Inflation hits 40-year high
This is a huge and disgraceful tax on the savings of all Americans
US inflation reached a fresh 40 year high in February as soaring oil and food prices smashed earlier hopes of an ease in the cost of living after months of record price increases, all but guaranteeing US interest rates will rise next week.
American consumer prices rose 7.9 per cent over the year to February, including a 6.6 per cent increase in the price petrol in a single month, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a surge in energy prices expected to supercharge inflation around the world for months.
“Americans’ budgets are being stretched by price increases and families are starting to feel the impacts of Putin’s price hike,” President Joe Biden said in a statement, seeking to deflect blame for a growing political headache for the White House and ruling Democrats.
US food prices rose 1 per cent over the month to February for a 7.9 per cent increase over the year, the largest 12 month rise since 1981, while rent, one of the largest components of the CPI, rose 0.6 per cent in February, the fastest monthly increase in 35 years.
“The Ukraine war will lead the Fed to start its tightening cycle with a conservative 25 bps rate hike in March,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief US economist for Oxford Economics.
“The war adds further fuel to the blazing rate of inflation via higher energy, food, and core commodity prices that are turbo charged by a worsening in supply chain problems”.
Stripping out volatile food and energy items, the ‘core CPI’ rose 6.4 per cent over the year to February, the fastest pace for that index, since 1982.
The S&P500, the benchmark US stock index, fell in New York trading day on Thursday (Friday AEDT), while the yield on 10 year US government bonds briefly rose above 2 per cent for the first time since late February.
“There will be costs at home as we impose crippling sanctions in response to Putin’s unprovoked war, but Americans can know this: the costs we are imposing on Putin and his cronies are far more devastating than the costs we are facing,” Mr Biden said.
The February figures exclude the sharp rise in the global oil price in March to the highest level since 2008, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the consequent international sanctions on Russia triggered a global scramble to shore up energy supplies, which will all but ensure inflation bursts through 8 per cent next month.
“The most recent post-invasion surge in agricultural crop prices means food prices are headed even higher in the near term,” said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist for Capital Economics.
“There were also signs of a post-Omicron surge, with hotel room rates rebounding by 2.2 per cent, airfares up 5.2 per cent and personal care prices up 1.2 per cent, the latter being the biggest monthly gain in that category on record”.
Economists expect the Federal Reserve to lift its official interest rate by 1.75 percentage points this year in total or as many as seven times (in 0.25 increments), which would be the quickest series interest rate increases since the mid 2000s.
“I do think it’s going to be appropriate for us to proceed along the lines we had in mind before the Ukraine invasion happened,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told a congressional hearing last week, playing down expectations the Fed would increase by 0.5 percentage points.
“In this very sensitive time at the moment, it’s important for us to be careful in the way we conduct policy simply because things are so uncertain and we don’t want to add to that uncertainty”
Separately, the European Central Bank, battling inflation of 5.1 per cent in the euro area over the year to January, announced an end to its bond buying program in the third quarter of the year, which will follow an end to the Federal Reserve’s equivalent program expected this month.
Inflation has increased sharply through the developed world, rising 5.5 per cent in the UK over the 12 months to January and 3.5 per cent in Australia throughout 2021, for instance.
Annual inflation in Russia accelerated to 9 per cent in late February, ahead of an expected surge in coming months following the collapse in the value of the rouble, which will see import prices soar.
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Ukraine’s ‘disposable’ men
Bettina Arndt
The tragic video of the Ukrainian father breaking down when saying goodbye to his family was heart-wrenching. But even as it attracted attention across the world, no one seemed to be asking the obvious question:
How come the life of this young father is considered expendable whilst most fit, capable Ukrainian women are being hastily shipped off, out of harm’s way?
Where is feminism’s demand for the equal treatment of women when every male aged 18 to 60 are being forced to stay and ‘defend his country’?
One lone male voice on TikTok dared to call out the feminist silence. He attracted a wave of criticism and his video was removed. TikTok user @notpoliticalspeaking had the temerity to point out that the reported 32,000 women in the Ukrainian military weren’t all that many given that – according to his estimation – the country has 17 million women of age.
Social media ran hot with dozens of articles claiming the TikTok-er was being ‘called out for his ignorance and misogyny’. People piled on with comments pointing out how many courageous women were now enlisting, showing photographs of women soldiers and grandmothers with machine guns.
None of this refuted the point the TikTok-er was making. It is revealing that there has been so little intelligent commentary on the way the Ukraine crisis is exposing the glaring hypocrisy of feminism today, where feminists talk about equality but happily exploit old-fashioned chivalry, which demands only men are disposable in war.
‘Women are too valuable to be in combat,’ said Caspar Weinberger, when he was the US Secretary of Defence. It was said back in the 1980s at a time when military leaders were allowed to say such things. Now, feminists muzzle these comments and demand women have access to front-line combat roles – yet they sit in silence as Ukraine forces their entire adult male population to defend their country while the valuable women are safeguarded.
Traditionally, this has been justified using the evolutionary argument – that is, the size of the next generation is constrained by the number of fertile females. A species can tolerate the loss of males more easily than the loss of females.
No one dares point out that this reasoning hardly applies to all those forty-something single women past childbearing age that we watched scrambling to get on crowded trains leaving Ukraine.
The other arguments for offering women special protection don’t hold water anymore. The active role played by women in the military puts paid to traditional arguments about women’s lack of strength. Gender-based strength for civilian fighters is irrelevant when facing most modern weaponry.
Let’s face it – whilst no one would quarrel with the need to protect children and arguably their mothers, the view of women as a protected class is simply a legacy of traditional, chivalrous thinking which is far too useful for feminists to discard. So they have their cake and eat it, taking every possible opportunity to pretend that this isn’t all about exploiting men by claiming women suffer too – perhaps even more than men.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/03/ukraines-disposable-men/
*************************************************DuckDuckGo Bows to Authoritarians, Begins Censoring Search Engine Results to ‘Fight Disinformation’
Arguably the world’s most popular private search engine, DuckDuckGo, has long been a haven for those who do not want to participate in Google’s censorship, manipulation, and tracking. In 2008, Gabriel Weinberg stared this mission with an emphasis on protecting searchers’ privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results that comes with all things Google.
Since its inception, the pro-privacy and anti-tracking business model has propelled the company from just a couple hundred thousand searches a month to over 100,000,000 searches every day. Their growth has been nearly exponential. But that all may be changing now.
This week, Weinberg, took everything his organization had been working on for years, and flushed it down the toilet with a single tweet.
Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. We’ve been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.
While this may seem like a noble gesture, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an unlawful and horrific invasion, the idea of a search engine which prides itself as anti-censorship and pro-privacy turning to the dark side and hiding information from its users, is not appealing to those who actually stand by these principles.
Moreover, who gets to decide what exactly constitutes “disinformation”? In his thread, in which he engaged with several users, Weinberg said nothing of transparency. Nor did he elaborate on what is and what isn’t disinformation or who would be telling DuckDuckGo what to censor.
If anything, the last two years, and especially the last three weeks, have shown us that today’s disinformation is the next days reality and vice versa. So many stories have been called disinformation only to be proven true months later while at the same time, overt disinformation has been presented as fact only to be proven false down the road.
Case in point: Snake Island and the Ghost of Kyiv. The Ghost of Kyiv story was an inspiring tale of a single Ukrainian fighter pilot who took out multiple Russian aircraft. It was pushed by the president and multiple officials from Ukraine. The only thing was, it was fake, or rather “disinformation” as Weinberg would say.
As the NY Times reported, while there are reports of some Russian planes that were destroyed in combat, there is no information linking them to a single Ukrainian pilot. One of the first videos that went viral, which was included in the montage shared by the official Ukraine Twitter account, was a computer rendering from a combat flight simulator originally uploaded by a YouTube user with just 3,000 subscribers. And a photo supposedly confirming the fighter’s existence, shared by a former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was from a 2019 Twitter post by the Ukrainian defense ministry.
“Ukraine is involved in pretty classic propaganda,” said Laura Edelson, a computer scientist studying misinformation at New York University. “They are telling stories that support their narrative. Sometimes false information is making its way in there, too, and more of it is getting through because of the overall environment.”
Even Snopes, who loves to spin “fact checks” to paint their political enemies in a negative light, was forced to report on this incident. However, in true Snopes fashion, they refused to label it “false” and instead claimed that the video — that was a computer simulation and put out by the Ukrainian government to intentionally deceive — was merely “miscaptioned.”
There was also the story of Snake Island, in which President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine personally announced the deaths of soldiers allegedly killed by Russian troops, only to announce later that no such attack happened and all the men who were “killed,” were actually alive.
Make no mistake, Russia is also involved in a heavy propaganda campaign. They have been caught lying about Ukrainians bombing hospitals and indiscriminately killing civilians. They have also been caught stoking multiple fears of “false flags” which never happened and were used as a pretext to invade Ukraine.
Misinformation and disinformation have long been tools in both starting and during conflicts. Americans should know this the most as we’ve been led in to multiple wars based on lies started by politicians and echoed by mainstream media.
Remember Iraqi troops throwing babies on the ground — a premise to justify the beginning of the Gulf War — which never actually happened? What about weapons of mass destruction, the Gulf to Tonkin, or Bashar al-Assad gassing his own people? This disinformation led to the suffering and deaths of millions of innocent people and the folks who spread it are the main voices behind a new era of censorship.
