Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in leaked audio last month that Threads, a Twitter clone, was failing after it experienced a massive influx of users, upwards of 100 million downloads in five days after lunch but has since hemorrhaged a large percentage of those users.  

At Thread’s peak, just days after the July 5 launch, the microblogging app had 50 million daily active users worldwide.

Now the total number of daily active users is less than ten million, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing new data from analytics firm SimilarWeb. 

Since the launch 47 days ago (as of Monday), the amount of time users spend on the app has crashed an astonishing 85%.

We have detailed the ‘unthreading’ of Threads in a series of notes:

• Threads Unravels: So-Called ‘Twitter Killer’ App Sees Exodus Of Users, Plunge In Engagements

• Meta’s Threads ‘Bombs’ As Daily Active Users Halved

• ‘Threads’ Implosion Worsens As User Engagement Drops 70%

Meanwhile… 

• As Twitter X Hits New High In Monthly Users, Zuck Admits Threads Failing In Leaked Audio

Elon Musk tweeted in late July that X, formerly known as Twitter, hit a new record high of 541.5 million monthly users. 

𝕏 monthly users reach new high in 2023 pic.twitter.com/trqLGBEvvA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2023

Meta’s scramble for retention-driving hooks to keep people on their app is failing. Also, the move by mainstream media’s concerted effort to bash Twitter during Threads’ launch has ended in a bust. 

Add Threads to the list of Zuck’s recent failures, including Metaverse and smart glasses. 

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

China has begun to push back more forcefully on yuan weakness versus the dollar, but some level of currency devaluation is required in order to keep liquidity supported.

The PBOC signaled its intention to limit further USDCNY upside by setting the fixing rate much lower than expected. Indeed, the fixing was the lowest it has ever been in relation to the Bloomberg Fixing Survey estimate in the series’ five-year history.

But it’s a delicate business.

Some currency weakness is desired in a slowdown. In a monetary system such as China’s – where domestic reserves are ultimately backed by FX reserves – capital outflow has a negative, geared impact on domestic liquidity. Currency weakness acts as a pressure valve, easing back the amount of liquidity that is destroyed.

Capital outflow from China has risen this year. Even though the country has a nominally closed capital account, necessity is the mother of all invention; capital always finds a way to leave, especially when there are dim prospects for domestic growth. We can see in the chart below, showing a proxy for capital outflow, that it has been rising, but is still lower than it was last year, or the time of the yuan devaluation in 2015.

While some currency weakness stems the outflow, too much can spur even more, causing growth to collapse. China has signaled in recent days it would prefer to see the yuan stop weakening against the dollar. Nonetheless, that is not to say they won’t want to see further weakening more broadly, as although the yuan is down 5.3% versus the dollar this year, it is down only 1.5% against the CFETS FX basket.

Furthermore, the yen’s devaluation over the last three years has considerably outpaced the yuan’s. Japan is a big a trading partner of China, and both countries compete in trading with the US. It’s very likely China would like to see the yuan weaken against the yen more. Twenty yen to the yuan appears to be an upper limit for China policymakers.

Curtailing some of the yuan’s weakness necessitates other easing measures to stabilize liquidity.

China this week cut its key medium-term lending rate. More monetary easing measures are likely in the offing, such as a cut in the RRR rate, and in the foreign-exchange RRR.

On top of monetary easing, there is soon likely to be greater fiscal stimulus too, to stabilize the property market and thus stave off a debt-deflation, and to support consumption and thus reinvigorate growth.

A feminist medical school professor has dialed up the crazy to “11” last week, coming out and saying that children no longer have to identify as just women or men, but that they can also identify as gender minotaurs.

The doctor, Diane Ehrensaft, says she supports a “gender revolution”. And don’t worry, it’s not like she’s in a position of prominence anywhere important, she’s just director of mental health and chief psychologist at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital gender development center and a professor at UCSF School of Medicine, Fox News reports. 

Her specialties include pediatric “gender-affirmative care for transgender and gender-expansive patients”, the report says. 

In a presentation reviewed by Fox News Digital, Ehrensaft said that children could identify as “gender hybrids” which include a creature called a “gender minotaur”. She also said kids can “change their genders by season” and “can have different identities depending on their location,” Fox News reported. 

In 2018, she stated: “I totally agree we are in the midst of a gender revolution and the children are leading it. And it’s a wonderful thing to see. And it’s also humbling to know [children] know more than we do about this topic of being gender expansive.”

She has said that she believes the “gender revolution” is the next phase of the women’s revolution that took place in the 1960s. “Now, we’ve got genders moving boulders, and it makes a lot of people nervous,” she added. 

A promotion for the 2018 event she spoke at, at the San Francisco public library, said: “Each person’s web will change over time as they age. What’s Your Gender? Don’t answer until you hear all your options… Ehrensaft wants you to get off the binary measurement scale.” 

She said: “And as you know, language is political. So what’s good today will be politically incorrect tomorrow. So we’ll just keep changing as we go. This is a whole group of kids you all should know about.” 

“A boy… twirled [in my office]… and said to me, ‘You see, I’m a Prius… I’m a boy in the front, and I’m a girl in the back.” 

She concluded: “I started meeting a whole bunch of other gender hybrids. And so we have the gender Prius, we have a gender Minotaur. And most of the kids who are gender minotaurs love mermaids. So make sure you have a lot of mermaid books. If you really you think about it, it works.”

Authored by T.L.Davis’ Substack,

I’ve been referring to September as a month to watch when it comes to the complete economic disaster that’s about to befall the Western world.

That’s not to say that it’s all going to blow up in September, but September will be the start, the boiling point at which any and all future additions will increase the likelihood and severity of an explosion.

These additions will add up to an economic meltdown intended to usher in the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). One of the best examples of the explanation of the dangers of a CBDC is here.

Here’s what’s fueling my prognostication. In late August, the BRICS nations will unveil their gold or commodity-backed currency, something that will have an impact on the value of the dollar and its status as the World Reserve Currency used by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) to settle most trades worldwide. That monopoly will end and with it trillions of dollars of international trades will be done without US participation for the first time since the end of WWII.

In September, the House and Senate will have to do something about allocating all of the money printed-up or keystroked-in when they raised the debt ceiling to allow for more government spending. This was the opportunity to show those nations now affiliated with or seeking affiliation with the BRICS currency that the United States and the Dollar were still worth investing in as a source of stable value, but they failed to do so. Since the Congress, particularly Kevin McCarthy, was unable to show proper fiduciary restraint, they passed an agreement that allowed for unrestrained spending and no future negotiation until after the 2024 election, giving those nations trying to decide where to go for a stable currency little choice, but to choose the soon-to-be unveiled BRICS currency.

The United States has already lost the power of the Petrodollar to the Yuan and Ruble thanks largely to Saudi Arabia and OPEC and the fact that no one trusts the US with Biden in charge of it, because he lies. With the switch to the BRICS currency, the Yuan and Ruble will lose value in favor of the BRICS as well. While China and Russia merely move wealth out of the Yuan and Ruble respectively and into the BRICS currency, the United States and the Dollar will just lose, not all at once, but it begins the progression toward zero.

The turbo boost toward zero is provided by a congress that can’t stop spending and can’t stand up to globalist demands to destroy our economy, our power grid and our self-sufficiency. The reasons for that are they are largely the same political party and not concerned with the overall economic health of the nation, but rather how they get their their piece of the dying elephant in the room.

At the same time as this is going on, there’s another surprise for all of those people who believe they’re saving for retirement in 401ks and pension funds. Those funds are largely invested in China, who is currently teetering on economic disaster itself based on its looming real estate crisis, banking instability and struggling exports and therefore industrial activity. These are brought on, I think, by the massive inflation in the United States leading to reduced demand, which is being reflected here by a lack of demand for shipping. The failure of Yellow Truck Lines is just one indicator, but when there’s high demand for all products, one does not have major carriers go out of business.

The difference between investing in American companies and Chinese companies is important. Chinese companies are likely owned or operated by Chinese Communist Party members. So when someone invests in, say Sequoia Capital in the U.S., until recently that money was going to the People’s Liberation Army to develop weapons and build up their stockpiles of materiel. Sequoia eventually split and left it’s Chinese investments in one group and its American investments in another to avoid the optics of financing a hostile nation’s military might. Or did they, really? But the larger issue is that even if one wanted to invest in China, as many pension fund directors and 401k administrators have, there’s no way of knowing if the assets and liabilities are real numbers or not, because China doesn’t require those disclosures. One day, these directors and administrators might send out an email that sympathizes with the loss of money in your retirement account or pension balance due to the economic crisis in China.

