District 14
She did not wait long. Immediately after Biden was declared winner and having laid low for 6 months while the election battle raged, the truce ended. The Representative of the 14th New York district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, raged against the Democrat machine. “The people who elected Biden will now be forgotten, he will swing to the right and we will lose a suite of Congressional districts in the mid-term elections”.
He will, they will and she will be right.
Her victory was expected but she raised $17 million for her campaign which is huge for a House seat. Her Republican challenger had $10 million behind him too, also enormous, but clearly not enough.
AOC is a money raising machine, she will likely run for President. Remember her. Modern Monetary Theory, Universal Basic Income and free stuff for everyone. Potentially sufficiently powerful now that the White House would do well to bring her into the camp. Let’s wait and see.
Double Down
On average in Australia the total number of Australian dollars in circulation doubles every six years. You are, unknowingly, doubling down on AUD. In the last 12 months the supply of dollars has increased 78%.
If you are holding fiat currency, it is quite literally melting in your hands.
This excellent research from the team at CryptoVoices lays out money supply changes in major currencies over the last half century.
What is more, we learned from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve this week that he will stop at absolutely nothing to accelerate this trend (he has no option).
“As we said in September and again today, with inflation running persistently below 2 percent, we will aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time so that inflation averages 2 percent over time and longer-term inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 percent. We expect to maintain an accommodative stance of monetary policy until these employment and inflation outcomes are achieved.”
Inflation is persistently below 2%? Once again, only if you are buying televisions and Nike trainers.
Pedal to the printing metal, for years.
Quantitative Easing
The Bank of England reaffirmed their commitment to QE this week with another 150 billion popping up from nowhere to keep interest rates low. £2500 per person.
It barely raised a whimper of course, but you might recall 10 years ago when all this began people were very concerned about the debasement of their currency. I think one of the things sustaining this cycle is that all major economies are now doing it in lock step and so the crashing devaluations of currencies aren’t really showing up other than against harder assets like gold and bitcoin.
Accordingly, the full draft of the document is now circulating the internet.
- Encryption ensures freedom of speech, but …..
- Some of that speech is things we don’t like and so we need a back door so we can read it.
- We will work with the tech industry (we mean Facebook and Whatsapp) to build a back door.
I imagine in the corridors of Facebook they are quaking in their boots. Especially since the EU does nothing but attack them and cost them money but now it wants to “work with them”.
One day it will dawn that the big tech giants are more powerful than most countries and blocs of countries.
The EU couldn’t organise a p@ss up in a brewery, yet somehow they are going to ask Facebook to reinvent the laws of prime number mathematics? I hate to tell them, but if anyone could do it, it’s probably Facebook. Sadly, they are a bit busy at the moment becoming the supreme overlords of the whole planet. So, maybe next year.
One of the requirements for working in the social media department of the ECB is that you must have no sense of irony.
The most pumped up bubble in the world is the bond bubble. Negative interest rates on the 100 year Austrian bond. Zero (or less) if you lend to Germany, and enough to buy a tuna sandwich if you lend to quality borrowers like Italy or Greece.
Here’s the ECB excitedly announcing that Europe’s pensioners rely on exactly these assets. Everything should be totally fine then, right?