lewrockwell--2020-10-17--White Americans Are Incredibly Demonized

After 55 years of special privileges and special pleading for black Americans , where do we stand ?
Integration has failed .
Black Americans , or more correctly , those who speak for them , want black-only towns , black-only college dorms , black-only dining halls , and a black national anthem .
Except for the black anthem , that ’ s what they had a half century ago prior to “ affirmative action.
” How is it that when blacks demand segregation , it is not racism ?
As Lawrence Stratton and I demonstrated in our book The New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quotas were strictly prohibited by the 1964 Civil Rights Act .
Nevertheless , the law was stood upside down and quotas were imposed .
As a result many young whites , especially males , had their careers foreclosed .
Less qualified people took their place in universities , in employment and in promotions .
New wrongs against whites were justified by white liberals as compensation for past wrongs against blacks .
The sins of the fathers were visited upon the sons .
The New Color Line Paul C. Roberts Best Price : $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the New Justice .
The insouciance of white Americans makes it easy for them to be brainwashed and indoctrinated .
And they are .
So many of them have been imbued with guilt that white city governments are unable to protect white businesses from looting and arson .
The Democrat Party is so infused with white guilt that its response to rioting and looting is to defund the police .
Yet , according to the press prostitutes , the Biden/Kamala duo are leading the presidential race .
The Democrats know that Biden will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an anti-white racist , will become president if guilt-ridden Democrats win .
How America Was Lost : ... Roberts , Dr. Paul Craig Best Price : $ 5.35 Buy New $ 2.99 What will be the future of white America if Kamala is in the White House ?
This is something that all Americans need to comtemplate .
White Americans , being essentially an insouciant people , have no comprehension of how demonized white people are .
Of course , no one tells them , and they are too busy with their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ team , and remodeling the kitchen to care .
Whiteness is so demonized that it is destroying science , “ a white construct ” and thereby racist .
Physics itself has been declared to be “ a mirror of colonial patterns and social inequalty ” ( 2 ) .
Even mathematics is now declared to be racist by white mathematicians themselves—the Mathematical Association of America .
Mathematics , the brainwashed mathematicians say , is polluted with racism .
Apparantly even 2+2=4 is a white racist construct .
Nonsense , you say .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here , here and here .
The Best of Paul Craig Roberts

After 55 years of special privileges and special pleading for black Americans, where do we stand? Integration has failed. Black Americans, or more correctly, those who speak for them, want black-only towns, black-only college dorms, black-only dining halls, and a black national anthem. Except for the black anthem, that’s what they had a half century ago prior to “affirmative action.”
How is it that when blacks demand segregation, it is not racism?
As Lawrence Stratton and I demonstrated in our book The New Color Line (1), racial quotas were strictly prohibited by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Nevertheless, the law was stood upside down and quotas were imposed. As a result many young whites, especially males, had their careers foreclosed. Less qualified people took their place in universities, in employment and in promotions. New wrongs against whites were justified by white liberals as compensation for past wrongs against blacks. The sins of the fathers were visited upon the sons. The New Color Line Paul C. Roberts Best Price: $7.48 Buy New $59.00 (as of 07:30 UTC - Details)
This is the New Justice.
The insouciance of white Americans makes it easy for them to be brainwashed and indoctrinated. And they are. So many of them have been imbued with guilt that white city governments are unable to protect white businesses from looting and arson. The Democrat Party is so infused with white guilt that its response to rioting and looting is to defund the police. Yet, according to the press prostitutes, the Biden/Kamala duo are leading the presidential race. The Democrats know that Biden will be removed as medically unfit and Kamala, an anti-white racist, will become president if guilt-ridden Democrats win.
How America Was Lost: ... Roberts, Dr. Paul Craig Best Price: $5.35 Buy New $2.99 (as of 10:30 UTC - Details) What will be the future of white America if Kamala is in the White House? This is something that all Americans need to comtemplate.
White Americans, being essentially an insouciant people, have no comprehension of how demonized white people are. Of course, no one tells them, and they are too busy with their golf game, watching their college football team, and remodeling the kitchen to care. Whiteness is so demonized that it is destroying science, “a white construct” and thereby racist. Physics itself has been declared to be “a mirror of colonial patterns and social inequalty” (2).
Even mathematics is now declared to be racist by white mathematicians themselves—the Mathematical Association of America. Mathematics, the brainwashed mathematicians say, is polluted with racism. Apparantly even 2+2=4 is a white racist construct.
Nonsense, you say. If only. You can read about it here, here and here.
The Best of Paul Craig Roberts


lewrockwell--2020-10-17--Here’s Why You Should Start Getting Ready for Christmas Noe

It ’ s probably no surprise to learn that what has been one of the strangest years in recent history could culminate in a very strange Christmas .
Our nation is reeling from an economy that was crashed by COVID lockdowns , the potential second wave of a pandemic which will result in more economic damage , a broken supply chain , civil unrest , and a presidential election that will almost certainly be hotly contested , regardless of who “ wins.
” As Selco likes to remind us , there ’ s not a whole lot we can do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ones listed above .
We need to focus on the “ small circle ” – things we can do something about , like our response to the crises listed above .
So let ’ s talk about the upcoming holiday season and the ways that this year could be very different .
Gifts may be difficult to acquire .
Augason Farms Lunch an ... Buy New $ 62.68 You need only to look at the bare spots in your local Target store to see that we could be looking at a shortage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chain issues , stores are not getting anywhere near the same amount of merchandise they used to get .
That means that once the Christmas rush begins , the things that ARE available could sell out quickly .
And it also means that you may have a lot more trouble than usual ticking items off your family members ’ Christmas lists .
Retailers are quickly trying to adapt to social distancing rules while still making a buck , which means even more sales than usual will take place online .
Peggy Alford , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global sales , told PYMNTS that retailers “ are trying to make themselves as ready as possible.
” “ What we ’ re going to see is that because of how frictionless and easy digital commerce is to use and how safe it is , it becomes the new way of paying and the new way of shopping — especially as the pandemic continues and this behavior becomes habitual , ” she said .
The bottom line : As the holiday shopping season rapidly approaches , expect things to be different this year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retailer of note will close for Thanksgiving , possibly tipping the hat to a values reset around family , ” PYMNTS reported .
“ In fact the values reset around several issues may be one of the defining characteristics of Holiday 2020.
” “ It ’ s not hard to imagine Black Friday or even Cyber Monday using charity donations as consumer motivation to shop , ” the report stated .
“ Especially since Black Friday pricing has been in effect pretty much since the beginning of April .
Discounts have been an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( source ) But problems with the US Postal Service could make ordering gifts to be delivered by mail a tricky endeavor .
Delays began back in the summer and have continued well into October .
( This article provides additional information about the slow-down of deliveries . )
This could cause problems from two different angles : 6 Day Emergency Food S ... Buy New $ 92.00 • First , will you receive your order on time ?
• Secondly , will the packages you mail out get to the recipients on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ purchase any gifts you ’ re planning on buying early for the 2020 holiday season .
This is not the year to be a last-minute shopper or you may end up purchasing a strange hodgepodge of the items nobody else wanted to buy .
We might also be looking at food shortages .
Many parts of the country are already experiencing some difficulty with the food supply chain as is evidenced in the comments section of this article .
The supply has been compromised since last March and things improved a little , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the pre-lockdown normal levels of inventory .
What ’ s more , grocery stores are already preparing for both the second wave and holiday shoppers with so-called “ pandemic pallets ” of goods that they expect to be in high demand…and despite these preparations , they ’ re still expecting shortages .
Grocery stores are stocking pallets with items they fear may run low in the coming months .
Keeping these pallets stored in the warehouses , most of them are stocked with cleaning items and paper products , cold medicines , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rice , pasta , and legumes – all the things that they ran out of quickly the last time around .
And , with the holidays right around the corner , many stores are stockpiling holiday foods like cranberry sauce .
The article went on to say that grocery stores are not as sparse as they were in the beginning of the pandemic .
Nevertheless , shortages are still expected… …Meat shortages were also the focus of this article that describes the effect the pandemic has had on meat supplies .
( source @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New $ 68.00 Our advice ?
Get your supplies while you can .
If you wait to buy your groceries for holiday meals at holiday time , you ’ ll have difficulty finding what you want .
And consider adapting your holiday meal to focus more on shelf-stable ingredients .
Here ’ s an example of a holiday dinner straight from the pantry .
Our favorite vendor of long-term emergency food also has their supplies back in stock if you want to invest in some items that will be good on your shelves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of the long-term items I recommend .
Millions of jobs that were deemed “ temporary layoffs ” have disappeared forever .
Many businesses , small and large , have closed their doors .
Competition is fierce for the few jobs that are currently available and we ’ re right on the cusp of a wave of evictions .
Government assistance ended recently and the second round of stimulus payments has been held up in Congress .
It ’ s almost a certainty that a majority of families will be facing financial difficulties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that you speak with your family now and set realistic expectations for gifts , travel , and get-togethers so that everyone is on the same page .
Focus on traditions instead of on gifts .
And for goodness sakes , if that stimulus money comes in “ just in time for Christmas ” I ’ d strongly advise you not to spend it frivolously .
The urge will certainly be there but remember , we could all be dealing with money problems that are far more serious than a less spectacular Christmas than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ midst of another lockdown .
While some parts of the country are gradually reopening , the numbers of those diagnosed with COVID are beginning to spike again .
Regardless of whether or not you believe COVID is a physical threat , it ’ s pretty much irrefutable that it ’ s an economic threat .
If the cases continue to increase we will be facing another lockdown .
What if that lockdown continues throughout the holiday season ?
It ’ s not a huge stretch of the imagination to think that large family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parties will be banned .
Not only would this be potentially the final nail in the coffin of the travel industry , but it would also be incredibly detrimental to people psychologically .
The idea of watching long-held holiday traditions crumble could cause a lot of mental stress , and those who are already dealing with the effects of isolation will be the hardest hit .
Long Term Gluten Free ... Buy New $ 46.00 Then again , so many people are sick of the pandemic and the lockdowns that there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refuse to cooperate .
This could lead to legal problems as well as an increase in post-holiday COVID cases .
Expect to see a lot of Christmas-shaming and people snitching on their neighbors for hosting family members .
Of course , if the numbers go up dramatically after the holidays , you can expect the lockdowns to expand to even more draconian levels than they already have .
( Again – your opinion on COVID-19 notwithstanding , we ’ re talking about how the government ’ s interpretation of the numbers will affect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how you intend to celebrate the holidays .
Will you be relying on technology like Zoom to see our families and attend worship services ?
Are your family members geographically close enough that you can still get together ?
Just as with gifts , it ’ s important to set the expectations of your family early so that nobody is blindsided with the prospect of an empty table a week before Christmas .
Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper .
The Best of Daisy Luther

It’s probably no surprise to learn that what has been one of the strangest years in recent history could culminate in a very strange Christmas. Our nation is reeling from an economy that was crashed by COVID lockdowns, the potential second wave of a pandemic which will result in more economic damage, a broken supply chain, civil unrest, and a presidential election that will almost certainly be hotly contested, regardless of who “wins.”
As Selco likes to remind us, there’s not a whole lot we can do about “big circle” problems like the ones listed above. We need to focus on the “small circle” – things we can do something about, like our response to the crises listed above.
So let’s talk about the upcoming holiday season and the ways that this year could be very different.
Gifts may be difficult to acquire.
Augason Farms Lunch an... Buy New $62.68 (as of 04:28 UTC - Details) You need only to look at the bare spots in your local Target store to see that we could be looking at a shortage of desired gifts. Due to supply chain issues, stores are not getting anywhere near the same amount of merchandise they used to get. That means that once the Christmas rush begins, the things that ARE available could sell out quickly. And it also means that you may have a lot more trouble than usual ticking items off your family members’ Christmas lists.
Retailers are quickly trying to adapt to social distancing rules while still making a buck, which means even more sales than usual will take place online.
Peggy Alford, PayPal’s executive vice president of global sales, told PYMNTS that retailers “are trying to make themselves as ready as possible.” “What we’re going to see is that because of how frictionless and easy digital commerce is to use and how safe it is, it becomes the new way of paying and the new way of shopping — especially as the pandemic continues and this behavior becomes habitual,” she said. The bottom line: As the holiday shopping season rapidly approaches, expect things to be different this year. “Now, most every brick-and-mortar retailer of note will close for Thanksgiving, possibly tipping the hat to a values reset around family,” PYMNTS reported. “In fact the values reset around several issues may be one of the defining characteristics of Holiday 2020.” “It’s not hard to imagine Black Friday or even Cyber Monday using charity donations as consumer motivation to shop,” the report stated. “Especially since Black Friday pricing has been in effect pretty much since the beginning of April. Discounts have been an everyday occurrence instead of an event.” (source)
But problems with the US Postal Service could make ordering gifts to be delivered by mail a tricky endeavor. Delays began back in the summer and have continued well into October. (This article provides additional information about the slow-down of deliveries.) This could cause problems from two different angles: 6 Day Emergency Food S... Buy New $92.00 (as of 05:27 UTC - Details)
First, will you receive your order on time?
Secondly, will the packages you mail out get to the recipients on time?
I strongly urge you to purchase any gifts you’re planning on buying early for the 2020 holiday season. This is not the year to be a last-minute shopper or you may end up purchasing a strange hodgepodge of the items nobody else wanted to buy.
We might also be looking at food shortages.
Many parts of the country are already experiencing some difficulty with the food supply chain as is evidenced in the comments section of this article. The supply has been compromised since last March and things improved a little, but most places are still not back to the pre-lockdown normal levels of inventory.
What’s more, grocery stores are already preparing for both the second wave and holiday shoppers with so-called “pandemic pallets” of goods that they expect to be in high demand…and despite these preparations, they’re still expecting shortages.
What is a pandemic pallet? Grocery stores are stocking pallets with items they fear may run low in the coming months. Keeping these pallets stored in the warehouses, most of them are stocked with cleaning items and paper products, cold medicines, dry goods, and food staples like rice, pasta, and legumes – all the things that they ran out of quickly the last time around. And, with the holidays right around the corner, many stores are stockpiling holiday foods like cranberry sauce. The article went on to say that grocery stores are not as sparse as they were in the beginning of the pandemic. Nevertheless, shortages are still expected… …Meat shortages were also the focus of this article that describes the effect the pandemic has had on meat supplies. (source)
15 Gallon Emergency Wa... Buy New $68.00 (as of 05:27 UTC - Details) Our advice? Get your supplies while you can. If you wait to buy your groceries for holiday meals at holiday time, you’ll have difficulty finding what you want. And consider adapting your holiday meal to focus more on shelf-stable ingredients. Here’s an example of a holiday dinner straight from the pantry. Our favorite vendor of long-term emergency food also has their supplies back in stock if you want to invest in some items that will be good on your shelves for years to come. Here are some of the long-term items I recommend.
Money could be a problem.
Millions of jobs that were deemed “temporary layoffs” have disappeared forever. Many businesses, small and large, have closed their doors. Competition is fierce for the few jobs that are currently available and we’re right on the cusp of a wave of evictions. Government assistance ended recently and the second round of stimulus payments has been held up in Congress.
It’s almost a certainty that a majority of families will be facing financial difficulties this holiday season. My recommendation is that you speak with your family now and set realistic expectations for gifts, travel, and get-togethers so that everyone is on the same page. Focus on traditions instead of on gifts.
And for goodness sakes, if that stimulus money comes in “just in time for Christmas” I’d strongly advise you not to spend it frivolously. The urge will certainly be there but remember, we could all be dealing with money problems that are far more serious than a less spectacular Christmas than normal.
We could be in the midst of another lockdown.
While some parts of the country are gradually reopening, the numbers of those diagnosed with COVID are beginning to spike again. Regardless of whether or not you believe COVID is a physical threat, it’s pretty much irrefutable that it’s an economic threat. If the cases continue to increase we will be facing another lockdown.
What if that lockdown continues throughout the holiday season? It’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to think that large family gatherings, religious services, and Christmas parties will be banned.
Not only would this be potentially the final nail in the coffin of the travel industry, but it would also be incredibly detrimental to people psychologically. The idea of watching long-held holiday traditions crumble could cause a lot of mental stress, and those who are already dealing with the effects of isolation will be the hardest hit. Long Term Gluten Free ... Buy New $46.00 (as of 05:27 UTC - Details)
Then again, so many people are sick of the pandemic and the lockdowns that there’s a good chance they’ll simply refuse to cooperate. This could lead to legal problems as well as an increase in post-holiday COVID cases. Expect to see a lot of Christmas-shaming and people snitching on their neighbors for hosting family members.
Of course, if the numbers go up dramatically after the holidays, you can expect the lockdowns to expand to even more draconian levels than they already have. (Again – your opinion on COVID-19 notwithstanding, we’re talking about how the government’s interpretation of the numbers will affect you.)
Begin thinking now about how you intend to celebrate the holidays. Will you be relying on technology like Zoom to see our families and attend worship services? Are your family members geographically close enough that you can still get together? Just as with gifts, it’s important to set the expectations of your family early so that nobody is blindsided with the prospect of an empty table a week before Christmas.
Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper.
