Earlier this week, the leader of a medical watchdog organization called out Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of North Carolina over a racist grant program which only applied to organizations run by non-whites.

“If ever there was a bad idea, the notion that we should start to separate our country along racial lines is amongst the worst,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a former associate dean for curriculum at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The $300,000 grant program, called “Advancing Healthy Food Equity” (AHFE), disqualified any organization with a white CEO from participating, while the community directly served by the program must also not be white.

“This opportunity is specifically designed to support community-rooted organizations that are led by, serving, and accountable to American Indians, Black, Latino, other People of Color, and members of immigrant communities, to increase their ability to engage in advocacy to address the root causes of inequitable access to healthy food,” said a spokesperson for the grant in a promotional video.

Now, BCBS has backpedaled – and has changed its policy of excluding white-run organizations from applying for a new grant program.

According to Laura Morgan, program manager for Do No Harm (DNH)—an organization that investigates and spotlights discriminatory practices in medical institutions, BCBS “got caught red-handed when they tried to inject ugly racial politics into their grant-making process,” the Epoch Times reports.

“Discrimination should have no place in our society, yet they were prepared to reject grant applications from nonprofits led by white CEOs just because of their skin color,” Morgan continued. “Do No Harm, along with BCBS customers and North Carolina state policymakers, will be watching very closely how the foundation updates the grant’s eligibility criteria.”

More via the Epoch Times,

Policy Change

Do No Harm’s report led to media coverage, after which the foundation issued an update on its website in which it stated that it would expand its eligibility criteria.

“Since we released this funding opportunity in early January, we have received inquiries from potential applicants and others working in the community whose work aligns with the goals of this opportunity, yet whose organizations don’t quite match all aspects of the stated eligibility criteria,” BCBS said. “After careful consideration, we have decided to expand both the number of organizations being supported by this grant funding, as well as the eligibility criteria for those seeking an award.”

According to its new criteria, the number of funded organizations is being extended from 10 to 14, the eligibility is being expanded to include a focus on rural communities, and the eligibility requirement that the organization’s CEO is a member of the community being served has also been waived.

“We are excited about this opportunity to broaden the impact of this work and look forward to partnering with many great organizations as we work together to expand access to healthy food across the state,” the foundation said.

Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

Sometimes things must get worse before they get better.  To completely remodel a kitchen, for instance, you must first demo and gut the old one.  These initial steps backward can be demoralizing.

But there’s no way around it.  And with perseverance and an ample budget, the ultimate result is usually a big improvement.

Similarly, remodeling a tired company requires making short term sacrifices for long term gains.  The initial efforts can produce ugliness.  And with the lives and livelihoods of employees on the line, the decisions can be emotional.  Yet sometimes it must be done.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently told investors that 2023 will be the “year of efficiency.”  If you recall, the company RIFed 11,000 workers in November 2022.  The scuttlebutt is that more layoffs are coming.

Currently, the prospect of imminent layoffs is triggering uncertainty about what projects will go forward, what will be cancelled, and who will be working on them.  This has created an interim situation where some Meta employees are getting paid to do zero work.  Strangely, for Meta to become more efficient, it must first be less efficient.

Still, Zuckerberg is clear on his objective.  In Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings call on February 1, the CEO noted:

“We’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers be more productive.”

And in a recent all-hands meeting, Zuckerberg – again – put middle managers on notice:

“I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work.”

Perhaps this is harsh.  But it’s true.

Moreover, when you get down to it, Zuckerberg is a real technology geek.  And he’s recognized that many of his cohorts, in the company he founded, are something else.

Real Technology Geeks

Real technology geeks, if you’ve ever met one, don’t care about days off or benefits or what the latest social justice cause is.  They care about programming and coding new applications and platforms that create something cool and elegant.

Real technology geeks, compelled by an idea, are on a mission.  With singleness of purpose, they close the blinds, turn off the lights, pull up their hoodies, and get wired in.  Then they crunch and code for 72 hours straight, pausing only to chug Red Bull energy drinks.

Real technology geeks are who created Apple, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Samsung, Tesla, Salesforce, Oracle, and others.  They’ve left their fingerprints on all aspects of modern life.  Good and bad.

But like any growth industry, be it the auto industry of the mid-20th century or the technology industry today, at some point the growth overshoots the future value.  The point of overshoot, however, isn’t discernable when it first happens.  The momentum and rush for market share obscures it.  Sometimes it can be obscured for decades.

During the latent overshoot period, the industry becomes occupied by pretenders.  Over the last decade, for example, technology companies were unwittingly filled with fake technology geeks who demanded free lunches and fat paychecks.  Rather than driving technology into the next frontier, they occupied their time posting memes and feigning outrage on social media.

These fake technology geeks concentrated into middle management positions.  There, they didn’t have to do work of any meaningful value.  Instead, they made staffing plans and delivered performance reports up the management chain.

It was a lot of fun while it lasted.  Nonetheless, the techno poser era is over.  In fact, it has been over since mid-2022.

Techno Posers

Zuckerberg marked the end of the techno poser era during a June 30, 2022, remote meeting.  There he announced he wanted to remove Meta employees who are “coasting” or low performers.  “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” he remarked.

Many of Zuckerberg’s employees – particularly, the techno posers – thought this was a real hoot.  New memes soon appeared on Workplace, including: “Coast, Coasters, Me,” a play on Meta’s “Meta, Metamates, Me” mantra.

Other enterprising employees created posters for the walls at Meta’s headquarters asking, “Should you be here?” in bold, all-caps red letters.  “Look at this dude coasting,” wrote one employee above a picture of Zuckerberg hydro-foiling on a lake while holding the American flag.

Apparently, Meta’s vast collection of techno posers had not the faintest inkling of what was going on.  This was best characterized during the Q&A part of the meeting.  Here, The Verge fills in the details:

“‘Hi there,’ the first prerecorded employee question started.  ‘I’m Gary, and I’m located in Chicago.’  His question: would Meta Days — extra days off introduced during the pandemic — continue in 2023?

“Zuckerberg appeared visibly frustrated.  ‘Um… all right,’ he stammered.  He’d just explained that he thought the economy was headed for one of the ‘worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history.’  He’d already frozen hiring in many areas.  TikTok was eating their lunch, and it would take over a year and a half before they had ‘line of sight’ to overtaking it.

“And Gary from Chicago was asking about extra vacation days?

“‘Given my tone in the rest of the Q&A, you can probably imagine what my reaction to this is,’ Zuckerberg said.  After this year [2022], Meta Days were canceled.”

Do Techno Posers Have the Skills to Pay the Bills?

Gary from Chicago, no doubt, is a techno poser.  Rather than digging deep and doing something rad, he’s counting his vacation days.  We don’t know if Gary from Chicago is still employed at Meta.  Regardless, we do know that many of his techno poser associates are now out of work.

They’ve gone from coasting at coddled, well-paying jobs, to coasting on their living room couch.  Technology companies are hemorrhaging jobs.  So, it is unlikely many of these techno posers will find a new job at a technology company.

There’s nothing wrong with going where the money is.  And over the last decade the technology industry was a well-funded place to be.  To their credit, many smart and ambitious minds were able to ride the wave and enjoy a very comfortable living.

However, now that the technology wave has crashed, what’s next?

Real technology geeks will do what they do best.  They’ll bootstrap new start-ups that innovate and propel the next great big technology wave.  Others will remain with the remodeled, more efficient versions of their employers and will push for the next big profit-generating breakthroughs.

There are also intelligent and productive programmers that will have to take their talents outside the technology industry.  Maybe they’ll find gainful employment overseeing the billing platform for a local utility.  Others could manage the patient record applications at Kaiser Permanente.

As for the terminated techno posers, do they have the skills to pay the bills?

One techno poser, Bailey, has started a side hustle flipping real estate.  She says she only has to work one to two hours a week to make money.  Impressive.  Maybe it will work out for her.

But what about the other techno posers?  The one’s that like to tell others what to do rather than do real work themselves.  What will they do?

Naturally, there’s only one thing they can do.  They’ll go into government work.  There they can get paid for telling other people – including you – what to do.  And they can feel good about doing it.

*  *  *

Techno posers aren’t all bad.  And many good people now finding themselves collateral damage of broad RIFs.  Maybe you’re one of them or you know someone who is.  Regardless, there’s no time like the present to prepare your finances for the madness that’s coming.  In fact, there are things you can do.  If you’re interested in discovering several ideas, take a look at my Financial First Aid Kit.]

One day after the Biden administration rejected Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s request for federal assistance in the aftermath of a derailment of a train hauling toxic chemicals, the governor tweeted late Friday evening that the Feds have reversed course in their decision and will deploy resources to East Palestine as soon as Saturday. 

“Following further discussions with FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] tonight, they will be deploying federal resources to East Palestine,” Gov. DeWine tweeted. 

The governor and FEMA released this joint statement:

“FEMA and the State of Ohio have been in constant contact regarding emergency operations in East Palestine. U.S. EPA and Ohio EPA have been working together since day one. Tomorrow, FEMA will supplement federal efforts by deploying a Senior Response Official along with a Regional Incident Management Assistance Team (IMAT) to support ongoing operations, including incident coordination and ongoing assessments of potential long term recovery needs.”

The U-turn comes as FEMA Ohio told the state government on Thursday that Palestine wasn’t eligible for disaster assistance to help with the clean-up effort in the toxic spill and controlled burn-off that has resulted in an environmental disaster. 

The train crash in Palestine, Ohio is an ECOLOGICAL atom bomb. Why are details being hidden? Why are they LYING to people?

We got to talk to @nicksorter who is currently in Ohio covering the story. Follow him for updates.

Do you have updates or news to share? Post it below so… https://t.co/4b9c1e3vcw pic.twitter.com/cHfjlexZdy

— Redacted (@TheRedactedInc) February 18, 2023

Both Ohio’s senators, J.D. Vance (R) and Sherrod Brown (D), separately asked DeWine to declare a disaster in the small blue-collar town. Vance emphasized Norfolk Southern must be held accountable for any damage. 

Vance visited the small town days ago. He went to a small creek bed and filmed what appeared to be toxic chemicals from the railcars. Meanwhile, other officials have ensured the public that the ‘air is clean and water is fine.’ 

Visited a local creek in East Palestine today. These waterways are still very polluted. It’s time for Norfolk Southern to finish the cleanup. Check this video out: pic.twitter.com/4lsHBmrMJj

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) February 16, 2023

What’s troubling is the incoherent response by the federal, state, and local governments after the derailment. What’s even more alarming is the decision by the officials to burn off railcars of vinyl chloride that some say ‘chem-nuked’ the town and surrounding communities. 

I am only reporting from here.. I don’t live here. These people do. This is their reality in East Palestine Ohio after the train derailment and the calculated decision to burn the toxic chemicals in the train cars. @FOX19 pic.twitter.com/xPN0dtEoK4

— Tricia Macke (@FOX19Tricia) February 18, 2023

…🇺🇸…US Environmental Protection Agency conducts tests in East Palestine, Ohio, to detect release of hazardous chemicals as locals report headaches, odours and dead fish in creeks #OhioChemicalDisaster #OhioChernobyl #Ohio #OhioTrainDisaster #OhioTrain pic.twitter.com/Kw5Q14K8qe

— Vũ thế Hưng (@vuthehung_1995) February 18, 2023

As for the slow response by federal officials and media downplaying the chemical disaster, Legal Insurrection asks: 

“Is the Ohio Toxic Train Derailment the Biden Administration’s Hurricane Katrina?” 

Here’s more from Legal Insurrection:

For over a week, the Biden administration, Ohio state officials, and most of the American media has been downplaying the magnitude of the environmental disaster that has arisen due to the response to the train derailment near East Palestine.

However, in the post-covid era, Americans are no longer willing to blindly believe what “experts” assert about the “science.” This is especially true when the realities run counter to the official narrative.

The EPA, with the Ohio National Guard and a Norfolk Southern contractor, also has collected air samples – checking for vinyl chloride, hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide, phosgene and other compounds – in the East Palestine community, it had said. Air monitoring results posted Tuesday at the EPA’s website include more than a dozen instruments, each with four types of measures – and each stating its “screening level” had not been exceeded.

