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Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The World Health Organization (WHO) has watered down some provisions of its pandemic agreements ahead of the upcoming World Health Assembly on May 27. Critics in the United States, however, say the changes don’t do enough to address the concerns over the policy.

Provisions in prior drafts of the WHO pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHRs) together aimed to effectively centralize and increase the power of the WHO if it declares a “health emergency.”

The release of the latest draft of the amendments, dated April 17, are the first public update on the IHR draft, which was initially made public early 2023.

“In most areas, and for all of those which most concerned us from a legal perspective, the interim draft reflects a major retreat by the WHO Working Group from the text of the original proposals,” write English solicitors Ben and Molly Kingsley in an April briefing paper regarding the new amendments.

Some WHO-watchers remain wary, however.

“Practically all the bad things are still there,” Dr. Meryl Nass, a U.S.-based physician and vocal critic of the WHO agreements, told The Epoch Times.

“The language is gentler, but since there is so much to be decided later it is not clear the gentler language is meaningful,” Dr. Nass said.

“My best guess is that they are desperate to get something passed, so the options are likely to be either a vanilla version of the treaty … or a delay. But they fear delay because people are waking up.”

The WHO and its advocates—including celebrities, politicians, and religious groups—have launched a global campaign urging the 194 member states to sign the documents.

“Give the people of the world, the people of your countries, the people you represent, a safer future,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a May 3 Geneva meeting. “I have one simple request: please, get this done, for them.”

He urged any countries that don’t support the agreements to refrain from encouraging other states to oppose it.

WHO ambassador and former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown on March 20 lauded “a high-powered intervention by 23 former national presidents, 22 former prime ministers, a former U.N. general secretary, and 3 Nobel Laureates … to press for an urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord.”

Mr. Brown called for unified global action to “expose fake news disinformation campaigns by conspiracy theorists trying to torpedo international agreement for the Pandemic Accord.”

He refuted criticisms that the pandemic treaty and IHR amendments would cede any sovereignty from member nations to the WHO.

(Top) World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a press conference in Geneva on April 6, 2023. (Bottom) People in protective suits spray disinfectant on a street in Shijiazhuang, which was declared a high-risk area for COVID-19 , in northern China's Hebei Province, on Jan. 15, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images, STR/CNS/AFP via Getty Images)

Critics Remain Unconvinced

Despite these assurances, however, the efforts to vest more power within the WHO continue to face resistance.

In recent months, Louisiana and Florida passed laws stating that state officials will not obey WHO directives, and other states, such as Oklahoma, are considering similar legislation.

On May 8, attorneys general from 22 states signed a letter to President Joe Biden urging him not to sign the WHO agreements, and stating that they will resist any attempts by the WHO to set public health policy in their states.

“Although the latest iteration is far better than previous versions, it’s still highly problematic,” the attorneys general wrote. “The fluid and opaque nature of these proceedings, moreover, could allow the most egregious provisions from past versions to return.

“Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health. It’s to cede authority to the WHO—specifically its director-general—to restrict our citizens’ rights to freedom of speech, privacy, movement (especially travel across borders), and informed consent.”

Amid this recalcitrance, the WHO has stepped back from some of the more controversial measures. The Biden administration is involved in negotiating the WHO treaty and have expressed support for it, but haven’t stated a definite intention to sign.

The Latest Draft

Struck from the latest draft is a provision that member nations “recognize WHO as the guiding and coordinating authority of international public health response” and commit to follow the WHO’s directives during a health emergency. The latest draft also states that WHO recommendations are non-binding.

Read more here...

China's huge investment in industrial robotics has made it one of the most automated nations on the planet in the space of just a few short years.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, according to the latest study by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the number of operational robots in China's manufacturing industry reached a ratio of 392 units per 10,000 employees in 2022, a robot density now similar to that of Japanese industry.

China currently ranks fifth in the world, behind South Korea (1,012 per 10,000 employees), Singapore (730), Germany (415) and Japan (397).

As the following infographic shows, China and South Korea are the countries that have made the most progress in the race to industrial automation in recent years.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In Europe, robot density has seen a pretty big jump in Swiss industry, with the ratio more than doubling between 2017 and 2022 - from 129 to 296 robots per 10,000 employees.

France's manufacturing industry still had a lower level of robotization than most of its neighboring European industries: 180 robots per 10,000 employees in 2022 - compared, for example, with 216 in Belgium (and Luxembourg) and 219 in Italy.

Authored by Roger L. Simon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

We live in an era of masks, only not the fun kind you might find at Carnivale in Venice, Italy.

A pro-Palestinian protestor wears a keffiyeh on the West Lawn of Columbia University, in New York, on April 29, 2024. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Something considerably more sinister is going on.

This era began, as almost all of us realize now, with COVID-19 when all of us were told to put on masks or our friends and relatives might die. We might expire ourselves.

How necessary this was has been the subject of much discussion. My “Spidey sense” says no. Others may differ.

Nevertheless, as with all pandemics—real, imagined, or something in between—the need eventually diminished. People were liberated. Sort of.

Only masks are still around us, startlingly so. In some cases they are more around us than ever.

I think it was on Clay Travis and Buck Sexton’s radio show I first heard the masks referred to, ironically, as a “fashion statement.” True enough—they do often tell us where the wearer stands on a whole raft of things—but that was a few months ago. It almost seems like ancient history.

Now masks are upon us with a vengeance—black ones, miscellaneous scarves, and, of course, keffiyehs. The wearers have various intents—to scare us; to hide their identities from the police, college administrators, or potential employers; or simply, pathetically, to be a faddist, part of what they think of as an “in crowd.”

We have seen this song before during Antifa and Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Exercise your right of free speech but don’t tell us who you are. We could call this cowardly, because it is, but it is also quite dangerous as it expands.

