MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Africa’s Path to Energy Prosperity Is with Free Markets, Not Eco-Colonialism

Posted by M. C. on September 6, 2022

If California and Germany did not succeed at their solar and wind experiments, no rational person would expect underdeveloped countries to succeed at it. So, it is malicious to coerce African countries into an energy “transition” that the developed world is failing to achieve.

https://mises.org/wire/africas-path-energy-prosperity-free-markets-not-eco-colonialism

Manuel Tacanho

The ongoing energy crunch has revealed the hypocritical, if not duplicitous, nature of the Western imposition of climate and energy transition goals on other nations. Of course, we care about environmental protection, but the current arrangement amounts to eco-colonialism, is wildly detached from local realities, and severely hurts African economies and lives. For these and other reasons, African leaders should assert energy policy independence if they intend to serve and protect Africa’s socioeconomic well-being.

Africa must finally and truly develop. Access to dense, dispatchable, reliable, abundant, and cheap energy goods and services is crucial. Fossil fuels, which Africa has enormous quantities of, are best positioned to meet present and future demand. Today’s energy crisis conclusively shows that solar panels and wind turbines are not economically, materially, and ecologically viable alternatives.

If California and Germany did not succeed at their solar and wind experiments, no rational person would expect underdeveloped countries to succeed at it. So, it is malicious to coerce African countries into an energy “transition” that the developed world is failing to achieve.

Severe Energy Poverty

There is energy poverty everywhere, even in Western countries. But countries and regions are not equally energy poor. Africa, the least developed region, is, of course, the most energy poor. No need to turn this part of the article into a poverty porn session by presenting numerous statistics about the severity of energy poverty that plagues and cripples Africa. Still, some facts are worth pointing out.

N.J. Ayuk, chairman of the African Energy Chamber, notes that:

It is not an exaggeration to say energy poverty is one of our continent’s most pressing problems: Only 56% of Africa’s population has access to electricity today, and in many places, that power is still inadequate and unreliable at best. We address this topic in our recently released report, The State of African Energy 2022.

“Comprehensive energy access across the continent remains a central target, with some 600 million people without access to electricity today,” says the report. “Moreover, households themselves, facing low and inadequate supply of electricity, often rely on highly polluting traditional energy sources such as hard biomass, which constitutes 45% of total primary energy demand in Africa.”

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Quagmires in the Fed’s War on Inflation

Posted by M. C. on September 6, 2022

The answer to a question posed above is: The Fed can’t sell off its assets as quickly as it bought them in 2020 without risking havoc. The Fed simply can’t suck money out of the economy as easily as it can flood the economy with money. Given that, the Fed should allow all of its maturing assets to undergo portfolio runoff, not put a cap on runoffs of $95B a month.

By Jon N. Hall
American Thinker

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/09/quagmires_in_the_feds_war_on_inflation.html

After the financial crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve used two policies to prop up the economy: zero percent interest rates and pumping newly-created money into the economy through quantitative easing (QE). Because of 40-year-high inflation, the Fed has recently reversed policy and is raising its key interest rate target on overnight loans between banks. The Fed is also doing quantitative tightening (QT, the opposite of QE), and is withdrawing money from the economy.

There are two ways to do QT: “portfolio runoff” and selling assets. The Fed is doing only the former, runoff, which entails allowing its assets to mature and not reinvesting the proceeds. Beginning in September, the Fed will do portfolio runoff at a pace of $95B a month, $60B of which will be U.S. treasuries and $35B will be mortgage-backed securities. That pace works out to $1.14 trillion in a year. Nothing to sneeze at, but to really fight inflation could the Fed go faster and take even more money out of the economy each month?

Rather than relying solely on portfolio runoff of maturing assets, this writer recently suggested that the Fed also sell its assets prior to maturity in order to speed up the deflating of the money supply, and perhaps obviate continued interest rate hikes. Just as with portfolio runoff, the Fed wouldn’t reinvest the proceeds of its sales. Selling assets presents serious implications concerning prices and yields.

