Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

The Left has gone mad over former President Donald J. Trump — past, present, and future.

The current Democratic Party and NeverTrump “conservatives” assumed that Trump was and remains so obviously toxic that they do not have to define exactly what his evil entails.

Accordingly, they believe that any means necessary are justified to stop him.

And furthermore, these zealots, when out of power, insist such extraordinary measures should not be emulated and institutionalized by their opponents, much less ever boomeranged back upon their creators.

In this context, the Republicans retaking control of the House of Representatives once again raises the question of whether they should reply in kind.

Given the current investigation following the Mar-a-Lago raid, should there also be a mirror-image special prosecutor to examine President Joe Biden’s lost stash of classified documents in his insecure office following his vice presidency?

Can House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., ever be considered too inflammatory, given that his predecessor, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tore up the president’s State of the Union address on national television?

How many Democratic House members should be denied committee assignments to remind the Congress that Pelosi’s rejection of Republican nominees was a terrible precedent?

How many congressional subpoenas with threats of criminal prosecution and performance-art arrests should be issued to Democratic politicos to stop the criminalization of political differences?

In our current age, will all former president’s private homes, closets, and drawers now be subject to FBI raids to ensure that “classified” documents were not wrongly stored there?

Are Biden’s current homes also a logical target, given his sloppy handling of classified foreign policy papers — eerily reminiscent of an abandoned laptop belonging to son Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden’s lost diary?

Was it ever a good idea to impeach a first-term president the moment he lost his party’s majority in the House — but without any hope of a conviction in the Senate? Would such a similar impeachment send a warning to Biden to honor his oath of office and start enforcing U.S. immigration law?

Does a phone call now an impeachment make, on the grounds that Trump mixed domestic politics with foreign policy?

But was Trump’s Ukrainian call that much different from former President Barack Obama’s 2012 quid pro quo in Seoul, South Korea, where he asked the Russian president to convey a deal to Vladmir Putin: Stay calm and give Obama space during his reelection bid while Obama in turn would be flexible on missile defense.

Putin did just that and put off invading Ukraine until Obama was reelected. And Obama made sure there was no joint missile defense projects in Eastern Europe. Was that deal in America’s interest, or Obama’s own and thus similarly impeachable?

Or consider Biden mixing foreign policy and politics on the eve of the midterm elections. For example, he kept draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to dangerously low levels while begging hostile foreign dictators to pump more oil.

Thereby Biden sought to win votes from angry commuters buffeted by high fuel prices. And he also appeased the Left by not ordering more drilling for gas and oil. Was that gambit in the nation’s — or Biden’s — best interest?

What is wrong with the House investigating whether the FBI infiltrated and contracted social media companies to warp news coverage and suppress free expression of American citizens?

The Left certainly thought it was necessary in 1975 for the Church Committee to investigate the CIA. That committee found the agency was contracting new organizations to front for its covert operations, while partnering with telecommunications corporations to monitor the data of citizens on CIA watch lists. Sound familiar to today’s FBI?

Was it a good idea for the Democratic House to release Trump’s tax returns?

If the Republican House were to do the same with the Biden consortium’s tax records, would the result be far more incriminating?

There was much talk once in Congress of evoking the 25th Amendment to remove a supposedly mentally impaired Trump. A Yale psychiatrist was even paraded before Congress to attest the president was dangerously unbalanced. Calls for aptitude testing resulted in Trump acing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

Should the House now follow the Democrats’ precedent? Should medical professionals review all of Biden’s incoherent utterances, his fantasy biographic tales, and his often physical fragility and determine whether he is non compos mentis? Is that a precedent we wish to follow?

When a defeated first-term president leaves office and vows to return in four years, is it wise to impeach and try him as a private citizen?

Did not the House impeach Trump in part because he warned the Ukrainians that Biden, a possible opponent in 2020, was likely corrupt?

Do the endless Democratic efforts to go after Trump, a possible Biden opponent in 2024, constitute far more than a Trump single phone call to the president of Ukraine?

Somehow supposedly worldly and sophisticated partisans in their self-righteousness ignored ancient laws of what goes around comes around, of Karma, of Nemesis, of payback’s a bit—h, and all that stuff.

The PC bust cycle will extend well into 2023 and might not see a turnaround until 2024. The pandemic-era demand has mostly evaporated as consumers and companies delay purchases. 

The hangover for the PC market has been well underway for the last two quarters. A note from Gartner Inc. shows worldwide shipments of PCs fell 29% in the fourth quarter from a year ago. Another report from International Data Corp. confirmed the pandemic-era computer boom is over for now. 