But when Velez returned Monday for a short visit to the neighborhood where his family has lived since 2014 to check his home and his business, he developed a nagging headache that, he said, stayed with him through the night – and left him with a nagging fear.

“If it’s safe and habitable, then why does it hurt?” he told CNN. “Why does it hurt me to breathe?”

Air contamination isn’t the only concern. There is plenty of evidence, based on 3,500 dead fish that the water is polluted with the by-products of igniting several industrial chemicals in the response. Towns downstream of East Palestine are monitoring their water…and are offering their own assurances about the safety levels.

But officials with the Louisville Water Co. and Air Pollution Control District say they are monitoring the situation and don’t anticipate any danger to local residents.

The violent 50-car Norfolk Southern train crash triggered evacuations for the small Ohio town on Feb. 3, as large quantities of vinyl chloride and other contaminants entered the environment. Since then, authorities have assured people near the crash site that it’s safe to return to their homes. A federal lawsuit has already been filed by residents over the event.

The lack of a cohesive, effective response to civic catastrophe calls to mind the criticism of former President George W. Bush and his administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. Many Legal Insurrection readers may recall Bush and his officials were criticized for being disinterested, slow, and needlessly unprepared for the Category 5 storm and its impact on New Orleans.

It was the “flood that sank Bush.”

We can now consider that Ohio’s toxic train derailment is Biden’s Katrina.

Clearly, Biden has not been mentioned as acting in any significant capacity for Americans dealing with this disaster. Even though the citizens of this region voted in significant numbers for President Donald Trump, they are still suffering a disaster that is truly worthy of full emergency management support.

Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg has been criticized for his tone-deaf response to the train derailment. In fact, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has just called for Buttigieg’s resignation.

Buttigieg addressed the disaster Monday, over a week after the crash occurred on Feb. 3. Residents living in areas surrounding East Palestine, Ohio, were instructed to evacuate after 50 train cars derailed and subsequently caught fire, spewing vinyl chloride, phosgene, hydrogen chloride, and other gases into the air and water.

Biggs said the acknowledgment came “10 days too late,” echoing other Republicans such as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) who were critical of the delay.

But I would like to draw some attention to the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, who hasn’t gotten the scrutiny I think he deserves richly. Given the devastating environmental impact shown in videos, social media messages, and some serious reports by a few responsible journalists, you would think the EPA head would be front-and-center in the response.

However, Regan is showing up 13 days too late….and his officials are the ones who should be selecting the proper tests, conducting the complete analysis, and creating the mitigation plans.

Michael Regan, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will visit East Palestine Thursday, 13 days after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and caught fire in the village.

Regan announced the visit in a tweet on Wednesday, and shared a video from his interview with Fox News. Regan said he will hear from East Palestine residents in their homes, visit the derailment site and meet with emergency responders.

Regan was probably too busy pushing environmental justice programs.

And let’s not forget the EPA’s disastrous handling of the Animas River contamination, which resulted from that agency’s decisions regarding handling a mine’s waste stream.

Americans are clearly in no mood to trust “experts,” especially ones clearly not interested in anything that doesn’t push their narratives or agendas.

Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,

Fragility has probably never been greater in history. Just three words encapsulate the destiny of the world.

The THREE words are: WAR, DEBT, ENERGY

A FOURTH word will financially save the ones who understand its significance. It will also play a major role in the world’s future monetary system. The word is obviously GOLD. As the world moves from a fragile debt based Western system to a commodity and energy based system in the East and South, gold will assume a strategic role in the monetary system.

WAR – WWIII

War is obviously a potentially catastrophic threat since the sheer existence of the world and mankind is now at maximum risk. Wars are horrible whoever starts them. Since the beginning of mankind there have probably been over 100,000 important wars and conflicts.

Wars are horrible whoever starts them. Most wars end in major fatalities and injuries and a massive human and financial cost. And at the end of the war, the situation is often worse than when it started, like in for example Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq and Libya which countries the US invaded unprovoked. The same will most probably be the case in Ukraine.

There are always two sides to a war. I learnt many years ago that before we judge someone, we must walk three moon laps in his moccasins.

So let us first walk in Putin’s moccasins.

The whole West hates Russia and have personalised it to Putin. Few realise that many of the people behind Putin are extreme hardliners and much more dangerous. Historically, Ukraine (like many European countries) has had a motley existence. Since the late 1700s to 1991 Ukraine was part of Russia / Soviet Union with a brief interruption after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.

After the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, the Minsk agreement brokered by Germany and France stipulated that parts of the Donbas region should be granted self-government. There should also be a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons by the Ukrainians. The Minsk agreement was never honoured and Ukraine continued to kill over 20,000 Russians in the region and to bomb the Donbas. As the bombing intensified in early February 2022, (allegedly at the insistence of the US), Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

So the above is how Russia and Putin sees the Ukrainian situation.

Wearing America’s moccasins, the US Neocons are extremely worried about losing the US hegemony. Since WWII, the US has basically failed with every war they have been involved in. But in their view, if they fail in the present conflict, that will be the end of US  dominance both politically and financially.

Ukraine is clearly just a pawn in a much bigger game between the two titans – USA and Russia. 

I watched Zelensky’s latest speech live to UK parliamentarians where he was begging for planes, weapons and money. This is obviously the role of a defending leader although he is clearly sacrificing hi people.

But wars are really really bizarre. Clapping every sentence that Zelensky uttered about the evil Russian invaders were around 1,000 politicians whose British ancestors, over a 400 year period, had invaded, conquered and ruled over 400 million people and 25% of the world’s landmass including major parts of Asia, Australia, Africa, Middle East and America. But today the shoe is on the other foot.

Politicians are masters at throwing stones whilst sitting in glass houses.

But wars are always about CONSEQUENCES. It is clearat this pointthat the West is sadly ignoring the potential consequences of this war as they keep sending money and weapons but no peace makers. The US has no desire for peace at this stage and Europe just follows blindly whatever the US initiates without thinking of the consequences which both economically and militarily are much graver for Europe.

Zelensky has asked for tanks and is getting them. He is now asking for planes which the NATO countries are also considering. There are not yet any NATO troops in Ukraine officially but it is clear that there are many NATO soldiers there without the official uniforms. An Austrian colonel confirms that if a NATO solider takes off his uniform, he is a mercenary and this seems how NATO sends troops to Ukraine unofficially. Also the Mozart group led by a retired US Marine Corps Colonel  acts in Ukraine as mercenaries.