Reducing the Fed’s portfolio (balance sheet) through sales is a problem. Back in the Spring of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, the Fed bought assets for a time at the furious pace of a trillion dollars a month. Selling those assets will be more of a problem than was buying them. What if the Fed tried to sell off its assets as quickly as it bought them in 2020?

When it sells its assets, the Fed does so in secondary markets where prices and yields are subject to change. When too much of something is put on any market at one time, prices tend to fall. In bond markets, when prices fall yields rise.

The trick for the Fed in selling its assets is to sell them at high prices. The higher the price, the more money the Fed is sucking out of the money supply, thereby attacking inflation directly. But there’s another consideration: the relationship between the secondary market and the primary market.

In the case of the primary market for U.S. treasuries, they’re sold at par, or face value; what’s paid at maturity. So the way that that primary market could compete with its secondary market during times when the secondary market has better yields than its primary market is to raise its coupon rates, i.e. the interest rates on its treasuries.

Since interest on treasuries is an item in the federal budget, low prices for treasuries in the secondary market is a problem if they result in higher interest rates for new treasuries. The amount of interest on the federal debt that the taxpayer is to pay in ten years is already predicted to go up by a factor of three.

Read the Whole Article

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Ultra-Hawk Liz Truss to Be Next British Prime Minister

Posted by M. C. on September 6, 2022

Truss said at a recent town hall that she would be ‘ready’ to launch nuclear weapons as prime minister

by Dave DeCamp

antiwar.com

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will replace Boris Johnson as the British prime minister after the UK’s Conservative Party voted to make her the leader of the government. She beat out former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and is expected to be formally named prime minister by the Queen on Tuesday.

As the British foreign secretary, Truss has delivered some of the most hawkish rhetoric against Russia in NATO’s response to the invasion of Ukraine. When the war first broke out, Truss said that she supported individuals from the UK who wanted to fight in Ukraine.

While campaigning to become the prime minister, Truss said if she took the position, she would follow in Johnson’s footsteps and be Ukraine’s “greatest friend” to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin “fails in Ukraine and suffers a strategic defeat.”

According to a report from The Financial Times, Truss and her team have been frustrated that the US hasn’t taken a “harder line” on Russia even as Washington has pledged over $13 billion in weapons for Ukraine, dwarfing the $2.8 billion in military aid London has committed.

While the UK isn’t contributing nearly as much money as the US, Britain is one of the leading NATO supporters of Ukraine. The British are currently training thousands of Ukrainian soldiers inside the UK, with the goal of training 10,000 within 120 days. According to reports from The Times and The New York Times, British special operations forces are on the ground in Ukraine.

Truss has also voiced her opposition to negotiations with Russa, saying talks could only happen after Moscow is “defeated.” Johnson frequently discouraged negotiations and reportedly played an integral role in the failure of earlier peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, a pattern that will likely continue under a Truss premiership.

Truss has also been hawkish in her rhetoric against China and has called for a “global NATO” that’s capable of defending Taiwan and the broader Asia Pacific region. She is expected to be confrontational with Beijing and will reportedly classify China as a “threat” to British national security for the first time.

During a recent town hall, Truss was asked by host John Pienaar how she would “feel” if she had to order a nuclear strike, which Pienaar recognized would likely mean global annihilation. Truss said, “I think it’s an important duty of the prime minister and I’m ready to do that.”

When asked again how ordering a nuclear strike would make her feel, Truss simply responded, “I’m ready to do that.”

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Leaked Paper Shows UK Cops Preparing For “Greater Civil Unrest” This Winter

Posted by M. C. on September 6, 2022

Tyler Durden's Photo

BY TYLER DURDEN

Europeans are finally waking up to how bad Western sanctions on Russia have backfired, as their governments sacrificed ordinary people over NATO’s proxy fight against Russia in Ukraine. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uk-cops-prepare-greater-civil-unrest-winter

New Prime Minister Liz Truss may have only weeks to deliver a confidence turnaround in the UK economy or face a surge in violent crime and breakdown in public order caused by a cost-of-living crisis.

