Global Central Banks Are All-In: QE Running At Record $180 Billion Per Month (And Rising)

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The monetary policy beatings will continue until morale improves. Eight long years after monetary policy experimentation went extreme, Reuters reports the amount of QE stimulus being pumped into the world financial system has never been higher... and it's about to get bigger.

As Jamie McGeever reports, The European Central Bank and Bank of Japan are buying around $180 billion of assets a month, according to Deutsche Bank, a larger global total than at any point since 2009, even when the Federal Reserve's QE programme was in full flow.

 

And if market consensus proves accurate, that total is about to rise by billions more -- with the ECB, BOJ and even Bank of England all expected to expand their QE programmes soon to try and bolster fragile growth and lift stubbornly low inflation.

The $180 billion total is roughly split down the middle between the ECB and BOJ, according to Deutsche, and is measured on a rolling 12-month basis. But against GDP, Japan is the biggest 'loser'...

 

And that is why stock markets around the world have soared since February amid a collapse in everything fundamental...

 

Charts: Reuters, DB, and Bloomberg

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France’s Minister of the Interior Is Withholding All Security Camera Evidence of the Nice Truck Massacre and Demands that the Evidence be Destroyed

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France’s Minister of the Interior Is Withholding All Security Camera Evidence of the Nice Truck Massacre and Demands that the Evidence be Destroyed

Obviously, the real evidence does not support the concocted evidence and the official story.

The person who prepared this — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSNvvpI97M — is a bit crude in his language, but his point is nevertheless sound.

We have not been shown any security camera evidence of the Nice event. Instead, we have seen cell phone video taken by Richard Gutjahr who happens to be married to a former Israeli intelligence agent who is currently an Israeli politician. Amazingly, Gutjahr also happened to be on the scene at the Munich shooting and again furnished the cell phone video and testimony for that event. As former US Representative Cynthia McKinney asked, how did it happen that the same person is performing the same role for both the Nice and Munich events?

Why does the official story have to rely on Gutjahr’s cell phone video when, at least in Nice, there is massive security camera video evidence?

The post France’s Minister of the Interior Is Withholding All Security Camera Evidence of the Nice Truck Massacre and Demands that the Evidence be Destroyed appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.

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Italy Races To Arrange €5 Billion Bailout For Monte Paschi Before Friday's Stress Test

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As we noted over the weekend, Italy's bank stress test the result of which is due out on Friday, is a "near-term stress event", and one which Italy's most troubled bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, is expected to fail. It is Monte Paschi's massive non-performing debt load that is also the reason why over the past month Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has been desperately spinning Brexit as a catalyst event which would get Germany's blessing to enact a taxpayer-funded, public, bailout of not just the world's oldest, and Italy's third largest, bank but also of the entire Italian banking sector. Alas that has not panned out as expected, and Italy never got Germany's - or Dijsselbloem's - permission to launch another TARP.

Which explains why moments ago the FT reported that Italy was last night "racing to secure a privately backed bailout of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the most exposed of the country’s troubled lenders, including a plan to raise €5 billion of fresh capital so as to avert nationalisation, according to bankers and European officials."

As a reminder, Monte Paschi has been bailed out by the state twice has raised over €8 billion of capital in the past two years, money which it quickly burned through, and as of this moment it has a market cap of just over €800 million. In other words, all else equal, the Sienna bank is looking at dilution of nearly 90%. Which would be a concern if the stock wasn't already trading as if it was insolvent, and if it hadn't been halted already over the past two days despite a recent short-selling ban which did absolutely nothing to the bank's long-term prospects.

In any event, with a public bailout of the picture, what's the Italian government to do ahead of a failed stress test (unless of course the ECB "passes" Monte Paschi and thus loses all credibility)? Resort to the only option it has - a private recapitalization. 

According to the FT, "people directly involved in the Monte Paschi discussions say they are aiming for a private rescue of the bank to be announced before the stress test results are published after US markets close on Friday. "

But they admit that the negotiations could go down to the wire or run into or beyond the weekend. This raises the prospect of shares in Monte Paschi and other Italian banks coming under renewed pressure when markets reopen on Monday, which many fear could prove lethal.

 

“If there isn’t a plan then investors will read the [stress test] results and on Monday kill the share,” said a person familiar with the thinking of the government of Matteo Renzi, Italy’s prime minister who has been working frantically to find a solution.

That, in turn, would unleash a bail-in and spark not only mass anger at the unpopular Renzi regime, but potentially also a bank run. The FT adds:

Mr Renzi, whose political future is tied to a constitutional referendum in the autumn, is desperate to avoid any hit to retail investors — and potential voters — which would come if the private solution fails and there is a state rescue instead.

Any such rescue would be under EU rules, which would mean a so-called bail-in, where junior Monte Paschi bonds would be converted to shares, and compensation given to retail investors. Italian officials and senior bankers fears this would lead to a replay — on a larger scale — of the travails of Portugal’s Novo Banco, where the largest investors took the hit while retail bondholders were shielded, resulting in a collapse in investor sentiment and capital flight

What would a "private" bailout look like? "The privately backed plan, which is still under discussion and could change, would involve a multi-layered deal to rid Monte Paschi of €10bn of net non-performing loans and recapitalisation worth up to €5bn, say people involved in the talks."

The plan (or lack thereof) follows failed attempts by Renzi to find a “white knight” buyer for Monte Paschi, including Italy’s stronger capitalised banks, Intesa Sanpaolo and UBI Banca, say senior bankers.

But since a failure of Monte Paschi could likely unleash a countrywide panic, and lead to run on deposits across the entire sector, other banks may have no choice but to forcibly "chip in."

And yet, according to the FT, their contributions will still be negligible:

To clean up the lender, at least €10bn of its NPLs would be spun off into a special purpose vehicle. This would then be securitised, with shareholders taking the more risky junior tranche of debt and Atlante taking the mezzanine tranche.

This in turn goes back to a plan we detailed before, namely one involving a JPM-led securitization vehicle. "The least-risky senior tranche would be backed up to €7bn of bridge loans from a pool of banks likely to include JPMorgan of the US and Mediobanca, the Italian investment bank. The longer term aim would be for the senior tranche to be guaranteed by a government-backed scheme, known by the acronym GACS."

But even here, there is a problem, because to boost its capital, Monte Paschi would launch a rights issue of up to €5bn, its third in three years and worth more than five times its current market value.

Needless to say, "analysts believe this fund raising would be difficult given the bank’s reputation for scorching investors capital."

And then there is one final, and far bigger, problem: Monte Paschi is just the tip of the iceberg.

Analysts also said the problems in Italian banking would not be solved by the rescue of Monte Paschi.

 

Carlo Tommaselli, analyst at Credit Suisse, has argued that Italy’s banking sector needs €30bn “to solve the NPL issue”.

Putting that in context, of the €360bn of loans which are unlikely to be repaid in full, €200bn are loans to creditors already deemed insolvent. Of those, €85bn are not already written down on banks’ books.

In other words, while largely under the radar, the fate of the Italian banking sector may depend on a very improbably bailout that has to be concluded in the next 48 hours: one which would involve a huge leap of faith by the private sector, and if unsuccessful, it could lead to the first major Bail In of a major bank on Italian soil, leading to further contagion, bank runs, and ultimately, a wholesale banking sector failure and bailout.

One thing we are certain of is that a bailout will come - sooner or later, and that as improbable as it may seem, Monte Paschi will get the funds it needs as the alternative would risk shaking up the entire European financial system which as we have covered since 2013 (ahem Deutsche Bank) is so frail, even a modest "fat tail" event could topple it. And just to be thorough, it is not only Germany's banks which stand to suffer. As we showed over the weekend, the one country most exposed to French banks the same one that in recent weeks has had far bigger problems of a terrorist nature: France.

 

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Chilling Testimony From A Cancer Cell Specialist Makes One Thing Utterly Obvious About Our Food

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Photo credit: Pesticide Action Network

There’s no doubt about it: The world’s demand for organically grown produce is growing rapidly, so much so that dozens of countries around the world have already banned the chemicals that are so commonly sprayed on conventionally grown food. If you’re someone who believes organic farming is unsustainable, ask yourself, how are so many countries (like Russia, Switzerland, or Bulgaria, to name a few) able to feed their citizens this way?  If so many countries can successfully grow organics, what’s the real reason that countries like the United States continue to spray billions of pounds of chemicals on our food every single year? Is it really just to ward off pests?

Every person on the planet can feed themselves with just 100 square feet of well managed land. In 2008, the UN Conference of Trade and development supported organics, saying that organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and is more likely to be sustainable in the long term. You can read that full report HERE.

Below is a video of Kathleen Collins, a cancer cell specialist at UC Berkely, speaking about methyl iodide, and the type of DNA damage it causes. Methyl iodide is still sprayed on our food in some areas, and is still used in some prescription medications. According to the EPA,  acute (short-term) exposure to methyl iodide by inhalation may depress the central nervous system (CNS), irritate the lungs and skin, and affect the kidneys. Massive acute inhalation exposure to methyl iodide has also led to pulmonary edema. Acute inhalation exposure of humans to methyl iodide has resulted in nausea, vomiting, vertigo, ataxia, slurred speech, drowsiness, skin blistering, and eye irritation. Chronic (long-term) exposure of humans to methyl iodide by inhalation may affect the CNS and cause skin burns. The EPA has not classified methyl iodide for potential carcinogenicity, even though scientists like Dr. Collins have made it quite clear that it should be.

According to the Pesticide Action Network:

Methyl iodide causes late term miscarriages, contaminates groundwater and is so reliably carcinogenic that it’s used to create cancer cells in laboratories. It is included in California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer. The pesticide poses the most direct risks to farm workers and neighboring communities because of the large quantities that would be applied to fields and its tendency to drift off site through the air. Use of methyl iodide is anticipated to be similar to methyl bromide and could top 6-10 million pounds a year in California alone.

Scientists Witness 90 Percent Drop In Pesticide Accumulation Within The Human Body After Going Organic

This agent is just one of many harmful ingredients used in the pesticides sprayed on our food. But there is still hope, as studies have shown that switching to organic produce dramatically reduces pesticide accumulation within the body.

For example, a recent study conducted by researchers from RMIT University, published in the journal Environmental Research, found that an organic diet for just one week significantly reduced pesticide exposure in adults by 90 percent.  (source)

Cynthia Curl, an assistant professor in the School of Allied Health Sciences Department of Community and Environmental Health at Boise State University, recently published a pesticide exposure study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Results of her research indicated that among individuals eating similar amounts of vegetables and fruits, the ones who reported eating organic produce had significantly lower OP pesticide exposure than those who normally consume conventionally grown produce. You can read more about that here.

Another great example comes from a supermarket chain in Sweden which challenged a family to go completely organic for just two weeks. The transition was monitored and studied by The Swedish Environmental Research Institute to see firsthand whether or not an organic diet positively impacted the lives of the family. You can watch a video of that experiment and view the results HERE.

We have covered this topic extensively, and you can find many more articles about pesticides and organics by browsing the site. Below is another article that you might be interested in reading:

A Pregnant Woman Eating Organic vs Eating Conventional

Methyl Iodide Seems To Be Predominately Sprayed On Strawberries

Below is another great video for anybody who believes it’s not possible to sustainably grow organic produce. It’s being done all over the world, and Jim Cochran is one of many people doing it successfully.

The companies that manufacture these pesticides (big biotech companies like Monsanto) hold tremendous amounts of power over government policy. Perhaps this is why so much of the world has gone organic, yet North America continues to lag behind.

The chemical is approved for spraying in  California’s strawberry fields at rates up to 110 pounds per acre on much of the state’s 38,000 acres in strawberry production, totaling millions of pounds of use. Though methyl iodide will likely be used primarily on strawberries, it is also registered for use on tomatoes, peppers, nurseries, and on soils prior to replanting orchards and vineyards. Although it is still sprayed around the country, it was banned in California a couple of years ago when all of this information came to light (source).

 

 

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Why Real Reform Is Impossible: We Can't Believe the Mighty Titanic Could Actually Sink

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Unfortunately for those partying on the upper First Class decks, they are as doomed as the steerage passengers when the ship goes down.

Why did passengers remain on the Titanic even as its bow sank deeper into the ice-cold Atlantic? They believed the experts and authorities because they wanted to believe the ship was "unsinkable." And why did they want to believe the ship was "unsinkable"?

Two visceral realities fueled their misplaced faith in the ship's supposed safety:

1) The warm ship seemed so mighty, and the alternative--open lifeboats drifting in the dark cold night--seemed so vulnerable, uncomfortable and risky.

2) It was much easier to believe the experts' assurances that the ship was safe than it was to clamber into a small lifeboat and bob around the open Atlantic.

We all know which alternative turned out to be safe and which one was fatally unsafe. The apparently risky open lifeboats were the sole source of survival and the enormous, complex "unsinkable" ship sank, ending the lives of everyone who clung to the appealing fantasy that the mighty ship was too technologically advanced to sink.

We are all on a Titanic, a complex system that experts and authorities declare safe and unsinkable for all time. Our money, our government, our Social Security, our Medicare and our entire debt-based way of life is mighty and invulnerable. Those few who see the eventual need to prepare "risky" lifeboats are mocked and ridiculed.

But the status quo's bow is already sinking into the ice-cold waters of reality.The only way the status quo can support the debt-based financial system and government that funds all these vast systems is if the economy creates 10 million more "breadwinner" jobs (in David Stockman's definition, a job that earns enough to support a family of four) a decade.

These new jobs are needed to raise the additional $1 trillion per year in payroll and income taxes needed to keep the fiscal ship afloat, and to provide the household income needed to support trillions more in private-sector debt--new home mortgages, auto loans, student loans, credit card debt, etc.--that's needed to support consumption.

If the status quo can't create at least 10 million new breadwinner jobs a decade, it sinks just as surely as the Titanic, which was doomed the moment the fifth watertight compartment was ripped open by the iceberg.

And please don't tell me we can raise $1 trillion in new annual taxes by "taxing the owners of the robots," another "unsinkable" fantasy I dismantle in my books Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform and A Radically Beneficial World.

Now that software and robotics are commoditized, the scarcity value of these tools and the goods they produce is plummeting. Take a look at profits in commoditized goods: they're razor-thin, and getting thinner by the day. As the cost of software/automation tools drops, they become affordable to an ever-larger pool of owners/producers, which means the competition from new owners will increase until there is no profit at all.

And exactly how do you extract $1 trillion in phantom profits from "owners of robots" who happen to be overseas? The belief in "taxing the owners of robots" is identical to the doomed souls on board the Titanic believing the ship was unsinkable.

The belief in the status quo's permanence is exactly like the belief in the Titanic's invulnerability. The systems we depend on are so vast and seem so mighty, it doesn't seem possible that they could unravel and fail. But their eventual unraveling and failure are already baked in and cannot be undone by the modest tweaks of what passes for "reform" in the status quo.

The financial realities of systemically stagnant jobs, incomes and tax revenues have already ripped a fatal gash below the waterline of the status quo. The bow is sinking but the parties on the First Class deck continue. The passengers in steerage are getting anxious because they see the cold water sloshing around the lower decks, but few on the upper decks care what mere steerage passengers are experiencing.

Unfortunately for those partying on the upper First Class decks, they are as doomed as the steerage passengers when the ship goes down.

As the supposedly risk-free status quo decays, the supposedly "risky" lifeboats-- decentralized private-sector arrangements of multiple income streams derived from ownership of productive assets that are debt-free and not dependent on debt-based government funding or global corporate cartels--will be cooperating and collaborating with each other.

Those seeking lifeboats will benefit from the Mobile Creative credo: trust your network, not the corporation or the state.

My new book is #10 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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Should Food Sharing Be Illegal?

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By Dr. Mercola

In 2014, 90-year-old World War II veteran Arnold Abbott was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for feeding the homeless. The city had recently passed a controversial ordinance that restricts where charitable groups can feed the homeless on public property.

The ordinance was described as a way to control the area's growing homeless population. Abbott, however, had no plans of stopping his altruistic acts. After being arrested on November 2, 2014 — along with two pastors — police cited him again on November 6, 2014.

Mayor Jack Seiler defended the arrest and told Abbott to secure an indoor location instead. In response, Abbott said no indoor venues to feed the homeless were available, and he intended to continue with his mission outside until the mayor found him a suitable location indoors.¹

Meanwhile, by last year at least five lawsuits had been filed against Fort Lauderdale, alleging that the law is unconstitutional.² The case of Abbott versus Fort Lauderdale may seem like an extreme example, but it is, unfortunately, not unique.

More Than 70 US Cities Have Attempted to Ban Food Sharing

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, citywide restrictions on food sharing are growing in the U.S. More than 70 cities have passed or attempted to pass laws that make feeding the homeless a criminal offense.³

The legislation works in a number of ways. For instance, some cities require permits be obtained (for a fee) before food may be distributed on public property.

Other legislation restricts food sharing on the grounds of food safety, requiring organizations sharing food to comply with overly strict food-safety regulations, such as only preparing food in approved locations or serving only pre-packaged meals. Mother Jones reported in 2014:

"When the issue of food safety was raised during a court hearing on Myrtle Beach, South Carolina's food-sharing law, the legal director of the state's ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] chapter pointed out that similar restrictions weren't being levied against family reunions in parks, for instance, and that it had never received a single report of homeless people getting sick from the food.

A Utah state representative said the same thing about Salt Lake City's food-sharing law."

Food-Sharing Bans Attempt to Move the Problem of Homelessness Elsewhere

In some cases, community members may force the food-sharing organization to relocate or stop operating in order to make the location "less attractive" for homeless people. According to a National Coalition for the Homeless report:⁴

"The final, and most difficult to measure, method to restrict food-sharing with people experiencing homelessness is through community actions driven by the principle of 'Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY).'

In most cases, business- and home-owners [sic] who do not want people experiencing homelessness to be attracted to their communities, place tremendous pressure, and sometimes even harass, the organization responsible for the food-sharing program to cease or relocate their programs."

The National Coalition for the Homeless believes, however, that simply stopping food sharing will not make homeless people disappear — nor will sharing food encourage people to be homeless.

Instead, they cite lack of affordable housing and job opportunities, mental health problems, addiction and physical disabilities as top reasons that perpetuate homelessness.

Is it Illegal to Buy a Meal From Your Neighbor?

The issue of food sharing stretches far beyond feeding the homeless. What if, for instance, you were ill, too busy or simply did not want to cook meals for yourself and your family?

And what if a neighbor loved cooking and wanted to cook meals for you regularly, which you would purchase for an agreed-upon fee and pick up at their doorstep at an agreed-upon time?

Such is the premise behind California food-startup company Josephine, which "connects you to friends and neighbors making home cooked meals."

Thousands of people have joined and raved about not only the meals they've picked up but also the sense of community — some even called it family — that the simple act of picking up home-cooked meals has brought them. There are others, too. Fast Company reported:⁵

"Feastly and EatWith facilitate pop-up dinners in people's homes. Mytable, MealSurfers and Umi Kitchen deliver meals from home chefs' kitchens.

Homemade, a similar concept, acts like a Shopify for food, providing software to enable anyone to sell their empanadas or jerk chicken dish from their apartment. Even Etsy has a fairly extensive homemade food inventory."

You may be wondering if sharing food in this way is legal. In many areas, technically it's not.

In order to sell food, many states require that it be prepared in a "commercial kitchen," which must contain nonabsorbent (i.e., stainless steel) countertops, two sinks (one for washing and preparing food and one, with three compartments, for washing dishes), and other requirements that would be impractical and undesirable in a typical home kitchen.

Many start-up companies begin their operations and forge ahead anyway. In Josephine's case, the company was eventually presented with a wave of cease-and-desist letters from various government officials — but not before it sponsored a bill that would have removed the commercial kitchen requirement from the California Retail Code, essentially making it legal to sell food cooked at home.

The bill was immediately opposed and pulled, however, and it remains to be seen whether Josephine will ultimately survive. Still, the company, and other start-ups like it, is clearly fulfilling a void for home-cooked meals in many people's lives.

Why Cottage Food Laws Don't Cut It

You may be wondering how people can "get away" with selling homemade goods at farmer's markets and craft fairs. This is because most states have "cottage food" laws that allow certain home-cooked foods to be sold publically on a limited basis.

The foods permitted to be sold are typically limited to "non-potentially hazardous" items, such as baked goods, dried fruits, jams, jellies and popcorn. There is some variance by state, such as in Wyoming, where most home-cooked food can be sold, and Wisconsin, where not even baked goods can be sold.⁶

In addition, the operations are typically limited by how much they can earn each year. In Illinois, for instance, the Cottage Food Law limits sales from homemade products to $36,000 per year or less.⁷

The person selling the product must also be registered with the state and must obtain an Illinois Food Service Sanitation Manager Certificate — so there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles to cross, even when selling your homemade goods is "legal."

Police Raids to Confiscate Raw Milk Continue

The war against raw milk in the U.S. is an assault to food freedom and should strike a nerve with anyone who believes it is his or her own right (and not the government's) to choose what to eat and drink.

In recent months in Texas, for instance, at least two police raids have occurred to break up raw milk sales. In one case, about 50 people picking up raw milk from a farmer in a church parking lot in Katy, Texas, were stopped by police.⁸

In another instance, inspectors from the Austin Health Department and the Texas Department of State Health Services stopped people in the private driveway of an Austin, Texas home. The people were picking up raw milk they had already purchased, and the health officials said they could not have it.

These raids occurred despite the operations being LEGAL; in Texas, people can purchase raw milk from farms or have someone pick it up for them. The police and health department raids occurred, seemingly, because the customers hired a courier to deliver the legally purchased milk to them.⁹

Even Representative Dan Flynn (R-Van), Chairman House Pensions, sent a letter to the Attorney General's Office defending the raw-milk consumers and calling the health officials' actions "harassment of the farmer, the couriers and the customers."

"Not one illness has been reported, no pathogens have been found in this farmers [sic] milk, and there is absolutely no health basis for this action," he wrote.¹⁰

Meanwhile, Big Dairy, including the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), Dairy Farmers of America, and Land O'Lakes, has been accused of combining to form Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) and engaging in a price-fixing plot to inflate milk prices. CWT reportedly was involved in slaughtering half a million young cows in order to reduce milk supply and inflate prices, which resulted in more than $9.5 billion in profits.¹¹

In contrast, many small raw milk farmers are struggling to survive. In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board sets price points and, as a result, small farmers may have to sell their milk at a loss. Ray Kuzma, a Pennsylvania farmer who sells raw milk produced by his 200 Holstein cattle, receives $15 for 100 pounds of raw milk — an $8 loss compared to the cost of milk production. At that price, he's losing at least $10,000 a month.¹²

The Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act of 2011, sponsored by Progressive Agriculture Cooperative, is an old senate bill that could help struggling farmers like Kuzma if it's reintroduced, as it would set a national average to price milk based on the farmer's cost.¹³

The Right to Food

The right to food is included in the 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food."¹⁴ Yet, in the developed world this right to food increasingly means the right to food that comes from industrial food conglomerates as opposed to food from the origin of your choosing.

Government officials have crossed the line in telling people what types of food they can and can't eat — from attempting to shut down home cooks interested in selling their meals to making the sale of raw milk illegal across state lines and arresting those attempting to share food with the homeless.

The system is set up to protect industrialized, centralized food production and distribution, while efforts to decentralize food are kept strictly under wraps. Even small farmers attempting to offer grass-fed beef are met with hurdles unbeknownst to many Americans.

PRIME Act Would Help Support Food Freedom

All U.S. farmers must use USDA-approved slaughterhouses, and laws place special restrictions on grass-fed slaughtering. If a grass-fed rancher doesn't have access to a slaughterhouse, he cannot stay in business.

This shrewd strategy effectively maintains the status quo of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), because grass-fed ranchers are often forced to ship their cattle hundreds of miles for "processing" — a move that's both costly and stressful. Large slaughterhouses can also refuse smaller jobs, as they — just like CAFOs — operate on economy of scale.

Basically, there may be plenty of demand for grass-fed beef, and plenty of supply, but USDA rules and regulations prevent the American-bred supply from ever reaching the customer. Across the U.S., smaller slaughterhouses catering to grass-fed ranchers have been closing up shop, pushed out by larger processors, adding to the shortage of processing facilities to choose from.

So while every human has the right to food, in the U.S. rules and regulations may make it difficult, impossible or even illegal to purchase and consume the food of your choosing. Fortunately, there is some small farm-friendly legislation in the works, including the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act (S. 2651), introduced by Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Rand Paul (R-KY) earlier this year.

Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced an identical bill, H.R. 3187, in the House of Representatives last summer. If passed, the PRIME Act would allow states to permit sale of meat processed locally, thereby making it easier for small farms and ranches to serve their consumers. I encourage you to call your senators and urge them to support the PRIME Act.

Measures such as this support a decentralized, locally based food system, which is key for securing your right to food freedom, including fresh, naturally raised food. At an individual level, you can support your local food producers by frequenting farmer's markets, local farms and even testing out food-sharing opportunities.

Regarding the PRIME Act, you can find your senators' contact information by clicking the button below or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Sources:

• Fast Company July 7, 2016

• Mother Jones November 13, 2014

• NPR October 22, 2014

• Reason August 1, 2015

• Houston Chronicle July 15, 2016

Related Articles:

  Food Monopoly Aimed at Controlling Population Destroys Environment and Poses Serious Threat to Human Health

  Members of Congress Drink Raw Milk in Support of Food Freedom

  Documentary Reveals Shocking Extent of Government-Big Business Collusion to Eradicate Freedom of Choice

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FBI Launches Probe Of 'Putin/Trump' DNC Cyber-Attack

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Following the release of greatly embarrassing emails that are forcing Hillary to lose control of the narrative, Politico reports, The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a probe into the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails. We are sure Director Comey will be closely watching and AG Lynch will once again take his word as gospel as somehow, we suspect, a narrative of Trump-Putin partnership will be created (or at the very least questions raised).

"The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter," the agency said in a statement.

 

"A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace."

The Trump/Putin narrative has begun (via The Observer)...

It turns out there’s hardly any mystery there. It’s no secret that the DNC was recently subject to a major hack, one which independent cybersecurity experts easily assessed as being the work of Russian intelligence through previously known cut-outs. One of them, called COZY BEAR or APT 29, has used spear-phishing to gain illegal access to many private networks in the West, as well as the White House, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. Another hacking group involved in the attack on the DNC, called FANCY BEAR or APT 28, is a well-known Russian front, as I’ve previously profiled.

 

These bears didn’t make much efforts to hide their DNC hack—in one case leaving behind a Russian name in Cyrillic as a signature—and Kremlin attribution has been confirmed by independent analysis by a second cybersecurity firm.

 

The answer then is simple: Russian hackers working for the Kremlin cyber-pilfered the DNC then passed the purloined data, including thousands of unflattering emails, to Wikileaks, which has shown them to the world.

 

This, of course, means that Wikileaks is doing Moscow’s bidding and has placed itself in bed with Vladimir Putin. In response to the data-dump, the DNC has said as much and the Clinton campaign has endorsed the view that Moscow prefers Donald Trump in this election, and it’s using Wikileaks to harm Hillary. This view, considered bizarre by most people as late as last week, is being taken seriously by the White House—as it should be.

But, as AP reports, Donald Trump on Monday dismissed as a "joke" claims by Hillary Clinton's campaign that Russia is trying to help Trump by leaking thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta added fuel to the debate Monday, saying there was "a kind of bromance going on" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. The Clinton campaign says Russia favors Trump's views, especially on NATO.

 

"The new joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails, which should have never been written (stupid), because Putin likes me," Trump wrote as part of a series of Tweets. "Hillary was involved in the e-mail scandal because she is the only one with judgement (sic) so bad that such a thing could have happened."

 

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said U.S. officials have seen indications of foreign hackers spying on the presidential candidates, and that they expect more cyberthreats against the campaigns.

Clinton's campaign stood firmly behind their claims of Russian involvement Monday.

"There is a consensus among experts that it is indeed Russia that is behind this hack of the DNC," Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN.

 

On Sunday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said that it was "concerning last week that Donald Trump changed the Republican platform to become what some experts would regard as pro-Russian."

Trump's senior policy adviser Paul Manafort called statements by the Clinton campaign "pretty desperate."

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Busting Media Myths On Peak Oil

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Submitted by Kurt Cobb via OilPrice.com,

Almost synonymous with the term "peak oil" is M. King Hubbert, perhaps the foremost geophysicist of the 20th century, who first theorized about the eventual decline of oil production in the 1930s. His life has now been chronicled by science writer Mason Inman in a new biography entitled The Oracle of Oil.

Depending upon whom you speak with, peak oil is either a catastrophe waiting to happen or a far-off concern that has already been solved or will be soon. Frequently, peak oil is referred to as a myth. What you rarely hear is that peak oil is an empirical fact having already occurred in dozens of countries.

The term "peak oil" simply means that crude oil production for any field, region or country eventually reaches a peak or plateau from which it inexorably declines. Because the amount of oil in the Earth's crust is finite, it is logical to assume that one day peak oil production will occur worldwide. The concern is that we as a global society are so accustomed to rising oil production that we have built an entire world around that assumption. Will we be ready when oil production begins to decline?

To shed some light on that and other questions, author Inman takes us from Hubbert's early days at the University of Chicago to his famous speech in 1956 (in which he predicted a peak in U.S. crude oil production no later than 1970) to his days in Washington, D.C. working for the U.S. Geological Survey and his fights there concerning the timing of a U.S. oil production peak.

In the course of the story Inman puts to rest misconceptions about Hubbert and about peak oil.

First and foremost, peak does NOT mean running out. As explained above it means the trend of rising oil production reverses into a decline. When this reversal occurs worldwide, it could pose challenges for a society that has yet to find a cheap, widely available substitute for petroleum to fuel its transportation system. Electric vehicles are still in their infancy and would require huge infrastructure investments. And, petrochemicals made from oil are the basis for a wide variety of clothing, medicines, lubricants, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. Oil is embedded practically everywhere in our lives, and finding substitutes won't be easy in many cases.

 

Second, forecasting peak oil is NOT tantamount to forecasting disaster. Hubbert himself believed that society could make a successful transition away from petroleum and other fossil fuels to a nuclear- and solar-powered world so long as we started early enough. Far from being a pessimist, Inman tells us, Hubbert was a utopian who believed an efficiently run technocratic society with plenty for all was possible if only we would take the necessary steps.

 

In fact, Hubbert foresaw some things we now take for granted, for example, that postal mail would be largely replaced by "signals sent by wire" which we, of course, call email. He believed that energy efficiency in the form of thick insulation for homes would become increasingly common. We now see that development in weatherization programs for homeowners and the spread of Passive House technology which reduces heating and cooling needs by 80 to 90 percent.

 

Third, Hubbert was NOT anti-oil. In fact, he worked for Shell Oil Company for 20 years in production research. Hubbert understood deeply the benefits of oil to human society, and he wanted those benefits to continue. But he believed they would not continue unless new sources of energy were deployed before fossil fuel production began its inevitable decline.

 

Fourth, contrary to what his critics say, Hubbert did take technological improvements into account when calculating his forecasts for peak. He was aware of unconventional sources of oil such as tar sands, oil shale, and coal-to-liquids technology. But he realized that these sources would be challenging and expensive to exploit.

It turns out he was right. Operators in the Canadian tar sands today are having a difficult time simply maintaining production in the current low-price environment for oil. As for oil shale, despite more than 30 years of research and development including pilot plants, there is no commercial production of oil from oil shale in the United States (which has by far the largest deposits) and very limited production in Estonia (where oil shale is mostly burned directly to produce electricity). It's not clear that standalone facilities that would produce only oil from oil shale would be economical given the American experience.

Coal-to-liquids technology continues to be too expensive to deploy worldwide though it does have a foothold in South Africa. South Africa built these expensive and environmentally dirty facilities during the apartheid period when the country's leaders feared an embargo might curtail oil shipments to South Africa.

There is, of course, the question of just how oracular the "oracle of oil" was. As it turns out, Hubbert's prediction of a peak in U.S. production (which at that time covered the lower 48 states) was right on the money. U.S. crude oil production fell starting in 1970 and continued to fall (with a short respite when Alaskan oil began to flow) until 2008. Then, the advent of a new kind of hydraulic fracturing or fracking (as it is popularly called) made possible the extraction of previously difficult-to-get oil from deep shale deposits (not to be confused with oil shale mentioned above).

U.S. production last year came close to eclipsing the 1970 number, but has fallen back as low prices have forced deep reductions in drilling. Meanwhile, non-shale production continues to fall. A rise in oil prices would certainly revive drilling in American shale deposits. But it is doubtful that this will happen before shrinking conventional production makes it all but impossible to achieve a new all-time high in U.S. production. 

As for world production, in the early 1970s Hubbert calculated that a worldwide peak might come as soon as the mid-1990s. But, he did his original calculations before the high prices and oil crises of the 1970s led to an energy efficiency drive worldwide and resulted in the first ever sustained decline in world oil consumption and flat consumption for many years thereafter.

He later revised his view which ended up being close to that of the U.S. Energy Information Administration in the late 1970s. The agency forecast a probable peak about 2010, but offered a range of 1995 to 2035 depending on energy policies and consumption patterns.

As it turned out, conventional oil, the kind that Hubbert used in his models, the kind that flows as a liquid from the ground--which I call "Beverly Hillbillies oil" after the "bubbling crude" seen in the introduction to the now long-defunct television series--this kind of oil peaked in 2006 according to the International Energy Agency, a consortium of 29 countries which provides ongoing research and information about energy supplies worldwide.

Despite all protestations to the contrary, Hubbert proved prescient once again. That world oil production continues to eke out small gains is due entirely to production from unconventional sources not included in Hubbert's models. But those sources have shown themselves to be exquisitely sensitive to price.

In the two countries best known for unconventional oil, the United States and Canada, production from U.S. deep shale deposits and Canadian tar sands is now shrinking. Alarmingly, without recent growth in oil production in these two countries, worldwide oil production would have declined from 2005 to today. Now that the twin engines of growth, the United States and Canada, are in decline, we may see a fall in worldwide production soon (though whether this will mark the ultimate peak will not be known until many years thereafter).

But, any peak will inevitably result from a mix of economic and geologic factors. So, the new question about oil is, "Can we afford to extract and refine the oil we have left?" Or, more precisely, "Will the cost of extracting these unconventional sources cause economic growth to slow or stagnate?"

This is just the sort of scenario Hubbert feared if we waited too long to address the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels. And, there is reason to believe that low oil prices today reflect an economy slowed by previously high oil prices. These high prices themselves are an indication that we are now facing ever more difficulty and effort in extracting the remaining marginal sources of oil. And, the fact that so many oil companies are now going bankrupt due to low prices tells us that high prices will have to return if we want to extract this difficult-to-get oil in great quantities again.

Hubbert died in 1989 living to see the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Long concerned about nuclear waste and impatient for a transition, Hubbert decided that global society needed to undertake the rapid deployment of an indisputably clean source of energy, solar power. We would use solar power not only for electricity, but also to make the liquid fuels needed for our transportation system which could be adapted to run on methanol or hydrogen.

Perhaps what irked Hubbert's critics the most was his lifelong skepticism about exponential economic and population growth. So, firmly did he believe that population growth needed to be curtailed that he and his wife had no children. There were limits, he believed, and if they were breached, humans would pay dearly.

Hubbert and his work have once again come into our worldwide discourse as a result of the 2008 oil price spike and the highest ever daily average prices for oil from 2011 through 2014. He is much maligned and much praised these days. But he is perhaps not well understood.

Mason Inman's compelling biography gives all of us, critics and supporters alike, a chance finally to understand this scientific giant and the context within which he spawned insights that continue to be central to our lives.

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Jury finds DuPont guilty of dumping cancer-causing Teflon chemicals into Ohio River that spread across the globe, causing widespread illness and death

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(NaturalNews) One resident of the mid-Ohio Valley is finally seeing some glimpses of justice the way it was meant to be after chemical giant DuPont was ordered to pay $5.1 million in damages for polluting the Ohio River with C-8, a persistent chemical compound used in Teflon pans...

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Putin to Western Elites: Playtime Is Over

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Putin to Western Elites: Playtime Is Over

Guest Column by Dmitry Orlov

http://cluborlov.blogspot.ru/2014/10/putin-to-western-elites-play-time-is.html

The post Putin to Western Elites: Playtime Is Over appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.

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