from Andrew Klavan
Jim Rogers Sees Perilous Times Ahead. Why Government Debt Could Crush the U.S.
by Phil Roosevelt
Barron’s
Barron’s: How does the world look to you?
Jim Rogers: Oh my God, do you have three days? We are in perilous times—very, very perilous times.
Will we go back to anything like normal after the pandemic?
Something else is ahead. A year ago at this time, America was the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. That debt is now up by trillions of dollars—that’s trillions with a T. Someday, we are all going to look back—three years from now, eight years from now—and say, “Wait a minute, what about all this debt? What are we going to do now?” That’s what happened to the U.K. The U.K. was the richest, most powerful nation in the world in the 1920s, and then took the path of “it doesn’t matter, we’ll spend all we want.” Fifty years later, the IMF had to fly into Heathrow and bail them out. They were bankrupt. So, I am afraid of what I see.
Twitter Has Now Censored Trump and Campaign 436 Times, Biden at 0
by Damjan Tutarkov
LaCorte News
Twitter has censored tweets from President Trump or his re-election campaign more than 400 times since May 2018, according to a recent analysis by the media watchdog NewsBusters.
From May 31, 2018, to Nov. 30, President Trump and his campaign have been flagged or otherwise censored by Twitter at least 436 times while President-elect Joe Biden has not been censored once, according to NewsBusters.
Since Nov. 30 alone, Twitter has censored at least 111 tweets from the president and his campaign.
Some of the censored tweets included videos from conservative outlets like One America News Network, Newsmax, and Fox News, while other tweets featured noted conservative commentators or anchors such as Mark Levin, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani, and actress Mindy Robinson, among others.
The BIS Issues a Dire Warning: “We Are Moving from the Liquidity to the Solvency Phase of the Crisis”
from Zero Hedge
There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and the BIS – the central banks’ central bank – warning about excesses from monetary policy (the most recent amusing example of this was last October when as we wrote, “Fed Announces QE4 One Day After BIS Warns QE Has Broken The Market“). Actually, to this list of 3 certainties we can add one more: central banks roundly ignoring the warnings from the central bank mothership.
That, however, does not prevent the BIS from continuing this trend of warnings, and today the Basel-based organization did just that when in its Quarterly Review publication it cautioned that the surge in financial markets following COVID-19 vaccine breakthroughs and the U.S. election has left asset prices increasingly stretched.
Sounding surprisingly similar to Goldman, which as we reported earlier today issued an almost identical warning, when it observed that its sentiment indicator is now +2.0 standard deviations above average…
Where’s the Kraken? Where’s the Storm?
by Brian C. Joondeph
American Thinker
When Attorney Sidney Powell a few weeks ago said, “Release the Kraken,” it wasn’t clear if she was referring to the mythical creature with multiple arms and heads or a secret military counterintelligence unit that may have real time evidence of electoral fraud. Either way it hinted at big things ahead.
Before the Kraken it was “The Storm.” We have been in the “calm before the storm” for most of President Trump’s first term. We are told “pain is coming” and that “it will be Biblical.” The only pain is waiting in anticipation for the pony under the Christmas tree that never seems to arrive.
Perhaps “nothing can stop what is coming,” as the mysterious military intelligence insider assures us, but to most observers the only thing coming is the end of the American experiment, a fraudulent and stolen election cheered on by a corrupt and complicit media and ignored by a feckless Republican establishment.
A Federal Judge in Michigan Says Sidney Powell’s Election Fraud Claims Are ‘Nothing but Speculation and Conjecture’
According to the ruling, the former Trump attorney also filed the wrong claims in the wrong court at the wrong time on behalf of the wrong plaintiffs.
by Jacob Sullum
Reason.com
A federal judge in Michigan today rejected former Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s attempt to decertify that state’s presidential election results, finding that her claims failed in almost every possible way. “This lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek—as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court—and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government,” U.S. District Judge Linda V. Parker writes in her 36-page opinion. “Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. This, the Court cannot, and will not, do.”
Shut Down Covid Right Now
by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
Folks, it’s pretty simple.
At the start of this thing back in March and April I pointed out that if you cut the vectors off for this (or any other) disease it stops being a problem. I was hellbent on going after the people working in hospitals and nursing homes for this reason, since not only were they a major vector but they were giving the virus to vulnerable people that it was far more-likely to kill as well.
Nobody listened.
Well, months have gone by and now we have more data. So let’s use it.
FACT: The only STATISTICALLY material transmission vectors for Covid-19 are nosocomial (by definition every transmission into a nursing home is that) and household.
The CDC in fact says that a majority (given the current Rt estimates) of transmission happens in households.
The “Great Reset” and Plans for a Global War on Savings
by Daniel Lacalle
Mises.org
Global debt is expected to soar to a record $277 trillion by the end of the year, according to the Institute of International Finance. Developed markets’ total debt—government, corporate, and households—jumped to 432 percent of GDP in the third quarter. Emerging market debt-to-GDP hit nearly 250 percent in the third quarter, with China reaching 335 percent, and for the year the ratio is expected to reach about 365 percent of global GDP. Most of this massive increase of $15 trillion in one year comes from government and corporates’ response to the pandemic. However, we must remember that the total debt figure had already reached record highs in 2019, before any pandemic and in a period of growth.
The main problem is that most of this debt is unproductive debt. Governments are using the unprecedented fiscal space to perpetuate bloated current spending, which generates no real economic return, so the likely outcome is that debt will continue to rise after the pandemic crisis is ended and that the level of growth and productivity achieved will not be enough to reduce the financial burden on public accounts.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz to Present Pennsylvania Election Lawsuit to Supreme Court if They Take Case
by Ryan Saavedra
Daily Wire
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Monday that if the Supreme Court takes up the election lawsuit out of Pennsylvania that he will present the oral argument to the nation’s highest court.
