Authored by Pepe Escobar,

The Scholz caravan went to Beijing to lay down the preparatory steps for working out a peace deal with Russia, with China as privileged messenger…

With his inimitable flair for economic analysis steeped in historical depth, Professor Michael Hudson’s latest essay, originally written for a German audience, presents a stunning parallel between the Crusades and the current “rules-based international order” imposed by the Hegemon.

Professor Hudson details how the Papacy in Rome managed to lock up unipolar control over secular realms (rings a bell?) when the game was all about Papal precedence over kings, above all the German Holy Roman Emperors. As we know, half in jest, the Empire was not exactly Holy, nor German (perhaps a little Roman), and not even an Empire.

A clause in the Papal Dictates provided the Pope with the authority to excommunicate whomever was “not at peace with the Roman Church.” Hudson sharply notes how US sanctions are the modern equivalent of excommunication.

Arguably there are Top Two dates in the whole process.

The first one would be the Third Ecumenical Council of 435: this is when only Rome (italics mine) was attributed universal authority (italics mine). Alexandria and Antioch, for instance, were limited to regional authority within the Roman Empire.

The other top date is 1054 – when Rome and Constantinople split for good. That is, the Roman Catholic Church split from Orthodoxy, which leads us to Russia, and Moscow as The Third Rome – and the centuries-old animosity of “the West” against Russia.

A State of Martial Law

Professor Hudson then delves on the trip by “Liver Sausage” Chancellor Scholz’s delegation to China this week to “demand that it dismantle its public sector and stops subsidizing its economy, or else Germany and Europe will impose sanctions on trade with China.”

Well, in fact this happens to be just childish wishful thinking, expressed by the German Council on Foreign Relations in a piece published on the Financial Times (the Japanese-owned platform in the City of London). The Council, as correctly described by Hudson, is “the neoliberal ‘libertarian’ arm of NATO demanding German de-industrialization and dependency” on the US.

So the FT, predictably, is printing NATO wet dreams.

Context is essential. German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in a keynote speech at Bellevue Castle, has all but admitted that Berlin is broke: “An era of headwinds is beginning for Germany – difficult, difficult years are coming for us. Germany is in the deepest crisis since reunification.”

Yet schizophrenia, once again, reigns supreme, as Steinmeier, after a ridiculous stunt in Kiev – complete with posing as a unwitting actor huddled in a bunker – announced an extra handout: two more MARS multiple rocket launchers and four Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers to be delivered to the Ukrainians.

So even if the “world” economy – actually the EU – is so fragilized that member-states cannot help Kiev anymore without harming their own populations, and the EU is on the verge of a catastrophic energy crisis, fighting for “our values” in Country 404 trumps it all.

The Big Picture context is also key. Andrea Zhok, Professor of Ethical Philosophy at the University of Milan, has taken Giorgio Agamben’s “State of Exception” concept to new heights.

Zhok proposes that the zombified collective West is now completely subjugated to a “State of Martial Law” – where a Forever War ethos is the ultimate priority for rarified global elites.

Every other variable – from trans-humanism to depopulation and even cancel culture – is subordinated to the State of Martial Law, and is basically inessential. The only thing that matters is exercising absolute, raw control.

Berlin – Moscow – Beijing

Solid German business sources completely contradict the “message” delivered by the German Council on Foreign Relations on the trip to China.

According to these sources, the Scholz caravan went to Beijing to essentially lay down the preparatory steps for working out a peace deal with Russia, with China as privileged messenger.

This is – literally – as explosive, geopolitically and geoeconomically, as it gets. As I pointed out in one of my previous columns, Berlin and Moscow were keeping a secret communication back channel – via business interlocutors – right to the minute the usual suspects, in desperation, decided to blow up the Nord Streams.

Cue to the now notorious SMS from Liz Truss’s iPhone to Little Tony Blinken, one minute after the explosions: “It’s done.”

There’s more: the Scholz caravan may be trying to start a long and convoluted process of eventually replacing the US with China as a key ally. One should never forget that the top BRI trade/connectivity terminal in the EU is Germany (the Ruhr valley).

According to one of the sources, “if this effort is successful, then Germany, China and Russia can ally themselves together and drive the US out of Europe.”

Another source provided the cherry on the cake: “Olaf Scholz is being accompanied on this trip by German industrialists who actually control Germany and are not going to sit back watching themselves being destroyed.”

Moscow knows very well what the imperial aim is when it comes to the EU reduced to the role of totally dominated – and deindustrialized – vassal, exercising zero sovereignty. The back channels after all are not lying in tatters on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Additionally, China has not provided any hint that its massive trade with Germany and the EU is about to vanish.

Scholz himself, one day before his caravan hit Beijing, stressed to Chinese media that Germany has no intention of decoupling from China, and there’s nothing to justify “the calls by some to isolate China.”

