State Department officials told a team of Wall Street Journal reporters about the increasing risks that undersea telecommunications cables could be susceptible to espionage. 

The officials became concerned when a state-controlled Chinese firm that repairs undersea cables, SB Submarine Systems, unexplainably and repeatedly concealed the location data of its ship from radio and satellite tracking services. They said the ship’s concealment of its position “defied easy explanation.”

The warnings about potential espionage or even sabotage of undersea cables come nearly three months after underwater telecommunications cables linking Europe and Asia were “damaged” in the Red Sea between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti in East Africa. 

We were the first to report a mysterious Iranian spy ship was operating near the incident area. At the time, David Asher, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, said, “The Qods Force is operating a spy ship called the ‘Behsad’ that is reportedly in the Gulf of Aden, not far from where the undersea cables were cut. This ship highly likely carries a Qods Force special underwater warfare force component more than capable of carrying out an undersea cable attack.”

A US defense official recently warned Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Meta Platforms about the mounting risks the Chinese could threaten US-owned cables: 

US officials have told companies, including Google and Meta, about their concerns that Chinese companies could threaten the security of US-owned cables, a person familiar with the briefings said. In some cases, the conversations have included discussion of Shanghai-based SB Submarine Systems, the person said. -WSJ

WSJ provided more color on the Chinese maintenance firm that repairs broken internet lines: 

Senior Biden administration officials have also received briefings in recent months about the risks posed by Chinese companies, including SBSS, working on repairs to undersea cables, according to the person.

The security of undersea cables “is rooted in the ability of trusted entities to build, maintain, and repair” them “in a transparent and safe manner,” the National Security Council said in a statement, noting that satellite ship tracking “is one such measure that supports vessel monitoring and safety.”

Digging deeper into SBSS, data from Sayari, a top counterparty and supply chain risk intelligence provider, shows a web of connections the company has, including several major risk factors.  

One of those risk factors includes “possibly owned (minority, majority, or wholly) by” Global Marine Systems Ltd., which is “listed in the USA Department of the Treasury Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies,” Sayari says on its online platform.

Sayari data shows SBSS is “possibly owned (minority, majority, or wholly) by a sanctioned entity up to 3 hops away via direct shareholding relationships with 10% or more controlling interest” by China United Network Communications Group Co. 

One of the ships in question is called “Bold Maverick,” and it has periodically turned on and off its transponder data near areas with undersea cables, which continues to worry US defense officials. 

“The data gaps were unusual for commercial cable ships and lacked clear explanation,” the officials said.

Defense officials and big tech firms are increasingly concerned about companies like SBSS tapping or even severing undersea cables. 

The Red Sea cable severing incident earlier this year was the most recent wake-up call about these emerging national security risks. 

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

I was extraordinarily appreciative when executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor sat down with me this weekend for an exclusive interview.

What’s inside this exclusive Fringe Finance interview with Michael Saylor:

What the effects of inflation will eventually be (“The Matrix”) and how globalist organizations like the World Economic Forum fit into the mix

The differences between bitching and moaning about flawed monetary policy versus offering up an actual solution

Whether he thinks the Fed will raise or lower rates next and why

Similarities and differences between bitcoin and fine art when talking about intrinsic value

If bitcoin, now embraced by Wall Street, needs to homogenize itself into the AML/KYC world of regulated banking and, if so, how that’ll happen

Whether the ETFs and the centralized storage of large amounts of bitcoin could eventually become a negative and make it easier for a nation state or bad actor to seize

What he thinks of the meme stock rally into names like GameStop, and whether or not such uprisings could eventually be a catalyst for bitcoin, as I have predicted

Why he is selling so much MicroStrategy stock

What he sees as the one biggest risk to the bitcoin network going forward

What he thinks the next nation state to buy bitcoin will be

Whether he thinks gold and bitcoin can co-exist

Whether or not he’ll finally debate Peter Schiff once and for all

I started off by asking Michael what he thought about macro — and what the ‘solution’ would be for a Fed that is stuck between a rock (inflation) and a hard place (depression).

Saylor told me: “I think they’ll do everything they can to create the appearance of low consumer inflation. At some point, we’ll modify the market baskets in the CPI, their PPI, and that’s probably occurring at whatever rate it can. And I think everybody would like to just focus the public on market baskets of products that aren’t appreciating too much in price and get them to not focus on the things that are going up in price more.”

“But the bottom line is that it doesn’t feel like it’d be responsible for them to lower interest rates or for some people who would like them to raise interest rates,” he said.

“They know they can’t afford to raise them. They would love to lower them. The numbers aren’t quite cooperating with them, but if we drop coffee out of the consumer price index and then we go find ten other things that are expensive and drop them from the consumer price index, yeah, this all comes down to normalization of life, right? If I imagine that you can live in a 400 square foot apartment built with drywall, with a single flat panel screen and boxed manufactured food, I can get the cost of living down. And if I can just replace streaming Taylor Swift videos on Netflix with going to see a Taylor Swift concert for 500 bucks, then the inflation will go away.”

When I pressed him further about quality of life deteriorating as a consequence of inflation, and how long the government can keep the charade going, Michael told me: “I think they can go forever, my friend. I think they can continue to make hedonic adjustments. Why do you need a car? You could Uber. Why do you need to be able to drive when there’s a self-driving Uber? What happens when we’ve got one-tenth as many cars and robots drive them? And why do you need to go anywhere in a robot car when you can just watch it on YouTube? And why do you need to even watch it on YouTube? You know, if you can put on virtual reality glasses, why do we even need an 80-inch television?”