“Petitioner’s legal team has asked me whether I would be willing to argue the case before the Supreme Court, if the Court grants certiorari,” Cruz told Fox News. “I have agreed, and told them that, if the Court takes the appeal, I will stand ready to present the oral argument.”
“As I said last week, the bitter division and acrimony we see across the Nation needs resolution. I believe the Supreme Court has a responsibility to the American people to ensure, within its powers, that we are following the law and following the Constitution.”
When U.S. Government Manipulates Commodity Markets, It’s Perfectly Legal and CFTC Can’t Act
by Chris Powell
GATA.org
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
In commentary today two of our friends, silver market analyst Ted Butler and GoldSilverPros.com editor and publisher Robert Kientz, seem astonished that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission does nothing about manipulation of the gold and silver markets.
Butler’s astonishment is expressed in an essay posted at SilverSeek and headlined “Man Bites Dog”:
https://silverseek.com/article/man-bites-dog
Kientz’s astonishment comes in commentary headlined “CFTC Failures Lead to Massive Market Manipulation,” which is accompanied by a YouTube presentation here:
Famine is “Knocking on the Door”
by Michael Snyder
End of the American Dream
Unless there is some sort of unforeseen miracle, millions of people could literally starve to death in 2021. We are facing a global food crisis that is unlike anything we have ever seen before in modern times, and 2021 is going to be the year when it starts to become extremely painful all over the globe. But don’t take my word for it. David Beasley is the head of the UN World Food Program, and so he is in a better position to assess the global hunger crisis than any of us. According to Beasley, 2021 “is literally going to be catastrophic” and his organization is facing “the worst humanitarian crisis year since the beginning of the United Nations”…
“2021 is literally going to be catastrophic based on what we’re seeing at this stage of the game,” said Beasley, adding that for a dozen countries, famine is “knocking on the door.”
Attorney General Bill Barr Considering an Early Departure from the Trump Administration, Report Says
by Bradley Devlin
DailyCaller.com
Attorney General William Barr is considering a departure from the Trump administration before President Donald Trump leaves office, according to a Sunday report from The New York Times.
Three people familiar with the attorney general’s perspective on the matter told The New York Times (NYT) that Barr could be leaving before Trump does on Jan. 20. One of these individuals said Barr could leave before the new year, NYT reported.
Whether or not Barr’s consideration of a possible exit is due to Trump’s consternation over the 2020 presidential election results remains unknown, according to NYT.
Manhattan Luxury Condos See Demand, But at Much Lower Prices with Big Losses for Sellers
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Seller lost $12 million, or 35%, on a condo at One57, on Billionaires Row, adding to the list of big money losers in the condo tower.
File under Yes, but: “Manhattan Luxury Market Continues Fall Rally,” said Mansion Global this morning, based on sales volume of properties at a price of $4 million or higher. Olshan Realty, in its weekly luxury report published this morning, said that 21 contracts for luxury condos, co-ops, and townhouses were signed last week, bringing the total since the beginning of September to 227 contracts, exceeding last year’s 219 signings for the same period. Over the past two weeks, 12 homes went into contract with asking prices of $10 million or more, “the highest total over 2 straight weeks of trophy sales in the last 9 months.” Yes, but prices….
Ratcliffe: China is the Only Country with ‘Capability’ and ‘Specific Plan’ of ‘Taking Away the American Dream’
by Ian Hanchett
Breitbart.com
On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe stated that no other country comes close to posing the threat to the U.S. that China does and “no other country has the capability of essentially taking away the American Dream and a specific plan to do so, and the intelligence is clear.”
Ratcliffe said, “There are a lot of people who, for economic reasons, don’t want China to be our greatest threat. There are a lot of people who, for political reasons, don’t want China to be our greatest threat in America. But the intelligence doesn’t lie. China is our greatest threat, and it’s not even close, no other country has the capability of essentially taking away the American Dream and a specific plan to do so, and the intelligence is clear.”
What is to be Done? The Rise of Hygiene Socialism and the Prospects for Liberty
by David Hart
The American Institute for Economic Research
When I think about the great free trade movement in England in the 1840s, what drove its supporters to oppose protectionism was not a deep knowledge of the intricacies of comparative advantage or the geographical specialisation of production, but a moral sense which we lack today. This moral sense cuts in two different directions. On the “positive side” there was the idea that you looked after yourself and your family and did not go looking for government handouts, that you got paid for supplying someone with a benefit in some voluntary exchange, and that nobody owed you a job or a living.
On the other hand, there was a kind of “negative” side to this moral feeling, namely that the people who sought benefits and government protection were part of an exploiting class who were looting ordinary people for their own “sinister” interests, and that these interests controlled the Parliament and would continue to exploit ordinary people until they were stopped.
It’s Gonna Crash!
by Future Money Trends
SHTF Plan
After the inauguration, everything changes. 2021 is the year that vaccines will be administered around the world. People will be out and about again, but corporations will be very slow to rehire. It’s going to be a recovery, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the governments of the world and central banks will have to incentivize all sorts of behavioral changes in order to make it sensible for big business to expand their workforce.
We just don’t see Main Street recovering quickly, nor do we anticipate great job numbers, so we wanted to compile a list of side hustles that offer not only the potential of replacing current income but quadrupling it and then some!
Before we unveil five out of the ten that we prepared, we want to be absolutely certain that you understand how much euphoria there currently is with stocks: