The End of the US Dollar as We Know It

 

For years I have written articles explaining how the US dollar and financial system is in a state of crisis and a collapse is inevitable—as early as 2016. Although I didn’t say it, I believed the collapse would occur in 2015. I was wrong and could be wrong again. However, a rapidly growing number of highly respected financial individuals and firms are saying the same thing, so I guess I am in good company. One of those institutions is Stansberry Research, whose founder has had an enviable record of forecasting major financial events.

 

The world has been on a spending binge by going into debt. That includes the US. Consider that:

·        In the six months that have passed since then-retiring House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut a budget deal with President Barack Obama that suspended the legal limit on the federal debt until March 15, 2017, the federal debt has increased by more than $1 trillion.

 

·        It took the US 216 years to create the first $8.5 trillion in debt... then just 8 more years to double that amount.

 

·        The US National Debt, now at $19.26 trillion, is on schedule to nearly double during the Obama administration. 

·        If you include local, state, corporate and personal debt, Stansberry warns that our total debt is an unbelievable $65 trillion, up from $55 trillion in 2009.

·       Even more alarming is the realization that the Federal Reserve (Fed) is buying up to 70 percent of US Treasury Bonds with money it created out of thin air. That’s like loaning yourself a million dollars that you don’t have and never will.

  ·   Consider that the Fed literally increased the dollar money supply by 400 percent since 2006—again out of thin air. The adjacent graph shows what has taken place over the past few years with the U.S. dollar is something straight out of Weimar Germany... or the last 20 years in Zimbabwe

  ·   The number of families on food stamps has essentially doubled during the Obama administration.

  ·     Roughly 75% of all Americans live from paycheck to paycheck with essentially no savings.

  ·    “We're looking at a collapse in corporate bonds” claims Stansberry, “plummeting oil and commodity prices.”

·       Research shows the "too big to fail" banks, the top five largest financial institutions (the ones that were bailed out in 2008), are now 25% bigger than they were back then, and more dangerous than ever.

·       Private businesses have taken on more debt than any time in the past 12 years, and an incredible 863 companies that have had their credit rating downgraded last year... the most since 2009.

·       Globally since 2009 world debt has increased by $57 trillion. Twenty years ago global debt of the G20 was $40 trillion. It skyrocketed to $230 trillion today—nearly an 800 percent increase.

·    In recent months Stansberry has seen nearly $8 trillion disappear from world stock markets... and a whopping 70% of investors lost money in 2015. Even Warren Buffett lost $11 billion dollars.  

Lear Capital has been warning for more than a year that “something big” is about to happen. They provide a list of banks and financial institutions that are stockpiling massive amounts of gold and silver while telling their customers that investing in precious metals is not a good idea. Goldman Sachs and HSBC have both stockpiled 7.1 tons of gold by mid-summer, 2015. At $1268 per ounce (price on May 9, 2016), 7.1 tons is $263 million.

This is only a small part of the suicide cliff the US is racing towards. How did it happen? Stansberry states the obvious: “This is what happens when our government embarks on a gross, out-of-control experiment, expanding the money supply 400% in just six years, and more than doubling our national debt since 2006.”

American citizens may not know the details of the rot our politicians of both political parties have put us in. However, they know the ‘establishment’ is guilty of something massive. It is no wonder why the American people are rejecting ‘establishment’ candidates in this year’s presidential election.

Assuming Clinton and Trump will be the two candidates in the general election, which one would do better in minimizing the horrible consequences of a collapsing dollar and economy? Clinton seems more interested in women’s rights and big government, but has little experience dealing with hard financial issues. Trump has experience in business related financial issues but is constantly changing his mind on key problems impacting the nation. He has the best chance of getting the nation through this financial crisis, if he would stay on one path and not personally demonize those who disagree with him.

This is the choice you have. Choose wisely.

Michael Coffman, Ph.D.

Shocker: NASA and Columbia University Admitting CO2 has Benefits

NASA's depiction of the relative increase in earth's greening.
Notice that the Western US has greened by up to 50 percent.
Click on graphic to go to NASA article with larger picture.

