Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

When a researcher begins with a conclusion, then looks for data to support that, “it’s a danger to all of science,” Dr. Paul Hruz, a St. Louis physician-scientist told a federal judge.

Yet Hruz said he has seen this disturbing pattern recur in recent years, as he examined studies purporting to prove the benefits of hormones and surgeries as treatments for gender-conflicted youths.

“It is erroneous to say that we identified an effective solution that maximizes benefits and minimizes risk,” Hruz testified Dec. 1 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Assailing the poor quality of research about gender-transition medical treatments for minors, and raising concerns about the risk of harm, Hruz said: “There are major, major questions that remain.”

Hruz, a pediatric endocrinologist and researcher, also called the procedures “highly experimental” and “unproven.”

He was the final witness to testify during a trial that is testing the nation’s first law banning hormones and surgeries for “gender-transition” of minors.

Judge Faces Big Decision

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit seeking to throw out the 2021 Arkansas law, alleging it is unconstitutional.

The ACLU of Arkansas has denounced the law as part of a “hateful attack” on LGBT youths seeking “medically necessary care.”

But the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office is defending the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, asserting that the state has a compelling interest to protect vulnerable children from medical interventions that can cause permanent harm, including ongoing health problems and sterility.

No dates have been set for attorneys to file final written briefs—the final pieces of the puzzle for Judge James Moody Jr. to consider before he issues a ruling. His decision could influence the way other states and courts respond to controversies surrounding similar legislation.

Moody will be considering two weeks’ worth of testimony that began with witnesses the ACLU called in mid-October. After a month-long recess, the trial resumed on Nov. 28 with witnesses testifying on behalf of the SAFE Act.

Treatments ‘Disrupt’ Healthy Process

During the last day of testimony on Dec. 1, Dylan Jacobs, deputy solicitor general for the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office, systematically questioned Hruz to share his extensive knowledge about treatment of “gender dysphoria,” or gender-related distress, among adolescents.

Based on his 25 years as a pediatric endocrinologist, along with 10 years of intensely researching gender dysphoria, Hruz said he would never prescribe puberty-blockers or cross-sex hormones without solid scientific studies showing that they do more good than harm.

Endocrinologists are dedicated to “restoring the body to its natural state of health” by correcting hormonal imbalances or deficiencies, he said.

Thus, Hruz objects to using hormones for gender dysphoria, and disrupting a normally functioning, healthy endocrine system.

6,000 Sex-Based Differences

Jacobs pointed out that ACLU witnesses described puberty blockers as a harmless “pause button.” Not so, Hruz said.

Puberty blockers prevent sex-specific changes, including easily observed ones such as breast development in girls and testicle development in boys. But inside the body, many other changes are also occurring during adolescence; the impact of interfering with those changes remains largely unknown, which is troubling, Hruz said.

“It is impossible to turn back time. So, once you’ve blocked puberty… you cannot buy back the time when that physical process has been disrupted,” Hruz said.

He also said credible studies show that, if left alone, many transgender-identifying youths will likely revert to their biological sex. But if put on puberty blockers, 98 percent of the youths will go on to take cross-sex hormones.

Flooding a person’s body with hormones of the opposite sex can cause myriad unknown effects, he said, noting that there are more than 6,000 sex-specific genetic differences between males and females.

In addition, it’s unclear how the combined effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones could affect young people in the long run, Hruz said.

Rapid-Fire Answers

In instance after instance, Hruz enumerated specific problems with studies that claim hormones or surgeries benefited youths with gender dysphoria.

“Despite the claims that are made about the efficacy of the affirmative approach, the evidence is insufficient to make that conclusion,” Hruz said.

With near-encyclopedic detail, Hruz fired off answers so quickly that the court stenographer struggled to keep pace. Moody repeatedly asked him to speak more slowly.

At one point, the judge became so frustrated, he threatened to stop the witness from further testimony unless Jacobs found a way to get Hruz to slow down his statements.

