Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

The importance of Russia’s announcement that a new gold-backed trade currency is on the BRICS meeting agenda for August 22—24 in Johannesburg seems to have gone completely over everyone’s heads, with mainstream media not even reporting it. 

This is a mistake. China and Russia know that if they are to succeed in removing the dollar from their sphere of influence, they have to come up with a better alternative. They also know they have to consolidate their trade partners into a formidable bloc, so plans are afoot to consolidate BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Eurasian Economic Union along with those nations who wish to join in. It will be a super-group embracing most of Asia (including the Middle East), Africa, and Latin America.

The groundwork for the new currency has been laid by Sergei Glazyev and is considerably more advanced than generally realised.

This article explains why Russia and China are now prepared to fully back Glazyev’s expanded project. For Russia, it is also now imperative to destabilise the dollar as a deliberate escalation of the financial war against America and NATO. China’s priority is no longer to protect her export trade, but to ensure that her African and Latin American suppliers are not destabilised by higher dollar interest rates.

Introduction

“The BRICS’s introduction of a gold-backed currency, which is supported by 41 countries with large and influential economies, will weaken the dollar and the euro and will benefit countries such as Iran, while Iranians in possession of gold will experience a wealth increase,” Mousavi added [the head of the South Asia Department at Iran’s Foreign Ministry]. The Russian government confirmed a day earlier that Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa would introduce a new trading currency backed by gold. 

 Iran’s MEHR News Agency

The quote above encapsulates why a new gold-backed currency is desired: it will undermine fiat currencies which have been no friends to oil producers and benefit individuals who own gold making it popular on the streets. RT, the Russian government-financed English broadcasting service had confirmed on last Friday the intention to introduce a new gold-backed currency for BRICS members. The announcement was completely missed by mainstream media, partly because RT and other Russian news sources are censored in many countries in Europe including the UK, and any news out of Russia is disbelieved anyway. 

Reactions from those who saw it, even among gold bugs, vary from the opinion that neither China nor Russia could make a gold backed currency stick, to it taking years in the planning and implementation so is irrelevant to today’s markets. But there are good reasons to believe that this complacency will turn out to be wrong, and that events are likely to evolve considerably more rapidly than expected. 

The problem for capital markets is that they are dominated by Keynesians, automatically programmed to believe gold is bad and fiat is good. As a stockbroker in London, when President Nixon suspended the Bretton Woods Agreement, I recall there was a similar level of confusion over those implications. And now, 52 years after putting the world on a fiat dollar standard, the majority of the world has had enough of dollar hegemony, has found safety in numbers, and is going back onto a gold standard. Like all life, the pure fiat era is ephemeral after all, defined by its birth and death. Macroeconomics will have to be rewritten.

The move away from fiat has been evolving for a considerable time, with de-dollarisation the ultimate objective of the Asian hegemons. Those tracking developments in gold bullion markets in recent decades have noted the drift of bullion from west to east, and the rise in gold mine output in China and more recently in Russia. Central banks, predominantly in Asia, have been accumulating bullion reserves and adding to declared and undeclared state funds in record quantities. Ultimately, this activity can only be to use gold to secure currency values as the dollar dies or is done away with. 

A sudden turn of events occurred when the western alliance imposed sanctions against Russia following her attack on Ukraine. They set off a train of actions that has unified Asia and many of its supplier nations into a rebellion against American hegemony, stoked up by Putin and led by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council. And since the western alliance turned its back on fossil fuels, the low-cost producers throughout Asia have banded together representing nearly half global oil output, and a third of natural gas. As a cartel, OPEC is now just an appendix to the Asian mega-energy producers. 

The new cartel is dominated by President Putin, whose degree from Leningrad University was in energy economics and well qualified to be energy ringmaster. Not only has he demonstrated an understanding of the importance of controlling global energy supplies, but he also has a clear understanding of the importance of monetary gold. 

Since the western alliance’s sanctions, the signals coming out of Moscow have been clear: Sergei Glazyev, who is Putin’s point-man for macroeconomic policy has been waving the gold flag since then in plain sight. As a board member of the Eurasian Economic Union Commission (EAEU) since 2019, he was tasked by Putin to design a trade settlement currency for the EAEU. The initial statement through a news agency in Bishkek in early March 2022 reported that it was to be based on the currencies of the member states and a basket of undefined commodities. According to Glazyev, his brief was to create a Eurasian monetary and financial system to the exclusion of foreign currencies, particularly the dollar and euro. 

The intention was also to remove exchange controls for cross- border settlements within the Eurasian membership, replacing the dollar as the commonly used settlement medium between them. A week later, in an article for Goldmoney[ii] I concluded that as stated the new currency would not work, and the only logical solution was to do away with the currency basket proposal and use gold backing solely to represent commodities. That way, it would be easy for other nations in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to join in, which was the ultimate objective from the outset.

In July 2022, Glazyev was behind a move to beef up the Moscow gold exchange, the official line being that having been sanctioned from the London market Russian miners needed a more effective local market. But working in conjunction with the Shanghai Gold Exchange this was an important signal about the way Galzyev’s monetary thinking was developing. Confirmation came on 27 December last year, when he wrote an article for Vedomosti, a Moscow business paper, describing why the rouble needed to return to a gold standard. That article was co-written by his deputy on the EAEU committee designing the new trade currency and was a thinly veiled indication of the committee’s view. 

Therefore, you did not have to be particularly astute to discern the trail of clues presented to us. We could assume with justification that gold was intended to be the sheet-anchor for this new currency probably from the outset, but some political hoops had to be jumped through to convince the EAEU member states that it was the solution. 

The impracticality of basing a new trade currency on anything else other than gold had been established. It now turns out that this project is almost certainly a Trojan horse for something far larger. It was obvious that other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation should be able to join in, and now it turns out that the invitation is being extended to members of the BRICS club as well. But that’s not all. The entire membership of the SCO, its dialog partners, and associate members will be attending the BRICS conference in Johannesburg on 22—24 August. I am assuming that the original list of 36 nations, which according to most recent reports has expanded to 41, includes the members of the EAEU who were not on the original list — at the time of writing this is yet to be confirmed.

That being the case, the BRICS currency project is not a cold start and not something to be planned for a distant future. The groundwork has already been prepared by Glazyev and the structure can be rapidly assembled once the necessary resolution is adopted. It is even possible that the necessary institution(s) exist waiting to be deployed.

It is also beginning to look like there will be another proposal on the Johannesburg agenda, to merge the SCO, the EAEU and BRICS into a supersized trading block. In terms of both combined population and GDP on a purchasing power parity basis, it is already in excess of half the world, dwarfing the western alliance which kowtows to America.

The US Treasury would almost certainly have known about the BRIC proposals when the agenda was first circulated, which probably explains why at short notice Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary flew to Beijing. From her department’s point of view, if the new currency proposal was to be adopted its financing of the budget deficit would be adversely affected, not to mention the threat to the dollar’s hegemony. The principal card up her sleeve was to threaten greater sanctions against China’s exports, not just to America, but to her allies as well, but we don’t know if it was actually discussed in these terms.