In some ways it reminds me of internet trolls, especially paid ones, who turn up virtually everywhere under assumed names, some obvious and some not. Does the First Amendment give you permission—legally, or more importantly, morally—to lie about who you are while exercising your right of free speech? Interesting question.

Many of the masked demonstrators on our campuses, we have been told—and considering the numbers who aren’t students, it is almost certainly true—are also paid for their “work,” not to mention transportation, tents, food, etc.

Who pays?

These are the people I termed in my title the Super Masked. They are the truly nefarious. The masked are their witting or unwitting foot soldiers.

It is the Super Masked who are behind the anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, anti-free market capitalism, open borders, anti-religion, anti-Semitic, often pro-Chinese communist, gender fluid movements, and so forth.

Someone is paying for the campus chaos across our country. It doesn’t come free.

Who, then, are the Super Masked, and why are they doing this?

Park MacDougald has some answers in his Tablet article “The People Setting America on Fire.” Mr. MacDougald isolates, as have others, three groups as the principal organizers of the protests—Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime (WOL).

Who is behind them? Mr. MacDougald has interesting details of the various cutouts, but it comes down to many of the “usual suspects”—the Rockefeller Foundation, George Soros in his various guises, and, to a great degree, the Tides Foundation. The author has this to say about Tides:

“Tides, you might have noticed, is a name that keeps coming up again and again. The Tides Nexus, of which the Tides Foundation is a part, is one of largest progressive dark-money networks in the country, controlling upward of a billion in assets; its list of major donors is an all-star cast of left-wing billionaires and foundations, including Soros, Peter Buffett and his NoVo Foundation, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the New Venture Fund, controlled by another Democratic dark-money powerhouse, Eric Kessler’s Arabella Advisors. A pioneer of what critics have called ‘charitable money-laundering’ through the use of fiscal sponsorships to obscure money trails through multiple layers of bureaucracy, Tides, through its donations and fiscal sponsorships, has emerged as a major backer of the anti-Israel protest movement across the country.”

This is, needless to say, not just about anti-Israel activities but about every progressive cause imaginable. Tides might be described as the king of the Super Masked.

One is tempted to channel the immortal words of President Ronald Reagan and say, “Mr. Tides, tear off that mask!”

My intention is to point out the level of often-deliberate obfuscation going on and the amount that people are being used, their ignorance exploited, consciously or unconsciously.

It’s easy to say that the infamous “globalists” are behind all this, and quite possibly it’s true, but I think there is a level at which people of all sorts have been swept up in causes they think are good without stopping to realize what they really are doing. It’s “my team,” and I will do what they say, even if it involves using “dark money.” And hiding my identity behind a mask.

The fight for transparency in our culture has been going on for some time with, unfortunately, little success. Meanwhile, we hear endless blather about preserving “democracy.” But without transparency, there is no democracy or constitutional republic, whichever you prefer.

So, tear off those masks!

End of sermon.

BUT NOT QUITE!

After I wrote the above, the most amazing report came out in the New York Post (May 9) that could break your brain. Black Lives Matter is suing the Tides Foundation? What is going on here?

“A progressive nonprofit that has been shelling out cash to anti-Israel protest groups is being sued by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for fraud and withholding more than $33 million in donations, a bombshell lawsuit claims.

“Tides Foundation, which has managed hundreds of millions in donations for progressive groups since it was founded in 1976, has ‘refused to honor its promises and continues to commandeer BLMGNF’s donations,’ according to the 285-page lawsuit filed in California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, on Monday.

“Instead, Tides doled out an undisclosed amount of donations to a radical BLM breakaway group run by anti-police activist Melina Abdullah — who lost a ‘frivolous’ lawsuit against BLMGNF — according to court papers and an attorney for BLMGNF.”

What was it that Sir Walter Scott said? “What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Infant mortality rates are generally regarded as the barometer of an overall population’s health. A higher rate indicates unmet needs of a population, especially with regards to food availability and sanitation.

Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao visualized the top 15 countries with the highest infant mortality rates, according to 2023 estimates from the CIA World Factbook. It is measured as the number of infant deaths under the age of one, per 1,000 live births in a given year.

ℹ️ Comoros has been excluded from the map for visibility reasons.

Ranked: Countries With the Highest Infant Mortality Rates

Afghanistan currently has the highest infant mortality rate in the world at 103 deaths per 1,000 babies born. Decades of conflict have pushed the country to the brink and a prolonged drought since 2021 has made food more scarce.

Meanwhile, the other 14 countries on this list are all from Sub-Saharan Africa. Some of them are also experiencing civil unrest, a breakdown of state machinery, and high undernourishment rates.

While this is concerning, Africa’s infant mortality rate as a whole has improved tremendously in the last seven decades. Between 1950–2024, the continent’s average fell 73% to 41 deaths per 1,000 births.

Expansion of healthcare, improving nutrition, access to clean drinking water, and mass immunization programs are some of the reasons behind this massive decline.

Estimates assume Africa’s infant mortality rate will improve further to 25 per 1,000 live births by 2050—which is roughly the same as Asia today.

Authored by Alexandra Roach via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In their many variations, nuts are a superfood praised as rich sources of minerals, vitamins, amino acids, proteins, and other bioactive compounds.

(Pavel Kalenik/Unsplash)

Chestnuts are champions for vitamin C, for instance. Pistachios contain the most vitamin A and potassium. Both are high in folic acid. Cashews enrich us with magnesium. The level of vitamin B3 (niacin) is the highest in peanuts, and vitamin E (tocopherol) is found in almonds.

