We have seen numerous false conclusions made by covid studies over the course of the past few years, with the majority of them relying on assumptions rather than scientific data.  In the majority of cases, these studies attempt to paint conservatives and unvaccinated individuals as a danger to others or a danger to themselves, with a clear political bias in favor of Democrats and pro-vaccine advocates.  In other words, the studies fit the data to support their preconceived notions – The exact opposite of science.

Leftists are abuzz this week on social media in light of a newly published study funded by Yale University suggesting that Republicans in Florida and Ohio died at a rate 43% higher than Democrats.  This is proof, they claim, that Republicans were wrong about covid mandates and vaccinations and they are paying for it with their lives.  Except, this is not reality.

First, to be clear, every major study on covid deaths puts the median Infection Fatality Rate at 0.23%.  Meaning, on average 99.8% of people are under no serious threat from the virus.  This vital stat is never mention in the Yale study (or in the media, for that matter).

Yale uses excess mortality data at the county level, coupled with voter registration records to form conclusions on covid death rates in correlation with party affiliation.  Published at JAMA Network under the title ‘Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Registered Voters in Florida and Ohio During the COVID-19 Pandemic’, it relies on a data drought rather than a complete set of statistics to form its conclusions.  Let’s go through the failings of the study one by one….

1)  For example, the study admits that it did not have access to the cause of death for the individuals involved.  Individual-level vaccination status was not included in the available data.  They simply assume that excess deaths were in fact covid related deaths.

2)  The study does not include data on vaccination status at the individual level.  Meaning, they had no proof that excess deaths in Republican counties were unvaccinated people.  Again, they merely assume that this is the case.   

3)  The study also admits that research before the COVID-19 pandemic has found evidence of higher death rates in Republican-leaning counties than Democratic-leaning counties.  Meaning, death rates are supposedly higher within Republican counties regardless of covid.

4)  The study did not find a significant difference in death rates between Republican and Democrat counties in Florida.  It only found such differences in counties in Ohio.  Already, this suggests a failed premise given it was only applicable in one state.  

5)  The study excluded voters registered as independent and third party (Why?).  Around 41% of American voters identify as politically independent according to Gallup polls.  Would their inclusion in the study dilute the results contrary to the study’s obvious political bias?

6) The study gathered excess death data from May 2021, around the time they argue most US adults would have access to the covid vaccines. This is a narrow snapshot in time rather than a comprehensive look at Republican and Democrat deaths over the full length of the pandemic and vaccinations.  It should be noted that infections and fatality rates started plunging months before the vaccines were introduced widely to the public.  This is not a factor the study takes into consideration.     

7)  Out of the four age groups included in the study, Republicans only had higher excess deaths in two of them (and only in Ohio).  The study briefly glosses over the fact that Democratic voters had significantly higher excess death rates compared with Republican voters for the age group 65 to 74 years.  That is to say, the baseline theory that Republicans have more covid deaths is debunked by the study’s own data.  

Where does this leave us?  To summarize, the Yale study is incomplete and in some ways self contradicting.  In some age groups, Democrats had more excess deaths than Republicans.  In Florida, there was no significant difference in deaths between Republicans and Democrats.  Yet, Yale jumps to a politically charged conclusion in favor of Democrats anyway.  Why?

A cursory glance at Yale University’s medical departments and their relationship to Pfizer should give people pause before accepting this study at face value.  Pfizer has donated tens of millions of dollars over the past two decades to Yale, including the building of a $35 million medical research center and millions in covid research related grants in the past few years.

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has also given millions to Yale specifically for covid research.  Both Gates and Pfizer have a vested monetary and political interest in pushing a pro-vaccine message.  Beyond that, the vast majority of Yale faculty political donations go to Democrat candidates.  Yale is a Democrat run university, so it’s not surprising that they would fund an incomplete study that favors Democrat narratives. 

The lesson here?  Science is being politically weaponized, and every single new claim from such institutions needs to be thoroughly examined rather than taken at face value.        

By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

By an 88-11 margin, the Senate votes to spend $886 billion on defense spending. The details show much graft that both parties seem happy with.

A proposal this week to modestly cut the already needlessly high and wasteful Pentagon budget failed miserably says Responsible Statecraft in its take Senate Bails Out the Weapons Industry Once Again.

Press coverage of yesterday’s passage of the Senate version of the annual Pentagon spending bill, known formally as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), has mostly focused on the looming battle over “culture war” provisions included in the House version of the bill, including measures that would constrain the Pentagon’s ability to promote diversity, fight racism in the ranks, and promote reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights.

Meanwhile, neither chamber did much to question the Pentagon’s soaring budget, which could reach $1 trillion over the next few years if current trends continue. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have cut the Pentagon budget by 10 percent failed by a vote of 88 to 11, suggesting that the vast majority of members are perfectly happy throwing $886 billion at the Pentagon and the Department of Energy (for nuclear weapons work), with few questions asked and few strings attached.

There are endless examples of contractors overcharging the Pentagon and fleecing the taxpayer. Sen. Warren mentioned just a few in this week’s hearing: paying $1,500 for a medical device that could be purchased at Walmart for $192; giving Boeing $70 for a pin that was worth four cents; and paying $1,800 for vaccines that normally cost $125. And as 60 Minutes noted after interviewing former Pentagon procurement official Shay Assad, “[t]he Pentagon, he told us, overpays for almost everything – for radar and missiles … helicopters … planes … submarines… down to the nuts and bolts.”

The Pentagon’s $52,000 Trash Can

Please consider The Pentagon’s $52,000 Trash Can

Until 2010, Boeing charged an average of $300 for a trash container used in the E-3 Sentry, a surveillance and radar plane based on the 707 civilian airliner. When the 707 fell out of use in the United States, the trash can was no longer a “commercial” item, meaning that Boeing was not obligated to keep its price at previous levels, according to a weapons industry source who spoke to RS.

In 2020, the Pentagon paid Boeing over $200,000 for four of the trash cans, translating to roughly $51,606 per unit. In a 2021 contract, the company charged $36,640 each for 11 trash containers, resulting in a total cost of more than $400,000. The apparent overcharge cost taxpayers an extra $600,000 between the two contracts.

In another case, Lockheed Martin hiked the price of an electrical conduit for the P-3 plane as much as 14 fold, costing the Pentagon an additional $133,000 between 2008 and 2015. 

Jamaica Bearings — a company that distributes parts manufactured by other firms — sold the Department of Defense 13 radio filters that had once cost $350 each for nearly $49,000 per unit in 2022. The apparent markup cost taxpayers more than $600,000 in extra fees.

The investigation also revealed that Raytheon Technologies had raised the price of Stinger missiles from $25,000 to more than $400,000 per unit. “Even accounting for inflation and some improvements, that’s a seven-fold increase,” Shay Assad, a former Pentagon acquisitions official, told 60 Minutes.

About half of the Biden administration’s $842 billion Pentagon budget request goes to contractors. In 2022, roughly 30 percent of military spending went to the “big five” weapons makers, which include Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.

Pentagon Price Gouging

Senator Warren harps about price gouging frequently and most of it is nonsense. When it comes to defense spending she is correct for a change.

Please play the following video by Responsible Statecraft. It’s a real eye opener.

More Than the Next 10 Nations Combined

The Peter G. Peterson foundation puts a spotlight on defense spending in US Spends More on Defense Than the Next 10 Nations Combined

Defense spending accounts for a sizable portion of the federal budget and the United States vastly outspends other nations. In determining the appropriate level of such spending in the future, it will be important to evaluate whether it is being used effectively and how it fits in with other national priorities.

Support From All Corners

The U.S. needs to restore our defense-industrial base in order to produce munitions, and transform our military to one that can successfully help Asian countries repel a Chinese assault.

Both of those things will cost a lot of money. https://t.co/RU5NK2gG8u

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) July 29, 2023

Mind-Boggling Reasons

Human extinction is going to require an increase in defense spending.

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) July 29, 2023

Noah Smith: “Human extinction is going to require an increase in defense spending.”

OK, that’s a sarcastic comment. But how the hell are we supposed to pay for this?

Deficit? Did You Say Deficit?

Please note Republicans Push for More Military Spending in Debt Deal as They Decry Deficit

Republican lawmakers who oppose the debt-ceiling bill argue it doesn’t do enough to cut spending or reduce the deficit. Yet when defense is concerned, many argue the government ought to be spending more, not less.

Under the deal passed by the House on Wednesday evening and sent to the Senate, defense spending would get the 3.3% increase the president proposed for the coming year — even as other programs are cut. Defense hawks are pushing for an even bigger boost, and Senator Lindsey Graham has proposed an amendment to the bill that would increase defense spending to keep up with inflation.

“When I hear Republican leaders say this budget deal fully funds defense, I laugh,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters Wednesday.

The administration’s $886.3 billion national security budget request for fiscal 2024 provides the biggest-ever defense spending increase and also one of the largest peacetime budgets when adjusted for inflation. The US would be spending more on defense than the next 10 nations combined.

The Permanent Push for More Military Spending

Please consider The Permanent Push for More Military Spending Includes Submarines, Missiles, and Now Icebreakers.

Allegedly we have gaps on Icebreakers, Submarines, Artificial Intelligence, Rapid Defense Experimentation, Science and Technology, Nuclear Submarines, NATO, China, Missiles, and
Space.

Republicans defend this as a jobs creation mechanism.

I would rather spend money building infrastructure than fighting wars and wasting hundreds of billions of dollars stationing troops all across the globe.

But there is no choice. Democrats want Bidenomics and free money for social spending, and Republicans do not give a damn about wasting massive amounts of money on defense.

The inevitable consequence is the worst of both worlds, and in this case by an 88-11 vote.

By a 100-0 margin, they are all hypocrites on something.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) last week signed a plan into law that allows foreign nationals with work permits, some of whom are illegal aliens, to become police officers in the state.

Federal law currently forbids non-US citizens to serve as police officers and deputies.

The new law states that “… an individual against whom immigration action has been deferred by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services under the federal DACA process is allowed to apply for the position of police officer, deputy sheriff, or special policeman, subject to specified requirements,” according to a summary of the legislation.

The legislation was passed in June by the Illinois House and Senate, where Democrats hold a supermajority.

Meanwhile in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law last year which authorizes recently-arrived border crossers to become cops and police American citizens.

The law only  requires that officers have a federally issued work permit, which are regularly given out by the Biden administration to illegal aliens released into the US after crossing the southern border.

Illinois Rep. Mary Miller (R) raged against the new law, tweeting over the weekend: “At 5 p.m. yesterday, when no one was paying attention, Pritzker signed a bill to allow illegal immigrants to become police officers, giving non-citizens the power to arrest citizens in our state,” adding “No sane state would allow foreign nationals to arrest their citizens, this is madness!”

“People who are breaking the law by their presence here can now arrest American citizens. You know the other blue states are watching and getting ready to implement this idea as soon as they can!” Miller continued. “We either address this border crisis or allow our country to descend further into a Leftist dystopia.“

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The University of Virginia wrongly fired an employee who refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new ruling.

Today in “your tax dollars at work” news, the state of Oregon has found out that $9 billion it has doled out to help its salmon population (yes, the fish) has failed to produce any discernable results.

And to think, that’s perfectly good money we could have sent to Ukraine!

A new report from NBC affiliate KGW8 this week noted that “hundreds” of projects the Columbia River Basin has undertaken – including “habitat restoration to bounty programs on other fish that prey on salmon” – have all failed to produce results. 

The revelation came from a Oregon State University co-authored by Bill Jaeger, an applied economics professor at the university. His research was recently published in the journal PLOS One. 

His study looked at 50 years of salmon return data from the lowest dam on the Columbia River. The study found that before the dams went up, 16 million salmonids returned to the basin each year. By the 2010s, that number had fallen to 1.5 million. 

“For a long time, there have been questions about the effectiveness of a wide range of activities taken to try to restore salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin. We do not find evidence of an increase in wild fish,” Jaeger said. 

The salmon are facing pressure from “hydro, habitat, harvest and hatcheries,” he added, noting there have been “steep declines” in coho, chinook, sockeye and steelhead populations because dams block fish from swimming upriver. 

“Many of those species listed since the 1990s under the Endangered Species Act are ones for which the numbers have declined and continue to be of great concern,” Jaeger added. 

He railed on the egregious spending’s lack of impact: “Cost effectiveness was a term that was occasionally used in a report but was never really undertaken as a serious methodology for determining where to spend money. The operations and the administration of these projects could have done a lot more to do serious cost-effective analysis to determine which of these activities seems to be generating more bang for the buck.” 

He concluded: “I’m not sure how useful it is to talk about whether the money was wasted or not. That’s behind us. I think what one can do, and what one should do, is look at this evidence and ask ‘what should we be doing differently going forward?’” 

Cue up another $9 billion, we guess…

The number of monthly background checks conducted by the FBI, a necessary step to purchase a firearm, has plummeted to its lowest level in five years. We have pointed out that the gun-buying mania, sparked by Covid chaos, peaked two years ago. 

According to data from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), unadjusted criminal background checks fell 11% 2.02 million in July, the lowest since October 2018. Compared with 2022 figures, NICS checks dropped 16% from 2.4 million. And from Covid highs of 4.69 million NICS checks in March 2021, July was down 57%. 

On a seasonal basis, NICS checks are still well above the two-decade average. 

Recall NICS background check data is a proxy for gun sales because no national database tracks firearms purchases. The data continues to confirm the mania phase of gun buying is over (for now). 

Sliding gun demand has left Smith & Wesson Brands, one of the country’s largest firearms manufacturers, with elevated firearm inventory at retailers and distributors. Chief Executive Mark Smith noted in the latest earnings release that consumer promotions are helping to reduce inventory woes. 

NICS data leads lead shares of Smith & Wesson Brands lower. 

The latest data continues to confirm the gun bubble is deflating. We noted this trend earlier this year in a piece titled Gun Background-Checks Reveal Firearms Demand Slumped After COVID Mania and, more recently, in a note titled US Gun Demand Drops To Four-Year Low. 

Taking a look at ammo prices, Ammo Prices Now shows the most popular caliber for home defense (9mm) trends around 19 cents per round, a far cry from 71 cents per round during the Covid peak. 

Gun and ammo deflation suggests now is a good time to take advantage of sales. 

Authored by Peter Earle via The American Institute for Economic Research,

From August 22 through 24th, an extended coalition of over 40 nations which has become known as BRICS+ will meet in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Among the likely topics of discussion is the feasibility of setting up a jointly-owned international financial institution. It would be funded by gold deposits, issue a currency, and extend loans tied to the spot value of gold. There are substantial reasons to doubt the workability of the growing consortium’s plan.

But to dismiss it summarily, whether as bad economics or rote anti-American propaganda, is to dismiss a moment five decades in the making. 

Throughout the 1990s and into the early dawn of the 21st century, national governments looked down upon a world they credited themselves with creating. A Federal Reserve-engineered ‘soft landing’ in the mid-1990s buttressed the perception of monetary policy as a perfectable science. The Third Way – not free markets, but a hampered, highly regulated mixed economy – had outlasted and arguably defeated Communism. Technological innovation was vaulting beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Space was at the forefront of science again, with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope and construction starting on the International Space Station. Protease inhibitors, bioengineered foods, and the first hybrid vehicles arrived. 

US Dollar Index (DXY), Fall of USSR – present

(Source: Bloomberg Finance, LP)

At that time political figures all around the globe, elected and appointed, surveyed a world built upon paper money and financialization. They looked upon it with great, in many cases smug, satisfaction. And among other self-congratulatory measures, they began selling their long-held gold reserves – by the ton. England, the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Canada, and even precious metal stalwart Switzerland liquidated physical stocks of gold. The US did as well, a bit later. Some explained those sales as a means for diversifying central bank holdings. Others claimed that the proceeds would benefit the poor or be used to pay down government debt. A new millennium was at hand, the towpath to which was paved not by soft yellow metal but by batteries of workstations armed with Pentium III processors, silently churning out solutions to partial differential equations. 

Twenty-five years later the poor are still poor, national debt is at record levels, and the price of gold in US dollars is eight to ten times the price that governments and central bankers sold almost 5,000 metric tons for. Multi-trillion dollar wars have been fought to inconclusive ends: not lost, really, but far from won. Orders of magnitudes typically only found in astronomy textbooks,  invoking trillions (and in Japan, quadrillions) regularly surfaced in the descriptions of monetary and fiscal policy measures of developed nations. Then, on the heels of a highly politicized response to a public health event, inflation returned from a four decade sojourn. One dollar printed during the Y2K scare today purchases roughly 56 percent of what it did then. 

Nevertheless, the US dollar has remained the indisputable and essentially singular global reserve currency, acting as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and settlement instrument for the lion’s share of daily international trading. Despite policy missteps and distractions, the Fed has arguably performed better than most of the world’s other central banks: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But the weaponization of the US dollar in 2022 has exposed greenback dependency as a vulnerability of existential proportions. With the banning of most Russian banks from the Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) messaging system, and despite the dollar’s advantages for use in global trade, a line was crossed. 

Despite petulant insistences to the contrary by the most well-known economist today (regrettably), a wave of de-dollarization is very much underway. It would be interesting to know how Krugman, who scoffed at the description of ejecting a nation from SWIFT as “weaponization,” would characterize French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maier’s dubbing the move a “financial nuclear weapon.”

None of this means that the dollar is “doomed,” and certainly not imminently. Neither is the US dollar “dead.” But its use as a sanctioning instrument likely represents the crossing of a rubicon whereby nations habitually using the dollar need to have currency alternatives ready. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, even while citing the entrenched nature of the dollar in global trade, conceded that “diversif[cation]” in global foreign exchange reserves is underway earlier this month.

The argument that few if any other nations have currencies (and/or economies underlying them) that meet the requirements of a global reserve currency is a cogent one. Of course, one needn’t necessarily replace the dollar. What matters is having a ready means of transacting outside dollar-based systems and institutions in exigent circumstances: to maintain continuity of trade, and to hedge against the policy errors of central bankers. What is the most marketable, least manipulable means of shifting away from the dollar (and possibly back to it, once tensions have abated) with the lowest switching costs? Gold. 

Gold in USD, Fall of USSR – present

(Source: Bloomberg Finance, LP)

Saudi Arabia, not a particular fan of the current Presidential administration, has indicated that it will invest billions of dollars into its expanding gold sector over the remainder of this decade. India recently launched an international gold bullion exchange. The imposition of (almost) unprecedented non-pharmaceutical interventions in early 2020 saw the price of gold rise to record highs. At the end of last year, central banks were buying gold at the fastest rate since 1967. As of May, 70 percent of central banks indicated believing that gold reserves would increase over the next year. Experimentation with using gold alongside dollars, and as money, including in some innovative, familiar formats here in the US, has been growing in just the last few years.

Specific details on the proposed currency union have not yet been released. They may not yet exist outside the minds of their promoters. Suffice to say that drawing scores of nations together from different continents and cultures, with different histories and remarkably diverse resource endowments will be a heavy lift, organizationally speaking. Smaller members are likely to find their interests marginalized, with the resulting dynamic closer to what’s seen in the United Nations than, say, OPEC. And few of the proposed members have confidence-inspiring track records where property rights are concerned.    

The form and function of the BRICS+ financial institution, if any is indeed forthcoming, is of secondary importance. What matters is that the slow creep of de-dollarization is, on its flip side, an inexorable push toward the re-monetization of gold. And whether that means sound money through innovation or pressuring global central banks to reform their practices, those outcomes are welcome to say the least.

A better than expected ADP print (hot), started yields rising but the Treasury refunding announcement (more supply) really cracked the bond market (no – it was NOT the Fitch downgrade!)

Source: Bloomberg

10Y Yields soared to their highest since Nov 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries overall were mixed with the short-end actually lower in yield by the close (2Y -2bps) after an initial spike and long-end higher in yield (30Y +7bps) but well off its worst levels. On the week, 2Y is basically unch while the long bond is +15bps…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve (2s30s) steepened (dis-inverted) further – back near mid-July highs…

Source: Bloomberg

US Sovereign risk was completely unmoved by the nothingburger of the Fitch downgrade…

Source: Bloomberg

Although we would note that overall US Credit Risk is higher under Biden than Trump despite the so-called “Trump Downgrade”…

Source: Bloomberg

Stocks were down across the board (yes they fell on the downgrade headline) but a combination of strong jobs and heavy debt issuance could become a problem as rates soar and long-duration stocks (Nasdaq) were spanked hardest. The Dow was the prettiest horse in today’s glue-factory, down around 1%…

The S&P’s 47-day streak of days without a 1% loss is over

The Nasdaq 100 is now at its weakest relative to the Russell 2000 in 2 months…

The ‘most shorted’ stocks saw their biggest drop since March…

Source: Bloomberg

Banks broke down to two week lows…

AMD weakness dragged chipmakers lower with NVDA spanked…

…is this the high?

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar continued to rally, now erasing over Fib 76.4% of the mid-July plunge…

Source: Bloomberg

With the DXY Dollar Index closing above its 50- and 100-DMAs…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin pumped and dumped today, surging higher overnight after the US downgrade to top $30k, and then legging lower on headlines about DoJ mulling fraud charges for crypto exchange Binance…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices puked today after rising overnight on the biggest crude draw in history. WTI ended back below $80 – around one week lows – with all sorts of explanations for why we sold off (chatter about slumping gasoline demand, and expectations for draws over the entire month of July being realized). It could just be positioning…

Gold tumbled AGAIN, with futures back at $1970 – near one-month lows…

Finally, as Goldman notes, as we head into the generally quieter summer period for markets, investors are debating whether it is safest to assume renewed risk-on momentum over the coming weeks or prepare for more meaningful downside on a possible disappointment in the data given the extent of optimism currently priced…

Simply put, US cyclical equities look vulnerable given the extent of growth optimism currently priced.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Everything is boring, even the aliens.

Sometimes truth is best revealed tongue-in-cheek, that is, in semi-serious banter rather than supposedly serious analysis.

Consider the recent flood-tide of “news” about extraterrestrial vehicles, a.k.a. UFOs and UAPs–(formerly Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, now Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, to include underwater phenomena.

Prolific podcaster (1,314 podcasts and counting) Tommy Corrigan and I tackled the UAP mystery–why are UAPs now an officially sanctioned “thing”?–in a free-form conversation, Aliens Are Boring (1:08 hrs).

As you can tell from the title of our podcast, the truth is the Powers That Be have managed to make the aliens boring. Rather than the “revelations” being “stunning” or “shocking,” the entire exercise was as boring as everything else the PTB manage.

Transforming what could be the biggest story in history into a boring committee meeting devoid of any real evidence is quite an accomplishment. As Tommy opined, what would qualify as “interesting” would be Presidents Xi, Putin and Biden appearing on stage together to announce a global consortium to deal with the alien presence, and video of recovered alien bodies and spacecraft wreckage.

Instead, we got a boring committee meeting with sworn testimony, i.e. a nothing-burger of rehashed pilot accounts from the New York Time’s 2017 report. 

2 Navy Airmen and an Object That ‘Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’

In a word, boring. Tic-Tacs, saucers, hovering lights, blah-blah-blah.

The only interesting aspect of the the whole charade is the question, why now? The question, cui bono, to whose benefit?, remains unanswered. Who benefits from the distraction or the narrative?

OK, we get the PR cover story. The American public deserves to know,, National Security is at stake, and so on. But what’s the real motivation? Who benefits from this stage-managed emergence of weird stuff that’s been ridiculed and dismissed by the Powers That Be for 75 years?

The most likely answer to many is this is just a larger-scale rollout of the usual False Flag template: a threat has emerged which we must counter. The template is worn at the edges because it’s been used so many times. For example, North Vietnamese gunboats fired on US Navy vessels, so we really had no choice but to launch a multi-year bombing campaign involving thousands of aircraft and military personnel that cost many their lives and squandered countless billions of dollars.

Never mind the “attack” was fabricated for PR purposes. It worked great, as it always does. The public rallies around vastly increased “defense” spending and skeptical inquiries are derided as “unpatriotic” / dangerous to National Security.

Due to its over-use, the public is finally wise to the template, and so how much traction this rollout of the alien threat to National Security will have is not yet visible.

Until the public gets to see the alien corpses on ice and the shattered spacecraft bits, it’s a non-starter.

Further down the “truthiness” chain, we ask: why are the aliens as boring as everything else? Tommy and I discuss the possibility–again, tongue-in-cheek–that the Powers That Be are themselves so bored by their control of all the machinery of the modern world that they decided to unleash the alien wild-card as a rare “what the heck” moment of freedom from the demands of controlling everything, just to see where it goes.

Humans habituate rather quickly to ceaseless hysterical crises. The crises pile up and we tune out. Those generating the crises for the benefit of various players start realizing the endless crises are slipping inexorably into the same boring trough as entertainment, “news”, AI (LLMs, blah-blah-blah), economics, politics and the rest of the tightly controlled narratives.

Where’s the outrage”? It burned out long ago. There’s nothing left but the mind-dulling, hyper-boring derangement of channel-surfing and the social-media / TikTok / Only Fans scroll of repetitive rubbish. Crises, shmises, give me something new.

Sorry, there isn’t anything that’s actually new–it’s just the same old tired frenzy of crisis, over-acting, existential threats, secret cabals, terrorists who hate our freedoms, tricked-up statistics, phony exposes, celebrity apologies, blah-blah-blah, all intended to spin the money-maker, our attention, the polite word for addiction.

We habituate to stimulus of any kind, even the addictive variety. Just as the Ibogaine dosage has to be constantly increased to get the same effect, until there’s no effect at all, the Powers That Be have to constantly increase the dosage of crisis, frenzy, drama, threats, thrills, fake exposes, etc. to keep the narratives functioning as intended: distracting, deranging and fragmenting the increasingly burned-out, bored audience.

In other words, maybe, just maybe, the UAP / aliens story being released into the wild is the result of the Powers That Be’s own immense boredom. Running the machinery is so tedious and predictable that how can it not be boring?

Or, as some anticipate, the “UAPs are now a thing” story is the cover for the unveiling of the weaponization of space that’s already well underway. That would be mildly interesting, but to the degree it’s already been anticipated, it too would quickly slide into the boring bin.

The problem may well be terminal boredom with the whole shebang. Everything has been so relentlessly hyped to grab “attention” that the dosage now exceeds the event horizon of any possible effect: the screaming, shouting cacophony of “news”, crises, threats, revelations, scandals, cover-ups, PR, marketing, narrative-control, gambling, gaming, threadbare outrage, bogus statistics, etc. no longer move the needle. Everything is boring, even the aliens.

If you want to listen to another hour of “experts” discussing the bogus inflation data / cover-up / conspiracy-theory du jour, this isn’t it. This is pure free-form fun, at least for Tommy and I. Aliens Are Boring (1:09 hrs). (Occasional free-form profanity.)

*  *  *

My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

The new regime talking points are out – namely that Fitch downgraded the US credit rating from AAA  to AA+ on Tuesday because of MAGA Republicans and all things Trump.

But while Fitch cited “the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers” as reasons for the downgrade, the Biden administration is of course blaming Donald Trump and his supporters due to one portion of Fitch’s explanation: “a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years,” and that “repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.”

Then on Wednesday, Fitch’s Richard Francis told Reuters that the downgrade was ‘due to fiscal concerns and a deterioration in U.S governance as well as polarization which was reflected in part by the Jan. 6 insurrection.’

“It was something that we highlighted because it just is a reflection of the deterioration in governance, it’s one of many,” he said, adding “You have the debt ceiling, you have Jan. 6. Clearly, if you look at polarization with both parties … the Democrats have gone further left and Republicans further right, so the middle is kind of falling apart basically.”

And so of course, the Biden administration is blaming Trump.

“This Trump downgrade is a direct result of an extreme MAGA Republican agenda defined by chaos, callousness, and recklessness that Americans continue to reject,” said Biden re-election campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz. “Donald Trump oversaw the loss of millions of American jobs, and ballooned the deficit with the disastrous tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations.”

Ah, so now it’s the Trump downgrade™

Meanwhile, White House spox Karine Jean-Pierre also blamed Trump on Tuesday, saying that the White House “strongly” disagrees with the decision, adding “it’s clear that extremism by Republican officials — from cheerleading default, to undermining governance and democracy, to seeking to extend deficit-busting tax giveaways for the wealthy and corporations — is a continued threat to our economy.”

Biden administration officials shared their disagreement with Fitch ahead of an announcement on Tuesday, officials tell reporters: BBG

Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Fitch if Bidenomics was downgraded?

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2023

Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called the decision “bizarre and inept,” while former Obama economic advisor Jason Furman called the move “completely absurd.”

On Wednesday, CNBC wheeled out Jared Bernstein, chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers and former Obama official, who similarly blamed Trump.

“I think again the timing issue is is Jermaine here. The deficit went up every year under President Trump. The debt to GDP ratio rocketed under President trump. It has stabilized admittedly at a higher level under this president but we’re doing all we can to try to ameliorate those tensions,” he said.

Bernstein reflected on the “cognitive dissonance” he felt at the downgrade amid the success of ‘Bidenomics’ commenting that “creditworthiness deteriorated significantly under President Trump for good reasons… and under President Biden, it started to track back up…”

Except that’s the exact opposite of what happened. According to the 100% non-partisan “market”, the creditworthiness of US Treasury debt improved almost constantly under President Trump and worsened dramatically almost immediately upon President Biden’s inauguration:

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the downgrade was “arbitrary and based on outdated data,” adding “Today, the unemployment rate is near historic lows, inflation has come down significantly since last summer, and last week’s GDP report shows that the U.S. economy continues to grow.”

Yellen Says Fitch Downgrade Based on Outdated Data

She’s right: US interest expense is no longer $500 billion, it is $1 trillion now

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2023

CNN also blamed Trump, penning the headline: “Fitch downgrades US debt on debt ceiling drama and Jan. 6 insurrection.”

Meanwhile, some light reading for premium ZH subscribers.

In light of the downgrade with Fitch blamed on fiscal unsustainability, a repost:

Here Is The $1 Trillion “Stealth Stimulus” Behind Bidenomicshttps://t.co/OqgQIgN6MR

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 2, 2023