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Typical Carlin vulgarity but also very clever and smack on.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Fed has seldom, if ever, landed a plane at 90 MPH without crashing.
Does the Fed Have the Will to Fight Inflation?
Real tightening could pose risks to the economy and, in turn, to the central bank’s independence.
By Jason De Sena Trennert
t has been said that more money has been lost in the search for yield than at the point of a gun. Those who have tried to bet against bonds since S&P downgraded America’s credit rating in 2011 have questioned the validity of that maxim as rates have broadly declined and bond prices have risen.
It might seem a mystery why investors would accept a negative real return on what is considered the closest thing in the world to a risk-free asset. The answer has a lot to do with the Federal Reserve’s continuing purchase of Treasury bonds, along with the $13 trillion in negative-yielding sovereign debt outstanding globally. In that context, the thinking goes, lending money to Uncle Sam for the next 10 years at 1.5% isn’t that bad a deal.
The Fed’s policy of quantitative easing injures middle-class savers. People without financial assets get kneecapped by the policy known as “financial repression”—purposefully attempting to pay for government spending by keeping interest rates below the rate of inflation. This policy has been a boon for the wealthy but a disaster for average people, who earn no return at all on their savings.
While the Fed has talked about slowing down the pace of its asset purchases (known colloquially as tapering), it is important to remember that it is still technically easing. This leads us to wonder whether the Fed can actually raise rates again without significant pain and major dislocations in the global economy.
The sheer size of financial assets today relative to the size of the economy suggests that the tail may be wagging the dog. Any significant decrease in the price of securities is likely to damage consumer confidence. A reported 56% of U.S. households hold common stocks either directly or through retirement accounts, and the correlation between confidence and stock prices has grown. Total financial assets in the U.S. now represent 565% of gross domestic product.
A great benefit of possessing the world’s reserve currency is that America can float its ever-expanding debt despite large and growing long-term liabilities. A remarkable 50.9% of U.S. sovereign debt matures in the next three years. The weighted average cost of America’s outstanding debt is only 1.38%. With more than $22 trillion of that debt owed to the public, relatively small changes in short-term interest rates could greatly increase the federal deficit.
Also contributing to the Fed’s difficulty in raising rates is a portfolio of responsibilities for which it is particularly ill-suited. Despite a questionable record in reaching its inflation targets, the Fed is now expected to use monetary policy to solve a variety of social and political ills, from climate change to racial injustice. With such things on its to-do list, can the Fed ever really justify tightening?
There is no doubt that the Fed has the tools to fight inflation if it chooses. But the question remains whether it has the political will—given the size of financial assets relative to the economy, the potential effects of tightening on the federal budget, and the Fed’s growing list of social responsibilities. Tapering may start by the end of the year, but real tightening could present risks to the economy and, in turn, the Fed’s independence. Policy makers seem increasingly convinced that there are few long-term costs to spending money we don’t have.
Mr. Trennert is chairman and CEO of Strategas.
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The attached was sent to me by a dear friend who just shakes his head.
This is what we have come to in my short lifetime. Absolutely disgusting. Hard to believe.
My response to him:
This may be what America is all about. If so, I can assure you, I would not willingly defend it. Call me what you will this is insanity.
Behold: Dr. Rachel Levine
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by Bassam Tawil, GATESTONE INSTITUTE • October 4, 2021
- The Biden administration’s talk about achieving a “two-state solution” does not seem to impress many Palestinians. They believe, according to a recent public opinion poll, that this solution is no longer practical or feasible. These Palestinians, the poll found, prefer to wage an “armed struggle” against Israel.
- With such views, it is safe to assume that the Palestinian state the Biden administration is hoping to establish alongside Israel will be controlled by Iranian-backed terrorists such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad…..
- Read more...
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Midland waves goodbye to their Congresspersons:
If there is a wave it begins right here
By Salena Zito
MIDLAND, Pennsylvania — For as much cash and strategy as partisans put into creating a wave for their own parties, they always seem to miss where the ripple starts and why.
Midland is a borough in Beaver County — an urban area that hugs the Ohio River. It boomed for 50 years during the peak of the industrial revolution, but it has lost population ever since the collapse of industry beginning in the 1970s. The racial breakdown, black to white, mirrors that of the entire state. Most of the people here want the same things people have always wanted here — opportunity for themselves and a good education for their children.
Midland is a borough in Beaver County — an urban area that hugs the Ohio River. It boomed for 50 years during the peak of the industrial revolution, but it has lost population ever since the collapse of industry beginning in the 1970s. The racial breakdown, black to white, mirrors that of the entire state. Most of the people here want the same things people have always wanted here — opportunity for themselves and a good education for their children.
Every couple of years, people here vote for whoever vows convincingly to bring those aspirations to them. Every couple of years, they are disappointed yet again and look for hope elsewhere.
Since 2006, there have been five different members of Congress representing this Western Pennsylvania county; none of them left because they retired — they were all ousted in midterm-wave cycles.
Click here for the full story.
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The U.N Human Right's Council makes a mockery of everything the U.N was meant to be:
UN Human Rights Council head shuts down testimony on anti-Semitic UNRWA teachers
UN Watch sarcastically thanks the president for saying that posts praising Hitler and saying Jews control the world are ‘derogatory, insulting and inflammatory.’
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
The president of the UN Human Rights Council shut down Saturday the Zoom testimony of an expert group on UNRWA teachers’ anti-Semitism because she considered it an unacceptable personal attack on the educators.
Hillel Neuer, the longtime head of UN Watch, had begun listing anti-Semitic statements made by specific educators in Palestinian schools run by the international body in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. CONTINUE
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China is purposely heating up it's threats to Taiwan. Everything I read and know suggests Taiwan would be a pushover though they would fight.
Taiwan Foreign Minister: Preparing for War With China
By Mark Hale Latest News
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Taiwan’s foreign minister is warning of war with China and is asking Austraila for aid with intelligence, Australian Broadcasting reports.
The news comes after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China flew dozens of sorties into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) beginning on Friday.
On ABC’s “China Tonight,” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said that if the PLA launches an actual strike, Taiwan is ready to repel it.
“The defense of Taiwan is in our own hands, and we are absolutely committed to that,” Wu said.
The statement comes after Taiwan sharply criticized China on Saturday after Beijing marked the founding of the People’s Republic of China with the largest ever incursion by the Chinese air force into the island’s air defense zone.
Taiwan, a democratically governed island that is claimed by China, has complained for more than a year of repeated missions near it by China’s air force, often in the southwestern part of its air defense zone close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.
Taiwanese fighters scrambled against 38 Chinese aircraft in two waves on Friday, the Taiwan Defence Ministry said. It said Taiwan sent combat aircraft to warn away the Chinese aircraft, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them.
“China has been wantonly engaged in military aggression, damaging regional peace,” Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters on Saturday morning.
The first wave of incursions comprised 18 J-16 and four Su-30 fighter jets plus two nuclear-capable H-6 bombers and an anti-submarine aircraft, while the second had 10 J-16s, 2 H-6s and an early warning aircraft, the ministry said.
The first batch of Chinese aircraft all flew in an area close to the Pratas Islands, with the two bombers flying closest to the atoll, according to a map issued by the ministry.
The second group flew down into the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines, a key waterway that links the Pacific with the disputed South China Sea.
On Saturday, the ministry reported a further incursion, this time involving 20 aircraft, all fighters apart from two anti-submarine aircraft. They too flew in the vicinity of the Pratas.
Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu added his condemnation, tweeting on Saturday that the record sorties ensured Friday “wasn’t a good day.”
“Threatening? Of course,” he added.
China has yet to comment.
It has previously said such flights were to protect the country’s sovereignty and aimed against “collusion” between Taiwan and the United States, the island’s most important international backer.
The previous largest incursion happened in June, involving 28 Chinese air force aircraft.
China’s latest mission came less than a day after its government launched a verbal attack on Wu, evoking the words of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong to denounce him as a “shrilling” fly for his efforts to promote Taiwan internationally.
China has stepped up military and political pressure to try to force Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty.
Taiwan says it is an independent country and will defend its freedom and democracy.
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I say he is both:
Afghanistan Debacle – Joe Biden: Deceitful or Demented?
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark A. Milley; Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, and Central Command leader, Marine Corps General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. testify before the House Armed Services Committee, September 29, 2021. Pentagon photo by Chad J. McNeeley.
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Is Joe Biden a congenital liar, or is he simply in desperate need of memory care?
Either option is disturbing, but it’s one or the other after this week’s Capitol Hill testimony by America’s top military leaders who were grilled before congressional oversight panels.
These warriors’ remarks on Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee could not have contrasted more with Biden’s claim that no one ever advised him to leave a modest deployment of American GIs as control rods within the veritable atomic pile that is Afghanistan.
George Stephanopolous of ABC News spoke with Biden on August 18, as pandemonium reigned in Kabul:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But your top military advisors warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.
BIDEN: No, they didn’t. It was split. Tha– that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?
BIDEN: No. Not at — not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a timeframe all troops. They didn’t argue against that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no one told — your military advisors did not tell you, “No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that”?
BIDEN: No. No one said that to me that I can recall.
So, Biden repeatedly and definitively claimed that the top brass never urged him to keep 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan, to prevent the exact bedlam that erupted after American GIs began to decamp ahead of Biden’s order to withdraw by August 31.
Not so fast! replied Biden’s leading military advisors and his Pentagon chief.
These current and former generals said that they would not discuss in public their private counsel to the commander-in-chief. Immediately after those disclaimers, they discussed in public their private counsel to the commander-in-chief.
“I don’t discuss exactly what my conversations are with the sitting president in the Oval Office,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley, told the senators. “But I can tell you what my personal opinion was, and I am always candid.”
Milley added: “My assessment was, back in the fall of 2020, and remained consistent throughout, that we should keep a steady state of 2,500, and it could bounce up to 3,500, maybe, something like that, in order to move toward a negotiated solution.”
“I won’t share my personal recommendation to the president, but I will give you my honest opinion, and my honest opinion and view shaped my recommendation,” said Marine Corps General Kenneth McKenzie, head of Central Command and supervisor of US forces in Afghanistan. “I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.”
McKenzie also forecast the dire repercussions of ignoring his conclusions: “My view is that 2,500 was an appropriate number to remain, and that if we went below that number, in fact, we would probably witness a collapse of the Afghan government and the Afghan military.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III, a former Army general, verified that Biden heard Milley and McKenzie loud and clear. Austin told Senator Tom Cotton (R – Arkansas), “Their input was received by the president and considered by the president, for sure. In terms of what they specifically recommended, senator, as they just said, they’re not going to provide what they recommended in confidence.”
So, once, twice, three times these top national-security figures hurled Biden beneath the bus. This was highly unusual, if not utterly unprecedented.
Did the President of the United States flat-out lie to the American people about this life-and-death matter perhaps to cover up his horrible and deadly decision to remove these troops, despite high-level contrary advice? Or did these supremely vital conversations simply slide off of Joe Biden’s faltering brain, like fried eggs across hot Teflon?
Either way, America is in deep trouble. ADN
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Is Fauci the typical bureaucrat who outlived his usefulness long ago but is so ingrained he is able to survive?
Fauci is the Grinch Who Stole Christmas
Dr. Tony Fauci is a complete failure of a man who’s dragged this country down into an endless pandemic through his own misinformation and incompetence. His advice to President Trump and Joe Biden has been terrible.
His warnings and threats to the American people have been shameful and abusive, leading to no actual improvements in COVID or the situation itself. It seems that some still haven’t learned their lessons, however, and are inviting Fauci back on air to spew his lies.
EXCLUSIVE: Get Your Free Trump 2024 Flag Here
Fake news proprietor Margaret Brennan over at CBS had Fauci on recently, where she asked him if it’s safe for Americans to meet for Christmas this year. Yes, she actually asked him that.
Fauci Says Christmas is Probably Cancelled
During the interview with Brennan, Fauci said it’s “too soon” to say whether Christmas is cancelled, but there’s a good chance it will be unless we get “numbers down.” Who is this guy that he gets to cancel Christmas?
Fauci said it’s important to use “laser” focus to get people vaccinated and get them booster shots. He said this will “greatly” help to bring down infection numbers and stop the more serious cases of COVID that lead to hospitalizations.
As conservative commentator Mary Katharine Ham said, Fauci has made it very clear even moderate COVID or light COVID is not OK. Now, he’s saying that it’s OK as long as you had the vaccine. What in the world is this guy smoking?
Fauci’s beliefs are horrific, ignorant, and obsessive. All he seems to care about is getting this precious vaccine in everyone’s arms, even if it still leaves many with moderate and sometimes severe COVID infections afterwards.
Fauci, Fauci, Go Away…
Fauci needs to do what’s best for himself and for America. He needs to go away into quiet retirement (in prison). He’s misled the nation more than enough and we have no need of his fearmongering and lies any longer.
Fauci’s public health policies are based on his own ignorance of science and megalomaniacal obsession with the vaccine. There is more in this world than the vaccine, and even if everyone gets two shots, I bet anything Fauci would say they shouldn’t meet in groups until they get their third booster shot. It just never ends…
However, the truth is the other half of America that’s still sane simply isn’t listening to people like Fauci anymore. We could care less what he has to say with his whining voice.
Stop Giving Fauci Power
The lesson here is we need to stop giving Fauci power. He’s a sad little man who wants to control all of our lives, but he has no actual right to do so. In the worst case scenario, just get a pocket Constitution, wave it in his face, and tell him to back off.
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Everyone has a price. Politicians always do. What is Biden's?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-10-billion-trial-balloon-ebrahim-raisi-hossein-amir-abdollahian-biden-administration-nuclear-talks-11633379913?mod=opinion_lead_pos4
Iran’s $10 Billion Trial Balloon
How much will Biden pay for the privilege of holding nuclear talks?
By The Editorial Board
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has put nuclear negotiations on the back burner for his first two months in office, and it’s unclear whether he’s serious about ever reviving the 2015 deal. Yet Tehran certainly is open to getting paid to flirt with the idea.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said over the weekend that intermediaries approached Iranians at the United Nations General Assemblyseeking to restart nuclear talks. “I told the mediators if America’s intentions are serious then a serious indication was needed,” he said, according to Reuters. His ask was “at least $10 billion of blocked money.” The diplomat added that “they are not willing” to free up frozen funds, and the Iranian foreign ministry later said it was merely an example of a way to build goodwill.
That isn’t reassuring. Recall that the Obama Administration covertly airlifted $400 million in various currencies to Iran in January 2016. That payment—the first of a $1.7 billion settlement with the government over a failed arms deal from the 1970s—was made as the regime released four American hostages. With many of the same faces who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal back in the Biden Administration, perhaps they hope to bid the Iranians down to only a few billion. Even the Germans seem concerned: Berlin warned Monday that “if here new conditions are being set by Iran for talks to be resumed, then we reject that.”
Tehran’s confidence is particularly bold given the strong negotiating position Donald Trump left President Biden. Iranian gross domestic product shrank nearly 60% between 2017 and 2020, thanks to Mr. Trump’s maximum pressure sanctions campaign. Inflation has soared and weak bond sales have the government leaning on the central bank to fill financing gaps. Protests threaten the regime’s stability, and terror mastermind Qasem Soleimani is dead.
Iran’s only real leverage is nuclear escalation such as stockpiling highly enriched uranium, activating advanced centrifuges, and toying with international nuclear inspectors. Even these affronts have been slowed by a sabotage campaign likely carried out by Israel.
Yet so far the main organizing principle of Mr. Biden’s diplomacy—from Russia to Iran and beyond—has been to throw away leverage and hope adversaries return the favor. If talks resume, the first question the Biden Administration should be asked is whether it paid for the privilege.
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