China begins major support effort for Russia; China accelerates war against its own citizens

I wanted to pass along an excerpt from this week’s World Affairs Brief, regarding the growing military and economic alliance between Russia and China. Although these topics are not in my wheelhouse per se, I include this for the reader’s reference.

I am also including a commentary regarding the CCP-engineered lockdowns, which are ostensibly designed to help overcome covid infection within a number of China’s cities. I doubt this is the real reason, as I have suspected for a while that the CCP is clamping down on its civil rights and freedom of movement in preparation for future circumstances; any future military ambitions will not be well received by the average Chinese citizen.

China begins major support effort for Russia

CHINA BEGINS MAJOR SUPPORT EFFORT FOR RUSSIA

 

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39 thoughts on “China begins major support effort for Russia; China accelerates war against its own citizens

  1. COP15 was supposed to be held in China (chair of the biodiversity summit, 🤣) but is currently in session in Montreal. The lead photo in the story says it all, “SOS greenpeace”.

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/10/cop15-what-are-the-key-targets-for-the-biodiversity-agreement

    On the plus side, there have been no chemtrails in southwestern Quebec for the past three days, just clear blue skies with the occasional normal clouds. Good opportunity to rest and clear my system over the next 14 days in preparation for the onslaught of chemtrails after the conclusion of the summit.

  2. Another lie that the multiculturals supported; Biden’s American Rescue Tax Plan. The wealthy still pay little in taxes, yet the IRS is arming a boatload of revenue agents to subdue petty tax cheats who use PayPal and CashApp.
    __________

    Lawmakers cry against IRS reporting requirements on $600 transactions

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11491943/Lawmakers-cry-against-Biden-IRS-reporting-requirements-600-transactions.html

    Republicans are crying foul after the IRS reminded Americans they will have to report their $600 transactions on Venmo and PayPal to the IRS.

    In a provision that the Biden administration claimed was to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, the American Rescue Plan required taxpayers add to their 1099-K ‘gross payments for goods or services that exceed $600.’

    The IRS posted an explainer Tuesday reminding taxpayers the reporting threshold for 1099-K forms would be lowered from $20,000 to $600. The number of transactions that trigger receiving a form will also be lowered from 200 to 1.

    The change applies to payments on third-party processors, such as Venmo or PayPal, and is for transactions such as part-time work, side jobs or selling goods.

    ‘If you sold a couch, re-sold tickets at the price you paid, or just did some extra work on the side, you could trigger greater scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),’ Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee wrote in a statement.

    Failure to report such payments could trigger an audit since the IRS obtains a copy of the 1099-K form directly from third-party payment processors.

  3. In preparation for World War III, the United States government now has to turn its back on China like it did to Russia. This way our government will not get blamed for allowing an offensive strike to occur. It can at least come out and tell us that it warned us. I looked for more of these types of articles to accelerate over the next couple years. The MSM had been running cover for Chicomm China, but that seems to be turning.
    ___________

    Hackers linked to Chinese government stole millions in Covid benefits, Secret Service says

    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/chinese-hackers-covid-fraud-millions-rcna59636

    1. They are heading to this but I believe is not going to not as profitable for them at this time as it was in the past, and that they are risking loosing a lot.

      Technical analysis may show us that WWIII could be the last shoulder in a head and shoulder wave peak of global centralization. WWI and Revolutions made the uptrend shoulder and WWII and afterwards centralized international institution’s formation and consolidations, the head.

      Today, as the volume of bulls supporting the uptrend of centralization has diminished, they got to hold on more and more misguided foreign aliens,socialists and deluded woman, feminists, to keep the right shoulder of this wave going on. My guess is that if they go for their mad agenda, as it seems they will, the support of this wave is going to be seriously tested.

      I am not saying I am right, we see what happens but I think at this time they are going against the trend as the wave has not the energy to sustain their expensive and costly agenda.

      Though, they will push for this unwanted and unnecessary war anyway. Average people will not gain anything. We are losing a big deal with the multicultural policies of the “elites” and now those same “elites” are going to call on us to fight for them and lose even more.

      Ridiculous. You better desert, shoot on your hand or leg. If you can, quit unharmed and prosper, it is the best policy, but if you can not, try to survive not helping evil in any way, even if you suffer.

      Abraham broke all idols and put the hammer on the biggest one’s hand. When asked about it he told them the biggest one destroyed all the smaller ones.

      Do as he did. Have faith to go against as he had and believe. God is with you anywhere and anytime, you do not need to go anywhere special to feel his presence, you do not need a pastor, church, neither a pope, just look for him wherever you are and take some time for him, alone. He is there with you all the time, just take all the noise out and be with him.

      And make sure you follow him and no one else as Abraham did.

  4. Russia-China Natural Gas Pipeline Hits Major Construction Milestone

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russia-China-Natural-Gas-Pipeline-Hits-Major-Construction-Milestone.html

    A new Russia-China natural gas pipeline saw a major construction milestone crossed after a large tunnel on the Yangtze River was completed this weekend.

    The tunnel in the river is more than 10 km (6.2 miles) long and its construction took 28 months to complete, according to PipeChina as cited by local media.

    Still, it will take years for the whole huge gas pipeline from Russia to China to be completed and commissioned. Current plans are for this to happen in 2025.

    So, China will have to wait a few years before being able to materially boost gas pipeline imports from Russia.

  5. A house in Strasburg VA with a market value of 310k has annual property taxes of $1,350. Cheap! Little multiculturalism out there. When the multiculturalists turn that area into a multicultural shit hole, that amount will be 4,000.

    You may ask why that’s the case and I will tell you. Multiculturals cannot govern themselves like self sovereign people. Since many of them come from broken homes without fathers in the house, they end up relying on government for everything. They even rely on government for setting the rules on how to live. Multiculturals depend on government at a much greater propensity then relatively self-governing people. Multiculturals demand government and the government responds by being their daddy. The reason why this is the case is because the multiculturals don’t even realize it. Their egosyntonic behavior precludes them figuring it out. Multicultural areas have much higher sales and property taxes. Multicultural areas end up having higher tax rates of all sorts. Government is a burden to the population in multicultural areas, especially to those who are stuck there working but can normally govern themselves. These taxes and burdensome government are necessary to manage the multiculturals.

    1. When it comes to being duped, the multiculturals are the easiest to fool. They believe the lies in the MSM, yet reject the truth of the MSM outlets when it is mentioned.

      This is simple to understand, multiculturalism can only exist in a bed of lies which includes trillions of dollars in fiat deficit spending. Multiculturals lined up and got the accelerated death injections. Multiculturals will believe anything as long as it dovetails and conforms with their egosytonic behavior.

      Rather than looking in the mirror and admitting the errors of their ways, the multicultural fool blames people like me for the problems of the world. The multicultural reckons that if he or she can rehabilitate someone like me the world would be a much better place.

      The problem with a person who has a dangerous vice is that the person who is struggling with that vice will typically view that type of behavior as normal or ordinary. That’s egosyntonic, and the primary stumbling block for those trying to rehabilitate a criminal or a drug addict. Many of those in need of help see nothing wrong, and the multiculturalist views his or her behavior as almost virtuous. Talk about double-mindedness.

      1. Someone asked me what I thought of Kanye and his ostensibly pro-white views. I was also asked about what he and Dave Chappelle were saying about the Jews.

        The answer is simple. It’s not the Jews per se, but it’s the synagogue of Satan. The typical Jew is a working stiff like you and I. The problem is when a white person explains it he’s excoriated. So now, we have a black comedian and a black gang-banging rapper revealing to the world what most truth seekers already know. Plus Kanye and Dave will throw in a bunch of other stuff, so the listener will throw the baby out with the bathwater. Kanye and Chappelle are two hired hands.

        As the people are increasingly getting sicker and poorer, our adversary can no longer contain the obvious anymore, so they have a couple of public figureheads come out and act like a couple of buffoons while explaining to us what is wrong. So now if you have similar sentiment, you are lumped in with the Kanye’s of the world, who also tells us that Nazism was a good thing. It is an unbelievably articulate method that our adversary, using the most sophisticated DARPA and CIA psychological techniques, uses to diffuse their blow back against their agenda to demoralize and destroy humanity. Who says that operation Cointelpro is dead?

        And take my word for it, Lorne Michael, the producer of SNL, knew exactly what Dave Chappelle was going to say before he said it. I guarantee Michael signed off on it, because his bosses told him to.

        Next, Kanye will come out and proclaim the protocols of the learned elders of Zion. So now if you discuss the protocols you’re just like Kanye.

        Guilt by association and the blacks are now ostensibly on the forefront of exposing the nwo.

        1. They are getting ready to pass anti semitism bills in almost every State in the USA. Check your State government websites or Congress.gov for the specifics. They needed a celebrity to bad mouth Judaism in the mainstream media and help persuade authorities and politicians to hop on board(which most are on board already), and manipulate the public mindset. What happens when these bills are passed? For starters, no criticism for many policies and topics, including more censorship with added penalties.

    2. Equality will soon burst, like all popular delusions. The delusion is very expensive to maintain and the regime will fail in it. When whites lose confidence in the regime, they will pull away. That’s when the edifice crumbles.

  6. How people bought homes in the 1980s when mortgage rates were 18%

    It was a time of creative financing—particularly a type of loan that helped keep home sales stumbling along even when mortgage rates were extraordinarily high
    By Holden Lewis

    The oldest boomers were in full homebuying mode, and they turned to creative financing

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-people-bought-homes-in-the-1980s-when-mortgage-rates-were-18-11670009941

    How 2022 resembles the early ’80s

    The similarities between now and then start generationally: In 1981, the oldest baby boomers were 35 years old, and that cohort was in full homebuying mode. The first millennials were born that year, and that next-largest generation has been diligently searching for homes in recent years.

    Both generations were walloped by rapidly rising mortgage rates following a series of rate hikes by an inflation-fighting Federal Reserve:

    When the average interest rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage reached an all-time high of 18.63% in October 1981, it had risen almost 5 percentage points in 12 months. Rates had gone up almost as fast during a spell in 1980.

    This year, when the 30-year mortgage reached 7.08% in early November, it had gone up 4.1 percentage points in 12 months. (All percentages are from Freddie Mac’s weekly survey, going back to 1971.)

    The rapid climbs in mortgage rates forced would-be home buyers to skedaddle out of the market. Year-over-year existing home sales plunged 22.3% in 1980 and then another 18.6% in 1981, according to historical data from the National Association of Realtors. This year, the pace of existing home sales dropped 28.4% in the 12 months ending in October, according to the NAR.

    An era of creative financing

    Assumable loans helped to keep home sales stumbling along in the early ’80s when mortgage rates were extraordinarily high. They also served as the foundation for what was called “creative financing,” which filled the gap between the purchase price and the assumed mortgage balance.

    In most cases, creative financing took the form of loans to buyers from the sellers; for instance, in the form of a promissory note for a certain amount the buyer would pay the seller every month, with the buyer possibly taking out a second mortgage for the remainder of the purchase price. The arrangements had names such as “contract for deed,” “wraparound mortgage” and “lease with an option to buy.” A June 1981 Washington Post article said creative financing accounted “for more than 50% of all 1981 home resales in many parts of the United States.”

    More than 40 years have gone by, and 1980s-style creative financing isn’t coming back. Lenders frowned on the ad hoc transfers of loans they had originally made and wanted to write new loans at current interest rates as properties changed hands. Consumer advocates warned of the risk to buyers and sellers of informal and unconventional schemes that could leave either party holding a worthless contract, or committed to an unsupportable payment structure.

  7. This could be a huge problem; if only because Bloomberg is now saying it is. Imagine the amount of dollars that would be printed and shipped to overseas facilities to assuage these concerns.
    ____________

    ‘Huge, Missing and Growing:’ $65 Trillion in Dollar Debt Sparks Concern

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-05/-missing-65-trillion-in-derivatives-dollar-debt-sparks-concern

    Bloomberg) — Institutions outside the US are holding an estimated $65 trillion in “missing” dollar debt off their balance sheets through currency derivatives, making it harder for global policymakers to anticipate the next financial crisis.

    According to a paper from the Bank for International Settlements, this very short-term hidden borrowing forms part of a “huge, missing and growing” debt that the likes of pension funds owe through foreign-exchange swaps and other derivatives transactions.

    This is a problem, the BIS noted, because FX swaps were flash-points during both the global financial crisis and the early days of the pandemic, when dollar funding stress forced central banks to step in to help struggling borrowers.

    “It is not even clear how many analysts are aware of the existence of the large off-balance sheet obligations,” said researchers Claudio Borio, Robert McCauley and Patrick McGuire, noting that the lack of information into this form of dollar borrowing puts policymakers on the back foot.

    “Thus in times of crises, policies to restore the smooth flow of short-term dollars in the financial system — for instance, central bank swap lines — are set in a fog,” the report said.

    The findings, based on data from a triennial survey of global currency markets earlier this year, offer a rare insight into the scale of hidden leverage. The total amount of dollar debt from the derivatives stands at more than $80 trillion, exceeding the combined value of dollar Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and commercial paper, BIS said.

    Banks headquartered outside the US carry $39 trillion of this debt — more than double their on-balance sheet obligations and ten times their capital, the paper said.

    In an FX swap, a Dutch pension fund might borrow dollars and lend euros, and then later repays the dollars and receive euros. This is conceptually similar to a repo agreement except currencies are exchanged instead of collateral such as bonds, the BIS paper noted. Much of the dollar debt is very short-term and can create dollar funding squeezes, the researchers said.

    Separately, another BIS paper found an estimated $2.2 trillion of daily FX turnover was subject to settlement risk. That refers to the possibility that one party to a trade fails to deliver the currency owed, which can “result in significant losses for market participants, sometimes with systemic consequences.”

    This infamously happened when Germany’s Bankhaus Herstatt failed in 1974 leading regulators to set up the Basel Committee. The risk remains because payment-versus-payment arrangements — where transfers are coordinated so that neither party in a trade is left holding a claim after it has discharged its obligations — are unavailable, unsuitable or too expensive for certain trades, the BIS paper said.

    “There is a staggering volume of off-balance sheet dollar debt that is partly hidden, and FX risk settlement remains stubbornly high,” said Borio, head of the monetary and economic department at the BIS.

  8. LNG Is Booming, But Who Supplies The Gas? By Alex Kimani – Dec 04, 2022, 6:00 PM CST

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/US-LNG-Is-Booming-But-Who-Supplies-The-Gas.html

    •In the current year, five developers have signed over 20 long-term deals to supply more than 30 million metric tons/year of LNG.
    •Pundits are asking if the United States can ramp up production to meet future demand.
    •It’s going to be a real challenge for the United States to meet future LNG demand.

    This year, the United States became the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter as deliveries to energy-starved buyers in Europe and Asia surged. In the current year, five developers have signed over 20 long-term deals to supply more than 30 million metric tons/year of LNG to energy-starved buyers in Europe and Asia. As energy analysts RBN Energy notes, the first wave of LNG export expansion has mostly gone smoothly thanks to fast-rising natural gas supplies in the Lower 48 and a slew of pipeline reversals and expansions that allowed low-cost Marcellus-Utica gas supplies to reach Gulf Coast markets. But with LNG demand already high and set to grow at a frenetic pace, the big question becomes how quickly can the United States ramp up production to meet future demand?

    There’s been no shortage of long-term offtake deals signed by multiple U.S. gas producers.

    In June, German utility EnBW announced that it had signed a 20-year deal for a substantial supply of LNG from U.S.-based exporter Venture Global. In the same month, Energy Transfer LP (NYSE: ET) signed an LNG sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with China Gas Holdings; Chevron Inc. (NYSE: CVX) signed a 4mtpa LNG offtake deal with Venture Global and Tellurian Inc. (NYSE: TELL) signed an LNG sales and purchase agreement (SPA) with commodity trader Vitol. In July, Cheniere Energy (NYSE: LNG) signed an offtake deal with Thailand’s state-owned energy company PTT. Finally, in September, Australian energy giant Woodside Energy Group Ltd finalized offtake agreements for U.S. supply from Commonwealth LNG.

    Overall, offtakers have committed to more than ~31 MMtpa of U.S. LNG supply, with term lengths ranging from 15 to 25 years. But a lot more than that is likely to be demanded over the next couple of years.

    RBN estimates that “…there’s another 100 MMtpa (14.3 Bcf/d) or so of proposed LNG export capacity with a medium-to-high chance of progressing in the next three years, including at least three projects totaling almost 19 MMtpa (2.5 Bcf/d) that we believe are highly likely to take FID within the next 12 months. That’s out of a universe of nearly 30 projects we track in the LNG Voyager Quarterly, representing over 280 MMtpa (38.3 Bcf/d) of potential export capacity, the bulk of it along the Texas and Louisiana coasts.”

    According to RBN, availability of feedgas supply where and when it is needed is going to be one of the major factors that will influence the timing and commercialization of future LNG projects.

    Where will all the gas come from?

    RBN notes that the Appalachia was, by far, the biggest contributor to U.S. natural gas growth over the last decade. During the timeframe, Lower 48 dry gas production climbed nearly 30 Bcf from an average 70 Bcf/d in 2014 to 99.6 Bcf/d currently, during which Appalachian output more than doubled and drove 18.5 Bcf/d of that overall growth. The Permian came in a distant second, growing production by 11.2 Bcf/d while the Eagle Ford saw production decline by 1 Bcf/d. Meanwhile, the Haynesville was the third-fastest-growing region on an absolute volume basis, up from 9.5 Bcf/d in 2014 to 15.3 Bcf/d currently. Finally, the Anadarko, Niobrara and Bakken rose by a combined 4.6 Bcf/d over the timeframe.

    However, the energy experts have predicted that the second wave of U.S. LNG growth will favor the southern basins. RBN estimates that Appalachia has the potential to ramp up production by almost 8 Bcf/d to 42 Bcf/d over the next 10 years if unconstrained by pipeline takeaway capacity. However, the analysts say that’s unlikely to happen given strong headwinds for midstream development in the region. The Appalachian Basin is the country’s largest gas-producing region, churning out more than 35 Bcf/d. Unfortunately, environmental groups have repeatedly stopped or slowed down pipeline projects and limited further growth in the Northeast. Indeed, EQT Corp. (NYSE: EQT) CEO Toby Rice recently acknowledged that Appalachian pipeline capacity has “hit a wall.” As a result, RBN says production growth in the basin is likely to be closer to just 3 Bcf/d, capping production at just under 38 Bcf/d on an annual average.

    Meanwhile, growth in the Anadarko, Niobrara and Bakken is likely to remain modest, altogether adding ~3.3 Bcf/d to reach almost 15.5 Bcf/d by 2032. In other words, the bulk of U.S. LNG growth in this post-shale-boom era will come from the Texas and Louisiana basins. RBN notes that both the Permian and Haynesville have been at the epicenter of midstream development in recent months while the Eagle Ford has been showing signs of a production recovery of late, after a decline in recent years.

    Analysts at East Daley Capital Inc. have projected that U.S. LNG exports will grow to 26.3 Bcf/d by 2030 from their current level of nearly 13 Bcf/d. For this to happen, the analysts say another 2-4 Bcf/d of takeaway capacity would need to come online between 2026 and 2030 in the Haynesville alone.

    “This assumes significant gas growth from the Permian and other associated gas plays. Any view where oil prices take enough of a dip to slow that activity in the Permian and you’re going to have even more of a call for gas from gassier basins,” the analysts have said.

    Either way, it’s going to be a real challenge for the United States to meet those targets because takeaway constraints including limited pipeline capacity are seen as the biggest hurdle to growth of the sector despite the country being home to the world’s largest backlog of near-shovel-ready LNG projects.

    By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

  9. Xi and the CCP won’t accept Western mRNA injections, because it needs its people alive and well for WWIII, when it plans to take down the multicultural pin cushion of the jabbed and damned souls in the West and the US.

    When no one has the power, all are slaves ruled by those who hate you.
    ___________

    China’s Xi unwilling to accept western vaccines, U.S. official says

    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xi-unwilling-accept-vaccines-despite-threat-protests-us-intel-2022-12-04/

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping is unwilling to accept Western vaccines despite the challenges China is facing with COVID-19, and while recent protests there are not a threat to Communist Party rule, they could affect his personal standing, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Saturday.

    Although China’s daily COVID cases are near all-time highs, some cities are taking steps to loosen testing and quarantine rules after Xi’s zero-COVID policy triggered a sharp economic slowdown and public unrest.

    Haines, speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California, said that despite the social and economic impact of the virus, Xi “is unwilling to take a better vaccine from the West, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that’s just not nearly as effective against Omicron.”

    “Seeing protests and the response to it is countering the narrative that he likes to put forward, which is that China is so much more effective at government,” Haines said.

    “It’s, again, not something we see as being a threat to stability at this moment, or regime change or anything like that,” she said, while adding: “How it develops will be important to Xi’s standing.”

    China has not approved any foreign COVID vaccines, opting for those produced domestically, which some studies have suggested are not as effective as some foreign ones. That means easing virus prevention measures could come with big risks, according to experts.

    China had not asked the United States for vaccines, the White House said earlier in the week.

    One U.S. official told Reuters there was “no expectation at present” that China would approve western vaccines.

    “It seems fairly far-fetched that China would greenlight Western vaccines at this point. It’s a matter of national pride, and they’d have to swallow quite a bit of it if they went this route,” the official said.

      1. Thanks for the video! I can’t believe what’s going on! And what do our shepherds in the churches say? I don’t really hear anything! What do they say when they have to appear before the judgment seat?

  10. When nobody has the power, this is the result. Lineup and get your jabs as the synagogue’s media exploit the masses like livestock and culls the hurd. If the people do remain alive their lives will suck and they will struggle with all sorts of problems; physical as well as mental. Enjoy your multiculturalism; everything is working like a hand in glove. Own the income generators, so you can exploit the bottom 90%, and turn off the TV.

    Of course, the US Surgeon General is a multiculturalist and will lie to you. The very things that will keep us healthy will never be mentioned in lieu of taking actions that will kill you or make you sick. Enjoy your multiculturalism! Cheers and relax!
    __________

    Hospitals are filling up’: The U.S. surgeon general warns a surge in viral illnesses is pushing medical facilities to the brink—and tells Americans how to stay safe

    https://fortune.com/well/2022/12/02/hospitals-filling-up-covid-rsv-flu-surgeon-general-us-united-states-warns-how-to-stay-safe-healthy-well/

    1. Is it me or does the the headline contradict the report? Quote ” A majority of the beds (56000) are taken by people who do not have COVID “.

  11. Interesting thoughts from Vincent Deluard, a global macro strategist, and this is why I want to include them here.

    My only true contention to his theories regards how higher equilibrium price and wage inflation in a global marketplace only brings less equality and stability to society; it never brings equality to society as only those who have the power to pass on higher costs or can use inflation as an excuse are the winners. Unspecialized wage earners never have the power to keep up with rising prices. Star athletes and experts in other fields can ask for more money, but the vast majority of the wage pool will never have that pricing power.

    As global wealth has been spread around the world and the standards of living have risen globally, it is becoming less possible for producers to effectively arbitrage production costs between different nations. Moreover, transport costs are now eating up the differences.

    Thus, inflation may be institutionalized, but the lower demographics will never prevail from inflation. Those who don’t own the assets have to accept the higher costs of life with no abilities to protect themselves from those higher costs.

    __________

    This Stock Strategist Says We’ll See 5% Inflation for the Next Decade

    (Bloomberg) — While the crypto horror show rages on, stocks have quietly rallied almost 10% in the last month amid cautious optimism that the worst of the inflation shock is over.

    But might it be a head-fake? And what’s in store for equities in 2023? Vincent Deluard, director of global macro strategy at StoneX Financial, joins this week’s “What Goes Up” podcast to talk about why he’s not convinced inflation will fall anytime soon.

    Here are some highlights of the conversation, which have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

    5% Inflation for a Decade?

    Q: You say the real Fed pivot won’t be to cut rates in 2023, but to accept that a decade of 5% inflation is the least painful way to deleverage the economy, reduce inequalities and restore sustainable growth. How does that play out in markets? And what’s driving that inflation?

    A: Let me start on the rates. My view is that the true pivot of 2023 will not be so much the two or three rate cuts that the market currently has priced. I do think we raise to 5% — and the pace of it ultimately is irrelevant. Maybe these 75-basis-point monster hikes are overkill — we can probably afford to do a couple 50, even 25. But then rates do not drop after mid-23 like the futures market has it, because inflation doesn’t really drop. And the reason inflation doesn’t drop is because by then inflation will be mostly about wages, and wages, I would expect, will be around 4%, 5% by then.

    By May, we’ll get to maybe 4%, 5% inflation. We’ll have a 4% or 5% fed funds rate. So, Powell’s raised the fed funds rate above the rate of inflation — “mission accomplished.” And then we should never talk again about what happened in 2020 or in 2021 when the Fed was buying $35 billion of mortgage-backed securities when we had the massive housing bubble.

    Q: So they’ll get rid of that 2% target for now?

    A: Yes. And that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. And that’s my point. If you look back at the history of the 2% target, it’s a made-up number. It came from a press conference in New Zealand in the late eighties. There’s no scientific backing behind the 2%. If you look at the distribution of inflation and growth in the US, you’ll actually notice that growth has been actually faster — real economic growth — when inflation has been in the 4%-5% range.

    You can very well make the case that what really hurts is when you have inflation above 10%, or really unpredictable inflation, because this is when agents can’t plan for the future, investments don’t get made, people hoard stuff. But as long as you have stable, somewhat moderate inflation, whether it’s 2% or 4% or 5% doesn’t really change things. And I think that’s the way most Americans also feel — most Americans don’t even know what the Fed does, they don’t know about the 2% inflation. They just think of inflation as whatever happened in the past. So that’s where the inflation expectation channel comes in.

    A decade of 4%, 5% inflation is really not bad. We are in a period where we have a structurally tighter labor market, mostly because of demography, and also because we no longer have access to Mexican labor. A lot of the great moderation of the past 30 years was with the product of free forces — on the labor side, you had about 12 million Mexicans that crossed the border between basically the end of the Tequila crisis in 1994 and 2007 — and this flow was stopped and even reversed since Covid. So we no longer have cheap labor.

    On the good side, it was the China shock. If you follow what’s been happening in China right now, this is maybe not where you want your supply chain, and if you just get a demography of China, we’ll have a massive crunch in the population of young workers in China because of the one-child policy. So we don’t have cheap goods from China, we don’t have cheap labor from Mexico.

    And then the last part was cheap capital. As the US had these massive deficits in the late 90s, what that meant is that you had all these countries that had very large surpluses — Europe, Germany, Japan; and then Saudi Arabia, commodity-producing countries. And these surpluses would flow back into the US Treasury market. So for the US it worked great because we basically sent people Treasuries, and then we got goods from them. So it was fantastic. That channel is also clogged now.

    So the three factors that made it so easy for us to achieve that 2% inflation are gone — cheap labor, cheap goods, cheap capital. So it would be a lot harder to get down to 2%. I mean, I’m sure we could, like, if Powell wanted to be Volcker and he gets the fed funds right to 10%, we get to 2%. But what’s the point? Why would you want to destroy the labor market?

    –With assistance from Stacey Wong.

    ©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

    1. In order to get the multicultural iron and clay kingdom, the Feds have to spend many trillions. They can no longer use international means to cover their tracks like they have since the 80s. The deficits are washing back up on the nation’s shores, affecting all workers.

      The problem with what I know makes it impossible for me to ever agree with multiculturalism as a concept. Those who disagree are not washed economists and should just embrace the current system and be done with it. I will always benefit as I am a price maker. Most (90%) are price takers.

      1. Multiculturalism – demoralizing the majority by pretending to empower a stated minority. All the time, nobody wins except for those in control.

  12. Armed IRS agents hired for a reason
    __________

    The IRS reminds Americans earning over $600 on PayPal, Venmo, or Cash App transactions to report their earnings

    The new rule comes as a result of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

    https://www.cnbc.com/select/irs-americans-over-the-600-threshold-on-payment-apps-must-report-it/

    If you use third-party payment platforms, like PayPal, Venmo or Cash App, to collect payments for your side gig or business, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wants to remind you to report payments of at least $600.

    This rule is aimed at individuals who run a side hustle, small business or do part-time work. So if you’re just sending money to friends for a restaurant bill or a vacation, or collecting a one-time payment for selling something online, this won’t apply to you.

    Before 2022, third-party transactions for business owners and side hustlers followed different thresholds: individuals needed to report gross payments exceeding $20,000 and report earnings if they had more than 200 such transactions, according to the IRS. But as a result of the American Rescue Plan Act, any transactions made after March 11, 2021 that exceed $600 must be reported to the IRS, regardless of how many of those transactions you’ve had.

    These earnings were already taxable so this is not a change in tax law, but rather just a reporting change.

    In order to report these earnings and transactions, you’ll need to file Form 1099-K. According to the IRS, you should receive this form from each third-party payment platform you received transactions through. If you incorrectly receive the form for personal transactions, the IRS recommends you contact the payment platform for a correction or to attach an explanation to your tax return.

  13. If someone thinks we can all live in peace and harmony and marry whomever we want and have all sorts of children with all sorts of proclivities, the current system is befitting that world.

    Never before has humanity pulled this off, so we need a global government for that. Here’s to the believer of peace and harmony! Cheers, and relax. The vaccines over the decades have also made the population so much more docile while simultaneously compressing the collective IQ levels. It’s all peace and harmony!

    1. Perfect environment for the arrival of the Antichrist to make empty promises of peace and harmony and the one world religion where he is worshipped as God. Humanity is looking for a physical King instead of God.
      Well, here comes the Antichrist to fill that role. Dumbed down humanity will get what it asks for. Sit back and enjoy the show.

        1. True. The patriots king is the likes of Donald Trump and Alex Jones. This AntiChrist will be all things to all people. The patriots are as Christian as the satanists are.

    1. I don’t buy it. Any foreign toxin has to make it through the stomach or the lungs before its emitted to the bloodstream. Stomach acid probably destroys toxins outright. The lungs have defense mechanisms for this as well.

      Unless you end up with pneumonia and a blood infection, I don’t see how these toxins can bypass our immune systems and make it to the bloodstream. After all, God designed it.

  14. This Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2022 paints an absolutely mind-blowing financial picture of the globe. Take a look at how global wealth has increased over the past three or so years. The average wealth per adult in the US is $579,000 while the median is $93,000. (Page 13).

    https://knowyouradversary.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/global-wealth-report-2022-en.pdf

    The last days Babylon is one of amazing wealth formation and this publication even mentions that worry is key to this building of wealth.

    We need to reallocate as well as plan for the future, but there is no reason to be broke.

    Many will tell me that all this wealth is just based on credit, but these assets can buy a lot more consumables than ever before.

    What I find intriguing is how much wealth is now spread around the globe.

    1. I wouldn’t believe much of what comes from the nypost. I highly doubt the Russian media would release to the public media that Putin would shat himself after falling down, if it actually happened. I do think Putin is just like our politicians, nothing but a front person that reads a script. So they probably just want to make him look bad and bring in someone new.

      My opinion is that most of what we see and hear in the mainstream and Alt media like the World Affairs Brief, is disinformation and controlled opposition. They add in just enough truth to pull readers in but cloud it up with misinformation. There is some truth in that article but it promotes the mainsream storylines.

      I’m not in China or the Ukraine, but from my research and talking to people I work with who live there, we in the USA are not getting the truth about what is actually happening.

      There is not a war going on in the Ukraine. Any third grader should know that by now. Everything we see in the media that shows some sort of military conflict in the Ukraine is a Hollywood production. They are building new infranstructure to support the BRI. I assume that’s what American taxpayers paid for with the hundreds of billions of dollars being sent over there. Yet I have potholes on my roads and crumbled sidewalks.

      The people from China I work with told me they have many freedoms in their home towns and will return as soon as they can. It is not as bad as what the media shows. They can travel abroad too. My company is doing increased business with China and is building and expanding facilities there.

      So why are we being lied to? They just wanted approval for hundreds of billions to send overseas and needed fabrications?

      I guess I’ll accept that as one of the answers.

  15. I really do not know what the hell is going on, I am not an insider not anything even close, but even watching events from outside my perception and judgment tell me that things are escalating step by step.

    The EU relies in cheap energy for everything. Politicians their lackeys and governments are the worst offenders: they burn tons of energy… Everything taxable too depends on lots of energy.

    So, we are supposed to believe that EU official do not know what they are doing cutting Russia as a gas and oil supplier, as Russia, even for smaller prices, has gone to sell its resources to another countries.

    Anywhere, I got this thought in my head that there are not mistakes, not at all.

    It is all deliberated. Deliberated and all done with purpose; it happens to be that there is an centralization agenda and the evil powers are following the script to the lettcentralizeder, one step each time, all this done to align us and the “future” to their centralization agenda.

    For some strange reasons all these elite arrogant fools believe they can shape the “future” as God does not exist and they are the “real” gods that call the shots, not God.

    It is a well know fact that Klaus Schaw’s family’s business cooperated with Nazi forces, even they used slave workers in their factories in Switzerland.

    So, this guy is not exactly an angel and knows probably very well how tyranny and tyrannical governments work.

    “You will own nothing and be happy”…

    Who is gonna be happy in such a tyranny?…

    1. I doubt Putin is even making unilateral decisions. He’s under orders to get the ball rolling.

      This was just like with Lenin. Lenin thought he was running the show until he met his financiers at the privately run Gosbank. He eventually realized he was just a stooge and the Soviet central bank managers ordered him to dance to their tune. Lenin never even met the owners of the Gosbank. Today’s politicians never meet their central bank owners either. Yet they all march to sheets of music written by the CB owners.

      The politicians and policy makers receive their music pieces at special meetings and through hush hush threats and “suggestions.” Like Schumer is under orders to push for the most degenerate crap one can think of. Schumer couldn’t care less about what he says he believes. He’s under orders and does whatever his puppet masters force him to do.

      1. It’s true but in this case they won’t prevail. They won’t win. They will order and manipulate and write the music as they are being doing for many years but they will meet much more resistance this time, as this wave is exhausted and there is a real swing and a change of trend and things won’t be to their favor as events unfold if they try to go against it, as they will.

        This big central bankers family dynasties inheritors are lost in the glory of their ancestors achievements and they think that if they behave in the same mean and manipulative behaviors they will get the same incredible results their ancestors obtained.
        They are looking at the incredible gains in the periods after the Bolshevik and Maoist Revolutions, WWI and WWII for the centralization of private central banks powers. That’s why they are pushing for WWIII, this foolish, arrogant idiots want to push for this war because they believe they will get more centralization, more power and the world at their fingers.

        How can this be a truth?…

        They are not looking at reality just at the glory of their ancestors achievements and this time they are showing their hand too much and exposing themselves to the elements too much as their ancestors never dared to do for many centuries.

        In this place of the world, many centuries ago, when this people went too arrogant and complacent, they expelled them, forced them to convert, tortured them and burned them to the stake alive.

  16. I saw this turmoil in China in the news this morning – and reference was made about the ‘under vaccinated’ being a problem in China. I’ll be watching to see how they deal with that – throw them in camps? Because that idea might come over here. I don’t think we’re done with the covid narrative.

  17. China Is Snapping Up Russia Oil Even as Price Cap Talks Continue – Bloomberg News

    (Bloomberg) — Oil refiners in China have started to snap up Russian crude cargoes after a short hiatus, citing sharply lower prices due to ample unsold supplies.

    Chinese private processors, or teapots, purchased several cargoes of Russian ESPO crude for December-January arrival, said traders who asked not to be identified. The shipments traded at wider discounts to global benchmark Brent crude than deals done just weeks ago.

    Market observers are keenly monitoring the sale of Russian crudes in the run-up to Dec. 5 when the European Union rolls out new sanctions that will ban the bloc from extending shipping, insurance and banking services to Russian trades. Specifically, traders are interested to know if China and India can continue to purchase Russian crudes, and whether the countries will utilize a proposed price cap or turn to non-EU providers.

    In this case, the final price of the cargoes will not be known until a much later date. That’s because the deals are done against the average of Brent’s front-month February contract, which can only be tabulated at the end of December. It’s also unclear if the cargoes will load before or after the Dec. 5 deadline.

    Traders, however, said that teapots weren’t too concerned if their cargoes would be hit by EU sanctions or meet the criteria for the cap. That’s because their purchases were being made on a delivered basis, which leaves the responsibility of shipping and insurance with sellers, they said.

    It is also believed that the cargoes were bought in Chinese yuan rather than US dollars, and financed through local banks and institutions.

    Those still willing to import Russian crude have been trying to assess their risk of running afoul of EU sanctions, and whether they can utilize the cap to gain exemptions. Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February, most western countries including the US, UK and those in the EU have reduced purchases of Russian oil, prompting a diversion of cargoes to countries such as China, India and Turkey.

    Price-cap discussions are still underway as EU members squabble over where to set the cap, although there are indications that the bloc is closing in on a $60-a-barrel figure. Russia, however, earlier said that it won’t sell oil and gas to nations that join the cap.

    –With assistance from Serene Cheong.

    ©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

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