The Institute For New Economic Thinking has the article Jim Chanos on Fraud: “Cryptocurrency Is a Security Speculation Game Masquerading as a Technological Breakthrough”. This has been republished by Naked Capitalism..

Law was the first person to write about the need for foreign governments to have fiat currencies and not be tethered to gold and silver. Because of the power of taxation and the power of the governments through enforcement and force of arms, they could enforce their currency to be used, and because of their ability to expand the monetary base and do all the kinds of things that central banks now do, it was in their best interest to do so.

I gave a link to both publications of this article so that you could read the comments on both of them. What Jim Chanos is saying is plenty controversial. I picked out the quote above to give you a hint at one of the controversies. To a proponent of Modern Money Theory (MMT) like me, the comments on fiat currency seem pretty devastating. At least I can say that I recognize some of what night upset MMT for the USA, see my recent post India & Iran drop dollar in oil trade to bypass US sanctions – report.

As for Jim Chanos’ comments

LP: One thing you said in “The China Hustle” is that we’ve never seen a credit build-up like the one we’ve seen in China today that hasn’t been followed by a major financial crisis. That sounds pretty worrisome.

JC: I’m always told confidently it won’t matter because they owe it to themselves. Well, if that was that were the case, then Zimbabwe would be one of the wealthiest countries in the world today!

When MMT makes this argument about the USA’s fiat currency, they say that the fiat currency allows the USA to buy whatever it wants to buy if it is for sale in the USA’s currency. What is available to buy in USA currency is a far different story from what is available to buy in Zimbabwe currency. However, the caveat that MMT states is something to take seriously. My recent post about India and Iran as linked to above demonstrates some of the things that could go wrong with the USA fiat cirrency.

YouTube has the video Bernie Yells At Chuck Todd, Stunned By Stupid Question: “Of Course Not!”.

Do you think #45 is making it up when he talks about “fake news”? See my previous post Why Trump Attacks The Media.

YouTube has the video Bernie Sanders: Koch Brothers trying to destroy unions in America.

The Koch brothers and other right-wing groups are trying to destroy unions in America, and that’s exactly what the Janus Supreme Court case is about.

I think that crunch time has finally arrived. Is it likely that there will be fair coverage of this from the corporate media? I bet the corporate oligarchs had wished they had gotten rid of net neutrality before this was put on the internet.

Bernie Sanders’ organization posted a video on Facebook – Why Trump Attacks The Media.

Donald Trump explained to a reporter why he constantly attacks the media. What he said should make us all very concerned.

If the corporate media did not only give us the oligarch’s party line, then they would not be so vulnerable to what Trump is doing. There used to be diversity in the media because of diversity of ownership. Our country has allowed the concentration of media ownership to about 6 major players. There used to be a fairness doctrine for usage of the public airwaves for broadcasting news. That was done away with by Ronald Reagan, and has just made worse in succeeding administrations,

The internet gives us a unique opportunity to learn about the bias in the corporate media. That is why net neutrality is under attack by these corporations. There is also a concerted effort to get the big corporations in control of the internet to censor what others are allowed to write that exposes the bias.

It is dangerous for people like Bernie Sanders, a supposed voice of reason, to ignore the real dangers in the way we get our controlled news. Considering what the press did to Sanders’ run for the Presidency, and the fact that he criticizes the press for the way they cover politics, how can he pretend that some of what Donald Trump says about the press is not true? Bernie Sanders seems to be ignoring the fact that a lot of what you hear on corporate news is fake news. I have been calling one particular news channel “Faux Noise” for years before Donald Trump ever thought about running for President.

One trouble with attacking everything that Trump says without discrimination is that the people who do it lose their credibility and destroy the credibility of progressives in general.

C-SPAN has the video After Words with Jerome Corsi.

Journalist Jerome Corsi argued that there is an effort to thwart the presidency of Donald J. Trump. He is interviewed by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson.

From my prior readings from and about Jerome Corsi, and what I know about infowars.com, I consider him to be a prototypical right-wing nut. If it had not been for the recommendation of another progressive Facebook acquaintance, I never would have listened to this interview.

As I listened to the interview, I kept teetering back and forth between the judgment of right-wing nut and agreeing with some of what he said.

It is interesting to hear his thoughts on the Deep State from a conservative’s point of view. The progressive/left has similar complaints about the deep state, but feel it is after them. I have reconciled these similar views coming from opposite sides as recognizing that the deep state does not necessarily favor either conservatives or progressives, The deep state holdovers just care about preserving the welfare of some corporate oligarchs who only care about enriching themselves.

On my own, I have been recognizing for some time that there is a Deep State vendetta against Trump. Many of my progressive friends accuse me of being a supporter of Trump just because I can recognize what is being done to him and the complicity of the corporate press. I keep saying that just because you are pretty sure that Trump lies a lot, don’t presume that all the forces that are fighting him are telling you the truth.

My latest fight is against the Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff, who says he sees no evidence that the government under Obama put a spy in the Trump campaign. When I present my evidenc by giving people the link to a previous blog post, The FBI Informant Who Monitored the Trump Campaign, Stefan Halper, Oversaw a CIA Spying Operation in the 1980 Presidential Election, they resort to calling me names. The Republicans who want to refute what I say about the spy in the Trump campaign would like to engage me in a discussion of how an informant is different from a spy. To believe this argument is useful requires you to believe that the FBI claim for inserting the “informant” is completely honest without the possibility of the ulterior motives that they deny.

If I have both my friends and enemies taking me to task, maybe I am actually onto something.

YouTube has the video ‘Russia-US direct conflict in Syria was close, but avoided’ – Assad to RT (EXCLUSIVE).

Whether you believe him, don’t believe him, want to believe him, or don’t want to believe him, it might be worthwhile to hear what he thinks, or even pretends to think if you are really skeptical.

RT has the story India & Iran drop dollar in oil trade to bypass US sanctions – report.

India will reportedly pay for Iranian oil in rupees as the two countries seek to bypass the US economic pressure on Tehran, industry officials have told the Sputnik news agency.

As a proponent of Modern Money Theory, I recognize that the policy freedom the USA has has a lot to do with the fact that our currency is a world reserve currency, Our use of economic sanctions to get our way politically drives others to stop using the USA currency as a reserve currency. This is something that jeopardizes our very economy which is our source of strength.

The Intercept has the podcast White Fear: As the GOP Veers Toward Fascism, Establishment Democrats Face a Grassroots Insurgency.

ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have become authoritarian shock forces, operating with impunity, ripping children from their parents’ arms, and enforcing the anti-immigrant edicts of Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions. But the horrors did not start with Trump. This week on Intercepted: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old former waitress, is challenging one of the most powerful Democrats in the country for his congressional seat. She is running on a platform of social and economic justice and she has called for ICE to be abolished. Ocasio-Cortez explains why she wants to unseat the “King of Queens,” Rep. Joseph Crowley, who portrays himself as Nancy Pelosi’s rightful successor. Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. joins Intercepted to talk about white supremacy and law enforcement, the “rot” in the establishment Democratic Party, and Trump’s obsession with black athletes.

This podcast provides some of the context of our immigration policies that we may have forgotten. Some of the blame does fall on the politicians that came before Donald Trump, and some of the blame is squarely on his shoulders. For all of us who are concerned about these issues, it is best to know the truth about how we got to where we are.

Here are two stories I just read that are begging to be posted together.

Bloomberg has the story Soros Sees New Global Financial Crisis Brewing, EU Under Threat.

A surging dollar and a capital flight from emerging markets may lead to another “major” financial crisis, investor George Soros said, warning the European Union that it’s facing an imminent existential threat.

I don’t swear to George Soros’ accuracy, but I do pay attention to what he says. Having known that the stock market has been in a bubble for years, I hope I am already positioned to handle this.

New Economics Perspectives has the second article The New York Times Praises the Italian Establishment’s Economic Illiteracy and Assault on Democracy.

The euro is a terrible creation that has caused immense harm. The eurozone violates even the neoclassical economic requirements for an “optimal currency zone.” Every honest economist recognizes that fact. Stephanie Kelton was one of a material number of economists who predicted the euro’s inherent problems over 15 years ago. The NYT presents opposition to Italy’s membership in the euro as bizarre and obviously bad economics. In reality, it is even good neoclassical economics. German neoclassical economists, for example, typically think that the EU should never have allowed Italy to adopt the euro. If you have freed yourself from neoclassical nostrums, your opposition to the eurozone will be even more profound. The NYT authors’ first lie is the wacko claim that Conte was “planning to sneak out the back door of the eurozone.” It would take too many paragraphs to explain each aspect of nasty, dishonest rhetoric contained in that single clause, so I will shorten my response: BS.

When William K. Black posts a warning too, and I look at the European stock markets this morning, I start to wonder if this is going to be an “interesting” day on Wall Street.

TruthDig has the article Glenn Greenwald: Trump Is a ‘Continuation of American Political Culture’ (Video).

“There [are] a lot of people who want to pretend that what [President Trump is] doing is some kind of radical break from the American tradition, because they’re embarrassed,” The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald said at a recent event of the nonprofit acTVism Munich in Germany.

Greenwald explained that while Donald Trump’s personality, rhetoric and style are “something unlike what we’ve seen before in the Oval Office,” the president’s policies are in line with mainstream American politics.

The YouTube video embedded in the article is titled Glenn Greenwald on Donald Trump, NSA Surveillance, Facebook, Russiagate, Syria, Israel, Gaza & Yemen.