Watch: Tough Guy Pearl Jam Singer Eddie Vedder Calls Chiefs Kicker ‘P*ssy’
Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder revealed he has a problem with Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, calling the NFL player a “pussy” on-stage during a recent performance in Las Vegas.
“He was telling men, ‘Don’t forget to puff up your chest and be more masculine. Don’t lose your masculinity,’” Vedder told an audience, referring to a viral graduation speech by the three-time Super Bowl champ at a conservative Catholic university, in which Butker told women it’s ok to be stay-at-home-mothers and advised men to lean in to their masculinity.
“The irony is when he was saying that he looked like such a pussy,” Vedder added. “There’s nothing more masculine than a strong man supporting a strong woman take that.”
Eddie Vedder just called out Harrison Butker and called him the ‘P’ word here in Vegas
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) May 19, 2024
‘There’s nothing more masculine than a strong man supporting a strong woman,’ he said.@PearlJam pic.twitter.com/8ABLNW3ON0
Last week, crazed liberals freaked out following Butker’s speech which was criticized for promoting ideas contrary to leftist values, including the notion that LGBT “pride” is sinful and abortion is anti-Christian, in addition to calling the Covid pandemic restrictions too excessive.
Watch Butker’s full speech below.
‘Fully Vaxxed’ CNN Correspondent Alice Stewart, 58, Dies Suddenly
CNN political commentator Alice Stewart, who once bragged she was “fully vaccinated,” died unexpectedly over the weekend.
According to police in Virginia, Stewart’s body was found outside her home in her neighborhood on Saturday morning.
“Police said they believe she had a medical emergency and that there was no foul play involved,” reports USA Today.
I’m so sad that my friend and @CNN colleague @AliceStewartDC has passed away. It was only yesterday when she joined Maria Cardona and me for her always excellent political analysis. She was a very special person and we will miss her. May she Rest In Peace and may her Memory Be A… pic.twitter.com/AePd4qVM8a
— Wolf Blitzer (@wolfblitzer) May 18, 2024
The nature of the medical emergency has not yet been disclosed, but Stewart, 58, was reportedly fit and healthy at the time of the incident.
For 16 years, I’ve reported on sudden deaths on this account and never have. I seen them explode like they have now. Especially extremely healthy gorgeous athletes like Alice. She was also very athletic. Found dead in Virginia no foul. And they think exercising. Shocker.
— Erin Elizabeth Health Nut News ? (@unhealthytruth) May 18, 2024
Stewart’s unexpected death raised eyebrows on social media, where many highlighted a prior Twitter post in which she commented she was “fully vaccinated,” suggesting the jabs may have played a role in her untimely demise.
BREAKING: CNN Alice Stewart died Suddenly
She was found outdoors early this morning…
I’m sure it has nothing to do with that tweet. pic.twitter.com/FVrABja34e— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) May 18, 2024
CNN Anchor Alice Stewart has #diedsuddenly alone outside her home after a “medical episode.” Alice bragged about being fully vaccinated and publicly questioned why others didn’t choose to also. She previously worked at Fox News, for Rick Scott and Ted Cruz, and the RNC. How many… pic.twitter.com/NFkmUTGMya
— DiedSuddenly (@DiedSuddenly_) May 19, 2024
This one goes out to CNN’s Alice Stewart, who pushed the shot onto millions of people, got the shots herself posting selfies getting them w her mask. Besides working at CNN she was an athlete in phenomenal shape. So Young beautiful and just #DiedSuddenly. pic.twitter.com/iiHSkI2ZlR
— Erin Elizabeth Health Nut News ? (@unhealthytruth) May 19, 2024
Vaxxed. Of course. Show me the unvaxxed “dying suddenly.” I dare you. Show me unvaxxed young bankers dying. I dare you. They don’t exist. This is a crisis of the vaxxed. Period. Media blackout. Bribed by Big Pharma. Biggest scandal in world history.https://t.co/4ahxGXxk8k
— Wayne Root – Wayne Allyn Root – TV & Radio Host (@RealWayneRoot) May 19, 2024
BREAKING: CNN’s Alice Stewart has dıed suddenly after a “medical emergency”
— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) May 19, 2024
She posted this photo yesterday. pic.twitter.com/AnfPWgPl67
As if I needed another reason to love @krispykreme https://t.co/ItFyodZfCc
— Alice Stewart (@AliceStewartDC) March 23, 2021
In addition to appearing on several CNN programs, Stewart worked in political campaigns for several Republican presidential hopefuls, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachman and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Heartbreaking. Alice was wonderful and talented and a dear friend. And she loved America fiercely.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 18, 2024
She lived every day to the fullest, and she will be deeply missed. May God’s comfort and peace be upon her loved ones. RIP. https://t.co/rXN6iugepM
Renowned cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough responded to Stewart’s death Sunday demanding full transparency with her autopsy report, saying certain causes can be ruled out and that a medical examiner’s possible determination of “death by natural causes” would be unacceptable.
Autopsy checklist for deceased @CNN contributor Alice Stewart @AliceStewartDC Her vaccination status is known, so the exam should rule out other obvious causes (suicide, drug overdose, etc) and then focus on COVID-19 vaccination as the cause of death. ME determination of… pic.twitter.com/JDAwdiO7z0
— Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH® (@P_McCulloughMD) May 19, 2024
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Can We Secure Property Rights without the State?
You think you’re the legitimate owner of your residence until you come back from vacation and find squatters have taken over. Call the police and have them removed? You might have to call a private service like Squatterhunters.com instead.
Americans long ago lost property rights to their income, the purchasing power of their money, their savings, and their lives. Is there no way for people to protect what is legitimately theirs?
Fortunately, both experience and theory says there is: The classic study by Terry L. Anderson and P. J. Hill, An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West and Robert P. Murphy’s Chaos Theory.
Thanks to Hollywood and popular literature, the American West [1830-1900] is often portrayed as violent and lawless. As long as you had a fast gun and were willing to use it, you could get away with anything. The reason: weak or nonexistent government.
In their literature search, though, Anderson and Hill found ample evidence to the contrary. For example, W. Eugene Hollon in Frontier Violence: Another Look found that “the Western frontier was a far more civilized, more peaceful, and safer place than American society is today [the early 1970s].”
Another researcher, Frank Prassel, writing in the mid-1930s, found that if any conclusion can be drawn from recent crime statistics, it must be that this last frontier [the West] left no significant heritage of offenses against the person, relative to other sections of the country.
In the early West people protected their property and lives with private agencies. Significantly, these agencies understood that violence was a costly method of resolving disputes and usually employed lower-cost methods of settlement such as arbitration and courts. Nor was there a universal idea of justice common to these agencies. People had different ideas of what rules they wished to live under and were willing to pay for. Competition among the agencies provided a choice.
Anderson and Hill looked at four institutions in the early West that approximated anarcho-capitalism (AnCap), one of which was wagon trains.
Wagon Trains
Conestoga wagons rolling west in search of gold provide perhaps the best example of anarcho-capitalism in the American frontier.
Realizing they would be passing beyond the pale of the law, the pioneers “created their own law-making and law- enforcing machinery before they started.” In many cases they created constitutions similar to the U.S. Constitution. Once the travelers were beyond the jurisdiction of the federal government, they elected officers to enforce the rules laid out in the document.
The constitutions also included eligibility for voting and decision rules for amendment, banishment of individuals from the group, and dissolution of the company.
What made this arrangement work, according to the authors, was a profound respect for property rights. Yet there was little mention of property rights in their constitutions. The inviolability of property rights was so thoroughly ingrained that the pioneers rarely resorted to violence even when starvation was imminent.
Certainly, the transient nature of these rolling communities made them more adaptable to anarcho-capitalism. The demand for “public goods” such as roads or schools never came up, for example, though they did have to protect themselves from Indian attacks without relying on the State. For the most part, their arrangements worked. People bought protection and justice, found competition among rules producers, and the result was an orderly society, unlike that generally associated with anarchy.
Murphy’s Case for Anarcho-Capitalism
In Chaos Theory, Robert P. Murphy sketches how market forces would operate to support the private production of justice and defense – two areas traditionally conceded to be the sole province of the State. Murphy contends that not only would the market be able to provide these services but would do so much more efficiently and equitably than the system we have now.
Here, we’ll look at a few key points he makes about the production of justice on the free market.
As with the western pioneers and the world today, no single set of laws or rules is needed to bind everyone. People would enter into voluntary contracts that spell out the rules they agree to live by. “All aspects of social intercourse would be ‘regulated’ by voluntary contracts.”
Who makes the rules? Private legal experts, who would draft laws under open competition with rivals. The market deals with “justice” as it does with other services. As Murphy notes,
“[T]he market” is just shorthand for the totality of economic interactions of freely acting individuals. To allow the market to set legal rules really means that no one uses violence to impose his own vision on everyone else.
In an advanced AnCap society, insurance companies would play a major role. People would buy policies, for example, to indemnify their victims if they were ever found guilty of a crime. As they do now, insurance companies would employ experts to determine the risks of insuring a given individual. If a person were considered too great a risk he might be turned down, and this would be information others would use in deciding if and how they wished to interact with him.
Critics say this might work for peaceful, rational people but what about incorrigible thieves and ax murderers? How would market anarchy deal with them?
Murphy reminds us that “wherever someone is standing in a purely libertarian society, he would be on somebody’s property.” This allows for force to be used against criminals without violating their natural rights.
Would the Mafia Take Over?
People who support the State because they believe organized crime would take control of an AnCap society should consider that we’re already living under the “most ‘organized’ criminal association in human history.” Whatever crimes the Mafia has committed, they are nothing – nothing – compared to the wanton death and destruction states have perpetrated.
We need to consider, too, that the mob gets its strength from the government, not the free market.
All the businesses traditionally associated with organized crime – gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, drug dealing – are prohibited or heavily regulated by the state. In market anarchy, true professionals would drive out such unscrupulous competitors.
Applying AnCap
Murphy discusses several applications of anarcho-capitalism in today’s world, one of which is medical licensing. Almost everyone believes that without government regulation we would all be at the mercy of quacks:
Ignorant consumers would go to whatever brain surgeon charged the lowest price, and would be butchered on the operating table.
Therefore, we need the iron fist of government to restrict entry into the medical profession.
But this is pure fiction. Since the demand for safe and effective medicine is universal, the market would respond accordingly with voluntary organizations that would allow only qualified doctors into their ranks. Insurance companies, too, would only underwrite doctors who met their standards, since they would stand to lose millions in malpractice suits.
Regarding the ongoing controversy of gun control, Murphy sees legitimate points to both sides of the debate:
Certainly we cannot trust the government to protect us once it has disarmed us. But on the other hand, I feel a bit silly arguing that people should be able to stockpile atomic weapons in their basement.
How might AnCap resolve this? Let’s say Joe Smith wants an insurance company to agree to pay $10 million to the estate of anyone Smith happens to kill. “The company will be very interested to know whether Smith keeps sawed off shotguns – let alone atomic weapons – in his basement.” In this way truly dangerous weapons would be restricted to those willing to pay the high premiums for owning them.
Getting there from here
Establishing an AnCap society depends heavily on the history of the region. North Korean market anarchists, for example, might have to use violence to curtail that brutal regime, while in the United States, “a gradual and orderly erosion of the State is a wonderful possibility.”
The one thing all such revolutions would share is a commitment by the overwhelming majority to a total respect of property rights.
We can build on intuitive notions of justice, just as newly arriving miners in California respected the claims of earlier settlers. To take a more modern example, even inner-city toughs unthinkingly obey the “rules” in a pickup game of basketball, despite the lack of a referee.
Conclusion
Those who defend the State as necessary to protect property rights should brush up on their history. As Murphy wraps up,
I ask that the reader resist the temptation to dismiss my ideas as “unworkable,” without first specifying in what sense the government legal system “works.”
EMERGENCY FINANCIAL NEWS: Economist Warns The Collapse Has Already Begun – Will Be Worse Than The Great Depression
What’s the Point of the Administrative Class?
The administrative class – at all levels, in all organizations – portrays itself as indispensable.
Nothing would get done without the smooth operation of the internal mechanics of a company, a government agency, any group you care to mention. Tasks must be performed, memos sent, regulations and procedures codified.
And plans must be – and are – made just in case something goes awry. In theory.
But if society has learned anything over the past five or so years, it is that emergency plans are not implemented; they are tossed aside in moments of panic when they are most needed.
The point of the administrative class – the bargain the public has with it – is that it makes sure to run as smoothly as it can and is ready for the unexpected.
But it never is – time after time we have seen supposedly professional members of the nomenklatura either go tharn or embarrassingly and loudly and incompetently clusterfluster when the calm guiding hand of experience – the hand administrators claim they are – is most needed.
From college to Covid, administrators have consistently and utterly failed to respond in the manner expected, in a manner that alleviates the problem.
Columbia University, UCLA, and USC all have rules and regulations and guidelines that have been thoroughly digested and created by the ever-expanding number of administrators at every college.
Plans exist for how to deal with the recent campus mayhem. But while absurd rules on microaggression and allowable speech and even how to date appropriately and inclusively are zealously enforced, when facing actual physical dangers administrators are stopped in their well-worn tracks, absolutely unsure how to handle an event so, well, real.
Because for all the student gripes and faculty advocacy and silly thoughts and even sillier positions and the layers and layers of bureaucracy created to address non-issues, college is not typically, well, real. It is find yourself time for the kids, it is express yourself time for the faculty, and it is gloriously meaningless minutiae time for the administrators and, in a day-to-day sense, little of it matters – at that time – beyond the campus gate.
Clearly, terrible ideas bubble up through academia and the long march through the institutions – school to non-governmental organization to corporate management to government agency – has wreaked havoc on society, but none of that originated in the administrative class. It started outside – the classroom, the think tank, the professional agitators, the bored billionaire – and then was inhaled by the administrative impulse, a realization of the possibility of power occurs, and it is exhaled as a work product.
A campus protest is not unusual – the astonishing administrative dithering seen over the past weeks across the country is simply not something that should have happened and would not have happened if those very same administrators had simply followed their own rules and regulations and plans.
But administrators let the intersectional political overtones hamstring the response and whatever level of competence that existed was smothered with the iron pillow of correctness, of not wishing to offend, of being “on the right side of history.”
Despite flattening enrollments in education at all levels, there are literally tens of thousands more administrators than there were just a few years ago. Administrators whose sole job is to talk to other administrators at other agencies, administrators who spend weeks creating diversity codes, administrators who worriedly ponder students’ social media postings, looking for misplaced opinions.
And they have no idea how to confront a problem, even if they spent weeks and months and years creating a detailed plan on how exactly to confront that exact problem.
We know what to do, but, for whatever reason, we can’t decide if we should do it – hence the campus disasters.
This glaring incompetence is not, of course, confined to education. Corporate structures can break down due to meaningless worry about what an action will “mean,” how it will be interpreted.
This institutional analysis paralysis is unquestionably real and unquestionably damaging.
Of course, government agencies – even those specifically created to handle emergency situations – fare no better in overcoming the 500-pound cement shoes of bureaucracy – and sometimes it is beyond mere incompetence, but actively and aggressively disruptive.
In California, the state bureaucrats have made sure water is not racist, though because people are using less of it it is becoming more expensive. The arts are not racist anymore because state bureaucrats have made sure of that. And state bureaucrats and electeds have made food more expensive so that it’s not racist to the people who make it.
Across the nation, government workers – instead of concentrating on directly serving the public – are attending conferences and seminars and workshops and listening sessions on systemic whatever being put on by parasitical absurdities like GARE – the Government Alliance on Race and Equity.
One among many, many such groups, GARE teaches administrators how to spot problematic non-problems and – very importantly – explain to the public why these non-problems that didn’t even have names 38 minutes ago must take precedence over approving building plans or filling potholes or catching criminals.
There are a number of reasons for this phenomenon. First, it’s really, really easy. Imagine you are an administrator – would you rather sit through a catered lunch presentation about, for example, how white people are evil and if you are white you need to be less evil and then you promise to be less evil and then drive back to the office feeling stupider and enlightened and resentful at the same time before you turn up the radio and forget whatever was said or would you rather spend a month pouring through plans and documents trying to figure out how to save money on a new road building project?
And in the end, you get more credit for going to the guilt lunch?
You go to lunch.
Or you fly across the country to an event to talk about talking, or how to better communicate your putative non-incompetence to the public and if the public doesn’t want to listen then it is their fault. Or you can do the same thing sitting in the New York Times newsroom writing about how only stupid trash people don’t believe President Biden when he says the economy is great.
All of that activity is wonderfully easy and incredibly meaningless – two things the entire blob wants everything to always be.
All of these not only unnecessary but actively destructive plans have come from California and the nation’s ruling administrative/lobbyists/union/uniparty blob, but the blob still cannot figure out how to balance a budget, build a road, or keep people safe.
The national Covid pandemic response is a perfect example of a supposedly prepared administrative class that completely failed the public.
Despite various protestations from various now-sheepish officials to the contrary, there was a tried and true and stress-tested plan in the books, on the shelf ready for use on how to handle a pandemic.
Instead, the administrative class threw 100 years of expertise and training and history aside and came up with lockdowns and masks and mandates and personal limitations to movement, to speech, to thought.
Looked at from a relatively innocent viewpoint, the pandemic response was mere administrative incompetence on a scale never seen before. Looked at from a less naïve viewpoint, the sheen of incompetence was a cover for an intentional and massive upending of the norms and structures of a free society for the benefit of a globalist few. Whether or not the incompetence led to the socialite socialist statist opportunity or the opportunity led to the incompetence, as it were, is a question that may never be answered.
On the campuses across the country shuttered by the pro-Hamas protests of late the same can be said. Plans exist. Guidelines exist. The how-to-handle protest issues has been previously digested and put in a binder and put on the shelf for instant access. But it remains on the shelf because of politics and cowardice and, in general, the fact that most members of the administrative class do not know how to deal with anything beyond their day-to-day functions as, well, administrators.
Our state and nation has a massive administrative class that is incapable of doing anything except file its normal paperwork, follow its normal path, and continue to expand its power based on the lie that the public needs it “just in case” there is an emergency.
The public needs the “Deep State” just in case.” The public needs the assistant deputy vice-president for inclusiveness “just in case.” The public needs the byzantine rules and self-serving regulations “just in case.”
Well, “just in case” has been happening nearly every day for the past five years and the administrative class has far from lived up to its claims of necessity, of providing order, of solving problems that need to be solved at a societal level.
So what’s the point of its existence?
Looking at Covid, looking at college, looking at Sacramento, looking at DC, looking at too many C-suites, looking at, well, practically everything the point is pretty hard to find.
EMERGENCY FINANCIAL NEWS: Economist Warns The Collapse Has Already Begun – Will Be Worse Than The Great Depression
The Money Supply Is Growing Again and the Fed Wants It that Way
Money-supply growth fell year over year again in March, but March’s decline was the smallest money-supply drop recorded in sixteen months. Moreover, the money supply in March grew—month over month—by the highest rate in two years.
The current trend in money-supply growth suggests a continued turnaround from more than a year of historically large contractions in the money supply. As of March, the money supply appears to be in a period of stabilization. The money supply is still flat or down on a year-over-year basis, but there is clear growth over the past several months.
Money-supply growth has now been negative—year over year—for seventeen months in a row. During March 2024, the downturn continued as YOY growth in the money supply was at –2.57 percent. That’s up from February’s rate of decline which was of –5.76 percent, and was a much smaller rate of decline than that of March 2023 which had a rate of –9.87 percent. With negative growth now lasting more than a year and coming in below negative five percent for most of the past the past year and a half, money-supply contraction is the largest we’ve seen since the Great Depression. Prior to 2023, at no other point for at least sixty years had the money supply fallen by more than 6 percent (YoY) in any month.
Those dramatic drops in the money supply appear to be over for the time being. Indeed, when we look at month-to-month changes in the money supply, we find that the money supply increased 0.98 percent from February to March. That’s the largest growth rate since March 2022. In month-to-month measures, money supply growth has been positive during seven of the last ten months, further suggesting that the new trend in money supply is either flat or returning to sustained upward growth..
The money supply metric used here—the “true,” or Rothbard-Salerno, money supply measure (TMS)—is the metric developed by Murray Rothbard and Joseph Salerno, and is designed to provide a better measure of money supply fluctuations than M2. (The Mises Institute now offers regular updates on this metric and its growth.)
In recent months, M2 growth rates have followed a similar course to TMS growth rates, although TMS has fallen faster than M2 in the year-over-year measures. In March, the M2 growth rate was –0.28 percent. That’s up from February’s growth rate of –1.82 percent. March 2024’s growth rate was also up from March 2023’s rate of -3.74 percent. Moreover, M2 also shows more overall growth than TMS, with M2 increasing by 1.10 percent from February to March this year.
Money supply growth can often be a helpful measure of economic activity and an indicator of coming recessions. During periods of economic boom, money supply tends to grow quickly as commercial banks make more loans. Recessions, on the other hand, tend to be preceded by slowing rates of money supply growth.
It should be noted that the money supply does not need to actually contract to signal a recession. As shown by Ludwig von Mises, recessions are often preceded by a mere slowing in money supply growth. But the drop into negative territory we’ve seen in recent months does help illustrate just how far and how rapidly money supply growth has fallen. That is generally a red flag for economic growth and employment.
All that said, recessions tend not to become apparent until after the money supply has begun to accelerate again after a period of slowing. This was the case in the early 1990’s recession, the Dot-com Bust of 2001, and the Great Recession.
In spite of last year’s sizable drops in total money supply, the trend in money-supply remains well above what existed during the twenty-year period from 1989 to 2009. To return to this trend, the money supply would have to drop another $3 trillion or so—or 15 percent—down to a total below $15 trillion. Moreover, as of March, total money supply was still up more than 30 percent (or about $4.5 trillion) since January 2020.
Since 2009, the TMS money supply is now up by more than 185 percent. (M2 has grown by 145 percent in that period.) Out of the current money supply of $19 trillion, $4.6 trillion—or 24 percent—of that has been created since January 2020. Since 2009, more than $12 trillion of the current money supply has been created. In other words, nearly two-thirds of the total existing money supply have been created just in the past thirteen years.
With these kinds of totals, a ten-percent drop in the money supply only puts a small dent in the huge edifice of newly created money. The US economy still faces a very large monetary overhang from the past several years, and this is partly why after seventeen months of negative money-supply growth, we have only seen a slowdown in employment for the past several months. (For example, full-time job growth has turned negative while the total number of employed workers has been flat since late 2023.) Moreover, CPI inflation remains well over the two-percent target rate, and mainstream economists’ predictions of significant “disinflation” have been wrong.
The Fed and the Federal Government Need Lower Interest Rates
The Federal Reserve (as with most central banks) is motivated by two conflicting political challenges. The first is price inflation. Regimes fear high levels of price inflation because high inflation is known to lead to political instability. One way that central banks fight price inflation is to allow interest rates to rise.
The second challenge is found in the fact a regime’s central bank is expected to help the regime issue debt and engage in deficit spending. Central banks’ main tool in offering this help involves keeping interest rates on government debt low. How do central banks do this? By buying up the government’s debt, thus artificially boosting demand for the government’s debt and pushing interest rates back down. The problem is that buying up government debt usually involves creating new money, thus putting upward pressure on price inflation.
So, in times of rising price inflation, central banks face two contradictory tasks: keeping price inflation low while also keeping interest rates low.
This is where the Federal Reserve is right now. In spite of the fact that the predicted “disinflation” has not materialized—and CPI inflation is not headed back to two percent—the Fed in recent weeks has made it clear it has no plans to raise its target policy interest rate. Politically speaking, the Fed can’t let interest rates rise because the Fed is expected to prevent any significant increases in interest paid—i.e., yields— on government debt.
Last week, Daniel Lacalle explained some of the details of the problem:
The decision of the Fed [to not further tighten the money supply] comes when the global demand for Treasuries is under question. Foreign holdings of Treasuries have risen to an all-time high, but the figure is misleading. Demand has weakened relative to the supply of new bonds. In fact, an expected surge in new issuances by the Treasury creates a headache for the Federal Reserve. Borrowing will be significantly more expensive when public debt interest payments have reached $1 trillion, and investor demand remains robust but not enough to keep pace with an out-of-control deficit. China’s holdings of US Treasury bonds have fallen for two consecutive months to $775 billion, according to the US Department of the Treasury, and Japan’s weak yen may need a Bank of Japan intervention to sell US reserves, which means disposing of Treasury bonds.
Given all this, it’s rather surprising that money-supply growth did not turn positive sooner than it did.
What the Fed is doing now is probably best described as a “wait and hope” strategy. The Fed is refusing to allow interest rates to rise, but the Fed isn’t lowering the target rate either. Rather, it appears the Fed is holding the target rate steady just hoping that something will happen to bring Treasury yields back down without the Fed having to print more money to buy more Treasuries and risking a new, politically damaging surge in price inflation. “Hoping” is not much of a strategy, however, and the likely outcome is that the Fed will err on the side of keeping interest rates low so the regime can borrow more money. This will mean more price inflation for ordinary people.
Economist Peter Schiff Predicts A Financial Crisis That Will Make The Great Depression Look Tame
International Criminal Court Seeks Arrest of Netanyahu & Hamas Leaders for War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking the arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes in Gaza.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan on Monday accused Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Statement of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC:
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) May 20, 2024
Based on the evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel, bear criminal… pic.twitter.com/0FpcRtv8ED
The ICC’s announcement from The Hague represents a symbolic blow to Israel’s credibility in the conflict since they’ve justified their military response in Gaza following Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7.
Khan issued the following statement:
On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Yahya SINWAR (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim AL-MASRI, more commonly known as DEIF (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades), and Ismail HANIYEH (Head of Hamas Political Bureau) bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 7 October 2023:
- Extermination as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(b) of the Rome Statute;
- Murder as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(a), and as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
- Taking hostages as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(iii);
- Rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(g), and also as war crimes pursuant to article 8(2)(e)(vi) in the context of captivity;
- Torture as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(f), and also as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity;
- Other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(l)(k), in the context of captivity;
- Cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity; and
- Outrages upon personal dignity as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(ii), in the context of captivity.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Khan claimed the court had accumulated a “variety of evidence” to support the arrest warrant request.
Israeli leaders condemned the ICC’s move as antisemitic and a “historic disgrace.”
“The absurd and false order of the prosecutor in The Hague is not only directed against the Prime Minister of Israel and the Minister of Defense – it is directed against the entire State of Israel,” Netanyahu responded in a statement.
??NETANYAHU TO ICC: HOW CAN YOU COMPARE ISRAEL TO HAMAS?! ARE YOU INSANE?!
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 20, 2024
“The absurd and false order of the prosecutor in The Hague is not only directed against the Prime Minister of Israel and the Minister of Defense – it is directed against the entire State of Israel.
It… https://t.co/lAlfr3iOte pic.twitter.com/ghk0Kbq9C1
“With what audacity do you dare compare the monsters of Hamas to the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world?!”
The Biden administration likewise condemned the ICC’s “outrageous” announcement.
“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” Joe Biden wrote. “And let me be clear: there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats against its security.”
JUST IN!! Blinken statement on ICC arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, together with warrants for Hamas terrorists. ?? pic.twitter.com/Nvy8kGWrXo
— Alex Raufoglu (@ralakbar) May 20, 2024
Hamas also denounced the ICC prosecutor’s announcement, saying it “equates the victim with the executioner.”
A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed, which may take a couple months.
Since Israel is not a member of the court, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution even if the arrest warrants are issued.
Netanyahu has suffered in the polls since Israel launched its counteroffensive against Hamas in Gaza, with 57% of the Israeli public rating his performance as “poor or very poor.”
“This is going to make Netanyahu an outcast, and his ability to move around the world will be seriously compromised,” said Yuval Shany, international law expert at Hebrew University and the Israel Democracy Institute, adding that other countries may now be more reluctant to provide assistance.
Over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its brutal campaign to dismantle Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack that killed roughly 1,200 people.
Watch the ICC’s full announcement: