Regular readers may recall my recent discussion, and rebuttal of the concept of a ‘Bretton Woods 3' (BW3) claim of a global shift to supplant the US dollar with a New World Order of commodity- and supply-chain backed alternative currencies. (Here is this link for those who missed it.)

To reiterate, the report concluded: BW3 won't work if it means a shift to the Russian RUB, Chinese CNY, or a new New World Order FX asset. However, we *are* entering global mercantilism in which control of commodities and supply chains, and military power to do so, will be crucial. This will cause expensive problems for markets who think the world looks otherwise. Such a backdrop will benefit the US dollar, but will roil other assets. So far, that critique is ‘working'.

Stocks slumped again yesterday, even suddenly toothless FAANGs. Tesla went down three Twitters. The Nasdaq overall is now down 20% year-to-date (y-t-d). That's dramatic enough maybe Netflix would like to make a film that nobody will watch about it.

Bond yields collapsed again, with a bull steepening of the US curve. That was despite a prominent market call that the Fed will keep hiking to the 5-6% level, causing a deep US recession in the process - which doesn't match the action at least. 12 months ago if you had called 0.5-0.6% for Fed Funds you would still have had some market credibility, because inflation was "transitory". The market is also pricing in more than a 50% chance that by H2 2023 the Fed will be cutting rates -- "because markets". Yet meanwhile:

Malaysia is about to hike its minimum wage by 35%. Yes, it's from a low level. Yes, it's needed for social stability. No, that's not how supply-side inflation will be brought under control, there or anywhere else.

Japan just flagged another supplementary budget with cash handouts to poorer families again aimed at combating high inflation, which for its public means 1.2% y/y headline and -0.7% excluding fresh food and energy(!) That extra deficit spending is via de facto printed money from the BOJ, which is also pegging 10-year JGB yields at 0.25% with unlimited bond purchases for yield curve control (YCC), while the country runs a due to high commodity prices, and while it also expects the exchange rate to not collapse.

China, while caging its people in over Covid is itself caged in on its policy options. It is now going to build more airports and infrastructure for those citizens who probably won't be able to go anywhere until the end of the year at best. That may boost GDP artificially, but it will also push up global commodity prices and inflation even further.

Commodities saw the World Bank say the Ukraine war will cause "the biggest price shock in 50 years." With the UN food prices index at the highest since records began 60 years ago, the World Bank sees wheat increasing 43%, barley 33%, soybeans 20%, edible oils 30%, and chicken 42%: yet Indonesia's palm oil export ban is ‘only' 40% of its total, so some ‘relief'. In energy, oil was back over $100; Germany's Economy Minister implied Berlin might back a Russian oil embargo after all; the US is seeing a squeeze in diesel far more extreme than in general oil prices; and . Poland is prepared: other EU members aren't.

In FX, the US dollar rules. The DXY dollar index is up 6.9% y-t-d at 102.3. Forget about the risk-off JPY rally yesterday, and 130 or 135 as psychological levels: if YCC and the FOMC --and commodities-- don't stop, JPY's fall doesn't either. EUR slumped to 1.0644 and -6.4% y-t-d. It can go far lower. CNY is 6.56 and CNH 6.59. Even Bloomberg is talking about 7, when I used to be the only one doing it. Yet this morning's CNY fixing was a meaningless 8 pips weaker after the 681 pip hack-and-slash yesterday: somebody wants CNY going down at pace, not the market's, as usual.

In the economy, we saw what this all means in US housing: prices soar (+20% y/y) and sales collapse (new homes -8.2% m/m). Demand destruction? Yes. So, prices fall back? How, when the supply side keeps pushing inputs higher, and the tendency in many places is to stimulate? It looks more like the risk of stagflation than an imminent return to ‘new normal' deflation, even if it is a mixed picture in terms of specific national responses.

The geopolitical backdrop will also drive risk off *and* inflation higher. Indeed, yesterday:

The market brushed aside (misreported) headlines about the threat of nuclear war(!) from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the US Secretary of Defence. I would love to say it's because of their deep knowledge of grand strategy, but it was due to their focus on the likes of Twitter and FAANGs, which of course matter *so much* more.

The UK said it had no problem if heavy weaponry it supplies to Ukraine is used to hit targets inside Russia; and Russia implied it has no problem reciprocating in kind -- though whether that means attacks on Ukraine or the UK was left hanging.

Sweden and Finland moved even closer to near-term joint NATO entry.

A series of likely false-flag attacks in Russian-breakaway Transnistria prompted Moscow to threaten intervention there, causing serious concern in Moldova and the EU.

The broader Balkans continued to smoulder worryingly.

Australian PM Morrison declared a Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands would be a ‘red line', with the US refusing to rule out the use of military force if this were to ever occur.

An ex-Iranian MP stated the obvious --to everyone outside circles on Twitter and DC-- that Iran intended to build a nuclear weapon. ("" and the objective was pursued by "."). That is as the US recognizes a new nuclear deal is unlikely; and the White House fears Iran may rush for a nuke ‘within weeks'. Of course, the latter statement could be trying to force DC to accept further concessions to Tehran: but even if that does happen, it will be reversed by Congress in 2023 anyway.

The EU, following the US lead, tried to rapidly build economic and security bridges to India.

More concern over the looming catastrophe from Chinese lockdowns on global supply chains.

Meanwhile, aside from pointing fingers over who dropped the ball on China, the Solomon Islands, and defence, Australia today saw the last CPI print before their upcoming election: CPI rose 2.1% q/q vs. 1.7% expected, and 5.1% y/y vs. 4.6%. There were the usual other versions of CPI, and one of them (the weighted median yada-yada) was a tick lower than expected q/q. But does this all really mean anything for the RBA? To answer that question, allow me to share trolling Twitter wisdom from the ‘Reserve Bank of Property':

; and

Under militaristic mercantilism, Australia has everything it needs to be a winner - except people in charge who understand that reality: they still live in a Bretton Woods 2 world of global harmony, endless property speculation, and cheap prawns on the barbie. That strategy is no longer working, for Aussies - or for broader markets.

By contrast, ‘Why Bretton Woods 3 Won't Work' *is* working. However, the turning point may be as we head towards H2 2023, with the Eurodollar curve pricing for cuts then. If central banks are going to cut rates, "because markets", and think more monetary stimulus and asset bubbles is how you fight a geoeconomic mercantilist war with re-arming opponents trying to control commodities and supply chains, then it may be time to reassess.

If central banks do that AND governments stimulate, even as they are forced to run trade deficits with the New World Order, then even more so. Look at JPY today and imagine it was a US enemy, not ally.

Yet if central banks and governments line up monetary and fiscal policy *with* geoeconomics (i.e., friend-shoring, tariffs, capital controls, industrial policy, etc.) then what we see now is just the beginning. That *will* work, in a geopolitical sense -- just not for many markets.

Authored by Aleksander Svetski via BitcoinMagazine.com,

THE HUMANITY-ALTERING POTENTIAL OF BITCOIN

---

As we enter 2022, we should all stop and marvel at how far Bitcoin has come over the past 13 years. What started as a white paper has grown through infancy and into a healthy, robust, adolescent global phenomenon.

Against the backdrop of clown world simulation shifting into ever-higher gears, Bitcoin has become a heartbeat and source of truth and sanity for millions around the world. The sheer importance of an individually-enforced, voluntarily-sought, collective and objective truth cannot be overestimated.

But, despite the very real, practical and undeniable progress that has been made, there are many who will continue on with their salt-laden disbelief and yell at clouds with uninformed variants of the same, tired anti-Bitcoin arguments.

"What if [insert uninformed China FUD]?"

"What about [insert uninformed energy FUD}?"