“So I can take this ad infinitum to the extreme. I mean, the extreme is like ‘The Matrix,’ right? We just plug in, jack something into the back of your vertebrae, and give you a feeding tube. Why do you really need a steak when you can eat hamburger? Why do you need hamburger when you can eat a soy burger? Why do you need a soy burger when we could just force-feed you some sugar protein concoction or something? So when will that end? I mean, I’m being tongue-in-cheek, but let’s just say we won’t hit a crisis in the next decade. I mean, that’s all that really matters, right?”

“The rank-and-file average person will be forced to lower their standards, and they’ll have to give up their car and their house.”

Listen to the full two hour long interview at this link.

He continued: “I mean, if you look through history, there are lots of examples where people’s expectations and quality of life were compressed down to the bare minimum, then expanded, and then contracted again. And, you know, I’m not here to solve that, right? Like now, when we go to macro, we’re talking about solving the economic problems of the world. Very difficult. And then you get into political issues, and that’s double difficult. And the truth of the matter is that’s a bit above my pay grade.

My view is just, yes, there will be inflation. The government will have to keep printing money, and that will cause the price of scarce, desirable assets to appreciate. The rank-and-file average person will be forced to lower their standards, and they’ll have to give up their car and their house.”

Naturally, this prompted me to ask him where the World Economic Forum and all these globalist organizations fit in the picture. Asking about whether the WEF and the likes are truly nefarious or simply doing the wrong thing in ushering in this new age, Saylor told me: “You read Nicholas Taleb’s work, like *Antifragile* and *Fooled by Randomness*, I mean, all of his canon. And you know, what he says, in essence, is that well-intentioned people doing things are the problem, right? Because, yeah, it’s the doing of stuff. It’s like if I put someone in charge of the world and I tell them to do good, the odds are they’re going to do bad, right?”

He added: “It’s like if I said, okay, you are in charge of determining the curriculum or the education for 18 million children. Well, good luck with that. But, I mean, are you qualified to do it? Is anybody? I mean, it’s kind of like, right? The conundrum is central planning.”

Saylor then laid out the two things he sees driving bitcoin to success: “One is, you know, if inflation of the currency is high in whatever the country is, then using a fiat currency as a capital asset becomes more and more inefficient. So, obviously in hyperinflation scenarios like Nigeria, Lebanon, Argentina, or Venezuela, there’s a stampede away from that currency to some other form of capital, right? And so inflation will drive it. But the other thing that will drive the success of Bitcoin is not just the inefficiency of central government or central banking planners, but also the inefficiency of every corporation.”

After he explained further, I asked him about my article predicting that the next economic crisis would be a positive catalyst for bitcoin: The Catalyst That Could ‘Standardize’ Bitcoin

He said about this, and the GameStop saga: “I mean, the people piling into the meme stocks, they have the right idea, but it’s the wrong execution. Or I understand their motivation. It’s like they’re angry with the system. And so they ought to be buying Bitcoin if they were smart, right? The people that have that sentiment, that are unhappy with the status quo and are smart, are buying Bitcoin. And the ones that are simply angry but haven’t thought very deeply about what’s going to happen are buying these meme stocks.”

“They feel disenfranchised,” he continued. “They want to make money. They feel disenfranchised. They feel like the system is rigged against them. They’re irritated at the establishment, right? I mean, there’s a million of these motivations, and they’re expressing their sentiment through their trading of meme stocks. But the problem is if you increase the value of a company by a factor of 10 in excess of its true value and cash flow potential, then the management team of the company just prints 10x more stock, and then the stock price crashes.”

“Well, not only do they do it, they have a fiduciary obligation to do it. Like if my company is worth $10 a share and you drive the stock to $100, then they’ve got to issue equity because that’s their job. And so it’s really kind of silly to express that sentiment by buying an equity policy, because equities aren’t scarce. Satoshi is not going to double the supply of Bitcoin if you pile into Bitcoin. The whole point, the reason it’s a commodity, is there’s no one that can rug pull you and there’s no one that can inflate the supply.”

Trying to wrap my head further around the idea of intrinsic value, I asked Saylor about the analogues between bitcoin and fine art. Talking about art, he told me: “I guess what I would say here is there’s a monetary premium ascribed to the Picasso because it’s deemed scarce, desirable, and portable. So it passes the Bernard Arnault test. And the Bernard Arnault test is: I want to buy something that a person richer than me, more cultured than me, will want to buy from me in a decade. So you ask the question, would someone with a lot of money want to own this? Well, it’s a scarcity collectible for cultural reasons, but it’s only valuable to people in Western culture who appreciate that form of art. So it’s really a specialized property asset or specialized collectible.”

He continued: “I think Velazquez, it’s a very famous note in Durant’s story of the Renaissance. He writes that the great court painter in the Spanish court went to Rome to buy masterpieces with the King of Spain’s checkbook, and nobody would sell him anything because the rich in Italy kept these paintings as a store of value and an inflation hedge in the 16th century. If you have to flee with your life—and they had to do it all the time—you get kicked out of your city.”

“You have to leave your real estate behind. You maybe carry your gold, but gold is heavy. So you take a painting, roll it up, and most— even today, if you were a rich person living in a country, pick the country, and the government collapses—what would you rather have? A billion dollars of gold? Would you rather have 20, $50 million paintings? Would you rather have a billion dollars of a company in that country? Would you rather own a billion dollars of real estate or buildings? Do you want to own a billion dollars of oil? What are you going to be able to get out of the country? Your best hope is to roll up the Picasso in a tube and smuggle it out of the country.”

