Recall the post from November 3/25? The topic was the end of QT (quantitative tightening) and the return to QE (quantitative easing)

“led a number of analysts to bet on the Fed ending its quantitative tightening (QT) program earlier than expected“

Linking an interesting piece From Metal’s and Miners. Lots of graphs and charts to explain the position taken, this is a very good read. A bit frightening but still a very good read!

Metals and Miners; It’s happening. The sea of red we have seeing is undeniable. Stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities; everything has been falling, albeit at different paces.

On the surface, it looks like the Federal Reserve has made a catastrophic error, tightening too much and unleashing a deflationary monster that potentially threatens to plunge the world into a new Great Depression.

But what if this isn’t a mistake? What if this crisis is manufactured? What if the coming deflationary scare is the perfect cover story for what’s comes next: the greatest monetary expansion in human history, designed to monetize the trillions in unpayable debt?

The evidence suggests we are witnessing a deliberate, controlled demolition, and only those who have eyes to see the endgame will survive what comes next.

Engineering the Crisis

Look at the screens lately. It’s been a lot of red. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq suffering. Oil cascading lower. Even the perceived safety of U.S. Treasury bonds is offering no refuge.

This is not a random market event; it is the desired outcome. To justify an unprecedented level of money printing, you first need an unprecedented crisis.

You need a scenario that has every newscaster and politician screaming for a bailout. You need a sea of red that makes the coming monetary firehose seem not just reasonable, but necessary.

The collapse in commodities is a key part of this playbook. By driving down the price of oil, coffee, beef, and other raw materials, the headline inflation numbers can be temporarily suppressed, creating the illusion that the inflation fight has been won.

This provides the perfect justification for the Fed to pivot. They can claim victory over inflation while simultaneously responding to the “unexpected” deflationary crisis they themselves have engineered.

One of the most dramatic pieces of evidence of the deflationary mechanics at work is the collapse of Bitcoin. From a peak of around $125,000 just weeks ago, Bitcoin has plummeted to $83,000 this morning; a stunning 34% collapse, despite the Trump Administration saying they want the U.S. to be the Bitcoin capital of the world.

Bitcoin has dropped like a stone (additional info)

This is not just a correction; it is a liquidation event. Bitcoin, was supposed to be “digital gold” and a hedge against inflation. Inflation has been sticky above 3% as you can see by the next chart, and rising once again, and yet, Bitcoin is getting pummeled.

So, it is clearly not correlated to rising inflation or ‘digital gold” as gold has held strong above $4,000. Neither of these tags are appropriate. So, Bitcoin is something else entirely and likely tied to liquidity.

When liquidity dries up, it collapses just like everything else. This is the deflationary scare in its purest form, and it is exactly what the authorities need to justify their coming response.

The rising market volatility tells the same story. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), often called the “fear gauge,” has been spiking over the last month. This is not random market noise; it is the direct result of the Fed’s QT program pulling liquidity out of the system at the exact same time that government expenditures are rising.

So, Let’s Dig into:

1. The Fed’s villain and excuse
2. The smoking gun
3. The real motive
4. How the Trump Administration has tipped their hand
5. Why we need to own what they can’t print
6. and more……

You’ll have to sign into Substack to read the rest as a courtesy read- It’s worth doing, in my opinion.

Some may recall prior to the Covid “pandemic” we were in a deflationary period (2019) – Lockdowns and other “pandemic” measures gave cover to a massive expansion of cash supply (QE), that was reigned in (QT) not so long ago. In order to engineer this next crisis? “the greatest monetary expansion in human history, designed to monetize the trillions in unpayable debt“

Is this some type of kicking the can down the road manipulation until the road finally ends? Share your thoughts, of course!

Link

The Dow got crushed on Monday, dropping nearly 1,000 points as traders scrambled through a selloff that’s dragging the index toward the worst April since 1932, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

The S&P 500’s performance under Donald Trump’s presidency is now the worst showing for any president this far into office, based on Bespoke Investment Group’s data going back to 1928.

The damage is tied to a mix of policy chaos, trade tension, and collapsing investor confidence. With Trump back in the White House and already butting heads with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Wall Street isn’t waiting to see how bad it gets.

There are real fears that Trump might fire Powell, which is only adding fuel to a market that’s already overheating from confusion.

Investors are seeing corporate earnings start to drop, with many companies warning that tariffs are slicing into future profits. The ongoing negotiations on trade are dragging, and most people in the market aren’t betting on quick results.
Investors ditch traditional safe zones as market panic deepens

The usual safety zones are gone. Government bonds are taking a hit. The U.S. dollar is falling too. Traders are cornered with nowhere to escape. Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, said his firm already scaled back its U.S. equity exposure weeks ago.

“It’s impossible to commit capital to an economy that is unstable and unknowable because of policy structure,” Scott said. “It’s the hallmark of the ‘no confidence’ trade.”

Right after Trump won the last election, stock prices flew on the hope of tax cuts and deregulation. Investors thought the boost to business would lift everything. But instead of building on that, the administration turned to tariffs. That change flipped the mood.

On April 2, Trump pushed out a new batch of tariffs, and markets reacted instantly. The Dow began to sink, and it hasn’t found its feet since.

Even after Trump backtracked on some tariff timelines, the market didn’t buy it. The hit was already made. Bond markets are throwing their own red flags. Usually, during selloffs, U.S. Treasurys rise in price because investors rush into them. That’s not happening.

In April alone, the 10-year Treasury yield moved up 0.16 percentage points. That means bond prices are dropping too. People are unloading what’s supposed to be the safest bet in town.

Everyone is quite quiet lately? Could it be the increased hostilities in the middle east? Israel and the US turning up the heat on Iran? Russia advancing in Ukraine while US bellicosity towards Russia escalates?

Or how about watching retirement savings disappearing? Understanding all pension plans personal and otherwise, including CPP (Canada Pension Plan), are being negatively affected by this instability?

On a side note-we’re a couple of years away from retiring, this doesn’t inspire confidence for our “golden years”

While acknowledging my understanding of all these financial machinations is certainly limited. I’ve been reading and posting different articles here. Well, I got another one. I read this three times, including once to my husband because the author really explained, very well, the numerous problems with this economic warfare the US has initiated. Including in the way this has all been presented to a mainstream audience.

A limited excerpt is included below the links, but, the entire piece can be read at the archive link below

Link to Globe and Mail and Archive.ph

David Rosenberg- Special to the Globe and Mail

There is now certainty that this White House trade strategy is both nonsensical and unachievable. Look, we can all accept that China is a menace and a huge cheater, but it would be preferable if the White House specifically dealt with Xi Jinping. One can certainly make the case that Mexico was the big winner from the NAFTA sucking sound (not Canada). But when President Trump states that the trade plan is “our declaration of economic independence,” what he is, in effect, saying is that he wants America to be “independent” – or “liberated” – from bilateral deficits with all countries running such gaps against the U.S.

As a result, just about any country in the world that runs trade surpluses with the United States just faced a brutal and unanticipated assault in terms of magnitude – 57 in total (with a range of 1 per cent to 40 per cent of penalties layered on top of the 10 per cent baseline move – amazingly, Russia and North Korea were not on the hit list). While I don’t like to label this a “tariff” rate (I define what this is below), it basically amounts to 22 per cent, and that takes out Smoot-Hawley in 1930 and is the highest since 1910 (a big shock from 2.5 per cent before this current trade war was launched).

>>>>>>>>>>

President Trump said he loved that word “reciprocal” when he spoke at the Rose Garden on Wednesday and even took the time to define it for us. But let’s look at the numbers. What is reciprocal about imposing a “tariff” of 10 per cent on the U.K. (as an example) when it has a tariff rate of 0.7 per cent on imports of U.S. goods? That is what we should be asking ourselves. Or a 10 per cent tariff now imposed on Australia when it has no tariffs at all on imports of U.S. merchandise.

How is that reciprocal? Reciprocal would mean a 3.9 per cent tariff on Korea, not 25 per cent. It would mean a 3.9 per cent tariff on Japan, not 24 per cent. India got slapped with a 26 per cent tariff even though its tariff rate on the U.S. is 5.5 per cent. What is with Vietnam being hit with a 46 per cent “tariff” when its comparable on U.S. products is … wait for it … 2.9 per cent (in a $30 trillion U.S. economy, Vietnam runs the grand total of a $123-billion trade surplus with the U.S.)? Thailand charges a 6.2 per cent tariff rate, and the U.S. just slammed it with a 36 per cent punitive “tariff.”

So, I must make this very clear. These are not really “tariffs” that are being imposed.These are actions aimed at completely eliminating the U.S. bilateral trade deficit with every country. That is why the “tariff” is really not that at all but rather a “ratio” of every country’s trade surplus with the U.S. divided by the exports of that country

they are ratios that are intended to cause trade deficits to go away entirely (depending on the elasticities). What that means is that every country can drop its tariff rate to zero, and it won’t matter because that will not cause the bilateral trade gaps to disappear –

And the question is, why? Because the president and his team believe that trade deficits are “subsidies,” pure and simple. And that, my friends, is patently absurd.

Again, to be clear, what the White House just unveiled are NOT “reciprocal” tariffs by a long shot. They are rooted in a misapprehension that trade deficits are “subsidies” (which the president keeps referencing when he talks about Canada). Which they are NOT.

I’ve actually come across people saying the US subsidizes Canada, as if they are bestowing charity on Canada- nothing could be further from the truth- Even this (me) financial neophyte understands this!

Why does the U.S. run trade deficits with so many countries, and why is it natural?

The United States is the largest and richest economy on the planet. This is all about the laws of large and small numbers. For small countries, it is next to impossible for them to import all that much given their smaller populations and GDP bases. For many countries, what they export to the U.S. may be big in relation to their economies but very small relative to the size of the U.S. market. The math just doesn’t work. There is no way they will be able to boost their imports sufficiently to cause a balance in bilateral trade.

Canada has about 1/10th of the population of the US, we cannot import from them like they can from us. Plus they consume vast quantities of our energy resources-

But more importantly, given the relative size of the U.S. to many other countries, it makes zero sense to expect anything but deficits with these nations. In other words, the law of large and small numbers here is going to make it next to impossible for every bilateral deficit to banish. A wholly unrealistic expectation.

The U.S. economy is built on consumerism. And there is a huge correlation between consumer spending and imports. No national sales tax and a system that encourages an extremely low personal savings rate. The rest of the world has no such culture and runs much higher savings rates.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Please read the linked article entirely. There is so much more information to absorb. Below is the last little bit that will be included here.

The U.S. dollar is the reserve currency of the world. It is perfectly normal for the reserve currency country to be running current account deficits with other countries. Why? Because the status of trust and stability that comes with being the reserve currency leads to capital account surpluses. And these surpluses, because of the wealth and income streams they cause, flow through into a current account deficit via the import channel. The capital account drives the current account and, by definition, the balance-of-payments must balance. This, you never hear about despite the fact that it is an incontrovertible fact that the balance-of-payments must always balance.

As always, share some thoughts.

As the stock markets continue their downward fall

IN ITS SCOPE and severity, the trade war took markets by surprise. On April 3rd, the day after President Donald Trump laid out an unprecedented array of tariffs, the Russell 3000, one of the broadest measures of the American stockmarket, fell by 5%. It then fell by 6% on April 4th, when China announced that it would strike back with a duty of 34% on all American goods. Market pricing in a range of asset classes tells a worrying story: investors are expecting a severe economic slowdown.

Gold has fallen in recent days and the dollar has weakened—the opposite of what normally happens in times of trouble. But elsewhere things are almost unanimously gloomy. Oil has sold off, with the price of a barrel of Brent crude falling from $75 to $66, as has copper. In many countries bank stocks have tumbled; a bad sign, since financial firms are particularly exposed to the economic cycle. Boutique investment banks, which make money from mergers and acquisitions, have done especially badly. Klarna, Medline and Stubhub, three private firms that had hoped to list on public exchanges, have delayed their offerings. The VIX, a measure of stockmarket volatility, has jumped. Bank analysts are busy raising their estimates of the likelihood of a global recession this year. JPMorgan Chase now puts the chances at 60%.

There are also more precise measures of investors’ expectations for global growth. One is to compare “defensive” stocks and “cyclical” ones. Defensive stocks, comprising companies such as consumer staples and utilities, are not so exposed to the economic cycle, since the weekly supermarket shop is the last thing people cut back on. By contrast, cyclical stocks, such as airlines and carmakers, depend greatly on animal spirits. In the past week global cyclicals have underperformed global defensives by eight percentage points—the biggest gap since the beginning of the covid-19 lockdowns in 2020. Our analysis suggests that these price movements are consistent with a mild global recession.

Read entirely at link above, a brief excerpt below

This is a con on a global scale. Trump is not rejecting the corporate trade model. He’s weaponizing it.

On April 2, Donald Trump declared a national emergency and announced sweeping tariffs on nearly all imported goods. The headlines were dramatic — tariffs on China, allies like Canada and Mexico, and everything from cars to coffee beans. His administration framed the move as a patriotic stance for “reciprocal trade” and economic sovereignty.

Don’t be fooled. This isn’t the collapse of “free trade.” It’s the continuation of corporate globalization — just with a MAGA bumper sticker slapped on it.

Trump says he’s standing up for American workers. But he’s the same president who signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and called it “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.” The rebranded North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) deal — despite some improvements forced in by congressional Democrats and civil society organizations — contained much of the same structural rot that has enabled outsourcing, empowered monopolies, and tied the hands of governments trying to protect their people and environment.

For decades, “free trade” deals like NAFTA locked in rules written by and for multinational corporations: rules that made offshoring easier, gutted environmental protections, and prioritized investor rights over worker rights. Stagnant wages, emptied factory towns, and rising income inequality have caused widespread pain and frustration among working Americans — which Trump has weaponized again and again.

Tariffs can be part of the answer to these problems, but Trump’s ham-handed approach ain’t it. There’s no industrial strategy. No labor plan. No climate protections. Just a unilateral, top-down stunt that does nothing to dismantle the corporate architecture still rigging the global economy.

Pair this “concept of a plan” with the rest of his agenda: gutting investment in vital sectors such as biomedical research, support for basic science and clean and affordable energy technologies and products; slashing all efforts to combat child labor and other egregious labor rights violations around the world, providing tax cuts for billionaires and corporations; stripping away health care, food support and other vital services for the most vulnerable Americans, undermining Social Security, and decertifying and undermining the power of labor unions.

It’s clear working people will not be the winners here.

The 100 year partnership has barely garnered attention what with all the pomp and circumstance over Trump

As was mentioned when I published the report on the “100 year Partnership” Agreement signed between the UK and Ukraine.

https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2025/01/16/ukraine-uk-sign-100-year-partnership-agreement-us-3-6-billion-annual-military-aid/

This is absolutely a continuation of the imperial policy of the UK.

penny2says:

January 16, 2025 at 12:37 pm•Edit

This 100 year partnership? It’s just a continuation of what has always been the British Empire’s agenda when it comes to suppressing/subordinating Russia to bankers and big oil for exploitation– It’s difficult to find information on the internet- it’s been so heavily cleansed-

At my old site I recall when Putin came into power and he reined in the Oligarchs- one oligarch in particular transferred his interests back to the Rothschild banking family. I found that strange at the time, but, wondered if the shares had really been Rothschild’s all along and Khodorkovsky was just a front man for other, shall we say, interested parties

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/nov/2/20031102-111400-3720r

“Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky’s arrest, the Sunday Times reported.

Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. Rothschild, 67, under a “previously unknown arrangement” designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer “act as a beneficiary” of the shares, it said. ”

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/english-plan-colonise-russia

https://academic.oup.com/book/33007ReplyBy Post Author

AND

penny2says:

January 16, 2025 at 12:43 pm•Edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos

We can look also to Magnitsky and the now infamous Magnistsky Act- Bill Browder a UK Citizen
Many years ago (2011) a few intrepid bloggers, myself included, wrote up a big piece on Bill Browder, Magnitsky etc

http://suspiciousdeaths.blogspot.com/2011/08/magnitsky-report.html

The more things change, the more they stay the same…

Foreign policy hawk Marco Rubio expected to be next US secretary of state

Trump taps South Dakota’s Noem to lead Homeland Security

Trump meets with Netanyahu consultant to discuss Middle East

Dermer met with Trump in his Florida residence, Mar-a-Largo, on Sunday to pass messages from Netanyahu and brief the president-elect on Israel’s plans in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

“One of the things the Israelis wanted to sort out with Trump is what are the issues he prefers to see solved before January 20 and what are the issues he prefers the Israelis to wait for him,” a US official told the portal.

The Iranian Plot claim has no basis in reality- In my opinion

Foreign minister disputes U.S. accusations of Iranian plot to kill Trump

“As a killer does not exist in reality, scriptwriters are brought in to manufacture a third-rate comedy,” Mr. Araghchi said on Saturday. “Who can in their right mind believe that a supposed assassin SITS IN IRAN and talks online to the FBI?!”

Tehran braces for confrontation with Washington after U.S. election

More on Trump’s picks

Trump’s pick of a pro-Israel team signals trouble for Tehran

On Monday, Trump announced Representative Elise Stefanik of New York is to become United Nations ambassador, Representative Mike Waltz of Florida will take over as national security advisor, and it is expected that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida will become secretary of State.

Speaking to Iran International, Richard Pater, Israel director of the think tank, The Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), said it was good news for Israel.

White Stripes Drop Lawsuit- This stunt was, in my opinion intended to influence voters prior to the election-

The White Stripes drop lawsuit against Trump campaign for unauthorised use of Seven Nation Army

Trump Won’t Knock World Bank Off Its Climate Targets, Banga Says

“Climate targets” are code for new ways to make money

The World Bank will launch its Frontier Opportunities Fund within the next couple of months, Banga said, and plans to make an asset class out of climate change loans in an effort to unlock investments from pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds.

Wall Street CEO Raising His Hand to Run Trumps Economy

For months now, Lutnick, a major Trump donor, has been fast at work assembling a future administration. As co-chair of the transition team, he’s set up a war room at Mar-a-Lago with eight TV screens and two iPads. He’s personally walking Trump through names, photos and biographies of potential candidates, laying out the pros and cons of each, according to a person familiar with the matter. Trump is expected to interview candidates for Treasury in the next week.

Lutnick is unusual among top names being reported as potential cabinet picks in that he’s a billionaire who still runs large private and public companies — which also stand to benefit from his involvement in government policy. Among Cantor’s ventures is an operation that will lend dollars to clients using Bitcoin as collateral — a business that could receive a boost from Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrencies.

His group also includes a private investment bank and a fixed income and equities business, along with publicly traded brokerage BGC Group Inc. and real estate firm Newmark Group Inc. Shares in both firms have risen since the close of trading on Election Day — BGC by almost 11% and Newmark by 5.5%.

Lots of instability..

Wall Street’s stock sell-off intensified in a major way Monday as concerns mounted over the health of the US economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell about 1,000 points. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was crushed roughly 3.5% after the tech-heavy index entered into a correction with Friday’s sharp losses. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) losses cascaded about 3%.

( Dow Jones was down just over 1000 points a short time ago)

The global stock market is in the midst of a rapidly intensifying sell-off after Friday’s lackluster US jobs report added to concerns about the economy and on whether the Federal Reserve had waited too long to begin cutting interest rates. Of note, almost 100% of bets are on the central bank to cut rates by 0.5% by its September meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Some of the biggest companies in the stock market saw their values plummet at the open. Apple (AAPL) declined 4% amid the sell-off, and also after news that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) had cut its stake in the company in half. Nvidia’s (NVDA) pull back continued, as it dropped as much as 13% before paring some of its losses. Tesla (TSLA) plunged more than 9%.

Crypto also took a beating, with Bitcoin (BTC-USD) sinking more than 10% to creep back toward the $54,000 level.

The concerns have spread throughout the world, as well. Traders in Asia greeted the week with a similar sell-off, as Japan’s Nikkei 225 (^N225) was routed by more than 12% in its biggest-ever daily loss. In commodities, meanwhile, oil was near its lows of the year, with WTI crude futures (CL=F) trading above $72 a barrel.

Online brokers are struggling to keep up with Monday’s market mayhem

According to data from Downdetector, online brokerages including Charles Schwab (SCHW), Robinhood (HOOD), Interactive Brokers (IBKR), Fidelity, Vanguard, and E-Trade were all having connectivity issues early Monday.

Stocks plunge, as tech leads losses and Dow drops over 1,000 points

The major averages plunged on Monday morning as markets abroad have sold off and amid intensifying worries about a weakening US economy.

Excerpts below..

There’s no ducking it now. The widespread, serious negatives have reached a critical level. There are no cures available except a major reset of investor beliefs, rationale and expectations.

Importantly, this reset is not of the “typical” overoptimistic, fad-driven, easy-money booms. Instead, it is the return to traditional capital market operations that had been skewed by the Federal Reserve since 2008 — 15 years! Never has there been such an extended period and enormous, anti-capital market actions.

Note: “Had been skewed” is the proper description because the bond and money markets have now retaken their interest rate-setting role. That is a key step because using market-driven, demand-supply pricing of capital is at the heart of robust, successful capitalism.

The Fed’s two primary actions were near 0% interest rates that produced dramatic inequities, and $trillions of money creation that has led to high inflation – mirroring what all history has shown. Perhaps worse is the damage done to investors and others by those 15 years of improper Fed actions and misleading, even false, explanations.

So, now come the new education courses. They will be painful and, at first, seem wrong. In fact, the media is already attempting to explain away some of the current negatives and even add a positive spin by assuming there will be a return to those previous Fed-driven conditions. That won’t happen. When trends reverse, they die because successful investing always refocuses from the worn-out, past trend to the new, future-based one.

Why must there be a crash?

The recent 2+ month sell-off has been inadequate. The broad list of negatives and the strong investor mindset require a vivid upheaval to shake things up. And that means a scary plummet is required to produce the shock needed.

As to the negatives and the current selloff, I’ve discussed them in these previous articles:

• Sept. 23 – “Stock Market: Last Week’s Alarm Bells Are Serious“
• Sept. 30 – “Stock Market Selloff Is Confirmed“
• Oct. 13 – “Don’t Get Trapped – Investment Risk Is Not Being Rewarded“

How low could the stock market go?

There is no way of knowing now. There are too many unknowns about how investors (individual and institutional) have their portfolios structured. We do know that options, margin accounts and other uses of leverage have been popular. Those investors will feel the pain most, because it doesn’t take a 100% price drop to wipe them out.

Additionally, enormous investing power exists in the hedge fund industry. Those funds’ ability and willingness to take large positions, long and short, raises the risk. Remember the saying, “It’s easier to scare an investor than to reassure one.” In other words, a selloff hyped by short-selling can have a significant effect on investors’ desire to sell and get out.

The bottom line – Investor emotions are about to take over

When understanding is undermined, reasonable thinking goes out the window, and emotions move in.

Therefore, expect investors (and the media) to shift soon into no-man’s-land where puzzlement reigns. Then, as the stock market falls further, the realization that – for some reason – something is wrong and things could get worse. Finally comes the washout, when many investors decide to get out, either because they can’t take it anymore or because they expect a terrible event is close at hand – a climactic stock market drop and/or an economic depression.

Taking into account all the geopolitical instability as well- This could be a recipe for disaster

Take it away Gary..

Hi Penny:

   With respect to the E. coli in preschools in Calgary, one might ask what is the source of the E. coli O157:H7 and how does it get into the environment? It turns out that stopping the production of E. coli O157:H7 and other acid resistant E. coli is as simple as no longer feeding beef and diary cattle the high production diet containing corn. This problem is pervasive in agriculture as the common goal in agriculture is to maximize yield in order to maximize profit. The scientific evidence to support my statement is found here:

Gary’s okay and further comment

Certainly go ahead and share the blog. I have never seen the mainstream media mention it. One way to fool the public is to withhold information. The MSM is good at that.

You are right, cattle should eat grass. Corn fattens cattle because of what is and isn’t in the corn. Corn is lacking in three essential amino acids, methionine, tryptophan and lysine. Thus feeding corn to cattle results in their being malnourished so they keep eating the corn to try to meet their nutritional need. In so doing, the excess carbohydrate fattens them. It does the same to people. Hybrid corn does a better job as it has more carbohydrate and less protein. The reason for hybrid corn is higher yield and the consequence is reduced nutritional value.

Before we get to the info it’s worth noting- Gary is correct! I can’t recall ever seeing this information in the main stream media. We, hubby and myself, read about this type of stuff. In books. Since this is a topic that interests the both of us. Rather than preventing E. Coli contamintion what we largely get are new antibiotic and other pharma treatments. For profit, of course! But never a word on preventing or reducing this problem

Also, notice the E. Coli contamination is being used to score cheap political points against the government of the day, rather than actually caring about this serious problem

Idiotic Globe and Mail piece– Danielle Smith must uncover roots of E. coli crisis and ensure it doesn’t happen again

We already know what the roots are of this problem- This problem long predates Danielle Smith. But, she’s certainly the convenient scape goat – Notice the piece from Cornell was published in 1998

Simple change in cattle diets could cut E. coli infection

A simple change in cattle diets in the days before slaughter may reduce the risk of Escherichia coli (E. coli) infections in humans, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Cornell University microbiologists have discovered.

Research reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Science indicates that grain-based cattle diets promote the growth of E. coli that can survive the acidity of the human stomach and cause intestinal illness. E. coli contamination is responsible for more than 20,000 infections and 200 deaths each year in the United States.

Fortunately there is a workable solution to the food-safety problem, the scientists say. By feeding hay to cattle for about five days before slaughter, the number of acid-resistant E. coli can be dramatically reduced.

“Most bacteria are killed by the acid of stomach juice, but E. coli from grain-fed cattle are resistant to strong acids,” explains James B. Russell, a USDA microbiologist and faculty member of the Cornell Section of Microbiology. “When people eat foods contaminated with acid-resistant E. coli — including pathogenic strains like O157:H7 — the chance of getting sick increases.”

E. coli is a normal bacterium in the gastrointestinal tract of animals and humans, and most types are not harmful (See “E. coli and Cattle” fact sheet, attached). However, disease-causing strains such as E. coli O157:H7 produce toxins that cause bloody diarrhea or even kidney failure in humans. Mature cattle are unaffected by E. coli O157:H7. Only a small number of cattle (estimated at 1 to 2 percent at any one time) shed E. coli O157:H7 in their feces, a rate that is not fully explained.

When beef carcasses are accidentally contaminated by feces at slaughter, the pathogens can enter the human food supply. E. coli O157:H7 can be killed by cooking or irradiation, but the bacterium continues to pose a food-safety risk.

Cattle are fed starch-containing grains to increase growth rate and produce tender meat. Because the bovine gastrointestinal tract digests starch poorly, Russell explains, some undigested grain reaches the colon, where it is fermented. When the grain ferments — and acetic, propionic and butyric acids accumulate in the animal’s colon — a large fraction of E. coli produced are the acid-resistant type.

“Grain does not specifically promote the growth of E. coli O157:H7, but it increases the chance that at least some E. coli could pass through the gastric stomach of humans,” Russell says. “The carbohydrates of hay are not so easily fermented, and hay does not promote either the growth or acid resistance of E. coli. When we switched cattle from grain-based diets to hay for only five days, acid-resistant E. coli could no longer be detected.”

In studies performed at Cornell, beef cattle fed grain-based rations typical of commercial feedlots had 1 million acid-resistant E. coli, per gram of feces, and dairy cattle fed only 60 percent grain also had high numbers of acid-resistant bacteria. In each case, the high counts could be explained by grain fermentation in the intestines.

By comparison, cattle fed hay or grass had only acid-sensitive E. coli, and these bacteria were destroyed by an “acid shock” that mimicked the human stomach, the microbiologists report in Science.

According to microbiologist Russell, acid-resistant strains of bacteria have evolved to overcome the protective barrier of the gastric stomach. The ongoing process of natural selection allows organisms with the appropriate genes to survive and multiply where others cannot. Because cattle have been fed high-grain, growth-promoting diets for more than 40 years, he says, there has been ample opportunity to select acid-resistant forms.

Further research is needed to identify the acid-resistance genes of E. coli, but Russell says that “common laboratory strains” of E. coli appear to lack the necessary DNA to survive acidic gastrointestinal environments.

“In the meantime, now that we know where the acid-resistant E. coli are coming from, we can control them with a relatively inexpensive change in diet,” Russell says. “This strategy has the potential to control the production of other acid-resistant bacteria, including virulent strains of E. coli that have not yet evolved.”

A brief period of hay-feeding immediately before slaughter “should not affect either carcass size or meat quality,” and the diet change could be implemented with minimal expense and inconvenience to feedlot operators, according to Donald H. Beermann, Cornell professor of animal science.

USDA microbiologist Russell has been stationed in Ithaca for more than 17 years and is affiliated with the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, Wisc. He holds the rank of adjunct professor of microbiology at Cornell, and the other authors of the Science report were his students when the feeding studies were conducted: Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, currently a postdoctoral fellow, completed his Ph.D. in food science at Cornell in 1996. Todd Callaway is a Ph.D. candidate in microbiology. Menas Kizoulis, a Cornell senior in biological sciences, was recently awarded a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Fellowship to continue research in Russell’s laboratory.

An article from Mother Earth News

E. coli 0157:H7, the toxic strain that caused the recent outbreak of food poisoning from bagged spinach, is a fairly recent discovery; it was unknown before 1982

One of the reasons this new strain makes us sick is that it is more acid-resistant than other forms of E. coli, so it can pass through our stomachs unharmed into the intestines, where it produces a toxin that causes diarrhea and organ damage. So, how did an acid-resistant strain of E. coli develop? Most outbreaks have been linked to cattle, and one major change in beef production in recent decades has been the confinement of cattle to feedlots where they are fed high-grain diets. It is now clear that forcing cattle to eat an unnatural high-grain diet, rather than their natural diet of grass, isn’t good for the cows, or for us. Here’s how Michael Pollan explains it in his brilliant new book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma:

When I was young, not to sound cheesy, but meat tasted completely different and never did I hear a peep about e coli– Nadda! Until I was in my ’20’s.