Showing posts with label WSJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WSJ. Show all posts

Saturday, September 17, 2022

This is how America ends

 One place at a time.

America and its free market capitalism depends on rules, a shared commitment to them and to their enforcement:

Sound money, not fiat money;

truth, not "my truth";

law and order, not one law for me and another for thee.

When you can't trust anybody anymore, it is over. People vote with their feet, as do corporations. 

Crime, Homelessness, Taxes: Hollywood Big Shots Fleeing LA...

As Violent Crime in LA Rises, Demand for Private Security Among Wealthy Soars...

UPDATE: In Atlanta's Buckhead Neighborhood, Rising Crime Fuels Move to Secede... 

AMAZON relocating workers from Seattle office due to crime...

DC WAWA closes amid ongoing shoplifting, violence...

WALGREENS closing more stores in San Fran due to organized theft...  

Violence rises as employees fight back against shoplifters, thieves... 

Chicago's Wealthy Neighborhoods Hire Private Police as Crime Rises...

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Inflation trader squeals like a stuck pig, fears QT will soon lead to the sort of stock event you tell the grandchildren about

 Well, we've heard that before, but this story about one of them perfectly describes how Fed money creation has ballooned, by design, to facilitate gains for those first in line for the money, the banksters, while the rest of us just get the inflation:

The Fed creates reserves as a special form of dollars that can only be held by banks and some similar firms, that they use to settle debts to each other. (The rest of us mostly use bank-created electronic money, plus physical dollars.) Since QE began, reserves have ballooned as the Fed created reserves to buy bonds from banks. 

Unlike in 2017, large quantities of reserves have been returned to the central bank via money-market funds. These funds, which savers use as a liquid alternative to savings accounts, are allowed to deposit money at the Fed overnight using reverse repurchase agreements (RRPs), and have already sucked $2.2 trillion of reserves out of the system, up from zero at the start of last year.

For now, the loss of reserves isn’t a problem. Banks had too many deposits and reserves anyway, and they still have $3.3 trillion of reserves, more than they had ever held until last year.

More.

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.


 

Monday, July 4, 2022

All it took was Russia invading Ukraine for countries to junk the Paris climate agreement and begin a desperate frenzy for coal

  Coal Makes Comeback as World Thirsts for Energy...

Countries are rejiggering distribution channels to obtain more coal from other big suppliers such as Australia and the U.S., but that takes time and money, said Gerben Hieminga, senior energy-sector economist for Dutch bank ING Groep.
“The whole world is doing this,” Mr. Hieminga said.

Friday, April 29, 2022

Everyone keeps lying about Putin saying he'll use nukes, the latest being Peggy Noonan of all people

From her irresponsible column, here:

Mr. Putin talks about nuclear weapons a lot. He did it again Wednesday: In a meeting with politicians in St. Petersburg, he said if anyone intervenes in Ukraine and “creates unacceptable threats for us that are strategic in nature,” the Russian response will be “lightning fast.” He said: “We have all the tools for this that no one else can boast of having. We won’t boast about it, we’ll use them, if needed.”

He’s talked like this since the invasion. It’s a tactic: He’s trying to scare everybody. That doesn’t mean the threat is empty. 

There are signs the Russians are deliberately creating a historical paper trail, as if to say they warned us. On Monday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the risk of nuclear conflict is “serious” and “should not be underestimated.”

No he doesn't. No he hasn't. And neither has Lavrov. Listen for yourself. It's Peggy who is supplying "the risk of nuclear conflict", not Lavrov. Lavrov is clearly referring to the dangerous increased rhetoric about the possibility of nuclear conflict, which is precisely the hysteria Peggy Noonan is engaging in. The Russians have been very circumspect. They don't actually use the terminology. They're not bluffing. They're beating around the bush to create uncertainty, to keep their enemies off balance.





Putin has never used the phrase "nuclear weapon" in any of these examples which have been reported in the press since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Putin's hypersonic capability is clearly in focus in his statements. He has them and the West does not. He's threatening to use them with conventional warheads against Western targets, which is bad enough. But nuclear warheads? That's what he wants us to think, to create fear. But he's never actually said it.

The nuclear talk is all Western hype, exaggeration, and lying. And Drudge is a major aggregator of such headlines. It's irresponsible and it must stop, because to continue it is to make the unthinkable, thinkable, and then actual.

Try exercising your free speech absolutism then, as your tongue vaporizes inside your mouth. 

Meanwhile Peggy Noonan appears not to have considered that Putin has daughters, to whom he might really want to leave something other than smoking embers.

Hysteria has a way of blinding one to important facts.

NOONAN: Putin Really May Break the Nuclear Taboo in Ukraine!

Moscow warns 'do not underestimate threat of nuclear war'... ^  

Putin test-fires 'Satan' nuclear missile... ^  

Cronies 'flee to bunkers' in sign might turn nuclear... ^ 

UN Warns: Nuclear War 'Within Realm of Possibility'... ^  

Putin actions trigger long-buried fears of nuclear war for generations of Americans... ^ 

Accused of Nuclear 'Terrorism'... ^ 

Putin nuclear threat part of new escalation policy... ^ 

Even Putin's generals look stunned after being ordered to put nuclear forces on 'alert'... Decree that shocked the world... ^ 

PUTIN WARNS HE'LL NUKE WEST ^ 
Nuke-capable missiles loaded onto subs... ^ 
NUKE BOMBER BUZZES UKRAINE... ^ 
POPE NUKE WARNING ^ 
ZELENSKY NUKE WARNING TO WORLD... ^  

CIA Director: Nuke threat not taken 'lightly'... ^
Nuke Fears Stoked With Atomic Weapons Warnings... ^ 

Girds for Nuke Incident... ^

Senators mull unthinkable: Vlad detonating nuke... ^ 

FEAR: More Putin Nuke Threats... ^

Likely More Nuke Threats... ^ 
PUTIN NUKE FEARS GROW ^ 
NUKE CONCERNS RISING ^ 
Nuke threat part of new escalation policy... ^ 
NUKE CRAZY! ^ 
ORDERS NUKE FORCES ON HIGH ALERT ^ 
ORDERS NUKE FORCES ON HIGH ALERT ^ 

PUTIN NUKE WARNING? ^