Walnuts are especially high in alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a neuroprotective omega-3 fatty acid important for normal growth and development. It also has been shown to induce apoptosis (programmed death of cells) in breast cancer cells.

Our bodies cannot produce ALA, hence, nutritional intake is a must, as it is with many other key nutrients.

Research Supports the Benefits of Nuts

A 2023 review published in the journal Foods, found mounting evidence that a nut-rich diet can potentially prevent numerous chronic illnesses.

According to the report, “The ingestion of phytochemicals from nuts and their positive influence on several diseases (cancer, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, birth defects, cataracts, diabetes, diverticulosis, and obesity) are established.”

In addition to the improvement of cardiovascular disease, depression, and cognitive function, nut consumption is correlated with lower cancer incidence and cancer mortality, and decreased all-cause mortality, states a 2021 review.

The Nut/Cancer Health Connection

The World Health Organization predicts a considerable increase in cancer, with a potential of 32.6 million cases worldwide by 2045.

Effective strategies, such as increasing dietary fiber, eating more fruits and vegetables, and physical activity, could potentially reduce cancer risk factors by approximately 42 percent.

The journal Chronic Diseases and Translational Medicine published a 2023 review about the interrelation of nut consumption and different types of cancer, including women-related and gastrointestinal cancers.

Data suggests that eating nuts not only reduces “cancer-related risk and mortality,” but possibly prevents the occurrence of certain types of cancer and its advancement. Nuts contain active anticarcinogenic compounds such as “folate, phytosterols, saponins, phytic acid, isoflavones, ellagic acid, α-tocopherol, quercetin, and resveratrol,” according to the review.

The research points to certain phytochemicals and their mechanisms as preventatives for cancer.

Accordingly, walnuts, pecans, almonds, and pine nuts contain polyphenols, which inhibit carcinogenesis that is chemically induced. Likewise, hazelnuts and brazil nuts hold helpful properties, called isoflavonoids, to balance hormonal mechanisms.

Most nuts are strong antioxidants that counteract oxidative stress and guard our DNA—the health benefits list of nuts is long.

Nuts at a Glance

Walnuts

A review published in the journal Nutrition outlines the cancer-preventative properties of walnuts, as researched in animal studies with mice. It summarizes the following points:

• A diet enriched with walnuts prevented the increase of “human breast cancers implanted in nude mice by [approximately] 80%.”
• Mammary gland tumors were reduced by approximately 60 percent through a diet containing walnuts in a mouse model.
• “Walnuts slowed the growth of prostate, colon, and renal cancers by antiproliferative and antiangiogenic mechanisms.”

Another interesting fact was shared in the review. Comparing the intake of whole walnuts to a diet equally rich in n-3 fatty acids, the reduction of tumors in the mammary gland was greater when ingesting whole nuts. This reinforces the idea that active components in walnuts act synergistically to suppress cancer.

Walnuts also proved their antitumorigenic qualities in an animal study in vivo in mice. Compared to the corn-oil-based control group, the walnut group featured two major improvements—the tumor growth rate was slowed by 27 percent, and the tumor weight was reduced by 33 percent.

Reducing inflammation in the body benefits many health conditions, amongst others cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer. Walnuts have proven valuable in all.

A randomized controlled trial tested a daily intake of 56 grams of walnuts (366 calories) in 46 overweight adults. Another trial analyzed the same amount on diabetic patients. Both results showed that the increased nut intake improved endothelial function significantly, which is key for healthy blood and lymph vessels. In turn, endothelial cells are needed to protect from vascular malfunctions—the hallmarks of several types of malignant disorders.

Almonds

Contrary to common belief, regular almond intake does not lead to weight gain, although the nuts contain almost 50 percent fat. Instead, almonds “appear to promote weight loss,” affirms a research paper published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, which benefits obesity-related illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

However, almonds also contain the highly controversial and much-researched bioactive compound glycoside amygdalin. Highly controversial because its pharmaceutical development as an anti-cancer treatment continues to be a topic of discussion in the pharmaceutical world.

As a commercial drug, amygdalin is distributed under the name Laetrile but has since been shown to have serious side effects, such as damage to nerves and the liver, a lack of oxygen in the blood, and confusion. Furthermore, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved Laetrile and has said that the compound shows only little anticancer effect.

In contrast, a review in the Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics praises amygdalin’s few side effects, its low cost, and especially its excellent results in the battle against multidrug resistance. Furthermore, the compound can be easily naturally sourced as it occurs in the kernels of many fruits and is a compound in nuts.

A 2023 comprehensive review published in the International Journal of Molecular Science relates the same hopeful message: “Amygdalin seems to be a promising naturally occurring agent against cancer disease development and progression.”

While Amygdalin has proven its anti-tumor qualities, it is still not recommended as an extensive remedy, as some challenges need to be overcome.

Its correct dosage heavily depends on the type of bacteria present in a person’s gut. Therefore, researchers have not been able to find an across-the-board therapy. “Unfortunately, there is currently no foolproof method for determining the microbial consortium and providing a safe oral dosage for every patient,” researchers state in a 2022 review.

Scientists place their hope in modern nano-technologies as they further explore the qualities of amygdalin in cancer treatment. “There are several pieces of evidence to support the idea that amygdalin can exert anticancer effects against lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, cervical, and gastrointestinal cancers.” The compound “has been reported to induce apoptosis of cancer cells, inhibiting cancer cells’ proliferation and slowing down tumor metastatic spread,” according to the above-mentioned 2023 review.

A 2019 article published in Cancer Medicine that dials in on amygdalin, primarily found in bitter almonds, not only highlights its “antioxidative, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory activities,” but investigates the clinical value of the anticancer agent.

The compound introduces cytotoxicity and apoptosis in the body and balances the immune function, which affects especially “solid tumors” such as lung or bladder cancer and renal cell carcinoma.

Despite limiting factors, such as the “primary stage” of both clinical and experimental research and the lack of high-quality publications on the topic, researchers still believe these studies to be promising regarding cancer treatments.

Many may not be surprised that walnuts and almonds provide us with these health benefits. However, the following nut, which botanically speaking, is a legume, often gets a “bad rap” as a common allergen. Nevertheless, research shows its valuable qualities in cancer therapy.

Peanuts

A human study published in the journal Gynecologic and Obstetric Investigation showed that “High consumption of peanuts, walnuts, and almonds appears to be a protective factor for the development of breast cancer.”

The study group included 97 female patients suffering from breast cancer, and a control group of 104 healthy women. Researchers analyzed their seed consumption via the Mantel-Haenszel test method and found a correlation between dietary nut intake and the development of breast cancer.

Peanuts once again portrayed their qualities as functional food in a study that investigated phytosterols (PS), a natural compound that lowers cholesterol levels and prevents cardiovascular diseases. This research suggests that their sterol beta-sitosterol, in particular, holds protective anticancer effects against “colon, prostate, and breast cancer.”

With 207 milligrams PS per 100 grams, unrefined peanut oil has the highest concentration of valuable beta-sitosterol—even higher than olive oil. Peanut butter “contains 144-157 mg PS/100 g.” Further refinement of the product results in lower rates of the active compound.

Another healthy property of peanuts is the polyphenol phytochemical resveratrol—the target of a review focused on anticancer agents. In addition to peanuts, sources of resveratrol include grapes, red wine, and other berries.

Researchers point out that people benefit from the consumption of this powerful antioxidant, as it displays “strong anti-tumor activities through inhibiting tumor cell proliferation, inducing cell apoptosis, promoting tumor cell differentiation, preventing tumor invasion and metastasis, and further moderating the host immune system to kill tumor cells.”

In fact, the nickname “French Paradox” was given to resveratrol’s impact on the health of the French people, as it seems that the compound counteracts the French diet, which is often high in fats, and protects consumers from cardiovascular disease and more.

Pistachios

Another inconspicuous nut with plenty of healthy properties comes from the cashew family.

In comparison to other nuts, the health profile of pistachios is even more advantageous. They are low-fat, a good source of vegetable protein, contain a remarkable amount of minerals (potassium) and vitamins (C and E), and are high in dietary fiber.

Both, in vitro and in vivo models have indicated significant regulatory properties in pistachios on oxidative stress, according to a 2022 review. Consequently, eating pistachios also positively affected the risk of chronic diseases, including cancer.

Another 2022 review highlighted resveratrol in pistachios and its favorable role in breast cancer treatment.

Unfortunately, the high cost of this nut often keeps people from regular intake, which would be beneficial to their health.

Diet, Inflammation, and Cancer

It has long been known that lifestyle and diets greatly impact our health.

A 2010 review describes the multistage process of cancer as “initiation, promotion, and progression,” and explains that oxidative stress plays a role in all three phases of tumorigenesis (the formation of cancer), as does chronic inflammation in the body—conditions fought by nuts.

A diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids is beneficial to cancer survival, according to a review published in the Journal of Nutrition that examined several animal studies. In addition, it can lessen side effects that come with chemotherapy and increase the treatment’s efficacy. The review goes as far as stating that the “consumption of omega-3 fatty acids might slow or stop the growth of metastatic cancer cells,” after appropriate cancer treatment.

Walnuts contain the highest amount of omega-3 fatty acids.

Attention to Quality

As phenolic compounds in nuts are highly unstable, they may be impacted by various processing techniques.

Unfortunately, studies are rare, as certain types of nuts also react differently. Research that does exist indicates that thermal treatment negatively impacts nuts, such as hazelnuts, where most of the polyphenol content is found in the skin.

Roasting also alters the profile of nutrients in nuts, which can lead to increased allergenicity and changed protein levels, for instance in peanuts. This processing technique seems to affect almonds and pistachios less—they stay stable or might even slightly benefit from the process. In contrast, the antioxidant profile of hazelnuts and walnuts suffers.

A 2023 overview published in the journal Foods mentions that peanuts blanched in 100 degree Celsius water for 20 minutes were less allergenic. On the other hand, “boiling almonds for 10 min[utes], or cashews and pistachios for 60 min[utes] did not affect their properties.”

Authors of the overview suggest that consumers best educate themselves about the variation of bioactive compounds in nuts and the impact of food processing methods, as well as finding a quality source.

Recommended Daily Intake

A 2020 narrative review highlights the extremely low consumption of nuts and seeds worldwide.

Although nuts are continuously praised as a superfood, and the per-capita consumption in the United States increased to 5.6 pounds per person in 2022, recommended consumption is rarely met.

The Global Burden of Disease Study found in 2017 that “global consumption was only 12 % of the recommended level” of a daily intake of 21 grams. In 2019, the Eat-Lancet Commission upped the recommended everyday consumption to 50 grams of tree nuts and/or peanuts. With an average daily intake of 7 grams of nuts, we do not come even close to that goal.

As a rule of thumb, a 2021 study comes to the conclusions that eating a “handful of nuts” is a practical way of “achieving recommended nut intakes.” Researchers explained that combining various types of nuts in a medium-size handful averages at about 36.3 g, which “resulted in a high proportion of individuals taking at least 80% of the recommended intake of nuts.”

Feel free to mix and match, bake with nuts and seeds, or add them to your salads, lunch, and dinner. Mostly though, just have fun going “nuts about nuts” and assisting your health at the same time.

Long before the emergence of ChatGPT and other AI tools threatening to take over our jobs, technological advancements have altered the way people work, making some occupations disappear, while others emerged.

Did you know, for example, that people used to work as living alarm clocks before actual alarm clocks became a thing?

“Knocker uppers”, as they were called, would walk around in industrial England, wielding a long stick with which they’d tap on workers’ doors to wake them in time for their shifts.

There also used to be “computers” long before the arrival of personal computers. They were persons performing mathematical calculations, a service that is no longer required today.

So which jobs might be next?

As Statista's Felix Richter reports, each year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes its Occupational Employment Projections - a report that's looking at the U.S. labor market as a whole for the next 10 years, projecting changes in employment by occupation and revealing which jobs are most at risk from automation or other technological and societal shifts. In its latest edition covering the 2022-2032 period, the BLS identified four occupational groups that are projected to lose jobs over the next decade: office and administrative support occupations, production occupations and sales and related occupations as well as occupations in farming, fishing and forestry.

As the following chart shows, cashiers, who are at risk of being replaced by self-checkout, are projected to see the biggest drop in employment over the next decade with 348,100 fewer jobs in 2032 than in 2022.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Other jobs high on the list are secretaries, office clerks and customer service representatives, with each of these occupations expected to see employment decline by more than 150,000 jobs until 2032.

When looking at relative employment changes, word processors and typists (-39 percent) and watch and clock repairers (-30 percent) are most at risk of losing their jobs, with other relatively rare occupations also high on the list.

Authored by Robert Burrows via BondVigilantes.com,

Few commodities wield as much influence in the intricate web of global economics as oil. Oil is pivotal in driving economic growth and development as the primary energy source for transportation, manufacturing, and countless other sectors. However, beneath its surface lies a hidden truth: oil can act as a tax on growth, imposing significant costs on economies worldwide. 

The Economic Impact of Oil Prices

Oil prices have a profound impact on virtually every aspect of the economy:

1. Cost of Production: For industries reliant on oil as a primary input, such as transportation, manufacturing, and agriculture, fluctuations in oil prices directly influence production costs. Higher oil prices translate into increased business expenses, squeezing profit margins and potentially leading to higher prices for goods and services.

2. Consumer Spending: Rising oil prices can have a ripple effect on consumer spending patterns. As the cost of gasoline and other energy-related products increases, consumers may cut back on discretionary purchases or reallocate their budgets to cover higher fuel expenses, dampening overall consumption and economic growth.

3. Inflationary Pressures: Oil prices significantly impact inflationary pressures within an economy. As production costs rise, businesses may pass on these higher costs to consumers through higher prices, contributing to inflationary pressures and eroding purchasing power.

4. Macroeconomic Stability: Fluctuations in oil prices can disrupt macroeconomic stability, leading to volatility in financial markets, exchange rates, and interest rates. Oil-exporting countries may experience windfall profits during periods of high oil prices while oil-importing nations face trade imbalances, budget deficits, and currency depreciation.

Essentially, a high oil price acts as a tax on growth via its impact on economic activity, as businesses and consumers bear the financial costs – the same level of GDP, but at a higher cost. So far, there is nothing that we don’t know.

The oil dynamics have been changing over the years, which has been interesting to note. The most important change has been the shale revolution in the US. US oil production has boomed since 2005 due to fracking, recently resulting in the US becoming a net oil exporter and, as such, energy independent.

Source: US Energy Information Administration, May 2024

This changing dynamic has important implications regarding foreign policy and energy security. The US’s reliance on the Middle East is no longer what it once was. As a result, the US could be more hands-off in the future and potentially leave the ‘policing’ up to Europe. Presidential candidate Trump has suggested support for Ukraine could be withdrawn unless Europe increases its defence spending meaningfully. It’s fair to say that Europe needs to prepare for wavering US support and, as a result, has been scrambling to increase defence spending, which it can ill afford. 

An escalation in the Middle East with the potential for less involvement from the US would not be good and would likely increase volatility in the price of oil. It would be in Europe’s best interest to ensure oil price stability.

Geopolitics aside, this newfound global supply should result in excess supply. This, in theory, should mean lower prices for us all. Unfortunately, this is too simple a view; oil prices are heavily influenced by both supply (largely OPEC) and demand (economic growth) factors. Another consideration is the shift to renewable energy, which should force the price of oil downwards, assuming supply remains constant, which it won’t. This renewable energy shift has been slow; oil will likely remain the dominant energy source for years to come.

So I ask myself, ‘is oil expensive or cheap? The answer: it depends.

Looking at inflation-adjusted oil prices in the US, we see that prices are in fact sitting at the long run average:

Source: Bloomberg, M&G, May 2024

Prices could double from here before having a meaningful impact on the US. The moderate price of Oil is no doubt contributing to some of the strength that we currently see in the US. This does, however, bring up an interesting dynamic. As we know, oil is priced in US dollars, and countries other than the US are hostage to the price of oil in dollars. Looking at the cost of oil in a foreign currency tells a very different story. The chart below looks at the inflation adjusted price of oil in JPY:

Source: Bloomberg, M&G, May 2024

Oil prices trading at or near the highs will become problematic for the Japanese economy as they are a heavy net importer. The factors discussed above will be at play. Inflation will continue to increase as the Yen weakens, potentially forcing the BoJ’s hand to raise rates more meaningfully, which is a challenge given the debt level.

Circling back to the oil price in US dollars, it has, in fact, been relatively stable despite the instability in the Middle East. A political misstep could see oil prices lurch higher, putting energy importers with very weak currencies in a very difficult position indeed. 

Back in 1985, the Plaza Accord was signed, an agreement between the major economies to depreciate the dollar by intervening in currency markets. The dollar depreciated significantly as a result. There are similarities between then and now. Back then, monetary policy was tight, implemented by Paul Volker, and set against expansionary fiscal policy by the government at the time. This powerful cocktail sucked in capital, resulting in an extremely strong dollar. Sound familiar?

