Jun 15

Today’s News 15th June 2021

  • Jon Stewart Hijacks Colbert Show With Lab-Leak Rant, Liberal Twitter Explodes
    Jon Stewart Hijacks Colbert Show With Lab-Leak Rant, Liberal Twitter Explodes

    Comedian Jon Stewart overpowered Stephen Colbert’s ability to shill on Monday, hijacking the Late Show‘s return to a live (and fully vaccinated) audience with an epic rant on the COVID-19 lab-leak theory.

    “I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science. Science has, in many ways, helped ease the suffering of this pandemic, which was more than likely caused by science,” Stewart said after Colbert asked how he was feeling about the scientific response to COVID-19.

    “Do you mean perhaps there’s a chance that this was created in a lab?” asked Colbert, adding “There’s an investigation.”

    “A chance?” shot back Stewart – kicking the door open.

    “Oh my god, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think? And then they asked those scientists – they’re like ‘how did this… so wait a minute, you work at the Wuhan respiratory coronavirus lab. How did this happen?’ and they’re like ‘mmmm – a pangolin kissed a turtle?‘ and you’re like ‘no… the name of your lab! If you look at the name! Can I… let me see your business card. Show me your business card. Oh – I work at the coronavirus lab in Wuhan. Oh, cause there’s a coronavirus loose in Wuhan. How did that happen?‘

    ‘Maybe a bat… flew into the Cloaca of a turkey and… then it sneezed into my chili. And now we all have Coronavirus.”

    Stewart landed one final joke as Colbert desperately tried to control the situation;

    “HOLD IT, HOLD IT! What about this, what about this… listen to this! ‘OH MY GOD, there’s been an outbreak of chocolately goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania. What do you think happened?’

    ‘Oh I don’t know, maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean?’

    “Or… it’s the fucking chocolate factory! Maybe that’s it!” Stewart screamed.

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    “Can I say this about scientists?” Stewart said after the break. “I love them and they do such good work but they are going to kill us all.“

    As noted by Stephen Miller, Liberal Twitter is not happy.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/15/2021 – 02:55

  • Fairfax Board Member Rails Against The Dangers Of "Excessive Individualism"
    Fairfax Board Member Rails Against The Dangers Of “Excessive Individualism”

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    There has been a great deal of controversy over the graduation address of Fairfax County school board member Abrar Omeish to the Justice High School in Falls Church on June 7th.

    In her remarks to the graduates, Omeish praised a teacher who made social activism part of her class and warned the graduates that they are going into a world filled with racism and white supremacy.

    However, what really struck an admittedly libertarian chord with me was the third danger that she warned about: “excessive individualism.” 

    Like free speech, individualism is now being presented as a danger rather than a strength in our society.

    Omeish is a strong speaker who impressively moved between English, Spanish, and Arabic in her address. However, many parents objected in Fairfax (where I live) to the content of the remarks. She labeled those who do not agree with the activism agenda as effectively opposing anti-racism values: 

     “You understand that social justice is only political for those that can afford to ignore it. You understand that ‘neutral’ is another word for complicit. And you have made a choice to take a stand.”

    She encouraged the students to remain activists and pursue “jihad” because “we struggle with human greed, racism, extreme versions of individualism and capitalism, white supremacy, growing wealth gaps, disease, climate crisis, extreme poverty amidst luxury and waste right next door. And the list goes on.”

    As we have previously discussed, “jihad” in Arabic does not mean violent acts despite the common view of the term. It is a reference to good acts or public service. There is no basis to suggest that this speech was encouraging violent action.  Rather, she declared “Every part of your being may scream in rage at the ways others have wronged you,” but “let compassion for your fellow human beings, not anger or rage — and believe me this is hard to do — fuel you.”

    What stood out for me was the reference to “extreme versions of individualism.”  There was a time when individualism was viewed as a core protection and value in our society. Now it is often denounced as a harmful value that resists more collective and communal priorities from fighting Covid-19 to racial justice.

    For years, academics have lashed out at individualism as a barrier for public policy goals like health care. On study on the “excesses of individualism” concluded, for example, “Libertarian individualism has created political isolation and prevents the evolution of democratic decision making and real partnerships in healthcare.” The case against individualism has been made in books ranging from Robert N. Bellah’s book Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Amitai Etzioni’s The Spirit of Community. Writers like Nick Romeo insist:

    Radical individualism today retains this highly circumscribed conception of government’s role; the body politic – above all – serves to protect the safety and the property of the individual. This is exemplified in a line made popular by the US president Ronald Reagan: the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ It is a radical philosophy that suggests the political collective should have no role beyond the protection of the individual.

    The old view of “rugged individualism” has become reactionary individualism for those arguing for a new collective consciousness. 

    The move against individualism brings to mind a quote from Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago:

    “The main misfortune, the root of all the evil to come, was the loss of confidence in the value of one’s own opinion. People imagined that it was out of date to follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by other people’s notions, notions that were being crammed down everybody’s throat.”

    Few would argue that there is no value in collective action and policies.  Individualism is not anarchy. The concern is that the attacks on individualism are coinciding with attacks on values like free speech.  There is a movement to force adherence to accepted norms or values — and a corresponding intolerance for opposing views.

    That is why the dire warning of Omeish for the young graduates to fear “excessive individualism” was so jarring for those of us who find believe that on certain rights, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, nothing succeeds like excess.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/15/2021 – 02:53

  • The Fight Against Child Labor Has Stalled
    The Fight Against Child Labor Has Stalled

    A report released yesterday by UNICEF and the International Labor Organization shows that even before the coronavirus pandemic came into full swing, progress in combating child labor around the world had stalled. Statista’s Katharian Buchholz reports that at the beginning of 2020, there were once again 160 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 engaged in age-inappropriate and/or hazardous work. The new number marks an increase from around 152 million in 2016.

    Infographic: Fight Against Child Labor Has Stalled | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    While child labor in Asia and Latin America has decreased, it has been rising again in Sub-Saharan Africa – in absolute and relative terms. While in 2016, 22.4 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 17 were in child labor in the region, that number had risen to almost 24 percent in early 2020. The global share of 9.6 percent of children engaged in child labor stayed the same between 2016 and 2020, showing that while the increase in child labor was in line with world population growth, the burden has shifted between regions.

    The report also reveals that one of the most common images of child labor in the developing world – children working for a wage on factory floors – is actually the least common scenario. Child labor in industry stood at around 10 percent globally, being trumped by work in the service sector (around 20 percent) as well as the most common field for child labor, agriculture (70 percent). Earning a wage is also most uncommon for children, as 72 percent of child laborers work with their families.

    Both numbers rise above 80 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. The shift towards Africa therefore means that more young children below the age of eleven have become engaged in child labor, since agricultural and family work typically involve younger child workers. Yet, the region’s particular profile is more likely to keep child workers in school.

    Child labor in Latin America and Asia typically involved more children from ages 12 to 17, more employed or self-employed work, more urban work and more work in services and industry, even though family work and the agricultural sector still provided the majority of jobs for children in the regions. Child workers were most likely to be out of school in Asia at rates between 32 and 35 percent and least likely to miss out on an education in Latin America at just 16 percent of child workers being out of school. Boys became child laborers only at a slightly higher rate when taking into account age-inappropriate domestic work carried out by girls. Globally, around half of child workers carried out hazardous work, defined as work likely to harm a child’s health, safety or morals.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/15/2021 – 02:45

  • England Footballers 'Taking The Knee' Engaged In "Gesture Politics": UK Minister
    England Footballers ‘Taking The Knee’ Engaged In “Gesture Politics”: UK Minister

    Authored by Alexander Zhang via The Epoch Times,

    UK Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Monday that she does not support England footballers taking the knee ahead of Euro 2020 games, calling the act “gesture politics.”

    Home Secretary Priti Patel arrives at Downing Street in London, on Sept. 8, 2020. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

    The England team was booed by some fans in London’s Wembley Stadium on June 13 when players took the knee before kick-off in their match with Croatia in Euro 2020.

    A Number 10 spokesman said before the match that Prime Minister Boris Johnson “wants to see everybody getting behind the team to cheer them on, not boo.” But the requests fell on deaf ears.

    England’s manager Gareth Southgate (L) and Steve Holland, Assistant Coach of England, ‘take a knee’ ahead of the international friendly football match between England and Romania at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough, north-east England on June 6, 2021. (Scott Heppell/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    Patel appeared to have taken a different stance to Johnson. She told GB News:

    “I just don’t support people participating in that type of gesture, gesture politics.”

    Asked whether England fans were right to boo the national team, she said: “That’s a choice for them, quite frankly.”

    Patel also said the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests last summer had a “devastating” impact on policing in the UK.

    “It’s all well to support a cause and make your voices heard,” she said. “But actually, quite frankly, and we saw last year in particular with some of the protests that took place, I speak now very much from what I saw in the impact on policing. It was devastating.”

    She criticised the BLM rioters who pulled down the statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

    “I just don’t subscribe to this view that we should be rewriting our history, pulling down statues, the famous Colston statue, and what’s happened there. Toppling statues is not the answer.

    “It’s about learning from our past, learning from our history, and actually working together to drive the right outcomes.”

    Patel was not the first British government minister to criticise England footballers taking the knee.

    Education minister Gillian Keegan said on June 10 that the act is “divisive,” as it is an expression of support for the BLM movement.

    “There are some Conservative MPs [that] are very much against it. Why? Because Black Lives Matter stands for things that they don’t stand for. It’s really about defunding the police and the overthrow of capitalism, which is, you know, Black Lives Matter the actual political organisation,” she told the BBC’s “Question Time” programme.

    “And some people will take it and think that’s supporting Black Lives Matter. I’m sure Black Lives Matter will think it’s supporting them.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/15/2021 – 02:00

  • Is A "Climate Lockdown" On The Horizon?
    Is A “Climate Lockdown” On The Horizon?

    Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

    If and when the powers-that-be decide to move on from their pandemic narrative, lockdowns won’t be going anywhere. Instead it looks like they’ll be rebranded as “climate lockdowns”, and either enforced or simply held threateningly over the public’s head.

    At least, according to an article written by an employee of the WHO, and published by a mega-coporate think-tank.

    Let’s dive right in.

    THE REPORT’S AUTHOR AND BACKERS

    The report, titled “Avoiding a climate lockdown”, was written by Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of economics at University College London, and head of something called the Council on the Economics of Health for All, a division of the World Health Organization.

    It was first published in October 2020 by Project Syndicate, a non-profit media organization that is (predictably) funded through grants from the Open society Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and many, many others.

    After that, it was picked up and republished by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which describes itself as “a global, CEO-led organization of over 200 leading businesses working together to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world.”.

    The WBCSD’s membership is essentially every major company in the world, including Chevron, BP, Bayer, Walmart, Google and Microsoft. Over 200 members totalling well over 8 TRILLION dollars in annual revenue.

    In short: an economist who works for the WHO has written a report concerning “climate lockdowns”, which has been published by both a Gates+Soros backed NGO AND a group representing almost every bank, oil company and tech giant on the planet.

    Whatever it says, it clearly has the approval of the people who run the world.

    WHAT DOES IT SAY?

    The text of the report itself is actually quite craftily constructed. It doesn’t outright argue for climate lockdowns, but instead discusses ways “we” can prevent them.

    As COVID-19 spread […] governments introduced lockdowns in order to prevent a public-health emergency from spinning out of control. In the near future, the world may need to resort to lockdowns again – this time to tackle a climate emergency […] To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.

    This cleverly creates a veneer of arguing against them, whilst actually pushing the a priori assumptions that any so-called “climate lockdowns” would a) be necessary and b) be effective. Neither of which has ever been established.

    Another thing the report assumes is some kind of causal link between the environment and the “pandemic”:

    COVID-19 is itself a consequence of environmental degradation

    I wrote an article, back in April, exploring the media’s persistent attempts to link the Covid19 “pandemic” with climate change. Everybody from the Guardian to the Harvard School of Public Health is taking the same position – “The root cause of pandemics [is] the destruction of nature”:

    The razing of forests and hunting of wildlife is increasingly bringing animals and the microbes they harbour into contact with people and livestock.

    There is never any scientific evidence cited to support this position. Rather, it is a fact-free scare-line used to try and force a mental connection in the public, between visceral self-preservation (fear of disease) and concern for the environment. It is as transparent as it is weak.

    “CLIMATE LOCKDOWNS”

    So, what exactly is a “climate lockdown”? And what would it entail?

    The author is pretty clear:

    Under a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling.

    There you have it. A “climate lockdown” means no more red meat, the government setting limits on how and when people use their private vehicles and further (unspecified) “extreme energy-saving measures”. It would likely include previously suggested bans on air travel, too.

    All in all, it is potentially far more strict than the “public health policy” we’ve all endured for the last year.

    As for forcing fossil fuel companies to stop drilling, that is drenched in the sort of ignorance of practicality that only exists in the academic world. Supposing we can switch to entirely rely on renewables for energy, we still wouldn’t be able to stop drilling for fossil fuels.

    Oil isn’t just used as fuel, it’s also needed to lubricate engines and manufacture chemicals and plastics. Plastics used in the manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels, for example.

    Coal isn’t just needed for power stations, but also to make steel. Steel which is vital to pretty much everything humans do in the modern world.

    It reminds me of a Victoria Wood sketch from the 1980s, where an upper-middle class woman remarks, upon meeting a coal miner, “I suppose we don’t really need coal, now we’ve got electricity.”

    A lot of post-fossil utopian ideas are sold this way, to people who are comfortably removed from the way the world actually works. This mirrors the supposed “recovery” the environment experienced during lockdown, a mythic creation selling a silver lining of house arrest to people who think that because they’re having their annual budget meetings over Zoom, somehow China stopped manufacturing 900 million tonnes of steel a year, and the US military doesn’t produce more pollution than 140 different countries combined.

    The question, really, is why would an NGO backed by – among others – Shell, BP and Chevron, possibly want to suggest a ban on drilling for fossil fuel? But that’s a discussion for another time.

    AVOIDING A “CLIMATE LOCKDOWN”

    So, the “climate lockdown” is a mix of dystopian social control, and impractical nonsense likely designed to sell an agenda. But don’t worry, we don’t have to do this. There is a way to avoid these extreme measures, the author says so:

    To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently […] Addressing this triple crisis requires reorienting corporate governance, finance, policy, and energy systems toward a green economic transformation […] Far more is needed to achieve a green and sustainable recovery […] we want to transform the future of work, transit, and energy use.

    “Overhaul”? “reorienting”? “transformation”?

    Seems like we’re looking at a new-built society. A “reset”, if you will, and given the desired scope, you could even call it a “great reset”, I suppose.

    Except, of course, the Great Reset is just a wild “conspiracy theory”. The elite doesn’t want a Great Reset, even if they keep saying they do…

    …they just want a massive wholesale “transformation” of our social, financial, governmental and energy sectors.

    They want you to own nothing and be happy. Or else.

    Because that’s the oddest thing about this particular article, whereas most fear-porn public programming at least attempts subtlety, there is very definitely an overtly threatening tone to this piece [emphasis added]:

    we are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilization will require dramatic interventions […] One way or the other, radical change is inevitable; our task is to ensure that we achieve the change we want – while we still have the choice.

    The whole article is not an argument, so much as an ultimatum. A gun held to the public’s collective head. “Obviously we don’t want to lock you up inside your homes, force you to eat processed soy cubes and take away your cars,” they’re telling us, “but we might have to, if you don’t take our advice.”

    Will there be “climate lockdowns” in the future? I wouldn’t be surprised. But right now – rather than being seriously mooted – they are fulfilling a different role. A frightening hypothetical – A threat used to bully the public into accepting the hardline globalist reforms that make up the “great reset”.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 23:40

  • Visualizing 50 Years Of Global Steel Production
    Visualizing 50 Years Of Global Steel Production

    From the bronze age to the iron age, metals have defined eras of human history. If our current era had to be defined similarly, it would undoubtedly be known as the steel age.

    Steel is the foundation of our buildings, vehicles, and industries, with its rates of production and consumption often seen as markers for a nation’s development; and as Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte details below, today, it is the world’s most commonly used metal and most recycled material, with 1,864 million metric tons of crude steel produced in 2020.

    This infographic uses data from the World Steel Association to visualize 50 years of crude steel production, showcasing our world’s unrelenting creation of this essential material.

    The State of Steel Production

    Global steel production has more than tripled over the past 50 years, despite nations like the U.S. and Russia scaling down their domestic production and relying more on imports. Meanwhile, China and India have consistently grown their production to become the top two steel producing nations.

    Below are the world’s current top crude steel producing nations by 2020 production.

    Despite its current dominance, China could be preparing to scale back domestic steel production to curb overproduction risks and ensure it can reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

    As iron ore and steel prices have skyrocketed in the last year, U.S. demand could soon lessen depending on the Biden administration’s actions. A potential infrastructure bill would bring investment into America’s steel mills to build supply for the future, and any walkbalk on the Trump administration’s 2018 tariffs on imported steel could further soften supply constraints.

    Steel’s Secret: Infinite Recyclability

    Made up primarily of iron ore, steel is an alloy which also contains less than 2% carbon and 1% manganese and other trace elements. While the defining difference might seem small, steel can be 1,000x stronger than iron.

    However, steel’s true strength lies in its infinite recyclability with no loss of quality. No matter the grade or application, steel can always be recycled, with new steel products containing 30% recycled steel on average.

    The alloy’s magnetic properties make it easy to recover from waste streams, and nearly 100% of the steel industry’s co-products can be used in other manufacturing or electricity generation.

    It’s fitting then that steel makes up essential parts of various sustainable energy technologies:

    • The average wind turbine is made of 80% steel on average (140 metric tons).

    • Steel is used in the base, pumps, tanks, and heat exchangers of solar power installations.

    • Electrical steel is at the heart of the generators and motors of electric and hybrid vehicles.

    The Steel Industry’s Future Sustainability

    Considering the crucial role steel plays in just about every industry, it’s no wonder that prices are surging to record highs. However, steel producers are thinking about long-term sustainability, and are working to make fossil-fuel-free steel a reality by completely removing coal from the metallurgical process.

    While the industry has already cut down the average energy intensity per metric ton produced from 50 gigajoules to 20 gigajoules since the 1960s, steel-producing giants like ArcelorMittal are going further and laying out their plans for carbon-neutral steel production by 2050.

    Steel consumption and demand is only set to continue rising as the world’s economy gradually reopens, especially as Rio Tinto’s new development of atomized steel powder could bring about the next evolution in 3D printing.

    As the industry continues to innovate in both sustainability and usability, steel will continue to be a vital material across industries that we can infinitely recycle and rely on.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 23:20

  • Why Are Hordes Of Wealthy People Hitting The Escape Button And Heading To Montana?
    Why Are Hordes Of Wealthy People Hitting The Escape Button And Heading To Montana?

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    Why have thousands upon thousands of very wealthy people suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to buy a home in Montana?  At this moment, Montana is one of the hottest real estate markets in the entire country.  When a desirable house is put on the market, it can often spark a wild bidding war.  Of course the vast majority of the potential buyers involved in these bidding wars do not actually have any roots in Montana at all.  Vast hordes of wealthy individuals from Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and other major cities are flooding into the state, and there is only a limited amount of housing to accommodate them.  As a result, home prices are being pushed to absolutely absurd levels.

    In the Flathead Valley, home builders have been working incredibly hard to construct houses for the new arrivals.  The following comes from a New York Post article entitled “Montana, the sold-out state New Yorkers can’t get enough of”…

    All around the Lodge, along Montana Highway 35, from Kalispell to Whitefish, are what the locals call “COVID homes,” prefabricated track houses that line up along what used to be a timber farm — all of which were built last year and sold at around $550,000.

    “Most were bought sight unseen for cash deals,” said Doug Averill.

    $550,000 may have seemed like a hefty price when those homes originally went up, but today $550,000 would be considered a bargain price.

    That is because the average selling price of a home in Flathead County has now risen to more than $638,000…

    In May 2020, the average sale price for a home in Flathead County was $447,387 — a year later it had increased to $638,992. The average number of days a property stayed on the market has been cut almost in half, from 77 days in May 2020 to 41 days in May 2021.

    The Flathead Valley possesses great natural beauty, and Whitefish in particular has become an extremely popular tourist destination.

    All of this interest in Whitefish has helped to fuel a home price boom that is unlike anything the region has ever experienced…

    While this may be good for realtors, locals are shell-shocked at the price hikes due to what the Flathead Beacon called the “COVID migration” from states like New York. “(The housing crisis) is happening all over Montana,” one Whitefish local told The Post. “No one who is from here can actually afford to live here anymore.”

    According to Realtor.com, just before the pandemic in December 2019, the average home price in Whitefish, a town of 7,700 people just south of Glacier National Park, was $369,450. A year and a half later, that has almost doubled — and the average home price is now $704,000. Local average wages in Whitefish are just $30,642, according to bestplaces.net.

    Needless to say, the vast majority of Americans cannot afford a $700,000 home.

    Only the wealthy have enough money to relocate to Whitefish now, and many locals with roots in the area are having to leave for good because housing has become so ridiculously expensive.

    A similar thing is happening over in Missoula.  From last May to this May, the median sales price in Missoula shot up a staggering 41 percent…

    New real estate data for the month of May shows an increasingly competitive market in western Montana.

    New Multiple Listing Service data shows the median sales price in Missoula increased 41% from May 2020 to May 2021, up to $449,338.

    Ten years ago, the median sales price in Missoula was just $205,000.

    If you go all the way back to 2001, it was just $138,000.

    Things are getting crazy in Bozeman too.  At this point, “the average home in the greater Bozeman area is going for more than $650,000”…

    One hundred thirty thousand dollars. That’s what it takes for a down payment to buy an average-priced home in Bozeman, Montana. Then an aspiring homeowner must fork out another $3,000 each month, which is more than two-thirds of their household’s paychecks if they make the median income for the metro area.

    That’s because the average home in the greater Bozeman area is going for more than $650,000, up from an already astronomical $500,000 in early 2020.

    So why is this happening?

    Why are home prices in Montana and other desirable locations around the country going absolutely nuts?

    Many are blaming the COVID pandemic, and that certainly played a major role at first, but now the COVID pandemic is subsiding.

    Ultimately, I believe the the largest reason why we are seeing such a home buying frenzy is because people can see that our society is starting to come apart at the seams and they can sense that enormous trouble is ahead.

    Just consider what happened this weekend.  We literally witnessed mass shootings in four different U.S. cities in a period of just six hours…

    At least four major U.S. cities were reeling from an onslaught of mass shootings over the weekend that left at least 39 people wounded, five dead and police officials alarmed that the surge in gun violence is a prelude to a bloody summer as the nation emerges from the pandemic.

    Police in Austin, Cleveland, Chicago and Savannah were all investigating on Sunday mass shootings that erupted over a six-hour streak that began around 9 p.m. on Friday and spilled over into Saturday morning.

    All over America, countless numbers of people are finally waking up and realizing that it is time to leave the major cities and head for greener pastures.

    As I have been encouraging people to do for years, those that are leaving are looking for areas with low population density and low crime rates.

    Of course the wealthy also value great natural beauty, and this is one of the big reasons why the Flathead Valley has become so popular.

    And once they have purchased their beautiful new homes in remote parts of the nation, many wealthy individuals are filling them up with emergency food and supplies.

    Collectively, rich people tend to be much more into “prepping” than the general population as a whole.

    Sadly, the vast majority of the population is still asleep.  The mainstream media keeps telling us that everything is going to work out just fine somehow, and most Americans blindly believe them.

    Meanwhile, many among the wealthy are buying up properties in remote locations at a blistering pace, and this is going to permanently change the character of those communities.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 23:00

  • Chinese Stealth Fighters Buzz Beijing In Fly Over Rehearsal Ahead Of Centenary Parade 
    Chinese Stealth Fighters Buzz Beijing In Fly Over Rehearsal Ahead Of Centenary Parade 

    The celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China is nearing and will be held on July 1. So naturally, like any massive government-sponsored celebration involving war machines, there needs to be lots of preparation. Over the weekend, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was spotted flying all sorts of warplanes and helicopters in a rehearsal event, but what has caught our attention is the video of stealth fighter jets and new heavy-lift helicopters.

    According to state-run media Global Times, thousands of people in the Tiananmen area of Beijing gazed into the skies as warplanes and helicopters practiced flying formations. The event included “the warm-up, a grand gathering, and entry and exit, as well as preparations in the event of an emergency,” Global Times added. 

    During the day on Sunday morning, several echelons of PLA warplanes were seen flying through the sky in the rehearsal, including dozens of helicopters forming a formation representing the number “100,” a J-10 fighter jet formation representing “71,” or July 1, the birthday of the CPC, and formations consisting of five J-20 stealth fighter jets, Beijing-based magazine the Aerospace Knowledge reported on Sunday. – Global Times 

    Pictures and videos of the rehearsal event have circulated on social media showed the J-20 stealth jets and helicopters. 

    Videos uploaded onto social media are pretty impressive. 

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    China is obviously making a statement to the West as tensions between the US and China continue to sour under a Biden administration. The great power struggle between both countries is pushing both countries closer and closer towards Thucydides Trap.

    We’re surprised the “God of War” stealth bomber is not featured in the upcoming celebrations – or maybe it will? 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 22:40

  • Putin Warns Against Ongoing NATO Warship Build-Up In Black Sea Ahead Of Biden Meeting
    Putin Warns Against Ongoing NATO Warship Build-Up In Black Sea Ahead Of Biden Meeting

    Authored by Rick Rozoff via AntiWar.com,

    In comments that got past editors in the Western news media, President Vladimir Putin in a recent Russian television interview accused the West of abusing what were good relations at the time (1999-2004) to expand NATO up to Russia’s borders. And in doing so, he specified, violated verbal pledges made by American officials to then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, adding that the latter is alive and in good health and can confirm what he was told. In a candid assessment of the matter, Putin added, “I do not want to use harsh words, but they simply spat upon our interests and that’s that.”

    Lengthy excerpts of his comments were published on the English-language site of the government news agency TASS on June 9. The most significant, and most alarming, aspect of the interview is the Russian president’s warning of Ukraine joining NATO, which contrary to what he acknowledged is a dismissal of that prospect by many experts in Russia and in the West he takes seriously, especially in regard to its membership providing the U.S. and NATO with new missile sites.

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    Without naming them he mentioned that Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) missile defense (so-called) interceptors in Romania and Poland could strike Moscow in 15 minutes if a warhead was added to them; which, although the West denies its intent to do so, could be easily done. Russia has not been invited to inspect the missiles, for example. Paraphrasing the head of state, the TASS report disclosed the above threat is eminently practicable “because the missile defense launch systems stationed there can be used to carry out strikes as well.”

    Installing SM-3s in Ukraine, Putin warned, would reduce the time needed to strike Moscow to 7-10 minutes. “Is it a red line for us or not?” he asked.

    He also drew the inevitable comparison with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when he estimated Soviet missiles on that island nation could have hit Washington in 15 minutes, adding another parallel:

    “To lower this flight time to 7-10 minutes, we should station our missiles on Canada’s southern border or Mexico’s northern border. Is it a red line for the US or not?”

    Though perfectly transparent and accurate in all regards, his comments have been ignored and, if brought to people’s attention, would be dismissed. That’s how wars and that’s how a nuclear catastrophe beyond a healthy mind’s powers of comprehension can occur. Sleepwalking into Armageddon.

    Five years ago the U.S. installed an Aegis AN/SPY-1 radar and twelve missile tubes for Standard Missile-3 Block IB interceptors at Deveselu in Romania, and plans to do the same in Poland under an initiative called Aegis Ashore or European Phased Adaptive Approach, first announced by the Barack Obama administration in 2009. Aegis Ashore is derived from the Aegis Combat System used by U.S. Navy to equip American warships and those of its allies with SM-3s to shoot down other nations’ missiles. The U.S. has 62 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (with more under construction) and 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers that are equipped for the Aegis Combat System. They can fire the same SM-3s Vladimir Putin warned about in his interview.

    In addition to presenting the threat to Russia described above, the US and its allies, in ringing Russia in with land- and sea-based interceptor missiles, could not only undermine but neutralize its deterrence capabilities. Any Russian missiles surviving a first-strike attack by the US and NATO would be shot down with interceptors. At the NATO summit in 2012 the military bloc endorsed the second phase of a so-called missile defense policy; NATO’s and the U.S.’s systems are fully integrated. The European Phased Adaptive Approach includes SM-3s on American destroyers and cruisers in the Atlantic and Mediterranean as well as missiles placed in Romania and Poland. Washington has also recruited nations to Russia’s east, the Asia-Pacific region, into the Aegis Combat System; to date Japan, South Korea and Australia. NATO members Norway and Spain are also directly integrated into the system.

    On June 11 the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa site simultaneously announced that the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Laboon entered the Black Sea and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt arrived in Gdynia, Poland on the Baltic Sea.

    The first occurred despite the cancellation of the deployment of two American warships to the Black Sea in April allegedly for fear of too openly antagonizing Russia. Instead, it was announced shortly afterward that two British warships assigned to the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier’s strike group, a destroyer and a frigate, would substitute for them. The latter may occur shortly.

    Five American warships were in the Black Sea earlier this year, including the Aegis-class destroyers USS Donald Cook and USS Porter in January and the USS Thomas Hudner destroyer and USS Monterey cruiser in March.

    While in the Black Sea, Laboon will, according to U.S. Navy, conduct “multi-domain operations with a U.S. Navy P-8A aircraft from Patrol Squadron VP-40 and NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS).” The press release announcing the warship’s entry into the sea states: “The U.S. Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea to work with our NATO Allies and partners, including Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine.” That is, five of the Black Sea’s six (recognized) littoral nations. The other of course is Russia.

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    Laboon is currently assigned to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, so its presence (and that of other Aegis-class warships so assigned) is independent of the four American guided-missile destroyers based (on a rotating schedule) at the Naval Station Rota in Spain as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach and in conjunction with NATO.

    The Navy release also states: “The ship’s operations in the Black Sea will strengthen interoperability with NATO allies and partners and demonstrate collective resolve to Black Sea security under Operation Atlantic Resolve.” The latter is a Pentagon operation launched in 2014 along what NATO calls its Eastern Flank from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

    On June 11 the Navy also reported that USS Roosevelt had docked at the Polish port city of Gdynia to refuel while engaged in this year’s massive Baltic Operations 50 (BALTOPS) war games.The destroyer’s commander said of the event, “During BALTOPS, Roosevelt has honed our skills in air, surface, and anti-surface warfare exercises with our NATO partners.” Russia is the only Baltic Sea nation that is not a NATO member or Enhanced Opportunities Partner. All the others are: Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden.

    Roosevelt is one of four – soon to be six – U.S. interceptor-missile destroyers based in Rota, Spain. The Navy says this about their capacity and their mission: “These Forward-Deployed Naval Forces-Europe ships have the flexibility to operate throughout the waters of Europe and Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Arctic Circle, demonstrating their mastery of the maritime domain.”

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    Also on June 11 U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa announced – shortly after the Russian president had so powerfully warned of the SM-3 threat to his country – that Vice Admiral Eugene Black, commander alike of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO, had inspected the five Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers assigned to Commander, Task Force 65 during a visit to Naval Station Rota on June 8. In addition to USS Arleigh Burke, USS Donald Cook, USS Porter and USS Ross forward deployed to Rota, he also visited USS Paul Ignatius, which too is currently assigned to the Mediterranean Sea.

    The Navy press release on the subject stated that Arleigh Burke, Paul Ignatius and Ross had recently participated in the At-Sea Demo/Formidable Shield 21 Integrated Air and Missile Defense exercise that was completed in Norway’s Arctic region on June 3. It also mentioned that Paul Ignatius had “conducted a cooperative engagement of a live medium-range ballistic target using a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor.” That event was described by a American military official involved in the exercise as “a ballistic missile intercept in outer space.”

    President Putin is fully justified in sounding the alarm over NATO’s encroachment on and the U.S.-NATO missile threat against his nation. The pertinent question is why it’s taken him twenty years to do so.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 22:20

  • G7 Nations Spend More On Fossil Fuels Than Green Energy
    G7 Nations Spend More On Fossil Fuels Than Green Energy

    Development charity Tearfund published a report in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Overseas Development Institute ahead of the G7 summit.

    As Statista’s Niall McCarthy reports, it found that G7 countries are spending billions of dollars more on fossil fuels than green energy. Between January 2020 and March 2021, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and the UK pumped $189 billion into coal, oil and gas energy while only $147 billion was spent on clean energy.

    The transportation sector received the bulk of the funding, primarily due to the approval of large bailout plans for the automotive and aviation sectors during the early stages of the pandemic. The report’s authors claim that these rescue packages were provided with very little incentives “to go green” and that they will sustain highly polluting industries for the forseeable future.

    Infographic: G7 Nations Spend More On Fossil Fuels Than Green Energy | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    A mere 17 percent of commitments to fossil fuel intensive sectors had green strings attached and 83 percent did not include any climate targets or pollution reduction requirements.

    Describing the pandemic as a lost opportunity for G7 countries to support a transition to cleaner energy, the report says that funding based on green conditions needs to be the minimum approach and that only one in 10 dollars committed to the pandemic response benefited the cleanest energy measures.

    Along with direct funding for dirty forms of energy, some governments rolled back regulations affecting the fossil fuel industry. This ranged from the introduction of fuel tax exemptions to the suspension of penalties for companies in breach of environmental regulations.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 22:00

  • "Like Hell Went To Hell" – The Tragic Demise Of Venice Beach
    “Like Hell Went To Hell” – The Tragic Demise Of Venice Beach

    Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

    World-renowned Venice Beach has long been a place where visitors, residents, and business owners commingled with artists, musicians, and entertainers from all over the country. Over 10 million tourists visit the beach’s famous boardwalk each year, drawn in by the ocean view and the unconventional lifestyle of the city’s eccentric community.

    But the famed destination no longer circulates in headlines for its wacky tourist attractions or local eateries. Instead, the beach town has become known worldwide for its flourishing homeless encampments, burgeoning filth, skyrocketing crime rate, and increasingly violent transients.

    Women walk past homeless encampments in venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    As city officials dawdle, the beachside town is falling to ruin, residents say, overwhelmed by the homeless that are making their lives a living hell.

    Their cries for help have gone largely unheeded—until now. Earlier this week, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced a July 4th sweep that aims to clean up the mess.

    For residents who have been trying to get local officials to act for months, the action can’t come soon enough.

    During a recent trip to Venice, Villanueva said the tents need to be cleared by Independence Day, after reports of crime, arson, and filth went unaddressed for months. He blames elected leaders for not handling the issue.

    “When I was out there in Venice, I talked to a shop owner, and he was fit to be tied,” Villanueva told The Epoch Times.

    “He’s tired of politicians, tired of people in the city doing nothing. And it’s impacting his ability for customers to come in, [with] the cost of people trying to break into his business and people causing scenes, fights, [and] outside fires. It’s like a third-world country.”

    But not all locals approve of the sweep. Some activists quickly criticized the move on social media. “Why is this @LASDHQ dressed like this to do outreach? Why do they have guns?” the People’s City Council asked on Twitter.

    For some residents, the uptick in recent violent attacks by the homeless on workers, residents, and the elderly are justification enough.

    A homeless individual in Venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Cleaning Up the Mess

    Within the last two weeks alone, there have been three reports of alleged attacks by the homeless.

    A 70-year-old man, a small business manager, and a security guard were all victims of random attacks, according to local reports. It was the final straw that caught the attention of law enforcement—even though residents say the problem has been bubbling to the surface for months.

    Butch Say, a traveling transient who sings rock ‘n’ roll on the boardwalk, has called Venice home for the last two years. He said people like himself are attracted to the neighborhood by its welcoming culture and the weather—but even he’s noticed that things are getting worse.

    “It’s nutty, but they like it. And that’s part of the reason a lot of people come here,” Say told The Epoch Times.

    Say watched on June 8 as 18 officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Housing Outreach and Services Team (HOST) descended on the boardwalk, cleaning up trash and alerting the homeless of the upcoming action.

    “The trash is going to fill right back up in a few days,” Say said with a chuckle.

    HOST stepped in to mitigate the chaos that has been ensuing in the area, and tried to connect homeless individuals with housing and other stabilization resources ahead of the July 4th sweep.

    Say said this was the first time he’d seen the Sheriff’s Department in force.

    “You never see him. It’s usually LAPD [the Los Angeles Police Department], and they’re cool. They roll by and they just keep the peace—which is not much more you can ask from them, because this is on nonstop, 24-hours-a-day going, this lifestyle, and it gets crazy,” he told The Epoch Times.

    “Some people, you know, [do] too much drugs. They’re up for days—weeks—and they’re just psychotic, running around screaming at … invisible trees and whatever.”

    Deputy Lewis, one of the officers on duty that day, told The Epoch Times, “To be honest, I didn’t know about Venice Beach until 6 a.m. this morning.”

    But Lt. Jeff Deedrick, who led the HOST team, was bothered by the recent attacks.

    “Our mission is humanitarian; this is a crisis, and this is bad. And the acts of violence here have been significant,” Deedrick told The Epoch Times.

    “It was heartbreaking to see the gentleman the other day get punched in the face in broad daylight. That can’t happen. We have to have a civil society. And it needs to be to where everybody can enjoy this place.”

    A law enforcement officer speaks to a man on Venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Skyrocketing Crime

    The conditions in Venice Beach have been deteriorating for over a year. City codes prohibiting encampments on the beach and sidewalks were rolled back per new COVID-19 regulations when the pandemic hit, and normal street sweeping crews were cut to limit contact.

    Then Venice was declared a sanctuary zone by Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin, whose district includes the beach. Tents were no longer violating city policy.

    Bonin, who is facing a recall effort over his policies, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also championed temporary A Bridge Housing units in Venice to help with the problem.

    But residents have told The Epoch Times that the facility has only served to attract more homeless to the nearby streets since its development. Tents and trailers parked on the side of the street are present outside of the complex. Many of those same people living in A Bridge Housing are “dual residents,” with some still dwelling in their tents outside, according to locals.

    Soledad Ursua, chairwoman of the Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC), told The Epoch Times that the issue is one of “lack of enforcement” due to COVID-19.

    “That’s really how a lot of these crime problems have really spiraled out of control,” she said.

    “And it’s sad that we have to ask the city to resume enforcing our laws, you know, laws that we have on the books. So, Venice residents, we have to basically beg for our laws to be enforced again.”

    The Los Angeles Fire Department announced last month that over 54 percent of fires in the county this year had been started by homeless encampments. In Venice, a number of fires sparked in encampments have been reported, with one corporate building burning to the ground earlier this year.

    A homeless individual in Venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Say said he personally witnessed a homeless person start a fire on the beach only last week.

    “It was somebody’s little wagon with batteries, and they wired it up wrong to play their musical instruments, and it blew up, caught on fire, [and] burned itself out,” Say recalled.

    The neighborhood is also experiencing a sharp uptick in crime, according to statistics provided to the Venice Neighborhood Council by LAPD Capt. Steve Embrich.

    Year-to-date numbers show that robberies have nearly tripled since the same period last year. Homeless-related robberies are up 260 percent; homeless-related assault with a deadly weapon is up 118 percent; property crimes and area burglaries are up 85 percent; and grand theft auto is up 74 percent.

    According to Embrich, felony arrests are up 68 percent, while misdemeanor arrests have grown by 355 percent. But arrests aren’t enough: Suspects are often released back onto the streets within hours.

    “So, arrests are way up—the officers arrested a lot more people—but you may not see a difference because most of those arrests, like 99 percent, are we arrest them, and they’re coronavirus released, they’re released back into the community shortly after we book them,” Embrich told the VNC during a recent meeting.

    Grand theft auto (GTA) incidents in Venice are “much higher than the rest of the area,” Embrich said.

    “And with our GTA, what we see is that we have a very short recovery window. So, most of the cars that are stolen are recovered within Pacific area, very close, or they’re recovered in Culver City or whatever adjacent cities, and the recovery period is short—that means your cars are being stolen out of Venice, for the purpose of sleeping or for the purpose of transportation.”

    A homeless individual in Venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    ‘Tearing the Community Apart From Within’

    How to solve the problem is tearing the community apart, according to Venice Neighborhood Councilmember Brian Averill.

    “The city of L.A. has dropped the ball on the crime in Venice. … It’s not being addressed. So, people on different sides of the issues in our community are sort of turning on each other. Not only is it unsafe, but it’s really tearing the community apart from within,” Averill told The Epoch Times.

    “Because people pay taxes to feel safe and to feel protected, and it is chaotic out there, so that’s the city’s sort of ineptitude.”

    Say said he understands the residents’ frustrations.

    “It’s crazy about the fighting stuff. I’ve seen neighbors and houses fight, and it goes on for years down here. They’re in the morning ready to chop each other’s heads off, and at night they’re sharing dinner,” Say said.

    Averill said the push for “housing first,” a theory the city has embraced that believes more housing units are needed as the first step to help the homeless, does not treat the complexities of each individual case, as people may need other resources to rehabilitate them.

    He said that “a triage situation” would be the best option right now.

    “It’s a disaster out there, frankly,” he added.

    “Why we’re not seeing some sort of triage is beyond me. … You should be getting people into the triage, figuring out what they need. Some people just need $1,000 so they can get a bus ticket or a plane ticket home, some people need addiction help, some people need detox. Some people need serious, you know, mental illness help.”

    On June 7, Averill was present at a press conference on the boardwalk when a knife-wielding homeless woman was subdued steps away from L.A. Councilmember Joe Buscaino. At the time, Buscaino was in the middle of a news conference addressing homelessness on the boardwalk as part of his mayoral campaign.

    Bystander Nico Ruderman yelled “Knife!” and LAPD’s Embrich subdued the woman, sustaining minor cut injuries while arresting her. It is unclear if the woman intended to attack Buscaino. Some witnesses say she was arrested because the knife fell out of her pocket.

    Within hours, however, the suspect was released back onto the boardwalk, charged only with a misdemeanor.

    Said VNC’s Ursua, “Our concerns are valid. We were afraid to go out. … If a councilmember can almost get stabbed, it means that it could happen to us.”

    A few days after the incident, Buscaino requested that the city restore its ban on sidewalk encampments.

    A homeless individual in Venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    ‘Inept and Corrupt Politicians’

    Since the pandemic began, the boardwalk has become “like hell went to hell,” according to Say.

    “It was bad [before], but it wasn’t like this,” he said.

    For years, the colorful history of homeless dwellers has been an integral part of Venice Beach, with locals referring to them as “street people.” Business owners told The Epoch Times they used to know most of them by name. They were part of the community—until the pandemic brought a massive influx of new transients.

    “It was with COVID, people getting tossed and all that. This place filled up quick: all women, men, middle-aged, you know, everybody here, little kids sometimes,” said Say.

    “A lot of new people, they try to blend in. They say, ‘I’ve been here 20 years,’ and it’s like, ‘I’ve only been here two and I haven’t seen you.’”

    If parents have little children, “they get hooked up quick” with help, Say said. “And if you’re part of it—they call it ‘the family,’ you know—if you’re part of the family, they know you down here, you’re OK.”

    But they still get into fights with each other, he added. “I’ve seen people fighting, screaming, threatening [each other] with pipes and poles in the morning, and bringing them a pair of shoes at night and sharing their dinner,” he said.

    Venice Beach Bar manager Luis Perez told The Epoch Times previously that when the stay-at-home orders were declared last year, homeless people were bussed in from other cities and dropped off on the boardwalk. It was clear they didn’t fit in with the culture, he said. Most of them were addicts.

    Now, attacks against visitors and other homeless people are regularly documented on social media by a local watchdog group, with new videos uploaded nearly every day.

    In the meantime, the encampments are still growing—and impacting local businesses. Recently, another tent community appeared behind the Rose Café restaurant on nearby Rose Avenue, a few blocks from the beach. The encampment has barbecue pits, dressers, and motorbikes parked inside the tents.

    Right outside businesses on the boardwalk, trash, needles, and tents can be seen in plain sight, piled up on top of each other.

    Klaus Moeller is owner of the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream shop on the boardwalk. He has been dealing with problems caused by the homeless for over a year.

    On June 5, Moeller filed a police report against a homeless person who attacked his manager.

    “Woman hit a Hare Krishna monk, then threatened our customer. When our manager asked her to leave, she hit the manager in the face,” Moeller told The Epoch Times in an email.

    The police did nothing. “Police refused to make an arrest and told us that an assault apparently now is considered a misdemeanor,” he said.

    Moeller said he doesn’t blame the police, as current “catch and release” policies “make any arrest a waste of time for them.”

    “I blame the inept and corrupt politicians,” he said.

    Moeller said that only a day earlier, a beloved local security guard at a nearby skate shop “was hit over the head with a bottle and then repeatedly stabbed by a homeless guy in their parking lot.”

    Moeller said he has reached out repeatedly to Bonin, the local representative. But his attempts at communication have failed.

    “I have tried for a year now to have Mr. Bonin speak with me but emails are not answered. Our very own councilman, whose salary is paid with our taxes; refuses to even talk to us or acknowledge that there is a problem,” Moeller said.

    The Epoch Times reached out for comment but did not hear back from Bonin’s office. However, Bonin released a series of tweets defending his housing policies.

    A homeless encampment in Venice Beach, Calif., on June 8, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    “There is loud and growing criticism of homeless housing from people saying homelessness is about addiction and mental health, not housing. We absolutely need more mental health & drug rehab services—and we can’t address these issues among the unhoused without housing,” Bonin said in a June 3 tweet.

    On June 10, Bonin asked the Los Angeles Homeless and Poverty Committee to shift $5 million in budgeted aid to fund housing programs in his district.

    But Say warned that not every homeless person wants the help. He said most of the people living in Venice get government support.

    He pointed to a homeless man in a wheelchair wearing pajamas. The man gets $1,400 a month from the government, Say said, “and he loves it out here.”

    Say said that government Section 8 housing vouchers are available to many people, providing “a nice place to live,” and if you’re older, you get priority. But many people, like the man in the wheelchair, prefer to live on the street.

    “They go, ‘No, I love it out here. Nobody tells me what to do, and I run around in my underwear,’” Say said. “You know, whatever. They’re crazy. What can I say? It’s Venice.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 21:40

  • Biden Admin Pats Self On Back After 'Gifting' Vaccine To 0.015% Of Trinidad Population
    Biden Admin Pats Self On Back After ‘Gifting’ Vaccine To 0.015% Of Trinidad Population

    Last Thursday, US President Joe Biden announced that the United States would donate 500 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to the world’s poorest countries with “no strings attached.”

    On Sunday, the US State Department proudly tweeted that they had donated 80 vials to Trinidad and Tobago, which has a population of 1.4 million.

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    Given that each vial can squeeze out six doses for a total of 480 jabs, and each person requires two shots, that’s enough to cover 0.015% of the country’s population!

    US Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, Joseph Mondello.

    The mockery came hard and fast:

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    According to Trinidad and Tobago’s National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, the vials will be given to the National Security Ministry. 

    “This has nothing to do with any large donation that we expect is being considered by the United States Government,” he told the Trinidad Daily Express. “This is just a small number for the Ministry of National Security as a gift which we are happy to accept.“

    Ah – so the Biden admin was congratulating itself over a gift that’s meant for bureaucrats!

    The island nation has recorded 29,000 cases of COVID-19 and 670 deaths thus far, after a steep rise in May.

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 21:20

  • Petition Demands Resignation Of New Jersey School Board After Holiday Names Replaced With Generic "Day Off"
    Petition Demands Resignation Of New Jersey School Board After Holiday Names Replaced With Generic “Day Off”

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    A petition has been launched calling for the resignation of school board members in a New Jersey county over their vote last week to remove holiday names from the school calendar and replace them with a generic “day off” designation.

    The petition, created on the platform Change.org by a user identified as Thomas Tatem on Friday, seeks to build support among residents of Randolph Township in Morris County, New Jersey, for the immediate resignation of Superintendent Jennifer Fano and all of the Board of Education members.

    While the petition does not explicitly reference the board’s Thursday decision to label holidays generically, the comments of some of its 2,300 signatories make the context clear.

    “Now they’ve cancelled our holidays,” wrote Laura Assante of Randolph Township.

    “How will students learn about the significance of these days if our board doesn’t even deem them important enough to keep on the calendar? Enough! It’s time now to cancel the BOE and get a new, honest administration in place who values our children and community.”

    “I signed because this woke nonsense of erasing everything that has importance to different religions has to be stopped. Today, it is at Randolph. Where will it be tomorrow?” wrote Deborah Midkiff of Randolph Township.

    “We are all capable of living along side neighbors of different religions knowing that they are celebrating days that are special to them just as we celebrate ours!”

    Fano did not immediately respond with a request for comment on the petition, but the Randolph Township school board issued a statement on Sunday responding to the blowback.

    “The Randolph Board of Education is aware of the large public outcry regarding our decision on June 10, 2021 to remove the names of the holidays from our school calendar,” the statement reads, insisting that the move does not mean that children will not be taught about holiday traditions.

    “Our actions are somehow being misconstrued by some to mean that the Randolph School District is no longer recognizing these holidays, teaching about them to our students, and honoring the great veterans and the heroes for whom many of these holidays have been named. Nothing could be further from the truth,” the statement reads.

    “These State, Federal, and other holidays have not been cancelled or taken away by this Board of Education as some are falsely claiming. Schools will still be closed on the days that we originally approved and our children will know why. They will still continue to receive instruction in schools about these important historical events and the people behind them,” the board added.

    The main purpose of the school calendar is to inform parents about when schools are open or closed, the board said, adding that it is a school attendance calendar, “which is why we did not feel the need to list every State, Federal and Religious holiday on the one (1) page calendar that we adopt every year.”

    “Our State and Federal governments approve public holidays and the Randolph School District is in no way minimizing or taking that away from anyone. Everyone is still encouraged to celebrate them in whatever way they deem appropriate,” the board said.

    The board on Thursday unanimously voted to remove the names of all holidays from the school calendar, with the move prompted by an outcry over an earlier decision to change the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day.

    “If we don’t have anything on the calendar, we don’t have to have anyone [with] hurt feelings or anything like that,” board member Dorene Roche told Fox 5.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 21:00

  • ​​​​​​​Busy Start To Hurricane Season? NHC Currently Tracks 3 Disturbances
    ​​​​​​​Busy Start To Hurricane Season? NHC Currently Tracks 3 Disturbances

    The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is tracking three tropical disturbances, one off the coast of North Carolina, one in the Gulf of Mexico, and another off the western African coast. The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and extends into late November. 

    On Monday, NHC’s focus is on “Disturbance 1,” located about 90 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The disturbance has a 70% Chance of Cyclone Formation in 48 Hours. NHC said the disturbance “is acquiring more tropical characteristics.” However, the system could move northeastward away from the US to colder waters south of Nova Scotia on Wednesday. 

    Meanwhile, “Disturbance 2” is located over the Bay of Campeche, in the southern area of the Gulf of Mexico, which has a 20% chance of developing into a cyclone in the next 48%. But there’s a 60% chance of formation over the next five days. 

    “Disturbance 3” is located offshore of West Africa and has a 10% chance of developing into a cyclone over the next 48% hours and a 20% over the next five days. 

    Readers may recall this hurricane season could be very active. Refinitiv estimates around “17 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes are expected from June-November. This compares to historical averages of 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes, respectively.”

    All three disturbances should be monitored this week. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 20:40

  • Thomas Jefferson Versus The Federal Reserve
    Thomas Jefferson Versus The Federal Reserve

    Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

    The Federal Reserve is the engine that drives one of the biggest, most powerful governments in the history of the world.

    Without the Fed, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the government to fund its foreign wars, its massive, unsustainable social programs, the ever-growing police state, and the tangled web of corporate welfare programs. It’s almost certain none of this would exist as we know it today – not even close. The federal government would truly be limited.

    Although the Federal Reserve is relatively new within the scope of American history, its roots go back to the early days of the republic and the First Bank of the United States, chartered by Congress on Feb. 25, 1791. 

    A national bank was the brainchild of Alexander Hamilton. His rationale wasn’t much different from those who later came up with the Federal Reserve. Hamilton thought a central bank was necessary to stabilize and improve the fledgling nation’s credit and to better manage the financial business of the United States government.

    The notion of a national bank but wasn’t without its detractors. One of the most vocal opponents of the bank was Thomas Jefferson who argued that it was unconstitutional.

    The debate was really about more than chartering a bank. At its core, it was an argument about the extent of federal power. Jefferson held to the promise of the ratification debates – that federal authority would remain carefully circumscribed by the enumerated delegated powers. Given that the Constitution doesn’t authorize Congress to charter corporations, much less a national bank, Jefferson argued that it was an unconstitutional act.

    On the other hand, Hamilton pivoted from the position he took during the ratification debates and justified his project by invoking the doctrine of “implied powers.” His arguments foreshadowed how federal policies of every imaginable stripe would be justified moving forward. Arguably, Hamilton’s arguments for the First Bank of the United States set the foundation for much of the federal overreach we have today.

    Jefferson and Hamilton both wrote documents making their cases for the establishment of the bank. Jefferson wrote his Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank first.

    He rested his argument on the Tenth Amendment, writing:

    “I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That  ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’ [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

    He then succinctly stated his conclusion.

    “The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.”

    Jefferson proceeded to outline the various clauses of the Constitution supporters of the bank used to constitutionally justify and explained why they failed to bear the burden of that power.

    The primary justification was the Commerce Clause, but Jefferson argued that “to erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts.” Erecting a bank actually creates an institution of commerce, and as Jefferson pointed out, “to make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling.”

    He went on to argue that if erecting a bank is an exercise of the commerce power, it would be void because it would also impact commerce within individual states.

    “For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.”

    Next Jefferson tackled the General Welfare Clause, pointing out that Congress cannot lay and collect taxes for any purpose it pleases, “but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union.” Likewise, Congress can’t do anything it pleases to promote the “general welfare.” It can only further the general welfare by laying taxes and acting within its enumerated powers.

    “In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lacce them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.” [Emphasis original]

    Jefferson drove his point home by pointing out a very inconvenient fact for Hamilton – the Philadelphia Convention debated and rejected delegating the power to charter corporations.

    On one of the final days of the convention, James Madison proposed the federal government be delegated the authority “to grant charters of incorporation where the interest of the U.S. might require & the legislative provisions of individual State may be incompetent.”

    Rufus King of Massachusetts objected specifically on the grounds that “It will be referred to the establishment of a Bank, which has been a subject of contention in those Cities (New York and Philadelphia). He also warned that “In other places it will be referred to mercantile monopolies.”

    George Mason of Virginia proposed limiting the power to charting corporations for the construction of canals. “He was afraid of monopolies of every sort, which he did not think were by any means already implied by the Constitution as supposed by Mr. Wilson.”

    Ultimately, the convention rejected the proposal completely. Historian Dave Benner wrote, “This casts overwhelming doubt on the notion that the Constitution allowed Congress to form such monopolies. No enumerated power to grant monopolies and corporate charters was ever included in the document, and during the ratification campaign, none of the Constitution’s advocates cited the presence of such a power.”

    But Hamilton’s arguments didn’t rely on the existence of any delegated power. Instead, he appealed to the existence of unwritten “implied powers.”

    In response to Jefferson’s appeal to the Tenth Amendment and that the federal government can only exercise delegated powers, Hamilton affirmed it, and then effectively nullified its limiting force. He wrote, “The main proposition here laid down, in its true signification is not to be questioned.” But he continued, insisting, “It is not denied that there are implied well as express powers, and that the former are as effectually delegated as the latter.”

    But who decides the extent of these implied powers? Who determines their limits? In effect, Hamilton sets up an almost unlimited reservoir of power the general government can dip into in order to take whatever actions it deems appropriate. This was a 180-degree reversal from the position he took during the ratification debates when he insisted that the new general government would only exercise limited powers.

    Hamilton primarily based his defense of the national bank on the “necessary and proper clause,” citing it as the source of these “implied” powers. While Jefferson relied on a very narrow definition of “necessary and proper,” Hamilton used the phrase to milk implied powers out of the Constitution.

    The debate centered on the meaning of the word necessary. Jefferson took a very narrow view, arguing that the government can carry out all of its enumerated powers without a national bank. “A bank therefore is not necessary, and consequently not authorized by this phrase.”

    “It has been urged that a bank will give great facility or convenience in the collection of taxes, Suppose this were true: yet the Constitution allows only the means which are ‘necessary,’ not those which are merely ‘convenient’ for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to everyone, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed. Therefore it was that the Constitution restrained them to the necessary means, that is to say, to those means without which the grant of power would be nugatory.”

    Hamilton found this view too limiting. He wrote, “It is certain that neither the grammatical nor popular sense of the term requires that construction. According to both, necessary often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conducive to.”

    “It is a common mode of expression to say, that it is necessary for a government or a person to do this or that thing, when nothing more is intended or understood, than that the interests of the government or person require, or will be promoted by, the doing of this or that thing. … To understand the word as the Secretary of State does, would be to depart from its obvious and popular sense, and to give it a restrictive operation, an idea never before entertained. It would be to give it the same force as if the word absolutely or indispensably had been prefixed to it.”

    Jefferson hit the problem with Hamilton’s view on the head. It opens up a door to virtually unlimited government power. This runs counter to James Madison’s assurance in Federalist #45 that “the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” [Emphasis added]

    Under Hamilton’s “implied power” doctrine and his loose reading of the necessary and proper clause, there is very little the federal government can’t do. After all, virtually anything could be defined as “needful” or “useful” to the government. During the ratification debates, opponents of the Constitution worried that the necessary and proper clause would be construed exactly as Hamilton read it. At the time, Hamilton swore they had nothing to worry about. In Federalist #33, he wrote, “It may be affirmed with perfect confidence that the constitutional operation of the intended government would be precisely the same, if these clauses [necessary and proper and the supremacy clause] were entirely obliterated, as if they were repeated in every article. They are only declaratory of a truth which would have resulted by necessary and unavoidable implication from the very act of constituting a federal government, and vesting it with certain specified powers.” [Emphasis added]

    Hamilton pivoted from “specified powers” in 1788 to “implied powers” just three years later.

    In his push for a bank, Hamilton also invoked a rule of construction very favorable to the government. He wrote, “This restrictive interpretation of the word necessary is also contrary to this sound maxim of construction, namely, that the powers contained in a constitution of government, especially those which concern the general administration of the affairs of a country, its finances, trade, defense, etc., ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.”

    This was not “a sound maxim of construction” at the time.

    St. George Tucker was an influential lawyer and jurist, and he wrote the first systematic commentary on the Constitution. Published in 1803, View of the Constitution of the United States served as an important law book, informing the opinions of judges, lawyers and politicians for the next 50 years. He explained that we should always construe federal power in the most limited sense possible.

     “The powers delegated to the federal government, are, in all cases, to receive the most strict construction that the instrument will bear, where the rights of a state or of the people, either collectively or individually, may be drawn in question.”

    This is the exact opposite of Hamilton’s maxim. As “Light Horse” Harry Lee put it during the Virginia ratifying convention, “When a question arises with respect to the legality of any power, exercised or assumed by Congress, it is plain on the side of the governed. Is it enumerated in the Constitution? If it be, it is legal and just. It is otherwise arbitrary and unconstitutional.”

    When political power resides in the people, the default position should always be to assume the most limited government power possible – not the most liberal reading as Hamilton insisted.

    Later in his life, Jefferson made a similar point in a letter to William Johnson.

    “On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

    There was no probable construction authorizing charting a national bank.

    Reading Hamilton’s arguments for the bank, it becomes clear he was trying to “squeeze” meaning – and power – out of the Constitution. Under the limited general government promised by supporters of the Constitution during ratification, including Alexander Hamilton, there would have been no national bank.

    Hamilton’s twisting of the Constitution to wring out new powers set the stage for much the federal overreach that would follow. It was the “foundation” for the “living breathing” Constitution we live under today.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 20:20

  • Goldman Sachs Latest Wall Street Giant To Move Traders To Florida After NY Tax Hikes
    Goldman Sachs Latest Wall Street Giant To Move Traders To Florida After NY Tax Hikes

    Goldman Sachs employees finally returned to the office this week (for at least part of the work week). But at least some Goldman employees who miss working from the beach, the bank might soon be moving some of its front-office workers from NYC down to sunny Florida, becoming the latest major Wall Street firm to beef up its operations in the Sunshine State.

    Goldman will join Carl Icahn, Dan Loeb’s Third Point, the private equity giant Apollo and a host of other firms in moving more employees to Florida, a state that, among other perks, has no income tax, according to a report published Monday by Insider.  But talk of the bank moving some of its personnel has been circulating since at least late last year.

    Per Insider, Goldman “is in the early stages of moving traders and salespeople to Florida,” and the leaders of its global markets group have recruited about 100 or so people to move down south, according to sources “with knowledge of the plans.”

    The fact that Goldman is moving some of its top-earning personnel to Fla. is extremely significant, as one of Insider’s sources pointed out. And it doesn’t exactly bode well for New York, which is struggling to convince firms to stay after the state raised taxes that make the state one of the most heavy taxers in the country. The moving of front-office traders and salespeople away from the world’s financial hub is a “once unthinkable outcome for a firm that has considered New York home for 152 years.” And in all likelihood, it wouldn’t have happened without COVID-19.

    What’s worse (as far as the Empire State’s tax base is concerned) is that many of the bankers who will be moving earning 7-figure salaries, meaning that once the move is over, New York Stat could be facing down a drop in revenue in the tens of millions of dollars.

    Goldman’s senior executives would take an active role in deciding who gets to move and would look to relocate clusters of teammates to the West Palm Beach office, one of the people said. Each cluster would be an offshoot of a larger team based in New York and made up of as many as eight or 10 people.

    Setting it up that way would ensure that employees still enjoy the benefits of working with close colleagues even though they’re 1,200 miles from the bank’s headquarters. Employees in Florida would likely spend significant time shuttling back and forth to New York for face time with executives working from Manhattan, one of the people said.

    The division’s leaders are agnostic about whether credit traders or interest-rate salespeople make the move, though those covering the emerging markets from New York may find Florida an easier location for working with Latin American clients, one of the people said.

    The move makes sense considering that one of Goldman’s top traders already commutes to New York from Boca Raton. As it happened, having at least one of its top traders in Fla. during the pandemic turned out to be a godsend for the bank, since they were able to meet with clients face-to-face more than six months before bankers in NYC were able to.

    Goldman’s sales-and-trading operation is led by Ashok Varadhan and Marc Nachmann. While Varadhan lives in New York, Nachmann commutes to New York from a private development in Boca Raton, Florida, according to real-estate records.

    Florida has been Nachmann’s home for more than 15 years, according to two people with knowledge of his arrangement. During the pandemic, his Florida base meant Nachmann met with clients in person roughly six to eight months before New York reopened, one of the people said.

    Insider reports that Goldman’s plans for relocating some of its top people to Florida started taking shape even before COVID. It started when one of the top executives in the bank’s asset-management arm stated exploring a potential move, just as more buy side firms (and more of the bank’s clients) were heading to Florida. When CEO David Solomon caught wind of GSAM’s plan, he decided to expand the project and explore moving even more personnel to the famously low-tax state.

    While it’s not exactly clear when these traders will be leaving, one thing is clear: New York State and its leader, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, are the biggest losers here.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 20:00

  • Wisconsin Student Accused Of Arson In Hoax Hate Crime
    Wisconsin Student Accused Of Arson In Hoax Hate Crime

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Viterbo University in Wisconsin has been the scene of protests for months over alleged hate crimes committed on campus.  The police however has charged a student, Victoria Unanka, with what it says was a hoax hate crime involving the setting of a fire in her dormitory. What interested me about the case was the curious combination of criminal charges. She is being charged with both arson and “the negligent handling of burning materials.”

    The arson occurred during protests over alleged racial incidents on campus. A student complained about racial slurs directed against her. The university cancelled classes and campus-wide demonstrations were held.

    One of those who reportedly spoke at the demonstrations was Unanka.

    The LaCrosse Police Department report states that Unanka “admitted to intentionally setting the fire in the second level lounge for attention purposes.”  

    According to media reports, President Glena Temple has later announced that the responsible student would be expelled.

    There were also slurs written on a dorm room door and the campus installed cameras and launched a full investigation.

    That investigation was closed and a Viterbo spokesperson said that “the remaining person of interest is no longer a student.”

    Viterbo is not the only university dealing with such a controversy.

    Wayne State University Police launched a major investigation after student Zoriana Martinez alleged that, on February 16 and March 1, someone threw eggs at her residence hall door. She also alleged someone tore down her LGBT Pride sticker and stole a photo of her dog.  While the police later concluded that Martinez was likely responsible for the acts herself, it did not seek charges. There was a notable twist.  The police report indicated that “Isis,” a Wayne State University employee was believed to have information on the case. However, she “isn’t compelled to speak with police or WSU administration despite the fact that Isis is a WSU employee and holds some obligation to report such concerns.”

    Back to Viterbo.  What struck me about the story was the initial charges of arson and negligent handling of of burning materials. One is an intentional act while the other is an act based on fault rather than intent.

    Here is the latter provision:

    941.10 Negligent handling of burning material.

    (1)Whoever handles burning material in a highly negligent manner is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

    (2)Burning material is handled in a highly negligent manner if handled with criminal negligence under s. 939.25 or under circumstances in which the person should realize that a substantial and unreasonable risk of serious damage to another’s property is created.

    History: 1977 c. 173; 1987 a. 399.

    The charges seem inherently in conflict. However, this may be an effort to offer a plea for the lesser charge, though it is not clear why the prosecutors would not seek an arson plea if the evidence is strong. The fire endangered everyone living in the dorm.

    There is also a possibility that the prosecutors will shake out the charges by adding and dropping charges.  The negligent charge can be a placeholder in that sense, a charge that is likely to pass judicial muster on review as they work out other possible charges.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 19:40

  • Zelensky Claims NATO "Confirmed" Ukraine Will Become Full Member
    Zelensky Claims NATO “Confirmed” Ukraine Will Become Full Member

    Coming off Monday’s meeting of top NATO leaders in Brussels with Joe Biden, President Volodymyr Zelensky has issued a shock statement, claiming that NATO has “agreed” to admit Ukraine into the military alliance with Biden’s blessing.

    However, in simultaneous remarks given during Biden’s anticipated press conference, the president actually appeared to suggest nothing has really change. He said Ukraine has more it must do to meet the “criteria” for NATO membership. “It depends on whether they meet the criteria,” Biden told reporters. “The fact is, they still have to clean up corruption… School’s out on that question.“

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    This has essentially been the Washington position all along – while the US desires a Ukrainian path to NATO membership, obstacles still remain.

    As The Guardian also observed, “A tweet today from the Ukrainian president had led some reporters to think that the Nato summit had approved adding Ukraine as a member, but it seems that will not yet happen.”

    Hours ahead of Biden’s Monday evening press conference, Zelensky had told US media outlets:

    “If we are talking about NATO and the [Membership Action Plan], I would really like to get [from Biden] specifics – yes or no… We must get clear dates and the likelihood of this for Ukraine.”

    Biden was asked point blank on whether the answer would indeed be yes or no…

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    Again, the Biden administration message to Kiev long appears to have been “yes” but with the key caveat of meeting the “criteria”.

    Washington is also very conscious that doing such would be a recipe for future war with Russia – something that also prevents NATO membership (that said country is engaged in border disputes or conflict), according to requirements for entry.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    By all appearances Zelensky jumped the gun, or else used intentionally confusing wording in hopes of generating enough headlines to put the contentious the issue front and center during the June 16 Putin-Biden summit in Geneva.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 19:20

  • Stanford Study: Most Mass Shooters Have Undiagnosed Psychiatric Illnesses
    Stanford Study: Most Mass Shooters Have Undiagnosed Psychiatric Illnesses

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine have published a study that reveals most of the perpetrators of mass shootings in America are people with undiagnosed psychiatric disorders.

    The study focused on 115 assailants of shootings committed between 1982 and 2019, and then narrowed that number down to ones who survived.

    “We found that most mass shooters in our study experienced undiagnosed and unmedicated psychiatric illness,” the researchers noted.

    Describing the findings as “striking,” the study notes that symptoms of clinical psychiatric disorders were identified in almost all the shooters, 32 out of 35.

    Over half of the perpetrators, 18, were found to have schizophrenia, with psychotic symptoms including the belief they were receiving messages from demons and seeing hallucinations ordering them to “kill, burn or destroy.”

    A further 10 of the shooters were diagnosed as bipolar, delusional and suffering from personality disorders.

    The study also noted that “None were medicated or received other treatment prior to the crime.”

    To make the diagnoses, the study focused on the records of forensic psychiatrists and court proceedings, in addition to writings and social media posts made by the shooters.

    Researchers also found that in 20 mass shooting cases where the perpetrators died, at least eight had schizophrenia, seven had other diagnoses, and five had unknown mental illnesses.

    While concluding that diagnosis and treatment of mental illness could have “decreased violence,” the study notes that “Psychiatric research… on the nature and the incidence of mental illness among mass shooters, however, remains largely understudied.”

    “Most of the cases of domestic mass murders possibly might have been prevented had the assailant… been more consistently assisted to receive a correct diagnosis… followed by psychiatric medication treatment… to save lives,” the study suggests.

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 19:00

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Today’s News 14th June 2021

  • AstraZeneca's COVID Jab Should Be Halted For People Over 60: EMA
    AstraZeneca’s COVID Jab Should Be Halted For People Over 60: EMA

    On Friday, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) safety committee identified another rare blood condition after people taking AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and said it was examining cases of heart inflammation after inoculation. By Sunday, the head of the EMA health threats said people over 60 should avoid the Astrazeneca vaccine, according to Reuters. 

    EMA safety committee on Friday said that capillary leak syndrome is a new side effect after taking AstraZeneca’s vaccine. There’s been widespread skepticism surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine for months due to rare and deadly blood clots. 

    Even though EMA considers the vaccine safe for all ages, several EU member states have halted administering it to people in the 55 to 65 range due to blood clotting. To date, 78 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine shots have been given in the EU and U.K. 

    “In a pandemic context, our position was and is that the risk-benefit ratio remains favorable for all age groups,” Marco Cavaleri, head of health threats and vaccine strategy at EMA, told Italian newspaper La Stampa.

    Cavaleri told the local paper that since infections are declining and the younger population is less exposed to virus-related risks, it would be better to use RNA (​mRNA) vaccines, such as Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

    Asked whether the AstraZeneca vaccine should be avoided for people over 60. He said, “Yes, and many countries, such as France and Germany, are considering it in the light of greater availability of mRNA vaccines.”

    On Friday, Italian health regulators said the AstraZeneca vaccine would be restricted to people over 60 after a teenager was administered the vaccine and died from a blood cot. 

    While American lawmakers have taken steps to shield US pharma companies from any legal blowback caused by COVID vaccines, drugmakers in Europe haven’t been so lucky. 

    Months ago, the family of an Italian woman who died from a case of vaccine-linked clots sued the vaccine company. 

    Last week, German scientists may have pinpointed these blood clots’ cause, which can be eliminated with a relatively easy tweak.

    Regulators first began examining these unusual blood clots cases in April and now are suggesting people over 60 should avoid AstraZeneca.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 02:45

  • Biden-Putin: What's On The Table (And Why No Progress Can Possibly Be Made)
    Biden-Putin: What’s On The Table (And Why No Progress Can Possibly Be Made)

    Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The key barrier in US-Russian relations is that they are again locked in a new zero-sum game but with a different dynamic than during the Cold War.

    There is a lot of optimism and big press regarding the upcoming meeting between Biden and Putin. This will be the first meeting of the two since Biden took that seat behind the lovely desk in the Oval Office. There are many issues on the table for discussion and there is tension and excitement in the political press in both the West and especially in Russia. There is a growing belief that this could be a turning point or at least provide some small nudging of relations in a positive direction. This wishful thinking, although pleasant from a moral standpoint, does not reflect the realities of the current divide between the United States and Russia. This meeting simply cannot provide some sort of new start for relations between the countries and will probably look like a head-nodding and pretending-to-listen fest the likes of which we have never seen before. Hours worth of hot air will be blown to throw words onto deaf ears with some background posturing to boot.

    Image: Showmanship averted Moscow’s eyes from the coming Maidan.

    One reason for the Russians to be suspicious of any offers from Washington is simply recent precedent. Over ten years ago when Obama was still full of Hope and Change his feisty new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a great big smile presented Foreign Minister Lavrov the infamous Russian Reset Button. The red button had the word “overload” accidentally written on it in place of “reset”. This mistake due to a fake desire to make it seem like Washington cared enough to learn one word of Russian was very telling as during the brief era of the Russian Reset, America’s Soft Power machine was working day and night to organize the Maidan in Kiev. From a Western perspective this revolution was another piece of evidence that the people of Eastern Europe want nothing to do with naughty Moscow, but from a Russian perspective the Maidan was the beginning of an endless waking nightmare. This all led to the genocidal war in the Donbass breaking out, the return of Neo-Nazism to Europe, and the now official systemic racism that Russian speakers have to endure in the “Zimbabwe of Europe”. After an experience like that, can one really expect any sort of optimism from the Russian side because Biden sort of stepped back a bit on the whole Nord-Stream 2 thing?

    Besides bitter precedent, the key barrier in US-Russian relations is that they are again locked in a new zero-sum game but with a different dynamic than during the Cold War. Russia wants to rise as one of many powers in a Multipolar World while the United States in accordance with the “Project for a New American Century” wants to make sure that no competitor ever rises again, maintaining the Monopolar advantage that it won from the Cold War. Because of this situation neither side could possibly hope to get what they want from the other unless things in America are far worse than they seem, turning this meeting into a reverse Reykjavík Summit. But that is so unlikely, that even the most hardened gambling addict wouldn’t place a bet on it.

    Image: The proper strategy – handshaking, nodding, and not listening to a word the other says.

    So let’s take a look at what’s on the table and why no progress can possibly be made.

    • The Crimea: The U.S. wants this peninsula returned to Ukraine. If Russia were to do this it would remove them from the Black Sea entirely and kill any ambitions they may have to rise as a world power. It would also be the end of Putin’s presidency as a national betrayal. Returning it is impossible. Any Russian pleas to recognize the Crimea as Russian will fall on deaf ears because it would set the precedent for many regions of the world to go back to Russia like Abkhazia, North Ossetia and Transdniestria. Washington cannot allow this domino effect to occur.

    • Alexey Navalny: Like Lenin he got to live in comfort with support in the West while at the same time having the ambitions of Yeltsin to strive for greatness via submission. He is in jail for parole violation and Putin is not going to pardon him. Even when his sentence is up this blatant Manchurian candidate is never going to be given the status that Washington wants for him.

    • The Donbass: Russia will not give up support for the Donbass and the United States will never green light carving up the Ukraine into a logical Eastern and Western chunk. If the Donbass were to “win” then Russia would wind up getting all the parts of the Ukraine that it needs for renewed greatness where the majority want to go back home. Conversely if Russia were to completely throw the Donbass to the dogs it could crush patriotic support for the establishment in Moscow.

    • Climate Stuff: Because climate change is irrelevant virtue signaling, plenty of “progress” could be made on that front.

    • Russian Meddling: The Democrats believe the Russians are behind lots of conspiracies, the Russians say they didn’t do any of it. Again this issue will remain stagnant. The Democrats could drop this narrative, but it isn’t worth using as a bargaining chip because the Russian side really doesn’t care. Removing this scandal offers no value for negotiating.

    • Sanctions and Embassies: Both sides seem fairly content with the long bitter divorce they are going through. Travel between the countries is now hard and sanctions seem to suit the mood of both sides. This is unlikely to change as there is no motivation for it. Washington wants Russia out of Europe’s economy and Russia is benefitting from the economic isolation that sanctions offer. It’s a win-win as is.

    There is really nothing of any substance that could change thanks to this meeting. The only possible major result is that yet again Moscow will “step on the same rake” as they say in Russian and buy into the empty good feelings that Anglo-Saxons naturally project. Russians believe that people who smile too often are pathetic, stupid and generally harmless. U.S. politicians have unknowingly been able to use the advantage of seeming like naive trustable twits during negotiations for decades. The other issue is that Russians cannot and will not accept the fact that the West sees them and Second-World Second-Class Humans and any deals made with barbarians or bushmen do not count. Ask the Native Americans about the value of treaties with Washington.

    The only gains at this meeting that can be made are of an emotional nature to the advantage of the U.S. as the Russians have been suckered in time and time again. For the Russians to resist this they need to “call a spade a spade” at every moment, while being interruptive, rude and in general spoiling any Anglo-Saxon snake oil sales pitches that come up. The Russian desire for social acceptance is its greatest weakness in these sorts of scenarios. But hopefully, finally, they have learned their lesson.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 02:00

  • The Wizard Of Oz: The Dark Reality That The Deep State Hides From The World
    The Wizard Of Oz: The Dark Reality That The Deep State Hides From The World

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via OneWorld.press,

    The world’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep states”) together with their perception managers in the Mainstream Media and the education system are hiding a very dark reality from everyone that’s much more nefarious than what the Wizard of Oz hid from Dorothy.

    The “Deep State”

    Nothing is ever as it seems, especially when it comes to the modern world in which everyone lives. “There Are No Democracies Or Autocracies, Only Governments”, I wrote last week, and they’re all comprised of permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, or “deep states”, which handle matters largely considered (whether rightly or wrongly) to be beyond the responsibility of the average citizen. This power structure is allied with influential perception managers in the Mainstream Media and the education system in order to hide a very dark reality from everyone that’s much more nefarious than what the Wizard of Oz hid from Dorothy. Supporters might say that “it’s better this way” since “society needs to be controlled” whereas critics claim that this is highly manipulative and against people’s fundamental human rights. Whichever side of the divide one falls on, there’s no denying that the real world is much worse than the average person thought.

    “Bread & Circuses”

    All people across the world are strongly encouraged by their governments to go about their daily lives and behave as economically productive and socially responsible citizens. To this end, they’re distracted with “bread and circuses” by being kept above the minimum subsistence level at the very least and pressured to focus more on their personal pursuit of happiness than everyone else’s. The exception of course is those who show a sincere interest in how the world works and are considered by the so-called “powers that be” as “ideologically reliable” after years of relevant indoctrination in the higher education system. This elite category of citizens learns how the world really operates after getting to peek behind the curtain ahead of actually getting to play a direct role of some sort in managing this secret state of affairs. Sometimes average people learn about the truth on their own or through whistleblowers, but it mostly remains obscured.

    Information Warfare

    The system upholds itself by obsessively discrediting those intrepid enough to research its inner workings and publicly share their findings as so-called “conspiracy theorists”, “foreign agents”, or whatever else. That’s not to say that there’s no such thing as factually unsubstantiated speculation that can legitimately be described as a conspiracy theory or that foreign powers aren’t infiltrating society through actual agents and even those of so-called “influence” (the latter of which may not even be conscious of the role that they’re playing), but just to point out the techniques used to discredit those who occasionally break through the “deep state’s” informational firewall in order to enlighten the masses about what’s really going on. In fact, different countries’ media outlets are presently waging an intense information war against one another’s target audiences in order to convince them that their own “deep states” are lying to them, which adds a hybrid dimension to all of this.

    The New Cold War

    Behind the “glitz and glamour” of the “everyday life” that most people have been misled by the “deep state” and its perception management allies into believing is “real”, the world has actually been in the midst of a New Cold War since long before its seemingly official commencement in 2014 following the US’ simultaneous attempt to more openly “contain” Russia and China in Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and Southeast Asia (the South China Sea). This is also taking place against the backdrop of profound civilizational changes in the information-communication, military technology, economic-industrial, and healthcare fields that will fundamentally revolutionize life as everyone knows it. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic (regardless of whether one believes it’s real, fake, or exaggerated) ushered in a new era whereby “deep states” across the world are now actively working to indoctrinate everyone into accepting this “new normal” that was already a long time coming.

    The Truth About US-Chinese Relations

    For starters, the post-Old Cold War system of American-led unipolarity was structurally unsustainable as proven by historical precedent. It ended a lot sooner than its most passionate supporters expected due to the US’ inadvertent subsidization of China’s unprecedented historic rise as a result of its leaders’ self-interested economic motives that are nowadays dishonestly dismissed as so-called “misplaced optimism” over that country’s supposedly “inevitable liberalization” via trade with time. Although some elements of the US’ “deep state” consistently sought to subvert and ultimately destroy China as they’d attempted to do since the 1989 Tienanmen Square Color Revolution, they failed to succeed both because of their target’s structural resilience and the lack of support from America’ economic and political elite that had an interest in indefinitely profiting from China’s astronomical rise.

    Reinterpreting Russia’s Role

    As for Russia, it was never the “anti-Western Phoenix” that both its top foreign supporters and detractors alike misportrayed it as for different reasons, but always sought to incorporate itself into the larger Western-led world, albeit in a manner that preserved as much of its sovereignty as possible. This was unacceptable for the West which demanded full submission, especially to the diktats of hyper-liberalism in both the economic and social senses, which prompted President Putin to proudly resist these efforts while nevertheless always keeping his country’s olive branch extended. Russia simply wanted to carve out its own comfortable niche in the US’ “New World Order”instead of reattempting to following in its predecessor state’s revolutionary footsteps by pioneering an entirely new one. The public friction between the US’ unipolar demands and Russia’s multipolar vision was responsible for the world finally beginning to realize that a New Cold War was afoot by 2007-2008.

    Great Power Competition

    Trump’s much-hyped “trade war” with China was really just him trying to revert back to “the good ‘ole days” of the pre-globalizatiion era, though of course modified a bit to accommodate for some of the irreversible processes that had since unfolded across the world in the decades since the US-Chinese detente of the late 1970s changed the very nature of the global economy. He also more confidently popularized the notion of the New Cold War by openly embracing Great Power competition, which never actually went away since the end of the Old Cold War but the illusion thereof was simply a masterful means for managing the perceptions of the global population by getting them to focus less on international affairs and more on the plethora of “bread and circuses” that were produced since 1991. Trump’s vision also aligned with the irreversible trend of multipolarity, accelerated as it was by the US’ own missteps of the prior decades, which “normalized” the New Cold War.

    The Military-Industrial Complex

    Amidst all of this and even arguably preceding it for quite some time already, the Great Powers (first and foremost among them the US, China, Russia) were already intensely competing in multiple domains, with only the economic one emphasized in the public sphere (and even that wasn’t even widely recognized until Trump’s presidency). Militarily, all of them continued to develop new weapons systems, including missile defense shields, hypersonic missiles to piece the former, drones, and space weapons. Their military-industrial complexes have been working on such munitions for a long time already, and the rare instances in which the public accidentally caught sight of them were conveniently described as so-called “UFO sightings” in order to distract the masses from what was really going on. Everyone was aware of this arms race during the Old Cold War, but it became taboo to talk about after 1991, though that’s recently changing since it’s becoming impossible to deny.

    The Information-Communication Industry

    The other trend that took place during these decades was in the information-communication industry. The global spread of the internet gave certain countries like the US a strategic edge, especially in intelligence collection, though that’s now being challenged by China’s cutting-edge technological developments and its much more affordable competitive products. The controversial concept of 5G is just the latest stage of this game. It basically functions as the means for managing the “Internet of Things” (IoT), which will further enhance its pioneers’ strategic edge. Although there are reportedly serious health risks associated with it, the nature of the New Cold War is such that no actor can afford to delay this technology’s development out of fear of irredeemably falling behind its “peer competitors”. The hullabaloo about Huawei and other Chinese tech companies is simply a public cover for justifying the US’ power moves against its top technological competitor.

    The “Fourth Industrial Revolution”/”Great Reset”

    The IoT will facilitate the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR), which will totally transform mankind’s economic-industrial relations considering the increased dependence on autonomous systems. This project was already proceeding apace prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the virus (again, whether or not one believes it’s real, fake, or exaggerated) served as the pretext to accelerate its rollout across the world in the most dramatic way possible via what’s now widely regarded as the “Great Reset” (GR). The resultant outcome will necessitate greater state intervention in the economy in order to subsidize the newly unemployed masses, which will resemble a comparatively more “socialist” system, even if only imperfectly/superficially Some might even describe the state-corporate partnerships that emerge from them as being more akin to “economic fascism”, which hints at a worldwide competition between “socialist” and “fascist” systems in the future.

    COVID-19 Vaccines

    Regardless of the semantics that one uses, there’s also no denying that mankind itself might be somewhat genetically different in this dark future than it presently is as a result of the experimental gene therapies that are being pushed upon hundreds of millions of people under the pretext of serving as vaccines against COVID-19. There are high hopes that mRNA technology might truly achieve miracles like curing cancer if responsibly utilized, but such technology requires many more years of testing before it has a credible chance of changing the world for the better with the lowest amount of risk possible The COVID-19 pandemic has been exploited by Big Pharma in order to test these treatments in real-time on the largest number of people in order to accelerate this technology’s development considering the competitive context of the New Cold War. The West was already far ahead in this field, hence why most of its vaccines are mRNA ones unlike the non-West’s.

    “Collateral Damage”

    It can’t be known for sure, but Big Pharma (and presumably also its “deep state” backers) probably only sought to experiment on hundreds of millions of people in such a deceptive way because they sincerely thought (whether rightly or wrongly) that the consequences are minimal and that the “collateral damage” can therefore be “manageable”. They might truly believe that any long-term health problems that these experimental gene therapies contentiously marketed as vaccines might cause could in theory be treatable within the next decade following the quantum leap that this technology might make by then as a result of this ongoing real-life mass testing. This line of thinking presupposes that the symptoms of such speculative problems might not occur until the next decade, which is of course a risky bet to make and arguably unethical if that’s the case since those being experimented on “in the name of the greater good” might not be aware of it and thus didn’t consent.

    Genetic Engineering

    To expand a bit more on the topic of vaccines, it’s questionable whether the mRNA COVID-19 ones even present a viable solution to the pandemic (again, whether or not one believes that it’s real, fake, or exaggerated). After all, COVID-19 no longer exists in its “pure” form after having evolved countless times into new strains which might be impossible to perfectly vaccinate against anyhow. This means that the experimental gene therapies that many people have already taken might actually be redundant, ergo the need for more vaccines to supposedly counter forthcoming strains, which in turn actually leads to more real-life testing for Big Pharma to accelerate the perfection of this technology ahead of its foreign competitors. Once that happens, genetic engineering could even lead to “super soldiers” and human-animal hybrids (“chimeras”).

    The “Green” (“Depopulation”) Agenda

    The other dark reality hidden from the public eye by the “deep state’s” perception management operations pertains to the speculative campaign of “depopulation”. There’s no denying that there are some influential forces who are in favor of this for ideological (“green”) and “pragmatic” (“overpopulation”) reasons (especially in the context of the unfolding 4IR/GR), but it’s unclear whether the ongoing mass vaccination of hundreds of millions of people with experimental mRNA gene therapies is part of this, at least directly. While nobody knows for sure what the affect will be on fertility, it can reasonably be discounted that these treatments are meant to kill off many people in the near future. After all, despite the 4IR/GR, the “deep state” still requires a tax base and some human labor to build the “new economy’s” machines. Considering the fact that so many younger people have already been vaccinated, it’s unrealistic that they’d kill off their most promising labor pool.

    Trump Spills The Beans

    In any case, the global public must become aware of the so-called “green agenda”, which is also part and parcel of the earlier mentioned trend towards comparatively more “socialist”/”fascist” economic systems. The climate is veritably changing regardless of whatever one attributes this to, be it mankind and/or natural cycles, but every “deep state” has an inherent interest in exploiting this to enhance its power over the population. That’s not to say that every member thereof is doing so for “evil purposes” since many might sincerely believe that it’s for the “greater good” however they rationalize it, but this dynamic is undeniable. Former US President Trump did a lot to popularize awareness of this and some of the other trends that were earlier discussed, which he did on his own prerogative but in a way which greatly upset most of the world’s “deep states”, including his own. This explains the universal revulsion that they had for him.

    QAnon & “5D Chess” Canard

    In their minds, Trump wasn’t supposed to “spill the beans” about the way that the world really works since he wasn’t supposed to have been elected in the first place. The “deep state” made sure by hook or by crook that he wouldn’t win a second term and thus stand a greater chance of reforming some of their forthcoming governance plans in the context of the “4IR/GR” (“socialism”/”fascism”). Furthermore, they feared that he could inspire the most passionate members of the population to peacefully exercise their political rights through rallies and the like in an attempt to meaningfully change the situation, even if only by publicly showing how popular his envisioned future was among the masses. The response to this “threat” was the QAnon movement which sought to preemptively neutralize these forces by capturing their minds through the manipulative narrative constructive of “5D chess”, which is just a coping mechanism for dealing with reality.

    The Hybrid War Of Terror On America

    That said reality is that Trump was basically “a king without a country” since the most powerful elements of his “deep state” continued to oppose him at every twist and turn, thereby sabotaging his envisioned policies. Instead of peacefully rallying in his support when he needed it most, his top supporters were brainwashed into thinking that “he had it all under control” and that every objectively existing setback was really just a “masterful 5D chess move”. By surrendering the streets, they facilitated the kinetic phase of the “deep state’s” decades-long Hybrid War of Terror on America via Antifa and “Black Lives Matter” (BLM), which paved the way for the dystopian hellhole that Biden’s presently presiding over as that same “deep state’s” puppet. The only “storm” that ever arrived was the “deep state’s” on election day. The successful anti-Trump regime change sequence led to the “swamp” finally swallowing him and Biden’s “Cyber Stasi” suppressing most subsequent digital dissent.

    Social Media Censorship

    The digital dimension is so important too because it’s the only realistic “commons” in which meaningful opposition to these trends can be organized, but it’s now almost entirely under the “deep state’s” control with few exceptions (like Russia’s VK). The pretext for seizing control over this domain was to stop any repeat of the 6 January events as well as reduce the chances of actual foreign meddling in the US’ domestic processes via Hybrid War means. About the latter, this threat veritably exists but not to the extent that the “deep state” claimed. It’s already done the exact same to countless other countries and much more effectively than they could ever do to the US, but the “deep state” fears the introduction and proliferation of “politically inconvenient” narratives into the American political conversation, hence the need to so aggressively censor social media. To be fair, other countries are implementing similar policies for the same security-centric reasons.

    People=Pawns?

    What most folks don’t realize is that they’re really just pawns in a global game between competing “socialist”/”fascist” “deep states” as part of the New Cold War. Their individual views don’t matter so long as they keep them to themselves, but they become “troublesome” once they’re shared with others and might eventually influence a larger change in socio-economic and/or especially political behavior (e.g. voting patterns, provoking protests, etc.). It’s one thing to “know the truth” as one understands it to be (whether realized on one’s own and/or due to the influence of whatever they come across on the Internet, including that which is shared with them by foreign parties, be it state or civilian), and another entirely to actually act upon it in a peaceful way within the legal limits of their respective constitutions, many of which at least in the West superficially respect the right to the freedoms of speech and assembly.

    Reality Check

    In fact, this very analysis will probably only at most make “fellow travelers” feel like they’re not alone or “crazy” as opposed to having any meaningful effect on shaping the course of events. Be that as it may, everyone deserves to learn how the world really operates, even if only to be at peace with how powerless they might actually be if that’s what makes them feel a bit better. Others might be inspired to share this insight with others in the hopes that enough people can eventually come together to peacefully express their constitutionally enshrined rights in a last-ditch attempt to at least slow down the implementation of the “4IR/GR”. This is especially so with respect to raising awareness of the speculative risks associated with volunteering oneself to be a guinea pig for “deep state”-backed Big Pharma’s massive gene therapy experiment designed to give their government a strategic edge in the New Cold War at the arguable expense of their citizens’ human rights.

    Welcome To World War C

    The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in what can be described as World War C, or the full-spectrum paradigm-changing processes catalyzed by the world’s uncoordinated attempt to contain the virus (again, whether or not one believes that it’s real, fake, or exaggerated). All preexisting trends are now being accelerated and compressed, including the geopolitical, military, economic-industrial, information-communication, healthcare (genetic engineering), governmental (“socialist/”fascist”), and “green” (“depopulation”) ones. This means that everyone is truly living in an unprecedented era of history whereby literally everything about life as they know it will be completely different within a decade. The very nature of international, economic, civil-state, and even human-to-human relations is transforming at a record pace, with folks either choosing to remain asleep like the “deep state” wants or wake up and peacefully try to stop them if it’s even at all still possible to do so.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/14/2021 – 00:00

  • These Are The Nicest New Cars The Average Buyer In Each State Can Afford
    These Are The Nicest New Cars The Average Buyer In Each State Can Afford

    Like homes, new cars have become prohibitively expensive in 2021 as a shortage of critical microprocessors has forced millions of Americans to instead settle for a used car. Unfortunately, Americans have generally been forced to pay more for used cars, leaving some workers overburdened with their car loans and insurance payments.

    For Americans who are looking for a used car and would like some guidance, Zippia.com recently crunched the numbers using the average income and most common financing structure in each state, and figured out what they claim is “the nicest new car that is affordable in each state.”

    It’s certainly an interesting claim. Here are the ten most expensive cars from the company’s list.

    10 Most Expensive Cars:

    • Hawaii – 2021 Tesla Model S
    • California – 2021 Volvo S90 T8 Recharge
    • Massachusetts – 2021 Audi Q5
    • Colorado – 2020 Mercedes-Benz C-Class
    • Washington – 2021 Buick Enclave
    • Oregon – 2021 Lexus NX
    • New York – 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLA-class
    • New Jersey – 2021 BMW 2-Series Gran Coupe
    • Maryland – 2021 Toyota Sienna
    • Utah – 2021 Mazda CX-9

    And the 10 cheapest cars:

    • Arkansas – 2021 Chevrolet Spark LS
    • West Virginia – 2020 Nissan Versa
    • Mississippi – 2021 Hyundai Accent
    • Oklahoma – 2021 Mitsubishi Mirage ES
    • Indiana – 2021 Kia Rio Sedan
    • Ohio – 2020 Honda Fit
    • Kentucky – 2020 Honda Fit
    • Iowa – 2021 Nissan Versa
    • Alabama – 2021 Nissan Versa
    • Kansas – 2021 Kia Soul

    Here’s how Zippia came to these conclusions.

    We started with average salary in each state to US Census. We then divided by 12 for the monthly income.

    From there, we applied a 65 month loan (the most common) and 4.67% interest (current average car interest rate) to work out the maximum monthly payment the average salary could sustain without exceeding 10%.

    It is recommended by financial advisors that no one have debt payments greater than 36% on total debt servicing. More specifically, it is recommended that car payments and car costs (including gas, maintenance, taxes and other costs) not exceed 20% of your income.

    With this in mind, we conservatively allotted a max of 10% of monthly income to account for miscellaneous costs.

    From there we used Kelly Blue Book to find the “nicest” (or most expensive) new car that budget could afford.

    We tried to get as close as possible, opting to go lower when possible rather than exceeding (and only exceeding by a couple 100 dollars when we did go over). This means, particularly lower cost cars where there are less options, some states share a car type.

    Keep reading to see the full list– and the car price that breaks the bank for each state.

    Don’t break the bank to buy a car:

    Ultimately, personal finances are personal. Someone with excessive student loans, heavy credit card debt, or incoming consuming mortgage, would need a lower car payment.

    Before purchasing a car, you should carefully consider your present day circumstances and future goals.

    Readers can find the full list here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 23:30

  • Financial Blowout Ahead: Lobotomized Economists Clash On The Deck Of The Titanic
    Financial Blowout Ahead: Lobotomized Economists Clash On The Deck Of The Titanic

    Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Under the new world order of “stakeholder capitalism” citizens will learn to own nothing and be happy…

    As the geniuses running the western financial bubble sometimes called an “economy” continue to double down on their obsession to pump a dead financial system with ever more trillions in stimulus spending, arguments are raging among brainwashed economists living in denial over the oncoming systemic collapse. The thought of engineers on the Titanic passionately arguing over whether they should accelerate or decelerate the speed of the boat whose hull has long been torn to shreds by an iceberg comes to mind.

    On one side of the debate, figures like U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chair Jerome Powell champion an emerging new wave of high interests as “a plus for society’s point of view” in order to counteract the increasing rates of inflation sweeping across every sector of the economy. This camp asserts that this spike in interest rates should not be done immediately however, and only begin in 2023, and until then interest rates should be kept at near zero percent.

    On the other side of the debate, economists among Germany’s largest bank scream that waiting until 2023 is deadly. Not a second should be lost before increasing interest rates now in order to stop a “time bomb” from destroying both the USA and the world. On June 7, Deutsche Bank Chief Economist David Folkerts-Landau wrote passionately that Washington’s decision to wait until 2023 before raising interest rates “could create a significant recession and set off a chain of financial distresses around the world” leading to “a time bomb” waiting to explode… unless interest rates were hiked up to 20% just as they had been done in 1980 by then Fed Chairman Paul Volcker which saw interest rates collapse from 12.5% in 1980 to 3.8% in 1982.

    Both sides however, are either completely ignorant or outright liars trying to distract citizens and policy makers from the real systemic nature of the oncoming meltdown that can only be dealt with if certain fundamental facts of recent history are kept in mind.

    Why is Inflation going to Skyrocket?

    Since a pandemic induced nations to lockdown their economies, rescue packages and unlimited money printing to keep people from literally starving, and banks from collapsing has become a new normal. $24 trillion dollars in COVID related debts have been generated internationally, while U.S. Federal Reserve balance sheets have doubled over the same period to $8 trillion with increasing rates of liquidity injections flushed into the Too Big to Fail banks since September 2019. So far, consumer price inflation has risen by 4.2% in 12 months, but based on the obvious reality of $28 trillion of totally unpayable U.S. debt, sustaining a $1.2 quadrillion derivatives bubble time bomb alongside the breakdown of supply chains and a dysfunctional green infrastructure program pushed by Biden, the runaway threat of inflation and even hyperinflation is firmly (or should be) on everyone’s mind.

    Now if Deutsche Bank’s Folkerts-Landau was talking about the insane money printing disassociated from any systemic restructuring of the over-bloated Too Big to Fail zombie banks or serious recovery program, then he should be applauded for raising the spectre of unbounded inflation. His nation did after all have a direct experience with this disastrous policy back in 1923 when hyperinflation tore the German economy to shreds and set the stage for the rise of Nazism shortly thereafter.

    Sadly, both Folkerts-Landau and Yellen are instead pushing policies that will not only accelerate hyperinflation a century after Weimar, but usher in a new central bankers’ dictatorship that had only been subverted in 1933 due to the fortuitous intervention of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.

    So What Did Volcker Do?

    Since economists are told repeatedly that Volcker’s interest rate hikes of 1979-1982 saved the U.S. economy, let’s look at what really happened and why Volcker described his philosophy as a “controlled disintegration”.

    While inflation did indeed spread across the USA in the 1970s, it is worth asking: why did this actually happen and did Volcker’s reforms have anything to do with solving that problem? Or did both the problem and its nominal solution drive a singular agenda of controlled destruction of the USA now playing out four decades later?

