from Stansberry Research
Should Dr. Birx Be Forgiven for Breaking Her Own Rules?
[Ed. Note: She can be forgiven for breaking the rule. It’s making the rule that is unforgivable.]
by Ethan Yang
The American Institute for Economic Research
Another day, another politician violates their own rule. Do as I say not as I do; this has been the prevailing theme of the pandemic as politicians openly flout the laws and recommendations they advocate for. From people like Speaker Nancy Pelosi to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to local county supervisors in Los Angeles, hypocrisy thrives at every level of government. Our leaders tell society to suck it up and lock down while providing little justification or direction. Meanwhile, they reserve the right to travel, dine out, and see their loved ones for themselves after devoting effort to prevent the rest of us from doing so. As they enjoy these luxuries, their policies bring economic devastation, social deprivation, and encourage fellow citizens to turn on one another.
Another public official to be added to this long list of hypocrites is Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator. AP News writes,
“The day after Thanksgiving, she traveled to one of her vacation properties on Fenwick Island in Delaware. She was accompanied by three generations of her family from two households. Birx, her husband Paige Reffe, a daughter, son-in-law and two young grandchildren were present.”
This is of course after she and her colleagues made a number of recommendations not to travel or gather on Thanksgiving.
Bitcoin Rampage 2.0 Has Eclipsed the Earlier Mania
by Rick Ackerman
RickAckerman.com
With the post-Christmas resumption of trading Sunday morning, bitcoin tacked on an insane $3,000 in the blink of an eye. Even more preposterous is that a correction one might have expected to last for at least three to five days appears to have run its course in mere hours. This has raised the prospect of cryptomoney fever achieving yet another record high before dawn. How much farther could the rampage go? A projection using the Hidden Pivot Method suggests that the next big thrust will hit 33,600, about 6000 points, or 22%, above these levels. But why should it stop there, we might ask, with mass hysteria’s Olympus beckoning at 100,000? We’ll be better able to assess whether bulls have the gumption to get there once we’ve seen how they handle the ‘hidden’ resistance at 33,600. If this proprietary pivot is dramatically impaled on first contact, be prepared for a burst to 50,000, a marquee-quality number that would be in play simply because I will have run out of Hidden Pivot targets.
What’s Not Being Said About the Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine. “Human Guinea Pigs”?
by F. William Engdahl
Global Research
Bill Gates is actively financing and promoting new untested vaccines supposed to keep us at least somewhat safe from a ‘ghastly” death from the novel coronavirus and supposedly allow us to resume somewhat “normal” lives. The Pharma giant Pfizer has now announced what they claim were spectacular results in initial human tests. They use an experimental technology known as gene editing, specifically mRNA gene-editing, something never before used in vaccines. Before we rush to get jabbed in hopes of some immunity, we should know more about the radical experimental technology and its lack of precision.
The financial world went ballistic on November 9 when the pharma giant Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, announced in a company press release that it had developed a vaccine for Covid19 that was “90%” effective.
The controversial US head of NIAID, Tony Fauci (right) rushed to greet the news and the EU announced it had purchased 300 million doses of the costly new vaccine. If you believe financial markets, the pandemic is all but past history.
The Propaganda is Non-Stop for the Beast System: No Travel Without the Vaccine
by Mac Slavo
SHTF Plan
Mainstream media is ramping up the propaganda in order to get the public on board with an unnecessary and unwanted vaccine. The rollout of “vaccine passports” is here, and if you want to travel, you’ll need to show proof of vaccination.
The beast system is arriving with the invention of COVID-19 and far too many Americans still don’t get it. The dystopian future we’ve been warned about is here and it’s only going to get more tyrannical as the digital dollar is rolled out. The mainstream media is putting a nice spin on the adaptation of the beast system of control:
Now that coronavirus vaccines are starting to roll out in the US and abroad, many people may be dreaming of the day when they can travel, shop, and go to the movies again. But in order to do those activities, you may eventually need something in addition to the vaccine: a vaccine passport application.
Football Fans Refused Entry Without Negative Covid Test
“Easy to see how this could morph into an ´entrance dependent on being vaccinated’ scheme”
by Steve Watson
Info Wars
Football fans in Liverpool, UK are being mandated to take COIVD tests before attending a match Monday, and those who do not will be refused entry even if they have bought tickets.
