Trading the Cable

"Cockamamie. That's a word you generation hasn't embraced yet. You ought to use it once in a while to keep it alive."
--Frank Horrigan (In the Line of Fire)

They say you learn something new every day. Saw this headline this am and couldn't figure what 'cable' meant in the context.

Turns out it refers to exchanges between the British pound and the USD. 

When transatlantic cable was stretched across the ocean floor in the mid 1800s to connect telegraph services between the England and the US, transactions between the two currencies became known as 'trading the cable.'

Obviously, this is no longer popular slang as it took me several decades before I heard it.

Interesting nonetheless. And I hope to put my newly discovered lingo to work soon.

Raid on Reason

Now did you read the news today?
They say the danger's gone away
But I can see the fires still alight
They're burning into the night
--Genesis

As these pages have frequently noted, leftists love to manipulate language in their favor. They employ positive substitute symbols and euphemisms to advance their agendas.

Case in point. The recent invasion of Donald Trump's Florida residence is no longer a 'raid.' Instead, it is now being deemed as an execution of a search warrant.

The raid, plainly, is on reason.

Inflation Reduction Act

I bought a novel, some perfume
A fortune all for you
But it's not my conscience
That hates to be untrue
I asked of my reflection,
"Tell me what is there to do?"
--Squeeze

As we've discussed, leftists are rarely honest with their rhetoric. They label things largely contrary of their actual effects.

Cast in point: the proposed Inflation Reduction Act. 

As Ron Paul discusses, the bill does the opposite. It increases government spending by hundreds of billions of dollars. It takes resources out of the hands of private citizens and puts them into the hands of bureaucrats.

Not only does this increase the risk of capital misallocation, but it must be funded. To the extent that citizens are taxed, it reduces economic resources available to people during an era of high price inflation and slowing economic activity.

It is a universal truth that slow economic activity motivates easier central bank monetary policy (read: inflation).

To the extent that taxes won't cover the spending, then those funds must either be a) borrowed, which taxes future incomes, or b) printed (the reason why inflation is called the 'invisible tax').

There is little doubt that the Inflation Reduction Act will ultimately result in more inflation, not less.

Keep Him Out

But you won't get too far
'Cause you got to blame someone
For your own confusion
We're on guard this time
Against your final solution
--Red Rider

Interesting thesis about why leftists, including many on the conservative side, cannot let Trump back in the Oval Office. The primary answer is that it is not Trump, but the tens of millions of 'country class' that he represents. 

The elite cannot afford to have give those rubes, Clinton's 'deplorables,' a voice in the political process. And to keep that from happening, the ruling class will stop at nothing to keep that from happening.

The author suggests that leftists have a string of plans in the queue to keep Trump out of office.

Plan A. Use the Jan 6 show trials to keep Trump from running/winning. By most accounts, however, that isn't working.

Plan B. Indict Trump for 'seditious conspiracy' using the DOJ and other machinery of the deep state. Of course, it will be difficult to convince a large fraction of Americans that any such charges hold a modicum of legitimacy.

Plan C. Declare Trump ineligible to run under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. The legitimacy issue still holds.

Plan D. Simply beat Trump at the ballot box. The trouble is Democrats have no obvious candidate that could compete with Trump head-to-head this time around.

Plan E. Cheat (again) in the election. There is no question that Democrats will do what they can get away with (again) this time around. The issue is, given the heightened public awareness about election process shenanigans, how much they will truly be able to get away with in 2024.

Plan F. Take to the streets and riot. Do this until the 'proper' regime is secured in the White House.

It is easy to see why leftists are husting to grab guns ahead of this cycle.

Recession Now

When the good times never stay
And the cheap thrills always seem to fade away
When will we fall
When will we fall down?
--Toad the Wet Sprocket

The traditional definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth. This has now occurred based on Q1 and Q2 GDP prints.

As these pages have discussed, political partisans are trying to manage the narrative away from the traditional definition--claiming that recessions only officially occur once they are declared by the 'experts' at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Conveniently, such a declaration would occur sometime after the midterm elections in November.

What the partisan narrative managers fail to note is that two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth have always coincides with NBER's formal declaration of recession.

Social Networks and Political Correctness

"I'll be subtle. I'm good at subtle."
--John Spartan (Demolition Man)

Political correctness can be defined as behavior intended not to upset a particular group in order to advance an agenda. It often manifests in manipulating language. Political correctness is pretense; it is not genuine.

Political correctness is a product of social learning. Observing others. Watching what gets sanctioned. Fitting in.

As such, it should be no surprise that political correctness has increased alongside capacity for social networking.

Imagine a research experiment studying two groups of people. One group is highly plugged into their phones, tablets, and other social networking devices. 

The other group is rarely, if ever, online. 