At least, investing in American companies, one is assured that the reporting is factual and audited for accuracy. Though, in this climate of corruption, if you want legit numbers, you better invest in conservative companies so you know they probably have not been able to benefit from the blindness of the Biden SEC.

Right now, the entire United States economic situation is a means of whistling past the graveyard. Some shoe is going to drop and when it does it’ll set off the domino effect of other catastrophes. One is better off studying Jack Lawson’s Civil Defense Manual than plotting out a strategic portfolio move.

I don’t know the timeline to catastrophe, because I don’t know how well they can put lipstick on a pig or how long that lipstick will last, but with the accumulation of economic red flags swirling in the air, it only takes one of these fundamental collapses to set off the whole thing.

No matter how bad it gets, the answer you will be offered will be CBDCs, but it won’t actually solve anything except how the globalists will be able to control you. The CBDCs aren’t necessarily American, there are central banks all over the world and when Germany needs cash to house and feed its migrants, they can force you to spend money by imposing an expiration date on your digital cash beyond which it disappears and our representatives and senators don’t have a thing they can do about it, except prevent it from taking place, for which there’s little interest.

The only true answer to any of this economic stupidity is to refuse payment for labor in CBDCs and requiring dollars and either silver or gold. If your state doesn’t allow silver or gold as currency, first of all that’s the next political objective is to focus on before this hits. They’ll play dumb, pretend they don’t have any control, but they do. It’s completely constitutional; Arkansas did it a few months ago.

The government will always offer you nowhere to go with your complaints or demands. You see that now with the election results, they just can’t seem to take the time to adequately vet every vote for legitimacy even two or three years after the fact. But they could. When they won’t, they show you that they’re part of the problem. Do not work to get paid in their CBDCs, just do not do it. If a big enough percentage refuse to work for compensation in CBDCs, they’ll find a way to pay us in a currency that doesn’t enslave us.

*  *  *

Our Red Pill film produced by us at 12 Round Productions LIES OF OMISSION.

If you prefer good novels you’ll want to share, try Rebel and Rogue about a young man, growing up trying to do the right thing (not always successfully). Available in paperback at 12 Round Productions and through Amazon along with my other novels.

Young working adults from Gen Z – born between 1997-2012 – so far have a different relationship with their employers than other generations.

Gone are the days of sticking with one company for an entire 40-year career.

According to Oliver Wyman, Gen Z workers shop around when it comes to work: 62% of them are actively or passively looking for new jobs.

In the chart below, Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop and Bhabna Banerjee, using data from Oliver Wyman’s Gen-Z Report (2023), showcase the generational divides of survey respondents who said they were either actively or passively looking for new work. The survey assessed 10,000 adults in the United States and United Kingdom.

The Survey Results

As of 2023, Gen Z already makes up approximately 15% of the workforce in the U.S. and UK. By 2031, that share is predicted to climb to 31%, second only to millennials.

And many in this young, up-and-coming labor force are more open about seeking alternative employment compared to their older counterparts:

While millennials follow closely behind, far fewer Gen Xers and baby boomers are seeking new roles. Part of this, however, could simply be that those in older generations are far more established in their roles or careers, and are less actively looking for change.

Regardless, Gen Z is incredibly flexible. When compared to other generations, they are also more than twice as likely to have an additional job on the side of their main role.

Shifting Approach to Work

One of the biggest reasons Gen Z actively scours available job postings is because of economic disparities between generations.

Of Gen Z workers, 37% feel underpaid for the amount of hours they work, compared to 29% of non-Gen Z workers. Gen Z women in particular were found to be almost 60% more likely than Gen Z men to leave a job in search of better compensation.

On top of consistently seeking better pay, Gen Z also wants to retire earlier. Looking at average U.S. and UK data, Gen Z’s ideal retirement age is astoundingly young at 54 years old, but most don’t realistically expect to be retired until 60.

Gen Z is important to watch as they are the most diverse, most educated, and most technological savvy generation in history. How they want to work will become increasingly important for employers to consider in order to keep them invested.

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

Before I got the invite to a swank prep-school out East, I used to spend my Spring afternoons on a baseball diamond not too far from the home field of Derek Jeter, who was still playing local ball in Kalamazoo while I was harboring high-school fantasies of playing for the Detroit Tigers.

Glory Days, Simple Lessons

Those were dreamy days of young fantasy. Alas, the Tigers never called, so I hit the books rather than the minor leagues and never looked back.

But like all old men with “glory days” memories, sports taught me a lot of metaphorical lessons.

