Via SchiffGold.com,

After the August CPI report showed price inflation heating up again thanks to rising gasoline prices, Peter Schiff appeared with Jesse Kelly on First TV to answer the question: are we heading? Peter said this story is going to have a tragic ending.

Peter opened the interview by pointing out that the current spate of price inflation had its origins in the 2008 financial crisis.

What the government did in response to that crisis – QE1, QE2, QE3 – all of that, plus what we did during COVID, that is the source of all this inflation. And it’s going to continue to get worse as long as we continue to run these massive deficits.”

Peter noted that the US government is currently running budget deficits averaging $2 trillion every year.

This is going to lead to much higher inflation in the future than what we’ve experienced in the past.”

Peter also said he thinks the decline in the CPI is over.

I think inflation is going to be a much bigger problem in 2024 than it was in 2023.”

Jesse said it seems like we’re in a death spiral. Peter agreed and said the spiral is even worse than you might think because increasing interest rates contribute to the rise in CPI.

Interest rates are a price. And it’s an important price for a lot of companies, just like labor, and rent, and raw materials, companies borrow money to conduct their business, to make capital investments, to expand. A lot of these companies have taken up debt over the years and now the cost of servicing that debt has risen sharply.”

Businesses will pass on these rising prices to consumers.

Meanwhile, consumers are making less money. Real incomes fell by 0.5% month-on-month in August. This continues a trend we saw last year when household incomes fell by 2.3%.

So, how does this story end?

The story is going to have a tragic ending, unfortunately. We’re going to have a dollar crisis and a sovereign debt crisis. The Fed is going to print money until the dollar collapses. I think that day of reckoning is at hand. I don’t know that it’s tomorrow, but it’s coming sometime soon.”

Peter noted the global move toward de-dollarization. Countries are looking for alternatives to the US dollar. That’s bad news for a US economy that depends on its ability to export its inflation to its trading partners.

As our trading partners move away from the dollar, the dollar is going to fall very fast. Prices are going to rise much faster than they have been. And at some point, it is going to spiral out of control — especially the debt. We have so much debt, and as the interest on the debt really rises, then it puts even more pressure on the Fed to print even more money to buy more bonds to put some kind of cap on how high interest rates go. It just accelerates the cycle. Because what’s driving everybody out of dollars and out of bonds is inflation. And if the Fed has to create even more inflation to stop interest rates from rising, it just creates an even more powerful incentive for everybody who owns Treasuries, or any dollar-denominated debt, to sell it. Then it pushes down the price, rates go up, the Fed has to print even more money, and it ends in a currency crisis. That’s where we’re headed.”

Peter said gold is the biggest threat to the dollar.

That’s what’s going to replace the dollar as the primary monetary reserve asset. The dollar replaced gold. So, gold is just going to take back that mantel.”

At one time, the world accepted dollars because they were backed by gold. They were just as good as gold. But that’s not the case anymore.

The dollar is just a piece of paper. So, I think the world is going to go back to real money as the basis for the monetary system and all of these fiat currencies will be legitimate currencies again because they will be backed by real money, which will be gold.”

A move back toward a gold standard would level the playing field globally, but it would be difficult for the US. It has become accustomed to issuing the world reserve currency.

That’s what enabled us to live beyond our means for all these decades. It’s what enabled these huge trade deficits. It allowed our economy to evolve in the way that it did so that we have this consumer-based spending economy that can’t really survive without the rest of the world propping it up. And that’s what’s going to stop. The world is not going to prop it up anymore because it’s going to move beyond the dollar.”

Peter said when that happens, the US will have to rebuild its economy from the bottom up. Americans will have to go back to saving and producing.

Rep. Kevin ‘secret concessions‘ McCarthy (R-CA) is facing perhaps the biggest challenge of his eight months as House Speaker; avoiding yet another government shutdown with a fractured caucus (ouch!).

Both the GOP controlled House and the Democratic-led Senate have until Sept. 30 to avoid the fourth potential government shutdown in a decade.

McCarthy overcame a major hurdle last week when he announced an impeachment inquiry into the Biden family, leading to a Sunday night proposal for a 30-day stopgap funding bill, which would allow House GOP leaders to push through bills to fund the Pentagon and DHS.

As Punchbowl News notes;

We scooped Sunday evening that the two sides had an agreement. You can read the text of the proposed CR here. Here’s a summary of the proposal from the Main Street Caucus, and here’s one from the House Freedom Caucus.

The highlights: This House Republican CR would cut spending except for defense, veterans and Department of Homeland Security funding. Along with the modified H.R. 2 provisions (no mandatory use of E-Verify for businesses), it includes new prohibitions on asylum claims and other hardline immigration restrictions. However, billions of dollars of disaster aid sought by President Joe Biden isn’t in there.

None of this will be acceptable to House Democrats, the Senate or White House, so this isn’t going to help avoid a shutdown on Oct. 1.

On Monday, the Rules Committee is scheduled to mark up the Continuing Resoplution, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise telling members on a Sunday night call that there will be a Wednesday vote on the Defense bill, and a Thursday vote on the CR.

That said, questions continue to swirl over whether McCarthy actually has enough GOP support to pass the CR – which more than a dozen conservatives have argued against on the grounds that it continues to fund the Ukraine war and “woke” policies by the Biden administration. According to Punchbowl, McCarthy has just a four-vote margin, with ‘some Republicans likely to miss votes due to health issues.’

For months, I have made it very clear that I will not be supporting a CR. And this week is no different.

A CR is a continuation of Nancy Pelosi’s budget and Joe Biden’s policies. We were assured in January that we weren’t going to use the Democrats’ gimmicks to fund government…

— Matt Rosendale (@RepRosendale) September 18, 2023

McCarthy “literally has no room for error here.”

CR negotiated by Byron Donalds and Dusty Johnson.

No policy riders in the CR. So it’s all the policies from last year’s Democrat appropriations, with an 8% cut. Plus the border bill, but no E-Verify.

I’m a NO.

No money for Ukraine, COVID, or weaponized Gov.

America First!🇺🇸

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) September 18, 2023

Punchbowl lays out four dangers facing McCarthy:

No. 1: The obvious challenge for McCarthy’s leadership team is whipping this vote. One top House Republican called it a “very heavy lift” on Sunday night.

No. 2: If the leadership can’t pass this CR, then what’s their plan? The government may shut down anyway, despite McCarthy’s exhortations that it would boost Biden. But if House Republicans can’t pass something on their own, McCarthy may be forced to choose between staying on as speaker or avoiding a shutdown.

No. 3: The biggest challenge for McCarthy is that some members won’t see this CR as an opening gambit in negotiations with the Senate and White House. They’ll say that the final deal – whether a stopgap bill or full-year funding package – doesn’t go far enough on their priorities. Just as they did on “Limit, Save, Grow,” these House Republicans are likely to blame McCarthy.

No. 4: Some on the right – namely McCarthy foe Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) – have said they want to boot McCarthy if he extends government funding for a short period of time. Gaetz has been telling people that he blames the speaker for a House Ethics Committee probe. Whether that’s driving Gaetz is unclear, but McCarthy can’t afford a motion-to-vacate vote right now.

The next 13 days of DC drama leading up to the inevitable passage of the CR should be fun, eh?

Authored by Jonathan Lacalle,

Oil prices are soaring, and, as always, we read in many articles that OPEC and Russia are to blame. However, if OPEC and its allies were almighty and the drivers of oil prices, why have Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude plummeted in 2022? OPEC only reacts to demand, but it is not a price-setter. It is a price-taker.

WTI is up 13% year-to-date, but it only started bouncing in May. WTI is only up 6% in the past year. At $90.7/barrel, it is still far away from the June 2022 high of $122/barrel and barely reaching the levels of November 2022.

What made oil prices plummet from their June ’22 highs? Rate hikes and monetary contraction sent the entire commodity complex down to pre-Ukraine invasion levels despite production cuts, geopolitical risk, and the Chinese re-opening. Commodity prices are driven by monetary factors, and the hawkish stance of global central banks accelerated the decline despite supply chain challenges and limits to production. Added to the decline in the money supply and rate hikes, the United States and non-OPEC production offset the negative impact of Russia and OPEC limits on some exports. Competition works. Finally, oil prices stumbled as Asian demand ended up being weaker than estimated, with global industrial production declining, particularly in developed economies.

The weakness in crude was a combination of monetary factors, increased United States supply, and weaker global demand. Those three factors have now reversed at the same time.

We cannot blame OPEC when prices rise and ignore them when prices fall.

The biggest challenge for the oil market in developed economies in the next five years is self-inflicted.

Governments and financial institutions all over the world declared war on investment in fossil fuels under the misguided view that supply and prices would not be affected. According to JP Morgan, there is a chronic underinvestment in the oil and gas complex that exceeds $600 billion per year. In 2022, with oil prices rising to the previously mentioned $122/barrel, companies all over the world continued to reduce investment in exploration and production. Development capital expenditure was kept to a bare minimum, and even some European oil and gas giants started selling their “net zero emissions” strategy, ignoring the global energy reality. Total oil and gas investment came below depreciation for the sixth year in a row, according to Goldman Sachs.

The energy transition cannot happen through ideological imposition. It requires technology and competition. Destroying the incentives to invest in oil and gas and imposing an ideological, not industrial, view of energy has made developed economies more dependent on fossil fuels.