    For one, the shift away from industrial long term development with the 1971 floating of the U.S. dollar off of the gold reserve standard went a long way to turning a once-forward thinking productive, manufacturing-driven economy into a consumer cult, post-industrial waste. This “post industrial” age was characterized by outsourced industries relying ever more on increased rates of imports of things the USA once made for itself. A FIRE economy (of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate speculation) increasingly took over the once powerful manufacturing sector.

    Agro-Industrial production was replaced by service sector jobs as the USA became ever more reliant on cheap imports made from China, Mexico and other poor nations who were expected to remain labor intensive sweat shops for eternity.

    This detachment of the “valuation” of the dollar from all physical measurable standards went a long way to killing the buying power and raising inflation as monetary circulation increased ever more by speculation on oil, currencies or other goods that often had no connection with reality. Investment rates into cutting edge science both in the atomic realm of fusion and the macro realm of space exploration were cut off drastically (see graphs) as general vital infrastructure maintenance and improvement collapsed drastically across all OECD nations trapped in the “new post-industrial normal”.

    Non-military related science R & D also saw a collapse during this period from 2.5% of GDP in 1971 to a mere 0.4% of GDP in 2020 (see graph).

    Deregulation and market liberalization castrated the role of the sovereign nation state ever more from 1971 onward, as “laissez faire” policies dominated a once-protectionist landscape. Rather than continuing the successful practice of “parity pricing” which defined the real growth of western nations during the 25 post-WW2 years, the markets run by speculators looking only towards maximizing profit defined the prices of goods.

    Last but not least, oil price increases of 400% during the 1973 OPEC crisis is admitted to have played a big role driving the 1973-79 inflation, but as researcher William Engdahl demonstrated in his 1992 Century of Oil, then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had more of a role in manufacturing this crisis from scratch by keeping hundreds of tankers replete with petrol from being unloaded in the USA and facilitating the 400% increase with the assistance of several high level oil ministers in the Middle East beholden to Kissinger. In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s former OPEC minister at the time corroborated Engdahl’s research stating:

    “I am 100 per cent sure that the Americans were behind the increase in the price of oil. The oil companies were in in real trouble at that time, they had borrowed a lot of money and they needed a high oil price to save them.”

    Putting the Trilateral Commission into Perspective

    This shift of the U.S. economy from its former role as an industrial producer economy to a consumer cult of speculation and monetarism was accompanied by a broader international shift then being orchestrated by a cabal of misanthropic technocrats managing an organization known as the Trilateral Commission founded in 1973 by Chase Manhattan President David Rockefeller III and a sociopathic grand strategist named Zbigniew Brzsinski.

    The aim of the Trilateral Commission was to destroy the sovereign manufacturing base of both the USA and international developing sector alike.

    For anyone who might consider this paranoid “conspiracy theorizing”, it is useful to be reminded that among the highest echelons of the U.S. executive branch under President Carter included members such as Brzezinski, Walter Mondale (Vice President), Harold Brown (Defense Secretary), Cyrus Vance (Secretary of State), Michael Blumenthal (Treasury Secretary), James Schlesinger (Energy Czar) and Paul Volcker himself as Fed Chair. Henry Kissinger was also a leading member of this group.

    Among the many goals of the Trilateral Commission laid out Brzezinski in his 1970 Manifesto “Between Two Ages” was the need to drive the transition of society towards what Brzezinski referred to as the “technetronic era” saying:

    “The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

    During a 1975 Trilateral Commission study called Crisis in Democracy, overseen by Zbigniew, Clash of Civilizations ideologue Samuel Huntington wrote: “we have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of democracy… a government which lack authority will have little ability to impose on its people the sacrifices that will be necessary”.

    So what sort of sacrifices did these Trilateral Commission technocrats think necessary in a healthy society liberated from its foolish belief in scientific and technological progress that animated the policy outlook of such rifraf as Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Charles De Gaulle or Bobby Kennedy?

    This is where Volcker steps in.

    The Meaning of ‘Controlled Disintegration’

    In 1978, faced with unbounded inflation, Paul Volcker spoke at a conference at Warwick University London stating that “a controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate object in the 1980s”.

    Upon ascending to the chair of the Fed a year later, he wasted no time in applying this program. Not only did he render available credit impossible for many small and medium enterprises by raising interest rates to 20%, Volcker also ensured that third world nations then being sucked back into a neocolonial debt slavery under the IMF and World Bank economic hitmen, would be sucked into ever greater rates of unpayable debts as a new form of slavery. Between 1979-1982, third world debt skyrocketed from 40-70% across the board leading to a major debt crisis.

    During this period U.S. agricultural output collapsed, metal cutting machine tools fell by 45%, automobile production fell by 44.3% and steel production fell by 49.4% as bankruptcies skyrocketed leaving only mega-corporations strong enough to pay the draconian rates while absorbing small bankrupted companies and farms like a modern day Borg consuming ever greater rates of cheap labor and cheap resources from poor nations.

    To understand how these countries remained poor and exploitable, one need only visit the Malthusian State Department/CIA Report authored by Henry Kissinger in 1974 called NSSM-200 that called for a total depopulation program targeting 14 poor nations then desirous of industrial growth. Those targeted included India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. Kissinger’s logic was simple: If these nations develop, their populations will grow. If their populations grow they will use their resources. BUT since it is in the strategic interests of the USA to use those resources, these nations must be kept down.

    Nationalist leaders among those target nations who had a different idea were targeted for assassination or regime change throughout the 1980s.

    Back in the USA, Paul Volcker additionally took aim at commercial banks by forcing vast increases in reserve requirements making lending additionally difficult (although speculation in investment banks were facilitated with the Garn-St. Germaine Act of 1982). This act and accompanying financial de-regulation during this period of “Reaganomics” led the way to the new age of universal banking beginning with Thatcher’s Big Bang in 1986, the end of Canada’s Four Pillars that same year and finally the killing of Glass-Steagall in 1999. The dream of social Darwinists of an unregulated world of each against all where only the strongest and fittest and most sociopathic survive was now real. In the Soviet Union, this process of nation stripping and deregulation that took decades to wreck havoc on western economies was accelerated in the space of a decade of shock therapy. In China, where agents of Soros and the CIA like Zhao Ziyang (Prime Minister and CCP General Secretary from 1987-89) attempted to impose liberalizing reforms like a Chinese Gorbachev, the rape was luckily stopped before a Russian model could be imposed.

    With Glass-Steagall out of the way, commercial and investment banks could unite to form “the ultimate, all-powerful, many-headed financial conglomerate” as outlined by Lord Jacob Rothschild in 1983 (2).

    In 2001, as Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Islamicist monstrosity created to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan had been incubated throughout the 1990s, a new program of never-ending wars in the Middle East was launched. While the Middle East was turned inside out under a new age of war, the financial services sector avoided several near blowouts in 1997, 1998 and 2000 (with the collapse of the dot com/Y2K bubble). This was done by deregulating over-the-counter derivatives which turned a $70 trillion time bomb (in 2001) into a $650 trillion time bomb in 2008 when the housing market collapsed.

    While opportunities then existed to impose Glass-Steagall and break up the banks as had been done earlier by FDR in 1933, hyperinflationary money printed was chosen instead resulting in another 12 years of insanity as the bubble continued to expand and the physical economic productive base continued to atrophy.

    Today, we sit on not one bubble concentrated in housing prices, or oil, or currencies, but rather a multitude of bubbles in literally everything from commodities, bitcoin, housing, commercial real estate, bundled student debts, automotive loans, and the over-valued U.S. currency itself.

    The COVID Pandemic did not “cause” the current systemic crisis as many fools have parroted for over a year, but has merely served as cover to obscure the real systemic causes of the long-awaited collapse and accelerate the controlled disintegration of the system as the world is prepared to transition into a “new technetronic age” which has come to be dubbed a “Great Reset” or “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

    We are told by the likes of Klaus Schwab, or World Economic Forum trustees Mark Carney, Christine Lagarde, and Chrystia Freeland that the age of free market capitalism which reined from 1971-2020 has come to an end, and that a new epoch of “green finance” under a decarbonizing world is upon us. Under this new world order of “stakeholder capitalism” citizens will learn to own nothing and be happy, while polluting companies who commit climate sins will be choked of all credit.

    As former Bank of England head Mark Carney recently wrote of the new age of “net zero” in his new book Values Building a Better World for All, (which many of recognized as a precursor to his replacement for Canada’s Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister):

    “It could be generations before the gains of the fourth industrial revolution are widely shared. In the interim, there could be a long period of technological unemployment sharply rising inequalities and intensifying social unrest”.

    Klaus Schwab has publicly fantasized of this new age of human-machine merging of microchipped brains interfacing with the global net, and Tony Blair has giddily said that “vaccination is, in the end, going to be your route to liberty”.

    So, while that story might sound a tad bleak, there remains only tiny obstacle to the successful implementation of this anti-human program.

    This obstacle is located in the Greater Eurasian Partnership led by Russia and China and joined by 135 nations of the world that have signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative. These are nations who would rather have a multipolar future vectored around large scale industrial growth than be sacrificed on the alter of Gaia by a technocratic neo-Malthusian priesthood. This multipolar paradigm operates under a financial and geopolitical philosophy at total odds with the closed, entropic obsession of the forces associated with Kissinger, Blair, Carney or Schwab, and that is a very good thing not only for the Eurasian world, but for nationalist forces within the west as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 23:00

  • Indian Officials Demolish 'Corona Mata Temple' In Crackdown On COVID Superstition
    Indian Officials Demolish ‘Corona Mata Temple’ In Crackdown On COVID Superstition

    While India is dealing with “scientists” allegedly lying and cheating over COVID cures, officials in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have demolished a shrine dedicated to a coronavirus-inspired goddess, reportedly due to concerns about dubious claims of health benefits linked to the unorthodox religious site.

    Last week, we saw The Indian Bar Association serve a legal notice (pdf) on World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan on May 25, claiming that she was “spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfill her agenda” and sought to prevent her from “causing further damage.”

    But, with “science” being questioned for its political bias worldwide, residents of a village near the city of Pratapgarh constructed a temple allowing devotees to seek the healing powers of “Mother Corona” as they battle the virus. 

    “Villagers collectively set up the temple with the belief that praying to the deity would definitely offer respite to people suffering from Covid-19,” one local told Indian news agency ANI.

    As RT reports, the shrine is composed of a mask-clad statue set behind a yellow backdrop. Devotees brought yellow flowers as offerings to the goddess, but were not allowed to touch the statue, according to local media reports.

    According to the Times of India, police and regional officials dismantled the temple several days after it was unveiled in order to “discourage superstition” about the virus among villagers.

    Ironically, places in India where Ivermectin is used preventatively or as early treatment, such as Goa and Uttar Pradesh, are seeing COVID-19 cases declining versus states that have banned the drug.

    “Every one of those states, the curves are now precipitously declining,” said Dr. Pierre Kory, President and Chief Medical Officer of the FLCCC Alliance.

    “But there’s a state in India called Tamil Nadu whose minister there basically effectively outlawed ivermectin… [and] the cases and deaths in that state are skyrocketing,” he added.

    According to data by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Tamil Nadu saw 20,421 new cases and 434 deaths on June 6, while Goa recorded 403 new cases and 16 deaths, and Uttar Pradesh reported 1,037 cases and 85 deaths.

    Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populous states in India with over 200 million people, has been handing out free medical kits containing seven days’ worth of medication, one of which is ivermectin, for COVID-19 positive patients under home isolation.

    So – was it the ivermectin… or the Corona-Mata Temple that saved the people of Uttar Pradesh?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 22:30

  • Bombs In Paradise: How Hawaii Is Fast Becoming The Most Militarized Place On Earth
    Bombs In Paradise: How Hawaii Is Fast Becoming The Most Militarized Place On Earth

    Authored by Brad Wolf via WorldBeyondWar.org,

    The United States Army plans to build an enormous weapons facility storing stockpiles of conventional warheads and explosives right next to the residential housing communities of Ewa Beach, Ewa Villages, West Loch Estates, and Ewa Gentry, as well as beside the Pearl Harbor National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. This Pacific island paradise already has the largest concentration of United States military bases and compounds in the country, making it one of the most militarized places on earth. Were it to secede from the Union, Hawaii would be a major military power on a global scale. And now, more weapons are on the way. A lot more.

    The size, scope, and expense of this massive construction project must be considered, as well as the immediate danger placed on the residents of the surrounding communities. Equally important is whether the pre-positioning of such massive amounts of live warheads and munitions is in the interest and safety of the American public. Pre-positioning means ready to use. Locked and loaded. We’re off to war. This decreases the time for diplomacy and increases the likelihood of the weapons’ use. Do we really want to stockpile yet more weapons on this over-militarized island in preparation for the next big war? Is this a prudent strategy, or rash and perilous behavior?

    Marine Corps Base at Kaneohe, Hawaii 

    In a 164 page report written by the Department of the Navy for the Army, titled :Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI) For The U.S. Army West Loch Ordnance Facilities At Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman (JBPHH), Oahu, Hawaii,” the Navy states this project will include 27 new box type “D” magazines, eight modular storage magazines, administrative and operational facilities, accessory roads and concrete pads, utility service and distribution, site drainage, security features, and fire lines. For the record, a box type “D” magazine has an estimated footprint of 8,000 square feet. Again, there will be 27 of these. An 86,000 square-foot vehicle holding yard, a 50,000 square-foot vehicle inspection area, and a 20,000 square-foot residue storage warehouse are among the other larger items to be built.

    Despite this massive construction project, the Navy asserts no significant direct, indirect, or cumulative environmental impact to the area. The Navy then doubles-down on the absurdity, stating the proposed facility would actually result in beneficial impacts to public health and safety, an interesting argument for the storage of millions of pounds of explosive materials not more than a half mile from a housing development.

    The report continues in the same vein using language meant to be innocuous and reasonable, but which is deadly serious, by arguing the massive weapons complex will cause no impact to cultural resources, biological resources, socioeconomic conditions, and minimal impact to land use. The Department of the Interior even signed off on the environmental impact argument, thereby proving the obvious, that all branches of the government work for the Pentagon.

    Explosive munitions would be on and off-loaded at this site from a variety of ships, trucked and forklifted to warehouses, and then carted back to other ships ready for war. An accidental explosion would be devastating to these residential communities, carrying the potential to kill and injure hundreds. Homes, businesses, parks and schools all would be in the blast zone, or the “explosion arc.”

    Additionally, an accidental blast there could ignite even greater blasts at Pearl Harbor facilities and Hickam Field, a chain reaction of deadly explosions the Navy refers to as “sympathetic explosions.” The 1969 USS Enterprise fire near Pearl Harbor began when a Zuni rocket accidentally detonated under a plane’s wing and ignited additional munitions, blowing holes in the flight deck which allowed jet fuel to ignite the ship. Twenty-eight sailors were killed, 314 were injured, and 15 aircraft were destroyed at a cost of over $126 million. This accidental explosion occurred offshore and far away from residential neighborhoods. Such an explosion at this new facility would cause far greater loss of life and property.

    Especially noteworthy about this new weapons facility is the shortened safety distance between the bomb storage buildings and the residential population, less than a half mile from the new Ewa Gentry North Park housing development. Other storage facilities such as Indian Island in Washington State and the Earle Ammunition Loading facility in New Jersey have far greater explosion arcs, while the Army MOTSU site in North Carolina has a 3.5 mile explosion arc. The recent accidental explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, though not of military munitions, left a blast zone of 6.2 miles. The data used to calculate these explosion arcs is, according to the Navy, classified. Additionally, the types of ammunition and exclusive amounts to be stored are also classified. And so, explosion arc is a term whose actual meaning is held in close confidence by the Navy. Trust us, they say.

    At the end of their lengthy report, the Navy, not surprisingly, concludes there is no alternative but this. They have, so they argue, done their due diligence. Weapons must be brought here, a new facility must be built, there is no danger to the public or the environment. They are merely fulfilling their obligations under the law by planning, pre-positioning, and preparing for war. Rest assured, they seem to say, all is well. No reason to worry. You are in safe hands. The military is in control. Construction begins in 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 22:00

  • As G7 Communique Waters Down China Abuses, White House Preempts With Separate Statement
    As G7 Communique Waters Down China Abuses, White House Preempts With Separate Statement

    It appears the final G-7 communique on China was a bit watered down for Washington’s taste, after it become clear the Biden administration hoped to make the summit in Cornwall focused on China China China! …but the uncomfortable irony that remains is that the very parties at the G-7 table that are most reliant on Chinese trade (Europe) have proven themselves least willing to crack down on Beijing’s reach and influence. 

    A clearly softened (compared to US rhetoric of late) official communique issued at the G-7 close Sunday reads as follows: “With regard to China, and competition in the global economy, we will continue to consult on collective approaches to challenging non-market policies and practices which undermine the fair and transparent operation of the global economy.”

    And further in very dry bureaucratic tone, it states “In the context of our respective responsibilities in the multilateral system, we will cooperate where it is in our mutual interest on shared global challenges, in particular addressing climate change and biodiversity loss in the context of COP26 and other multilateral discussions.”

    …all leading to a highly “cushioned” G-7 conclusion on China’s human rights abuses: 

    At the same time and in so doing, we will promote our values, including by calling on China to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially in relation to Xinjiang and those rights, freedoms and high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.

    France’s Macron is foremost among European leaders who has met Washington’s urgent call for a more muscular strategy to confront Beijing with a big yawn, as Politico this weekend noted:

    Macron’s zinger about differences over the Chinese military threat will help set the tone: “For my part, China isn’t part of the Atlantic geography, or perhaps my map is off.” But France is also pushing back against China’s fait accompli policy in the Indopacific, the French Defense Minister Florence Parly told me in May.

    In response to the muted G7 reaction to China human rights, the White House had actually released its own separate statement just ahead of the formal agreed upon communique.

    Or did he?… no:

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    The White House statement said,

    “The United States and our G7 partners remain deeply concerned by the use of all forms of forced labor in global supply chains, including state-sponsored forced labor of vulnerable groups and minorities and supply chains of the agricultural, solar, and garment sectors—the main supply chains of concern in Xinjiang” – in a clearly more direct statement containing a litany of specific Chinese violations.

    Blinken had earlier claimed “largely agreement” on China among G7 leaders in Cornwall… but the competing Sunday statements tell a different story.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    And about that “rival BRI” infrastructure plan…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 21:30

  • "Discrimination At The Hands Of Their Government": Another Federal Court Has Halted A Racially-Biased Federal Relief Program
    “Discrimination At The Hands Of Their Government”: Another Federal Court Has Halted A Racially-Biased Federal Relief Program

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    President Joe Biden is facing an embarrassing and growing problem as he continues to declare his focus on ending racial discrimination: another federal court appears close to ruling that his Administration is engaging in raw racial discrimination. Milwaukee District Judge William Griesbach issued a temporary restraining order in Wisconsin halting Biden’s controversial $4 billion race-based federal relief program for farmers.  The awarding of relief based on race immediately raised objections of racial discrimination. The ruling is based on the court’s view that the white farmers challenging the program are likely to prevail.

    The order was made in favor of twelve plaintiffs from nine different states who sued the Secretary of Agriculture and the Administrator of the Farm Service Agency to enjoin the Biden Administration from implementing a loan-forgiveness program for farmers and ranchers under Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). The program pays up to 120% of direct or guaranteed farm loan balances for Black, American Indian, Hispanic, Asian American or Pacific Islander farmers.

    As part of the ARPA, Congress appropriated “such sums as may be necessary” to pay for the cost of loan modifications and payments to “socially disadvantaged” farmers and ranchers. § 1005(a)(1). The term “socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher” is defined under 7 U.S.C. § 2279(a). § 1005(b)(3) as a farmer or rancher who is a member of a “socially disadvantaged group.” § 2279(a)(5).

    “Socially disadvantaged group” is then defined as “a group whose members have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities.” § 2279(a)(6).

    The Biden Administration defines “socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher” to include individuals “who are one or more of the following: Black/African American, American Indian, Alaskan native, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, or Pacific Islander.” American Rescue Plan Debt Payments, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, available at https://www.farmers.gov /americanrescueplan (last visited June 7, 2021).

    The Court found that the program was unambiguously discriminatory since “the only consideration in determining whether a farmer or rancher’s loans should be completely forgiven is the person’s race or national origin.” As such, “Plaintiffs are excluded from the program based on their race and are thus experiencing discrimination at the hands of their government.”

    The Court found on the required compelling interest that the Administration failed to state a case:

    Here, Defendants lack a compelling interest for the racial classifications. Defendants assert that ‘Congress targeted the debt payments in Section 1005 to the minority groups that it determined had suffered discrimination in the USDA programs and that had been largely left out of recent agricultural funding and pandemic relief.’ Dkt. No. 17 at 17. But Defendants have not established that the loan-forgiveness program targets a specific episode of past or present discrimination. Defendants point to statistical and anecdotal evidence of a history of discrimination within the agricultural industry. Id. at 16–17. But Defendants cannot rely on a ‘generalized assertion that there has been past discrimination in an entire industry’ to establish a compelling interest. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. at 498; see also Parents Involved, 551 U.S. at 731 (plurality opinion) (‘remedying past societal discrimination does not justify race-conscious government action’). Defendants’ evidence of more recent discrimination includes assertions that the vast majority of funding from more recent agriculture subsidies and pandemic relief efforts did not reach minority farmers and statistical disparities. Id. at 17.

    Judge Griesbach further rejected the government’s arguments on the narrow tailoring prong:

    Defendants have not established that the remedy is narrowly tailored. To do so, the government must show ‘serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives.’ Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 339 (2003). Defendants contend that Congress has unsuccessfully implemented race-neutral alternatives for decades, but they have not shown that Congress engaged ‘in a genuine effort to determine whether alternative policies could address the alleged harm’ here. Vitolo, 2021 WL 2172181, at *6. The obvious response to a government agency that claims it continues to discriminate against farmers because of their race or national origin is to direct it to stop: it is not to direct it to intentionally discriminate against others on the basis of their race and national origin.

    This is the latest opinion finding that the Biden Administration is engaging in presumptive racial discrimination. As discussed previously, in Texas, Judge Reed O’Connor found that the Biden administration engaged in systemic gender and race discrimination to implement COVID-19 relief for American restaurants.

    In Oregon, however, a challenge was rejected over racially dependent benefits. A state COVID-19 program for black businesses, called the Oregon Cares Fund, was challenged by a Mexican-American café owner and others under the Equal Protection Clause. While legislative counsel and some legal experts raised concerns over the constitutionality of the law, a trial court rejected the challenge.

    Even if such categories pass constitutional muster, there is the question of selecting groups for favored treatment. In the case of Oregon’s fund, Latino owners were excluded. Under the American Rescue Plan, anyone can qualify for preferential treatment if they claim to be part of a group that has “been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American society.” It is the legislative version of the special graduation held at the University of Portland for “QTBIPOC (LGBTQIA and/or BIPOC).” Once the inclusions were defined, the only major exclusion was straight white males.

    These challenges could find a receptive majority on the Supreme Court. In a 2007 case, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that position most succinctly by declaring that the “way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

    Notably, Judge Griesbach rejected the call of the Biden Administration for a limited injunction” “To ensure that Plaintiffs receive complete relief and that similarly-situated nonparties are protected, a universal temporary restraining order in this case is proper.”

    Here is the opinion: Faust v. Vilsack

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 21:00

  • The Fed's Punchbowl Is Overflowing Into Money Markets: What Happens Next
    The Fed’s Punchbowl Is Overflowing Into Money Markets: What Happens Next

    Last Wednesday, when the Fed’s reverse repo facility hit just shy of half a trillion dollars (it has since risen to a new record $547.8BN), we said that “Wall Street Scrambles To Figure Out What Comes Next” in which we showed that while some banks expect the Fed to hike its IOER and Reverse Repo rates (such as BofA, JPM and Wrightson ICAP), others see the Fed standing pat again (Jefferies, Credit Suisse and BMO), a case bolstered by the WSJ’s Fed whisperer, Michael Darby, who suggested that the Fed was ok with the reverse repo being at half a trillion, and thus is unlikely to make any changes to its adminstered rates.

    Alas, with the Street evenly split in two camps on the fate of the IOER/RRP rates, the confusion among traders remains, and so in attempt to explain away some of the confusion, late last week, Std Chartered’s top FX and rates strategists, Steve Englander and John Davies, penned a report describing why the “Punchbowl is overflowing into money markets” and what the Fed can do in response.

    Here is the one minute summary:

    • The Fed may eventually feel compelled to tweak IOER and RRP but can avoid doing so at the June FOMC
    • RRP usage is likely to rise further as the drawdown in the Treasury cash balance continues
    • Yellen’s view that a higher rate environment would be a plus makes sense without being UST-negative
    • Still, higher long-term yields could take the pressure off short-term rates

    Below we present some of the key highlights from their note, in which they make the critical observation that “It is very unusual for the Treasury Secretary to talk up yields”

    The surge in Reverse Repurchase Facility (RRP) usage over recent weeks has supported speculation that the Fed may tweak administered rates higher. The Fed has made it clear that any adjustments to administered rates will be treated as technical fixes, not monetary policy moves. Nevertheless, focus remains on whether the Fed deems it necessary to adjust Interest on Excess Reserves (IOER) and the RRP offering rate. Our view is as follows:

    1. With effective Fed Funds (EFFR) generally steady at 6bps, we expect the Fed will opt for the status quo at the 16 June FOMC meeting.
    2. Reverse repo operations will probably increase even further as the Treasury General Account (TGA) falls.
    3. We think the Fed would move IOER and RRP intra-meeting if EFFR falls to 5bps or below other than at month-end. Eventually the Fed will likely move to firm money market rates but would avoid such a move if possible.
    4. Treasury Secretary Yellen’s openness to higher yields may reflect issues that occur when Fed balance sheet expansion prevents yield spreads from widening as much as investors see as appropriate given issuance.

    As we have discussed extensively in recent weeks, the decline in EFFR as largely driven by the boost to liquidity from the recent drawdown in the Treasury’s cash balance on top of ongoing quantitative easing (QE) by the Fed.

    This drawdown is related to the debt-ceiling suspension that expires end-July and could have $600bn further to go. The Fed has no say in this, and adjusting the pace of QE to try to deal with the consequences would be a blunt and risky approach. Near-term, RRP usage is likely to rise further. Average demand per counterparty has reached $10-12Bn in recent days but the Fed’s counterparty limit was raised to $80Bn in March.

    Yet remarkably, recent remarks from Treasury Secretary Yellen that “a slightly higher interest rate environment…would actually be a plus for society’s point of view and the Fed’s point of view” caught the market’s attention but triggered only a temporary blip higher in UST yields. She has mentioned higher yields twice in recent weeks, so it is unlikely to be an accident or misstatement”” according to the Std Chartered duo who note that “nevertheless, it is unusual for a treasury secretary to endorse higher borrowing costs.”

    Yellen  also commented that “we’ve been fighting inflation that’s too low and interest rates that are too low now for a decade”. In our view, both her comments and the market reaction are fair. In the 1930s Jacob Viner argued for fiscal policy on the grounds that it would push up long-term interest rates and make short-term monetary policy more effective.

    Yellen’s comments on inflation and (presumably) real yields can be seen in the same light. If real yields increase because of government borrowing for long-term investment, that is a plus provided that the real return on the investment exceeds borrowing costs.

    Similarly, if inflation and inflation expectations move towards target rather than undershooting, any level of nominal policy rates becomes more stimulatory. Aggressive macro policy settings can push both real yields and inflation breakevens higher while improving economic outcomes. As Englander explains, “if unchanged policy rates accompany the higher market yields, then the lower real yields would mean employment and inflation targets are reached more quickly” while from the Fed’s perspective, it would suggest that its new policy framework is gaining traction and ultimately mean that it has more ammunition to support the economy if and when the next recession arrives.

    From the market’s perspective, Std Chartered thinks that such an outlook is already largely priced in. Indeed, the breakeven curve implies a near-term pick-up in inflation beyond what the Fed’s transitory view assumes, but longer-term spreads look consistent with the 2% average inflation target. 5Y5Y USD OIS is currently around 2%, so below the Fed’s 2.5% median longer-run policy rate projections, but it hit 2.4% when UST yields registered their YTD highs in Q1.

    On balance, Englander concludes that Yellen was likely defending the Biden administration’s fiscal plans much more than stating a view on Fed QE and policy rates. However, he also notes that “it is striking when the Treasurer of a public or private entity argues for higher borrowing costs. This unusual situation may reflect the fear that QE is not leading to more bank loans.” If true, that would remove one of the major monetary policy justifications for QE.

    Or, summarizing what we have always said about the catastrophic experiment that is QE, Englander notes that “the Fed would be paying for government debt with new reserves and preventing yields from going negative by paying a floor rate on excess reserves, but not generating additional lending activity. The higher yields that Yellen was welcoming may be a way of creating more attractive investment opportunities for financial institutions with excess reserves on hand. The higher yields further along the curve would make carry more attractive, encourage lending and reduce the excess liquidity at the short end.”

    Still, it could be argued that her comments even stack up in terms of the front-end rates conundrum facing the Fed in the near term. According to the Std Chartered strategists, “slightly higher rate environment” would certainly be a plus for money market investors. From the Fed’s perspective it would reduce the risk that EFFR sets outside the target range and the risk that QE is seen as having reached the limit of effectiveness.

    Nonetheless, Englander concludes that does the Fed is unlikely to adjust IOER/RRP as soon as 16 June. However, Yellen may be also be making the case that more debt issuance and the higher yields that would accompany the debt would be positive for the economy and resolve some of the ‘plumbing’ issues at the short end of the market. Needless to say, in a world where there has never been more debt and where the jury is very much out on whether reflation (so very need to inflate away the debt) is here to stay, the likelihood that Yellen will be just as wrong about her “benign higher rates” forecast as she was with her 2017 prediction of “no financial crisis in our lifetimes” is effectively 100%.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 20:30

  • Top US General Warns China Increasing Military At "Serious And Sustained Rate"
    Top US General Warns China Increasing Military At “Serious And Sustained Rate”

    By Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times

    The top U.S. general warned Thursday that the Chinese regime is increasing its military capacity at a “very serious and sustained rate” and said it could pose a threat to worldwide stability and peace.

    Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that it’s necessary the United States “retain our competitive and technological edge” over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which comes after President Joe Biden and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin raised similar concerns in recent days about the rhetoric coming from the CCP—as the United States and China have remained intransigent over Taiwan, the CCP’s human rights violations, and disputes over territory.

    Austin told senators on Thursday that Biden’s defense request of $715 billion is needed to meet the challenge posed by the “increasingly assertive” regime.

    “The request is driven by our recognition that our competitors—especially China—continue to advance their capabilities,” Austin said during a hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We must out-pace those advances to remain a credible deterrent to conflict around the world.”

    Milley also noted that the combined total defense spending by China and Russia is greater than that of the United States, although he did not say how he reached that conclusion during the hearing. But aside from that, China poses the “number one” military threat to the United States, he added.

    Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of senators visited Taiwan and said the United States would provide 750,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to the island nation. It prompted a series of bellicose statements from Chinese officials, including Wu Qian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense, who alleged the United States is “seriously undermining” stability in the region.

    Wu then threatened that anyone—without providing names—who dared to “split Taiwan from China” would see a “resolute attack head-on” from the Chinese army. The CCP has long claimed that Taiwan belongs to it, while Taiwan has asserted that it is a sovereign, democratic nation. Because the regime believes Taiwan is part of its territory, it opposes any government or world body from establishing ties with the island nation.

    J15 fighter jets on China’s sole operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, during a drill at sea in April 2018. (China OUT/AFP via Getty Images)

    Milley’s comment comes months after another top U.S. commander, Adm. Philip Davidson, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned the same Senate panel that China’s military is threatening U.S. dominance in the Pacific.

    “The military balance in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more unfavorable for the United States and our allies,” Davidson said, adding: “Our deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific must demonstrate the capability, the capacity, and the will to convince Beijing unequivocally the costs of achieving their objectives by the use of military force are simply too high.”

    The CCP is also able to project more and more naval power in the Indian Ocean, as well as the Horn of Africa, said Gen. Stephen Townsend, head of the U.S. Africa Command, in mid-April.

    “Their first overseas military base, their only one, is in Africa, and they have just expanded that by adding a significant pier that can even support their aircraft carriers in the future. Around the continent, they are looking for other basing opportunities,” Townsend told the House Armed Services Committee at the time.

    The Senate on Tuesday passed a nearly $250 billion bill to invest in manufacturing and technology to out-compete with Beijing, which includes some $190 billion in spending. Much of that money will go to research and development at universities and other institutions.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 20:00

  • From HCQ To Hunter's Laptop: Trump Shreds Democrats Over Vindicated Bombshells
    From HCQ To Hunter’s Laptop: Trump Shreds Democrats Over Vindicated Bombshells

    Former President Trump trolled Democrats this weekend, releasing a list of claims he says he’s been vindicated over.

    The statement reads:

    Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America

    Have you noticed that they are now admitting I was right about everything they lied about before the election?

    • Hydroxychloroquine works

    • The Virus came from a Chinese lab

    • Hunter Biden’s laptop was real

    • Lafayette Square was not cleared for a photo op

    • The “Russian Bounties” story was fake

    • We did produce vaccines before the end of 2020, in record time

    • Blue state lockdowns didn’t work

    • Schools should be opened

    • Critical Race Theory is a disaster for our schools and our Country

    • Our Southern Border security program was unprecedentedly successful

    Speaking from his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course, Trump said: “‘We were right! Listen to this: Hydroxychloroquine works. The virus came from a Chinese lab – it just came out. Hunter Biden’s laptop was real. They tried to say it was made by Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia.”

    “Lafayette Square was not cleared for a photo op. That just came out and I want to thank the Inspector General for having the courage to come out with the truth. The ‘Russian Bounties’ story was fake. Remember that? We produced vaccines before the end of 2020 in record time,” Trump added.

    Trump was condemned throughout last year for touting Hydroxychloroquine despite multiple doctors having successfully used it in patients. Last week, preliminary research revealed that the drug can increase survival rates in seriously ill COVID-19 patients by 200%. 

    How many people have died as a result of the left’s politicized crusade against cheap therapies – including Dr. Anthony Fauci?

    Trump was also slammed for suggesting that COVID-19 may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – only to have been recently vindicated after bombshell reports in the Wall Street Journal revealed that three lab workers were hospitalized in December 2019 with COVID-like symptoms – adding to the mounting pile of evidence against the institute known for its gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

    As the Washington Examiner notes, “a batch of newly released emails from Fauci shows that the doctor was made aware that the virus likely did originate from a lab leak. The emails also show Fauci was aware of a coordinated effort between the World Health Organization and the Chinese government to squash stories about the lab leak hypothesis.”

    Republican Sen. Rand Paul described the emails allege Fauci was guilty of a “cover-up” and called for an investigation into him. House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene similarly said Fauci and the media intentionally misled the public.

    Sen. Lindsey Graham took the emails a step further and claimed that Trump would have won the 2020 presidential election alone if the media reported accurately that the virus came from China.

    “If Trump was right [about the lab leak theory], it would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, I believe,” Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday. “And if we could have proven that early on in 2020 it was a lab leak coming from China, not occurring naturally, the public would want revenge against China, and who would they turn to: Biden or Trump?”

    “If it were known in February that Trump was right [in] 2020, I think he’d be president today,” he said in the interview.

    And since nobody else will pat Trump on the back or admit he was right, he might as well take a victory lap.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 19:30

  • Morgan Stanley: This Is The Biggest Paradigm Shift In Global Macro In The Past Three Years
    Morgan Stanley: This Is The Biggest Paradigm Shift In Global Macro In The Past Three Years

    By Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist and Global Head of Economics

    The Paradigm Shift

    At a recent group dinner, I was asked to identify the most significant development in global macro I had witnessed during my three-year stint in New York. I expect that many people would point to the pandemic and the structural changes it has brought to the ways we work and live. But I think the bigger story is how the pandemic has triggered a paradigm shift in how corporate profits and wages will be distributed within national income. As this mega-trend reverses in the US, the tide will turn in favor of higher inflation and economic cycles will run hotter but shorter, in my view.

    For context, the share of corporate profits in GDP has been on a rising path for the past 40 years, while the wage share has been declining until recently. At the same time, income inequality has increased sharply and intergenerational mobility has declined. While these trends are global in nature, the US has undoubtedly been at the forefront.

    As time wore on, these trends became increasingly unsustainable. Calls for action grew louder and a collective voice began to make its way into policy-making circles. When the burden of the COVID-19 recession fell most heavily on lower-income households, policy-makers were galvanised into action.

    How are policy-makers addressing these issues, and what are the implications?

    At a macro level, they are explicitly aiming for a high-pressure economy. Drawing on the experience of the past cycle, they believe that such an economy will create broad-based and inclusive economic growth, which will help to reduce the impact of the recession on lower-income households and address the long-standing problem of income inequality.

    The conduct of fiscal policy has shifted from austerity to activism. The fiscal response to this recession is already the largest since the Second World War, and policy-makers are working on additional fiscal packages. The Federal Reserve has recast both sides of its dual mandate, essentially creating room for unemployment rates to move lower in order to ensure that gains in the labor market can be shared more broadly among low-income groups.

    At a micro level, policy-makers are intervening to temper the adverse effects of market forces. The efforts under way to raise minimum wages are a case in point. But there will also be increasing scrutiny of the tech, trade and titans trio – the key factors that have held down the wage share of GDP. The previous US administration had already taken a new tack on trade policy, and all indications are that it will not be reversed under the current administration.

    At the same time, policy-makers are homing in on corporate titans and their actions. These companies tend to have high industry concentration and have blunted labor’s bargaining power. Moreover, they typically have a low labor share of value-added, and their proliferation has also contributed to the general decline in the wage share of GDP.

    All in, as policy-makers act to address income inequality and ensure an inclusive growth environment, the wage share of GDP will start to reverse its 40-year decline.

    The reversal of this mega-trend could have far-reaching implications for the macro landscape. We highlight two in particular.

    • First, the tide is turning in favor of higher inflation. We have been vocal about the return of inflation since May 2020. Our base case is that US core PCE inflation will rise above 2%Y (stripping out the base effects) from April 2022. We also see a real risk that inflation could overshoot 2.5%Y on a sustained basis.
    • Second, economic cycles could run hotter but shorter. A high-pressure economy would mean a faster return to full employment. But tightening policies at a later stage in the recovery runs the risk that shifts in policy stances could become more disruptive, truncating economic cycles.

    The initial burst of decisive policy action has set the US on a new course. Going forward, how pervasive and persistent these actions turn out to be will determine how far the US economy travels in this new direction. While the reversal of mega-trends could potentially be disruptive, this course correction will set the stage for a more balanced and sustainable economic trajectory over the longer term.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 19:00

  • Judge Tosses Texas Hospital Workers' Vaccine Lawsuit
    Judge Tosses Texas Hospital Workers’ Vaccine Lawsuit

    A Texas judge tossed out a lawsuit brought by 117 Houston Methodist hospital employees who sought to block the hospital system’s requirement that all employees receive COVID-19 vaccinations or face suspension and/or termination. 

    The exterior of a Houston Methodist hospital in Texas, on June 9, 2021. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

    The move comes after the hospital suspended 178 employees without pay last week over their refusal to get vaccinated – 117 of which sued to overturn the requirement.

    US District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston wrote in a scathing Saturday ruling that lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ assertion that the vaccines are “experimental and dangerous” was false and otherwise irrelevant, according to AP (via Chron). He added that the plaintiff’s likening of the vaccination requirement to forced medical experimentation by the Nazis on concentration camp captives was “reprehensible.”

    In addition, Hughes ruled that making employment conditional upon vaccination status does not constitute coercion, as Bridges’ complaint alleges.

    “Bridges says that she is being forced to be injected with the vaccine or be fired. This is not coercion. Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the COVID-19 virus,” reads the ruling. “Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” the Reagan appointee continued.

    Houston attorney Jared Woodfill, who represents Bridges and other clients (and who thought it wise to include a Holocaust analogy in the original complaint), has promised an appeal.

    “All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy,” he said in a statement, adding. “What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating COVID-positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.”

    “We’re taking it all the way Supreme Court,” he added.

    The hospital allowed some employees to forgo vaccination for religious reasons or medical concerns; 285 employees received a medical or religious exemption, while 332 were granted deferrals for pregnancy or other reasons.

    The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said recently that businesses can require employees to get a vaccine without violating federal laws but that employers must provide “reasonable accommodations” for workers who can’t or won’t get vaccinated due to religious reasons, pregnancy, or a disability.

    Over 100 employees from the system filed the lawsuit last month, asserting that officials were forcing employees “to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for continued employment.” –The Epoch Times

    “We can now put this behind us and continue our focus on unparalleled safety, quality, service, and innovation,” CEO of Houston Methodist, Marc Boom, told news outlets in response to the ruling. “Our employees and physicians made their decisions for our patients, who are always at the center of everything we do.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 18:30

  • Beijing's Useful Idiots
    Beijing’s Useful Idiots

    Authored by Ian Birrell via UnHerd (emphasis ours),

    Just over a year ago, I stumbled across an intriguing scientific paper. It suggested the pandemic that was ripping around the world was “uniquely adapted to infect humans”; it was “not typical of a normal zoonotic infection” since it first appeared with “exceptional” ability to enter human cells. The author of the paper, Nikolai Petrovsky, was frank about the disease when we spoke back then, saying its adaptability was either “a remarkable coincidence or a sign of human intervention”. He even broke the scientific omertà by daring to admit that “no one can say a laboratory leak is not a possibility”.

    But even though Petrovsky has excellent credentials — professor of medicine at a prominent Australian university, author of more than 200 papers in scientific journals and founder of a company funded by the US government to develop new vaccine technologies — I was still anxious when my story went global. His original document had been posted on a pre-print site, so had not been peer reviewed, unlike if it had been published in a medical or scientific journal. These sorts of sites allow researchers to get findings out quickly. Petrovsky told me his first attempt to place these seismic findings was on BioRxiv, run by prominent New York laboratory. But it was rejected; eventually he succeeded on ArXiv, a rival server run by Cornell University. Last week, however, he told me this important origins modelling paper had finally been accepted by Nature Scientific Reports after “a harrowing 12 months of repeated reviews, rejections, appeals, re-reviews and finally now acceptance”.

    This acceptance is one more sign of the changing political climate as suddenly it is deemed permissible to discuss the possibility that the virus causing havoc around the world might have emerged from a laboratory. Petrovsky has had to endure what he calls “the legitimacy” of his paper as a peer-reviewed publication being denied for a critical 12 months — and he is far from alone. “I have heard all too many tales from other academics who have been equally frustrated in getting their manuscripts dealing with research into the origins of the virus published,” he said.

    Bear in mind that in the heat of this pandemic, papers printed in important journals were peer-reviewed within 10 weeks; one rattled through the process in just nine days for Nature. But, like Petrovsky, I have heard similar stories from many other frustrated experts who confronted the conventional wisdom that this lethal virus was a natural spillover event. Some could not even get letters published, let alone challenge those key papers promoting the Chinese perspective which have since turned out to be flawed or wrong.

    Only now is acceptance emerging that the science establishment colluded to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory, assisted by prominent experts with clear conflicts of interest, patsy politicians and a pathetic media that mostly failed to do its job. And yet, at the heart of this scandal lie some of the world’s most influential science journals. These should provide a forum for pulsating debate as experts explore and test theories, especially on something as contentious and fascinating as the possible origins of a global pandemic. Instead, some have played a central role in shutting down discussion and discrediting alternative views on the origins, with disastrous consequences for our understanding of events.

    Many scientists have been dismayed by their actions. “It is very important to talk about the scientific journals — I think they are partially responsible for the cover-up,” said Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo, a leading French evolutionary biologist and key member of the Paris Group of scientists challenging the established view on these issues. The rejection of the lab leak hypothesis, she argues, in many places was not due to Trump’s intervention but the result of “respectable scientific journals not accepting to discuss the matter”.

    The Paris Group, for instance, submitted a letter to The Lancet in early January signed by 14 experts from around the world calling for an open debate, arguing that “the natural origin is not supported by conclusive arguments and that a lab origin cannot be formally discarded”. This does not seem contentious. But it was rejected on the basis it was “not a priority for us”. When the authors queried this decision, it was reassessed and returned without peer review by editor-in-chief Richard Horton with a terse dismissal saying “we have agreed to uphold our original decision to let this go”. The authors ended up publishing their statement on a pre-print site.

    Yet this is the same prestigious journal that published a now infamous statement early last year attacking “conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin“. Clearly, this was designed to stifle debate. It was signed by 27 experts but later turned out to have been covertly drafted by Peter Daszak, the British scientist with extensive ties to Wuhan Institute of Virology. To make matters worse, The Lancet then set up a commission on the origins — and incredibly, picked Daszak to chair its 12-person task force, joined by five others who signed that statement dismissing ideas the virus was not a natural occurrence.

    Horton has been scathing about British government failures on the pandemic, even publishing a book lambasting them. Perhaps he would do well to turn his critical fire on his own journal’s failings as its 200th anniversary approaches. This is, remember, the same organ that inflamed the anti-vaccine movement by promoting Andrew Wakefield’s nonsense on MMR jabs — and then took 12 years to retract the damaging paper. But it is far from alone. The Paris Group has been collecting details of dissenting scientists, whose letters or critical articles were rebuffed by key journals which include Nature and Science, another two of the world’s most influential vehicles for scientific debate.

    Nature’s stance has been especially questionable. Around the same time as Daszak’s letter was printed, a statement started appearing at the top of some previously-published papers such as one on “gain of function research” by US virologist Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli, the “batwoman” expert from Wuhan, entitled “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence”. This carefully-crafted note said such papers were being used as “basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing Covid-19 was engineered”, adding “there is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus”.

    Nature also published a landmark paper from Prof Shi and two colleagues, sent to them on the same day last January that China belatedly admitted to human transmission. This detailed the existence of a virus called RaTG13 that was taken from a horseshoe bat and stored at Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was said to be the closest known relative to Sars-Cov-2 with more than 96% genetic similarity. This was highly significant since it underlined that such diseases occur in nature, yet although closely related, would have taken decades to evolve in the wild and seemed too distant to be manipulated in a laboratory.

    [ZH: More on this below regarding Nature’s Amy Maxmen and what appears to be an attempt to distance herself from Daszak.]

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    Some experts were immediately suspicious over the lack of information on this new strain. The reason soon became clear: its name had been changed from another virus identified in a previous paper but — unusually for such a publication — this was not cited in Nature. This masked a link to three miners who had died from a strange respiratory disease while clearing out bat droppings in a cave in south China, which was hundreds of miles from Wuhan but used by Shi and her colleagues to collect samples from bats. The Wuhan researchers even admitted they had eight more undisclosed Sars-like viruses from the mine. But despite a barrage of complaints that began within weeks of publication, it took Nature 10 months to publish her addendum, which only raised more questions that remain unanswered to this day.

    Nature Medicine, its sister publication, was also home for the second key commentary that set the tone in the scientific community after Daszak’s outing in The Lancet. “The proximal origin of Sars-CoV-2″ bluntly concluded that “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible”. Critics pointed out it was questionable to claim there was any “evidence” proving that Sars-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus. Others noted that the statement mentions the mysterious furin cleavage site — which Nikolai Petrovksy drew attention to as allowing the spike protein to bind effectively to cells in human tissues yet which is not found in the most closely-related coronaviruses — but downplays its potential significance. The statement suggests “it is likely that Sars-CoV-2-like viruses with partial or full polybasic cleavage sites will be discovered in other species”. This has not happened so far.

    This document — whose five signatories include one expert who was handed China’s top award for foreign scientists after nearly 20 years work there, and another who is a “guest professor” for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention — has been accessed 5.4 million times and cited almost 1,500 times in other papers. It is so influential that when I emailed Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and one of The Lancet signatories, to see if his stance remained the same, he pointed me to this paper that he called “the most important research on the genomic epidemiology of the origins of this virus”.

    The lead author was Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research Institute in California who has been a very active voice on social media condemning the lab leak theory and confronting its proponents. Yet the recent release of emails to Anthony Fauci exposed that Andersen had previously admitted to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director that the virus had unusual features that “(potentially) look engineered” and which are “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory”. He claimed last week the discussion was “clear example of the scientific process” but as another top scientist said to me: “What a smoking gun!”. Now Anderson’s twitter account has suddenly disappeared.

    There are many more examples. For instance, China pointed the finger at animals sold at the Huanan Seafood Market two days after admitting there was human transmission of the virus. Within weeks, four manuscripts describing a pangolin virus with a similar spike receptor-binding domain to Sars-Cov-2 were submitted to journals, all relying heavily on data published by one group of Chinese scientists the previous year. Two of these papers on pangolin coronaviruses were run by Nature. Inevitably, the articles sparked intense global discussion over whether pangolins sold at the market were the missing zoonotic link between bats and human beings, similar to civet cats with the first Sars epidemic.

    The pangolin link was a false trail laid from China. Nature, however, rejected a submission from another key scientific dissident that showed how all four papers primarily used samples from the same batch of pangolins and that key data was inaccurately reported in two of these papers. Richard Ebright, a bio-security expert and professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, argues that such tolerance of “material omissions and material misstatements” expose a massive issue. “Nature and The Lancet played important roles in enabling, encouraging, and enforcing the false narrative that science evidence indicates Sars-CoV-2 had a natural-spillover origin points and the false narrative that this was the scientific consensus”.

    Or as another well-placed observer put it: “The game seems to be for Nature and The Lancet to rush non-peer revised correspondences to set the tone and then delay critical papers and responses.”

    But why would they do this? This is where things become even murkier. Allegations swirl that it was not down to editorial misjudgement, but something more sinister: a desire to appease China for commercial reasons. The Financial Times revealed four years ago that debt-laden Springer Nature, the German group that publishes Nature, was blocking access in China to hundreds of academic articles mentioning subjects deemed sensitive by Beijing such as Hong Kong, Taiwan or Tibet. China is also spending lavishly around the world to win supremacy in science — which includes becoming the biggest national sponsor of open access journals published by both Springer Nature and Elsevier, owner of The Lancet.

    [ZH: more on Chinese appeasement below]

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    One source estimated that 49 sponsorship agreements between Springer Nature and Chinese institutions were worth at least $10m last year. These deals cover the publishing fees authors would normally pay in such journals, so they smooth the path for Chinese authors while creating a dependency culture. They have worked well for both sides: they offer the publishers access to the surging Chinese market and its well-resourced universities, while offering international recognition and status in return. But we know President Xi Jinping demands compliance with his world view, even from foreign-owned companies — and especially on an issue as sensitive as his nation’s possible role in unleashing a global catastrophe.

    Critics fear these corporate links to China compromise output and distort agendas. “Scientific publishing has become a highly politicised business,” argues Petrovksy. “Clearly there needs to be an international investigation launched into the role of scientific publishers, their increasingly powerful influence as the major publishing houses buy out many of the smaller independent journals, together with their growing politicisation and susceptibility to overt influence. We need to examine what impact this may have had in the pandemic and what impact it could have on science in the future.”

    Certainly it is valid to ask where was the real conspiracy in this tawdry saga that has stained so many reputations?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 18:00

  • 'Always Higher' – Cocaine Washes Ashore At Cape Canaveral Space Force Base 
    ‘Always Higher’ – Cocaine Washes Ashore At Cape Canaveral Space Force Base 

    In an ironic twist on their mission statement “Sempra Supra” (which could be translated “Always Higher”), a wildlife manager at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) discovered more than a million dollars worth of cocaine on a beach last month while checking on sea turtle nests, according to local newspaper Florida Today. 

    Angy Chambers, a 45th Civil Engineer Squadron wildlife manager conducting sea turtle nesting surveys in late May, found 24 packages, collectively weighing 65 pounds, of cocaine. 

    “While I was waiting for them to arrive, I drove a little further and noticed another package, and then another,” Chambers said. “I called SFS back and suggested they bring their UTV, or utility terrain vehicle, as I counted at least 18 packages.”

    Brevard County Sheriff’s Office narcotics unit seized the 65 pounds of cocaine. One of the narcotics agents performed a field test on one package and verified that it was cocaine. 

    The cocaine was then transported to a secrete location operated by the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

    Brevard County Sheriff’s Office estimated the drugs had a street value of an estimated $1.2 million. 

    HSI special agent, David Castro, said maritime drug traffickers usually transport cocaine in bales, including 25 bricks each. Once bales are damaged or are ditched during transport, they typically wash ashore in small packages. 

    “We take pride in protecting our base and the surrounding community,” 45th Space Forces Squadron Flight Sergeant Joseph Parker said in the release. “There is also a higher level of job satisfaction knowing that these drugs will not make it into our community.”

    Another 63 pounds of cocaine washed ashore in the Florida Keys last month, valued at more than $1.4 million. HSI has since launched an investigation into why mysterious packages of cocaine continue to wash ashore on Florida beaches.  

    Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, drugs are flowing into the U.S. at a record pace, resulting in the worst drug crisis ever as overdose deaths soar continue to soar. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 17:30

  • Debunking The Dumbest Crypto FUD Of Them All
    Debunking The Dumbest Crypto FUD Of Them All

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    “If anyone can do it, then no one should”

    It’s always some combination of amusement and frustration when you hear the incessant admonition of crypto-skeptics (crypto-denialists?) who think they’re being original when they come up with this version of FUD (Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt):

    “Bitcoin is not a limited supply because people can create an infinite number of crypto currencies! Check mate, crypto-cucks”

    This is the “Without government, who will build the roads?” argument of decentralization and crypto. When my last post ran on Zerohedge, the comment section had a lot of this:

    (There are also 10,000 penny stocks and growing. So that dilutes APPL?)

    Whenever somebody says that, my reaction is always “What’s your point?”.

    Nobody disputes that Bitcoin is hard capped at 21 million coins (which is less than half the number of millionaires in world), but the fact that other crypto-currencies exist doesn’t inflate the supply of BTC. Yes, anybody can create a new crypto-currency. Anybody can create all kinds of things.

    With free open source software and a commodity VPS, anybody can build their own search engine for next to nothing. Does that mean Google is worthless?

    Anybody can plug WooCommerce into a WordPress site, so Amazon and Shopify are ultimately zeros then?

    Anybody can start a band, write a book, launch a website, a podcast or a blog, and it doesn’t make every successful instance of these pointless because they are open to potentially infinite competitors and imitators. In fact, every knock-off, every me-too, every jump onto the bandwagon that ultimately fails actually validates the incumbents that continue to succeed. So bring on the shitcoins.

    Then every challenger that actually gains some traction or carves out a niche validates the entire space. So bring on Cardano, Solana, Polygon, Polka Dot. Bring on Helium and Hashgraph. Bring on Litecoin. Syscoin even.  Bring.It.On.  “Let a thousand flowers bloom”.

    What people are actually saying when they use the “anybody can do it” argument, is that they worship at the alter of monopoly and they’re too immersed in their own mediocrity to realize that the first monetary revolution in 500 years is taking place around them and in their own lives. They are cavemen, huddling cold in darkness saying “Bah! Fire. It’s not real. You can’t even touch it and it’s not even scarce! You can set fire to nearly anything.”

    It’s such a one dimensional / defeatist objection that it can only be made by those who have lost the plot on what makes capitalism so successful. And that is, in a word: competition.

    They don’t understand that their argument, taken to its logical conclusion means either:

    A) everything is worthless because anybody else can do  anything that’s already been done, or,

    B) there should only be one version of everything. This probably appeals to the “equality of outcome” Marxist zombies.

    If you can do any of these things, including going out and creating a crypto currency, then great. The big question is this: Can you create a more successful one? If you really think you can, then you should go do it, right now.

    What people don’t understand about all this is that we’re seeing the emergence of a new monetary protocol. This is TCP/IP for value. TCP/IP emerged under its own steam from among many possible options, and as investors, we’re always trying to make sense of which emerging protocol stack will be the victor, and which companies are on the right side of that. In our Crypto Capitalist portfolio, we try to own the companies that are doing exactly this.

    The entire point with crypto is that the structural flaw with the monetary system is because it’s a monopoly. One that is governed by unaccountable central bankers and technocrats with interests antagonistic to the wider population. Only in a monetary monopoly could it possible to so rig the game this way. It not only robs the citizenry, leaches their purchasing power and perpetuates ever-widening wealth inequality, it even brainwashes the victims into believing there is no other possible monetary system.

    That’s the problem with centralization today. In money, media and governance. People have blinders on that has them believing that the dominant systems are the only ones that have legitimacy, that authority and imperatives must flow from the top down and that competition to those systems is somehow immoral or out-of-bounds.

    But the decentralization revolution doesn’t care about any of that. It’s happening right in front of our very eyes and it’s playing out in realtime. Communications systems yesterday. Economic systems now. Governance systems next.

    Where we’re headed, you want anybody to be able to create a currency system, form an alternative governance structure, launch a business, write alternative viewpoints and to find and present non-conforming data.

    Without competition we wind up with a rigid, authoritarian monoculture.

    Without monetary competition we wind up with ZIRP/NIRP, trillion dollar deficits, targeted theft (a.k.a inflation)  and inevitably, China-style social credit.

    *  *  *

    To receive future posts in your mailbox join the free Bombthrower mailing list, follow me on Twitter, Mastodon or join the Bombthrower telegram

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 17:00

  • As Biden Swipes At Trump, G-7 Leaders Hail US President As "Part Of The Club" Again
    As Biden Swipes At Trump, G-7 Leaders Hail US President As “Part Of The Club” Again

    Biden capped the G-7 summit with a victorious sounding “America is back at the table” – in what many are noting was an obvious swipe at former President Trump. But many are also observing the whole summit appeared more like a multi-day long photo-op where Biden was formally admitted into being “part of the club”.

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    Before Biden departed Cornwall for London where he’s meeting Queen Elizabeth II, his supposed “anti-Trump foreign policy” was on full display in these words during his end of summit press conference:

    “The lack of participation in the past and full engagement was noticed significantly, not only by the leaders of those countries but by the people in the G-7 countries. America is back in the business of leading the world alongside nations who share our most deeply held values.”

    “I felt a genuine sense of enthusiasm that America was back at the table and fully, fully engaged,” Biden said. “Bottom line is I think we’ve made some progress in reestablishing American credibility among our closest friends and our values,” he added.

    But it was French President Emanuel Macron who on Saturday unwittingly summarized the real import of the whole spectacle…

    “I think it’s great to have the U.S. president part of the club, and very willing to cooperate,” Macron said. “What you demonstrate is that leadership is partnership.”

    …with the suggestion being that the whole problem in international relations during the Trump era was that he was an outlier wanting to put America first, and so not capable of being admitted into the “club”.

    Via AFP/Getty

    And there was more of this throughout the weekend, especially when it came to the topic of NATO:

    Biden knocked Trump when he said the U.S. does not view NATO “as a sort of protection racket,” but as critical for domestic security. Trump repeatedly chastised NATO allies for failing to pay more to the alliance and reportedly wanted to leave the alliance, questioning its usefulness.

    The president also swiped at his predecessor on the issue of climate change, which Trump repeatedly questioned and downplayed in favor of boosting the economy. Trump skipped the climate session at the 2019 G-7, the most recent one to be held in person.

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    Biden had said further, “I know that sounds silly, but we had a president last who basically said it’s not a problem, global warming.” Again, for this Biden gets warmly rewarded with declarations that the US had been readmitted to the “club”.

    Trump actually responded in a Saturday statement via his Save America PAC:

    “This was a quote by the President of France. He and many other Leaders before him, in France and throughout Europe, were ripping off the United States like never before. We were treated very unfairly with horrible trade deals, and paying for a large portion of their defense.

    “They were taking advantage of the United States and therefore, of course, they like Biden because now they will be allowed to return to their old ways of ripping off our Country. If I were a leader of these countries, I too would like Biden far better than President Trump.

    “They will now get very rich off the United States just like they have in the past until a change is made. I am for AMERICA FIRST!”

    Apparently Trump is quite content to not be part of this club…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 16:30

  • Election Assessment In Pennsylvania County Uncovers Five "Issues Of Note"
    Election Assessment In Pennsylvania County Uncovers Five “Issues Of Note”

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    An election assessment conducted in a Pennsylvania county months ago and quietly released to the public in recent weeks uncovered five errors, including three linked to Dominion Voting Systems, whose election management system is used in the county, the assessing firm said.

    Wake Technology Services Inc. (Wake TSI), a Pennsylvania-based firm, conducted the assessment in Fulton County. Workers visited the county’s offices late last year and about a month later, on Feb. 9.

    The assessment was meant to review the mail-in ballots in the county and explore whether conduct relating to absentee ballot requests, distribution, receipt, and counting were in line with federal and commonwealth guidelines, Wake TSI said in the 93-page report that was quietly published on the county’s website, with no public fanfare, in May.

    Wake TSI personnel did not conduct a technology forensic audit of the operating system or election management system (EMS) but did review some system file dates, log files, ballot images, and other files.

    Wake TSI said in its report summary that it found that the election “was well run, was conducted in a diligent and effective manner and followed the directions of Pennsylvania.” No anomalies were reported during the election process and expectations were that the assessment would not show any indications of fraud, error, interference, or misconduct.

    However, Wake TSI said it found five “issues of note,” including that Dominion failed to meet the commonwealth’s certification standards; that the election management system had Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools installed, despite the software not being part of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s certified configuration; and that changes were made to the management system just three weeks prior to the election.

    Assessors said there is “no valid reason” for the software to be installed on the system and that the presence “allows any user with access to change and manipulate the EMS databases without logging [recording] to the Database, EMS, or [operating system] logfiles.”

    They also said that Dominion failed to fill out a document that attests that the installed software versions conformed with certified reasons, with Dominion apparently claiming filling out the form was “optional.”

    Dominion Voting Systems disputed the report’s findings related to it.

    The Microsoft software “is a federally-certified component of Dominion’s system, which meets U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Voluntary Voting System Guidelines,” a spokesperson said in an email, adding: “Only federal and state entities have the authority to certify voting machines. Dominion’s systems have been certified by both the U.S. EAC and the State of Pennsylvania.”

    A search of the voluntary guidelines did not turn up any mention of Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools, which can be used to create, debug, maintain, and rewrite the source code of a database.

    The Microsoft software in question can help recover from a corrupted database if there’s a crash, such as a crash caused by a power surge, but can also be used for nefarious purposes, according to Greg Miller, chief operating officer of the OSET Institute, a California-based nonprofit that researches, develops, and educates on elections technology reform. The type of assessment Wake TSI conducted would not be able to uncover whether it was used for something malfeasant.

    The nonprofit’s policy and technology teams went over the assessment and found cause for concern and spaces where both the county and Dominion could improve, he added.

    “No direct evidence of any malfeasance but, boy, people deserve better. There were some fundamental mistakes that were made there and I think Dominion owes some answers,” he told The Epoch Times.

    The report showed “a couple of bureaucratic errors that would leave the average voter wondering, and they should, they should wonder,” he said. “It doesn’t look good. It looks awful. Unfortunately, the kind of digital forensic analysis we would want to do to determine if the presence of those toolkits caused any problems is almost impossible now,” he said, adding that election machines that are under suspicion would ideally be sequestered immediately before being audited.

    The errors included the county not keeping documentation on whether logic and accuracy testing was done on the machines, which is inconsistent with the Pennsylvania Department of State’s conditions for certification, and Dominion’s stated failure to fill out the attestation form.

    Logic and accuracy tests are done on machines before elections to make sure that voting equipment and ballots set to be used in an election can properly tabulate the results.

    Wake TSI’s report states that Fulton County apparently “never had a Logic and Accuracy test documented,” adding: “This is not to say whether or not the L&A testing has been completed, but there is nothing documenting that the process was completed.”

    Wake TSI explained that the issue is not minor because inaccurate scanning can significantly impact election results, using the example of alignment of a candidate’s voting circle being off by a fraction of an inch, which would render the system unable to properly read the ballot, which would then go through the adjudication process, which is open to interpretation by election workers.

    “A simple human error, or a bad actor, could cause huge issues with accurate ballot counting if it is not caught by proper testing both before and after an election, as it is required by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” the firm said, blaming both Dominion and Pennsylvania’s Department of State.

    The Department of State did not respond to multiple queries for this article.

    According to Fulton County commission meeting minutes, commissioners discussed on Dec. 29, 2020, on a third-party team that wanted to inspect the 2020 election results. Commissioners Stuart Ulsh and Randy Bunch, both Republicans, supported the inspection but the lone Democrat commissioner, Paula Shives, said she would only be agreeable to an inspection if machines were not removed. She also said that she wanted to be present for the inspection.

    Wake TSI visited the county offices two days later, collecting copies of log files, images of scanned ballots, and other materials. Patti Hess, the county’s director of elections and voter registration, or Bunch remained in the room with the ballots during the entire course of the review, according to the minutes and the election assessment.

    A portion of the minutes from the Fulton County commissioners’ meeting goes over Wake TSI’s election assessment, on Jan. 5, 2021. (Screenshot/Fulton County via The Epoch Times)

    Ulsh motioned at a Jan. 12 meeting to permit Wake TSI to complete the mail-in ballot portion of the election review. Bunch voted yes. Shives voted no “because she feels anyone wanting to review election materials should go through the legal process and obtain a subpoena,” according to minutes of the meeting.

    The commissioners noted participating in the second visit, which they described as an audit, in their Feb. 9 meeting.

    No further mention was made of the assessment until May 11, when Ulsh motioned that the Wake TSI’s report would be placed on the county’s website after the firm released it. All three commissioners approved the motion.

    The two Republican commissioners in the county did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Shives, the lone Democrat, answered an initial query about the assessment by pointing The Epoch Times to Wake TSI’s report. She did not respond to further questions.

    Hess on June 2 declined to comment, saying she was too busy with primary certification. Responding to a followup inquiry a week later, she directed questions about the assessment to the commissioners.

    Wake TSI did not return multiple requests for interviews or comment.

    Wake TSI also included in its assessment analysis on what it described as ballot-scanning errors, saying the scanning errors identified in two sets of log files exceeded the allowable error rate set by the federal government.

    However, Miller said he did not know of the error rate they cited and that the number of errors found was not unusual.

    Dominion told The Epoch Times via email: “Claims of ‘scanning errors’ are also incorrect as they do not relate to Dominion’s system. These are benign instances where ballots were not fed into the scanner correctly and were ejected [‘reversed’] for the voter to try again or instances of ballot mistakes such as overvoting or blank ballots.”

    Another election expert said he did not think Wake TSI uncovered anything significant.

    “Bottom line: Wake TSI didn’t find anything of substance that went wrong. In my analysis of elections over the last ten years, I have found a lot of errors made by tired people under pressure using a complicated computer system. I have never seen anything that looked intentional or that looked like an attempt at fraud. I don’t read anything in the Wake TSI report that would suggest otherwise, and I read a lot in the Wake report that points out how little they knew about analysis of election data,” Duncan Buell, chair emeritus-NCR chair in computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina, told The Epoch Times in an email.

    “There are experts who analyze elections. (I believe I am one of them.). I don’t see that Wake was anywhere close to that space until they were called on for the specific purpose of finding evidence that might support The Big Lie. They didn’t find the evidence, so they focus on the nits,” he added.

    But Pennsylvania lawmakers said the assessment’s findings motivated recent calls for an audit in the state.

    “I’ve only done a preliminary review of the audit, however my first concern is the lack of L&A inspections of the voting system after the changes were made to the system. The non-certified database tools (I have learned of SQL being discovered in machines in other states when it is not a software product permitted under the Election Assistance Commission guidance) are of significant concern as they allow for manipulation of data and facilitate the transmittal and reception of modifications to data from outside of the machines in question,” Pennsylvania Sen. Cris Dush, a Republican, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

    A screenshot from the website of Wake TSI shows members of its team. (Screenshot/Wake TSI via The Epoch Times)

    “Constituents from across the Commonwealth continue to have questions about the 2020 Election. Because responses from the Department of State and other state government officials have not answered these many concerns, Senator Argall believes all options should be considered—including an assessment of the Fulton County audit and how it was conducted,” added Jim Brugger, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Sen. Dave Argall, a Republican who chairs the Senate’s State Government Committee.

    The assessment showed blunders by both the county and Dominion but also indicated that the election ran largely correctly, according to Miller of the OSET Institute. Still, the issues identified highlight the need for technology that’s more easily examined by auditors and others, he added.

    “The problem here is you’ve got black box technology when we need glass box technology,” he said.

    Wake TSI’s assessment was “set” by Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, according to a Dec. 31, 2020 document signed by Wake TSI that was obtained and published (pdf) by the Arizona Mirror and the Washington Post.  Mastriano declined to comment. Wake TSI says in its assessment that Mastriano and Pennsylvania Sen. Judy Ward “were aware of our efforts.”

    The document also said the Wake TSI was “contracted to Defending the Republic,” a nonprofit founded by lawyer Sidney Powell, who has claimed widespread fraud occurred in last year’s election.

    Contact information was not listed on the nonprofit’s website. Powell did not respond to an email.

    Hess, Fulton County’s elections director, told acting Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid last month that “various members” of the state legislature asked for Wake TSI to do an audit in the county.

    “Since we believe in transparency, we agreed to let them come in and do the audit,” she wrote in the letter, which was sent last month and obtained by the Post.

    Hess said that that Wake had three people in the room where the ballots were stored. Hess would hand a ballot to one, who would write down who was voted for before passing it on to a second person, who also wrote down the ballot result. The third person then took a picture of the ballot.

    The team also took backups of “key data on our computers used in the ballot counting process” and used a system imaging tool to “take complete hard drive images” of computers used in the election, she added.

    Wake TSI was later subcontracted by Florida-based Cyber Ninjas to help audit ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona. In its statement of work, Cyber Ninjas cited Wake’s experience in Fulton County and said the firm had workers that have been involved in investigating election fraud issues dating back to 1994.

    The Maricopa County audit started on April 23. Wake TSI stopped working on the audit as of May 14, choosing not to renew its contract. The ballot review work was taken over by Arizona-based StratTech Solutions. The audit is expected to wrap up by the end of June, with a report on what auditors found expected in July or August.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/13/2021 – 16:00

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  • "It Won't Be Pleasant" – Mark Carney Unveils Dystopian New World To Combat Climate 'Crisis'
    “It Won’t Be Pleasant” – Mark Carney Unveils Dystopian New World To Combat Climate ‘Crisis’

    Authored by Peter Foster via NationalPost.com,

    What Carney ultimately wants is a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism…

    In his book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, Mark Carney, former governor both of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, claims that western society is morally rotten, and that it has been corrupted by capitalism, which has brought about a “climate emergency” that threatens life on earth. This, he claims, requires rigid controls on personal freedom, industry and corporate funding.

    Carney’s views are important because he is UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. He is also an adviser both to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the next big climate conference in Glasgow, and to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

    Since the advent of the COVID pandemic, Carney has been front and centre in the promotion of a political agenda known as the “Great Reset,” or the “Green New Deal,” or “Building Back Better.” All are predicated on the claim that COVID, and its disruption of the global economy, provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not just to regulate climate, but to frame a more fair, more diverse, more inclusive, more safe and more woke world.

    Carney draws inspiration from, among others, Marx, Engels and Lenin, but the agenda he promotes differs from Marxism in two key respects. First, the private sector is not to be expropriated but made a “partner” in reshaping the economy and society. Second, it does not make a promise to make the lives of ordinary people better, but worse. Carney’s Brave New World will be one of severely constrained choice, less flying, less meat, more inconvenience and more poverty: “Assets will be stranded, used gasoline powered cars will be unsaleable, inefficient properties will be unrentable,” he promises.

    The agenda’s objectives are in fact already being enforced, not primarily by legislation but by the application of non-governmental — that is, non-democratic — pressure on the corporate sector via the ever-expanding dictates of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and by “sustainable finance,” which is designed to starve non-compliant companies of funds, thus rendering them, as Carney puts it, “climate roadkill.” What ESG actually represents is corporate ideological compulsion. It is a key instrument of “stakeholder capitalism.”

    Carney’s Agenda is promoted by the United Nations and other international bureaucracies and a vast and ever-growing array of non-governmental organizations and fora, especially the World Economic Forum (WEF), where Carney is a trustee. Also, perhaps most surprisingly, by its corporate victims. No one wants to become climate roadkill.

    Carney clearly feels himself to be a man of destiny. “When I worked at the Bank of England,” he writes in Value(s), “I would remind myself each morning of Marcus Aurelius’ phrase ‘arise to do the work of humankind’.” One is reminded of French aristocrat and social reformer Henri de Saint-Simon, the “grand seigneur sans-culotte,” who ordered his valet to wake him with similar words: “Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do.”

    That is not the only thing Carney has in common with Saint-Simon, who believed that society should be ruled by savants such as himself; an alliance of engineers and other technocratic intellectuals, along with bankers. Carney is very much a banker technocrat, not merely at ease gliding along the corridors of global bureaucratic power, but expert at framing arguments that support an ever-expanding role for his class.

    His expansive pretensions first appeared at the Bank of Canada. If the economy is like a game of ice hockey, then central bankers should, ideally, be like Zamboni drivers, whose job is to keep the ice flat (Carney had in fact been a goalie during his academic years at both Harvard and Oxford). At the Bank of Canada, he often seemed like the Zamboni driver who thought he was Wayne Gretzky. He could never resist lecturing private businesses to stop sitting on “dead money,” or telling them they were too timid in the international arena, or advising consumers that they were spending too little, or borrowing too much. He promoted “macroprudence,” the idea that regulators, in their panoptic wisdom, would focus on the forest, not the trees. Now, he wants to establish himself as an intellectual.

    Carney has a lot to put straight with the world. According to his new book, and the related BBC Reith Lectures that Carney delivered last year, the three great crises of credit (2008–09 version), COVID and climate are all rooted in a single problem: People in general, and markets in particular, are not as wise, moral or far-seeing as Mark Carney. He sums up this failing as the “Tragedy of the Horizon,” a phrase he concocted for a speech ahead of the 2015 Paris climate conference.

    However, Carney is sophistic when it comes to the alleged moral shortcomings of capitalism. It has been one of the most tedious tropes of the left since at least The Communist Manifesto that the rise of commerce would drive out all that is virtuous in society, leaving nothing but the “cash nexus” of trade. One of Carney’s favourite philosophers is Harvard’s Michael Sandel, who produces endless trivial examples suggesting that we have moved from a “market economy” to a “market society.”

    “Should sex be up for sale?” Carney thunders, following Sandel. “Should there be a market in the right to have children? Why not auction the right to opt out of military service? Why shouldn’t universities sell admission to raise money for worthy causes?” But the very fact that people reflexively feel uneasy about — or outright reject — such notions entirely disproves his point. People do not believe that everything is, or should be, for sale.

    Carney notes the long debate, going back to classical times, on the nature of commercial value. This was theoretically resolved by the “marginalist revolution,” which put paid to the “paradox of value” that puzzled over the (usually) low price of useful water and the (usually) high price of useless diamonds. The marginalists pointed out that commercial value isn’t determined by usefulness or labour input. It is inevitably subjective, based on personal preferences and available resources. There is no paradox. Someone dying of thirst in the middle of the desert might be more than willing to offer a bucket of diamonds for a bucket of water.

    Mark Carney is a UN Special Envoy on Climate Action. PHOTO BY TOLGA AKMEN/POOL VIA REUTERS/FILE

    However, market valuations are essentially different from moral values, a distinction Carney continually muddles. He misrepresents the marginalist/subjectivist perspective, claiming that it implies that anything not commercially priced is not considered valuable. “Market value,” he writes, “is taken to represent intrinsic value, and if a good or activity is not in the market, it is not valued.” But who holds such an idiotic view? Nobody “prices” their family, children, friends, community spirit or the beauties of nature, although there is certainly lots of calculation going on in the background. Carney constantly berates “market fundamentalist” straw men who employ “standard economic reasoning” and who believe that people are rational and markets perfect.

    He incorrectly claims that Adam Smith — in his first great book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments— said that a sense of morality was “not inherent.” In fact, Smith believed that we are born with such a sense, which is then fine-tuned by the society in which we grow up. However, Carney — like all leftists — leans towards the blank slate, nurture-over-nature perspective because it suggests that human nature might be beneficially reformed under the right (that is, left) social arrangements.

    Carney believes our moral sentiments started going astray around the time of the publication of Smith’s better-known book, The Wealth of Nations, in 1776, when the Industrial Revolution was beginning to take off. He rightly suggests that one should read both books to gain a full appreciation of Smith’s insights, but he seems to have missed the significance of Smith’s putdown of “whining and melancholy moralists,” his cynicism about “insidious and crafty” politicians, and his thoroughgoing skepticism about those who would “trade for the public good” (that is, the ESG crowd). Moreover, Smith noted that the greatest corrupter of moral sentiments was not commerce but “faction and fanaticism,” that is, politics and religion, which come together in the toxic stew of climate alarmism and ESG.

    ESG used to be called Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR. The Nobel economist Milton Friedman warned against its subversive nature 50 years ago. He noted that taking on externally dictated “social responsibilities” beyond those directly related to a company’s business opened the floodgates to endless pressure and interference. The big questions are responsibility to whom? And for what?

    Carney also typically misrepresents Friedman, suggesting that he claimed that shareholders should rank “uber alles,” and to the exclusion of other legitimate stakeholders such as employees and local communities. Carney claims that “At times, large positive gains could accrue to society if small sacrifices were made on behalf of shareholders.” But by what right would management “sacrifice” shareholders, and who would decide which sacrifices should be made?

    Carney admits that the “integrated reporting” required by ESG is a morass: “ESG ratings consider hundreds of metrics, with many of them qualitative in nature… Putting values to work is hard work, but as with virtue, it should become easier with sustained practice.” No need to ask whose version of values and virtue is to prevail.

    *  *  *

    Despite his thorough castigation of market society, Carney somehow also believes this “corroded” society is clamouring to make great personal sacrifices for draconian climate actions and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

    Carney has been a prime pusher of “net-zero,” the notion that climate-related human emissions must be entirely eradicated, buried or offset by 2050 if the world is to avoid climate Armageddon. He claims that net-zero is “highly valued by society.” In reality, the vast mass of people have no clue what it entails; when Carney talks about this version of “society,” he is talking about a small, radical element of it.

    Carney peddles the non-sequitur that because the world wasn’t ready for COVID, this confirms that the world is being short-sighted about climate catastrophe. But COVID is an obvious reality; an existential climate catastrophe is a hypothesis (frequently promoted — admittedly with great success — by those with agendas). He claims that “A good introduction to this subject can be found in journalist David Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth,” a work heavily criticized even by prominent climate-change scientists for its factual errors and exaggerations. Indeed, even its author admitted its tendentious purpose.

    Carney also commends the knowledge and wisdom of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg: “The power of Greta Thunberg’s message lies in the way she drives home both the cold logic of climate physics and the fundamental unfairness of the climate crisis.”

    Anybody who cites an anxious 17-year-old as an authority on climate science and moral philosophy should be an object of deep suspicion, but then, according to Carney, climate science is easy. Greta’s “basic calculations” are ones that she could “easily master and powerfully project.” (Carney says he once gave Greta a tour of the Bank of England’s gold vaults. One wonders if she also offered up tips on monetary policy.) But then, in early 2020, Greta demonstrated her complete disconnect from reality when, at the WEF in Davos, she called for an immediate cessation of emissions, which would tank the world economy and potentially kill millions. Even Carney admits deviating from her wisdom on that point.

    Far from demonstrating a firm knowledge of the climate system himself, Carney cites scary but misleading statistics. “Since the 1980s,” he writes, “the number of registered weather-related loss events has tripled, and the inflation-adjusted losses have increased fivefold. Consistent with the accelerated pace of climate change, the cost of weather-related insurance losses has increased eightfold in real terms over the past decade to an annual average of $60 billion.”

    I asked Professor Roger Pielke, Jr., an expert on climate and economics at the University of Colorado, to comment. He replied “(Carney) has confused economics with weather. The increase in losses he describes is well understood to occur for two main reasons: more wealth and property exposed to loss and better accounting of those losses. To assess trends in extreme weather one should look at weather data, not economic loss data.”

    Among Mark Carney’s current responsibilities since leaving the Bank of England as its governor is advising Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS/FILE

    Carney’s confusion is hardly innocent since his Agenda depends on incessantly claiming that “What had been biblical is becoming commonplace.”

    Fortunately, Carney has been making claims about worsening weather for long enough that we can assess some of his predictions. In his recent book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin, former undersecretary for science at the Obama-era U.S. Energy Department, cites the speech Carney made to Lloyd’s of London before the Paris climate conference in 2015. The speech was designed to frighten the insurance industry into divestment from fossil fuels, on the basis that many oil and gas reserves would be “stranded” as we exhaust our allowable carbon “budget.” Carney pointed out that the previous U.K. winter had been the “wettest since the time of King George III.” He went on to say, “forecasts suggest we can expect at least a further 10% increase in rainfall during future winters.” For support he cited the U.K. Met Office’s forecast for the next five years. It turned out to be dead wrong. The six winters after 2014 averaged 39-per-cent less rainfall than the 2014 record. Meanwhile a Met Office report in 2018 acknowledged that the “largest source of variability in U.K. extreme rainfalls during the winter months was the North Atlantic Oscillation mode of natural variability, not a changing climate.”

    “(I)t’s surprising,” notes Koonin, “that someone with a PhD in economics and experience with the unpredictability of financial markets and economies as a whole doesn’t show a greater respect for the perils of prediction — and more caution in depending upon models.”

    During his BBC Reith Lectures last year, on the topic of “How We Get What We Value,” Carney received few challenges from his handpicked questioners, but a couple came from eminent historian Niall Ferguson. Ferguson asked Carney why, in his discussion of the climate issue, he made no reference to Bjorn Lomborg (a much more knowledgeable Scandinavian than Greta), and in particular to Lomborg’s book, False Alarm, in which Lomborg establishes — using “official” science — that there is no existential climate crisis, that adapting to climate change is manageable, and that the kinds of policies promoted by Carney are likely to be far more costly than any impact from extreme weather.

    Carney of course hadn’t read that book, but he dismissed Lomborg by saying that “it’s 15 or 20 years ago when he first came out with his ‘Don’t worry about the climate.’ How’s that working out for us?” But Lomborg never said “Don’t worry about the climate,” he just suggested that we had to put risks into perspective. Meanwhile Lomborg’s non-alarmist thesis is working out much better than that of doomsayers such as Carney.

    This offhand rejection of someone as widely respected as Lomborg exposes the hypocrisy of Carney’s statement in Value(s) that “experts need to listen to all sides…All of us as individuals have a responsibility to be more open and to engage respectfully with different views if we want constructive political debates and to make progress on important issues.” Except, climate-catastrophe dissenters don’t make it into the debate. There can be zero diversity of views on net-zero.

    Ferguson put another thorny question to Carney at that Reith lecture: He pointed out that since the 2015 Paris agreement, China had been responsible for almost half the increase in global carbon emissions, and it was building more coal capacity in the current year than existed in the entire United States. What did China’s promises of net-zero by 2060 mean, Ferguson asked, if it was “actually leading the pollution charge”? Carney’s non response was that China is the largest manufacturer of zero-emission cars, and the leading producer of renewable energy.

    Koonin notes in his book that Carney “is probably the single most influential figure in driving investors and financial institutions around the world to focus on changes in climate and human influences upon it…. So it’s important to pay close attention to what he says.”

    *  *  *

    Mark Carney cries crocodile tears at the possible viability of the Marxist perspective in today’s political environment. But if there is one sure sign of a Marxist, it’s a belief that capitalism is — or is about to be – in “crisis.” His new book has an appendix on Marx’s theory of surplus value: that all profits are wrung from the hides of labour. He also cites Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels. In particular he notes “Engels’ pause,” the one period in capitalist history, early in the 19th century, when workers may not have shared the increases in productivity brought about by industrialization.

    Carney projects that the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (a phenomenon much invoked by the WEF) might bring about a similar period, thus providing a source of political unrest. “(I)t could be generations before the gains of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are widely shared,” he writes. “In the interim, there could be a long period of technological unemployment, sharply rising inequalities and intensifying social unrest… If this world of surplus labour comes to pass, Marx and Engels could again become relevant.”

    He rather seems to hope so.

    Carney claims powerful parallels between Marx’s time and our own. “Substitute platforms for textile mills, machine learning for the steam engine, and Twitter for the telegraph, and current dynamics echo those of that era. Then, Karl Marx was scribbling the Communist Manifesto in the reading room of the British Library. Today, radical viral blogs and tweets voice similar outrage.”

    In fact, Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto, based on a tract by Engels, in Brussels, not at the British Library, but it’s more important to remember where Marx’s misguided and immutable outrage led: to a disastrous economic and political model that generated poverty and mass murder on an unprecedented scale. Meanwhile “outrage” is surely a dubious basis for policy. The outraged are certainly a useful constituency for those seeking power, however, which brings us to the influence on Carney of the man who first tried to put Marxism into practice.

    When it comes to the COVID crisis, writes Carney, “We are living Lenin’s observation that there are ‘decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen’.” Strange that Carney would cite one of the most ruthless murderers in history for this rather bland insight, but then Carney’s Agenda is not without its own parallels to Lenin (minus, one presumes, the precondition of rampant bloodshed).

    Although Vladimir Lenin didn’t know much about business or economics, he declared that “’Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” Carney’s plan is global. “We need,” he claims, “to electrify everything and turn electricity generation green.” The problem is that wind- and solar-powered electricity needs both hefty government subsidies and fossil-fuel backup for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Green electricity is inflexible, expensive and disruptive to grids.

    Carney cites Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction,” but his own version involves not the metaphorical and benign process of market innovation making old technologies redundant, but a deliberate suppression of viable technologies to make way for less reliable and less economic alternatives.

    When Lenin wrecked the Russian economy after brutally seizing power in 1917, he was forced to backtrack and allow some private enterprise to prevent people starving. However, he assured his radical comrades that he would retain control of “the commanding heights” of heavy industry. Carney’s plan is to control the global economy by seizing the commanding heights of finance, not by nationalization but by exerting non-democratic pressure to divest from, and stop funding, fossil fuels. The private sector is to become a partner in imposing its own bondage. This will be do-it-yourself totalitarianism. Indeed, companies in our one-party ESG state are already pleading like show-trial defendants, making suicidal net-zero commitments, lest banks cut them off.

    Left: A portrait of Karl Marx. Top right: Vladimir Lenin makes a speech in Red Square on the first anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Below right: Teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivers brief remarkssurrounded by other student environmental advocates in 2019. Mark Carney draws on all three in his agenda to address the “climate emergency,” writes Peter Foster. PHOTO BY FILE; HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; SARAH SILBIGER/GETTY IMAGES/FILE

    To further that end, Carney has helped to start a key organization, the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), a collection of central banks and regulators. He has also signed up an ever-growing constituency of activist policy wonks who peddle emissions measurement and certification, eco audits and ESG rankings. This agenda is inevitably appealing to transnational organizations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD, whose empires are all lucratively intertwined with the global governance thrust. In May, the IEA issued a report calling for an immediate end to fossil fuel investment to get to net-zero.

    Part of Carney’s strategy is to force “voluntary” standards on banking and industry, then have governments make those standards compulsory. The major accounting firms appear keen to promote the possibility of endless auditing extensions, under which the relatively straightforward metric of money is to be replaced by the infinitely malleable concepts of “purpose” and “impact.”

    Carney has also helped turn the accounting screw though “carbon disclosure.” Companies are pressured to make explicit the kind of damage they might suffer if the alarmists’ worst nightmares are realized. Such disclosure is a variant on that famous loaded question “When did you stop beating your spouse?” Instead, carbon disclosure asks the climate equivalent of “If you were to beat your spouse, what sort of injuries might he/she suffer?” Companies must also disclose their plans to deal with the presumed crisis. No company dares to say “We do not believe your apocalyptic forecasts.” They meekly regurgitate the required climate porn about floods and droughts and hurricanes, and make elaborate fingers-crossed emissions-reductions commitments. This in turn leads them into arrangements such as buying emissions offsets, a complex scheme analogous to the medieval Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences. Carbon markets have inevitably led to a surge in work for offset generators, certifiers and auditors. Carney projects this market could be worth $100 billion.

    Ironically, earlier this year Carney found himself tangled in the murky metrics of offsets. In 2020, he was appointed a vice chairman with Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, where he is in charge of “impact investing.” As historian Tammy Nemeth points out in her critical study of the “Transnational Progressive Movement,” of which Carney is a leading light: “(I)t is perhaps ethically murky for someone who is actively working within the UN and advising two different governments on how to change national and global financial rules to be working for a company that will be a direct beneficiary of those rule changes.” Still, who better to lead your company through a minefield than the person who planted the mines?

    Except that Carney was hoist with his own petard when he claimed that Brookfield, which has major investments in fossil fuels and pipelines, was already “net-zero” due to emissions “avoided” as a result of its investing in renewable energy. Carney’s claim produced instant refutation and accusations of greenwashing. The Financial Times called it a “major stumble.” A representative of CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) castigated those who attempt to hide “dirty coal issues.” Carney subsequently issued a qualified mea culpa on Twitter: “I have always been — and will continue to be — a strong advocate for net zero science-based targets, and I also recognize that avoided emissions do not count towards them.”

    *  *  *

    H. L. Mencken observed that “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule.” So, just how big a threat is the agenda of Mark Carney and his fellow “transnational progressives”?

    In his book, Value(s), Carney lays out rationalizations and autocratic pretensions, although he is less forthcoming about his motivations. He writes that “Leaders need to renounce power for its own sake and discern the power of service.” Mencken would be amused.

    The shambolic response to COVID of many governments, not least in Canada, and the distinctly unsettled nature of pandemic “science,” have not done much for the credibility of either governments or experts. The Carney-backed agenda is not predicated on working through democratic institutions but on circumventing them. Still, he is also reported to have more conventional political aspirations, namely to join the federal Liberal party and rise within it, very possibly to prime minister. (Carney recently gave a speech at the Liberal national convention, where he pledged his full support.)

    He thus has a rather ill-fitting section in Value(s) on “How Canada Can Build Value for All.” It reads like a Liberal party stump speech. According to Carney “We (in Canada) routinely transcend the limitations of our size to model values and policies for other countries.” It’s the old chestnut that no progressive Canadian leader ever seems to tire of: The world needs more Canada.

    Carney is a classic example of what Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit” of constructivist rationalism: the belief that the largely spontaneous institutions of the market order should be rejected in favour of more deliberately planned arrangements. Carney is undoubtedly an intelligent man, but Hayek stressed that the thing that intelligent people tend most to overestimate is the power of intelligence — particularly if they happen to be socialists.

    Carney is also of the class that philosopher Karl Popper described as “enemies” of an “open society.” Popper noted that social upheavals tend to bring forth prophets who claim to understand the forces shaping the future, and promise salvation if they are given absolute power. Such was Plato’s model — in response to the upheavals of the Peloponnesian War and the first wave of democracy — of a necessary dictatorship in which the rulers lived as communists, using a specially bred military to control a cattle-like populace. Similarly, Marx’s communism was a response to the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution.

    Considering the squalor of Manchester in the 1840s, one might forgive Marx and Engels for thinking a radical response was in order. But given the success of capitalism and the horrors of autocratic systems in the intervening period, it takes considerable chutzpah to be promoting net-zero totalitarianism.

    Still, Carney claims that great crises demand great plans. He cites Timothy Geithner, secretary of the U.S. Treasury under president Obama, saying “plan beats no plan.” But Geithner was talking about the very real and immediate 2008–09 financial crisis. Carney’s climate plan is much closer to the notion of Soviet central long-term planning. Clearly, when it came to the subsequent welfare of the Russian people, “no plan” would certainly have beaten “plan.”

    What Carney ultimately wants, like Saint-Simon, is a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism. He suggests that “governments can delegate certain aspects of the calibration of specific instruments… to Carbon Councils in order to improve the predictability, credibility and impact of climate policies.” These carbon councils will be able to demand that national governments “comply or explain” when they inevitably fall short of targets. How these commissars will bring governments into line is unclear, although Nobel economist William Nordhaus has suggested “Climate Clubs” that will punish recalcitrants with punitive tariffs.

    The threat of punishment will clearly be necessary because governments are doing little more than hypocritical tinkering on climate policy. China and India are hardly even playing lip service to the “climate emergency.” Nevertheless, according to Carney “political technology” is needed to “build a broad consensus around the right goals.” No question of debating the goals, or the science, just building a consensus to support them.

    Carney is a man on a mission to change global society. “Business as usual” — the most hated phrase in the socialist lexicon — is “ultimately catastrophic,” he writes. There is too much “misplaced acceptance of the status quo.” But somehow the new socialism will not be socialism as usual. This time it’s different. We can because we must. The threat is too great to permit any argument. It’s surprising that as he was picking out choice quotes from Lenin for his book, Carney missed this one: “No more opposition now, comrades! The time has come to put an end to opposition, to put the lid on it. We have had enough opposition!”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 23:30

  • Visualizing The Biggest Companies In The World In 2021
    Visualizing The Biggest Companies In The World In 2021

    Since the COVID-19 crash, global equity markets have seen a strong recovery. The 100 biggest companies in the world were worth a record-breaking $31.7 trillion as of March 31 2021, up 48% year-over-year. As a point of comparison, the combined GDP of the U.S. and China was $35.7 trillion in 2020.

    In today’s graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross uses PwC data to show the world’s biggest businesses by market capitalization, as well as the countries and sectors they are from.

    The Top 100, Ranked

    PwC ranked the largest publicly-traded companies by their market capitalization in U.S. dollars. It’s also worth noting that sector classification is based on the FTSE Russell Industry Classification Benchmark, and a company’s location is based on where its headquarters are located.

    Within the ranking, there was a wide disparity in value. Apple was worth over $2 trillion, more than 16 times that of Anheuser-Busch (AB InBev), which took the 100th spot at $128 billion.

    In total, 59 companies were headquartered in the United States, making up 65% of the top 100’s total market capitalization. China and its regions was the second most common location for company headquarters, with 14 companies on the list.

    Risers and Fallers

    What are some of the notable changes to the biggest companies in the world compared to last year’s ranking?

    Tesla’s market capitalization surged by an eye-watering 565%, temporarily making Elon Musk the richest person in the world. Food delivery platform Meituan and PayPal benefited from growing e-commerce popularity with their market capitalizations growing by 221% and 151% respectively.

    Tech companies TSMC and ASML Holdings were also among the top 10 risers, thanks to a shortage of semiconductor chips and growing demand.

    On the other end of the scale, Swiss companies Nestlé, Novartis, and Roche Holding were all among the bottom 10 companies by market capitalization growth. China Mobile was the only company to decline with a -12% change. The company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange as a result of an executive order issued by former president Donald Trump, and recently announced its intention to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

    A Sector View

    Across the 100 biggest companies in the world, some sectors had higher weightings.

    Technology had the highest market capitalization and was also the most common sector, with Big Tech dominating the top 10. Companies in the consumer discretionary, financials, and health care sectors also had a strong representation in the ranking.

    Despite having only five companies on the list, the energy sector amounted to almost 10% of the top 100’s market capitalization, mostly due to Saudi Aramco’s whopping valuation.

    An Uncertain Recovery

    From near market lows on March 31, 2020, all sectors saw increases in their market capitalization. However, top 100 companies in some sectors outperformed their respective industry index, while others did not.

    Basic materials and industrials, both cyclical sectors, were high performers in the top 100 and outperformed their respective industry indexes. Technology companies also outperformed, and accounted for $255 billion or 31% of all shareholder distributions by the top 100, far more than any other sector. Apple alone spent $73 billion on share buybacks and $14 billion in dividends in the 2020 calendar year.

    On the other hand, the worst-performing sectors in the top 100 were health care, utilities, and energy. While the index performance for health care and utilities was also relatively poor, the wider energy sector performed fairly well.

    It’s perhaps not surprising that all sectors saw positive returns since their low levels in March 2020, buoyed by fiscal stimulus and central bank policies. As countries begin to reopen, will the value of the biggest companies in the world continue to climb?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 23:00

  • Trump Huddles With GOP Congress Members To Plan How To Flip House In 2022
    Trump Huddles With GOP Congress Members To Plan How To Flip House In 2022

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    About a dozen Republicans in the House of Representatives met with former President Donald Trump this week, going over the border crisis and how the GOP plans to flip the lower chamber in 2022.

    Then-President Donald Trump speaks to media before departing on Marine One en route to Ohio and Texas, from the White House South Lawn in Washington on Aug. 7, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    Leaders of the Republican Study Committee, which bills itself as the largest conservative caucus in the House, went to Florida to meet with the former president.

    The committee said the meeting included a discussion of “the challenges facing our nation.”

    “From securing our border to combatting soaring inflation and the deficit, #RSC is fighting for working families. Thank you President Trump, for developing an agenda that puts Americans first!” it said, sharing photographs of Trump with members.

    “It was so great meeting with President Trump last night to discuss a number of conservative priorities. From border security and election integrity to inflation and beyond,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.).

    Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), chairman of the committee, told the New York Post that most of the nearly two-hour meeting was about the work the panel is doing to fight for what he described as “the Trump agenda.”

    “We talked about our election integrity bill, The Save Democracy Act, which he was very supportive of, and we talked about what we’ve done to define immigration moving forward,” he said.

    Republicans flipped 15 House seats, primarily from Democrats, in the 2020 presidential election. The GOP remains in the minority, with an eight-seat deficit, but is confident it can take back control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms, though Democrats believe they’ll retain control.

    Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 27, 2019. (York Du/NTD)

    “We believe we take back the majority by focusing on the Trump agenda, and President Trump plays a big role in that,” Banks said.

    “He’s obviously planning to go out and hit the road and campaign for candidates who share our vision, and we were excited to talk to him about that.”

    “We have arrived at an understanding with a broad unity within the Republican Study Committee and recognizing that the Trump agenda is the winning agenda, we will win back the majority in ’22 and the White House in 2024 so Republicans can run on the Trump agenda,” he added to Breitbart News, explaining that the platform includes tough immigration policies, legislation to rein in Big Tech, and election integrity bills like the Save Democracy Act.

    Trump has not publicly commented on the meeting, nor has his spokesman, Jason Miller. But Trump will soon be more visible after largely staying out of the spotlight after leaving the presidency because of how much he opposes the President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agenda, Banks said.

    “He feels like he has a duty to get back out and hold on, hold the rallies, engage with the American people and weigh in on how disastrous the Biden-Pelosi agenda is for our country,” he said. “So I think we’re getting … we’re gonna be seeing a lot more of him. And I think that’s good for Republicans. It’s good for … it’s good for America.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 22:30

  • Pentagon Announces $150 Million In Defense Aid To Ukraine For Bolstering Borders With Russia
    Pentagon Announces $150 Million In Defense Aid To Ukraine For Bolstering Borders With Russia

    Days ahead of the June 16 Biden-Putin summit in Geneva, the Pentagon announced a $150 million defense allocation for Ukraine to help “bolster its borders against Russia.” 