For several decades now skeptics of man-caused (anthropogenic) global warming has a “fertilization” effect—it causes plants to grow faster and produce more leaves. Thousands of small enclosure experiments have shown this. However, global warming alarmists have ignored these research studies by claiming that increased disease, insects, drought, heat waves and other large-scale environmental downsides could negate the CO2 benefits. This has given the UN IPCC an excuse to ignore the benefits of CO2. Until now.

A new study published in Nature Climate Change on April 25, 2016 has blown this excuse out of the water and forced universities such as Columbia to acknowledge that CO2 does have real-world benefits. NASA agrees with them. The study involved 32 authors from 24 institutions collaborating with NASA to determine “leaf area index” for the past 35 years. Leaf area index is a relative index of the amount of leaf area in a particular location. The results are stunning as can be seen in the graphic at the top of the page.

The study revealed that 25-50 percent of the earth has experienced greening, of which at least 70 percent is attributed to increased CO2 in the form of CO2 fertilization. NASA puts this into perspective; “The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.” In the U.S., the most stunning revelation is that the arid Western U.S. has shown up to a 50 percent increase in leaf area index. Why? The answer to this is found in another research study also reported in the same issue of Nature Climate Change.

Plants use water more efficiently with higher CO2

Columbia University reports a study published in Nature Climate Change involving 16 researchers from a half-dozen countries on the effects of CO2 on water-use efficiency with different temperatures and drought conditions. Prior small enclosure studies have shown that plants (and crops) exposed to higher levels of CO2 grow better in high temperature or drought conditions than those exposed to “ambient” (normal) levels of CO2. However, like the greening effect discussed above, proponents of CO2 “is an evil gas” did not want to hear this and developed a host of reasons why these results should be ignored. Hence, the IPCC and other promoters of man-caused global warming have ignored the benefits.

The current study undercuts those alarmists that have buried their heads in the sand. They have ignored the positive results of CO2 in helping plants to grow faster in higher temperature or drought conditions. This study not only reviewed decades of small enclosure studies, but also included emerging results from entire farm-field studies:

Based on the current biomass of these crops, water-use efficiency would rise an average of 27 percent in wheat; 18 percent in soybeans; 13 percent in maize; and 10 percent in rice. All things considered, the study projects that average yields of current rain-fed wheat areas (mostly located in higher latitudes including the United States, Canada and Europe), might go up by almost 10 percent, while consumption of water would go down a corresponding amount.

Imagine that. Crops would actually increase in biomass and food production with elevated CO2—something we have known for decades, but denied by politically correct, agenda driven politics. Even so, the study also found that irrigated wheat in China and India declined by 4 percent (perhaps a case of too much water?) and more study is needed for other crops.

While it is refreshing that an ultra-liberal university like Columbia finally acknowledges that CO2 can be beneficial, a disclaimer had to be written. Lead author Delphine Deryng, an environmental scientist at Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the University of Chicago’s Computation Institute dutifully cautions that the study should not be interpreted to mean that increasing carbon dioxide is a friend to humanity–only that its direct effects must be included in any calculation of what the future holds. Such a disclaimer makes the team eligible for the next $100,000 plus grant.

The point is that the politically correct UN, federal agencies and scientists have repressed this good news for decades in order for them to advance their agenda. That agenda includes income redistribution to developing nations and, more importantly, world government by controlling manufacturing and the economies of entire nations by controlling CO2 emissions. We in the USA have a chance of stopping this in our November elections. Vote wisely.

Inevitable: Progressive AG’s Attempt to Use RICO to Punish Global Warming Skeptics

New York Attorney General  Eric Schneiderman is leading an effort by 16 Progressive Democrat AGs to somehow use RICO to prosecute companies and individuals on fraud charges who are Global Warming Skeptics.

   Over the past three decades Democrat progressives have increasingly attacked anyone who disagreed with them, calling them Nazis’, climate criminals, cults and other, even more, atrocious names. In their hatred they have demonstrated that they want to shut down all dissenting discourse, effectively denying the First Amendment of free speech to those they don’t believe deserve it. Until now, however, state and Federal Attorney Generals have steered clear of prosecuting skeptics on criminal charges. That has now changed.

   This jaw-dropping phenomenon includes Senators Eric Schneiderman, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and sixteen of the eighteen progressive state Democrat Attorney Generals. The AGs call themselves “AGs United for Clean Power.” They are searching for evidence to punish Exxon-Mobil, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and as yet undisclosed organizations and corporations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. This, in spite of the fact there is zero evidence of criminal activity to justify it. It is raw intimidation of the type that is typically common in tyrannical governments.

   New York AG Eric Schneiderman brazenly declared that if companies are “committing fraud…we want to expose it and pursue them to the fullest extent of the law” using RICO. He then pontificated “The First Amendment does not give you the right to commit fraud.”
 
   Schneiderman should be careful of his inane outbursts. If anyone should be under RICO investigation it should be the federal government. Almost all the claims and horror stories put out as headlines by NOAA, NASA, EPA and other agencies are wrong. Just to mention a one, the earth has not warmed significantly in 19 years. That’s as long as these agencies said was warming from 1979 to 1998. Even the warm 2016 February had nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with a very strong El Niño, which by the way is now collapsing. Expect much cooler temperatures in the near future. El Niño’s have been occurring as far back as records go.

   In addition, The number of hurricanes and tornadoes is actually down the past 10 years. The coral reefs have recovered from the last strong El Niño in 1998. Claims that the sea level is rising at record levels is also false. It is still rising at the same level as has occurred the past 200 years. It used to be the alarmists at least tried to use data that support their end-of-earth claims, but they don’t even do that anymore. Obama’s 2014 eight-hundred page National Climate Assessment is mainly propaganda, hyperbole and misrepresentation of scientific facts that only occasionally connect to the facts.

    But none of that fazes these progressive Democrat attorney generals. One of the more extremist AG’s from the Virgin Islands, Claude Walker grossly committed an abuse of power by subpoenaing the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) for all their emails, records, reports and donors from 1997 to 2007 by the end of April. This is, of course, impossible which will leave CEI in contempt of court and subject to enormous fines.  The subpoena was part of a consortium of radical environmental groups funded by one of the numerous Rockefeller foundations.

The 21 children ages 8 to 19 that filed a federal lawsuit

claiming their Constitutional rights were violated by global

warming.

 That’s not all. In a stunning decision reported by Forbes, Judge Thomas Collins of the US Federal District Court of Eugene, Oregon ruled that for the first time twenty-one children 8 to 19 were granted permission to sue the US and the fossil fuel industry. The lawsuit claims the federal government has known for decades that when used, fossil fuels emit CO2 which is a greenhouse gas. This, according to the suit is a violation of the Plaintiff’s Constitutional and public trust rights.

   Not only is this a false assumption, how could this judge rule in this way knowing that children have little experience in making valid decisions and are notoriously open to false suggestions?  It borders on child abuse. If the court ever found for the children, how would it be implemented? The US accounts for only a part of the CO2 emissions. Far more is emitted by China and Indonesia. Both are building a new coal-fired generation plant almost every week. Would the US have to sue these and other nations? Would we go to war with China? The case is absurd and opens an unbelievable can of worms.

   It is clear that these AGs intend to use taxpayer resources and the justice system to harass, investigate, intimidate, terrorize, and potentially prosecute or even jail global-warming skeptics. Progressives in the US have long salivated over the hope of eventually using the power of the federal government to squash anyone who disagrees with their unworkable, destructive ideology. We have the opportunity of replacing progressives at all levels of government in November. It’s up to all of us to take advantage of it.

Michael Coffman, Ph.D.