In parallel, Xi Jinping and the new Politburo are very much aware of the Kremlin position, reiterated again and again: we always remain open for negotiations, as long as Washington finally decides to talk about the end of unlimited NATO expansion drenched in Russophobia.

So to negotiate means the Empire signing on the dotted line of the document it has received from Moscow on December 1st, 2021, focused on “indivisibility of security”. Otherwise there’s nothing to negotiate.

And when we have Pentagon lobbyist Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin advising the Ukrainians on the record to advance on Kherson, it’s even more crystal clear there’s nothing to negotiate.

So could this all be the foundation stone of the Berlin-Moscow-Beijing trans-Eurasia geopolitical/geoeconomic corridor? That will mean Bye Bye Empire. Once again: it ain’t over till the fat lady goes Gotterdammerung.

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,

The White House has authorized employing strategic assets in South Korea more frequently. The announcement comes as Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington conduct unprecedented aerial war games. At a news conference with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup, Lee stated Austin pledged to set up deployments of nuclear-capable weapons. He said the US promised, “to effectively respond to any DPRK provocation by employing US strategic assets to the level equivalent to constant deployment through increasing the frequency and intensity of strategic asset deployment in and around the Korean Peninsula.”

Austin expressed the deployments would not be permanent but rotate in and out. “No new deployment of strategic assets on a permanent basis, but you’ll see assets move in and out on a routine basis,” the defense chief said.

Austin stated the strategic deployments will extend beyond the Korean Peninsula. “What we’re doing together not only to – on a bilateral basis, but also with our allies in Japan,” Austin said. Washington, Seoul and Tokyo signed a trilateral defense agreement on the sidelines of the NATO summit in June. Pyongyang denounced the agreement as a NATO-like alliance in the Pacific.

The news conference came after the US and South Korea announced it was extending their largest-ever aerial war games. The military drills, dubbed Vigilant Storm 23, include 240 US and South Korean aircraft. Initially, the exercises were scheduled to run for five days but have now been extended by a day.

Before Vigilant Storm 23 kicked off, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un slammed the drills as a rehearsal for invasion and promised a “powerful” response if Seoul and Washington went through with the exercises. On Wednesday, Pyongyang fired 23 short-range ballistic missiles, a single-day record. One missile was fired near the maritime border for the first time since the partition. South Korea responded by firing three air-to-surface missiles into waters north of the inter-Korean maritime border.

North Korea followed the flurry of missiles by launching an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday. Seoul believes the ICBM failed in-flight. On Friday, North Korea carried out large-scale aerial maneuvers. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that 180 North Korean warplanes were detected in various areas inland and along the country’s eastern and western coasts. Seoul noted the warplanes did not approach the inter-Korean border.

In response, South Korea scrambled 80 warplanes, including F-35s. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said it was “maintaining a firm readiness posture for further provocations.” Military activity on the Korean Peninsula is at a multi-year high. Pyongyang has carried out a record number of missile tests this year. Washington and Seoul have returned to live-fire war games.

A diplomatic solution currently seems impossible. Austin and Lee reiterated Washington and Seoul’s position that Pyongyang must agree to give up its nuclear arsenal. Kim signed a new law in September that says North Korea will not denuclearize until the US does.

Kim views his nuclear weapons as the only effective deterrent against Washington-based regime change. The White House says it seeks a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. However, Austin threatened to use nuclear weapons against North Korea at the press conference. Last week, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Washington was prepared to deploy its nukes to defend Seoul.

U.S. Space Force’s robotic X-37B space plane keeps extending its flight-duration record, orbiting around the Earth for 900 days, according to Space.com. 

The reusable space plane designed and built by Boeing is flying its sixth mission, known as Orbital Test Vehicle-6 or OTV-6, which was initially launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on May 17, 2020. It remains unclear when the top-secret mission will end. 

On Jul. 7, Boeing Space tweeted the X-37 “has set another endurance record — as it has on every mission since it first launched in 2010.” 

Many of OTV-6’s experiments and activities are classified. But some experimental payloads have been made public, such as the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module, a small device that converts solar power into radio frequency microwave energy. 

Space.com expands more on the non-classified experiments and technologies being tested:

“Technologies being tested in the X-37B program include advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature structures and seals, conformal reusable insulation, lightweight electromechanical flight systems, advanced propulsion systems, advanced materials and autonomous orbital flight, re-entry and landing.”

The X-37B is similar to the retired space shuttle, although the space plane is a fraction of the size, coming in at 29 feet in length and 9.5 feet high, with a wingspan of 15 feet. 

Boeing boasts the X-37B as “one of the world’s newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft.” It can operate anywhere from 150 to 500 miles in altitudes and de-orbit with landing capabilities. 

