By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities, up from 54 percent in 2020, according to a new report by the Institute for Economics & Peace. This increase is being driven by both population growth and a continued shift towards urbanization, particularly to so called ‘megacities’ – metropolises that have a population of 10 million or more.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, urbanization takes place because of both push and pull factors. The IEA describes how in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital of Kinshasa, factors pushing people away from rural areas include issues of violence and a general lack of security, the presence of criminal groups, lack of policing, ecological degradation, and the fact there are too many people for the available agricultural land. Meanwhile, a pull factor could be the attraction of an increase in the standard of living.
There are currently 33 megacities worldwide. Tokyo (37.3 million), Delhi (32.3 million), Shanghai (28.7 million), Dhaka (22.6 million), São Paulo (22.5 million) and Mexico City (22.1 million) take the lead as the most populous of these. By 2050, 14 more cities are set to join their ranks, with a total increased population of some 213 million people. The new order will then become Delhi (49.6 million), Dhaka (34.6 million), Tokyo (32.6 million), Cairo (32.6 million) and Mumbai (32.4 million).
In addition to a rise in the number of people living in these cities, the countries themselves will also likely see economic growth.
According to AXA, Manila in the Philippines and Bangalore in India are expected to see close to 150 percent GDP growth by the end of the decade.
Africa is the only world region expected to still see strong population growth by the end of the century, according to the Pew Research Center, while all other regions’ growth rates will start to tail off. This is reflected in our chart, as it’s notably the African megacities that will see the biggest population rate increases. Meanwhile, only three megacities will see decreases in their population size: the Russian capital of Moscow (-3 percent), and Japan’s Osaka (-12 percent) and Tokyo (-12 percent). Despite Tokyo’s shrinkage, brought on by an aging population and declining birth rate, the capital will still rank as the world’s fourth most populated megacity in 2050.
The 33 cities that have already hit megacity status are the following: Delhi, Dhaka, Cairo, Tokyo, Mumbai, Shanghai, Kinshasa, Lagos, Karachi, Mexico City, São Paulo, Beijing, Kolkata, New York City, Manila, Lahore, Bangalore, Chongqing, Buenos Aires, Osaka, Hyderabad, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok, Jakarta, Shenzhen, Lima, Paris and Moscow.
It’s important to note here that different sources cite different statistics, and that especially with forecasts, situations can change. For instance, where the United Nations initially predicted that India would overtake China as the biggest country in 2027, it is now expected to take place in April of this year. In terms of megacity status, according to UN data from 2018, several additional cities, including Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Wuhan in China, will make the roundup even by 2035. Read more on the nature of conflicting reports here.
FLOWCHART: How Jennifer Siebel Newsom used taxpayer dollars to trade with herself, her nonprofit organization, and her for-profit business. The organization refused to disclose how much of their screening revenues came from California public schools.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are the dream team. He runs the state and she’s a nonprofit founder, entrepreneur, and filmmaker.
While her husband attends to state business, Siebel Newsom engages in her passion: advancing “gender justice” through her charitable nonprofit The Representation Project. According to tax documents the organization is “committed to building a thriving and inclusive society through films, education, and social activism.”
Then, the Newsom nonprofit scrambled to submit their proper registration. Working with the California Attorney General, a process that normally takes days or weeks was completed in hours.
So, just what does Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s charity do – with the full support of her husband, the governor, and underwritten by the wealthy California establishment?
THE FILMS
Siebel Newsom, through her non-profit The Representation Project, has released four films advocating gender justice. The films are leased for screenings to individuals, corporations, and schools, and come with their own lesson plans. Schools spend between $49-$599 to screen these movies to children.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom is credited as a writer and director on each of these films. Two of the movies feature Gavin Newsom himself, and many of the lesson plan activities are oriented toward engaging children in social and political activism.
Because of Gavin Newsom’s role in these films and because licenses are sold to schools which the governor is responsible for funding with tax dollars, auditors at OpenTheBooks.com felt the organization deserved further scrutiny.
Who’s Watching? 2.6 million students in 5,000 schools
According to The Representation Project’s Impact Report (2011-2021), the organization’s film curricula are being used in over 5,000 schools in all fifty states. The Representation Project claims over 11,200 copies of the curricula have been distributed, reaching more than 2.6 million students.
Tax records show that since 2012 the nonprofit has generated $1,483,001 in film screening revenue, although it is unclear how much money came from schools versus other sources. We asked The Representation Project for the number of California schools that purchased a screening license and received no response.
Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com watched Newsom’s movies and read the lesson plans. What we found was, at times, shocking: sexually explicit images, political boosterism, and something called “The Genderbread Person.”
Miss Representation’s curriculum links to “age-appropriate” video clips in its K-12 lesson plans and says that the full film is rated PG-14. (Certainly, parents may still object to clips from the “age-appropriate” film like the animated, upside down stripper shown above).
The filmfeatures strong language and women dressed provocatively:
Caroline Heldman, who is now executive director of Newsom’s non-profit, described women’s role in action movies as “the fighting fuck toy.”
Actress Daphne Zuniga, famous for Melrose Place and film parody Spaceballs, suggested women should “tell those fuckers to get penis implants,” in response to being told to get plastic surgery.
Middle school children are served images of upside-down strippers with little left to the imagination (see above).
Then, it gets worse.
Newsom’s film The Mask You Live In features the website addresses of porn sites including Porn Hub, MassiveCams, BDSM.XXX, and Brazzers.com. The pornographic images displayed in the film are tagged with descriptions such as “domination,” “face fuck,” “kinky couples,” and “…dirty brunettes.”
Newsom included images of naked or mostly naked women being slapped, handcuffed, and brutalized in pornographic videos. The pictures are graphic even when blurred. Screenshots of those scenes can be found HERE (VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED).
These jarring pictures are displayed with their corresponding porn website addresses – providing a roadmap for future exploration. The film seems to justify their harmful content by saying that “34% of youth online receive UNWANTED PORNOGRAPHIC EXPOSURE.”
In 2019, one parent filed a complaint about a screening of The Mask You LiveIn for his 12-year-old daughter’s class at Creekside Middle School in California. In an interview with The Sacramento Bee the father said,
“Some of the images when slowed down were not blurred, and even when they are blurred, it is obvious what is going on. It is absolutely profane and disgusting.”
An investigation found a substitute teacher accidentally screened the full version of the film rather than an “age-appropriate” version. However, The Representation Project recommends the full version for ages 15+.
Siebel Newsom’s idea is to protect children from highly exploitative and disturbing sexual media content seems to involve showing it to them personally.
BOOSTING GAVIN NEWSOM – THE COMPASSIONATE POLITICIAN
Gavin Newsom himself provides interview commentary for Miss Representation and The Great American Lie.
Newsom speaks three times in Miss Representation and is portrayed as a champion of women’s rights—see this example from the middle school curriculum video (18:37):
“One of the first things I did when I came to San Francisco (as mayor) is I appointed a female police chief and appointed a female fire chief.”
Getting paid by schools to portray your politician husband as a standup guy to captive children in the classroom was such a winning idea, Siebel Newsom deployed it again in The Great American Lie.
Here, Newsom makes five appearances to deliver political talking points, including:
At the end of the day a budget is a set of values, budget reflects your values.”
“This notion of interdependence—that we’re all in this together, that we all rise and fall together—is absolutely true.”
“We’re not bystanders in this world, we have the ability to step up and solve big problems, we have done that in the past, it’s just a question of prioritization, of political will.”
Siebel Newsom’s provided companion curriculum require student discussion of Gavin Newsom’s points and are told to vote, and help others vote, for politicians “who show empathy through their support care [sic] policies.”
Activity from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students. Students are asked to watch and discuss a clip of Gavin Newsom.
Call to action from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students. Students are told to vote and help others vote for candidates “who show empathy through their support care [sic] policies”
Overview: Jennifer Siebel Newsom makes a movie portraying Gavin Newsom as a politician that supports certain policies, and then in the movie’s curriculum advises students to vote and campaign for politicians that support those policies.
Schools, which receive funding from the state, pay The Representation Project to show this movie, and use taxpayer-funded class time to facilitate these lessons.
In July 2022 Gavin Newsom signed a budget of $128 billion for state schools and community colleges.
Multiple lesson plans from The Representation Project promote radical notions of gender and sexuality.
One such lesson for middle and high schoolers includes the “genderbread person,” who aims to show children how biological sex, “gender expression,” “sexual attraction,” and “gender identity” exist on a spectrum, which can be mixed and matched.
While kindergarteners are spared the genderbread person in their curriculum, they are offered similar lessons on “gender identity,” introducing genders other than “boy” and “girl.”
LEFT-WING POLITICAL ACTIVISM – THE “PRIVILEGE WALK”
Kids forced to watch The Representation Project films in schools aren’t just subjected to gender ideology, sexually explicit images, and Gavin Newsom’s one-liners. They’re being given a left-wing framework through which to see the world, and then prompted to conduct social and political activism.
In The Great American Lie curriculum, students are asked to do a “privilege walk,” divulging personal information in order to compare themselves to peers inside and outside the classroom. “Privileges” include being “a cisgendered man,” “white,” “born in the United States,” “straight,” and speaking English as a first language.
Activity from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students.
Speakers in The Great American Lie are clear about what “privilege” means—something you hurt other people with, something you should feel bad about, and something you should work to change.
Journalist Charles Blow, who is now a New York Times opinion columnist, said during the film:
“We need to stop being blind to history, stop being blind to systems, understand that there are privileges and there are oppressions in society, and in fact they act like a see-saw. Your privilege is actually built on my oppression.”
Lawyer Bryan Stevenson followed up, encouraging viewers to feel “shame and sorrow:”
“We actually have to engage in truth telling, we’re going to have to express some shame and sorrow about who we are and what we’ve done, we’re going to have to find the will to reconcile ourselves to a different future.”
The way to relieve this shame, according to the film, is through social and political activism, as Professor Niobe Way said:
“If you don’t address the racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred―the hatred―we have in our culture, then you can’t start having a conversation about love, peace and understanding.”
Newsome and her non-profit recommends The Great American Lie for ages 11+.
STUDY: The Student-to-Activist Assembly Line
Curricula from the three available films advise diverse ways for students to become activists within their families and communities. Suggested activities include promoting The Representation Project social media campaigns, voting for candidates that “support the care economy,” and asking students to “market and host a screening” of The Representation Project films (while paying a screening fee to the organization).
(A)
(B)
(C)
Calls to action in the curricula from (A) Miss Representation for middle and high schoolers, (B) The Mask You Live In for middle and high schoolers, (C) The Great American Lie for high school and college students
Jennifer Siebel Newsom produced, wrote, and directed all these films, but if her enthusiasm for cultivating young activists was not obvious enough, we need only listen to her conclusions.
In 2021 high school participants in The Representation Project’s film course joined a moderated panel with Siebel Newsom to discuss The Great American Lie.
One student stated: “There’s no age limit for activism… the younger you are the easier it is for you to see these changes that need to be made.”
Siebel Newsom replied: “That’s great, thank you.”
SUMMARY – FOLLOW THE MONEY
The Representation Project not only solicits donors from big-money political supporters of Gavin Newsom, but also receives public tax dollars through schools to create a new generation of supporters and activists in the state’s—and country’s—schoolchildren.
The Representation Project transforms public school expenditures into activist training expenses, and in the process exposes children to objectionable sexual content.
Various funding sources translate directly to financial gain for Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
Since The Representation Project’s founding she has collected $1,501,727 in salary. Her current title is Chief Creative Officer, and she also sits on the nonprofit’s board of directors. She is the top paid executive at her non-profit with a $150,000 annual salary between 2013 and 2021.
Siebel Newsom also founded a for-profit company, Girls Club Entertainment Inc., which contracts (with Newsom’s nonprofit) for the production costs associated with the movies and owns the license for Miss Representation.
According to tax records, the nonprofit (The Representation Project) has paid Girls Club Entertainment (Newsom’s for-profit company) $1,647,376 since 2012.
NOTE: We requested comments from Jennifer Siebel Newsom and her nonprofit, The Representation Project multiple times over the last couple of months. We also requested comment from Gov. Newsom. We never received any response.
Ron Klain White House Departure Reported One Day After Scapegoat Found For Slow-Walking Classified Documents
After working for Joe Biden on and off for more than three decades, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain is expected to step down in coming weeks because he’s ‘ready to move on,’ the NY Times reports.
The news of Klain’s departure comes one day after the White House threw senior adviser Anita Dunn under the bus for the decision to ‘keep the public information flow to a trickle’ regarding President Biden’s classified document scandal.
Is Klain’s departure related to the decision to slow-walk news that classified documents from Biden’s VP days were found in unauthorized locations? We don’t know at this stage, but we assume Klain was apprised of Dunn’s strategy, and perhaps even signed off on it. Now that we’re in the ‘who said what, and when’ phase of a Special Counsel investigation into the matter, nothing is off the table. Maybe he was just tired of performing elder care?
The departure would also come at a time when the White House faces a widening array of political and legal threats from a newly appointed special counsel investigating the improper handling of classified documents and a flurry of other inquiries by the newly installed Republican majority in the House. The next chief of staff will be charged with managing the defense of Mr. Biden’s White House and any counterattack as the 2024 election approaches. -NY Times
The Times suggests Klain’s departure could be related to Biden’s anticipated 2024 reelection campaign, and says “advisers predict more moves as some aides shift from the White House to the campaign.”
So – not rats bailing from a sinking ship.
The Times notes that Klain has been so influential that Republicans ‘derisively call him a virtual prime minister,’ and Democrats ‘blame him when they are disappointed in a decision.’
Klain has also presided over ‘a rash of troubles’ that have tanked public support for Biden – including the highest inflation in 40 years, and the creation of a border crisis after shredding much of former President Trump’s border policy.
On that note, the Times also reports that Biden’s national economic adviser, Brian Dees, is expected to leave later this year.
As for those classified documents
The Times reported on Friday that White House senior adviser, Anita Dunn – along with her husband, Biden’s personal lawyer Bob Bauer, and White House counsel Stuart F. Delery and Richard Sauber, were part of at “tight circle” involved in discussions on how to deal with the matter.
NBC News’ Peter Alexander repeatedly presses Karine Jean-Pierre about the White House claiming that Republicans are “faking outrage” over Biden’s classified document scandal.
“Why shouldn’t Americans be upset about documents found in a garage?” he asks.
Details about the documents — where they were found, what they are about, where they came from — remain elusive more than 10 days after their existence was first made public by CBS News.
The White House has refused to explain why it took nearly six weeks after the initial discovery of documents to search the president’s home in Wilmington, Del., where a second batch was found on Dec. 20. And it has not said why personal lawyers for the president who do not have security clearances were the ones conducting the searches, but people close to the case said that was done with the approval of the Justice Department.
…
Once the discovery of the original batch of documents was revealed, Ms. Dunn was adamant that the White House should keep the public information flow to a trickle and focus instead on how different Mr. Biden’s case was from the broader investigation into his predecessor, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Ms. Dunn also stressed the need to underscore the differences between Mr. Biden’s cooperation with the archives and Justice Department and Mr. Trump’s defiance.
The government has been less than transparent with Americans regarding the classified documents scandal of President Joe Biden, and particularly on the background of the classified documents scandal of former President Donald Trump.
While in Trump’s case, the public was treated to frequent updates through leaks to media and official statements, the Biden case had been kept under wraps for more than two months and then disclosed in stages.
When staff of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) picked up 15 boxes of presidential records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida residence in mid-January 2022, The Washington Post reported it three weeks later and the NARA confirmed the story that same day, Feb. 7, 2022, adding a 150-word quote from then-Archivist David Ferriero explaining that “the Presidential Records Act is critical to our democracy.”
About a week later, NARA revealed in response to a congressional inquiry that classified material was found in the boxes and the matter had been communicated to the Department of Justice (DOJ). In April, The Washington Post reported the DOJ was investigating the matter and later that month C-SPAN released an interview with Ferriero during which he confirmed the existence of the investigation.
In the Biden case, when NARA was alerted on Nov. 2 that classified documents were found in Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center, where he sparsely lectured and gave speeches from 2017 to 2019, there were no leaks forthcoming. In fact, NARA has yet to issue a single press release on the Biden case.
The story was first leaked to CBS News and reported on Jan. 9 with an on-record confirmation by Richard Sauber, special counsel to Biden.
The CBS report came a day after Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) pledged in a Mark Levin interview that his oversight committee will question NARA on its handling of the Trump documents case and threatened to withhold the agency’s funding to force compliance with information requests.
In a Jan. 10 letter to NARA, Comer said its “inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency.”
NARA responded a week later, saying it “treats all of its communications with the White House, DOJ, and the representatives of the former Presidents (and Vice Presidents) as presumptively confidential” and “for this reason, NARA did not affirmatively discuss or disclose to our oversight committees or to the public our activities concerning the return to our custody of either the Biden Vice Presidential records or the Trump Presidential records, or our referral of both matters to DOJ because we found classified information.”
The agency started to respond to congressional inquiries on the matters “only when those topics were subsequently reported publicly in the press.”
“Our actions and responses with respect to both of these matters have been entirely consistent and without any political bias,” it said (pdf).
The DOJ was alerted by NARA about the Biden documents on Nov. 4, but the FBI didn’t start to look into the matter until Nov. 9, the day after the midterm elections.
The White House confirmed the initial story the day it was released, but didn’t disclose for another three days that another batch of classified documents were found in Biden’s garage, even though the DOJ was informed by Biden’s lawyers on Dec. 20.
The government response indicates that Biden’s pre-election promises of a transparent administration have fallen short, according to investigative journalist John Solomon.
“Was this an act of defiance on his promise of transparency?” he asked, noting that it appears that “the president says he wants to be transparent, but he doesn’t always deliver on the promise when things are unflattering to him or his presidency.”
Solomon argued that the DOJ should have been more forthcoming about the Biden documents issue, especially since Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the Trump documents investigation on Nov. 18, when his department was already probing the Biden documents case.
“They knew when they made that announcement that the current President has similar issues and they chose to keep it from us,” Solomon told The Epoch Times.
Go Woke, Get Broke: Vox Fires 7% Of Staff; Vice’s Valuation Plunges
It’s a terrible time for America’s liberal media – with companies laying off, implementing hiring freezes, and other cost-cutting measures. Some media companies have even collapsed in valuation. Many are blaming increasing macroeconomic uncertainty that has crushed advertising revenues.
A wave of recent layoffs has hit media companies, including CNN, Buzzfeed, Paramount Global (the parent to CBS, MTV, VH1), The Walt Disney Company, Comcast, Roku, Morning Brew, Gannett (parent company to USA Today), and many more in the past year.
Add Vox Media, which owns brands like The Verge, SB Nation, and New York magazine, to the growing list of media layoffs.
Axios obtained an internal memo from CEO Jim Bankoff to staff about reducing headcount by 7%. About 1,900 people work for the company, which equates to about 133 layoffs.
Bankoff noted that the headcount reduction would impact teams across revenue, editorial, operations, and core services.
“While we are not expecting further layoffs at this time, we will continue to assess our outlook, keep a tight control on expenses and consider implementing other cost savings measures as needed,” he said, adding layoffs were a last resort.
The move was to address the coming downturn in the economy.
Besides layoffs and other cost measures, media company valuations have plunged.
For instance, Vice Media is putting itself up for sale (again) at around a billion-dollar valuation, according to CNBC, citing people familiar with the talks.
Today’s number is far from the $5.7 billion valuation in 2017.
CNBC previously reported Vice hired financial advisors to seek a sale.
One of Vice’s lenders, Fortress Investment Group, is pushing for a sale.
Meanwhile, Buzzfeed’s SPAC is only getting worse — with a current market cap of $129 million — down from more than a billion dollars a year ago.
America’s largest digital media companies are in dire straits. Maybe some of them are in these precarious situations because they embraced liberal ideology and suffered massive viewership losses. We all know CNN is learning that the hard way.
In November 2021 I wrote a piece entitled “Have We Finally Reached Peak Davos?” This article was scarily spot on. When you’ve written as much as I have over the past five years, however, it’s easy to look back and point at how prescient you were.
Even if you’ve gotten a whole lotta stuff wrong, which I have.
That particular article, though, was nearly point-for-point correct in assessing the state of The Davos Crowd’s Great Reset project.
I wrote a Twitter thread about this the other day to pound the next few nails in Davos’ coffin before the opening of this year’s convocation of clueless globalists.
5000 Swiss troops to protect oligarchs at #Davos2023.
This is what you order up when you’re scared of the people.
Here’s a reminder that I saw Peak Davos in November 2021. It was over the COVID-9/11 Jab Protests… among other things.https://t.co/43up3tM9EF
1/
— Tom Luongo (The Bots Have Returned!) (@TFL1728) January 14, 2023
In this business the goal isn’t to get everything right but to be right more often than you’re wrong while spurring debate and conversation. This is how we crowdsource something close to the truth and/or steelman our own arguments in an endless quest for process improvement.
I wrote about that process recently and why it’s important to identify those who are still on that journey, those who are starting it, and those who are stuck in the morass of their own preconceptions.
Embrace and encourage the first two groups and question the ethics of those in the last.
Because in 2023 the mission is beginning to shift, from trying to forecast what these Cantillionaire midwits will do next to further assisting people in improving their data parsing abilities.
The more people that parse the Davos bullshit in real time, the less time they spend abreacting to it and using that saved time more productively to thwart Davos‘ plans.
So here we are as Davos 2023 winds down and it’s pretty obvious, watching the proceedings, that their entire edifice built on a crude admixture of psychopathy and hubris is tumbling down.
And it’s not only because more of us can see them for what they are, cheap communists in expensive suits, but because there are stark divisions forming within their own ranks.
The problem, however, for most of the committed Davosians is that they still live in the wine-and-cheese-filled amniotic sack of this Swiss Alps version of Oz. They don’t see the gathering storm barreling down the yellow brick road as anything more threatening than a single mosquito is to a cow.
As anyone who has lived in central Florida or studied its cattle industry knows, a few million mosquitos can exsanguinate a cow in a matter of days.
So, watching the proceedings at this year’s Davos was fascinating because, for the first time, the sheen was gone. Too many people were seeing the walls of the echo chamber for what they were; old, shabby, and drafty rather than having the veneer of wisdom that comes with age.
Davos had come out from behind the curtain willingly to declare themselves the saviors of humanity through their Fuhrer’s nutty ideas about transhumanism, 15-minute cities, eating bugs, and renting your life from a central authority.
And it was easy to build a counter-narrative to this insanity that permeated into the zeitgeist by just pointing your finger and laughing at them.
If you want proof of just how far the Davos idea has traveled in the five years since I first called them “The Davos Crowd” the performance of this tweet of mine from January 3rd should do it.
My average tweet gets around 5000-8000 impressions, maybe 30-40 retweets, and a couple hundred likes.
I’m really pants at Twitter.
This thing is literally the first tweet of mine in years to ‘go viral,’ and shows no signs of letting up. I’m not patting myself on the back here, but rather pointing out what something like this represents in my little corner of the internet.
Hatred of Davos has broken containment.
The anxiety and fear these men have promulgated is now deeply embedded in people because it feels closer to the truth than what they were previously presented. With a relatively free Twitter these days, the opportunity for more containment breaks like this are rising exponentially.
And that is a very good thing.
Davos likes to talk in terms of the inevitability of their forecasted future. But that’s just a front. Psychopaths always double down in the face of adversity.
But I’ve noted a certain sense of panic and/or desperation from a lot of Davos’ lieutenants, like Blackrock’s Larry Fink complaining about how mean we all are opposing ESG or NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg exhorting everyone that more weapons to fund Ukraine’s war is the path to peace.
Note the use of “the” versus “a” in that sentence. When someone is telling you there is only one path forward, they are issuing an ultimatum… they are also lying through their teeth.
One of “the” paths to peace in Ukraine is in negotiating honestly with Russia. Ukrainian President and Schwab disciple Zelenskyy is out there saying nuttier things by the day, like now that he thinks Putin is dead while the US floats the idea of Ukraine retaking Crimea.
The fact that there has been not even a reasonable offer put on the table to the Russians to this point tells you that this war is policy and not an unfortunate happenstance of Russian belligerence.
But watch the video carefully and note the desperation on display from Stoltenberg. He knows the war isn’t going well for NATO. He knows that if NATO fails here he and all of this corporatist cronies personally lose their seat at the gravy train.
He also knows he will be sacrificed on the globalists’ altar if he fails to deliver in Ukraine. He’s Admiral Piett, swallowing nervously, to Soros’ Darth Vader.
Last year at Davos 2022 it was Soros delivering the rebuttal to Henry Kissinger’s call for negotiations. This Octogenarian clash of ideology and realpolitik was a kind of Rubicon crossing for all things Davos.
{And I definitely got a lot of things wrong in the article I wrote about that, if you’re keeping score.}
By ignoring Kissinger’s pragmatism and embracing Soros’ belligerence Davos revealed itself as an out-of-touch echo chamber whose edicts are hurtling the world towards a terrible conflict, making their enemies’ job opposing them that much easier.
You know Soros has won the argument within Davos because they trotted out ol’ Henry to reverse himself on negotiations and embrace war which has all the earmarks of a classic communist struggle session.
I guess that’s why Soros announced to the world he didn’t need to go to Davos this year but would be at the Munich Security Conference next month to declare WWIII.
Due to an unavoidable scheduling conflict, regrettably I cannot attend the @WEF Annual Meeting in Davos this year as I have in past years. I plan to deliver a speech in Munich on the eve of the @MunSecConf. Details to come.
We’re well past the point of Peak Davos that’s for sure. When the guest list for this year was leaked I found it fascinating that many who’ve skipped it in the past would be there – US bank CEOs like JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon. There were just as many who have gone previously to plead for sanity – Putin and Xi Jinping — didn’t even phone it in.
It has been a fascinating week of announcements and headlines that paint a very ugly picture for Davos’ future. When you take them (and their timing) into full context it should be obvious where this is headed.
Here’s a partial list of the headlines from this week:
Most of these would be interesting at any time but that they all occurred while Davos 2023 was happening is mind-boggling. And to think that so many of the attendees there are still walking around as if the future was already written in their favor is equally mind-boggling.
I’m not about to speculate further about what’s really going on there except to say that if feels like something has fundamentally changed, likely for the better. Is Schwab on his way out after ruling the WEF for 52 years?
Is my theory that the NY Boys and others have finally had enough of the fart-sniffing eggheads correct and they showed up with a new set of rules to lay down?
Is that why Bill Gates wasn’t there?
Is that why the sycophantic Western press are running stories now that would never have seen the light of day if Schwab was still calling the shots?
Look, I’m not naïve, I know that Davos is a front for a bigger, older and deeper group of power brokers. Real bankers don’t have Wikipedia pages.
If Larry Fink is a lieutenant then Schwab is just a Colonel and it’s possible he’s being thrown under the bus now to protect the Generals.
But why do the Generals feel the need to cut bait now? As difficult as it is to believe, they may just be losing.
Sometimes things aren’t more complicated than they seem.
They took their shot and missed.
There will be no panopticon or cyber-pandemic. We’ll still drive normal cars, eat red meat, and live in homes with a modicum of privacy. Whether we avoid WWIII is a different story.
Maybe the depression we all fear is on the horizon has already been here for fifteen years and this is as bad as it gets. No mushroom clouds, no Grand Army of the Republic. Just a bunch of tired old inbred losers finally running out of runway and crashing into the ditch rather than flying off into the sunset.
They don’t believe their done yet. It is that gulf between their perception of potency and the reality of their impotence that will determine the rest of this horror show. Soros and his neocon crazies will go to Munich and push for more war.
They just might get it. Then again they may get everything they wished for… good and hard.
Davos may be ending in 2023, but the after-effects of their insanity will be with us for years.
US Designates Wagner Group “Transnational Criminal Organization” – Cites Ties With North Korea
After becoming clear that the private Russian military firm Wager Group – whose founder has direct ties to President Putin – is helping to lead the major offensive in the Soledar and Bakhmut areas in eastern Ukraine, the Biden administration on Friday unveiled new sanctions against the group.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday announced Wagner is now designated a “significant Transnational Criminal Organization” which allows the US to block its access to any US-produced items or technology. It further leaves open the potential for US Commerce to go after its foreign assets as a legally dubbed criminal enterprise. “It will broaden the network of nations and institutions that will be able to stop doing business with Wagner,” Kirby said of the new action at a White House press briefing.
And in an interesting twist, the White House says it has evidence that Wagner is being directly supplied by North Korea. While the Russia-Pyongyang connection has been raised by the US since the summer, this is the first time the US administration has sought to present anything in the way of evidence.
Kirby presented to reporters what he said is photographic evidence of rail cars traveling from Russian to North Korea on November 18. He alleged that shipping containers were loaded with weaponry or ammo and were sent back to Russia the next day.
“We do expect that it will continue to receive North Korean weapon systems,” Kirby asserted. “We obviously condemn North Korea’s actions and we urge North Korea to cease these deliveries to Wagner immediately and we are going further by taking action against Wagner itself.”
The White House further said it will work with the UN Security Council to enforce violations against Wagner, and further took the information on Pyongyang’s ties to Wagner to the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee. Kirby previewed that more sanctions are coming next week.
Russia and North Korea share a small sliver of border, a little over 10 miles long:
“There are around 50,000 Wagner Group fighters currently deployed to Ukraine, according to Kirby, including 10,000 contractors and 40,000 convicts,” CNN reported after the briefing.
Kirby additionally pointed out that “Wagner is becoming a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries.” He highlighted Russian defense officials’ expressions of reservations about Wagner’s tactics like recruiting from Russian prisons, and in return promising freedom based on months in action in Ukraine.
Former Defense Department Chief of Staff Kash Patel said he does not trust the special counsel to fairly investigate President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified information.
“We’ve already seen how they’re handling it—they’re not,” Patel told The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek on an episode of his “Kash’s Corner” podcast, which premiered on Jan. 20 at 8:00 p.m. ET.
“The FBI, DOJ aren’t investigating this matter,” he added. “No, subpoenas have gone out, nothing. And so, I don’t have any faith in this new special counsel.”
On Jan. 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland capped off a turbulent week for the Biden administration by appointing attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to probe Biden’s storage of classified documents in unsecured locations.
Hur, a Trump appointee, served as U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland from April 2018 to February 2021, when he left the Department of Justice (DOJ) for private practice.
Between 2003 and 2018, Hur served on and off at the DOJ in various roles, reporting to familiar figures like now-FBI Director Christopher Wray and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
And that fact, according to Patel, is one of the reasons Hur cannot be trusted to remain impartial.
“In the Trump administration, when Jeff Sessions was recused from all the Russiagate stuff, Rod Rosenstein was the attorney general for all those matters,” Patel noted, adding that Rosenstein had “hand-picked” Hur to serve under him as the principal associate deputy attorney general.
“How they handled the Russiagate investigation is my problem,” Patel said.
In 2017, with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions unable to get involved, Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel in the Trump-Russia investigation. It was also Rosenstein who signed off on applications to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign associate, based on false information.
Patel, who at that time was serving as senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, said that Rosenstein and Hur subpoenaed his records while he was working to expose “the corruption of Russiagate,” and that they had “blockaded” the committee’s attempts to obtain information on the probe.
“[Hur] doesn’t get a hall pass from me,” he said. “I think he’s just another one of these corrupt government gangsters who … was politically chosen by Merrick Garland because they’ll be able to say the following headline: ‘A Former Trump Appointee Is the Special Counsel Investigating Joe Biden.’”
Describing Hur’s appointment as a “political charade,” Patel added: “Just like in the Russiagate days, I think [the DOJ is] already setting the landscape for the cover-up that they need to have happen so their own problematic handling of prior investigations is not exposed. So, that’s why I have no faith in this new special counsel, and I just don’t see it becoming an actual investigation.”
In appointing Hur, the attorney general described the former U.S. attorney as having a “long and distinguished career as a prosecutor.”
“I am confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this Department,” Garland added.
Although Hur was not present for Garland’s announcement, he pledged to conduct his duties as special counsel with “fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment” in a statement released by the DOJ.
“I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly,” Hur added, “without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”
The Epoch Times has contacted Hur for comment.
A Questionable Timeline
According to the White House, the first cache of classified documents in Biden’s possession was discovered on Nov. 2 at the Penn Biden Center in Washington and reported immediately to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The documents were then transferred to NARA the next day.
According to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the National Archives Office of the Inspector General notified the Justice Department of the documents’ discovery on Nov. 4 and the FBI opened an investigation into the matter on Nov. 9.
Patel, however, said he doubts the administration’s timeline of events, finding it unlikely that NARA was unaware that the documents were missing.
“Are we really to believe that our top librarians in the United States of America didn’t know for six years that these documents were missing?” he said, adding that the matter should be investigated by the House’s newly-formed Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
Last week, House Republicans launched their own investigations into Biden’s possession of classified materials, requesting access to all the classified documents that had been discovered by the president’s attorneys “at any location,” in addition to the names of all involved in the search, the locations searched, and communications on the matter between the White House and NARA and the DOJ.
Since the first stash of documents was located, additional documents have been found at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence, in searches conducted by his personal attorneys. And even as the White House has made disclosures about the fruits of those searches, many questions remain unanswered.
Noting that it is still unclear as to how the classified materials ended up in Biden’s possession and were moved to those different locations, Patel said it was important to find out whether there were more documents to be found in other locations and who had access to the materials.
As no visitor logs exist for Biden’s Wilmington home, Patel said Congress should question all the Secret Service agents who have protected Biden over the last six years to learn more about who might have had access to the documents.
“Did the Secret Service have knowledge back then that there were sensitive documents running around in the wild?” he added. “That’s another question that no one’s asking.”
The Secret Service, according to spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, screens all of the president’s visitors but does not keep records of who is vetted.
Other questions have arisen regarding the DOJ’s handling of the investigation thus far, like the department’s decision to allow Biden’s personal attorneys to carry out the document searches without any supervision from law enforcement.
“That’s like having someone commit the murder … and then you let the murderer go and collect the evidence and bring it back to the cops,” Patel noted. “That’s absurd.”
Patel also contrasted the situation against that of the DOJ’s investigation into former President Donald Trump’s storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, alleging that the department’s political bias against Trump was now on full display.
“How is it that Merrick Garland can go to a podium and now say, ‘Well, it was justified that we went in with a full SWAT force into Mar-a-Lago, and it’s justified that we are letting President Biden’s attorneys conduct their own search of classified documents, who may or may not have the appropriate security clearances’?”
Implications for 2024
Prior to the White House’s public disclosure last week of the classified materials’ discovery, it was anticipated that Biden would announce his intention to seek reelection within the next couple of weeks.
However, as news of the investigation broke and prominent Democrats began calling for a special counsel, some began to wonder whether there wasn’t more to the timing of the announcement.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this story broke the week or two before the world was to learn whether or not Joe Biden was going to run for reelection,” Patel noted.
Suggesting that the scandal was leaked to “sideline” Biden, he posited, “What I believe is happening is there are people in the Democratic Party and the establishment media who don’t want Joe Biden to run for reelection.”
Others have espoused the same theory, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who told Fox News on Wednesday, “There’s an element to this that feels like the Democrats are taking out Joe Biden.
“I don’t know that that’s the case, but I don’t know that it’s not,” Gaetz added. “But just as Joe Biden is hardening the cement around his decision to run for president again, they start looking for what classified documents might have been tucked away eight years ago.”
But whether a political smear tactic or not, Patel said he thought it unlikely that the DOJ would charge Biden in the case. Instead, he held that the department would do the bidding of the Democratic Party and, using the legal woes of Biden’s son Hunter as leverage, convince him not to run again.
“They’ll say, ‘Hey, look, we’ll probably walk your son Hunter into a really nice deep plea agreement where he’s not charged with anything serious and you as a sitting president can commute or pardon him,” he suggested. “And then you guys can leave and go live your lives, and we, the Democrats, will put up a candidate we think can defeat Donald Trump.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House, Justice Department, and Democratic National Committee for comment.
UAE De-Dollarization Accelerates: “Crypto Will Play A Major Role In Trade Going Forward”
We are starting to see a pattern in the last week or so in geopolitical events that is anything but good for the unipolar hegemon in the west.
The first, as we detailed here, was when Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan, on a panel on “Saudi Arabia’s Transformation” in Davos, made it clear that Riyadh “will consider trading in currencies other than the US dollar.”
So is the petroyuan finally at hand? Possibly, but Al-Jadaan wisely opted for careful hedging:
“We enjoy a very strategic relationship with China and we enjoy that same strategic relationship with other nations including the US and we want to develop that with Europe and other countries.”
Second, as we reported here, The Central Banks of Iran and Russia are studying the adoption of a “stable coin” for foreign trade settlements, replacing the US dollar, the ruble and the rial.
The crypto crowd is already up in arms, mulling the pros and cons of a gold-backed central bank digital currency (CBDC) for trade that will be in fact impervious to the weaponized US dollar.
And now, third, Thani Al-Zeyoudi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) minister of state for foreign trade told Bloomberg TV that he is discussing ways to boost non-dollar trade (in oil and non-oil exports) with some of its largest trading partners.
The UAE and India are discussing ways to boost trade in rupees as the Gulf country looks to strengthen ties with its second-largest trade partner.
“We are still in early-stage discussions with India on this dirham-rupee trade,” Al-Zeyoudi said, adding that oil sales in the Indian currency are “not under consideration… This is only going to be focusing on non-oil trade.”
The UAE has been seeking to step up trade with crucial partners and last year signed multiple economic pacts with countries including India, Indonesia, Turkey, Israel and Ukraine.
In the coming months, the UAE expects to finalize similar agreements with Cambodia and Georgia, Al-Zeyoudi said.
Additionally, discussions on a trade agreement with China are also taking place, the UAE minister said.
“China is our first trade partner,” he said.
“For sure, more is going to be good for consumers, for workers, for people, for businesses.”
Finally, Al-Zeyoudi said that, “Crypto will play a major role for UAE trade going forward.”
The UAE – and especially Dubai – has been working to lure the world’s largest firms with its crypto-friendly policies.
“The most important thing is that we ensure global governance when it comes to cryptocurrencies and crypto companies,” Al-Zeyoudi said.
“We started attracting some of the companies to the country with the aim that we’ll build together the right governance and legal system, which are needed.”
All of which seems to confirm what Credit Suisse monetary icon, Zoltan Pozsar, said in his latest note, “War and Commodity Encumbrance” (must read as usual, and available to professional subs), which discusses two main things: i) commodity encumbrance (i.e., rehypothecation) and ii) the missing link of the Bretton Woods III world, the Petroyuan.
Of course, it is never that simple with any Pozsar report, and this one is no exception, so let’s start at the top of the most important narrative that will shape the next decade if not century.
As the Hungarian repo expert begins, a recurring theme in his dispatches this year has been that “in a moment when the world is going from unipolar to multipolar, the actions of heads of state are far more important than the actions of central banks.” That is because as heads of state lead, and their actions affect inflation, central banks merely follow by hiking rates to “clean up”. It has been Zoltan’s contention that central banks will be behind the curve in this game, “and if investors read only the speeches of central bankers but not statesmen, they will be even more behind the curve.”
More importantly however, this new multipolar world order is being built not by G7 heads of state but by what Pozsar calls the “G7 of the East” (the BRICS heads of state), which is a G5 really but because of “BRICSpansion” (he took the liberty to round up).
Bitcoin Surges Above $23,000; Best Start To A Year Ever…
Bitcoin’s rampage higher in 2023 accelerated overnight with the largest cryptocurrency topping $23,000 for the first time since August 2021…
Source: Bloomberg
The latest thrust pushed bitcoin back above its 200-day moving-average…
Source: Bloomberg
And while Ethereum has also surged, Bitcoin has dramatically outperformed its peers, erasing the year-to-date relative gains of the DeFi surge…
Source: Bloomberg
As Bitcoin Magazine’s Dylan LeClair details, one of the most useful models in tracking the cyclical tops for both the S&P 500 Index and bitcoin since March 2020 has proven to be net liquidity, an original model by 42 Macro.
Net liquidity tracks the changes in Federal Reserve total assets, the U.S. Treasury general account balance and the reverse repo facility. A lower net liquidity translates to less capital available to deploy in markets. We find it useful as a key macro indicator to assess current liquidity conditions and how bitcoin trades in the market.
Bitcoin has acted as a liquidity sponge throughout its life and contracting liquidity in all markets has had a significant impact on the bitcoin price and trajectory. Ultimately, that’s one of the main drivers of our core long-term thesis that bitcoin’s growth depends on an environment of perpetual monetary debasement and expanding liquidity to work against current levels of unsustainable sovereign debt and deflationary forces. In the short-term, it’s not clear when overall liquidity will increase again en masse. That’s the trillion dollar question and the topic of conversation on which everyone is speculating. Net liquidity provides a view into that trajectory as a measure that’s updated weekly with fresh data.
Bitcoin is seeing some of its largest relative strength since January 2021, but it also comes at a time when we’re seeing a significant daily uptick in net liquidity after a period of historically low volatility. The uptick is driven by a much lower reverse repo balance since the start of the year. With the Fed’s position of “higher for longer,” a projected view of Core CPI at 3.5% for 2023 and continued balance sheet runoff, we will likely see net liquidity decline — barring a spontaneous or emergency policy reversal.
Price has broken above the short-term holder realized price. That’s happened only a few times in this bear market and these events were short-lived. As this price reflects the average on-chain cost basis of the more recent buyers, it will be key to see if these market participants are looking to sell here at cost or if they will stay to continue with the momentum.
While there is a long way to go in terms of surpassing previous bull market heights, after a year where the enture industry practically imploded, the year-to-date performance is – according to Bloomberg data – the best start to a year in crypto’s history…
However, not everyone is buying this rally, with some suggesting it’s just another ‘dead cat bounce’.
As CoinTelegraph reports, Asia was leading the way into the weekend, with sellside pressure from market makers being absorbed on exchanges.
“Another rally driven by asia bid. TWAP buyers absorbing the sell pressure from MMs. Large spot bid lifting offers & ask wall pulled prior to another short squeeze,” intraday trader ‘Skew’ commented on a composite chart.
BTC/USD annotated charts. Source: Skew/ Twitter
On-chain analytics resource Material Indicators meanwhile flagged ask liquidity being removed on Binance the day prior, this allowing Bitcoin’s initial run beyond the $22,000 mark.
“Volatility continues. Don’t give it all back, be sure to take some profit along the way,” it wrote in part of a subsequent update.
BTC/USD order book data (Binance). Source: Material Indicators/ Twitter
As ever, Bitcoin was far from above suspicion at its latest highs, with some familiar faces still urging traders to prepare for the worst.
“The bigger the pump, the harder BTC will fall down,” analyst Toni Ghinea tweeted, while Crypto Tony argued that the entire move may be nothing more than a “dead cat bounce.”
“Regardless if this is dead cat relief wave or a reversal on Bitcoin, it is great to see some optimism back in Crypto,” he summarized.
Considering why further gains were coming after the end of the week’s TradFi trading, one popular commentator additionally suggested that traders were being manipulative.
“No one who genuinely wants to buy and own crypto waits until the Friday close each week to execute,” an update read, adding that those buyers’ “aim is clear.”
Finally, while miners are currently seeing some relief after a tough year, potentially rough roads lie ahead.
With the upcoming Bitcoin halving event due in 2024, mining BTC will become even more difficult and possibly more expensive for miners, providing more stress on already thin margins. On the upside, the last halving event in 2019 was followed by a 300% gain for BTC the year before.