The Best of Daisy Luther


Hyperinflation Is Here

Definition : Hyperinflation is the condition whereby monetary authorities accelerate the expansion of the quantity of money to the point where it proves impossible for them to regain control .
It ends when the state ’ s fiat currency is finally worthless .
It is an evolving crisis , not just a climactic event .
This article defines hyperinflation in simple terms , making it clear that most , if not all governments have already committed their unbacked currencies to destruction by hyperinflation .
The evidence is now becoming plain to see .
Augason Farms Lunch an ... Buy New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the excess of government spending over tax receipts , which has already spiralled out of control in the US and elsewhere .
The first round of the coronavirus has only served to make the problem more obvious to those who had already understood that the expansionary phase of the bank credit cycle was coming to an end , and by combining with the economic consequences of the trade tariff war between China and America we are condemned to a repeat of the conditions that led to the Wall Street crash of 1929—32 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the obvious .
The fact is that the tax base , which is quantified by GDP , when measured by the true rate of the dollar ’ s loss of purchasing power and confirmed by the accelerated rate of increase in broad money over the last ten years has been declining sharply in real terms while government spending commitments continue to rise .
In this article it is documented for the dollar , but the same hyperinflationary dynamics affect nearly all other fiat currencies .
In the last ten years I have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issues I believe to be in the public interest .
From 2011 , I wrote a series of articles about China ’ s gold policy , which had been accumulating physical gold from as long ago as 1983 .
The meme that gold was moving from west to east became broadly understood and almost a cliché .
The second crusade was to inform the public that the business or trade cycle was only the symptom of a cycle of bank credit , which inevitably ends in a crisis of credit contraction .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , on a subject which I have been writing about in recent months , and that is to inform the wider public that their governments and their fiat currencies are now in a state of hyperinflation .
It is not a development on the far horizon as many might think ; it is already here .
Mountain House Beef St ... Buy New $ 48.79 To understand why hyperinflation is already with us is to know what constitutes hyperinflation .
It is not rising prices , or a condition that exists when prices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prices are the consequence of both inflation and hyperinflation .
As Milton Friedman put it , inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon , though he spoiled it by continuing , “ …in the sense it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.
” [ i ] He was wrong on that last bit , conflating the price effect with the increase in the quantity of money .
When even so-called monetarists are imprecise about inflation , let alone hyperinflation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is widespread .
There can only be one definition of hyperinflation , and that is the one headlined above , which you won ’ t find in any textbook .
There is even no definition of it in von Mises ’ s Human Action , only of inflation , and that is more a description than a definition .
And since it is a relatively recent phenomenon of unbacked fiat currencies , hyperinflation was never defined separately from inflation by classical economists .
The difference between inflation and hyperinflation can not be distinguished @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at US M1 , the quantity of narrow money in the American economy , shown in Figure 1 .
The progression of annualised monetary inflation from under 6 % before the Lehman crisis , to 9.6 % subsequently until March this year , and 65 % in the thirty weeks since is clear from the chart .
If the monetary authorities have the knowledge , the mandate , the authority , the ability and the desire to stop inflating the currency , we would not describe it as hyperinflation , instead deeming it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period of exceptional inflation before a return to sound money policies .
But sound money was emphatically discarded in 1971 , when the post-war Bretton Woods agreement was finally abandoned — not that the monetary regime at that time was in any way sounder than Adam ’ s fig leaf was an item of clothing .
For the fact of the matter is that sound money in America was arguably abandoned long ago , with the founding of the Fed at Jekyll Island before the First World War .
MW polar Herring Fille @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 0.30 / Ounce ) As a means of funding government deficits , inflation is capable of being stopped by cutting government spending and/or raising taxes .
But now , a one-off increase of 65 % of narrow money is to be followed by another massive expansion already in the wings .
The hope is that that will be enough , just as the original 65 % increase in M1 was hoped to be enough to ensure a V-shaped recession would be followed by a return to normality .
The early stages of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authorities as the only policy to pursue .
They convince themselves that there are either no consequences , or that they can be controlled .
An example of the genre is found in a paper by Michael T Kiley , a senior Fed economist .
[ ii ] In August he concluded that the lack of further room to cut interest rates to deal with the coronavirus requires quantitative easing to a total of 30 % of GDP , or $ 6.5 trillion , to offset the lack of room for manoeuvre on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 3 trillion had been enacted between end-February and end-June , leaving a further $ 3.5 trillion to come .
If we assume the full $ 6.5 trillion stimulus is enacted by next February , then the increase reflected in narrow money could be to more than double it .
Kiley wrote his paper before the second coronavirus wave commenced .
He was modelling an economic contraction measured in real GDP of just 10 % in the second quarter ( actually 9.5 % — not to be confused with the annualised rate reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as I pointed out in last week ’ s article , with monetary inflation running at such a rate , a dollar last February is not the same as an inflated dollar next February , being diluted on Kiley ’ s figures by $ 6.5 trillion .
The consequence is some extremely damaging intertemporal shifts , as described in the Cantillon effect , whereby ultimately both productive workers and the poorest in society lose savings , salaries and social security benefits through loss of the dollar ’ s purchasing power for the benefit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and big business .
In his economic model , Kiley flattens the Phillips curve , apparently in an attempt to goal-seek a preferred outcome .
The Phillips curve is meant to replicate graphically the relationship between inflation and unemployment , the idea being that an increase in price inflation goes along with a reduction in unemployment .
Flattening it is the same as assuming that at a deemed level of full employment prices will not rise as much as previously modelled .
But it is one thing to forecast such a relationship when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the order of a few per cent , when arguably the public is more aware of the stimulation effect of monetary inflation than they are of the dilutionary effect on the money , but it is another matter when it is as dramatic as it is today .
We must resist the temptation to accept a mathematical relationship between prices of goods and services and the rate of employment , such as predicted by the Phillip ’ s curve .
Whatever the level of employment , production adjusts because of the division of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s law , modern economists fail to realise that production and consumption broadly march or retreat together .
Other than users of currency being temporarily conned by the initial effects of monetary stimulation , there is no enduring relationship between the quantity of money and employment .
Errors introduced by the mathematical economists through artifices such as the Phillips curve conceal the consequences of policies based on their forecasts at the outset .
Consequently , the recommendations of senior economists at the Fed using economic models based upon macroeconomic assumptions give false @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Furthermore , the annualised rate of the budget deficit since March was about $ 4.4 trillion , financed entirely through monetary expansion and significantly greater than covered by declining tax income .
MW Polar Herring , Kipp ... Buy New $ 24.84 ( $ 0.39 / Ounce ) If these conditions persist in the new fiscal year — which seems increasingly certain , Kiley ’ s calculation of the further $ 3.5 trillion stimulus underestimates the problem .
According to an op-ed by Allister Heath in today ’ s Daily Telegraph , Larry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , believes that the cost of covid-19 will reach 90 % of US GDP , substantially more than Kiley ’ s estimate of 30 % .
Over-dramatic perhaps ; but can we envisage that the forthcoming stimulus package , and then undoubtedly the one to follow that , will restore normality and set the budget deficit firmly in the direction towards a balance ?
If the answer is no , then we already have hyperinflation .
Dispensing with the assumptions of mathematical economists The error of the Phillips curve was to not understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course of inflation where the currency ’ s users suspect that prices will continue to rise , and that a shift away from personal liquidity and saving in favour of consumer spending ensues .
That it is bound to happen beyond a certain point does not mean that the point and the subsequent effect on the general level of prices can be predicted — that is down to human action , the unpredictable response of individual actors to their changing circumstances .
The Phillips curve is not the only error when it comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Finding that the relationship between the expansion of money and the effect on its purchasing power varied , the mathematical economists introduced a variable factor to ensure the equation describing the money relationship with prices always balanced .
The monetary equation is as follows : But by introducing a variable factor V to ensure the equation always balances , it disqualifies the utility of the equation itself : anything with two unequal sides can be turned into an equation by this artifice .
The imagination of the monetarists brushes over this truth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
By calling it “ velocity of money ” it creates an image of the circulation of money .
From there it is easy to assume that if money is underused , velocity of circulation drops and the economy is declared to stagnate , and if its velocity of circulation increases , it is said to be because money is demanded and circulates more effectively .
Falling velocity is thereby associated with falling prices for which nominal GDP is the proxy ( P x T in the equation ) , and rising velocity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GDP .
This concept is badly flawed , but it explains the fundamental precepts behind current monetary policy .
The consequences of changes in relative preferences Nominal GDP is not just the other side of the monetary equation .
It is also total production , and the other side of total production is the sum of consumption and deferred consumption .
The correct way to regard money is not through the monetary equation and the supposed role of velocity , but to look at nominal GDP as both the total of everyone ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sum of their expenditures and net savings .
Only then can we consider the impact of changes in the money quantity on prices .
Money is merely a form of intermediation between the production and consumption of goods .
People hold a degree of personal monetary liquidity , which when money is stable does not vary by much overall .
This liquidity must not be confused with savings , which being consumption deferred , are not primarily held for their liquidity but for anticipated returns .
Personal liquidity is held in reserve for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal liquidity is the result of recent experiences of the value of money in terms of goods , modified by expectations of any change in the relative value of future goods .
Thus , if people think the price of a good might rise , they will tend to buy it sooner than they would otherwise , and if they expect it to fall , they will tend to delay their purchase of it .
In generally stable monetary conditions , this is why some prices rise and others fall .
The trouble @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a whole anticipate a rise in the general level of prices .
In that case , they will alter the relationship between their monetary liquidity and goods in favour of goods more generally , driving the purchasing power of the money down and the general level of prices up .
The effect of changes in the general level of personal liquidity is potentially a more important influence on the level of prices than the quantity of money itself .
It should be evident that if the increased quantity of money in circulation is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect on the general level of prices .
Alternatively , if the public decides to abandon a state-issued currency , irrespective of the quantity in circulation it will lose all of its purchasing power .
The abandonment of a state-issued currency by the public terminates all hyperinflations and once the process is under way it tends to be rapid .
In Weimar Germany , it was said this flight into goods and out of money began in May 1923 and lasted to mid-November .
In the other European nations , which suffered collapses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the final process was equally swift .
The first thing to consider is the current relationship of the quantity of money to the economy .
US dollar M3 money supply , the broadest definition of money , has increased along with US GDP : M3 stood at $ 18.327 trillion last July [ iii ] , while second quarter GDP was estimated at $ 19.52 trillion [ iv ] .
The closeness of the relationship between these two figures is explained by the nominal GDP total being inflated by increases in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perfect , because there is always some consumer expenditure which is subject to estimates , future revisions , or simply not captured by GDP .
To these we can add statistical error .
Furthermore , at the beginning of the inflation there would have been a base level for GDP when money was sound from which subsequent inflations occurred .
The degree of the dollar ’ s loss of purchasing power is deliberately understated in official statistics .
Originally , the policy was to reduce the cost to US and other governments of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ price inflation .
It is remarkable that the statistical suppression of changes in the general level of prices , now adopted in all advanced economies , is rarely questioned .
Consequently , the scale of the fall in the purchasing power of fiat currencies has been ignored with some important consequences , at least for governments and their central banks , which are concealing evidence of the failures of monetary and economic policies .
Figure 2 compares the cumulative increase in the general level of prices measured by the CPI , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ top 500 items on which Americans spend their after-tax dollars in the 50 largest cities in the nation ” .
[ v ] The Chapwood price inflation numbers used in the chart are the arithmetic average of the fifty cities , the last data points being end-June 2020 .
Additionally , the growth of M3 money supply is included .
It should be clear that changes in the general level of prices are a theoretical concept which can not be measured , because it is different for every individual .
An average is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even assuming the evidence is not manipulated by vested interests .
Bearing this in mind , the cumulative price effect of the official cities ’ CPI over the last ten years is for it to have risen by only 19 % , compared with the Chapwood index which rose 159 % , compounding by about 10 % annually .
By way of confirmation that the Chapwood figures are closer to the truth , we see that USD M3 diluted the dollar by increasing 109 % over the period .
The lower increase in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chapwood index suggests that as well as the dilution of the dollar ’ s spending power in a general sense , holdings of money have also been reduced relative to the commonly bought goods in the Chapwood index .
In other words , consumers appear to show a relative preference in their spending for their common purchases over their less common purchases .
This could be taken to be evidence of the earliest stages of a reduction of money balances in favour of everyday purchases .
It is inconsistent with the official story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whereby the monetary authorities and their epigones delude themselves that price inflation is contained by the two per cent annual target , with some of them even claiming price inflation is banished for ever .
Figure 3 further illustrates the ineffectiveness of monetary policy by expressing GDP in 2010 prices adjusted by the CPI ( the state ’ s version of real GDP ) , by the Chapwood index and finally by M3 money supply .
The monetary authorities claim that before the coronavirus crisis they had stabilised the US economy following the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , by end-2019 the economy had grown by nearly 22 % over nine years “ in real terms ” .
But because the CPI is a heavily supressed measure of price inflation , the truth is different .
The Chapwood index and USD M3 tell us that adjusted by these measures , GDP has more than halved from $ 15,241bn to $ 6,818 and $ 7,309bn respectively , measured by a base of 2010 dollars .
To be clear , GDP is simply a money total of all recorded transactions .
It does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or indicate the degree of economic progress , or the lack of it .
As always , there have been winners and losers .
We can only conclude in the most general of terms that the contraction of real values has exposed the failure of monetary and economic policies .
Where it really matters is for governments , and the purchasing power of the taxes they collect .
A modern socialising government never reduces its expenditure , and budget deficits arise as a result of a reluctance to increase taxes to match @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an emerging hyperinflation , in that the decline in the purchasing power of the currency is driving the fall in the real value of taxation receipts , while at the same time it is realised that to raise taxes would be harmful to production , consumption , and therefore government finances .
Then came the coronavirus , an unexpected hit to nominal GDP , upon which government tax income depends .
And now we have a second covid-19 wave , the economic consequences of which can only be guessed .
Let us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , last September there was an emerging liquidity crisis evidenced by the failure in the dollar repo market , indicating , in all likelihood , the end of bank credit expansion .
And we should also remember that the trade tariff war between the world ’ s two largest economies brought the growth of international trade to a sudden halt .
Anyone with an eye for the economic consequences of all these developments can only conclude that in addition to the already growing gap between government spending and tax receipts , governments are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bases from a one or two-off hit from the coronavirus , but further rounds of inflationary expansions will follow at an increasing pace .
Purely in terms of money quantities , hyperinflation is already well entrenched for the US dollar and all other fiat currencies subject to the same political and factual dynamics .
Very few are conscious that hyperinflation is already with us , the majority of people only becoming aware when the consequences for prices become obvious .
And as noted above , it is not a linear process , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replaced by the human factor , where preferences change between holding a reserve of money liquidity and buying goods .
The final flight into goods is a rapid process , which once started is impossible to stop .
We have seen that the relationship between the rise in prices , as measured by the Chapwood index and the increase in dollar M3 , suggests that the earliest stages of preferences for holding money are decreasing in favour of commonly bought goods : the process appears to have been subtly under way for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hyperinflation hypothesis might argue that the US Treasury owns over 8,000 tonnes of gold and could stop the rot at any time by returning to a gold standard .
One would hope so , but there is no sign that anyone in charge has the faintest clue of the true situation .
Furthermore , having discarded gold as backing for the dollar forty-nine years ago it is inconceivable that the Fed and the Treasury would willingly put the clock back .
Furthermore , if I am right that the Chinese state not only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ substantial cache of undeclared bullion , reinstating gold ’ s monetary role would be seen to hand enormous power to America ’ s enemies .
Besides , so long as there is any value left in the dollar foreigners are likely to swap them for gold at the US Treasury .
And that is before the neo-Keynesian macroeconomists submit themselves for retraining , expunging themselves of all their fallacies .
No , the rotten ship USS Dollar is more likely to sink with the loss of all hands .
Meanwhile , the Fed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Shortly after , China began to accelerate sales of dollars in favour of stockpiling commodities , exhibiting the change in behaviour we can expect from the wider American public when it collectively realises it is money going down and not the prices of everything rising .
Did 23 March , following which China is reported to have started dumping dollars at an increased pace for commodities , mark the beginning of the final flight into goods ?
It is certainly possible , in which case hyperinflation of the dollar and of most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a final , unexpected collapse in purchasing power in a matter of only a few months .
[ ii ] Kiley , Michael T. ( 2020 ) .
“ Pandemic Recession Dynamics : The Role of Monetary Policy in Shifting a U-Shaped Recession to a V-Shaped Rebound , ” Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-083 .
Washington : Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System , https : //doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2020.083 The Best of Alasdair Macleod

Definition: Hyperinflation is the condition whereby monetary authorities accelerate the expansion of the quantity of money to the point where it proves impossible for them to regain control.
It ends when the state’s fiat currency is finally worthless. It is an evolving crisis, not just a climactic event.
Summary
This article defines hyperinflation in simple terms, making it clear that most, if not all governments have already committed their unbacked currencies to destruction by hyperinflation. The evidence is now becoming plain to see.
Augason Farms Lunch an... Buy New $62.68 (as of 04:28 UTC - Details) The phenomenon is driven by the excess of government spending over tax receipts, which has already spiralled out of control in the US and elsewhere. The first round of the coronavirus has only served to make the problem more obvious to those who had already understood that the expansionary phase of the bank credit cycle was coming to an end, and by combining with the economic consequences of the trade tariff war between China and America we are condemned to a repeat of the conditions that led to the Wall Street crash of 1929—32.
For economic historians these should be statements of the obvious. The fact is that the tax base, which is quantified by GDP, when measured by the true rate of the dollar’s loss of purchasing power and confirmed by the accelerated rate of increase in broad money over the last ten years has been declining sharply in real terms while government spending commitments continue to rise.
In this article it is documented for the dollar,but the same hyperinflationary dynamics affect nearly all other fiat currencies.
Introduction
In the last ten years I have waged two crusades to bring attention to issues I believe to be in the public interest. From 2011, I wrote a series of articles about China’s gold policy, which had been accumulating physical gold from as long ago as 1983. The meme that gold was moving from west to east became broadly understood and almost a cliché. The second crusade was to inform the public that the business or trade cycle was only the symptom of a cycle of bank credit, which inevitably ends in a crisis of credit contraction.
It is now time for a new campaign, on a subject which I have been writing about in recent months, and that is to inform the wider public that their governments and their fiat currencies are now in a state of hyperinflation. It is not a development on the far horizon as many might think; it is already here.
What is hyperinflation?
Mountain House Beef St... Buy New $48.79 (as of 05:29 UTC - Details) To understand why hyperinflation is already with us is to know what constitutes hyperinflation. It is not rising prices, or a condition that exists when prices increase above a predetermined rate: rising prices are the consequence of both inflation and hyperinflation. As Milton Friedman put it, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, though he spoiled it by continuing, “…in the sense it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”[i] He was wrong on that last bit, conflating the price effect with the increase in the quantity of money. When even so-called monetarists are imprecise about inflation, let alone hyperinflation, it is hardly surprising public confusion is widespread.
There can only be one definition of hyperinflation, and that is the one headlined above, which you won’t find in any textbook. There is even no definition of it in von Mises’s Human Action, only of inflation, and that is more a description than a definition. And since it is a relatively recent phenomenon of unbacked fiat currencies, hyperinflation was never defined separately from inflation by classical economists. The difference between inflation and hyperinflation cannot be distinguished by degree either.
Have a look at US M1, the quantity of narrow money in the American economy, shown in Figure 1.
The progression of annualised monetary inflation from under 6% before the Lehman crisis, to 9.6% subsequently until March this year, and 65% in the thirty weeks since is clear from the chart. If the monetary authorities have the knowledge, the mandate, the authority, the ability and the desire to stop inflating the currency, we would not describe it as hyperinflation, instead deeming it to be no more than a brief period of exceptional inflation before a return to sound money policies.
But sound money was emphatically discarded in 1971, when the post-war Bretton Woods agreement was finally abandoned — not that the monetary regime at that time was in any way sounder than Adam’s fig leaf was an item of clothing. For the fact of the matter is that sound money in America was arguably abandoned long ago, with the founding of the Fed at Jekyll Island before the First World War. MW polar Herring Fille... Buy New $24.96 ($0.30 / Ounce) (as of 04:08 UTC - Details)
As a means of funding government deficits, inflation is capable of being stopped by cutting government spending and/or raising taxes. But now, a one-off increase of 65% of narrow money is to be followed by another massive expansion already in the wings. The hope is that that will be enough, just as the original 65% increase in M1 was hoped to be enough to ensure a V-shaped recession would be followed by a return to normality.
The early stages of a hyperinflation are always seen by the monetary authorities as the only policy to pursue. They convince themselves that there are either no consequences, or that they can be controlled. An example of the genre is found in a paper by Michael T Kiley, a senior Fed economist.[ii] In August he concluded that the lack of further room to cut interest rates to deal with the coronavirus requires quantitative easing to a total of 30% of GDP, or $6.5 trillion, to offset the lack of room for manoeuvre on interest rates. Kiley writes that about $3 trillion had been enacted between end-February and end-June, leaving a further $3.5 trillion to come. If we assume the full $6.5 trillion stimulus is enacted by next February, then the increase reflected in narrow money could be to more than double it.
Kiley wrote his paper before the second coronavirus wave commenced. He was modelling an economic contraction measured in real GDP of just 10% in the second quarter (actually 9.5% — not to be confused with the annualised rate reported at 32.9%). But, as I pointed out in last week’s article, with monetary inflation running at such a rate, a dollar last February is not the same as an inflated dollar next February, being diluted on Kiley’s figures by $6.5 trillion. The consequence is some extremely damaging intertemporal shifts, as described in the Cantillon effect, whereby ultimately both productive workers and the poorest in society lose savings, salaries and social security benefits through loss of the dollar’s purchasing power for the benefit of the government, its agencies, and big business.
In his economic model, Kiley flattens the Phillips curve, apparently in an attempt to goal-seek a preferred outcome. The Phillips curve is meant to replicate graphically the relationship between inflation and unemployment, the idea being that an increase in price inflation goes along with a reduction in unemployment. Flattening it is the same as assuming that at a deemed level of full employment prices will not rise as much as previously modelled. But it is one thing to forecast such a relationship when the inflation “stimulus” is in the order of a few per cent, when arguably the public is more aware of the stimulation effect of monetary inflation than they are of the dilutionary effect on the money, but it is another matter when it is as dramatic as it is today.
We must resist the temptation to accept a mathematical relationship between prices of goods and services and the rate of employment, such as predicted by the Phillip’s curve. Whatever the level of employment, production adjusts because of the division of labour. In their dismissal of Say’s law, modern economists fail to realise that production and consumption broadly march or retreat together. Other than users of currency being temporarily conned by the initial effects of monetary stimulation, there is no enduring relationship between the quantity of money and employment.
Errors introduced by the mathematical economists through artifices such as the Phillips curve conceal the consequences of policies based on their forecasts at the outset. Consequently, the recommendations of senior economists at the Fed using economic models based upon macroeconomic assumptions give false comfort to the committees they advise. Furthermore, the annualised rate of the budget deficit since March was about $4.4 trillion, financed entirely through monetary expansion and significantly greater than covered by declining tax income. MW Polar Herring, Kipp... Buy New $24.84 ($0.39 / Ounce) (as of 04:23 UTC - Details)
If these conditions persist in the new fiscal year — which seems increasingly certain, Kiley’s calculation of the further $3.5 trillion stimulus underestimates the problem. According to an op-ed by Allister Heath in today’s Daily Telegraph, Larry Summers, the US economist and arch-inflationist, believes that the cost of covid-19 will reach 90% of US GDP, substantially more than Kiley’s estimate of 30%. Over-dramatic perhaps; but can we envisage that the forthcoming stimulus package, and then undoubtedly the one to follow that, will restore normality and set the budget deficit firmly in the direction towards a balance? If the answer is no, then we already have hyperinflation.
Dispensing with the assumptions of mathematical economists
The error of the Phillips curve was to not understand why there is a point in the course of inflation where the currency’s users suspect that prices will continue to rise, and that a shift away from personal liquidity and saving in favour of consumer spending ensues. That it is bound to happen beyond a certain point does not mean that the point and the subsequent effect on the general level of prices can be predicted — that is down to human action, the unpredictable response of individual actors to their changing circumstances.
The Phillips curve is not the only error when it comes to understanding the effects of monetary inflation. Finding that the relationship between the expansion of money and the effect on its purchasing power varied, the mathematical economists introduced a variable factor to ensure the equation describing the money relationship with prices always balanced. The monetary equation is as follows:
But by introducing a variable factor V to ensure the equation always balances, it disqualifies the utility of the equation itself: anything with two unequal sides can be turned into an equation by this artifice. The imagination of the monetarists brushes over this truth by giving the variable a pejorative name. By calling it “velocity of money” it creates an image of the circulation of money. From there it is easy to assume that if money is underused, velocity of circulation drops and the economy is declared to stagnate, and if its velocity of circulation increases, it is said to be because money is demanded and circulates more effectively. Falling velocity is thereby associated with falling prices for which nominal GDP is the proxy (P x T in the equation), and rising velocity is associated with rising prices and rising GDP. This concept is badly flawed, but it explains the fundamental precepts behind current monetary policy.
The consequences of changes in relative preferences
Nominal GDP is not just the other side of the monetary equation. It is also total production, and the other side of total production is the sum of consumption and deferred consumption. The correct way to regard money is not through the monetary equation and the supposed role of velocity, but to look at nominal GDP as both the total of everyone’s income and profits, and the sum of their expenditures and net savings. Only then can we consider the impact of changes in the money quantity on prices.
Money is merely a form of intermediation between the production and consumption of goods. People hold a degree of personal monetary liquidity, which when money is stable does not vary by much overall. This liquidity must not be confused with savings, which being consumption deferred, are not primarily held for their liquidity but for anticipated returns. Personal liquidity is held in reserve for personal consumption.
The general level of personal liquidity is the result of recent experiences of the value of money in terms of goods, modified by expectations of any change in the relative value of future goods. Thus, if people think the price of a good might rise, they will tend to buy it sooner than they would otherwise, and if they expect it to fall, they will tend to delay their purchase of it. In generally stable monetary conditions, this is why some prices rise and others fall.
The trouble comes if for whatever reason people as a whole anticipate a rise in the general level of prices. In that case, they will alter the relationship between their monetary liquidity and goods in favour of goods more generally, driving the purchasing power of the money down and the general level of prices up.
The effect of changes in the general level of personal liquidity is potentially a more important influence on the level of prices than the quantity of money itself. It should be evident that if the increased quantity of money in circulation is simply hoarded, there will be no effect on the general level of prices. Alternatively, if the public decides to abandon a state-issued currency, irrespective of the quantity in circulation it will lose all of its purchasing power.
The abandonment of a state-issued currency by the public terminates all hyperinflations and once the process is under way it tends to be rapid. In Weimar Germany, it was said this flight into goods and out of money began in May 1923 and lasted to mid-November. In the other European nations, which suffered collapses of their currencies in the early 1920s, the final process was equally swift.
The form of today’s monetary collapse
The first thing to consider is the current relationship of the quantity of money to the economy. US dollar M3 money supply, the broadest definition of money, has increased along with US GDP: M3 stood at $18.327 trillion last July[iii], while second quarter GDP was estimated at $19.52 trillion[iv]. The closeness of the relationship between these two figures is explained by the nominal GDP total being inflated by increases in the money quantity. The match is never perfect, because there is always some consumer expenditure which is subject to estimates, future revisions, or simply not captured by GDP. To these we can add statistical error. Furthermore, at the beginning of the inflation there would have been a base level for GDP when money was sound from which subsequent inflations occurred.
The degree of the dollar’s loss of purchasing power is deliberately understated in official statistics. Originally, the policy was to reduce the cost to US and other governments of indexation introduced following the 1970s decade of price inflation. It is remarkable that the statistical suppression of changes in the general level of prices, now adopted in all advanced economies, is rarely questioned. Consequently, the scale of the fall in the purchasing power of fiat currencies has been ignored with some important consequences, at least for governments and their central banks, which are concealing evidence of the failures of monetary and economic policies.
Figure 2 compares the cumulative increase in the general level of prices measured by the CPI, and the Chapwood index — comprised of “the top 500 items on which Americans spend their after-tax dollars in the 50 largest cities in the nation”.[v] The Chapwood price inflation numbers used in the chart are the arithmetic average of the fifty cities, the last data points being end-June 2020. Additionally, the growth of M3 money supply is included.
It should be clear that changes in the general level of prices are a theoretical concept which cannot be measured, because it is different for every individual. An average is therefore no more than an indication, even assuming the evidence is not manipulated by vested interests. Bearing this in mind, the cumulative price effect of the official cities’ CPI over the last ten years is for it to have risen by only 19%, compared with the Chapwood index which rose 159%, compounding by about 10% annually. By way of confirmation that the Chapwood figures are closer to the truth, we see that USD M3 diluted the dollar by increasing 109% over the period.
The lower increase in USD M3 relative to that of the Chapwood index suggests that as well as the dilution of the dollar’s spending power in a general sense, holdings of money have also been reduced relative to the commonly bought goods in the Chapwood index. In other words, consumers appear to show a relative preference in their spending for their common purchases over their less common purchases. This could be taken to be evidence of the earliest stages of a reduction of money balances in favour of everyday purchases. It is inconsistent with the official story upon which monetary policy is based, whereby the monetary authorities and their epigones delude themselves that price inflation is contained by the two per cent annual target, with some of them even claiming price inflation is banished for ever.
Figure 3 further illustrates the ineffectiveness of monetary policy by expressing GDP in 2010 prices adjusted by the CPI (the state’s version of real GDP), by the Chapwood index and finally by M3 money supply.
The monetary authorities claim that before the coronavirus crisis they had stabilised the US economy following the Lehman crisis. Measured by the CPI, by end-2019 the economy had grown by nearly 22% over nine years “in real terms”. But because the CPI is a heavily supressed measure of price inflation, the truth is different. The Chapwood index and USD M3 tell us that adjusted by these measures, GDP has more than halved from $15,241bn to $6,818 and $7,309bn respectively, measured by a base of 2010 dollars.
To be clear, GDP is simply a money total of all recorded transactions. It does not tell us anything about their quality, or indicate the degree of economic progress, or the lack of it. As always, there have been winners and losers. We can only conclude in the most general of terms that the contraction of real values has exposed the failure of monetary and economic policies.
Where it really matters is for governments, and the purchasing power of the taxes they collect.
A modern socialising government never reduces its expenditure, and budget deficits arise as a result of a reluctance to increase taxes to match spending. Prima facie it is evidence of an emerging hyperinflation, in that the decline in the purchasing power of the currency is driving the fall in the real value of taxation receipts, while at the same time it is realised that to raise taxes would be harmful to production, consumption, and therefore government finances.
Then came the coronavirus, an unexpected hit to nominal GDP, upon which government tax income depends. And now we have a second covid-19 wave, the economic consequences of which can only be guessed. Let us not forget that before all this happened, last September there was an emerging liquidity crisis evidenced by the failure in the dollar repo market, indicating, in all likelihood, the end of bank credit expansion. And we should also remember that the trade tariff war between the world’s two largest economies brought the growth of international trade to a sudden halt.
Anyone with an eye for the economic consequences of all these developments can only conclude that in addition to the already growing gap between government spending and tax receipts, governments are not just having to rescue their tax bases from a one or two-off hit from the coronavirus, but further rounds of inflationary expansions will follow at an increasing pace. Purely in terms of money quantities, hyperinflation is already well entrenched for the US dollar and all other fiat currencies subject to the same political and factual dynamics.
When the public wakes up…
Very few are conscious that hyperinflation is already with us, the majority of people only becoming aware when the consequences for prices become obvious. And as noted above, it is not a linear process, where
M x V = P x T.
V, or velocity, must be replaced by the human factor, where preferences change between holding a reserve of money liquidity and buying goods. The final flight into goods is a rapid process, which once started is impossible to stop. We have seen that the relationship between the rise in prices, as measured by the Chapwood index and the increase in dollar M3, suggests that the earliest stages of preferences for holding money are decreasing in favour of commonly bought goods: the process appears to have been subtly under way for a number of years.
Sceptics of the hyperinflation hypothesis might argue that the US Treasury owns over 8,000 tonnes of gold and could stop the rot at any time by returning to a gold standard. One would hope so, but there is no sign that anyone in charge has the faintest clue of the true situation. Furthermore, having discarded gold as backing for the dollar forty-nine years ago it is inconceivable that the Fed and the Treasury would willingly put the clock back. Furthermore, if I am right that the Chinese state not only controls physical gold markets but has a substantial cache of undeclared bullion, reinstating gold’s monetary role would be seen to hand enormous power to America’s enemies. Besides, so long as there is any value left in the dollar foreigners are likely to swap them for gold at the US Treasury.
And that is before the neo-Keynesian macroeconomists submit themselves for retraining, expunging themselves of all their fallacies. No, the rotten ship USS Dollar is more likely to sink with the loss of all hands.
Meanwhile, the Fed announced unlimited monetary inflation on 23 March. Shortly after, China began to accelerate sales of dollars in favour of stockpiling commodities, exhibiting the change in behaviour we can expect from the wider American public when it collectively realises it is money going down and not the prices of everything rising. Did 23 March, following which China is reported to have started dumping dollars at an increased pace for commodities, mark the beginning of the final flight into goods?
It is certainly possible, in which case hyperinflation of the dollar and of most other paper currencies will likely end in a final, unexpected collapse in purchasing power in a matter of only a few months.
—
[i] Friedman (1970) The Counter-Revolution in Monetary Theory.
[ii] Kiley, Michael T. (2020). “Pandemic Recession Dynamics: The Role of Monetary Policy in Shifting a U-Shaped Recession to a V-Shaped Rebound,” Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-083. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, https://doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2020.083
[iii] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MABMM301USM189S
[iv] https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-third-estimate-corporate-profits-revised-and-gdp-industry-annual
[v] See www.chapwoodindex.com
Reprinted with permission from Goldmoney.com.
The Best of Alasdair Macleod


lewrockwell--2020-10-17--Serb Hillbillies, Sandra Afrika, and Alexander the Great

Wandering around Belgrade , I ran into the Hells Angels of Serbia ’ s clubhouse .
I tried its door to find it locked .
Weeks later , I discovered the Hillbillies MC ’ s pub , so I went in , had a couple beers and looked around .
Their logo featured a bearded , smiling skull in front of red wings .
Most of the “ doom crew ” were middle-aged , hirsute and tattooed .
The owner wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a pony tail .
Over the bar was a painting of a near naked chick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wall , Motorhead ’ s Lemmy stared everyone down , looking badassed in his black cowboy hat .
Most tellingly , just about every sign , message , slogan or joke was in English .
“ KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON DRINKING.
” “ LEGENDS NEVER DIE.
” “ ROUTE U.S. 66.
” “ ROUTE 69 / SEX KING OF THE ROAD.
” Now nearly anyone anywhere can sort of become anything , so why not be an American redneck , black rapper or Warholian metrosexual , etc.
?
It wasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could even choose a different colored shirt .
There ’ s a Serbian singer named Sandra Afrika .
Though augmented with decently bulbous ghetto ass , her twerking isn ’ t quite , well , sista quality .
Reinvention has its limits .
Vintage Laotian Flag O ... Buy New $ 13.97 A nation can also undergo an extreme makeover , such as after an invasion , revolution or liberation .
In the weird case of North Macedonia , its capital got a lurid facelift under the direction of prime minister Nikola Gruevski @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pseudo Greek buildings and hundreds of Hellenic statues were plopped onto the nation ’ s capital , as if by a drunken Zeus .
In this country of two million , at least two thirds are Slavs , with most of the rest Albanians , Turks and Gypsies .
There are few Greeks .
Still , downtown Skopje is now jammed with fluted columns , voluted capitals , acanthuses , pediments and friezes , with everything huge and towering , if only made of concrete and not marble .
It ’ s everything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ budget .
As for statues , they grace promenades , lawns , cornices , bridges , columns , between columns , niches and grand pedestals .
The most colossal is of Alexander the Great , sword raised , riding a rearing Bucephalas .
Lording over a vast square , it ’ s on a round platform atop a fat , banded and relief-laden column , rising from a circular fountain .
Streams of dancing water noisily arc in .
At the column ’ s base are eight sword or lance-wielding warriors , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Eight lions , twice life-sized , stand or sit , with four squirting water from their roaring mouths .
Half a kilometer away is a giant statue of Philip II , and he , too , is atop a column in the middle of a fountain , with warriors and lions .
At its base , Philip reappears with Olympias and a boy Alexander .
Nearby , there ’ s a fountain dedicated just to Olympias , but with four women shown , it ’ s not clear how .
Three are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To blunt Greek charges of cultural appropriation , it was briefly renamed Fountain of the Mothers of Macedonia .
Now , there ’ s a backtracking , appeasing plaque , “ In honor of Olympias , a historic figure belonging to the ancient Hellenic history and civilization and to the world cultural and historic heritage.
” Far from exuding pride , it sounds like lawyerspeak .
Similar plaques front other statues , with “ Hellenic ” sometimes scratched out by pissed locals .
Ann Arbor T-shirt Co. ... Buy New $ 14.95 Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she ’ s best known for sleeping with snakes .
Plutarch , “ Once , moreover , a serpent was found lying by Olympias as she slept , which more than anything else , it is said , abated Philip ’ s passion for her ; and whether he feared her as an enchantress , or thought she had commerce with some god , and so looked on himself as excluded , he was ever after less fond of her conversation.
” You ’ d be abated too , buddy .
Worse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Philip ’ s assassination .
Although Skopje statues do honor Macedonian , Bulgarian , Albanian , Serb and Byzantinian heroes , the main spotlights shine on Alexander .
Skopje ’ s airport was also named Alexander the Great .
It ’ s odd that 21st century North Macedonians should identify with Alexander at all .
Their language is basically Bulgarian .
If a drunk shepherd from eastern North Macedonia strays into Bulgaria , he ’ s completely understood , but not if he staggers into Greece .
Also , Alexander during his time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for he massacred so many of them .
When the Branchidae in Persia welcomed conquering Alexander as a fellow Greek , he promptly slaughtered them .
Many Greeks fought against Alexander , even as mercenaries for the Persians .
Drunk , vain , touchy and paranoid , Alexander didn ’ t hesitate to kill his generals , soldiers , body guards , pages or court historian .
Alexander murdered Cleitus , who had saved him in battle .
When his lover , Hephaestion , died , Alexander blamed it on the deceased @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was impaled , a Persian practice that disgusted Macedonians and Greeks alike .
When Alexander died , Greeks rejoiced , but now he ’ s one of their greatest heroes , and a towering presence to most Westerners , for he pushed back the Persians .
Without Alexander , our entire world would be less Greek ( thus less Roman ) , and more Persian , but is that bad ?
Imagine history without Jesus , at least not on the cross , but perhaps impaled ?
When Alexander torched Persepolis in 330BC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smoke .
It was retribution for the Persians ’ burning of Athens in 480BC .
Plus , Alexander had encountered this when he entered the magnificent Persian city , “ At this point in his advance the king was confronted by a strange and dreadful sight , one to provoke indignation against the perpetrators and sympathetic pity for the unfortunate victims .
He was met by Greeks bearing branches of supplication .
They had been carried away from their homes by previous kings of Persia and were about eight hundred in number , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been mutilated , some lacking hands , some feet , and some ears and noses .
They were persons who had acquired skills or crafts and had made good progress in their instruction ; then their other extremities had been amputated and they were left only those which were vital to their profession .
All the soldiers , seeing their venerable years and the losses which their bodies had suffered , pitied the lot of the wretches .
Alexander most of all was affected by them and unable to restrain his tears.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gr ... Buy New $ 19.99 Few lives change nearly every other .
Plus , overwhelming power awes , mesmerizes and seduces , as long as you ’ re not threatened , that is .
Alexander will forever fascinate , as will Quin Shih Huang , Genghis Khan , Charlemagne or Napoleon , etc .
AAA males are so rare , how can us tick-like wusses , fearful of our own shadows even , not buckle our knees ?
Another reason for North Macedonians ’ identification with Alexander is our basic need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s jarring to admit we ’ re just squatters , more or less , anywhere .
In Belgrade , a woman told me Serbs sprung from the Vinča Culture , which dates to 5700BC , so her ancestors didn ’ t only arrive in the Balkans in the 8th century , after all .
They ’ ve always been there .
She also claimed there were Serbs among Alexander the Great ’ s troops , with many of their descendants now living in Pakistan .
In Laos , there are hundreds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ buried in the ground that can ’ t be linked to current Laotians , but still , they ’ re proud .
Vietnamese identify with 2,600-years-old bronze drums they can ’ t explain .
Skopje has been inhabited for at least 6,000 years , but there have been so many wars , not to mention earthquakes , few old structures remain .
There are beautiful mosques , with their mixed stone and brick walls , and stately stone minarets , so unlike the newer concrete ones .
Less constrained by cost and gravity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taller .
Haughtily , they starkly rise .
There ’ s a large 15th century Turkish bath , with its gorgeous booblike domes .
Spanning the Vardar ( or Axios as mentioned by Homer ) , there ’ s a 702-foot-long , 13-arched stone bridge , built by the Ottomans no later than 1469 .
A plaque on it commemorates the 1689 impalement of Petar Karposh , a local Slav rebel .
There ’ s also an equestrian statue of him , next to the bridge .
Crossing it often , I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One man has bulging , nublike feet , which he sticks out .
There is a Gypsy boy , undersized but no older than six , who always wears a FC Barcelona jersey .
An older boy has piercing and alert eyes , darkly rimmed .
Tao Te Ching : The New ... Tzu , Lao Best Price : $ 1.82 Buy New $ 6.33 The Old Town boasts new storefronts , so doesn ’ t look too ancient , but if you study the more seasoned flagstones on its lanes , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slightest indentations left by so many feet down the centuries .
Nobodies , we too leave our marks .
Never bombed , Prague ’ s historical center is magnificent , a bitter reminder of what much of Europe has once been .
Haplessly resurrecting this hard-earned splendor , Skopje has become a joke , but what ’ s done is done .
Leave it , and let the world come and witness , before the cheaply built monuments peel , flake , crumble and collapse .
A nude Prometheus had his penis spat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now must wear a sculptural loin cloth .
Ancient Greeks digged naked males .
Again , North Macedonians are mostly Slavs .
As published at Smirking Chimp , OpEd News , Unz Review and TruthSeeker , 10/7/20 .
The Best of Linh Dinh

Wandering around Belgrade, I ran into the Hells Angels of Serbia’s clubhouse. I tried its door to find it locked. Weeks later, I discovered the Hillbillies MC’s pub, so I went in, had a couple beers and looked around. Their logo featured a bearded, smiling skull in front of red wings.
Most of the “doom crew” were middle-aged, hirsute and tattooed. The owner wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a pony tail. Over the bar was a painting of a near naked chick draped over a bike. From a wall, Motorhead’s Lemmy stared everyone down, looking badassed in his black cowboy hat. Most tellingly, just about every sign, message, slogan or joke was in English. “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON DRINKING.” “LEGENDS NEVER DIE.” “ROUTE U.S. 66.” “ROUTE 69 / SEX KING OF THE ROAD.”
Now nearly anyone anywhere can sort of become anything, so why not be an American redneck, black rapper or Warholian metrosexual, etc.? It wasn’t that long ago when only a few could even choose a different colored shirt.
There’s a Serbian singer named Sandra Afrika. Though augmented with decently bulbous ghetto ass, her twerking isn’t quite, well, sista quality. Reinvention has its limits. Vintage Laotian Flag O... Buy New $13.97 (as of 05:31 UTC - Details)
A nation can also undergo an extreme makeover, such as after an invasion, revolution or liberation. In the weird case of North Macedonia, its capital got a lurid facelift under the direction of prime minister Nikola Gruevski. With Skopje 2014, dozens of pseudo Greek buildings and hundreds of Hellenic statues were plopped onto the nation’s capital, as if by a drunken Zeus.
In this country of two million, at least two thirds are Slavs, with most of the rest Albanians, Turks and Gypsies. There are few Greeks. Still, downtown Skopje is now jammed with fluted columns, voluted capitals, acanthuses, pediments and friezes, with everything huge and towering, if only made of concrete and not marble. It’s everything Greek super-sized, but done on a budget.
As for statues, they grace promenades, lawns, cornices, bridges, columns, between columns, niches and grand pedestals. The most colossal is of Alexander the Great, sword raised, riding a rearing Bucephalas. Lording over a vast square, it’s on a round platform atop a fat, banded and relief-laden column, rising from a circular fountain. Streams of dancing water noisily arc in. At the column’s base are eight sword or lance-wielding warriors, with the latter evoking the fearsome Macedonian phalanxes. Eight lions, twice life-sized, stand or sit, with four squirting water from their roaring mouths.
Half a kilometer away is a giant statue of Philip II, and he, too, is atop a column in the middle of a fountain, with warriors and lions. At its base, Philip reappears with Olympias and a boy Alexander.
Nearby, there’s a fountain dedicated just to Olympias, but with four women shown, it’s not clear how. Three are pampering children. One is pregnant. To blunt Greek charges of cultural appropriation, it was briefly renamed Fountain of the Mothers of Macedonia.
Now, there’s a backtracking, appeasing plaque, “In honor of Olympias, a historic figure belonging to the ancient Hellenic history and civilization and to the world cultural and historic heritage.” Far from exuding pride, it sounds like lawyerspeak. Similar plaques front other statues, with “Hellenic” sometimes scratched out by pissed locals. Ann Arbor T-shirt Co. ... Buy New $14.95 (as of 05:31 UTC - Details)
Why celebrate Olympias at all? Perhaps unfairly, she’s best known for sleeping with snakes. Plutarch, “Once, moreover, a serpent was found lying by Olympias as she slept, which more than anything else, it is said, abated Philip’s passion for her; and whether he feared her as an enchantress, or thought she had commerce with some god, and so looked on himself as excluded, he was ever after less fond of her conversation.” You’d be abated too, buddy. Worse, she may have been complicit in Philip’s assassination.
Although Skopje statues do honor Macedonian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Serb and Byzantinian heroes, the main spotlights shine on Alexander. Skopje’s airport was also named Alexander the Great. It’s odd that 21st century North Macedonians should identify with Alexander at all. Their language is basically Bulgarian. If a drunk shepherd from eastern North Macedonia strays into Bulgaria, he’s completely understood, but not if he staggers into Greece.
Also, Alexander during his time was mostly feared and despised by Greeks, for he massacred so many of them. When the Branchidae in Persia welcomed conquering Alexander as a fellow Greek, he promptly slaughtered them. Many Greeks fought against Alexander, even as mercenaries for the Persians.
Drunk, vain, touchy and paranoid, Alexander didn’t hesitate to kill his generals, soldiers, body guards, pages or court historian. Alexander murdered Cleitus, who had saved him in battle. When his lover, Hephaestion, died, Alexander blamed it on the deceased man’s physician, so Glaucias was impaled, a Persian practice that disgusted Macedonians and Greeks alike.
When Alexander died, Greeks rejoiced, but now he’s one of their greatest heroes, and a towering presence to most Westerners, for he pushed back the Persians. Without Alexander, our entire world would be less Greek (thus less Roman), and more Persian, but is that bad? Imagine history without Jesus, at least not on the cross, but perhaps impaled? When Alexander torched Persepolis in 330BC, centuries of knowledge went up in smoke.
It was retribution for the Persians’ burning of Athens in 480BC. Plus, Alexander had encountered this when he entered the magnificent Persian city, “At this point in his advance the king was confronted by a strange and dreadful sight, one to provoke indignation against the perpetrators and sympathetic pity for the unfortunate victims. He was met by Greeks bearing branches of supplication. They had been carried away from their homes by previous kings of Persia and were about eight hundred in number, most of them elderly. All had been mutilated, some lacking hands, some feet, and some ears and noses. They were persons who had acquired skills or crafts and had made good progress in their instruction; then their other extremities had been amputated and they were left only those which were vital to their profession. All the soldiers, seeing their venerable years and the losses which their bodies had suffered, pitied the lot of the wretches. Alexander most of all was affected by them and unable to restrain his tears.” (Diodorus Siculus) Straight Outta Laos Gr... Buy New $19.99 (as of 05:31 UTC - Details)
Few lives change nearly every other. Plus, overwhelming power awes, mesmerizes and seduces, as long as you’re not threatened, that is. Alexander will forever fascinate, as will Quin Shih Huang, Genghis Khan, Charlemagne or Napoleon, etc. AAA males are so rare, how can us tick-like wusses, fearful of our own shadows even, not buckle our knees?
Another reason for North Macedonians’ identification with Alexander is our basic need to feel intrinsic to a place, because it’s jarring to admit we’re just squatters, more or less, anywhere.
In Belgrade, a woman told me Serbs sprung from the Vinča Culture, which dates to 5700BC, so her ancestors didn’t only arrive in the Balkans in the 8th century, after all. They’ve always been there. She also claimed there were Serbs among Alexander the Great’s troops, with many of their descendants now living in Pakistan.
In Laos, there are hundreds of huge, ancient stone jars half buried in the ground that can’t be linked to current Laotians, but still, they’re proud. Vietnamese identify with 2,600-years-old bronze drums they can’t explain.
Skopje has been inhabited for at least 6,000 years, but there have been so many wars, not to mention earthquakes, few old structures remain. There are beautiful mosques, with their mixed stone and brick walls, and stately stone minarets, so unlike the newer concrete ones. Less constrained by cost and gravity, they’ve become thinner and taller. Haughtily, they starkly rise. There’s a large 15th century Turkish bath, with its gorgeous booblike domes. Spanning the Vardar (or Axios as mentioned by Homer), there’s a 702-foot-long, 13-arched stone bridge, built by the Ottomans no later than 1469. A plaque on it commemorates the 1689 impalement of Petar Karposh, a local Slav rebel. There’s also an equestrian statue of him, next to the bridge.
Crossing it often, I’ve come to recognize its beggars. One man has bulging, nublike feet, which he sticks out. There is a Gypsy boy, undersized but no older than six, who always wears a FC Barcelona jersey. An older boy has piercing and alert eyes, darkly rimmed.
Tao Te Ching: The New ... Tzu, Lao Best Price: $1.82 Buy New $6.33 (as of 05:31 UTC - Details) The Old Town boasts new storefronts, so doesn’t look too ancient, but if you study the more seasoned flagstones on its lanes, you can see the cracks, cavities and slightest indentations left by so many feet down the centuries. Nobodies, we too leave our marks.
Never bombed, Prague’s historical center is magnificent, a bitter reminder of what much of Europe has once been. Haplessly resurrecting this hard-earned splendor, Skopje has become a joke, but what’s done is done. Leave it, and let the world come and witness, before the cheaply built monuments peel, flake, crumble and collapse.
A nude Prometheus had his penis spat on by disgusted old ladies, so now must wear a sculptural loin cloth. Ancient Greeks digged naked males. Again, North Macedonians are mostly Slavs.
As published at Smirking Chimp, OpEd News, Unz Review and TruthSeeker, 10/7/20.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Best of Linh Dinh


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