Fed President: We Should Have A Discussion About Guaranteed Basic Income

Earlier today we briefly touched upon the recent chaos in 10Y yields and Eurodollars, sparked by growing source of much consternation and confusion at the Fed, namely the timing of the next QE taper, which if the 2013 example holds, would lead to a catastrophic market crash. We quoted DB's Jim Reid who wrote that "we’ve only had 7 business days this year and we’ve already had a full 360 degree tapering debate played out by the Fed." It's not just tapering, mind you: the same clueless hacks who brought the global economy beyond the edge of collapse and only the injection of $4 billion in liquidity per day ($120BN/30) is keeping everything from imploding, are just as confused about when to hike rates. Consider the following recent statements:

Bloomberg also picked up on this point and echoed our observations, writing that "Federal Reserve officials are beginning to split over when they may need to start pulling back on their massive monetary stimulus, drawing nervous glances from investors who remember how markets were roiled during the 2013 taper tantrum."

In the past week, four of the Fed’s 18 policy makers have publicly raised the prospect they may discuss reducing bond buying currently running at $120 billion a month by year’s end. In contrast, several others have called the debate premature and Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida, the most senior central banker to weigh in, has said he doesn’t expect any changes before 2022.

He may not expect it, but traders are: investors ramped up yields on Treasuries to nearly 1.20%, before two strong auctions helped ease rates which were redlining to the point that stocks started selling off. It also prompted coordinated verbal intervention by two of the Fed's top three officials: Fed vice chair Clarida and governor Lael Brainard spoke on Wednesday and each sought to assure markets that no tapering, and certainly no rate hikes are coming any time soon.

To wit, Brainard pushed back against suggestions the central bank could taper its bond-buying program later this year, arguing the U.S. economy will need that monetary support for “quite some time.”

“The economy is far away from our goals in terms of both employment and inflation, and even under an optimistic outlook, it will take time to achieve substantial further progress,” Brainard said Wednesday in a virtual speech to the Canadian Association for Business Economics. “Given my baseline outlook, I expect that the current pace of purchases will remain appropriate for quite some time.”

Clarida went further - as in beyond the purposefully nebulous "quite some time" - and said that the Fed will not raise interest rates until inflation has been at 2% for a year.

“I went into this quite skeptical about makeup strategies as a practical tool for central banks. And you’ll see that there really is not much of a make-up element in this at all, other than we’re not going to lift off until we get 2% inflation for a year.”

Those two are the doves. What about the hawks?

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/atlanta-fed-president-we-should-have-discussion-about-guaranteed-basic-income

The Insurrection Lie.

The legacy media has spent the last week repeating the lie that Trump supporters travelled to Washington D.C. last week in a coordinated attempt to overthrow the government. It’s a lie.

Here’s what really happened.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

On January 6, 2021, hundreds of thousands of citizens traveled to the nation’s capital to exercise their Constitutional right to peacefully protest.

This was their grievance: Seventy-five million had cast their ballots for Trump on election day.

Then, in the wee hours, when Las Vegas oddsmakers were calling a Trump victory, counting inexplicably stopped, and a disproportionate number of Biden votes appeared.

The Biden votes were primarily from Democrat-controlled cities: Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Milwaukee.

They were culled from mail-in ballots, an accommodation hurriedly retrofitted into the voting system because of a pandemic.

The election’s statistical anomalies were mind boggling, including Republican dominance down ballot, Trump’s significant support among minority voters, and his victory in all traditional bell weathers.

In June, Attorney General Bill Barr sat for an interview in CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and warned of fraud with mail-in voting.

He said: “People trying to change the rules to this, to this methodology – which, as a matter of logic, is very open to fraud and coercion – is reckless and dangerous and people are playing with fire.”

Some of the new voting procedures were ordered by state governors and health officials even though Article II of the Constitution delegates rule-making for elections exclusively to state legislatures.

The Washington protesters had reason to ask: Did someone pull a fast one?

President Trump addressed the protesters and called on the assembled to march “over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

At the moment the President was uttering the words “peacefully,” though, a different more sinister group had already gathered at the Capitol, a full 45 minute walk away.

Whatever happened there is not yet fully understood. Given the proclivity of federal law enforcement to act politically against Trump, it unfortunately may never be.

Some things, though, are certain. We know, for instance, that many of the troublemakers were not Trump supporters.

We know, too, that Capitol Police waved at least some Trump supporters into the building.

We know that a Trump supporter was shot in the Capitol.

Finally, we know a Capitol Police officer died of a stroke the day after the riot; but it is not known what may have happened during the melee that would provide a causal connection.

His brother stated that he had communicated with the officer after the event: “He texted me last night and said, ‘I got pepper-sprayed twice,’ and he was in good shape.”

Sometime after the riot, he returned to his division office and collapsed.

It has been reported that the Capitol Police initially issued a statement denying that a police officer had died as a result of injuries sustained in the attack.

https://thenationalpulse.com/analysis/the-insurrection-lie/

Baker is a clown

Estonian Prime Minister Resigns Amid Graft Scandal

The prime minister of Estonia announced his immediate resignation in the early hours of Wednesday following the detention of several suspects with ties to his party as part of a corruption investigation related to real estate development in Tallinn.

RatasEstonian Prime minister Jüri Ratas (Photo by: Estonain Government)The Estonian Prosecutor's Office had confirmed on Tuesday the detention of five people suspected of criminal involvement in a scheme to secure development permissions in exchange for political donations.

Prime Minister Jüri Ratas said on Facebook that the allegations put forward by the authorities “do not mean that someone is definitely guilty, but they will inevitably cast a serious shadow over all those involved.”

“In such a situation, it only seems right that, by resigning myself, I will give the opportunity to shed light on all the circumstances and to come to terms with clarity,” he added in his post.

Among those detained are Secretary General of Ratas’ Centre Party, Mihhail Korb, as well as Kersti Kracht, an adviser to the Minister of Finance, and businessman Hillar Teder.

A spokesperson for the Centre Party - which itself was named suspect - told OCCRP in an emailed statement that Korb has similarly announced that he will resign, adding that the party will “cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies.”

Teder is accused of agreeing to donate a total of up to one million euros (US$1.2 million) for permission to construct a car park near the Porto Franco complex in Tallinn.

He is also alleged to have conspired to bribe Kracht in order to secure a 39 million euro (US$47 million) loan as part of relief measures amid the pandemic. Both are accused of a money laundering conspiracy to conceal the planned payment, in addition to further, as yet undisclosed criminal offences.

The two remaining suspects have not been named by the authorities, and are reportedly not public figures.

While the accused have as yet only been detained, authorities are reportedly pushing forward in order to secure their arrest, such that prosecutors may then be at liberty to bring charges.

Ratas has formally tendered his resignation with the office of President Kersti Kaljulaid, according to an official statement.

The scandal is already seeing gathering fallout, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announcing it has taken the decision not to grant a 63 million euro ($76 million) loan to the Porto Franco project.

It is not the first time the development initiative has seen questions raised concerning payments between the business community and the ruling party. In October last year, Hillar Teder responded to scrutiny over a 60,000 euro (US$73,000) donation to the Centre Party by denying the contribution had any connection with Porto Franco.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13622-estonian-prime-minister-resigns-amid-graft-scandal

>>12508993

Notable

MI Judge Orders Dem Sec of State To Release All Communications With Dominion, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google

The fight in Michigan to expose what really happened in the November 2020 election is far from over.

100 Percent Fed Up reports – The morning after the election, in a solidly red county in northern Michigan where Trump banners, flags, and yard signs can be found in almost every front yard, voters woke up to discover Joe Biden had walloped President Trump in the November 3rd general election. Upon further examination, it was discovered that 6,000 votes tabulated by Dominion Voting machines were flipped from Donald J. Trump to Joe Biden. The media called it a “glitch” and blamed it on human error—the American public was stunned and demanded that lawmakers look into this and other voter irregularities popping up in multiple critical swing states.

In addition to thousands of votes that were flipped from President Trump to Democrat candidate Joe Biden, Central Lake, MI (located in Antrim County) resident William Bailey was concerned about ballots that were re-run through the Dominion tabulator machine after a 262-262 tie on a vote a ballot initiative that would allow a marijuana establishment to be located within the Village of Central Lake.

While ballots were being inserted into the machine, 3 of them were destroyed and were not placed through the tabulator. At the conclusion of the recount by the tabulating machine and with three fewer votes, the result was 262-261, and the initiative passed. Of course, this result could only be possible after 3 of the ballots were destroyed.

At 5:30 PM on Friday, December 4, 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin A. Elsenheimer granted permission to William Bailey and his team of IT experts to conduct a forensic study of the 16 Dominion voting machines, tabulators, thumb drives, related software, and the Clerk’s “master tabulator.”

On December 14, 2020, Michigan 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin A Elsenheimer agreed to allow Mr. DePerno’s client, William Bailey, and a highly skilled team of IT experts to perform a forensic examination on 16 of the Dominion voting machines in Antrim County, MI. On Monday, against the objections of MI Secretary of State Benson, Judge Elsenheimer agreed to allow the results of the forensic examination to be released to the public. The results were damning.

After the forensic examination of 16 Dominion Voting machines in Antrim, Co. MI, Allied Security Operations Group has concluded that the Dominion Voting machines were assigned a 68.05% error rate. DePerno explained that when ballots are put through the machine, a whopping 68.05% error rate means that 68.05% of the ballots are sent for bulk adjudication, which means they collect the ballots in a folder. “The ballots are sent somewhere, where people in another location can change the vote,” DePerno explained. The allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines is 1 in 250,000 ballots or .0008%.

On December 15, the MI Senate Oversight Committee questioned Dominion CEO John Poulos about the Dominion Voting machines used in Michigan in the November election.

It’s curious the lengths Democrats are willing to go to keep what should be public information related to the November 2020 election from being revealed to the public.

More

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/mi-judge-orders-dem-sec-state-release-communications-dominion-facebook-apple-amazon-google/