Which group is likely to exhibit more politically correct behavior?

Redline Fed Lines

You'll never say hello to you
Until you get it on the redline overload
You'll never know what you can do
Until you get it up as high as you can go
--Kenny Loggins

Yesterday the FOMC raised the Fed funds rate 75 bips as telegraphed. The overnight rate target now stands at 2.25-2.50%.

As is common anymore, the FOMC statement was 'redlined' for wording changes from the previous statement.

The only substantial change was the first sentence, which went from discussing economic strength to signs of economic weakness.

Couple that with the subsequent statement that the Fed is prepared to adjust its policy stance if risks emerge that threaten the attainment of the committee's goals, and you get early signs of a dovish pivot.

Reaching? Perhaps, but markets are partying on the prospects thus far.

Narrative Management

Nancy Oliver: What's the matter with the mistress? She don't look ill to me. Is she?

Elizabeth Tompkins: I don't know. Not as I can see. But the master keeps telling her she is.
--Gaslight

Leftists believe that words matter more than actions. This is why they respond like juveniles on the playground when someone says something they don't like. "He called me a name!"

Indeed, it seems that many leftists view hurtful words as equivalent to acts of physical aggression--acts that justify physical violence, perhaps by government agents, to quell the 'hate speech.'

This is also why leftists obsess with controlling narratives. Narratives are story lines. In reality, these story lines may be true or false. But regardless of whether narratives represent fact or fiction, leftists believe that they can manipulate behavior in their favor by manipulating language.

Controlling the narrative often begins by changing the definition of a word or phrase that is central to the storyline.

Leftists are currently focusing on the meaning of 'recession.' Rather than using the traditional definition of two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth (which likely has occurred in Q1 and Q2 of this year), leftists are now arguing that the definition is more nebulous and requires (very conveniently) a panel of experts to determine--perhaps far after the fact of the recession's actual commencement.

The narrative can then manipulated. We're still in an economic expansion, they say, because the experts haven't called a recession yet.

Should recent history be any guide, leftists will also try to recruit their media cabal to label alternative narratives as 'disinformation.'

If they can get the public to buy in, then perhaps leftists can postpone widespread perception of recession until after the November midterm elections. Leftists well know that people experiencing economic hardship are prone to vote out people and parties in positions of political power.

This time around, that would be Democrats.

Use your capacity for reason. Ignore the gaslights of narrative management.

Chickenhawks

"You're all mouth, kid."
--Carl Hostrup (Reunion at Fairborough)

Various Fed heads have recently hit the tape with hawkish comments. They insist that rates must go much higher and balance sheet sales (a.k.a. 'quantitative tightening') must proceed much quicker in order to stem the inflation tide.

As Peter Schiff observes, the people at the Fed have not suddenly got religion. They are not hawks; they are chickenhawks.

By their hawkish rhetoric, Fed heads present the facade of inflation fighters--an inflation that they admit no blame for instigating. 

They surely also hope that markets will do work for them. Markets that anticipate huge interest rate hikes might tank, thereby relieving some inflationary pressures and impetus for Fed action.

Schiff argues that if the Fed heads were sincere about fighting big inflation, then they would have already acted aggressively. Big rate increases. Big balance sheet asset sales. But they haven't done so. All of the big moves that they are talking about will take place at some future, yet to be named date.

We also know that when markets do tank, then all semblance of hawkishness will disappear as the Fed resumes their customarily accommodative policy.

When facing a game of chicken with oncoming economic and market collapse, chickenhawks at the Fed will invariably flinch.

Apologist Ad Hominem

Birds fly
In the eye of the faithless daughter
Broken at the bitter end
--Icicle Works

It has become popular to accuse anyone connecting the Ukraine conflict to NATO expansion as being a 'Putin apologist.' This is what an ad hominem counter looks like.

A more constructive approach would be to leave the playground and develop a well-reasoned argument as to why NATO expansion has NOT been a driver of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That seems an uphill battle. It would involve refuting arguments in pieces like this point-by-point. For example, the NATO expansion position has been taken by statesmen and analysts for many years, some dating back to NATO's founding, preceding the current conflict. Were all of these people Kremlin stooges?

What about past evidence of NATO enlargement itself? The geographic evidence is compelling. And of enlargement activities that have involved Ukraine? Or of the ongoing meddling of Western forces (as well as Russian forces) in the geopolitical trajectory of Ukraine?

Then, of course, is Putin's explicit mention of NATO expansion in his February 22 speech discussing his motivations for invading Ukraine. If the counter is that his words cannot be trusted, then that would rule out using any of Putin's words to build a defense against the NATO expansion argument.

If these points can't be adequately countered, then just scream insults.

NATO Expansion

"Suppose this is a move against NATO!"
--Member of Joint Chiefs of Staff (The Hunt for Red October)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance formed after WWII. It currently holds 30 member countries--28 of them from Europe in addition to Canada and the US. The agreement is based on a system of shared security where members pledge to protect each other in the event of attack from external members. 

Each member also pledges to spend at least 2% of GDP on military resources. In actuality, some countries fall far short of the mark while others (read: the US) spends significantly more.

The high European country membership coupled with the provincial headquarters (Brussels) suggests dominant Euro influence. However, because it brings more resources to the NATO battle ground than any other member (by far), the United States exerts considerable leverage in the pact.

What enemy could be so great that it necessitates such a collective protection system? NATO's founding period provides the obvious answer: Russia. When the NATO treaty was signed in 1949, the Soviet Union loomed just east of the Berlin Wall. NATO's military resources were clearly configured and positioned to guard against Russian incursion.

When the Wall crumbled in the late 1980s, however, NATO didn't. Instead, it kept expanding. Membership gradually increased from the 12 founding countries to today's 30. In addition, partnerships with countries add more than a dozen 'shadow' members.  

A quick glance at a world map reveals that NATO sustaining and shadow members virtually surround Russia with little or no land buffer at the border. 

Now, let's suppose that a China-led interstate military alliance was formed. Membership grows to include Canada, Mexico, islands in the Caribbean, etc such that the United States was surrounded by a collective highly influenced by the CCP. 

Would the US stand idly by? (hint: see Cuban missile crisis) 

Neither has Russia. Rightly or wrongly, it perceives NATO expansion as a threat to their sovereign 'sphere of influence.' If countries such as Ukraine were to join NATO, then an important chunk of remaining buffer between Russia and this external threat disappears. 

Experts have been warning about the consequences of NATO expansion for years--as have Putin and other Russian authorities. Moreover, Putin explicitly cited NATO expansion as a driving force behind his military actions last week.

To those claiming that NATO expansion has little to do with Russia's actions in the last few days, they either haven't been paying attention or are purposely looking away. Why the latter may be true is an interesting question to ponder.

Here's another question, one for the NATO expansion deniers: Why not offer guarantees of no further expansion as a quick way to end the conflict? Here's your chance to prove experts wrong and Putin a liar.

Why not, indeed.

Inflation Tsunami

Ben Harp: Now, for chrissake, does either one of you have anything even remotely interesting to tell me?
Johnny Utah: Caught my first tube today, sir.
--Point Break

Peter Schiff suggests that we're headed for an inflation tsunami. Well reasoned, incorporating many points made on these pages.

An important point that he makes is that, despite hawkish rhetoric, the Fed's actions remain accommodative. They are still buying bonds (QE).

In other words, with inflation at 40 yr highs, the Fed is still printing money.

And real rates are still way negative.

As such, how can anyone believe the Fed is truly serious about fighting inflation?

COVID Revisionism

"It's the old Potomac Two Step, Jack."
--President Bennett (Clear and Present Danger)

It's not just politicians doing the COVID pivot. Their partners in arms, the mainstream media, are turning their hats around as well.

The science has changed, they're saying. It's time to open up.

Even the censors are lightening up, relabeling content previously deemed to be misinformation...

...to something that might be contested by some people.

As the media embarks on a revisionist campaign, it demonstrates understanding that the 'Potomac Two Step' is not just for politicians.

Mandate Pivot

"My, my, my...how hell doth quicken the spirit."
--William Strannix (Under Siege)

With poll numbers and prediction markets indicating a bloodbath coming for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, memos from party leadership have surely been circulating to ditch increasingly unpopular CV19-related mandates. Blue states and cities have been tripping over themselves over the past few days to announce that they will be rescinding mask mandates and ditching vaccine mandates. 

Leftists rhetoric is also pivoting away from lockdowns. The Biden administration has even had the audacity to claim that it has never supported lockdowns and that it was the Trump administration that gave them the green light.

Lesson: fear of being dethroned can drive even ardent authoritarians to become supporters of freedom and choice.

At least through election season...

Feelings vs Facts

I'll hold onto you

Till the stars no longer wink

I'll hold onto you

Till you figure out just what to think

--Ric Ocasek

Interesting paper that uses Google word counts to detect longitudinal changes in language related to rationality vs emotion. Rationality-related words such as fact, analysis, conclusion were counted and compared to counts of sentiment and intuition-related words such as feel, believe, and trust. Content of books, newspapers, and recent Google searches were examined.

Results indicate an increase in rationality-related words from 1850 until about 1980 yrs ago when trends reversed toward more emotional rhetoric.

The authors suggest that their findings help quantify existence of a post-truth era, where 'feelings trump facts.'

Hard to argue...