On explaining where art’s intrinsic value comes from, he added: “So in terms of economic density, you’re like, well, why does anybody else value it?”

“Well, bragging rights. It’s a trophy asset. Like, why does someone value owning a football team, or why do they value owning a copy of the Magna Carta? At the end of the day, it’s because you have 10,000 billionaires. And once you have that many billionaires, they will allocate 5 percent of their wealth to those kinds of collectibles because they can. Right. But it’s not the world’s best capital asset. You’re not going to capitalize Microsoft money with art. It doesn’t make any sense because the art auctions are probably all rigged. It’s an unregulated market. It’s not liquid. They’re not fungible. They’re specialty. There’s all sorts of uncertainty.”

“The Holy Roman Empire sacks Rome, and they murder, rape, and pillage everything. You can see the appeal of fleeing the town with your art. I mean, you can see the appeal of that. But yeah, Bitcoin’s a better idea. Bitcoin is the idea of a fungible capital asset that all of the wealthy, powerful, educated people in the world are going to want that you can actually teleport out of the country in a few minutes. So I think ultimately these guys get caught up in intrinsic value. And of course, the best money has zero intrinsic value. It’s all monetary premium. That’s the best money. It’s pretty obvious.”

Dovetailing from ‘the best money’, I asked him how bitcoin is homogenizing itself in a world of increasing banking regulations like AML and KYC. Saylor told me: “Well, I think it’s doing it now. I mean, you’re watching it, right? For example, Block sells $10 billion worth of Bitcoin every year via Cash App. They’re a publicly traded company. They abide by AML and KYC regulations. They have compliance. They have responsibilities. There are certain things they won’t do in New York State because of state laws. So Coinbase is handling Bitcoin. They’re in a continual dialogue with the SEC. It’s sometimes confrontational, but you’ve got them working on it.”

“Fidelity, you know, Fidelity Digital Assets is custodying billions and billions of dollars of Bitcoin. I’m sure they’ve got an army of lawyers and finance people thinking about it.”

I also pressed him on why he’s selling so much MicroStrategy stock — to which he replied: “It was like April of 2014. I was given a stock option as part of my compensation for 400,000 shares. It was a 10-year stock option that expires worthless after 10 years if I don’t exercise it. So, I think the expiration date was like April 25th or something like that. About a year ago, I said, well, eventually, I’m going to have to exercise it. So, how do I do it?”

🔥 65% OFF FOR LIFE: Using this coupon entitles you to 65% off an annual subscription to Fringe Finance for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber.

He explained: “If you go back and check out our conference call sometime in the October-November timeframe, I told all the shareholders I’d put in place a 10B51 plan. That plan was to sell 5,000 shares a day, every day, for 80 trading days, the last 80 days at the end of the window. I held the option for the longest time I could—10 years—and then I had to exercise it.”

“So, I wasn’t actually selling shares that I owned. My shares, I’m actually holding. What I was doing was exercising the option granted a decade prior. I was selling into the market to pay the cost of the option and banking the money because that was my only choice. Otherwise, the option would expire worthless.”

“The reason you saw continual reports is because, every day, you have to report those, right? Public companies have total transparency, so every single day, you could see exactly 5,000 shares, you could see the price they were sold at, it was all programmatic. The alternative would be to do it without a 10B51 program and try to do it in three days. But that would have been much more anxiety-inducing for everybody because there are lockup periods, and then people would be thinking, well, which three days, why did he pick those three days? I was trying to be as graceful and transparent as I could in something that I kind of needed to get done.”

Finally, I asked him about the biggest risk to the bitcoin network. He responded: “I think that Bitcoin, the network, has won the crypto wars. As a crypto asset, it’s won and is destined to grow from a trillion to 10 trillion to 100 trillion. So, it’s winning. Just like any empire or any winner, what’s the biggest risk? The biggest risk is that the people within the network get fat, dumb, and happy, and then it’s overcome by… what is the word? Gluttony? There’s this tendency for people in successful countries to meddle and want to fix things that aren’t broken.”

“So really, the biggest risk to Bitcoin is all of a sudden charismatic, well-intentioned developers deciding to improve it themselves, and they introduce instabilities by attempting to improve it.”

Finally, I asked him to debate Peter Schiff on my podcast. He replied: “Peter has been debating on this topic for a decade now. I mean, heck, when I got into Bitcoin in 2020, one of the reasons I bought Bitcoin was because I saw the Eric Voorhees-Peter Schiff debate from 2017. He wasn’t persuasive in 2017, and he hasn’t been persuasive since. I think it’s a disservice to promote that in general.”

“By the way, the elephant in the room here is I don’t think you can find a single person in the world who owns a billion dollars worth of gold. I challenge you to find one. Go find me a person who owns a billion dollars worth of gold bullion as an investment, and then bring them. If you can find me that person, Chris, I’ll debate them. I will debate them. If you can find me a person who legitimately bought a billion dollars of gold as an investment and they want to debate me on your podcast, I’ll do it.”

Listen to the full audio interview here.

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

The global, government-coerced transition into “green energy” has geologists scouring the Earth for new sources of lithium — the element that’s required for batteries, like those used in electric vehicles.

Now, in a cosmic practical joke on environmentalists, researchers say they’ve found a lithium mother lode — in Pennsylvania fracking wastewater. 

It turns out that the Marcellus Shale —  a long swath of sedimentary rock in the northeastern United States that holds huge amounts of frackable gas — holds huge quantities of lithium too. Justin Mackey and other researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pennsylvania were pleasantly surprise when they studied the contents of wastewater dredged up in the fracking process at 515 sites in the Keystone State, reports Science Alert.

Long before the frackers showed up, deep groundwater has been dissolving the lithium in the Marcellus Shale for eons. “It’s been dissolving rocks for hundreds of millions of years—essentially, the water has been mining the subsurface,” Mackey told the University of Pittsburgh‘s Brandie Jefferson. 

When they analyzed the wastewater data, they were stunned by the volume of lithium. The shale “has the capacity to provide significant lithium yields for the foreseeable future” he says. Their detailed findings were published in Scientific Reports. 

It’s unclear if other fracking hotspots have abundant lithium too. However, even using conservative estimates of how much can be recovered from the wastewater suggests that Pennsylvania alone could cover more than 30% of America’s 2024 demand. 

The lithium rich wastewater from oil fracking in the Marcellus Shale has the potential to provide 30% of the US demand for Lithium. Unfortunately New York bans the practice of fracking for this oil & its lithium rich wastewater. https://t.co/Ry3gZJexGD

— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) May 19, 2024

The US government is targeting lithium independence, with the Department of Energy specifically aiming for all of the country’s lithium needs to be covered by domestic production by 2030. That’s causing a mad rush — and conflicts that pit green energy boosters against environmentalists and American Indians who are litigating to shut down promising sources. 

Case in point: the Thacker Pass mine in northern Nevada, which is supposed to be the nation’s largest open-pit lithium mine. Indian tribes sued, claiming the mine is too close to the site of an 1865 massacre.  Environmentalists sued, saying the mining process will destroy animal habitats and harm groundwater. Now the federal Fish and Wildlife Service is doing a year-long study on the potential impact to a tiny snail. 

via ECIU

The United States is way behind other countries. Here’s the 2023 lithium production leaderboard according to Investing News Network: 

Australia: 86,000 metric tons (MT)
Chile: 44,000 
China: 33,000 
Argentina: 9,600
Brazil: 4,900  
Zimbabwe: 3,400
Canada: 3,400 (tied for 6th)
Portugal: 380 
USA: Production numbers withheld, purportedly to protect proprietary company data
An artisanal mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reportedly uses rotating 5,000-worker shifts (Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty and NPR)

Lithium and cobalt mining in third-world countries is often a highly toxic and hazardous enterprise. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, militias have reportedly abducted children and brought them to dig away to fulfill leftists’ green dreams. 

Here’s how Harvard’s Siddharth Kara described the horror show: 

“You have to imagine walking around some of these mining areas and dialing back our clock centuries. People are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain.

“Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust.”

Compared to that, harvesting Pennsylvania fracking wastewater sounds positively idyllic. Whatya say, Greta?

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

For centuries, the Vatican has been carefully guarding their most precious secrets.  In recent years, that has been especially true regarding what they know about UFOs, aliens and the mysteries of the universe.  So why have they chosen this exact moment in history to publicly talk about these things?  The press conference at the Vatican on Thursday is the very first time that the Vatican has held a press conference about UFOs, aliens and “apparitions” since 1978. 

So this is a really big deal.  It is being reported that the Vatican has decided to issue new guidelines “on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future”…

The Vatican has announced that it is set to hold a press conference on “supernatural phenomena” tomorrow, and it will touch on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future.

According to a notice on the Vatican’s website, it will kick of at noon tomorrow, and will feature three prominent Vatican members.

Being held to “present the new provisions of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for discerning between apparitions and other supernatural phenomena,” it will be led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandex, Messenger Armando Matteo and Daniela Del Gaudio.

If the Vatican feels a need to issue guidelines about how to “deal with potential encounters in the future”, that seems to imply that they believe that there will be “potential encounters in the future”.

What do they know that they aren’t telling us?

Probably a lot.

The last time that the Vatican did something like this was all the way back in February 1978…

The last time the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued norms for evaluating alleged apparitions and reports of supernatural events was in February 1978.

At the time, the prefect, Cardinal Franjo Seper, said the norms were necessary given how news of alleged apparitions spreads rapidly thanks to the mass media.

What has changed between then and now?

One thing that has changed is that the current pope seems to be quite interested in the topic of aliens.

In comments that he made near the end of 2023, Pope Francis seemed to suggest that aliens could actually be baptized…

However, Pope Francis did touch on aliens at the end of last year, when he was talking about how early Christians discussed associating with “Jews and Gentiles” – which, for some reason, he compared to aliens.

He said: “That was unthinkable. If, for example, tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here…Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them…And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?”

He didn’t answer his own question, but added: “It was never the ministry of the closed door, never,”

So he plans to have an “open door” for the aliens?

What would that look like?

The producer of a new documentary entitled “God Versus Aliens” seems to believe that the Vatican wants to prepare us for the day when humanity finally makes contact with such beings…

The documentary ‘God Versus Aliens’ is to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and reveal the Vatican’s secrets about UFOs.

The award-winning filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee says that the Vatican publishing new guidance on apparitions means that the full disclosure about the UFO phenomena is getting closer.

He said: “The Vatican has been studying UFOs for decades and even has its own Cardinal appointed to deal with first contact. From my research I believe that this new guidance on apparitions is proof that they know that UFOs are more than just physical crafts from other worlds and that they have a paranormal side to them.”

What most people don’t realize is that the Vatican has been on the cutting edge of the search for extraterrestrial life for a long time.

The Vatican Observatory in Rome is very well funded, and the Vatican also has a “research group” that uses the very high-powered equipment at the University of Arizona in Tucson…

Many people are surprised to learn that the Vatican even has an observatory. The history of the Vatican Observatory goes back two and a half centuries. During its history, there has been some turmoil and several moves to escape the light and other hindrances that large cities, such as Rome, pose to doing astronomy. Therefore, more than a half-century ago the Vatican Observatory established a research group at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, while the Vatican Observatory’s headquarters remained in Italy.

Needless to say, the Vatican isn’t going to tell us everything that they know right now.

But a couple of things have become quite clear.

Number one, the Vatican believes that extraterrestrial life exists.

Number two, the Vatican plans to develop a positive relationship with any “aliens” that do make contact with humanity.

Could all of this be setting us up for a great deception of absolutely epic proportions?

While he was still alive, author Tom Horn made the following observation…

Why the Vatican has taken this carefully designed and deliberate course over the last few years is the greater mystery, but implies knowledge on their part of facts yet hidden to most of the world that may hold far-reaching and historic implications. It also illustrates how Rome has wittingly or unwittingly set itself up to become the agent of mass end-times deception regarding “salvation from above.” That’s because, historically, there exists a clear pattern wherein man’s psychological need of a savior is displayed during times of distress—a time like today—when people look skyward for divine intervention.

It is true.

When things get bad enough, the world is going to be looking for a savior.

And if a “superior race” appears on the scene that seems to have all the answers, many people out there will fully embrace them.

For decades, books, movies and television shows have conditioned us to expect that someday we will interact with “aliens” from another planet.  100 years ago, everyone would have dismissed such talk as nonsense, but now we have been well prepared for the great deception that is eventually coming.

Sadly, the Vatican seems to be quite ready to welcome “aliens” as their new best friends, and that is extremely unfortunate.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

After a jarringly sudden announcement of its CEO’s retirement, investment giant Vanguard has tapped its first outsider to serve as the firm’s fifth CEO. On July 8, Blackrock veteran Salim Ramji will take over, facing customer service challenges, uneasiness about whether an outsider will preserve the firm’s culture, and short-lived curiosity about whether he’d chart a new course for crypto. 

In March, even the closest Vanguard watchers were taken by surprise when the Malvern, PA-headquartered company announced that Tim Buckley would be retiring. Unlike previous such departures, that announcement didn’t center on a transition to a named successor, suggesting to some that there may have been some disenchantment on the part of Buckley and/or Vanguard. 

Salim Ramji will take command of Vanguard on July 8

Tuesday’s Vanguard announcement touted the highlights of Ramji’s BlackRock tenure:  

Most recently, Mr. Ramji was Global Head of iShares & Index Investing, where he was responsible for managing a majority of the firm’s client assets and evolving the iShares platform to provide an even broader set of innovative low-cost products for investors globally.

His contributions led to expanded investment access for tens of millions of investors, a more central role for ETFs in retirement and wealth portfolios and a more efficient bond market with ETFs as an enabling technology. At BlackRock, he led the implementation of a voting choice platform, which democratizes client access to the proxy voting process.

Vanguard manages $9.3 trillion in assets for some 50 million investors. The diehards call themselves “Bogleheads” — signaling their dedication to the investment philosophy of legendary founder Jack Bogle. At the center of that philosophy you’ll find Vanguard’s unique ownership structure, in which Vanguard funds own the firm, which drives a low-expense structure that’s been essential to the firm’s growth.  

That ownership structure is also meant to instill an investor-first culture, but the firm’s once-sterling reputation for customer service has been tarnished in recent years. Alongside perceptions of deteriorating call-center service, navigating the firm’s website is often highly unintuitive and aggravating.
Tell ’em, Arjun:  

I think you’re wrong Chris. I find the Vanguard website infuriatingly difficult to navigate and moved my accounts to Schwab. Their client service is excellent and highly responsive.

— Arjun Divecha (@arjundivecha) May 14, 2024

“I’m surprised that Vanguard went with an outside hire,” Morningstar analyst Daniel Sotiroff told MarketWatch. “This is a departure from past hires, as previous CEOs came up through the ranks and were embedded in Vanguard’s culture from early on in their careers.”

With all that in mind, Bogleheads are doubt be uneasy that much of the early reporting on Ramji’s selection — and Ramji’s statements too — focus on asset and customer growth rather than righting the ship.

“I really do believe that there can be millions more people who can benefit from what Vanguard has to offer,” Ramji told the Financial Times. “Part of the opportunity over the next five years, 10 years and beyond is to scale that capability. Even with 50 million [customers], there are millions and millions more, even in this country.”

At the same time, Ramji has made an effort to reassure investors and employees that he won’t overturn the firm’s culture. “The mission and purpose started by Bogle and continued by his successors will continue under my leadership,” said Ramji. “I plan to pursue that with the zeal of a convert.”

Naval history enthusiast and investment-industry revolutionary Jack Bogle named his uniquely-structured firm after the HMS Vanguard, Admiral Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 

Historically, Vanguard has been judicious about launching new funds, with a wariness about aiding and abetting investors chasing trends over a cliff. Consistent with that cautious philosophy, Vanguard in January announced it had no intention to launch a bitcoin ETF — nor would it offer other firms’ crypto ETFs on its brokerage platform. At that time, global ETF head Janel Jackson said: 

“When deciding what investment products to offer, we consider a range of factors, including whether we believe they have enduring investment merit and meet our clients’ needs. While the discussion about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, in general, has increased recently, we do not currently believe that there is an appropriate role for them to play in long-term portfolios.”  

Given Ramji led BlackRock’s enormously successful spot bitcoin ETF launch, crypto-mongers were wondering if he’ll persuade the Vanguard board that it’s in investors’ best interest after all: 

Vanguard’s new CEO is Salim Ramji.

This is the same guy who oversaw the filing for BlackRock’s #Bitcoin ETF.

Probably nothing. pic.twitter.com/Ulr9YJMj2l

— Arsen | Bitcoin Therapy 📧 (@satoshibaggins) May 15, 2024

However, after his selection, Ramji signaled that Vanguard would stay the no-Bitcoin course under his leadership, telling Barron’s, “I have heard [chief investment officer] Greg Davis’ explanation and I think it is entirely consistent with Vanguard’s investment philosophy. It is a logical and consistent point of view.” 

Vanguard investors who oppose ESG madness have reason to be encouraged, as the firm’s announcement highlighted Ramji’s Blackrock experience in leading “the implementation of a voting choice platform, which democratizes client access to the proxy voting process.”

As we’d reported here, Vanguard in February expanded its own pilot program that gives investors in index funds the power to choose a proxy-voting philosophy. By passing through proxy voting picks to investors, such programs help investment firms walk the line between the blue-haired ESG screechers and sensible types who don’t want their index funds to invest in an oil company only to cast votes badgering them out of the fossil fuel business.  

In some ways, Vanguard has been leading the Big Three indexing firms away from the ESG precipice. In December 2022, the company withdrew from the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, a coalition that once had 300 asset managers signed on to reduce greenhouse gases and lower the earth’s temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. “[Vanguard is] not in the game of politics,” CEO Tim Buckley told Financial Times at the time.

Mr. Ramji, let’s keep it that way.

Authored by J. Kennerly Davis via RealClearPolicy,

May brings more bad economic news for hard-pressed American households. “Transitory” inflation remains firmly entrenched at rates equal to or higher than those reported at the start of 2024.

The Labor Department reports this week that the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, it’s official measure of the rate of change in the retail price of a basket of everyday goods and services, rose 0.3% in the month of April, the same as for the month of January. For twelve months, CPI increased 3.4% through April compared to 3.1% for twelve months through January. And wholesale prices, a good indicator of future retail prices, increased much more than expected in April, rising at the fastest annual rate since April 2023.

The cumulative effect of persistent inflation is devastating. Since President Biden took office in 2021 the CPI is up, and Americans’ purchasing power is down, by 19%. For basic necessities, the situation is even worse. Groceries are up 21%. Gasoline prices are up 47%. The cost of shelter 20%, and electricity almost 30%.

American workers cannot keep up. Since President Biden took office, average hourly earnings after inflation have fallen over 2.5%. A typical American family must pay $12,000 more per year simply to maintain the standard of living that it enjoyed when President Biden took office.

As bad as the official CPI numbers are, actual inflation is much worse. That is because the government calculates CPI using a methodology intentionally designed to understate actual inflation. It does so to conceal the destructive results that inevitably flow from its irresponsible policies.

Inflation is always and everywhere the result of government policies that increase the supply of money circulating in the economy faster than the productive sectors of the economy can expand their capacity to produce goods and services for purchase.

From day one, the Biden administration has flooded the economy with borrowed money in the form of transfer payments, subsidies, and grants designed to purchase the political support of favored constituencies such as those in the green tech sector. At the same time, Biden-controlled federal agencies have unleashed a tidal wave of crushing regulation designed to reduce the productive capacity of disfavored constituencies such as the oil and gas industry. The inflation that afflicts us was inevitable.

President Biden has asserted that fighting inflation is the “top economic priority” of his administration. Such a statement would be laughable if the subject matter was not so serious. This president has no intention of altering the policies that define and drive the progressive agenda. There is no war on inflation or, indeed, any serious attempt to bring it under control and stabilize prices. Inflation is baked into the progressive model of government that depends on the continuing disbursement of borrowed money to political supporters.

Under President Biden, the national debt has increased a whopping $13 Trillion and now stands at over $34.6 Trillion. Concerned commentators point out that it will require much sacrifice, potentially disruptive sacrifice, to pay off or even materially to pay down the national debt. They lament that elected officials seem to lack the will and have no plan to deal with the national debt.

In fact, the progressive political class does have a plan to deal with the national debt. Their plan is to perpetuate inflation and thereby to engineer a slow-motion stealth default on the debt that will enable them to continue to enjoy without disruption the political benefits that flow to them from their irresponsible debt-funded vote buying.

During the periodic “fiscal cliff” showdowns in Congress, it is often said that the United States cannot default on its debt. An outright default would certainly shred the government’s credibility in financial markets and dangerously undermine its ability to access those markets to raise funds in the future.

There is also a legal reason that the United States cannot default on its debt. Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted to repudiate Confederate debt and put beyond question the integrity of the obligations of the United States, provides in part that “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.”

Compliance with the Constitution requires that the obligations incurred by the government be repaid in full, dollar for dollar. But, over time, inflation steadily reduces the value of the dollars used by the government to repay the obligations it has incurred. The purchasing power, or value, of a dollar has decreased by 19% just since President Biden took office and is today worth only 81% of what it was worth in January 2021.

This dollar-cheapening inflation, created by irresponsible spend-to-elect policies, enables the government to pay off its debts for cents on the dollar, and effectively default on the obligations it has incurred as a result of those policies. Clearly, inflation is not a bug in the government’s financial system. It is an essential feature.

The Federal Reserve actively supports the spend-elect-inflate model of governance by pursuing policies designed to achieve and maintain a rate of inflation equal to 2% per year. Over a generation, that rate of inflation will reduce the value of a dollar by approximately 50%. That will certainly help the government avoid having to fully repay its debts, but it will be devastating to American households.

 By using inflated dollars to pay its debt, the government is failing to honor its financial obligations. It is defaulting on those obligations and cheating the institutions and individuals who purchased its securities. And it is violating the Constitution. Inflation is not only destructive economically; it is also unlawful.

 J. Kennerly Davis is a former finance executive at a Fortune 500 electric and gas company, and a former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

There are breaking reports that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been in a helicopter crash in a remote northern area of the country and that rescuers are trying to reach him and his crew. 

State media is currently calling it a “hard landing” – suggesting that the president is alive and well, however no other details on the precise nature of the helicopter incident have been revealed. 

What is known is that Raisi’s helicopter went down while in the country’s East Azerbaijan province and that it happened near the border city of Jolfa, and up to three helicopters total made up the air convoy at the time.

State-run IRNA news agency indicated that among the officials aboard the aircraft included Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.

The Associated Press has quoted at least one Iranian official to say it was a “crash” and that there’s an urgent rescue mission currently underway in a forested area:

One local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site himself.

Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather conditions. There had been heavy rain and fog reported with some wind. IRNA called the area a “forest.”

It appears Raisi was traveling in connection with a trip to Azerbaijan earlier in the day, where he had overseen the inauguration of a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev this morning. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency has stated on X Sunday:

“Some of the president’s companions on this helicopter were able to communicate with Central Headquarters, raising hopes that the incident could have ended without casualties.”

Iran President Raisi was flying from a meeting with Ilham Aliyev in Tehran when the incident occurred.

Video footage shows the head of the Islamic Republic on board shortly before the helicopter made a hard landing in mountainous terrain due to foggy conditions. pic.twitter.com/ofWEP0cL2D

— Russian Market (@runews) May 19, 2024

Thus far initial reports indicate that Raisi has survived the incident, but again the ‘hard landing’ appears to be significant – and possibly far worse – than what state media is letting on.

The fact that a rescue team has yet to even reach the location of the downed helicopter means this could be a potential casualty situation involving top officials.

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi confirms: Rescue teams have not yet arrived at the scene of the helicopter accident due to bad weather and fog.

President Raisi’s helicopter made a hard landing. pic.twitter.com/WRelcekVNy

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 19, 2024

Almost immediately, a number of online commenters raised the question of potential foreign involvement… “Israel?” some asked. However, it’s also well understood that helicopters become more prone to incidents in foggy or inclement weather, and over mountainous difficult terrain. Iran’s aviation industry has also long languished under Washington-led sanctions.

developing…

Jeff Bezos’ space startup, Blue Origin, will resume crewed rocket launches this morning after a two-year pause. The New Shepard rocket, carrying six passengers, will lift off from the company’s launch facilities in Van Horn, Texas, at approximately 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET).

#NewShepard is vertical on the pad. We have an updated launch time of 8:52 a.m. CDT / 13:52 UTC. The #NS25 live webcast begins T-40 minutes on https://t.co/7Y4TherpLr pic.twitter.com/pepgdwt0BX

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) May 19, 2024

This flight will be New Shepard’s first crewed mission since August 2022. The company was forced to suspend launches after an uncrewed New Shepard vehicle suffered a mid-flight engine problem in September 2022. In December 2023, the launch vehicle successfully completed an uncrewed mission, carrying dozens of science and research payloads to space. 

The #NS25 crew is certified ‘ready to fly to space’ by CrewMember 7 Laura Stiles. The launch window opens tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. CDT / 13:30 UTC.

Tune in live on https://t.co/7Y4TherpLr 🚀 pic.twitter.com/d97U8udprB

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) May 19, 2024

Today’s crew includes six private passengers, including Ed Dwight, a former Air Force captain and first Black astronaut candidate in 1961. 

Meet Ed Dwight, a former United States Air Force Captain who was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as the nation’s first Black astronaut candidate. Watch to learn more about Ed Dwight’s incredible life story. #NS25 pic.twitter.com/ADC5XWG2nd

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) May 17, 2024

Watch Live: 

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Police Department of Charleston, South Carolina, has finished its investigation into the death of former Boeing employee John Barnett, who could have played a prominent role in a lawsuit related to the jetliner maker’s quality issues.

The nose of a Boeing commercial airliner is seen in Sydney, Australia on March 14, 2019. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

In a statement provided to The Epoch Times, the Charleston police said they didn’t identify any evidence contradicting initial findings that Mr. Barnett died of “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

The police were dispatched on the morning of March 9 to conduct a welfare check at a Holiday Inn hotel where Mr. Barnett, 62, was staying while preparing for his case against the aerospace giant. He was discovered sitting inside a vehicle with a “gunshot wound to the head,” with a notebook containing what resembles a “suicide note” located on the passenger seat.

A page of notebook found in John Barnett’s vehicle. (Charleston Police Department)

“No evidence of forced entry was found and there were no signs of a physical struggle within the vehicle,” the police department said. “The vehicle’s key fob was discovered in Mr. Barnett’s pants pocket.”

The police also examined Mr. Barnett’s vehicle and recovered a Smith & Wesson handgun, a projectile that “caused the defect in the headliner” and a fired cartridge case. Those items were forensically evaluated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Firearms Department.

“Examinations concluded the recovered projectile was discharged from the Smith & Wesson which was registered to Mr. Barnett,” reads a May 16 report shared with The Epoch Times by Charleston County Coroner’s Office. “Furthermore, during the autopsy, the trajectory of the wound path was documented. All findings were consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

According to the coroner’s office, surveillance cameras at the hotel parking lot continuously showed Mr. Barnett’s vehicle throughout the evening of March 8 through the morning of March 9.