The Chinese view

For too long and too often China has been threatened over access to markets by the Americans. We can be sure that ahead of the BRICS currency proposal the Chinese have gamed this possible threat being acted upon and come up with their own conclusions about its economic consequences. Russia’s experience, which harmed the sanctioning countries considerably more than the sanctioned, will have been fed into these calculations. One suspects that other than signalling to the Chinese and Russians that there is an increasing level of alarm in Washington, Yellen’s mission will have achieved little. And an important factor for the Chinese attitude is their experience of the US’s attempts to destabilise Hong Kong, which led to it being taken directly under Beijing’s control. It is therefore important to understand China’s analysis of America’s objectives and methods in order to define her own position.

In April 2015, Qiao Liang, the People’s Liberation Army Major-General in charge of intelligence strategy gave a speech at a book study forum of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.[iii] Qiao commenced by stating the obvious, that the U.S. enforces the dollar as the global currency to preserve its hegemony over the world. And he concluded that the U.S. would try everything, including war, to maintain the dollar’s dominance in global trading. But what he then went on to say is extremely relevant to the current situation. He described US’s actions with respect to foreign national debts. 

Qiao made the case that both the Latin American crisis in 1978—1982, and the Asian crisis in 1996—1998 were engineered by America. By reducing dollar interest rates to below their natural level they would weaken the dollar and encourage an investment boom in the targeted jurisdictions, funded by dollar credit. They then increased interest rates and strengthened the dollar to create a financial crisis. These events did, indeed, happen, but perhaps driven by the cycle of bank credit, as much as by foreign policy.

The relevance of Qiao’s analysis is that today, the same conditions appear to be targeted not against China, which does not borrow dollars, but at the dollar indebted nations around the world with which China trades — the BRICS nations. Informed by Qiao’s analysis, it must appear to China that America’s persistent strategy is to continue to raise interest rates even after the inflation dragon is slain, and by bankrupting them the US will attempt to bring the nations seeking to join BRICS back under her control.

That being the case, China will have weighed up the consequences for her export trade against the likely sanctions America and her allies could threaten and decided that the real threat is against the emerging economies in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere which have received substantial Chinese investment. In financial terms, it is therefore imperative that this threat be addressed in a pre-emptive attack on the dollar, which can only be achieved by exposing the dollar’s weakness as a fiat currency. At least since the Lehman crisis, China and more recently Russia have had the power to do this.

Furthermore, the New Development Bank, which is headquartered in Shanghai, will be able to provide credit either in yuan or the new BRICS currency at lower interest rates to offset the undoubted strains imposed on BRICS members as a result of rising US interest rates. Therefore, China is fully prepared to counter what General Qiao Liang described as the American strategy of “harvesting” assets in foreign countries.

It is important to understand what China believes and motivates her, not whether Qiao is right or wrong. But given that his view is inculcated in the Chinese government, China is ready with Russia to mount an attack on America’s fiat currency by returning to a gold standard for trade, and ultimately for their own currencies.

The Russian view

It should be clear that the current plans for a trade currency originated in Russia, and not China. Indeed, until now China will have been reluctant to destabilise the currencies of the western alliance, because of her export interests. But not only has the relationship with America deteriorated over Taiwan, not only is it clear (in China’s view) that America plans to bankrupt the BRICS members and all those seeking to migrate away from the dollar’s hegemony by raising interest rates, but it is now also clear that neither Russia nor America can back down over Ukraine. Consequently, unless China and Russia together take the initiative, shortly Russia will be directly at war with America and her NATO allies and China will almost certainly be dragged into the conflict over Taiwan. World War 3 must be forestalled.

It is clear that NATO, under the thumb of America, is determined to defeat Russia, remove Putin, and gain control of its massive natural resources. The proxy war being fought in the Ukraine appears to be failing with Zelensky’s summer offensive having ground to a halt. And following the Wagner debacle, Russia is now in a strong position to counterattack. This has led to President Biden being prepared to send the Ukrainians cluster bombs, increasing the urgency for a Russian counter-offensive.

Furthermore, with Ukraine’s summer offensive failing, NATO’s theatre of operational strategy is moving to Poland and the Baltics (Biden was in Vilnius this week for a NATO summit), with Poland particularly becoming a client state of America through NATO. The build-up of military personnel and missiles in Poland will become increasingly obvious in the coming weeks and is already anticipated by Moscow. We await Putin’s reaction, but he is unlikely to just sit on his hands and let NATO build its forces in Poland and the Baltics.

Compromise is out of the question, because it is plain to Putin that America cannot back down. Imagine the consequences for Biden, who started his presidency with the withdrawal from Afghanistan if he ends it with a withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the neo-cons are firmly in charge of policy, determined to defeat Putin, add Russian territory to their sphere of influence, and leave China isolated. 

Putin’s terms for peace would be unacceptable to America because he insists on protecting Russia’s borders, which means that all missiles and American bases be removed from Eastern and Central Europe. For Moscow, this raises the question as to whether Russia should simply secure its current position or take Ukraine, which can then be set up as a buffer state. A Russian attack is bound to drive up energy, cereal, and fertiliser prices, worsening price inflation in western alliance countries and causing division with America and Britain, but to the benefit of Russia’s finances which are coming under pressure. Additionally, a successful attack on their currencies’ credibility would undermine the alliance’s military capability, so the dollar should be attacked financially as well.

No one can be sure whether destroying the dollar would avert a nuclear war, but there is little doubt that so long as America can finance its aggression that events are drifting in that direction. From Putin’s viewpoint, undermining the dollar must now be a priority, perhaps combining it with taking Kiev now that Zelensky’s summer thrust has failed.

An advantage of a financial war is that it need not be declared, therefore there is no official victor, and no need for a post-war reconciliation.

Designing a gold-backed trade currency

A new trade currency has the advantage that it will not ever be used as a means of funding government deficits. And given that its role is limited to cross-border trade settlement and and dealing in physical commodities it has to be institutionally acceptable and does not have to appeal to public confidence. Much of the credit will be self-extinguishing. It is additional to national currencies, leaving individual nations to manage their own currency policies, which is why such a currency can enjoy widespread support. It is not to be used as a medium for capital investment.

As the groundwork appears to have been already established by Sergei Glazyev, it could be ready to use as soon as it is approved in August. Besides a strict and simple set of rules, all it needs are two things: the establishment of an issuing entity, and physical gold. The first can be done in a flash, if it is not already established, and the gold will be allocated from the reserves of participating central banks. This is almost certainly why central banks of many of the putative membership of BRICS have been adding bullion to their reserves. They must be extremely thankful for actors in the western financial establishment who trade paper gold in ignorance of this outcome.

The bulleted list that follows is a brief outline of how a new trade settlement currency based on gold can be quickly established to replace the fiat dollar in all transactions between member nations, updated from an earlier Goldmoney article on this topic.[iv] It will be interesting to see how its elements compare with Glazyev’s proposition.