Fans of Everton FC were warned by the club that they must produce negative test results issued no more than 36 hours previously or be barred from entering the stadium to see the team play against Manchester City.
[…] Liverpool has thus far escaped complete lockdown, like much of the rest of the country, and therefore some sports fans are allowed to attend events, albeit in the case of Everton FC fans, with this new mandate.
Several fans pointed out that the tests are highly inaccurate, and that a negative result from a day or two ago means little:
Using a lateral flow test with 50% accuracy, you’d be as well asking them to guess heads or tails correctly, to gain entrance.
Next Leg of Silver Bull Just Getting Started: Expect a Boom in Silver Demand in 2021
from King World News
As we kickoff the last few trading days of 2020, the next leg of the silver bull is just getting started. Expect a boom in silver demand in 2021.
December 28 (King World News) – Peter Boockvar: According to the Citi Panic/Euphoria index, sentiment cooled a bit week-over-week with it falling from the record high of 1.65 to 1.44. Again, anything above .40 is considered in euphoria land.
[…] We know that a variety of metrics have indicated an ebullient mood and inherent in that is the reflection of a lot of good news being discounted, the vaccine being the most important and now another almost $1 Trillion of government spending. After a stunning market rally in November, this ebullience has resulted in a needed consolidation so far this month. Three weeks ago the SPX closed at 3691 and Thursday it closed at 3703. Digestion.
Are Honest Elections a Thing of the Past? with Frank Vernuccio
from Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network
Frank Vernuccio discusses the negatives of what life will look like ahead now that the Supreme Court has ruled that honest elections don’t matter and no one has standing any long to challenge an election anyway. Unless something happens to change things quickly, democracy is going to wind up being an asterisk in history.
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The Old Guy Speaks with Orest Komarnyckyj
from Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network
When it comes to wisdom, it’s off devoid in the young and in ample supply in the elderly. Orest Komarnyckyj has been a stand up comic, a retired periodontist and an all around renaissance man. He’s currently retired and has now become a podcaster. Remember, wisdom doesn’t have to be boring or dull, it can come with large does of humor. Listen on and hear about the world according to Orest.
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Marin Katusa: “Forgotten” Metals Are Making Investors a Fortune
by John Rubino
Dollar Collapse
From Katusa Research:
This year has been one for the record books.
From all-time highs in the major indices to the Coronavirus meltdown… and then for the market to race back and hit new all-time highs, it’s been quite the ride.
If you felt like your head was spinning this year by some of the moves you were seeing, it was for good reason.
2020 was one of the most volatile years in history for the stock market.
In the next chart you’ll see the number of weekly 5% or greater moves (up or down) for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The Most Hopeful Scenario for 2021
by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
Choose wisely, America, or the options for a positive outcome will vanish like mist in Death Valley on a clear July afternoon.
From the point of view of evolution, the most hopeful scenario for 2021 is the sudden and complete collapse of everything that is obsolete, inefficient, ineffective and sclerotic. When obsolete systems and entities pass away quickly, the cost and pain are processed and absorbed quickly as well: enterprises go bankrupt and their assets are liquidated, failed ventures close, and schemes that didn’t yield the desired benefits are scrapped.
This is the evolutionary process. Whatever has lost its selective advantages will succumb to selective pressures and fade away.
The problem arises when self-serving insiders siphon resources to keep their obsolete, inefficient, ineffective and sclerotic gravy-train protected from selective pressures. Keeping a terminally ill human alive is an analogy: it’s possible to extend the life of a terminally ill person at enormous expense and effort, but the patient isn’t restored to their previous health or vigor–that is no longer even a possibility. They are no longer their previous self, and this is why people choose to avoid extraordinary interventions in their final phase of life.
Angry at the Failure of His Election Challenges, Trump Calls His Own SCOTUS Nominees Cowardly and Incompetent
Trump thinks the judiciary cannot be trusted to reveal the massive fraud that he says denied him a second term.
by Jacob Sullum
Reason.com
Explaining the need to swiftly replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett this fall, Donald Trump said the Court likely would have to rule on disputes about the presidential election. “I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” he told reporters on September 23. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices….This scam that the Democrats are pulling…will be before the United States Supreme Court. And I think having a 4–4 situation is not a good situation, if you get that. I don’t know that you’d get that. I think it should be 8–nothing or 9–nothing. But just in case it would be more political than it should be, I think it’s very important to have a ninth justice.”
