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- Post #8,661
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- Jul 1, 2020 11:48am Jul 1, 2020 11:48am
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
- Post #8,662
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- Jul 1, 2020 2:03pm Jul 1, 2020 2:03pm
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
- Post #8,663
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- Jul 1, 2020 2:34pm Jul 1, 2020 2:34pm
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
- Post #8,664
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- Jul 1, 2020 2:41pm Jul 1, 2020 2:41pm
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
https://seekingalpha.com/article/435...content=link-2
SNIPPET:
Summary
Eldorado is trading at a significant discount to peers, making it an attractive investment in a gold bull market as well as a takeover target.
Recent high-grade discovery at Lamaque and increased throughput will offset lower production from Kisladag, keeping output around 500,000 ounces per year.
Improving situation in Greece points to path forward for development of Skouries, providing a significant re-rate opportunity.
Editor's note: Seeking Alpha is proud to welcome Galt Research as a new contributor. It's easy to become a Seeking Alpha contributor and earn money for your best investment ideas. Active contributors also get free access to SA PREMIUM. Click here to find out more »
After years of lagging share price performance, being punished by the market for permitting delays and operational issues at core assets in Greece and Turkey, Eldorado Gold (EGO) is now turning the corner. The company is currently undervalued in a rising gold market and is worth considering as many investors look to increase exposure to the safe haven metal in their portfolios.
2019 was a transitional year for Eldorado, with annual group production just under 400,000 ounces of gold and the new Lamaque mine in Canada coming online. 2020 full-year guidance is set at 520,000-550,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of $850-950 per ounce. Management has not suspended guidance like many other gold producers during the COVID-19 pandemic, with only a brief shutdown affecting one of its operations.
Despite this solid production and cost profile, Eldorado trades at an attractive valuation, more in line with an auto parts maker or utility than a mid-tier gold producer, sporting a 15 times price-to-earnings ratio while the S&P 500 is trading at 22x P/E.
Compared with a peer group of gold intermediates [Canadian-listed Alamos Gold (AGI), B2Gold (BTG), Endeavour Mining (OTCQX:EDVMF), and IAMGOLD (IAG), plus Australian producers Evolution Mining (OTCPK:CAHPF), Northern Star (OTCPK:NESRF), and Saracen (OTCPK:SCEXF)], Eldorado stands out as an undervalued pick. Looking at common metrics to compare senior gold producers, according to consensus analyst estimates Eldorado trades at 5.2 times their enterprise value-to-2020 cash flow per share versus the peer group's 8.8x EV/2020 CFPS multiple, and similarly, the company's 0.6x price-to-net asset value ratio is half of the peer group's 1.2x P/NAV value.
As we will see, Eldorado's diversified portfolio of operations and development assets warrant multiples much closer to their peer averages. However, this disconnect represents an opportunity for investors that can see past the pessimism that the market has been pricing into the company's shares for years.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uplo...3761392856.jpg
Lamaque mine (Source: Company website)
Expanding Into a Tier-One Jurisdiction
Eldorado's newest mine, the Lamaque operation in Canada's mining-friendly province of Quebec, is firing on all cylinders. The company acquired the asset in mid-2017 by buying Integra Gold for US$430 million when the gold sector was in a lull, and the precious metal was languishing near US$1,200 per ounce. Now producing, it is expected to produce 130,000 ounces this year with gold trading close to $1,800, almost 50% higher since the acquisition.
In March, Eldorado received permits to increase underground production at the Triangle deposit of their Lamaque operations up to 2,650 tonnes per day (tpd) from the 1,800 tpd allowed currently. The company plans to increase mining rates to 2,200 tpd this quarter, a boost of 22%. This level represents the Sigma mill's current capacity, which is permitted up to 5,000 tpd. In the long term, Eldorado could get to these levels by adding a SAG mill to the existing plant design.
A potentially major catalyst is the discovery of the new high-grade Ormaque Zone announced at the beginning of this year. Initial drilling gave very high-grade results over thick intervals, including 16.3m of 25.5 g/t Au and 12.3m of 26.8 g/t Au. Many narrower intervals exceed 100 g/t Au.
Located between the Triangle mining area and the historically-mined Sigma deposit, this new zone lies along the path of the planned decline, linking the 5,000tpd mill at Sigma and the current underground mine at Triangle. This proximity means it will be straightforward to access for future mining, reducing capital and operating costs while adding further high-grade ounces.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uplo...4868246384.png
Location of Ormaque zone (Source: Company presentation)
The development of the underground transport ramp, which will decrease the current haul route from 15 km to just 2 km, is expected to cost around US$25 million and take 18 months to complete. Once done, it will streamline operations and potentially save over $10/tonne in operating costs, making Lamaque an increasingly profitable mine.
Eldorado already plans to include the Ormaque zone in an upcoming PEA, so management sees material upside from this exciting discovery. There is further potential for this zone as the high-grade vein system remains open at depth and along strike.
SNIPPET:
Summary
Eldorado is trading at a significant discount to peers, making it an attractive investment in a gold bull market as well as a takeover target.
Recent high-grade discovery at Lamaque and increased throughput will offset lower production from Kisladag, keeping output around 500,000 ounces per year.
Improving situation in Greece points to path forward for development of Skouries, providing a significant re-rate opportunity.
Editor's note: Seeking Alpha is proud to welcome Galt Research as a new contributor. It's easy to become a Seeking Alpha contributor and earn money for your best investment ideas. Active contributors also get free access to SA PREMIUM. Click here to find out more »
After years of lagging share price performance, being punished by the market for permitting delays and operational issues at core assets in Greece and Turkey, Eldorado Gold (EGO) is now turning the corner. The company is currently undervalued in a rising gold market and is worth considering as many investors look to increase exposure to the safe haven metal in their portfolios.
2019 was a transitional year for Eldorado, with annual group production just under 400,000 ounces of gold and the new Lamaque mine in Canada coming online. 2020 full-year guidance is set at 520,000-550,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of $850-950 per ounce. Management has not suspended guidance like many other gold producers during the COVID-19 pandemic, with only a brief shutdown affecting one of its operations.
Despite this solid production and cost profile, Eldorado trades at an attractive valuation, more in line with an auto parts maker or utility than a mid-tier gold producer, sporting a 15 times price-to-earnings ratio while the S&P 500 is trading at 22x P/E.
Compared with a peer group of gold intermediates [Canadian-listed Alamos Gold (AGI), B2Gold (BTG), Endeavour Mining (OTCQX:EDVMF), and IAMGOLD (IAG), plus Australian producers Evolution Mining (OTCPK:CAHPF), Northern Star (OTCPK:NESRF), and Saracen (OTCPK:SCEXF)], Eldorado stands out as an undervalued pick. Looking at common metrics to compare senior gold producers, according to consensus analyst estimates Eldorado trades at 5.2 times their enterprise value-to-2020 cash flow per share versus the peer group's 8.8x EV/2020 CFPS multiple, and similarly, the company's 0.6x price-to-net asset value ratio is half of the peer group's 1.2x P/NAV value.
As we will see, Eldorado's diversified portfolio of operations and development assets warrant multiples much closer to their peer averages. However, this disconnect represents an opportunity for investors that can see past the pessimism that the market has been pricing into the company's shares for years.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uplo...3761392856.jpg
Lamaque mine (Source: Company website)
Expanding Into a Tier-One Jurisdiction
Eldorado's newest mine, the Lamaque operation in Canada's mining-friendly province of Quebec, is firing on all cylinders. The company acquired the asset in mid-2017 by buying Integra Gold for US$430 million when the gold sector was in a lull, and the precious metal was languishing near US$1,200 per ounce. Now producing, it is expected to produce 130,000 ounces this year with gold trading close to $1,800, almost 50% higher since the acquisition.
In March, Eldorado received permits to increase underground production at the Triangle deposit of their Lamaque operations up to 2,650 tonnes per day (tpd) from the 1,800 tpd allowed currently. The company plans to increase mining rates to 2,200 tpd this quarter, a boost of 22%. This level represents the Sigma mill's current capacity, which is permitted up to 5,000 tpd. In the long term, Eldorado could get to these levels by adding a SAG mill to the existing plant design.
A potentially major catalyst is the discovery of the new high-grade Ormaque Zone announced at the beginning of this year. Initial drilling gave very high-grade results over thick intervals, including 16.3m of 25.5 g/t Au and 12.3m of 26.8 g/t Au. Many narrower intervals exceed 100 g/t Au.
Located between the Triangle mining area and the historically-mined Sigma deposit, this new zone lies along the path of the planned decline, linking the 5,000tpd mill at Sigma and the current underground mine at Triangle. This proximity means it will be straightforward to access for future mining, reducing capital and operating costs while adding further high-grade ounces.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uplo...4868246384.png
Location of Ormaque zone (Source: Company presentation)
The development of the underground transport ramp, which will decrease the current haul route from 15 km to just 2 km, is expected to cost around US$25 million and take 18 months to complete. Once done, it will streamline operations and potentially save over $10/tonne in operating costs, making Lamaque an increasingly profitable mine.
Eldorado already plans to include the Ormaque zone in an upcoming PEA, so management sees material upside from this exciting discovery. There is further potential for this zone as the high-grade vein system remains open at depth and along strike.
- Post #8,665
- Quote
- Jul 1, 2020 3:59pm Jul 1, 2020 3:59pm
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
- Post #8,666
- Quote
- Jul 1, 2020 9:46pm Jul 1, 2020 9:46pm
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
Good Evening
One day of Forex Trading is now done. Four Forex Trades now closed. Starting capital was $20,000.00 US Dollars.
Net Profit is $3290.90 Us Dollars or over 15% ROI with draw down on one open Forex trade.
Will update when close my open trade.
BWN
- Post #8,667
- Quote
- Jul 2, 2020 8:00am Jul 2, 2020 8:00am
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...r/#more-220558
“This Might Be The Craziest Thing I’ve Seen In My Stock Market Career”
Via ZeroHedge
This morning we have the somewhat unprecedented situation where both the monthly non-farm payrolls data and weekly jobless claims data coincide.
Even more ‘unprecedented‘ is the fact that the two measures of the labor market are expected to diverge dramatically with a 1.35 million increase in new jobless claimants occurring at the same time as the BLS is expected to report an increase of 3.058 million jobs in the US economy.
Of course, this all sits against the backdrop of an unprecedented surge in the stock market as the economy remains mired deep in collapse…
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b.../bfm9031_2.jpg
As Jesse Felder points out rather shockingly, echoing the thoughts of most rational Americans: “this might be the craziest thing I’ve seen in my stock market career
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...1_15-09-05.jpg
It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen (or anyone else has ever seen, for that matter).
Typically, when recession hits and unemployment rises dramatically it’s not good for the stock market as both revenues and earnings take a hit. In the past, the trends in continued jobless claims and stocks had a negative correlation, meaning that when the former rose the latter fell. Over the past few months, however, we have seen both rise strongly in tandem.
And there may be no better representation of the massive gulf between the stock market and the economy right now.
“Crazy” indeed!
-----------------------------------------------------
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif
“This Might Be The Craziest Thing I’ve Seen In My Stock Market Career”
Via ZeroHedge
This morning we have the somewhat unprecedented situation where both the monthly non-farm payrolls data and weekly jobless claims data coincide.
Even more ‘unprecedented‘ is the fact that the two measures of the labor market are expected to diverge dramatically with a 1.35 million increase in new jobless claimants occurring at the same time as the BLS is expected to report an increase of 3.058 million jobs in the US economy.