When politicians decide, they willingly ignore economic calculations because they believe that the political world dictates prices, not supply and demand. Economic analysis has been abandoned, and the result is an exceedingly negative scenario.

Developed economies have destroyed all incentives to invest in diversification and security of supply of oil and gas driven by an ideological view of the world without having a feasible, abundant, and flexible alternative. Thus, when the United States administration imposes more restrictions on oil and gas investment and the European Union decides to reduce nuclear capacity and ban the development of domestic resources, all they have done is make their economies more dependent on foreign suppliers.

Western governments now demand that OPEC produce more while, at the same time, saying that their nations will not use fossil fuels in ten years. This is the imaginary deal that we, in the West, offer to oil and gas producing nations: “Dear oil and gas producers, you have to produce as much as we demand and sell it cheap, investing billions of dollars in development, but we will not use your product in ten years”. I imagine there is no rush to sign such a deal.

It is hard to believe that the global emerging market producers will be thrilled about the prospect of eliminating their energy exports only to import more “energy transition” engineering from developed nations.

According to OPEC sources, there could be a two-million barrel-per-day supply shock in the winter of 2023. Other analysts are more prudent but still see a market that is tight today and may be getting worse as the underinvestment toll becomes more apparent.

The entire bounce in oil prices since May is driven by the rushed decision of central banks to stop the monetary tightening before the inflation battle has ended and by the misguided decision to limit investments in domestic resources in the middle of a geopolitical battle without a clear alternative.

Governments have created their own supply shock by placing ideological views in the energy industry. The alternatives are not evident yet; technology and availability have not been fully developed, but politicians have already decided when the transition must be completed.

Crude oil did not replace whale oil due to the decisions of environmentalists or politicians. Crude oil displaced other sources of energy because it was easier to store, produce, and transport. Crude oil and natural gas proved to be abundant, easy to manage, and economically efficient. This is the first time in human history that the energy transition has been decided by politicians without allowing technology, competition, or human ingenuity to come up with a better, more flexible, and more economical alternative. Renewables are great, but they are intermittent and volatile. We need to allow the world to produce alternatives when they can truly replace the current energy resources without destroying our lifestyle and economy.

We may blame OPEC for rising oil prices, but the fact is that they only react to weak demand and low prices. OPEC may increase production at its next meeting, but the reality is that the energy supply issues have been created by Western governments and may persist. Instead of allowing all sources of energy to compete and allocation of capital to generate the investments needed for security of supply and energy transition, what has happened is that we may have created an energy crisis by political design. The alternatives are not ready, and the domestic resources that could limit prices have been banned or severely limited.

The irony is that anyone who understands energy knows that there is no successful energy transition without natural gas and nuclear, and this requires incentives to invest in energy security. Governments will not back down, and they will prefer a decline in energy prices coming from a deep recession to an improvement coming from diversification and investment.

This may be yet another energy crisis created by political design. Unfortunately, instead of learning and changing, many developed nations’ policymakers will prefer to impose restrictions on consumers. Ultimately, the incorrect planning of this energy transition is not a question of energy sovereignty or climate change, but a way to control citizens. That is why many governments prefer to see soaring energy prices, because that will allow them to impose restrictions on consumers.

This Wednesday’s FOMC meeting and decision (to keep rates unchanged) will highlight a busy week for markets with central banks at the fore. And, as DB’s Jim Reid previews, outside of the Fed, the BoE (Thursday), and the BoJ (Friday) are the other main events on this front. Central banks in Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey (all Thursday) all have policy meetings too.

Away from central banks, the CPI inflation data for both the UK (Wednesday) and Japan (Friday) will also be out this week. The global flash PMIs due Friday will be another big focus. The latest manufacturing PMI for Germany printed at 39.1 (43.5 in the Eurozone), much lower than the still soft 47.9 in the US and 49.6 in Japan. Momentum in the services gauge, especially in the US (50.5) where it’s only just above 50, will also be in focus after stronger comparable prints in other US surveys.

In the US we will get the monthly housing week data dump even if it will be tough to learn something new. US housing affordability is around the worst on record for buyers, and activity is at around 30 year low, but for the vast majority of existing homeowners there is no stress. We have today’s NAHB homebuilder index (forecast 45  vs. 50 previously), Tuesday’s housing starts (1.478mn vs 1.452mn) and building permits (1.460mn vs. 1.443mn) and Thursday’s existing home sales (4.25mn vs. 4.07mn). Elsewhere in the US, Thursday’s Philadelphia Fed survey (-5.0 vs. +12.0) will be of some interest.

Elsewhere the UAW autoworkers strike that started on Friday will gain more macro attention the longer it lasts. Some may say this is an idiosyncratic risk to the economy but with inflation having been high and corporate profits coming back, this sort of thing is a genuine consequence of the macro environment.

Next, Reid dives into a brief FOMC preview, and writes that one would be hard pressed to find someone who thinks they’ll hike this week but the prevailing expectation is that they keep the door open for another hike later this year which the dot plot will continue to reflect. DB’s economists believe other parts of the SEP are likely to undergo meaningful revisions, particularly for 2023. Stronger growth (2023 could double to 2%, 2024 could increase around 25bps to 1.3%) and lower unemployment should counterbalance softer inflation (2023 revised down but core forecasts for 2024 likely to be unchanged). So the meeting is likely to see a confident pause but one where further tightening is seen as the risk.

After the Fed, the focus will shift to the BoE on Thursday. Most economists expect another +25bps hike that would take the Bank Rate to 5.5% and then see another, potentially final, hike in November. The market is pricing in around a 70% chance of a hike at the close on Friday. Perhaps a swing factor on the outlook could be the UK CPI the day before where headline is expected to rise from 6.8% to 7.2% due to energy costs but core is expected to dip 0.1pp to 6.8%. A big fall in October’s headline release should occur alongside a big fall in energy bills as bad YoY comps drop out. Retail sales on Friday completes a busy week for the UK. Retail sales will also be due on Thursday in France. Highlights in Germany include the PPI out on Wednesday.

The BoJ will wrap up the busy week on Friday. DB’s economists expect the central bank to stick to its current policy stance but revise the MPM statement to point to policy normalisation. Further out, they see the YCC and negative interest rate policy ending at the October and January meetings, respectively. Japan’s latest nationwide CPI will also be out that day. Our Chief Japan economist sees the headline gauge at 2.9% YoY (+3.3% in July), core inflation excluding fresh food at 2.9% (+3.1%), and core-core inflation excluding fresh food and energy (+4.3%).

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday September 18

• Data: US September NAHB housing market index, New York Fed services business activity, July total net tic flows, Canada August raw materials and industrial product price index, housing starts

Tuesday September 19

• Data: US August housing starts, building permits, Italy July current account balance, ECB July current account, Canada August CPI
• Central banks: ECB’s Elderson speaks
• Other: OECD Interim Economic Outlook

Wednesday September 20

• Data: UK August CPI, PPI, RPI, July house price index, Japan August trade balance, Germany August PPI, EU27 August new car registrations, Eurozone July construction output
• Central banks: Fed’s decision, BoC summary of deliberations, ECB’s Elderson speaks
• Earnings: General Mills, FedEx

Thursday September 21

• Data: US September Philadelphia Fed business outlook, Q2 current account balance, August leading index, existing home sales, initial jobless claims, UK August public finances, France September business and manufacturing confidence, August retail sales, Eurozone September consumer confidence
• Central banks: BoE decision, ECB’s Schnabel and Lane speak

Friday September 22

• Data: US, UK, Japan, Germany, France and the Eurozone September PMIs, UK September GfK consumer confidence, August retail sales, Japan August national CPI, Canada July retail sales
• Central banks: BoJ decision, Fed’s Cook and Daly speak, ECB’s Guindos speaks

Finally, looking at just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data releases this week are jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index on Thursday. The September FOMC meeting is this week, with the release of the statement at 2:00 PM ET on Wednesday, followed by Chair Powell’s press conference at 2:30 PM.

Monday, September 18

• 10:00 AM NAHB housing market index, September (consensus 49, last 50)

Tuesday, September 19

• 08:30 AM Housing starts, August (GS -2.5%, consensus -1.0%, last +3.9%); Building permits, August (consensus -0.2%, last +0.1%)

Wednesday, September 20

• 02:00 PM FOMC statement, September 19-20 meeting: As discussed in the FOMC preview, we expect the dot plot to show a narrow 10-9 majority still penciling in one more hike, if only to preserve flexibility for now. Over 2023-2026, we expect the median dot to show a path of 5.625% / 4.625% / 3.375% / 2.875%. We also expect the median neutral rate dot to rise to 2.75%. In the economic projections for 2023, we expect a substantial upward revision to GDP growth (+1.1pp to +2.1%) and moderate downward revisions to the unemployment rate (-0.2pp to 3.9%) and core inflation (-0.4pp to 3.5%). Revisions to later years should be small and point in the same direction.

Thursday, September 21

• 08:30 AM Current account balance, Q2 (consensus -$221.0bn, last -$219.3bn); Initial jobless claims, week ended September 16 (GS 220k, consensus 225k, last 220k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended September 9 (consensus 1,695k, last 1,688k)
• 08:30 AM Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index, September (GS +6.0, consensus -1.0, last +12.0): We estimate that the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index pulled back to a still-positive +6 in September, reflecting the pickup in East Asian industrial activity.
• 10:00 AM Existing home sales, August (GS flat, consensus +0.7%, last -2.2%)

Friday, September 22

• 08:50 AM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook will give the keynote address at the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Economics of Artificial Intelligence Conference. Speech text will be made available.
• 09:45 AM S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, September preliminary (consensus 48.0, last 47.9)
• 09:45 AM S&P Global US services PMI, September preliminary (consensus 50.4, last 50.5)
• 01:00 PM San Francisco Fed President Daly (FOMC non-voter) speaks: San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly will join Greater Phoenix Leadership for a fireside chat to discuss inflation, monetary policy, and the economy. The conversation will be livestreamed and made available as a recording after the event.

Source: DB. Goldman, BofA

The five American citizens (dual nationals) who had been imprisoned in Iran are on their way toward freedom, having been flown from Tehran to a Doha airport where they will be swapped for two Iranians who had been imprisoned in the US. “Simultaneously, the three other Iranian prisoners who lived in the US have been freed,” Iran’s Nournews said. Axios has also confirmed the Americans have been freed from Evin prison.

On Monday two Qatar banks received the transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money from South Korea via the SWIFT international payment system. The Biden administration had issued a sanctions waiver to make it happen without running afoul of US law. Amid the swap unfolding, news wires are reporting this unexpected development: 

BIDEN SANCTIONS FORMER IRAN PRESIDENT AFTER PRISONER SWAP: AFP

Facing criticism from Iran hawks among Republicans in Congress, a senior Biden admin official sought to defend the release of the billions back to Iran, telling The Wall Street Journal that “The alternative is these Americans never come home.”

According to a review of the identities of these freed Americans, all who also hold Iranian citizenship, they were all arrested on espionage related charges over the past several years:

Among those released are Siamak Namazi, who was arrested in October 2015 on a business trip to Iran on charges of cooperating with a hostile government; environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, who was jailed in 2018 and has served five years of a 10-year sentence after being convicted of spying; and businessman Emad Shargi, who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced without a trial in 2020 to 10 years in prison for espionage. All three are dual U.S. and Iranian nationals. Tahbaz also holds British nationality. 

Two more people, including at least one woman, were also released, but have asked that their identities remain private. The family members of two of the detainees, both of whom had been prohibited from leaving Iran, were also allowed to depart with the five detainees, administration officials said.  

Washington has long accused the Islamic Republic of using trumped-up spy charges to hold Americans as bargaining chips. Tehran has at the same time accused the US of ‘piracy’ and theft for seizing its sovereign assets internationally, and for stealing oil.

In recent years Qatar has often played mediator in high-level prisoner exchanges, such as the US-Russia deal which freed WNBA star Brittney Griner in exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout. Qatar in this new swap is charged with ensuring the newly released funds are spent on goods not subject to sanctions, such as food and medicine. 

But Iranian President Raisi has defiantly told his population that the government will spend it as it sees fit, having complete ownership of its own assets.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper to Neil on Iran prisoner swap deal: “It is not just a swap. It is a ransom payment” pic.twitter.com/s4sfD3DbbF

— Neil Cavuto (@TeamCavuto) September 16, 2023

According to The Guardian, “The path to the swap reached a turning point when the state department agreed a waiver facilitating the release of the cash from South Korean banks to accounts in Switzerland and Doha.”

As for logistics, the same report details, “The five Americans have already been transferred out of Evin jail in Tehran to various hotels in the capital. They are due to be flown initially to Doha before flying to the US for a homecoming.” The airport tarmac swap is likely to be less dramatic than the Griner-Bout swap, and footage of the event is probably not going to be made public.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A scientific journal is rejecting a request to retract a study that found people who received a COVID-19 booster were more likely to become infected when compared to unvaccinated people.

Analyzing numbers from California’s prison system, a research group found that those who received one of the bivalent boosters had a higher infection rate than people who have never received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Their study was published by the journal Cureus following peer review.

Each study has an author who fields questions and comments. They are known as the corresponding author.

Cureus confirmed that the study’s corresponding author has asked the journal to retract the article.

“I can confirm that we were contacted by the corresponding author with a request to retract. However, we have determined that there is no basis for retraction and therefore it will remain published,” Graham Parker-Finger, director of publishing and customer success for Cureus, told The Epoch Times via email.

The study was listed as beginning to undergo peer review on Aug. 16. Peer review finished on Aug. 23. The paper was published on Sept. 4. The peer review has not been made public.

High School Student

Luke Ko, listed as the study’s corresponding author, said that he’s 17 years old and still in high school.

Mr. Ko told The Epoch Times in an email that while others are listed as co-authors, he was actually the sole author of the paper.

“I initiated this study independently, with dual aims: first, to showcase my analytical skills for college admissions, and second, to emphasize the importance of continuously administering updated vaccines to prisoners,” Mr. Ko said.

Those listed as co-authors “had only given verbal commitments to serve as mentors,” he added. “They were not given the chance to validate the data I entered, particularly the incorrect figures related to COVID-19 cases in prisons. Furthermore, they did not have the opportunity to review the final draft of the paper, which was submitted to Curesus.com [sic] without their approval.”

Mr. Ko claimed to have used ChatGPT for analyzing the data used in the study and said he made “significant errors.” He did not specify what the alleged errors were.

“All mentors mistakenly listed as co-authors share my desire to have the paper retracted,” Mr. Ko said.

Mr. Ko has not responded to follow-up messages.

Investigating

The California Correctional Healthcare Services, for whom several of the listed co-authors work, said that an investigation into the paper is happening.

“We are currently looking into the details of this publication and cannot provide additional comments at this time,” a spokesperson for the agency told The Epoch Times via email.

The agency declined to provide contact information for the authors it employs, Drs. Gary Malet, Huu Nguyen, and Robert Mayes.

A number listed for Dr. Malet was disconnected while a person who answered a number listed for Dr. Nguyen said it was the wrong number.

No contact information could be located for Dr. Mayes or Lisa Chang of Governors State University, the fifth listed co-author.

Study Result

The study’s focus was the rate of COVID-19 infections from January to July among inmates. It divided inmates into three camps: those who received a bivalent shot, those who were vaccinated but had not received a bivalent, and the unvaccinated.

During the time period, there were 2,835 COVID-19 cases. Of those, 1,187 were among inmates who had received a bivalent, and 568 were among the unvaccinated.

Researchers also drew from vaccination records and found 36,609 inmates had received a bivalent, while 20,889 had received no shots.

The bivalent vaccines were introduced in the fall of 2022.

The researchers calculated infection rates for the bivalent vaccinated and the unvaccinated but excluded the third group, inmates who received a vaccine but not a bivalent, for unclear reasons.

The calculations resulted in the finding that the infection rate among the bivalent vaccinated was 3.2 percent, above the 2.7 percent in the never-vaccinated group.

The gap between the groups was the highest among those aged 65 and above, though it was described as not statistically significant.

The study stated that “the bivalent-vaccinated group had a slightly but statistically significantly higher infection rate than the unvaccinated group in the statewide category and the age ≥50 years category.”

The conclusions claimed that the study “supports the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination at a population level, especially in vulnerable, high-density congregate settings.”

Dr. Ray Andrews, a retired doctor, disagreed.

“The results showed the vaccines are not effective,” he told The Epoch Times.

Other papers and observational data have also suggested the effectiveness of the vaccines, which have never had clinical trial efficacy data and were replaced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this month, plummets over time.

Cleveland Clinic researchers, for example, found in June that employees at the clinic who were “up to date” with their vaccines, or had received a bivalent dose, had a higher risk of becoming infected when compared to others.

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

Real BRICS Threat + The Worst Macros I’ve Ever Seen

In many recent articles and interviews, I’ve warned that Powell’s “higher for longer” war against inflation will actually (and ironically) lead to, well… greater inflation.

That is, the rising interest expense (nod to Powell) on Uncle Sam’s fatally rising 33T bar tab will inevitably need to be paid with an inflationary mouse-clicker at the Eccles Building.

I’ve also consistently maintained that Powell’s war on inflation is mostly just optics, as he secretly seeks inflation to help pay down that bar tab with an increasingly inflated/debased USD.

Powell achieves this open lie by publicly declaring a steady decline in inflation by simply misreporting the true CPI number.

As John Williams recently argued, true inflation using an honest (rather than the openly bogus BLS) measure is now closer to 11.5% rather than the officially reported headline rate of 3.7%.

This should come as very little surprise to those whose eyes are open to the Modis Operandi of debt-soaked/failed regimes. As former European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker confessed: “When the data is too bad, we just lie.”

But even for those who still believe the current Truman Show inflation (and “soft landing”) narrative out of DC, the Bezos Post or legacy media A, B, or C, there’s more fire adding to the inflationary flames than just bogus narratives and calming platitudes.

In particular, I’m talking about oil-driven inflation, and nothing burns faster.

Scary Flames in the Oil Supply

Left or right, the dumb out of DC just keeps getting dumber.

Between rising rates (nod to Powell), which make capex investing untenable for US oil producers, and a Weekend at Bernie’s White House, which has spent years effectively legislating US oil into oblivion, US energy supply is falling, and we all know that weakening supply leads to higher prices—and inflation.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, whom that same White House called a “pariah state,” has not been warming to Biden’s awkward fist-pumps and increased production pleas, but rather joining other OPEC leaders in cutting, rather than expanding, oil production.

Gee, what a geopolitical shocker…

Net result, both national and global oil inventories are falling, and falling hard.

The Awkward Oil Two-Step

The once “go green” White House realized that the world, and inflation scales, still revolves around oil, especially after sanctioning Western Europe’s former energy supplier in one of the most short-sighted (i.e., stupid) policy decisions since the Iraq war.

This may explain why Biden changed his stripes and why there was a sudden pivot toward allowing greater US shale output in 2023 by pumping more cash into those shale fields at a pace not seen in 3 years.

Unfortunately, however, this may be too little too late (like Powell’s QT) to prevent oil price shocks and higher inflation into year end, thus adding insult to an already injured (and rising) US CPI measure of inflation.

As oil supply tightens, oil prices, and hence inflation rates, rise together with bond yields and interest rates—a perfect storm for over-inflated bond, stock, and real estate markets.

Those prices and inflation rates would be even worse if Chinese oil demand rises—which is why current Western headlines are literally praying for China to implode first. This might explain why The Economist has had two consecutive cover stories about an imploding China.

See how big media and big government sleep together?

Tying it Together

Regardless, we need to tie all this together.

If, as I see it, inflation (however misreported) becomes obviously more real and felt, the consequent rising bond yields will make the USD stronger and Uncle Sam’s bar tab more expensive, which hardy bodes well for America’s twin deficit black-hole of unpayable debt unless…

…Unless the Fed starts printing more fake and inflationary money to buy its own IOUs and weaken its export-killing, and BRICS-ignoring, USD.

Again, no matter how I turn the macros, the Fed will eventually have no choice but to pivot toward more instant liquidity and hence more inflationary policies to save/monetize its broke(n) bond markets.

Once this inevitability becomes a headline, the temporarily rising USD will be seen for what most of the informed world already recognizes—just another fiat monster backing a world reserve currency in the hands of a nation whose debt to GDP and deficit to GDP ratios mirror that of any other banana republic.

Reality is Hard to Look at Directly, But not for the BRICS

Many in the US or EU may not wish to see this. Bad news, like death and the sun, is hard to stare into.

But the BRICS nations, no strangers themselves to embarrassing balance sheets, are seeing this clearly.

Although I never bought into the gold-backed BRICS currency hype, I have zero doubt that this amalgam of commodity-heavy nations has a common enemy in the current US-dominated (and USD-driven) international trade system, whose hegemonic days are now numbered and whose alliances, as we warned from day-1 of the Putin sanctions (economic suicide), are forever de-dollarizing away from DC.

Moreover, the BRICS don’t need an “official” gold backed currency to trade their real assets in gold rather than Dollars. All they have to do, as Marcus Krall and I recently discussed, is request payment for their exports in gold.

The BRICS+ nations are hardly the perfect marriage of unlimited trust and efficient coordination. Nevertheless, they share an existential threat from an over-priced USD and negative-returning UST.

Furthermore, and as I recently noted at the Rule Symposium, they may not trust each other completely, but they do trust gold completely.

System Change is Now a Matter of Survival

Never has the phrase the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” found a better home than among the rising list of BRICS+ actors who recognize that their very survival hinges upon escaping the suffocating death of paying > $14T of USD-dominated debts whose rising costs (rates) they can no longer afford lest they become vassals of DC.

As Luke Gromen recently observed, from the perspective of the BRICS nations, it’s “either hang together or hang separately.”

A Changing Petrodollar?

China, for example, can not abide forever by a petrodollar system of oil purchases. As the world’s largest oil importer, it mathematically recognizes that it will eventually run out of dollars to buy that oil.

In short, China needs to come up with a better plan—outside the Greenback.

And they will.

By the way, have you noticed the next BRIC in the wall? It’s Saudi Arabia.

See a trend? See a looming change in oil currencies?

Just saying…

As I warned months ago, this Saudi trend away from DC and closer to Shanghai could eventually be a key driver in slowly unwinding the current petrodollar system between a once “friendly” US-Saudi relationship toward a now weakening relationship which hitherto ensured the global demand (and hence the survival) of an otherwise debased paper Dollar.

If the petrodollar system radically or even slowly unwinds, this will do far more to destroy demand and the inherent purchasing power of the USD (and send gold skyrocketing) than any gold-backed BRICS trade currency.

And yet with all the recent sensationalism preceding the BRICS summit in South Africa, almost no one saw this—at least not in the legacy media.

Imagine that…

Other Tricks Up the BRICS Sleeve: More USD Assets than Liabilities

Aside from knee-capping the USD via a shift (gradual or sudden) in the petrodollar trade, it’s worth noting that but for South Africa, the remaining BRICS nations have more USD assets than liabilities, which means they can start dumping USTs to the detriment of Uncle Sam in order to raise USDs.

Many idealogues and US-thinktankers still think the US has all the power over these silly little BRICS nations who allegedly suffer from a dollar shortage.

