You know the old saying: when bribery doesn’t work…just bribe using more money…

Such is the unfolding case in Vietnam, where G-7 nations have made a $15 billion offer to the country to try and wean it off of its reliance on coal, according to a report by Reuters. The country is among the top 20 coal users in the world and had previously turned down or ignored prior offers, the report notes.

Vietnam had already agreed to sign up for an “energy transition partnership with G7 nations” at a global climate summer this November, but high-level talks “broke off” before the meeting, the report says.

To bring the country back to the bargaining table, the EU and Britain are leading negotiations on behalf of the West, who have offered a financial package that includes $7.5 billion in loans from the public sector and loans totaling about the same amount from the private sector. 

Sources told Reuters this was the West’s “final offer” from the G7 before a December 14 deadline, when a summit of EU and Asian nations will take place. As Reuters notes, this $15 billion offer has grown from an “initial pledge” that was just $2 billion in public funds. 

Despite the bigger offer, it “remains unclear whether Vietnam would be prepared to accept the increased offer”, Reuters wrote. 

Vietnam had previously asked for more grants instead of loans, because the country is “traditionally opposed” to taking on loans. Sources indicated the chance of a deal getting done was at “50/50”, while others said talks are ongoing. 

After Vietnam walked from talks in November, its authorities cancelled a planned meeting with US and EU climate ambassadors and instead drafted a new long-term power plan that actually increased the country’s use of coal. 

The country is left to consider how much of its energy security could be put at risk during a switch to renewables, the report says. A transition “may result in power shortages in the booming nation without a credible backup in the event of low power output from wind farms or solar panels”. 

Personally, if we’re Vietnam, we hold out for $100 billion. At the pace with which the G-7 keeps upping its offer, it should only take a couple of weeks…

It’s no secret Philadelphia is a dangerous city.

In 2019, the murder rate was 22.47 per 100,000 residents according to FBI data, with 331 homicides that year. Fast forward three years, and there have been 480 murders year-to-date.

 Most affected are black males between the age of 18 and 45.

According to city statistics released in September, overall shootings have increased by 3% over last year, while violent crime is up 7%. Robberies involving guns are up 60%, while rapes are down more than 25%. Property crimes are up over 30%. Businesses getting hit particularly hard – with commercial burglaries up a staggering 50%, according to Axios Philadelphia. What’s more, the city’s drug crisis is spiraling further out of control with a new drug called “Tranq” – an anesthetic and pain reliever used to treat horses and cattle, and which turns people into zombies.

Crime is so out of control that the Philadelphia City Council recently approved a 10 p.m. curfew for anyone under the age of 18 – making a temporary summertime law permanent.

To combat the crime wave, Philadelphia gas station owners have turned to hiring heavily armed guards.

“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level,” said Karco gas station owner, Neil Patel, who has recruited Kevlar-clad S.I.T.E. agents packing AR-15s or shotguns. “We are tired of this nonsense; robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs,” Fox5 reports.

The final straw for Patel after his business was reportedly vandalized by young people who stole an ATM machine. His car has also been a casualty of crime, according to the report.

“We wear Kevlar, we are trained, my guards go to training every other week, they’re proficient with [their guns] and with their taser, they know the law,” said police chief Andre Boyer.

A realtime online poll on Fox5‘s website reveals that 93% say they feel safer with guards who have AR-15s at gas stations:

When asked about residents who are concerned over the gun-toting guards, Patel said: “I listen to them, but according to some people, violent people, they carry the guns, they’re not afraid of them? This is the protection for the neighborhood and the customers.”

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

Women protesting the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison were attacked outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5.

The women, representing mainly feminist and lesbian groups, said they are opposed to a California law that allows male inmates who self-identify as women to request to be housed in women’s prisons.

Watch a woman peak in real time

She begins by using ‘she’ for murderer #DanaRivers “Do you think it’s justice if she’s put in a violent prison with other men?”

Seconds later “What the hell? I don’t get that! They took your sign! OMG freedom of expression Who are these people? pic.twitter.com/YjB4xG7aig

— mazeks (@JeanMazeks) December 7, 2022

One hooded assailant was caught on video, obtained by The Epoch Times, throwing an egg into the group of women and also seen striking one with an umbrella, while another attacker in all black garb with red armbands on a bicycle plowed into the women from the opposite direction.

Women protesting the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison were attacked outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5, 2022. (Courtesy of Women’s Declaration International, U.S.A.)

The women, who wore sashes reading “Woman Adult Human Female,” and carried signs saying “No Men In Women’s Prisons” and “Dana Rivers Is A Man,” were also pelted with pies in the video.

Rivers, born David Warfield, was convicted last month on three counts of first-degree murder and felony arson. He was found guilty in the 2016 slayings of lesbian couple Charlotte Reed and Patricia Wright, and their teenage son, Benny Diambu-Wright, as well as setting their home in Oakland on fire.

According to multiple news reports, Rivers shot Reed multiple times and stabbed and bludgeoned her. He also shot Wright twice and the teen in the heart.

A hearing to determine Rivers’ mental competency at the time of the murders began Dec. 5. If found “insane,” Rivers is expected to be sent to a mental hospital for part of or all of his impending sentence.

Rivers waived his right to a jury for the insanity plea phase of the trial.

If the judge overseeing the trial determines Rivers was sane when he committed the murders, it is unclear if he will be sent to a women’s or men’s prison.

Several sources told The Epoch Times he is currently being held in protective custody in the women’s section of the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Calif., in Alameda County.

“We are firmly opposed to housing any men in women’s prisons under any circumstances, including Dana Rivers,” Kara Dansky, president of Women’s Declaration International, told The Epoch Times preceding the protest. “All men are male, regardless of any administration of hormones and/or surgeries, and our view is that women’s prisons ought to be for female inmates only, which is in alignment with the principles of international law.”

Dansky said the women had planned the peaceful protest to demand justice and stand in solidarity with lesbians and incarcerated women.

Women protesting the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison are attacked outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5, 2022. (Courtesy of Women’s Declaration International, U.S.A.)

Women protesting the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison are attacked outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5, 2022. (Courtesy of Women’s Declaration International, U.S.A.)

Women protesting the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison are attacked outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5, 2022. (Courtesy of Women’s Declaration International, U.S.A.)

Women protesting the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison were attacked outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5, 2022. (Courtesy of Women’s Declaration International, U.S.A.)

In 2020, the California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 132, The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, authored by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The law, which was enacted on Jan. 1, 2021, allows prisoners who identify as transgender, non-binary, and intersex “to request to be housed and searched in a manner consistent with their gender identity,” according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

There are currently 1,657 incarcerated people in California prisons who identify as transgender, non-binary and intersex,” according to the corrections and rehabilitation department. The agency additionally reports 342 men requested transfers to women’s jails since the end of November. Of those, 47 have been approved for transfer, 19 were denied, and 31 changed their minds. The remaining requests remain under review.

Women protest the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5, 2022. (Courtesy of Women’s Declaration International, U.S.A.)

“It’s happening in numerous other states. We just rarely hear about it because the media doesn’t like to talk about it,” Dansky said. “We know that the state of Washington also houses male prisoners in the women’s prison on the basis of their so-called female gender identity. We know that it’s happening in New Jersey on the basis of a settlement that was entered into between the state and the ACLU.”

Danksy, who is also the author of “The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender Agenda Harms Women and Girls,” said her chapter of the organization has more than 5,000 U.S. signatories supporting its declaration, “ to advance women’s sex-based rates in law and throughout society all over the world.”
Lierre Keith, of the Women’s Liberation Front, a group that is suing the state over the issue of biological males in women’s prisons, said female inmates are “living in terror” of violent male prisoners entering women’s facilities.

“Right now, in California, any man can simply declare he is a woman and get transferred to a women’s prison—even if he’s murdered two women, even if he stabbed a woman 28 times in the face,” she said.

Jesika Gonzalez of TERF Collective, a group “working to end the international campaign of female erasure that is transgender ideology,” also spoke at the protest.

“In California … even the most dangerous men are moved to women’s prisons upon request. Dana Rivers is the kind of man that proves the need for single-sex prisons,” Gonzalez said.

Oh the irony…

While questions remain over what was known and by whom about commingled FTX client funds being used to fill a vast and leaking bucket of a balance sheet at Alameda, it appears, based on a report from The New York Times (NYT), that the catalyst for this whole debacle could have been none other than the world’s (second) greatest Democrat donor and (ineffective) altruist – Sam Bankman-Fried.

NYT reports that federal prosecutors are investigating whether FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and his hedge fund orchestrated trades in a way that led to the collapse of two cryptocurrencies in May – TerraUSD and Luna.

Specifically, Manhattan prosecutors (US attorney for the Southern District of New York) are examining the possibility that Bankman-Fried steered the prices of two algorithmically-interlinked currencies to benefit entities he controlled, including FTX and Alameda Research.

According to two people with knowledge of the matter, NYT reports that the focus on possible market manipulation adds to the legal storm brewing around Mr. Bankman-Fried.

It is illegal for an individual to knowingly stage market activity designed to move the price of an asset up or down.

TerraUSD was a so-called stablecoin, but unlike other stablecoins, its value wasn’t backed directly by the U.S. dollar. Rather, it maintained its value from a second coin called Luna through a complex set of algorithms. Traders within the digital ecosystem could mint these coins, the prices of which would fluctuate based on how many were in circulation. Anytime the price of TerraUSD fell, the supply of Luna would increase, as traders created more Luna to try to capitalize on the difference.

In May, major cryptocurrency market makers — exchanges or individuals who arrange for buyers and sellers to be matched — noticed a flood of “sell” orders coming in for TerraUSD, said one person with knowledge of the market activity.

The orders were in small denominations, but they were placed very quickly, the person said.

The sudden jump in sell orders for TerraUSD overwhelmed the system, making it hard to find matching “buy” orders for them. Under normal conditions, any sell orders that remained unfulfilled for too long would be matched with buy orders at a lower price.

The longer the orders lingered without being matched, the more they forced down the price of TerraUSD and caused a corresponding drop in Luna prices because of the way the two coins were linked..

The exact causes of the collapse of the two cryptocurrencies remain unclear. However, the bulk of the sell orders for TerraUSD appeared to be coming from one place: Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency trading firm, which also placed a big bet on the price of Luna falling, according to the person with knowledge of the market activity.

[ZH: Note the action in late January, early February, when pressure to the downside on Luna saw a positive reaction (flight to safety perhaps) into FTX’s Token (FTT). Did Bankman-Fried and his girlfriend think the same would happen when they tried to pressure Luna lower in May?]

Had the trade gone as expected, the price declines in Luna could have yielded a fat profit.

Instead, the bottom fell out of the entire TerraUSD-Luna ecosystem.

The collapse caused more trouble in the cryptocurrency industry, sending several prominent companies into bankruptcy and erasing about $1 trillion in value from the crypto market.

The ripple effects from the Luna crash ultimately contributed to the collapse of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s business empire.

Bankman Fried reportedly told NYT that he was “not aware of any market manipulation and certainly never intended to engage in market manipulation.”

“To the best of my knowledge, all transactions were for investment or for hedging,” he added.

NYT does note that the investigation in early stages and that it is unclear if prosecutors have determined any wrongdoing by Bankman-Fried. All of which would be glorious for the screenplay of this whole farce as the ‘smartest man in the room’ – having been trained on ‘arbing’ such assets for ‘months’ – suddenly fell victim to the first lesson learned in any veteran arb-trader’s risk management book – volatility wounds but liquidity kills – just ask the Nobel-prize winners at LTCM.

Not realizing that the interlinked and levered chaos that his Luna short’s success could cause is perhaps the greatest sin of someone who – for all intent and purpose – could see almost the entire market (positioning, inter-linkage, leverage, and liquidity) through his two toys – FTX and Alameda.

And don’t forget that FTX is also under investigation for violating U.S. money-laundering laws that require money transfer businesses to know who their customers are and flag any potentially illegal activity to law enforcement authorities (but we are sure Bankman-Fried had no knowledge of any of that).

On Tuesday, Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao called Bankman-Fried a “master manipulator” and “one of the greatest fraudsters in history.”

Still, we are sure that Maxine Waters will ask him all about this during the hearing next week.

By Martina Lu of Container-News

COSCO Shipping Lines has withdrawn its express China-Canada-US intermodal service that was launched in October 2021, as carriers continue to trim capacity to respond to falling demand.

Container News was informed that the CEN-EXPRESS service had its last sailing when the Xin Ying Kou arrived at Prince Rupert on 29 November.

The service used five 4,250 TEU ships to move containers from Qingdao and Shanghai in China to Prince Rupert in Canada, from where the containers were railed from DP World’s terminal in Prince Rupert port, via the Canadian National Railway, to Chicago in the United States.

The ships have since been redeployed to COSCO’s Pacific Northwest services.

At the time it was launched, CEN-EXPRESS was marketed as an alternative way for shippers to move boxes from China to the US West Coast; at the time, the lane was suffering unprecedented congestion due to Covid-19 restrictions. Since then, however, the situation has reversed, as global economic uncertainties and inflation affects consumption.

Freight rates have fallen to almost the low levels seen before the pandemic, and carriers have been blanking sailings as a result.

The Biden administration has unveiled a sanctions blacklist of two dozen companies and other entities accused of supporting Russia militarily, as well as who have violated sanctions on Iran. But perhaps most surprising is that among the 24 companies also includes entities charged with illicit activities related to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. 

The US Commerce Department identified companies based in Latvia, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore and Switzerland, including Russia’s AO Kraftway Corporation, considered among the country’s largest IT companies. 

Fiber Optic Solutions in Latvia is named as well as Russian AO Scientific Research Center for Electronic Computing, LLC Fibersense, and Scientific Production Company Optolin, AO PKK Milandr; Milandr EK; Milandr ICC JSC; Milur IS; Microelectronic Production Complex (MPK) Milandr; and Ruselectronics JSC and Swiss based Milur SA, according to a press release.

Regarding the Iran-related sanctions, “The Commerce Department also added four trading and supply companies in Singapore for supplying or attempting to supply an Iranian electronics company, Pardazan System Namad Arman,” which as Reuters recounts was initially subject of US Treasury sanctions in 2018 following the Trump administration’s pullout of the Iran nuclear deal.

While over the past many months sanctions on Russia and Iran have become a normative thing in Washington, the Pakistan-related development is what’s most interesting. As Reuters explains:

The Biden administration also added 10 companies in Pakistan and UAE that it says pose unacceptable risks of using or diverting items for Pakistan’s unsafeguarded nuclear activities or are involved Pakistan’s “nuclear activities and missile proliferation-related activities.”

Pakistan, it must be remembered, is a nuclear-armed ally of Washington, but one which has always made US officials incredibly nervous given the alarming possibility of nukes ‘falling into the wrong hands’. Of course some of the world’s most notorious Islamic terror groups have had a significant presence inside Pakistan and especially along the Af-Pak border for decades.

Following the Taliban reconquering of Kabul in the wake of the US pullout from the country, the Brookings Institution warned of the following: 

The president will not have to look too far. Bordering Afghanistan, now again under Taliban rule, is Pakistan, one of America’s oddest “allies.” Governed by a shaky coalition of ineffective politicians and trained military leaders trying desperately to contain the challenge of domestic terrorism, Pakistan may be the best definition yet of a highly combustible threat that, if left unchecked, might lead to the nightmare of nightmares: jihadis taking control of a nuclear weapons arsenal of something in the neighborhood of 200 warheads.

Wednesday’s fresh US Commerce sanctions apparently have the above unpredictable nature of the Pakistani political and security landscape still fresh in mind. Currently Pakistan has the sixth largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) held a panel on COVID-19 vaccines in Washington on Dec. 7, featuring experts including Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCullough.

Experts discussed vaccine development, vaccine composition, data from insurance and adverse event systems, and other topics.

Here are four takeaways from the panel.

Insurance Experts Record Jump in Excess Mortality

Edward Dowd, a former BlackRock analyst now with the Humanity Project, showed data from the Society of Actuaries 2021 Group Life Insurance survey that showed a jump in excess mortality among young and middle-aged adults starting around the time the vaccines began being administered.

The only thing that changed at the time, Dowd said, was “vaccines and mandates.”

He pointed out that Denmark and the United Kingdom, among other countries, have stopped recommending or entirely halted vaccination of young, healthy people because of growing concerns over side effects like heart inflammation that can lead to death.

“Why are our health authorities still pushing this vaccine if other countries are backing off?” Dowd asked.

Representatives from major U.S. health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were invited to the discussion but did not attend.

Josh Stirling, an insurance analyst, presented an analysis of data from the United Kingdom that concluded death rates were higher among the vaccinated as of May 2022.

Doctors Report Increase in Heart Inflammation Since Pandemic Started

Several vaccines have been linked to side effects such as myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that can turn deadly.

Doctors testifying during the panel said they’ve seen an increase in patients with the inflammation.

“It’s been very high,” Dr. Reneta Moon, a clinical associate professor at the Washington State University College of Medicine.

Moon said she saw a handful of cases in her 20 years of practicing before the pandemic. The number has jumped since the pandemic started, she said.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatrician based in Hawaii, said he’s also seen more cases.

Milhoan said that the research that’s emerged shows myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, are caused by the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

Moderna and Pfizer have not responded to requests for comment on heart inflammation.

The studies show that the spike protein, which the vaccines cause the body to make, is “cardiotoxic and cause the heart to be inflamed,” Milhoan said. “Let that sink in, the current public health plan is asking our own body to make a cardiotoxin.”

COVID-19 can also cause myocarditis, according to some studies, though other research has challenged that view.

Young People at Little Risk From COVID-19

Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, presented data from the CDC that show young people face little risk from COVID-19.

The share of infection among those aged 0 to 17 that led to death, for instance, was just 0.01 percent through September 2021, while the share was 0.05 percent among those 18 to 29.

“When you have such low or nonexistent mortality in these low age groups, the potential severe adverse effects of the vaccine will surmount the nonexistent mortality of these age groups and therefore, what we’ve been told, that everybody has to be vaccinated … had no reason to be there in the first place, because there was no mortality they were trying to prevent,” Risch said.

The share was much higher among older people. Among those 85 and older, for example, the share was 24.6 percent.

Because vaccines have little to no impact on transmission or infection, the only point of getting vaccinated is for treatment, but most young people “had no reason to choose that when mortality from infection is orders of magnitude is much less than from vaccination,” Risch said.

No Strong Trials

As the vaccines have performed worse and worse against infection, health officials say they should still be taken to protect against severe disease.

But McCullough, chief scientific officer of The Wellness Company, said that no randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial has shown the vaccines reduce hospitalization or death.

Such trials, known as RCTs, are generally considered the highest form of evidence for a drug.

Both the emergency authorization and approval for the vaccines have been on the basis of preventing infection. In fact sheets, prospective recipients are told the vaccines “have been shown to prevent COVID-19.” There’s no mention of severe illness or death.

Read more here…

The last Boeing 747 jumbo jet rolled off the production line at the company’s factory in Everett, Washington, on Tuesday night, marking a close to a significant chapter in aviation history. 

Aviation historians call the 747 the original jumbo jet was first produced in 1967. Three years later, Pan Am started flying the double-decker jumbo jet that could haul over 500 passengers worldwide. 

“For more than half a century, tens of thousands of dedicated Boeing employees have designed and built this magnificent airplane that has truly changed the world. We are proud that this plane will continue to fly across the globe for years to come,” Kim Smith, Boeing vice president and general manager, 747 and 767 programs, wrote in a press release. 

Last night, the 1,574th 747 rolled out of the Everett factory. 

There she goes!

The last 747 has left our Everett factory ahead of delivery to Atlas Air in early 2023. #QueenOfTheSkies

Photos: Boeing/Paul Weatherman pic.twitter.com/duzgr6MzQl

— Boeing Airplanes (@BoeingAirplanes) December 7, 2022

The 747 was once the premiere choice of aircraft for airlines and has since been replaced with a twin-engine, wide-body aircraft that is more fuel-efficient. Still, 341 of these jumbos are in use but only as freighters. 

“The 747-8 is an incredibly capable aircraft, with capacity that is unmatched by any other freighter in production,” UPS wrote in a statement in 2020 when Boeing said production of the jet would end in late 2022. 

“With a maximum payload of 307,000 lbs., we use them on long, high-volume routes, connecting Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East,” the shipper continued. 

The last 747 was sold to air freighter Atlas Air which will use the aircraft to haul goods worldwide. 

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

Our times of boom to bust are the perfect illustration of the credit cycle first presented in its fullness in the 1920s. Why then? Because this was the first decade after most countries created central banks. They caused some very odd behavior that made 19th-century-style economics seem to have less explanatory power.

That was when a few economists working in Vienna put together a model for understanding how business cycles work in a modern economy. Their names were Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. They drew on their theoretical knowledge based on the following inputs:

Richard Cantillon (1680–1734) observed that when governments inflate the money supply, the effects are unevenly distributed among economic sectors, affecting some more than others and in different ways.

Adam Smith (1723–1790) explained that a critical element of rising wealth is embedded in the division of labor, in which individuals specialize in tasks and cooperate across firms and those firms cooperate with each other.

Carl Menger (1840–1921) saw money as an organic market creation, not an invention of the state, which implies that it should be produced like any other good or service.

Knut Wicksell (1851–1926) demonstrated that interest rates function as a price mechanism to allocate investment decisions over time, which is why the yield curve exists. Manipulation of the interest rate disturbs the natural allocation of resources.

Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk (1851–1914) explained the structure of production as consisting of far more than just consumer and capital goods. Capital itself is heterogeneous in that investment decisions include a forecast of time expectations, and the interest rate is crucial to coordinating them.

You can put all those pieces together to come up with a mental model of a well-functioning economy as described by Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) who saw the alignment of supply and demand as a law of economics, which is to say that a market economy is inherently stable.

The Central Bank

One can see, then, how a central bank messes everything up. By lowering the interest rate, the central bank fuels the creation of new bank credit that otherwise would not exist. An artificially lowered interest rate acts like fake savings.

Savings are resources drawn from deferred consumption. They serve as the basis for sustainable investment. But artificially low rates signal the existence of savings that are not there.

Not only do low interest rates create fake savings, but they actually draw real savings away from short-term projects toward longer-term projects, thus distorting the production structure as described above. They create a kind of subsidy toward capital products that would not exist had the interest rate stayed at its natural market-based level.

Massive Distortion

The result then is not just inflation, as the monetarists would describe it. It is also a distortion of the production structure.

Capital gets a subsidy over consumption goods, and not only that, but longer-term projects get a boost over shorter-term projects.

Bottom line: The last 14 years of zero-interest rates have created a paradigmatic case of the Austrian business cycle theory. It has massively distorted interest rates, more so than ever before. This was Ben Bernanke’s wonderful innovation. Many people thought his move in 2008 would generate inflation but he found a workaround.

Bernanke paid the banks to keep their new and faked resources locked away in the vaults of the Fed. This kept the hot money off the streets and kept prices stable. But that only solved one problem. It created another: It created huge malinvestments in a whole series of sectors in tech and media and housing yet again!

What resulted was a disgustingly overbuilt tech world replete with Zoom-class employees with college degrees earning six figures without limit. Central bank credit caused the creation of an overclass that eventually caused all sorts of mischief, economic and cultural. They invented idiotic ideas like ESG, DEI and woke philosophy in general.

None of this nonsense had anything to do with reality but in Bernanke’s world, reality didn’t matter anymore. This sector got so huge that it became a critical number to push lockdowns under the slogan “Stay home, stay safe.” These privileged elites forced the working classes to serve them food at their doorsteps and face the virus while they luxuriated in their fancy apartments pretending to work on laptops.

The Chart That Reveals All

So that we understand the radical nature of this experiment, please study the following chart carefully. This is the federal funds rate adjusted for inflation. What we see is the longest period of production distortion in American history. This chart goes from 1950s to the present.

This whole policy becomes unsustainable once the value of the dollar begins to fall due to price inflation. At some point, the central bank has to turn things around. When things become shaky or prices start to shift and the central bank starts to back off its pillaging policies, the house of cards starts to fall apart, as resources are drained from long-term speculation to shorter-term consumption and the restarting of real savings.

That’s precisely where we’re in the cycle. Long-term projects are falling apart. Consumers and investors are turning away from the long parts of the yield curve to make money in the short term. Resources in general are going through a massive shift in terms of time allocation as interest rates shift.

The Yield Curve

That the yield curve has dramatically inverted is hardly a surprise. It is a sign that the ship of production is turning very slowly, and investors are unconvinced yet that the Fed will keep this up.

But that point is that the Fed must keep this up if it intends to get inflation rates back to the target. The federal funds rate will have to enter back into positive territory in real terms. That means 6%, 8% or even 10%, pushing long yields far into the double-digit range.

To be sure, we should all in a macroeconomic sense look forward to a new age of more honest finance. The disaster of zero-interest rate policy is finally coming to an end. Former Fed chief Ben Bernanke’s Nobel Prize notwithstanding, this policy massively distorted capital allocation in the economy and around the world for the better part of 14 years. With its end, we’re going to get a taste of some economic and financial rationality.

We might even be able to save money without losing money. So in that sense, the man who bears the main responsibility for inflation, current Fed Chair Jerome Powell, is the same guy who will finally fix what Bernanke broke all those years ago. Remember those days when everything seemed too good to be true? There was a financial crisis that the Fed magically fixed with no downside.

Except that there was a huge economic, cultural and social downside. Frugality and prudence gave way to massive excess and a level of craziness in culture that we never imagined we would experience.

What made this preposterously unjust system possible was the Fed with Bernanke at the helm. Quantitative easing turns out to mean upending all normal life and paying the horrid price for this a decade and a half later.

Someday historians will look back at our times as a great turning point. We’ve been through calamity, and it worsens by the day. Will we enter into a new Dark Age? Or find the light and crawl our way toward it before it’s too late?

If we find our way, it will be because the Austrian economists of old will guide us.

One week after San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to give police the ability to use lethal, remote-controlled robots, wisdom has prevailed.

Following heavy criticism from civil liberties groups, and anyone with a brain, the Board of Supervisors thought twice about giving cops the ability to ‘take down’ suspects at the push of a button. After sending the measure to committee for further review, the city reversed course.

The vote came following a new California law requiring city police forces to keep inventories of military-grade equipment and seek approval for their use.

Dr Catherine Connolly, from the group Stop Killer Robots, told the BBC the move was a “slippery slope” that could distance humans from killing.

Protesters and several dissenting board members gathered on the steps of city hall to call for the city to reverse its decision. –BBC

Opponents also said the robots would lead to the further militarization of the police force.

The original proposal will need to be completely revamped, or entirely scrapped.

Advocates for the killer robots say they would only be used in ‘extreme’ circumstances, with a spokesperson for the SFPD saying that “robots could potentially be equipped with explosive charges to breach fortified structures containing violent, armed, or dangerous subjects.”

Under the original proposal, “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when [1] risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and [2] officers cannot subdue the threat after using alternative force options or de-escalation tactics options, **or** conclude that they will not be able to subdue the threat after evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics. Only the Chief of Police, Assistant Chief, or Deputy Chief of Special Operations may authorize the use of robot deadly force options.”

But as the EFF‘s Matt Guariglia noted last week; The “or” in this policy (emphasis added) does a lot of work. Police can use deadly force after “evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics,” meaning that they don’t have to actually try them before remotely killing someone with a robot strapped with a bomb.