State Department Forced to Disclose Multi-Million Dollar Cost of Biden’s Diversity Agenda
Biden admin’s spending indicates plan to increase DEI focus in final year of Biden’s first term
by Spencer Lindquist
Daily Wire
President Joe Biden’s State Department privately disclosed to Congress that it spent $77 million taxpayer dollars on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts in the last two years — and it plans to eclipse that total in the final year of Biden’s first term.
The administration was forced by a provision in last year’s spending bill to disclose to Congress exactly how much it has spent on DEI. That private report, obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire, shows Biden has spent $77 million in 2022 and 2023 on DEI-related initiatives.
Its spending calculations, however, are based on a narrow definition of DEI — the spending, according to the disclosure, went entirely towards DEI efforts in the Bureau of Global Talent Management, which states on its website that its primary goal is to “sustain a diverse, talented, and inclusive workforce.”
Argentina’s Inflation Slows Down After Three Months of Milei ‘Shock Therapy’
by Christian K. Caruzo
Breitbart.com
The National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina (INDEC) announced on Tuesday that Argentina registered a 13.2 percent inflation rate in February, marking the second month in a row where inflation has slowed down as a result of President Javier Milei’s austerity policies.
Upon taking office in December, Milei applied a series of “shock therapy” measures to avoid a total economic collapse in Argentina after nearly two decades of socialist governments left the country teetering on the brink of hyperinflation. Milei began by undoing as many of the hundreds of socialist regulations as possible and has turned his attention towards the near-depleted foreign reserves and a convoluted currency control system.
Inflation Remains Elevated. Is Money Actually Tight?
by Alexander W. Salter
The American Institute for Economic Research
There’s been another bump in the disinflationary road. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.4 percent in February and 3.2 percent year-over-year, exceeding many economists’ predictions. That’s up slightly from January’s 0.3-percent monthly and 3.1-percent annualized increases.
Much of the increase is due to shelter and gasoline prices, which the BLS reports accounted for “over sixty percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items.” Shelter prices rose 0.4 percent last month. This is a major component of household budgets, which is why the BLS weights it at roughly 30 percent of the CPI. Gasoline gets about a 3.5 percent weight, but these prices rose 3.8 percent last month alone.
Migrants Bring the Measles to Chicago
[Ed. Note: Unless you’re severely malnourished, measles is relatively harmless. The fear porn is ridiculous, but highly profitable for pharmaceutical companies.]
by Monica Showalter
American Thinker
In the U.S., the migrant crisis has come to remind us just how unlike the rest of the world we are — or were, until the millions of illegal migrants came along.
Here’s the news from NBC Chicago:
Three more people at a migrant shelter in Chicago have been diagnosed with measles, bringing the city’s total to eight cases so far this year.
The Chicago Department of Public Health reported Tuesday that three additional people associated with the shelter had been diagnosed. On Monday it said two adults there were diagnosed. That followed a Sunday announcement that a young child residing at the shelter had been hospitalized with measles but was in “good condition.”
Treasury Secretary Yellen: ‘I Regret Saying Inflation Was Transitory’
THREE YEARS after insisting inflation was transitory, Yellen finally admits she was wrong as inflation continues to persist.
by Jamie White
Info Wars
Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed regret for advancing the false talking point that inflation in the U.S. was “transitory.”
After first proclaiming in 2021 that inflation was a “transitory” phenomenon, Yellen finally admitted Wednesday on Fox Business that she was wrong about inflation as it continues to persist in America.
“I regret saying [inflation] was transitory,” Yellen said. “It has come down, but I think transitory means a few weeks to months to most people.”
AI Taking Over Jobs in the Financial Industry. Stock Market Trends & Bubbles with Chris Markowski
from Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network
Kerry and Chris Markowski discussed various topics related to the stock market and the impact of AI on the labor force and industries. They explored the question of whether the current market is a bubble or a super growth market, using Tesla as an example for analysis. The speakers also drew parallels to historical technological advancements and expressed concerns about the significant impact AI could have on employment. They shared insights on how AI could potentially replace certain roles, while also highlighting the limitations and potential job displacement associated with AI advancements. Additionally, the conversation touched on the challenges confronting investors, including inflation, geopolitical instability, and moral degradation.
Click Here to Listen to the Audio
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The Biggest 2024 Election
by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning
Most investors are highly focused on the U.S. presidential election this November, and rightly so.
As of now, subject to change, that election is likely to feature a rematch of the Biden-Trump election of 2020. Their policies could not be more different.
Biden is a rubber stamp for every progressive policy from open borders, climate alarmism and support for abortion to expanding the war in Ukraine.
On the other hand, Trump favors more oil and gas production (“drill, baby, drill”), an end to subsidies for electric vehicles, peace negotiations in Ukraine and withdrawal from the globalist agenda including higher tariffs on China.
A Financial Writer at New York Times Admits He’s Been Misrepresenting Bank Capital for 14 Years
by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Yesterday, in an emailed newsletter to readers of the New York Times, financial writer Andrew Ross Sorkin effectively admitted that he has had no clue what bank capital actually is for the past 14 years so he just grabbed the phrase “rainy day fund” to describe it – notwithstanding that the phrase has no relationship to the factual definition of bank capital and serves only the interests of the banking lobby.
Sorkin’s missive included this:
“Andrew here. A year on since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank renewed fears about the strength of the banking system, the debate about what should happen next continues.
“But there is a more important, if perhaps prosaic, point that I want to address this morning: We’re thinking about ‘capital requirements’ — regulatory standards meant to protect banks against losses and runs on deposits, and whose levels have been a subject of discussion since the 2008 financial crisis — all wrong.
Inflation Higher… (and Stocks Too?)
Inflation came in hotter than expected and … stocks rose sharply? Yes, that’s right. Meanwhile, digging through the financial plumbing reveals that everything Susanne Trimbath said is openly admitted to on Nasdaq’s own website publications.
by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity
Inflation came in hotter than expected and – guess what? – stocks screamed higher … which is the exact opposite of what “should” happen.
But we’ve long since given up on expecting what should happen to actually happen. Stocks have been screaming higher for months on the back of the Fed and US Treasury conspiring to make financial conditions as easy as they’ve been in years. Which runs counter to this whole idea that ‘the Fed is tightening’ that is 100% not true.
Here’s what you get during such periods of time:
My explanation for the extreme desperation on display by the Fed and US Treasury is that their interventions are having to be both larger and more frequent just to keep the whole thing stapled together. Their fear seems to be along the lines of “If we let this thing deflate even slightly, the whole mess might explode in our hands and on our watch.”
The White House Claims Borrowing $16 Trillion Over the Next Decade is Fiscally Responsible
If you can’t even get close to balancing the budget when unemployment is low, tax revenues are near record highs, and the economy is booming, when can you do it?
[Ed. Note: Anyone who believes that the debt will ONLY go up by $1.6 Trillion/year, on average, over the next ten years… is more mentally impaired than Biden.]
by Eric Boehm
Reason.com
The budget plan President Joe Biden unveiled on Monday would hike taxes, increase federal spending to unprecedented levels, and lock in budget deficits that average nearly $2 trillion annually for the next decade.
But possibly the craziest detail is the fact that the White House is trying to frame all of that as being an exercise in fiscal restraint.
No, really. In a “fact sheet” released alongside the budget, the White House touted how the proposal would cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years. “Strong and shared growth that benefits all Americans isn’t just good for working families and the economy; it will also lead to better fiscal outcomes,” the administration claims, adding that Biden believes “long-term investments in our nation and its people should be paid for.”
Beneath the Skin of CPI Inflation, February: Inflation Saga Far From Over, Core CPI & Core Services in Ominous Six-Month Trend
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Core services CPI — 61% of total CPI and infamous for historic head fakes — is approaching 6% annualized six-month average.
The “core services” CPI (services minus energy services) is crucial. The majority of consumer spending goes to core services, and Powell keeps talking about it. Core services includes housing costs, expressed in rent factors. And people, including Powell, have been saying that rents will eventually come down, we know that, etc., etc., so we also look at core services without housing. And both measures have been re-heating for months – with both their six-month moving averages approaching 6% annualized!
Is the Soaring Cost of Living Stressing You Out? U.S. Households Are Spending an Extra $11,434 Per Year Just to Maintain the Same Standard of Living
by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
I used to really enjoy going to the grocery store. I would relentlessly hunt for deals, and I would show off what I was able to find when I got home. But now all of the bargains are gone. Instead, there are ridiculous prices and there are even more ridiculous prices. The prices for some of the things that I normally buy have doubled. In other cases, the prices have almost doubled. Of course the soaring cost of living is the direct result of decisions that our leaders have made. They just kept borrowing, spending and flooding the system with money, and now the cost of living is wildly out of control.
According to CBS News, on average U.S. households must now spend an extra $11,434 per year just to maintain the same standard of living that they were enjoying when Joe Biden first entered the White House…
Uranium Hasn’t Been This Critical Since the Days of Oppenheimer
by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign
If you saw Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Oppenheimer, you might remember the scene in which Dr. Oppenheimer travels to Chicago to meet with physicist Enrico Fermi, who had just achieved the world’s first ever self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
This really happened– it was December 2, 1942, and Enrico Fermi’s experiment was a massive scientific breakthrough.
Fermi and his team proved that a fission reaction could be controlled… and therefore the vast amount of energy inside of an atom’s nucleus could be harnessed for other purposes.
Obviously, the US government was singularly focused on turning that immense nuclear energy into the biggest bomb the world had ever seen. But Fermi’s discovery also paved the way for nuclear power.
Silver Poised to Play Catch Up to Gold
by Clint Siegner
Silver Seek
Gold’s breakout to new all-time nominal highs is making headlines. On Friday, the price settled at just under $2,200/oz, after gaining almost $100/oz for the week.
Silver actually outperformed gold on a percentage basis. The white metal gained $1.17/oz, or 5%, as compared to gold’s 4.5% gain.
The difference is that silver is stuck in the middle of the range where it has traded for the past four years. It is roughly $5/oz below its 2020 high and $25 below its all-time high.