THE ENTIRE REASON WHY U.S. BORDERS ARE WIDE OPEN IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED. NAME ONE BILLIONAIRE NOT SUPPORTING BIDEN'S OPEN BORDERS AND AMNESTY HOAX!
Preparing for the coming food shortages associated with the dark, cold years
“We have had the most extraordinary year of drought & cold ever known in the history of America. . . . The crop of corn thro’ the Atlantic states will probably be less than 1/3 of an ordinary one, that of tobo still less, and of mean quality. The crop of wheat was midling in quantity, but excellent in quality. But every species of bread grain taken together will not be sufficient for the subsistence of the inhabitants.” --Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Albert Gallatin, 8 September 1816.
1816 was the year without a summer. It was the trough of the Dalton Minimum (not even a grand solar minimum) and was exacerbated by the massive eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, which darkened the globe. Violent eruptions tend to coincide with solar minimums.
Recently, I’ve written about the Modern Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) here and here, predicted to run from 2020 through 2053. The trough -- the darkest, coldest years -- is predicted for 2028 through 2032. It’s a once-every-400-years event.
Contemplating several years of low harvests, on a global scale, with perhaps more years of lingering bad weather, is largely outside our experience. My grandparents and parents lived through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Mom’s family farmed wheat. Dad’s folks were just plain dirt poor. They all suffered. No matter what else might happen in our lives, our families, our neighborhoods, or our country, our world is facing predictable dark cold years, and we need to prepare.
Last year, some food, farm, and household supplies were unavailable. This reflected negative impacts from reduced harvests from the previous year, bad weather, COVID interruptions of production and processing, limited imports, supply chain and transport disruptions, lack of processing supplies like metal for cans, limited commercial food service, and families being at home round-the-clock rather than at work, school, and recreation. Lines lengthened at food banks. School districts scrambled to keep breakfast and lunch programs going via delivery or centralized pick-up. I was very proud of my state, Washington, for proactively setting aside food to ensure that the hardest hit would find help at the state’s food banks. I donate to the local Union Gospel Mission feeding program.
Historically, GSMs are marked by bad weather, poor harvests, and famine. Hopefully, we still have several not-too-bad years to get our affairs in order. We start with looking at where and what do we eat. Can we manage most of it at home if needed? Many years ago, Brother Christopher M. Parrett, a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints, compiled the LDS Preparedness Manual. In it, he recommends what to store as a basic ration of dried staple foods for one person for one year, in case of emergency. It included:
Grains = 400 lbs per year; Whole grains (wheat, rye, buckwheat, corn), flours (for breads, pastries, coatings, thickeners), cold and hot cereals, pasta, noodles, popcorn.
Beans & Legumes = 90 lbs per year; Dried beans of all sorts, refried beans, split peas, lentils.
Milk & Dairy = 75 lbs per year; Powdered/Instant dry milk for drinking and cooking, freeze-dried cheese.
Meat or Meat substitute = 20 lbs per year; Dehydrated/freeze-dried beef, chicken, pork, turkey, textured vegetable protein, dried tofu. Fresh would be 3 to 5 times more in weight, without bones.
Fats = 20 lbs per year; Oils, butter, shortening, lard, bacon grease – all kept frozen to stave off rancidity.
Sugars = 60 lbs per year; Granulated sugar, powdered sugar, honey, molasses, syrups, jam/jelly, candy.
Fruit & vegetables = 90 lbs per year; Dehydrated/freeze-dried fruit, vegetables, instant potatoes (mashed, cubed, hash browns). Fresh would be 4 to 8 times more in weight, depending on the item.
Auxiliary foods such as salt, spices, flavorings, vinegar, and yeast. This is a basic list from which to build a plan for one’s household.
Storing enough for the family will also take a pest-free space, a freezer or two, and a food vacuum sealer, sealer or mylar bags, buckets or tubs, and oxygen-absorbers to keep dry food fresher. Dehydrators are not too expensive. Videos, books, and articles on how to store food abound. Alternatively, there are vendors of already prepared long-term storage food items -- a much more expensive option but very convenient. Preppers say, “You’ll eat what you store so store what you eat.” It’s also a good idea to taste a product before investing in a large quantity.
One thing we cannot know at this time is to what degree crops will fail. 20%, 50%, 75%? It will differ every year of the trough. This presumes, of course, that farmers will continue to try to farm in the face of rotten weather and limited livestock feed.
If we decide to plan to have on hand, for example, half our annual needs, do we just cut these numbers in half? No. Long-season crops like grains, citrus fruits, and some vegetables probably will be hit harder and thus in more limited supply than short-season fruits and vegetables.
Besides bad weather losses, countries may choose to restrict exports to have more for their own people, which could reduce supplies of many items we enjoy, including coffee, tea, chocolate, vanilla, spices, sauces, and out of season produce. Reduced grain harvests will likely reduce livestock, poultry, dairy, and egg production.
Each one of us must decide how much of what to set aside for the future. It can be done. A recent check of local prices showed that a 50-lb bag of rice was $22. A 50-lb bag of flour was $20. 50 pounds of flour yields around 60 loaves of bread. One 4-lb bag of yeast, $4, would make around 400 loaves of bread. A 20-lb box of macaroni was $19.
A 50-lb bag of pinto beans was $28. A 25 kg (62.5-lb) bag of powdered milk was $114. Roughly, about a pound of milk powder makes a gallon of milk. There are recipes for making yogurt, cream cheese, mozzarella, and cottage cheese from milk. A 50-lb sack of sugar was $27. A gallon of olive oil was $22.
Over the course of a year, with a little expenditure and a little work, a year’s worth of food for one can be set aside for hard times. You’ve got six or seven years to set aside enough to cover your expected gaps for five bad years. Ready, set, go!
When planning for what we should have in our pantry vs what we calculate might be available from other sources, let’s ask ourselves these questions:
Given what we experienced this past year with the pandemic, do we think that the federal government might restrict food availability to ensure “essential workers”, like the military, are fed first?
Do we think state and local governments might buy up available food from grocery wholesalers, restaurant supply, and farmers? Will they, in turn, supply the food banks, stores, eateries, and farmer’s markets?
How will the USDA feeding programs for seniors, breakfasts, and lunches for school children, and farm-to-family programs be impacted? If vendors limit the number of items someone can buy, as they did last year, will donations to local food banks and charitable feeding programs dry up?
Access to food, from many sources, could be complicated. Are we in a position to increase our own gardening and preservation efforts? If not, please ask for help now rather than later.
Hopefully, the government will heed the scientists’ warnings. If farmers maximize production, and the government supports processing for long-term storage as well as stockpiles as much as it can, this, combined with our individual efforts, will ensure the maximum number of people make it through.
If not, a great reset of another sort, and not of the politicians’ choice, may be upon us.
Anony Mee is a retired public servant. This article was adapted and expanded from one by the author that previously appeared in the participatory Modern Survival Blog.
Does Raising the Minimum Wage Cause Job Loss?
Does raising the minimum wage cause job loss? It's a complicated issue, with such factors as economic growth, economic justice, income, the deficit, fairness, inflation, poverty, inequality, the work ethic, and eligibility for benefits thrown in to cloud the picture.
As Jack Kelly wrote, it is an issue fraught with unintended consequences. He cited a 2019 study by the Congressional Budget Office:
"Increasing the federal minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. For most low-wage workers, earnings and family income would increase, which would lift some families out of poverty. But other low-wage workers would become jobless, and their family income would fall -- in some cases, below the poverty threshold."
Similarly, J.B. Maverick at Investopedia says:
"Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is a policy goal for many lawmakers. Increasing the minimum wage is expected to lift individuals out of poverty and improve work ethic, however, it also comes with many possible negative implications, such as inflation and a loss of jobs."
What does research say? Results are all over the place. As Dee Gill wrote, "...the research evidence of what actual minimum wage requirements do to job numbers goes both ways; many studies find that minimum wage laws reduce employment, and many other studies on the exact same laws find they have little or no effect on jobs. Some 60 years and hundreds of research papers from prestigious universities, government agencies and private organizations have created little consensus on the subject, academic or otherwise."
Early studies compared the number of jobs from a state that raised minimum wages to a nearby state that didn't. But that caused problems because of differences in state economies. For example, is the economy of California comparable to Nevada or Oregon? Employment varies by state for reasons that have nothing to do with the minimum wage.
So, which is it? The answer is, "It depends." The obvious question is, "Why?" To answer that I consulted Dr. Ed Leamer, Professor of Economics and Professor of Statistics at UCLA, who says:
"Ninety-nine percent of what economists believe is the theories they put forward. That's what leads most of them to ignore evidence. I'm a believer in evidence, not theory."
Leamer then said, "There's no piece of work that can't be criticized."
Much of the criticism comes from disagreements over any research's study design, particularly its control group selection. No matter how defined, the control group initiates debate about what method researchers used to define it. A control group should have the same characteristics as the group being researched in every way except for the factors being measured and studied. The control group provides a basis for comparison.
Ideally, empirical economics studies examine the number of jobs before and after a minimum wage hike, then compare those figures to the control group. In a perfect world, only the minimum wage hike could lead to differences in number of jobs. But, in the real world, defining a before/after control group isn't clean and neat because "... no two geographic locations have identical employers or workers or economies, and each of those factors affects jobs regardless of minimum wages." The result is that researchers compare apples to oranges, producing uninterpretable, often invalid results.
For example, consider this study by the New York Fed.
"We use minimum-wage policy differences along the New York-Pennsylvania border to identify the effect of New York's minimum-wage increases. This strategy relies on the idea that contiguous counties share a lot of features that are important determinants of wages and employment, but differ in terms of wage policies as they are located in different states... Specifically, we evaluate the effects on both employment and average weekly earnings in two industries with lots of lower-wage workers: retail trade and leisure & hospitality."
Is the interpretation (minimum-wage increases had the intended effect of boosting worker pay in low-wage industries without 
negatively affecting jobs) correct? Are New York and Pennsylvania (control group) economically the same? What are “a lot of features?” Is what may be true for retail trade and leisure & hospitality workers in New York and Pennsylvania applicable to all lower-wage workers across the country? That's Patriotic Millionaires' interpretation.
Researchers manipulate control groups to include and/or exclude factors that don't equally affect employment in the researched or control group locations. That's where problems begin. There are differences among researchers over how including and excluding factors (and what factors) can be justified. For example, in this Harvard Business Review study, what factors were included/excluded "…for statewide economic and employment differences between California and Texas in order to isolate just the impact of increasing the minimum wage[?]"
In an effort to overcome the control group problem, researchers create "synthetic" control groups. When they studied the Seattle minimum wage hike, University of California Berkeley researchers created a "synthetic" control group comprised of 45 counties located throughout the country (many in Florida). The theory was the combined counties' economies were the same as Seattle's would have been without minimum wage hikes to $13 an hour. The study concluded that Seattle's minimum-wage hike did not lead to job losses.
Another "synthetic" control group (described on pages 10-12) definition for a study of Seattle by the University of Washington found the opposite.
Of course, research studies that utilize synthetic control groups also have their critics.
Why don't minimum wage hikes kill jobs as the classical labor curve predicts? Monopsony, a situation in which there is only one buyer (the minimum wage law). Economists agree that a monopsony can significantly reduce minimum wages because most people who make minimum wage aren't mobile, can't easily move to a state with a higher minimum wage.
Regardless of employers' unnatural wage-setting power, most economists say the law of supply and demand takes over at some point. The ideal minimum wage counters monopsony, leaves prices and profits relatively stable, and doesn't affect the number of jobs. But what is that amount?
As Dr. Leamer says,
"The fundamental question is how much is too much? I think there would be agreement that some minimum wage is good social policy, but that too much is adverse. I think we should be worried about $15 an hour… When you raise minimum wage, somebody pays. Maybe employers cut jobs to cover the added costs. Or they pass on those costs to their customers. Or maybe it just comes out of profits. But that money doesn't just appear out of thin air."
Image: Titsor8976
United Nations Applauds Biden Bringing 4X More Refugees to U.S. as Trump
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi is praising President Joe Biden’s plan to bring four times as many refugees to the United States this year as former President Trump had planned.
In a statement this week, Grandi applauded Biden’s decision to increase the refugee resettlement cap for Fiscal Year 2021 to 62,500 — a more than 315 percent jump compared to the previously established cap of 15,000 refugees for the fiscal year.
“The whole pace will pick up in a few months,” Grandi told Voice of America in an interview. “In the whole of 2020, we only resettled 34,000 people [globally]. The year before was more than 100,000. The drop was enormous.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to get [to 62,500 admissions] that quickly,” Grandi said. “What is important is that there is an intention to get there.”
As of early May, Biden had resettled nearly 1,000 refugees across the U.S.
After the refugee lobby and Democrats denounced Biden’s original plan to keep the Trump-set refugee cap of 15,000 admissions for Fiscal Year 2021, the administration reversed course and announced they would boost the cap to 62,500 admissions.
Now, a group of House Republicans and Democrats want Biden to expand on the soaring refugee resettlement figures by fast-tracking Afghan nationals who worked with the U.S. armed forces into the U.S.
The lobbying effort comes as Department of Justice (DOJ) documents reveal that a similar program, established by former President George W. Bush and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), for Iraqi nationals is plagued with fraud and abuse.
Federal investigators believe some 4,000 Iraqis filed fraudulent refugee applications as they review the cases of about 104,000 Iraqis who sought to enter the U.S. through the Bush-Kennedy “Direct Access” program.
About 500 of those Iraqis have already been resettled in the U.S.
In addition to increasing refugee resettlement, Biden rescinded an order that allowed states and localities to decided whether they wanted refugee resettlement in their communities. The order, signed by Trump, gave Americans veto power over the program that they, for decades, have been shut out of.
Over the last 20 years, nearly one million refugees have been resettled in the country. This is a number more than double that of residents living in Miami, Florida, and would be the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida, to the country.
Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Previously Deported Sex Offenders Arrested After Crossing into Multiple Border Sectors
Border Patrol agents in multiple southern border sectors arrested several previously deported sex offenders after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States.
Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents detected a group of three migrants on Tuesday evening after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico into Arizona, according to information provided by Border Patrol officials in Arizona. The agents arrived at the location and arrested the three migrants.
The agents transported the migrants to a processing center where a records check identified one of the men, 37-year-old Juan Nunez-Tavarez, as a four-time previously deported sex offender.
A Texas court convicted the Mexican national for indecency with a child: sexual contact, officials stated. The court sentenced him to two years in state prison.
The agents arrested Nunez-Tavarez for illegal re-entry after removal as a sex offender. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in federal prison.
In Southeast Texas, McAllen Station Border Patrol agents apprehended a group of 53 migrants who illegally crossed the border near Hidalgo, Texas, on June 16. The agents transported the group to the station for processing.
A biometric background investigation identified one of the men embedded in the group, a Salvadoran national, as an MS-13 gang member.
A short time later, McAllen Station agents apprehended another group of 17 migrants in a nearby section of the border. During processing, agents identified one of the men as a Salvadoran citizen. Criminal history records revealed the man received a conviction in New York for Rape-3rd Degree, officials reported. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations agents deported the man following his six-year prison sentence.
El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents also identified a previously deported sex offender attempting to illegally re-enter the United States on the same day.
At approximately 9 a.m., Calexico Border Patrol Station agents encountered a man who illegally crossed the border one mile west of the Calexico Port of Entry. The agents transported him to the station where they identified him as a previously deported sex offender.
Agents frequently find an arrest previously deported sex offenders and other criminal aliens.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
Biden May End Title 42 Allowing Feds to Remove Migrants amid Pandemic by July
President Joe Biden is reportedly considering terminating, by the end of July, Trump-era pandemic control protocols that allow U.S. border authorities to quickly deport any migrant amid the pandemic, including asylum seekers.
Known as Title 42, Biden is mulling ending the measure, already weakened by his administration, amid a record-shattering surge of migrants, mainly from the Central American Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.
The White House is considering ending the measure “as early as July 31,” Axios revealed Sunday.
“President Biden has been briefed on a plan for stopping family expulsions by the end of July, as well as the option of letting a court end it, Axios has learned,” the news outlet revealed.
The Biden team is reportedly in negotiations with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has placed a temporary hold on its lawsuits targeting the Title 42 removals of families.
Biden has the choice to seize the initiative to end the order, as suggested by some administration officials, or allow the ACLU to sue and force the Department of Justice to defend Trump’s policy.
“That, in turn, could result in sensitive information being released through the litigation process and could be seen as contradictory to Biden’s commitment to asylum,” Axios noted.
As early as February, the Biden administration weighed ending the Title 42 order, Breitbart News revealed.
Democrats, immigration activists, human rights groups, and the ACLU have been lobbying the Biden team to eliminate Title 42.
Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) implemented the order in March 2020 to discourage illegal immigration during the pandemic, a move that has been essential to reducing overcrowding in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities amid the surge.
The Biden administration already allows Title 42 exceptions to thousands of unaccompanied children, certain families, and some single adults, including those who hail from outside the Americas and others, deemed vulnerable.
Axios noted that “the policy has been applied to less than half of family encounters,” later adding, “the administration also has set up a process for exempting more migrants from Title 42 out of humanitarian concern.”
President Biden weakened the order while claiming the border is closed to non-essential travel.
Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also allows migrants removed by Title 42 to make an unlimited number of illegal crossing attempts, given the absence of traditional penalties for repeat border crossers such as felony charges and jail time.
Border officials under Biden are merely removing Central Americans back to the five-yard line in Mexico, rather than flying them to their home countries thousands of miles away like the Trump administration.
Furthermore, Biden’s CBP agency has offered migrants removed “in absentia,” after missing their court hearing in the U.S. while enrolled in Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program ended by Biden, an invitation to return to America, potentially on U.S. taxpayer-funded flights.
The Biden administration most recently expanded a program to allow Central American economic migrants with pending asylum claims — not just approved claims — and a plethora of other qualifying categories, including migrants with “deferred enforced departure or withholding of removal” to petition the feds to bring their families to live with them in the U.S.
President Biden has made all of the policy changes to admit more migrants and release those apprehended into U.S. communities while Title 42 remains.
An unnamed White House official asserted Biden would not end the measure without CDC’s approval, Axios reported.
Echoing other Biden deputies and pro-migration groups, CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller blamed high recidivism rates among border crossers on Title 42. However, the measure does not explain why DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas chooses to return migrants to Mexico instead of flying them back to Central America as the Trump administration did.
DHS oversees the CBP and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencies.
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