The two great cons of the 21st century …bitcoin and climate change part 2

Wednesday, 13 October 2021 — Gold Coast, Australia

[8 min read]

What is it with privileged white guys feeling the need to preach to the not so privileged?

As reported in yesterday’s UK Daily Mail (emphasis added):

‘Prince Charles has told the BBC he is shocked that Prime Minister Scott Morrison and other world leaders may not attend the upcoming Glasgow COP2G climate summit.

‘He said the world is in the “last chance saloon” for climate change action.

‘Speaking from the gardens of his Balmoral estate, Charles told the BBC that the world is facing a “disaster” and a “catastrophe”.’

With plum firmly in mouth and strolling leisurely through the gardens on his Balmoral estate, Charles proceeds to lecture us about the impending peril of climate change.

Seriously?
Charlie, the optics are not good. What’s the carbon footprint of your lifestyle? Landed estates. London palace. Private jets. Luxury yachts. Bentleys and Range Rovers.

You should stop taking advice from Prince Andrew’s PR people.

Charlie’s pontification is what’s so galling about the privileged champions of the climate con. None of them actually have to worry about the cost of these batsh*t crazy green schemes.

If household energy bills double, triple, or even quadruple, what’s it matter to them? That’s just chump change to this very well-heeled, woke clique.

But it’s a different story for the victims of this massive fraud…the average Joe and Josephine.

A few questions that remain unanswered

If renewables are so great, why can’t the investment proposition stand on its own two feet?

Why does it require trillions of printed dollars to make them ‘cost-competitive’ with fossil fuels?

Why isn’t there full disclosure on the green investments held directly or indirectly by the high-profile climate spruikers?

Then we could follow the money trail and find out who the beneficiaries of the taxpayer-funded grants and subsidies really are?

What’s Obama or Gore or Gates or others in the Davos inner circle invested in?

Given Hunter Biden’s track record on dubious deals, it’d be good to know if he (or related entities) has money invested in projects funded by the administration presided over by his inept and cognitively-challenged father.

How much is zero emissions going to cost in taxpayer subsidies, in rising energy costs, in higher taxes?

How much will all this headless-chook activity actually lower global temperatures by? Do we spend untold trillions lining the pockets of the insiders to maybe, just maybe, move the thermometer down by point something of a degree?

Why is the Earth being a little hotter all bad? There are now far less people dying from cold. Isn’t that a good thing?

One of the costs conveniently ignored by climate change zealots is the human cost.

Do the puppet masters of this fraud have a darker agenda?

Do they want less people polluting the Earth? The Earth they believe is theirs for the shaping and the taking.

No, that sounds too Machiavellian…going deep into conspiracy theory territory.

Instead, let’s just go with them being pig ignorant to the consequences of their zealotry.

The potential human cost

On 30 July, Reuters reported:

To quote from the article (emphasis added):

‘China is the world’s top exporter of phosphate, and shipped 3.2 million tonnes of diammonium phosphate fertiliser in the first half of this year to major buyers such as India and Pakistan as well as 2.4 million tonnes of urea, according to customs data.

‘…analysts said they expected state-owned firms such as Sinofert Holdings Ltd, Sinoagri Group, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) and China National Coal Group to be among those curbing exports.

‘The move is the latest by Beijing to tackle soaring prices of major raw materials.

‘Fertiliser prices in China have hit records this year amid stronger demand from overseas, lower production domestically and high energy costs.’

Fertiliser is hugely important in the production of food grown at scale.

And in case the climate changers haven’t joined the dots, food is hugely important in sustaining human life.

China’s suspension of fertiliser exports — due to soaring raw material costs — could pose a serious threat to food supplies in countries that can ill afford to endure such hardship.

What are the raw materials that go into making fertilisers?

To quote from Fertilizers Europe (emphasis added):

‘For nitrogen-based fertilizers, the largest product group, the process starts by mixing nitrogen from the air with hydrogen from natural gas at high temperature and pressure to create ammonia. Approximately 60% of the natural gas is used as raw material, with the remainder employed to power the synthesis process.

‘Phosphorus-based fertilizers are produced from mined ores. Phosphate rock is primarily treated with sulphuric acid to produce phosphoric acid, which is either concentrated or mixed with ammonia to make a range of phosphate (P2O5) fertilizers.’

Making fertiliser not only requires raw materials, it also consumes energy:

But let’s focus on what’s happening with the raw materials.

The price of natural gas has risen significantly since early 2020:

Likewise, the cost of rock phosphate has also risen:

These price hikes are a consequence of demonising fossil fuels…ban coal mining, no more drilling for natural gas, cut oil production.

With the political class kowtowing to their puppet masters, we end up with this sort of lunacy (emphasis added):

‘…the overwhelming effect of many changes proposed by the new [Biden] administration proposes will be to discourage, through extensive regulation, all forms of domestic mineral development and extraction. The new and revised regulatory framework will have the effect of:

Thomson Reuters Practical Law Publication, 1 April 2021

This obstructionist approach to providing us with cost-effective resources is not isolated to the US. You’ll find the same madness in Europe, the UK, and even in our own states here in Oz.

With the mining industry being subjected to such blatant legislative sabotage, is it any wonder we are now seeing headlines like this from The Washington Post on 9 October:

The grave (literally and figuratively) danger that should be front and centre for all of us, is this one.

Bloomberg on 9 October:

Rich people — with their ‘let-them-eat-cake’ mentality — can afford to pay higher food prices.

Why should they care? They can continue NOT practicing what they preach, while making a motza from their (taxpayer-subsidised) green energy investments.

But what about your average Joe and Josephine households and their kids? Will they be forced to buy filler food with poor nutritional value? Will they suffer the indignity of going cap in hand to charities? Or will they simply go without? What will happen in poorer countries…has this mind-blowingly dumb green agenda unintentionally condemned thousands or maybe even millions to death by starvation?

When you join just some of the dots of this climate change con, it’s difficult to contain the disgust you feel for those perpetrating this fraud.

Shame on them.

However, my guess is all this zero-emissions rubbish will be off the agenda in a year or two.

Why?

For the same reason Kevin 07’s great moral challenge fizzled in 2008/09.

Households faced an even bigger and more immediate challenge…a credit crisis.

When jobs are lost, property prices fall, superannuation accounts go deep in the red, pension funds are technically insolvent, businesses file for bankruptcy, people lose their jobs…self-interest takes hold. Let’s forget about saving the world, how about we focus on saving ourselves.

Rising energy and food bills will not sit well with a society feeling less wealthy. Containment of social uprisings will become the political imperative. Barriers to mining will be lifted.

When the ‘everything bubble’ finally meets its pin, it’ll draw the curtain on the two biggest cons of the 21st century: climate change and cryptos.

Regards,

Vern Gowdie,
Editor, The Rum Rebellion

Vern is also the Editor of The Gowdie Letter and The Gowdie Advisory — investment services designed to help everyday Australians avoid the financial pitfalls of a volatile economy and make informed decisions to grow their wealth for generations to come.

Predictably…Ms Janet Yellen was at the top of the news cycle yesterday.

Portrayed in the media as the ‘voice of reason’…she is doing the same job as Secretary of the Treasury as she once did as head of the Federal Reserve.

Ms Yellen has spent her whole career in academia or government. She has no direct experience with a real economy…or the banking industry…or Wall Street. She never met a payroll. And never had to satisfy a customer.

Widely regarded as ‘one of the most influential women in the world,’ she is using her influence, as she always has…shilling for the Deep State elite. Business Insider reports ‘Treasury Secretary Yellen says she wants to get rid of the debt ceiling as McConnell threatens another default standoff in 2 months’:

‘“I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement,” he wrote to Biden.

‘The US just barely avoided breaching the debt ceiling and defaulting on the national debt in October, and two of the main players are sounding different tunes on the future. Republicans are already firing warning shots about another fight coming in just two months, while some Democrats are eyeing ways to defuse the GOP’s increasing use of the debt ceiling as a political grenade.

‘Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reaffirmed her support of getting rid of the debt ceiling on Sunday, only days after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that Senate Republicans will have another debt-ceiling fight in December. His efforts to derail President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda could risk a first-ever default on the national debt.’

Remove the debt ceiling

In the absence of real money, the feds no longer have to ask the voters…or lenders…for more money; they can ‘print’ as much fake money as they want.

And the dead horse we’ve been beating here in the Diary is simply that both parties are in on this scam. Both gain from the printing press money. Neither really wants it to stop.

Now, with debts soaring — the official estimate calls for US$13 trillion of new federal debt over the next 10 years; it will surely be much more than that — the last thing the elite wants is something that could get in the way of more debt — a debt ceiling.

That is why Ms Yellen, with the approval of almost the entire elite establishment, wants to do away with it.

Pre-emptive measures

The trouble with printing press money is that it distorts and destroys the real economy. As the amount of ‘money’ goes up, actual wealth — goods and services, measured by GDP growth — goes down.

Since 2000, the Fed has increased its core (money supply) holdings by more than 20 times. But GDP growth has been cut in half. From 1950­ to 1999, real GDP growth averaged 3.6% per year. From 2000 to 2020, it has averaged 1.8%.

The new money shows up first in higher stock and bond prices (because the Fed buys bonds in order to push down interest rates…and finance the government’s excess spending).

Later, it shows up in consumer prices. And by the look of things, ‘later’ is coming soon. Here’s The Wall Street Journal, ‘Oil Jumps Above $80, Turbocharged by Supply Shortages’:

‘The extended climb in oil prices is leaving some other industrial commodities behind, a divergence that reflects bets that energy supply shortages will offset any slowdown in the global economy.

‘U.S. crude rose 1.5% to $80.52 a barrel on Monday, closing above $80 for the first time since late in 2014 and bringing its climb since the end of last October to 125%.’

Goldman Sachs is planning for US$90 per barrel oil by the end of the year. And Ms Yellen is looking ahead.

As consumer prices rise, consumers are going to get restless. And they’re going to put pressure on their representatives to ‘stop the steal’ of their money via inflation.

At some point, when another debt ceiling hike is needed…they might even balk.

Better to get rid of the debt ceiling threat now.

No escape

Ms Yellen is also pushing a ‘global minimum’ tax rate for corporations. The US rate is currently 21%. Ireland, meanwhile, has a 12.5% rate. In Ms Yellen’s eyes, the Irish are getting away with something. Here’s Bloomberg…‘Yellen Confident Global Tax Deal Will See Passage in Congress’:

‘U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed confidence Sunday that Congress will agree to a global minimum tax deal reached by 136 countries.’

Ireland has become the second-richest nation in Europe (based on GDP per capita), thanks largely to two things: its low corporate tax rate and its membership of the European Union. What exactly are the Irish getting away with by not taxing corporate profits heavily?

In the US itself, states compete with each other to lure voters and industries. Based on U-Haul data, people in the US are moving from the high-tax, high-cost ‘blue’ states to the more relaxed, lower-tax ‘red’ states.

It’s harder for people to move from country to country, but there is no doubt that many of the fastest-growing, most profitable businesses in the world set themselves up in Ireland to take advantage of the lower corporate tax rate.

Cut off their feet

As long as governments — state and national — have to compete with each other, politicians can’t raise taxes too much, or make themselves too disagreeable. People will ‘vote with their feet’…and leave.

What Ms Yellen is looking for — both in eliminating the debt ceiling…and equalising tax rates — is to cut off their feet.

The two measures will make it easier for the elite to tax, spend, and print…while leaving the public to crawl on its knees, looking for a way out.

Where does this lead? Tune in tomorrow…

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For The Rum Rebellion