Isolate the Virus? — Interest Rates Rise — Peak Totalitarianism — Crimes Against Humanity [12-19-2021]
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THIS WEEK’S EDITORIAL
ISOLATE A VIRUS OR IDENTIFY IT? This issue is raging on the Internet. Much confusion abounds. Has the virus “been isolated”? You can “isolate” and “purify” a tree back to its pure major element Carbon by burning it. It then becomes a burned out piece of carbon but NO ONE will call it a tree. It is called a “black stump”. On that basis, you could say that “trees therefore don’t exist” because they can’t be “isolated”. This is the logic of the “Viruses don’t exist” argument. You could say the same for Human Beings.
CENTRAL BANKS RAISE RATES AS INFLATION HITS: Recently, some central banks have raised their overnight interest rates to deal with what most are calling “rising but transitory CPI inflation”. Let’s look at the changes over just the last 10 days — Peru’s central bank raised its key interest rate for the fifth month in a row to 2.5 %. The nation’s current annual inflation rate is at 5.66 %. Twelve months ago, it was 2 %.
Pakistan’s central bank raised its monetary policy rate for the third month to 9.75%. Their inflation rate is now at 11.5 %. However, two years ago, it was above 14 %.
Hungary’s central bank raised its key interest rates for the 7th time this year and said it will “continue the cycle of interest rate hikes until the outlook for inflation stabilizes”. Hungary’s inflation rate is at 7.4 % after being 2.7 % twelve months ago
Chile’s central bank raised its key main interest rate for the fourth time to 4.0 % and said it expects the rate will continue to be increased in order to fight future inflation rate rises. The inflation rate has doubled over the last 12 months from 3.1 % to the current level of 6.7 %.
Norway’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate for the second time this year to 0.5 %. They said that rates would “most likely” rise again in March next year. Their inflation rate is now at 5.1 % and has also doubled over the last 12 months.
The Big Kahuna of central banks, the US Federal Reserve, left its key interest rate unchanged at 0.25 % but tightened its monetary policy stance for the second month in a row by lowering the amount of monthly bond purchases in their QE program. It also indicated that up to three interest rate rises were likely next year. They dropped the word “transitory” to describe inflation pressures. However, BOOM thinks that this is a cosmetic change only to their language.
In a big surprise move, the UK’s central bank, the Bank of England, raised its key rate from 0.1 % to 0.25 % — a net increase of only 0.15 %. There are reports of a severe deterioration in the economic outlook for the UK with the arrival of Omicron triggering a collapse in consumer confidence. That is no surprise to BOOM. But their chief economist indicated in an interview that more rate rises were likely in future to tame rising inflationary pressures. Over the last 12 months their annual inflation rate has risen from 0.7 % to 5.1 %.
The European Central Bank also said on Thursday that it would scale back its multi-trillion Euro Quantitative Easing economic stimulation package.
The UK stock market index, the FTSE 100, rose strongly in response to the UK central bank facing reality. But in a reaction to all of this global uncertainty, the US Dow stock index fell hard by 1.48 % on big volume on Friday. The S & P index fell by 1.03 %. The Nasdaq index held buyers interest and fell by only 0.07 %.
STAGFLATION COMES TO THE UK AS PREDICTED — PEAK TOTALITARIANISM: BOOM warned readers about the dire UK outlook three months ago in the editorial on October 23rd with the Headline INFLATION IN THE UK — NOT TRANSITORY — STAGFLATION HITS.
BOOM wrote “it is clear that the UK economy is suffering from significant CPI inflationary pressures that are showing no signs of stabilization (unlike the US)“. And then summed up the whole UK economic outlook by stating “the UK is seeing CPI inflation that does not look like it is transitory at the same time as the supply of fresh new money is not being put to productive use in the real economy. Money is stagnating in the financial system instead. That starts to strongly suggest STAGFLATION in BOOM’s assessment.“
BOOM also said then “Faith in Boris Johnson and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rushi Sunak, will soon begin a sharp decline — even more so than is the case already. It appears that Johnson has bungled just about everything as Prime Minister.“
Last Friday, Johnson’s Conservative Party got absolutely thrashed in the North Shropshire by-election by the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives have controlled that seat of Parliament for 200 years. People are fed up with the Covid “epidemic” which is certainly not a “Pandemic” and especially fed up with the politics of Fear and Control. Totalitarianism has peaked in the advanced economies and will soon go into a sharp decline.
OMICRON VARIANT PROBABLY NOT A PROBLEM: Evidence is rapidly mounting that the Omicron variant of Covid 19 is not dangerous but is very contagious. This means that it could rapidly spread throughout the world, outcompete the Delta variant and generate natural planetary herd immunity. If that happens, the Fear and Control political campaigns will come to a rapid end.’ Life After Covid’ can then begin. The “Pandemic” that never produced pandemic numbers of excess deaths in any nation will be put to rest. A distraction or a series of distractions will probably occur to move the political narrative on to another subject. That distraction will probably be a “terrorist” event somewhere in the US or EU or a natural event of serious consequence.
Omicron is resulting in hospital admissions well below the previous wave in South Africa, and needing much less intervention such as assisted ventilation or supplemental oxygen. Reporting from South African hospitals suggests that a higher percentage of positive tests are incidental with the Omicron variant, with patients often having no symptoms at all.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: Meanwhile, a legal team from the UK has filed a complaint with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands on December 6th, 2021. They are alleging crimes committed by UK government officials and international world leaders of various violations of the Nuremberg Code and Crimes Against Humanity.
A list of Perpetrators includes Boris Johnson, Christopher Whitty, Matthew Hancock, Sajid Javid, June Raine — all from the British Conservative Party Government. Others include Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, Tedros Ghebreyesus (World Health Organization), Albert Bourla (Pfizer), Stephane Bancel (Astra Zeneca), Pascal Soriot (Moderna), Alex Gorski (J & J), Dr Rajiv Shah (President of Rockefeller Foundation), Anthony Fauci (NIAID), Klaus Schwab (World Economic Forum) and Peter Daszak (Ecohealth Alliance).
The legal team is arguing that “based on the extensive claims and enclosed documentation, we charge those responsible for numerous violations of the Nuremberg Code, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression in the United Kingdom, but not limited to individuals in these countries”. FULL REPORT:
LOCKDOWN: The Line Dividing Good & Evil Short Video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWQ8iDizXlk
THE NFT ECOSYSTEM — NON FUNGIBLE TOKENS: If you have been following the world of Crypto (sounds like a movie), you will have become aware of the latest fad — NFTs — Non Fungible Tokens.
NFTs are digital assets that cryptographically represent the ownership of online items like digital art, music, collectibles and even online digital real estate. Such unique collectibles can be bought and sold online like any property, mainly using cryptocurrencies, but with no tangible form of their own. NFT transactions are logged on a blockchain ledger.
It is important to understand the concept of fungibility and non-fungibility.
Fungible assets are exchangeable assets that can be easily interchanged with one another. Their value is not defined by their uniqueness. For example, Bitcoin and US Dollars are exchangeable so both are fungible assets.
Non-Fungible assets are not interchangeable. Each one has its own unique properties and worth and is never equal in value or similar to another.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been around since 2014, but have boomed recently as they are becoming an increasingly popular way to buy, sell and store digital artwork. NFTs were initially developed for use on the Ethereum blockchain, the first to support NFTs. However, other blockchains can be used to support NFTs. Blockchain transactions are immutable so they provide a secure history of ownership and current ownership — called Provenance in the art world. You can start your research by checking out the Cryptos called Avalanche, Solana and Tezos. BOOM is watching the NFT world closely and will report more on this subject in future editorials.
In economics, things work until they don’t. Until next week ………… Make your own conclusions, do your own research. BOOM does not offer investment advice.
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*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Burning Platform can be found here ***