In fact, just recently, the US, Japan and South Korea met to “consult closely” on currency markets. What exactly this means is unclear, but it is very interesting. Speculation is rife about whether Japan recently intervened in currency markets as the yen hit 160 to the dollar. Are we inching towards a new Plaza Accord? The stresses and strains don’t look particularly stretched when you compare the DXY ( a weighted dollar index versus international currencies) from 1985 to today, so a new Plaza Accord may be some way off:

Source: Bloomberg, M&G, May 2024

That said, the composition of the world we find ourselves in today is very different. Countries have become increasingly unstable as debt levels continue to rise and the share of GDP between developed and emerging markets has completely flipped. The US has a dual mandate of stable prices and full employment; perhaps international stability should also be a consideration.

Source: IMF, May 2024

Emerging markets and highly indebted oil importers with weak currencies will struggle to continue fighting the strong dollar due to the fact that it is the currency of international trade and settlement.

Something is likely to break unless the Fed changes course. It’s hard to see the Fed cutting rates anytime soon, leaving us waiting for something to break. Will oil be the catalyst?

Come election time, America won’t hesitate to show its approval or disapproval of the country’s elected political representatives. That said, feelings about the federal bureaucracy and its associated agencies are a little harder to gauge.

Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao charts the results from an opinion poll conducted by Pew Research Center between March 13-19, 2023. In it, 10,701 adults—a representative of the U.S. adult population—were asked whether they felt favorably or unfavorably towards 16 different federal government agencies.

ℹ️ Access Pew Research’s methodology document to find out how they conducted their survey.

Americans Love the Park Service, Are Divided Over the IRS

Broadly speaking, 14 of the 16 federal government agencies garnered more favorable responses than unfavorable ones.

Of them, the Parks Service, Postal Service, and NASA all had the approval of more than 70% of the respondents.

Note: Figures are rounded. No answer responses are not shown.

Only the Department of Education and the IRS earned more unfavorable responses, and between them, only the IRS had a majority (51%) of unfavorable responses.

There are some caveats to remember with this data. Firstly, tax collection is a less-friendly activity than say, maintaining picturesque parks. Secondly, the survey was conducted a month before taxes were typically due, a peak time for experiencing filing woes.

Nevertheless, the IRS has come under fire in recent years. As per a New York Times article in 2019, eight years of budget cuts have stymied the agency’s ability to scrutinize tax filings from wealthier and more sophisticated filers.

At the same time poorer Americans are facing increasing audits on wage subsidies available to low income workers. According to a Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse report, this subset of filers was audited five-and-a-half more times the average American.

Authored by Simon Black, Bloomberg macro strategist,

The latest money data from China shows its capital-outflow problem is worsening, pressuring policymakers to allow a further weakening in the currency.

China released money and inflation data over the weekend. CPI and PPI were not great reading, but money supply data was even more downbeat: M2’s growth disappointed, while M1 growth is moldering, falling 1.4% year-on-year versus +1.2% expected.

Real M1 growth is now also contracting, which is ominous for China’s thus far gingerly-improving growth.

China has a capital-outflow problem that is putting pressure on liquidity.

It has a nominally closed capital account, but we can infer capital outflow by looking at the difference between the trade surplus and official reserves at the central bank, plus FX held at other banks.

Emerging markets typically have foreign reserves forming their monetary base due to the difficulty in reliably borrowing in their own currency cost efficiently. When capital leaves a country that can comfortably borrow in its own currency, the central bank can print money to replace the lost liquidity.

But in a country like China, capital outflow leads to a mechanical fall in domestic liquidity.

Cuts in the required reserve ratio, with another one expected next month, and interest-rate reductions can help alleviate this decline. Another lever is the currency. A weaker yuan eases the pressure on the fall in the monetary base as capital leaves.

USD/CNY continues to bump up against the upper band of the yuan fix, signaling the pressure the currency is under.

Foreign FX at banks is falling. Some of this likely due to capital outflow, but some is also due to China directing state banks to intervene to prevent the currency from weakening too far.

China continues to incrementally ease to try to kickstart a post-Covid traumatized economy.

With a low debt-to-GDP ratio, the central government has scope to borrow more. That is happening, with the Ministry of Finance today announcing it would issue the first CNY 40 billion of ultra-long special sovereign bonds of a total of CNY 1 trillion between now and November.

Despite all this, the stock market has been recovering most of the year.

Oversold conditions hinted a bottom was near.

Excess liquidity (real money growth minus economic growth) is supportive for the advance to continue, as even though real money growth is weak, so is economic growth, implying there is enough “free” liquidity to find its way into the market.

Since the start of the brutal Gaza conflict in the wake of Oct.7, a public 'info-war' has raged over the numbers of wartime casualties, especially on the Palestinian side. Something similar happened in the Syrian war, as well as in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war: either side's true casualties became a matter of tightly guarded internal secrets on the one hand, and an issue of public propaganda to demean the enemy and hurt their global standing on the other.

Israel especially has faced immense international criticism of late amid allegations of 'genocide' given the very obviously high death toll among Gaza civilians. It is even the case that some Israeli officials have at times admitted to extraordinarily high civilian deaths during the campaign, but they have also blamed Hamas for using civilians as 'human shields' and launching rockets from densely populated urban areas.

Fresh controversy has been unleashed Monday over how the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) counts the war dead, and the extent to which it relies on Palestinian and Hamas sources:

The United Nations on Monday clarified that the overall number of fatalities in Gaza tallied by the Ministry of Health in Gaza remains unchanged, at more than 35,000, since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

The clarification comes after the UN humanitarian agency OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) published a report on May 8 with revised data regarding the number of Palestinian casualties in the war. The UN agency in its report reduced the number of women and children believed to have been killed in the war by nearly half.

The number was reduced because the UN says it is now relying on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying details have been fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The ministry says bodies that arrive at hospitals get counted in the overall death count.

AFP via Getty Images

According to more via CNN:

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing at the UN that the health ministry in Gaza recently published two separate death tolls – an overall death toll and a total number of identified fatalities. In the UN report, only the total number of fatalities whose identities (such as name and date of birth) have been documented was published, leading to confusion.

Earlier in the day a FOX headline had alleged that the new UN figures show that almost 50% less women and children were killed than previously reported by the UN office:

According to an infographic published in OCHA’s daily report on May 6, the number of women killed in the fighting was said to be 9,500, while the organization, which admits to relying on figures from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, claimed that 14,500 children had been killed since the war began on Oct. 7. 

Two days later, in its May 8 report, the U.N. agency appeared to have cut the number nearly in half, showing instead that some 4,959 women and 7,797 children had been killed so far in the war, which began after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists infiltrated southern Israel from Gaza, slaughtering more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 240 people hostage. 

Israel's long-running complaint is that the Hamas-Run Gaza Health Ministry consistently exaggerates the death figures, or else tends round up or impose demographic classifications even when details of a particular death are unknown or unverified. On Monday the ministry said that total deaths since Oct.7 have surpassed 35,000.

Critics of the UN have been quoted as saying, "U.N. agencies have consistently shown they prefer to trust the numbers coming out of Hamas-controlled sources rather than doing basic due diligence."

Pro-Israel critics of both the UN office and Gaza's health ministry have pointed to deep inconsistencies in accounting for casualties and have rejected the "fog of war" defense...

@Mike_Wagenheim @JNS_org: The Director of UNICEF Catherine Russell indicated in mid-March, she was citing Hamas health ministry numbers, 13,000 children had died in Gaza. The UN released totals yesterday showing that less than 8,000 children have died in Gaza as a result of the… pic.twitter.com/wCtvC7bxE5

Israel has also long maintained that a huge proportion of the total number of Palestinian deaths were actually armed Hamas combatants - and herein lies the heart of the controversy and questions over discrepancies. 

However, it should be kept in mind that all parties to some extent admit that civilian casualties are tragically and horrifically high.

Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself has recently acknowledged a very high number of Palestinians civilians dead...

Death toll in Gaza acknowledged during the extensive Dr. Phil chat with Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu:

Israel "killed 14,000 terrorists" & a "slightly bigger number, about 16,000 civilians."

Netanyahu states that those civilians "were killed in the places where the… pic.twitter.com/7WRRECDY2T

Ultimately, Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the Palestinian deaths, but admitted Israel "killed 14,000 terrorists" & a "slightly bigger number, about 16,000 civilians" according to a recent interview with Dr. Phil in Israel.

The Israeli leader said those civilians "were killed in the places where the terrorists won't let them leave" - thus ultimately seeking to absolve his own forces from any responsibility. He has also echoed this in other recent media interviews:

"Fourteen thousand [Hamas terrorists] have been killed, combatants, and, probably around 16,000 civilians have been killed," Netanyahu told the “Call Me Back” podcast.

The estimate is slightly lower than the numbers provided by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which put the total death count at more than 35,000. The ministry’s estimate does not differentiate between terrorists and civilians.

Still, the grim reality remains that this far outpaces civilian deaths even from more than 2-years of the Ukraine war.

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge has handed down a 27-year prison sentence to the suspect who pleaded guilty to attacking a trio of New York Police Department (NYPD) officers in Times Square on New Year’s Eve 2022 in the name of radical Islamic extremism.

A file photograph of a judge's gavel. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Trevor Bickford, 20, of Wells, Maine, pleaded guilty in January to multiple counts of attempting three attempted murder charges and three charges of assaulting U.S. employees or officers just over a year prior on Dec. 31, 2022. Together, the charges carried a maximum potential penalty of up to 120 years in prison.

On Thursday, May 9, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel sentenced Mr. Bickford to serve 324 months in prison for the attack, a period lasting 27 years. The sentence is longer than the 10-year prison term Mr. Bickford’s lawyers requested but less than the 50-year prison term prosecutors had sought.

During the 2022 attack, Mr. Bickford allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic phrase meaning “God is great,” that perpetrators have shouted in past Islamic extremist incidents. Federal prosecutors had alleged and were prepared to present evidence at trial, including post-Miranda statements from Mr. Bickford, indicating he had desired to travel abroad to wage “jihad” but instead chose to carry out his attack closer to home.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Mr. Bickford had spent months consuming radical Islamist materials, “including materials promoting the Taliban and reflecting the teachings of Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, a prominent radical Islamic cleric who was a spiritual mentor of al Qaeda,” prior to carrying out the attack.

“The defendant’s brutal ambush of three New York City police officers keeping watch over New Year’s Eve celebrations was a premeditated act of terrorism,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday.

The New Year’s Eve attack began near the edge of a high-security zone where revelers were to be screened before joining the celebrations in Times Square. Mr. Bickford admitted to swinging a 13-inch machete-like chopping blade called a khukuri toward the heads of NYPD Officers Michael Hanna, Louis Lorio, and Paul Cozzolino, causing injuries to all three men.

Law enforcement officers recovered a 13-inch khukuri-style blade following an attack on three NYPD officers on Dec. 31, 2022. (U.S. Department of Justice photo/Released)

The three officers sustained lacerations to their heads during the attack.

