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Watch Live: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Testifies Before Congress

Watch Live: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Testifies Before Congress

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Watch Live: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Testifies Before Congress Tyler Durden Fri, 08/21/2020 - 08:50

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is set to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Friday morning amid concerns the United States Postal Service's (USPS) cost-cutting measures hinder its ability to adequately process and deliver mail-in ballots for the U.S. presidential election in November. 

DeJoy will appear before the committee at 9:00 E.T. to defend his three months at USPS and denounce what he alleges are "false narratives" that have been created

Ahead of the DeJoy's testimony, The New York Times obtained his prepared remarks that show he will defend his cost-cutting measures that have been misconstrued "into accusations that we are degrading the service provided to election mail."

DeJoy is at the center of a political firestorm as a series of cost-cutting measures, including removal of specific mail sorting machines and reduction of overtime pay ahead of the elections, has fuelled concerns the influx of mail-in ballots could become overwhelming and lead to election delays. 

"I recognize that it has become impossible to separate the necessary long-term reform efforts we will need to undertake from the broader political environment surrounding the election," DeJoy is expected to tell senators. "And I do not want to pursue any immediate efforts that might be utilized to tarnish the Postal Service brand, particularly as it relates to our role in the democratic process."

DeJoy is part of an effort by the Trump administration to overhaul the USPS financially.  

"Had Congress and the commission fulfilled their obligations to the American people concerning the Postal Service, I am certain that much of our cumulative losses that we have experienced since 2007 could have been avoided, and that the Postal Service's operational and financial performance would not be in such jeopardy," DeJoy will say. 

DeJoy is also expected to reject the notion that his cost-cutting measures at the USPS were to influence the presidential election. 

"A false narrative has developed that the two steps we have taken to improve efficiency - running on time and on schedule and realigning our organizational structure - are somehow designed to harm the ability of voters to use the mail to vote," he will say. 

On Tuesday, DeJoy released a statement that the USPS will be able to handle "whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall" despite challenges posed by "keeping our employees and customers safe and healthy as they operate amid a pandemic."

He also noted that the USPS would suspend further reorganization efforts ahead of the election. 

Watch DeJoy's testimony live, starting at 9:00 E.T.:  

*  *  *

Below is the prepared opening remarks by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy: 

"This is my first open session of the Board of Governors and I would like to offer my public thanks to the Governors for entrusting me with this role. It is an incredible honor to serve the public and this organization as Postmaster General. 

I look forward to working with all of you, our management team, and the men and women of the Postal Service – as well as our postal unions, management associations, customers and other stakeholders. 

We are at the beginning of a transformative process.  Our goal is to change and improve the Postal Service to better serve the American public, and I am excited about the opportunities ahead.

I would also like to add my public welcome to Governors Lee Moak and Bill Zollars. Thank you for joining this Board and for serving the American public.  I look forward to working with you.

My first day on the job as Postmaster General was June 15th. Since then, I have been fully immersed in understanding and evaluating all aspects of the postal organization and business model.

We have conducted numerous deep-dive meetings in every core area of our business.  We have assessed previous plans as well as research and analysis about our products and services and the competitive marketplace.

We have also dug deeply into our operational practices and the many ways we deliver value for our customers, as well as the drivers of our troubling financial condition. 

Let me start by saying that I am an optimist by nature, and as I take on this new role, I am enthusiastic and energized about the prospects for our future and our untapped promise.   I have been extremely impressed by the dedication of the Postal Service workforce and their commitment to the public service that we provide to the American people, and I am excited about the fantastic competencies of this organization.  I believe that there are tremendous opportunities available to us, and I am very confident that we can turn our business around and become financially healthy, while remaining a vital part of the nation's critical infrastructure. 

That said, I am a realist, and am keenly aware of the magnitude of the financial challenges we face.  Our financial position is dire, stemming from substantial declines in mail volume, a broken business model and a management strategy that has not adequately addressed these issues.  As a result, the Postal Service has experienced over a decade of financial losses, with F.Y. 2019 approaching $9 billion and 2020 closing in on $11 billion in losses. Without dramatic change, there is no end in sight, and we face an impending liquidity crisis.  

At the same time, there is a critical need to make capital investments in order to ensure effective and efficient operations, and meet the needs of the American people.  Our financial situation has forced us to defer capital investments over the past decade in order to preserve liquidity, which is not a sustainable strategy for success.  Most vitally, we need to invest in new delivery vehicles so that our letter carriers can safely serve the American people and we can participate in the growth of the new economy.

As we have repeatedly stated, Congress and the Postal Regulatory Commission have long delayed much needed legislative and regulatory reforms to help address the situation.  Congress must enact reform legislation that addresses our unaffordable retirement payments.  Most importantly, Congress must allow the Postal Service to integrate our retiree health benefits program with Medicare, which is a common-sense best practice followed by all businesses who still offer retiree health care.  Rather than sensationalizing isolated operational incidents that I acknowledge can occur and have always occurred in a business of our size and scope or attempting to impose unfunded mandates unrelated to any postal policies, I ask members of Congress to take action on this one legislative burdensome issue that will actually make a difference.

The Commission, meanwhile, must expeditiously resolve the 10-year review, and a design a more rational regulatory system for our mail products.  The 10-year review has been ongoing for nearly 4 years, and it has been nearly 3 years since the Commission concluded that the current system is not working, yet it has still not finalized a replacement system. Since that time we have delivered over 480 billion pieces of mail and packages under a system that our regulator acknowledges is not working, and we continue to wait for the required relief. Had Congress and the PRC fulfilled their obligations to the American people concerning the Postal Service, I am certain that nearly $80 billion of cumulative losses we have experienced since 2007 could have been avoided, and that the Postal Service's operational and financial performance would not be in jeopardy. 

Drama and delay does not get the mail delivered on time, nor does it pay our bills.  Without timely legislative and regulatory reform, we will be forced to take aggressive measures to cut costs and bridge the divide.

At the same time, the Postal Service has failed to engage a sufficient operating strategy that adequately mitigated these predicted annual financial losses.  We will not and cannot wait for the legislative and regulatory process to save us. The Postal Service must do our part, by pursuing every strategy within our control to ensure our success, and in that regard I know we can do more.  If we want to be viable for the long term, it is absolutely imperative for the Postal Service to operate efficiently and effectively, while continuing to provide service that fulfills our universal service mandate and meets the needs of our customers. 

There are competitive alternatives to every product that we offer, and for that reason high-quality, reasonably-priced service is an absolute necessity, but it is equally important for us to embrace the reality that high quality service and efficient service are not mutually exclusive, but instead must go hand-in hand if we are going to keep pace with our competition and be self-sustaining, as our mandate requires. 

The Postal Service is a great American institution with tremendous capabilities and prospects, and I know there is tremendous additional value within the Postal Service that needs to be unlocked.  To reach our full potential we need to be even better at everything we do well now, but we also need to recognize our issues and urgently embrace the changes required to unleash the full range of possibilities, and we need to start yesterday. 

For that reason, we have begun by vigorously focusing on the ingrained inefficiencies in our operations.  To start with, we have taken immediate steps to better adhere to our existing operating plans, which were developed precisely to ensure that we meet our present service standards in an efficient and effective manner. By running our operations on time and on schedule, and by not incurring unnecessary overtime or other costs, we will enhance our ability to be sustainable and to be able to continue to provide high-quality, affordable service.  I call on every executive, employee, union and management association leader to join me in pursuing this simple objective that every service organization needs to achieve in order to be successful.

As we implement our operating plans, we will aggressively monitor and quickly address service issues.  You can rest assured that we will continually review our operational practices and make adjustments as required to ensure that we operate in an efficient and effective manner.        

During the early days of my tenure we have also taken a fresh look at our operations and considered any necessary organizational and structural adjustments that will best position us to maximize our core competencies and key strengths.  We are highly focused on our public service mission.  However, we collectively recognize that changes must be made, and for that reason we will implement an organizational realignment that will refocus our business, improve line of sight, enable faster solutions, reduce redundancies, and increase accountability.  This realignment will strengthen the Postal Service by enabling us to identify new opportunities to generate revenue, so that we will have additional financial resources to be able to continue to fulfill our universal service obligation to all of America.

Further, we also are now in the process of developing a series of additional actions,  which, if approved by the Board, will include new and creative ways for us to fulfill our mission, and will likewise focus on our strengths to maximize our prospects for long-term success.  We will improve the products and services we provide, pursue new revenue areas, and continue to operate more efficiently.  The plan will consist of actions that the Postal Service can undertake with the approval of the Governors, as well as elements requiring Congressional and Postal Regulatory Commission actions.

As we move forward in developing and implementing these initiatives, I'm especially appreciative of the strong efforts of our management team, and the many contributors within our internal organization who are involved in this important process, and I likewise welcome the good discussions and healthy debate that I have had with our union leadership already.

I am also thankful for the ongoing consultation with this Board regarding our business planning, and I look forward to our ongoing dialogue.

While I have the pulpit, I also want to take the opportunity to clear up some misconceptions some may have about me and the positions I intend to advance on behalf of the Postal Service. 

First, while I certainly have a good relationship with the President of the United States, the notion that I would ever make decisions concerning the Postal Service at the direction of the President, or anyone else in the Administration, is wholly off-base.  I serve at the pleasure of the Governors of the Postal Service, a group that is bipartisan by statute and that will evaluate my performance in a nonpartisan fashion.  The Postal Service itself has a proud tradition of being a nonpartisan organization, which I believe is one reason why the Postal Service is consistently rated by the public as the most trusted federal entity.  I intend to uphold the trust that has been placed in me by the Governors, and to fulfill my responsibilities to this organization and to the public interest, by trying to make good decisions through the exercise of my best judgment and business acumen gained through 35 years of commercial experience, and not based upon any partisanship. 

Second, let me be clear that with regard to Election Mail, the Postal Service and I are fully committed to fulfilling our role in the electoral process.  If public policy makers choose to utilize the mail as a part of their election system, we will do everything we can to deliver Election Mail in a timely manner consistent with our operational standards.  We do ask election officials and voters to be mindful of the time that it takes for us to deliver ballots, whether it is a blank ballot going to a voter or a completed ballot going back to election officials.   We have delivery standards that have been in place for many years. These standards have not changed, and despite any assertions to the contrary, we are not slowing down Election Mail or any other mail.  Instead, we continue to employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling of all Election Mail.  

We have been working closely with election and other public officials throughout the country to ensure that they are well educated about the mailing process and can use the mail effectively to administer elections.  Ensuring that election officials throughout the country have an understanding of our operational parameters, including the circumstances under which we postmark mail and our delivery standards, so that they can educate voters accordingly, is important to achieving a successful election season.  Although there will likely be an unprecedented increase in election mail volume due to the pandemic, the Postal Service has ample capacity to deliver all election mail securely and on-time in accordance with our delivery standards, and we will do so.  However, as discussed, we cannot correct the errors of the Election Boards if they fail to deploy processes that take our normal processing and delivery standards into account.

Third, I was not appointed by the Governors to position the Postal Service to be privatized or to manage its decline.  To the contrary, I accepted the job of Postmaster General fully committed to the role of the Postal Service as an integral part of the United States Government, providing all Americans with universal and open access to our unrivalled processing and delivery network, as reflected in the Mission Statement that the Board adopted on April 1, 2020.  I fully embrace six-day delivery of mail and packages as one of this organization's greatest strengths and I plan to invest in tools and equipment for our letter carriers, as well as enhance the stability of our non-career workforce, to continue to provide the nation's most trusted service.   I accept the responsibility that the Governors gave me to maintain and enhance our reputation and role as a trusted face of the federal government in every community, and I intend to work with postal executives, management associations, managers, union leadership, and our craft employees to do everything I can to put us back on a financially stable path. I am confident that we can chart a path forward that allows the Postal Service to fulfill our vital public service mission in a sustainable manner.  I look forward to the challenge, and know we are up to it. 

Today, we are releasing our results for our third quarter, ended June 30. Joe Corbett, our Chief Financial Officer, will review those results in detail this morning.  I would like to provide just a couple of comments on overall business conditions.

We have experienced some dramatic shifts in our business since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

First and foremost, we have taken the steps necessary to make sure that our employees can work safely.  We have worked closely with our unions to assess the needs and fill the gaps, and now there is a solid process in place to ensure the right protective equipment and other supplies are in the right places.

We have also seen an unprecedented increase in package deliveries since March.  We expect elevated package volumes will continue through the end of the year at least – and may have some long-term staying power.

We are obviously highly attentive to changing consumer e-commerce behaviors and what this means for our business.  We are proud to be the carrier of choice for companies to reach homes and businesses, especially during the current situation.

On the whole, while package growth has been strong, the changes in U.S. economic conditions due to the pandemic are straining our financial situation.   We have seen substantial declines in mail volume, as well as significantly increased costs.

On Wednesday of last week, I announced that we have reached an agreement in principle with the Department of the Treasury on the terms and conditions associated with $10 billion lending authority provided in the CARES Act.  I very much appreciate Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for working with me to reach mutually acceptable terms and conditions. 

Access to an additional $10 billion in borrowing authority will delay the approaching liquidity crisis and is a positive development.  However, we remain on an unsustainable path which cannot be solved simply by borrowing money which needs to be paid back with interest, since our current path does not enable us to pay even our current bills, let alone new ones.   We will continue to focus on improving operational efficiency and pursuing other reforms in order to put the Postal Service on a trajectory for long-term financial stability.

Before I conclude, I'd like to comment briefly on the public service mission of the organization.

I have been struck by the commitment and dedication of postal employees, who have truly gone above and beyond in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The public support for the organization is extremely high because postal employees are so committed to serving their communities and their customers. We aim to continually earn the trust and support of the public.  

In that regard, I'd like to conclude by thanking the 630,000 men and women of the Postal Service for their hard work serving America's communities.  In addition to the challenges presented by the pandemic, many parts of the country have experienced extreme heat this summer, and the hurricane season has begun.

Thank you for your exceptional commitment to our mission of serving the nation.  We appreciate all you do, every day."

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International

“Extreme Events”: US Cancer Deaths Spiked In 2021 And 2022 In “Large Excess Over Trend”

"Extreme Events": US Cancer Deaths Spiked In 2021 And 2022 In "Large Excess Over Trend"

Cancer deaths in the United States spiked in 2021…

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"Extreme Events": US Cancer Deaths Spiked In 2021 And 2022 In "Large Excess Over Trend"

Cancer deaths in the United States spiked in 2021 and 2022 among 15-44 year-olds "in large excess over trend," marking jumps of 5.6% and 7.9% respectively vs. a rise of 1.7% in 2020, according to a new preprint study from deep-dive research firm, Phinance Technologies.

Algeria, Carlos et. al "US -Death Trends for Neoplasms ICD codes: C00-D48, Ages 15-44", ResearchGate, March. 2024 P. 7

Extreme Events

The report, which relies on data from the CDC, paints a troubling picture.

"We show a rise in excess mortality from neoplasms reported as underlying cause of death, which started in 2020 (1.7%) and accelerated substantially in 2021 (5.6%) and 2022 (7.9%). The increase in excess mortality in both 2021 (Z-score of 11.8) and 2022 (Z-score of 16.5) are highly statistically significant (extreme events)," according to the authors.

That said, co-author, David Wiseman, PhD (who has 86 publications to his name), leaves the cause an open question - suggesting it could either be a "novel phenomenon," Covid-19, or the Covid-19 vaccine.

"The results indicate that from 2021 a novel phenomenon leading to increased neoplasm deaths appears to be present in individuals aged 15 to 44 in the US," reads the report.

The authors suggest that the cause may be the result of "an unexpected rise in the incidence of rapidly growing fatal cancers," and/or "a reduction in survival in existing cancer cases."

They also address the possibility that "access to utilization of cancer screening and treatment" may be a factor - the notion that pandemic-era lockdowns resulted in fewer visits to the doctor. Also noted is that "Cancers tend to be slowly-developing diseases with remarkably stable death rates and only small variations over time," which makes "any temporal association between a possible explanatory factor (such as COVID-19, the novel COVID-19 vaccines, or other factor(s)) difficult to establish."

That said, a ZeroHedge review of the CDC data reveals that it does not provide information on duration of illness prior to death - so while it's not mentioned in the preprint, it can't rule out so-called 'turbo cancers' - reportedly rapidly developing cancers, the existence of which has been largely anecdotal (and widely refuted by the usual suspects).

While the Phinance report is extremely careful not to draw conclusions, researcher "Ethical Skeptic" kicked the barn door open in a Thursday post on X - showing a strong correlation between "cancer incidence & mortality" coinciding with the rollout of the Covid mRNA vaccine.

Phinance principal Ed Dowd commented on the post, noting that "Cancer is suddenly an accelerating growth industry!"

Continued:

Bottom line - hard data is showing alarming trends, which the CDC and other agencies have a requirement to explore and answer truthfully - and people are asking #WhereIsTheCDC.

We aren't holding our breath.

Wiseman, meanwhile, points out that Pfizer and several other companies are making "significant investments in cancer drugs, post COVID."

Phinance

We've featured several of Phinance's self-funded deep dives into pandemic data that nobody else is doing. If you'd like to support them, click here.

 

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/16/2024 - 16:55

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Gen Z, The Most Pessimistic Generation In History, May Decide The Election

Gen Z, The Most Pessimistic Generation In History, May Decide The Election

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Young adults are more…

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Gen Z, The Most Pessimistic Generation In History, May Decide The Election

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Young adults are more skeptical of government and pessimistic about the future than any living generation before them.

This is with reason, and it’s likely to decide the election.

Rough Years and the Most Pessimism Ever

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on The Rough Years That Turned Gen Z Into America’s Most Disillusioned Voters.

Young adults in Generation Z—those born in 1997 or after—have emerged from the pandemic feeling more disillusioned than any living generation before them, according to long-running surveys and interviews with dozens of young people around the country. They worry they’ll never make enough money to attain the security previous generations have achieved, citing their delayed launch into adulthood, an impenetrable housing market and loads of student debt.

And they’re fed up with policymakers from both parties.

Washington is moving closer to passing legislation that would ban or force the sale of TikTok, a platform beloved by millions of young people in the U.S. Several young people interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said they spend hours each day on the app and use it as their main source of news.

“It’s funny how they quickly pass this bill about this TikTok situation. What about schools that are getting shot up? We’re not going to pass a bill about that?” Gaddie asked. “No, we’re going to worry about TikTok and that just shows you where their head is…. I feel like they don’t really care about what’s going on with humanity.”

Gen Z’s widespread gloominess is manifesting in unparalleled skepticism of Washington and a feeling of despair that leaders of either party can help. Young Americans’ entire political memories are subsumed by intense partisanship and warnings about the looming end of everything from U.S. democracy to the planet. When the darkest days of the pandemic started to end, inflation reached 40-year highs. The right to an abortion was overturned. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East raged.

Dissatisfaction is pushing some young voters to third-party candidates in this year’s presidential race and causing others to consider staying home on Election Day or leaving the top of the ticket blank. While young people typically vote at lower rates, a small number of Gen Z voters could make the difference in the election, which four years ago was decided by tens of thousands of votes in several swing states.

Roughly 41 million Gen Z Americans—ages 18 to 27—will be eligible to vote this year, according to Tufts University.

Gen Z is among the most liberal segments of the electorate, according to surveys, but recent polling shows them favoring Biden by only a slim margin. Some are unmoved by those who warn that a vote against Biden is effectively a vote for Trump, arguing that isn’t enough to earn their support.

Confidence

When asked if they had confidence in a range of public institutions, Gen Z’s faith in them was generally below that of the older cohorts at the same point in their lives. 

One-third of Gen Z Americans described themselves as conservative, according to NORC’s 2022 General Social Survey. That is a larger share identifying as conservative than when millennials, Gen X and baby boomers took the survey when they were the same age, though some of the differences were small and within the survey’s margin of error.

More young people now say they find it hard to have hope for the world than at any time since at least 1976, according to a University of Michigan survey that has tracked public sentiment among 12th-graders for nearly five decades. Young people today are less optimistic than any generation in decades that they’ll get a professional job or surpass the success of their parents, the long-running survey has found. They increasingly believe the system is stacked against them and support major changes to the way the country operates.

Gen Z future Outcome

“It’s the starkest difference I’ve documented in 20 years of doing this research,” said Twenge, the author of the book “Generations.” The pandemic, she said, amplified trends among Gen Z that have existed for years: chronic isolation, a lack of social interaction and a propensity to spend large amounts of time online.

A 2020 study found past epidemics have left a lasting impression on young people around the world, creating a lack of confidence in political institutions and their leaders. The study, which analyzed decades of Gallup World polling from dozens of countries, found the decline in trust among young people typically persists for two decades.

Young people are more likely than older voters to have a pessimistic view of the economy and disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation, according to the recent Journal poll. Among people under 30, Biden leads Trump by 3 percentage points, 35% to 32%, with 14% undecided and the remaining shares going to third-party candidates, including 10% to independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Economic Reality

Gen Z may be the first generation in US history that is not better off than their parents.

Many have given up on the idea they will ever be able to afford a home.

The economy is allegedly booming (I disagree). Regardless, stress over debt is high with younger millennials and zoomers.

This has been a constant theme of mine for many months.

Credit Card and Auto Delinquencies Soar

Credit card debt surged to a record high in the fourth quarter. Even more troubling is a steep climb in 90 day or longer delinquencies.

Record High Credit Card Debt

Credit card debt rose to a new record high of $1.13 trillion, up $50 billion in the quarter. Even more troubling is the surge in serious delinquencies, defined as 90 days or more past due.

For nearly all age groups, serious delinquencies are the highest since 2011.

Auto Loan Delinquencies

Serious delinquencies on auto loans have jumped from under 3 percent in mid-2021 to to 5 percent at the end of 2023 for age group 18-29.Age group 30-39 is also troubling. Serious delinquencies for age groups 18-29 and 30-39 are at the highest levels since 2010.

For further discussion please see Credit Card and Auto Delinquencies Soar, Especially Age Group 18 to 39

Generational Homeownership Rates

Home ownership rates courtesy of Apartment List

The above chart is from the Apartment List’s 2023 Millennial Homeownership Report

Those struggling with rent are more likely to be Millennials and Zoomers than Generation X, Baby Boomers, or members of the Silent Generation.

The same age groups struggling with credit card and auto delinquencies.

On Average Everything is Great

Average it up, and things look pretty good. This is why we have seen countless stories attempting to explain why people should be happy.

Krugman Blames Partisanship

OK, there is a fair amount of partisanship in the polls.

However, Biden isn’t struggling from partisanship alone. If that was the reason, Biden would not be polling so miserably with Democrats in general, blacks, and younger voters.

OK, there is a fair amount of partisanship in the polls.

However, Biden isn’t struggling from partisanship alone. If that was the reason, Biden would not be polling so miserably with Democrats in general, blacks, and younger voters.

This allegedly booming economy left behind the renters and everyone under the age of 40 struggling to make ends meet.

Many Are Addicted to “Buy Now, Pay Later” Plans

Buy Now Pay Later, BNPL, plans are increasingly popular. It’s another sign of consumer credit stress.

For discussion, please see Many Are Addicted to “Buy Now, Pay Later” Plans, It’s a Big Trap

The study did not break things down by home owners vs renters, but I strongly suspect most of the BNPL use is by renters.

What About Jobs?

Another seemingly strong jobs headline falls apart on closer scrutiny. The massive divergence between jobs and employment continued into February.

Nonfarm payrolls and employment levels from the BLS, chart by Mish.

Payrolls vs Employment Gains Since March 2023

  • Nonfarm Payrolls: 2,602,000

  • Employment Level: +144,000

  • Full Time Employment: -284,000

For more details of the weakening labor markets, please see Jobs Up 275,000 Employment Down 184,000

CPI Hot Again

CPI Data from the BLS, chart by Mish.

For discussion of the CPI inflation data for February, please see CPI Hot Again, Rent Up at Least 0.4 Percent for 30 Straight Months

Also note the Producer Price Index (PPI) Much Hotter Than Expected in February

Major Economic Cracks

There are economic cracks in spending, cracks in employment, and cracks in delinquencies.

But there are no cracks in the CPI. It’s coming down much slower than expected. And the PPI appears to have bottomed.

Add it up: Inflation + Recession = Stagflation.

Election Impact

In 2020, younger voters turned out in the biggest wave in history. And they voted for Biden.

Younger voters are not as likely to vote in 2024, and they are less likely to vote for Biden.

Millions of voters will not vote for either Trump or Biden. Net, this will impact Biden more. The base will not decide the election, but the Trump base is far more energized than the Biden base.

If Biden signs a TikTok ban, that alone could tip the election.

If No Labels ever gets its act together, I suspect it will siphon more votes from Biden than Trump. But many will just sit it out.

“We’re just kind of over it,” Noemi Peña, 20, a Tucson, Ariz., resident who works in a juice bar, said of her generation’s attitude toward politics. “We don’t even want to hear about it anymore.” Peña said she might not vote because she thinks it won’t change anything and “there’s just gonna be more fighting.” Biden won Arizona in 2020 by just over 10,000 votes. 

The Journal noted nearly one-third of voters under 30 have an unfavorable view of both Biden and Trump, a higher number than all older voters. Sixty-three percent of young voters think neither party adequately represents them.

Young voters in 2020 were energized to vote against Trump. Now they have thrown in the towel.

And Biden telling everyone how great the economy is only rubs salt in the wound.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/16/2024 - 11:40

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The War Between Knowledge And Stupidity

The War Between Knowledge And Stupidity

Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

Bernard Stiegler was, until his premature…

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The War Between Knowledge And Stupidity

Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

Bernard Stiegler was, until his premature death, probably the most important philosopher of technology of the present. His work on technology has shown us that, far from being exclusively a danger to human existence, it is a pharmakon – a poison as well as a cure – and that, as long as we approach technology as a means to ‘critical intensification,’ it could assist us in promoting the causes of enlightenment and freedom.

It is no exaggeration to say that making believable information and credible analysis available to citizens at present is probably indispensable for resisting the behemoth of lies and betrayal confronting us. This has never been more necessary than it is today, given that we face what is probably the greatest crisis in the history of humanity, with nothing less than our freedom, let alone our lives, at stake. 

To be able to secure this freedom against the inhuman forces threatening to shackle it today, one could do no better than to take heed of what Stiegler argues in States of Shock: Stupidity and Knowledge in the 21st Century (2015). Considering what he writes here it is hard to believe that it was not written today (p. 15): 

The impression that humanity has fallen under the domination of unreason or madness [déraison] overwhelms our spirit, confronted as we are with systemic collapses, major technological accidents, medical or pharmaceutical scandals, shocking revelations, the unleashing of the drives, and acts of madness of every kind and in every social milieu – not to mention the extreme misery and poverty that now afflict citizens and neighbours both near and far.

While these words are certainly as applicable to our current situation as it was almost 10 years ago, Stiegler was in fact engaged in an interpretive analysis of the role of banks and other institutions – aided and abetted by certain academics – in the establishment of what he terms a ‘literally suicidal financial system’ (p. 1). (Anyone who doubts this can merely view the award-winning documentary film of 2010, Inside Job, by Charles Ferguson, which Stiegler also mentions on p.1.) He explains further as follows (p. 2): 

Western universities are in the grip of a deep malaise, and a number of them have found themselves, through some of their faculty, giving consent to – and sometimes considerably compromised by – the implementation of a financial system that, with the establishment of hyper-consumerist, drive-based and ‘addictogenic’ society, leads to economic and political ruin on a global scale. If this has occurred, it is because their goals, their organizations and their means have been put entirely at the service of the destruction of sovereignty. That is, they have been placed in the service of the destruction of sovereignty as conceived by the philosophers of what we call the Enlightenment…

In short, Stiegler was writing about the way in which the world was being prepared, across the board – including the highest levels of education – for what has become far more conspicuous since the advent of the so-called ‘pandemic’ in 2020, namely an all-out attempt to cause the collapse of civilisation as we knew it, at all levels, with the thinly disguised goal in mind of installing a neo-fascist, technocratic, global regime which would exercise power through AI-controlled regimes of obedience. The latter would centre on ubiquitous facial recognition technology, digital identification, and CBDCs (which would replace money in the usual sense). 

Given the fact that all of this is happening around us, albeit in a disguised fashion, it is astonishing that relatively few people are conscious of the unfolding catastrophe, let alone being critically engaged in disclosing it to others who still inhabit the land where ignorance is bliss. Not that this is easy. Some of my relatives are still resistant to the idea that the ‘democratic carpet’ is about to be pulled from under their feet. Is this merely a matter of ‘stupidity?’ Stiegler writes about stupidity (p.33):

…knowledge cannot be separated from stupidity. But in my view: (1) this is a pharmacological situation; (2) stupidity is the law of the pharmakon; and (3) the pharmakon is the law of knowledge, and hence a pharmacology for our age must think the pharmakon that I am also calling, today, the shadow. 

In my previous post I wrote about the media as pharmaka (plural of pharmakon), showing how, on the one hand, there are (mainstream) media which function as ‘poison,’ while on the other there are (alternative) media that play the role of ‘cure.’ Here, by linking the pharmakon with stupidity, Stiegler alerts one to the (metaphorically speaking) ‘pharmacological’ situation, that knowledge is inseparable from stupidity: where there is knowledge, the possibility of stupidity always asserts itself, and vice versa. Or in terms of what he calls ‘the shadow,’ knowledge always casts a shadow, that of stupidity. 

Anyone who doubts this may only cast their glance at those ‘stupid’ people who still believe that the Covid ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective,’ or that wearing a mask would protect them against infection by ‘the virus.’ Or, more currently, think of those – the vast majority in America – who routinely fall for the Biden administration’s (lack of an) explanation of its reasons for allowing thousands of people to cross the southern – and more recently also the northern – border. Several alternative sources of news and analysis have lifted the veil on this, revealing that the influx is not only a way of destabilising the fabric of society, but possibly a preparation for civil war in the United States. 

There is a different way of explaining this widespread ‘stupidity,’ of course – one that I have used before to explain why most philosophers have failed humanity miserably, by failing to notice the unfolding attempt at a global coup d’etat, or at least, assuming that they did notice it, to speak up against it. These ‘philosophers’ include all the other members of the philosophy department where I work, with the honourable exception of the departmental assistant, who is, to her credit, wide awake to what has been occurring in the world. They also include someone who used to be among my philosophical heroes, to wit, Slavoj Žižek, who fell for the hoax hook, line, and sinker.

In brief, this explanation of philosophers’ stupidity – and by extension that of other people – is twofold. First there is ‘repression’ in the psychoanalytic sense of the term (explained at length in both the papers linked in the previous paragraph), and secondly there is something I did not elaborate on in those papers, namely what is known as ‘cognitive dissonance.’ The latter phenomenon manifests itself in the unease that people exhibit when they are confronted by information and arguments that are not commensurate, or conflict, with what they believe, or which explicitly challenge those beliefs. The usual response is to find standard, or mainstream-approved responses to this disruptive information, brush it under the carpet, and life goes on as usual.

‘Cognitive dissonance’ is actually related to something more fundamental, which is not mentioned in the usual psychological accounts of this unsettling experience. Not many psychologists deign to adduce repression in their explanation of disruptive psychological conditions or problems encountered by their clients these days, and yet it is as relevant as when Freud first employed the concept to account for phenomena such as hysteria or neurosis, recognising, however, that it plays a role in normal psychology too. What is repression? 

In The Language of Psychoanalysis (p. 390), Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis describe ‘repression’ as follows: 

Strictly speaking, an operation whereby the subject attempts to repel, or to confine to the unconscious, representations (thoughts, images, memories) which are bound to an instinct. Repression occurs when to satisfy an instinct – though likely to be pleasurable in itself – would incur the risk of provoking unpleasure because of other requirements. 

 …It may be looked upon as a universal mental process to so far as it lies at the root of the constitution of the unconscious as a domain separate from the rest of the psyche. 

In the case of the majority of philosophers, referred to earlier, who have studiously avoided engaging critically with others on the subject of the (non-)‘pandemic’ and related matters, it is more than likely that repression occurred to satisfy the instinct of self-preservation, regarded by Freud as being equally fundamental as the sexual instinct. Here, the representations (linked to self-preservation) that are confined to the unconscious through repression are those of death and suffering associated with the coronavirus that supposedly causes Covid-19, which are repressed because of being intolerable. The repression of (the satisfaction of) an instinct, mentioned in the second sentence of the first quoted paragraph, above, obviously applies to the sexual instinct, which is subject to certain societal prohibitions. Cognitive dissonance is therefore symptomatic of repression, which is primary. 

Returning to Stiegler’s thesis concerning stupidity, it is noteworthy that the manifestations of such inanity are not merely noticeable among the upper echelons of society; worse – there seems to be, by and large, a correlation between those in the upper classes, with college degrees, and stupidity.

In other words, it is not related to intelligence per se. This is apparent, not only in light of the initially surprising phenomenon pertaining to philosophers’ failure to speak up in the face of the evidence, that humanity is under attack, discussed above in terms of repression. 

Dr Reiner Fuellmich, one of the first individuals to realise that this was the case, and subsequently brought together a large group of international lawyers and scientists to testify in the ‘court of public opinion’ (see 29 min. 30 sec. into the video) on various aspects of the currently perpetrated ‘crime against humanity,’ has drawn attention to the difference between the taxi drivers he talks to about the globalists’ brazen attempt to enslave humanity, and his learned legal colleagues as far as awareness of this ongoing attempt is concerned. In contrast with the former, who are wide awake in this respect, the latter – ostensibly more intellectually qualified and ‘informed’ – individuals are blissfully unaware that their freedom is slipping away by the day, probably because of cognitive dissonance, and behind that, repression of this scarcely digestible truth.

This is stupidity, or the ‘shadow’ of knowledge, which is recognisable in the sustained effort by those afflicted with it, when confronted with the shocking truth of what is occurring worldwide, to ‘rationalise’ their denial by repeating spurious assurances issued by agencies such as the CDC, that the Covid ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective,’ and that this is backed up by ‘the science.’ 

Here a lesson from discourse theory is called for. Whether one refers to natural science or to social science in the context of some particular scientific claim – for example, Einstein’s familiar theory of special relativity (e=mc2) under the umbrella of the former, or David Riesman’s sociological theory of ‘inner-’ as opposed to ‘other-directedness’ in social science – one never talks about ‘the science,’ and for good reason. Science is science. The moment one appeals to ‘the science,’ a discourse theorist would smell the proverbial rat.

Why? Because the definite article, ‘the,’ singles out a specific, probably dubious, version of science compared to science as such, which does not need being elevated to special status. In fact, when this is done through the use of ‘the,’ you can bet your bottom dollar it is no longer science in the humble, hard-working, ‘belonging-to-every-person’ sense. If one’s sceptical antennae do not immediately start buzzing when one of the commissars of the CDC starts pontificating about ‘the science,’ one is probably similarly smitten by the stupidity that’s in the air. 

Earlier I mentioned the sociologist David Riesman and his distinction between ‘inner-directed’ and ‘other-directed’ people. It takes no genius to realise that, to navigate one’s course through life relatively unscathed by peddlers of corruption, it is preferable to take one’s bearings from ‘inner direction’ by a set of values which promotes honesty and eschews mendacity, than from the ‘direction by others.’ Under present circumstances such other-directedness applies to the maze of lies and misinformation emanating from various government agencies as well as from certain peer groups, which today mostly comprise the vociferously self-righteous purveyors of the mainstream version of events. Inner-directness in the above sense, when constantly renewed, could be an effective guardian against stupidity. 

Recall that Stiegler warned against the ‘deep malaise’ at contemporary universities in the context of what he called an ‘addictogenic’ society – that is, a society that engenders addictions of various kinds. Judging by the popularity of the video platform TikTok at schools and colleges, its use had already reached addiction levels by 2019, which raises the question, whether it should be appropriated by teachers as a ‘teaching tool,’ or whether it should, as some people think, be outlawed completely in the classroom.

Recall that, as an instance of video technology, TikTok is an exemplary embodiment of the pharmakon, and that, as Stiegler has emphasised, stupidity is the law of the pharmakon, which is, in turn, the law of knowledge. This is a somewhat confusing way of saying that knowledge and stupidity cannot be separated; where knowledge is encountered, its other, stupidity, lurks in the shadows. 

Reflecting on the last sentence, above, it is not difficult to realise that, parallel to Freud’s insight concerning Eros and Thanatos, it is humanly impossible for knowledge to overcome stupidity once and for all. At certain times the one will appear to be dominant, while on different occasions the reverse will apply. Judging by the fight between knowledge and stupidity today, the latter ostensibly still has the upper hand, but as more people are awakening to the titanic struggle between the two, knowledge is in the ascendant. It is up to us to tip the scales in its favour – as long as we realise that it is a never-ending battle. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 23:00

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