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World Economic Forum Invents New Word To Describe The Extreme Chaos Gripping Our Planet

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World Economic Forum Invents New Word To Describe The Extreme Chaos Gripping Our Planet

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

This week, 2,658 of the “world’s decision-makers” will gather in Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. 

Protected by thousands of police officers and soldiers, the elite of the world will feast and party throughout the week as they shape the global agenda for the coming year.  Needless to say, our input is not desired or welcomed.  In order to get into this conference, you have got to be a part of their club, and in order to be a part of their club you must be a very important person.  It is being reported that the official list of 2,658 attendees this year includes “heads of state, business royalty, actual royalty, media honchos, and academics”…

The world’s decision-makers are gathering in Switzerland this week for the World Economic Forum meeting. The annual event of business and government leaders is expecting a solid turnout as it returns to its traditional winter time slot following two years of covid disruptions.

According to the official list, which is accurate as of Jan. 10, 2,658 attendees are registered for the event. Among them are heads of state, business royalty, actual royalty, media honchos, and academics. There are hundreds more participating on the sidelines, whether organizing, catering, or attending corporate events along the promenade that cuts through the center of Davos.

I suppose that someone could try to show up at the conference unannounced, but it is not likely that anyone that is not authorized will get very close.

All of the roads leading to the conference have checkpoints, and apparently fingerprint scanners are being used in some cases to verify identities.

I can’t recall ever seeing anything quite like this.

In addition to hordes of regular police, the Swiss military will be providing “up to 5,000 soldiers” to bolster security…

With one week to go until the who’s who of the most radical globalists descend upon the picturesque ski resort town of Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, up to 5,000 soldiers from the Swiss army will be deployed to offer military support to the civil authorities of the canton of Graubünden, who are responsible for securing the summit’s premises and its participants.

In a statement released Friday, January 6th, the Swiss Defense Department (VBS) said that the Federal Assembly, the country’s parliament, had approved the deployment of the Swiss army contingent to ensure the security of thousands of participants, the Swiss German-language newspaper Blick reports. This year’s deployment is part of a three-year commitment, from 2022 to 2024, by Parliament to support these high profile civic activities.

Somehow, Klaus Schwab and his minions have turned this annual gathering in Davos into a “must attend” event for the global elite.

And if there is anything that the global elite do not like, it is mixing with the general population.

As Paul Joseph Watson has aptly observed, it is a big club and you and I are not part of it.

Leading up to the conference, the WEF issued a “global risks report”, and in that report they actually created a brand new term to describe the extreme chaos that is gripping our world right now…

The collective vocabularies stored in the world’s great dictionaries didn’t appear to hold a single world to sum up all this strife. So here’s a new one: Polycrisis.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 uses the term, to explain how, “present and future risks can also interact with each other to form a ‘polycrisis’ – a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”.

Normally, I disagree with everything that the World Economic Forum does, but I actually kind of like this new term that they have come up with.

We are definitely facing “a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”, and 2023 will almost certainly be another year when we are hit by one crisis after another.

I have often referred to what we are facing as “a perfect storm”, but I think that “polycrisis” is a pretty good descriptor as well.

Unfortunately, virtually every “solution” that will be on the agenda at Davos will be bad for humanity.

The globalists don’t seem to realize that the system that they have worked so hard to carefully construct is rapidly failing, and many in the general population are sick and tired of the self-destructive policies that they have been trying to push on all the rest of us.

Interestingly, as the global elite gather in Davos an extremely rare “green comet” will be making a run toward Earth

A rare green comet, last seen in Earth’s skies 50,000 years ago, is revisiting our solar system and may become visible to the naked eye within the next few weeks.

The comet – formally identified as C/2022 E3 (ZTF) but commonly called the “green comet” – won’t be as bright as other famous comets such as Halley’s or Hale-Bopp.

“The brightness of comets is notoriously unpredictable, but by (Feb. 1) C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could become only just visible to the eye in dark night skies,” NASA said in its blog.

This comet will be the closest to our planet on February 1st and 2nd, and that will be the best opportunity to potentially see it with the naked eye.

Before I end this article, I wanted to acknowledge the passing of Lisa Marie Presley.

It is such a tragedy to lose her at such a young age.

If Elvis was alive today, how do you think he would have responded to the sudden death of his little girl?

2023 is just a little over two weeks old, and already there has been so much sadness.

Unfortunately, I believe that much more sadness is coming, because the “polycrisis” that we are facing will only intensify even more as global events continue to accelerate.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 16:50

US NatGas Prices Rise As Models Suggest ‘Polar Vortex To Unload On US’

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US NatGas Prices Rise As Models Suggest ‘Polar Vortex To Unload On US’

Natural gas futures bounced off 18-month lows during the holiday session period as the latest runs of long-term weather models suggest winter might not be over for the Lower 48. 

US NatGas futures for February delivery moved up 21 cents to $3.63 per million British thermal units. The price is now trading above the 76.4% Fibonacci retracement level of the main drop from the high of $10 in August 2022 and the low of $1.43 in June 2020. 

The price of NatGas tumbled to an 18-month low last week as mild weather boosted injections into storage facilities by slashing demand. Last week, the Energy Information Administration announced a rare rise in inventories of 11 billion cubic feet in stocks.

However, as we’ve pointed out in recent weeks and even days, first in “US NatGas Prices Slide To 18-Month Low On Warm Spell; Some Models Forecast Cold Blast In Weeks” and “California Pounding Continues, But Upcoming Large-Scale Weather Pattern Change On The Way,” as well as “Siberia Records Minus-80 Degrees As Talk Of Polar Vortex Grows,” long term weather models are showing the increasing possibility for colder weather. 

The latest run of the Global Forecast System (GFS) shows the possibility of the return of winter by the end of the month. 

Both GFS and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) models for the Lower 48 show the possibility of a cold spell — when both long-term models suggest colder weather, the likelihood increases. 

More mainstream meteorologists, such as Ryan Maue, are now pointing out that a wicked cold spell might be headed for the Lower 48. 

“Winter coming back,” tweeted Weather forecaster Joe Bastardi. 

NatGasWeather said cold returns around Jan. 26-30 and might last through the first week of Feb. 

Winter isn’t over yet. 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 16:15

Chevron Sold Venezuelan Oil To Phillips 66

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Chevron Sold Venezuelan Oil To Phillips 66

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice

Chevron Corp has sold a cargo of Venezuelan crude oil to another U.S. refinery, Phillips 66, anonymous sources have said.

Chevron Corp recently sold 500,000 barrels of heavy Hamaca to U.S. refiner Phillips 66 to be used in its Sweeny, Texas refinery, the sources told Bloomberg.

It would be the first such sale since the United States sanctioned Venezuela’s crude oil.

In separate news, ConocoPhillips, which spun off its downstream business now known as Phillips 66 back in 2012, has expressed its willingness to sell Venezuela’s crude oil in the United States as a way to claw back some of the $10 billion owed by Venezuela. ConocoPhillips’ Venezuelan assets were nationalized in 2007—along with many other oil companies’ assets. ConocoPhillips has been authorized by the United States to negotiate debt recovery with PDVSA.

Earlier this week, PDVSA assigned a third crude oil cargo to Chevron under the latter’s new license to import sanctioned Venezuelan crude oil after a more than three-year ban.

Venezuela’s heavy crude oil is prized by U.S. refiners, who, until recently, looked to Russia’s heavy crude to replace it. In December, it was reported that several refiners were hitting up Chevron to get their hands on the rare Venezuelan crude oil.

It was originally thought that Chevron could prioritize its own refineries, which have a history of using Venezuela’s heavy crude—and the first delivery of 500,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil—also Hamaca crude—did go to its Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery.

Hamaca crude is an extra-heavy, sour blend, and the recent cargoes came from the Petropiar oil JV operated by Chevron and PDVSA. 

While Chevron is the only oil company with approval from the U.S. to import crude oil from Venezuela, other oil and gas companies are looking for a similar authorization—including foreign oil and gas companies who are demanding fair treatment.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 15:40

All The President’s Men: Biden’s Use Of Lawyers Raises Additional Concerns Over Handling Classified Material

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All The President’s Men: Biden’s Use Of Lawyers Raises Additional Concerns Over Handling Classified Material

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in the New York Post on the curious use of lawyers by President Joe Biden in the classified document controversy. There was a clear decision made to rely on his own counsel rather than the FBI or security officers after the discovery of highly classified documents in a closet in a private office. The decision clearly brings greater control and protection for the President, but it can itself be viewed as additional evidence of gross mishandling of classified material. In the movie “All The President’s Men,” Woodward chastises his colleague Bernstein that “I don’t mind what you did; I mind how you did it.” President Biden may face the same objection in his decision to use counsel to search for classified material.

Here is the column:

The discovery of a fourth set of classified documents, at the Biden residence in Delaware, has further undermined the White House’s virtual mantra that the president “takes classified documents very seriously.”

Putting aside the repeated movement of highly classified documents over six years, one curious element has emerged in this scandal: the use of private counsel.

Not only did President Joe Biden enlist lawyers to clear out his private Washington office; he then used them — rather than security officers or the FBI — to search for additional classified documents.

The initial use of lawyers is notable. While it seems a fairly pricey moving crew, Biden could argue a trove of documents might require a judgment on where they should be sent and whether they belong to Biden, the Penn Biden Center or the government.

But why was a legal team sent in six years after Biden took the documents on leaving as vice president? Were the lawyers specifically selected because they had clearances, an acknowledgment there might be classified material unlawfully housed in the office?

After the fourth batch of documents was discovered this week (the third found in Delaware), Richard Sauber, referred to as the “special counsel to the president,” stressed that he has a clearance. Sauber admits the lawyers who found the first batch at the residence didn’t have clearances but says he found the later documents.

It remains unclear which lawyers were involved in which discoveries, whether they had clearances and (if so) at what level.

In fact, it seems to suggest Biden continued to use uncleared lawyers after his team found highly classified documents Nov. 2 in the Penn Biden office closet in Washington.

That itself could be viewed as gross mishandling of classified information.

It’s strange Biden did not use security officers or the FBI to conduct further searches. The president has a host of people who regularly handle classified material. So why use the lawyers?

The answer appears the same as in the case of Hillary Clinton’s emails: control. Using private counsel allows Biden to raise attorney-client privilege. Trump also used counsel, but eventually the FBI raided his home to search and remove not just classified material but documents found in boxes with that material.

While that attorney-client privilege can be overcome under a “crime/fraud exception,” it adds a level of initial protection. It also allowed Biden to control the discovery and initial record of the discovery of classified information.

The key to any investigation will be the chain of custody extending back to the documents’ removal in 2017 when Biden left office. How these documents appeared in their discovered locations is known only to his lawyers. It’s a link in the chain of custody that Biden effectively controls.

With Mar-a-Lago, the FBI was criticized for staging documents to be shown in the storage room. The photos were then leaked to an eager media. There will be no staged photos of documents alongside Time magazine covers for Biden.

Nor were documents he housed with classified documents removed. Indeed, it’s not clear if the FBI will know what documents were stored in the same boxes.

What was potentially lost is significant. Classified documents are generally supposed to be in folders with a thick, colored border and large printed classification warnings. Were some of those folders observable before they were moved? If so, anyone could tell a pile contained classified material, including the president and passersby.

Likewise, the initial discovery could show the context of surrounding material. The FBI at Mar-a-Lago carefully photographed that context and its search. Here, we’re relying on counsel to have kept such a record when most lawyers would be reluctant to do so given the risk to their client.

The key is that unlike FBI agents, these lawyers are not acting on behalf of the public interest but for the president’s personal interests.

If there are criminal charges, the key witnesses will be lawyers representing the president as an individual. They are more likely to minimize incriminating or embarrassing elements.

And they are themselves under scrutiny. Since they may not have had sufficient clearances to do this work, it is in their interest to downplay any expectations or warnings of additional classified material scattered around Biden’s home or office.

Concern over the use of lawyers has only grown with time. Biden not only continued to have his lawyers search after the first discovery, but did so for months through subsequent discoveries.

After finding highly classified material in Biden’s garage Dec. 20, private counsel — not the FBI — found another document in an adjacent room Jan 11. Sauber found more classified documents the next day.

Those last two findings followed White House assurances that the “thorough” search was “completed.” It obviously wasn’t thorough enough.

They raised another question. It would seem unlikely a document with a proper classified cover could be missed. The folder has thick red or yellow borders running around the edges and large black classifications like “TOP SECRET” emblazoned across the top. If that was missed, the earlier searches were clearly negligent.

Alternatively, and more concerning, the internal documents might have been removed from the folders and stored without cover. That would indicate someone removed and reviewed them — an act showing knowledge of the classified status. If they were removed at Biden’s residence, he would be the chief suspect in such use.

It would utterly destroy the “inadvertence” defense.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 14:30

Musk Says ZeroHedge Did “Nothing Warranting Suspension” After ‘Twitter Files’ Expose Big Pharma Bullying

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Musk Says ZeroHedge Did “Nothing Warranting Suspension” After ‘Twitter Files’ Expose Big Pharma Bullying

Today’s Twitter Files drop contains several notable pieces of evidence.

First, that lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry launched a ‘massive lobbying blitz to crush any effort to share patents/IP for new covid-related medicine,” according to The Intercept‘s Lee Fang. As part of this effort, lobbying group BIO “wrote to the newly elected Biden admin, demanding the U.S. gov sanction any country attempting to violate patent rights and create generic low cost covid medicine or vaccines.

Of note, Pfizer and BioNTech raked in $37 billion in revenue in 2021 alone from the COVID-19 vaccine, while Moderna made $17.7 billion the same year (and has recently announced a plan to hike the price of the Covid-19 vaccine by approximately 400%).

BioNTech, which developed the Pfizer vaccine, “reached out to Twitter to request that Twitter directly censor users tweeting at them to ask for generic low cost vaccines.

According to Fang, “Twitter’s reps responded quickly to the pharma request,” while “A lobbyist in Europe asked the content moderation team to monitor the accounts of Pfizer, AstraZeneca & of activist hashtags like #peoplesvaccine.”

Meanwhile, the “fake accounts” flagged by the pharmaceutical companies for action were real people – one of whom Fang spoke with on the phone.

“For more than two years, a global movement has been speaking out against pharmaceutical greed and demanding that everyone, everywhere has the tools to combat pandemics,” said Maaza Seyoum, a campaigner for the People’s Vaccine Alliance. “Whatever nasty tricks companies and governments pull,” she continued, “we cannot and will not be silenced.”

Second, ‘Pfizer & Moderna’s lobbying group, BIO, fully funded a special content moderation campaign designed by a contractor called Public Good Projects (PGP), which worked w/Twitter to set content moderation rules around covid “misinformation.”‘ according to Fang.

BIO funded the PGP campaign, “Stronger,”  to the tune of $1.275 million. Its focus? Helping Twitter ‘create content moderation bots,’ selecting which public health accounts would be verified, and helping to crowdsource content takedowns.

Of note, the Moderna/Pfizer-funded campaign included regular emails to Twitter officals with takedown and verification requests.

“Here’s an example of those types of emails that went straight to Twitter’s lobbyists and content moderators. Many focused on @zerohedge, which was suspended.

Fang includes a screencap of an email with two excel spreadsheets containing said requests.

From Fang’s Intercept piece, below is one of the flagged tweets in question – which links to a ZeroHedge article aggregated from NakedCapitalism, and which logically posits; “if a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person have roughly the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus, particularly in its Delta form, what difference does implementing a vaccination passport actually make to the spread of the virus?”

“To try and stifle digital dissent during a pandemic, when tweets and emails are some of the only forms of protest available to those locked in their homes, is deeply sinister,” said Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now.

More on one of the people behind this effort, courtesy of Twitter user @TexasLindsay_

“To translate the above into layman’s terms she is a narrative enforcer. She’s funded by Big Pharma and aided by Big Brother to be the ministry of truth. She aims to create social norms by means of censorship and propaganda. She wants to tell you & I—how/what to say and think.

Meanwhile, as this bullying progressed this was happening…

Finally, as this latest ‘Twitter Files’ thread spreads across a holiday market, Elon Musk himself has opined on the efforts to bully the former Twitter executives into censoring ZeroHedge:

We’ll take the ‘being jerks’ jab… isn’t that what the media is supposed to be?

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 13:55

Peter Schiff: The Recession Everybody Denies Exists Is Going To Get Worse

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Peter Schiff: The Recession Everybody Denies Exists Is Going To Get Worse

Via SchiffGold.com,

Peter Schiff recently appeared on Dan Bongino’s Unfiltered on Fox News to talk about the economy, inflation, the stock market, the Federal Reserve and investing in 2023. Peter said the recession that everybody denies exists is going to get worse, and so is inflation.

Some people in the mainstream seem to think a big stock market rally is in the cards. Peter said the optimism is unfounded.

I don’t think it’s going to be a good year for the stock market. I think there are going to be some stocks that do well. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t own those stocks.”

Peter said the ones that most investors do own are going to go down.

The very popular stocks that a lot of people have crowded into during the bubble – these stocks, even though they’ve come down a lot in 2022, they still have a long way to fall. And I think there’s a lot of risk in 2023, not just in the market, but in the economy.

Bongino referenced an op-ed in the New York Post by Ken Fisher arguing that the bad news, especially in the job market, is already written into the script and priced into the market. That means we may well have a “summer of love” in the stock market with a healthy rebound. Peter said people are underestimating just how bad the news is going to get.

First of all, a lot of people think inflation is going to come down. It’s not. I think the decline is what’s transitory. I think we’re going to be making new year-over-year highs in inflation before the end of the year.”

Peter has been arguing that a declining dollar and an ultimate Fed pivot away from monetary tightening will mean more inflation down the road, even if we get some relief in the CPI over the next few months. He drove this point home in a recent podcast.

That is the really important point that seems to be lost on everybody. What investors are trying to figure out is ‘has inflation peaked?’ Have we seen peak inflation? Now, I think the answer to that question is no. I don’t think inflation has peaked. Now, it may have peaked for a short period of time. It may take until the second half of 2023 before we get a year-over-year rate of inflation that was higher than the high water mark for 2022. Who knows? Maybe it will take into 2024. But the one thing that I’m certain of is that we’re not going anywhere near 2%. And that is what investors still don’t understand — that the days of low inflation are over, and we’re living in an era of high inflation. That is a complete game-changer for the Fed and the Fed has yet to come to terms with this new reality, nor has the market.”

And during his discussion with Bongino, Peter said the notion the economy is about to rebound is nothing but a fantasy.

The recession that everybody denies exists is actually going to get worse. So, we’re going to have a weaker economy and stronger inflation. The markets are not expecting that, and neither is the Fed.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 13:20

Republicans Call Out ‘Double Standard’ Over Biden Classified Docs Hypocrisy

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Republicans Call Out ‘Double Standard’ Over Biden Classified Docs Hypocrisy

Congressional Republicans are crying foul over the double standard applied to President Biden’s mishandling of classified materials vs. the treatment former President Trump received.

To review, President Biden’s lawyers – who didn’t have clearance to view classified documents, allegedly stumbled upon a cache of them at his old office at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022, the day before midterm elections. After waiting nearly two months, more documents were found on December 20, January 9 and January 12 – the date on which AG Merrick Garland finally appointed a special counsel to investigate.

Trump, on the other hand, who has a potential constitutional argument that he could have declassified the documents recovered from his locked safe at his highly surveilled Mar-a-Lago residence, was treated to a raid by Biden’s DOJ

“Where’s the raid of Biden’s garage?” asked House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA).

“Now, we learn that Biden kept additional classified materials at his home in Delaware in his GARAGE. Yet there was no raid. No ransacking of Biden’s home. Nothing,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw tweeted, trying to get back in MAGA’s good graces.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called the situation “another faux pas by the Biden administration,” by “treating law differently based upon your political beliefs.”

“That’s why we had to provide a new entity from our Church-style [committee] to look after the weaponization of what’s gone on that you want an equal playing of the law to all Americans.”

McCarthy also pointed out the fact that officials have not released any photos of the documents recovered from Biden’s office and home. The Justice Department included a photo of materials retrieved from Trump’s residence in a court filing that was made public. –The Hill

“More classified documents Biden took from the Obama White House have been found at Biden’s Delaware house next to his Corvette. Biden assures the public it’s OK because his garage is locked… So, when’s the FBI raid?” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) in a Thursday tweet.

Trump was also ‘raided’ by the media, so to speak.

And crickets over Biden aside from scant cardboard reporting on the matter.

In fact, CNN‘s Jake Tapper is earning his paycheck carrying water for the regime:

Meanwhile, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has sent letters to the National Archives and the White House Counsel’s office requesting documents and communications pertaining to the classified materials, along with a request for information about the documents themselves and who may have been able to access them.

And Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the top GOP member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent AG Garland and DNI Avril Haines a request for a classified briefing about the documents.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 12:45

Mayor Says NYC Being “Undermined”, Has “No More Room” For Illegal Immigrants

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Mayor Says NYC Being “Undermined”, Has “No More Room” For Illegal Immigrants

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

New York City mayor Eric Adams has taken aim at the Biden administration for failing to take action and enact immigration reform to stem the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border while declaring there is “no room” in New York City for the “migrants” being sent to the city.

Adams, a Democrat, made the comments during a visit to the Texan border city of El Paso on Jan. 15 where he was joined by El Paso Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser.

Busloads of illegal immigrants have been shipped to Democratic-run sanctuary cities such as New York, Washington, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles in recent months, which has placed a strain on those communities as has been the situation in border towns for many years, and in some cases, has further exacerbated an already existing housing and homeless crisis.

Adams said on Sunday that migrants are being given a “false impression” about what to expect in New York via websites advertising that the city is home to automatic employment opportunities and will house migrants in hotels, as opposed to offering sheltered housing.

“There’s a conversation among those who are asylum seekers and migrants who are given the false impression that if you come to New York City, everything is fine. We have to give people accurate information,” Adams said, according to The New York Post.

A group of migrants from Texas wait in line outside Port Authority Bus Terminal to receive humanitarian assistance in New York on Aug. 10, 2022. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

“And that is what some of the centers are doing here. They are truly explaining to people that this is what is happening in New York right now. In New York, you go there, you’re going to be living in congregate settings, and there is no more room in New York. That should be coordinated by our national government,” Adams added.

A National Emergency

The New York mayor also called for a coordinated response to the crisis within cities seeing an increase in arrival of illegal immigrants, which he said should be aided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“This is a national emergency and crisis that must be addressed,” he said, while urging lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and the Biden administration to enact immigration reform.

Adams made similar remarks on Jan. 13, when he said New York City was at “breaking point” and would likely be unable to continue sheltering illegal immigrants arriving at the city without help from the federal government.

Lugging gallon jugs of water, illegal immigrants thread their way along footpaths just north of the Mexico/Arizona border. The numbers of illegal immigrants who have perished trying to cross the southern Arizona desert has reached an historic high this year. (Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times)

‘We Don’t Deserve This’

“We are now seeing more people arrive than we have ever seen—averaging over 400 people each day this last week, with 835 asylum seekers arriving on one single day alone, the largest single-day arrival we’ve seen to date. All this is pushing New York City to the brink,” Adams said.

The mayor said the city had submitted an emergency mutual aid request to the State of New York, starting the weekend of Jan. 13, which initially asks the state for support in accommodating 500 arriving asylum seekers, although he stressed that the number will “balloon” in time.

Adams has previously said that the influx of migrants into New York could cost the city as much as $2 billion—money that the city will struggle to grant as it deals with a major budget shortfall.

The number of illegal immigrants crossing the border has surged during Biden’s first two years of presidency, with border patrol agents making more than 2.2 million arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended in September.

New York is currently housing around 26,000 illegal aliens, and another 3,100 arrived in the last week-and-a-half, Adams said on Sunday.

“Our cities are being undermined,” Adams said. “And we don’t deserve this. Migrants don’t deserve this and the people who live in the cities don’t deserve this.

“We expect more from our national leaders to address this issue in a real way.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 12:10

“Distasteful Masterclass In Hypocrisy”: Elites Swarm Davos In Private Jets To Discuss Climate Crisis

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“Distasteful Masterclass In Hypocrisy”: Elites Swarm Davos In Private Jets To Discuss Climate Crisis

The annual conference of the World Economic Forum begins today in Davos, Switzerland. Global elites landed in luxurious private jets over the last few days in airports around Davos to discuss important global challenges, such as climate change, behind closed doors. 

“The rich and powerful are swarming to Davos to discuss climate and inequality behind closed doors using the most unequal and polluting form of transport: private jets,” Klara Maria Schenk, transport campaigner for Greenpeace’s European mobility campaign, told news website Politics.co.uk

Greenpeace International published a new report that showed 1,040 private jets flew in and out of airports around Davos for last year’s meeting, causing CO2 emissions from private jets to increase four times more versus a weekly average.

“Given that 80% of the world’s population has never even flown, but suffers from the consequences of climate-damaging aviation emissions, and that the WEF claims to be committed to the 1.5°C Paris Climate Target, this annual private jet bonanza is a distasteful masterclass in hypocrisy. Private jets must be consigned to history if we are to have a green, just and safe future for all. So-called world leaders must lead by example and ban private jets and useless short-haul flights,” added Schenk.

WEF hopes to tackle what they believe is a climate crisis plaguing the world despite most attendees arriving by private jets, which are the most polluting mode of transport per passenger

And motorcades of WEF attendees were spotted in gas-guzzling SUVs and high-end sedans. 

Meanwhile, climate protesters spent Monday morning blocking at least one airport used by the super-rich. 

“Davos has a perfectly adequate railway station, still these people can’t even be bothered to take the train for a trip as short as 21 km. Do we really believe that these are the people to solve the problems the world faces?” Schenk said.

And remember, these elites will discuss how to reshape the world while guarded by soldiers and private security forces.

The fact that WEF attendees arrive in droves of private jets only to discuss the climate crisis is hypocrisy at its finest. If there was actually a crisis, wouldn’t these so-called climate warriors take public transportation to save the planet? Maybe the crisis that WEF promotes is just manufactured hype. 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 11:35

Claims Of A Lower CPI Cannot Inflate Away Reality

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Claims Of A Lower CPI Cannot Inflate Away Reality

Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

Yes, we have a problem, and claims of a lower CPI cannot inflate away the reality that inflation hurts consumers. To start with consider the argument inflation is much higher than the government reports. That said, Jay Powell is most likely very serious about ending the Fed put which has been a huge contributor to the wealth effect and inequality. This has also been a big driver of financial and economic growth.

If Powell accomplishes his goal it is expected to result in a more “responsible” and less speculative financial system. As things stand, most Americans are watching their wages falling behind the price of goods. As people are forced to buy less economic growth slows. This would of course extend down to falling prices as the wealth effect slams into reverse. All this brings with it risk and probably a lot of pain. This issue is intensified because the ability to simply roll over debt and refinance has been greatly diminished. Both liquidity and rates reduce this possibility. Trends are not friendly to growth anywhere in the world.

Lower CPI Does Not Signal Growth Ahead

Even if inflation drops like a stone, that does not mean it will not return with a vengeance or signal growth will pick up. Feeding into this is that many people today do not want to work. The five-day service sector office work week became a thing of the past when people were told to stay home during the pandemic. Mediocre production on the part of workers coupled with the potential that Geo-political issues may soon create a slew of new commodity shortages. Supply chain problems and disruptions tend to limit the supply side of growth.

Powell’s decision to risk driving the economy into the dirt to create a more sustainable economic future conflicts with the priority of politicians. Their main goal is to get reelected, and if this means handing out free money to stimulate the economy, so be it. The big question is how big the next wave of checks will be, $2,000 maybe $3,000? An issue we cannot ignore is that each stimulus has less effect than the one before. 

A matter that should overshadow the liquidity/interest rate argument is rooted in the importance of savers being rewarded and not punished over time. Lowering interest rates because inflation drops a tad does not address the need of savers to be able to earn a safe return on their savings. This means allowing them to benefit even after both taxes and inflation. Bogus promises by the government to meet this need by selling Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) fall short. Anyone wishing to protect a substantial nest egg will find the government greatly limits such purchases.

Flipping back to the stock market and the idea people should buy stocks because we are in a bear market and they have had a big pullback could be flawed. If indeed we are in the process of a stock market bubble popping, they could continue down a lot farther. So far we have not seen a total capitulation where investors come to a place where they want nothing to do with stocks. 

Consider the famous John Maynard Keynes quote; “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

This is true for both the upside and downside. Flawed is thinking stocks will come soaring back. History shows following such a fall it can take several decades before this happens.

Trying to put together all the opposing views being thrown out there into some kind of order, is a mind-boggling task. The notion all currencies are about to be debased may have more to do with governments than central banks. This feeling of distrust in the future value of so-called “paper money” may spur inflation higher as people swap it for real assets. One thing remains certain amongst all this noise and that is protecting our buying power and wealth will continue to tax our ingenuity.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/16/2023 – 11:00