Gold Vs. Bitcoin Vs. CBDCs

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: For over 2,500 years, gold has been mankind’s most enduring money.

However, with the emergence of Bitcoin there is a new hard money option.

How do you see the two as governments worldwide continue to engage in rampant currency debasement and are rolling out central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)?

Nick Giambruno: First, I am all for free-market competition in money.

I say let the best money win.

Having a handle on the basics is crucial to understand what is happening here.

Money is a good, just like any other in an economy. And it isn’t a complex notion to grasp.

It doesn’t require you to understand convoluted math formulas and complicated theories—as the gatekeepers in academia, media, and government mislead many folks into believing.

Understanding money is intuitive and straightforward.

Money is simply something useful for storing and exchanging value. That’s it.

The way I see it, three primary monetary goods are competing against each other today: Bitcoin, gold, and fiat currency.

Fiat currency is currently the dominant form of money in the world.

But that status is fleeting as central banks are debasing their currencies at breathtaking speed.

CBDCs are a desperate, last-ditch effort to keep the fiat currency scam going—a Hail Mary.

To escape the collapsing fiat system and CBDC enslavement, many millions—soon billions—of people are turning to monetary alternatives like gold and Bitcoin.

Fiat currency is a fraud of historic proportions that causes incomprehensible damage. So I am rooting for both gold and Bitcoin in this three-way war for monetary supremacy.

International Man: Can you explain Bitcoin’s monetary qualities?

Nick Giambruno: Bitcoin shares many of gold’s monetary characteristics. They’re both durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, scarce, and most importantly, “hard assets.”

“Hardness” does not mean something that is necessarily tangible or physically hard, like metal. It means “hard to produce.” By contrast, “easy money” is easy to produce.

The best way to think of hardness is “resistance to debasement,” which helps make it a good store of value—an essential function of money.

The most important characteristic of a good money is that it is credibly “hard to produce.”

All other monetary characteristics are meaningless if the money is easy for someone to produce.

Like gold, Bitcoin does not have counterparty risk.

In other words, Bitcoin and gold are the only primarily monetary assets that aren’t simultaneously someone else’s liabilities.

Gold has established itself as money over thousands of years. Bitcoin is a new and emerging money.

Bitcoin is like hard money with a call option based on its further monetization, which is an excellent bet.

A lot more can be said on this topic, but this sums up the essential points.

International Man: What about CBDCs?

Nick Giambruno: Despite all the hype, CBDCs are nothing but the same fiat currency swindle on steroids.

It’s doubtful CBDCs can save otherwise fundamentally unsound currencies—as I believe all fiat currencies are.

If the current fiat system is not viable, then CBDCs are even less viable as they enable the government to engage in even more currency debasement.

Would a CBDC have saved the Zimbabwe dollar, the Venezuelan bolivar, the Argentine peso, the Lebanese lira, or the Nigerian naira?

I don’t think so. And a CBDC won’t save the US dollar or the euro from their fates either.

There are a lot of bad things that come with CBDCs. But there’s a silver lining…

CBDCs are going to introduce and familiarize people with using digital currencies. It’s then only then a matter of time before they discover Bitcoin.

CBDCs and Bitcoin share some characteristics.

For example, they are both digital and facilitate fast payments from a mobile phone. But that is where the similarities end.

The reality is that CBDCs and Bitcoin are entirely different in the most fundamental ways.

You need the government’s permission and blessing to use a CBDC, whereas Bitcoin is permissionless.

Governments can (and will) create as many CBDC currency units as they want. With Bitcoin, there can never be more than 21 million, and there is nothing anyone can do to inflate the supply more than the predetermined amount in the protocol.

CBDCs are centralized. Bitcoin is decentralized.

Governments can censor transactions and freeze, sanction, and confiscate CBDC units whenever they want. Bitcoin is censorship-resistant. No country’s sanctions or laws can affect the protocol.

There is no privacy with CBDCs. However, with Bitcoin, if you take specific steps, it is possible to maintain reasonable privacy.

CBDCs are government money that are easy to produce and give politicians a terrifying amount of control over people’s lives. On the other hand, Bitcoin is non-state hard money that helps liberate individuals from government control.

In short, CBDCs are a pathetic attempt to compete with Bitcoin.

CBDCs make an inferior form of money even worse, but at the same time, they are an excellent Trojan Horse for Bitcoin.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see that once governments inevitably inflate their CBDC units, censor transactions, freeze people’s accounts, and confiscate funds, it will push people to look for better digital alternatives, first and foremost Bitcoin.

That’s how, contrary to conventional wisdom, CBDCs could be an enormous catalyst for Bitcoin adoption.

International Man: Couldn’t governments simply ban Bitcoin?

Nick Giambruno: Bitcoin threatens a major source of the government’s power—the power to create fake money out of thin air and force everyone to use it. There’s no question they’ll try to protect this racket from Bitcoin. The question is whether they’ll be successful.

Remember, the powerful Chinese government has banned Bitcoin numerous times with little to no long-term effects as adoption grows.

That’s because it’s entirely impractical for governments to ban Bitcoin. They’re no match for the economic incentives that attract millions—soon billions—of people, and increasingly, corporations, and even nation states to a harder and superior form of money.

Further, all aspects of Bitcoin are genuinely decentralized and robust. The best that governments can do is play an endless game of global whack-a-mole.

Governments in Argentina and Venezuela have laws restricting their citizens from accessing US dollars. However, these laws have little effect on their citizens’ desire and ability to use them. These actions just create a thriving black market, or, more accurately termed, a free market.

Similarly, governments have tried to ban cannabis for decades, which hasn’t worked out very well for them.

Bitcoin would be infinitely more challenging for governments to ban than US dollars or a plant.

I would like to see governments try to ban Bitcoin because they’ll fall flat on their faces.

It’s doubtful any government will be more successful in banning it than the Chinese government was.

A failed attempt to ban Bitcoin will reinforce its value proposition as a superior form of money nobody controls.

International Man: Where do you see the Bitcoin price going?

Nick Giambruno: What we have with Bitcoin is an entirely new asset that millions worldwide are adopting as money because of its superior monetary properties, namely its total resistance to debasement.

The monetization of the new monetary good is genuinely unlike anything anyone alive has ever seen.

It took gold centuries to achieve monetization. Bitcoin has a good chance of undergoing monetization in a much shorter period.

The market cap for Bitcoin today is around $600 billion.

The market cap for all the mined gold in the world, which took thousands of years to accumulate, is about $12.7 trillion.

That means Bitcoin has a market cap roughly equal to 5% of gold’s and is already well on its way to monetization.

Assuming gold stays flat and Bitcoin goes up 20x, it would have a market cap roughly equal to gold. At that point, a single Bitcoin would be worth over $620,000. I think that’s a real possibility in the next ten years, though it could happen much sooner.

If that sounds outrageous, consider this…

Ten years ago, the Bitcoin price was around $100. Today, it’s roughly 310x that.

Bitcoin has made numerous breathtaking moves to the upside in the past. I think it can do it again, especially as corporations, institutional investors, and even nation states start buying Bitcoin for the first time. Of course, it’s important to remember that past performance does not indicate future results for any investment.

Here’s the bottom line.

Few people are aware of what is really happening with Bitcoin.

And even fewer know how to prepare.

That’s why I’ve just released an urgent PDF report revealing three ways you can do that.

Check it out as soon as possible because it could soon be too late to take action. Click here to get it now.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/30/2023 - 17:40
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Gold Vs. Bitcoin Vs. CBDCs

Union Fights Signal Danger Ahead For Bidenomics

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,

Just a few hours before President Biden tied his political fate to the economy, embracing the term “Bidenomics” in a Chicago speech Wednesday, he was still trying to dispel worries about a looming recession. A reporter asked Biden, before he boarded Marine One, whether he believed the worst of inflation was over.

“Let me put it this way: I’ve been hearing every month there’s going to be a recession next month,” the president responded. “Two-thirds of economists and the major leaders in the banks think we’re not going to have a recession. I don’t think so either.”

The exchange underscores the fragile state of the economy that most Americans and independent analysts find concerning. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he expects more interest-rate increases ahead as inflation remains “well above where it should be.” Meanwhile, only 24% of voters believe the country is on the right track, with 38.3% approving of Biden’s handling of the economy, according to RealClearPolitics’ poll average.

The White House this week put a far glossier spin on its inflation record, asserting that wages have gone up during Biden’s tenure and that the inflation rate has been cut in half from where it was a year ago – lower than any other wealthy Group of 7 nation, according to Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Republicans dismissed the claims as brazen gaslighting, pointing out that inflation spiked after Biden took office, rising from 1.4% in January 2021 to 5.4% by June 2021, and 7.5% right before Russia invaded Ukraine, peaking at 9.1% in June 2022 before demand slowly began to sink it to its current 4%.

While Democrats and Republicans spent the week debating whether Biden’s policies have helped or hurt the middle class, other economic signs were flashing red, warning of danger ahead. Biden has long blamed the spike in inflation on a temporary COVID hangover and bottlenecks that snarled supply lines, which he said have smoothed out over time as employees have returned to work.

Now several fights, led by the Teamsters Union’s aggressive new president, Sean O’Brien, could throw kinks into the nation’s shipping and trucking logistics in a matter of weeks. During his Wednesday remarks, Biden repeated his promise to be the most pro-union president in history and said that under his watch, Americans’ support for unions is at its strongest level in 60 years.

“We are making it easier to empower workers by making it easier to join the union,” he told the audience of about 200 supporters.

Earlier this month, the president held his first reelection rally in Philadelphia at an event hosted by the AFL-CIO and attended by 2,000 cheering union members. The massive AFL-CIO and 17 other unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, announced their early endorsements of Biden’s reelection.

While continuing his pro-union drumbeat, regularly sprinkling his speeches with pledges to protect “good-paying union jobs,” Biden is pointedly avoiding discussing several looming union threats to disrupt crucial supply chains and likely upend progress on inflation. The Teamsters ramped up their rhetoric this week after voting to authorize strikes at two of the nation’s largest trucking fleets if new labor deals are not struck by the end of next month.

Teamsters working for shipping giant UPS are threatening to strike on Aug. 1 if their demands for better pay and working conditions aren’t met. If the current negotiations break down, some 340,000 warehousing, transportation, and delivery workers could walk off the job in what would be the largest U.S. strike in 60 years. UPS brown vans deliver more than 19 million packages a day.

The workers want higher pay; the elimination of so-called two-tier wages, where newer workers are paid less than older employees for the same job; the removal of surveillance cameras from delivery trucks; and more full-time positions. The rhetoric between the two sides escalated this week when O’Brien demanded that UPS provide a tentative contract agreement that its leadership can support within the next week after UPS reportedly returned to the bargaining table Tuesday without an updated counteroffer to present to the union.

“When we say the current contract expires July 31, that means we want a new contract in place starting August 1,” O’Brien said in a statement this week. “Not in six months. Not next spring. We demand a historic new contract August 1 with more money in our pockets immediately.” Warning that a nationwide UPS strike is imminent, O’Brien added, “UPS has wasted enough time and hoarded these record profits. Our members want what they have earned.”

Just two weeks ago, Teamsters at TForce Freight, representing more than 7,000 truck drivers and delivery workers nationwide, voted to authorize a strike with the same July 31 deadline for negotiations. TForce Freight operates in the less-than-truckload, or LTL, shipping market, which handles smaller loads that can be broken down into units less than 150 pounds.

At the same time, the union is battling another large LTL trucking employer, Yellow Corp., over a restructuring plan to modernize its operations to compete in the U.S. $58 billion LTL market. Yellow, which has struggled financially for years, says it needs to re-engineer its business plans and consolidate terminals to compete in an industry dominated by non-union companies. The need is particularly urgent because the company must refinance $1.3 billion in debts from loans maturing next year or face bankruptcy.

Nick Vyas, director of the Center for Global Supply Chain Management at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, said allowing the strikes to take place and Yellow to fail could have a devastating impact on the economy, particularly because the boom in online shopping and home delivery, which began during the pandemic, is still going strong.

Vyas worries that organized labor is focused on extracting short-sighted demands and resisting “transformative forces” while making their employers less competitive overall, even forcing some U.S. companies that have been in business for 50 or 100 years to fail or transition out of certain industries.

“The unionized companies that provide better wages, benefits, and a better lifestyle for their employers could disappear, and you will have a marketplace based on smaller non-unionized companies that will cater to consumer needs,” Vyas told RealClearPolitics. “At the end of the day, it’s like putting a rock in the middle of a stream of water. The water will find a way to go around … consumers are not going to slow down their demand for technological innovations and faster service.”

In 2020, Yellow received a $700 million pandemic relief loan in exchange for the federal government assuming a 30% equity stake in the company. A bankruptcy could leave American taxpayers with more financial burden from the company and a loss of 30,000 unionized trucking jobs.

The Teamsters have vigorously opposed Yellow’s plans to require some workers to take on additional dock work, loading and unloading freight, among other changes. After an eight-month impasse, Yellow filed suit against the Teamsters this week, arguing that it had the right under its labor contract to implement the restructuring plan. The carrier is seeking $137 million in damages for what it argues is a breach of contract. “Without these crucial reforms, which are standard practice in the industry today, Yellow will not survive,” the company said in a statement.

O’Brien fired back, accusing Yellow of filing a baseless allegation because its management has failed the company and can no longer live up to the contract terms it agreed to. “This lawsuit is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save face,” said Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman.

The company argues it’s simply trying to stay afloat, repay its loans from the federal government and save the jobs of its 30,000 workers while continuing an undisrupted supply chain to hundreds of thousands of its customers across the country. “Driving Yellow out of business will badly damage the supply chain, lessen competition and raise the price of shipped goods and feed inflation,” the company said Tuesday in announcing the lawsuit.

“We do not take this action lightly, but the Union’s leadership has left us with no choice,” Yellow’s management said in a statement. “For many months, we have made good faith efforts to meet with the IBT to propose a path forward that works for all parties, but they refuse even to meet, let alone engage in honest talks.”

The complaint said the Teamsters had backed the company’s modernization effort for years and approved the first of the effort’s three phases. The union, however, reversed course when O’Brien became president and pledged to take a “militant approach” in blocking the restructuring. In the lawsuit, Yellow said it reached out to Biden to try to broker a deal, but O’Brien rejected the White House’s efforts. A White House spokesperson acknowledged engaging with both parties but declined to comment on the legal dispute.

“We are assessing any potential impact on supply chains and workers,” the spokesperson told RCP.

It’s a delicate situation for Biden, who would like to add the Teamsters to his roster of labor endorsements, but who rubbed some union members the wrong way for his role in brokering a deal to avert a disruptive rail strike just before Christmas last year. Some union members were disappointed by the negotiated terms and still hold Biden accountable.

While Biden wants strong union backing for his reelection, he’s also trying to lure more companies and manufacturing back to the U.S. after decades of businesses moving offshore for cheaper labor and less regulation.