Hruz moderated his pace but continued speaking authoritatively as he testified for more than three hours under Jacobs’ questioning.

Generally, when considering medical treatment options, “The higher the risk, the lower the quality of evidence, the more caution that is used,” Hruz said.

Yet, with gender-affirming care, that principle seems not to apply, he said.

He couldn’t remember seeing any other medical treatments so strongly recommended despite such poor-quality evidence.

Another “unique” feature of this debate: The existence of gender dysphoria hinges on the patient’s self-reported identity and desires, Hruz said. There is no way to “test the accuracy of that condition,” he said.

Read more here…

More than one thousand New York Times employees could walk off the job late next week if a newsroom union fails to strike a deal with the publisher. 

After 20 months of negotiations, enough is enough: Today, more than 1,000 @NYTimesGuild members pledged to walk out if @nytimes does not agree to a complete and fair contract by Dec. 8.

— NYTimesGuild (@NYTimesGuild) December 2, 2022

In a series of tweets, NYTimesGuild, the labor union of more than 1,000 NYTimes employees, complained about pensions, health care, and pay while the progressive newspaper is on track for an annual operating profit of $320 million and splurged $150 million on stock buybacks.  

If you can believe it, NYTimes still pays their base journalist a measly $65,000 yearly, barely enough to live in NYC. 

A company on track for an annual operating profit of $320 million or more should be paying its employees a minimum of $65,000 a year. The @nytimes thinks this is unreasonable. The @NYTimesGuild does not.

— NYTimesGuild (@NYTimesGuild) December 2, 2022

This walkout pledge was not a decision we made lightly. But the truth is @nytimes is a blank page without @NYTGuild members. It’s time they gave us a contract that reflects our true worth. pic.twitter.com/MTMdockEKK

— NYTimesGuild (@NYTimesGuild) December 2, 2022

The lack of pay increases and failed negotiations by the union to solidify a deal appears to have been the last straw:

“Enough. If there is no contract by Dec. 8, we are walking out,” read the email’s subject line containing the letter that was sent to NYTimes publisher A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien on Friday, according to New York magazine.

The labor union wants negotiations on health care, pension plans, and a pay increase. They threatened to stop working for a full day next Thursday if an agreement wasn’t reached. 

“Labor unrest at the Times is always awkward for the top editor, who gets pinioned between the newsroom they run and the business side to which they must answer. The big walkout would be the first real crisis for new executive editor Joe Kahn,” New York Magazine wrote. 

NYTimes spokesperson said:

“While we are disappointed that the NewsGuild is threatening to strike, we are prepared to ensure The Times continues to serve our readers without disruption. We remain committed to working with the NYT NewsGuild to reach a contract that we can all be proud of.”

Meanwhile, “the paper,” NYTimes television critic James Poniewozik said, “doesn’t write itself.” A labor action and what could result in content disruption wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing, as it would force readers to search for news elsewhere. 

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, have filed a $27 billion class-action lawsuit against multiple law enforcement officials in the state.

This comes six months after the killings, which were the deadliest U.S. school shooting in almost a decade. Nineteen children and two teachers we killed by the gunman in May.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. It names the city of Uvalde, its police department, the school district, the state Department of Public Safety, and several police and school officials as defendants.

The plaintiffs, which include parents, teachers, and staff members, are alleging that the officials failed to follow protocols for an active shooter, despite having received active shooter training and that they did not neutralize the shooter immediately, leading to further trauma and injuries.

“Law enforcement took seventy-seven minutes to accomplish what they were duty bound to expeditiously perform,” the lawsuit states.

“Not only had CISD-PD undertaken a state-sponsored and mandated active shooter response training, but CISD had additionally promulgated its own required protocols and standards to employ in the event of an active shooter on one of its campuses.

“Despite such preparedness, the CISD police department, along with similarly trained law enforcement agencies including the City of Uvalde’s police department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, San Antonio Police Department’s SWAT unit, Uvalde’s Sheriff’s office, and the United States Department of Homeland Security fundamentally strayed from conducting themselves in conformity with what they knew to be the well-established protocols and standards for responding to an active shooter,” the lawsuit added.

Officers Waited Over an Hour

Nearly 400 law enforcement officials arrived at the school on May 24 but opted to wait over 70 minutes to enter the fourth-grade classroom where gunman Salvador Ramos had locked himself in and take him down.

A 77-page report published in July by the Texas state House of Representatives found that there were multiple “shortcomings and failures” across the board by both law enforcement and UCISD in its response.

Plaintiffs are seeking damages for the survivors of the shooting, including parents whose children were killed and those who witnessed the deadly incident.

According to the lawsuit, plaintiffs “sustained emotional and psychological damages as a result of Defendants’ conduct” on the day of the shooting, while some of the children are suffering from severe anxiety and nightmares.

A string of lawsuits have been filed against the Uvalde school district and law enforcement officers since May.

Mother of Victim, 10, Files Lawsuit

Earlier this week, Sandra Torres, the mother of 10-year-old victim Eliahna sued over the response to the shooting.

The lawsuit names the city of Uvalde; the County of Uvalde; the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District; the Uvalde Police Department; Uvalde CISD Police; Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office; Uvalde Constables, and the Texas Department of Public Safety as defendants.

Apple Inc’s massive exposure to Chinese manufacturing has left it with production shortfalls of iPhones due to Beijing’s harsh virus containment policies and unrest at a major factory in central China operated by Foxconn. A new report shows the iPhone maker’s retreat from China is accelerating. 

WSJ said Apple is “telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn.” 

Apple’s supply chain data indicates China is the iPhone maker’s primary location. Market research firm Counterpoint Research recently noted 85% of the Pro lineup of iPhones is made in Foxconn’s giant city-within-a-city factory in Zhengzhou. 

The factory has been hit with Covid-19 restrictions and unrest in recent weeks and months, leading to a production shortfall of 6 million iPhone Pros by the end of the year.

“Apple no longer feels comfortable having so much of its business tied up in one place, according to analysts and people in the Apple supply chain,” WSJ noted. 

“In the past, people didn’t pay attention to concentration risks.

 “Free trade was the norm and things were very predictable. Now we’ve entered a new world,” Alan Yeung, a former US executive for Foxconn, said. 

People familiar with Apple’s supply chain said that not all production would be shifted outside China. However, the remaining production in China will draw on a larger pool of assemblers, not just Foxconn. They said Luxshare Precision Industry Co. and Wingtech Technology Co. are two companies in line to receive more business from Apple. 

As for the shift out of China, people involved in the discussions said Apple is telling manufacturing partners to look at other countries. 

However, Apple has spent decades interweaving its supply chains within China, and change won’t come overnight. 

“Finding all the pieces to build at the scale Apple needs is not easy,” said Kate Whitehead, a former Apple operations manager who now owns her own supply-chain consulting firm.  

Ming-chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities who follows the supply chain, said Apple’s longer-term objective is to ship 40% to 45% of iPhones from India. And suppliers said Vietnam could soon be a significant player in manufacturing other Apple products such as AirPods, smartwatches, and laptops.

The bigger trend is the fracturing of the global supply chain. US firms realize China’s zero Covid policy and shutdowns, along with heightened geopolitical risk across the region, are bad for business and recently outlined in the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai’s latest survey of US firms in China found a near doubling of respondents over the past year that are slashing investment.

Authored by A.B. Stoddard via RealClear Wire,

Democrats face an inflection point, though they are trying not to face up to it. Surprising results in the November elections, producing a cloudy picture for both parties, have quieted a push to get President Biden to forgo a second term. But the liabilities of the GOP do not make Biden more popular; nor do they make him younger.

A split decision at the ballot box has Democrats cheering, but they have lost control of the House, and Biden’s job approval ratings are still nothing to crow about. Republicans underperformed because of the Dobbs ruling by the Supreme Court, and because of the extreme candidates backed by Donald Trump, when they should have won big. Democrats were not saved from a red wave because voters liked all the bipartisan bills they passed or that gasoline prices went down here and there. Record high inflation, a crisis at the border, and rising crime remain resonant issues with voters and still pose problems for the Democratic Party.

Yet Democrats seem to have backed down from the urgency of finding a new presidential nominee for their party in 2024. Talk of who could replace Biden – and when and how – had consumed Democrats throughout the summer and fall. They were not only anticipating a bad election, and a pivot point for the party, but whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would relinquish power as well, and support a new general of leadership for House Democrats. She did. And as I wrote in July, Biden should soon tell the country he will leave office in January of 2025.

The purple wave that helped Democrats mitigate their losses seems to have weakened Trump and strengthened Biden – the opposite of what was expected, particularly had Trump’s senate candidates prevailed. Trump announced his third presidential campaign anyway, but his diminished standing with GOP elites – combined with the midterm results – seems to have stiffened Biden’s spine about facing off against Trump once again in 2024.

Another campaign for Biden may even be a sure thing. “Those close to the White House say that, at this point, they expect only a family emergency or a personal health issue would change Biden’s mind about seeking re-election,” NBC reported, adding that Biden plans travel to potential battleground states and that advisors are reaching out to supporters “all in advance of a campaign launch early next year.”

Right on cue Democrats are talking comfortably again, even publicly, about a second Biden campaign. Before the election, Democrats believed Biden could face a primary challenge, but now some potential contenders are swearing off running against him. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have both said they won’t run if Biden does. “I think the president is running for re-election. So I think you’ll see Democrats supporting the president,” Pritzker told the New York Times. Newsom, who most Democrats assumed has been building a campaign-in-waiting, told Politico he assured the president, as well as his wife, that he wasn’t running if Biden ran or if he chose not to.

“He not only beat Trump once, I think he can beat him again,” Newsom said. “I hope he runs, I’ll enthusiastically support him.”

Biden himself is reportedly having conversations with his family, which started over Thanksgiving, about whether to run again. He has said running is his “intention” but has also said he wasn’t certain and would make an announcement early next year.

At 80, Biden is already America’s oldest president. The office has visibly aged him. He and Democrats aren’t talking about him launching a campaign for an election to serve two more years, but to serve another six years. Biden is not even halfway through his term. The worst thing for the party is for Biden to pretend that a visibly fatigued 82-year-old man, even if his stamina was not further degraded whatsoever by the next two years, can promise to lead the free world in the most grueling job on the planet until his 86th birthday. Biden running and having to quit, or serving and having to quit, because of his health is a foreseeable, avoidable problem for Democrats. The risk this poses is not worth the advantages Biden’s incumbency would afford him in a reelection campaign. Moreover, if Biden runs and appears physically weaker late next year it is likely someone could jump in to challenge him. That is a bad scenario for the Democrats, no matter who that is or how it turns out.

Polls show that rank-and-file Democrats don’t want Biden to run for a second term. Overall, strong majorities of Americans across the political spectrum don’t want Biden or Trump to run again.

Plus, there was no blue wave, either. The 2022 elections did not affirm support for Democrats, their policies, or the president. Frustrated voters unhappy with Biden and Democrats retained a near status quo in Washington, angry over abortion and afraid of some freaky Republican candidates they couldn’t trust in office.

In an interview, pollster Stanley Greenberg told the New York Times that his surveys show continued vulnerabilities for Democrats, and he thinks “we need a new voice to address huge challenges but also huge opportunities.”

The sooner the next crop of Democrats capable of leading their party can begin to campaign openly for the 2024 nomination, the better off the party will be. Dragging that process out, and risking an emergency, is not a position a strong leader would leave his party in. Pelosi likes to say that power is not given, it is taken. But last month she gave hers away. If it wasn’t the best thing for her, it was still the best decision for her party. Biden should do the same.

The COP27 climate change conference wrapped up last month. World leaders flew in private jets to Egypt to discuss how fossil fuels were quickly heating the planet to the point of no return, as humanity was doomed if crucial climate change policies weren’t implemented. But while the climate alarmist leaders met in the desert, November’s snowfall across the Northern Hemisphere was running at rates exceeding a half-a-century average. 

NOAA and Rutgers University released new data that showed snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere reached the highest level since measurements began in 1967 and are currently above the 56-year mean. 

Here’s the Rutgers Global Snow Lab snow coverage map across the Northern Hemisphere. 

And another from NOAA with more resolution. 

“Extensive snow extent early in the season is an indicator of persistent cold as we head into winter proper,” weather blog Severe Weather Europe said. 

Most mainstream media outlets overlooked this data because it is an inconvenient truth for the climate change narrative they’re pushing. 

A severe winter for the Northern Hemisphere might complicate power grids for western countries that are hellbent on disrupting energy flows by sanctioning Russia, forcing the world into the worst energy crisis in a generation. Since the US and Europe’s natural gas storage facilities have flipped into withdrawal season, the clock starts as storage levels could quickly wind down if temperatures stay below average, which would continue to boost energy prices. 

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An Arizona county’s board of supervisors certified their jurisdiction’s midterm elections results on Thursday at the order of a judge three days after they missed the statutory deadline of Nov. 28.

Judge Casey McGinley of the Pima County Superior Court instructed Cochise County’s board of supervisors to convene and declare the results official by 5 p.m. MT on Thursday.

McGinley ruled that the failure of two Republican supervisors to certify the results before the state’s legal deadline was illegal.

On Monday, the lone Democrat on the three-person panel, supervisor Anne English, voted against the motion to postpone the results, while Republican supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby voted to postpone.

Following the certification on Thursday, state officials in Arizona will now be able to proceed with statewide certification on Monday after the board voted 2–0 to certify the outcomes of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

English and Judd cast the deciding votes to certify, with Republican Tom Crosby abstaining from the court-ordered hearing.

Cochise County’s Board of Supervisors sought to push back certifying the results in order to further review claims that the county’s voting equipment was not properly certified in accordance with the law.

According to election officials, the machinery was properly approved.

Cochise County, which borders Mexico, has always been a bastion of Republican and conservative voters.

Hobbs Sues Cochise Board

After the two Republican members of the board voted to delay certification, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who was declared the victor of the state’s governor contest, sued Cochise County earlier this week.

Cochise County “had a statutory duty to certify the results of the 2022 General Election” by Nov. 28., Hobbs said on Twitter, where she shared screenshots of the lawsuit.

According to Hobb’s lawsuit, failure to certify the results before Dec. 1 will “sow greater confusion and doubt about the integrity of Arizona’s election system” and asked the court to issue an injunction compelling officials to do so.

“The Board’s inaction not only violates the plain language of the statute but also undermines a basic tenet of free and fair elections in this state: ensuring that every Arizonan’s voice is heard,” the lawsuit (pdf) reads.

Hobb’s lawsuit stated that without the court’s intervention, she would have no choice, as Arizona’s chief elections official in her role as secretary of state, but to complete the statewide canvass by Dec. 8 “without Cochise County’s votes included.”

Read more here…

This week several major web browsers quickly severed ties with a mysterious software company used to certify the security of websites, three weeks after the Washington Post exposed its connections to a US military contractor, the Post reports.

TrustCor Systems provided ‘certificates’ to browsers to Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge, which vouched for the legitimacy of said websites.

“Certificate Authorities have highly trusted roles in the internet ecosystem and it is unacceptable for a CA to be closely tied, through ownership and operation, to a company engaged in the distribution of malware,” said Mozilla’s Kathleen Wilson in an email to browser security experts. “Trustcor’s responses via their Vice President of CA operations further substantiates the factual basis for Mozilla’s concerns.”