    A Friday Defense Department statement detailed that the large package for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative includes “training, equipment, and advisory efforts to help Ukraine’s forces preserve the country’s territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO.”

    Via Reuters: Prior Ukrainian army parade in Kyiv with U.S.-supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles.

    The statement further notes that it will fund “counter-artillery radars, counter-unmanned aerial systems, secure communications gear, electronic warfare and military medical evacuation equipment, and training and equipment to improve the operational safety and capacity of Ukrainian Air Force bases.”

    It’s being made available through the State Department’s foreign military financing budget, and was previously approved by Congress on a conditional basis for fiscal year 2021, based on whether Ukraine would meet “progress” on ongoing anti-corruption efforts and reforms. 

    On this front, the Pentagon said it “was able to certify that Ukraine has made sufficient progress on defense reforms this year,” according to press secretary John Kirby.

    Meanwhile, leaders in Kiev have continued their recent renewed push to be fast-tracked for NATO membership, and all of this will no doubt add to already soaring tensions going into the Biden-Putin meeting. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The White House indicated on Saturday morning that President Biden plans to appear in a solo press conference following this upcoming week’s meeting with Putin in Switzerland, instead of the usual joint presser that’s more typical of such bilateral summits, saying it’s necessary for the US President to interact with a “free press” – though we fail to see how that wouldn’t be the case if it also included Putin. 

    “We expect this meeting to be candid and straightforward and a solo press conference is the appropriate format to clearly communicate with the free press the topics that were raised in the meeting—both in terms of areas where we may agree and in areas where we have significant concerns,” a White House official said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 22:00

  • Group Of Seven Illustrates Existential Global Problem Not Solution
    Group Of Seven Illustrates Existential Global Problem Not Solution

    Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The G7 represents much about the world order that is totally unsustainable: elite wealth promoting false conflicts among nations instead of implementing genuine cooperation and peace.

    Posing as problem-solvers of the globe’s ills, the leaders of the so-called Group of Seven (G7) nations are gathered in an English seaside resort this weekend for an annual summit. It’s a spectacle that has lost any illusion of luster. Indeed, the gathering of such an elitist and effete group looks ridiculous against the backdrop of urgent global needs for cooperation and development.

    A fawning media headline hailed the forum as “democracy’s most exclusive club”. How’s that for an absurd contradiction that inadvertently speaks of grotesque reality?

    It is US President Joe Biden’s first overseas trip since he entered the White House nearly five months ago. He will be convening with counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan, as well as leaders of the European Union.

    The G7 forum has existed since 1976 and it is a fair question to ask what has it ever achieved in terms of actually helping global development? The forum has become something of an anachronism that no longer reflects the realities of a world that has changed significantly from nearly half a century ago.

    The G7 nations claim to represent over 70 percent of the world’s wealth. Yet in economic output terms, the group currently accounts for only about 30 percent. The imbalance speaks of shameful structural inequality and therefore the so-called advanced group is really an emblematic sign of the problem that Western capitalism creates, not solves.

    There is a palpable sense of embarrassing spectacle. Posing as “great and good” the politicians in Cornwall look “impotent and frivolous”. In the past year, the world has been hit by a pandemic and most of the globe’s 7.7 billion population remains unvaccinated while the United States and Britain have hoarded their supplies of vaccines. Biden comes to the summit “pledging” that the US will soon donate 500 million doses of anti-Covid-19 shots to the rest of the world. That offer has been dismissed as a “drop in the bucket” given the billions of people needing immunization.

    Yet the American president and his “elite” allies are posing as saviors of the world, a world that they have largely ignored.

    If G7 leaders had any genuine intention of global development, they would seek to work with other major nations instead of demarcating the world into artificial camps under misleading labels of “democracies” and “autocracies”. The latter pejorative term has been applied to China and Russia. Both of these nations have done much more in getting vaccines to other countries, only to be disparaged by Western opponents for having alleged cynical interests in using “vaccine diplomacy”.

    The elitism and divisiveness that underlies the concept of G7 is something that should be repudiated as a relic of a bygone era.

    Today, China is the world’s biggest economy, according to some reckoning. Or at least the second biggest after the United States. China has overtaken the US as the largest trade partner for the European Union. Why isn’t its leader, President Xi Jinping, attending the forum in England this weekend?

    Apologists would say because the group has “shared values” of “democracy” and “human rights” which China does not possess. Sorry, but that sounds like lame excuses for making gratuitous global divisions. The real reason is that the G7 is an instrument for asserting American hegemony and trying to exclude perceived rivals.

    The arbitrariness of the G7 is an indication that it is a political construct for partisan objectives.

    Back in 2008, the group abruptly became the G8 after the admission of Russia to the fold. That was during the leadership of Boris Yeltsin whom the United States was trying to co-opt as part of its global hegemony. When Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin and charted a more independent geopolitical course, then Russia fell out of favor with the Americans and their Western partners. In 2014, the Ukraine crisis engendered by Western meddling provided the pretext for ejecting Russia from the club. Not that Moscow gives a fig about that.

    But the point is the arbitrariness and anomalies that make up the G7.

    It’s a petty theater to showcase Western elite concerns rather than the democratic concerns of humanity. For his part, President Biden wants to demonstrate that “America is back” after four years of policy chaos under his predecessor Donald Trump. In doing so, Biden is trying to corral Western partners to adopt a more hostile stance towards China and Russia. He is due to meet with the Russian leader on June 16 in Geneva, and the G7 has been used as a platform for Biden to espouse belligerence towards Russia. What’s that got to do with solving a pandemic crisis, addressing climate change, or promoting global development to improve the lives of billions of poor? Precisely, none.

    For British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, he gets the chance to play a “world statesman” (instead of the buffoon that he really is) who is supposedly rebranding his nation as “Global Britain” following the ragged and bitter departure from the European Union.

    It’s easy to dismiss the Group of Seven as a useless talking shop for pompous politicians. Yes, it is that of course. Nevertheless, the manifest consequences are serious enough and should focus global efforts to seek real solutions, rather than indulge in vain distractions. What the group signifies is the apartheid world that Western capitalism creates: massive inequality and the futile destructiveness of foisting divisive relations onto the rest of the world that leads to conflict and ultimately war.

    With bitter irony one of the subjects on the agenda this weekend is “sustainable development”. The G7 represents much about the world order that is totally unsustainable: elite wealth promoting false conflicts among nations instead of implementing genuine cooperation and peace.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 21:30

  • Bank of America: Everyone Knows The Fed Will Stop Tapering As Soon As The S&P Drops 10%
    Bank of America: Everyone Knows The Fed Will Stop Tapering As Soon As The S&P Drops 10%

    There has been much discussion and fierce debate whether the current blast of inflation is permanent, or as the recent sharp drop in bond yields and breakevens despite ever higher CPI prints, which are now annualizing 8.3% or the highest since 1092…

    … and which we discussed on Friday in “Here’s Why The “Reflation” Trade Is Collapsing“, the market is already fading the current spike in prices in anticipation of deflation. This is, in fact, the $64 trillion question.

    But what if the market is not actually bothering with timing the inflation peak, nor extrapolating how much longer the current inflationary swell can deflect the deflationary continental drift that has been unleashed by the triple-3Ds of debt, demographics and disruption over the past decade. What if the market is far more pragmatic and is merely pricing in the fact that any upcoming taper will force the Fed to untaper yet again.

    That’s the argument made by BofA CIO Michael Hartnett who in his latest “flow show” report writes that “nobody knows how to trade inflation, everybody knows how to trade “don’t fight the Fed.”

    What does he mean by that?

    Well, when looking at stubbornly negative real rates, which DB’s Jim Reid discussed on Friday when he pointed out that the current gap between 10yr US yields (1.5%) and US CPI (5.0%) is a whopping 3.5%, the highest since 1980 (In fact, the gap has only been more negative for 10 months in the last 70 years, all of which were in 1974, 1975 or 1980)…

    … he said that this is a clear sign that the market views the Fed’s taper is nothing more than  “paper tiger” because investors know Fed will stop tapering at first hint of trouble, most likely the moment the S&P drops 10%.

    Meanwhile, the market’s liquidity addiction remains, even though speculative froth has been hit in stocks & crypto (Chart 3), for now, but it is now swinging back to IG & junk credit (Chart 4).

    This means that trader sentiment now is that “it’s a free call option on credit & stocks” until “return-to-office” Sept payroll (released Oct 8th), the taper announcement some time around Jackson Hole in late August, and return of Goldilocks as macro cannot get any hotter  as the (combo of inflation & labor shortages at US small businesses is the highest since 1974.

    And yet, to BofA this is not an “all clear” sign; instead, the surging wage growth (which however will reverse in September when extended payroll benefits end), means lower yields are transitory and H2 stagflation means risk-return for stocks (+3-5% vs -10-15%) poor.

    There is another ‘simple’ reason why BofA sees the inflation trade ending: inflation itself. As a reminder, soaring prices are about to crush record profit margins (companies can’t pass on the full input cost spike to consumers even if they tried), and as the chart below shows, global EPS peaked around +40% YoY in April according to BofA Global EPS Model (driven by China FCI, Asia exports, global PMI, US yield curve).

    Additionally, not only is the Fed’s monetary stimulus about to be tapered: fiscal stimulus has also peaked (infrastructure hopes for $2tn down to $1tn)…

    … and jump in inflation (headline up 8.4% annualized in past 3 months = 9th fastest since WW2 – Chart 8) will reduce purchasing power and spending (US homebuilding stocks an excellent example of market anticipating inflation negatively impacting spending on real estate).

    As Hartnett concludes it is “little wonder “peak CPI” since WW2 has led to 67bps drop in Treasury yields in following 3-months (Table 1); so Q3 should see defensives outperform cyclicals.”

    Finally for those who are still unconvinced and believe there is much more to the inflation is here to stay vs inflation is transitory argument, the BofA CIO says that there is a quick and dirty way to determine the temporal nature of inflation, and it has to do with jobs and wages after the current “Biden benefits” run out.

    Consider that last week we learned US unemployment claims dropped to 385k, closing in on pre-COVID average of 300k; while small company job offerings are off-the-charts. However, that’s all about to reverse: by end-June 21 states (representing 27% of labor market) will opt out of extended unemployment benefits (by Sept 5th benefits end in all 50 states).

    So putting those variables together, Hartnett concludes that “if July/Aug payrolls show jobs ↑, Average Hourly Eearnings ↓ stay-of-execution for Goldilocks; but if jobs ↑, AHE ↑ = inflation here to stay.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 21:00

  • Real Interest Rates Suggest It's A Good Time To Buy And Hold Gold
    Real Interest Rates Suggest It’s A Good Time To Buy And Hold Gold

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Let’s investigate the relationship between real interest rates and the price of gold.

    Real means inflation adjusted. 

    I calculated the real interest rate by subtracting year-over-year CPI from the current 3-month T-bill yield. 

    One could also use the Fed Funds Rate or 1-month T-Bill rate as the yields are all about the same. 

    The following chart puts the negative interest rate theory to the test,

    Real Interest Rate vs Price of Gold 

    The chart above shows the monthly gold close, not monthly highs. That explains why the 1980 top does not show.

    Synopsis

    Gold took off in the stagflation years then collapsed from $850 to $250 an ounce with inflation every step of the way.

    Note that between 1980 and 2000, the Fed kept real interest rates in positive territory except for one minor and brief moment.

    In response to the DotCom bust, housing bust,  and Covid-19 recessions, rates have been generally negative.

    The first question mark around 2006, gold kept rising despite positive rates, but that is if one believes the CPI. If one factors in housing, real rates were indeed quite negative.

    One might also argue the chart reflects anticipation of the financial stress of a housing collapse.

    The second question mark pertains to ECB president Mario Draghi’s statement “We will do whatever it takes to save the Euro and believe me, it will be enough”.  

    Simultaneously, in the US, expectations there was endless speculation about Fed normalization, ending QE, Tapering, hiking rates, etc. 

    People actually believed the Fed would do all those things and that made for a rough spell as gold fell from over $1900 an ounce to around $1100.

    Timing vs Magnitude

    Real interest rates suggest nothing about magnitude of the move. Rather, it’s a directional indicator. 

    It goes along with what I have stated previously about faith in central banks. 

    When the Fed has positive real rates, gold tends to do poorly. 

    Real interest rates approached 7% in early 1980’s. If that happened now, the 3-month T-bill would yield an astonishing 12%. 

    How likely is that?

    *  *  *

    Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts. Subscribers get an email alert of each post as they happen.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 20:30

  • Thor Industries Now Has $14 Billion Order Backlog Amid Booming Demand For RVs 
    Thor Industries Now Has $14 Billion Order Backlog Amid Booming Demand For RVs 

    About two months after we discussed recreational vehicles are “on pace for a blowout year“ and “sales just hit an all-time high,” we got the latest confirmation from Thor Industries CEO Bob Martin. He spoke with Jim Cramer on “Mad Money” earlier this week about the manufacturer’s massive order backlog. 

    Thor Industries — Airstream, Heartland RV, Jayco, Livin Lite RV, and others — first began to experience an uptick in sales after lockdowns ended in May and June 2020. Without a vaccine, people were too afraid to fly or stay in hotels or resorts, so they bought campers and traveled. The RV industry also saw a lot of first-time buyers, especially with the millennial generation. 

    The RV boom has left many dealers with limited inventory or even empty lots. Thor’s backlog of orders is a whopping $14.32 billion as of late April, the company’s latest filing said. That’s up 32.5% from $10.81 billion at the end of January and up 550% from a year ago.

    Martin told Cramer in an interview on Tuesday evening that the company is “pretty much sold out for the next year” with new RV inventory already headed to customers instead of sitting on dealers’ lots. 

    “We have backlogs that are full of retail orders, so those will hit the dealer’s lot and then leave, and so we’re still not able to build inventory at our dealer’s lots,” he said.

    Without the ability to build inventory at dealer lots, one would suspect an RV shortage for Thor brands is developing. 

    The virus pandemic rewired people’s brains as they became more in touch with the outdoors and explored small towns and parks rather than big cities and resorts. 

    “Right now, we see this as a long-term trend, and if we get people in at an entry-level price and entry-level product, they grow throughout their lifetime,” he said. “People trade every 3 to 5 years, but right now we’re seeing it a little bit quicker, and we see this for a long runway.”

    At the moment, the company’s North American supplies are quickly dwindling to about 75,000 RVs last quarter, down from 106,000 in 2020, and well below 132,500 in 2019. 

    This seems like an RV shortage is in the making, which suggests that used RV prices should increase in price. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 20:00

  • A "Slippery, Bootlicking A.G."? MSM Goes Silent As Garland Sides With Barr's 'Controversial' Positions
    A “Slippery, Bootlicking A.G.”? MSM Goes Silent As Garland Sides With Barr’s ‘Controversial’ Positions

    The media has caught a not-so-curious case of amnesia when it comes to Attorney General Merrick Garland – who’s been royally pissing off Biden supporters after the DOJ has shown an increased tendency to side with the Trump administration in legal wranglings that were considered ‘bombshell’ controversies under AG Barr.

    Unpacking the hypocrisy is legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who notes the MSM’s glaring double standards:

    Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org (emphasis ours)

    When Joe Biden nominated Merrick Garland to be attorney general, many — including me — heralded Garland as an honorable, apolitical judge who would follow the law. He was not, the Washington Post editors insisted, “a lackey who will serve as the president’s personal attorney” like Donald Trump‘s AGs. Garland has indeed followed the law, but some are not thrilled by where it has taken him.

    President Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has adopted some of the same positions taken by the Trump administration that a host of legal and media experts once denounced. This week, the DOJ sought to replace itself as the defendant in a lawsuit against Trump brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump raped her. The week before, it sought to dismiss a Black Lives Matter lawsuit over the clearing of Lafayette Park during a June 2020 protest.

    This time last year, both positions were cited by legal and media experts as grotesque examples of then-Attorney General Bill Barr’s political bias. Now, those same experts are silent as Garland takes the same positions Barr took in federal court.

    Garland is free, of course, to reject prior legal positions of Barr, but he has reached the same conclusion as his predecessor on several points of law thus far. In yet another adherence to Trump-era policy, the DOJ will defend opposing the ability of Puerto Ricans to receive social security disability benefits before the Supreme Court. Likewise, Garland agreed with Barr that a DOJ memo finding no legal basis for an obstruction charge against Trump should not be released to the public in its entirety.

    Is Garland a Trumpist mole, part of some “deep state” resistance to his own president? Or is the more likely alternative that some in the media and many others in politics or the law knowingly distorted past legal controversies to use those as political fodder against Trump?

    The general lack of media criticism — or even coverage — has never been more striking than with the latest filing in the Carroll case. In November 2019, Carroll sued Trump, claiming he defamed her when he denied sexually assaulting her. She alleges that Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s.

    The Biden administration has told the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that it — rather than Trump — should be the defendant because his comments were made as part of his official capacity as president. Said the Biden DOJ: “Courts have thus consistently and repeatedly held that allegedly defamatory statements made in that context are within the scope of elected officials’ employment — including when the statements were prompted by press inquiries about the official’s private life.”

    That is the identical position taken by then-AG Barr last year.

    A district court rejected that effort, and the Trump administration appealed. While I disagree with the treatment of any such statements as part of a president’s official duties, I stated at the time that there was support for the position in the governing federal statute and case law.

    However, some media outlets featured an array of experts who denounced Barr’s legal move. Vanity Fair was typical of the coverage with a column titled “Bill Barr Sinks To New Low, Uses Justice Department To Try To Kill Trump’s Rape Defamation Suit.” In it, writer Bess Levin explained that the move proved that Barr was “willing not just to do [Trump’s] dirty work but to do it completely out in the open and without a scintilla of shame.” Citing the DOJ effort to replace Trump as a party in the suit, Levin declared that experts confirmed that “this special arrangement is wholly unique to Trump and his slippery, bootlicking A.G.” She cited University of Texas law professor and CNN legal analyst Steve Vladeck and an array of other experts cited in a New York Times article. The Times wrote how “some current and former Justice Department lawyers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, echoed Mr. Vladeck’s concerns, saying they were stunned that the department had been asked to defend Trump in Ms. Carroll’s case.”

    One would expect that these same media outlets and experts would denounce Garland now as another “slippery, bootlicking A.G.” doing Trump dirty work. But … no.

    The same is true with the Biden DOJ ‘s recent filing in the BLM lawsuit. Last year news stories stated as fact that Barr ordered Lafayette Park to be cleared of protesters to make way for Trump’s controversial photo op before St. John’s Church. From the outset, the Trump/Barr conspiracy claim had little support, and soon there were reports contradicting it. As I explained in my testimony to Congress on the protest, the plan to clear the park area to establish a wider perimeter was due to an extreme level of violence by protesters over the preceding two days, including the injury of a high number of federal officers. The violence was so great that Trump had to be moved to a bunker. (An IG investigation debunked the conspiracy theory). None of that mattered. Viewers on CNN, MSNBC, and other news outlets wanted to hear that it was all a conspiracy. Experts like Vladeck continued to claim that Barr ordered federal officers “to forcibly clear protestors in Lafayette Park to achieve a photo op for Trump.”

    Now the Biden administration is arguing that the BLM case should be dismissed. Moreover, it is advancing the same position as Barr’s DOJ that “Presidential security is a paramount government interest that weighs heavily in the Fourth Amendment balance.” The DOJ’s counsel, John Martin, added that “federal officers do not violate First Amendment rights by moving protesters a few blocks, even if the protesters are predominantly peaceful.”

    The Biden administration is not reluctant to change positions in litigation when it disagrees with the prior administration. However, in these cases the Biden administration insists that Barr was right on the law, even if it disagrees with Trump’s statements themselves. That would likely come as a surprise to many viewers of CNN or MSNBC.

    Reasonable people can disagree about such legal disputes — but the point of much of the past coverage was that there was no real dispute, just raw political abuse by Barr.

    As we watch the anger and divisions growing in our nation, we need to be honest about the role that media coverage continues to play in our age of rage. It is little surprise that many are enraged when legal experts state as a fact that the Justice Department is acting without legal basis; that makes for undeniably good ratings. Now that the ratings have receded, however, the law has again emerged — with the Biden administration in full agreement with its predecessor’s legal arguments.

    Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 19:30

  • Visualizing The History Of US Inflation Over 100 Years
    Visualizing The History Of US Inflation Over 100 Years

    Is inflation rising?

    The consumer price index (CPI), an index used as a proxy for inflation in consumer prices, offers some answers. In 2020, inflation dropped to 1.4%, the lowest rate since 2015. By comparison, inflation sits around 5.0% as of June 2021.

    Given how the economic shock of COVID-19 depressed prices, rising price levels make sense. However, as Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld notes, other variables, such as a growing money supply and rising raw materials costs, could factor into rising inflation.

    To show current price levels in context, this Markets in a Minute chart from New York Life Investments shows the history of inflation over 100 years.

    U.S. Inflation: Early History

    Between the founding of the U.S. in 1776 to the year 1914, one thing was for sure – wartime periods were met with high inflation.

    At the time, the U.S. operated under a classical Gold Standard regime, with the dollar’s value tied to gold. During the Civil War and World War I, the U.S. went off the Gold Standard in order to print money and finance the war. When this occurred, it triggered inflationary episodes, with prices rising upwards of 20% in 1918.

    However, when the government returned to a modified Gold Standard, deflationary periods followed, leading prices to effectively stabilize, on average, leading up to World War II.

    The Move to Bretton Woods

    Like post-World War I, the Great Depression of the 1930s coincided with deflationary pressures on prices. Due to the rigidity of the monetary system at the time, countries had difficulty increasing money supply to help boost their economy. Many countries exited the Gold Standard during this time, and by 1933 the U.S. abandoned it completely.

    A decade later, with the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, global currency exchange values pegged to the dollar, while the dollar was pegged to gold. The U.S. held the majority of gold reserves, and the global reserve currency transitioned from the sterling pound to the dollar.

    1970’s Regime Change

    By 1971, the ability for gold to cover the supply of U.S. dollars in circulation became an increasing concern.

    Leading up to this point, a surplus of money supply was created due to military expenses, foreign aid, and others. In response, President Richard Nixon abandoned the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1971 for a floating exchange, known as the “Nixon shock”. Under a floating exchange regime, rates fluctuate based on supply and demand relative to other currencies.

    A few years later, oil shocks of 1973 and 1974 led inflation to soar past 12%. By 1979, inflation surged in excess of 13%.

    The Volcker Era

    In 1979, Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker was sworn in, and he introduced stark changes to combat inflation that differed from previous regimes.

    Instead of managing inflation through interest rates, which the Federal Reserve had done previously, inflation would be managed through controlling the money supply. If the money supply was limited, this would cause interest rates to increase.

    While interest rates jumped to 20% in 1980, by 1983 inflation dropped below 4% as the economy recovered from the recession of 1982, and oil prices rose more moderately. Over the last four decades, inflation levels have remained relatively stable since the measures of the Volcker era were put in place.

    Fluctuating Prices Over History

    Throughout U.S. history. there have been periods of high inflation.

    As the chart below illustrates, at least four distinct periods of high inflation have emerged between 1800 and 2010. The GDP deflator measurement shown accounts for the price change of all of an economy’s goods and services, as opposed to the CPI index which is a fixed basket of goods.

    It is measured as GDP Price Deflator = (Nominal GDP ÷ Real GDP) × 100.

    According to this measure, inflation hit its highest levels in the 1910s, averaging nearly 8% annually over the decade. Between 1914 and 1918 money supply doubled to finance war efforts, compared to a 25% increase in GDP during this period.

    U.S. Inflation: Present Day

    As the U.S. economy reopens, consumer demand has strengthened.

    Meanwhile, supply bottlenecks, from semiconductor chips to lumber, are causing strains on automotive and tech industries. While this points towards increasing inflation, some suggest that it may be temporary, as prices were depressed in 2020.

    At the same time, the Federal Reserve is following an “average inflation targeting” regime, which means that if a previous inflation shortfall occurred in the previous year, it would allow for higher inflationary periods to make up for them. As the last decade has been characterized by low inflation and low interest rates, any prolonged period of inflation will likely have pronounced effects on investors and financial markets.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 19:00

  • Seattle Police Crack Down On Shoplifting, 53 Arrested In One Day
    Seattle Police Crack Down On Shoplifting, 53 Arrested In One Day

    By John Sexton of HotAir

    Last year there was a proposal circulating in the Seattle City Council to consider making drug abuse and mental disorders a defense against most misdemeanor crimes. In essence, that would have been a green light for an army of homeless shoplifters to steal at will knowing they’d face no chance of being punished. But it appears Seattle police have decided to do something about aggressive shoplifters. This Wednesday they arrested 53 shoplifters in 9 separate stores:

    “These are organized groups that hit retailers with the sole purpose of stealing to either resell them or use them as currency for other things,” said Sgt. Randy Huserik, public information officer for the Seattle Police Department…

    Huserik said large retailers and grocery stores have been losing thousands of dollars in merchandise due to ongoing problems with organized theft groups. He said some places are still struggling to recover from the pandemic.

    “Not only does that impact the store itself with their losses and their bottom line, but the every-day people who walk into those stores that are buying things from those stores because of the losses those stores are sustaining, they have to raise their prices and then that impacts everybody,” said Huserik.

    These cases will now be passed of to King County Prosecutor. Hopefully their office will follow through and put some of these people in prison.

    Most big retailers have a policy of not chasing shoplifters through the store. This case from a Staples store in Seattle shows what can go wrong if workers get too aggressive pursuing thieves:

    [Elizabeth] Pratt was shopping at the Staples in Burien in August 2018 when a teenager suddenly rushed past her, knocking the then 85-year-old to the ground.

    According to reports filed by King County Sheriff’s Deputies, the collision happened as the juvenile suspect was “running from employees.” Pratt and her attorneys believe Staples workers should have let the suspected shoplifter go.

    Mike Kelly, of Gehrke Baker Doull Kelly Attorneys at Law in Des Moines, said “over-pursuing, or overly aggressively pursuing shoplifters” to the point where “non-involved, innocent business invitees or shoppers” can be injured fails to protect the public. Kelly believes Staples employees failed in their duty to protect Pratt the day she broke her hip.

    There’s video of this incident and it was clearly the shoplifter who knocked over Mrs. Pratt. But because a store employee was trying to get to him before he could leave the store is being sued. To ensure employees don’t get aggressive, many stores let them know they can be fired for even trying to stop a shoplifter.

    But those policies designed to avoid lawsuits mean retailers are often at the mercy of local police to try to discourage this behavior. And in some locations, that just doesn’t happen. Last tear I wrote about the absolute looting of drug stores in San Francisco. All workers could do as people walked out with armloads of merchandise was make sarcastic comments. A number of Walgreens locations were shut down in San Francisco because they had been stripped bare.

    In Seattle, retailers have complained for years about the lack of attention to this problem. Last February KOMO News did a story about it:

    One complaint is that shoplifters are sometimes set free hours after being arrested. Mindy Longanecker with the Seattle City Attorney’s Office said the laws around holding people in custody prior to a trial are set by the state, not local prosecutors.

    “If you are upset with those laws, that is out of our hands,” Longanecker said. “That is in the hands of the Legislature.”

    Another perception is that shoplifting simply doesn’t get prosecuted. Officials said it depends on the facts of the case, but the reality is that trials are expensive.

    “There is something of a cost-benefit analysis, particularly if this person is not a prolific offender, whether or not we prosecute,” Longanecker said.

    In short, prosecuting someone over $100 theft doesn’t make a lot of sense, but what if that person is actually stealing that much day after day from a number retailers? At some point the legal system has to put a stop to it if for no other reason than to send a message.

    So it’s good to see Seattle PD making an effort to do something about this, but given the other problems Seattle has dealing with homeless people and repeat offenders it’s going to take a lot more than a one day effort to really see any change.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 18:30

  • Mexican Drug Cartel Unveils "Grupo Elite" Special Forces Unit Hunting Rivals
    Mexican Drug Cartel Unveils “Grupo Elite” Special Forces Unit Hunting Rivals

    Drug cartels such as the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, have upgraded their arsenals with an elite special forces unit, according to atlas.news. 

    CJNG released a video of their “Grupo Elite” otherwise known as special forces team, “outfitted with signal jammers and heavily modified rifles,” said atlas.news. The video also shows the unit in what appears to be a bulletproof vehicle. 

    CJNG released the video (watch here) on the prospects of expanding their control into Naucalpan de Juárez, a city located just northwest of Mexico City in the neighboring State of Mexico. They appear to be threatening local drug lord Nestor Arturo Lopez Arellano, otherwise known as “El 20.”

    In the video, a Sicario says, “Citizens of Naucalpan. We are already here for one sole objective. And that’s for all the cheap and dirty scumbags, the sons of bitches who are collecting fees, and extorting. You’re charging a tariff with citizens who work honestly. As well with public transportation workers. This message goes out to you Nestor Arturo Lopez Arellano.”

    He continued his saying, “We’re going to be stationed here in Naucalpan. Regardless of where you choose to run away. We will be right behind you. Because you made the mistake of getting involved with the monster of numerous heads. We respect citizens who work for society. We respect the authorities who do their jobs honestly. But the policemen who are on your side. That have sold themselves out for a miserable sum of money,” adding that “They’ve sold out to stop protecting the honest workers of society. We haven’t come here to extort anyone. Much less to keep this fucking drug corridor. We’ve all come here to take you out. So that the citizens of Naucalpan can be allowed to work without worries.” – atlas.news

    Last year, CJNG released a video displaying a convoy of armored vehicles with dozens of combat-uniformed gunmen.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    CJNG — which is known for kidnappings, torture, and murders across Mexico and the US, has been blamed for the fentanyl crisis. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 18:00

  • Answering The "$64 Trillion Question": A New Theory Of Inflation
    Answering The “$64 Trillion Question”: A New Theory Of Inflation

    By Michael Every, Elwin de Groot and Philip Marey of Rabobank

    A structural inflation framework outlook

    Summary

    • This special report looks at the ‘hot topic’ of ‘hot’ inflation, and asks if it is really back to stay 

    • Inflation is crucial for financial markets, but we lack an accurate economic theory of what causes it, leading to inaccurate modelling and policy/forecasting errors

    • We draw a broader framework of the eight structural factors currently driving global inflation: a ‘bullwhip’ effect; the Fed; fiscal policy; speculators; psychology; Chinese demand; labour vs. capital; and the role of global supply chains/the distribution of production

    • We then look at how these factors can combine, and show which of them are the ‘prime-movers’ if global inflation is to return

    • This approach shows that understanding the global inflation outlook is currently more about (geo)politics/geoeconomics than it is about just economics or econometrics

    • We conclude that when encompassing this logic, the range of potential future inflation outcomes –and market reactions– varies hugely. Indeed, this is only to be expected given the implied structural, not cyclical, changes involved

    Inflation in inflations

    The topic of inflation is very much on the mind of markets and businesses. Despite a dip in recent weeks, Google Trends shows the highest global interest in the topic since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (Figure 1).

    One can see why inflation is a topic of discussion: it is supremely important in determining the valuation of tens of trillions of USD in global financial assets, from stocks to bonds to property to currencies. Moreover, after decades of slumber, its future direction is unclear.

    Some key measures of inflation are at multi-year or multi-decade highs: US CPI, ex- food and energy, on a rolling 3-month annuali\ed basis hit 5.6% in April, the highest since 1991; the US Michigan consumer sentiment survey year-ahead inflation expectations index rose to 4.6% in May, the highest level since August 2008 (Figure 2); the 10-year US breakeven inflation rate (a proxy for investor expectations) has also moved to 2013 levels (Figure 3); gold has started to climb since May; and despite recent dips in some commodities, the FAO’s global price index was the highest since 2014 in April (Figure 4).

    However, not all inflation indicators are moving in the same direction. Benchmark US 10-year Treasury yields are still around 1.55% rather than pushing to 2.00%; and Bitcoin, taken as a proxy inflation hedge, has also seen its price tumble (Figure 5).

    In short, will current high inflation prove “transitory”, as central banks tell us, or “sticky”, as consumer surveys suggest, or could it even break higher – or much lower? This is the proverbial ‘$64 trillion question’ given the scale of assets involved.

    If we could, we would

    The problem is, we seem universally incapable of answering it by forecasting inflation correctly!

    Figures 6 and 7 show the large forecast errors on inflation in the low-inflation and politically predictable Eurozone, as just one example. Figure 8 shows the market forecast of what the Fed was expected to do on interest rates in response to presumed inflation: it suggests that both markets and the Fed are flying blind – or very unlucky!

    …but we can’t

    This inaccuracy is rooted in the fact that in an ergodic sense, there is no one accepted, robust theory of how inflation actually works. (Indeed, what do we even mean by inflation – RPI/CPI/PPI? Headline/core? Goods, services, or assets?) For a smattering of examples of  the lack of agreement, and in strictly chronological order:

    • The Classical World said inflation was due to debasing the coinage – but this is of little value under today’s fiat money system;

    • Say said it is about supply, which creates its own demand and does not allow for gluts – but this is clearly not an observable outcome;

    • Marx said it is about money supply, cost-plus mark-ups, the Labour Theory of Value, and financialisation – but his teleological predictions failed;

    • George said it was about land prices – but this overlooks too many other factors;

    • Kondratiev said it was about long waves of technological development – but this cannot be modelled;

    • Keynes said it was about demand – but Keynesian inflation models are often very wrong;

    • Austrians said it was about debt creation – but that one cannot model the economy at all;

    • Post-Keynesians said it was a mixture of many factors, including the political – and also can’t be modelled;

    • Monetarists said it is about money creation – but monetarist inflation models are usually wrong;

    • Minsky said it was about debt creation and politics – and while we are moving closer this being modelled, markets and central banks are not there yet; and

    • Demographers argue it plays a key role – but it is hard to forecast, slow to play out – but then hits tipping points

    True, there are many areas of overlap in those different theories. Marx’s “fictitious capital” going into asset inflation, not productive investment, sounds Austrian; his “high prices caused by an over-issue of inconvertible paper money” sounds monetarist; polar opposites like Keynes and Friedman agree that inflation can be a stealth tax; and even rivals Minsky and the Austrians share many assumptions about the dangers of credit bubbles.

    However, there is no unified view of all the intersecting structural causes of inflation that can be modelled – and this is before we include issues such as productivity, and whether an economy is open or closed to international trade – China joining the WTO clearly had an impact on inflation that traditional models failed to incorporate.

    Structural, not cyclical

    Consequently, while supply vs. demand is a simple truth, inflation is a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary, structural phenomena.

    One can still forecast near-term cyclical changes in inflation with some degree of accuracy, just as for any economic variable with a relatively low level of month-to-month volatility. However, to make accurate long-run forecasts must involve understanding all the structural drivers, and how these can change over time.

    Here, existing market models fall short. As former Fed Governor Tarullo revealed in October 2017: “Central bankers are steering the economy without the benefit of a reliable theory of what drives inflation.”

    Indeed, inflation stayed low through the 1950s and 1960s – then surged in the late 1960s and 1970s, proving one set of official inflation models wrong. Inflation was proudly on target in the early 2000s, as we proclaimed ‘an end to boom and bust’ – right before the Global Financial Crisis, which ushered in a new world of inflation persistently below target.

    As we shall explore, perhaps we stand at another such structural juncture at present.

    Framework, not a theory; scenarios, not a model

    Crucially, this report does not pretend to offer a new holistic theory of inflation, or the belief that we can model it.

    Instead, we aim to describe what we believe to be the eight most important structural factors currently driving inflation (Figure 9) as a form of framework. These are: the ‘Bullwhip’ Effect; the Fed; fiscal policy; market positioning; psychology; Chinese demand; labour vs. capital; and the role of global supply chains/the distribution of production.

    We will explore each of these in turn ahead, and will then look at all the permutations of their various interactions, before showing which of the eight matter most, and so could potentially drive a return to global inflation.

    In short, only one combination of the three key factors leads in that direction – and while unlikely, this is now at least more plausible than at any time in the past four decades.

    However, as shall also be shown, even having just a few inflation factors does not mean it is easy to make macroeconomic forecast or model. Rather, we will outline just how wide the range of potential global inflation outcomes, and market reactions, still is.

    1) Bullwhip Effect

    Covid-19 and the recent Suez Canal blockage again exposed the weaknesses of our globalized system of production and international trade. Optimized ‘Just In Time’ supply chains are vulnerable to major disruption, just as they were to pre-Covid trade tensions.

    All have caused severe dislocations in demand, supply, and logistics. In turn, these are causing severe price fluctuations, as can be seen in commodity markets and gauges of producer prices. These are not new market phenomena, but the current scale is extraordinary. The  key questions are: i) how long these fluctuations will last; and ii) whether there is now also a structural component. To answer, we need to understand what is exactly going on: enter the ‘Bullwhip Effect’.

    Asymmetric information

    In a nut-shell, this occurs when there is an unexpected change in final (downstream) demand, which causes increasingly sharp variations in demand and supply as we move up the supply chain. Think of orders placed by consumers at a retailer, who in turn buys from a  wholesaler, who obtains the product from a manufacturer, and so on (Figure 10).

    The main cause of these variations is asymmetric information within the supply chain. As no one can entirely foresee the final demand situation downstream, there will be a tendency to rely on the information provided by the nearest customer in the chain. If that information is further limited to simply ‘orders placed’ by direct customers, rather than a reflection of the true state of actual final demand all the way down the stream, this is likely to cause a cascade of demand forecasting errors all the way back upstream.

    Of course, some of these errors could cancel each other out. Yet when there is a bias to exaggerate orders, perceived demand is likely to be amplified the further we travel up the supply chain. In particular, over-ordering is expected to take place when: i) current inventories are low; ii) prices are low and/or are expected to rise; or iii) the customer is expecting to be rationed by his or her suppliers (i.e. not all orders are likely to be fulfilled). Over-ordering tends to raise prices and, again, more so upstream than in the downstream part of the supply chain.

    An additional element is the logistics process: transport can be a major source of additional volatility. Bear in mind that it takes time (and therefore money) to move goods from A to B, and in the meantime they are of ‘out of view’ of the production chain, while transport costs can be volatile due to sharp fluctuation in global energy prices.

    Although information sharing and electronic data exchange solutions may help to offset some of these Bullwhip issues, it is also clear that a complex global supply-chain with limited infrastructure/transport alternatives raises the risks of asymmetric information issues and logistical chokepoints.

    A recent World Bank Report points out only a handful of sectors truly drove the expansion of Global Value Chains (GVCs) over 1995-2011: machinery, transport, and electrical and optical equipment. However, many businesses are finding out that even a single, seemingly-innocuous product can nowadays often be the result of manufacturing and assembly in multiple countries. Indeed, even those wishing to buy a garden shed or deckchair –let alone a semiconductor– are facing long delays and/or price hikes.

    So how does the Bullwhip Effect work in practice? Here’s a short narrative of what happened since Covid-19 struck:

    • In early 2020, China went into lockdown and closed a swathe of its factories, leading to a big drop in exports. This was aggravated by Europe and the US also locking down from February-March onwards, causing a significant drop in global trade;
    • In Q2, China began to reopen, and by mid-2020 its exports had rebounded. Weak demand kept global trade subdued, however;
    • As Chinese demand recovered into end-2020, US and EU exports did the same. Western households also bought more (imported) goods and fewer (local) services, pushing demand for freight up. Higher commodity prices, i.e., oil, and a misallocation of containers in Asia also saw shipping costs move sharply higher;
    • By early-2021, vaccine roll-out was starting, but many countries faced rising infections. In the US, the Democrats won Georgia’s two senate seats, potentially opening the door for massive fiscal stimulus, with a USD1.9 trillion package quickly passed. Demand for goods soared again, even though global logistics were not ready for the extra load, creating a further feedback loop; and
    • In March, the Suez canal was blocked for 6 days, creating a domino effect on global trade, and further exacerbating the above problems.

    We can illustrate parts of this Bullwhip Effect using German data, firstly because it is a key exporter of manufactured goods, and plays a key role in global value chains. From Q4 2020, orders started to outstrip output, and this gap consistently widened as time progressed; by March, growth of orders for German machinery hit 30% y/y (Figure 12).

    To illustrate what this does to prices, we show the assessment of inventory levels (Figure 13) and selling price expectations (Figure 14). These clearly illustrate inventories dropped off from 2020 onwards, and were seen as insufficient from the start of 2021. Even more telling is that this effect becomes more pronounced the further you travel up the supply chain. (Assuming basic metals and chemicals are upstream, fabricated metals, machinery, and wholesale are midstream, and retail is downstream). This in turn is translating into the sharpest increases in selling price expectations in the sectors most upstream. In other words, the Bullwhip Effect in practice. So what next?

    First, past price rises are still working through the supply chain; and given EU and US consumer demand is likely to recover as lockdown restrictions are eased –and if more fiscal stimulus is passed– the Bullwhip may have more sting in it yet. Indeed, producer prices upstream are likely to filter downstream, so broadening upward price pressures, even if this is a lagging cyclical phenomena rather than a structural one.

    However, as long as there are still large parts of the world grappling with the virus, we should expect logistics disruptions to play a significant role, suggesting firms will over order ‘just in case’. The closure of Shenzhen’s Yantian port, one of China’s busiest, is an example.

    Moreover, global trade flows may continue to face other disruptions, with larger ripple effects. Consider the accident at Taiwan’s Kaohsiung port (14th busiest in the world); protests at US ports; cyberattacks on a key US oil pipeline and major meat producers; and, potentially, the Russian threat to the neutrality of civilian airspace.

    Meanwhile, geopolitics –which we will explore as part of the final factor driving inflation– presents a potential risk of the Bullwhip Effect becoming more embedded in markets.

    2) The Fed

    It goes without saying that the central role of the Fed as either enabler or disabler of inflationary pressures cannot be overstated.

    For the Fed, the inflationary impact of reopening the economy does not come as a surprise. The central bank sees this as a temporary or “transitory” phenomenon which will fade once the economy is back to normal after Covid-19. In its eyes, during the reopening of the economy, mismatches between demand and supply are difficult to avoid. What’s more, restarted supply chains have trouble to keep up with pent-up demand. To add to the distortions, fiscal policy –more on which after this– is boosting personal consumer spending, while at the same time holding back labour supply through generous federal unemployment benefits (see section 7: Labour vs. Capital).
    Overall, the official view is that these mismatches between supply and demand in the markets for goods, services, and labour are causing upward pressure on wages and prices.

    In contrast to the Fed, markets and consumers are alarmed by the economic data and stories about supply bottlenecks, both from the Bullwhip Effect already covered, and the bigger picture geopolitical angle (which will be covered in section 8).

    These all come at the same time as the base effects that are pushing up year-on-year readings of inflation. Indeed, since we are now comparing the price level of a reopening economy with the price level of an economy in lockdown, we are getting high inflation numbers. On top of that, the demand-supply mismatches, visible in month-on-month data, are pushing up the year-on-year inflation rates even further. No wonder inflation expectations are rising and that bond investors are requiring a higher compensation for inflation.

    The Fed is pushing back against these expectations by repeatedly stressing the transitory nature of both the base effects and the supply bottlenecks caused by reopening the economy. After all, central bankers think it is crucial to keep long-term inflation expectations in check, because that is supposed to stabilize inflation at central bank target rates.

    The standard example of what could go wrong is a wage-price spiral, in which consumers demand higher wages because they expect higher prices. In turn, the higher wages will push prices up further, etc. (Again, see section 7).

    Fed speakers are right in explaining the transitory nature of base effects and supply bottlenecks caused by reopening.

     

    However, we fear they are not paying enough attention to the permanent shifts that are taking place in the global economy. For example, the strained geopolitics of recent years is leading to a rethinking of supply chains. This could have an inflationary impact that stretches beyond transitory. The recent reactions of most Fed speakers suggest that they do not spend a lot of time trying to understand such structural changes, and are still focused on inequality within the US.

    Worryingly, this means that any permanent impact of these changes will take them by surprise. It could very well be the case that the current monetary policy pursued by the Fed turns out to be far too accommodative, and its reaction function delayed.

    The Fed decided last year to change its monetary policy framework by shifting to ‘flexible average inflation targeting’ (FAIT). Instead of pre-emptive rate hikes to stabilize inflation near target, they are now willing to let inflation overshoot in order to make up for past undershoots. In other words, the Fed has moved into an extreme position, doubling down on the assumption that the Phillips curve is flat (after years of thinking it wasn’t).

    The current rate projections of the FOMC imply not a single rate hike before 2024. This means that the Fed will be even more “behind the curve” than other central banks when the permanent shifts in the global economy become visible in the inflation data.

    What’s more, the US is the country with the most expansive fiscal policy among the OECD, adding to the inflation risk (see the next section). At present, the Fed expects inflation to come down after “transitory” factors fade. However, if the structural changes on the supply side and the demand impulses from fiscal policy cause inflation to remain elevated, the Fed will be caught off guard – and we all know how destabilising for markets this can be.

    Crucially, we are seeing the risk of the Fed being behind the curve on inflation for the first time since the 1970s.

    The Summer of Taper Talk

    In the meantime, we are heading for a summer of ‘taper talk’. The minutes of the FOMC meeting on April 27-28 revealed that a number of participants suggested that if the economy continued to make rapid progress toward the Committee’s goals, it might be appropriate at some point in upcoming meetings to begin discussing a plan for adjusting the pace of asset purchases.

    Since the FOMC meeting, we have had a very disappointing and then a somewhat disappointing Employment Report, but also a CPI report massively stronger than market expectations, so that much awaited taper talk may be coming soon. Many participants highlighted the importance of the Committee clearly communicating its assessment of progress toward its longer-run goals well in advance of the time when it could be judged substantial enough to warrant a change in the pace of asset purchases.

    We think if unemployment falls to 4.5% in Q4, as projected by the FOMC, we could see a formal announcement of tapering then.

    Since Powell has promised to warn us well in advance, we could get a signal in Q3. This time schedule underlines it is about time the FOMC started to talk about what they actually mean by ‘substantial further progress’. The potential risks if they don’t are clear from inflation history.

    3) Fiscal Stimulus

    Once deeply-unfashionable fiscal policy is now very much on trend – and this has huge potential inflation consequences. See here for a recent summary and comparison of relative G20 Covid fiscal packages: but the scale of proposed stimulus ahead in the US makes it the central global inflation focus for markets.

    US President Biden has already passed the $1.9trn American Rescue Plan, a Covid relief package to support the economy through to September. It contained: $400bn in one-time direct payments of $1,400; enhanced federal unemployment benefits of $300 per week through September 6 (now being rolled back in some states); $350bn to state and local governments; and an expansion of the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,000. Following on, Biden has presented three other huge fiscal proposals.

    The American Jobs Plan offers $2.3trn in spending on social and physical infrastructure out to 2030. The largest item is transportation, including electric vehicles, bridges, highways, roads, public transit, and passenger and freight trains. The plan also supports manufacturing, including US production of semiconductors, as well as green energy, buildings, and utilities; R&D and training; upgrading and building new public schools; and large-scale home- and community-based care for the disabled and elderly.

    The American Families Plan proposes an additional $1.8trn on health care, child care, and poverty reduction.

    The fiscal 2022 budget (starting 1 October) proposes federal spending of $6.0trn compared to $4.4trn in 2019, even though the economy should be fully re-opened. Spending is also projected to keep rising to $8.2trn by end-2031 – double what it was before 2017, and 33% above 2022’s level. As such, federal debt will exceed the historical post-WW2 peak within a few years and hit 117% of GDP by end-2031, vs. around 100% of GDP now. In short, we are in a new structural paradigm on the political will for higher federal expenditure.

    On taxation, the White House initially proposed to raise the corporate rate to 28% from 21%, double capital gains to 39.6%, increase top income tax to 39.66%, let the Trump tax cuts lapse when they expire, and ramp up IRS enforcement. Notably, all of the taxed groups have a lower marginal propensity to consume than those who would see higher federal spending, so this redistribution of income would benefit consumer demand.

    Remarkably, the economic projections in the budget do not expect a surge in US growth from all this federal spending.

     

    Real GDP growth is seen averaging 2% y/y through to 2031, compared to 2.3% from 2010-19. Moreover, inflation is expected to stay moderate at just 2.3% y/y despite the current evidence suggesting that such a surge in fiscal stimulus into a log-jammed logistical network would produce a more pronounced Bullwhip Effect.

     

    The key issue now is if these measures can pass

    Congress. The Democrats’ preference for using Budget Reconciliation to get bills through the 50-50 Senate, with the Vice-President holding the decisive vote, has been complicated by the Senate parliamentarian. The issue is also putting pressure on relations between progressives and centrists in the Democrat Party: Senator Manchin in particular has repeatedly said he does not believe reconciliation is appropriate, and prefers bipartisan legislation.

    Therefore it remains to be seen how much of this fiscal agenda will materialize before the mid-term elections in November 2022, which could then change the Congressional balance of power. For markets, this is a critical issue – but it requires political, not econometric forecasting skills!

    4) Market Positioning

    A further factor playing into inflation fears, and arguably both reacting and driving it, is the role of financial markets and their positioning.

    Commodities are one of the best performing asset class year-to-date, registering gains of 21% to 29% depending on which index you look at (Figure 20). The commodity rally has been broad-based in nature, sparking widespread inflation fears. Unsurprisingly, commodity futures returns are positively correlated with the US CPI index, which is also currently spiking, and especially energy markets, given the high pass-through cost to consumers. As such, investors and large asset managers are increasing commodity index exposure to mitigate inflation risks across their portfolios with nearly $9bn of inflows or “new” money into the commodity ETF space alone (Figure 21).

    These figures are only what is publicly available, but the trend is clear: commodities are back in vogue as an asset class. Indeed, the true sum of investor inflows is likely multiplies of what is shown here when considering the less transparent investment vehicles such as privately managed accounts and hedge funds.

    In fact, assets under management at commodity index funds (ETFs and mutual funds) remain significantly below the highs from the early 2010s, suggesting we are still in the early stages of a strategic rotation. This potential buying pressure is likely to keep a strong bid under commodity prices, creating a positive feedback loop with inflation fears.

    Admittedly, we have seen some hedge funds and large speculators scale back “long” positions in recent data. However, there are key  distinctions amongst the different group of large commodity speculators as it relates to their trading behaviour and motivations. The scaling back in positions seen so far has been more related to systematic and even discretionary “long/short” traders. These flows typically have little to do with inflation, and more to do with momentum, trend, and carry signals on the systematic side, or on commodity-specific fundamentals for discretionary traders – which remain bullish in many cases.

    On the other hand, we have the phenomenon of commodity index investors, a distinct class of speculators who were dormant up until recently. This category of investors is comprised mostly of institutional money such as pension funds and large asset managers, who are investing in “long-only” commodity indices for the specific goal of mitigating inflation risks to their portfolios.

    As such, their investment dollars tend to be much “stickier” than other groups of traders, who are constantly moving in and out of markets. These inflation-based flows have remained very strong, and late May saw a record inflow of over $1bn (Figure 22). This could soon see the reduction in positioning from the “long/short” crowd reversed, leading them into forced buy-back positions at higher prices – something we may already be seeing in grains markets aside from weather-related developments.

    5) Psychology

    Very high –or low– inflation can exacerbate socio-political problems, as many of the inflation quotes on the first page underline: it is an intensely political issue. Moreover, it can even produce a change in national psychology.

    The German Weimar Republic and its early 1920’s hyperinflation serves as an infamous example that still leads Germans to fear inflation  and lean towards ‘sound money’ and fiscal prudence. Of course, we can remember things wrong: this focus on inflation overlooks the subsequent, deliberate crushing Weimar deflation of 1929/the early 1930s, which was more clearly the path leading to Nazism.

    Current socio-political tensions and rising populism are widely recognised by politicians and central banks alike. A period of sustained high inflation that hits the poorest in society the hardest should be extremely concerning.

    Fortunately, most OECD economies have not seen sustained high inflation for a generation, e.g., CPI (or RPI) was last above 5% in the US and Japan in the early 1980s; in France, in the mid-1980s; and in the UK, in the early 1990s (Figure 23).

    However, this is also a problem. To have been an adult (21 or over) with working experience of high inflation one would today have to be aged over 60 in the US and Japan; over 55 in France; and over 50 in the UK. Even in China, an emerging market which has seen more recent bursts of inflation, one would have to be aged over 30.

    Anyone younger working in markets or at central banks has spent their career without serious inflation. Or, to put it another way, they are experienced in fighting a phony war rather than a real one. As such, one must ask if OECD markets are psychologically prepared for higher inflation, were it to occur.

    On one level, this means inflation is less likely, as it is simply not ‘on our radar’: we don’t expect to see it last.

    Yet equally, after decades of low inflation, it is unclear what a sustained reversal might do to business and consumer behaviour, if seen.

    In emerging markets with persistent inflation problems, such as Argentina or Turkey, there are preferences for hoarding hard assets or hard currencies; indexing rents to the USD; repaying loans or accounts outstanding slowly, as the real value of debt deflates; spending money as soon as one has it; and against long-term business lending or planning.

    In Western asset markets such as residential property, one can also witness the assumption that “prices always go up”, and what that does to consumer behaviour. Should we see that dive-in-and-hold attitude flow back to a broader basket of goods and services, it would be deeply concerning. It would also exacerbate the Bullwhip Effect already mentioned.

    As already shown, breaking the entrenched (Keynesian) inflation psychology that had developed in the West over the late 1960s and 1970s required a period of exceptionally high nominal rates under the Volcker Fed, and major structural economic reforms that deregulated the economy. Today, there is no social or political appetite for either – if anything quite the opposite is true as we shift away from raw globalisation. So how could we fight it, if we had to?

    That again leaves one wondering exactly what businesses and consumers would do if they began to suspect that those in charge of inflation were abdicating that responsibility. The huge shift of interest towards crypto assets, rather than productive investment, may be part of the answer – and not a happy one.

    Of course, both Fed Chair Powell and US Treasury Secretary Yellen are old enough to recall the Volcker Fed and what preceded it. “I came of age and studied economics in the 1970s and I remember what that terrible period was like,” Yellen told Congress in testimony. “No one wants to see that happen again.” Moreover, an influential, growing slice of the OECD population –pensioners– would stand to lose out hugely from high inflation.

    Yet while it is good to have leadership able to recognise the damage from high inflation, it remains to be seen if just not wanting to see a repeat of the 1970s is enough: most so when key structural assumptions are changing, and the US Treasury is –accurately– using 1970s terminology like “labour vs. capital”.

    6) China Demand

    Though many tried, it has long been impossible to discuss global inflation without also discussing China. This was true in 2004, when Chinese nominal GDP was $2.2trn and its export engine was driving the global cost of manufactured goods down to the “China price”; and it is even truer today when the still-growing $15.4trn Chinese economy is an even larger exporter – and an importer of many commodities at a time of rising commodity price inflation.

    Of most immediate cyclical concern is the risk of Chinese PPI (rising 6.8% y/y) feeding through into CPI (0.9% y/y) and hence on into imported inflation around the world. However, China has seen previous cycles of PPI-CPI divergence, and they have not so far proved to be inflation events for global markets as much as margin crushing ones for Chinese firms (Figure 24). They may well be again.

    From a structural perspective, we must also focus on Chinese imports. There has been a surge in commodity import volumes in 2021: is this really demand-pull, translating into global cost-push inflation, and so meaning central banks are wrong to think the inflation we are now seeing is “transitory”? Is China now inflationary not deflationary?

    In the agri space, this is our long-held view, and has been exacerbated by problems like African Swine Fever. China’s May 2021 soybean volumes are up 36% over May 2019; wheat 262%; corn 339%; barley 80%; and edible oils 76%. This is clearly inflationary for the rest of the world, if maintained. However, how about the broader commodity picture?

    First, the import volume picture is almost as extreme across a range of hard commodities, but also including the likes of pulp/paper (Figure 26). This is happening despite the fact that GDP growth –looking past the distortions of 2020– is still on a declining trend (Figure 27), and as the shift to a services economy continues, so China should logically be moving towards lower commodity intensity. So where are these commodity imports actually going, and is this surge in import demand sustainable? They are questions of the highest global importance.

    Inventory data for key hard commodities, while rising, are generally below previous peaks (Figure 28), which suggests imports are finding final demand – although the reliability of such numbers has been called into question in the past, most notably with the ‘rehypothecated’ copper scandal in 2014.

    Chinese steel production vs. the iron ore inventory held at ports also does not suggest excess stocks are being built up (Figure 29).

    Rather than ask what each individual commodity is doing, the key question in terms of global inflation then becomes where this Chinese demand is being seen – and the answer appears to be three-fold: construction, exports, and speculation.

    Construction area was up 10.9% y/y on a 3-month average in April (Figure 30), the highest reading since late 2014. On exports the picture is also obvious (Figure 31) and is arguably responsible for much of the demand for pulp/paper, rubber, and plastics, etc. However, from an inflationary perspective if these goods were being made elsewhere, there would still be the same commodity demand – just more geographically dispersed.

    Finally we have speculation, which is not reserved to US funds. Chinese authorities have recently intensified a campaign to prevent such activity pushing commodity prices higher. The government has vowed “severe punishment” for speculators and “spreading fake news”, and stated it will show “zero tolerance” for monopolies in spot and futures markets, as well as any hoarding. These announcements saw an initial knee-jerk move lower in many commodity prices on Chinese exchanges.

    However, unless GDP growth –and construction– slow, which does not appear politically palatable to Beijing, then ultimately demand for commodities, and speculation to chase it, are likely to return again.

    Of course, high prices themselves could destroy demand. Anecdotally, copper prices (up 47% since the start of 2020 and 23% since the start of 2021) are causing significant problems for many related firms in China.

    A related factor is the currency. The PBOC has made clear it is not willing to allow CNY to appreciate to dampen imported commodity inflation: indeed, this would arguably exacerbate it as demand would be able to stay high. Conversely, a weaker currency would help cap demand via higher prices – but would be deflationary for the world and suggest a de facto ‘speed limit’ for Chinese growth: it is unlikely that the PBOC would be prepared to flag that.

    In short, cyclical fears of a China-to-global inflation pass-through are overstated; but unless we see a shift towards lower Chinese growth, its increasing commodity appetite still risks a structural shift higher in cost-push inflation outside the agri sector, as well as within it.

    7) Labour (vs. Capital)

    For years, markets expected inflation and bond yields to rise: and for many years we said those forecasts would be wrong – and were consistently right. This is because the political-economy Marxist/Post- Keynesian/Minsky view of the importance of the bargaining power of labour is not incorporated into inflation models. They look at an expansion of money supply, or credit, or QE, and assume it will filter through to wages. An atomized workforce in a globalised, financialised economy says it will not – and Covid-19 has only increased these pressures.

    However, when the US Treasury Secretary is talking about labour vs. capital(!), Western governments about ‘Building Back Better’, and central banks are focused not just on inflation and unemployment, but inequality, we might potentially be on the cusp of a structural break that would have enormous implications. On the other hand, cost-push inflation pressures will collapse under their own weight if wages don’t follow. This all makes the wage outlook crucial.

    Nonetheless, most of these data are being affected by temporary factors such as composition effects. Many low-paying service jobs were shed or furloughed during Covid-19, for instance, which pushed average pay up, and most so in the more timely and ‘market relevant’ metrics, such as average hourly earnings (AHE) in the US, or average weekly earnings (AWE) in the UK.

    Further out, this composition effect may start to act as a drag on wages. Once employment in service industries fully recovers, the increased relative weight of these wages will pull down the average again. This even holds when wages for these workers exceed their pre-pandemic trend.

    On which note, wage inflation will first appear to rise sharply over the next few months due to these effects, adding to an already combustible mix of inflationary signals. Yet this will happen regardless of the underlying strength of the labour market (see Figures 32 and 33). In the UK, for example, y/y wage growth could spike to as high as 7% before falling back as these effects fizzle out.

    Meanwhile, in many countries customers are coming back to shops, restaurants and other establishments faster than employers are able to add staff at prevailing wages (Figure 34). In the US, employers are competing with generous unemployment benefits in some states, while health and childcare issues may also be keeping people out of the workforce. In Europe, employees are shielded by the security of furlough schemes. Australia has just begun to phase these out; the UK will do so from July to September.

    Importantly, these are temporary factors, suggesting no real motivation for employers to pay structurally higher wages than previously, and they would be better off offering one-offs or sign-on bonuses instead: anecdotally, this is exactly what is happening: some US states are paying ‘return to work bonuses’ of up to USD2,000; US restaurants are offering adjusted hours and gift cards; and UK restaurants are giving finders’ fees of GBP2,000 for workers who bring a friend to fill an empty position.

    Of course, leisure/hospitality wages are far lower than in other sectors, and we therefore think it is unlikely that there will be a spill-over. Indeed, the opposite didn’t happen in March-April 2020: even as 7m US leisure/hospitality jobs were lost this had no effect on wages in construction, manufacturing, or other services. In short, US job vacancies are rising to new record highs (Figure 35), but this reflects a resumption from locked-down services activities rather than an overall extremely-tight labour market that can drive up wage expectations.

    However, this does not mean there are no such risks ahead. First, the labour market is likely to heal far faster than after the GFC. Due to extensive state support measures, ‘scarring’ effects aren’t as extreme, and most furloughed workers will eventually be reintegrated into the labour market. Indeed, even as measures of unemployment are being depressed by the drop in participation rates, surveys suggest the recovery to pre-pandemic unemployment rates will be rapid. We currently forecast US unemployment to be below 4% in late-2022, and Euro area unemployment should stabilize at 8.5% before it eventually starts declining too (Figure 36).

    Admittedly, the NAIRU –the unemployment rate trigger for higher wage inflation– hasn’t been a useful forecasting tool for years, for reasons we already covered. However, pre-Covid there had already been signs of wage inflation beginning to reappear. Indeed, one of the few iterations of the US Phillips Curve that actually has a slope (Figure 37) suggests if the recovery in prime-age US employment continues to progress at a solid pace, real pay growth will remain positive. Likewise, in the Eurozone, the cyclical component of wage growth may also become more relevant once things have normalized.

    But then we come to wild card: politics, and the structural changes it may bring.

    The back-to-work bonuses being seen in the UK and US may not be structural wage-inflationary – but they are a clear indication of just how much wage-inflation the ‘Built Back Better’, full-employment economy aimed for by proponents of fiscal stimulus, or MMT, would imply.

    Is this where we are heading under the present seemingly irresistible force of a labour-friendly zeitgeist and massive fiscal stimulus? If so, there will be huge obstacles from — and equally huge implications for– global supply chains, the last inflation factor to be covered.

    Or will globalisation prove the more immovable object, with white collar middle class jobs sent abroad now that remote working has become normalised, as some believe may occur?

    In short, if forecasting inflation requires forecasting wages, then forecasting wages requires being able to forecast the outcome of political-economy. No model is able to do so – but the risks of a structural break towards labor and away from capital, while low, appear higher now than at any point in the past four decades. That alone makes it even more imperative to look at the wage/earnings data – and political developments.

    8) Supply Chains

    Supply chains are vitally important in any inflation framework for three reasons: one deflationary, and two inflationary:

    1) DEFLATION: The easier supply chains can move off-shore in response to rising wages, the lower the ceiling for wages is. In short, labour’s power is limited by free trade. This uncomfortable truth is one of the key reasons global inflation forecasts have been so wrong for so long.

    2) INFLATION: The Bullwhip Effect. On 2 June, Elon Musk tweeted: “Our biggest challenge is supply chain, especially microcontroller chips. Never seen anything like it. Fear of running out is causing every company to overorder – like the toilet paper shortage, but at epic scale. That said, it’s obv not a long-term issue.” However, production is not expected to be able to match demand for several years, with a flow-through effect to everything from PCs and cars to toasters.

    3) INFLATION: The above may now be helping the political tide turn away from parts of free trade. Indeed, where semiconductor plants are to be built is now a deeply geopolitical issue.

    The US-China trade war, followed by the Covid crisis and the obvious shortfalls of PPE, ventilators, and vaccines (and then the Suez Canal blockage), has seen growing official recognition that ‘just in time’ production needs to shift to a more ‘resilient’, ’just in case’ model. The deepening US-China Cold War makes this ideological for some as well.

    Yet even for those who do not wish to be involved in this issue, supply chains are intimately linked to any plans to ‘Build Back Better’ and/or for Green transitions, which are now common. For example:

    • The UK, with its post-Brexit aim of Green “Levelling Up”;

    • The EU, where the Commission’s 2021 Trade Policy Review said: “A stronger and more resilient EU requires joined up internal and external action, across multiple policy areas, aligning and using all trade tools in support of EU interests and policy objectives.” In this case, ensuring quality EU jobs, even by subsiding EU green exports – and, as soon as 2023, introducing ‘Green tariffs’ on iron, steel, aluminium, cement, and fertilizer;

    • Japan, which is using public funds to incentivise firms to come home from China and which has just announced a “national project” to boost semiconductor production;

    • China, whose “Dual Circulation” policy aims to retain industry, attract new FDI with its market size, develop domestic R&D, and to win the high-end of the global value chain – including semiconductors; and most importantly

    • The US, where to the surprise of some, the Biden White House has taken some of the trade rhetoric of the Trump administration much further.

    Cynics will point out talk – like imports – is cheap. However, the shift towards fiscal policy is clear; many Western politicians recognise not just their leadership, but the liberal world order is under pressure; and this all now being linked to ‘Green’ is significant. It holds the promise of securing our safety, and higher economic growth, better employment, and a commanding position in an uncertain future of climate, social, and geopolitical change, which echoes the 1950’s Space Race. Everyone wants to produce the industrial goods of the future, like electric vehicles, batteries, and solar panels.

    Yet it should also be obvious that it is not possible for the US, China, the EU, Japan, the UK, etc., to all ‘Build Back Better’ with Green domestic production without global decoupling; nor for all to be net exporters. As such, this threatens a new (or rather, old) global paradigm: instead of businesses seeking the lowest cost production anywhere, they may have to seek sustainable production –with social and national security parameters– closer to/at home. Geospatially, this means no more hub-and-spokes focus, but a distributed, multi-modal approach around economic centres of gravity able to bend Green rules of trade/regulation to their advantage.

    Of course, globalised businesses will not like this, and most are so far ignoring missives from their governments to bring supply chains and jobs home. However, a mixture of carrots (fiscal incentives) and sticks (tariffs and/or non-tariff barriers) could move production, as we already see.

    Yet things are even more complicated than that. Even if a factory is opened in the US, the Bullwhip Effect shows it can be rendered useless without a reliable supply of all the intermediate goods and raw materials needed for final assembly. China has built this at home and along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to coax foreign production to agglomerate there. 75% of global solar panels are now made in China, for example, and it intends to dominate Green production.

    Indeed, new US electric car battery plant would need lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper – but can supply be assured? Consider the potential for China to disrupt crucial rare-earth mineral exports required for electronic goods production (Figure 38); and what is happening with US restrictions on much-needed high-tech exports to China.

    The US or Europe would arguably need to replicate what China has done all the way down the supply chain –in a zero-sum game– to ensure true ‘resiliency’. On that note, the June 2021 G7 summit will include a commitment to a Green (democratic) alternative to China’s BRI.

    In short, our commodity-price inflation sits alongside a global ‘race for resources’ that mirrors the late 19th century – when mercantilism (and empire) was fashionable. That implies huge structural shifts in supply chains – and a flow-through to labor markets.

    Into this mix we also see flux over reserve currencies, central bank digital currencies (CBDC), and payments systems. China has already launched a pilot CBDC; and the ECB has argued a CBDC might facilitate digital “dollarisation” (or “yuanisation”?) in weaker economies, while strengthening the global status of the currency in which the CBDC is denominated. The ECB openly flags concerns over domestic and cross-border payments being dominated by non-domestic providers, where “individuals and merchants alike would be vulnerable to a small number of dominant providers with strong market power”.

    This all presents the tail-risk of a global bifurcation of technology, production, payment systems, currencies, and supply chains – and labour markets. Moreover, if we do move in that direction, it will not be a gradual, linear process like a series of snowballs to be dodged: it will be a tipping-point to a rapidly exponential process, like an avalanche.

    Of course, none of this may come to pass: but that does not mean that the zero-sum game goes away. Somebody will still get to ‘Build Back Better’ with domestic production; somebody will produce the Green goods required; somebody will have reserve currency status globally; and somebody will have the easier access to raw materials and logistics supply chains required to do all of the above. Yet it may not be all the same economy or currency.

    As we will now show, global inflation will depend on how this all plays out, alongside the other seven factors previously listed.

    Whipping into a (new) shape

    We have just shown the eight primary factors we see driving global inflation. What we now need to do is look at how they interact.

    Let’s begin by making a simple assumption: that each of the factors can have a binary state that is either inflationary (1) or deflationary (0). As such, there are 64 potential combinations. That can’t be modelled, and we won’t try. But we can weigh up which factors have logical prime-mover status –or ‘primacy’– over the others. This can help us complete an inflation framework.

    Let’s take factor #7 (Labour) and factor #2 (The Fed). Both are crucial to any understanding of inflation pressures. If labour is in a strong bargaining position, e.g., if supply chains are being on-shored, then higher inflation would appear. Likewise, if the Fed were to fall behind the curve on rates, inflation would rise.

    However, can a tight labour market prevent the Fed from raising rates and bringing inflation –and wage inflation– down? No, as Volcker showed in the early 1980s. The Fed may opt NOT to act on rates, but it cannot be prevented from doing so by unions – unless US politics changes completely. In short, the Fed has primacy over labour.

    Let’s look at factor #6 (China) against factor #5 (Market Positioning). Market positioning can push commodity prices higher, and so can China. But if China stopped buying, prices would fall and market positioning would shift. On the other hand, if markets kept pushing prices higher China may not like it, but it would not necessarily have to stop buying. In reality, it would probably do to markets what markets can’t do to China: regulation. So China has primacy.

    Another example is factor #8 (Supply Chains) against factor #1 (Bullwhip Effect). Both are inflationary, but one is prime. A shift to a new supply-chain system might replicate a Bullwhip Effect to begin with: but after that it would help prevent one from happening. The opposite does not hold true. So supply chains have primacy over inflation trends.

    How about factor #3 (Fiscal policy) and #2 (The Fed) – there is a prospective clash of the titans! Again, only one matters most. If we were to see loose fiscal policy, monetary policy can be tightened in response to reduce inflation pressures. On the other hand, Congress could not keep spending or cutting taxes to compensate for rising rates – unless US politics changes completely. As such, the Fed still holds primacy.

    Then we come to perhaps the most interesting one: factor #8 (Supply Chains) against #2 (The Fed.)

    Imagine we see the tail-risk supply-chain shift scenario unfold: Western unemployment tumbles, and broad wage inflation matches that being seen in the return-to-work bonuses of the furloughed US and UK services sectors.

    The Fed cannot encourage firms to offshore – but it can stop some of those jobs from being created by raising rates and slowing the economy and/or pushing the dollar higher. So returning supply chains cannot force the Fed not to act – unless US politics changes completely, as under a new Bretton Woods with capital controls, for example. As such, the Fed once again has primacy.

    Meanwhile, what the Fed ‘has’ to do because of supply-chains is unclear. It is possible to run a trade surplus without high inflation as Germany, Japan, and China all show – but it seems unlikely the US can shift economic structure to this degree.

    Table 1 uses the prime-mover lens to show only two factors emerge as truly crucial for global inflation: the Fed, and supply chains

    This doesn’t mean US fiscal policy is not vital – it also is. But more so is what the Fed does in response; and if the White House starts to shift global supply chains.

    Figure 39, on the next page, is an adjusted version of Figure 9 that better reflects the relative importance of each of the eight interacting factors we have covered so far.

    Does this give us an inflation forecast? Again – no! One has to forecast what Congress will do, what the Fed will do in response – and what the White House does on supply chains. That is two political forecasts and a monetary one that is more political too. What can say from the framework, however, is that the inflation outlook shifts enormously depending on these projected outcomes. Indeed, we can draw up 4 scenarios focusing on the most important factors of Fed, fiscal, and supply chains:

    1) If the Fed stays behind the curve, the White House can’t pass a fiscal package, and nothing is done on supply chains, then inflation is likely to rise near term due to the Bullwhip (and other factors) – but this would mean lower real wages, and the risks of a drop in spending and then a return to low-flation/deflation.

    2) If the Fed stays behind the curve, but the White House can pass a fiscal package, and nothing is done on supply chains, then inflation will spike much higher near term due to the exacerbation of the Bullwhip Effect. However, labour’s bargaining power will remain limited, and there would then be larger real income declines and then deflationary pressure.

    3) If the Fed stays behind the curve, and the White House passes a fiscal package, and this is accompanied by an aggressive plan to shift global supply chains, things get complicated. Near term, we would see much higher inflation and a bullwhip to end all bullwhips. Provided that market positioning and consumer/business psychology did not shift too far from our past low-flation norms, however, after far more than “transitory” price hikes, inflation could stabilise at a higher than previous level, but with local supply meeting local demand in a more ‘decoupled’ economy. (In short, a partial reversing of the global economic paradigm of the past four decades.) This would be an earthquake for markets, of course.

    4) If the above scenario played out but markets speculated, consumers and business hoarded as in emerging markets, unions pushed for huge pay rises, and China also snapped up key commodities, then we would risk returning to the inflation of the 1970s. However, this is by far the least likely of these four outcomes.

    Meanwhile, the implications vary for the EU and China (and the rest of the world). US inflation, or deflation, would flow through to them. Yet scenario 3 would be deflationary for net exporters to the US (see Figures 40-43 as a summary).

    NB In the Figures above, green denominates that a factor is overall deflationary, and red denominates it is overall inflationary. The key two/three factors (the Fed, fiscal policy, and supply chains) are highlighted to underline their relative importance.

    On the right side one sees the indicative near and longer term inflation outcomes for the US, EU, and China, as well as the trade impact. The latter is indicative that without a shift in supply chains, fiscal stimulus flows to production abroad and not at home so ‘Build Back Better’ is built elsewhere.

    NB Figure 42 shows that while each factor for inflation is generally red or green, a shift towards fiscal and monetary stimulus, and a supply chain shift could not help but strengthen the power of labour vs. capital. However, the extent to which supply grows faster than demand, and productivity, would then be key.

    At the same time, Figure 43 underlines just how destabilising all factors shifting back in an inflationary direction at once would be!

    ‘Whipping’ markets around

    Crucially, in each of the four given scenarios, inflation rises near term – which we already see around us; and more so with each additional inflation factor that flips red.

    In scenarios 1 and 2, inflation falls back again subsequently because labour does not have any bargaining power, and extra demand is met by offshore rather than onshore supply. This is “transitory” inflation – yet it means significant pain for consumers and businesses. The difference between no fiscal stimulus and fiscal stimulus is also hugely significant near-term, with scenario 2 pushing inflation much higher with a much larger Bullwhip Effect (and so real wages lower).

    Yet it is only a shift in supply chains –‘Made in America/Buy American’ policy, and/or US, EU, or UK tariffs on others’ Green goods– in tandem with fiscal and monetary stimulus that sees a sharp move higher in inflation near term, and a structural long-term shift higher. At that point, should labour power and mass psychology also change in an inflationary direction, as in scenario 4, then even a partial mirroring of the 1970’s experience is theoretically possible.

    In terms of the potential impact on bond yields and the US Dollar, we therefore have the following hypothetical outcomes – and one can see how wide a range there is:

    Conclusion

    • What we hope to have shown in this report is that:

    • Inflation is vital to understand – but no economic theory captures it well enough to model accurately;

    • As a result, an inflation framework works better than a model;

    • Right now, we are stuck with high inflation due to a Bullwhip Effect, which economic models do not factor into their projections;

    • There are currently seven other major factors in our inflation framework, of which 2/3 are the most important from a structural perspective (the Fed, global supply chains, and fiscal policy);

    • Predicting what these key factors will do is not within the purview of any economic or econometric forecast – but is rather a political/geopolitical call (most so for the latter two);

    • How one projects the various outcomes of these key swing factors has enormous implications for both near term and long term inflation;

    • We could logically see moderate, high, or very high inflation, and/or deflation afterwards, depending on how this all plays out.

    If this implied volatility fails to satisfy a market looking for a simple, cyclical answer to its $64 trillion structural inflation question, then one needs to get cracking.

    First, on understanding political economy at a national level – which would have predicted the recent structural change in the Fed’s reaction function; and second, on understanding geopolitics/geoeconomics/great power theory at an international level – which would have predicted the current Cold War, and the ensuing push for supply-chain decoupling.

    We could also have just looked at history, and noticed how inflation never remains in the nice, stable range we would like it to for too long – because underlying social and economic structures don’t stay the same, even if our models do!

    Or, we can take an even bigger picture view than that:

    “It’s hard to build models of inflation that don’t lead to a multiverse. It’s not impossible, so I think there’s still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation will be pushing us in the direction of taking [the idea of a] multiverse seriously.” Alan H. Guth

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 17:44

  • Inflation Is Starting To Get Really Crazy… And It Is Worse Than You Think
    Inflation Is Starting To Get Really Crazy… And It Is Worse Than You Think

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    Inflation is making headlines all over the country, but the mainstream media is not being honest about the true severity of the crisis.  We are being told that the official rate of inflation is still in single digits, but what we aren’t being told is that the way inflation is calculated has changed dramatically over the years.  In fact, according to Forbes “the government has changed the way it calculates inflation more than 20 times” over the past 30 years.  The rate of inflation directly affects so many other things in our system, and the government would like to keep that number as low as possible.  So they tinkered and tinkered with the formula until they got it just where they wanted it.

    But even with the highly modified formula that they are now using, the rate of inflation still rose at the fastest pace in almost 13 years last month…

    The consumer price index, which represents a basket including food, energy, groceries, housing costs and sales across a spectrum of goods, rose 5% from a year earlier. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a gain of 4.7%.

    The reading represented the biggest CPI gain since the 5.3% increase in August 2008, just before the financial crisis sent the U.S. spiraling into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

    We all remember what happened in the months following August 2008.

    Hopefully we will not have a repeat of that.

    Of course the truth is that consumer prices are not just rising at a 5 percent rate in the United States right now.

    According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1990, it would be above 8 percent right now.

    And if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would currently be sitting at about 13 percent.

    But 5 percent inflation sure sounds a whole lot better than 13 percent, doesn’t it?

    One thing that I am keeping a very close eye on is food inflation.  Earlier today, I came across a story from one CBS affiliate in which they used the term “sticker shock” to describe what consumers are now experiencing at the grocery store…

    You may have noticed a significant jump in prices at the grocery store.

    More and more grocery shoppers are experiencing sticker shock every day. The price of food — especially meat, fruit and vegetables — is going up.

    If prices were increasing at just a 5 percent annual rate, that wouldn’t be a big deal.

    Sadly, the reality is much worse than that, and that is especially true for meat prices.  According to one deli owner, the true rate of inflation for meat prices is “probably closer” to 20 or 30 percent…

    Jeff Cohen, a deli owner and meat wholesaler, said those factors are making the price of meat out of control.

    “They said on national news it’s 10 percent. But that’s not true. it’s probably closer 20, 30 percent,” Cohen said.

    We will continue to get a lot of happy talk from the Biden administration and from the Federal Reserve, but this is becoming a real national crisis.

    When CBS News interviewed one shopper in Maryland, she said that she is now spending about twice as much on groceries as she did before…

    Abby Walter said she started noticing her grocery bill creeping up earlier this year. Prior to January, the Maryland resident had typically spent about $75 a week on groceries. Now her bill is averaging about $150 or even more.

    I still remember when I could get an entire shopping cart of food for just 25 dollars.

    Now if I can get an entire cart of food for less than 200 dollars, I consider that to be a monumental achievement.

    I try really hard to take advantage of sales and make every dollar stretch as far as I can.  But these days some of the sale prices are higher than the old regular prices.

    As global commodity prices have exploded higher in recent months, companies have been forced to pass those increases along to consumers, but they are attempting to use language that will not cause widespread alarm…

    If you ask Pampers maker Procter & Gamble Co., it’s not raising prices, it’s “taking pricing.” Rival Unilever, known for Dove soap and Axe body spray, says it’s been “very active with pricing.” The prize for creativity — so far at least — has been home-improvement retailer Lowe’s Cos., whose finance chief told investors Wednesday that it was “elevating our pricing ecosystem.”

    What in the world is a “pricing ecosystem”?

    I would love to have a representative from Lowe’s define that for me.

    Executives from General Mills are also using language that borders on the absurd…

    Then there’s cereal maker General Mills Inc., whose jargon includes arcane phrases like “strategic revenue management” and “holistic margin management,” which is not language you’d ever find on the back of a box of Lucky Charms. The company uses those terms so often, in fact, that its CEO now just refers to them by the acronyms SRM and HMM.

    Why can’t they just say that they are “raising prices”?

    These days, I cringe whenever I go down the cereal aisle.  It is hard for me to believe that cereal prices are so high now, but I know that they will eventually get a whole lot higher.

    We have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services, and instead of taking emergency measures to get inflation under control our leaders seem intent on making things even worse.

    The Biden administration wanted to spend 2 trillion dollars on infrastructure, but a group of U.S. Senators is currently working on a “compromise deal” that would only provide 1.2 trillion dollars in new infrastructure spending.

    This is on top of the trillions upon trillions of dollars that we have already borrowed and spent during this crisis.

    We can’t do this anymore.

    It is complete and utter insanity.

    But our politicians in Washington don’t seem to care.  They are going to continue to borrow and spend giant mountains of money that we do not have, and the Federal Reserve is going to continue to shovel enormous gobs of cash into the financial system.

    So more inflation is on the way, and the standard of living for most Americans is going to continue to go down.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 17:30

  • Ford's Electric F-150 Lightning Reservations Pass 100,000
    Ford’s Electric F-150 Lightning Reservations Pass 100,000

    While Tesla’s Cybertruck was revealed far in advance of Ford’s F-150 Lightning electric pickup, the Lightning has several things going for it.

    First, it actually appears to exist, and is planned to roll off the assembly line in Spring 2022 – unlike the Cybertruck, the current status of which is up in the air. Second, the Ford F-150 Lightning now has 100,000 reservations in just the 3 short weeks since its introduction. 

    Emma Bergg, Ford spokeswoman, told the Detroit Free Press on Thursday: “We’re super excited about the demand. Reservations are getting added all the time.”

     

    The Lightning was released 3 weeks ago and packs 563 horsepower and 775 lb.-ft. of torque. In the first 48 hours after its release, the company received 44,500 pre-orders. President Biden was at the truck’s release last month and even gave the Lightning a test drive and some free press. “This sucker is quick,” Biden said, after taking off in the truck on a closed course. 

    By comparison, since 2019, Tesla’s Cybertruck has accumulated over 1 million reservations. 

    Tesla’s official website doesn’t denote an expected delivery date. As of May, it was expected that the Cybertruck would begin production in “late 2021”. 

    Ford, meanwhile, is taking $100 refundable deposits for the Lightning and the truck starts at $39,974.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 17:00

  • Venezuela Says US Sanctions Blocking COVID Vaccines: 'Global Health System' As Geopolitical Weapon
    Venezuela Says US Sanctions Blocking COVID Vaccines: ‘Global Health System’ As Geopolitical Weapon

    Authored by Brett Wilkins via via CommonDreams.org,

    Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has accused the US-backed international financial system of blocking the country’s access to Covid-19 vaccines under the COVAX program, even though Venezuela has paid all but $10 million of the $120 million it owes.

    Appearing in a televised address, Rodríguez said Venezuela was unable to pay the remaining $10 million because it was being blocked from transferring funds to the Switzerland-based GAVI Vaccine Alliance, which directs COVAX. “The financial system that also hides behind the U.S. lobby has the power to block resources that can be used to immunize the population of Venezuela,” she said.

    Via Reuters

    Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza tweeted a letter from COVAX stating that it “received notification from UBS Bank” that four payments, totaling just over $4.6 million, were “blocked and under investigation.”

    Arreaza said that “Venezuela has paid all of its commitments,” adding that “the bank has arbitrarily blocked” the country’s final payments and calling the situation “a crime.”

    The vice president and foreign minister’s remarks follow accusations from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro last week that “organizations of US imperialism” are engaged in an effort to stop vaccine producers from selling doses to the country.

    “Venezuela might be the only country in the world that is subject to a persecution against its right to freely purchase vaccines,” said Maduro, according to Venezuelanalysis. “Venezuela is besieged so that it cannot buy vaccines.”

    A mural in Caracas symbolically shows Venezuela and Russia uniting to defeat the coronavirus, with the caption: “We will beat Covid-19 together.” Image: AFP via Getty

    Successive US administrations have targeted Venezuela with economic sanctions that critics say have devastated the nation’s once-thriving economy and have caused tremendous suffering for the poor and working-class people whose dramatic uplift was once hailed as the great success of the Bolivarian Revolution launched under the late President Hugo Chávez. 

    According to a 2019 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C., as many as 40,000 Venezuelans have died due to sanctions, which have made it much more difficult for millions of people to obtain food, medicine, and other necessities. 

    Maduro also denounced the World Health Organization (WHO) for its role in delaying vaccine delivery to Venezuela. The president had expected “many millions” of the Covid-19 jabs to be delivered in July and August. “The COVAX system owes a debt to Venezuela,” asserted Maduro. “We made a deposit in April and we are waiting for the vaccines.”

    That $64 million deposit to GAVI came after a rare deal between the Maduro administration and Juan Guaidó, the coup leader recognized by the United States and dozens of other nations as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state despite never having been elected.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Adept at circumventing US interference in its affairs, Venezuela turned to China, Russia, and Cuba to launch its mass vaccination program, which aims to inoculate 70% of the population this year. Earlier this month, the country reached a deal to buy and locally manufacture the Russian EpiVacCorona vaccine. Venezuela has also already acquired about three million doses of the Russian Sputnik V and Chinese Sinopharm jabs, and last month began clinical trials on Cuba’s Adbala vaccine.

    Compared to other nations in the region, Venezuela has reported a very low rate of coronavirus infections and deaths. According to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, there have been nearly 248,000 reported cases and 2,781 deaths in the country of 28.5 million people during the ongoing pandemic. Neighboring Colombia, with just over 50 million people, has reported more than 3.6 million cases and over 94,000 deaths.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 16:30

  • Gluten-Free Generation: Children With Celiac Disease Doubles In 25-Years 
    Gluten-Free Generation: Children With Celiac Disease Doubles In 25-Years 

    According to a new study, the rising prevalence of celiac disease in Europe is absolutely astonishing and has more than doubled over the last 25 years. 

    Researchers at Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy, found that celiac disease, sometimes called celiac sprue or gluten-sensitive enteropathy, an immune reaction to eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, can cause painful damage to small intestines over time, doubled in school children compared to a similar study by the same group 25 years ago.

    Approximately 7,760 children aged from five to 11 in eight provinces of Italy were given a blood test to see if they had specific gene mutations which predispose them to celiac disease. If they tested positive, the researchers checked them for antibodies to gluten. Researchers concluded the overall prevalence of the autoimmune disease in Italian children was 1.6%, much higher than the global average of around one percent. 

    “Our study showed that prevalence of celiac disease in schoolchildren has doubled over the past 25 years when compared to figures reported by our team in a similar school age group,” said lead-author Elena Lionetti, a professor at the university. “Our sentiment is that there are more cases of celiac disease than in the past, and that we could not discover them without a screening strategy.”

    Lionetti continued: 

    “At the moment, 70% of celiac disease patients are going undiagnosed, and this study shows that significantly more could be identified, and at an earlier stage, if screening were carried out in childhood with non-invasive screening tests. Diagnosis and avoiding gluten could potentially prevent damage to the villi (finger-like projections that line the gut), which can lead to malabsorption of nutrients and long-term conditions such as growth problems, fatigue, and osteoporosis (a fragile bone condition).

    “The study has shown that screening is an effective tool for diagnosing celiac disease in children which could potentially help avoid a lot of unnecessary suffering from what can be a hard-to-detect condition.”

    StudyFinds noted around one percent of the US population, or 3 million people have celiac disease. Similar to Europe, celiac disease continues to increase among Western populations. 

    People with the autoimmune disorder may not be aware they have the disease as intestinal damage from gluten causes fatigue, brain fog, diarrhea, bloating, weight loss, and anemia. 

    Other studies have shown “celiac disease can increase the risk of dying prematurely.” 

    A simple solution to see if you have a gluten intolerance or even celiac disease is to get a food allergy test covered under most insurance plans. 

    In recent years, better access to gluten-free foods has made it easier for people with the autoimmune disease to eat better food.

    It appears gluten-filled Western diets are poisoning the youth. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 16:00

  • Gold: "Heads You Win, Tails You Don't Lose"
    Gold: “Heads You Win, Tails You Don’t Lose”

    Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

    Boring. I never thought I would say that about gold prices, but the gold price action for the last nine months has been boring.

    And that’s actually a good thing. Why?

    After beginning with the boring part, I’ll explain. Let me unpack this…

    Gold prices hit an all-time high of $2,069 per ounce on August 6, 2020.

    The yield-to-maturity on the 10-year Treasury note hit an interim low of 0.508% on August 4, 2020. The near simultaneity of those two benchmarks is no coincidence.

    The interest rate on the 10-year note has been practically the sole determinant of the dollar price of gold since that August convergence of low rates and high gold prices.

    But that isn’t always the case…

    More Than Meets the Eye

    Many factors can affect gold prices, including fundamental supply and demand, geopolitical and other external shocks, liquidity preferences in market drawdowns, and the distinction between real rates and nominal rates.

    I watch all of those factors closely and include them in my analyses.

    Still, those other factors haven’t mattered much to the gold price lately.

    Supply and demand are in a rough balance. Global mining output is flat, and Russia, a major gold buyer, is curtailing its large-scale buying. We’ve also had geopolitical shocks in Ukraine and, most recently, Gaza.

    We’ve had other external shocks, such as the U.S. presidential election debacle and a riot in the Capitol.

    None of these events seemed to matter to gold.

    In short, these external, non-rate factors haven’t mattered to gold. The gold price is looking exclusively at the yield on the 10-year note.

    At the same time, there haven’t been any major market drawdowns in stocks.

    Information Rich

    The yield on the 10-year note is not an isolated data point. In fact, it’s information-rich. That yield represents expectations on economic growth, inflation, disinflation, exchange rates, capital flows, and returns on alternative asset classes such as stocks, private equity, venture capital and commodities.

    The yield on the 10-year note is also a good proxy for capital spending and business investment plans because they involve a five-to-twenty-year forecast.

    If you’re building a skyscraper, for example, you don’t finance it in the overnight repo market. You get a two-year construction loan and replace it with a 30-year mortgage. The average period of home ownership for a particular property in the U.S. is approximately seven years.

    In short, the 10-year note rate is a summation of a range of rates for investment activity in the real economy. This means we have to break down the drivers of the 10-year note rate to see what it’s really telling us…

    Lower Highs, Lower Lows

    The 10-year note rate — which is currently about 1.61% — is almost exclusively a reflection of inflation expectations.

    There’s no doubt that inflation expectations have been rising, especially after a spike in the CPI core and non-core data, which was reported on May 12.

    From the low yield of 0.508% on August 4, 2020, the 10-year note yield peaked at 1.745% on March 31, 2021, and hit a recent peak of 1.704% on May 13 (intraday) on the CPI news before backing down a bit to the current level.

    The dollar price of gold has moved down in lockstep as the yield on the 10-year note has risen.

    Still, there’s less than meets the eye in the recent increase in rates. As recently as November 4, 2018, the yield on the 10-year note was 3.238%. On November 4, 2019, the yield was 1.942%.

    The fact is today’s “high yields” are actually quite low and are much lower than the two interim peaks of the past three years. That means the historic 40-year bull market in bonds, which began in 1980 with yields around 14%, is alive and well.

    What we’re seeing is a classic technical pattern of lower highs and lower lows. Based on that pattern, I expect that rates are near their highs for this cycle and will soon retreat to new lows around 0.50% or lower.

    I know that puts me out of the consensus. All you hear about now is inflation and rising interest rates. But I’ve seen this movie before.

    The One Wild Card

    The only shock that would break this cycle and cause rates to reach 3.0% or higher is real inflation. But real, sustained inflation is unlikely to materialize soon. The same forces that have held inflation in check for the past decade and more are still in effect. We’ll have inflation eventually, but not yet.

    You can’t look at recent price increases as proof of sustained inflation. Temporary price spikes in lumber, for example, are the product of pandemic-induced shortages, not a general rise in overall prices.

    The surge in CPI reported on May 12 was driven predominately by base effects (lockdowns produced such low numbers that the year-over-year numbers were bound to be stronger). April 2020 marked one of the steepest output declines in U.S. history. Prices plunged.

    Many of those prices are recovering especially in the areas of travel, airfares, hotels, restaurants and other service sectors that were almost completely shut-down in the first half of 2020. Year-over-year price gains off the low 2020 base are normal. They are also transitory because the 2020 output collapse was transitory.

    As we move into the third quarter of 2021, the new base will reflect the strong growth in Q3 2020, when many lockdowns eased. That’s a higher baseline. That means a much steeper hill to climb for inflation metrics.

    That’s why I believe inflation will come down sharply, and the ten-year note yield will come down with it.

    That’s also why gold’s boring price performance has been a good thing. Essentially, gold is off the top but is nowhere near new lows; (gold was only $1,184 per ounce as recently as August 12, 2018).

    The gold bull market is entirely intact…

    The Running of the Gold Bull

    Gold has traded in a narrow range between $1,700 and $1,900 with very few exceptions since last summer. That’s about a 10% overall range and just 5% above and below the central tendency of $1,800.

    In a world of volatile stocks, commodity prices and exchange rates, the price of gold has been well-behaved.

    And that’s the good news.

    Given rising interest rates, a case could be made that the price of gold should be much lower. But gold has held its own against stocks and fixed income alternatives (not to mention Bitcoin and other high-flying speculations that compete with gold for investor dollars).

    If inflation does not appear and rates retreat, gold will rally. If inflation does appear, rates may rise but gold will also rally on inflation fears.

    We have been stuck in a rut where inflation expectations are driving rates higher but no sustained inflation has appeared. That’s a tough environment for gold. Still, gold has held its own.

    Technically, this is what we call an asymmetric trade.

    Downside is limited because of residual inflation fears, but upside is huge because gold prices have been moving inversely to interest rates and a plunge in rates is likely to occur.

    You can call it, “Heads I win, tails I don’t lose.” When it comes to investing, that’s as good as it gets.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 15:30

  • Baltimore City Responds After Dozens Of Businesses Threaten Not To Pay Taxes
    Baltimore City Responds After Dozens Of Businesses Threaten Not To Pay Taxes

    This weekend, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) closed down multiple city streets around the Inner Harbor, in a stretch called “Fells Point,” after dozens of local businesses threatened the new city government, run by Mayor Brandon Scott, to not pay taxes because they’re “fed up and frustrated” with the outburst of violence. 

    Last week, 37 restaurants and small businesses sent a letter to the mayor’s office titled “Letter to City Leaders From Fells Point Business Leaders.” They threatened to stop paying city taxes and other fees until “basic and essential municipal services are restored.” This comes as Madam State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby halted petty crimes during the pandemic and made such a measure permanent – the idea was to decrease violent crime, but that seems to have severely backfired.

    What’s happened in the historic bar strict is absolute mayhem at night, transformed into a dangerous area where violent and rowdy crowds have ruined the once pleasant atmosphere along with multiple shootings. 

    So this weekend, BPD closed down streets around Fells Point, which includes parts of Aliceanna, Thames, and Bond streets.

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    In addition, Maryland State Police will conduct sobriety checkpoints in Fells Point. 

    Local news WJZ13’s Mike Hellgren tweets a couple of images of the increased police presence across Fells Point.

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    One of the 37 concerned business owners on the list is Bill Packo, who owns Barley’s Backyard and has been operating in Fells Point for three decades. He spoke with WJZ13 about the out of control violence and public drunkenness:

    “It’s a shame. What they’re letting happen to Fells Point is what they let happen in the Inner Harbor, and now it has made its way here,” Packo said. “There’s alcohol being sold by individuals out there, drugs, and clearly we all know about the shootings that took place last weekend. But there needs to be some control out there. There is none whatsoever.”

    BPD’s mobile police command was spotted outside another shop in the bar district. It looks very dystopic. 

    Meanwhile, Scott, who was newly elected, skipped out on the virtual community town hall meeting on Thursday at 7 p.m that was to address the issues in Fells Point. 

    Packo called out Scott for not attending the meeting: 

    “It’s an embarrassment to the city. It’s an embarrassment to the mayor no matter what the schedule was,” he said.

    Again, as we’ve said before, the chaos in Fells Point comes as the city descends into what could be the most violent period ever. Mosby has halted police officers going after petty crimes that have inadvertently backfired. Another liberal-run town with good intentions in policies not exactly panning out as they thought. 

    Local news WMAR2’s Eddie Kadhim interviewed a man who summed up the city’s response in Fells Point: 

    Another man said the violent crime in low-income neighborhoods is just spilling over into the downtown area. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/12/2021 – 15:00

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Jun 12

Today’s News 12th June 2021

  • Victor Davis Hanson: This Isn't Your Father's Left-Wing Revolution
    Victor Davis Hanson: This Isn’t Your Father’s Left-Wing Revolution

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    Starry-eyed radicals in the 1960s and 1970s dreamed that they either were going to take over America or destroy it.

    One of their favorite mottos was “Change it or lose it,” even as protests focused on drugs, music, race, class, sex, fashion — almost anything and everything.

    Sixties radicals tutored America on long hair; wire-rim eyeglasses; who was a drag, a square, a bummer; and who was hip, cool, groovy, mellow and far out. Most of these silly revolutionaries were not unhinged Weathermen killers or SDS would-be communists, but just adolescents along for the good-time ride.

    With the end of the draft in 1972, the winding down of the Vietnam War, the oil embargoes and a worsening economy, the ’60s revolution withered away. Cynics claimed the revolution was mostly about middle-class students with long hair kicking back during the peak of the postwar boom, indulging their appetites and ensuring they would not end up in Vietnam.

    It is not even true that the ’60s at least ensured needed reform. The civil rights movement and equal rights for women and gays were already birthed before the hippies, as were folk songs and early rock music.

    Instead, what the ’60s revolution did was accelerate these trends — but also radicalize, manipulate and coarsen them.

    The grasping “yuppies” of the 1980s were the natural successors to let-it-all-hang-out “hippies.” The ’60s were at heart a narcissistic free-for-all, when “freedom” often entailed self-indulgence and avoiding responsibility.

    By 1981, the Reagan revolution finished off the dead-enders of the Woodstock generation. Most eventually grew up. They rebooted their self-centered drug, sex and party impulses to fixations on money, status and material things.

    Sixties protestors mainlined divorce, abortion on demand, promiscuity, drug use and one-parent homes. But by the late 1970s and the 1980s, most veteran cultural revolutionaries had gotten married, were raising a family, bought a house, got a job and made money.

    This time around, their offspring’s left-wing assault is different — and far more ominous.

    The woke grandchildren of the former outsiders are now more ruthless systematic insiders. The woke and wired new establishment knows how to use money and power to rebirth America as something the founders and most current Americans never envisioned.

    Name one mainline institution that the woke left does not now control — and warp. The media? The campus? Silicon Valley? Professional sports? The corporate boardroom? Foundations? The K-12 educational establishment? The military hierarchy? The government deep state? The FBI top echelon?

    The left absorbed them all. But this time around, members of the left really believe that “by any means necessary” is no mere slogan. Instead, it is a model of how to disrupt or destroy American customs, traditions and values.

    Woke revolutionaries are not panhandlers, street people or Grateful Dead groupies. They are not even a few nutty and murderous Symbionese Liberation Army terrorists fighting against “the Man.”

    They are “the Man.”

    Our 21st century revolutionaries are multibillionaires with flip-flops, tie-dye T-shirts and nose rings, but with the absolute power and desire to censor how half the country communicates — or cancel them entirely.

    They don’t flock to campus free-speech areas; they are the campus administrators who ban free speech.

    They don’t picket outside the Pentagon; they are inside the Pentagon.

    They don’t chant “eat the rich”; they are the rich who eat at Napa Valley’s French Laundry.

    They don’t protest “uptight” values, because they are more intolerant and puritanical than any Victorian.

    They don’t believe in racial quotas based on “proportional representation,” because they are racists who demand underrepresentation of “bad” racial groups and overrepresentation of “good” groups. The color of our skin is their gospel, not the content of our character.

    They are top-down revolutionaries. None of their agendas, from open borders and changing the Constitution to critical race theory and banning clean-burning fossil fuels, are ever favored among a majority of the population.

    Their guiding principle is “never let a crisis go to waste.” Only in times of a pandemic, a national quarantine or volatile racial relations can the new upscale leftist revolutionaries use fear to push through policies that no one in calm times could stomach.

    Our revolutionaries hate dissent. They destroy any who question their media-spun hoaxes.

    Truth is their enemy, and fear is their weapon.

    Sixties paranoid revolutionaries warned about George Orwell’s “1984,” but our revolutionaries are “1984.”

    While this elitist leftist revolution is more dangerous than its sloppy ’60s predecessor, it is also more vulnerable, given its obnoxious, top-heavy apparatus — but only if the proverbial “people” finally say to their madness, “Enough is enough.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 23:40

  • Manhattan To Hamptons In 30 Minutes On This 40 Passenger Drone Bus 
    Manhattan To Hamptons In 30 Minutes On This 40 Passenger Drone Bus 

    NYC-based startup Kelekona is designing an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle that will transport dozens of passengers and make regional travel seamless. 

    Most eVTOL startups (such as SureFly) are designing and developing drone taxis with a maximum capacity of between 2 and 5 seats. Kelekona’s founder, Braeden Kelekona, is thinking big with a 40 passenger drone bus that weighs 10,000 pounds and has an estimated range of 330 miles, with the ability to fly between Los Angeles and San Fransico in one hour. 

    Kelekona appears to be developing an eVTOL vehicle inspired for mass transit in regional commutes, where passengers can avoid congested highways, traditional airplanes, and trains. 

    “One hundred percent we are trying to compete with public transportation,” Kelekona told Digital Trends.

    According to Kelekona, routes between Manhattan to the Hamptons; Boston to New York; New York to Washington, D.C.; and Los Angeles to San Francisco will cost around $85 and last for 30 minutes. 

    The airframe’s shape is certainly impressive in terms of aerodynamics. Four fan banks power the eVTOL with two ducted fans with variable pitch blades inside each. These fan banks can lift the aircraft up and down and propel the craft forward like a traditional airplane. Kelekona said eVTOL would be powered with “batteries similar to what you see in the Model S.” 

    “What we decided to build is a flying battery,” he noted. “What that allowed us to do is have greater endurance. Instead of building an interesting airframe and then trying to figure out how to put the battery into that aircraft, we started with the battery first and put things on top of it.”

    The company has yet to build a scaled model but has been running computer simulations of the eVTOL. He said, “We feel strongly that we have about plus or minus two percent read on all our performance data.”

    Passenger routes are planned for 2024, but it all depends on if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grants the company licenses to fly the aircraft over U.S. airspace.  

    “That’s one of the trickier parts with passenger operation,” he said. “The FAA is still, to this day, creating the right protocols to test durability and reliability. They just want to make sure that the aircraft is [ready for whatever incident might] happen. They want to see the redundancy on your aircraft to mitigate that risk. In that regard, there’s a lot of overlap with the traditional aircraft certification, but at the same time with battery technology and electric motors, it has a different level of safety.”

    Within the Digital Trends article, there was no mention of funding or prior capital raises. One would assume this startup is itching for investors, and doing so, they need to tell a great story, as what is being done here. 

    How long until this startup is SPAC’D?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 23:20

  • The War Over Genetic Privacy Is Just Beginning
    The War Over Genetic Privacy Is Just Beginning

    Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “When you upload your DNA, you’re potentially becoming a genetic informant on the rest of your family.”

    – Law professor Elizabeth Joh

    “Guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in the technological age.

    All of those fascinating, genealogical searches that allow you to trace your family tree by way of a DNA sample can now be used against you and those you love.

    As of 2019, more than 26 million people had added their DNA to ancestry databases. It’s estimated those databases could top 100 million profiles within the year, thanks to the aggressive marketing of companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe.

    It’s a tempting proposition: provide some mega-corporation with a spit sample or a cheek swab, and in return, you get to learn everything about who you are, where you came from, and who is part of your extended your family.

    The possibilities are endless.

    You could be the fourth cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II of England. Or the illegitimate grandchild of an oil tycoon. Or the sibling of a serial killer.

    Without even realizing it, by submitting your DNA to an ancestry database, you’re giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative—past, present and future—in your family, whether or not they ever agreed to be part of such a database.

    After all, a DNA print reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.”

    It’s what police like to refer to a “modern fingerprint.”

    Whereas fingerprint technology created a watershed moment for police in their ability to “crack” a case, DNA technology is now being hailed by law enforcement agencies as the magic bullet in crime solving.

    Indeed, police have begun using ancestry databases to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

    For instance, in 2018, former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was flagged as the notorious “Golden State Killer” through the use of genetic genealogy, which allows police to match up an unknown suspect’s crime scene DNA with that of any family members in a genealogy database. Police were able to identify DeAngelo using the DNA of a distant cousin found in a public DNA database. Once police narrowed the suspect list to DeAngelo, they tracked him—snatched up a tissue he had tossed in a trash can—and used his DNA on the tissue to connect him to a rash of rapes and murders from the 1970s and ‘80s.

    Although DeAngelo was the first public arrest made using forensic genealogy, police have identified more than 150 suspects since then. Most recently, police relied on genetic genealogy to nab the killer of a 15-year-old girl who was stabbed to death nearly 50 years ago.

    Who wouldn’t want to get psychopaths and serial rapists off the streets and safely behind bars, right? At least, that’s the argument being used by law enforcement to support their unrestricted access to these genealogy databases.

    “In the interest of public safety, don’t you want to make it easy for people to be caught? Police really want to do their job. They’re not after you. They just want to make you safe,” insists Colleen Fitzpatrick, a co-founder of the DNA Doe Project, which identifies unknown bodies and helps find suspects in old crimes.

    Except it’s not just psychopaths and serial rapists who get caught up in the investigative dragnet.

    Anyone who comes up as a possible DNA match—including distant family members—suddenly becomes part of a circle of suspects that must be tracked, investigated and ruled out.

    Although a number of states had forbidden police from using government databases to track family members of suspects, the genealogy websites provided a loophole that proved irresistible to law enforcement.

    Hoping to close that loophole, a few states have started introducing legislation to restrict when and how police use these genealogical databases, with Maryland requiring that they can only be used for serious violent crimes such as murder and rape, only after they exhaust other investigatory methods, and only under the supervision of a judge.

    Yet the debate over genetic privacy—and when one’s DNA becomes a public commodity outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—is really only beginning.

    Certainly, it’s just a matter of time before the government gets hold of our DNA, either through mandatory programs carried out in connection with law enforcement and corporate America, by warrantlessly accessing our familial DNA shared with genealogical services such as Ancestry and 23andMe, or through the collection of our “shed” or “touch” DNA.

    According to research published in the journal Science, more than 60 percent of Americans who have some European ancestry can be identified using DNA databases, even if they have not submitted their own DNA. According to law professor Natalie Ram, one genealogy profile can lead to as many as 300 other people.

    That’s just on the commercial side.

    All 50 states now maintain their own DNA databases, although the protocols for collection differ from state to state. Increasingly, many of the data from local databanks are being uploaded to CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), the FBI’s massive DNA database, which has become a de facto way to identify and track the American people from birth to death.

    Even hospitals have gotten in on the game by taking and storing newborn babies’ DNA, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent. It’s part of the government’s mandatory genetic screening of newborns. In many states, the DNA is stored indefinitely.

    What this means for those being born today is inclusion in a government database that contains intimate information about who they are, their ancestry, and what awaits them in the future, including their inclinations to be followers, leaders or troublemakers.

    Get ready, folks, because the government— helped along by Congress (which adopted legislation allowing police to collect and test DNA immediately following arrests), President Trump (who signed the Rapid DNA Act into law), the courts (which have ruled that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime), and local police agencies (which are chomping at the bit to acquire this new crime-fighting gadget)—has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

    Referred to as “magic boxes,” Rapid DNA machines—portable, about the size of a desktop printer, highly unregulated, far from fool-proof, and so fast that they can produce DNA profiles in less than two hours—allow police to go on fishing expeditions for any hint of possible misconduct using DNA samples.

    Journalist Heather Murphy explains: “As police agencies build out their local DNA databases, they are collecting DNA not only from people who have been charged with major crimes but also, increasingly, from people who are merely deemed suspicious, permanently linking their genetic identities to criminal databases.”

    The ramifications of these DNA databases are far-reaching.

    At a minimum, they will do away with any semblance of privacy or anonymity. The lucrative possibilities for hackers and commercial entities looking to profit off one’s biological record are endless.

    Moreover, while much of the public debate, legislative efforts and legal challenges in recent years have focused on the protocols surrounding when police can legally collect a suspect’s DNA (with or without a search warrant and whether upon arrest or conviction), the question of how to handle “shed” or “touch” DNA has largely slipped through without much debate or opposition.

    As scientist Leslie A. Pray notes:

    We all shed DNA, leaving traces of our identity practically everywhere we go. Forensic scientists use DNA left behind on cigarette butts, phones, handles, keyboards, cups, and numerous other objects, not to mention the genetic content found in drops of bodily fluid, like blood and semen. In fact, the garbage you leave for curbside pickup is a potential gold mine of this sort of material. All of this shed or so-called abandoned DNA is free for the taking by local police investigators hoping to crack unsolvable cases. Or, if the future scenario depicted at the beginning of this article is any indication, shed DNA is also free for inclusion in a secret universal DNA databank.

    What this means is that if you have the misfortune to leave your DNA traces anywhere a crime has been committed, you’ve already got a file somewhere in some state or federal database—albeit it may be a file without a name. As Heather Murphy warns in the New York Times: “The science-fiction future, in which police can swiftly identify robbers and murderers from discarded soda cans and cigarette butts, has arrived…  Genetic fingerprinting is set to become as routine as the old-fashioned kind.”

    Even old samples taken from crime scenes and “cold” cases are being unearthed and mined for their DNA profiles.

    Today, helped along by robotics and automation, DNA processing, analysis and reporting takes far less time and can bring forth all manner of information, right down to a person’s eye color and relatives. Incredibly, one company specializes in creating “mug shots” for police based on DNA samples from unknown “suspects” which are then compared to individuals with similar genetic profiles.

    If you haven’t yet connected the dots, let me point the way.

    Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime.

    No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

    Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup until circumstances and science say otherwise.

    Suspect Society, meet the American police state.

    Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful.

    By tapping into your phone lines and cell phone communications, the government knows what you say. By uploading all of your emails, opening your mail, and reading your Facebook posts and text messages, the government knows what you write. By monitoring your movements with the use of license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other tracking devices, the government knows where you go.

    By churning through all of the detritus of your life—what you read, where you go, what you say—the government can predict what you will do. By mapping the synapses in your brain, scientists—and in turn, the government—will soon know what you remember.

    And by accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc.

    Of course, none of these technologies are foolproof.

    Nor are they immune from tampering, hacking or user bias.

    Nevertheless, they have become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to render null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

    What this amounts to is a scenario in which we have little to no defense of against charges of wrongdoing, especially when “convicted” by technology, and even less protection against the government sweeping up our DNA in much the same way it sweeps up our phone calls, emails and text messages.

    With the entire governmental system shifting into a pre-crime mode aimed at detecting and pursuing those who “might” commit a crime before they have an inkling, let alone an opportunity, to do so, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine a scenario in which government agents (FBI, local police, etc.) target potential criminals based on their genetic disposition to be a “troublemaker” or their relationship to past dissenters.

    Equally disconcerting: if scientists can, using DNA, track salmon across hundreds of square miles of streams and rivers, how easy will it be for government agents to not only know everywhere we’ve been and how long we were at each place but collect our easily shed DNA and add it to the government’s already burgeoning database?

    Not to be overlooked, DNA evidence is not infallible: it can be wrong, either through human error, tampering, or even outright fabrication, and it happens more often than we are told. The danger, warns scientist Dan Frumkin, is that crime scenes can be engineered with fabricated DNA.

    Now if you happen to be the kind of person who trusts the government implicitly and refuses to believe it would ever do anything illegal or immoral, then the prospect of government officials—police, especially—using fake DNA samples to influence the outcome of a case might seem outlandish.

    Yet as history shows, the probability of our government acting in a way that is not only illegal but immoral becomes less a question of “if” and more a question of “when.”

    With technology, the courts, the corporations and Congress conspiring to invade our privacy on a cellular level, suddenly the landscape becomes that much more dystopian.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this is the slippery slope toward a dystopian world in which there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 23:00

  • Firework Shortage Could Ruin Fourth Of July 
    Firework Shortage Could Ruin Fourth Of July 

    Microchips, lumber, gas, steel, base metals, chicken, ketchup, and chlorine have been some of the latest shortages due to tangled supply chains because of the virus pandemic.

    A little less than a month from now, Americans will be celebrating the Fourth of July with backyard barbecues, drinking Budweiser, and, of course, how could we forget, launching Chinese-made fireworks. 

    Due to food inflation and shortages of some products, Americans will be paying an arm and a leg for items at supermarkets. But what may anger them the most is the shortage of fireworks, according to ABC 13, who spoke with multiple vendors. 

    Firework stores across Texas are urging customers to shop now then wait till the very last week or even the last day because of delays in container freight from China to West Coast ports. 

    Vendors are saying container shipments of artillery shells, such as mortars, from China are in short supply because of port congestion. They warned customers this would lead to higher prices. 

    “There is going to be an increase in the process just because shipping has doubled since last year,” said Cele Rasmussen, a fireworks vendor.

    Peak shipping season has arrived at West Coast ports as congestion could result in firework shipments not arriving in time. This is terrible news for US consumers because 94% of US imported fireworks are derived from China. 

    Google searches for “firework shortage” have already hit 17-year highs. 

    Some Americans may not hear fireworks this hear but rather noisy cicadas. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 22:40

  • Brandon Smith: The Real Reasons Why California Leftists Are Terrified Of The AR-15
    Brandon Smith: The Real Reasons Why California Leftists Are Terrified Of The AR-15

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    This past week a US District judge in California struck down the state’s 30 year ban on high capacity semi-automatic rifles which leftists label “assault weapons”. The judge called the ban unconstitutional (which it is). In response, the progressive media has lost their collective minds, screeching in horror at the idea of AR-15 rifles being legal within the borders of their carefully manicured socialist Utopia state. Their most commonly expressed reaction seems to be fear.

    Fear is rarely a rational thing. When someone operates based on fear they tend to make terrible decisions and support oppressive causes and laws. Fear leads to an obsession with control. Fearful people also tend to look for large mobs of other terrified people so they can feel safe and secure and anonymous. They want to be able to act impulsively on their fears without having to face consequences for it later.

    Leftists are driven primarily by two factors: Narcissism, and yes, fear. I’ve discussed their narcissism at great length in past articles; now I think we should delve into their fear.

    The most common leftist retort to the question “Why are you so afraid of the AR-15?” will usually be a snort of indignant disbelief followed by the words:

    “Because it’s a military weapon designed to kill a lot of people quickly…idiot!”

    But this is not an argument, it is an expression of irrational fear. Why are they, as individuals, afraid of the AR-15? What are the chances that they will EVER be faced with a person intent on killing them with an AR-15? And, why do they believe that disarming innocent law abiding Americans will somehow save them from their paranoia?

    Let’s examine the first issue of statistical probability; how many people are actually killed by AR-15s each year? Not many according to the FBI, which does not track the stats on specific rifles, but does track the stats on all rifles together. And, as it turns out, only around 6% of all gun deaths involve rifles in the US each year.

    How much of that 6% involves the use of military grade rifles like the AR-15? It’s impossible to say, but even if it was half, or 3% of all gun related crimes, that would still mean you have FAR more of a chance of being murdered by a knife or blunt object than an AR. By extension, Rifles overall are dwarfed by handgun murders, so, again, why are leftists so afraid of the AR-15?

    What about mass shootings? It seems like the AR-15 is a favorite among mass shooters because of it’s “efficiency”, so is this reason enough to be fearful? According to the New York Times own analysis, the AR-15 was used to kill 173 people in mass shootings in the US from 2007 to 2017. Meaning around 17 homicides per year over a decade can be attributed to the rifle. Again, the AR is dwarfed by almost all other weapons in homicide including knives, even when accounting for mass shootings.

    With the sheer number of military grade weapons in the hands of civilians in the US there should be mass homicides everywhere you look if you take the common position of the typical progressive gun grabber. But, this is not the case. In fact, if you want to increase your chances of being killed by a gun, move to a major Democrat run city like Chicago, New York or Philadelphia. In Chicago, there were 4033 shootings and 784 homicides, predominantly in black neighborhoods and primarily with handguns.

    So, statistically, access to AR-15s does not increase gun homicides. But what about living in a black neighborhood in leftist run Chicago under some of the strictest gun laws in the country? Yes, your chances of being shot are MUCH higher (just not by an AR-15).

    Since the math does not add up in favor of the leftists, perhaps we should examine other factors that might be driving them to focus on the AR in particular. Let’s talk about “precedence”…

    Look at it this way – States like California are a petri dish, a testing ground for the future that leftists want for the entire country. There is an old saying that “As goes California, so goes the US”, and this is because California is often where most experimental legislation is pushed; legislation that violates the boundaries of what the constitution allows. Sometimes it’s New York or New Jersey or some other blue state, but most of the time CA is where unconstitutional precedents are set. Its massive population and large number of electoral votes make it a perfect target for conditioning the wider public to further restrictions on their freedoms.

    This explains some of the fear the media is showing regarding the latest federal court decision on military grade weapons like the AR. Political elites see California as their own little kingdom with their own special laws, and they plan to eventually spread those laws across America using California as the model. But, if such laws are overturned as unconstitutional, then the precedent actually works in reverse. Now, the leftists are concerned that an overturned gun ban in CA means more blue states will follow and their entire gun grabbing scheme will go out the window.

    The leftist mind thinks in terms of unchecked and unhinged “democracy”. Meaning, they believe that the majority is paramount; the majority is law. If a majority in a society wants to take away your freedoms, then they have the right to because they have the mob on their side. 51% rules over the lives of the other 49%. But this is not how things work in a Constitutional Republic.

    Under the Bill of Rights your freedoms are codified and sacrosanct. They are inherent and gifted by God (or whatever you happen to believe in); government has no domain over these rights. The right to firearms and self defense is one of these inherent qualities. It does not matter what the State of California thinks, or even what the “majority” of people in California think. If an American in California wants to own an AR-15, then he/she has the right to own an AR-15.

    We also cannot ignore the fact that leftists have an insatiable appetite for collectivism, usually in the name of the “greater good”. Collectivism is basically totalitarianism disguised as humanitarianism. They know what’s best for you, and they are going to make sure you follow THEIR plan for your life.

    The AR-15 is indeed a weapon in military use, and maybe this is what frightens leftists the most. Not because they are personally more likely to be shot by one (we’ve already proven that notion false), but because leftists desire control over all else, and with military grade weapons in the hands of the public control becomes much more difficult. ALL totalitarian governments seek to first disarm the people they intend to enslave or destroy. This is a fact.

    When a group of people in power are working hard to remove defensive or even offensive weapons from your hands, it’s best to assume that their intentions are malevolent. They are not trying to help you, they are trying to help themselves.

    They will deny this motive to the grave, but look at how the political left has been acting lately: They are the only people that have supported mass censorship of opposing viewpoints. They are the only people that are supported by international conglomerates and Big Tech companies. They are the only people that supported the pandemic lockdowns, which were completely useless in stopping the spread of covid, but they were very useful in killing hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the US. They are also the only people in favor of vaccine passports which would destroy the very fabric of our society and erase what is left of our freedoms.

    It’s not really surprising that they want to disarm us as well.

    Of course, they will claim that this argument is “silly”. After all, what can an AR-15 do against an Apache helicopter or a Abrams battle tank? Well, these rifles in the right hands can do a hell of a lot to stop a technologically advanced military, as we have seen for the past two decades in Afghanistan. Let us not play games; there is a reason why leftists and elites are obsessed with our disarmament. If military grade rifles were not a threat to them, then they would not be going after them so aggressively.

    Finally, the mainstream media has rolled out all the typical propaganda tools when it comes to spinning the federal decision in CA, including attacking the judge and his character. Almost every single article on this issue focuses on the fact that the judge compared the AR-15 to a “Swiss Army knife”.

    The left will continue to use this narrative as a means to distract from the real problem at hand because false conflations and straw man arguments have worked for them in the past. Clearly, the judge was not trying to say that an AR-15 and a Swiss Army knife are exactly the same, or that they are equally capable of killing people. The logical interpretation is that the AR-15 is a tool like any other tool, and it has multiple uses. It is a utilitarian object, not an inherently demonic death machine as leftists would have us believe.

    Gun grabbers love to make the argument that firearms are only designed for one purpose: “Killing”. This is a lie. They are also tools for self defense. They are a means to defuse a violent situation before it even happens. There are thousands of videos on the web showing people with criminal intent running away from a Good Samaritan with a gun. There is no way of telling how many potential victims have been saved by the mere presence of a firearm, but the accounts are documented and numerous.

    This is on top of all the other uses for guns, including hunting and sporting uses. So, yes, the judge is absolutely correct; an AR-15 is a multipurpose tool, just like a Swiss Army knife.

    In my view, the gun control lobby in America is in the midst of a considerable decline, and maybe it is even about to die. The political left has long operated on the mantra that “the squeaky wheel gets the oil”. In other words, they think if they whine long enough and loud enough about an issue someone will come along and give them what they want just to shut them up, even if what they want is illogical or morally bankrupt.

    This strategy has worked out for them for many decades so it’s not surprising that they keep using it, but times are changing. Now, the squeaky wheel gets no oil, at least not from gun owners. The squeaky wheel gets nothing.

    Gun control is the big line in the sand for most law abiding conservatives and moderates, and we have grown tired of the debate because it’s no longer a debate, it’s a imposition of ideology and cultism. All the facts are on the side of gun owners. All the legal protections are on the side of gun owners. All the moral dynamics are on the side of gun owners. As long as we stand our ground, there is nothing that leftists can do about it.

    They can continue to lie, they can continue to threaten and they can continue exploiting emotional arguments, but they’ll NEVER get the guns. And, as we have seen recently, we might even start returning some of those gun rights and rifles to states like California, where fear was used to cloud the public mind and people were conned into compliance.

    What are California leftists and their comrades in other blue states really afraid of? They are afraid that their strategies are failing, that the public is getting wise to their games, that their incrementalism only works for so long, that their true intentions have become transparent, that their narcissism has blinded them to their own frailties, that the law is not their plaything and that every piece of constitutional ground they have stolen over the decades could be taken back from them in the blink of an eye; as fast as a speeding bullet.

    Leftists and totalitarians fear the AR-15, but what they fear more is what it represents. And with each carefully placed practice shot at every gun range across America, they hear the crushing sound of inevitability.

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 22:20

  • PG&E Warns Of More Blackouts As California Wildfire Season Begins 
    PG&E Warns Of More Blackouts As California Wildfire Season Begins 

    It has been an arid spring in California, and that’s causing alarm with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. executives who have said this week they will need more frequent power cuts to customers in Northern California to prevent wildfires. 

    PG&E’s chief risk officer Sumeet Singh told WSJ that California’s dry weather conditions could result in more rolling blackouts this year than last year. The company has trimmed trees away from powerlines and inspected the grid as the wildfire season began earlier this month. 

    June is typically the month the wildfire season in California begins. The state is already battling an extreme drought, and the first heat wave of the season hit last week. The risks of another heat wave are increasing for next week. 

    The hottest and most fire-prone months are nearing as a second heat wave of the season could arrive as early as next week. 

    How the season turns out may depend on the immediate climate in the state. Extreme heat and drought are several factors that may produce dry fuels and eventually spark fires. 

    “The fuel moisture levels … are about a month or two months ahead of schedule,” Strenfel told Sacramento Bee. “They’re at a state where they’re typically this dry in mid-July, and we’re seeing them in June. We’re a month ahead of schedule, if not two months, in terms of fire danger.”

    Singh told WSJ, “the big, big variable that’s unpredictable here is the wind. But in all the forecasts that we’ve done, we do not see ourselves getting back to the same kind of [power shut-off] events like we saw in 2019.”

    Already, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared 41 of the state’s 58 counties are in a drought, with much of the state in an “extreme drought” and portions in an “exceptional drought.”  

    The 2020 California fire season, the worst on record, burned more than 4 million acres, is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Newsom has allocated millions of dollars in new funding to thwart fires this year. 

    The 2021 wildfire season could be more severe than last year, which means PG&E may have to issue more powercuts to thwart fires. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 22:00

  • How Fanatics Took Over The World
    How Fanatics Took Over The World

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

    Early in the pandemic, I had been furiously writing articles about lockdowns. My phone rang with a call from a man named Dr. Rajeev Venkayya. He is the head of a vaccine company but introduced himself as former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation.

    Now I was listening.

    I did not know it then, but I’ve since learned from Michael Lewis’s (mostly terrible) book The Premonition that Venkayya was, in fact, the founding father of lockdowns. While working for George W. Bush’s White House in 2005, he headed a bioterrorism study group. From his perch of influence – serving an apocalyptic president — he was the driving force for a dramatic change in U.S. policy during pandemics.

    He literally unleashed hell.

    That was 15 years ago. At the time, I wrote about the changes I was witnessing, worrying that new White House guidelines (never voted on by Congress) allowed the government to put Americans in quarantine while closing their schools, businesses, and churches shuttered, all in the name of disease containment.

    I never believed it would happen in real life; surely there would be public revolt. Little did I know, we were in for a wild ride…

    The Man Who Lit the Match

    Last year, Venkayya and I had a 30-minute conversation; actually, it was mostly an argument. He was convinced that lockdown was the only way to deal with a virus. I countered that it was wrecking rights, destroying businesses, and disturbing public health. He said it was our only choice because we had to wait for a vaccine. I spoke about natural immunity, which he called brutal. So on it went.

    The more interesting question I had at the time was why this certified Big Shot was wasting his time trying to convince a poor scribbler like me. What possible reason could there be?

    The answer, I now realized, is that from February to April 2020, I was one of the few people (along with a team of researchers) who openly and aggressively opposed what was happening.

    There was a hint of insecurity and even fear in Venkayya’s voice. He saw the awesome thing he had unleashed all over the world and was anxious to tamp down any hint of opposition. He was trying to silence me. He and others were determined to crush all dissent.

    This is how it has been for the better part of the last 15 months, with social media and YouTube deleting videos that dissent from lockdowns. It’s been censorship from the beginning.

    For all the problems with Lewis’s book, and there are plenty, he gets this whole backstory right. Bush came to his bioterrorism people and demanded some huge plan to deal with some imagined calamity. When Bush saw the conventional plan — make a threat assessment, distribute therapeutics, work toward a vaccine — he was furious.

    “This is bulls**t,” the president yelled.

    “We need a whole-of-society plan. What are you going to do about foreign borders? And travel? And commerce?”

    Hey, if the president wants a plan, he’ll get a plan.

    “We want to use all instruments of national power to confront this threat,” Venkayya reports having told colleagues.

    “We were going to invent pandemic planning.”

    This was October 2005, the birth of the lockdown idea.

    Dr. Venkayya began to fish around for people who could come up with the domestic equivalent of Operation Desert Storm to deal with a new virus. He found no serious epidemiologists to help. They were too smart to buy into it. He eventually bumped into the real lockdown innovator working at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

    Cranks, Computers, and Cooties

    His name was Robert Glass, a computer scientist with no medical training, much less knowledge, about viruses. Glass, in turn, was inspired by a science fair project that his 14-year-old daughter was working on.

    She theorized (like the cooties game from grade school) that if school kids could space themselves out more or even not be at school at all, they would stop making each other sick. Glass ran with the idea and banged out a model of disease control based on stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, business closures, and forced human separation.

    Crazy right? No one in public health agreed with him but like any classic crank, this convinced Glass even more. I asked myself, “Why didn’t these epidemiologists figure it out?” They didn’t figure it out because they didn’t have tools that were focused on the problem. They had tools to understand the movement of infectious diseases without the purpose of trying to stop them.

    Genius, right? Glass imagined himself to be smarter than 100 years of experience in public health. One guy with a fancy computer would solve everything! Well, he managed to convince some people, including another person hanging around the White House named Carter Mecher, who became Glass’s apostle.

    Please consider the following quotation from Dr. Mecher in Lewis’s book: “If you got everyone and locked each of them in their own room and didn’t let them talk to anyone, you would not have any disease.”

    At last, an intellectual has a plan to abolish disease — and human life as we know it too! As preposterous and terrifying as this is — a whole society not only in jail but solitary confinement — it sums up the whole of Mecher’s view of disease. It’s also completely wrong.

    Pathogens are part of our world; they are generated by human contact. We pass them onto each other as the price for civilization, but we also evolved immune systems to deal with them. That’s 9th-grade biology, but Mecher didn’t have a clue.

    Fanatics Win the Day

    Jump forward to March 12, 2020. Who exercised the major influence over the decision to close schools, even though it was known at that time that SARS-CoV-2 posed almost risk to people under the age of 20? There was even evidence that they did not spread COVID-19 to adults in any serious way.

    Didn’t matter. Mecher’s models — developed with Glass and others — kept spitting out a conclusion that shutting down schools would drop virus transmission by 80%. I’ve read his memos from this period — some of them still not public — and what you observe is not science but ideological fanaticism in play.

    Based on the timestamp and length of the emails, he was clearly not sleeping much. Essentially he was Lenin on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. How did he get his way?

    There were three key elements: public fear, media and expert acquiescence, and the baked-in reality that school closures had been part of “pandemic planning” for the better part of 15 years. Essentially, the lockdowners, over the course of 15 years, had worn out the opposition. Lavish funding, attrition of wisdom within public health, and ideological fanaticism prevailed.

    Figuring out how our expectations for normal life were so violently foiled, how our happy lives were brutally crushed, will consume serious intellectuals for many years. But at least we now have a first draft of history.

    As with almost every revolution in history, a small minority of crazy people with a cause prevailed over the humane rationality of multitudes. When people catch on, the fires of vengeance will burn very hot.

    The task now is to rebuild a civilized life that is no longer so fragile as to allow insane people to lay waste to all that humanity has worked so hard to build.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 21:40

  • Perfect Storm: Congestion Plagues South China And US West Coast Ports 
    Perfect Storm: Congestion Plagues South China And US West Coast Ports 

    Peak shipping season is ahead — and the parking lot of container ships moored off the US West Coast continues to worsen, with the epicenter of congestion based around Los Angeles/Long Beach ports. On the other side of the Pacific, in southern China, a surge in COVID-19 has caused some of the biggest port congestion in more than one year. 

    So now port congestion is seen on both sides of the Pacific as it’s hardly a secret that the recent collapse of trans-pacific supply chains will remain strained through the summer and one reason why prices for goods are soaring (as recently discussed in “It’s About To Get Much Worse”: Supply Chains Implode As “Price Doesn’t Even Matter Anymore” and “Port Of LA Volumes Are “Off The Charts.””) 

    But now, focusing at South China ports, exploding cases of coronavirus infections in Guangdong province, a top manufacturing and exporting hub, recently triggered local governments to increase prevention and control efforts that “curbed port processing capacity,” said Reuters. 

    Major shipping companies have warned clients of vessel delays, changes to port call schedules, and the possibility of avoiding some ports altogether.

    Ocean Network Express (ONE), a container shipping company, warned customers in an advisory Wednesday: “The container logistics situation continues to deteriorate around all the ports in the area [South China port].” 

    Most of the congestion has been building at the Yantian International Container Terminal (YICT), a deepwater port in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China handing some of the largest container ships in the world, has reduced capacity at the port due to a recent outbreak of the virus, according to Seatrade Maritime News, citing ONE. 

    The world’s leading container line Maersk told customers to expect delays up to two weeks because of the reduced capacity of staffing at the port. 

    Refinitiv data shows 50 container vessels are moored in the Outer Pearl River Delta, waiting to dock at YICT. For comparison, this compares with 20 vessels for the same time last year. 

    Reuters quoted one exporter who said loading delays and slow deliveries continue to tangle global supply chains. 

    “Basically we had a similar experience last year so we have experience in responding, only the increase in transport costs are getting really astonishing. The freight fees are reflected in the increase in material costs which are up by around 15%-30% already,” said a sales manager at an electronics cable manufacturer in Shenzhen, a large manufacturing city in Guangdong. 

    The congestion and delays in South China came when container shipping supply chains were already at full stretch due to US West Coast port congestion. As a result, container freight rates have hit a record high and are expected to continue to rise further. 

    “The recent rise in Covid-19 cases in China has resulted in a shutdown that may add to the already record cost of shipping goods out of China. The delays have already resulted in pressurizing soaring shipping prices within China due to a lack of containers and increased export demand,” said Josh Brazil, the Vice President of Marketing at project44. 

    Port congestion on either side of the Pacific continues to deteriorate. It suggests that the normalization of trans-pacific supply chains will not happen anytime soon and will continue to add cost pressures for exporters in China and importers in the US – adding to the cost of products and ultimately pushed along to US consumers. Delays will also continue to create additional shortages…  

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 21:20

  • Connecticut To Enact Highway Fee For Trucks
    Connecticut To Enact Highway Fee For Trucks

    By John Gallagher of FreightWaves,

    Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to sign a bill passed this week by state lawmakers that, beginning January 2023, will impose a tax of up to 17.5 cents per mile on heavy trucks that use Connecticut’s roadways. The tax,, which trucks would be required to pay in addition to federal fuel taxes, is estimated to generate $45 million in revenue in FY23 and $90 million annually thereafter, and would go toward repairing roads and bridges.

    “This small fee on large tractor trailers that are doing 20,000 times the amount of damage as a passenger vehicle is a responsible way to address part of that crisis,” commented state Rep. Roland Lemar, a Democrat.

    Most Republicans in the legislature, however, including Rep. Devin Carney, opposed the bill. “I think it’s going to raise costs on food, on things like heating oil, clothing, gasoline — I just think it’s a trickle-down tax that’s very regressive,” Carney said. Joseph Sculley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, said that the tax will add a financial burden on in-state trucking companies while out-of-state companies will avoid paying by rerouting around the state.

    “One of our members estimated it is going to cost him an additional $200,000 per year, and if he can’t pass the cost down, whether through a line-item fee or by increasing his overall rates, he’ll be out of business,” Sculley told FreightWaves.

    In addition, Sculley said, state lawmakers have admitted that the program would be administered using an honor system and that it would not be a priority for roadside law enforcement. “I told every member of the legislature that 20 states have tried it and gave up because they couldn’t make it work.”

    According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), four states — Kentucky, New Mexico, New York and Oregon — are levying some form of vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee on commercial trucks. Kentucky charges a flat rate of about 3 cents per mile, and the other three charge rates that vary by trucks’ weight, ranging from about 1 to 29 cents per mile, notes a CBO report.

    The Connecticut proposal places trucks in 28 weight categories. The rate charged per mile ranges from 2.5 cents for trucks weighing 26,000-28,000 pounds to 17.5 cents for trucks weighing 80,001 pounds and over. The bill requires each carrier to apply to the state’s Department of Revenue Services (DRS) for a highway user tax permit, and would prohibit carriers from operating their trucks in the state without one. Any fees would have to be paid to DRS each month.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 21:00

  • Kim Jong Un Calls K-Pop A "Vicious Cancer": Prescribes 15-Years Hard Labor If Caught With It
    Kim Jong Un Calls K-Pop A “Vicious Cancer”: Prescribes 15-Years Hard Labor If Caught With It

    Apparently Kim Jong Un has gone full culture warrior in attempts to “protect” the North from a K-Pop invasion, calling South Korea’s pop culture style which has in past years gone global a “vicious cancer” which is corrupting the youth, but is still increasingly making inroads into the DPRK. A new state media quote this week indicated his belief that it would make North Korea “crumble like a damp wall.”

    These latest statements in the war on K-Pop come after months of Kim himself or other officials in state media ranting against the corrupting “attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors” which comes from outside influence, especially from South Korean music and film, and is threatening to induce changes in the “ideological and mental state” of the country’s youth.

    Months ago Kim also ordered that authorities across all provinces to “mercilessly” combat increasing “capitalist tendencies” and all external forms of cultural influence. 

    Multiple international reports are now highlighting a law which was passed last December, but is receiving much more attention in light of the K-Pop comments, given it means a citizen could literally face 15 years of hard labor if they’re found to be in possession of South Korean popular entertainment:

    It calls for five to 15 years in labor camps for people who watch or possess South Korean entertainment, according to lawmakers in Seoul who were briefed by government intelligence officials, and internal North Korean documents smuggled out by Daily NK, a Seoul-based website. The previous maximum punishment for such crimes was five years of hard labor.

    And worse, “dealing” has been made a capital offense…

    Those who put material in the hands of North Koreans can face even stiffer punishments, including the death penalty. The new law also calls for up to two years of hard labor for those who “speak, write or sing in South Korean style.”

    Despite the obvious absurdity and somewhat comic nature of the bizarre law and spectacle of the ongoing “crackdown” – which sounds like it’s a write-up in The Onion, it strongly suggests that Pyongyang is legitimately worried at this point about maintaining ideological control over the population.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    There appears to be a growing craving for outside media consumption, also as technology has made it easier to either share things digitally, or easily hide small thumb drives. 

    On the one hand media smuggled from outside might present the DPRK population with more attractive images of life elsewhere away from under the thumb of the totalitarian regime, while at the same time undoing official North propaganda which depicts South Korea as a “living hell”.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 20:40

  • Ranchers Sell Off Cattle, Farmers Idle Thousands Of Acres As America's Drought Emergency Escalates
    Ranchers Sell Off Cattle, Farmers Idle Thousands Of Acres As America’s Drought Emergency Escalates

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    In my entire lifetime, this is the worst that drought conditions have ever been in the western half of the country.  During the past 20 years, the amount of territory in the West considered to be suffering from exceptional drought has never gone higher than 11 percent until now.  Today, that number is sitting at 27 percent.  The term “mega-drought” is being thrown around a lot these days to describe what is happening, but this isn’t just a drought.  This is a true national emergency, and it is really starting to affect our food supply.

    Just look at what is happening up in North Dakota.  The vast majority of the state is either in the worst level of drought or the second worst level of drought, and ranchers are auctioning off their cattle by the thousands…

    “Normally this time of the year, we’re probably looking at 400-600 head and a lot of times would be every other week,” said former auctioneer Ron Torgerson.

    On Sunday and Monday, more than 4,200 head of cattle were sold at Rugby Livestock and Auction.

    Needless to say, ranchers in North Dakota don’t want to get rid of their cattle, but the drought has pushed prices for hay and corn so high that many of them simply have no choice.

    One of those that has already been forced to sell a large number of cattle is rancher David Bohl…

    As the drought continues, the price of hay and corn has gone way up. It’s more expensive for ranchers to try and supplement feed than it is to sell the cattle.

    Bohl has already sold 200 of his head in the last month.

    “Everybody is in the same situation, they’re going to have to sell probably 25 to 50% of them because there’s nowhere to go with them we just got no food to feed them,” Bohl said.

    As cattle herds shrink all over the western half of the country, this is going to push beef prices significantly higher than they are right now.

    And in many areas, they are already at ridiculous levels.

    Meanwhile, the drought continues to push the water level in Lake Mead into the danger zone.  According to CBS News, Lake Mead will soon hit the “lowest level ever recorded”…

    For more than eight decades, the iconic Hoover Dam has relied on water from Nevada’s Lake Mead to cover up its backside. But now, at age 85, it finds itself uncomfortably exposed. Much of the water the dam is supposed to be holding back is gone.

    “This is like a different world,” said Pat Mulroy, the former head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. She told CBS News senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy that Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, is on track to soon hit its lowest level ever recorded.

    Since the year 2000, the water level in Lake Mead has declined by a whopping 30 feet, and it is currently at just 37 percent of capacity.

    The dam’s hydropower output has already been reduced by about 25 percent, and once the water level gets low enough it will stop producing electricity completely.

    In addition, many farmers that rely on water from Lake Mead are facing a very uncertain future at this point…

    For the first time ever, the federal government is expected to declare a water shortage on the lower Colorado River later this summer. That will force automatic cuts to the water supply for Nevada and Arizona starting in 2022. Homeowners have higher priority and, at first, won’t feel the pain as badly as farmers.

    Dan Thelander is a second-generation family farmer in Arizona’s Pinal County. The water to grow his corn and alfalfa fields comes from Lake Mead. “If we don’t have irrigation water, we can’t farm,” he said. “So, next year we are going to get about 25% less water, means we’re going to have to fallow or not plant 25% of our land.”

    Unless something changes, Thelander and other farmers in the region could potentially have all water cut off in 2023.

    That is just two years away.

    Of course there are many farmers in California that have already been informed that they will not be getting any water allocated to them at all here in 2021.  It is being projected that farmers in the state will not grow anything on 500,000 acres this year, and that is really bad news because California grows more than a third of our vegetables and two-thirds of our fruits and nuts…

    Along with wildfire risks, short water supply is putting immense pressure on the state’s agricultural industry, which grows over a third of the country’s vegetables and supplies two-thirds of the fruits and nuts in the US. Already farmers are culling crops and fallowing fields in anticipation of water shortages. Karen Ross, California’s food and agriculture secretary, told the California Chamber of Commerce that she expected 500,000 acres would have to sit idle this year.

    So what are we going to do if this mega-drought persists several more years and agricultural production in California is dramatically reduced for an extended period of time?

    I am sure that some wise guy will post a comment after this article about importing more fruits and vegetables from South America, but South America is experiencing a historic drought too.

    In fact, at this moment Brazil is experiencing the “worst drought in nearly a century”, and scientists are anticipating that it will not end any time soon.

    Needless to say, the droughts that we are witnessing are setting the stage for many of the things that I have been warning about, and the future of agricultural production in the western hemisphere is looking quite bleak for the foreseeable future.

    In the short-term, this crisis is going to result in substantially higher prices at the grocery store.  I know that grocery prices have already risen to painful levels, but the truth is that food prices will never be as low as they are right now.

    So I am encouraging everyone to stock up while they still can.

    As I have said so many times, we really struggle to feed everyone in the world during the best of years, and 2021 is definitely not one of the best of years.

    Global food supplies are getting tighter and tighter, and this definitely has enormous implications for our future.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 20:20

  • Western Companies "Shocked" After China Rushes Through Anti-Sanctions Law
    Western Companies “Shocked” After China Rushes Through Anti-Sanctions Law

    There should be little doubt that the timing is intentional: China on Thursday passed its sweeping new law to ‘safeguard’ Chinese businesses and entities from Western and especially US sanctions, just hours ahead of President Joe Biden sitting down with G-7 leaders in Cornwall to argue for a common stance on curtailing China’s influence. AFP observes: “China’s quick rollout of a law against foreign sanctions has left European and American companies shocked and facing ‘irreconcilable’ compliance issues, two top business groups said Friday, despite Beijing saying the move would unlikely impact investment.”

    The Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, as we described earlier, is designed shield Chinese entities and institutions from “the unilateral and discriminatory measures imposed by foreign countries” and ultimately the “long arm jurisdiction” of the United States.  

    It effectively enables the Chinese government to sanction all who comply with US/EU sanctions by drawing a bright red line, forcing entities to choose whether to comply to Washington’s side or Beijing’s side. Upon its introduction early this week in the National People’s Congress there were few details given, other than vowing that “if Chinese entities are hit with unjustified sanctions, the proposed law is supposed to crystallize actionable countermeasures against the foreign governments and institutions…expecting the legal effort to make up for losses that Chinese entities would suffer.”

    With the law’s passage, details have been revealed as follows:

    Countermeasures in the Chinese law include “refusal to issue visas, denial of entry, deportation… and sealing, seizing, and freezing property of individuals or businesses that adhere to foreign sanctions against Chinese businesses or officials,” according to the text published by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature.

    Thus it “answers” current US tactics in a serious escalation: whereas Washington currently often seeks to punish third party entities or countries for direct or even indirect dealings with a sanctioned regime (the cases of Venezuela and Iran are clear examples, or even European companies which worked on the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 pipeline), Beijing has now given itself the ‘legal authority’ to do the same. 

    The foreign ministry announced upon the law’s passage: “The law aims to firmly safeguard the sovereign dignity and core interests of the country and oppose Western hegemony and power politics,” according to state media. And a Global Times op-ed asserted: “It will act as a powerful deterrent against countries imposing sanctions,” and further: “We will not hesitate to fight back against forces that arrogantly challenge us and will continue to enrich our legal toolbox.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    And here’s more on how it will coerce companies into “choosing” to conform to US or Chinese law, which could have devastating fallout down the line for Western companies operating in China:

    The restrictions can apply to family members of individuals who fall foul of Beijing.

    The law also allows the country’s courts to punish companies that comply with foreign laws, and says that businesses or people in China do not need to comply with foreign restrictions.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Meanwhile, as the G-7 continues in the UK, Beijing officials blasted what they called “small circle diplomacy”. 

    The Chinese Communist Party’s chief diplomat Yang Jiechi told Antony Blinken in a phone call ahead of the summit that “genuine multilateralism is not pseudo-multilateralism based on the interests of small circles” in denunciation of what’s being seen as an “anti-China” meeting.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 20:00

  • Media Converges On The Narrative That UFOs May Be Russian/Chinese Threat
    Media Converges On The Narrative That UFOs May Be Russian/Chinese Threat

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    So in case you haven’t been keeping up it’s been pretty thoroughly confirmed that the US government’s highly anticipated UFO report due this month won’t contain any significant revelations and certainly won’t verify anyone’s ideas about these phenomena being extraterrestrial in origin, but it absolutely will contain fearmongering that UFOs could be evidence that the US has fallen dangerously behind Russian and Chinese technological development in the cold war arms race.

    Unknown US officials have done a print media tour speaking to the press on condition of anonymity (of course), with first The New York Times reporting their statements about the contents of the UFO report and then CNN and The Washington Post. Each of these outlets reported the same thing: the US government doesn’t know what these things are but is very concerned they constitute evidence that Russia and/or China have somehow managed to technologically leapfrog US military development by light years. All three mention these two nations explicitly.

    This narrative was then picked up by cable news, with MSNBC inviting former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta on to explain to their audience that the US government should assume UFOs are Russian or Chinese in origin until that possibility has been exhausted.

    “Is it your assumption that it is Russia or China testing some crazy technology that we somehow don’t have, or are we sort of over-assuming the abilities of China and Russia and that the only other explanation is that if it is not us ourselves then it is something otherworldly?” MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked Panetta.

    “I believe a lot of this stuff probably could be countries like Russia, like China, like others, who are using now drones, using the kind of sophisticated weaponry that could very well be involved in a lot of these sightings,” Panetta replied.

    “I think that’s the area to go to very frankly in order to identify what’s happening.”

    “It sounds like you think we should exhaust that out, exhaust that hypothesis first before you start dealing with other hypotheses,” Todd said.

    “Yeah, absolutely,” said Panetta, who for the record is every bit as much of a tyrannical, thuggish imperialist cold warrior as any other CIA director.

    This UFOs-as-Chinese/Russian-threat narrative has quickly been picked up and thrust into mainstream orthodoxy by all the major branches of the mass media, from Fox News to Reuters to The Guardian to Today to the BBC to USA Today. Whenever you see the imperial media converge to this extent upon a single narrative, that’s the Official Narrative of the empire. We can expect to see a lot more of this going forward.

    Interestingly, the only mass media segment I’ve seen on this topic since the New York Times story broke which doesn’t promote the UFOs-as-Chinese/Russian-threat narrative is a guest appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight by Lue Elizondo, the military intelligence veteran who got the ball rolling on the new UFO narrative which emerged in 2017. Elizondo goes out of his way to tell Carlson (who himself has been promoting the idea that UFOs may be a foreign adversarial threat with cartoonish melodrama) that there’s no way these could be Russian or Chinese aircraft.

    Elizondo, who seems to favor the UFOs-as-extraterrestrials narrative, argues that there are extensive records of military encounters with these phenomena stretching back seventy years, which rules out China since it could barely keep its head above water back then and rules out Russia because it shared its UFO knowledge with the US after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    I don’t know what’s going on with that last bit; I see no reason to trust that an American spook is acting in good faith on such an easily manipulated topic, but it is entirely possible that Elizondo set out on this road out of a sincere desire for government disclosure on UFOs and is now trying to regain control of the narrative now that he sees the cold war arms race direction it has taken.

    Chris Melon, another major player in the new UFO narrative, recently complained on Twitter that “some important information was not shared” with the public in the UFO report. So who knows, maybe the initiators of this new UFO narrative were acting in good faith and their efforts were just swiftly hijacked by forces beyond their control to advance preexisting cold war agendas.

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    Regardless of whether or not that’s true, it was always inevitable that this strange new rabbit hole of UFOs going mainstream was going to lead to more cold war propaganda. I’ve been interacting a bit with the online UFO community for the first time ever, and it seems like they’re mostly decent people with good intentions and a lot of hope for this new governmental investigation. But it also seems like they’re largely a community which mostly just talks to itself and is only just beginning to meet the cold harsh light of day that is the impenetrable depravity of the US war machine.

    The US government is pure swamp; you can’t use the swamp to fix the swamp. Democrats were never going to use a Special Counsel to remove Trump, Trump was never going to take down the Deep State, and the US government isn’t going to investigate itself and tell everyone that aliens are real.

    If there are indeed extraterrestrials and they are indeed flying around our world in strange aircraft, we are more likely to get the truth about this from the extraterrestrials themselves than from the US military. The war machine only does killing and destruction; it’s not going to suddenly develop an interest in truth and transparency. The sooner UFO enthusiasts realize this the better.

    *  *  *

    The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 19:40

  • Pentagon Boss 'Clarifies' Russia & China Pose Biggest Threats After Biden Says It's Climate Change
    Pentagon Boss ‘Clarifies’ Russia & China Pose Biggest Threats After Biden Says It’s Climate Change

    On Wednesday, President Biden told US troops stationed in the UK that the Joint Chiefs told him “the greatest threat facing America” is “global warming” – a curious pivot from “white supremacy.”

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    On day later, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs ‘corrected’ Biden, asserting instead that the biggest threats facing the US are China and Russia, according to US News, (and who allegedly had a big role in scamming half of pandemic unemployment funds to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars).

    “Climate change does impact, but the president is looking at a much broader angle than I am,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional panel Thursday morning in response to a question by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) “I’m looking at it from a strictly military standpoint. And from a strictly military standpoint, I’m putting China, Russia up there.”

    Milley then backpedaled a bit, saying “Climate change is a threat. Climate change has a significant impact on military operations, and we have to take that into consideration.”

    “Climate change is going to impact natural resources, for example,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee,adding, “It’s going to impact increased instability in various parts of the world, it’s going to impact migrations and so on.”

    When asked how his assessment that Russia and China pose the biggest threats, Milley said “This is not, however, in conflict with the acknowledgement that climate change or infrastructure or education systems– national security has a broad angle to it. I’m looking at it from a strictly military standpoint.”

    On Wednesday, Biden spoke to US forces at Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall, where he recounted an alleged discussion which took place while he was Vice President with the Joint Chiefs in their cloistered “tank” meeting room at the Pentagon.

    “This is not a joke. You know what the Joint Chiefs told us the greatest threat facing America was? Global warming,” he claimed.

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    In response to Biden’s Wednesday comments, former President Trump issued a statement.

    “Biden just said that he was told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Climate Change is our greatest threat. If that is the case, and they actually said this, he ought to immediately fire the Joint Chiefs of Staff for being incompetent,” said Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 19:20

  • "Wholly-Owned Subsidiary Of The Gun Lobby": Newsom Attacks Federal Judge Who Ruled In Favor Of Gun Rights
    “Wholly-Owned Subsidiary Of The Gun Lobby”: Newsom Attacks Federal Judge Who Ruled In Favor Of Gun Rights

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Remember when networks and legal experts (correctly) denounced President Donald Trump for his attacks on judges who ruled against him?

    Two years ago, I ran a column noting that Democrats were adopting the same attacks on conservative judges but the media was entirely silent.

    Now,  California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats are lambasting a federal judge who ruled in favor of gun rights in a recent decision — accusing him of being in the pocket of the NRA and a danger to the country.  The response to Newsom’s attack from all of those same media and legal experts has ranged from outright support to conspicuous silence.

    We recently wrote about the decision of U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez to strike down the ban on “assault weapons.”  In Miller v. Bonta, Benitez found that the ban on weapons like the AR-15 are based on both a misunderstanding of the weapons and a misinterpretation of the Constitution.  I previously discussed many of the same issues surrounding the AR-15 which remains one of the most popular weapons in the United States

    The recent decision led to a barrage of personal attacks from Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta and legal experts.  Newsom called Benitez a “stone-cold ideologue” who writes “press releases on behalf of the gun lobby.”  He warned that everyone needs to “call this federal judge out” because “he will continue to do damage.”

    Benitez has indeed ruled for gun owners in the past.  However, he was upheld in that decision (which is still on appeal). In 2017, he struck down the state’s nearly two-decade-old ban on the sales and purchases of magazines holding more than 10 bullets. As recently discussed, the Ninth Circuit upheld his decision, which is now scheduled to be reheard by an 11-member panel. These cases have a very strong chance for review before the Supreme Court given the division across the country and the 6-3 conservative majority on the Court.

    One can have good-faith reasons to disagree with both decisions.  Indeed, I am all in favor of passionate and pointed analysis of judicial rulings. Moreover, there are occasions where a judge’s personal bias is an issue.  Despite previously praising Judge Emmet Sullivan, I wrote columns that later criticized him for what appeared bias in his handling of the Flynn case. This is not such a case. Newsom is attacking this judge because he ruled in favor of gun rights arguments that are supported by many judges, lawyers, and citizens. These arguments have never been rejected by the Supreme Court. Indeed, he was relying on strong case law in favor of the Second Amendment claims raised by the litigants.

    It is the strikingly different response to the attacks on the judge that caught my attention. As discussed in the earlier column, legal experts expressed outrage over attacks by Trump of judges as “Obama judges” or “political judges” during his term. There was however no push back on Democratic members denouncing “Trump judges” and “Trump Justices.”  Esquire magazine published a column denouncing judges who ruled against ObamaCare, declaring that the Republican arguments “don’t need to make sense. They just need the right judges — and they’re everywhere in the federal judicial system.” One Nation article explained how Trump jurists “swarming our judicial system . . . will linger, like an infected wound poisoning the body politic.” CNN ran headlines about “Republican-appointed judges” supporting the ObamaCare challenge, while Democratic members of Congress denounced federal judges ruling for the Trump administration as examples of why new judges must be appointed by Democrats.

    Benitez ruled on arguments that have long been discussed by many of us as raising serious questions over the constitutionality of these laws. Again, one can disagree with the arguments but they are not fringe or fanciful positions. Indeed, Newsom’s demand for an appeal may be great news for the gun rights groups. Liberal states and cities have repeatedly pushed appeals that resulted in magnifying their losses. The District of Columbia is a great example of such poor choices in triggering the decisions in Heller. Later the Supreme Court expanded on its pro-gun rights case law in  McDonald v. City of Chicago. The Supreme Court just took up a new major gun rights case out of New York.

    Benitez and his family fled communist Cuba and remains a powerful American success story.  He was able to get through law school as a first generation American. Benitez was confirmed 98-1 and had the strong support of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats. (Only Sen. Dick Durban voted against him). Feinstein rejected the negative review of the ABA based on his “temperament” and noted that her own inquiries found that lawyers “say he is a man of the highest ethical standard, that he has superb demeanor, intelligence, pragmatism, and fairness. And the chief public defender notes that he has good judicial temperament and is courteous to his employees and the attorneys who appear before him.”

    Newsom’s attack omits that Benitez was upheld by other judges in his earlier decision. That does not mean that the opinion is manifestly right (Indeed, it is being appealed). However, the opinion advanced well-established arguments and authority in reaching its conclusion. A majority on the Supreme Court would likely agree with much of the opinion. It is not about him. It is about the law.  That is why I criticized Trump for his attacks on judges and why we should be equally critical of Newsom and Democratic leaders doing the same thing now.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 19:00

  • Former ADT Tech Sentenced To Prison After Spying On Naked Women And Couples Having Sex
    Former ADT Tech Sentenced To Prison After Spying On Naked Women And Couples Having Sex

    A former ADT security technician was sentenced to four years and four months in federal prison for repeatedly hacking into customers’ video feeds in North Texas and spying on attractive women and couples engaging in sexual activity inside their homes, according to CBS Dallas.

    Tesforo Aviles (via the Daily Mail)

    Telesforo Aviles, 35, pleaded guilty to computer fraud in January – admitting to adding his personal email address to customers’ “ADT Pulse” accounts, which gave him real-time access to video feeds from their homes. In some instances he claimed he needed to add himself temporarily to “test” the system, while in other cases he added himself without customer knowledge.

    According to plea papers, Aviles watched numerous videos of naked women and couples engaging in sexual activity, which he admitted he would view for sexual gratification.

    Aviles accessed roughly 200 customer accounts over 9,600 times without their consent.

    “This deliberate and calculated invasion of privacy is arguably more harmfrul than if I had installed no security system and my house had been burglarized,” said one female victim in a statement to the court. “This sick and corrupt individual’s actions will have a lasting emotional and mental toll on me.”

    “This defendant, entrusted with safeguarding customers’ homes, instead intruded on their most intimate moments,” Acting US Attorney Perak Shah said in January.

    Aviles faced up to five years in prison.

    Unfortunately for the victims, they couldn’t opt-out of Aviles’ intrusions like Amazon Sidewalk customers. You never know who’s on the other end.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 18:40

  • Congressman Presses Secretary Yellen For Disclosure Of US Gold Activities
    Congressman Presses Secretary Yellen For Disclosure Of US Gold Activities

    Via MoneyMetals.com,

    As foreign governments reportedly accumulate gold and de-dollarize their sovereign wealth funds, a Republican congressman is asking tough questions of the U.S. Treasury about its secretive gold activities.

    Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) – sponsor of the Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2021 (H.R. 3526) to require the first true audit of America’s gold in decades – wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this week requesting detailed information about the U.S. gold holdings delegated to the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund and posed other questions.

    From Rep. Mooney’s letter:

    1. According to testimony in 2011 by Mr. Gary Engel, the Director of Financial Management and Assurance at the Government Accountability Office, about 5 percent of the U.S. gold holdings were stored at the time at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He also stated that this gold is not considered “audited” and that no assaying or inventorying of that gold had occurred since at least 1986.

      At the current time, what amount of U.S. gold holdings is vaulted at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (or by the Federal Reserve using other depositories)? Also, has this gold been recently audited, assayed, and/or inventoried? If so, please provide me with a copy of any relevant reports.

    2. For what purpose(s) is United States gold bullion stored at the Federal Reserve?

    3. According to testimony by Mr. Engel, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York holds gold for other nations as well. Is the U.S.-owned gold stored at the Federal Reserve held in a physically segregated manner from the holdings of other nations?

    4. During the 2011 hearing, Rep. Luetkemeyer referenced a report that 261 million ounces in U.S.-owned gold is part of the IMF’s reserves. At present, how many ounces of U.S.-owned gold are in the possession of the IMF or pledged to the IMF – and where is that gold kept? Also, please describe the purpose and nature of this arrangement as well as what oversight procedures are in place.

    5. How much U.S.-owned gold is in the possession of and/or used by the Exchange Stabilization Fund as part of its activities? What is the purpose and nature of the ESF’s gold activities?

    6. Please provide details as to what U.S.-owned gold is currently pledged, swapped, leased, or otherwise encumbered – and for what purposes – including, but not limited to, arrangements involving the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), World Bank, IMF, and other financial institutions, foreign or domestic.

    Mooney’s inquiry comes shortly after he introduced H.R. 3526 to require the Comptroller General to immediately conduct a full assay, inventory, and audit of the United States’ gold reserves and repeat the process every five years.

    There is evidence the U.S. Treasury may have sold, swapped, leased, or otherwise placed encumbrances upon some of America’s gold over time.

    U.S. Congressman Alex Mooney (R-WV)

    However, federal government officials have strongly resisted disclosure of these activities for decades.

    To address these concerns, H.R. 3526 also requires a full accounting of any and all sales, purchases, disbursements, or receipts, a full accounting of any and all encumbrances, including due to lease, swap, or similar transactions presently in existence or entered into in the past 15 years, and an analysis of the sufficiency of the measures taken to ensure the physical security of such reserves.

    To fulfill its obligations under the Gold Reserve Transparency Act, Government Accountability Office auditors would gain access to any depository or other public or private depositories where reserves are kept as well as related records.

    “People are rightly concerned about the state of America’s gold holdings,” said Jp Cortez, policy director at the Sound Money Defense League.

    “The lack of full transparency by the Federal Government has hobbled public confidence. The Gold Reserve Transparency Act will ensure our gold reserves are accounted for.”

    The full text of the bill, which has been referred to the House Financial Services Committee, can be found here.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 18:20

  • Cuba's Central Bank Suspends Deposits In Dollars, Citing US Economic War
    Cuba’s Central Bank Suspends Deposits In Dollars, Citing US Economic War

    On Thursday the state-run Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) announced that it’s suspending all deposits in US dollars due to what it called America’s “economic blockade” of the country’s banking system. 

    “Given the obstacles imposed by the US economic blockade for the Cuban banking system to depositing abroad cash in US dollars collected in the country, the decision has been made to temporarily stop the acceptance of bills in that currency by the Cuban banking and finance system,” national media cited the bank as saying.

    The decision will go into effect starting June 21, and for now it appears indefinite with no end date for the restrictive measures being issued.

    Continued US punitive measures which have greatly weakened the Cuban peso created distortions between public and black market rates of late, a disparity which has hit state employees who are paid out in the national currency the hardest. 

    “This comes as the U.S. dollar in Cuba’s black market has soared in recent months to about 70 Cuban pesos, about triple the official exchange rate of 24 pesos,” The Miami Herald reports. 

    “The Cuban peso weakened significantly against the dollar after the island eliminated a confusing dual-currency system that maintained one currency valued at parity to the dollar and another much weaker currency,” the report added.

    Central Bank Vice President Yamile Berra Cires further cited as part of the rationale for the drastic move that some two dozen banks had halted business with the island in the wake of the prior Trump administration’s tightened US sanctions. She said the move is necessary to protect the local financial system. 

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    But as CNN’s Havana bureau chief Patrick Oppmann notes, the change also comes “just months after Cuba effectively dollarized stores. Now the Cuban gov’t seems to be trying to ditch the dollar as inflation has driven down the value of the Cuban peso.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 18:00

  • Two Big Problems Are Plaguing Our Economy, New Small Business Survey Reveals
    Two Big Problems Are Plaguing Our Economy, New Small Business Survey Reveals

    Authored by Brad Polumbo via The Foundation for Economic Education,

    With pandemic restrictions finally being wound down around the country, the economy should be roaring back to life. But we’ve seen much more muted job growth than expected, and we have a record-breaking 9.3 million unfilled job openings while millions of Americans languish on unemployment welfare. What’s going on?

    Well, a new small business survey reveals two key problems plaguing our economy.

    The National Federation of Independent Businesses regularly surveys the thousands of small businesses whose interests it represents. Released this week, its latest polling offers yet more proof that a labor shortage is restraining economic recovery.

    A record-high 48 percent of business owners said they had jobs they couldn’t fill. 

    “The labor shortage is holding back growth for small businesses across the country,” NFIB economist Bill Dunkelberg said.

    “If small business owners could hire more workers to take care of customers, sales would be higher and getting closer to pre-COVID levels.” 

    The source of this labor shortage, at least in large part, is the continued availability in dozens of states of unemployment welfare benefits that pay more than working a job. 

    Per Forbes, the average unemployed person can earn the equivalent of $17/hour staying on the welfare rolls under the current “temporary” expanded pandemic benefits (assuming a 40-hour workweek). Thus, many workers are disincentivized to return to work, even for jobs that pay $15/hour! 

    That small businesses across the country are experiencing an acute labor shortage should be no surprise given such dysfunctional government policy. But it’s a huge issue for our economy. 

    Meanwhile, surging price inflation is also a key cause for concern. 

    In the new survey, small businesses report big increases in their supply costs. As a result, roughly 40 percent said they are increasing their prices—the highest response to this question since 1981. The rising prices are a major concern for business owners, and one reason why their optimism on the near future fell in this month’s survey.  

    “Inflation on Main Street is rampant and small business owners are uncertain about future business conditions,” Dunkelberg added.

    Where’s the inflation coming from? It’s complicated, but here’s the short answer: reckless federal money-printing. 

    “Nearly one-quarter of the money in circulation has been created since January 2020,” FEE economist Peter Jacobsen recently explained. But printing more money doesn’t mean we actually have more stuff, and “if more dollars chase the exact same goods, prices will rise.” 

    From a labor shortage to inflation, our economic recovery faces some serious roadblocks. While the federal government may have intended to help along our resurgence, both hurdles can ultimately be traced back to failed policies in Washington, DC.

    *  *  *

    Like this story? Click here to sign up for the FEE Daily and get free-market news and analysis like this from Policy Correspondent Brad Polumbo in your inbox every weekday. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 17:40

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Jun 11

Today’s News 11th June 2021

  • FAO Warns Soaring Food Import Costs Could Induce "Potential Crisis" In Emerging Markets 
    FAO Warns Soaring Food Import Costs Could Induce “Potential Crisis” In Emerging Markets 

    Food prices are absolutely outrageous now, but they appear only to be moving higher as the year progresses. According to a new Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report, global food import costs are estimated to jump in 2021 to a record due to increasing commodity and shipping costs. 

    FAO’s “Food Outlook” report, published Thursday, estimates the global food import bill, including shipping-related costs this year, will be around $1.72 trillion, a 12% rise from its previous high of $1.53 trillion in 2020. 

    For readers who are not familiar with the Food Outlook report, it’s a bi-annual report that offers a detailed assessment of market supply and demand trends for cereals, vegetable oils, sugar, meat, dairy, and fish. It also dives into the futures markets and logical costs of transporting food. 

    Last week, the FAO released its monthly food price index, hitting a 10-year high in May, reflecting sharp gains for cereals, vegetable oils, and sugar.

    “The FAO said a separate index of food import values, including freight costs that have also soared, reached a record in March this year, surpassing levels seen during previous food price spikes in 2006-2008 and 2010-2012,” Reuters said. 

    China’s imports of agricultural demand have surged since the virus pandemic as Beijing’s attempts to rebuild its pig industry decimated from disease a few years back. 

    FAO concludes: “Rising food imports as a share of all imports can be an early warning indicator for potential crises in some areas.” 

    Back in December, SocGen’s market skeptic Albert Edwards shared his thoughts about why he started to panic about soaring food prices. And since that was before food prices began to rocket amid broken supply chains, trillions in fiscal stimulus, and exploding commodity costs, we can only imagine the situation is much worse today for emerging market economies. 

    DB’s Jim Reid reminds us that emerging markets are more vulnerable to this trend since their consumers spend a far greater share of their income on food than those in the developed world.

    FAO’s Food Outlook report is more evidence that Fed officials’ “transitory” narrative is just malarkey. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 02:45

  • G7: Desperately Seeking Relevancy
    G7: Desperately Seeking Relevancy

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    A G7 rebooted as a Sinophobic crusade will have few if any takers due to members’ rising dependence on Chinese goods and markets…

    The upcoming G7 in Cornwall at first might be seen as the quirky encounter of “America is Back” with “Global Britain”.

    The Big Picture though is way more sensitive.

     

    Three Summits in a Row – G7, NATO and US-EU – will be paving the way for a much expected cliffhanger: the Putin-Biden summit in Geneva – which certainly won’t be a reset.

    The controlling interests behind the hologram that goes by the name of “Joe Biden” have a clear overarching agenda: to regiment industrialized democracies – especially those in Europe – and keep them in lockstep to combat those “authoritarian” threats to US national security, “malignant” Russia and China.

    It’s like a throwback to those oh so stable 1970s Cold War days, complete with James Bond fighting foreign devils and Deep Purple subverting communism. Well, the times they are-a-changin’. China is very much aware that now the Global South “accounts for almost two-thirds of the global economy compared to one-third by the West: in the 1970s, it was exactly the opposite.”

    For the Global South – that is, the overwhelming majority of the planet – the G7 is largely irrelevant. What matters is the G20.

    China, the rising economic superpower, hails from the Global South, and is a leader in the G20. For all their internal troubles, EU players in the G7 – Germany, France and Italy – cannot afford to antagonize Beijing in economic, trade and investment terms.

    A G7 rebooted as a Sinophobic crusade will have no takers. Including Japan and special guests at Cornwall: tech powerhouse South Korea, and India and South Africa (both BRICS members), offered the dangling carrot of a possible extended membership.

    Washington’s wishful thinking cum P.R. offensive boils down to selling itself as the primus inter pares of the West as a revitalized global leader. Why the Global South is not buying it can be observed, graphically, by what happened for the past eight years. The G7 – and especially the Americans – simply could not respond to China’s wide-ranging, pan-Eurasian trade/development strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

    The American “strategy” so far – 24/7 demonization of BRI as a “debt trap” and “forced labor” machine – did not cut it. Now, too little too late, comes a G7 scheme, involving “partners” such as India, to “support”, at least in theory, vague “high-quality projects” across the Global South: that’s the Clean Green Initiative , focused on sustainable development and green transition, to be discussed both at the G7 and the US-EU summits.

    Compared to BRI, Clean Green Initiative hardly qualifies as a coherent geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy. BRI has been endorsed and partnered by over 150 nation-states and international bodies – and that includes more than half of the EU’s 27 members.

    Facts on the ground tell the story. China and ASEAN are about to strike a “comprehensive strategic partnership” deal. Trade between China and the Central and Eastern European Countries (CCEC), also known as the 17+1 group, including 12 EU nations, continues to increase. The Digital Silk Road, the Health Silk Road and the Polar Silk Road keep advancing.

    So what’s left is loud Western rumbling about vague investments in digital technology – perhaps financed by the European Investment Bank, based in Luxembourg – to cut off China’s “authoritarian reach” across the Global South.

    The EU-US summit may be launching a “Trade and Technology Council” to coordinate policies on 5G, semiconductors, supply chains, export controls and technology rules and standards. A gentle reminder: the EU-US simply do not control this complex environment. They badly need South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

    Wait a minute, Mr. Taxman

    To be fair, the G7 may have rendered a public service to the whole world when their Finance Ministers struck an alleged “historic” deal last Saturday in London on a global, minimal 15% tax on multinational companies (MNCs).

    Triumphalism was in order – with endless praise lavished on “justice” and “fiscal solidarity” coupled with really bad news for assorted fiscal paradises.

    Well, that’s slightly more complicated.

    This tax has been discussed at the highest levels of the OECD in Paris for over a decade now – especially because nation-states are losing at least $427 billion a year in tax-dodging by MNCs and assorted multi-billionaires. In terms of the European scenario that does not even account for the loss of V.A.T. by fraud – something gleefully practiced by Amazon, among others.

    So it’s no wonder G7 Finance Ministers had $1.6 trillion-worth Amazon pretty much on their sights. Amazon’s cloud computing division should be treated as a separate entity. In this case the mega-tech group will have to pay more corporate tax in some of its largest European markets – Germany, France, Italy, UK – if the global 15% tax is ratified.

    So yes, this is mostly about Big Tech – master experts on fiscal fraud and profiting from tax paradises located even inside Europe, such as Ireland and Luxembourg. The way the EU was built, it allowed fiscal competition between nation-states to fester. To discuss this openly in Brussels remains a virtual taboo. In the official EU list of fiscal paradises, one won’t find Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Malta.

    So could this all be just a P.R. coup? It’s possible. The major problem is that at the European Council – where governments of EU member-states discuss their issues – they have been dragging their feet for a long time, and sort of delegated the whole thing to the OECD.

    As it stands, details on the 15% tax are still vague – even as the US government stands to become the largest winner, because its MNCs have shifted massive profits all across the planet to avoid US corporate taxes.

    Not to mention that nobody knows if, when and how the deal will be globally accepted and implemented: that will be a Sisyphean task. At least it will be discussed, again, at the G20 in Venice in July.

    What Germany wants

    Without Germany there would not have been real advance on the EU-China Investment Agreement late last year. With a new US administration, the deal is stalled again. Outgoing chancellor Merkel is against China-EU economic decoupling – and so are German industrialists. It will be quite a treat to watch this subplot at the G7.

    In a nutshell: Germany wants to keep expanding as a global trading power by using its large industrial base, while the Anglo-Saxons have completely ditched their industrial base to embrace non-productive financialization. And China for its part wants to trade with the whole planet. Guess who’s the odd player out.

    Considering the G7 as a de facto gathering of the Hegemon with its hyenas, jackals and chihuahuas, it will also be quite a treat to watch the semantics. What degree of “existential threat” will be ascribed to Beijing – especially because for the interests behind the hologram “Biden” the real priority is the Indo-Pacific?

    These interests could not give a damn about a EU yearning for more strategic autonomy. Washington always announces its diktats without even bothering to previously consult Brussels.

    So this is what this Triple X of summits – G7, NATO and EU-US – will be all about: the Hegemon pulling all stops to contain/harass the emergence of a rising power by enlisting its satrapies to “fight” and thus preserve the “rules-based international order” it designed over seven decades ago.

    History tells is it won’t work. Just two examples: the British and French empires could not stop the rise of the US in the 19th century; and even better, the Anglo-American axis only stopped the simultaneous rise of Germany and Japan by paying the price of two world wars, with the British empire destroyed and Germany back again as the leading power in Europe.

    That should give the meeting of “America is Back” and “Global Britain” in Cornwall the status of a mere, quirky historical footnote.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/11/2021 – 02:00

  • D'Souza: An Orchestrated Hoax
    D’Souza: An Orchestrated Hoax

    Authored by Dinesh D’Souza, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    It can now be said publicly: The massive public campaign to convince and even compel the world to accept the idea that SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, arose naturally from a meat market in Wuhan was a hoax.

    The gory details are contained in a bombshell investigative report in the magazine Vanity Fair. This alone is surprising. Vanity Fair is a culture and trends magazine, not noted for this type of serious inquiry. Yet Katherine Eban’s in-depth article is thoroughly researched, with multiple named sources, and written in the style of a detective story.

    The first question to ask is: How did we get a scientific and media consensus that SARS-CoV2 originally came from the Wuhan meat market?  The answer is a group letter signed by leading virologists that appeared in the reputable science publication The Lancet. This article dismissed theories that suggested SARS-CoV2 might have come from the Wuhan lab as “conspiracy theories” that had were flatly rejected by the scientific community.

    Apparently convinced they had to “listen to the science,” the Lancet statement convinced media around the world to revile public figures, especially politicians such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), for even asking for an investigation into where COVID-19 came from. Cotton was almost universally dubbed a kook for even raising the possibility of “debunked” and “discredited” theories.

    Digital media promptly imposed its strict regime of restriction, banning, shadowbanning, and deplatforming of users who were deemed to share such “misinformation.”

    Acting on the recommendation of its so-called fact checkers, Facebook took down millions, perhaps tens of millions, of posts supposedly conveying the false notion that SARS-CoV2 might have leaked out from a lab.

    But what Vanity Fair exposes is the behind-the-scenes mechanism for how that Lancet statement was produced.

    According to the article, it was organized by a zoologist named Peter Daszak, himself involved in U.S. government-funded research aimed at the making of deadly viruses in labs. Daszak has worked in close collaboration with Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina. Daszak’s group, EcoHealth Alliance, has worked directly with China’s Wuhan laboratories to research coronaviruses, and potentially make them more contagious and more lethal.

    Peter Daszak, a member of the World Health Organization team investigating the origins of COVID-19, speaks to media upon arriving at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

    The ostensible purpose of such “gain-of-function” research is to study viruses, to understand them better, and to develop better cures for pandemics that might arise naturally. But of course, such research is very dangerous, because viruses could through accident or negligence be released and cause the very pandemics they are designed to prevent. Alternatively, such research can be exploited for military purposes, because lethal viruses also make for a powerful weapon of biological warfare.

    When Daszak learned that a virus was causing global havoc, he moved quickly to line up a group of virologists to declare, without any persuasive evidence whatever, that COVID-19 had a natural origin.

    It might seem puzzling why prominent scientists would agree to sign a letter taking a position on something for which there is no valid scientific evidence.

    Why would they do this?

    The one-word answer is: money.

    Figures like Daszak and institutions like EcoHealth Alliance that receive large amounts of government money typically package those funds into sub-grants that are dispersed among researchers and research institutions around the country. Consequently, there’s a large group of virologists who are, in a sense, in Daszak’s back pocket. They have a financial vested interest in doing what he wants, and moreover, they, like Daszak, have a stake in camouflaging the possibility that their type of work caused a global pandemic with millions of deaths and untold ruin in its wake.

    Not only did Daszak organize the Lancet statement, but he did so, according to Vanity Fair, “with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific immunity.” In an email addressed to Baric, Daszak said, “No need for you to sign the ‘Statement’ Ralph.”

    Daszak explained that neither he nor Baric should sign the declaration “so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way.”

    Daszak added,

    “We’ll then put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.”

    Baric agreed, responding,

    “Otherwise it looks self-serving and we lose impact.”

    In the end, Baric didn’t sign. Daszak did. And at least six of the others who signed the statement either worked at, or had received funding from, EcoHealth Alliance, according to Vanity Fair.

    What we have here is a group of scientists actively involved in cooking up potentially deadly viruses, and possibly involved in a dangerous collaboration with the Wuhan lab that may have helped cause the death of millions, working in concert to create a false public impression of scientific consensus, when they knew perfectly well that there was no such consensus.

    Not only did the media and digital media run with it, but, in addition, the Biden administration used the pretext of scientific consensus—the bogus consensus the Lancet helped create—to shut down an ongoing State Department investigation, begun late in the Trump era and spearheaded by Mike Pompeo, into the true origins of COVID-19.

    This shutdown was actively promoted by U.S. government agencies and bureaucrats who had no intention of revealing their own role in sponsoring and subsidizing highly dangerous “gain-of-function” research.

    The consequences of the COVID-19 deception, jointly promoted by scientists, journalists, digital moguls, and bureaucrats in the U.S. government, all eager to hide their possible role in a 21st century pandemic, are far-reaching. The big lie that COVID-19 arose naturally from a meat-market has stymied a true inquiry into what happened. Now we might never know. Not knowing means that preventing a future epidemic becomes that much more difficult.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 23:50

  • Washington Moves To Make Sensitive Private Data Available For "Minority Report"-Style AI Research
    Washington Moves To Make Sensitive Private Data Available For “Minority Report”-Style AI Research

    Earlier this week, the investigative journalism outfit ProPublica published a story using data gleaned from the tax returns of America’s richest individuals to determine exactly how much each of them paid in tax vs. the amount by which their wealth increased in a given year, a number the reporters described as their “true tax” rate.

    Needless to say, the story inspired intense conversation online, where rival media organizations were quick to assume that the data was somehow “leaked” to PP. ProPublica was vague in its report, refusing to say or even hint at how it obtained the data, which led one reporter to wonder whether it might have been handed off to PP by academic researchers. It’s also worth mentioning that leaking the tax data from inside the IRS would constitute a major federal crime (obtaining it via a third party who had been given the data for some legitimate purpose).

    But one thread from Breitbart’s John Carney caught our attention due to his observation that the media might be jumping to conclusions. In his estimation, Carney said, it’s possible that the data could have been released to academics as part of an officially sanctioned research project gone awry.

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    Carney wonders: how anonymized can personal data be for certain high-profile individuals like billionaires?

    Well, while America ponders the answer to that, WSJ reports that the Biden Administration is launching an initiative Thursday aiming at making sensitive data like this much more easily accessible to researchers. In fact, the new portal envisioned by the administration would also research create an opportunity to improve the ability of US scientists to review the data.

    “This is a moment that is calling us to be strengthening our speed and scale” when it comes to advances in AI technology, said National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan: “It is also calling us to make sure that innovation is everywhere,” they told WSJ.

    America is racing against China to dominate the race for AI, and the government is desperately searching for anything that might give the US an edge. Now, the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force, a group of 12 members from academia, government, and industry, is reportedly drafting a strategy for potentially giving researchers access to stores of data about Americans, from demographics to health and driving habits.

    The task force was first authorized by Congress last year as part of a sweeping law designed to revamp the governments

    One member of the task force told WSJ that researchers need access to this data in order to “investigate a lot of their really great ideas in AI.”

    Lynne Parker, assistant director of artificial intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the task force announced Thursday would aim to give Congress a road map for creating a common research infrastructure the government could offer to outsiders.

    “In order to investigate a lot of their really great ideas in AI, they need access to powerful computing infrastructure and they need access to data,” she said. Many researchers, particularly in academia, “simply don’t have access to these computational resources and data, and this is hampering innovation.”

    One example: The Transportation Department has access to a set of data gathered from vehicle sensors about how people drive, said Erwin Gianchandani, senior adviser at the National Science Foundation and co-chair of the new AI task force.

    “Because you have very sensitive data about individuals, there are challenges in being able to make that data available to the broader research community,” he said. On the other hand, if researchers could get access, they could develop innovations designed to make driving safer.

    WSJ mentioned that data gathered from police vehicle sensors could be among the data shared, along with “sensitive data” gleaned from medical records and other data sets. The task force is due to issue reports on its research in May and November of next year.

    We can’t help but wonder what this type of “AI” research will help researchers figure out: will they use it to try and determine individuals who are likely (or even virtually guaranteed) to commit crimes like in “Minority Report.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 23:30

  • This Close US Ally Is Selling China Billions In Military-Related Equipment
    This Close US Ally Is Selling China Billions In Military-Related Equipment

    Authored by Mark Curtis via Consortium News,

    The UK government has authorized the sale of £2.6-billion worth of military and civilian equipment with potential military use to China in the past three years, government figures show. Last year saw a tripling in exports to China of “dual use” items defined as “civilian goods with a military purpose.”” Some £1.6-billion worth were authorized in 2020, compared to £526-million in 2019.

    The increase coincided with the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. The exports have been approved while China is identified by the British government as “an increasing risk to U.K. interests” and “the biggest state-based threat to the U.K.’s economic security.”

    PM Boris Johnson attending Sun Military Awards in Central London, Feb. 6, 2020, via Flickr

    Most British exports were for “dual use” equipment but £53-million worth classified purely as “military” went to China over the three years 2018-20, including components for combat aircraft and military support aircraft. Other items licensed for use by China included military communications equipment and technology for air defense systems. 

    The U.K. has banned the sale of “lethal” military equipment to China since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. However, the British exports are likely to benefit China’s air force, which British ministers claim is a growing military threat. Defence Minister Jeremy Quin said in March that “the likes of Russia and China have studied our strengths in the air and begun developing the capabilities to not only counter but surpass us.”

    Britain is also aiding China’s naval capacity. Ministers approved two export licences in 2019 for components for combat naval vessels that were identified as being for “end use by the [military] Navy.”  The previous year, approvals were given to sell components for combat naval vessels and for military radars where China’s navy was also stated to be the end user. Other British exports likely to benefit the Chinese navy have included technology for combat naval vessels and for “military patrol/assault craft.” 

    General Nick Carter, the head of the U.K. armed forces, now laments that Beijing commands “the largest maritime surface and sub-surface battle force in the world.” The UK military identifies China as posing a particular challenge in the South China Sea, where Beijing is building bases on disputed atolls in the Spratly and Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by other states in the region. In March, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said China was a “threat” in the contested sea. 

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    UK support for the Chinese navy has come not only in the form of military exports. Declassified previously revealed that in 2015, the Royal Navy gave training to a Chinese maritime agency that was closely involved with occupying the disputed islands in the South China Sea. 

    However, that support to Beijing took place when cooperation between the countries was increasing. At the time, the UK’s then chancellor, George Osborne, spoke of “a golden decade for both of our countries” and of making Britain “China’s best partner in the West.”

    Six years on, the UK has radically altered its stance towards Beijing as British military planners seek to play a greater military role in Asia. The Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier is due to test China by sailing through the South China Sea later this year.

    ‘Information Security Equipment’

    In addition to supporting the navy and air force, hundreds of licences have been approved by UK ministers for the sale of “information security equipment” and “imaging cameras” to China. 

    It is not clear if such exports could aid the Chinese state’s domestic surveillance capabilities since the items are not specified in government documents. The UK’s partial arms embargo on China forbids the export of equipment “which might be used for internal repression”.

    The exports also raise concerns about China’s policy towards Tibet. Beijing considers Tibet to be an “autonomous region” of the country but many Tibetans have demanded an independent state since China invaded the territory in 1950.

    December 2013: then UK Prime Minister David Cameron speaking at the Shanghai trade exhibition, via Flickr

    Sam Walton, the chief executive of the Free Tibet campaign, said: “The Chinese government will use this military equipment to continue its repression in Tibet, to steal Tibetan homes and erase Tibetan culture. Selling such equipment is not how to stand up for human rights.”

    He added: “We have seen fine words from this government condemning the repression in Tibet, the Uyghur genocide and the destruction on democracy in Hong Kong. But their actions once again show their words to be worthless. Britain cannot condemn China’s jackboot whilst heeling that same boot.”

    The UK government’s new military strategy says that China is “a systemic competitor” and that “the significant impact of China’s military modernization and growing international assertiveness within the Indo-Pacific region and beyond will pose an increasing risk to UK interests”.

    “The fact that China is an authoritarian state, with different values to ours, presents challenges for the UK and our allies,” it adds.

    Mark Curtis is an author and editor of Declassified UK, an investigative journalism organization that covers Britain’s foreign, military and intelligence policies. He tweets at @markcurtis30. Follow Declassified on twitter at @declassifiedUK.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 23:10

  • Watch "History-Making Event" As Boeing's Drone Refuels Fighter Jet 
    Watch “History-Making Event” As Boeing’s Drone Refuels Fighter Jet 

    The US Navy and The Boeing Company made aviation history last week after demonstrating air-to-air refueling using an unmanned aircraft. 

    Boeing released a press release Monday detailing how its MQ-25 Stingray test drone refueled a McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet on June 4 near MidAmerica Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois, demonstrating the refueling capability of the new drone.

    The F/A-18 test pilot flew about 20 feet separation from the MQ-25 as a hose and drogue were extended and locked into the fighter jet. Once plugged in, the drone successfully transferred fuel to the F/A-18. Boeing said both aircraft flew “at operationally relevant speeds and altitudes.” 

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    Rear Adm. Brian Corey, who oversees the Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons, said in a statement that “over the next few years, we will work side-by-side with Boeing to deliver this capability that will greatly enhance the future carrier air wing.”

    “This history-making event is a credit to our joint Boeing and Navy team that is all-in on delivering MQ-25’s critical aerial refueling capability to the fleet as soon as possible,” said Leanne Caret, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security. “Their work is the driving force behind the safe and secure integration of unmanned systems in the immediate future of defense operations.”

    The MQ-25 is the world’s first carrier-based drone to conduct in-flight refueling for aircraft that extends operational ranges of fighters, bombers, and patrol aircraft. 

    This refueling drone will eventually be launched from aircraft carriers to conduct refueling missions in the Indo-Pacific region as tensions between the US and China heat up. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 22:50

  • New Leak Of Taxpayer Info Is (More) Evidence Of IRS Corruption
    New Leak Of Taxpayer Info Is (More) Evidence Of IRS Corruption

    Authored by Daniel Mitchell via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    I sometimes try to go easy on the IRS. After all, our wretched tax system is largely the fault of politicians, who have spent the past 108 years creating a punitive and corrupt set of tax laws.

    But there is still plenty of IRS behavior to criticize. Most notably, the tax agency allowed itself to be weaponized by the Obama White House, using its power to persecute and harass organizations associated with the “Tea Party.”

    That grotesque abuse of power largely was designed to weaken opposition to Obama’s statist agenda and make it easier for him to win re-election.

    Now there’s a new IRS scandal. In hopes of advancing President Biden’s class-warfare agenda, the bureaucrats have leaked confidential taxpayer information to ProPublica, a left-wing website.

    Here’s some of what that group posted.

    ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. …ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period. We’re going to call this their true tax rate. …those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.

    Since I’m a policy wonk, I’ll first point out that ProPublica created a make-believe number. We (thankfully) don’t tax wealth in the United States.

    So Elon Musk’s income is completely unrelated to what happened to the value of his Tesla shares. The same is true for Jeff Bezos’ income and the value of his Amazon stock.

    And the same thing is true for the rest of us. If our IRA or 401(k) rises in value, that doesn’t mean our taxable income has increased. If our home becomes more valuable, that also doesn’t count as taxable income.

    The Wall Street Journal opined on this topic today and made a similar point.

    There is no evidence of illegality in the ProPublica story. …ProPublica knows this, so its story tries to invent a scandal by calculating what it calls the “true tax rate” these fellows are paying. This is a phony construct that exists nowhere in the law and compares how much the “wealth” of these individuals increased from 2014 to 2018 compared to how much income tax they paid. …what Americans pay is a tax on income, not wealth.

    Some journalists don’t understand this distinction between income and wealth.

    Or perhaps they do understand, but pretend otherwise because they see their role as being handmaidens of the Biden Administration.

    Consider these excerpts from a column by Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times.

    Jeff Bezos…added an estimated $99 billion in wealth between 2014 and 2018 but reported only $4.22 billion in taxable income during that period. Warren Buffett, who amassed $24.3 billion in new wealth over those years, reported $125 million in taxable income. …some of the wealthiest people in the United States essentially live under a different system of income taxation from the rest of us.

    Mr. Appelbaum is wrong. The rich have a lot more assets than the rest of us, but they operate under the same rules.

    If I have an asset that increases in value, that doesn’t count as taxable income. And it isn’t income. It’s merely a change in net wealth.

    And the same is true if Bill Gates has an asset that increases in value.

    Now that we’ve addressed the policy mistakes, let’s turn our attention to the scandal of IRS misbehavior.

    The WSJ‘s editorial addresses the agency’s grotesque actions.

    Less than half a year into the Biden Presidency, the Internal Revenue Service is already at the center of an abuse-of-power scandal.

    …ProPublica, a website whose journalism promotes progressive causes, published information from what it said are 15 years of the tax returns of Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and other rich Americans. …The story arrives amid the Biden Administration’s effort to pass the largest tax increase as a share of the economy since 1968.

    …The timing here is no coincidence, comrade. …someone leaked confidential IRS information about individuals to serve a political agenda. This is the same tax agency that pursued a vendetta against conservative nonprofit groups during the Obama Administration. Remember Lois Lerner? This is also the same IRS that Democrats now want to infuse with $80 billion more… As part of this effort, Mr. Biden wants the IRS to collect “gross inflows and outflows on all business and personal accounts from financial institutions.” Why? So the information can be leaked to ProPublica?

    …Congress should also not trust the IRS with any more power and money than it already has.

    And Charles Cooke of National Review also weighs in on the implications of a weaponized and partisan IRS.

    We cannot trust the IRS. “Oh, who cares?” you might ask. “The victims are billionaires!” And indeed, they are. But I care. For a start, they’re American citizens, and they’re entitled to the same rights — and protected by the same laws — as everyone else. …Besides, even if one wants to be entirely amoral about it, one should consider that if their information can be spilled onto the Internet, anyone’s can. …A government that is this reckless or sinister with the information of men who are lawyered to the eyeballs is unlikely to worry too much about being reckless or sinister with your information. …The IRS wields an extraordinary amount of power, and there will always be somebody somewhere who thinks that it should be used to advance their favorite political cause. Our refusal to indulge their calls is one of the many things that prevents us from descending into the caprice and chaos of your average banana republic. …Does that bother you? It should.

    What’s especially disgusting is that the Biden Administration wants to reward IRS corruption with giant budget increases, bolstered by utterly fraudulent numbers.

    Needless to say, that would be a terrible idea (sadly, Republicans in the past have been sympathetic to expanding the size of the tax bureaucracy).

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 22:30

  • Which Countries Have The World's Largest Proven Oil Reserves?
    Which Countries Have The World’s Largest Proven Oil Reserves?

    Oil is a natural resource formed by the decay of organic matter over millions of years, and like many other natural resources, it can only be extracted from reserves where it already exists. The only difference between oil and every other natural resource is that oil is well and truly the lifeblood of the global economy.

    The world derives over a third of its total energy production from oil, more than any other source by far; and, as Visual Capitalist’s Anshool Deshmukh details below, as a result, the countries that control the world’s oil reserves often have disproportionate geopolitical and economic power.

    According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020, 14 countries make up 93.5% of the proven oil reserves globally. The countries on this list span five continents and control anywhere from 25.2 billion barrels of oil to 304 billion barrels of oil.

    Proven Oil Reserves, by Country

    At the end of 2019, the world had 1.73 trillion barrels of oil reserves. Here are the 14 countries with at least a 1% share of global proven oil reserves:

    While these countries are found all over the globe, a few countries have much larger amounts than others. Venezuela is the leading country in terms of oil reserves, with over 304 billion barrels of oil beneath its surface. Saudi Arabia is a close second with 298 billion, and Canada is third with 170 billion barrels of oil reserves.

    Oil Reserves vs. Oil Production

    A country with large amounts of reserves does not always translate to strong production numbers for petroleum, oil, and by-products. Oil reserves simply serve as an estimate of the amount of economically recoverable crude oil in a particular region. To qualify, these reserves must have the potential of being extracted under current technological constraints.

    While countries like the U.S. and Russia are low on the list of oil reserves, they rank highly in terms of oil production. More than 95 million barrels of oil were produced globally every day in 2019, and the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Russia are among the world’s top oil-producing countries, respectively.

    Oil Sands Contributing to Growing Reserves

    Venezuela has long been an oil-producing country with heavy economic reliance on oil exports. However, in 2011, Venezuela’s energy and oil ministry announced an unprecedented increase in proven oil reserves as oil sands in the Orinoco Belt territory were certified.

    Between 2005 and 2015, Venezuela jumped from fifth in the world to number one as nearly 200 billion barrels of proven oil reserves were identified. As a result, South and Central America’s proven oil reserves more than doubled between 2008 and 2011.

    In 2002, Canada’s proven oil reserves jumped from 5 billion to 180 billion barrels based on new oil sands estimates.

    Canada accounts for almost 10% of the world’s proven oil reserves at 170 billion barrels, with an estimated 166.3 billion located in Alberta’s oil sands, and the rest found in conventional, offshore, and tight oil formations.

    Large Reserves in OPEC Nations

    The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an intergovernmental global petroleum and oil distribution agency headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

    The majority of countries with the largest oil reserves in the world are members of OPEC. Now composed of 14 member states, OPEC holds nearly 70% of crude oil reserves worldwide.

    Most OPEC countries are in the Middle East, the region with the largest oil reserves, holding nearly half of the global share.

    Regional Shifts

    Though most of the proven oil reserves in the world were historically considered to be centered in the Middle East, in the past three decades their share of global oil reserves has dropped, from over 60% in 1992 to about 48% in 2019.

    One of the main reasons for this drop was constant oil production and greater reserves discovered in the Americas. By 2012, Central and South America’s share had more than doubled and has remained just under 20% in the years since.

    While oil sands ushered in a new era of global oil reserve domination, as the world shifts away from oil consumption and towards green energy and electrification, these reserves might not matter as much in the future as they once did.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 22:10

  • How Washington Is Positioning Al-Qaeda's Founder As Its Rebranded 'Asset'
    How Washington Is Positioning Al-Qaeda’s Founder As Its Rebranded ‘Asset’

    Authored by Ben Norton & Max Blumenthal via TheGrayZone.com,

    March 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the Western regime-change war on Syria. And after a decade of grueling conflict, Washington is still maneuvering to extend its longstanding relationship with the Salafi-jihadist militants fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

    With the northeastern province of Idlib under the control of a self-proclaimed “Syrian Salvation Government” led by the rebranded version of Syria’s al-Qaeda franchise, and protected under the military aegis of NATO member state Turkey, powerful elements from Brussels to Washington have been working to legitimize its leader.

    Jabhat al-Nusra founder Mohammad al-Jolani before and after his image makeover

    This June, PBS Frontline aired a special, “The Jihadist,” featuring a sit-down interview with Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, de facto president of the “Syrian Salvation Government” and founder of the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda originally called Jabhat al-Nusra, today re-branded as Hay-at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.

    Having traded in his battlefield garb for a freshly pressed suit, Jolani was presented with the once unthinkable opportunity to market himself to a Western audience and pledge that his forces pose no threat to the US homeland because they were merely focused on waging war against Syria’s “loyalist” population.

    The PBS correspondent who conducted the interview, Martin Smith, previously starred in a 2015 PBS special, “Inside Assad’s Syria,” which presented a US audience with a rare and relatively objective look at life inside Syrian government-controlled territory, as insurgents backed by NATO and Gulf monarchies encircled and terrorized its population.

    Whether or not he realized it, when Smith returned to Syria this March to meet Jolani, he was on more than a journalistic field expedition. A network of think tanks and Beltway foreign policy veterans were engaged in a simultaneous push to remove Jolani and his militant faction HTS from the State Department’s list of designated terrorist groups.

    Syrian Al Qaeda leader Mohammad al-Jolani (L) with PBS Frontline’s Martin Smith

    This would open the door for international acceptance of his de facto government in Idlib, which regime-change advocates view as an important piece of leverage against Damascus, and as a human warehouse for the millions of refugees languishing there. In turn, the audacious PR campaign would consolidate a branch of the organization responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States into a de facto US asset.

    The campaign to normalize Jolani was publicly initiated by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank with close ties to the Biden administration and NATO. By the time of Smith’s interview, operatives from a network of Gulf-funded, pro-Israel think tanks had spent years quietly lobbying for Washington to support al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, and succeeded in securing shipments of weapons from the CIA to some of its battlefield allies.

    Though figures involved in this coordinated lobbying push were featured in Smith’s PBS Frontline report, they were presented to viewers as dispassionate analysts or former officials with no ulterior interests. Framed as hard news yet shaped by one of the most insidious public relations campaigns in recent history, the nationally broadcast PBS special provided an effective vehicle for rehabilitating a jihadist leader and perpetuating the decades-long dirty war against Syria.

    Whitewashing US and foreign support for Syria’s extremist insurgency

    When Muhammad Jolani first crossed the Syrian-Iraqi border in 2012 with a small detachment of fighters, he belonged officially to al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an extremist group responsible for countless attacks on US military occupiers and Shia civilians across Iraq.

    Upon their thrust into Syria, Jolani’s forces enabled the late self-proclaimed leader of the caliphate, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to establish his Islamic State, or ISIS, in the northeastern city of Raqqa. A feud over strategy and finances soon prompted Jolani to split from the Islamic State and establish Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, with the explicit blessing of the jihadist group’s global leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

    Martin Smith recounted this history in his PBS Frontline report, albeit briefly, while neglecting any mention of the scandalous covert US operation that made Nusra’s rise possible.

    Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra about to execute a woman in public in Idlib in 2015 after she was accused of adultery.

    Smith, for instance, neglected mention of the prescient August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment which stated clearly that “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,: and that the Western-backed opposition would likely create a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria” if weapons were placed in the hands of anti-Assad Islamist militants.

    Despite the warning, in 2013, the CIA launched Operation Timber Sycamore, an arm-and-equip program that funneled up to $1 billion per year (one out of every $15 in the CIA’s budget) into material support for an armed opposition thoroughly dominated by Islamist extremists. It was the agency’s largest covert operation since a similar initiative in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which gave birth to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Just as the DIA predicted, an extremist “Salafist principality” took root in northeastern Syria, while Al Qaeda’s local franchise quickly emerged as the dominant force within the armed opposition.

    Nusra militants – including a former fighters of the CIA-created “Free Syrian Army” – were filmed cutting open the chests of Syrian soldiers, tearing their hearts out, and eating the organs raw (while receiving sympathetic media coverage from the BBC).

    As it seized control of the Idlib province and moved to take Damascus, Nusra earned a reputation for grisly suicide attacks and executions, while instituting a medieval-style theocratic regime in the areas it controlled. An undercover 2017 documentary filmed by local residents, “Undercover Idlib,” exposed the dystopia that unfolded under Nusra control, with all non-religious music and public celebrations banned, the wearing of colorful headscarves outlawed, and Druze and Christian residents killed or forced to convert at gunpoint.

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    Rather than being uprooted from its “safe haven,” Nusra was encouraged by its NATO-aligned sponsors to rebrand and superficially distance itself from al-Qaeda so it could survive. First, in 2016, the al-Qaeda franchise changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, then morphed into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) the following year.

    Under tutelage from Turkey, which controlled the northern border of Idlib, HTS subsequently formed the “Syrian Salvation Government,” and embarked on a PR campaign for international legitimacy.

    Syria’s rebranded Al Qaeda branch courts Western media

    In 2020, Idlib’s “Salvation Government” established a media relations office to assist the entry of Western journalists and provide them with fixers to guide them in its territory. While independent reporters (including the co-author of this article) have been subjected to waves of online abuse by mainstream Western correspondents for visiting Damascus, a New York Times tour of Idlib that was openly managed by al-Qeada’s Syrian affiliate took place without a hint of criticism.

    Martin Smith’s March 2021 visit to Idlib was a similarly guided venture. His report on Jolani blended interview footage with scenes of the HTS leader pressing the flesh with residents of Idlib City, conveying the image of a popular retail politician stumping for local office.

    Idlib “does not represent a threat to the security of Europe and America. This region is not a staging ground for executing foreign jihad,” Jolani reassured Smith. Over the past decade, he added, “we haven’t posed any threat to the West.”

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    In the interview, Smith focused entirely on whether Jolani would attack the West or not, demonstrating a near-total lack of interest in the lives of the millions of Syrians trapped under HTS’ neo-feudal rule in Idlib, and the minority groups threatened by its sectarian violence in nearby areas.

    Dressed in a pressed shirt and blazer suitable for any job interview, Jolani rattled off rhetoric about the “Syrian revolution,” while stressing that his Salafi-jihadist brethren and Washington shared a common goal: regime change in Damascus.

    Continue reading the full report at the The GrayZone

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 21:50

  • Scientists Revive 24,000-Year-Old Worm-Like Animal Frozen In Siberia 
    Scientists Revive 24,000-Year-Old Worm-Like Animal Frozen In Siberia 

    Russian scientists have published new research this week that shows a tiny animal called a Bdelloid rotifer can be revived after frozen for tens of thousands of years. 

    On Monday, the paper titled “A living bdelloid rotifer from 24,000-year-old Arctic permafrost” was published in Cell.com’s “Current Biology” section, which stated the Bdelloid rotifer are some of the toughest multicellular animals of their kind, able to be frozen for thousands of years then revived.  

    “We revived animals that saw woolly mammoths,” Stas Malavin from the Soil Cryology Laboratory in Russia, one of the co-authors of the study, told The New York Times. 

    These microscopic, multicellular animals can withstand radiation, extreme acidity, low oxygen, dehydration, and starvation for years. 

    “They’re the world’s most resistant animal to just about any form of torture,” Matthew Meselson, a molecular biologist at Harvard University, told NYT.

    Researchers believed the Bdelloid rotifer could only survive deep freezes for up to a decade until Monday’s paper. With radiocarbon dating, researchers were able to date the worm-like animal to 24,000 years old. 

    Once thawed, the worm was capable of eating. It was also able to reproduce – which researchers explained it could do without a partner. 

    “We know for sure now it can withstand tens of thousands of years of cryptobiosis,” Malavin said.

    Scientists are still baffled how bdelloid rotifers can protect their cells and organs from a deep freeze and self-fix damaged DNA. The discovery could one day help scientists figure out new technologies that would allow people who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for whole body cryopreservation to be revived in the future. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 21:30

  • Australia And Japan Join Forces To Hold Beijing Accountable For Its Economic Bullying
    Australia And Japan Join Forces To Hold Beijing Accountable For Its Economic Bullying

    Authored by Victoria Kelly-Clark via The Epoch Times,

    Australia and Japan will join forces to oppose Beijing’s economic bullying as both countries continue to lose patience with China’s aggressive international behaviour.

    In a statement following a joint virtual meeting on Wednesday, Australia and Japan’s foreign ministers, Marise Payne and Motegi Toshimitsu, and defence ministers, Kishi Nobuo and Peter Dutton, announced that both countries “would commit to opposing coercion and destabilising behaviour by economic means, which undermines the rules-based international system.”

    Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison (L) is greeted by Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (R) prior to an official welcoming ceremony at Suga’s official residence in Tokyo on November 17, 2020. (Eugene Hoshiko / POOL / AFP)

    Japan and Australia’s have become increasingly concerned over China’s behaviour as both countries have been on the receiving end of Beijing’s belligerent push to become a global power.

    Australia has experienced increasing levels of economic coercion from the Chinese communist regime through its use of trade tariffs on eight major exports, including wine, beef, barley. At the same time, Japan has been forced to increasingly defend its territorial waters from Chinese encroachments using coast guard vessels and what has been dubbed a maritime militia—a point Japan and Australia made in the joint statement noting that they were also strongly opposed to the coercive and destabilising behaviour China was displaying in the East and South China Seas.

    “We express our objections to China’s maritime claims and activities that are inconsistent with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” the statement said.

    “We reinforce our strong opposition to any destabilising or coercive unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions.”

    The allies also called out Beijing for its human rights abuses against Uyghur and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

    Australia Leverages Alliances as Push Back Against Red China Continues

    The joint statement comes a week after New Zealand and Australia issued a statement declaring their support for each other and also follows the United States’ declaration that it will continue to have Australia’s back, signalling to the socialists in Beijing that the liberal democratic nations of the Indo-Pacific will stand together in the face of its increasing push for power and dominance.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks as he greets staff members of the U.S. Embassy in the Egyptian capital Cairo on May 26, 2021. (Alex brandon/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    But will this be enough to make Beijing see its recent behaviour has gone overboard in the Pacific?

    James Laurenceson, Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology in Sydney, believes that the Chinese Communist Party currently no longer thinks it needs to operate under the rules of the international system.

    “China feels as though its power has reached a level where it simply does not have to defer to the wishes of other countries,” Laurenceson said.

    But he noted that it will not escalate tensions with any rash acts of aggression because that would “crystallise a hard balancing coalition against China that would make it harder for Beijing to achieve both its domestic and foreign policy objectives.”

    Laurenceson believes the best answer to the increasing aggression from Beijing is for countries to continue to prioritise strong ties built on mutual trust.

    Mike Green, foreign policy analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told The Australian it was “stunning how aggressive Xi Jinping and the CCP have become.”

    “It seems China’s assessment is they (that) have a five-to-10-year window to cement their ­leadership position in Asia, and that explains why they’ve been pressuring everyone simultaneously: Australia, India, Taiwan, Japan,” Green said.

    Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Chinese regime, responded to the statement by telling both countries to stop hyping up the “China Threat” and accused them of “maliciously slandering China.” He urged Australia and Japan to stop meddling and abide by the basic norms of international relations, without explaining his comments.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 21:10

  • Goldman Requires Workers To Report If They Are Vaccinated
    Goldman Requires Workers To Report If They Are Vaccinated

    Goldman Sachs’ bankers dragged themselves back to the office last month, shortly before American workplace safety regulators weighed in on what employers are legally allowed to ask (and not ask) about their vaccination status. As it turns out, vague federal standards will allow Goldman to allow workers to go bare-faced in the office so long as they provided their managers with information confirming they had been vaccinated.

    Previously, disclosing vaccination status had been “optional” for employees. That has apparently changed, as Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “DealBook” reported Thursday that the bank had sent a memo this week informing employees in the US that they had until noon on Thursday to report their vaccination status.

    Bankers can log their vaccination status with the bank’s internal app for employees. Since employers can’t directly ask for this information, the bank will instead ask workers to fill in the date where they received their shots, along with the maker of their vaccine.

    Goldman has also informed employees through the app that their vaccination status may be shared with managers and used for planning purposes.

    “Registering your vaccination status allows us to plan for a safer return to the office for all of our people as we continue to abide by local public health measures,” said a section of the memo, which was sent to employees who hadn’t already reported their vaccination status. A copy of the letter was obtained by the YT.

    One of the NYT’s “expert” sources explained that Goldman can share vaccination status “with certain individuals if it’s relevant to the individual’s responsibilities, but they can’t share for no reason,,” according to Jessica Kuester, who specializes in benefits at the law firm Ogletree Deakins.

    Another source who identified himself as the CEO of the “Society for Human Resource Management” said that “it’s important to have data to make data-informed decisions…” He acknowledged that some may “grimace” at the idea of employers pushing for information like vaccine status.

    Goldman has roughly 20K employees based in the US at its New York headquarters and in other cities such as San Francisco and Dallas.

    Companies across the US are trying to find out how many workers are vaccinated ahead of full office reopenings. They have conducted surveys and given out cash rewards, mimicking strategies embraced by state governments, as the Biden Administration scrambles to meet its goal of having 70% of American adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4. Though as things stand, it looks like the US is going to miss that target.

    No word yet on whether Goldman workers will receive any kind of compensation for getting vaccinated. But seeing as the bank largely skipped bonus compensation offered to junior employees by other banks, we suspect junior bankers who comply will be doing so mostly out of the goodness of their hearts – and their unwillingness to lose their jobs.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 20:50

  • CDC To Hold "Emergency Meeting" After 100s Suffer Heart Inflammation Following COVID Vaccines
    CDC To Hold “Emergency Meeting” After 100s Suffer Heart Inflammation Following COVID Vaccines

    Update (2000ET): The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will convene an “emergency meeting” of its advisers on June 18th to discuss rare but higher-than-expected reports of heart inflammation following doses of the mRNA-based Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

    The new details about myocarditis and pericarditis emerged first in presentations to a panel of independent advisers for the Food and Drug Administration, who are meeting Thursday to discuss how the regulator should approach emergency use authorization for using COVID-19 vaccines in younger children.

    As CBS reports, the CDC previously disclosed that reports of heart inflammation were detected mostly in younger men and teenage boys following their second dose, and that there was a “higher number of observed than expected” cases in 16- to 24-year-olds. Last month, the CDC urged providers to “ask about prior COVID-19 vaccination” in patients with symptoms of heart inflammation.

    We’ll leave the judgment up to someone far more qualified…

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    Does anyone else not find it odd that after discovering 800 cases in the VAERS database the “emergency” meeting is in 7 days? … and in the meantime, every public health authority figure is encouraging parents to get their young children vaccinated?

    *  *  *

    As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber detailed earlier, Federal authorities have received over 800 reports of heart inflammation in people who received a COVID-19 vaccine, a health official said Thursday.

    The reports of myocarditis or pericarditis were submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a passive reporting system run jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration, through May 31.

    The bulk of the reports described heart inflammation appearing after the second of two doses of either the Pfizer of Moderna vaccines, both of which utilize messenger RNA technology.

    Authorities stress that anybody can submit reports through the reporting system but authorities have already verified that 226 of the reports meet the CDC’s working case definition, Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a deputy director at the agency, said during a presentation of the data. Followup and review are in progress for the rest.

    Of the 285 case reports for which the disposition was known at the time of the review, 270 patients had been discharged and 15 were still hospitalized, officials said. Myocarditis typically requires hospital care. No deaths were reported.

    A slide on myocarditis reports post-COVID-19 vaccination is shown during the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on June 10, 2021. (FDA/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

    The CDC announced last month that it was investigating reports of heart inflammation in teenagers and young adults who received a COVID-19 vaccine, though it took no definitive action besides saying it would continue reviewing case data.

    An advisory committee to the agency, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said in a little-noticed update published dated May 24 and published on June 1 that data from VAERS showed that in the 30 days following the second dose of mRNA vaccinations, “there was a higher number of observed than expected myocarditis/pericarditis cases in 16–24-year-olds.”

    Data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, an active reporting system that relies on nine healthcare organizations in seven states, did not show higher than expected cases, it added.

    “However, analyses suggest that these data need to be carefully followed as more persons in younger age groups are vaccinated,” the advisory committee’s vaccine safety workgroup said in its report.

    Israel’s Health Ministry said that same day that it found 275 cases of heart inflammation among the more than 5 million people in the country who received a vaccine between December 2020 and May. An Israeli study found “a probable link” between receiving the second dose of the Pfizer jab “and the appearance of myocarditis among men aged 16 to 30,” the ministry said.

    Shimabukuro said the U.S. passive surveillance data “are consistent with the surveillance data that emerged from Israel.”

    The figures are also consistent with other case reports and data from the Department of Defense.

    The vast majority of the U.S. reports deal with male patients. Approximately 300 preliminary reports indicated the patients suffered chest pain, with nearly as many having elevated cardiac enzymes.

    Family members watch as a 12-year-old is inoculated with Pfizer’s vaccine against COVID-19 at Dekalb Pediatric Center in Decatur, Ga., on May 11, 2021. (Chris Aluka Berry/Reuters)

    A case report examining myocarditis in seven adolescents following vaccination with Pfizer’s jab, published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, this month, said all seven developed the inflammation within 4 days of receiving the second dose, did not have evidence of COVID-19 infection, and did not meet the criteria for MIS-C, a rare disease.

    The seven males, between the ages of 14 and 19, all required hospital care but each was eventually discharged.

    Authors, who did not respond to requests for comment, said no link has been established between the vaccines and myocarditis and that the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks. But they also urged healthcare workers “to consider myocarditis in the evaluation of adolescents and young adults who develop chest pain after COVID-19 vaccination.”

    A commentary on the study published in the same journal, said “there are some concerns regarding this case series that might suggest a causal relationship and therefore warrant further analysis through established surveillance systems.”

    “First, the consistent timing of symptoms in these seven cases after the second vaccination suggests a uniform biological process. Second, the similarities in clinical findings and laboratory characteristics in this series suggest a common etiology. Finally, these cases occurred in the context of a dearth of circulation of common respiratory viruses known to be associated with myocarditis, and thorough diagnostic evaluations did not identify infectious etiologies,” they added.

    The expected number of myocarditis/pericarditis cases in those aged 16 or 17, based on background incidence rates and the number of doses administered to that population through May 31, is between two and 19. But based on the VAERS reports, the number is 79.

    Likewise, the expected number for cases among young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 is eight to 83. The number based on the reports is 196.

    “In the 16- to 17 year-olds and the 18- to 24-year-olds, the observed reports are exceeding the expected based on the known background rates that are published in literature,” Shimabukuro told members of a Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee in the meeting on Thursday, though he cautioned that not all the reports will “turn out to be true myocarditis/pericarditis reports.”

    “Of note, of these 528 reports after second dose with symptom onset within 30 days, over half of them were in these younger age groups, 12–24 years old, whereas roughly 9 percent of total doses administered were in those age groups, so we “clearly have an imbalance there,” he added later.

    A slide on myocarditis reports post-COVID-19 vaccination is shown during the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on June 10, 2021. (FDA/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

    Data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which comes from nine healthcare groups that have collectively administered over 8.8 million doses—only some 284,000 of those have been given to 12- to 17-year-olds—did not indicate safety concerns, with just 60 myocarditis or pericarditis events reported through May 29, the doctor continued.

    A Food and Drug Administration surveillance system, the Biologics Effectiveness and Safety Initiative, which utilizes claims data from CVS and two other partners, has detected 99 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis in the 42 days following vaccination among some 3.1 million shots given to people between the ages of 12 and 64, the panel was told earlier by an official from the drug regulating agency.

    Another 1,260 were reported in people 65 or older through claims data from Medicare claims data.

    Neither number raised safety signals, Steve Anderson, director of the FDA’s Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology said.

    Dr. Cody Meissner, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at the Tufts Children’s Hospital, and a member of the panel that heard from Shimabukuro and others, said after the presentations that he was “struck by the fact” that myocarditis “occurs more commonly after the second dose.”

    “It’s a pretty specific interval of time, it’s primarily after the mRNA vaccines as far as we know, we know that the consistent age, there’s a lack of alternative explanations even though these patients have been pretty well worked up, and it’s a widespread occurrence because, as you said, Israel has found a pretty similar situation,” he said during the meeting.

    He asked Shimabukuro about the rates of blood clots seen in women between the ages of 30 and 49 after vaccination—most of the clots appeared in that population after getting a Johnson & Johnson shot, though officials ultimately lifted a pause, saying the benefits outweighed the risks—and to restate the rate of incidence of myocarditis in adolescents after a jab.

    Shimabukuro said that in contrast with the clotting situation, when data showed “strong evidence of a causal relationship fairly early on,” further study is needed on heart inflammation.

    “At this point, I think we’re still learning about the rates of myocarditis and pericarditis. We continue to collect more information both in VAERS and continue to get more information in VSD, and I think as gather more information we’ll begin to get a better idea of the post-vaccination rates and hopefully will be able to get more detailed information by age group,” he said.

    “It’s still early,” he added, noting that authorization for a vaccine for 12- to -15-year-olds didn’t come until mid-May while immunization of older adolescents largely came later than shots for adults.

    “I believe that we will ultimately have sufficient information to answer those questions,” he said.

    A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 30, 2014. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)

    Another panel member, Dr. Jay Portnoy, director of the Division of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology at Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, asked for a comparison between the adverse events in vaccinated versus unvaccinated persons, saying if the adverse event rate was lower in those who are vaccinated, then it would still be worth getting a jab.

    Shimabukuro said a risk-benefit assessment would be provided by the CDC’s advisory panel, known as ACIP, on vaccines during a meeting next week.

    A CDC spokeswoman also referenced the upcoming meeting, which will take place on June 18, after saying reports of myocarditis remain rare, given that over 300 million doses have been administered in the United States.

    “Given the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered, these reports are rare. More than 18 million people between ages 12-24 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the United States,” she told The Epoch Times via email.

    “CDC continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 12 years and older. Getting vaccinated is the best way to help protect yourself and your family from COVID-19.”

    A Pfizer spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the company is aware of federal data indicating “rare reports of myocarditis and pericarditis, predominantly in male adolescents and young adults, after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.” It noted that federal officials have not concluded that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines cause either condition, before expressing support for an assessment of suspected adverse events.

    “With a vast number of people vaccinated to date, the benefit risk profile of our vaccine remains positive,” the spokesperson added.

    Moderna did not return an inquiry.

    Dr. Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and associate chief at the University of California, San Francisco, told The Epoch Times in an email that in light of the increased risk of myocarditis above expected rates among young people, especially after the second dose, parents should keep a close eye out for when guidance is issued by federal authorities.

    “Possibilities include only vaccinating children without prior infection as there is an association between prior COVID and this adverse effect; giving 1 dose instead of 2 below the age of 20; addressing the dosage of the vaccine (currently at 30 micrograms down to the age of 12, which is the same dose as in adults); and extending the duration between doses 1 and 2 for younger people,” she said.

    “I look forward to ACIP guidance on this over the next few weeks.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 20:30

  • Ford Secures 100,000 Reservations For Electric F-150 As Pre-Order Count Climbs 
    Ford Secures 100,000 Reservations For Electric F-150 As Pre-Order Count Climbs 

    While Tesla’s Cybertruck remains in limbo somewhere and Lordstown Motors is on the brink of failure, Ford Motor Company’s F-150 Lightning pre-order count continues to surge. 

    Three weeks ago, Ford unveiled the F-150 Lightning, an all-electric truck, delivering 563 horsepower and 775 lb.-ft. of torque. In the first 48 hours of release, the company received 44,500 pre-orders, according to CEO Jim Farley. 

    Now, the pre-order count has reached 100,000 and continues to climb, according to Engadget. The F-Series line is America’s best-selling truck for more than four decades. Millions of loyal Ford customers would never buy a Chevy, nevertheless, a Tesa or some other startup with a limited track record. 

    By comparison, since 2019, Tesla’s Cybertruck has accumulated over 1 million Cybertruck reservations. Ford has a much larger following than Tesla and could surpass reservations. 

    Besides Ford’s loyal customer base, spanning generations, President Sleepy Joe gave the car company free press last month when he was seen driving around in the vehicle on a closed course. 

    “This sucker is quick,” Biden said at the press conference. 

    Reservations require a $100 refundable deposit. Ford has said the F-150 Lightning deliveries should begin in the spring of 2022. The Cybertruck is expected to be released in late 2022 but really, who knows. 

    Those who made reservations for the Ford electric truck will only have to wait about 10-12 months until delivery. Meanwhile, those who made Cybertruck reservations have been waiting for a couple of years. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 20:10

  • Buchanan: What Is America's Cause In The World?
    Buchanan: What Is America’s Cause In The World?

    Authored by Pat Buchanan,

    “Take away this pudding; it has no theme,” is a comment attributed to Winston Churchill, when a disappointing dessert was put in front of him.

    Writers have used Churchill’s remark to describe a foreign policy that lacks coherence or centrality of purpose.

    For most of our lifetimes, this has not been true of the United States. The goal of our foreign policy has been understandable and defined.

    From 1949-1989, it was Cold War containment of the Soviet Empire and USSR.

    Ronald Reagan believed in a “rollback” of communism, once telling an aide that his policy might be summed up as: “We win. They lose.”

    At the Cold War’s end, George H. W. Bush said America would now lead mankind in the creation of “a New World Order.”

    George W. Bush was going to deny to all “axis of evil” nations — North Korea, Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — access to the “world’s worst weapons,” with our ultimate goal being “ending tyranny in our world.”

    According to the Biden Democrats of today, America’s goal is the preservation of “a rules-based international order,” which is less inspiring than “Remember the Alamo!” or “Remember Pearl Harbor!”

    What are the causes that actually animate Americans?

    A March survey of 2,000 registered voters, done by the Center for American Progress, reveals that most Republicans still share the foreign policy priorities of Donald J. Trump.

    Asked to identify their first three foreign policy priorities from a list of a dozen, two-thirds of Republicans, 65%, gave as their principal concern “Reducing illegal immigration.” And 57% of Republicans put “Protecting jobs for American workers” right behind it. Independents agreed that these should be the top twin goals of U.S. foreign policy.

    What does this tell us?

    Economic nationalism is alive and well in the GOP, and securing the border remains a central concern of America’s center-right.

    In third position, at 31% among Republicans, was “Taking on China’s economic and military aggression.”

    Only 9% of Republicans listed “Fighting global poverty and promoting human rights” as top foreign policy priorities. Last among GOP priorities, at 7%, was “Promoting democratic rights and freedoms abroad.”

    Indeed, this was the least popular foreign policy option among all voters.

    Conclusion:

    The priorities of the Bush presidencies and the neocons – democracy crusades, free trade, the New World Order, open borders – have failed to recapture the constituencies they lost in the Trump years.

    While “Combating global climate change” rests near the bottom of Republican concerns at 10%, it is the No. 1 priority of Democrats, with 44% listing it first.

    When it comes to “Ending US involvement in wars in the Middle East,” that goal ranks 5th among all voters. Democrats, Republicans and independents all support that objective.

    Since the last CAP survey in 2019, the greatest change is the reduced concern over “terrorist threats” from al-Qaida and ISIS. Fewer than 1 in 4 voters now view this as a top priority.

    As Matthew Petti writes in an analysis of the CAP survey, today, Americans “prioritize getting out of Middle East wars over confronting Middle East adversaries.”

    This survey would thus seem to provide public support for the Trump-Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, and for Biden’s effort to reengage with Iran and renew the 2015 nuclear deal.

    Also ranked high among Democrats and independents, but less so among Republicans, is “Improving relationships with allies.”

    What does the survey tell us?

    Illegal immigration and economic nationalism energize the GOP rank-and-file; climate change does not. There is no enthusiasm in either party for new democracy crusades. And there seems to be no enthusiasm in either party for a clash with Iran, North Korea, Russia or China.

    Only 14% of Democrats wish to address China’s “military and economic aggression,” though 31% of Republicans do.

    But the overall impression here is one of democratic confusion.

    We Americans are all over the lot about what our foreign policy should be and what it should do. One is reminded of an insight from Walter Lippmann about U.S. foreign policy confusion before World War II:

    “When a people is divided within itself about the conduct of foreign relations, it is unable to agree on the determination of its true interest. It is unable to prepare adequately for war or safeguard successfully its peace. Thus, it course in foreign affairs depends, in Hamilton’s words, not on reflection and choice, but on accident and force.”

    Should we energetically promote democracy worldwide, because it is the right and moral thing to do, though the American people clearly do not see this as America’s cause?

    Should we intervene to help Ukraine retrieve Crimea?

    Should we fight to prevent China from consolidating rocks, reefs and islets of the East and South China Seas?

    Is preserving the independence of Taiwan, which we conceded half a century ago is part of China, worth a war with a nuclear-armed China?

    What role should U.S. public opinion play in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 19:50

  • Pentagon Pushes Plans For Afghan Airstrike Capability Even After Troop Exit
    Pentagon Pushes Plans For Afghan Airstrike Capability Even After Troop Exit

    A growing body of indicators point to Biden’s vaunted plan for a full Afghan troop exit by Sep.11 being anything but a true and full final “exit”. First, as we described earlier the Pentagon is thinking up ways to leave a significant security “footprint” which defense officials say is necessary to protect the sprawling embassy in Kabul. There’s also talk of “counterterrorism support” directed from outside the country, which is said to be one among a “range of options” to soon be presented to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. 

    The Associated Press observed this week that “The number of American troops needed for the overall security missions inside Afghanistan will depend on a variety of requirements, and could range from roughly a couple hundred to a bit less than 1,000, officials said.” And of course, the CIA and other foreign intel agencies are scrambling to keep eyes and ears on the ground inside the country. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported the Pentagon is pursuing authorization to conduct airstrikes on the Taliban if it appears a major city like Kabul is about to fall to the group

    Via The Drive

    This also as the WSJ wrote that “The Taliban are encircling Afghan police and army positions and encroaching on government-held territory, positioning themselves for large-scale offensives against major population centers while waiting for the last American troops to depart Afghanistan.”

    To prevent this likely scenario of a Taliban takeover of much of the country after the US troop departure, the US Air Force would theoretically initiate Afghan aerial operations from one of its four major bases in the Gulf region, including two in Kuwait, and the others in Qatar and the UAE. This could also include use of drones to combat advancing Taliban insurgents against government areas. 

    Acting Air Force Secretary John Roth told a Senate hearing this week: “We have a series of air bases, they will stay for the time being, that’s where your over the horizon capability will come from,” according to Defense One. These statements alone will likely be interpreted by Taliban leaders to mean that in reality the US military will never truly “exit” the conflict-torn country.

    Some in Congress see the new “options” for intervening post-withdrawal as but a recipe for continued war in America’s longest-running occupation…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Also on Tuesday the Pentagon said that its withdrawal efforts were ahead of schedule, already being over 50% accomplished. Prior to the ordered drawdown which the White House announced in April there were at least 2,500 US troops amid a broader 10,000 member NATO force. The Taliban had seen the change as reneging on the Trump deal which had set the full pullout deadline for May 1st, which has come and gone. 

    While so far there has not been the predicted large-scale assaults on remaining US troops and bases, there have been hundreds of Taliban attacks on Afghan national forces and civilians across the country.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 19:30

  • South Korean Inventor Creates "Third Eye" As A Warning To "Smartphone Zombies"
    South Korean Inventor Creates “Third Eye” As A Warning To “Smartphone Zombies”

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A South Korean designer has created a ‘third eye’ that allows people to constantly look at their cellphones in the street as a warning to “smartphone zombies.”

    Paeng Min-wook’s ‘The Third Eye’ is basically a sophisticated robotic eyeball that users strap to their forehead which warns them if they are about to bump into something.

    “Paeng’s invention uses a gyro sensor to measure the oblique angle of the user’s neck and an ultrasonic sensor to calculate the distance between the robotic eye and any obstacles. Both sensors are linked to an open-source single-board microcontroller, with battery pack,” reports Reuters.

    When the user gets within 2 meters of another object, an audible beep warns them to take evasive action.

    The South Korean made it clear that his invention was a “satirical” sideswipe at the dystopian levels of smartphone obsession now seen amongst young people.

    “As we cannot take our eyes off from smartphones, the extra eye will be needed in future,” he said.

    “By presenting this satirical solution, I hope people would recognize the severity of their gadget addiction and look back at themselves.”

    As we document in the video below, smartphone addiction continues to be a source of depression and atomization for young people, many of whom have become dopamine junkies left unable to form actual human bonds in the real world.

    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 19:10

  • $1.2 Trillion Manchin-Backed Infrastructure Plan Reached By Bipartisan Group Of Senators
    $1.2 Trillion Manchin-Backed Infrastructure Plan Reached By Bipartisan Group Of Senators

    Update (1900ET): The bipartisan group has agreed to pitch a $1.2 trillion eight-year infrastructure spending package to the Biden administration, according to Bloomberg, citing an anonymous source familiar with the deliberations.

    The proposal is notably backed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and calls for $579 billion in net new spending “beyond outlays that Congress was already expected to enact.”

    *  *  *

    After talks between President Joe Biden and Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) broke down earlier this week, a bipartisan group of 10 senators led by Mitt Romney (R-UT) say they’ve reached a tentative deal on the the size of an infrastructure deal, as well as how they’d pay for it. 

    The deal would spend a fraction of the $4.1 trillion called for by President Biden, and would not require an increase in taxes, according to The Hill, which suggests it may be a “tough sell within the broader Senate Democratic caucus.”

    That said, members of the bipartisan group warned on Thursday that they still need to run it past the Senate GOP conference and the White House to see if there’s a broader buy-in.

    “We have a tentative agreement on the pay-fors, yes, but that’s among the five Democrats and the five Republicans. It has not been taken to our respective caucuses or the White House so we’re in the middle of the process. We’re not at the end of the process, not at the beginning but we’re in the middle,” said Romney, who added that an overall top-line spending number has also been tentatively agreed upon.

    “I believe it’s complete but others may have a different point of view.”

    Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine confirmed that a tentative deal exists, and called it a “significant” sign of progress.

    “Among the ten of us there is a tentative agreement on a framework but obviously there’s a long ways to go. I would not say that we have the leaders on board or we have started negotiating with the White House but I think having 10 senators come together and reach an agreement on a framework is significant,” she said.

    Earlier Thursday, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Fox News that Republicans “haven’t given up hope” for a deal.

    “We haven’t given up hope that we’ll be able to reach a deal on something really important for the country that we really need to accomplish, and that is a major infrastructure bill,” he said, adding “I think it’s clearly possible. We haven’t given up on reaching an agreement on infrastructure. … I think there’s a good chance we can get there.”

    Other members of the bipartisan group weren’t quite willing to say they’ve agreed to the overall spending number until they’ve had a chance to bounce it off more of their colleagues. 

    “We’re continuing to get input from people. Nothing’s final,” said a senator involved in the talks.

    Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said she knew members of the bipartisan group were very close to a deal on the broad outlines of a scaled-down infrastructure spending package and predicted it would be similar to what she offered to Biden in recent weeks.

    “They were pretty close, I think, the last time I talked to them,” she said. 

    “I haven’t seen the details of their report but I think a lot of what they have is a lot of what I had in terms of definitionally what infrastructure is,” she added. -The Hill

    According to GOP Negotiator Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a key difference between last month’s package outlined by Senate Republicans and the bipartisan deal is energy provisions sought by Biden.

    “This will go back through committees, it will go through Finance [Committee] for the pay-fors, we still have to interact with the president but as far as the group’s concerned, we have a final offer,” said Cassidy on Thursday, adding that the next step is to sell the deal to the White House and each party’s caucuses.

    “We’d have to, again, have our colleagues, whichever party you’re in, buy into it,” he said, adding that the group needs to “make sure the White House is OK with it.”

    According to Cassidy, the Senate group’s top-line figure is similar to the $1.25 trillion infrastructure spending package unveiled earlier in the week by the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, which would provide $762 billion in new spending over eight years.

    “The Problem Solvers passed something which [is] pretty similar to ours in terms of top line and with the same categories and roughly the same everything else,” he said. “It’s all positive.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 18:57

  • Leaking Las Vegas: Lake Mead Plunges To Record Low Amid Drought-pocalypse
    Leaking Las Vegas: Lake Mead Plunges To Record Low Amid Drought-pocalypse

    Much of the Western half of the US is in a severe drought, and parts of the Southwest are “exceptionally dry,” the worst category, according to US Drought Monitor. Taking this into account, the iconic Hoover Dam has just recorded the smallest amount of water inside Lake Mead since the 1930s. 

    The damming of the Colorado River at the Nevada-Arizona border created Lake Mead and supplies water to 25 million people, including in the cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego. 

    We’ve explained in the past if Lake Mead drops to dangerously low levels, the entire town of Las Vegas is absolutely screwed because two pipes, known as straws, are at elevation 1,050 feet and 1,000 feet. However, a third straw was recently constructed at 860 feet just in case the water level continued to drop. For Vegas to prevent a total collapse if Lake Mead continues to drop, it will have to continue constructing straws at lower and lower depths. 

    Tim Barnett, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, wrote back in 2014 that Lake Mead wasn’t able to supply Vegas with water, “it’s just going to be screwed. And relatively quickly. Unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere, Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid.” 

    … and this quote was over seven years ago, and the water situation has dramatically worsened. 

    As of Wednesday, the lake’s water level sank to 1,071.56 feet above sea level and broke the record low in July 2016. Since the early 2000s, the water level has plunged 140 feet due to years of drought that has gripped the region. 

    “Some states, especially parts of California and parts of the southwest, it’s really quite extreme drought conditions,” Ben Cook, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters. Here’s a map (as of June 3) of the drought situation, which is extremely severe. 

    Artificial lakes, such as Lake Mead, is no match for Mother Nature, and the latest drop in water level could force state governments (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) to pass a water shortage declaration sometime this summer.

    The demand for water downstream from Hoover Dam continues to increase. Farmers in the Southwest are itching for Lake Mead’s water to irrigate their crops as their land becomes fallow. 

    Over the past year, the lake has declined by more than 16 feet and is projected to fall nine more feet by the end of 2021. The lake’s trigger point for a “shortage,” declared by the government, is 1,075 feet, which has already been broken. 

    Lake Mead’s downward spiral has also reduced Hoover Dam’s hydropower output by 25%. At some point, the dam could stop producing electricity. 

    “Our previous number [for cutoff] was at elevation 1,050, and now we’ve lowered that number to 950,” Hoover Dam, facility manager Mark Cook told CBS News. “So, we bought ourselves 100 feet.”

    For more than a half-decade (see: here & here), we have the ongoing problems of Lake Mead and how it could impact the water supply of tens of millions of people. Now that the lake is at levels not seen since it was filled in the 1930s, and below levels for an official “shortage.” This means an emergency declaration of water shortage could be seen sometime this summer. 

    The drought is so severe that the governor of Utah is urging people to pray for rain. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 18:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 10

Today’s News 10th June 2021

  • Euro 2020 Favorites: Modeling The Beautiful Game
    Euro 2020 Favorites: Modeling The Beautiful Game

    Following a year of COVID-lockdown-driven delays, the Euro 2020 tournament kicks off on Friday 11 June when Turkey take on Italy in Rome.

    As fans from most of the continent’s major ‘footballing’ nations cheer on their teams, they recognize that some have a far higher chance of winning than others.

    As the excitement for the tournament builds, Goldman Sachs’ Economics Research Group constructed a statistical model to simulate the European Cup. As Sven Jari Stehn and Christian Schnittker explain, they start by modelling the number of goals scored by each team using a large dataset of international football matches since 1980.

    We find that the number of goals scored by each team can be explained by:

    (1) the strength of the squad (measured with the World Football Elo Rating),

    (2) goals scored and conceded in recent games (capturing the side’s momentum),

    (3) home advantage (which is worth 0.4 goals per game) and

    (4) a tournament effect (which shows that some countries tend to outperform at tournaments compared to their rating).

    Goldman then simulates the tournament using our estimated scoring model.

    So will win?

    Goldman’s framework predicts that Belgium will win the Euros for the first time in history, narrowly beating Italy on July 11.

    The reason the model gives Belgium the edge is primarily its high Elo score, where it is ranked first amongst European nations.

    That said, we see a close race between Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain, which make it to the semi-finals.

    The model also offers a few unexpected insights. One is that Denmark is projected to do well in this tournament, winning its group and losing only to Portugal in the quarterfinals. Although France—as world champion—has a high Elo score, Les Bleus are penalised in our model by a difficult group stage, lack of home advantage and negative momentum in recent games.

    Compared to betting odds, our model favours Belgium and predicts a lower probability of success for England.

    Of course, this is all rubbish as football is not a game of ‘perfect… and it is clear that England will win.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 02:45

  • Zelensky Tells Biden Ukraine Needs Clear Plan For Accession To NATO
    Zelensky Tells Biden Ukraine Needs Clear Plan For Accession To NATO

    Authored by Ella Kietlinska via The Epoch Times,

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed in his phone conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday that Ukraine needs “a real step-by-step plan” tied to calendar dates for its accession to NATO, the chief of the Ukrainian presidential office Andriy Yermak said according to a report on Ukraine’s official website.

    The time of statements and declarations of intent should be a thing of the past, Zelensky told Biden.

    “There can be no doubt that Ukraine is an integral part of Europe in terms of its value foundation. Now, in the new situation in Europe, we need a logistical plan for Ukraine’s accession to the Alliance in the near future. NATO is a way of maximum protection for our country,” Zelensky said.

    According to a second official report, Zelensky also informed Biden about the situation in Donbas, a Ukrainian territory temporarily occupied by Russian-backed separatists, and explained the reasons and nature of the periodic escalation of the conflict.

    “The so-called withdrawal of Russian troops is only an imitation,” Zelensky said.

    There was still a high concentration of Russian troops and heavy weapons in the temporarily occupied Ukraine’s territories and near the Ukrainian border, he explained.

    “Ukraine’s move to NATO is also an opportunity to achieve the preconditions for establishing a stable and lasting peace in Donbas,” the second report states.

    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on June 4 during an event at The Brookings Institution that the best way for Ukraine to move toward membership in NATO is to implement reforms to fight corruption and to modernize its defense and security institutions. “We are helping [Ukraine] with that as they move toward further Euro-Atlantic integration,” he added.

    NATO provides support to Ukraine in the form of training and capacity building, Stoltenberg said, and encouraged NATO Allies “to do more of that.”

    After the Russian aggression in 2014, Ukraine’s interest to join NATO continued to grow, according to Kyiv Post.

    However, resolving territorial and international disputes is a prerequisite to joining the Alliance. Therefore, Ukraine’s unresolved conflicts over Crimea and Donbas could affect membership eligibility, according to an analysis by The Center for European Policy Analysis.

    Biden will participate in the NATO Summit on June 14 in Brussels, Belgium, however aspirant countries would not be invited to the Summit. Stoltenberg said at a press conference that “the summit will only be for Allies because it is a relatively short summit—one day.”

    Ukraine and Russia have been in conflict since 2014 when Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and backed a rebellion in Donbas.

    Zelensky, since his election two years ago, has sought to resolve the conflict, which has claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2014.

    Russia launched a buildup of troops near the Ukrainian border earlier this year before announcing in April that it would pull back those forces. The provocative move alarmed the United States and other European allies.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 02:00

  • Israel Defense Forces Strike Syria, As Netanyahu Struggles To Remain
    Israel Defense Forces Strike Syria, As Netanyahu Struggles To Remain

    By South Front,

    Israel’s political situation is proving quite precarious for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As a result, he’s struggling to prove that he’s required at the lead, since Tel Aviv’s enemies will allegedly flourish if Netanyahu is not there.

    Late on June 8th, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck various targets in southern and central Syria. According to Syrian media, air defense systems managed to shoot down some Israeli missiles which were fired from the direction of Lebanon.

    Not all missiles were shot down and some caused damage. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights claimed that violent explosions were felt in Damascus and around the city, followed by Israeli strikes on military positions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). It also claimed that 10 pro-government fighters were killed in the strikes.

    Air strikes also took place in the south of Homs province and in the border zone between Homs and Tartus.

    This is the first strike attributed to Israel in nearly a month, and it coincides with Netanyahu’s struggle to remain in seat. There is no official confirmation from the IDF on carrying out the strike.

    In addition to Israel’s regular assertions, the “moderate opposition” in Greater Idlib also frequently breaches the ceasefire regime and shells the nearby settlements. Militants in the region shelled several villages in nearby Hama province, in the villages of Jubas and Dadikh, and farmland was damaged. No casualties were reported.

    On June 7th, militants fired 6 rockets at the village of Jurin in the northwestern province of Hama, causing damage to residential buildings and private property.

    In northern Syria, the perpetual state of chaos between the Kurdish groups and the Turkish-backed factions also continues.

    The Kurdish Afrin Liberation Force reported that it had carried out a successful operation against the Turkish Armed Forces and pro-Ankara militants.

    Between June 1 and 4th, the Kurdish group reportedly killed 13 Turkish soldiers and 2 pro-Turkish faction members. Two vehicles were destroyed. In confirmation, Ankara admitted to losing a single serviceman in northwestern Syria.

    On June 8th, a car bomb exploded in northern Syria’s Afrin causing extensive damage to nearby property. No casualties were reported.

    Still, violence in northern Syria is the norm. The Kurdish groups and Turkish-backed factions continually carry out operations against each other. Infighting among the pro-Turkish groups is also not uncommon, with civilians frequently being injured and sometimes killed in collateral.

    With the Syrian Arab Army reactivating air defense systems in northern Syria, it could mean that an attempted solution to the plight may be coming sooner rather than later.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/10/2021 – 00:10

  • China's White Collar Workers Face Invasive Surveillance By 'Big Tech' Overlords
    China’s White Collar Workers Face Invasive Surveillance By ‘Big Tech’ Overlords

    For a Communist nation, the People’s Republic has notoriously weak labor protections. While gig economy workers face tremendous pressure to put in long hours with few breaks, as it turns out, their white-collar cousins are facing similar pressures to put in long hours as well.

    Nikkei’s story starts out with testimony from Andy Wang, an IT professional in Hong Kong, whose company has been ratcheting up efforts to monitor its workforce. They call it DiSanZhiYan, or “Third Eye.” The software, installed on the laptop of every employee, monitors all their communications and movements, as well as their browsing activity and software and app usage.

    The invasive software would automatically file complaints and every once in a while an employee would be fired. Finally, things like 20-hours work days began to seem impossibly daunting.

    Working from their floor in a downtown high-rise, the startup’s hundreds of employees were constantly, uncomfortably aware of being under Third Eye’s intent gaze.

    The software would also automatically flag “suspicious behavior” such as visiting job-search sites or video streaming platforms. “Efficiency” reports would be generated weekly, summarizing their time spent by website and application.

    “Bosses would check the reports regularly,” Wang said. Farther down the line, that could skew workers’ prospects for promotions and pay rises. They could also be used as evidence when the company looked to fire certain people, he added.

    Even Wang himself was not exempt. High-definition surveillance cameras were installed around the floor, including in his office, and a receptionist would check the footage every day to monitor how long each employee spent on their lunch break, he said.

    Nikkei’s latest story about these types of abuses at Chinese white collar firms just so happens to follow increased scrutiny of China’s human rights record in the wake of the Biden Administration’s condemnation of Beijing’s “genocidal” treatment of the Uyghers.

    While there are limits on how employers can track workers in the US, in China those limitations are virtually non-existent. Many workers have come to accept being tracked.

    One Chinese tech firm, Pinduoduo, has garnered special attention for a string of incidents involving young employees,

    Pinduoduo is one of the crown jewels of Chinese tech. In just five years, the Shanghai-based e-commerce company grew from zero to 788 million annual active users, surpassing JD.com to become the country’s second-largest e-commerce company with a market valuation of $175 billion, second only to Alibaba.

    But it is clear that stunning growth is coming at a cost. Last December, a 22-year-old female employee died after collapsing on her way back home from work around 1:30 a.m. She worked for the company’s grocery shopping unit, Duoduo Grocery, whose services had rapidly grown to encompass 300 Chinese cities as orders leapt during coronavirus-related lockdowns.

    Two weeks afterwards, Pinduoduo confirmed one of its engineers jumped to his death. The young worker, a fresh university graduate, checked the company’s messaging app one last time before he took the final leap, according to a former Pinduoduo employee.

    The same month, another employee who had posted a photo of a colleague being borne out of the office on a stretcher was identified and fired by the company. In a video posted on Weibo, the Chinese social media site, the fired employee said: “I don’t know if the company identified me through computer monitoring or through information provided by Maimai.” Maimai, the Chinese equivalent of LinkedIn, denied it had provided any user information to a third-party organization.

    Here are some other tools used by the government to track employees.

    Zhongduantong: “Zhongduantong, a Beijing-based software company, developed a work reporting mobile application that requires workers to check in at designated locations within a certain time frame and upload a picture of the surrounding environment as proof through the app. The use of such real-time tracking apps led to the 200 yuan ($31) fine of a sales manager in the northern city of Shenyang, who was found to be visiting a housing fund center for personal matters during their lunch break, Xinhua News Agency reported in 2018.”

    Who Will Watch the Watchmen?: “The AI-driven decision-making process, however, can reinforce bias and discrimination, as machine learning is designed to learn from existing examples. To Jia Kai, associate professor at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, the crucial question is: To what extent can a human society be managed by programs? “For example, if a worker has a cold today, will the programs be able to detect that and allow more time for the person to finish his job?” Jia asks. The answer is no, he said, at least for now. “What a computer system can capture is only a simplified version of human behaviors.”

    Still, as China’s middle class grows increasingly competitive, there will always be plenty of workers willing to accept the risks and drawbacks for a shot at the rewards.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 23:50

  • Blinken Props Up Biden In European Charade For New Cold War
    Blinken Props Up Biden In European Charade For New Cold War

    Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Blinken is staying close to his boss during the whirlwind tour, because Biden is liable to spin out of control and reap an embarrassing collapse.

    It’s a big ask for a frail 78-year-old U.S. president to rally the world around a series of myths and falsehoods. Biden flies to Europe this week to galvanize allies under strong American leadership of supposed shared “democratic values” in a “historic confrontation” with the “autocracies” of China and Russia.

    President Joe Biden’s worldview is so disconnected from reality that it is going to prove difficult mentally for him to consistently and coherently make the case over a series of summits in the next week.

    That’s why he has his more youthful Secretary of State Antony Blinken (59) tagging along when Biden meets G7 leaders in England on June 11-13, followed by a NATO summit on June 14 in Brussels as well as top-level discussions with European Union leaders. After all that, Blinken is “to participate” in the face-to-face meeting between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 16 in Geneva, according to the U.S. State Department.

    The latter detail in the busy itinerary – Biden’s first overseas trip since taking office in January – is the most salient. It is unprecedented that the U.S. foreign secretary should “participate” in what was previously billed as a one-on-one meeting between the American and Russian leaders. There is no indication so far from Russian media reports that Sergei Lavrov – Blinken’s counterpart – is to take part in the Geneva summit.

    What this unusual arrangement suggests is that Biden is not up to the task of dealing with Putin in an equal setting. The American president’s health and mental acuity have been under the media spotlight after several public gaffes in which Biden has forgotten names of his aides and has seemed befuddled in recalling details. The Democrat-supporting U.S. media have been criticized for giving Biden an easy time from their soft approach towards the president.

    This raises further questions about Biden’s health condition when he has to have his top diplomat at his side during the forthcoming summits, especially the final one with Putin whom the American president disparaged previously as a “killer”.

    It is all the more taxing on Biden given that his mission is more about contriving a narrative than actually engaging with reality. The contrived narrative is the attempt to rally European and other Western allies under American leadership against “autocratic adversaries” China and Russia. In other words, fabricating a new Cold War. The trouble is the fabrication is based on myths, falsehoods, smears, delusions, and outright lies. All in all, that’s a tall order for a president who tends to get people and names mixed up and who appears to struggle at finishing press conferences with coherent thoughts.

    In an op-ed for the Washington Post before his big tour of Europe, Biden presented his mission thus: “My trip to Europe is about America rallying the world’s democracies”.

    In a familiar mantra of the 46th president, he demarcated the world into two camps: one under “strong American leadership” with “shared democratic values”, and the other purportedly represented by rival “autocracies” of China and Russia. This is nothing but the recreation of a Cold War whereby Washington polarizes the world into hostile entities in order to give itself a position of “moral leadership” as a guise for imperialist hegemony.

    To accept this mythical framing of the world, then it is necessary to demonize the designated adversaries. Lamentably, the European allies of America (more accurately, “vassals”) are all too credulous in accepting the provocative fantasies.

    Nevertheless, sometimes self-interests intrude and the Europeans find the American depiction of the world too much to bear. Hence, there is pushback from the European Union on Biden’s attempts to sabotage the economic partnership between the 27-member bloc and China. There are limits to which the EU will go in damaging the landmark Comprehensive Investment Agreement it signed with Beijing in December.

    Likewise, Germany is not tolerating any attempts by the Biden administration to scupper the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia which will be vital for fuelling German industry. Again, self-interest kicks in to bring mundane common sense into conflict with the American mythology of a Cold War.

    Notwithstanding, Biden’s itinerary is purposed to orchestrate an adversarial transatlantic position towards Russia and China.

    In his Washington Post op-ed, Biden pointedly outlines how his first meetings are aimed at drumming up American leadership pitted against Moscow.

    The president wrote: “So, when I meet with Vladimir Putin in Geneva, it will be after high-level discussions with friends, partners and allies who see the world through the same lens as the United States, and with whom we have renewed our connections and shared purpose. We are standing united to address Russia’s challenges to European security, starting with its aggression in Ukraine, and there will be no doubt about the resolve of the United States to defend our democratic values, which we cannot separate from our interests.”

    Note the inane assertion as if fact that Russia is threatening Europe’s security and is aggressing Ukraine, when in reality it is the U.S. and NATO powers that are weaponizing a rogue regime in Kiev against Russia. The U.S. has supplied $2 billion in weaponry to Kiev since the Western-backed coup d’état in 2014 and NATO forces are on the ground in Ukraine. It is NATO forces building up offensive power around Russia, not the other way around.

    Biden threw in a few bromides such as “the United States does seek conflict” with Russia, and he mentioned his extension of the New START treaty back in February (preventing an arms race is hardly a claim to virtue). But these platitudes aside, Biden went on to make lame accusations about Russia’s “interference in our democratic elections”.

    It can be confidently posited that President Putin will demolish the baseless claims that Biden is attempting to put forward in Geneva. It will be an intellectual slamming match, not simply due to Putin’s formidable command of detail and argumentation, but largely because the American side has an untenable case owing to its fundamental fallacies.

    Let’s just say, the American case against Russia and China is a weak charade of myths and lies, full of hypocrisy and contradiction. It would be hard enough for an agile mind to maintain the implausible narrative that underpins America’s bid for global hegemony. It’s all the more difficult for an aging president to keep up the performance.

    That’s why Blinken is staying close to his boss during the whirlwind tour. Because Biden is liable to spin out of control and reap an embarrassing collapse.

    The State Department said Biden will be coming from his meeting with allies with “the wind at his back” as he goes on to challenge Putin. More accurately, it should be said, with Blinken propping up the president by reminding him of the dubious script.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 23:30

  • Wuhan Lab 'Experts' Deny Lab Leak, Claim No Workers Sickened With COVID-19
    Wuhan Lab ‘Experts’ Deny Lab Leak, Claim No Workers Sickened With COVID-19

    Anonymous experts at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) have dismissed theories that COVID-19 leaked from their lab, as well as US intelligence that three lab workers fell ill with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, according to Chinese state-run ECNS.CN.

    The anonymous experts have invited the West to present their evidence.

    The experts, who requested anonymity, said individuals from the West can present their proof if they have any. They also dismissed as groundless the reports from some media outlets that three workers from the institute had contracted the virus. -ECNS

    According to a May 23 report by the WSJ, Three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were so sick in November of 2019 that they sought hospitalization.

    The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

    The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19’s origins. -WSJ

    “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick,” one source told the Journal, while another person said the information, provided by an “international partner,” was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and corroboration.

    In March, former US State Department official David Asher, who led a task force on the origins of COVID-19, told a Hudson Institute seminar that he doubted the lab workers were infected with an ordinary flu.

    “I’m very doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level three laboratory working on coronaviruses would all get sick with influenza that put them in the hospital or in severe conditions all in the same week, and it didn’t have anything to do with the coronavirus,” he said, adding that the researchers who fell ill may represent “the first known cluster” of COVID-19 cases.

    The Wuhan lab has notably refused to share raw data, safety logs and lab records of its extensive experiments with bat coronaviruses, which a US-funded NGO, EcoHealth Alliance, collaborated with.

    As we asked at the time, perhaps Beijing – with its sophisticated tracking techniques – can explain the whereabouts of still-missing WIV lab worker Huang Yanling?

    Missing Chinese researcher Huang Yanling.  Photo / news.com.au

    Huang Yanling, who worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was one of scores of doctors, scientists, activists and journalists who disappeared during the Chinese Communist Party’s suspected cover-up.

    During the early weeks of the outbreak last February, rumours swirled on Chinese social media that the graduate student was “patient zero”, creating a direct link between the controversial lab and the virus outbreak.

    Chinese officials quickly stepped in to censor the reports from the internet.

    The Wuhan Institute of Virology denied she was patient zero and insisted, without evidence, that she was alive and well elsewhere in the country – while scrubbing her biography and image from its website. -NZ Herald

    So – maybe the US should present their evidence, and Beijing can finally share virus samples and other records they’ve thus far been unwilling to produce.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 23:10

  • Hydroxychloroquine & Azithromycin Boosted Survival Of Ventilated COVID-19 Patients By 200%: New Study Confirms
    Hydroxychloroquine & Azithromycin Boosted Survival Of Ventilated COVID-19 Patients By 200%: New Study Confirms

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    A new study has found that the use of weight-adjusted hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZM) improved the survival of ventilated COVID-19 patients by nearly 200 percent.

    The observational study, which hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, was based on a re-analysis of 255 patients on invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) during the first two months of the pandemic in the United States.

    The researchers found that when the HCQ–AZM combination was given at lower dosages to treat ventilated COVID-19 patients, the risk of death was more than three times higher.

    “We found that when the cumulative doses of two drugs, HCQ and AZM, were above a certain level, patients had a survival rate 2.9 times the other patients,” the authors of the study noted.

    “By using causal analysis and considering of weight-adjusted cumulative dose, we prove the combined therapy, >3 g HCQ and > 1g AZM greatly increases survival in COVID patients on IMV and that HCQ cumulative dose > 80 mg/kg works substantially better.”

    While the authors acknowledged that patients with higher doses of HCQ had higher doses of AZM, they “cannot solely attribute the causal effect to HCQ/AZM combination therapy.”

    “However, it is likely AZM does contribute significantly to this increase in survival rate. Since higher dose HCQ/AZM therapy improves survival by nearly 200 [percent] in this population, the safety data are moot,” they added.

    Hydroxychloroquine—an anti-inflammatory and anti-malarial drug—has been one of the most contested treatments for COVID-19 throughout the pandemic.

    A pharmacist displaying a box of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablets in his store in Hyderabad, India, on April 28, 2020. (Noah Seelam/AFP via Getty Images)

    The drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1955 to treat and prevent malaria. It’s also prescribed for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

    While the FDA initially granted HCQ an emergency use authorization (EUA) to treat COVID-19 in March 2020, the agency revoked it on June 15, 2020, because data suggested it was “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19” and that its potential risks outweighed the benefits.

    The FDA’s turnabout came on the heels of a study by Oxford University in the United Kingdom that found HCQ underperformed its routine treatment protocols.

    “Unfortunately, problems in research methodologies assessing the effectiveness and risks of HCQ have left lingering doubts,” wrote Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, in an op-ed for The Epoch Times. “Those problems include questionable dosing.”

    Some, like Epoch Times contributor Roger L. Simon, have argued that studies around the use of HCQ to treat COVID-19 were politicized by opponents of former President Donald Trump, who advocated the use of the drug.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 22:50

  • TC Energy Cancels Keystone XL Pipeline For Good
    TC Energy Cancels Keystone XL Pipeline For Good

    By OilPrice.com

    The Keystone XL pipeline project’s owner, TC Energy, said on Wednesday that it has terminated the controversial pipeline project that would have served as a lifeline to Canadian oilsands producers looking for more takeaway capacity.

    TC Energy Corporation confirmed Wednesday that after careful review of the available options and after consulting with the Government of Alberta, it has officially canceled the Keystone XL.

    Construction activities were stopped back in January.

    The project’s cancellation comes several months after President Joe Biden revoked the Presidential Permit for the pipeline on January 20 of this year, in what was mostly seen as a death blow for the pipeline.

    TC Energy will now set to work on how it will wind everything down while continuing to meet its environmental and regulatory commitments.

    Canada had previously warned the United States that scrapping the vital oil pipeline would weaken relationships between the two countries.

    Proponents of the Keystone XL project have argued that scrapping the Keystone XL would not diminish the demand for the heavy crude oil that the pipeline would have carried to U.S. refineries. Instead, it would merely raise the United States’ dependence on crude oil from OPEC countries. An argument has been made that it would also kill jobs on both sides of the border.

    It was suggested back in January that if TC Energy did not challenge the permit rescission in court or through NAFTA, it might sell some of the pipes from the project to offset some of what has been invested so far.

    As of February, Alberta had spent $1.2 billion on the project so far.

    The Keystone XL would have carried 800,000 bpd of oil per day from Canada to the United States.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 22:44

  • Goldman Explains Why The Economy Won't Overheat, No Matter What Tomorrow's CPI Shows
    Goldman Explains Why The Economy Won’t Overheat, No Matter What Tomorrow’s CPI Shows

    Yields on 10-year Treasuries dipped below 1.50% today for the first time since early March amid a furious short squeeze discussed earlier…

    … and as post-pandemic inflation concerns appear to be waning as quickly as they flared up.

    This is a point we first brought up last month when observing the collapse in China’s credit impulse, arguably the most important variable for the entire global reflationary narrative (see “China’s Credit Impulse Just Turned Negative, Unleashing Global Deflationary Shockwave“)…

    … and it’s a point that Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius reiterated in a note published on Tuesday titled simply “Why the Economy Won’t Overheat,” in which he argues – the same as the Fed – that the inflation we are seeing so far is likely to be temporary and prices will normalize again as we leg further away from unprecedented pandemic activity curtailments.

    While we disagree – and so does Deutsche Bank, which sees nothing short of Weimar hyperinflation being unleashed by the Fed soon, something we first predicted in March 2009 as the ultimate endgame –  it is interesting that today, at least, markets appear to be adopting this view judging by the collapse in 10Y nominal rates and the recent breach of the upward trendline in breakevens…

    … this even as China’s PPI printed at a Lehman Sept 2008 high of 9.0% overnight.

    So what, according to Goldman is the reason for receding inflation fears? As Hatzius and strategist Chris Hussey explain, the past 2 payrolls reports have been underwhelming as the rush back to work “is being slowed by generous stimulus as well as an inability — perhaps — to simply process so many new workers. On the one hand, fewer available workers should push up wages as companies compete to attract new workers. But a more orderly stream of employment in the post-pandemic recovery may also allow for a more extended reopening period and perhaps a bit less top-line pressure on prices.”

    Another reason for receding inflation fears may also simply be time. According to Goldman, as Americans become more accustomed to getting back to their daily routines, the strangeness of such activity recedes. And it is perhaps easier for investors to envision what‘normal’ will look like.  And perhaps that vision is collectively coalescing around a‘new normal’ that looks surprisingly similiar to the pre-pandemic ‘old normal’.

    Hatzius then elaborates why the recent inflation pickup will remain transitory: “On the wage side, labor supply should increase dramatically over the next 3-6 months as fear of the virus diminishes further and the $300/week benefit top-up expires—over the next few weeks in most Republican-controlled states and on September 6 in the remaining states.” 

    In other words, employers will likely hold out another 3 months until the end of emergency benefits expire at which point they expect a flood of workers to reverse the calculus in the labor market, from one of no labor supply to a flood of supply.

    On the price side, Goldman’s trimmed core PCE—which excludes the 30% most extreme month-to-month price changes, and as a reminder the surge in inflation last month was largely driven by soaring used car prices and transportation services, or as Goldman puts it “outliers” — remains at just 1.56% year-on-year, half the standard core PCE rate.  This gap illustrates the unprecedented role of outliers in the recent inflation pickup.

    Ultimately, to Goldman, the biggest question in the overheating debate remains whether US output and employment will rise sharply above potential in the next few years. If the answer is yes, then inflation could indeed climb to undesirable levels on a more permanent basis. Predictably, Goldman’s answer continues to be no, and here’s why: “Even though real GDP is nearly back to the pre-pandemic level, we still see significant slack in the economy based on the remaining jobs shortfall of nearly 8 million and the pandemic-driven productivity gain of 4.1% year-on-year in Q1. Moreover, we think sequential GDP growth has probably already peaked in monthly terms and will trend down from here as the fiscal impulse wanes, modestly at first and then more sharply in late 2021 and 2022.”

    Here JPMorgan also chimes in and in a recent note from economist Dan Silver writes that as we prepare for the CPI print, it is worthwhile to consider the impacts of the removal of federal unemployment benefits and increasing hourly wages. In Silver’s note, he illustrates the growth in job openings among low-income jobs.

    JPM then asks the right question: “will wage increases remain durable if business owners know that supply is coming back online?” A question we have asked previously, and the answer is a decisive not. To JPM, if the answer is indeed no, “we see a quicker than expected deceleration in wage growth, spending, and CPI.” Although, alternatively, it seems more likely that we will also see a surge in jobs taken and potentially another leg higher in absolute macro data.

    With that in mind, what’s next on the inflation catalyst front and what will tomorrow’s critical CPI print show?  Here, Goldman estimates a 0.50% increase in May core CPI (in line with consensus), which will boost the year-on-year rate by six tenths to 3.55%, up from 3.0% which however is largely impacted by the base effect collapse of last year. Goldman’s monthly core inflation forecast “reflects reopening-driven strength in airfares, hotel prices, and recreation prices.” Additionally, Goldman expects strong monthly readings in used cars (+6%) and new cars (+0.5%), reflecting “one-time” supply chain disruptions and microchip shortages.

    And while the Fed is more concerned with PCE inflation rather than CPI, Goldman concludes that even though the inflation burst is transitory, “it will be interesting to see how markets react to a 3.5%+ inflation report in a monetary regime that presumably is focused on keeping inflation around 2%.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 22:35

  • LA Sheriff Attributes Crime Surge To Soros-Backed DA Gascón, Supports Recall
    LA Sheriff Attributes Crime Surge To Soros-Backed DA Gascón, Supports Recall

    Authored by Chris Karr via The Epoch Times,

    The city of Los Angeles saw a sharp 36 percent increase in homicides in 2020—but the L.A. County sheriff said this year is looking even more grim, and he’s blaming the widespread uptick in crime on District Attorney George Gascón.

    “In 2021, that 36 percent has now become 92 percent, which is a huge statistical jump,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva told The Epoch Times.

    “We’re seeing increases in all the categories – assault with a deadly weapon, arson, rape…  these things are continuing upward unabated.”

    The widespread uptick in crime is the direct result of Gascón’s election as DA of L.A. County and his failure to prosecute offenses, according to Villanueva. Since Gascón took office, 2,690 cases—about 30 percent—“that normally would have gone through were rejected,” he said.

    Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva sits for an interview for The Epoch Times program “California Insider,” in Irvine, Calif., on May 27, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    While Gascón has defended his reform policies, criminals in prison are toasting the DA to celebrate their early release, according to officials—and the sheriff said the DA’s policies are making it more difficult for him to do his job.

    “You’re supposed to have a district attorney who represents the people …  but [he’s] acting like a public defender,” Villanueva said.

    “There’s no one left representing the people. I need to work in partnership with the person who’s representing the people. I don’t have that right now.”

    Impacting Public Safety

    Gascón’s attempt to “reimagine public safety” with a series of new policies, or directives, has been widely criticized by deputy district attorneys, lawyers, current and former officials, and families of victims. Now, the DA is facing a recall.

    “Had he campaigned on what he did once he took office and established those special directives … he’d have lost in a landslide. This is a classic example of bait-and-switch,” said Villanueva.

    New San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón fields a question during a news conference at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2009. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    In his view, those directives—which include eliminating the death penalty, abolishing sentencing enhancements like the Three Strikes law, and refusing to prosecute older juvenile offenders as adults for violent crimes—are having a major impact on public safety.

    “It’s just gonna make a very, very dangerous place a lot more unlivable,” said Villanueva, adding that African-American and Latino communities are going to be impacted the most—the same communities that Gascón’s reforms aim to protect.

    “It’s not going to impact the Gascóns of the world and their supporters, their campaign contributors … the people that live behind their mansions where they have their private security—no, no, no,” Villanueva said. “Those poorest neighborhoods [with] the highest crime rate, they’re gonna see [the impact] immediately. In fact, they already are.”

    Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva (C) attends an annual service honoring fallen peace officers in Tustin, Calif., on May 27, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    ‘That’s How Bad the Situation Currently Is’

    Gascón maintains that his policies have produced the results he intended.

    “I have instituted a series of reforms based on data and science that will enhance safety while reducing racial disparities and the misuse of incarceration. Our efforts to transform a dated approach that creates more crimes, victims and inequities are just beginning,” he wrote in a March 17 press release that reflected upon his first 100 days in office.

    “We are doing all of this because the science and data tell us so. We can truly enhance public safety, increase equity, expand victim services and strengthen police accountability.”

    Villanueva dismissed Gascon’s claims as “hogwash.”

    “He believes, bizarrely, that somehow by letting people out, it’s going to improve or lower recidivism, [and] that keeping people locked up longer increases recidivism. And I’d say he has no facts to support that at all. No science is going to back that,” Villanueva said.

    “They’re claiming that victims of violent crime want to see more rehabilitation and less consequences in terms of incarceration, and that’s news to me. … Every single victim of violent crime—parents of murdered kids, for example—that’s not what they’re saying at all.”

    In his press release, Gascón cited a survey conducted by Californians for Safety and Justice that reported “strong majorities of Californian crime survivors support changes to the justice system that would increase rehabilitation and reduce mandated sentences.”

    But Villanueva said this approach overlooks the “noble fallacy that somehow everyone is redeemable.”

    “There are people that are not,” he added.

    Furthermore, the elimination of strict legal repercussions is sending the wrong message to perpetrators, Villanueva said.

    “Mr. Gascón is telling the criminal community it’s OK to commit violent crime because you will not face the same consequences in the past,” he said. “Right now, they’re toasting Gascón in the state prison for a reason.”

    The L.A. sheriff pointed to a video of Phillip Dorsett, an inmate at New Folsom State Prison sentenced to 40 years to life for murdering a rival gang member in 2005.

    “Right here with my cellie. … Celebrating us going home on this Gascón directive. Whoop!” Dorsett said, toasting with prison moonshine known as “white lightning.”

    Greg Totten, CEO of the California District Attorneys Association, which made the video public in March, said the footage offers “compelling proof that violent criminals, not victims, will be the beneficiaries of [Gascón’s] radical policies.”

    Added Villanueva, “Imagine we’re flooded with a bunch of newly released inmates from the state prison system—who are still in the prime of their crime-prone years—and they come back to L.A. That’s how bad the situation currently is.”

    Recall Effort Ramps Up

    If the families of violent-crime victims have their say, Gascón will face a recall in 2022.

    “He clearly is not here for the victims. He’s here for the suspects,” Tania Owen, co-chair of the recall campaign, told The Epoch Times.

    For Owen, a 32-year veteran of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, the consequences of Gascón’s reforms hit close to home. Her husband, Sgt. Steve Owen, was murdered in the line of duty in Lancaster on Oct. 5, 2016. The man who shot him, Trenton Trevon Lovell, originally faced life in prison without parole, or the death penalty.

    Gascón’s reforms would have taken those options off the table, allowing Lovell to serve 20 to 25 years before being released. Last month, however, Lovell surprised Owen by pleading guilty to all charges, including the sentencing enhancements.

    “It’s interesting to me because he could have very easily fought this and gone to court and likely received less time,” Owen said.

    “But he took the maximum, which effectively means he is going to die in prison. At least he, the murderer, had more empathy for my family than the district attorney, who should be the one protecting us.”

    While Owen has seen justice in her case, her fight for the families of other victims continues. That’s why she’s helping spearhead the effort to Recall George Gascón, alongside Villanueva, former L.A. DA Steve Cooley, former L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, and 14 cities that have issued no-confidence resolutions against Gascón.

    “He is not following the law, and we want accountability,” Owen said.

    “Crime in Los Angeles has skyrocketed in the very short amount of time that he has been here. There has been more aggression towards law enforcement because criminals know that they’re going to have it easy.”

    In response, Gascón has defended his policies. In a tweet, he called opposition to them “backlash against reform fueled by conservative media, law enforcement unions & other ‘tough-on-crime’ types.’”

    “From fear mongering to scare tactics, we are watching history repeat itself. But this time, reform will prevail,” he stated.

    But Villanueva indicated the movement against Gascón is growing.

    “If [the recall] doesn’t go through, you’re going to have a lot more angry residents building up, day in and day out,” he said, adding that he expects to see more cities issuing no-confidence resolutions in the near future.

    Recall campaign organizers have until Oct. 27 to collect 580,000 qualified signatures—about 10 percent of L.A. County’s voters. They’re aiming to gather over 800,000, in case some are invalidated.

    Gascón received $2 million in campaign funding from billionaire George Soros, who is known for bankrolling leftist politicians and organizations.

    Gascón’s Office did not reply to questions submitted by The Epoch Times prior to publication.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 22:10

  • Mongolia Reports Fresh COVID Outbreak Despite High Vaccination Rates
    Mongolia Reports Fresh COVID Outbreak Despite High Vaccination Rates

    For weeks now, Mongolia has been touted as an unexpected success story in the international vaccination project: the poor, mostly rural country lies between northeastern China and Russia’s resource-rich east.

    The country, which struck deals with its neighbors to stock its vaccine coffers months ago, drew attention due to its climbing international vaccination rate. But in recent days, Mongolia’s COVID-19 rate has surged, raising questions about the efficacy of China’s vaccines.

    More than half of Mongolia’s population has been fully vaccinated. But despite this, the country reported 1,312 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday as the country’s total infections neared 70K, with almost all of those recorded since January. New daily infections have risen more than 70% in the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

    The landlocked nation has easily secured enough doses of the vaccine from Russia and China. And as its case numbers rise, Sinopharm’s vaccine has come under scrutiny because of a lack of transparency in its late-stage trial data. The vaccine faced more questions after the island nation of the Seychelles, which relied heavily on Sinopharm to inoculate its population, also saw a spike in cases, although most people did not become seriously ill. “Inactivated vaccines like Sinovac and Sinopharm are not as effective against infection but very effective against severe disease,” said Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist and biostatistician at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health. “Although Mongolia seems to be having a spike in infections and cases, my expectation is that there won’t be large number of hospitalizations,” he added.

    Doubts about the efficacy of China’s Sinopharm jab have been spreading for months, as the vaccine was repeatedly shown to be less effective than the new mRNA jabs from Pfizer and Moderna-BioNTech.

    In some areas, mutant strains may be spreading fast enough to cause concern even in countries where much of the population has vaccinations effective against them: Britain is dealing with a rise in cases linked to the Delta variant, despite having more than half of its adult population fully vaccinated, largely with shots from AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Still, the wave of infections has raised questions in Mongolia over why the government relied on the Sinopharm shots instead of a vaccine proven to be more effective. It came as Mongolians headed to the polls on Wednesday to vote for president, the first election since the constitution was amended to limit the president to one six-year term. The prime minister is the head of government and holds executive power.

    A year ago, Mongolia was among the few countries in the world that boasted no local coronavirus cases, but an outbreak in November changed that. A political crisis ensued and protests over perceived mishandling of the outbreak led the prime minister to resign in January.

    The new prime minister, Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, has promised to revive Mongolia’s lagging economy and end social distancing restrictions that have hurt businesses. A fresh wave of cases could threaten this pledge.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 21:50

  • Here We Go Again: JBS "Paid" "Russian" "Hackers" $11 Million In Bitcoin To Resolve "Ransomware" Attack
    Here We Go Again: JBS “Paid” “Russian” “Hackers” $11 Million In Bitcoin To Resolve “Ransomware” Attack

    There was a moment of sheer hilarity earlier today when, during a Congressional Hearing, the CEO of Colonial Pipeline Joseph Blount took the merely farcical episode of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware hack – when, as a reminder, a ragtag band of elite “Russian” hackers somehow managed to penetrate the company’s cyberdefenses but was so stupid it left most if not all of the $4.4 million bitcoins it demanded in ransom in an easily traceable address for the FBI to track down and magically confiscate (it is still unclear how the Feds got the private key to access the “hackers” digital wallet) in days if not hours – and elevated it to a level of sheer ridiculous absurdity when he told Congress that he didn’t consult the FBI before paying the ransom.

    This, pardon the parlance of our times, is complete bullshit: either the CEO is lying or, worse, he is telling the truth and as some have speculated, he, the FBI and the “hackers” are all in on this so-called ransomware breach…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    … a scenario which for now is yet another “conspiracy theory” and which we expect will become proven fact in the usual 6-9 months.

    Yet just a few hours later, the exact same ridiculous narrative meant to achieve just one thing – tarnish the reputation of bitcoin further to the point where the US has to ban it – has struck again, and according to the WSJ last week’s big hack, that of food processing giant JBS, was also resolved when the company paid $11 million – in bitcoin of course, because in this day and age one can’t simply dump a suitcase full of cash or send a wire transfer to an incognito account – as ransom to the criminals (who will naturally soon be unveiled as Russians because of course) responsible for the cyberattack that halted the company’s operations.

    Yes, if this story seems identical to that of Colonial Pipeline, up to and almost matching the demanded ransom amount, it’s because it is: so barren is the imagination of the administration’s narrative writers that they can only regurgitate the same old story over and over.

    Naturally, and just like in the Colonial “hack”, the ransom payment, in bitcoin, was made to shield JBS meat plants from further disruption and to limit the potential impact on restaurants, grocery stores and farmers that rely on JBS, said Andre Nogueira, chief executive of Brazilian meat company JBS SA’s U.S. division.

    “It was very painful to pay the criminals, but we did the right thing for our customers,“ Nogueira said Wednesday. It remains to be seen if the JDS CEO, like his Colonial colleague, promptly transferred the bitcoin to the FBI’s hackers’ digital wallet without advising the FBI (first for the simple reason that the FBI already knew the crypto was inbound?)

    The latest “shocking” attack on JBS has been part of a wave of bizarre incursions using ransomware, in which companies are hit with demands for multimillion-dollar payments to regain control of their operating systems. Some questions that remain unanswered is how the hell do these multi-billion dollar companies not have the most basic virus/malware protection to prevent some outsider –  be it a 13 year old kid living in his mom’s basement, some Ukrainian hacker, or the FBI – from getting access to the company’s entire infrastructure and locking out the company itself.  And then, this genius mastermind(s) is so stupid, they have no idea how to cover up their traces and promptly hand over the cash to the Feds.

    Even more grotesque is that, as the WSJ notes, the attacks show how hackers have shifted from targeting data-rich companies such as retailers, banks and insurers to essential-service providers such as hospitals, transport operators and food companies. Because apparently instead of spending $29.95 on an anti-virus program, these various companies used the cash to buyback stonk.

    According to the WSJ, the FBI last week attributed the JBS attack to REvil, a criminal ransomware gang, which of course comes from Russia, because – again – of course. Nogueira said that JBS and outside firms are conducting forensic analyses of its information-technology systems, and that it isn’t yet clear how the attackers accessed JBS’s systems.

    What is clear is that in just a few days these crack Russian cybercommandos will have a few dozen bitcoins less when the FBI which organized the entire farcical affair confiscates it all.

    And speaking of farcical, it gets even worse, because unlike the Colonial “hack” where the company lost all control over its infrastructure, in the case of the JBS hack, Nogueira said that the company maintains secondary backups of all its data, which are encrypted. Here things get downright surreal: according to the official narrative, the company brought back operations at its plants using those backup systems, but “JBS’s technology experts cautioned the company that there was no guarantee that the hackers wouldn’t find another way to strike, and JBS’s consultants continued negotiating with the attackers.”

    So even though the company had regained control, it decided to… pay the hackers?

    “We didn’t think we could take this type of risk that something could go wrong in our recovery process,” Nogueira said of the decision to pay the attackers. “It was insurance to protect our customers.”

    Ah, yes. All for the customers.

    Meanwhile here comes yet another hearing led by that crusader for governmental uber-regulation of everything, Liz Warren, who will demand even more crackdown on bitcoin because – you see – none of this would have happened if bitcoin did not exist.

    Though maybe this idiotic narrative, which is so transparent those who conceived it should be ashamed, is no longer working because unlike in the case of the Colonial pipeline when news of the ransomware hack spread hammered bitcoin over fears of reprisals, this time the crytpo sector has barely budged as even the weakest hands can’t believe just how stupid the official government narrative has become.

    To this the only possible conclusion is that yes, they really do think you are that stupid.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 21:26

  • Largest Drug Bust In LA Sheriff's History, After Raid On Cartel-Operated Marijuana Farm
    Largest Drug Bust In LA Sheriff’s History, After Raid On Cartel-Operated Marijuana Farm

    The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) has uncovered the largest drug bust in its history Tuesday, and officials allege cartels are to blame. LASD seized tens of millions of dollars worth of illegal marijuana growing in dozens of greenhouses in Southern California, according to local news KTLA. 

    Twenty-three people were arrested in a massive raid across the Antelope Valley, about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. Officials are currently bulldozing multiple illegal growing sites this week. 

    Recreational marijuana became legal in California in 2018, but it has opened up a black market for Mexican drug cartels. 

    Tuesday’s bust follows Antelope Valley residents complaining to local authorities about illegal growing operations stealing the area’s water supply, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said during a news conference. The largest bust yesterday was a 10-acre plot housing more than 70 greenhouses, with an estimated $50 worth of marijuana. 

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    Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger tweeted images of one of the growing operations from a helicopter. The view is absolutely astonishing, with row after row of greenhouses filled with marijuana. 

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    Villanueva has yet to assess the total amount of illegal marijuana seized Tuesday, but he said officials measure it in tons. Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said the operation of 500 LASD deputies and DEA agents found $380 million worth of infrastructure and marijuana. 

    The sheriff said some of the grow operations had unspecified cartels operating the sites and stealing millions of gallons of water from the arid region, currently experiencing an extreme drought. He said these illegal growing operations are dangerous for Antelope Valley’s community as it has led to a surge in violent crime. 

    “We’re 300 miles away from the border and we have one of the largest illegal drug operations happening in the backyard of the high deserts of Los Angeles,” said Congressman Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita. 

    Local officials urged the Biden administration to secure the border and contribute necessary funding for police as cartels run wildly on either side. 

    President Biden’s disastrous border policies are chipping away at America’s law and order, and securing the border needs to happen quickly before it’s too late. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 21:10

  • The Coming Biden/Putin Train-Wreck Summit
    The Coming Biden/Putin Train-Wreck Summit

    Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    I have my doubts whether the Putin-Biden summit in Geneva will take place later this month, but even if somehow it is pulled off, recent Biden Administration blunders mean the chance anything of substance will be achieved is virtually nil.

    The Biden Administration was supposed to signal a return of the “adults” to the room. No more bully Trump telling NATO it’s useless, ripping up international climate treaties, and threatening to remove troops from the Middle East and beyond. US foreign policy would again flourish under the steady, practiced hands of the experts.

    Then Biden blurted out in a television interview that President Putin was a killer with no soul. Then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discovered the hard way that his Chinese counterparts were in no mood to be lectured on an “international rules-based order” that is routinely flouted by Washington.

    It’s going to be a rough ten days for President Biden. Just as news breaks that under the Obama/Biden Administration the US was routinely and illegally spying on its European allies, he is preparing to meet those same allies, first at the G7 summit in England on June 11-13 and then at the June 14th NATO meeting in Brussels.

    Make no mistake, Joe Biden is up to his eyeballs in this scandal. Ed Snowden Tweeted late last month when news broke that the US teamed up with the Danes to spy on the rest of Europe, that “Biden is well-prepared to answer for this when he soon visits Europe since, of course, he was deeply involved in this scandal the first time around.”

    Though Germany’s Merkel and France’s Macron have been loyal US lapdogs, the revelation of how Washington treats its allies has put them in the rare position of having to criticize Washington. “Outrageous” and “unacceptable” are how they responded to the news.

    Russia has been routinely accused (without evidence) of malign conduct and interference in internal US affairs, but it turns out that the country actually doing the spying and meddling was the US all along – and against its own allies!

    Surely this irony is not lost on Putin.

    Biden has bragged in the US media that he would be taking Putin to task for Russia’s treatment of political dissidents like Alexei Navalny. Biden wrote recently in the Washington Post, that when he meets Putin, “I will again underscore the commitment of the United States, Europe and like-minded democracies to stand up for human rights and dignity.”

    Perhaps President Putin will remind him of how the Biden Administration continues the slow-motion murder of Julian Assange for the non-crime of being a journalist exposing government misdeeds.

    Perhaps Putin will remind Biden of how US political dissidents are being treated, such as the hundreds arrested for what the Democrats and the mainstream media laughably call the “January 6th Insurrection.”

    Many of these non-violent and unarmed protesters have been held in solitary confinement with no chance of bail, even though they have no prior arrests or convictions. Most await trial on minor charges that may not even take place until next year.

    The Washington foreign policy establishment is hopelessly corrupt. The weaponization of the US dollar to bring the rest of the world to heel is backfiring. Only a serious change in course – toward non-interventionism and non-aggression – can avert a disaster. Time is running out.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 20:50

  • "Pinching At The Supply" – Delaware Restaurants Clawed By Crab Meat Shortage  
    “Pinching At The Supply” – Delaware Restaurants Clawed By Crab Meat Shortage  

    People on holiday are getting crabby in southern Delaware, right down the street from President Joe Biden’s vacation home, where a crab shortage has hit many popular restaurants. 

    Crab processing plants on the Delmarva Peninsula to Gulf Coast states operate at a fraction of the output due to labor shortages. Crabs coming from Indonesia, the Philippines, and or India have seen shipment delays due to West Coast port congestion. 

    This is a perfect storm that started well before the virus pandemic when the Trump administration put a cap on the amount of H-2B workers. Then the virus pandemic hit, and borders closed, limiting the travel of H-2B workers. On top of this, domestic workers have been paid more with Trump and Biden checks to stay home than work.

    Rippling down the chain, Dewey Beach’s Woody’s crab house, located not too far away from Biden’s Rehoboth Beach-area home, is weeks away from running out of crab meat because of supply constraints mentioned above, according to WRDE‘s Mallory Metzner, who said this is all “pinching at the supply.” 

    Woody’s owner Jimmy O’Conor is absolutely “heartbroken” about the shortage that has forced him to cut platters down from two crab cakes and eliminate takeout. The eatery’s crabcakes are famous enough that people from out of state would order them through the mail. 

    Now O’Conor faces crabby customers as his supplies of crab meat dwindles as suppliers can barely keep up with his weekly orders. 

    “It’s not like I need ten cases, I need 100 cases and it’s just not available, O’Conor said. “People aren’t picking crabs down on the Eastern Shore, Virginia, all of the crab houses are at a fraction of what they usually do.”

    According to Philadelphia-based Samuels & Son Seafood Co Inc CEO Sam D’Angelo, “the shortage has been going on since before the coronavirus, but it was accentuated with the demand that all of a sudden took place combined with the shortage of shipping lines and shipping containers and people picking crabs, whether it’s in Indonesia, Philippines or India, it’s a combined situation where everything came together in a perfect storm.”

    D’Angelo said seafood supply chains might not normalize until the end of summer when the demand for crabs resides. 

    O’Conor said if his crab meat runs out, crab cakes might be off the menu for the rest of the summer. At the moment, his wholesale costs for crab meat are more than doubled from last year, and the restaurant is forced to pass along the costs to customers to survive. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 20:30

  • How Will Investors Know If Inflation Is Transitory Or Permanent
    How Will Investors Know If Inflation Is Transitory Or Permanent

    By Steven Englander and John Davies, FX and Rates strategists at Standard Chartered Bank

    The Fed has indicated that it does not see its expected inflation surge in the coming months as pointing to longer-term pressures. Many investors are sceptical, but do not have a framework from which to push back against the Fed’s optimism that it can manage a “gentle inflation overshoot.”

    Here we argue that looking at trimmed mean inflation is a straightforward way of assessing whether an inflation surge is broad-based or narrow. So far, we find small indications that these broad-based inflation indicators are rising, but nothing conclusive. This assessment could change in the coming months.

    We do not expect fixed income investors to challenge the Fed while evidence on inflation is inconclusive. Yields may rise modestly if it looks as if growth will support the start of tapering in 2022, but a steep backup of yields likely requires either significantly increased inflation concerns or growth optimism, neither of which is now visible.

    We also watch forward inflation breakevens, to see if they rise above 2.3%, and econometrically derived underlying inflation calculations from the Fed. Breakevens are calculated on a CPI basis; 2.3% would correspond to 2% on a PCE basis. This is a bit of a Rubicon for the Fed, which emphasises its commitment to maintaining stable long-term inflation expectations. Forward breakevens have poked above 2.3%, but have not been able to stay above for any length of time.

    The case for looking at trimmed means is that inflation is usually a broad-based phenomenon. It is not just one or two items that go up in price but an environment of general price increases. Trimmed means take out the extremes of sharply rising and sharply dropping prices, and are preferable to core inflation measures that remove food and energy only but include temporarily volatile items. The fastest-rising prices likely reflect a surge of reopening demand or supply-chain constraints. But these price pressures should emerge in a small set of industries where activity has been limited, not across the board. The Fed could argue that a broad-based increase in prices can also be transitory, but that is a hard argument to make when much of their research associates the common element of inflation with underlying inflation trends.

    None of the Fed trimmed mean measures are signalling a breakout from past inflation norms (Figure 1). All are well below mid-1990s and 2008-09 global financial crisis levels, let alone 1980s or 1970s levels, so there is no signal of an inflation surge. However, these trimmed means are now close to pre-COVID levels, so further backing up could signal an exit from the ultra-low inflation norms of the previous decade. These readings would probably need to be 0.5-1.0% higher to signal a risk that broader inflation would be above 2.5%. The San Francisco Fed’s calculation of the share of PCE spending and items with rising prices is similarly in line with the past 10 years and well below 1970-2000 levels (Figure 2).

    A second approach estimates the common inflation component using econometric methods to identify and weight prices that have the most movements in common. The New York Fed’s underlying inflation gauge based on CPI prices is showing clear acceleration and is at the highest level since 2008 (Figure 3). What this means is that the CPI components with the greatest common movements are going up in price relatively quickly.

    By contrast, a quarterly index put together by Federal Reserve Board staff to extract the common movement in inflation expectations (presumably more forward-looking) showed modest increases through Q1-2021. This index is a mixture of inflation expectations at various tenors and has paralleled 5Y5Y UST inflation breakevens (BE) recently, so it looks likely to accelerate in Q2 (Figure 3). However, it has a very low amplitude, even compared to a 10-year average of core PCE or 30Y UST inflation BEs, so modest moves may be a much bigger signal than appears at first glance.

    Fed Vice-Chair Clarida has referred to this index several times as a guide to whether inflation expectations are anchored, but the outcome is so stable it is unclear how it should be interpreted. The series begins in 1999, the low is 1.93%, the high is 2.15% and the series has rarely gone above 2.1%, so moving beyond these levels should probably be a yellow flag on the inflation front.

    The recent pull-back in breakeven spreads suggests the market has become more prepared to give the Fed the benefit of the doubt regarding its view that near-term upside inflation pressure will prove transitory. During Q1, the volatility in real yields and rise in rate hike expectations suggested the market was ready to challenge the Fed on its own forward guidance on policy. A steady flow of dovish rhetoric, from Chair Powell in particular, capped the Q1 curve steepening but breakeven spreads continued to rise through mid-May. At levels around 2.75-2.85% for 3Y-5Y breakevens, the market appeared to be questioning whether inflation would prove as transitory as the Fed expected. However, the rise in 5Y5Y and 30Y breakevens was more contained and, in our view, implied the market was broadly pricing for the Fed to achieve its average inflation target (AIT) over the longer term.

    In recent days, spot breakevens across the entire curve have broken below their uptrend channels from April 2020. In the process, the breakeven curve has seen some disinversion, meaning that the move in the 5Y5Y forward breakeven has been more modest than the move in spot breakevens. This makes sense, in our view – while breakevens reflecting the near-term inflation outlook ebb and flow as the pace of re-opening and recovery plays out, the market’s longer-term inflation view should become more steadily aligned with the Fed’s 2% AIT framework. The upcoming CPI report may prove crucial in determining whether this move can extend further near-term. Given how well the market digested the April CPI and PCE data, we suspect that only an overshoot on core CPI above the higher end (3.7-3.8% y/y) of the estimate range within the consensus survey would be likely to reverse the recent breakeven decline.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 20:10

  • Why One Bank Thinks ESG Could Trigger Hyperinflation
    Why One Bank Thinks ESG Could Trigger Hyperinflation

    In a recent blog post from DB’s Francis Yared, the credit strategist looks at one of the lesser discussed drivers of inflation and points out that supply shocks to oil prices have historically been relevant for inflation expectations.

    As Yared writes, “supply shock to oil prices have had a significant impact on inflation expectations on three occasions over the past half century: in the mid 70s, the mid 80s and the mid 10s.” However, unlike the infamous price explosions of the 70s and 80s, in the latest episode the “shale oil revolution” resulted in a significant positive supply shock to oil markets which led OPEC in 2014 to defend its market share rather than oil prices. The downward pressure on oil prices, Yared writes, resulted in a shift to a lower inflation regime, which was reflected in both consumer and market inflation expectations (University of Michigan 5-10y and 5y5y breakevens) as well as monetary policy expectations and the term premium.

    Well not anymore, because ESG is unwinding the shale oil revolution. As recent events at Exxon and Shell have shown, the pressure on oil companies to reduce oil and gas exploration and adapt their business models has increased significantly over the past few months. This is reflected in crude rig counts that have lagged the recovery in oil prices and stand at 1/3rd of the 2014 peak.

    Similarly, carbon emission future prices in Europe have risen considerably: as the WSJ reported recently, the price of carbon credits traded in Europe has jumped 135% over the past 12 months and recently hit a series of records as economic activity rebounded from pandemic lockdowns. Only lumber, driven higher by the housing boom, has proved a better commodities investment.

    As Yared summarizes, “ESG is a negative supply shock that internalizes the climate cost of the production of goods and services.” This negative supply shock will be inflationary until technological progress absorbs these costs. That could take years.  Moreover in Europe, it could garner enough of political support to justify a more aggressive fiscal policy despite the constraints at the German or EU levels.

    To be sure, the global economy has still to contend with the disinflationary impact of ecommerce. However, as DB concludes, “ESG, the Fed’s Average Inflation Targeting regime and a significantly more pro-active fiscal policy (at least until the US mid-term elections) constitute a new powerful combination that should be supportive of a higher inflation environment than experienced over the last 10 years.“

    Commenting on his colleague’s observations, DB credit strategist Jim Reid agrees, and writes that “maybe in the fullness of time this surge in mining between 2010-2015 will be the exception rather than the norm and that, in a rapidly changing and ever more ESG sensitive world, it will be  harder to get oil out of the ground. Pricing climate-change externalities more generally could make things more expensive over time. Are we on the verge of another change in inflation expectations due to oil and energy, one that is in large part due to ESG.”

    So in case there was still any confusion why the establishment has adopted ESG as gospel – and as a reminder, ESG is nothing new, and many years ago used to be called Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR and even Nobel economist Milton Friedman warned against its subversive nature 50 years ago when he said that taking on externally dictated “social responsibilities” beyond those directly related to a company’s business opened the floodgates to endless pressure and interferenc – at a time when the same establishment is also desperate to inflate away the nearly $300 trillion in global debt, now you know: ESG looks like the catalyst that will unleash runaway inflation. And if central banks fail to contain it in time, the entire developed world may soon descend into hyperinflation.

    Which in turn should also answer the other pressing question: why are central banks so desperate to issue their own digital, programmable currencies? Well, the ability to turn money on and off with the literal flip of a switch will come in extremely useful in a world where authorities have lost control over all other monetary pathways…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 20:10

  • "We're On Fire": Amidst NYC Exodus, Demand For Commercial Office Space In Palm Beach Is Off The Charts
    “We’re On Fire”: Amidst NYC Exodus, Demand For Commercial Office Space In Palm Beach Is Off The Charts

    With Wall Street firms tripping hand over foot to get out of New York, where taxes and crime are both on the rise, places like Palm Beach, Florida, are the beneficiaries. We have noted numerous firms, including names like Point 72 and Goldman Sachs, branching out and/or leaving New York altogether in favor of greener pastures in Florida, since the pandemic started.

    Amidst the Wall Street exodus, Palm Beach office space demand is off the charges. The city has officially become a “hot market” for commercial real estate, according to a new report from BNN Bloomberg. As a result of the boom, Manhattan developer Related Cos. “has been accelerating investments in West Palm Beach and now controls about a third of its downtown office stock,” the report notes. Related is the company behind NYC developments Hudson Yards and the Columbus Circle tower.

    Now, the company is betting on a continued boom in South Florida even after Covid restrictions are lifted. 

    Kelly Smallridge, president of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, told BNN: “The pandemic has really showed executives that they could do business anywhere, Developers are at the drawing board right now to develop more space to accommodate all of this growth. We’re on fire.”

    Related has bought three buildings in West Palm Beach this year, including one that will house Point 72. It’ll now own 1.6 million square feet (149,000 square meters) of offices in the area. 

    New York-based Cohen Brothers Realty has also proposed a 400,000 square foot office tower in West Palm, the report notes. Developer Jeff Green has a mixed use project called One West Palm currently under construction, as well. 

    Gopal Rajegowda, a partner at Related Southeast, said: “We feel West Palm is one of the fastest-growing commercial markets. With more people thinking about lifestyle now, a lot of these companies say, ‘hey, we want to be in South Florida, so why don’t we put a stake in the ground now?’”

    BNN estimates that about 59,000 people from the New York area spent “at least eight weeks” in Southeast Florida last year. 42% of those went to Palm Beach County, which gained 11,000 new residents during 2020.

    The city’s 360 Rosemary tower is now more than 95% leased, compared to 30% six months ago. Mark Pateman, managing principal with Cushman & Wakefield Plc’s West Palm Beach and Boca Raton offices, said: “It would normally take way longer to lease. I am seeing a lot of non-local brokers walking through our buildings dragging Florida brokers in tow.”

    One of the reasons Palm Beach is filling up so quickly is because of its small size. It has about 2.9 million square feet of office space, compared to 253 million square feet in Midtown Manhattan. Because of its small size, it’s also tough to consider West Palm’s boon as a major sea change. 

    Pateman concluded: “We’ve got a good run here, we have another two years of tailwinds from Covid, but is New York going away? Absolutely not. It’s overstated to say this is a paradigm shift.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 19:50

  • Dr. Fauci's Preposterous Lie: "Attacks On Me Are Attacks On Science"
    Dr. Fauci’s Preposterous Lie: “Attacks On Me Are Attacks On Science”

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Dr. Fauci attempts to defend himself on MSNBC. And MSNBC is seemingly pleased to cooperate to spread even more Fauci lies.

    I picked up this story from a Greenwald Tweet. 

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    Painfully Ridiculous Lie

    What’s “painfully ridiculous” is Fauci’s claim, “Attacks on Me are Attacks on Science”.

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    Fauci is a proven liar. He has even admitted that fact. It matters not that he he lied (allegedly to preserve masks for healthcare workers). 

    What About Faucigate?

    The Left and the Right portray a freedom of information lawsuit email chain involving Fauci as some sort of proof of Wuhan Lab theories and mask effectiveness.

    Rand Paul Tweets

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    Bloomberg gets it correct ‘Faucigate’ Emails Prove Nothing About a Covid Lab Leak

    Bloomberg’s claim is true. We still do not know. Nothing has been proven. But Bloomberg hits upon the key issue that few are even aware of (emphasis mine).

    If Fauci owes the public an explanation for anything, it’s why he approved funding for research that potentially made viruses more dangerous — so-called gain of function research. 

    Though Fauci has been unofficially anointed America’s “top expert in infectious disease” by the press, his real job is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In that capacity, he’s not above criticism. He’s approved funding of projects on viruses that other scientists have deemed too risky to be worth doing. 

    These risky projects include several that Rutgers University biologist Richard Ebright calls gain of function research of concern — projects that have altered flu viruses to transmit between different hosts, for example, research on altering bat coronaviruses that was done in collaboration between U.S. researchers and those in China.

    Ebright spent years warning people about gain of function research long before this pandemic broke out. Another scientist who worries about the danger of such experiments is Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch.  

    Gain of Function

    “Gain of function” is a euphemism for “purposely making viruses more lethal.”

    And research involving bats was done with collaboration between the US and China. 

    Questions of the Day

    • Why is there so little media coverage of gain of function? 

    • What precisely was Fauci’s role in supporting such research?

    • In what ways did the US cooperate with China?

    • Did any of those ways include Wuhan? 

    “I Am Science”!

    By saying “Attacks on Me are Attacks on Science,” he is effectively saying “I am Science“. 

    Excuse me for pointing out, science does not lie and never did. People lie, scientists lie, and charlatans lie.

    Scientists may come to the wrong conclusions, but science does not lie.

    Fauci is a proven liar and by effectively making the claim that he is science, not only is he a liar, but a proven charlatan as well.

    Instead of repetitive focus on masks where opinions are already set in stone, I suggest  a deep dive into Fauci’s role and US cooperation with China in gain of function research to make coronaviruses more lethal. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 19:30

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Jun 09

Today’s News 9th June 2021

  • Biden Belatedly Invites Ukraine's President For White House Visit…After Putin Summit
    Biden Belatedly Invites Ukraine’s President For White House Visit…After Putin Summit

    When last month it became clear that the Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin face to face summit would happen – now set for June 16 in Geneva – Kiev made its anger clear, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urging Biden to meet with him prior to any direct Putin talks. Zelensky further recently went on the attack slamming the White House for cutting Kiev out of key decisions on Nord Stream 2, particularly after weeks ago Biden agreed to drop existing sanctions against the German company overseeing the natural gas pipeline which bypasses Ukraine – and with it badly needed transit fees.

    In an interview this past weekend with Axios, Zelensky said he was blindsided by Biden’s U-turn on the Russia to Germany pipeline after Biden gave him “direct signals” that the US was preparing to block the pipeline. The Ukrainian leader further called it “a weapon, a real weapon in the hands of the Russian Federation,” and that he doesn’t understand how “the bullets to this weapon can possibly be provided by such a great country as the US” – as he described it.

    Just after giving the interview, on Monday Biden belatedly phoned Zelensky, also amid widespread anger within his Democratic base over “caving” to Putin, especially over Nord Stream 2, which is said to be a mere month or two away from completion, according to recent statements from Putin. 

    In this call Zelensky finally scored the desired meeting with Biden, but it looks like it will take place after the US president first meets with Putin, with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan subsequently telling reporters:

    “They had the opportunity to talk at some length about all of the issues in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship and President Biden was able to tell president Zelensky that he will stand up firmly for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and its aspirations as we go forward.”

    And significantly: “He also told President Zelensky that he looks forward to welcoming him to the White House in Washington this summer after he returns from Europe,” according to Sullivan’s statement.

    The Hill noted additionally that “Despite Zelensky’s appeal for a meeting, Sullivan did not say that Biden would meet with him before the summit with Putin.”

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    It is indeed looking like that meeting, which will mark Zelensky’s first White House visit since being elected to office in 2019, will come significantly after the Biden-Putin summit – in July according to follow-up confirmation by Zelensky.  

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 02:45

  • Denmark Cracks Down On Mass Migration
    Denmark Cracks Down On Mass Migration

    Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

    The Danish Parliament has passed a new law that will allow the government to deport asylum seekers to countries outside of the European Union to have their cases considered abroad. The legislation is widely seen as a first step toward moving the country’s asylum screening process beyond Danish borders.

    The law, proposed by the Social Democrat-led government, is aimed at discouraging frivolous asylum applications. It has been greeted with fury by those who favor mass migration, presumably out of fear that other EU countries may now follow Denmark’s lead.

    Denmark, which already has some of the most restrictive immigration policies in Europe, is at the vanguard of European efforts to preserve local traditions and values in the face of mass migration, runaway multiculturalism, and the systematic encroachment of political Islam.

    An amendment to the Aliens Act, approved on June 3 by 70 votes to 24, authorizes the government to enter into agreements with non-EU countries (so-called third countries) to allow it to “transfer third-country nationals and stateless persons who apply for asylum in Denmark to the third country in question for the purpose of substantive processing of asylum applications.”

    Danish Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye, a Social Democrat and the son of an Ethiopian immigrant, told the Financial Times that Denmark had “identified a handful of countries,” mostly in Africa, that might be open to hosting migrant reception centers.

    In April, Tesfaye signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with Rwanda regarding “cooperation on asylum and migration issues.” The document raised speculation that Denmark wants to transfer migrants to the East African country, which has a tradition of hosting refugees. The memorandum spelled out the Danish government’s long-term objective:

    “Denmark is committed to finding new and sustainable solutions to the present migration and refugee challenges that affect countries of origin, transit and destination. The current asylum system is unfair and unethical by incentivizing children, women and men to embark on dangerous journeys along the migratory routes, while human traffickers earn fortunes.

    “There is a need to finding new ways of addressing the migration challenges by promoting a fairer and more humane asylum system based on a comprehensive approach. This includes addressing the root causes of irregular migration, providing more and better protection of refugees in the regions of conflict and increasing assistance to host nations, countries of origin and transit — along the migratory routes — in order to improve border management, strengthen asylum systems and fight human smuggling.

    “It is also the vision of the Danish Government that the processing of asylum applications should take place outside of the EU in order to break the negative incentive structure of the present asylum system.”

    Advocates of mass migration have criticized Denmark’s new law. The European Commission, the EU’s powerful administrative arm, said that it had “fundamental concerns” about deporting asylum seekers to countries outside of Europe:

    “External processing of asylum claims raises fundamental questions about both the access to asylum procedures and effective access to protection. It is not possible under existing EU rules or proposals under the new pact for migration and asylum.”

    Others have accused Denmark of seeking to “export” the asylum process. Gillian Triggs, assistant high commissioner of UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, warned that “such practices undermine the rights of those seeking safety and protection, demonize and punish them and may put their lives at risk.”

    UNHCR global spokesperson Shabia Mantoo added that the agency “remains firmly opposed to national initiatives that forcibly transfer asylum-seekers to other countries and undermine the principles of international refugee protection.”

    In an interview with Euronews, Nikolas Feith Tan, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, said that Denmark’s plan to house asylum seekers outside its borders represents “a fundamental shift” in how the international protection system functions:

    “Up until now, refugee protection has been primarily territorial. If you reach Denmark, then Denmark is responsible for both assessing whether you are a refugee or not, and if you are a refugee, then for granting you protection. The new legislation shifts that idea of territorial asylum.”

    Tan said that transferring asylum seekers abroad in principle does not violate international law, but that the government should still expect be sued in Danish courts and at the European Court of Human Rights.

    Tesfaye said that “a key aim” was to reduce the number of “spontaneous” asylum seekers to Denmark:

    “The current asylum system has failed. It is inefficient and unfair. Children, women and men are drowning in the Mediterranean or are abused along the migratory routes, while human traffickers earn fortunes.”

    Other Measures to Curb Mass Migration

    Since assuming power in June 2019, the government of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has introduced a raft of measures aimed at curbing mass migration. The measures build on those implemented by previous governments.

    June 3, 2021. The Danish Parliament approved by 78 votes to 16 a new law that authorizes the government to revoke Danish citizenship from immigrants who are members of criminal gangs. The law is aimed at tackling a surge in migration-linked violent crime. The amendment to the Citizenship Act allows for the “denial of citizenship for certain forms of serious gang crimes considered detrimental to the vital interests of the State.” The law applies only to dual nationals and not to gang members who, by losing their Danish citizenship, would become stateless. The new law, which is not retroactive, enters into force on July 1, 2021.

    Minister of Justice Nick Hækkerup said:

    “Gang crime in no way belongs in Denmark. When foreigners or persons to whom we in Denmark have granted Danish citizenship participate in the gangs’ ruthless crime, it is a fundamental expression of contempt for the society of which they are a part. Therefore, it is good news that Parliament has today passed the government’s bill to provide the opportunity to revoke citizenship in the event of serious gang crime to the serious detriment of the state’s vital interests. It is a goal for the government to ensure that Danes can be safe in their everyday lives. When the gangs challenge that security, it must have noticeable consequences.”

    May 26, 2021. The Danish Parliament approved by 67 votes to 26 a first-ever Repatriation Law which authorizes the government to deport failed asylum seekers and other migrants illegally in the country. The law allows the government to monitor foreigners’ mobile phones in order to more easily identify and deport them.

    The law was approved amid reports that migrants who had been paid between 100,000 and 225,000 Danish kroner ($16,000 and $37,000) by the Danish government to leave the country took the money but then disappeared without actually leaving. Others took the money and left the country and later returned.

    Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration Mattias Tesfaye said:

    “We have too many foreigners without legal residence in Denmark who do not return home. It is unsustainable. Both for the individual and for the Danish state, which must spend money on accommodating these people…. The penalties have been increased for those with deportation orders who do not comply with their control obligations. Now we have taken the next step towards a coherent repatriation policy. It is intended to help more foreigners without legal residence to return to their home countries. I am glad that there is broad support for this in the parliament.”

    May 6, 2021. The Danish government tightened citizenship rules. In future, individuals with criminal records will be excluded from obtaining Danish citizenship. Individuals found guilty of committing immigration or social security fraud must wait for six years for their citizenship application to be considered. The new rules also introduced an employment requirement. Applicants must have been in full-time employment or have been self-employed for at least three years and six months within the previous four years. Five questions about Danish values ​​have been added to the citizenship test. Applicants will be required to correctly answer four out of the five questions. “There is great agreement among the parties to the agreement that it is crucial that an applicant has adopted Danish values,” the government said in a statement.

    Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration Mattias Tesfaye said:

    “We have to draw a line in the sand. People who have been imprisoned must not have Danish citizenship.”

    Spokesman for the Liberal Party, Morten Dahlin, added:

    “Danish citizenship is a gift to be earned. Therefore, we must make an effort when handing out passports. Those we welcome in the Danish family must have embraced Denmark and stayed on the right side of the law. That is why we in the Liberal Party are happy that there is now a greater focus on Danish values ​​and that there is a crackdown on foreigners who have committed crimes. These have been important demands on our part.”

    Conservative Rapporteur Marcus Knuth said:

    “The Conservatives have been fighting for new rules for Danish citizenship for over a year. It is especially important to us that criminal foreigners with a prison sentence can never apply for Danish citizenship, and it is important to us that there is now an employment requirement, so one must now have worked the last 3½ out of four years. We also worked on a ceiling on the number of citizenships for applicants outside the EU and the Nordic countries, but unfortunately the government would not. In return, we now have an audit provision, so the government shall call for discussions if there is a significant increase in the number of applicants.”

    Liberal Alliance Rapporteur Henrik Dahl said:

    “I am first and foremost happy that, as something new, we demand that new citizens have worked for some years before they can get a Danish passport. It is only reasonable that one has contributed to the Danish economy before one gets full rights in Denmark.”

    March 17, 2021. The Danish government announced a package of new proposals aimed at fighting “religious and cultural parallel societies” in Denmark. A cornerstone of the plan includes capping the percentage of “non-Western” immigrants and their descendants dwelling in any given residential neighborhood. The aim is to preserve social cohesion in the country by encouraging integration and discouraging ethnic and social self-segregation.

    March 9, 2021. The Danish Parliament approved a new law that bans foreign governments from financing mosques in Denmark. The measure is aimed at preventing Muslim countries, particularly Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, from promoting Islamic extremism in Danish mosques and prayer facilities.

    March 9, 2021. The Danish Parliament approved by 96 votes to 0 a new law that bans religious marriages of minors and forced marriages. Islamic preachers and others who conduct such marriages now face up to two years in prison and deportation from Denmark. The same goes for parents who allow their children enter into a Sharia marriage. The penalty for detaining a person in a forced marriage was increased to four years in prison. The law also authorizes the government to withdraw the passports of children if there is reason to believe that they are being sent abroad to be married, regardless of whether the marriage is legally valid. The law bans the use of Islamic nikah marriage contracts which often make it difficult for Muslim women to seek a divorce. The new law entered into force on March 15, 2021.

    February 18, 2021. The Danish government announced that it would review the residency status of 350 Syrian migrants from Syria. The move came after the Danish Refugee Board decided that the Rif Damascus region of Syria is now safe and that there is no longer a basis for granting or extending temporary residence permits.

    Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration Mattias Tesfaye said:

    “Denmark has been open and honest from day one. We have made it clear to the Syrian refugees that their residence permit is temporary. It can be withdrawn if protection is no longer needed. With the Refugee Board’s decisions this week, the authorities will now review the pile of cases from the same province. This is good. We must give people protection for as long as it is needed. But when conditions in the home country improve, a former refugee should return home and re-establish a life there.”

    October 3, 2020. The government proposed a new Repatriation Law to ensure that more rejected asylum seekers were sent home. At least 1,100 rejected asylum seekers in Denmark do not have the right to reside in the country, and more than 200 rejected asylum seekers have remained Denmark for a more than five years. The measures include paying failed asylum seekers 20,000 Danish kroner (€2,700; $3,600) to leave the country.

    September 11, 2020. The government proposed an amendment to the Foreigners’ Citizenship Act that would deny Danish citizenship to Danish jihadists — so-called foreign fighters. Cabinet Minister Kaare Dybvad said:

    “The government will go to great lengths to prevent foreign fighters who have turned their backs on Denmark from returning to Denmark. We are talking about men and women who have committed or supported outrageous crimes. Therefore, it must also be possible in the future to deprive them of their citizenship.”

    September 10, 2020. The government created a new ambassadorial post and a task force to work to establish migrant reception centers in third countries outside of the European Union — in Libya, Tunisia or Morocco.

    May 31, 2018. The Danish Parliament approved a ban on Islamic full-face veils in public spaces. The law, sponsored by the center-right government in power at the time, and backed by the Social Democrats and the Danish People’s Party, passed by 75 votes to 30. Anyone found wearing a burka (which covers the entire face) or a niqab (which covers the entire face except for the eyes) in public in Denmark is subject to a fine of 1,000 Danish kroner (€134; $163); repeat offenders could be fined 10,000 Danish kroner. In addition, anyone found to be requiring a person through force or threats to wear garments that cover the face could be fined or face up to two years in prison.

    January 26, 2016. The Danish Parliament adopted several measures aimed at reducing the number of asylum seekers arriving in Denmark: The reintroduction of the requirement that only refugees with the highest potential for integration into Danish society be accepted; an increase in time requirement to three years for family reunifications for asylum seekers; an increase in time requirement before the awarding of permanent residency status; additional integration requirements, including the ability to prove language skills, before permanent residency can be attained; permanent and temporary residency status were made easier to lose; the introduction of fees to apply for family reunification and to convert temporary residence permit to permanent residence permit; a 10% reduction in economic aid to asylum seekers; police were given power to confiscate from asylum seekers items of value to support the cost of their stay; asylum seekers were required to live in special housing centers.

    Changing Demographics

    Denmark, which has a population of 5.8 million, received approximately 40,000 asylum applications during the past five years, according to data compiled by Statista. Most of the applications received by Denmark, a predominately Lutheran country, were from migrants from Muslim countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

    In recent years, Denmark has also permitted significant non-asylum immigration, especially from non-Western countries. Denmark is now home to sizeable immigrant communities from Syria (35,536); Turkey (33,111); Iraq (21,840); Iran (17,195); Pakistan (14,471); Afghanistan (13,864); Lebanon (12,990) and Somalia (11,282), according to Statista.

    Muslims currently comprise approximately 5.5% of the Danish population, according to the Pew Research Center. Under a “zero migration scenario,” the Muslim population is projected to reach 7.6% by 2050; with a “medium migration scenario,” it is forecast to hit 11.9% by 2050; and under a “high migration scenario,” Muslims are expected to comprise 16% of the Danish population by 2050, according to Pew.

    As in other European countries, mass migration has resulted in increased crime and social tension. Danish cities have been plagued by shootings, car burnings and gang violence.

    During a recent EU review of the Schengen Agreement, the treaty that regulates the EU’s system of open borders, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration Mattias Tesfaye said:

    “The possibility of reintroducing temporary border control is crucial for the security of Danes. This was shown by the refugee and migrant crisis in 2015. And the corona crisis has recently reaffirmed this. There is a need for changes to the Schengen rules so that member states have more flexibility to decide. We in Denmark know best when there is a need for control of Denmark’s borders.”

    On January 22, during a parliamentary hearing on Danish immigration policy, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that she was determined to reduce the number of asylum approvals:

    “Our goal is zero asylum seekers. We cannot promise zero asylum seekers, but we can establish the vision for a new asylum system, and then do what we can to implement it. We must be careful that not too many people come to our country, otherwise our social cohesion cannot exist. It is already being challenged.”

    In an interview with Danish broadcaster DR on June 3, MP Rasmus Stoklund said that if someone seeks refuge in Denmark in the future, he or she must expect to be deported to a third country: “Therefore, we hope that people will stop seeking asylum in Denmark.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 02:00

  • Why A Judge Has Georgia Vote Fraud On His Mind: "Pristine" Biden Ballots That Looked Xerox'd
    Why A Judge Has Georgia Vote Fraud On His Mind: “Pristine” Biden Ballots That Looked Xerox’d

    Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,

    When Fulton County, Ga., poll manager Suzi Voyles sorted through a large stack of mail-in ballots last November, she noticed an alarmingly odd pattern of uniformity in the markings for Joseph R. Biden. One after another, the absentee votes contained perfectly filled-in ovals for Biden — except that each of the darkened bubbles featured an identical white void inside them in the shape of a tiny crescent, indicating they’d been marked with toner ink instead of a pen or pencil.

    Adding to suspicions, she noticed that all of the ballots were printed on different stock paper than the others she handled as part of a statewide hand recount of the razor-thin Nov. 3 presidential election. And none was folded or creased, as she typically observed in mail-in ballots that had been removed from envelopes.

    In short, the Biden votes looked like they’d been duplicated by a copying machine.

    “All of them were strangely pristine,” said Voyles, who said she’d never seen anything like it in her 20 years monitoring elections in Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta.

    She wasn’t alone.

    At least three other poll workers observed the same thing in stacks of absentee ballots for Biden processed by the county, and they have joined Voyles in swearing under penalty of perjury that they looked fake.

    Now election watchdogs have used their affidavits to help convince a state judge to unseal all of the 147,000 mail-in ballots counted in Fulton and allow a closer inspection of the suspicious Biden ballots for evidence of counterfeiting. They argue that potentially tens of thousands may have been manufactured in a race that Biden won by just 12,000 votes thanks to a late surge of mail-in ballots counted after election monitors were shooed from State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

    “We have what is almost surely major absentee-ballot fraud in Fulton County involving 10,000 to 20,000 probably false ballots,” said Garland Favorito, the lead petitioner in the case and a certified poll watcher who runs VoterGa.org, one of the leading advocates for election integrity in the state.

    He said the suspect ballots remain in the custody of the election officials and inaccessible from public view.

    “We have confirmed that there are five pallets of shrink-wrapped ballots in a county warehouse,” Favorito said in an interview with RealClearInvestigations.

    He and other petitioners were ordered to meet at the warehouse May 28 to settle the terms of the inspection of the absentee ballots. But the day before the scheduled meeting, the county filed a flurry of motions to dismiss the case, delaying the inspection indefinitely.

    “We will be in court on June 21 to resolve these motions,” said Favorito, calling them another “roadblock” the county has tried to throw in their way. He expects talks over the logistics of the inspection to resume after the Fourth of July holiday.

    As part of his May 21 order, Superior Court Judge Brian Amero requested officials guard the warehouse around the clock until an inspection date can be set. But just eight days later, a breach in security was reported after sheriff’s deputies left their post for a couple of hours.

    “The front door was [found] unlocked and wide open in violation of the court order,” Favorito said.

    County officials confirmed that a motion-detection alarm was triggered Saturday, May 29, shortly after the deputies drove away from the building in their patrol cars around 4 p.m. But they said a locked room where the ballots are kept “was never breached or compromised.”

    Favorito is not convinced, and his lawyer is seeking to obtain the video footage from building security cameras. “How do we know for certain there was no tampering with the ballots?” asked Favorito, who said he did not vote for Trump. News of the security lapse caught the attention of former President Trump, who has claimed his loss to Biden was marred by fraud. In a statement, he implied election officials in the Democratic-controlled county are trying to hide evidence of fraud.

    “They are afraid of what might be found,” he asserted.

    Trump is also closely monitoring the ongoing election audit in Arizona, another red state that turned blue in 2020. If evidence of fraud is found in these key swing states, it might help confirm suspicions the election was “stolen” from Trump and the 74 million who voted for him — as a recent poll found 61% of Republicans believe — as well as provide the proof of voter fraud that Democrats and major media have long claimed doesn’t exist.

    The cases could potentially give other battleground states incentive to take steps to tighten election security and root out fraud, including passing legislation to limit the use of controversial mail-in drop boxes and require the verification of signatures on such ballots. In Georgia, relatively few mail-in ballots were rejected for invalid signatures in the November general election, even though several thousand had been disqualified for signature issues in the primary election.

    In a move that inspired national boycotts alleging voter “suppression,” Georgia recently passed a law limiting, but not removing, the drop boxes. The state had installed them for the first time in 2020 under pressure from Democratic groups, who argued officials needed to make voting easier for minorities who didn’t trust the mail and feared going to the polls during the COVID scare.

    The 38 drop boxes Fulton distributed throughout the county in the November election will be cut to eight in the future. The boxes had been largely unregulated and unattended — located outdoors, open 24 hours a day and available for drop-offs until the evening of Election Day, prompting complaints of ballot stuffing and double voting. But now they have to be located inside election offices or early voting locations, and can only be available during the hours when early voting is permitted. The new law also requires ballots be printed on special security paper.

    Voting by mail traditionally was limited to voters who had clearly defined and well-documented reasons to be absent from the polls. But Democrats in key swing states lobbied to relax the rules in the middle of the election and amid the coronavirus pandemic.

    Mail-in or drop-off ballots create opportunities for voter error and fraud. In a typical election, one in 20 mailed ballots are rejected, according to recent studies. More than 534,000 mail-in ballots were rejected during the 2020 Democratic primaries alone.

    Still, both Republican and Democratic officials in Georgia say they have found no credible evidence of widespread fraud in the general election. Democrats, as well as many major media outlets, have written off Favorito’s group’s allegations of fraud as “conspiracy theories.”

    “This is nothing more than a circus that’s being put on by those who promote the ‘big lie’ ” that Trump won the election, said Robb Pitts, the Democratic chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.

    “Where does it end? The votes have been counted. The elections have been certified. It’s over.”

    Pitts effectively controls the county elections board through his Democratic appointee Mary Carole Cooney, who runs the board. They are in charge of securing the pallets of disputed Biden mail-in ballots awaiting inspection in the county warehouse.

    But Judge Amero, who federal elections records show is a Democratic donor, felt compelled to unseal the ballots for a forensics review after reading the sworn affidavits submitted by election monitors. Here are key witnesses in the case:

    Suzi Voyles, a veteran Fulton poll manager who audited the Nov. 14 recount at Georgia World Congress Center, testified she examined several stacks of ballots of about 100 ballots each from a cardboard box marked “Box No. 5 — Absentee — Batch Numbers 28-36.” She said these ballots “came from the ballot [drop] boxes that had been placed throughout Fulton County.”

    “Most of the ballots had already been handled; they had been written on by people, and the edges were worn. They showed obvious use,” she wrote in her Nov. 17 affidavit. “However, one batch stood out. It was pristine. There was a difference in the texture of the paper,” and these mail-in ballots hadn’t been folded even though they ostensibly had been removed from envelopes.

    All but three of the 110 ballots in the bundle — which had been labeled “State Farm Arena” — were marked for Biden and appeared to be “identical ballots.”

    The most “alarming peculiarity” was the identically marked ovals next to Biden’s name. In every ballot, “The bubble next to ‘Joseph R. Biden’ had a slight white eclipse in the bubble,” she said, leading her to believe that the batch of 107 Biden ballots had been “copied” from a single ballot.

    Voyles speculated that “additional absentee ballots had been added [for Biden] in a fraudulent manner” at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta on election night.

    The void she and other auditors witnessed in the exact same spot of the oval filled in on 107 ballots for Biden “was alarming to us,” Voyles said in an RCI interview. “Every single bubble was precisely alike. I had never seen that before in 20 years” of election monitoring.

    But when she and other recount workers raised concerns with county election officials, “we were told not to worry about it,” she said. “They seemed uninterested in the [integrity of the] ballots.”

    After Voyles later blew the whistle in affidavits and state election hearings, she was fired as a poll manager by the Fulton County Department of Elections. “I got the boot for speaking the truth,” she told RCI.

    Robin Hall, a certified Fulton County recount observer, also testified she witnessed a number of boxes of absentee ballots marked “100% for Biden” that appeared to be “perfectly filled out as if they were pre-printed with the presidential candidate selected.” She stated: “They did not look like a person had filled this out at home.  All of them looked alike.”

    Judy Aube also worked at the World Congress Center on Nov. 14 where she observed the same thing: “suspicious batches” of mail-in ballots for Biden whose markings appeared identical, as if they had been duplicated by a machine and not filled out by a voter at home.

    Barbara Hartman, another election official auditor, also doubted the authenticity of absentee ballots she handled that she said were never folded, as would normally be the case for ballots returned in an envelope by mail or dropped in a box. “The absentee ballots looked as though they had just come from a fresh stack,” she swore in her affidavit. “I could not observe any creases in the ballots and [it] did not seem like they were folded and put into envelopes or mailed out.”  Also, “The majority of the mail-in ballots that I reviewed contained suspicious black perfectly bubbled markings for Biden,” Hartman stated, adding that “they looked as if they were stamped.”

    The veteran poll watchers found no plausible explanation for the anomalies other than possible fraud.

    However, election officials have offered an explanation for why the mail-in ballots examined in the stacks did not have folds or creases. They say ballots are sometimes copied onto other paper when they are too damaged to be fed through one of the scanning machines during tabulation. The mailed ballots can be torn or crumpled by postal workers during delivery or by poll workers while opening them and removing them from envelopes, which could prevent the machines from reading them.

    From controversial video at State Farm Arena, Atlanta, showing ballots being pulled from under tables. WSB-TV/YouTube

    But Favorito suspects the hundreds, if not thousands, of allegedly duplicate absentee ballots for Biden might be connected to spikes in votes for Biden he observed late on election night in Fulton County after election officials cleared monitors from State Farm Arena and pulled cases full of ballots out from under tables and began scanning them.

    “There’s always the chance it was an inside job,” said Favorito, a career IT professional who’s been a leading advocate for Georgia election integrity over the past two decades.

    On Nov. 3, Fulton County elections officials informed monitors that they were shutting down the State Farm tabulation center before midnight, only to continue counting throughout the night while no one was watching.

    “Election workers don’t bring ballots in after the supervisor has delayed processing until the morning, hide them under a table and then bring them out for scanning and tabulation after the supervisor tells [monitors] they are done scanning for the evening and they go home,” Favorito said.

    “Once scanning [was] completed, an election line feed showed an unprecedented vote spike that turned the election in favor of Biden,” he added. In fact, “just over a half hour after workers scanned the potentially fraudulent ballots, an election line feed showed a 100,000-plus vote spike for Biden.”

    “Where did those ballots come from and why did they handle them so suspiciously?” Favorito asked.

    Voyles noted that the county elections supervisor who oversaw the secret scanning of the cases full of ballots also helps run the warehouse where the suspect ballots are being stored.

    Phone calls and emails to Fulton County went unanswered.

    Similar Anomalies, Other Counties

    Favorito pointed out that the potential for counterfeit ballots exists in other Georgia counties, not just Fulton.

    In fact, two Democrat poll workers blew the whistle on similar anomalies they witnessed in neighboring DeKalb and Cobb counties, where the election process also is controlled by Democrats.

    Carlos E. Silva, for one, declared in a Nov. 17 affidavit that he observed a similar “perfect black bubble” in absentee ballots for Biden during the recount he worked in DeKalb County. And while overseeing the Cobb County recount, he swore he “observed absentee ballots being reviewed with the same perfect bubble that I had seen the night before in DeKalb. All of these ballots had the same characteristics: they were all for Biden and had the same perfect bubble.”

    Added Silva, a registered Democrat: “There were thousands of [mail-in] ballots that just had the perfect bubble marked for Biden and no other markings in the rest of the ballot.”

    Another registered Democrat, Mayra Romera, testified that while monitoring the Cobb County recount, she noticed that “hundreds of these ballots seemed impeccable, with no folds or creases. The bubble selections were perfectly made … and all happened to be selections for Biden.”

    In a recent article pooh-poohing complaints of fraud in Georgia, as well as Arizona, the New York Times portrayed Favorito as “a known conspiracy theorist” and suggested he was a 9/11 truther. As evidence, it cited a 2002 book he published “questioning the origin of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

    Asked about it, Favorito responded: “My book did not propose any theories on what happened on 9/11. I don’t mention anything about explosives” planted in the World Trade Center, as truthers have baselessly speculated. Rather, he said, he questioned Bush family business connections with the bin Laden family and other wealthy Saudis, and argued that the war on terror benefited the Bushes. He also faulted the Bush administration for “obstructing” FBI investigations into the attacks.

    Favorito says he is a “constitutionalist” and neither a Republican nor a Trump supporter.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/09/2021 – 00:05

  • "National Exotic Dancer Shortage" Forces New Orleans Strip Club To Offer Signing Bonuses 
    “National Exotic Dancer Shortage” Forces New Orleans Strip Club To Offer Signing Bonuses 

    Joe Biden’s Universal Basic Income is worsening the unprecedented nationwide labor shortage that even strip clubs face difficulties in hiring. 

    According to local news Fox 8 New Orleans, Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club New Orleans is experiencing what they say is a “national exotic dancer shortage.” Like any business facing difficulties filling positions, the club is offering signing bonuses. 

    “We look forward to reverting back to a seven-day per week operation, just as we were prior to COVID,” said Ann Kesler, General Manager of Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club New Orleans.

    Kesler said, “In order to do so, we need to ensure that we have an ample number of entertainers to sustain our guests, which is why we are implementing a signing incentive to both local and out of state entertainers.”

    She said the club is offering up to a $1,000 signing bonus to any new or returning “entertainer,” or commonly known as a stripper. 

    “Believe it or not, New Orleans has everything besides exotic dancers at this time,” Kesler added. “I urge entertainers to contact me for their signing bonus as the city quickly gears towards full capacity.”

    The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on sex workers was some of the hardest hit. The stripping industry was decimated for more than a year as direct physical contact and gatherings were limited or banned by states and or cities. Some strippers had enough savings and clientele to weather the pandemic, and others resorted to webcam modeling as supplemental income. Meanwhile, some slipped through the cracks and either left the industry to retool their skills in another industry or have been collecting Biden checks, unwilling to go back to work. 

    After trillions in Biden stimulus, millions of people are not seeking gainful employment but sitting back waiting for the next stimmy check. 

    Strip clubs are no exception to the nationwide labor shortage as they must offer signing bonuses. The dancer shortage is also hitting Las Vegas’ Little Darlings strip club, which recently posted a sign that read: “Stripper Shortage! Now Accepting Ugly Girls.” 

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 23:45

  • What Is The FBI Hiding About The DC Pipe Bomb Suspect?
    What Is The FBI Hiding About The DC Pipe Bomb Suspect?

    Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary

    It has been over five months and the FBI still has not apprehended the hooded suspect who placed pipe bombs near the RNC and DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on the evening of January 5, 2021.

    The FBI’s latest wanted poster provides photographs and few identifying characteristics of the suspect:

    There are, however, some curious omissions in the FBI’s description. By now, we assume the FBI (if it has done a thorough investigation) has the suspect’s height, approximate weight, and shoe size.

    Why not disclose that information to the public?

    Calculating height from video footage is a simple matter of geometry. I won’t get into the details of the calculations. But in general, this graphic from the FBI’s Best Practices for Forensic Image Analysis shows the analysis done to determine the height of a bank robbery suspect.

    In the DC pipe bomb case, the suspect was seen on video standing on a DC street on South Capitol Street on the night of January 5. From this camera angle, the suspect’s height is roughly even with the height of a nearby handrail. Not a complicated problem for the FBI’s experts to solve.

    Once the suspect’s height is measured against the fixed object, it could be compared against and confirmed by use of the measurements from the resident seen on video walking his dog. (We assume that the FBI has located and interviewed this resident.)

    By now the FBI also likely has a shoe size. Again, based on video footage this would be a simple measurement. Photograph for reference.

    Currently, the FBI has a $100,000 reward for information leading to the identification of this suspect.

    The FBI has pleaded with the public, saying “We need your help to identify the individual responsible for placing these pipe bombs to ensure that they will not harm themselves or anyone else.”

    We reached out to the FBI, asking if they would release the suspect’s height and weight and shoe size. This information is essential to help the public identify the suspect.

    The FBI’s response: “The FBI has no further information to supply on this matter other than what has already been released.”

    Why keep the suspect’s identifying information under wraps?

    A couple possibilities. First, the FBI’s investigation is probably further along than any of us know. They’re collecting data on purchases of the suspect’s Nike Air Max Speed Turf and the timers, etc. used to make the pipe bombs. From that data they cross-reference travel, locations on 1/5/2021, height, shoe size, etc.

    Second, maybe there’s something else to this story. The FBI has always been sensitive to its public perception and controls information to serve that purpose. For example, the FBI has never been forthcoming about its agents’ involvement with terror suspects. Or, consider whether the pipe bomb investigation would cut against the politics of January 6. I take no pleasure in skepticism of the FBI, but this is a reputation the FBI has earned.

    Either way, this outside observer can’t help but notice that one group of targets – those who entered the Capitol Building on January 6 – are pursued in the public sphere more aggressively than the person who set out pipe bombs the night before.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 23:25

  • "Joints For Jabs": Washington State Bribes Residents To Get Covid Vaccine With Marijuana
    “Joints For Jabs”: Washington State Bribes Residents To Get Covid Vaccine With Marijuana

    The great state of Washington has given permission to licensed retailers to hand out free marijuana to residents who get vaccination at in-store clinics.

    While we have documented numerous other states offering up lottery-style cash prizes for residents getting vaccinated, Washington has been the first to try and entice people by using a drug that still isn’t legal on a federal level. 

    The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board is calling the program “Joints for Jabs”, according to a Newsweek report. The WA Liquor and Cannabis board Tweeted out the news Monday night. 

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    “In an effort to support COVID-19 vaccinations, the Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) today announced that it would provide a temporary allowance to state licensed cannabis retailers to provide one joint to adult consumers who receive a vaccination at an in-store vaccination clinic,” the press release reads. 

    It continues: “Participating cannabis retailers may only provide a pre-roll joint, and no other product may be provided as part of this allowance.”

    Other rules include:

    • Any cannabis joint provided to a customer must be associated with an active vaccine clinic event at the retail location.
    • Only one complimentary joint may be provided to a customer who receives a first or second COVID-19 vaccine dose at the event.
    • Receipt of the complimentary joint must occur during the same visit as receiving the vaccination, and may not be delayed, postponed, or otherwise acquired at a later date or time.
    • Retailers may only provide the complementary joint to persons 21 years of age and older.
    • Any vaccine clinic held inside a licensed retail location must comply with all age restriction requirements for the cannabis retailer.
    • The cannabis joint must be provided by a retailer, and not a producer or processor.

    And if you’re a drinker, and not a smoker, it doesn’t look like Washington’s LCB discriminates. The board also recently “provided an allowance for a beer, wine or cocktail to be provided at no cost for those vaccinated by June 30.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 23:05

  • Texas Bans Businesses From Requiring "Vaccine Passports"
    Texas Bans Businesses From Requiring “Vaccine Passports”

    Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday signed into law a bill to ban government entities and private businesses from requiring proof of vaccination as a condition for service or entry amid the CCP virus pandemic.

    “Texas is open 100 percent, and we want to make sure you have the freedom to go where you want without limits,” the Republican governor announced in a video post on Twitter.

    The Lone Star state in March ended its statewide mask mandate and allowed all businesses to open at full capacity after having implemented mandates and restrictions due to the pandemic caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

    Abbott announced on Monday with the signing of the legislation that “No business or government entity can require a person to provide a vaccine passport or any other vaccine information as a condition of receiving any service or entering any place.”

    The new law SB 968 covers many aspects of the public health disaster and public health emergency preparedness and response. It was approved unanimously in April and was passed by a vote of 146-2 by the state House in May.

    Effective immediately, Texas businesses “may not require a customer to provide any documentation certifying the customer ’s COVID-19 vaccination or post-transmission recovery on entry to, to gain access to, or to receive service from the business,” the legislation states. State agencies in charge of different business sectors can require that businesses comply with the new law as a condition to be authorized to conduct business in Texas.

    Furthermore, businesses that don’t comply with the law will not be able to enter any state contracts and will be ineligible to receive a grant.

    Businesses can still implement their own COVID-19 infection control protocols “in accordance with state and federal law to protect public health.”

    Abbott had signed an executive order in April that banned government entities from requiring vaccine passports as a condition to receive services or gain entry to premises. The order included any private businesses that receive public funding. But the executive order did not apply to entirely private businesses, which the new law covers with regard to vaccine passports.

    The Carnival Cruise Line said in its latest announcement on Monday that “current CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] requirements for cruising with a guest base that is unvaccinated will make it very difficult to deliver the experience our guests expect.” Therefore, it said it would be restarting its operations for vaccinated passengers with its cruise ship leaving from Texas’s Port of Galveston on July 3.

    The cruise ships “Carnival Sunrise” (L) and “Carnival Vista” (R) part of the Carnival Cruise Line, are seen moored at a quay in the port of Miami, Florida, on Dec. 23, 2020. (Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images)

    The cruise liner’s decision is in accordance with federal guidelines published by the CDC, which recently stipulated that if cruise liners are to obtain a conditional sailing certificate for simulated (“trial”) voyages amid the CCP virus pandemic, their volunteer passengers must have proof of being fully vaccinated, or written documentation that the passenger has no medical conditions to be at high risk for severe COVID-19 as defined by the CDC’s guidelines.

    It is unclear as of Monday how the new law will affect the cruise liner’s plans.

    “We are evaluating the legislation recently signed into law in Texas regarding vaccine information,” Carnival spokesperson Vance Gulliksen told the Houston Chronicle in an email. “The law provides exceptions for when a business is implementing COVID protocols in accordance with federal law, which is consistent with our plans to comply with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s guidelines.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 22:45

  • WHO Chief Scientist Served Legal Notice In India For Allegedly Suppressing Data On Drug To Treat COVID-19
    WHO Chief Scientist Served Legal Notice In India For Allegedly Suppressing Data On Drug To Treat COVID-19

    Authored by Meiling Lee via The Epoch Times,

    The Indian Bar Association has taken legal action against the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for her alleged role in spreading disinformation on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

    World Health Organization’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan looks on during an interview with AFP in Geneva on May 8, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

    The association served a legal notice (pdf) on Swaminathan on May 25, claiming that she was “spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfill her agenda” and sought to prevent her from “causing further damage.”

    They further say that Swaminathan, in her statements against the use of ivermectin, ignored research and clinical trials from two organizations – the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) – who have presented solid data showing ivermectin prevents and treats COVID-19.

    “Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has ignored these studies/reports and has deliberately suppressed the data regarding effectiveness of the drug Ivermectin, with an intent to dissuade the people of India from using Ivermectin,” the plaintiff said in a statement (pdf).

    In a May 10 tweet that has since been deleted after the notice was issued, Swaminathan wrote, “Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 except within clinical trials.”

    Swaminathan made the Twitter post soon after Goa’s health minister announced that every Goa resident 18 and older would be given ivermectin as prevention regardless of their COVID-19 status, as part of the state government’s effort to stop the transmission of the virus. India has been hit hard in the second wave of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic beginning in March 2021.

    The legal notice calls for a clear response from Swaminathan on a number of key points, and the association said that in the case of a failure to provide a clear response, it reserves the right to initiate prosecution under sections of the Indian Penal Code and Disaster Management Act, 2005.

    The WHO’s chief scientist didn’t reply to a request for comment.

    A health worker shows a box containing a bottle of Ivermectin, a medicine authorized by the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (INVIMA) to treat patients with mild, asymptomatic, or suspicious COVID-19, as part of a study of the Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases Studies, in Cali, Colombia, on July 21, 2020. (Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images)

    A link to Merck’s statement on ivermectin was also included in Swaminathan’s tweet. The pharmaceutical company that developed the anti-parasitic drug in the 1980s and held a patent until 1996 said in February of this year that the available data did not support the efficacy and safety of ivermectin beyond what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved it for.

    Merck, in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, is conducting a Phase 3 trial of an investigational anti-viral drug molnupiravir, which the company says has shown to reduce infectious viruses quicker in COVID-19 outpatients. But unlike ivermectin, molnupiravir demonstrated no clinical benefit in hospitalized patients.

    The trial is expected to complete later this October and Merck said it will apply for an emergency authorization use for the drug if results are favorable.

    Researchers are hoping that molnupiravir will impair the CCP virus’s ability to replicate so as to prevent severe illness and hospitalization, something that ivermectin has demonstrated to do in a meta-analysis of 57 clinical trials involving more than 18,000 patients, according to ivmmeta.com, a website that provides real-time meta-analysis of ivermectin studies.

    In 23 early treatment studies, there was a 78 percent improvement in patients given ivermectin, and in 14 preventative trials, an 85 percent improvement was shown. As for the studies involving late treatment, there was a 45 percent improvement in 20 studies.

    Proponents of ivermectin say the drug can treat all stages of COVID-19 and reduce hospitalization and mortality rates due to its anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. But there has been pushback on approving the drug as a COVID-19 treatment by the United States federal health authorities and the WHO.

    The FDA says it hasn’t approved ivermectin for COVID-19 and issued a warning in early March informing people to not take the drug meant for animals, as the larger doses intended for animals may be harmful to humans.

    While the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest medical research agency, is neither recommending for or against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19 in its updated guideline in February. This comes after members of the FLCCC Alliance presented their data to the agency at the beginning of the year.

    In April, the NIH announced it would fund a large randomized, controlled study of seven repurposed drugs to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. The research agency said it will begin enrolling for its Phase 3 trial on ivermectin this month.

    “Trial enrollment is expected to open this month, and the trial is expected to run for up to 2 years,” an NIH spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

    The WHO, in its Living Guideline, has advised against the use of ivermectin except in a clinical setting, citing inconclusive data similar to both the FDA and the NIH.

    “The current evidence on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients is inconclusive,” the WHO said in a press release.

    “Until more data is available, WHO recommends that the drug only be used within clinical trials.”

    Dr. Pierre Kory, President and Chief Medical Officer of the FLCCC Alliance claims there is a concerted effort to censor information on the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID-19, a disease caused by the CCP virus.

    “There are forces that are seeking to make sure that ivermectin is not accepted widely as an effective therapy,” Kory said in an interview on June 1.

    “We have randomized [trials], you have observational [studies], you have case series, you have epidemiologic analyses, and then the clinical experience of doctors. You can’t find a doctor who has incorporated ivermectin into their treatments who will come back and say my patients didn’t get better, you can’t find that doctor,” he added.

    A screenshot of the results of a meta-analysis of 57 clinical trials on the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients, from ivemmeta.com. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

    While ivermectin is yet to be approved as a treatment for COVID-19, doctors around the world, including in the United States, are offering the drug to their patients. And for doctors who refuse to administer the drug to patients suffering severe COVID-19, judges have had to order them to do so.

    In their legal notice, the Indian Bar Association cited the case of 80-year-old Judith Smentkiewicz, who made a full recovery after being on a ventilator and told she only had a 20 percent chance of survival. Her family obtained a court order that allowed her to receive additional doses of ivermectin after doctors were hesitant to give her more than one dose, according to Buffalo News.

    Smentkiewic’s family and attorneys say they believe that ivermectin saved her life.

    Ivermectin is on the WHO’s list of essential medicines and has a high safety profile with more than 3.7 billion doses having been distributed in over 30 years.

    Since the drug was first given to humans in 1987, there have only been 4,600 adverse events and 16 deaths reported on the pharmacovigilance database, according to Dr. Tess Lawrie in an interview on March 6. Lawrie is director of Evidence-based Medicine Consultancy Ltd. and co-founder of the BIRD panel, which includes international expert scientists and doctors who are advocating for the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

    Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug, is the only FDA-approved therapy for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The drug has shown no effect on mortality and a minuscule benefit on time of recovery that even the WHO has recommended against its use last November.

    A treatment course of remdesivir is a little over $3,000, while ivermectin ranges between $3 to $12 a treatment, according to Kory.

    He also said that places in India where ivermectin is used preventatively or as early treatment, such as Goa and Uttar Pradesh, are seeing COVID-19 cases declining versus states that have banned the drug.

    “Every one of those states, the curves are now precipitously declining,” said Kory.

    “But there’s a state in India called Tamil Nadu whose minister there basically effectively outlawed ivermectin and went all-in on remdesivir, bought a whole bunch of remdesivir, [and] the cases and deaths in that state are skyrocketing,” he added.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to the chief minister in Tamil Nadu for comment.

    According to data by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Tamil Nadu saw 20,421 new cases and 434 deaths on June 6, while Goa recorded 403 new cases and 16 deaths, and Uttar Pradesh reported 1,037 cases and 85 deaths.

    Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populous states in India with over 200 million people, has been handing out free medical kits containing seven days’ worth of medication, one of which is ivermectin, for COVID-19 positive patients under home isolation.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 22:25

  • China Launches Price Controls After Red Hot Inflation, Highest PPI Since Lehman Collapse
    China Launches Price Controls After Red Hot Inflation, Highest PPI Since Lehman Collapse

    Update 10:00pm ET: moments after reporting a red hot PPI which was the highest since Lehman, China effectively launched price controls, with China’s economic planning agency vowing to increase supply of key consumer goods to stabilize prices, according to a statement on NDRC website on a national video meeting Tuesday.

    • *CHINA VOWS TO CONTROL CORN, WHEAT, PORK PRICES AFTER PPI SURGE
    • *CHINA TO KEEP PRICES OF GOODS LINKED TO LIVELIHOOD STABLE: NDRC

    From the NDRC statement:

    It was recently approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration of Market Supervision, Food and Reserves Bureau and other 6 departments jointly issued and implemented. In order to do a good job of implementation, on June 8, the National Development and Reform Commission held a national video conference…

    The meeting pointed out that the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the price control of important livelihood commodities. In recent years, the price control mechanism for important livelihood commodities has been continuously improved, and remarkable results have been achieved in the work of ensuring supply and stabilizing prices. However, the production, supply, storage and sales of important livelihood commodities have a long chain, many links, and a wide range of coverage. The characteristics of “small production and large market” are prominent. In the face of natural disasters, market risks, and emergencies, prices are prone to rise and fall. It is necessary to speed up the improvement of the price control mechanism of important livelihood commodities, continuously improve the ability to maintain supply and stabilize prices, effectively resolve the impact of livelihood commodity supply and price fluctuations on people’s lives, better meet the people’s growing needs for a better life, and effectively enhance the people’s sense of gain, sense of happiness and security.

    Production, distribution, consumption and other links, give full play to the role of government, market, society, etc., use economic, legal, administrative and other means to improve the ability and level of price control, and effectively guarantee the effective supply of important livelihood commodities and the overall stability of prices.

    The meeting also analyzed the current and future price situation, made comprehensive arrangements for this year’s work to ensure the supply and price stabilization of important livelihood commodities, combined with the improvement of the price control mechanism of important livelihood commodities, and focused on key points such as corn, wheat, edible oil, pork, and vegetables. Promote the effective connection of production, supply, storage, and sales. At the same time, we will actively do a good job in the regulation of the bulk commodity market, strengthen market supervision, and make every effort to ensure sufficient supply of important people’s livelihood commodities and basically stable prices.

    And now that China is officially setting prices, expect black markets for everything which the government is micromanaging to emerge and lead shortages that will make the current batch of supply-chain bottlenecks look like a walk in the park.

    * * *

    As noted in the preview of today’s potentially “shocking” China inflation data, moments ago Beijing reported that while CPI came in just softer than expected at 1.3% Y/Y, below the 1.6% consensus, or PPI – or factory-gate inflation – came in at a scorching 9.0% as a result of surging commodity prices. That number was higher than the consensus estimate of 8.5% and was the highest since September 2008, just around the time Lehman collapsed. Also of note, the spread between the CPI and PPI growth rates, a metric highlighted earlier today in Gundlach’s Doubleline call, rose further and hit the highest level since 1993.

    Looking at the CPI side, the number came in less than expected thanks to a mute core component which rose just 0.90%, while the food inflation tracker rose a modest 1.65%, a far cry from the soaring, double-digit food inflation from one year ago when sky high pork prices nuked the food basket.

    The bigger problem for China is that PPI came in just shy of the record print of 10%…

    … and since CPI remains dormant, it is clear that Chinese factories are still absorbing rising costs rather than passing them on, which means it is only a matter of time before industrial profits plummet.

    From China’s perspective, as long as CPI remains subdued, there is no crisis. As for soaring PPIs, as noted earlier, the prevailing view is that such sharp gains in producer prices are a short-term phenomenon driven by the restarting of economies and supply constraints, although increasingly more analysts are issuing loud warnings that higher prices may become more sustained.

    It is the concern that the PBOC will sooner or later have to intervene and contain imported inflation by tightening conditions further (and/or hiking rates), that has depressed local markets, and has sent the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index falling for five straight days, the longest losing streak since September. In June, the gauge is among the worst performing global benchmarks, along with the CSI 300 Index of mainland-listed firms. Meanwhile, the government bond market also starting to lose altitude, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note increasing the most in six months on Friday.

    And while we don’t expect any activity from the PBOC for the near future, the big question is how can Chinese companies pretend all is well, before the surge in commodity prices which is not passed on to consumers (courtesy of repeated taps on the shoulder from Beijing) sends profit margins plunging and sparks yet another Chinese crash.

    * * *

    Authored by Sofia Horta e Costa, Bloomberg reporter and commentator

    China is about to unveil closely-watched inflation data, and, as in much of the world, policy makers will be hoping accelerating prices are transitory.

    Figures due 9:30 a.m. local time will show China’s producer-price index rose to 8.5% in May, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists, the highest reading since Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008.

    Economists are sanguine about the risks right now. Chinese factories are still absorbing rising costs rather than passing them on. The result is the consumer price index probably only rose to 1.6%, the survey shows.

    That’s good news for a central bank that, according to ANZ Banking, lacks tools to deal with such supply-side price pressures. Globally, the prevailing view is that such sharp gains in producer prices is a short-term phenomenon driven by the restarting of economies and supply constraints, although warnings are growing that higher prices may become more sustained.

    Beijing is dealing with a number of fronts at once as a result of pandemic-era stimulus. Much of the money pumped by central banks around the world is making its way into China’s borders, complicating Beijing’s efforts to put a lid on prices without abandoning market reforms. This has led to a tricky balance of using strong rhetoric and market expectation management instead of blunt intervention when it comes to tackling overheating in the yuan, crypto, housing and raw materials.

    Wariness is creeping into the nation’s financial markets. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index has fallen for five straight days, the longest losing streak since September. In June, the gauge is among the worst performing global benchmarks, along with the CSI 300 Index of mainland-listed firms.

    China’s currency too has turned bearish after a strong rally pushed the PBOC to act to curb gains. The offshore yuan has lost 0.5% this month, the most in Asia. The government bond market is equally losing altitude, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note increasing the most in six months on Friday.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 21:58

  • 40M Americans Bracing For End Of Student Loan Moratorium As Politicians Acknowledge "Unsustainable" Debt
    40M Americans Bracing For End Of Student Loan Moratorium As Politicians Acknowledge “Unsustainable” Debt

    President Joe Biden is still reportedly mulling whether to cancel up to $10K in student debt per borrower, a plan that, as we have pointed out in the past, would mostly benefit the Democrats’ wealthier, college-educated voters.

    In Congress, several plans were kicked around earlier his year before President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus was ultimately passed. But analysts at Goldman Sachs believe a more scaled-down plan is the most likely. With the moratorium on student loan payments set to expire on Oct. 1, a critical headwind that has allowed (mostly middle-class) Americans to bolster their savings substantially.

    According to Bloomberg, “there’s an unwelcome side of the return of business-as-usual after the pandemic: They’ll have to start repaying their student loans again.”

    “More than 40 million holders of federal loans are due to start making monthly installments again on Oct. 1, when the freeze imposed as part of Covid-19 relief measures is due to run out. It covered payments worth about $7 billion a month, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated. Their resumption will eat a chunk out of household budgets, in a potential drag on the consumer recovery.”

    The problem is that even before the pandemic started, Americans were starting to slack on their student loan payments. In a sense, politicians were fortunate when COVID-19 hit, if only because it gave the government cover to impose the moratorium.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Politicians already recognize that America’s student debt burden is already unsustainable. Of the government’s $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio, almost one-third is unpaid. That $435 billion is comparable to the $535 billion that private lenders lost on subprime mortgages during the 2008 financial crisis.

    Repaying is especially difficult when recent graduates are finding trouble earning high wages in the labor market And with the US economy is still 7.6 million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels, many more of them are likely to be out of work now..

    Minority borrowers and older borrowers also struggled to keep up with payments before the pandemic.

    Source: Bloomberg

    And with today’s desperate drop in bitcoin along with several meme stocks, a critical lifeline for retail traders is now in jeopardy. Young people who are already living with their parents because of their onerous student debt are wondering if they’ll soon need to get a second (or, for some, a first).

    The notion that college degrees have become an asset with diminishing returns (given the proliferation of low-value Liberal Arts degrees) has started to spread.

    Many Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for write-offs of $50,000 or more per borrower. Local leaders are pressuring the Biden administration to take action. Even some Republicans have joined the cause, including  Wayne Johnson, the Trump Administration’s first student-aid chief, who said the student-loan system is fundamentally broken. He proposed not just $50K in debt relief, but also a similar sum in tax credits to those who paid off their loans already.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Of course, none of this will fix the overall system, and instead could encourage students to irresponsibly pile on more education-related debt.

    For this reason, Biden has resisted calls to cancel loans via EO. In early April, he asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to prepare a memo on the president’s legal authority to cancel debt.

    Still, as millions struggle, a few students who spoke with Bloomberg talked about feeling like they’re “in a relationship” with their student debt.

    Other steps the government has taken include allowing employers to contribute toward monthly student loan payments as a tax-free benefit. The pandemic relief bill in March last year allowed firms to reimburse employees up to $5,250 annually.

    Malia Rivera, a 46-year old marketing executive with Austin, Texas-based Innovetive Petcare, says her employer has partnered with GiftofCollege.com, a platform that bridges automatic payroll deductions to student loans and college savings accounts.

    Rivera says she’s made sure to keep up the payments on her own student loan even through the freeze. She says she’s learned after “racking up late fees over the years and navigating the trials and tribulations of career advancement” that automatic deductions as soon as she gets paid are the best route — and it’s helped lower her balance to about $8,000 from $38,000. 

    That took time. “I have been in a ‘long-term relationship’ with my student loan,” says Rivera, recalling the initial payment that she made in the first month of her marriage. “My husband is celebrating his 15-year anniversary with me…and my student loan.”

    The year-plus loan-payment moratorium was a welcome respite. But the debt for most borrowers is still there. Fortunately, with Dems still in the driver’s seat, it’s likelier than ever a jubilee will arrive eventually – just like reparations –  once all the studies have been finished and the reports are in.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 21:45

  • Watch: Kamala Harris Snaps At NBC Host After Being Caught In Border Lie
    Watch: Kamala Harris Snaps At NBC Host After Being Caught In Border Lie

    Things aren’t going so well for Vice President Kamala Harris during her Guatemala trip, where as we observed earlier she went full Trump mode in a speech before Guatemalan press: “…I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States Mexico border: Do not come, do not come,” she said.

    Simultaneously NBC News published a sit-down interview between Harris and news anchor Lester Holt which took place during the trip. He pressed her on why she hadn’t visited the border and that’s where things quickly got testy…

    Given she was recently “put in charge” of the crisis, Holt had asked simply whether she had any near future plans to visit the US-Mexico border – a line of inquiry which she clearly took offense to.

    “We are going to the border, we’ve been to the border. So this whole – this whole thing about the border, we’ve been to the border, we’ve been to the border,” Harris said

    “You haven’t been to the border,” Holt accurately shot back.

    A visibly upset Harris then came back with a retort that was awkward at best: “And I haven’t been to Europe, and I don’t understand the point that you’re making,” she snapped. “I’m not discounting the importance of the border,” she claimed while continuing to lose her cool.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Her irritation appeared to stem from being caught in the lie, given the whole tense exchange had been kicked off with the following: 

    “The question that has come up and you heard it here and you’ll hear it again I’m sure, is, ‘Why not visit the border? Why not see what Americans are seeing in this crisis?'” Holt wondered aloud.

    “Well, we are going to the border,” Harris responded. “We have to deal with what’s happening at the border, there’s no question about that. That’s not a debatable point. But we have to understand that there’s a reason people are arriving at our border and ask what is that reason and then identify the problem so we can fix it.”

    As we noted earlier, Kamala Harris’s enormous ego and disturbing lack of self-awareness had quite the weekend.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    For one, while en route to Guatemala she walked to the back of Air Force 2 on D-Day and handed out cookies of herself donning a distinctive pearl necklace and frosted face, prompting condemnation and ridicule from Twitter users far and wide.

    Then, upon touching down in Guatemala to meet with foreign leaders about what can be done to stem the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States, the Vice President was greeted by protesters bearing signs. “Trump Won” , “Stop Funding Criminals” , and “Kamala Go Home” were among them, according to the Floridian Press.

    * * *

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 21:44

  • Anti-Pipeline Activists Including Jane Fonda Seize Minnesota Construction Site, Strap Selves To Bulldozers
    Anti-Pipeline Activists Including Jane Fonda Seize Minnesota Construction Site, Strap Selves To Bulldozers

    A group of young climate activists met shortly after sunrise in Mahnomen, Minnesota to conduct several ‘missions’ in a civil disobedience campaign to try and stop a border-crossing oil pipeline which will run across the wetlands and forests of northern Minnesota.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Using various code names – and operations “marmalade” and “peanut butter” being of particularly high risk, according to the Washington Post – the protesters planned to descend on an undisclosed location along a pipeline route known as “Line 3.”

    Dozens of cars were soon caravanning down dusty dirt roads amid corn and soybean fields in the largest salvo yet in an ongoing civil disobedience campaign to try to stop a border-crossing oil pipeline running from Canada across the wetlands and forests of northern Minnesota.

    By midmorning, hundreds of protesters, led by Native American women and joined by celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener, had marched into a construction site operated by Enbridge, the Canadian company behind the pipeline, and strapped themselves to bulldozers and other heavy machinery. -WaPo

    “Good morning water protectors!” shouted Native American attorney Tara Houska – a leader of the Line 3 protests, as she addressed the group and crossed into a pump station used to electrify the pipeline, according to organizers.

    Indigenous activists have been a driving force in the conflict over Line 3, as they see a two-pronged threat, “a carbon-producing fossil fuel project at a time of worsening climate change and one that also risks polluting tribal lands in the headwaters of the Mississippi River.” The group has been emboldened by victories such as the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as gatherings at Standing Rock. They hope to similarly pressure the Biden administration into suspending the pipeline permit before Enbridge can complete the project.

    “Biden has taken a very clear and very beautiful position on the climate crisis,” said activist and Vietnam-era traitor Jane Fonda during her second trip to protest Line 3. “But we are really facing a potential catastrophe, and the science is very clear: it’s not enough to do something good here — like shutdown Keystone XL, shut down drilling on the Arctic national refuge — and then allow Line 3 to go through.”

    “We can’t do this in bits and pieces,” she added.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The activists have thus far made little progress in impeding the $4 billion project to replace a decades-old pipeline, as well as add new portions to various endpoints. The 350-mile Line 3 project stands at around 60% complete, while some 4,000 construction workers (a growing figure) are spread between five different areas of the project.

    Enbridge director of tribal engagement in the US, Paul Elberth, said that the ongoing protests haven’t “had a significant impact on construction,” adding “Obviously it’s stressful when people are out protesting or if they’re doing damage to equipment or being disrespectful for the workforce.”

    “Construction largely has proceeded as planned.”

    Enbridge responded to the protest, saying in a statement: “We recognize people have strong feelings about the energy we all use, and they have the right to express their opinions legally and peacefully,” adding “We hoped all parties would come to accept the outcome of the thorough, science-based review and multiple approvals of the project.”

    The protesters unsurprisingly pushed back, saying that the seriousness of the climate crisis demands more dramatic action to stop fossil fuel projects.

    [A side note: despite the pandemic-driven lockdown which ground travel to a halt, C02 levels continued to climb to record highs.]

    “I’m sick and tired of these corporations busting through all these sacred lands, trying to take up everybody’s livelihoods and take away the sacredness this earth carries. And I’m done,” said protesters Kerry Labrador, a 39-year-old Native American from Boston, who had chained himself to the tire of a crane-type machine inside the Enbridge facility, adding “I traveled out here two days so I can sit here and do what I’m doing now.”

    By midafternoon, a Department of Homeland Security helicopter flew circles over the pump station telling the protesters to leave and that they were on the site illegally. Protestors said it hovered low above them, kicking up clouds of dirt. A few hours later, police arrived in riot gear and began arresting dozens of people.

    “Our security guard force is armed with a cellphone,” Eberth said. “From here it’s up to law enforcement.”

    Enbridge officials said that one of the two companies involved in building the pump station that protesters occupied is Native American-owned. That company, Gordon Construction, had “numerous employees who needed to be evacuated this morning” when the protest began, Eberth said.

    The occupation of the pump station appeared to be largely peaceful, with protesters climbing onto machinery and chanting such slogans as “Hey hey, ho ho, Line 3 has got to go.”

    Houska took a bullhorn and urged the crowd to “protect the sacred”— “For our daughters, for our sons, for the animals, for the water.” -WaPo

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    Given that he majority of global pollution is caused by China, India and the ocean freight industry, perhaps the pipeline protesters should be looking beyond their own backyard if they’re really interested in the global issue they claim to stand for.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 21:25

  • Senate Passes Sweeping Bipartisan Legislation To Counter And Compete With China
    Senate Passes Sweeping Bipartisan Legislation To Counter And Compete With China

    In a rare show of bipartisan solidarity in the deeply polarized US Congress, the Senate came together on Tuesday to pass sweeping $250 billion legislation designed to strengthen Washington’s hand in its escalating geopolitical and economic competition with China. The bill touches on nearly every aspect of the nations’ complex relationship, including semiconductors, Taiwan, Xinjiang and the 2022 Winter Olympics.

    In a 68 to 32 vote, the 2,400-page US Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 brought together a coalition of progressives, moderates and conservatives who, despite their intense disagreements on virtually every other policy issue, were united in their view the Chinese government under the rule of Xi Jinping has become a threat to global stability and American power.

    “The world is more competitive now than at any time since the end of the second world war,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor moments before the vote. “If we do nothing, our days as the dominant superpower may be ending.”

    “This bill could be the turning point for American leadership in the 21st century, and for that reason, this legislation will go down as one of the most significant bipartisan achievements of the US Senate in recent history.”

    The bill includes about $250 billion worth of spending, and touches on nearly every aspect of the complex and increasingly tense relationship between Washington and Beijing.

    According to SCMP, it includes billions of dollars to increase American semiconductor manufacturing, a sign of growing urgency in Washington that the US has become dangerously reliant on Chinese supply chains. It bans American officials from attending the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns, and declares Beijing’s policies in China’s far-west Xinjiang region a genocide, echoing the position of the US State Department and multiple parliaments around the world.

    Some US$2 billion of spending would be earmarked solely as incentives “to solely focus on legacy chip production to advance economic and national security interests, as these chips are essential to the auto industry, the military, and other critical industries”.

    The bill also contains a range of provisions meant to strengthen US ties with Taiwan and US military alliances in the Pacific, including the Quad, a quasi-formal pact between the US, Australia, India and Japan, as well as others to crack down on Chinese influence on US campuses, in international organizations and online.

    “This is an opportunity to compete with China at the research level,” Senator Roger Wicker, a Tennessee Republican, said before the vote. “This bill will strengthen our country‘s innovation in key technology fields of the future, areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing and communications, and this bill also is a game changer in terms of giving universities all over the United States an opportunity to participate in game-changing research.”

    The legislation also authorises new sanctions on Chinese officials for a range of crimes, including cyberattacks, intellectual property theft and, in Xinjiang
    – where human rights groups cite United Nations reports and witness accounts that as many as 1 million Uygurs and other Muslim minorities are held in “re-education camps” – against perpetrators of “systematic rape, coercive abortion, forced sterilisation or involuntary contraceptive implantation policies and practices”.

    Beijing has repeatedly denied the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and insists that the camps are vocational training facilities.

    Now the issue shifts to the House of Representatives, which has already begun considering a number of China-related bills, the largest being the Eagle Act. Eventually, if the House passes its own legislation, the two chambers will have to reconcile any differences in their respective bills before they can send them to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

    Biden has used the US competition with China as justification for a range of domestic and foreign policies, and is almost certain to sign a final bill once it reaches his desk.

    For various reasons, including stated concerns about rising US debt and individual amendments not being added to the bill, a handful of the Senate’s frequent critics of Beijing voted against the legislation. They included Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, who said the cost of the legislation was too high despite “the threat [the Chinese government] poses to our national security”.

    The Chinese embassy in Washington has yet to issue an official statement.

    “I think the bill is important, whether or not we’re talking about the competition with China,” said Elizabeth Economy, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “It’s clear that the United States needs to do more, and I think this is a really important effort and it sends an important message as well.”

    “I think there is widespread acknowledgement among both Democrats and Republicans that we need to be smarter and do better in terms of meeting the broad array of challenges that China presents to our political, economic and security interests,” she said. “There‘s a sense that China poses a clear and present danger, if not an existential threat, and that if the US fails to step up and meet this challenge at this particular moment in time, it may not have another opportunity.”

    The Senate vote followed months of debate in the chamber. In February, Schumer asked numerous Senate committees to draft China legislation of their own, which he ultimately combined into the expansive bill that passed on Tuesday.

    Asked in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday whether he would support the funding requests in the bill, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would “welcome” the opportunity. “I have to tell you again that we really applaud this initiative,” Blinken said.

    “It‘s going to give us new tools, new resources to deal more effectively with the competition, and I very much welcome the opportunity to work closely with you, members of this committee, other relevant committees to put this into practice,” he said.

    Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have already agreed to some changes to the Eagle Act, including adding clearer language calling for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Politico reported, citing people involved in the discussions.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 20:45

  • China Mulls Unprecedented Legislation To Counter Western Sanctions
    China Mulls Unprecedented Legislation To Counter Western Sanctions

    Beijing is poised to take an unprecedented step in its latest efforts to combat US and Western sanctions which have recently been ratcheted up particularly surrounding the Uyghur issue in Xinjiang. A draft law is now being examined by the National People’s Congress (NCP) which would shield Chinese entities and institutions from “the unilateral and discriminatory measures imposed by foreign countries” and ultimately the “long arm jurisdiction” of the United States, according to state media. 

    Called the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, a vote by lawmakers is expected soon after a series of reviews by committees under the NPC, it will allow or possibly even require quick retaliatory measures in instances a foreign country targets a Chinese company, entity or individual with punitive legal measures – ensuring a greater level of tit-for-tat escalation. In short it would mean the power of the Chinese government to sanction all who comply with US/EU sanctions by drawing a bright red line, forcing entities to choose whether to comply to Washington’s side or Beijing’s side. Or in even simpler terms, it’s something which the United States has already long practiced – for example in the case of far-reaching Iran sanctions which blacklisted European or other companies which had dealings with the Islamic Republic.

    Prior session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), via Xinhua

    According to an expert quoted by the state-run Global Times, the law “will deter foreign governments, notably the US and the EU, from resorting to long-arm jurisdiction,…if Chinese entities are hit with unjustified sanctions, the proposed law is supposed to crystallize actionable countermeasures against the foreign governments and institutions…expecting the legal effort to make up for losses that Chinese entities would suffer.“

    It’s intended to further boost Beijing’s legal firepower in hitting back – again which practically translates to any future measures out of the US or EU like to be automatically met with escalation in terms of trade disruptions or immediate measures targeting US or Western companies wishing to do business in China. 

    “Legal experts said that speeding up legislation in foreign-related fields is necessary as it’s important to use legal measures to safeguard the legitimate rights of Chinese institutions, enterprises and citizens,” GT comments further. “Especially in recent years, the US government has been imposing sanctions on some Chinese entities such as high-tech firms Huawei and ZTE for so-called national security risks, and sanctioned a number of senior Chinese officials under the US’ so-called Xinjiang and Hong Kong bills last year.”

    And here’s more from the state publication: 

    While the EU has a regulation to protect against the effects of the extraterritorial application of legislation adopted by a third country and the US owns a large number of “legal ammunition” in terms of long-arm jurisdiction, China lacks relevant laws in response to the external legal weapons, Qi Kai, an associate professor of the Institute of Globalization and Global Issues at China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times on Monday. 

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    Chinese commentators are treating it as a necessary ‘deterrence’ measure, but Rabobank details… 

    The example of the Australian government’s decision to tear up Victoria’s Belt and Road agreements with China is given as a “wake-up call” for China to “broaden the extraterritorial reach of its own legislation.” In other words, the proposed law would have allowed China to impose countermeasures on Australia, or demand compensation, for Canberra following Australian federal law within its own territory – because it harmed Chinese interests. Of course, the US, and now EU and UK –and Hong Kong– extend their legal remits outside their geographical territory. Now China is going to join in – and in the opposite direction to the West’s legal moves.  This potentially leaves Western firms damned-if-they-do and damned-if-they-don’t, which is a wake-up call for those who haven’t heard any of the alarm bells so far. It’s also another factor likely to play into supply-chains and inflation over time, even if mentioning it is as popular as Invermectin.

    * * *

    In particular Chinese media has highlighted the West’s using stories of Xinjiang-related human rights abuse to “spread rumors and suppress China.”

    The timing of the new legislation’s likely near-future passage will be interesting, given that as it’s being mulled over the G-7 summit will be underway in the UK (starting Friday), where it’s expected that Joe Biden and other world leaders representing the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy – and other guess countries – will produce a statement that’s heavily critical of China especially on the human rights front.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 20:25

  • SCOTUS Unanimously Denies Green Cards To TPS Illegal Immigrants
    SCOTUS Unanimously Denies Green Cards To TPS Illegal Immigrants

    Authored by Maryellen Fullerton via SCOTUSblog.com,

    The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that noncitizens who have been granted temporary humanitarian relief from deportation cannot use the process known as “adjustment of status” to obtain lawful permanent residency in the United States without leaving the country.

    The court ruled in Sanchez v. Mayorkas that adjustment of status is reserved for those who were inspected at the border and admitted to the United States by an immigration officer, thus disqualifying the majority of those granted Temporary Protected Status.

    Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion for the court.

    Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzalez came to the United States from El Salvador without authorization in the 1990s. The U.S. government granted them temporary protection in 2001 when the United States designated El Salvador as part of the TPS program in the wake of devastating earthquakes in that country. Under the TPS program, foreign nationals living in the United States are permitted to remain here due to unsafe conditions in their home countries. 

    Sanchez and Gonzalez have maintained TPS status for 20 years, during which Sanchez’s employer filed an immigration-visa petition for Sanchez as a skilled worker. Immigration officials approved this petition, authorizing Sanchez to be admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident. They simultaneously approved Gonzalez, his wife, for admission as a lawful permanent resident.

    The government, however, denied the couple’s subsequent application to use the adjustment-of-status process in order to transition from temporary to permanent residency without leaving the United States. Immigration officials ruled that the couple’s original unauthorized entry disqualified them from adjustment of status.

    The government relied on the text of Immigration and Nationality Act Section 1255(a), which restricts the in-country adjustment-of-status process to noncitizens who were “inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States.” 

    Sanchez and Gonzalez argued that the TPS statute includes a provision making TPS holders eligible for adjustment of status even if they had not been inspected and admitted or paroled when they originally entered the United States. Specifically, Section 1254a(f)(4) states that “for purposes of adjustment of status under Section 1255 …, the [TPS holder] shall be considered as being in, and maintaining, lawful status as a nonimmigrant.” They asserted that the phrase “considered as being in … lawful status” makes the grant of TPS the equivalent of being inspected and admitted as a lawful nonimmigrant. Sanchez and Gonzalez argued the detailed vetting that accompanies applicants for TPS is equivalent to the vetting that accompanies inspection and admission at a port of entry.

    The court sided with the government and rejected the interpretation advanced by Sanchez and Gonzalez.

    “Section 1255 generally requires a lawful admission before a person can obtain LPR status,” Kagan wrote.

    “Sanchez was not lawfully admitted, and his TPS does not alter that fact. He therefore cannot become a permanent resident of this country.”

    Cases: Sanchez v. Mayorkas

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 20:05

  • Northeast Power Prices Jump As Heat Wave Forces Millions To Crank Up Air-Conditioning 
    Northeast Power Prices Jump As Heat Wave Forces Millions To Crank Up Air-Conditioning 

    With the latest heat wave subsiding in the northeastern U.S., after several days of dangerously high temperatures above 90 degrees, power prices skyrocketed as tens of millions turned down their thermostats. 

    According to Bloomberg, electricity prices in New England tripled on Monday from a year ago. Since the weekend, a heat wave blanketed the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast but will subside by midweek. 

    Gary Cunningham, director of market research at Tradition Energy, said energy demands are way “above normal” for this time of year because of increasing air-conditioning use. New England’s grid operator could reach its summer peak in June instead of August, typically the hottest part of summer.

    Monday’s highs were 90-95 degrees in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area to New York City to Boston. 

    Grid operator PJM Interconnection LLC, a regional transmission organization serving all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, issued a hot weather alert Monday. PJM requested owners of transmission lines and power plants to delay maintenance. 

    On-peak electricity prices for Bloomingdale, Massachusetts, energy prices per megawatt-hour spiked on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. 

    Peak energy prices for New York City also spiked. 

    The heat wave is expected to dissipate by mid-week as Mid-Atlantic and Northeast temperatures will be around average or slightly below normal as a cold front rolls in through the weekend. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 19:45

  • 78% Of Those Not Planning To Get Vaccinated Unlikely To Change Their Mind: Gallup
    78% Of Those Not Planning To Get Vaccinated Unlikely To Change Their Mind: Gallup

    By Jeffrey Jones of Gallup

    Seventy-six percent of U.S. adults say they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or plan to be, a number that has been stable over the past three months but is higher than in late 2020 and early 2021.

    As of the May 18-23 survey, 60% of U.S. adults report they have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, 4% have been partially vaccinated, 12% plan to be vaccinated and 24% do not plan to be vaccinated.

    Among those not planning to be vaccinated, 78% say they are unlikely to reconsider their plans, including 51% who say they are “not likely at all” to change their mind and get vaccinated. That leaves one in five vaccine-reluctant adults open to reconsidering, with 2% saying they are very likely and 19% saying they are somewhat likely to change their mind and get vaccinated — equivalent to 5% of all U.S. adults.

    Last week, the Biden administration announced plans to increase efforts to achieve its goal of having 70% of adults at least partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July holiday. With 64% already vaccinated, that goal seems within reach if half of the 12% planning to get vaccinated follow through, even if none of those not planning to get vaccinated change their mind. The administration’s efforts include outreach to citizens, offers of free childcare, and incentives such as free air travel and free sports tickets.

    States are also trying creative approaches to encourage those who are reluctant to get vaccinated, including offering lottery prizes of varying amounts, savings bonds, free amusement park tickets and free hunting and fishing licenses.

    The brewer Anheuser-Busch is offering Americans free beer if the nation meets Biden’s goal.

    Gallup’s data suggest the ceiling on vaccination could be about 80% of U.S. adults. That would include the 76% who are already vaccinated or plan to be plus the 5% who do not plan to get vaccinated but say they are at least somewhat likely to change their mind.

    A steady 53% of U.S. adults say they are worried about people choosing not to get vaccinated, including 25% who are very worried. It is now the public’s greatest worry about the virus by a wide margin, surpassing concerns about lack of social distancing in their area (27%), availability of local hospital resources and supplies (11%), and availability of coronavirus tests in their area (5%),

    Reasons for Not Getting Vaccinated Vary

    Gallup’s March and April COVID-19 surveys found no dominant reason among vaccine-reluctant individuals for their intention not to get vaccinated. The most common reasons given were wanting to confirm the vaccine was safe (23%) and a belief they would not get seriously ill from the virus (20%). Slightly fewer expressed concerns about the timeline for developing the vaccine (16%) or mistrust of vaccines in general (16%). Ten percent said they already have immunity because they have had COVID-19, while 10% cite allergies or concern about allergies as the reason they do not plan to get vaccinated.

    The one in four vaccine-reluctant adults are not distributed equally across major demographic groups:

    • About half of Republicans, 46%, compared with 31% of independents and 6% of Democrats, do not plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

    • Americans without a college degree are much more likely than college graduates to be vaccine-hesitant, 31% to 12%.

    • Vaccine hesitancy is more common among middle-aged Americans (33% of those between the ages of 35 and 54) than among younger (22%) and older Americans (20%).

    Bottom Line

    Widespread COVID-19 vaccination has undoubtedly been a major reason behind the steep decline in infections and deaths from the disease in the U.S. in recent months. The rate of vaccinations has slowed down considerably in recent weeks, now that most Americans who wanted to get vaccinated have done so. Further increasing the proportion of vaccinated adults in the population will be a challenge, as the remaining vaccine-willing population may be less eager to get their shots. They may also face practical or logistical challenges to getting vaccinated, something vaccine administrators are attempting to overcome by offering walk-in appointments at pharmacies and health centers, on-site vaccination for employees at work sites, travelers at airports, and in churches. Incentives may also encourage those who are less motivated to get the vaccine to do so.

    However, these efforts seem unlikely to convince the nearly one in five Americans who do not plan to get vaccinated and say they are unlikely to change their mind. Still, having somewhere between 65% and 80% of the public vaccinated, in addition to the unvaccinated Americans who have had and recovered from COVID-19, may be enough to ensure that Americans can largely return to their pre-pandemic lives without fear of getting sick or contributing to further spread of the disease.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 19:25

  • NASA Satellites Spot Dust-pocalypse Headed To Americas 
    NASA Satellites Spot Dust-pocalypse Headed To Americas 

    The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite attached to NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite spotted what appears to be a dust storm blowing off the Sahara Desert and into the waters of the Atlantic Basin, where it could eventually end up in the Americas. 

    NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite took the image on June 4. A more recent update shows the dust is well over the central Atlantic Ocean by Tuesday. 

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    Weather modeling via meteorologist John Gerard suggests this is “the beginning of the Saharan Dust season soon, satellite indicates the first large plume of the summer has emerged off the coast of Africa now and should arrive in Florida by next week.”

    Texas Division of Emergency Management’s meteorologist John Honoré says, “It’s that time of year again. Saharan dust is working its way across the Atlantic this week.” 

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    “The African easterly jet [stream] exports the dust from Africa towards the Atlantic region,” Bing Pu, a geologist and atmospheric scientist at the University of Kansas, said in a NASA press release. “Then the North Atlantic subtropical high, which is a high-pressure system sitting over the subtropical North Atlantic, can further transport it towards the Caribbean region. The Caribbean low-level jet, along with the subtropical high, can further transport the dust from the Caribbean region towards the [U.S.].”

    The storm comes about one year after a massive dust storm from the Sahara blanketed the Caribbean region and the Gulf of Mexico. 

    So it appears the Sahara dust is back, and it’s already approaching parts of the Caribbean Sea. Next stop the U.S.? 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 19:05

  • "A Matter Of Public Concern": Virginia Judge Orders Reinstatement Of Teacher Who Criticized Gender Policy
    “A Matter Of Public Concern”: Virginia Judge Orders Reinstatement Of Teacher Who Criticized Gender Policy

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We recently discussed the case of Loudoun County teacher Byron “Tanner” Cross who was suspended for speaking against gender policies. In a major victory for the free speech rights of teachers, Twelfth Circuit Judge James E. Plowman ordered LCPS to restore Cross’ position as a physical education teacher at Leesburg Elementary School. In a letter, the court found a basis for a temporary injunction to allow Cross to return until Dec. 31 pending further orders of the court.

    Cross ran into trouble when he appeared at a meeting of the school board.

    He began by stating “My name is Tanner Cross and I am speaking out of love for those who are suffering from gender dysphoria.”

    He goes on to reference that he is a teacher but would not follow the policies:

    “It’s not my intention to hurt anyone, but there are certain truths that we must face when ready. We condemn school policies [that] would damage children, defile the holy image of God. I love all of my students but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences. I’m a teacher but I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it’s against my religion. It’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it’s sinning against our God.”

    Cross was making reference to a “60 Minutes” program interviewing people who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria as young children and quickly put through gender changing procedures with little time or serious review. Those interviewed described how they were harmed by the transitioning procedures and felt that little was done to protect them.

    Cross’ statement appeared to refuse to comply with Policy 8040, which requires Loudoun staff to use preferred pronouns.

    “LCPS staff shall allow gender-expansive or transgender students to use their 18 chosen name and gender pronouns that reflect their gender identity without any substantiating evidence, regardless of the name and gender recorded in the student’s permanent educational record. School staff shall, at the request of a student or parent/legal guardian, when using a name or pronoun to address the student, use the name and pronoun that correspond to their gender identity.”

    Notably, the rule extends to other students who can be punished for failing to use the required pronouns:

    “The use of gender-neutral pronouns are appropriate. Inadvertent slips in the use of names or pronouns may occur; however, staff or students who intentionally and persistently refuse to respect a student’s gender identity by using the wrong name and gender pronoun are in violation of this policy.”

    The punishment of a student for failing to use the pronouns could create the most difficult constitutional challenges under the First Amendment. That could be deemed as compelled speech in contravention of their religious and political views.

    However, now Cross appears likely to prevail as a teacher. The ruling in his favor required a finding that he was likely to prevail in seeking the injunctive relief.

    The county notably stressed that the basis for the suspension was the disruption caused by Cross’ comments.  That was a major blunder by the county and its counsel.

    Notably, the school district did not find that the national controversy surrounding the remarks of another teacher presented similar disruption.

    Loudoun County teacher Andrea Weiskopf called for book bans and attacked those supporting classics like To Kill A Mocking Bird as advocating harmful “White Saviorism.”

    It would have been wiser to focus on a refusal to comply with school policy, though it would need to confirm with Cross that he would do so. Accordingly, “[T]he Court has found … that the disruption relied upon was insufficient.” Plowman further found that  Cross’ “interest in expressing his First Amendment speech outweigh the Defendant’s interest in restricting the same and the level of disruption that Defendant asserts did not serve to meaningfully disrupt the operations or services of Leesburg Elementary School.”

    The Court also noted that at least five teachers submitted declarations that they would like to speak publicly but are afraid to do so because of the retaliation against Cross.  By focusing on the likely “disruption” caused by Cross’ views, the county undermined its position by focusing on the content of his views. The suspension occurred within 24 hours of his remarks, so there was little time to establish his position on carrying out his duties in light of the policy. The court distinguished between the “expectations” and the “mandate” of the policy.  It found that Cross may not satisfy the expectations but still not violate the policy. Thus, the suspension was viewed as premature and the evidence insufficient.

    That is a remarkable win for a teacher in the current environment. There has been growing pressure to monitor and sanction teachers for public comments. Last year, Winthrop University Professor, April Mustian threatened K-12 teachers that they are being watched for any “rhetoric” deemed pro-police or anti-Black. We previously discussed the Vermont principal who was removed for  expressing her opinion of Black Lives Matter on her personal Facebook page. We also recently discussed the firing of a Michigan coach who expressed support for President Trump. However, this did not begin with the recent protests.  We have previously seen teachers (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) students (here, here and here) and other public employees (here and here and here) fired for their private speech or conduct, including school employees fired for posing in magazines (here), appearing on television shows in bikinis (here), or having a prior career in the adult entertainment industry (here).

    The school could appeal but it would be wise to reframe its position before it reenters litigation. Better yet, it could work out a compromise to protect free speech rights. As I discussed earlier, the rule does state that “School staff shall, at the request of a student or parent/legal guardian, when using a name or pronoun to address the student, use the name and pronoun that correspond to their gender identity.” Yet, this is “when using a name or pronounce to address the student.” What if a teacher simply does not use a pronoun?  If Cross refers to such students by their last name and avoids any pronoun, would that be considered compliance? If so, the board should clearly lay out such options in writing. Indeed, if Cross is fired, such questions could be soon before a court.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 18:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 08

Today’s News 8th June 2021

  • COVID Outbreaks At Taiwanese Chipmakers Is Latest Threat To Global Supplies
    COVID Outbreaks At Taiwanese Chipmakers Is Latest Threat To Global Supplies

    The past few weeks have seen Taiwan’s semiconductor industry hit by a variety of disasters that are creating more problems at a time when an international semiconductor shortage is creating problems around the world, including in the US, where a shortage of critical chips has hurt production of new vehicles. A worsening drought and rolling blackouts are also terrorizing the island.

    Now, two more Taiwan tech suppliers have been hit by new clusters of COVID-19 cases, creating another disruption to production that’s threatening to have an outsize impact on the global supply chain. According to Nikkei, King Yuan Electronics Co suspended all domestic production on Friday, while chip packaging and testing supplier Greatek Electronics and networking gear provider Accton Technology have also reported clusters among employees that have impacted production.

    Both Greatek and Accton have production sites near a King Yuan plant in Miaoli County which has confirmed at least 263 cases as of Sunday (219 involving foreign workers mainly from the Philippines. Around 30% of the company’s workers are migrants). Most of the cases have been linked to workplace outbreaks, with King Yuan workers accounting for half the infections. As a result, the company and local government officials are asking all foreign workers to shelter in place inside their dormitories (typically cramped environments).

    King Yuan has finished testing and has so far reported 195 positive infections out of its workforce of more than 7,000 employees. The final number of cases will be finalized in a few days, a Miaoli health official told Nikkei Asia. The two other companies are still testing their employees.

    Local health authorities have told the companies to ask all of their migrant workers to stay inside dormitories.

    All the new cases prompted the government on Sunday to order King Yuan, which is a key supplier for Nvidia, Intel, MediaTek and many other top global chip developers, to stop all of its foreign laborers from working. The order was effective immediately, regardless of COVID test results.

    “Foreign workers at King Yuan will have to stop working and begin quarantine for at least seven days. Only foreign workers with negative results of PCR tests after the quarantine can return to work,” the CDC director general Chuang Jen-hsiang told Nikkei Asia. “We will have another meeting to decide whether or not King Yuan can resume production later today.”

    The company said it expects the two-day halt to reduce its expected revenue and output for June by up to 6%, while other down-stream companies that rely on King Yuan’s product are also struggling.

    King Yuan on Friday said that its planned 48-hour production suspension was estimated to reduce revenue and output in June by around 4% to 6%. MediaTek, a customer and a leading mobile chip developer, said its revenue will be hit by King Yuan’s production halt.

    “If our foreign workers could not come to work, that will further hit our production output for this month but the scale will need to be further calculated,” a King Yuan spokesperson told Nikkei Asia.

    Taiwanese public-health officials must decree the working environment to be “safe” before production can ramp back up to 100%. Greatek is testing 4K of its employees, more than 1K of whom are migrant workers, while Accton is also testing its 1,500-strong staff.

    As of Sunday, 11 workers at both Greatek and Accton, had been confirmed to have contracted the virus. A majority of these were migrant workers.

    “We haven’t stopped our production lines, but the testing of all employees and some prevention measures will surely affect our production utilization and output,” Chen Sheng, vice president and spokesperson of Greaktek, told Nikkei Asia.

    Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park, widely recognized as the most important hub for Taiwanese chipmakers, has set up a testing station and is testing around 4K out of the roughly 10K migrant workers who work in the area.

    As a reminder, the chart below illustrates how production hiccups in Taiwan can quickly impact supply chains in the US and Europe.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 02:45

  • UK Border Force "Little More Than Taxi Service For Illegal Migrants": Lawmaker
    UK Border Force “Little More Than Taxi Service For Illegal Migrants”: Lawmaker

    Authored by Alexander Zhang via The Epoch Times,

    Britain’s Border Force is “little more than a taxi service for illegal migrants,” a Conservative MP said on Monday, as he urged the government to take action to put an end to the “horrible trade” of people smuggling.

    The Home Office is investigating an incident in which migrants attempting to cross the English Channel were reportedly picked up in French waters by the UK Border Force and taken to the English port of Dover.

    The move was orchestrated between senior crew members of UK Border Force ship HMC Valiant and French patrol ship Athos on May 29, the Daily Mail reported.

    Asking in the House of Commons what the Home Office is doing to tackle human smuggling, Sir Edward Leigh said: “Does the minister recognise the public anger at us being made fools of with this? Border Force is little more than a taxi service for illegal migrants, it’s ridiculous.

    “So will the minister assure me that he will use his powers under the 1971 Immigration Act to arrest all illegal immigrants, put them in detention, prosecute them, imprison them, and deport them so that we can stop this horrible trade dead in its tracks?”

    Responding to the question, Home Office minister Chris Philp said that he “completely” shares Sir Edward’s anger.

    “We are actively prosecuting the facilitators. And in the forthcoming Sovereign Borders Bill, as part of the new plan for immigration, we plan to significantly strengthen the Section 24 illegal entry offence that he refers to in the 1971 act to make it easier to use and easier to implement in practice.

    “And at the same time we are going to be increasing the sentence for illegal entry and the sentence for facilitation under Section 25 of that same act.”

    According to the Home Office, the French authorities dealt with eight incidents involving 130 people on June 4, with the UK dealing with four boats involving 83 people.

    This follows 201 people being stopped by Border Force officers in eight incidents on June 3.

    In addition, the French authorities intercepted nine crossings on June 2 and 3, preventing 171 people from reaching the UK.

    This makes a total of 585 attempting to make the crossing in just three days.

    On Monday, migrants continued to arrive in Dover after crossing the English Channel.

    Kent County Council has threatened legal action against Home Secretary Priti Patel, saying it faces extreme pressure on its services for unaccompanied child migrants.

    The dangerous sea journey from France—made by more than 3,000 people including children so far in 2021—has claimed many lives.

    Police confirmed on Monday that the body of a baby found on a Norwegian beach is that of a Kurdish-Iranian boy who went missing in the English Channel last year.

    Fifteen-month-old Artin was onboard an overcrowded migrant boat heading for the UK with his parents and two siblings when it capsized on Oct. 27, 2020, claiming all five of their lives.

    Artin’s family had sold their house before leaving Iran and paid £14,000 ($20,000) to get on to the boat, with a further £8,200 ($11,600) supposed to be due when they arrived safely in the UK.

    Patel said at the time that the deaths were “an ultimate tragedy” and one that “could have been avoided.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/08/2021 – 02:00

  • Response To Fauci's Emails Proves Everything Is Fake, Narrative Management Trumps Reality, And Those In Power Want It That Way
    Response To Fauci’s Emails Proves Everything Is Fake, Narrative Management Trumps Reality, And Those In Power Want It That Way

    Authored by Nebojsa Malic via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    Watching the media coverage – or lack thereof – of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails and what they mean for the origin of the coronavirus, one is struck by how relentlessly fake everything is, from public health experts to science.

    One of the things the emails suggest is that Fauci colluded with Peter Daszak – head of the EcoHealth Alliance, which channeled US research funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology – to suppress and dismiss any notion that the virus causing Covid-19 may not have evolved naturally.

    Thing is, Daszak actually went around giving interviews about his work in China throughout last year, and nobody in the media thought to connect the dots. Simply put, Donald Trump said the virus came from China and might have come from a lab, therefore that had to be wrong and racist, end of story, case closed.

    That’s just one, most recent and most acute example of Narrative trumping reality at all cost. Millions of deaths, widespread destruction of the economy, tectonic changes in society itself? Small price to pay for “progress” and ensuring the “correct” outcome of the 2020 election, the fortifiers of Our Democracy might say, without anyone batting an eye. “Build back better!” the press parrots instead.

    Trump disagreeing with CNN is a mortal threat to democracy and free speech, but Biden telling a reporter he’d rather run her over with an electric truck than answer a question about the war currently going on in Israel is a funny joke, haha, how hilarious. What flavor of ice cream did you order, sir?

    This may seem partisan at first blush, but let’s remember this is the same media that once proudly carried water for the narrative about “Saddam’s WMDs.” So the old Democrat-vs-Republican dichotomy doesn’t really work here, and misses the bigger picture to boot.

    A truly free society would have no official narratives, Australian columnist Caitlin Johnstone wrote earlier this week. Thing is, modern societies are not free, and official narratives are all they really have. Where would Joe Biden’s legitimacy be without the January 6 Capitol “insurrection” narrative?

    American founders codified the First Amendment because they regarded a free press necessary for a free republic. Yet the corporate media complex and their Big Tech counterparts have become a lapdog, not a watchdog, of power. Even the agencies, once thought neutral and objective, are in on it. AP literally rewrote its stylebook to limit the use of “riot” last summer. Reuters “fact-checked” Biden’s eulogy for Robert Byrd as false because the Democrat senator wasn’t a “grand wizard” of the KKK but merely an “exalted cyclops.”

    What this Orwellian replacement of facts with narratives does is condition the public to echo Hillary Clinton’s infamous Benghazi defense: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

    “Facts” mean nothing to this crowd. “Science” isn’t a rigorous process of finding the truth, but a word-totem invoked to grant authority and banish dissent. “Truth” is whatever they declare it is at the moment, and when it stops being convenient they’ll shamelessly go back and rewrite their own words, pretending all along that that’s what they’ve always believed. Yes, it’s literally Orwellian behavior, but they don’t seem to care.

    After all, what are you going to do, change the channel? Actually, that’s happening. Month after month, ratings reports show CNN and MSNBC getting their clock cleaned by Fox News – and Tucker Carlson in particular. The response is to triple down on wokeness and Democrat talking points, while waging a veritable jihad against Fox for “misinformation.”

    To think that the media will come to their senses when the reality of ratings hits them in the face, therefore, is foolish. They simply don’t give a damn. Could it be that they don’t care for money as much as they care about power? And not just proximity to political power, but the power to shape and control reality itself, to remake society according to their utopian ideas. Even assuming those ideas are good – and that’s debatable at best – having that sort of power corrupts absolutely, to borrow the expression from Lord Acton.

    The media were meant to be a means through which the public collectively perceives reality – not the creators of reality itself! Yet they act as if the latter is true and intended. That’s dangerous. They believe themselves in control of reality, to the point where they’re impossible to reason with. Confront them with actual facts, or principles, or laws of physics, and they either censor you – or cackle and carry on.

    Biden’s behavior starts making sense when you understand he exists in a fantasy world, entirely conjured by the press and his staff. As do thousands of activists, ‘NGOs’ and cultist consumers of US government grants around the world. How does one reach these people, who have internalized the “logic” of Who/Whom? That might be the most important question facing not just the US, but the world, very soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 23:40

  • China Beefs Up Latest COVID Lockdown In Guangzhou As New Cases Climb
    China Beefs Up Latest COVID Lockdown In Guangzhou As New Cases Climb

    Despite having doled out nearly 800MM doses of its home-made COVID-19 vaccines, Chinese authorities are struggling with yet another stubborn outbreak in the city of Guangzhou. A week ago, we reported that local authorities had ordered China’s first lockdown since January. But while initial restrictions were relatively mild compared to the lockdowns imposed in Wuhan, and elsewhere, last year, authorities have decided to tighten restrictions as new cases have continued to be identified.

    The AP reports that residents of the southern Chinese city will no longer be able to leave unless they can show that it is absolutely necessary to do so, following an outbreak of COVID-19 that has sickened dozens of people in recent days.

    According to local authorities, anyone who is given permission to leave must show a negative test for the virus taken in the previous 2 days, according to rules issued by the city government that take effect Monday. The same rule applies to anyone seeking to leave the surrounding province of Guangdong.

    The city also is restricting indoor dining, conducting mass testing and banning residents in high-risk neighborhoods from leaving their homes. At least two districts in the city of 18 million people have been closed off entirely. And any residents who have traveled through the Nansha, Huadu and Conghua districts of the city have been ordered to be tested for COVID immediately. Reuters added that authorities in Nansha also ordered restaurants to stop offering dine-in services while calling on gyms, pools and other public venues to temporarily cease operations.

    Meanwhile, about a dozen subway stops throughout the city were also closed.

    The variant causing the Guangzhou outbreak (the “delta” strain which was first identified in India and has since spread across the US and Europe and Asia) is believed to be more infectious because those who carry it are slower to display symptoms while shedding more virus particles.

    And although Guangzhou hasn’t reported any deaths from the outbreak, the city reported another four locally transmitted cases in the 24 hours to Monday morning, bringing its recent total to more than 100 cases since May 21.

    Nationally, the CCP has been focused on rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to an increasingly younger group of patients. And on Monday, the country revealed that it has authorized the emergency use of one of the Chinese-developed jabs, CoronaVac, for children aged between 3 and 17 years. Coronavac vaccine is being manufactured by the Beijing-based pharmaceutical firm, Sinovac Biotech. Study data show the vaccine has been found to be 51% effective against symptomatic disease and 100% effective at preventing severe COVID-19 and hospitalization on adults 18 years and above.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 23:20

  • CIA (Dis)Information Operations Come Home To The US
    CIA (Dis)Information Operations Come Home To The US

    Via WeMeantWell.com,

    Reporters joke the easiest job in Washington is CIA spokesman. You need only listen carefully to questions and say “No comment’ before heading to Happy Hour. The joke, however, is on us. The reporters pretend to see only one side of the CIA, the passive hiding of information about itself. They meanwhile choose to profit from the other side of the equation, active information operations designed to influence events in America. It is 2021 and the CIA is running an op against the American people.

    Leon Panetta, the Director CIA from 2009 to 2011 explained bluntly his CIA did influence foreign media outlets ahead of elections in order to “change attitudes within the country.” The method, Panetta said, was to “acquire media within a country or within a region that could very well be used for being able to deliver a specific message or work to influence those that may own elements of the media to be able to cooperate, work with you in delivering that message.”

    The CIA has been running such information ops to influence foreign elections since the end of WWII. Richard Bissell, who ran the agency’s operations during the Cold War, wrote of “exercising control over a newspaper or broadcasting station, or of securing the desired outcome in an election.” A report on the CIA in Chile boasts the Agency portrayed its favored candidate in one election as a “wise, sincere and high-minded statesman” while painting his leftist opponent as a “calculating schemer.” At one point in the 1980s foreign media insertions ran 80 a day.

    The goal is to control information as a tool of influence. Sometimes the control is very direct, simply paying a reporter to run a story, or, as was done in Iraq, simply operating the media outlet yourself (known as the Orwellian Indigenous Media Project.) The problem is such direct action is easily exposed, destroying credibility.

    A more effective strategy is to become a source for legitimate media such that your (dis)information inherits their credibility. The most effective is an operation so complex one CIA plant is the initial information source while a second CIA plant acts seemingly independently as a confirming source. At that point you can push information to the mainstream media, who can then “independently” confirm it, sometimes unknowingly, through your secondary agents. You can basically write tomorrow’s headlines.

    Other techniques include exclusive true information mixed with disinformation to establish credibility, using official sources like Embassy spokesmen to appear to inadvertently confirm sub details, and covert funding of research and side gigs to promote academics and experts who discredit counter-narratives. The academics may never know where their money comes from, adding to their credibility.

    From the end of WWII to the Church Committee in 1976, this was all just a conspiracy theory. Of course the US would not use the CIA to influence elections, especially in fellow democracies. Except it did. By its nature reporting on intelligence always requires one to work with limited information. Always give time a chance to explain.

    Through Operation Mockingbird the CIA ran over 400 American journalists as direct assets. Almost none have ever discussed their work publically. CIA documents show journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations. The New York Times alone willingly provided cover for about ten CIA officers over decades and kept quiet about it. Such long term relationships are a powerful tool, so feeding a true big story to a young reporter to get him promoted is part of the game. Don’t forget the anonymous source who drove the Watergate story was an FBI official who through his actions made the careers of  cub reporters Woodward and Bernstein. Bernstein went on to champion the Russiagate story. Woodward became a Washington hagiographer. Ken Dilanian, formerly with the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and now working for NBC, maintains a “collaborative relationship” with the CIA.

    That’s the tradecraft and the history. The problem for America is once again the tools of war abroad have come home. The intelligence community is currently operating against the American people using established media.

    Some of it can’t be more obvious. The CIA always planted stories in foreign media for American outlets to pick up. The Agency works directly with Hollywood to control movies about itself. Turn on any of the advocacy media outlets and you see panels of former CIA officials. Journalist Matt Taibbi even created a list (and since ex-‘s need agency clearance to speak, all are of the officially approved class.) None is more egregious than John Brennan, former Director CIA, who for years touted Russiagate when he knew from information gathered while he was still in office it was all a lie.  The uber-lie that Trump was dirty with Russia was leaked to the press most likely by Brennan in January 2017 as the kick off event to the info op still running today.

    Brennan’s role is more than speculation. John Durham, the US attorney leading the ongoing “how it happened” Russiagate investigation into the intelligence community, has requested Brennan’s emails and call logs from CIA. Durham is also examining whether Brennan changed his story between his public comments (not under oath, say anything) and his May 2017 testimony to Congress (under oath, watch out for perjury) about the dossier. Reporter Aaron Mate is less delicate, laying out the evidence Brennan was “a central architect and promoter of the conspiracy theory from its inception.” Even blunter is Senator Rand Paul, who directly accuses Brennan of trying “to bring down a sitting president.”

    Let’s see how that worked to understand how info ops intertwine with covert ops. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report shows the FBI unleashed a full-spectrum spying campaign based on the root of the information op, the Dossier. Horowitz’s report shows it was a team effort among the 5 Eyes — Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, a man with ties to his nation’s intel services, arranged a meeting with Trump staffer George Papadopoulos to set in motion FBI FISA surveillance. Trump officials were also monitored by British GCHQ. The op used CIA assets, the shadowy academics Mark Halper and Joseph Mifsud, as dangles. We see a honey trap run in classic style, with a female FBI undercover agent inserted into social situations with a Trump staffer. Dossier author and ex-British intel officer Christopher Steele created a textbook officer’s information loop, secretly becoming his own corroborating source.

    It was all based on nothing but disinformation and the American press swallowed every bit of it, turning the op into a three year tantrum falsely convincing a vast number of citizens their nation was run by a Russian asset. Robert Mueller, whose investigation was supposed to propel all this nothing into impeachment hearings, ended up exercising one of the last bits of political courage Americans will ever see in walking right to the edge of essentially a coup and refusing to step off into the abyss.

    The CIA is a learning institution, and recovered well from Russiagate. Details can be investigated. That’s where the old story fell apart. The dossier wasn’t true. But the a-ha discovery was since you’ll never formally prosecute anyone, why bother with evidence. Just throw out accusations and let the media fill it all in for you. The new paradigm included let the nature of the source — the brave lads of the intelligence agencies — legitimize the accusations this time, not facts. Go overt and use the new, unexpected prestige of the CIA as progressive heros to substantiate things.

    So in December 2017 CNN reported Donald Trump, Jr. had advance access to the WikiLeaks archive. Within an hour, NBC’s Ken Dilanian and CBS both claimed independent confirmation. It was a complete lie, based on fabricated documents. How do you confirm a lie? Ask another liar.

    In February 2020, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) briefed the House Intelligence Committee the Russians were election meddling again to favor Trump. A few weeks earlier, the ODNI briefed Bernie Sanders the Russians were also meddling in the Democratic primaries in his favor. Both briefings were leaked, the former to the New York Times to smear Trump for replacing his DNI, the latter to the Washington Post ahead of the Nevada caucuses to damage Sanders.

    In June 2020 The New York Times stated CIA officials concluded the Russians “secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops.”  The story ran near another claiming Trump had spoken disrespectfully about fallen soldiers. Neither story was true. But they broke around the same time Trump announced his plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, aimed at discouraging pro-military voters.

    Earlier this month The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, claimed the FBI gave a defensive briefing to Rudy Giuliani in 2019, before he traveled to Ukraine. Giuliani supposedly ignored the warning. The story was “independently confirmed” by both NBC and The New York Times. It was totally false.

    The American system always envisioned an adversarial role for the media. One of the earliest challenges to freedom of the press was the Colonial-era Peter Zenger case, which established the right of the press to criticize politicians free from libel charges. At times when things really mattered and even as other journalists hid under their beds, men like Edward R. Murrow worked their craft to preserve democracy. Same for Walter Cronkite finally reaching his opposition to the Vietnam War, and the New York Times reporters weighing imprisonment to publish the Pentagon Papers.

    In each of those instances the handful of reporters who risked everything to tell the truth were held up as heroes. Seeing the Times fighting for its life, the Washington Post co-published the Pentagon Papers to force the government to make its case not just against a rival newspaper, but the 1A itself.

    Not today. Journalism is today devoted to eliminating practitioners unwilling to play the game. Few have been targeted more than Glenn Greenwald (with Matt Taibbi as runner up.) Greenwald exploded into a journalistic superhero for his reporting on Edward Snowden’s NSA archive, founding The Intercept to serve as a platform for that work (Greenwald’s downfall parallels Julian Assange, who went from liberal hero for exposing the foundational lies of the Iraq War to zero when his Wikileaks was demonized for supposedly helping Donald Trump.)

    Greenwald’s criticism of the media for accepting Deep State lies as truth, particularly concerning Russiagate, turned him into a villian for progressives. MSNBC banned him, and other media outlets ran stories critical of him. Then something very, very odd happened to make it appear The Intercept outed one of its own whistleblower sources. Evidence suggests the source was a patsy, set up by the intel community, and exposed via Matt Cole, one of The Intercept journalists on this story. Cole was also involved in the outing of source CIA officer John Kiriakou in connection with torture claims. Either way new whistleblowers will think twice before turning to The Intercept. Greenwald recently quit the site after it refused to publish his article on Hunter Biden’s ties to China unless he deleted portions critical of Joe Biden.

    Greenwald seems to have figured out the intel community’s game, writing “the most significant Trump-era alliance is between corporate outlets and security state agencies, whose evidence-free claims they unquestioningly disseminate… Every journalist, even the most honest and careful, will get things wrong sometimes, and trustworthy journalists issue prompt corrections when they do. That behavior should be trust-building. But when media outlets continue to use the same reckless and deceitful tactics — such as claiming to have ‘independently confirmed‘ one another’s false stories when they have merely served as stenographers for the same anonymous security state agents while ‘confirming’ nothing — that strongly suggests a complete indifference to the truth and, even more so, a willingness to serve as disinformation agents.”

    Democracy has no meaning if people simply vote uninformed, as they are propagandized. It will be sport for future historians to mark the thing that most pushed America into decline. Seeing decades of success abroad in using info ops, the CIA and others turned those weapons inward. So seeing her Deep State meddle in presidential politics, simultaneously destroying (albeit mostly with their cooperation) the adversarial media, while crushing faith in both our leaders and in the process of electing them, will certainly be a top qualifier.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 23:00

  • India's Hunger For Gold Extinguished By Covid Lockdowns
    India’s Hunger For Gold Extinguished By Covid Lockdowns

    As cryptos resume their ascent, more bad news has emerged for long-suffering gold bugs, this time out of India.

    As the Nikkei reports, while India’s gold retailers had put all their hopes on the annual festival season last month, they have been disappointed by sluggish sales after most parts of the country were locked down to fight an explosion of COVID infections. They now pin their hopes on the next big peak period after India’s Monsoon season ends, hoping that the COVID crisis eases and that gold prices – which have rebounded from lows in March – remain favourable to encourage buying. Demand for gold from Indian buyers usually helps to underpin the gold price.

    Just two months ago, India’s jewelers were optimistic about demand ahead of the May 14 Akshaya Tritiya, which is a holy day for Hindus, during which gold-buying spikes. In March, benchmark gold prices fell to a nine-month low of below $1,700 an ounce, which spurred hopes that Indians would take advantage of low prices during Akshaya Tritiya.

    But then the COVID situation quickly deteriorated. “Things were looking positive earlier this year, but the rapid surge in COVID-19 cases and subsequent lockdown have changed everything,” said Vijay Soni, who runs a small jewelry store in New Delhi. India, the world’s second largest gold consumer after China, now also has the world’s second highest number of total infections [behind the U.S.] that crossed the grim mark of 400,000 per day several times in May.

    Sunil Jain, who owns a jewelry store in New Delhi, says he has not done any business since the capital city was locked down on April 20.

    “Until early April this year, the business was good as gold prices had come down to around 45,000 rupees ($619) per 10 gram and COVID cases were also not that high. We were hoping to do good business on the Akshaya Tritiya festival on May 14, but now it’s been over a month that we have not sold anything,” Jain told Nikkei Asia.

    “It will take some time for the business to recover,” Jain said, pointing out that sales may pick up from November onward when the wedding season starts. “There’s always demand during the wedding season.”

    Jain is not the only one suffering. Gold sales rose above 100 billion rupees ($1.36 billion) over the Akshaya Tritiya festival in 2019, but tumbled to just five billion rupees last year due to the pandemic and lockdowns.

    Physical gold dealers in India have been offering discounts of up to $19 an ounce compared with the $5 premiums they were charging in March, according to World Gold Council.

    “Having Akshaya Tritiya under [a] lockdown… for two continuous years, the gold and jewelry trade has suffered a big setback,” said Pankaj Arora, national secretary of the Confederation of All India Traders and national convener of All India Jewelers and Goldsmith Federation.

    Demand in China also remains subdued after the Lunar New Year holidays, an auspicious time for many to purchase jewelry, in February.

    Gold retailers in China have also been complaining that they missed the good opportunity to capture sales when prices were lower. “We haven’t seen the demand that we had been hoping for with the decline in gold prices,” said a salesperson at a Shanghai shopping mall branch of a popular jewelry retailer. Maybe it’s because everyone is buying cryptos?

    As a result of the numerous recent setbacks, jewelers are now looking to the end of the year for recovery. Indians typically get married between November and May, but given the COVID situation in India now, many have postponed their weddings to later this year.

    “In general also, people in India prefer to buy gold as a safe haven asset. So, once the lockdown is over, customers may gradually begin to buy again despite the fact that prices have now started going upward,” Jain said.

    Gold prices have risen 13% to $1,900 an ounce by early June from the nine-month low in March. Gold market analyst Koichiro Kamei said falling real interest rates have triggered investors to buy gold again.

    As there is speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve is mulling rolling back its bond-purchasing program, gold is likely to face selling pressure as Treasury yields are expected to rise. Kamei sees gold prices falling to $1,800 if the Fed actually starts talking about tapering.

    In the meantime, India’s jewelers are reaching out to their customers to weather this storm.

    “We have a database of nearly 100,000 customers, and I asked my 50-member staff to call each one of them over [the] phone to just enquire about their well-being [amid rising COVID cases] and not to talk business at all with them,” said G. V. Sreedhar, a jeweler based in Bangalore, the capital city of the southern Karnataka state.

    He added that during these calls, about 2-3% buyers voluntarily said they wanted to invest in gold. “It’s not a small figure. It means that there are over 2,000 customers who genuinely want to buy from us.”

    However, he added, he can only make delivery after lockdown is lifted. “We are only sending them a receipt [electronically] for the items they have blocked to purchase, based on the gold rate of that particular day.

    “I remain optimistic about the gold demand in India,” Sreedhar added.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 22:40

  • Ted Cruz: Facebook Could Be Held Liable For Actions And Correspondence With Dr. Fauci
    Ted Cruz: Facebook Could Be Held Liable For Actions And Correspondence With Dr. Fauci

    Authored by Masooma Haq via The Epoch Times,

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Facebook could be taken to court by those users that had their posts about the Wuhan lab (China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology) leak censored, since recently disclosed emails from Dr. Anthony Fauci show there was correspondence between him and Mark Zuckerberg, after which Facebook started censoring such information.

    “But these latest breakthroughs have real consequence because it is now clear that Facebook was operating at the direction of and in the direct benefit of the federal government and operating as the government censor, utilizing their monopoly position to censor on behalf of the government,” Cruz told Maria Bartiromo the host of Fox News’s, Sunday Morning Futures.

    Cruz made the comment in response to Bartimoro asking, “will these companies ever be held to account for this corporate dominance and misleading of information to the American people?”

    “Well, they certainly should be. Unfortunately, I don’t expect the Biden administration will do anything to hold them to account,” Cruz said.

    “Maria, that’s a very dangerous admission that is now out there for Facebook because it means anybody in the country, or anybody in the world, whose statements, whose speech was censored by Facebook—if you went out and posted the facts that led a year ago, to the very strong likelihood that the COVID virus escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, China—if you posted that a year ago and they took it down, I think there’s a very good argument you have a cause of action against Facebook.”

    Recently revealed emails from Fauci show that he corresponded with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, after which Facebook changed its censorship policy about what information was true and what was “misinformation.”

    Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees Joint Hearing in Washington, D.C., on April 10, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    In February, the social media company stated in a blog post that it would take down posts that contained what it called false claims about COVID-19, including that COVID-19 is man-made and that experimental vaccines could be dangerous. Facebook said at the time that it would remove accounts, pages, and groups that share the claims repeatedly.

    On May 26 Facebook announced that posts pushing the hypothesis that COVID-19 is man-made will no longer be banned on the platform. “In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps,” a Facebook statement said.

    “Facebook would ordinarily say we’re a private company we’re not liable. Well, You know what, when they act at the behest of the government, when they contact Fauci, when they say, ‘should we censor this?’ and Fauci says yes, and they censor it for the federal government—and then magically when the government changes its mind and says, oh, all those facts that were there a year ago now you’re allowed to talk about it, [and] they stopped censoring it with a flip of a switch, that lays a very strong argument that Facebook is operating as a state agency, and that opens very significant legal liability,” Cruz said.

    Meanwhile on Monday, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called for an investigation into Fauci’s actions. “Well, what we do know is that definitely Dr. Fauci and Mark Zuckerberg were in cahoots on this, and it certainly deserves a look and an investigation from Congress,” said Blackburn.

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) recently told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program that the censorship that social media companies like Facebook and YouTube have engaged in needs to be addressed.

    “Now the media and social media have an awful lot to account for,” Johnson said speaking of the censorship by YouTube that he experienced for talking about alternative treatments for COVID.

    The calls to investigate the pandemic’s origins were magnified after the Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology exhibited symptoms severe enough to seek hospital treatment.

    The disclosure led to President Joe Biden directing his national security adviser to develop a report on the virus’s origins, including the possibility that it emerged after a laboratory accident.

    Fauci’s office and Facebook were contacted for comment about Senator Ted Cruz’s comments. The Epoch Times has not heard back from either office yet.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 22:20

  • White House Faces "Tough Sell" Pushing Corporate Tax Reform Through Congress After G-7 Deal
    White House Faces “Tough Sell” Pushing Corporate Tax Reform Through Congress After G-7 Deal

    Following news this afternoon that Amazon likely won’t be able to dodge a proposed new global minimum corporate tax being pushed by Janet Yellen and the Biden Administration. However, there’s a long road ahead for this plan, not just because to truly be effective it must be adopted by the entirety of the OECD, but also the Democrat-held US Congress.

    Although the Dems control the legislative and executive branches of federal government power, the disagreement within their ranks has already resulted in one critical compromise: The negotiators have dropped the minimum rate for the international plan once already from 21% to 15%, and made other adjustments designed to make it more palatable to GOP lawmakers Id I

    The G-7 committed to seek a global minimum corporate tax rate of “at least 15%.” That leaves a potential gap with the 21% rate that Biden has pitched to Congress for U.S. companies’ profits logged abroad. Any discrepancy could mean American firms effectively paying a surtax on profits in some nations.

    “It’s very difficult, and maybe impossible, to call for 15% for an international standard and somehow convince lawmakers on Capitol Hill on 21%,” said Rohit Kumar, a principal at PwC’s Washington National Tax Services. “I would not want to be the person to convince Congress — that is a beyond heroic task.”

    Biden’s tax plans also include a domestic corporate rate of 28%, up from 21% today. All three elements of the levies on businesses face strong opposition from Republican lawmakers, and even Democratic members have cautioned against any rush to legislate, pending a final global deal on a new corporate minimum rate.

    Of course, as BBG reminds us, The G-7 pact is just a prelude to talks with the broader G-20, which Biden is hoping to make significant progress on by late this year. After all that,  Yellen and Biden hope they can eventually push the deal through the OECD (several dozen members) and, finally, tailor a final agreement via the OECD that will be acceptable to some 139 nations, according to the FT (that’s larger than the OECD’s membership).

    To successfully finance President Biden’s spending ambitions without further blowing out the federal budget deficit, Biden won’t only need to raise taxes on American corporations: he will need to block off their ability to flee the US. Back in Obama’s day, many of these deals were carried out via “inversions,” mergers that involved an American company and a foreign shell company.

    Should the deal succeed, it will lead to billions of dollars’ worth of new tax revenue raised by more than 100 countries.

    Top GOP leaders from the Congressional tax-writing committees are already mobilizing to scupper the deal, or at least greatly limit any new taxes for American firms, indicating it might be a “tough sell” in Congress, as BBG put it.

    Senator Mike Crapo and Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republicans on the congressional tax-writing committees, are already mobilizing their members to oppose a deal, and framing it as an issue they could talk about during an upcoming campaign.

    “We continue to caution against moving forward in a way that could adversely affect U.S. businesses, and ultimately harm American workers and jobs at a critical time in our country’s economic recovery,” the pair said in a statement.

    Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican, called the G-7 deal “part of a flawed $3.5 trillion tax hike that will crush American jobs and embolden China and Russia, who would cheat if they even agreed to go along with this radical proposal.”

    Finally, as the FT reminds us, there is still a long way to go before the deal becomes the new international corporate tax framework.

    “This is a starting point,” said French finance minister Bruno Le Maire, pledging that “in the coming months we will fight to ensure that this minimum corporate tax rate is as high as possible.”

    Remember, the essence of this deal involves Washington letting foreign governments in on a revenue bonanza in the form of spreading some of big tech’s tax dollars around. In the end, governments like Singapore and Ireland must give up one of their major competitive advantages – their low minimum corporate tax rates.

    Though it’s not clear whether any enticements will be enough to convince countries like Ireland to abandon one of the biggest policy boons to GDP.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 22:00

  • Liberals' Bizarre Fear Of An Unmasked Nation
    Liberals’ Bizarre Fear Of An Unmasked Nation

    Authored by Ted Rall,

    During last year’s campaign, Joe Biden promised to “listen to the scientists.” He repeatedly said his coronavirus-response policy would be “informed by science and by experts.”

    On issues from the environment to teaching evolution in public schools to the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, liberals often accuse conservatives of putting emotions ahead of facts. While recognizing that the scientific process of acquiring knowledge and putting hypotheses to an empirical test can and often does lead to shifts in consensus, we on the left claim to trust scientists such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert and unlikely media icon.

    After Fauci and other authorities like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told us to wear masks, Blue America listened.

    As of late June 2020, 86% of Democrats wore a face mask whenever they left home, compared with 48% of Republicans.

    Now scientific consensus has changed. But lefties are choosing to ignore the new reality — not that it’s new. Beginning nearly a year ago , in July 2020, the CDC stated that wearing a mask outdoors was unnecessary unless one was less than six feet away from someone else. Aside from crowded events like rallies, sports and concerts, risk of outdoor transmission is lower than a rounding error.

    Clarifying its long-held stance, the CDC said on May 13 that people need not wear a mask outdoors, unless they are in a crowd of strangers, or inside with their “pod” of friends and family members. Masking outside is “optional,” Paul Sax, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told The Washington Post — optional as in unnecessary.

    Let’s pivot toward hope. Nearly half of American adults have been fully vaccinated, and Pfizer is vaccinating children ages 12 to 15. We can go outside, have fun and socialize within the new liberalized guidelines, yet too many people remain traumatized and grimly coasting on paranoid inertia. “It’s the return of freedom,” said Dr. Mike Saag, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

    Weeks after the latest CDC guidelines were issued, however, normalcy and freedom are still in short supply in liberal bastions like my neighborhood in Manhattan, where Biden won 91% of the vote. In compliance with the CDC, I walk outside without a mask because it’s unnecessary. Moreover, I’m fully vaccinated. Rules require that I put one on when I go into a store or ride the subway.

    Furrowed brows, glares and general stink eyes still abound. My neighbors are ignoring the CDC as much as right-wingers in West Virginia did last summer.

    One would expect attitudes to evolve with the passage of time, but that hasn’t been the case so far. When a fellow tenant confronted me recently about my masklessness in the lobby — where I’d been alone prior to her arrival — I informed her that I’d been fully vaccinated. “Everyone in the building has probably been vaccinated,” she said, “but here we still wear them.” I asked why. “It’s just the right thing to do,” she replied.

    At a full-serve gas station in Manhattan, the attendant demanded that I put on my mask before giving me a fill-up.

    “We’re outside,” I pointed out.

    It was windy to boot.

    “The CDC says you don’t need a mask.”

    “I don’t care what the CDC says,” he told me. “I’m going to keep wearing a mask forever, like in Asia.”

    Half-empty streets in majority-Democratic areas — where people are far more likely to get vaxxed — are still, CDC be damned, dotted with people wearing one or two masks on sidewalks where no one can be seen for hundreds of feet. Many of the bemasked will tell you that they have been fully vaccinated. You’ll see people jogging down lonely country roads, riding bikes and driving cars while wearing masks.

    “You can understand that when people have been following a certain trend for a considerable period of time that it may take time for them to adjust” to the new mask rules, Fauci said on May 21.

    “So I would not say that that’s irrational. I’d say that’s understandable.”

    Go ahead, wear a mask indoors if you want to, despite being vaccinated. Wear one outside if you feel like it. However, you are — sorry, Dr. Fauci — acting irrationally. What’s the point of the jab if you behave the same way as a year ago when we wiped down our groceries, bleached our counters and wore plastic gloves out of since-debunked worries over surface transmission?

    Masks have devolved from medical imperative to virtue signaling. According to a May 5 Ipsos poll, 63% of vaccinated Americans were still wearing masks outdoors, down from 74% in April but still a surprisingly high number. That number ticked up to 65% the following week. President Biden has begun appearing in public with his face fully exposed, yet his supporters are not following his example.

    What’s the harm in a fashion accessory that, as the vaxxed-yet-masked crowd informs you, merely tries to make other people feel more comfortable while also sending a subtle anti-MAGA message? It’s about thinking straight. Democrats can’t credibly claim the scientific high ground unless they adapt to the latest medical consensus.

    You have the right to be anxious and illogical, not the right to be catered to. No one should wear a mask outside. Vaxxed Americans shouldn’t wear them at all.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 21:40

  • Russia Hits Canada With Mirroring Sanctions: 9 Officials Barred From Country Indefinitely
    Russia Hits Canada With Mirroring Sanctions: 9 Officials Barred From Country Indefinitely

    Russia has hit back at Canada after March 24 sanctions which saw nine Russian officials banned from Canada over “gross and systematic violations of human rights in Russia” related to the Alexey Navalny saga.

    At that time senior Russian officials had been accused over “the attempted murder” of Navalny last August, which saw the anti-Putin activist hospitalized in Berlin. Moscow had vowed it would prepare retaliatory sanctions in return, and that moment has come Monday, with the foreign ministry announcing a ban on precisely nine Canadian citizens from indefinitely entering its territory. 

    Canada has been among multiple countries, including the US and EU, to level sanctions on Moscow in relation to Navalny, who since his return from Germany to Moscow has been serving a couple year stint at a prison outside the Russian capital stemming from a prior embezzlement case. 

    Also on Monday Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin had some interesting words testifying before Russia’s State Duma (lower house) on Monday.

    “The sanctions regime has always been in place. And it will remain so forever, let us be realistic. Sanctions have been enshrined in many legal acts, in the US and other states, and it is impossible to roll them back,” the diplomat stated.

    “All of them are illegitimate, they were slapped under very shaky pretexts, without any proof, but those facts, which are deemed as committed, cannot be rolled back,” Pankin added. 

    Pankin emphasized that he “would not ask anyone to lift sanctions and would not say sorry for what it is not doing” – which appears a response to the currently hyped accusations of everything from election interference to cyberattacks on US infrastructure to “aggression” in Eastern Ukraine.

    On the latter point, the high-ranking diplomat said, “It’s clear that we won’t give up Crimea. If Crimea is part of Russia, we will always be under sanctions like there were sanctions against the Baltic Region until it separated and became three different states. This is a tough idea, but we need to be realistic.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 21:20

  • Supreme Court Asked To Halt CDC Eviction Moratorium
    Supreme Court Asked To Halt CDC Eviction Moratorium

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

    Alabama and Georgia real estate agents have asked the Supreme Court to block a federal moratorium on evictions that was imposed last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) amid the pandemic.

    Congress enacted a nationwide moratorium on evictions and extended its life through Jan. 31, 2021. The Atlanta-based CDC, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, then imposed its own moratorium at the behest of then-President Donald Trump, the current iteration of which is set to run out on June 30. The theory was that uprooting tenants would spread the virus, which now appears to be in decline. Violators could face criminal penalties and six-figure fines.

    The real estate agents argue in their emergency application in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, filed on June 3, that the CDC’s moratorium “shifted the economic burdens of the pandemic from renters to landlords.”

    “In doing so, the CDC shifted the pandemic’s financial burdens from the nation’s 30 to 40 million renters to its 10 to 11 million landlords—most of whom, like applicants, are individuals and small businesses—resulting in over $13 billion in unpaid rent per month. Since then, the CDC has twice extended its moratorium, which is currently set to expire on June 30, 2021 (unless extended, yet again),” the application states.

    “The total effect of the CDC’s overreach may reach up to $200 billion if it remains in effect for a year. And due to the government’s sovereign immunity, its inability to provide timely rental assistance, and the judgment-proof nature of the tenants covered by the moratorium, that massive wealth transfer (and accompanying government-sanctioned unlawful occupation of property) will never be fully undone.”

    A month ago, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich vacated the moratorium, finding it exceeded the authority that Congress gave the CDC in federal public health laws.

    The Public Health Service Act “authorizes the Department to combat the spread of disease through a range of measures, but these measures plainly do not encompass the nationwide eviction moratorium set forth in the CDC Order,” Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote in a memorandum opinion on May 5.

    “Thus, the Department has exceeded the authority provided in § 361 of the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. § 264(a).”

    The real estate agents referred to the Public Health Service Act as “a rarely-used statute from 1944 dealing with quarantines and inspections for purposes of stopping the spread of disease on an international or interstate basis.”

    They say the CDC claims the statute “bestowed upon it the unqualified power to take any measure imaginable to stop the spread of communicable disease—whether eviction moratoria, worship limits, nationwide lockdowns, school closures, or vaccine mandates.”

    Friedrich stayed her order pending the government’s appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left the stay in place.

    “The stay order cannot stand,” the real estate agents argue in their application.

    “Congress never gave the CDC the staggering amount of power it now claims. Nor do this Court’s precedents permit unlawful agency actions to persist throughout the pendency of an appeal merely because the government has raised serious questions on the merits—a standard that will be satisfied in nearly every case where the government’s authority has been challenged.”

    Chief Justice John Roberts asked the government to respond to the application by 5 p.m. on June 10.

    Acting Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 21:00

  • China Will Use "Coercive Power" To Force Digital Yuan On Population
    China Will Use “Coercive Power” To Force Digital Yuan On Population

    It was supposed to be the biggest threat to the reserve status of the dollar (China’s denial that it has no desire to replace the USD with the digital yuan only confirms it) since the failed experiment that is the “whatever it takes” euro, but instead it is turning out to be one giant yawn.

    While many pundits have argued that China’s digital yuan would be a “potentially fatal challenge” to American hegemony according to historian Niall Ferguson, Templeton’s Hasenstab saying it could undermine the dollar’s role as a reserve currency and even Biden’s White House studying the potential threats to the US currency, one month ago we reported that those who’ve actually used the digital yuan in China offer a vastly different response: big shrugs of indifference.

    After interviewing users of China’s digital currency, Bloomberg noted that they showed little interest in switching from mobile payment systems run by Ant Group and Tencent that have already replaced cash in much of the country, with some openly balking the digital yuan – which recall is programmable and comes with an ad hoc expiration date – and which gives authorities access to real-time data on their financial lives.

    “I’m not at all excited,” said Patricia Chen, a 36-year-old who works in the telecom industry and was one of the more than 500,000 people in Shenzhen eligible to take part in the trial. The lukewarm responses of the seven participants in China’s great monetary experiment underscored the major challenge facing President Xi’s government as it lays the groundwork for adoption at home and abroad. And, as we noted last month, “even if authorities ultimately convince – or rather force – citizens to embrace the digital yuan, it’s unclear how they can do the same with international consumers and businesses already wary of China’s capital controls, Communist Party-dominated legal system and state surveillance apparatus.”

    It’s also why with the Yuan’s share of global payments seemingly capped at around 3% in recent years – in no small part due to China’s closed capital account and great monetary firewall – a digital version of the currency is unlikely to boost its share by much more than 1 percentage point, according to Zennon Kapron, managing director of Singapore-based consulting firm Kapronasia.

    “The global impact will be very small” barring structural changes to China’s economy and financial system, said Kapron, author of “Chomping at the Bitcoin: The Past, Present and Future of Bitcoin in China.”

    Those familiar with China’s grand ambitions suspect that Xi has high hopes for international use of the digital yuan as he tries to lessen his country’s reliance on the U.S.-led global financial system. But so far at least, Chinese policy makers have given mixed signals about their ambitions in public.

    As Bloomberg reports, Zhu Jun, head of the central bank’s international department said in an article last month that China faces an “important window” to promote global use of yuan as U.S.-China decoupling threatens to spread to finance from trade, technology and investment. She said China “should take advantage of the early progress” in the digital yuan’s development to explore potential areas for internationalization.

    There is just one problem: nobody can figure out why they need to use a digital currency which allows authorities to snoop on their every activity, when existing alternatives offer everything the digital yuan can do.

    And speaking of China’s “coercive” tactics to force its currency upon the population, over the weekend Bloomberg penned an op-ed about the digital Yuan that suggests it might be soft launched with the 2022 Winter Olympics; and that it may operate more like the Hong Kong Dollar than a Central Bank Digital Coin, in that the liability may sit on the commercial issuer’s balance sheet, fully backed by CNY reserves. This – as Rabobank’s Michael Every writes – obviously won’t make it very attractive to banks, businesses, or consumers happy with current e-payment systems. As the op-ed notes, one would then have to *compel* them to use it via “the state’s coercive power.” For example, paying civil servants in e-CNY; or, more importantly, demanding tax payment in e-CNY to force people to earn them, so creating a natural demand.

    The full op-ed from Bloomberg’s Andy Mukherjee is below:

    Digital Yuan May Prove Hong Kong Dollar’s Cousin

    The stronger the interest in China’s coming digital currency, the less we seem to know about it. Sifting through comments by officials thought to be the brains behind the project, Capital Economics’ chief Asia economist Mark Williams has raised an interesting question: What if the e-CNY, as some are beginning to call the new electronic cash, is not at all a central bank digital currency?

    Most of us are by now familiar with electronic money, but popular apps like PayPal or Alipay are linked to bank accounts. A true central bank digital currency will bypass lenders and make us directly the customers of monetary authorities. We’ll use the liability of a central bank to pay for coffee or a book.

    The excitement with the digital yuan — or the FedCoin or BritCoin — is precisely because of this: Tokenized money is supposed to be an IOU of a central bank, just like physical cash. We may use an ATM to draw down our accounts, but as soon as we do, the bank owes us less. The state owes us more. Digital cash has been conceptualized the same way. When we transfer funds from a savings account into our digital wallets, the commercial bank goes out of the picture, and the central bank steps in. Tokens make credit risk disappear from settlements. Transactions can remain anonymous unless the monetary authority wants to lift the hood to check for money-laundering.
    However, if Williams is right, then e-CNY, which is believed to be heading for a soft launch coinciding with the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, may not be a claim on the People’s Bank of China. Then, “It isn’t strictly a CBDC at all,” he says. It may, in fact, be a digital relative of the Hong Kong dollar.

    Since 1846, banknotes in the city have been the liability of commercial issuers. The three banks that supply everyday money maintain full reserves with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. That’s why nobody sitting on a pile of Hong Kong dollars is anxious about the creditworthiness of HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered Plc or Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd.

    Digital yuan may have a similar design, according to Williams’s reading of former PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan’s statements. The e-CNY will be the liability of the bank or fintech sponsor of digital wallets. They will issue tokens, each worth 1 yuan, and they will maintain reserve assets in their accounts with the central bank in the ratio of 1:1.

    Customers sleep easy, though there’s a cost for intermediaries. Suppose a saver has 100 yuan in a Chinese bank. The major institution that holds her money has to keep 12.5% in required reserves with the PBOC. The rest is free for the lender to seek the best possible return. If the user moves funds to her e-CNY wallet, the bank would have to keep the full 100 yuan with the PBOC. In a pure digital currency model, the bank would have lost the entire deposit, something that no central bank running a digital cash pilot or experiment wants. However, if to retain a deposit, the lender has to put up cash for the entire amount, it may still be forced to curb advances. What bank would embrace a product like that?

    That’s one reason why Williams seems to think that the digital yuan will be a hard sell. Consumers in China are already getting all the flexibility they want with Alipay or WeChat Pay, which are entrenched and offer highly innovative uses. Similarly, banks will be loath to lock 100% of even a part of their deposits in idle reserves. The duopoly of Alipay and WeChat Pay, which processes 94% of China’s third-party mobile-phone payments, will be reluctant to give up their rich harvest of consumer data.

    So how to make the digital yuan work?

    A neat solution — as with every form of money, according to the Chartalist theory — is to use the state’s coercive power. All that authorities need to do is to pay civil servants and demand tax payments only in official digital currency. Payment platforms will then have no option except to offer an e-CNY alternative. In a few years, offering customers such a choice might even become mandatory.

    As Williams says, “Left to the market, e-CNY is unlikely to succeed. But the government doesn’t have to leave it to the market.”

    China’s long-standing ambition to challenge the dollar’s hegemony in global commerce hasn’t gone anywhere. A digital yuan that’s a popular means of payment overseas, especially in the Belt-and-Road network, would reinforce that goal. But before that, Beijing has to ensure widespread domestic use. So policy makers’ more immediate motivation may be to curb the sway of local tech titans, with minimum damage to banks’ deposit base.

    The final architecture of the new currency is still unknown, but conceiving e-CNY as a cousin of the Hong Kong dollar — a synthetic central bank digital currency issued by banks and payment firms — and flexing the muscles of state power might tick most of the boxes.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 20:40

  • The Mysterious $85 Billion Surge In China's FX Reverse Repo
    The Mysterious $85 Billion Surge In China’s FX Reverse Repo

    By Ye Xie, Bloomberg reporter and Markets Live commentator

    A mysterious surge in dollar lending by Chinese banks in an arcane corner of the financial market is leading some investors to wonder whether it’s somehow related to the “stealth intervention” by the PBOC to slow yuan appreciation.

    For years, Chinese banks had little use for foreign-currency reverse repo, which is effectively collateralized lending. That has dramatically changed since the pandemic. Banks’ FX reverse repos surged to a record $87 billion in April, from less than $2 billion a year earlier.

    “Historically, Chinese banks FX assets and liabilities have consisted almost exclusively of loans and deposits,” Alex Etra, a senior strategist at Exante Data who previously worked at the New York Fed, wrote in a blog post. “But the surge in interbank lending (via reverse repo) in recent quarters is quite stark.”

    It’s unclear why there’s this sudden surge. But what we do know is that:

    1. There’s a lot of dollar inflows to China through trade and portfolio investment over the past year.
    2. A lot of these flows have been absorbed by Chinese banks, while the PBOC shows few signs of intervention on its balance sheet. Without commercial banks’ activities, the yuan would have appreciated more.
    3. As a result, commercial banks have taken more currency risks. For example, Bank of China, one of the largest state lenders, used to be a net borrower in the FX swap market, but has become a net lender, according to Etra. The bank’s net open foreign-currency position on and off-balance sheet rose to $19 billion last year, the highest level since 2014.

    It’s debatable whether Chinese banks are accumulating dollar assets and taking on more currency risks for commercial reasons, or if they are acting on behalf of the central bank to engage in “stealth intervention.”

    But as Etra noted, so long as China runs a current account surplus, and global investors continue to purchase more Chinese assets, “someone somewhere in China is going to have plenty of dollars to lend.”

    Janet Yellen’s Treasury Department has been keen to learn more about activities by Chinese state banks in the currency market. The curious surge in dollar lending in the derivative market could be a good starting point.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 20:20

  • Blinken Says Biden Will Put "Future Cyberattacks" Front & Center In Putin Summit
    Blinken Says Biden Will Put “Future Cyberattacks” Front & Center In Putin Summit

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an appearance on “Axios on HBO” previewed what he expects to come out of the Putin-Biden summit set for June 16 in Geneva. The short answer is: not much except for vague warnings and threats, it appears. Blinken said during the interview that the US president intends to warn Putin “directly and clearly what he can expect from the United States if aggressive, reckless actions toward us continue.”

    While explaining that Washington would prefer a “more stable” relationship with Russia, Blinken also sought to distance the White House from growing criticism that Biden is getting ‘weak’ on promises to “stand up” to Putin, particularly after recently dropping sanctions on the German company overseeing completion of the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 pipeline. 

    Blinken tried to assure Axios’ Mike Allen that Biden is meeting with Putin face to face to deliver a tough message: 

    Biden is meeting with Vladimir Putin nine days from now “not in spite of” the cyberattacks that disrupted U.S. meat and gas supplies: “It’s because of them.”

    He further repeated the prior common assessment of US officials which don’t see any “breakthrough” coming from the meeting.

    “I can’t tell you whether I’m optimistic or not about the results,” Blinken said. “I don’t think we’re going to know after one meeting, but we’ll have some indications… We’re prepared either way.”

    His comments on US leadership in the world and China seeking opportunity to take over where Washington influence is absent or waning were also interesting…

    “We’ve certainly seen China … try to fill voids where we’ve been relatively disengaged.” And he added the caveat –  “and maybe not in a way that advances our interests or values.”

    “Our partners see the same thing that we do,” he explained. “If you’re looking at all of the really big problems that we’re trying to solve — … like the pandemic, like climate change, like emerging technologies … — no one country can do it alone.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 20:00

  • The Currency Story Has Undergone A Silent, Subtle Curve Shift
    The Currency Story Has Undergone A Silent, Subtle Curve Shift

    By Ven Ram, Bloomberg reporter and macro commentator

    Front-end yields held hostage by central banks around the world have engendered a silent shift in currency pricing: exchange movements are being increasingly influenced by changes in the intermediate and longer segments of the yield curve.

    Currencies that were typically more responsive to relative changes in yields at, say, the two-year part of the curve are now responding more and more to shifts at the five- and 10-year segments, with the dollar being a case in point.

    The chart above shows how closely the Dollar Index has tracked five-year real yield spreads between the U.S. and Germany (hat tip to J. Paul Knight, assistant portfolio manager of U.S. large-cap equity at the Employees Retirement System of Texas for his observation). Indeed, the correlation between the spreads and the dollar in the past year is running at 0.57, reflecting its influence on the currency. Taken together with 10-year differentials , the two points of the curve delineate the trajectory of the dollar by more than four-fifths.

    To be sure, it wasn’t always like this. Take a look at this chart above that encompasses a longer time frame, which shows the Dollar Index ignoring the movement in spreads. That was a time clearly before the pandemic when the U.S. economy was still in the midst of its longest post-war expansion, with central banks not anywhere near controlling the yield curve, de facto or de jure.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 19:40

  • MTA Inspector General "Furious" After Probe Finds Seven Track Inspectors "Skipped" And "Falsified" Inspection Reports
    MTA Inspector General “Furious” After Probe Finds Seven Track Inspectors “Skipped” And “Falsified” Inspection Reports

    It looks like much to the surprise of no one, there’s considerable waste and malfeasance taking place at the perpetually-taxpayer-bailed-out MTA.

    A new MTA inspector general’s report has revealed that MTA track engineers – to quote Rep. Al Green talking about Citadel earlier this year – “have been naughty for some time”.

    The inspector general is reportedly “furious” after the findings of an 11 month investigation found that seven NYC Transit track inspectors were skipping inspections and falsifying inspection reports. The employees in question have been suspended, according to an RT&S report.

    But rather than fire all seven employees – in true taxpayer funded fashion – only one was fired while “six of the track inspectors received a final warning that similar conduct could result in termination and are prohibited from performing track inspections for five years,” the report says.

    The MTA Inspector General (OIG) also, as part of the probe, performed an audit to determine how such deception could occur without management’s knowledge. The answer? There could be “significant, systemic issues with how supervisors and managers at NYC Transit oversee the work of track inspectors”.

    MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny said: “It is appalling that so many track inspectors, on so many occasions, skipped safety inspections, filed false reports to cover their tracks, and then lied to OIG investigators about it. Management needs to utilize a technology that will ensure supervisors can verify when inspectors do their job – and when they do not.”

    You can read the full MTA/OIG report here. Its findings were summarized as follows:

    • Supervisors did not verify track inspectors’ walks, either in real time or after the fact. Track supervisors until recently were expected to rely on a series of self-reported status updates from the inspectors to confirm that inspections were occurring daily. Supervisors were not expected to directly observe inspectors in the field and thus did not know that some inspectors were not actually performing their inspections as assigned.
    • Interim controls that Track put in place after the OIG investigation report was issued create records that could be analyzed retroactively with much effort but do not provide assurance in real time.
    • The new IT application (Infor EAM) rolled out in the first quarter of 2021 for track inspections does not take full advantage of the technology’s capability to quickly place the inspector at a given location at the appropriate time. One limitation is that the application cannot make use of the GPS feature on cellphones to track employees directly due to a pre-existing agreement between management and the union not to do so except for certain circumstances.
    • Track’s policies, oversight, and monitoring of workers’ cellphone usage are inadequate.

    The inquiry was opened back in January 2020 after reports of track debris large enough to cause damage and injury were reported. The failure to spot the debris had the OIG “concerned that inspectors might not be walking their assigned sections”. A follow up investigation “repeatedly found inspectors, who work with limited oversight, absent from their duties.”

    In addition to simply not doing their jobs, track inspectors were also found to be using their personal cell phones when they were supposed to be inspecting, creating a “safety hazard for themselves, other employees, and customers; and further illustrating their lack of attention to their duties”.

    And it starts with the tone at the top: track supervisors did not verify track inspectors’ walks, either, the report also revealed.

    Looks like it’s time for another fare hike!

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 19:20

  • Malaysian Police Use Heat Drones To Check People's Temperatures From Above
    Malaysian Police Use Heat Drones To Check People’s Temperatures From Above

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Malaysian police are using drones which can check temperatures from as high as 20 meters above ground in the latest example of coronavirus population control.

    The drones alert authorities if someone has a high temperature reading by emitting a red light, according to Bernama, Malaysia’s state news agency.

    “Malaysian police have previously warned they will use drones to enforce earlier travel restrictions, with officers in some areas also stating they would carry out surprise home visits to ensure people were following rules,” reports the Guardian.

    There have been numerous previous examples of authorities deploying surveillance drone technology to enforce COVID-19 rules.

    Authorities in Spain have used surveillance drones to make sure people who visit beaches are complying with social distancing regulations.

    In Brussels, Belgium, police used drones fitted with loudspeakers to bark orders to people to “stay at home.”

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    In Australia, more expensive drones were used to catch people not wearing masks while also scanning for vehicles that were parked more than 5km from their owner’s home.

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    In the UK, authorities were blasted for using surveillance drones to keep tabs on dog walkers in remote areas to check if they were hiking too far from home.

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 19:00

  • Senior Japanese Olympic Official Jumps In Front Of Train In Suspected Suicide
    Senior Japanese Olympic Official Jumps In Front Of Train In Suspected Suicide

    Tokyo Police are investigating an apparent suicide on Monday morning (local time) of a senior official at the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) who jumped in front of a subway train. 

    Nippon TV’s News24 channel reports Yasushi Moriya, who led JOC’s accounting department, apparently ended his own life in the Tokyo Metro system. Police have yet to release details surrounding the death of the official. 

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    The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, which were canceled last summer due to the virus pandemic, are expected to begin on July 23 and end on August 8.

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    Despite recent objections from government scientists and prominent business people, Japan is moving forward with the postponed 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo next month. In an interview with the Japanese press, the president of the 2020 Games, Seiko Hashimoto, declared that the event would move ahead as planned, with the Japanese government taking certain precautions to prevent an outbreak of mutant COVID.

    “We cannot postpone again,” Hashimoto told the Nikkan Sports newspaper via Reuters. This is happening as a recent rise in Japan’s coronavirus numbers.

    Even if the Games are held, the entire event will be a financial disaster for the country who went well over budget to stage it. This is because foreign fans have been barred from entering all sporting events, and those who are eligible to enter will need a negative COVID-19 test or vaccination history. Once inside, spectators might be forbidden from eating, drinking, and cheering. 

    A recent study by Britain’s Oxford University said the Tokyo Olympics are the most expensive summer games ever. With no foreign fans allowed, the alleged suicide of the JOC’s accounting department head makes you wonder just how bad of investment the Games will turn out to be. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 18:40

  • Imagine Being A Central Banker In June 2021
    Imagine Being A Central Banker In June 2021

    By Larry McDonald, author of the Bear Traps Report

    Imagine sitting in the seat of a central banker in June of 2021. You are looking down the barrel of millions of AMC nutjobs making up 9% of all U.S. equity market option volume on Friday and 8.2 million jobless Americans.

    Since Jackson Hole (August 2020) you have been lecturing most of the planet ́s inhabitants that ridding the world of inequality is closest to your heart. Above all your message has been, “we did it all wrong in previous hiking cycles in pulling back accommodation too soon, this time we are going to let it run hot and lift all Americans up into the heavens.”

    After the loud song and dance messaging, we have a moral hazard overdose and a job market that won’t normalize at the current pace until October 2022 (837k jobs created the last TWO months vs. 8.2-million-person shortfall in the labor force vs. January 2020 levels).

    U.S. central bankers have two choices:

    • a) stay dovish and sow the seeds of a Lehman, LTCM event, while manufacturing more Bernie Madoffs and Al Dunlaps monthly or
    • b) arrest accommodation and throw your social justice mantra out the window.

    You want that job? NO thanks.

    Over the last week it looks a lot like last month. Payrolls miss, bonds are bid with a HOT CPI waiting in the wings this coming Thursday. Clients we respect in the Bloomberg chat are talking up the U.S. Rates (lower) vs. Brent Oil (higher) divergence. This speaks to the power of the global re-opening catchup, fleeting American exceptionalism.

    We continue to be oil bulls with India and Europe coming on strong with surprise demand upside. Since May 12, the copper – gold ratio has reversed favoring the precious metal. This is important to monitor, right on the 14-month trend line.

    What is hyperinflation? From 1993 to 2020, the Fed ́s favorite inflation measure (PCE YoY) has ranged from 0.97% to 2.46%, with no exceptions.

    After walking through this long valley, asset prices have been highly conditioned for “beyond tame” data. By this definition, anything near 3.00% is hyper. Today, PCE YoY is at 3.06% with $5T of U.S. GDP (California CA –NY New York), locked down for most of Q1 and Q2.

    We see a meaningful inflation shock in the weeks/months ahead. Rents are rising fast across the U.S., and heretofore they have held back CPI and PCE inflation data. A mean-reversion is in the works and will drive inflation expectations higher – gold bullish.

    We make the case; 1) wage pressures are vastly underestimated, 2) labor as a political power base is surging, and 3) a colossal secular shift is upon us.

    The G7 “Global Minimum Tax” agreement still has some wood left to chop, BUT do NOT underestimate the importance of this trend. There are bills to pay and FAANGMT have a target on their back.

    In the growth vs. value tug of war, the former has seen six months of failed rallies with lower highs. We will use pullbacks in commodity sector longs to add to positions and sell tech rallies.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 18:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jun 07

Today’s News 7th June 2021

  • British Army's New Ajax Tank Makes Troops Sick 
    British Army’s New Ajax Tank Makes Troops Sick 

    The British Army is modernizing its forces with new armored fighting vehicles. One vehicle, in particular, called the “Ajax,” produced by General Dynamics UK, has been in testing with the service after a multi-billion dollar deal. But there’s a problem, the vehicles are so noisy and vibrate violently during operations that tank crews are becoming sick, according to The Times. 

    The UK government ordered 589 Ajax tanks, formerly known as the Scout SV (Specialist Vehicle), a family of armored fighting vehicles being developed by General Dynamics. A deal between the service and the defense firm was inked in 2014 for $4.5 billion, and after trials in November, it appears these tanks are far from battle-ready. 

    It prompted the service to pause testing from late November to March. Over 20 mph, tank crews experience extreme vibrations and loudness, resulting in some troops suffering from swollen joints and ringing in their ears.

    A defense industry source told The Times the tanks were so loud during operation that up the chain of command, there were fears that long-term use of these new tanks, crews would develop “neurological issues.” 

    The military has issued special noise-canceling headsets to correct the issue. 

    When the tank is underway, extreme vibrations have caused a much larger problem – tank crews cannot fire the cannon on the move with precision. 

    General Dynamics issued a statement and said it “continues to work closely with the British Army and Ministry of Defence to complete the remaining demonstration phase activities.” 

    “A small number of remaining issues are being reviewed and closed out in partnership with the British Army.”

    The Ministry of Defence also issued a statement: 

    “We are committed to the Ajax program, which will form a key component in the Army’s modernized war-fighting division, with current plans for initial operating capability scheduled for summer 2021.

    “The MoD can confirm some training on the Ajax vehicles was paused as a precautionary measure. This is a normal measure for the demonstration phase of projects.

    “The health and safety of our personnel is of the utmost importance.”

    Meanwhile, Russian forces are being equipped with fifth-generation fighter jets and hypersonic missiles, and a “revolutionary” new main battle tank called the T-14 Armata. 

    Some Western military experts are concerned that the Armata could outclass NATO’s tank fleets, such as the US’ M-1 Abrams, Germany’s Leopard 2, and Britain’s Challenger 2.

    The UK modernization efforts with faulty tanks don’t seem like a winning success if the West taunts the Russian bear. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 02:45

  • Putin Says That First Line Of Nord Stream 2 Is Now Complete
    Putin Says That First Line Of Nord Stream 2 Is Now Complete

    Via OilPrice.com,

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that laying the pipes for the first of two lines of the prospective Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany has now been “successfully completed.”

    Addressing an economic forum in St. Petersburg on June 4, Putin also said that “work on the second line is continuing.”

    While the underwater section still needs to be linked to the section on German territory, Russian energy giant Gazprom “is ready to start filing Nord Stream 2 with gas,” he added.

    Gazprom shares went up 0.6 percent after Putin’s comments, reaching 273.80 rubles ($3.74) — their highest level since mid-2008.

    The United States, which has strongly opposed construction of the new Russian pipeline, last month announced new sanctions against Russian companies and ships involved in the project.

    But the administration of President Joe Biden decided to waive sanctions against the company overseeing the project and its CEO.

    In Washington, the move was met with criticism from Republicans and some Democrats, while the Kremlin hailed it as a “positive signal” ahead of a June 16 summit between Biden and Putin.

    The Baltic Sea pipeline was at the center of a political tussle between Berlin and Washington during the previous administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Since coming into office in January, Biden has sought to heal relations with Europe after they were bruised under his predecessor.

    U.S. officials have warned the pipeline will make Europe more dependent on Russian energy supplies and bypass Ukraine, which relies on gas transit fees.

    The German government has refused to halt the project, arguing that it is a commercial venture and sovereign issue.

    Putin told the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that Russia will continue pumping 40 billion cubic meters of gas via Ukraine a year in line with the existing five-year contract.

    Kyiv is locked in a confrontation with Moscow over Russia’s 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Black Sea Crimean Peninsula and the Kremlin’s support of separatists in eastern Ukraine.

    Describing the U.S. use of the dollar as a political weapon, Putin also said that European states should pay for Russian gas in euros, a day after Moscow said it would remove dollar assets from its National Wealth Fund while increasing the share of the euro, Chinese yuan, and gold.

    “The euro is completely acceptable for us in terms of gas payments. This can be done, of course, and probably should be done,” he said.

    Russia has long moved to reduce the dollar’s share in its hard-currency reserves as it has faced waves of U.S. sanctions amid heightened tensions with the West over issues including the conflict in Ukraine, cyberattacks allegedly by Russian hackers, and Russia’s treatment of jailed opposition activist Aleksei Navalny.

    In an interview with state-run Channel One television on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg forum, Putin said he expected “no breakthrough” from his meeting with Biden, but expressed hope that the talks will be held in a “positive atmosphere.”

    “But the very fact of our meeting, that we will speak about possibilities for restoring bilateral relations, about matters of mutual interest, and, by the way, there are a lot of them, is quite good as such,” he added.

    Late last month, Biden said he would press his Russian counterpart to respect human rights when the two leaders meet.

    The U.S. president in March said he believed Putin was a “killer,” which prompted a diplomatic row that led to Moscow recalling its ambassador to Washington for consultations.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/07/2021 – 02:00

  • The DARPA-Taped Letters
    The DARPA-Taped Letters

    Via Harvard2TheBigHouse Subsatck,

    Why have several researchers with close ties to the CCP been undermining the dissemination of peer reviewed research which looks at a lab origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic and gain-of-function research?

    Few things are as nerve-racking as your first day at a brand-new school in a brand-new state, that’s on the other side of the country.

    And so I was beyond relieved when the teacher of my second grade class Mrs. Mongelluzzo – easy to spell with the Mickey Mouse Club cadence – told everyone at the end of a rough first day that to help break the ice, everyone should try and bring a joke back to class the next day as their only homework. Knowing my dad seemed to at least think he was pretty hilarious, I waddled home so fast that I almost started rolling at one point, eager to call my dad at work to get the joke to help me fit in with a class of eight and nine year-olds the next day.

    I’m not sure I’ve ever raised my hand faster in my life that next day, when Mrs. Mongelluzzo asked if anyone had remembered their homework and returned with a joke. Brand news class, all eyes on me, time to show I can fit in:

    “Alright, so… how do you tell a male chromosome, from a female chromosome?

    (At this point I assumed the confused looks meant my classmates were deeply pondering this profound genomic kaon.)

    “Well… of course – YOU JUST PULL DOWN ITS GENES!!”

    And so I learned my first hard lesson in the school of having a Microbiology PhD father trying to help you navigate through novel social situations. Or any social situations. But I digress. 

    However the good news was that although my dad’s job might not have made fitting in among my peers any easier, he more than made up for it during my first Take-Your-Kid-to-Work Day a few weeks later. Riding the Red Line from the Shady Grove Metro decades later while living in a halfway house as an ex-con and felon for the rest of my life, GPS anklet banging around underneath my extra-long khakis, I had a hard time imagining myself back then, staring out the window, oblivious to so much of the world that prison would later reveal to me.

    But for eight-year-old me, the metro was the first part of the most incredible adventure of my life up to that point. 

    After the metro it was just one science-fiction escalator ride towards an impossibly distant windy pinpoint, stopping to ask the friendliest pair of glasses I could find for directions to the right building, and then one elevator later – I stepped into a massive slew of cubicles, absolutely terrible haircuts and pocket-protectors as far as the eye could see – but most importantly for me, a crowd that would appreciate my sense of humor.

    After the laughs and smiles it was kaleidoscopic protein models that spun and danced on screens and the same microscopic structures that I remembered from my dad’s t-shirts blow-up to preposterous proportions and popping up on office walls and projector screens, I felt like I’d walked into a movie set – watching discoveries and knowledge get summoned into existence in real-time, and being able to poke around and find a community that loved the fact I had something of a precious science vocabulary and wasn’t afraid to ask what might be a stupid question… since the other hand of that is it just might be a really good one too.

    So all of these happy formative memories swirled back to the surface when shortly after our paper examining a laboratory origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic was published in August 2020, the end of a journey that’d started with its submission back in April, a handful of random folks emailed us. My assumption initially and for several weeks afterwards was that at least one of them had been an old colleague of my father’s, since I mean – after you have your PhD for about 40 years you tend to build up a fairly long list of contacts.

    However once a bit of time had passed and I thought about it, I wasn’t aware of my dad ever significantly interacting with a former Secretary of the Navy and Obama advisor directly attached to defense work, a federal global technology S&T researcher interested in engaging with China and who it’s hard to imagine hasn’t been extensively involved with defense programs, an MIT artificial intelligence and cyber-security wonk with extensive ties to the defense industry, and a scientist part of another team which denigrated my father’s career and said he never should’ve written a paper like ours also with extensive ties to DARPA and the defense industry.

    Even more bizarre, that former Secretary of the Navy spent much of 2020 directly lobbying with the help of Johns Hopkins for more scientific and academic engagement and cooperation with the CCP, alongside the sitting Director of National Intelligence (and soon to be oxymorons), Avril Haines. And so maybe it should raise a few eyebrows that the sitting Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, attempted to scrub existence of his company’s efforts to aid and abet the CCP placing students and researching into American institutions and especially key STEM programs via multi-million dollar contracts from the internet. 

    This company, WestExec Advisors, is also tied to the current Press Secretary, Jen Psaki.

    And it was only co-founded by Blinken, it’s other founder writes whitepapers alongside Avril Haines, since it’s all one big happy not-even-vaguely-corrupt-and-compromised mob family.

    Oh and Ms. Psaki just spent today telling the American people that there’s no grounds whatsoever that would cause President Biden to fire Tony Fauci. Not even treason? 

    In a time of war? Because the punishment for that very clearly isn’t losing your job – it’s losing your life via state execution. And so aiding and abetting the the Chinese Military in covering up the worst war-crime in human history would certainly be nominal groups for a bullet to the head, or however the government is doing it these days. 

    And in case any of this sounds a bit outlandish, turns out there’s been a high-level defector from China in America for several months, working alongside the DIA exclusively since “DIA leadership believes there are Chinese spies or sources inside the FBI, CIA, and several other federal agencies.”

    The idea that there’s even a discussion as to whether or not SARS-CoV-2 was engineered is entirely absurd, the only people acting like this is in doubt at all are looking to cover as many asses as they possibly can while directly aiding and abetting a disinformation campaign being run by the Chinese Military, and simultaneously keep the door open to violate as many Natural Laws as they possibly can.

    Most notably, Alina Chan, who’s already designed a protocol to insert freaking Ebola into human cells, and has been falsely presenting herself as some sort of honest actor while literally attempting to bribe other scientists to hide the truth.   

    And so as our emails with this giant wildly corrupt and conflicted cabal of DARPA-JHU-WestExec squad of fuckbois below recounts, their contact with us has become even stranger considering what’s happened since… and what hasn’t happened. Instead of our ideas being embraced by the wider scientific community like I would’ve expected from my childhood, they’ve been marginalized and our voices largely ignored.

    My father wouldn’t even let me take the super-cool U.S. Government pens to use in school since it could technically considered stealing, he’s never sniffed anything resembling defense work or the hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to do it, been anywhere near Big Pharma, or sought membership in some sort of international group or organization that’s supposed to somehow give one credibility since you can say you’re a part of it and it allows you to claim expertise you simply do not have. 

    And maybe my dad’s existence as just a simple scientist a good thing.

    Because if this pandemic has demonstrated anything, it’s that our international institutions have not only failed us as they’ve enabled the profiteering of public citizens that’s turned what was once a historic wealth gap in human history into one that’s only ever been demonstrated before in science-fiction movies, all the while we die off in the worst ongoing mass casualty event in generations. And these international organizations and their false sense of authority enable charlatans like Peter Daszak to corrupt and defile the scientific process by hiding behind imaginary xenophobia, when all he’s really been doing is running interference for the people providing the funding for his work.

    Because if one thing is certain, it’s that he has no interest in anything other than preserving the many hundreds of millions of dollars of funding he collects a six-figure salary to coordinate – as opposed to being worried about saving human life or getting to the bottom of this pandemic. And yet he doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the “dual-use” side of the gain-of-function methodologies like serial passage refer to their possible uses in the defense industry, and now by those wishing to continue playing God and attempting to directly alter the human genome in at attempt to cheat nature’s basic strictures.

    Maybe it’s more than a coincidence that the last point made by the biggest cinematic franchise in history is that playing games with reality and attempting to manipulate the popular media’s perception of it can put an enormous number of lives at risk, and that there’s a lot of money to be made and power to be seized when seemingly benign international groups present themselves with authority they do not have, and with responsibilities they refuse to uphold.

    Maybe those movies were on to something.

    However, sure, maybe my dad and I are mistaken and there is something wrong with our paper which accounts for so many seeking to exclude it from the discussion at this point and keep our voices out of the media.

    We’re waiting.

    From: Karl Sirotkin PhD Date: Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 10:51 AM

    Mr. Danzig, Dr. Kwik-Gronvall, Mr. Triolo, Dr. Leighton, and Mr. Mallery:

    When you all initially contacted my son and I about our paper, Might SARS‐CoV‐2 Have Arisen via Serial Passage through an Animal Host or Cell Culture? my initial thoughts went to fond memories I have from much earlier in my career when I was publishing more.

    On both occasions, scientists reached out to me after a paper I’d written was published, excited about my work, and asked me to present it at conferences.

    However, since your group initially contacted us to point out that we hadn’t properly supported one of our assertions, to which we replied with the citation which we had mistakenly left out, we have heard nothing at all from any of you since. Unlike my previous experiences, your group doesn’t seem at all interested in helping what you called “a real contribution” to the discussion around the origins of COVID-19 gain any traction anywhere, either among fellow professionals or the popular press.

    Your contact seems different and outside my normal experience as a professional.  If Mr. Danzig was simply curious about the 1977 influenza incident, I would have simply expected him to ask, so the rest of the distribution seems a bit mysterious, and frankly we are curious about the motivation especially considering the silence since and where things now stand.

    The larger distribution seems odd to me, since the four of you come from such diverse backgrounds. And it was made ever stranger after Dr. Kwik-Gronvall’s team at John Hopkins asserted that I was not qualified to write our paper, as part of a team with extensive ties to DARPA and the defense industry. A characteristic that, to an outsider, would also seem to bind your group together as well?

    Unless I am mistaken and the four of you have some other longstanding interest in gain-of-function work outside of DARPA and other defense work that brought you together to email us about the use of serial passage in our paper?

    Finally, are you aware of Alina Chan, who is attached to the Broad Institute and MIT as many of you are, actively telling reporters to ignore the peer review process, and presenting herself as some kind of expert after this article which reads like badly-researched fan-fiction from a lovesick writer was published? This article was published nearly a month after our peer reviewed paper was. And long after Zero Hedge made international headlines getting kicked off Twitter for asserting the possibility of a laboratory origin. Events this Boston Magazine article ignores entirely as it attempts to create a parallel universe. Since you were so concerned about an incorrect citation in a peer reviewed paper published from strangers, certainly you’re concerned about someone with ties to the same institutions as many of you denigrated the scientific process, and allowing herself and her research to be misrepresented in the press.

    So my question is: Why did the four of you contact me and my son? If it was to make sure the science is presented and communicated correctly, why has there been only silence since? And Dr. Kwik-Gronvall, why did your team assert I was unqualified to write this paper after you were already so familiar with it? I appreciate the fact JHU retracted that statement, but I assume that was only after my son emailed asking very politely for a correction.

    With the entire globe in the grips of this pandemic, accurate and honest scientific reporting and research has never ever been more important. It is already looking as if continually updated vaccines might be required to control COVID-19 as it mutates, and with confidence in vaccines already low – aren’t the four of you concerned with the potential damage that can be done when the scientific peer review process is not respected?  Such lack of respect causes lowered belief in the entire scientific enterprise.

    Alina presented herself as superior to out peer reviewed paper by telling journalists that it would be ok to ignore it, but of which we have yet to see specific criticisms other that Richard’s excellent question. When four scientists as accomplished and connected as you take all that time to reach out about our paper, but then remain silent afterwards which this implied criticism by one with which you seem to have an association?

    So maybe you can help us understand your motivations and the larger context of your interest? Since I’m baffled that this even seems to be a question when reviewing a field, in any context, scientific or journalistic: Is it professional and appropriate to ignore or encourage others to ignore a peer reviewed article? The clear answer is, “No,” unless specific criticisms are part of that assertion.  And we are happy to discuss this, if there is any question about this being appropriate behavior for a scientist, since Alina is rather young and perhaps hasn’t been properly trained.

    And since all of this is so bizarre, and since several articles have already appeared in the popular press which ignore the peer reviewed science, and so many others with backgrounds in finance and politics seem to be coming out of the woodwork writing articles and pretending to have the ability to address the science when all they hold no relevant degrees and have only ever written popular pieces, acting like their research and work should be considered with the same seriousness as ours – this email will be posted to a public forum for open discussion.

    Dr. Karl Sirotkin

    Richard Danzig responded to that email chain below:

    Saturday, Jan 23, 10:14 AM

    Karl,

    When I read your and your son’s paper I wrote to you about what seemed a mistaken description of a previous paper. You quite properly wrote back acknowledging the mistake. I haven’t written further because there doesn’t seem more that I can contribute. I am not a scientist, but rather simply someone with some expertise on national security questions who wants to understand what is happening in relevant domains of science and technology. As shown in my message, I copied several scientists who I knew were interested in this topic. They do not constitute “a group” and hadn’t seen my message before I sent it. I cannot speak for them. I have copied these others on this email and also included John Mallery who ably supervises the “biosecurity analysis” mailing list. As John has said he does not want these communications directly circulating on that list, I leave to him whether he wants to circulate this further. I hope this addresses your concerns about my original message and why you have heard no more (save for this!) from me. 

    Sincerely,

    Richard

    Since all this seemed to do was dodge any sort of explanation, Dr. Sirotkin tried again below:

    Sunday, Jan 31, 9:37 PM

    Dr. Danzig, Dr. Kwik-Gronvall, Mr. Triolo, Dr. Leighton, and Mr. Mallery:

    Dr Danzig, Your courtesy is appreciated, but not of the questions I’ve asked have been addressed, so apparently, I need to be more direct.

    I’m including the bio-security mailing list in this distribution since there are unanswered questions here that go well beyond SARS2’s origins and affect National Security from the biotechnology perspective. Dr. Danzig, you sent the first email to a handful of people as well as a email list of anonymous recipients in what seemed to be an attempt to sideline our work and push aside questions about gain of function research – we should be able to answer to that same distribution, especially because in your follow up to that same distribution, you seemed to say we agreed we were mistaken in the context of pandemic influenzas viruses. But the only mistake was a missing citation, we neveragreed that any of the conclusions were mistaken, nor have we seen any criticism of the logic and conclusion of our August 2020 Bioessays peer reviewed publication. A letter is in press that adds the citation, and goes into more signs regarding serial passage and this novel coronavirus.

    And we address you along with everyone else, Dr. Danzig, because these questions don’t relate to granular scientific issues but instead are more ones of integrity and the common public good. By the way, for a non-scientist you really must have been following the scientific field closely both to spot our paper and notice it was missing a citation.

    Due to the number of lives on the line, and that fundamental issues of scientific and professional integrity seem to be in question, I hope you can provide direct answers to the following questions which I’ve tried to make as clear as possible. Some questions only a few on the initial distribution will be able to answer, but I hope those on the mailing list will respond as well since these questions obviously relate to biosecurity and go way beyond SARS2’s origins.

    In my more than four decades as a practicing scientist I have never felt this sense of bewilderment and concern over the conduct of other professionals, and especially now in the middle of a pandemic that has no end in sight – to have the scientific community act with such apparent duplicitous intent, in a possible effort to secure their own access to billions of dollars of funding is truly disconcerting, a feeling I would expect to be shared by everyone who considers themselves a part of the wider scientific community.

    Question 1:  What were the context of the discussions were that led you to initially use the rather broad email distribution that you used as well as the national security list? I also want to restate for this question that the missing citation did not cause any of our logic or conclusions to be compromised, it did not affect our analysis of the current pandemic, instead only provided a nice narrative parallel to it. However, you decided to contact us in the first place, and include others on that initial email distribution which also included a broad anonymous list, so out of professional courtesy and transparency I’m simply asking how the decision was made to contact us, with such a broad distribution list and then to avoid answering our questions? 

    Question 2: At least two of you appear associated with the Johns Hopkins team which stated that I was unqualified to write a paper covering the origins of SARS2. Why did your team make that judgment? What made your group more qualified than myself when my experience includes teaching molecular virology, molecular biology, and performing nearly two decades of genetic engineering wet-work, and as a bioinformatics scientist I have much longer tenure in the field than anyone on that report’s author list. Why has the entire John Hopkins COVID-19 tracking unit been either pretending that our paper does not exist, or actively trying to undermine its credibility – when they’re obviously entirely aware of it, and how sound it is? To the point of not even citing us in their list of peer reviewed literature citations?

    Question 3: How much more death is needed before the discussion around gain-of-function work is opened back up and the moratorium against it (or at the very least monitoring by those who do not have a conflict of interest) is reconsidered? And shouldn’t there be intense, independent scientific scrutiny of all gain-of-function genome-altering work that asks, not only: “What might be the benefit?” but also, “What can possibly go wrong?” We cannot help but wonder if the DARPA-funded Foundry , or work on the recent Apollo report, played a role in what appeared to be an attempt to discredit us, and if this distribution list has an interest in that work going forward, and is part of the efforts to minimize such moratoriums or safety monitoring?

    I sincerely hope everyone on this list has National Security interests foremost in your priorities and we are wrong to be worried about your desire to continue the inadequately monitored gain-of-function work which puts humanity at such terrible risk.

    Question 4: How is it that all of you are concerned enough about academic integrity to contact us about a missing citation, but have sat back and done nothing as our peer-reviewed work is appropriated in the popular press? And since this is so obviously a public health issue, do you believe that journalists should report on the peer reviewed science, or be encouraged to make their own opinions about what the state of the science really is?  This would not be an issue for me, if any honest detailed criticism of our paper at all was known to me, however since it is not – If academic integrity was at the heart of your initial contact with us, why have you been sitting back spectating as our ideas have been stolen and misrepresented to the general public at large by multiple mainstream outlets?

    We look forward to your responses.

    Karl Sirotkin, PhD

    Strangely enough, they were never heard from again!!

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 23:30

  • US Troops In Iraq Targeted By Increasingly Sophisticated Combat Drones
    US Troops In Iraq Targeted By Increasingly Sophisticated Combat Drones

    The thousands of US troops still in Iraq are increasingly monitoring the threat from the skies, as a series of combat drones from an unknown source have reportedly targeted American bases over the past few months, according to a Friday report in The New York Times. The report blames “Iran-backed militia” for deployments of sophisticated small drones, citing the usual anonymous sources.

    The following day on Saturday, a new attack on Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq was reported: “The air defense system at Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq, where American forces are stationed, shot down two drones that attempted to attack the base on Saturday night, according to the Iraqi Security Media Cell.”

    Drone exercises, file image: Reuters

    In Saturday’s incident the base’s C-RAM anti-air system was activated and shot down the pair of drones as they reportedly tried to attack the base. There were also Saturday incidents involving rocket attacks targeting a US-run diplomatic center in Baghdad, as well as Baghdad’s international airport. 

    The Associated Press details the string of incidents believed to involve Iran-backed militias as follows:

    The Iraqi army said Sunday that two drones were destroyed above a base housing US troops, one month after the same base was targeted by an armed drone.

    The US military’s C-RAM defense system was activated to shoot down the drones above the Ain al-Assad base, located in Iraq’s western desert, the Iraqi military said.

    Several hours earlier, a rocket was shot down above Baghdad airport, “without causing casualties or damage,” said Colonel Wayne Marotto, spokesman for the US-led military coalition in Iraq.

    The Times report had underscored that pro-Iranian militias are now in possession of “more sophisticated weaponry, including armed drones,” given that at least “three times in the past two months” they’ve been able to deploy “small, explosive-laden drones that divebomb and crash into their targets in late-night attacks on Iraqi bases.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Both the pro-Iranian Iraqi paramilitaries and much of the Iraqi public have long pressured Baghdad government officials to order foreign troops out of the country, which like Afghanistan could soon reach two whole decades of American occupation.

    This new small drone threat appears part of the direct pressure campaign on the US military with the goal of inducing a quicker Pentagon departure. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 23:00

  • The Cotton Controversy: The Dark Anniversary Of The Surrender Of The New York Times
    The Cotton Controversy: The Dark Anniversary Of The Surrender Of The New York Times

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    This week is the one-year anniversary of one of the lowest points in the history of modern American journalism.

    During the week of June 6, 2020, the New York Times forced out an opinion editor and apologized for publishing the editorial of Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) calling for the use of the troops to restore order in Washington after days of rioting around the White House.  While Congress would “call in the troops” six months later to quell the rioting at the Capitol on January 6th, New York Times reporters and columnists called the column historically inaccurate and politically inciteful. Reporters insisted that Cotton was even endangering them by suggesting the use of troops and insisted that the newspaper cannot feature people who advocate political violence.

    One year later, the New York Times published a column by an academic who has previously declared that there is nothing wrong with murdering conservatives and Republicans.

    As I observed at the time of the Cotton column, I disagree with the basis or wisdom of invoking to the Insurrection Act to address the rioting in Washington.  (The Act was not invoked to deploy national guard to end the Capitol riot). However, I also noted that the column was historically accurate. Critics never explained what was historically false (or outside the range of permissible interpretation) in the column. Moreover, writers Taylor Lorenz, Caity Weaver, Sheera Frankel, Jacey Fortin, and others said that such columns put black reporters in danger and condemned publishing Cotton’s viewpoint.

    In a breathtaking surrender, the newspaper apologized and not only promised an investigation in how such an opposing view could find itself on its pages but promised to reduce the number of editorials in the future.  In a statement that will go done in journalistic infamy, the newspaper announced:

    “We’ve examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication. This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short term and long term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reduction the number of op-eds we publish.”

    One of the writers who condemned the decision to publish Cotton was New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones.  Hannah-Jones applauded the decision of the Times to apologize for publishing such an opposing viewpoint and denounced those who engage in what she called “even-handedness, both sideism” journalism. Opinion editor James Bennet was rustled out to make a pleading apology. That however was not enough. He was later compelled to resign for publishing a column that advocates an option used previously in history with rioting.

    Notably, not long after Bennet was thrown under the bus, Hannah-Jones herself tweeted out a bizarre anti-police conspiracy theory that injuries and destruction caused by fireworks was not the fault of protesters but actually part of a weird police conspiracy. She later deleted the tweet but there was no hue and cry over accuracy or “both sideisms.”

    Nor was there such calls for reexamining standards when Hannah-Jones’ famous “1619 project” (which earned her a Pulitzer Prize) was found to have fundamental historical flaws and researchers claimed the New York Times ignored them in raising the errors.  Hanna-Jones will soon be teaching journalism at the University of North Carolina.

    The sacking of Bennet had its intended effect. Writers and columnists with opposing or critical views were soon forced off newspapers around the country, including at the New York Times.

    Cotton and conservatives are also rarely seen on the pages of the New York Times unless it is to criticize the party or Trump. The writers have condemned the “both sideism” of allowing conservative viewpoints in the newspaper and insisted that Cotton and others must be banned as favoring potential violent actions against protesters. Yet, the newspaper has published people with anti-free speech and violent viewpoints in the last year. While the New York Times stands by its declaration that Cotton should never have been published, it had no problem in publishing “Beijing’s enforcer” in Hong Kong as Regina Ip mocked freedom protesters who were being beaten and arrested by the government.

    Indeed, just before the anniversary of the Cotton controversy, the New York Times published a column by University of Rhode Island professor  Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence.  (Loomis has also been ridiculed for denouncing statistics, science, and technology as inherently racist).

    Loomis’ article on “Why The Amazon Workers Never Stood A Chance” did not include his violent philosophy. It was in my view a worthy and interesting column for publication. So was Cotton’s column. However, NYT reporters and columnists have insisted that figures like Cotton should not be published because they have supported violence against protesters.  Yet, they have no apparent problem in publishing someone who has declared that there is nothing wrong with actually murdering conservatives.  The paper also has no problem with someone who is partially responsible for the systemic and violent suppression of democracy protesters.

    As I said on the publication of Regina Ip, I would like to see all of these writers published. Even if I find some of their views wrong or even grotesque, newspapers should be forums where readers are exposed to different and even unsettling viewpoints. Self-censoring does not extinguish such views. It only fuels an appetite to control and censor opposing views.

    I was hoping against experience that the media, and particularly the New York Times, would run a self-critique of its actions on the one-year anniversary of the Cotton controversy. Such a review would have allowed for a critical look at many of the assumptions of that week. For example, virtually every news outlet in the country ran stories that week on the clearing of Lafayette Park. Indeed, many justified the Cotton action in light of the Lafayette operation, which used an unnecessary level of force.  However, the media reported, as a fact, that Attorney General Bill Barr cleared the park to allow for Trump’s much-maligned photo op in front of St. John’s church.  That allegation was quickly refuted and there is now ample evidence that the clearing operation was ordered before any plans for the photo op. It was ordered due to the high level of violence and destruction over the weekend protests around the White House. Yet, news organizations have never corrected their reporting.  Indeed, legal experts like University of Texas professor and CNN contributor Steve Vladeck continue to claim that Barr ordered federal officers “to forcibly clear protestors in Lafayette Park to achieve a photo op for Trump.”

    Likewise, much of the media lionized D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for her stance at the time. She received national acclaim for painting “Black Lives Matter” on the street next to the park and renaming it “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” Bowser denounced the force used by the Trump administration, including the use of tear gas. It now turns out (as revealed last week in court filings) that the District used tear gas a block away to enforce Bowser’s curfew. The debate over the denial of using tear gas by the federal operation raged for a year (the federal government insists that it used pepper balls, which has basically the same effect on protesters). Yet, over that year,, neither Bowser nor her government stepped forward to say that D.C.’s Metropolitan Police used tear gas in their operations a block or so from Lafayette Park. The District is now arguing that the use of tear gas was entirely reasonable and the BLM lawsuit should be dismissed.

    In the meantime, the Biden administration agrees that the BLM case should be dismissed entirely. The Department of Justice (DOJ) maintains that “Presidential security is a paramount government interest that weighs heavily in the Fourth Amendment balance.” The DOJ’s counsel, John Martin, added that “federal officers do not violate First Amendment rights by moving protesters a few blocks, even if the protesters are predominantly peaceful.”

    The media has virtually blacked out coverage of the change in the position of Bowser, the admission of the District, or the position of the Biden Administration.  Over the last year, the media has instead plunged headlong into advocacy journalism. This includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy. Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll denounced how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation.

    Not surprisingly,  over this year, the faith in the media has continued to plummet. A survey by the global communications firm Edelman (via Axios) found only 46 percent of Americans trust traditional media.  That mirrors polls by Gallup showing an even lower level of trust.  We are living in a new age of yellow journalism at a time when real journalism has never been more needed.

    Once again, they would be wise to heed the words of Louis Brandeis in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927) when he declared “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

    So, for what it is worth, happy anniversary to the staff and writers of The New York Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 22:30

  • Soaring Used Car Prices May Result In "Shocking" Inflation Report Next Week
    Soaring Used Car Prices May Result In “Shocking” Inflation Report Next Week

    Used car prices in the US continue to surge due to both the country’s economic recovery and an ongoing supply crunch.

    There are two components to watch in the core inflation report due next week. First is, and most importantly, are used car prices and second is the rent of shelter.

    Core inflation in April saw a more significant contribution to used car prices pushing inflation upwards of 2% YoY mainly because prices of used vehicles on the month jumped 21% YoY.

    For those who haven’t seen what is going on in the used car space, here is a chart of the Mannheim used car index:

    “Prices on used vehicles increased by an astonishing 21 % YoY in April (contributing 0.8% to the yearly change in core inflation). According to Manheim Consulting, prices on used cars and trucks are expected to climb further to 50 pct YoY in May or June (3 months lag). If we assume a 50% yearly increase in used cars in May (Manheim may exaggerate the yearly price increase a bit), then core inflation will potentially surpass 4%. Supply chain disruptions, shortage of semiconductors and Covid-19 restrictions have all played a part in disturbing the price action in the car market, but bottlenecks are not always the root cause of inflation – they can also be seen as a symptom,” said Nordea. 

    This means that the May inflation report next week (due June 10) could be an absolute shocker.

    “We see clear risks of a big positive surprise to the May inflation report as well with core inflation around or just above 4%. The market is still buying the transitory inflation narrative but for how long? Lately, increasing (US) inflation has been the main concern of markets,” Nordea said, adding that, “We are likely in for another inflation shocker in June, but the question is whether the market will explain it away as a transitory effect.” 

    Peering into the real world, Financial Times speaks with people within the industry and in financial markets about what’s fueling used car prices. 

    Carey Cherner, a 36-year-old used car dealer in Maryland, sold a 2001 Ford F-150 pick-up truck with close to 200k miles for $7,500, more than 50% higher than pre-pandemic prices. 

    “There are more people buying cars than there are cars in the market, which makes it go kind of crazy,” Cherner said.

    Policymakers, such as Federal Reserve members, continue to soothe the market with the word “transitory” almost daily, as a form of a communication tool to admit there are inflationary pressures but avoid market participants from panicking. 

    Lael Brainard, a Fed governor, said earlier this week that used car cost pressures “may persist over the summer months, I expect them to fade and likely reverse somewhat in subsequent quarters”.

    But the problem here is that policymakers have been telling us that these pressures are “transitory” for months and keep pushing out the goalposts of when they want everyone to believe inflation diminishes. 

    Nathan Sheets, the chief economist at PGIM Fixed Income and a former under-secretary at the US Treasury, said there is an “unprecedented level of stimulus plus other forms to support spending” floating around the economy. A combination of helicopter drops by the federal government and supply chain disruptions resulted in the quickest “V-shaped” recovery that ultimately sparked supply constraints, driving up prices. 

    “How sure am I that I am right that inflation is going to dissipate? Probably 80 percent, but that is still a pretty fat tail,” Sheets said. 

    “It’s incredibly tight right now: you have more demand . . . that is supported by fiscal stimulus, so it’s just like a perfect storm. And we see that clearly in prices,” said Laura Rosner, a senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives. 

    But Jonathan Smoke of Cox Automotive, a consultancy for automobile dealers, noted that “several leading indicators of what’s happening at our auctions” suggest “the price appreciation streak is likely going to end.”

    However, in Maryland, Cherner doesn’t believe there will be a “steep drop-off [in prices] until there’s way more supply than there is demand. They [automakers] still have to build the new cars and get the chips in them and get them out. I just think it’s going to last.”

    So the main driver in next week’s inflation report will most likely be surging used car prices, and the red hot numbers may cause the Fed to start tapering or at least continue to communicate a future wind-down of its emergency pandemic policies this summer. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 22:00

  • Unthinkable Thoughts…
    Unthinkable Thoughts…

    Authored by Josh Mitteldorf,

    This essay is inspired by Dr Mercola’s announcement last week that [May] (reading between the lines) his life and his family’s have been threatened if he doesn’t remove from his web site a peer-reviewed study demonstrating the benefits of vitamin D and zinc in prevention of the worst COVID outcomes. In the present Orwellian era, where propaganda and deception are ubiquitous, one of the signposts of truth that I have learned to respect is that the most important truths are the most heavily censored.

    This is not what I enjoy writing about, but as I find dark thoughts creeping into my consciousness, perhaps it is better to put them on paper with supporting logic and invite my readers to help me clarify the reasoning and, perhaps, to point a way out of the darkness.

    Already in January, 2020, two ideas about COVID were emerging.

    One is that there were people and institutions who seemed to have anticipated the event, and were planning for it for a long time. Gates, Fauci, the World Economic Forum, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine were among the prescient. (I credit the (now deleted) videos of Spiro Skouras.)

    Second was the genetic evidence suggesting that COVID had a laboratory origin. Funders of the scientific establishment have lost their bid to ridicule this idea, and it has now leaked into the mainstream, where it is fused with the classical yellow peril propaganda: “China did it!”. I have cited evidence that America is likely equally culpable.

    The confluence of these two themes suggests the dark logic that I take for my topic today: Those who knew in advance, not only that there would be a pandemic but that it would be a Coronavirus, were actually responsible for engineering this pandemic.

    Immediately, I think: How could people capable of such sociopathic enormities be occupying the most powerful circles of the world’s elite? And what would be their motivation? I don’t have answers to these questions, and I will leave speculation to others. But there’s one attractive answer that I find less compelling: that it’s a money-maker for the large and criminal pharmaceutical industry. The new mRNA vaccines are already the most profitable drugs in history, but I think that shutdown of world economies, assassinations of world leaders, deep corruption of science, and full-spectrum control of the mainstream narrative imply a larger power base than can plausibly be commanded by the pharma industry.

    Instead, I’ll try to follow the scientific and medical implications of the hypothesis that COVID is a bioweapon.

    The Spike Protein

    The spike protein is the part of the virus structure that interfaces with the host cell. SARS 1 and SARS 2 viruses both have spike proteins that bind to a human cell receptor called ACE-2, common in lung cells but also present in other parts of the body. Binding to the cell’s ACE-2 receptor is like the wolf knocking at the door of Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. “Hello, grandmama. I’m your granddaughter. Please let me in.” The virus is a wolf wearing a red cape and hood, pretends to be an ACE-2 enzyme molecule seeking entrance to the cell.

    In order to enter the cell, the virus must break off from the spike protein and leave it at the doorstep, so to speak. This is an important and difficult step, as it turns out. Unique to the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a trick for making the separation. Just at the edge of the protein is a furin cleavage site. Furin is an enzyme that snips protein molecules, and it is common in our bodies, with legitimate metabolic uses. A furin cleavage site is a string of 4 particular amino acids that calls to furin, “hey — come over here. I’m a protein that needs snipping.”

    The most compelling evidence for a laboratory origin of COVID is that coronaviruses don’t have furin cleavage sites, and until last year, this trick has never evolved naturally.

    How we think about natural disease

    The classical understanding of a viral or bacterial disease is this: A parasite is an organism that uses the host’s resources for its own reproduction. It is evolved to reproduce efficiently. If it has co-evolved with the host, it may be evolved to spare the host’s health, or even to promote it, because this is the optimal long-term strategy for any predator or parasite. But newly-emerged parasites can do well for awhile even if they disable or kill their hosts, and this is the kind of disease that is most damaging to us. The damage is done because the (young) virus’s strategy is to reproduce rapidly and disperse itself into the environment where it can find new hosts. The virus has no interest in harming the host, and was not evolved to this end, but this is a side-effect of commandeering the body’s resources for its own reproduction.

    How engineered diseases can be different

    A bioweapon virus is designed to cause a certain kind of harm.

    • What kind of harm? It depends on the projected use for the weapon.

    • Doesn’t the virus have to reproduce? Probably, for most weapon applications; but a bioweapon is not necessarily designed for rapid reproduction. A bioweapon can be designed as a “sleeper” to remain dormant for months or years, or to cause incremental disability over a long period.

    If COVID had evolved naturally, we would expect that its spike protein would be adapted to mate well with the human ACE-2 receptor. There’s no reason to suspect it being otherwise biologically active. But if COVID is engineered, it may be that the spike protein itself has been designed to make us sick.

    One reason this is significant is that the vaccines have all been designed around the spike protein, assuming that the spike protein were metabolically neutral. If the virus had been naturally evolved, this is a reasonable assumption. But if it came from a laboratory (whether it leaked or was deliberately released) the spike protein might be actually be the agent of damage. There are several reasons to suspect that this is the case.

    The Spike Protein as an Active Pathogen

    Back in February, 2020, this article noted that the spike protein was not perfectly optimized to bind to human ACE-2 and put this forward as an proof that “SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus.” But if someone were designing the virus to cause harm, the spike protein would be a convenient locus for the damage vector, so the spike might have been designed with twin purposes in mind, binding and toxicity. The spike protein appears in many copies around the “crown” of the coronavirus. Since each copy has a furin cleavage site at its base, many spike proteins will break off into the bloodstream. We now have several reports and hypotheses concerning the spike protein as an active agent of damage. The spike protein is suspected of causing blood clots, of inducing long-lasting neurological damage, and of causing infertility. Many anecdotes describe injuries to un-vaccinated people who have been in close proximity to vaccinated, prompting speculation about “shedding” the spike protein.

    “Individuals with COVID-19 experience a vast number of neurological symptoms, such as headaches, ataxia, impaired consciousness, hallucinations, stroke and cerebral hemorrhage. But autopsy studies have yet to find clear evidence of destructive viral invasion into patients’ brains, pushing researchers to consider alternative explanations of how SARS-CoV-2 causes neurological symptoms….

    If not viral infection, what else could be causing injury to distant organs associated with COVID-19? The most likely culprit that has been identified is the COVID-19 spike protein released from the outer shell of the virus into circulation. Research cited below* has documented that the viral spike protein is able to initiate a cascade of events that triggers damage to distant organs in COVID-19 patients.

    Worryingly, several studies have found that the spike proteins alone have the capacity to cause widespread injury throughout the body, without any evidence of virus.

    What makes this finding so disturbing is that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer and currently being administered throughout the U.S. program our cells to manufacture this same coronavirus spike protein as a way to trigger our bodies to produce antibodies to the virus.” 

    [Global Research article, Feb 2021]

    Note: the Astra-Zeneca and J&J vaccines are also based on the spike protein, and cause the spike protein to be created in the vaccinated person.

    “Research cited below” refers to this study in Nature which reports that the spike protein, injected into mice, crosses into the brain, where it causes neurological damage.

    Bigger news came just this week from a study in which researchers from California’s Salk Institute collaborated with Chinese virologists. They have found that the bare spike protein without the virus (injected in mice) can cause damaged arteries of the kind that lead to heart disease and strokes in humans. The original paper was published in Circulation Research, and the Salk Institute issued a news report describing the research.

    One of the most credible dangers of the spike protein involves fertility. None of the vaccines were tested in pregnant women, and yet many government and other authorities are recommending it as safe for pregnant women. VAERS has reported 174 miscarriages to date after COVID vaccination. VAERS is notoriously underreported. I find the anecdotes less concerning than the fact that no one is taking this seriously, and research is being actively discouraged in the best-respected science journals.

    There is a credible mechanism, in that the spike protein is partially homologous to syncytin. Syncytin, in fact, was originally a retroviral protein, inserted into the mammalian genome many aeons ago, and evolved over the ages to play an essential role in reproduction, binding the placenta to the fetus. An immune response that attacks syncytin might be expected to be impose a danger of spontaneous abortion. In any ordinary times, this would be a subject that medical researchers would jump on, with animal tests and field surveys to assess the danger. But these are no ordinary times, and the risk is being dismissed on theoretical grounds without investigation. This is especially suspicious in the context of history: a Gates Foundation vaccination program in 1995 was allegedly promoted to young women, causing infertility. (Yes, I know there are many fact-checkers eager to “debunk” this story, but I don’t find them convincing, and some of these fact-checkers are compromised by Gates funding.)

    Even doing what the spike protein is supposed to do — tying up ACE2 — can be a problem for our lungs and arteries, which are routinely protected by ACE2.

    The most dangerous possibility, suspected but not verified, is that the spike protein causes a prion cascade. Prions are paradoxical pathogens, in that they are misfolded proteins that cause misfolded proteins. Their evolutionary etiology is utterly mysterious, so much so that it took Stanley Prusiner a decade after describing the biology of prions before the scientific community would take prion biochemistry seriously. But prions make potent bioweapons, which laboratories can design outside of natural evolutionary dynamics. The possibility of prion-like structures in the spike protein was noted very early in the pandemic based on a computational study. This recent review combines theoretical, laboratory, and observational evidence to make a case for caution. Once again, I find it disturbing that this possibility is being dismissed on theoretical grounds rather than investigated in the lab and the field.

    Where did the idea come from that all vaccines are automatically safe? Why do so many journalists dismiss the suggestion that vaccines should be placebo-tested individually, like all other drugs? Why has it become routine to ridicule and denigrate scientists who ask questions about vaccine safety as politically-motivated luddites, or “anti-vaxxers”? How did we get to a situation where the “precautionary principle” means pressuring young people who are at almost no risk for serious COVID to accept a vaccine which has not been fully tested or approved? I don’t have answers, but I do know who benefits from this culture.

    Putting together all the evidence

    • Knowledge beforehand

    • Suppression of treatments and cures

    • Toxicity of the spike protein which, if it had been made by nature, should have been benign

    • Inclusion of the spike protein

    • Heavy promotion of scantily-tested vaccines and

    • Censorship of scientists and doctors who question the vaccines’ safety

    … putting together all this evidence, it is difficult to escape the inference that powerful people and organizations have engineered this pandemic with deadly intent.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 21:30

  • Mach 30 Wind Tunnel Propels China Decades Ahead In Global Hypersonic Race 
    Mach 30 Wind Tunnel Propels China Decades Ahead In Global Hypersonic Race 

    Following conflicts over trade, technology, and capital markets, the US and China are locked in a great power competition, as some describe it as Thucydides Trap. We believe the battleground for global supremacy is heating up on the hypersonic front. 

    According to South China Morning Post (SCMP), researcher Han Guilai, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said a new wind tunnel in Beijing will “soon be unveiled” and put China decades ahead of the West in hypersonic technology. 

    Guilai told an online lecture in late May that the JF-22 wind tunnel, in Beijing’s Huairou district, was capable of simulating flights at 30 times the speed of sound. He said this would put China “about 20 to 30 years ahead” of the West.

    Such technology could propel China’s aerospace sector to test and quickly develop, sometime in this decade, hypersonic aircraft and weapons that could fly anywhere in the world in two hours or less. This would be an essential technology for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force to embrace because it would allow President Xi Jinping to challenge the US in the Indo-Pacific region. 

    Already, China has the DF-17 “carrier killer” missile that can travel at Mach 10 and sink a US aircraft carrier, while traditional missile defense systems would be utterly useless in defending against a weapon that is extremely fast and maneuverable. 

    Guilai explained how the new hypersonic wind tunnel operates. He said instead of using mechanical compressors, Beijing uses chemical explosions to produce high-speed airflow. 

    At America’s most advanced wind tunnel, named the LENS II, simulated flights are conducted only between Mach 3 and 9. 

    He said hypersonic technology tested in the JF-22 would be more advanced than the West’s, and “this determines our leading position in the world.”

    Guilai did not provide any information on when the JF-22 will begin testing hypersonic technologies. 

    He added: “There is a Chinese saying, it takes 10 years to sharpen a sword. “We have spent 60 years sharpening two swords. And they are the best.”

    China is coming for the US – they’re quickly modernizing their military for an Indo-Pacific fight with the US. We’ve learned nothing from history, and the US and China are falling into Thucydides Trap. 

    Our take, if a future conflict breaks out, fifth-generation fight jets and bombers, along with hypersonic weapons, would dominate the modern battlefield on either side. China is quickly gaining on the US in terms of military might. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 21:00

  • Top Pennsylvania Senator Says He Supports Election Audit
    Top Pennsylvania Senator Says He Supports Election Audit

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    A top senator in Pennsylvania said Saturday that he supports an audit of the 2020 presidential election.

    “I support the call for an election audit, in order to answer any lingering questions that still remain about the fairness of the 2020 elections in Pennsylvania. This is the best path forward to address the legitimate concerns of the large majority of my constituents who voted to reelect President [Donald] Trump, as well as all Pennsylvanians,” state Sen. David Argall, a Republican who chairs the Pennsylvania Senate’s State Government Committee, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

    “This is just one of many election reform efforts which I hope to see approved here in the next few weeks,” he added.

    Argall had earlier said he was reviewing the pros and cons of a potential audit.

    A spokesman for the senator declined to say whether he had spoken with state Sens. Doug Mastriano or Cris Dush, who recently returned from touring the forensic audit taking place in Maricopa County, Arizona.

    Both Mastriano and Dush support an audit in Pennsylvania.

    The Arizona audit started after an Arizona Senate panel issued subpoenas for election equipment and ballots.

    Because Republicans control the Pennsylvania Legislature, the state Senate’s State Government Committee has seven Republicans and four Democrats. Mastriano and Dush are two of the GOP members.

    “This was the most impressive audit I’ve ever seen. This level of voter integrity here, of forensically analyzing ballots, it’s all science, it’s not subjective at all. It’s going through every ballot and seeing if ballots were thrown on the copy machine and they could tell that forensically,” Mastriano told supporters in a Facebook Live video this week.

    “The people overwhelmingly want an audit. I think just a county or two would do. My preference would be a Democrat and a Republican County, and let the chips fall where they may,” he added.

    Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 General Election are examined and recounted by contractors working for Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas, at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 6, 2021. (Matt York/Pool/AP Photo)

    The Pennsylvania House of Representatives in November 2020 approved a resolution that called for the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, a bipartisan committee, to conduct an audit or contract with an outside firm to carry one out.

    The resolution said that there were “a litany of inconsistencies” in the election stemming from orders and guidance, such as some counties not segregating ballots that were received after Election Day.

    After the resolution was approved, the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee voted 2-1 against performing an audit.