Unfortunately, many folks don’t care that they are being lied to, in fact, they want it.
“Why can’t we just let people believe some things?” one Twitter user replied in the Ghost of Kyiv thread, receiving hundreds of likes. “If the Russians believe it, it brings fear. If the Ukrainians believe it, it gives them hope.”
Even the NY Times weighed in an said Ukraine needs these lies to “keep morale high among the fighters and marshal global support for their cause.”
While morale is certainly important to keeping troops engaged in the battle, what happens when the truth comes out? What happens to morale when thousands of “troops,” including yours truly, invade a country or carry out an act based on disinformation only to find out later you were lied to? It devastates you, that’s what happens.
So, while Weinberg may think he is on the righteous path by limiting search results which favor a particular side in this conflict, this will only lead to more ignorance, more close-mindedness, and more suffering.
Censorship never has and never will be used by anyone other than authoritarian regimes. It has never worked and never will work to create anything but ignorance and faith in tyrants. It reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself and is but a stepping stone on the path to totalitarianism.
As the famous German poet, Heinrich Heine reminds us, “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”
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Russia devises plan to seize firms abandoned in foreigner exodus
In the first explicit response to the exodus of foreign businesses from Ikea to McDonald’s Corp., the Economy Ministry has outlined new policies to take temporary control of departing companies where foreign ownership exceeds 25%.
Under the proposals, a Moscow court would consider requests from board members and others to bring in external managers. The court could then freeze shares of foreign-owned companies as part of an effort to preserve property and employees.
External management could include state development bank VEB.RF, according to a ministry statement. Owners would have five days to resume activity or resort to other options such as selling their stake.
“The Russian government is already working on measures that include bankruptcy and nationalization of the property” of foreign companies forced into exiting, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a statement posted Thursday on the VKontakte social media site.
The list of global brands pulling out of Russia is growing by the day as some of the world’s biggest corporations, from energy to consumer goods and electronics, suspend operations in the country. While sanctions and capital controls are making it harder to conduct business, companies are also concerned about potential backlash over being seen as supporting President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Economy Ministry suggested that its measures would be aimed more at auctioning off assets rather than nationalization. “The project is aimed at encouraging organizations under foreign control not to abandon their activities on the territory of the Russian Federation,” it said.
Some major foreign firms have yet to signal their intentions. Renault SA, the French company that has majority control of AvtoVaz, has remained quiet. Danone SA has suspended investment in Russia but said it will maintain its production and distribution there.
Meanwhile, Citigroup Inc., which has about $9.8 billion of loans, assets and other exposure tied to Russia, has seen efforts to sell its local consumer-banking unit stall. The bank’s commodities-trading desk has also been one of the few to continue to finance existing deals involving natural gas coming from Russia.
The project is aimed at encouraging organizations under foreign control not to abandon their activities
Russia has promised to retaliate for sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries, but its response so far has been limited. As part of steps taken to quell capital flight, authorities have imposed a temporary ban on certain foreign-exchange transactions and payments to non-residents from states that joined the international penalties.
Putin also issued an order earlier this week saying Russia would restrict trade in some goods and raw materials in response to sanctions, and that details would follow as to which products would be affected.
Any move to take over foreign-owned firms risks an even bigger standoff. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday “there would be steps we would take” if Russia seized private assets in companies planning to pull back and exit the country.
‘Mutually Negative’
Tit-for-tat measures that may include the possible arrest of Russian assets abroad would have “mutually negative consequences,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
Russia should remain an attractive destination for investors from countries that aren’t waging an “economic war” against it, Peskov said. “The market abhors a vacuum,” he said.
China is already in talks with its state-owned firms on any opportunities for potential investments in Russian companies or assets, Bloomberg News reported this week.
For Russia, the exodus of foreign firms threatens further disruptions in supplies of imported goods in an economy already suffering from one of its biggest inflation shocks in decades. Also at risk of losing employment are nearly 3 million Russians who work either for companies based abroad or domestic companies in joint ventures with counterparts overseas.
The Economy Ministry said its proposed measures would apply to businesses whose management, including shareholders, effectively terminated control of activity in violation of Russian laws. Companies whose management left Russia or shifted assets starting Feb. 24 may also be subject to the new rules.
Businesses undergoing external takeovers could be repackaged and then sold at auction after three months, the ministry said. New owners would have to preserve two-thirds of jobs and keep the companies going in Russia for a year. The measures have not yet been approved.
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The anti-free speech politicians of Australia
Free speech is not just another one of our freedoms, it is the foundation of freedom that all our other freedoms come from. If we can’t speak freely, then we can’t think freely.
If you have never heard an idea before, then you will not think about it. Unless you read, hear, or see a new idea it will not permeate your thinking and you will not grow from experiencing it – even if you disagree. Such is the power of new information.
It is incredibly easy to police ‘wrongthink’, particularly within certain topics. All that is required is for example to made of a person who says the ‘wrong’ thing. If they experience public and painful consequences, other people quickly learn that they must not make the same mistake. Not only will the rest of society avoid saying the ‘wrong’ thing in public, they stop thinking the ‘wrong’ thing in private.
To ‘protect’ themselves and their friends, they will contribute to the persecution of strangers that say the ‘wrong’ thing – thereby perpetuating a general attack on free speech.
In the remnants of classical education at my British Boarding School, in History class, we were explicitly told by the master that he didn’t care what our opinion was, he wanted us to show him how we could argue between two opposing points of view with academic references to support each argument.
Today, kids are taught one side of an argument but not the other. They are marked down for arguing points of view that oppose the school-approved perspective.
If kids are taught what to say and not to question things or argue opposing points of view publicly, the result is that they stop thinking about opposing points of view privately. Schools are no longer teaching kids how to think, but what to think. This is the fulfilment of the ‘Outcome Based Learning’ philosophy that was introduced to replace classical learning in the Western World after the second world war.
Politics is full of examples where this type of controlled thinking plays out in the adult world. After becoming an Australian Citizen in 2020 and learning about the wonderful history of our country, I proudly became a member of what I thought was the major conservative party in Australia: The Liberal Party.
After time spent dabbling in local politics where I was involved in successfully tackling corruption, I decided to nominate for an internal Liberal Party committee position, as I had become concerned with the direction the party was taking. They had recently rejected the application of Christian groups in South Australia on the basis that Christian values ‘didn’t align’ with the modern Liberal Party’s move away from the values of its inception. I had recently raised my concerns about the party’s moral decline with a serving state Liberal MP in Victoria. When she told me that all the party wanted to do was ‘get back into power’ and they would do anything to achieve it, I was deeply concerned!
Having nominated for the internal committee position, I was contacted by the administrator for the currently serving federal Liberal MP in my electorate. The administrator specifically asked me what I thought of the federal MP’s service. It did not impress me that the MP engaged in self-seeking rather than seeking the best for their community. A brochure had been recently sent around with the MP parading her numerous successes and virtues, while the world lay in tatters around us. At that point, I thought nothing of freely expressing my miss-givings about her. I subsequently realised that this was a polling activity to gauge my level of support for the current Liberal Party leadership…
New committee members were to be elected by vote during a local branch meeting. After the meeting, based on the accepted analysis of ‘first count indicators’ in the Australian preferential voting system, I was guaranteed a place on the committee. The next day – to my shock – the meeting and the vote were both declared invalid. Apparently, there had been some infraction of the meeting rules based on the Party Constitution. I immediately smelled a rat and contacted the Head Office to validate which article of the Constitution had been breached. I received no response. The meeting and vote were rescheduled. Feeling disillusioned, I was persuaded to nominate again.
At the rescheduled meeting, there was a line of ‘new’ people that I had never seen before down one side of the room. They had all nominated for the position. The results of the vote this time were a resounding victory for the newcomers and I barely received a single vote. Clearly, there had been some coordination behind the scenes to make sure I didn’t get on and that these ‘friends’ of the party were successful.
Rather than allow free debate about ideas that might challenge the status quo, the Liberal Party leadership has shown itself to be committed to silencing discussion by penalising those that try to speak freely. Their aversion to free speech is antithetical to the conservative ethos that the Liberal Party was founded on, which is meant to put free speech at paramount importance.
Politicians are supposed to protect free speech at all costs, not tell people what to say.
They should trust that logic and truth are inherently powerful, therefore by simply protecting free speech in the marketplace of ideas, only the genuine truth will be logically consistent enough to survive.
As more young minds are exposed to the infallible logic of truth and allowed to debate, they will demolish any illogical or bad ideas. There is no risk that if we deregulate speech, the bad ideas will grow. History shows us that bad ideas will be displaced – like darkness is displaced by light.
We find ourselves living through trying times, and we need truthful ideas more than ever. If we are to overcome the major challenges that face us, we need more truth – not less – and the liberty to openly discuss our problems.
The last thing we should be doing is silencing people that question or try to articulate opposing arguments. We should be able to learn from these arguments without being threatened. The ability to speak freely with impunity must be protected at all costs. After all, the truth is not threatened by the lie, but the lie is threatened by the truth!
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/03/the-anti-free-speech-politicians-of-australia/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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