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On Slavery and Taxation

by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
PaulCraigRoberts.org

The South is blamed for slavery. One encounters this false association, the product of decades of demonization of the South, everywhere, even in books about the assassination of President McKinley in 1901 in Buffalo, New York by a Polish-American, Leon Czolgosz, who was born in Detroit.

Nothing in McKinley’s presidency or in Czolgosz’s life has anything to do with the South or slavery. Yet the author of the book, Eric Rauchway, manages to use the fact that northern whites wanted to lynch Czolgosz, a white man, to pull the South into the story. “White men of the South practiced lynching to terrify black men into submission,” and blacks fled the South because of “the growing number of blacks lynched in the slow-burning race war of the late-nineteenth century South.” These are blanket and unsupported statements.

Continue Reading at PaulCraigRoberts.org…

North American Trade Wars

by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning

It’s game on for the trade wars.

After months of threatening tariffs on U.S. trading partners during his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken definitive action on that front. Let’s review.

The Beginning

On Saturday, February 1, Trump announced that the U.S. was imposing 25% tariffs on all goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico and Canada (with the exception of Canadian energy, which was tariffed at 10%) and additional 10% tariffs on all goods imported from China.

These new Chinese tariffs were on top of tariffs Trump imposed on China in 2018, many of which were left in place during the Biden administration. All of these new tariffs were to take effect on Monday, February 3rd.

Boom!

Or was it?

Continue Reading at DailyReckoning.com…

TrumpED 2025: School Choice Corporatization, Social Impact Finance, and the Dismantling of the Department of Education

In alignment with Project 2025, Trump pledges to eliminate the Dpt. of Ed and replace it with “school choice.” Rather than end federal control of education, Project 2025 education policy threatens to expand both government and corporate control of schooling in order to streamline ed-technocracy for the 4IR.

by John Klyczek
Unlimited Hangout

President Donald Trump has publicly stated, “I know nothing about Project 2025,” and “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. . . . I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.” Trump has also averred, “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” Obviously, these statements are contradictory, for if Trump is truly oblivious to the machinations of Project 2025, then how can he honestly disavow its policies, especially if he didn’t actually read the official “Playbook,” Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025?

Continue Reading at UnlimitedHangout.com…

Gold Hits Records and Silver Stirs

by Alasdair MacLeod
Gold Money

Behind precious metal markets is new evidence of growing European investor demand at the retail level, while Comex deliveries continue at an elevated rate.

[…] It has been a week of new highs for gold, and silver appears to have broken out of its torpor only this morning. In European morning trade, gold was $2938, up $98 from last Friday, and silver was $33.30, up $1.55 with most of the rise occurring today. The jump in silver is attributed by analysts to strong Chinese PV demand, Indian-pledged PV investment of a further trillion rupees by 2030, and Indonesia promising to adds 17 gigawatts of solar energy through state-owned enterprises.

More importantly, silver has conquered a crucial chart level at $32.50:

Continue Reading at GoldMoney.com…

China Unveils New EV Under $10K

by Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics

There are countless reasons why consumers are reluctant to switch to electric vehicles, with pricing consistently listed as a top concern. Western governments have warned that they will ban fossil fuel vehicle production in the not-so-distant future to meet emissions targets despite lacking the infrastructure or demand for EVs. Every government is hoping that consumers will purchase their new EVs domestically but no one has been able to compete with Chinese EV manufacturing.

China has pumped over $230 billion into its growing EV sector since 2009. Batteries account for around 40% of the total cost of EVs, and companies like BYD are able to maintain low prices are they own the supply chain to create these batteries from the raw materials to the finished packs. BYD has announced that its newest line will cost as little as $9,555, a price no other EV manufacturer has been able to provide.

Continue Reading at ArmstrongEconomics.com…

Automation Institutionalizes Mediocrity

by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds

Meanwhile, in the lived-in world, our quality of life is unraveling in myriad ways as algorithmically-driven under-competence and mediocrity are now the norm.

When deployed by monopolies / cartels, automation institutionalizes mediocrity, and soon everyone forgets excellence and quality because they no longer have any experience of either one.

And since our economy is dominated by monopolies / cartels, automation has reduced our quality of life across the board. Once the “market choice” of price-constrained consumers has been reduced to one option (monopoly) or a handful of options offering the same price and quality (cartel), then monopolies / cartels have an irresistible incentive (increase profits) to slash costs by automating everything that can be automated, along with reducing the quality of customer service, for why bother spending money on customer service when the customers have no option other than another member of the cartel?

Continue Reading at OfTwoMinds.com…

“F*cking Zoom”: Jamie Dimon Launches Into Tirade, Railing On Complacency, Work From Home, at JPM Meeting

from Zero Hedge

While the rest of the world gives Jamie Dimon flak for the leaked audio of him running a tight ship at his bank this past week, it was mostly music to our ears.

After years of junior bankers on Wall Street – many of whom are now starting with salaries close to $200,000/year – complaining about not having enough time off, being forced to work weekends and lack of vegan options in the company cafeteria (we just assume), audio surfaced this past week with JP Morgan’s Chief Executive Officer launching into a tirade about ‘working from home’.

As Barron’s notes, employees are frustrated by the bank’s upcoming five-day office mandate and lower-than-expected raises and bonuses despite record profits. Dimon made remarks to a group of employees at an internal town hall this week.

Continue Reading at ZeroHedge.com…

Elon Musk’s Companies Were Under Investigation by Five Inspectors General When the Trump Administration Fired Them and Made Musk the Investigator

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade

Yesterday, the newly formed House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) held its first hearing titled: “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud.” The Subcommittee appears to be part of an echo chamber attempting to bring legitimacy to President Donald Trump tapping his largest campaign donor, billionaire Elon Musk, to lead an effort to gut federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies and create enough savings to give tax breaks and other perks to the ultra-rich.

Musk should be immediately disqualified from any such watchdog role for the following reasons: he effectively put Trump over the election finish line, giving $288 million to PACs or Super PACs supporting Trump; the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported that Musk has been communicating with Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2022, notwithstanding the fact that Musk’s company SpaceX is a U.S. military defense contractor and Putin is on a U.S. sanctions list for launching a war on Ukraine.

Continue Reading at WallStreetOnParade.com…

Darkness Dying

“The nature of the NGO scams is to have a cause that sounds philanthropic, like ‘Save the Orphans of Sadville’ and then they pocket the money and zero actual orphans are helped.” — Elon Musk

by James Howard Kunstler
Kunstler.com

The exorcism of the USA just keeps revving up. You can tell by the number of revolutions-per-minute Elizabeth Warren’s head spins while she spews pea soup at the cameras. Who knew what a demon-infested slough USA Management Central was? And yes, I would like some insight as to how humble civil servants like Liz Warren accrue a $12-million fortune . . . and $30-million for Samantha Power (ex-USAID-chief) . . . and more than $150-million for Nancy Pelosi. Could it be as simple as just good stock-picking? (Is that how they spend their time?)

You have reason to suspect that what goes on in Washington DC is the greatest racketeering operation ever run on God’s green earth. “A threat to our democracy!” the Party of Chaos spouted incessantly during the election campaign in re: Donald J. Trump. “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” The Washington Post still declares on its name-plate. Yet, who exactly kept the lights off the past four years? Who scrambled the brains of the nation’s management and thinking classes? Who made mental illness aspirational?

Continue Reading at Kunstler.com…

Genius: Elizabeth Warren Thinks Hiring More Bureaucrats Will Save the Banking System

by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign

Politicians love creating new programs and agencies. But no one ever bothers to check if they actually work.

There’s no accountability, no metrics, no plan—just endless bureaucratic expansion.

Take Elizabeth Warren’s pet project, even before she was a Senator— the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Warren ensured the CFPB had less oversight than a typical agency by having it funded directly from the Federal Reserve. Government agencies are normally funded through Congressional appropriations… so by funding the CFPB with money from the central bank instead, Warren’s new toy essentially became immune to budgetary oversight.

On top of that, the CFPB was designed to have just a single director— instead of a bipartisan commission, which is normal for a government agency. So the CFPB is unique in that vast power is consolidated with a single, unelected official who has little accountability or oversight.

What could possibly go wrong?!?!?

Continue Reading at SchiffSovereign.com…

Household Debts, Debt-to-Income Ratio, Serious Delinquencies, Collections, Foreclosures, Bankruptcies: Our Drunken Sailors’ Debts in Q4 2024

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

More people, more workers, more income, more debt.

The summary could go something like this in terms of the past three years: More workers (employment +7.79 million, or +5.0%, BLS data), earning more money (average hourly earnings +13.4%), boosted total disposable income (+20%, BEA data). And over these three years, these workers added to their debts but at a slower pace (+13.8%) than their income grew (+20%). So the overall burden of their debts in terms of their income declined even further. This is not to say that subprime – a small subset that is always in trouble, which is why it’s called “subprime” – isn’t, as always, in trouble.

Continue Reading at WolfStreet.com…

India & U.S. Partner On Defense With Production of U.S. Designed “Silver”-Buoys

by SilverWars
Silver Seek

In 2023, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its Navy Budget Estimates report. It stated that due to silver scarcity, the program for creating sonobuoys which was previously sourcing silver at $3.97 per troy ounce through the DLA was now procuring silver at a market rate of $30 per troy ounce.

The average price of silver at the time this report was published was $21.80 per troy ounce, suggesting Uncle Sam had to pay an 8-fold premium to source what it needed from the open market.

The reason for the incredibly low previous price from the DLA was due to recycling efforts throughout the DoD. This was the DLA’s cost of recovery and refinement from the Precious Metals Recovery Program (PMRP); however, the report noted that this cheap silver source has dried up.

Continue Reading at SilverSeek.com…

14 Shocking Facts About the Student Loan Debt Bubble and the Great College Education Scam

by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog

More than 18 million students are enrolled at over 5,800 colleges and universities in the United States. On average, it costs more than $100,000 to attend a college or a university in the U.S. for four years. It has been estimated that a college eduction is now over 400 percent more expensive than it was 40 years ago. But even though our institutions of higher learning are sucking so much money out of our young people, it never seems to be enough, and so they are constantly begging for more money from the federal government. If you can believe it, the U.S. government has been providing more than 170 billion dollars a year to postsecondary education programs. Much of this funding comes in the form of research grants, student aid, and government contracts. But what are we getting for all of this money? The truth is that we are getting an entire generation that has had their heads filled with leftist propaganda.

Continue Reading at TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com…

‘Consider Working Elsewhere:’ Meta Lays Down the Law to Woke Crybaby Leftists

by Lucas Nolan
Breitbart.com

Andrew Bosworth, the notoriously progressive CTO for Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, has told the company’s workforce of crybaby leftists to either adapt to the company’s new policies or consider working elsewhere. When faced with whining by employees saying Meta cutting DEI programs and removing tampons from men’s restrooms are a “slap in the face,” Bosworth retorted, “You should quit if you feel that way, I mean it.”

Business Insider reports that in a recent exchange on Meta’s internal workplace forum, Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth faced criticism from employees regarding the company’s policy changes and their impact on the LGBT community. The discussion, which took place in the “Let’s Fix Meta” group with nearly 12,000 members, highlighted growing internal dissent and concerns over the company’s direction.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

200,000 Layoffs

Plus: Possible quid pro quo between the DOJ and Eric Adams, DEI in the federal government, and more…

by Liz Wolfe
Reason.com

The culling within the federal government: Mass layoffs have begun, with most of the some 200,000 probationary employees expected to be terminated in the coming days, mostly from the departments of Energy and Veteran Affairs, but also some from the Small Business Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture (specifically the Forest Service), and—ironically—the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which has been overseeing the layoffs.

Probationary employees tend to be workers who have only been in their jobs for a year or under (or two years in some cases). They have the fewest job protections so they tend to be the easiest to fire.

Continue Reading at Reason.com…