The chest-puffers still see the USD as all-powerful and all-controlling, after all, just ask Iraq or Libya…

But the dollar-forever crowd is missing the forest for the trees or the basic math of fantasy debt.

If you haven’t noticed, the US just added an extra $1.9 trillion of insane borrowing to the back end of 2023.

And they did this as rates are rising and with the Fed still in full QT/suicide mode.

This mathematically places downward price pressure on bonds and hence upward cost pressure on yields, a scenario America simply can’t play out for much longer at $95T+ in combined public, household and corporate debt.

If the BRICS nations chose to add a layer of US asset dumping to this toxic mix, the ramifications for Uncle Sam would be even more staggering/painful for a debt-based system already on the cliff’s edge.

This is Bad, Really Bad

To repeat: The macros, no matter how I turn them, have never been this bad, this vulnerable and this foreseeable.

The US is now trapped in a vicious circle of debt for which there is no way out other than a currency-destroying return to more artificial, QE “stimulus” and the mother of all inflationary waves.

The horizon is now clear: Yields are up, twin deficits are up, inflation, even the mis-reported kind, is up, and yes, GDP is up too, but as I recently wrote, debt-driven GDP growth is not growth, but just debt.

Unless DC cuts spending at record levels (which kills election results for political opportunists and thus won’t happen), the only tool Washington DC has is more fake money and more real inflation, which means the Dollar in your wallet, checking account or portfolio is about to insult you.

Authored by Grzegorz Adamcczyk via Remix news,

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has reported that another ring of people engaged in helping people to evade the draft and leave the country has been identified and broken up.

With Ukraine short on manpower at the front, it is racing to fill its ranks.

The last set of people detained were connected with the port in Izmail, in the Odessa region. Bribes were elicited from men of service age who wanted to leave the country. They were provided with papers claiming they were navigators on cargo ships, costing between $700 and $1,200.

Those detained are accused of taking a total of $55,000 in such payments. They were allegedly caught in the act, arrested and could face jail sentences of up to 10 years. 

The SBU has also detained a deacon of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Odessa for allegedly helping men to leave the country under the guise of being prepared for ordination in the Church, with a minimal fee per person of $4,500. The deacon managed to aid six individuals in such a manner before also being arrested.

Another popular way for earning money on draft dodgers is the issuing of medical certificates, certifying that the individual paying was unable to serve in the army.

The group the SBU identified was issuing up to 20 such certificates daily, for a fee of $7,000 to $10,000.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday issued a decree ordering the verification of the legal veracity of all medical certificates that release men from military service duty.

These cases will be reviewed and new medical tests enforced. 

At the end of August, there were examples of corruption in the Ukrainian army disclosed that led to the dismissal of former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

The corruption allegations included irregularities involving procurement for the army and the issuing of papers for the release from military service. 

At first glance, a 7% return on your investment may not seem that impressive. Yet what if you heard that your money could double in roughly 10 years?

In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld and Sam Parker takes the rule of 72 shortcut and uses the more precise logarithmic formula to show how long it takes to grow your money at different annualized returns.

Why it Pays to Know the Math

Using the classic rule of 72, an investor can estimate how long it takes to double their money. At 7% annual returns, an investor would see $10,000 grow to $20,000 in about a decade by taking 72 and dividing it by 7%, the rate of return.

While the rule of 72 serves as a guide to estimating when your money will double, the more accurate way to arrive at this number is through a logarithmic equation.

In short, it divides the natural log of 2 by the natural log of 1 and adds this to the rate of return. We can see in the table below how leads to different results from the rule of 72:

Consider if an investor put their money in the S&P 500. Historically, it has averaged 11.5% returns between 1928 and 2022. In 6.4 years, their money would double, assuming these average returns.

If they were to put this money in a savings account, where the average savings rate is 0.6%, it would take 120 more years for their money to reach this potential.

In real terms, which takes inflation into account, an investor would see their money lose value if they parked it in a savings account. Historically, inflation has averaged 3.3% over the last century.

Historical Asset Returns

Here’s how often different assets double, based on historical returns between 1928 and 2022:

Source: NYU Stern. *Represents Baa corporate bonds, which are considered investment grade. **Includes reinvested dividends.

We can see that 3-month T-Bills, often considered among the safest assets, doubled about every 21 years. Often, investors consider this a place to put cash that is low-risk and highly liquid.

Interestingly, real estate assets had returns of 4.4%, doubling roughly every 16 years. Between 1928 and 2022, the value of $100 invested in real estate assets would be worth $5,121.52. By contrast, the value of $100 invested in the S&P 500, including reinvested dividends, would have reached over $624,000.

Data from NYU Stern shows that the S&P 500 has doubled about 10 times since 1949—through recessions and bull markets—illustrating the power of investing over the long run.