Remember how the liberal media kept screeching that President Trump was Putin’s puppet?
Well, the reality was quite the opposite because President Trump OPPOSED the one thing most important to Vladimir Putin, namely the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
A project that President Trump knew would make Western Europe dependent on Russian energy which is why he imposed sanctions upon it.
Oh, and does anybody out there really think Russia would have invaded Ukraine if President Trump were still in the White House?
But, hey, at least we no longer have mean tweets.

Arabica Closes At A 10-1/4 Year High As Global Coffee Supplies Plunge.

March arabica coffee (KCH2) on Wednesday closed up +9.40 (+3.78%), and Mar ICE Robusta coffee (RMH22) closed up +24 (+1.07%).

Coffee prices on Wednesday closed sharply higher, with arabica posting a 10-1/4 year nearest-futures high and robusta posting a 3-1/2 week high.  Dwindling global coffee supplies fueled fund buying of coffee futures Wednesday after ICE-monitored arabica coffee inventories fell to a 22-year low of 1.036 mln bags.   Also, ICE-monitored robusta coffee inventories fell to a 3-1/4 year low of 9,061 lots Wednesday.

Global coffee supplies are tightening after the International Coffee Organization  (ICO) Tuesday cut its 2020/21 global coffee surplus estimate to 1.20 mln bags from a Jan estimate of 2.41 mln bags.  The ICO also reported 2021/22 global coffee exports from Oct 1-Dec 31 fell -1.6% y/y to 31.289 mln bags

Strength in the Brazilian real is also supportive for coffee prices after the real (^USDBRL) rallied to a 4-3/4 month high Wednesday against the dollar.   A stronger real discourages export selling from Brazil’s coffee producers.

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Ford says chip shortage will force it to halt or cut production at 8 plants
The announcement by the major U.S. automaker continued a series of supply-chain setbacks that have affected the nation’s economy in recent months.

Difficulties in obtaining semiconductor chips will prompt Ford Motor to temporarily halt or scale back auto production at eight plants in North America, the company said Friday, according to reports.

The announcement by the major U.S. automaker – set to take effect next week — continued a series of supply-chain setbacks that have affected the nation’s economy in recent months.

Ford had warned Thursday that a lack of chip availability would likely hurt production in the company’s current financial quarter, Reuters reported.

Plants expected to see work suspended by Ford’s decision include those in Michigan, Chicago and Cuautitlan, Mexico, according to Reuters.

Also affected will be plants in Kentucky and Oakville, Ontario, Canada, Reuters added.

In Kansas City, production of Ford’s popular F-150 pickup trucks will be scaled back as one shift produces Transit vans, the news outlet reported.

Other models of Ford vehicles affected by the move include Bronco and Explorer SUVs, Ranger pickups, the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric crossover vehicle and the Lincoln Aviator, CNBC reported.

The 2021 Ford F-150 King Ranch Truck is seen at the Ford Built for America event at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan, plant, Sept. 17, 2020. (Getty Images)
On Thursday, Ford missed Wall Street’s earnings expectations, causing shares to drop nearly 10% on Friday, the CNBC report said.

Earlier Friday, Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler appeared on Fox News’ “Mornings with Maria,” where he said the company expected the semiconductor shortage to ease later in 2022.

“That’s why we’re confident in our volumes in 2022 being up about 10 to 15%,” Lawler said.

A rebound in production could help bring down auto prices that have been affected by inflation, he added.

He said the chip shortage, combined with the impact of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, were a difficult 1-2 punch for the automaker in its fourth quarter.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Directs Millions to Funding State College’s Truck Driving Program

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is directing millions of dollars to truck-driving education at Florida State College in Jacksonville. The governor made his announcement to tap the state’s Job Growth Grant Fund on Thursday, in apparent light of the truck convoy that was making its way down to Ottawa, Canada at the time.

While the announcement may simply be a coincidence, DeSantis highlighted the supply chain problems and a desire to attract more businesses to use Florida ports, which have not experienced the same bottlenecks as ports in California and other parts of the country.
DeSantis said the $3.18 million will help the state school to establish the Nassau County Transportation Education Institute and build two commercial driving pads for training.

“This will provide people with an ability to have very marketable skills,” said DeSantis while at the college campus in Yulee. “And I can tell you, if you go through this program successfully, you are going to get hired in the state of Florida and be able to be hired elsewhere if that’s what you choose.”
In October, the American Trucking Association estimated that the industry is short by at least 80,000 drivers, and the demand for drivers will only increase with the growth of freight volumes.