Like having a team ringer who could hit or pitch years ahead of his time (or for you football/soccer folks, a deadly striker).

Even before the first inning was over, we all knew the harsh pleasure or pain of either: 1) having a “ringer” on our team, or 2) facing one on the other team.

In short, if one team had the most obvious “heat” (or unstoppable striker), it was the team that was going to win.

It was simply the Realpolitik of sports.

Thus, if we were playing against a Derek Jeter (or a Lionel Messi), we all silently knew the game’s outcome before we bravely trotted onto the infield.

Or to put it even more realistically, if my high school baseball team ever had to play the NY Yankees, there was not a snowball’s chance in H.E. double toothpicks that we were going to win that game.

This is fairly easy to grasp. Even our coach (McKenzie) would/could admit such hard truths.

The Debt Endgame is Obvious

Oddly, however, when it comes to US debt levels, and hence the end-game for US credit markets, rates, currencies and Fed policy, almost no one wants to see or admit the obvious.

That is, if we were to compare the Fed’s war against inflation to a baseball game, Powell’s odds are about as good as my Michigan high school team (The Lakeshore Lancers) beating the NY Yankees.

And here’s a few (and otherwise obvious) reasons why.

The Ignored Downgrade

Fitch just downgraded Uncle Sam’s IOUs from AAA to AA+.

For now, it seems no one cares. That is, most still think the Lancers can beat the Yankees.

Why?

Because the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and the Financial Times are all doing a wonderful, timely and concerted job of telling average Americans not too worry, as recession and inflation fears are now largely behind us.

Alas, has Powell beaten the Yankees?

Hmmm.

A Lying Chorus

Whenever I see a discredited cabal of media sell-outs all telling me at once not to worry, I start, to well…worry.

After all, when an FBI can have Facebook remove posts about vaccine facts or CNBC starts ignoring alternative views on a neocon war in the East, I tend to get skeptical of the “official version” of just about anything and everything.

What these esteemed financial media “experts” are failing to tell you is that the recent (and ignored) Fitch downgrade was premised upon the fact the America’s debt to GDP ratio (125%) is just too high.

In fact, it suggests that Johnson & Johnson or Microsoft have less a chance for defaulting on their debts than the United States.

What our media guides are also failing to mention is that the Fitch downgrade of 2023 was preceded by a similar S&P Rating downgrade in August of 2011.

Two Downgrades, Different Signals

What’s different about the August downgrade of 2023, however, is that Uncle Sam’s debt levels are much higher (scarier) than in 2011.

In fact, bond demand (as measured by the TLT) actually rose by 25-30% after the 2011 downgrade!

Really?

See for yourself:

This was because folks still believed the US of A and its IOUs were simply too big to fail and that such “risk-free” Treasury bonds were a safe-haven in any storm.

By 2014, however, the rest of the world was singing a different tune.

When adjusted for inflation, then as now, those so called “risk-free-returns” were nothing more than “return-free-risk,” which is why foreigners have been net-sellers of Uncle Sam’s IOUs ever since…

And what is even more interesting about the downgrade of 2023 is the fact that more Americans are finally catching on to this.

That is, and unlike the 2011 response to the S&P downgrade, the 2023 downgrade led to a dumping rather than buying of those very same (and increasingly downgraded) IOUs.

Again, see for yourself:

Main Street Finally Catching On?

What these charts are saying is that Americans are slowly starting to see the end-game of our debt-strapped American baseball team.

For decades, our dads and grand-dads have taught us to seek bonds as protection in dangerous times.

That is why US retail investors and US banks have either been suckered (on Main Street) or forced (at the bank level) to buy Uncle Sam’s promissory notes for decades with blind faith in DC’s ability to, well, beat the NY Yankees…

In 2023, however, more folks are distrusting what is an essence a negative-returning 10Y UST (i.e., what the fancy lads call “negative term premiums”), which means US bonds aint our dad’s (or grand-dad’s) “safe-haven” anymore.

Powell Running Out of Good Pitches

This, of course, poses a real problem for Powell’s baseball game against inflation, for Powell has no good fastballs left, just a weak curve ball (Fed’s balance sheet) and a crappy slider (rate manipulations).

That is, whenever the bond market runs out of liquidity (as he saw in the repo crisis of 2019, the UST crash of 2020 or the recent bank failures of 2023), Powel only has two choices/pitches to work with, namely:

1. Do nothing (and watch bonds tank, rates spike, deflation rip, economies crumble and markets frog boil toward implosion), or

2. Reach for that magical mouse-clicker at the Eccles Building and print more fiat money (and hence monetize Uncle Sam’s debt with inflationary bravado).

Powell’s Endgame vs. Powell’s Fantasy

For me, the end-game is clear.

In fact, I see it as clearly as if my Lake Shore Lancers were forced to play 9 innings against Jeeter’s Yankees, namely: “We’re gonna lose this game.”

For now, we are only in the first innings of this painful and embarrassing contest.

Powell, having broken the middle class, a number or regional banks and the normal shape of a robust yield curve, is already declaring victory over inflation and recession (along with a chorus of “yes-sayers” from the WSJ to the FT) and continuing his higher-for-longer fantasy of rising rates into the greatest debt bubble of world history.

How’s that for fantasy?

Maybe I should I try out for the Yankees myself?

Ignoring the Ringer (and the Math)

But what Powell (and the consensus-driven markets) aren’t seeing is the ringer on the other team—namely the fast-ball reality of simple math.

That is, as Powell raises rates, the cost of Uncle Sam’s debt has now crossed the Rubicon of payable.

Ironically (and sports are full of ironies), Powell’s war against inflation is in fact going to end up being inflationary, as the only way to inevitably and eventually pay the interest expense alone on Uncle Sam’s $33T deficit is via a money-printer.

And that, folks, is inflationary (what the fancy lads call “fiscal dominance”), which is bad for long-dated IOUs but good for gold.

Thus, and regardless of current headlines, bullish fantasy and media-ignored credit downgrades, I see yields on sovereign 10-years going higher for longer, which is not a view shared by consensus or those who even feel that a great high school team can beat the Yankees.

The Hopeful Crowd

Of course, there are those who may feel and hope that Powell and his squad of weak-armed experts can get US debt to GDP levels from 125% to 80% (which is the only ratio where normalized rate hikes work) by cutting spending costs.

Hmmm.

In that case, Powell and his equally weak teammate at the US Treasury Department (Yellen) or perhaps even Joe Biden, with his 20 MPH mental fast-ball at the White House, can sit down and decide where the USA is willing to tighten its belt.

Will it be by cutting entitlement spending?

Good luck staying in office with that game plan…

Will it be via military cuts?

Those who truly run DC from the Pentagon are not likely to agree…

Or perhaps there are still those deluded fans in those high-school bleachers who think Powell can grow his way out of a 125% debt to GDP ratio?

Hmmm.

Well, mathematically (just saying), such a gameplan would require 6 consecutive years of 20+% GDP growth, something which can (and will) NEVER happen in a high-rate baseball field.

The Angry Crowd

Thus, the only way to “grow,” and the only way to save Uncle Sam’s unloved bond market, is via liquidity, and that liquidity ain’t coming from GDP, tax receipts or 20% economic growth.

Nope.

It’s gonna come from a Fed mouse-clicker. Trillions of fiat Dollars—and that folks, IS gonna be inflationary, and it’s gonna crush the guy on the street, farm or high-school coaching staff.

In short, Powell’s fight against inflation is just in the 3rd inning.

In the end, inflation and negative real rates are the only pitchers/options left in Powell’s weak bullpen (short of a deflationary depression), which means, alas, he won’t be winning this game in the 9th inning.

Of course, such baseball metaphors, math, policy and inflation/deflation cycles aren’t easy to time with precision nor be understood with fancy Wall Street lingo by every Jane or Joe on Main Street.

Afterall, not everyone has the time or luxury to debate monetary policy (or baseball memories) when they are just struggling to make a car payment or fill their gas tanks (and those prices are going to go higher) as the BLS fudges the math on inflation data or the NBER tweaks its comical (and lagging) recession indicatorfor political rather than transparency motives.

But whether one be carrying a baseball bat or a guitar, it’s becoming clear from Farmville Virginia to Stevensville Michigan that something is “broken in the force.”

As distrust of a weaponized media, Dollar and justice system collides with politicized science and rigged markets, Americans are steadily losing faith in the so-called “experts.”

Toward this end, I won’t be the first nor the last to remind readers of the recent viral sensation, and Virginia guitar-picker, Oliver Anthony.

He recently opened his new American anthem by declaring “it’s a damn shame” that he’s “been working overtime-hours for bull-sh— pay” in a new world where “your dollar aint sh– and taxed to no end,” while the rich men North of Richmond “just want total control.”

Sound familiar?

Strike a cord?

More times than not, a baseball or a guitar can say more than a financial blog.

This debt game is going to end badly. They ALWAYS do.

PS: I love Richmond.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

What’s the US goal in Ukraine? Is it doable? What about Russia’s goal? Ukraine’s?

The lead image is from the BBC article ‘People call us the Ghosts of Bakhmut’

Minus the troops, the setup in Ukraine is starting to look like the US fiasco in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, and Iraq.

None of hose actions had a clearly defined mission that was remotely achievable. Ukraine doesn’t either.

What is the US Mission?

• Stop Russia?

• Win back all the territory Ukraine lost?

• Get Ukraine in NATO?

If the mission is for Ukraine to win back all lost territory, then progress is torturously slow and haphazardly thought out.

Supplying more weapons could help. But the expense could be a nuclear response by Putin.

Is the mission to stop Russia’s advance? If so, that is not compatible with Ukraine’s goal of winning back 100% of the territory it lost.

To what extent is the US willing to keep paying for Ukraine’s goal if the US goal is not the same?

Russia’s initial thrust was to put a puppet regime in Kyiv, but that failed. Does anyone know what Russia’s goal is at this point?

Perpetual War

After many months and at great cost Russia finally captured the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The city was totally destroyed in the process. Now Ukraine is struggling to win it back.

This reminds me of fighting over meaningless hills just like the US did in Vietnam.

Journalist Peter Arnett’s Vietnam dispatch for the Associated Press: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

On Feb. 10, an Oregon newspaper rendered it “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Two weeks later the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a group of protesters carrying a banner that read, “It Was Necessary to Destroy the Village in Order to Save It.” In whatever form, the words had become a mantra of the anti-war movement, a quick and simple summary of what was wrong with the entire Vietnam adventure.

Arnett has always been adamant that he got the quote right, and I have no reason to doubt him. Still, I would be remiss if I failed to note that there are skeptics.

Peace for Territory?

Any time the US or EU brings up the notion of peace for territory, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy goes off the rails, frequently accompanied by the battle cry, “We cannot reward Putin”.

At best, there are three conflicting goals, none of which is clearly defined other than Ukraine’s.

Complicating matters, Ukraine’s goal is not remotely achievable without massive US spending and risk of a nuclear confrontation with Putin.

Meanwhile, a stalemate can go on for quite a while, perhaps with a debate over the shape of the negotiating table.

That may sound ridiculous, but a lengthy debate over the shape of the table happened in the Vietnam War Peace Negotiations

Vietnam Peace Talks

One of the largest hurdles to effective negotiation was the fact that North Vietnam and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, or Viet Cong) in the South, refused to recognize the government of South Vietnam; with equal persistence, the government in Saigon refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the NLF. Harriman resolved this dispute by developing a system by which North Vietnam and U.S. would be the named parties; NLF officials could join the North Vietnam team without being recognized by South Vietnam, while Saigon’s representatives joined their U.S. allies.

A similar debate concerned the shape of the table to be used at the conference. The North favored a circular table, in which all parties, including NLF representatives, would appear to be “equal”‘ in importance. The South Vietnamese argued that only a rectangular table was acceptable, for only a rectangle could show two distinct sides to the conflict. Eventually a compromise was reached, in which representatives of the northern and southern governments would sit at a circular table, with members representing all other parties sitting at individual square tables around them.

Can’t Leave Now

This takes me back to 7th grade memories when our teacher, Harry Don Wirth left mid-year for Vietnam. I recall him saying something to the effect “I don’t think we should be there, but we can’t leave now.”

The war was still going on when I graduated high school and two more years on top of that.

The US was in Vietnam for 8 years and Afghanistan for 20 years. What good became of either of them?

Eventually, the US left both countries, humiliated .

In this case, we don’t have troops in Ukraine, but we happily supply missiles. Importantly, it was US meddling in Ukraine in 2014, led by Senator John McCain and the CIA, that led to the mess we are involved in now.

That does not excuse Putin, but history is clear. US meddling in foreign affairs of other nations never leads to anything good.

Prolonged War is Inflationary

Ukraine in not in any position to be demanding anything from us. But without clearly defined goals, we keep cruising down the path of a prolonged if not perpetual war, with escalating costs.

It’s yet another inflationary aspect of US policy.

Also see Yet Another Biden Regulation Will Increase Costs and Promote More Inflation and my follow-up post The Cost of Soup is About to Increase, Thank President Biden

*  *  *

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Authored Igor Chudov via DailySceptic.org,

Remember how depopulation was called a right-wing conspiracy theory?

Things have changed, and ‘population collapse’, which can no longer be denied, is now good for us!

The Telegraph picked the perfect messenger to communicate the new way we should think about population declines. A high-level WEF adviser tells us:

Oxford Professor Sarah Harper is a very important person. The Telegraph article listing her credentials forgot to mention that she serves on the Global Agenda Council on Ageing Societies of the World Economic Forum.

Prof Harper is thrilled about recent declines in fertility:

Prof Harper told the Telegraph: “I think it’s a good thing that the high-income, high-consuming countries of the world are reducing the number of children that they’re having. I’m quite positive about that.”

The academic said declining fertility in rich countries would help to address the “general overconsumption that we have at the moment”, which has a negative impact on the planet.

Most importantly, declines in births will bring about reductions in CO2 emissions from wealthy nations, Prof Harper points out:

Research has found that wealthy nations tend to have much larger carbon footprints than poorer countries, as rich people can afford to buy more goods, travel more and do other activities that generate emissions.

Carbon emissions from high-income countries were 29 times larger than low-income countries on a per capita basis in 2020, World Bank figures show.

Population Declines or Population Replacement?

Here’s the strange part:

If the leadership of the World Economic Forum wanted to reduce emissions from wealthy countries, I could understand how they would hope that population reductions would lead to a decline in economic output. Aside from moral implications, it is simple math that fewer people means fewer cars on the road, less food consumed and so on.

However, something entirely different is going on! While the population of local-born natives is no longer reproducing at the levels needed to maintain the population, new immigration picks up. It accounts for a larger and larger share of births!

While the number of births in Britain is declining, the share of children born to parents who immigrated from outside Britain has hit a record high.

Almost one in three children born last year were delivered by mothers born outside of the U.K. The number of births by women born outside the U.K. rose 3,600 year-on-year to account for 30.3% of all births. The previous peak was 29.3% in 2020.

When including the father, more than one in three children born last year had at least one foreign-born parent. In London, the figure was two thirds.

This development is inconsistent with wanting to reduce the populations of high-consumption countries. It seems self-defeating to celebrate birth reductions while simultaneously amping up the arrivals of new immigrants who work hard to live well, consume a lot, have many children and realise the ‘British dream’.

Please do not interpret me pointing out the above inconsistency as my hostility towards immigrants: I immigrated to the United States, worked hard to have a good life and am blessed with a beautiful family and two grown children. I am immensely thankful for the opportunity to live in this wonderful land of the free – and I am sure that most other immigrants want to live well and work hard, just as I did.

However, even though I am equally sympathetic towards immigrants, just as I am towards the natives, I cannot shake the feeling that Prof Harper and the WEF have an inconsistency between stated goals and actions that I cannot explain easily.

This inconsistency is not something I can quite understand: New immigrants want to consume just as much as native residents. Why encourage immigration from poor countries to rich countries if the goal is a reduction of carbon and other emissions that would occur due to declines in the population of rich countries?

Help me understand this puzzle! Are we missing something? What do they really want?

*  *  *

This article was first published on Igor’s Substack page. Subscribe here.

Via Remix News,

Belarusian soldiers are engaged in exercises near Brest, including parachute and landing operations…

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense has confirmed that a five-day training exercise for land and assault forces is being conducted in Brest, a city in southwest Belarus on the Polish border.

It is understood that officers have already practiced parachute landings and embarked on a 15-kilometer march in the region. The training area is just a few kilometers from the Bug River on the border between Poland and Belarus.

A month ago, the training site near Brest was also used by the Wagner Group mercenaries. This too was acknowledged by the Belarusian defense ministry. 

Source: Telegram/Belarusian Ministry of Defense.

The Polish authorities are monitoring the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border very closely, and the Polish government announced measures last week to ramp up security in the region.

The Border Guard is being supported by the army following the incident in which two Belarusian helicopters entered Polish air space.

“We are increasing the number of our troops on the Polish-Belarusian border; eventually, 10,000 soldiers will defend the Polish border in this sector,” Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told Polish Radio last Thursday.

Belarus has also announced its intention to engage in joint military exercises with China.

The Chinese defense minister has been in Minsk for talks on deepening military cooperation between the two countries.