Sunday Potpourri 8/4/24
With looming war around the world it’s easy to neglect the current crisis in the US. The political disarray, the economic disarray—a byproduct of the hubris of the Anglo-Zionist imperial project. It’s all tied together.
Hard to disagree here. Call it the infantilization of American politics, but it mirrors that of the entire West:
American politics has been stripped of all substance and is reduced to branding, labels, and slogans. The new script by the Kamala Harris campaign frames the election as normal vs "weird", and the obedient media diligently parrots the new script.
0:57 / 2:02
Jim Rickards @JamesGRickards
Kamala just got the Democratic nomination. Did she run in any primaries in 2020 or 2024? No. Did she get one single vote from a real voter? No. Has the convention happened? No. Stop asking. Remember, Trump is the threat to "democracy."
Harris becomes official Democratic nominee for president
From thehill.com
12:41 PM · Aug 2, 2024
Lara Logan @laralogan
How scared is Mark Zuckerberg? Very.
Obviously he thinks Trump has already won…
Quote
Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson
 BREAKING: Trump says Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called him after the assassination attempt, said he isn’t going to support a Democrat and apologized for Facebook and Instagram censoring the iconic photos of him with his fist raised.
3:56 PM · Aug 2, 2024
Time for a reset of our China policies?
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Wow, this is huge: the Federal Reserve is essentially saying that the U.S. shot itself in the foot with its export controls on China (which was illustrated by Intel's recent staff layoffs): https://newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr1096…
"The U.S. has imposed export controls to deny China access to strategic technologies [but] we find no evidence of reshoring or friend-shoring. As a result of these disruptions, affected suppliers have negative abnormal stock returns, wiping out $130 billion in market capitalization, and experience a drop in bank lending, profitability, and employment. [U.S. firms'] total number of customers declines, potentially inflicting collateral damage upon the same U.S. firms whose technology export controls are trying to protect."
They also highlight that "the benefits of U.S. export controls, namely denying China access to advanced technology, may be limited as a result of Chinese strategic behavior. Indeed, there is evidence that, following U.S. export controls, China has boosted domestic innovation and self-reliance, and increased purchases from non-U.S. firms that produce similar technology to the U.S.-made ones subject to export controls."
In other words, it's almost a pure loss for US firms who lose customers, revenue and market capitalization whereas the affected Chinese firms find alternative suppliers and China boosts its domestic innovation and self-reliance
Staff Reports
From newyorkfed.org
9:27 AM · Aug 3, 2024
Hmmm.
Danielle DiMartino Booth @DiMartinoBooth
Aug 3
"I think what we need to do is be looking more at the root causes of what’s going on here. When we see companies like Intel getting ash $8.5 billion of federal funding and at the same time announcing nearly 20,000 job cuts just a few nights ago…"
I’m not an economist. I’d like somebody to explain to me how we can expect the Fed using a blunt instrument like interest rates to cure all the things that are so out of wack with our economy (and society). The root causes go back decades, at least, and are part and parcel of our neoliberal political system. Our government is fundamentally up for sale in so many ways, and We the People don’t have much leverage when it comes to buying off the politicians.
I fear that whomever takes the oath on 20JAN2025, the new administration will take power just in time for an economic catastrophe that will make the great depression seem comparatively tame and brief, the collective West is going to receive its well deserved post-Soviet like collapse. There could possibly be a moral renaissance in the aftermath, since I am "only" 61 I might even live to see it happen. Or they could just blow everything up with nukes . . .
I'm not sure how much longer the federal government can ignore the expanding elephant in the room - a $35 trillion national debt increasing at a trillion dollars a quarter. When that debt balloon pops, the stock markets crash, retirement savings accounts become scarecrows protecting a barren field, and the reality that this current 20% inflation is nothing compared to what is on the horizon. It won't matter how much money the federal government can print as it will all be just as worthless. These are government toppling revolutionary dominoes lining up.