    State Rep. Jake Wheatley, who joined state Sen. Jim Brewster in voting against conducting an audit, told a meeting before the vote that an audit would be a waste of time, considering the Pennsylvania Department of State planned to do an election review.

    “I’m at a loss as to what the purpose of the resolution is and why it’s even necessary, if the work’s going to be done,” added Brewster.

    Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Mensch, a Republican, voted yes. Pennsylvania Rep. Stephen Barrar, a Republican who later retired, missed the vote. A tie vote would have failed.

    Pennsylvania House State Government Chairman Seth Grove, a Republican, mentioned the vote this week before adding:

    “The PA House of Representatives will not be authorizing any further audits on any previous election. We are focused on fixing our broken election law to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”

    Mensch in April introduced legislation that would require Pennsylvania’s auditor general to perform an audit of ballots cast in the 2020 election. Argall referenced the bill while speaking to The Associated Press.

    “There’s an enormous amount of election-related bills pending for the month of June, and this is one of them,” Argall said.

    The Pennsylvania Department of State later carried out what was described as a statewide risk-limiting audit pilot, which featured a review of over 45,000 randomly-selected ballots. Pennsylvania’s former Secretary of State, Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, said in February that the audit showed “strong evidence” that the ballot count was correct.

    An election assessment was recently completed in Fulton County, Pennsylvania. Wake Technology Services Inc., a firm involved in the Maricopa County audit, performed the assessment, which found errors in ballot scanning and four other issues.

    Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf was among the Democrats this week condemning efforts to do another audit.

    “What they’re calling for isn’t an ‘audit.’ It’s a taxpayer-funded disinformation campaign and a disgrace to democracy,” Wolf said in a Twitter post. “Pennsylvania had a free and secure election. That’s a fact. Pennsylvanians deserve better from their elected officials.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 20:30

  • Yellen Admits Inflation Is About To Surge, Says It Will Be A "Plus For Society"
    Yellen Admits Inflation Is About To Surge, Says It Will Be A “Plus For Society”

    Last week, when Biden released his $6 trillion budget, we asked if it was a joke that the BIden budget saw just 2.1% inflation in 2021 and 2022.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Fast forward to this weekend, when Fed Chair Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen addressed our rhetorical concern, and following the G7 finmin meeting in London where the world’s most advanced nations agreed to impose a 15% minimum corporate tax rate (with zero enforcement provisions), said that contrary to the Biden Budget, inflation could climb as high as 3% this year in what the WaPo said was “the first time the Biden administration projected what inflation could be through 2021″, which by the way is dead wrong since Biden’s budget just last week predicted only 2.1% CPI in 2021.

    What the pathologically misleading Bezos Post meant to say is that this was the first time the Biden administration actually told the truth about how high the galloping US inflation will rise. And the only reason it did so is that in a time when home prices – and pretty much all other prices – are soaring at the fastest pace in US history, adhering to the laughable 2.1% CPI forecast would crush the credibility of everyone in this progressive administration.

    Of course, the admission that inflation is about to turn red hot led to many other unpleasant questions that need to be answered, such as what will this to the economy, to purchasing intentions (which as we reported at the end of May just crashed the most on record), and last but not least, to the market, where the tiniest hint of inflation leads to immediate selloffs.

    So, scrambling to preempt the barrage of questions come Monday, on Sunday Janet Yellen said that even though inflation is now at the highest level since Paul Volcker hiked rates to 20% and the US is about to issue another $3 trillion or so in debt just to fund existing stimulus programs, Joe Biden should push forward with his $4 trillion spending plans even if they trigger inflation that persists into next year and higher interest rates.

    Why? Because soaring inflation is good for you.

    “If we ended up with a slightly higher interest rate environment it would actually be a plus for society’s point of view and the Fed’s point of view,” Yellen said in an interview with Bloomberg. And yes, she really said that.

    It wasn’t immediately clear why rising rates, hence inflation and a drop in one’s purchasing power is “a plus for society’s point of view” but needless to say, this is the kind of idiotic drivel that Rudy von Havenstein and his cronies said some time in 1921, just around the time Weimer hyperinflation kicked in.

    The debate around inflation has intensified in recent months, between those who, like Yellen, argue that current price increases are being driven by transitory anomalies created by the pandemic — such as supply-chain bottlenecks and a surge in spending as economies reopen — and critics who say trillions in government aid will fuel a lasting spike in costs.

    Just to make sure there was no doubt which side of the argument Yellen is on, she said the recent rise in prices will subside and the U.S. labor market still has a ways to go before returning to pre-pandemic strength.

    “We’re seeing some inflation but I don’t believe it’s permanent,” Yellen said at a press conference Saturday after the G-7 finance meeting in London. “We at least on a year-over-year basis will continue, I believe, through the rest of the year to see higher inflation rates — maybe around 3%.”

    Yet even Yellen admitted that she could be wrong (narrator: “she is”) and that officials are still watching price increases closely. “I don’t want to say this is mind absolutely made up and closed. We’ll watch this very carefully, keep an eye on it and try to address issues that arise if it turns out to be necessary,” she said, although again she added that personally she believes “this represents transitory factors,” and that “policy should look past such factors.”

    Yellen also made it clear that even though the world is now more indebted than at any time since World War II, it is about to take on even more debt, because you see, it’s contained: “There is a concern among some about fiscal sustainability and an evident desire to begin to withdraw accommodation when things are back on track,” Yellen said, eyeing her former democrat buddy Larry Summers who has emerged as one of the biggest critics of “Biden’s trillions.” Yellen dismissed his concerns simply by saying that “we think that most countries have fiscal space.”

    “I will not give up on the next packages,” Yellen said. “They’re not meant as stimulus, they’re meant as investments to address long-standing needs of our economy.”

    Yes, she really said that, and yes she better be right about the “transitory” inflation part because we are about to get a whole lot more of it. Biden’s packages would add up to roughly $400 billion in spending per year, Yellen said, contending that’s not enough to cause an inflation over-run. Any “spurt” in prices resulting from the rescue package will fade away next year.  And, if she is wrong, well… it will be someone else’ problem to mop it up.

    And speaking of what’s coming, keep in mind that last month we learned that headline CPI rose 4.2%, but it is the May print that could be an “absolute shocker”, as discussed last week.

    Yet despite surging prices, and despite soaring wages, the Fed has committed to only begin scaling back the $120 billion monthly pace of its asset purchases after there’s “substantial further progress” on inflation and employment. It is unclear how much higher inflation should rise for the Fed to be happy, but one thing is clear: we are now at a point where the government’s welfare handouts and weekly unemployment benefits are distorting the picture dramatically, and the job market is growing far below expectations precisely because of Biden’s ruinous fiscal policies, policies that keep the Fed’s QE in play even longer and assure that not only is the wealth divide the widest it has ever been, but that when inflation really hits, it will truly be an “AAAAAAH!!!” moment.

    But none of that is a concern to the phlegmatic 74-year-old: Yellen said that monetary policy makers can handle any potential rise in inflation if it sticks. “I know that world – they’re very good,” Yellen said in the interview. “I don’t believe they’re going to screw it up.”

    This is the same clueless hack who in 2017 said she doesn’t expect another financial crisis in “our lifetimes.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 20:00

  • More Than One-Third Of Small Businesses "In Jeopardy" Of Closing This Summer
    More Than One-Third Of Small Businesses “In Jeopardy” Of Closing This Summer

    As small businesses complain that it has never been harder for them to hire workers according to a recent NFIB survey, many are facing growing pressure to survive. As the American economy continues to reopen, some fear it might not happen soon enough to save thousands of small businesses. Data from Alignable’s June Revenue Poll shows that 35% of all small business owners are still at risk of closing permanently by the end of the summer.

    Among the 3,772 small business owners in the 10 days ended June 1, Alignable’s June Revenue Poll showed a myriad of factors – including the remaining closures and restrictions, growing inflationary pressures on prices, rising gas and transportation prices and labor shortages – are creating problems that affect small businesses more intensely than their corporate partners.

    The biggest increase in the survey was trouble finding employees, which was identified as a potential closure risk by 55% of respondents, up from just 5% the prior month.

    For the record, Alignable calculates the percentage of small business owners who believe their businesses are in jeopardy by combining the answers to two of its questions: what percentage of last summer’s revenue will these businesses make this summer? And what percentage of last year’s revenue do they need to earn to ensure their business stays afloat. If the first is smaller than the second, then businesses are deemed to be in jeopardy.

    Beyond this, several respondents complained about the lingering impact of not being able to fully reopen. Some say they’ve had to take a second job to keep their small business afloat long enough to see if it actually has a chance to recover after COVID subsides.

    Based on the answers to the first question, only 22% of small business owners said they expected to make as much or more than they earned last summer. Considering that 40-50% of small businesses weren’t even fully open last summer, this figure alone is cause for alarm.

    Retailers and restaurant owners were also feeling slightly better about their prospects, but many are still concerned about their prospects. Some expressed worries about whether to impose mandatory masking policies and other precautions since a significant slice of the population remains unvaxxed.

    Amid these frustrating insights, there is an important silver lining: 33% of business owners said they had fully recovered to their pre-COVID monthly revenue numbers, adding more support for the “two recoveries” narrative that’s also encapsulated by the recent winnings of “meme stock” traders who have come into sudden financial windfalls by betting on hot stocks like AMC, which soared past $70 a share last night.

    For many small business owners, watching millions of Americans collect “enhanced” unemployment checks, while others make thousands of dollars betting on stocks, feels like salt in their wounds.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 19:30

  • Goldman's Clients Are Asking How Various Inflation Regimes Affect Stocks: Here Is The Answer
    Goldman’s Clients Are Asking How Various Inflation Regimes Affect Stocks: Here Is The Answer

    Picking up on a joke we made earlier this week when we called Joe Biden the Six Trillion Dollar Man (in homage to a very deflationary Lee Majors) in response to the 12 zeroes contained in his budget, in his latest Weekly Kickstart note Goldman’s David Kostin writes that…

    by at least one measure, inflation has been rampant during the past 50 years, noting that in 1973, Steve Austin was the most powerful man in the world, with super strength in his right arm, a bionic eye, and artificial legs that could run 60 mph. It cost the federal government $6 million to re-build the NASA astronaut into the bionic man, played by Lee Majors in the hit TV series, “The Six Million Dollar Man.”

    Fast forward to today, often sporting his trademark 1970s-style aviator sunglasses, President Joe Biden is the most powerful man in the world.Biden is the $6 trillion man when his three 2021 fiscal spending plans are combined: the $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan that was passed in March, the $2.0 trillion American infrastructure plan proposed in April, and the $1.8 trillion American families plan proposed in May. If all three proposals are passed by Congress, it would represent an unprecedented level of peacetime spending in relation to the size of the underlying economy. Of course, it remains to be seen whether the latter two plans pass Congress.

    And while it increasingly looks like Biden’s original $6 trillion proposal will be substantially reduced – and may even collapse should it not gather the required support from centrist democrats – Goldman’s economists did not wait to find out what happens and recently raised their near-term inflation forecasts even as they maintained their expectation that inflation will begin to abate later in the year. In April, both core PCE (+3.1% y/y) and core CPI (+3.0% y/y) exceeded expectations and notched highs not seen in more than two decades. In turn, Goldman’s economists expect that core PCE will register 2.5% at the end of 2021 and decline to 2.1% during 2022.

    To be sure, after initially freaking out about a deluge of inflation, the growing likelihood that Biden’s stimulus package will be materially diluted is why equity market performance has already shown a recent unwinding of inflation concerns. As Goldman notes, In March, amidst fears about rising inflation, stocks with high pricing power

    … began to outperform those with low pricing power, reversing 5 months of low pricing power outperformance as the economy recovered. However, during the past few weeks, low pricing power stocks have outperformed again (7% vs. 3%). At the same time, the interest rate 10-year inflation breakevens has declined by 14 bps to 2.4%, suggesting inflation fears priced by both equity and debt markets are easing.

    Not surprisingly, this whiplash has prompted most of Goldman’s recent client discussions to focus on inflation and its implications for equities.And, as Kostin explains, investors ask just one thing: “how does inflation affect corporate earnings and stock valuations?”

    Answering this recurring question, Goldman’s Kostin notes that while inflation has mixed implications for earnings, it is generally a positive (as long as it is not hyperinflation in which case all bets are off of course). Kostin then reveals that in the bank’s top-down sector-level earnings models, inflation consistently has positive coefficients for sales and negative coefficients for margins. On net, however, Goldman argues that “the boost to nominal sales growth through rising prices typically more than offsets inflation-driven margin compression.” While one can debate this, it is certainly the case that companies with revenues tied to commodities, like Energy, or interest rates, such as Financials, are the largest beneficiaries from strong inflation regimes.

    That said, inflation becomes a headwind to valuations if it leads to expectations of Fed tightening and thus higher real interest rates. And as Morgan Stanley has argued as part of its mid-cycle transition thesis, S&P 500 returns have been consistently positively correlated with breakeven inflation but valuations have typically contracted alongside sharp increases in real interest rates (as a reminder, MS expects PE multiples to shrink 15% in the next 6 months).

    On the other hand, and adding to the complexity, the Fed has indicated it will not tighten the funds rate before seeing prolonged labor market improvement resulting in broad wage gains, particularly at the lower end of the income spectrum. In the past, the S&P 500 P/E multiple has typically expanded during periods of falling inflation and interest rates.

    For the record, Goldman’s economists forecast the yield curve will steepen in 2021 and 2022, with the funds rate unchanged while the 10-year yield rises from 1.6% today to 1.9% and 2.1% at year-end 2021 and 2022.

    Here Kostin makes another valiant attempt to ease worries about runaway inflation, claiming that although inflation is generally a negative impulse for valuation multiples, “recent popular investor focus on earnings yield less the inflation rate is misplaced” and here’s why:

    Investors concerned by this metric note that it has fallen to its lowest point since the peak of the Tech Bubble in 2000 and suggests the return from owning equities is erased by inflation. We disagree with this interpretation. First, equity earnings and the prices tied to them are nominal and typically rise with inflation. Second, even inflation hawks agree that the most recent prints are biased by base effects and reopening dynamics. In contrast to the gap between the earnings yield and inflation, the EPS yield gap versus the 10-year US Treasury yield, which is commonly used as a proxy for equity risk premium, actually remains above its long-term average. See Exhibit 1.

    Kostin’s spin aside, it is undisputable that overall, stocks perform better during periods of low inflation than when inflation is high. Goldman categorizes periods since 1962 into those of high and low inflation by comparing year/year core CPI to the Fed’s estimate of consensus long-term inflation expectations. Exhibit 2 clearly shows two inflationary regimes during the past 60 years: The first 20 years (1962-1980) and the past 40 years.

    During the first period – which culminated with Volcker hiking rates to 20% – core CPI averaged 5.3% and registered above the long-term estimate 69% of the time.

    Since 1962, both pre-and post-1980, the median monthly US equity market real return during high inflation environments has been an annualized 9% vs. 15% during periods of low inflation. As shown in the chart below, periods of high inflation have corresponded with the outperformance of Health Care, Energy, Real Estate, and Consumer Staples sectors, while Materials and Technology stocks have fared the worst in high inflation environments. Surprisingly, Value and Size factors have not performed very differently in periods of high versus low inflation.

    Finally, drilling down a little deeper, equity performance has differed greatly in periods where inflation was high and rising versus high and falling.The median monthly market real return has been 2% annualized in phases where inflation was high and rising vs. 15% when inflation was high and falling. At the factor level, Value has generally fared better when inflation was high and rising than when it was high and falling. Among sectors, although Energy and Health Care have outperformed in periods of high inflation, they have performed much better when inflation was rising than falling.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 19:00

  • Building Your Dream Home Has Never Been More Expensive 
    Building Your Dream Home Has Never Been More Expensive 

    Surging construction costs to build a new home is not sustainable and is becoming a pain in the arse for homebuilders and prospective homebuyers. From concrete to lumber to copper pipes to paint and even appliances, costs have surged over the past year. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    The housing boom sparked by the Federal Reserve during the virus pandemic was built on historically low mortgage rates (thanks to Powell) and accelerated by a combination of record-low inventory as city-dwellers moved to rural areas amid the remote-work phenomenon. 

    According to Zillow Group Inc, the past year has been the hottest real estate market since 2007. Economist Robert Shiller, the co-founder of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index, recently told CNBC that “in real terms, home prices have never been so high. My data goes back over 100 years, so this is something.” 

    Making matters worse is a shortage of materials as there is just too much demand from builders and not enough supplies due to supply chain disruptions. There’s also the issue of not enough buildable land. All of this has manifested into dangerous inflationary pressures vibrating not just through the housing market but the entire economy that may force Federal Reserve to announce tapering at Jackson Hole. It wouldn’t be surprising if MBS purchases from the Fed would be some of the first to be reduced. 

    Bloomberg provides an example of surging housing costs in one of the hottest housing markets in the country: Boise, Idaho.

    Steve Martinez, the operator of Tradewinds General Contracting Inc., said his company had to raise costs on some of its new builds to offset high raw material and labor costs. 

    Martinez said the sale price of a 3,000 sqft, which excludes the lot but includes costs, labor, and profit, was $746,671 this spring. He said that’s 58% higher than two years ago in 2019. These costs are primarily the reason why home prices are surging. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Foundation costs for the builder jumped 104% since 2019. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Lumber costs are one of the most significant issues for the builder. Prices have nearly surged 262% since 2019. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Timber roof trusses to frame a structure to support the roof have more than doubled since pre-pandemic levels. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Meanwhile, drywall, used for interior walls and ceilings, has only risen 26% since 2019. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    With plastic and base metal prices soaring, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical costs are up 49% since 2019. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Interior and exterior paint have risen 68% since 2019. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Custom millwork, such as trim around doors, paneling, and cabinetry, has surged 68% since 2019. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Appliances are up 65% from 2019 levels due to increasing demand and not enough supply. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Factor this all together, the Boise homebuyer purchasing a 3,000 sqft home from the builder is forking over $950,000, up 61% from 2019. 

    … and here’s the final product. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    The cost of building a home has rocketed higher in a post-pandemic world that could soon be an industry killer as housing affordability becomes a significant issue. This is why the Fed needs to get a hold of inflationary pressures by unleashing tapering. 

    “This could be industry killing if things continue going the way they’re going,” said Martinez, who has had to tack on price increases during construction of anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000, primarily due to rising lumber costs. “We’re putting projects off. We’ve got clients that are hitting their price ceiling.”

    Record-high housing prices have already begun to dent homebuyer confidence as prices become unaffordable. 

    It’s time for the Fed to end their grand experiment in juicing the economy and let the price of everything normalize. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 18:30

  • Georgia GOP Approves Resolution Censuring Secretary Of State Brad Raffensperger
    Georgia GOP Approves Resolution Censuring Secretary Of State Brad Raffensperger

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    The Georgia Republican Party on Saturday approved a resolution censuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, local media reported.

    The Georgia GOP during a convention approved a resolution that says Raffensperger, a Republican, failed to perform his duties in “accordance with the laws of the Constitution of the State of Georgia,” WSB-TV reported.

    The document says the failure stemmed from Raffensperger entering into a settlement agreement with the Democratic Party of Georgia, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

    The agreement saw Raffensperger agree to promote and enforce regulations regarding prompt notification if a mail-in ballot was rejected and regarding county clerks’ signature reviews of absentee ballot envelopes and ballots.

    Georgia Republicans accused Raffensperger of “undermining the security of our elections by allowing mass mailings of absentee applications by his office and third parties which created opportunities for fraud and overwhelmed election offices; rendering accurate signature matching nearly impossible; allowing ballot drop boxes without proper chain of custody; and ignoring sworn affidavits and disregarding evidence of voter fraud.”

    “It’s obvious that there was fraud,” Michael Ovitz, an attendee at the convention, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

    “A civilized society depends upon truths and facts, not deception and deceit.”

    The Georgia Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.

    Raffensperger has said there is no evidence of widespread fraud occurring in the 2020 election. The State Election Board, which he chairs, has sent dozens of election fraud cases to prosecutors in the wake of the election, including allegations that voters failed to register and vote or registered to vote while living outside the state.

    Raffensperger’s office told WSB-TV: “The secretary of state’s office, county election directors, and the tens of thousands of poll workers across the state worked to ensure that democracy was upheld. It is the job of counties to run elections and the secretary of state’s office’s job to report those election results—it is the job of the political parties to deliver wins for their candidates. Let’s not confuse the two.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 18:00

  • Outrage After FBI Subpoenas IP Addresses Of All Individuals Who Accessed USA Today Child Porn Article
    Outrage After FBI Subpoenas IP Addresses Of All Individuals Who Accessed USA Today Child Porn Article

    In the latest surreal and brazen example of federal government overreach, the FBI is demanding that USA Today turn over the IP addresses of all individuals who accessed a public online article during a specific time period. 

    The subpoena was issued in April but is only in recent days being made public after the newspaper’s parent company Gannett sought to fight it in court. It’s being widely condemned as an outrageous instance of abuse not only of press freedom, but of the public’s right to access information and media as well as breach of both the 1st and 4th Amendments. Underscoring this, WikiLeaks was among the first to highlight the case which seeks to sweep up info on all individuals who accessed the article in question during a 35-minute window on February 2nd, 2021. 

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    A statement given from USA Today to The Verge said, “We were surprised to receive this subpoena particularly in light of President Biden’s recent statements in support of press freedom. The subpoena is also contrary to the Justice Department’s own guidelines concerning the narrow circumstances in which subpoenas can be issued to the news media.”

    USA Today’s legal team is further seeking to fight the subpoena in order to “protect the important relationship and trust between USA TODAY’s readers and our journalists.”

    According to the details known about what the FBI is asking and who it could impact, The Verge report details that “The article in question was one published on February 2nd, 2021, about a shootout that occurred when FBI agents tried to execute a search warrant in a child pornography case, resulting in the deaths of two FBI agents and the suspect.”

    But strangely the suspect written about in the article was already literally dead (reportedly by self-inflicted gunshot wound) significantly before the USA Today article was published.

    Text from the subpoena 

    Here’s a snippet of the article in question:

    Two FBI agents were killed and three were wounded in a shooting early Tuesday while agents were serving a warrant in a child exploitation case in Florida, according to the FBI. The suspect died of an apparent self-inflicted gun shot wound, a person familiar with the matter said.

    Authorities are investigating whether the suspect had cameras rigged at the apartment to provide an outside view of people who might be approaching at the time of the incident, said the source, who is not authorized to comment publicly.

    The FBI is essentially asking for a large data dump covering that entire time frame the article was live and the public was accessing it.

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    The government has since kept mum on just why it needs the data. There remains the possibility that the FBI is potentially eyeing an accomplice to the crime, or a broader conspiracy, and has knowledge that another suspect or suspects had accessed that particular article. 

    One of USA Today’s attorney’s confirmed that the government refused to answer reasonable questions over just why it’s essential to be given everyone’s IP address who read the article. “Despite these attempts, we never received any substantive reply nor any meaningful explanation of the asserted basis for the subpoena,” Washington Post quoted the lawyer as saying.

    Later over the weekend USA Today announced the following: “The FBI has withdrawn a subpoena demanding records from USA TODAY that would identify readers of a February story about a southern Florida shootout that killed two agents and wounded three others.”

    But it remains that the FBI’s request is somewhat unprecedented and a huge threat to press as well as individual freedom, given that if granted it would mean all citizens could at any time unwittingly be treated as suspects merely for reading an online news article. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 17:30

  • California County COVID-19 Death Toll Lowered By 25% After Counting Method Change
    California County COVID-19 Death Toll Lowered By 25% After Counting Method Change

    Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    Healthcare professionals screen people entering the emergency room at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Calif., on March 26, 2020. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    The number of COVID-19 deaths in Alameda County, California, fell by about 25 percent after health officials changed their methodology for total mortality count, removing those that were not a “direct result” of the disease, or “in whom death caused by COVID-19 could not be ruled out.”

    The county’s COVID-19 dashboard, following an update on June 4 to reflect the total number of COVID-19 deaths using the state’s death reporting definition, shows 1,223 deaths were caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, 411 fewer than what it previously reported.

    “Alameda County previously included any person who died while infected with the virus in the total COVID-19 deaths for the County,” the county’s public health department said in a press release (pdf). For example, someone who tested positive for the virus before dying in a car accident would still have been counted toward the COVID-19 death toll .

    “Aligning with the State’s definition will require Alameda County to report as COVID-19 deaths only those people who died as a direct result of COVID-19, with COVID-19 as a contributing cause of death, or in whom death caused by COVID-19 could not be ruled out,” the health officials said, noting that their system of reporting COVID-19 deaths on the dashboard and to the state was implemented early in the pandemic, before the state established guidelines for how deaths should be classified.

    Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Nicholas Moss told the Mercury News that his department was aware of the inconsistency between the county and state’s numbers, but they had to put off the change because of a major surge in infections during the winter.

    “We just weren’t able to move as quickly on this as we would’ve liked, but we felt it was important and sometimes better late than never,” he said.

    Moss also admitted that some people may use the revision to argue that the pandemic isn’t as severe as it’s made out to be, and he strongly disputes that idea.

    “There are going to be people who make hay out of it and use it to question things about the pandemic, but it’s irrefutable, the severity of the pandemic,” he told Mercury News. “I think anyone who would use this to make the argument that this is somehow overblown is really turning a blind eye to some of the simple truths of the pandemic.”

    As of June 6, California has 3,689,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19, resulting in 62,470 deaths, according to the state’s health department. In the United States, more than 33 million cases have been confirmed and there have been more than 600,000 reported deaths.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 17:11

  • After Capitol Riot "Pause", Arms Companies Are Showering Money On Both Sides Of Aisle Again
    After Capitol Riot “Pause”, Arms Companies Are Showering Money On Both Sides Of Aisle Again

    Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

    Political rancor and tensions surround the 2020 election had many US companies trying to distance themselves from the process by halting political donations. This included one of the biggest sectors for buying influence, the arms industry.

    After a few months to reexamine things, the arms companies are back to throwing money around, donating in large quantities to members of both parties involved in military spending, and trying to ensure that they stay on good terms with everyone responsible for their business’ contracts.

    Via Bloomberg

    While it isn’t shocking that the post-election pause didn’t last, it is noteworthy that some of the biggest donations are going to some in Congress who were big proponents of the “stolen election” narrative, despite that supposedly driving those companies to hold off in the first place.

    Recall what BAE systems previously pledged:

    “In response to the deeply disturbing violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, our U.S. political action committee has suspended all donations while we assess the path forward,” BAE Systems spokeswoman Tammy Thorp said in a statement at the time.

    In reality, it seems that the Biden Administration and Congress have been signaling that the massive military spending part of the status quo will remain more or less untouched, and that seems to be all the companies needed to hear to start the spigot on their donations again.

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    Military analysis site Defense News details that “Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Leidos and BAE are all giving again, while Honeywell, General Electric, Raytheon and Booz Allen Hamilton are not giving, according to their most recent filings.”

    And further: “Honeywell and GE had said they would suspend donations to the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying Biden’s win.” In terms of these latter companies, we’ll see just how long that actually lasts.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 17:00

  • Virologist Who Told Fauci SARS-CoV-2 'Potentially Engineered' Just Nuked His Twitter Account
    Virologist Who Told Fauci SARS-CoV-2 ‘Potentially Engineered’ Just Nuked His Twitter Account

    Update (1650ET):

    Aaaand, it’s gone:

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    At least he won’t have to keep blocking pesky questions from inquiring minds…

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    *  *  *

    A California virologist who told Anthony Fauci that COVID-19 looks ‘potentially engineered’ and ‘inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory’ – only to later reverse course and publish a ‘natural origin’ paper 8 weeks later (before receiving a multi million-dollar NIH grant) has deleted more than 5,000 tweets.

    Kristian G. Anderson who runs the Andersen Lab in La Jolla, CA, wrote in a Feb. 1 email to Fauci “The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome, less than 0.1 percent, so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” adding that he and his team found “the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”

    Anderson was responding to an article sent to him by Fauci exploring the origins of the virus. The next day, Fauci sent an urgent email to his deputy, Hugh Auchincloss, with the subject “IMPORTANT,” writing “Hugh, it is essential that we speak this a.m. Keep your cell phone on. … Read this paper as well as the email that I will forward. You will have tasks today that must be done.”

    The document attached was titled “Baric, Shi, et al – Nature medicine – SARS gain of function.pdf.”

    So right after one of Fauci’s trusted scientific advisers suggests COVID-19 could be man-made (while Fauci and associates publicly dismissed the possibility as a conspiracy theory), he shot a research paper concerning gain of function research – which Fauci was funding at the Wuhan Institute of Virology – to his deputy.

    And now Anderson has deleted more than half of his tweets.

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    Anderson claims that his old tweets are ‘auto deleted’ – which would suggest a rolling, automated process – not the sudden disappearance of over 5,000 tweets preceding March 7, 2021.

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    The deleted tweets come as internet sleuths begin to unravel Anderson’s involvement with Fauci and the NIH.

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    Meanwhile, Fauci has denied funding gain of function research in Wuhan, yet…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 16:50

  • NASA's Mars Helicopter Prepares For 7th Flight On Sunday
    NASA’s Mars Helicopter Prepares For 7th Flight On Sunday

    Liftoff of NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity will occur no later than today if all goes to plan, according to a NASA press release. 

    Ingenuity, a small robotic helicopter weighing no more than 4 pounds, is preparing for its seventh flight today. The mission is to fly Ingenuity 350 feet south from its current location on the floor of Jezero Crater. 

    “This will mark the second time the helicopter will land at an airfield that it did not survey from the air during a previous flight,” NASA wrote. “Instead, the Ingenuity team is relying on imagery collected by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that suggests this new base of operations is relatively flat and has few surface obstructions.”

    On May 22, Ingenuity flew its sixth mission that did not go so well. The solar-powered helicopter experienced glitches that interrupted internal systems. There was no mention of what caused the glitches; the craft was able to land safely. 

    Ingenuity has marvelously performed five flights and beamed incredible images from Mars back to Earth. 

    NASA also has the Perseverance rover conducting land-based missions in the search for life. 

    In the last couple of months, the Red Planet has become a hotspot for the US and China, with China landing a rover of its own on the planet.

    Sudden interest in Mars between both countries is because the planet allegedly has an abundance of rare metals that will power tomorrow’s economy. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/06/2021 – 16:30

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Jun 06

Today’s News 6th June 2021

  • Cyber Polygon: Will The Next Globalist War Game Lead To Another Convenient Catastrophe?
    Cyber Polygon: Will The Next Globalist War Game Lead To Another Convenient Catastrophe?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    Back in April I published an article titled ‘Globalists Will Need Another Crisis In America As Their Reset Agenda Fails’. In it I noted an odd trend which many of us in the liberty media have become aware of over the years – Almost every major man-made catastrophe in the US and in many other parts of the world in the past couple decades has been preceded by a government or globalist “exercise”. These exercises and war games tend to mimic the exact disaster that would eventually strike the public only days or weeks later. Sometimes the mock disaster exercises and the real events happen at the same time.

    The covid pandemic was no exception. It’s quite miraculous…

    I have specifically outlined the bizarre “coincidence” of the World Economic Forum’s Event 201 exercise, a war game co-funded by Bill Gates and Johns Hopkins and launched in October of 2019. Event 201 simulated a global novel zoonotic coronavirus pandemic (supposedly spread from bats to people) that “required” a global lockdown response. Only two months later the real thing actually happened. Almost every aspect of the Covid event has played out exactly as was practiced during the WEF war game.

    One very disturbing element of the covid response has been the coordinated suppression campaign by Big Tech platforms from YouTube to Facebook and Twitter. This campaign has sought to undermine or destroy any facts, data and opinions which run contrary to the government narrative on covid, even if the official narrative on covid ends up being completely wrong. The strategy was described in detail during Event 201 and it was executed with extreme efficiency among supposedly disconnected companies and governments around the world. It’s almost as if they KNEW a coronavirus pandemic was about to happen, and they were already staged to control the public reaction well in advance.

    And let’s be clear because I do not want to seem ambiguous; the World Economic Forum and their globalist partners have been the prime beneficiaries during the pandemic. As WEF head Klaus Schwab has excitedly noted over and over again, the pandemic is a perfect “opportunity” for globalists to fast track what they call the “Great Reset” agenda – A plan to completely dismantle the current political and economic framework of the world and rebuild it into a highly centralized socialist civilization in which they are in complete control and personal freedom is a faded memory.

    This is why recent revelations of Covid’s probable lab origins are not at all surprising. Just mentioning this idea a year ago in social media was enough to get you banned. And, if you want to know where to find the truth, always look first to the subjects you are not allowed to discuss. As I stated in my article ‘How Viral Pandemic Benefits The Globalist Agenda’, published in January of 2020 at the very beginning of the outbreak:

    “I have a hard time ignoring the strange “coincidence” of the high level biohazard labs in Wuhan in favor of the idea that the virus was launched by chance due to the odd diets of central Chinese people. Given the evidence it appears that the coronavirus was gestated in a lab, not in someone’s bat and snake soup.  In 2017, scientists outside of China warned that these labs were not secure and that a virus might escape one of the facilities…..I would use the term “escape” loosely, as there is a possibility that this event was created intentionally…”

    Elites like Dr. Anthony Fauci (a close associate of Bill Gates and Bill Gates SR.) directly funded studies at the Wuhan Lab through the NIAID since 2015, and specifically funded the study of the infectious transfer of coronaviruses from bats to other mammals including humans. And yes, the NIAID was in fact involved in “gain of function” experiments using SARS and coronavirus variants at this time, despite Anthony Fauci claiming otherwise. The National Institute Of Health’s own website confirms this.

    All of these facts support the argument that covid is a lab created bioweapon, and in my view according to the evidence so far it was released deliberately in close alliance with the Chinese government. Fauci even somehow “predicted” in 2017 that Donald Trump would face a “surprise infectious disease outbreak” during his presidency, stating that “We will definitely get surprised in the next few years…”

    The scheme has certainly worked to an extent. In large portions of Europe, Asia and Australia the WEF is getting what it always wanted.

    That said, some things did not go as planned. For example, Event 201 predicted an initial 65 million people dead within the first year of the pandemic; this did not happen, and it was not because governments saved any lives. In fact, government lockdowns and restrictions did nothing to stave off the spread of covid and independent studies have proven mask mandates to be completely ineffective in stopping the virus. The reason for the comparatively small body count is the fact that Covid’s death rate is only 0.26% among otherwise healthy people. The only place wear covid is a true threat is in nursing homes among elderly people with preexisting conditions.

    Because of the miscalculations of the elites, the reset agenda appears to be failing in some parts of the world. In the US, resistance to the lockdowns as well as the experimental vaccines has grown exponentially to the point that dozens of states are now passing laws which prohibit enforcement of covid restrictions and “medical passports”.

    The alternative media has also proven resilient against censorship and information suppression, and we have been proven to be right time and time again. We were the first people to warn that the death rate of covid was being exaggerated (the WHO and other establishment institutions predicted a death rate of at least 3%, FAR above the reality). We were the first people to warn that the lockdowns and mask rules did nothing to stop the spread (states that removed restrictions ended up with FALLING infections and deaths). And, we were the first people to warn that the virus was behaving more like a bioweapon, and that its origin was more likely the Level 4 lab in Wuhan, China, right down the street from the animal market that the Chinese government originally claimed was the source of the outbreak.

    We were also the first people to warn that the pandemic would be used as a rationale for the enforcement of vaccine passports, which would create a two tear society designed to force people who do not want to take the mRNA vaccines into compliance. We have been proven right once again as the state of Oregon has become the first in the US to demand proof of vaccination (a passport) before residents are able to enter any businesses or establishments.

    We have consistently been called “conspiracy theorists” throughout this event by government bureaucrats and the media. But, we were were right about almost everything, and the mainstream media has been wrong about almost everything. Either that, or they have been knowingly lying about almost everything.

    This dynamic is important to understand because I believe the situation is far from over and that more crisis events are about to be engineered (or they will magically happen by coincidence).

    My biggest concern right now is the upcoming ‘Cyberpolygon’ exercise being headed by the WEF this July. The war game is meant to “simulate” a cyberattack on vital infrastructure that would lead to a shutdown of the global supply chain, or at least the supply chains within certain nations. As I warned in April, the timing of Cyberpolygon is suspicious. As the covid lockdown agenda is breaking down in the US and the vaccine passports are not winning favor among a large percentage of Americans, the globalists will need another crisis even if they hope to achieve their goals for their Great Reset.

    Only weeks after I published my initial concerns about Cyberpolygon, a massive cyberattack was reported which struck the 5,500 mile Colonial Pipeline. The pipeline supplies gasoline to most of the eastern seaboard and after a week of being shut down numerous states were reporting gas shortages. The story has since quietly faded from mainstream news cycles.

    In the past few days, yet another major cyberattack has been reported against JBS, a meat company that supplies around 23% of all US beef and pork. Production at JBS has shut down, and now there is the possibility of meat shortages across the country if the problems are not solved soon.

    Again, is it just coincidence that these large scale cyberattacks are happening with greater frequency in the lead-up to a WEF’s Cyberpolygon simulation? Or, is Cyberpolygon another Event 201? Is it a beta test for a disaster that is planned for the near future? The WEF is openly comparing future cyber attacks to covid outbreaks, so I’m inclined to suspect the latter:

    The supply chain issue has come to the forefront in the wake of the pandemic as retailers have had to deal with intermittent shortages, and manufacturers are facing a lack of components. Not only that, but inflationary troubles are also weighing on supplies. That said, a cyberattack is another animal entirely; whether or not the event is real or staged, the supply chain is fragile because of global interdependency. In the US, there are many necessities that rely on foreign manufacturers or the “just in time” freight system. Preparedness and long term storage are not a part of the vocabulary of the common US business.

    I don’t really know if the supply chain could be shut down completely using a cyberattack, but in combination with inflation and draconian pandemic restrictions, it is possible to disrupt the flow of goods for weeks at a time. It is also impossible to predict how many people are prepared for such a calamity. My hope is that more than 30% of Americans have at least begun the path to prepping, but undoubtedly a majority of the country has not. All it would take is a couple weeks of shortages or a grid down scenario and most people would be facing starvation, among other things.

    If Event 201 is any indication, then we should remain vigilant and watch carefully for another major cyberattack affecting the supply chain within two months of the WEF’s Cyberpolygon exercise in July.

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 23:30

  • AI 'Smart Potty' Monitors Bowel Health For Gastro Issues 
    AI ‘Smart Potty’ Monitors Bowel Health For Gastro Issues 

    According to Duke Today, researchers at Duke announced an artificial intelligence tool that could easily be mounted on a standard toilet to analyze patients’ stools and give gastroenterologists suggestions about bowel health. 

    Associate Research Professor for Duke University Dr. Sonia Grego is working on the ‘smart toilet’ that takes stool images and sends them directly to a doctor for review. 

    The device uses an algorithm to monitor a patient’s stool (i.e., loose, normal, or constipated) and the presence of blood, allowing them to diagnose the patient and provide proper treatment.

    To develop the artificial intelligence image analysis device, researchers had to train a deep learning algorithm with 3,328 unique stool images and accurately classify anomalies in the stool that would suggest a patient is experiencing gastrointestinal problems. 

    “Researchers found that the algorithm accurately classified the stool form 85 percent of the time and gross blood detection was accurate in 76 percent of the images,” Duke Today said. 

    “We are optimistic about patient willingness to use this technology because it’s something that can be installed in their toilet’s pipes and doesn’t require the patient to do anything other than flush,” said Sonia Grego, PhD, founding director of the Duke Smart Toilet Lab and a lead researcher on the study. “This could be especially useful for patients who may not be able to report their conditions, such as those who live in a long-term care facility.”

    The prototype smart toilet is promising but has yet to be commercialized as it must undergo more testing. 

    In some respect, this technology makes a lot of sense, considering more people can’t remember what their stool looked like a day before or don’t regularly record their bowel movements. But like any smart device, there are privacy issues and risks that private stool data could be hacked. 

    If Duke researchers ever get to the commercialization stage, these smart toilets will likely be installed at long-term care facilities and hospitals. Now convincing the everyday person, such as a baby boomer, that an algorithm will monitor their stool and automatically send pictures to their doctor is a whole other challenge. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 23:00

  • Bovard: Will Treason Mania Destroy America?
    Bovard: Will Treason Mania Destroy America?

    Authored by James Bovard via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    At the start of the Biden era, America is being torn apart by more allegations of treason than at any time since the Civil War. Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” And few things spur hatred more effectively than tarring all political opponents as traitors.

    The Founding Fathers carved the Constitution in light of the horrific political abuses that had proliferated in England in prior centuries. That was why there was a narrow definition of treason in the Constitution: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

    After the end of Reconstruction, treason charges became relatively rare in American politics. Wars were probably the biggest propellants, with anyone who opposed American intervention abroad being tagged with the scarlet T. But by the late 1960s, when the futility of the Vietnam War was becoming clear, treason charges had largely lost their political clout. Gen. Alexander Haig, who later became Richard Nixon’s last White House chief of staff, denounced the Pentagon Papers as “devastating … a security breach of the greatest magnitude of anything I’ve ever seen … it’s treasonable” But the Nixon administration’s protests failed to sway the Supreme Court to block the New York Times from publishing the secret official records of decades of U.S. government deceit on Indochina.

    Unfortunately, the political exploitation of the 9/11 attacks included reviving treason accusations against anyone who did not cheer George W. Bush’s promise to “rid the world of evil.” On December 6, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft informed the Senate Judiciary Committee, “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and … give ammunition to America’s enemies.” At that point, Bush had already suspended habeas corpus and his underlings were busy sabotaging laws limiting federal surveillance of American citizens. But regardless of how many civil liberties were actually destroyed, critics were traitors.

    Run-up to 2016

    While Bush was rehabilitated by the mainstream media in recent years as a reward for criticizing Donald Trump, his 2004 reelection campaign relied on tacit treason accusations to tarnish Democrats, liberals, and even a few libertarians. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, keynote speaker Democratic Sen. Zell Miller implied that political opposition was treason: “Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats’ manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.”

    There was no evidence that such criticism of Bush’s foreign policy was ripping America asunder — but trumpeting the accusation made Bush critics appear a pox on the land. Other Republicans used the same theme. John Thune, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in South Dakota, denounced Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle: “His words embolden the enemy.” Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman condemned the Kerry campaign for “parroting the rhetoric of terrorists” and warned, “The enemy listens. All listen to what the president said, and all listen to what Senator Kerry said.” Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, stumping for Bush, told audiences, “Political criticism is our enemy’s best friend.” Six weeks before the 2004 election, the Washington Post noted, “President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq — a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.”

    In 2006, the New York Times revealed that the Bush administration was illegally seizing personal financial information of millions of Americans. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, declared, “We’re at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous.” Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) also labeled the Times guilty of “treason.” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) suggested that the Times had become the “Benedict Arnold Press.”

    After Barack Obama was elected in 2008, treason allegations simmered down, except for occasional allegations that Obama was a secret Muslim scheming to impose Sharia law on America. Former NSA employee Edward Snowden’s leak of NSA documents was the biggest treason boomlet of that era. Numerous congressmen called for Snowden to be charged with treason, though the Founding Fathers neglected to include “embarrassing the government” in the Constitution’s definition of treason. House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and former NSA chief Michael Hayden publicly joked about putting Snowden on a government kill list.

    But the Snowden uproar was a kerfuffle compared to the Pandora’s box opened by the 2016 presidential campaign. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton repeatedly effectively asserted that Republican nominee Donald Trump was a Russian tool, betraying the nation.

    Treason in the White House

    After Trump’s surprise victory in November 2016, treason became the coin of the realm for denigrating political opposition. Democratic politicians, activists, and their media allies responded to Hillary Clinton’s surprise defeat by smearing Donald Trump for colluding with Russia. Leaks to the media from the FBI, CIA, and other federal agencies spurred raging controversies that contributed to Trump’s firing FBI chief James Comey. That resulted in the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Trump. Endless wrangling followed, including a claim by prominent Democrats claiming that Republicans would be guilty of treason if they released a memo detailing the FBI’s abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

    Mueller quickly became sacrosanct; liberals even bought votary candles with his likeness. A piece I wrote for The Hill on Mueller’s lawless record as FBI chief spurred 1,500 comments, including denunciations of me as a treason weasel, bearded grifter, Alt-moron, lackey, lickspittle, and librarian (some folks can’t spell “libertarian”). In April 2019, Mueller finally admitted that there was no substantive evidence of collusion but that did not stop the endless “RussiaGate” refrain and treason accusations from Trump critics. Most of Trump’s presidency was permeated by charges of treason against him.

    But the Mueller-induced treason prattle was child’s play compared to what followed disputes over the 2020 presidential election. As law professor Jonathan Turley noted, after the media announced Biden won, “All court challenges [to election results] then became unethical for lawyers and all congressional challenges became sedition for members.” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro this past December denounced one challenge to the election results as a “seditious abuse of the judicial process” that was guilty of “misleading the public about a free and fair election and tearing at our Constitution.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wailed, “The most serious attempt to overthrow our democracy in the history of our country is under way.” Twitter’s left-wing tilt has helped spur hashtags such as #GOPSeditiousTraitors and #TreasonAgainstAmerica. One leftist activist got 65,000 “likes” when he declared that “Donald Trump should replace Benedict Arnold in history as America’s most reviled traitor.”

    On the other side of the political divide, some Republicans sounded equally hellbent on demonizing any opposition to their demands. Republican lawyer Lin Wood declared that Vice President Pence would be guilty of treason for certifying the election results and that he “will face execution by firing squad.” The Pro-Trump duo Diamond and Silk tweeted, “After listening to the leaked call put out by the Washington Post we are convinced that Georgia’s secretary of state and his lawyer need to be arrested for Treason!”

    After protesters crashed into the U.S. Capitol on January 6 (some crashed into the building while others sauntered in), treason accusations went into overdrive. The definition of treason was vastly expanded to include members of Congress who filed a lawful challenge against the 2020 electoral tally. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that Republicans who signaled they would not ratify the Electoral College results earlier that month “gave aid and comfort to [protesters] with the idea that they were embracing a lie … that the election did not have legitimacy.” A court of law would never convict Republican members of treason, but Pelosi can convict them in the court of public opinion, thanks to the hanging judges at CNN and MSNBC.

    Civil War politics

    Many Trump opponents are invoking 1861, denouncing any Republican challenges to the election as the same type of treason supposed to have been committed by states that exited the union. But the Civil War illustrates the catastrophic damage that can result from broad-brush definitions of treason. Northern politicians quickly persuaded their supporters that all Southerners were traitors — a capital offense. In 1864, Gen. William Sherman wired the War Department in Washington, “There is a class of people — men, women, and children — who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.” Union armies in Virginia, Georgia, and elsewhere late in the war intentionally devastated civilian populations who were considered collectively guilty of secession and treason.

    Unfortunately, many pundits and politicians know only a fairy-tale version of the Civil War. The fact that Trump had high support in many southern states is spurring bizarre proposals that would be the final coffin nails into any hope for a semblance of peaceful coexistence between Americans with different views and values. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the media’s favorite progressive congresswoman, declared, “The only way our country is going to heal is through the actual liberation of southern states.” She didn’t specify whether she favored the type of military dictatorship that was ended only by a historic compromise after the fraud-ridden 1876 presidential election. Politico, one of the most respected Washington publications, printed a piece titled, “What Ulysses Grant Can Teach Joe Biden about Putting Down Violent Insurrections.” The piece stressed, “Grant’s approach relied on a combination of brute military force and a drastic curtailment of civil liberties, yet it nevertheless has relevance for the current moment.” The article stressed the need for “overwhelming force” to suppress the type of people who violated the sacred space of the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

    Any federal attempt to expunge political dissent in America with “brute military force and a drastic curtailment of civil liberties” would very likely provoke a civil war. But that could be the end result of current trends of presuming that political opponents are traitors who must be exterminated. While Democratic members of Congress and some Biden officials are comforted by the thousands of National Guard troops now occupying Washington at their behest, they would be unwise to presume the troops would obey orders to scourge their countrymen in every nook of the land.

    Perhaps the ultimate cause of the proliferation of treason accusations is that politicians have captured far too much control over Americans’ lives. The more power politicians seize, the more unhinged political rhetoric becomes.

    American politics is increasingly becoming toxic because presidents nowadays are elective dictators. Rather than a process of selecting a chief executive who will uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws, elections nowadays confer a license to run amok over the lives and property of practically anyone who falls under federal sway. Government has amassed so much power that the vast majority of Americans no longer trust Washington.

    The surest recipe for curtailing political vitriol is to reduce political power so elections are not demolition derbies that doom losing sides. Thomas Jefferson in 1799 offered the ideal that can rescue America from strife today: “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” And if presidents and members of Congress choose to openly scorn their oaths of office and constitutional constraints on their power — well, many Americans would consider that to be treason.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 22:30

  • A Map Of The Online World In Incredible Detail
    A Map Of The Online World In Incredible Detail

    The internet is intangible, and, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang points out, because you can’t see it, it can be hard to comprehend its sheer vastness. As well, it’s difficult to gauge the relative size of different web properties. However, this map of the internet by Halcyon Maps offers a unique solution to these problems.

    Inspired by the look and design of historical maps, this graphic provides a snapshot of the current state of the World Wide Web, as of April 2021. Let’s take a closer look!

    But First, Methodology

    Before diving into an analysis, it’s worth touching on the methodology behind this graphic’s design.

    This map highlights thousands of the world’s most popular websites by visualizing them as “countries.” These “countries” are organized into clusters that are grouped by their content type (whether it’s a news website, search engine, e-commerce platform, etc).

    The colored borders represent a website’s logo or user interface. In terms of scale, each website’s territory size is based on its average Alexa web traffic ranking. The data is a yearly average, measured from January 2020 to January 2021.

    Along the borders of the map, you can find additional information, from ranked lists of social media consumption to a mini-map of average download speeds across the globe.

    According to the designer Martin Vargic, this map took about a year to complete.

    Top 10 Most Popular Websites

    Google and YouTube take up a lot of space, which is unsurprising—they’re the two highest-ranked websites on the list:

    Google has held the title as the internet’s most popular website since 2010. While Google’s popularity is well understood, the company’s dominance might be even more widespread than you’d think—across all Google-owned platforms (including YouTube) the company accounts for 90% of all internet searches.

    The third highest ranked website is Tmall. For those who don’t know, Tmall is a Chinese e-commerce platform, owned by Alibaba Group. It focuses on Business-to-Consumer (B2C) transactions, and has established itself as the most popular e-commerce website in China—in Q1 2021, Tmall accounted for more than 50% of China’s B2C online transactions.

    A High Level Look

    When it comes to the top 50 websites overall, a majority are either social networking platforms, search engines, or online marketplaces—while this may not come as a surprise, it’s still powerful to see visualized. For instance, even a huge, well-known website like the New York Times is just a tiny country on this map.

    And of course, a map of the internet isn’t complete without mention of the dark web.

    While it’s challenging to determine its true size, research indicates that the dark web accounts for a large portion of the internet’s true size. And apparently, it’s growing steadily, with the help of anonymous cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

    For the most part, it’s believed that the dark web is used for unsavory reasons – however, it’s not all bad. Because of its anonymous nature, it can be used as a safe space for whistleblowing or activism.

    Overall, this map, and the internet as a whole, has many places for us to explore. When you dive in, what “countries” catch your eye?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 22:00

  • CJ Hopkins: Covidian Push Toward A New Totalitarian 'Normal'
    CJ Hopkins: Covidian Push Toward A New Totalitarian ‘Normal’

    In a recent interview with Fox News, author and playwright C.J. Hopkins describes the current pandemic paradigm as a worrying prelude to the normalization of  a brutal technocratic brand of authoritarianism.

    https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6257082211001&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

    Fox News reports…

    As millions of vaccines are distributed around the world each day, mask mandates are lifted, and daily life takes on a semblance of normalcy, one German-based satirist is ringing the alarm bells about what he views as “nascent totalitarianism” seeping its way into society. 

    C.J. Hopkins is an American playwright and author living in Berlin and a self-described “creature of the left.” Over the past year and a half, Hopkins has been increasingly concerned about long-term implications of what he deemed the “radical restructuring of human society” toward a post-COVID “New Normal,” a term often used by the political class.

    “I’m a free speech advocate, against racism, discrimination – anti-authoritarian, basically. And watching our societies transform into this type of authoritarianism, and I go so far as to call it nascent totalitarianism, is horrifying,” Hopkins said in an interview with Fox News.

    While Hopkins’ ideological beliefs have aligned with the political left more often than not throughout his career, he has never been one to silently fall in line.

    In fact, Hopkins has been openly critical of the lies and deceit coming from the left since the election of President Donald Trump in 2016.

    “It was fascinating to watch and track the reaction of the establishment to Donald Trump. He became a figurehead for this populist push back against global capitalist ideology,” said Hopkins.

    This “global capitalist ideology” he described, or “GloboCap” as he’s taken to calling it in his writings, is an ideologically monolithic global-capitalist societal structure. Essentially, a ruling class made up of globalist oligarchs.

    “It was just so clear they set out to destroy him, make an example of him, and demonize everybody who put him in office,” said Hopkins.

    He claimed the demonization of Trump during his four years in office was this ruling class “reminding us who’s in charge and what happens if we elect unauthorized presidents who haven’t been approved by the system.”

    Admittedly not a fan of Trump, Hopkins couldn’t help but laugh at all of the ways in which the former president was vilified. “First, he was a Russian intelligence asset, then he was literally Hitler and was going to overthrow the U.S. government with some underground White supremacist militia,” Hopkins recalled, claiming the accusations were “pure fantasy that was taken seriously.”

    According to Hopkins, this push toward a post-COVID “New Normal” society in which people are willing to lockdown in their homes when told, wear masks when asked, and carry around their COVID-19 vaccination cards in order to be allowed into public spaces is a continuation of the invisible ruling class asserting its dominance.

    “One thing that I’ve been saying to try to get through to people,” said Hopkins, “is just the whole idea of lockdowns. ‘Lockdown,’ this is a prison term, right? And when do you lock down the prison? When the prisoners are rioting and getting rebellious. It’s a way of reminding everyone, ‘Hey, you’re in prison and we’re in charge.’”

    “It isn’t really about the vaccines or the tests,” he said in regards to newly implemented guidelines.

    “What it’s about is training us, conditioning us to live in a society where we accept this type of control.”

    Another aspect of this “synchronization of culture,” as Hopkins called it, and which he finds particularly terrifying is the ideological uniformity being spread by “big supranational entities and corporate media” on behalf of the establishment.

    “It’s tearing societies apart, it’s tearing relationships apart, it’s tearing families apart, this extreme polarization and intolerance of dissent and differing views,” he said.

    “I feel like if I start questioning or challenging the official COVID narrative, if I start pointing out facts, I’m treated like a suppressive person in the Church of Scientology.”

    “The reaction is not one of strong disagreement, anger or to prove me wrong,” he continued.

    “The reaction is to shut me up, silence me and make me go away. When a society gets to that place, where dissent is treated that way, that is a really dangerous development.”

    Hopkins compared the “suffocating” atmosphere in Berlin to a German word, Gleichschaltung, which arose in the Nazi era and was used to describe the process by which Nazi Germany established a system of totalitarian control over the individual, as well as close coordination of all aspects of society.

    All is not doomed, however, according to the American political satirist, who said he has been greatly encouraged by the pushback exhibited in parts of the U.S., naming states like Florida and Texas. Sadly, no such rebellion against the shift toward totalitarianism exists in Germany.

    As an artist and a creature of the left, speaking out about the left wing’s authoritarian power grab has been particularly painful for C.J. Hopkins.

    “I’m an artist and 99% of the art world has just gone completely ‘New Normal,’” he said, admitting many of his personal relationships have been ruined by him sharing his unpopular opinions.

    “Most often I get attacked by folks on the left and liberals who are now telling me that I’m some kind of far-right extremist, but I haven’t changed.”

    For Hopkins, remaining silent and falling into line is no longer an option.

    “There are some times in history when you need to put those types of career considerations and personal considerations aside because the stakes are that high, and I feel like the stakes are that high this time.”

    *  *  *
    C.J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist, and is author of the dystopian classic, Zone 23. His plays have been produced and have toured at theatres and festivals in North America and Europe, and is a featured writer at The Consent Factory.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 21:30

  • "We Took Out The June 2007 Highs": Morgan Stanley's Sell Signal Just Hit An All Time High
    “We Took Out The June 2007 Highs”: Morgan Stanley’s Sell Signal Just Hit An All Time High

    For the past several months, Morgan Stanley’s fundamental analysts have been turning increasingly bearish on stocks, with the pessimistic sentiment plateauing earlier this week when chief equity strategist Michael Wilson said that there is far too much optimism in the market, and that while earnings are slowly rising, forward PE multiples are far too high and are set to slide, with “the de-rating about 75% to go or an approximate 15% decline in P/Es from here.” As a result, in Wilson’s view – which is rapidly emerging as the most bearish on Wall Street – “earnings revisions will not be able to offset that de-rating, leaving the overall market vulnerable to a 10-15 % correction over the next 6 months.”

    It now appears that Morgan Stanley’s fundamental bearishness has spilled over into the bank’s technical analyst team and as the bank’s chief Euro equity Strategist Matthew Garman writes, for only the fifth time in over 30 years, each of Morgan Stanley’s five market timing indicators are giving a sell signal at the same time.

    Not only that, but the bank’s Combined Market Timing Indicator – which has been in sell territory since March – just hit a new all time high of 1.19, surpassing the previous record high seen in June-2007, right around the time of the first great quant crash and before the market collapsed.

    According to Garman, the only time equities have risen after a “Full House” Sell Signal was in Feb 17, shortly after the Shanghai Accord kicked in to prevent a global recession. The other previous occasions where there was a “Full House” Sell Signal were Mar-90, May-92, Jun-07. According to MS, “in the 6M post the initial Full House Sell Signal, MSCI Europe has fallen on average 6%.”

    So with every in house risk indicator screaming sell, does that mean that Morgan Stanley will have the balls to tell its clients to sell? Why of course not, because in this market where stuff like the AMC, GameStop and Bed Bath squeezes force analysts to admit they no longer have any idea what’s going on…

    … Morgan Stanley is keeping the hope and assuming that the current period will be similar to 2017 – the only other time when a massive sell signal did not result in a market plunge.

    Back in 2017, we remained constructive despite the signal given i) strong EPS growth, ii) an early cycle environment, iii) EU inflows, iv) low sentiment and v) a rise in M&A. Sentiment metrics may look more elevated than in 2017, but many of those factors remain in place today. While we see a trickier risk-reward for equities globally, we maintain our view that there is a compelling case for Europe to outperform global peers.

    Yet even Morgan Stanley is forced to admit that while Defensives may just scrape by after a record sell signal, cyclicals are about to be hammered. The next chart shows the relative performance of Cyclicals versus Defensives after a Full House Sell Signal on. As MS notes, “perhaps unsurprisingly, given the poor performance at the market level, Cyclicals have struggled. In the 6M post the four initial Full House Sell Signals, Cyclicals have underperformed Defensives on average 12%, and this drops to -15% looking at any day
    when the MTIs have all said sell at the same time.”

    This was true even in 2017 when equity markets rose: “we previously cited similarities with the 2017 Full House Sell Signal as reasons to not get overly cautious on equity markets in aggregate at this moment in time. After the February-2017 Full House Sell Signal, MSCI Europe continued to rise pretty consistently through the rest of the year. However, despite strong performance from the market in aggregate, the performance of Cyclicals versus Defensives was much poorer. Between February and June 2017 Cyclicals underperformed Defensives by 6%.”

    It’s not just the bank’s sell signal that is prompting concerns about the future returns of cyclicals: Borrowing a page from our own warnings (see “China’s Credit Impulse Just Turned Negative, Unleashing Global Deflationary Shockwave“), Morgan Stanley looks at “a number of China data points which are giving warning signs” first and foremost the collapse in China’s credit impulse, to wit:

    While credit tightening has been front-loaded in 1H21, as outlined here, our economists remain constructive on China’s growth recovery. Having said that, a number of Chinese data points do suggest the Cyclical bounce looks overextended. China’s credit impulse has just turned negative, and historically this has provided a lead indicator for the year-on-year performance of European Cyclicals (Exhibit 5). Similarly, the relative performance of Cyclicals versus Defensives has closely tracked moves in Chinese 10Y bond yields, which are now at their lowest levels since September 2020, standing in sharp contrast to the performance of Cyclicals.

    Putting it all together, readers have to ask themselves if what is coming will be an analog of the one and only episode on history when the market did not plunge after all Morgan Stanley market timing indicators hit a sell (and were at an all time high), or will this case be similar to Mar-90, May-92, Jun-07 when the outcome was anything but a happy ending.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 21:00

  • High-Ranking Chinese Defector Reportedly Working With DIA Has "Direct Knowledge" Of China's Bioweapons Program
    High-Ranking Chinese Defector Reportedly Working With DIA Has “Direct Knowledge” Of China’s Bioweapons Program

    Authored by Jennifer Van Laar via RedState.com,

    A person believed to be among the highest-ranking defectors ever to the United States from the People’s Republic of China has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for months, sources inside the intelligence community have told RedState on condition of anonymity.

    The defector has direct knowledge of special weapons programs in China, including bioweapons programs, those sources say.

    The information provided to RedState corroborates and clarifies Thursday evening’s reporting by journalist Adam Housley.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    RedState’s sources say that’s partially true. FBI Director Christopher Wray was “ambushed” with the information, they say, and Langley was also unaware. Sources say DIA leadership kept the defector within their Clandestine Services network to prevent Langley and the State Department from accessing the person, whose existence was kept from other agencies because DIA leadership believes there are Chinese spies or sources inside the FBI, CIA, and several other federal agencies.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    More information will be published as it becomes available to RedState.

    *  *  *

    UPDATE 12:30 PM PDT, June 4, 2021

    Sources tell RedState the defector has been with the DIA for three months and that he has provided an extensive, technically detailed debrief to US officials. In DIA’s assessment, the information provided by the defector is legitimate.

    Sources say the level of confidence in the defector’s information is what has led to a sudden crisis of confidence in Dr. Anthony Fauci, adding that U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) personnel detailed to DIA have corroborated very technical details of information provided by the defector.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 20:30

  • An Inconvenient Truth: EVs May Offer A "Negligible" CO2 Difference From ICE Vehicles
    An Inconvenient Truth: EVs May Offer A “Negligible” CO2 Difference From ICE Vehicles

    Are the carbon footprints of EVs really as drastically lower than that of internal combustion engine vehicles? When considering the amount of carbon and CO2 created from assembling lithium ion batteries, one firm thinks the difference could be “negligible”.

    Such was the topic of a new blog post by natural resource investors Goehring & Rozencwajg (G&R), a “fundamental research firm focused exclusively on contrarian natural resource investments with a team with over 30 years of dedicated resource experience.”

    The firm, established in 2015, posted a blog entry entitled “Exploring Lithium-ion Electric Vehicles’ Carbon Footprint” this week, where they call into question a former ICE vs. EV comparison performed by the Wall Street Journal and, while citing work performed by Jefferies, argue that there could literally be “no reduction in CO2 output” in some EV vs. ICE comparisons. 

    Their analysis “details the tremendous amount of energy (and by extension CO2) needed to manufacture a lithium-ion battery.” Because a typical EV is on average 50% heavier than a similar internal combustion engine, the analysis notes that the “embedded carbon” in an EV (i.e., when it rolls off the lot) is therefore 20–50% more than an internal combustion engine.

    The report notes:

    Our analysis suggests a modern lithium-ion battery has approximately 135,000 miles of range before it degrades to the point of becoming unusable. An extended-range Tesla Model 3 has an 82 kWh battery and consumes approximately 29 kWh per 100 miles. Assuming each charge cycle has a ~95% round-trip efficiency and a battery can achieve 500 cycles before starting to degrade, we conclude a Model 3 can drive 134,310 miles before dramatically losing range.

    Incidentally, Tesla’s Model 3 warranty covers the battery for the lesser of eight years or 120,000 miles and does not apply until the battery has degraded by at least 30%. If the Jefferies analysis is correct (and we believe it is), then an EV will reach carbon-emission parity with an internal-combustion vehicle just as its battery requires replacement. This will come as a huge disappointment for those believing that EV adoption will have significant impacts on CO2 reduction.

    The blog post then goes on to critique a WSJ analysis that concluded it would only take 20,000 miles to “break-even” with an internal combustion engine:

    First, it compares a Tesla Model 3 (a sedan) with a Toyota Rav4 (an SUV). An entry-level Honda Civic, which we believe is a more appropriate comparison, would improve the ICE fuel efficiency by 20%. Next, after consulting the footnotes, The Wall Street Journal article assumes 80 kg of CO2 emission per of battery. This estimate appears to come from a 2019 Swedish Energy Agency report in which they reduce their carbon intensity by half compared with the year prior.

    The motivation for lowering their estimates was the use of “close to 100 percent fossil free energy […] which is not common yet, but likely will be in the future.” In other words, the cost and carbon-intensity of lithium-ion batteries is predicated on renewable energy which itself requires cheap and carbon-efficient lithium-ion batteries. 

    “Even if The Wall Street Journal figures are accurate, we believe most investors still do not appreciate how little the magnitude of potential carbon savings from lithium-ion EVs is,” G&R writes. 

    The post concludes with some starkly “inconvenient truths”: that if a global analysis was performed using figures put together by Jefferies, instead of those used by the Wall Street Journal analysis, “the difference would be negligible — there would be no reduction in CO2 output.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 20:00

  • 3 Points The Media Is Still Getting Wrong About Wuhan Lab Theory (& The Documents To Prove It)
    3 Points The Media Is Still Getting Wrong About Wuhan Lab Theory (& The Documents To Prove It)

    Authored by Sharyl Attkisson, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    1. U.S. Taxpayer Money Did Go to Controversial ‘Gain of Function’ Research

    Thanks to some confusing verbal gymnastics by Dr. Anthony Fauci, some in the media are giving the impression that there’s no proof U.S. tax money funded “gain of function” research or that, perhaps, the research didn’t qualify as gain of function. However, the evidence on this point is clear cut.

    A 2015 published study specifically discloses that the research is gain of function research that took bat coronavirus that was harmless to people—and made it infectious in humans. The study further states that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) approved continuation of the research even amid a general ban on such studies. (See study excerpt below.)

    Excerpt from controversial 2015 gain of function study funded by NIH and approved to continue beyond publication date. (Screenshot via Nature.com)

    The research was conducted by numerous U.S. scientists including Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina with the lead virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology: Shi Zhengli. (See study authors below.)

    Excerpt from controversial 2015 gain of function study funded by NIH and approved to continue beyond publication date. (Screenshot via Nature.com)

    2. The Gain of Function Research with China Did Not Only Receive U.S. Support and Money Through the Nonprofit ‘EcoHealth Alliance,’ but Also Directly

    Many media reports refer to several millions of dollars in tax money sent from the NIH to the Wuhan lab via the New York-based nonprofit “EcoHealth Alliance.” However, research with the lab, and the lab itself, received significant additional U.S. support including:

    • Grants directly from the NIH.

    • Grants directly from Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the NIH. (See grant numbers highlighted below.)

    Excerpt from controversial 2015 gain of function study funded by NIH and approved to continue beyond publication date. (Screenshot via Nature,com)

    • Additional funds from EcoHealth Alliance that were initially undisclosed. (See correction to the study below.)

    Excerpt from a correction issued on the controversial 2015 gain of function study. (Screenshot via Nature.com)

    • Assistance from the University of Texas. (See excerpt from study below.)

    Excerpt from controversial 2015 gain of function study. (Screenshot via Nature.com)

    • Resources from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). (See study disclosure below.)

    Excerpt from controversial 2015 gain of function study. (Screenshot via Nature.com)

    3. The Chinese Wuhan Lab Received Direct U.S. Support, in Addition to the Indirect Grants From EcoHealth Alliance

    State Department cables from January 2018 detail assistance from the University of Texas Medical Branch, including university “researchers … helping train technicians who work” in the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab. The Texas lab is supported by Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under NIH. (See excerpt from cable below.)

    Excerpt from State Department cables from January 2018. (Screenshot via Washington Post)

    *  *  *

     Sharyl Attkisson is the New York Times bestselling author of “Stonewalled,” a five-time Emmy Award winner, and the host of Sinclair’s national investigative television program “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 19:30

  • IRS To Ultra Rich Looking To Dodge Taxes In Puerto Rico: 'We're Waiting For You'
    IRS To Ultra Rich Looking To Dodge Taxes In Puerto Rico: ‘We’re Waiting For You’

    Last month we noted how hedge fund managers have been descending on Puerto Rico in the hopes of dodging Biden tax hikes, and to take advantage of tax incentives rolled out in 2012 which have lured high net-worth individuals, corporations and cryptocurrency traders alike.

    If you fall under any of the above and you’re falsely claiming to be a resident of Puerto Rico, the IRS has a message for you: ‘We’re waiting for you…’

    According to Bloomberg Tax, the agency has been the focus of a “sweeping” review to examine individuals who took advantages of the tax incentives. According to the report, “More than 4,000 mainland U.S. residents and firms have moved to the territory between 2012 and 2019, revealing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue to the U.S. government, according to an IRS report delivered to Congress.”

    At issue are taxpayers who may have excluded income subject to U.S. tax, or failed to file and report income altogether when they moved to Puerto Rico, according to the IRS notice. The agency is also targeting those who claim to be bona fide residents of Puerto Rico but may be “erroneously reporting” U.S. income to evade taxes.

    The IRS’s push is taking place as Biden’s proposed tax increases have triggered moves by America’s wealthiest from high-tax states like New York and California, while hedge funds like Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management and ExodusPoint Capital Management have moved to establish subsidiaries on the island. An ExodusPoint spokesman declined to comment, while a representative for Millennium did not respond. -Bloomberg Tax

    Tax attorneys who advise HNW clients on Puerto Rican tax incentives are already reporting that they’ve received requests for information from the IRS, while more audits are expected now that the US tax filing deadline has passed.

    “The IRS doesn’t start a campaign and not follow through,” said international tax layer J. Clark Armitage. “There are going to be a lot of audits.”

    The Puerto Rico crackdown is part of a wider sweep by the Treasury Department, which estimated that wealthy taxpayers are hiding billions of dollars in income. According to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the tax gap between what’s owed and what’s collected could grow to $7 trillion over the next decade if nothing is done.

    “One of the purposes of a campaign is to stop whatever fraud is going on while you’re doing the investigations and audits,” said former IRS commissioner John Koskinen. “You like to stop people in their tracks.”

    Campaigns by the IRS often take years to organize, as agents begin to detect factual patterns that indicate a significant loss of revenue due to non-compliance. In the case of Puerto Rico, much of the focus will be on establishing whether individuals are truly island residents and whether they properly sourced income to Puerto Rico.

    Unlike previous IRS efforts, the campaign’s origins began in Congress after lawmakers requested a report from the agency in their 2020 appropriations bill over concerns Puerto Rico’s tax laws may be enabling tax avoidance and that federal and state governments were being shorted revenue.

    “Every revenue authority everywhere is facing the same issue of needing to find an efficient process when there are fewer resources and budget constraints,” said Sharon Katz-Pearlman, global head of dispute resolution and controversy for KPMG.

    The IRS’ report to Congress calculated that more than 1,924 applicants—corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and other types—had been granted tax benefits under the Exports Services Act (formerly known as Act 20) as of March 2020 based on partial information provided by Puerto Rico. Act 20 offers entities a 4% corporate rate on business income and 100% tax exemption on dividends. That provision along with the Individual Investors Act have now been consolidated into a new incentive law to attract individuals and investments to the island.

    Read the rest of the report here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 19:00

  • Watch Live: Trump Returns To Political Stage At NC GOP Convention
    Watch Live: Trump Returns To Political Stage At NC GOP Convention

    Donald Trump will return to the political stage Saturday night with a speech at the North Carolina Republican Convention – his first major speech since CPAC in February, but more importantly – his first since he was vindicated over the possibility that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    It also comes after anti-Trump GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney (WY) was outed from her leadership position due to her frequent criticism of Trump.

    In a Friday statement, the former president said that it would be “a great honor to be speaking at the North Carolina GOP convention,” adding “I understand the place will be packed, all records broken!”

    Trump carried North Carolina during both of his presidential bids – visiting the state 14 times during the final year of his presidency. He’s scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. to a sold out audience of 1,250 people.

    Watch:

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 18:45

  • COVID, Learned Helplessness, And Control
    COVID, Learned Helplessness, And Control

    Via WeMeantWell.com,

    In the post-vaccination era, why don’t people remove their masks? Learned helplessness, employed as a control tool.

    Learned helplessness is well-documented. It takes place when an individual believes he continuously faces a negative, uncontrollable situation and stops trying to improve his circumstances, even when he has the ability to do so. Discovering the loss of control elicits a passive reaction to a harmful situation. Psychologists call this a maladaptive response, characterized by avoidance of challenges and the collapse of problem-solving when obstacles arise. You give up trying to fight back.

    An example may help: you must keep up with ever-changing mask and other hygiene theatre rules, many of which make no sense (mask in the gym, but not the pool; mask when going to the restaurant toilet but not at your table, NYC hotels are closed while Vegas casinos are open, Disney California closed while Disney Florida was open) and comply. You could push back, but you have been made afraid at a core level (forget about yourself rascal, you’re going to kill grandma if you don’t do what we say) and so you just give in. Once upon a time we were told a vaccine would end it all, yet the restrictions remain largely in place. You’re left believing nothing will fix this. Helpless to resist, you comply “out of an abundance of caution.”

    American psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier created the term “learned helplessness” in 1967. They were studying animal behavior by delivering electric shocks to dogs (it was a simpler time.) Dogs who learned they couldn’t escape the shock simply stopped trying, even after the scientists removed a barrier and the dog could have jumped away.

    Learned helplessness has three main features: a passive response to trauma, not believing that trauma can be controlled, and stress.

    Example: you are being stalked by a killer disease which often has no outward symptoms. There is nothing you can do but hide inside and buy things from Amazon. The government failed to stop the virus initially, failed to warn you, failed to supply ventilators and PPE gear, and failed to produce a vaccine quick enough. You may die. You may kill your family members along the way. You have lost your job by government decree and are forced to survive on unemployment and odd stimulus check, manufactured dependence. It is all very real: WebMD saw a 251 percent increase in searches for anxiety this April.

    Americans, with their cult-like devotion to victimhood, are primed for learned helplessness. Your problems are because you’re a POC, or fat, or on some spectrum. You are not responsible, can’t fix something so systemic, and best do what you are told.

    The way out is to allow people to make decisions and choices on their own. This therapy is used with victims of learned helplessness such as hostages. During their confinement all the important decisions of their life, and most of the minor ones, were made by their captors. Upon release, many hostages fear things as simple as a meal choice and need to be coaxed out of helplessness one micro-choice at a time.

    Example: you cannot choose where to stand, so follow the marks on the floor. Ignore the research saying three feet apart is as useful/useless as six feet apart. Don’t think about why the rules are the same inside a narrow hallway and outside in the fresh air but don’t apply at all on airplanes.

    Kin to learned helplessness are enforcers. Suddenly your waitress transitions from someone serving you into someone ordering you to wear a mask, sit alone, eat outside, etc. Flight attendants morph from delivering drinks to holding the power to have security haul you to jail for unmasking when not actively eating. Companies once run by entrepreneurs are today controlled by the harassment stalking undead from HR. We’ve become a republic of hall monitors. And there it is. The wrong people are in charge.

    One of the better examples of learned helplessness is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a great book made into an impressive movie starring a lean Jack Nicholson. Nurse Ratched cows a group of mentally ill men into complete learned helplessness, encouraging them to rat each other out for small offenses, and to follow her every order no matter how absurd. The kicker comes near the end when we learn all of the men (except Nicholson) are free to leave the hospital at any time. They just… can’t.

    It is amazing how fast people stepped into the Nurse Ratched roll. Within moments of COVID’s arrival in the national conscience, officials like California’s Gavin Newsom, and New York’s power bottom twins Andrew Cuomo and Bill De Blasio raced to assume dictatorial emergency powers. They spent not one moment assessing the impact of their decisions to lock down against the effects of the lockdown. They ignored information questioning the value of lockdown. They turned topsy-turvy the idea in a free society the burden of proof is on those who would restrict freedom and not on those who resist such restrictions.

    They were aided in manufacturing learned helplessness by the most sophisticated propaganda operation ever created. Already engorged with the coin of three years of fake news, the legacy media saw the value of a new crisis toward their two real goals: make as much money as possible garnering clicks, and defeating Donald Trump. Previous shows, Russiagate with a hat tip to 9/11 when Americans demanded fewer freedoms to feel safer, illustrated the way. On a 24/7 basis America were injected: you are helpless and Donald “COVID” Trump will kill you. Your only hope is to comply fully with the people at CNN who are administering the electric shocks.

    Truth is useless to propagandists, actually a threat. Look at what turned out to be false (in addition to Russiagate): we never ran out of ventilators or PPE or nurses or ICU beds or morgues. Masks were not really needed outdoors. We did in fact develop a vaccine, several in fact, in less than a year. Almost everyone who died was elderly or had serious comorbidities but we salivated over “new case numbers” as the primary metric anyway because they went up so much faster. When people questioned the real world view against the media portrayal, they were told about “asymptomatic COVID” or shunned as hoaxers. Everyone makes mistakes. But just as with Russiagate, all the media mistakes swung one way.

    It worked. Condo boards boarded up their gyms. Restaurants forced diners to eat outside in the rain. Entire industries, such as tourism and hospitality, disappeared overnight. New groups were shoved into poverty and unemployment. Children were denied education, criminals released from jails. People were told not to hug their loved ones. Saving Grandma meant she died untouched in a hospital room. The government denied you the chance to say one final goodbye to the person who raised you and you didn’t fight back? Now that’s control.

    Every time a bit of dissenting information popped up — Florida opening its beaches for Spring Break, for example — the media rushed in to declare everyone was gonna die. Texas was declared dead, South Dakota was declared dead, and Americans believed it all even when reports of survivors started drifting out of Disney World. Learned helplessness is hard to unlearn. One Harvard professor explains our brains evolved to encode fear so well, it’s hard to turn off.

    Americans are not comfortable accepting their lives being manipulated at this level, the way for example many Russians assume it to be so. We tend to dismiss such things as conspiracy theories and make an Oliver Stone joke. But ask yourself how many of the temporary security and surveillance measures enacted after 9/11 are still controlling our lives almost 20 years later. Is the terror threat still so real the FBI needs to monitor our social media in bulk? Was it ever?

    Nothing here is to say vaccines don’t work, or are themselves dangerous. That’s another debate. This is about the politics of mass control. Add up the “doesn’t really make sense but we do it anyway” COVID rules and try to make sense of them. Why would otherwise smart leaders implement such rules, for example in New York’s case, purposely impoverishing a city or seeking to defund the police in the midst of triple digit rises in crime? Every time your answer is “it just doesn’t make sense” consider a scenario beyond coincidence where it would make sense however out there that might be. It might be the most important thing you can do.

    Then look out the window. Remember “10 days to flatten the curve?” With no voting or debate, a system based on a medical procedure capable of controlling our travel, which businesses we can visit, which hotels we can stay in, what jobs we can hold, what education we can access, at which point it is no more “voluntary” than breathing, was put into place. We no longer need to ask what is happening. The real question is always why.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 18:30

  • Watch: Delta Fight Attendant Tackles Would-Be Hijacker 
    Watch: Delta Fight Attendant Tackles Would-Be Hijacker 

    Delta Flight 386 from Los Angeles to Nashville on Friday was diverted to New Mexico after a passenger attempted to breach the cockpit and hijack the plane.

    Albuquerque International Sunport received distress calls from the plane after a passenger attempted to breach the cabin, airport spokeswoman Stephanie Kitts, who was quoted by USA Today. 

    Cellphone video captured the incident and one brave flight attendant who “tackled and zip-tied the man before anyone was harmed,” said Fox 11 Los Angeles. 

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    Another video shows the would-be hijacker was zip-tied with his hands behind his back. 

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    Twitter handle “@1WaySuggs” uploaded both videos to Twitter which have since gone viral. He tweeted, “y’all a n**ga tried to hijack my plane on God we just had to emergency land the done hogtied this nigga up on God my life wild.” 

    A photo of the flight attendant who apprehended the passenger was later seen seated with hands together and his head down after the incident. He must have had so much adrenaline running through his body after his heroic action. 

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    When the flight landed in New Mexico, airport police took the man into custody, who was later turned into the Albuquerque FBI. 

    On Friday evening, Albuquerque FBI tweeted: “The #FBI is responding to a report of a diverted flight at @ABQSunport . There is no threat to the public at this time.” 

    Delta released a statement but left out the fact that a passenger attempted to hijack the plane. Delta spokesman Anthony Black said Flight 386 landed without incident in Albuquerque, and he praised the crew and passengers on the flight for “detaining an unruly passenger.” 

    At the time, the 737-900 had 162 passengers and six crew members. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 18:00

  • A Couple Things About Inflation
    A Couple Things About Inflation

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    The higher they push phantom “assets” based on exponential increases in leverage, the greater the air gap between essential tangibles and fantasy.

    Inflation is in the news, but there are a couple of things about inflation that don’t get much coverage. Let’s start with the trope that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon. Actually, no.

    When nutrient-rich soil and fresh water reserves are depleted, crop yields decline and as human population and appetites for animal protein soar, food becomes scarce. When food becomes scarce, prices rise accordingly. It doesn’t matter what you do with money supply, prices will rise in relation to everything used as “money:” gold, shells, paper with colorful pictures printed on it, giant stone disks, quatloos, cryptocurrencies, etc.

    You could eliminate “money” entirely and the relative cost of food would rise even in a barter-only system.

    What few seem to grasp is that there is a hierarchy of needs that ruthlessly separates “needs” from “wants,” and the value of “wants” quickly drops to zero in real scarcities. When you’re hungry, I mean really hungry, the value of your yacht, collectible muscle car, NFT, etc. falls to zero if those with food have zero interest in your “valuables.” An ounce of gold for an egg? It all depends on what’s actually a need.

    In a similar fashion, real scarcity separates phantom intangible assets from real assets. If you glance at the chart of tangible and intangible assets below, you’ll note that phantom intangible assets are now the overwhelming majority of what’s laughably called “assets.”

    You want to trade your shares in XYZ Corporation for a 50-pound bag of rice? How do I know the “value” of shares in XYZ Corporation won’t be zero tomorrow? No, thank you. Come back when you have something tangible and tangibly useful (i.e. it will hold its value tomorrow) to trade for the rice.

    We inhabit a fantasy world in which scarcity has been banished by the gods of globalized markets and phantom assets built on sandcastles of leverage are the most valuable assets on the planet. Global stocks are now worth $115 trillion, woo-hoo.

    Meanwhile, back in the real world, the vast majority of humanity trades their labor for food and other essentials. The funny thing about human labor is that thanks to population growth, globalization and financialization, the relative value of labor has been in decline for decades. (see chart below) This means that as prices of essentials rise due to scarcities, the quantities of tangibles that labor can buy decline, meaning those trading their labor for essentials can afford fewer essentials.

    In other words, their prosperity is in a free-fall as scarcities push up prices of essentials.

    This free-fall of labor’s value and thus of prosperity is visible in the RAND chart of income 1975-2018 and in the Federal Reserve database chart of the wealth held by the bottom 50% of American households. The RAND chart of income by the top 1%, top 9% and bottom 90% shows that 25% of the bottom 90%’s income–virtually all from labor–has been transferred to the top 1% (the share of taxable income going to the top 1% rose 2.5-fold) and to a lesser degree, to the top 9%. (Recall that the top 9% mostly rely on earnings from labor, hence their modest increase compared to the top 1%.)

    The pathetically thin slice of wealth held by the bottom 50% of American households has fallen to near-zero. It’s fallen by 2/3 since the recent peak in the mid-1990s, the last “boom” that trickled down to the bottom 90%.

    The bottom 50% have no reserves to draw upon as prices of tangible essentials rise. They have no wealth to sell, and the value of their labor as measured in purchasing power of essentials is in an accelerating decline.

    This is a longstanding reality of civilization. As productivity rises, the human population expands up to the carrying capacity of the biosphere. Labor’s earnings rise as producers expand production to meet rising demand. Human population and appetites for goodies keep expanding, overshooting sustainable supply while labor expands to the point that it is in oversupply. Wages decline and labor thus loses purchasing power just as prices of essentials soar. Discontent and disorder increase and states and civilizations fall.

    I’ve long recommended these books on the fundamental cycle of civilization:

    The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History

    Ages of Discord

    This leads us to the last chart of diminishing returns on the phantom fixes of monetary manipulation and bread and circuses free money. The Federal Reserve can create currency out of thin air but it can’t conjure up productive land, fresh water, copper ore, oil, or food.

    The Fed can conjure up phantom “wealth” based on leverage but this relies on a heavily hyped faith in a fantasy world in which all tangible scarcities are magically turned to abundance by central bank money creation and low interest rates, and a splash of technocrat pixie dust: carbon taxes, windmills and drones flitting about.

    The returns on fantasies and phantom “assets” are also in a free-fall. Monetary and fiscal stimulus is skyrocketing to keep the travesty of a mockery of a sham “prosperity” from collapsing into a putrid sinkhole of failed financial farce.

    The higher they push phantom “assets” based on exponential increases in leverage, the greater the air gap between essential tangibles and fantasy.

    *  *  *

    If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    *  *  *

    My recent books:

    A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 (Kindle), $10 (print), ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

    The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

    Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 17:30

  • Hong Kong Parking Spot Sells For Record-Breaking $1.3 Million
    Hong Kong Parking Spot Sells For Record-Breaking $1.3 Million

    Even as thousands of Hong Kongers flee to the UK or elsewhere to escape China’s crackdown on political freedoms, the city-state’s property market is breaking yet another record.

    Citing a report in the Hong Kong Economic Times, Bloomberg reports that Wharf Holdings and Nan Fung Group sold a parking space for HK$10.2 million ($1.3 million) at the luxury Mount Nicholson residential project, according to a source. The price beat the previous record of HK$7.6 million for a spot in an office tower set back in 2019, before Hong Kong’s protest movement triggered a crackdown by Beijing that has engulfed the territory’s future in uncertainty, especially since China can simply snatch anyone – foreign nationals or otherwise – from Hong Kong’s jurisdiction.

    Mount Nicholson has a reputation for being one of the most iconic upscale projects in Hong Kong. At one point, an apartment in the project was the most expensive in Asia before the title was taken by CK Asset Holdings Ltd.’s 21 Borrett Road in February.

    As that record-breaking sale might suggest, the parking spot record isn’t a total surprise. HK has been seeing a comeback in the luxury home market in recent months, seeing record-breaking transactions as buyer’s confidence returns. A house on Hong Kong’s famous Peak (a luxury residential area overlooking the rest of the city) just rented for HK$1.6 a month in May.

    Still, despite its recent sharp rebound, Hong Kong’s economy “isn’t out of the woods just yet,” according to Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau. HK’s economy grew 7.9% in the first quarter of 2021 vs. a year ago, marking the first economic expansion after six consecutive quarters of contraction. Yau appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” Thursday morning to discuss it.

    While retail sales have seen a strong rebound, tourism remains weak, and the expansion is on uneven footing, Yau said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 17:00

  • The Case Of Joe Rogan: Vaccine Policy And Freedom Of Speech
    The Case Of Joe Rogan: Vaccine Policy And Freedom Of Speech

    Authored by Finn Andersen via The Mises Institute,

    Recently, Joe Rogan, one of the largest podcast hosts in the United States (10.6 million YouTube subscribers), expressed the following opinion about the vaccination of young adults:

    If you are 21 and ask me if you should get the vaccine, I would say “no”. If you are a healthy person and exercise all the time, and are young and eat well, I don’t think you have to worry about this.

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    This comment created a furor in the United States, where the government’s target is vaccination of the entire adult population.

    For these few sentences he received a sharp reprimand from the White House and Dr. Fauci, who accused Rogan of being selfish and endangering vulnerable members of society. 

    Given the very low covid risk for this age group, Rogan’s comments seem to make some sense. Wouldn’t it be more altruistic, rather than selfish, to let a vaccine dose first go to someone who needs it more? Either way, such criticism is ludicrous when it comes from a government that so often acts contrary to the interests of society.

    Additionally, considering the way in which the covid vaccines were launched, some skepticism on the part of Joe Rogan, and the general population, seems warranted. Indeed, these vaccines have become available so quickly that their Phase II and the Phase III development has been conducted in parallel and is not yet completed. In the US, the covid vaccines are currently approved only as emergency measures by the FDA, though nearly 260 million Americans have already been vaccinated.

    In the case of AstraZeneca, the pressure to get a vaccine out as quickly as possible caused an issue in the dosage during the first distributions. In many European countries this vaccine has not been recommended to young people because of a perceived risk of blood clots. In Russia, an antibody test is recommended before vaccination to ensure that the patient is not already immune, in order to avoid wasting doses and to avoid overloading the body with antibodies.

    In this context, it does not certainly seem shocking to suggest, like Joe Rogan, that healthy young adults may not really need to get vaccinated.

    Government Agents Attacking the Opinions of Private Citizens

    In reality, the real question is not whether Joe Rogan was right or wrong in saying what he said. Criticism of a citizen by the US government is disturbing regardless of the comments that were made. What about freedom of speech when the state criticizes an individual’s speech? 

    The protection of freedom of speech and of the press in the USA is among the strongest that exists. The First Amendment to the Constitution in theory offers extremely robust protection with its famous words: “Congress will not make any law curtailing freedom of speech, or of the press.”

    But this implies that it is not unconstitutional for the authorities to publicly judge the speech of its citizens, such as Rogan.

    As reported by Glenn Greenwald, this represents in practice a government control of speech. He quotes a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner who notes that:

    Politicians have realized that they can silence the speech of those with different political viewpoints by public bullying.

    For politically “sensitive” subjects, authorities do not accept deviations from their official story. This deleterious situation has existed since long before the pandemic. Today, it is about vaccine policy, but yesterday, about the war on terrorism, about Russiagate, about the corruption of Joe Biden, and many other topics. Greenwald explains:

    When it comes to censorship of politically adverse content, sometimes explicit censorship demands are unnecessary. Where a climate of censorship prevails, companies anticipate what those in power want them to do by anticipatorily self-censoring to avoid official retaliation. Speech is chilled without direct censorship orders being required.

    Concretely, this means that when Joe Rogan is publicly criticized by the authorities, countless other content is never published. This process of media self-censorship, without open and direct coercion from the state, is of course part of the propaganda system that Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky famously called “manufacturing consent.”

    For intrepid journalists who still take the risk of publicly challenging the official consensus, the lucrative and prestigious positions in mainstream media are no longer accessible. As shown by Greenwald, the risk to their reputation that they incur is real, because they are also then systematically victims of unscrupulous practices, such as being accused of being a conspiracy theorist or of inciting terrorism. These accusations, usually completely unfounded, can destroy careers in the toxic politically correct environment that exists in the United States. 

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. The authorities go much further than these mafia methods of intimidation. The main social networks in the US are now filled with reliable servants of the state, who filter and censor persons or publications at the request of various state institutions, the same way that mainstream media has behaved for ages.

    With respect to covid vaccine policy, for example, Facebook and YouTube today systematically censor comments and videos that are not in line with the official version of governments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO). The fact that these institutions have often changed their opinion about which health policy to recommend does not seem to be a problem.

    A Constitution Is Not Sufficient Protection

    This situation with Joe Rogan should remind everyone that the fight for individual freedoms, including freedom of speech and of the press, is a permanent struggle. No document, be it the US Constitution or the Declaration of Human Rights, gives an absolute guarantee against the violations of these freedoms by the state, as shown by many historical examples.

    The authoritarian tendencies of nominally democratic governments are nothing new. Indeed, these governments have a natural interest in trying to influence—not to say shape—public opinion. Recent history shows that in collaboration with traditional mainstream media and now social networks, the government is willing to do almost anything to prevent the electorate from understanding its real behavior. The fame of Joe Rogan will at least have contributed a little to exposing this truth.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 16:30

  • "Unloading A Revolver Into The Head Of Any White Person": Yale Features Violent, Racist Diatribe By Psychiatrist
    “Unloading A Revolver Into The Head Of Any White Person”: Yale Features Violent, Racist Diatribe By Psychiatrist

    An official event at the Yale School of Medicine featured a New York-based psychiatrist telling students she fantasizes about “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.”

    Disturbingly the talk entitled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind” was held as part of the continuing program, the Child Study Center Grand rounds. The event was held in April, but audio only late this week of New York-based Dr. Aruna Khilanani gleefully musing about murdering white people became available and was posted on journalist Bari Weiss’s Substack.

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    The presentation by Khilaniani, who is described in a separate interview as a “Forensic Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, with expertise in violence, racism, and marginalized identities” has since gone viral and earned widespread condemnation for its brazen and overt racism, which includes expressing a desire to commit genocide. 

    “I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a fucking favor,” Khilanani said at one point in the talk.

    Prior to this, she had told the Yale students, “This is the cost of talking to white people at all. The cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil.”

    And more…

    We are now in a psychological predicament, because white people feel that we are bullying them when we bring up race. They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain’t gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall. It’s just like sort of not a good idea.

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    She further advocated not even talking directly to white people about racial issues, calling the endeavor “useless” as all white people “sound demented” according to her.

    We need to remember that directly talking about race to white people is useless, because they are at the wrong level of conversation. Addressing racism assumes that white people can see and process what we are talking about. They can’t. That’s why they sound demented. They don’t even know they have a mask on. White people think it’s their actual face. We need to get to know the mask, Khilanani said.

    A poster from the event confirmed the whole thing was officially sponsored by Yale.

    This kind of extremist rhetoric has seemed commonplace of late at Yale and other Ivy League institutions. Over the past years there’s further been a number of firings of faculty or staff who dare to question it, or what it has to do with giving students an authentic academic formation and experience. 

    Rod Dreher at The American Conservative observed of audio of the event that “it’s hard to come up with a better example of the woke totalitarian capture of elite institution.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 16:00

  • Undetected Chinese Fishing Fleets Suspected Of Invading Argentina's Waters: Report
    Undetected Chinese Fishing Fleets Suspected Of Invading Argentina’s Waters: Report

    Authored by Rita Li via The Epoch Times,

    A recent report documented up to 6,000 foreign fishing vessels that disabled their public tracking devices for more than 24 hours along the border of Argentina’s national waters, sounding the alarm that they could be illegally fishing in the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

    “The Chinese fleet was responsible for 66 percent of these incidents,” said the June report by Oceana, a Washington-based non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the global oceans. The report claims that hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels mainly target shortfin squid, which is vital to both Argentina’s economy and ecosystem.

    A Chinese-flagged ship is seized in the Galapagos Marine Reserve for carrying some 300 tons of fish, including several endangered species such as the hammerhead shark, on Aug. 25, 2017. (Juan Cevallos/AFP via Getty Images)

    The analysis concludes that from January 2018 to April this year, undetected fishing activities took up more than 600,000 total hours, and many vessels turned off their Automatic Identification System (AIS) within one mile of Argentina’s EEZ.

    The AIS from Global Fishing Watch, an online technology platform launched in 2016 by Oceana, SkyTruth, and Google, monitors and records data of the vessel’s name, flag state, and location.

    Oceana’s report showing Chinese vessels along Argentina’s national waters. (Courtesy of Oceana)

    “To me, it is particularly concerning and suspicious when fishing vessels have these gaps in tracking data so close to the edge of another country’s EEZ,” Marla Valentine, Oceana’s illegal fishing and transparency campaign manager, told The Epoch Times in an email.

    “When vessels disable their AIS devices it can hide activities such as fishing, transshipment, and vessel locations from public view and could mask potentially illegal behavior, such as crossing into Argentina’s EEZ to fish,” she wrote.

    These foreign fleets mainly fish for Illex argentinus, commonly known as the Argentine shortfin squid. The economically important species is found along the Argentinean coast, Uruguay, and Brazil, contributing an average of $597 million and sometimes up to $2.4 billion per year for South America’s economy.

    Shortfin squid is also the food for fish such as tuna and swordfish. The report warns that losses of these populations can result in ecological devastation.

    The report also found that more than 800 foreign vessels have engaged in about 900,000 hours of reported fishing, 69 percent of which were taken up by over 400 Chinese vessels. Others came from Taiwan, Korea, and Spain.

    In contrast, Argentina’s local fishing vessels conducted less than one percent of the fishing operations in the same waters.

    China, the world’s largest fishing nation, owns a quarter of the world’s fishing vessels and more than a third of the world’s total catch, according to VOA News.

    “Our oceans need protection, not reckless fishing from China and other distant water fleets,” Valentine said in a June 2 press release.

    She suggests governments to better control the imported seafood to ensure product safety and legality.

    “Being able to trace the path of a fish from the boat it was caught on [and] to the time it lands on a consumer’s plate is key to reducing the chance of products of IUU [Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated] fishing being imported,” she said.

    China’s fisheries authorities set penalties for illegal and abusive fishing in 2020, yet experts say it is unclear how these measures are being enforced, VOA reported.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 15:30

  • Three US Senators Visit Taiwan Sunday In Another Shot Across China's Bow
    Three US Senators Visit Taiwan Sunday In Another Shot Across China’s Bow

    Taiwan is about to be front and center again this coming week as Washington prepares for its next shot across China’s bow – this time by another high level US delegation, something which China has long condemned as “signaling pro-democracy forces” on the island in contradiction to the official One China policy. 

    Reuters has confirmed in a weekend report that “Three US senators will visit Taiwan on Sunday and will meet President Tsai Ing-wen to discuss security and other issues, Taiwan’s government and the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei said on Saturday, a trip that will likely irritate China.” The meeting is expected to be held at a military wing of the island’s main international airport.

    Getty Images

    But “irritate” is an understatement given Beijing’s fierce reaction over prior such trips, which had increased under the Trump administration. Biden appears to be continuing Trump’s policy of approving high level delegations to Taipei, despite having no official or formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan given the One China status quo. 

    The senators making the trip include Tammy Duckworth and Dan Sullivan of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Christopher Coons of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

    “The bipartisan congressional delegation will meet with senior Taiwan leaders to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security, and other significant issues of mutual interest,” a statement issued by the American Institute in Taiwan said. 

    And a Taiwan presidential office statement on the visit noted it will be the “first international visit planned by the Federal Senate Armed Services Committee since the global epidemic broke out last year.”

    “The Presidential Office sincerely welcomes the three senators who firmly support Taiwan to visit Taiwan at this moment,” it added. 

    Washington has typically referenced these an “unofficial delegations” in order to claim adherence to international norms amid accusations of violating Chinese “sovereignty” over the island. It also comes after ramped up US naval sail throughs of the contested Taiwan Strait since Biden took office in January. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 06/05/2021 – 15:00

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