As governor, DeSantis has the discretion to use money from the Job Growth Grant Fund for workforce education and regional infrastructure projects. In addition to funding the school’s truck driving program, DeSantis recently provided $6 million for transportation-related training programs at Lake Technical College and a further $2.8 million for a diesel-mechanic training program at Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, the Jacksonville Business Journal reported.

“The fund received $50 million for the current fiscal year, and DeSantis has requested that lawmakers replenish it with $100 million when they piece together a 2022-2023 budget during the legislative session that begins Jan. 11,” the publication reported.

That ‘money crop’ is an excellent source for graft, which seems to be one of, if not the major reason for goobermint programs


People Farming

It was a comment on this blog which struck me immediately upon reading it. The subsequent discussion in the comment thread was how antisocial behavior on the part of massive numbers of homeless people setting up massive, festering camps in the downtown areas of certain cities was making those cities less and less inviting for ordinary people.

In the final analysis, no one really wants to come to work in a place where they have to step around feces on the sidewalk, dodge the aggressive panhandler outside a downtown restaurant, or run from the homicidal crazy looking to shove someone off the subway platform in front of an oncoming train.

Downtown retailers can’t keep on in business long when the merchandise walks out the door, assisted by undocumented shoppers; so, eventually the normals – that is, those of us with jobs, property, and a liking for clean, non-threatening surroundings – decamp the urban jungle for something a little less edgy, usually taking our dollars, investments, responsible civic behavior, and tax base with us.

Why on earth do certain cities – San Francisco and Los Angeles being the two which spring to mind almost at once – allow this to continue? What benefit does it give to see gracious, scenic, and culturally-attractive cities descend into a condition which repels longtime residents and new visitors alike? What’s in it for the civic managers of such urban centers … and as it was pointed out, there’s money in it.

There’s money in it, administering programs which succor the homeless … which, if the homeless were ever successfully homed … would mean an end to that mission and money stream. So the civic powers that be have a vested interest in keeping those programs going, and even expanding them to minister to ever-increasing numbers of homeless. Which makes the powers-that-be feel all noble, responsive, responsible and unselfish-like … but which one commenter on the linked thread pointed out … for all intents and purposes they are farming people for a money crop.

And that was where I had that blinding flash of the obvious insight … yes, indeed; they are farming people for the money crop. Civic powers in certain locations are tending a segment of their population most assiduously, for the money crop to be harvested from them. Once possessed of this frame, I began to wonder what other collection of bodies are being farmed for the profitable money crop to be harvested by the controlling powers.

Public schools came to my mind almost at once: students in a public school setting are the crop, and oh, they must be a profitable crop indeed for the teacher union farmers who make a gesture of teaching, but which are essentially farming students. What are the various impulses towards a national and universal health-care scheme, but another people-farming project on the part of various powers that be? Discuss as you wish.

Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas–Not Less.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels draws on the latest data and new insights to challenge everything you thought you knew about the future of energy

For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels to human flourishing–including their unrivaled ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people.

And contrary to what we hear from media “experts” about today’s “renewable revolution” and “climate emergency,” reality has proven Epstein right:

  •  Fact: Fossil fuels are still the dominant source of energy around the world, and growing fast—while much-hyped renewables are causing skyrocketing electricity prices and increased blackouts.
  •  Fact: Fossil-fueled development has brought global poverty to an all-time low.
  •  Fact: While fossil fuels have contributed to the 1 degree of warming in the last 170 years, climate-related deaths are at all-time lows thanks to fossil-fueled development.

What does the future hold? In Fossil Future, Epstein, applying his distinctive “human flourishing framework” to the latest evidence, comes to the shocking conclusion that the benefits of fossil fuels will continue to far outweigh their side effects—including climate impacts—for generations to come. The path to global human flourishing, Epstein argues, is a combination of using more fossil fuels, getting better at “climate mastery,” and establishing “energy freedom” policies that allow nuclear and other truly promising alternatives to reach their full long-term potential.

Today’s pervasive claims of imminent climate catastrophe and imminent renewable energy dominance, Epstein shows, are based on what he calls the “anti-impact framework”—a set of faulty methods, false assumptions, and anti-human values that have caused the media’s designated experts to make wildly wrong predictions about fossil fuels, climate, and renewables for the last fifty years. Deeply researched and wide-ranging, this book will cause you to rethink everything you thought you knew about the future of our energy use, our environment, and our climate.

“So, don’t be surprised if people continue to pour out of heavy lockdown, high-tax states like New York and head to brighter pastures.”
Okay, as long as they don’t bring along the proggie politics which caused the problems they’re fleeing from.


Only Four States Have Regained All the Jobs Lost Since the Pandemic. They’re All Run By Republicans.

The U.S. has a long way to go before our economy fully recovers from the damage inflicted by the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In all, we’re still roughly 3.6 million jobs short of our pre-pandemic employment levels at the national level. But the state of the recovery varies quite a bit at the state level—with four states now having fully recovered all the jobs they lost since the pandemic began.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho have all regained their February 2020 employment levels. This graph from the Journal shows how these states are overperforming the national recovery:

What do these four states all have in common? Well, for one thing, they’re all run by Republicans, and had less-harsh COVID-19 restrictions than many blue states.

“The states—all Republican controlled—also have had relatively relaxed Covid-19 restrictions during the pandemic, which economists say softened the blow on their economies,” the Journal notes.

Arizona is a prime example.

Arizona rapidly returned to its prior peak of employment because compared to the nation we didn’t fall as far,” University of Arizona economist George Hammond said. “One big reason is because the stay-at-home order in Arizona wasn’t very restrictive.”

The takeaway here becomes even more clear when you zoom out. Red states have tended to have consistently lower unemployment rates throughout the recovery to date than blue states, because they tended to have less harsh restrictions on their economies.

Trade-offs are real. But what makes this even worse is that it’s dubious whether the harsh lockdown measures and restrictions even helped stop the spread of COVID-19. Many studies have found no correlation between the strictness of lockdowns and COVID-19 outcomes.

Such drastic infringements on peoples’ liberty wouldn’t necessarily be justified regardless. But to immolate Americans’ economic fortunes and not even achieve improved public health outcomes just adds more insult to injury.

So, don’t be surprised if people continue to pour out of heavy lockdown, high-tax states like New York and head to brighter pastures.

 

The Great Liquidation

America is hanging by a thread.  A great liquidation is underway, with many of the structures that support American society..or, in some cases, any viable society…being kicked away, sold off piecemeal, or just wantonly destroyed.  I’m talking about physical structures, legal structures, and social structures.

I do not think it is too late to turn this trend around, but the situation is very serious, and I’m going to ask you to gaze into the abyss with me before I discuss some reasons for hope.

Consider:

–Significant parts of America’s energy infrastructure are being destroyed or targeted for destruction.  For example, the Indian Point nuclear plant, serving NYC, was closed in April, despite the fact that this closure will likely create grid instability–and will certainly result in the zero-emissions power it had previously produced being generated instead by sources which do generate emissions. (Yet at the same time, NYC is banning the use of natural gas in new buildings–which will further increase the demand for electricity!) The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, the largest source of electricity in California, is also scheduled for closure in 2025.  The cost of Diablo Canyon was $14.5B in present-day dollars, and I estimate that this represents at least 50,000 person-years of labor.  Something like 1200 working lifetimes, being wantonly trashed. Only a society which is very rich (for now)–disrespectful of its past accomplishments–and uncaring about the future would act in this way.

And these examples represent only a small portion of the assaults being conducted on America’s energy infrastructure. Peaker plants which ensure continued output under tough conditions, are being closed, with much hand-waving about how ‘demand management’ will solve any problems.  Oil and gas production are being squeezed. Pipeline construction is being suppressed, at the same time Putin is given the US green light for a Russia-Germany pipeline.  Energy is being transformed from an American asset into an American vulnerability.

–Billions of dollars of America military equipment were abandoned in Afghanistan and are now in the hands of the Taliban.  If we use a conservative estimate of $40 billion, that represents at least 400,000 person-years of human labor, thrown away. But that’s not the worst of it, of course: much of that equipment will now be used against us or our allies.  There are already reports of formerly-American weapons on their way to Iran.

The effect of the horribly-executed Afghanistan withdrawal on our credibility as an alliance partner will be devastating.  While many foreign policy types expressed worry about what expecting Germany to pay a larger % of the NATO bill would do to our alliances, any imagined impact of that was trivial compared with the impact of the current debacle.  The negative effect on American military recruiting, also, will be considerable, as discussed by several commenters at this blog.  Overall, America’s actual and perceived power position in the world has been greatly reduced over the past few months.

–American manufacturing has been negatively impacted by numerous policy choices and social factors, and America is no longer the world’s facto ry: that role now falls to China.  We have become extremely dependent on China and other countries for many products and components of products–as we found out during last year’s Covid crisis when we were subject to threats that we would ‘burn in the fire of Covid’ if China should choose to deny us critical pharmaceuticals and ingredients thereof.  We have become highly dependent on other countries for electronics manufacturing, especially microchips: a single Taiwanese company, TSMC, acts as the ‘foundry’ for a whole range of chips produced to the designs of many different American companies.  A Chinese takeover of Taiwan could be devastating to our industry, and such takeover appears considerably more likely than it did a couple of months ago.

Manufacturing was, for a couple of decades, considered by the approved-expert classes to be an increasingly-unimportant industry, populated only by those with inferior and uncreative minds. There is some recognition growing lately that this field may actually matter. But American politicians generally have so little comprehension of how the economy actually works that it is hard to believe that any remedies that they propose will be efficacious ones.  As example #1, I give you Joseph Biden: a man who asserted that anyone who can mine coal can ‘learn to code’, and who apparently believes that manually shoveling coal into furnaces is an actual substantial occupation in America today.  Biden also said, referring to China: “They’re not competition for us.”  This was in mid-2019!

America has given up much of its potential in manufacturing. and the consequences are severe for national security and for millions of people.  

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Game Over? Manchin Approval Soars as He Stands Ground.

The biggest news I’ve seen today hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. It is when Senator Joe Manchin told a Fox News reporter that he has had no conversations with the Biden administration since his last interview with Fox News:

“There’s been no conversations after I made my statement. I think it’s basically, you know, and I was very clear. I just feel as strongly today as I did then. I’m really not going to talk about Build Back Better anymore, because I think I’ve been very clear on that. There is no negotiations going on at this time.”

So first of all, good for Senator Manchin for holding his ground. Second, I told you. The guy is not going to cave. I fully expect him in the next couple days to tell us all that he intends to save America and kill the bill. I’m just waiting for that.

This high tax, high spend, woke monstrosity is going nowhere. All these phony baloney political writers who say otherwise are wrong. Like the Axios report yesterday that breathlessly said that Mr. Manchin is really negotiating on a child tax credit.

Blah, blah, blah. No he’s not. That was a Democratic leak. Pure baloney, and Axios should know better than to fall for that stuff. Unless, of course, they’re pushing their own little woke, “BBB,” big government socialist agenda. Is that what they want? Really? I thought they were independent journalists.

The point I’m making is that not only has Joe Manchin been heroic, he has also been loyally representing the voters of West Virginia. Some recent polling shows that West Virginians oppose the big government socialism bill.

Nearly two thirds of them believe the bill would lead to higher costs for gas and groceries. Senator Manchin’s job approval has gone up seven points to 59 percent. He’s doing the lord’s work.

And he offered a deal to Chuck Schumer last summer, and Mr. Schumer dissed him.

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‘BIDENFLATION’. Jimmy Carter has been surpassed as the most economically incompetent president since Roosevelt


US inflation surges to 39-year high as consumer prices soar higher.

Consumer prices surged at the fastest pace in nearly four decades in November as Americans paid more for practically everything from groceries to cars to gasoline, solidifying hot inflation as a key trait of the economic recovery.

The consumer price index rose 6.8% in November from a year ago, according to a new Labor Department report released Friday, marking the fastest increase since June 1982, when inflation hit 7.1%. The CPI – which measures a bevy of goods ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents – jumped 0.8% in the one-month period from October.

So-called core prices, which exclude more volatile measurements of food and energy, soared 4.9% in November from the previous year – a sharp increase from October, when it rose 4.6%. It was the steepest rate since 1991.

Economists expected the index to show that prices surged 6.8% in November from the year-ago period and 0.7% from the previous month.

Price increases were widespread: Energy prices jumped 3.5% in November and are up 33.3% year over year. Gasoline is a stunning 58.1% higher than it was a year ago. Food prices have also climbed 6.1% higher over the year, while used car and truck prices – a major component of the inflation increase – are up 31%.

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Biden to Increase U.S. Oil Lease Fees 50%…
While Accusing ‘Big Oil’ of Anticompetitive Price Gouging

The Biden-Harris administration issued a report Friday to increase the price of oil leasing fees on federal lands in the United States by 50 percent—even while accusing oil companies of artificially increasing prices through illegal and anticompetitive actions.

Despite record-high gasoline prices impacting American families across the country with winter around the corner, the Biden-Harris administration is recommending Congress hike the cost of oil leases on government lands from 12.50 percent to 18.75 percent.