So what is clear that there are not only NATO weapons in Ukraine but also soldiers. This by definition is as close to WWIII as the world can get.

It seems very unlikely that Russia will lose this war with their military superiority. Even with major additional help from NATO, Ukraine is unlikely to stand a chance.

If NATO decides to escalate the war with major troops and equipment, not only Russia will respond strongly but possibly also China and maybe India and Korea.

But there are clearly only losers in a nuclear war.

If that happens, major parts of the world and population will be gone and we won’t have to worry about deficits and debts or stocks and gold.

Let’s hope that world leaders and the ones pulling their strings come to their senses.

DEBT BUBBLE

According to Genesis in the Bible, Nimrod (grandson of Noah) built the Tower of Babel. The Babylonians desire was to make it “with its top in the heavens”. But god punished them for this deed, stopped the construction and scattered the people all around the world. Before that point spoke the same language but thereafter they all spoke different languages so they couldn’t understand each other.

Since then Central Bankers have built themselves towers or structures which haven’t quite reached heaven but both their aspirations and the money they have printed probably have.

What will pull these buildings down will probably not be the wrath of god but the wrath of the people as they realise that these monuments are a sign of bankers’ hubris based on fake money. And this fake money has not just built grandiose buildings like the Bank of International Settlement – BIS – tower in Babel Basel or the Eccles building that houses the FED in Washington.

No, fake money has also built astounding wealth for the top few percent of wealthy people and impoverished the rest.

The French Revolution in the late 18th century or the Russian Revolution in 1917 were caused by significantly smaller differences between the rich and the poor than today.

The poverty & famine which many people in the world are already experiencing will in coming years/decades likely cause social unrest and revolutions on a major scale. In the last quarter, civil unrest rose in over 100 countries and more than 30 countries are currently at war. A collapse of the financial system which is less stable than a House of Cards will obviously exacerbate the situation and could easily cause major upheaval in many parts of the world.

GLOBAL DEBT BUBBLE OF $2.3 QUADRILLION

As I have outlined in many articles, these towers mentioned above have been instrumental in creating a global debt bubble of $300 trillion plus derivatives and unfunded liabilities of around $2 quadrillion, most of which will turn into debt in the next decade or less.

So even if the world can avoid a major nuclear war,  it is likely to suffer massive repercussions from the financial calamity coming next.

As Gandhi said:

“THERE IS SUFFICIENCY IN THE WORLD FOR

MAN’S NEED BUT NOT FOR HIS GREED.”

To create $2.3 quadrillion of global liabilities has nothing to do with man’s need but only with the greed of a few at the expense of mankind.

When the nuclear financial bubble bursts in the next few years, we will see an implosion of asset prices in real terms by 75-90% as I have outlined in many articles like here. LINK

In my article “IN THE END THE $ GOES TO ZERO AND THE US DEFAULTS” , LINK, I also explain that “there is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion” as von Mises stated.

So even if the world survives the threat of a nuclear war, a collapse of the financial system is absolutely inevitable. The greed and the adoration of the golden calf that some parts of the world have practised in the last 50 years, will not go unpunished.

This major transformation coming will be like a financial nuclear event. After a difficult transition, the world will not only come out of it with a much sounder foundation but also based on much better human values than currently.

OIL – ENERGY

As the world moves from a debt based and fake money system to a much sounder one, resting on real values, especially energy and other commodities, the balance of power will continuously shift from West to East and South.

I outlined in this article, the decline of the West and the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa),  the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Eurasia Economic Union.

The final move down of the dollar is likely to involve a US default even though the US hubris will prevent them from using that word. It will instead be called a reset but the whole world will know that this disorderly reset will involve the US currency having lost all of its value.

The Fed will obviously invent a new digital currency that the rest of the world should not touch with a barge pole. Remember that the dollar, like most currencies, has already lost 98% since 1971. But the final 2% fall represents a 100% fall from today.

Throughout history the same total destruction has happened to every currency. Hubristic governments and central bankers clearly deserve this punishment. But sadly it is always the undeserved people who will suffer the most.

ENERGY

Another major economic crisis for the world is the contracting energy system.

The world economy is driven by energy. Without sufficient energy the living standards would decline dramatically. Currently fossil fuels account for 83% of the world’s energy. The heavy dependence on fossil fuels is unlikely to change in the next few decades.

The scale shows billion tonnes of oil equivalent energy.

As the graph shows, the energy derived from fossil fuels has declined for the last few years. This trend will accelerate over the next 20+ years as the availability of fossil fuels decline and the cost increases. The economic cost of producing energy has gone up 5X since 1980.

What very few people realise is that the world’s prosperity does not improve with more debt but with more and cheaper energy.

But sadly as the graph above shows, energy production is going to decline for at least 20 years.

Less energy means lower prosperity for the world. And remember that this is in addition to a major decline in prosperity due to the implosion of the financial system and asset values.

The graph above shows that energy from fossil fuels will decline by 18% between 2021 and 2040. But although Wind & Solar will proportionally increase, it will in no way compensate for the fall in fossil fuels. For renewable energy to make up the difference, it would need to increase by 900% with an investment exceeding $100 trillion.  This is highly unlikely since the production of Wind & Solar are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

Another major problem is that there is no efficient method for storing Renewable energy.

Let’s just take the example of getting enough energy from batteries. The world’s largest battery factory is the Tesla Giga factory. The annual total output from this factory would produce 3 minutes of the annual US electricity demand. Even with 1,000 years of battery production, the batteries from this factory would produce only 2 days of US electricity demand.

So batteries will most probably not be a viable source of energy for decades especially since they need fossil fuels to be produced and charged.

Nuclear energy is the best available option today. But the time and cost of producing nuclear means that it will not be a viable alternative for decades. Also, many countries have stopped nuclear energy for political reasons. The graph above shows that nuclear and hydro will only increase very marginally in the next 20 years.

Of course the world wants to achieve cleaner and more efficient energy. But today we don’t have the means to produce this energy in quantity from anything but fossil fuels.

So stopping or reducing the production of fossil fuels, which is the desire of many politicians and climate activists, is guaranteed to substantially exacerbate the decline of the world economy.