In Trump’s view, a ruling against his campaign would be “more political than it should be,” while a ruling in which Barrett voted the way the president who picked her wanted her to vote would be untainted by politics.
The Latest Updates from Martin Armstrong for 2020.12.27
The Lockdown Christmas
by Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
My desk overlooks an intersection. Looking out on it, Christmas Eve was gloomy and depressing. No lights, no people, virtually no cars. Just dark and cold and rain. I have no greater expectations for New Year’s Eve.
The morning after I saw a fat grey squirrel racing up the tall holly at the corner of my front lawn, picking up in its mouth huge dried leaves blown there from the sycamore tree, scampering across the gutter on the garage and disappearing from my view. I stepped out to see where the nest was being built, and there it was, a huge house of sycamore leaves in the crotch of an even taller holly tree, high above the house. (Both hollies had long been stripped of berries — first by blue jays, then by robins and chickadees and finally by squirrels. The trees, once covered in red, have not a single berry on them.) The nest builder knows somehow that a cold winter is coming and is preparing to keep her family warm and safe. We will have to do the same.
Meh
by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
Politics for Christmas eh?
Oh, and the tin bin is really cranking about the Nashville bombing.
Folks, cut the bull**** ok?
If Trump is going to do anything about the election fraud, and I believe there was plenty of it, why hasn’t he done so?
He has the authority to do it. The problem with doing it is that he might provoke a revolt. A real one. And when you get down to it he doesn’t have the balls. Then again this is not new; he didn’t have the balls to follow through on breaking the medical monopolies (despite having the authority) as he promised when running for President, he didn’t have the balls when Covid started to tell Fraudci and Birx to go suck eggs, we knew that historically speaking there had never been a respiratory virus in which asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread was material and yet he listened to a bunch of people who told him it was happening (and so did Governors) and thus locked down and ordered “mask mask mask” — which proved to be bull**** and worthless.
What an Ugly Year for Manhattan Luxury Condos & Co-ops, But the Market Came Unglued in 2016
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
“It was more drama than any market could withstand as Manhattan sellers started slashing prices.”
The luxury housing market in Manhattan didn’t quite descent to the levels seen after the Lehman Brothers blowup, but close, and it totally wiped out the euphoria that had reigned from 2013 into 2015 when some of the most glorious mind-bending global-headline-grabbing deals were signed and touted.
Sales of Manhattan condos, co-ops, and townhouses, in terms of signed contracts, with prices of $4 million or more plunged by 31% in 2020, from 2019, to just 645 contracts signed, according to data by Olshan Realty. This was the lowest number of contracts signed since 2011, after having already dropped by 16% in 2019, by 5% in 2018, and by 18% in 2016 – with a 6% false-hope uptick in between in 2017. The Pandemic, which had pulled the rug out from under the market in the spring, just accelerated the process:
China Will Be the First Country to Launch a Digital Currency: What Happens Then
by Wim Boonstra of Rabobank
Zero Hedge
Introduction
Most central banks are busy preparing for the potential introduction of central bank digital currency (CBDC). CBDC is a digital currency issued by the central bank. It is sometimes referred to as a digital version of a bank note, but in many cases this is not correct. There are indeed many different potential variants.
[…] So far, virtually all the central banks are keeping their options open as to whether a CBDC will ultimately appear.
China, where a far-reaching trial is under way, is the major exception. If this trial is successful, one can expect the Chinese CBDC to be introduced widely in the near future. China is therefore comfortably leading the way because the country has big ambitions for its digital currency. First, it should provide a sizable boost to the Chinese economy; second, it will concurrently further increase the Chinese government’s control of Chinese society; finally, the new currency is part of an ambitious plan to strengthen the international position of the renminbi, the Chinese currency, and potentially at the expense of the euro in particular. This Chinese decisiveness should spur European policymakers into action by further strengthening the euro.