Look at [insert pointless tea-leaf chart FUD]?"

I can only watch on as the naysayers, FUDsters, fraudsters and fiaters do their best to confuse others and themselves on their way to economic irrelevance. And while I am now immune to their stupidity, I cannot help but feel sorry for them, or perhaps pity their lack of hope and faith.

It reminds me a little of the scene in "The Matrix Reloaded" where the team is preparing to enter the matrix so that Neo can go meet the Architect. Morpheus, in appropriate form, is conducting a sermon, reminding everyone that where some might see coincidence, he sees providence.

"I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I see purpose. I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our destiny," he

says

.

Source

Niobe then asks:

"I keep thinking, what if you're wrong? What if all this, the prophecy, everything is bullshit?"

And Morpheus replies:

"Then by tomorrow, we'll all be dead."

Then more importantly,

he follows up with

:

"Now consider the alternative. What if I am right? What if the prophecy is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over? Isn't that worth fighting for? Isn't that worth dying for?"

Source: "The Matrix"

This scene reminds me of the hope that Bitcoin represents against both, a) the tired pessimism that most intelligent but well-meaning people display, and(b) the empty nihilism of the rest of humanity.

Bitcoin is a noble, moonshot attempt at building a parallel world on a sound foundation, because the alternative, the status quo, is a complete mess.

By no means does Bitcoin just blindly "fix" everything, but by tying human action to some form of real economic consequence, it for damn sure aligns individual behavior to a more‘"natural" order.

In this way, we have a much better shot at moving the world not just closer to "heaven" but at the very least, off the pathway to hell, which we are currently both on and accelerating through.

If Bitcoin does not succeed, then much like Morpheus' sentiment above, we're largely fucked. Society will regress until all of the capital we've built in the preceding millennia has been depleted and society collapses, or we reside in sterile, technocratic dystopias, until the centrally-planned system cracks, tears and collapses atop everyone -- at which point primitive humans like Equality 7--2521 in Ayn Rand's novella "Anthem" must re-emerge once more to rebuild.

Either way, in the absence or failure of Bitcoin, the world is a bleak, dark, cold, empty and sterile place where the worst form of parasitic behavior is incentivized and the very spirit of progress, diversity and life is extinguished under the guise of "equality."

Now… think of the alternative.

WHAT IF BITCOIN DOES SUCCEED?

---

What if we are right and the organic emergence of a sound money helps to transform individual behavior toward morality, lower time-preferences and further sightedness? What if this monetary standard introduces shorter, faster and higher fidelity feedback loops for the actions taken by individuals, corporations, cities and nations?

What if these enhanced feedback loops turn into faster corrections of poor decisions, alongside the doubling down of actions that result in true progress? What if this turns into more accurate value judgements in the aggregate such that society becomes more prosperous, moral and forthright?

What if this new money, fixed in supply and fixed in its rules, makes inflation a thing of the past, and brings about an age where the costs of products, goods and services decrease in lockstep with the increased efficiency and efficacy we can produce and deliver them with?

What if this then translates into a meritocratic society in which both social and economic mobility are possible, where productivity and value creation is what enables one to climb, while wastage, poor judgement and parasitism lead to downward motion?

What if this is how we can transform society into an organic, dynamic 80/20 distribution instead of a cancerous, static 99.9/0.01 distribution where the poor can never climb, the parasitic elite can never fall and the productive middle has to carry the entire load?

Static, fixed classes on the left. Dynamic, permeable classes on the right.

What if the absence of mindlessly borrowing from the future, of forced taxation and involuntary theft via inflation makes those who govern accountable for their actions? What if it transforms the relationship between the government and the governed to one where the former is a customer-service provider, instead of the current subject/overlord status quo?

What if Bitcoin, through its effect on human behavior, kick starts the next phase of natural evolution in the human genus? What if over generations of more far-sighted, low-time preferring and productivity-oriented behavior, we begin to bake morality into our DNA and evolve into a more majestic, noble species of human? Homo bitcoinicus, perhaps?

What if Bitcoin is the most important discovery since fire because it allows us to encode the product of our labor into high-fidelity information and either store it forever or transmit it at the speed of light? What if this ability ushers in a new renaissance of collaboration, cooperation and productivity?

What if Bitcoin is our path through the great filter?

More on this in The Bitcoin Times, edition four

Isn't this something worth fighting for? Isn't this something worth dying for? Isn't this something worth living for?

I truly believe so, in my heart of hearts.

How many of these "what ifs?" are possible? What will the near- and longer-term futures look like?

Of course, I do not know. None of us do. We can use first principles, intuition, instinct and experience to make estimations, but in order to discover it, we must create and build it.

This is why free, independent, entrepreneurial, productivity- and creation-oriented people will thrive on a standard in which this kind of behavior is incentivized. In other words: on a Bitcoin standard.

And getting there will require a large dose of faith and hope, because the clarity needed to make accurate value judgements and calculate economic costs is still emerging (Bitcoin).

A creator is he who brings forth that which does not yet exist. This is why today's message is one of hope. We must forge ahead and bring about a world we can be proud to not only live in, but to pass onto our kin. We must hope, and hope in the highest sense of the word. In its shadow form, it can be seen as a weakness. Something which is flaccid, impotent and merely waiting for another to come save or protect you.

The "Hope" I speak of is capitalized. In its light, it is one of our greatest strengths.

"Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness."

--The Architect, "The Matrix Reloaded"

Bitcoin is Hope and I want to take a moment to thank Michael Saylor for pointing that domain to the right source.

"

Bitcoin Is Hope"

So…

Please don't waste my time or anybody else's with, "What if Bitcoin doesn't work?" Neither pessimism nor nihilism help.

Spend your time actually bringing forth a new Bitcoin standard, because even if it delivers on a fraction of what I've stated above, it is a monumental step change to the current alternative; a globalist faux dystopia blending slavery, lies, bugs, pods, bondage, serfdom and sterility.

As Eminem said

, we have one shot, one opportunity to seize everything we ever wanted. Are we going to capture it, or just let it slip?

So, join me. Join us, as we venture forth into 2022.

Love, truth and Bitcoin shall prevail! For they must prevail.

As the FDA prepares to approve Pfizer's new pill for treating high-risk patients infected with COVID, more information about dangerous side effects tied to its vaccine are coming to light.

Just yesterday, we reported

another death tied to the vaccine

in New Zealand. Now, documents released by the FDA reveal that drugmaker Pfizer recorded nearly 160K adverse reactions to its COVID vaccine in the initial months of its rollout.

The data were obtained by a group of doctors, professors, and journalists calling themselves Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency. They filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FDA asking for their release. And the first tranche of documents revealed that, as of February 2021, when Pfizer's shot was being rolled out worldwide on an emergency basis, the drugmaker had compiled more than 42K case reports detailing nearly 160K individual adverse reactions to the vaccine.

The data show the bulk of the adverse event cases, both serious and non-serious, were classified as "general disorders".

Among the more common conditions reported were fevers (pyrexia), fatigue, and diarrhea, among others.

But perhaps the most surprising number in the entire report is that more than 1K of these cases were fatal in the US. All told, more than 3K deaths have been linked to the vaccine, something that's in line with the company's own data. Critics have argued that some of the deaths can't be conclusively linked to the vaccine, but others have instead insisted that the number of deaths might still be underreported.

Keep in mind, these data were used by the FDA to declare the Pfizer jab safe, which it did for Americans aged 16 and older in August. It has since been approved for children as young as five, along with booster doses for people aged 16 and up as of last week.

Readers can find the complete breakdown of data from Public Health and Medical Professionals For Transparency below:

5.3.6 Postmarketing Experience

on Scribd

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