Mr. Lorio said he could barely remain conscious after a large cut to his scalp required seven stitches that night. He told the court he now has migraine headaches several days a week and is likely to be forced into retirement after a decade-long police career as he copes with anxiety and depression that cause him to “burst out crying for no reason” or cripple him with waves of sadness. Therapy, though, has helped, he added.

Mr. Cozzolino, who had graduated from the police academy only a day before the attack, said some of his physical pain, such as headaches, will last forever.

As he swung his blade at the NYPD officers, Mr. Bickford also allegedly attempted to take one of the officer’s guns.

It was Mr. Hanna who, despite being injured, reportedly managed to put an end to the attack by drawing his service weapon and shooting Mr. Bickford in the shoulder.

Mr. Bickford’s legal team pointed to mental illness as a contributing factor in the attack.

“I understand that I left scars, physical and mental,” Mr. Bickford said when given the chance to address the court during his sentencing. “My mental illness took me down a dark path.”

Defense attorney Marisa Cabrera said her client is “deeply remorseful.“ She said her client came from a family with a background in U.S. military service and said her client had sought to join the military before his mental illness prevented that possibility. Ms. Cabrera said her client ”has returned to his old self with the aid of medication and treatment.”

Judge Castel noted Mr. Bickford’s history of mental health issues and his relatively young age as reasons for granting some leniency in his sentence.

NTD News reached out to Ms. Cabrera for comment following the sentencing decision but did not receive a response by press time.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

From NTD News

Greedflation is a myth, and Democrats are well aware of this. However, they will never acknowledge that corporate greed isn't the root cause of inflation, as greed tends to be constant in the economy. What changed is the overstimulation of the economy through failed Bidenomics, which involves spending $1 trillion every 100 days. 

In the early days of Russia's 'special operation' in Ukraine, the Biden administration was able to scapegoat any failed economic policy on the 'Putin Price Hike' narrative - but not so much anymore - as they've pivoted the propaganda cannon from Putin to mega-corporations through their cheerleaders at leftist corporate media outlets. Now it's all about popular buzzwords 'greedflation' and 'shrinkflation.' 

Shown below via Bloomberg data, headlines featuring 'greedflation' in corporate media spiked in the summer of 2023, right around the time the administration launched the Bidenomics propaganda campaign. We all know Bidenomics has stoked a complete inflation shitstorm. However, Biden's team is giving greedflation one last shot ahead of the November presidential elections to deflect blame on corporations for why working poor Americans can no longer afford to pay rent, eat at restaurants, afford the $1,000 monthly auto loan, and any other luxuries they were accustomed to before the worst inflation mess since the 1970s. Basically, Goldman's brightest warned the other day: low-income consumers are in trouble. 

We suspect the greedflation narrative won't stick—just like the failed Bidenomics campaign—because Americans are waking up to the out-of-control spending in Washington, DC. 

But anyway, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who once identified as a Native American, and other leftist lawmakers penned a very public letter (all about optics) to the Biden administration, requesting the immediate use of executive action to lower food prices. 

"We commend the important steps your administration has recently taken on this issue, including steps to combat illegal and unfair corporate behavior, encourage competition in the food and grocery sectors, and more. The federal government should use every possible tool to lower food prices," Warren and other lawmakers wrote. 

They continued, "We believe you can exercise your executive authority to take additional action to address rising food prices without congressional action. Americans are facing sky-high food prices, caused by excessive price gouging by food and grocery giants." 

Democrats begging for price controls sounds like what communist or socialist lawmakers in third-world countries do. Yet, these lawmakers never learn a proper lesson (look at Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela), where imposing price controls triggers shortages or surpluses, longer lines, lower quality products, and, of course, misallocation of products. 

But, honesty, Democrats could care less. They have a mission of spending to bankrupt the nation literally, somehow lower prices in an inflation storm, and enable illegal aliens to vote. 

Instead of blaming corporations, let's remind readers again that overstimulating the economy generates price increases and windfall profits, so it's not smart for lawmakers to do so. And this overstimulation, which Duquesne Family Office Chairman & CEO Stan Druckenmiller pointed out last week, is likely one of the biggest economic policy errors ever:

If I was a professor, I'd give them an F. Basically, they misdiagnosed COVID and thought it was -- we were going into a depression. The Fed did, too. I worried about it, too, in early days. The Fed eventually pivoted, better late than never. Treasury -- Treasury is still acting like we're in a depression.

We outlined last summer that "stealth stimulus" was propelling Bidenomics, with the government spending  $1 trillion every 100 days. Now, with stagflationary threats emerging, the US economic situation is quickly deteriorating. 

And here's what comes next when the government starts calling for price controls, as explained by Alt-Market's Brandon Smith:

This same pattern has been witnessed from 1920s Weimar Germany to 1970s America to 1990s Yugoslavia to 2000s Argentina and Venezuela and beyond. But what happens next? In each case the trend leads first to price controls on producers and distributors, which ultimately fail. Then comes government rationing and the complete takeover of necessities including the food supply.

Smith continued:

The problem is simple, price controls lead to lost profit incentive which leads to less production. Less production leads to less supply and less supply leads to rising prices. This is on top of the root cancer that is fiat money creation. Politicians will rarely if ever address the actual cause of an inflationary crisis:  The government and the central banks. Instead, they try to blame free markets, “greedy” businesses and profit taking in times of distress.

He concluded:

Historically speaking, though, both Democrat and Republican presidents have tried price controls in the past. Public pressure must be applied (at the state level at minimum) to stop this from happening. As convenient as it might seem to blame producers and distributors, the real threat is coming from governments and banks. We cannot let the people who caused the crisis also benefit from it by giving them even more power.

It's a slippery slope from here... 

*    *    * 

Here's the full letter: