sgtreport--2020-10-01--Doug Casey Debunks Four Myths About Trump, Taxes, and the Economy

International Man : For many years , President Trump has made no apologies for trying to pay the least amount of taxes possible .
He ’ s clearly stated this in many interviews .
His desire to minimize his taxes has brought scorn from many in the mainstream media , and politicians from both sides of the aisle .
These people are of the opinion that paying taxes is an honorable and necessary responsibility .
It brings to mind the wrongheaded saying “ taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society ” , which came from US Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people believe this .
But if that ’ s true , how come low tax locales like Singapore , the Cayman Islands , Monaco aren ’ t backward hell holes , but rather sophisticated and civilized ?
Doug Casey : Almost any lie can be accepted as truth if it ’ s said often enough and with enough certainty .
That absolutely applies to what Holmes said .
It ’ s shameful how people don ’ t think about its meaning , but slavishly repeat it .
Taxes aren ’ t the price @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re a sign of the fact that society is becoming uncivilized .
A civilized society is based on voluntarism .
Taxes are all about coercion .
People don ’ t seem to recognize or remember that before 1913 there was no income tax in the US .
There was no reporting of any kind to the US government .
It was a much more civilized and far freer country then .
As far as Trump minimizing his taxes , congratulations to him .
The object should be to cut the size of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cut it in half again , and again .
And along with it , cut the tax burden that it imposes on the average American .
Trump should be proud of himself for cutting his taxes .
It ’ s your patriotic duty as an American citizen to deny revenue to the State and the kind of people that are drawn to it and populate it .
The fact that some people resent others for not paying taxes is just evidence that they ’ ve been consumed by the vice of envy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the vices .
Jealousy says “ if you have something that I want , I ’ ll try to take it from you , just because I want it.
” Envy says “ if you have something that I want , and I can ’ t take it from you , I ’ ll destroy it and hurt you.
” It ’ s speaks poorly of the ethics of the average American , that they ’ ll self-righteously shame their neighbors for not paying “ enough ” taxes to the State .
International @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the media that some people aren ’ t paying their “ fair share ” in taxes .
Who gets to define what “ fair ” is , and based on what justifications ?
Doug Casey : Whenever you hear the word fair , start running the other way .
Everybody has a different idea of what ’ s “ fair ” — it ’ s an arbitrary concept .
People manipulate its definition to their advantage .
The only way to determine what might be fair is voluntary mutual agreement .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s no voluntarism involved .
They are , in fact , a levy enforced at the point of a gun .
The most creative and productive people tend to have the highest incomes—unless they ’ re crony capitalists , which means they ’ re basically using the government to steal from everybody else .
Productive people shouldn ’ t be penalized for supplying more goods and services to their neighbors—to the market .
The money they give to the government in taxes would have otherwise been used to create more wealth for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken from them by taxes it ’ s mostly squandered on welfare and warfare .
The bottom half of the US really doesn ’ t pay any income tax .
They only pay Social Security taxes , roughly a flat 15 % .
It ’ s theoretically a pension program , although in fact it ’ s a Ponzi scheme .
Social Security is bankrupt .
If anyone gets it in the years to come it will be at the expense of future taxpayers—not because any capital has been set aside .
Social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a swindle .
It makes it harder for people to save on their own .
And makes them feel they don ’ t have to .
But it ’ s not a real pension plan ; it ’ s a highly politicized welfare program .
People have been propagandized into believing not just what isn ’ t true , but actually believing the opposite of the truth .
The situation is actually pretty hopeless from a philosophical point of view and it ’ s getting worse .
The average American believes Social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moral and necessary .
International Man : Doesn ’ t this system—which diverts wealth from productive use into government , which is naturally unproductive—make everyone worse off ?
You would think the lower and middle classes would be clamoring for more wealth creation that would also benefit them .
Instead , many are asking for more wealth to be destroyed .
It seems this sort of thinking helps solidify a backwards system .
Doug Casey : Absolutely .
The US government and its welfare programs are actually cementing the lower classes to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you encourage .
When you give people free money for doing nothing , that ’ s what they ’ ll do .
Take personal responsibility away from a man , and he ’ ll tend to act irresponsibly .
The next step seems to be a guaranteed annual income for everybody where—presumably—where everybody can just sit around Starbucks all day sipping latte and playing with their iPhones , and be paid for it .

by Doug Casey, International Man:
International Man: For many years, President Trump has made no apologies for trying to pay the least amount of taxes possible. He’s clearly stated this in many interviews.
His desire to minimize his taxes has brought scorn from many in the mainstream media, and politicians from both sides of the aisle. These people are of the opinion that paying taxes is an honorable and necessary responsibility. It brings to mind the wrongheaded saying “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society”, which came from US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Many people believe this.
But if that’s true, how come low tax locales like Singapore, the Cayman Islands, Monaco aren’t backward hell holes, but rather sophisticated and civilized?
Doug Casey: Almost any lie can be accepted as truth if it’s said often enough and with enough certainty. That absolutely applies to what Holmes said. It’s shameful how people don’t think about its meaning, but slavishly repeat it.
Taxes aren’t the price we pay for civilized society. They’re a sign of the fact that society is becoming uncivilized. A civilized society is based on voluntarism. Taxes are all about coercion.
People don’t seem to recognize or remember that before 1913 there was no income tax in the US. There was no reporting of any kind to the US government. It was a much more civilized and far freer country then.
As far as Trump minimizing his taxes, congratulations to him. The object should be to cut the size of the US government in half, and cut it in half again, and again. And along with it, cut the tax burden that it imposes on the average American.
Trump should be proud of himself for cutting his taxes. It’s your patriotic duty as an American citizen to deny revenue to the State and the kind of people that are drawn to it and populate it.
The fact that some people resent others for not paying taxes is just evidence that they’ve been consumed by the vice of envy, which is one of the worst of the vices. Jealousy says “if you have something that I want, I’ll try to take it from you, just because I want it.” Envy says “if you have something that I want, and I can’t take it from you, I’ll destroy it and hurt you.”
It’s speaks poorly of the ethics of the average American, that they’ll self-righteously shame their neighbors for not paying “enough” taxes to the State.
International Man: We often hear from politicians and the media that some people aren’t paying their “fair share” in taxes. Who gets to define what “fair” is, and based on what justifications?
Doug Casey: Whenever you hear the word fair, start running the other way. Everybody has a different idea of what’s “fair”— it’s an arbitrary concept. People manipulate its definition to their advantage. The only way to determine what might be fair is voluntary mutual agreement. That’s not possible with taxes—there’s no voluntarism involved. They are, in fact, a levy enforced at the point of a gun.
The most creative and productive people tend to have the highest incomes—unless they’re crony capitalists, which means they’re basically using the government to steal from everybody else.
Productive people shouldn’t be penalized for supplying more goods and services to their neighbors—to the market. The money they give to the government in taxes would have otherwise been used to create more wealth for the whole world. When it’s taken from them by taxes it’s mostly squandered on welfare and warfare.
The bottom half of the US really doesn’t pay any income tax. They only pay Social Security taxes, roughly a flat 15%. It’s theoretically a pension program, although in fact it’s a Ponzi scheme. Social Security is bankrupt. If anyone gets it in the years to come it will be at the expense of future taxpayers—not because any capital has been set aside.
Social Security is, and always has been, a swindle. It makes it harder for people to save on their own. And makes them feel they don’t have to. But it’s not a real pension plan; it’s a highly politicized welfare program. People have been propagandized into believing not just what isn’t true, but actually believing the opposite of the truth. The situation is actually pretty hopeless from a philosophical point of view and it’s getting worse. The average American believes Social Security and the income tax are both moral and necessary.
International Man: Doesn’t this system—which diverts wealth from productive use into government, which is naturally unproductive—make everyone worse off? You would think the lower and middle classes would be clamoring for more wealth creation that would also benefit them. Instead, many are asking for more wealth to be destroyed.
It seems this sort of thinking helps solidify a backwards system.
Doug Casey: Absolutely. The US government and its welfare programs are actually cementing the lower classes to the bottom of society.
You get what you encourage. When you give people free money for doing nothing, that’s what they’ll do. Take personal responsibility away from a man, and he’ll tend to act irresponsibly. The next step seems to be a guaranteed annual income for everybody where—presumably—where everybody can just sit around Starbucks all day sipping latte and playing with their iPhones, and be paid for it.
Read More @ InternationalMan.com


sgtreport--2020-10-15--Doug Casey: “This is Going to be One for the Record Books”

Just because society experiences turmoil doesn ’ t mean your personal life has to .
And a depression doesn ’ t have to be depressing .
Most of the real wealth in the world will still exist—it will just change ownership .
We ’ re now at the tail end of a very long , but in many ways a very weak and artificial , economic expansion .
At the same time we ’ ve had one of the strongest securities bull markets in history .
Both are the result of trillions of new dollars created over the last decade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ willing to consider the possibility of tough times—let alone The Greater Depression .
But , perverse though it may seem , this is the very best time to think about it .
The U.S. economy is a house of cards , built on quicksand , with a tsunami on the way .
I urge everyone to read up on the topic .
For now , I ’ ll only briefly touch on the nature of depressions .
There are at least three good definitions of the term : • A period of time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ living drops significantly .
• A period of time when distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated .
• A period of time when the business cycle climaxes .
Using the first definition , any natural disaster can cause a depression .
So can living above your means for long enough .
But the worst kind of depression has not just economic effects , but economic causes .
That ’ s where definitions 2 and 3 come in .
What can cause distortions in the way the market operates , causing people to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unreasonable or uneconomic ?
Only government action , i.e.
, coercion .
This takes the form of regulation , taxes , and currency inflation .
Always under noble pretexts , government is constantly directly and indirectly inducing people to buy and sell things they otherwise wouldn ’ t , to do things they ’ d prefer not to , and to invest in things that make no sense .
These misallocations of capital subtly reduce a society ’ s general standard of living , but the serious trouble happens when such misallocations build @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forces them into liquidation .
The result is bankrupted companies , defaulted debt , and unemployed workers .
The business cycle is caused mainly by currency inflation , which is accomplished today by the monetization of government debt through the banking system ; essentially , when the government runs a deficit , the Federal Reserve buys its debt , and credits the government ’ s account at a commercial bank with dollars .
Using the printing press to create new money is largely passé in today ’ s electronic world .
Either way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( especially those who get the money early on , as it filters through the economy ) , making them overestimate demand for their products .
That causes them to hire more workers and make capital investments—often with borrowed money .
This is called “ stimulating the economy.
” Inflating the currency can actually drive down interest rates for a while , because the price of money ( interest ) is lowered by the increased supply of money .
This causes people to save less and borrow more , just as Americans have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that newly created money goes into the stock market , driving it higher .
It all looks pretty good , until retail prices start rising as a delayed consequence of the increased money supply , and interest rates skyrocket to reflect the depreciation of the currency .
Rather than let the market adjust itself , government typically starts the process all over again with a new and larger “ stimulus package.
” The more often this happens , the more ingrained become the distortions in the way people consume and invest , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is why I predict the Greater Depression will be … well … greater .
This is going to be one for the record books .
Much different , much longer lasting , and much worse than the unpleasantness of 1929-1946 .

by Doug Casey, International Man:
Just because society experiences turmoil doesn’t mean your personal life has to. And a depression doesn’t have to be depressing. Most of the real wealth in the world will still exist—it will just change ownership.
What is a depression?
We’re now at the tail end of a very long, but in many ways a very weak and artificial, economic expansion. At the same time we’ve had one of the strongest securities bull markets in history. Both are the result of trillions of new dollars created over the last decade. Right now very few people are willing to consider the possibility of tough times—let alone The Greater Depression.
But, perverse though it may seem, this is the very best time to think about it. The U.S. economy is a house of cards, built on quicksand, with a tsunami on the way. I urge everyone to read up on the topic. For now, I’ll only briefly touch on the nature of depressions. There are at least three good definitions of the term:
A period of time when most people’s standard of living drops significantly. A period of time when distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated. A period of time when the business cycle climaxes.
Using the first definition, any natural disaster can cause a depression. So can living above your means for long enough. But the worst kind of depression has not just economic effects, but economic causes. That’s where definitions 2 and 3 come in.
What can cause distortions in the way the market operates, causing people to do things they’d otherwise consider unreasonable or uneconomic? Only government action, i.e., coercion. This takes the form of regulation, taxes, and currency inflation.
Always under noble pretexts, government is constantly directly and indirectly inducing people to buy and sell things they otherwise wouldn’t, to do things they’d prefer not to, and to invest in things that make no sense.
These misallocations of capital subtly reduce a society’s general standard of living, but the serious trouble happens when such misallocations build up to an unsustainable degree and reality forces them into liquidation. The result is bankrupted companies, defaulted debt, and unemployed workers.
The business cycle is caused mainly by currency inflation, which is accomplished today by the monetization of government debt through the banking system; essentially, when the government runs a deficit, the Federal Reserve buys its debt, and credits the government’s account at a commercial bank with dollars. Using the printing press to create new money is largely passé in today’s electronic world.
Either way, inflation sends false signals to businessmen (especially those who get the money early on, as it filters through the economy), making them overestimate demand for their products. That causes them to hire more workers and make capital investments—often with borrowed money. This is called “stimulating the economy.”
Inflating the currency can actually drive down interest rates for a while, because the price of money (interest) is lowered by the increased supply of money. This causes people to save less and borrow more, just as Americans have been doing for years. A lot of that newly created money goes into the stock market, driving it higher.
It all looks pretty good, until retail prices start rising as a delayed consequence of the increased money supply, and interest rates skyrocket to reflect the depreciation of the currency.
That’s when businesses start failing. Stocks fall. Bond prices collapse. Large numbers of workers lose employment.
Rather than let the market adjust itself, government typically starts the process all over again with a new and larger “stimulus package.” The more often this happens, the more ingrained become the distortions in the way people consume and invest, and the nastier the eventual depression.
This is why I predict the Greater Depression will be … well … greater. This is going to be one for the record books. Much different, much longer lasting, and much worse than the unpleasantness of 1929-1946.
Editor’s Note: Right now, the US is the most polarized it has been since the Civil War. If you’re wondering what comes next, then you’re not alone.
Read More @ InternationalMan.com


sgtreport--2020-10-16--The LEAST Important Election Of Our Lifetimes

A consensus seems to have formed on both left and right that the upcoming presidential election involves some literally existential questions , making it THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIMES .
In fact , the opposite is true .
This election is the least important of the past 30 years and very possibly the least important ever .
Because , to put it bluntly , we ’ re kind of screwed either way .
Let ’ s consider some of those supposedly existential threats : A Politicized Supreme Court As this is written , Senate hearings on the nomination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justice are in progress .
Democrat questioners seem to be mainly concerned that a conservative Court would eliminate Obamacare and Roe v Wade , consigning women and the poor to circa 1915 levels of degradation and neglect .
Leaving aside the question of whether Obamacare and Roe were Constitutional in the first place , let ’ s consider what would happen if they ’ re overturned .
Would the elimination of Roe v Wade mean that abortion becomes illegal from coast to coast ?
Not at all .
States containing 70 or so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legalize abortion within their borders while making provisions to ferry in pregnant women from neighboring non-choice states .
The result : The issue moves back into the legislative realm where actual voters get to have a say and the procedure remains available for the vast majority of American women .
Not ideal for folks on either side of the issue , but par for the course in a Democracy where citizens seldom get all that they want .
And certainly not an existential threat .
With Obamacare , the issue is not the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mandate ” provision through which the government orders every American to buy health insurance and penalizes us if we don ’ t .
Striking it down as beyond the scope of Federal power does not mean that Obamacare – or any other healthcare entitlement – goes away .
It would continue as before but without the government ordering people to participate .
A little bit harder to administer perhaps , but probably not the end of the program and , again , certainly not the end of the world .
In any event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replace Obamacare with a single-payer system like Medicare For All , and the demise of Obamacare might speed up that process , thus improving the world from a liberal perspective .
Meanwhile , conservatives fear that the Democrats , should they retake control of the White House and Senate , will “ pack the Supreme Court ” by decreeing that it should have , say , 15 judges instead of the current 9 and then adding 6 liberals , to turn the court into a permanently liberal branch of Congress .
So how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court ?
Obviously not too big , since Justices have been “ legislating from the bench ” for decades ( Roe dates from 1973 ) and activists on both right and left continue to complain that the other side is winning .
Sounds like business as usual whoever is the next president .
World War III This is just filler because the military/industrial complex is obviously in charge either way .
Under Trump , we ’ re liable to be fighting China or Iran by this time next year while under Biden , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ details differ but our kids are cannon fodder in both scenarios .
Rampant corruption Let ’ s just agree that Trump , Biden , Harris , and Pence are each in their own way corrupt and/or unethical .
But since two of them will end up running the country come November , from a corruption standpoint does it really matter which two ?
The environment This seems like a legitimate potential difference — until you notice a couple of things .
First , Trump has talked about rolling back regulations to “ save @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s actually accomplished very little .
Coal is still dead and fracking is moribund .
Second , solar power is eating the electricity business .
Here ’ s a chart showing how solar installations are soaring even as Trump tries to save coal .
As the cost of solar keeps falling , it will eventually dominate the energy economy , and there ’ s nothing Trump can do to stop it .
And don ’ t forget cultured meat and vertical farms , which will , over the next couple of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solar is doing to coal and natural gas .
Meanwhile , the Dems ’ Green New Deal ( which Biden in any event has disavowed ) would , even in its most ambitious form , accomplish very little for the environment beyond what solar and other clean technologies will inevitably do via the free market .
The conclusion : Trump isn ’ t nearly the environmental threat he ’ s made out to be , and Biden isn ’ t that much of a savior .
Technology and new business models are the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t care who ’ s in charge .
Irresponsible borrowing Each side accuses the other various kinds of financial impropriety .
But the truth is that both are operating on an unspoken agreement to spend , borrow , and print whatever it takes to stave off a collapse brought about by past mismanagement .

by John Rubino, Dollar Collapse:
A consensus seems to have formed on both left and right that the upcoming presidential election involves some literally existential questions, making it THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIMES.
In fact, the opposite is true. This election is the least important of the past 30 years and very possibly the least important ever. Because, to put it bluntly, we’re kind of screwed either way.
Let’s consider some of those supposedly existential threats:
A Politicized Supreme Court
As this is written, Senate hearings on the nomination of Trump’s third Supreme Court Justice are in progress. Democrat questioners seem to be mainly concerned that a conservative Court would eliminate Obamacare and Roe v Wade, consigning women and the poor to circa 1915 levels of degradation and neglect.
Leaving aside the question of whether Obamacare and Roe were Constitutional in the first place, let’s consider what would happen if they’re overturned.
Would the elimination of Roe v Wade mean that abortion becomes illegal from coast to coast? Not at all. States containing 70 or so percent of the US population would immediately legalize abortion within their borders while making provisions to ferry in pregnant women from neighboring non-choice states. The result: The issue moves back into the legislative realm where actual voters get to have a say and the procedure remains available for the vast majority of American women. Not ideal for folks on either side of the issue, but par for the course in a Democracy where citizens seldom get all that they want. And certainly not an existential threat.
With Obamacare, the issue is not the whole program, but just its “mandate” provision through which the government orders every American to buy health insurance and penalizes us if we don’t. Striking it down as beyond the scope of Federal power does not mean that Obamacare – or any other healthcare entitlement – goes away. It would continue as before but without the government ordering people to participate. A little bit harder to administer perhaps, but probably not the end of the program and, again, certainly not the end of the world.
In any event, 49% of Democrats want to replace Obamacare with a single-payer system like Medicare For All, and the demise of Obamacare might speed up that process, thus improving the world from a liberal perspective.
Meanwhile, conservatives fear that the Democrats, should they retake control of the White House and Senate, will “pack the Supreme Court” by decreeing that it should have, say, 15 judges instead of the current 9 and then adding 6 liberals, to turn the court into a permanently liberal branch of Congress.
So how big a threat is a politicized Supreme Court? Obviously not too big, since Justices have been “legislating from the bench” for decades (Roe dates from 1973) and activists on both right and left continue to complain that the other side is winning. Sounds like business as usual whoever is the next president.
World War III
This is just filler because the military/industrial complex is obviously in charge either way. Under Trump, we’re liable to be fighting China or Iran by this time next year while under Biden, WWIII will probably feature Russia. The details differ but our kids are cannon fodder in both scenarios.
Rampant corruption
Let’s just agree that Trump, Biden, Harris, and Pence are each in their own way corrupt and/or unethical. But since two of them will end up running the country come November, from a corruption standpoint does it really matter which two?
The environment
This seems like a legitimate potential difference — until you notice a couple of things. First, Trump has talked about rolling back regulations to “save” coal and boost fracking, but he’s actually accomplished very little. Coal is still dead and fracking is moribund.
Second, solar power is eating the electricity business. Here’s a chart showing how solar installations are soaring even as Trump tries to save coal. As the cost of solar keeps falling, it will eventually dominate the energy economy, and there’s nothing Trump can do to stop it.
And don’t forget cultured meat and vertical farms, which will, over the next couple of decades, do to factory agriculture what solar is doing to coal and natural gas.
Meanwhile, the Dems’ Green New Deal (which Biden in any event has disavowed) would, even in its most ambitious form, accomplish very little for the environment beyond what solar and other clean technologies will inevitably do via the free market.
The conclusion: Trump isn’t nearly the environmental threat he’s made out to be, and Biden isn’t that much of a savior. Technology and new business models are the big story here, and they don’t care who’s in charge.
Irresponsible borrowing
Each side accuses the other various kinds of financial impropriety. But the truth is that both are operating on an unspoken agreement to spend, borrow, and print whatever it takes to stave off a collapse brought about by past mismanagement.
Read More @ DollarCollapse.com


My Preparedness Evolution

I was six , and there was very little food in the house that night .
I rummaged around in a cupboard and pulled out a nearly empty peanut butter jar , and using a table knife and my finger , I scraped out every bit of it and went to bed early .
Being young , I don ’ t remember if this time lasted days or weeks , but the gnawing feeling of hunger made a profound impact , and from the roots of that childhood experience came the mindset for preparedness and survival .
Everyone has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is hoped that by sharing the stages of the preparedness evolution that I went through it will resonate with those that are beginning their journey as well as those already on their way .
All of us , no matter where we fall on the continuum , must constantly be evaluating and reevaluating our prepper status .
We are all works in progress .
My personal convictions rely on two principles : 1 ) reducing dependency and 2 ) minimizing waste , which anyone can learn to live by , in whatever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these two principles represent freedom and being the best steward possible for the gifts and blessings we were given by our Creator .
Because of the food insecurity issue , I had long watched grocery store sales like a hawk and started small stockpiles of food and supplies early on when my children were young .
My first actual effort at prepping beyond food was shortly before Y2K .
I bought a kerosene heater and fuel , and in the upstairs bathroom closet I tucked away other items , including bottled water .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have accumulated today , and I didn ’ t end up needing them , but they gave me a sense of some security and I was glad I had them .
As a beginning prepper , it can seem intimidating and overwhelming trying to figure out how to begin , but like many things in life , the best advice is to start where you are .
What are your fears ?
Where do they come from ?
Use this information to guide your self-improvement in areas that are uncomfortable for you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ albeit slowly .
Rome wasn ’ t built in a day , my mom liked to declare , and it does apply to a lot of life experiences .
Start where you are .
What can you start to accumulate , and what can you start to give up ?
Give priority to health and well-being , and your actions and activities will flow from there , in whatever stage you are at this moment in time .
Live more sustainably , and responsibly , in the situation you find yourself now .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , work on these very ideas began in earnest for me .
I was newly single and earning $ 7.75 per hour at a job I loved but did not allow me to save much .
The poorly insulated upstairs apartment I lived in had the typical story – hot in the summer and cold in the winter .
I kept the furnace thermostat set on 50 degrees because I wouldn ’ t have been able to afford the heating bill otherwise .
Fearful of not being able to provide and survive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supplement my income .
One of the first self-preservation and dependency-reducing purchases I made was a garage sale find – a five-dollar water filtration container for the refrigerator .
I was on my way – in a small way – but wasn ’ t reliant on dosing myself daily with chlorinated city water .
Several years later , the next step was to buy a big canister-type water filtration system for treating larger quantities of non-potable water in the event of an infrastructure breakdown .
It was around that time that I started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sorting out copper pennies and pre-1965 silver dimes and quarters , since I couldn ’ t afford to buy any tangible precious metals .
Minimizing waste also started small – with regular recycling and trying to buy and store things in bulk .
After the apartment , I lived in a house in town that backed up to a bluff , and it was at the edge of my yard at the base of that bluff that I started my first compost pile .
The yard at a later rental house I lived @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so I did the next best thing – I moved it indoors .
For several years , through two rental houses and my current home , I have kept a colony of red wiggler worms in a tub in the garage or basement , happily munching on my vegetable scraps and peelings .
The castings make great fertilizer , and I trade them from time to time for fresh vegetables from someone I know who has a hoop house garden .
After beginning composting , I had also begun to observe the tremendous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrapping our food and other household products .
I grew to detest most plastic and all the wasteful packaging that accompanies our lives of convenience and our “ microwave society.
” We expect the things we need to be at our fingertips , and we expect to get them fast .
There is a great disconnection for many of us from the raw and true sources of the items we use , with many of the items processed and packaged , and stacked in abundance at the ubiquitous local big-box store .
Back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ literally an item I no longer own , by the way ) and focus on making your life into a slow oven .
What raw products and materials can you start to accumulate that will help you over the long haul , not the short run ?
When I started looking to replace some of the household cleaning products I had been using on a regular basis , a coworker gave me the recipe for a multipurpose cleaner .
The ingredients are simple – 1 part water , 1 part vinegar and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only worked as a cleaner , but also as an after-shower spray for the shower and tub , to help reduce hard water buildup and soap residue .
It was another small victory in the journey – I no longer was dependent on prepackaged products of questionable safety , and was reducing waste since I reused the same spray bottle each time I made a new batch .
I still use the same spray today .
Since I was then using a lot of vinegar , making my own seemed like the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trees and a hydraulic cider press helped get me the juice .
I had managed to secure several gallon-size glass pickle jars from a local restaurant .
With the addition of cheesecloth , rubber bands , and patience for the weeks-long fermentation process , I was soon on my way with several gallons of homemade apple cider vinegar .
Homemade air freshener , toothpaste , deodorant , lip balm and hairspray gradually came next , from recipes I found online and experimented with .
There is some discomfort involved , to be sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ease of ready-made items , but this dissipated when freedom and self-reliance took over .
Again , start where you are .
As a tenant , I chafed under landlords ’ restrictions and nosiness .
I yearned for a place of my own , but I wasn ’ t there yet .
Instead , I planted small gardens in corners of the yards and grew tomatoes and peppers in food grade buckets .
I was able to get a heat-treated wooden pallet ( marked HT on its logo ) from a friend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stapled landscape fabric to the back and sides , filled it full of potting soil , and leaned it up against the house for a vertical herb garden .
Learning of the health benefits of young greens , I sprouted broccoli in a small dishpan by my kitchen window .
Back-up cooking options included an old charcoal grill and an in-ground fire pit .
Self-defense was a weak area for me .
Growing up , I was nervous around guns and didn ’ t like them .
I was never anti-gun , just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a friendship with a coworker who owned and enjoyed them , and in our discussions he gave me great advice about self-defense options .
He pointed out that the only good weapon is one that you have on you or at very least , within reach .
I started accumulating a variety of items , including bear spray that I now always carry with me .
He took me to a shooting range where I got to fire a Ruger revolver , a Glock pistol and a semiautomatic rifle… .
and loved the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ save money , I later purchased my own firearm .
Quite an evolution for someone that didn ’ t even like being in the same room with a gun , and several steps in the direction of increasing independence in both self-defense and food security .
I continued my search for a house to buy and found one in a dream spot on top of a bluff , just minutes from the beloved river that I have lived near for a good part of my adult life .
It checked off a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dry basement , and areas to grow food .
It was exciting when my offer was accepted , and as I packed I looked forward to finally having the freedom of my own property .
Just days before closing , however , it turned out that there was a lack of a current survey and driveway easement with the adjacent property owner , and I was advised not to proceed .
Because I had given notice at the rental house , it had already been leased to someone else and I still needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have me stay with them , the experience was unnerving and demoralizing , and shook me to my core .
I went from living in a house with all my belongings around me to having most of my possessions kept in a storage unit and another friend ’ s garage , without a place to truly call home .
Fortunately , my children were grown by that time , living on their own and at college , but it was so hard to admit to them what had happened .
It was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mentally and emotionally , and it forced me to look again , in a deeper and unique way , at how to gain my independence back .
Perhaps even more importantly , it also was a lesson in gratitude for the many blessings I still had .
A few months later , I managed to secure another rental house .
Still feeling somewhat defeated , I was nonetheless appreciative of a roof over my head and not having to depend or impose on my friends anymore .
I resumed stockpiling necessities and container @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Three years after that , I found my home , and this time the sale went through without a hitch .
I now have my own well , but the old water filter sets on a shelf in the basement – a reminder of the journey I took and ready for use again if need be .
I rely on electricity to power the well pump and have a backup generator , but in the event of a generator failure , the trusty brand-name larger filtering system along with wood- and propane-powered options @ @ @ @ @ @ @

by Melody Channel, Survival Blog:
I was six, and there was very little food in the house that night. I rummaged around in a cupboard and pulled out a nearly empty peanut butter jar, and using a table knife and my finger, I scraped out every bit of it and went to bed early. Being young, I don’t remember if this time lasted days or weeks, but the gnawing feeling of hunger made a profound impact, and from the roots of that childhood experience came the mindset for preparedness and survival.
Everyone has a story, and this is mine. It is hoped that by sharing the stages of the preparedness evolution that I went through it will resonate with those that are beginning their journey as well as those already on their way. All of us, no matter where we fall on the continuum, must constantly be evaluating and reevaluating our prepper status. We are all works in progress. My personal convictions rely on two principles: 1) reducing dependency and 2) minimizing waste, which anyone can learn to live by, in whatever stage they are. For me, these two principles represent freedom and being the best steward possible for the gifts and blessings we were given by our Creator.
Because of the food insecurity issue, I had long watched grocery store sales like a hawk and started small stockpiles of food and supplies early on when my children were young. My first actual effort at prepping beyond food was shortly before Y2K. I bought a kerosene heater and fuel, and in the upstairs bathroom closet I tucked away other items, including bottled water. Those provisions were meager compared to what I have accumulated today, and I didn’t end up needing them, but they gave me a sense of some security and I was glad I had them. As a beginning prepper, it can seem intimidating and overwhelming trying to figure out how to begin, but like many things in life, the best advice is to start where you are.
What are your fears? Where do they come from? Use this information to guide your self-improvement in areas that are uncomfortable for you, and build up your tolerance, albeit slowly. Rome wasn’t built in a day, my mom liked to declare, and it does apply to a lot of life experiences. Start where you are. What can you start to accumulate, and what can you start to give up? Give priority to health and well-being, and your actions and activities will flow from there, in whatever stage you are at this moment in time. Live more sustainably, and responsibly, in the situation you find yourself now.
A few years after the Y2K event, work on these very ideas began in earnest for me. I was newly single and earning $7.75 per hour at a job I loved but did not allow me to save much. The poorly insulated upstairs apartment I lived in had the typical story – hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I kept the furnace thermostat set on 50 degrees because I wouldn’t have been able to afford the heating bill otherwise.
MY EARLY STEPS
Fearful of not being able to provide and survive, I found two part-time jobs to help supplement my income. One of the first self-preservation and dependency-reducing purchases I made was a garage sale find – a five-dollar water filtration container for the refrigerator. I was on my way – in a small way – but wasn’t reliant on dosing myself daily with chlorinated city water. Several years later, the next step was to buy a big canister-type water filtration system for treating larger quantities of non-potable water in the event of an infrastructure breakdown. It was around that time that I started going through my change each week, sorting out copper pennies and pre-1965 silver dimes and quarters, since I couldn’t afford to buy any tangible precious metals.
Minimizing waste also started small – with regular recycling and trying to buy and store things in bulk. After the apartment, I lived in a house in town that backed up to a bluff, and it was at the edge of my yard at the base of that bluff that I started my first compost pile. The yard at a later rental house I lived in had no place for composting, so I did the next best thing – I moved it indoors. For several years, through two rental houses and my current home, I have kept a colony of red wiggler worms in a tub in the garage or basement, happily munching on my vegetable scraps and peelings. The castings make great fertilizer, and I trade them from time to time for fresh vegetables from someone I know who has a hoop house garden.
After beginning composting, I had also begun to observe the tremendous amount of plastic involved in packaging and wrapping our food and other household products. I grew to detest most plastic and all the wasteful packaging that accompanies our lives of convenience and our “microwave society.” We expect the things we need to be at our fingertips, and we expect to get them fast. There is a great disconnection for many of us from the raw and true sources of the items we use, with many of the items processed and packaged, and stacked in abundance at the ubiquitous local big-box store. Back away from the microwave (which is literally an item I no longer own, by the way) and focus on making your life into a slow oven. What raw products and materials can you start to accumulate that will help you over the long haul, not the short run?
MAKING MY OWN
When I started looking to replace some of the household cleaning products I had been using on a regular basis, a coworker gave me the recipe for a multipurpose cleaner. The ingredients are simple – 1 part water, 1 part vinegar and a tablespoon of liquid detergent. It not only worked as a cleaner, but also as an after-shower spray for the shower and tub, to help reduce hard water buildup and soap residue. It was another small victory in the journey – I no longer was dependent on prepackaged products of questionable safety, and was reducing waste since I reused the same spray bottle each time I made a new batch. I still use the same spray today.
Since I was then using a lot of vinegar, making my own seemed like the next logical step. Family members with apple trees and a hydraulic cider press helped get me the juice. I had managed to secure several gallon-size glass pickle jars from a local restaurant. With the addition of cheesecloth, rubber bands, and patience for the weeks-long fermentation process, I was soon on my way with several gallons of homemade apple cider vinegar. Homemade air freshener, toothpaste, deodorant, lip balm and hairspray gradually came next, from recipes I found online and experimented with. There is some discomfort involved, to be sure, when stepping away from the convenience and ease of ready-made items, but this dissipated when freedom and self-reliance took over. Again, start where you are.
As a tenant, I chafed under landlords’ restrictions and nosiness. I yearned for a place of my own, but I wasn’t there yet. Instead, I planted small gardens in corners of the yards and grew tomatoes and peppers in food grade buckets. I was able to get a heat-treated wooden pallet (marked HT on its logo) from a friend’s place of work. I stapled landscape fabric to the back and sides, filled it full of potting soil, and leaned it up against the house for a vertical herb garden. Learning of the health benefits of young greens, I sprouted broccoli in a small dishpan by my kitchen window. Back-up cooking options included an old charcoal grill and an in-ground fire pit.
READYING FOR SELF-DEFENSE
Self-defense was a weak area for me. Growing up, I was nervous around guns and didn’t like them. I was never anti-gun, just not comfortable with them. I developed a friendship with a coworker who owned and enjoyed them, and in our discussions he gave me great advice about self-defense options. He pointed out that the only good weapon is one that you have on you or at very least, within reach. I started accumulating a variety of items, including bear spray that I now always carry with me. He took me to a shooting range where I got to fire a Ruger revolver, a Glock pistol and a semiautomatic rifle…. and loved the whole experience. As I continued to save money, I later purchased my own firearm. Quite an evolution for someone that didn’t even like being in the same room with a gun, and several steps in the direction of increasing independence in both self-defense and food security.
I continued my search for a house to buy and found one in a dream spot on top of a bluff, just minutes from the beloved river that I have lived near for a good part of my adult life. It checked off a lot of boxes – a well, a dry basement, and areas to grow food. It was exciting when my offer was accepted, and as I packed I looked forward to finally having the freedom of my own property. Just days before closing, however, it turned out that there was a lack of a current survey and driveway easement with the adjacent property owner, and I was advised not to proceed. Because I had given notice at the rental house, it had already been leased to someone else and I still needed to move.
Though friends offered to have me stay with them, the experience was unnerving and demoralizing, and shook me to my core. I went from living in a house with all my belongings around me to having most of my possessions kept in a storage unit and another friend’s garage, without a place to truly call home. Fortunately, my children were grown by that time, living on their own and at college, but it was so hard to admit to them what had happened.
It was a test of strength and survival, both mentally and emotionally, and it forced me to look again, in a deeper and unique way, at how to gain my independence back. Perhaps even more importantly, it also was a lesson in gratitude for the many blessings I still had.
A few months later, I managed to secure another rental house. Still feeling somewhat defeated, I was nonetheless appreciative of a roof over my head and not having to depend or impose on my friends anymore. I resumed stockpiling necessities and container gardening.
A PLACE OF MY OWN
Three years after that, I found my home, and this time the sale went through without a hitch. I now have my own well, but the old water filter sets on a shelf in the basement – a reminder of the journey I took and ready for use again if need be. I rely on electricity to power the well pump and have a backup generator, but in the event of a generator failure, the trusty brand-name larger filtering system along with wood- and propane-powered options to boil the water are available.
Read More @ SurvivalBlog.com


sgtreport--2020-10-31--The Golden Solution to America’s Debt Crisis

Right now , the United States is officially $ 27 trillion in debt .
Nearly $ 7 trillion was added since President Trump took office .
This year ’ s budget deficit is projected at $ 3.3 trillion , over three times last year ’ s estimate .
The coronavirus is responsible , and the number should be an outlier .
But annual deficits will be at the trillion dollar level for the foreseeable future .
Basically , the United States is going broke .
I don ’ t say that to be hyperbolic .
I ’ m not looking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ myself .
It ’ s just an honest assessment , based on the numbers .
Now , a $ 27 trillion debt would be fine if we had a $ 50 trillion economy .
But we don ’ t have a $ 50 trillion economy .
We have about a $ 21 trillion economy ( at least we did ) , which means our debt is bigger than our economy .
When is the debt-to-GDP ratio too high ?
When does a country reach the point that it either turns things around or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart carried out a long historical survey going back 800 years , looking at individual countries , or empires in some cases , that have gone broke or defaulted on their debt .
They put the danger zone at a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90 % .
Once it reaches 90 % , they found , a turning point arrives… At that point , a dollar of debt yields less than a dollar of output .
Debt becomes an actual drag on growth .
What is the current U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the pandemic caused a spike .
It was previously about 105 % ) .
We are deep into the red zone , that is .
And we ’ re not pulling out .
The U.S. has a dangerous debt to GDP ratio , trillion-plus dollar deficits , more spending on the way .
We ’ re heading for a sovereign debt crisis .
That ’ s not an opinion ; it ’ s based on the numbers .
How do we get out of it ?
For elites , there is really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , and that ’ s inflation .
And they ’ re right on one point .
Tax cuts won ’ t do it , structural changes to the economy wouldn ’ t do it .
Both would help if done properly , but the problem is simply far too large .
Now , the Fed printed trillions over the past several years , and trillions more over the past several months .
But we ’ ve barely had any inflation at all .
Most of the new money was given by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around and parked it on deposit at the Fed to gain interest .
The money never made it out into the economy , where it would produce inflation .
The bottom line is that not even money printing has worked to get inflation moving .
Is there anything left in the bag of tricks ?
There is actually .
The Fed could actually cause inflation in about 15 minutes if it used it .
How ?
The Fed can call a board meeting , vote on a new policy , walk outside and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the price of gold is $ 5,000 per ounce .
They could make that new price stick by using the Treasury ’ s gold in Fort Knox and the major U.S. bank gold dealers to conduct “ open market operations ” in gold .
They will be a buyer if the price hits $ 4,950 per ounce or less and a seller if the price hits $ 5,050 per ounce or higher .
They will print money when they buy and reduce the money supply when they sell via the banks .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather than interest rates .
The point is to cause a generalized increase in the price level .
A rise in the price of gold from $ 1,900 per ounce to $ 5,000 per ounce is a massive devaluation of the dollar when measured in the quantity of gold that one dollar can buy .
There it is — massive inflation in 15 minutes : the time it takes to vote on the new policy .
Don ’ t think this is possible ?
It ’ s happened in the U.S. twice in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time was in 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt ordered an increase in the gold price from $ 20.67 per ounce to $ 35.00 per ounce , nearly a 75 % rise in the dollar price of gold .
He did this to break the deflation of the Great Depression , and it worked .
The economy grew strongly from 1934-36 .

by Jim Rickards, Daily Reckoning:
Right now, the United States is officially $27 trillion in debt. Nearly $7 trillion was added since President Trump took office.
This year’s budget deficit is projected at $3.3 trillion, over three times last year’s estimate. The coronavirus is responsible, and the number should be an outlier. But annual deficits will be at the trillion dollar level for the foreseeable future.
Basically, the United States is going broke.
I don’t say that to be hyperbolic. I’m not looking to scare people or attract attention to myself. It’s just an honest assessment, based on the numbers.
Now, a $27 trillion debt would be fine if we had a $50 trillion economy. But we don’t have a $50 trillion economy. We have about a $21 trillion economy (at least we did), which means our debt is bigger than our economy.
When is the debt-to-GDP ratio too high? When does a country reach the point that it either turns things around or ends up like Greece?
Economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart carried out a long historical survey going back 800 years, looking at individual countries, or empires in some cases, that have gone broke or defaulted on their debt.
They put the danger zone at a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90%. Once it reaches 90%, they found, a turning point arrives…
At that point, a dollar of debt yields less than a dollar of output. Debt becomes an actual drag on growth. What is the current U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio?
About 130% (the reaction to the pandemic caused a spike. It was previously about 105%).
We are deep into the red zone, that is. And we’re not pulling out. The U.S. has a dangerous debt to GDP ratio, trillion-plus dollar deficits, more spending on the way.
We’re heading for a sovereign debt crisis. That’s not an opinion; it’s based on the numbers. How do we get out of it?
For elites, there is really only one way out at this point is, and that’s inflation.
And they’re right on one point. Tax cuts won’t do it, structural changes to the economy wouldn’t do it. Both would help if done properly, but the problem is simply far too large.
There’s only one solution left, inflation.
Now, the Fed printed trillions over the past several years, and trillions more over the past several months. But we’ve barely had any inflation at all.
Most of the new money was given by the Fed to the banks, who turned around and parked it on deposit at the Fed to gain interest. The money never made it out into the economy, where it would produce inflation.
The bottom line is that not even money printing has worked to get inflation moving.
Is there anything left in the bag of tricks?
There is actually. The Fed could actually cause inflation in about 15 minutes if it used it. How?
The Fed can call a board meeting, vote on a new policy, walk outside and announce to the world that effective immediately, the price of gold is $5,000 per ounce.
They could make that new price stick by using the Treasury’s gold in Fort Knox and the major U.S. bank gold dealers to conduct “open market operations” in gold.
They will be a buyer if the price hits $4,950 per ounce or less and a seller if the price hits $5,050 per ounce or higher. They will print money when they buy and reduce the money supply when they sell via the banks.
The Fed would target the gold price rather than interest rates.
The point is to cause a generalized increase in the price level. A rise in the price of gold from $1,900 per ounce to $5,000 per ounce is a massive devaluation of the dollar when measured in the quantity of gold that one dollar can buy.
There it is — massive inflation in 15 minutes: the time it takes to vote on the new policy. Don’t think this is possible? It’s happened in the U.S. twice in the past 80 years.
The first time was in 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt ordered an increase in the gold price from $20.67 per ounce to $35.00 per ounce, nearly a 75% rise in the dollar price of gold.
He did this to break the deflation of the Great Depression, and it worked. The economy grew strongly from 1934-36.
Read More @ DailyReckoning.com


sgtreport--2020-11-01--EXCLUSIVE: Seamus Bruner Provides Comprehensive Roadmap to Biden Family Corruption and Documents How

EXCLUSIVE: Seamus Bruner Provides Comprehensive Roadmap to Biden Family Corruption and Documents How VP Joe Biden Compromised U.S. National Security While Biden Family Profited from Deals with America’s Enemies

• This report is a one stop shop for all Biden Inc. email revelations .
This roadmap to Biden corruption is full of information you won ’ t find in a single article anywhere else and contains brand new emails provided EXCLUSIVELY to Corey ’ s Digs • Documents Reveal New Details Proving Biden Inc ’ s Cozy Ties with Chinese Communist Party Leadership Via Chinese Billionaires • New messages show Joe Biden son ’ s expletive-laced rant that his lucrative Ukrainian pay was in jeopardy after father left office .
Biden : “ I was fighting for the only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Documents Reveal How Hunter Biden Associates Helped Chinese Military Contractor Acquire Michigan Dual-Use Manufacturer Under a Secret Project the Chinese Code Named “ Project Hanson ” This comprehensive report is available in pdf format for download and print in .
Thanks to three brave Americans , we now know that Joe Biden has long misled the public about his involvement with his family ’ s foreign business entanglements while he served as vice president .
At considerable personal risk , former Biden family business partners Tony Bobulinski and Bevan Cooney , and computer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have come forward with tens of thousands of primary-source documents — internal corporate records , emails , and text messages — detailing years of business dealings that centered on trading on the Biden name .
This material suggests that , despite Joe Biden ’ s insistence that he knew nothing about his family ’ s business deals , he was well aware of his son Hunter Biden ’ s business ventures in China , Ukraine , Kazakhstan , and elsewhere .
These new troves constitute hard evidence of Biden family corruption , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close friend and colleague Peter Schweizer ’ s 2018 book “ Secret Empires.
” In 2018 , when Schweizer first broke the foreign influence scandals that have now engulfed the former vice president , it seemed apparent that China and Ukraine were not paying Biden ’ s family members for their expertise , they were buying access to the vice president of the United States .
This was never a scandal solely about Hunter or Joe ’ s brothers , James and Frank .
It was , and has always been , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , Biden and his surrogates have responded to the scandal with an increasingly unconvincing series of denials — including another from the former vice president in his last debate with President Trump .
In response to “ Secret Empires , ” one of Joe Biden ’ s aides said “ we aren ’ t going to engage on a politically motivated hit pieces … ” Team Biden did not bother to respond to specific allegations that the Biden family vacuumed up millions , in the exact locales where Biden was President Barack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” When the issue re-emerged during the campaign , Team Biden continued to call it a “ conspiracy theory ” but this time , Joe Biden firmly put himself on record .
“ I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses — period , ” he told reporters in August 2019 .
“ I never talk with my son or my brother or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests , period.
” He repeated similar blanket denials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proved to be untruthful .
Period .
We now know that Joe Biden met directly with his son ’ s Chinese business partner , Jonathan Li , in a Chinese hotel lobby on a fateful trip in 2013 ( a trip that allowed Hunter to spend hours with his father , the vice president , on a transoceanic flight to Beijing aboard Air Force Two ) .
Ten days later , Hunter landed an unprecedented $ 1 billion private equity deal , bankrolled by the Chinese government .
But this was not the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family business partners .
As the New York Post reported , emails on Hunter Biden ’ s hard drive reveal that on April 16 , 2015 , Joe Biden met with a high-level official of a controversial Ukrainian energy company , Burisma , which had put Hunter on its board .
And a recently unearthed photo shows that Vice President Biden met with Hunter ’ s Kazakh business associate in Washington , DC .
After first dismissing the gathering scandal as a “ conspiracy theory , ” the Biden team shifted to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his family about their business dealings , then shifted again to the position that he ’ d never met with his family ’ s business partners .
Now , with the latest document revelations , Joe Biden unveiled his latest defense in the recent debate : “ I have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever , ever.
” Team Biden points to Joe and Jill Biden ’ s tax returns as evidence that Joe did nothing improper .
It is worth noting that the family members upon whom foreign entities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their finances .
We now know the Biden paydays were anything but conspiracy theories .
Hunter was getting roughly $ 1 million per year from Burisma .
Treasury Department alerts reveal that Russian oligarch Elena Baturina wired $ 3.5 million to Biden ’ s interests .
New text messages reveal that China Energy Company Ltd ( CEFC ) apparently paid $ 5 million to the Biden family .
Another email indicates Hunter demanded a $ 10 million-per-year “ fee ” from one of his Chinese business partners .
There is no more doubt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last week that Joe Biden himself may have benefited from his son ’ s dealings .
The Post quoted a cryptic message from one of Hunter ’ s partners , saying that “ 10 [ percent ] held by H for the big guy ?
” The recipient of that message , Tony Bobulinski , says “ there is no question ” that “ H ” stands for Hunter and the “ big guy ” is Joe Biden .
We gain further insight into the operations of Biden Inc. in emails provided to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business associate of Hunter Biden .
Cooney , who is currently in prison for his role in the Indian Bond Scheme that is sending Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer also to jail , shared 26,000 emails that show what Hunter ’ s role was in their business ventures .
The Biden name was considered “ currency ” for their foreign business ventures , and was a “ direct … pipeline ” to the Obama-Biden administration .
Deals involving Hunter benefited from the “ Biden lift , ” the help that the name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might the Bidens ’ foreign benefactors have expected in return for all this largesse ?
We can ’ t say .
But some may see a correlation between that foreign money and Joe Biden ’ s policy posture toward the sources of that money .
Consider the case of the Penn Biden Center , a DC think tank named after Joe Biden .
According to the center , its mission is to “ Address Threats to the Liberal International Order.
” The center analyzes the threats of “ Russia ” and “ climate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — the largest violator of basic human rights on the planet — does not make the list .
Why ?
Perhaps we now know why .

by Corey Lynn, Corey’s Digs:
Executive Summary of Seamus Bruner’s revelations below:
This report is a one stop shop for all Biden Inc. email revelations. This roadmap to Biden corruption is full of information you won’t find in a single article anywhere else and contains brand new emails provided EXCLUSIVELY to Corey’s Digs
Documents Reveal New Details Proving Biden Inc’s Cozy Ties with Chinese Communist Party Leadership Via Chinese Billionaires
New messages show Joe Biden son’s expletive-laced rant that his lucrative Ukrainian pay was in jeopardy after father left office. Biden: “I was fighting for the only income I have left”
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Insider Documents Reveal How Hunter Biden Associates Helped Chinese Military Contractor Acquire Michigan Dual-Use Manufacturer Under a Secret Project the Chinese Code Named “Project Hanson”
Biden Defector’s Emails Reveal Hunter’s Associates Viewed Direct ‘Pipeline’ to Obama-Biden Administration as ‘Currency’
‘This is China, Inc.’: Emails Reveal Hunter Biden’s Associates Helped Communist-Aligned Chinese Elites Secure White House Meetings
This comprehensive report is available in pdf format for download and print in The Bookshop .
Thanks to three brave Americans, we now know that Joe Biden has long misled the public about his involvement with his family’s foreign business entanglements while he served as vice president.
At considerable personal risk, former Biden family business partners Tony Bobulinski and Bevan Cooney, and computer shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, have come forward with tens of thousands of primary-source documents — internal corporate records, emails, and text messages — detailing years of business dealings that centered on trading on the Biden name.
This material suggests that, despite Joe Biden’s insistence that he knew nothing about his family’s business deals, he was well aware of his son Hunter Biden’s business ventures in China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere.
These new troves constitute hard evidence of Biden family corruption, and confirm our reporting dating back to my close friend and colleague Peter Schweizer’s 2018 book “Secret Empires.”
In 2018, when Schweizer first broke the foreign influence scandals that have now engulfed the former vice president, it seemed apparent that China and Ukraine were not paying Biden’s family members for their expertise, they were buying access to the vice president of the United States. This was never a scandal solely about Hunter or Joe’s brothers, James and Frank. It was, and has always been, a Joe Biden scandal.
For nearly three years, Biden and his surrogates have responded to the scandal with an increasingly unconvincing series of denials — including another from the former vice president in his last debate with President Trump.
In response to “Secret Empires,” one of Joe Biden’s aides said “we aren’t going to engage on a politically motivated hit pieces …” Team Biden did not bother to respond to specific allegations that the Biden family vacuumed up millions, in the exact locales where Biden was President Barack Obama’s policy “point man.”
When the issue re-emerged during the campaign, Team Biden continued to call it a “conspiracy theory” but this time, Joe Biden firmly put himself on record. “I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses — period,” he told reporters in August 2019.
“I never talk with my son or my brother or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests, period.” He repeated similar blanket denials on numerous occasions. These denials all proved to be untruthful. Period.
We now know that Joe Biden met directly with his son’s Chinese business partner, Jonathan Li, in a Chinese hotel lobby on a fateful trip in 2013 (a trip that allowed Hunter to spend hours with his father, the vice president, on a transoceanic flight to Beijing aboard Air Force Two). Ten days later, Hunter landed an unprecedented $1 billion private equity deal, bankrolled by the Chinese government.
But this was not the only meeting Joe Biden had with Biden family business partners. As the New York Post reported, emails on Hunter Biden’s hard drive reveal that on April 16, 2015, Joe Biden met with a high-level official of a controversial Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, which had put Hunter on its board. And a recently unearthed photo shows that Vice President Biden met with Hunter’s Kazakh business associate in Washington, DC.
After first dismissing the gathering scandal as a “conspiracy theory,” the Biden team shifted to the position that Joe had never talked with his family about their business dealings, then shifted again to the position that he’d never met with his family’s business partners. Now, with the latest document revelations, Joe Biden unveiled his latest defense in the recent debate: “I have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever, ever.”
Team Biden points to Joe and Jill Biden’s tax returns as evidence that Joe did nothing improper. It is worth noting that the family members upon whom foreign entities showered money are not required to disclose their finances.
We now know the Biden paydays were anything but conspiracy theories. Hunter was getting roughly $1 million per year from Burisma. Treasury Department alerts reveal that Russian oligarch Elena Baturina wired $3.5 million to Biden’s interests. New text messages reveal that China Energy Company Ltd (CEFC) apparently paid $5 million to the Biden family. Another email indicates Hunter demanded a $10 million-per-year “fee” from one of his Chinese business partners. There is no more doubt.
The New York Post broke news last week that Joe Biden himself may have benefited from his son’s dealings. The Post quoted a cryptic message from one of Hunter’s partners, saying that “10 [percent] held by H for the big guy?” The recipient of that message, Tony Bobulinski, says “there is no question” that “H” stands for Hunter and the “big guy” is Joe Biden.
We gain further insight into the operations of Biden Inc. in emails provided to us by Bevan Cooney, a former business associate of Hunter Biden. Cooney, who is currently in prison for his role in the Indian Bond Scheme that is sending Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer also to jail, shared 26,000 emails that show what Hunter’s role was in their business ventures. The Biden name was considered “currency” for their foreign business ventures, and was a “direct … pipeline” to the Obama-Biden administration. Deals involving Hunter benefited from the “Biden lift,” the help that the name would provide in overseas dealings.
What might the Bidens’ foreign benefactors have expected in return for all this largesse? We can’t say. But some may see a correlation between that foreign money and Joe Biden’s policy posture toward the sources of that money.
Consider the case of the Penn Biden Center, a DC think tank named after Joe Biden. According to the center, its mission is to “Address Threats to the Liberal International Order.” The center analyzes the threats of “Russia” and “climate change” in detail. But China — the largest violator of basic human rights on the planet — does not make the list. Why?
Perhaps we now know why.
Read More @ CoreysDigs.com


sgtreport--2020-11-06--The West Resembles a Decapitated Rooster, Wings Still Flapping, Barely Flying

When I was five and spending the summer in a small village a couple of time zones east of Moscow I witnessed the execution of a rooster .
My brother and I walked over to a neighbor ’ s house to pick up some eggs .
Just as we arrived the neighbor finally caught the rooster and chopped his head of .
The now headless rooster then put on quite an aerobatic performance that was quite amazing .
After doing an unlimited takeoff he repeatedly soared and plummeted , executed several touch-and-gos ( more like crash-and-goes , actually ) and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been head-on collisions .
I was by then quite familiar with the poor aerodynamic qualities of barnyard fowl and was duly impressed with the energetic and breathtakingly erratic behavior of a bird liberated from the mental straitjacket of its brain .
Unfortunately , the performance only lasted for a minute or so .
A word to the wise : I later learned that it is possible to prolong the show , should the need ever arise , by heating up the hatchet so as to cauterize the severed neck .
More recently , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not restricted to chickens .
Figurative birds , of the mechanical variety , can exhibit something similar .
A prime example is the greatest boondoggle in the history of military aviation , the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter .
It too is liable to losing its head , in the sense of the pilot blacking out .
In addition to being ridiculously expensive ( over $ 1.5 trillion in projected project costs ) and plagued with problems ( only half of the built planes are considered ready for any sort of mission and there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ haven ’ t been fixed , including ones that make it useless for air-to-air combat or ground support ) F-35 pilots often report feeling sick and there have been many incidents where they lost consciousness , probably due to oxygen starvation and circulation problems .
In response , the fatally flawed jet ’ s maker Lockheed Martin , whose motto seems to be “ One boondoggle deserves another , ” has decided to add a subsystem .
Called Auto-GCAS ( for Ground Collision Avoidance System ) , it takes over automatically if it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pilot fails to respond to the alarm and take corrective action .
Auto-GCAS then throttles up and directs the plane upward , pulling a maximum of five g ’ s .
What does that do to a pilot who is already feeling sick or is unconscious ?
Once a safe altitude is reached , the plane levels out and Auto-GCAS shuts off .
If the pilot happens to be offline for good , the process repeats until the plane runs out of fuel and crashes .
I hope that you are impressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A show designed to impress was recently staged at an airfield in Utah , where 35 F-35s took off , one right after the other .
It has not been independently verified how many of them landed .
Auto-GCAS is slated to be ready for use by 2024 , but Pentagon ’ s planners are hoping to accelerate the process .
All of this made me wonder about the general behavior to be expected of hierarchically organized , centrally controlled systems once they are deprived of their control module .
Auto-GCAS is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For instance , there is the Russian Perimetr system , a.k.a .
Dead Hand .
If it detects that the Russian military leadership has been incapacitated by a nuclear strike , it will launch an all-out nuclear attack , obliterating the aggressor .
This may seem like a really bad plan , but then attacking Russia is a really bad plan too , and one bad plan deserves another .
What makes this plan bad is that it doesn ’ t elicit the right response .
The right response is : “ Oh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sheer suicide , so let ’ s not do that.
” But where ’ s the money in not planning to attack Russia ?
And so instead the “ One boondoggle deserves another ” crew sets forth to build anti-ballistic missile systems ( which don ’ t work ) and deep underground bomb shelters stocked with years ’ worth of supplies ( which is gold-plating ; a large shallow grave to jump into when the time comes would work just as well ) .
And yet as far as planning for decapitation goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ art .
Most other large-scale centrally controlled systems are woefully unprepared for the loss of their command modules .
For instance , look at finance .
After the financial collapse of 2008 it quickly became obvious that nobody competent or responsible was in charge .
The “ solution ” was for central banks to start blowing financial bubbles by zeroing out interest rates and flooding the world with new debt .
Debt that expands much faster than the economy is garbage debt , and it gave rise to various other kinds of garbage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sands , garbage money in the form of cryptocurrencies , garbage real estate investment schemes , garbage corporate balance sheets bloated with debt used up in stock buybacks , a large crop of garbage oligarchs gorging themselves on all of this garbage “ wealth ” and much else .
Things look good while all this garbage is packaged up in financial bubbles , but once they pop ( and as all children know all bubbles pop eventually ) everyone will end up wearing the garbage .
There are plenty of examples of political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump realized that he can become president simply by insulting all of his competitors ( who richly deserved such treatment ) and so he did .
But now the hive mind of Washington is deeply at odds with the bumblebee-mind of Trump , and neither qualifies as any sort of a head , except perhaps in a strictly symbolic sense .
Things are no better in Europe .
In the UK , an anti-Brexit team is in charge of negotiating Brexit , struggling to make it as anti-Brexit a Brexit as possible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any sort of “ headedness.
” In Germany , Merkel is on her way out , and her replacement has the unenviable task of hammering together a governing coalition out of parties that are too busy knocking heads with each other .
The multi-headed bureaucratic hydra in Brussels is not exactly popular with anyone .
What is the recourse ?
Emperor Macron of France , perhaps ?
Is Europe ready to be headed by a diacritical character ?
( A macron is a horizontal line you place over vowel letters to represent a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are systems that are properly headless : flocks of birds , schools of fish , communes of anarchists , etc .
They are anarchically structured and individuals within them take on temporary , task-based leadership roles as the situation demands and can only expect to be obeyed in accordance with their competence in executing the tasks .
But most of the human systems we have are hierarchically structured and require to be headed by someone .
Democratic elections are but a recent innovation , and a most uncertain one .
For instance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the establishment trotted out an entire array of craven , feckless , corrupt opportunists , and Trump knocked them all out with a feather , not because he is any sort of proper leader , but because it was so easy .
For an even more amazing example of democratic failure , look at today ’ s Ukraine—the most recent experiment in Western democracy .
There , a constitutionally elected , though remarkably corrupt and indecisive president was violently overthrown in 2014 in a US-managed coup and replaced with an American puppet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to introduce martial law—just in order to be able to cancel the elections scheduled in three months and to remain in office de facto .
To produce a rationale for declaring martial law he sent some small boats on a truly idiotic mission .
The boats sailed into a Russian-controlled high traffic zone in the Black Sea , refused to respond when hailed and then pointed weapons at Russian border patrol .
For this they were duly arrested and hauled off to jail , and their boats confiscated .
Previously , an ongoing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resulted in some fifty thousand casualties , but no martial law was ever deemed necessary .
What ’ s different now ?
Oh , the elections , of course !
If these are the fruits of democracy , perhaps the Ukrainians should consider going back to a monarchy .
Dynastic succession has worked much better and for much longer periods of time .
For instance , at the time of its annexation by Russia in 1783 , Crimea was ruled by Shahin Girei , a descendant of Genghis Khan who was born around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 628 years , ruled the largest empire that ever was .
At one point it included all of China , most of Russia , Korea , Persia and India , plus many lands in between .
Genghis had decreed that no part of the Mongol Empire could be ruled by anyone who wasn ’ t a direct descendant of his , and so it was .
The Mongol Empire ended peacefully , with Shahin Girei abdicating his throne and accepting protection from Catherine the Great .
Maybe that ’ s the plan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immediately have him abdicate his throne and accept protection from Putin the Great .
Then Putin will turn the heat and the hot water back on , the armed thugs will be marched off to someplace safe for disarming and de-thugging , and the nuke plants will stop breaking down .

by Dmitry Orlov, Russia Insider:
When I was five and spending the summer in a small village a couple of time zones east of Moscow I witnessed the execution of a rooster. My brother and I walked over to a neighbor’s house to pick up some eggs. Just as we arrived the neighbor finally caught the rooster and chopped his head of.
The now headless rooster then put on quite an aerobatic performance that was quite amazing. After doing an unlimited takeoff he repeatedly soared and plummeted, executed several touch-and-gos (more like crash-and-goes, actually) and was undeterred by what previously would have been head-on collisions. I was by then quite familiar with the poor aerodynamic qualities of barnyard fowl and was duly impressed with the energetic and breathtakingly erratic behavior of a bird liberated from the mental straitjacket of its brain.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Unfortunately, the performance only lasted for a minute or so. A word to the wise: I later learned that it is possible to prolong the show, should the need ever arise, by heating up the hatchet so as to cauterize the severed neck. More recently, I have learned that such sans-têteaerobatics are not restricted to chickens.
Figurative birds, of the mechanical variety, can exhibit something similar. A prime example is the greatest boondoggle in the history of military aviation, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It too is liable to losing its head, in the sense of the pilot blacking out. In addition to being ridiculously expensive (over $1.5 trillion in projected project costs) and plagued with problems (only half of the built planes are considered ready for any sort of mission and there are over a thousand known defects that haven’t been fixed, including ones that make it useless for air-to-air combat or ground support) F-35 pilots often report feeling sick and there have been many incidents where they lost consciousness, probably due to oxygen starvation and circulation problems. In response, the fatally flawed jet’s maker Lockheed Martin, whose motto seems to be “One boondoggle deserves another,” has decided to add a subsystem. Called Auto-GCAS (for Ground Collision Avoidance System), it takes over automatically if it detects the danger of ground collision and the pilot fails to respond to the alarm and take corrective action. Auto-GCAS then throttles up and directs the plane upward, pulling a maximum of five g’s. What does that do to a pilot who is already feeling sick or is unconscious? Once a safe altitude is reached, the plane levels out and Auto-GCAS shuts off. If the pilot happens to be offline for good, the process repeats until the plane runs out of fuel and crashes. I hope that you are impressed with the sheer brilliance of the plan. A show designed to impress was recently staged at an airfield in Utah, where 35 F-35s took off, one right after the other. It has not been independently verified how many of them landed. Auto-GCAS is slated to be ready for use by 2024, but Pentagon’s planners are hoping to accelerate the process. All of this made me wonder about the general behavior to be expected of hierarchically organized, centrally controlled systems once they are deprived of their control module. Auto-GCAS is by no means the worst case. For instance, there is the Russian Perimetr system, a.k.a. Dead Hand. If it detects that the Russian military leadership has been incapacitated by a nuclear strike, it will launch an all-out nuclear attack, obliterating the aggressor. This may seem like a really bad plan, but then attacking Russia is a really bad plan too, and one bad plan deserves another.
What makes this plan bad is that it doesn’t elicit the right response. The right response is: “Oh, we see, attacking Russia is sheer suicide, so let’s not do that.” But where’s the money in not planning to attack Russia? And so instead the “One boondoggle deserves another” crew sets forth to build anti-ballistic missile systems (which don’t work) and deep underground bomb shelters stocked with years’ worth of supplies (which is gold-plating; a large shallow grave to jump into when the time comes would work just as well).
And yet as far as planning for decapitation goes, Dead Hand is state of the art. Most other large-scale centrally controlled systems are woefully unprepared for the loss of their command modules. For instance, look at finance. After the financial collapse of 2008 it quickly became obvious that nobody competent or responsible was in charge.
The “solution” was for central banks to start blowing financial bubbles by zeroing out interest rates and flooding the world with new debt. Debt that expands much faster than the economy is garbage debt, and it gave rise to various other kinds of garbage: garbage energy from shale and tar sands, garbage money in the form of cryptocurrencies, garbage real estate investment schemes, garbage corporate balance sheets bloated with debt used up in stock buybacks, a large crop of garbage oligarchs gorging themselves on all of this garbage “wealth” and much else. Things look good while all this garbage is packaged up in financial bubbles, but once they pop (and as all children know all bubbles pop eventually) everyone will end up wearing the garbage.
There are plenty of examples of political auto-decapitation as well. In the US, Trump realized that he can become president simply by insulting all of his competitors (who richly deserved such treatment) and so he did. But now the hive mind of Washington is deeply at odds with the bumblebee-mind of Trump, and neither qualifies as any sort of a head, except perhaps in a strictly symbolic sense. Things are no better in Europe. In the UK, an anti-Brexit team is in charge of negotiating Brexit, struggling to make it as anti-Brexit a Brexit as possible.
That doesn’t seem like any sort of “headedness.” In Germany, Merkel is on her way out, and her replacement has the unenviable task of hammering together a governing coalition out of parties that are too busy knocking heads with each other. The multi-headed bureaucratic hydra in Brussels is not exactly popular with anyone. What is the recourse? Emperor Macron of France, perhaps? Is Europe ready to be headed by a diacritical character? (A macron is a horizontal line you place over vowel letters to represent a long vowel: Mācron.)
There are systems that are properly headless: flocks of birds, schools of fish, communes of anarchists, etc. They are anarchically structured and individuals within them take on temporary, task-based leadership roles as the situation demands and can only expect to be obeyed in accordance with their competence in executing the tasks.
But most of the human systems we have are hierarchically structured and require to be headed by someone. Democratic elections are but a recent innovation, and a most uncertain one. For instance, during the 2016 election in the US, the establishment trotted out an entire array of craven, feckless, corrupt opportunists, and Trump knocked them all out with a feather, not because he is any sort of proper leader, but because it was so easy.
For an even more amazing example of democratic failure, look at today’s Ukraine—the most recent experiment in Western democracy. There, a constitutionally elected, though remarkably corrupt and indecisive president was violently overthrown in 2014 in a US-managed coup and replaced with an American puppet so unpopular that yesterday he was forced to introduce martial law—just in order to be able to cancel the elections scheduled in three months and to remain in office de facto.
To produce a rationale for declaring martial law he sent some small boats on a truly idiotic mission. The boats sailed into a Russian-controlled high traffic zone in the Black Sea, refused to respond when hailed and then pointed weapons at Russian border patrol. For this they were duly arrested and hauled off to jail, and their boats confiscated. Previously, an ongoing civil war instigated by this same president resulted in some fifty thousand casualties, but no martial law was ever deemed necessary. What’s different now? Oh, the elections, of course!
If these are the fruits of democracy, perhaps the Ukrainians should consider going back to a monarchy. Dynastic succession has worked much better and for much longer periods of time. For instance, at the time of its annexation by Russia in 1783, Crimea was ruled by Shahin Girei, a descendant of Genghis Khan who was born around 1155.
That one dynasty, spanning 628 years, ruled the largest empire that ever was. At one point it included all of China, most of Russia, Korea, Persia and India, plus many lands in between. Genghis had decreed that no part of the Mongol Empire could be ruled by anyone who wasn’t a direct descendant of his, and so it was.
The Mongol Empire ended peacefully, with Shahin Girei abdicating his throne and accepting protection from Catherine the Great. Maybe that’s the plan, then: install a Ukrainian Emperor and immediately have him abdicate his throne and accept protection from Putin the Great. Then Putin will turn the heat and the hot water back on, the armed thugs will be marched off to someplace safe for disarming and de-thugging, and the nuke plants will stop breaking down.
Read More @ Russia-Insider.com


Market Report: Breakout!

Gold and silver broke out from a three-month consolidation in an extraordinary week , which saw a political muddle in America : at the time of writing , the presidential election was still unresolved .
By morning trade in Europe today , gold had risen $ 70 to trade at $ 1948 , and silver by $ 1.70 to trade at $ 25.30 .
Bitcoin also rose , about $ 2000 , signalling perhaps that the crowd outside the gold and silver communities most educated about fiat currency debasement are now aggressively hedging it .
The ending of the three-month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the gold price , below .
Yesterday ’ s breakout was accompanied by a substantial increase in Comex open interest , up 21,090 contracts on preliminary figures .
That is likely to take the bullion banks ’ net short position to well over $ 40bn — we will know more tonight when the Commitment of Traders report for last Tuesday is released .
The pickup in Open Interest is interesting , and our next chart adds some perspective .
Clearly , if the price breakout follows through , Open Interest is poised to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on bullion bank shorts .
At the end of this month the December contract expires , and given developing concerns about the dollar , it will be interesting to see how many gold contracts are stood for delivery .
Dollar concerns can be summed up by the experience of dollar weakness during the Obama administration , which with the likely ending of the Trump era appears ready to accelerate .
Perhaps it is this realisation which has led to hedge funds selling the dollar and buying gold .
The dollar ’ s TWI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commenced a bear market under Obama , turned bullish under Trump , was undermined by Covid and now we could be back to a socialising democrat in Biden .
While this sequence contributes to market emotions , the real problem is that the Fed has only one weapon in its attempt to rescue the economy : monetary inflation .
This week saw an FOMC meeting , scheduled in the wake of the election .
But given the confusion of a non-result , the statement was little more than a holding operation .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are no fiscal plans , throwing the burden of economic planning entirely on the Fed ’ s shoulders .
The uncertainty surrounding political leadership may or may not be resolved in the next few days or weeks .
This leaves the bullion banks , massively short , in limbo .
Their gross short position at the last COT figures ( 27 October ) was a record $ 54bn , and net at $ 39bn was also a record .
Our next chart shows the history of the bullion banks ’ Comex gold @ @

by Alasdair Macleod, GoldMoney:
Gold and silver broke out from a three-month consolidation in an extraordinary week, which saw a political muddle in America: at the time of writing, the presidential election was still unresolved. By morning trade in Europe today, gold had risen $70 to trade at $1948, and silver by $1.70 to trade at $25.30. Bitcoin also rose, about $2000, signalling perhaps that the crowd outside the gold and silver communities most educated about fiat currency debasement are now aggressively hedging it.
The ending of the three-month consolidation is illustrated in the screenshot of the gold price, below.
Yesterday’s breakout was accompanied by a substantial increase in Comex open interest, up 21,090 contracts on preliminary figures. That is likely to take the bullion banks’ net short position to well over $40bn — we will know more tonight when the Commitment of Traders report for last Tuesday is released.
The pickup in Open Interest is interesting, and our next chart adds some perspective. Clearly, if the price breakout follows through, Open Interest is poised to increase materially, adding to the pressure on bullion bank shorts.
At the end of this month the December contract expires, and given developing concerns about the dollar, it will be interesting to see how many gold contracts are stood for delivery. Dollar concerns can be summed up by the experience of dollar weakness during the Obama administration, which with the likely ending of the Trump era appears ready to accelerate. Perhaps it is this realisation which has led to hedge funds selling the dollar and buying gold. The dollar’s TWI is our next chart.
The dollar commenced a bear market under Obama, turned bullish under Trump, was undermined by Covid and now we could be back to a socialising democrat in Biden. While this sequence contributes to market emotions, the real problem is that the Fed has only one weapon in its attempt to rescue the economy: monetary inflation.
This week saw an FOMC meeting, scheduled in the wake of the election. But given the confusion of a non-result, the statement was little more than a holding operation. In the absence of an acting president, there are no fiscal plans, throwing the burden of economic planning entirely on the Fed’s shoulders.
The uncertainty surrounding political leadership may or may not be resolved in the next few days or weeks. This leaves the bullion banks, massively short, in limbo. Their gross short position at the last COT figures (27 October) was a record $54bn, and net at $39bn was also a record. Our next chart shows the history of the bullion banks’ Comex gold shorts.
Read More @ GoldMoney.com