggest decisions they need to make: how to launch a decisive military push, free Israel’s hostages and govern the postwar strip.”

Israel’s former national security adviser Giora Eiland said “The lack of trust between these three people is so clear and so significant.” But the deep mistrust goes beyond the three wartime leaders and deeper into the governing coalition and national security cabinet as well.

The infighting is now on display even more in the wake of Israel’s retaliatory attack on Iran which took place in the early morning Friday hours. While there’s consensus that Israel aimed for a ‘limited’ attack, CNN and others have analyzed satellite images near Isfahan which ultimately show “no extensive damage on an Iranian airbase believed to be the main target.”

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has thrown fresh fuel to the fire, mocking Netanyahu’s decision-making by calling it “lame”. Ben Gvir had previously wanted Israel to “go berserk” in retaliation.

His words have once again resulted in intense controversy and infighting:

Ben Gvir, who leads the ultranationalist Jewish Power party, made a one-word post on X following the Israeli attack. Written in Hebrew, the Telegraph explained that the post used a “slang word that literally translates as ‘scarecrow’ but also means ‘lame.’” Reuters translated the word to “feeble.”

The post highlighted a public rift within the government in Tel Aviv. Ben Gvir is considered on the extreme end of Israel’s political spectrum and is popular among the right-wing settler movement. He lives in a West Bank settlement and has called for the resettlement of Gaza by Israelis.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid subsequently blasted Ben Gvir over the comment, saying: “Never before has a minister in the security cabinet done such heavy damage to the country’s security, its image and its international status.”

“In an unforgivable one-word tweet, Ben Gvir managed to mock and shame Israel from Tehran to Washington. Any other prime minister would have thrown him out of the cabinet this morning,” he added.

Meanwhile, PM Netanyahu continues to face mounting calls for his removal, especially from hostage victims’ families who have been leading large protests. They are outraged that he has not prioritized getting the hostages back.

WSJ wrote further that “Gantz, the general who led Israel’s last major war against Hamas a decade ago, has previously expressed a desire to oust Netanyahu as prime minister.” The defense chief had “called earlier this month for early elections in September after tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the prime minister’s handling of the war—a sign that Gantz’s base has grown frustrated with his role in a Netanyahu-led government.”

Authored by ‘Sundance’ via TheConservativeTreehouse.com,

The fourth amendment to the United States constitution says:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Late last night, early this morning (after midnight), the United States Senate passed a FISA reauthorization bill that directly and specifically violates every tenant of the 4th amendment.

The senate voted to authorize warrantless federal government searches of every American’s private papers, effects, emails, electronic data records, cell phone calls, contact lists, text messages, buying habits, purchases, banking records, social media posts, direct messages, private communications and every keystroke of every electronic device in your life. 

All of it continues to be subject to the capture, review and surveillance of an unelected opaque law enforcement mechanism, and congress supports it.

The issue is magnified because the Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of the FISA-702 data collection system, because the Supreme Court also says no American has standing to challenge the federal government violation of their 4th Amendment right to privacy.  It’s all infuriating…  It’s all FUBAR!

Oh, and if you are reading this… you’re likely on the list.

Last night Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) teamed up with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and added an amendment that would have required the government to get a warrant before reviewing any communications incidentally collected from Americans. 

The amendment was the last effort priority for a smidgen of hope; the IC railed against it, saying it would stop them from acting on critical “national security” information in real time. It failed by a vote of 42 to 50.

Another Democrat Senator, Ron Wyden (Oregon), a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, vowed and pledged that FISA-702 would never be renewed by any measure that required his signature. 

“I’ll do everything in my power to stop it,” he previously said.  “Searches have gone after American protesters, political campaign donors, even people who simply reported crimes to the FBI. The abuses have been extensive and well documented,” Wyden argued to colleagues.

Wyden’s effort to strike the language failed by a vote of 34 to 58.

“Egregious Fourth Amendment violations against U.S. citizens will increase dramatically if this bill is passed into law,” Utah Republican senator Mike Lee warned. 

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) offered an amendment to block DHS, FBI, DOJ, IRS, and various ancillary intelligence, law enforcement, national parks and government agencies from buying Americans’ electronic NSA data from third parties and federal contractors. 

Paul’s amendment failed by a vote of 31 to 61.

The House and Senate bill does include provisions that would force the Intelligence Community to notify political leadership in Congress about 702 database searches involving lawmakers, but you Comrade Citizen are not allowed to know about the searches done on you.  You comrade prole must improve your elite status if you wish to have participate in any benefit from the shredded and reconfigured 4th amendment, now reserved for the entitled class.

As noted by The Hill, Senator Mike “Lee offered an amendment to require the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to appoint an outside lawyer to argue for the rights of a U.S. person the government wants to surveil secretly. It would have also required government employees appearing before the FISA court to disclose factual evidence that might call into question the accuracy of their statements. It also failed even though it had previously passed the Senate with 77 votes in 2020.”

Tonight the Senate passed the House-passed FISA expansion bill—after rejecting seven different amendments requiring a warrant and otherwise reforming FISA 702.

This is a horrible bill.

It shows wanton disregard for the rights of Americans.

This is not a day to celebrate.

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) April 20, 2024

Go figure!

Hey, stop me when you start to notice something that looks like history rhyming.

There’s an inversion afoot.

People in DC claim they cannot see it….

People in DC claim they don’t see the parallels…

People in DC hate my pesky annoyances….

People in DC are our abusers….

Throw sand into the machine whenever possible…

Here are the 60 Senators who—bolstered by a lie about a phony deadline—decided to vote away our Fourth Amendment rights late on a Friday night when no one was paying attention. pic.twitter.com/yUB6vUCh0m

— Amy Peikoff (@AmyPeikoff) April 20, 2024

It’s not the easiest thing for a person to step away from their peer group and question the dogmatic political path the mob has chosen to follow.  When it comes to the woke left, stepping out of line is doubly difficult because any deviation from the approved ideology usually means immediate cancellation and excommunication (one’s career is in danger).  Only a few years ago it would have been unheard of for a mainstream celebrity to break from the progressive pack and speak publicly about inconvenient truths.  Those few that did were quickly blacklisted.

Consider the bizarre leftist war on Star Wars actress Gina Carano, who expressed conservative views on the trans issue and was told she had to participate in a company sponsored Zoom struggle session.  The message was clear:  She was expected to sublimate herself in front of a crowd of 45 finger-wagging LGBT people in order to make amends.  When she refused and continued defending her personal conservative ideals online, she was made an example of and cast out of Hollywood. 

Bill Maher is, if anything, clever about his timing like most comedians.  His rebellion against the woke mob has been carefully crafted in a way that has allowed him to avoid outright cancellation.  It’s not as impressive a revolt as Gina Carano’s because the risk today is far less, but at least he’s willing to address the obvious hypocrisy within the social justice crowd and admit that maybe, just maybe, conservatives had it right all along.  

His latest surprising monologue covers an issue everyone has known about for years but almost no one in the media has been willing to address seriously because it involves many of their friends in the entertainment industry.  Hollywood was quick to jump on the feminist bandwagon at the helm of the “Me Too Movement”, but this only exposed a small part of Hollywood’s degeneracy.  Actresses trading sex for favors from producers and executives is hardly that shocking a revelation.  The thing they really don’t want to talk about is the industry’s penchant for pedophilia…

It turns out for pedophiles in Hollywood, “It’s A Small World After All.” pic.twitter.com/4qUtOhXZYL

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) April 20, 2024

One of the deepest darkest secrets of film, television and music media is that the business has long been used as a vehicle for child abusers to target kids in an environment where parental supervision is limited (and lots of money can be gained).  This reminds us of yet another environment where parental supervision is limited:  Public schools.  The political left has also targeted these institutions as ample ground for grooming.  Why?  As Bill Maher notes, the groomers are naturally gravitating to where the children are.

“Leave the kids alone” is a mantra that the woke movement simply refuses to understand or accept.  The reason is relatively transparent – Leftists are less inclined to have children of their own, and so, in order to increase their numbers and power they are required to indoctrinate your kids instead.  This is all done under the guise of “inclusion” and the “greater good” but the results of this kind of activism are becoming deeply disturbing.  Even moderate liberals are noticing that woke behavior is destroying what remains of their image.

It may be that people like Bill Maher are finally realizing that progressive extremism is opening the door to a Trump win in November and they are in a panic to pull their compatriots back from the brink.  Most of the world hates woke activists with a passion and they just want to go back to the days when race and sexuality were not at the center of every single discussion, whether it be in movies or in the classroom.  Progressives have become so drunk with power after receiving the backing of governments and corporations that they flew too close to the sun; now they are getting roasted in the flames of public distrust.   

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

Needless to say, we at VON GREYERZ spend a good deal of time thinking about, well… gold.

The Complex, the Simple, the Math and the History

Year after year, and week after week, there is always a new way to examine gold price moves and decipher the obvious and not-so obvious forces which flow behind, ahead, above and below its monetary and, yes, metallic, move through time.

Today, deep into the early decades of the 21st century, and well over 100 years since the not-so immaculate conception of the Fed in the early 20th century, we could (and have) spent pages and paragraphs on key turning points in the rigged to fail history of paper vs. metallic money.

At times, this effort can and has seemed intense and even complex, with all kinds of historical facts, mathematical comparisons and “big events.”

The turning points of gold’s relationship with fiat currencies, and its role in preserving wealth, for example, are known to an admitted minority—as only about 0.5% of global financial allocations include physical gold.

Gold’s Language

Yet the need, role and direction of gold is fairly blunt, at least for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

History, for example, has some clear things to say about paper money.

And so does gold.

From the Bretton Woods promises of 1944 and Nixon’s open and subsequent welch on the same in 1971 to the 2001 outsourcing of the American dream to China under Clinton (and the WTO) or the recent weaponization of USD in Q1 of 2022, gold has been watching, acting and speaking to those who understand her language.

The Big Question: Why Is Gold Rising Now?

And this year, with gold reaching all-time-highs, piercing resistance lines and racing toward what the Wall Street fancy lads call “price discovery,” we are understandably getting a lot of interview requests, phone calls and even emails from friends otherwise silent for years and now suddenly asking the same thing:

“Why is gold rising now?”

The Wall Street side of my odd brain, like it or not, gets all excited by such questions.

Never at a loss for words, my pen and mouth rapidly seek to wax poetic on the many answers to why gold matters forever in general, and why it is rising in particular now.

Toward that end, the list of the fancy and not-so-fancy answers to this question in recent years, articles and interviews could look as simple (or as complex) as the following list of 7 key factors:

The Malignant Seven

1. Every debt crisis leads to a currency crisis—hence: Good for gold.

2. All paper currencies, as Voltaire quipped, eventually revert to their paper value of zero, and all debt-soaked nations, as von Mises, David Hume and even Ernest Hemingway warned, debase their currencies to retain power—hence: Good for gold.

3. Rising rates (and fiscal dominance) used to “fight inflation” are too expensive for even Uncle Sam’s wallet, thus he, like all debt-soaked nations, will debase his currency to pay his own IOUs—hence: Good for gold.

4. Global central banks are dumping unloved and untrusted USTs and stacking gold at undeniably important levels—hence: Good for gold.

5. After generations of importing US inflation and being the dog wagged by the tail of the USD, the BRICS+ nations, prompted by a weaponized Greenback, are now turning their tails slowly but surely away from the USD dog—hence: Good for gold.

6. The Gulf Cooperation Council oil powers, once seduced (circa 1973) into a Petrodollar arrangement by a high-yielding UST and globally revered USD, are now openly selling oil outside of the 2024 version of that far less-yielding UST and far less-trusted USD—hence: Good for gold.

7. That legalized price-fixing sham otherwise known as the COMEX employed in 1974 to keep a permanent boot to the neck of the gold price, is running out of the physical gold needed to, well…price fix gold—hence: Good for gold.

In short, each of these themes–from sovereign (and unprecedented) debt levels, historical debt lessons, the secrets of the rate markets, global central banks dumping USTs or the implications of changing oil markets to the OTC derivatives scam masquerading as capitalism–all DO explain why gold is rising now.

This list, of course, may be simple, but the forces, indicators, lingo, math and trends within each theme can be admittedly complex, as each theme is in fact worthy of its own text book rather than bullet point.

Indeed, currencies, markets, history, bonds, geopolitics, energy moves and derivative desks are complicated little creatures.

But despite all this complexity, study and deliberation, if you really want to address the question of “why is gold rising now?”—the answer is almost too simple for those of us who wish to appear, well… “complex.”

The Too-Simple Answer to the Big Question

In other words, the simple answer—the answer that cuts through all the fog, lingo and math of “sophisticated” financial markets–boils down to this:

GOLD IS NOT RISING AT ALL. THE USD IS JUST GETTING WEAKER AND WEAKER.

At VON GREYERZ, we never measure gold’s value in dollars, yen, euros or any other fiat currency. We measure gold in ounces and grams.

Why?

Because history and math (as well as all the current and insane financial, geopolitical, and social events staring us straight in the eyes today) teach us not to trust a currency backed by man (or the “full faith in trust” of the UST or a Fed’s mouse-clicked currency), but instead to seek value in monetary metals created by nature.

Fake Money & Empty Promises

Once a currency loses a gold backing (nod to Nixon), it is nothing more than the empty promise of a government now free to print and spend without a chaperone to buy votes, market bubbles and even a Nobel Prize (i.e., what Hemingway called “temporary prosperity”) but then hand the bill and inflation to future generations (what Hemingway then called “permanent ruin”).

Gold Does Nothing

So yes, gold, as Buffet and others have quipped, “does nothing.” It just sits there and stares at you.

But while this yield-less pet rock sits there “doing nothing,” the currency by which you measure your wealth is in fact quite busy melting like an ice cube–one day, month and year at a time.

Here’s to Doing Nothing: Price vs. Value

Sometimes a picture can say a thousand words and make the most complex economic topics or themes, like “price vs. value” or “store of value,” make immediate sense.

Think, for example, about a 1-ounce bar of gold just doing nothing in say… 1920.

Well, if you had 250 of those do-nothing ounces in a shoe box in 1920, which was “priced” then at around $20 USD per ounce, you could afford the average US home, then priced at $5000.

Today, however, the average price of a US home is $500,000.

So, if your grandfather left you a shoebox with 5000 crumpled Dollars inside, it would not even pay for the landscaping needed for that same house today.

But if your grandfather had instead handed you a shoebox with those same 250 singe-ounce bars of gold (today “priced” at 2300/ounce), you could buy the same average home and the landscaper too—with a nice tip for the latter.

So, do you still think those little gold bars just stared back at you, doing nothing?

After all, the shoe box with the 5000 USDs inside was very busy doing one thing very well, namely: Losing its value like snow melting off a spring mountainside…

So, which shoebox would you want to measure your wealth?

The one measured in fiat dollars actively losing value? Or the one measured in gold ounces “doing nothing” but retaining its value?

Sometimes the complex really is that simple.

The Next Big Question: Where’s Gold Headed Tomorrow?

The pathway to answering such a question is just as clear as the one we just traveled.

The aforementioned “Malignant Seven” are each factors which we believe will continue to push the USD down and hence gold higher, because, and to repeat: It’s not that gold will get stronger, it’s just that all fiat currencies in general, and the weaponized, distrusted and over-indebted USD in particular, get weaker.

But for those still understandably and realistically convinced that despite its myriad and almost endless flaws, the US (and its Dollar) is still, for now at least, the best horse in the glue factory, a case can be made that measured relative to other currencies (i.e., the DXY), that the USD is supreme, and that when and as financial markets weaken, investors will flock to it like a lifeboat in a tempest.

Milkshake Theory?

Such a credible view is held by very smart folks like Brent Johnson, with whom I have discussed the USD at length.

Brent’s “milkshake theory” intelligently argues that powerful demand forces from the euro dollar, SWIFT and derivative markets, for example, create a massive, “straw-like” sucking sound for the “milky” USD, which demand will keep it strong, and send it stronger, in the seasons ahead.

He may in fact be right.

But I think differently.

Why?

Two primary reasons stick out.

No “Straw” for the UST

First, despite the undeniably powerful demand forces at play for the USD, demand for USTs is, and has been, tanking around the world since 2014.  That is, foreigners don’t trust the US IOUs as much as they did before America became a debt trap.

Ever since foreign (central bank) interest in USTs began net-selling in 2014, and gold interest began net-buying in 2010, the only buyer of last resort for US public debt has been the US Fed, and the only tool the US Fed has to purchase that debt is a mouse-clicker (“money printer”) at the Eccles Building.

Unfortunately, creating money out of thin air is not a sustainable  policy but a near-term fantasy. More importantly, such a policy is inherently, and by definition: Inflationary.

My US Realpolitik Theory…

The second, and perhaps more important reason the USD’s declining future is fairly easy to see (or argue), is this:

EVEN UNCLE SAM WANTS AND NEEDS A WEAKER DOLLAR.

Why?

Because the only way out of the biggest debt hole the US has ever seen is to inflate its way out of it by debasing the currency to “save” an otherwise rotten system.

We’ve argued this for years, and the facts supporting this historically-repeated pattern (and view) haven’t changed; they’ve just grown worse.

That is why it was easy to foresee that inflation would not be “transitory” despite all the useless commentary (and Fed-speak) arguing to the contrary.

That is also why it was easy to see that Powell’s “war on inflation” was a political ruse—an optics play.

Powell’s real aim was (and remains) inflationary via negative real rates (i.e., inflation higher than 10Y bond yields).

Thus, even while pursuing his “higher-for-longer” and anti-inflationary rate hikes, actual inflation, which Powell needed, was still ripping.

But he (and the BLS) was able get around this embarrassing CPI reality by simply lying about the actual inflation…

In other words: Classic DC fork-tonguing…

China is Not Turning Japanese

But in case you still need further proof that the US wants and needs a weaker USD to fake its way out of their self-created debt disaster via an increasingly diluted USD at YOUR expense, just consider what’s happening with China.

Unbeknownst to many, Yellen has been scurrying off to Asia to convince, cajole or even threaten China into accepting a weaker USD vs the CNY.

Why?

Because the prior, “stronger” 40-year version of the Dollar has rendered expensive US exports (and trade deficits) unable to compete with cheaper Chinese goods.

This floating currency game was a trick the US played on Japan when I was a kid—i.e., weaken the USD to fight the then-rising Sun of Japan’s then rising power.

But China ain’t Japan. It won’t float its currency in dollar terms.

So, what then can the US do to weaken the USD without upsetting China?

Does DC Finally Want Higher Gold Prices?

Well, as Luke Gromen once again makes beautifully clear, the easiest path forward for all parties concerned is to simply (and finally) let gold go much, much higher.

The surest and steadiest path to a weaker USD is higher gold.

Yellen’s Treasury Department could use its Exchange Stabilization Fund to buy/sell gold and other financial securities to control the USD without having to rely so much on the Fed’s now embarrassing money printer.

Gold is now a critical pivot point and tool for the US. If gold went, for example, to $4000 while CNY gold sits at 16,000, China’s central bank would have to re-rate higher in Dollar terms, pushing the CNY higher.

But such an arrangement won’t upset China, as it holds a lot more gold than the World Gold Council reports.

Rather than float the CNY in Dollar terms, China could instead float its CNY in GOLD terms.

In short: A veritable win-win for the China and the US, with gold now leading the way.

Or stated otherwise, you know it’s gonna be a gold tailwind, when both China and DC are seeking higher gold.

Based on the foregoing, do you still think gold does nothing?

Think harder.

By Sam Bourgi of CreditNews,

Housing is becoming an exclusively upper-class privilege in a growing number of cities.

American schools have changed a lot in just the past five years.  Not long ago, it was understood by even the most progressive educators that some rules need to be put in place to keep kids in check.  Structure has always been a good thing for small people with developing brains and uncontrollable emotions.  Sadly, the educational system has been inexorably hijacked by the most extreme elements of the far left and by extension the principles used to maintain order among often impetuous and impulsive children have been quickly eroded in the name of “deconstruction.” 

For those outside of what is now referred to as “Gen Alpha” (the generation born from 2010 onward), most people grew up with restrictions in school, including dress codes.  While some institutions might have been more oppressive than others, overall there was a balance between “expressing one’s individualism” and keeping that expression from disrupting one’s education – Schools should focus on academia, not catering to people’s narcissism. 

Today, the progressive ideology has devolved into a bizarre form of cultism in which almost all behavior is justified as long as it is minority behavior.  This includes the behaviors of the mentally unstable and deranged; such people are swiftly becoming the most popular minority on the victimhood totem pole.

Nebo Middle School in Utah County has recently witnessed what might be the beginning of the end of the “anything goes” era in public schooling, with students (not just parents) protesting en masse over the disruptive inclusion of children identifying as furries and allegedly harassing other kids.  Students claim that furries bark in class, bite and scratch other children while generally creating chaos.

School officials deny these incidents and claim that the protest was triggered by “internet rumors.”

This kind of story might seem like fluff and silliness, but that’s how wokism was able to invade American schools in the first place – No one took it seriously until it was too late.

The furry issue is only a small part of a much larger debate that includes subjective identity, trans indoctrination, gender pronoun propaganda, equity over merit propaganda, personal truth vs objective truth, moral relativism, etc.  The question is this:  Should public institutions cater to mentally unstable people exhibiting aberrant or self-centered behaviors to the detriment of everyone else all in the name of equity?  Can we just admit that there is such a thing as too much freedom?

Where is the line?  Well, it’s safe to say that dressing up as a cartoon animal and trying to bite people in the classroom is probably somewhere past the point of no return.  The school denies these events and blames rumor, but rumors alone don’t motivate an entire student body to walk out and protest something as strange as furries.  There must be a problem that isn’t being addressed, and these days this usually means there’s a politically correct reason behind the refusal to punish certain students.

“We just wanted to learn.”

So this is insane. Hundreds of students at Mt. Nebo High School in Payson, Utah staged a mass walkout from school to protest the school’s tolerance of “furries.”

The students say that those who participate in the furry subculture are not only… pic.twitter.com/T5GTtR5qDx

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 18, 2024

If the youngest generation grows up without any boundaries or responsibility, what kind of adults will they eventually become?

On the positive side, the Nebo walkout suggests that the younger generation is not as brainwashed by inclusion rhetoric as many people might believe.  They are acting to keep the worst elements of their own community in check whether woke school officials like it or not.  Tolerance of all behaviors leads to acceptance of the worst behaviors.  Any school administrators that don’t understand this basic fact should be removed from their positions.

In the meantime the number of parents in the US choosing to home school their kids continues to climb, and we all know the real reason why. 

Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice,com,

Russian oil company Bashneft, part of state-controlled giant Rosneft, has installed metal mesh at its refineries to protect them from drone attacks from Ukraine, Russian media reported on Friday, quoting Radiy Khabirov, the head of the Bashkortostan region where Bashneft is based.

“We don’t stop there. There are a number of solutions there, which I won’t talk about yet. They are classified. But believe me, we worry about this very much,” the Bashinform agency quoted Khabirov as saying.  

This year, Ukraine has intensified attacks on oil refineries in Russia, which have reduced Russian refining capacity, and which, reportedly, have the White House concerned about rising international prices.

The United States has repeatedly urged Ukraine to halt its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries due to Washington’s assessment that the strikes could lead to Russian retaliation and push up global oil prices, the Financial Times reported last month, citing sources familiar with the exchange.

The drone attacks from Ukraine on Russian refineries could disrupt fuel markets globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said last week, estimating that up to 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Russia’s refinery capacity could be offline in the second quarter.

Russia has brought back online some oil refining units in recent weeks, reducing the capacity taken offline by Ukrainian drone hits to around 10%, from 14% at the end of March, calculations by Reuters showed earlier this week.

The refining capacity in Russia that is currently offline due to drone attacks is now estimated by Reuters at around 660,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared to 907,000 bpd offline at the end of March.

Still, maintenance and other outages at Russia’s refineries will actually raise the refining capacity that will be offline this month compared to March, according to Reuters’s data and calculations.

Russia said in early April it could repair all damaged units within two months. Russia’s Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov has said that all damaged refineries in the country would be restarted by the beginning of June.

The US House of Representatives plans a vote early Saturday afternoon on several bills that would send critical aid to Israel and Ukraine and a possible bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest or risk being banned across the US. 

At 1300 ET, the chamber is scheduled to vote on three foreign aid bills. A fourth measure, unrelated to foreign aid, would require the federal government to force ByteDance to sell TikTok within nine months or face a nationwide ban. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson will need Democratic votes to get all four votes passed. 

If approved, the bills are expected to be consolidated and sent to the Senate, where a vote on the entire legislative package will be required before sending it to President Biden’s desk for signature. The timeline for this is uncertain, but it will likely happen quickly. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY., have both supported the foreign aid bills. 

In a statement posted on the platform X, TikTok wrote, “It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans.” 

It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform…

— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) April 18, 2024

In March, the House initially passed legislation to ban TikTok if it is not sold within six months, but the measure failed to go anywhere. The current version would extend the timeframe to nine months, with a three-month extension. 

‘Free speech’ crusader Elon Musk came out against the potential ban, writing on X, “TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the 𝕏 platform.” 

Musk continued, “Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for.” 

In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the 𝕏 platform.

Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2024

X user OSINTdefender noted, “While I would usually Agree [with Musk on free speech], I think the Danger that a Platform like TikTok provides in Influencing the Youth of America, especially when it has Clear Links to the Chinese Government, is Too Great and thus it need to either be Restricted, Banned, or Totally Regulated; else we may have a Serious Domestic Issue on our Hands when we eventually do go Toe-to-Toe with China in the Pacific, similar to what we are already seeing in America’s Youth today with their Support for Anti-Western Ideals and literal Terrorist Groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.” 

While I would usually Agree, I think the Danger that a Platform like TikTok provides in Influencing the Youth of America, especially when it has Clear Links to the Chinese Government, is Too Great and thus it need to either be Restricted, Banned, or Totally Regulated; else we may…

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 19, 2024

Another X user said not just TikTok, “Exacy same videos are on insta reels, youtube shorts etc. Are you afraid of something else besides the content?” 

Exacy same videos are on insta reels, youtube shorts etc. Are you afraid of something else besides the content?

— Mikko Saarinen (@SaaMikko) April 20, 2024

Meanwhile, Tiktokers are threatening to protest today “the signing of that piggybacked omnibus bS war bill that simultaneously will push the TikTok ban through.” 

They crammed the TikTok bill into the Israel and Ukraine aid bill

and they’re apparently pushing it through house and senate tomorrow and POTUS is going to sign it tomorrow night…

All for your own good obviously. To protect you from being able to share videos with eachother pic.twitter.com/rVxBBKYfUg

— Ian Carroll (@Cancelcloco) April 20, 2024