Steve Bull's Blog, page 136
January 22, 2023
Twitter Files Prove America Headed For “Totalitarian State Territory”, Expert Warns
Thanks to the revelations in the Twitter Files, there’s evidence that the FBI and other agencies worked to suppress “lawful speech,” and if this type of action is allowed to continue, the United States is headed for “totalitarian state territory,” Matthew Peterson, the cofounder of New Founding, said in an interview with Epoch Times–NTD collaborative program “Newsmakers.”
New Founding helps people and organizations position themselves to avoid threats from Big Tech and “woke capital,” and Peterson has two decades of experience in digital media and political consulting.
When asked what will happen if the country’s current trajectory continues for three to five years, Peterson said, “We’ll be in totalitarian state territory, there’s no question about it.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray (C) on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Nov. 15, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“I mean, remember, this went so far as the government saying, ‘You need to find evidence that there are Russians influencing the election on Twitter.’ And Twitter saying, ‘No, that’s not happening.’
“And then [Twitter had] to be quiet about it and not even defend themselves when they knew that there wasn’t Russian interference that they could find,” he added.
Peterson further explained that the U.S. government drove a narrative that it knew wasn’t true and was the “antithesis” of America’s founding principles.
“[The government’s actions are] the antithesis of America. The American founding is basically contradicted by what’s happening here, over and over again. And if we don’t do something about that, we will not have free speech in this country,” Peterson warned.
FBI and Fake News
Peterson pointed out that one of the biggest revelations in the Twitter Files—a collection of internal emails and communications made public by the company’s CEO, Elon Musk—was that the intelligence community’s influence on Twitter was more significant than anyone imagined.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
The Dangerous Fantasy of Scotland’s Net Zero Energy Transition
Suppose that Scotland’s CO2 emissions fell tomorrow to zero, i.e., that, at midnight, the country ceased to exist. Then according to the “Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change” (MAGICC), based on the latest IPCC climate models, the reduction in the Earth’s temperature in 2100 would be…undetectable.Motivated by the moral necessity and urgency of this goal, the Scottish Government is proposing a novel energy policy – its “Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan”.
This article reviews its major themes and their implications, and considers briefly the probability of success of the Scottish Government implementing it.
In 2022, due to an insufficient quantity of wind and sun, Scotland’s current collection of wind and solar energy-scavenging devices failed to generate about 70% of their nameplate capacity. Recent exhaustive statistical and econometric analysis of wind generation in Scotland by Edinburgh University shows that it is uneconomic and destined for taxpayer bailout. Under the Scottish Government’s novel energy strategy, wind and solar energy-scavenging devices are to be greatly expanded.
Hydrogen, an energy carrier that squanders in waste-heat a gigawatt of power generation for every gigawatt it carries, is elevated in the Scottish Government’s understanding of energy to the category of a fuel, and also greatly expanded.
Hydrocarbon and nuclear – actual fuels – provide the energy to manufacture and endlessly replace wind turbines and solar panels. They also, in Scotland, provide the power sources that run under all conditions to ensure continuity of energy supply during Scotland’s frequent sunless and windless conditions. These are to be discontinued.
Like all advanced economies, Scotland cannot tolerate even a small measure of power supply fluctuation. Without firm dispatchable thermal standby generation capacity to smooth supply fluctuation, the eventual daily around 40GW amplitude power fluctuation resulting from the proposed expansion of weather-dependent electrical generation must be adapted for use in some other way…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
January 21, 2023
What’s Behind California’s Skyrocketing Natural Gas Bills: Insiders
Natural gas is transferred into the SoCalGas system after being collected and purified at a Calgren collection facility in Pixley, Calif., on Oct. 2, 2019. (Mike Blake/Reuters)Californians are expecting skyrocketing natural gas bills this month, but this can’t all be blamed on the weather, according to industry insiders.Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), which serves about 5.9 million households and businesses, warned customers to expect “shockingly high” January bills that could be 128 percent higher compared to December.
Those who typically paid around $65 a month last winter are likely to pay about $160 this year, SoCalGas said in a statement Dec. 29. Those with bills around $130 a month could see charges jump to $315.
Last December, wholesale natural gas prices already cost five times more than that of 2021. The utility also paid unprecedented prices for the supply in January, the company reported.
Natural gas prices rose in 2022 for five reasons, according to a biennial report (pdf) published by California Gas and Electric Utilities, a group of utility providers including SoCalGas, San Diego Gas & Electric, and SoCal Edison.
First, North American inventories fell below the five-year average last year. Second, the national supply was also strained by Europe’s steady demand for American natural gas during the Ukraine conflict.
Third, the Biden administration restricted licensing and drilling in the country for fossil fuels, and investment for such production has lagged behind the rapidly growing demand for natural gas over the past year, according to the report.
Lastly, the growing electric power sectors nationwide also consume natural gas, the company reported.
“From an economic standpoint [reducing reliance on fossil fuels] may be costly and is certainly not expected to be rapid or easy,” the utility reported. “Nonetheless, the push to find ways forward and to provide energy solutions to customers in a clean and affordable way is an imperative.”
Climate Goals Restrict Production, Grow Demand
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Gold Or Silver?
You want both, obviously, but how much of each and why?
At first glance, gold and silver seem pretty fungible. They’re both hypnotically pretty. Their prices tend to rise and fall according to the same financial/political forces. They’re both seen as real money by a tiny (very wise) fraction of the population and as atavistic relics by the vast, ignorant majority. And – most important – they will both preserve their owners’ purchasing power when today’s fiat currencies evaporate like the fever dreams they always were.
So you definitely want some (and maybe a lot) of each. But gold and silver are not identical. They have different strengths and weaknesses in various “monetary reset” scenarios. And their prices don’t move in lockstep. Sometimes one is cheap relative to the other.
So how much of each should we own now, and how quickly should we plan to load up the truck? The answer is different for each person, but a few things are generally true.
The gold/silver ratio
The relative prices of gold and silver tend to fluctuate within a broad but discernable range. This gold/silver ratio is expressed as the number of ounces of silver it takes to buy an ounce of gold and tends to rise and fall along with the emotional state of precious metals investors. When those investors don’t foresee imminent inflation or other monetary disruptions, they gravitate towards gold’s safety and stability, and shy away from silver’s volatility. Gold’s price rises relative to silver’s, producing a high gold/silver ratio.
When investors expect rising inflation or other kinds of currency instability, they buy precious metals generally, but gravitate towards silver’s greater upside potential. Gold and silver both rise but the gold/silver ratio falls as buyers push silver’s price up more quickly than gold’s.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Global South: Gold-backed currencies to replace the US dollar
Photo Credit: The CradleLet’s start with three interconnected multipolar-driven facts.First: One of the key take aways from the World Economic Forum annual shindig in Davos, Switzerland is when Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan, on a panel on “Saudi Arabia’s Transformation,” made it clear that Riyadh “will consider trading in currencies other than the US dollar.”
So is the petroyuan finally at hand? Possibly, but Al-Jadaan wisely opted for careful hedging: “We enjoy a very strategic relationship with China and we enjoy that same strategic relationship with other nations including the US and we want to develop that with Europe and other countries.”
Second: The Central Banks of Iran and Russia are studying the adoption of a “stable coin” for foreign trade settlements, replacing the US dollar, the ruble and the rial. The crypto crowd is already up in arms, mulling the pros and cons of a gold-backed central bank digital currency (CBDC) for trade that will be in fact impervious to the weaponized US dollar.
A gold-backed digital currency
The really attractive issue here is that this gold-backed digital currency would be particularly effective in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Astrakhan, in the Caspian Sea.
Astrakhan is the key Russian port participating in the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), with Russia processing cargo travelling across Iran in merchant ships all the way to West Asia, Africa, the Indian Ocean and South Asia.
The success of the INSTC – progressively tied to a gold-backed CBDC – will largely hinge on whether scores of Asian, West Asian and African nations refuse to apply US-dictated sanctions on both Russia and Iran.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
The Mainstream Media Admits That We Are Facing “The Worst Food Crisis In Modern History”
People on the other side of the planet are dropping dead from starvation right now, but most people don’t even realize that this is happening. Unfortunately, most people just assume that everything is fine and dandy. If you are one of those people that believe that everything is just wonderful, I would encourage you to pay close attention to the details that I am about to share with you. Global hunger is rapidly spreading, and that is because global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. If current trends continue, we could potentially be facing a nightmare scenario before this calendar year is over.
Pakistan is not one of the poorest nations in the world, but the lack of affordable food is starting to cause panic inside that country. The following comes from Time Magazine…
Last Saturday in Mirpur Khas, a city in Pakistan’s Sindh province, hundreds of people lined up for hours outside a park to buy subsidized wheat flour, offered for 65 rupees a kilogram instead of the current, inflated rate of about 140 to 160 rupees.
When a few trucks arrived, the crowd surged forward, leaving several injured. One man, Harsingh Kolhi, who was there to bring a five kg bag of flour home for his wife and children, was crushed and killed in the chaos.
We are seeing similar things happen all over the planet.
Just because you still may have enough food to eat doesn’t mean that everybody else is okay.
In fact, things have already gotten so bad that even CNN is admitting that we are facing “the worst food crisis in modern history”…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
January 20, 2023
Why Recession Is Imminent, In Three Charts
Any one of these would be enough to make the case
The idea that the world’s central banks can inflate the biggest financial bubble in human history — appropriately called the everything bubble — and then deflate it gently into a soft landing is mathematically and philosophically impossible. So the question is not if but when we get a bust that’s commensurate with the boom.
Based on the following three indicators, that bust is imminent.
Massively inverted yield curve
When short-term interest rates rise above long-term rates, a slowdown usually follows. That’s because traditional banks (though not necessarily the monstrous hedge funds that the biggest banks have evolved into) make most of their money by borrowing short and lending long. In normal times, long-term rates are higher than short-term, reflecting the higher risk of lending into the distant future, so the spread between a bank’s borrowing and lending rates produces a nice spread, which translates into a decent profit.
Invert the yield curve by pushing short-term rates above long-term rates, and this business model breaks down. Banks stop making suddenly-unprofitable loans, their customers have less money to spend and invest, and the economy shrinks.
Note two things on the following chart, which depicts the spread between 10-year and 2-year Treasury bond yields. First, when this spread went slightly negative (i.e., 2-year rates higher than 10-year) in 2000 and 2007, recession followed within a year or so. Second, today’s yield curve is a lot more than slightly negative. It is, in fact, one for the record books, implying that the credit markets expect a dramatic slowdown.
Shrinking money supply
A Ponzi scheme needs ever-greater amounts of money flowing in to avoid collapse. Today’s global economy is a classic example of a Ponzi scheme. Therefore, it needs an increasing money supply to function.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Richest 1% begin eyeing up all the stuff you still own
The richest 1% of people on the planet have started looking at the stuff you’ve been allowed to keep, according to sources this morning.
After officially managing to own half of all the world’s wealth, the top 1% said that this meant there was still room for 100% growth within their current portfolio of assets.
Rich bastard, Charles Wentworth, said, “Yes, we’ve got expensive properties, nice cars and investments in lots and lots of companies – but it’s got to the point where I think we should start looking to extend our portfolio.
“50% of all the world’s wealth is a good start, of course, but that means there’s another 50% of the world’s wealth out there that we don’t currently own – well, not yet anyway.
“I’m talking about things like Ford Fiestas, IKEA wardrobes, Sky Q boxes – that sort of thing.
“Not your typical wish list for a multi-millionaire, admittedly, but we’ve got to keep growing. Obviously.
“We’re coming for it. Of that you be assured.”Those outside the 1% have been left crestfallen at the news that the tiny bit of wealth they’ve been allowed to accrue during their meagre existence is likely to become part of some inconsequential piece of a wealthy arsehole’s portfolio of assets.
99%-er Simon Williams told us, “Couldn’t they just leave us with a few bits of pieces? Do they really have to have everything?
“Look, they can come for my wealth all they like, but I warn you now, they will have to prise my Sky remote from my cold dead hands.”
World Economic Fuck’em
Nothing more than an unelected globalist government slowly emerging behind the curtains, eager to abscond with your rights and tell you how to live. Really…nothing to see here.
Among the many wretched, slimy and odious things that are increasingly giving me the creeps as the sands of my life’s hourglass continue to fall is the World Economic Forum: a collective of self-righteous global elites handing down virtues, values, lessons, lectures and political initiatives to us peons out here in the rest of the world.
The “Forum” is increasingly starting to resemble a globalist government, stocked with globally unelected turbo-douchebags, who have been assembling quietly in the background while no one has noticed.
One minute you’ve never heard of them – did you know the WEF has been around for about 5 decades? – the next, the “Forum” is harboring incredible influence, mostly with “useful” bureaucratic idiots on the left who are happy to take their cues on how to napalm individual rights for betterment of advancing their agendas from anyone who will help, regardless of their motivation.
WEF Founder Klaus Schwab, either giving or receiving some bullshit “Global Citizen Award”, which no normal person has ever heard of or cared about.That’s right: gone are the days of joking about The Great Reset, owning nothing and liking it and shifting to a diet of mealworms and crickets.
I’ve arrived at a point past that – a point of being sickened by watching people that in no way, shape or form represent me or the people in my life, yammer on about what my future will or won’t look like and what things I stand for are “right” or “wrong”.
It’s right in the WEF’s mission statement:
…click on the above link to read the rest…
