3Q2023 core inflation at 2% vindicates Powell's March 2021 prediction that inflation would be transitory

 

Jim Cramer strikes again

 

Maersk reroutes container ships around Africa to avoid the Houthis in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

 

Maersk said that, after monitoring the situation since suspending the routes on Friday, it had decided all vessels currently on hold and previously scheduled to travel via the Red Sea would take the Cape of Good Hope.

The vessels will continue on diverted routes “as soon as operationally feasible,” the company added. As of Monday, Maersk said it had around 20 vessels stopped en route, around half of which are east of the Gulf of Aden. The remainder are located south of the Suez Canal in the Red Sea, or north of it in the Mediterranean Sea.

More.

Joe Biden imprudently released 255 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve from November 2021 to May 2023

 The November 2021 level was about 605 million barrels, about 30 days worth of supply at a 2022 consumption rate of 20 million bpd.

The 350 million barrel level was reached in May 2023 and has been range bound there for eight months. That is about 17.5 days worth of supply.

Crude oil price has not cooperated for refilling what was released. The 2021 price averaged $68 and climbed to nearly $95 in 2022. With 2023 almost over the price has averaged nearly $78.

The release of less than two weeks of supply during 2022 and 2023 as prices skyrocketed looks like a really silly political stunt. Crude oil production has rebounded to what it was under Donald Trump, so there's been plenty of supply in the higher price environment and no need to squander the SPR in this way.

Now it is too expensive to refill cheaply.

 

Donald Trump is as crazy as Joe Biden, calls Chip Roy (TX-21) a RINO, wants him primaried

 

Dictator Joe Biden by-passes Supreme Court, doles out $132 billion in bread and circuses to student loan holders for votes

 

That's not what the pope said but that's what Drudge hopes you think he said

 Pope says priests can bless same-sex unions... 

Meanwhile, newly couples of weds meet with Pope without exhaustive moral analysis.

 

This country is so screwed up that there isn't a single demographic in this poll in which a majority is against government price controls

 The poll is here.

 

Megyn Kelly's Sirius XM format has a weird dominatrix vibe to it

 The subservient men she has collected around her giggle when she drops an f-bomb.

Here.

 

 

Thanks to Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the Japs are buying U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion

 U.S. Steel also supplies to the renewable energy industry and stands to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which provides tax credits and other incentives for such projects, something that attracted suitors.

More.

 

There is nothing America will not sell out, as long as the price is right.

 

BP suspends Red Sea transit while Biden & Co. dither

 “In light of the deteriorating security situation for shipping in the Red Sea, bp has decided to temporarily pause all transits through the Red Sea,” it said. “We will keep this precautionary pause under ongoing review, subject to circumstances as they evolve in the region.”

 

Shipping giants MSC, Hapag-Lloyd , CMA,  CGM, and Maersk  have also all announced suspensions of travel through the Red Sea due to the drone threat, meaning no access to the key link between Europe and Asia between the Middle East and North Africa.

 

Violence resumed on Monday in the Red Sea, with the U.K. Maritime Trade Organization saying it was alerted that a vessel nearly 30 miles out from Yemen’s port of Mokha “experienced an explosion on its port side.”

More.

The anti-semitic indoctrination camps of compulsory public education, the insane asylums of the woke, are only the latest evidence of the left's successful march through the institutions

 51% of Americans 18-24 Think Israel Should ‘Be Ended & Given to Hamas'

You know things have to be pretty bad politically at the Arizona border for its Democrat governor to challenge the do-nothing Democrat president

 

The Biden administration has failed to respond to Governor Hobbs’ request for reimbursement for border security spending.

More.

And Reuters.

Independent U.S. presidential candidate RFK Jr now has until March 5 to get on the ballot in Utah

 At a recent rally in Kansas City, Missouri, Kennedy asked the crowd of about 300 voters for help. The state requires independent candidates to collect 10,000 signatures by July 29 to appear on the 2024 general election presidential ballot. ...

The requirements for ballot access for candidates who are not the Democratic or Republican nominees vary widely from state to state, and the first deadlines are in early March, for North Carolina and Utah. Utah originally required independent candidates to file by Jan. 8, 2024, but earlier this month — soon after Kennedy filed a lawsuit against the state — it changed the date to March 5. ...

Kennedy's ballot access drive will also be heavily underwritten by the super PAC supporting him, American Values 2024. In December, the super PAC announced it would be investing $10 million to $15 million to put him on the ballot in at least 10 states . . ..

More.

The story likes to compare RFK Jr. to H. Ross Perot, but there's no way that RFK Jr. has anything close to the same appeal Perot once had and which still won him nothing.

Kennedy admits he's a spoiler, but most Americans still want a serious, positive candidacy, not a nattering nabob of negativism. 

 

World's largest shipping carrier MSC abandons Red Sea/Suez Canal travel, will divert vessels around Africa after Friday attacks by Iran-backed Houthi Rebels of Yemen, Biden administration dithers and jibbers

 MSC, the world’s largest shipping carrier, joins shipping giants Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk in Red Sea travel pause amid attacks :

 

 

 

MSC, the world’s largest shipping carrier, said it is no longer traveling through the Suez Canal after its container ship, the MSC PALATIUM III, was attacked Friday while transiting the Red Sea under a subcharter to Messina Line.  ...

In response to Friday’s attacks, in which three vessels were attacked, the World Shipping Council said it is deeply alarmed and concerned about the escalating crisis, and that it’s calling for decisive action to protect seafarers.

“The right of freedom of navigation stands as a fundamental right under international law, and must be safeguarded,” the council said. “The time for resolute international engagement is now.”

The U.S. government has been in discussions with countries of the 39-member Combined Maritime Forces to form a maritime task force to “ensure safe passage” of ships in the Red Sea.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees America’s military interests in the Middle East, has told CNBC discussions are ongoing.

Bezos already lives there

 BEZOS: WE'LL ALL LIVE IN OUTERSPACE...

Divided Democrats help more divided Republicans pass record high $886 billion NDAA which extends 5.2% pay raise to U.S. military, leaves woke policies intact, authorizes four more months of domestic spying authority

Congress passes $886 billion defense policy bill, Biden to sign into law :

 Congress has passed an NDAA for 63 straight years.

The roll call vote is here. 

 

This is a stain on the free nations of the world, which continue to tolerate Iran-backed Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea

Intercepting missiles is not enough.

Maersk to pause all container ship traffic through the Red Sea 

"we have instructed all Maersk vessels in the area bound to pass through the Bab al-Mandab Strait to pause their journey until further notice”

Maybe Trump is polling well because people remember a little actual food deflation under him, unlike now

 

Bloomberg/Morning Consult polling in key battlegrounds shows Trump the winner everywhere

 

There's a solution to the Boston mayor's no-whites-invited holiday party

 

Inflation rate at 4% year over year two months in a row is not the soft landing we were promised

 

Hiding the decline part two: Long-suppressed tree ring data discovered by Stephen McIntyre shows 11th century A.D. temperature to be much higher than in the 20th

Medieval Warm Period for the win.

 

OMG, video surfaces of IDF decapitating a plastic figurine in a toy store in Gaza

 AP Obama calls it

"destruction that is unnecessary for Israel’s security objectives" lol.

Sultan al Jaber keeps COP28 lunatics from taking the world back to the stone age lolz

 Anger and frustration as COP28 draft text omits fossil fuel phaseout

The burning of coal, oil and gas accounts for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is for this reason that so many had pushed for the COP28 outcome to show that “we are truly at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.”

However, COP28 President Sultan al Jaber faced a backlash last week when he claimed there was “no science” behind calls for a phase-out of fossil fuels, and that such a move would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

They always leave out that 82% of global energy comes from coal, oil, and gas.

You can't just wave a magic wand and make it all go away without committing global murder in the process.

 

Rufo only scratched the surface, Claudine Gay of Harvard reportedly has a long history of plagiarism according to Aaron Sibarium

 Along with her dissertation, the decades-long pattern paints a picture of sloppiness, at best, and willful dishonesty at worst.

The whole sorry business is recounted here. 

 

The plagiarism matter is entirely separate from the main show, however, in my opinion.

The character pattern of willfully omitting attribution involved in plagiarism is certainly related to the habit of Hamas defenders ignoring Hamas' crimes against Israel, of course, but it distracts from the issue which made Claudine Gay an issue in the first place.

She and the other university presidents could not bring themselves to say unequivocally that calls for a genocide of Jews violated their campus bullying and harassment policies.

Focusing on Gay's academic failings is already obscuring that.

It was a TRAP lol

 Presidents of America's top universities too stupid to see it coming!

 

Once a Nazi Barbie always a Nazi Barbie

". . . in the Middle East", but not in Israel.

 

See All the Photos of Taylor Swift and Her A-List Friends After Attending Ramy Youssef’s Comedy Show

All proceeds from the comedy show that Swift and her BFFs attended will go to support the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East

Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift enjoy a night out in Brooklyn. Photo: 

TheImageDirect.com

Published on December 10, 2023 07:30PM EST

Taylor Swift spent some quality time with her BFFs!

The singer, 33, enjoyed a night out with friends in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday evening, when she and several pals — including Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne, Anya Taylor-Joy and Zoë Kravitz — attended a Ramy Youssefcomedy show.

Part of the comedian's More Feelings tour, the sold-out show took place at The Brooklyn Academy of Music and will see 100% of proceeds going to support the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East through the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA).

ANERA, per its website, is a non-governmental organization that provides aid to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Jordan. 

Keep reading to see all the photos from Swift's night out with her pals.

More.

Why does he frame it this way if he's got the goods on her?

 

Donald Trump 2023 is Bill Clinton 1992/1996 winning with a plurality because of third party candidates in Wall Street Journal poll

 

West's alignment with Hamas and Kennedy's openly stated purpose as a spoiler candidate combine to make them chiefly candidacies hurting the incumbent Joe Biden, but everything depends on them getting on the ballot in enough places.

Perot bled votes away from the incumbent George H. W. Bush in 1992, and from Republican Bob Dole in 1996, resulting in Clinton winning each contest but not with 50% of the popular vote.

 

Trump 37, Biden 31, Kennedy 8, West 3, Manchin 3, Stein 2, Mapstead 1

Boltneck sounds the alarm lol

 John F. Kerry, who served in Vietnam, let one go at the Dubai Climate Change Conference during his anti-coal spiel.

Wind energy. Bronx cheer. Emissions. Passing greenhouse gases. Loud fart. It's all here except for the skid mark.

Yeah right, like POC don't say that about whitey every damn day and get away with it

 God's chosen people strike again:

Maher on Anti-Israel Protesters: There Is No Other Group That You Can Say "F*** The Blank" And Have It Be Acceptable

Smells fishy

 Two California Tickets Share Jackpot Win

 RELEASE DATE: 12/9/2023

 Two tickets sold in California will share the tenth Mega Millions® jackpot won in 2023, just in time for the holidays! Both were purchased at the Chevron station located at 18081 Ventura Boulevard in Encino. They matched all six numbers in Friday night’s drawing – the white balls 21, 26, 53, 66 and 70, plus the gold Mega Ball 13. The estimated prize had grown to $395 million ($189.0 million cash) since it was last won in Texas by a South Dakota-based trust on October 6.

Full time employment has now averaged 50.3% through eleven months of 2023

 

Just in time for election season organized retail crime is now a 36% problem for inventory losses, not 50%

 The main lobbying group for U.S. retailers retracted its claim that “organized retail crime” accounted for nearly half of all inventory losses in 2021 after finding that incorrect data was used for its analysis. ...

Retail executives and law enforcement officials use the term organized retail crime to describe coordinated groups of thieves who shoplift or steal from retailers’ warehouses and trucks, reselling stolen merchandise on the black market.

More.

Wouldn't want to offend the black market now would we?

Biden administration delays menthol ban again as election threatens to go uhh . . . up in smoke

The Biden administration has once again delayed banning menthol cigarettes, infuriating officials of public health groups who say the products are responsible for taking hundreds of thousands of American lives.

On Wednesday, the White House quietly updated its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website to reflect that any final ban on menthol wouldn’t take place until at least March. Even then, it’s expected to take years for menthol products to be off store shelves. The ban was previously supposed to take effect by the end of December. ...

Black Americans are affected most. Nearly 85% of Black smokers use menthols, compared to 30% of white smokers, according to the FDA.

More.

C'mon man, we're supposed to fear a coming Trump dictatorship while Joe Biden threatens to seize drug patents as we speak

 The soft fascism of public-private partnership becomes hard fascism:

“When drug companies won’t sell taxpayer-funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less,” White House National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said during a call with reporters Wednesday. 

More.

Hard or soft, this is state capitalism.

Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has announced his intention to resign at the end of the year

 Story here.

Combined with the Santos expulsion last week, the House GOP majority now goes down to 220 effective Jan 1, just a seven seat advantage over the Democrats, which guarantees that the new, more conservative Speaker Johnson will have to continue to compromise with Democrats to pass spending bills:

The removal of Santos lowers the number of House Republicans to 221, with 213 Democrats. This makes it even more difficult for the majority to pass legislation without Democratic support.

McCarthy's revenge.

It's still the party of FDR, who turned away the M.S. St. Louis in 1939 and a third of its passengers ended up murdered in the camps

 

Yesterday's obnoxious Nazi Barbie is 2023's Person of the Year

 

Time.

2015 here:

Camille Paglia has written a scathing critique of Taylor Swift, referring to the singer as an “obnoxious Nazi Barbie” whose “twinkly persona is such a scary flashback to the fascist blondes who ruled the social scene during my youth”.

Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko agrees with Ukraine's military commander in chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi against Zelensky that the war with Russia is at a stalemate

 But despite his litany of grievances, the mayor stopped short of calling for Zelensky’s immediate ouster. “The president has an important function today, and we have to support him until the end of the war,” Klitschko said. “But at the end of this war, every politician will pay for his successes or failures.”

More.

Poor Hunter Biden, he went from a $142k Porsche from Kazakhstan in April 2014 to borrowing dough from Joe for a Ford Raptor in January 2019 lol

 Story.

 

 

Four gold bars in possession of Senator Bob Menendez traced to 2013 armed robbery of Fred Daibes, who is accused of bribing Menendez

  That's on top of the cash in Menendez' possession which has also been traced to Daibes, but which the senator says he took out of the bank:

Menendez has denied taking payoffs from Daibes even though prosecutors allege testing shows Daibes’ fingerprints and DNA are on some of the tens of thousands of dollars in cash found in Menendez’s home.

“For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba,” Menendez said.

Looks like they'll finally get this guy.

Story.

Dems trot out loser 2016 Hillary advisor to assert Newsom won vs. DeSantis

 Fabulous!

Newsom-DeSantis Debate Was a Pyrrhic Victory for Dems

Kaivan Shroff, The Hill

 

83 million still on Medicaid

 Down from 94 million but up from 65 million before the pandemic.

Story.

They don't call it lala land for nothing

 

Newsom Trounced Desantis on His Own Turf

Sacramento Bee

White nationalists say they are against foreign and military aid to Israel, which has averaged about $3.8 billion annually since 1950

 According to Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes, who agree that Trump broke their hymen, being anti-Israel just means you are educated. Being pro-Israel means you are a moron.

How Much Aid Does the U.S. Give to Israel?

The cucks have spoken.

 

 

For the tax write-off you idiots

 Why would Elon Musk want to deliberately destroy X?

 Arwa Mahdawi

 

Musk can extract the $44 billion price tag for tax loss purposes and relaunch the thing as the everything platform he keeps talking about. 

This reminds me of the incredulity of Wall Street over Powell's relentless increases to the Federal Funds Rate. He telegraphed it repeatedly months in advance and then raised rates incrementally and said he would keep doing so, but they would not believe, and still do not.

 

Meanwhile Bidenomics gave us 0% inflation again in October 2023

 

In obscure economic news, the death economy really boomed in 2021 for some reason

 

Hey, speaking of dumb Democrats

 Jussie Smollett headed back to jail after conviction upheld by appeals court...

 

 

Christmas means it's time for someone to find more evidence of Chicom slave labor in a garment

 Reported here.

Florida has been the left's target since the pandemic began because it was an early adopter of lockdown skepticism under DeSantis

Newsom is just full of it, as usual. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom, dumbest Democrat politician alive, walks into French Laundry door . . . again

Newsom: “You were a lockdown Governor… you locked down your beaches bars and restaurants… that’s just a fact. He’s running away from his record.”

DeSantis: “He’s imposed restrictions on his own people while exempting himself from those restrictions and going to the French Laundry while his people were suffering.”

 

 

 

Core pce inflation, which excludes food and energy measures, is still high at 3.5% year over year in October 2023, down 0.2 points from September or 5.4%

 Price increases at 3.5% instead of 3.7% year over year. This level remains outside of most people's experience since the late 1990s.

The broad measure fell to 3.0% from 3.4%. The energy goods and services component yoy has been negative, that is deflationary, for eight months in a row. The food component was up 2.0% year over year in October but is now in its tenth month of declines out of twelve on a year over year measure monthly.

Declining energy input costs have been the story behind declining inflation measures overall, primarily natural gas which is twice as important to the U.S. economy as gasoline on a BTU basis.

The Biden administration's green energy policy is at war with the reason for the happy circumstance of declining inflation measures it finds itself in, and Biden could be sailing to re-election if he were instead supporting fossil fuel production, which would slay the inflation dragon dead.