We can’t help wondering: where are the modern-day Churchills, the Reagans, the JFKs, Thatchers, and even the Trumps?
The world is confronted with the murderous advancing of Putin’s war machine in Ukraine; the G-7 nations are teetering on the verge of economic chaos; we have soaring energy prices and world food shortages… and all these world “leaders” can talk about is green energy? Jimmy Carter and Francois Mitterrand had backbone and wisdom compared to this bunch of softies.
We had warned on these pages many times that if Biden became president, the biggest winners would be President Xi and Vladimir Putin and our worst fears have been realized.
2) Speaking Of Putin… Guess Which Country Has The Strongest Currency This Year
Yep. The Russian ruble is the currency that has risen the most against the dollar.
Whoops.
The U.S. and EU sanctions were supposed to crush the ruble and bankrupt Russia. Instead, the ruble has steadily risen since the sanctions were imposed. Usually, sanctions cause a capital flight out of a country. In this case, the imbecilic decline of oil and gas production in countries like the U.S. has only made Europe MORE dependent on Russian oil. And they need rubles to buy it.
Here are the numbers: Since the end of March, Russia is collecting $20 billion a month from its oil exports and that elevates the value of the ruble. Putin has brought in more than $110 billion of petrodollars. That is what has financed his war machine.
Our friend Rob Arnott, the chair of asset management firm Research Affiliates, believes “a recession may already be underway. Even if not, the Fed’s actions greatly increase the risk of a recession in the months ahead.”
Arnott quotes MIT economist Rudi Dornbusch, who in 1998 observed that “none of the post-war expansions died of natural causes, they were all murdered by the Fed.” He says the Fed’s attempt to slow the economy by ending its era of negative real interest rates will cause a severe economic downturn.
By ignoring inflation too long the Fed now faces triggering a deep recession.“Being late to the game increases the probability that the Fed overreacts, because it didn't act soon enough,” says Arnott. “This increases uncertainty and elevates the probability of a hard landing, which is what everybody wants to avoid. Hard landing means we go into a serious recession, like the one associated with the global financial crisis.”
4) Biden Interior Brings Back “Sue And Settle” Scams To Fund Leftist Groups
“Sue and Settle” was a scam that began in the Obama years.
Under this scheme, a federal agency would encourage a liberal special interest group to bring a lawsuit. The agency then settles the suit and the third party collects a big payday settlement. The settlements then establish new rules out of thin air without any vote in Congress.
Trump ended the scam, but now Biden has rescinded those rules. Trump had established a transparency website that exposed for all to see how much the Interior Department pays in attorneys fees to liberal legal advocacy groups in settlement fees and consent decrees.
Interior agreed last year to pay the Center for Biological Diversity $140,000 in attorney fees following a lawsuit over the Rio Grande cutthroat trout.
We expect far more of these scam settlements in the months ahead. We will keep you posted.
5) Biden To Mount Rushmore: No 4th Of July Fireworks
Under Donald Trump in 2020, a dramatic patriotic fireworks display was held on the Fourth of July to raise national spirits in the middle of COVID.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem wants to keep the tradition going, but the Biden administration won’t allow it. The National Park Service’s letter cited wildfire risks. But then it invoked this woke nonsense excuse: “Fireworks are viewed by multiple [Native American] Tribes as an adverse effect to the traditional cultural landscape.”
Huh? How long before New York finds some woke cultural objections to fireworks on the 4th of July?