Europe Is Meeting Carbon Reductions by Killing Citizens and Destroying Industry

The elderly suffer the most from the high cost of green electricity. Source: Unknown 

 

  For years I have been warning that Europe’s carbon reduction is going to result in an unmitigated disaster. That day has come. The death toll is skyrocketing in Europe. Forty thousand elderly and poor actually died in 2014, at least half because their power was turned off or they just kept their homes cold because they couldn’t afford the electricity. The culprit; energy poverty. Energy poverty is created when the cost of energy exceeds 10 percent of the household income for heat alone. That doesn’t include lights, refrigerator, washer and dryer, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, television, computer, or anything else–just home heating, just in the months when it’s required. That has forced many of the poor and elderly have to decide whether to eat or be warm.

  Professor Dame Sally Davies, England’s Department of Health’s chief medical officer, said “Excess deaths are not just deaths of those who would have died anyway in the next few weeks or months due to illness or old age. There is strong evidence some of these deaths are indeed “extra” and are related to cold temperatures, living in cold homes as well as infectious diseases such as influenza.”

  Germany’s Focus wrote: “In 2014 Europe suffered about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills – the so-called energy poverty currently impacts about ten percent of all Europeans. In the past 8 years the price of electricity in Europe has climbed by an average of 42 percent.” (bold original) In Bulgaria people see half of their income gobbled up by energy costs alone. In Spain 28 percent of the citizens live in “energy poverty”. In Germany 7 million households are considered to be living in “energy poverty”.

A comparison of electricity costs from developed nations worldwide. Note that the US has the lowest rate in this comparison, which should make it highly competitive. However, China subsidizes its heavy industry making it the largest steel and aluminum manufacture in the world. 

 

  Overall, Focus reports that ten percent of Europe now lives in energy poverty. Environmentalists have made coal and nuclear power into evil words in Europe, just as they have in the US. In Germany, however, Chancellor Angela Merkel was pressured by environmentalists to shutter all nuclear plants following the Fukushima meltdown in Japan. At the time 35 percent of German power came from these nuclear plants. By 2016 it had been slashed to about 14 percent. It will be phased out entirely by 2022. Energy is becoming a luxury in Europe.

  The production of green energy is grossly inefficient. The Internet news source Handelblatt notes that “The inefficiency is shocking: the renewable energy produced by €25 billion ($28.5 billion) in electricity-bill surcharges this year will only be worth €3.6 billion ($4.3 billion) on the market, according to the economics ministry.” That means people and companies will be charged €25 billion ($28.5 billion) in electrical surcharges that would only cost €3.6 billion ($4.3 billion) using fossil fuels and nuclear. Because of the incredible inefficiency of green power, E.ON and RWE, German’s biggest electrical producers, have to keep their fossil fuel and nuclear power plants going to instantly fill in the loss of green power when the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind stops blowing. Environmentalists know this, but they don’t care as long as they get their coveted green energy.

  The transition to green energy has been devastating. Handelblatt reports that 32,000 jobs have been lost in just two utilities; E.ON and RWE. Thousands more have been lost in the supply chain. Together, both companies have lost 76 percent of their stock value. Of course, local communities supporting the utilities have also been decimated. All at the holy alter of green energy.

Heavy industry is being destroyed in Europe because of the high cost of green electricity. Source: edie.net.

 

  The catastrophe has not been confined to Germany and mainland Europe. England suffered a major shock when England’s largest steel producer, Tata Steel, announced it was selling its entire production facility in Port Talbot. While the lousy economy and cheap Chinese steel account for some of the losses the company faces, the increased electricity costs also plays a big role. The increase in electricity tariffs and alternative energy charges for energy intensive industries is now £390 million ($555 million) annually and climbing.

  These energy intensive industries provide about 600,000 jobs and £52 billion ($74 billion) to England’s economy. England’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is working to provide its energy intensive industry an exemption from tariffs and add-on energy renewable costs. So far no plan as to how to make up the economic losses to the government by the exemption has been revealed.

  That, however, may be the least of the government’s concerns. There has been a quiet, but steady investment migration of industry from Europe to other nations like the US where energy is still cheap. The loss of industry will eventually gut the economy of Europe. But the socialists and greenies in Europe really do believe that green energy will eventually pay for itself, ushering in an era of utopia. Additionally, if the huge death toll of the elderly and poor continues because of energy poverty, the current government may be the victim of a voter revolt.

  Environmentalists are not the friend of people. They suffer from some sort of psychosis that blinds them to the enormous destruction they are causing. It is becoming obvious to anyone who has eyes. What they are doing is utterly evil. The enormous political clout they have in the Western World must be neutralized before they send us back to the dark ages.

 

Michael Coffman, Ph.D.

The Road to Regulatory Tyranny II

 

Most citizens are shocked to find out that federal regulations cost our economy nearly an estimated $1.9 trillion annually. That's 11% of the US gross domestic product. It's a huge drag on our entire economy. This is one more reason why it is important to vote wisely this election cycle.

The greatest hit comes from environmental ($386 billion), economic ($399 billion) and tax compliance ($316 billion); areas that impact every person and business in America. To be sure some regulations are necessary and needed. However, these needed regulations are but a small portion of those that actually necessary and needed. Most regulations, however, are lawless (unconstitutional according to original intent), allowing federal agencies the ability to abuse citizens in their jurisdiction.

The information comes from Ten Thousand Commandments, an annual in-depth report on federal regulation by Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Before you continue reading be sure to take your blood pressure medication. A couple of aspirin wouldn't hurt either.

Lest you think this doesn't pertain to you, the study found that if your family is average, your family's share is $14,976, or 29% of the $51,000 expenditures you make every year. That's only slightly less than the $17,148 your family pays annually for your mortgage and maintenance of your home.

Regulations are a hidden tax that falls on everyone, but especially heaviest on the poor. If you never seem to get ahead of the game, it's probably because of the huge regulatory cost making everything much more expensive. Take for instance, small business. In 2014 Congress passed 224 laws (and you thought it was a do-nothing Congress) that were then used by unelected federal bureaucrats to impose 3,554 “final rules” found within 77,687 pages of the Federal Register. Those "final rules" essentially become the law.

If that doesn't overwhelm you, there have been 90,836 final rules since 1993. Worse, the agencies publish 24,000 public notices annually, usually buried in the back of the newspaper somewhere where those impacted won’t find them. Big companies have a bevy of lawyers to keep up with the myriad of new rules. But a small business can't afford that.

Small businesses may not even know about a destructive "final rule" until a zealous agency enforcer or informer rats on them and the business suddenly finds itself out of conformance facing penalties of tens of thousands of dollars a day. Many go out of business, along with the jobs they provide. If they manage to stay in business these companies pass the cost onto the consumer, increasing the cost of living.

There is a benefit to federal agencies promulgating thousands of final rules every year. There is rarely any oversight. Very few of the final rules are accompanied by a cost-benefit analysis. Even if there is, the benefits of the final rules are greatly exaggerated; often by orders of magnitude larger than justified. The examples are legion, yet the agencies are rarely challenged.

Writing for CFACT Paul Driesson states, "Many [rules] are supported only by 'homogenized,' manipulated data; elaborate, imaginative or imaginary regulatory benefits; cavalier dismissal of costs; and no mention of benefits from the activity, chemical, energy source, industry or jobs being regulated, sometimes into oblivion." Obama's War on Coal is a good example. (See the previous blog)

During the Obama administration it has become the rule for agencies to grab as much power as possible; making examples of individuals and businesses as part of the process. If their overreach is challenged in court, and they lose, so what? It is your money they are spending. In the meantime the agency lives to create three new rules for the one they lost in court. It is lawless tyranny.

The Road to Regulatory Tyranny I

By 2015, 33 percent of coal production was shut down. Some of that was due to the natural gas phenomenon quickly taking a huge market share and less was due to alternative energy. There is no question, however, that the calloused/special interest regulations implemented by the EPA have had a devastating impact. Source: Steamboattoday.com

During testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 22, 2016, EPA head Gina McCarthy made a stunning admission. “I think sir, we see it (crippling the coal industry) as having had enormous benefit in showing sort of domestic leadership as well as garnering support around the country for the agreement we reached in Paris.” (Italics and underlining added for emphasis)

Surface mining of clean, low-sulphur coal in the western states is also at risk. Source: Wyomingmining.org

Rep David McKinley (R-WV) shot back that the nations are NOT following the US’s lead, but are greatly expanding their construction of coal-fired plants, especially China, India, and Indonesia. Several European nations can be thrown into the mix as well. Worse, McKinley challenged her with the fact that even if the US demolished every coal-fired power producer in America, it would only reduce the US CO2 emissions by 0.2%, which isn’t even measureable. McCarthy never challenged McKinley’s assertion that the destruction of the coal industry would have no effect on CO₂ emissions.

McKinley retorted, "If we terminate two-tenths, but the other nations of China and India are going to way more than make up for that loss, is it worth it to our economy to put all our people in our coal companies out of work for something that's not measurable? (Italics added) Unfazed, McCarthy shot back, "I'm really trying to keep my eye on my job, which is to try to reduce pollution."

It is obvious that McCarthy could care less about facts and people as long as the EPA becomes more powerful and that real or imagined pollution is stopped no matter who is hurt or destroyed.

Until recently, the US produced 40% or more from coal. In their war on coal, McCarthy and Obama have eliminated 33% of that already. The Washington Post reports a study that identifies nearly 50,000 jobs lost in the coal industry by 2015. The natural gas energy segment has added even more jobs and is likely responsible for the shutdown of the less profitable coal mines.

It is one thing for jobs to be lost through valid competition. It is quite another for the government to deliberately destroy them. Some coal workers have probably been able to find jobs in the natural gas industry, but many have not. These jobs require skills that are not naturally in a coal miners/processor’s experience. What are these former coal workers supposed to do? They have only minimal skills in other work areas and the federal retraining classes have proved pretty much worthless in most cases.

When a powerful agency has a heart of stone and a fixation on stopping something with little to no hard scientific evidence to back them up, tyranny results and people’s lives are destroyed.

NOAA's Climate Data does not support it's doomsday proclamations

Five-year averaged values of annual mean (1979-2015) global bulk (termed “midtropospheric” or “MT”) temperature as depicted by the average of 102 IPCC CMIP5 climate models (red), the average of 3 satellite datasets (green - UAH, RSS, NOAA) and 4 balloon datasets (blue, NOAA, UKMet, RICH, RAOBCORE).

On February 2, 2016 Dr. John Christy, a leading climate scientist, gave testimony before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Committee. In it he presented peer-reviewed research on the datasets used by NOAA. These data don’t support the fear-laden pronouncements of global doom if we don’t stop carbon emissions. It is stunning. You can download the testimony here or by clicking on the graphic above.

Areal fraction of conterminous U.S. under very wet (blue) or very dry (red) conditions. NOAA/NCEI.

The figure above clearly shows the computer models are grossly over estimating past warming (and therefore future warming) compared to real-world satellite and balloon temperature measurements. The correlation between satellite and balloon data is highly significant with a correlation of 98 percent. The climate model projects a temperature increase of 0.214^oC while the much more accurate satellite and balloon measurements only project 0.091^oC and 0.079^oC respectively. That’s less than 1^oC per century, much less (2.5 times less) than NOAA and the UN IPCC claim. Simply stated, the economy breaking solutions offered by president Obama and other leaders around the world are based on false science.    

That’s not all. Christy’s testimony is too long to review in this blog, but two other things stand out. First, as the 2nd figure shows, there has been no significant change in drought and flooding in the past 100 years. If anything, the frequency of drought and floods has declined since the late 1950s when global warming was happening.
 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, food production has not been affected as is claimed by warming alarmists. Says Christy: “It is a simple matter to find documentation of the ever-rising production of grains. One wonders about the Federal Council on Environmental Quality’s allegation that there has been “harm to agriculture” from human-induced climate change because when viewing the total growth in production, which appears to be accelerating, one would assume no “harm” has been done during a period of rising greenhouse gases.” Enough said for now. Read the entire set of testimonies here. It is worth your time.

Michael Coffman