Every Time

Every time I think of you
It always turns out good
Every time I've held you
I thought you understood
--The Babys

Peter Schiff is correct. Despite some hawkish rhetoric, the Fed can't raise rates significantly nor unwind its QE assets. Doing so would surely collapse the overleveraged, hyper financialized system.

This is, of course, an untenable outcome. 

After decades of recklessness, the Fed appears to have finally painted itself into the inevitable corner. Trillion$ of easy money and credit created to goose asset markets is now spilling into the mainstream economy, jacking prices of goods and services higher.

Fed heads face a decision. Tighten monetary policy to tame inflation but tank financial markets. Or let inflation ride.

When push comes to shove (and it will), the Fed will choose door number two every time.

Green Light District

Red light
Yellow light 
Green light
Go
--Def Leppard

Hedge fund legend Paul Tudor Jones follows his compadre Stan Druckenmiller in discussing the recklessness of current Fed policy and its ramifications on his investment approach. He points out that the Fed is being way more aggressive now than in 2013 (QE time) when monetary policy backdrop was much more benign (i.e., friendlier toward being aggressive). 

With the economy heating up and employment much more in balance now--not to mention the trillion$ already dumped into the system over the past year in CV19 'relief,' there are glaring inconsistencies in current Fed actions.

He also notes that the Fed's mandate, at least as policymakers discuss it, has shifted completely away from inflation-related 'price stability' to focus exclusively on 'full employment.' Talk about mission creep.

Or mission migration...

Jones suggests that if the Fed does not signal that they are treating recent data indicating hotter inflation with seriousness, then he'll take it as 'a green light to bet heavily on every inflation trade.'  

The latest FOMC statement will be released this afternoon. What will the rhetoric suggest?

Spinning Intolerance

"We must pray that when your head's finished turning, your face is to the front again."
--Sir Thomas More (A Man for All Seasons)

A core principle of cultural Marxism is 'liberating tolerance.' The term was coined by Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse. As with most Marxist ideas, the concept turns reality upside down.

Classically defined, tolerance means being able to live with things you don't like. Marcuse posited that a classically 'tolerant' society would therefore validate or institutionalize things that are harmful and inhibit progress. 

To counter this 'repressive tolerance,' Marcuse espoused liberating tolerance. Liberating tolerance means tolerating ideas coming from sources deemed as 'correct,' while not tolerating ideas coming from sources deemed 'incorrect.' 

Guess who gets to deem correctness?

To cultural Marxists, then, censorship is quite welcome when applied to groups with 'incorrect' ideas. And can there be any doubt that we are witnessing precisely this? Hello Facebook, Twitter, et al...

Quite clearly, liberating tolerance is the definition of intolerance. Stated differently, liberating tolerance to counter repressive tolerance is... repressive intolerance.

Let's join Sir Thomas in a prayer for the spinning minds of the left.

Give God Everything

Balian of Ibelin: How much is Jerusalem worth?

Saladin: Nothing...everything!
--Kingdom of Heaven

In today's gospel (Matthew 22:15-21), Jesus is once again confronted by the Pharisees seeking to trick Him. Like today's intellectuals, the Pharisees sought to trap people in their words.

Approaching Jesus with Roman representatives in tow, the Pharisees asked Jesus opinion about the lawfulness of paying taxes to Caesar.

Jesus reprimanded them for being the hypocrites that they were, and then asked to see a Roman coin. "Whose image is this?" Christ asked. "Caesar's," they said.

"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

Today many people, modern day Pharisees assuredly, hold up this passage as proof that Jesus condoned taxation and statism.

No way. Christ understood the sticky situation that he was in and that he needed to choose his words carefully.

To His followers, Christs words are easily construed to mean this: Give nothing to the state that it does not rightfully own (which is very little, if anything). Give everything that you own to God.

Contextual Rot

"You're dead, son. Get yourself buried."
--J.J. Hunsecker (Sweet Smell of Success)

A classic practice of shyster journalism is to interview a target that you want to blacken, collect pages of conversation from him/her, and then cut and past small snippets out of the original context to fit your very different context.

Clay Travis demonstrates here. Out of 28 pages of interview quotes, the Washington Post writer hell bent on producing a hit piece selected 94 words to fit his narrative.

Yesterday the Washington Post published a front page hit piece on me in their sports section with many wildly out of context quotes. But I recorded the interview & today I’m publishing the transcript. Get your popcorn. This is what destruction looks like: https://t.co/50T1C3xYwM

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 4, 2020

As Travis observes, many people don't have the resources to defend themselves against media ambush. Fortunately Travis does.

If the Washington Post will take my quotes wildly out of context in an effort to make me look bad, how many other people who don’t own their own media companies do they do this to daily? Go read this. And share it. Widely: https://t.co/50T1C3xYwM

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 4, 2020

We're all fortunate, really, since Travis is willing to endure discomfort to expose contextual media rot.