Mikako Kitagawa, the director analyst at Gartner, said the first cracks of the PC bust cycle materialized in the third quarter of last year when corporate buyers began to pull back on purchases. 

“Enterprise buyers are extending PC life cycles and delaying purchases, meaning the business market will likely not return to growth until 2024,” Kitagawa said, who was quoted by WSJ. 

Gartner’s report showed that PC makers shipped 65.3 to 67.3 million PCs in the fourth quarter. For the full year, shipments totaled about 286.2 million units, a 16% increase versus the year before. 

IDC said Dell Technologies recorded the most significant decline in PC shipments for the year. Other PC brands that recorded shipment declines were Lenovo, HP, Apple, and Asus. 

Despite all the gloom, Lenovo, a Chinese tech company, had the largest market share of all PC sales in the quarter at around 23%. 

Entirely separate but worth noting is the computer-equipment maker Logitech that saw shares crash as much as 19% today, the most since April 2011. The company slashed guidance due to a slowdown in the PC space. 

Recall that we have outlined how graphics cards, memory chips, and monitor prices have plunged in the last two quarters. 

Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,

Everything is racist – even roads.

It is why roads must be dug up and converted to foot/bicycle paths, which are more “equitable”-  since you do not need to own a car to be able to use those.

Of course, without a car, you can only walk – or pedal – so far. You are kept in your place, as it were. But that’s not racist – because it keeps everyone in their place. Well, everyone except the you-know-who’s. Who come in all colors but are all the same in that they want everyone else  . . . kept in their place.

Irony of ironies, they intend to use our taken-for-granted but slipping-away freedom of movement – by car – as the vehicle to put us back in our place, as they see it.

By framing the car – and roads – as “racist.”

The car, which freed everyone who owns one from being stuck where they are. Expanded their options – for work, employment, education and recreation. That made it – per James Brown – easy to get anywhere.

For anyone.

But not so, according to the Roads Are Racist narrative, which argues that the Interstate Highway System in particular was not meant to make it “easy to get anywhere” – but rather to make it easy for whites to get away from blacks. And – in the process – leave blacks “behind” in the bypassed ghettoes of the inner cities. This is like blaming the “unvaccinated” – that is, the un-drugged – for the serial sickness of the “vaccinated” (the people who took the drugs that neither prevent the getting nor the spreading of sickness).

The downtown areas of big cities such as Detroit, Chicago and Baltimore have become blighted wastelands, it’s true. Full of boarded-up homes interspersed with liquor stores here and there – and derelicts everywhere. But this did not happen because the roads were built. It happened because the cities became shitholes. Many were burnt down by peaceful protestors back in the late ’60s – and were never rebuilt. People who wanted to live as far away as possible from the shit – literally, as in dumps on the sidewalk – and peaceful protests, too – left.

Which they could, because there were roads for them to leave on.

No one was kept from leaving.

But it is evidence of “racism” that those who chose to stay did just that. As opposed to evidence of lack of initiative. Just saying that latter being extremely “racist” – because it isn’t racist to imply that black people lack initiative. Are not capable of apprehending that the neighborhood is turning to shit and leaving it.

Which of course many did. Barack Obama, for instance.

Never mind that. Black folks are too indolent to use the roads to escape to a better place, far away from the shit, the peaceful protestors and the high cost of living in cities controlled by Leftists who make it shitty and expensive to live in cities. Whose policies cause the population that remains to bifurcate into two classes – the very rich and the very poor.

Who come in all colors.

The tent cities one sees in cities such as LA and San Francisco are in fact very diverse. Except in one way. It is that everyone living in those tents is poor.

Leftists see this and offer their analysis – and solution. Things must be made more equitable – by keeping everyone in his place. By making everyone equally poor.

Themselves excepted, of course.

Get rid of the roads. Get rid of cars, too. Make it harder for anyone to get anywhere, excepting the very affluent – who will as always be able to get anywhere they like. Viz, the Davos Crowd, private-jetting to their private conferences where the “racism” of freedom of movement is bruited about.

Roads “increase access to resources like jobs, healthcare and education,” says one of these – a Young Leader-in-the-making by the name of Raaj Kumar.

All of which is true and also the point. Why build – why travel upon – roads that don’t take you somewhere better than where you happen to be right now? But then he says “racist road planning and the proliferation of cars in white households, mega-highways  . . . directly contributed to the city’s serious segregation problem.”

Italics added.

He refers to Atlanta, a city notorious for its traffic. Which he synonymizes with “segregation.”

This being akin to defining a drug that does not prevent the getting or spreading of sickness as a “vaccine.”

No person – of any color – is being thwarted by law from going anywhere they please. Which they are able to do, courtesy of all those roads – which everyone is free to use. The fact that some choose not to use them is just that, a choice. The Leftist says it is a false choice, because some lack the means to make use of roads. But this isn’t a color barrier – the defining attribute of segregation. As in, no – you cannot go there. You must remain here.

That is segregation.

Anyone can buy a car. Assuming it’s not an electric car. (Is this pushing of electric cars on people who cannot afford them also “racist”?)

And roads? They opened up America – all of it – to everyone.

Digging them up and replacing them with foot and bike paths will close off most of America to almost everyone. This is the “15 minute city” vision of the Davos-set, who deploy useful idiots such as Raaj Kumar to foment resentment by crying “racism” at literally everything.

Including the thing that has benefitted everyone.

That being the roads – which have made it easy for all of us to be anywhere we like.

*  *  *

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The leader of the US Navy has admitted that the question of dwindling US arms stockpiles in the rush to arm Ukraine, which now stands at over $100 billion in defense aid and counting, is dire enough that some tough unprecedented decisions are coming, which shocked a group of reporters this week.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro acknowledged before a naval warfare conference in Arlington, Virginia on Wednesday that the US within the next six months could face a decision of whether to arm itself or Ukraine, due to rapidly depleting stockpiles due to supplying Ukraine

The comments were first revealed by Defense One editor Marcus Weisberger on Twitter, and subsequently reported in the publication, and in Newsweek and others. Earlier in the conference the US Navy’s Adm. Daryl Caudle put things in stark terms by saying the decision will eventually come down to ‘arm ourselves or arm Ukraine’. 

Weisberger wrote of the comments: “An admiral alluded to the US needing to choose between itself and Ukraine during a panel at the conference.”

Below are the rare, very revealing words of the exchange heard by reporters: 

The secretary was asked to respond to comments made at the conference by Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Caudle, the reporter said, worried that “the Navy might get to the point where it has to make the decision whether it needs to arm itself or arm Ukraine, and has the Navy gotten to that point yet?”

Del Toro replied, “With regards to deliveries of weapons systems for the fight in Ukraine…Yeah, that’s always a concern for us. And we monitor that very, very closely. I wouldn’t say we’re quite there yet, but if the conflict does go on for another six months, for another year, it certainly continues to stress the supply chain in ways that are challenging.”

While most weapons going to Ukraine are from Army stockpiles, it remains that the US recently pledged Sea Sparrow missiles to Ukraine. Additionally US-made Harpoons have long been transferred to Kiev via Denmark. 

Navy Secretary Del Toro went on to explain that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks has been working “very closely with [the defense] industry, to motivate them to find out what their challenges or obstacles are to be able to increase their own production rates,” as quoted in the Defense One report.

US defense officials are wringing their hand over the RAPID DEPLETION of US ammo stockpiles. Yes, the US has drained its munitions stockpiles to fight its proxy war with Russia. Now, it’ll have to cough up EVEN MORE $ to restock its own US arsenal. MADNESS.https://t.co/s53bVlpTgH

— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) January 5, 2023

“It’s obvious that you know, these companies have a substantial pipeline for the future,” Del Toro added. “They now need to invest in their workforce, as well as the capital investments that they have to make within their own companies to get their production rates up.”

Department of Defense stockpiles have been a concern in relation to steadily ramped up arms supplies to Ukraine from within the opening months of the Russian invasion. Additionally other NATO allies are facing this same problem and worry, especially ‘neutral’ Germany which due to the war dramatically shifted its historic stance on not sending weapons into foreign conflict zones. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock admitted as early as the summer that “Unfortunately, the situation here is such that we have an absolute deficit in our own stocks.”

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Two former employees are suing ESPN for being fired over COVID-19 vaccine refusal, alleging the company violated their rights and state and federal law in the process.

Beth Faber, a former producer with the network, and Allison Williams, a college football reporter, brought the suit on Jan. 11 in federal court in Connecticut, where Disney-owned ESPN is based.

Faber was fired on Sept. 9, 2021, after ESPN denied her request for a religious accommodation to the company’s mandate. Williams was fired on Oct. 19, 2021, after ESPN rejected requests for exemptions based on disability and religious beliefs.

ESPN officials claimed that no accommodation was possible because venues at which the employees would work would not accept unvaccinated people, according to the suit. But plaintiffs allege the defendants made no effort to confirm that and pointed to how most NFL and college football teams had unvaccinated personnel, as ESPN itself reported.

“Defendants impermissibly took adverse employment against Plaintiffs, including wrongfully terminating them, denying them of financial compensation, and in the case of Williams, pursuant to a contract, and intentionally harming their relationship in their industry, because they complained about the discrimination they suffered based on their religious beliefs, a protective activity,” the suit states.

ESPN declined to comment or say how many workers were fired over vaccine refusal.

The lawsuit came after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission issued “right to sue” letters to Faber and Williams.

Rejections

Faber, a producer, began working for ESPN in 1991 and had no disciplinary record before the mandate was imposed, according to the suit. She informed the company she is a devout Catholic who objected to vaccination on religious grounds, including how the vaccine companies utilized fetal cell lines.

“God and the immune system he has entrusted to me has protected me through more than 1550 remote events, millions of miles in airline travel, and countless numbers of nights in various hotels throughout this country and the world. I will not turn my back on God’s protection, and violate my sincere personal religious beliefs,” Faber wrote, according to the suit.

The company in response tried to get her to name a priest who would analyze her claims but she declined, saying her beliefs “are my OWN” and that she did not want to be “cross examined” by an “expert.”

Julie Walden, a human resources worker, responded by saying in an email that Faber had not “provided sufficient documentation to support your accommodation request, and your request is denied.” That was based in part on the refusal to name a priest, according to the message.

ESPN delayed following through on a threat to fire Faber but ultimately terminated her in the fall of 2021, about a month before it fired Williams.

Williams, a reporter and host, began working for ESPN in 2010 and had no disciplinary record before the mandate was imposed.

Williams asked for a mandate exemption because she was trying to conceive and was concerned about the impact vaccination would have on her fetus. About 11 months later, her baby was born. Williams, a Christian, also asked for an exemption on religious grounds.

Williams told her employer that she would get tested regularly and wear masks, that she had post-infection immunity, and that she had not received any vaccines after she had a bad reaction to one when she was 12.

Defendants claimed the company could not accommodate Williams because venues demanded vaccination and would not accept exemptions.

ESPN itself reported otherwise. For instance, in an Aug. 26, 2021, report, the network stated of a college football conference that “unvaccinated student-athletes, coaches and support staff will undergo weekly surveillance testing—regardless of how much of the rest of the team is vaccinated—and they are required to wear masks in the athletic facilities.”

ESPN said noted that the National Collegiate Athletic Association “recommended that unvaccinated college athletes should be tested weekly for COVID-19, wear masks in most situations and be quarantined if exposed to the virus, while vaccinated individuals can avoid routine testing.”

“ESPN conjured up a burden that simply did not exist and one that did not jibe with reality,” plaintiffs stated.

Suit Alleges Discrimination

The suit alleges religious discrimination, or a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states in part that employers may not “fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

It also alleges a hostile work environment based on religion and retaliation, or two other violations of the Civil Rights Act, violations of Connecticut law, violations of the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, violations of constitutional rights, and a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. As one piece of evidence, the suit quotes Walden as telling Faber at one point that “maybe God has led you to a new career, when God closes a door, he opens another.”

The former workers are asking the court to enter judgment in favor of them, award front and back pay and compensatory and punitive damages, and enter any other relief the court deems proper.

Golfers were sent running last week when massive waves crashed onto the 14th hole at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach. The video was stunning, but since then, a series of atmospheric rivers pounded the West Coast even more and now risk cutting off the Monterey peninsula from the rest of the state. 

In a press conference on Wednesday, Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto warned the county is preparing for an imminent cut-off from the rest of the state due to increasing flood waters from the Salinas River. 

“Monterey peninsula may become an island,” said Monterey co. sheriff Tina Nieto during 1st major press conference since taking office to address storm concerns. Salinas river could bring more problems & disruptions. Sheriff urged people to stay calm, don’t panic but be prepared. pic.twitter.com/4kotxfwwLB

— Felix Cortez (@FelixKSBW) January 12, 2023

“If the Salinas River goes under Highway 68 and Highway 1 on its way to Monterey Bay. During extreme flooding, the river can block people from moving on or off the peninsula by blocking both highways. This last happened in 1995,” local media KSBW said. 

The flooding of the Salinas River tomorrow would raise a scenario where the entire Monterey Peninsula — roughly 54,000 residents, including a naval base & the Bay Area’s National Weather Service office— would effectively become an island.

No access in or out on HWY 1 or 68. https://t.co/907NZlbkvV pic.twitter.com/Ycz0m6QdOU

— Gerry Díaz (@geravitywave) January 12, 2023

Evacuations are in place for low-lying surrounding areas. 

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office upgraded Evacuation Warnings to Evacuation Orders for the low-lying areas of the Salinas River, North of Arroyo Seco Rd/Hwy 101 and South of Chualar River Rd, effective immediately and until further notice. More info: https://t.co/XA2FLDK5pI pic.twitter.com/lXJJbTCc3I

— Monterey County Department of Emergency Management (@MontereyCoDEM) January 12, 2023

 After back-to-back-to-back atmospheric rivers, the Salinas River’s water levels could crest between Friday and Saturday. 

Footage of the flooding on social media. 

Monterey County officials are bracing for flooding along the Salinas River that could cut off road access to the Monterey Peninsula. https://t.co/1qt4Z5faRz pic.twitter.com/zxHTUeRuvx

— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) January 12, 2023

🚨Important update on potential flooding Thursday that could prevent access to Monterey Peninsula 🚨 pic.twitter.com/OYs6N8xDgE

— Supervisor Wendy Root Askew (@supervisoraskew) January 12, 2023

🚨ALERT: Salinas Valley hospitality & other workers who are employed in the Monterey Peninsula, be aware that flooding may potentially happen TOMORROW (THURSDAY) after 12pm on major roads & highways due to expected flooding in the Spreckels & other red areas on this map. pic.twitter.com/JkqOzgg2AL

— Luis Alejo⚖️ (@SupervisorAlejo) January 12, 2023

IMPORTANT ALERT: There is a high probability that the Salinas River will flood ALL access points into the Monterey Peninsula on Thursday, lasting through Sunday. Everyone is urged to plan ahead and expect not to be able to enter or leave the Peninsula if flooding occurs. pic.twitter.com/5UKV9LRXoJ

— MBEP (@MBEPartnership) January 12, 2023

Aerial photos of flooding along the Salinas river between Soledad & Gonzales. Photos courtesy of CalFire pic.twitter.com/yZCYhGU4OB

— Felix Cortez (@FelixKSBW) January 11, 2023

More breaching of Salinas river and flooding of ag fields, this one in Chualar. Tonight on @ksbw at 5&6 I explain how some of these breaches may have actually helped prevent the Salinas river from reaching dangerous flood levels.. pic.twitter.com/mpZ7WZv7Y8

— Felix Cortez (@FelixKSBW) January 11, 2023

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Food has become a prime target for thieves, and that should deeply alarm all of us.  Once upon a time, shoplifting was a minor nuisance for most retailers in the United States.  But today the game has completely changed.  Highly organized gangs of thieves are systematically looting stores all over the country, and this is costing retailers billions upon billions of dollars.  Authorities call it “organized retail crime”, but I call it complete and utter lawlessness.  When you have large groups of people storming retail stores all over the nation on a regular basis, that is a major crisis.

Originally, a lot of these gangs were primarily targeting goods that could be resold on the Internet very easily.  But now a lot of grocery stores are being targeted, and food is being stolen on a scale that we have never seen before.

In New York City, things have gotten so bad that some stores are thinking of implementing dramatic measures.  The following comes from a Fox News article entitled “NYC grocery stores consider locking up food due to rampant theft; workers are ‘traumatized’”…

Shampoo, toothpaste, and razor blades are all items that grocery stores have increasingly started locking behind counters. Soon, that list might include food.

“People have no fear of coming to your store and stealing,” said Nelson Eusebio of the National Supermarket Association.

“Our employees are terrified,” Eusebio continued. “We have young people that come to work, young cashiers who work part-time, these kids are 16-17 years old. They’re traumatized.”

When I first started warning that we are becoming a “Mad Max society”, a lot of people thought that I was exaggerating.

Sadly, the breakdown of law and order just continues to accelerate in many of our largest cities.  In fact, it is being reported that grand larcenies “were up 80% in New York City last year”…

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has made a point of combating the repeat offenses. “Criminals believe our criminal justice system is a joke,” Adams said in comments referring to a serial intruder who was arrested and released 26 times. “Those arrested for grand larceny go to court, get released and on their way home from court, they’re doing another grand larceny.”

According to the New York Police Department, grand larcenies, thefts of over $1,000, were up 80% in New York City last year.

Only an 80 percent increase?

Yes, that sounds perfectly “normal” to me.

In other areas of the country, shortages are the big news right now.

I never imagined that Costco would totally run out of eggs in early 2023, but this has actually happened at many of their stores.

