Free Republic

High inflation has captured the headlines as of late particularly as CPI recently hit the highest levels since 1981. Some are even suggesting we will face hyperinflation. However, while inflation is certainly present, the question to be answered is whether it will remain that way, or if the worst may already be behind us? To answer that question, let’s define the difference between an inflationary increase and hyperinflation. Not surprisingly, as Milton Friedman stated, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. It is always and everywhere a result of too much money, of a more rapid increase of money,...

Executive summaryA simple survey of my readers provided some extremely compelling evidence that 1) the US government has killed over 500,000 previously healthy Americans and 2) that the vaccine actually caused the deaths. It took me around 30 minutes to create the survey and 11 hours to wait for highly statistically significant results. I was able to accomplish something in less than 12 hours that the CDC has been unable to accomplish in 18 months: prove causality. We see both dose dependency and enormous changes in ACM deaths pre- vs. post-vaccine. We satisfy all five Bradford-Hill criteria applicable to vaccines.We...

What’s Made from a Barrel of Oil? A barrel of crude oil (42 gallons) produces just under 45 gallons of refined products, from transportation fuels to essential materials for everyday products.

Americans’ credit cards are taking a beating – as was evident in the plunge in the savings rate and the surge in revolving consumer credit – to enable them to keep the dream alive and spend beyond their means and that over-reach enabled them to increase retail sales spending by 0.5% MoM – as expected in March. Notably, the rise in retail sales year-over-year is decelerating dramatically (up only 6.9% YoY – the lowest since Feb 2021)…Source: BloombergThe relative weakness was driven by a huge drop in non-store retailer sales (online) MoM leaving sales up just 1.8% YoY.However, before everyone...

The timeline for the looming stagflationary recession continues to creep forward, with the Peterson Institute for International Economics warning that global growth is set to slow dramatically, and warning that “an even more abrupt tightening of monetary policy that causes asset prices to fall sharply and consumers to pull back, combined with a greater slowdown in China than currently expected, could push the economy into recession by the end of this year.“ Last week, Deutsche Bank spooked trading desks when it became the first major bank to predict a US recession would strike before the end of 2023, echoing a...

In the latest inflationary shock – one which Biden will dutifully read from the teleprompter was entirely the fault of "PutInflation" – even if a chart of CPI in context shows otherwise… … this morning the BLS reported that headline CPI skyrocketed 1.2% (1.24% unrounded) M/M in March as energy surged 11.0% and food prices jumped 1.0% mom for a second consecutive month. The energy price moves reflect the shock from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while food has yet to feel the impact given lagged pass-through and is likely to remain hot throughout the year. In other words, while much of...

A parking lot of vessels are waiting outside China’s largest ports as the country experiences the biggest COVID-19 outbreak in two years continues to spread amid extended lockdowns in Shanghai. Vessels carrying raw materials have increased over the last month as Shanghai’s 25 million people have been placed on lockdown, as new daily infections jumped to 26,000 on Sunday. The lockdown has shuttered factories, disrupted logistical networks, and reduced operational capacity at ports. Shipping data via Bloomberg shows 222 bulk carriers waiting off Shanghai, China’s biggest port, 15% higher than a month ago. At the Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, there were...

Global stocks of diesel and other middle distillates have fallen to the lowest seasonal level since 2008, when similar shortages of these transport and industrial fuels helped to propel oil prices to a record high. Distillate fuel oil inventories in the United States are 30 million barrels (21%) below the pre-pandemic five-year seasonal average and at the lowest level since 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. Stocks in Europe are 35 million barrels (8%) below the pre-pandemic five-year average at the lowest level since 2008, Euroilstock, which compiles inventory data on behalf of the European Union, found.And middle distillate...

Ukraine, known as the “breadbasket of Europe” given it’s long been among the world’s top ten wheat exporters and supplied over $6 billion in agricultural products to the European Union in 2020, has issued an emergency order Wednesday banning the export of grains and other products.The ban includes the export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat, sugar, live cattle, meat, and other products considered vital to the global economy. But amid wartime, and with Ukraine’s government saying many of its citizens are now starving under Russian siege, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian and food policy Roman Leshchenko said the drastic action was...

Don’t underestimate this fertilizer/agriculture fiasco. It is going to be far more severe and prolonged than what the vast majority has led themselves to believe.As Europe’s farmers prepare to spread fertilizers on fields after winter, sky-high nutrient prices are leaving them little choice but to use less and try to pass on the cost down the food chain.For growers of staples like corn and wheat, it’s the first time they’ve really been exposed to a fertilizer crisis fueled by an energy crunch, export curbs and trade sanctions. It now costs much more to buy chemicals needed for winter crops coming...

Telling a website to stick its cookies someplace else might not be enough to keep it from tracking you across the web—there are other identifiers that can help narrow down who you are and what you're doing as you travel the silicon superhighway. These techniques rely on tracking the exact configuration of hardware you're running inside your PC, though researchers suggest this form of hardware tracking could be done with even greater accuracy through something known as GPU fingerprinting.Outlined in a research paper [PDF warning] from co-first authors Tomer Laor of Ben-Gurion University and Naif Mehanna from University Lille, CNRS,...

The UK’s minimum gap for Covid-19 booster jabs will be halved from six months to three, after the UK Government accepted advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisations to speed up the programme.Criminally, the Government also accepted the JCVI’s advice to offer all children over the age of 12 a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, twelve weeks following the first dose, despite knowing the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis is much higher following the second dose.The UK Government and its scientific advisers claim that the reason for cutting the time people must wait to get a booster...

Warmer-than-average conditions are most likely across the Southern tier of the U.S. and much of the Eastern U.S. with the greatest likelihood of above-average temperatures in the Southeast. Below-average temperatures are favored for southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest eastward to the northern Plains. The Upper Mississippi Valley and small areas of the Great Lakes have equal chances for below-, near- or above-average temperatures. ..wetter-than-average conditions are most likely in parts of the North, primarily in the Pacific Northwest, northern Rockies, Great Lakes, Ohio Valley and western Alaska. Drier-than-average conditions are favored in south-central Alaska, southern California, the Southwest, and...

Most investors expect stocks to slump as rates rise.This assumption makes sense… As I covered yesterday, higher rates mean stocks will face more competition from other assets, like bonds. That means less demand, and lower prices.But what if I told you this story doesn’t play out exactly like you’d expect?Stocks will crash as a result of rising rates… eventually. But the “eventually” is the important part.Today, I’ll show you how things have gone in the past, and what it means for the rate-hiking cycles we’re about to see play out.Folks think that the first hint of higher rates is a...

Analysis of 30 COVID-19 early treatments, and database of 225 other potential treatments. 66 countries have approved early treatments. Treatments do not replace vaccines and other measures. All practical, effective, and safe means should be used. Elimination is a race against viral evolution. No treatment, vaccine, or intervention is 100% available and effective for all variants. Denying efficacy increases the risk of COVID-19 becoming endemic; and increases mortality, morbidity, and collateral damage. https://c19early.com/

Editor’s Commentary: When Y2K was supposed to collapse the economy, I didn’t believe it. When the housing crash of 2008 was supposed to collapse the economy, I didn’t believe it. Today, reports of doom and gloom are far more credible. When Michael Snyder says the various forces in motion against us are going to crash the economy, I’m starting to believe it. Yes, things are looking very grim. At best, we are facing an uphill economic fight that will take years if not decades to win. It’s not just inflation that’s threatening to destroy the economy. It’s, well, EVERYTHING. People...

Hurricane Ida’s disruption to the U.S. offshore energy production in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst in 16 years. It has already stressed domestic and global supply chains, further testing the Federal Reserve’s “transitory” inflation narrative. Gulf Coast hurricanes usually cause minor disruptions in offshore oil and gas production, but this time around, output from the region has been significantly reduced due to Ida’s 150 mph winds that damaged platforms and onshore support facilities. What this will mean is a long recovery for offshore energy production to return. Reuters notes 79% of the region’s offshore oil production remains offline....

Something strange is going on.On one hand stocks are trading at all-time highs, levitating every day without an apparent care in the world, with traders seemingly complacent that any air pocket in the market will simply mean more accommodation by the Fed which may not taper and which, according to some, may even to more QE. On the other, traditional bear-market signals such as the CNN fear and greed indicator, are deep in neutral territory, having dipped in "fear" territory as recently as one month ago...... while the SKEW index which many view as an indicator of crash preparation, is...

[H/T Fractal Trader]KBirb on Twitter: Tweets 1 - 16 [READ THRU END, #16] … @richardursomd @PierreKory @drsimonegold https://t.co/EcYjRQ4ksk" / TwitterKBirb @birb_k·Aug 27 1) AFRICA & IVE*MECTIN According to study (in thread), 31 countries (I marked in blue) have had regular dispensing/access to Ive*mectin. The others have not. A dramatic difference. Starting with daily deaths/100k. [READ THRU END, #15] … @richardursomd@PierreKory@drsimonegold KBirb @birb_k·Aug 27 2) AFRICA & IVE*MECTIN. …and the case curves. … KBirb @birb_k·Aug 27 3) AFRICA & IVE*MECTIN. Ive*mectin group: 31 countries, total pop 972.5 million. Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo...

A tiny bit of searching can lead you to the numbers these scary charts are based upon. It's clear that the Propaganda Media and the Big Tech giants are working with the current administration to generate as much panic as possible. But Americans with simple common sense realize that a vaccine that is worse than the disease it's supposed to cure are not rolling over and rolling up their sleeves. So it's all panic all the time, most of it fueled by out-and-out lies. "Ninety-nine point five percent of the people dying from the delta variant are unvaccinated." Not true....