First published here: http://j.mp/2f78frr

Via The Daily Bell

 ‘Conspiracy Vs. Government’ Is Elite Propaganda Justifying Violent Repression

 

The rise of paranoid politics could make America ungovernable – and the FBI is fuelling the fire … Nothing can disprove the fears of a paranoiac. Indeed, everything confirms them …   It takes away politicians’ incentive to understand one another and get things done. It says that if you scream loud enough, established norms will buckle under the pressure. And while those norms might be annoying and flawed, we’ll all miss them if they go.  –UK Telegraph

With US belief in “conspiracy theory” over 50 percent (see our previous article here) elites are showing increasingly concern that they have lost control of their narrative.

This article again illustrates elite push back. The article explains that if people grow paranoid about government, then the “norms” of government will collapse.

Conspiracy theory is called “paranoid politics” in this article but it amounts to the same thing.

The article also has parallels to an article we analyzed recently here by Cass Sunstein. His Bloomberg editorial suggested that nothing was more important from a political standpoint than returning “civility” to Congress and politics generally.

This article runs along the same lines: Negative perceptions of the US government can make the process of “governing” dysfunctional.

More:

Take the “chemtrails” conspiracy theory: the idea that the white trails left behind in the sky by aeroplanes are sinister chemicals dispersed to sterilise or control voters.

 

If a government declares there is “no evidence” of such chemicals, that itself must be clear evidence that there’s something “they” don’t want us to know. But if that government were to open up an investigation, that too would be incontrovertible proof: “they” must have found something.

Let’s reverse this reasoning (leaving aside the chemtrail controversy itself). Apparently, one can’t question much that government does because skepticism puts government in a no-win situation.

Better to accept official pronouncements, then. The only trouble is that almost anything modern Western governments say is a lie

Governments aren’t even important these days. The world from what we can tell is run by a small banking elite that controls the awesome power of  central banks and the money they print.

The trillions available to this small group has allowed it to change the nature of society around the world.

The goal is global government and it seems every kind of violence and corruption is employed to achieve it.

Secrecy is still employed by those creating “one world.” Thus those involved in creating global governance never admit the scope and details of its implementation.

But in the past several decades, the Internet has credibly exposed plans for world government. As a result, people have lost faith in mainstream media, politicians and capitalism itself.

This is the reason for the rise in "conspiracy theory" and "paranoid politics."

This is also the reason elites would like to shut down the Internet, or at least control it more thoroughly.

Part of the push for control involves making a case that the Internet needs to be better regulated and appropriately censored.

To this end, elite propaganda has been aimed at justifying various anti-'Net actions.

One justification involves the "populism versus globalism" meme we've covered extensively. (Just use a search engine for the phrase and "Daily Bell.")

Another justification - another emergent meme - is that government itself is jeopardized by pervasive distrust.

One would think the answer would be to lie less, but this is not the conclusion we're being given.

Both Sunstein in his article, and now the argument in this article, show us clearly that the solution to pervasive electoral cyncism and worse is to better control one's attitude.

In other words, paranoia and conspiratorial cynicism need to be damped for government to survive and perform its proper function.

Here:

Why, then, did a seasoned operator like Mr Comey, whose judiciousness was praised by the Clinton campaign through the summer, feel the need to divulge this half-baked and potentially insignificant development before assessing it? There is one answer: fear of the mob.

 

The director of the FBI – those tough guys who smash in doors and shoot people – was scared that if he didn’t talk now and the news leaked out, it would confirm every conspiracy theory going about how the agency was in the Clintons’ pocket. In other words, we’ve reached a point in the politics of the world’s most powerful democracy where the appearance of probity matters more than the reality.

This is a key point in the article. It is one that fully reveals the cognitive dissonance at the heart of this particular argument. The idea is that government is too delicate to sustain itself in the face of the "mob." The mob must therefore be silenced or "probity will matter more than reality."

But who is to determine what constitutes a "mob"? And who is determine that the mob's "reality" is false?

Both the Sunstein article and now this one are erecting very specific kinds of arguments. Yet the Internet and its recovered history shows us clearly that Western governments mostly provide concealment for the world's real powers that prefer to operate behind the scenes.