“While there are rumors or theories that the X-37B might be a testbed for orbital weapons or could be used to capture adversary satellites, experts doubt these claims, arguing that the plane is far too small and not maneuverable enough to be used for these roles,” Space.com said. 

It’s anybody’s guess when the top-secret space plane will return to Earth. Here’s a list of the previous flights:

• OTV-1: launched on Apr. 22, 2010 and landed on Dec. 3, 2010, spending over 224 days in orbit.
• OTV-2: launched on Mar. 5, 2011 and landed on Jun. 16, 2012, spending over 468 days in orbit.
• OTV-3: launched on Dec. 11, 2012 and landed on Oct. 17, 2014, spending over 674 days in orbit.
• OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days in orbit.
• OTV-5: launched on Sept. 7, 2017 and landed on Oct. 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days in orbit.

Meanwhile, Space Force detected last week that China’s secretive reusable spaceplane released a mystery object in orbit. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Professor Sundiata Cha-Jua, a prominent history and African-American studies professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is under fire after using racist slurs to describe Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker. While the racist attack has drawn criticism on conservative sites, there has been no opposing statement or protest at the university. The media has also been largely quiet. The contrast to past controversies involving conservative faculty members again raises the concern over a double standard applied by colleges and universities as well as the media. Thus far, the response to the use of racist slurs or tropes against Republicans has been the familiar sound of crickets.

Cha-Jua wrote in The News-Gazette Walker is “incompetent, subliterate and coonish.”

Recently, Walker was subjected to a racist attack on MSNBC by regular guest (and writer for Above the Law and the Nation) Elie Mystal. MSNBC never apologized to Walker or affirmed its opposition to such racist commentary.

The column was an attack on Black Republicans who Cha-Jua refers to as “MAGA Black White supremacists.”

The column seems to follow a pattern among Democratic politicians in attacking Black and Hispanic voters who are shifting over to the GOP. President Biden was ridiculed for declaring “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Likewise, minority members have been opposed by minority caucuses or campaign funds controlled by Democrats. For example, Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green has attracted national attention in a surprisingly competitive race against an incumbent Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan. The race has Democrats so worried that the Congressional Black Caucus took the controversial step of backing her white opponent despite a stated purpose of being “a non-partisan body made up of African American members of Congress” committed to achieving “access to Black Americans and other marginalized communities.”GOP Rep. Mayra Flores was barred from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.The media has also shown the same open hostility or bias. Notably, the Huffington Post recently wrote a column celebrating the surge of Muslim Americans in the midterms as a candidates but omitted the Muslim American running to be the next senator from Pennsylvania (arguably the highest of these races): Dr. Mehmet Oz.  The column titled “American Muslims In The Midterms Aren’t Long-Shot Candidates Anymore,” simply does not include the Republican among the notable Muslims seeking public office.

In his highly offensive column, Chu-Jua compares a Black Republican candidate Terence Stuber to a slave serving white masters: “And like the incompetent, subliterate and coonish Herschel Walker, Stuber reiterates ‘massa’ Trump’s talking points.” Stuber is running for Champaign County Clerk.

The lack of any protest or statement at the university is another example of how such controversies are handled when they involve faculty on the left as opposed to right. There are relatively few conservative or Republican faculty at most universities today, but the response to any such controversial statements is often immediate and overwhelming.

I have defended faculty who have made similarly disturbing comments “detonating white people,” abolish white people, denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. I also defended the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. (Loomis was later made Director of Graduate Studies of History at Rhode Island).

Even when faculty engage in hateful acts on campus, however, there is a notable difference in how universities respond depending on the viewpoint. At the University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.

When these controversies arose, faculty rallied behind the free speech rights of the professors. That support was far more muted or absent when conservative faculty have found themselves at the center of controversies. The recent suspension of Ilya Shapiro is a good example. Other faculty have had to go to court to defend their free speech rights. One professor was suspended for being seen at a controversial protest.

I would defend Cha-Jua’s right to speak despite his offensive rhetoric in any effort to fire him. Yet, such language should be condemned. A professor used openly racist slurs to attack African Americans running for office and the silence from the university and the faculty at Illinois is perfectly deafening. The contrast in these cases is glaring and chilling. The professors and pundits who have written hair-triggered columns or tweets are notably silent when the racist attack is directed against Black Republicans or conservatives.

The response explains the sense of fear and intimidation for some faculty in speaking out on campuses. There is a general view that a conservative or dissenting faculty member will be given little quarter or protection in any controversy. Given the relatively small number of openly conservative  or Republican professors left on many faculties, the chilling effect is perfectly glacial.

Last month’s Chinese Communist Party’s National Congress brought a moment of high visual drama, when former president Hu Jintao was suddenly escorted by ushers from the carefully-scripted proceedings, as current President Xi Jinping looked on.

The former Chinese leader Hu Jintao was abruptly escorted out of a highly choreographed meeting of the Communist Party elite.

We deconstructed the footage. Here’s what the videos show: https://t.co/MFy7lqtFFa pic.twitter.com/RQxHvxvXie

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 28, 2022

State media said 79-year-old Hu was “not feeling well,” but a close analysis of the video by The New York Times seems to indicate that, as he was being removed, other officials were trying to prevent him from seeing a document that listed the new members of the powerful Central Committee, which was about to be announced. 

While Hu dominated headlines, he wasn’t the only official to nudged away from the center of power: Hu Jintao’s protege, 59-year-old Hu Chunhua, was demoted from the Politburo Standing Committee. He’d long been considered as a potential future Chinese leader. 

The standing committee is now dominated by Xi loyalists, leaving China-watchers debating over what it portends for the future of Chinese governance and foreign policy — and tensions over Taiwan.

Some have interpreted it to mean Xi is angling for perpetual leadership of the country. However, Nikkei Asia‘s Ken Moriyasu, is skeptical: “China is not North Korea. It is hard for a politician like Xi, with little to show in terms of achievements, to stay atop the country for so long.”

Moriyasu likewise doubts that Xi’s maneuvering portends an invasion of Taiwan. Rather, he think Xi has some unpopular policies in mind, and wants a team around him that will see those policies through the controversies that accompany them. 

“That’s a reform cabinet in disguise. It’s a common prosperity cabinet,” Lauren Johnston, associate professor of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, tells Moriyasu.  

Common prosperity is a term Xi uses to encapsulate a policy agenda focused on reducing income inequality, writes Moriyasu: 

At an August 2021 meeting of the party’s committee for financial and economic affairs, Xi spoke of raising the pay of low-income groups, promoting fairness, making regional development more balanced and stressing people-centered growth. 

Any governmental emphasis on ending income inequality carries an implicit threat to reduce higher incomes, either via taxation or outright caps. Xi’s rhetoric implies he’d like to use both avenues. He’s promised to “reasonably regulate excessively high incomes and encourage high-income people and enterprises to return more to society.” 

“Xi wants young, hardworking people to be able to get somewhere as the middle class, getting a job, buying a home. If 85% of a youth’s wages is going to rent,” Johnston says, “it’s not sustainable.”

Li Qiang has emerged as Xi’s number-two. He’d previously demonstrated his loyalty to Xi by strictly carrying out Xi’s draconian zero-Covid policies as party chief of Shanghai. “Li Qiang showed himself willing to take on the rich elites in China’s richest city,” says Johnston.

The same resilience will be essential when Xi goes after “excessively high incomes.” Worries over such an agenda have already taken a toll on Shanghai stocks. 

Between the Biden administration’s assault on China’s semiconductor market to high youth unemployment, real estate woes and the lingering effects of zero-Covid policies on the Chinese economy, the five years between now and the next Chinese Communist Congress will be challenging for Xi, according to Zhu Jianrong, a professor at Toyo Gakuen University in Tokyo.

“Xi now has his back against the wall. He got his team and will now have to deliver,” says Zhu. Otherwise, a fourth term as party chair will be unlikely. 

Zhu says a war over Taiwan doesn’t make sense in the context of Xi’s broader agenda: 

“The unification of Taiwan and the effort to build a modern socialist country contradict each other. The goal is to win without fighting. China will prioritize catching up with the U.S. in overall national power while avoiding a full-front conflict until then at all costs. It’s a new version of Deng Xiaoping’s ‘biding time’ strategy.”

Authored by Ron Shultis via RealClear Wire,

Besides “tax increase,” few terms rile up Americans more than “red tape.” Like a vine or weed that spreads out of control, red tape conjures up visions of a fast- and ever-growing jungle of rigid, excessive, and bureaucratic regulations that bring action grinding to a halt. And these regulations have consequences: The average regulatory cost for a new business in its first year is more than $83,000. Here in Tennessee, it would take an individual spending 40 hours a week eleven weeks to read all of Tennessee’s 114,000-plus regulations, totaling more than eight million words. These regulations ensnare businesses and individuals and deprive us of our freedoms and future prosperity. State leaders must implement broad regulatory reform to ensure no Tennessean suffers from backbreaking regulations and better unleash the state’s economy. 

A regulatory reform agenda will include many layers of improvements. First, make it easier to “count” the number and cost of current regulations. Fortunately, a recently passed law will require all bureaucracies to report by the end of 2023 and every eight years afterwards a list of every regulation on the books. 

From there, state lawmakers should seek to “cap” either the total number or cost of regulations. In Wisconsin, the legislature can require an independent economist to calculate the cost of proposed regulations on businesses and another review after the fact to confirm estimates to cap the impact of regulations on the economy. Ideally, the cap is lower than the current total, forcing leaders to “cut” those that are too onerous or outdated. For the best example of how reducing regulatory burdens can unleash our economy, look to our neighbors in the north: After a poor economic decade in the 1990s, the Canadian province of British Columbia decided to try something drastic. Starting in 2001, for every new proposed regulation, bureaucracies had to repeal at least one regulation — with the goal of reducing regulatory requirements by one-third within three years. The province exceeded that goal, cutting regulations by roughly half. The result was that the province’s economy transformed from lagging Canada’s as a whole to its fastest growing province since 2002.

After adopting a “count, cap, and cut” approach, state policymakers should provide tools to create more regulatory flexibility. Currently few options exist for those just seeking clarity if their business is subject to certain regulations. If an innovative small business wants some guidance on whether regulations apply to them or not, they often must hire legal counsel and go before an administrative law judge, an intimidating process for most. To solve this problem, regulators should be empowered to issue no-action letters (NALs). NALs allow an agency to state that it will not punish a business owner or person if they engage in some action. Without a similar tool, regulators often can only punish a new company who can then appeal to begin the process of working with them. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. NALs provide additional tools to regulators to provide the clarity and flexibility people need, especially businesses in a highly innovative world.

Finally, to prevent regulations from ever growing out of hand again, the burden to prove the necessity of new regulations should be on the government. Currently, the burden typically falls on Tennesseans in court to prove a regulation is unduly onerous. If the government is going to impose costs on Tennesseans, it should be on them to prove that the regulation is necessary to protect the public. 

Reforming regulations does make news headlines like tax cuts or recruiting new businesses with taxpayer money. However, if Tennessee lawmakers wish to engage in broad regulatory reform, they will be rewarded. The example of British Columbia shows that while regulatory reform is unlikely to grab headlines, it can transform economies in just a few short years. A holistic regulatory reform agenda will include many layers but with a three-tiered approach, first “counting, capping, and cutting” then providing more flexibility, and then finally shifting the burden of proving new regulations to where it belongs our state’s leaders can beat back the jungle of red tape and unleash prosperity for Tennesseans like never before.

Authored by Chandler Lasch via RealClearPolitics.com,

With each new report on the effects of pandemic-era school closures on American children, the story only seems to get worse…

In September, the Associated Press reported that, according to a study from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Math and reading scores for America’s 9-year-olds fell dramatically during the first two years of the pandemic … Reading scores saw their largest decrease in 30 years, while math scores had their first decrease in the history of the testing regimen behind the study.”

On October 24, data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often called the “nation’s report card,” shed more light on the abysmal declines. According to the AP, “Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly four in 10 eighth graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in their average test scores, with some simply treading water at best.”

“It is a serious wakeup call for us all,” Peggy Carr of the NCES told AP reporter Collin Binkley.

“In NAEP, when we experience a 1- or 2-point decline, we’re talking about it as a significant impact on a student’s achievement. In math, we experienced an 8-point decline—historic for this assessment.”

As Derek Thompson of The Atlantic noted, several studies have tied falling test scores to school closures, including a 2022 paper published by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. The authors concluded: “It seems that the shifts to remote or hybrid instruction during 2020-21 had profound consequences for student achievement. In districts that went remote, achievement growth was lower for all subgroups, but especially for students attending high-poverty schools. In areas that remained in person, there were still modest losses in achievement, but there was no widening of gaps between high and low-poverty schools in math (and less widening in reading.)”

In addition, the effects of school closures on students extend beyond falling test scores and lost learning. They include social isolation, loss of motivation, adverse mental health symptoms, and a lack of resources for students with disabilities, not to mention the high economic costs and other burdens placed on parents.

With all this data comes the need to analyze school-closure policies and, for those responsible, to answer criticism. But as some officials have issued misleading and false statements about their roles in the pandemic response, a question arises: Where are the fact-checkers?

After the September report from the NCES, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “What is the administration going to do about this severe learning loss, and does the administration shoulder any blame for not pushing schools to reopen sooner?”

Jean-Pierre blamed Republicans for the slow reopening of schools.

“[Reopening schools] was the work of this president and that was the work of Democrats in spite of Republicans not voting for the American Rescue Plan, [of] which $130 billion went to school[s] to have the ventilation, to be able to have the tutoring and the teachers, and be able to hire more teachers,” she said.

“And that was because of the work this administration did.”

But it was Democrats, not Republicans, who led the charge to keep schools closed.

Did any major fact-checkers set the record straight and correct Jean-Pierre’s false statement?

No.

Neither Snopes, FactCheck.org, the Washington Post, USA Today, nor Politifact saw fit to address this topic. (PolitiFact has examined only two statements from Jean-Pierre since she was appointed press secretary in May, arguably part of a larger pattern of ignoring her claims.)

Jean-Pierre is not the only one trying to shift blame about school closures. In an ABC interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently claimed, “I ask anybody to go back over the number of times that I’ve said ‘we’ve got to do everything we can to keep the schools open.’ No one plays that clip. They always come back and say, ‘Fauci was responsible for closing schools.’ I had nothing to do [with that].”

Fauci, who plans to step down later this year from his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, should not be held responsible for every decision made to stop in-person learning across the country. But to say that he played no role is a stretch.

Like many other officials, Fauci changed his opinions on school re-openings over the course of the pandemic. At times he advocated for a return to in-person schooling; at other points he claimed that, while reopening schools was ideal, “what is paramount is the safety and the welfare of the children and of their teachers,” and that schools could safely reopen only when “you have a very, very low level of infection.”

His advocacy for school closures during his tenure as head of the NAID is evidence enough that he played some role in keeping schools locked down. But mainstream fact-checkers once again failed to acknowledge his false assertion.

With all the false and misleading claims being made about school closures, fact-checkers have ample opportunity to set things straight. As recently as October 25, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer severely understated the amount of time that students in her state were out of school. In a debate against Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, Whitmer stated, “Mrs. Dixon says that I kept students out longer than any other state. That’s just not true … Kids were out for three months.”

According to Bridge Michigan, Whitmer later clarified that she was referring to “closures that were the direct result of her or her health department’s orders.” While she shouldn’t be held liable for decisions made at the local level that kept some school districts remote into 2022, she nevertheless misstated the extent to which schools were closed. Fact-checking outlets avoided addressing Whitmer’s dubious assertions, as well as Fauci’s and those of other prominent figures who try to minimize the impact of school closures or their roles in them.

At times, opinion writers took to task those responsible for school-closure falsehoods when fact-checkers at those same outlets declined to do so. For example, Marc A. Thiessen wrote an op-ed titled “What Fauci got wrong is still costing America’s children,” and Ingrid Jacques criticized American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten’s attempts to distance herself from her own union’s pro-closure policies.

With the midterms just around the corner, it’s important for parents and other voters to understand who played a role in the pandemic decisions that affected students. And when it came time to provide context and clarity on this issue, fact-checkers shirked their duty.

What do financial conditions indicate about the economy? What effects do they have on growth?

From S&P 500 Index returns to the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) to a range of credit conditions, the Chicago Fed’s Financial Conditions Index looks at whether financial activity is tighter than the historical average—or more accommodative.

As Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld details below, this Markets in a Minute chart from New York Life Investments compares financial conditions in 2022 to the last 40 years as interest rates rise at the fastest rate in decades.

How Is the Financial Conditions Index Measured?

First, the Chicago Fed’s Financial Conditions Index takes 105 weighted average indicators of financial activity and organizes them into three main categories.

Together, the sum of these indicators provide an update on the state of U.S. financial markets.

For example, low equity market volatility is associated with lower risk and better financial conditions.

Credit market factors, such as mortgage spreads and corporate bond yield spreads, indicate the credit conditions of the economy. Credit spreads are the difference in bond yields (returns) of two different debt securities with the same maturity, but with different credit quality.

In this way, a narrower credit spread often indicates better financial conditions, while a wider credit spread indicates worse conditions. Credit spreads apply to any debt instrument like mortgages or corporate bonds.

Asset prices, as seen in the S&P 500 Index, are part of the leverage category which measures the state of U.S. debt and equity markets. When the index is declining, it can be associated with tighter conditions.

Dove vs. Hawk

Another way to look at the state of financial conditions is through a ‘dovish’ or ‘hawkish’ lens.

When conditions are more accommodative, they can be seen as more dovish. This is when monetary policy favors lower interest rates to boost economic growth and employment.

Hawkish conditions, on the other hand, are characterized by tighter monetary policy. This is seen in higher interest rates to control inflation, but typically at the expense of economic growth, spending, and employment.

The Best of Times & the Worst of Times

When have the best and worst financial conditions taken place in recent history?

Following the recession of 1990, interest rates fell after periods of unprecedented highs in the 1980s. This eased the debt burdens for corporations and households, creating some of the most favorable financial conditions in the last several decades.

Despite the early 1990s being characterized with the most accommodative conditions, the period was marked by slow economic and employment growth.

Interestingly, it was not until the second half of the decade that growth accelerated, amid low inflation and unemployment. Broadly speaking, an increase in private-sector spending and employment helped drive this growth.

By contrast, the early 1980s saw the worst financial conditions by far. Interest rates hit historic highs to rein in inflation, and financial conditions were strained.

Historically, tighter financial conditions have been linked to falling asset values and increasing risk premiums. This is the additional return an investor can expect to receive for holding a riskier asset compared to the return from a risk-free asset like a government bond.

During these conditions, economic activity can slow and the net worth of households and nonfinancial companies could decline amid tightened credit conditions.

A Closer Look: 2022 In Context

Against the backdrop of six interest rate hikes and declining equity market performance in 2022, financial markets are facing challenging conditions.

Given these factors, are conditions more hawkish or accommodative?

Compared to historical averages, financial markets still fall on the dovish side. Although conditions have slowly become less accommodative from their recent peak in mid-2021, they remain closer to neutral from a long-term perspective.

Still, corporate bond spreads, key indicators in the Financial Conditions Index, could widen if interest rates and default concerns continue to rise. Higher yields, in tandem with strain on other financial indicators like the VIX and S&P 500 returns, could tilt conditions to become more hawkish looking ahead.

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, n’ Guns blog,

Blood rack, barbed wire
Politicians’ funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty-first century schizoid man

– King Crimson, “21st Century Schizoid Man”

You’ve all heard me rant about the “Straussian Two-Step,” which is nothing more than a retread of the Hegelian Dialectic.  

Here’s the formal definition:

An interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition (thesis ) is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently contradictory proposition (antithesis ), the mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third proposition (synthesis ).

In modern politics it’s used to create a false reality by asserting something that is partially true (at best) or a truth that you yourself as a person in power created.

In today’s case it’s a manufactured energy crisis across the West.

In order to see the Straussian Two-Step however you have to work backwards. This process is not an a priori deduction or an exhaustive fit of investigative journalism.

Rather it is an inductive conclusion based on awareness of the motivations of those in power and seeing how they lead a mass of people to a pre-ordained conclusion. In other words, schizo-posting.

Thesis

So, say your goal is to legitimize the state takeover, or advance another step forward the state takeover, of an industry.  Let’s use oil and gas for today’s lesson.

The first thing you do is manufacture a crisis that will disrupt the supply of the product you want to takeover. In this case, it started with COVID-19, which disrupted far more than just the energy sector.

More than 2 million barrels per day of refining capacity was lost world wide thanks to COVID-19. Given the current hostility to new refineres (more on this later), those barrels are not coming back.

Don’t forget, that for a “Straussian Two-Step” this big you will have to brainwash and/or gaslight two entire generations into hating themselves for being rich, wasteful, spoiled, alive or worse, just plain white.

So, they are already primed to hate all the things at play here — capitalism, Big Oil, Banks, Old White Guys (rich or poor) — and enrage your useful idiots by pushing their already tenuous hold on reality to the literal breaking point.

“I can’t even….” isn’t the most common phrase uttered on Tik-Tok for nothing.

That’s the Thesis part.

So, when the crisis hits thanks to natural gas disruption you forbid buying of from a particular country…

— Hello, Vlad? We’re in a helluva pickle, would you mind invading Ukraine…? Nyet…? Well, we’ll see about that….

— MISSING PAGES FROM THE RETURN OF DR. STRANGELOVE WORKING SCRIPT.

… you demonize not only Vlad but the industry itself for price gouging and preying on the widdle guy during a war.

There’s a word for this… chutzpah.

Antithesis

Predictably, you then allow your fake political opponents …

[enter Cocaine Mitch from Stage Right]

… to produce the opposite argument. In this case, the counter is obviously we need free markets to produce oil and gas. The refiners are just responding to the market.

That fake opposition, of course, also blames Vlad for this crisis to ensure the market’s champion looks not only patriotic but also suitably bought and paid for by Big Oil, Old White Guys, etc.

Both sides of this argument have now been framed 90 degrees away from the real source of the problem, government intrusion into the flow of oil and gas to your homes.

This is a crisis that if left solved to human ingenuity and, yes, the studious application of greed, would be over in a matter of weeks as refineries shut down during COVID would come back online, supply chains reorganized etc.

While the crisis phase would be over quickly, the long term investment cycle set off in refining would take longer to structurally immunize the industry against future supply shocks to accomplish.

And if you’re daft enough to believe government has any of that investment path mapped out on their whiteboards in their noble service to humanity, I can’t even…

If I could buy stock in psychoanalysis right now I’d be long AF.

Prices may not return to normal for years but the market, without intervention by rapacious morons both in government and running them from behind the curtain, would eventually grind the arbitrage out of the fuel industry nearly entirely.

Guess who wins there folks? That’s right you. But, again, you hate yourself for being, well, yourself.

Once the crisis is here and the rhetorical groundwork laid after months of repeating these lies about the cause of the crisis — PUTLER DID IT — it’s easy to move the conversation to where you really want it to go.

Remember the goal. Destroy free markets, nationalize oil and gas.

This means also preparing the next move to get rid of another aspect of the free market while zeroing in on the current crisis. In this theoretical case, we’re looking at the massive diesel crack spreads of refineries, fueling the perpetual motion machine of Marxism’s inherent envy.

Moreover, this situation exploded on the eve of a crucial election to put into the mouths of the crisis actors we call colloquially, “Members of Congress.”

Synthesis

Their solution? Put windfall profit taxes on refiners who are taking advantage of the vulnerable and needy common man. They are evil ‘price gougers’ by accepting the bids from the market for the fruits of their labors which occurred precisely because of artificially inducing a shock to the system.

In the case of diesel fuel in the US this is clearly a manufactured crisis.  COVID took a lot of refineries in the Northeast (PADD-1) offline.  And given the hostility of the Biden administration and environmentalists to the oil industry as a whole, as I alluded to earlier, those refineries are not coming back online anytime soon.

Don’t take my word for it, take it from the ones who own the refineries.

“Building a refinery is a multi-billion dollar investment. It may take a decade. We haven’t had a refinery built in the United States since the 1970s. My personal view is that there will never be another refinery built in the United States.”

According to Wirth, oil and gas companies would have to weigh the benefits of committing capital ten years out that will need decades to offer a return to shareholders “in a policy environment where governments around the world are saying ‘we don’t want these products to be used in the future’”.

Why would they? If it were your money would you begin the insane process to build an oil refinery in the US today even with crack spreads at $70+ per barrel? Of course not. By the time you filed the first Environmental Impact Assessment application form the spreads could be back to $20 because it’s politically advantageous for the “Straussian Two-Steppers” to take the pressure off for a few months.

Government is keeping the market in a supply/demand mismatch on purpose. That’s the only conclusion you can draw. Because if “Biden” wanted to solve this problem he wouldn’t be draining the SPR, he’d be rolling back regulations on refining oil or offering some of that ‘infrastructure money’ to help the industry rebuild post-COVID.

No matter how committed you are to saving the planet from Climate Change civilization is directly downstream of energy production.

If he wanted lower gas prices he wouldn’t be trying to expand subsidies to poor people, pandering for their votes, he’d be going to the negotiating table with Putler and working out a mutually unappetizing solution to everyone’s interests in Ukraine.

High Bid Wins the Prize

Diesel fuel demand is mostly inelastic, since it’s simply necessary for our daily life. Any supply disruption will cause massive price spikes because people will fall all over themselves bidding up the price of available supply to get what they can.

This is the one thing morons leftists can’t wrap their head around. Producers aren’t withholding supply and ‘raising prices’ in an open market economy. That’s propaganda. The reality is that consumers bid up the price for everything in demand or withhold those bids when the cost/benefit isn’t in their favor.

There is no need to control this. The things under supply shock will flow to those who have the means to bid for them and producers get the signal there is money to be made increasing supply. It is this give and take that always alleviates shortages, unless they are not allowed to do so because ‘rules.’

As the late, great Gary North told us over and over again, “Everything’s for sale, high bid wins.” If you have anyone to blame for higher diesel crack spreads you need only look in a mirror. Because we could have spare refining capacity by now if it weren’t cost prohibitive, even at these prices, to bring the idle plants back on line.

Remember, everything’s for sale and high bid wins. Everyone does the cost/benefit analysis.

This is the dynamic at play when I use the term cost-push inflation.  A supply shortage pushes the bids for basic goods up out of necessity and pouring money into the system through government handouts only accelerates this effect.  

Low cost or free dollars flow to the things people need the most and that is the main source of our inflation today.

So, when you see the headlines full of scaremongering like the US only has 20 days of diesel fuel left, this undergirds the bids for limited supply.  The futures markets are stripped of their power to coordinate supply over time and producers are stuck being demonized by low quality agitprop from the likes of AOC and Lizzie Slapaho.

Nationalization: The Next Two-Step

Windfall profit taxes are already on the way in Germany, 90% of all profits taxed away to the state. Energy production, when that bill passes, will be nationalized in Germany. The end of rational energy pricing will be gone.

Germany will become another energy subsidizing hellscape like we see all over the world.

The choice in front of German energy companies now is Uniper’s fate, nationalization through bailout, or remain ‘private’ but on a government-mandated cost-plus business model the profits from which will never outcompete the depreciation curve.

Today here in the US the Democrats are pushing for outright nationalization of all oil and gas production. That was the goal all along, the thesis. The fake antithesis is the “Drill baby, Drill,” crowd on Capitol Hill, crying crocodile tears over the loss of the Keystone XL pipeline for more than a decade.

The synthesis this time around will be finally getting through their long-sought after billionaire’s tax in the form of a windfall tax starting with evil Big Oil. Even if they don’t get it, it’s not like they don’t have other things on their to-do lists to get it done.

They are starting here again because they know no one will seriously consider outright nationalization (the next synthesis) unless there’s a war with Russia…

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