This Costco is now completely sold out of eggs.🚨

2020 was toilet paper.
2023 is going to be a run on eggs. Get yours now.

Part of this is avian flu and reduced numbers production.

🔊sound …🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/GfyyEu2dpz

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 10, 2023

As I discussed yesterday, bird flu is one of the factors that is causing supplies of eggs to get tighter.

But as the farmer in this video explains, it is certainly not the only factor.

The real reason for the egg shortage is NOT avian flu.

According to this farmer … the producers can’t cover their costs, so there are now millions of fewer hens, and many millions of fewer eggs produced PER DAY. 🧐

🔈 sound …🚨 🚨 🚨

pic.twitter.com/GcYd1pHPZ0

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 10, 2023

No matter how high interest rates go, people still need to eat.

So the Federal Reserve can hike rates to the moon, but food prices are still going to remain ridiculously high.

However, higher rates will crush many other areas of the economy, and some of the biggest names in the corporate world are now conducting mass layoffs…

Goldman Sachs is just the latest firm to reduce its size in recent months. Morgan Stanley announced that it would cut two percent of its staff in December, Amazon plans to cut over 18,000 jobs, and Salesforce announced it would cut ten percent of its workforce and close some offices last week.

While white collar workers were less affected by the COVID-19 pandemic lock-downs than their blue collar counterparts, many jobs were simply done remote instead of being cut, professionals are now bearing the brunt of the economic headwinds America faces.

When are people going to finally understand that we have a major league crisis on our hands?

When Goldman Sachs lays off large numbers of workers, that is a red flag.

When Morgan Stanley lays off large numbers of workers, that is a red flag.

When Amazon lays off large numbers of workers, that is a red flag.

Facebook, Twitter, McDonald’s and Walmart are also laying off workers.

As they used to say in the 1980s, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

At this point things are so grim that the World Bank is warning that the entire global economy could plunge into a recession this year…

The global economy is just one more knock away from a second recession in the same decade, something that hasn’t happened in more than 80 years.

That’s the latest warning from the World Bank, which on Tuesday sharply lowered its forecast for global economic growth.

As economic conditions deteriorate, people are going to become increasingly desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things.

So if you think that organized retail theft is bad now, just wait until you see what is ahead.

The social deterioration that we have been witnessing over the past several years will soon accelerate significantly, and that is really bad news for all of us.

Many retail stores on both coasts have already closed due to the epidemic of theft that we are experiencing, and a whole lot more will soon be permanently shut down.

We really are in the process of becoming a “Mad Max society”, and we only have ourselves to blame.

JPMorgan Chase on Thursday shuttered the website for a college financial aid platform that it paid $175 million for, and is suing the 30-year-old founder for allegedly fabricating nearly 4 million fake user accounts, which she used to entice the bank in mid-2021.

The company, ‘Frank’, was founded by former CEO Charlie Javice in 2016. It offered software to help young Americans obtain financial aid in what Javice framed as “an Amazon for higher education,” and had the backing of billionaire Marc Rowan – the company’s lead investor. JPMorgan touted the Sept. 2021 deal as giving it the “fastest-growing college financial planning platform” used by over 5 million students at 6,000 institutions.

As part of the acquisition, Javice joined JPMorgan.

But months after the transaction closed, JPMorgan says it discovered the fabricated accounts after sending out emails to a batch of 400,000 Frank customers – with around 70% of them bouncing back, according to according to a lawsuit filed in December in US District Court in Delaware, CNBC reports.

The lawsuit claims that Javice pitched the bank on the “lie” that over 4 million users had signed up to use Frank to apply for federal aid. When the bank asked for proof during due diligence, Javice allegedly fabricated an enormous list of “fake customers – a list of names, addresses, dates of birth, and other personal information for 4.265 million ‘students’ who did not actually exist.”

In reality, Frank had less than 300,000 customer accounts at the time, according to the lawsuit.

“Javice first pushed back on JPMC’s request, arguing that she could not share her customer list due to privacy concerns,” reads the complaint. “After JPMC insisted, Javice chose to invent several million Frank customer accounts out of whole cloth.”

“To cash in, Javice decided to lie, including lying about Frank’s success, Frank’s size, and the depth of Frank’s market penetration in order to induce JPMC to purchase Frank for $175 million,” the complaint continues. “Javice represented in documents placed in the acquisition data room, in pitch materials, and through verbal presentations [that] more than 4.25 million students had created Frank accounts to begin applying for federal student aid using Frank’s application tool.”