We might get cleaner air but many would have to enjoy it in caves with little food or other  necessities and conveniences that we have today.

So what is clear is that the world is not prepared for even the best scenario energy case which entails a major decline in the standard to living in the next 20-30 years at least.

GOLD

Digital currencies are the perfect means for controlling the people in a totalitarian world. It gives Big Brother total power in relation to the people’s money. They can be taxed, fined or directed by any whim of the government. This would include arbitrary taxation or confiscation.

Thus CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) are a total disaster in relation to personal freedom. But in many countries the serfs have already been trained for this. Take Sweden where cash hardly exists and credit cards are used for all spending, even buying a newspaper or a loaf of bread. Most shops don’t even accept cash.

Thus the placid Swedes would happily hand over control over their money to the government, totally oblivious of the consequences.

As a lover of freedom, I would hate to live under such circumstances even though I was born in Sweden and really like many aspects of this country.

The people will not have a vote on digital money in any country just like they have no say when their leaders start a war. Personally I would do everything to avoid such oppressive circumstances but I do realise that it would be difficult for most people. 

With the coming fall of the dollar and many other currencies, as well as the end of the petrodollar, gold is likely to play a major role in the monetary system dominated by the East and South.

With government spending out of control in most countries, gold is the only currency you can trust just as it has been for 1,000s of years.

The BRICS, with China, Russia and India as major gold countries, are likely to make gold an important part of the future monetary system.

Gold is not for investment or speculation.

Gold is insurance and wealth preservation.

Gold is saving and financial survival.

2023 is likely to be the year of gold. Both fundamentally and technically gold looks like it will make major up moves this year. Any correction must be used to accumulate. Much better to buy low than on breakouts.

But please buy only physical gold and store it in a safe jurisdiction away from kleptocratic governments.

Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

As in neighboring Germany and Austria, cash is still king in Switzerland albeit a much diminished one. But the Swiss will soon have the chance to vote on whether to preserve notes and coins indefinitely.  

This is a rare positive news story that, perhaps unsurprisingly, has received next to no attention beyond Swiss borders. As far as I can tell, none of the legacy media in the US, UK, France, Germany or Spain have even bothered to cover the story. Indeed, it only registered on my radar a couple of days ago, over a week after the story initially broke, because an acquaintance of mine with family in Switzerland told me about it.

So, here’s the basic thrust of the story: At the beginning of last week, a Swiss pressure group with libertarian leanings called the Swiss Freedom Movement (FBS) announced it had collected enough signatures (111,000) to trigger a national vote on preserving cash for posterity. If passed, the initiative would require the federal government to ensure that coins and banknotes are always available in sufficient quantities. What’s more, any attempt to replace the Swiss Franc with another currency — quite possibly a reference to a central bank digital currency — would also have to be put to popular vote.

From Reuters:

Swiss citizens will get the chance to try to ensure their economy never becomes cashless, a pressure group said, after collecting enough signatures on Monday to trigger a popular vote on the issue.

The Free Switzerland Movement (FBS) says cash is playing a shrinking role in many economies, as electronic payments become the default for transactions in increasingly digitised societies, making it easier for the state to monitor its citizens’ actions.

It wants a clause added to Switzerland’s currency law, which governs how the central bank and government manage the money supply, stipulating that a “sufficient quantity” of banknotes or coins must always remain in circulation…

Under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, the proposal would become law if approved by voters, though government and parliament would decide how that law was implemented.

FBS says cash is playing a diminishing role in many economies, including Switzerland, as digital payment methods come to the fore, making it easier for the State and central bank to track citizens’ behavior.

“It is clear that… getting rid of cash not only touches on issues of transparency, simplicity or security… but also carries a huge danger of totalitarian surveillance,” FBS president Richard Koller said on the group’s website.

Cash Still King in Switzerland, Albeit a Much Diminished One

As in neighboring Germany and Austria, cash is still king in Switzerland, though its role has shrunk significantly in recent years. According to the findings of the Swiss National Bank’s last survey of people’s spending habits, conducted in the autumn of 2020, 97% of Swiss citizens still keep cash in their wallets or at home to cover day-to-day expenses, which is significantly higher than most countries.

Forty percent of transactions were still being made using cash, which is also higher than many of Switzerland’s more cashless European neighbors, such as the UK (around 15%), Sweden (less than 10%) and Norway (3-4%, the lowest level of cash usage in the world). But that was down from around 70% three years earlier. What’s more, in terms of transaction value, the debit card recently overtook cash as the payment method with the highest share for non-recurring payments.

“The survey results show that, in terms of the number of payments made, cash continues to be the payment instrument most frequently used by the Swiss population,” Fritz Zurbrugge, then-vice-president of the Swiss National Bank’s governing board, said. “Compared with 2017, however, when the first payment methods survey was carried out, its usage share has dropped significantly. The coronavirus pandemic has given additional impetus to this shift from cash to non-cash payment methods”.

As readers are well aware, the pandemic rapidly intensified preexisting forces, mainly due to unfounded fears that cash could exacerbate the spread of COVID. Those fears were stoked and magnified by mainstream media and seized upon by certain retailers (such as the British supermarket Tesco) to justify encouraging all customers to avoid making cash payments. Even today, with most public health measures (at least of the non-pharmaceutical variety) consigned to the back burner, retailers in some countries continue to reject cash.

Three Unique Benefits of Cash, According to SNB

The date for the referendum on the cash initiative is yet to be set. A video report on the issue by Swiss Info emphasized that none of Switzerland’s main political parties support the initiative. It also underscored the FSB’s libertarian credentials while likening the cash initiative to the failed sovereign money initiative of June 2018, also known as Vollgeld, which sought to put an end to fractional reserve banking by including the creation of scriptural money in the legal mandate of the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

The SNB opposed that referendum. It is not yet clear what it makes of the cash initiative. Officially speaking, the central bank has no preference as to whether people pay with cash or digital alternatives. Freedom of choice is what matters. In a speech last November titled “Popular, But Under Pressure – Cash in the Digital Age”, Martin Schlegel, vice chairman of the SNB’s governing board, highlighted three key advantages cash has over digital payments:

• First, cash makes managing your money clear and simple. It is easier to keep a firm grasp on your spending with notes and coins. You only have to open your wallet to see if you can afford additional expenses. It is with good reason that parents usually give children their pocket money in cash. By contrast, when you hold a plastic card up to a payment terminal, all you see is an amount that will be debited from your account at some point in the future.

• Second, thanks to its simplicity of use, cash allows everyone to participate in the economy in social life. You do not need an account or a mobile phone to pay with coins and banknotes, nor do you need an affinity with digital technology.

• Third, when paying by cash, you do not need to provide personal details such as your name or card number. With electronic payments, however, information about the persons making the payment and their payment behaviour is stored.

To ensure that people can continue to enjoy these benefits, Schlegel said the SNB must help preserve Switzerland’s cash infrastructure, which includes cash processing operators and commercial banks. It also means ensuring that shops continue to accept notes and coins for purchases.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, in Switzerland the outcome of a referendum does not automatically become law. As NC reader Irrational has kindly pointed out, there there are plenty of instances where the Swiss government, parliament, courts and official agencies have delayed and/or watered down undesirable legislation approved by the public.

Norway’s “Cash Crisis”

In some countries that are further along the road to a fully cashless existence, central banks and governments are already taking steps to preserve cash services. They include Norway. In a 2021 survey, the country’s central bank, Norges Bank, found that many of the country’s commercial banks were no longer accepting responsibility for providing cash services. This became a major exacerbating factor in Norway’s so-called “cash crisis” of May 2022, when card terminals across the nation went down for hours, leaving millions of people unable to transact.

That crisis underscored the ongoing importance of cash, which Schlegel describes as “particularly
crisis-proof”:

You can still pay with banknotes even when a card terminal has stopped working, when your mobile phone has no reception or when there is no electricity. Cash therefore serves as an important back-up in the event of local – or even widespread – interruptions to card or app payments.

Norway’s “cash crisis” appears to have galvanized both the government and Norges Bank to shore up cash services and the right to pay with banknotes and coins. In September 2022, the Ministry of Justice and Emergency Preparedness submitted a proposal for changes to the Act to strengthen the right to pay cash, with physical businesses being required to accept it and provisions in place to consider individual cases for other services.

But at the same time, most central banks, including Norges Bank and the SNB, are also exploring the possibility of launching their own central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, in the not-too-distant future. While most central banks have repeatedly said that CBDCs, once launched, will co-exist alongside cash, there are no guarantees that that is what will happen, or under what sort of conditions.

In 2019, a blog post on the IMF’s website, titled “Cashing In: How to Make Negative Interest Rates Work,” based on an IMF staff study, posited setting a dual currency system in which cash would gradually depreciate against e-money, thus allowing the central bank to set “as negative an interest as necessary for countering a recession, without triggering any large-scale substitutions into cash.”

As the authors of the post themselves note, implementing such a system “would require important modifications of the financial and legal system” in each country. “In particular,” they go on, “fundamental questions pertaining to monetary law would have to be addressed and consistency with the IMF’s legal framework would need to be ensured. Also, it would require an enormous communication effort.”

The reason for that is that most people in most countries, if properly consulted, would presumably opt not to live in an economy where interest rates were significantly below zero and cash was, by design and law, constantly depreciating in value, even more so than it is today. They would probably also prefer not to live in a CBDC-based economy, where largely unaccountable central banks would have unprecedented surveillance and control powers over the population.

This is the problem: the public, whether in Nigeria, the UK, the US, Russia, Brazil or the Euro Area, are not being consulted. And this is why what is happening in Switzerland is potentially so important. At the very least there will be a public debate on the issue.

As FBS president Richard Koller notes, pushing through such guarantees for access to cash in the European Union would entail the “almost impossible” process of securing approval from all 27 member states. It would also imply a degree of public consultation, representation and accountability that simply does not exist at the EU-level.

If FBS’ referendum on preserving cash were to actually pass and the government were to actually enact the legislation without watering it down too much (two big “IFs”), Switzerland could become a potential “European standard-bearer for the defence of cash,” says Koller. And that, in this humble blogger’s opinion, would be a good thing.

Mercedes-Benz might be returning to the days when corporate executives and only the affluent could afford to roll down the street in German luxury.

That’s because a new Benz reached the average price of €72,900 ($76,590) in 2022, a 43% increase over 2019, Bloomberg Opinion Chris Bryant pointed out in a tweet. 

“That chimes with the carmaker’s push even further upmarket by focusing on top-end models like the S-Class sedan to bolster profits. The company has been working through pent-up demand after chip shortages curbed production last year,” Bloomberg said. 

The German automaker appears to be taking a different path versus the last decade of providing entry-level models for the average person.  

Bloomberg also pointed out:

Mercedes isn’t alone. Around the world, manufacturers are reaping the benefits of selling fewer but more expensive cars. In the US, average monthly payments for a new car nearly doubled from late 2019. And as battery-powered vehicles tend to cost more than the average combustion-engine car, the shift to EVs may make the affordability crisis even worse.

Earlier this week, we said shiny new vehicles are out of reach for many Americans. 

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

From the very beginning of the Ukraine conflict I have been following developments on both sides. My concern has always been the larger implications in geopolitics and economics. Because globalism has pushed most nations into interdependency, an ongoing war in Ukraine could very well set off a chain of dominoes that tests America’s already unstable financial system and supply chain.

I should note that I really don’t care about the Ukrainian government or the Russian government and I have no interest in which side “wins.” I, like many people, think Ukraine has nothing to do with the American public and is purely a proxy war being pursued by NATO. It is my belief that certain international interests (globalists) are keen for the conflict to continue regardless as they seek to exploit it as a crisis of opportunity.

All of my primary predictions for the Ukraine war have turned out to be true:

First, as I noted in my article ‘The Globalist Reset Agenda Has Failed – Is Ukraine Plan B?’, published in January 2022, a regional war (or proxy war) with Russia in Ukraine was the most likely scenario to unfold, followed by international calls for escalation against Russia.

Second, in my article ‘Ukraine Learns The Value Of An Armed Citizenry, But Far Too Late’, published in March, I noted that:

“The methods which Ukrainian forces are using to ambush Russian armor columns are rather advanced and familiar. I suspect the possibility that there are outside military “advisers” (perhaps US advisers) on the ground right now in Ukraine. The advanced guerrilla-style ambush tactics and the results look similar to training that is often given to Green Berets or SAS. The UK did send anti-tank weapons along with a small group of “trainers” to Ukraine in January.”

It is now openly admitted by recently retired British Army, Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith that UK special forces (SAS) are on the ground in Ukraine leading Ukrainian troops. This revelation potentially opens the door to a much wider war between NATO and Russia.

Third, in my article ‘Escalation: Recent Events Suggest Mounting Economic Danger’, published last September, I predicted that:

“With the amount of propaganda coming from Ukrainian Intelligence and NATO, it’s hard to say what is actually happening, but I suspect Russia is changing strategies and repositioning to deploy missile and artillery bombardment of infrastructure, including power grids and water.”

“This is a tactic that Russia has avoided for months, which is surprising because one of the first measures usually taken by the US during an invasion is to eliminate most key infrastructure (as we did in Iraq).”

Not long after I wrote this, Russia did in fact shift to an infrastructure targeting strategy. Ukraine’s power grid was estimated in December to be 60% to 80% destroyed, and 70% of residents in Kyiv were without running water. Ukrainian grid operators admit that the damage is “colossal.” In the least damaged regions, the power grid is still running at a 30% deficit.

Large generators shipped by NATO countries have lessened the strain and allowed major facilities like hospitals and military posts to function and mild weather has helped prevent a full on exodus of the entire population. Repairs are ongoing, but the lowest damage estimates are running around $9 billion (more than double that in the mid-range estimates), and rolling blackouts continued through the end of January with a limit of 10 hours per day of electricity for citizens that still have a working grid.

I mention this information because it is important to put these events in context of the bigger picture; the mainstream media and a majority of pro-Ukraine people argued that these scenarios were not going to happen. They were wrong. They will continue to make wrong predictions because they are basing their conclusions on propaganda rather than evidence and logic.

Russian missile and drone strikes on infrastructure in particular were widely dismissed as a possibility in the weeks leading up to the Russian pullback. The “war was over”, they claimed, and soon Ukraine would take the Donbas and even Crimea. Yet, here we are months later and the war continues.

As I have noted ever since Russia shifted strategies for the winter, all Putin had to do is wait until NATO armaments and money started to fade and Ukraine’s grid down problems wear out the population. In terms of US arms, deliveries are now drawing down as inventories shrink on key weaponry. Putin has been playing the long game.

The grid targeting strategy made sense for a number of reasons, but most of all it suggests an effort by Russia to push civilian populations out of major cities or out of the country entirely. Why is this valuable to Putin? Because less civilians means a lesser chance of heavy collateral damage during a new offensive effort, which I believe will take place sometime this spring.

It’s important to understand that, for now, the dynamics of war have changed. The information age has made hiding military operations and movements very difficult, and when civilian casualties mount everyone in the world is going to know about it. If media and phone technology had been as available in Iraq in 2003 as it is today, I suspect the US would have waged the war much more carefully and avoided the high civilian death rate. At this time, public optics matter and Ukraine is as much an information war as it is a shooting war.

Putin is likely trying to clear the field of as many civilians as he can before a renewed push forward. At least 20% of the Ukrainian population has permanently fled to Europe under refugee status while around 2.9 million Ukrainians have left to join Russia.

Russia now has an approaching window for offensive actions, and the need for such a move is clear. NATO countries are supplying Ukraine with less armaments than before, but they are upping the technological level of the weapons they are delivering. It is only a matter of time before long range missiles are handed to Zelensky that would give him the ability to strike at targets deep in Russia.

Putin will need to increase the existing buffer and expand his foothold beyond the Donbas while also protecting Crimea from retaliation. This means, most likely, splitting the country in two from the north and drawing a majority of Ukraine/NATO elements there. Spring would be the most opportune time, as conditions for troop movements improve. Offense requires speed.

There have been reports of extensive troop movements and joint training in Belarus, a Russian ally within easy striking distance of Kyiv. The troop build up in Belerus is compounded by a recent statement by President Alexander Lukashenko, who warned that even a single enemy soldier crossing the Belarus border would lead to the nation’s full involvement in Ukraine. In other words, Belerus is about to join a Russian offensive with its 60,000 troops and 300,000 reservists. Surrounding Kyiv from the north would be child’s play.

Russia has been engaged in counter-operations in the east for the past month, but I suspect this is a distraction from the real strike which will come from Belarus. Russia has cut their artillery attacks by 75%, which suggests a stockpiling of ordnance for an offensive attack. Russia’s missile bombardments have also been highly limited, and though mainstream propagandists say that they must be “running low”, a majority of their missile technology has been used sparingly, including their hypersonic missile technology which has only been used three times for key targets according to reports.

Russia has not deployed the majority of their air forces and larger drones to Ukraine. A cursory study of Russian military capabilities should tell anyone that Putin is holding back, again, likely to avoid mass civilian casualties. All bets are off this spring if and when Belerus joins the theater.

Mainstream military analysts continue to argue that Belarus is “just a feint.” They say the deployment of Russian forces is limited, that Russia doesn’t have the resources for a new offensive and that Belarus will not join the war. The fact that these analysts have been consistently wrong for the past year tells me that ALL of these elements are going to happen.

The question is, what happens after that? What happens when Russia takes considerable ground in Ukraine despite hundreds of billions of dollars in NATO aid, advanced armaments, intel from the DoD and special forces “advisers” on the ground? Well, NATO officials have said that a loss in Ukraine is not acceptable; meaning, they will escalate.

It’s hard to say yet what that would entail – Russia has already weathered all sanctions and economic tactics deployed by the west with the help of trading partners like China and India. They have even survived being removed from the SWIFT network. Escalation would have to entail direct contact.

It is my belief that the Ukraine event is just one part of a larger chain reaction.

With NATO weakened after throwing billions in cash into Ukraine along with a large supply of arms, it seems obvious to me that this is an opportune time for another conflict elsewhere which NATO will be ill equipped to respond to. China is in a perfect position to invade Taiwan, for example.

Ukraine is a useful powderkeg, but not the only powderkeg.

*  *  *

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Authored by Julie Kelly via American Greatness (emphasis ours),

It’s week five of the Justice Department’s most high-profile—and high-stakes—criminal trial related to the events of January 6, 2021. Five members of the Proud Boys face the rare “seditious conspiracy” charge. Guilty verdicts—almost certain given the government’s near-perfect conviction rate for January 6 defendants—would build legal momentum for a similar indictment against Donald Trump. (The trial is so crucial that Matthew Graves, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia responsible for prosecuting every January 6 case, has shown up in the courtroom on at least three occasions.)

Trump is a major figure in this trial, an unindicted coconspirator of sorts. Last week, Judge Timothy Kelly allowed prosecutors to play a clip of Trump’s extemporaneous comment for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”—a remark uttered during a presidential debate in September 2020 more than three months before the Capitol protest. The Justice Department wants to portray the comment as a call to arms, tying the alleged “militia” group to the former president.

The clip is just another thin reed of evidence in the government’s landmark domestic terrorism case. In fact, much of the “evidence” amounts to nothing more than worthless trinkets, braggadocious group chats, and otherwise protected political speech. 

It now appears that one key piece of evidence was not the work of any defendant in this case but rather written by a one-time government intelligence asset with unusual ties to both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, another group involved in January 6.

A document titled “1776 Returns” is cited by the government to indicate the group had an advanced plan to “attack” the Capitol. In two separate criminal indictments, prosecutors explained how the document ended up in the hands of Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys: “On December 30, 2020 [an unnamed] individual sent Tarrio a document—[that] set forth a plan to occupy a few ‘crucial buildings’ in Washington, D.C. on January 6, including House and Senate buildings around the Capitol, with ‘as many people as possible’ to ‘show our politicians We the People are in charge.’”

Calling the document a “high-level summary,” a prosecutor last week combed through each page of “1776 Returns” with an expert witness even though the government conceded there was no proof Tarrio opened the file or shared it with others.

“The plan, essentially, is to have individuals inside these buildings, either cause a distraction, or—pull fire alarms in other parts of the city to distract law enforcement so that a crowd can then rush the buildings and occupy the interior so they can demand a new election,” FBI Agent Peter Dubrowski told the jury.

In other words, an “insurrection!”

But a bombshell motion filed over the weekend debunks the Justice Department’s suggestion that the document was a product, or at least a roadmap, used to guide the group’s conduct on January 6. The filing suggests that the handling of “1776 Returns,” like so much of January 6, was yet another sting operation. 

“It appears that the government itself is the author of the most incriminating and damning document in this case, which was mysteriously sent at government request to Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio immediately prior to January 6 in order to frame or implicate Tarrio in a government created scheme to storm buildings around the Capitol,” wrote Roger Roots, attorney for Dominic Pezzola, in the motion seeking a mistrial. “As such, [the document] and the government’s efforts to frame or smear defendants with it, constitutes outrageous government conduct.”

Turns out, the person responsible for preparing the document is a man named Samuel Armes, a young cryptocurrency expert living in Florida. But Armes’ résumé raises many red flags, particularly in a case involving the use of multiple government informants. 

Armes told the January 6 select committee last year that he has worked for the State Department and Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. “A lot of the work that I did for the government was in counterthreat finance or regulatory environments around crypto,” he testified.

As a student at the University of Southern Florida, Armes was enrolled in a special program that prepared graduates for a career in the intelligence sector. Armes told House investigators he was “groomed to be in the CIA, FBI, or any intel agencies.” When asked to clarify what that meant, Armes explained he was “trained and educated” to eventually work as an intelligence asset. 

Part of that training required preparing different responses to potential terror threats. And Armes was no slouch. “I reported under Colonel [Joshua] Potter’s counterthreat finance unit. And I actually developed for them critical research on cryptocurrency that may have been used by drug cartels or ISIS. And so I did similar scenarios with them, wargaming scenarios, of why these terrorist groups might be using cryptocurrency and how they might go about doing so.”

That background in “war games” apparently motivated Armes to do the same before January 6. After reading reports about the Transition Integrity Project, a collection of high-level Trump foes plotting to remove Trump from office regardless of the election’s outcome, Armes said he felt compelled to perform his own “worst case scenario.” 

Hence the “1776 Returns” paper.

But Armes’ explanation as to why he put thoughts on paper is strange, to say the least. His reasons for “brainstorming,” as he called it, what might happen after the election veered from the Terry Schiavo case—“when government authorities are kind of confused and people don’t know who to obey or who to answer to, anarchy kind of breaks out, and certain parties take advantage of that anarchy,” he said of the protracted legal battle over the famous right-to-die case two decades ago—to Trump’s unpredictability, to the 2020 summer riots, to total anarchy in the streets. 

Even more odd is that his internal “brainstorming” document ended up in the inbox of Erica Flores, a business associate in Florida—who just happened to be Tarrio’s girlfriend at the time. “I had told her that I was kind of brainstorming what I think might happen, and she seemed interested. And she asked if she could see it, and I said sure. And so I ended up sharing it with her on a Google Drive.”

Flores then sent the document to Tarrio.

Flores’ version of events, however, is quite different from Armes’ account. While he disputed being the sole author of the document, Flores reportedly told the January 6 committee that Armes wrote the whole thing. Further, contrary to Armes’ testimony to the committee, she said Armes told her to send it to Tarrio.

For now, it’s unclear whether the public, or more importantly, the defendants, will learn the truth about the origins of the “1776 Returns” missive. Armes admitted he cannot find the original document in his Google files. And although Flores spoke with the January 6 committee, her transcript is not publicly available, buried with hundreds more at the National Archives.

That’s not the end of Armes’ weird story; he also was in contact with a member of the Oath Keepers in 2020. Armes’ name showed up on a hotel reservation for James Beeks, now on trial in D.C. for his participation in the January 6 Capitol protest. When House investigators asked Armes why Beeks included his name on the same hotel room, Armes claimed the man had a romantic interest in him.

Armes also admitted he and Beeks had many conversations before January 6 on topics such as the election and domestic politics. But just like Armes’ original “1776” document, those messages are missing, too.

As evidence piles up to show how federal assets played an animating role before and on January 6, Armes’ weird account—and background in government intelligence—cannot be dismissed as coincidence.