Regular Fare:
Some notes on
the world economy now
So Biden’s package will give the US economy an early rush, but it’s not
enough to boost long-term growth. The low pre-pandemic growth rate will resume;
and with it, productivity-boosting investment will be weak, wages will not grow
much and jobs will remain precarious for a large part of wage-earners.
International
Inflation Trends
Three Places
Where "Permanently" Higher Inflation Could Come From
A Swift Price‑Level Adjustment, Not an Inflation Spike
In our view, the U.S. is undergoing a multi-month price-level adjustment,
where higher inflation prints will prove to be temporary. As a result, the Fed
will remain patient (for further insights, read our recent Viewpoint, “The Great U.S. Inflation
Head Fake”). The key question the Fed will be monitoring is
whether this temporary jump is meaningful enough to raise inflation expectations
on a sustained basis and therefore result in more persistent inflation (read
our recent blog post on how the
Fed can realign inflation expectations).
It’s almost like the bond market has been expecting all this, the
reflation sell-off earlier in the year before February 24, but then surmised
how the underlying economic condition (outside as well inside the US, global
factors after all) aren’t likely to sustained such commodity, producer, or
consumer price acceleration or advance for very long. Transitory inflation is
no inflation at all; unusually low nominal and real yields all around.
How Can Anyone
In Their Right Mind Say This Much Inflation Is Transitory?
Thus, the year 2000’s “inflation” was no inflation at all – it was a
transitory burst of consumer price gains that didn’t meet the threshold.
… This kind of transitory “inflation” event isn’t actually uncommon.
… None of those things are inflation; painful in the short run, yes, and
that’s really the problem with the inflation story overall and why it can never
get that far. These price changes only add to the constraints, to the misery as
noted yesterday. They’ve shown up at the worst possible time, very much like
late 2000 and the first half of 2008, to make high levels of existing macro
slack that much more unmanageable and potential recovery from it that much less
robust.
Don’t Be Fooled
by April’s Inflation Jump. It’s Being Driven by Reopening Quirks.
The inflation mania is growing – but manias are manias
This Is Not The
Inflation You Are Looking For, Move Along
Did China Just
Kill The Commodity-Craze?
Other Charts:
MMT Fare:
Frances Coppola: I was not the only David taking aim at the Goliaths of conventional finance and economics at that time. Writers such as Cullen Roche and Edward Harrison, and heterodox economists such as Steve Keen and Ann Pettifor, were as determined as I was to correct the widespread misunderstanding of so-called "fractional reserve" banking that had resulted in central bankers failing to understand the risks posed by rising leverage in the banking system. It quickly became apparent that central bankers and economists not only didn't understand how banks could crash the world, they didn't understand their own tools either. They simply did not know how money is created in a modern economy.
… But even now, the same old nonsense about fractional reserve banking
and money multipliers is still circulating.
… Anyway, I've heard all this inflation scaremongering before. It was
wrong ten years ago and it is equally wrong now. QE does not cause inflation,
and nor do government deficits when the economy is in a slump. We are living
through an era of "QE for the People" right now, and there is no
significant inflation. There will probably be a short burst of inflation as the
economy reopens, because the damaged supply side will take a while to catch up
with resurgent demand, but neither the exceptional government spending during
this time nor the monetary policy that supported it will cause runaway
inflation.
(not just) for the ESG crowd:
Central Banks
Jump Into Climate-Change Policy Fray
In December, the Fed joined the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for
Greening the Financial System. That group, which includes central banks and
regulators of major European countries as well as China, Russia and Japan,
started with eight members in 2017.Now, with 90 central banks and regulators as
members, the group is planning to meet at a major conference next month. Some
members are adjusting policy based on climate considerations, potentially
including higher capital charges for lending to fossil-fuel companies and bank
stress tests that focus on the risk of rising temperatures to loan portfolios.
Carbon Pricing
Isn’t Effective at Reducing CO2 Emissions
Big Oil Is
Trying to Make Climate Change Your Problem to Solve.
A
new Harvard study highlights a decades-long trend — how industry creates systemic
problems and then blames consumers for it
1.5° C degrowth
scenarios suggest need for new mitigation pathways
Climate
Emergency - Scientists Warn that Greenhouse Gases are Shrinking the
Stratosphere
Observations
show marine clouds amplify warming
COVID Fare:
Toronto cancels
CNE, other major events for 2nd straight summer over COVID-19
Graph/Pics of the Week:
The World's Longest Train Journeys
EXTRA [controversial
or non-market-related] FARE:
ESG Fare:
Goodbye, Climate
Deniers. Hello, Climate Bullshitters
Yves here. While I
appreciate Tom Neuburger’s critique, I don’t think it goes far enough. On my
list of climate bullshitters are Green New Deal promoters. They are selling a
vision of not merely a pain free transition to a much lower carbon-used
economy, but one with unicorns and rainbows in terms of economic groaf and
jobs, via building new infrastructure….which has to be done with the current
carbon-using infrastructure and limited and sometimes environmentally nasty
inputs, like rare earths and lithium. The only hope we have of non-catastrophic
outcomes is radical conservation, and just about no one in a position of
influence is willing to say that. After all, we live in a society where some
regard mask-wearing as an unbearable hardship.
RCP8.5 tracks cumulative CO2 emissions
Abstract: Climate
simulation-based scenarios are routinely used to characterize a range of
plausible climate futures. Despite some recent progress on bending the
emissions curve, RCP8.5, the most aggressive scenario in assumed fossil fuel
use for global climate models, will continue to serve as a useful tool for
quantifying physical climate risk, especially over near- to midterm
policy-relevant time horizons. Not only are the emissions consistent with
RCP8.5 in close agreement with historical total cumulative CO2 emissions
(within 1%), but RCP8.5 is also the best match out to midcentury under current
and stated policies with still highly plausible levels of CO2 emissions in
2100.
ESG / Book Review Fare:
Book Review: Tales of Nature Altered by Human Hands
In “Second Nature,” Nathaniel Rich explores the
changing natural world, and our struggle to shape and control it.
Jessica Green: Can the World’s Bankers Really Save the Climate?
[Discussing Kim Stanley Robinson’s] The Ministry for the Future (TMFTF) should be lauded for reimagining
global climate governance. It recognizes what many climate scholars do not:
climate change is in large measure, a problem of extreme wealth and wealth
inequality. Thus, addressing the climate crisis requires discussing “potential
alternatives to the global neoliberal order” (155). Moreover, the Ministry is
keenly aware of the shrinking window for action. Addressing climate change is a
race against time, rather than a “tragedy of the commons.”
Why ‘Factfulness’ Cannot Save Us
Optimism is great, but not when it’s the product of
ignoring the obvious.
Rosling’s manifesto is best described as intellectual
self-care for the global business elite. While he may have noble intentions,
his “fact-based worldview” turns out to be mostly a guide for how Fortune 500
CEOs can increase their profits and feel good about it. Meanwhile, the only
real option for readers without seats in a corporate boardroom is to use rosy
statistics “as therapy.” Factfulness transforms the project of crafting an
equitable global society into an internal quest for stress-reduction and
self-improvement. Taking Rosling’s advice would mean that we drop any demands
for radical change and take shelter in the hands of benevolent oligarchs, where
the future looks glorious (for them).
…
Anyone who wants to improve the world should start
with accurate information. I feel the need to make that point strongly because
I’m about to criticize Rosling’s ideological assumptions and his blinkered
focus on the facts that support his narrative of progress.
…
In endnotes, he points readers to a number of
pop-psychology books that have influenced his thinking, including Pinker’s. But
he omits any discussion of scientific support for his theories—a curious
decision for a book about facts.
…
But this aura of objectivity is an illusion. Like all
of us, Rosling selects facts that fit his narrative—in this case, the story of
human progress—while discarding others. … Hickel also excoriates Rosling and
other New Optimists for promoting “a cartoonishly simple narrative wherein
capitalism is responsible for virtually everything good that has happened in
modern history and nothing bad”
…
Indeed, Rosling’s selective squinting is clearest in
his book’s discussion of environmental crisis. These sections of Factfulness
capture everything wrong with the “fact-based worldview,” from its political
naivety to its painfully limited vision.
…
Runaway climate change threatens to undo the progress
the world has made in mitigating natural disasters and so much else.
Environmental collapse poses an existential threat to human flourishing. In
Factfulness, Rosling repeatedly scolds environmental activists for being too
alarmist and argues we shouldn’t leave climate change to “sketchy worst-case
scenarios and doomsday prophets.” But scientists are telling us this. … Meanwhile,
the book’s framing of the biodiversity crisis is downright deceptive.
COVID Fare:
Underlining the uncertainty surrounding SARS-CoV-2 and
its many mutant offshoots (while offering a helpful reminder that Pfizer and
Moderna are looking to maximize profits for their newest line of business) a
group of scientists from around the world have banded together to push back
against advanced marketing of COVID-19 booster shots and annual vaccines.
…scientists expressed concern that public expectations
around COVID-19 boosters are being set by pharmaceutical executives rather than
health specialists
Research suggests Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine
reprograms innate immune responses
… say that while the vaccine has been shown to be up
to 95% effective in preventing infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and subsequent COVID-19, little is known about the
broad effects the vaccine may have on the innate and adaptive immune responses.
VanDenBossche: Predictions on outcome of mass vaccination during a
pandemic of more infectious Sars-2-CoV variants
Overall conclusion: Covid-19 vaccination campaigns
that are rolled out in the heat of a pandemic will inevitably breed variants
that are more infectious and ultimately become resistant to vaccines. The
smaller the population and the faster mass vaccination campaigns are rolled out,
the faster infection, morbidity and mortality rates will rise. Based on how the
pandemic is currently evolving in a number of smaller countries/ islands (e.g.,
Seychelles, Maldives, Bahrain), it is reasonable to assume that over the next
coming months, or weeks, several other countries are going to show a dramatic
increase in these rates as well.
when the covid virustime started, we were told by
everyone with a microphone to “follow the science”. But 16 months or so in,
we’re not following the science, yet no-one calls us on it. What happened?
Where did we lose the thread, where did we lose our heads, where did the science
go?
Did we lose it because the vaccine makers got too
greedy, or because politicians became too panicky, or because the media
realized that scaring the living daylights out of people 24/7 is great for
ratings? Or just because we ourselves lost track of what was really going on?
Injecting hundreds of millions of people with
substances that have never been properly tested – for which long-established
protocols have existed for a long time – is about as unscientific as it gets.
Then when you realize there’s no evidence that they keep injectees from being
infected or infecting others, but only makes
them -hopefully- a little less sick, you might as well stop right there.
From a science point of view, you’re engaging in
either a useless enterprise or a giant gamble with people’s health. Both utterly unscientific endeavors, any scientist can tell you that.
Then, when you hear, from the UK government, no less,
that only 66% of people can ever
be successfully vaccinated and may be protected with the present vaccines, which still leaves out those who don’t want
these vaccines, what are you going to think and do?
Shouldn’t you perhaps focus on the fact that over 4
out of 5 people have an immune system that provides them with “adaptive cross-immunity”, meaning they are not at risk of dying or even serious disease? Why
would you instead turn to experimental substances that risk putting those immune
systems themselves at risk?
Which part of this is us following the science? Why
haven’t we seen huge campaigns aimed at making us healthier, and boosting our
immune systems? What part of that would be “not following the science”? It’s
not as if we don’t know how to boost our immune systems, or for that matter how
to make us overall healthier then we are today.
Moreover, the effect of lockdowns is highly debatable
-even if such debates are stifled-, as is the effect of facemasks always and
everywhere. And, obviously, that of untested “vaccines”. We have the science,
mankind has been through epidemics through its entire history, and it’s not as
if scientists have never learned anything from that history.
It’s just that we seem to be changing the meaning of
the word “science” to mean an industry, and corporations, that produce novel
chemicals, as well as societies that do things, lockdowns, masks, that have
never been used in the way they have been the past year.
And that is very risky. If people like Geert
VanDenBossche are only half right when they say mass-vaccination during a
pandemic will only -and inevitably- speed up the ability of an endemic virus to
mutate into forms that evade the vaccines, it’s woman and children first. Well,
either that or old and overweight men.
I’ve written a lot on the topic over the past year and
a half, obviously, and it doesn’t feel all that great to repeat talking points,
but I keep finding it difficult to understand why our 21st century world calls
for us to follow the science, only to turn its back on that science the very
next moment.
Exclusive Interview with Dr Bhakdi
COVID Conspiracy Fare:
Vaccine Virtue
Signaling And The Cult Of Woke
They have supported and
viciously defended nearly every draconian measure that governments and
corporate elites have enacted in the past few years. They supported mass
censorship of conservatives and moderates by Big Tech companies. They supported
national lockdowns which destroyed hundreds of thousands of small businesses
and violated the constitutional rights of millions of Americans. They continue
to support unscientific mask rules which have been proven to achieve nothing
tangible in terms of preventing viral spread. They support the use of “vaccine
passports” which would effectively cut non-vaccinated people out of the normal
economy and normal society and drive them into poverty. And, now they are all
over the web trying to propagandize for the jab.
…
But before I address the
Woke Cult and their perverse relationship with the establishment, I have to ask
a basic question about the “vaccine” which no one in the mainstream seems to be
asking:
Why should we take an
experimental mRNA vaccine for a virus that 99.7% of people outside of nursing
homes will easily survive?
This question alone usually
explodes the heads of vaccine cultists. Most of them for some reason still
believe the death rate of covid is “3% or more”. Why do they peddle this
nonsense? Well, I would note that the mainstream media NEVER discusses the
death rate of covid; they instead let people make assumptions based on things
they have heard in the past from entities like the World Health Organization or
the CDC.
…
As it turns out, the death rate for covid is a mere 0.26% of those infected (it was never 3%) and we have known this for quite some time. Nursing home patients with preexisting conditions make up around 40% of all deaths. Over 80% of all deaths were people over the age of 65. And, according to the CDC, at least 30% of all covid hospitalizations were due to complications associated with severe obesity.
…What they really fear is that we are right and they are wrong. The science is certainly on our side and has been for the duration of the pandemic. The WHO was wrong, the CDC was wrong, the Imperial College of London was wrong. The anti-lockdown activists were closer to the mark than all of them combined. The masks have been proven to be useless. The lockdowns have been proven to be useless. The death rate predictions were proven to be highly exaggerated. And, now the very need for the vaccines is in question.
…
There are many reasons not to accept an experimental
vaccine, some of them scientific and some of them based on principle. I would
simply point out that many virologists have spoken out on the safety of these
vaccines including a former VP of
Pfizer, Dr. Michael Yeadon, who along with his peers
concluded that NO ONE should take the mRNA vaccines until further testing is
done, otherwise there is considerable danger of long term health effects
including autoimmune disorders and infertility.
The mRNA gene therapy push is at its core a giant
experimental trial using the masses as unwitting test subjects. We really have
no idea what the consequences will ultimately be, but I have a feeling that
within a couple of years we will see the results and it will not be pretty.
There is a reason why governments are making it legally impossible to
sue vaccine producers for vaccine side effects.
Beyond the many health concerns, there is the problem
of incrementalism. One vaccination alone might not be a big threat. Maybe it’s
a gamble that doesn’t end in snake eyes for most people. But what about the
next one? And the next one? What about the next 20 jabs? There are now half a
dozen different mutations of covid being mentioned by the government and the
media as being potentially resistant to current vaccines and more dangerous
than the first iteration of the virus.
Ed Curtin: Second Stage Terror Wars
“We’ll know our
disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes
is false.” – William Casey, CIA Director, Feb. 1981
…
Did anyone think the freedoms lost with The Patriot
Act were coming back some day? Does
anyone think the freedoms lost with the corona virus propaganda are coming
back? Many people probably have no idea
what freedoms they lost with the Patriot Act, and many don’t even care.
And today?
Lockdowns, mandatory mask wearing, travel restrictions, requirements to
be guinea pigs for vaccines that are not vaccines, etc.?
…
I am not making a prediction. The authorities have told us what’s coming.
Pay attention. Don’t be fooled. It’s a game they have devised. Keep people guessing. On edge.
Relieved. Tense. Relaxed.
Shocked. Confused. That’s the game. One day this, the next that. You’re on, you’re off. You’re in, you’re out. We are allowing you this freedom, but be good
children or we will have to retract it.
If you misbehave, you will get a time out. Time to contemplate your sins. If you once
thought that COVID-19 would be a thing of the past by now, or ever, think
again.
…
We are now in a long war with two faces. As with the one justified by the mass murders
of September 11, 2001, this viral one isn’t going away.
COVID Tweet of the Week:
Zeynep Tufecki: I recently went through the same chasing down of known outdoor case percentage. Same conclusion. As @mugecevik explains, "less than 10%" is misleading. Reported numbers of confirmed cases are around 0.1% so way lower than 10% even assuming undercounting.
Geo-Political Fare:
Chris Hedges: Israel, the Big
Lie
Israel is not exercising
“the right to defend itself” in the occupied Palestinian territories. It is
carrying out mass murder, aided and abetted by the U.S.
US Blocks UN Security Council Meeting On Gaza Violence
After blocking two
statements at the UN Security Council on the ongoing Israeli violence against
Palestinians, the US objected to a planned meeting on the Israeli bombing
campaign in Gaza that was to be held publicly on Friday.
The unending
nightmare of Gaza
Orwellian Fare:
10 Things We Have Learned During the Covid Coup
A Primer for the
Propagandized: Fear Is the Mind-Killer
The noose is dangling gently
around our necks. Every day, they cinch it tighter. By the time we realize it’s
strangling us, it will be too late.
Those who – gradually and
gleefully – sacrifice their freedoms, their autonomy, their individuality,
their livelihoods, and their relationships on the altar of the “common good”
have forgotten this is the pattern followed by every totalitarian regime in
history.
…
The list goes on. And on.
And on. From Machiavelli’s The Prince to Étienne de la Boetie’s The Politics of
Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude to Edward Herman’s and Noam
Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent (and accompanying documentary) to BBC’s The
Century of the Self, mechanisms of mass control have been chronicled for
millennia.
…
Isolate us from one another,
supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a
threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign
designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that
shuts down thought to guarantee assent.
Cultivate and wield our
cognitive biases—especially ingroup bias, conformity bias, and authority
bias—against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too
busy squabbling amongst each other to recognize and unite against those
corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful
to extract our resources for their own gain.
This ideological mass
psychosis is religion—not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech
complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every
thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.
Mark Twain said, “It’s
easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
Video of the Week:
Sources of Arctic Methane | Igor Semiletov | Unseen footage of methane plumes from 2020 voyage | pt1
Other Quotes of the Week:
Yves here. It should come as no
surprise that the key Biden Administration measures to tackle climate change,
carbon taxes and accelerating the conversion to electric vehicles, are
tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unfortunately, being
honest about the degree of lifestyle and economic changes needed to avert the
worst climate outcomes is a political career limiting move.
Dan Kervick: Minds are fluid and
politically unstable. Many wallow in ignorance, double-think, cognitive
dissonance, mental impairment from a lifetime of being lied to. The solution is
to scream the truth from the streets and rooftops to destabilize the structures
of ignorance and deceit.
Other Fare:
124 retired generals and admirals question Biden's mental health
A group of retired U.S. military admirals and generals signed a letter
released Tuesday questioning President Biden’s fitness for office and seemingly
challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Satirical Fare:
Government Gives $7 Billion Subsidy To Bitcoin After Learning It Involves Mining
Pics of the Week:
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