Javice’s attorney told the Wall Street Journal that JPMorgan had “manufactured” reasons to fire her last year in order to avoid paying her millions owed. She has sued JPMorgan, and has demanded that the bank pay for legal bills she incurred during internal investigations.

“After JPM rushed to acquire Charlie’s rocketship business, JPM realized they couldn’t work around existing student privacy laws, committed misconduct and then tried to retrade the deal,” her attorney, Alex Spiro, said. “Charlie blew the whistle and then sued.”

JPMorgan replied, telling CNBC: “Our legal claims against Ms. Javice and Mr. Amar are set out in our complaint, along with the key facts,” adding “Ms. Javice was not and is not a whistleblower. Any dispute will be resolved through the legal process.”

The alleged fraud perpetrated by Javice and one of her executives “materially damaged JPMC in an amount to be proven at trial, but not less than $175 million,” JPMorgan said in its suit.

Regardless of the outcome of this legal scuffle, this is an embarrassing episode for JPMorgan and its CEO Jamie Dimon. In a bid to fend off encroaching competitors, JPMorgan has gone on a buying spree of fintech companies in recent years, and Dimon has repeatedly defended his technology investments as necessary ones that will yield good returns. -CNBC

On Thursday morning, the Frank website read: “Frank is no longer available.”

Either there is a new focus in media on reporting about the untimely deaths of athletes and young adults, or something very odd appears to be taking place across the country.

Either way, we are having difficulty keeping up with what now seems like daily headlines about young adults “dying suddenly” – and far too soon – from unexpected cardiac issues. And of course, the left-wing censor-machine remains on overdrive for anyone that dares the thought-crime of asking questions about the related causes of death. 

Recall, just yesterday, we wrote about 21 year old Air Force football player Hunter Brown, who suffered a “medical emergency” while walking to class on Monday of this week and passed away. This came just hours after the MMA world was shocked at the unexpected death of 18 year old Victoria Lee, a rising star on the the ONE Championship MMA promotion, just days after we highlighted Old Dominion basketball player Imo Essien collapsing on the court during the middle of a game and a little more than a week after NFL player Demar Hamlin collapsed on the field due to cardiac arrest after making what appeared to be a routine tackle. 

No sooner did we publish yesterday’s article than another popped up in its place, with TODAY reporting on the story of a high school senior who “suffered cardiac arrest and was found unresponsive in the school bathroom” after gym class at Amplus Academy in Las Vegas.

18 year old Jordan Brister could not be saved by the time emergency personnel were alerted to his condition. A friend of his family wrote on a GoFundMe page for Brister that he “suddenly and unexpectedly suffered cardiac arrest while at school with no explanation as to why.”

The page continued: “Words cannot express what the Brister family is going through and there will never be enough answers as to why this has happened. He was an amazing kid who loved life to the fullest.”

“His family does not know what happened, other than his heart stopped, and he had no medical history and did not do drugs,” another report said. 

Even more stunning is that, buried later in the TODAY article about Brister is the reveal that his deal happened the same week as the death of another Las Vegas High School student. Brister’s collapse was on January 8, 2023, and another student, 16 year old Ashari Hughes, had died just three days prior “following a flag football game at Desert Oasis High School” and suffering a “medical episode”. 

Dr. Adam Kean at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, of course, reminded TODAY that “sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in high-school athletes”. But even he remarked on how rare it was: “Even though it is the No. 1 cause, it is remarkably rare, which is important. We estimate that one in 30,000 children die of cardiac arrest each year, and that sounds incredibly small. But that’s still around 2,000 children in the United States each year.”

Meanwhile, the Clark County Coroner’s Office “said the exact cause of Brister’s death is still under investigation”.

Via SchiffGold.com,

Based on the headline numbers, price inflation cooled again in December, boosting market optimism that the Federal Reserve will continue to ease off the pedal on its monetary tightening. But this could be setting the stage for more price inflation down the road.

And a deeper look at the data reveals that a lot of inflationary pressure remains despite the optimistic headlines.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in at 6.5%, down from 7.1% in November, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was right on the consensus projection.

On a monthly basis, CPI ticked down -0.1%. The consensus was for monthly CPI to be unchanged.

If you take the headline numbers in isolation, it appears that price inflation has cooled off, but digging deeper into the data reveals that falling energy prices papered over the fact that most other prices continued their relentless climb.

Core CPI — excluding more volatile food and energy prices was up 0.3% month-on-month. That was a bigger increase than November’s 0.2% rise. On an annual basis, Core CPI was 5.7%, down from 6% in November.

Keep in mind, inflation is worse than the government data suggest. This CPI uses a formula that understates the actual rise in prices. Based on the formula used in the 1970s, CPI is closer to double the official numbers.

A Deeper Look at the Data

Falling gasoline and energy prices were the biggest contributor to the overall decline in prices and skewed the overall numbers lower. Most other categories continued to chart price increases last month.

The energy price index plunged by -4.5% on a monthly basis with gasoline prices down -9.4% and fuel oil cratering by -16.6%.

But food prices continue to climb relentlessly. Overall, food prices rose by another 0.3% on a monthly basis. Year on year, food prices have risen by 10.4% according to the BLS data.

Shelter costs were up another 0.8% month on month.

Peter Schiff summed up the CPI data in a tweet.

A one-month, .1% dip in #CPI doesn’t mean #inflation is cooling off. The core was up .3%, which annualizes to 4%, double the #Fed‘s 2% target. YoY CPI still rose 6.5% and with the dollar weakening, federal budget deficits & consumer credit soaring, inflation is poised to heat up.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 12, 2023

Market Perception

Nevertheless, the markets view this as a sign that inflation is cooling and it is buoying hope that the Federal Reserve will further slow monetary tightening.

Stock futures were already rallying ahead of the CPI data release. In the 30 minutes after the data came out, gold rallied and briefly pushed through the $1,900 an ounce level.

Before the data came out, Reuters reported that the CPI would “have a big impact on markets by shaping expectations of the speed of interest rate hikes in the world’s biggest economy. Markets have priced better-than-even odds that the Federal Reserve raises rates by 25 basis points, rather than 50, at February’s meeting.”

But the markets seem to be missing the fact that any slowdown in Federal Reserve monetary tightening will almost certainly set the stage for bigger price increases down the road. Simply put, an end to the war on inflation means more price inflation.

And as Schiff pointed out, inflation is far from beaten. CPI remains more than three times the Fed’s 2% target.

Nevertheless, the narrative is that inflation has peaked. As Peter Schiff explained in a podcast, most people are still clueless about what is going on. This lull in rising prices is likely temporary.

That is the really important point that seems to be lost on everybody. What investors are trying to figure out is ‘has inflation peaked?’ Have we seen peak inflation? Now, I think the answer to that question is no. I don’t think inflation has peaked. Now, it may have peaked for a short period of time. It may take until the second half of 2023 before we get a year-over-year rate of inflation that was higher than the high water mark for 2022. Who knows? Maybe it will take into 2024. But the one thing that I’m certain of is that we’re not going anywhere near 2%. And that is what investors still don’t understand — that the days of low inflation are over, and we’re living in an era of high inflation. That is a complete game-changer for the Fed and the Fed has yet to come to terms with this new reality, nor has the market.”

How Will the Fed Play It?

Absent a crisis in the economy, the Fed will likely keep pressing its war on inflation. But when the central bank does go back to rate cuts and ends balance sheet reduction, that means a return to accommodative monetary policy and money creation. Money creation is inflation. Price inflation is a symptom of monetary inflation. In effect, the markets are begging for a return to inflation because they think the Fed has beaten inflation.

It is reasonable to think that the CPI will continue to cool in the next several months. The math works in its favor. We have big month-on-month increases from 2021 rolling out of the annual average. That pushes the yearly increase lower. Meanwhile, the economy is slowing. Make no mistake, high interest rates are subduing economic activity. An economy built on easy money and credit can’t function in this high interest rate environment.

Two things need to happen in order to beat inflation. We need positive real interest rates — an interest rate above the CPI. And we also need the US government to cut spending and stop running huge budget deficits. A Fed paper admitted that it can’t tame inflation with monetary policy alone, saying, “When the fiscal authority [the federal government] is not perceived as fully responsible for covering the existing fiscal imbalances, the private sector expects that inflation will rise to ensure sustainability of national debt.”

Neither of these things will likely happen. That means the Fed can’t possibly win this war. It might be able to brag about “progress,” but it is doomed to fail.

Meanwhile, the bigger problem is that while this “high” interest rate environment isn’t high enough to truly tame inflation, it is high enough to break something in the economy. When that happens, the Fed’s back will really be up against the wall. It will have to choose between a deep, long recession or high inflation.

I think it’s just a matter of time before something breaks in this debt-riddled, bubble economy. When that happens, the Fed will likely shift from a soft pivot to a hard pivot. To use a favorite Fed term, any cooling of the CPI is likely to be “transitory.”