%20(1)%20(4)%20(1).jpg)
Five Blunt Truths About the War in Ukraine
By Bret Stephens
Five sentences sum up the war in Ukraine as it stands now.
The Russians are running out of precision-guided weapons. The Ukrainians are running out of Soviet-era munitions. The world is running out of patience for the war. The Biden administration is running out of ideas for how to wage it. And the Chinese are watching.
Moscow’s shortfalls with its arsenal, which have been obvious on the battlefield for weeks, are cause for long-term relief and short-term horror. Relief, because the Russian war machine, on whose modernization Vladimir Putin spent heavily, has been exposed as a paper tiger that could not seriously challenge NATO in a conventional conflict.
Horror, because an army that cannot wage a high-tech war, relatively low on collateral damage, will wage a low-tech war, appallingly high on such damage. Ukraine, by its own estimates, is suffering 20,000 casualties a month. By contrast, the U.S. suffered about 36,000 casualties in Iraq over seven years of war. For all its bravery and resolve, Kyiv can hold off — but not defeat — a neighbor more than three times its size in a war of attrition.
That means Ukraine needs to do more than slow down the Russian Army. It needs to break its spine as quickly as possible.
But that can’t happen in an artillery war when Russia can fire some 60,000 shells per day against the roughly 5,000 that the Ukrainians have said they can get off. Quantity, as the saying goes, has a quality all its own. The Biden administration is providing Ukraine with advanced howitzers, rocket launchers and munitions, but they aren’t arriving fast enough.
Now is the moment for Joe Biden to tell his national security team what Richard Nixon told his when Israel was reeling from its losses in the Yom Kippur War: After asking what weapons Jerusalem was asking for, the 37th president ordered his staff to “double it,” adding, “Now get the hell out of here and get the job done.”
The urgency of winning soon — or at least of putting Russian forces into retreat across a broad front, so that it’s Moscow, not Kyiv, that sues for peace — is compounded by the fact that time isn’t necessarily on the West’s side.
Sanctions on Russia may do long-term damage to its capacity to grow. But sanctions can do only so much in the short term to dent Russia’s capacity to destroy. Those same sanctions also exact a toll on the rest of the world, and the toll the world is prepared to pay for solidarity with Ukraine isn’t unlimited. Critical shortages of food, energy and fertilizer, along with the supply disruptions and price increases that inevitably follow, can’t be sustained forever in democratic societies with limited tolerance for pain.
Meanwhile, Putin appears to be paying no great price, whether in energy revenues (which are up, thanks to price increases) or in public support (also up, thanks to some combination of nationalism, propaganda and fear), for his war. Hoping he might die soon of whatever disease might be ailing him — Is it Parkinson’s? A “blood cancer”? Or just a Napoleon complex? — isn’t a strategy.
What more can the Biden administration do? It needs to take two calculated risks, based on one conceptual breakthrough.
The calculated risks: First, as retired Adm. James Stavridis has proposed, the U.S. should be prepared to challenge the Russian maritime blockade of Odesa by escorting cargo ships to and from the port.
That will first mean getting Turkey to allow NATO warships to transit the Turkish straits to the Black Sea, which could entail some uncomfortable diplomatic concessions to Ankara. More dangerously, it could result in close encounters between NATO and Russian warships. But Russia has no legal right to blockade Ukraine’s last major port, no moral right to keep Ukrainian farm products from reaching global markets, and not enough maritime might to take on the U.S. Navy.
Second, the U.S. should seize the estimated $300 billion in Russian central bank assets held abroad to fund Ukraine’s military and reconstruction needs.
I first proposed this in early April, and Harvard’s Laurence Tribe and Jeremy Lewin laid out a convincing legal case several days later in a Times guest essay. The administration has cold feet on grounds that it could violate U.S. law and set a bad financial precedent — which would be good arguments in less dire circumstances. Right now, what’s urgently needed is the kind of financial wallop to Russia that other sanctions have failed to inflict.
Which brings us to the conceptual breakthrough: The fight in Ukraine will have a greater effect in Asia than it will in Europe. The administration may reassure itself that it has sufficiently bloodied the Russian military that it won’t soon be invading anyone else. That’s true as far as it goes.
But if the war ends with Putin comfortably in power and Russia in possession of a fifth of Ukraine, then Beijing will draw the lesson that aggression works. And we will have a fight over Taiwan — with its overwhelming human and economic toll — much sooner than we think.