This is the reason for so much cynicism. Many have realized that the society constructed around them is lie. They have reacted by distrusting almost anything associated with modern society.

But in these articles, we can see the forces being marshaled against this state of mind. The preferred antidote is simply to assert that people's distrust is corrosive to government authority and democracy generally.

No logic bolsters this argument. That's why it is an emergent elite meme.

The goal of an elite meme is to be convincing not truthful.

And if it is not convincing - and increasingly elite memes are not - then its function is, anyway, to provide a justification for what we call directed history. These are the authoritarian strategies that elites wish to inflict on the rest of us.

This latter meme is an outgrowth of "populism versus globalism." Populists, as we've pointed out, are being cast as ignorant, violent and intolerant. The current meme - let's call it "conspiracy versus government" - lumps in conspiracy with populism.

Populists, we learn, are apt to adopt an irrational distrust of government. And what is government? It must comprise all that is good and virtuous in an uncivil world.

Both populists and conspiracy theory are to be vanquished, eventually, by wise globalists who understand that the absence of government will lead to violent "anarchy."

It's just not true. Government is merely in this day-and-age a curtain hiding the world's real controllers who use endless violence, monetary debasement and economic depression to get their way.

Conclusion: We are watching the emergence of a new, dangerous memes. Increasingly and forcefully, it is being argued that "government" is good and that the truths people have discovered about their lives and society are destabilizing to government, and therefore "bad." The idea will be to use these memes to make a case for increased censorship and even, eventually, violent repression - and worse.

Via The Daily Bell

 ‘Conspiracy Vs. Government’  Is Elite Propaganda Justifying Violent Repression

For nearly a decade, The Daily Bell has tracked elite propaganda on a daily basis.  

First published here: http://j.mp/2f6rnpx

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid alleges that FBI Director Comey has violated the law by announcing the re-opened investigation into Clinton emails so close to the presidential election.

Is he right?

One of the top constitutional law experts in the United States (and a liberal), Professor Jonathan Turley, says no:

[Reid’s] allegation is in my view wildly misplaced. Reid is arguing that the actions of FBI Director James B. Comey violates the Hatch Act. I cannot see a plausible, let alone compelling, basis for such a charge against Comey.

 

In his letter to Comey, Reid raised the the Hatch Act, which prohibits partisan politicking by government employees.

5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(1) prohibits a government employee from “us[ing] his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.”

 

Reid argued:

“Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another. I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law.”

The reference to “months” is curious. Comey has kept Congress informed in compliance with oversight functions of the congressional committees but has been circumspect in the extent of such disclosures. It is troubling to see Democrats (who historically favor both transparency and checks on executive powers) argue against such disclosure and cooperation with oversight committees. More importantly, the Hatch Act is simply a dog that will not hunt.

 

Richard W. Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and the chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House from 2005 to 2007, has filed a Hatch Act complaint against Comey with the federal Office of Special Counsel and Office of Government Ethics. He argues that “We cannot allow F.B.I. or Justice Department officials to unnecessarily publicize pending investigations concerning candidates of either party while an election is underway.”

 

However, Comey was between the horns of a dilemma. He could be accused of acts of commission in making the disclosure or omission in withholding the disclosure in an election year. Quite frankly, I found Painter’s justification for his filing remarkably speculative. He admits that he has no evidence to suggest that Comey wants to influence the election or favors either candidate. Intent is key under the Hatch investigations.  You can disagree with the timing of Comey’s disclosure, but that is not a matter for the Hatch Act or even an ethical charge in my view.

 

Congress passed the Hatch Act in response to scandals during the 1938 congressional elections and intended the Act to bar federal employees from using “[their] official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.” Comey is not doing that in communicating with Congress on a matter of oversight.

 

Such violations under the Hatch Act, even if proven, are not criminal matters. The Office of Special Counsel -can investigate such matters and seek discipline — a matter than can ultimately go before the Merit Systems Protection Board.

CNN confirms:

violators aren’t going to jail: the Hatch Act is not a criminal statute. Instead, it is an administrative constraint on government employees. The law is enforced by a special independent federal agency — the Office of Special Counsel — which is charged with investigating complaint allegations and, where found to be meritorious, either pursuing a settlement with the offending employee or prosecuting their case before the federal agency that oversees internal employment disputes — the Merit Systems Protection Board. And for presidential appointees like Comey, the Office of Special Counsel submits a report of its findings along with the employee’s response to the President, who makes a decision on whether discipline is warranted.

 

***

 

The Hatch Act provision most commonly invoked in discussions of Comey’s letter is 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(1), which prohibits a government employee from “us[ing] his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.”

The key text is the emphasized phrase — which conditions a violation of the statute on whether the employee’s purpose was to interfere with or affect the result of an election. Thus, the Hatch Act does not focus on the effect of the employee’s conduct, but the intent. To that end, if Comey did not intend to interfere with or affect the upcoming election through his letter to Congress, then he did not violate the letter of the Hatch Act.

Given that Obama doesn’t think Comey was trying to influence the election, this is a non-starter.

First published here: http://j.mp/2eNUSxR

LAST week, the British government gave London Heathrow airport the go-ahead to expand. The decision to allow it to build a third runway had been a long time coming. It is 70 years since the area around London last saw a new one built, and Heathrow, Europe’s busiest hub, is operating at 99% capacity. But already two aviation executives have expressed their cynicism about whether a runway will be built anytime soon. Or to cost.

Willie Walsh (pictured), the boss of IAG, the parent company of British Airways (BA), by far Heathrow’s biggest tenant, kicked off proceedings. “Do I have confidence that the current team at Heathrow can do it?” he said in an interview on Friday. “No, I don’t.” 

Mr Walsh is not exactly a disinterested observer. The proposed £17.6bn ($21.4bn) expansion of Heathrow is to be financed privately; IAG fears that this will mean higher charges for BA. Even before the vote Mr Walsh, perhaps disingenuously, had come out against the building of a new runway for this reason. Last year, after the Airports Commission had...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2f63KOc

OVER the weekend, rumours flew that Mark Carney, the dashing Canadian at the helm of the Bank of England, might leave his job in 2018. (He initially promised to serve for five years, but a full term is eight, and many Britons hoped he would stay on.) An early exit for Mr Carney, who has been on the job since 2013, would be understandable. While Canada is the world’s great liberal icon, Britain is a mess. Not only must Mr Carney steer the British economy through the rough, post-referendum economic seas, but he has also faced criticism from Tory leaders, who are angry with Mr Carney for trying to warn Britons that Brexit would in fact be economically damaging.

This morning, the Financial Times reports that the rumours are wrong, and Mr Carney stands ready to serve a full term. One could practically hear the sighs of relief around the City. Yet is it right that so much should seem to ride on the presence or absence of one man?

Back in 2012,...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2eNzF7z

By Chris at http://j.mp/22bDW4a

As a teenager brimming with testosterone my reptilian brain loved action movies.

Top of my list were Steven Seagal movies. Clearly it wasn't for his acting skills, which are only marginally better than Barney the dinosaur.

What I loved about Seagal was that he was both deadly and terribly fast. His opponents had mere seconds before their arms, legs, or other bones were snapped like twigs. Or they suffered a severe beating leaving them either dead or in a bludgeoned unrecognisable mess. Fabulous stuff!

With Seagal risk happened fast. The targets of his aggression never had time to get out once the onslaught began, and then it was all over in seconds. None of this drawn out biff-baff nonsense, taking forever to finally get to where you knew things were headed anyways.

Back in January of 2015 the currency markets had a "Seagal moment".

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) had pegged the Swiss Franc to the Euro at 1.20 and by the end of 2014 had already spent billions defending the peg.

All the numbers told us the peg was untenable. We didn't know how long the peg would hold but we did know that with every passing day what was clearly untenable simply became more untenable. The stress was building.

Failing to participate is one of my regrets. I saw the imbalance, the fact that volatility was unbelievably cheap presenting awesome asymmetry, and instead made another cup of coffee thinking, I'll get an entry sign. Something that allows me to identify timing. Dumber than thinking you can get out of Seagal's way after disrespecting his mama.