It is designed to be politically acceptable to all involved, as well as a long-term practical solution to facilitate the Russian Chinese axis’s ambitions for an Asian industrial revolution, encompassing Africa and Latin America, free from interference by America and her allies. The essential elements are as follows:

• The announcement of the creation of a new issuing central bank (NICB, not to be confused with the existing New Central Bank in Shanghai, whole purpose is to fund investment in the BRICS members) and a new gold-based currency on the lines below is the first step. 

• The NICB is established with the sole function of issuing a new digital currency backed by physical gold. It will be designed to be a fully trusted gold substitute, independent of existing fiat currency values.

• The new currency will only be redeemable for gold between the NICB and participating central banks. They will be free also to add to their NICB currency reserves by submitting additional gold to the NICB at any time.

• The NICB’s eligible participants will be the central banks of participating nations, broadly limited to member nations, associates, and dialog partners of the EAEU, SCO, and BRICS, and additionally nations applying for membership of any of these organisations on an approved list. 

• The NICB’s currency is issued to approved national central banks against their provision of a minimum 40% gold backing for it. For example, currency representing one million gold grammes secures an allocation of 2,500,000 currency units denominated in gold grammes. The gold does not have to be delivered to a central storage point but can be earmarked[v] from within a central bank’s gold reserves, on condition that it is securely stored in vaults on a list approved by the NICB. This list is likely to exclude gold stored at central banks of the western alliance and must not be leased or swapped. 

• A participating central bank records the new currency units allocated to it as an asset on its balance sheet, balanced by an increase in its liabilities as equity. A participating central bank’s balance sheet is thereby strengthened.

• A participating central bank can offer credit and take in deposits tied to the new currency’s value, to and from the commercial banks in in its national network. Note that the new currency is available exclusively to participating central banks, upon which they can base their own credit dealings with commercial banks.

• Commercial banks trading in member nations and elsewhere will be free to create and deal in credit denominated in the NICB’s new currency. They will have no credit relationship with the NICB, but their regulating central bank will. 

• Commercial banks whose central bank does not have access to the NICB currency can clear through wholesale credit markets and will be always free to acquire physical gold in the markets, should they wish to back credit created in the new currency with gold itself. 

• All taxes and restrictions on gold ownership must be fully rescinded by participating nations, recognising its historic and legal status as money.

• An efficient central clearing system for commercial banks dealing in credit based on the new currency will be established.

• Asian commodity exchanges in the expanded BRICS will price all products in the new NICB currency as well as in dollars. Intra-BRIC imports and exports will similarly be priced. This will ensure that physical markets and their derivatives are insulated from a fiat currency collapse, a likely consequence of gold’s return to its true monetary status.

The purpose of the new currency is to provide the basis for trade finance and other cross border financial settlements on a sound money basis. The expansion of credit based upon it will grow strictly in line with economic activity and therefore will not be inflationary, undermining its purchasing power. Last week, in an article for Goldmoney I explained why when tied convincingly to gold, commercial bank credit grows on a non-inflationary basis when distortions from the lending cycle are removed. This is the key to understanding why a new trade currency constructed on these lines will endure.[vi]

It is also likely to lead to participating nations placing a greater emphasis on their own currencies’ stability while providing a safe haven from the consequences for the dollar following its introduction. Once the new currency is established, it will be in Russia’s interests to put the rouble back on its own gold standard, and China may follow with the renminbi.

All empirical evidence informs us that when gold becomes the means by which credit is valued, credit’s own value becomes tied to that of gold and is not dependent on stability in the quantity of credit. Operating as a gold substitute imparts pricing certainty to trade and investment and leads to stable, low interest rates giving the necessary conditions for maximising economic development in emerging economies.

Constructed on the lines above, it should be simple and quick to establish. It must be free from attack by members of the western alliance trying to preserve their own fiat currency systems. And the 40% gold backing rhymes with the basic requirement for a metallic monetary standard set by Sir Isaac Newton, when he was Master of the Royal Mint. 

For participating central banks, the replacement of gold in their reserves for allocations of the new currency would represent a significant increase in their balance sheet equity. As confidence in the scheme builds, it could be argued that only minimal gold reserves need to be retained by participating central banks, with the balance swapped for the new currency. For example, the Reserve Bank of India officially possesses 787.4 tonnes of gold. Converted into the new gold currency, its value in reserves is uplifted to 1,968.5 tonnes equivalent, added to its equity capital. 

The impact on gold

Throughout history, money has been gold, and the rest credit. When you detach credit from gold, there are consequences. Pricing goods and services in credit diverges from pricing them in gold. It is really that simple.

It is widely assumed that fluctuations in prices have nothing to do with the medium of exchange, and for individual transactions it is certainly true that both buyer and seller will share this view. But over time, with official policies aiming for a 2% fall in purchasing power for the dollar and other major currencies it is not true that price fluctuations are entirely due to changes in the demand/supply balance for commodities and other manufacturing inputs. In fact, since the end of Bretton Woods, measured in real money which is gold, the loss of purchasing power has been considerably in excess of the 2% annual target. The chart below puts it directly in a gold versus fiat context.

Since the suspension of Bretton Woods, the dollar has lost 98% of its value relative to gold. The other major fiat currencies have been similarly impoverishing for their users and savers, and only now is the final act in their destruction looming due to the introduction of a new BRICS gold-backed currency. 

Through the medium of gold, participating central banks will exchange their reserve dollars for the new NICB currency. Immediately, this rejection of the dollar by a large number of central banks will devalue it further, followed by foreign non-government entities seeking to reduce their exposure. Initially, this will be seen as a run on the dollar into gold, similar to that which followed the suspension of Bretton Woods on 15 August 1971. The market was similarly nonplussed then as it appears to be today, with the London morning fix on Monday 17 August at $43, slightly down on the previous week. It wasn’t until 19 November that the morning fix exceeded $43 again for the first time. It took two whole months for the implications to sink in. But when they did, the price rose to $197.50 on 27 December 1974.

The lesson for us in this Keynesian world is that two months of static prices following the suspension of Bretton Woods is proof that gold was poorly understood in financial markets, and still is today. Derivative markets, particularly the London forward market and Comex futures for the last forty years have lost sight of gold being money and assumed it is a trading counter which plays on irrational fears of instability of the modern currency system. But with the return of gold as the anchor for credit values for the Asian hegemons and their sphere of influence, those fears will suddenly become rational.

The wider consequences of a BRICS currency gold standard

We can assume that the consequences of Asian trade settlements backed with gold will have been carefully considered by the Asian superpowers, particularly by the Russians who have faced weaponised dollars.

Besides bringing stability to export values there are other advantages to reintroducing gold into currency systems. Interest rate stability at lower rates is an obvious benefit. Currently, the Bank of Russia’s key interest rate is 7.5% and price inflation has collapsed to 2.3% (April). The yield on Russia’s 10-year OFZ bond is still 11.3%. If the rouble becomes a credible gold substitute, price inflation, interest rates, and bond yields can be expected to decline and maintain levels that reflect gold’s long-term stability, particularly in more normal times when the Russian government runs decent budget surpluses. And assuming that credit expansion by Russia’s commercial banks is not cyclically excessive, there is no reason to expect otherwise than that financial stability for the currency and the Russian economy would continue in the long-term. Coupled with low taxes (Russia’s income tax is a flat 13%) this stability can be expected foster genuine economic progress and the accumulation of personal wealth for the Russian people. It would be a far better outcome than the current situation and it would secure Putin’s legacy.

However, a move towards gold backing for their currencies by the Asian hegemons can be expected to undermine the purchasing power of western fiat currencies. International capital will abandon ephemeral fiat currencies for real values in commodities, with nations rebuilding stockpiles of energy, metals, and other raw materials instead of accumulating fiat paper. Precious metals, specifically gold, will be sought and its price can be expected to reflect the demise of fiat currencies.

The consequences for wholesale and consumer prices in the western nations would rapidly become obvious, with central banks forced to revise their expectations for price inflation sharply higher. Bond yields can be expected to rise further, undermining all financial and property values. As this negative outlook clarifies, measured against gold fiat currencies will likely enter a substantial relative decline.

The consequences of the emergence of gold backing for currencies in Asia on the currencies and economies of the western alliance are bound to differ in their detail for the currencies in the western alliance.

The reliance on inward foreign investment has protected the dollar from continual trade deficits and played a key role in funding US Government debt since the end of Bretton Woods. It has allowed the US Government to run budget deficits more or less continually. The ending of the fifty-two years of a fiat regime changes all that. The US Government will face significant funding hurdles against foreign liquidation of Treasuries. Bond yields and funding costs for the government are bound to rise significantly.

The consequences for the EU and the eurozone would be both politically and economically divisive. If it were not for political constraints, Germany would naturally drift towards cooperation with the sound money regimes emerging to her east, particularly as the finances of the Mediterranean club deteriorate. With rising bond yields, the entire euro system comprised of the ECB and its national central banks would need to be recapitalised, being already deeply in negative equity. The eurozone’s global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are extremely highly leveraged and unlikely to survive the combination of falling asset values and bad debts that would be the certain consequences of the euro’s declining purchasing power. Having been assembled at the behest of a political committee and now managed by a political cabal, the euro is at risk of losing all market credibility.

The consequences for the UK pound will also be significant. In a similar debt trap to that of the US Government, the British have the further disadvantage of an economy suffering under increasing taxes. Furthermore, with London being the international financial centre, the UK will be at the epicentre of a fiat currency crisis. For the size of her economy, the UK has little in the way of gold reserves, hampering any future escape from the fiat currency trap.

The major governments aligned both economically and intellectually with the fiat dollar will be left at a comparative disadvantage by a BRICS gold-backed currency, possibly followed by Russia and China adopting gold standards. Interest rates, which are escaping from central bank control, will rise due to two factors: there is the credit crunch from the turn of the bank credit cycle, and the deteriorating outlook for fiat currency purchasing powers. It is the worst of both worlds. Furthermore, economists in governments and central banks would be reluctant to abandon their embedded economic and monetary policies. And will be slow to react.

The only salvation will be for western governments to jettison Keynesian macroeconomics entirely and revert to classical economic theories. The false assumptions that have built up over the fiat currency era will have to be overturned. Crises of this sort nearly always emanate in the foreign exchanges because it is foreign holders of currencies who are the first to recognise a currency’s weakness. Usually, it involves a specific currency. But this time, it will affect all the major currencies in the western alliance.

Global energy policies and discussions in recent years have been focused on the importance of decarbonizing the energy system in the transition to net zero.

However, despite efforts to reduce carbon emissions, fossil fuels still account for more than 80% of primary energy use globally—and coal, the world’s most affordable energy fuel, is also the largest source of energy-related CO2 emissions.

In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti and Sabriona Lam, using data from the Statistical Review of World Energy, show much select countries rely on fossil fuels, particularly coal.

Coal’s Importance in Emerging Economies

Coal is the largest source of electricity generation and the primary fuel for iron, steel, and cement production, making it central to climate and energy discussions.

The fossil fuel continues to be an affordable and abundant source of energy, particularly in emerging economies where demand is expanding rapidly.

South Africa is the world’s most coal-dependent nation featured in the statistical review, with coal accounting for 69% of its primary energy consumption in 2022.

Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding. Select countries shown above.

In 2022, global consumption of coal surpassed 8 billion tonnes in a single year for the first time, with China and India being the two biggest consumers in absolute terms.

China’s power sector alone accounts for one-third of global coal consumption. Meanwhile, with a growth rate of 6% annually, India has doubled its coal consumption since 2007—and is expected to lead the growth in coal consumption for years to come.

Coal Demand in Developed Countries

U.S. consumption of coal has dropped almost 50% compared to the early 2010s.

With initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes nearly $370 billion to accelerate the U.S.’s energy transition, coal consumption is expected to remain on a downward trajectory in the United States.

Source: BP Energy Outlook 2023. The forecast is based on BP’s scenario for global net-zero emissions by 2050.

The same movement is seen in the European Union.

France, for example, only has 2.5% of its primary energy consumption coming from coal, a share that is just half of what it was in the early 2000s.

In Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, coal still accounts for 18.9% of total energy consumption (a small increase over 2021, due to the energy crisis). However, a decade ago in 2012, that number stood even higher at 24.9% of primary energy use.

With coal consumption falling in developed nations but remaining steady in emerging economies, the International Energy Agency projects that coal demand will plateau at 2022 levels until 2025 when it will begin to fall.

Authored by Todd Hayen via Off-Guardian.org,

I remember a time when people were left to their own devices when determining what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

Remember “Bat Boy?” A strange Weekly World News (sister tabloid to the National Enquirer) creation set to terrorize and dismay. Did anyone really believe this? I doubt if many did. Some did, I’m sure, but what can ‘ya do?

I remember wondering about it. I was still young and impressionable (actually, I still wonder about it, I guess I am old and impressionable now). The operative word here is “wonder.” No government agency told me I was not allowed to wonder if something was “true” or not. I figured that out on my own. Why is this good?

Well, for one thing, you would have to be a nutcase to allow the government, or any authoritative power, to tell you what you were allowed to wonder about. Secondly, wondering is healthy. It hones your senses; you figure stuff out on your own. There is nothing more powerful than having to figure something out on your own. It takes something called “thinking”—which seems to be in low supply these days.

I just saw a meme with two heads speaking to one another. One head is visibly angry and is saying something like, “look at this!!!” holding up a cell phone. The other head says, “oh yeah, let me tell you what I think of that.” The angry head says, “shut up idiot!! You are not an expert!!” There’s more to it than that, but that’s enough to make my point.

Expert? Since when do you have to be an expert to have an opinion?

Sure, if you were in an operating room witnessing a brain surgery and the surgeon moves a scalpel in a certain way and you yell out, “excuse me, Dr. Surgeon, uh, I think you might want to cut THAT instead.” And the surgeon says, “shut up, idiot!! You are not an expert!!” MAYBE that would be ok…but…who knows?

I have a real life experience similar to that little story.

When my first wife was dying of cancer, something went horribly wrong with her Port-A-Cath (a device surgically placed in your chest for easy administration of chemo). She got very sick, and had some rather obvious symptoms. I scoured the Internet for clues, and thought I had figured out that the Port-A-Cath was plugged up with a blood clot.

We went to see her Harvard-educated oncologist who immediately diagnosed her condition as accelerated cancer growth at the site of the Port-A-Cath. I said, “no way!” and was told, albeit in different words, “shut up idiot! You are not an expert!” I realized what I was dealing with and to make a long story short, I manipulated my way around his ego and got him to change his diagnosis to “blood clot on the Port-A-Cath.” And I made it seem like he came up with it himself, not me. It saved her life.

So…never underestimate a non-expert idiot.

What does this mean? Yes, there ARE experts, and then there is just useful insight. I believe we have been maliciously trained to ignore the latter, and pay attention only to the former. But it gets worse. Who determines who the experts are? You guessed it. The “state.” Yahoo…now we’re happy.

“Science” has also been made into the state’s impenetrable god figure that only certain “experts” actually understand. The former “Science Czar” Fauci is one of these “Science Priests.” Only he, and a few like him with a similar appointed position, can determine what science is.

So rather than yelling “Fauci-denier” we hear “science denier.” Definitions of certain words, such as “vaccine” and “immune” among several others, have been conveniently changed in order to fit the “New Science.” So now no one can utter anything, no opinion, no alternative insight, nothing, if it disagrees with the hierarchy now set in place.

It is interesting how much disdain is projected on “normal people” making comments about sacrosanct “determinations” handed down from the priests on high. And anything anyone says, if it is convenient to do so, can be disregarded as “non-truth” depending on the “expert status” of the speaker. Back when talk of vaccines was all the rage, I got into an argument with a “vax-cultist.” He was claiming that no vaccine, including the Covid shot, is fully safe and effective (duh). “Who says it is!” he blurted out. Wow, he walked right into that one. I suggested a few names, particularly the President of the United States, Joe Biden—“the vaccines are safe and effective.”

His response? “Biden is not a virologist, he is not an expert, so no one should listen to him.” What?? I said the same about Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, who claimed the vaccines were never meant to stop transmission. My friend’s response? “Bourla is a business executive, not an expert on vaccines.” What?? This is what we were up against—and for the most part, still are.

But where did all this start? Surely in the Bat Boy days people were not so gullible to need “experts” to tell them if Bat Boy was real or not. (Well, some people were I guess.) The point again is that we made these determinations ourselves once upon a time. Sure, we often referred to experts for things that mattered, like brain surgery. But we did not think there was only one expert in the whole world. We got second opinions. We even got opinions from friends and family. We listened to different viewpoints, different insights. Sure, we would not ask Uncle Bob to wield the knife if surgery was imminent, but we might listen to his experiences if he at one time had a similar surgery.

Yes, there are things in the world that are far too complex for us to figure out on our own. But you might be surprised those examples account for a very small number of things we personally have to deal with. And for the most part, our concerns about complex systems like microwaves, 5G, jabbing with strange medicines, among many others, more often than not turn out to be correct. A common sense question like “if this vaccine is brand new, how DO they know what will happen in five years?” is quite appropriate to ask, you don’t need to know anything more complex than that. Hearing as an answer, “don’t worry, we know what we are doing,” has never, ever, been reassuring.

I think this deliberate process into a “non thinking” world has been slow and steady, and a study of this phenomenon would take a book full of research to completely flesh out.

The Western educational system is a good place to start, and the hypnotization of the Western medical system that has been fully monetized, and manoeuvred by powerful forces, since the beginning of the 19th Century is another. It is a formidable problem of which we are currently seeing the devastating results.

At this point Sweden’s accession into NATO is looking certain, after Erdogan’s dramatic about-face following months of prior complaints about Sweden being soft on ‘terrorists’ (or rather, Kurdish groups and individuals which the Turkish state doesn’t like).

Despite Stockholm making concession after concession for much of the past year, even beginning extraditions for wanted dissidents accused of crimes back to Turkey, it was never enough. And then came Quran-burning incidents outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, which intensified Ankara’s rejection of the Scandinavian country’s membership bid further.

But then, only in the last weeks, something big changed. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed this past Wednesday that his country’s parliament is set to approved Sweden’s NATO bid. But this will take some time given it will not be back in session until October. 

Erdogan suddenly being on board with the Brussels consensus immediately gave fellow holdout country Hungary the nudge it needed, with Hungary now saying it too is ready to approve Sweden’s NATO bid. Hungary’s parliament is expected to begin formally taking up the matter in mid-September. 

Erdogan’s 180-turn was announced just before NATO’s summit in Vilnius which ran this past week, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ostensibly, Sweden’s efforts at ‘reform’ under pressure by Turkey, which included passing new anti-terror laws, lifting an EU arms embargo on Turkey, and cooperating on extradition requests – are what changed Erdogan’s mind. Many observers suspected something more to the story.

What was the real driving factor in the sudden Turkish “change of heart”? Legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh explains below based on his investigations [emphasis ZH]…

* * *

Let’s start with a silly fear but one that does signal the Democratic Party’s growing sense of panic about the 2024 Presidential election. It was expressed to me by someone with excellent party credentials: that Trump could be the Republican nominee and will select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate. The strange duo will then sweep to a huge victory over a stumbling Joe Biden, and also take down many of the party’s House and Senate candidates.  

As for real signs of acute Democratic anxiety: Joe Biden got what he needed before the NATO summit this week by somehow turning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inside out and getting him to rebuff Vladimir Putin by announcing that he would support NATO membership for Sweden. The public story for Biden’s face-saving coup was talk about agreeing to sell American F-16 fighter bombers to Turkey.

I have been told a different, secret story about Erdogan’s turnabout: Biden promised that a much-needed $11-13 billion line of credit would be extended to Turkey by the International Monetary Fund.

“Biden had to have a victory and Turkey is in acute financial stress,” an official with direct knowledge of the transaction told me. Turkey lost 100,000 people in the earthquake last February, and has four million buildings to rebuild. “What could be better than Erdogan”—under Biden’s tutelage, the official asked, “finally having seen the light and realizing he is better off with NATO and Western Europe?” Reporters were told, according to the New York Times, that Biden called Erdogan while flying to Europe on Sunday. Biden’s coup, the Times reported, would enable him to say that Putin got “exactly what he did not want: an expanded, more direct NATO alliance.” There was no mention of bribery.

A June analysis by Brad W. Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations, “Turkey’s Increasing Balance Sheet Risks,” said it all in the first two sentences—Erdogan won re-election and “now has to find a way to avoid what appears to be an imminent financial crisis.” The critical fact, Setser writes, is that Turkey “is on the edge of truly running out of usable foreign exchange reserves—and facing a choice between selling its gold, an avoidable default, or swallowing the bitter pill of a complete policy reversal and possibly an IMF program.”

Another key element of the complicated economic issues facing Turkey is that Turkey’s banks have lent so much money to the nation’s central bank that “they cannot honor their domestic dollar deposits, should Turks ever ask for the funds back.” The irony for Russia, and a reason for much anger in the Kremlin, Setser notes, is the rumor that Putin has been providing Russian gas to Erdogan on credit, and not demanding that the state gas importer pay up. Putin’s largesse has been flowing as Ergodan has been selling drones to Ukraine for use in its war against Russia. Turkey has also permitted Ukraine to ship its crops through the Black Sea.

All of this European political and economic double dealing was done openly and in plain sight. Duplicity comes much differently in the United States. 

Read the full Seymour Hersh report at his Substack

Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

Ever wonder why you have not been hearing about the penny being dropped or a new dollar coin being introduced? Today it is all about Central Bank Digital Currencies These are digital versions of a country’s physical currency issued by central banks. They claim the role of these digital currencies is to support financial services for a nation’s government and its commercial-banking system. Still, it will replace much of the physical currency we use today. The premise of why this is being done deserves to be scrutinized.

In some ways, CBDCs are similar to cryptocurrencies, except their value is fixed by the central bank and equivalent to the country’s fiat currency. The Federal Reserve has developed a service named FedNow for depository institutions in the United States. FedNow is described as a service and suite of tools available to banks, credit unions, and other financial service companies. It will enable individuals and businesses to send and receive instant payments. It is also designed so that banks will be able to build products on top of the FedNow platform.  

The Fed has stated that FedNow is not intended to kill or replace other money transfer options like Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or Zelle. Instead, it is designed to work alongside the current systems built by the private sector. Still. FedNow could rapidly become a game changer. Money.com notes this FedNow is launching soon. FedNow was scheduled to begin formal certification of participants of the program in April 2023, with a formal launch planned for July 2023. It will operate on a 24-hour, 365-days-a-year basis,

This new system differs from consumer-facing apps which allow instant peer-to-peer payments, FedNow won’t be an app per se. It’s more designed to allow banks to move money instantly. More than 50 financial institutions are “early adopters” of FedNow, some of the notable banks that will use FedNow include JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Peoples Bank. 

FedNow will only be available to customers of the banks that choose to implement FedNow. The Fed says all 10,000 or so banks that are regulated by the Fed can join but will not be required to do so. The claim is that, for everyday people, FedNow could make managing money much easier and faster. It would allow you to pay your mortgage bill on Christmas Day without worrying about it being delayed or late because of the holiday.

This also means that transferring money between, say, your checking and savings accounts at different banks could be done instantly. Even gig workers like Uber drivers could get paid immediately after each completed ride. It also means a record of every transaction that occurs will be put on “record.” In short “big-brother” will know everything you do, your preferences, and how you live your life. To many of us, this amounts to an invasion of privacy. 

All things considered, when asked, if the war on cash is a real thing being directed from those on high, sadly we must answer yes. Sadly, most people are going along with this and many have embraced ditching cash. This has wide long-term ramifications. Small businesses often rely more on small cash transactions, it is the banks, big businesses, and companies like Amazon that flourish when cash is removed. Simply put, in general, the small businesses and retailers on Main Street are left worse off.

Those of us skeptical of governments and high-tech reaching ever deeper into our lives and thus stealing our freedom are concerned. While I’m personally not a fan of cryptocurrencies, many of these people are. The whole future of crypto depends on how governments regulate and decide to recognize them. This makes it clear the future of crypto is tied to the importance of electing a pro-crypto candidate next year.

Still, it could be argued that FedNow is another step towards more control over the individual. Twenty minutes into this video by Coin Bureau the narrator takes the stand that Fed Now truly seems to be a Trojan Horse to usher in a CBDC system. It points out that while not everyone will choose to “opt-in” and adopt such a system, it will appear benign to most people and rapidly be accepted. Even those that resist will find the government will most likely force them to use it when dealing with official agencies.

This article dovetails with an AdvancingTime post from the fall of 2021 titled; The War On Cash, Is It A Real Thing? The Answer Is Yes. It delves into how cash reflects “options for the people” and it appears those in charge of such things want it gone. The fact is that currencies were developed to facilitate and ease transactions between individuals and businesses. The war on cash is simply another way Washington can continue to show its favoritism towards big business.

It is also related to another AdvancingTime post that centers on the growing dependence of society on technology. High-tech societies are particularly vulnerable to collapse due to their population being dependent on both the system and others to provide the basic items they need to survive in everyday life. Basic survival skills are important and being prepared is linked to thinking about what is often considered the unthinkable. Today many members of society lack those skills.

I have just spent much of my week dealing with the frustrations of high-tech’s failure to meet its promises of making life easier. Most of society has become totally dependent on computers, the electrical grid, cell phones, and a slew of gadgets designed to make life more comfortable and pleasurable. All are parts of a fragile system that could at any time break down leaving us unable to function. 

The bottom line is that not all of us see being controlled as a good thing and replacing currencies with their digital brethren is another tightening of that control. This again reinforces the idea that governments prefer big businesses over many smaller ones because they are easier to regulate and control. The best way to resist the war on cash is to insist on using cash, especially when doing small transactions with local businesses.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has hinted that it may accept the Chinese Yuan as a currency for countries to settle their obligations with the IMF following Argentina’s recent debt repayment in yuan.

IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack confirmed on Thursday that Argentina had paid off part of its debts—equivalent to $1.1 billion of the $2.7 billion that matured last month—with the IMF in Chinese currency.

“As we have stated in the past, the Argentine authorities continue to remain current on their financial obligations to the IMF,” Ms. Kozack said at a press briefing.

“The RMB is one of the five freely usable currencies that members can and have used to settle their obligations with the IMF,” she added, referring to the Chinese currency by its official name, the renminbi.

Ms. Kozack said that negotiations on the $44-billion program are still ongoing.

She denied that the IMF received a letter from China stating it would allow Argentina to use a swap line with the Chinese Central Bank to pay off its IMF dues.

“Our team has been working intensively with the Argentine authorities to make progress toward the completion of the fifth review. And to help the authorities address a very complex and challenging situation,” she said.

“In terms of the details of those discussions, because the teams are still in discussion, I will not pre-empt those discussions, and I will not get into the details other than to say that the discussions are frequent, and they are aimed at advancing the program.”

“With respect to a couple of the other questions on the letter, [our] understanding is that there is no such letter,” Ms. Kozack added.

The International Monetary Fund logo is seen outside the headquarters building during the IMF/World Bank spring meeting in Washington, on April 20, 2018. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Argentina’s Central Bank signed a deal with China last month to renew the 130 billion yuan ($18.4 billion) swap line for another three years, doubling the amount of freely accessible funds from 35 billion yuan ($5 billion) to 70 billion yuan ($10 billion).

Argentina’s Ministry of Economy said the swap would be in a single tranche and freely available for any type of financial operation, adding that the country would look to promote more yuan spot and future operations.

On June 29, the bank said it had incorporated the yuan as a currency accepted for deposits in savings banks and checking accounts, signaling a departure from the U.S. dollar as its sole official reserve currency.

“Financial entities will thus be enabled to open bank accounts denominated in renminbi yuan,” the bank stated.

The move comes as the South American nation’s foreign currency reserves plummeted due to a severe drought that has reduced grain exports, its major source of dollar earnings, and the peso currency has weakened under the weight of 109 percent annual inflation.

Ahead of general elections in October, Argentina’s government is trying to rebuild reserves to make debt payments, cover trade costs, and meet economic targets under a $44 billion loan program with the IMF.

Yuan Far From Dethroning Dollar

Aside from Argentina, Brazil also signed an agreement with China earlier this year that would allow them to conduct trade and investments in their own currencies, further reducing the U.S. dollar’s dominance.

Milton Ezrati, chief economist at Vested, a New York-based communications firm, said the deal is an attempt to elevate the yuan as an international currency, yet, “the yuan is a long way from an international reserve currency such as the dollar.”

According to Mr. Ezrati, China does not have the financial markets to support financial arrangements in yuan, which is one of the requirements for a world reserve currency.

“If you are the world’s reserve currency, as the dollar is, then traders all over the globe have to hold your currency, because that’s the way they do their business. If they hold your currency, they want a place to invest it,” he recently told “China in Focus” on NTD.

Mr. Erzati contended that in such a case, traders in yuan might face difficulties in securing markets to invest in because China controls the flows of money into and out of the country.

Vice President Kamala Harris mistakenly (?) suggested that one of the goals of investing in clean energy is population reduction.

“When President [Joe] Biden and I took office, we set an ambitious goal … to cut our greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and to reach net-zero emissions by 2050,” Harris told an audience at Coppin State University in Baltimore on Friday.

“When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water,” she continued.

According to the official transcript, the 58-year-old Vice President meant to say ‘pollution,’ not ‘population.’

🚨 CLEAN UP ON AISLE KAMALA https://t.co/vlUHM6vmxC

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 14, 2023

More via the Epoch Times;

Ms. Harris spoke at the event to address the Environmental Protection Agency’s $20 billion investment program across two grant competitions under the Biden administration’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that aims to spark clean energy investments across the country.

After clips of Ms. Harris’s verbal miscue emerged online, social media users and a number of Republican figures seized on the error to suggest the Biden administration was publicly calling to reduce the population in the United States.

Responding to Ms. Harris’ verbal slip-up in a Twitter post, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) asked the vice president what exactly she meant by reducing the population.

“Abortion? Assisted suicide? Or what means are you suggesting to reduce population in order to help public health?” Ms. Greene wrote.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), meanwhile, warned his followers on Twitter, asking: “Are you the population she wants to reduce?”

“Kamala Harris admits she wants to reduce the population for environmental reasons,” Ohio state Sen. Michael Rull said in a post on Twitter. “That’s not just anti-American. That’s anti-human.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also commented on the vice president’s mix-up of the phrase, tweeting: “We need to increase population.”

Reducing population is 🥜

We need to increase population

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2023

And once again, Kamala screws the pooch.

Authored by ‘Carpe Diem’ via American Greatness,

To the surprise of no one, the leftist corporate media’s coverage of the 2024 presidential race has been abysmal. Predictably, their reporting is full of omissions, half truths, and wishful thinking. Once again, they only report their preferred narratives, in a desperate attempt to persuade stupid people and gullible news outlets into believing them, including Conservative Inc.

As usual the leftist coastal elites are attempting to shape their perceptions into reality.

Here are the two mainstream narratives thus far.

• The first one says that Joe Biden, despite suffering from alarming rates of delirium and senility, while presiding over horrendous poll numbers will unequivocally be the Democratic nominee for President.

• The second narrative says that no matter how early it is, Donald J. Trump has an insurmountable lead in the ever-expanding GOP field, and thus will be the Republican nominee for President for a third consecutive time. This despite the fact that the Iowa Caucuses are not occurring for another six months.

Let’s analyze the first leftist corporate media narrative – that Joe Biden is the de facto nominee.

As much as the objective journalists at the New York Times and Washington Post would like the gaffe-ridden career politician to remain in the White House, there are many plausible reasons why Team Biden, to the extent he even has a political operation, should be concerned.

Let’s put aside the fact that under Biden’s watch he has overseen the worst border crisis in U.S. history, the highest inflation in four decades, a historic crime wave in Democrat run cities, a disgraceful and embarrassing exit from Afghanistan, weakness towards China, indecision and mismanagement towards the war in Ukraine, appeasement towards Iran, betrayal against Israel, pathetic pandering in defense of “LGBTQ rights,” including supporting providing life altering puberty blockers to minors, attempting to jail his leading political opponent for the same supposed “crime” that he committed, and let’s not forget, a corrupt family that sold our country out, while raking in millions from China, Russia, Ukraine and Romania.

Yes, the Biden crime family makes the Gambino’s look cleaner than the Huxtables.

If that list wasn’t bad enough, now factor in that even the people who somehow still support Biden’s disastrous job killing, energy industry destroying, unconstitutional student debt canceling, equity agenda, don’t want him to run for re-election.

The geniuses in the media still can’t seem to figure out why Biden is so unpopular. Hmm, let’s see, it may have something to do with the fact that he looks weaker and frailer by the hour, and often says things that make zero sense to anyone on planet earth.

But whenever the question of Biden’s age comes up, the media does their best to prop him up. Case in point—the recent Axios piece that hilariously tries to make Biden seem like a tough and demanding boss who is fully with it. Yes, according to the legacy media, even though Biden often appears unable to read coherently from the teleprompter, or seems constantly confused about where he is, evidently, behind closed doors, he’s really Logan Roy in his prime.

The Axios piece also tries to humanize Biden by informing us that he isn’t always so “folksy” around his staff, and is prone to fits of rage, as if we haven’t seen him randomly start screaming during one of his many divisive speeches about the supposed threats of MAGA Republicans.

The corporate media has barely mentioned that Biden essentially has a non-existent campaign, with no serious operation in place. Instead, they would rather discredit the rising popularity of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., by calling him an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who is not to be taken seriously, and poses no serious threat to the incumbent. Say what you will about some of Kennedy’s peculiar stances, but at least he comes across as articulate and coherent.

And what about the other leftist mainstream media narrative that Trump has all but wrapped up the GOP nomination?

Once again, they would like this to be true, for their own cynical reasons. One, Trump is good for their ratings, and two, because they’re hoping for the same outcome from the 2020 election.

There’s no denying the former president is in a strong position as of this writing, but if past precedent means anything, it’s way too premature to declare the race a done deal—especially when the number two challenger just delivered a historic landslide victory in what was once a swing state.

There is nothing the coastal media elites would like more than to write off Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, before the first GOP debate has even occurred, because they know he has beaten the left on virtually every issue. Whether it was protecting jobs and businesses from draconian COVID lockdowns and unconstitutional vaccine mandates, keeping schools open and athletic dreams alive, removing inappropriate lesson plans that distort America’s history and sexualize children, actually enforcing our immigration laws, fighting for the life of unborn children, eliminating woke ESG, or providing Floridians with a record $2.7 billion tax relief package, the leftist corporate media knows he poses a legitimate threat to the Democrats reign of mass destruction.

Remember, the same people telling us that the DeSantis campaign is already over before it’s even two months old are the same people who have spent the past four years calling him a fascist.

We’re supposed to believe these same partisan journalists who disagree with virtually every single one of DeSantis’s policies, are rooting for his downfall and would never vote for him in a million years will give it to us straight? I don’t think so.

These are the same dishonest hacks who lied to us about the Russian Collusion hoax, the same people who said that the BLM riots that made Minneapolis look like Nagasaki, circa July 1945, were “mostly peaceful,” the same people who advocated for lockdowns and school closures during COVID, and the same people who cover for Biden’s senility and his family’s corruption. But somehow, we’re supposed to believe that they’re fair and impartial arbiters of the state of the 2024 GOP race?

The bottom line is, it’s still way too early to make any predictions, but it’s not too late to stop falling for the corporate media’s propaganda.

In a lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson yesterday, at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis detailed his stance on various issues, including abortion, the environment in Florida, foreign policy, and the potential implementation of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Regarding the potential implementation of Central Bank Digital Currency, the Governor strongly opposes it and expresses his intention to block its adoption at both the state and national levels.

He argues that it poses a threat to American liberties and could lead to a social credit system.

“The federal government has a responsibility to protect us from foreign threats, but to turn the government on the American people, that’s the founding fathers’ worst nightmare.”

And while he maintains that the imposition of a CBDC on Americans would require Congressional approval, he warned that “The Fed might try something unilaterally.” That he would not stand for:

“If I am the president, on day one, we will nix central bank digital currency. Done. Dead. Not happening in this country,” DeSantis said to clarify his opposition to the technology.

“They want to get rid of cash. They want no cryptocurrency. They want [CBDCs] to be the sole form of legal tender. It will allow them to prohibit ‘undesirable purchases’ like fuel and ammunition,” DeSantis contended, adding that “…they have said this publicly at like Davos and these other places

The minute you give them the power to do this “they are going to impose a social credit system on this country,” the Florida Governor exclaimed, concluding ominously that “CBDC is a massive threat to American Liberty.”

“On January 20th, 2025, [Central Bank Digital Currency] goes to the ash heap of history in this country.”

Watch the full interview below (DeSantis’ discussion of CBDCs starts around 16:00):

DeSantis’s criticism of CBDCs is not new. As the Florida governor, he signed legislation banning CBDCs from being recognized as legal tender in May.

The presidential candidate has also urged other Republican-led states to introduce their own measures against CBDCs. In March, for example, he appealed to a coalition of 20 states to resist federal backing for the concept.

He is not alone on the right, with Vivek Ramaswamy also expressing opposition to these centralized digital currencies.

On the Democratic side, pro-Bitcoin candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has labeled CBDCs “instruments of control and oppression, [that] are certain to be abused.”

Authored by Dylan Morgan via The Epoch Times,

The Oakland City Council approved a proposal on April 18 that will end Oakland’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium on July 15.

The moratorium was put in place in March 2020 and protected tenants from evictions due to COVID-related rent debt. With the end of the moratorium, Oakland landlords will regain the power to evict tenants if they have just cause.

Oakland was one of the last cities in the Bay Area to have the COVID-19 moratorium still in place.

The April 18 council meeting lasted eight hours and resulted in a 7–1 vote. Noel Gallo was the only member of the council to vote against this proposal, as he wanted the moratorium to be removed on May 31, but ultimately his proposed amendment didn’t gain much traction.

The proposal that was approved was introduced by Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas and Councilmember Dan Kalb and is a revised version of a proposal they introduced in March. Ms. Bas and Mr. Kalb sought to gradually remove the moratorium in September and have landlords prove that lease-violating tenants “caused substantial actual damage.”

However, lobbying from landlords culminated in a compromise and the proposal.

Mr. Kalb stated at the April 18 meeting, “I won’t say I’m thrilled with all the modifications, but part of the legislative process is the art of compromise in a fair fashion, as long as you still have a good end product.”

Additionally, the proposal enacted new tenant protections to prevent a wave of evictions following the moratorium. This includes forbidding landlords from evicting tenants who owe less than a month of “fair market rent,” as defined by the federal government, and unpaid rent that took place during the moratorium, so long as the tenant can prove that it was a result of the pandemic.

For a landlord to evict a tenant for violating the lease, the terms of the lease must be shown to be reasonable, with the tenant agreeing to them in writing.

The proposal will also end the city’s moratorium on rent increases on July 1, 2024.

This decision was the climax of weeks of protesting from landlords and tenants in an attempt to sway the decision in their favor. Landlords have been speaking out against the moratorium for a while now.

A few months ago, local property owner George Wu began a hunger strike.

According to The East Bay Times, Mr. Wu owns a triplex in San Leandro. He said the policy led to some renters falling behind on payments and to him accumulating $120,000 in debt.

While protesting, he displayed signs that read, “Need rent to feed my family,” “My son needs tuition fee,” and “Eviction moratorium kills housing,” among other things.

He told The East Bay Times he plans to protest at least a month or two, or even until death.

Mr. Wu told The Epoch Times:

“We landlords have it difficult too. Our wealth comes from our painstaking labor. I’m not against the government protecting tenants, but the government needs to find the middle ground. They need to come up with a better policy and protect us landlords. This way it would be a fair policy.”

Oakland resident Seneca Scott sympathized with Mr. Wu and told The Epoch Times: “[The moratoriums] are theft, it is abuse of power, they are stealing our homes, and they have enabled people to not pay rent for three years. This moral hazard is the fault of the county and city. They have passed these laws; they have allowed people to steal from hardworking Americans.”

Property owner Phyllis Horneman told The Epoch Times: “We have provided housing for low-income people for 50 years. This is the end. If this eviction moratorium doesn’t go away, we won’t re-rent because the next person will move in and just not pay the rent. And we can’t afford that. I mean, we’re getting pretty old here.”

In March 2022, the Housing Providers of America, a coalition of landlords, sued Alameda County and Oakland to end the eviction moratorium.

However, tenants view the moratorium much less favorably.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, one member of the Oakland Tenants Union said, “I don’t know if any of you have ever received an eviction notice, but until you do it is really hard to appreciate the sheer terror you’ll feel.”

The Chronicle quoted another resident as saying, “Our lives should be worth more than somebody else’s profit.”

The Chronicle reported that Attorney Leah Simon-Weisberg, with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Institute, a pro-tenants rights organization, believes this legislation possesses necessary tenant protections that will help with the transition of removing the moratorium. However, she is worried about “frivolous” evictions where tenants could be breached over minor offenses, and she said that she and other tenant advocates have been urging councilmembers to add plausible protections to put an end to this, the Chronicle stated.