According to TrustCor’s Panamanian (!?) registration records, the company has the same slate of officers, agents and officers as Arizona-based Packet Forensics, which has sold communication interception services to the U.S. government for over a decade.

One of those contracts listed the “place of performance” as Fort Meade, Md., the home of the National Security Agency and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command.

The case has put a new spotlight on the obscure systems of trust and checks that allow people to rely on the internet for most purposes. Browsers typically have more than a hundred authorities approved by default, including government-owned ones and small companies, to seamlessly attest that secure websites are what they purport to be. -WaPo

Also of concern, TrustCor’s small staff in Canada lists its place of operation at a UPS Store mail drop, according to company executive Rachel McPherson, who says she told their Canadian staffers to work remotely. She also acknowledged that the company has ‘infrastructure’ in Arizona as well.

McPherson says that ownership in TrustCor was transferred to employees despite the fact that some of the same holding companies had invested in both TrustCor and Packet Forensics.

Various technologists in the email discussion said they found TrustCor to be evasive when it came to basic facts such as legal domicile and ownership – which they said was not appropriate for a company responsible for root certificate authority that verifies a secure ‘https’ website is not an imposter.

The Post report built on the work of two researchers who had first located the company’s corporate records, Joel Reardon of the University of Calgary and Serge Egelman of the University of California at Berkeley. Those two and others also ran experiments on a secure email offering from TrustCor named MsgSafe.io. They found that contrary to MsgSafe’s public claims, emails sent through its system were not end-to-end encrypted and could be read by the company.

McPherson said the various technology experts had not used the right version or had not configured it properly. -WaPo

In a previous case which illustrates the importance of trusting root-level authorities – a security company controlled by the United Arab Emirates, DarkMatter, applied in 2019 to have top-level root authority from their status as an intermediate authority with less independence. The request followed revelations that DarkMatter had hacked dissidents and even some Americans – after which Mozilla denied it root power.

Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,

With US and Global debt exploding prior to both assets and debt imploding, let us look at the disastrous consequences for the US and the world.

Debt explosion leading to the currency becoming worthless has happened in history for as long as there has been some form of money whether we talk about 3rd century Rome, 18th century France or 20th century Weimar Republic and many many more.

So here we are again, another monetary era and another guaranteed collapse as von Mises said:

“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse
of a boom brought about by credit expansion”

This disastrous borrowed prosperity, with ZERO ability to repay the surging debt,  will lead to one of the three consequences below:

1. THE US$ GOES TO ZERO

2. A US DEFAULT

3. BOTH OF THE ABOVE

The most likely outcome is number 3 in my view. The dollar will go to ZERO and the US will default. The same will happen to most countries.

I outline the consequences for the world at the end of his article.

Many people say that the US can never default. That is of course absolute nonsense.

If a country prints worthless debt that nobody will buy in a currency that no one wants to hold, the country has definitely defaulted whatever spin they put on it.

In the next few years, not just US but all sovereign debt will only have one buyer which is the country that issues the debt. And every time a sovereign state buys its own debt, it has to issue more worthless debt that nobody will touch with a barge pole.

Printing more money to pay for previous sins has never worked and never will.

And this is how money dies, just like it has throughout history.

The current monetary era started with the foundation of the Fed in 1913 and the acceleration of debt and currency debasement since 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window. With just over 100 years into this era, it is now approaching the end, like they all do.

Global currencies are already down 97-99% since 1971 and we can now expect the final 1-3% decline for all money to become virtually worthless. This is of course nothing new in history since every single currency has always gone to ZERO. We must of course remember that the final 1-3% move means a 100% fall from today. The final collapse is always the quickest so it could easily happen in the next 2-5 years.

DEBT, DEBT AND MORE DEBT

Let’s look at how it has all evolved.

Although US debt has increased virtually every year since 1930, the acceleration started in the late 1960s and 1970s. With gold backing the dollar and therefore most currencies UNTIL 1971, the ability to borrow more money was restricted without depleting the gold reserves.

Since the gold standard prevented Nixon to print money and buy votes to stay in power, he conveniently got rid of those shackles “temporarily” as he declared on August 15, 1971. Politicians don’t change. Powell and Lagarde recently called the increase in inflation “transitory” but in spite of their bogus prediction, inflation has continued to rise.

Since 1971 total US debt has gone up 53X with GDP only up 22X as the graph below shows:

As the widening Gap between Debt and GDP in the graph above shows, it now takes ever more debt to achieve increases in GDP.  So without printing worthless money, REAL GDP would show a decline.

So this is what our politicians are doing, buying votes and creating fake growth through printed money. This gives the voter the illusion of  increased income and wealth. Sadly he doesn’t grasp that the illusory increase in living standard is all based on debt and devalued money.

Let’s also look at US Federal Debt:

Since Reagan became president in 1981, US federal debt has on average doubled every 8 years. Thus when Trump inherited the $20 trillion debt from Obama in 2017, I forecast that the debt would double by 2025 to $40t. That still looks like a valid projection but with the economic problems I expect, a $50t debt by 2025-6 cannot be excluded.

So presidents know they can buy the love of the people by running chronic deficits and printing money to make up for the difference.

But if we look at the graph above again, it shows that debt has gone up 35X since 1981 but that tax revenue has only increased 8X from $0.6t to $4.9t.

How can any sane person believe that with debt going up 4.5X faster than tax revenue that the debt can ever be repaid.

Even worse, with US interest payments on the debt surging from around 0% to probably 5% by 2025 the interest on the debt will climb to $2 trillion or circa 30% of the annual budget.

So with higher interest rates, higher deficits and rising inflation the scene is set for a high or hyper-inflationary period in the next few years.

FED PIVOT?

So virtually every observer believes that the Fed (and ECB) will not just stop raising interest rates but pivot and lower them again.

In my view this will not happen except for possibly very short term. The 40 year interest rate downtrend finished in 2020 and the world is unlikely to see low or negative rates for many years or decades.  High inflation and high rates will continue for years. But as we see in the 40 year chart of the 10 year US treasury below, there will be many corrections in the coming uptrend.

US MONEY SUPPLY GROWING AT 74% ANNUALISED

Between August 1971 and August 2019 US money supply grew at 6.1% p.a.

In August 2019, the hangover from the 2006-9 Great Financial Crisis hit the financial system again resulting in major support actions from the Fed and other central banks.

So the fresh problems emerged before Covid and before Ukraine. But those two new crises obviously exacerbated the systemic problems that had been put on ice for 10 years. This led to massive money printing and M1 in the US no longer increased at 6% annually but at a hyperinflationary 74% p.a. as the graph below shows.

$25 TRILLION GLOBAL LIQUIDITY/DEBT INCREASE AT ZERO COST

Central banks are always wrong and always behind the curve. They kept short term rates at zero or negative for over a decade. From 2009 to 2019 the balance sheets of major central banks increased by $13t. But then from Aug 2019 to 2022 an explosion in central bank debt took place, expanding their balance sheets $23t from $13t to $36t. All the same reasons that I discuss in the paragraph above regarding US money supply are obviously also valid for global debt expansion.

There is nothing like free money! The banks created this money at ZERO cost. They did no work and nor did they produce any goods or services. All they needed to do was to press a button. And with interest rates at zero or negative, many central banks were actually receiving interest from the lenders.

What a beautiful Ponzi scheme. CBs print/borrow money and then they are paid for the pleasure of borrowing this money.  Any private swindler launching such a scheme like Ponzi or Madoff would spend the rest of his life in prison but the bankers are praised for “saving” the system.

What virtually no individual understands is that this free money then enters the financial system as having a real intrinsic value. As with all Ponzi schemes, the current financial system will collapse too as the holders of the fake paper money realise that the money is worthless and that the emperor is totally naked.

That will be the final phase of the current monetary system with unlimited money printing as the $2.3 quadrillion debt pyramid collapses which I discussed in this article and also in this interview with Greg Hunter USA Watchdog .

This is what the global financial system looks like: 

The estimated $2 quadrillion gross derivatives is today quasi debt but will one day  become real debt, as central banks attempt to rescue the financial system. When counterparties fail, the gross will remain gross. So in total the world will face a $2,3 quadrillion debt resting on $2 trillion of central bank gold, a 0.1% coverage.

Within the next five years or so, the triangle is likely to be inverted with central bank gold as the foundation at the bottom. But instead of gold being only 0.1% of global liabilities, it will be as much as maybe 20%. That 200x revaluation of gold will be a combination of the value of global assets and liabilities collapsing and gold rising.

Personally I don’t believe in a lasting formal reset with a new currency system backed by gold. I cannot see the three major gold producers/holders China, Russia and India agreeing with the US on a revaluation. It is also questionable if the US has anywhere near the 8,000 tonnes of gold they are declaring. Also, China and Russia probably have considerably more gold than they are declaring.

Instead, after the fake paper market in gold has collapsed, the price must be based on supply and demand of unencumbered physical gold or Free Gold. But that can only happen after the current financial system based on fake money, debt and derivatives no longer functions. 

CONSEQUENCES

But before that, the world must pay for the excesses of the last 50 years. The consequences will be dire as we are facing a major cataclysm or disorderly reset which will involve:

• DEBT DEFAULTS – SOVEREIGN, CORPORATE  & PRIVATE

• BURSTING OF EPIC BUBBLES IN STOCKS, BONDS & PROPERTY

• MAJOR GEOPOLITICAL CONFLICTS WITH NO DESIRE FOR PEACE

• SECULAR FALL OF LIVING STANDARDS DUE TO HIGHER COST OF ENERGY & ENERGY SHORTAGES

• FOOD SHORTAGES LEADING TO MAJOR FAMINE AND CIVIL UNREST

• POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTABILITY & CORRUPTION

• NO COUNTRY WILL AFFORD SOCIAL SECURITY OR PENSIONS

• INFLATION HYPERINFLATION AND LATER DEFLATIONARY IMPLOSION

I sincerely hope that these predictions will not take place. Because if they do, everyone will suffer dramatically for an extended period. No one, rich or poor will avoid these problems.

I am naturally not predicting, like a Cassandra, (my 2017 article with a timely gold projection) that this disorderly reset will absolutely take place. Only future historians will tell us what actually happened.

But what I am saying is that the risk of a major catastrophe has never been higher in history, whenever it actually happens.

Physical gold and silver will not save you but clearly be the best financial insurance you can hold.

Most important is a support system of family and friends. Remember also that in addition to family and friends, some of the best things in life are free like nature, music, books and many hobbies.

The crypto industry continues to “pick up the pieces” after its epic collapse over the last 6 months, culminating in the implosion of FTX last month.

Three Arrows Capital, another firm that went under due to the plunging price of bitcoin, is in the process of being liquidated. Those in charge of dispersing of its assets are now looking to raise $30 million from the sale of a superyacht called “Much Wow”.

We first wrote that the yacht was being considered for sale in the bankruptcy this summer.

On Friday, a filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York by the company’s liquidator, Teneo, confirmed that it had recovered $35.6 million in cash, $2.8 million from forced redemptions and “over 60” different crypto tokens and NFTs, Coingape reported.

Teneo is also seeking $30 million from the sale of the yacht, which is said to be worth $50 million. According to the report, founders of 3AC used company funds to purchase the yacht, but never made its final payment. 

The yacht is currently “in insolvency proceedings in the Cayman Islands”, the report says. 

Company founder Kyle Davies recently “criticized liquidators for refusing to engage with them constructively,” the report continues. Teneo has spoken out and said that they Davies and founder Zhu Su are delaying the return of funds to creditors. 

The founders are in Bali and Dubai, respectively, and their U.S. citizenship is “unclear”, making it difficult to subpoena them.