“From the time the vehicle was backed into the parking space until the Charleston Fire Department gained entry to the vehicle, no other individuals were seen entering or exiting Mr. Barnett’s vehicle,” the Coroner’s office said in its report.

“A review of medical records and interviews with Mr. Barnett’s family, attorneys, and healthcare professionals, revealed Mr. Barnett was under chronic stress in the context of the lawsuit, suffered from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, and grieved the death of his wife,” the Coroner’s report read.

“During his time in Charleston, his attorneys reported Mr. Barnett discussed increasing the dose of his anti-anxiety medication,” it continued. “The writings found in the vehicle were examined by the Charleston Police Department and found only Mr. Barnett’s fingerprints on the notebook. The writings contained information known only to his family.”

“The cause of death was determined to be: Gunshot Wound of the Head. The manner of death is best deemed, ‘Suicide,’” the coroner’s report concluded.

Mr. Barnett, who had worked for more than 30 years at Boeing before retiring in 2017, had become a vocal critic of the company’s safety and production quality practices. At the time of his death, he was a key witness in a lawsuit, in which he claimed that the aerospace giant retaliated against him for raising his concerns with the U.S. Labor Department.

“We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends,” Boeing said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times at the time.

The death of Mr. Barnett, who carried out safety checks and oversaw aircraft production while working with Boeing as a quality manager, came amid intense public scrutiny sparked by a Jan. 5 incident, where a panel covering an unused door came off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 during the flight.

According to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board, this mid-air technical failure occurred because the four bolts that were supposed to be holding the panel in place were missing. The incident prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground all 737 Max 9s, order “enhanced inspections” on the planes, and open an investigation to see if the company failed to ensure proper production safety standards.

Mr. Barnett claimed that the Jan. 5 incident it might not have been an isolated occurrence. “This is not a 737 problem; it’s a Boeing problem,” he told TMZ in January when asked whether 737s could be trusted. “I know the FAA is going in and done due diligence and inspections to ensure that the door close on the 737 are installed properly and the fasteners are stored properly.”

Authored by Ned Ryun via RealClearPolicy,

Despite all the controversy surrounding the Biden Administration’s bad economic, immigration and domestic policy, they’re wanting to go next level on their not-so-great-terrible-policies. Biden wants to put the interests of Chinese airlines before the interests of American ones. 

The Biden Administration is reportedly considering using the discretion they have to increase flights by Chinese airliners in and out of the U.S. Reuters reported last month that “in February, the U.S. Transportation Department said Chinese passenger airlines could boost weekly round-trip U.S. flights to 50 starting on March 31, up from the current 35, about a third of pre-pandemic levels. U.S. carriers were authorized as well to fly 50 flights per week but are currently not using all those flights.” U.S. air carriers can’t increase flights because they don’t fly over Russian airspace for obvious reasons. This situation gives Chinese air carriers, and other foreign carriers, a big competitive advantage because they are continuing to fly over Russian air space.

The Chairman and Co-Chair of the bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party objected to this Biden Administration idea. They sent a letter on April 10, 2024, “we write to urge caution in the approval of new flights between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) until such time that the PRC abides by its existing bilateral agreement, and passenger demand begins to recover.” They argued that “PRC carriers are continuing to operate air routes at an anti-competitive commercial advantage that must not be allowed to increase without reciprocal parity in the number of U.S. carrier operated routes to the PRC.” They want to make sure that passenger demand, not the demands of the Chinese government, should be a factor; what a shocking concept. They also worry about the security of American passengers flying in Russian air space. 

There are estimates that U.S. carriers have been hit with $2 billion in annual lost revenues from flights because they can’t fly in Russian airspace. Foreign airliners have been using their advantage to fly more direct routes with lower fuel costs. This situation has prompted American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, the Air Line Pilots Association, the Allied Pilots Association and Association of Flight Attendants to sign a letter asking for this increase in flights to be stopped “until U.S. workers and businesses are guaranteed equality of access in the marketplace, free from the existing harmful anti-competitive policies of the Chinese government.” Seems like a reasonable request.

Members of Congress and everyone in the U.S. air industry think giving China a competitive advantage is a terrible idea, especially when they have been guilty of stealing American intellectual property (IP) and flooding the international market with subsidized mass-produced goods. Apparently, one must be senile to think any of this makes political or economic sense. Implementing an America First policy is what the American people want right now, and it is one reason why the smart money is on former President Donald J. Trump to return to the White House next January.

Let’s not forget that after Covid-19 hit, China stopped air service agreements with the U.S. and shut off U.S. carriers. The Chinese government imposed new limits on access and other regulations that discriminated against U.S. carriers that remain today. A strong response to these anti-competitive actions does not include rewarding Chinese carriers with increased access to U.S. markets. The same is not done for U.S. carriers operating in China. 

Fairness has been tossed out the window by the Biden Administration with this idea. Although it makes sense to allow the former bilateral agreement between China and the U.S., we can’t ignore the fact that China has a competitive advantage that should not be rewarded by the Biden Administration. 

Biden’s China First policy, in addition to attempting to force Americans to buy an expensive electric vehicle by 2032 (likely made in China), is sending independent voters right back over to the Trump column this fall. The good news is that ideas like this are opening the eyes of the American people to the America Last policies being pushed by the Biden administration; in fact, so much so that even members of his own party in Congress are resisting allowing China to grab a bigger part of the aviation flight market share.

Ned Ryun is the Founder and CEO of American Majority.