The Times revealed police chiefs fear “economic turmoil and financial instability” has the “potential to drive increases in particular crime types,” such as shoplifting, burglary, vehicle theft, and online fraud and blackmail, as Brits face one of the worst collapses in living standards in a century amid energy hyperinflation. 

“Prolonged and painful economic pressure” could spark “greater civil unrest,” similar to the 2011 London riots, the leaked national strategy paper read. 

“Greater financial vulnerability may expose some staff to a higher risk of corruption, especially among those who fall into significant debt or financial difficulties,” it continued. 

One police chief noticed increased violent crime as inflation is stuck at multi-decade highs. This comes as energy regulator Ofgem increased the cap on power bills to a record £3,549 ($4,189) beginning Oct. 1 from £1,971 ($2,330). That cap is expected to rise to £5,439 ($6,427) by January and £7,272 ($8,594) by spring. 

Besides police, energy executives warned that mass civil unrest looms as people cannot afford their heating and electricity bills this winter. 

About 160,000 Brits have joined a movement against skyrocketing electricity bills, vowing not to pay come Oct. 1. 

Last Friday, Russia’s energy giant Gazprom PJSC halted flows via Nord Stream 1 to Europe, sending EU natural gas and electricity prices soaring on Monday. This means Truss hardly has any time to deliver a coherent strategy to save households from energy poverty and businesses from failing. 

The massive protest in Prague this past weekend, where tens of thousands of Czechs flooded the streets, offers a glimpse of the impending social unrest that could hit the street of the UK if power bills continue rising without government intervention. 

Published last week was a new report via Verisk Maplecroft, a UK-based risk consulting and intelligence firm, warning there’s a high risk of social unrest in Europe later this year due to rising inflation. 

Europeans are finally waking up to how bad Western sanctions on Russia have backfired, as their governments sacrificed ordinary people over NATO’s proxy fight against Russia in Ukraine. These protests could spread like wildfire across Europe, and it appears the UK is preparing for the worst-case scenario. 

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Federal Reserve Wants You Fired

Posted by M. C. on September 6, 2022

written by ron paul

This is because the Fed’s strategy for reducing the historic price inflation now plaguing the economy — caused by the Fed’s unprecedented low or zero interest rate policies — is to increase unemployment in order to decrease consumer spending. In his speech to the annual monetary policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated his commitment to increasing unemployment, or, as he puts it, “softening the labor markets.”

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/september/05/the-federal-reserve-wants-you-fired/

The Federal Reserve was no doubt troubled by July’s decline in the US unemployment rate to 4.5 percent and increase in job openings to 11.2 million. This is because the Fed’s strategy for reducing the historic price inflation now plaguing the economy — caused by the Fed’s unprecedented low or zero interest rate policies — is to increase unemployment in order to decrease consumer spending. In his speech to the annual monetary policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated his commitment to increasing unemployment, or, as he puts it, “softening the labor markets.”  

Powell is correct that reducing price inflation is urgent. He is also correct that doing so will increase unemployment and slow economic growth. The Fed’s efforts to bring down inflation by increasing interest rates will also make it harder for average Americans to obtain home mortgages, purchase a car, or even pay their utility bills. Those hardest hit by the Fed’s “softening of labor markets” are also the primary victims of the Fed-created price inflation. This demonstrates the insanity and cruelty of the fiat money system, which enriches the elites while improvising the masses.

Well-connected members of the financial elite and crony capitalists benefit from the Federal Reserve’s money creation, as they are the first recipients of the new money. This enables them to increase their purchasing power before the new money has caused general price inflation. By the time the money creation has impacted the middle and working classes, the economy is racked with widespread price inflation. Therefore, a nominal gain in wages is not enough to compensate for the real price increase. So average Americans suffer from both Fed-created inflation and the Fed’s attempts to rein in that inflation. 

