Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

Anthony Fauci is finally gone from his government perch. Let us recall that it was he who set this calamity in motion, squandering his credibility, while taking down public health and much else with it. More than anyone, he bears responsibility, even if he was acting on others’ behalf. That is especially true if he was carrying out a hidden agenda (take your pick of theories). 

There was already growing political and societal panic on March 11, 2020, when the House Oversight and Reform Committee convened a hearing on the new virus circulating. Fauci was the key witness. The only question on everyone’s mind came down to the most primal fear: am I going to die from this thing, like in the movies?

This was one day before Trump’s announcement of the travel ban from Europe, the UK, and Australia, essentially sealing the borders of the US to an extent never before attempted, thus separating families and loved ones and trapping billions of people in their nation states. It was five days before the evil declaration by all health authorities to immediately shut down all places where people could congregate. 

These few days will remain a case study in irrationality and crowd madness. Fauci, on the day of his testimony, however, seemed like a paragon of stability. He was calm and clear, nearly bloodness in his tone. The substance of what he said, at the same time, was clearly designed to generate panic and create the conditions for a full lockdown. 

He had the countenance of a doctor who was telling the family that a beloved father was terminally ill with 30 days to live. 

In particular, and in contrast to the testimony prepared by CDC/NIH, Fauci spoke to the severity of the virus. To the average member of Congress, the answer here was crucial because it addressed the only two serious issues: “Am I going to die?” and “Will I be blamed and politically punished if my constituents die?”

To this, he responded with what seemed like science but was actually completely wrong, dreadfully wrong, catastrophically wrong. He claimed that we knew for sure that at best Covid was 10 times deadlier than the flu. In fact, he threw around so much data confetti that a person could have easily believed that he was downplaying the severity to promote calm. His intention was the opposite. 

Here is what he said, and please read carefully to catch the implications: 

SARS was also a Coronavirus in 2002. It infected 8,000 people and it killed about 775. It had a mortality of about 9 to 10 percent. So, that is only 8,000 people in about a year. In the two-and-a-half months that we have had this Coronavirus, as you know, we now have multiple multiples of that.

So, it clearly is not as lethal, and I will get to the lethality in a moment, but it certainly spreads better. Probably for the practical understanding of the American people, the seasonal flu that we deal with every year has a mortality of 0.1 percent. The stated mortality over all of this when you look at all the data including China is about three percent. It first started off as two and now three.

I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings the mortality rate down to somewhere around one percent, which means it is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu. I think that is something that people can get their arms around and understand….

I think the gauge is that this is a really serious problem that we have to take seriously. I mean people always say, well the flu, you know, the flu does this, the does that. The flu has immortality of 0.1 percent. This has mortality of ten times that, and that is the reason why I want to emphasize, we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.

Just think through the flim-flam here. He begins with the figure of a 10 percent case fatality rate from a similar virus. The thinking in the room is already stuck on 10. Then he says this virus has killed more in a shorter period of time, which implies more severity. He quickly dials that back but warns that this is more easily spread, which suggests that perhaps it is even higher. Then he dials that back and says that so far the mortality rate is 3 percent. 

But then he quickly adds in “minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection” and comes to a rough number of 1 percent, thus failing completely here to distinguish between cases and infections, which used to be a core metric that he and so many others completely obliterated. 

That’s a side point but an important one. The distinction between cases and infections has been crushed, leaving us utter data chaos. 

Fauci spoke this final number with so many other numbers before it that no one could figure out which way was up. The main takeaway anyone would have is that there is going to be vast bloodshed. 

It’s best to watch this. You can almost feel the fear in the room as he blinds these political critters with fake science. 

So what do we do? Fauci here was quick with the answer:

How much worse it will get will depend on our ability to do two things, to contain the influx in people who are infected coming from the outside and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country. 

In other words: lockdown. 

Thus was the stage set. To be sure, there is some mental connection between severity and policy response but there probably should not be. Even if this virus had a 10 percent fatality rate, what does locking down achieve? It was never even clear what the point was. The “spread” could not be stopped forever. The hospitals weren’t really overcrowded, as we seen. There was never a chance for Zero Covid, as the catastrophic experience of China and New Zealand has shown. 

In the end, the pandemic of a respiratory virus is solved through exposure, upgraded immune systems, and herd immunity, regardless of severity. And again, please recall that biological evolution has made such pandemics self-limiting: there is a trade between severity and prevalence subject to latency. Latency here was never a factor, contrary to the lies in the early weeks. So the more infectious this virus would be, the less severe it would be, nearly by definition. 

Fauci could have used his time in Congress to give a basic explanation. He did not. He chose to spread irrational fear instead. 

So how can we evaluate Fauci’s murky suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 will have a 1 percent fatality rate? What actually happened? These data are pretty settled by now. 

• 0-19 years: 0.0003% 

• 20-29 years: 0.002% 

• 40-49 years: 0.035% 

• 50-59 years: 0.123% (flu) 

• 60-69 years: 0.506% (bad flu) 

In other words, for the most affected demographic, he was off by two times. For youth, he was off by 3,333 times – an exaggeration of more than 300,000 percent! And he did it with a straight face. The rest of the population falls between there for a total of 0.095 percent. So in general for the whole population he was off by 10 times, meaning that the actual infection fatality rate is just slightly less (if this is right) than the seasonal flu.

Throughout the entire pandemic, from the beginning to now, the average age of the 0.09 percent of infected people who died remained at the medium age of death in absence of the pandemic. If this same virus arrived decades early, it would have hardly been noticed at all. 

Which is to say: Fauci was correct on February 28, 2020, when he wrote that this is more or less the flu, except with a large age gradient. His change of mind in the course of two weeks prior to this testimony is based on absolutely no evidence. What changed was his tactics but why?

We mapped out many times already that there was plenty of information available, even in the popular press, that this bug would be more-or-less like the flu, except with an extreme age gradient – which we knew already in mid-February. All the misinformation that followed was just that. And they knew it. Certainly Fauci knew it. No doubt about it. 

So why? Here we get into interesting theorizing. Brownstone has done a lot of this for the better part of 18 months, and we will continue to do so. We can talk all evening about this. We already do. And we continue to collect evidence too. 

The point is that the world is not the same. Fauci pulled the lever on the wall that set this in motion. He never should have been given that deference, that power, that influence. There should have been a check on him. And some people tried but the censors then flew into action. 

The entire mess began not just with a bad prediction but an outrageously bad falsehood – spoken in front of deeply ignorant and terrified politicians – one that was followed by an egregious demand that we get rid of normal social and market functioning. The consequences are for the ages. Fauci had his own masters and minions but it is impossible to avoid the reality that he bears primary responsibility as the voice of panic that shut down freedoms hard won over a millennium. 

With Twitter now private, roughly three quarters of its employees laid off (yet somehow not only has twitter not crashed but is faster then ever, not to mention mostly uncensored) and its financials only of concern to the company’s owner Elon Musk, a troubling development suggests that the recent boycott by woke, liberal advertising companies who hate free speech is starting to sting.

According to Bloomberg, Twitter was sued for failing to pay $136,250 in rent for its office space in San Francisco.

In the lawsuit filed by Columbia Reit – 650 California LLC (docket # CGC-22-603719, Superior Court, State of California), the landlord says it notified Twitter on Dec. 16 that it would be in default on its lease for the 30th floor of the Hartford Building in five days unless the rent was paid. The tenant failed to comply, Columbia Reit said in the complaint, filed last Thursday in state court in San Francisco.

According to a Dec 13 report by the New York Times, Twitter hasn’t paid rent on its headquarters, or any of its other global offices, in weeks. The company was also sued earlier this month for refusing to pay for two charter flights. According to a more recent NYT report, in order to save money, Twitter has also shut down at least one Sacramento data center, stopped paying rent for its Seattle office, and has cut janitorial and security services, in some cases forcing employees to bringing their own toilet paper to the office.

Last week, Twitter got rid of the cleaning staff at its New York offices and 10 people from corporate security, signaling that it may close one of its two buildings there.

At Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, where the company has also missed rent payments, Musk has done the same, consolidating workers onto two floors and closing four. He also canceled janitorial services this month, after those workers went on strike for better wages. That has left the office in disarray. With people packed into more confined spaces, the smell of leftover takeout food and body odor has lingered on the floors, according to four current and former employees. Bathrooms have grown dirty, these people said. And because janitorial services have largely been ended, some workers have resorted to bringing their own rolls of toilet paper from home, according to the NYT.

According to an internal doc seen by the NYT, since early November, Musk has sought to save about $500 million in nonlabor costs.  Cost-cutting has been overseen by Steve Davis, the head of Musk’s tunneling start-up, the Boring Company, and Jared Birchall, the head of the billionaire’s family office. Twitter managers who didn’t lose their jobs in mass layoffs last month have been told to approach their spending with a tactic known as “zero-based budgeting,” or operating under the assumption that spending should start at nothing and teams should justify individual costs, according to the costs-savings document.

Davis has directed Twitter employees to delay paying various contractors or vendors and try to negotiate those bills to smaller amounts. The cost of one of the company’s largest contracts, with the consulting megafirm Deloitte, has been a point of particular concern for Twitter’s leadership, which wants to reduce the fees the company pays for security, tax preparation and other services. The company has skipped payments to KPMG, an accounting and consulting firm that had been working on matters related to compliance with the Federal Trade Commission. While missed payments to those firms have now been paid, according to a person familiar with the expenditures, it’s unclear if the company will retain their services beyond this year.

Life and work in the 21st century is increasingly reliant on modern technology, with a country’s digital quality of life playing a massive role on people’s day-to-day.

Some countries excel in internet access and affordability, while others have more modern digital systems and relevant laws. And, as Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach details below, many regions of the world suffer with lacking digital infrastructure and access across the board.

The 2022 Digital Quality of Life Index (DQL) from Surfshark analyzes countries on digital wellbeing, based on data from the UN, World Bank, Freedom House, and the International Communications Union.

5 Metrics for Measuring Digital Wellbeing

The DQL Index covers 117 countries with readily available data, making up 92% of the global population. Each country is scored on five pillars:

• Internet Affordability—How much time people have to work to afford a stable internet connection.

• Internet Quality—How fast and stable the internet connectivity in a country is and how well it’s improving.

• Electronic Infrastructure—How well developed and inclusive a country’s existing electronic infrastructure is.

• Electronic Security—How safe and protected people feel in a country.

• Electronic Government—How advanced and digitized a country’s government services are.

Visualizing The World’s Digital Quality of Life

Overall, Europe and Asia led the digital quality of life rankings in 2022. Israel took the top spot with an incredibly strong score in internet affordability. Here are the countries sorted by rankings and their weighted scores in each category:

Overall, 15 of the top 20 highest-scoring countries were located in Europe, including #2 Denmark and #3 Germany, reflecting the region’s strong scores in electronic infrastructure and security.

In addition to Israel, the Asia region was represented at the top by #8 Japan, #10 South Korea, and #15 Singapore. The only non-Asian and non-European country to make the top 20 was the United States at #12.

GDP’s Impact on Digital Infrastructure

Of the 117 countries that had data available for the index, the majority of the lowest-ranking countries were in Africa or Asia. This includes the bottom five: Cameroon, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Yemen, and DR Congo.

In fact, when the DQL Index was charted against GDP per capita, a clear and unsurprising trend emerges:

As countries have to grapple with limited resources and capital for increasing their digital wellbeing, we can see different priorities emerge. For example. many countries scored poorly on internet affordability and electronic government while prioritizing investments in internet quality and electronic infrastructure.

And despite the proliferation of mobile phones across the world, more countries were able to set up stable broadband internet over mobile internet.

To find out more interesting insights, dive in to the full Digital Quality of Life Index.

Submitted by Larry McDonald, author of The Bear Traps Report

This week, TSLA equity traded 61% below the 200-day moving average, the most in a decade — Tesla reports Q4 unit sales before trading starts Tuesday, January 3rd.

Tesla vs. CAT, the Mad Rush into Industrials

“Investors falling all over themselves to exit tech stocks and increase exposure to industrials. Hard asset plays have dramatically outperformed financial assets – and long-duration “growth” equities. The street is looking for $112B of sales in 2023 vs. a $384B equity market capitalization for TSLA stock.  She used to trade at 80x sales, just wow.”

A $1T Loss?

If TSLA touches $98, the market cap loss is near $1 trillion, stock traded at $105 pre-market this week. Close to $25B value of shares traded Tuesday, more than Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google combined. Nearly 700m shares in 3 days this week, that´s 25% of the float. This is an epic retail exit – tax loss selling. Daily RSI was near 17 this week, the lowest of all time for this capitulation measuring stick. Tesla was 5th largest in the S&P, now 18, now less than UNH, Lilly, and Chevron. If you sell TSLA equity in December – the investor can buy the stock in 31 days and still book the loss for tax purposes. In years with LARGE Q4 equity market losses – the “January Effect”* can be fairly impressive. Looking back over the last 50 years – when you have a down December, stocks are up 1.2% in January. Since 1991, with stocks off more than -2% in December, they have been up +3.7% on average in January, Bloomberg terminal data.

**The January Effect is a tendency for increases in stock prices during the beginning of the year, particularly in the month of January. The cause behind the January Effect is attributed to tax-loss harvesting, consumer sentiment, year-end bonuses, raising year-end report performances, and more. – CFI.

That said,  a recent analysis from Goldman found that the January effect has largely shifted to November since 1990.

“Historic forced margin calls for Tesla – it´s all retail Larry, ALL retail – rather than sentiment shift, see large scale TRF (Schwab, Ameritrade, etc) volume. The SIZE TSLA margin calls are forcing (triggering) ALOT of cross-selling through the entire long duration – speculative equity campgrounds.” — Equity Portfolio Manager on the West Coast, in our Bear Traps Portfolio

TSLA normally reports quarterly unit sales in the first weekend after the end of each quarter. Consensus is looking for a total of ~420K cars sold (down from 450K est. a few weeks ago). Given that New Year falls on the weekend, there is some uncertainty as to when exactly TSLA reports Q4 unit sales. Either Monday or Tuesday, January 3rd around the market open is most likely.

Previous January Report Date / Time

• Sunday 1/2/2022 11am Stock +13.5% the next day
• Friday 1/2/2021 9:55am Stock +3.4% the next Monday
• Friday 1/3/2020 8:17am Stock +3% that day
• Wednesday 1/2/2019 8:34am Stock -1.5% that day

Is Team Biden coming to Tesla’s Rescue?

At the start of the new year, buyers will once again enjoy a tax credit when they purchase a Tesla vehicle. The original 2010 EV tax credit had a quota of 400K units. For Tesla, the tax credits fully disappeared in early 2020 when Tesla reached that unit sales quota. But thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that Congress passed earlier this year and Biden signed yesterday, the tax credits are back in 2023. In the IRA there is a $7,500 tax credit for buyers of EVs, including TSLA and GM, who lost their previous tax credits. However, there are other strict limits on which brands would be eligible for the full credit, based on the selling price and where the cars and components are made. Unless the car is made in North America (NAFTA), the buyer is not eligible for the full tax credit. In addition, at least 50% of the battery parts will need to be made in North America. Lastly, a minimum of 40% of minerals used in the batteries must be sourced from the US or countries with free trade agreements with the US. So even buyers of GM and Tesla cars might only be eligible for half ($3,750) of the tax credit because their batteries and minerals come from a “foreign entity of concern” (China/Russia).

However, the Treasury Department recently said that the final decision on the critical minerals’ requirement won’t be available until March. As a result, all the requirements in the IRA governing EV cars, minerals, and parts will be waived. This means that, until Treasury issues its final set of rules, it will allow the full $7,500 tax incentive on all qualifying models.**

“We don’t expect them to reach 400K (unit sales) in Q4, data comes next week – early January. But, we also don’t think they always tell the truth. So, who knows? The IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) is about the only thing here between TSLA and a complete collapse in demand from what we can see. Also, many other countries have subsidies that are ending on December 31st. So, TSLA is benefiting from demand pull forward in those other countries. That will reverse in the March quarter, and may offset some of the benefits stated by the bulls.” – CIO, Large Fund.

So, prospective EV buyers in the US will be extremely motivated to buy their EV before the Treasury issues their final list of requirements in March, as it could potentially save them thousands. We could therefore see demand for Tesla cars and other EVs (2 out of every three EVs sold in the US are Tesla’s) being pulled forward into Q1.

Musk is keenly aware that all this might have led EV car buyers to postpone purchases until Q1 and he increased year-end rebates to $7,500 and 10K miles of free charging in early December. Whether this was enough to meet Tesla’s estimates for 420K unit sales for Q4 remains to be seen. We will know this before trading starts on January 3. But the IRA waiver could still cause a burst in US sales in early 2023.

This is not the only boon for Tesla starting next year. The EPA is proposing to increase the cellulosic ethanol component in the renewable fuel standard will climb to 2.13 billion gallons from 630 million. Refiners will be allowed and by necessity required to comply with these mandates by buying “eRINs” credits from EV manufacturers. Since Tesla has by far the most EV cars on the road, refiners will have to buy most eRINs from Tesla.

In years past Tesla always boosted gross margins from “Zero Emission Credits” that other car makers bought from Tesla to offset carbon emissions. Now the administration is giving Tesla another back door subsidy, although it is yet unclear when these rules go into effect.

** EV and plug-in models were manufactured in North America in the 2022 and 2023 model years that DOE says are eligible: Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, GMC, Jeep, Lincoln, Lucid, Nissan, Rivian, Tesla, Volvo, Cadillac, Mercedes and Volkswagen. Yet because of price limits or battery-size requirements, not all these vehicle models will qualify for credits. Note that IRS details issued on Dec 29 indicated that only 20% of Model Y would be eligible for full tax credit, unless Tesla lowers their price on certain versions of the Y.

Authored by Masooma Haq and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Inventor of mRNA vaccines Dr. Robert Malone, having worked with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for many years, warns that a war is being waged by the government for control of people’s minds, and that social media platforms are being weaponized in this war and are “actively employed” by the intelligence community to influence what people think and feel.

“This new battleground, in which your mind and your thoughts, your very emotions are the battleground. It is not about territory,” Malone said during a recent interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. “Twitter, it’s clear now, has become the premium platform for shaping emerging global consensus about the topics of the day.”

During his work with the DOD, Malone became aware of companies researching multilingual programs that assess the emotional content of the language used on social media, which those companies then use to “map relationship clouds,” including what topics people are discussing, who the influencers are, and who is at the fringe of that cloud, said Malone.

Phenomena like being deplatformed, shadowbanned, and a “tweet” going viral is a part of this weaponizing of social media.

“By using these tools of manipulating what information, what tweets you put out, what messages you put out to your influencer cloud, they can modulate how those people behave,” he said. “You can actually very actively control what individuals are thinking, the information that they’re gathering, what they’re being influenced to do.”

The people who control information warfare weapons can modulate the messaging within the influencer clouds that can be readily mapped, Malone said.

“Your current state of mind, based on the language that you’re using and the topics that you’re talking about, can be mapped very precisely, psychologically,” he said. “It can be tied into a web of influence relationships.”

High-Tech Surveillance

Members of a specific “influencer cloud” can be tracked using the military spy technology called the Gorgon Stare, said Malone. This spy technology is capable of detecting movements including what car you drive, who gets in your car, and where you go, he said.

The Gorgon Stare is a surveillance technology, originally created to target terrorist groups, that utilizes high-tech cameras mounted on drones to capture video images of large areas, such as entire cities. Then artificial intelligence is used to analyze the surveillance footage.

Arthur Holland Michel, author of the book, “Eyes in the Sky: The Secret Rise of Gorgon Stare and How It Will Watch Us All,” called this technology the “pinnacle of aerial surveillance” during a 2019 interview with the CATO Institute and said the things he learned while writing the book were so troubling, they kept him up at night.

Collusion During the Pandemic

Elon Musk has brought more transparency to Twitter, but the information he revealed only confirmed that the FBI and intelligence agencies had major influence over the platform, said Malone.

“Elon now is in a position where he has access to incredibly damaging information about the willingness of the U.S. government to collude with industry and compromise the First Amendment,” said Malone.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter is significant, but only time will tell what the final outcome of it will have for our democracy and the First Amendment, Malone added.

Since the start of the pandemic, Malone and his wife and fellow scientist, Jill Glasspool Malone, have become aware of the government’s breach of all guardrails, said Malone, in terms of ethics and the norms of drug development, bioethics, biodefense, and pharmaceutical development.

“We have all been subjected, over the last three years, to military-grade psychological operations that were using technology developed for offshore conflicts, and they had been deployed against the citizens of virtually the entire Western world.”

The same strategies that are used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control the Chinese citizens have been used by elites in the United States, said Malone.

“We’re now seeing the documentation on a daily basis released to us by Twitter, of this intense collusion between the U.S. government, tech, and corporate media,” said Malone.

Citizens Are Manipulated

Millions of Americans accepted a new product (the mRNA vaccine) that skipped normal safety and efficacy protocols and is still only in use under emergency use authorization because “the government felt that it was acceptable to deploy these military-grade technologies against all of us to coerce, compel, and mandate that we accept an unlicensed product that turns out to not be safe, nor effective,” said Malone.

People were coerced into taking this experimental vaccine because they were manipulated on a scale that is hard to fathom, said Malone. This is how entities like the CCP are able to carry out human rights atrocities, like live organ harvesting, where prisoners of consciousness are murdered for their organs, he added.

China grew its organ “transplant” industry from 1999 to now, with a wait time in China for a major organ transplant being months rather than the years it can take in western countries.

This happens because people cannot conceive of “the possibility that these things might be happening in this way, whether it’s organ harvesting, or it’s the darkness of what appears to be the emergence of a pharmaceutical corporatist, global, centralized state,” said Malone.

Most people cannot fathom such evil exists because they are still good, said Malone.

“Not only have we been subjected to this barrage of coordinated propaganda, we’ve been subjected to a barrage of intentional manipulation of our very language to support this initiative and this agenda,” said Malone.

The New Book

Malone’s new book attempts to sort through the events of the last three years to understand what happened and why, which he said is important to start to chart a healthy path forward.

“Each of these chapters derives from a kind of a real-time assessment of events that were occurring,” he said, and the events were also cited in Malone’s substack writings.

Readers should discern the truth for themselves by finding credible sources of information, he said, adding that his goal is to provide factual information to the public so they can make informed decisions because society is in a time when people are being inundated with “totalitarian propaganda.”

In the final third of the book, Malone suggests some concrete actions that could help restore democracy and alleviate the corruption that has besieged the federal government by changing laws to allow for term limits for the federal bureaucracy.

“This has to do with things like the legal underpinning that enables the existence of this permanent cadre that we call the Senior Executive Service, these thousands of people that cannot be fired, that functionally run the government,” said Malone.

Former President Donald Trump’s attempt to reassign classification for upper-level federal employees in the state department, with his schedule F executive order, was a crucial step to restoring balance in the three branches of the government, said Malone.

However, after President Joe Biden took office, he nullified the Schedule F executive order, which Malone said was “an example of how powerful these entrenched administrative state interests are.”

Another crucial step to end government corruption is to separate the power of federal agencies to both regulate and promote the industry they are in charge of, said Malone.

“[Dr.] Peter McCullough likes to point out the FDA, under emergency use authorization, acts as both the sponsor and the regulator of these medical products,” said Malone. “And the corruption of the FDA and the CDC is at such a stage now that I think it is so self-evident that only the most hypnotized deny it.”

Envisioning a New Future

These actions alone will likely not end the deep-rooted corruption and collusion of the intelligence community within the agencies, said Malone, but it is a step forward.

People like Dr. Anthony Fauci are working in tandem with the intelligence agencies, and this can be seen by the development of the new National Institutes of Health (NIH) department, the Advance Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), said Malone.

The Epoch Times reached out to the NIH for comment.

This new department is led by a former officer with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and has a budget of about $1 billion. Malone said the purpose of the department “appears to be the advancement of transhumanism and a biometric identification and all of that agenda within NIH. It’s basically the intelligence community moving in within NIH.”

Malone asked how humans can “enable a decentralized future for all of us, as opposed to this very dark, Fourth Industrial Revolution, transhumanism central command economy.”

Read more here…

In 1739, Benjamin Franklin sought to tackle the issue of counterfeit money in America, using a printing press and leaves to create unique raised patterns on the colonial notes.

Almost 300 years later, Benjamin Franklin is the face of the U.S. $100 bill, and it is protected by a myriad of security features including secret images, special ink, hidden watermarks, and magnetic signatures, among others.

In this infographic below, Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop and Mark Belan have broken down the $100 bill to showcase the anatomy of American currency.

The Makeup of American Money

There are 6 key features that identify real bills and protect the falsification of American money.

① Serial Numbers & EURion Constellation

The most basic form of security on an $100 bill is the serial number. Every bill has a unique number to record data on its production and keep track of how many individual bills are in circulation.

The EURion constellation is star-like grouping of yellow rings near the serial number. It is only detectable by imaging software.

② Color Changing Ink

This ink changes color at different angles thanks to small metallic flakes within the ink itself. The $100 bill, like all other paper bills in the U.S., has its value denoted in color changing ink on the bottom right-hand corner; unlike other bills, it also features a liberty bell image using the ink.

③ Microprinting

Microprinting allows for verifiable images that cannot be scanned by photocopiers or seen by the naked eye. The $100 bill has phrases like “USA 100” written invisibly in multiple places.

④ Intaglio Printing

Rather than regular ink pressed onto the paper, intaglio printing uses magnetic ink and every different bill value has a unique magnetic signature.

⑤ Security Threads & 3D Ribbons

The security thread is a clear, embedded, vertical thread running through the bill. It can only be seen under UV light, contains microprinted text specifying the bill’s value, and on each different bill value it glows a unique color.

Additionally, 3D ribbons are placed in the center of $100 bills with a pattern that slightly changes as it moves.

⑥ Paper, Fibers, & Watermarks

Because American money is made of cotton and linen, blue and red cloth fibers are woven into the material as another identifying feature. Finally, watermarks are found on most bills and can only be detected by light passing through the bill.

The Relevance of Cash

Here’s a look at the total number of each paper bill that is physically in circulation in the U.S.:

Interestingly, a number of $500-$10,000 dollar bills are in someone’s pockets. And while they are not issued anymore, the Fed still recognizes the originals of these bills that were legally put into circulation in the past.

A $10,000 Federal Reserve Note (1934)

Additionally, there is fake money passing hands in the U.S. economy. Being the most widely-accepted currency in the world, it’s no wonder many try to falsely replicate American money. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, there are approximately $70 million in counterfeit bills currently circulating in the country.

Finally, a natural question arises: how many people still use cash anyways?

Well, a study from Pew Research Center found that it while it is a dwindling share of the population, around 58% of people still use cash for some to all of their weekly purchases, down from 70% in 2018 and 75% in 2015.

Doug Wilson, Portfolio Manager, One River Digital Asset Management LLC

Just Another Cycle

Commodities are the lifeline to the global economy. We eat energy. Periods of strong demand often reveal strains in supply chains that lead to rapid price appreciation. Capital investment follows, with return expectations extrapolated from high prices and record margins. A downdraft in demand exposes excess investment, prices decline, and the weakest links in the supply chain are culled. Long periods of low prices lead to complacency, strong demand strains supply chains, and a rhythmic cycle emerges: boom, bust, recovery.

Natural gas in the early 2000s is an interesting example. From 2002 to 2008, natural gas prices experienced a period of dramatic price appreciation from $2.00/MMBtu to $16.00/MMBtu as economic activity accelerated and existing supply sources strained to keep pace. The market was sending a clear price signal to energy producers: to discover and capitalize on new sources of supply. This price signal had a ripple effect, as it also impacted associated sectors like power production, chemicals, and coal mining.

Cash flows from flush production found their way into Research & Development budgets that discovered technologies like Hydraulic Fracturing and Horizontal Drilling. A few hundred feet at first, now well laterals are measured in miles. Natural Gas Turbine efficiency (Heat Rate) improved dramatically. This new capital equipment and production were financed with organic cash flows initially, but then quickly morphed into aggressive rounds of debt and equity financing. This debt-fueled capital expansion of commodity industries was justified by the fact that prices were high, margins were at record levels, and the new technology allowed producers to be more efficient – lowering the unit cost of production. Recovery of capital was projected to happen in record time. It also brought rounds of leverage buyouts and acquisitions, most notably the 2007 TXU Energy LBO.

As we all know, the influx of new capital underwritten based on peak commodity prices and peak operating margins resulted in an unprecedented amount of supply additions across the natural gas, power sectors, uranium, and coal. This influx of supply, combined with a global downturn, compressed BOTH prices and margins significantly. Debt service could not be sustained. As a result:

• TXU went bankrupt – along with many other Independent Power Producers (Mirant, Reliant, Calpine, etc.),

• Countless gas exploration & production (E&P) companies sought bankruptcy protection,

• Every single public coal company declared bankruptcy.

Ultimately, ownership was transferred from equity holders to lenders. The market participants that had eagerly embraced these assets quickly wrote them off as worthless – “Going to ZERO.” This presented a terrific entry point for longer-term, patient capital.

These ignored assets are now generating amongst the highest free cash flow yield across all industries. The catalyst for recovery was the rationing of new investment, enabled by the restructuring of capital.

Bitcoin Mining is following the same pattern now.

For context, the Bitcoin mining sector experienced an unprecedented BOOM in the autumn of 2021. This was driven by elevated commodity prices (Bitcoin at $67,734 on 11/9/2021) and record mining margins (Hash Spread1 of $550/MWh) brought about by the reduction in competition post China’s ban on Bitcoin Mining. This combination of high prices and record margins attracted new capital to the sector with the promise of rapid payback underwritten by continued projections of success.

​​Similar to past energy sector commodity BUSTS, the influx of new investments in Bitcoin mining resulted in a dramatic compression of Bitcoin mining margins from a peak of $550/MWh to $50/MWh.

Mining operations are currently profitable, but unable to service their financial obligations. So, they now must turn to bankruptcy. Since our webinar in July, our investment pipeline has expanded significantly as more Bitcoin mining lenders and borrowers find themselves in distress.

Similar to prior commodity cycles, our expectation is that ownership will pass from equity owners to lenders. We expect these new owners will run these businesses for cash flow as opposed to growth. Growth capital will avoid this sector for years, like prior commodity busts. 

Even with the depression of prices, there are real cash flows in Bitcoin mining. The Bitcoin network rewarded miners with $15.3 million of Bitcoin rewards per day thus far this month, which annualizes to $5.8 billion.

Bitcoin is going through yet another brutal adjustment. Each one is different. The unique feature in this cycle is that institutional miners were far more involved in this recent bull market, and the unwinding of that looks like a classic BOOM to BUST cycle in commodity markets. It will pass with discipline. Traders are hunting for the bottom in asset markets. Credit markets are providing the pristine opportunity to earn very strong yields in a low-price environment with considerable optionality to a recovery. The credit opportunity steers you away from calling the bottom of the cycle and focuses more on the necessary ingredients to get ready for the next upturn – disciplined capital.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in as Brazil’s next president Sunday, and was greeted to cheers by hundreds of thousands of celebrating supporters packing the streets of the capital of Brasilia, after he defeated far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in what was the tightest presidential race in over three decades.

“Our message to Brazil is one of hope and reconstruction,” Lula said in an inaugural speech to Congress’ Lower House as his first act as president. “The great edifice of rights, sovereignty and development that this nation built has been systematically demolished in recent years. And to re-erect this edifice, we are going to direct all our efforts.”

Thus he’s vowing to heal a deeply divided nation, and at a moment many of Bolsonaro’s most die-hard supporters are still pushing for the Lula victory to get overturned. 

The Associated Press observed Sunday, “Many have gathered outside military barracks since, questioning results and pleading with the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.”

And further, the Left is labelling some Bolsonaro supporters who believe the election was fraudulent as ‘terrorists’:

His most die-hard backers resorted to what some authorities and incoming members of Lula’s administration labeled acts of “terrorism” – something the country had not seen since the early 1980s, and which has prompted security concerns about inauguration day events.

Security was especially beefed up in response to a mid-week incident wherein a man, now in custody, was believed plotting to assassinate the president-elect.

But on Sunday, another potential assassination plot was foiled, the military described, as a man was reportedly caught with a bomb trying to gain entry to inauguration day celebration events.

President-elect @LulaOficial makes his constitutional commitment in Congress and is sworn in as the 39th President of the Federative Republic of #Brazil. pic.twitter.com/Kx22r2WhbF

— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) January 1, 2023

As Sky News reports, “A man carrying an explosive device and a knife has been arrested while attempting to enter the inauguration of Brazil’s new president, according to military police.”

“The man was trying to enter Brasilia’s esplanade for the inauguration of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, according to a spokesperson from the city’s military police force,” the report details.

Journalists present in the capital on Sunday estimated some 300,000 were gathered along the esplanade to take part in the party in aftermath of Lula’s swearing-in ceremony.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

In the midst of all this incredible political and economic chaos, I was tasked with packing up my mother’s things to prepare for her move to assisted living. It’s a gravely emotional experience for anyone, as I’m sure you know.

I adore that woman. It’s hard to see her get old. Also, that house contained 100 years or more of family history. All this stuff takes up space. With everyone on the move, it’s hard to find a good home for things anymore. We had to make some hard choices.

Anyway, along the way, I opened a small safe and found a lockbox, and opened it. It was my father’s collection of coins. What was in there hadn’t been seen by anyone for perhaps 25 years (he died rather young).

It was startling and amazing to see. It was like finding buried treasure. There were coins from all over the world, gold, and silver. I’m not sure that I knew that he was a collector.

There were all the usual gold and silver bullion coins from all lands, all worth the price of their metal content. All are vastly up in value from when he bought them. There were also hundreds of silver dimes. And there were plenty of numismatics too and because I don’t know my way around this world, I’ll let the experts determine their value.

Good as Gold

I won’t tell you the total value for reasons of privacy but I will say that he made a very good investment. Stocks are fun and swing this way and that but these coins are stable, true, and always faithful. Dad knew that. He was right.

And thumbing through the collection always reminded me of his personal values. Yes, he was old-fashioned, you could say. He rallied around faith, family, honesty, hard work, productivity, great art, hard history, big books, deep learning, prayer, community service, and caring for others, all those things.

He was not only an astute investor. He was a compassionate and caring man. I recall walking with him on a hot windy day in the Texas mountains of the Southwest when a man of Mexican heritage passed us by and then stopped. “Dr. Tucker! You taught me to read! God bless you! God bless you!” My father smiled and shook his hand and we walked on.

I asked Dad what that was about. He said he once taught a class in English language for immigrant adults and that must have been a student. “Part of your job?” I asked. Dad said no, just as community service.

Okay, that was Dad. Talented. Dedicated. Humble too.

The Meaning of Coins

Back to the coins. They embody firmness of value. You can tell the history of the world through coins. There is an element of tragedy here, looking through coins from a time when money was sound, government was small, and Americans believed in liberty and independence.

The Constitution was taken seriously: gold and silver were minted as money.

The coinage suggested that too. The dimes were silver. The nickels were larger because they had less silver and more…nickel. Dollars were silver from the old Spanish world Thaler. The half dollar was…half a dollar. What does this suggest?

It suggests that government did not create money; it inherited it from the long history of commercial enterprise, dating even back to the late middle ages.

Then there is the gold. Dad must have loved the American Eagle coin because it suggested hope. Instead of banning gold ownership, the U.S. Treasury was now minting it for the people to own. He could not buy enough. But he also loved gold coins from all over the world. I found memos alongside some, in which he explained why he liked this one or that.

Truth in Coinage

These coins symbolize hope even today, a look back and a reminder that such times did exist. It is not in our imagination. Citizens used to carry truth and honesty in their pockets! Trade was calculated in something unchanging and valuable independent of government control.

A government that mints and distributes sound money trusts its people with their own lives. They also make inflation as we know it essentially impossible.

The Fed is a good printer. It is a terrible alchemist. So if you want to get rid of inflation once and for all, there is a way. Get rid of the Fed and make the dollar good as gold again. Make the dimes silver. Forget this embarrassing baloney-sandwich stuff we use today.

Let’s get back to truth. Not lies, like the Inflation Reduction Act or whatever they call it.

What are the chances? Almost none, sadly. The government is in too much debt and the people are too dependent on inflationary meddling. Leviathan would be impossible under a sound money regime. And tragically today so much of American life is about the perpetuation of Leviathan.

People everywhere are asking what they should do with their money because there seems to be few ways of making it without losing it. That’s how inflation works. You have to earn a high return above the inflation rate to feel good. It’s a rat race, even if it is a necessary one. But you know what’s not a rat race? Getting a safe, a cotton bag, and filling it with coins, a bit at a time.

Keep them for years, decades, and generations.

Preserving Value

It’s a truism in the investment world that you buy gold and silver not for its short-term return but for long-term security.

What does this mean?

Thousands of years of history have taught us the value of precious metals. No amount of crypto tokens, much less meta worlds of NFTs, are going to change that, as fun as they might be.

Gold keeps its value. But more than that, it symbolizes what it means to keep our values, as people, as societies, and as nations. They are physical objects but more than that, they embody a philosophy of living.

Think about this.

One day your children or grandchildren will be rifling through your stuff and they might come across your collection of gold and silver. Do you think their esteem for you will rise? Absolutely it will. It shows that you thought about the very long-term, not just the next investment cycle or election but lifetimes and generations.

And you know what I’m going to do with my Dad’s collection? So long as I don’t need to use them, I will keep them the same way he did. It’s my connection to him, his values, and also to a world that might seem long gone but did in fact exist. It’s an ideal. And we all need ideals. Ideals can be abstract but they can also be physical. That’s what these coins mean to me.

In a world of fleeting values and ceaseless and often pointless change, here we have something that we can both believe in and own. It’s real wealth, wealth for the ages, stuff we can carry in our pockets.

Now we carry “smartphones” that have become spying devices for government.

It was an emotional day. Mostly I will never forget the smile on my mother’s face when she saw all of this for the first time in decades. She remembered what a great man he was and how much she loved him.