Of course, this all sits against the backdrop of an unprecedented surge in the stock market as the economy remains mired deep in collapse…
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b.../bfm9031_2.jpg
As Jesse Felder points out rather shockingly, echoing the thoughts of most rational Americans: “this might be the craziest thing I’ve seen in my stock market career
As I write this, the Nasdaq 100 Index is up 30% over the past year while continued jobless claims have soared to record highs as the result of a pandemic.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...1_15-09-05.jpg
It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen (or anyone else has ever seen, for that matter).
Typically, when recession hits and unemployment rises dramatically it’s not good for the stock market as both revenues and earnings take a hit. In the past, the trends in continued jobless claims and stocks had a negative correlation, meaning that when the former rose the latter fell. Over the past few months, however, we have seen both rise strongly in tandem.
And there may be no better representation of the massive gulf between the stock market and the economy right now.
“Crazy” indeed!
-----------------------------------------------------
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif
- Post #8,668
- Quote
- Edited 8:48am Jul 2, 2020 8:17am | Edited 8:48am
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
https://www.oftwominds.com/25-25.gifhttps://www.oftwominds.com/CHSbanner2d.png
Musings My Books Archives Books/Films
An Interesting Juncture in History
July 1, 2020
Just as the rewards of central-bank bubbles have not been evenly distributed, the pain created by the collapse of the bubbles won't be evenly distributed, either.
We've reached an interesting juncture in history, and I don't mean the pandemic. I'm referring to the normalization of extremes in the economy, in social decay and in political dysfunction and polarization.
Let's ask a very simple question. The S&P 500 stock index went up five-fold from its 2009 low at 667 to a recent high around 3,400. Did your income rise five-fold since 2009? Probably not.
Houses that sold for $150,000 in 2000 are now valued at $900,000, a six-fold increase since 2000. Did your income rise six-fold since 2000? Probably not.
State university tuition has risen about 2.5 times from 2004 to 2019. Did your income rise 2.5-fold since 2004? Probably not.
Even burritos from the local taco truck have tripled in price in the past 15 years. Did your income triple? Probably not.
The average household income in 2000 was about $42,000. To match the six-fold increase in urban housing valuations, that household would have to earn $252,000 this year. How many households saw their income soar from $42,000 to $252,000? Not many.
The average household income in 2009 was about $50,000. To match the five-fold increase in stock market valuations, that household would have to earn $250,000 this year. How many households saw their income soar from $50,000 to $250,000? Not many.
To keep up with tuition (never mind healthcare insurance), the household earning $45,000 in 2004 would have to bring home $112,000 this year.
The household earning $100,000 in 2004 would need to boost its income to $250,000 to keep up with college tuition. How many households boosted their income from $100,000 to $250,000 in the past 15 years? Not many.
In other words, what's been normalized over the past 20 years is the total subjugation of labor by central-bank inflated asset bubbles that benefit the top 0.1%. Labor has lost ground while assets have soared, leaving those whose income is earned less able to buy over-valued assets and more prone to borrowing money to maintain their lifestyle-- a situation I call debt serfdom.
Two generations ago, nobody knew the name of the Federal Reserve's chairperson. Now that chairperson is in the news virtually daily.
The media exposure of the Fed chair far exceeds that of elected officials such as the Speaker of the House of Representatives or the Senate Majority Leader, or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
In effect, the nation has become dependent on its central bankers and their limited agenda (expand the wealth and power of the financial sector). The elected government and the real-world production of goods and services both have taken a back seat to conjured "wealth."
The ascendance of finance and the decay of labor's value is the result of the ascendance of monetary stimulus as the core driver of "wealth" and thus "growth." It was once expected that consumption would be funded by wages earned by labor, and investment would be funded by savings set aside from earnings. That era is long past.
What's been normalized is a systemic reliance on debt to fund consumption and on the euphoric "animal spirits" of the wealth effect generated by soaring assets such as homes and stocks.
History offers a number of parallels to the ascendance of borrowed capital over labor and central bank money-printing over the creation of productive value. History suggests eras that have normalized economic and financial extremes--extremes of inequality, policy, and decay--haven't ended well for anyone.
Just as the rewards of central-bank bubbles have not been evenly distributed, the pain created by the collapse of the bubbles won't be evenly distributed, either.
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos201...ealthcare4.jpg
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos201...y-NYT8-17a.png
Recent Podcasts:
Fractals of Incompetence (15:30)
AxisOfEasy Salon #10: Remember when Maximum Pessimism and Irrational Exuberance were mutually exclusive? (54 minutes)
Market Update: Triple Threat! Three major risks the markets are not pricing in yet (39 minutes)
Charles Hugh Smith on the New Normal (37 minutes)
My COVID-19 Pandemic Posts
My recent books:
Audiobook edition now available:
Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).
Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).
The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)
Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).
If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
https://www.oftwominds.com/covers/ROP-250.png(Kindle $6.95, print $12.95)
Will you be richer or poorer? What does the future hold for you--and for the world?
Supposedly we're all getting richer, but many of us feel we’re becoming poorer. Why?
This book tackles three critical questions:
What if everything we don’t measure is worth more than financial wealth? Our obsession with financial capital is blinding us to a traumatizing global decline in other forms of wealth.
Will artificial intelligence (A.I.) make us all richer? What if A.I. will only enrich the few who own the platforms and technology?
Is our economic model dooming us? We’re told we all benefit as the super-rich get even richer, but what if the status quo only benefits those in power at the expense of everyone else--and our planet?
Though we may not be politically powerful, we are far from powerless. This book will help you identify the things that truly matter, and accumulate capital that benefits you and your family--and our planet.
Read the first section for free in PDF format.
Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World (15% discount in October, Kindle $5.95, print $10.95)
Recent entries:
An Interesting Juncture in History July 1, 2020
The New Normal: Extremes of Neofeudalism, Incompetence, Authoritarianism and Relocalization June 30, 2020
Forget the V, W or L Recovery: Focus on N-P-B June 29, 2020
The Depression Dominoes Are Toppling June 25, 2020
Is Data Our New False Religion? June 23, 2020
The Illusion of Control: What If Nobody's in Charge? June 22, 2020
January 2020 entries February 2020 entries March 2020 entries April 2020 entries May 2020 entries May 2020 entries
Archives 2005-2019
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2016/BV468-60-1.gif
Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. All contributors are listed below in acknowledgement of my gratitude.
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https://www.oftwominds.com/25-25.gifhttps://www.oftwominds.com/CHSbanner2d.png
Musings My Books Archives Books/Films
An Interesting Juncture in History
July 1, 2020
Just as the rewards of central-bank bubbles have not been evenly distributed, the pain created by the collapse of the bubbles won't be evenly distributed, either.
We've reached an interesting juncture in history, and I don't mean the pandemic. I'm referring to the normalization of extremes in the economy, in social decay and in political dysfunction and polarization.
Let's ask a very simple question. The S&P 500 stock index went up five-fold from its 2009 low at 667 to a recent high around 3,400. Did your income rise five-fold since 2009? Probably not.
Houses that sold for $150,000 in 2000 are now valued at $900,000, a six-fold increase since 2000. Did your income rise six-fold since 2000? Probably not.
State university tuition has risen about 2.5 times from 2004 to 2019. Did your income rise 2.5-fold since 2004? Probably not.
Even burritos from the local taco truck have tripled in price in the past 15 years. Did your income triple? Probably not.
The average household income in 2000 was about $42,000. To match the six-fold increase in urban housing valuations, that household would have to earn $252,000 this year. How many households saw their income soar from $42,000 to $252,000? Not many.
The average household income in 2009 was about $50,000. To match the five-fold increase in stock market valuations, that household would have to earn $250,000 this year. How many households saw their income soar from $50,000 to $250,000? Not many.
To keep up with tuition (never mind healthcare insurance), the household earning $45,000 in 2004 would have to bring home $112,000 this year.
The household earning $100,000 in 2004 would need to boost its income to $250,000 to keep up with college tuition. How many households boosted their income from $100,000 to $250,000 in the past 15 years? Not many.
In other words, what's been normalized over the past 20 years is the total subjugation of labor by central-bank inflated asset bubbles that benefit the top 0.1%. Labor has lost ground while assets have soared, leaving those whose income is earned less able to buy over-valued assets and more prone to borrowing money to maintain their lifestyle-- a situation I call debt serfdom.
Two generations ago, nobody knew the name of the Federal Reserve's chairperson. Now that chairperson is in the news virtually daily.
The media exposure of the Fed chair far exceeds that of elected officials such as the Speaker of the House of Representatives or the Senate Majority Leader, or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
In effect, the nation has become dependent on its central bankers and their limited agenda (expand the wealth and power of the financial sector). The elected government and the real-world production of goods and services both have taken a back seat to conjured "wealth."
The ascendance of finance and the decay of labor's value is the result of the ascendance of monetary stimulus as the core driver of "wealth" and thus "growth." It was once expected that consumption would be funded by wages earned by labor, and investment would be funded by savings set aside from earnings. That era is long past.
What's been normalized is a systemic reliance on debt to fund consumption and on the euphoric "animal spirits" of the wealth effect generated by soaring assets such as homes and stocks.
History offers a number of parallels to the ascendance of borrowed capital over labor and central bank money-printing over the creation of productive value. History suggests eras that have normalized economic and financial extremes--extremes of inequality, policy, and decay--haven't ended well for anyone.
Just as the rewards of central-bank bubbles have not been evenly distributed, the pain created by the collapse of the bubbles won't be evenly distributed, either.
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos201...ealthcare4.jpg
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos201...y-NYT8-17a.png
Recent Podcasts:
Fractals of Incompetence (15:30)
AxisOfEasy Salon #10: Remember when Maximum Pessimism and Irrational Exuberance were mutually exclusive? (54 minutes)
Market Update: Triple Threat! Three major risks the markets are not pricing in yet (39 minutes)
Charles Hugh Smith on the New Normal (37 minutes)
My COVID-19 Pandemic Posts
My recent books:
Audiobook edition now available:
Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).
Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).
The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)
Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).
If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
https://www.oftwominds.com/covers/ROP-250.png(Kindle $6.95, print $12.95)
Will you be richer or poorer? What does the future hold for you--and for the world?
Supposedly we're all getting richer, but many of us feel we’re becoming poorer. Why?
This book tackles three critical questions:
What if everything we don’t measure is worth more than financial wealth? Our obsession with financial capital is blinding us to a traumatizing global decline in other forms of wealth.
Will artificial intelligence (A.I.) make us all richer? What if A.I. will only enrich the few who own the platforms and technology?
Is our economic model dooming us? We’re told we all benefit as the super-rich get even richer, but what if the status quo only benefits those in power at the expense of everyone else--and our planet?
Though we may not be politically powerful, we are far from powerless. This book will help you identify the things that truly matter, and accumulate capital that benefits you and your family--and our planet.
Read the first section for free in PDF format.
Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World (15% discount in October, Kindle $5.95, print $10.95)
Recent entries:
An Interesting Juncture in History July 1, 2020
The New Normal: Extremes of Neofeudalism, Incompetence, Authoritarianism and Relocalization June 30, 2020
Forget the V, W or L Recovery: Focus on N-P-B June 29, 2020
The Depression Dominoes Are Toppling June 25, 2020
Is Data Our New False Religion? June 23, 2020
The Illusion of Control: What If Nobody's in Charge? June 22, 2020
January 2020 entries February 2020 entries March 2020 entries April 2020 entries May 2020 entries May 2020 entries
Archives 2005-2019
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2016/BV468-60-1.gif
Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency. All contributors are listed below in acknowledgement of my gratitude.
Opt out of interest-based advertising (The Network Advertising Initiative) If you have other privacy concerns relating to advertisements, please contact advertisers directly. Websites and blog links on the site's blog roll are posted at my discretion.
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- Post #8,669
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- Edited 9:06am Jul 2, 2020 8:52am | Edited 9:06am
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/jo...ops+to+zero%29
In our preview of today's job's report, we remarked that the only thing that was certain about the June payrolls number is just how uncertain it was: dropping the top and bottom 10% of payrolls forecasts still leaves a range of 1.65-5.00 million jobs, "an extremely wide band that reflects the multiplicity of shocks hitting US labor markets", according to Steven Englander. Art Cashin echoed just how much confusion there was by noting that "most traders are somewhat sceptical of all payroll data, feeling that the sharp reopenings and then reopening rollbacks have distorted the data."
So with much confusion out there, and nobody really sure what to expect, moments ago the BLS reported that in keeping with the huge band of possibilities, in June the US economy added a whopping - record - 4.767 million jobs, crushing expectations of 3.058 million, and indicating that the V-shaped recovery, if only in the BLS' servers, is well on track.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...e%20record.jpg
Somewhat paradoxically, the massive beat took place even as we got another week of initial claims missing, with the latest print of 1.427MM above the 1.35MM expected, while continuing claims of 19.29MM was also above the 19.0MM expected.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...l%20Claims.jpg
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for April was revised down by 100,000, from -20.7 million to -20.8 million, and the change for May was revised up by 190,000, from +2.5 million to +2.7 million. With these revisions, employment in April and May combined was 90,000 higher than previously reported.
Just as shocking is that the unemployment rate which was expected to surge to a record 19.1% in May from 14.7% in April, actually declined in May to 13.3% and dropped further to 11.1% in June, far better than the 12.5% expected. Both Hispanic and Black unemployment rates dropped.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...2020-07-02.jpg
Commenting on the number, the BLS said that "total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 4.8 million in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 11.1 percent. These improvements in the labor market reflected the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed in March and April due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. In June, employment in leisure and hospitality rose sharply. Notable job gains also occurred in retail trade, education and health services, other services, manufacturing, and professional and business services."
Total employment, as measured by the household survey, rose by 4.9 million to 142.2 million in June. The employment-population ratio, at 54.6 percent, rose by 1.8 percentage points over the month but is 6.5 percentage points lower than in February. The labor force participation rate increased by 0.7% in June to 61.5%, but is 1.9% points below its February level.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...FP%20ratio.jpg
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons declined by 1.6 million to 9.1 million in June but is still more than double its February level. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. This group includes persons who usually work full time and persons who usually work part time.
The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job, at 8.2 million, declined by 767,000 in June but remained 3.2 million higher than in February. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the last 4 weeks or were unavailable to take a job.
Continuing last month's trend, the average hourly earnings dropped from April's revised 8.0% to 6.7% in May and to 5.0% in June, below the expected 5.3% print.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...20earnings.jpg
According to the BLS, average hourly earnings for all employees fell by 35 cents to $29.37. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees decreased by 23 cents to $24.74 in June. The decreases in average hourly earnings largely reflect job gains among lower-paid workers; these changes put downward pressure on the average hourly earnings estimates. So how did average hourly earnings rise? Simple: the average workweek for all employees - i.e., the denominator - decreased even more, or by 0.2 hour to 34.5 hours in June, while the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls fell by 0.2 hour to 33.9 hours. That said, even the BLS admitted that the recent employment changes, especially in industries with shorter workweeks, "complicate monthly comparisons of the average weekly hours estimates."
Today's report also noted that the number of unemployed persons who were on temporary layoff decreased by nearly 5 million, to 10.565 million from 15.3 million, a second consecutive decline from 18.1 million in April. Among those not on temporary layoff, the number of permanent job losers continued to rise, increasing by 295,000 in May to 2.3 million.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...0layoffs_0.jpg
And one red flag: according to the BLS, the number of permanent job losers continued to rise, increasing by 588,000 to 2.9 million in June. The number of unemployed reentrants to the labor force rose by 711,000 to 2.4 million.
Also in June, the number of unemployed persons who were jobless less than 5 weeks declined by 1.0 million to 2.8 million. Unemployed persons who were jobless 5 to 14 weeks numbered 11.5 million, down by 3.3 million over the month, and accounted for 65.2 percent of the unemployed. By contrast, the number of persons jobless 15 to 26 weeks and the long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) saw over-the-month increases (+825,000 to 1.9 million and +227,000 to 1.4 million, respectively).
Looking at a breakdown by industry:
In our preview of today's job's report, we remarked that the only thing that was certain about the June payrolls number is just how uncertain it was: dropping the top and bottom 10% of payrolls forecasts still leaves a range of 1.65-5.00 million jobs, "an extremely wide band that reflects the multiplicity of shocks hitting US labor markets", according to Steven Englander. Art Cashin echoed just how much confusion there was by noting that "most traders are somewhat sceptical of all payroll data, feeling that the sharp reopenings and then reopening rollbacks have distorted the data."
So with much confusion out there, and nobody really sure what to expect, moments ago the BLS reported that in keeping with the huge band of possibilities, in June the US economy added a whopping - record - 4.767 million jobs, crushing expectations of 3.058 million, and indicating that the V-shaped recovery, if only in the BLS' servers, is well on track.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...e%20record.jpg
Somewhat paradoxically, the massive beat took place even as we got another week of initial claims missing, with the latest print of 1.427MM above the 1.35MM expected, while continuing claims of 19.29MM was also above the 19.0MM expected.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...l%20Claims.jpg
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for April was revised down by 100,000, from -20.7 million to -20.8 million, and the change for May was revised up by 190,000, from +2.5 million to +2.7 million. With these revisions, employment in April and May combined was 90,000 higher than previously reported.
Just as shocking is that the unemployment rate which was expected to surge to a record 19.1% in May from 14.7% in April, actually declined in May to 13.3% and dropped further to 11.1% in June, far better than the 12.5% expected. Both Hispanic and Black unemployment rates dropped.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...2020-07-02.jpg
Commenting on the number, the BLS said that "total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 4.8 million in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 11.1 percent. These improvements in the labor market reflected the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed in March and April due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. In June, employment in leisure and hospitality rose sharply. Notable job gains also occurred in retail trade, education and health services, other services, manufacturing, and professional and business services."
Total employment, as measured by the household survey, rose by 4.9 million to 142.2 million in June. The employment-population ratio, at 54.6 percent, rose by 1.8 percentage points over the month but is 6.5 percentage points lower than in February. The labor force participation rate increased by 0.7% in June to 61.5%, but is 1.9% points below its February level.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...FP%20ratio.jpg
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons declined by 1.6 million to 9.1 million in June but is still more than double its February level. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. This group includes persons who usually work full time and persons who usually work part time.
The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job, at 8.2 million, declined by 767,000 in June but remained 3.2 million higher than in February. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the last 4 weeks or were unavailable to take a job.
Continuing last month's trend, the average hourly earnings dropped from April's revised 8.0% to 6.7% in May and to 5.0% in June, below the expected 5.3% print.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...20earnings.jpg
According to the BLS, average hourly earnings for all employees fell by 35 cents to $29.37. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees decreased by 23 cents to $24.74 in June. The decreases in average hourly earnings largely reflect job gains among lower-paid workers; these changes put downward pressure on the average hourly earnings estimates. So how did average hourly earnings rise? Simple: the average workweek for all employees - i.e., the denominator - decreased even more, or by 0.2 hour to 34.5 hours in June, while the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls fell by 0.2 hour to 33.9 hours. That said, even the BLS admitted that the recent employment changes, especially in industries with shorter workweeks, "complicate monthly comparisons of the average weekly hours estimates."
Today's report also noted that the number of unemployed persons who were on temporary layoff decreased by nearly 5 million, to 10.565 million from 15.3 million, a second consecutive decline from 18.1 million in April. Among those not on temporary layoff, the number of permanent job losers continued to rise, increasing by 295,000 in May to 2.3 million.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...0layoffs_0.jpg
And one red flag: according to the BLS, the number of permanent job losers continued to rise, increasing by 588,000 to 2.9 million in June. The number of unemployed reentrants to the labor force rose by 711,000 to 2.4 million.
Also in June, the number of unemployed persons who were jobless less than 5 weeks declined by 1.0 million to 2.8 million. Unemployed persons who were jobless 5 to 14 weeks numbered 11.5 million, down by 3.3 million over the month, and accounted for 65.2 percent of the unemployed. By contrast, the number of persons jobless 15 to 26 weeks and the long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) saw over-the-month increases (+825,000 to 1.9 million and +227,000 to 1.4 million, respectively).
Looking at a breakdown by industry:
- Employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 2.1 million, accounting for about two-fifths of the gain in total nonfarm employment. Over the month, employment in food services and drinking places rose by 1.5 million, following a gain of the same magnitude in May. Despite these gains, employment in food services and drinking places is down by 3.1 million since February. Employment also rose in June in amusements, gambling, and recreation (+353,000) and in the accommodation industry (+239,000).
- Employment in retail trade rose by 740,000, after a gain of 372,000 in May and losses totaling 2.4 million in March and April combined. On net, employment in the industry is 1.3 million lower than in February. In June, notable job gains occurred in clothing and clothing accessories stores (+202,000), general merchandise stores (+108,000), furniture and home furnishings stores (+84,000), and motor vehicle and parts dealers (+84,000).
- Employment increased by 568,000 in education and health services in June but is 1.8 million below February's level. Health care employment increased by 358,000 over the month, with gains in offices of dentists (+190,000), offices of physicians (+80,000), and offices of other health practitioners (+48,000). Elsewhere in health care, job losses continued in nursing care facilities (-18,000). Employment increased in the social assistance industry (+117,000), reflecting gains in child day care services (+80,000) and in individual and family services (+28,000). Employment in private education rose by 93,000 over the month.
- Employment increased in the other services industry in June (+357,000), with about three-fourths of the increase occurring in personal and laundry services (+264,000). Since February, employment in the other services industry is down by 752,000.
- In June, manufacturing employment rose by 356,000 but is down by 757,000 since February. June employment increases were concentrated in the durable goods component, with motor vehicles and parts (+196,000) accounting for over half of the job gain in manufacturing. Employment also increased over the month in miscellaneous durable goods manufacturing (+26,000) and machinery (+18,000). Within the nondurable goods component, the largest job gain occurred in plastics and rubber products (+22,000).
- Professional and business services added 306,000 jobs in June, but employment is 1.8 million below its February level. In June, employment rose in temporary help services (+149,000), services to buildings and dwellings (+53,000), and accounting and bookkeeping services (+18,000). By contrast, employment declined in computer systems design and related services (-20,000).
- Construction employment increased by 158,000 in June, following a gain of 453,000 in May. These gains accounted for more than half of the decline in March and April (-1.1 million combined). Over-the-month gains occurred in specialty trade contractors (+135,000), with growth about equally split between the residential and nonresidential components. Job gains also occurred in construction of buildings (+32,000).
- Transportation and warehousing added 99,000 jobs in June, following declines in the prior 2 months (-588,000 in April and May combined). In June, employment rose in warehousing and storage (+61,000), couriers and messengers (+21,000), truck transportation (+8,000), and support activities for transportation (+7,000).
- Wholesale trade employment rose by 68,000 in June but is down by 317,000 since February. In June, job gains occurred in the durable goods (+39,000) and nondurable goods (+27,000) components.
- Financial activities added 32,000 jobs in June, with over half of the gain in real estate (+18,000). Since February, employment in financial activities is down by 237,000.
- Government employment changed little in June (+33,000), as job gains in local government education (+70,000) were partially offset by job losses in state government (-25,000). Government employment is 1.5 million below its February level.
- Mining continued to lose jobs in June (-10,000), with most of the decline occurring in support activities for mining (-7,000). Mining employment is down by 123,000 since a recent peak in January 2019, although nearly three-fourths of the decline has occurred since February 2020.
So does this record jobs report, the second in a row, mean the Fed has to hike soon? Yeah, right.
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- Post #8,672
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- Jul 2, 2020 11:49am Jul 2, 2020 11:49am
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https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/e...adwinds-remain
Jobs Rebound by 4.8 Million But Huge Headwinds Remain
https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...m-2020-07a.png
Mish
2 hours ago
https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...version%3D5835
Nonfarm payrolls expanded by a record 4.8 million but that leaves another 15 million to go.
The BLS Employment Report for June shows employment rose by 4.8 million and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%
Initial Reaction
Both numbers are better than the consensus.
The Bloomberg Econoday consensus jobs estimate was +3.0 million and the unemployment rate consensus was 12.4%.
The BLS said that errors that plagued the March, April, and May reports were not as bad this month.
BLS Error Rate
As was the case in March, April, and May, household survey interviewers were instructed to classify employed persons absent from work due to temporary, coronavirus-related business closures as unemployed on temporary layoff. BLS and Census Bureau analyses of the underlying data suggest that this group still included some workers affected by the pandemic who should have been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff.
The degree of misclassification declined considerably in June. BLS and Census Bureau staff have been reviewing survey responses that might have been misclassified. The misclassification hinges on a question about the main reason people were absent from their jobs. If people who were absent due to temporary, pandemic-related closures were recorded as absent due to “other reasons,” they could have been misclassified. When interviewers record a response of “other reason,” they also add a few words describing that other reason. The review of these brief descriptions found that the share of responses that may have been misclassified was much smaller in June than in prior months. BLS and the Census Bureau are continuing to investigate the misclassification and are taking additional steps to address the issue.
If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to “other reasons” (over and above the number absent for other reasons in a typical June) had been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been about 1 percentage point higher than reported (on a not seasonally adjusted basis). However, this represents the upper bound of our estimate of misclassification and probably overstates the size of the misclassification error.
Add 1 percentage to unemployment rate for a better estimate.
Job Revisions
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for April was revised down by 100,000, from -20.7 million to -20.8 million, and the change for May was revised up by 190,000, from +2.5 million to +2.7 million. With these revisions, employment in April and May combined was 90,000 higher than previously reported.
BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance
Jobs Rebound by 4.8 Million But Huge Headwinds Remain
https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...m-2020-07a.png
Mish
2 hours ago
https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...version%3D5835
Nonfarm payrolls expanded by a record 4.8 million but that leaves another 15 million to go.
The BLS Employment Report for June shows employment rose by 4.8 million and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%
Initial Reaction
Both numbers are better than the consensus.
The Bloomberg Econoday consensus jobs estimate was +3.0 million and the unemployment rate consensus was 12.4%.
The BLS said that errors that plagued the March, April, and May reports were not as bad this month.
BLS Error Rate
As was the case in March, April, and May, household survey interviewers were instructed to classify employed persons absent from work due to temporary, coronavirus-related business closures as unemployed on temporary layoff. BLS and Census Bureau analyses of the underlying data suggest that this group still included some workers affected by the pandemic who should have been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff.
The degree of misclassification declined considerably in June. BLS and Census Bureau staff have been reviewing survey responses that might have been misclassified. The misclassification hinges on a question about the main reason people were absent from their jobs. If people who were absent due to temporary, pandemic-related closures were recorded as absent due to “other reasons,” they could have been misclassified. When interviewers record a response of “other reason,” they also add a few words describing that other reason. The review of these brief descriptions found that the share of responses that may have been misclassified was much smaller in June than in prior months. BLS and the Census Bureau are continuing to investigate the misclassification and are taking additional steps to address the issue.
If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to “other reasons” (over and above the number absent for other reasons in a typical June) had been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been about 1 percentage point higher than reported (on a not seasonally adjusted basis). However, this represents the upper bound of our estimate of misclassification and probably overstates the size of the misclassification error.
Add 1 percentage to unemployment rate for a better estimate.
Job Revisions
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for April was revised down by 100,000, from -20.7 million to -20.8 million, and the change for May was revised up by 190,000, from +2.5 million to +2.7 million. With these revisions, employment in April and May combined was 90,000 higher than previously reported.
BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance
- Nonfarm Payroll: +4.800,000 - Establishment Survey
- Employment: +4,940,000 - Household Survey
- Unemployment: -3,235,000 - Household Survey
- Baseline Unemployment Rate: -2.2 to 11.1% - Household Survey
- U-6 unemployment: -3.2 to 18.0% - Household Survey
- Civilian Non-institutional Population: +157,000
- Civilian Labor Force: +1,705,000 - Household Survey
- Not in Labor Force: -1,547,000 - Household Survey
- Participation Rate: +0.7 to 61.5% - Household Survey
Part-Time Jobs
- Total Part-Time Work Change: -1,571.000
- Involuntary Part-Time Work: -1,605,000 - Household Survey
- Voluntary Part-Time Work: +2,743,000 - Household Survey
Don't try to make sense of those numbers as they never add up. I list them as reported.
BLS Employment Report Statement
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 4.8 million in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 11.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. These improvements in the labor market reflected the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed in March and April due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. In June, employment in leisure and hospitality rose sharply. Notable job gains also occurred in retail trade, education and health services, other services, manufacturing, and professional and business services.
Unemployment Rate – Seasonally Adjusted
https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...m-2020-07c.png
The above Unemployment Rate Chart is from the BLS. Click on the link for an interactive chart.
Month-Over Month Changes by Job Type
https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...m-2020-07d.png
Hours and Wages
Average weekly hours of all private employees declined 0.2 hours to 34.5 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees decline 0.2 hours to 33.6 hours. Average weekly hours of manufacturers rose 0.3 hours to at 39.2 hours.
Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers fell $0.35 to $29.37.
The numbers are distorted because more higher-paid workers kept their jobs than lower-paid employees.
Average hourly earnings of Production and Supervisory Workers fell $0.29 to $24.74.
Year-Over-Year Wage Growth
- All Private Nonfarm rose from $27.96 to $29.37.
- Production and supervisory rose from $23.47 to $24.74.
These numbers are distorted because more higher-paid workers kept their jobs than lower-paid employees.
For a discussion of income distribution, please see What’s “Really” Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?
Birth Death Model
Starting January 2014, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report.
For those who follow the numbers, I retain this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.
BLS Covid-19 Statement on the Birth-Death Model
The widespread disruption to labor markets due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential impact to the birth-death model have prompted BLS to both revisit research conducted in the aftermath of the Great Recession (2008-2009) and incorporate new ideas to account for changes in the number of business openings and closings. Two areas of research have been implemented to improve the accuracy of our birth-death model in the CES estimates. These adjustments will better reflect the net effect of the contribution of business births and deaths to the estimates. These two methodological changes are the following:
1: A portion of both reported zeros and returns from zero in the current month from the sample were used in estimation to better account for the fact that business births and deaths will not offset.
2: Current sample growth rates were included in the net birth-death forecasting model to better account for the changing relationships between business openings and closings.
BLS will determine on a monthly basis if the adjusted birth-death model described here continues to be necessary. We will disclose these changes each month in the Employment Situation news release. All months in the tables of net birth-death forecasts on this page include footnotes for any month in which a regressor was used to supplement the forecasts.
The Birth-Death model is essentially garbage but we likely will not find how distorted this is until the annual revisions next year.
Table 15 BLS Alternative Measures of Unemployment
https://imageproxy.themaven.net/http...m-2020-07b.png
Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.
The official unemployment rate is 11.1%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.
U-6 is much higher at 18.0%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.
Some of those dropping out of the labor force retired because they wanted to retire. The rest is disability fraud, forced retirement, discouraged workers, and kids moving back home because they cannot find a job.
Covid-19 has also distorted the U-6 unemployment rate as noted by the huge discrepancy in part-time employment.
Strength is Relative
It’s important to put the jobs numbers into proper perspective.
In the household survey, if you work as little as 1 hour a week, even selling trinkets on eBay, you are considered employed.
In the household survey, if you work three part-time jobs, 12 hours each, the BLS considers you a full-time employee.
In the payroll survey, three part-time jobs count as three jobs. The BLS attempts to factor this in, but they do not weed out duplicate Social Security numbers. The potential for double-counting jobs in the payroll survey is large.
Household Survey vs. Payroll Survey
The payroll survey (sometimes called the establishment survey) is the headline jobs number, generally released the first Friday of every month. It is based on employer reporting.
The household survey is a phone survey conducted by the BLS. It measures unemployment and many other factors.
If you work one hour, you are employed. If you don’t have a job and fail to look for one, you are not considered unemployed, rather, you drop out of the labor force.
Looking for jobs on Monster does not count as “looking for a job”. You need an actual interview or send out a resume.
These distortions artificially lower the unemployment rate, artificially boost full-time employment, and artificially increase the payroll jobs report every month.
Final Thoughts
The BLS is still guessing but it thinks its guesses are better.
I suspect the birth-death models have significantly underestimated permanent business closures.
Regardless, the economy is short 15 million jobs and they are not all coming back.
Recovery Will Take Years
As noted yesterday The Fed Promotes a Quickening that Takes Many Years
Huge headwinds remain and the reopenings are now in reverse. Don't expect huge gains in July.
Mish
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https://www.richardmkiernicki.com/
About
Richard Kiernicki considers the past 30 years to have been some of the most exciting times in the professions of finance, motivation & personal transformation. He believes that the future of these industries holds unlimited potential & possibility. While the Canadian financial industry experienced explosive growth & the fields of self-help & transformation rapidly gained acceptance & worldwide momentum, Richard found his place in that ever evolving/expanding world.
Fortunate to have an open mind, deep intuition and a strong commitment to move ahead in his life, “he did not do what was the easiest and most expeditious, he chose to do what was right” according to a 1997 letter from his partner Michael Lee-Chin at AIC. Richard strongly agreed with Michael on this point: your reputation is absolutely vital to your success. Richard’s other mentors include Napoleon Hill, Bob Proctor, Viktor Frankl, Brian Tracey, Anthony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Lise Janelle, Sir John Templeton, Peter Cundill, Peter Lynch & Warren Buffett. He learned to follow examples set by those who are considered to be the absolute best in their areas of expertise & exemplify honesty, dedication, ethics & commitment. These individuals continually seek to differentiate themselves from the crowd by being examples of living according to the highest degree of personal values & integrity. Richard integrates those values into his own life & passionately shares those principles with his family, friends & clients.
He fully understands that acting on that knowledge is much more powerful than just having it. When you live life according to your highest values you become inspired & awaken the genius within, and have the ability to inspire & awaken the genius in others.
Richard provides a wide variety of coaching disciplines that set the stage for innovative methods of inspiration for those who are seeking to find an expression of their truest selves through authenticity, challenge & support.
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- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
EDITOR NOTE
These are truly terrible times, dangerous times. The world as we know it stands on a knife’s edge. Instead of a transition from USDollar to a Gold-backed system, we have the threat of global fascism. Instead of a normal election between two political parties with opposing views but common love of country, we have an economic sabotage with a potential fascist specter.
The paths of the Patriot camp (aka White Hats) and the Globalist (aka banker cabal) appear to be taken in common for travel toward disparate goals and ends. The White Hats wish to establish liberty and to free the system from parasitic elite criminality. The Globalist cabal wish to perform genocide and to install the fascist state with tight human controls. My fervent personal hope is for the Patriots to win, and for the damage (already enormous) to be limited, followed by publicized arrests for crimes against humanity.
My firm opinion is that COVID is keyword name for global fascist takeover, a project more than a virus. The corona-virus itself remains ominous yet mysterious, taking many perceived forms, studied under various strains. We have COVID rules and laws, in addition to COVID bailouts and relief efforts. Recall those COVID circuit boards for the 5G towers also, which burn human lungs and lead to pneumonia cases (called COVID). A clear confusion and corruption has become evident in the reported data. Back in the months February through April, the news reported corona cases, but now reports COVID cases. Evidence mounts that COVID is a family of diseases which includes Corona, SARS, MERS, nasty influenza, and even pneumonia. They are all called COVID in order to expand the definition, which keeps the high cases counts required to justify the continued economic shutdown.
My personal suspicion is that vast narcotics syndicate funds are used to bribe (or threaten) many national officials and many US state governors into maintaining economic shutdown.
My dreaded fear is that not only will medical data provide exaggerated case counts for continued shutdown, but the civil strife from riots and looting will continue.
Then comes another type of threat, possibly toxins released, akin to the Tokyo sarin attacks in the transportation system. Another type of attack might be EMP pulse weapon usage, which would bring down aircraft with a huge news story.
The goal for the Globalists has a desired step in a universal vaccine. The economies, with borders and airports, are held hostage by the medical/ pharma/ health agency fascist lords. THE WORLD IS HELD HOSTAGE BY THE MEDICAL/ PHARMA CRIMINALS WHO ALLY WITH NARCOS AND NEWS NETWORKS TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE SYSTEM AND PUT AT GREAT RISK OUR LIVES. Exposure is their enemy. My hope is to see elite arrests and commandeered news corporations.
KEY QUOTES
“Peace is high treason to the fascist state. Truth is mortal enemy to the fascist state. Sedition is the common practice to the fascist state. Fraud is currency to the fascist state. Betrayal is the tactic of the fascist state. Inefficiency is the chief byproduct of the fascist state. Economic wreckage is the trademark of the fascist state.
Ignorance and gullibility are the flatullence of the fascist state. Widespread poverty is the inevitable outcome of the fascist state and its adopted socialism.” ~ Jackass
“Ignorance hates knowledge because it is too pure. Knowledge hates ignorance because it is so sure. Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste death but once. All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.” ~ William Shakespeare
“When the speech condemns the free press, you are hearing the words of a tyrant.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Extremism is so easy. When you go far enough to the right, you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.” ~ Clint Eastwood
“Destroying America will be the culmination of my life’s work. I am going to bring down the United States by funding black hate groups. We will put them into a mental trap and make them blame white people. The black community is the easiest to manipulate.” ~ George Soros (interview with German Bild, September 2014)
“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he is a victim and make the victim look like he is the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press.
If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent. That is POWER. They control the minds of the masses.” ~ Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little in Omaha Nebraska)
“Modern society is hypnotized by socialism. It is prevented by socialism from seeing the mortal danger it is in. And one of the greatest dangers of all is that you have lost all sense of danger. You cannot even see where it is coming from as it moves swiftly towards you.” ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“I remain still somewhat on the fence regarding President Donald Trump. In my best estimation, Trump is part of the Judeo/Christian Shallow State with the full backing of the best elements of the USMilitary and its Intelligence establishment.
Trump is opposed by the Satanist Deep State with the full backing of the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, and a diverse group of fascist organizations and corporations. The difference is that the evil Deep State wishes to destroy our planet and subjugate the population as programmable cattle. The Patriotic Shallow State wishes to restore the planet to health, and to initiate a vast true capitalist system with real liberty installed.” ~ the Jackass
“The mortgage delinquency and foreclosure trend could soon lead to civil disorder. The count is 8% of mortgages in arrears or in foreclosure, with 4.3 million homes involved. The trend is growing worse. It is expected that 30% of all home mortgages will enter default in the biggest wave in history. Between food supply stress and home loss stress, the population is facing a survival threat of massive proportions.
The situation is fast reaching a flash point. Increasingly, the public sees the current pandemic as staged and orchestrated, where false medical data abounds. The flash point will require fast remedy and solutions, neither evident nor likely. The RESET must have a viable economic restart, yet the malevolent elite strive for chaos, destruction, and ruin. They desire control and death. They obstruct all.
Something is going to break, and soon. Keep on the lookout for a home foreclosure moratorium fashioned into law, passed by the US Congress. Without such a law to enable relief for households, big civil strife is certain to come.” ~ ThomasJ (Hat Trick Letter client in Virginia)
“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That is headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive healthcare, we could lower that by about by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” ~ Bill Gates (college dropout from Harvard Univ and founder of the Microsoft monopoly, with zero training in biology or chemistry)
“Snowden is safe for now. But while I really hope that Assange gets out of this mess alive and well, sadly from the perspective of the grand scheme of things, he is not a pressing matter. What is really important is getting rid of the main head of the Deep State swamp, which is the City of London, aka the City (sovereign).
It is happening, the financial and some of the political aspects having been made aware. Take note of a critical new conflict. The West and Poland wanted to blame equally the Soviet Union and the Third Reich for World War II. In response to these accusations, Vladimir Putin opened the Russian WW2 archives.
The fireworks are just getting started. First, there are plenty of documents and photographs about how the pre-WW2 Polish Government led by Pillsudsky was in one bed with the Third Reich and Hitler. They had Himmler seen with Polish pre-war government officials, along with Hitler at the Pillsudsky funeral. Second, other documents showed how the French and British delegates were not allowed to sign any alliance treaty, which forced the creation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
You can bet all of your money that there is also enough hard evidence to serve as proof in convicting the entirety of Wall Street for war crimes. Surely exposed are the the Bush family for their role. Also vulnerable to accusation are the City of London and the Vatican for financing and supporting the rise of Hitler, the building of the Nazi War machine, and organizing the Second World War itself. This means once the Vatican and the City/Britain are out of the picture, the matters of the Swamp, Snowden, and Assange will be resolved more easily.” ~ ThomasS (Hat Trick Letter client from Eastern Europe)
“We have seen lots of vicious gold hammering lately, but it has been met apparently with serious buying underneath. These hit jobs were clearly motivated by the USGovt and USFed purposes. Late last week, my view was that it was related to Trump’s expressing anger at China for not honoring Phase 1 agreements in the on/off trade talks.
Remember all through trade talks last late summer, when he threw a tantrum, gold was hammered. Now with China promising to honor Phase 1 via commodity purchases, presto chango, and gold rallies. Watch to see if the Gold price begins releasing here just as it did last year. It also makes me wonder how far discussions in the world have progressed over recent months regarding the settlement of trade imbalances.
Note also how Beijing made some direct comments about the legitimacy of the USDollar as global currency reserve, which prompted our guys in Washington. This would very much dovetail with Trump’s trade tantrums even if it meant Third World solutions to fix the trade deficit with a few more $trillion in funny money coverage. It loosely dovetails with Basel III as well. The big threat on the horizon might indeed be China making important move toward a digital currency, even possibly gold backed. Anyway, I have made a practice of watching gold closely with fine precision in relation to the USFed and the administration, on their timing and policy shifts. There are no coincidences when they are recurring daily and monthly, when tied to statements, speeches, USFed window actions, money printing flows, stock propping, and wrangling with China. We clearly have no free markets. They move in lockstep with the official USGovt/ USFed commentary, used to achieve the official price directives, as policy whips.” ~ George of COMEX
“Barring a major deflationary shock or asset market liquidation event, which is still a meaningful tail risk in a volatile COVID-19 environment, Gold prices should continue to at least stabilize in a $1700 handle, on balance, with a 30% bull case probability of levels averaging between $1800 and $1900 per oz in the second half of 2020.” ~ Citigroup Research
“This discussion is irrelevant in a larger context. Does it really matter which junkyard dog barks loudest? The United States is going to the scrap yard of history. We need to look at the year 2023, and rest assured, the globe will be a very different place. Here is only one thing I am certain about: Gold & Silver will still be around and next will play a crucially important role. Civilizations never died because of what they had accomplished but rather for how they got caught in their retarded thinking patterns. None of the civilizations that died understood the concept of promoting change. They would have survived and excelled if they had understood and embraced change in positive evolution. Imagine where we could be if the Egyptian civilization would not have died. We could very well be already on other planets enjoying better lives, not busy destroying our environment in the quest of seeking irresponsible gains at the expense of others. We have lost the capacity and ability to transport balanced progress to humanity as a whole. Instead we have a concentration of material wealth and oppressive power in the hands of a very few, evil nefarious elite personas. Those will be exterminated and wiped out in the unfolding change process. Guaranteed. Today’s humanity is less educated and advanced than civilizations that created the pyramids with technologies that were far superior to what we have today. Humanity will survive and advance. However, many will not be around to see it happening.” ~ the Voice (March 2017)
“There is an urban legend that Federal Reserve balance sheet run-off drove the S&P500 index down in 4Q2018, i.e. markets just could not deal with Quantitative Tightening. But QT was pre-announced in June 2017 and was fully priced by then. New information in Q4 of 2018 was the US-China tariffs. That is what drove down the S&P500.” ~ Robin Brooks
“Why I hate Microsoft is that, from the beginning, every version of the Windows operating system has been full of holes, acting as entry points for viruses and Trojan Horse invaders, which someone else would have to remedy. That would elicit another round of viruses and another version of Windows, of course with the public serving as beta tests. Then the cycle would repeat. Consequently for a long time, almost nobody was writing business software on any other platform. Viewing next what Gates is planning to do in the human virus and vaccine realm, my conclusion is that the marxist Hegelian dialectic is being applied to both computers and people. An ever revolving, evolving, and escalation of problems (thesis), leading to pseudo-solutions that create worse problems (antithesis), then a synthesis that arrives mainly at more power and control for Team Gates, before starting the cycle over again. This dialectic is also applied to gender and race politics, as everything is boiled down to dividing people into categories of either oppressor (thesis) or oppressed (antithesis), yielding a synthesis in a control grab by the powers amidst the controlled chaos. The elements are all corporate, economic, agency, or legislative. The events behind the Russian Communist Revolution serves as the playbook in the present day events.” ~ Andy from the Andes (Jackass colleague)
“This is why family is not allowed in, because they would be witnessing murder. So the hospital workers are just killing people. And you will never get through to these healthcare professionals because the bought into it. The COVID Virus is a hoax. The vaccine is the lab created bio-weapon, and exosomes are the body’s natural response to toxins. The Rockefeller Big Pharma will have you attacking your own immune system!” ~ anonymous (Exosomes are a type of extracellular vesicle that contain constituents (protein, DNA, RNA) of the cells that secrete them. They are absorbed by distant cells, where they can affect cell function and behavior.)
“A very badly engineered fake pandemic reliant upon easily dismissed lies indeed will have a short legs with a brief lifespan. Smart people have long legs and good vision. The weak narrative has fallen apart completely. The people are awakening, even the slower bulbs in the audience. Their lives are threatened on the financial side, from the cash drawer.” ~ Ludovico (contact in Argentina)
“The Trump Team might appear to be clumsy and slow, letting things go way too far. But I believe much is happening in the shadows, like wrecking the trafficking tunnels in New York and California, like recent arrests of top Antifa leaders and their financiers. I think the Antifa movement will fizzle in a month more. I do not honestly know what else Trump is doing. Certainly some major corporations are being altered and reshaped at the top, an ongoing hidden project. For instance, at least five top CEOs of Big Pharma have been forced to resign, and Disney CEO Iger forced to resign, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt forced to resign. Much is happening, but not enough. We really need more disclosure of the arrests and executions, for waking up the public in a shocking way.” ~ DavidN (Hat Trick Letter client in Southern California)
“Fraudulent corona test kits made the news back in April. For me the big tipoff on the corona-virus test fraud was the Marion Ohio result from their prison population. An amazing 92% tested positive for corona. More reading on my part led to comprehension that the applied corona test detects the presence of antigens from a rather wide (not narrow) type of virus. If a person has had a bout with any type of flu during the last three to five years, he/she will test positive for corona. Only very strong individuals with no flu experience in the last several years will test negative. Therefore, the corona test, or at least the tests given to prison groups, rather clearly are tests for being HUMAN. On an increasing basis, the disease that elites are hoping to eradicate seems to be the HUMAN condition. The quarantine is a punishment for being human. The globe is being converted into a gigantic prison colony, with largely subservient members.” ~ Jackass
“Here we are, five months into the corona hoax perpetrated upon the global community. Nowhere to be seen are the 28 million COVID-19 dead victims, which were expected by the corrupt health agency officials. It was not even a bad flu season. The case counts even include all the falsified death certificates, whereby the hospitals and clinics took advantage of the $13k and $39k Rockefeller bribe, delivered by the ever-ready Medicare cash register. The entire hoax is blowing up in the medical/ pharma sector faces. But that does not stop them from continuing with the false medical data. Next comes the second wave, equally fabricated and falsified. Also, expect the corrupt health officials to claim that better safe than sorry, and wrecking the global economy was worth the averted risk of millions dead. They should be fired, have their wealth confiscated, then executed on a national televised event.” ~ Jackass
These are truly terrible times, dangerous times. The world as we know it stands on a knife’s edge. Instead of a transition from USDollar to a Gold-backed system, we have the threat of global fascism. Instead of a normal election between two political parties with opposing views but common love of country, we have an economic sabotage with a potential fascist specter.
The paths of the Patriot camp (aka White Hats) and the Globalist (aka banker cabal) appear to be taken in common for travel toward disparate goals and ends. The White Hats wish to establish liberty and to free the system from parasitic elite criminality. The Globalist cabal wish to perform genocide and to install the fascist state with tight human controls. My fervent personal hope is for the Patriots to win, and for the damage (already enormous) to be limited, followed by publicized arrests for crimes against humanity.
My firm opinion is that COVID is keyword name for global fascist takeover, a project more than a virus. The corona-virus itself remains ominous yet mysterious, taking many perceived forms, studied under various strains. We have COVID rules and laws, in addition to COVID bailouts and relief efforts. Recall those COVID circuit boards for the 5G towers also, which burn human lungs and lead to pneumonia cases (called COVID). A clear confusion and corruption has become evident in the reported data. Back in the months February through April, the news reported corona cases, but now reports COVID cases. Evidence mounts that COVID is a family of diseases which includes Corona, SARS, MERS, nasty influenza, and even pneumonia. They are all called COVID in order to expand the definition, which keeps the high cases counts required to justify the continued economic shutdown.
My personal suspicion is that vast narcotics syndicate funds are used to bribe (or threaten) many national officials and many US state governors into maintaining economic shutdown.
My dreaded fear is that not only will medical data provide exaggerated case counts for continued shutdown, but the civil strife from riots and looting will continue.
Then comes another type of threat, possibly toxins released, akin to the Tokyo sarin attacks in the transportation system. Another type of attack might be EMP pulse weapon usage, which would bring down aircraft with a huge news story.
The goal for the Globalists has a desired step in a universal vaccine. The economies, with borders and airports, are held hostage by the medical/ pharma/ health agency fascist lords. THE WORLD IS HELD HOSTAGE BY THE MEDICAL/ PHARMA CRIMINALS WHO ALLY WITH NARCOS AND NEWS NETWORKS TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE SYSTEM AND PUT AT GREAT RISK OUR LIVES. Exposure is their enemy. My hope is to see elite arrests and commandeered news corporations.
KEY QUOTES
“Peace is high treason to the fascist state. Truth is mortal enemy to the fascist state. Sedition is the common practice to the fascist state. Fraud is currency to the fascist state. Betrayal is the tactic of the fascist state. Inefficiency is the chief byproduct of the fascist state. Economic wreckage is the trademark of the fascist state.
Ignorance and gullibility are the flatullence of the fascist state. Widespread poverty is the inevitable outcome of the fascist state and its adopted socialism.” ~ Jackass
“Ignorance hates knowledge because it is too pure. Knowledge hates ignorance because it is so sure. Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste death but once. All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.” ~ William Shakespeare
“When the speech condemns the free press, you are hearing the words of a tyrant.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Extremism is so easy. When you go far enough to the right, you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.” ~ Clint Eastwood
“Destroying America will be the culmination of my life’s work. I am going to bring down the United States by funding black hate groups. We will put them into a mental trap and make them blame white people. The black community is the easiest to manipulate.” ~ George Soros (interview with German Bild, September 2014)
“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he is a victim and make the victim look like he is the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press.
If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent. That is POWER. They control the minds of the masses.” ~ Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little in Omaha Nebraska)
“Modern society is hypnotized by socialism. It is prevented by socialism from seeing the mortal danger it is in. And one of the greatest dangers of all is that you have lost all sense of danger. You cannot even see where it is coming from as it moves swiftly towards you.” ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“I remain still somewhat on the fence regarding President Donald Trump. In my best estimation, Trump is part of the Judeo/Christian Shallow State with the full backing of the best elements of the USMilitary and its Intelligence establishment.
Trump is opposed by the Satanist Deep State with the full backing of the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, and a diverse group of fascist organizations and corporations. The difference is that the evil Deep State wishes to destroy our planet and subjugate the population as programmable cattle. The Patriotic Shallow State wishes to restore the planet to health, and to initiate a vast true capitalist system with real liberty installed.” ~ the Jackass
“The mortgage delinquency and foreclosure trend could soon lead to civil disorder. The count is 8% of mortgages in arrears or in foreclosure, with 4.3 million homes involved. The trend is growing worse. It is expected that 30% of all home mortgages will enter default in the biggest wave in history. Between food supply stress and home loss stress, the population is facing a survival threat of massive proportions.
The situation is fast reaching a flash point. Increasingly, the public sees the current pandemic as staged and orchestrated, where false medical data abounds. The flash point will require fast remedy and solutions, neither evident nor likely. The RESET must have a viable economic restart, yet the malevolent elite strive for chaos, destruction, and ruin. They desire control and death. They obstruct all.
Something is going to break, and soon. Keep on the lookout for a home foreclosure moratorium fashioned into law, passed by the US Congress. Without such a law to enable relief for households, big civil strife is certain to come.” ~ ThomasJ (Hat Trick Letter client in Virginia)
“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That is headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive healthcare, we could lower that by about by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” ~ Bill Gates (college dropout from Harvard Univ and founder of the Microsoft monopoly, with zero training in biology or chemistry)
“Snowden is safe for now. But while I really hope that Assange gets out of this mess alive and well, sadly from the perspective of the grand scheme of things, he is not a pressing matter. What is really important is getting rid of the main head of the Deep State swamp, which is the City of London, aka the City (sovereign).
It is happening, the financial and some of the political aspects having been made aware. Take note of a critical new conflict. The West and Poland wanted to blame equally the Soviet Union and the Third Reich for World War II. In response to these accusations, Vladimir Putin opened the Russian WW2 archives.
The fireworks are just getting started. First, there are plenty of documents and photographs about how the pre-WW2 Polish Government led by Pillsudsky was in one bed with the Third Reich and Hitler. They had Himmler seen with Polish pre-war government officials, along with Hitler at the Pillsudsky funeral. Second, other documents showed how the French and British delegates were not allowed to sign any alliance treaty, which forced the creation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
You can bet all of your money that there is also enough hard evidence to serve as proof in convicting the entirety of Wall Street for war crimes. Surely exposed are the the Bush family for their role. Also vulnerable to accusation are the City of London and the Vatican for financing and supporting the rise of Hitler, the building of the Nazi War machine, and organizing the Second World War itself. This means once the Vatican and the City/Britain are out of the picture, the matters of the Swamp, Snowden, and Assange will be resolved more easily.” ~ ThomasS (Hat Trick Letter client from Eastern Europe)
“We have seen lots of vicious gold hammering lately, but it has been met apparently with serious buying underneath. These hit jobs were clearly motivated by the USGovt and USFed purposes. Late last week, my view was that it was related to Trump’s expressing anger at China for not honoring Phase 1 agreements in the on/off trade talks.
Remember all through trade talks last late summer, when he threw a tantrum, gold was hammered. Now with China promising to honor Phase 1 via commodity purchases, presto chango, and gold rallies. Watch to see if the Gold price begins releasing here just as it did last year. It also makes me wonder how far discussions in the world have progressed over recent months regarding the settlement of trade imbalances.
Note also how Beijing made some direct comments about the legitimacy of the USDollar as global currency reserve, which prompted our guys in Washington. This would very much dovetail with Trump’s trade tantrums even if it meant Third World solutions to fix the trade deficit with a few more $trillion in funny money coverage. It loosely dovetails with Basel III as well. The big threat on the horizon might indeed be China making important move toward a digital currency, even possibly gold backed. Anyway, I have made a practice of watching gold closely with fine precision in relation to the USFed and the administration, on their timing and policy shifts. There are no coincidences when they are recurring daily and monthly, when tied to statements, speeches, USFed window actions, money printing flows, stock propping, and wrangling with China. We clearly have no free markets. They move in lockstep with the official USGovt/ USFed commentary, used to achieve the official price directives, as policy whips.” ~ George of COMEX
“Barring a major deflationary shock or asset market liquidation event, which is still a meaningful tail risk in a volatile COVID-19 environment, Gold prices should continue to at least stabilize in a $1700 handle, on balance, with a 30% bull case probability of levels averaging between $1800 and $1900 per oz in the second half of 2020.” ~ Citigroup Research
“This discussion is irrelevant in a larger context. Does it really matter which junkyard dog barks loudest? The United States is going to the scrap yard of history. We need to look at the year 2023, and rest assured, the globe will be a very different place. Here is only one thing I am certain about: Gold & Silver will still be around and next will play a crucially important role. Civilizations never died because of what they had accomplished but rather for how they got caught in their retarded thinking patterns. None of the civilizations that died understood the concept of promoting change. They would have survived and excelled if they had understood and embraced change in positive evolution. Imagine where we could be if the Egyptian civilization would not have died. We could very well be already on other planets enjoying better lives, not busy destroying our environment in the quest of seeking irresponsible gains at the expense of others. We have lost the capacity and ability to transport balanced progress to humanity as a whole. Instead we have a concentration of material wealth and oppressive power in the hands of a very few, evil nefarious elite personas. Those will be exterminated and wiped out in the unfolding change process. Guaranteed. Today’s humanity is less educated and advanced than civilizations that created the pyramids with technologies that were far superior to what we have today. Humanity will survive and advance. However, many will not be around to see it happening.” ~ the Voice (March 2017)
“There is an urban legend that Federal Reserve balance sheet run-off drove the S&P500 index down in 4Q2018, i.e. markets just could not deal with Quantitative Tightening. But QT was pre-announced in June 2017 and was fully priced by then. New information in Q4 of 2018 was the US-China tariffs. That is what drove down the S&P500.” ~ Robin Brooks
“Why I hate Microsoft is that, from the beginning, every version of the Windows operating system has been full of holes, acting as entry points for viruses and Trojan Horse invaders, which someone else would have to remedy. That would elicit another round of viruses and another version of Windows, of course with the public serving as beta tests. Then the cycle would repeat. Consequently for a long time, almost nobody was writing business software on any other platform. Viewing next what Gates is planning to do in the human virus and vaccine realm, my conclusion is that the marxist Hegelian dialectic is being applied to both computers and people. An ever revolving, evolving, and escalation of problems (thesis), leading to pseudo-solutions that create worse problems (antithesis), then a synthesis that arrives mainly at more power and control for Team Gates, before starting the cycle over again. This dialectic is also applied to gender and race politics, as everything is boiled down to dividing people into categories of either oppressor (thesis) or oppressed (antithesis), yielding a synthesis in a control grab by the powers amidst the controlled chaos. The elements are all corporate, economic, agency, or legislative. The events behind the Russian Communist Revolution serves as the playbook in the present day events.” ~ Andy from the Andes (Jackass colleague)
“This is why family is not allowed in, because they would be witnessing murder. So the hospital workers are just killing people. And you will never get through to these healthcare professionals because the bought into it. The COVID Virus is a hoax. The vaccine is the lab created bio-weapon, and exosomes are the body’s natural response to toxins. The Rockefeller Big Pharma will have you attacking your own immune system!” ~ anonymous (Exosomes are a type of extracellular vesicle that contain constituents (protein, DNA, RNA) of the cells that secrete them. They are absorbed by distant cells, where they can affect cell function and behavior.)
“A very badly engineered fake pandemic reliant upon easily dismissed lies indeed will have a short legs with a brief lifespan. Smart people have long legs and good vision. The weak narrative has fallen apart completely. The people are awakening, even the slower bulbs in the audience. Their lives are threatened on the financial side, from the cash drawer.” ~ Ludovico (contact in Argentina)
“The Trump Team might appear to be clumsy and slow, letting things go way too far. But I believe much is happening in the shadows, like wrecking the trafficking tunnels in New York and California, like recent arrests of top Antifa leaders and their financiers. I think the Antifa movement will fizzle in a month more. I do not honestly know what else Trump is doing. Certainly some major corporations are being altered and reshaped at the top, an ongoing hidden project. For instance, at least five top CEOs of Big Pharma have been forced to resign, and Disney CEO Iger forced to resign, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt forced to resign. Much is happening, but not enough. We really need more disclosure of the arrests and executions, for waking up the public in a shocking way.” ~ DavidN (Hat Trick Letter client in Southern California)
“Fraudulent corona test kits made the news back in April. For me the big tipoff on the corona-virus test fraud was the Marion Ohio result from their prison population. An amazing 92% tested positive for corona. More reading on my part led to comprehension that the applied corona test detects the presence of antigens from a rather wide (not narrow) type of virus. If a person has had a bout with any type of flu during the last three to five years, he/she will test positive for corona. Only very strong individuals with no flu experience in the last several years will test negative. Therefore, the corona test, or at least the tests given to prison groups, rather clearly are tests for being HUMAN. On an increasing basis, the disease that elites are hoping to eradicate seems to be the HUMAN condition. The quarantine is a punishment for being human. The globe is being converted into a gigantic prison colony, with largely subservient members.” ~ Jackass
“Here we are, five months into the corona hoax perpetrated upon the global community. Nowhere to be seen are the 28 million COVID-19 dead victims, which were expected by the corrupt health agency officials. It was not even a bad flu season. The case counts even include all the falsified death certificates, whereby the hospitals and clinics took advantage of the $13k and $39k Rockefeller bribe, delivered by the ever-ready Medicare cash register. The entire hoax is blowing up in the medical/ pharma sector faces. But that does not stop them from continuing with the false medical data. Next comes the second wave, equally fabricated and falsified. Also, expect the corrupt health officials to claim that better safe than sorry, and wrecking the global economy was worth the averted risk of millions dead. They should be fired, have their wealth confiscated, then executed on a national televised event.” ~ Jackass
- Post #8,679
- Quote
- Edited 2:51pm Jul 3, 2020 2:39pm | Edited 2:51pm
- | Commercial Member | Joined Dec 2014 | 11,786 Posts
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/celeb...120122356.html
By David M. Rubenstein, co-founder & co-chairman, The Carlyle Group
July, 3 2020
By celebrating the Fourth of July, which the country has done annually since 1777, are we still celebrating independence from Britain or are we really celebrating the key principle outlined in the Declaration of Independence – that we are all equal, with the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?
And if we are celebrating that principle, are we closing our eyes to the fact that the Declaration’s principal author, Thomas Jefferson, was a slaveowner who had a forty-year intimate relationship with one of his slaves?
For years I have been interested in these questions – and that interest has accelerated with the ongoing race-related protests and re-examinations.
Over the past decade, I have purchased a dozen historic copies of the Declaration and placed them on public display around the country. My hope is that more Americans will delve deeply into the Declaration’s meaning – what it meant in 1776 as well as today. My theory is that when people see historic documents, as opposed to replicas or images on computers, they become more interested in the real meaning of these documents.
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/1D...5-aa204bbe7d29
David Rubenstein has purchased several copies of The Declaration of Independence (produced in 1823) and places them on public display at prominent institutions including the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institution.
More
Some background:
The Second Continental Congress approved on July 2, 1776, a resolution to declare independence from Britain. John Adams, the principal advocate of independence, wrote to his wife Abigail saying that in the future July 2 would be celebrated by Americans as the “most memorable epoch in the history of America.”
Right after the vote on July 2, the delegates to the Congress began debating the wording of a document – the Declaration of Independence – designed to explain to the American people, the British government, and to other interested people and countries, the reasons for the break with England.
The draft Declaration had been principally authored by the 33-year old Jefferson (accompanied to Philadelphia by two of his slaves).
For two days, the delegates debated Jefferson ’s handiwork. After the final text was approved, about 200 copies were disseminated to the public.
It wasn’t until August that the delegates signed the engrossed version of the Declaration. That faded version today resides in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
So why do we celebrate the Declaration of Independence on July 4 rather than July 2, the date of the actual vote for independence? One theory is that the Second Continental Congress, in session on July 2, 1777, simply forgot about the date, realized its error a bit late, and organized itself to have a celebration two days later, on the 4th.
Whatever the reason, the country has celebrated the Fourth of July unofficially since 1777 and officially (by act of Congress) since 1941.
But, again, what are we celebrating?
In the early years of the Republic, independence from Britain was what the colonies felt was significant and worthy of celebration. The wording of the Declaration was not considered that significant – indeed, even Jefferson thought so little of his authorship that he did not publicly admit to his role for many years.
Today, independence from Britain, while important historically, is not foremost on the minds of Americans. What deserves and receives more attention is the Preamble of the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This sentence may be the best-known sentence in the English language. Why is that?
It is because the sentence has become the creed of America – our aspiration – and the creed of all disenfranchised people, in this country and around the world.
By David M. Rubenstein, co-founder & co-chairman, The Carlyle Group
July, 3 2020
By celebrating the Fourth of July, which the country has done annually since 1777, are we still celebrating independence from Britain or are we really celebrating the key principle outlined in the Declaration of Independence – that we are all equal, with the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?
And if we are celebrating that principle, are we closing our eyes to the fact that the Declaration’s principal author, Thomas Jefferson, was a slaveowner who had a forty-year intimate relationship with one of his slaves?
For years I have been interested in these questions – and that interest has accelerated with the ongoing race-related protests and re-examinations.
Over the past decade, I have purchased a dozen historic copies of the Declaration and placed them on public display around the country. My hope is that more Americans will delve deeply into the Declaration’s meaning – what it meant in 1776 as well as today. My theory is that when people see historic documents, as opposed to replicas or images on computers, they become more interested in the real meaning of these documents.
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/1D...5-aa204bbe7d29
David Rubenstein has purchased several copies of The Declaration of Independence (produced in 1823) and places them on public display at prominent institutions including the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institution.
More
Some background:
The Second Continental Congress approved on July 2, 1776, a resolution to declare independence from Britain. John Adams, the principal advocate of independence, wrote to his wife Abigail saying that in the future July 2 would be celebrated by Americans as the “most memorable epoch in the history of America.”
Right after the vote on July 2, the delegates to the Congress began debating the wording of a document – the Declaration of Independence – designed to explain to the American people, the British government, and to other interested people and countries, the reasons for the break with England.
The draft Declaration had been principally authored by the 33-year old Jefferson (accompanied to Philadelphia by two of his slaves).
For two days, the delegates debated Jefferson ’s handiwork. After the final text was approved, about 200 copies were disseminated to the public.
It wasn’t until August that the delegates signed the engrossed version of the Declaration. That faded version today resides in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
So why do we celebrate the Declaration of Independence on July 4 rather than July 2, the date of the actual vote for independence? One theory is that the Second Continental Congress, in session on July 2, 1777, simply forgot about the date, realized its error a bit late, and organized itself to have a celebration two days later, on the 4th.
Whatever the reason, the country has celebrated the Fourth of July unofficially since 1777 and officially (by act of Congress) since 1941.
But, again, what are we celebrating?
In the early years of the Republic, independence from Britain was what the colonies felt was significant and worthy of celebration. The wording of the Declaration was not considered that significant – indeed, even Jefferson thought so little of his authorship that he did not publicly admit to his role for many years.
Today, independence from Britain, while important historically, is not foremost on the minds of Americans. What deserves and receives more attention is the Preamble of the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This sentence may be the best-known sentence in the English language. Why is that?
It is because the sentence has become the creed of America – our aspiration – and the creed of all disenfranchised people, in this country and around the world.
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- Jul 3, 2020 2:50pm Jul 3, 2020 2:50pm
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What is the best way to debunk a conspiracy theory? Call it a conspiracy theory, a label which in and of itself implies disbelief. The only problem with that is there have been many actual conspiracies both historically and currently and many of them are not in the least theoretical in nature. Conspiracies of several kinds brought about American participation in both world wars. And however one feels about President Donald Trump, it must be conceded that he has been the victim of a number of conspiracies, first to deny him the GOP nomination, then to insure that he be defeated in the presidential election, and subsequently to completely delegitimize his presidency.
Prior to Trump there have been numerous conspiracy “theories,” many of which have been quite plausible. The “suicide” of Defense Secretary James Forrestal comes to mind, followed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which has been credibly credited to both Cuba and Israel. And then there is 9/11, perhaps the greatest conspiracy theory of all. Israel clearly knew it was coming, witness the Five Dancing Shlomos cavorting and filming themselves in New Jersey as the twin towers went down. Also the Saudis might have played a role in funding and even directing the alleged hijackers. And we have also had the conspiracy by the neocons to fabricate information about Iraq’s WMDs and the ongoing conspiracy by the same players to depict Iran as a threat to the United States.
Given the multiple crises currently being experienced in the United States it is perhaps inevitable that speculation about conspiracies is at its highest level ever. To the average American it is incomprehensible how the country has become so screwed up because the political and economic elite is fundamentally incompetent, so the search for a scapegoat must go on.
There are a number of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus currently making the rounds. Those libertarians and contrarians who choose to believe that the virus is actually a flu being exploited to strip them of their liberties are convinced that many in the government and media have conspired to sell what is essentially a fraud. One such snake oil salesman persists in using an analogy, that since more Americans are killed in automobile accidents than by the coronavirus it would be more appropriate to ban cars than to require the wearing of face masks.
Another theory making the rounds accuses Microsoft multi-billionaire Bill Gates of trying to take over the world’s healthcare system through the introduction of a vaccine to control the coronavirus, which he presumably created in the first place. The fallacy in many of the virus “conspiracies” that relate to a totalitarian regime or a crazy billionaire using a faux disease to generate fear so as to gain control of the citizenry is that it gives far too much credit to any government’s or individual’s ability to pull off a fraud of that magnitude. It would require people a whole lot smarter than the tag team of Trump-Pompeo or even Gates to convince the world and thousands of doctors and scientists that they should lock down entire countries over something completely phony.
Other coronavirus theories include that the virus was developed in the U.S., was exported to China by a traitorous American scientist, weaponized in Wuhan and then unleashed on the West as part of a communist plot to destroy capitalism and democracy. That would mean that we are already at war with China, or at least we should be. Then there is the largely accepted theory that the virus was created in Wuhan and escaped from the lab. Since that time Beijing has been engaging in a cover-up, which is the conspiracy. It is a theme favored by the White House, which has not yet decided what to do about it beyond assigning funny “Yellow Peril” names to the disease so everyone in MAGA hats will have something to chuckle about leading up to the November election.
But all kidding aside, there are some conspiracy theories that are more worth considering than others. One would be the role of George Soros and the so-called Open Society Foundations that he controls and funds in the unrest that is sweeping across the United States. The allegations against Soros are admittedly thin on evidence, but conspiracy mongers would point out that that is the mark of a really well-planned conspiracy, similar to what the 89 year-old Hungarian Jewish billionaire has been engaging in for a long time. The current round of claims about Open Society and Soros have generated as many as 500,000 tweets a day as well as nearly 70,000 Facebook posts per month, mostly from political conservatives.
The allegations tend to fall into two broad categories. First, that Soros hires protester/thugs and transports them to demonstrations where they are supplied with bricks and incendiaries to turn the gatherings into riots. Second, that Open Society is funding and otherwise enabling the destabilizing flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.
Soros and his supporters, many of whom are Jewish because they think they see anti-Semitism in the attacks on the Hungarian, claim to support democratization and free trade worldwide. He is, in effect, one of the world’s leading globalists. Soros claims to be a “force for good” as the cliché goes, but is it completely credible that his $32 billion foundation does not operate behind the scenes to influence developments in ways that are certainly not democratic?
Indeed, Soros accumulated his vast fortune through vulture capitalism. He made over $1 billion in 1992 by selling short $10 billion in British pounds sterling, leading to the media dubbing him “the man who broke the bank of England.” He has been accused of similar currency manipulation in both Europe and Asia. In 1999, New York Times economist Paul Krugman wrote of him that “Nobody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit.”
Far from a passive bystander giving helpful advice to democracy groups, Soros was heavily involved with the restructuring of former communist regimes in eastern Europe and had a hand in the so-called Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, both of which were supported by the U.S. government and were intended to threaten Russia’s regional security.
Soros particularly hates President Vladimir Putin and Russia. He revealed that he is far from a benevolent figure fighting for justice in his March Financial Times op-ed (behind a pay wall) entitled “Europe Must Stand With Turkey Over Putin’s War Crimes in Syria.”
The op-ed is full of errors of fact and is basically a call for aggression against a Russia that he describes as engaged in bombing schools and hospitals. It starts with, “Since the beginning of its intervention in Syria in September 2015, Russia has not only sought to keep in place its most faithful Arab ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It has also wanted to regain the regional and global influence that it lost since the fall of the Soviet Union.” First of all, Russia did not “intervene” in Syria. It was invited there by the country’s legitimate government to provide assistance against various groups, some of which were linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that were seeking to overthrow President al-Assad.
And apart from Soros, few actual experts on Russia would claim that it is seeking to recreate the “influence” of the Soviet Union. Moscow does not have the resources to do so and has evinced no desire to pursue the sort of global agenda that was characteristic of the Soviet state.
There then follows a complete flight into hyperbole with: “Vladimir Putin has sought to use the turmoil in the Middle East to erase international norms and advances in international humanitarian law made since the second world war. In fact, creating the humanitarian disaster that has turned almost 6 million Syrians into refugees has not been a byproduct of the Russian president’s strategy in Syria. It has been one of his central goals.” Note that none of Soros’s assertions are supported by fact.
The Soros op-ed also included a bit of reminiscence, describing how, “In 2014, I urged Europe to wake up to the threat that Russia was posing to its strategic interests.” The op-ed reveals Soros as neither conciliatory nor “diplomatic,” a clear sign that he picks his enemies based on ideological considerations that also drive his choices on how to frame his ventures. Given all of that, why is it unimaginable that George Soros is engaged in a conspiracy, that he is clandestinely behind at least some of the mayhem of Antifa and Black Lives Matter as well as the flood of illegal immigration that have together perhaps fatally destabilized the United States?
What is the best way to debunk a conspiracy theory? Call it a conspiracy theory, a label which in and of itself implies disbelief. The only problem with that is there have been many actual conspiracies both historically and currently and many of them are not in the least theoretical in nature. Conspiracies of several kinds brought about American participation in both world wars. And however one feels about President Donald Trump, it must be conceded that he has been the victim of a number of conspiracies, first to deny him the GOP nomination, then to insure that he be defeated in the presidential election, and subsequently to completely delegitimize his presidency.
Prior to Trump there have been numerous conspiracy “theories,” many of which have been quite plausible. The “suicide” of Defense Secretary James Forrestal comes to mind, followed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which has been credibly credited to both Cuba and Israel. And then there is 9/11, perhaps the greatest conspiracy theory of all. Israel clearly knew it was coming, witness the Five Dancing Shlomos cavorting and filming themselves in New Jersey as the twin towers went down. Also the Saudis might have played a role in funding and even directing the alleged hijackers. And we have also had the conspiracy by the neocons to fabricate information about Iraq’s WMDs and the ongoing conspiracy by the same players to depict Iran as a threat to the United States.
Given the multiple crises currently being experienced in the United States it is perhaps inevitable that speculation about conspiracies is at its highest level ever. To the average American it is incomprehensible how the country has become so screwed up because the political and economic elite is fundamentally incompetent, so the search for a scapegoat must go on.
There are a number of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus currently making the rounds. Those libertarians and contrarians who choose to believe that the virus is actually a flu being exploited to strip them of their liberties are convinced that many in the government and media have conspired to sell what is essentially a fraud. One such snake oil salesman persists in using an analogy, that since more Americans are killed in automobile accidents than by the coronavirus it would be more appropriate to ban cars than to require the wearing of face masks.
Another theory making the rounds accuses Microsoft multi-billionaire Bill Gates of trying to take over the world’s healthcare system through the introduction of a vaccine to control the coronavirus, which he presumably created in the first place. The fallacy in many of the virus “conspiracies” that relate to a totalitarian regime or a crazy billionaire using a faux disease to generate fear so as to gain control of the citizenry is that it gives far too much credit to any government’s or individual’s ability to pull off a fraud of that magnitude. It would require people a whole lot smarter than the tag team of Trump-Pompeo or even Gates to convince the world and thousands of doctors and scientists that they should lock down entire countries over something completely phony.
Other coronavirus theories include that the virus was developed in the U.S., was exported to China by a traitorous American scientist, weaponized in Wuhan and then unleashed on the West as part of a communist plot to destroy capitalism and democracy. That would mean that we are already at war with China, or at least we should be. Then there is the largely accepted theory that the virus was created in Wuhan and escaped from the lab. Since that time Beijing has been engaging in a cover-up, which is the conspiracy. It is a theme favored by the White House, which has not yet decided what to do about it beyond assigning funny “Yellow Peril” names to the disease so everyone in MAGA hats will have something to chuckle about leading up to the November election.
But all kidding aside, there are some conspiracy theories that are more worth considering than others. One would be the role of George Soros and the so-called Open Society Foundations that he controls and funds in the unrest that is sweeping across the United States. The allegations against Soros are admittedly thin on evidence, but conspiracy mongers would point out that that is the mark of a really well-planned conspiracy, similar to what the 89 year-old Hungarian Jewish billionaire has been engaging in for a long time. The current round of claims about Open Society and Soros have generated as many as 500,000 tweets a day as well as nearly 70,000 Facebook posts per month, mostly from political conservatives.
The allegations tend to fall into two broad categories. First, that Soros hires protester/thugs and transports them to demonstrations where they are supplied with bricks and incendiaries to turn the gatherings into riots. Second, that Open Society is funding and otherwise enabling the destabilizing flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.
Soros and his supporters, many of whom are Jewish because they think they see anti-Semitism in the attacks on the Hungarian, claim to support democratization and free trade worldwide. He is, in effect, one of the world’s leading globalists. Soros claims to be a “force for good” as the cliché goes, but is it completely credible that his $32 billion foundation does not operate behind the scenes to influence developments in ways that are certainly not democratic?
Indeed, Soros accumulated his vast fortune through vulture capitalism. He made over $1 billion in 1992 by selling short $10 billion in British pounds sterling, leading to the media dubbing him “the man who broke the bank of England.” He has been accused of similar currency manipulation in both Europe and Asia. In 1999, New York Times economist Paul Krugman wrote of him that “Nobody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit.”
Far from a passive bystander giving helpful advice to democracy groups, Soros was heavily involved with the restructuring of former communist regimes in eastern Europe and had a hand in the so-called Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, both of which were supported by the U.S. government and were intended to threaten Russia’s regional security.
Soros particularly hates President Vladimir Putin and Russia. He revealed that he is far from a benevolent figure fighting for justice in his March Financial Times op-ed (behind a pay wall) entitled “Europe Must Stand With Turkey Over Putin’s War Crimes in Syria.”
The op-ed is full of errors of fact and is basically a call for aggression against a Russia that he describes as engaged in bombing schools and hospitals. It starts with, “Since the beginning of its intervention in Syria in September 2015, Russia has not only sought to keep in place its most faithful Arab ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It has also wanted to regain the regional and global influence that it lost since the fall of the Soviet Union.” First of all, Russia did not “intervene” in Syria. It was invited there by the country’s legitimate government to provide assistance against various groups, some of which were linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that were seeking to overthrow President al-Assad.
And apart from Soros, few actual experts on Russia would claim that it is seeking to recreate the “influence” of the Soviet Union. Moscow does not have the resources to do so and has evinced no desire to pursue the sort of global agenda that was characteristic of the Soviet state.
There then follows a complete flight into hyperbole with: “Vladimir Putin has sought to use the turmoil in the Middle East to erase international norms and advances in international humanitarian law made since the second world war. In fact, creating the humanitarian disaster that has turned almost 6 million Syrians into refugees has not been a byproduct of the Russian president’s strategy in Syria. It has been one of his central goals.” Note that none of Soros’s assertions are supported by fact.
The Soros op-ed also included a bit of reminiscence, describing how, “In 2014, I urged Europe to wake up to the threat that Russia was posing to its strategic interests.” The op-ed reveals Soros as neither conciliatory nor “diplomatic,” a clear sign that he picks his enemies based on ideological considerations that also drive his choices on how to frame his ventures. Given all of that, why is it unimaginable that George Soros is engaged in a conspiracy, that he is clandestinely behind at least some of the mayhem of Antifa and Black Lives Matter as well as the flood of illegal immigration that have together perhaps fatally destabilized the United States?