The 6.25 percentage point royalty rate increase on oil companies would contradict the administration’s promise to lower gasoline prices. In recent weeks, the Biden-Harris administration has asked OPEC to increase oil supplies and requested the Federal Trade Commission conduct an investigation into oil companies for “anticompetitive behavior.”

The rate increase, according to the New York Times, would generate about an extra “$2.5 billion in new revenue by the end of the decade,” which oil companies would pay to the federal government, though consumers would absorb the increased cost the companies incur. So far, the Biden-Harris administration has collected $1.6 billion more from oil leases in 2021 than in 2020.

An increased royalty rate would be the first rate hike since 1920 and would fulfill President Biden’s campaign promise to global warming activists and the far-left.

 

After taking office, Biden threatened American energy independence by mandating a temporary ban on oil leases until Friday’s report was issued. But after 13 states sued and overturned the order, “Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxon Mobil offered $192 million for the rights to drill” in the Gulf of Mexico.

The report from the administration coincides with the massive tax and spend reconciliation package that Democrat leaders are attempting to jam through Congress. The package was passed in the House last week and will likely find its way into the Senate, where it stands little chance of passage as written.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have opposed many provisions in the package, including tax increases, hits to American energy independence, and welfare provisions.

The recommendation to Congress to increase the cost of oil production is the latest tactic in the war on American energy independence. In January, Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline and is also considering canceling the Michigan Line 5 pipeline. Biden also rejoined to Paris Climate Accords and is conducting an environmental regulatory review of repairs instituted by the Trump administration that protected American energy independence.

On Tuesday, Biden raided the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gas prices, despite Vice President Harris slamming then-President Donald Trump in 2020 for refilling them. The immediate impact of the raid was an increase in oil prices. Due to constraint capacity on pipelines, the United States’ output from the reserve is 4.5 million barrels per day.

As Inflation Soars Biden Explains How the Fed Chairman Will Work to Combat…Climate Change

Speaking from the fake White House set in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden announced he will renominate Jerome Powell to lead the Federal Reserve.

While limiting his remarks about runaway inflation, Biden explained how Powell will use his position at the monetary agency to combat climate change.

Biden’s description of how Powell will manage the Federal Reserve to work in the left’s climate change goals is indicative of his administration’s broader plans for the economy.

Last week Saule Omarova, Biden’s nominee to be the Treasury Department Comptroller, testified in front of the Senate Banking Committee. She was heavily scrutinized by Republicans and Democrats over her statements calling for the oil and gas industries to be bankrupted in order to meet climate change goals.

If confirmed, Omarova would be in charge of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC “charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.”

 

When Looking at Treasury Nominee Saule Omarova, Do Not Forget Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

One thing CTH does is to look at proposed leftist advancements through the prism of previously blocked moves.  The Joe Biden nomination of avowed communist Saule Omarova to the Treasury Department Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) should be considered in a similar perspective.

There’s a couple of different issues surfacing in the Omarova nomination.  Obviously, she is aligned with the view that controlling money is another way to control the behavior of businesses and people; Omarova’s previous statements {Go Deep} about intentionally bankrupting oil and gas companies is indicative of the former – and the most recent statements are aligned with the latter.  WATCH:

Obviously, Saule Omarova is interested in the concept of an all controlling central bank that would eliminate the need for private banking interests.  As she states, “There will be no more private bank deposit accounts, and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the fed.”  The basic premise is that all employers would funnel their payrolls into a centralized federal depository, where they would be then be taxed and re-distributed, electronically, to the workers.

One central bank, owned and operated by the federal government, would replace all the purposes within the private banking system.  Given her upbringing in the former Soviet Union, and considering her education at the University of Moscow, perhaps this outlook shouldn’t be surprising.   However, her nomination alone should be viewed as astonishing.

♦ Big Picture – The COVID Passport concept, now currently deployed in Europe and Australia, then becomes the vector for entry into a digital identification process.  At the end of that digital ID process is a centralized database, which, not coincidentally, directly aligns with the capability of the U.S. federal government to trigger what Omarova is advocating in that video – a centralized system to control all financial deposits and transactions through the digital ID previously created.

It doesn’t take a deep thinker to see how the federal government would eventually respond to having that much power over the financial accounts of Americans.  Cue the visual reference:

Now, pause for a minute before you call me crazy… [although in my defense, CTH has been outlining the goals and aspirations of the specific Chicago headquartered communist ideologues for almost 15 years, while most allies on Team Freedom said we were crazy]…  and consider: ‘through the prism of previously blocked moves’;  because there’s a reference here most are likely to miss.

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Biden Considers Killing Another US Pipeline as Oil Crisis Continues.

As gas prices continue to skyrocket and the feckless President of the United States continues to blame Russia and OPEC for the U.S. oil shortage he and he alone created — on purpose — on day one of his installation in the Oval Office, by killing the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Joe Biden is weighing shutting down another oil pipeline, which would all but guarantee further increased fuel prices in the affected region.

As reported by Daily Wire, the Biden administration is reportedly gathering data on a Michigan-based pipeline that delivers oil from western Canada across Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, and Michigan, and into Ontario.

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This administration hates you and enjoys your suffering. The Secretary of Energy who continually reminds me of Tinkerbell, let’s you know exactly what she thinks about it.

 

Venezuelans Turn to Gold Nuggets as the Local Currency Implodes

The Venezuelan government recently lopped off six zeros from its hyperinflating currency, the bolivar. The highest denomination currency note of 1 million bolivars, worth less than $0.25, was replaced by a one-bolivar note. At the same time, a 100-bolivar note, worth about $25.00, was introduced as the new highest denomination of the bolivar.

The currency conversion was designed to spare the government the embarrassment of having to issue a 100-million bolivar note to enable people to purchases everyday items without having to carry around bundles of notes, given that the price of a loaf of bread had risen to 7 million old bolivars. Of course, the arbitrary scaling down of the denomination of the currency will not slow inflation, because the new currency notes can be printed just as cheaply as the old. The bolivar has already lost 73 percent of its value in 2021 alone and the IMF estimates the annual inflation rate will reach 5,500 percent by the end of 2021.

It is not surprising, then that all but the poorest Venezuelans have abandoned the bolivar as a medium of exchange, let alone a store of value or unit of account. US dollars are the exchange medium of choice in Caracas and other large cities, while the Colombian peso dominates along the Colombian border, particularly in the regional city of San Cristobal. The Brazilian real is current along the southern border with Brazil and the euro and cryptocurrencies have also found niche uses.

What is wonderfully surprising is the spontaneous emergence of a pure gold currency in a remote region of southeastern Venezuela around the towns of Tumeremo and El Callao. The region abounds with precious metal ores and has a long history of luring prospectors and miners seeking their fortunes. Today, however, many of the larger mines are controlled by the government military, which is battling local gangs and guerillas.

Despite the violence and lawlessness, jobless Venezuelans from far and wide are flooding into the area to work in thriving illegal mines in exchange for payment in gold nuggets. As a result, gold flakes, which are peeled off raw nuggets with hand tools, have become the currency of choice in the region with prices for commodities and services quoted in grams of gold. Half a gold gram buys you a one-night stay in a local hotel, while a meal for two at a Chinese restaurant and a haircut will cost you a quarter of a gram and an eighth of a gram, respectively.

The gold flakes are carried in people’s pockets—usually wrapped in the nearly worthless bolivar notes. While some shops are equipped with scales to weigh the gold flakes, most sellers and their customers have become so familiar with the flakes that they evaluate them by sight. For example, the barber and his customer who transacted for the haircut agreed that three gold flakes equaled the one-eighth gram price (approximately $5.00). Gold is also starting to penetrate the nearby cities, such as the regional capital Ciudad Bolivar, as stores in shopping malls gladly accept the gold in exchange for dollars from miners who are seeking to cash out.

For gold to become a full-blown currency that can viably compete with depreciating dollars and other foreign currencies, the raw nuggets need to be minted into convenient shapes and sizes and their weight and fineness certified by reputable firms. This means that any legal barriers to private mints must be eliminated. In addition, sales and capital gains taxes on gold must be abolished. Since it is highly unlikely that these measures will be implemented by the Maduro government, we can only cheer on the inroads made by the people’s gold flake currency.

It’s not the senile moron in the White House. It’s the puppetmasters who are pulling his strings.


Bidenomics’ Build Back Better Blunder

Swedish socialist economist Assar Lindbeck is semi-famous for saying that “in many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.”

It’s becoming clearer that one of the most efficient ways to destroy the U.S. economy, outside of bombing the country, is to put Joe Biden in the White House.

Economic growth in the third quarter was a meager 2%, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, the most feeble increase of the pandemic recovery. Some economists had forecast a gain closer to 3%, leaving many disappointed. As the Asia Times accurately summed it up, the U.S. “economy ground to a halt.”

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