“The president should tone down narratives about just being pro-labor,” Vyas argued. “Instead, he needs to show he’s doing the right thing to keep the country and its infrastructure and manufacturing base competitive.”

On Wednesday, Biden said his government investments in infrastructure, which most Republicans opposed, were already increasing manufacturing jobs here at home. Under his leadership, he said, U.S. products, such as semiconductors, and even whole industries that had moved offshore have started to return.

“We went from producing 40% of those chips down to 10%,” he told the crowd. “Not anymore. Bidenomics is going to grow those jobs and products right here at home. I mean it. It’s not a joke.”

In the coming weeks, as the Teamsters and trucking industry battles come to a head, Biden won’t so easily remain on the sidelines avoiding the political or economic fallout. The state of the economy often determines whether first-term presidents stick around for four more years. As it stands now, voters are skeptical, the economy is shaky, and the White House’s big “Bidenomics” embrace just tied the president even more closely to its trajectory.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/30/2023 - 17:00
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Union Fights Signal Danger Ahead For Bidenomics

Fed F**kery Turns $65 Billion Bank Deposit Outflow Into $48 Billion Inflow

Yesterday we saw more, modest, outflows from institutional money-market funds (inflows from retail funds), but a rise to a new record high for usage of The Fed's emergency bank bailout scheme, to over $106 billion.

Tonight, we get more of the picture - admittedly with The Fed's own sprinkling of magic pixie dust that turns deposit outflows into inflows.

Seasonally-adjusted, total deposits rose a significant $46.95 billion last week to $17.3 trillion - the highest since 3/5/23...

Source: Bloomberg

Non-seasonally-adjusted, total deposits tumbled $63.1 billion...

Source: Bloomberg

The SA and NSA deposit totals are diverging once again...

Source: Bloomberg

The divergence between money-market funds and deposits continues (remember the deposit data is one-week lagged to the MM fund data)...

Source: Bloomberg

Seasonally-adjusted, both large and small banks saw deposit inflows (+$34.9bn and +13.4bn respectively) while foreign banks saw a small $1.4bn outflow...

Source: Bloomberg

The picture - non-seasonally-adjusted - is the exact opposite with large and small banks seeing outflows (-$52bn and -$13bn respectively) and foreign banks saw inflows of $1.9bn...

Source: Bloomberg

The Fed's magic turned $65.1 billion of deposit OUTFLOWS for Domestic banks (ex-Foreign) into $48.3 billion of INFLOWS...

Source: Bloomberg

You have to laugh!

On the other side of the ledger, loan volume rose very modestly (which is odd given the huge SA deposit inflow, right?) Large bank loan volume rose de-minimusly while small bank loans rose over $9bn...

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, after all the big banks passed the stress test with flying colors, we remind readers that banks have 9 months left under the original 12-month BTFP Fed bailout program to find a way to stabilize their balance sheets.

Not only have they failed to do so, usage of the BTFP facility is at a new all time high, and yields are rising even more (great MTM losses).

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/30/2023 - 16:40
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Fed Fkery Turns $65 Billion Bank Deposit Outflow Into $48 Billion Inflow

Watch: Biden Wanders Off Set Of Softball Interview After Claiming There Was A Civil War In 1960

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Joe Biden slurred his way through train wreck of an interview Thursday, claiming there was a civil war in the U.S. in 1960 and mixing up the Constitution and the Declaration Of Independence before wandering off the set like a lost Alzheimer’s sufferer.

During the 20 minute MSNBC interview, Biden essentially repeated everything host Nicolle Wallace said.

"This is very exciting for us!" Nicolle Wallace gushes to President Biden.
She then tees him up to attack the Supreme Court by calling it "not normal."
Biden claims SCOTUS has "done more to unravel basic rights" than any court in "recent history." pic.twitter.com/MYoeQf4Iwx

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 29, 2023

"Do you worry that without court reform this conservative majority is too young and too conservative, that they might do too much harm?" she continued to press.
Biden says he does fear "they may do too much harm." pic.twitter.com/cuWKkuhfT7

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 29, 2023

Unsurprisingly Wallace failed to ask a single question about the massive bribery scandal Biden is alleged to have overseen, including being present when his own son shook down a Chinese Communist Party businessman.

At one point Biden told that completely made up story he always uses about becoming a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania.

Biden claims he "was teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and I had a significant budget to hire a lot of people for the Biden Democracy Fund."

Biden was paid $1 million, but never taught a single class. pic.twitter.com/HWaoe9u7BX

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 29, 2023

He then declared that the Constitution says ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…’ and claimed there had been a civil war in 1960.

Biden confuses the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence while accusing the Supreme Court of not "embracing" the Constitution.

He then says "we fought a war...in 1960." pic.twitter.com/1rXKLdpfjC

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 29, 2023

Biden then doddered off the set before they went to commercial:

WATCH: Biden awkwardly wanders off of MSNBC while the cameras are still on.

pic.twitter.com/RioavAESgU

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 29, 2023

Maybe he needed to get back to the respiratory device that’s keeping him alive.

White House Admits Biden Uses A Respiratory Device After Indentations Seen On His Face

How is this guy in any shape to be President now, let alone for another five years?

Poll: More Than Two Thirds Of Voters, 43% Of Democrats Say Biden Not Physically Or Mentally Fit Enough

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Watch: Biden Wanders Off Set Of Softball Interview After Claiming There Was A Civil War In 1960

Consumers Trade Down From Walmart, Dollar Tree Becomes Supermarket For The Working Poor

Millions of American households have been battered by two years of negative real wage growth, which forced them to deplete personal savings and rack up enormous amounts of credit card debt while paying some of the highest interest rates in a generation. Mid/low-tier consumers are cracking under the weight of inflation, and some have traded down grocery shopping from Walmart to Dollar Tree.

Dollar Tree understands 'Bidenomics' has been a complete disaster for the mid/low-tier Americans or anyone not inside the Capital Beltway, working on Wall Street, or in the tech world. This is why the budget retailer is deciding to sell more items that cost more than a buck but are cheaper than Walmart and expand into frozen food. 

So while the headline that Dollar Tree items now cost more than a buck is important. We focus on the company's expansion into frozen and chilled foods that cost up to $5 at some stores. 

Merchandising Officer Richard McNeely told investors this week that expanding food items and price points from $2 to $5 opens a "huge market that is untapped for us." 

McNeely explained these new products are a "gateway to the future" to expand the customer base. He noted that expanding into frozen foods could offer 'meal solutions' to customers. 

Dollar Tree's investor deck shows its expansion plans into frozen foods at higher price points in thousands of stores. 

While the food isn't exactly healthy, Dollar Tree offers a "compelling" value for consumers who can no longer afford Walmart.

Eventually, Dollar Tree will have a large enough freezer section where consumers can shop for entire meals. 

In the era of 'Bidenomics,' Walmart has become a luxury where low-income consumers are trading down for 'Dollar Tree Dinners.' 

We told readers about this trend back in March. 

Dollar Tree nation? 

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Consumers Trade Down From Walmart Dollar Tree Becomes Supermarket For The Working Poor

Doug Casey On What's Really Making Many Americans Fat, Sick, Poor, And Stupid

Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: Nearly half of Americans have at least one chronic condition—and that number is growing.

One in three Americans are either overweight or obese.

Why do you think so many Americans are overweight and sick?

Doug Casey: I don’t pretend to be a medical expert. But I can assure you that it’s better to be young, healthy, rich, and smart than old, sick, poor, and stupid.

It’s obvious that the latter increasingly defines Americans.

There’s no doubt that they have problems with weight and lack of exercise. This has been a problem for decades, but things really got out of control with the COVID scamdemic.

Not only were the gyms closed, but you could forget about even going for a walk in many places. You were supposed to stay in your apartment, wear a pathetic little paper mask, and huddle in a corner to hide from some crazy virus trying to hunt you down like a rat.

Americans were not only forced to put their lives on hold but couldn’t even get into a hospital or see a doctor to handle real medical conditions. I’ll guess that the average American gained 10 to 20 pounds of weight.

Weight is easy to gain but hard to lose in today’s America.

The excess deaths attributed to COVID, and a general degradation of health, were not due to COVID itself, however. COVID was just a severe flu that mostly affected old, fat, and sick people. In fact, government actions killed many more people than the vaunted plague, short term, and long term.

Everything that government touches degrades and degenerates. A good case can be made that government is at least partly responsible for the poor health of Americans. Perhaps it started with the invention of the so-called food pyramid.

Bureaucrats told Americans to consume lots of grains, usually in the form of sugary breakfast cereals and white bread. All of it is heavily processed. Fresh vegetables and fruits only played a minor part in the recommended American diet.

Lobbyists from major corporations found it much more profitable to promote convenience foods than fresh fruits and vegetables.

Before World War 2, the average American woman stayed at home to raise a family and manage the household, cooking meals from scratch. It was a full-time job. Women also acted as a backup system if the male, the main breadwinner, couldn’t work.

Now, however, most women work. They no longer have time to take care of the house and children and cook three edible meals a day for the family. This has given rise to convenience foods.

Convenience foods are processed, preserved, and pre-packaged. They’re very heavy in sugar, fat, salt, and processed carbs. Over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, when starvation was the norm, these things were rare. Now they’re ubiquitous. But we’re genetically programmed to seek them out.

Processed, preserved, and packaged food tends to be heavy in calories and light on fiber and nutrients. We don’t really get food from farmers anymore but from large corporations, which are in a partnership with the State.

Don’t worry; I’m not a “granola” or a back-to-nature hippy. But large urban populations in industrial societies require some adjustments, and not all of them are welcome. That said, if an unregulated free market was allowed—which is not the case—there’s every reason to believe foods would be both vastly better and cheaper.

I think those are some reasons people are overweight today.

International Man: What is the relationship between Big Pharma and the government?

How could pharmaceutical companies operate in a free market?

Doug Casey: Big government, which has become as fat as the people that it rules over, naturally likes to deal with big corporations.

A consequence of the unwholesome partnership between big government and big corporations is that when corporations need approvals, favors, or subsidies, they’re in a good position to get them much more easily than the “little people” can.

And subtly, often not so subtly, government employees are rewarded with lucrative corporate jobs, directorships, and consulting contracts for having made their corporate buddies rich. Look at the contemptible Tony Fauci and his coterie. One hand washes the other.

In the US and most of today’s world, Mussolini’s fascist dream of a partnership between big government and big corporations has become reality on a vast scale.

That’s absolutely, maybe especially true for pharmaceutical companies.

How would they operate in a free market?

In a free market, there would be no subsidies. There would be no government purchases of products that corporations want to sell. There would be no Medicare or Medicaid. So, there wouldn’t be a constant pipeline of money from the government to corporations. Obamacare made this much worse.

Of course, in a free market, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) wouldn’t exist. I prefer to call the FDA the Federal Death Authority because they probably kill more people every year than the Defense Department does in a typical decade. Why? The multibillion-dollar costs and the typically 10-year delay they impose on the development of valuable drugs and technologies. Most of it is cover-your-ass procedures imposed by lawyers and bureaucrats, not scientists. They’re not actually protecting the consumer from dangerous food and drugs.

In a free market, entrepreneurs and medical companies would spend those billions of dollars effectively rather than in ways that only make sense because State approval is needed.

What drugs you take should be between you and your doctor, without the dead hand of the government laying on top of both of you.

It often starts with censorship of valuable information, as happened during the COVID hysteria when it became impossible, or at least dangerous, to even discuss the nature of the problem. Doctors were unable to prescribe inexpensive, safe drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Instead, hundreds of millions were squandered on expensive and deadly remdesivir and ventilators at the start of the COVID hysteria. The only thing that stayed healthy was a giant self-sustaining bureaucracy.

International Man: Americans used to be skeptical of Big Pharma.

However, after the COVID hysteria, it seems many have become useful idiots—or worse—for Big Pharma.

What is responsible for this change in attitude, and what are the implications?

Doug Casey: An excellent illustration of the power of government is provided by this video compilation. I urge everybody to watch it.

People have been taught to rely on credentialed experts as opposed to listening to their bodies and doing their own research. Doing your own research—called “reading”—is actively discouraged today. If you’re a thinking person, of course, you’re skeptical of Big Pharma. My co-author John Hunt, M.D., and I go into this in our novel Drug Lord.

The fact is that many of the drugs that they’ve come up with, despite many years and billions of dollars of FDA approval process, are actively dangerous.

An excellent example of this is the over 100 hundred psychiatric drugs which are supposed to assuage mental illness. In most cases, they just cover up psychological problems that have causes in people’s diet or habits. Things like Zoloft, Prozac, and hundreds of others are heavily prescribed. They often turn people into zombies.

Americans should be suspicious of these things. Health is something you achieve for yourself. Medical intervention is something between you and your doctor when necessary. The State should have no role in either.

International Man: The US is clearly experiencing a steep economic, cultural, and social decline.

How does the average American’s health decline fit into the overall trend?

Doug Casey: At this point, it almost seems that the-powers-that-be would prefer to see the useless mouths put in cubicles where food and entertainment can be doled out while they collect their universal basic income, only coming out to vote or riot when called upon.

This seems to be the way things are going. It’s as if life is following the plot of a dystopian sci-fi movie.

I generally don’t believe in conspiracies simply because it’s hard enough to have four friends agree on which restaurant to go to—much less get hundreds of miscreants to conspire.

But ultimately, along with reducing 90% of the population, the kind of people that get into government, or go to Davos, simply want to control other people. State “health” mandates are an important part of that.

International Man: What do you recommend individuals do to buck this trend and stay physically healthy?

Doug Casey: First thing to do is recognize that the words surrounding the subject need to be used accurately.

People conflate “healthcare” with “medical care.” Medical care is what you need and want when you’re confronting an acute illness or a serious accident.

Healthcare is very different. It’s something that you provide for yourself. Your primary possession is your own body, and it’s something that you’re personally responsible for. You—not the government, not Medicare, not Medicaid.

It’s a corruption of language to call medical insurance, health insurance. It makes everybody think that if they get health insurance, their health will somehow be insured.

That’s not the way it works. Your health is something that you are responsible for. The costs of medical care, however, can be insured. But medical care is only necessary when some serious extraneous event overtakes your life. It shouldn’t be a consideration of day-to-day living. For instance, it’s absurd that the average family pays about $2500 a month for “health insurance” provided by a now collapsing medical system.

But that’s a subject for another conversation.

*  *  *

Unfortunately, there’s little any individual can practically do to change the trajectory of this trend in motion. The best you can do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible, and even profit from the situation. Most people have no idea what really happens when a currency collapses, let alone how to prepare… How will you protect your savings in the event of a currency crisis? This just-released video will show you exactly how. Click here to watch it now.

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Doug Casey On What's Really Making Many Americans Fat Sick Poor And Stupid

Got Any Nude Selfies? Do You Like Porn? Bill Gates' Private Office Asked Women Sexually Explicit Questions

The private office of billionaire Microsoft founder (and Jeffrey Epstein pal) Bill Gates put women through an extensive screening process which included sexually explicit questions in order to determine whether they might be vulnerable to blackmail, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Some female job candidates were asked whether they ever had extramarital affairs, what kind of pornography they preferred or if they had nude photographs of themselves on their phones, according to the candidates and people familiar with the hiring process. While it couldn’t be determined whether any men were asked such questions, none who spoke to The Wall Street Journal said they had.  

In some cases, female candidates were asked whether they had ever "danced for dollars," while another says she was asked whether she had ever contracted an STD.

A spokeswoman for Gates said his private office, which outsourced the screening process to a security firm that boasts of having "several former CIA and FBI officials" on its staff, says it's news to them.

"This line of questioning would be unacceptable and a violation of Gates Ventures’ agreement with the contractor," she said.

The security firm, Concentric Advisors (the headquarters of which shares the same lakefront office park as Gates Ventures), conducted the screenings over the past several years. According to the report, the interviewers were "trying to find any information that had the potential to be used to compromise or blackmail individuals who would be working closely with one of the world’s richest men."

According to employment attorneys and security consultants, the process described by the women could run afoul of state and federal employment discrimination laws - though for certain high-security government roles, such questions might have been more appropriate. Questions about illegal drug use could possibly violate the same laws, since they may reveal addition - considered a disability. Instead, they would be in the clear asking if a candidate is currently using illegal drugs, and/or obtain consent for a drug test.

According to Carol Miaskoff, legal counsel of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, questions about a candidate's health or psychiatric history is "just flat out prohibited by the federal Americans With Disabilities Act."

"There’s not a black letter law prohibition on asking questions related to sex," she continued, adding that "getting the information and taking some adverse action with that information" such as rejecting them from the applicant pool could lay the basis for a legal challenge.

The Gates spokeswoman said Gates Ventures, which was previously known as bgC3, follows careful due diligence when hiring staff and that it works with contractors to perform industry-standard pre-employment screenings for men and women. She said it requires all vendors to operate in compliance with state and federal laws and regulations. -WSJ

Concentric CEO Mike LeFever (and his fleet of attorneys?) defended the company, telling the Journal that they provide industry-related background checks for hundreds of companies, and that their pre-employment screening process is identical for men and women, and complies with laws in each state and nation where they operate.

A spokesman for the company has also denied that they asked questions about sexual or medical histories, but that 'such information can be volunteered by job candidates when asked about public records,' (what?) and that the security screening involves "assessing a candidate’s truthfulness and vulnerability to blackmail, which often starts with voluntary statements by the candidate with follow-up questions by company interviewers."

The job candidates say they're lying, and that they were asked about sensitive information that they didn't volunteer. They also said they were informed that the job offer was conditional on passing the assessments.

Concentric's consent form also appears to be at odds with the company's official position.

A consent form, reviewed by the Journal, said a behavioral assessment by a Concentric professional would be used to “assess suitability for employment” by Gates’s private office and would include drug and alcohol history as well as past medical and psychiatric history as it relates to the job. 

The form, requiring a signature from the job candidate, gave permission to disclose the results from the assessment to Gates’s private office, including “highly sensitive information,” and “does not allow for the re-disclosure of sexually transmitted diseases,” the document shows.  -WSJ

Concentric advertises itself as a risk-management firm that employs several former CIA and FBI officials on its staff, and has worked with private family offices for nearly two decades. They claim to be able to root out individuals with "potentially nefarious motives."

And hey, they can probably root out who Bill can try and seduce without a condom too.

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Got Any Nude Selfies? Do You Like Porn? Bill Gates' Private Office Asked Women Sexually Explicit Questions

The Left And Their Union Masters

Authored by Aaron White via RealClear Wire,

If political rhetoric was subject to the same rigid labeling standards American manufacturers are expected to meet, liberals would have to call themselves something else.

The term was undoubtedly test-marketed to evoke the image of someone more broadminded and generally more tolerant of others’ points of view.

Does that describe any leftist you know?

When liberals claim to prize diversity above virtually any other commodity, they’re referring only to differences in things that don’t matter and, by their own admission, human beings are born to be. Things like race, gender and sexual orientation.

Opinions and actions, on the other hand, are fair game for the most soul-crushing forms of discrimination.

If that sounds like an exaggeration, you haven’t ventured onto a college campus or spent time on social media platforms, whose sole purpose is to quash viewpoints with which those in power disagree.

Less obvious to the naked eye, unfortunately, is perhaps the single-largest funding source for this toxic ideology — organized labor in general and government employee unions in particular.

Because the whole idea of collective bargaining is based on excusing a relative handful of union members from the forces of supply and demand with which unorganized workers must contend, it only follows that union leaders would be suspicious, at best, of America’s market-driven economy. But at least those representing workers in the private sector understand their demands must be tempered by the employer’s need to earn profits.

Government employee unions, however, recognize no such constraints.

Members of groups like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and teachers’ unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are paid by tax dollars funneled through public employees’ paychecks. Consequently, leaders of their unions have a vested interest in growing the size and scope of government, regardless of how that impacts the rest of us.

Unlike their peers in the real world, government union leaders know they aren’t dependent on the goodwill of millions of consumers, so they generally don’t care about whether their membership agrees with their stances. And if they don’t agree, they rely on bullying strategies to stop them from leaving and the overall size of government growing. So they focus on working with greedy politicians who can raise the taxes needed to advance a liberal agenda that has nothing whatsoever to do with workers’ pay or working conditions.

For example:

• At the height of the COVID pandemic, leaders of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) demanded the defunding of law enforcement and universal Medicare in return for returning to the classroom;
• The NEA used its 2020-21 annual conference to debate a pair of resolutions expressing the group’s public support for Palestinian statehood and condemn Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians;
• AFT President Randi Weingarten has used her union to wage a massive assault on the Second Amendment — including outright weapon confiscation — saying the U.S. must follow “what other great democracies” have done to ban guns;
• Under President Mary Kay Henry, the SEIU in 2022 partnered with the Green New Deal Network for a series of protests to present a united front on climate legislation as they urged Congress to pass President Biden’s bloated “Build Back Better” proposal before the midterms; and,
• Declaring that “racial, social and economic equality are top priorities for AFSCME,” the union in 2018 adopted Resolution 51, calling for, among many things, “bias training, which helps identify built-in prejudices.”

The Left has long accused conservative political candidates and causes of being funded by huge, faceless corporate interests — a notion thoroughly invalidated, incidentally, via such companies Anheuser-Busch, Target and Disney, whose recent missteps had nothing to do with profits and everything to do with the far-Left ideologies of their leaders.

But even if it were true that Wall Street uniformly skewed right while unions backed the Left, there’s an important distinction: However much the Kochs or the Waltons have spent on conservative legislation, at least it’s their money. Unions, meanwhile, confiscate billions of dues dollars every year from the paychecks of millions of government employees who think it’s being spent on representation and use it to underwrite a radical, leftist ideology perhaps half their members don’t even share. 

In theory, this should no longer be the case. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Janus v. AFSCME, affirmed that union membership and dues and/or agency fees could no longer be made mandatory, as they had been for public employees in nearly half the country for generations. But unions responded by adopting a laundry list of strategies intended to blunt the court’s unambiguous intent — everything from suppressing information about the ruling to filing lawsuits against members seeking to opt out of union affiliation and even forging workers’ names on membership documents.

Since Janus, government employee unions have lost nearly 800,000 members, taking with them billions in dues revenue that can never again be used to fund a machine that suppresses the rights of its own members in order to advance policies that rob the rest of us our God-given freedoms.

But they’re still kicking.

The struggle to expose labor’s unsavory role in the process is being waged battle by battle, but the war isn’t yet won.

Aaron Withe is the CEO of the Freedom Foundation, a national public policy watchdog focusing on government employee unions. His first book, “Freedom is the Foundation,” was released this month.

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The Left And Their Union Masters

Surovikin Missing? US Intel Claims Top Russian General Knew About Wagner Mutiny Plans

Anonymous US officials have pushed yet another massive claim regarding the weekend Wagner Group uprising in Russia--a claim which is being met with widespread skepticism on Wednesday, including a formal rejection from the Kremlin. 

The intelligence officials told The New York Times that at the highest ranks of Russia's military command, a key general had foreknowledge that an armed Wagner uprising was coming. In particular, the report claims the top general overseeing the Ukraine operation had advanced awareness of the mutiny plot.

"A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks," NYT wrote.

And the anon US intel officials have taken the claims even further, suggesting potential active plotting and co-conspiracy within the defense ministry. "The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Mr. Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power," said the report.

One initial and obvious inconsistency to this narrative is that Prigozhin has for months heaped negative statements and scorn not only on Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, but his invectives have targeted Gen. Surovikin and the entire top command ranks as well.

It's kind of sad to see the times just launder these types of stories for the IC without any sort of skepticism. I don't really read their natsec stuff unless I'm interested in what the DCI wants the public to know about. https://t.co/NVXocgRUaF

— Jack Murphy (@JackMurphyRGR) June 28, 2023

Within hours after initial publication Wednesday morning, the Times report pinned the following statement to the top of its report:

After this article was published, the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, issued a curt response and insisted on Wednesday that Russia’s army and people had unified around Mr. Putin.

For many Ukraine war observers, there are immediate red flags regarding the fresh claims, as it seems a deliberate attempt of US intelligence to sow distrust, paranoia, and further discord in the Kremlin. 

Assuming this is US intel officials' intent, is it working? Financial Times correspondent Max Seddon has highlighted reports that Surovikin's whereabouts are unknown...

Surovikin’s family haven’t seen him for three days and his security have also vanished, according to @aavst20551 https://t.co/bN7YDHrkzf

— max seddon (@maxseddon) June 28, 2023

Analyst Mark Galeotti points out the following, and explains the cause for skepticism in the wake of the US intelligence community's (IC) claims...

"The New York Times, which often feels like the US intel community's PR agency, is reporting that the IC suspects Gen Surovikin knew in advance about Prigozhin's mutiny. Maybe so, but were I a cynic I'd wonder if this was an info op because Surovikin quickly issued a public appeal to Wagner mercs to stand down, making a clear statement that - contrary to previous suspicions he was close to Prigozhin - he was loyal to the Kremlin."

"This might have helped cleanse his record and make him eligible to be re-appointed overall commander in Ukraine or even made Chief of the General Staff after Gerasimov (he had been the front-runner). This would, let's be honest, not have been good for Ukraine: Surovikin is not a nice man but he is a dangerously competent general. As I say, this is just speculation, but suggesting complicity with Prigozhin's treachery - to use Putin's words - would seem a good way of helping derail his return."

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Surovikin Missing? US Intel Claims Top Russian General Knew About Wagner Mutiny Plans

Schachtel: How The Flu "Disappeared" During The COVID Era

Authored by Jordan Schachtel via 'The Dossier' substack,

One of the biggest mysteries of “the pandemic” involves the supposed disappearance of the flu. Did the flu really disappear during the covid hysteria era, or is something else afoot?

Here’s the grand mystery, in meme format.

Now, during the confusion and panic of the last few years, there have been lots of explanations advanced about the supposed disappearance of the flu. The lockdowners and their credentialed institutions often claimed that masked worked (lol) to stop the flu, despite not working for covid. Others claimed that covid had some kind of viral dominance effect that defeated influenza strains.

But neither explanation really solves the “where did the flu go” mystery.

The evidence seems to point to two main reasons for the flu’s disappearance: the physical disappearance of flu testing kits and a misunderstanding of what the flu actually means.

The flu tests were not physically available in healthcare systems

The Dossier surveyed several individuals and organizations with access to hospital system records and supply chain management, and we pooled together lots of anecdotal information to paint a greater picture of what happened.

We found that, at least in the United States, there was virtually no access to flu testing during the covid hysteria years, particularly from 2020 to 2021. Virtually all testing manufacturers pivoted to covid testing, leaving the influenza kits behind. According to Pharma and Government Health, Covid was a much bigger priority, both from a healthcare perspective and a business perspective, so the flu industry was no longer lucrative and kicked to the curb.

The second reason, however, is even more important.

The flu is not understood in its proper context

Prior to the establishment of the covid testing industrial complex (which brought in well over $100 billion a year at its peak), flu was almost always diagnosed by symptoms, not by a swab test. And again, covid symptoms are virtually identical to flu symptoms. In the vast majority of cases, what is “the flu” is traditionally understood not as a viral influenza diagnosis but a general diagnosis of countless potential symptoms categorized in a broad category as “flu.” Very few doctor-diagnosed “flu” cases actually come from influenza strains. This is why it is the perfect rationale to understand covid as the flu but with scarier branding. Both flu and covid share the same symptoms, so a potential flu case/illness/death instead was generally diagnosed as a covid case/illness/death.

But enough from your humble correspondent. Let’s read a more detailed response from someone who knows this issue very well.

I also posed this question to Dr Norman Pieniazek (follow him on Twitter), a renowned molecular biologist who worked at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as the head of its molecular diagnostic laboratory for 24 years. Dr Pieniazek is an expert in PCR testing diagnostics and has a fascinating perspective on the shoddy science behind “the pandemic.”

Here’s his reply to my question:

From Dr. Norman J. Pieniazek:

Did the flu disappear during the COVID-19 pandemic?

I will try to answer this question; however, first, I must explain the terms common cold and flu (influenza).

Do you know that over 200 viruses cause colds and that people in the United States suffer from an estimated 1 billion colds yearly (1)?

Nonetheless, can we clearly say who suffers from the common cold and the flu?

What about PCR, the technique used to monitor the cases of COVID-19?

Unfortunately, PCR was found to be impractical for the diagnosis of infections of the respiratory tract for at least two reasons.

The first problem is the diagnostic sample.

Mucus samples, taken from deep nostrils (nasal swab), throat (oropharyngeal swab), and nasopharynx (nasopharyngeal swab), in essence, test the human air filter. The nasal passages have ridges that cause the air to swirl, similar to the Dyson vacuum cleaner principle. As the nasal passages and the whole respiratory tract are lined with mucus, it traps viruses, bacteria, pollen, fungal spores, and dust. This layer with trapped particles is moved by ciliated cells out of the airways. When the mucus is tested with PCR, detecting a part of a virus in the air filter doesn’t mean that this virus caused the infection. This problem with swabs has been known for a long time. The consensus is that broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL) is the most appropriate specimen for detecting respiratory tract viral infections. Unfortunately, collecting the BAL sample is complex and may not be approved by the patient.

The second problem was signaled above.

With more than 200 possible infection causes (etiology), testing for all suspects is not feasible. While in a scientific study, no stone would be left unturned to diagnose patients enrolled in a project, surveillance cannot be done this way.

CDC has developed a sentinel system for monitoring colds in the US population. This system monitors visits for respiratory illnesses, including fever, cough, or sore throat. Such visits are classified as Influenza-Like Illnesses (ILI). Please note that this designation doesn’t imply laboratory-confirmed influenza and captures patient visits due to all respiratory pathogens that cause similar symptoms. In addition to this system, CDC collects data on confirmed influenza cases; however, only about 1% of samples tested are usually positive. The take-home message is that no one knows how many flu cases are in the US annually. The reported number of ILI may be only the tip of the iceberg.

With the arrival of the Wuhan virus in January 2020, all lessons of prior seasons were forgotten.

People were forced to be tested even when they showed no symptoms. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, PCR done from swabs was suddenly advertised as the gold standard for diagnosis of infections of the respiratory system. Consider another important fact. In a carefully conducted study of hospitalized pneumonia patients diagnosed on classical X-Ray or CAT scans, the cause of the infection (etiology) could not be established in 62% of cases. How is it possible that during the pandemic in the US, there were 107,201,630 COVID infections and 1,166,899 COVID deaths as of today? Where are infections with other viruses? Where are conditions of unknown etiology?

The answer is straightforward. The results of PCR testing just for one virus are meaningless. This scam should be obvious to anyone versed in diagnosing respiratory infections.

*  *  *

The Dossier is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Schachtel: How The Flu "Disappeared" During The COVID Era

Another Top Miner Predicts Copper 'Super Cycle' Amid Supply Shortage Fears Trigger By Energy Transition

Despite concerns about weak Chinese factory data and increasing risks of a global hard landing sometime in 2024, Eurasian Resources Group's (ERG) chief executive officer Benedikt Sobotka said the world's appetite for copper is set to soar and might even exceed supply over the next decade unless new mines are built. The demand increase is due to the ambitious energy transition goals set by governments. 

On Wednesday, Sobotka told Bloomberg TV in an interview at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of New Champions that copper miners must increase supplies. He said new mines are "more challenging and located in expensive jurisdictions, which will require higher prices to offset increased costs." 

"You have this demand coming, and you have all these challenges in building out more mines," Sobotka warned at the event in China's Tianjin area. He forecasted that a "perfect storm" might unleash "another super cycle." 

Sobotka's concerns were shared with billionaire mining investor Robert Friedland earlier this week. He told Bloomberg TV that the mining industry needs to increase supply ahead of 'accelerating demand.' He said deposits are getting more expensive and harder to find, funding is limited, and economies have to prepare for the importance of the mining industry to lead the energy transition. 

"We're heading for a train wreck here," Friedland said at Bloomberg's New York headquarters on Monday. 

He's the founder of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. and warned: "My fear is that when push finally comes to shove," copper prices might explode ten times. 

BloombergNEF estimates demand for refined copper will grow 53% by 2040, but mine supply will climb only 16%. 

In a separate report, S&P Global said electric vehicles require twice as much copper as an internal combustion engine vehicle. And noted copper demand will double to 50,000,000 metric tons annually by 2035, more than all the copper consumed worldwide between 1900 and 2021.

Copper prices have yet to sustain a breakout pattern over the past decade high and have recently slumped on a disappointing China economic recovery. 

"Resource nationalism and the difficulties in moving materials around the world, critical raw material initiatives that are competing with each other, ESG requirements — they're going to make delivering these volumes of materials in the future more difficult," Sobotka pointed out.

In March, Jeff Currie, global head of commodities for Goldman Sachs, told Financial Times that copper's "forward outlook is extraordinarily positive" and "peak supply occurring in 2024." 

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Another Top Miner Predicts Copper 'Super Cycle' Amid Supply Shortage Fears Trigger By Energy Transition

Trump Says Has "Respect" For RFK Jr.: "He's Got Some Very Important Points"

Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times,

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump said he has respect for Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. despite their political differences.

“I respect him—a lot of people respect him. He’s got some very important points to be made,” Trump told Newsmax’s Eric Bolling during a June 26 interview.

Kennedy is one of two candidates challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, with the other being author Marianne Williamson.

Trump, who said he had known Kennedy for “a while,” added that he was impressed by Kennedy’s growing popularity in the polls.

“He’s at 21, 22 [percent] I saw just now,” Trump said. “And that’s a lot for somebody that came in with absolutely no chance of winning.”

‘Big Problems’

According to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls, Biden leads the Democratic primary field with 64 percent of the vote. Kennedy places a distant second at 14 percent.

Nevertheless, Trump said Biden has “very big problems” mentally and physically that could affect his candidacy.

“I really can’t tell you, that’s really the question; will he make it to the starting gate?”

Biden’s health has been an increasingly difficult obstacle for Democrats to ignore since his 2020 election campaign. From repeated trips and falls to mumbled sentences that seem to trail off, many have voiced doubts over whether the 80-year-old is still fit to hold office.

Meanwhile, Kennedy, 65, was the picture of health in a video he shared via Twitter on June 25, during which he did several shirtless pushups.

“Getting in shape for my debates with President Biden!” he wrote.

The message was a clear tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reportedly has “no plans” to sponsor primary debates but will instead back Biden’s reelection.

Touching on that fact in his Newsmax interview, Trump said he believed the Democratic Party’s decision to forgo debates was a move to shield Biden.

“I just don’t think that they’ll allow him to debate anybody,” he said. “I mean, you could put up a child. I don’t think they’ll allow him to debate. They’re not going to allow it to happen.”

‘Rigged’ System

Kennedy has been vocal in his criticism of the DNC’s purported plans, noting that distrust of the U.S. election system is already running high among voters.

“Debates and town halls are part of the democratic process,” Kennedy told The Epoch Times in April.

“We’re living in a time when there’s a lot of Americans who believe our democracy is broken. And I think both political parties have to bend over backwards to start restoring faith in democracy and electional integrity.

“Americans think the entire system is rigged against them,” he added.

“And if the DNC goes through with this—its plan to not have debate—I think that will serve as … an unfortunate confirmation to a lot of Americans that the system is indeed rigged.”

And it isn’t the first time the DNC has faced such an accusation.

In 2017, the committee’s former Chairwoman Donna Brazile and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) both said they believed the DNC had “rigged” the 2016 Democratic primaries in Hillary Clinton’s favor.

According to a June 11 USA Today/Suffolk University poll, 80 percent of Democratic primary voters think Biden should debate his challengers—including 72 percent of his own supporters.

Biden, for his part, has expressed no interest in participating in debates.

“As you know, no incumbent R [Republican] or D [Democrat] have done debates,” Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson, told USA Today.

But according to David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, sidestepping debates may not be a winning political strategy for the incumbent.

“The decision not to debate is ignoring the 82 percent of women, 84 percent of union households, 86 percent of independents, and 90 percent of young voters who are not only planning to vote in their state’s Democratic primary or caucus next year but also would like to see a series of Democratic primary debates.”

Running Mates?

Despite the politicians’ political positions, some Trump supporters have indicated that they would like to see the former president and Kennedy on the same ticket.

Among those supporters is Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s former advisers. On an episode of his “War Room” podcast in April, Bannon noted that his first pick for Trump’s running mate would be Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who is currently challenging the results of her state’s 2022 election and has also indicated interest in running for the U.S. Senate.

“If she’s not available to be Trump’s VP, Bobby Kennedy would be an excellent choice for Trump to consider,” Bannon said, adding that the idea had received a standing ovation when he first floated it among other Republicans.

More recently, on June 18, Sebastian Gorka said he thought a Trump–Kennedy pairing would “run away with” the presidency.

As a candidate, Kennedy has proven to be a likable figure for voters across the political spectrum, thanks in part to his tendency to buck party trends.

In a June 14 The Economist/You Gov poll (pdf), the Democrat topped both Trump and Biden in favorability. With 49 percent of respondents viewing him favorably and just 30 percent viewing him unfavorably, Kennedy garnered a net rating of 19 percent.

Trump and Biden had net ratings of negative 10 and negative 9 percent, respectively.

But those hoping for a Trump–Kennedy ticket will likely be disappointed, as the latter has already shot the idea down.

“Just to quell any speculation, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES will I join Donald Trump on an electoral ticket,” he wrote in a May 10 tweet. “Our positions on certain fundamental issues, our approaches to governance, and our philosophies of leadership could not be further apart.”

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Trump Says Has "Respect" For RFK Jr.: "He's Got Some Very Important Points"

Rickards: "This Is Actually Terrifying"

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

The “coup” in Russia is over but there’s a very worrying development going on in Ukraine right now that should frighten everyone.

That’s the growing risk of a nuclear war. I’m not being hyperbolic.

Let’s break it all down…

President Biden is accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of preparing to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

The theory is that if Russia is in danger of military collapse in Ukraine, Putin will resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons out of desperation.

But you can basically rule that out because Russia isn’t losing the war in Ukraine. In fact, it’s winning the war and continues to gain momentum.

Russia is crushing the much-anticipated Ukrainian offensive and is either advancing or holding the line in other sectors.

Meanwhile, Russian arms factories are churning out massive amounts of weapons and ammunition while the West is scraping the bottom of the barrel to find enough weapons and ammo to send to Ukraine.

It’s a war of attrition and there’s no practical way that Ukraine can win that war.

So why would Putin need to use nuclear weapons?

The answer, of course, is that he wouldn’t. He’s winning the war.

Nuclear Swordsmanship

But such warnings about Putin using nuclear weapons are not new. Biden has been accusing Russia of threatening to use nuclear weapons since the start of the war last February.

Some perspective is needed to assess this claim. For the record, the United States is the first and only country to conduct a nuclear war, which it did between Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, killing about a quarter-million civilians.

Putin has made it clear that Russia will not use nuclear weapons unless the U.S. or NATO allies do so first.

The U.S. has not made a similar pledge.

Biden based his threat assessment on the fact that Putin recently moved tactical nuclear weapons to its ally, Belarus, which is closer to Kyiv.

That’s true, but it conveniently ignores the facts that the U.S. has placed nuclear weapons in Germany, that the U.K. and France are nuclear powers in their own rights and that U.S. Navy submarines and destroyers with nuclear missiles are deployed around Russia.

Belarus also had nuclear weapons when it was part of the Soviet Union prior to 1991. In short, there was nothing particularly provocative about Putin’s move relative to prior positioning and the U.S. deployment of nukes.

MADness!

What is provocative is a recent article by Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Rubin recommended that the U.S. should provide tactical nuclear weapons to the Ukrainians themselves.

The rationale is a version of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, MAD, that maintained stability between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union (really Russia) during the Cold War.

The idea is if each side has enough nuclear weapons to survive a first strike by the other and launch a second strike of its own, then neither side will start a nuclear war because it would be destroyed in turn.

There’s merit to the MAD doctrine subject to a long list of conditions including large arsenals, secure command-and-control procedures, good communication between the protagonists (such as the “hot line”) and rational leadership on both sides.

None of those conditions applies to Ukraine. It would have a modest arsenal (not enough to survive a first strike), has weak command-and-control, has almost no communication with Russia and has desperate and insecure leadership.

It’s almost as if Rubin’s proposal is designed to force Putin to attack any Ukrainian nuclear capacity as a way to justify escalation by the U.S. and get U.S. and NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine.

That’s a short path to World War III. Any talk of giving Ukraine nuclear weapons is reckless.

Rubin’s idea could be behind Putin’s plan to move nuclear weapons to Belarus as a way to dissuade the U.S. from going further.

Of course, Putin’s actions in Belarus are an example of escalation, which may be exactly what Rubin and the other warmongers in the U.S. wanted.

Simply put, Rubin’s idea is reckless and moves the world closer to nuclear war.

When you hear Biden talk about Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons, it’s critical to bear in mind that the U.S. is the real threat and is acting with a view to escalating the war and dragging NATO into a direct war with Russia.

Will Ukraine Conduct a “False Flag” Attack on a Nuclear Power Plant?

But that’s not all.

There’s the possibility that an increasingly desperate Ukraine could try to stage a “false flag” attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in the Kherson region and blame it on Russia.

Both Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and the head of Ukrainian intelligence services have warned recently about a possible Russian attack on the plant.

In other words, they could be putting the conditions in place for a false flag attack.

“See, we warned you this would happen!”

Such an attack could potentially spread nuclear radiation throughout the region and possibly beyond.

It wouldn’t be on the level of Chernobyl because the plant is operating at a much smaller capacity than Chernobyl.

But still, it would be seen as an unacceptable war crime by Russia, which would spark international outrage and set the stage for direct NATO intervention.

Incidentally, ZNPP is currently under Russian control, but much of the surrounding territory is still held by the Ukrainians.

How might an attack on the plant go down? Here’s some more detail:

• Ukraine (under direction of the U.S. and with U.S. help) could send a commando team to the facility, plant heavy explosives and then detonate them in a way intended to cause a partial meltdown and release of radiation.

• Prevailing winds would carry the radiation in the direction of Romania, Poland and Slovakia, all of whom are members of NATO.

• Once the radiation reaches those countries it will be regarded as an “attack” on NATO members.

• This will trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which says that an attack on one is an attack on all.

Sens. Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, in fact, just proposed legislation stating that Russian nuclear weapons use in Ukraine would be considered a direct attack on NATO.

Bombing a nuclear power plant isn’t the same as employing tactical nuclear weapons, but do you really think they’d draw that distinction?

The Article 5 trigger would provide legal cover to the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and the rest of the coalition to send troops to Ukraine to prop up the failing offensive.

The next step would be direct combat between U.S. and Russian troops. And that’s a direct gateway to World War III.

Is This Really Just Conspiratorial Nonsense?

You might dismiss all this talk as conspiratorial nonsense. After all, why would Ukraine want to create a serious nuclear incident on its own soil?

I’d just remind you that there’s credible evidence (according to German intelligence) that Ukrainian security agencies were responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the largest act of eco-terrrorism ever conducted.

In fairness, there’s also credible evidence that the U.S. carried out the attack, so it might not have been Ukraine. But it remains a legitimate possibility.

It’s also probable that Ukraine destroyed the Nova Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam earlier this month in an effort to undermine Russia’s position in the area.

The result was an environmental disaster.

As with Nord Stream 2, there’s no definitive proof that Ukraine was responsible. Of course, as with the pipeline, Ukraine blamed Russia.

While it’s possible Russia did it, Russia stood to lose much more than Ukraine from the dam’s destruction and the subsequent flooding.

If you were a detective, Ukraine would be your prime suspect.

Assuming Ukraine was responsible for both the pipeline and dam incidents, would it be out of the question for it to stage a nuclear incident if that meant bringing NATO directly into the war?

I don’t think it would be.

Again, I have no proof that Ukraine was actually responsible for the destruction of the pipeline or the dam. But it is a reasonable possibility.

That’s why you shouldn’t rule out the possibility of a false flag attack on the nuclear power plant.

Again, Ukraine is getting desperate and desperate times call for desperate measures.

So if there is an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the days to come, you’ll know who was responsible.

You’ll also know that the world is one step closer to nuclear war.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/28/2023 - 16:20
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