Back in March of 2015 we explained why the probability of the Chinese renminbi being devalued was high and increasing daily. Five months later the PBOC shocked markets by devaluing the yuan. Here is what we said at the time when discussing the CHF:

“By pegging the CHF to the euro at 1.20 the SNB put a lid on how much it would appreciate against the euro. In doing so the SNB’s balance sheet grew faster than even the US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, and finally in January the SNB realized it was fighting a losing battle and threw the towel in. This resulted in an “off the Richter scale” move (+30%) in a few minutes!

 

This disorderly revaluation shook the currency markets and impaired a number of financial institutions! In trying to suppress volatility and create more certainty all the SNB euro pegging efforts succeeded in doing was to achieve the exact opposite!”

At least having sat and watched the franc peg break the lesson wasn't lost. And so when it came to watching the renminbi and the problems we'd identified in the Chinese interbank market (something we discussed on the blog as well) we could evaluate the cost of entering the short renminbi trade accordingly since volatility was priced as if it not only didn’t exist as a threat but that it would NEVER exist. We all know how that ended.

The same had been true of the Swiss franc. When it broke, the move was even more explosive.

See that long green line at the bottom of the screen?

That’s what you call complacency, trust, and faith. This made no sense given the fundamentals. It was as loony as planning a driving trip across Africa in a Lada, expecting trouble-free motoring.

Now if you look closely you’ll see the line at the very end of the chart is a 90 degree angle. This is the volatility in the EUR/CHF pair when it broke.

As reported by Bloomberg at the time in an article entitled, “No One Was Supposed to Lose This Much Money on Swiss Francs”:

“Goldman Sachs Chief Financial Officer Harvey Schwartz said on this morning’s earnings call that this was something like a 20-standard-deviation event, and while the exact number of standard deviations is of course a subjective matter, that’s the right ballpark.

Over the 12 months ended on Wednesday, the annual volatility - that is, the annualized standard deviation of daily returns - of the euro/franc relationship was a bit over 1.7 percent; over the last three months of that period the volatility was less than 1 percent. That converts to a daily standard deviation of something like 0.1 percent.

On Thursday, the euro ended down almost 19 percent, or call it 180 standard deviations, depending on what period you use.”

The chart below shows the EUR/CHF currency move which coincided with the volatility shown above.

The truth is that even though the situation was untenable and the cost to going long the CHF extremely low, it was unpopular since the market believed in the status quo, and its ability to sustain the unsustainable.

The Lesson

Experience has taught us that typically the greater the asymmetry, the less the opportunity for us to position when a move has already begun. There isn't time! Risk happens fast.

The opportunities we focus on present asymmetry and often happen all at once. It is important to be positioned BEFORE the move. This requires risk management, and intelligent position sizing.

Thinking you will get to position once a move starts in a market exhibiting extraordinary asymmetry is a bit like thinking you can get out of the way when Seagal gets to work on you. It's probably too late though perhaps I should use someone other than Seagal nowadays since the only thing "under siege" appears to be his arteries.

Discipline and patience are imperative. You will inevitably be a day or two early at the train station and waiting sucks but a minute too late and it's a loooong walk.

What to Expect

Investing in such opportunities you can rest assured we have to suffer fools parroting phrases such as “being early is the same thing as being wrong” until a collapse demonstrates that actually no, it’s really not.

Hubris is one sign that asymmetry may exist. Volatility and the pricing of volatility is usually key. In scrounging around the global macro landscape in search of opportunity, and in speaking with the dozens and dozens of truly great investment minds, one thing that so often becomes vividly apparent is that the very best investment minds in the world are never complacent and you shouldn't be either.

Have a great week!

- Chris

"This kind of event is the kind of thing that will trigger volatility. This is not a one day thing now." — Darren Courtney-Cook, Head of trading at Central Markets Investment Management on the SNB abandoning the euro peg

--------------------------------------

Liked this article? Don't miss our future missives and podcasts, and

get access to free subscriber-only content here.

--------------------------------------

First published here: http://j.mp/2f5GijX

"In a condition of war, civil liberties tend to get overridden. The current war on terror, now over 11 years old, shows this. For any number of reasons, this war shows no signs of ending. It is actually spreading to more lands. The connection to an "organization" or "persons" that are in any way linked to 9/11 is now exceedingly remote, but the use of military force continues. This is not logical. It is not legal. It's happening nonetheless because the pro-war forces are driving it. There is no apparent political force that is stopping it. Under these conditions, the prognosis for civil liberties is anything but good."

 

Michael S. Rozeff 
May 15, 2013

 

We are constantly bombarded with the demand to, "Support our troops!"  I see it on bumper stickers, I hear it in church, I read it on military discount offers at stores, I experience it at public events when our troops are ordered to stand and everyone present is strongly compelled to applaud their service.  

 

"...we learn that these spectacles are often even more phony than originally suspected. NFL teams are being paid millions of dollars to host them."

I suspect that the term, service, is merely a remnant of a time when troops were drafted, known in the USA as Selective Service, and paid very little to risk their lives, ostensibly in defense of the nation, but quite often merely to enrich a few very wealthy people and expand The Empire.  

Since January 27, 1973, as the Vietnam War drew to a close, the Selective Service announced that there would be no further draft calls.  So, for more than 43 years, every person entering the military has done so voluntarily.  At some level, these volunteers all know that the military is not in the business of serving people, the military is in the business of killing people.  "And cousin, business is a-booming."

Google Chart: Lockheed-Martin vs SP 500

As I have written in a previous article regarding the current state of our elections, media, government, and nation, "Nobody is ready, willing, or able to ask and/or answer questions of substance."   Obviously, in a democracy, politicians support the troops because they want the votes.  In other banana republics, politicians might not need votes, but still need the military to remain in power by force.  In America, today, as Rozeff illustrates in the quote at the top of this article, We, The People, are giving up real liberty in exchange for perceived security in time of war.  So, I feel it necessary to post this article and ask the hard question, why, exactly, Americans should support our troops in 2016?   And, I want to provide in the ZH comments section, below, an opportunity for veterans of voluntary military service since 1973, active duty military, their families, and really anyone to respond to the question, and to make their case, because I clearly do not get it.  Help me understand.   

Here are a few excerpts with hyperlinks to items that I feel might be useful in fueling this discussion. 

 

The Soldiers' Honor Fallacy. The ancient fallacy that all who wore a uniform, fought hard and followed orders are worthy of some special honor or glory or are even "heroes," whether they fought for freedom or fought to defend slavery, marched under Grant or Lee, Hitler, Stalin or McArthur, fought to defend their homes, fought for oil or to spread empire, or even fought against and killed U.S. soldiers!. A corrupt argument from ethos (that of a soldier), closely related to the "Finish the Job" fallacy ("Sure, he died for a lie, but he deserves honor because he followed orders and did his job to the end!"). See also "Heroes All." This fallacy was recognized and decisively refuted at the Nuremburg Trials after World War II but remains powerful to this day nonetheless. See also "Blind Loyalty." Related is the State Actor Fallacy, that those who fight and die for a country (America, Russia, Iran, the Third Reich, etc.) are worthy of honor or at least pardonable while those who fight for a non-state actor (abolitionists, guerrillas, freedom-fighters, jihadis) are not and remain "terrorists" no matter how noble or vile their cause, until or unless they are adopted by a state after the fact.

 

http://j.mp/2eN91LM

 

Standing armies are controlled by the governments, which are now so obviously controlled by the elite, and are very much a force of tyranny.  You see, local militias are controlled by The People, not the government, and are indeed, "necessary to the security of a free State."  I understand that many of our nation's founders agree with me on these points.

 

http://j.mp/2eNaVMI...

 

A two-star general who was found dead at an Army base this summer died by suicide...

 

A total of 265 active-duty troops died by suicide in 2015, according to a Defense Department report from May. The Army had a suicide rate of nearly 30 suicides per 100,000. By comparison, the national rate in 2014 was about 13 per 100,000 citizens, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

 

Rossi was scheduled to take over as commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Army Forces Strategic Command, the Associated Press reported.

 

http://j.mp/2eNaiT1...

 

Special forces operations in Iraq and Syria are reportedly hamstrung by fears over war crimes prosecutions being brought against them retrospectively.

 

The elite soldiers are fearful of legal reprisals in what critics of full legal oversight are framing as a climate of litigation.