It is amazing that more individuals do not question the idea that inflation, recessions, unemployment, and booms and busts are necessary features of a sound monetary system. Even many otherwise staunch defenders of free markets maintain a child-like faith in central banking. Some conservatives support “reforming” the Fed by making it follow a “rules-based” monetary policy. These conservatives do not understand that the problem is the existence of a central bank with the power to manipulate the currency.

Many progressives recognize the damage the Fed does to average Americans when it increases interest rates. However, their “solution” is a cure worse than the disease: make the Fed maintain low interest rates (and thus high inflation) in perpetuity—or until the continued devaluation of the currency via inflation causes a dollar crisis, leading to a major economic calamity. The main victims of this crisis will, of course, be the very Americans progressives claim to care about.

The Federal Reserve’s failure to fulfill its dual mandate of producing stable prices and full employment, combined with the damage it inflicts on the American people, make the best case for changing our monetary policy. A stable currency, safe from manipulation by politicians or central bankers, would provide the basis for long term prosperity that benefits everyone, not just the crony capitalists and the power-hungry politicians. The first steps in this transition are to finally pass audit the Fed legislation and continue the efforts to pass state laws recognizing precious metals as legal tender.

Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

How Freedom Helps us Cooperate to Achieve Superabundance

Posted by M. C. on September 5, 2022

In conclusion, superabundance depends on two main components: people and freedom. People who are free to think, speak, read, publish, and interact with others will generate ideas, and their market-tested ideas will lead to progress. The more people the planet has and the more freedom they enjoy, the greater the likelihood that new good ideas will be generated to tackle current and future problems.

by Gale Pooley and Marian L. Tupy

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/tupy-superabundance/

The following is a summary of Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Plant by Marian L. Tupy and Gale Pooley, reprinted with permission.

In the first part of this book, the human propensity toward the negative is contrasted with the generally improving state of the world. Instead of the apocalypse that humanity has been expecting since the dawn of time, the world has seen great progress. One of the persistent sources of concern about the present state of the world and the future of humanity is population growth. Some people fear this might lead to the exhaustion of resources, thus ending in a calamity for the planet and the species that inhabit it. But there are many reasons why that need not be the case.

In the second part of the book, the concern over population growth and resource abundance is put to an empirical test using the Tupy-Pooley Resource Abundance Framework (see below). The framework uses a new methodology to measure the change in abundance relative to the change in wages. It includes two levels of analysis: a personal level and a population level. To use a pizza analogy, personal resource abundance measures the size of a slice of pizza per person. Population resource abundance measures the size of the entire pizza pie.

Looking at hundreds of commodities, goods, and services spanning two centuries, the authors found that abundance almost invariably grew, often substantially. In general, personal resource abundance grows by more than 3 percent per year, thereby doubling every 20 years or so. The population resource abundance analysis showed that resources have been growing more abundant by more than 4 percent per year, thereby doubling every 16 years or so. Moreover, it showed that humanity is experiencing “superabundance,” a condition where abundance is increasing at a faster rate than the population is growing.

Put differently, the data suggest that a growing population tends to benefit, rather than impoverish, humanity. That vindicates University of Maryland economist Julian Simon’s observation that “Our supplies of natural resources are not finite in any economic sense. Nor does past experience give reason to expect natural resources to become scarcer. Rather, if history is any guide, natural resources will progressively become less costly, hence less scarce, and will constitute a smaller proportion of our expenses in future years.”

In the third part of this book, some of the main reasons for the growth in abundance are examined. Unlike nonhuman animals, people flourish by developing sophisticated ways of cooperating and gaining knowledge. Not only do humans trade more intensively and extensively than other species; more importantly, they constantly innovate. It is innovation that distinguishes relatively slow Smithian growth (a process of adding more people, land, and capital to production processes) from the relatively fast Schumpeterian growth (a process of economic expansion powered by technological change).

The process of innovation, however, can be disruptive and thus threatening to the status quo.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

15 reasons why I STILL BUY CDs

Posted by M. C. on September 4, 2022

I recently obtained 6 CDs for $6 at a second hand store. I use Sony Music Center to rip them to lossless .flac files. Best of both worlds.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Have a super freaking awesome day

Posted by M. C. on September 3, 2022

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Yet Another MCViewPoint Public Service

Posted by M. C. on September 3, 2022

This is a BAD USB and that allowed me to hack 11 people! And the hack is so simple ANYONE can do it – pretty scary how these bad USB drives are so effective….

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Out of Control Government and Isaiah’s Job

Posted by M. C. on September 3, 2022

by Richard M. Ebeling

The reader may have noticed that I have given greater emphasis to levels of government spending than to amounts taxed or borrowed, per se. The reason being that it is government spending that represents the amount of private production siphoned off and out of the direct hands of the private producers and income earners of the society. This is how much the government plunders from the people of the country, regardless of whether the production and income that is transferred into the hands of those in political power has been done by taxation or borrowing.

Out of Control Government and Isaiah’s Job

It is very difficult to be a classical liberal or libertarian and not experience bouts of disappointment, frustration, and outright pessimism. The world around us seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Government continues to grow and, apparently, is out of control.The greater the political power by government in the society, the more social power is diminished; that is, individual freedom is reduced and “the state” grows with its legitimized use of force over people’s lives.
[Click to Tweet]

For example, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its semiannual Budget and Economic Outlook, 2022-2032 in late May 2022. The CBO expects that when the federal government’s current fiscal year ends on September 30, 2022, Uncle Sam will have spent $5.874 trillion. Tax revenues from all sources will be $4.890 trillion, leaving a budget deficit for the fiscal year of $1.036 trillion. Total national debt held by the public will come in at $24.173 trillion, while the gross national debt (which includes Treasury securities held by other government agencies) will be more than $30.621 trillion.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to equal $24.694 trillion in 2022. So, this means that federal spending will 23.8 percent of GDP, while taxes will absorb 19.6 percent of GDP. The more than $1 trillion deficit will amount to 4.2 percent of GDP.

Bigger government in the years ahead 

Things do not get better looking over the coming decade, the CBO anticipates. In 2032, federal expenditures are expected to total $8.469 trillion, for a 51.8 percent increase over 2022. Federal taxes are projected to amount to $6.662 trillion in 2032, or a 36.2 percent increase over a decade earlier. The budget deficit is predicted to be $2.252 trillion in 2032, representing a 217 percent increase over the deficit in 2022. Gross Domestic Product will be $36.680 in 2032, says the CBO, and will be 48.5 percent larger than in 2022.

The government’s share of the GDP pie, in other words, will be increasing noticeably faster than the national economy is projected to grow over the next 10 years. Also, the share of government borrowing to simply pay the interest on the existing accumulated national debt will be increasing as well. In fiscal 2022, the federal government will borrow $1.036 trillion, as we saw. Out of this, nearly $400 billion will be used to pay interest owed on the national debt, or about 39 percent of total borrowing. In 2032, when the deficit is expected to be $2.253 trillion, $1.193 trillion will be used just to pay interest on the, then, accumulated national debt, or 52 percent of all government borrowing in that year. So more than half of all the money the federal government will have to borrow 10 years from now will be used just to stay current on the interest payments due from all the earlier decades of annual deficit spending.

Of course, all of this has to be taken with a grain of salt. Ten years ago, the CBO did not anticipate the great economic contraction of 2020 caused by the federal and state government’s draconian response to the coronavirus crisis, that commanded the shutdown and lockdown of much of the U.S. economy for several months. And just two or three years ago, the CBO was still projecting that price inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, would still be rising at a “modest” 2 percent a year in 2022.

Entitlement programs are heading for disaster

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »