Alito Calls Supreme Court Block Of Venezuelan Gang Deportations "Legally Questionable"

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito filed a strongly worded dissent from the court’s order issued early April 19 that temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting alleged members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua.

The dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, was posted on the court’s website early on April 20.

“In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order,” Alito wrote.

“I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.”

“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The Executive must proceed under the terms of our order in Trump v. J.G.G., and this Court should follow established procedures,” Alito wrote.

The justices acted even though “it is not clear the Court had jurisdiction,” or authority to hear the case, he wrote.

“The papers before us, while alleging that the applicants were in imminent danger of removal, provided little concrete support for that allegation,” Alito wrote.

In Trump v. J.G.G., the Supreme Court on April 7 granted the president’s request to pause a federal district judge’s orders preventing his administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected members of Tren de Aragua but determined that detainees must be given an opportunity to challenge their removal.

The unsigned one-page administrative stay issued early April 19 to which Alito referred directed the federal government “not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

An administrative stay gives the justices more time to consider the emergency request to block the deportations. That order did not provide an explanation of why the court acted.

The order was issued after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency request on behalf of two Venezuelan nationals late on April 18, asking the Supreme Court to immediately block their deportation.

The emergency application in A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. v. Trump challenges President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal immigrants who are alleged or confirmed criminal gang members. A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. are the initials of two of the detained men.

The ACLU also sought a temporary restraining order from the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, as well as a stay of removal order from the Fifth Circuit, according to the application.

On March 14, Trump signed Proclamation 10903, in which he officially declared that Tren de Aragua, a designated foreign terrorist organization, “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”

The group is using mass illegal immigration to the United States to harm U.S. citizens, undermine public safety, and support the goal of the Venezuelan socialist regime with which it is associated to destabilize “democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States,” the proclamation said.

The president invoked the Alien Enemies Act to authorize the “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” of members of the group who are Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older and who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States.

The application said the ACLU’s clients are challenging the Trump administration’s use of the federal statute to deport them. The clients “are in imminent and ongoing jeopardy of being removed from the United States without notice or an opportunity to be heard, in direct contravention of this Court’s order in Trump v. J.G.G.”

“Many individuals have already been loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport,” and are at risk of being sent to a prison in El Salvador, according to the April 18 application.

On March 15, the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to deport at least 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are now incarcerated “possibly for the rest of their lives” at the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center, which is “one of the most notorious prisons in the world,” the application said.

The application alleged that many of those deported since March 15 were not members of Tren de Aragua.

“Such false accusations are particularly devastating given the present Applicants’ strong claims for relief under our immigration laws,” the application said.

The application came one day after U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas denied the ACLU clients’ request for a temporary restraining order halting removal efforts.

Hendrix rejected the ACLU’s claim that its clients were “at imminent risk of summary removal” because the government denied the allegation.

Late on April 19, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to deny the application.

“At a minimum, if the Court keeps its administrative stay in place, the government respectfully requests that the Court clarify that it is administratively staying removals only under the [Alien Enemies Act], and that its order does not preclude removal pursuant to any other immigration authorities,” Sauer wrote.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 17:30

Japan Considers Easing Car Safety Standards As Part Of Potential New Trade Deal

It looks as though trade progress is being made with Japan, as concessions about automobiles were reported on this weekend, signaling that Trump administration could be heading towards a revised agreement with the key ally nation. 

Japan may loosen auto safety rules for U.S. imports to address President Trump’s concerns over the low number of American cars sold there, Nikkei reports. With differing safety standards between the two countries, Tokyo is eyeing crash test regulations as a possible trade concession, according to Nikkei.

During a White House meeting, Trump criticized Japan’s trade surplus and poor U.S. auto sales. Cabinet-level talks focused on non-tariff barriers, particularly in the auto and agriculture sectors.

Japan, a signatory to a 1958 U.N. pact on unified auto standards, maintains its own certification process, requiring separate approval for American imports—a process that can take months. While the U.S. participates in discussions under the U.N. framework, it uses its own safety rules and lets automakers self-test.

The Nikkei report says that the U.S. Trade Representative recently flagged Japan’s crash test requirements as a non-tariff barrier, citing them as overly burdensome and unfair to U.S. carmakers. These safety standards—especially for frontal and side collisions—have long been a sticking point in trade talks.

During past Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, Japan agreed to ease some requirements for U.S. imports, such as skipping certain tests like fire retardancy. It also expanded exemptions for low-volume American car sales. However, those TPP concessions faded after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the pact in 2017.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 16:55

A Conspiracy Theory That Is Being Pushed By The Left Claims That Something Really Big Is Going To Happen Today

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Most people on the right have no idea just how crazed many people on the left have become.  Right now, a conspiracy theory which claims that President Trump is preparing to declare martial law in the United States is spreading like wildfire on social media. 

 According to that conspiracy theory, a report will be submitted to President Trump on April 20th which will recommend that he should invoke the Insurrection Act to help deal with the border crisis.  That would allow U.S. troops to help secure the border, but many leftists are convinced that President Trump will also use U.S. troops to round up political activists and send them to prisons in El Salvador.  I realize that this may sound really bizarre to many of you, but this is what many of them actually believe.

Early last month, an article that was published by the San Francisco Chronicle got the ball rolling by highlighting the fact that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security will soon submit a report to President Trump recommending whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act…

The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.

That is not exactly an honest characterization of what that executive order says.  I have reproduced the relevant portion of that particular executive order below…

Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.

The Trump administration wants to use U.S. troops to help secure the border, and that is probably what we are going to see.

But many leftists are absolutely convinced that we are also about to see martial law in this country.

An article that was authored by an anonymous leftist known as “Aletheisthenes” that was entitled “Part 1: On April 20th, 2025, the United States may Cross the Point of No Return” has created a firestorm of panic among far left radicals.  According to that article, once President Trump officially invokes the Insurrection Act it will set a “larger plan in motion”…

And as his two months in office has already shown, he won’t stop at just a legal opinion.

Expect an executive order even that same day or the next, officially declaring the Insurrection Act, restricting freedoms in the name of restoring control of the border and perhaps in blue-state cities, and setting the larger plan in motion.

Of course, this won’t be framed as an attack on democracy. It will be packaged as a necessary response to crisis — as authoritarian takeovers always are.

But once it happens, there’s no going back.

This will be the point of no return.

Aletheisthenes believes that the plan to implement martial law in this nation will unfold in eight stages…

1. “Resist!” Demonstrations Grow — Just As Planned

2. The False Flag Crisis: Turning Protest into “Terror”

3. Trump Declares Expanded Martial Law — And Calls for Militia to assist the police and Military

4. Mass Arrests of Opposition Leaders

5. Military & National Guard Take Over Major Cities

6. Press Censorship & Total Media Control

7. Borders Close & Dissidents Are Trapped Inside

8. Elections Are “Postponed” Indefinitely

Needless to say, this is not what Trump intends to do.

But I do believe that anti-Trump protests funded by very deep pockets on the left will continue to grow, and every time President Trump does something to try to keep those protests under control it will fuel their delusions even more.

Aletheisthenes followed up his original article with another very popular article in which he claimed that Trump’s ultimate goal is to “fully overthrow the United States government”…

On or slightly after April 20th, 2025, Trump will most likely sign an executive order invoking the Insurrection Act.

The excuse will be to secure the border and deport violent gang member illegal aliens, and possibly bring order to out-of-control cities, but it will actually be the first step to eventually fully declare martial law across the United States, and suspend civil liberties, and the US Constitution.

To most it will come without warning. The press might not even report on it until the last minute. When it happens, expect confusion, misinformation, and panic. Many will be caught off guard.

(But a few of us won’t be, at least not entirely — because we saw this coming.)

The ultimate purpose is to eventually fully overthrow the United States government, put Trump, his billionaire co-conspirators, and people who share the values of his very fuzzy reactionary political coalition fully and permanently in control.

This is nuts.

But this is what they actually believe, and they are going to act accordingly.

The narrative that President Trump is some sort of a dictator will motivate leftists to show up at protests, and when some of those protests inevitably turn violent and authorities are forced to respond it will cause even more easily fooled people to embrace that narrative.

You should see what leftists are already saying on social media.  Here is just one example…

“As a veteran, if martial law is declared in the U.S., it means the Constitution is suspended. Civilian government Gone. Freedom of speech, assembly, the press? Gone. Curfews. Checkpoints. Arrest without warrants. No due process. I believe the military would stand with the people & Constitution”

They are openly talking about civil conflict, and this has been going on for months.

But most people on the right have no idea this is happening.

The conspiracy theory that I have discussed in this article has gained so much traction that Snopes was even forced to address it…

One reader emailed Snopes, “I am seeing many posts on Facebook that on April 20, Trump will declare martial law.” Another person referenced an executive order issued on Jan. 20, the first day of Trump’s second term, and asked, “I have seen a variety of posts suggesting that an early executive order signed by the president has set the stage for the imposition of martial law, and that this will be triggered by a report on the state of the border that will be released on April 20. Any truth here?”

At this point, Snopes considers this conspiracy theory to be more of “a prediction than a provable claim”…

As of this writing on April 9, this rumor existed more as a prediction than a provable claim. Searches of the websites for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the White House yielded no announcements, statements or demonstrable evidence that might help to shed light on the unproven matter.

I actually think that there are many on the left that would love to see President Trump declare martial law, because they are convinced that would give them justification for what they have been intending to do all along.

We have never been more divided as a society than we are right now.

Civil disorder on a scale that we have never seen before is coming, but even after all of the political violence that we have already witnessed in recent weeks a lot of people still don’t want to believe it.

But sticking our heads in the sand won’t make the threat go away.

Our society is reaching a boiling point, and it won’t be too long before events spiral completely out of control.

*  *  *

Michael’s new  book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 16:20

Explosion Rocks Northrop Grumman Solid Rocket Facility In Utah

Northrop Grumman's mission to design and build the world's largest and most advanced solid rocket motors may have been derailed last week after an explosion rocked its Promontory, Utah, facility.

Local media Fox 13 reported that one of the aerospace and defense technology company's buildings at the Promontory test facility was destroyed in an explosion last Wednesday morning. When emergency responders arrived at the incident area, they found one building destroyed. 

"Initial reports indicate that there are no injuries or fatalities at this time. However, as with all ongoing investigations, details may change. There is no further information available for release at this time.  We advise the public to avoid the area," the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office wrote on a Facebook post hours after the explosion. 

Northrop Grumman told Fox 13 that the building destroyed was used to "produce an ingredient in solid rocket motor propellant and is one of many in its production network," adding that no solid rocket motors were destroyed or damaged in the blast.

Here's more context on the explosion and its potential impact, via Space.com:

Northrop Grumman's Utah facility manufactures and tests solid rocket engines, like those used to launch NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis Program. Their campus spans over 10 miles (16 kilometers) of Utah desert, northwest of Promontory, with two central hubs of facilities.

Wednesday's explosion destroyed a building in the northwest portion of Northrop Grumman's northernmost collection of site infrastructure, about 8.5 miles (13.5 kilometers) north of the company's test stand for the SLS solid rocket boosters. 

Northrop Grumman did not provide insight into what caused the explosion at the solid rocket motor factory.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 15:45

 

OLD SCHOOL

Get a record deal.

NEW SCHOOL

Get a fan base.

OLD SCHOOL

Learn how to play your instrument.

NEW SCHOOL

Learn how to use your computer.

OLD SCHOOL

The artist is king.

NEW SCHOOL

If the label doesn’t hear a hit, they won’t release your album. And the CEO makes more money than any of the artists.

OLD SCHOOL

Hire a publicity person to get noticed in print media.

NEW SCHOOL

Do your own publicity online.

OLD SCHOOL

Radio is everything.

NEW SCHOOL

TikTok is everything, that’s where acts break.

OLD SCHOOL

Parents hate the music.

NEW SCHOOL

Parents hate the platform, i.e. TikTok (and some still can’t get over physical media and hate Spotify, et al, too).

OLD SCHOOL

Perfect the music and only release what’s up to snuff.

NEW SCHOOL

Put absolutely everything up on YouTube so fans can find it if they’re looking for it. Live shows, acoustic in the studio, everything. Forget quality, otherwise why would people be watching audience-based videos? They want a taste of what it was like at the show. Fans want to get closer, don’t put up a brick wall, but a conduit.

OLD SCHOOL

Spend a fortune recording in a professional studio.

NEW SCHOOL

Record at home, maybe on your laptop.

OLD SCHOOL

Acts are technologically ignorant. They don’t know how the studio works.

NEW SCHOOL

Every act must be an engineer and producer. They must know how the music is created.

OLD SCHOOL

Put out an album, shorter than forty minutes in the vinyl era, no longer than eighty minutes in the CD era.

NEW SCHOOL

Either put out an EP with only a handful of songs, or put out an opus, a double album with maybe even thirty tracks. Because if someone is truly into your music, they’ll stream EVERYTHING!

OLD SCHOOL

Getting ripped-off by the label.

NEW SCHOOL

Believing streaming services are ripping you off even though they’re not.

OLD SCHOOL

Arguing about Spotify payments.

NEW SCHOOL

A focus on software, i.e. the music itself. Sure, business is important, but too many acts spend too much time thinking about it. Create music that draws people to it, then you’ll make money, believe me.

OLD SCHOOL

Major labels shuffled the decks every three to five years or so. A new president came in and wiped out all the old employees and brought in his own team. It was a constant game of musical chairs.

NEW SCHOOL

The same people run the major labels ad infinitum.

OLD SCHOOL

An exec is only as good as his or her last hit, money is everything.

NEW SCHOOL

An exec is only as good as his or her last hit, money is everything.

OLD SCHOOL

Print music magazines meant everything.

NEW SCHOOL

Not only is print dead, but the websites of the early twenty first century are irrelevant too, everything is word of mouth these days.

OLD SCHOOL

Lead with your music.

NEW SCHOOL

Lead with your identity/personality. Your image is just as important as your music. To be featured in the gossip columns means you’ve made it.

OLD SCHOOL

No endorsements, no sponsorships…

NEW SCHOOL

Where do I sell out? I’m dying to sell out, isn’t anybody going to give me money?

OLD SCHOOL

Credibility.

NEW SCHOOL

A bifurcation… There are acts playing the game the old way, building their audience live, over years, they are lifers. They truly focus on the bond with their audience, they just don’t pay lip service. Credibility is key. And everybody else is in it for the fame and money, and will sign anything put in front of them.

OLD SCHOOL

Stadium shows were rare.

NEW SCHOOL

Stadium shows are de rigueur. There are more people and more acts with huge fan bases. But that does not mean those who do not go to the show care.

OLD SCHOOL

Country sucks. Enough with the rednecks and twang.

NEW SCHOOL

Country is the rock of the twenty first century. But there are still a lot of rednecks.

OLD SCHOOL

Hip-hop is cutting edge.

NEW SCHOOL

Hip-hop is long in the tooth, almost a caricature of itself.

OLD SCHOOL

Rappers got shot.

NEW SCHOOL

Rappers get shot.

OLD SCHOOL

Acts rarely had a hit past their prime.

NEW SCHOOL

Acts rarely have a hit past their prime.

OLD SCHOOL

If you wanted to know what was going on you listened to a record.

NEW SCHOOL

Everybody gets their information from a different source, but one thing is for sure, they don’t get it from musicians.

OLD SCHOOL

Musicians stood for something.

NEW SCHOOL

Musicians stand for nothing, they’re afraid of alienating a potential audience member, hurting their career.

OLD SCHOOL

There were few acts who were truly superstars.

NEW SCHOOL

There are a ton of acts that they keep telling us are superstars but we can ignore them and sacrifice nothing.

OLD SCHOOL

You had to buy it to hear it. And when you bought it you listened to it over and over again.

NEW SCHOOL

Everything is available at your fingertips, and it’s hard to get people to listen to anything, never mind all the way through or more than once.

OLD SCHOOL

Very few could be successful musicians, giving up their day job.

NEW SCHOOL

Everybody thinks they’re entitled to be a successful musician and give up their day job.

OLD SCHOOL

You showed off your record collection.

NEW SCHOOL

It’s all about experiences, and you post pictures of them online.

OLD SCHOOL

Labels kept the club scene alive.

NEW SCHOOL

The labels don’t want to spend and neither does the public. If there’s no heat on the act, they’re not interested.

OLD SCHOOL

You knew all the hit acts, even if you didn’t like their music.

NEW SCHOOL

Acts can sell out arenas, and you’ve never heard of them, never mind heard their music.

OLD SCHOOL

The charts were manipulated and not to be trusted.

NEW SCHOOL

The charts are manipulated and not to be trusted.

OLD SCHOOL

The tour was an advertisement for the album.

NEW SCHOOL

The album is the advertisement for the tour.

OLD SCHOOL

Recordings were everything.

NEW SCHOOL

Playing live is everything. You may not even need a record. Or one every five years. Assuming your show is not identical every night. People will know songs that were never laid down on tape/hard drive/SSD. From going to the gig and watching on YouTube.

OLD SCHOOL

Music was everything.

NEW SCHOOL

Music is a sideshow.

OLD SCHOOL

Music saved lives.

NEW SCHOOL

Money is everything, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

 

~~~

Visit the archive:   http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

@Lefsetz  http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
–
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter

~~~

Originally published by Bob Lefsetz at the Leftsetz Letter

 

The post Old School/New School appeared first on The Big Picture.

The Numbers Behind The Government's Anti-Misinformation Explosion

Authored by Greg Collard via Racket News,

You likely already know from reading Racket that the Biden administration was very active in targeting misinformation and disinformation, even as it engaged in those practices.

Illustration by Daniel Medina/Racket News

Racket’s Twitter Files and other reporting have extensively documented many of the anti-disinformation and misinformation programs and organizations that the federal government supported, like the Election Integrity Project, Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI League), and the Center on Narrative, Disinformation and Strategic Influence at Arizona State.

But the number of grants? We didn’t know that. Now we do.

The Free Press reports that since 2017, the federal government has awarded about 800 grants to counter mis/disinformation — and the Biden administration is responsible for more than 600 of them. The 800 grants amount to more than $1.4 billion.

The findings by reporters Gabe Kaminsky and Madeleine Rowley are based on a new database of anti-mis/disinformation programs. The database was created by the free speech advocacy group liber-net.

“A large number of these projects cynically employed the ‘misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation’ framework to counter their political adversaries, with U.S. government funding making it possible,” liber-net’s director, Andrew Lowenthal, told the Free Press.

President Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office that accused the Biden administration of violating free speech rights “under the guise” of combatting misinformation, disinformation and malinformation.

But Kaminsky and Rowley found that several of the programs were continuing under the Trump administration — at least until they started asking about the grants, as Kaminsky explains to Racket.

We reached out to agencies to understand if these programs would continue under President Trump. What we found was a groundswell of federal officials taking the information and letting us know that they were either terminating the programs, investigating them, or adjusting internal policies as to how they characterize some of these programs to ensure alignment with the President's executive order on “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship” that he signed on his first day in office. Some agencies, however, didn't respond, or, in the case of the National Science Foundation, declined to comment.

In one example the Free Press cites, NIH director Jay Bhattacharya sent an email marked “URGENT” to employees to investigate grants and contracts related to “fighting misinformation or disinformation.”

The Free Press found several dozen grants that have since been canceled, such as $683,000 awarded to UC-Irvine in December. The money would have gone toward studying the influence of social media and “misinformation on vaccine acceptance among black and Latinx individuals.” The study would have done that by enrolling 500 people who follow vaccine-hesitant influencers on X.

Although most mis/disinformation grants occurred under Biden, they started with some regularity during the first Trump administration. Here’s a graphic from liber-net that shows how the number of grants ballooned from Trump to Biden:

The organizations that receive grants typically dole out portions of the money to other organizations. Kaminsky explains how they work:

Gabe Kaminsky: Like many federal programs, there are often subgrantees or subcontractors. So, while Maddie Rowley and I found that the Biden administration had awarded north of 600 grants and contracts to outside organizations, that number only accounts for primary awards. Take the $2 million that the Department of State awarded in 2023 to the Vermont-based NGO World Learning to, in its telling, “support the Armenian media sector's overall resilience to disinformation.” For that program, which ended in February 2025, World Learning dished out a sub-award of $275,219, or 13% of the primary award, to the Poynter Institute.

And for Poynter, that's nothing new. For example, I reported last year that Poynter had received a sub-award from the State Department's since-shuttered Global Engagement Center—which Republicans accused of censoring conservatives in the United States. Poynter received the GEC funding via the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a London-based entity.

Greg Collard: Although most grants were during the Biden administration, they were also awarded during the first Trump administration. Was there a difference in the types of grants that were awarded?

GK: Post-2017 is really when these programs were kicked into gear, speeding up dramatically under Biden. The same grantees and contractors that ended up receiving large amounts in funding under Biden often had initially received some during the first Trump administration. As to why that was is I think a mix of Republicans being in the dark as to the programs, and—as was evident broadly across the first Trump administration—there being agencies that sort of operated how they desired irrespective of Trump's stated policies. Trump did not know how Washington worked.

However, I would say that the descriptions of programs on federal documents under Biden was a notable difference—as some appeared to more specifically align with the ideological priorities of the Democrats: using terms like “racial equity,” “Latinx,” or other left-leaning terminology championed by the Biden administration. Under Trump 1.0, in other words, the anti-misinformation circus quietly gained a foothold in the U.S. by advertising itself in broad strokes that, in theory, many might agree with: countering extremism or online harassment, for example.

But in practice, the programs were far more complicated and often partisan.

Active Grants

Although many anti mis/disinformation programs have been shut down, many remain active — including the largest grant: a $979 million award to military contractor Peraton, courtesy of the Department of Defense. Peraton landed the grant in 2021 to help the U.S. Central Command “counter misinformation,” liber-net’s Lowenthal writes in a Substack post about the database.

That grant alone easily makes the Defense Department the largest funder of mis-disinformation grants from 2016 to 2024. USAID was the second-largest funder at $149 million.

Smaller grants also remain active. One the Free Press cites is $6.8 million in multiple grants to the University of Washington for literary resources that help “rural communities and black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities” identify misinformation. The grant description says misinformation is a “growing threat to American democracy,” and that “Solutions must not only provide the public with skills for determining the truthfulness of claims, but must also provide resources for addressing the social and emotional impacts of misinformation.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 11:40

LA County Quality Of Life Index Stuck At A 10-Year Low; New Survey Finds

Los Angeles County residents have plenty to worry about amid a wildfire recovery effort, federal immigration crackdowns, and persistent homelessness, but what most concerns them is the cost of living, according to an annual UCLA survey released on April 16.

The 10th Annual Quality of Life Index (QLI) survey polled 1,400 county residents between Feb. 23 and March 9, and found widespread frustration with the high cost of living, including increasing prices of groceries and household items.

The survey, conducted by UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, found that concern over the high cost of living has kept the QLI at a lowly 53, the same as last year. 

That number represents the lowest level in the survey’s history. In 2016, the QLI came in at 59.

“Meanwhile, the salience of [the cost of living category] has risen to its highest-ever point in this index, and is joined by a growing concern about jobs and the economy,” said the survey, which was prepared by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3 Research). 

“The combination represents fundamental bread-and-butter issues that are the biggest explainers of the longer-term lukewarm attitudes toward life in Los Angeles County.”

As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, more than two-fifths of respondents claimed to know someone who lost a home or business in the January wildfires. 

An additional 23 percent, including those who live relatively far from the burn areas, such as the northern part of the county and the South Bay, claimed to know someone affected. Meanwhile, 14 percent of respondents said they lost significant income due to the fires, while another 13 percent said they incurred a nonsignificant loss.

More than half of respondents said they wore a mask to avoid smoke, volunteered or donated to help victims, and feared having to evacuate.

“While the percentage of residents who lost income is lower than the percentages of those who experienced other impacts, it still represents millions of Angelenos,” said the survey, which found that Latinos, younger residents, lower income earners, and those working part-time jobs were disproportionately affected.

Eighty-nine percent of county residents agree that homeowners who lost their property in the fires should be permitted to rebuild at the same locations. In 2019, when residents were asked the same question in the wake of the Woolsey Fire near Simi Valley, 76 percent agreed.

“Both numbers are high, but suggest that the geographic breadth of the [January] fires, the extent of the destruction and the collateral impacts they had on a wide swath of the county significantly influenced this year’s results,” the survey said.

The Palisades and Eaton fires this year destroyed more than 16,000 structures; the Woolsey fire destroyed 1,600, according to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Fifty-two percent of county residents said they would generally be OK with increased taxes for improved wildfire response. Younger residents, Latinos, and Asians were most open to the proposal. Whites and African Americans were evenly split on the idea, which did not include specifics.

Attitudes toward the Los Angeles mayor were affected by the wildfires, the survey said.

For example, just 37 percent of respondents view Mayor Karen Bass favorably, with 49 percent viewing her unfavorably. That’s a reversal from 2024, when 42 percent viewed her favorably and 32 percent unfavorably.

“The wildfires that raged in Altadena and Pacific Palisades in January are the story of this year’s survey,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Luskin School’s Los Angeles Initiative.

“These catastrophic events have left devastating physical and psychological impacts in their wake,” said the former county supervisor.

“Although the primary victims are those who lost their lives, homes and possessions, millions of other Angelenos have been touched by these terrifying events in myriad ways. These impacts cross geographic, economic and racial lines that can only be described as a shared trauma across Los Angeles County.”

Cost of Living

The county’s high cost of living has become a major source of frustration for residents. Three-quarters of respondents chose it as the most important category affecting their quality of life. Among the subcategories, the cost of housing remains the leader, but the costs of groceries and household items rose in importance, as did taxes.

“The overall satisfaction score on our QLI index is stuck for one main reason—the impact of the high cost of living,” said Paul Maslin, a public opinion and polling expert with FM3 Research. 

“Those concerns were the highest in terms of importance of any category we’ve measured in the last decade. And cost of living continues to be the lowest rating category in terms of satisfaction.”

Immigration and deportation

Forty-four percent of county residents fear that a member of their family or a friend could face deportation by federal authorities.

In 2017, 37 percent expressed such a fear at the start of Trump’s first administration.

Latinos are most likely to feel this way at 54 percent. By age group, residents aged 18-29 and 30-39 are the most likely to fear a member of their family or friend could be deported at 57 percent and 52 percent, respectively. They are also most likely to believe that the city and county governments should not cooperate with the federal government’s current deportation policies.

“The new administration in Washington has once again brought the question of immigration and deportation to the fore,” Yaroslavsky said. 

“This is very much an issue that is front and center on the minds of a large part of our county’s population.”

Homelessness

Homelessness remains at or near the top of concerns for residents, though for the first time in a while, the portion who believe the homelessness problems are worsening has declined by 8 percentage points. In 2024, 60 percent thought the problem was growing worse. In the 2025 survey, 52 percent thought so. Yet only 10 percent believe the situation is getting better. That number was the same in 2024.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 11:05

The Family Home: From Shelter To Asset To Liability

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is unpredictable.

With the rise of financialized asset bubbles as the source of our "growth," family home went from shelter to speculative asset. This transition accelerated as financialization (turning everything into a financial commodity to be leveraged and sold globally for a quick profit) spread into the once-staid housing sector in the early 2000s. (See chart of housing bubbles #1 and #2 below).

Where buying a home once meant putting down roots and insuring a stable cost of shelter, housing became a speculative asset to be snapped up and sold as prices soared.

The short-term vacation rental (STVR) boom added fuel to the speculative fire over the past decade as huge profits could be generated by assembling an STVR mini-empire of single-family homes that were now rented to tourists.

Now that housing has become unaffordable to the majority and the costs of ownership are stair-stepping higher, housing has become a liability. I covered the increases in costs of ownership in The Cost of Owning a Home Is Soaring 11/11/24). Articles like this one are increasingly common:

'I feel trapped': how home ownership has become a nightmare for many Americans: Scores in the US say they're grappling with raised mortgage and loan interest rates and exploding insurance premiums.

The sums of money now required to own, insure and maintain a house are eye-watering. Annual home insurance for many is now a five-figure sum; property taxes in many states is also a five-figure sum. As for maintenance, as I discussed in This Nails It: The Doom Loop of Housing Construction Quality, the decline in quality of housing and the rising costs of repair make buying a house a potentially unaffordable venture should repairs costing tens of thousands of dollars become necessary.

Major repairs can now cost what previous generations paid for an entire house, and no, this isn't just inflation; it's the result of the decline of quality across the board and the gutting of labor skills to cut costs.

Here's the Case-Shiller Index of national housing prices. Housing Bubble #2 far exceeds the extremes of unaffordability reached in Housing Bubble #1:

Here's a snapshot of housing affordability: buying a house is now an unattainable luxury for those without top 20% incomes and help from parents.

The monthly payments as a percentage of income are at historic highs:

Property taxes are rising in many locales as valuations bubble higher and local governments seek sources of stable revenues:

Home insurance costs vary widely, but all are skewing to the upside.

As I often note, the insurance industry is not a charity, and to maintain profits as payouts for losses explode higher, rates have to climb for everyone--and more for those in regions that are now viewed as high-risk due to massive losses in fires, hurricanes, wind storms, flooding, etc.

All credit-asset bubbles pop, and that inevitable deflation of home valuations will take away the speculative punchbowl. What's left are the costs of ownership. As these rise, they offset the rich capital gains that home owners have been counting on for decades to make ownership a worthwhile, low-risk investment.

The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is unpredictable. The ideas that have taken hold in the 21st century--that owning a house is a wellspring of future wealth, and everything is now a throwaway destined for the landfill--are based on faulty assumptions, assumptions that have set a banquet of consequences few will find palatable.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 10:30

This is something to watch with less international travel.
Here are the daily travel numbers from the TSA.

This data is as of April 16, 2025.
Click on graph for larger image.

This data shows the 7-day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA (Blue).
Air travel is up about 1.3% YoY.

The red line is the percent of 2019 for the seven-day average.  Air travel - as a percent of 2019 - is up about 7% from pre-pandemic levels.

The Global Safe Haven Is Slowly Breaking: Why Central Banks Are Turning To Gold

Authored by Alex Deluce via GoldTelegraph.com,

The global financial system is not just shifting, it is starting to breakdown.

On April 1st, I wrote: “The erosion of trust: the times are changing.”

That warning has since become a headline.

What was once dismissed as contrarian commentary by many is now being echoed by mainstream media across the world: the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency is no longer unquestioned.

For years, I’ve documented the growing dangers of the West’s overreliance on financial warfare:

• Sanctions

• Reserve freezes

• The weaponization of SWIFT

These weren’t strategic tools of diplomacy. They were early signs of something deeper: desperation, fragility, and a crumbling world order.

In just the past year, the U.S. dollar has lost over 35% of its purchasing power against gold, driven by record central bank gold buying. This isn’t a trend, it’s a signal.

Meanwhile, the BRICS nations are growing more coordinated, even as fractures widen among traditional Western allies.

Across Europe and Asia, leaders are reassessing their exposure to a system that no longer feels stable.

Increasingly, nations are recognizing that true sovereignty begins with one principle: zero counterparty risk. That path leads directly to gold.

These developments aren’t isolated, they are symptoms of a deeper monetary fracture.

With trust evaporating, gold is no longer just a hedge. It’s becoming the foundation of a new system.

That’s why my recent conversation with Matthew Piepenburg, Partner at VON GREYERZ, couldn’t have come at a more important time.

His perspective on gold, debt, the BRICS realignment, and the unravelling confidence in U.S. Treasuries offered rare clarity in a world clouded by confusion and revealed what many are only just beginning to understand.

Let’s break it down.  

The Treasury Market’s Safe Haven Status is Eroding and Gold is the Refuge

For decades, U.S. Treasuries have functioned as the cornerstone of global finance, seen by investors and institutions as the ultimate safe haven. That narrative is now fraying.

“There is a liquidity crisis,” Piepenburg told me. “There’s simply not enough grease to keep this system going.”

Rather than providing stability during periods of volatility, U.S. government bonds have started to behave more like risk assets. In recent market turmoil, yields rose when they typically would have declined, highlighting the growing fragility of the system.  

“Yields have actually been going up, not down, in times of stress,” he explained. “Why isn’t the U.S. Treasury acting like a safe haven anymore?”

The answer, he says, lies in debt, which has buried the American economy.

With over $37 trillion in federal debt and more than $100 trillion when household, corporate, and long-term entitlement obligations are included, the system is buckling under the sheer weight of its own promises.  

“Santa Claus can’t solve a liquidity crisis when you’re buried under this much debt,” Piepenburg warned. “There’s not enough grease to keep those debt wheels spinning without bazooka money, without debasing the currency.”

That’s why, he added, gold is being quietly re-monetized by central banks around the world, not as a hedge, but as a foundational reserve asset.

“Gold is now a Tier 1 asset. Central banks are net settling in it. They’re moving away from Treasuries,” he said. “This isn’t about getting rich. It’s about not getting poor.”

The Rise of BRICS and the Global Move Away from the Dollar

The de-dollarization trend, long discussed in policy circles, has become an observable reality in the wake of U.S. sanctions against Russia. What began as an assertion of geopolitical power has accelerated a multipolar financial realignment.

“Since the weaponization of the U.S. dollar in 2022, 45 countries are now trading outside of it,” Piepenburg told me. “Thirty countries have repatriated their physical gold. That’s not a coincidence, it’s a reaction.”

He pointed to the critical shift that occurred when the U.S. froze Russian central bank assets. For many governments, that action shattered the illusion of the dollar as a neutral global reserve. “When you weaponize the world reserve currency,” he said, “you undermine the very trust it depends on.”

Nowhere is this shift more evident than among the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

While rumors of a BRICS currency circulate around the world, Piepenburg clarified the group’s actual intention: “They don’t trust each other’s fiat currencies either but they trust gold.”

The BRICS plan, he noted, isn’t to launch a single currency, but rather to use a settlement system backed 40% by gold and 60% by local currencies kept in escrow.

“This isn’t about replacing the dollar overnight,” he said. “But it is a definitive move away from it.”

Fort Knox: The Taboo That Exposes the System

No discussion of gold’s resurgence would be complete without addressing America’s own reserves.

The United States claims to hold over 8,100 tonnes of gold largely stored at Fort Knox.

Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at Fort Knox in 2017

Yet, a full, independent audit hasn’t been conducted in over six decades. Now, calls for transparency are gaining momentum. The President of the United States Donald Trump and Elon Musk have floated the idea of a livestreamed audit of Fort Knox.

But according to Piepenburg, transparency carries risks. “Be careful what you ask for,” he said. “I wouldn’t go into combat unless I knew how many bullets I had. And I wouldn’t want to show my hand unless I knew what was there.”

He believes the U.S. may not be as dominant in gold holdings as it claims and he suspects that China’s reserves are vastly underreported.

“I’m fairly confident China has at least ten times more gold than the World Gold Council says it does,” he said. “And probably more than the United States unless we’ve been hiding a best-kept secret.”

What’s at stake is more than optics. “Gold is the ultimate BS detector,” Piepenburg told me. “It’s a mirror held up to the system and that’s why they don’t want to talk about it. Because it holds its value while everything else melts.”

A Moment of Reckoning

We are not witnessing the end of the U.S. dollar but we are witnessing the end of its unchallenged supremacy.

The petrodollar framework is fracturing. Gold is being quietly repurposed as a strategic reserve asset. And U.S. Treasuries the once untouchable cornerstone of global markets are being reassessed by the very institutions that once depended on them.

The implications are profound. Central banks are no longer being quiet about what they doing… they are moving quickly and deliberately toward gold.

The real question isn’t whether gold will rise, but whether the public will grasp what’s driving the move.

WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION:

GOLD TELEGRAPH CONVERSATION #7
MATTHEW PIEPENBURG

“I'm confident that China has at least 10x more gold than the WGC says it does… I also think they have a lot more than the United States.”

Matthew is a prominent voice in global finance. He began as a transactional attorney and… pic.twitter.com/m1PIAG0oJq

— Gold Telegraph ⚡ (@GoldTelegraph_) April 12, 2025

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 09:20

Americans Are Searching "USA Products" Like Never Before

Tariffs are designed to shift consumer demand toward domestically produced goods. As foreign products become increasingly expensive, driven by levies such as the Trump administration's 145% effective tariff rate on Chinese imports, consumers are starting to take notice.

Faced with rising prices for foreign goods, some consumers have turned to the internet to determine which products are still made in the United States. 

Google Trends data shows "What products are made in the USA?" reached record highs by mid-April, with data going all the way back to 2004.  

These related search queries are in "breakout" territory:

With an effective tariff rate of 145% on all Chinese goods, Beijing signaled on Wednesday that it is open to trade talks in the near term. In the tit-for-tat tariff war, China has imposed 125% duties on U.S. goods.

In recent weeks, President Trump has paused reciprocal tariffs for countries that chose not to retaliate following "Liberation Day" in early April. The White House announced this week that the administration is in talks with 75 countries to secure new trade deals. Trump held discussions with Japan overnight, calling the talks "big progress."

Even as trade deals are expected in the coming weeks and months, the broader objective of the tariff strategy is to reshore critical supply chains essential to national security and to position the United States for dominance in the 2030s. Early internet search trend signs suggest that the tariffs are already influencing consumer behavior - this is a great start. 

 

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 08:45

Europe, You Can't Sit On The Sidelines Anymore

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via The Daily Signal,

I’d like to talk today about the role of China, the United States, and the European Union, or just Europe in general, in the context of these tariffs and the so-called trade wars.

Right now, President Donald Trump has given a 90-day reprieve from high tariffs. I think that 10% tariffs are still in existence. And they are negotiating with a number of European countries and particularly, Asian dynamic economies, such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. In addition to that, they are targeting China with tit-for-tat tariffs. And we are maybe on the brink—nobody wants it, but we might be on the brink of a trade war, which we’ve addressed in earlier videos.

But here’s my point.

What is the attitude of Europe? 

Roughly, China has a $1 trillion deficit with the world. We have about a $1 trillion deficit in trade with the world. But here’s the ratios. About a third of our deficit is with China, which makes up a third of their surplus. In addition to that, Europe makes up about a third of their surplus.

So, China has called on Europe to join forces with it to prevent all of the retaliatory tariffs that the United States has threatened Europe, which has a $200 billion surplus with us, and China, which has a nearly high $300 billion, maybe even $400 billion, who knows?

It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it, that these illiberal apparatchiks in China would think that a Western democracy would want to join them against the United States?

I don’t think that’s gonna happen. 

But the European Left is very angry at the Trump administration.

So, Choice One might be, “Well, we don’t like the Chinese and we are an ally of the Americans, who subsidize our defense, but we detest the Trump administration. So maybe, (wink and nod) we’ll either be quiet or hope China wins that trade war and the United States, under the Trump administration, backs off all tariffs.”

That would be a big mistake given their vulnerabilities they have with the United States vis-a-vis security.

The second attitude might be the Europeans will just say, “We’ll lay low. We won’t say much at all. We’ll kind of drag out our tariff negotiations with the Trump administration. And we’ll let the Chinese and the United States battle it out. And if Trump should win and he lowers the amount of trade with China, maybe that will be an opening for us to replace China as the United States chief importer.”

That is something that I don’t think will happen.

The third scenario is what I would suggest for the Europeans. They should say the following: “Despite our disagreements with the Trump administration, the United States is an ally. And we know that we have been as victimized by Chinese mercantilism, high tariffs, cheating on patents, copyrights, dumping, financial money manipulation—all the things the United States complains about, we do too. In fact, we as Europeans in a whole have about the same deficit with China as the United States does. So, we are kindred spirits. So, what we will do is, even though we have disagreements on our surplus with the United States and their efforts to reduce it, we will ally with the United States.”

And that would represent about two-thirds of China’s total trade action or monetary value. And especially, if Japan and our allies in South Korea, Taiwan would join, then China would find out that about 85% of its trade is in a block. That is, they are united. And they have common complaints against China. And China would not be able to say to the United States, “We’re going to cut deals with Vietnam and Japan and Taiwan and South Korea and the EU and leave you out in the cold.”

Instead, the Europeans and, to a lesser extent, the Asian powerhouses would join the United States and say, “You know what? We’ve been quiet. We’re afraid of China. They’re bullies. But now that you’ve stood up, we’re embolden ourselves to air the same complaints as you are and hope that you win. And maybe a byproduct of reduced trade with China from the United States will open a door. So, even though we might have to lower our tariffs, there will be more opportunity in the American market with a less prominent Chinese trade profile that we can then be welcomed in as a kindred ally.”

So, Europe has two or three choices in this proposed Chinese-American trade standoff. Nobody wants a trade war with anybody. No one wants it with China. But this is long overdue. And Europe has to decide what course they’re going to take. And for everybody’s sake, let’s hope they choose wisely.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 08:10

Cocoa: The Global Trade Of "Brown Gold"

Last year, a cocoa shortage drove up prices for European chocolate makers and consumers. 

This was largely due to an exceptionally wet rainy season as well as a viral cocoa disease that severely impacted the 2023/2024 harvest in West Africa. However, the situation is expected to improve this year, according to industry experts.

In a note published at the end of February, the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) estimated that the 2024/2025 harvest is expected to show a surplus, after three consecutive years of deficit.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, the global cocoa market relies heavily on harvests in the Gulf of Guinea for its supply. 

Nearly 65 percent ​​of the world's cocoa is harvested in just four West African countries: Côte d'Ivoire (38 percent), Ghana (12 percent), Nigeria (7 percent), and Cameroon (7 percent). 

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

South America comes in a distant second place for volume, with Ecuador and Brazil as the main producing countries, accounting for 10 percent and 4 percent of global production, respectively.

The vast majority of the world's cocoa is then exported to Europe and North America, where it is processed into chocolate and primarily consumed. 

The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium, for example, together import approximately 25 percent of the world's cocoa beans. This makes the European Union the world's largest importer of cocoa, accounting for 60 percent of global imports. 

The United States and Canada, for their part, together import the equivalent of approximately seven percent of global production.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 07:35

Germany Deploys Troops To Lithuania In First Permanent Foreign Deployment Since World War II

Authored by Sarah Kuehberger and Wilson Beaver via The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation,

Germany has activated its first permanent foreign troop deployment since World War II, establishing a 5,000-strong armored brigade in Lithuania. This decision follows Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ announcement in 2023 to bolster troop presence on NATO‘s eastern flank in response to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War.

The deployment demonstrates Germany’s willingness to take a leading role in the conventional defense of Europe with Brig. Gen. Christoph Huber emphasizing, “We’re not only moving toward operational readiness; we’re taking responsibility.”

According to the Bundeswehr, the brigade will consist of three major combat units—including a mechanized infantry battalion, a tank battalion, and the multinational enhanced Foreign Presence Battle Group Lithuania—and will be complemented by combat and support elements. The brigade aims to be at full operating capability by 2027.

Addressing a NATO Vulnerability

The need for additional NATO forces in Lithuania is largely due to its geographical location between Russian-allied Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad, an isolated port city, was once part of Prussia and was ceded to the Soviet Union after World War II under the Potsdam Agreement. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region was incorporated into the Russian Federation and now hosts the country’s Baltic Fleet, as well as troops, fighter jets, and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.

The narrow corridor between Lithuania and Belarus, known as the Suwalki Gap, is widely regarded as NATO’s most vulnerable point. Should Russian forces launch an attack on Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia, which are all NATO member states, they could potentially sever their supply lines from Poland by linking Belarus and Kaliningrad through an offensive. Stationing permanent NATO troops in the three Baltic states serves as a long-term security guarantee.

Germany’s New Policy of ‘Zeitenwende’

Due to its historical responsibility following World War II, Germany has traditionally maintained a cautious and restrained military stance. Massive defense cuts in the 1990s and 2000s further weakened its defense capabilities. In response to new geopolitical challenges, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz introduced in 2022 the Zeitenwende—a “turning point”—in German security policy. This new strategy aims to strengthen defense capabilities, increase military spending to meet NATO targets—which Germany achieved for the first time in 2024 by reaching the 2 percent mark—and enhance European security cooperation. The recent deployment to Lithuania serves as its flagship project.

Germany has made meaningful progress, and a clear shift in thinking within the German defense establishment is evident, particularly through initiatives like the creation of a special fund for defense spending to kick-start military investment.

Europe Needs to Step Up So US Can Shift Focus to Indo-Pacific

In times when European politicians express concerns that the U.S. is indifferent to Europe’s fate, it’s important to remember that the current administration is encouraging allies to step up and ensure they are able to deter potential dangers on their own terms. This is a task that all sovereign nations must undertake.

The United States needs to shift strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific to deter China, and steps like this one taken by Berlin are critical if Germany and other European NATO members are to take primary responsibility for their own conventional defense. Washington should applaud the new German base in Lithuania and encourage other wealthy Western European nations to follow suit with bases in Latvia and Estonia.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 07:00

The post Section 230: We Really Should Talk About It appeared first on CEPR.

Peter Schiff: Printing Money Is Not the Cure for Cononavirus



In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about coronavirus and the impact that it is having on the markets. Earlier this month, Peter said he thought the virus was just an excuse for stock market woes. At the time he believed the market was poised to fall anyway. But as it turns out, coronavirus has actually helped the US stock market because it has led central banks to pump even more liquidity into the world financial system. All this means more liquidity — central banks easing. In fact, that is exactly what has already happened, except the new easing is taking place, for now, outside the United States, particularly in China.” Although the new money is primarily being created in China, it is flowing into dollars — the dollar index is up — and into US stocks. Last week, US stock markets once again made all-time record highs. In fact, I think but for the coronavirus, the US stock market would still be selling off. But because of the central bank stimulus that has been the result of fears over the coronavirus, that actually benefitted not only the US dollar, but the US stock market.” In the midst of all this, Peter raises a really good question. The primary economic concern is that coronavirus will slow down output and ultimately stunt economic growth. Practically speaking, the world would produce less stuff. If the virus continues to spread, there would be fewer goods and services produced in a market that is hunkered down. Why would the Federal Reserve respond, or why would any central bank respond to that by printing money? How does printing more money solve that problem? It doesn’t. In fact, it actually exacerbates it. But you know, everybody looks at central bankers as if they’ve got the solution to every problem. They don’t. They don’t have the magic wand. They just have a printing press. And all that creates is inflation.” Sometimes the illusion inflation creates can look like a magic wand. Printing money can paper over problems. But none of this is going to fundamentally fix the economy. In fact, if central bankers were really going to do the right thing, the appropriate response would be to drain liquidity from the markets, not supply even more.” Peter explained how the Fed was originally intended to create an “elastic” money supply that would expand or contract along with economic output. Today, the money supply only goes in one direction — that’s up. The economy is strong, print money. The economy is weak, print even more money.” Of course, the asset that’s doing the best right now is gold. The yellow metal pushed above $1,600 yesterday. Gold is up 5.5% on the year in dollar terms and has set record highs in other currencies. Because gold is rising even in an environment where the dollar is strengthening against other fiat currencies, that shows you that there is an underlying weakness in the dollar that is right now not being reflected in the Forex markets, but is being reflected in the gold markets. Because after all, why are people buying gold more aggressively than they’re buying dollars or more aggressively than they’re buying US Treasuries? Because they know that things are not as good for the dollar or the US economy as everybody likes to believe. So, more people are seeking out refuge in a better safe-haven and that is gold.” Peter also talked about the debate between Trump and Obama over who gets credit for the booming economy – which of course, is not booming.

We are living in crazy times. I have a hard time believing that most of the general public is not awake, but in reality, they are. We've never seen anything like this; I mean not even under Obama during the worst part of the Great Recession." Now the Fed is desperately trying to keep interest rates from rising. The problem is that it's a much bigger debt bubble this time around , and the Fed is going to have to blow a lot more air into it to keep it inflated. The difference is this time it's not going to work." It looks like the Fed did another $104.15 billion of Not Q.E. in a single day. The Fed claims it's only temporary. But that is precisely what Bernanke claimed when the Fed started QE1. Milton Freedman once said, "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The same applies to Q.E., or whatever the Fed wants to pretend it's doing. Except this is not QE4, according to Powell. Right. Pumping so much money out, and they are accusing China of currency manipulation ? Wow! Seriously! Amazing! Dump the U.S. dollar while you still have a chance. Welcome to The Atlantis Report. And it is even worse than that, In addition to the $104.15 billion of "Not Q.E." this past Thursday; the FED added another $56.65 billion in liquidity to financial markets the next day on Friday. That's $160.8 billion in two days!!!! in just 48 hours. That is more than 2 TIMES the highest amount the FED has ever injected on a monthly basis under a Q.E. program (which was $80 billion per month) Since this isn't QE....it will be really scary on what they are going to call Q.E. Will it twice, three times, four times, five times what this injection per month ! It is going to be explosive since it takes about 60 to 90 days for prices to react to this, January should see significant inflation as prices soak up the excess liquidity. The question is, where will the inflation occur first . The spike in the repo rate might have a technical explanation: a misjudgment was made in the Fed's money market operations. Even so, two conclusions can be drawn: managing the money markets is becoming harder, and from now on, banks will be studying each other's creditworthiness to a greater degree than before. Those people, who struggle with the minutiae of money markets, and that includes most professionals, should focus on the causes and not the symptoms. Financial markets have recovered from each downturn since 1980 because interest rates have been cut to new lows. Post-2008, they were cut to near zero or below zero in all major economies. In response to a new financial crisis, they cannot go any lower. Central banks will look for new ways to replicate or broaden Q.E. (At some point, governments will simply see repression as an easier option). Then there is the problem of 'risk-free' assets becoming risky assets. Financial markets assume that the probability of major governments such as the U.S. or U.K. defaulting is zero. These governments are entering the next downturn with debt roughly twice the levels proportionate to GDP that was seen in 2008. The belief that the policy worked was completely predicated on the fact that it was temporary and that it was reversible, that the Fed was going to be able to normalize interest rates and shrink its balance sheet back down to pre-crisis levels. Well, when the balance sheet is five-trillion, six-trillion, seven-trillion when we're back at zero, when we're back in a recession, nobody is going to believe it is temporary. Nobody is going to believe that the Fed has this under control, that they can reverse this policy. And the dollar is going to crash. And when the dollar crashes, it's going to take the bond market with it, and we're going to have stagflation. We're going to have a deep recession with rising interest rates, and this whole thing is going to come imploding down. everything is temporary with the fed including remaining off the gold standard temporary in the Fed's eyes could mean at least 50 years This liquidity problem is a signal that trading desks are loaded up on inventory and can't get rid of it. Repo is done out of a need for cash. If you own all of your securities (i.e., a long-only, no leverage mutual fund) you have no need to "repo" your securities - you're earning interest every night so why would you want to 'repo' your securities where you are paying interest for that overnight loan (securities lending is another animal). So, it is those that 'lever-up' and need the cash for settlement purposes on securities they've bought with borrowed money that needs to utilize the repo desk. With this in mind, as we continue to see this need to obtain cash (again, needed to settle other securities purchases), it shows these firms don't have the capital to add more inventory to, what appears to be, a bloated inventory. Now comes the fun part: the Treasury is about to auction 3's, 10's, and 30-year bonds. If I am correct (again, I could be wrong), the Fed realizes securities firms don't have the shelf space to take down a good portion of these auctions. If there isn't enough retail/institutional demand, it will lead to not only a crappy sale but major concerns to the street that there is now no backstop, at all, to any sell-off. At which point, everyone will want to be the first one through the door and sell immediately, but to whom? If there isn't enough liquidity in the repo market to finance their positions, the firms would be unable to increase their inventory. We all saw repo shut down on the 2008 crisis. Wall St runs on money. . OVERNIGHT money. They lever up to inventory securities for trading. If they can't get overnight money, they can't purchase securities. And if they can't unload what they have, it means the buy-side isn't taking on more either. Accounts settle overnight. This includes things like payrolls and bill pay settlements. If a bank doesn't have enough cash to payout what its customers need to pay out, it borrows. At least one and probably more than one banks are insolvent. That's what's going on. First, it can't be one or two banks that are short. They'd simply call around until they found someone to lend. But they did that, and even at markedly elevated rates, still, NO ONE would lend them the money. That tells me that it's not a problem of a couple of borrowers, it's a problem of no lenders. And that means that there's no bank in the world left with any real liquidity. They are ALL maxed out. But as bad as that is, and that alone could be catastrophic, what it really signals is even worse. The lending rates are just the flip side of the coin of the value of the assets lent against. If the rates go up, the value goes down. And with rates spiking to 10%, how far does the value fall? Enormously! And if banks had to actually mark down the value of the assets to reflect 10% interest rates, then my god, every bank in the world is insolvent overnight. Everyone's capital ratios are in the toilet, and they'd have to liquidate. We're talking about the simultaneous insolvency of every bank on the planet. Bank runs. No money in ATMs, Branches closed. Safe deposit boxes confiscated. The whole nine yards, It's actually here. The scenario has tended to guide toward for years and years is actually happening RIGHT NOW! And people are still trying to say it's under control. Every bank in the world is currently insolvent. The only thing keeping it going is printing billions of dollars every day. Financial Armageddon isn't some far off future risk. It's here. Prepare accordingly. This fiat system has reached the end of the line, and it's not correct that fiat currencies fail by design. The problem is corruption and manipulation. It is corruption and cheating that erodes trust and faith until the entire system becomes a gigantic fraud. Banks and governments everywhere ARE the problem and simply have to be removed. They have lost all trust and respect, and all they have left is war and mayhem. As long as we continue to have a majority of braindead asleep imbeciles following orders from these psychopaths, nothing will change. Fiat currency is not just thievery. Fiat currency is SLAVERY. Ultimately the most harmful effect of using debt of undefined value as money (i.e., fiat currencies) is the de facto legalization of a caste system based on voluntary slavery. The bankers have a charter, or the legal *right*, to create money out of nothing. You, you don't. Therefore you and the bankers do not have the same standing before the law. The law of the land says that you will go to jail if you do the same thing (creating money out of thin air) that the banker does in full legality. You and the banker are not equal before the law. ALL the countries of the world; Islamic or secular, Jewish or Arab, democracy or dictatorship; all of them place the bankers ABOVE you. And all of you accept that only whining about fiat money going down in exchange value over time (price inflation which is not the same as monetary inflation). Actually, price inflation itself is mainly due to the greed and stupidity of the bankers who could keep fiat money's exchange value reasonably stable, only if they wanted to. Witness the crash of silver and gold prices which the bankers of the world; Russian, American, Chinese, Jewish, Indian, Arab, all of them collaborated to engineer through the suppression and stagnation of precious metals' prices to levels around the metals' production costs, or what it costs to dig gold and silver out of the ground. The bankers of the world could also collaborate to keep nominal prices steady (as they do in the case of the suppression of precious metals prices). After all, the ability to create fiat money and force its usage is a far more excellent source of power and wealth than that which is afforded simply by stealing it through inflation. The bankers' greed and stupidity blind them to this fact. They want it all, and they want it now. In conclusion, The bankers can create money out of nothing and buy your goods and services with this worthless fiat money, effectively for free. You, you can't. You, you have to lead miserable existences for the most of you and WORK in order to obtain that effectively nonexistent, worthless credit money (whose purchasing/exchange value is not even DEFINED thus rendering all contracts based on the null and void!) that the banker effortlessly creates out of thin air with a few strokes of the computer keyboard, and which he doesn't even bother to print on paper anymore, electing to keep it in its pure quantum uncertain form instead, as electrons whizzing about inside computer chips which will become mute and turn silent refusing to tell you how many fiat dollars or euros there are in which account, in the absence of electricity. No electricity, no fiat, nor crypto money. It would appear that trust is deteriorating as it did when Lehman blew up . Something really big happened that set off this chain reaction in the repo markets. Whatever that something is, we aren't be informed. They're trying to cover it up, paper it over with conjured cash injections, play it cool in front of the cameras while sweating profusely under the 5 thousands dollar suits. I'm guessing that the final high-speed plunge into global economic collapse has begun. All we see here is the ripples and whitewater churning the surface, but beneath the surface, there is an enormous beast thrashing desperately in its death throws. Now is probably the time to start tying up loose ends with the long-running prep projects, just saying. In other words, prepare accordingly, and Get your money out of the banks. I don't care if you don't believe me about Bitcoin. Get your money out of the banks. Don't keep any more money in a bank than you need to pay your bills and can afford to lose.











The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more













The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more

The FBI released a summary of its file from the Hillary Clinton email investigation on Friday, showing details of Clinton's explanation of her use of a private email server to handle classified communications. The release comes nearly two months after FBI Director James Comey announced that although Clinton's handling of classified information was "extremely careless," it did not rise to the level of a prosecutable offense. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the next day that she would not pursue charges in the matter. "We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests," the FBI noted in a statement sent to reporters with links to the documents. The documents include notes from Clinton's July 2 interview with agents, as well as a "factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter," according to the FBI release. Throughout her interview with agents, Clinton repeatedly said she relied on the career professionals she worked with to handle classified information correctly. The agents asked about a series of specific emails, and in each case Clinton said she wasn't worried about the particular material being discussed on a nonclassified channel.