 

The UK is currently embroiled in a row over attempts to hold troops to account in relation to allegations of abuse and even murder from recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  

http://j.mp/2f5yuP1

 

In fact, the dozens of Vietnam vets I have spoken to ALL strongly support America's war against Muslims.

 

http://j.mp/2f5usWW...

 

I also want to reiterate five of the steps in my Revolutionary Call to Arms, which I believe are highly relevant to this discussion, and to further contemplation of this topic.  I have successfully encouraged my sons, and many of their teenage friends, to take these steps during high school, when they are being exposed to intensive military recruiting.  I hope many readers are able to do the same.

8.  Read, 1984, by George Orwell.

15.  Research your two senators and one congressman at http://j.mp/28IL3wM Make a list of their 10 biggest donors, and send the list to your "representative" in an email or letter.

16.  Read, War is a Racket, by Smedley D. Butler.

17.  Read, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Dave Grossman.

18.  Watch the online video of the TED Talk, A radical experiment in empathy, by Sam Richards.

Peace!

h_h

First published here: http://j.mp/2eNcIBb

Are you worried about a market drop?

I’m not, we’ve been preparing for what’s coming for weeks.

Why do I think the markets will be dropping?

1)   Globally bond yields are spiking. With bond yields rising, earnings yields will follow. The only way for earnings yields to rise is for stock prices to FALL.

Long bonds lead stocks to the upside this year. They’re now leading DOWN.

2)   The market is being held up by just 5-6 stocks.

The number of individual companies above their 50-day moving averages has been in a virtual free-fall since February. Literally a handful of companies remain strong. Everything else is breaking down.

3) Earnings have already collapsed to 2012 levels.

At the end of the day, investors buy stocks for earnings. But earnings have already collapsed to levels not seen since 2012.

Stocks would need to CRASH over 25% to below 1,500 just to catch up.

Bond yields spiking? Stock internals in a free-fall? Earnings in a severe collapse?

This has the makings of a financial crisis. The whole mess is starting to feel a LOT like 2008 again.

The time to prepare is now.

If you've yet to take action to prepare for this, we offer a FREE investment report called the Prepare and Profit From the Next Financial Crisis that outlines simple, easy to follow strategies you can use to not only protect your portfolio from it, but actually produce profits.

We made 1,000 copies available for FREE the general public.

As we write this, there are less than 50 left.

To pick up yours, swing by….

http://j.mp/2eJZWRs

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

First published here: http://j.mp/2ef3ehx

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of The Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.

With each passing day, I find myself reading wildly inaccurate reports about Venezuela’s inflation. I have already had to take no less than the Wall Street Journal to the woodshed for its misreporting. Now, it’s time for Zero Hedge’s one and only Tyler Durden to take a trip to the shed. On October 27th, he asserted that Venezuela was on the cusp of hyperinflation. What nonsense. Durden’s assertion is dead wrong.

Durden relies on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for his inflation data, as well as estimates for Venezuela’s inflation. This is a big blunder. The IMF’s reports on Venezuela contain no indication of their methodology. Indeed, it’s clear from reading their reports that they’re using a finger-in-the-wind method to measure current inflation and forecast future inflation. Durden says that Venezuela’s end of year inflation will be 481 percent, a far cry from Venezuela’s current 74.4 percent annual inflation rate courtesy of the Johns Hopkins-Cato Institute Troubled Currencies Project. The Hopkins-Cato project uses changes in black market (read: free market) exchange rates and the principle of purchasing power parity (PPP) to translate exchange rate changes into deadly accurate inflation rate estimates. 

As the accompanying chart shows, Venezuela’s inflation is not about ready to break out in hyperinflation, but has decelerated dramatically from annual rates exceeding 700 percent in 2015 to today’s still punishing rate of 74.4 percent. 

By the way, for those who play fast and loose with the word “hyperinflation,” the hyperinflation threshold is 12,875 percent, year over year. For those who are seriously interested in the topic, see the only documented treatment of all the 56 hyperinflations in the world: Steve H. Hanke and Nicholas Krus, "World Hyperinflations" in Randall Parker and Robert Whaples (eds.) "The Handbook of Major Events in Economic History," London: Routledge Publishing. 2013.

Once again, the 95% rule reigns – 95% of what you read in the financial press is either wrong or irrelevant.