The bottom line: The war in Ukraine is either a prelude or a finale. President Biden needs to do even more than he already has to ensure it’s the latter.
Meanwhile
NYT's continues to berate Israel:
+++
New York Times Lectures and Hectors Israel
When will "the paper of record" ever treat Israel fairly?
By HUGH FITZGERALD
The New York Times doesn’t much care for Israel. Its reporters always find some flaw to exaggerate, some Palestinian atrocity to explain away, some “settlers” in the “occupied West Bank” to denounce, some new way to libel the inoffensive, warmhearted, and permanently imperiled Jewish state. It recently ran a “staff editorial” on the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akhleh which, for connoisseurs of its anti-Israel slant, did not disappoint. A report by Ira Stoll on this editorial that lectured and hectored Israel on “what it must do,” is here: “New York Times Editorial Lectures: ‘Israelis Should Care More,’” by Ira Stoll, Algemeiner, June 9, 2022:
The New York Times these days only rarely publishes staff editorials, and it saves the ones it thinks are most important for the Sunday newspaper, which attracts the largest readership.
This past Sunday, which was also the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the Times unleashed an editorial headlined “Who Killed Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh?” The question is rhetorical, because the Times editorialists have already clearly decided who is to blame. You guessed it, Israel. The Times insists: “Israel needs to ensure the safety of journalists in the country and in areas that it occupies, to ensure the safety of its own democracy.”
The Times assumes that we all agree on who killed Abu Akleh – Israel. But despite the claims of the Palestinians, and the Timesmen who parrot them, it is not known, and cannot be known, until the bullet that killed her can be subject to ballistic tests by forensic experts. Israel is not insisting that it alone must conduct those tests – they could be carried out jointly with the PA and the American government. However, the PA adamantly refuses to produce the bullet, without explanation. That apparently doesn’t bother the New York Times, which sees nothing suspicious in the PA’s failure to produce the bullet. So Israel will be forced to issue an incomplete report, unable either to implicate or exculpate itself, until that bullet can be made available for forensic analysis.
What’s more, the editorial, echoing classical antisemitic tropes, accuses Jews of being morally callous to the killing. “Israelis should care more about what happened to Ms. Abu Akleh,” the Times lectures. There’s no systematic data from the Times about how much Israelis do or do not care about what happened. There is no effort by the Times to empathize with Israelis who, after years of grieving their own soldiers and civilians lost in wars with enemies determined to kill the Jews and wipe the Jewish state off the map, might understandably have some compassion fatigue when it comes to a foreign journalist employed by a foreign government [Qatar] that, unlike many other Arab countries, has refused peace with Israel.
As Stoll says, how in god’s name does the New York Times know how much the Israelis care about the killing of Abu Akleh? The Israeli government has repeatedly expressed its sorrow over her death. How many times must it do so to pass muster with the Times? And while we are on the subject, how many times has the Times itself expressed sorrow over her death? Can we now conclude that the Times “should care more about what happened” to Abu Akleh?
Why does the Times care so much? The editorial concedes, “Ms. Abu Akleh’s prominence as a journalist and her American passport have served to focus broad attention on her death. But scores of other journalists lose their lives without public notice. According to a database maintained by the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, 511 journalists were killed from 1992 to 2022 in crossfire or on dangerous assignments, 347 of them in wars. Journalists are dying in Ukraine, some presumably killed deliberately.”
What could account for the worldwide attention being given to this journalist’s death, when there have been 511 journalists killed during the last 30 years, in the line of duty, none of whom has received similar attention?
For all of Shareen Abu Akleh’s supposed prominence, a Times archive search showed no notable mention of her in the Times until her death. As for her American passport, well, it could be that does have something to do with it. The Times doesn’t even consider the additional possibility, though, that another contributing factor to the broad attention to her death is the opportunity to blame the Jews for it. It’s as if the Times had no awareness whatsoever of the destructive and age-old antisemitic pattern of falsely accusing Jews of intentional culpability or indifference to the death of a Christian.
If Israel had not been involved, Stoll argues, isn’t it likely that there would not have been such media attention lavished on the journalist’s death? The story fits, Stoll suggests, “an antisemitic pattern of falsely accusing Jews “ – Israeli Jews, in this case – of deliberately causing, and being indifferent to, the death of a Christian. But even if in the end Israel concludes that it was responsible for her death, it was certainly accidental, not deliberate. There would be no benefit to Israel in killing a journalist, which would be a club with which to beat the Jewish state. And the Israelis have not shown themselves indifferent, as the Times suggests, but have expressed their deep concern about that accident.
The Times editorial claims “Israel’s political right does not look kindly on investigating troops.” Actually, the Times itself reported in 2010, while Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister, “The Israeli military said Tuesday that it had indicted ‘a number of’ officers and soldiers for their actions during Israel’s three-week offensive in Gaza in the winter of 2008-9, including a staff sergeant accused of deliberately shooting at least one Palestinian civilian who was walking with a group of people waving a white flag.” The Times reported in 2022, while Naftali Bennett was prime minister, “Three Israeli military commanders have been disciplined after an investigation into the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man.” Whether the right looks kindly or unkindly on such investigations isn’t so relevant; they do take place, and they sometimes find misconduct and result in disciplinary action or even criminal charges.
Israel investigates its troops whenever wrongdoing is suspected. History shows that the Jewish state’s “right-wing” leaders, such as Netanyahu and Bennett, are as prompt to initiate investigations of possible Israeli misconduct as any “left-wing” Israeli leaders.
The Times editorial makes a big deal that Abu Akleh “wore a helmet and blue body armor marked ‘press’ in large letters.” The Times also says that “Another journalist, Ali Samoudi, who was also wearing a flak jacket marked ‘press,’ was shot in the back and survived.” Recent Times news and opinion coverage has also dwelled on this point. Neither the news coverage nor the editorial, though, has noted the additional relevant fact that Palestinian terrorists frequently pose as journalists. A 2015 Times of Israel report on a stabbing of an Israeli soldier in Hebron, for example, reports, “The Palestinian attacker posed as a photojournalist, and was wearing a yellow “press” vest at the time of the attack, according to the IDF.”
A 2019 report by the Christian news outlet CBN said, “One Palestinian man said he was contacted on Facebook by someone named Muhammad al-‘Arabid, a Hamas operative in the Gaza Strip who posed as a journalist. The young recruit said he though al-‘Arabid’ was a media personnel because he was photographed wearing a ‘Press’ vest at a violent March of Return on the Gaza border. Some Hamas operatives wear “PRESS” vests at the riots to decrease the likelihood of being shot. The IDF is extremely careful to not harm media correspondents who cover the violence.”
A 2020 press release from the Israeli military said a senior Islamic Jihad operative in Gaza had disguised himself as a journalist: “The senior Islamic Jihad operative was targeted while driving a press vehicle. Muhammed Shamalah, commander of Islamic Jihad’s forces in the southern Gaza Strip and head of Islamic Jihad’s militant training programs, was targeted by an Israeli air strike. The strike occurred while he was driving a car clearly labelled ‘TV,’ indicating it to be a press vehicle and abusing the protection afforded to journalists.”
Where’s the Times editorial denouncing Hamas and Islamic Jihad for endangering real journalists by deceitfully using press signs as camouflage?
Hamas and the PIJ have long histories of disguising their fighters as journalists, complete with press signs on their flak jackets, on their helmets, and on the cars they drive In so doing the terror groups endanger real journalists who might be suspected of being disguised fighters, and treated accordingly.
The Times buys into the mythmaking, lauding, “brave, independent reporters like Ms. Abu Akleh” for “bearing witness to the violence that, in recent weeks, has escalated.” The Times asserts, “Democracies require a free press as a prerequisite for informed self-governance.” How “independent” and “free” really was Abu Akleh? She had worked for Palestinian-Authority owned Voice of Palestine before moving to Al-Jazeera, which is state-owned by non-Abraham-Accord-signer Qatar (or by the ruling Al Thani family that, Sulzberger-style, controls both the country and the media company as family-owned businesses). I guess it’s theoretically possible to perform independent “free” journalism at a state-owned media outlet like the BBC or Radio Free Europe. By not mentioning the government control, though, The Times is misleading its readers about how accurately “independent” or “free press” fits here. Was Abu Akleh functionally “bearing witness” or merely amplifying and publicizing the terrorist cause? As an analogy, think about journalists covering America for the Russian-owned RT media outlet. The Times was outraged about supposed Russian meddling in the 2016 election. If America cracks down on RT, is that interfering with “informed self-governance”? Or is it guarding the country’s democratic integrity and national security from foreign interference?
Al-Jazeera journalist Abu Akleh was never a “free” and “independent” journalist, as the New York Times optimistically describes her. She worked for two government-owned outlets: first, for the Voice of Palestine, owned by the Palestine Authority, which would never allow a story unfavorable to its cause, or even remotely fair to Israel, to be broadcast; second, for Qatari-owned Al Jazeera, which famously keeps a tight rein on its journalists, who must hew to the pro-Iran pro-Hamas line of the government in Doha if they want to keep their jobs.
None of this is a good reason to kill or shoot at Abu Akleh or any other journalist. It is worth figuring out what did happen. But if the Times really cared a whit about Israeli democracy or “self-governance,” it would have written a different editorial and published it on a different day (maybe one when observant Jews are permitted by Jewish law from participating in the online comments, which now are full of Times readers accusing Israel of intentionally murdering the journalist.) Instead of smearing Israel and its citizens as callous murderers, the Times editorialists might have tried harder to better understand, and convey fairly and accurately to readers, the context. The New York Times lectures: “Israelis should care more.” I would say the same thing back to Times journalists. They should care more.
If the PA finally produces the bullet it has heretofore been hiding from the world, so that it may be studied not by Israeli, but by American ballistics experts, and those experts conclude that the bullet came from an Israeli rifle, Israel will immediately admit its responsibility, express its sorrow, and agree to pay compensation to Abu Akleh’s family. Will the Times bother to praise the Israelis for this response, or instead take the occasion to berate Israel still further, along the lines of “by holding out for an American investigation, when it was clear to everyone that Israel was responsible for Abu Akleh’s death, the Israelis made Abu Akleh’s family needlessly suffer. Israel must take stock of its unacceptable behavior, and ensure that such things never happen again”?
But if the Americans find that the bullet could not possibly have been fired from an Israeli rifle, so that a Palestinian must have been responsible for the death of Abu Akleh, will the Times have the decency to admit that “so many of us, including the Times, rushed to judgment, simply assumed Israel must have been responsible, and continued to criticize it right up to the moment when the American results exculpating the Jewish state were made public.” Of course not. Could the New York Times, the paper owned by the “let’s-not-be-too-Jewish” Sulzberger family (see Laurel Leff’s Buried By The Times, a study of how the Sulzbergers forced The Times to downplay the Holocaust as it was happening), the paper that welcomes as a frequent contributor Peter Beinart, who, on May 8, 2020, proudly declared in the paper that “I no longer believe in a Jewish state,” ever treat Israel fairly? Alas, you know the answer to that.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Results of Summit of America's
+++
New World Order
MEXICO/ LATIN AMERICA
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, skipped the recent Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. The move was considered a snub against American leaders who convened the summit to tackle migration and other serious issues facing the Western Hemisphere, wrote Newsweek. Further undercutting the goals of the summit, the Central American countries that drive migration to the US – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – also bowed out.
López Obrador declined President Joe Biden’s invitation because the US barred Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from sending representatives to the summit, reported Reuters. López Obrador shares some of the leftist views of the leaders of those countries. “There cannot be a summit if all countries are not invited. Or there can be one but that is to continue with all politics of interventionism,” López Obrador told the Associated Press, alluding to the history of US policies in the region.
American officials cited undemocratic government and human rights violations in the countries banned from the meeting. Notably, Cuban and Venezuelan dissidents were at the Summit of the Americas to draw attention to those violations. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Cuban activists claimed that they would receive prison sentences if they staged similar demonstrations at home.
The incident highlighted how important shifts are occurring within Latin America. As the Washington Post editorial board explained, the region is now split between leftists like López Obrador and right-wing populists like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Simultaneously, gone are the Cold War days when Latin American leaders aspired to expand free trade and free elections on the American model. Now, they blame the American model for “economic inequality and government corruption.”
Still, the migration from the south to the north continues. In fact, the real estate market in Cuba is undergoing a fire sale as islanders pick up and leave amid a post-pandemic economic downturn that includes soaring inflation, reported National Public Radio. The US is also spending almost $2 billion to create jobs in Central America to prevent waves of impoverished people crossing the border in search of economic opportunities and basic services, Al Jazeera added.
The summit did accomplish something, namely, a deal that would change the approach in many nations to migration, noted the Wall Street Journal. The United States, Canada and more than a dozen Latin American nations agreed to the “Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection,” a non-binding agreement that will require Western Hemisphere countries to accept migrants either temporarily or permanently to help share the burden.
Meanwhile, as leaders met in Los Angeles, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to Agence France-Presse, Maduro arrived shortly after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia. Lavrov was in town to discuss Ukrainian grain shipments. It was not clear if Maduro and Lavrov met. Russia has threatened to send military detachments to Venezuela in response to NATO aiding Ukraine, the Hill wrote.
Meanwhile, the US has eased some sanctions to encourage the Venezuelan government to restart talks with the opposition and drive a wedge between the country and its ally, Russia, CNBC said.
The so-called New World is reordering itself.
+++++++++++++++++++++
What next as Biden goes to Israel?
+++
Slow Joe goes to Israel
By BARRY SHAW
The dates have been fixed for Biden's visit to the Middle East: July 13-16, and the schedule looks loaded with pitfalls for the fumbling president.
His visit to Israel coincides with the Opening Ceremony of the Maccabiah Games which is always covered live on Israeli TV. For many Israelis, who have low expectations, Biden's visit will be a distraction. What can he deliver for Israel?
The only four items that Biden has been fixated on for 50 years are:
Stopping Jews living in Judea and Samaria,
Dividing Jerusalem our capital,
Pushing for a "two-state" non-solution, even if the other state will inevitably be controlled by Hamas,
Increasing U.S. taxpayer money to the unrepentant regressive corrupt Palestinian Authority. Biden ignores two U.S. laws banning such payments until the PA commits not to use the money to reward their terrorist killers.
We call it their "Pay to Slay" reward system. The more Jews you kill, the more money you get, courtesy of the funding from the United States, Europe, and the UN.
This obscenity has to stop, but under Biden the payments are increased
After telling Israel he has our backs, he will meet Mahmoud Abbas, probably in Bethlehem, to tell him he has Biden's full support and money, no strings attached.
Biden will then talk grandly about integrating Israel into the region quoting the Abraham Accords, which was the diplomatic achievement of President Trump who threw aside the failed half-century misconception that the only way to Middle East peace runs through the Palestinians.
The miraculous progress made since Trump employs the novel concept of pushing the disagreeable Palestinians aside until they are ready to face the 21st-century reality that peace runs through progress and cooperation, not by threats and violence.
Israel and our new allies are not only signing multi-billion-dollar innovative partnerships. We are addressing and solving the shared security and strategic needs of the region. And we are doing it without Biden.
In mid-July, Biden will try to jump into the Trump saddle by visiting with the heads of Saudi Arabia, the corrupt Qataris, and Kuwait.
The Biden team will talk about strengthening ties between Egypt and Israel, but I can assure you that the relationship between Jerusalem and Cairo is perfectly fine right now as we are about to complete an energy deal which will supply Europe with Israel's offshore natural gas through a system that will run via Egypt.
Whatever goes on between Biden and Saudi Arabia, we are reminded of Biden's presidential campaign promise to treat Saudi Arabia like a "pariah state."
I guess that will be another Biden promise made, promise broken
++++++++++++++++++++.
President Biden’s Saudi Arabia Flip Flop
What do you know, the U.S. needs Arab allies in the Middle East.
By The Editorial Board
The White House confirmed Tuesday that President Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia next month, though the left was already criticizing the trip before it was formally announced. While his trip makes strategic and economic sense, it would be less embarrassing now if Mr. Biden had been more realistic about the world from day one.
Mr. Biden came into office bowing to the left’s disdain for Riyadh without appreciating the strategic need for Arab allies in the Gulf. As a candidate he vowed to make Saudi Arabia “pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.” He added that there was “very little social redeeming value in the present government.”
As President he rolled back support for the country’s war against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen and tried to isolate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Mr. Biden also courted Iran, as Barack Obama had done to no good effect, which further discomfited the Saudis.
It all backfired. Iran has refused Mr. Biden’s concessions to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement and has hamstrung United Nations nuclear inspectors. Meanwhile, the Saudis have courted Russia and China as alternatives to the U.S. as strategic and economic partners. Until recently the Saudis refused Mr. Biden’s pleas to pump more oil, and the Crown Prince reportedly refused to take his phone call. Now Mr. Biden is courting Saudi Arabia again, and his public bows may have to be all the deeper given his early public disdain.
Mr. Biden’s brand of liberal internationalism is good at broadcasting American principles but not so effective at protecting U.S. interests. Donald Trump practiced a raw transactional global politics that too often ignored human rights and applauded dictators. But Mr. Biden has gone so far the other way that some allies don’t trust him.
In a world in which great power politics has returned with a vengeance, and U.S. adversaries are on the march, the U.S. needs allies in rough neighborhoods. Some of them are going to be unsavory by American standards.
The Saudi Crown Prince is an example with his alleged complicity in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But he has also brought a heretofore unknown degree of social reform to the Kingdom, including for women. Mr. Biden is right to try to patch up relations, even if it means offending his party’s left.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There is a lot of moping up The Fed must do because they poured a lot of money on the floor as did Biden with his COVID spending and between cutting production on oil and too much spending and borrowing we now have the consequences, ie. inflation. Can The Fed accomplish their goal of 2% inflation in two years without kicking the economy into a recession? Time will tell. The Fed seldom accomplishes soft type landings.
Stay tuned.
+++
Inflation Demands Bold Fed Action
An increase in rates this week is a good start. The process will be painful, but it’s also necessary.
By Mickey D. Levy and Charles I. Plosser
Consumer-price inflation rose to 8.6% in May, its highest rate in 40 years. This tax on households and businesses threatens the economy. The Federal Reserve runs the risk of compounding a string of recent errors by being too tentative in raising rates. The Fed needs to act decisively to get a grip on inflation and inflationary expectations.
The situation is serious. Soaring inflation exceeds wage increases and is undercutting American consumers’ real purchasing power. Middle- and lower-income earners have suffered the most. Inflation-related worries have sliced large chunks off stock-and bond-market values, reducing household net worth. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index has fallen to its lowest measure in 50 years.
The Fed now acknowledges that it must raise rates and reduce inflation, but several of its members have suggested that they won’t need to raise rates much to quell inflation, probably not more than 3%. They’re wrong. The Fed must reduce inflation quickly to 2% and dampen inflationary expectations embedded in price- and wage-setting behavior. The Fed’s credibility has been seriously damaged, and it must take aggressive monetary action to re-establish its inflation-fighting credentials.
The Fed’s August 2020 strategic plan presumed the central bank could precisely and efficiently manage inflationary expectations. That was only one of the new strategy’s critical flaws. The current inflation was predictable. In response to the 9% decline in real gross domestic product in the pandemic-ridden first half of 2020, Congress and the president enacted deficit-spending legislation of 27% of GDP. The Fed bought roughly 50% of the new Treasury debt—along with massive amounts of mortgage-backed securities—and lowered rates to zero. The Fed’s unintentional contribution to this experiment in modern monetary theory soon met reality. The soaring aggregate demand and inflation that came next were textbook responses to excessive fiscal and monetary policies.
Believe it or not, things could be much worse. In April 2021, only a month after the American Rescue Plan increased deficit spending by $1.9 trillion (8.6% of GDP), the Biden administration proposed its Build Back Better Act. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed, the legislation was sidelined, and the American economy was spared an additional $5 trillion in government spending and $1.5 trillion in taxes.
The stimulus-driven robust recovery drove up inflation and resulted in labor markets so tight that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell ultimately characterized them as “unhealthy.” Yet the Fed kept rates at zero and continued purchasing assets—including mortgage-backed securities, while the housing market boomed—until March 2022.
The Biden administration and some at the Fed still blame inflation on supply shocks, Russia and bad luck. While it’s true that accelerating energy and food prices are accentuating inflation, the biggest driver of rising core inflation is prices of services, particularly shelter. Its two components—owner-occupied equivalent rent and direct rental costs—historically have lagged home prices, which have risen more than 20% in the last year, according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Shelter costs are likely to continue accelerating through mid-2023.
The Fed prefers to measure inflation using the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index, which includes spending items like healthcare financed by Medicare, Medicaid and employer-financed insurance. But the Consumer Price Index is more heavily weighted toward what Americans pay for things out of their pockets. CPI inflation must be addressed with tough action.
Don’t expect help on the fiscal-policy side. Stimulus money continues to flow into the economy, even as federal budget deficits recede. Federal government spending of earlier budget authorizations continues. State and local governments saved virtually all of the $500 billion they received in federal grants and have begun to spend some of those funds. Strikingly, many are now providing financial subsidies to offset higher gasoline costs, which may buy votes for local elected officials but also contributes to demand for energy and thus to inflation. Also, the American Infrastructure and Jobs Act, enacted in November 2021, authorized an additional $1 trillion in deficit spending. The Biden administration now has a political incentive to hurry up that spending, which will add to economic activity, jobs and wage pressures in the already over-stretched construction sector.
It’s the Fed’s job to fight inflation. Even with the rate increases in March and May, rising inflation has pushed real rates more deeply negative. Higher prices may slow consumer demand and bring inflation down a bit, but the Fed can’t rely on hope. The Fed’s forward guidance is not a substitute for policy action. It must move decisively and reduce inflation to its long-run 2% target. Reducing inflation requires slowing nominal spending growth, which will squeeze business margins and raise unemployment. The short-run costs of rising unemployment may be painful, and the Fed may come under political pressure from Congress and the White House to accept a higher underlying rate of inflation. Markets may expect the Fed will eventually give in to these pressures and pause, accepting higher underlying inflation because the short-run costs of rising unemployment will be too painful.
The Fed must dispel that market expectation through aggressive actions. Raising rates 75 basis points and indicating more to come would send a necessary message. At this point, short-run pain is inevitable, but healthy longer-run economic performance requires lower inflation and a credible central bank.
Mr. Levy is senior economist at Berenberg Capital Markets. Mr. Plosser is visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and former president of the Philadelphia Fed. Both are members of the Shadow Open Market Committee.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sent to me by a friend and fellow memo reader. It is going to get ugly because there is a lot of dirt on both candidates which will be dug up and thrown around.
+++
"Raphael Warnock Uses His Brother as Proof That the Justice System is Racist, but the Record Tells a Different Story https://pjmedia.com/news-and-
THERE IS MORE TO COME. YOU CAN HIDE BEHIND A RELIGON FOR ONLY SO LONG! A---"
+++++++++++++++++
I listened to this Zoom meeting today (6/15)
Got these basic insights:
A) Iranians now hate the Ayatollah and the regime and want to get rid of them.
B) They seek the support of the U.S and other democratic nations and have no animosity towards the U.S and/or Israel. In fact the speaker believes, when the current regime is gone, trade between Israel and Iran will soar.
C) An attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities involves the risk of forcing Iranians to rally round the flag.
D) America is missing a chance to help Iranians. Past attempts by Iranians failed but that relates to different circumstances than exist now. The nation is totally receptive and the speaker pleaded for America to place more sanctions and believes any agreement reached would not stick or be honored by Iran's leaders.
E) Appeasement is the wrong approach.
+++
In at least 40 cities and towns throughout much of Iran, thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest a government they deeply despise and distrust. Yet, there is hardly any mention in the media about it, and even less from the Biden administration.
This latest round of protests began shortly after May 3rd, when the government announced its intention to remove its subsidy of flour that had been in place for over 200 years. The Iranian government had been relying on a Ukrainian supply of wheat, which had threatened the supply chain and global prices, but because of a pervasive atmosphere of total corruption and mismanagement, Iranians took to the streets to demonstrate. On top of that, a building collapsed last week, killing dozens of people and trapping more than 80 under the rubble.
What began as a purely economic protest has morphed into a great protest against the Iranian regime, with shouts of “We do not hate America; we hate the regime. Down with the regime! Death to Khameini!” These people have demonstrated phenomenal courage. The Basij, as well as various IRGC militias have randomly shot and killed many of the demonstrations. Others have been rounded up, arrested and tortured, and carted off to the notorious Evin prison, sometimes never to be seen from or heard from again. Yet, the valiant demonstrators continue.
Where is the Western media about this? Why no word from the White House.
We are profoundly honored to have with us Navid Mohebbi, a policy fellow from the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI).
About the speaker: Navid is a former Iranian political prisoner and long-time political activist. In 2010, Mohebbi was arrested by the Islamic Republic in Iran and recognized by the Committee to Protect Journalists as the youngest jailed journalist in the country.
Navid was born and raised in Iran. Before coming to the US in 2013, he lived in Turkey for two years. He holds a BA in international relations and Middle Eastern studies from George Washington University and previously worked as a Persian media analyst for the State Department. He also recently completed a DOD-funded fellowship program in which he researched the impact of climate change on political stability in Iran.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Like Marlon Brando said - "I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender..." " Hanson writes "What the Jan 6 Committee Might Have been."
Pelosi designed the hearings for drama/theater effect in order to boost Democrat mid term election chances while eliminating Trump as a contender.
+++
What the January 6 Committee Might Have Been
A real committee would also investigate the other, far larger and more lethal riots on iconic federal property months earlier.
Congress should investigate fully the January 6 riot at the Capitol—and similar recent riots at iconic federal sites.
But unfortunately, it never will. Why not?
The current committee is not bipartisan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) forbade Republican nominees traditionally selected by the House minority leader to serve on the committee.
No speaker had ever before rejected the minority party’s nominees to a select House committee.
Pelosi’s own cynical criteria for Republican participation were twofold: Any willing minority Republican members had to have voted to impeach Donald Trump while having no realistic chance of being reelected in 2022.
Of some 210 Republican House members, that left just Representatives Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) who were willing and able to fit Pelosi’s profile.
A real investigation would have ignited argumentation, cross-examination, and disagreements— the sort of give-and-take for which congressional committees are famous.
In contrast, the January 6 show trial features no dissenting views. Its subtext was right out of the Soviet minister of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria’s credo: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”.
If Donald Trump was not considering a third run for the presidency, would the committee even have existed?
Its slick Hollywood-produced optics demonstrate that the committee has no interest in inconvenient facts. Why did a Capitol officer lethally shoot a petite unarmed woman entering a Capitol window? And why was the officer’s identity and, indeed all information about his record, withheld from the public?
Why did the committee not investigate whether large numbers of FBI agents and informants were ubiquitous among the crowd? After all, progressive New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg who was there January 6, claimed, “There were a ton of FBI informants amongst the people who attacked the Capitol.”
About his own journalistic colleagues advancing a psychodramatic “insurrection” narrative, Rosenberg scoffed, “They were making too big a deal. They were making [Jan. 6] some organized thing that it wasn’t.”
A real committee would also investigate why there were lots of warnings that a large crowd would assemble, but apparently little government follow-up to ensure security, should rogue elements turn violent.
A real committee would learn why the government and media insisted that officer Brian Sicknick was killed by Trump supporters—even when it was known he died of natural causes.
None of the questions will be answered because none will be asked because the committee’s role is not inquiry but confirmation of a useful narrative.
A real committee would also investigate the other, far larger and more lethal riots on iconic federal property months earlier.
On May 31, 2020, for example, violent demonstrators tried to rush the White House grounds. Rioters sought to burn down the nearby historic St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser mysteriously did not send police to reinforce overwhelmed Secret Service agents who at moments seemed unable to keep the mob from the White House itself.
The giddy New York Times later crowed, “Trump shrinks back.” Was the Times preening that the president was a coward for retreating from a righteous mob?
As a precaution, the Secret Service removed the president and first family to a safe underground bunker.
Such riots near or at the White House continued for much of the fall, before mysteriously tapering off in the last weeks before the election.
Less than three weeks after the violent Washington riot, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris seemed to incite the continuing violent protests, “They’re not going to stop . . . This is a movement . . . they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.”
Note that Harris’ cheerleading was joined by a host of prominent left-wing luminaries who contextualized the violence. The “1619 Project” architect Nikole Hannah-Jones boasted, “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”
Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo pontificated, “And please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.”
Note that the 2020 summer rioting, arson, and looting continued for nearly four months. Its toll resulted in over 35 dead, some 1,500 police officers injured, around 14,000 arrests, and between $1-2 billion in property damage.
The violence was often aimed at iconic government buildings, from courthouses to police precincts. There were never any federal investigations to determine why state, local, and federal officials allowed the destruction to continue.
Why were the vast majority of those arrested simply released by authorities?
And how had antifa and BLM radicals orchestrated the violence using social media? What was the role of prominent elected officials in either condoning or encouraging the violence or communicating with the ring leaders?A truly bipartisan House select committee dedicated to ending all violence directed at the White House, the Capitol, or federal courthouses might have been useful in probing this dark period in American history.
And that is precisely why there was no such committee.
+++++++++++
.
No comments:
Post a Comment